Breviarium In Psalmos

He stores up, and does not know for whom he will gather them. For often many store up and gather many things, which either the sloth of sons overturns, or the treasury seizes, or strangers plunder. But blessed is that man who stores up there, where thieves do not dig through nor steal, where he deserves to hear: As long as you did it to one of these least ones, you did it to me.

And now what is my expectation, is it not the Lord? and my substance is with you. Having left all things behind, I will wait for you, O Lord, because the substance of this life is not to be compared to that eternal blessedness.

Deliver me from all my iniquities. Past, present, and future. You have made me a reproach to the foolish one. While I was a sinner, I was made a reproach to the foolish devil, who is both the instigator and the accuser of all crimes. Therefore I desire to be cleansed in this world, lest he accuse me in your judgment.

I was silent and did not open my mouth, because you have done it. When he provoked me with insults, angers, and various reproaches, thinking that I was made by you, I answered nothing to the things that were being brought against me: Remove your plagues from me. For I feel that I have been corrected.

From the strength of your hand I have failed. With the hand of vengeance pressing upon me, the power of the offense failed, as the apostle Paul says: But when I am weak, then I am strong (II Cor. 12). By reproofs for iniquity you have corrected man. Every man is reproved for iniquity, whom the divine majesty does not wish to destroy. But he scourges every son whom he receives.

You have made his soul waste away like a spider. The soul wastes away when the flesh is restrained from luxuries and desires. This is to waste away, to be stupefied over former offenses. But he who does those things which are suited to worldly vanity weaves the webs of a spider, according to the prophet Isaiah (Is. 59): that is, by day and by night he is occupied in vain work, and works not useful things, but things that are dissoluble and incorruptible. But because the prophet says that the soul wastes away like a spider, this must be understood as meaning that by abstinence it is boiled down to such great subtlety that it is drawn out to the likeness of those threads: namely, that it contain nothing crude and hard of sin. Nevertheless, every man is vainly disturbed. Living in the vanities of this age. But even for him who lives in God, this worldly and useless disturbance is vain.

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and my supplication: give ear to my tears. Because I am a stranger away from you, and I have a desire to be dissolved and to pass over to you.

Do not be silent, for I am a sojourner with you, and a stranger like all my fathers. He calls himself a resident alien and a stranger, like all the saints: because just as they too, while they were in the body, were strangers from the Lord.

Forgive me that I may be refreshed before I depart, and I shall be no more. Forgive here, O Lord, if I have done anything wrong: because in hell there is no forgiveness: because not even confession avails. Do you deign to make us, who have been snatched from the pilgrimage of this world, citizens of the saints and members of the household of God the Father, so that, built up upon the most firm foundation into a holy temple, we may be made worthy to become conformed to the body of your glory. Amen.

PSALM XXXIX.

Unto the end, a Psalm of David. This psalm has at its beginning the voice of the people called from the Gentiles into the inheritance, then that of the Mediator himself to the Father.

Waiting, I waited for the Lord: in the promises of the prophets, in which he enlightened me: because the prophet foresaw through the Holy Spirit that Christ would come in the flesh. And he gave heed to me. Through the splendor of the Gospels, in which he enlightened me.

And he heard my prayers. Because he hid himself from the prophets and patriarchs, as he himself later said: Because many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see (Luke 10). He shines forth to me in the New Testament. And he brought me out of the pit of misery, and out of the mire of filth. In which I had been immersed, when I worshiped mute idols. Or, out of the mire of filth: because I had clung to earthly desires.

He set my feet upon a rock. Upon a rock: that is, upon Christ. My feet, my senses: as that saying: But the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10). In himself, who is the stable rock, he strengthened me: lest I waver under the blows of this world. And he directed my steps. Lest, coming to him, I look back behind me. And he directed my steps: that is, the senses of good works: he directs the Church: because each one by himself is crooked.

And he put a new song into my mouth. His praise, surely: because a new man came into the world, he gave a new law to the world. A song to our God: praise to our God, so that I may no longer sing shameful and theatrical tunes, but delight in the hymns of the living God through the harmony of the New Testament.

Many shall see. That it has been announced that he has come. And they shall fear. Those who understand themselves to be sinners. And they shall hope in the Lord. That their former sins may be forgiven them.

Blessed is the man whose hope is the name of the Lord. In which he is filled with all good things. Happy is that soul which has firm faith and hope directed in Christ. And he did not look upon vanities and false follies. All things that are in the world, according to Solomon, are vanity (Eccles. 1). But false follies are angers, quarrels, plunderings, and the rest, in which men rave so as to sin: which the Apostle calls works of the flesh (Gal. 1).

Many things have you done, O Lord my God, your wonderful works, and in your thoughts there is none like you. You showed to our fathers your many wonderful works, which they did not believe. You revealed to them in the law that you would come, and they did not understand: but we have believed. Up to this point the people of believers: from here the Lord himself began thus to the Father:

I have announced and I have spoken. Saying: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt. 3). They have been multiplied beyond number. The Jews in their malice. Or, beyond number: that is, sinners are beyond number and outside the number, because they are not worthy to be counted in the number of the righteous.

Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire: but you have perfected ears for me. Burnt offerings and offerings for sin you did not require. The Apostle openly declares these things: that, when the Lord came, the sacrifices of the Jews ceased. It is impossible, he says, that by the blood of goats or of bulls sins should be taken away (Heb. 10). Therefore, entering into the world, he says: A victim and an offering you did not desire, but you have prepared a body for me. A burnt offering and an offering for sin did not please you, except that you should present me myself as a sacrifice to you for the offense of the whole world.

Then I said: Behold, I come. In the head of the book it is written of me. Because you have changed the sacrifices and ceremonies of the Jews, and the sabbaths, and the superstitions of the Old Law, by the religion of the spiritual Gospel: therefore I come into the world with joy, and it is written of me: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word (John 1). Then I said, Behold, I come, that I may take up flesh in which I may suffer. In the head of the book it is written of me. The head of the book of the Old Testament takes its beginning thus: In the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen. 1): that is, in Christ the Lord.

John too, seeing this mystery, began his Gospel thus: In the beginning, he says, was the Word, and the Word was God. For he himself, when the Jews asked who he was, answered: The beginning (John 8). Understand, then, the head of the book to be the beginning, which is Christ Jesus, who was announced in this opening of the book.

I have willed to do your will, my God. For I have come down from heaven: not to do my own will, but yours, Father. It is not the will of the flesh, but of the Father: that I should die for the life of men. And your law is in the midst of my heart. Which I have come not to destroy, but to fulfill.

I have announced your justice in the great Church. I give you thanks, Savior of the world, because you have made your Church great, called from the four parts of the world by the preaching of the Gospel, gathered by your passion, cleansed by your resurrection. In the great Church, spread throughout the whole world.

Behold, I will not restrain my lips, Lord, you have known, etc. I have not been silent, I have spoken nothing in secret, but your every power—that you are just, that you are true, that you are merciful, that you are the salvation of all—I have preached ceaselessly not only in the churches of the peoples, but also in the synagogues of the Jews. Behold, I will not restrain my lips. The lips of Christ are holy. He does not forbid them to preach, as Saint Paul says: The word of God is not bound (2 Tim. 2). You have known: you know that I have not done it, that is, I have not forbidden it. I have not hidden your justice in my heart, that is, your commandments.

I have declared your truth and your salvation. Truth and salvation are Christ: this is what the saints proclaim. I have not hidden your mercy, and I have announced your truth to the great synagogue, that is, to the whole people.

But you, Lord, do not remove your mercies far from me: your mercy and your truth have always upheld me. For evils without number have surrounded me. Because he asks for the mercy of the Father, because he says that he is surrounded by the Jews and that iniquities have been multiplied upon him, because, forsaken by the heart, he again prays for the protection of the Father: all these things must be referred to the weakness of the flesh, so that just as he is believed to be true God, so also true man. But you, Lord, do not remove your mercies far from me. Not far, but near. Your mercy and your truth have always upheld me. Mercy causes sins to be forgiven. Truth renders to each one what he has done. My iniquities have taken hold of me, and I could not see. That is, the human race is surrounded by original sins, and I could not see: because that light of truth had been withdrawn. Hence it is said: You shall be blinded from the earth, and from the earth you shall be enlightened.

They are multiplied beyond the hairs of my head. That is, the iniquities themselves are multiplied beyond the human race. My heart has forsaken me. When a man sins, he does not have his own heart. Whence David said: Your servant has found his own heart (2 Samuel 7). Therefore before, when he sinned, he did not have it.

Let it be pleasing to you, Lord; free me. Lord, the Church asks Christ: Let this be pleasing to you, that you free me. Look upon my help. Weakness has the will to entreat, but not the power.

Let them be confounded. In their wicked thoughts, so that they may perceive what is right: either let them be corrected here, or in the future, and let them revere. That is, that they may have reverence.

Let them be turned backward. Those who had a wicked course.

Let them bear their confusion forthwith: those who say to me, Well done, well done. He mercifully prays that they be confounded, so that they may forthwith know justice. Let them bear their confusion, those who do not correct themselves. Those who say to me, Well done, well done. The Church has two enemies: flatteries and blasphemies.

Let those exult and rejoice who desire my justice. That is, faith and works. And let them say always: May the Lord be magnified. May the people of the saints be magnified. Whence he said: Let them see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5). Who love your salvation. That is, your Christ. The prophet says these things concerning those to whom the Lord himself said through the Gospel: If you have loved me, and my words remain in you, whatever you shall ask, it shall be done for you (John 15).

But I am needy and poor: O God, help me. Christ is needy and poor: though he was rich, he became needy. He is called needy who has something and lacks something. And he is called poor who has nothing. Inops, that is, without help.

Be my helper and deliverer, O Lord; my God, do not delay. And these things are to be referred to bodily trembling. For the divinity that was in the man assumed is subject to no passion, but in the same power in which it was, it both remains and will remain, both now and then forever and ever. Amen.

PSALM XL

Unto the end, a Psalm of David. The prophet sang this psalm through the Holy Spirit in the person of Christ. The psalm contains the voice of the prophet proclaiming concerning Christ at the beginning; then of the Mediator himself speaking to the Father; which things are chiefly fulfilled in the Gospels.

Blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor. He who knows that Christ came in assumed flesh. Because he who for our sake became poor and needy, here receives the riches of heavenly beatitudes. But the Lord himself became poor, since he had nowhere to lay his head (Luke 9). Needy, since he showed himself to be refreshed in the needy. Blessed is he who understands. Blessed and happy is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor. Christ became needy and poor for our sake, that by his poverty he might make us rich. Who understands, that is, who understands that he is true God and true man. In the evil day the Lord will deliver him. In the day of judgment, in which Christ will condemn us who understand the Jews. The evil day will be present to you, if you have not understood concerning the needy and the poor.

The Lord preserve him. Let him not depart from this understanding in the present. And quicken him. May he transfer him, persevering in this wisdom, from death to life. And make him blessed. With his saints in the kingdom of heaven. In the land. In the holy Church, or in the day of eternity. And deliver him not into the hands of his enemies. That is, into the power of the devil, who ever stands as an enemy to our belief.

The Lord help him upon the bed of his sorrow. Help him: that is, grant him aid. On the bed of sorrow, in the weakness of the flesh. Or it can be understood of that paralytic, when the Lord said: Arise, take up thy bed (Matt. 9): because the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks on many things (Wis. 9). In the sickness of this body, in which the soul rests as on a little bed, let him be consoled by the aid of the Lord's protection. Thou hast turned all his couch in his infirmity. The body, as we have said, which is taken for the couch, thou hast disturbed in various tribulations, so that, having been tested and purged from enticements, thou mightest take it up. Here the prophet changes the order, and brings forth the voice of the Lord's man saying:

I have said it. Lord, have mercy on me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against you. She who is sorrowful even unto death: not from original guilt, but she is grieved for the sins of the people. Or, have mercy on me, the Church says: because many are those who commit sins, but put forward words of excuse. Whence the Church says: I accuse myself for my own sins, because I have sinned.

