Commentarii in Psalmos

But when he speaks to the perfect and the great church, he does not restrain his own lips, since nothing hinders them from speaking. It is also possible to say this, as in the passage: "And in his law he will meditate day and night." He never restrains his own lips, always bringing forth the words of God. Understand "always" in this way: as one must and as it is fitting to do this; for even if he is silent, he speaks in his mind, and even when sleeping, when he sleeps as a righteous man, he does this with reason. And through silence he remembers something good. 10–11 Lord, you have known my righteousness. Since, as the saying goes, he has borne witness to himself in many things—for "to proclaim righteousness in the great church" is a great thing and, so to speak, beyond man—he says to God: "You have known my righteousness." This righteousness, which I proclaim, I have and I am confident in it. But if the psalm is also spoken about the man who is the Savior, that—since he knew no sin, but sin which has come to be is productive of righteousness—this can also mean: even if some, being ignorant

They speak blasphemies against me, but you know my righteousness. As also Susanna said: "You know that they bear false witness against me." I have not hidden your truth in my heart. He who has known the righteousness of God does not hide in his heart the truth that is yoked with it. Truth is called the yoke-fellow of righteousness when he says: "Truth sprang up from the earth, and righteousness looked down from heaven." He calls the Savior righteousness that looked down from heaven; for he says: "He bowed the heavens and came down." And "it sprang up from the earth" when the visitation had reached its end. But it is also possible to take it this way: when from the earth—that is, from that good and noble soul that heard the word and bore fruit—it sprang up. So righteousness looks down from heaven. And in another psalm he says: "Mercy and truth met together; righteousness and peace kissed each other." Those who read the histories find that wars and disturbances arise from injustices. But truth has the mercy of God; for unless God has mercy, no one can know the truth, how great and of what kind it is. For this reason, then, "mercy and truth met together." And it is possible that mercy is also this: for example, he who loves his neighbor as himself is merciful to his neighbor and himself asks for equal mercy from him; for indeed the truth is made manifest. Just as, then, righteousness leads the way for peace, so also mercy leads the way for truth. Yet both are one and the same. If, then, one is ashamed of Jesus and his words, he is ashamed of his truth. And I said my salvation.

The confession of the truth is my salvation. But if he also calls Christ the truth, he again calls him the salvation, and "I have spoken of my salvation and I have made known your truth." Since Christ is the salvation, whom I make known, I speak. "I have not hidden your mercy and your truth from a great congregation." We said that mercy is yoked together with the truth. He calls the "great congregation" the one that believed from the Gentiles, the one assembled from all the Gentiles. Both the wise man says this and Jesus according to the man. But you, Lord, do not remove your compassions far from me. By your compassions I have come to speak blamelessly and as one ought. Do not remove them far, then, that I may remain such. "Let your compassions quickly come to meet us, Lord, for we have become very poor." If the compassions are removed far, poverty results. That one is kept rich, from whom they have not been removed far; and he is rich in having received the truth and the mercy. Your mercy and your truth have continually taken hold of me. Because you have pity on me, your mercy and your truth have taken hold of me. "Do not remove far," then, "your compassions," that your truth and the mercy yoked with it may remain thus taking hold. For evils have encompassed me, of which there is no number. For this reason "do not remove your compassions far from me," because many evils have encompassed me that are not subject to number—either because of their multitude (if the troubles are meant, because of their multitude they have no number), or else the other evils, the practical ones about which it is said: "In laughter a fool does evil," are not in any account or number.

For they are not among things that exist; they are human inventions, they are transgressions of divine laws. Understand, then, the twofold meaning of evils. My lawless deeds have overtaken me, and I was unable to see. But it is possible to take it also in this way: "because evils have surrounded me" — not falling under number, as has now been said, in two ways — for this reason: "for my lawless deeds have overtaken me." But from another beginning this must be read, with "because evils have surrounded me" joined together: "But you, Lord, do not keep your mercies far from me," "because evils have surrounded me, of which there is no number." Let this, then, lead off both: "Your mercy and your truth have continually taken hold of me." Here, then, he says this: he calls "lawless deeds" the powers that are active in dispositions and that underlie the lawless deeds. "My lawless deeds have overtaken me," then, "and I was unable to see"; for they are harmful to the eyes of the mind, they produce blindness in the eye of the inner man. Since, then, they have overtaken me, I cannot see. But it is possible to take the dispositions themselves as well. The former interpretation took the active powers. And these themselves have overtaken me, pursuing me they took me captive, and for this reason I cannot see; for the lawless deeds of the inner man are harmful to its eyes. They were multiplied beyond the hairs of my head, and my heart abandoned me. If you mean the sins themselves, they overtake a person whenever he falls under them and sins; for having suffered this, the reasoning faculty of the soul is harmed. But if you mean the powers themselves that are active, they are often called by the same name as the disposition. "And my heart abandoned me.

Since my lawless deeds that overtook me and took away my sight "were multiplied beyond the hairs of my head," and "my heart abandoned me," I no longer have the heart of a wise man; for the heart of the one who says these things is fleshly. When, then, the fleshly heart abandons someone, it becomes a heart of stone. Be pleased, Lord, to rescue me. Since my lawless deeds overtook me and I can no longer see, and they were multiplied beyond the hairs of my head, "be pleased to rescue me," so that the heart may not remain abandoned. But if the discourse were about the hairs of this head, he has spoken hyperbolically—if lawless deeds should come to be, they cannot exceed the multitude of the hairs of the head. So it has been spoken hyperbolically. But if not, this is what he means: for the hairs of my head—that is, the senseless impulses that are not fitting for the mind that truly is—are hairs; for the hairs are also among the senseless things in us, those that can be touched. This, then, is what he says: when my lawless deeds overtook me and I could no longer see, the hairs of my head were multiplied—the things thought senselessly, the things pondered foolishly. For this reason my heart, the mind itself, abandoned me. It is no longer my mind, dragged down into sin. Lord, attend to helping me. For I ask you to be pleased to rescue me for no other reason than that you may attend to helping me. And you help me if you place me outside the enemies who overpower me. Let those be ashamed and put to shame together who seek my soul to remove it. They said that the psalm is single-personed.

And if the one who says these things was a man, he sends up petition concerning both—concerning the body and the soul. If, then, "the Son of Man," the temple that came forth from Mary, says these things, we shall say to those who claim that he took only a body, because it is said, "But a body you prepared for me"—behold, he says this too, and it is the same person who declares it. Those who receive knowledge of the truth are put to shame and confounded. Let those who wish me evil be turned back and put to shame. It is a great thing for evil to be turned backward; for to drive forward is harmful. "Let them be turned back," then, "backward," so as not to increase the road, not to drive on to the worse. Let those who say to me, "Well done, well done," be clothed with their shame immediately. He is praying concerning those of whom he says "immediately," that they may not persist in evil, that they may not say without ceasing, "Well done, well done, well done." It belongs to those who rejoice in evil to say "Well done, well done" over those who have suffered something displeasing. Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you, O Lord. Having spoken concerning the adversaries, that they may both be put to shame and confounded and be turned backward, who rejoice in evil and say "Well done, well done," he says, "Let those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you, O Lord." Then we shall rejoice and be glad when, having sought, we find you; for the one who seeks something rejoices and is glad when he finds it. And so, even if they are laborious, even if other things are harmful

when you come upon me, we seek to find you as a helper. Then, appearing, you help and say: "While you are still speaking, I will say: Behold, I am present." And let them say continually: Let the Lord be magnified. Since, having found you, they give thanks, "let them say continually: Let the Lord be magnified," that they may have those things for which they ought to sing hymns and rejoice. "Let them say continually" can also mean this: may ingratitude never be theirs. Those who love your salvation. The salvation of the righteous man, or the one who becomes for them the salvation that is to come. "Continually let the Lord be magnified, let them say." Those who love your salvation also magnify God continually because of it. But I am poor and needy; the Lord will take thought for me. Therefore I beseech that your help be granted to me and that you be pleased to rescue me, because "I am poor and needy." I cannot defend myself, I cannot put myself outside the things that press upon me, unless you help. "I am," then, "poor and needy." The difference between these has been stated at other times too. You are my helper and my protector; you are my God, do not delay. Since I have called upon you as helper and as protector who throws your shield over me—and this is the truth; for "with a weapon his truth will encircle you"—"do not delay," let the struggle not become beyond my strength. When you know that it is the right moment to nod assent and to help and to rescue, let this be done; for as far as it depended on my strength and my nature, I am weak to help myself, to put myself outside the evils that press upon me. For the end; a psalm of David. Blessed is the one who understands concerning the poor and needy.

And many take this psalm as spoken in the person of the Savior, because there are here literal sayings that were taken in the Gospel as both spoken by the Savior and done and observed concerning the Savior. "Blessed," it says, "is the one who understands concerning the poor and needy." And many have expounded it with regard to character in this way: that those who are in need and the poor are different, and the one who shares with them ought to make his sharing according to proportion; for then he acts with understanding. It is not necessary to feed everyone who lacks food. And one is not lacking food because he previously lived prodigally—he devoted himself to drunkenness, and squandered everything he had indecently and basely—but another does so either because of a long illness or because of having many children. One ought, then, to give to each with understanding. If, then, someone does not have enough to give to all, he ought to do this with understanding for those to whom he owes giving; but if he is able, let him also become merciful to the others, in imitation of the Father in the heavens, who makes his sun rise not only on the good but also on the evil, who makes his sun rise not only on the good but also on the evil. Whenever, however, he is not able to suffice for all, let him do this with understanding. This can also be taken concerning the Savior; for "for our sakes he became poor," and not for the sake of another. "He became poor for our sakes," so that he might free us from poverty, so that he might remove us from destitution. "The one who knew no sin," it says, "he made to be sin for us"—this is his poverty—"so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." He was rescued, not seized.

Even if he became sin, it was not so that he might remain sin, but so that he might set free those who... "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for our sakes he became poor." And the paradox is this: "though he was rich," he is poor, and this poverty makes us rich, or is productive of rich things. He is not poor in an absolute sense, but in relation to his wealth. In an evil day the Lord will deliver him. He delivered Jesus "in an evil day," when those standing around him said, "Crucify, crucify him; we have no king but Caesar." And he was delivered also from the evil day, because having become sin

he became productive of righteousness. The name of understanding is taken in reference to doing good to brothers in need; for the apostle also says concerning the offering: "Think about what I say; for God will give you understanding in all things." And understanding is the knowledge of things that are comparable and things that are not comparable. Comparable things are those that are made like, those that are equalized, when we bring one thing together with another and find that it has identity either by likeness or by equality. Therefore the one who has understanding knows which things are joined with which, and which things are not joined with which. May the Lord preserve him and keep him alive and bless him in the land. It can be said concerning both: the Lord will guard the poor and the needy. For this reason he also brought the one who understands into the same state as himself. Where was it ever said that: when you see, bring—someone sick, and suddenly a physician has come there for some other reason, consider that the divine word of providence has guided the physician, a compassionate physician, so that having suffered with the sick man he might help him in a medical way.

Either he blesses the poor and needy man and makes him live in the land, or he blesses the one who understands and has received understanding for the poor and needy. If you speak concerning the Savior, he preserves him and grants him life; for even if "he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God." Understand "in the land" as applying to both. And may he not deliver him into the hands of his enemies. He does not deliver such a man "into the hands of his enemies." Such a man has many enemies, many who lie in wait; for since he is a blessed man and has understanding for the poor and needy according to all the interpretations given, he also has many who lie in wait; for God will rescue him from their hands. But the one who gives himself over to them is not rescued from the hand of those who persecute him. The Lord will help him upon his bed of pain. Here he speaks concerning the poor man: even if he becomes sick upon a bed and such a thing is painful to him, God helps him. Consider what is said in the Gospels concerning the paralytics; the man who had been bedridden for thirty-eight years remained on a bed of pain, so that he could not even be moved nor rise up. And others like these were recorded in the Gospels as paralytics. But not everyone who has pain and sickness upon a bed is rescued. Ochozias, then, fell from the couch from the upper room and died. But if one takes it in the anagogical sense, the body is often called the bed of the soul. And there are many scriptures that support such a contemplation. Whenever someone is in the corruptible body and the earthly tabernacle which "weighs down the mind that has many cares," he is "upon a bed of pain.

But when God helps him, he makes him beat his body and bring it into subjection, and he is no longer cast down upon the body, but from then on he himself takes up his bed and walks. The body, then, is a bed. The pleasure-lover, the passion-lover, the one who welcomes and does the things of the body, is in pain upon a bed; but God helps him and makes him healthy, so that, having become healthy, he is no longer cast down upon the bed, but himself carries it, and as they say, that when the soul begins [to rule] the body. But what are the sixty mighty men, who are received in blessing, who are round about the bed? From Abraham until nineteen, and from. These, then, are the sixty mighty men who ministered about the body of the Savior at his birth. But one must also say this: in six days the world came to be, and it is a perfect number, as has often been set forth; for in tens, sixty-six is. He, then, who has transcended the world and become above is mighty, being "a man taught war," having a sword "upon his thigh." About the bed of Solomon, then, these sixty mighty men are, about the Lord's body, encircling it, observing for what reason the Savior was embodied. "Sixty mighty men round about it, all holding a sword." They are sword-bearing. And there are swords which the wise hold: "The saints shall boast in glory and

They will exult with their throat," "and a two-edged sword in their hands." They have two-edged swords in their hands. And they have it "upon the thigh." And since the drama is a wedding-song concerning a bride and the marriages of a bridegroom, he means those who are temperate around the bridegroom, and he wishes to show and say that they have a sword upon the thigh, circumcising shameful desires. You turned his whole bed in his sickness. He says this: he did not give a brief healing to the one who was greatly sick, but "his whole bed" he turned from sickness, so that he might no longer be sick but be healthy, as I said concerning the paralytic. And you will say also concerning Lazarus, who had a body full of sores, that when he was transferred from here by the angels, his whole bed was turned, his whole sickness. No longer was he cast down sick. At any rate, he then dwelt in the bosoms of Abraham. I said, Lord, have mercy on me. Henceforth he says that what was in our power cooperated with being delivered from the bed of sickness and being helped from the couch of pain; for I did this, "I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you." You see that, when he sinned, then he was sick and then he was cast down upon a bed and a couch. When someone, then, knows the one who is able to deliver, he will obtain what he strives for, similarly to "I will; be cleansed," "Rise, take up your bed and walk." "I," then, "said this: Lord, have mercy." By saying "Lord, have mercy on me," I showed that I could not be shown mercy by myself. Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you. I have sinned against you.

