Expositions on the Book of Psalms (continued)
Psatm LXX.] ON THE PSALMS. B18 concerning whom he hath said, "Let them be confounded and fear that seek my soul:"! so also now, "Let them be turned _backward, and blush, that think evil things to me." Wherefore? In order that they may not go before, but follow. For he that censureth the Christian religion, and on his own system willeth to live, willeth as it were to go before Christ, as though He indeed had erred and had been weak and infirm, because He either willed to suffer or could suffer in the hands of the Jews; but that he is a clever man for guarding against all these things ; in shunning death, even in basely lying to escape death, and slaying his soul that he may live in body, he thinketh himself a man of singular and prudent measures. He goeth before in censuring Christ, in a manner he outstrippeth Christ: let him believe in Christ, and follow Christ. For that which had been desired but now for persecutors thinking evil things, the same the Lord Himself said to Peter. Now in a certain place Peter willed to go before the Lord. . . . A little before, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father which is in Heaven :'' now in a moment, "Go back behind Me, Satan." 2 What is, "Go back behind Me'"'? Follow Me. Thou willest to go before Me, thou willest to give Me counsel, it is better that thou follow My counsel : this is, " go back,' go back behind Me. He is silencing one outstripping, in order that he may go backward; and He is calling him Satan, because he willeth to go before the Lord. A little before, "blessed ;'' now, "Satan." Whence a little before, 'blessed'? Because, "to thee," He saith, " flesh and blood hath not revealed it, but My Father which is in Heaven." Whence now, "Satan''? Because 'thou savourest not," He saith, "the things which are of God, but the things which are of men." Let us then that would duly celebrate the nativities of the Martyrs, long for the imitation of the Martyrs ; let us not wish to go before the Martyrs, and think ourselves to be of better understanding than they, because we shun sufferings in behalf of righteousness and faith which they shunned not. Therefore be they that think evil things, and in wantonness feed their hearts, "turned backward and blush." Let them hear from the Apostle afterwards saying, " But what fruit had ye some time in those things at which ye now blush?"
a furnace. Truly when the Scripture was speaking of persecution, it said, " Like gold in a furnace it hath proved them" (speaking of Martyrs being slain), 'and as the holocaust's victim it hath received them." Hear how even the tongue of flatterers is of such sort: "The proving," he saith, "of silver and of gold is fire; but a man is proved by the tongue of men praising him." 4 That is fire, this also is fire: out of both tho oughtest to go forth safe. The censurer hath broken thee, thou hast been broken in the furnace like an earthen vessel. The Word hath moulded thee, and there hath come the trial of tribulation: that which hath been formed, must needs be seasoned ; if it hath been well moulded, there hath come the fire to strengthen. Whence He said in the Passion, '' Dried up like a potsherd hath been My virtue." 5 For Passion and the furnace of tribulation had made Him strong Chew 4 6. And what cometh to pass when they are all turned back and blush, whether it be they that seek my soul, or they that think evil things to me, or they that with perverse and feigned benevolence with tongue would soften the stroke which they inflict, when they shall have been themselves turned away and confounded ; there shall come to pass what? "Let them exult and be joyous in Thee:" not in me, not in this man or in that man; but in whom they have been made light that were darkness. 'Let them exult and be joyous in Thee, all that seek Thee"'
(ver. 4). One thing it is to seek God, another thing to seek man. 'Let them be joyous that seek Thee." They shall not be joyous then that seek themselves,° whom Thou hast first sought before they sought Thee. Not yet did that sheep seek the Shepherd, it had strayed from the flock, and He went down to it;7 He sought it, and carried it back upon His shoulders. Will He despise thee, O sheep, seeking Him, who hath first sought thee despising Him and not seeking Him? Now then begin thou to seek Him that first hath sought thee, and hath carried thee back on His shoulders. Do thou that which He speaketh of, "They that are My sheep hear My voice, and follow Me.''® If then thou seékest Him that first hath sought thee, and hast become a sheep of His, and thou hearest the voice of thy Shepherd, and followest Him ; see what He showeth to thee of Himself, what of
His Body, in order that as to Himself thou mayest not err, as to the Church thou mayest not err, that no one may say to thee, that is Christ which is not Christ, or that is the Church which is not the Church. For many men have said that Christ had no flesh, and that Christ hath
5. What followeth? "Let them be turned away forthwith blushing, that say to me, Well, well" (ver. 3). Two are the kinds of persecutors, revilers and flatterers. The tongue of the flatterer doth more persecute than the hand of the slayer: for this also the Scripture hath called
5 Ps, xxii. 15. 7 Luke xv. 4.
3 Wisd. iii. 6. 4 Prov. xxvii. 21. 6 mss. Reg. zon te, '' aught but Thee." 8 John x. 27.
t Ps. Ixx, 2: 2 Matt. xvi. 23.