Tractates on the Psalms 65.6–65.29

We are also taught by the admonitions that follow in order, the prophet, or rather the Spirit through the prophet, admonishing thus: “Say to God: How terrible are your works!” For who would not tremble at the majesty of him who established the ages, founded the world, measured out the times in their revolving succession and course, adorned the sky with stars, filled the earth with fruits, shut in the sea with barriers, and chose man either to use these things or to rule over them? Through all these the eternity of his power and might is known, as the apostle says: “For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, his eternal power also and divinity.” These things make the name of the Creator terrible, and the dignity of the works shows the majesty of him who made them. God must therefore be proclaimed by us, and confessed by others, as the maker of these works; we must not lie that all these things are gods.

For some say that these things came into being by chance; others assert that they have always existed. And for this reason they maintain that the world itself is God, since it either came to be by its own power when it willed, or, since it has no beginning, it has no ruler’s will over it. Others call only the sky God, because it is fiery; others the air, because it is carried round by a motion and nature that cannot be cut; others the waters, because they flow without tiring. Many have worshiped the metals of the earth, oaks, rocks, and herbs as gods. Some have falsely declared to be gods either the bones of rotted bodies or the ashes of burned-out pyres, not knowing God, the maker of all these. And for this reason the prophet taught that the order of our confession must be this: “Say to God: How terrible are your works! In the greatness of your power your enemies will lie to you”; that is, from the greatness of God’s powers they falsely transfer worship to false names of gods.

But since the enemies will lie, what all must do is taught thus: “Let all the earth worship you and sing psalms to you; let them sing a psalm to your name, O Most High.” Once the lie of the enemies about their so-called gods has been exposed, the rules of our salvation are given: that all our earthly race should worship and sing psalms to the Most High, abandoning the lies of impiety and acknowledging the true God, maker of all things.

The diapsalma marked off the sense. For the speech that had been addressed to God as a prayer is now turned to men, whom the prophet, as though they stood far from the knowledge of God, calls nearer, saying: “Come and see the works of God.” The apostle too taught that there are many placed far from God whom the exhortation of his teaching has brought, as it were, into the neighborhood, when he says: “And when he came, he preached peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near.” For many believed from the law, as though dwelling near, while the nations were called from far away.

The prophetic preaching, then, called all to look upon the works of God: not those works that lie open to everyone’s sight, sky, air, earth, and sea (for all look on these), but those that are known only to the zeal of the faithful, by which, with great terror at wonderful powers, provision was made for human salvation: when Pharaoh was restrained by the punishment of his impiety as an example for human fear, so that the terror of the condemnation of the irreligious might begin religion through fear; when the sea dried up into a road on land and the waters were turned into dry ground; when the people crossed the Jordan on foot, and, as Israel was about to enter the land of promise, the flowing waters were ordered to stand and the rest of the river’s bed ran down, so that they could walk in safety. To look upon these works of God, of the law and the prophets, the prophet calls the nations, saying: “Come and see the works of God; terrible in his counsels over the sons of men; who turns the sea into dry land; they will pass through the river on foot.” For he must be understood to be God from whose terrible counsels provision was made by these works for human salvation; so that the knowledge and recognition of such works may confirm for us, as to their author, the opinion we hold about God (for no one looking at the sky will fail to sense that God exists).

