Tractates on the Psalms 66.1–67.13

The psalm is short and complete in its gospel preaching. For it is both “to the end” and “a psalm of a song,” by which confession through the knowledge of what is to be done, and deeds that make progress through teaching, are sung. And its beginning has been taken from where it ought to be. All its speech is that of either the prophets or the apostles, of whom the former taught that the only-begotten God would come in the body and the latter that he had come, enlightened by the Holy Spirit and filled with the honor of heavenly glory. Their prayer, then, is to be recognized in the opening of the psalm.

“May God have mercy on us and bless us; may he make his face shine upon us and have mercy on us.” In the order of teaching, God’s mercy is asked for first. For out of the abundance of his goodness he bestows mercy in the forgiveness of sins; and the forgiveness of sins is not the reward of uprightness but the spontaneous will of indulgence, overflowing from the riches of goodness into the gift of mercy. So he who is merciful is asked to bless. We already know the fruit of blessing from the beginning, when man was formed, when these words were spoken to Adam while he still knew no sin: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it.” Although many think these words were spoken only of bodily things, to those trained in spiritual teaching they have offered more power. For this blessing did not grant Adam only the creation of bodily descendants. Although his offspring would be fruitful, they could not fill the earth; for though it is inhabited by a multitude of men, it is not filled. Rather, he willed that the earth of our body should be filled with spiritual teachings and multiplied and increased in the knowledge of God. For through Adam, and in Adam himself, who had been God’s first work, the knowledge of God ought to have begun; but since he was defiled by sins, the prophets and apostles pray for the fruit of this blessing for themselves. The blessed apostle obtained it and glories thus about himself: “Blessed be God, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Those, then, increase, multiply, and are filled who are heavenly in Christ; and those are blessed who are blessed with spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Let us see whether the present prayer of the psalm asks for the fruit of this blessing.

For after mercy and blessing there follows: “May he make his face shine upon us and have mercy on us.” It is the work of God’s blessing that his face should shine upon us, that the light of his knowledge should beam into our darkened hearts, that the Spirit of his majesty should give light to the darkened senses of our understanding, and that we may then glory, saying: “The light of your countenance is marked upon us, O Lord.” This shining of his face upon us his mercy bestows, which began in us with the forgiveness of sin. For what progress they pray for the shining of God’s face upon them, the following words teach.

“That we may know your way on earth, your salvation among all nations.” The insertion of the diapsalma, though it brought a change of person, did not change the sense; for now the speech is addressed to him who until now had been the object of prayer. What is written in the Latin books as “that we may know your way on earth” is in the Greek: tou gnōnai en tē gē tēn hodon sou. Between gnōnai and “that we may know” there is this difference: gnōnai has no definite person, whereas “that we may know” points to the very people who say these words. So, according to the true rendering of the Greek, they pray to be enlightened by God’s face so that God’s way may become known on earth, which is the teaching of the religious life; for by it one goes to God. And the teaching of the religious way is Christ, who shows in the Gospels that he is it, saying: “I am the truth, the way, the life,” and again: “No one goes to the Father except through me.” And the speech of the psalm, joined to itself, testifies that he is the way: it must be made knowable and known on earth, that is, either to those born of the earth or to those who inhabit it. “That we may know your way on earth, your salvation among all nations.” The very wording, in its proper sense, says that Jesus is called “salvation”; for what we call salutare is in Hebrew “Jesus.” The angel confirms this, speaking to Joseph about Mary: “She will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” So the angel shows that he was to be called Jesus because he would be salvation to the people. They show, then, that they are unequal to so great a proclamation unless they are enlightened, unless they shine with a certain splendor of the Lord’s face. For they too, according to the Gospel, are the light of the world (but the Lord himself is the true light), enlightened by the light so that the apostles and prophets might be lights. Otherwise it would be pointless for them to wish to be enlightened in order to know the things they were preaching as already known.

This whole prophetic and apostolic teaching must be followed by the confession of the peoples and by joy at the forgiveness of sins: and not only of sins forgiven, but because they know that he who forgave sins will be the judge of equity, and that through him all the nations inhabiting the earth are directed into the way of life, leaving the error of idols and instructed in the knowledge of God. Therefore these words follow: “Let the peoples confess to you, O God; let all the peoples confess to you. Let the nations be glad and exult, for you will judge the peoples in equity and direct the nations on earth.” When “the peoples” confess, those of the twelve tribes who believe or will believe seem to be meant. When “all the peoples” confess, no nation is excepted. When the nations are glad and exult because he will judge the peoples in equity and direct the nations on earth, the cause of joy is proclaimed to be the hope of eternal judgment and of the nations directed into the way of life.

