Expositions on the Book of Psalms
THE, WORKS? OF 'ST AUGUSTIN:
[Psatm CXXI. keepeth thee. How doth He keep thee? " The your voices.t Since then ye have understood, brethren, consider what followeth ; wherefore the Lord shieldeth thee "upon the hand of thy right hand," that is, in thy faith, wherein we have received "power to become the sons of God," and to be on His right hand: wherefore should God shield us? On account of offences. Whence come offences? Offences are to be feared from two quarters, for there are two precepts upon which the whole Law hangeth and the Prophets, the love of God and of our neighbour.s The Church is loved for the sake of our neighbour, but God for the sake of God. Of God, is understood the sun figuratively: of the Church, is understood the moon figuratively. Whoever can err, so as to think otherwise of God than he ought, believing not the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost to be of one Substance, has been deceived by the cunning of heretics, chiefly of the Arians. If he hath believed anything less in the Son or in the Holy Spirit than in the Father, he hath suffered an offence in God; he is scorched by the sun. Whoever again believeth that the Church existeth in one province only,° and not that she is diffused over the whole world, and whoso believeth them that say, "Lo here," and "Lo there, is Christ,' 7 as ye but now heard when the Gospel was being read; since He who gave so great a price, purchased the whole world : he is offended, so to speak, in his neighbour, and is burnt by the moon. Whoever therefore erreth in the very Substance of Truth, is burnt by the sun, and is burnt through the day; because he erreth in Wisdom itself. . . . God therefore hath made one sun, which riseth upon the good and the evil, that sun which the good and the evil see; but that Sun is another one, not created, not born, through whom all things were made ;8 where is the intelligence of the Immutable Truth: of this the ungodly say, "the Sun rose not upon us."9 Whosoever erreth not in Wisdom itself, is not burnt by the sun. Whosoever erreth not in the Church, and in the Lord's Flesh, and in those things which were done for us in time, is not burnt by the moon. But every man although he believeth in Christ, erreth either in this or that respect, unless what is here prayed for, "The Lord is thy defence upon the hand of Lord is thy defence upon the hand of thy right hand." . . . It seemeth to me to have a hidden sense: otherwise he would have simply said, without qualification, "' The Lord will keep thee," without adding, " on thy right hand." For how? Doth God keep our right hand, and not our left? Did He not create the whole of us? Did not He who made our right hand, make our left hand also? Finally, if it pleased Him to speak of the right hand alone, why said He, "on the hand of. thy right hand," and not at once "upon thy right hand'? Why should He say this, unless He were keeping somewhat here hidden for us to arrive at by knocking? For He would either say, '' The Lord shall keep thee," and add no more; or if He would add the right hand, "The Lord shall keep thee upon thy right hand ;" or at least, as He added " hand," He would say, "The Lord shall keep thee upon thy hand, even thy right hand,' * not "upon the hand of thy right hand." .. . 5. I ask you, how ye interpret what is said in the Gospel, '"' Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth"'?? For if ye understand this, ye will discover what is your right hand, and what is your left: at the same time ye will also understand that God made both hands, the left and the right; yet the left ought not to know what the right doeth. By our left hand is meant all that we have in a temporal way ; by our right hand is meant, whatever our Lord promiseth us that is immutable and eternal. But if He who will give everlasting life, Himself also consoleth our present life by these temporal blessings, He hath Himself made our right hand and our left... . 6. Let us now come to this verse of the Psalm: ''The Lord is thy defence upon the hand of thy right hand" (ver. 5). By hand he meaneth power. How do we prove this? Because the power of God also is styled the hand of God. . . . Whereof John saith, "He gave unto them power to become the sons of God."3 Whence hast thou received this power? "To them," he saith, "that believe in His Name." If then thou believest, this very power is given thee, to be among the sons of God. But to be among the sons of God, is to belong to the right hand. Thy faith therefore is the hand of thy right hand: that is, the power that is given thee, to be among the sons of God, is the hand of thy right hand... . 7. "May the Lord shield thee upon the hand of thy right hand"' (ver. 6). believe ye have recognised it. For had ye not recognised it, and that from the Scriptures, ye would not signify your understanding of it by See p. 418, note 8, supra. —C.] 5 Matt. xxii. 3 é onatists. [So in the Roman Pe as asserted byt the modern dogma of the Trent schism. A. F, vol. viii. p. 643. —C.] 7 Matt. xxiv. 23. 8 Nicene Creed, 9 Wisd. v. 6. Here old editions add: ''of this Sun Father Athanasius, the Bishop, hath thus beautifully spoken. 'The Son of d,' he saith, ' is of the Father alone, neither made, nor created, but begotten; ' " whence Possevinus, Torrensis, and Bellarmine have quoted St. Augustin as assigning the Athanasian Creed to St. Athanasius. But Petavius, Theol. Dogm. de Trin. |. vii. c. 8, note 7, says the words have been foisted into St. Augustin, and in fact they are not in any of our Mss. nor in the editions of Amsterdam, of Erasmus, and of Louvain. — Bex. Some other additions are mentioned in the Benedictine notes on this Psalm, but they seem of later date than St. Augustin.
I have said, and I} Go
1 Manum dexteram. 2 Matt. vi. 3. 3 John i. 12,