Breviarium In Psalmos

They failed, they sought, and they did not find, and in their hunger and thirst they did not find the way of the city of habitation. The hungry and thirsty. There were many who promised that way which would lead to the city. Socrates promised it, Plato promised it, Aristotle promised it. The woman with the flow of blood who was bleeding (Luke 8) sought many physicians, and by none could she be healed. They did not find the way of the city of habitation. Their teaching made rather a hunger for the truth than a satisfaction. The woman with the flow of blood spent her whole substance on physicians. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. But because she had lost her whole substance—that is, the Church gathered from the nations—because her soul fainted within her, she cried out to the Lord when she was troubled. The touch of the Lord's fringe was the cry of the believer.

And they cried out to the Lord when they were troubled, and he delivered them from their necessities. To the Lord, he says, when I was troubled I cried, and he heard me (Psalm 11). Then are we heard by the Lord, when not a simple voice, but tribulation cries out to the Lord.

And He led them in the right way, that they might go into the city of Habitation. Because they did not find the way of the city of habitation, therefore He led them into the right way. So He shows that they had indeed found ways before, but crooked and not right. And He leads them into the right way. The Way led them into the way. The Lord and Savior Himself led them into the right way: He made them walk in Himself: He is both guide and way. And He led them into the right way, so that through this way—that is, through the Lord Savior—they might go into the city of habitation, into His Church, which had been founded upon Himself, both rock and way and guide. And at the same time it must be considered that in this psalm it is said thirdly:

Let them confess to the Lord His mercies, and His wonders to the children of men. Because He satisfied the empty soul, and He satisfied the hungry soul with good things. Those who were empty of His grace and were suffering hunger for the word, He satisfied with heavenly good things.

Sitting in darkness and the shadow of death: bound in want and iron. For the human race was bound with the chains of sins, and handed over to the prison of the devil. And why did this happen? See what follows.

Because they provoked the word of the Lord, not keeping what He had commanded. And they provoked the counsel of the Most High, which He had given that they might choose life.

And their heart was humbled in labors, because they were not lifted up in the works of God. They were weakened, and there was none who helped, because they were not firm in God, nor with one who is the true physician when they sought Him.

And they cried to the Lord when they were troubled, and He delivered them from their necessities. After original sin the human race failed, not observing a second time the law handed down through Moses; but even from this necessity He rescued them.

And He brought them out of darkness, etc. And for this reason: Let them confess to the Lord His mercies, and His wonders to the children of men. And why either His mercies are to be confessed, or His wonders proclaimed, the following words teach.

Because he broke the gates of bronze and shattered the bars of iron. For the dayspring from on high has visited us, and has illumined the darkness of errors, and burst the chains of the law, so that we might serve with free will.

He received them out of the way of their iniquity. The devil, then, had barred the bronze doors of his halls with the strongest bolts, so that the human race could not go out from under his authority. All these things, as we have said, the Lord broke by his visitation, taking man up into himself. For they were humbled because of their injustices, so that they might be exalted in him.

Their soul abhorred all food, and they drew near even to the gates of death. And they cried out to the Lord when they were in tribulation, and he delivered them from their necessities. But see how he delivered them: because they abhorred every word of life that the prophets foretold, and they drew near to death.

Then he sent his word and healed them. That is, his own Son, who in the beginning was the Word, who in the Gospel heals every sickness and every infirmity among the people. And he snatched them from their intentions, in which they had plunged themselves.

Let them confess to the Lord his mercy. To those to whom the Most High humbled himself, to those to whom God became man: to those for whose sake the immortal one was subjected to death for the life of mortals. And his wonders to the children of men. Because he broke the gates of hell and its bars: because he returned as victor to the realms above: because he returned to the heavens.

And let them sacrifice a sacrifice of praise. Let the goats and calves cease: because God requires a sacrifice from a pure heart. And let them proclaim his works in exultation. Let them proclaim with joy to all the choirs: how he saved them by his visitation.

Those who go down to the sea. That is, the world. In ships. In the Churches, which carry Christ and are buffeted by the waves of this world. Doing their work in many waters. Among the peoples. But these things must also be referred to the apostles: they saw the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For in the deep darkness, through their preaching the light of truth shone forth, and they saw, with the Lord working, the light of the truest Trinity shining in the thickest darkness.

He spoke, and the spirit of the storm stood still. Worldly temptation ceased. So too the Lord, sleeping in the boat, when he had been awakened by the disciples, commanded the wind, and the sea fell silent (Matt. 8). And his waves were exalted. They were held suspended, lest they do harm: that is, the motions of this diabolical temptation, which the wicked stir up against the just.

They ascend even to the heavens. They are lifted up in their pride, to the injury of the saints. And they descend even to the depths. They are humbled in confession. And so that you may understand that this is said figuratively about evil men, it follows: Their soul shall waste away in evils. For the waves of waters do not have a soul. But the soul wastes away: when, struck by heavenly blows, it recognizes that it has sinned and inflicted injury upon the saints.

They were troubled, and moved like a drunkard. For their senses had nothing joyful, nothing stable, nothing sober. And all their wisdom was devoured. By the wisdom of the true God: as once the serpent of Moses swallowed the serpents of the Egyptians (Exod. 7).

And they cried out to the Lord when they were troubled, and he delivered them from their necessities. So that, abandoning luxurious drunkenness, they might follow the wisdom of God.

He established his storm into a breeze. So that now he might come not with fire and hail, but with the sweet breath of the Holy Spirit. And his waves fell silent. Doing penance, they were turned into tranquility.

They rejoiced because they fell silent. While those were at rest, these rejoice. And he led them out into the harbor of their will. From these quieted waves, they added their whole will to be led to him: who, calming the waves, is the true harbor. And he delivered them from their necessities. Lest they be shaken by these surges.

Let them confess to the Lord his mercies. By which he protects the human race. And his wonders to the children of men. Because he wondrously restrained these waves.

Let them exalt him in the church of the people. In the congregation of the faithful. In the chair of the elders let them praise him. Not in that chair in which the Scribes and Pharisees sat, who, reading the law, did not understand in it the Lord announced, but in that in which either the prophets or the patriarchs, contemplating him with the spiritual eye, knew him in miracles, or sang of him in oracles.

Because he turned rivers into desert, and springs of water into thirst: fruitful land into saltiness, because of the wickedness of those dwelling in it. Rightly is he to be exalted, rightly praised, who in the Church that had formerly been desert and held in hatred, placed apostles, who would both console her with their address and make her fruitful with their flood. He gave also into the souls of the thirsty his word, the springs of preachings, and the land of the body, which had formerly brought forth thorns of bitterness, he filled with eternal fruits.

He turned the desert into pools of waters. Providing baptism in the Church. And the land without water into springs of waters. Establishing preachers in the dryness of the nations.

And he settled there the hungry. That they might be refreshed with heavenly goods. And they established a city of habitation. They showed forth their souls safe from the incentives of vices: in which the fruit of the spirit might dwell.

And they sowed fields, and planted vineyards, and brought forth the fruit of birth. These things are referred to the apostles, who cast seed into the hearts of believers, from which they receive the fruit of eternity, that is, a hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold (Matt. xiii).

And he blessed them, and they were multiplied exceedingly. Because they were doing the things that pleased him. So too in the hand of Joseph God blessed all things, because he kept himself from wicked thoughts and desires (Gen. 41 and following). And he did not diminish their cattle. The irrational men among them were not diminished downward, but restored for the better. Therefore, the calling and redemption of the nations having been set forth, he returns to the expulsion of the Jews, saying:

They were made few. Because the works of God had not been multiplied in them. And they were vexed by the tribulation of evils and by grief. Because the wicked persecuted the innocent.

Contention was poured out upon their princes. So that those who had despised the Lord might themselves be despised. And their vain idols seduced them, namely those which they worshiped. And he led them into a pathless place, and not into the way. Those seducing them from the way of the Lord led them into the pathless place of Satan. Finally, these having been led into the pathless place, let us see what God did for his people.

And he helped the poor man out of his poverty. He satisfied the Christian people with eternal feasts. And he set the families like sheep. So that hearing the voice of the true shepherd, they might follow in faith.

The upright shall see, and shall rejoice. Those converted by their preaching. And all iniquity shall stop its mouth. The devil, or the Jews, or the heretics: who had presumed to speak iniquity on high.

Who is wise and will keep these things, and then will understand the mercies of the Lord? For if you consider wisely and understand spiritually, you will see in this fourth psalm mercies sought and mercifully granted: which may he deign in flowing piety to grant to us also when sought, to open when knocked, not to deny when asked. To him be glory with the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.

PSALM 107.

A canticle of a psalm to David himself. A canticle is always referred to the sense; but a psalm is referred to bodily things. But that we may speak more plainly, a canticle is referred to contemplation; but a psalm to practice, that is, to works. Since therefore it is written in the title: A canticle of a psalm: rightly and consequently in the second verse he says: I will sing and I will psalm in my glory.

My heart is ready, God, my heart is ready. I am ready not only in deed, but also in heart and mind. My heart is ready, in mind; my heart is ready, in deed, that is, in practice. For I am ready not only in heart and mind, but also in deed. Therefore I say a second time: I will sing and I will make melody in my glory. I will sing, that is, in my heart, and I will make melody. Just as a psaltery is composed of many strings, and if one string is broken, the psaltery is ruined, so too in our actions, if we have transgressed one commandment, our psaltery is broken. Therefore he said: I will sing and I will make melody in my glory. In other manuscripts it is read, in your glory. But it is better to read according to the Hebrew, in my glory. What he says is this: I will sing and I will make melody in my glory: This, Lord, that I sing to you, that I chant to you, I do not grant as a favor to you, but to myself. For in another psalm he says: For you have no need of my goods (Ps. 15). What I do, therefore, I do for myself. What I render to you, therefore, is my glory. We fast: do we give anything to God? We do this for our sins. We lie in sackcloth. What do we bestow on the Lord from this? We bestow this much on him, that we save our souls. For he himself desires this. Like a good and merciful physician: if he has healed someone, both he himself rejoices and the one who has been healed: so too our Lord.

Arise, psaltery and harp. O psaltery, O harp, you were made and created to sing psalms to God: arise and sing, why do you lie low? O monk, who stand upright in body, why does your soul lie low, and why do you not sing psalms to the Lord? Cursed is the man who does the work of God negligently. If you are a psaltery, if you are a harp, why are you deaf, and why do you not glorify God? I will arise at dawn. God cannot be blessed and praised in darkness, but in the light he is blessed. I speak of a wondrous thing: even if we rise by night, we bless God in the light. For a Christian there is never night: for a Christian the sun of righteousness always rises. And these things indeed we say according to the Jews. But according to the deeper meaning, it is the Lord who sings: My heart is ready, God, my heart is ready. I am ready here, I am ready in the future. I save both on earth and in the heavens, that is, I save both angels and men. Arise, psaltery and harp. The Lord speaks to his body: Psaltery and harp, you who descended into hell and lay low, arise and praise the Lord. And you see what he says: it is not he who moves the harp and the psaltery who praises; but the harp and the psaltery themselves, they themselves bless the Father. For he is God, and by others he is blessed and praised. But his body and the man whom he took up, he himself praises the Lord. But so that you may know that the prophet speaks in the person of the Lord, and that I do not speak this of myself, see what follows.

I will confess to you among the peoples, O Lord. But understand the peoples to mean the Jews. And I will sing psalms to you among the nations. He speaks of us. For he calls those Jews who first believed from among the Jews. And see the order: first he praises God among the peoples, and afterward he praises the Lord among the nations. For first some from among the Jews believed, and afterward some from the Gentiles believed.

Because your mercy is great above the heavens. There is no creature that does not need the mercy of God. We all need the mercy of God. Gabriel, Michael, the Seraphim, the Cherubim, the Powers, the Dominations are indeed holy, but they need the mercy of their creator. I do not disparage the angels, but I proclaim the creator, since the angels themselves gladly hear their creator proclaimed. And in another way we can say, Because your mercy lifts from the earth to the heavens. And your truth even to the clouds. Where are the Jews, where are those like the Jews, who understand only according to the letter? How is the truth of God even to the clouds? The Son of God says: I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14), and he came down to the earth and conversed with men (Baruch 3). And how, your truth even to the clouds? The meaning is clear, that he speaks of the apostles and of the saints, that they may not rain their shower upon the Jews, but upon the nations, as it is written: I will command my clouds, that they rain no shower upon Israel (Isaiah 5). In these clouds, therefore, is the truth of God.

But if the truth of God is in these clouds, how is it that Montanus says, and the Cataphrygians say, that what was not revealed to the apostles has been revealed to us?