Thus nearly all of us sin against God, being ignorant of many things concerning him, overlooking many things that must be done according to his laws. "I have sinned," then, "against you," but having said "Lord, have mercy on me," I obtained what I asked. "My enemies spoke evil against me: When will he die, and will his name perish?" They said that this psalm is spoken in the person of the Savior according to the man. And since the Jews have become his enemies, as it were traitors of the truth, those who did not understand the one who came among them, and Judas also, being one of the disciples, became such, he speaks concerning the enemies who came against him, sometimes bringing the account in the singular to Judas, the leader of the betrayal, and sometimes in the plural because of those who followed him and killed Jesus. And this happens not only here, but it is also said in the one hundred eighth psalm: "They spoke against me with a deceitful tongue, and with words of hatred they surrounded me. Instead of loving me they slandered me, but I prayed; and they set evil against me instead of good, and hatred instead of my love. Appoint a sinner over him, and let a devil stand at his right hand"—this he says in the singular concerning Judas—"When he is judged, let him come out condemned, and let another take his office." Sometimes, then, he speaks concerning Judas, and sometimes concerning those who were of the same mind as he, and for this reason in the same verses sometimes in the singular, sometimes in the plural. And so here too he says: "My enemies spoke." This they said: the evils, which they consider evils, they spoke against me: "When will he die, and will his name perish?

For they thought that when Jesus died his teaching and his fame were extinguished, and they were saying, "When will he die?" But the opposite of what they thought came to pass. His name did not shine so brightly when he was alive and in this life as when he was crucified and taken up. For the sake of the higher sense, this must be taken as referring to certain of the heterodox; for all who do not think rightly but speak deceitful and impious things concerning the Savior—those men spoke evil against him. And since there is a certain leader of the heresies, the false accuser, or even his instigator the devil, for this reason he speaks in the singular concerning such a one. But did the soul of the Savior then sin? The soul of the Savior is every earnest soul, not when it sins. As we speak of the man of God, so also of the soul of Jesus. Sometimes we call "the soul of Jesus" that which he assumed, and sometimes "the soul of Jesus" means that which was made his own, in which sense it is said, "All souls are mine." And if all are the Savior's, then each one is as well. But does the soul of the saints then sin? The soul of the saints is said to sin in this way, when it comes to be in a state of prior passion. And we have often used that example: a soiled garment, if it receives some stain from touch, does not show at all. But if you take a completely clean garment just come from the fuller, even if you touch it, it is said to have been defiled. But does the body not come to be in sin? My soul comes to be in a state of prior passion; "he began," then, "to be amazed and deeply distressed." From this those are refuted who attach to Jesus the so-called irrational appetitive power.

The irrational animal is capable of beginning to be astonished, but certainly not of being distressed; for being distressed is foreign to an animal. They attributed the beginning to it from being distressed and being astonished. But the beginning is not what comes after the pre-passion; for example, the passion is not the beginning, but the pre-passion itself. And indeed in another psalm it is said: "My helper; I shall not be shaken more." What is being distressed? It is the grief of a rational being together with the recollection of the causes of grief. And he would go in to see, he spoke in vain. He is speaking now about Judas: that at some point "he would go in to see, he spoke in vain"; as we were saying just now, that he who has something more than others in reason has something more than other men, so also Judas had something more than other traitors; for he had been benefited for a long time and had a remnant and a spark of instruction. He would therefore enter frequently to Jesus, as also to be found at the banquet of the Passover, but "he spoke in vain" when he said, "Rabbi," and kissed him. He says: "What you do, do quickly." He displayed words of honor toward Jesus. But he spoke them in vain; for in order to point him out to those who had come for his arrest, he said them, not so as truly to display reverence toward the teacher as he had previously done. All things, then, that are not truly done according to reason are reported in vain. His heart gathered lawlessness for itself. Even if his heart gathered lawlessness, it was not for another but for itself. "What are you willing to give me, and I will hand him over to you?" His heart gathered lawlessness to do when he gave his heart to the devil.

And after the morsel the devil entered into him." Judas therefore committed lawlessness. It was a lawless thing to betray Jesus, to be found an enemy of the teacher who had benefited him so greatly. This lawlessness, then, which he gathered up thinking that he would encompass his teacher with death, he brought upon himself; for it did not touch that one. He rose therefore from the dead, and all their zealous efforts were shown forth as greatness. He went out and spoke. This was happening, and he came forward with a certain honor—or "he went out"—his heart concerning those who came to seize Jesus, saying: "This is he, seize him." "He went out and went out." Some are accustomed to say that he is neither outside nor inside. The end is that he betrayed Jesus. "Knowing," it says, "that he had been condemned, he went away and hanged himself." The phrase "knowing that Jesus had been condemned by Pilate"—he repented greatly, "and he went away and hanged himself." "Having seen that he had been condemned"—he himself, when so great a teacher had been betrayed, betrayed him, and going away he cut off his life by a noose. "All my enemies whispered against me." None of them spoke against me with boldness. And you find the Jews also seeking how they might take him secretly, and they whispered to Judas, and he to them; for surely he did not enter into the synagogue and cry out this: "What will you give me, and I will deliver him to you?" Those very men, then, did not...

of the day they came to seize him. Jesus himself therefore says this: "Every day I teach" in the synagogue, and now "you have come out as against a robber." They laid a lawless word against me. They used to read the Scriptures "every Sabbath," so that they might learn the things of the law. And whereas they ought, on the contrary, to have read them with the law and come to know who it is that is foretold and testified to by the Scriptures, "they laid a lawless word against me," saying: "This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebul." "If this man were from God, he would not break the Sabbath." "Do we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" This is the one against whom they laid a lawless word. And it is possible, since "he laid it down" is often used also in the records of a judge, that they laid accusations before Pilate against him. Will not he who sleeps rise again? Hence he himself says: since they wrapped me in death, I slept; for in the Scriptures the name of sleep sometimes signifies death. Sleep is also called "sleep," and the union of a man with a woman is called "sleep." And death too is called "sleep" according to the Scripture, because of the expectation of the resurrection; for just as one who sleeps, if he suffers nothing contrary to nature, will be awakened, so he who dies will rise again. Thus at any rate it is said, "We shall all sleep," and: "I do not want you to be ignorant concerning those who have fallen asleep," that is, concerning mortals. At any rate the Greeks say this. For indeed the man of my peace, in whom I hoped. "I hoped" here means "I trusted" concerning the man.

For the Gospel also mentioned this, that this "man of my peace lifted up his heel against me." For they said that also in the fifty-fourth psalm he speaks concerning him: "But you, a man of like soul with me." "If my enemy had reproached me, I would have borne it, and if he who hated me had spoken great things against me, I would have hidden from him. But you, a man of like soul with me"—we take this of one who is of one mind, and again "the woman in your bosom" is of like soul with you—"my leader and my savior." I had you as a leader, not as my ruler, but as my leader, running before me. And here: "the man of my peace, in whom I hoped." It is no wonder if you whispered against me and laid a lawless word against me, since "the man of my peace" has become the leader of your wickedness. He therefore "lifted up his heel," not his head, "against me." He who eats my bread magnified his heel against me. "The man of my peace, in whom I hoped," "lifted up his heel against me," he wished to trip me up. And a wrestling move is a heel-trip, and Jacob is called a supplanter; for he tripped Esau when he took the blessing as the elder. To set upon someone with guile is called a heel-trip. There is a certain leading-away, so that he might take his garment. But he who plots against someone for death—"But you, Lord, have mercy on me and raise me up, and I will repay them." Put me outside of the evils and of the heel-trip of the wicked word which they laid against me. These things are again said in a more human way concerning Jesus according to the man. "But you, Lord, have mercy, and I will repay them." I will be their judge.

He who rises up to repay and to judge, as he finds the dispositions, renders to each accordingly. Many, having had experience of affliction, or seeing that the one whom they once condemned is himself about to judge them, according to the text, "They shall look on him whom they pierced," come into condemnation and know how the things worthy of them abide for them. "In this I knew that you have willed me." This is knowledge and proof that I am willed by you; for in this those men will know me. The phrase "in this I knew" he does not refer so much to his own knowledge; rather, those who are mine will know in this. But—having been condemned, will they know him? —All who have received perception of his majesty, whether they were formerly enemies or acquaintances. For not

let my enemy rejoice over me. When I am shown to be willed by you, when I rise and am known, because it is according to your will. He can refer also to Judas himself and to the devil who worked in him. In order that they might rejoice, they wrapped him in death; when he rose, they do not rejoice, but rather incur shame and undergo fear, having seen him whom they pierced. But me, because of my guilelessness, you took up. For I did not know sin, even if I became sin; even if I became a curse, I was not shown to be a curse because of a preceding sin, but in order that I might loose the curse and provide a blessing. And just as he became sin, in order that he might make those for whom he became sin the righteousness of God, so he became a curse, not in order to be held by the curse. This very thing, then, became a curse for blessing, sin for righteousness; he accepted death for the sake of life.

Innocence, then, often signifies simplicity, but sometimes it means complete purity from sin. When it says, "The innocent believes every word," and also, "evil companionships corrupt good morals," it means the superficial good morals. But innocence is also spoken of as complete virtue, about which it says: "The innocent and upright clung to me." And you established me before you forever. Not for a little while, then, did I not stumble; I was innocent before falling among enemies, but I remained innocent; for "you established me forever." Not simply, then, but "before you." Yet not everyone who is established is established before God, but the one who has complete establishment. "But the one who establishes you together with us in Christ." Therefore, with you bearing witness to my innocence. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from eternity and forever. So be it, so be it. The God of Israel, which has a mind that sees God, is blessed. To him I ascribe the grace and the victory, not to our own power; for even if I am innocent, I do not give the whole to my innocence, but to the cooperation of God. The "so be it, so be it" the other translators render as "amen." But "amen" is sometimes taken in place of an oath; for when it says, "Truly I say to you," Matthew and Luke write the same expression, and Matthew says, "Amen, amen I say to you," while Luke says, "Truly I say to you." At any rate, it is also said in the Scriptures: "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." It is also said by those who translate the Hebrew expressions that it signifies "that which is believed.

For the end, for understanding, a psalm for the sons of Kore. The sons of Kore became three sacred singers, and their names are recorded in Exodus and in Chronicles. Just as certain people, from faith, receive one soul and one heart, so these too, having received one soul from the Spirit that was with them and that grants the gift of singing psalms, for this reason utter the verses of the psalm in the singular. And this psalm is not an ordinary one, being filled with mysteries; for this reason it is inscribed "for understanding." Thus, then, we also said in the thirty-first psalm that it is "of understanding for David," because it contained mysteries and enigmas. And here too, then, many enigmas lie. Understanding, therefore, is needed by the one who encounters such psalms as are inscribed in this way. And just as one must "attend to the reading" "of the God-inspired Scripture"—not of the Scriptures alone, but "of every" one—so these too ought both to be spoken and to be heard with understanding. Since the name of understanding, besides what is readily indicated, also signifies something else in the passage "and understanding is good to all who do it"—here the understanding that comes to be and is practiced is moral virtue; for this especially regulates the character of human beings. It says, then, that this psalm ought not to be spoken with the voice alone, but also to be understood and to perform the works that correspond to it, according to the other meaning of understanding, about which also

Paul says—when writing about the ministry and the service rendered to the saints, he says: "May God give you understanding in all things." For he does not mean the understanding that consists in the knowledge of things that can be combined and things that cannot, but the practical virtue. For who is so understanding as the one who has set his own character aright and brought it into order? —and indeed both those who speak and those who hear? —The one who teaches temperately about temperance himself possesses the virtue of temperance which those being educated by him also possess. For the correct word teaches as a teacher for this reason, and especially the teacher of ethical matters, so that the hearers may become such as the speaker is. As the deer longs for the springs of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. This animal, the deer, is said to be a destroyer of snakes. And when it has killed the snakes, it becomes thirsty from their venom and hastens to find a spring of water, so that it may both cure its thirst and look at itself in the mirror. For it is said that the snakes, torn apart by this animal, stir and fill the deer's face, as it were, with blood and other things, and it goes off to look in the mirror, so that it may wash away the uncleanness that has come upon it from the killing of the snakes. And another thing is said about this same animal: when, he says, it has grown old and shed its hair, it eats a snake and is renewed. The eating of snakes makes it new again. —of what sort of snakes? —of all the venomous ones of the whole species of snakes, or even of the kind. And this too: when from old age it has shed its horns, it hides somewhere until its horns grow back and it becomes strong.

For it is easy to plot against, since it has no horns; for its weapons and defenses are its horns. When they cross through the thickets, then, their horns are caught underneath, and in this way they are torn off; therefore such a proverb also appears: "Woe to deer that have no horns." This proverb hints at this: woe to the helpless man who does not have sufficient strength to help himself. So the one of the meanings signified here is spoken and shown. By saying, "As the deer longs for the springs of water, so my soul longs for you, my God," he compared the longing toward God to the deer's longing for the springs; for God is also a spring, and his Word is a spring: "You have forsaken the spring of wisdom." "For with you is the spring of life." And again: "They forsook me, the spring of living water," says God. And the Holy Spirit is a spring, since all the charisms flow from it and have their origin from it. In the way, then, that the perceptible deer longs for the springs of water, so our soul, becoming a deer and destructive of harmful things, longs for you, O God. Those "ready to avenge every disobedience," these are deer destroying the serpents of unrighteousness. And those who have received "authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions," these are deer. And these deer also pursue the high places, just as they pursue the springs of water, so also the high places; for "the high mountains are for the deer." And again the same one says: "He who makes my feet like a deer's," so that, having been made firm, they may pursue the things of the mind.

And since I have often said that intelligible things, according to one conception and another, seem to be different and different, though in substance they are the same, the springs of waters that the spiritual deer seeks are also high mountains. Insofar as they are raised up and given from on high, they are high; but insofar as they give drink and generate rivers in those who drink, they are called springs. Henceforth one must speak also ethically: the snakes are pleasures; for pleasure is varied. "Being led" then "by varied pleasures and desires." He speaks concerning wicked women, whom the heterodox take captive. These varied deer, then, do not long to find God, they do not seek a single desire. But the single desire is our Savior and Lord himself. And as he is called wisdom and truth and light and righteousness, so also

desire. For instance, the bride in the Song of Songs, having inquired about the bridegroom, where she might be able to find him, those of the guards of whom she inquired say: "What is your beloved, O fair among women?" Tell us of your own, the one other than the many brothers. And she says: "My beloved is white and ruddy"—he is not one, he is man and God. Then, going through his praises, she says at the end: "His throat is sweetness, he is wholly desire." His word is sweet. You know that there are certain things desirable not wholly, but they have something unpleasant mixed in; for example, the drinking of sweet wine has something desirable. But when it is taken to satiety, it produces drunkenness and is not wholly desire. Again, the sun when seen is sweet. But when its flame touches one, it has something unpleasant.