My enemies have spoken evil against me: When will he die and his name perish? When they saw the blind enlightened, the leper cleansed, the sabbaths broken, Lazarus raised, when they said: Behold, the whole world has gone after him: what else could they think, except that this power should be taken from him by death? For even one of them, Caiphas by name, though not knowing what he said, declared: It is expedient that one man die for the people, that the whole nation not perish. When will he die? This is what is written in the parable of the Gospel, when the tenants said: This is the heir, come, let us kill him: and the inheritance will be ours, and his name will be remembered no more.

And if they went in to see, their heart spoke vain things. Entering the praetorium, they spoke from an evil heart, saying: Everyone who makes himself a king contradicts Caesar (John 19). Or they went in for this purpose, to extinguish the Church and to spy out, as Paul says: False brothers who slipped in to spy out our freedom (Galatians 2). Their heart spoke vain things, a tongue feigned in love, as that saying: Teacher, we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God in truth (Matthew 22). This is vain. They gathered iniquity for themselves. Crying out: What is that to us? You will see to it. His blood be upon us and upon our children.

They went out. Out, with Pilate. And they spoke the same thing. All my enemies whispered against me: against me they thought evil against me. Bringing forward unjust witnesses, and seeking to kill me. They whispered against me: that is, they murmured. All my enemies thought evil against me: the aforementioned Jews, or now the heretics against the Church.

They established an unjust word against me. Meaning: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death, but you take him and crucify him (John 18). Or when they said: He casts out demons in Beelzebub (Luke 11), and they sent false witnesses not only against the living man but also against the dead.

Will he who sleeps not rise again? So eagerly did they hasten to kill me, as though I were not to rise after death. This is to say: Will he who is unjustly oppressed by the wicked in the sleep of death not rise again? As another prophet said: Will he who falls not rise again (Jeremiah 8)? For the grain of wheat fell, and a abundant harvest rose up.

Indeed, the man of my peace, in whom I hoped, who ate my bread, magnified his supplanting over me. Here he most plainly denounces Judas the betrayer, just as the Lord himself says in the Gospel: He to whom I shall give the dipped bread, that is he (John 13); and elsewhere: He will lift up his heel against me. But what he says, Who ate: that is, who took the heavenly food, the food that gives life to this world, and distributed it to others, since he was an apostle: this very life he destined for death, for the price of greed.

But you, Lord, have mercy on me, and raise me up, and I will repay them. Our Lord was raised up by the Father's power, at whose right hand he sits. Before he rose again, vengeance anticipated Judas, when the due destruction of the east smote him. But what he says, I will repay him, threatens him with the judgment to come.

In this I have known that you have willed me. Raising me up. For my enemy will not rejoice over me. The devil: by whose instigation the Jews did these things: he did not rejoice by keeping him in hell.

But me, because of innocence, you have received, and you have strengthened me in your sight forever. This is the greatest innocence, when the just man dies for the impious: who bore not his own sins, but ours. Because of this innocence, and with death conquered by the Father, with the flesh taken up he was received in the heavenly places.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from age to age, let it be, let it be. For let it be, let it be, in Hebrew is written amen, amen, which Aquila translated: that is, truly, or faithfully. And it must be known that the first book of the Psalter is ended here. But the second is from the forty-first, up to the seventy-first. The third from the seventy-second, up to the eighty-eighth. The fourth from the eighty-ninth, up to the one hundred fifth. But the fifth from the one hundred sixth, up to the end.

PSALM 41.

Unto the end, a psalm of understanding for the sons of Korah. Unto the end: in Christ. Understanding: that is, spiritual understanding. For the sons of Korah: that is, for the sons of Christ, who are the believers. The psalm contains the voice of the Church, or of a faithful man longing for God.

As the deer longs for the fountains of waters, so my soul longs for you, O God. For first it must be understood why, or in what manner, the deer longs for the fountains of waters. For it is its custom to draw in a serpent it has found with its nostrils, and after this, burning with thirst, to quench its thirst. Therefore the man of the Church, who for a long time lived in poisonous action, when he perceives himself filled with the filth of fornication and the stench of idolatry, longs to come to Christ, in whom is the fountain of light, so that, washed in baptism, he may receive the gift of forgiveness. For he knows that unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not have eternal life (John 3). But even if any one of us today, with his vices extinguished, should burn with desire for the contemplation of the Lord, he too can say: for my soul longs for you, O God: that is, having forsaken the world, I long to pass over to you.

My soul has thirsted for the strong living God. Not for dead idols, but for him who said: As I live, says the Lord, because every knee shall bow to me (Num. 14). Living, because he himself says: As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, and he who believes in me, he also shall live because of me (John 6). When shall I come and appear before the face of my God? As if he were saying: When will the time be, that I may appear in clarity with those saints who are made conformable to your glory? Or, when shall I come, that is, when will that time be, when the Church desires to be dissolved from the body and to be with Christ? And I shall appear before the face of my God: that is, before the sight of the Godhead, and then we shall see him as he is.

My tears have been my bread day and night. How can bread be made from tears? It can: because just as the body is satisfied with bread, so the soul is satisfied with tears, because from them it hopes to have remission of sins. Weeping and groaning and lamentation were mine, out of desire for you. While it is said to me daily: Where is your God? Indeed the pagans point out their gods with a finger, and for this reason they heap reproaches upon me. Therefore let them know that I hold my God hidden in my mind, and through the inner man I dwell with him. These things I remembered, and I poured out my soul within me.

While I endured this reproach daily and called it to mind, my soul melted within me, and I wasted away in thought, since I could behold my God neither in heaven nor on earth visibly; but finding him in my mind governing me and directing me in that eternal tabernacle, of which I speak: For I will pass into the place of the wondrous tabernacle, even to the house of God. The tabernacle of God is the Church, which as yet sojourns away from the Lord; through which one comes to the eternal tabernacles, that is, to the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all. In her are many wondrous ones, abounding in sacred virtues, because, built upon the foundation of the apostles, they are held as one house. Entering into her in mind, this one, who, having left idolatry behind, had already come to know the sacraments of baptism, marveling at the harmony of the spiritual Canticle, through the sweetness of eternal delight came to the house of God, which is the Holy of Holies. And as if it were said to him: Who brought you here? or, How did you come here? or, What delighted you, that you should draw near here? He answered:

In the voice of exultation and confession, the sound of one feasting. This exultation, confession, and feasting are not fulfilled by musical arts, nor are they begun and then pass away; but they are celebrated continually by angelic voices and the harmonies of the saints. While he, still placed in the world, was surmising this in his mind, groaning that this dwelling was being deferred from him, he says to his sorrowful soul:

Why are you sad, my soul, and why do you trouble me? Because, he says, I have not yet received this sweetness in the present, and my insidious enemy still keeps watch against me, still stretches out snares for me. And he says: Hope in the Lord. Endure through patience. Or, hope in God. The soul exhorts itself; or the inner man exhorts the outer man. For I shall still confess to him, the salvation of my countenance, and my God. I have already confessed my sins; I shall then confess his praise, through which he saved me from death that was to perish, or calls me to eternal things.

My soul is troubled within me. Because of the remembrance of former sins. Therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan, and of Hermon, from the little mountain. Jordan is taken for baptism; Hermon is interpreted as anathema. So this man who was a sinner, who like the deer longed for the fountains of waters, remembered in the humility of penitence, and washed away his old sins in the cleansing of baptism: he anathematized his sins, and did not exalt himself as great by boasting, but made himself little by repenting.

Deep calls to deep. There are many opinions concerning the deep, which will be explained in their proper places. For here, deep calls to deep; when either the Old Testament announces the New; or the New calls the Old as witness. The Old announces the New, when Moses says: God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers (Deut. 18). But the New calls the Old as witness: when Paul says: They drank from the rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10). For because of the depth of understanding, they are called the deep. At the voice of your cataracts. In the voice of the prophets, which announced the coming of the Lord. For they are called cataracts because the coming of the Lord was obscure in their prophecy, nor was it understood by the Jews. For this voice announces the future judgment, either concerning the merits of the blessed, or concerning the punishments of the wicked.

All your high places and your waves have passed over me. These threats are lofty and powerful, by which you threatened the judgment of death; because they do not fall at once, on account of your immense patience. But they are waves: when those things arrive which had been threatened. Therefore this one says that they have come in upon him: when, living amid mortal desires, scourged with blows, he was instructed, so that the Lord might desire him alive.

In the day the Lord has commanded his mercy. Because through the light of the holy Scriptures he promised it. And in the night his song. He has shown it to one placed in tribulations.

With me is my prayer. And not outside me. To the God of my life. That I may deserve to be joined to him, free from this world, at some time. I will say to God, you are my protector. Although I am exercised in tribulations, nevertheless I always ask to be protected and defended by you.

Why have you forgotten me? And why have you rejected me? Why do you defer so long, that you do not lead me into that place of the wonderful tabernacle? Why do I go about sorrowful, while the enemy afflicts me? The devil, who has set many snares for me, or the persecutors of the Church.

While my bones are broken. While I see the stronger members of the Church give way to scandals and various quarrels. Or the bones, the virtues of the Church, are as it were broken through those tribulations which the saints endure. My enemies have reproached me. Either in the martyrs, or in other confessors.

While it is said to me every single day: Where is your God? When I desired to appease you through penitence and the affliction of body and soul: my enemies, as though I were doing these things in vain, were saying: Where is your God? not knowing those hidden things which God has prepared for those who love him. Why are you sad, my soul, and why do you trouble me? Because my desire is prolonged.

Hope in God, for I will confess to him the salvation of my countenance and my God. In him let our hope be always intent: let him calm all the waves: let him preserve us in temptations: let him satisfy our thirst by his contemplation, and give us life by the salvation of his countenance.

PSALM XLII.

A Psalm of David. Although this psalm in certain of its verses marks the passion of the Lord, nevertheless it has the voice of a faithful soul longing for the light of this world, that is, Christ.

Judge me, O God, and discern my cause from an unholy people. I seek your judgment, because you are merciful. But discern me from the chaff among which I groan in this world, desiring to be clothed over, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. But it is also the voice of the Lord to those to whom he had first said, Be holy, for I am holy (Leviticus 20), and they did not fulfill it: From the unjust and deceitful man deliver me. No one is more unjust and deceitful than he who is the inventor of iniquity and the emulator of holiness, that is, the devil, who entered into the heart of Judas to betray Christ. But that faithful man also, whom we mentioned earlier, says these things:

Because you are, O God, my strength. I know that I am weak and fragile, and I do not perceive that I have any strength by which I might be delivered, unless you save me. Why have you rejected me? Our strength is Christ, who rejects us then, when we have sinned. Why do I go about sorrowful, while the enemy afflicts me? I am sorrowful because of my sins, and therefore I am afflicted in various temptations by that same enemy, who was called above the unjust man. Therefore, because the darkness of sins disturbs me, I flee as a suppliant to you, who are the light of the world.

Send forth your light and your truth. You are the light, who said: I am the light of the world (John viii). You are the truth, who said: I am the way, the truth, and the life; be pleased to enlighten us, so that, abandoning the lie of the devil, we may follow your truth. They themselves have led me. From the error of sin. And brought me to your holy mountain. Into your Church. Into your tabernacle. Into that heavenly Jerusalem, of which another psalm says (Ps. lxxxiii): How lovely are your tabernacles, O Lord!

I will go in to the altar of God. Of my God, where I may present not calves and rams any longer, but myself as a living sacrifice pleasing to him. To God who gladdens my youth. When the old leaven has been purged out, he comforts me as a young man in the new man.

I will confess to you on the harp, O God, my God. Through the mortification of the flesh, because the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Why are you sad, my soul, and why do you trouble me? Because I long to see him in whom I have placed my hope.

