Fragmenta in Psalmos

But if you should wish to understand it also according to the wording, "But if you should wish to understand it also according to the wording," one might state the difference between guilelessness and uprightness as follows: if guilelessness is the non-doing of evils, uprightness would be the state according to which we act in all things without passion; but if one should call guilelessness the rightness of character, uprightness would be the inflexible contemplation of the doctrines of truth. In either way he commands us to guard guilelessness and to see uprightness, since there is a remnant for the peaceful man in the life to come—the hope that does not put to shame—when the impious are utterly destroyed together and at once at the time of judgment. But salvation for the righteous comes from the Lord, who shields them in the time of affliction. In harmony with this is "Our salvation is in the time of affliction." And it will be theirs both to obtain help from the Lord and to be delivered from enemies, but also to be rescued from the hand of sinners—that is, from the action or the powers of the wicked—because they hoped in him. Therefore this psalm also has been placed in its own number among the things said in it. For it is the thirty-sixth. And this number is at once triangular and square. As triangular, it has the side eight, and the eight is the resurrection day of the Savior. As square, it has as its side the number sixty, which is perfect; for six times thirty is sixty. And it is triangular in this respect: for if you count from the monad in succession up to the ogdoad, you will find no other number than this. A confessing person is introduced in this psalm.

For he says, if I have done anything of such a kind as to deserve to be reproved by wrath and disciplined by anger, at any rate, having repented, I beseech that I be reproved by reason and not by wrath, and disciplined by teaching and not by anger. And at one time the term "arrows" also indicates punishments, as has been said in the preceding passages. He says, then: since I have committed sins to which punishment follows, your arrows have already been fixed in me. My sins being made manifest—for a proof that they are present is the seeing of their face. He says that his lawless deeds have surpassed his head, so as to press down and weigh upon his governing faculty, figuratively called the head, and that these have been weighed down upon him in the manner of a burden; for since wickedness is by nature downward-tending and most heavy, so as to be compared to a talent of lead, only the one who repents perceives the sense of its weight, while the one who practices it with pleasure thinks it to be altogether light. Wherefore Jesus calls to himself those who labor and are burdened through repentance, who have perceived the weight of sin and have labored from it. And the welts which he received from the fiery arrows of the evil one he says have turned to rot and foul odor because of the face of the folly which he had; for not any ordinary wickedness is established together with folly, as virtue's deeds are performed with prudence. And what follows is perhaps to be read thus: since I was bowed down to the end, that is, throughout my life, thinking the things below and looking upon the earth, there followed my being pitiable and miserable, which is made clear from "I have labored in misery.

Either my reasonings or the evil spirits; for this reason I went through life with a sullen face, all cheerfulness having been taken away. But since the Scriptures are brought forward, of which one says, My loins, and another, My loins were filled with mockings, it must be said that, since the seeds contributing to the begetting of children are situated around the loins and the flanks, these are filled with mockings whenever they are brought to fulfillment not for the begetting of children but in a whorish manner. For this reason he says that there is not even healing in my flesh, because my soul has perceived the mockings that are present; for the flesh is very weak when it flows and is not chaste, whence also the one who commits fornication sins against his own body. Bringing forth groans for repentance from the depth of repentance, not from the surface and not in a feigned way as the hypocrites of repentance do; therefore also, being confident, he says: To you, Lord, as indeed the desire of my heart is before you; for every craving of base things is far from you and has been hidden from you, but the desire of my heart, longing for genuine repentance by passing from vice to virtue, has a good desire, which does not happen in the eyes. He can also speak about the base desire: since the evil craving that lies within me has not escaped you, I groan confessing about it, so that the groan concerning it, being freely spoken, has not been hidden from you; for it is praiseworthy to groan over base things. When my heart, that is, my faculty of thought, undergoes disturbance, my strength, which is according to the common notions, has abandoned me, but also the knowledge of true things, being the light of my eyes, that is, of the mind

it is not with me; for disposed according to the irrational, I will not be able even to think luminously or to reason strongly. The right reason, according to which he is rational, can be both the strength of the one saying these things and the light of his eyes. This, then, did not abandon him, and it no longer seems to be with him, his heart having been troubled—strength being named according to the guidance of practical matters, and light of eyes according to its enlightening by the clarity of those who see. And those whom he had, he says, as friends and neighbors, living pleasurably, these he had as warring against him and as enemies, having inclined to turn away from evil and to do good. And these, who were formerly nearest to me by relation and disposition, from afar set up a trophy as enemies. One must also say thus: whenever someone falls into circumstances, he is abandoned by all who formerly drew near and were friends and neighbors, so that at times even the one formerly longed for accuses him. You would find images of these things in Job. And those who purposed to seek my soul harmfully and contentiously and wished to assail me with violence, thinking to subject me by compelling arguments as if demonstrative—but the things said before these, concerning the seeking out of the evils with which they hastened to subdue me, appeared to me as vanity. For I heard them not as demonstration but as vain and deceptive sophistry. And vanity, through the things they speak sophistically all the day long—that is, through their whole life—they practice deceit, not then bringing demonstrations to the facts but also judging it right to snatch them away sophistically.

He who has decided to keep the command "You shall not accept a vain hearing" has been made deaf toward deceitful and seductive words, not even wishing to have the perception of them that comes from hearing; and much more, like a dumb man, would he not wish even to answer such words or to refute them; for it has been said elsewhere that it is the mark of a fool to refute exceedingly silly words. "I became," he says, "toward such men as one not hearing, and having no reproofs in my mouth"; for there is often danger in hearing defamatory words and in conversing about problems that are subject to punishment. Therefore it is blessed to have been made deaf toward such things and to be thought unable to refute them. Since, having despised all other things, I hoped in you alone, O Lord, who are mine and God, you will hear me, to whom, having prayed, I said, beginning from "O Lord, do not reprove me in your anger." For often those who are with me, when I sinned, the wandering demons reproach, bringing my past deeds into the middle, as though attempting by this to hinder my repentance and to produce despair of salvation. I, then, toward those who suggest such thoughts have become deaf and not hearing, nor wishing to refute them, so that, not being occupied with this, I might not relax the intense eagerness for repentance. Since, therefore, hoping, O Lord, I am confident that I shall be heard. For though able to defend myself, I hold back the defense, knowing the words "Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath," and "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." I am ready and prepared for the scourges that come from perception.

At any rate, my pain, by which I grieve over what has been done beforehand, is before me, wounding and scourging me. It can also be understood thus: since my pain is mine—I grieving over the evils I have done—even if it should be necessary to be freed from my sins by means of scourges, I am ready for these, that is, I am eager to be struck for the sake of conversion. Clearly the compassion toward us, for the sake of which he always keeps the remembrance of his own suffering; for Paul says, "From what he has suffered, having himself been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted." As under the law the one who had a sin for which it was necessary to bring a sacrifice took thought for what was offered on its behalf, so it is necessary for one to take thought for his own sin, hastening to accomplish the works of repentance. While I take thought for my sin, those who are hostile to me because I have repented live according to their base life, being strong and mighty above me by my having become weak in this life. Even if they have cast me off as a dead and abominable thing, nevertheless do you shelter me under your mighty hand; for when you are present, the enemies are powerless and weak. Since, with enemies standing around—both wicked men and invisible powers—I need help, I do not demand help from elsewhere than from you, Lord; for you are also the God of my salvation, and the God of salvation is the cause of it.

King David, when he brought the ark of God to Jerusalem, appointed certain sacred men as singers for this very ministry and order, so that they might sing the hymns of God. One of these was also Idithum, as is recorded in something of this sort in the Chronicles, in the list and enumeration of the aforementioned odes. So then, he either composed and sang the psalm set before us himself on David's behalf, or he received it as something made by David and reported it. And in the psalm set before us there is also a person introduced from repentance to virtue who is the one reporting. Since the beginning of nearly every sin comes about through speech, the one who resolves to guard his ways through his actions makes an agreement with himself, so that he may not sin with his tongue. For if freedom from sin in speech is preserved for him, it will follow that he is cleansed from sins committed in deed. For by your words, it says, you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned; and, Amen I say to you, for every idle word you will give an account on the day of judgment. With the article, the sinner here too is called the devil, or the evil angel present with a person. Whenever, then, someone says to himself that he will guard his own ways so as not to sin with his tongue and will set a guard over his own mouth, at that time the sinner, standing against him in opposition, reminds him of his former deeds, bringing them into the middle for reproach, or wishing to tickle him through the reminder, so that he may drag down into his former sin the one who has departed from it.

When, he says, the sinner stood before me, I was struck dumb and fell silent from the good things I had begun to speak. For having begun to speak about sinlessness—or having understood from good doctrines that one ought not to answer provoking words—I fell silent, uttering nothing to them, so that, while he was saying the things previously mentioned, the pain I had from perception, by which I was being delivered from sins, might not be renewed and made fresh again, having grieved again over the things he reproached me with, recounting what I had done. From the words of the sinner who stood before me my heart was warmed and set ablaze. But since I uttered nothing from such thoughts within me, the warming was preserved, and In my meditation a fire shall be kindled. He who meditates on divine things not slackly but earnestly and fervently will speak the verse before us, fire being kindled from such meditation and consuming the wicked disposition that existed beforehand. To the sinner, he says: I was struck dumb and humbled and fell silent; but to God: I spoke with my tongue. He who brings forth words from genuine longing and purpose speaks with his own tongue, whereas he who speaks deceitfully speaks with a foreign tongue. And moreover, since we have a tongue also in the inner man, this tongue is properly ours, according to which it is possible to speak from disposition. Since, having begun to live according to human life, I also expect its end—and this is clear to me—make known to me the end.

of my life, so that by learning the multitude of the years of life in the flesh I may know what things I ought to accomplish. What have I done, and what is lacking to me for the completion of perfection? Or also thus: since every prudent man acts and works toward some end, which is also called a goal, and one must have knowledge of this, he prays to know what is the end for the sake of which he has set himself to live, and what is the number of the days according to the contemplations of truth. For thus he will know what is lacking to him for the completion of the goal; just as one who has set before himself to acquire knowledge of a science might say to the teacher: Declare to me how many are the contemplations of the science, so that I may know which I have attained and in which I am still lacking. From the time I came into life, I was enrolled to contend, so that in the beginning I had my wrestling against blood and flesh, but having passed beyond childhood and become a man, my struggle is against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness. He signifies, then, that "Palestinas" is the same as "In the contest you placed my days." But now "subsistence" can be said instead of "substance," so that the saying may be such: my existence, when compared to yours, seems not even to be anything. Another reading contains: Behold, you have placed my days as ancient, having a kinship to the old man whom I put on. Therefore also my subsistence, according to which I subsisted in the things before the faith, is as nothing before you, except that all things are vanity. He calls vanity all the living creatures upon the earth, plants, and the like. Man alone, besides these, is living, partaking of immortal life.

The one who walks in progress, partaking of the divine image, does this, being conformed to the image of the Son of God. And indeed every living man walks in an image—either that of God, keeping the "according to the image," or becoming in character some other living creature, a lustful stallion, or some other irrational beast. And moreover the perceptible and visible world is an image of the intelligible and invisible. By free will, then, man walks in this world, which is an image. Having said these things about man in general, he speaks about individuals, that they are troubled in vain in their pursuits of mortal things. For concerning each one he adds: "He treasures up and does not know for whom he gathers them." For the one who treasures up on earth does not know who will inherit the wealth for which he himself labored; but the one who treasures up in heaven for himself and not for another knows for whom, understanding that the wealth is his, not to be taken away. And even if "substance" is said instead of "subsistence," this too is from God as from a creator; and even insofar as we subsist, this very subsistence of ours is from him, who grants us to subsist even when what befalls us is painful. Since, having deemed himself worthy to be delivered from all my lawless deeds, he has not yet obtained this, the foolish man reproaches, as though holding your work subject to him: "For from the strength of your hand I have failed." For whenever the punishing hand scourges strongly, the one being punished fails, insofar as he is such. And from the present passage we learn that what are called the scourges of God are nothing other than reproofs.

For after saying "Remove your scourges from me," there has been added "that they are in reproofs for lawlessness"; for by the reproofs brought for lawlessness a man is disciplined, his soul being melted away by casting off all fleshy grossness. For then he is able to weave like the spider, not bringing forth material from outside but from within and from himself. The phrase can also indicate the insubstantiality of the base reasonings of the soul, just as in Isaiah it is said concerning sinners, "They weave a spider's web." When the works resembling a spider's are destroyed by the reproofs for lawlessness, the soul of the one reproved melts away like the spider. Since he saw that he no longer needed many things, he prays that there be granted to him still to linger in this life, so that he might be refreshed, having delighted himself in perfect goods. For if he should depart not thus but still lacking, he would no longer exist—not by being reduced to non-being (for the soul is immortal and imperishable), but by no longer being in participation of being. For this is truly to be, to participate in the One who said, "I am the One who is," those being said not to be who do not have this participation, according to what has been spoken in prayer to God: "Do not hand over your scepter to those who are not." Desiring to share in this existence, he prays that a time be given him to be refreshed by participation in being, so that he may truly exist.

He calls idolatry a pit of misery, since those who draw from it are in misery; for they draw nothing of the things fit for life, which Jeremiah, reproaching the Jews, spoke of: "They dug for themselves broken pits that will not be able to hold water." He calls pleasures the mire of filth, since they are the dregs and corruption of bodies and rottenness, so that from both Christ saved the nations through faith in him and through the preaching. Those who think that nothing is signified in the Scripture by the expression say: as if he had obtained some great good, he who has planted the feet of his body on the perceptible rock thus gives thanks to the one who granted this. But we say that he who has been delivered from the aforementioned pit and mire, having been established upon the unbreakable and unshakable perfection according to virtue, declares the things set before us; for to him who has thus stood upon the rock there follows also that his steps are directed by the Lord as he passes from vice to virtue and from mortal things to immortal, and indeed in every advance. Proper to the newness of the spirit, and perhaps a new song, is the ethical discourse, and a hymn is theology. One must consider that he calls worldly pursuits vanities, and false teachings and false prophecies false madnesses. And it should be noted that, as though there were true madnesses, he added "false" to the madnesses; for perhaps those possessed prophetically have a true madness, while false diviners have a false madness. And he calls thoughts of God, so to speak, the reckonings of the things that come about by God's providence.

