LIBER PSALMORUM

( Vide Operum ejus tom. VIII. )

841A(AUG.) This book is entitled among the Hebrews the Book of Hymns, for this reason, that a hymn is where words and praise are held together with a song, which is found in the psalms. It is also entitled, according to some, the Book of Soliloquies: which seems to be so done for this reason, that what a man searches out with himself, and learns from none save from the truth presiding within him, is called a soliloquy, for example, in the manner in which blessed Augustine searched out with himself concerning the nature of the soul and concerning the nature of God, in the same way the Prophet may be said to have searched out with himself concerning the incarnation of the Son of God, and concerning the repairing of the human race. King David and prophet, when he was reigning prosperously, wishing to magnify the worship of God, when at last he was bringing back to Jerusalem the ark that had been given back by the Philistines and had for a long time 841Bafterward wandered in uncertain seats, went before it naked with the harp (II Reg. VI): but he had also chosen four thousand men who should sing psalms not only with the voice but also with musical instruments: over whom he set four, Asaph, Idithun, Eman, Ethan, or the sons of Core, who, falling away from the crime or sacrilege of their father, whom the fire had consumed (Num. XVI), stood on most devoted in the worship of God.

(HIERON.) The psaltery is a certain musical instrument put together in the shape of the letter Δ: and from that musical instrument (by which the present work was set to measure) it took its name to itself. The psaltery is called among the Hebrews nebel (נבל), among the Greeks ψαλτήριον, but among the Latins organum. Many say that David 841Cdid not make all the psalms, because certain of them are entitled in the person of others. But, as blessed Jerome says, they are not to be listened to in this. For David composed all the psalms: he moreover appended them, wherein he had many helpers, over whom he set four, namely Eman, Ethan, Asaph and Idithun. By divine counsel this was done, that the psalms should be entitled in the persons of others, either for the interpretation of the names only, or for the business in hand, or for both. For the interpretation of the names only, as in the person of Idithun; for the business, as in the person of Aggeus and Zacharias; for both, as in the person of Solomon; Idithun, Asaph, the sons of Core and the rest of this kind were not authors of the psalms, but were set over the craftsmen who sounded the psalms 841Din three ways: either by the human voice, or by musical instruments, or commonly in both ways. And this in two manners, either by the instrument after the voice, or by the voice after the instrument: whence their names, that they might take 842Ahonour from the ministry, are inserted in the titles, chiefly for the signifying of things. But a psalm is the sound of the instrument, a canticle the singing of the human voice in the praise of God; a canticle of a psalm, when the voice comes after the instrument, a psalm of a canticle, when the instrument comes after the voice.

(CASS.) It is commonly asked: why are the psalms read in the Church before other Scriptures? This is for the reason that of old among the Hebrews this custom obtained in the temple of God. Or, because the psalms contain more of mysteries than the other Scriptures, and say many things briefly, in which the whole law and the prophets and the Gospel consist.

(CASS.) Prophecy is a divine inspiration or revelation, which declares the outcomes of things, whether by deeds or by words, with unmoving 842Btruth, whence prophecy is a vision, the prophet one that sees. Now this grace has been given in many ways: either through the works of men, as were the ark of Noe and the sacrifice of Abraham, and the passage of the Red Sea; or through births, as of Esau and Jacob, who signified things to come; or through speaking angels, as they spoke to Abraham, to Lot and to others; or through visions, as to Isaias and Ezechiel, and the rest; or through dreams, as to Solomon, Joseph and Daniel; or through the cloud and the voice from heaven, as to Moses; or in yet other ways. David, however, by none of these, but taught inwardly by a heavenly breathing, with the Spirit speaking in him, was filled full, as in I Kings: « The Spirit of the Lord was directed into David (I Reg. XVI). » And the Lord: « If David in spirit calls him Lord, how is he 842Chis son? » (Matth. XXII.) But the Holy Spirit was so given to the prophets that at times he withdrew for their sins and returned appeased; and as Peter says: « Prophecy was not at any time brought by human will, but, inspired by the Holy Spirit, holy men of God spoke (II Pet. I). » Nor are those strangers to the gift of prophecy to whom is given the faculty of understanding or of interpreting the Scriptures.

