Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
will see your likeness to the members of Christ, the members who first sang this. Then you too will be within His membership, and you will sing this.
Now why are these singers singing this and exulting? Because they have escaped. Therefore, hope is what they are singing in. For when we are here and on pilgrimage, we have not yet escaped. But some members of this Body, which we are also part of, have gone on ahead, and they can sing of it there in truth. The martyrs sing it this way, for they have already escaped and are with Christ in exultation, already sure of receiving back their bodies free from corruption, the very bodies which once were corrupted, in which they suffered terrible torments. There, these [once tormented bodies] will be made emblems of justice. Therefore, let us all sing the Psalm together—both those already rejoicing in reality and we who live in hope and are joined in affection together with them, celebrating their victory garlands and yearning for such a life, one which we do not have here and which we will not be able to have unless we yearn for it here. So let us all sing together and say: "Except because the Lord was in us" (Ps 123:1). For the martyrs have looked down on whatever troubles which they once suffered, and they have considered them from their vantage point, well-established in blessing and in security, and have reflected on the road they went along and on the place where they have come to; and because it would have been difficult to be liberated from here, had not the liberator's hand helped, and so in joy they have said: "Except because the Lord was in us." So have they begun singing. Not yet have they said what they escaped from, so much is their joy, their exultation: "Except because the Lord was in us."
(4) "Let Israel now say: 'Except because the Lord was in us' " (Ps 123:1). Now let [Israel] say it because it has already escaped. The escapees, that is, those who have already escaped—this Psalm sets them up for us to look upon. Let us also set them up in our hearts, those who are already triumphant, and rejoice as though we ourselves are also there, just as in a previous Psalm it was said: "Our feet were standing in the outer courts of Jerusalem" (Ps 121:2). Not even there yet, but still on the road, yet so much was their joy hurrying them along, and so much was their hope of arriving, that even here, laboring along on the road, they saw themselves already set up there in Jerusalem. Yes, we too may now place ourselves in that triumph which will be ours in the future age, when we will trample upon Death already ended, already swallowed up, where we will say: "Where, O Death, is your struggle?74 Where, O Death, is your sting?" (1 Cor 15:55)75
74. "Where, O Death, is your struggle?" (Ubi est, Mors, contentio tua?): This reflects the Vetus Latina that Augustine used. The Vulgate has "victory" (victoria) rather than "struggle."
75. En. Ps. 123.1–4 (CCL 40:1825–27); my trans. This sermon is part of a larger sequence. M. LeLandais, in his "Deux années de prédication de saint Augustin: Introduction à la lecture de l'In Joannem," in Études Augustiniennes, Théologie 28, ed. Henri Rondet (Paris: Aubier, 1953), 1–95, demonstrated that Augustine gave
The Exegete 199
From Jubilant Words to
Wordless Jubilation
At the climax of the journey to God, one enters into a joyousness beyond words. To describe this joy, Augustine alludes to the songs sung by harvest workers who labored in the searing heat amid the verdant olive orchards of North Africa. Here we catch a glimpse of what one might call Augustine's ecclesial mysticism. From Expositions of the Psalms 32, sermon 2:
(8) "Sing to Him a new song" (Ps 32:3). Strip off your old self! You know a new song. A new person, a New Covenant, a new song. A new song doesn't belong with oldness. Only new persons can speak of it, new selves renewed by grace out of their oldness, ones belonging already to the New Covenant— what is the Kingdom of Heaven. All our love breathes this newness and sings this new song. Let us sing this new song not with our tongues, but with our lives. "Sing to him a new song, beautifully sing to him" (Ps 32:3). Each and every one of us is searching out some way to sing to God. Sing to Him—but you don't want it to be off-key. Brothers, sisters, sing beautifully. Now if someone had to perform before some audience well trained in music, and you're told, "Sing so you please them," you'd be nervous without some sort of formal training in the art of music and singing, afraid that real artists would critique your performance. A casual audience might not spot your lack of expertise, but a real artist would be highly critical. Now who would offer to get up and try to sing beautifully before God, since He's so good at judging a singer, so careful to examine everything, so attuned to hearing everything? When will you, in your singing, be able to put forward a performance of such artistry, such elegance, that not a single note of yours would grate on such finely tuned ears? Look, it's as though he is giving you a new style of singing. Don't go searching for words and lyrics, as if you could talk about what God would delight hearing about. "Sing in jubilation" (Ps 32:3). This, you see, is what singing beautifully to God is: it's to sing in jubilation. What is it "to sing in jubilation"? To understand that what's sung in the heart cannot be spelled out in words. Think of those who sing at harvest or in vineyards or at some other rugged work, the way they express their rapture by beginning with songs set to words, and then, as if bursting with a joy so full that they cannot give vent to it in set syllables, they drop the words and break into this improvised mela series of sermons that intertwined En. Ps. 119–133 with Jo. ev. tr. 1–13. Anne-Marie LaBonnardière, in her Recherches de chronologie augustinienne, CEASA 23 (Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 1965), 21–39, argued that this sequence took place not in the mid-410s, as was previously thought, but earlier, during the Donatist crisis, specifically, from December 406 through June 407. She also showed that his Ep. Jo. 1–10 were given during the Easter season of this same period. On this, see Berrouard, Introduction aux Homélies, 22–27.