To these thoughts of yours, he says, no one of created things would be found similar, since no one knows the mind of the Lord. Your wonders and your thoughts: for whenever someone wishes to go through something deep, then he will find it more obscure than before. For if I become wise, it is far from me, beyond what I can reach, and a deep depth—who will find it? The Epistle to the Hebrews says that these present verses were spoken in the person of the Savior, saying concerning the Savior: Therefore, when he enters into the world, he says, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, and the rest. He provided an occasion, then, for the whole psalm to be spoken by him, keeping the same person throughout until the end of the one speaking. Since, therefore, the time of the shadow has passed, during which sacrifice and offering were brought, God no longer willing the worship through these things, prepared a body for the Son from the virgin, so as no longer to take pleasure in whole burnt offerings and offerings for sin. When the Savior said to the Father, Behold, I have come to do your will, by that will he took away the sin of the world, himself being sacrificed and offered for the sin of all, so that, forgiveness having come, there might no longer be need of the sacrifice for sins. He calls the whole God-inspired Scripture, both legal and prophetic, the head of a book; for in this it is written concerning the Savior's coming here. And he said "in the head" because the whole is summed up into one. And it is this: that the Savior became man, so that he might wish to do the will of the Lord.

One must note that the concurring will, arising from one thing alongside another will, is evidence that the deliberative hypostasis is consubstantial with the essence of the one who wills. I have inscribed him in my governing faculty. And everyone who has been formed according to the spiritual law would have the law in his heart—that is, in his own disposition. A great church is the one completed from great and perfect people. In this church, then, he proclaims the righteousness that is established through faith in Jesus. Proclaiming this unceasingly and continuously, he will say: My lips I will surely not restrain. And he says: You have known my righteousness, having accepted it and made it your own. He calls a great gathering the one gathered from all the nations, in which, proclaiming the mercy of God and the truth with boldness, he says that he has not hidden them. And perhaps he proclaims mercy, making clear the forgiveness of sins that comes by mercy, and truth, that which is set in contrast to the shadow. While I do the things previously spoken, do you, O Lord, not remove your compassions far from me, showing mercy to those benefited by me. For the greatest part of salvation comes not so much from works as from the mercy of God, but also the truth, taking hold, keeps one from being caught by deceit or some other error. For lawless deeds pursue like enemies the one who has chosen to flee them; if, then, they overtake him, the soul's power of sight is hindered, so that the one caught cannot see. And perhaps the lawless deeds that pursue are the evil powers that activate them. And they were multiplied beyond the hairs of my head.

That is, the evils concerning us that are imperceptible are multiplied. When these had become many, being deprived of right understanding, we were abandoned by the heart. Since the psalm is spoken in a single person from Christ, one must also speak against those who say that the Lord bore only a body, who use the text "But a body you prepared for me," since he also confesses that he has a soul, which those who mistakenly think this seek to remove as being imperishable; and he prays that they be put to shame and feel reverence. And just as those who hasten toward virtue have a commandment not to turn back (for this is destructive), so let those who rush toward evils hasten to turn back, setting aside their base purpose; for then they will also have the shame that comes from perception. Let those who say to me "Well done, well done" receive their shame immediately. He who approves of sinlessness wishes no one to be in sin. But if someone should go astray, he prays that he be put to shame immediately for the things he does wickedly, boastfully saying "Well done, well done." Those who seek the Lord have as the goal of their seeking to find him; and when he is found, they exult and are glad with exultation and gladness. For when someone has sought and found God, he wishes him to be magnified for his sake, loving the salvation of God—either the salvation that comes from him or the saving Word. And he loves it always, and not for a little while. Being weak for the acquisition of good things, having confessed himself poor and needy, he entrusts his care to God, casting his anxiety upon the Lord as upon a guardian.

The day of judgment can be a wicked day, in which God, showing mercy to the one who showed mercy, rescues him from all punishment. And perhaps the whole present life is a wicked day, in which the Lord also rescues from the things that surround us. But the day of punishment may also be understood as a wicked day. And "that he may live," he says, means the true life in the land of the meek. Nor is the one who is prevented from being such handed over into the hands of his enemies—that is, the souls of the enemies. And he will add to the one who understands concerning the poor and the needy, and what follows these things; for "the Lord will help him upon his bed of pain, and he will turn his whole couch in his sickness," delivering him from human sickness and granting him the health of the soul, so that even if some sickness befalls him in soul (such as many things happen to occur, as the apostle also teaches, saying, "For this cause many among you are weak and sick"), he will also change this sickness. And the Lord will provide all the rest to the one who understands concerning the poor and the needy. From these things we learn that sin is a disease and wound of the soul. They interpret these verses concerning Judas. For he, having already come to be outside the Savior and the company of the apostles—Judas, from the time he purposed to betray the teacher, entering in pretence as if still an apostle, was speaking vainly, "Rabbi," and addressing Jesus as teacher, while his own heart gathered lawlessness for itself. For when the devil had cast love of money into his heart, he also added to it the betrayal of Jesus—and indeed also the hanging of himself.

This one also, going out—that is, becoming outside the discipleship of Jesus—was speaking together with the Pharisees against the Savior. And since they secretly conspired about the giving of the thirty pieces of silver, all his enemies whispered against him; for whispering is an unspoken utterance. These very men, then, who set before themselves to whisper a lawless word against Jesus, laid a plot against him; for to buy and to sell an innocent life is the work of a lawless compact. And to those who were acting vainly he said, "Why do you strive for vain things?" Do you think that the one you encompass with death will not rise? Know that he who sleeps will add to his rising; for the resurrection is an addition that destroys death. It is no wonder, the Savior will say, if my enemies laid such plots against me; for the man of peace, who was at peace with me and who strove for peace on my behalf, in whom I had hoped to take courage and set my hope upon him, joins with those against me. For being a companion of my daily life and partaking of the same salt, or rather eating my bread, he lifted up his heel against me in hostility, saying deceitfully, "Hail, Rabbi," and whatever else he said in his villainy. Clearly, then, he speaks here about Judas, narrating about him in what was said before in a veiled manner. Through his substituting for me another people in place of the one rejected, and Matthias in place of Judas; but also, "Raise me up, that I may repay them," the repayment being for their good. Blessed is he when they hear those who bless, and blessed—that is, worthy to be blessed eternally.

Since God is the blessed one of Israel, he prays, "Let it be, let it be"—not that the prayer makes God blessed, just as the prayer of those who say "Hallowed be your name" does not sanctify the name of God either. These matters have been spoken of in the earlier passages. 422 The three sons of Korah were appointed along with others to sing the divine psalms, whom Scripture also calls singers, and whose names are also recorded in Chronicles. These three, then, being furnished with the same mind and the same judgment, and united in their harmonious disposition toward all things, utter everything in the psalm before us in a singular voice. 423 The deer, an animal hostile to snakes and one that eats them, if ever having eaten it is inflamed with thirst arising from the venom of the reptiles it has eaten, seeks springs of water with haste in order to cure the thirst. There are those who say that it also, wishing to see itself in the waters, tracks down the springs, so that it may see the defilement that has come upon it from the blood of the snakes, in order to wash it off; for when the snakes are torn apart, shaken off, they spatter their own blood upon it. And the

The holy one does not destroy the snakes and scorpions, though he had received authority from Jesus, but he also avenges every disobedience; being a spiritual deer, he hastens to track down the divine springs of waters—such as God saying, "They abandoned me, the spring of living water," and the Savior, about whom it is said to someone, "You abandoned the spring of wisdom," and the Holy Spirit, about whom it is proclaimed, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, in him it will become a spring of water leaping up to eternal life." And perhaps every God-inspired Scripture is a saving spring. Therefore the disposition of the earnest man is likened to God by the deer's longing for the springs of waters. And since he knows that in the present life he approaches God through a mirror, while "face to face" is reserved for what comes after, he prays that the time may come when, having arrived, he may be seen at the face of God. And further: since the law is said to contain wholly a shadow of the good things to come, and the feasts at which the males appeared at the face of God are shadows and symbols of feasts to come, he prays to come to the spiritual feasts, so that he may be perfectly seen at the face of God—who is none other than the image of the invisible God. He who weeps not in vain but from a disposition of toiling for virtue—that man will be fed with his own tears as with bread; he calls it "day" not only in tolerable circumstances but also names "night" in adverse ones. Those who are deceived about everything also go astray about thinking that God is in a place. At any rate, they say in reproach, "Where is your God?

For with this desire it increased my despondency and the being reproached by those who held me as though there were no helper; and besides these things, the memory of the things accomplished in those places for your healing. But the words “These things I remembered and I poured out upon myself my soul” stand for “From despondency I was being dissolved.” For since I am making progress and am not yet perfect, and the symbol of progress is the tabernacle, as has often been said, for this reason I have been troubled; yet the tabernacle according to God wondrously leads to the house of God himself, that is, to the perfection in which we dwell where God is. And I will pass through in the place of the wondrous tabernacle as far as the house of God, in a voice of exultation and sacred confession, according to the sound of those who celebrate spiritually; for those who celebrate spiritually sound out, exulting and confessing. If I should be in the land of the Jordan, that is, if I should be deemed worthy of holy baptism, at that time I will remember you. And Hermoniem is also interpreted as “the way of a lamp,” as though holy baptism opens to them a way of illumination and radiance into the mind and heart. The cataracts of God are the very deep words concerning him, or the divine prophets. The teaching of Jesus, then, being an abyss, calls upon the abyss from the old Scripture. And perhaps also, since the judgments of God are a great abyss, it is established that the judgments of some depend on other judgments, and those on others, and all from the word of God, which is said to be a little mountain, having the cause; for “God the Word,” he says, is a great mountain, but a little mountain because of the voluntary emptying which he endured for our sake.

All your surgings and your waves passed over me. Since human life is figuratively a sea, the one who is not shipwrecked in it but sails upright, having experience of threefold waves and of those that come from the swelling of the sea in a storm, when he has come to the harbor of salvation will speak the verse: for he does not say "they pass over me," but "they passed over." We have all clearly grasped concerning God that he is merciful, but not all of us see how he shows mercy; for often the things that are known to be according to his mercy, because they are painful, we who are not well disposed neither think them to be merciful. But the one who has grasped that everything God brings on he brings on for our benefit—that one will see what it means that "in the night he declared his mercy, which in the day he commanded." The voice speaks with boldness; for the one who says "Why have you forgotten me?" is confident that he has done nothing for which God forgets. And since I walk with a gloomy face under an enemy who presses me hard, I ask what the cause of this is, so that if it is from me, I may do away with it through repentance. For we have all clearly grasped concerning God that he is merciful, even if not all of us see how he shows mercy; for often the things that come about according to his mercy, because they are painful, we who are not well disposed neither think them to be merciful, and for this reason we say, "Why have you forgotten me?" But the one who has grasped that everything God brings on he brings on for our benefit will say nothing of the sort, unless perhaps he is working out his own repentance. By the bones that go before, the well-toned doctrines of the soul and its powers are meant.

Since it often happens that our bones are crushed by terrible sophists, the deceivers reproach us, saying nothing else but, Where is your God, in whom you hope? He says that he has been instructed by his wisdom, but he also speaks to his own soul about this suffering, saying, Why are you deeply grieved? For having hoped in the Lord, confess; for his face will certainly shine upon you—nothing other than the face of truth—so that you, having the truth from God, are able to dissolve the deceits of those who crush the bones set before you. May the Lord's face be the one saying these things; and the unholy nation will mean the Jewish nation, and the unjust and deceitful man will mean Judas. One must consider why he said not "unholy" but "not holy" of the nation. For perhaps, not cutting off the hopes of repentance, and by saying "not holy," he hints that, if it should turn back through repentance, it will become holy. But another has introduced the face of the Savior saying to the Father the things in the psalm, and naming the Jews the "not holy nation," and Judas the "unjust and deceitful man"; but he was not able to fit what is said with what follows; for how was it possible for him to say, Send out your light and your truth, and the things that follow?

Since the Savior is the true light and says that he himself is the truth, the people before his coming, having learned from the prophecies that the light and the truth of God would shine forth, besought that the light and the truth be sent through the incarnation, so that they might be guided by them to the holy mountain, the loftier discourse concerning the Trinity, and to the eternal tabernacles. The light and the truth are not different in essence (for both are the Son of God), but only in conception; for in that it frees from shadow and falsehood it is truth, and in that it frees from error and ignorance it is light. The words I will enter in are not spoken idly; for he who has received the image of the intelligible altar from the sensible altar will enter in to God himself, invisibly offering sacrifices upon it. To God, who makes my youth glad—a youth set in opposition to the old man; for only he who grows young in spirit and mind, akin to the new man and to the newness of the spirit, will enter in to God, who makes such youth glad. Those who wish to discredit the divine Scripture as not being precise in its words and meanings, using the present phrase that says, O God, we have heard with our ears, say: For who, when he hears, does not hear with his own ears? But from the very things by which they wish to discredit it, they have the refutation of their own stupidity. For what the singers say is of this sort: those who hear rationally do not hear with the ears that are called the common organs of sense, but with the ears proper to human beings, as also musical men would say—

The musical lessons are heard by the ears of musical men. Therefore they also say, "To our ears," not contrasting with anything else but saying "To our ears." To these things agrees, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." "Our fathers announced to us." Either the fathers in instruction announced the divine things, or the ancestors announced the things done in their own times. "Your hand destroyed the nations and planted them." With reference to the understanding of Israel after they betrayed the Savior, those from the nations, having been destroyed from the hand of God, were planted by divine instruction in the God-inspired Scriptures. Having afflicted the peoples of the circumcision, God cast them out from the sacred instruction of the law. But those from the nations who believed, having conquered not by the law of war, inherited the land just mentioned. Nor did their arm save them, that is, their own labor. For they have received salvation by grace from your right hand and your arm, that is, from the only-begotten Son. And the illumination that enlightens your face, since you were well pleased in them to save them by grace, not from their works, so that they might not boast. The salvations of Jacob, who trips up the base things—by which he is saved—God commands the holy spirits who are sent for service, because of those who are about to inherit salvation, to proceed quickly to their aid and to give the assistance that comes through them.

Just as God has given a horn as a means of defense to certain irrational animals, so that they may ward off the things able to harm them, so for the saints the horns are the powers of Jesus, by which they gore their enemies. Therefore also all the animals that use horns, being clean, are either led up to the divine altar or become food in the portion of God. God is thrust away from himself not altogether on account of sin but also on account of other causes which he himself knows. But not everyone who turns to the things behind undergoes this in a blameworthy way; for if someone, having abandoned the base things, should flee far away by withdrawing from them, this one, having turned to the things behind, falls into destruction upon the things he has left behind. But if someone, having abandoned Zion, that is, virtue, should hasten toward the evil called Babylon, turning to the things behind he receives a blessed thing; except that those who say the things set before them, since they have come to be among enemies, having turned to the things behind, have fallen into blameworthy circumstances. Those who say these things seem, being certain saints, to have been given similarly to the one led as a sheep to the slaughter, as sheep of food, becoming food for those who receive their words and life for benefit; but also among the nations these were scattered by God, cast down in a farming manner after the likeness of seed, so that having transformed the nations into the same quality as themselves they might lead them on. For one must not attend to those who say that the portion of God has been scattered among the nations in the manner of captivity. He did not, he says, having received honor, hand them over for the people, but on account of the sins which they have committed they have become subject to enemies.