Be exalted above the heavens, O God. God is not exalted except above the heavens; he is not exalted above the earth. When we are earthly, we do not exalt God. But if we have been made heavenly out of earthly, then we exalt God, and our Lord, when he was on earth, did not exalt us. Let someone say: You speak rashly. For he himself says in the Gospel: When I am lifted up, I will draw all things to myself (John 12). See what he says: When I am exalted in heaven, then I will draw all things to myself. This is indeed the first sense, but I understand something else. When I am exalted, when I am crucified, then I will draw all to myself. That your beloved may be delivered. O wondrous understanding! For this reason the Lord is crucified and exalted, that his beloved may be delivered. That they may be delivered, he says, your beloved. Be exalted above the heavens, O God. What we asked has been done. He has been exalted, and we have been delivered. God has spoken in his holy one. Whether in the temple, or in each one of the saints, or in the prophet. He is heard in Moses, he is heard in the apostle; and more truly I say: He has spoken in his Son. What then has God spoken? These things which follow.

I will be exalted and divide Shechem. For this cause, he says, I am crucified, that I may divide Shechem. Shechem is interpreted in our tongue as shoulders. But shoulders are interpreted as works. The sense, therefore, is this: For this cause I am crucified, that I may divide my works among my saints. For this cause I am crucified, that I may lay my sweet yoke and my light burden upon the necks of men. You have done, O Lord, what you promised. You have been exalted and have divided Shechem. And the valley of tabernacles I will measure out. Truly the Lord and our Savior has entered into this valley of tears, into the place of our lowliness, that is, into this world, in which, however holy anyone may be, he does not yet know as he ought to know. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part (1 Cor 13).

Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine. Our Lord and Savior rejoices, having many riches. Gilead is interpreted as transmigration. He rejoices, therefore, when the people have migrated from the nations and come to him. Manasseh is interpreted as from oblivion. See, then, what he says: That son who took his substance and devoured it and was forgetful of me, now has remembered me (Luke 15). And he is called Manasseh, that is, from oblivion, because he did not forget, but returned to his father. And Ephraim is the lifting up of my head. Ephraim is interpreted as fruitful. Ephraim, he says, is the lifting up of my head. He has now set lifting up in place of a crown.

For what is placed on the head is a crown, and in the Scriptures it is called by different names. In another place it has: His truth shall surround you with a shield (Ps. 90). And in another psalm: Who crowns you in mercy and compassion (Ps. 102). For just as there he set a shield for a crown, so here too he set a taking-up for a crown. See therefore what he says: You have become Gilead, you have become Manasseh—that is, you have passed over to the Lord, and after forgetfulness you have returned to your father. Be Ephraim, be fruitful. Hold good works, and afterward you shall be the crown of the Lord.

Judah is my king. See in how great glory is he who does penance. For Judah is interpreted as confession. Moab is the pot of my hope. A great mystery is recognized in few words. I ask you, be diligently attentive. For it profits both me who speak and you who hear. Moab is interpreted as from the father. Ab is called father; Mo, from. Who is this one from the father? He who has lost his father, who has abandoned his father; who has not returned to his own father, nor is worthy to be called Manasseh. Who is this Moab? The enemy of the Lord, from whose lineage even to the fourth generation and the tenth and even forever he shall not enter into the Church of the Lord. Who is this Moab! He who is born from an unclean union in a dark cave. For from Lot and his daughters two were born, Moab and Ammon, and Moab is the elder son (Gen. 19). See therefore how in the letter a mystery is hidden.

In darkness, in a cave: not in the sun, not in the light. Moab, then, is interpreted as the devil, who has forgotten his father. Finally, even Absalom, who persecuted his father, is interpreted as the devil. So how is this Moab a pot of the Lord's hope? Lebes is interpreted as a pot. How is a pot of the Lord's hope? Is it then credible that Moab, which is interpreted as the devil, should be a pot of the Lord's hope? How is he the Lord's hope? Let the Apostle say: Whom I delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme (1 Tim. 1). The devil is, as it were, the Lord's questioner. Those who do not walk rightly toward God are handed over to the devil. Why? That they may perish eternally. And where is God's mercy? Where is the merciful Father? Where is he who makes his sun rise upon the just and the sinners, and rains upon the sinners and the just (Matt. 5)? What he says is this: I have delivered, he says, sinners to the devil, so that, tormented by him, they may be converted to me. It is also said in Jeremiah: What do you see, Jeremiah? A kindled pot, he says (Jer. 1). See, then, that meats are put into this pot. This is written in Ezekiel: And put, he says, the meats into the pot, that they may become soft (Ezek. 24). That hard things may be converted to God: that from a heart of stone there may be made a heart of flesh. And where before it could not be written because of hardness, afterward let it be written because of softness. I will kindle, he says, this pot, and I will boil the meats and the bones, until they lose all their moisture and filth.

And see afterward what is said: And let them learn, he says, that I am the Lord. Great mercy, and a great mystery. Flesh is cast into the pot, that it may be boiled down and learn that the Lord is. There are many things that might be said about Moab and the pot, but now it is lengthy.

Over Idumaea I will stretch out my sandal. Idumaea is interpreted as earthly and bloody. God, in his mercy, wills to possess not only heavenly things but also earthly ones. To me foreigners have become friends. He says this of us, who have believed from among the Gentiles.

Who will lead me into the fortified city? No one, Lord. For you are the one who says: I have trodden the winepress alone, and no man from the nations was with me (Isa. 63). For all have turned aside, together they have become useless: there is none who does good, there is not even one (Ps. 13). Who then will lead me into the fortified city? No one, Lord. Indeed even Peter, who had promised to die for you, afterward denied you. What is this fortified city? Hell, where the wicked are shut in: from which it is not permitted to depart. And truly from this city no other than the Lord went out as victor. And truly this city is fortified. Moses could not go out from this city. Jacob likewise entered into this city, and did not return. Finally he says to his sons: I shall go down mourning to the underworld (Gen. 37). But he went down to the underworld because paradise had not yet been opened by the thief. This city is fortified for going out: but it is open for going in.

Who will lead me even into Idumaea? Where there is a place of punishment, and of blood. For Idumaea is interpreted as “bloody.” The place of the slaying of souls, where many souls are killed. For no victor descends into hell except you alone, Lord.

God, who have cast us off. He did not say, “Who cast us off,” but, “Who at one time cast us off.” And will you not go forth, God, in our powers? These things are to be read as questions. And will you not go forth, God, in our powers? You who suffered for us, why do you not help us, but allow us to be trampled by the most cruel devil? And will you not go forth, God, in our powers? See what he says: he did not say, “You did not go forth,” but, “Will you not go forth, God, in our powers?” This is what he means: when we labor, then God helps us. For it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom. 9). See what he says: he did not say, “It is not of him who lies down nor of him who sleeps, but of God who shows mercy.” But see what he says: “It is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” If, then, we do not will and do not run, God will profit us nothing. It is ours to will and to run, and afterward God shows mercy. For an athlete who sleeps loses the victory.

Give us help from tribulation. He did not say, give us help from pleasures, but from tribulation. To the Lord, when I was in tribulation, I cried out, and he heard me (Ps. 119). He did not say: when I was in pleasures I cried out, or sleeping I cried out. Do you wish to be heard by the Lord? Be in tribulation: cry out, and you will be heard. If anyone, therefore, is not in tribulation, he cannot invoke the help of the Lord. Because vain is the salvation of man. Cursed is the man who has hope in man (Jer. 17). There is no need to interpret this. This sentence is clear to all. Someone hoped in the emperor, hoped in a prince, in a father, or a mother: in some matter the spirit of the one in whom he hoped was suddenly taken away, and his salvation vanished. He did not say, vain is the salvation of man; but, the salvation of him who hopes in man.

In God we shall do valiantly. Let us have hope in no one but the Lord alone. Let us not say: if this or that happens to me, how shall I have to live? I answer you with what is greater. If persecution comes, how shall you have to live? For a Christian there is always persecution, always nakedness is set before him. No one, therefore, ought to despair of this life, no one should fear, no one ought to say: If I grow old, how shall I have to live? If I become weak, how shall I live? You have Christ, and you fear? If he feeds the birds of the sky, do you doubt that he can feed you? The devil feeds his men, and Christ will not feed his servants?

Does the devil make the rich judges of this world, and Christ cannot make them not beggars? The devil gives gold and gems, and Christ cannot give bread? Let us cast all anxiety from our hearts, and say: In God we shall do valiantly. He himself will be our strength: he himself our bread: he himself will be our ruler. And he himself will bring our enemies to nothing. He himself crowns us: he himself fights with us: or rather, he himself will conquer in us. For what do we say? In God we shall do valiantly. For when we have been strong, he himself will bring our enemies to nothing. He did not say: he will fight, or he will slay: but, he will bring to nothing. Therefore he will bring them to nothing, so that, if they are willing, he may make them strong and glorify them. Let us therefore bless God: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

PSALM 108.

Unto the end, a Psalm of David. What he says, unto the end: let us understand that it is said not of the present, but of the future. But if it is said of the future, it is a prophecy concerning Christ.

O God, do not be silent to my praise. That is, Judas betrayed me, the Jews persecuted and crucified me, and they thought to destroy me utterly. But you, O God, do not be silent to my praise. The whole Church praises the Lord every single day, and the prayer of the Lord is fulfilled when he says: O God, do not be silent to my praise. See of what dignity the priests are. The priests speak, and in the priests God does not keep silent the praise of his Son. Because the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful man is opened against me. Let us see how the mouth of Judas the traitor was opened against the Lord. He comes to the Lord to betray him, and says: Rabbi, that is, master (Mark 14). Behold the mouth of the sinner, and the mouth of the deceitful man. I wish to save him by my clemency, and I offer him a kiss, and I wish to overcome his malice, yet he persists in doing evil, so as to betray me. This is understood specifically of Judas, but generally of the Jews, at the time when they were saying: Crucify, crucify (John 19). Such was the mouth of the sinner opened against the Lord. But so that you may see that he spoke of all the Jews, you will recognize it from what follows. For what does he say?

They spoke against me with a deceitful tongue. I was being crucified for them, and they insulted me. My wounds were their medicine, and I seemed to them a laughingstock. And with words of hatred they surrounded me—not that they might believe, but that they might destroy me. And they destroyed me for nothing. “For nothing” is understood in two ways, that is, without cause. For I had not sinned, and I did not deserve that they should wage war against me. But what worthy cause was there for them to destroy me? Because I had healed their sick, because I had raised their dead, because I had performed other signs. See, then, that they destroyed him for nothing. And it is understood in another way: they wished to extinguish and blot out my name, and yet they could not. When someone persecutes another and accomplishes nothing, and does not fulfill his desire, he persecutes him for nothing.

In return for my love they slandered me; but I was praying. For the benefits I had conferred on them, they heaped insults on me. But what was I doing? I was praying. These are the Lord’s weapons; let these be our weapons too—prayer. So whenever someone persecutes us and hates us, let us say: In return for my love they slandered me. But what was I doing? I was praying—so that I might conquer them? Far be it. The Lord did not pray that he might conquer. But what did he say? But I was praying. What was I saying? Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23).

And they set evil against me for good. Placed on the cross, I was praying for those crucifying me, and they were saying: "Aha! You who destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself" (Mark 15). "If the Father loves you, let him come now and free you" (Matt. 28). I rose from the dead for their sake, and they say: "His disciples came by night and stole him" (Luke 23). And hatred for my love. Consider, O Christian; consider, O monk: if the Lord received his persecutor and betrayer with a kiss, and prays for those crucifying him, what ought we to do for our brothers?

Appoint a sinner over him. Because I pleaded for them on the cross, and they saw my wounds. I gave them a place of repentance, and they do not repent, and they do not want to have me as king; let them have the devil as king: they do not want to have Jesus as king; let them have Barabbas as king, which is interpreted "son of the father," that is, of the devil. Who was this Barabbas? A seditious man and a thief. And truly they have Barabbas as king, and to this very day a seditious man and a thief, who killed the Jews themselves. Barabbas the thief, who delights in blood, was imprisoned before the Lord was crucified, before the Jews crucified him. They denied the Lord, and Barabbas was released (John 18).

For at that time Barabbas began to have power over them, and that demon which had been cast out of the man and out of that generation, and was walking through the desert and could find no place, took with him seven other demons worse than himself (Luke 11), and entered into the synagogue, and the last state of that man became worse than the first. Finally, even the synagogue of the Jews, before it crucified the Lord, was indeed sinful, but it had only one demon. It crucified the Lord, and eight demons entered into it at once. What was said was therefore fulfilled: Set a sinner over him, and let the devil stand at his right hand. Because he stood at his right hand, the synagogue therefore had a withered right hand, as it is written in the Gospel. But let us pray that the Lord may stand at our right hand, and the devils at our left (Luke 6). It is written in Zechariah: And the Lord showed me Jesus the great priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan was standing at his right hand, to fight with him (Zechariah 3). If, then, the devil stands at the right hand, how does he now say concerning Judah, and let the devil stand at his right hand? But see what he says: The devil was standing at the right hand of Jesus, to oppose him, that is, he wished to oppose his right hand. Here, however, he does not say that he wishes to fight, but that he had already conquered Judah. There the devil desires to fight against the right hand; here he has gained dominion over the right hand of Judah. But this must be considered.