Yet these, although they are works of God’s power, do not satisfy the hope and salvation of all. For the sea was changed into land only for the people of the law, and the Jordan dried up only for their journey. What does this contribute to the salvation of the whole earth? For “Come” applies to all, since it had been written of all: “Let all the earth worship you.” What, then, does the Jordan dried up at that time give to me for salvation, born so long after? It certainly does give. For in its waters first the washing away of sins was granted, when John preached repentance; and by that through which the people had had their way into the land of promise, the way into the heavenly kingdom, and in the bath of the new birth the possession of eternal bodies, is begun for us, the waters themselves having been consecrated by the Lord’s baptism. Therefore, to what had been said, “Come and see the works of the Lord, how terrible in his counsels over the sons of men; who turns the sea into dry land; they will pass through the river on foot,” there was added, so that the security of our hope should not be cut off from what was done before, since he had said “they will pass” of the future: “There we shall rejoice in him.” For through these waters of the Jordan the passage was made, and is made, into those good things of the land promised by the prophets, by the step of bodies being washed; and there we rejoice in the beginnings of the heavenly mystery. The time and cause of this joy another prophet testifies, saying: “Rejoice, thirsty desert; let the desert exult and blossom like the lily; let the deserts of the Jordan blossom and exult. Be strong, weak hands and loosened knees; take comfort, you of little courage; be strong in mind; do not fear. Behold, God will render judgment; he himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will hear, and the tongue of the dumb will be heard. Then the lame will leap like a deer.” This, then, is what is meant by “There we shall rejoice in him”; these things were fulfilled at the coming of the Lord, in the baptism of the Jordan, and in the healing of every infirmity. And “there we shall rejoice” refers to the Jordan, for it was said thus: “They will pass through the river on foot; there we shall rejoice.”

As to “in him,” who it is in whom “we shall rejoice in him,” the prophet added, saying: “who rules in his power for ever.” We shall not be in doubt who this will be if we recall this saying of the Gospel: “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth; go now, teach all nations,” and the apostle’s: “Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.” And these words were not said of the power of his divinity; for that, as it always rules, so it will always rule. Rather, the nature of the flesh taken from the Virgin is carried over into his eternal glory. For “Jesus” is the name of the man who was born of Mary, and the name Jesus, which is above every name, is given to him. Here it is not, as elsewhere, “Jesus Christ,” but “Jesus” alone. To him, worshiped by things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and confessed by every tongue to be in the glory of God the Father, the authority of the eternal kingdom is given. But, as in many places, our Latin here too has not expressed the meaning of the Greek word properly enough. For where we have “who rules in his power for ever,” the Greek reads: tō despozonti en tē dynasteia autou tou aiōnos. Our “for ever” is simple and common to all time, without any particular limitation; theirs, tou aiōnos, carries the sense of a fixed and designated age.

For the only-begotten Son of God, although he always reigned, did not always reign in the body. So where the rule over a designated and, as it were, pointed-out age is contained in the force of the very word tou aiōnos, that time is shown in which, his body having been glorified into the glory of God, both the name of God and the kingdom are given to it. The apostle teaches plainly the time of this ruling over the age, saying: “When he has destroyed every principality and power and virtue, and the last enemy, death, is overcome”; then he alone will rule the age in his power. For now, although he reigns, the prince of this world asked to sift the apostles like wheat; and there are spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places, against which blessed Paul equipped us with spiritual weapons; and as we fight against them the angels of our faith, who according to the Gospels daily see God the Father in heaven, escort us, and the mercy of God protects us.

And therefore there follows: “His eyes look upon the nations.” For the face of the Lord is turned away from everyone who lingers in sins. This is the meaning of the turning of the unchangeable God: not that, as if by a bodily nature, he turns himself away from anyone or back again, but that, remaining always equal and the same, he is absent from or present to each one’s help according to the difference of their merits. For it is written in the person of sinners: “Turn your face from their sins,” and again: “Why do you turn away your face and your right hand?” and again: “You turned away your face, and I was troubled.” But where the person of the righteous is treated, these things are said: “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears toward their prayers,” and again: “Let your eyes behold what is right,” and further: “The light of your countenance is marked upon us, O Lord.” The incorporeal God, therefore, protects the nations with the eyes of his mercy and, as it were, by the ministry of serving angels, and pours himself out on all believers as the gift of divine compassion.

