755 SPURIA. be taken away, nor can he bring his soul back from the underworld, until He comes who by His death subdued death. B The psalm now proceeds, since he transfers the prophecy back to the Jewish people. 50. "Where are Your ancient mercies, O Lord, as You swore to David in Your truth?" that is, in Your truth; namely, Christ, who is the truth. For what the Lord swore to David, he himself elsewhere musically recounted: "The Lord swore truth to David, and He will not be frustrated of it: of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne" (Ps. CXXXI, 11). He hints at the coming of Christ, in whom all kinds of mercy and all proof of clemency are stored up for us. And these mercies are "ancient," since their mystery was known to God before the ages. Therefore Paul says, "The mystery hidden from the ages and from generations, for our glory" (Col. I, 26). Isaiah indeed calls the Lord Himself the ancient and true counsel (Is. XXV, 1). 51. "Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your servants, which I have borne in my bosom of many nations." He calls prophecy his bosom. In it, as in a bosom, he has hidden true spiritual reproach. Nay, rather, David calls the prediction made concerning the Lord his own bosom, because according to the flesh He was to come forth from his bosom. Many reproaches, therefore, were suffered at the hands of the nations—when the prophecy about Christ was delayed and thus thought to be a lie—not only by David, but also by all the prophets whom he has termed the servants of God; and he prays that He might call their reproach to remembrance, so that, by consulting for the reputation of the prophets, He might bring forward the incarnation of Christ. C That these things are so, learn from what follows. 52. "Because they reproached the commutation of Your Christ." Do you see that they reproached them for Christ’s sake? And not only the Gentiles, but the Jewish people also reproached them. Wherefore Paul rightly said: "All have sinned, and are deprived of the glory of God" (Rom. III, 23). Above, therefore, he said that the prophets, whom he calls servants, were reproached by many nations; but here, he says that the commutation of Christ—that is, the Church (since the synagogue has commuted this)—is subjected to reproaches by the enemies of God, namely, the Jews, of whom David says: "The enemies of the Lord have lied to Him." And "He fed them with the fat of wheat, and satisfied them with honey from the rock" (Ps. LXXX, 16, 17). Why, therefore, do these reproach the Church? Because it was awaited, says Hosea, that they should be betrothed in faith: for it is thus written: "And I will betroth you to Me in faith, and you shall know the Lord" (Hos. II, 20): addressing the Church as one ignorant of God, since she had received neither the Law nor the prophets. When, however, Christ had not yet arrived, the preaching of faith had no place. 53. "Blessed be the Lord forever, let it be, let it be." The prophet has set a beautiful seal upon his words. For he doubles the blessing upon Christ, blessing Him in the very words that Paul used: "From whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all God blessed for the ages, amen" (Rom. IX, 5). D They brought forth "let it be, let it be," "Amen, amen." Why did he repeat the blessing? Because He who arrived, who is God over all, took away the reproach of both the prophets and the Church. And do you not ignore here that the third book of the interpreters ends and is sealed. Remember that it has been said before that the prophecy of the Psalms is divided into five books, and each terminates with a Psalm that presents a blessing ending in "Amen."
Psalm LXXXIX
Because we divided ourselves, and some, giving ourselves over to sin, have crossed over to the enemy's side, while others have kept the form of the Creator unharmed for the Creator [Himself], [the LXX] exhibit a fuller verse; and their interpretation in the Vulgate is translated thus: "That Your enemies reproached, O Lord: that they reproached the commutation of Your Christ."