(HIERON.) There are many kinds of anointed ones: the patriarchs were called anointed, as: « Touch ye not my anointed (Psal. CIV); » in the Parables, all who came out of Egypt are called anointed. The chrism is made in Exodus, whence the priests are anointed; there is another ointment, with which kings are anointed; but this in two manners, for if it is David and Solomon, that is, strong of hand and 842Dpeaceable, one is anointed with the horn; if Jehu and Azahel, with the cruse, which is an earthen vessel. But Cyrus also, king of the Persians and Medes, who released Israel, is an anointed one, according to that word: « Thus saith the Lord to my anointed 843ACyrus (Isa. XLV), » which the words that follow do not permit to be taken of the Saviour, as some suppose. There is a prophetic ointment, with which Elias is commanded to anoint Eliseus for a prophet (III Reg. XIX); above all is the spiritual ointment, which is called the oil of gladness, wherewith Christ was anointed above his fellows, who have the chrism of baptism. And if any man lose it, let him not despair; because concerning the separating chrism it is written in Leviticus (Lev. XIII), that when any man's leprosy has been cleansed, the priest shall put oil for him in his left hand, and the rest of the things that are said there, and let him himself be called the anointed of God. But this remains, that the same man is often anointed, lest there be occasion of ruin to the negligent. For it is enough for the leper that, after the first ointment has been lost, he be anointed a second time; but he is often anointed who is always 843Bgoing forward: and, from the oil of the leper, he comes to the ointment of the people; thence to the priestly; from that to the chrism of the bishop; from the bishop to the king; from the king to the patriarchs; from the patriarchs to Christ.

(CASS.) As prophecy comes about in diverse ways, so also at diverse times. There is therefore one concerning the present, as Elizabeth: « Whence is this to me, that the mother of the Lord should come? etc. » (Luc. I.) Concerning the past, as Moses: « In the beginning God created heaven and earth (Gen. I). » Concerning the future, as: « Behold a Virgin shall conceive, etc. (Isa. VII). »

Again, one prophecy is according to the foreknowledge of God, which must in all ways be fulfilled, as: « Behold a Virgin shall conceive, etc. » Another is according to threatening, as: « Forty days, and Ninive shall be overthrown (Jonae III). »

843CIt is therefore to be noted that the prophet sometimes speaks indiscriminately of things to come as of things present; sometimes of things past, sometimes also properly of things to come: which is done for this reason, that he says all things at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, to whom all things are known, whether past or future, as though present.

(REMIG.) This book consists of a hundred and fifty psalms, not without the reason of a deeper mystery. For this number is most renowned for mysteries. For it is made up of eighty and seventy, whose beginning and signification come from eight and seven. For the eightfold signifies the eighth, the resurrection: because, whereas there are six ages of the living, the seventh of the dying, the eighth will be of those that rise again. But by the sevenfold is signified the time of this life, which is carried on by the repetition of seven 843Ddays. Rightly therefore has this book been composed of such a number of psalms, because it thus teaches us so to work and to live in the sevenfold of this life that in the eighth of the resurrection we may obtain the robe of glory. Or else because by the eightfold the New Testament is signified: for the fathers of the New Testament serve the ogdoad, observing the eighth day of Christ's resurrection, that is, the Lord's day, the octaves of the saints, awaiting the eighth of the resurrection of the dead. But by the sevenfold the Old Testament, because the fathers of the Old Testament served the hebdomad, that is, the sevenfold, observing the seventh day, the seventh week, the seventh year and the fiftieth, which is woven of seven weeks of years, that is 844Athe jubilee: whence Solomon: « Give portions to seven, and also to eight (Eccl. XI). » Well therefore has this book been published with this number of psalms, whose parts contain the doctrine and the commandments of both Testaments.

(AUG.) Again, by three fifties a threefold division of the psalms is made, for the signifying of the three states of the Christian religion: the first of penitence, in which also the first fifty of the psalms is ended, namely: « Have mercy on me, O God; » the second of righteousness, in which also the second fifty: « Mercy and judgment I will sing to thee; » the third the state of eternal life, in whose praise the third fifty is finished, namely: « Let every spirit praise the Lord. »

(ID.) The Book of Psalms is one, not five, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles: « As it is written 844Bin the book of Psalms » (Act. I). Jerome nevertheless says five books, that is, five divisions which are made by « so be it, so be it. »

The order of the psalms disagrees with the order of the history, because David sinned with the wife of Urias, and sang of penitence: « Have mercy on me, O God, » before his son persecuted him and he sang: « Lord, why are they multiplied; » but they are believed to have been so ordered by Esdras the prophet at a divine prompting.