Hope in God, for I will still confess to him, etc. He confesses him; he asks that his sins be forgiven by him. He calls him the salvation of his countenance; he invokes and adores him. Whom we too, confessing, entreat: that we may be worthy to be enlightened by his light, directed by his way, corrected by his truth, enriched by his life. Or: the salvation of my countenance, my God. The salvation of my soul is my God, and the countenance, that is, the aspect of my soul, is my God.

PSALM XLIII.

Unto the end, for the sons of Core, understanding. Core is interpreted as "of Calvary," and the Lord was crucified on the mount of Calvary. The sons of Core are the sons of Christ: they are the holy apostles, or the martyrs. Whence it is said: The sons of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them (Matthew ix). Understanding: that is, that we may understand him who took a beginning according to the flesh in time, and was begotten before the ages. Or, understanding is: that we may understand concerning the present prosperity of sinners, and the present tribulation of the saints. The psalm does not teach things done long ago, but proclaims that the Church is reborn in Christ, and summons the faithful in her to the contest, showing that no one can be crowned unless he has competed lawfully: in which also for the most part the voices of the martyrs are brought forth.

O God, we have heard with our ears. We have come to know through spiritual understanding, according to that saying of the Lord: He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 8). And our fathers. The apostles and prophets, by whose preaching we have been reborn to life. They have announced to us the work that you worked in their days, and in days of old. The prophets announced the things done in their time. The apostles announced what they saw you doing.

Your hand scattered the nations, and you planted them. You scattered from the Church the burdens of the worthless, and you planted the ornaments of the virtues: that is, righteous men, who bring forth the fruit of holiness. You afflicted the peoples, and you cast them out. Those who, having abandoned you, were turning aside to idolatry.

For they did not possess the land by their own sword. But in meekness of mind: because blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the land of the living (Matthew 5). And their arm did not save them: but your right hand, and your arm, and the illumination of your face. The right hand of the Father is Christ: as that saying: For by his own right hand he exalted us: that is, his arm; as elsewhere: And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed (Isaiah 53)? He himself is also the illumination: as there: In your light we shall see light (Psalm 53). He, therefore, is the one sent by the Father, to set his own free. And why he set them free, he added: Because you were well pleased in them. For God wills that, just as there is good pleasure in the Son, so also we may be well-pleasing in him, if we wish to be set free.

You are my very own king, who reign in me, and not sin. And my God, by whom I have been acquired. You who command salvations for Jacob—that is, for the Christian people, which, having supplanted the elder, received the command of salvation through prophetic and apostolic teaching.

For in you we shall winnow our enemies with a horn, and in your name we shall despise those who rise up against us. Something is winnowed with horns, like Zedekiah, who with two iron horns made said: Thus you shall winnow all Syria (1 Kings 21). But our horn is Christ. The same is also the name of the Father, in which our adversaries are either winnowed or despised.

For I will not hope in my bow, and my sword will not save me, but your power.

For you have saved us from those who trouble us. Because I ought not to hope in my own arms, this is the reason: that you have always saved us from those pursuing us, and without our strength and our sword you have guarded us. For you have saved us from those afflicting us, and you have confounded those hating us; the powers have been turned back, and with them confounded, we have been freed by Christ the Lord. In God we shall be praised all day long, because he himself is our praise and glory. And in your name we shall confess to you forever, because by you, Christ, we are called Christians.

But now you have cast us off and put us to shame. When he says now, he shows the present time. Therefore in the present time we are cast off for our training, so that we may be glorified forever. For often even the martyrs say in their time: And you will not go forth, O God, in our virtues—so that you might strengthen us afterward with perpetual virtue.

You have turned us back behind our enemies. Thus the Lord also turned Peter back, so that he might restore him to something better. Therefore we too ought to be turned back, lest our journey continue on wicked paths. We ought also to have our enemies before us, so that we may know what we must beware of. And even if we are turned back after Christ like Peter, having him before us, we shall fear nothing further. And those who hated us plundered for themselves. For because of your name they plundered us, when they vexed us in prisons, in blows, and in the remaining torments. But that tribulation did not separate us from your love.

You have given us as sheep for food. For just as the Lord, led as a sheep to the slaughter, was given as food for the peoples, when he says: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, you will not have life in you (John 6): so also the saints, as we said above, given over in many tribulations, have become food for the nations: either when they minister the nourishment of eternal life: or while they satisfy the rapacity of those men from their own hardships. And you have scattered us among the nations. So that for a time they might lord it over us.

You have sold your people without price. Until now the martyrs have spoken of themselves: now it is said of the people of the Jews, to whom it was said: In your sins you were sold (Isaiah 50). And therefore without price: because the blood of the Lamb was not poured out for them. And there was no multitude in our exchanges. The merchandise that was sold was cheaper: therefore no exchange was made. For the Lord purchased the people whom he bought, not with gold nor with silver, but with his precious and own blood: as the apostle Peter says (1 Peter 1).

You have made us a reproach to our neighbors: a mockery and a laughingstock to those who are around us. The persecutors are called neighbors because of their worldly cohabitation, who often reproach us by mocking, saying: Let your God come, and deliver you from our hands (2 Chronicles 32).

You have made us a likeness to the nations. To your likeness, certainly: so that just as the world hated you first, so it would then hate us. A shaking of the head among the peoples. For just as in your passion those who passed by shook their heads, so they also do in your martyrs. But even if anyone now wishes to live piously in you, the wicked immediately blaspheme with mockery or shaking of the head.

All day long my shame is against me, and the confusion of my face has covered me. The Lord speaks these things in the flesh he assumed, who for our sake suffers shame, is cursed, and is put to confusion, even to the very gibbet of the Cross.

By the voice of the reproacher and the one speaking against. When it was said to him: If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross (Matt 27). From the face of the enemy: of Judas. And of the persecutor. Of the Jewish people.

All these things have come upon us, and we have not forgotten you. The martyrs say these things: because all that you, Lord Jesus, endured, we also have endured the same, but we have always confessed you. And we have not acted unjustly in your testament. But we have truly proclaimed you. And our heart has not turned back. So that we would not follow the fanatical errors from which we had departed. And you have turned our paths aside from your way. Our action is not separated from your justifications.

For you have humbled us in the place of affliction. In this body, in which we dwell and are afflicted for your sake. And the shadow of death has covered us. Rightly does the shadow of death oppress in this world, and not death itself: because the martyrs, or the rest of the saints, even if they are afflicted, and even if they are destined for death, nevertheless live to God, and this death is a shadow to them, and not the reality of death.

If we have forgotten the name of our God—that is, Christ—and if we have spread out our hands to a strange god—that is, to an idol.

Will not God require these things? For he himself knows the hidden things of the heart. That God knows the thoughts of men, he himself declares in the Gospel, saying to the Pharisees: Why do you think evil in your hearts (Luke 5)? So too the martyrs say: If we have anywhere strayed from the ways of God, let him who knows the secrets of the heart inquire into it.

For because of you we are put to death all the day long. In various tribulations we are oppressed because of you, but willingly we offer our necks to those who strike us. We have been counted as sheep for the slaughter (Matt 10). For you had said that you would send us as sheep into the midst of wolves (Matt 8). But now, because you have been removed from these temptations, and, as if sleeping in a boat, you do not defend us from the storm, we awaken you, Lord, entreating with suppliant confession.

Arise, why do you sleep, O Lord? Arise and do not cast us off forever. That you who died for us and rose again may be stirred up in the hearts of those who confess that you died but do not believe that you rose again, so that at last ceasing to persecute us, they may not perish forever in eternal death.

Why do you turn away your face? For God turns away his face for a time, that he may test his elect. You forget our want and our tribulation. We suffer want, counting the riches of this world as nothing, and we desire the heavenly kingdom. For we are afflicted when our desire is delayed.

For our soul has been humbled in the dust. That we might be brought low by those whom the wind casts away like dust from the face of the earth. Our belly has been glued to the earth. As if he were saying: The flesh is weak, but the mind is intent on heavenly things.

Arise, O Lord, help us, and redeem us for your name's sake. Now may we deserve your aid in tribulations, that we may be freed from these pressures: not because of our merit, but because of your name.

PSALM XLIV.

Unto the end, for those who shall be changed, for the sons of Korah, for understanding, a Canticle for the beloved. In place of this the Hebrew has it thus: Lamanasse, al sosannim labne Core mescil sir Jedidoth: which we have rendered into Latin: To the victor for the sons of the lilies of Korah, a canticle of erudition most beloved. But what he says, for the beloved, the whole psalm is referred to Christ: of whom the Father speaks in the Gospel: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 17). Or the psalm contains the Sacrament of spiritual nuptials: that is, the conjunction of Christ with the Church. It begins therefore from the voice of the Father.

My heart has uttered a good word. Not from bodily conjunction, but from the heart he brought forth the Word equal to himself through which all things were made: for this Word is good: because what was made in him is life (John). I say my works to the King. I speak to the Word himself, the king of the lily, and all things are accomplished.

My tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly. For just as the things that are written are not slight or easy, but useful and healthful, so also the utterance of God is brought to completion just as it is written. But concerning swiftness—that is, that the things he has spoken are not delayed but are swiftly fulfilled—he therefore says "pen." And to what does "pen" pertain? Or how is a pen compared to Christ? Because just as "rock" pertains to Christ, "lion," "right hand," "mountain," and other such things: so also "pen" pertains, namely because he is the measurer and writer. Hence he said in the Prophet: Arise, and take the pen, and measure the temple and the city (Ezek. 40). The pen of a scribe: the scribe himself is Christ. Hence he said in the Gospel: Every learned scribe in the kingdom of heaven is like a householder (Matt. 13). Writing swiftly. Because no one writes so quickly as the Lord himself writes in the hearts of the saints. What does he write, except faith, hope, and his charity, and bestow the word of preaching?

Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men. So that he is understood not as an equal, not as another man, but as the Son of God with man, and therefore he is called fairer beyond the other sons of men. But the form of which he speaks is not to be assigned to size, but to beauty. Or how is he beautiful, when Isaiah says: We saw him having neither form nor comeliness, but as one despised and humbled and struck and scourged by God (Isa. 53)? The prophet Isaiah says this in the person of the Jews, because they believed the humanity of the flesh to be, as it were, a mere man. But this prophet speaks according to the divinity. Likewise the prophet Isaiah foreknew through the Holy Spirit that humanity from without which the Jews saw, but within they could not understand the divinity. Grace is poured out on your lips. When you cure diseases by your word, when you make the sea calm, when you command silence to the winds, when you order the fever to depart, when you call Lazarus and he comes; you entreat the Father, and he hears, and not only hears but also answers: and all things that you speak are accomplished by the grace of your lips. The pouring out of grace in the Holy Scriptures is the grace of the Holy Spirit, or of Christ. The grace of the Holy Spirit is poured out in baptism in the form of a dove: when it descended on the head, it came to the beard, then to the hem of his garment.

Our head is Christ; the beard, the holy Apostles; the hem of his garment, the holy preachers: as the prophet says: Like ointment on the head, which ran down upon the beard of Aaron, and which ran down upon the hem of his garment (Ps. 132). Grace is in your lips: because the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were brought forth through Jesus Christ (John 1). Therefore God has blessed you forever. For the sake of this grace. For although Christ the Lord was always blessed in the Father, he is blessed in the flesh he assumed: when the Holy Spirit descended upon him at his baptism, the Father said: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3). Or God the Father blessed his Son, and Christ blessed his Church.

Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most mighty one. The sword about the thigh. By the sword, the word; by the thigh, the incarnation. A man girds on a sword for battle. But, gird your sword, O most mighty one. As if the prophet were saying: You, O Christ, put on flesh: fight against the devil, and free the human race from hell. Gird your sword, the word of preaching, which divided son from father, daughter from mother, daughter-in-law from mother-in-law: about your thigh, upon the flesh you assumed. Most mighty, not sluggishly, nor lightly, but manfully.