At that time he stood at the right hand of the Lord, to oppose him, when Jesus had filthy garments. For so it is also written there: And Jesus had filthy garments. As long as the Lord Jesus has filthy garments, so long does the devil stand at his right hand; as long as he bears our sins, the devil opposes him in our sins. But when it is said in Zechariah: Take away his filthy garments, and clothe him with change of raiment, immediately Jesus says to the devil: May the Lord rebuke you, Satan; may he rebuke you who has chosen Jerusalem. We have said all this for this reason: because it is written: And let the devil stand at his right hand.

When he is judged, let him go out condemned. Let him not come into judgment, but into condemnation. For where there is judgment, there is condemnation; but where there is condemnation, the sentence is already manifest. And let his prayer be turned into sin. The repentance of Judas became a worse sin. In what way did the repentance of Judas become a worse sin? He went and perished by hanging. And he who became the betrayer of the Lord, this same man also became his own killer. By the Lord's mercy I say this: that he offended the Lord more by hanging himself than by betraying the Lord. His prayer ought to have been for repentance, and it was turned into sin. You see the heretic praying, you see the Jew, you see the Manichaean: though they fast, though they pray, yet their prayer is turned into sin.

Let his days be few. His days have been made few, but his nights have increased. For he was taken away in the midst of his days. The sun departed from him, and behold, darkness was multiplied upon him. And let another take his bishopric. This is also interpreted more plainly in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1). Nor was it said of Judas only at that time, but it is said even to this day, and until the day of judgment. If Judas himself lost the apostleship, let priests and bishops guard themselves, lest they too lose their priesthood. If an apostle fell, a monk can fall more easily. The office is not lost, even though the man falls and perishes. Nevertheless, the Lord gives his denarii at interest. If that one has not doubled them, his money is taken away and given to the one who has. The Lord's money cannot be idle.

Let his children be orphans, and his wife a widow. See that these things that are said are mysteries. Whose children of Judas do you think? The Jews. And they are called Jews not from that holy Judah, but from this traitor. From that holy one we are spiritual Jews; from this traitor, however, these are carnal Jews. Finally, there are two apostles who are called by the name Judas. The eleventh apostle is the one called Judas of James. The twelfth and last, however, is the one called Judas Iscariot. From that Judas of James, therefore, we are called Jews; but from this Iscariot, those carnal ones are called Jews. That Judas is called our father, of James, that is, Judas the son of the supplanter.

For we have supplanted the people of the Jews and have received their firstfruits; but they are called from Iscariot, which is doubtful whether it signifies a father or his village. Otherwise, however you interpret it, it means wages and price. Therefore Judas, who was about to betray the Lord and to receive a price, took his name from the price. Although he returned the price to the priests of the Jews, yet they condemn him, because they are unwilling to receive the price of blood. See the dissension of the Pharisees and the wretchedness of the Jew. If you bought the blood of Jesus well, why did you not receive your money? But if you are unwilling to receive it, because it is the price of blood, you show that you yourselves shed the blood unjustly and wickedly. But see what they do. They do not, he says, put that money into the treasury, but buy a field with it, and call it Acheldemach, which is interpreted, the price of blood (Matt. 27). Why do they buy it? For the burial of strangers. We are blessed, for whom a field is bought from the price of the Lord's blood. And his wife a widow. The synagogue, which was first made the wife of God, of which he said: And he gave her a bill of divorce (Deut. 24). And again: I received her, and I said to her: Turn to me (Jer. 3). That synagogue, therefore, received a divorce from the Savior, and was made the wife of Judas the betrayer. Finally, what did she do? She did not receive a dowry, but gave a dowry to her husband.

Again, however, that most wretched Judas who betrayed the Lord does not wish to accept the evil dowry; but he returned to the harlot his wife the evil dowry which he received from her. And what does he say? You have displeased your former husband, he has repudiated you and cast you out, and given you a bill of divorce. I do not wish to have you as a wife. You gave me a price, and you deceived me. And you who killed the Lord your God will kill me as well. For I cannot find in Scripture that Judas had either a wife or sons.

Let his sons be moved and waver, and beg. Consider carefully: for the things that follow are difficult. From that time when the Lord was crucified, from then on the Jews are always in motion, they do not stand in their place. Finally it is said also of Cain: And Cain, it says, went out from the face of God, and dwelt in the land of Nod (Gen. 4): but Nod is interpreted as commotion. Because Cain had gone out from the face of God, rightly he did not stand still, but dwelt in the land of Nod, that is, in commotion. So therefore these too, since they crucified their God and their man, shall be moved and waver. For they are not in their own places, but are scattered throughout the whole world. Here he calls poverty the lack of spiritual riches. For they do not have the prophets, they do not have the Law, they do not have the priesthood, they do not have the sacrifice, but truly they have been made beggars.

Let the moneylender search through all his substance. You gave him money, Lord; you gave him to him and to others. But what did he do? He did not tie it in a cloth, nor did he bury it in the earth, and he was negligent; but when he had the talent and the money of the Lord, he took a price from the enemies of the Lord, and sold his own Lord (Luke 19). Therefore I say to you: Lord, exact from him the interest on your money. And let strangers plunder his labors. The Lord is a moneylender, he openly exacts, and what happened? Strangers will plunder his labors. Whether we understand this generally of all the Jews, because they were laid waste by the Romans; or specifically, that Judas was plundered by demons, and the people themselves.

Let there be no helper for him, nor let there be anyone to have mercy on his orphans. At that time the people of the Jews had no helper. Answer me, O Jews. You were in Babylon: you had prophets there, Daniel, Ezekiel, and indeed you were idolaters. For seventy years you were in captivity, and afterward you came to your own land. Behold, now it is four hundred years, why has no prophet been sent to you? At that time you worshiped idols, and God had mercy on you. But now you do not worship idols, why has the Lord abandoned you? Behold, it is four hundred years. But then you abandoned the Lord, and worshiped idols; but now you have crucified and killed the Lord, and therefore there will be no helper for you.

In one generation let his name be blotted out. O prophecy, O mystery of prophecy! In one generation let his name be blotted out. After the passion of the Lord, forty-two years passed, and that people was destroyed. Indeed, perfect age comes at the fortieth year. Therefore, after the passion of the Lord, in the forty-second year Jerusalem was destroyed. See, then, that in one generation his name was blotted out. But in this too is the Lord's mercy. They crucified him, and he gave them forty-two years for repentance. I say plainly: for this reason he killed them after forty-two years, because of those who crucified the Lord, none of them had remained. Judas is cursed, so that in Judah the Jews may be cursed.

Let the iniquity of his fathers come back into memory in the sight of the Lord. They sinned in the desert, and you forgave them. Now he reckons to them what they sinned then, because they crucified the Lord. Or let us interpret it otherwise: and he reckons to them the cruelty of their murders, and forgives them nothing. And let the sin of his mother not be blotted out. Who is the mother of Judas? Jerusalem, who rejoices in blood, who killed the prophets and her own Lord.

Because he did not remember to show mercy. You see how great is the Lord's clemency. He sees him coming with his attendants; he sees him coming with clubs, and offers him a kiss. He comes to betray, and the Lord gives a kiss, so that one who did not fear the master might at least be conquered by his clemency.

And he persecuted the poor and needy man. Though he was rich, for our sake he became poor (1 Cor 8). The Lord calls himself poor and needy—and who boasts in his riches? You have consolation, you poor, and the Lord is poor with you. And to put to death the one stricken in heart. What is this that he said, to put to death the one stricken in heart? What he said in the Gospel: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. And again, when he said: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me (Matt 26). Otherwise: I grieved for this, and I was sorrowful for those who persecuted me, because they were unwilling to repent. I hung on the cross, and with my blood I washed away their filth, and they were unwilling to repent. These were the tears, this the compunction: that I could not save those who persecuted me.

Deliver me, for I am needy and poor. The Lord called himself poor, that he might console the poor. He became poor with men, so that at least no one would despise a poor man. And my heart is troubled within me. See what he says: And my heart is troubled within me. This is the same as he says elsewhere: I was troubled, and I did not speak. To be troubled is a man's part; but to overcome trouble and anger, this is the mark of great virtue. Therefore the prophet also says: Be angry, and do not sin (Ps. 4). To be angry is human; not to remain in anger is the mark of a Christian.

I am shaken off like a locust. I had indeed come to protect my people, and I said: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you: how often I wished to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings (Mt 23)! I had come like a hen to protect them; but they received me with the most hostile mind. I had come as a mother, and they killed me as though I were their murderer. I am shaken off. What is this? They persecuted me, they cast me out. They persecuted me from Nazareth. I came to Capernaum, they persecuted me. From Capernaum I went to Bethsaida, and from there they persecuted me. I came to Jerusalem; I did not wish to withdraw from my people, and from there they persecuted me, and so they held me as though I were locusts. And what did I do? Was I angry, did I defend myself, did I curse them, and abandon them? I did not do even one of these things; but what did I do?

I prayed for them.

My knees are weakened from fasting. Take consolation, O monk, by fasting, since the Lord also did this. I say that when a monk fasts, he becomes stronger by fasting. And when his knees are weakened by fasting, then especially is he strengthened. And my flesh is changed because of the oil. I seem to be saying a difficult thing, and I interpret according to the letter, so that I may edify the hearers. For the letter edifies me. It is good to fast; it is good to flee pleasures. Before I come to the spiritual understanding, I marvel at the letter, that it says he eats oil. It is far from other desires. I have said all this because he said: And my flesh is changed because of the oil. I have interpreted this otherwise. But what he says is this: Oil is an image of brightness; oil is, as it were, the food of light. So therefore the Jews also received oil from me, received life, received light. Let no one think that he says oil for mercy; in Hebrew it signifies intelligible oil. He is changed, not into joy, but into sorrow; not so that he may be found more beautiful, but so that he may appear more foul. Therefore he says: We saw him, and he had no beauty (Isaiah 53). Why? Because his flesh is changed because of the oil. He had no pleasures of the body, but of the Spirit of God. And so we also, when we fast, when our faces are pale, when we seem foul, let us recognize that then we appear more beautiful to Christ.

Christ loves such soldiers as devote themselves to fastings. Our grain-ration and food is fasting. Why? Because in fasting is victory, and in victory triumph. Indeed the Apostle also glories not in fullness but in weakness (I Cor. 4). For when I am weak, then I am stronger (II Cor. 12).

And I have become a reproach to them. For they called me a Samaritan, and said: He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons (John 8). Is not this the son of Joseph the carpenter? Are not his brothers and all his sisters with us (Luke 11)? And again: You who destroy the temple, and in three days build it (Mark 15). And again: Let us see whether Elijah has come to save him. He was calling: Eli, Eli, that is, My God, my God (Matt. 27), and they thought he was calling Elijah. See the unlearned Jews. Was the Son of God seeking the help of Elijah? They saw me, and they shook their heads. Why did they shake their heads? Because they had already shaken their feet.

Save me for the sake of your mercy. He also says in the Gospel: I have power to lay down my life, and to take it up again (John 10). And again: No one takes it from me. And how does he ask for mercy? He himself asks for mercy, and he himself bestows it. As man he asks, and as God he bestows.

And let them know that this is your hand, and that you, Lord, have made it. What is it that he says: And let them know that this is your hand, and that you, Lord, have made it? Let the Jews understand that they themselves did not prevail against me, but that my will and yours was done, that I should suffer, and I willed to suffer; therefore I say, according to what I am as man: My God, to do your will, I have willed; and it was your will and mine that I should suffer, not theirs. Therefore it was not their plots and strength that did it, but I and you willed that I should suffer. For you struck your shepherd, and the sheep were scattered. This is written in Zechariah: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered (Zechariah 13). That I should suffer was my will and yours. What you willed, I also willed. It was necessary that the stumbling block come, but woe to him through whom it comes (Matthew 18).

Let them curse, and you will bless. To this day this happens: they curse in the synagogue, and the Lord blesses in the Church. Let those who rise up against me be confounded: but your servant shall rejoice. They rise up against me: but I, your servant, shall rejoice. Why, then, your servant? Because he who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2).