The matter is the whole Christ, bridegroom and bride. The intention, to conform to Christ the new man those men who were deformed in Adam. The manner of treating: sometimes he deals with Christ according to that which is the head, sometimes according to the body, sometimes according to both. According to that which is the head, in three ways: for either according 844Cto the divinity, as: « With thee is the beginning, etc.; » sometimes according to the humanity, as: « I have slept, etc., » sometimes by transumption, as when he uses the voice of the members, as there: « Far from my salvation, etc. » Again, of the Church in three ways: sometimes according to the perfect, sometimes according to the imperfect, sometimes according to the evil: who are in the Church in body, not in mind; in number, not in merit; in name, not in the divine power.

VERS. 1.-- « Blessed is the man who hath not gone away, etc. » (AUG., Enarr. in Psal., tom. III.) The order, Adam went away when he withdrew from God; he stood, when he was delighted with sin; he sat, when, confirmed in pride, he could not return, save as set free by this man, who had none of these things. 844DAdam went away when he consented to the persuasion of the devil; he stood, while he ate the apple; he sat, while he excused himself: « The woman whom thou gavest me seduced me. » (Gen. III) [Vulg. Gn 3:12 Mulier, quam dedisti mihi sociam, dedit mihi de ligno, et comedi, "The woman, whom thou gavest me as a companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat"; the printed me seduxit imports the seducing that the Vulgate assigns to the serpent at Gn 3:13.]. After the likeness of exiles, who, while they are on the road, are more easily called back, while they now stand, with more difficulty: at length with the greatest difficulty, when they have there been made masters and lords. (REMI.) There is sinning by thought, by act, and by words in teaching. (CASS.) The impious man is so against God, the sinner against himself, the pestilent man against his neighbour. « In the chair, giving an example of sinning. » (CASS.) The throne is of kings, the tribunal of judges, the chair properly of teachers. (Ibid.) It is as though he said: You who have fallen through the first Adam, be ye conformed to this second one: because the blessed man is the contrary of the first

845AVERS. 2.-- « But in the law. » AUG. (CASS.) Here he is shown full of every good in himself. (AUG.) It is not perfect praise to flee the things to be blamed, unless the things to be praised follow. In the order in which they grew in the first man, they are taken away in the second.

« In the law. » (Ibid.) He who is in the law acts according to the law, he who is under the law is acted upon according to the law: the one is free, the other a slave. (Ibid. AMBR.) One thing is the law which is written for him that serves, another that which is beheld with the mind by him who has no need of letters. « The will. » (CASS.) That there be no weariness of labour, nor idleness, but he shall meditate always. The will of sense is under the law; of reason, in the law; of divinity, above the law.

VERS. 3.-- « And he shall be. » (Ibid.) Here he is shown useful to us, giving the fruit of life, and leaves, and overshadowing us, 845B« Blessed is the man. But in the law. And he shall be. » The full definition of the blessed man. All these things belong not to every blessed man, but to Christ alone. « As a tree. » (Ibid.) After the likeness of the tree of life which is in paradise, whereof obedient man was to have eaten. « A tree. » (Ibid.) In paradise there is the tree of life, a tree unto life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. « Of waters. » (AUG.) The waters are the Holy Spirit, according to that word: « He that shall have believed in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (Joan. VII), » and it is against the heats of the vices. (CASS.) Or, by water, the wisdom of God, by which the inner man is restored, as thirst by water. (AUG.) Or the mortal race, as Job: « Many waters, many peoples, » because they flow down into death, as waters into the sea. « He shall give. » (Ibid.) To give pertains to the rational sense and to the will of the one offering. 845C« And the leaf. » (Ibid.) As the leaves cover the fruit, so the words of the Lord guard his promises. « And all things. » (Ibid.) Why go through them one by one.

VERS. 4.-- « Not so the impious. » Here by the vengeance upon the wicked he terrifies the adverse, the dread of these makes what has gone before more welcome. « From the face of the earth. » (AUG.) Of eternal stability, because as this earth nourishes and holds up a man, so that other earth holds up the inner man.

VERS. 5.-- « Therefore they shall not rise again. » Because the wind casteth them away, that is, therefore, because they have been given over to a reprobate sense: therefore they do not rise again in the first resurrection, that they may judge themselves in counsel, that they may set the wills of God before their own. Or in the council, that is, in the harmonious multitude of the just, the impious idolaters, or apostates. Sinners, false Christians: or else therefore they do not rise again in the time to come, 845Dthat they may judge, or that, being judged, they may rest in the council, that is, in the college of the just. « In judgment, etc. » In the judgment there will be four orders: some shall judge and shall not be judged, as the most perfect; some shall neither judge nor be judged, as the damned unbelievers; some shall be judged and shall be saved, as the moderately good; some shall be judged and shall perish, as the evil faithful. « In the council. » (AUG.) In the eternal good, to follow which was counsel to the saints. « Or in the council, » in the judgment, that they may judge together with them; for there is judgment when different sins are punished with different penalties; and it is said from this by likeness. « They rise again. » What resurrections these are: of the soul, from sins in the present; of the body, from death in the time to come, whereby it shall be made impassible and immortal.