In your beauty and your comeliness. In holiness and righteousness: or it pertains to the divinity. Give heed, prosper, proceed and reign. If you give heed to yourself, prosperity will always be yours. Proceed: that is, come from heaven. And reign: because the kingdom of the devil existed beforehand. Whence we say in the Lord's Prayer: May your kingdom come in us, and may the kingdom of the devil depart (Luke 11). Give heed, prosper: see happily. Proceed, from the bridal chamber of the virginal womb: and reign, with the empire of death oppressed.

For the sake of truth, and gentleness, and righteousness. The truth is Christ himself: because he himself is the truth. Whence concerning that woman he said to the Jews: Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her (John 8). Gentleness, when he said: Neither do I condemn you. Righteousness, when he said: Go, woman, and sin no more. For the sake of truth: by which you have fulfilled those things which you had promised through the prophets. And gentleness: because like a sheep you are sacrificed for the life of the people. And righteousness: when not by power, but by humility you delivered man. And your right hand shall lead you wonderfully. Power, or virtue. Or the power shall lead you, namely you, into heaven.

Your arrows are sharp. Proclamations, transforming the hearts of men. Sharp, because they penetrate even to the inner parts of the heart. The peoples shall fall under you in the hearts of the king's enemies. By the compunction of preaching, they fall into hearts so that they may not be proud, but may believe humbly. Those who had been enemies of the king by not believing are made friends by believing. For those who were enemies of Christ afterward became friends.

Your seat, O God, is for ever and ever. Not temporal, but eternal. Or the seat of God is the holy Church, or the soul: because the soul of the just man is the seat of wisdom. The rod of direction, the rod of your kingdom. By the rod is meant the correction of discipline: because by that very rule of truth, the hearts of those who were crooked are directed.

You have loved justice, and hated iniquity. That is, you have fulfilled the commandments of God the Father. And you have hated iniquity, not that hatred falls upon God: but God is said to hate, that is, to reject. Iniquity is understood as the devil himself. Or the rod is taken as heavenly discipline: through which he directed our crooked iniquity, which he hated, to his own justice. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you. God, says the Apostle, and Christ: God made him (Hebr. i). With the oil of gladness above your companions.

Other kings who bore his type and were called his consorts in reigning were anointed with corruptible oil; but this one, the Son of God, was anointed by God the Father with the oil of exultation—that is, of resurrection, ascension, and dominion—because Christ was anointed by nature, we by grace; for in him the Godhead was fully present, whereas in the saints it is given in part.

Myrrh and drop and cassia from your garments. Myrrh is set for burial; the drop is taken against poisons. In cassia is shown the man, who is often called a tree. So these flowed down from his garments—that is, from the flesh he assumed, with which the Godhead clothed itself as with a garment. The odor of myrrh dripped when he was given over to burial. The drop flowed when, having crushed the serpent's venom, he quenched the fires of hell. Cassia also came forth: the care in that man through whom he conquered the underworld and ascended into the heavens. From ivory houses, from which the daughters of kings delighted you in your honor. By ivory houses, on account of the size of elephants, we understand spacious houses; for broad is the way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7). But ivory, unless it is scraped with files, split with saws, and pierced with awls, is dark and hideous; so too were the apostles before they were called and indwelt. But after they were called, cut with saws, scraped with nails, carved with chisels, fired with flames, and smoothed by various tortures, they were made houses of God, in which Christ himself deigned to dwell.

Following their example, the martyrs have been made kings over their own bodies; the daughters of these kings are holy souls, who have delighted in Christ by honoring the name of his majesty and proclaiming his mercy. From ivory houses: from these they have gladdened you. Many, through error, say "from houses" instead of "heavy things," because among the Greeks the word signifies both.

The queen has stood at your right hand. Because nothing in your kingdom is on the left. In gilded clothing. With the ornament of spiritual faith. Surrounded with variety. Of nations and peoples. Now the prophet himself speaks to the Church. The queen is the Church. Whence it says in the Song of Songs: Who is this that ascends whitened, leaning upon her brother? She is called queen because she rules her vices and sins. At your right hand. As that saying: He will indeed set the sheep at his right hand, when he will say: Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world (Matt. 25). In clothing: that is, not naked, but clothed with spiritual understanding. Wrapped around with variety. From the seventy-two languages: that is, from the diversity of nations or the giving of thanks.

Hear, daughter, and see. Believe, so that you may be cleansed. Daughter, because you have been reborn from him. Bride, because you have been joined to him. Or Christ calls his Church a daughter through faith. He calls her daughter, so that she may be chaste in mind and body. And incline your ear. Listen humbly and wisely, or desire. And hear with the ear of the heart, as that saying, He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 8). And see: that is, with the eyes of the heart, by which God is seen, as it says: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5). And forget your people, etc. The fellowships of demons, or vices, and sins, and the house of your father the devil, who had begotten you before: because the whole world was placed in the evil one (1 John 5): therefore, incline your ear.

Because the king has desired your beauty. Christ Jesus, by whom you are ruled, because you were black in your father's house: but now you hide after baptism, either washed from vices, or white by the grace of faith. Because he himself is the Lord, by whom you have been redeemed. Your God. Whom now, having left behind idols, you cultivate and adore. How does he speak of your appearance and beauty, when the Church was not beautiful nor comely, but before was foul and deformed? But afterward beautiful and comely through the washing of baptism: because the just one died for the ungodly, that is, Christ: cleansing her through the washing of his blood, as the Apostle says: Not having spot or wrinkle (Eph 5). And the daughters of Tyre shall adore him. Tyre is interpreted as distress. The daughters of Tyre, the daughters of distress.

They themselves adore Christ, who are in distress. Or the souls of the faithful from among the Gentiles. In gifts the rich of the people will entreat your face. These, hiding their treasures, seek you with a pure heart: because where their treasures are, there will their heart be also (Matt. 6). The Magi did this, who came with frankincense, myrrh, and gold: because they adored Christ not only with words but also with gifts.

All her glory, of the daughter of the king, of the faithful soul, is from within, clothed about in golden fringes with varied colors. Above we said, with the variety of the Gentiles: here, with the variety of graces. All her glory, of the daughter of the king, is from within: that is, the elders of the Church, or kings and the powerful: who have now hope, faith, and charity: they offered from within: that is, in the conscience of the Church. In golden fringes clothed about with variety. Not only in the letter, but also in the spiritual sense, those who enter offered, or are filled with the variety of virtues.

The virgins will be brought to the king after her, her neighbors. Through the one Church, founded by apostolic institution, many are converted to Christ. They will be brought to you in gladness and exultation. Not in the sorrow of sin, nor in the tears of penitence, but in the joy of virtues and the exultation of graces. They will be brought into the temple of the king. For John saw Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down from heaven, having the glory of God, but he did not see a temple in it (Rev. 21): The Lord, he says, is its temple. Therefore these virgins will be led into this temple, that is, the souls of the saints, so that they may be made conformable to the body of his glory.

Instead of your fathers, sons have been born to you. O Church, the apostles were your fathers, because they themselves begot you. But now, since they have departed from the world, you have in their place bishops as sons, who have been created by you. For these too are your fathers, because you are ruled by them. You will establish them as princes over all the earth. Christ established his saints over all peoples. For in the name of God the Gospel has been spread abroad in all the ends of the world, in which the princes of the Church, that is, the bishops, have been established.

They will be mindful of your name, in every generation and generation. Therefore they will be mindful: because they never forget, but always proclaim you, or build in the generations of the saints.

Therefore the peoples will confess to you forever, and unto the age of ages. Because of their preaching, the peoples always confess their sins to you: they will tell of your glory, they will announce your praise.

PSALM 45.

Unto the end, for the sons of Korah, for hidden things, a Psalm. For hidden things: that is, for the secrets concerning the calling of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews. The Psalm teaches us that we ought to place our hope in him who alone can deliver from tribulation.

Our God is a refuge and strength: a helper in the tribulations that have come upon us exceedingly. For the world is full of hardships and pressures: and therefore, since there are other helps—the aids of kings, the powers of the mighty, the refuges of cities—our stronghold is Christ, who can powerfully snatch us from these.

Therefore we shall not fear: because we have faith in him. When the earth is troubled. The generation of the Jews, who savor earthly things. And the mountains shall be moved into the heart of the sea. The apostolic preachings into the hearts of the Gentiles of this world, as in the Gospel: If you have, he says, faith like a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: Pass over, and it shall do so (Matt. 17). Into the heart of the sea; that is, into the Gentile world.

Their waters sounded and were troubled. Waters are peoples; the movements are understood as demons. Which now, being troubled, gave forth a sound: when together with the destroyers of idols, they either restored them or wished to prepare death. The mountains were troubled in his strength. The higher powers of the age.

The rush of the river gladdens the city of God. After the overthrow of the worship of demons, the washing of baptism, or the irrigation of the Holy Spirit, gladdens the soul, the city of God, or the Church, which is the city of God, which, set upon a mountain, is not hidden (Matt. 5). The Most High has sanctified his tabernacle. The congregation of the faithful, in which he dwells through faith.

God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. But she is strengthened, as it is said: Fear not, Mary (Luke 1); or the Church in tribulation. God shall help her at the break of dawn. By the holy inspection by which the heart shall merit the world. For blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God (Matt. 5).

The nations are troubled. By vices and crimes. And the kingdoms are bowed down. The powers of demons, under the power of Christ. They have given forth their voice. In preachings. The earth is moved. The nations were astonished in their unbelief: that is, the Gentile world, from infidelity to the faith of Christ.

The Lord of hosts is with us. By the assumption of the flesh, he was made a partaker for us. Therefore also Emmanuel, that is, God with us. The Lord of hosts, of angels and of men. Our protector, the God of Jacob. He himself is the Lord of hosts, who conquered the devil. He himself is our protector, that he may preserve us forever. Our helper, the God of Jacob. Through Jacob, the supplanting of vices.

Come and see the works of the Lord. Christ calls His Church to faith, or to belief. See, that is, understand: the works of the Lord, the powers of the Lord. Or, the works of the Lord: because, according to Daniel, the stone cut from the mountain without hands, when the kingdoms of the world were crushed, filled the breadth of the whole earth (Dan. 2). Which He set as wonders upon the earth. For He showed many signs among the peoples, either before His bodily advent or after it. Taking away wars even to the ends of the earth. The histories of many tell that all wars ceased at the Lord's advent. But even now in His Church He daily restrains wars, so that neither heretics nor Jews may rage. Or taking away, removing, wars: that is, the battle, because there is always a battle of vices and sins. Even to the ends of the earth, even to the end of the ages. The Lord takes away from us that battle: for by ourselves we cannot.

He shall break the bow. The hidden snares of evils. And He shall shatter weapons. Present battles. And He shall burn shields with fire. The insane phantasms of diabolical protection, all of which He consumes with that spiritual fire: of which He says: I came to cast fire upon the earth: that is, into the Church (Luke 12).

Be still and see that I am the Lord. I have made, and I will not bear? I have created, and I will sustain: I will redeem you and forgive your sins, says the Lord (Isaiah 46). Be still, therefore, that you may know me, and be not troubled about anything else. I will be exalted among the nations—those who have been converted to faith. I will be exalted in the earth—if some from the Jewish people have returned to me, who are manifestly not minded to savor earthly things.

The Lord of hosts is with us: our protector is the God of Jacob. For he always dwells graciously with believers, as he deigned to promise the apostles after the resurrection, saying: Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the age (Matthew, last chapter).

PSALM 46.

Unto the end, for the sons of Korah, a psalm. The sons of Korah, the sons of the bald one. It is the voice of one mocking. This is said concerning those forty-two boys who mocked Elisha and said: Go up, bald one; go up, bald one—and he cursed them in the name of the Lord (4 Kings 2). And two bears came out and devoured them. Elisha holds the figure of Christ; those boys, the figure of the Jews, who said: Hail, king of the Jews. Whence Paul says: Be not children in understanding, but in malice be little ones (1 Corinthians 14). The physician came to heal the sick, but the sick killed the physician. By "bears" are properly understood demons, because they devoured their hearts. The psalm contains the apostolic voice, admonishing us to rejoice in him alone, by whose blood we have been set free.