Let those who speak against me be clothed with shame. It greatly profits us to understand what we say: the mercy of God appears in this, in saying, let them be clothed. He does not say, let them perish; he does not say, let them be destroyed forever. But what does he say? Let them be confounded, that is, let them understand their error, and be confounded, and let them be brought low in penitence. He who is clothed with shame is near to salvation: for if anyone is truly confounded, he begins to repent. Consider, O monks, if at any time you have something against your brother, you ought always to pray to the Lord for him. The Lord is crucified, and he prays for those who crucify him. But you, if you hear an evil word, will you not hold back your anger? Let not the sun set upon your anger (Ephesians 5). And let them be covered with their confusion as with a double cloak. A diplois is a kind of cloak. Finally, also in Hebrew it is called mail. It is a diplois for this reason, because it is a double cloak. Therefore I say to you: Lord, my enemies are the Jews: they persecuted me, they crucified me, they did all evils to me, they blasphemed me.

Spare them, for I who have suffered ask on their behalf. And what do I ask? That they be ashamed and confounded, and so be saved. They stripped me of my tunic, and they lost their own. Give them confusion, give them shame, and let them have a double garment, that is, let them not have a single confusion but a double one, so that they may do penance the more. He does not speak against the Jews, but speaks on their behalf. For he is the Creator both of them and of us; for he did not utterly root them out. Do you wish to know? Peter was one of them, and all the apostles were of them. We have been grafted into their root. We are the branches, they are the root. We ought not to curse the roots, but ought to pray for our roots. We who have been grafted into the root, let us entreat the Lord that just as these branches have been saved, so also the root may be saved. Perhaps someone may say: Do you pray for blasphemers, for the Jews? I pray to the Lord on their behalf. For if he himself has mercy on his persecutors, how much more will he have mercy on me?

I will confess to the Lord greatly with my mouth. This is said after the resurrection, and is sung concerning the future Church. And in the midst of many I will praise him. For not in Judah alone, but in the whole world, in the Church I will praise you—

Because he stood at the right hand of the poor man. The devil stood at the right hand of Judah. But the Lord stood at my right hand. That he might save my soul from those who persecute it (Matt. 26). The soul, he says, he will save. And elsewhere he says: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. He who is sorrowful had a capacity for feeling. For an insensible soul has no feeling. An insensible soul has no sensation, nor pain. For where there is pain and sorrow, there is sensation. If therefore he had sorrow, if he had pain, therefore he also had the sensation of pain. If therefore they wish to say to us: For this reason we do not say that he had sensation, so that he may not seem to have sin. Let us answer them: Did he have a body as we do, or not? If they say, He had: let us answer them: Therefore he also had the passions of our body. Let each one understand what I say. But if they deny that he had the passions of the body, then we say to them that he did not have a body either. And let us say to them: Just as he had a true body, as we also do, and did not have the sin of the body, so also he had a true soul, and did not have the sins of the soul. Let us therefore confess that he had a true body and a true soul. For if the Lord did not take up all things that belong to man, he did not save man.

If, however, he took up a body but did not take up a soul, then he saved the body but did not save the soul. But we wish our soul to be saved rather than our body. Jesus therefore took up both body and soul, so that he might save both, so that he might save the whole man, just as he also created him. If therefore they say that the Lord did not receive a human mind so that he would not sin—and they think that whoever has a human mind cannot conquer—let them tell us: did John the Baptist have a mind, or not? Did he sin at the time when he was in the desert? Surely they say that he did not sin. Finally, our Lord also says: Amen I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist. Did Peter have a mind, or not, and the other holy apostles? If therefore the apostles conquered the human mind, did the Lord fear to receive a mind lest he be conquered by it? And while they wish to glorify the Lord, they detract from him. How do they detract? So that the Lord may seem to fear what the apostles did not fear. Let us therefore give thanks to almighty God, and say: In your mind you had no sin. And the prince of this world came, and found nothing in you. So then, grant us that, just as in your mind you conquered the devil, so in our mind you may conquer the devil, so that, just as you created us perfect, you may also save us perfect.

For you are the Creator, you are the Master, you are the Lord, you are also he who suffered for us: who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

PSALM 109.

a Psalm of David himself. This psalm contains the voice of the prophet speaking of Christ. The prophet therefore says:

The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand. It is David who speaks, a prophet, a holy man, a king. What then does a king say? What does a king and prophet say? The Lord said to my Lord. The Savior expounded this passage in the Gospel, saying: If Christ is, he says, the son of David: how does he in the spirit call him Lord (Matt. 22)? You see therefore what he says: If he is the son of David, how do you say: How does he in the spirit call him Lord? Let someone say: Then is he not the son of David? He was saying this about the Pharisees, who confessed Christ as the simple son of David. I say this very thing to the Jew and to Photinus: If he is the son of David, how does he call his own son Lord? But he who confesses him as Lord God, and as the Son of God (for example the Manichaean, who denies that he is the son of David), in his case I prove that he is the son of David. For us, therefore, he who is the Son of God is himself also the son of David. Not one who is the Son of God and another who is the son of David. I do not make two persons in God and man, but he who is the Son of God is himself also the son of David. The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand. In Hebrew the first name ( ), of the Lord, is written with these letters: with which God is written in such a way.

But the name of the Lord is written with those letters with which men are accustomed to call someone Lord, just as a Lord is called Lord by a servant by certain people, and kings are called lords. See, therefore, what he says: The Lord said to my Lord. To this Lord, to whom it is commanded that he sit, God does not sit; the assumption of the body sits. To him, therefore, who is man, who was assumed, it is commanded that he sit. We say this against the Arians, and against those who say: The Father who commands that he sit is greater than he to whom it is commanded. All the Gospels resound concerning the person of the man, and now there is no need of proof, because all things whatsoever that seem lowly are referred to the man, are referred to the flesh. Now let us speak of the Psalm:

The Lord will send forth the rod of your virtue from Zion. In the Hebrew it does not so much have "rod" as "scepter," that is, the emblem of royal power. The Lord will send forth the rod of your virtue from Zion. For from Zion goes forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa. 2). Rule in the midst of your enemies. He did not say: Kill your enemies, but what? Rule in the midst of your enemies. Do to your enemies that those who were strangers may begin to be yours. Rule in the midst of your enemies: your enemies, of whom it is written in the sixty-seventh psalm: The tongue of your dogs from your enemies from himself. These are the enemies who were in another's power. Now, therefore, the Psalmist prays this: Rule over your enemies, deign to be Lord of your enemies.

With you is the principium in the day of your strength, in the splendors of the saints. This is an obscure verse. Let us consider the day of the Lord's strength: so that when we know the day, we may then know what the principium is, and how this principium is with him, and was with him: how this very principium is in the day of his strength, in the splendors of the saints. This principium, therefore, which is with the Lord in the day of his strength, is for this reason with the Lord, that the saints may shine. With you is the principium in the day of your strength. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This was in the beginning with God. The Father is a principium, but the Son is also a principium. For a principium does not have a principium. For if it had another principium, then it itself would cease to be a principium. Whatever, therefore, we attribute to the Father, we attribute also to the Son. For if the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and all things of the Father are the Son's, and all things of the Son are the Father's, then the principium of the Father is the principium of the Son. Therefore what he says is this: at the time when you were suffering and said, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit, you spoke as it were from human affection, you did not ask as one who is weak. For the principium was with you, for the divinity was with you, but for this reason you implored help, so that, having received help, you might give to your saints, and they might shine. What is said, Receiving, you might give, should cause no one scandal: he speaks according to the man.

For if he assumed a human body, it is necessary that he also take up a man's words. Christ is a man, and truly a man: we say this according to the assumption of the flesh. If, therefore, he is a man according to the body, you see the body and are not scandalized—and do you marvel if he speaks with a man's words? But if the lowliness of the body scandalizes you, and the cross, and insults, and blows, and scourges, and every outrage of the cross: if this scandalizes you, return to the beginning, and you will not be scandalized. For the Father says to the Son: From the womb, before the morning star, I begot you. Do you marvel if our Lord and Savior, who truly assumed a man, speaks as a man, when God the Father himself, who did not assume a man, speaks as though a man: From the womb, before the morning star, I begot you? I have no womb: but I cannot otherwise make the Father known to me, unless I have spoken in a man's words. From the womb, before the morning star, I begot you. From the womb—from my own substance. From the womb. Hear, Eunomius; hear, Arius. If the Lord is a creature, if he is a made thing: does the craftsman beget his own work? Does the craftsman call his own work a son? A carpenter made a bench: did he beget it from his womb? Does he say to it: From my womb I begot you, O bench? He certainly does not say this. But what does he say? I made you with my hand. But when womb is spoken of, a son is signified, and not an adopted son. For even adopted sons are called sons. For as many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God (John 1).

There he gave them power. But here he begot from the womb: from his own nature, from his own inmost being, from his own substance. From the womb, that is, from the very marrow of his divinity. Whatever the Father is in divinity, he gave wholly to the Son whom he begot. From the womb before the morning star I begot you—before the morning star. This figure the Greeks call, as the grammarians say, the whole for the part. When, therefore, it is said, before the morning star, he names one creature and indicates all creatures. When he says, before the morning star, let us understand it as though he had said, before the moon, before the sun, before every creature. From the womb before the morning star I begot you. Before the morning star. Before that morning star which is seen in the world, the true light was begotten. Hence the psalm says in another place: In your light we shall see light. The address is to the Father: O Father, in the light of the Son we shall see the light, the Holy Spirit. From the womb before the morning star I begot you.

The Lord has sworn and will not repent. The Lord has sworn. What he says, "he has sworn": not to him who was begotten before the Morning Star, but he has sworn to him who was born of the virgin after the Morning Star. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedec. It is superfluous for us to wish to interpret this verse, since the holy Apostle has disputed it most fully in Hebrews. For he himself said: This is Melchisedec, without father, without mother, without genealogy (Heb. vii). And it is diligently investigated there why he is without father, without mother, without genealogy. And it has been said by all the ecclesiastical writers that he is called without father according to the flesh, and without mother according to God. Let us therefore interpret only this: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedec. Let us say only this, why he said "according to the order." According to the order: you will by no means be a priest according to the Jewish victims, but you will be a priest according to the order of Melchisedec (Gen. xiv). For just as Melchisedec, king of Salem, offered bread and wine, so you also will offer your body and blood, true bread and true wine. This Melchisedec gave us these mysteries which we have. He is the one who said: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood (John vi). According to the order of Melchisedec, he handed down to us his sacrament.

The Lord is at your right hand. I see a new thing. In the beginning it is said: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand; and now it is said to him, The Lord is at your right hand. If he himself sits at the right hand of the Father, how does the Father in turn sit at the right hand of the Son? For when it is said: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, it is most plainly said that the Son sits at the right hand of the Father. But when it is said: The Lord is at your right hand, this is said, that the Father sits at the right hand of the Son. All this is said for this reason, that the Son may be equal to the Father. There are many things that are said. But the devil stands at the right hand of the sinner. Otherwise that discussion is another matter. Whoever is a sinner, the devil stands at his right hand. But someone will say: How is it also said to Jesus the son of Josedech in Zechariah that the devil stands at his right hand: and the devil stood at the right hand of the Savior (Zech. 3)? You see that it is a question. But at that time when the devil stood at the right hand of the Savior: Jesus, it says, had filthy garments. He was bearing our sins, wrapped in our vices: therefore the devil stood at his right hand. He has broken kings in the day of his wrath. All these things have been handed over to me. In a moment, it says, he showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. The kingdoms of the world, the devil shows. And what does he say? All these things have been handed over to me. If falling down you worship before me, all things will be yours (Matt. 4). On the day, therefore, of battle, on the day of conflict, he will break the kings of his wrath.

He will judge among the nations. See the distinctions: kings are shattered, he will judge the nations. He will fill up the ruins. Our Lord ascended the cross, and many were raised again. This one is appointed for the ruin and resurrection of many, and for a sign that is contradicted (Luke 2). He will fill up the ruins—of those who do not believe, who did not believe the apostle spies (Num. 21 and 22). For Moses also sent spies into the world; and because the people did not believe the spies, therefore they fell in the desert. To this day the bodies of unbelievers fall in the desert of this world. He will shatter heads in the land of many. He will fill up the ruins—of unbelievers; he will shatter the heads—of those who are doubtful, of those who do not have perfect faith. He will shatter heads in the land of many: not of all. For if he had said "of all," no one of us would have hope. "Of many," it says, so that others may be left.