For they were sold by their sins, according to the prophet. Since we have fallen into the aforementioned things, being put to shame throughout our whole life, we have our shame before us, the shame of our face covering us, so that we no longer have boldness to reflect the glory of the Lord with the unveiled face of the soul. From the voice of the one who reproaches and, like one deranged, speaks nonsense, he sees that the whole day is shame before him. But from the one who shows himself terrible, driving out the enemy, shame has covered his face. The voice of those who have taken up perfect courage: for when many and various afflictions came upon them and forced them to forget God, they called God to mind from the opposite, as each one might say, "In affliction I remembered the Lord." God turns someone's paths aside from his own way, handing him over to the desires of his own heart and to a reprobate mind.

The place of affliction is the region around the earth and the subterranean place, where those who have experience of the body of death are humbled. The impressions in the heart, and what follows, must be addressed next. If these things are said figuratively, what is indicated is as follows: since we are clothed with dust composed of pleasures and the other passions, for this reason our soul was humbled to the dust, since we have been cast down to the ground; and indeed our belly cleaved to the earth, since we feed on nothing heavenly but, like the serpent, eat earth all the days of our life. But if the present passage is expounded allegorically, the soul that enters into the body will say, Our soul was humbled to the dust—this soul, having fallen even from the blessed life that is heavenly, in its thinking on things below will say, Our belly cleaved to the earth; for it is not nourished on other things, but on earthly things. These things, they say, they who deem themselves worthy to obtain help and redemption say for no other reason than His name. And they would say these things also to the Savior, who dwells in the heart of the earth at the time of His passion, so that having risen He might provide aid and give His soul as a ransom in exchange for many. And He does these things for the glory of His name. The goal for those who are advancing and changing from one quality to another is to press on toward the best of qualities, according to which they might be shown to be incorruptible and immortal. Since this, then, is the end, for those who shall be changed—that is, those who have been changed and have become earnest out of worthless—the sons of Korah, changing all things into understanding, bring forth a song concerning the beloved, chanting.

Here "beloved" means the only-begotten Son of God. It is on his account that the victory song is sung concerning the beloved, because he has changed us, giving incorruption in place of corruption. If it is the Father's person speaking, he would say: "Since I alone am good, the Word that came from my essence must also be good." But if it is the prophet speaking, we say: "Since the good man brings forth good from the good treasure of his heart, the one who has been fed on adulterous foods that contain much good must also belch forth a good word." For just as one who has eaten an apple sends out a belch breathing of apple, so one who has eaten good things, so as to delight his soul in good things, sends out a good word, belching it forth. Therefore, just as in the case of the quality of foods what is produced depends on it, so too in the case of spiritual teaching, such things as he was fed he also belched forth. They too, in their writings, set down certain instructions. For just as the word of the gospel, compared to a mustard seed, if it finds cultivation, becomes greater than human words, which are called vegetables because of their transitory nature, so the word of God, when it writes, is shown in its own season by its own pen to be beautiful, in contrast to human writings, since it touches the thoughts and settles into the souls. Those who hear the words of Jesus, which are full of grace, will say what is set before us; and it has often been shown that "lips" is said instead of "words." The phrase "were poured out" indicates the abundance of grace; in harmony with this is "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh," and "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts.

For in these things too the abundance of the Spirit and the wealth of the love that comes from God are made clear. It is because of this grace poured out on your lips that God has blessed you, bearing witness to your eloquence forever. Since the things of generation are at work around the thigh, and shameful desires grow up around these, there is need of the cutting word, called a sword, so that, being girded at the thigh, one may cut off unbridled pleasures. The Savior, then, in the human pattern, laying down the best manner of life for the sake of complete purity, is girded with a sword upon his thigh, having beauty and comeliness because of the virtue that is present in him in sinlessness; and that the thigh is a symbol of the things just mentioned is clear. For Abraham too, when sending his servant to seek a bride, says, Put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the God of heaven. Perhaps because of the Savior who was to come from him according to the flesh, the Word who became flesh can be understood in this way. So then it is understood and believed that the Word is the sword, and the flesh is the thigh, since the flesh has its origin from there. And this one, toward whom the Word is directed, having escaped every weakness, is mighty, having the radiance of divinity as his comeliness and beauty. And having stretched his bow, the best archer prospers, wounding those who are struck into a divine love. And it should be read, "You prosper," as equivalent to "provide a good journey"; and in addition to these things, reign over those struck by longing. And the cause of your reigning is perfection of virtue, not in action alone but also in knowledge. For "because of truth and gentleness and righteousness" means this:

For he says, reign, in order that truth be known and gentleness and righteousness be set right among those under your rule. And your right hand will guide you wondrously. The one who does all things according to God is wondrously guided by the practical right hand of good things, using it as his own leader on the road to the Savior. And the Savior, accomplishing wondrous powers skillfully, is wondrously guided by his own right hand. The words of the mighty Christ strike their hearers like sharpened arrows, so that they prefer following him above all things. Wounded by these arrows, the apostles dismissed everything at their feet and judged it good to follow him; but also the peoples who formerly had a base standing, because they were established in evils, struck by these arrows fell beneath him, that is, they were subjected to him and came under him. The enemies of King Christ are all who sin. Whenever, then, the aforementioned arrows come to be in their heart, they fall from their enmity, kneeling to the King. Or perhaps the peoples who stood in the heart of the King's enemies, confirmed according to the will of their enmity, having been struck by the arrows fell under Christ, falling down in the heart of his enemies. But if these things refer to the only-begotten Son of God, the Son of God, having hated the lawlessness that prevailed before his coming, and having loved the righteousness that springs from faith through his presence, gave himself over by the Father's good pleasure to become man and to be anointed with the oil of gladness, that is, with the Holy Spirit.

The garments of Christ, being royal and at the same time hierarchical, breathe of myrrh, through which he took on death (for this is the spice laid upon buried corpses), but also of stacte, which is the flower of myrrh, because the death of Christ had something more—that it came to be for the salvation of others and the destruction of the devil—and of cassia because of his word, which is fiery; for this perfume is warming. The garments of Christ, then, are the things that are reasonably theologized about him. Since, therefore, along with the others he also received the honor of being hymned as one who played the champion as a dead man, reasonably the aforementioned things breathe from his garments. With this agrees the verse, The scent of your perfumes is above all spices. Kings here must be called those who reign together with Christ, of whom he himself is King of kings. Their daughters have come to be, according to the teaching with which they instruct souls—or rather, churches; these daughters, being in the honor of the one who is hymned, gladdened the king Christ from heavy ivory. You will call heavy ivory the lofty theologies; for ivory, being teeth, is a symbol of the word; for the teeth are also vocal instruments; and heavy are the great houses. Since, therefore, they magnified their own word so as to become a very great house of contemplations concerning God, the many daughters of the kings gladdened from the aforementioned heavy ivory

The soul that has truly become the spouse of Christ, the true King—or the Church—is called a queen because she is the bride of a king, standing at his right hand, occupying the place of honor, having her foundation in virtue and faith. She also has garments woven with gold, having put on Christ; she is clothed and adorned, having taken up the manifold wisdom of God. One should not take offense that he is himself both bridegroom and garment; for these things exist according to different relationships and conceptions, just as in the Gospels he is found to be both shepherd and lamb and countless other things. A change of person is shown to have occurred; for it is God who addresses the Church from the nations, which he also calls his daughter. So he says: Having received my words, O daughter, hear and see, applying your mind to them; for you will desire all the more to incline your ear, to hear them more fully and to long for them more earnestly. And forgetfulness of your kindred will follow you, since you no longer wish to wrap yourself in their customs and ancestral ways; and you will forget also the house of your father who begot you through the wickedness of the devil. Therefore I call you, O daughter, God says to her, to do the things commanded you; since my Son, being King, desired the beauty that is in you, who were made according to my image and likeness; and he himself, this same King who desires your beauty, is not one of your equals. For he himself is your Lord; for he is not an angel or an archangel or any other created being.

For all worship him. Since worship belongs to God, know that the king who desires your beauty is God, who is also your lord. Moreover, know that you have undergone a great change. For though you were a daughter of Tyre because of the superstition you had, you have been called my daughter, so that all the rich of the people bring supplications before your face. For all the people of the circumcision who are rich in faith come to you and entreat your face, because you have become the consort of the king. For just as formerly those from the nations who came to the worship of God according to God became proselytes to Israel, entreating his face, so now those from the Jews who repent flee to the church of the nations, asking to be received by it. All the glory of the daughter of kings is Eshebon. Eshebon is interpreted as reasonings. The king of the reasonings, which are righteous, is the Lord. Therefore the glory of the daughter of Tyre who is hymned comes from nowhere else than from the king of reasonings. But one must know that in many places of the Scriptures gold is taken in place of the intelligible essence, as will be shown in due course. Since, then, among the virtues that are in her garments the discourse concerning intelligible things is also woven in, especially the discourse concerning the Trinity, she is clothed with golden fringes, variegated because of the manifold and multiform nature of Christ's teaching. Since the expression has obscurity, we will take its meaning from another passage. In the Song of Songs, interpreting the differences among the souls that come to Christ, the discourse says:

There are queens and concubines and maidens without number; one is my dove, my perfect one; so that it is said of her, The daughters saw her and blessed her, the queens and concubines praised her. From these words it is shown that the maidens and concubines and queens are different from the daughters who have been mentioned. It is made clear from these terms that the souls who come to Christ—those who do not yet have a time of marriage are maidens, while those who have already come together with him, having been united with him—the noble ones and those who have transcended the world that came into being in six days are sixty queens, while those who have received the circumcision of the eighth day, still having the spirit of slavery, are eighty concubines. But she who surpasses them all, fashioned in spirit so as to be a perfect dove of the Word, is the glorious church, which has no spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Praising this church in the preceding verses, the psalmist now says that after her the maidens will be brought to her bridegroom the king—maidens who formerly did not have the season of living together with him, but now, because they have been perfected, are led into the bridal chamber, so that having lain with the king they may be taken up to become members of the one perfect bride, no longer being other than her, as they once were when imperfect. Even if there are many undefiled souls, which custom calls virgins, not all are already carried off to the king, but those who have come near and close in disposition to the perfect bride. And well is it said, They shall be brought.

For those who have not yet had experience of the word of the bridegroom are not of themselves able to go to him; but those who hand over to them the preliminary teachings lead them to him; and these are the law and the prophets. Since almost everything in the psalm is spoken with reference to Christ, this verse too may mean that instead of the fathers you had according to the flesh—that is, those of the circumcision—sons were begotten to you from the same race, who received the gospel word. And these you also appointed rulers over all the earth, saying to them, Go and make disciples of all the nations, they being witnesses of him as having become viceroys of the king to the ends of the earth. Therefore the peoples will give thanks in confession, not for one or a second age, but even unto the age of the age. For the confession made over sins we are not permitted now to name. For it happens once and not unto the age of the age; for it is possible to repent and confess only in this age. But if "They shall be remembered" stands in another copy instead of "Those appointed by you to rule," the meaning is that they will remember your name in every generation and generation, because you extend your kingdom unto all the ages. It is the custom to call things spoken obscurely, for the sake of some dispensation, "hidden"; for in this way the wisdom of God is also hidden in a mystery; and so "the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" have been called "secret.

So these hidden things too have an end, as it were a goal: either that the knowledge of divine things escape the notice of the unworthy, or that those who have a desire for the comprehension of divine knowledge, having given themselves over to labors and ascetic exercises, may attain the goal. God is not the God of all, but of those who have renounced every human refuge and power. For those who flee for refuge to God have all security and power by participating in him, so as to say with the apostle: I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me. A helper in the afflictions that have found us exceedingly. The word exceedingly is placed ambiguously; for either he is exceedingly a helper in the afflictions that find us, or he is a helper in the afflictions that exceedingly find us. Mountains being moved in the hearts of the seas should not be understood as the perceptible parts of the earth, but as evil powers being moved into souls disturbed by the surges of passions, where there is some salt-tasting draught of wickedness and bitterness of character. Indeed the Savior also said to the disciples: If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will not only do the thing of the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, nothing will be impossible for you; and the mountain shown by the Savior is nothing other than the opposing power. For concerning the demon that causes lunacy he again said: If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there, comparing the most perfect faith to a grain of mustard seed. For the apostle also says: If I have all faith so as to remove mountains. By the Christ's

By their strength the evil spirits were thrown into confusion, being driven out from souls and bodies that had been previously possessed. For these, thinking great things of themselves, having suddenly seen the one who drives them out with authority, fell into confusion. A city of God must be understood to be called either the church or the heavenly Jerusalem. This city, which is in either way designated as God's city, the rushing streams of the river gladden. And the river is the Word of God, which flows out of Eden, the divine delight, and waters the whole spiritual paradise and calls all to himself: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." And its rushing streams are the teachings given in part, or the thoughts which he suggests to the soul. The Most High, being holy by essence, is a giver of holiness; hence he sanctifies all in whom he dwells, who are called his dwelling place. And it is possible that even the body he took from the virgin, being his dwelling place, sanctifies those who are in it. In agreement with this is: "The holy thing that is born in you shall be called the Son of the living God." God, established in the midst of the city, shall not be shaken, not abandoning it because of the sinlessness that belongs to it. For he is shaken by those who sin; hence he is found walking with Adam when he sins, and in Zechariah he says, "The Lord shall go forth in the shaking of a threat." There is another scripture that says, "God will help her with his countenance." For he saves her beauty, inviolate and incorruptible—that is, the intelligible beauty—so that she may not receive any confusion from the adversaries.