All you nations, clap your hands. The Holy Spirit through the prophet calls all nations to come to the faith. All you nations: that is, the whole world together, clap your hands. To clap is to praise. For clapping is called praise. Rejoice in good works. Shout to God with a voice of exultation. Confess the Lord with a lofty voice in the heart itself, and exult with every office of the members. He says this because of the greatness of the joy. It is a voice of exultation: that a man cannot comprehend by words, nor letters, nor syllables, how greatly he ought to praise God.

For God is most high, terrible. He who once was provoked by the Jews, when the nations were obtained, ascending on high to the heavens, has become terrible, sitting at the right hand of the Father. And a great king over all the earth. Not only over the people of the Jews, but over all the nations of the earth. Or, over all the earth, that is, over all the Church, because the Church is called earth: Christ is over it, because power has been given to him on earth and in heaven. Or concerning whom the apostles now say:

He subjected the peoples to us and the nations under our feet. He chose for us his inheritance. They say that the nations and peoples were subjected to themselves by Christ: whose malice having been trampled down, they made them worthy of the inheritance of Christ. Or the inheritance of Christ is the holy Church. Whence he said in another place: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance (Ps. 15). And we are his, and he is ours: according to that: The Lord is my portion (Ps. 118). The beauty of Jacob which he loved. For from the beauty of Jacob he chose the apostles, who, descending from his stock, say these things. But that he loves him, hear the prophet: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Mal. 1).

God has ascended in jubilation. For his ascension shone forth, in which the multitude of angels with great jubilation said: Lift up your gates, you princes (Ps. 23): now the victor returns from battles. And the Lord in the voice of the trumpet. In which two angels, as if a trumpet, as he ascended, cried out to the apostles: This Jesus, who has been received from you, will come just as you have seen him going into Heaven (Acts 1). Or after the victory by which he conquered the devil, thus he ascended. Whence he says in another psalm: Lift up your gates, you princes, and be lifted up, you eternal gates, and the King of glory will enter in (Ps. 23). Or as we read in the Acts of the apostles, when he ascended from the Mount of Olives: Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven (Acts 1).

Sing to our God, sing, sing to our king, sing. He, having crushed the dominion of death, raised to heaven the flesh with which he lay in the tomb.

For God is king of all the earth. Because now he is made known not only in Judea and Jerusalem, but in all the earth by the light of faith. Sing wisely. That you may understand spiritually as spoken the things you sing according to the letter.

The Lord will reign over all the nations. Which he received as an inheritance from the Father. Whence he also says in another psalm: I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession (Psalm 2). Or, the Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens (Psalm 112). God sits upon his holy seat. At the right hand of the Father. Or the angels are called seats because of their innocence, because they did not sin. Hence he said: Heaven is my seat (Isaiah 66). God sits upon his holy seat: that is, in the Church. Whence it was said: The soul of the righteous is the seat of wisdom (Wisdom 7).

The princes of the peoples. The apostles. They are gathered together. To judge. Or, the princes of the peoples: that is, the elders of the Christians, whose figure the centurion bore; or now those who hold the very faith that Abraham had. Whence it was said: Many will come from the East and the West, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 2). With the God of Abraham. The God of Abraham is the true God, who is the God of the living, with whom the righteous will execute judgment. For thus also the Lord says in the Gospel: When the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. For the mighty gods of the earth have been exceedingly exalted. The gods are the saints, as the prophet says: I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High (Ps. 21). They have been exceedingly exalted. They have been exalted through faith and preaching. Or those who have been exalted in pride, and having abandoned heavenly things, have desired earthly things, to whom it is said: You shall die like men: these are to be judged by the God of Abraham, or by his apostles. But let us pray the Lord that, all swelling of pride being laid aside, we may be so joined to him in this world that in the judgment, separated from him on the left side, there may be found in us nothing to condemn us to punishment, but rather that which, by his abundant loving-kindness, may advance us to the crown.

PSALM 47.

A psalm of song for the sons of Core, on the second day of the sabbath. By "psalm" is understood work or preaching; by "song," knowledge and praise. The sons of Core: the holy apostles, or the martyrs. The first day of the sabbath made the light; the second day of the sabbath made the firmament. The light: the angels; the firmament: men. It has something of this in the New Testament. On the first day of the sabbath, Christ the light rose again. Whence he says in the Gospel: He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1). On the second day of the sabbath, the Church was established in faith, when the Lord said: And upon this rock I will build my Church (Matthew 16). The whole psalm dwells upon the holy people, the whole upon the mysteries of the Church. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. The voice of the Church.

He is called great, not by comparison, but for the greatness of his glory. As if it were asked, Where is he great, where is he to be praised? He answers: In the city of our God. The holy soul, whose citizens and household are understood as good deeds. In his holy mountain. In the assumed body of the Lord's man.

It is founded with the exultation of the whole earth. The earth which previously lay subject to sins and curses, he occupied by his ascension, and in it he spread abroad the exultation and gladness of his faith. Or the Church was founded, and is, in the whole world in faith. Mount Sion, the sides of the north, the city of the great King: to this mountain, that is, to Christ the Lord, two peoples came up from Sion: one from the sides of the north, which is from the uncircumcision, the other from the circumcision. Christ the Lord, therefore, who is our peace, took away the wall of enmity from the midst, and made both one: and he established in his Church, which is the city of the great King, these peoples through faith. Or Mount Sion: that is, the holy Church. From the side of the north: because she is gathered from the wicked. Whence it is said: From the north evils shall arise which are upon the earth. Here the north is the devil, to whom it is said: Come, north wind, blow through my garden (Cant. iv): that is, the Church with temptations. Whence the Apostle says: There must be heresies, that those who are approved may be made manifest among you (I Cor. xi). Or, the city of the great King: that is, the holy Church.

God will be known in her houses when he receives her. He received her through grace. But he is known in her steps, that is, in the apostles, or the other preachers, through whom the faith of the Church was proclaimed. For we are saved by grace through faith, and this not from ourselves; it is the gift of God, so that no one may boast of himself. Or, in the houses, that is, in the holy Church. When he receives her, in faith, because previously she was among the wicked.

For behold, the kings of the earth are gathered together. The princes of the world, whose kingdom was in the worship of idols and demons. From the sides of the north, that is, coming from the devil. Or, they are gathered together, and have come together into one, that is, into the unity of the Church. They have come together into one. The chief cornerstone founded in the foundation.

They, seeing, were thus amazed. At the glory and power of the Redeemer. Or they marveled at the virtues of the apostles, and were moved from unbelief to faith. They were troubled and were moved; trembling seized them. From the conscience of their sins, because it is said: From your fear we conceived and brought forth the spirit of salvation (Isa. 26).

There are pains there like those of a woman giving birth: in a vehement spirit. When they begin to discipline their bodies through abstinence: in a most strong spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit. Crushing the ships of Tarshish. Humbling the pride of the nations: because Tarshish, in its beginning, became proud and preeminent through the navigation of merchants. Therefore those who are carried about on the waves of this world by every wind of luxury and vanity are here compared to this ship. Now those who believe in her say:

As we have heard. Through the prophets. So have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God has founded it forever. We have seen in the Gospel, which is the city of hosts. We have seen in the Church, which is the city of God founded in that great kingdom.

We have received, O God, your mercy in the midst of your temple. In your Church we have received the Holy Spirit, just as he was first poured out upon those in the Acts of the Apostles.

According to your name. O God, so also is your praise to the ends of the earth. When, having received the Holy Spirit, they spoke in the tongues of all nations. But also in the breadth of the faithful people your praise ever abides. Your right hand is full of justice, in those who are to be placed on the right side in judgment.

Let mount Sion rejoice. The Church in Christ. And let the daughters of Judah exult. The souls of the confessors: for Judah is interpreted as confession. Because of your judgments, O Lord. Because they kept them so as to do penance. Or, your judgments, the hidden judgments of God: because the Jews were rejected, and the nations were chosen in faith.

Surround Sion. That is, defend the Church in your faith. And embrace her. In charity. Declare in her towers. The praise and glory of Christ. Declare, that is, preach. The towers are the leaders of your Church: because a tower is strong, and watches on every side. So also the saints must be both strong and watchmen among the human race.

Set your hearts upon his strength. Do not be separated from the love which he taught. Set, that is, understand. In his strength, in his love: because they ought to fulfill not only by teaching but also by deed what they preach. And distribute his houses. O you teachers of the churches, distribute the degrees of orders, canonically and holily; not corrupted by rewards, not deceived by flattery through favoritism of persons. That you may declare it to another generation. Not only to those who believe, but also to those who are going to believe. But what, you ask, are we to declare?

For this is our God forever, and unto the age of ages, and he himself will rule us unto the ages, God, because through him we were made. King, because by him we are ruled. For he himself has directed our slippery and crooked steps into himself, who is the way of peace, and the peace of our salvation.

PSALM 48.

Unto the end, for the sons of Korah, a Psalm. The sons of Korah are the holy apostles or martyrs. The Holy Spirit sang this psalm through the prophet in the person of the preachers. Or for this reason this psalm, because it teaches that the riches of the world with vain honors are to be spurned: also that the cunning of the serpent is to be guarded against, and it earnestly admonishes the whole world to hear the word of God, saying:

Hear these things, all you nations; give ear with your ears, you who dwell in the world. Understand wisely with spiritual ears, which the Lord chose for hearing. But in the Gospel he seeks the ears of the heart, whence God is heard. You who dwell in the world—that is, your bodies.

And you who are earth-born and sons of men; together rich and poor. It must be understood that he calls all the inhabitants of the earth to hear the word of God—namely, that the divine judgments or commandments be hidden from no man. Or together, rich and poor in one: that is, slave and free. Or, poor: whence he said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5).

My mouth shall speak wisdom. It shall speak that wisdom which is hidden from the wise of this world and revealed to little ones—that is, that the little ones of the Church may know that Christ is the wisdom of the Father, of whom all the prophets speak. Or, my mouth shall speak wisdom: that is, Christ, whom the Church preaches. And the meditation of my heart shall speak understanding. I meditated always in my heart, that men, forsaking stupid vanity, might be made equal to the understanding of Christ.

I will incline my ear to a parable. Because the prophet knows that Christ the Lord will come into the world, who speaks in similitudes: therefore he prepares himself to hear, that is, to understand spiritually. Or, I will incline the ear of the heart unto humility. In a parable, that is, in a similitude, I will understand. I will open my proposition upon the psaltery. This I set forth, that what that Decalogue foretold, if it be kept, the heavenly kingdoms are bestowed. Or, what I have purposed in the heart, I will preach in speech and understand.

Why should I fear in the evil day. In the day of judgment. The iniquity of my heel shall compass me about. Because whoever has sinned in the heel, slips. But also the iniquity of the heel is taken as original sin from Adam: as it was said to the woman: I will put enmities between you and the serpent, and your seed and his seed (Gen. 5). You shall watch, that is, you shall crush his head, and he your heel.

Those who trust in their own strength, and glory in the multitude of their riches. These slip on the heel, because they do not walk through him who is the way, the truth, and the life. Or: those who trust in their own strength, and who glory in the abundance of their riches.

A brother does not redeem; a man shall redeem. If Christ did not redeem—he who called himself the brother of the apostles, and by rising again became the firstborn of those who rise—then he will not redeem Adam, because the first man did not rise from the dead. For our brother is Christ, God and man, who redeemed us. Or: what Moses did not redeem, Christ redeemed. He shall not give his propitiation to God. He who does not do penance, through which God is propitiated.