He drank from the torrent on the way. Who drinks from the torrent, on the way? This one, to whom it was said: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand. This one, who heard: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedec. This one, who shattered kings in the day of his wrath: he will fill up the ruins: he will crush heads in the land of many. What else does this one do? He drank from the torrent on the way. Let us consider the way first, so that afterwards we may see the torrent on the way. The way is said to be this world, through which he walked. Finally it is written in the Gospel: Be agreeable to your adversary while you are on the way (Matt. 6), that is, while you walk in this world, and travel along the way to him who is the true way. Whence it is said also in the hundred and eighteenth Psalm: Blessed are the undefiled in the way. Blessed are those who are undefiled in this way of the world, and in this world. Therefore a priest according to the order of Melchisedec: because he came into the way of the world, and walked in our way, he too drank from the torrent that was in the world. A torrent does not have natural waters, it does not have waters that flow continually: but it has waters from storms, from rains, from whirlwind, from gales. A torrent is never in the mountains, but always in the valleys, in steep places. It conceives waters belonging to another, and gives birth to them, and goes swelling. He drank from the torrent on the way. A torrent never has clean water, but always muddy. This is said: because the waters of this world are always muddy, always full of storm.

Do you wish to know how he drank from the troubled torrent? He himself says: My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matthew 26). And it is said in the Gospel: And he began, it says, to be sorrowful and troubled (Ibid.). Therefore our Lord also drank from the torrent of this world—troubled waters, sorrowful waters, waters that have no joy. He took the cup and filled it from the torrent of the world, and because the waters were troubled, he says: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Therefore he drank from the torrent of this world, but he did not drink as though in his own house, but on the way, hastening to go to other things. He drank from the torrent on the way. For this reason he drank from the torrent, because he was on the way. He drank from the torrent. If the Lord drank from the torrent of this world, how much more the saints? Do you wish to know that the saints drink from the torrent? He says also in another place: Our soul has passed through the torrent (Psalm 123). He will drink from the torrent on the way. We have spoken of the torrent; let us also speak of the testimony. Our soul has passed through the torrent. Do you wish to know of another torrent? The holy prophet Elijah, when Jezebel was persecuting him, when he took food and, passing forty days, went into the desert: He was, it says, in the wilderness, and he drank from the torrent Chobar (3 Kings 19). But you who hear of the torrents of this world, do not despair. Frequently this torrent fails. It seems indeed to swell, it seems to have many waters, but it quickly fails if you endure it.

And Elijah indeed drank water in the desert, at the time when he was in sorrow, when he was in distress (Ibid.). He had left Judea and had gone to Mount Sinai, for Jezebel was pursuing him, and therefore he drank from the torrent Chobar. But because he persevered to the end, therefore the water of the torrent failed. And it is said to him by the Lord, because the water of the torrent had failed: Go, he says, to the widow in Sarepta of the Sidonians, etc. Behold, Elijah too drank from the torrent. But the Lord and Savior himself drank, and drank the cup from the torrent Cedron. For thus the Scripture relates, when they came and seized him. They came, it says, and seized him in the torrent, etc. (John 18). You see how lowly is the place of the torrent, how rugged. Cedron in the Hebrew tongue is interpreted as darkness. You see, then, that the torrents of this world are in darkness. Therefore the Lord, when he is handed over, is not handed over again on the Mount of Olives, not handed over in the temple, but handed over in a torrent, and a torrent of darkness, that is, Cedron. For all who hate the light love the darkness. He drank from the torrent on the way. Because therefore the Lord drank from the torrent and tasted death, therefore the Father exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name. Then now it is said: He drank from the torrent on the way. And because he drank from the torrent on the way, Therefore he exalted his head. And what does he say? When I am exalted, I will draw all things to myself (John 12).

He is exalted, and he has exalted us. His head has been exalted; moreover, he has crushed the heads of the dragon, and they have been broken in the sea. Therefore he has exalted his head. He did not say, "Therefore his head has been exalted," that is, exalted by another; but he who had humbled himself, he himself exalted. For he himself says in the Gospel: I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again (John 10). Therefore he has exalted his head. He exalted himself, who is the head of all. Or certainly, when he says, "he has exalted his head," he did not exalt himself. Therefore he has exalted his head. For he was always high. But when he says, "he has exalted his head," he has exalted our head: we who, being bent low, could not look up to heaven, but only to the earth. Do you wish to know that he himself has exalted the head? Even that woman whom the devil had bound, he himself set free (Luke 13). He exalted her head, who had always been bowed down; and she worshiped him. To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

PSALM 110.

Alleluia. This psalm is the first to be written according to the order of the letters: although many think that the twenty-fourth psalm also, and the thirty-sixth, were written in Hebrew according to the order of the letters: but in those, either some letters are missing, or there are too many, and sometimes because one verse is short, another is greater by an infinite length. From this I think it was brought about more by the care of readers than by the effort of the writer. Finally, even the Seventy translators, because some scruple arose among them, were unwilling to set down the Hebrew letters in their translation.

I will confess to you, Lord, with my whole heart. If David had not been simple, and had had deceit, he would not have said: I will confess to you, Lord, with my whole heart. Not with the lips only, but with the whole heart. In the council of the just and in the congregation: great are the works of the Lord. He speaks of the upright, of those who were formerly sinners, but now are just. For it is not to be wondered at. You see that the elephant and the camel, and likewise the fly and the gnat, have the same mobility, and spirit, and members.

He has given food to those who fear him. In famine he fed Elijah; in the desert he rained manna upon the people of the Jews (Exod. 16), and what is said was fulfilled: He has given food to those who fear him. This is according to the letter. But he gave as food the bread that came down from heaven (John 6); if we are worthy of it, we are fed by it. For how many martyrs were corrupted by famine, and now they are with the Lord?

Holy and terrible is his name. Holy, for the holy; terrible, for sinners. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Those who do not fear the Lord have no wisdom in them. Or those who do not have wisdom do not have fear.

His praise endures forever and ever. Since Alleluia was written beforehand in the title, the psalm rightly ends in praise. Indeed Alleluia is interpreted as "praise the Lord."

PSALM 111.

Alleluia. This psalm urges us, through the fear of God, to be founded in the dwelling of the eternal house.

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. I have frequently said that all things which are interpreted in the person of the just man are referred to Christ. For if the saints are a type and figure of the Savior—if anyone is truly holy, for example: Isaac is a type of the Lord Savior, Joseph, Solomon, David, and the other saints—then this blessed man who is now described is indeed referred to the just man. And truly it is said of the just man; but this just man is a type of the just man. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. For now we have set aside the psalm; now let us speak concerning the just man: Blessed is the man who fears the Lord.

Psalm one hundred eleven is alphabetic. Indeed, the one hundred tenth also is itself under the alphabet. The first verse is written from aleph: Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. The second, from beth: In his commandments he shall desire exceedingly. The third, from gimel: His seed shall be mighty upon the earth, and so on up to the twenty-second letter, thau. Let us therefore discuss each verse, with your prayers. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord: this is the beginning of the psalm; he does not yet say, Blessed is the man who loves the Lord. For it belongs to men who are beginning to fear, but to the perfect to love (1 John 4). Indeed, perfect love casts out fear. Therefore he speaks of the beginning, that is, of the man who is beginning to be holy. Let us therefore consider the order of the psalm: Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. He who fears the Lord, what does he do? Does he hear the words of God, is he learned in the law? He does not say this. What does he say? In his commandments he shall desire exceedingly. He who fears the Lord, who is blessed, willingly does his commandments. In his commandments he shall desire exceedingly. See what he says: he did not say, he does his commandments. For many do them even out of fear, and have no reward. For he who fears hell, and for that reason does not commit fornication, does not have as much reward as he who does it for the love of God. In his commandments he shall will, that is, he wills exceedingly, that is, he desires to do his commandments. As someone, if he is in the heat, thirsts, so that man desires the commandments of the Lord. In the commandments of the Lord he shall will exceedingly.

He does not anxiously perform his commandments, but wills them; and he wills them not in passing, but exceedingly. The third verse is:

His seed shall be mighty upon the earth. I who have done the commandments of God by my will am worthy to become the father of the saints. We speak briefly, lest the discourse be drawn out too long. The generation of the upright shall be blessed. May the Lord grant that you also, who hear me, may be the generation of the upright.

Glory and riches are in his house. Glory and riches. Do we think that the glory and riches of the world are meant? Does someone therefore do the will of God and his commandments, that he may obtain the riches of this world? And certainly he does not do the commandments of God unless he has despised the riches of the world (Psal. cxi). Glory and riches are in his house. The glory of believers is this, as the Apostle says: Are you not my glory and riches? Riches, of which the Apostle himself says: that you have become rich in all knowledge and righteousness. And his righteousness endures forever and ever.

A light has risen in the darkness for the upright of heart. We once were wandering in darkness; we sat in darkness and the shadow of death; but a light has risen for us, according to Isaiah: Merciful and compassionate and just. Merciful and just. If you are a sinner, do not despair of pardon: he is merciful. But if you are proud and trust in God's clemency, do not be negligent, for he is just. Merciful and compassionate and just. See what the Psalmist's wisdom has done: justice is single; mercy is twofold. Merciful and compassionate and just. Because the Lord is merciful and compassionate, let the just man also imitate his Lord and be himself merciful.

A pleasant man is he who is merciful and lends. Does someone think he speaks of gold and silver and money? The just had so little that they themselves received food from others. Therefore, if I have nothing to give, am I no longer just? If I have not given alms, shall I not be counted among the just? How many of the saints gave alms, but fell in holiness. The perfect did not give alms, because they had nothing from which to give. Not to give alms is the crime of one who has means. But he who has nothing from which to give alms is free. As much as he wished to give, so much did he give, because he gave by his will. Yet the saints also have means from which to give alms. Peter too says: Silver and gold I have not; what I have, this I give to you.

In the name of the Lord Jesus, rise and walk. What is greater, to give money, or to make a sick man whole? Pleasant is the man who is merciful and lends. What are these alms, what is this that the just man lends? The second verse shows. He orders his words in judgment. He did not say: his gold and silver and money he orders in judgment; but, his words he orders in judgment. This is mercy, if a holy man teach others who are not holy. He orders his words in judgment. We have understood, then, what the money is that is lent. But this that he says, he orders his words in judgment, is what is said in the Gospel: lest we cast our pearls before swine (Matt. 7). That is, that each one may know to whom he gives, what he can receive, what he cannot. Whence the holy man says: In my heart I have hidden your words, that I may not sin against you (Ps. 118). I did not give them to whomever I pleased. I did not send your holy thing to the dogs, and I did not give pearls to swine. Great, therefore, is the danger of a teacher, to pour out the words of the Lord to swine. There are many things that might be said concerning the psalm. But since we are cut off by the hour, let us bless the almighty Lord, and let him who has such money give to those who do not have it. But let him who does not have it receive it willingly. May the Lord grant also to me, that I too may have these riches; that I may both give to those who do not have them, and heap up riches for those who have them, so that I may have this blessedness both in speaking and in hearing.

For blessed is the one who speaks into the ears of a listener. For what does it profit me to speak, if another does not receive my words? What does it profit to send wine, if what is sent is at once poured out? You see that in the Gospel that water is put into the jar, and is turned into wine, and is preserved so that it does not perish (John 2). He is merciful, that is, in heart, and he believes in deed. It is good to give earthly substance, but it is better to attain mercy, that is, that you consign to oblivion the one who has done you harm, that is, that you forgive the one who has sinned against you. He has disposed his words in judgment, that is, he is a judge of himself. He says within himself: The Lord has said, If you forgive, it will be forgiven you; if you give, it will be given to you (Matt. 6). Because the one who judges himself thus here in the present, God crowns him in the future. Because he will not be moved forever. Such a man as this will not be moved, because he is founded upon rock.

The just man will be in everlasting remembrance. That just man is always in the memory of God. He will not fear from an evil report. From that one, depart, O accursed!

His heart is ready to hope in the Lord. That is, his hope is always ready in God. His heart is confirmed. His soul is in faith. He will not be moved. I speak of the soul itself turning from faith to unfaithfulness: because it is founded upon the rock, that is, upon Christ. Until he looks down upon his enemies. That is, upon vices and sins, all heresies, or the power of his enemies he looks down upon.

He has dispersed, he has given to the poor, his righteousness remains for ever and ever. He has dispersed, that is, he has distributed. He did not say: Give the whole to one man, but he says: Go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor. Because through many he has distributed it, or: He has dispersed: because the prayer of many is more than that of one man. His righteousness remains for ever and ever, that is, his works themselves remain. His horn will be exalted in glory. That is, his kingdom will be exalted in glory, that is, when he will be with God.

