Expositions on the Book of Psalms (continued)
Psatm LXXXVIII.] ON THE PSALMS. 423 never have done so, had not fishermen preceded them. These things are glorious indeed, but where could they take place, but in that city of God, of whom very excellent things are spoken?
joyfulness as men use to have in: wine, in feasting, in avarice, and in the world's distinctions. For men are elated by these things, and mad with a kind of joy: but "there is no joy, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.'"'7 There is a sort of joyfulness which the ear of man hath not heard,
8. So thus, after drawing together and mingling every source of joyous exultation, how doth he conclude? "The dwelling as of all that shall be made joyous is in Thee" (ver. 7). As if all made joyous, all rejoicing, shall dwell in that city. Amid our journeyings here we suffer bruises: our last home shall be the home of joy alone. Toil and groans shall perish: prayers pass away, hymns of praise succeed. There shall be the dwelling of the happy; no longer shall there be the groans of those that long, but the gladness of those who enjoy. For He will be present for whom we sigh: we shall be like Him, as we shall see Him as He is :' there it will be our whole task to praise and enjoy the presence of God: and what beyond shall we ask for, when He alone satisfies us, by whom all things were made? We shall dwell and be dwelt in; and shall be subject to Him, that God may be all in all2 " Blessed," then, "are they that dwell in Thy house." How blessed? Blessed in their gold, and silver, their numerous slaves, and multiplied offspring? '"' Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house: for ever and ever they will be praising Thee."3 Blessed in that sole labour 4 which is rest! Let this then be the one and only object of our desire, my brethren, when we shall have reached this pass. Let us prepare ourselves to rejoice in God: to praise Him. The good works which conduct us thither, will not be needed there. I described, as far as I could, only yesterday,5 our condition there: works of charity there will be none, where there will be no misery: thou shalt not find one in want, one naked, no one will meet you tormented with thirst, there will be no stranger, no sick to visit, no dead to bury, no disputants to set at peace. What then wilt thou find to do? Shall we plant new vines, plough, traffic, make voyages, to support the necessities of the body? Deep quiet shall be there ; all toilsome work, that necessity demands, will cease: the necessity being dead, its works will perish too. What then will be our state? As far as possible, the tongue of a man thus told us. "As it were, the dwelling of all who shall be made perfect is in Thee.""®° Why does he say, "as it were '? Because there shall be such joy there as we know not here. Many pleasures do I behold here, and many rejoice in this world, some in one thing, others in another ; but there is nothing to compare with that delight, but it shall be "as it were" being made joyful. For if I say joyfulness, men at once think of such nor his eye seen, nor hath it entered into his heart to conceive. "As it were, the dwelling of all who shall be made joyful is in Thee.' Let us prepare for other delights: for a kind of shadow is what we find here, not the reality: that we may not expect to enjoy such things there as here we delight in: otherwise our selfdenial will be avarice. Some persons, when invited to a rich banquet, where there are many and costly dishes yet to come on, abstain from breaking their fast: if you ask the reason, they tell you that they are fasting: which is indeed a great work, a Christian work. Yet be not hasty in praising them: examine their motives: it is their belly, not religion, that they are consulting. That their appetite may not be palled by ordinary dishes, they abstain till more delicate food is set before them. 'This fast then is for the gullet'ssake. Fasting is undoubtedly important : it fights against the belly and the palate; but sometimes it fights forthem. Thus, my brethren, if ye imagine that we shall find any such pleasures in that country to which the heavenly trumpet urges us on, and on that account abstain from present enjoyments, that ye may receive the like more plentifully there, ye imitate those I have described, who fast only for greater feasting, and abstain only for greater indulgence. Do not ye like this: prepare yourselves for a certain ineffable delight: cleanse your hearts from all earthly and secular affections. We shall see something, the sight of which will make us blessed : and that alone will suffice for us. WhHat then? Shall we not eat? Yes: we shall eat: but that shall be our food, which will ever refresh, and never fail. 'In Thee is the dwelling of all who shall be, as it were, made joyful." He has already told us how we shall be made joyful. " Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: for ever and ever they will be praising Thee.''3 Let us praise the Lord as far as we are able, but with mingled lamentations: for while we praise we long for Him, and as yet have Him not. When we have, all our sorrows will be taken from us, and nothing will remain but praise, unmixed and everlasting. Now let us pray.9
PSALM LXXXVIII.7°
1. The Title of this eighty-seventh Psalm contains a fresh subject for enquiry: the words
8 1 Cor. ii. 9. See p. 395, note 4, supra. 7 Isa, xlviii, 22. 9 Converst ad Dominum. A to Lat. LXXXVII. Dictated after the exposition of Ps. xlii, (see § 14), and perhaps after that of Ps, lxviii.