For when the soul keeps its faith in itself free from accusation and adorns itself with the beauties of every virtue, it has the intelligible beauty in which Christ himself also rejoices. But if it is diverted from what is fitting, it immediately takes on a repulsive and unpleasing appearance; yet the Church, he says, will not suffer this, for he preserves her beauty. He calls the swarms of the demons warring against her “nations.” So when these behold the incarnate manifestation of the Savior, they are thrown into confusion against his Church and are filled with fear. And then there will follow also the bending down of the blameworthy kingdoms, over which death and sin reigned. But if you also call the ruled “kingdom,” these too were bent down, turning from error to the knowledge of the truth and from vice to virtue. While God is silent, earthly and material things seem to have firmness and stability, but they are shaken when God gives his voice; for whenever God cries out to the mind, everything earthly in it is at once moved away. And when God has given the voice according to the Gospel, the earth has been shaken, as all the customs upon it are changed—ancestral laws, oracles, and whatever else belongs to impious deceit—while the nations are thrown into confusion and the kingdoms bend down. With the earth being shaken, we take courage, having with us the Lord of powers, the God of Jacob, who supports us. And just as the one who does the works of Abraham is his child, so the one who imitates the discipline of Jacob happens to be his son, having support from the God of Jacob.

The Holy Spirit calls to the understanding of these things those who see keenly, bringing them near through "Come" and preparing them to fix their gaze on the truth through "See." The apostles also filled the inhabited world with wonders, running everywhere and both recounting the things that had happened through him and working miracles in his name. The Word can also call the nations, from the wonders seen in creation, to recognize its Creator. Having come and destroyed the devil who held the power of death and the other evil powers, he raised up wars as far as the ends of the earth—that is, of those who have passed beyond earthly things—shattering the bow from which the fiery arrows of the evil one were shot; but he will also burn up with fire the shield of unbelief that is set in opposition to the shield of faith. No one who sins and devotes himself to error can know God; for everyone who sins has not seen him nor known him. Whoever, then, wishes to know God, having renounced every distraction, will know who God is, as the present oracle says: "Be at leisure and know." Understanding this, the tyrant of Egypt subjected the Hebrews to distractions, so that they might not draw God to themselves, saying, "Be at leisure; you are people of leisure; therefore you say, 'Let us go and worship our God.'

Since "hands" is often used in place of "actions," and the nations were practicing their various rites according to their diverse ancestral customs before the coming, the Savior, when he visited among men, commands that a clapping take place—that is, a harmony of the practical powers of the nations, which are figuratively called "hands." It is not enough for salvation that there be a harmony of action, unless there is also with these a right mind. Therefore he also commands the nations to shout aloud "in a voice of exultation" together with the clapping. And he is "fearful" also in that he is to be revered, so that those who contemplate him may hold reverence toward him. It is not doubtful that he rules over the things above. But since some are in doubt about the earth, whether he also holds sway over it, the present verse is spoken, and especially on account of those who circumscribe providence as far as the lunar sphere, not wishing the things beneath the earth to be under providence. You will understand it also in this way: he subjected to the holy apostles the peoples from the circumcision and the nations under their feet, ordaining them rulers and teachers of all men, having chosen his own inheritance, which is no other than the election of Israel and of Jacob, which he himself chose and loved. And by "Jacob" he means the whole people of the Hebrews. From this is recognized the impartiality of God, who loved the beauty of Jacob and nothing else; for "in every nation the one who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him." And the shout of those who have fallen in battle is a notable voice, in which he ascends; and he ascends, being found above our understanding.

It seems that the grandeur and clarity of the doctrines is called the sound of a trumpet; for in the plain sense and in the Gospel a trumpet is taken, as in the saying, But when you do alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, that is, do not make it manifest. Sing not only perceptibly according to the shadow of the law but also spiritually according to the Gospel. Or perhaps by the doubling he commands that this be done without interruption and continually. And this same doubling of "sing" must be referred to Christ the King; for as Creator he is God, and as Providential he is King. Therefore to the same one who is both God and King one must sing without interruption. The one who sings must also have understanding of what is uttered in the song. For one must not be occupied primarily with the modulation and melody of the voice, but must understand what is sung. For God rejects those who do not sing in this way but merely produce a sound, saying, Remove from me the sound of your songs, and the psalm of your instruments I will not hear. But he sings with understanding who acts according to the divine teachings and understands them. The rulers of the peoples are the apostles, or the leaders of the churches, gathered together with the God of Abraham, in order to bring near the peoples who are benefited toward him; for he is their God too, since they have become children of Abraham. Consider whether the angels can be rulers of the peoples, concerning whom it is said, He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God, who are also gathered together with the God of Abraham, since by faith the portions of which they are rulers were made sons to Abraham. The mighty ones of the earth are the

Those from among men who have conducted themselves rightly, being lifted up by thinking the things above and by seeking the things above. For these, having been greatly lifted up, being raised on high by divine knowledge and virtue, have become God's; for the mighty ones of the earth, having become God's possession, were lifted up. The exultation of all the earth, having a root and good roots, is perhaps none other than the one who said, I am the true vine. For he himself is the exultation of all the earth, being the cause and provider of exultation. But I do not know from what source some, having been moved, supposed that the place where the Savior suffered was signified by the present word; for they say that the Savior was crucified on the northern sides of Zion, the place of the skull being there. But we say, following many Scriptures, that the north is none other than the devil, according to Exalt yourself, O north, and come, now. Therefore his sides are evil men, just as they say the sides of a ruler are his bodyguards. So the evil men who serve as bodyguards to the devil, being formerly his sides, changing to such an extent in virtue, shone forth, so as not merely to be called Zion but to be shown to be its mountain. Paul, then, when he was a side of the north, was not a traitor; changing, he was called a mountain of the church, Zion being the church. And since the woman is called the side of the man, and the souls that have become yoked to the devil, being his sides through fellowship with him, have become through change a mountain of Zion, so as even to be called a city of that great king, Christ.

For this is what the phrase means, saying: Zion, the ancient sides of the north, of the great king—understanding again a great king by preeminence of power, not of magnitude. And of this city there are also certain high and great towers, its own, in which God is known when he takes hold of the city. These towers are of the same kind as the house which the one who heard the words of Jesus and did them builds upon the rock. In the city the kings have come and been gathered into it, having become of one accord, having been fitted together with the same mind and the same purpose; and these kings are those who have reigned according to God, such as Abraham, to whom certain people said, though he was not reigning perceptibly: You are a king from God among us. These, having seen those who were formerly sides of the north ascending to such a height as to be a mountain of Zion, marveled, struck with amazement at the transformation taking place in the rational nature. And whenever one sees those who were base becoming earnest and wise, having marveled at the change, if he should consider that the reverse can happen—that the earnest and wise, being able to change, may fall—having reflected on this, he will produce disturbance and tumult even in those who have advanced greatly in virtue, so that trembling from fear takes hold of them. In accord with this is: In the places of the ungodly the righteous groan; when those fall, they become fearful. There are pangs as of a woman giving birth.

In the city of the great king it is likely that there are souls that have become pregnant from the bridegroom, and having formed the seeds deposited by him, they have a time of delivery, so that they even travail at becoming mothers of offspring. But the name of travail can signify the labors that concern those who have been disturbed and shaken, upon whom trembling laid hold. With a violent wind he will shatter the ships of Tarshish. The bodies of souls are called ships in many places of the Scripture, as also in the verse, Those who go down to the sea in ships. These bodies, then, being corruptible and changeable in essence, when the divine Spirit assails them vehemently, are shattered, that is, dissolved, so that at the time of the resurrection they may become incorruptible, strong, glorious, and spiritual, from corruptible, weak, dishonorable, and soulish. And not simply so, but these ships are of Tarshish, the name Tarshish being changed in the Greek tongue to mean the observation of joy. For then the bodies are praiseworthily shattered, being subdued and put to death, whenever those who surround them observe the divine joy. While we are in this life, we hear many things about the heavenly city of God and the spiritual goods in it from prophetic words and the rest of the God-inspired Scripture. If, then, having been transplanted from the earth, we come to be in the Jerusalem above, comparing the things contemplated in it with what we formerly heard, we will say, As we have heard, so also have we seen. And it is also the city of our God, since he himself founded it forever. And the Savior is he about whom these things are said.

For the Father, showing him, said, "This one will build my city," himself being the craftsman and maker, the God of the city that has foundations, which all the righteous also await. Just as "your name is wonderful in all the earth," so also is your praise, according to "The earth is full of his praise." The ends of the earth must be considered to be the boundaries and the farthest reaches, or those who have passed over from earth to heaven, upon whom the name of God and his praise have come. Since the church is called Zion, its mountain is the Lord, to whom those who have hoped in the Lord are made like. Judea is interpreted as confession, and the souls that partake of the state of confession are the daughters of Judea. Perhaps also all divinely inspired Scripture is called Judea by the same name as the place in which it was given, in which God is known. The daughters, then, of Judea understood in either way, having applied themselves as far as possible to the judgments of the Lord, which are true and justified, will rejoice together. And since the judgments of the Lord are unsearchable, at present they do not rejoice, but they will rejoice when they have then applied themselves to the truth face to face. Since the church's mind is contemplative of the truth and is for this reason called Zion, it is fitting to encompass it with understanding, so that having comprehended the doctrines of the truth, we may circumscribe them with our own thought as in a circle. And since the city of God is fortified on every side against the enemies that come against it, it also has towers built in, from which it is possible to observe the enemies that approach.

And since the enemies of the city are now warring against it, it is necessary that those who are in its towers also declare it. In harmony with this is also the saying, "I set watchmen upon your walls day and night; they will not be silent continually, remembering the Lord"; and by this Wisdom also is proclaimed upon the tops of the walls. Therefore set your heart, that is, your mind, understanding in a scientific manner the power of Zion (and this is the teaching of the Church), and divide it by distinguishing, attending to each one. For just as it is possible by reason to divide existing things into substance and accident, and genera into species, so also it is possible to divide the power of Zion into its strongholds; and its strongholds are the contemplations pertaining to each one, in which the doctrines of piety dwell. And do this, that you may declare it to another generation that he is our God. Since the former generation, which received the city and its power, was convicted as evil and adulterous and crooked and perverse from its own heresy, attending to the power of the city and dividing its strongholds, you will know the things concerning the calling of the nations, which is another generation besides the former, to which also you will declare that this is God who performed the aforementioned paradoxes, having rejected the former generation and called another and others. And this God, concerning whom the present theology is, always remains the same and in like manner, "For ever, and unto the age of the age"; and "He himself will shepherd us for ever," according to what is said: "And he shall stand and shall see and shall shepherd his flock in strength, the Lord.

Make ready your hearing—not the hearing common to other living creatures, but that of the inner man, by which we understand what is heard, as the Savior says: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Since among those called Gentiles for hearing, some are earthy, wholly of matter and of the earthly mind, while others, having become sons of men in knowledge and instruction, devote themselves to tested teachings and words, he calls not only the herd-like and brutish but also the understanding, saying: "Hear this, you earth-born among the Gentiles, and sons of men." For teachers are debtors not only to the wise but also to the foolish. "I bring forth wisdom from the mouth"—having first meditated understanding in the heart. For then can one offer a wise word without reproach, when he has a mind well exercised in understanding. He who has learned divine things will also be able to hand them on well. Therefore, after inclining his ear to a parable, he promises to open it—that is, to make clear his problem on the psaltery. For what he set before himself, declaring it musically and rhythmically in contemplation, he opens on the psaltery as his problem. And the word of him who utters the truth as one ought is set to music. Perhaps, too, he who demonstrates in deeds the divine words that are problems opens each of the problems on the psaltery, which is composed of sense and power. If then lawlessness should encircle me from my heel, it is not from elsewhere: the serpent, from the ancestral way, has injected it into the heel of Adam.

All who are born are of the same race and brothers, yet no one is able to ransom his own brother who has sinned. For that man alone will ransom, concerning whom it is said, "He will send to them a man who will save them," who also says concerning himself, "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you." And this man, since he knew no sin nor did he commit sin, will not give to God his own atonement, which is given on behalf of those who sin, nor will he offer the price of the ransom of his soul; but having labored in virtue he will live forever, never at any time to die. The words "He will not give to God his own atonement" can also be said concerning the one who is ransomed. For not each person is able to give atonement on his own behalf, since Christ propitiates all in his own blood; nor is anyone able to give the price sufficient for the ransom of his own soul, since Christ gave his own soul as a ransom for all. And even if he will not give atonement nor the price of the ransom of his soul, nevertheless after being redeemed he receives commandments, so that by laboring according to them he may be able to live forever, having obtained eternal life. The one redeemed by Christ will thus hold his salvation so securely as not to be shaken or easily moved, since indeed he sees even those reputed to be wise dying, and is not scandalized so as to see corruption. For being scandalized at the sight must not be attributed to this one but to those reputed to be wise. He calls "Anoun" not the one wholly cut off but the evil-minded and evil-disposed.

For we are accustomed to call the ill-favored "faceless" and the ill-skilled "unskilled." So likewise the ill-disposed and ill-minded will undergo punishment together; for their destruction is their own, because of which they will leave their wealth, which they wickedly treasured up, to strangers; for no one is a proper heir of the one who says these things, of the foolish and senseless rich man. This foolish and senseless man, not knowing themselves who they are, supposed that their soul does not persist like the irrational animals. For they say, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." These think that the tombs in which they are entombed are their houses forever, not expecting the resurrection of the dead; but they also think that their tents are their graves in every generation and generation, having hoped miserably in this life alone. Perhaps also, doing nothing living but being dead through the sins they commit, cast down into a grave, they think the grave is an eternal house. These also called their names upon the lands. For the names of the apostles, through what they do or think, are written in the heavens, but those about whom the word speaks called their own names upon their own lands, being enrolled as citizens of the earth through what they do; for having revolted, they will be written upon the earth. Man has come to be according to the image and likeness of God, and having been shown to be rational, he has the greatest honor. But not understanding this, but acting with irrationality, he is compared to senseless cattle, having become a horse mad after females and having imitated the impulses of the other irrational animals.

He was likened to senseless beasts, though he had the hope of being likened to God if he so willed. For in the age to come the upright will be over five and ten cities. And Solomon also says this very thing in Proverbs: A greedy man hastens to be rich, and he does not know that the merciful will have power over him. Even if the things foretold have happened to most people, nevertheless God will take my soul from Hades, which holds it and wishes to swallow it down. And since the sinner is in Hades according to his condition, he who has forgiveness of the sins that rule over him gives thanks to God, who took his soul from the very hand of Hades. The rich man set before us, not knowing another life in his own life, thinks that his soul is blessed in this one; and only then does he give thanks, when you make him good through the granting of material desires. He had fathers who begot him by wicked deeds and a most evil mind. Acting in the same way as they did, he imitated his begetters, and to the generation of his fathers, being made like them, he will enter into the same abyss of ignorance of the good as they. For this man, having accepted only the present life, did not hasten to behold the light; therefore it is said that he does not draw near to it forever; for perhaps, condemned in the outer darkness, he will not be permitted to behold the eternal light any longer.