The sinner will see. How will he see, since the Prophet says: Let the wicked be taken away, lest he see the glory of God? Yet it follows: They shall see and be confounded (Zechariah 12), and elsewhere: They shall look on him whom they pierced—that is, they will see that form of a servant and of a man which he deigned to take up from our humanity; but that glory which the saints will have, they will neither have nor see, and insofar as they will see it, they will see it to their own punishment. And he will be angry—that is, against themselves, because they did not do good. Their repentance will be late. They will say: These are the ones whom we held in contempt; behold, they are reckoned among the servants of God themselves. The abundance of riches profited us nothing: the sun did not rise for us. He will gnash with his teeth and waste away. By the gnashing of teeth, cold is understood, as in that passage: There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 5, and Luke 13). For there will be both cold and heat there, and no rest. The desire of sinners will perish—that is, all the good things which they had here in the present. Let us therefore diligently hear the words of God: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

PSALM 112.

Alleluia. This psalm teaches us that, having laid aside the old malice, like newborn infants we should glory in the praises of God. For it says:

Praise the Lord, you children, praise the name of the Lord. Here children are summoned to praise—of whom the Savior says in Isaiah: Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me (Isa. 8). For truly out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes praise is made full unto God.

May the name of the Lord be blessed. To whom every creature gives blessing. Was it perhaps not blessed before? It was always, but before, only in one nation of the Jews did they bless and believe in him; but now in all nations he is both believed and blessed. From this time now and forever. From this time—that is, from when men began both to believe and to praise. And now—that is, in the present; and forever—that is, without end. For even before, it was always blessed.

From the rising of the sun even to its setting. That is, from the beginning of our birth even to death. The name of the Lord is worthy of praise. As I said above.

The Lord is high above all nations. Was he not high before? He was in Judaea; now he is above all nations. He says through the prophet: For he willed to reject the Jews and to choose the nations. And his glory is above the heavens. That is, his glory is above the saints.

Who is like the Lord our God? As if to say: No one is such. As that passage: Who is like among the sons of God? And elsewhere he says: There is none like you among the gods, O Lord (Ps. 85). He who dwells in others, and looks upon the humble in heaven and on earth. In the high places, that is, in the saints. Does he not also dwell in the humble? He dwells: because he looks upon the humble: as that passage: Upon whom shall I look, except upon the humble and the one who trembles at my words (Isa. 66)? When are the saints high? When we contemplate heavenly things. And then I am humble on earth: when they humble themselves in the active life, they are raised up in the contemplative. And those who here on earth are humble are high with God. Why did he not say, he dwells in the humble: but he said, he looks upon them. Because where he looks, there he dwells, and where he dwells, there he looks.

Raising the poor man from the earth. This is understood both of the head and of the members. They raise—that is, God the Father raised—Christ, who for our sake became poor and needy. And we, needy—that is, without the devil as father, without the Gentiles as mother—are raised by Christ. And lifting the poor man from the dung heap. What he said as earth, that is also the dung heap; and what he said as needy, that is also the poor man. Because from the earth and the rottenness of our sins he raised us up, as it is said: Why are you proud, dust and earth? That he may set him with the princes, with the princes of his people. God the Father set his Son in the heavenly places at his right hand. And he shall rule over the princes—that is, over the nine orders of angels—according to that saying: I am the prince of the host, or the prince of the powers. And moreover he set the saints, his own members, with those same nine orders of angels. Who makes the barren woman to dwell in a house, a mother rejoicing in her children. The barren woman is the holy Church. Hence the prophet says: Rejoice, O barren woman, and so on. At first the holy Church was barren, because she bore few sons; the Synagogue had God as her husband, yet she bore few. Afterwards the Church, which before had been barren, brought forth great offspring in one day or two, when she bore eight thousand. And the prophet says: Who are these, or who has borne them to me? Make room for me, and cities where I may dwell.

And the Lord said: I will do it (Ps. 18). Their sound went forth into all the earth, that is, into the whole world. Who makes the barren woman to dwell in a house, that is, in the Church. And she herself is the barren one, and she herself is the mother, and they themselves are the children, and she dwells in herself. That is, the unity of the Church: she is one thing, and many members; but the many are one body, as Paul says, and there she will rejoice in herself, that is, in unity (Rom. 12).

PSALM 113.

Alleluia. This psalm contains the voice of the prophet, showing that the things narrated in it historically are to be understood as spoken spiritually.

When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people. This psalm recalls according to history the time when the children of Israel went out of Egypt (Exod. 13). But it pertains more to the sense when we were freed from Egypt, that is, from the darkness of ignorance of our sins, through baptism. The house of Jacob from a barbarous people. Those Israelites were freed from a barbarous people, that is, from those nations that dwelt in Egypt. And according to the sense: the house of Jacob, they understand as the supplanters of vices. These were freed, and we, the spiritual house of Jacob, have been freed from those unbelievers who remained in unbelief (Gen. 32). The house of Jacob. At first he was called Jacob, afterward Israel. Hence he said: I have seen the Lord face to face, and my soul has been saved.

And the Lord said to him: You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name. And we first ought to be Jacob, that is, supplanters of vices, so that afterwards we may be able to be Israel, that is, souls seeing God, and to contemplate God with the eyes of the heart, according to that saying: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5).

Judaea has become his sanctification. In Judaea first was the sanctification of God. But Judaea is interpreted as confession, that is, in those who confess the faith of the Trinity and come to baptism, where the sanctification of God is. Israel is his power. And it is the power of God that we deserve to be Israel, that is, that we be called souls seeing God. Israel has reigned in her.

The sea saw and fled. The sea saw and fled when Moses came with his people (Exod. 14). And how did it see? That is, it understood the will of the Creator and yielded place to that people. Otherwise, according to the spiritual sense: the sea, that is, the Gentiles, saw the holy preachers, the supplanters of vices, and the souls seeing God, and they fled, that is, they could not resist the apostles, because God was in them. The Jordan was turned back. That the Jordan was turned back is not read in the history (Joshua 3), except when they entered into it with the ark: as though that water had walked backwards, so it stood like a wall, and that other water passed through into the sea. What then is understood by this? The Jordan is interpreted as their descent.

Those are understood who come to baptism. When the Martyrs saw that they suffered many persecutions, they were turned into the sea, that is, in the gentile world they denied. Afterwards the Lord through his preachers called them: Gather yourselves to me, and I will return to you (Zech. 1). And afterwards many were converted to God. That water passed through into the sea, that is, there are unbelievers who passed through into the sea, that is, into the sea of perdition.

The mountains exulted like rams, and the hills like lambs of sheep. The holy preachers exulted when they saw those converted who before had been blasphemers. They exulted like rams, that is, the leaders of the flocks, who beget sons, that is, the holy apostles. Whence one of them said: Through the Gospel I begot you (1 Cor. 4). Or they are understood as preachers of higher merit, who now beget sons through their preaching. Whence Paul said: My little children, whom I again travail in birth, until Christ be formed in you (Gal. 4).

What ails you, O sea, that you fled; and you, O Jordan, why have you turned back? The prophet questions himself and himself answers, as if to say: What was it to you, O gentile world, that you fled? And you, O Jordan—that is, you also, O Christians—what was it that you turned back? Why? Did you see the holy preachers, that is, the mountains; did you see the rams, that is, the overthrowers of vices, and the souls of those who see God the Father—and therefore you fled?

The mountains exulted like rams, and the hills like lambs of sheep. It is a repetition.

At the face of the Lord the earth was moved, at the face of the God of Jacob. The prophet explained this in another place when he said: He saw, and the earth was moved (Psalm 69). And a little after he says: At the face of the Lord, and the rest. The earth was moved, that is, by the presence of God, because God was in his preachers. The gentile world was moved: at the face of the God of Jacob, that is, by the presence of him whom Jacob adored.

Who turned the rock into pools of water. The rock is Christ, and according to the historical sense, rivers flowed out of the rock (Exodus 17). Before Christ came in the flesh, such great waters had not yet burst forth—that is, such great teaching. Afterwards, four rivers came out of Christ, the four Gospels, and they watered the whole world. And the crag into fountains of waters. It is a repetition. The crags are those who are also the rock. The rock is called a crag. And the crag into fountains of waters. Much teaching about Christ. The Red Sea, which is so called because that water of the sea was like blood, which prefigured baptism.

Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to your name give glory. Those good Jews say: It was not our merit that freed us, but your power: so that your name may be glorified among all nations. Or the preachers of the New Testament say likewise. When they perform mighty works, God performs them through them: so that his name may be glorified and praised through him.

By your mercy and your truth. Your mercy and your truth accomplish this. Lest at any time the nations say, Where is their God? For this reason God performs these wonders, so that the nations may not say that God could not save them. Or now, in the New Testament, he does likewise in his saints.

But our God is in heaven: whatever he willed, he has done. God is in heaven above. The saints say to those unbelievers who worship idols: You touch your gods with your hand, and you behold them with the eyes of living creatures, but our God is in heaven above. In heaven and on earth, whatever he willed, he has done. In those who lead a heavenly life and are still enclosed in earthly flesh, he has fulfilled his wills.

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of human hands. Therefore it is called an idol, because it is made in the likeness of some dead man. Silver and gold. Why did he not say stone or bronze, but earthenware or wooden, but silver and gold? Because the Holy Spirit foresaw what answer they would give when they were rebuked on this account. Therefore he set down gold and silver, because they would say: I do not worship a wooden god, nor a stone one, nor a bronze one, but a god of gold and silver. You say to him: If you had worshiped gold and silver, there would be no such error. And they say to him: We do not worship gold, nor silver. He answered: Not gold and silver, but my God do I worship. What is that image, and that power which is in it?

You say to him: "The devil is there." He says: "Far be it." I do not wish to worship the devil. How is it that you do not worship the devil, since we read in another psalm: All the gods of the nations are demons (Ps. 95)? He says: "Not even this do I worship." What then do you worship? "I worship the sun, the moon, the stars. These are my gods; they save me." You say to him: "If the sun is your God, why does it not always shine for you?" You say to another, who worships the moon, or to this one who worships the sun: "The sun is whole. You worship the moon; why does your God grow and wane, and shine by night? Why does it not always shine for you? And when you are submerged in the sea, why do your moon and your stars not free you, and give you light upon you? Why does he add: the work of men's hands, silver and gold? Men dig it from the earth, and worship it, and color it, and so it comes out beautiful. Therefore you make your God, whom you worship, from your own hands." These things are said to refute the wicked.

They have eyes, and they will not see; they have ears, and they will not hear; they have nostrils, and they will not smell. They have hands, and they will not touch; they have feet, and they will not walk; they will not cry out in their throat. For there is no spirit in their mouth. You say to him: Even if you had worshipped a beast, although it was evil, yet at least it has eyes, or feet; but this thing that you worship neither sees nor hears. Why does he add: They will not cry out in their throat? Because beasts cry out with a voice, but their cry is confused. You do not understand, nor can you grasp by letters or by syllables, how you understand the voice of a man.

Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them. Like them, that is, if he does not correct his eyes, because he has seen that gold, that image. But even in his soul he is made like them, while he does not correct himself, because he neither sees, nor understands, nor discerns, while he trusts more in error. Therefore he is said to be like them. And all who trust in them. Not only those who make them, but also those who trust in them.

The house of Israel hoped in the Lord. The house of Israel, the twelve tribes of Israel. Did Aaron, the tribe of Levi, not hope? They did not hope in such dead gods, but in the Lord. The house of Israel, the house of souls of those who see God, hopes in the Lord. And Aaron, the mountain of strength, that is, those who are strong and lofty in merit, hope in the Lord. He is their helper and protector. Those gods do not profit, according to the saying of Jeremiah: they do not free a man from war, they do not establish a king, but this one defends and protects them, according to the saying of Daniel (Dan. 2 and 3), truly he himself is their God, and he himself changes times, and removes kings, and establishes them.

The house of Aaron hoped in the Lord: he is their helper and their protector. Those who fear the Lord have hoped in the Lord. Apart from these, the house of Israel and Aaron—all who fear and love him—he protects and defends.

The Lord was mindful of us, and blessed us. He was mindful, because he freed the children of Israel. And us, because what he promised, he fulfilled in deed. He sent his Son, who took up flesh, and freed us. This I say, that God is mindful. And he blessed us, that is, with every spiritual blessing.

He has blessed the house of Israel, he has blessed the house of Aaron. He has blessed all who fear the Lord, the small with the great. That is, those higher in merit and those lower.

May the Lord add upon you. Other preachers. At first there were few, afterwards many preachers were made in the world.

Blessed are you by the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Blessed: that is, you saints are blessed by the Lord.

The heaven of heaven is the Lord's, but the earth he has given to the children of men. The heaven of heaven, as the canticle of a psalm says, and a psalm of a canticle. That heaven is subject to the higher heaven, where the firmament is, and from there it has light. And the earth again is subject to that airy heaven: from there it has rain and every necessity. According to the sense, the higher heaven is the holy apostles, who heard the preaching from Christ himself and received the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and from there were taught. The heaven again is the successors of the apostles, to whom those preached, and the Lord enlightened them in their soul. But the earth he has given to the children of men. These are the simpler ones who believe only the incarnation, who eat milk and are nourished through preaching, and those who were earthly are made heavenly.