i x John iii. 2. 2 x Cor. xv, 28. 3 Ps. Ixxxiv. 4. 4 Ottoso negotio. 'S On the former Psalm, p. 419, supra. 6 Tanguam jucundatorum omnium habttatio in te.
THE 'WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. [PsaLmM LXXXVIII.
Scripture says of Israel himself, that he was without guile.9 occurring here, "for Melech to respond," being nowhere else found. We have already given our opinion on the meaning of the titles Pradmus
2. "O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before Thee"' (ver. 1). Let us therefore now hear the voice of Christ singing before us in prophecy, to whom His own choir should respond either in imitation, or in thanksgiving.
Cantici and Canticum Psalmi:* and the words, "sons of Core," are constantly repeated, and have often been explained: so also "to the end ;"' but what comes next in this title is peculiar. For "Melech" we may translate into Latin " for the chorus," for chorus is the sense of the Hebrew word Melech.? . . . The Passion of our Lord is here prophesied. Now the Apostle Peter saith, "' Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps ;''3 this is the meaning of "to respond." The Apostle John also saith, "As Christ laid
"QO let my prayer enter into Thy presence, incline Thine ear unto my calling" (ver. 2).
For even our Lord prayed, not in the form of God, but in the form of a servant; for in this He also suffered. He prayed both in prosperous times, that is, by " day," and in calamity, which I imagine is meant by "night." The entrance of prayer into God's presence is its acceptance : the inclination of His ear is His compassionate listening to it: for God has not such bodily members as we have. The passage is however, as usual, a repetition.'° down His life for us, so ought we also to lay down our lives for the brethren ;''4 this also is to respond. But the choir signifies concord, which consists in charity: whoever therefore in imitation of our Lord's Passion gives up his body to be burnt, if he have not charity, does not answer in the choir, and therefore it profiteth him nothing.s Further, as in Latin the terms Precentor and Succentor are used to denote in music the performer who sings the first part, and him who takes it up; just so in this song of the
3. "For my soul is filled with evils, and my life draweth nigh unto hell" (ver. 3). Dare we speak of the Soul of Christ as " filled with evils," when the passion had strength as far as it had any, only over the body? . . . The soul therefore may feel pain without the body: but without the soul the body cannot. Why therefore should we not say that the Soul of Christ was full of the evils of humanity, though not of human sins? Another Prophet says of Him, that He grieved for us: ! and the Evangelist says, " And
Passion, Christ going before is followed by the choir of martyrs unto the end of gaining crowns in Heaven. This is sung by " the sons of Core," that is, the imitators of Christ's Passion: as Christ was crucified in Calvary, which is the interpretation of the Hebrew word Core.® This also is "the understanding of A'man the Israelite :"'7 words occurring at the end of this title. fiman is said to mean, "his brother:"' for Christ deigns to make those His brethren, who understand the mystery of His Cross, and not only are not ashamed of it, but faithfully glory in it, not praising themselves for their own merits, but grateful for His grace: so that it may be said to each of them, " Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile," ® just as holy
He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy :" and our Lord Himself saith unto them of Himself, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." '? The Prophet who composed this Psalm, foreseeing that this would happen, introduces Him saying, " My soul is full of evils, and My life draweth nigh unto hell." For the very same sense is here expressed in other words, as when He said, " My soul is sorrowful, even unto death." The words, " My soul is sorrowful,"' are like these, " My soul is full of evils: " and what follows, "even unto death," like, "my life draweth nigh unto hell." These feelings of human infirmity our Lord took upon Him, as He did the flesh of haman infirmity, and the death of human flesh, not by the necessity of His condition, but by the free will of His mercy, that He might transfigure into Himself His own body, which is the Church (the head of which He deigned to be), that is, His members in His holy and faithful disciples: that if amid human temptations any one among them happened to be in sorrow and pain, he might not therefore think that he was separated from His favour:
I On Ps. xlvii. p. 160; also xlvi. p. 155, note 8. 2 (The author here adds: ' What caher meaning then can we attach to the words, 'for the chorus to respond, but this, that the choir is to make responses with the singer? And thus we must suppose that not this only, but other Psalms were chanted, though they have received different titles, probably for the sake of variety to relieve weariness: for this Psalm * was not the only one held worthy of choral responses, since it is not the only one which relates to our Lord's Passion. If indeed there is any other reason for so great a variety in the titles, by which it can be shown that all the Psalms which are distinguished in their titles are so marked, as that the title of no one of them can be fitted to another, I must confess that I could not discover it, though I tried long; and whatever I have read on the subject in the works of my predecessors has not satisfied my hopes, or, perhaps, my slowness of apprehension, I will therefore explain in allusion to what mystery the words, 'for the choir to respond,' that is, that the singer should be answered by a choir, seem to me to be used 7
3 x Pet, ii, 27. 5 x Cor. xiii. 3. 6 Matt. xxvii. 7 Israelite, alg. Ezrahtte. See also the title of the next Psalm. Ben. conjectures it may be for Zaraite, as Ethan and Heman are called sons of Zara, 1 Chron, ii. 6, and in 1 Kings iv. 31, where Solomon is said to be "wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman." LXX. has Zarite,
4 x John iii, 16.
9 Gen. xxv. 27 10 The words, ' "O let my prayer enter into T hy presence," being equivalent to, ' Incline Thine ear unto my calling.
It Tsa, lili. 4. 12 Matt. xxvi. 37, 38.
8 John i. 47.
PsaLtm LXXXVIII] ON THE PSALMS. 425 that the body, like the chorus following its leader, might learn from its Head, that these sorrows were not sin, but proofs of human weakness. We read of the Apostle Paul, a chief member in this body, and we hear him confessing that his soul was full of such evils, when he says, that he feels "great heaviness and continual sorrow in heart for his brethren according to the flesh, who are Israelites."" And if we say that our Lord was sorrowful for them also at the approach of His Passion, in which they would incur the most atrocious guilt, I think we shall not speak amiss. Lastly, the very thihg said by our Saviour on the Cross, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,"? is expressed in this Psalm below, "I am counted as one of them that go down into the pit" (ver. 4): by them who knew not what they were doing, when they imagined that He died like other men, subjected to necessity, and overcome by it. The word "pit" is used for the depth of woe or of Hell. "I have been as a man that hath no help."
no more have dominion over Him."? Hence He differs widely from those whom God hath not yet remembered to cause their resurrection after this manner: for what was to go before in the
Head, was kept for the Body in the end. God is then said to remember, when He does an act: then to forget, when He does it not: for neither can God forget, as He never changes, nor remember, as He can never forget. "I am counted"' then, by those who know not what they do, "as a man that hath no help:" while I am "free among the dead,"' I am held by these men "like unto them that are wounded, and lie in the grave." Yet those very men, who account thus of Me, are further said to be "cut away from Thy hand," that is, when I was made so by them, "they were cut away from Thy hand;" they who believed Me destitute of help, are deprived of the help of Thy hand: for they, as he saith in another Psalm,® have digged a pit before me, and are fallen into the midst of it themselves. I prefer this interpretation to that which refers the words, "they are cut away from Thy hand," to those who sleep in the tomb, whom God hath not yet remembered: since the righteous are among the latter, of whom, even though God hath not yet called them to the resurrection, it is said, that their "souls are in the hands of God," 9 that is, that 'they dwell under the defence of the Most High; and shall abide under the shadow of the God of Heaven." ?° But it is those who are cut away from the hand of God, who believed that Christ was cut off from His hand, and thus accounting Him among the wicked, dared to slay Him.