He calls "gods" not the statues and the demons but the human beings who partake of the words of God; for those to whom the word of God came were called gods. The Lord is God of these gods, as also King of kings. And again, he says, to those from the rising of the sun and as far as the setting, it has shone forth to know that from Zion the splendor of his beauty has come to be. For he was shown to be from the seed of David according to the flesh. He himself, the God of gods, who called all the earth to partake of him, not in secret nor hiddenly but openly, will come at his second presence in glory with his angels; and he will not keep silent, rendering judgment to each according to his works and his deed. And it should be noted that in the present passage too he makes clear both comings of Christ, the first through "from Zion the splendor," and the second through "God will come openly." Since the giving of the law was given with heaven and earth as witnesses, as it is written in Deuteronomy, it is necessary that the people, being judged with the same witnesses before whom they received the law, be examined as having transgressed the divine laws. He summons, then, heaven above, that is, the divine powers, and the earth, I mean those who dwell upon it, in order that those who were adopted as sons upon them might be convicted; for "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth," while the children of God are being publicly proclaimed; for having received the law before you, they did not keep it. Perhaps he commands angels or sacred men, that they might gather his holy ones for the

To make and establish his covenant with God upon spiritual sacrifices—and sacrifices of praise and any other such things. Therefore, accepting the sacrifices upon which the spiritual covenant rests, he commands his holy ones to be gathered to him, so that they may fulfill what was said before. The heavens will proclaim righteousness, being holy men who bear the image of the heavenly one. God reproves not the things themselves that are offered but the disposition with which they are offered; for he reproved Cain too for not rightly dividing, since he ought to have offered rightly. And even if someone offers a spiritual sacrifice, as whole burnt offerings through the complete consecration of his own body, let him do this with a right mind; for one is reproved not for the things done, which are praiseworthy, but for the mind that performs them not rightly. Since those in your house, figuratively called calves, appeared as enemies to the Savior—about whom it is also said, Many calves encircled me, fat bulls surrounded me—for this reason I will not accept them, nor the young goats reckoned along with them. For these too, offering themselves for sin, nonetheless sin. For know that the beasts of the forest, once wild—the men from the nations grown savage—being tamed by divine teaching, have become mine, having previously dwelt in barrenness; for the forest is a symbol of this. But also the cattle, as it were the sheep of Christ, and the oxen that have gone up beyond your house—that is, beyond the shadow of the law—dwelling in the doctrines of the gospel (because they are on the heights of mountains), are our possession.

Paul, not [as] oxen—[he means] those on the mountains—having set forth the law concerning an ox, added: Does God care about oxen? Or does he say this entirely for our sake? But also the souls that have become high-flying, winged with right thoughts and activities, are called birds of heaven—I have known; for I am the one who knows those who are mine. The good earth that received the seed sown by Jesus and bore fruit a hundred, sixty, thirty, having the full and ripe fruit, is the beauty of the field, not being far from the sower; for he himself says: The beauty of the field is with me. The Savior hungers for the salvation of certain people, just as indeed concerning the salvation of the Samaritan woman he says to the disciples: I have food to eat that you do not know, and: My food is to do the will of the one who sent me. Since, therefore, those who come from the circumcision bring to him, as though he were hungry, the perceptible services of the shadow, he says: If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for I have as my possession the glorious church, which is called the inhabited world, and its fullness. And its fullness is the gospel, not the type, the shadow. Being fed, therefore, with the fullness of the nations, I will not demand from you food according to the shadow; but if you wish to serve me, who truly am God, your God, sacrifice to me a sacrifice of praise, praising and theologizing; for I accept these offerings: For I desire mercy rather than sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. He is the same, both God and Most High and the one who rescues from affliction. And he calls the fitting hymns of the righteous a sacrifice of praise, and vows the promises.

For he also says in the twenty-first psalm, "I will pay my vows before those who fear him." Since "the praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner," God rebukes the one who sins, saying, "Why do you recount my statutes, and why do you take up my covenant in your mouth?" For it was necessary that you receive it in your heart and imprint your thoughts according to it, and so bring forth the words of my covenant. With this agrees, "You who preach not to steal, do you steal?" and the rest. But you may also understand it according to the deeper meaning in this way: if ever you saw someone of a different opinion stealing the meaning of the truth, and you consented and ran along with him—but also those who attempt to commit adultery against the bride of Christ by drawing the souls of the church to themselves, if you agreed with them or did not turn away from them, you were placing your portion with the adulterers. You will say that this expression fits those who profess to be of the church but enter into communion with men who are not of the church. "Your mouth has abounded in wickedness." The one who does not know the good but does evil sins less; but the one who sins after knowing the good has an intensified wickedness. Therefore also the servant who knew his master's will and did not do it will be beaten with many blows. But it can also be understood in this way:

Since he took up the covenant of God with his mouth while his heart was full of sin, out of the abundance of the heart—evil as it was—he had an excess of wickedness in his mouth, so that he even used his tongue, by which he thinks to weave deceits, to entangle heretical words, which are sophistries. "You sat and spoke against your brother, and set a stumbling block against the son of your mother." According to the literal sense, a brother can be one born of the same womb and the same father, and a son of a mother the one born of the same womb, even if by another father. So the one who is thus disposed toward brothers, whom else will he be able to love? As for the meaning: since the word is addressed to a Jew who sensibly offers whole burnt offerings and sacrifices to God, it must be said that this is spoken in the person of God to him: "You who sit"—that is, you speak against your brother who thinks and lives according to the spirit of the law, while you are occupied with the letter of the law. And know that this one is also a son of your mother; for the spirit and the letter of the law were conceived from the same purpose. And you cause the son of the mother to stumble, setting as an offense and stumbling block the way of life according to the shadowy and fleshly circumcision. "These things you did, and I kept silence." The silence of God is called his long-suffering toward sinners; for whenever he does not punish them on the spot, he is not silent in declaring what they must suffer. This meaning is also contained in "I have been silent from eternity, shall I also be silent forever and endure? says the Lord." So he says to the one being reproved:

You did these things, which were foretold as sins, and I kept silent, through silence and long-suffering giving a place for repentance from afar. Though you ought to have been helped by such silence, on the contrary you supposed, in addition to the evils you had, lawlessness, according to which you think I am like you; for you supposed that I, rejoicing in the things you do, do not proceed against you. You who have taken up forgetfulness of God through slackness, receive understanding of what has been said, attending to the fact that even when I am long-suffering over sins, I do not rejoice nor do this as one who is wicked, but by goodness and innate kindness I offer an occasion for repentance by postponing punishment. For if you are not willing to understand, the law—or rather lawlessness—seizes you, and there is no one to deliver; for God will deliver those who are with the wicked and have repented. Indeed, those who confess over things that have ceased and are no longer at work confess, saying: We have acted lawlessly, we have done wrong, we have acted impiously. For it is no longer possible for one who is still doing these things to confess. That is, the praise that hymns and theologizes glorifies him; for the perceptible praise rather dishonors him, introducing God as needy and requiring the fat of sacrifices. Not here in perceptible worship, but there where praise exists in truth, is the way that God shows when he illuminates his salvation—the only-begotten Son, who is savior or salvation itself; for the salvation of God sometimes signifies salvation, and sometimes the Savior, Christ.

But let no one take from this an occasion to trample upon David; for since God has justified him, there is no one who condemns. And you will be reverent concerning the man when you consider that, being long-lived and having spent most of his years in dominions and kingship, he is introduced as having committed this one sin only, and toward this, the measuring of the people contrary to the will of God—but so that he did not even keep the sin persistently. For being so great and so eminent a king, when he was reproved for what he sinned by a private man, he not only was not indignant, but also condemned himself, so that the prophet who reproved him said: And the Lord has brought away your sin. For the phrase And the Lord showed means that David himself also, by bringing the sin away through most vehement repentance, did so. We shall say, then, that other men fall when they sin, but the saints, running the course of salvation, if ever as men they have been careless and stumbled, do not fall down but continue in the course, so that the course remains uninterrupted and they do not seem to have stumbled; and for many other profitable reasons the sins of the saints were recorded, of which this is one. For since they had surpassing virtue, those who were called to imitate them, hesitating, would have alleged that the saints were a divine portion and not susceptible of sin, while they themselves were not such, and so were unable to imitate saints of such greatness. Therefore Providence granted that an occasion of sin should arise concerning them, so that they might be teachers of repentance as well as of virtue for those being trained at that time, whenever they have done what they have done.

Perhaps also those who have reached the very height of virtue did not come to this glory by their own power but by God's cooperation; lest they fall into conceit, divine grace overlooked them for a little while, so that, having slipped, they might seek the helper of their own weakness, having come to self-awareness. And this fiftieth psalm has been recorded not in vain. For the number has a harmony with mercy and forgiveness, since, if the writing spirit were preserving the sequence of the history, it would have placed before this one the first and fiftieth and those following in order. For the first and fiftieth has a superscription containing the slander of Doeg the Syrian; and this history is before the reign of David. And the slander of the Ziphites against Saul concerning David, as being hidden among them, is contained in the fifty-third; and this narrative too took place before the reign of David, whereas the union with Bathsheba took place while David was king. If, then, the sequence of the history were being preserved, this would not be the fiftieth, being placed after those. But that the number has an analogy to mercy, the Savior, when teaching about forgiveness, took debtors liable for fifty and five hundred denarii, forgiveness having been granted to both, because fifty and the related number are owed; and this is the five hundredth.

At the Passover, when the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world has been slain, and when he who has made remission has risen from the dead, we the people spend fifty days rejoicing, being counted worthy of the fiftieth day of the outpouring of the Spirit. And what is called among the Hebrews the Jubilee is the festal year that comes around through fifty years, in which cancellations of debts and freedoms of the Hebrews and restorations of possessions are confirmed; hence it is fitting that the psalm concerning David's repentance has also been placed as the fiftieth. And it is composed of seven weeks and a unit, so that there is a number of weeks of weeks. It was necessary, then, that the one who casts off the burden and the work of sin should come to be in [a state of] weeks. He who repents intensely and loves the fruits that befit repentance asks also that the great mercy from God may come upon him, since repentance is not sufficient without the mercy of God, nor is the mercy of God without the change of mind that is in our power, for salvation. For just as dyes that are hard to wash out become faded not by one washing but by many, so also the great [deeds] of lawlessness are wiped away by the many compassions of God. He calls the same activity lawlessness and sin, differing in conception, in that without law

to establish lawlessness, but sin is established by transgression of the law; nevertheless, in either case he asks God to wash it away and cleanse it, since he is able to wash it away and cleanse it from the aforementioned condition. But he who has a sin once committed before him would not endure another; for we, forgetting the former things, commit others. Insofar as he was king, he was not subject to human law, and therefore he did not sin against any of the lawgivers, nor did he do evil before any of them; but since, in addition to being king, he wishes also to be God-fearing, he was subject to the law of God; therefore he also sinned against God alone, and did evil before him. And again: since God said that the mind of men is more inclined to evil, and that "There is no man who will not sin," even the perfect sinning, God is justified in his words in which he said that all have turned aside and together become worthless; and in this way he also prevails when judged against men, showing them to be sinners. In harmony with these things is "If we say, We have not sinned, we make him a liar"; for if he declared concerning all that they are inclined to sin, the one who boasts of sinlessness, as far as it depends on him, shows God to be a liar. The one trained in the sophistic condition, having come to know the greatness of truth for the hunt of it, conceived a perfect love for it. For those who have not trained themselves in falsehoods, having become more clear-sighted, behold the admirable beauty of truth, which Moses and Daniel did.

For after they had been tested by sophistical arguments and had ascended to true wisdom itself, they received testimony from God as being perfect wise men, since God showed them both the unclear and the hidden things of his wisdom, so that nothing was any longer unclear or shadowed for them. David too, being in this state, uttered the present verse. He who has genuinely approached the typical Passover is cleansed by the blood of the lamb among us, with hyssop being applied, as it is written in Exodus; but he who has received the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, being washed in the blood from his slaughter, is made white beyond snow. Both things happened in the case of David: for he was sprinkled with hyssop (the blood of the typical lamb) and was washed by Jesus so as to be made white beyond snow; and here he means intelligible snow. It has often been said that the bones are doctrines and powers of the soul; these are brought low by sin and sophistical sorcery. But when God causes them to hear exultation and gladness, the bones that have been brought low will exult. Sins are blotted out by participation in the virtues; for just as knowledge, coming into the soul, blots out and destroys ignorance, so by the presence of perfect virtue every sin is blotted out. If you blot out all my sins, which have been inscribed in my heart through impressions, you create in me a clean heart, deprived of every evil, but also renew a right spirit in my inward parts. And the inward parts of the soul are the right thoughts and earnest reasonings about which he says:

And bless all that is within me his name. "A right spirit" is either the Holy Spirit or the upright conscience, or what he calls the spirit of the man that is in him. It must be noted that the created voice does not signify essences but a certain relation that is intensified in those to whom it comes. While the zealous stand inseparably before the face of God, the sinner alone is cast out and rejected from him. But do not judge me, who am encompassed by your divine understanding, to be such a one as to be rejected from your face; but even the Holy Spirit whom you have enshrined in me, do not take away from me, so that I be stripped bare of him. Expecting the Savior's descent here below, on account of which it happens that we have perfect exultation, he entreats the Father, saying, "Restore to me the exultation of your salvation," so that you may establish me both in a governing and perfect spirit. And in both ways, even in these things, he calls "spirit" either the Holy Spirit, which rules and governs, or the spirit of the man that is in him, which is other than the soul of the man. And this governing spirit, according to the former interpretation, reaches out for establishment and confirmation in those to whom it comes. And in the superscription of the psalm we said that God sometimes overlooks the zealous so that they commit sin, in order that by repenting they may demonstrate in deed the teaching concerning repentance as well. For behold, even here what was said is confirmed; for through confession toward God he promises to teach the lawless his ways—God's own ways—so that having trodden them, even if they once acted impiously, they may turn back to him out of negligence.

For just as they have the imitation and outline of the best life who have set things right, so too those who have erred concerning knowledge have [him] to imitate who comes to repentance, being impious toward God and turning back. Since through the sins I have committed unto death I am full of bloods, from these rescue me, the God who once for all is and is ours. And perhaps David also asks to be rescued by God from the [sins] of Uriah and any others who died with him, from God being the God of his salvation. Our word, called "My tongue," in always speaking about your righteousness will exult in your righteousness. God opens the lips of that man who has received the word in the opening of his mouth, through which also his mouth will declare the praise of God, always praising and giving thanks to him. He who confesses his own sin, what does he intend by speaking about Zion and Jerusalem? But since we said that he was not altogether harmed by stumbling in the swift course, for this reason, still having a prophetic disposition and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, he prays and prophesies, saying, "Do good to Zion in your good pleasure," she who has become [good] through your Son and draws near through the Spirit; but also the walls of Jerusalem are built. And these are guards of angels or the founding of indissoluble doctrines. He calls righteousness that which through faith in Jesus Christ is established for all who believe. And this righteousness is a bringing-up and spiritual whole burnt offerings, and the [saying] "Sacrifice a sacrifice of righteousness.