The dead will not praise you, O Lord. That is, sinners. For when a sinner has come into the depth of evils, he despises (Prov. 13). Nor all who go down into hell. That is, the inhabitants of hell.

But we who live bless the Lord. We the faithful who live, that is, who have faith and works, these praise God. From this time now and forever. From this time, that is, from when we begin to understand. Now, in the present. Forever, without end.

PSALM 114.

Alleluia. This psalm contains the voice of a faithful soul journeying away from God, which after long labors is received by him.

I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. He did not say, I love; but, I have loved. He did not promise that he would do it, but testifies that he has done it. I have loved. Why have I loved? Because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. I have loved is of time past; but he will hear is of the future. For he did not say: because I have loved, in that the Lord has heard me; but, I have loved, in that the Lord will hear me.

Because he inclined his ear to me. Since we are small and humble, and cannot stretch ourselves out and exalt ourselves, therefore the Lord inclined his ear and deigns to hear us. Finally, because we are men and cannot become gods, God became man and inclined himself, according to what is written: And he inclined the heavens and came down (II Kings 22). And in my days I will call upon you. Here it is asked how he calls upon you in the days and does not call upon you in the nights. And how he says in another place: At midnight I rose to give thanks to you, when the saints are accustomed to pray more by night than by day (Psalm 113). And in another place it is said: In the nights lift up your hands in the holy place, and bless the Lord (Psalm 133). How does he say, and in my days I will call upon? He did not say, I have called upon; but, I will call upon, in the future. For while we are in this world, we call upon him in the night. In the future we call upon the Lord in the day: therefore he said, in my days. For to sinners it is night: but to me it is day.

The pangs of death surrounded me. The pangs of death seem to me to be foul thoughts, when the soul thinks and desires to sin, since it brings forth sins, it is near to death. And the perils of hell found me. O we unhappy, wretched, and lamentable ones, because sin always seeks us! But if sins always seek us, let us hasten so that they do not find us. Now this is the difference between the pangs of death and the perils of hell. The pangs of death are evil thoughts; the perils of hell are evil works. And, so to speak: one thing is in contemplation, another in work, that is, in practice. For there is pain and travail there; but here the peril is near to death.

I found tribulation and sorrow. He says a new thing. He does not say, I found rest; he does not say, I found satiety. But if he had said, Tribulation found me, sorrow found me, there would be no question. Now, however, what does he say? I found tribulation and sorrow: as if seeking, he thus found. For nothing is found unless it is sought. The saint does not seek rest, but tribulation. For he knows that tribulation produces patience: but patience, proof; but proof, hope: but hope does not confound (Rom. 5). Something of this sort is also said in Jeremiah (Jer. 6 and 14). Tribulation, he says, and misery I have invoked. Since, he says, I will laugh at your bitter word, that is, in this world, what else do I wish but tribulation, so that in the future I may have rest and felicity?

And therefore, he says, I now endure bitterness, so that afterward I may obtain sweeter things. And the people of the Lord, going out of Egypt, came to Marah, which is interpreted bitterness, and from Marah to Sinai, which is interpreted temptation (Exod. 15). And again Jeremiah: I sat alone, because I was filled with bitterness (Jer. 15).

O Lord, free my soul. The Greek and Latin cannot express the peculiarity of the Hebrew tongue. For in place of o the Hebrew has anna. But anna is interpreted I beseech, and I entreat. And what he says is this: I entreat, Lord, free my soul. For it is not the feeling of one calling out, but of one entreating. For he has been placed in immense peril. The Lord is merciful and just, and our God will have mercy. Lift up your ears, sinner. The Lord is merciful, but do not be negligent: for there follows, and just. If you are a great sinner: hear, the Lord is merciful: if you are negligent: hear, and he is just. But it seems as though it were equal, the Lord is merciful and just. For example, in ten parts he is merciful, and in ten parts he is just, and I speak this on account of the simpler ones. Let someone say: If my sins are weighed, can I not have as many good things as I have evil things? But now it is said that he is merciful and just. He is merciful toward sinners, just toward the good. My sins begin to weigh me down, and he conquers in his mercy. Therefore he set just once, and merciful a second time.

He could have spoken of the past. And our God, he says, shows mercy, so as always to show himself merciful.

The Lord guards the little ones. If anyone is great and exalts himself and is proud, the Lord does not guard him. If anyone thinks himself great, the Lord does not have mercy on him; but if anyone humbles himself, the Lord has mercy on him and guards him. Indeed he says: Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me. And again: I was humbled, and he saved me. We understand this in two ways: I was humbled, and he saved me—whether I sinned and he saved me, or, when I was proud, he humbled me and saved me.

Return, my soul, to your rest. When it is said, Return to your rest, then it had a rest before, which it lost. For no one returns unless he is journeying to where he was before. For God created us good, and left us to our own free will, and placed all of us with Adam in paradise. But because by our own free will we fell from that blessedness and came into the valley of tears, therefore the righteous man urges his soul to return to the place from which it descended. Return, my soul, to your rest. For this place is a place of tribulation, it is a land of fighters. This place is a place of tears, where one may not walk securely. For wherever anyone may be, there is danger. If in the desert, there are scorpions; if in the cities, the eye of the harlot is a man's destruction; if at sea, there are robbers and pirates. I speak all these things mystically.

For it is not now a danger for a holy man to be killed by robbers, since the martyrs have conquered by their blood. Turn back, my soul, to your rest. Because the Lord has done good to you. Where, he says, will you turn, O soul? To paradise. Not because you are worthy, but it is by the mercy of the Lord. That you went out from paradise was brought about by your own fault; but that you return was by the mercy of the Lord. And let us say to our soul: Turn back to your rest. Our rest is Christ our God. Whenever we are in distress, and a thought begins to take us captive into sin, let us say: Turn back, my soul, to your rest.

Because he has delivered my soul from death. He has not yet returned to paradise, and already he says that he has returned to safety. He said, Turn back, my soul, to your rest, and as if more securely he says, because he has delivered my soul from death. How has he delivered my soul from death? My God suffered for me, my God was crucified for me, and I say: Where is your victory, O death; where is your sting, O hell? My eyes from tears. I wept, that I may laugh; I mourned, that I may rejoice forever. He who does not weep in the present will weep in the future. For blessed are those who mourn, because they themselves will be comforted. But on the contrary it is said: Woe to you who laugh, because you will mourn. My feet from slipping. Because my feet did not stand upon the rock, therefore my feet were almost moved, my steps were almost poured out.

My feet have been freed from slipping. Why? Because my soul has turned back to its rest.

I shall please the Lord in the land of the living. I seem, he says, to men to be righteous—why do I not have good works? I seem to men to be holy—why do I not have good words? David says this; the saints say this; the apostles speak this; for the sinner does not speak this. What does the righteous man say? Because I do not have good words and works, I seem holy to him, and I am praised by men. But I know my own conscience. I know with what kind of thoughts my heart tosses about; I know how many desires come to me, and I see another law fighting against my mind and taking me captive in the law of sin (Rom. 7); therefore I say: Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death (Ibid.)? And therefore I say: Cleanse me from my hidden faults, and spare your servant from those that are foreign to me (Ps. 18). From those that are foreign. It is not mine, that which I labor to bring forth. I do not wish to think evil, and I think it. I do not wish to think an evil thing, and as if unwilling and captive I am dragged into evil thought. But since it is not in my power either to think or not to think the things that are evil, therefore I say that the things which come into my heart are indeed foreign. But since a kind of necessity is imposed on me, therefore I say: Cleanse me from my hidden faults. They are indeed foreign sins, but because I receive them, I say concerning foreign sins: Spare your servant. But why did I say this? Because the prophet said: I shall please the Lord.

He did not say, "I please," but "I shall please." For by reason of what I do, I cannot be perfectly righteous. Therefore the Apostle also says: "We know in part, and we prophesy in part, and now we see through a glass in a dark manner" (I Cor. 13). Therefore we have now used a long discourse, because in the present age no one can be perfectly righteous—neither David, nor the apostles, nor any of the saints. "For no one is clean from sin, even if his life has been but one day" (Job 15). Indeed the apostles and saints did not dare to say, "We are holy," nor did they dare to say, "I please," but "I shall please." He who is anxious about the future confesses concerning the past that he has not done it. "I shall please the Lord"—where shall I please? "In the land of the living." For this is the region of the dead; the other is the land of the living. Indeed David was also in this land, and truly in the land of promise, saying: "I shall please the Lord in the land of the living"—he confesses that this region is not of the living but of the dead. Do you wish to know what that region of the living is? The Lord says in the Gospel: "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob," and they were dead (Luke 23). And what follows? "God," he says, "is not of the dead but of the living." Therefore the righteous man also says: "I shall please the Lord in the land of the living." In the region of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Luke 16). That is, when I shall truly be in the bosom of Abraham, then I shall please the Lord.

PSALM 115.

Alleluia. The fifth and sixth editions join this psalm with those before it; but Symmachus and the Seventy interpreters divide them.

I believed, therefore have I spoken. In the Hebrew, the one hundred fourteenth psalm and the one hundred fifteenth are one psalm. Therefore he said: I believed, therefore have I spoken. What did you believe? What did you speak? The previous psalm ended thus: I shall please before the Lord in the region of the living. The prophet therefore says: I believed, therefore have I spoken. What did I believe? That I shall please before the Lord in the region of the living. This I believed, and this I spoke. But what did I speak? But I was humbled exceedingly. O great understanding of the divine word! I believed, he says, that I shall please the Lord, that I shall be an angel; that I shall be in the heavens, and I was not proud: I was not lifted up, but I was humbled exceedingly. That I shall be in the region of the living is of the Lord's mercy. But I know myself, that I am earth and ashes. Therefore I say: But I was humbled exceedingly. But what is earth and ashes?

But I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a liar. The Hebrew has it otherwise: I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a lie, which is called *zecam*. I shall please the Lord in the land of the living; but I know myself, according to the condition of the body, to be nothing. For there is no truth in our substance, but it is a shadow and, as it were, a lie. I speak of bodily substance, not of the soul. And what he says is this: I shall please the Lord in the land of the living. But thinking on human life and considering its various errors, I find no truth in this world. Indeed, we know in part and we prophesy in part (2 Cor 11). Therefore I say: everything we see, everything we understand, is a lie. How then is it a lie? He called it a lie here as a shadow, as an image, just as it is said in another place: Nevertheless man passes away in an image (Ps 38). By the same understanding it is said here too: every man is a liar, that is, every man is a shadow. But we say this according to the Hebrew truth. Let us speak also according to the Seventy interpreters. For someone may say, What is it to me what is contained in the Hebrew? I follow the Church. I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a liar. Does David speak the truth, or does he lie? If it is true that every man is a liar, and this statement, every man is a liar, is true, then he too lies, because he too is a man. But if he too lies, then this statement, Every man is a liar, is not true.

Whichever way you turn, it comes out to the contrary. And since he himself is a man, therefore he himself lies; because every man is a liar. Therefore he lies in another sense. You see, then, that these are the syllogisms of the philosophers. Finally, according to this sentence the syllogism of Aristotle is woven together. Finally you say: Speak to another: if you lie, and you speak the truth in that you lie: therefore you lie. See how the sentence is turned to the contrary. For what does it say: O you who speak with me: if you lie, and you speak the truth in this very thing that you lie: therefore you lie, and it comes about in the same speech that he speaks the truth and lies. For this reason it has been read in the Apostle: See, lest anyone deceive you through philosophy and vain deception of men, according to the elements of the world (Col. ii). For the philosophers have found their deceptions from their own art: how in the same speech one both speaks true things and lies. But let us say that David spoke true things, that every man is a liar. As long as we are men, we lie: but when we have become gods, we cease to lie. For where are emulations and contentions among you, are you not men, and do you not walk according to man (I Cor. iii)? I said, you are gods, and all sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes (Psal. lxxxi). If anyone, therefore, is holy, he is made God, and when he has been made God, he ceases to be a man, and now he does not lie. For what does the Apostle also say?

But "every man is a liar, and God is true" (Rom. 3). Let them be interpreted otherwise: "I believed, and therefore have I spoken." When a teacher instructs a disciple, unless he himself has first believed what he teaches, he cannot teach another. So he says that he first believed, and thus teaches another. "But I was humbled exceedingly." But when I obtained the grace of God, I was not lifted up into pride, nor did knowledge puff me up. But what did I do? "I was humbled exceedingly." Yet what I taught in speech, I was able to teach also by humility. "I said in my excess: Every man is a liar." I was teaching, he says, my disciple, and considering heavenly contemplation, and thinking on more divine things, I understood that everything man knows is a lie. For what truth can there be in this world, when our life on earth is a shadow? If therefore he who teaches a disciple confesses that every man is a liar, how much more ought the disciple not to exalt himself, nor to think himself to be something?