4. "Free among the dead" (ver. 5). In these words our Lord's Person is most clearly shown: for who else is free among the dead but He who though in the likeness of sinful flesh is alone among sinners without sin?3 ... He therefore, " free among the dead," who had it in His power to lay down His life, and again to take it; from whom no one could take it, but He laid it down of His own free will; who could revive His own flesh, as a temple destroyed by them, at His will; who, when all had forsaken Him on the eve of His Passion, remained not alone, because, as He testifies, His Father forsook Him not;* was nevertheless by His enemies, for whom He prayed, who knew not what they did, . . . counted "as one who hath no help ; like unto them that are wounded, and lie in the grave." But he adds, " Whom thou dost not yet remember: "' and in these words there is to be remarked a distinction between Christ and the rest of the dead. For though He was wounded, and when dead laid in the tomb,5 yet they who knew not what they were doing, or who He was, regarded Him as like others who had perished from their wounds, and who slept in the tomb, who are as yet out of remembrance of God, that is, whose hour of resurrection has not yet arrived. For thus the Scripture speaks of the dead as sleeping, because it wishes them to be regarded as destined to awake, that is, to rise again. But He, wounded and asleep in the tomb, awoke on the third day, and became "like a sparrow that sitteth alone on the housetop," ° that is, on the right hand of His Father in Heaven: and now "dieth no more, death shall
5. " They laid Me in the lowest pit" (ver. 6), that is, the deepest pit. For so it is in the Greek. But what is the lowest pit, but the deepest woe, than which there is none more deep? Whence in another Psalm it is said, "Thou broughtest me out also of the pit of misery."'! "In a place of darkness, and in the shadow of death," whiles they knew not what they did, they laid Him there, thus deeming of Him; they knew not Him "whom none of the princes of this world knew." '?_ By the " shadow of death," I know not whether the death of the body is to be understood, or that of which it is written, "That they walked in darkness and in the land of the shadow of death, a light is risen on them," '3 because by belief they were brought from out of the darkness and death of sin into light and life. Such an one those who knew not what they did thought our Lord, and in their ignorance accounted Him among those whom
He came to help, that they might not be such themselves.
7 Rom. vi. 9. 8 Ps. lvii. 7. 9 Wisd. ui. x. 10 Ps, xci. 1. [Noteworthy as the author's view of the state of the faithful departed. — C. ]
2 Luke xxiii. 34. 3 Rom. viii. 3. 5 Matt. xxvii. 50, 60.
1 Rom. ix. 2, 4. 4 John viii. 29. 6 Ps, cii. 7.
I Psexle3s 12 x Cor. ii. 8. 13 Isa. ix. 2.