And the price of the redemption of his soul. He did not give alms, through which sins are blotted out. He has labored forever. Placed in perpetual torments. And he shall live unto the end. Because he is not killed, but is always restored to punishment.

He will not see destruction. He does not understand that death is imminent for him. When you see the wise dying. If he sees a man wise in God departing from this world, he says: What did fasting profit him? What did chastity? What did alms? Did he not himself die? The Jews, insulting our Redeemer in a similar way, said: Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died, and the prophets died? At the same time the foolish and the stupid will perish, and they will leave their riches to strangers. He is foolish who despises having knowledge of God, of whom the Apostle says: Every ignorant person will be ignored. But stupid is he who hopes in riches and not in God. Therefore both lose their riches, because they gather them where thieves dig through and steal.

Their graves are their homes forever. Their tabernacles are for generation and generation. This will be their perpetual dwelling place: because they will not rise again to have eternal life, but to be condemned in punishment.

They called their names in their lands. For often the pagans, feasting upon the tombs of the dead and drinking in the name of those who have died, sing empty things with a certain melody: but it profits nothing for the damned in hell.

Man, when he was in honor, did not understand. That he was formed in the image of God. He was compared to senseless beasts, and became like them. Having laid aside the heavenly form, he became in the likeness of senseless beasts.

This way of theirs is a stumbling block to them. Because it leads them from judgment to punishment: And afterward they will be pleased in their own mouth. But confession profits nothing in hell.

Like sheep they are placed in hell: death will feed upon them. Deservedly are they fed upon by death, who refused to have Christ as their shepherd.

And the just shall rule over them in the morning. In the resurrection. And their help shall grow old in hell. They had riches, but when they descended into hell, they vanished. From their glory. Because they did not seek the glory of Christ, who now speaks of himself.

But God will redeem my soul from the hand of hell, when he has received me. Man God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God: but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Having also undergone death, raised again by the Father's power, he restored the man who had fallen.

Do not fear when a man has become rich, and when the glory of his house has been multiplied, etc. Judas the betrayer became rich by selling the Master: but he carried away nothing of the price he had received when he died. So then now each one, having oppressed the poor man, becomes rich and is multiplied. Do not fear; it quickly passes away, and he takes nothing with him of those things which he had seized: the Lord saying thus in the Gospels: Fool, this night they will demand your soul from you; but the things you have prepared, whose will they be (Luke 12)?

Because his soul will be blessed in his life. He is blessed by fools because of his power: but the satisfied and the mighty pronounce judgment not about one who lives well, but about one who feeds well. But these things do not excuse them from punishment. He will confess to you when you have done well to him. Then he gives thanks, when he acquires some gain.

And he will go in even to the generations of his fathers: he will not see the light forever. He hoped more in riches than in God, as did his parents: and therefore it is said of him: Cast him into the outer darkness, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 16).

Man, when he was in honor, did not understand: he is compared to senseless beasts, and has become like them. He did not know that all these things had been granted to him by God: for this reason his foolishness is compared to senseless beasts. But let us beseech the Lord, that he himself may grant us understanding, so that while we cast away the things that are seen, we may deserve to obtain those things that are not seen.

PSALM 49.

A psalm of Asaph. Asaph is interpreted as congregation. The psalm distinguishes the just from the impious, the heavenly from the earthly, and declares the holy to be separate from sinners. In it he declares that not the prophet but the Lord himself has spoken, saying:

God of gods, the Lord has spoken. God in the Trinity, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, one God: the God of gods, because he willed that believers be called gods. For he gave them power to become sons of God: to those who believe in his name (John 1). But he is Lord, in that he is Lord of all lords. And indeed the very one who long ago spoke in the patriarchs and prophets, the same now speaks. And what, you ask, does he speak? And he called the earth. Not some part of it; but hear what he added:

From the rising of the sun even to its setting. He left nothing that he did not make worthy by his calling. Out of Zion is the beauty of his comeliness. This is the faith and belief that begins from Zion. Whence the Lord in the Gospels: For it was necessary that Christ suffer these things and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins be preached in his name to all nations: beginning from Jerusalem, which is Zion (Luke 24).

God will come openly. Not hidden. Or, God will come openly: that is, on the day of judgment, because every man will see him: as it says in the Apocalypse: And every eye will see him (Apoc. 1). Our God and he will not be silent. Because he will come to judge: according to that saying: I have been silent, will I always be silent (Isa. 42)? Now he is silent, yet even if he is silent in judgment, he is not silent in command. In his first advent he was silent, because he appeared humble.

Fire will burn in his sight. Here fire is understood to have a twofold power. For it illuminates and it burns. Let the just rejoice: because they are illuminated by it. Let sinners fear, who are to be burned by it. And round about him a mighty tempest. Which scourges and corrects sinners, and separates the wheat from the chaff. And those whom the fire burns, the tempest envelops. And in another place it says: He will purge his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into the barn: but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Luke 3).

And he called the heaven from above—the apostles or the other saints, who, despising earthly things, savor the things that are above. And to discern his people from the earth. But he discerns also the earthly, so that when the heavenly are set at the right hand, these may be placed at the left. Or he will discern his people in the future judgment, when he will say: Go, you cursed, into eternal fire. And to the saints: Go into eternal life (Matt. 25).

Gather to him his saints. O how wonderfully these words agree with the holy Gospel! For after the dispensation of the end, the Lord hears what is said: The Son of Man will send his angels with a trumpet and great power, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from the heights of the heavens (Matt. 24). And here he says: Gather to him all his saints. Understand therefore by these words that there is one disposer of the Old and New Testament.

Who ordain his testament above the sacrifices. In whose mercies God delights above all sacrifices. Or they ordain—that is, they preach and fulfill—the New Testament above the Old, because the old things pass away, and behold, all things are made new (II Cor. 5).

And the heavens shall proclaim his justice. The Evangelists, or the law of Moses. For God is judge. He who makes a separation of the good from the evil. Or the heavens, the saints: they shall proclaim, they shall preach: as that, The heavens declare the glory of God (Ps. 18). His justice, his commandments. For God is judge: because he himself is the judge of the living and the dead. And he is our advocate, and he is judge, and he is our God.

Hear, my people: and I will speak to you, Israel. The voice of God the Father speaks to the Jewish people. Hear, my people. He requires the ear of the heart: whence the prophet says: I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me (Ps. 84). And elsewhere: Hear, Israel: the Lord your God, God is one (Deut. 6). Or receive ears for hearing, that you may understand, Israel. And I will testify to you. If you have perceived with a spiritual mind. Or I will testify to you, that is, through the patriarchs and prophets, as he said: I am who am (Exod. 3). For God, I am your God. I am God, by omnipotence; but I am your God, by grace: not mute and deaf idols, which you have worshiped until now. Or I am he who always is the same.

I will not reprove you in your sacrifices. For I delight in a contrite heart. But your burnt offerings are always in my sight. If you have directed to me the odor of right prayer, as the incense of sweetness.

I will not accept calves from your house: nor he-goats from your flocks. For I have spurned these things: because the blood of the true lamb has been poured out for the sins of my people. Or, I will not accept calves from your house: that is, the incontinent and the proud. Nor he-goats from your flocks: he-goats, who are foul in sin.

For all the beasts of the forests are mine, the cattle on the mountains and the oxen. Irrational men and those vacant upon diverse mountains: whom it is fitting to be saved by the calling of the Son of God.

I have known all the birds of heaven. Whether heretics, or the rich of this world, who are exalted through worldly pride and irrational knowledge. And the beauty of the field is with me. Because wherever I wish, the abundance of all things is either poured out or denied. Or the beauty of the field is with me: the virtue of the holy Church. The birds of heaven which you offer to me, turtledoves and doves, I have given to you, and all things before they come to be live with God: and in what place they would be, and at what time they would come, and in weight, and in measure all things are with God: as he says in the Gospel: For even all the hairs of your head are numbered (Luke 12). Or, the birds of heaven, the holy angels.

If I am hungry, I will not tell you. To be hungry is God's, not for corruptible foods, but that one may do his will: as he himself says in the Gospel: My food is to do the will of my Father. Therefore Christ is silent about his hunger, because he awaits sinners for repentance. For mine is the whole earth, and its fullness. The whole world. Or, the whole earth, the holy Church. As if he were saying that she was redeemed by his blood.

Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Here he declares that the old sacrifices are to be abolished: and therefore he requires a sacrifice in good morals: saying,

Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and render your vows to the Most High. This is the acceptable sacrifice: this is the rich burnt offering: that God be praised by the man whom he created, whom he redeemed: to whom he also promises the heavenly kingdom. Or the voice of the prophet admonishes the saints to sacrifice spiritually, and to render vows, as he says: In me, O God, are your vows: which I will render as praises to you.

Call upon me in the day of your tribulation, etc. We are tested so that we may be proved; let us persevere in faith, let us call upon him in tribulation, let us magnify him when we have been delivered from dangers.

But to the sinner God said: Why do you recount my righteous acts, and take my covenant upon your mouth? Let the teachers and bishops of the Churches hear these things, who cut away the sins of the peoples by preaching. Hence holy Paul says: They are manifest who have not endured the commandment of Christ (1 Tim. 5), that is, they do not fulfill in deed what they preach. Hence the Lord said to the apostles: What they have said to you, do; but according to their works do not do (Matt. 23).

But you have hated discipline, and cast my words behind you. The things you preached in the Church, you did not keep in your life.

If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and with adulterers you placed your portion. You ran with the thief, you partook with the adulterer, when you were joined to them either in flattering praises or in consenting pleasures. What he said above, you placed your portion, that is, the portion which you ought to have had with God and the angels, you place in hell.

Your mouth overflowed with malice, and your tongue framed deceits. While he was doing evil, you wickedly and deceitfully praised his good deeds. Or, your tongue framed deceit—that is, Judas against Christ. His mouth overflowed with wickedness when he formed a plan with the Jews to crucify him.

You sat and spoke against your brother, and you placed a stumbling block against the son of your mother. Christ is called the Son, because he came forth from the synagogue. Or Judas is called the brother of the Lord, as the prophet says: I will declare your name to my brothers (Ps. 21). Or otherwise: brothers are the stronger saints; sons, the simpler. Whence the holy Paul said: We who are stronger ought to bear with the weaker brothers (Rom. 15). You sat and spoke against your brother—the one who was reborn for you in baptism. And you placed a stumbling block against the son of your mother—whom the Church of God brought forth for Christ through faith as if he were yourself. These things you did, and I was silent. Because I reserved them to be examined in the future judgment. And I was silent: because I did not avenge at once, but I endured.

You thought, you wicked one, that I would be like you. Because I do not take vengeance in the present, you judged that those things please me, just as your own evils and those of others please you. I will rebuke you, when you have been placed on the left side of the seat, in the future judgment. And I will set them before your face, so that, confounded by these things, you may be condemned to eternal death—that is, by those commandments which you did not keep, or by your own sins and those of others, which you left behind after you, as it is said: For if you do not announce his iniquity to the wicked man, I will require his blood at your hand (Ezekiel 3). Would that we in this age would place our sins before us, and God would not set them before our face in the judgment, where no longer darkness but the judgment of death approaches.

Understand now these things, you who forget God. The voice of the prophet admonishes each one not to put the Lord in forgetfulness, nor his commandments (Job 2). Lest at some time he seize, and there be no one who may rescue. Lest at some time he seize, unto death or unto the day of judgment; whence he said: And there is no one who can snatch from your hand. Or he seizes that one—that is, he casts down unto death those who forget themselves, and no one can snatch them away:

The sacrifice of praise will honor me. For God is honored by every good thing that the saints do. Hence Paul said: Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the glory of God (1 Cor 10), as also in the Gospel: That they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt 5). For this reason that man honors me with the angels: because I have honored him before men in sacrifices of praise; and he has fulfilled what was spoken in the Gospels: Whoever confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father and his angels (Luke 12). And there is the way. The way of Christ is through the works of the saints. In it I will show him the salvation of God. The salvation of God the Father is the Son. In this sacrifice he points out the way that leads to life, that is, to Christ. May he deign to grant us that, separated from the chaff and filled with the fruit of sanctification, we may offer him a sacrifice of praise, so that, with him enlightening us, we may merit to understand the way of our salvation. Amen.