The insertion of the diapsalma seems to have introduced nothing new here, especially since the sense is repeated in the same words: “Let the peoples confess to you, O God; let all the peoples confess to you.” But when there is added, “The earth has given its fruit,” it is understood that the repetition of the same words was not made for nothing, if indeed we ought to understand the same thing signified by the same words. For we find that confession is to be treated in two ways: one is the confession of sins, as when in the desert of the Jordan they confessed their sins; the other is the confession of praise to God, as when the Lord says to the Father: “I confess to you, Lord Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to little ones.” The first and earlier confession, then, is to be taken as the confession of sins, especially since it is joined to the prophetic and apostolic preaching; this following one is to be understood as the confession of praise to God, first of the peoples and then of all, that is, of all the nations, and that because the earth has given its fruit.

But we must ask what fruit the earth has given, for which all the peoples praise God. There is indeed an everlasting cause of praise owed to God, that the earth supplies these bodily fruits necessary to us; but they are not the earth’s. They are either ours, to whom they are given, or God’s, through whom they are supplied. Let us ask, then, what fruits the earth had and lost; and by what it lost we shall show that it had them. We remember that the earth of Adam, after sin, was stripped of the honor of the blessings given to it. For it was said to him: “For you are earth, and to earth you shall go.” Because he is earth, then, after sin he is condemned with this curse: “Cursed is the earth in your works; in sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life; it will bring forth thorns and thistles for you.” The element of earth was free of the crime; so it is free of the curse, as it was free of the crime. Rather, here the earth of Adam, which had become guilty through the allurement of food, is cursed. This earth, then, is consumed by him with all the sorrows of the present life and eaten with all the pains of sicknesses, pricked with the thorns and thistles of vices and the stings of desires. Everyone like the earthly Adam, then, yields these cursed fruits of his earth. But he who is already conformed to the heavenly Adam has the innocent fruit of his earth, rich first in the knowledge of God, then glorious with works of chastity, righteousness, and mercy, the old man with his vices and lusts having been put off. For this reason, then, confession is to be made to God, that the earth has given its fruit. “Its own”: because Adam, having had it, had lost it. It gave, then, what was its own, that is, the fruit that it has in the knowledge of God; it displayed it first in our Lord himself, who took an earthly body without sinning at all.

To show and teach these things the gift of God’s blessing is again prayed for, when it is said: “May God bless us.” And lest the blessing should be thought to be hoped for from an uncertain and unknown god, there was added: “our God”: the God, that is, of the patriarchs and prophets, and already the apostles’ own by a kind of inheritance in succession; in whom the earth gave its fruit of self-control, faith, righteousness, and mercy, and even, amid the very tortures and deaths of the most savage persecutions, devoted now to the very martyrdom of the divine name.

Then the prayer for blessing is repeated, when it is said: “May God bless us.” These prayers are not repeated for nothing, but so that, as the teaching grows through God’s blessing, all the ends of the earth may fear God. For he says: “and let all the ends of the earth fear him.” Let all the ends of the earth fear God, then, but our God, the God who blesses. Fear is not the least duty of faith. For it is counted among the chief gifts of spiritual graces, when it is said through Isaiah: “And the spirit of the fear of God filled him,” and through Solomon: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” Blessed is he to whom it has come to fear, not out of the trembling of human nature, but out of rational knowledge. For one who fears out of weakness in alarming circumstances grows insolent again in prosperity from a fault of nature. But one who fears out of knowledge always fears, and dreads prosperity no less than adversity. Wisdom, then, takes its origin from fear by carrying out useful and approved things, which are proper and peculiar to wisdom. This fear of God, then, the prophet wishes for all the ends of the earth, so that no nation inhabiting the earth may be outside his fear; the apostle unfolds the sum of this very prayer when he says: “and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father,” who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The psalm is headed not “by David” but “to David himself, to the end.” Next, it is not “a song of a psalm” but “a psalm of a song,” so that in it the utterance of prophetic understanding and knowledge might be taught. It is woven throughout with the mysteries of the law and the Gospels, and packed with the interpretation of allegorical sayings drawn from past and future alike. It contains the teaching of the law that was given; it brings the notion of the flesh taken by the Lord; it reproaches the impiety of the former people; it announces the faith of our future knowledge; it embraces the Lord’s ascension above the heavens; and it includes the glory of his future kingdom. The prophecy took its beginning from that in which the effect of our salvation consists. For it began thus:

“Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered, and let those who hate him flee from his face.” This is the speech of prayer, not of one asking in uncertainty but of one hoping from knowledge and understanding. For the time of resurrection is now desired in God, when, condemning sin in the flesh by sin, he made a show of the powers of this world, confidently triumphing over them in himself. For he came to conquer the world, to grapple with the prince of the world and with the law of sin, and to blot out the decree of death by the forgiveness of sin. This flight of his enemies, then, the prophet awaits. For this crowd of demons who hate him could not bear to meet him as he rose from the dead, since, when the spiritual wickednesses had been subjected to the first power of apostolic faith, it was proclaimed that Satan had fallen from heaven like lightning, and the prince of the world was judged in the passion. But as they flee from the face of God they show their terror in fleeing, yet they cannot escape the face of God, though they flee. For he declares the terror of these same spiritual wickednesses in an earlier psalm, saying: “He sent his arrows and scattered them; he multiplied lightnings and threw them into confusion.” So they are thrown into confusion and flee, scattered. But they do not escape the power of God’s face, according to this: “Smoke went up in his anger, and fire blazed from his face; coals were kindled by him.” The flight of these enemies, then, is followed by destruction and the punishment of judgment.

And indeed the same order of prophecy is now marked out as in the earlier psalm. For there follows: “As smoke vanishes, let them vanish; as wax melts before the fire, so let sinners perish before the face of God.” Smoke, when it rises, though in thick billows, gradually vanishes and is destroyed so as not to exist, just as wax melts in the presence of fire so as to be no more: the smoke slipping away into emptiness by its lightness and thinness, the wax consumed by the force and heat of the fire, because, weak in itself, it is torn apart by the burning of a stronger nature. In the same way all the power of the wicked melts away before the face of God, that is, at the judgment of God.

And this destruction of sinners before the face of God must be followed by the joy of the righteous. For at once there was added: “And let the righteous rejoice in joy.” For the fair and just measure of heavenly judgment is that, as it destroys sinners with death, so it rewards the righteous with joy. And this followed to display the examination of judgment: “Let them exult in the sight of God; let them feast in joy.” For the pure in heart, according to the merits of the Gospel blessing, are worthy of the sight of God. But “to rejoice in joy” has a deeper meaning, showing the cause of perfect joy. For many rejoice in things that will harm them, as the lustful delights in harlots and the thief rejoices in thefts, as each person is pleased, according to his vices, by what he practices. But one who rejoices in joy has taken the cause of his joy from the honorable and useful truth of joy itself; and they rejoice in joy because they will exult in the sight of God; he teaches that the true joy of exultation is that which is perfected by the delight of God’s sight. The joys of this exultation and of those feasting, from which the righteous has his joy, holy Moses recalled in that divine song of Deuteronomy, saying: “Rejoice, heavens, together with him, and let all the angels of God worship him. Rejoice, nations, with his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen them.” In this joy, then, the righteous too will rejoice, of one mind in heavenly gladness, rejoicing in the fellowship of divine exultation.

And to the thanksgiving of this time, under the confession of the gospel faith, the prophet now calls us, saying: “Sing to God, sing psalms to his name; make a way for him who rises above the setting. The Lord is his name; and exult in his sight.” Although every exhortation does much to stir our will and mind, when we are led to desire or do something by its persuasion or allurement, yet if the very cause of the exhortation is set before us, the mind then relies on reason and method as on the surest guide. So now the prophet, having exhorted us to sing to God and to sing psalms to his name, lest he should leave any ambiguity, showed both to what God and to whose name we must sing psalms, so that no longer an exhortation applied but a knowledge received might set us in the exultation and song of God.

We must sing psalms, then, and prepare the way of him who rises above the setting. By “setting” is understood that all things that come into life are destroyed; and the destruction of all things that set is, by common human opinion, reckoned to be in death. We must sing psalms to him, then, and prepare his way, who rose above the setting of death, that is, who passed beyond all setting without being held by the setting itself. His name is “Lord,” who, emptying himself from the form of God and taking the form of a servant, made himself obedient even to the death of the cross. Therefore God exalted him and gave him a name above every name, that at his name things in heaven and on earth and under the earth should bend the knee and every tongue confess the Lord Jesus in the glory of God the Father. He, then, whose name is Lord rose above the setting, and, passing beyond that by which all things set, he went out from the dead eternal, beyond the law of death. For him, then, a way must be prepared according to this: “Prepare the ways of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled and every hill brought low,” so that, when the way has been prepared in us, that is, when the swellings of our vices and unbelief have been pressed down or the lowness of our earthly stain raised up, he may come down into our hearts, entering by the paths of life made straight and level. In his sight, then, we shall exult, for whom a way is to be prepared by leveling both the swellings of insolence and the chasms of lusts, and in whom we shall see ourselves rising from the dead. For rising above the setting of our death, he gained life for us from the dead in his own rising. This is the joy of the apostles, when they saw him after the resurrection, beholding and touching him.