426 THE 'WORKSOF* ST. AUGUSTIN. [PsALM LXX XVIII.
6. " Thy indignation lieth hard upon Me"' (ver. 7), or, as other copies have it, " Thy anger ;"' or, as others, "Thy fury:" the Greek word 6upos having undergone different interpretations. For where the Greek copies have dpyy, no translator hesitated to express it by the Latin zra; but where the word is @vpds, most object to rendering it by zra, although many of the authors of the best Latin style, in their translations from Greek philosophy, have thus rendered the word in Latin. But I shall not discuss this matter further: only if I also were to suggest another term, I should think " indignation" more tolerable than " fury," this word in Latin not being applied to persons in their senses. What then does this mean, "Thy indignation lieth hard upon Me," except the belief of those, who knew not the Lord of Glory?! who imagined that the anger of God was not merely roused, but lay hard upon Him, whom they dared to bring to death, and not only death, but that kind, which they regarded as the most execrable of all, namely, the death of the Cross: whence saith the Apostle, 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth uponatree." ? On this account, wishing to praise His obedience which He carried to the extreme of humility, he says, " He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death;" and as this seemed little, he added, " even the death of the Cross ;''3 and with the same view, as far as I can see, he says in this Psalm, " And all thy suspensions,' or, as some translate " waves," others "tossings," "Thou hast brought over Me." We also find in another Psalm, " All thy suspensions and waves are come in upon Me," 4 or, as some have translated better, '' have passed over Me: " for it is d7APov in Greek, not eiowAOov: and where both expressions are employed, "waves" and " suspensions," one cannot be used as equivalent to the other. Inthat passage we explained "suspensions " as threatenings, "waves" as the actual sufferings: both inflicted by God's judgment: but in that place it is said, 'All have passed over Me," here, "Thou hast brought all upon Me." In the other case, that is, although some evils took place, yet, he said, all those which are here mentioned passed over; but in this case, '' Thou hast brought them upon Me."
Passion impended, as long as they remained in the prophecies for future fulfilment.
7. " Thou hast put Mine acquaintance far from Me" (ver. 8). If we understand by acquaintance those whom He knew, it will be all men; for whom knew He not? But He calls those acquaintance, to whom He was Himself known, as far as they could know Him at that season: at least so far forth as they knew Him to be innocent, although they considered Him only as a man, not as likewise God. Although He might call the righteous whom He approved, acquaintance, as He calls the wicked unknown, to whom He was to say at the end, "I know you not." 5 In what follows, "and they have set Me for an abhorrence to themselves;" those whom He called before "' acquaintance," may be meant, as even they felt horror at the mode of that death: but it is better referred to those of whom He was speaking above as His persecutors. 'I was delivered up, and did not get forth." Is this because His disciples were without, while He was being tried within?® Or are we to give a deeper meaning to the words, "I cannot get forth" as signifying, "I remained hidden in My secret counsels, I showed not who I was, I did not reveal Myself, was not made manifest"? And so it follows, —
"" My eyes became weak from want" (ver. 9). For what eyes are we to understand? If the eyes of the flesh in which He suffered, we do not read that His eyes became weak from want, that is, from hunger, in His Passion, as is often the case ; as He was betrayed after His Supper, and crucified on the same day: if the inner eyes, how were they weakened from want, in which there was a light that could never fail? But He meant by His eyes those members in the body, of which He was Himself the head, which, as brighter and more eminent and chief above the rest, He loved. It was of this body that the Apostle was speaking, when he wrote, taking his metaphor from our own body, "If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?"
etc.?7. What he wished understood by these words, he has expressed more clearly, by adding, " Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."® Wherefore as those eyes, that is, the holy Apostles, to whom not flesh and blood, but the Father which is in Heaven had revealed Him, so that Peter said, '' Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God,''9 when they saw Him betrayed, and suffering such evils, saw Him not such as they wished, as He did not come forth, did not manifest Himself in His virtue and power, but still hidden in His secrecy,'® endured everything as a man overcome and enfeebled,
Evils pass over when they do not touch a man, as things which hang over him, or when they do touch him, as waves. But when he uses the word "suspensions," he does not say they passed | over, but, " Thou hast brought them upon Me," meaning that all which impended had come to pass. All things which were predicted of His
5 Matt. vii. 23. 6 Matt. xxvi. 56. 7 1 Cor. xii. 17-21. 8 x Cor. xii. 27. 9 Matt. xvi. 16. 10 Jy suis tnterioribus.
1 1 Cor. ii. 8. 2 Gal. iii. 13. 3 Phil. ii. 8. 4 Ps, xlii. 7.