HOMILY 58
HOMILY 58
ON PSALM 148
II HERE IS A DOUBLE 'alleluia' in the title of this psalm, and many suppose that the two alleluias constitute the title.
We ought to know, however, that one alleluia marks the close of the preceding psalm and the other the beginning of this. We must learn the rule that all psalms that commence with an alleluia, also end with an alleluia.!
Many are of the opinion that a subjoined alleluia indicates the beginning of another psalm, but that is not so, for the psalm that opens with alleluia, likewise, closes with an alleluia. Why am I drawing your attention to this matter?
So that you may know why there are two alleluias at the head of this psalm.
'Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights.' To praise God, human nature alone does not suffice; the heavens, too, join in His praise. 'Praise the Lord from the heavens.' The psalmist did not mean, praise, 0 heavens; but, you who are in heaven give praise, you who dwell in heaven: thrones, dominations, powers, seraphim, cherubim, and 'every name that is named, not only in this world, but also that which is to come.'2 'Praise the Lord from the heavens.' You who are in the heights, praise Him in the heights. You who are on high, praise the Most High.
He did not say this to the lowly and those established below, but to you who are on the summits.
'Praise him, all you his angels.' Do you notice the order of 1 Cf. Commentarioli in ps. 104.1.
2 Eph. 1.21.
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the angels? First named are the thrones; thrones are seats.
Let us not suppose that they are chairs upon which God remains seated; but that they are some heavenly powers upon which God always sits as if in His own chariot. 'Praise him, all his angels.' All His angels. Let him who is an angel give praise; he who is a demon cannot. 'Praise him, all you his hosts.' Because we have summoned the angels to the praise of God, and I, a man, cannot know the names of all the angels, I say in general: Praise Him, all His heavenly hosts. Thus far the psalmist calls upon invisible creation:
Praise Him, you who are unseen, who are not visible to the human eye. Now he comes to His creatures that we do see with our own eyes.
'Praise him, sun and moon.' Take note, heathens; note well, Manichaeans. The sun gives praise, it does not receive it. 'Praise him, sun and moon.' You call the sun god. Just watch and see how much praise precedes that of the sun.
Praise from the heaven; praise in the heights; give praise all you angels; praise, all you hosts. Your god with its praise is fifth in order. 'Praise him, sun and moon.' The psalmist did not say, moon and sun, but sun and moon; the greater light praises first. Mark well the order of the visible universe: Praise Him, sun; after the sun, the moon; after the moon, all the stars. 'All the stars,' not only the morning star, not only the greater stars, but let the lesser equally praise the Lord.
Someone may raise the question: How do the sun and moon and stars praise God? In that they do not depart from the duty and servitude that is theirs. Their service is the praise of God. Sublime honor is yours, 0 human soul. The sun and the moon and the stars hasten in their course to serve you. Angels, thrones, dominations do not need the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, for they are in heavenly abodes beyond the sun and the moon. Sun, moon, and stars exist for our sake; they serve us. It is the Apostle who says that creation itself groans and travails to be delivered into the
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freedom of the sons of God.s When, moreover, the sons of God shall attain glory, creation itself also will be delivered from its slavery.
Someone may ask: How is the sun in slavery and how is it set free? In what way, the moon; in what way, the stars? The sun is liberated that it may not look upon the Jews, that it may not look upon the heathens, upon those who are blaspheming its Lord. It beholds parricides; it looks upon homicides; yet it is always obeying the command of Him who issued it: 'for he makes his sun to rise on the just and the evil.'4
'Praise him, all you stars and light.'5 Someone may wonder:
What light is there without the sun, without the stars, without the moon? We may answer, the light between night and day or between day and night, because that is a time of light without the sun, although there are many who believe that this light is but the resplendence of the sun. So the prophet says: 'Praise him, all you stars and light.' Just as he had said of invisible creation: 'Praise him, all his hosts'; even so of visible creation, he may say: Praise Him, everything that shines.