Nothing, then, in the account concerning the bridegroom is unpleasant; he is wholly desire, he is wholly love, according to the one who said, "My love has been crucified." But the loves of others have something painful mixed in. Just as, then, he is "wholly desire," so also he is wholly love, and for this reason my soul—the soul that, like the deer, is destructive of serpents—longs for God. When, therefore, you see a soul getting the better of varied pleasures, the old age of wickedness, the old man, is scraped away by many reasonings, and it puts on the new man in his place, whether you wish to take this proverbially or in the literal sense. "A female deer and a foal of your graces—let them keep company with you." Let the account be about a woman. The woman is a female deer in relation to her husband, if she destroys the pleasures set before her by the hunters. And further, she is also a foal of graces; for she ought to be young in chastity and to be a foal of graces, of the virtues, so that the graces may mount upon her; for often the virtues themselves are so called, according to what is written: "with a crown of graces," with a crown of the virtues. Being light and truth and righteousness according to the conceptions of his contests, he is a multitude of graces. He has the multitude not in substance but in energies and desires. My soul thirsted for God, the strong and living one. To thirst is often to receive love. At any rate, he says thus also in another psalm: "O God, my God, I rise early to you; my soul has thirsted for you"; for the one who longs for something and asks in order to receive it thirsts for it. "For God," then, "the living one.

Just as the divine men, who have been fully inspired and raised to theology, always say, "The Lord lives," so Elisha said, "The Lord lives, and your soul lives." Thus your soul lives even as he lives whom you have partaken of; but you live as one who has partaken of him. It is good to consider a certain passage which the Arians interpret badly: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father." And I take an example: as if someone were to say, "As my rational father is rational, so I am rational; and as my father is a living being, so I am a living being." Since, therefore, my father is a living being, I too live through him because I am the son of a living being—just as a man is also said to be a living being because of his father, since he is the son of a living being. When shall I come and appear before the face of God? Men who are still in this life thirst for God as the deer for the springs of water. But they say their longing does not stop at this point; for they are still far from God in a certain way by relation and disposition, not by place. Nothing is far from God in place, for he "fills heaven and earth." Therefore the one who has attached himself to him says, "Where shall I go from your Spirit, and from your face where shall I flee? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I descend to Hades, you are present." Those, then, who in this life have received a vision of the age to come thirst earnestly for God, inasmuch as they see themselves far off, being still burdened with the evil of the world and the weight of the world and what is corruptible. And this too, since among the feasts of the Hebrews it was the custom for all to appear three times in the year.

For three times of the year all your males shall appear before me." And: "He shall not appear before me empty." No one shall appear before him empty. Since, then, this one also longs for the springs of waters, he prays to be filled, so that he may come and appear before the face of God, no longer being empty. What, then, does he ask? — Sometimes he speaks of nothing else than this: When, then, shall I attain the perfect good, so as to appear before the face of the graces given by him? "My tears became to me bread day and night." He says this: since I knew that I was still falling short of the face of God, I wept, the weeping that contributes to the taking up of virtue, the weeping that comes from toil and . In this sense, then, it is said: "Those who sow in tears shall reap in exultation. Going, they went and wept, carrying their seeds. Coming, they shall come in exultation, carrying their sheaves." They sow in tears, with sweat, the seeds of virtue, the seeds of the Spirit, casting them down. When, then, they reap, they no longer toil; for they have attained the end for which they labored. But when "going, we went," "we wept, carrying their seeds." When we were still making progress, having cast down the seed, we awaited the completion of the fruit. But when we were coming in exultation, we carried the sheaves, no longer the seeds. These tears, then, become food for the one who longs to see God and to be looked upon by him. Therefore he says: "My tears became to me bread day and night.

I do not weep superficially, nor only in pleasant circumstances, so as to devote myself now to luxury and now to the weeping of repentance, but also in gloomy circumstances; for gloomy circumstances are called night. You have, at any rate, in another psalm such a voice saying: "You will feed us with the bread of tears and give me tears to drink in measure." One must bring forth the tears of repentance in measure, so that they may become bread and drink. And thereafter certain other things will follow that succeed the pain—the fruits born from the tears. Since it was said to me each day, "Where is your God?" for this reason I also brought forth so many tears, that they might become food for me, because I heard those saying to me, "Where is your God?" Sennacherib and Rabshakeh also said this: "Where is your God? And you, then, Israelite, where is your God, that he may rescue you?" So the tears became food for me, but "in measure," and I drank them and ate them; for I knew that something productive of joy succeeds the tears and the pain of them. These things I remembered and I poured out my soul upon myself. When I was in recollection and remembrance of these who spoke reproaches—these my enemies—I did not go outside, I did not pour out my soul outside, but I poured it out upon myself. There is such a saying: "I was troubled and I did not speak," and what Paul says: "But we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we should not trust in ourselves." This indeed is also said concerning Job: first he says that "Job sinned in nothing," and second, "with his lips." Here he calls the soul the mind. But when he says—

Receiving the end, salvation of souls, for those who believe,” he thus named the very essences that animate bodies. But when he says, “having purified our souls in obedience to the truth,” he means the minds. At any rate, they are accustomed to speak in this way also of noble-souled men. And: “But you, man of equal soul with me”—he means the equal mind and disposition. That I shall pass through the place of the wondrous tabernacle as far as the house of God. We have often said that the perfection of the virtues is the house of God, while the tabernacle is progress; for as they progress and pass from place to place, the tabernacle is a dwelling. Whenever, then, they served God in a tabernacle, it is attested: for “the tabernacle of testimony” is praiseworthy. And the words of God, at any rate, we often call “testimony” and things demonstrated. Passing through, then, in the desert, let them serve God there in a tabernacle, send up prayers, perform sacred rites, and from there have God assenting. But when they had reached the holy land and the people themselves no longer had tabernacles but houses, the worship of God was no longer in a tabernacle but in a house. When the corruptible body has reached its end, there is no longer need of tabernacles. When “God becomes all in all,” so that he does not become irrational even among irrational creatures, there are no corruptible bodies, so that he does not become corruptible among corruptible things, but he becomes “all in all.” And he becomes in all not locally, but by being participated in; nor does a body of his participate, nor an irrational animal, nor much more a soulless thing. Well also is it to say “wondrous”; since this tabernacle is divine, it is worthy of wonder.

The advancements of great ends, becoming ends for other advancements, are beyond ends and have something wonderful, so that the same thing is both a tent and a house, an advancement and an end. "In a voice of exultation and confession, the sound of those keeping festival." For the rest, he says: my crossing over does not happen by chance nor with any ordinary disposition, but "in a voice of exultation and confession." There is no lamentation when the crossing over and the haste toward the house of God take place, but exultation. At any rate, "Abraham" thus "exulted that he might see my day, and having seen it he rejoiced." And he saw the day of the Lord, having reached his house, reaching perfect faith. The name of confession signifies two things in the Scriptures—not to mention a third meaning. He calls the declaration made over sins a confession, as when he says: "Having gathered together, confess over your sins." This, then, is found in Barnabas, in the letter attributed to him: "Having gathered together, confess over your sins." And again: "Confess your sins to one another." "I made my sin known to you, and I did not cover my lawlessness; I said, I will declare my lawlessness against myself to the Lord." He confesses, weeping and lamenting, his former sins. But it also indicates thanksgiving, as when the Savior says: "I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden the divine things from the wise and understanding, and have revealed them to infants.

He does not give thanks for this—that "the divine things have been hidden from the wise and understanding"—but rather that, when those men thought they saw them, they were revealed to infants. And these are those from the nations who believed, while the wise and the understanding, from whom the divine things have been hidden, are those from the circumcision. He cried out this: "How will you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us'? In vain has the scribe's pen and pen-case become. The wise were put to shame and called to account, because they rejected the word of the Lord." Since they themselves rejected it, the Scripture has become vain for them. For through the... it has become. And it is said that, when letters were first beginning, they were found on cords, and again they made it with pens. And since they devised what is written on tablets, so that they might have various tools writing these things down. "The wise," therefore, "were put to shame and were terrified, because they rejected the word of the Lord; what wisdom is in them?" For how could those who rejected the word of the Lord? The thanksgiving, then, is made clear through the confession. And: "We will give thanks to you, O God, we will give thanks to you, all peoples. I will recount all your wonders, when I receive the time." He who gives thanks in recounting the wonders makes confession, not for his own sins. And again: "I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will recount all your wonders; I will be glad and rejoice in you." And

And this is said thirdly: often the harmony and the well-tuned concord—"You have clothed yourself with confession and majesty." There is nothing in you of virtue that reaches your majesty. And again, "Confession and beauty are before him." Again here you do not take the harmony of confession; here you do not take the declaration of sins as mere harmony. The voice of those who keep festival is this—not with the loud voice, but their cry is this: to confess—"a voice of gladness and confession, the tents of the righteous"; in those who are advancing there is "a voice of gladness and confession," for they have been released from wickedness. And it is possible also that "in the tents of the righteous" means when they have beaten them down and enslaved them, when they become temples, so that—why are you sorrowful, my soul, and why do you trouble me—until one reaches the house of God. But you, O soul, having remembered those who say, "Where is your God?"—do not be sorrowful, do not trouble me; do not become troubled. You can also take the angels as those who keep festival: "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal assembly." "Why are you sorrowful, and why do you trouble me?" You have your helper ready at hand. It is as if you were saying to one who is weary and sick, "Why have you given up hope of health? Behold, the physician is present." Hope in God, that I shall confess to him—the salvation of my countenance, and my God. God is present; expect from him release from sorrow and trouble. And then you were released from these things, when sorrowful things reach their end, when they are taken away; for he takes away the trouble, he takes away the sorrow.

the salvation of my face." We were saying in reference to "the eyes of the wise man are in his head," that in this both the prudent and the imprudent have their sight. "Salvation" is spoken in Scripture concerning the face—things often said—not concerning "the Lord lift up his face upon you and give you peace"; for lest the Lord "make his face shine upon you and bless you." Here it is the face that shines. And it is also called "the image of the invisible God," the "express image of his substance"; salvation and blessing follow, if this face is lifted up, it becomes unconfused. What face? — which the man took up. The contemplation is, as it were, a face of God; it is formed. I once expounded also in reference to that passage, in a second rendering, that he calls the Son the form of the Father—form as his express image, or form meaning the idea which they fashion in the soul. Of my face, then, you are the salvation—not that of the body, but concerning which it is said: "But we"—for it does not say this, that without a veil the face of the body—the face of the inner man is [veiled] by ignorance and sin; for it is made manifest: "The wisdom of a man will enlighten his face." This enlightened face has no veil of ignorance, it has no covering of wickedness, but you are the pure salvation of the face, O God. My soul was troubled within myself. The form of the trouble. And this too was said, when "I poured out," he says, "my soul upon myself"—toward things outside, I did not appear to them troubled. He who is troubled in

Setting aside their confusion, he has been troubled within himself. Therefore "I will remember you from the land of the Jordan and Hermoniim." Since my soul has been troubled, even toward myself the trouble needs a cleansing bath; I have need of baptism. "I remembered you," then, "from the land of the Jordan and Hermoniim." Hermoniim is interpreted as "a lamp's path" or "a dedication." He says this: that this mountain, being one, conducting itself on high, having its mind elevated, causes the one who travels to proceed in a straight path, being illuminated; but Jordan is interpreted as "their descent." It can mean "he descended," but for their sake he descended, just as a most excellent teacher—from a small mountain abyss calls to abyss at the voice of your cataracts. It is evident, and it is manifest: for "the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord." Even toward us and toward creation—something compared to us. And I say: the Word of God, the God Word, comes to each of the prophets; for "he called them gods to whom the word of God came." "The word of the Lord came to me, saying." If, then, toward those who are made gods, they do not receive the whole power, the whole participation—toward God: the Word did not come to be toward God; in the beginning the Word was with God. His Word was not of a different substance from him. But then, toward eternal light from eternal light. From this small mountain, then, "abyss calls to abyss at the voice of your cataracts." Hear: in the eighteenth psalm it is said that "day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge." In the case of the day, what remains.

The word of God, when it is bright and shining and demonstrated, pours forth in a manner of harmony, and from such things we understand bright things, but the deep things... for the depth is darkness and the night. "Revealing deep things out of darkness." This darkness is something, but from that which "he set as his hiding place." Wishing to make clear, we find another unclear thing, rather for one being educated, and from that, knowledge, from the night at any rate and here, since "the judgments" of God are "a great deep," it is signified by the name; for it has been said: "The deep is as a garment his covering." We know deep things from deep things. And since not all have depth, from those not deep in intensity the very deep things... the voice of the invocation of the deep to the deep from those raining down from above from him. And it is possible... in some way the prophets and the apostles are those flowing and the apostles. This is "the deep calls to the deep." Descending and lying unclear, it reaches as far as the voice... to interpret the deep in the manner of teaching, and then "the deep calls to the deep" in a manner of harmony they will make it clear in the manner of teaching. Now there are "unutterable words, which it is not permitted for a man to speak"; for the one caught up "into paradise" will speak them. Words, then, they are; by homonymy they are the words. Then especially they are called "words." "There is a thought in the soul sometimes without the true or false, and sometimes the thought to which one of these must necessarily belong.

A psalm of David. Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. This psalm can be spoken from the person of the Savior. The sacred and the virtuous is set down in both ways. The number six was mentioned, how it is perfect. But seven is incorrupt and virgin, like one without mother and without father; for seven is not by nature able to generate nor to be generated. A virgin is she who does not generate, a virgin incorrupt. For this reason we often [come] to the six units, but to the nature of the number. We say that the Word became a work not needing time—God does not need time. He willed and those things subsisted at once. This very thing: "All things, whatever you willed, you did." His willing is sufficient for existence, for order and harmony, within the decade. Therefore the forty-two is set down here. For this reason also in the genealogy there were the successions; for it was necessary that the one born of a virgin be perfect [and free] from pleasure. For every conception comes about when pleasure comes together. As Saul—from "Abraham to David" there are truly "fourteen generations," but from "David to the deportation of Babylon" there are seventeen successions. And since he needed the number fourteen because of the mystery, he removed the three generations. And again "from the deportation of Babylon to Christ" there are not found fourteen generations, but thirteen—twelve in all. But if you also remove Jesus himself, three generations are lacking for the number of the two weeks; for in one place he removed from the multitude, and in another he added names to it. And because of the likeness of weeks, the omission of the three names has occurred.

He says in the succession Joram, Uzziah. The name of Uzziah seems to have a similarity to that of Ahaziah; for some think it to be a gospel sin, but the bringing on of the sin, but the practice of the wise man, in order to save the number "Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation." He calls the nation holy "Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins." Since, therefore, he set himself to be judged, he wishes it from this; for they do not have anything to accuse him of. The accusations are against them. They say: "This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath." But what is it to keep the Sabbath? On the Sabbath must one not raise the dead? Does it not happen that "the blind from birth" is brought to sight? A precious Sabbath. Again, when they say: "By Beelzebul the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons," saying this they confess that he casts them out at all; for they were not able to say that those being cleansed by his rebuke against the demons. "Did we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" A Samaritan was a guard. He who asks for judgment before God has boldness. He calls "the knower of the hearts of all" as judge and himself who did not commit sin nor had guile in his mouth. But that often, when a multitude is accused and one, he is found accusing at one time Judas, when we set it down from the one hundred and eighth psalm. It is "O God, do not pass over my praise in silence, for the mouth of a sinner and the mouth of a deceitful man has been opened against me," speaking about one. "They spoke against me with a deceitful tongue.