PSALM 50

To the end, a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, when he went in to Bathsheba. This fiftieth psalm contains the voice of a penitent person, showing that one who has fallen into sin should return to salvation by confessing his evils.

Have mercy on me, God, according to your great mercy. I confess my immense misery; therefore I ask for great mercy. For God shows great mercy to the one who considers himself miserable because of his own sins. For the lesser mercy is here in the present, that is, that when man did not exist, God created him from nothing so that he might exist, and rules and governs him. The greater mercy is spoken of when he rewards in the future the very man whom he created. And according to the multitude of your mercies, etc. I flee to your mercies, that you may pour the antidote of forgiveness into my grievous wounds. He says "of mercies" because my sins are many, and your mercies are many (Ps 68). Hence the prophet says in another place: Your mercies are many, Lord.

Wash me more thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. I ask that you wash me in the fountain of mercy, since you do not wish to preserve the wounds of sin forever. It is as if he were saying: You are able to forgive me more than I know how to ask.

For I acknowledge my iniquity. For I place it before my face. If you declare your sins in confession, God will forgive you. And my sin is always against me. Because my sins separate me from the riches of your goodness. Because I do not consign it to oblivion, I set it always before my eyes. Because if you place it before yourself, God does not place it before himself.

Against you alone have I sinned, and I have done evil before you. For everyone offends against you when he sins, because you alone are without sin, as the Apostle says: God is true, but every man is a liar (Rom. 3). Or David says: I have sinned, and you alone are without sin, as Isaiah says: Who did not commit sin, nor was guile found in his mouth (Isa. 53). Or that saying: Who will convict me of sin (John 8)? And again he says: The prince of this world is coming, and he finds nothing in me (John 14). That you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged. Because you judge a righteous judgment. For our sake, the transgressors and sinners, he was judged and condemned. Whence it was said: The righteous was judged by the unrighteous. But he in the future judgment will judge and condemn others.

You are justified, Lord Jesus, in your words: when you were led to death for the sins of the people, no deceit was found in your mouth. You conquered when you were judged, since the prince of darkness found nothing in you deserving of death. It is the custom of the prophet to speak of what has been done as though it were yet to be done.

For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother conceived me. This verse sets forth the fall of the whole human race, as in Job: Nor, if he is but one day upon the earth, can he be clean from the defilement of sin (Job 15 and 25). For one is conceived and born in original sin, which is drawn from Adam, but is purified by baptism through the grace of Christ. That you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged. Paul expounds this passage more carefully in the Epistle to the Romans: that God could discern concerning us by the authority of a judge, he does not do this, but wishes to be judged with us, so that the justice of the judge may appear more clearly (Rom 3). In sins my mother conceived me. This is an obscure passage and must be examined more deeply.

For behold, you have loved truth. When through the prophet you rebuked the sinning servant, you loved truth. The truth is Christ: because the Father loves his Son, or he loves the confession from the mouth of the sinner. You have made known to me the uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom. This is what he says in another place: Reveal my eyes, and I will consider the wondrous things of your law (Ps. 118). Uncertain and hidden to me will it be, if you forgive such a deed. But it is made manifest: when you deigned to pardon the one who sinned. For it is of your wisdom that you first rebuke, and so forgive. For even to the Ninevites the hidden wisdom of your mercy was known, when they said: Who knows if God may turn from his fury, and we shall not perish (Jon. 3)? Or God made known uncertain and hidden things through Nathan the prophet: that is, he declared to David, when he said: Your sin has been forgiven, just as the Ninevites were converted from evil to good through the preaching of Jonah.

Sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed. For just as earthly hyssop is suited to healing the lungs, so as to ward off swelling, so one who has been sprinkled with the heavenly hyssop—that is, with humility of heart—is purged from all the malice of pride. You will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. So that, because my sins are like scarlet, they may be made white as snow. You, I say, Lord, are able to change sin, black as pitch, into the whiteness of milk, and to turn soot-dark ebony into the brightness of crystal. Or, you will wash me: that is, through repentance and baptism. And I shall be made whiter than snow, as Isaiah said: If your sins be as scarlet, I shall make them white as snow (Isa. 1).

To my hearing you will give joy and gladness. When, lying in the sickness of sin, I have deserved to hear: Man, your sins are forgiven you. Or he says to my hearing: when he said: Nathan, your sin is forgiven. And the bones that were humbled shall rejoice. That is, the virtues which before had been humbled by sin. Or the eternity of my hope, which, when I sinned, had been humbled: with you forgiving, it exults.

Turn your face away from my sins. And do not so look upon them that they return into your remembrance. Turn away your face. As if he should say: do not see them, nor remember them. And blot out all my iniquities. Past, present, and future.

Create a clean heart in me, God, so that I may see you. As David was asking, so each one also ought to do. Create a clean heart in me, God. For this reason he was asking, that it might be made clean from sin. And renew a right spirit in my inmost being. So that I may rightly confess you. Or, a right spirit, for seeing and discerning: as it was previously right in me.

Do not cast me away from your face. Like Cain, so that I may be made an exile from you. From your face: that is, from your presence. And do not take your holy spirit away from me: but when my offenses have been consumed, establish me in your sight. Do not take your holy spirit away from me: that is, the spirit of prophecy.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation. The exultation of your Christ, which I had in him before I sinned. The salvation of God the Father is Christ. As if he should say: just as before I was foreseeing through the spirit that Christ would come in the flesh: so now let me do likewise. And strengthen me with the principal spirit. So that he himself may be in me: and vices may not rule. But you who read the holy Scripture: understand here the holy Trinity. Or, strengthen me, in the kingdom. A right spirit: that is, by renewing the Holy Spirit: that is, the spirit of prophecy. The principal spirit, the Father.

A right spirit, the Son: the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

I will teach the wicked your ways: and the impious will be converted to you. That those who turn aside from depraved ways, doing penance, may obtain mercy, just as I too have obtained mercy from you. I will teach the wicked your ways: and the impious will be converted to you: that is, I will set myself forward, so that others may imitate my example.

Deliver me from bloodsheds, O God. From many sins: of which Paul also says: that flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15). O God of my salvation. By whom I am made alive after sin. Because no other can do this, And my tongue will exult in your justices. Through which, sin having been punished in me, you have shown mercy. Or my tongue will proclaim your commandments.

O Lord, you will open my lips: and my mouth will announce your praise. If you open my mouth as once that of Moses: I will proclaim that you are holy, that you are merciful, that you are compassionate. Or they were closed through sin: nor was there a place, nor a time, nor could a person, nor an example give them: because praise is not beautiful in the mouth of a sinner.

For if you had valued sacrifice, I would surely have given it; you will not delight in burnt offerings. Let the Jews hear that their sacrifices have ceased; let them understand also that God speaks through another prophet: Your sabbaths, burnt offerings, and new moons my soul has hated (Isa. 1). What then will you offer, O man? Hear what follows:

A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise. Justly among the other Gospel beatitudes, this beatitude holds the first place. Blessed, he says, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5). Those who are not puffed up by the vanities of the world, but receive from God the breath of life, and pour out the contrition of an anxious heart upon him who for our sake became humble. Or many have a contrite heart, but do not have a humbled one: because they lament what they have done, and afterward desire to return to the very thing they did before, and are unwilling to repent of the past.

Deal kindly, O Lord. That is, make our hope pleasing to you. In your good will, for Zion. By which we contemplate you. And let the walls of Jerusalem be built. The fortifications of faith and love of that city, which we, placed in the Church, have set in you.

Then you will accept the sacrifice of justice, oblations and burnt offerings. When either you offer yourself for us to the Father, or you receive from us praises and acts of thanksgiving. Or, for the walls of Jerusalem, the virtues of the soul, or of the Church. Then you will accept the sacrifice: that is, the confession from the mouth of a sinner. The oblation: that is, the praise, and the burnt offerings. Then they will place calves upon your altar. The altar is faith: because whatever you offer, you must offer through faith. The calf is praises, or thoughts, or victims—namely, that I may offer myself as a living victim, holy, pleasing to you. We also, your suppliant servants, beseech you, Lord Jesus Christ, that by the counsel of your loving-kindness you would bestow your immense mercy upon our great sins, and that, through contrition of a humbled heart, by slaying base things and putting our offenses to death, you would prepare us as a worthy and acceptable burnt offering to you. Amen.

PSALM 51.

Unto the end, understanding of David, when Doeg the Idumaean came to him and announced to Saul, and said: David has come into the house of Achimelech. In the book of Kings, and in the Hebrew Psalter itself, it is written Abimelech; but since the letters beth and caph among the Hebrews are distinguished by a small stroke, error has crept in the more easily. Abimelech is interpreted, the kingdom of my father. David is interpreted, strong of hand. He came into the house of Abimelech: and Christ came into the kingdom of the Jews. By Saul is understood death; by David, life. What is it that death persecutes life, except that from the beginning of the world death always persecutes our life? Because those who love these present things persecute the holy Church: that is, those who love heavenly things. The psalm contains the voice of the prophet reproaching the sins of the Jewish people: for he speaks these things to him, saying:

Why do you glory in malice? Why, opposing the divine warnings, do you kill the prophets? You who are powerful in iniquity. For when, growing by the help of God, you kill his prophets, you have increased malice to this height, that you would hand over the Lord himself to death. Or, why do you glory in malice? That is, Adam, and the devil: because what God built, they destroyed in themselves: the image of God and of the angels. You who are powerful in iniquity. Not in goodness, but in iniquity.

All the day long. Every time of your life in which this malice has been propagated even to the shedding of the Lord's blood. Your tongue has devised iniquity. A thought is conceived in the heart of those who are at rest, and is brought forth by the mouth. For in the mouth of fools, their heart. As if he were saying: He did not treat in his heart what he vomits from his mouth; therefore he brought these things to the thought of the tongue. Or here the tongue is put for the heart: according to that saying: You said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, on the mountain of the covenant, on the sides of the north: I will ascend above the height of the clouds: I will be like the Most High (Isaiah 41). Like a sharp razor, you have wrought deceit. Deceit is when one thing is done and another is feigned. And a razor, if it wishes to imitate the doing of a facial smoothness, and wounds the cheeks with its cut, will work deceit. Because when he said sharp, he indicated that it was cunning with deceit. So too the Jews, the Lord whom they ought to have worshiped, not only did not worship: but striving to overcome him with various deceits, they killed him. Or otherwise: By the razor, persecutors are understood: because a razor cuts the hair: but by the hair the superfluity of riches is understood. Like a sharp razor, you have wrought deceit. He works deceit who circumvents his brother in a matter. Whence Paul says: Let no one circumvent or overreach his brother in a matter: because the Lord is the avenger of all these things (1 Thessalonians 4).

You have loved malice above goodness: iniquity more than to speak equity. That people loved malice, when it killed the one who had come in his own goodness to set them free. But even now the Jews themselves speak false things concerning him in whom they have not believed.

You have loved all words of precipitousness, O deceitful tongue. For speaking iniquity against the Most High, they themselves cast themselves headlong into the snare of damnation. Words of precipitousness, he says: because they cast themselves headlong, as the devil from heaven, as Adam also from paradise. In a deceitful tongue: because they had one thing in speech, another in the heart.

Therefore God will destroy you in the end: and he will pluck you out, and he will remove you from your tabernacle: and your root from the land of the living. All these things were fulfilled in the Jewish people: because both destroyed by the letter of the law, and torn from the city, and removed from the tabernacle of God. But these things are understood of those who do not believe in the tabernacle of the Lord's body: because they will be banished from the fellowship of his brightness, and from the dwelling of the blessed seat, or from the land of the living which the saints will inherit. Or, God will destroy you in the end: that is, the memory of the devil. As elsewhere: That man may not add any more to magnify himself upon the earth (Ps. 49). Whence the holy apostle Paul said: In the end of the ages the enemy death will be destroyed (1 Cor. 15): that is, the devil. He will pluck you out and remove you from your tabernacle, and your root from the land of the living.