But also at the spiritual altar they will offer calves that plough the fields, drawing ploughs—souls that are not other than the souls of the martyrs, seen beside the heavenly altar and offered upon it in the manner of calves. For in the Revelation of John the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the name of Jesus and his testimony have been seen beneath the heavenly altar. 552a. But who ought to provide the pretext for so great a tragedy, if not the herdsman of irrational animals? For he was the leader of a herd of mules. At any rate David, understanding his great wickedness, or the devil who stirred up the envy in him, uttered the words of the psalm as though addressing him as present. b. The word "Day" here signifies manifestation, or the whole time during which he acts lawlessly. "Words of a sinking" are those that bring punishment, "sinking" signifying chastisement, as also "The lips of a fool sink him." And Doek the Edomite, truly interpreted as "earthly," is always being shaken because he is unstable; for Doek is interpreted as "a shaking"—he who, having wrought slander against the servants of God, loved a deceitful tongue and with it words that sink him. And the Gospel shows that chastisement is a sinking, saying to the one who causes one of the little ones in the church to stumble: "It is better for him to be sunk in the depth of the sea.

...a millstone of an ass to be placed around his neck. Because he loved harmful things to the end—that is, completely—he will bring you down as one who was not built well, but also as one who was planted badly he will uproot, he who says, Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be rooted out; but he will also make you migrate from the sacred tabernacle, casting you out and driving you into exile from that tabernacle whose priests you have slandered and led to death, and moreover also your root from the land of the living. For even if he was an Edomite, yet he became a proselyte to Israel through the instruction of the law, and was planted in the tabernacle and in the land of the living; for if he had not had reverence for the God of Israel, he would not have come to be troubled in the temple. But the things said against this man will apply to all who fall away from piety. The very devout, when they see some falling away from virtue into vice, take fear lest they suffer the same things. But these men would also mock at the one who was caught, as if laughing at him, saying, This man did not set God as his helper; for otherwise he would not have slandered his servants and attendants. You will compare with these things, He who rejects you rejects me. He shows thanksgiving through confessing to God for having made him, perhaps what he asked for or what he had proposed. For he had proposed to flee Saul. But also, he says, I will wait for your name, whenever I obtain it, because it is good and full of goodness before your holy ones; for those who have accomplished holiness perceive the goodness of your name.

The fool must be understood to be the one deprived of divine understanding. For it appears that the one of whom the word speaks is not preserving the common understanding. For knowing that the notion of God has been implanted in every soul, embracing godlessness, he said in no other place than in his own heart that there is no God. And thus the foolish devil, not in the heart that is another's—but that is the heart dedicated to God—but in the heart that came to be from himself through sinning, said that there is no God. For the one who thinks wickedly about God proceeds also to the rest of wickedness; for casting out piety from his own soul, he has cast out together with it every virtue that follows piety as a queen. At any rate, those who through folly say that there is no God corrupted their own mind in the lawless deeds which they committed, from which they became abhorred—that is, they became abominable. And next it is added: Whether all are sinning, or even those who seem to do the good, not doing it properly and truly but doing it so that they might receive some type of it through a mirror and in a riddle. The present verse introduces God as provident, not only over the things in heaven but also over the things on earth; for it is said that from heaven he looks down providentially upon the sons of men, not looking upon them from outside according to the body only but also according to the hidden part of the heart. At any rate he looks upon the sons of men, so that he may see whether there is one who understands by doing good and who seeks God by examining the truth. And in a human way, and from what we know, it is said that he stoops down from heaven and sees whether there is one who understands.

For with a great, so to speak, intensity of vision he has knowledge of the one who is hidden from all. And from the word set before us we learn that sin consists in transgression of the law, to which it follows that no one is evil by nature. For all have turned aside; and this turning aside is sin, being a failure of the straight way. And at the same time those who turn aside have become useless; calling useless either the domination of the passions or the ignorance of the one who does not understand, being confounded by passing from one thing to another, by not having mastered the one thing of which he has knowledge. Since, then, all have turned aside, it has reasonably been said, There is none who does good. In each of the two ways mentioned, the addition of even one shows either that there is not even one who does good, or that there is not even one doing good. Since wisdom will not enter a soul skilled in evil, they will not know what they ought to know according to divine knowledge. For it must be read not as a question but as a denial. The statement, There they were afraid with fear where there was no fear, can be referred to the age to come; where, having escaped pain and groaning and grief, one ought to have confidence. In this state, then, when there is no fear, those who bring upon themselves the things for which they will be punished will be afraid. And for this reason they will be afraid, because God has there made manifest those who became hypocrites here and whose aim was to please men, scattering their bones—the doctrines and practices that are offspring of wickedness and conceit and the thoughts of a base soul.

For even if here they seemed to have some glory among men who pleased them, deceiving them, yet at any rate, having been despised by God as being nothing, they were put to shame. And perhaps those who work evil will also meet with the punishments foretold. But those who hypocritically pretend virtue to please men will not experience another punishment, since their hypocrisy has been exposed; for example, the one who gives alms in order to be glorified by men will not be punished by fire or any other such thing (for he has shown mercy), but he will be put to shame, having been shown to have shared his possessions with the poor not for God's sake but for men's. For sin is that which takes captive those who practice it. But when forgiveness of sins is granted, Israel is glad and Jacob rejoices, like those who rejoice in the heavens over one sinner who repents. Christ is the power of the Father. And he will judge the hidden things of men, and he exhorts that they be handed over for examination not to other judges but to the power of the good God; for he will obtain pardon for what he overlooked, and vengeance will come upon those who vainly plunder him. He prays that his prayer may become acceptable and that he may receive the things for which he prayed. But also, as one who has come near to God through good works, he said, Give ear to the words of my mouth. For no one who utters an idle word or speaks something shameful or any other evil wishes God to give ear to his words, but only and every one who speaks what is true and pious.

He calls "strangers" those who hold a purpose contrary to that of the earnest, and "mighty" the wicked demons. And he says: since they did not set God before them, having turned away from him and given him their backs, they rose up against the righteous man and sought his soul. He confesses that he has God as a helper, perhaps the Father and Lord taking hold of his soul, so that he might say the Son will turn back the evils upon my enemies; for whatever harms they wished to bring upon me, these he turns back upon them, the Lord having so judged. In agreement with this is "Do to him as he did wickedly to his neighbor." And the truth of God, convicting those who are liars, destroys them if they are such; for the saint prays not that they be utterly slain, but that they be slain insofar as they are such. When these things have come to pass, coming to thanksgiving by his own free choice, he says, "I will sacrifice to you willingly," not with necessity or force calling him to this, but with self-commanded eagerness.

Offering prayer to God, he entreats him to draw near to him in such a way as to receive into his ears the prayer he has brought. For he who is near gives ear to the one who speaks, receiving the word into his ears. And since I pray, not trusting from elsewhere that what is lacking in me will be filled up except from you, do not overlook the entreaty for which I pray. And give heed to me as I lift up holy hands without anger and without disputing, standing before you in an orderly and priestly manner, and hear the words which I send up from a pure conscience. The enemy can be the same as the sinner, the difference being only in relation. So when the sinner oppresses by the evil things he does, and the enemy of the truth speaks blasphemies, I was grieved in my talk and I was troubled. "Talk" here signifies prayer, as also in the first book of Kingdoms, where Anna says, "From the abundance of my talk I have stretched out until now"; for she says this about her own prayer. The saint, then, says: seeing the enemy speaking arrogantly and oppressing the sinner, conversing with God in prayer, I was grieved; seeing those of the same substance and same race as I have fallen into the depth of evil, so as even to be troubled at the mutability of nature, lest perhaps I too should undergo this change. And perhaps he is grieved and troubled most providentially, seeing the wicked deranged, as a father grieves over a son who has gone mad. For some say that this psalm was spoken in the person of Christ according to his humanity, and it fits him to grieve over those who are harmed.

Every earnest person knows that sinning in thoughts is one thing and is even tolerable, while sinning in deeds and words is another, and is dangerous and grave. Therefore, whenever a disturbance and harm happen to occur in his thoughts, keeping them within himself, he neither brings forth a word in accordance with the hidden sin nor acts in a way that produces an effect, knowing that the thought is sometimes curable and sometimes incurable; therefore he says, My heart was troubled within me. For I did not interpret the trouble nor do anything according to it, but even when cowardice fell upon me—the death that follows sin—I restrained it within myself. For it happens that cowardice appears from outside and the one indicated becomes a stumbling block to others. And the words Fear and trembling came upon me and darkness covered me belong to human nature's possessing the passible, the irascible, and the concupiscible, as some call them; even if one progresses in virtue, the passible is not destroyed, and it happens that he comes into what is called pre-passion. At any rate, the person here presented, pushed by the voices of the enemy and uprooted by the affliction of the sinner, had the passible that was in him, so as to fear and to fall into trembling and to be covered by the darkness of perplexity; for the word darkness here signifies vertigo. And since many distressing things surrounded him, he prays that the understandings of the Spirit be given to him—understandings that lift up and raise aloft the wings of a dove, allegorically so named.

These same wings make them fly upward, so that the one who has flown up, having ceased there, may for the rest live without care, keeping sabbath—the delicate and blessed sabbaths of God. The word "to put to flight" signifies to pursue and to turn those who are driven into flight. At any rate, the one who speaks the psalm says: "Behold, I have lengthened," that is, by putting the enemy and the sinner to flight at great length, so that, once they had been driven away, I might lodge in the wilderness—that is, take my rest in a peaceful condition. But if "to put to flight" here should mean specifically "to flee," the righteous man will say, fleeing and removing far from those of the circumcision because of the arrogance that attends them: "And I lodged in the wilderness," the assembly of the law and the prophets. These things fit especially the Christ according to the economy. For doing these things symbolically, he was recorded in the Gospels; for it says, "When he heard that John had been handed over, he withdrew from there to a desert place." Concerning this wilderness is also "Rejoice, thirsty wilderness," and "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." Agreement for evil is a terrible thing, and, conversely, the dissolution of those who have agreed for evil is a great good. And so those who have been of one mind for the

By the tower-building, because they had one voice and one lip, all were hindered, seized by the greatest impiety, so as no longer to have unanimity. For what they were about to do—acting impiously out of agreement—this they did not do, since their tongues were divided. And here, then, the one praying wishes that the tongues of those who spoke with one voice against him be divided, their tongues being sunk, that is, becoming invisible. And before this it has been said that "to sink" signifies punishment. And Paul, then, knowing that the disagreement of the wicked among themselves is sometimes advantageous, while defending himself at the steps, set the Pharisees and Sadducees at odds. This can be referred to "Behold, I have gone far away in flight and lodged in the wilderness," the two verses in between having been spoken from "I was waiting for God who saves me" as far as "Divide their tongues," so that what is said is as follows: since in the city thought to be God's, Jerusalem, I saw lawlessness and contradiction—of those acting lawlessly and contradicting the truth—I went far away in flight from it, so that, having come to be in the church from the nations, which is called a wilderness, I might lodge in it, resting and passing the night among the believers. Since always, by night and by day, they act lawlessly and contradict in the city, so that the city was encircled by lawlessness and contradiction and by the army that came upon it because of these evils, lawlessness and contradiction reached even its walls—the holy apostles who guarded it.

For they did not abandon her when they saw her being lawless and contradicting, because lawlessness and toil, opposed to the praiseworthy pleasure, came to be in her midst together with injustice, so that offspring and deceit did not cease from her broad places, as those who dwell in her deal deceitfully through the things they think wickedly, and toil by taking upon themselves the burden of evil, which is compared to lead. And one must consider her broad places to be the souls that widen themselves because of their love of pleasure, by walking the broad and spacious way—that is, the opinionated and passionate life. For in these also, toil over evils and deceit over deceits, always remaining, cause the saying to be fulfilled: Offspring and deceit did not cease from her broad places. Know me, instead of be known by me, you who at the same time made foods sweet to me, feeding me together with the other disciples with good works. For one of the ancients said that only those who have instruction in the divine teachings go down alive into Hades. For the one who has not tasted the words of life is dead; those who live in this way go down into Hades. For it is not possible for those who live the common life to go down alive into Hades, since it is not natural for a body to come to be there, with which one has the common life. Since, then, Judas and the whole people of the Jews had instruction in the law and the prophets, when death, which follows sin, comes upon them, living they go down into Hades. Accordingly, the verse that follows is also spoken: For wickedness is in their sojournings, in their midst.

For even if they had experience of the life-giving Scriptures, they did not dwell in them but sojourned in them, by having evil in their midst—that is, in the ruling faculty; for it is said to be in the midst of the whole living being. I cried to God, and I obtained my voice heard by the Lord. For only the one who has cried to God is heard by the Lord. For not everyone who cries to God shouts; concerning the Sodomites it is written, The voice of Sodom and Gomorrah has multiplied—not of those crying to God. Since the narration of a pious man is always wisdom, being pious and always narrating wisdom, the psalmist says: In the evening, when the things of evil set for me and the light of the impious is extinguished, the sun of righteousness will rise for me, so as to make me as in the morning; when it has reached its height, having come to midday, I will narrate the things of the aforementioned evening and of the fore-announced morning and of the aforementioned midday; and while I report these things, God will hear my voice, accepting and (that I may so speak) delighting in my voice, which has narrated all things. But he says that God exists before the ages, not that he came to exist. For if he had said "came to exist," he too would have a beginning, having existed recently within some measured interval. Therefore he said The One Who Exists, positing his existence as without beginning and eternal, and by Before the ages laying down the beginning of the existence of the ages. But one must understand the ages as extensions of created things. And the Savior also, being eternal from the eternal, is before the ages, since the ages themselves came to be through him.