For if an enemy had reproached me, I would have borne it; but you, a man of my own soul." And a little later: "Let death come upon them." ν for betraying. But this man has become, as it were, the leader and cause of the betrayal. And for this reason at one time he blames him, at another those five, and to be judged from an unholy nation. He also calls him treacherous, because he betrayed his benefactor and teacher. "From a treacherous and unjust man deliver me." Not to be betrayed and put to death; for often in the preceding psalms it is in the plots of those who plot. We said, then, that those handed over to fire were delivered, since they did not deny. But others we have interpreted also the passage in the Gospel: "Deliver us from the evil one," and: "Do not lead us into temptation." "For you are, my God, my strength; why have you cast me off?" You have, then, the strength, as it is said: "But he lives by the power of God." You, then, are God, and these things are evident. But that one, being changeable, needed strength. But if he will say these things also about the Word of God, he declares it thus: since you are king, and we have interpreted also the passage: "I live because of the Father"; since my Father is living, an example: therefore I am rational, because my Father is rational, and therefore I am a living being, because my Father is a living being. If, then, you are my strength, "why have you cast me off?" Tell the cause of the casting off; for I am not the unholy nation, nor the unjust and treacherous man. Show, then, "why have you cast me off?" I will despoil him, so that having become a curse I may provide a blessing, as a sinner he was condemned.

And why do I go about with a sullen face when my enemy oppresses me? The Jews, then, who believed him knew the reason why—but so that it might be made manifest to the others who surrounded him with afflictions. Send forth your light and your truth. "I have come as a light into the world"—the man Jesus, [said] to him. But light and truth is the divine Word; for he himself says: "I am the light of the world," "I have come as a light into the world"; and: "the true light was." "Send forth," then, "your light and your truth." And when your truth becomes manifest, then the reason will also be known, and that the man who was benefited by me wages war against me unjustly. Therefore the light and the truth are not two; light it is when, shining brightly, it illumines the soul and [dispels] the lie, or when it succeeds the shadow of the law. He had the light and the truth—for he was his temple—but [so that it might] be made manifest through the signs?—not for himself, but for those he wished [to reveal] the light and truth, so that, enlightened, they might behold them. They guided me and led me to your holy mountain. Your light and your truth, according to another conception again, [is called] a holy mountain: "Who shall ascend to the mountain of the Lord?" It is said concerning this mountain. Unless the light leads him, unless he is enlightened by it, he cannot receive a conception of it, [nor], from the shadow, can he go to this holy mountain. And it is called holy because it brings near those who approach. But if it is said concerning the man, that it too is holy, as in a temple, the one who became wisdom and righteousness and sanctification. Were they speaking from his person?

I said that, if one is guided by light and truth from the person of the man. But if one takes it in a higher sense, this is what he says. Since those who believe are his members and his body, of the light and truth of God, they were guided, and he himself says: send forth therefore, that men may be enlightened, or simply the rational essences, your light and your truth; for these guided me, so that we might say: these are my body, when . And into your tabernacles. Since to the holy mountain one — progressions are signified through the tabernacles. Lead me — to indicate the various mansions with the Father in the plural — those who follow me will arrive there, not that I should be there, but that —. And I will enter into the altar of God, to God who makes glad my youth. And this altar, into which one enters, is inner. An altar, from which one of the Seraphim took the coal. And in heaven there is an altar, "and the souls of those beheaded for the testimony of Jesus" are beside it. And the account shows that "those beheaded for the testimony of Jesus" — for they are like sacrificial victims beside the altar. Not everyone can, but "the one beheaded for the testimony." This altar, then, is inner. — made in imitation of another altar; for all the things according to — Isaiah "according to the pattern shown to him on the mountain" he made — a sacrifice of praise and that of righteousness is commanded; for "sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise," "sacrifice a sacrifice of righteousness.

I will enter," then, "to the altar of God," and next "to God who gladdens my youth." For the one who has departed from the shadow of the law and from the external altar—of whom it is said, "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? I am full"—enters "according to the order of Melchizedek, a priest," and will say: "I will enter to the altar of God," better things than those that appear. "I will enter," then, from things perceptible, from things according to the letter, "to the altar of God." The one who has passed beyond the "oldness of the letter," which succeeded the shadow of the law and knew the old covenant, will say these things. I will give thanks to you, O God, on the lyre. Since I will enter into your altar having a youth that comes from the "newness of the spirit," for this reason I will give thanks to you in thanksgiving on the lyre. I have often said that the lyre signifies the practical virtue, or the body struck by the soul that has been made musical. Here the thanksgiving signifies gratitude; for it belongs to one who has obtained his requests. He prayed to know the cause of his being cast off and of his walking with a gloomy face; he prayed that light and truth be sent to him, since they guided him; he prayed to enter into the altar of God and to have experience of the tabernacles of God and of the holy mountain. Since, then, he has come to experience these good requests, God having given them to him and he not having found them for himself, for this reason he gives thanks to him in gratitude, striking both his senses, which are the strings of the lyre, and his various thoughts or members.

For when each of the members has been fitted for virtue, it is a stretched string, so that it may be struck musically by the plectrum of truth. Why are you deeply grieved, my soul, and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will give thanks to him. He asked that certain things be granted to him, and while he was still speaking, he consented, and thereafter, even before he received, he was disposed faithfully as though he had received. He therefore rouses his own soul and says: "Why are you deeply grieved, my soul?" Since, then, I have chosen to give thanks to him, hope in him, expect that the things of thanksgiving will be granted to you. And thanksgiving here

signifies gratitude. My God is the salvation of my face. You are the salvation of my true face. And the light is the salvation of the inner man, concerning which it says: "The wisdom of a man will illuminate his face." And again the saint says that he has "the eyes of the heart enlightened" and "with unveiled face beholds as in a mirror the glory of the Lord." When the face has been mirrored by the fitting and divine glory and illuminated by wisdom, God is my salvation. Let others who have been delivered from sickness say: "My salvation is the physician," and let another who has been delivered from a storm and tempest say: "My salvation is the pilot." For the end; to the sons of Kore, for understanding, a psalm. Concerning the end it has often been said that the last thing is desirable, for the sake of which all other things come to be, but which itself is to be had for the sake of nothing. The one who knows the end knows also the things productive of the end, the things before it.

And again, to whatever extent there is a transition through advancements, it does not reach the object of desire in what already exists. Therefore it is necessary that God be understanding: "We have heard, O God, with our ears, our fathers have declared to us." "With their own ears," say the saints, "we heard the words of God." In addition to the common hearing, there is an addition of ears, whenever someone is able to hear scientific words. The physician, hearing medical words, has a medical ear, but another does not. The one able to say, "The discipline of the Lord opens my ears," does not speak of sensory hearing, but of the hearing able to hear the scientific words of God. So then, "with our ears" must be understood in this way, and it is not superfluous; for it does not signify what already exists, but what has been added. And observe how the saint says: "The discipline of the Lord opens my ears." He says: "The Lord gives me a tongue of discipline, to know when it is necessary to speak a word; he has set it before me in the morning, he has added to me an ear to hear; and the discipline of the Lord opens my ears." The ear given by addition is scientific, hearing words in a manner befitting God. And when this has been added, his discipline thereafter opens the ears—this added thing, the other ear, the scientific one, the one hearing in a manner befitting God, the one able to say: "I heard unspeakable words"; for it is not for everyone to say this, but for the one who has received an addition of an ear from God. The Savior, having these things in mind, said: "Let the one who has ears to hear, hear." But not all had ears that heard the words of Jesus, since his words were veiled, words spoken in parables. This is why Porphyry went mad, even in this matter.

O God, we have heard with our ears." With our own ears, not the ears we share in common with irrational animals, but with ears attuned to the scientific discourses of God. And this is what it signifies also in the case of spoken languages: the Egyptian hears the Egyptian with his own ears, he hears with his own ear. Here, then, do we understand it in the scientific sense? Those engaged in teaching represent all collectively: "a people full of sins"—for it is not possible for each individual to be full of the same sins, since some are opposed and cannot coexist. For the same man cannot have cowardice and recklessness, but a whole people can. And again, concerning things that can coexist, even if they do not coexist because of the multitude—if I say that the whole city possesses knowledge, not everyone has the same knowledge; for it is impossible for all to have it as they ought. But it is possible to have it as it were by mishearing. "Our fathers declared to us." Our fathers in respect of education. Those who speak are wise. Insofar as they are wise, then, those born from them are wise, not insofar as they are men; for many are wise from unwise parents, and many unwise from wise. The work which you worked in their days, in ancient days. In their days, which are ancient, our fathers declared to us. And that it is necessary to hear scientifically those things which happened in

in the ancient days, as for instance in Exodus: it was impossible to learn that the departure had taken place in Egypt, since those men were not reporting it—unless perhaps those who wrote it down; for in every way it is necessary to tell all that has happened, so that no one may come and say or snatch away. "In days" then "ancient," in the first days. But what is this—what has happened from the worse land against the holy ones and what has come to be. Not altogether is this very thing signified primarily, but it is said so that through this that may be contemplated. God transfers men from the region around the earth to the high heavens. If then he says "a work," he does not speak of one in number, but in species or even in kind. In their illumination—since we take the fathers as knowledgeable, we say that "in the days" in which they were enlightened by the true light, the sun of righteousness—there came to be in the illumination of their life a work which they did not begrudge to share with us. He said what, and he remembers: seven nations he brought down under the land later called holy. They were planted when led in by God into that country. At any rate Moses prays, again mingling the mystical meaning: "Having led them in, plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, a sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands prepared." Observe that no one living externally and hearing can enter the holy mountain. The crowds then who hear in parables, being outside, did not enter into the holy mountain, where the parables were made clear. It is necessary then to be led in first, and then thus to be planted. Your hand destroyed nations, and you planted them.

not of God in the ancient days. He was ancient of days, and we do not say that he was in the ancient days, but he was ancient of days; for he was before the days, before all time; and it is equivalent to his being ancient of days—namely, that he exists before the ages, as it is said: "he who exists before the ages." "Your hand," then, "destroyed nations"—your punitive power. The angels who serve the punishments can also be called hands of God, as we speak of the hand of a king, and surely we do not signify the member of the body by these words. And Job too, concerning the punitive power—it was the devil himself—said: "Send forth your hand." This, then, is what he says: "Your hand"—that is, the punitive power, or the active power of painful things, or your ministering power—"destroyed nations." But understand the destruction of the nations in an anagogical sense as the death of men insofar as he makes them and the loss of the life according to which they were nations alien to God. "And you planted" our fathers. But the nations are destroyed from the evil they have; for their country and city was evil. And those men are planted by none other than his right hand. But hand and right hand are not the same; for the right hand is entirely a hand, but not every hand is a right hand; for we have it to say that things done praiseworthily are accomplished through the right hand. Thus he says in the Psalms: "You took hold of my right hand." The practical power of good things is the right hand, and the left is the opposing power.

And since actions proceed from disposition and from the thought of what is called the heart, and the wise man is said to have a heart toward the right, while the fool toward the left, here we do not understand places of bodies. The wise man has a mind that understands on the right, he has understanding concerning intelligible things. The heart of the fool is left, it turns about material things only. Often in the Scriptures the left is set down not for blame but for diminution, as in the Song of Songs it says: "His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me." And concerning wisdom it has been said: "For length of life and years of life are in her right hand"—and length means the immortal things, the things that are not dissolved—"and in her left hand wealth and glory." He gives wealth that is perceptible. And these are the gifts of the left hand of wisdom, not base things. 3–4 You afflicted peoples and cast them out; for not by their sword did they inherit the land, and their arm did not save them. Those whom you cast out, you cast out after afflicting them. And you brought the affliction upon them so that they might be disciplined. Often affliction disciplines; for here we call affliction not that which comes from sin, but that which comes from painful discipline. Since, then, they did not receive the painful discipline as they ought, they were thereafter cast out and rejected. "For not by their sword did they inherit the land." Our fathers, the common fathers of those who were cast out, having received the land according to history, not by their own war, not by their own power, obtained the land that was taken away from those men.

For not by their sword, nor did their arm strengthen them, but your right hand and your arm and the illumination of your face. Where the illumination is, there also is salvation. Therefore, that by which the affliction and the expulsion come to pass is simply called a hand. So also in one of the psalms it is said concerning Christ: And he will place his hand in the sea and his right hand in the rivers. Where there is storm and saltiness, the hand is simply set against the evil powers; for the evil powers are those now indicated through the sea. And in the rivers, the right hand. And the rivers are the prophets, who have received streams from the fountain of the water that leaps up into eternal life; for the one who believes in me, as the Scripture said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly. But this he said concerning the Spirit, which those who believe were about to receive. These, then, being rivers, will clap with the hand together. And clapping is an act of concord. See, then, the hand, where the sea is, the saltiness, the storm. But your right hand and your arm and the illumination of your face. The right hand has also a fitting arm. Not, then, by your own hand or your own arm did you inherit the land, but the arm of God and the right hand and the illumination of his face provided this to you. In both ways this is said figuratively, that you were not set free by your own power nor by your own action and came to be in the holy land. But if you take it according to a higher allegory, both his arm and his right hand and the illumination of his face is the Savior.

Not in yourselves, then, but in this one you were rescued; you were removed from the worse place to the good. Having prepared, he conquered—but by God fighting alongside, as it is written: "Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." 4–5 Because you were well pleased in them. You yourself are my king and my God. For you are not only my God, being my creator and having brought me into being, but also king, because I am governed by providence, no longer entangled "in the affairs of life." And you are my God in that I am a creature of God—and every creature has God as its God—and in that you are [my] army. He who commands the salvations of Jacob. To Jacob, who trips up evil, you command salvations, being king and God. And he commands salvations to the spirits that minister salvations, concerning which the apostle says: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth for service for the sake of those who are about to inherit salvation?" Not so that they might confirm and give it, but so that they might proclaim it beforehand, having heard: "Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your savior is coming to you." And the "salvations" of "Jacob" can be the virtues according to kind, or the two virtues, the practical and the intellectual—the contemplation of truth and the productive power of praiseworthy deeds. In you we will gore our enemies. You see that it is not by using our own horns that we overthrow our enemies. But you are our horn and our defense. You have, then, what is spoken in one of the psalms by all the saints: "And in your good pleasure our horn will be exalted." Not the perceptible horn; for again the horn of those who have it is a defense.

Through him they will ward off the harmful things that come upon them. They have, then, he says, no other horn besides you—you who are king and God—for those who are under you. The word therefore accuses certain people in one of the Twelve: "Those who say, 'We did not obtain horns by our own strength'?" Having horns and having power, we butt our enemies with our horns. For this reason their horns are also crushed; for "all the horns of the sinner I will shatter." It is possible also to take "horn" as a king and a kingdom, as it is presented in Daniel: "The ten horns are ten kingdoms." For this reason, then, having you as king, we have you as a horn, and "in you we will gore our enemies." "And in your name," since we have your appellation upon ourselves, "we will make nothing" of all "those who rise up against us," having as an invincible weapon your name. But one must have the name not merely in word. Not everyone who calls himself a Christian altogether has the name of Christ, but the one who is a Christian. And in your name we made nothing of those who rise up against us. And from this again it is shown that they rise up by choice. Such people are not so by nature, nor are the subjects so by nature, as those who introduce natures say. For not in my bow will I hope, and my sword will not save me. I have a bow and a sword, since I have put on "the whole armor of God," but I do not hope in these; I do not wish the whole of my expectation to rest in these, using them, but I want God to become my ally and champion, so that I may be able to cast strength against those to whom I send my arrows, and so that my sword may [strike] adversaries in due season.