756 He called Moses the man of God; so that you may learn that the just man is the proper possession of God. But why did he assign this Psalm to Moses? For indeed, Moses is not found to have written it; or why did he bring it forth in the manner of canticles? Accept, therefore, the true and consistent cause of this matter. In the proemia, the psalmist remembered the Creator of the world, in order to devise an origin congruent with the fourth book of the Psalms. That [subject] is the proper dignity of Moses, dealing with the production of the world; whence the psalmist consecrated this part of his lyre to him. "Lord, You have been our refuge in generation and generation." The prophet indicates the perpetuity of divine providence, when he speaks not of one generation and another, but of all. For because the spiritual enemy, having started from the deceit wrought through the serpent, persists in attacking our race through all time and through all states, we must necessarily flee for refuge to God, for we are saved in no other way than by fighting in opposition to him who seemed to be powerful, with Him who is truly powerful. 2. "Before the mountains were, or the earth and the world were formed, from age and unto age You are God." The psalmist declares two things to us in the present: namely, that the world was created; for some think it was not created. Therefore, he asserted that the mountains were made by the word of creation, and the earth was likewise formed: and at the same time that the maker of them is God, who was before all things, and is therefore the beginning of all things. When he had said "the earth," not in vain did he add "the inhabited world," but with this expression he calls man and the remaining animals into the middle, who inhabit this, lest by chance we refer the beasts or reptiles, or anything else among animals, to another creator. Rightly, however, he says "from age and unto age," that is, the future, that God is clearly the artificer and creator; for all these things are heard here before the essence of God [which is eternal]; but the matter is managed so that all opposing opinions may be impugned: for there are those who ascribe a god of the present age, and another of the future, whose blasphemous opinion he overturns with such sayings. A 3. "Do not turn man away into humility." Which [humility]? For many types of humility are mentioned in the divinely inspired Scripture; for sometimes it is said to be moderation of mind: "Learn," says Christ, "that I am meek and humble of heart" (Mt. XI, 29): sometimes it is sought as a correction made for our amendment; wherefore David says, "It is good for me that You have humbled me" (Ps. CXVIII, 71): sometimes [it refers] to punishment, by which someone being affected is burdened with reproach, as when he says of the devil: "You have humbled the proud as one wounded" (Ps. LXXXVIII, 11). That [sort of] humility he prays be turned away from man, so that he might not be cast away from God, even as the devil was cast away: wherefore Symmachus, for "humility," put "condemnation." The prophet having prayed these things, he continually brings in God responding thus: "And You said, Convert, O children of men." For if we convert, we are not turned away into humility, as he who labors under the disease of iniquity without repentance. "For a thousand years in Your sight are as a day of yesterday, which has passed, and as a watch in the night." He clearly expresses God's patience: for the sake of which He commands men to convert; but he says a thousand years are as one day which has already passed, an hour; nay, not even as one day, but as a watch in the night. One day has much time in it: for they divide the night into four watches. Therefore God is not wearied when He extends patience throughout each man’s life: since a thousand years are reckoned as the shortest time, not present, but past. 5. "Things that are held for nothing, that is how their years shall be." Whose? [The years] of sinners; for in the following pages the discourse is held about them: whose things that are held for nothing, even if they be of many years and long-lasting, yet they are not eternal. He says that the successes of wicked men are held for nothing; who, clearly, in none of those things in which it would be fitting, do they boast.
A 2. *In the morning* he calls the present life, not by way of comparison with the future, but because when the present life ceases, the darkness of death approaches. Wherefore Jeremiah says: *Woe unto us, for the day has declined, and the shadows have grown long* (Jer. 6. 4). He also calls the present life a day, and the manner of living in it shadows, as occupying only a short time. In this present life, therefore, the prosperity of men passes away, some like grass, some like a flower; that is, it comes through the middle, but the one, like a flower, falls off because of its extremely short duration; the other, even if for a certain time it remains green, is nevertheless hardened later, having been heated by the sun of justice, and dries up; and being grass, it is proved fit for the oven and for burning. So it happens exactly as the prophet Isaiah, and indeed James, explained for our instruction, saying: *All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass is dried up, and the flower thereof is fallen; and the comeliness of his face is lost* (Jac. 1. 11). But the prophet is not praying when he says these things; rather, he is declaring it and speaking in anger. For even if he says, *Let it pass away*, he does not say the word by way of prayer; Theodotion makes this clear, for instead of *Let it pass away*, he has published *It shall pass away*. Nevertheless, because when God brings judgment upon sinners in due time, the comeliness of the present is shown to be rotten, as the following signifies: *For we have failed in thy wrath, and in thy fury we are troubled*. It is the prophet’s custom to set forth fury as more moderate than wrath; you will know this most especially by going over this verse of his: *O Lord, rebuke me not in thy fury, nor chastise me in thy wrath* (Ps. 6. 