But this joy of the saints is followed by the terror of those whom he conquered together with the world; for he says: “They will be troubled before his face, the father of orphans and judge of widows.” He taught that the cause of their trouble is that he is the father of orphans and the judge of widows (for they will flee from the face of the father of orphans and judge of widows): not leaving as orphans those who, acknowledging the Father in heaven, have renounced the devil as father, and judging those widows who, dead to the law, have followed the Bridegroom. For blessed Paul taught that a widow who is free from the law passes to marriage with another without the charge of adultery, and he applied this whole example to the church, which, having died to the law, afterward joined herself to Christ. There is also a very fitting sense according to the lot of this world: that God, who gave us another Advocate from the Father so that we should not be orphans in the world, is the father of the bereaved and the judge of widows; for he both pities childhood bereft of parents and is the judge of widows who have rested in him. Judge, because under the name of widows many are not widows, who either, having grown wanton against Christ, wish to marry, or deceive human judgments; and because the dignity of the name lies in keeping the resolve of the will, God, who searches hearts and reins, is judge for this reason, that he alone discerns their mind and intent. And these things, as I said, may be said of orphans and widows according to the desolation of the human condition.

But so that these things may be understood as signified in this way to describe the whole church, he added at once: “God in his holy place; God makes those of one manner dwell in a house, leading out the prisoners in strength, likewise those who embitter, who dwell in tombs.” This, then, is the place holy to God, where there is the widow from the law, the orphan from the world, the peaceful and unanimous gathering of one manner and will (for according to the Acts of the Apostles the believers had one soul and heart), where those who are bound are led out in strength. For having first bound the strong man inside his own house, he set free those who were bound by their sins, as he led out into freedom, by a word of power, the daughter of Abraham bound for eighteen years. He also led out those who previously embittered, that is, who by transgressing the law stirred up against themselves the anger of God the judge, or who argued against his name with pagan eloquence; he instructed them in the teaching of divine knowledge, as he made Paul, from a persecutor, the apostle and teacher of the Gentiles. These who embittered, then, who formerly dwelt in tombs, that is, buried within the dead dwellings of their bodies, he led into heavenly and spiritual life. For there are many dead among the living. In the Gospels too those not thought dead are taught to differ in nothing from the dead, the Lord saying: “Let the dead bury their own dead”; and the apostle knows that certain women are dead while living, that is, that while they live they are already dead. But all these the Lord led out of the tombs, as they are reborn as sons of God.

But the same God who, rising above the setting, worked these things in us by the power of the resurrection, did all things in the law as foreshadowings in preparation for this hope of ours, so that one God of the prophets and another of the Gospels could not be imagined. And therefore he fulfilled these things toward us too in the same stages by which he led the people out of Egypt. For our fathers were under the cloud and were baptized into Moses in the sea, and were filled with manna falling from heaven in the likeness of the heavenly bread, and were given drink by Christ when the rock supplied water; and these things, done for their salvation, also held in themselves symbols of our salvation, as the following words of the prophecy declare, saying: “O God, when you went out before your people, when you passed through the desert, the earth was moved; for the heavens dripped before the face of God, Mount Sinai before the face of the God of Israel.” We know that God went before his people on their way, as they passed through the desert, in the pillar of cloud and fire, and that manna dripped from heaven until the people’s wandering ended. But after he had recalled all the earlier things that are proper and fitting to the church, namely when the Lord rose above the setting, when he is the father of orphans and judge of widows, when in his holy place, that is, in a house, he gathers those of one manner, and draws out of the tombs those bound in strength and those who embitter, he nevertheless said that he accomplished these things going out before the people and passing into the desert, so that it is now told as past that the earth was moved, the heavens dripped, and this was done before the face of the God of Israel at Sinai. He does this so that it might be known that, when he did the things of the law, he also prefigured in them the things of the Gospels. For he went out before his people and passed into the desert: into that desert of the Jordan, namely, in which lilies blossomed, in which the fountain of living water watered what was desolate and dry. For before, Jacob was the measuring line of his inheritance, and the desert nations were subject to the power of the elements. But now, while the one who was God’s people looks on, God has passed over to what was formerly desolate; and now the deserts of the borders, watered by him, will grow fat. And this is the same one who gave manna from heaven to the people. For if the law was ordained through angels, and man ate the bread of angels, and the heavens are written to have dripped at Sinai, there is no doubt that this ministry was carried out from heaven, that is, by angels. And the giver of the bread that is from heaven is the same who granted the manna at Sinai.