These are invisible. Often the sword of those who possess it is called the word: "who sharpened their tongues like a sword"; and: "sons of men, their teeth are a weapon and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." And another: "his sword upon his thigh." Not only "in their hands" do they hold swords, but also upon their thighs. And perhaps the words concerning chastity, which put to death "the members that are upon the earth," are swords upon the thighs. Often the things of generation are also signified by the name of the thigh. When, at any rate, he says in Ezekiel: "and every thigh shall be made wet with moisture," he means this: all are incontinent, pursuing the wetness of pleasures. For you saved us from those who afflict us. Since you saved us also from those who afflict us, we have known that "in you we shall gore our enemies." For this reason, then, since this has been supplied to us from you, we have known that one must not hope in the bow—using it, but not as though beyond dispute—having shot them. And you put to shame those who hate us. Again, those who hate have a difference from those who afflict, sometimes in substance and sometimes in conception. Often the same people both afflict and hate, and these are the same in subject. But sometimes the one who hates is not able to be an enemy, when he is weak; for the weak man can hate, but he cannot be openly hostile, for he would harm himself. Nevertheless, whether they are the same in subject, differing only in conception, or whether they are different and different, God delivers from them and saves and puts them to shame.

In God we shall be praised all the day long. Of those who are praised, some are praised for beauty of body, others for strength. Boxers are praised for their strength, others for another skill, and others for wealth, for noble birth—but in you we shall be praised. We have no other cause of praise than you; for even if hardships come upon us, since we have received them through you and "in God we do valiantly," in you we have our praise. Often "the day" signifies the time of the life of those who speak, as in: "For your sake we are put to death all the day long," that is, throughout life. And in your name we shall give thanks forever. Your name provides us with great power. In it, then, "we despise" all "those who rise up against us." For this reason "in your name we give thanks forever."

Here the word "thanksgiving" (exomologesis) signifies gratitude: "I will give thanks to you, because you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes." If it is a dative, it can be understood thus: "in your name we give thanks," because it has become for us a cause of salvation. But this too is possible: in your name which has been called upon us, as if you were to say: in knowledge or in virtue I will give thanks. 9–10. Diapsalma. But now you have thrust us away and put us to shame, and you will not go out with our hosts. "You yourself are my king and my God." The voice is with God; for he is God and king of those who draw near and come close. "He who commands the salvations of Jacob." To those who are near he commands salvations and all good things. Concerning these he speaks:

In you we shall be praised all the day long, and in your name we shall give thanks forever," that is, we shall give thanks. And he says: "But now you have thrust us away and put us to shame, and you will not go forth with our hosts." But when you went forth with our hosts—of his soldiery, or by the power of our strength—we always accomplished everything. But here the very opposite is the case for us. And since they said, one must not state the difficulties plainly concerning them: Israel, having sinned, was deported from Jerusalem to Babylon in the manner of captivity. And Daniel also, and those three, and Joshua son of Nun, and Ezekiel, and the others of the Twelve Prophets were there—Haggai and Zechariah. These were not carried over to Babylon in the manner of captivity, but for the sake of being helpers and physicians to those condemned there. God condemns certain people with sparing, that is, he does not leave them without help. And he sends angels and makes holy men submit to affliction and captivity, not because of their own sins, but for the sake of the salvation of others. They speak, then, of a change to the opposite, having come about from good things to base things—from being helped and having him as a protector to being abandoned; but in a certain way they were abandoned, having become helpers of others, not so that they might perish, but so that they might benefit them and not permit the sins of those condemned to go further. "You have thrust us away," then, "now." And the phrase "you have thrust us away" does not carry reproach altogether: "Cain went out from the face of the Lord God.

God did not thrust him away, but by his own free choice he embraced evil and rushed upon wickedness. But concerning Adam, who did not altogether fall away, it is said: "God cast out Adam," clearly meaning that he was clinging to what was within and did not wish to go out. But that man was cast out of paradise for the sake of Eve his wife; for it was for her sake that he transgressed the rule. For when God questioned him, he says: "Who told you?" He says: "The woman whom you gave with me." He did not say, "whom you gave," but "you gave her with me." And this is the point: I too, he says, thought that she who was deceived by the devil, as she herself confessed, is cast out of paradise, and I thought to do the same as she, so that I too might be cast out of paradise. For unless Adam had been cast out with her, the woman would not have entered into paradise. Was it not all the people who said: "O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have announced to us"? And a little later: "But your right hand and your arm and the light of your countenance." Was it not all the people who said this? I remembered what was said in the letter to the Corinthians: "I give thanks that in everything you were enriched, in all speech and all knowledge." Then again: "Fornication is heard among you." So it was not about one person among this people; some were in their own manner. These, then, did not stretch out their hands to a foreign god. "But now you have thrust us away and put us to shame." No one who sins is put to shame by God, but by himself. Yet God puts to shame in a certain way, when one who is not a sinner is with sinners, and the shame is beneficial and brings glory to the

To the one put to shame. He does not have "the hidden things of shame," which must be renounced according to the philosophy of the one who says: "We have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness." The one who says, "To the lawless I became as lawless," was not put to shame by himself, but the word of Christ, exhorting him, persuaded him. Yet the one who says, "I became lawless"—is he not put to shame? As far as human understanding goes, no one wished to imitate the wicked. "And you shall not go out with our hosts." Formerly you went out with our hosts; you ran before us into battles, and we prevailed over those who attacked us. But "not to go out with our hosts" means this: helping, you do not help. You help us so that we may be shown to be athletes, forsaken as it were, and so that we may benefit others too. For he did not say, "You have overthrown our hosts," but "you shall not go out with our hosts." You turned us back before our enemies. Our enemies were behind them. And they speak their own praise: for "upon my back the sinners wrought." In another way, however, enemies turn their backs—they will not be weak and merely pursued by those who are going to prevail over them. The Savior, then, drives out all the enemies and has his hands upon their back, striking them, pursuing them. These, then, say: "You turned us back before our enemies"—though it would not be said strictly of one who is turned back by choice and imitates the enemies: "God turned back." But the good that comes about through God is also praiseworthy.

Behold, let Daniel and the other saints who were in Babylon say: "He turned us back before our enemies." And those who hated us plundered us for themselves. They could not have taken us under their hand, unless he had turned us back before them for their benefit. They are enemies and haters; for it belongs to enemies to hate. But we are neither enemies of theirs nor haters. And for this reason we were far off; for why, O Master, did you turn us back before them, and make us to be with those who have been condemned? Those, then, who were formerly in the form of God, having taken the form of a servant through sympathy—such as these, then, say that: we have come into the region around the earth not for our own sakes, but for the sake of others, because you did not go forth in our powers; for formerly you went forth in our powers, extending victory to us against our enemies and guarding us in the land of our fathers, to which we descended. Since, then, you did not go forth in our powers, we were turned back before those who hate us. Those plundered us to whom he gave—but with an evil intent. And you find many such things in the Scripture: from envy he was sold. But not with this intent did those men sell him. Again, Judas betrayed the Savior, and the betrayal became useful for the taking away of "the sin of the world." Again, not with this intent did those who crucified him crucify him. "Those who hated us plundered us for themselves," they did not kill us.

But if you say this, that they were taking what was ours for their own benefit, then reasonably both the handing over and the turning back have happened at the right time. So they add: "All these things came upon us, and we did not forget you." You gave us as sheep for food. Long ago you helped openly, so that you were our praise all the day long, and in your name we give thanks forever. But why now were we handed over to captivity, not because of our own wickedness or impiety, having suffered this for our own sake? And they said that those who speak the psalm were such as Daniel the son of Nave and Ezekiel and Haggai and Zechariah and the three and others more numerous. These were not in Babylon because of their own wickedness. But in the case of those handed over to afflictions, and especially those afflictions where the peril of the will is also present, because those to whom they were handed over rejoice in wickedness, they were sent like physicians along with enemies, so that they might care for them, bringing remedies, some guarding the health already present in them, others dissolving disease and bringing health. For it is not, as some think, that they speak while blaming the day. So they add, in addition to other things said, also this: "You gave us as sheep for food." We ourselves were handed over as food for them; like lions and wolves they devour us. Yet even if we are devoured, we do not cease to be sheep: "Israel is a wandering sheep, lions drove him out; the first king of Assyria devoured him.

And evil is this: that a thing which has become praiseworthy should not remain what it is, but be dissolved into another quality. He who eats bread, if he sends it down into the stomach, it does not remain bread. But those who were swallowed up and became food for enemies did not cease to be sheep. It is often said that the disciple becomes food for the teacher, concerning whom he also says: "My food is that someone should do the will of my Father." The Samaritan woman, then, was a disciple, concerning whom he also said: "I have food to eat that you do not know." But again, to be bread. And the bread becomes nourishment. In a certain way, then, if the man who preserves the image and the likeness of God, having become a teacher according to Jesus, through teaching eats a wild man, and having become his food, he will not be a lion. For this reason he is blessed and is called blessed, not because he is a lion, but because he has become a man. But if ever a rational man, moved rationally, should be eaten by some savage, wild man or evil power, such a one becomes a lion and is wretched; for "woe to the man whom a lion shall eat." These, then, say: "You have given us as sheep for food." Having been eaten, they remained sheep. And among the nations you scattered us. According to the plain sense of the wording, they appear to be saying this: we were scattered among the nations, we were dispersed in many places. But they appear to have suffered this in Babylon and Assyria alone. What he says, then, is of this sort:

First we must use the Gospel saying: the sowing of these seeds, such as wheat and barley, when they are sown upon the earth, they receive them into their own substance through turning and change; for from the earth they changed, becoming many from one grain, from the earth they changed into wheat. It draws up the earth lying beside it and gives it form and transforms it into its own nature. And he calls "seeds" the saints who say these things: "In you we shall be praised, and in your name we shall give thanks forever." Behold, those who say: "In you we shall gore our enemies" and the rest, let them say: "You have sown us among the nations" in the manner of seeds, so that the nations, in some way, if we are sown among them in a foreign land, we may change them into ourselves, and one of us may become an ear of grain bearing many grains, many souls benefited. And those who are benefited are called in various ways: sometimes children of those who benefit them, when the latter are called fathers; sometimes sheep, when the latter have the position and manner of life of a shepherd. These, then, were cast down as seeds, and they took up into themselves those who were benefited by being set beside them. The seeds, when set beside, changed the earth. The nations, then, are earth, and the seeds are those cast down for the benefit of others. And let this also be set down more simply: that the Assyrians came to be in Babylon, yet not many nations, and all the nations. And let it be set down also with reference to the history: You sold your people without price. Without price you sold them; for when we were led into captivity, we were not led there with price, but led by the law of captivity.

For nothing is more dishonorable than this. "Without price," then, "you sold your people." You sold a people to those who wished to rule them. But it is possible also to call that one a people for whom... among strangers. And since "your people without price," that is, not receiving a price, "you sold,"... them; for by their own sins they were sold. But "without price" can also mean... For this reason we endured these things—to be taken into captivity, to be scattered among the nations, so that you might gather your own. By sin a man has sold himself and made himself a debtor. Indeed, at once that by which the enemy king of souls holds us is called a handwriting. And a handwriting is what someone has drawn up with his own hands. "He took it," then, "out of the midst," so that he might no longer hold us by the handwriting which we ourselves had drawn up, having written ourselves over to it. ...and they write themselves down together? —either you sold us, who are your people, without price—then we were honored—by the manner of captivity, or they speak concerning the people for whose sake they themselves came into captivity: "you sold your people without price." And for this reason we endure these things, since for their sake you made us draw up the same grievous things as they. And there was no multitude in our exchanges. Often for certain people, gifts for safety and ransoms are given as exchanges. Indeed he says: "Every male that opens the womb is holy." And he says that, if the firstborn is a sheep or an ox or a goat, of those brought up to the altar, one must sacrifice them. But if the firstborn is a donkey or any other of those... the priests, nor is it brought to the altar.

You shall exchange a sheep in its stead." Through a sheep its value is exchanged and goes into the temple. He says, then, that: since many are... "there was not a multitude to their exchanges." There were not so many exchanges that... thus that: since it is God who gives the exchanges on their behalf, the exchanges are given while they are not being exchanged. But through a few he is able to nourish populous multitudes. And, to speak from the history, they were populous, and if ten righteous men had been found there—for up to them... and there being no multitude of exchanges, they were being exchanged. One would not say, then, to Babylon, but few in number, as those who were carried captive with themselves, both the people and those others through sin—but the people through their own sins, and those others through the sins of others. "And there was no multitude in their exchanges." But few became sufficient for... it would have happened, if they had turned back and known of what evils they were. "Their sins are very great; I will go down and see whether they are being accomplished according to their cry that comes to me, and if not, that I may know." As far as it depended on the cry of their wickedness and its intensity—but if I should not find them such, but repentant like the Ninevites, I will know them. But that those who are known by God are not worthless: "The Lord knows those who are his." "But then indeed, not knowing God, you served those who by nature are not gods; but now, having known God, or rather having been known by God." When they had known, rather they were being known by the benefactor. You made us a reproach to our neighbors.

In relation to the historical sense, neighbors are those who dwell nearby, those close at hand. Since, then, we were led away into captivity, "you made us a reproach to our neighbors"—to us. They themselves have not suffered nor been conquered along with the enemies who came up, but we have. And as for the deeper meaning: just as the cross of the Savior has become a reproach for the sake of salvation—for it is said, "accounting the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt"—so also these have in a certain way fallen into reproaches, having been conquered and led into captivity. "Angels," he says, "who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper dwelling place, he subjected to eternal chains." This reproach of the angels is not praiseworthy, because although they were allotted to dwell in heaven and were able always to remain attendants of God, hymning him, they came to be in evil so as to fall from heaven. This reproach is base. See, at any rate, the reproach of Christ is not only praiseworthy but also greater than treasures. And if there were no difference between these, the proverb-writer would not have said, "Do not acquire the reproaches of evil men." When, then, the apostles rejoice and exult when reproached for Christ, having done something, these reproaches of such men are not good. He himself, having become a reproach to some, made being reproached to be on account of false accusations, not being reproached on account of things that are truly so. Thus, then, also this: "We are dishonored; for I think God has displayed us apostles last, as men condemned to death." This is their being made a reproach. It is not a true reproach; it is not of evil men but of good men.