'Praise him, you highest heavens.' We speak of many heavens. Paul says, in fact, that he was caught up to the third heaven.6 Know, then, there is so much brightness that there is a heaven of heavens. From here on, the rest of the psalm refers to visible creation.
'For he spoke and they were made.'7 For God to have commanded is to have created; the command is creation. He spoke, and they were made, according to that which is written in Genesis: God said, and God created; that is, God the Father gave the command; God the Son created. Someone may say: He is the greater who gives the command, and He is the less to whom it is given. That is what the Arians, the 3 Cf. Rom. 8.22, 21.
4 Cf. Matt. 5.45.
5 Cf. Ps. 148.3.
6 2 Cor. 12.2; cf. Letter 51.5, PL 22.523 (249).
7 Cf. Ps. 148.5.
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Eunomians, and the Macedonians maintain. I answer you, o heretics, in accordance with your own reasoning. You say, the Father is greater because He gives the command, and the Son is less because He is commanded by the Father. If this is in accord with human understanding, answer me: Is it greater to command or to create? I say, 'Let a house be made,' and another builds the house. There is nothing great in uttering the words; it is difficult to build the house. He is greater, therefore, who creates than he who gives the command. But that is impious irreverence, for the Son is not greater than the Father. It is just as blasphemous to believe this of the Son against the Father, as it is to believe it of the Father against the Son. 'For he spoke and they were made: he commanded and they were created: One nature both commands and creates; God gives the order, God fulfills it. A painter bids a painter paint, and the painter paints what he has bid be painted.
'He established them forever and ever; he gave them a duty which shall not pass away: Great your honor, 0 man, and great your misfortune. The sun runs its course for you; the elements serve you; and you ignore your Creator. 'He gave them a duty which shall not pass away.' He gave the sun a duty; and see how many years the duty imposed by God has persisted unchanged. It has been so constant that human observation has been able to note its course_ 'He gave them a duty which shall not pass away: He has prescribed for the moon that it wax and wane through a period of thirty days.
Does the moon ever change its course? In heaven, God's order is obeyed, and on earth it is not. He has fixed the limit of the sea that it may not go beyond its shores; the sea surges, swollen with billows, and again recedes, mindful of God's decree. The entire universe heeds God and remembers
His injunction; man alone does not remember. We pray, therefore, in the Lord's prayer: 'Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.'s As in heaven the angels obey You, and 8 Matt. 6.10; d. Commentary on Matthew 6.10, PL 26.44 (34).
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creation serves You, so even may man serve You. 0 unhappy race of mankindl God has come down to you, since you are unwilling to ascend to heaven. It is not enough for you to reject Him, but you kill Him; you murder, you crucify, you blaspheme, you scourge. It does not satisfy you to slay; but you do not repent that you have slain.
The psalmist has spoken of the invisible and the visible in the heavens; now he comes to the visible on earth.
Mark carefully the order of praise: first, the invisible; then, the visible divided into two groups, the heavenly and the terrestrial. He has spoken of the heavenly; now he speaks of the earthly.
'Praise the Lord from the earth.' Since the angels have given praise, since heaven has praised, let earth also praise.
Let us see who of earth are first to praise God. 'You sea monsters, and all depths; fire and hail, snow and mist, storm winds that fulfill his word; you mountains and all you hills, you fruit trees and all you cedars; you wild beasts and all tame animals, you creeping things and you winged fowl.'
After all these, what does the prophet say? After the sea monsters, the creeping things, fire, hail, wild beasts and tame animals, what follows? 0 man, you who think you are so great, of you he speaks next-and not of ordinary man, but of men who are the mightiest among men.
'Let the kings of the earth and all peoples, the princes and all the judges of the earth,' and then: 'Young men too, and maidens, old men and boys, praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted.' How many mysteries these verses containl Heavenly beings, the non-visible, the visible, have praised the Lord; now the psalmist descends to the earthly, and first of all he rouses the sea monsters and the unfathomable depths to the praise of God. 'Where the offense has abounded, grace has abounded yet more.'9 You who were at 9 Rom. 5.20.