2). For he assigned the rebuke to the fury, but the chastisement after the rebuke—which is to say, the punishment—to the wrath. Hence, even now, he says that we fail—that is to say, we are corrupted—through wrath, but we are troubled by fury. Yet he who is troubled is not entirely corrupted, but if he recovers his senses and turns back, he gains from the wrath and the failure resultant from it; just as he who is rebuked, if he changes, will be able to escape the chastisement. *Thou hast set our iniquities before thee*. First, because as a just one he possesses an aversion toward sins, and treats them as contrary to himself; then, as a judge, he has them before his eyes, just as he does our good deeds. B *Our age is for the enlightening of thy countenance*. For nothing in it escapes God, and for this reason it is said to be for his enlightenment—that is, to be made manifest to his countenance. And it is for the enlightenment of the face of God; that is, of Christ, desiring to be enlightened by him. *For all our days have failed*. How? Learn from what comes after. *In thy wrath we have failed*. For when God was angered when Adam disobeyed in Paradise, we ourselves failed, and all our days—that is, our whole life—failed, the Judge having condemned us to death. *Our years have meditated as a spider*. For it was fitting for the prophet to meditate and to philosophise, and to conceive of human life as a spider, constantly reasoning this about himself; for from this he was intending to endure sorrows and to despise the things that seem good, as having a rotten foundation. *The days of our years in them are seventy years*. *In them*, that is, in some of them; for few reach the number of years mentioned. *And if in powers, eighty years*. He calls strength of body "power." Symmachus, instead of *in powers*, has published *in strangeness*, showing that it is not easy for even the robust to reach such an age. *And the most of them is labour and pain*. Therefore, then, he called human life a spider; partly because it suffices only for a short time—for weakness is the property of the spider—and partly because it has labour and pain to no profit; for it is with much labour and toil that the spider is composed, due to the extreme thinness of its webs; but yet the labour spent on them is useless, for it results in nothing useful. *For when* he circumscribed the number of human years at seventy, although many reach a hundred years and more, or in any case as many as pass the number of eighty, he did not deign to count them at all, as being extraneous to life, driving them on to a decrepit old age, which makes them little different from the dead. *For meekness has come upon us, and we shall be instructed*. He calls "meekness" the decision issued by God upon us: *Thou art earth, and into earth thou shalt go*. For God, wishing to soften the preceding punishments (namely, *In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread*, and *The earth shall bring forth thorns and thistles to thee*), devises this death for us, by which we shall be strongly instructed, not punished so much as profited; for by the hope of death we turn aside from many evils here. *Who knows the power of thy wrath, and by thy fear to number thy fury?* C 3. Here the prophet took the word *Who* not to mean an impossibility, but for what is rare; as in: *Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord?* and, *Who is the man that desireth life?* (Ps. 23. 3). For he shows these to be rare and at the same time blessed by posing the question. Just as indeed here; for to know the power of the wrath of God, and by his fear—that is, on account of his fear—to number his fury—that is, to busy oneself and to reflect—works an abstaining from sins and the accomplishment of virtues. *So make known thy right hand to me, and those instructed in heart in wisdom*. He calls Christ the right hand of God; *those instructed in heart in wisdom*—that is, in Christ (for Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, 1 Cor. 1. 24)—are the apostles; for he did not say, "instructed in tongue," but *in heart*, which is the property of the apostles as those who are god-bearing, who also have the mind of Christ, just as Paul was saying (1 Cor. 2. 16). To be made known, therefore, is to be revealed—that is, Christ and the apostles, as our salvation is interceded for from that source. But indeed, having said, *Thus make known*, and then not having added the "how," he is clearly wishing to say the manner in which he prays for Christ to be revealed, whether in exaltation perhaps, or in humiliation, but having doubted which way to choose, he left it. For height makes him inaccessible to men, but humiliation makes him easy to despise; for which reason Christ has chosen the middle, healing the lowliness of the passions with his miracles. *Turn, O Lord (how long?), and be entreated in favour of thy servants*. He does not intercede for God to turn himself, but for us to be turned—that is, corrected. Or he also wishes for God to turn, so that, having turned as a shepherd, he might look upon the wandering sheep, for whom he also wishes him to be entreated on account of the error. And *How long* he says, not accusing, but as one deeply lamenting the delay of God, and [wishing] to show that our matters are in need of speed. *We have been filled in the morning with thy mercy, O Lord; and we have rejoiced and been glad in all our days*. The prophet has not yet finished the prayer; for he is still occupied with it in the following verses; yet, as having been heard, he uttered these present things, in which he boasts of being filled with the mercy of God—that is, to have bountifully enjoyed it; and to be filled *in the morning*, perhaps by calling the time which is that of the resurrection of the Saviour. *Very early*, as Mark says, it having come to pass; or indeed the present life, in which Christ visited men with the mercy of God; of the blessings of which, being many, we have been filled, in which we have rejoiced and been glad all the days, which at some time happened to the people of the Jews, while they were powerful for a time and again came under their enemies and were enslaved; for you will find this frequently documented in the Book of Judges. *We have been glad for the days in which thou hast humbled us, for the years in which we have seen evil*. What days are these, if not in any case these which we spent under the slavery of the idols, in which he humbled us by allowing us to serve our own creations? Then we saw many and different evils, not only blaspheming against the Creator, but also being ignorant of the justice of nature; for we sacrificed our sons and our daughters to the demons.