As death was given in Adam, so it rules over all his sons. Hence it was said: Earth you are, and to earth you shall go (Gen. 3). The devil and Adam uprooted themselves: and each one does so when he sins.

The just shall see, and shall fear. Let them not desire such things. And they shall laugh over him. Concerning the vengeance of his calamity. They shall see, that is, they shall understand their punishment: and they shall fear, as the holy Paul says: See lest you also be tempted (Gal. 6). Or, they shall fear: that is, they shall not know their end. Hence it was said: Man does not know his end (Eccles. 9). Further, And they shall laugh over him. There are two times: a time of weeping, and a time of laughing. Here the saints have a time of weeping, and in the future a time of laughing. And they shall say: Behold the man who did not set God as his helper: but hoped in the multitude of his riches: and prevailed in his vanity. Therefore this vengeance descended upon him. Or he speaks of that rich man who was tormented in hell, because he had received good things in his life (Luke 16): and of that other to whom it is said: Fool, this night they require your soul from you: but the things you have prepared, whose shall they be (Luke 11)? So is he who stores up for himself, and is not rich toward God. Is it evil, then, to have riches, so long only as they are held by a just man: and thanks are given to God, who gave them? No, but it is evil to place hope in riches: since in another psalm he says: If riches abound, do not set your heart upon them (Ps. 61).

To have riches for necessity is permitted, but to possess them out of love is not permitted. For both Abraham and the other good men had riches, but they did not place their hope in riches.

But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house. The prophet compares himself to a fruitful olive tree through the richness of wisdom, so that, placed in the Church of God and living in the allegory of the law, he may bring forth evangelical fruits. For there is one God, the giver of the old and new Testament. The fruitful olive tree is the holy Church, as that passage says: Their storehouses full, overflowing (Ps. 143). Here it is taken in a good sense. Likewise the unfruitful olive tree, as the prophet says: The Lord called your name, from the voice of a great speech fire blazed up in it, and its branches were burned (Jer. 11). And that passage: A rich olive tree, beautiful, fruitful, fair (Ibid.), but you were turned into a wild olive. Likewise in a good sense he says: But you, when you were a wild olive, were grafted into the good olive (Rom. 11), that is, into the faith of the patriarchs. I have hoped in the mercy of God forever, and for ever and ever. Because it is not within the capacity of human frailty that one be saved by himself, but through the mercy of God.

I will confess to you forever, because you have made me. I pray that in this world, which you created by your word, I may merit to make confession, and that he may bestow it by his accustomed clemency. And I will wait upon your name, because it is good in the sight of your saints. That name, blessed before all ages, which renders to the saints their due reward, which the prophet, thirsting, seeks: that in his sight he may receive the lot of eternal blessedness. May he deign to grant us that, free from all deceit, cleansed from all iniquity, having confessed the Son of God equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit, we may merit to be planted like a fruitful olive in the heavenly Jerusalem.

PSALM LII.

Unto the end, for Amalech, the understanding of David himself. Amalech is interpreted as "grieving" or "in labor": the body of Christ is understood. And the Lord grieved for our sins, because he was a true body, and he brought forth sons. And the Church, the body of Christ, grieves for her own sins and those of others, and brings forth sons through the word of preaching: as that saying, "Through the Gospel I begot you" (1 Cor 4). And again: "My little children, whom I again travail in birth until Christ be formed in you" (Gal 4). This psalm contains the voice of the prophet rebuking sinners and the impious. The fool has said in his heart: there is no God. The fool has said, the Jewish people, or the devil: there is no God. As if he were saying, there is no Christ, the Son of God.

They are corrupt. Concerning the law of good nature. They have become abominable. That is, they have been made hateful. In their iniquities. That is, in their desires. Fools have not dared to deny God with their mouth, yet in their heart they say that he does not exist: in which evil they become horrible and abominable to God. There is none who does good: there is not even one. The prophet says this not of all, but only of all those who deny God: because at times they speak good things, yet they never do them.

The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see whether there is one who understands, or who seeks the Lord. That is, so that he might find those whom he would choose: as he once did among the prophets and patriarchs: and having found him, he might claim him as his own servant and foster child. To look down and to see belongs to one who is ignorant and one who seeks. Does God not know something? No, but the heavens are holy: as the prophet says: The heavens declare the glory of God (Ps. 18). And elsewhere, according to the Apostle: But our conversation is in heaven (Phil. 3): because the Holy Spirit makes the saints love and cherish God, and that same Holy Spirit is God. God looks down through his saints, because he declares beforehand, and speaks through them, as the Lord says: For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father, who speaks in you (Matt. 10).

All have turned aside, together they have become useless. These are foolish, because they were not seeking God: all have turned aside into passions; together they have become useless. He is called useless who does not work anything good: whence he says in the Gospel: Take the talent from him, and cast the useless servant into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 25). They are useless to themselves, who do not wish to fulfill the commandments of God. There is no one who does good: no, not even one. For none of these fulfills the will of the heavenly Father.

Will not all those who work iniquity know: who devour my people as food of bread? They have not called upon God. For they know that they act impiously, and not only do they not amend, but they even devour the people of God with the teeth of their malice: and they scorn to call upon God. There they trembled with fear, where there was no fear. They feared dead idols and images: they who ought to have feared God.

Because God has scattered the bones of those who please men. For God will crush their hope of eternity, who in contempt of him pleased themselves rather than him. Those who please themselves are confounded, that is, those who please men and not God. They are confounded, because God has spurned them. He is deservedly spurned by God who has forsaken God; and he who forsakes him is worthily confounded by him as one unknown, as the Apostle says: Every one who is ignorant shall be ignorant.

Who shall give from Zion the salvation of Israel? From Zion, as the prophet says, the Law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Who shall give? God the Father gave his Son in Zion: that is, in the holy Church, as the salvation of Israel. The salvation is Christ. Who shall give it except the Lord at his coming, through whom we behold the glory of eternity? When the Lord has turned away the captivity of his people. He too, having turned away the captivity of vices, has raised us up into the liberty of virtues. Of which captivity it says: they are now redeemed from the sin of Adam, but nevertheless we are still held in captivity, because the liberty is not yet complete, because while we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord. And again it says: Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. But on the day of judgment, when death, the enemy, is destroyed, then there will be true redemption. Jacob shall exult, and Israel shall rejoice.

Both things the Christian people hears: that he is Jacob, while he supplants the Jewish people and receives his blessing; and Israel, while he beholds God with the eyes of faith. Therefore we also, as suppliants, beseech God that we, turning aside from superfluous talk, instructed by him, may understand that all things consist in his dominion, who deigns, with the captivity of vices removed, to raise us up into the freedom of virtues.

PSALM LIII.

Unto the end, in songs of understanding of David, when the Ziphites come and say to Saul: David is hidden among us in the cave of Ziph. Ziph is a village, and from it the Ziphites are named. The Ziphites are interpreted as flourishing, that is, sinners, who are, as it were, flourishing and green in the present life, as the prophet says: All flesh is grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field (Isa. xl), because what is dry is reserved for the fire. These are appointed to punishment, the saints to the kingdom. Just as the grass today seems, as it were, green, until the heat comes, so sinners, because they seem to flourish, will wither on the day of judgment, and the saints, who here seem, as it were, dry and parched, will then be flourishing and green. Whence it is said: The just shall flourish like the palm tree (Psal. xci). David was hidden in the lower part of the earth; and the Lord in the womb of holy Mary, and in one nation of the Jews, and the divinity in the flesh of Christ. This psalm is recognized to contain the prayer of the man who is the Lord, taking the form of a servant, and drawing near to the passion in the form of a servant.

God, save me in your name. He asks this of the Father, that He may show the weakness of the flesh. In your name: that is, in that name of humility which is salvation. And in your virtue judge me. He wishes to be judged, that he may ascend to that honorable name of majesty. There was humility when He came from heaven into the womb, from the womb into the manger, and endured many things, that is, blows, spittings, and the rest. There was virtue when He rose again and ascended into the heavens on the fortieth day, and on the fiftieth day the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles, and they preached the doctrine of the Gospel throughout the whole world. Whence it is said: And He gave him a name which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, of things on earth, and of things under the earth: and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2). And because He died for a time from the weakness of the flesh, He lives by the virtue of God. And again the Apostle says: I judged nothing among you to know but Christ Jesus, and him crucified (2 Corinthians 2). Or, judge me. May the voice of the Church govern discernment.

God, hear my prayer. He asks this, that he may be worthy to be heard by God. For he alone knew how to pray constantly, and did not, as a man, fail to know what he should ask, according to that saying of the Apostle: For we do not know what we should pray for, as we ought (Rom 8). Give ear to the words of my mouth. The voice of the Church. The ears of the Lord are spoken of when He deigns to hear.

For strangers have risen up against me. That is, the Jews, who although they were God's own peculiar people, made themselves strangers to Him by transgression: not in knowledge, but in life and works. Whence he says: The strange children have lied to me (Ps 17). And if they are children, how are they strangers? They were of one tribe: but they were strangers, because they wished to take away the life of Him who had come to give them life. And the strong have sought my soul. Herod and the chief priests, having worldly strength. And the Lord says: You would have no power over me, unless it had been given to you from above (Jn 19). So too the heretics, persecutors of the holy Church. They have not set God before their sight. They did not understand that divinity lay hidden beneath the bodily person. The Diapsalma interposed changes the prayer: so that He who was first praying as a man, He shows that the effect of the prayer has been obtained, and therefore He adds:

For behold, God helps me. Because the Lord descended into death. And the Lord is the sustainer of my soul. He will quickly restore him. Or, God the Father received his Son, and Christ received his Church in faith.

Turn away evils from my enemies, and in your truth scatter them. Those who did not understand me through their malice, let them be scattered in your truth: as we now see it done. For we have been scattered in the regions. He says "truth": because he is true, that is, he will render to each according to his works. Scatter them, in the day of judgment and in your just vengeance: that is, the devil and his members.

I will willingly sacrifice to you. Well, "willingly": because by his own will he himself, both priest and victim for the sins of the people, offered himself to the Father, so that this sacrifice might give life to the world. I will willingly sacrifice to you. The voice of the Church. He says "willingly," that is, not by necessity or compulsion, but willingly, according to that saying: Shepherding the flock not by compulsion, but spontaneously (1 Peter 5). And I will confess to your name, because it is good. I have confessed in the world: because I descended from heaven, not to do my will, but yours, because it is good (John 6). I will confess: that is, I will praise your name: this is good.

Because you have delivered me from every tribulation, and my eye has looked down upon my enemies. Because he poured out a pure prayer at the beginning of the psalm, therefore God, foreseeing all things, declares that he has been delivered from tribulations and that his enemies have been looked down upon by the Father's inspection—namely, that you may understand that he reigns with that power, because after the resurrection he returned as victor to the stars. We suppliantly entreat him, that, saved by his help from enemies and delivered from worldly tribulations, we may follow with mind and deed our very head, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we look up to in the heavens.

PSALM 54.

Unto the end, in songs of understanding, David. Unto the end, in Christ: as that saying, Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every believer (Rom. 10). Unto the end is always understood concerning Christ. Whence also the holy apostles said: Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us (John 14). You cannot fulfill the law unless it is fulfilled by him. All holy Scripture is concerning him. In songs, that is, in praises: as there are songs of the world, so also there are songs of the Church: whence the praise of God is sung, and it is the consolation of the saints: because it has been said: Then the just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, equal to the angels (Matt. 19). The psalm contains the voice of the Mediator, who, though he was God, took the form of a servant for our freedom.