The Jews deny this; the unbelieving people contradicts these works of God, claiming for itself the glory of a race chosen in Abraham. And the prophet shows this in the words that follow, joining to what he had said, “His eyes look upon the nations,” this: “Let those who provoke him to anger not be exalted in themselves.” This being exalted in themselves the Lord condemns in the Gospels, saying: “Do not put yourselves forward among yourselves, saying, We have Abraham as father; for God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” That they provoke him to anger the prophets say in every way. Isaiah: “You have provoked the Holy One of Israel to wrath”; to Ezekiel also the Spirit says: “Son of man, I send you to the house of Israel, who embitter me”; and in the psalms: “They embittered his spirit,” and again: “Often I delivered them, but they embittered me.” Everyone, then, who denies the work and mercy of God for the salvation of the nations provokes to anger the author of mercy and salvation, because, glorious and exalted in themselves, they embitter the anger of him who alone can make men glorious.

The insertion of a diapsalma again indicates a change of sense and of person. For under this sign often one of them, sometimes both, are marked off. The preceding speech was entirely in the person of the prophet, saying: “Come and see the works of God, how terrible in his counsels over the sons of men”; but the following had to be apostolic, so that, the one inviting and the other preaching, the proclamation of the Old and New Testaments might be contained in one and the same teaching.

Their exhortation, then, is directed to the nations, when it is said: “Bless our God, you nations.” Not without reason did the words of the prophecy add “our”: certainly not those whom you thought gods, the names of heroes, or the created elements, or the material of metals, but ours, he whose works are recounted, who is terrible in his counsels over the sons of men, who turns the sea into dry land, who rules in his power for ever. And this belongs properly to apostolic teaching: to preach in the Gospels the God of the law and the prophets.

But what follows, “and hear the voice of his praise,” confuses the understanding. For the voice of praise that is heard is not that of the one praised but of the one who praises. How, then, are the nations told to hear the voice of praise? But here too our Latin has not rendered the proper sense of the word in translation. What we have written as “and hear the voice of his praise,” the Greeks have said thus: kai akoutisate tēn phōnēn tēs aineseōs autou. By this word it is meant that they should cause the voice of his praise to be heard. He will understand this more fully who remembers that the Lord said in the Gospels: “What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops.” For God is to be praised with steady and public preaching, and our faith must not tremble in recounting his powers.

But what, then, is the voice of his praise that must be made heard? Surely this: that he has set the soul of believers in life; that he granted to the apostolic preaching and to the confession of the martyrs constancy and perseverance in confessing, by whose running to and fro, as if on feet, the preaching of the heavenly kingdom ran across the whole world: “for their sound went out into all the earth.” And elsewhere the Holy Spirit, proclaiming the glory of this spiritual running: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things, who bring good news of peace!” This voice of the praise of God, then, is to be heard in the proclamation of the preachers, as the prophet testifies: “who has set my soul in life and has not let my feet be moved.” For the apostles were not turned aside from the course of their preaching by the scares of human threats, nor was the firmness of their planted feet moved from the step of faith, so that they always preached the Lord of judgment and of the eternal kingdom.

The spirit of prophecy, having spoken in the person of one, indicates that the matter does not apply to one name only. For after saying, “and has not let my feet be moved,” he added: “For you have proved us, O God; you have tried us with fire, as silver is tried with fire.” So the speech begun from one is carried over to many. For there is one Spirit and one faith of believers, and, as it is in the Acts of the Apostles, “the believers had one soul and one heart.” And so, when what was begun from one is applied to many, oneness of mind is taught among the many. But what likeness of comparison is it that they were tried by fire as silver is tried? As I think, the only purpose of trying silver is that the dross which has clung to it from the first material of the earth may be burned out, and that whatever has been fraudulently mixed in from the nature of another metal may be purged away. God, then, does not try those who believe in him as though ignorant of their faith; but since, according to the apostle, temptation brings proof, believers are tried not for God’s knowledge but for their own proving, so that, purged by fire and cleansed of the admixture of fleshly vices, they may shine with the brightness of tried innocence.