What shall I repay to the Lord for all that he has repaid to me? Since he said, "I will please the Lord in the land of the living," and this very thing I believed, on account of which I spoke, and I was humbled exceedingly, and I said, "Every man is a lie, every man is a shadow, every man is an image"? For such great benefits, by which I will please the Lord in the land of the living, what do I have worthy that I may repay to him? I am earth, I am ashes: he promised me that I will please him in the land of the living: he made me a teacher. I believed, on account of which I spoke. What do I have worthy that I may repay to him for such great benefits? Whatever I give to him is his own, and I return it to him rather than give it. I have nothing else that I may repay to him, except that I pour out blood for him, except that I become a martyr for him. This alone is a worthy repayment: to repay blood for blood, so that, having been set free by the Savior, we may willingly pour out blood for the Savior.

I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. In Hebrew it reads thus: I will take the cup of Jesus. This very thing the Angel also interprets: And you shall call his name Jesus, for he himself will save his people. Therefore I will take the cup of Jesus. What is this cup of Jesus? Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. And he says, Can you drink my cup? And immediately it follows: Indeed you shall drink my cup. But why did I say this? So that we may understand that the cup of passion is martyrdom. Martyrdom is a great thing. How is it a great thing? Because it repays to the Lord what it has received from the Lord. Christ suffered for him, and he suffers for his name. Since we have said that the martyr has nothing else to repay to the Lord, and the Lord reckons it to him according to its quality, because he sees that his servant has nothing else to repay to him. For what is comparable? God suffered for men, the Lord for a servant, the just for a sinner. What equality is there? But because the servant has nothing else to repay to the Lord, God, as one who is merciful, accepts martyrdom as an equal exchange.

It is as if some rich man were to feed a poor man; but it happens that the same rich man comes with his household, and by chance enters the poor man's house, and the poor man has nothing to set before him and his household, and he says to him alone: Enter into your client's house, and show your will, since he has nothing else to give—and the poor man does all the more, like that widow who contributed two small coins (Luke 21). I will take the cup of salvation, or of Jesus. And this very martyrdom, he says, is not of my own strength, but of the grace of God. Therefore I cannot drink it unless I call upon the name of the Lord. Jesus conquers; in his martyr he is crowned.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Let the Jews answer now, since they say that every human body is unclean in the Law. Indeed, if anyone dies among the Jews, whether a prophet or any saint whatsoever, if anyone touches him—even a priest—he is unclean until evening (Leviticus 19 and 21). This is written according to the letter in the Law. Let us say to them: If the body of the dead is unclean, how is it now said: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints? If the body of a dying saint is precious, how is it unclean? Therefore here it is said of the evangelist, it is proclaimed of the martyr.

O Lord, because I am your servant: I am your servant, and the son of your handmaid. And I have already spoken in the one hundred fourteenth psalm, where it has: O Lord, deliver my soul, which in Hebrew has: anna, which is interpreted as I beseech, or I entreat. And here it has thus in Hebrew: I beseech, O Lord: because I am your servant, I am your servant. What is said seems to be of humility. It is of great dignity, and a mark of merit, to be the servant of the Lord, and not the servant of sin. Because I have not, he says, a human master, because I have not sin as my master (Rom. 6). For sin does not reign in my mortal body; therefore I am your servant. A great merit. Finally it is said of Moses: but not as my servant Moses. And Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob are called servants of the Lord. Therefore also the Apostle begins thus: Paul, servant of Jesus Christ.

You have broken my bonds: to you I will sacrifice a sacrifice of praise. Truly it is of great felicity to go to the Lord: so that one may not have a stained conscience. Whoever of the saints dies by his own death, granted he be a saint who has worked mercies, performed signs, cast out demons, he does not go to the Lord securely: his conscience shrinks back in horror when it sees the Lord. But the martyr, even if he has sinned after baptism, yet washed by the second baptism of martyrdom, goes to the Lord securely. You have broken my bonds.

But each one is bound by the chains of his own sins, yet in my martyrdom you broke the bonds of my sins, and from those bonds you folded for me a crown of victory. For where sin abounded, grace also superabounded (Rom. 5). To you I will sacrifice a sacrifice of praise. After martyrdom, where does he sacrifice? In the land of the living. I will sacrifice, he says, a sacrifice to you. What kind of sacrifice? Surely not a goat or a calf? Those were Jewish things, and they have passed away. I will sacrifice to you a sacrifice of praise. This is the praise of the martyrs. For just as the martyrs praise the Lord purely in the land of the living, so too the monks who sing psalms to the Lord day and night ought to have the same purity as the martyrs, since they themselves are martyrs. For what the angels do in heaven, this the monks do on earth.

My vows I will render to the Lord in the sight of all his people. What are the prayers of the martyrs? What are the prayers of the saints? I will hold fast, he says, and I will not let you go. I will adore, he says, the Lord whom, reading in the Gospel and finding him crucified, I see in heaven reigning with the angels, in the sight of all his people. Before the whole assembly of the saints. In your midst, Jerusalem. Of that heavenly city itself, which is our mother, whose citizens and members of the household we have already been made. Through our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is our peace.

May he deign to grant us that, with the war of the flesh subdued and the peace of his love bestowed upon us, and made sons in the heavenly Jerusalem, we may deserve to be joined to his saints according to our merits. To him be glory with the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.

PSALM 116.

Alleluia. This psalm is held to be small in the number of its verses, but it is great in the sacrament of spiritual mystery. Yet it keeps the apostolic voice, which according to the gospel norm is contained in the number of four verses.

Praise the Lord, all you nations. You who, having left behind idols, have come to him through faith. But that all the nations would praise and adore the Lord, this the Magi coming from the East began, offering gifts to the child born as man, king, and Lord, as Matthew the evangelist says: And praise him, all you peoples (Matt. 2). Those who were converted from among the Jews, which that title foretold, which Pilate placed above the Lord's cross, written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the King of the Jews, as John the evangelist testifies (John 19).

For his mercy has been confirmed upon us. We have often testified that with God future things are already made (Acts 2). Therefore the Lord's mercy was then confirmed, when he poured out the Holy Spirit upon believers, according to the promise which Luke the evangelist records, saying: Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but sit in the city until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24). And the truth of the Lord remains forever. The truth of the Lord remains, when the righteous are built up in the heavenly Jerusalem as living stones; or when the wicked are handed over to eternal fire and to worms that never die. As Mark the evangelist says: Their fire shall not be extinguished, and their worm shall not die (Mark 9). But let us humbly beseech the Lord, that he grant us the power to praise him, and confirm his mercy upon us, sending into us the Holy Spirit, who, burning away what is harmful, may illuminate what is profitable. To him be glory with the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit throughout all ages of ages. Amen.

PSALM 117.

Alleluia. This psalm sometimes contains the voice of the Church of Christ founded by his calling, or of a people slain for the name of Christ magnifying God.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. This confession pertains not to the remission of sins, but to the praise of the Deity.

Let the house of Israel now say, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. That house, which was formerly blinded by sins, now with a serene mind contemplates the glory of God.

Let the house of Aaron now say, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. That house which once sacrificed to idols now, enticed by the goodness of the Most High, exercises the priesthood of its own soul.

Let those who fear the Lord now say, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. You who once feared mute and deaf idols, now with reverent fear of the almighty Lord sing forth his mercy.

In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and the Lord heard me in breadth. In the straits of tribulations he heard me in the breadth of joys.

The Lord is my helper; I shall not fear what man may do to me. The devil, certainly, is often set down in the Scriptures as both man and man.

The Lord is my helper, and I shall despise my enemies—whether heretics or Jews.

It is better to hope in the Lord than to hope in man. In God alone we ought to hope, and not in man, whose salvation is vain (Ps. 59). For another prophet says: Cursed is the man who places his hope in man (Jer. 17).

It is better to trust in the Lord, who bestows eternal life, than to trust in princes, whose power slips away with this world.

All the nations surrounded me, and in the name of the Lord, because I took vengeance on them. The nations, that is, of tribulations walled me about, but in the name of the Lord I resisted them.

Surrounding me, they surrounded me, and in the name of the Lord, because I have taken vengeance on them. Under whose standard I was protected.

They surrounded me like bees. Like bees around the honeycomb, to take away the sweetness that Christ had poured into me. And they blazed like fire among thorns. They themselves blazed in their envy when they could not burn me up. And in the name of the Lord, because I have taken vengeance on them. When the things they had brought upon me were poured back upon them.

I was pushed and overthrown so that I might fall, and the Lord received me. Trusting in him, I sought him alone as my helper.

The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he has become my salvation. To him I will sing in harmony, him I will call my strength: in him all my praise consists, who in this death of tribulation has become my salvation.

The voice of exultation and salvation, in the tabernacles of the righteous. In the hearts, certainly, of the martyrs and the rest of the saints, who have been made the tabernacle of God through the Holy Spirit dwelling in them.

The right hand of the Lord has done mighty things, that it might grant me victory in my passion. The right hand of the Lord has exalted me; from the lowliness of various sufferings I have been raised up by his power.

I shall not die, but live, and I shall declare the works of the Lord. The people of the martyrs speaks these words, whose victories are sung throughout all the Churches.

Chastising, the Lord has chastised me, and he has not delivered me to death. The Lord chastises us for correction with many blows, that he may prove us and preserve us from perpetual death.

Open to me the gates of righteousness, and entering through them I will give thanks to the Lord. Blessed is that people of the Church or of the martyrs to whom the gates of righteousness are opened, that is, of eternal life, in which they may continually confess and praise God.

This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. The Lord Jesus Christ is the gate of the Father, through whom one enters to him, the Lord himself saying: I am the door; if anyone enters through me, he will be saved. And again: No one comes to the Father except through me (John 10). Through this gate, therefore, one comes to the Father, but no one enters through it unless he is righteous.

I will confess to you, for you have heard me, and you have become my salvation—in that you healed the wounds of sin, or against the unjust enemy you became my salvation.

The stone which the builders rejected. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the true stone found in the letter of the law, was rejected by the Jewish builders—that is, by those clinging to the letter. This one has become the head of the corner: the head joining two walls, one from the circumcision, the other from the uncircumcision, into one new man, that is, in himself.

From the Lord, the Father, it has been made—our Mediator and his. And it is marvelous in our eyes: not in the eyes of those who rejected him, but in ours, who have received him by believing.

This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and be glad in it. This corner stone is himself the day of salvation, in which we have either risen from death, or, having laid aside the sorrow of sin, rejoice in newness of life.

O Lord, save me. To you who are coming. O Lord, prosper well. Make that journey prosperous, by which after many labors I shall return to you. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Christ the Lord in the name of the Father, as he himself said: I have come in the name of my Father (John 5), etc.

We bless you from the house of the Lord. The saints from the heavenly Jerusalem bless the little ones of the Church. The Lord is God, and he has shone upon us. For by his resurrection he has illuminated our darkness.

Appoint a solemn day. Present yourselves as temples and altars to God, in which you may also celebrate the sacred solemnities. In dense places. In many virtues, in which either the Lord himself or his angels are gathered. Even to the horn of the altar. Even to the Lord himself, who is the strength of the soul, which you have made his altar.

You are my God, and I will confess to you. Having received remission through the confession of sins, now I will confess your praises; you are my God, and I will exalt you. Because I have been raised up by you from humility.

I will give thanks to you, for you have heard me, that you might join me with your saints in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. In these words the psalm receives its ending, from which it took its beginning: namely, that from the beginning of our faith even to the end, having confidence in our God, we should persevere in confessing his praises, according to that saying of the Lord: He who perseveres to the end, this one will be saved (Matthew 24). May he deign to grant us confidence to hope in him: to him be glory with the eternal Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

PSALM 118.

Alleluia. This psalm contains a great mystery in itself. About which we have spoken somewhat in the prologue, but since law, commandments, justifications, testimonies, judgments, and ways are contained in it, it is necessary to discern what distinguishes them among themselves. The law, therefore, which was given through Moses, ought to be understood spiritually in Christ: because the Apostle, while he calls it holy, nevertheless describes it as a shadow of things to come (Hebrews 10). Commandments are those in which the keeping of the Lord's precepts is assigned, according to that saying: You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, and the rest. Justifications are those by which God, through love of himself and of neighbor, commands the tares of hatred to be torn from the human heart. Testimonies are those in whose presence the order of holy observances is entrusted to us. Just as Moses calls heaven and earth as witnesses (Deuteronomy