Again, in relation to the literal sense: this means that they were not earnest, not God-fearing, and our enemies who came upon us—they did not carry us away from their own country—[made us] a mockery and a laughingstock to those around us. The saints are those who say these things, having come not for their own sake but for the sake of others. And they say that those who became our masters and dragged us into their land, being around us, reproach us and scoff at us and mock us; but the reproach and the mockery and the laughingstock do not touch us but them. As when someone laughs at something empty, so that, entangled with one another, they may have children, and [he] may... and enjoy. Those, then, who are deprived of these things they scoff at. "You made us a byword among the nations." A hidden word is compared like to like. So that the likeness may become clear, let us see from the Gospel: he compares the kingdom of heaven to the mustard seed, not saying this—"it is like the mustard seed"—while it is itself a seed; for then it would no longer be a likeness but an identity. He says [it is] beyond. The mustard seed, then, has, beyond the smallness of seeds, a power able to change and become a plant of such a kind. And the kingdom of heaven, then, signifying the teaching of the Scriptures, as far as the wording goes, is something lowly and small. If [he compared] it to a mustard seed, [it is] also because the Gospel word becomes a greater plant than the Greek. For this reason, then, this parable was spoken. "As a byword," then, "you made us among the nations." If they wish to compare any of those taken captive, they use us, saying that:

Behold, these who formerly lived well—when the right hand of God and the illumination of his face protected them—fell into the worst manner of life. If, then, they wish to show that certain people have fallen, they bring us forward as an example. And "you made us a byword" — not among these, not among Israel, not among the Hebrew multitude, but "among the nations." Those who are truly nations do not know the difference between good and evil, but consider all pleasant and all agreeable things good, and the opposites of these evil. But the name of "byword" can also mean this: that the rank of the saints has a certain preeminence over the other ranks of men. For this reason it has become a byword for them. See: people are often taken captive in various ways by enemies. One suffers the loss of what he possesses, while another has his possessions remaining in the winter and storm of this life; they have their own possessions, which flow away among corruptible things. A shaking of the head among the peoples. They observe those changing from prosperity to adversity, shaking their heads, or so it seems, in grief.

We became a shaking of the head among the peoples. And "peoples" can mean all the more common sort of humans, who have nothing elevated, not being wise. These, then, on our account set up a shaking of the head. We, at any rate, having come among the peoples—the more common humans—shook their mind and their head. And the mind is shaken when it contemplates the things that fall to it to contemplate. All the day my shame is before me. He says "all the day" meaning "throughout life." And the life of a human, from birth to death, is called sometimes one day, sometimes an age. Thus, then, it has been said: "I will certainly not eat meat forever," and: "He shall be your slave forever." I had shame before me all this day, which I endured for the sake of others, and the shame of my face covered me. The shame of the inner human covered me. For it did not corrupt my face, but covered it. And it is possible, having cast off the one veil, to bear one's face bare, illuminated, such as it is by nature. And, to speak thus, ignorance, when it comes upon other humans, corrupts their face; for others become from others—from humans, snakes and wolves and foxes. But the saint, even if he does not bear his face bare, has it covered. And it is covered by the putting-on of the body, by the seeming ignorance that comes from the incarnation. But when a change comes about into quality—I do not say that the fox, for example Herod, had a veil, but by nature his condition and disposition were such.

Whenever someone becomes foolish to the foolish, he has his face covered, having cast foolishness upon it; whenever he becomes lawless to the lawless, he has his face covered. From the voice of one who reproaches and babbles. This means: those who reproach me and babble are such. And those who babble are deranged. This, then, means: those who oppose us—not as the rational nature is meant to be, but rather they are deranged. And to babble is to utter superfluous things. From the face of the enemy and of the pursuer. When I endured all things. When the enemy appeared and pursued, it was with shame that the face was covered. I do not have these things from wickedness; at any rate, he did not immediately add: "All these things came upon us, and we did not forget you." If you did not go forth in our powers, there came upon us turning back before our enemies; there came upon us being made a reproach to our neighbors and a mockery to those around us, and having the shame of the face, being covered with shame of face. For the voice is that of holy ones. Many often forget God even because of pleasant things, not only because of unpleasant ones. At any rate, he says: "Take heed to yourself, lest having eaten and been filled and built fine houses, you forget the Lord your God." Sometimes, having come into misfortunes, they are said to forget God. All these things came upon us, and we did not forget you, and we did not act unjustly in your covenant. And in a local sense Israel was taken captive from Judea, and there has been a local transfer by nature.

For he considered that those who had sinned did not keep watch there, and that to think according to the laws there is to act the Babylonian in the soul. God often prevented them from living in this way by persisting. So that by experience they might know that what they loved was evil, he relocated them to Babylon. Along with these, he caused in a certain way even saints to be taken captive, such as Ezekiel, Zechariah, Haggai, Daniel, and those cast into the furnace, so that not even

being there were they completely abandoned, so that they might have help as those in a war. There is also a Jerusalem above. Those who live according to the divine laws of God inhabit it. If they become apostates from the divine laws, they are relocated to the region around the earth, and this is the captivity in the allegorical sense. But again, for the sake of help, they are sent out with them here: "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for testimony, to bear witness concerning the light"; for he came for no other reason than to bear witness to the light. Again Jeremiah hears: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb I sanctified you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." Before he came forth from the womb he was sanctified and appointed a prophet to the nations. Again: "Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world." He calls the foundation of the world his generation. And Paul and those with him were chosen before the foundation of the world, and their election now has come from then, so that they might be sent out together with those who are held captive and might be able to help them. Was Paul speaking according to foreknowledge? —Foreknowledge is the contemplative vision of things to come.

By kind, foreknowledge and knowledge are the same thing; they differ in time. For example, suppose I foreknow that there will be thunder tomorrow. When the thunder occurs, with the day having arrived, it is knowledge, no longer foreknowledge. But the knowledge of the thunder does not make it be of such a kind; rather, such as it is, this becomes the knowledge. So the knowable object produces the knowledge, which does not receive its knowing from us. I use the manner of foreknowledge by way of an image: the child is born in order to beg, and the other in order to live in a house. What sort of justice of foreknowledge is this, if we take it that these things happen according to foreknowledge? Foreknowledge both justifies and condemns. To foreknow and to know is also to condemn and to justify from things done and thought. Paul was foreknown in this life both as a traitor and a persecutor of Christ and as an apostle. Were not both foreknown? So foreknowledge made him have both. Again, he did not first become an apostle and later a traitor; he was not foreknown by God thus. The foreknowledge of God made him at one time an apostle and at another a traitor. And indeed it is asked: Did he choose the apostles from what is up to us? "Did I not choose you, the twelve?" And: "Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son." He does not speak about existence, but about being conformed. Foreknowledge does not bring existence. God made; having made, he knows. For the thing does not produce God's knowledge, for the knowledge of God is eternal. By relation it is taken toward future things and is called foreknowledge; for again that Susanna says:

He who knows all things before their coming into being.” It is not foreknowledge that makes them to be of this sort or that sort, but choice, in the case of things that are matters of choice. I mean: I foreknow that such a man will beget males and will have sons; this is not a matter of choice. But to become base or virtuous, or to have some other pursuit, is a matter of choice. It does not come about from foreknowledge, since in that case God would be condemning and judging beforehand. But if he judges beforehand, it was [a matter] of his goodness to justify all. Again, concerning Esau and Jacob the apostle, as if at a loss, says: “What then shall we say to these things? Is there injustice with God? By no means.” By having removed injustice he compelled us to inquire how there is no injustice with God. But if it is as those who [invoke] foreknowledge say, we find injustice rather with him. “Jacob,” he says, “I loved, and Esau I hated.” But one is hated or loved for things being done and for things being thought. How then does foreknowledge have a place? Is injustice found with God? But denying this he said: “What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? By no means.” Since there is no injustice, let him inquire otherwise into the matter, how it has come about. We have often said these very things too: that if we have a correct supposition about something, in a manner corresponding to it

We understand all things, as they said concerning the king. And in all the modes of captivity they said this, amid many unpleasant things; and being wise in both pleasant and unpleasant things, and forgetfulness of God did not come upon them from this, but nevertheless they grieved, because there are men who need such things, as in the case of captives, because they need captivity. Thus, at any rate, some have rendered what is found in the one hundred eighteenth and nineteenth psalm, which reads as follows: "Despondency seized me because of sinners." He is despondent when he sees rational men, made according to the image and likeness of God, sinning. And as a father, when he sees his own son striking him because of fever and delirium, grieves, not because he strikes him, but because he has come into such a condition, so also these noble men, knowing that "through many afflictions one must enter into the kingdom of God," do not sink down altogether at afflictions. They say, at any rate: "In everything we are afflicted, but not distressed." And not being distressed is bearing afflictions nobly. "And we have not dealt unjustly in your covenant." Forever, according to your will, your commandments remain, and according to your judgments, and for this reason we have not dealt unjustly. But if anyone says: Why is this man the father of many children and that man childless, and this man rich and that man poor? — he deals unjustly against the covenant of God. Just as in the case of these covenants which men make, if anyone wishes to contradict and fight against one of those written in it, he vainly deals unjustly against the covenant. His injustice seems to be an injustice of the covenant.

If anyone handles the God-inspired text in another way, as the heterodox do, they do wrong against the Gospel, against the divine Scripture. And our heart did not turn back. You see that it belongs to those who remain in the sequence according to uprightness. "It did not turn back," we did not become others, having a heart straight and upright and looking directly. But this happens to us who are unballasted and unstable: many, having come into affliction, have turned their own understanding so as to murmur against providence. And you have turned aside our paths from your way. This says that: we were running well your way before we came down into this condition and manner of life. "You have turned aside our paths from your way," because you transferred us to another life and to a way suited to that life. Nevertheless, even if "you turned aside our ways," handing us over into captivity, yet our paths did not turn aside from your way. Because you humbled us in a place of affliction. According to both renderings of the deportation from Jerusalem to Babylon, take the place of humiliation. Properly this place is the one around the earth, where the souls are humbled that weigh down "the body of humiliation." But the one handed over to afflictions can also bear the shame and be a place of affliction, that is, the land of Assyria or Babylonia. And the shadow of death covered us. Even if the death of affliction lay upon us, yet it did not wear us out. His shadow covered us. For example, let there be a heavy stone hung aloft in the height. Let someone come under it, but let it not fall upon him.

And let him sometimes see the shadow of the stone above himself. And the shadow of the stone does not do what the stone itself would have done. From it, even from the shadow itself, God delivers. It has been said: "The dawn from on high has appeared to those in darkness and in the shadow of death." If we forgot the name of our God and if we spread out our hands to a foreign god. For the rest, they no longer say these things to God. The former things he said to God himself: "You turned aside our paths from your way, you humbled us in a place of affliction." For the rest, they say concerning God to the others who suppose that they have come into these things according to sins and lawless deeds, and they say: "If we forgot the name of our God and if we spread out our hands to a foreign god," that is, if we worshipped a foreign god. And all the falsely named gods according to the Scripture must be considered foreign gods; for it has been said: "All the gods of the nations are demons." Not toward their own belly, not toward mammon did we spread out our hands—our deeds, allegorically called hands. Toward a foreign god and the enemies who seem to have prevailed. Will not God seek out these things? They said that it is thus worn down to read: "Will not God seek out these things?" And they said that I read it thus: "Will not God seek out these things?" This is what he says: do not think it a small thing to forget the name of God or to spread out the hands toward a foreign god. And God seeks out these things too. And you know that some, especially in persecutions, said this, that it is possible to do it without acting with the heart.

Many indeed even died saying this, and they kept silent about the name of God as though they had forgotten him. Not even this, he says, does God fail to see, and these things he searches out. But then—does he search out? The following text does not permit this interpretation. For he himself knows the hidden things of the heart. Let the one who does not know the hidden things of the heart first inquire whether he did thus or so. For example, if someone speaking cleverly were to say, "I did not spread out my hands to a foreign god," I say that I, who do not know the hidden things of the heart, examine these matters. But God does not search them out, for he knows them. And then he speaks the hidden things that he knows: "For for your sake we are put to death all the day long, we were reckoned as sheep for slaughter." For for your sake we are put to death all the day long, we were reckoned as sheep for slaughter. Those who are put to death all the day long for God's sake and reckoned as sheep for slaughter have no doubt whether they forgot the name of God or spread out their hands to a foreign god. Therefore he does not search out these things, since the heart is manifest. "We were reckoned," then, "as sheep for slaughter." Everyone who wishes slaughters us. But this also is possible: even if some make war on us, yet we regard ourselves as sheep being offered in sacrifice, as being sacrificed to God as an "acceptable sacrifice." At any rate, in the Revelation of John "the souls of those beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus" appeared "under the altar" of God, the heavenly one, dancing, having come there evidently as sacrificial victims. Awake; why do you sleep, Lord? Arise, and do not cast us off to the end.

God seems to sleep when he is long-suffering while his own holy men are oppressed and those who have become his enemies are arrogant. At any rate, they certainly send up a prayer, saying: "Lift up your hands against their pride forever," and: "Let the pride of those who hate you come up before you continually." And God seems to sleep when he is long-suffering, when he overlooks his own who are afflicted. "Arise and do not cast us off forever." For even if we have come into captivity and are afflicted in the place of affliction, being mortal and changeable men, we take care lest we be cast off completely. Israel was cast off in Babylon, when they worshiped Bel and the image of Nebuchadnezzar and did the other things and Babylonian things, they were cast off completely. But those around Daniel, even if they were cast off locally, were not cast off completely in these things; for they remained in the same piety. He seemed to be cast off, but he was not cast off completely, since the lions were muzzled and he himself came up unharmed. 25–26 Why do you turn away your face, and forget our poverty and our affliction? Because our soul has been brought down to the dust. To sleep and to seem to turn away the face are the same thing. Appear to us, rescuing and saving us from the wickedness that holds us. Why then do you turn away? Do you then forget our poverty and our affliction? For your sake we are afflicted, for your sake we are poor. But you do not forget

Of these things. In these matters, if someone prevails, he accepts them even if they are gloomy, even if they are unpleasant. The dust was said to be the more bodily substance. Therefore "our soul was brought low"—of those who say these things—"to the dust." We have put on "the body of humiliation," but we were not brought low by it. As, for instance, if someone receives shackles from some tyrant, he seems to have been brought low, but he was not brought low; for he has the same standing, he has the same pride. For this reason we are poor and are oppressed, because our soul does not for the present have its own standing manifest, having been brought low to the dust, and "our belly cleaved to the earth." But they do not say this about themselves in truth, but about their own members, about their own people. And it is possible for the belly to be brought low to the earth in two ways: when someone minds earthly things and seeks the things below, he does not beget heavenly offspring, he does not beget godly thoughts, but all things human; and the soul that says these things becomes a mother. "For our belly cleaved to the earth." And according to a second account, the belly that is nourished with the heavenly bread, that receives the heavenly food, has cleaved to heaven. But those who eat the flesh of the dragon and carry the same food as the serpent, which is earth, have their belly cleaved to the earth. And just as it is said in the case of perceptible things: "Foods are for the belly, and the belly for foods; but God will bring to nothing both this and these," so also the belly and womb of the soul, when it has not been nourished with heavenly things, when it has not conceived from its divine bridegroom, has its belly cleaved to the earth.

Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for the sake of your name. We need help, lest the afflictions, remaining for a long time, harm our soul, which is changeable. And then, so that they may not seem to speak as those who have trusted in their own righteousness, he says: "Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for the sake of your name." We bear your name. For this reason we have come into these grievous circumstances, because we are yours, and for the sake of helping others you sent us into this misfortune.

For the end, concerning those who shall be changed; to the sons of Kore, for understanding; a song concerning the beloved. Change is a certain motion and alteration according to quality. Not every motion and alteration is a change. For it is possible to be changed according to generation. I mean, then, that the egg becomes a bird and the grain of wheat becomes an ear. This motion and alteration is according to generation. And there is another that comes about according to corruption: when the body of a man is corrupted and dissolved into ichor and worms and the like, it is not said to have been changed, but to have been corrupted. And there is also another motion and alteration according to increase, when an addition to the preceding quantity occurs; for when I am brought from a smaller to a greater size, I am said to have increased, and to have diminished when the quantity is contracted and becomes less. Change, then, is motion according to quality, such as from sickness to health and from health to sickness, from ignorance to knowledge and back again, from unbelief to faith. "For the end," then, "concerning those who shall be changed." We have often gone through the matters concerning the end, that it is what is after all things, the last object of desire.

It is therefore "for the end, concerning those who shall be changed." When the change has reached such a great intensity that it can no longer be intensified further, at the end of things, when "God becomes all in all," quality can no longer be extended. Every knowledge and every virtue is a quality. It is therefore possible to begin virtue and to make progress in it, and it is always possible to add to what already exists. But when someone possesses virtue perfectly, so that nothing is lacking to him, he has been changed into the end. We say the same likewise concerning knowledge and wisdom: there is one who is being introduced into wisdom and is subject to reproof as being able to sin; for "reprove a wise man, and he will love you." But no one is reproved who does not have things for which he may be reproved. This wise man who is subject to reproof, being newly made and only just introduced, is able always to make progress. But when he has received wisdom in such a way that it can no longer receive an intensification of it, this man has been changed into the end. And here, while we are still burdened with "the body of humiliation," even if many are holy, they receive "from his fullness," not his fullness—not each one from the fullness. But "all from the fullness." And here they receive "the earnest of the Spirit," not the whole Spirit himself, so to speak. But when "that which is in part" is done away and the end has at last arrived and "face to face" is seen and men become according to God, as it is said: "When he is revealed, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is," here is the end of those who shall be changed.

And it is well said, "of those who shall be changed," and not "of those who have been changed." For no one is praised for knowledge and virtue if he has become knowledgeable or virtuous, but when he is knowledgeable; for virtue and knowledge belong to the active faculties, and they have their being in being exercised. "For the end," therefore, "concerning those who shall be changed." And this blessed and divine and transcendent change we have from the right hand of the Most High; for it has been said of it: "This is the change of the right hand of the Most High." For just as "being rich, for our sakes he became poor, that by his poverty we might become rich"—and observe: "being rich, for our sakes he became poor"; for he was changed and came to dwell among us. And remaining without the sojourn, he is the same, he always has being rich. "For our sakes he became poor." When, then, having become poor for our sakes, he makes us rich, we are changed with respect to riches and come to the end, if we become rich as he is, as far as is possible, when we behold "his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." "From the fullness," therefore, the saints receive. No one receives the fullness, nor do all. So also this: "I will pour out of my Spirit." He did not say "my Spirit"; for those who are here bearers of the Spirit receive "the earnest" "of the Spirit." And the earnest is poured out from the Spirit. And the earnest is a part of the whole. "For the end," therefore, "concerning those who shall be changed." "This," then, "is the change of the right hand of the Most High." The right hand of the Most High is immutable and unchangeable. It always has itself in the same state and in like manner.

For we do not understand it otherwise than as the Savior. Let us see, then, how it is changed: it descends by condescending in order to teach; and then we are truly benefited, if it descends with us. But if it remains by itself, we are not benefited. So it says this: "Will the Lord reject forever, or will he forget to have mercy?" And again: "Or will he cut off his mercy from generation to generation, or will he withhold his compassions?" It says: "And I said, Now I have begun," when, as it descended with me, I received a taste of the right hand. "Now I have begun": it has come to be at the beginning of knowing the truth, at the beginning of knowing the works of providence, the compassions of God that produce good. So I said, "Now I have begun." It says: "This is the change," which I endured, "of the right hand of the Most High." This changed me. None of those who are begotten could have changed me in this way; for all are in need of the one who leads to progress, the one who perfects. And speaking more popularly, and in the manner of those who speak to the common crowd, we shall say that this is the change of the Most High: being a blessing, he became a curse, in order to release from the curse and to show forth those who are blessed. Being righteousness, he became sin—but such sin as produces righteousness. And "in him" we become "the righteousness of God that produces." Not simply righteousness, then, but God's. We have often said that the names of dispositions

Those who are called by a name derived from something have it when they are perfected according to it. Thus, at any rate, Paul also calls him who has been perfected in love, as far as is possible in this life, "love"; for the words "love is not puffed up, does not behave unseemly, is not boastful" are not said about love as a virtue, the commandment that is greater than all, but about the one who possesses it, about the person of a certain quality. The Savior, then, becomes all things for our sake. He becomes flesh, "so that we might become the righteousness of God"; for having beheld "his glory, glory as of the only-begotten," we do not remain flesh, but we become gods according to those "to whom the word of God came." "This change," then, is in both respects—either the change by which we have been changed, or the one which he underwent for our sake, not turned, not changed in his divinity, but in his economy, in his becoming man. "For the end," then, "for those who will be changed": these who will be changed, those who are still in the process of being changed, will one day arrive at the end of the change; for no one begins in order that he may not be perfected, but in order that after many advances he may arrive at the very limit of that quality according to which he is changed. And what is the end but to be made divine, so that he may be all things? Some take this to be said about the resurrection from the dead, saying that those who are raised have an incorruptible body instead of a corruptible one, and a spiritual body instead of a natural one, and a strong and glorious body instead of a weak and inglorious one. But Paul, when speaking, did not say, "We shall all be changed," but "we shall be transformed," and "the dead will be raised incorruptible," since the body is raised in respect of its substance.

For it is not from a body that a bodiless thing comes to be, but from a body of a certain kind a body of a certain kind comes to be, having its change according to quality. If we take it thus, according to quality only, it is an alteration. But if, since the corruptible is not the same as the incorruptible, the corruptible becomes incorruptible, it has been changed—changed by a transformation. I do not say that a bodiless thing has come to be from a body, but an incorruptible body from a corruptible body. But does the body remain? —The body remains, just as the sinful soul, if it becomes righteous, the soul remains. But the change has come about by alteration. If, then, the resurrection comes about by alteration, the flesh is again flesh, and the corruptible is again corruptible; for I do not call corruptible or flesh a quality. So it comes about by a change. Suppose, for instance, we change the colors of a vessel made of potsherd, either by painting or in some other way—this is altered, for it remains the same. But if, having made a vessel out of clay, we bring it to the fire and it becomes potsherd, this is not an alteration but a change—not because the clay vessel was cast out and the potsherd brought in, but because that very thing became potsherd. Again, sand and natron, when prepared by the glassmakers, become glass in form, and I do not say that the sand was destroyed so as to be no longer present, or the natron, but that those very things became glass. And that it is a change, hear: the natron, when it was natron, was dissolved by the influx of moisture, but the glass made from it is not dissolved. Again, the sand, when moisture entered in, was seed-like; but when it becomes glass, it is no longer seed-like.

This change, then, I say is not from one underlying subject into another underlying subject, but into something that has come to be from something that has perished. Natron is destroyed, and sand, and glass comes to be. But their destruction does not reduce them to non-being. And in the case of the potsherd, as I said, the potsherd that has come to be from fire does not cast the clay down into non-being, and the potsherd comes to be from somewhere else. In the same way, from an egg the bird comes to be; for the egg is not thrown outside so that the bird may be brought in; that very thing changes into this, yet it is no longer an egg; for the rest, this flies, it has perception. But the egg has undergone none of these things. And Paul has used the name of sowing: "It is sown in corruption, it is sown in weakness." I say: the seed of a living creature, when it is seed, is not a living creature. But it changes into the living creature; for it is not that, the seed having disappeared, a living creature comes to be from somewhere outside, but the seed itself, first turned into a nature, then from a nature into an embryo, and after the embryo has become a living creature, it undergoes the birth. These, then, are changes, not alterations; for the change is not of quality alone. And one can find many such things. And Paul himself, having used seeds: the grain of wheat before sowing is a grain. But when, having been sown, it obtains cultivation, it becomes an ear of grain; but, others say, but again wheat. But they do not know that what was said is an example. And it has often been said that examples are not made exactly equal, since then they would no longer be examples. Again, an infant just now and a child are not the same.

Nevertheless the infant changes into the child, and I do not say that the infant was destroyed into non-being and the child came in from somewhere, but the infant itself changed in respect of growth and the other quality, and became a child, not advanced in age. And in respect of age, the infant is one thing and the child another, but in respect of the human being who advances in age there is no difference; for the one underlying subject of that infant and that age, having perished, is again a human being, the underlying subject of the child. And if from the child he changes into the youth, again the age has changed. And this is a quality, and a substantial quality. And again he is always advancing in age until he reaches old age. So he exchanges qualities and ages; for I said that the ages are substantial qualities. But the same human being remains. And even if the body receives a countless change in the resurrection, it is a body, yet not this body, not the one before the change. And Paul, at any rate, was compelled to speak of one thing and another thing. For he said: "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." He says: "The spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual." And where there is a first and a then, identity is not signified. Nevertheless we do not take the first and the then as a change of substances, but as a change of the same body, since from corruptible it has become incorruptible and from natural it has become spiritual. Change, then, is one thing and alteration another. The change of the soul produces the alteration—I mean the one that is praised or also the one that is blamed; for it is possible to be altered for the worse, as it has been said:

How will the gold be dimmed, how will the good silver be changed?" And he says: "The sons of Zion, the precious ones, lifted up with gold and silver, how were they reckoned as earthen vessels, works of their own hands?" Again the allegory will show other things; for the gold is said to have been changed into earthen vessels not according to history, but according to anagogy. "For the end," then, "concerning those who will be changed; to the sons of Kore for understanding." And since this inscription itself and the whole psalm has mysteries hidden in it, for this reason there is need of understanding for the one who utters this ode; for it is "for understanding." And I also said this in the case of the thirty-first psalm, since it was spoken with a riddle. "An ode," then, "concerning the beloved." This triumphal ode has come to be concerning the beloved; for he himself has become the cause of the change; for I said that "being rich he became poor," in order that he might make us rich—not rich in imagination, not perceptibly, but having "every word and every knowledge." I said that having become a curse he confirmed a blessing. The beloved, then, has become the cause of this best change. For this reason the ode is dedicated to him; just as also to a general or a king the triumphal ode is sent up, although others also have labored together—guards, soldiers—but the chief point of the victory is ascribed to the king or the general. Why "concerning the beloved"?—instead of "about." For "concerning" is not always said in the sense of "on behalf of": "so that the adversary may be put to shame, having nothing to say about us as evil"; for here "about us" is not said instead of "speaking in our defense." My heart has belched forth a good word.

Some take this psalm to have been spoken both in the person of the Father and in the person of the perfect man, the wise man. And you know that the belching of food previously swallowed brings forth its fragrance; for a belch is nothing other than a going forth of breath from the stomach, revealing the quality of what was previously swallowed. If, then, someone has been fed on an apple, the belch he has carries the quality and fragrance of the apple. When, therefore, a holy man has been fed on the "bread of life" and on the flesh of Jesus, which is true food, and on the fruits of the "tree of life," and has drunk the wine pressed from the "true vine," he has a belch suited to the foods previously swallowed. The one thus fed and belching is signified: "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good." And since the discussion concerns intelligible things, he did not shrink from calling the heart a treasure instead of a stomach. So the one who has been fed the blessed food and has enjoyed the flesh of Jesus and the "bread of life," the bread of heaven, brings forth words suited to what he was fed on, and will say: "My heart has belched forth a good word." For the present, then, we speak concerning the man. The sons of Korah, bringing forth the hymns with this same mind and the same spirit, bring them forth in the singular. As in: "As the deer longs for the springs of waters, so my soul longs," so also here they speak as one and in the singular: "My heart has belched forth." And this is referred to each of the wise; for if the wise man brings forth, teaching, the things he has in his heart and the things he was fed on, he has belched forth the good word.

From this the account again concludes that if someone who has not been nourished wishes to bring forth speech, it is not a good belching. And again, one who has been nourished on the worst foods has a base and wicked word of instruction. Then he says, I speak my works to the king. To such a degree are my works spoken with boldness and bring no condemnation against me, nor any accusation. I speak to the king himself, to the judge. My tongue is a pen of a swift-writing scribe. My word is signified through the tongue. In many places you will find the tongue used in place of the word. As when it says, "The Lord will destroy all deceitful lips and a tongue that speaks great things," it means the word that speaks great things. Beautiful in beauty beyond the sons of men. And the sons of men, that is, the wise of this world and those who in whatever way profess teaching, seem to have beauty in their own words. But the beauty of our word is beyond the sons of men; it is sent from God, it is God-given, it is true wisdom. It has something more, then, beyond the sons of men who utter words from their own heart, who have gathered words and teachings of their own zeal and learning. For the rest, hear: the psalm is taken from the person of the Father. And nearly all who speak on the common meaning take it thus. Things surpassing nature and great and higher than thoughts are made clear only with difficulty through many examples. Wishing, then, often to say that God is one, we speak countless things.

We say that nothing is coupled with him, that there is no matter and form in him; he is a monad, he is a henad, and only with difficulty do we make these things clear through the abundance of words. But when I wish to speak about wine, it suffices to say "wine"; for it is spoken to those who know what it is, and we signify the concept only through a word. The same holds for earth. We have no need of many words. But when we say that God is earth, since he himself says, "Was I a wilderness to Israel, or a land made desolate?"—we say countless things in order to show how God is called earth. Again, if we call him a spring, we do not say few things, as when we report about a perceptible spring. But about God we say many things, because the things that belong to God and the fullness of his good things are not from outside, flowing in and supplied, but he himself is full of good things. The fullness, then, of good things, being the fullness of the virtues, is called a spring. And so the generation of the Savior from the Father, since it is not readily available nor graspable by those who wish it, but only by those to whom the revelation of the Father and of the Son has come—for just as the Father reveals the Son, so the Son reveals the Father—needs many examples, so that the intimacy of the Son with the Father and his generation may be made clear. At any rate, he calls him "a radiance of light." The radiance is not outside the light. It is begotten from it. And the light does not exist before the radiance; for light and radiance are simultaneous. If, then, we wish to show that the generation of the Son is eternal, we call him an eternal radiance of light from the eternal.