Looking at the kinds of temptations and the various victories of the martyrs, we know in what ways the soul is set in life: despising this life, they are not moved from the step and testimony of faith, however savagely ingenious the punishments. Some glory in the chains of prisons; others, beaten with scourges, give thanks; others submit the necks of their blessed heads to be cut off by the power of the irreligious; many run to the built-up pyres and, while the ministers of punishment tremble, leap into the fire with the bound of devout haste; others, about to be sunk in the deep, fall not into waters that will kill them but into the refreshment of eternal blessedness, offering their whole bodies to God as a victim, like burnt offerings.

Through these kinds of sufferings, then, the prophetic speech runs on in the person of the apostles, evangelists, and martyrs, saying: “You have tried us with fire, as silver is tried with fire. You led us into the snare,” that is, into the chains of custody; “you laid tribulations on our back,” namely the punishments of scourging, in which Peter with the apostles rejoices and Paul exults; “you set men over our heads; we passed through fire and water.” He recalls, clearly, the glorious deaths of the martyrs by sword, fire, and the deep. But one who passes through fire and water is not destroyed in them, but is carried over through them into something else. And the prophet knows where he is carried, saying: “You led us into refreshment.” He mentions this refreshment in another place too, saying: “Return, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done you good. He has delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will please the Lord in the land of the living”; urging his soul, that is, toward the rest of that blessed resurrection in which, after the time of this death, every stain of human calamities wiped away, there is no grief, no weeping, no sin, but life. Into the refreshment of this blessedness, then, they were brought out through fire and water.

And lest the swimming of one crossing the waters, or the leap of one jumping over the fire, or the leading into refreshment should be thought to mean the rest of some common, earthly place, he added: “I will go into your house with burnt offerings.” Burnt offerings (holocausta) are the whole bodies of victims, which were called holocausts because they were brought entire to the fire of sacrifice. Through these kinds of punishment, then, the martyrs vowed their bodies as burnt offerings in testimony to the faith, so that, the sacrifices of their offerings completed, they might enter the house of God, that is, the dwelling of the heavenly home.

But what, then, did they vow in this offering of their bodies? Clearly, that by these examples of their martyrdom they might instruct the nations in the hope of the eternal kingdom. For those who preached Christ then preached not for themselves, to whom he was then known, but for us who were still to be, or for those to whom he was then unknown. Their preaching kindled the faith of all posterity to the desire for martyrdom. For they preached for no other reason than to instruct many martyrs by the example of their faith and martyrdom, as Paul taught, saying: “I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus for you Gentiles.” And therefore, in the fruit of this preaching, they confess that they pay their vows to God, saying: “I will pay you my vows, which my lips uttered distinctly, and my mouth spoke in my tribulation: I will offer you burnt offerings full of marrow, with incense and rams; I will offer you oxen with goats.” Does the prophet not know that he spoke in the Spirit in the person of God: “I will not take calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks,” and: “Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” and again: “For if you had wished sacrifice, I would surely have given it; but you will not delight in burnt offerings”? So let the error of our opinion cease, that we should think the martyrs vowed these things. But in their martyrdoms they will afterward pay to God the vows they spoke: first vowing themselves to God and offering themselves as burnt offerings, because in these they will enter the house of God, crying out in the tribulations of their sufferings with the voice of Paul: “Who shall separate us from the love of God? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger?” and: “I am confident that neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.” These, then, are first the vows of the blessed martyrs in tribulation, which they speak and pledge in their tribulations; and then, that they may complete burnt offerings full of marrow out of us. “Full of marrow,” because faith is the work of the soul and heart, and this is a matter of the inner will. With the incense, rams too are offered. What incense is, we are taught in this same book of Psalms: “Let my prayer be like incense in your sight,” meaning that prayers are to be understood by incense. And who are shown under the name of rams the previous psalm shows, when it says: “The rams of the sheep are clothed”; for by these, as the leaders of the flocks, he means the priests, whom the instruction of apostolic teaching, with the fragrance of prayers (for, according to Paul, we are the good fragrance in Christ), leads on to zeal for martyrdom. And not only will rams be offered with incense, but oxen also will be offered: that is, beasts of a stubborn nature are tamed for the worship of God, subdued to this martyrdom for the name of Christ by the apostolic teachings.