And Paul too says, "And he is," he says, "before all things"; and "existing" is equivalent to "before all things"; for he did not say, "And he himself came to be before all things." And the Savior, concerning himself, did not say, "Before Abraham came to be, I was," but "I am." Of sins, some are hard to cure or even incurable, and others are curable. And for curable sins it is possible to find as a recompense the sacrifice offered for sins—but also almsgiving and fasting with prayer (for these rescue from death)—but for those who have sinned incurably there is no recompense, ransom, or deliverance to be deposited. For if a man sins against a man and they pray for him, there is a recompense for these; but if he sins against the Lord God, who will pray for him? For there is no recompense for such sins. He stretched out his hand in rendering the things worthy of what they did. For since they became traitors and murderers of Christ, having committed lawless deeds that cannot be reconciled, they were seen to be worthy to fall under punishment. They were therefore captured by the Romans, so as to be enslaved and driven out of the land that had nurtured them—which has never happened to any other nation. And these were cast off, never to return to their fatherland. For they profaned the covenant of God, not accepting but even putting to death the one foretold by it. And perhaps also, since the covenant was appointed to be kept in the perceptible sense until a time, when the time was fulfilled in which it was necessary for it to change from the fleshly to the spiritual, they, by persisting in the typical worship, profaned his covenant.

Therefore he also stretched out his punitive hand and delivered them up, so that his wrath might come upon them to the end, by which they were also divided, no longer gathering together in his own land, but scattered in every nation. But the wrath of the face of God procured these things for them, since when his face shone forth and appeared, they did not receive it. For though they were thought to be gentle and smooth because they brought them forth with hypocrisy, they were arrows that kill and full of poison. But there are also those who interpret concerning God in this way: God brought his heart near, condescending to men and bringing forth words that heal like oil and loose the pains of the sick. But these words, gentle beyond oil, are found to be arrows to those who despise them, punishing those who despise them. And in many places the name of "arrow" is applied to punishments, and "arrow" and "dart" are the same in substance. God, not giving a shaking to the righteous, will bring down those who have profaned his covenant into a pit of corruption, which is the opposite of the pits from which the Word commands us to drink life and incorruption. Or perhaps by "pit of corruption" he means Hades, into which those corrupted in mind are brought down, delivered over by God's vote and judgment. Those whom he prays may be humbled by God, who exists before the ages, we shall understand to be the Jews. For they opposed the will of the Only-Begotten, not fearing God but even profaning his covenant.

But he calls them “men of bloods” who said, “His blood be upon us and upon our children,” being also guilty of all the blood of the righteous that has been poured out upon the earth. These same men are also men of deceit, always approaching the Savior and the saints deceitfully. These, then, he prays may not attain even to half of their days. For since, having turned away from the day that is constituted by the shining of the true light, they devised for themselves a day, as it were, of illumination through mythical traditions, and it is evil that their days be fulfilled in these things, he entreats that, their days being cut short midway, they may never attain to half of their days, so that the sun of righteousness may rise upon them, that they may become [people] of the day of the Lord. And with respect to the literal wording, one might press the text thus: since the impious, remaining in this life with an unrepentant disposition, do many evils, he, sparing them, deems it worthy that while human life is at its midpoint they be snatched from life, so that they may be punished for few sins and not many. These, he says, being so disposed, I have my expectation and hope in you, O Lord. Scripture ranks “being trampled” under contempt, just as it is said of the salt that has become foolish, “They cast it outside,” [and] to be trampled by men is also written concerning the one who despises Christ: “How much worse punishment do you think he will be deemed worthy of, who has trampled underfoot the Son of God?” And the saint, then, being despised by the man who is worthless on account of his baseness, according to [the words] “Where there is envy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and walking according to man?”—he deems it worthy to be shown mercy by God.

This one is unceasingly hostile and murderous, oppressing the righteous man in war all the day of his life, not wishing to be peaceful even to a small degree. But since in the parable of the tares the sower of them has been interpreted as the evil man, the devil, consider whether the present words might also have been spoken about him. “Beginning from much,” he says, “to do this”—or perhaps, having fallen from a higher day and life, they have come to be “my enemies.” God saves those who have fallen into wickedness freely, receiving nothing from them. For behold, he says, “you were sold for your sins, and you shall not be ransomed with silver,” being saved not by works but by grace. At any rate, “For nothing” means that he provides salvation to them without anything being given to him for it. The voice speaks with boldness toward God. For the one who lives not to sin but to God makes his life manifest to God through his very works, declaring it by disposition and action. The word spoken “for God” and “because of God” is praiseworthy, and likewise the account. Either he names the word and the account in parallel concerning the same thing, or he sets such appellations for one thing and another. For since the word is a part of the account, the one being introduced into piety, not yet able to share in the most complete account, begins from a word—that is, from a partial account. Indeed, first the word of the Lord comes upon Jeremiah, and after this the word of the Lord comes to him; and in Isaiah he says, “Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word.” And the word of the Lord is heard by the one who is in the introduction through it.

But if anyone will object, saying that a word is given to those who preach the good news with great power, let him know that it is with a view to the future knowledge and teaching that those who now know in part and prophesy receive a word, since the perfect word is given to them and the perfect knowledge shines upon them, so that what is in part is done away. Accepting, then, both the introduction and the most complete visitation of the word, he praises God with word and speech. And he calls "flesh" either man, or that flesh whose mind is hostile to God, not being subject to the law of God. For the one who is in this flesh cannot please God. He fears, then, lest flesh do something to him—the one who is in the Spirit, as one who has put to death the works of the flesh; for this one has truly hoped in God. 589 The one who prays is not properly disposed toward the things he promises through prayer; he has within himself the vows of praise which he will render to God. And vows of praise are those concerning praise; for just as one vows to do or render something to God, so one vows to praise God. And since being put to death is followed by being mourned and by tears being shed for him, and no one mourns the one who has died in soul except himself, reasonably, after the soul has been delivered from the death of ignorance concerning God—the intelligible death—his eyes also have been freed from tears. And he delivered his feet from slipping, having shod them with a shoe that lifts up and makes them above the earth. For I, says God, shod you with hyacinth.

The hyacinth, imitating the body of heaven, signifies the soul using a heavenly sandal, which is none other than the preparation of the gospel. When the one who is shod is lifted up, it follows that his feet are rescued from slipping concerning matter. 591 One is rescued from the aforementioned harmful things in order to please God, living and enlightened. For the one who pleases God does this while living in the light of the living, and everyone who partakes of God lives and is enlightened; for he himself, being life, is the light of men, according to "And the life was the light of men." 592 The doubling signifies that both in this life and in the one to come we need the mercy of God. He calls the divine care a shadow of wings. But if the shadow were distinguished beforehand from the truth, what he means is this: while I am in this life, I am in the shadow of the wings, hoping to come even to the wings themselves, having been winged by virtue and spiritual understanding. And the wings of God are either his protective powers or the lofty thoughts concerning him. The passing away of lawlessness signifies that it is temporary; at any rate Paul also, in the letter to the Hebrews, writes that the enjoyment of sin is temporary. Just as, therefore, it passes away, so also lawlessness began from some time; for concerning a certain form of it it has been said: "neither was it from the beginning, nor will it be forever." And not without reason did he say "the Most High." For since lawlessness is creeping and groveling on the ground, the one who seeks release from it cries out to the Most High, being lifted up on high by his cry, so that he may be far from the harmful beast.

The Lord is the one sent from heaven to save, who says, "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will." For God sent forth this his Word and healed those wounded by their corruptions, as David himself says elsewhere. But one might ask whether "sent from heaven" indicates a local dispatch from the bodily heaven. For it would seem unreasonable to attribute a local descent to God. Perhaps, then, the word "heaven" signifies the incorporeal and intelligible essence, according to "Store up treasures in the heavens," and "God is in the heaven above." He, then, who is in the form of God and equal to God, having taken the form of a servant, came to men. And this is what it means to be sent from heaven—that God the Word might become flesh and, appearing on earth, might dwell among men. Peter, mystagogically teaching the same things about the Holy Spirit, writes: "Now it has been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven"—for the Spirit, being sent from the intelligible essence, took up residence in the men who preached the gospel to you. Those before this who trampled on me by treating me with contempt were given over to reproach, since God sent from heaven so that I might be saved. For having seen the Son of God caring for my salvation, I saw them behaving shamefully and being reproached—those who trampled on what God saved. In the preceding verse, saying, "He sent from heaven,

Not having said what was sent from heaven, he now explains that it is mercy and truth that rescues his soul, which has come to be among enemies who trampled it down; and these are lions' whelps because of their savage and cruel temper. And mercy is not different in essence from truth, for the Savior is both. 598 “Sleep” often signifies rest, as in “In peace I will both lie down and sleep.” What he wishes to say, then, is this: even if I was troubled, being trampled by enemies and stunned by the whelps that took me in their midst, yet the trouble did not remain. For I slept, having been troubled—I did not remain troubled and awake, but I slept, casting off the trouble. The symbol of this was the woman held by a spirit of weakness, bent double and unable to raise herself up at all, whom Jesus loosed from the snares of Satan, being a daughter of Abraham. And perhaps every one who minds the things below has his soul bowed down, unable to look at the things above, insofar as it is such. By “peoples” you will understand those of the circumcision, and by “nations” those who repented from idols, so that there came to be one church. arg Those who in incorruption have loved the Lord, having come to the end of not corrupting the inscription, through the things they do well, raise it up. For as those who do the opposite perform these things badly, they make a forbidden pillar, of which the law says, “You shall not make for yourself a pillar,” which the Lord hated, showing that every one who does the forbidden things raises up a worthless life like a pillar.

Therefore you will reasonably say that the one who does good sets up a pillar as a symbol of the contests he has struggled through. For this is the fruit of righteousness, also in Proverbs: to understand true righteousness and to direct judgment. But he weaves injustice together with it, who joins sin by working evil without interruption. Of equal force with this is the saying, Each one is squeezed by the cords of his own sins. It is not without purpose that "in the earth" is added to "you work lawlessness"; for even if someone works lawlessness in his heart, he works it "in the earth," that is, in matters material. But those who dare to slander the Scriptures have mocked this expression too, saying that it is not possible to be led astray from the womb and to speak falsehood, for, they say, the account of sinning is completed once people have reached maturity. To them it must be said that they have not understood the custom of Scripture in these matters: the newborn infant is capable of virtue and vice potentially, but then receives one or the other of these states in actuality, when it has acquired knowledge of good and evil; for then the account is also completed, when it begins to act according to virtue. "From my mother's womb" is said of having done good. Such is what Job says: If I also ate my morsel alone and did not share it with the orphan—for from my mother's womb I guided them and reared them as a father. And so these too, of whom the account speaks, having first come to the completion of the account, began to act from error. And "to speak" according to the expression itself signifies "to have spoken" falsely. Perhaps also, as in the preceding verse, there is another birth.

Those born from worthless teaching had from the very womb of her who bore them both to wander and to speak lies. They say that the asp stops up its ears, the one called the "murderous" asp. For whenever a charmer, according to his skill, brings forth some incantation able to lull it to sleep, if it hears, it stops up its ears so as not to hear the voice of the charmer, which is a drug prepared by a wise man. These also stop up, not the ears of sense but the ears of understanding, so that they may not hear those who bring forth wise incantations, prophetic and apostolic. For each of these is a wise druggist, that is, one who prepares a rational drug to ward off the asp's attack. But "of a drug" must be read in apposition, that is, jointly and not verbally—"they are drugged." This God does for them, doing good, so that they may not devour the men deceived by them and become liable to exceeding punishment; and he has shattered their molars at any rate, so that they may neither bite nor devour. And it must be noted that in Scripture molars differ from teeth: for the incisors and those that divide the food are teeth, while the molars are those that chew and grind it smooth. And just as water that passes through some channel, not remaining but being dispersed, is brought to nothing and becomes easily despised, so also these will be made of no account, having nothing firm and abiding, but having received in passing a watery and fluid life. And earlier we said that his arrows signify his punishments, and the bow is that from which the arrows are released; these are the discerning power of God.

He will not bend this bow, nor will he relax it until those who are struck grow weak; and their weakness works for their good, since the strength they had for evil is destroyed. And just as wax that is melted is destroyed insofar as it is meltable and has a thickness of its original substance when that substance is changed into fire, so the wicked, having experienced punishment, melt away and cast off the thickness that comes from their depraved condition. And before punishment there is the true light, which is the sun of righteousness; for after punishment it is not possible to gaze upon the radiance of the intelligible sun. Hence it is said here: that when the punitive light fell upon them, those who fell into punishment did not see the sun. But those who understand the passions that are allegorically called thorns will not be tried by punishing wrath; but before they understand the thorns and the bramble that are spoken of spiritually, as it were living, they will be swallowed up by wrath; for not living but being like the living, they will be seized by wrath. For to swallow down, according to Scripture, means to overpower and conquer, since the one swallowed down is already overpowered and conquered. So then the mortal is also swallowed down by life, when life overpowers and conquers death. He does not rejoice with malicious joy, but because he himself is not subject to punishment and purifies his own deeds, becoming more secure. Though one man, Saul, pursues him, he prays to be delivered from more enemies. Perhaps, then, calling the bodyguards who breathe in harmony with Saul, or the accursed demons who work against him, "enemies" in the plural against himself, he prays to be delivered from them.

And he prays to be redeemed from those who rise up against him, desiring perhaps that the coming of the one who was to come might take place, to give his own soul as a ransom in exchange for many. And the workers of lawlessness are those who do the things the law forbids; and since murder is among the forbidden things, those who set themselves to destroy human beings because of the cruelty that is in them are men of blood. And the one who is not harmed by them is delivered from those who work lawlessness, since God protects him; and the one who is not handed over into the hands of those who wish to shed his blood is also saved from murderous men. And in another way: someone is delivered from these; for the one who does not work lawlessness but is disposed in the opposite way from those who do it has been delivered from a practical disposition toward acts of lawlessness, just as the one who is outside a murderous intent has been saved, not being counted among murderous men. And the verses must also be interpreted in this way: since, while the devil and his angels work the doing of lawlessness among human beings, humans commit lawlessness, he prays to be delivered from the devil and those with him who go before in the work of lawlessness. A testimony to this understanding: from the beginning the devil sins. For when he goes first, these follow in sinning in the things in which he works. For when he had put into the heart of Judas the betrayal

he became a traitor by intent, having followed the thought about betrayal that ran in him from the one who urged him to this. And it is well said that he adds "men" to the murderous deed; for it is not the act of any chance person but of one strong and complete in evils to shed the blood of a man. As for the purpose and cruelty of Saul and of those sent by him to seize him from his own house and put him to death, he says, "They hunted my soul," even if by the power of God he was saved by the wondrous device of his wife. The verse may be interpreted concerning invisible enemies who are eager to hunt a soul—those who prepared Saul as a murderer against David, who had become blameless toward him in all things. And he shows that those who set upon him were "strong"—the king and those of his own company—and, as regards the deeper meaning, the principalities and the authorities and the world-rulers of this darkness. And it is well said, "They ran and spoke"; for the utterance belongs to one who has completed the course. For just as doing and having done are not the same, so running and having run are not the same. Paul, then, is the teacher of both: at one time he says, "Thus I run, as not uncertainly," and at another, "I have finished the course," since the one who has finished the course no longer runs. But someone will object to what has been said, bringing forward the confession concerning the sin involving Uriah, since he also confessed to God, saying, "Wash me more thoroughly from my lawlessness, and cleanse me from my sin." And the deed concerning which the confession was made took place after the death of Saul.