But the heterodox do not know how each of these things is said, and they do not take them as illustrations, and they say: the light is substance, the radiance is activity. Therefore the Son is an activity of substance and not substance? But they do not understand why this was said: so that one may learn that the Father does not pre-exist the Son; for the Father is not perceptible light, nor is the Son a perceptible radiance. In the case of human teachings this has come about, so that from the things we know we may learn the things we do not know. And we know that the light does not pre-exist the radiance. Again the Father is called a fountain of wisdom; for "you have forsaken the fountain of wisdom." He wishes to show that just as the water is not alien to the fountain, so neither is the wisdom alien to the "only wise"; for he calls the Father "only wise," not having called any of the created things "only wise"; for many are those who are named from the wisdom they have. But the Father is not called wise by being named from wisdom, since then he would no longer be alone, when there are many who partake of wisdom and are called wise from it; but he is called "only wise," welling up wisdom, begetting wisdom, so that there is no difference between calling the "only wise" wisdom and calling wisdom the "only wise," as being wise from wise. And here, then, again, the word, wishing to show the intimacy of the Son with the Father and the generation from him, says that the Father is a fountain of wisdom and a fountain of life; for he is also called a fountain of life: "they forsook me, the fountain of living water.

And here again, then, the word wishes to show that the Savior is not other than the substance of the Father, and calls him a word belched forth from the heart; for "my heart has belched forth a good word." And God has a heart not other than himself; for the heart signifies the mind. And he himself is mind. And just as he is said to have immortality not other than himself, and to have life in himself not being other than himself, so too he has a heart not being other than himself; for he is mind, and the Son is the offspring of mind. And the word is the offspring of mind. "My heart has belched forth a good word," then. And in order to show that it is not the heart that begot and the offspring that is good, he spoke of the offspring; for it is beyond doubt that, the offspring being good, the begetter is also good. But perhaps the reverse does not hold. It happens that one begotten from a good being is not good when he undergoes change. But since the word is unchangeable and does not stand in a changeable condition as other things do, so also he received his generation of the good from the heart of the good Father. Again, since among men genuine offspring are those brought forth from the womb, he says again: "From the womb, before the morning star, I begot you." For it is proper to the womb to beget, just as it is proper to the hands to make. Whenever, then, he wishes to present God as a genuine maker and truly craftsman of creation, he calls creation the works of his hands; for "I shall look at the heavens, the works of your fingers." "The heavens are the works of my hands." And since some think that begetting and being created are the same thing, if it were so, it would follow that he said—

The heavens are the offspring of my hands," or to say, "From my hand I begot you." Not that He is [so] in substance, but that these things differ according to conception. Yet the kinship from the Father is made clear through all these things. As I was saying a little earlier, that if anyone speaks of one thing only

in a perceptible sense, he has named it by a proper name. I say all these things in the case of God, so that through them all I may place Him outside the things that can be said about God according to false opinion. And here, then, the heart of the Father begets. And—for now I speak of human matters—sometimes they become generative of thoughts, and sometimes they receive them from outside through teaching. They are not called fathers of thoughts which, formed in themselves alone from elsewhere, they bring forth. At any rate, we call the inventors of the sciences fathers of the sciences, but those who have learned from others we do not call fathers of the sciences. They say, then, that Moses was the first father of legislation, because he did not receive the laws from another, but was himself led to this by God. "My heart has belched forth a good word." As a child from the womb, so also the good word in the heart. But in the case of God, heart and womb are not one thing and another. "I will speak my works to the king." Here there has been a sudden change of person. The good word itself, which was begotten, being in accord with the Father, says: "I speak my works to the king." For just as, if we hear that "God said, Let there be," and "He himself spoke, and they came to be; He commanded, and they were created," we do not hear these things in a human way—

For the Son did not need to be ignorant of what must happen and how it must be, when He commanded and said [it], but it was for our sake, so that the harmony of the Father and the Son might be shown—that by a single will all things came to be and all things are provided for. For [when Scripture says], "And God said, 'Let there be,'" do you suppose that He employed a spoken word? We were saying that the deed precedes the word, and the word is not prior to the deed in time, but only in conception. If, then, these things are so, how are we to understand the "saying"? We do not hear it as a voice that passes over, the voice passing from mouth to hearing. So that the concord may be shown, these things are also said concerning the Spirit, of whom the Savior said, "He cannot speak from Himself." This "cannot" means that without Him and the Father His word or teaching is not borne. But in the case of other created things it often signifies that someone speaks without God, whenever he does this in error. But the Holy Spirit is not by nature separated from the Father's proclamation—so to speak, He Himself is the proclamation. "I," then, "declare my works to the king." Then the Savior says, "My tongue is the pen of a swift-writing scribe." My tongue writes in the hearts of men laws that cannot be transgressed; for "giving laws upon their mind, and upon their heart I will inscribe them." And upon hearts of flesh and not of stone God writes through His living Spirit. And observe that the pen of the swift writer can be the Holy Spirit. Swiftly He writes—the thoughts are...

Once God spoke, these two things I heard." And in the wording of the passage before us, it is clear. But I spoke of the phrase "Once God spoke, these two things I heard" in two ways. And first, that if it is demonstrated concerning circumcision, the wise man hears two things—both concerning the perceptible circumcision according to the commandment and concerning the spiritual. If, when God has once spoken concerning sacrifice, we again hear these two things—both the perceptible sacrifice according to the law and the one referred to in spirit, called "the sacrifice of praise." And the same holds for each commandment: concerning the Sabbath, whenever he says, "these two things he heard." But they were stating another, higher meaning, and one hard to discern for the many: that God, wishing to give the many commandments—for instance the Decalogue—does not speak them one commandment at a time, but when it entered the mind of the hearer, all were heard at once. "These two things I heard," so that you might receive even more than these. And it stands thus: it is indeed clear to the many; nevertheless let us see: a thought and a "lekton" are not the same thing. A thought is the operation of the mind, of which the voice is a symbol. "The things in the voice are symbols of the affections in the soul." But a "lekton" is

that which subsists alongside the imagination of what is about to be said; for the thought is not immaterial and pure, nor does it lack something concerning itself. It does not combine with itself any of the things joined together from utterance so that it might be made clear; whence it is also expressible; and it subsists alongside the imagination of the one who thinks; therefore I understood; and an imagination subsists alongside me, how one must interpret it. The imaginations, then, that subsist alongside from one thought, from the word of God, come to subsist, and for this reason "I heard two." And the thought that is able to interpret to others what has been thought belongs to the difficult things. Just as, then, when God spoke once, one hears two according to the two contemplations that have been set forth, so the Scripture of God is understood not according to one thought or one word. This pen writes spiritually. For this reason it is swift-writing. And in the case of swift-writing men there comes about a certain interval, so that it may join together the first and the second. But here it is not so, but the swiftness is such that there is no interval in it. Since—how were you saying the sudden change? —It was the Father's person that was speaking: "My heart has uttered a good word." And no longer is it the Father who says, "I speak my works to the king," but the Son; for I do not take it as those of Eunomius say; he himself who uttered the word says to the king, to whom he seated him, the works, to the begotten Word, so that he might know how to speak them, so that he might know them. Since—so that what sort of works they might be? —These things which through the dispensation he brought to pass.

Let one of the works be to have a reason as a sharp pen of one writing and writing quickly. The man who serves can also be a pen, and the writer is the God Word who used him; for through this one he wrote to the inhabited world... "Have I brought one conclusion?" — "His works are fulfilled" — I do not wait for another to tell him these things... he did not do it. For this reason he fled from the face of God. But when there was not yet a crowd with him, he reported to him through conversation, that he does not partake of the tree... God wishes to guard, because just as "to guard and to work" he made for himself the one beside... Likewise we do not separate this from the reason, as if

I converse, I report, I understand, we do not separate all things from the soul nor all things from the body, but the one composed of both says what he understands. And this activity is of the soul, when the composite one says it. But if I say that I walk quickly or am warm or am cold, the composite one is now speaking about his own body. "My tongue is as the pen of a swift-writing scribe. Fair in beauty beyond the sons of men." The evangelical word is beyond all human words. ... of the man who was taken up and of the God Word who came before, the word is good and a king. Grace was poured out on your lips. This has been interpreted in the Gospel according to Luke.

For when he entered the synagogue in Capernaum, "and the book of the prophet Isaiah was given to him" to read, he said: "and all were amazed at the words of grace that came out of his mouth." Thus his words are full of grace, so as to hold fast those who hear. And he means those who hear in understanding, not those who hear with the ear; for all hear the gospel, "both Greeks and Jews," but they are not [hearing] the grace of the words as they ought. Is there another person here? —"Grace was poured out on your lips," either the Holy Spirit or the writer says this. And sometimes the Father also says this in testimony; for we have often said that "lips" signify the word; for "unjust lips have I thrust far from me." Therefore God, your God, has blessed you forever. And this is said concerning the man; for to be blessed with a cause is not [true] of the God Word. He himself is the blessing, the fountain of blessing.

The reason is given here as "for this cause," just as also in the passage "for this cause God, your God, has anointed you." And being anointed "for a cause" shows that the one anointed is earnest; for having done righteousness and hated lawlessness, he obtained the anointing. For this cause he is blessed forever, since he had a tongue like the pen of a swift writer—rather, of one who writes. He says these things about the man. And since he has a priesthood and a teaching that pass to no successor—for even if heaven and earth pass away, his words remain—he was blessed forever. Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one. The thigh is often used for manly impulses. For we were saying that the word, reproaching those who have the moistness of licentiousness, says in Ezekiel: "and every thigh shall be made moist with moisture," meaning: the loin, the things of generation, is defiled with moisture. But these things would not be said about the earnest man. At any rate, you have in the Song of Songs, spoken by the bridegroom to the bride: "like a necklace"—since you dedicated yourself in complete chastity, O soul or church, which prepared yourself for no other than the true bridegroom, the Word of God—"the rhythms of your thighs." She is likened to a necklace, an ornament for the neck. And the subjection often signifies an ornament for the neck. It signifies also that the church is subject. Paul says: "Women, be subject to your husbands in this way, as the church is to Christ." The rhythm, then, of your thighs—that is, of your desires and appetitive powers—has been ordered in accordance with the varied necklace. And one must take the one sense in an upward sense, and the other also according to the history, the passage about the licentious.

Every thigh will be moistened with moisture." Both the thigh of the soul and that of the body are subservient to licentiousness. For this reason Abraham, when he sent out the elder of his household—that divine and wise servant of his—to woo Rebekah (I mean, according to the literal text), made him place his hand under Abraham's thigh, so that he might bring the virgin in a blameless and pure manner; for he was put under oath having placed his undertaking under the thigh, that is, under the impulse of desire, so to speak; for in this way he also brought the virgin unharmed. Since, then, through human generation the Savior took up the temple, he says to him who is mighty—for he is God the Word—: "Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one." We say, then, that the faithful man also, the self-controlled man, the imitator of God, girds about his thigh the unbreakable Word of God, sharpened beyond every two-edged sword, so that he may cut off superfluous desires; for he who has partaken of honorable marriage and keeps the marriage bed undefiled has the Word of God as a sword that cuts away. If, then, he here calls "mighty" the God the Word or the soul united to him, he calls the thigh the incarnation, the birth from a woman. Gird on, then, this sword while your beauty and your comeliness remain. And beauty and comeliness is sinlessness, when it is said of the soul; for it knew no sin. But if it is said of God the Word, this is what he means: the beauty of God and his comeliness remain with you, who have become man; for you did not change from being the Word and God the Word.

And to each of the remaining prudent men it is said: "Put on beauty and comeliness" from the other virtues; take also self-control, the word that cuts. But, one says, which sword are we to take? —The word concerning self-control, the universal word, the word that cuts off. Behold, the wise man is subject to reproofs. Such a one is one who is making progress and is a beginner. But the perfect man is undisturbed; he is not subject to reproofs, he does not turn aside from the mouth, that is, from the word, of God. "Make known to the righteous, and he will add to receive"; and, "the righteous man is his own accuser in the first word." In general he has something of which he will accuse himself. But the truly perfect righteous man does not sin; for "everyone who does righteousness has been born of God," and "everyone who has been born of God does not commit sin." The one who does not commit sin is a perfect righteous man, concerning whom also the Savior said in the Gospel: "Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it." And the gnashing of the teeth is the act of one who has condemned himself; for having watched closely he did not take him, did not strike him, did not wound him, and so at his failure he gnashes his teeth. And the gnashing of the teeth often signifies repentance, as also in the Gospel concerning the one bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness "prepared for the devil and his angels": "there will be the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth." And "there" again here signifies such a condition. But the Lord will laugh him to scorn, because he foresees that his day will come. The sinner who gnashes his teeth against the righteous man—

For he "foresees that his day will come." The Lord, foreseeing that his day will come on which he will be condemned, will laugh at the sinner. But such words spoken of God must not be heard in a humanly passionate way. Rather, we take their meaning in a way befitting God; for it has been said: "He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them." This is not spoken in human terms, nor do we take it in a humanly passionate way concerning God. And again in Exodus he says: "All that I mocked the Egyptians with." The mocking here again has this meaning: it was not lions he brought upon them, nor dragons, nor the other great beasts, but gnats and dog-flies after the frog and the caterpillar. But there he does not say: "I mocked them." Sinners have drawn the sword and bent their bow to bring down the poor and needy. They prepared a sword, in order to bring down the poor and needy. It turns back and comes into their own heart, as the saying goes: "He who digs a pit for his neighbor will fall into it himself." And again: "And let the hunt which they hid seize them." And in Ecclesiastes he says: "He who tears down a fence, a snake will bite." A snake will bite the one tearing down another's fence, the one tearing down another's security. "They have drawn the sword": they have drawn it from its sheath into the open. The sword can be the word that is with deceit; for they draw it out, in order that by this they may strike. You have it said in Proverbs: "There are those who, when they speak, wound with a sword, but the tongues of the wise heal." There are those who in speaking wound with a sword. And it must be read in the dative case.

There are those who wound with the sword in speaking. Those who corrupt good morals by evil conversations wound with the sword in speaking. "And their tongue is a sharp sword"; their word, like a sword, harms and wounds. So there are some who wound with the sword in speaking, but the tongues of the wise, the words of the wise, heal. These swords are of medicine; they do not wound, they do not strike, they do not injure, but they heal the wounds caused by other words. The bow is the ruling faculty drawn taut, prepared in such a way that arrows are released from it. And let these be evil thoughts, harmful words. "Behold, sinners have bent the bow, they have prepared arrows in the quiver" to slay those who are upright in heart. Here we hear "upright in heart" as the righteous man who is reproved, the wise man, and the righteous man who accuses himself. In the Gospel it is written in the person of the Lord: "All who take the sword will perish by the sword." And many think that this means that whoever slays a man will certainly be slain. But this does not appear to be incontrovertible; many murderers have met their own end. Rather, it means this: everyone who brings punishment upon someone will fall under punishment; everyone who wishes to harm someone with the sword—with his own sharpened mind, or with tongue and word—will fall under the same things. Since "to