In the words “I will offer you oxen with goats,” the Latin has not kept the force of the word as it was changed from Hebrew into Greek. What we have as “I will offer you oxen with goats,” they have thus: anoisō soi boas meta cheimarrōn. Cheimarroi among the Greeks is not the proper but a descriptive name for goats, and especially for those born in the very season of winter. Scripture called them cheimarroi only in this place; in other places it used tragoi, which we call goats. The translation of others, which agrees and is consistent with itself, confirms the sense of this spiritual understanding: for cheimarroi they have rendered kairimoi; and kairimoi means those born at the right time, cheimarroi those that winter has produced; which is why the Greek language calls torrents by the same word, streams that winter has swelled from nothing into rivers.

So when he says boas meta cheimarrōn, the prophetic speech shows that it is not speaking of cattle, but that by the oxen it means the men of the church, and by the cheimarroi those whom the very storm of persecution has brought forth into the glory of martyrdom. For we know that many who did not know the divine mysteries ran to martyrdom by the example of the martyrs, and that, though they had lived before outside the knowledge of the faith, being taught the present faith by an act, they attained the very glory of the faith completed in martyrdom. Such was he who confessed the Lord in his own condemnation, saying: “Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom,” and who at once received from the Lord this gift of his martyrdom: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Those like him, then, the instruction of apostolic teaching offers to God together with men of long and fruitful cultivation, born in the very storm of a raging winter. And since God says: “What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? I am full; I do not want burnt offerings of rams, the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and goats. For who has required these from your hands?”, it is idle to think that perfect solemn vows were pleasing in oxen and goats.

The insertion of the diapsalma changes, as elsewhere, the person and the sense, though the order of the teaching does not break. For after he had shown, in the person of the apostles, evangelists, martyrs, and prophets, in what ways his soul had been set in life, that is, through the punishments of suffering and death, by which he had passed into the place of blessedness, paying his vows to God in burnt offerings, after this speech, all of which he had addressed to God, he now addresses those whom he had trained for the solemn rite of burnt offerings, saying: “Come and hear, and I will tell you, all you who fear God.” He calls not uncertain people, nor to uncertain things. For he teaches who they are whom he calls: “all you who fear God”; for the irreligious have no will either to come or to hear. Then he indicates what he is going to tell: “how great things he has done for my soul.” He set it in life, led it into refreshment, and it will enter the house of God with burnt offerings.

But in order that these things might be done for his soul, he earned by causes that they should be done. By what causes he earned it, he says: “I cried to him with my mouth.” He earned, then, good things for his soul because he cried to him with his mouth. But the cry of the mouth is often false, and the sound of words does not always announce the disposition of the mind. The mind, then, must follow the cry of the mouth: and it did follow. For the prophet joined: “and I exalted him under my tongue”: not on the tongue but under the tongue, that is, in the hidden places of the tongue and in a certain inward speech of silent will. This very thing pleased the Lord in the Gospels, who says: “Go into your room, shut the door, and pray; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.” So now God, who was cried to with the mouth, is exalted under the tongue.

But he who is exalted under the tongue must be revered with all purity of heart; nor is it enough not to have done anything impious, if impiety is thought in the mind. The prophet taught that this thought of impiety must be absent from one who exalts God under his tongue, saying: “If I regarded iniquity in my heart, let God not hear. Therefore God heard me; he attended to the voice of my prayer.” He not only did not commit iniquity in deed, but did not even regard it in his heart. Or at least he did not regard iniquity in his heart, seeing in his heart no vice of an unjust will; and therefore he was worthy to be heard. For his soul was set in life, his feet were not moved, he was led into refreshment, he will enter the house of God, and he has paid to God the vows his lips had uttered, upheld by the confession of honor and glory, saying: “Blessed be God, who has not removed my prayer and his mercy from me,” confessing at the end of the psalm the praise of God begun at its opening. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.