Since this is true, how is it that the one who was pursued by Saul while he was still alive said, as if he had already finished the race, "I ran without lawlessness and was made straight"? One must say in reply to the objection, first, that he says he directed his service toward Saul and toward himself without lawlessness, since that man plotted in vain, even if it was so; for up to that point, having run without lawlessness and directed his course, he was all that had been assigned to him. But since every created human being is by nature changeable, after he stumbled later he repented very readily; from this it is shown that he had no practice or habit toward sinning. While the enemies previously mentioned persist in their zeal against me, having been roused, come to meet me to help me, no longer being long-suffering toward them. And I beseech you, having been roused to meet me, to see that they do not rage against me on any pretext of mine, as though I had sinned against them. For neither my lawlessness nor my sin provoked them, but their own envious passion, grieved at our good repute. With the prayer concerning himself he includes the petition concerning all the nations, being both a lover of humanity and a prophet. For having foreknown prophetically the calling of the nations, he beseeches the Lord, the God of the divine powers, but also the God of Israel, to attend and visit the nations, so that he may heal them as they fare badly because of idolatry and the worship of demons. And the visitation of the nations comes about when the divine Word is sent to heal and save all from the corruptions that had previously seized them. He is, then, a physician of souls, healing those who are crushed in heart.

He calls him God of the powers and Lord either of the rational holy living beings and the heavenly armies. And as he is God of these powers, so also he is God of the discerning men called Israel, in the Hebrew tongue. David, being pursued by Saul because of the envy previously mentioned, knew that he would be the successor to the rule. And having seen prophetically what was to be, both from having been anointed for this by Samuel, and although he had not been fully assured in this way, he did not kill him when he was many times delivered into his hands, wishing to receive the rule lawfully from God, but not by attacking and murdering. From this resolve he says, "O God, my strength, I will keep watch for you," not purposing to appropriate it for himself but waiting to receive it from you. And I am confident in the assurance concerning this, having known by experience many times that you are both God and my helper. For even if it is not from our own power that I am worthy to receive the kingship, yet your mercy, going before me, will show me among my enemies, so that they indeed will be disciplined, falling under punishment, but I will receive the kingdom from you. And with respect to the meaning, the one who, like Abraham, has the kingship from God. For it is written that certain people said to the patriarch, who was not holding it perceptibly, "You are a king from God among us." He who reigns in a manner pleasing to God will say, "O my God, my strength, I will keep watch for you"; for you will bring into the kingdom those Corinthians who said, "And I wish that you had reigned, so that we also might reign with you." As for the historical sense: he asks that the enemies pressing upon him be rebuked by God, but not put to death.

For if they should die remaining base, they will not have a release from the divine law, but when they have been scattered by the power of God and handed over into captivity, they will groan to God, having had experience of affliction. But he wishes them also to be brought down from the height of arrogance which they have, the Lord who shields them doing this, the one who brings up the petition. For complete punishment prepares people for despair and also urges them on. But that David was interceding for this out of sparing them, so that, disciplined by the more moderate punishment, they might become sober, he adds what follows: for if they are scattered, they will at the same time be punished and will be able to be gathered together again after repenting. Likewise he wishes them also to be brought down, that is, to be humbled—the sin of their mouth, the word of their lips—bringing advantage both to those who are humbled and to the many, so that they may not be provoked to jealousy of those who speak in arrogance and utter unjust things. For those who have spoken with arrogance are those who have lied against the righteous man; when they receive an outcome contrary to their deeds, caught in the arrogance of their own words, they are convicted as having been caught transgressing the law.

From the very word that lies before us, one must refute the heretics who hold that the Creator is a defender. God is angry not in order to destroy, but in order to show mercy. With this agrees, "I will bless you, Lord, because you were angry with me unto salvation." For if he is angry unto salvation and for the sake of showing mercy, his anger is not a passion but is employed usefully. Those who are attached to material things and set their minds on earthly things†, because they are passionate, think that they have stability and freedom from disturbance in these things, but such a condition brings them harm; hence it is useful that it be shaken and disturbed by the mercy of God, in the manner of repentance. For when the soul has come to know that it is harmful to be entangled in material things and to set its mind on them, it would obtain disturbance and shaking, being transferred from the former base life to a serious one, and indeed, being crushed, having received perception of the crushings that came from the demons, it will call upon the Lord who is able to heal these things. It is shown to someone as hard things whenever it falls into painful circumstances; and if one accepts these for the repentance of former sins, he drinks the wine of compunction, receiving the cause of being compuncted unto repentance from the drinking. And in many places of the Scripture† the hard things, the circumstances, share the name of unmixed wine, as in "A cup of unmixed wine in the hand of the Lord." And the hard things also share the name with the so-called hard ways; in which psalm he speaks thus: "Because of the words of your lips I kept hard ways." For there the hard ways are spoken of as the ways according to virtue, because they are accomplished with much sweat and toil, but here the people saw hard things, having experienced afflictive ones.

What is the sign that God gives, or the illumination through which it is possible to have discernment of spirits, both of the good and of the evil? For when this knowledge is present, we flee from the worse things, becoming far from an evil work and an evil spirit. But the sign is given not to those who happen upon it but to those who are pious according to God. So that, remaining unharmed, your beloved ones might be delivered from the face of the bow, you gave the sign that was spoken of. And this too must be said: then they will be able to be delivered from invisible enemies, when your right hand saves, your only-begotten Son. For this one has often been interpreted as the right hand of God, especially where it was set forth, "I have secured you with my right hand, my righteous one," and "With my right hand I established the heaven." One must note that the things of the utterance stand in the reverse order to the order of the thought. For God first hears and saves, and this is the consequent harmony, since the phrase has, after "Save," "Hear me"—unless perhaps it should be understood thus: "Having saved by your right hand, hear me," the prayer being for me, who have been saved, not about being saved (for that has been said) but asking for divine goods, which are the gifts of the divine Spirit. And the beloved of God are those who are so through nobility of character, worthy to be loved by him; humans made according to the image of God, even if they have most especially fallen under sin, nevertheless, because of the essence of the soul, being intelligent and rational, would be his beloved. God speaks in everyone who partakes of holiness. Thus, then, Christ spoke also in Paul, who was holy, and in every prophet.

If the phrase is understood as referring to the Father, "Holy is the one in whom the Savior speaks" would be in agreement with "The Father who remains in me does the works," and "The Father has given me a commandment what to say and what to speak." These things suit the economy. 622 The one praying here, knowing himself to be far off from the one to whom he sends up the prayer, says that he is from the ends of the earth and that he cried out to God at the time when he was growing weary. For as he says in Ecclesiastes, "God is in heaven above, and you are on the earth below." By this expression is signified not a local separation but the difference between the uncreated essence and created things, the existence of God being said to be above in heaven by reason of the preeminence of his honor, while that of man is below on the earth because he has come from non-being into being. Looking to this difference, the Baptist also says that the Savior is from above, out of heaven, but that man is from the earth and speaks from the earth; for he brings forward what it is possible to say to a creature. We will understand that the Rock signifies Christ, who flows as a spiritual drink. The one who is in this Rock by participating in it (for it is wisdom and righteousness and sanctification) is lifted up in mind, being exalted by God. And those who have set before themselves to follow the Savior according to his exhortations, when he says, "Come after me," and again to Philip, "Follow me," using him as their guide, share in the same exaltation, having hoped to find no other leader of the road that leads to the cause of all things. David too, having obtained this gift, says to the Lord with a hymn, "You guided me, because you became my hope.

Not only did you become a guide, but you also became a tower for me from the face of the enemy. For having you as strength and as a tower of strength, I remained unharmed, even though the enemy stood face to face and wished to make war on me. Let the one who began to build this tower, having already laid the foundations, also complete the building, so as to place even a crown upon the house, so that you may not incur shame before those who pass by, who are accustomed to mock those who do not bring the way of life they have chosen to completion. The phrase "From the face of the enemy" and "You guided me" can be referred in this connection: You guided me from the face of the enemy, having become my hope, but you also became for me a tower of strength in addition to guiding me from the face of the enemy. The true and unfailing hope of the saints is the Savior, of whom Paul says, "And of Jesus Christ our hope," and the prophecy, "In him the nations shall hope"; for he himself is the one foretold to be the expectation of the nations. But a certain one, made perfect in holiness, dwells as a sojourner for the ages in that tabernacle, which is what "Who shall sojourn in your holy mountain?" indicates; for this is eternal, being the same as the tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. Nevertheless, even if such a tabernacle has this perfection, so as to be even a Holy of Holies, yet there is not after it a state surpassing rational beings, in which they shall be in the Father and the Son, or rather in the Trinity. Therefore it is said that one sojourns for the ages, but does not dwell, in the tabernacle. The one who has come to be in this house shall be sheltered in the shelter of the wings of God.

For he is rich, it says, and you provide great gifts; or rather, by granting to perfect human beings to become your sons, you have given them an inheritance. For even if it is expected to be given at the resurrection in the age to come, yet it has already been given to those prepared to be led to it at the proper time. And upon those who fear his name God has given an inheritance. If there is any difference between those who fear God and his name, and those who believe in him and in his name—since it has often been said that those who have been made familiar with God's appellation are inferior to those united to God himself—see how the inheritance has been given even to those who fear God; for if this grace has been granted to the inferior, much more to those who have advanced beyond. The king who has obtained the gifts that have been interpreted is someone in the sense in which it is said concerning the godly that they were a royal priesthood, a holy nation. In this sense the apostles too, expecting to reign, say to the Corinthians: You have reigned without us, that we also might reign with you. To such a one who has become king, years are added by the Lord, as day is brought on after day. For there must be a transition from a preceding luminous state to another that is likewise so, so that from what is called days the eternal years are completed, concerning which it is said: And I remembered your eternal years and meditated. And the life of those who take on days one after another extends as far as the days of generation of generations before God. Who will seek out his mercy and truth?

In many places of the divine teachings, the truth of God is joined together with his mercy; perhaps, then, since it is not possible for one who is clothed in human weakness to know the truth of God purely and cleanly, for this reason there is need of the mercy of God in addition to understanding the truth. What contributes to the present matter is that he wills all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For first it is necessary to be saved by the mercy of God, so that the knowledge of the truth may follow. For the salvation of human beings is the work of God's compassion; for God sent out his mercy and his truth, and what follows. Since, therefore, I have obtained from you what I asked and have become thus thankful, I will sing to your name, hymning through good works, thoughts, and words the appellation of yours that has been invoked upon me; and in addition to this, day by day I prayed that I would render back, just as Jacob says, "If God gives me bread to eat," and what follows, "everything that you give me I will tithe a tenth to you." For before these words is carried, "Jacob prayed, saying, 'If the Lord is with me' until 'I will tithe them a tenth.'" And it is well also to say that the vows are rendered back "day by day," and to sing to the name of God "forever and ever," by extending the singing to the name of the one who is hymned until the age to come, and by fulfilling the rendering back of vows as long as the time composed of days exists; and this is the time measured out by the life of each person.

...so that, while we are in life, we may pay our vows, in order that we may also be able to sing to the name of God forever and ever. 627b. Everyone who falls from virtue into wickedness is shaken; but this does not happen all at once, since a prior disturbance arises in the thoughts through the passions, after which, if a suitable action is added, there comes to the disturbed thoughts a tossing and a fall. Therefore, when a shameful desire or some other irrational impulse begins, the pious man must check the impulse toward action with his reasoning, with God's help, so that the tossing may not become greater. The Savior clearly teaches these things in the Gospel, removing the beginnings of sins so that, if they do not remain, the being shaken in practice may not become greater. 628. He who is founded and rooted in love is an unshakable wall and has a fortified fence, so that the wicked men who pass along the way and the evil powers may not pluck him. God surrounds with a fence the one who thus securely holds his fence, saying, "And I fenced it and placed a fence around it." For this fence consists of guarding angels and doctrines of truth and deeds performed according to virtue. While this remains, no one will be able to harm the divine fruits of the spiritual plant. But if it should ever happen that the guarded vineyard brings forth thorns instead of grapes, God, abandoning it, says, "I will remove its fence and it shall be for plundering, and I will tear down its wall and it shall be for trampling.

If this happens because a worthless fruit comes from us, the wall is made to lean and the fence is pushed away. *** 629 The honor of the wise — or: the wicked plot to thrust away virtue and piety, according to "Glory and honor and peace to everyone who works what is good." Dishonor, then, is wickedness; falling into it, those who have fallen, perceiving what they have suffered, say, "Our dishonor has covered us, to affliction." You will take also in this sense the words "Man, being in honor, did not understand." And since the deceivers who press upon us cannot drag anyone into wickedness by force, they did not "thrust away my honor," but "they plotted to thrust away"; for they are not able to seize the one who resists strongly. Those of the same kind are those about whom Paul writes: "By fair speeches and good words deceiving the hearts of the simple." Of the same mind is the saying: "If your enemy entreats you with a loud voice, do not be persuaded; for there are seven wickednesses in his soul," arising perhaps from the seven spirits which the unclean spirit takes along, being more wicked than itself **...having the seven wickednesses in his own soul, let him entreat, saying in a punitive sense, "In the morning, bright and pleasant things," do not be persuaded; for with his mouth he blesses, but in his heart he curses. "I will not remove" — since he who by sin is far removed from God becomes a wanderer, according to what is written concerning Jacob: "He grew fat, he grew thick, and he departed from God his Savior." 631 When God takes hold of me, I have not become a wanderer; whence I have salvation and glory in God; for I was not saved by my own power or skill.

He says that glory is with God, which the only God gives to those who seek him, and salvation—not of bodies but of the rational soul—which the one who believes in the Trinity has, according to what was said: "Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of souls." Therefore, even if some wave of turmoil forces me again, I place my hope in him who has often saved me. All the assemblies of the peoples who have believed from among the nations, so that you may no longer be without gods and without hope, hope in him without any cunning, having made your hearts manifest before him; for God will become your helper. To pour out one's heart before him is the same as loving him with the whole soul and with the whole heart. For in many places "to pour out" is used for abundant richness and provision, as in "The love of God has been poured out in your hearts through the Holy Spirit." To such people it was said, "Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood?"—although they are commanded not to have a small weight.