Expositions on the Book of Psalms
346 THE WORKS' OF OT) AUGUSTIN, [Psatm LXXIV.
out unclean it remaineth? Draw it back, let it return to its colour, let it acknowledge the Saviour. " Wherefore dost thou turn away Thine hand, and Thy right hand from the midst of Thy bosom unto the end?" These words he crieth, being blind, not understanding, and God doeth what He doeth. For wherefore came Christ? "Blindness in part happened unto Israel, in order that the fulness of the Gentiles might enter in, and so all Israel might be saved."* Therefore now, O Asaph, acknowledge that which hath gone before, in order that thou mayest at least follow, if thou wast not? able to go before. For not in vain came Christ, or in vain was Christ slain, or in vain did the corn fall into the ground; but it fell that it might rise manifold. A serpent was lifted up in the desert, in order that it might cure of the poison him that was smitten.4 Observe what was done. Do not think it to be a vain thing that He came: lest He find thee evil, when He shall have come a second time.
sessed, Thou hast broken in pieces upon the water: for those persons whom they were possessing, Thou by Baptism hast delivered.
13. What more after the heads of dragons? For those dragons have their chief, and he is himself the first great dragon. And concerning him what hath He done that hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth? Hear: "Thou hast broken the head of the dragon"' (ver. 14). Of what dragon? We understand by dragons all the demons that war under the devil: what single dragon then, whose head was broken, but the devil himself ought we to understand? What with him hath He done? "Thou hast broken the head of the dragon." That is, the beginning of sin. That head is the part which received the curse, to wit that the seed of Eve should mark the head of the serpent.? For the Church was admonished to shun the beginning of sin. Which is that beginning of sin, like the head of a serpent? The beginning of all sin is pride.® There hath been broken therefore the head of the dragon, hath been broken pride diabolical. And what with him hath He done, that hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth? "Thou hast given him for a morsel to the Ethiopian peoples." What is this? How do I understand the Ethiopian peoples? How but by these all nations? And properly by black men: for Ethiopians are black. They are themselves called to the faith who were black; the very same indeed, so that there is said to them, " for ye were sometime darkness, but now light in the Lord." 9 . . . Thence was also that calf which the people worshipped, unbelieving, apostate, seeking the gods of the Egyptians, forsaking Him who had delivered them from the slavery of the
11. Asaph hath understood, because on the Title of the Psalm there is, " understanding of Asaph." And what saith he? "But God, our King before the worlds, hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth" (ver. 12). On the one hand we cry, "No longer is there prophet, and us He will not know as yet:"5 but on the other hand, "our God, our King, who is before the worlds " (for He is Himself in the beginning of the Word® by whom were made the worlds), "hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth." "God therefore, our King before the worlds," hath done what? "hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth:" and I am yet crying as if forsaken! . . . Now the Gentiles are awake, and we are snoring, and as though God hath forsaken us, in dreams we are delirious. 'He hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth."
Egyptians: whence there was enacted that great Sacrament. For when Moses was thus wroth with them worshipping and adoring the idol,'° and, inflamed with zeal for God, was punishing temporally, in order that he might terrify them to shun death everlasting ; yet the head itself of the calf he cast into the fire, and ground to powder, destroyed, strawed on the water, and gave to the people to drink: so there was enacted a great Sacrament. O anger prophetic, and mind not perturbed but enlightened! He did what? Cast it into the fire, in order that first the form itself may be obliterated ; piece by piece grind it down, in order that little by little it may be consumed: cast it into the water, give to the people to drink! What is this but that the worshippers of the devil were become the body of the same? In the same manner as men confessing Christ become the Body of Christ ; so that to them is said, "but ye are the Body of Christ
12. Now therefore, O Asaph, amend thyself according to thy understanding, tell us what sort of Salvation God hath wrought in the midst of the earth. When that earthly Salvation of yours was overthrown, what did He do, what did He promise? 'Thou didst confirm in Thy virtue the sea" (ver. 13). As though the nation of the Jews were as it were dry land severed from the waves, the Gentiles in their bitterness were the sea, and on all sides they washed about that land: behold, "Thou hast confirmed in Thy virtue the sea," and the land remained thirsting for Thy rain. " Thou hast confirmed in Thy virtue the sea, Thou hast broken in pieces the heads of dragons in the water.'' Dragons' heads, that is, demons' pride, wherewith the Gentiles were pos-
1 Rom. xi. 25. ae" 2 Oxf. mss. '* wast unwilling, and wast not." 4 Numb. xxi. 9. 3 John xii. 24. 5 Ps, Ixxiv. 9. 6 Jone i, 1.
7 Gen. ili. 15. 8 Eccles. x. 13. 9 Eph. v. 8. [See p. 331, note 3, supra. —C.] 10 Exod. xxxil. 19.