But God, passing to the desert, that is, crossing over to the once dry and desolate hearts of the Gentiles, set apart that happy rain of good will. For he himself set Paul apart from his mother’s womb to be an apostle, because “those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.” This rain of speech and preaching Solomon also announced to the earth in a psalm, for the security of hope, saying: “And he will come down like rain upon a fleece, and like drops dripping upon the earth.” And we remember that some clouds were commanded not to rain upon the vineyard. Holy Moses too, who under the veil of common words was hiding great mysteries of heavenly hope, sang that his words should be received like rain and showers, rain watering the deserted and dry inheritance prepared for God. And therefore there follows: “You will set apart a willing rain, O God, for your inheritance; and it was weakened, but you perfected it. Your creatures will dwell in it; you prepared it in your sweetness for the poor.” For God, foreseeing wills, set apart the willing rain by foreknowing. It is weak when Paul had the sentence of death in himself, when Peter, shaken by the scandal of the cross, denied three times though warned not to deny, when the apostles fear, flee, and lose confidence. But because there was in them the disposition of good will, they were so perfected that they became the foundations and pillars of the churches. This rain, then, is set apart for God’s inheritance.

What the inheritance is, is not obscure: namely, that which was given to the one who asked, when it is said: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.” The nations, then, without understanding after the manner of animals and cattle (and therefore, since God has no care for cattle, that inheritance is the one set apart in this willing rain), are shown to dwell in it. For there follows: “Your creatures will dwell in it; you prepared it in your sweetness for the poor.” Creatures, then, will dwell either in God’s inheritance or in the willing rain; and this, either the inheritance or the rain, has been prepared in sweetness for the poor. For the words of God are sweet in the throats of the saints, and blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And though they were animal, they were made spiritual. All these things, then, have been set apart for the use of the inheritance or the service of the willing rain.

And so that it might be understood that, according to the sweetness prepared for the poor, what is meant is either the gathering of the church, which is God’s inheritance, or the speech of apostolic preaching, he added: “God the Lord will give the word to those who preach good news with many powers, the king of the powers of the beloved, and to the beauty of the house to divide the spoils.” To the rain set apart for watering the gospel, then, the Lord will give the word, pouring it into our minds and mouths, according to this: “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” But those who preach good news are many powers, to whom he will give the word: so that there is a power in Paul, a power in Peter, a power in John, and a power in the others; and he signifies that there are therefore many powers for preaching the gospel. Although God, Lord, and king will give the word to them, yet these powers are the beloved’s, that is, belong to him who is beloved by the king, Lord, and God. The Latin translation declares this laboriously and obscurely, since it does not change the arrangement of the words. But the speech as expressed in Greek states the whole more plainly: that this our God and Lord is the king of the powers that belong to the beloved; so that “powers” refers to the apostles and “beloved” to Christ, whose powers are understood to be either in these men or all these men themselves. Although there was one and the same Spirit in all, it was necessary, because of what follows, to mention numerous powers, since he himself would divide the spoils of the powers for the beauty of the house. For the spoils taken from the devil, and those of the nations, are divided for the adornment of the church; and from these spoils the beauty of the house is perfected, when they are drawn from the altars and temples of demons into priests of God for the sanctification of the ministry, and, watered by the Holy Spirit and preaching good news, they become the powers of the beloved.

For to these same powers, which either divide the spoils for the beauty of the house or are themselves the spoils, the divine speech refers, saying: “If you sleep among the lots, the wings of a dove silvered over, and the hinder parts of her back in the greenness of gold.” These are the prayers of the prophecy, by which it desires that these spoils, divided for the beauty of the house, should remain in the midst of the lots, so that until the day of their completion (for death is usually signified by sleep) they may persevere in the beauty of the house. For the use of preaching they are like the silvered wings of a dove, that is, precious with the gift and adornment of the Holy Spirit. But in the things that come after them they will stand in the greenness of gold, so that after the preaching of the gospel royal honor and unwearied eternity may be rendered to them in the greenness of gold, from the fruit of their conscience: gold referring to honor, and greenness showing eternal vigor. The hinder parts of the back, then (which the Greek word means rather as the part between the shoulders), that is, the honors of good conscience that come later in time, are to be honored beyond the honor of this preaching; while meanwhile the silvered wings, remaining under the gift of the Holy Spirit, will afterward also attain, as the fruit of their conscience, the greenness of gold, that is, the flower of perpetual honor.