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first a sea monster, who hissedlO with venom of serpents; 0 you who were an abyss, with clouds gathered above you, grasp what he says. Where there are sea monsters, there is venom; where there are depths, there are clouds and darkness.
Do not despair, 0 you who were a sea monster, you who were full of darkness, and did not dare to praise God; repent of your sins, and at that instant you are converted to God.
Granted that sea monsters are not mentioned in the Hebrew text, but THANNINIMll is there instead, which in Hebrew signifies a huge sea animal of the species of whale. This sea animal, moreover, they say is enormous in size; hence, this is the monster in the great deeps of the sea.
Let us discuss the literal interpretation first. Watch what it says. Praise, you creatures in the sea; and give praise, you creatures not in the sea; sea monsters and all the depthsfrom the part, the whole
Next comes fire.
Note the harmony of discord; water and fire praise the Lord simultaneously.
'You sea monsters and all depths; fire.'
Everything that generates from water generates also from fire, that is, from moisture and heat; neither can fire generate alone without moisture, nor moisture without fire.
Nothing is so contrary as moisture to heat and heat to moisture; yet, by the will of God, these contraries harmonize in our birth.
'Hail, snow and mist, storm winds that fulfill his word.'
There is much I would like to say to you, but we cannot tarry over single words. 'Hail, snow and mist, storm winds'; everything we see in this world ministers to us. Creeping things and depths, fire, hail, snow, mist, storm winds, all seem to be without reason, yet they serve us. Yesterday there was a storm, and it certainly seemed like a contradiction to us; it was cold and damp; there were rains; but that which at the time appears to be at cross-purposes, is really for our
10 Cf. Against Jovinian 1.4, PL 23.224 (241); Letter 130.16, PL 22.1120
(992).
II Commentary on lsaia 27.1, PL 24.307 (361); 43.16-22, PL 24.432 (621).
12 Cf. Homily 36 on Ps. 109, p. 270; Commentary on lsaia 14.2, PL 24.160
(176); on Jona 2.2. PL 25.1131 (405); on Matthew 12.40, PL 26.85 (83).
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benefit, for it brings forth fruit for us. Understand, then, what the psalmist means: they are all creatures that fulfill the word of God. Blush with shame, 0 man, creeping things and depths,. snow, rain, and storms obey the word of God, and you do not.
'You mountains and all you hills.' Mountains do not change into hills, nor valleys into mountains; they preserve their own nature. 'You fruit trees, and all you cedars.' You see a tree that is almost withered up, all its leaves are gone, and suddenly when spring arrives, it sends forth a bud, it brings forth fruit for you. The tree bears fruit for you, but you bear no fruit for God. 'All you cedars.' Follow the example of the cedar. Cedars stretch to reach the heights as if they were hastening to heaven; it is for you to imitate the non-rational tree. 'You wild beasts and all tame animals.'
They do not change their nature; all creatures keep their order, except man alone to whom all are subject. 'You creeping things and you winged fowl.' Earthly creatures do not leave earth for heaven, nor heavenly beings for earth; they serve you.
Someone may say: You are following history; you are not speaking allegorically. If you are giving us the historical sense, why do depths and snow and hail praise God first, and fruit trees and the rest of irrational creation second, and last of all man? Let us read Genesis and we shall see that all creatures glorify God in the order of generation and creation, for there it is written that God gave existence first to living beings that are in water, next those on land, then the birds of the air, and after that He made one man. Consequently, that .which He made first, should praise the Lord first. But there is another meaning. 0 man, all these things that I have mentioned, for whose sake did God make them?
Wild beasts, creeping things, fruit trees, winged birds, all these give praise to God by the very fact that they do not change their nature. 'He gave them a duty which shall not pass away.' Do, therefore, as the creatures that serve you.
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God made them to serve you; He made you to serve Him.
They obey you; follow their example and serve God just as they serve you; it is through God that they serve and obey.
To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.