846AVERS. 6.-- « For the Lord knoweth, etc., » That is, these do not rise again in the soul, because God does not approve their works, but those of the just only.

« A psalm. » The modulation that is made by the touching of ten strings is the good work that is done by the keeping of the ten commandments. « David. » (CASS.) Strong of hand, or fair of aspect, is Christ, who warred down the powers of the air, upon whom the angels also desire to look.

VERS. 1.-- « Why have the nations raged, etc. » (CASS.) This psalm is the second in order, the first in title; whence in the Acts of the Apostles it is called the first. First he rebukes the persecutors and threatens them, 846Band foretells as a prophet. « Vain things. » (Ibid.) To hold him in death; or, that the world should not go away after him.

VERS. 2.-- « Kings. » (Ibid.) The former, who slew the infants, is Herod, the latter, he who consented with Pilate in the death of Christ. Kings and princes. (Ibid.) He could also, according to Ambrose, speak in the plural of one man. For only king Herod and prince Pilate are shown by the voice of Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles, to have conspired against Christ.

VERS. 3.-- « Let us break asunder. » (AMB.) Or they came together, saying: Let us break asunder their reasonings, that is, of the Lord and of his Christ, or of Christ and of the disciples, by which they wish to bind us to themselves. (AUG.) And although it might be said otherwise, it fits more openly those who are unwilling that the yoke of Christ be laid upon them. « Bonds. » The promises of eternal life, 846Cand the threatenings of hell, by which they wish to subjugate us to themselves. « Let us cast away. » Their reasonings being destroyed, let us shake off his dominion from us. (Ibid.) The yoke, that is, the law: but « he that dwelleth in the heavens. »

VERS. 4.-- « He shall laugh them to scorn. » (Ibid.) As when he rose again with the guards set: « He shall deride, » when they were scattered through the world. The derision of God is the force of the foreknowledge which God gives to his saints, that, seeing the name of Christ to be in all nations hereafter, they may understand that those men meditated vain things.

VERS. 5.-- « He shall speak to them. » (Ibid.) He opens it more plainly when he says, he shall trouble them. The anger of God is a motion that arises in a soul which knows the law of God, when it sees that law passed over by an evil man, through which motion many things are avenged: or, the anger of God is the darkening of the mind of the transgressors 846Dof the law.

VERS. 6.-- « But I. » (CASS.) Secondly, he brings in his words concerning his almighty kingdom and his unspeakable generation, where we learn of his divinity and his humanity. « King. » (ID.) So also are the kings of the earth appointed by him. « Preaching upon Sion, » so also are the prophets, « The Son, » so also is Israel, « I have begotten thee. » This to Christ alone.

VERS. 7.-- « The Lord hath said. » The person of him that reigns. « My Son. » (AUG.) Therefore do I give thee the nations for an inheritance rather than to any obedient servant: because thou art Son by nature, and consubstantial by an ineffable begetting. « This day. » (Ibid.) Although it might be taken of the day on which he was born according to man, yet, since "this day" signifies 847Aa presence, let it be taken of the everlasting generation of the wisdom of God.

VERS. 8.-- « Ask. » (AUG.) It pertains to the taking up of man: which was done for the salvation of men, and according to which he intercedes for us. « An inheritance. » (CASS.) Inheritance is from lord (herus), because in it he holds dominion with free power.

VERS. 9.-- « Thou shalt rule them. » (AUG.) Partly thou shalt rule, partly thou shalt break, according to that word: « Behold, this one here is set for the ruin and for the resurrection of many (Luc. II), » so that he who is just may be justified still: and he who is in filth shall be defiled still (Apoc. XXII). » « A rod of iron. » (CASS.) The power of Christ is the rod of iron; the sinner is the potter's vessel, which is both of clay and easily broken.

VERS. 10.-- « And now, ye kings, understand. » Now, 847Bthat is, by the things that have been said. (CAS.) Thirdly, on account of these things laid open, he admonishes all to obey humbly, and persuades them from the useful, that they perish not, and from the honourable, because blessed are they that trust in him. In this, after Christ, he speaks as it were an Apostle.

(AUG.) Or, now that I am appointed king, be not sorrowful, ye kings of the earth; for it is expedient for you to be under him, from whom come understanding and learning, that you may not rule rashly, but may serve the Lord of all, and may exult in blessedness.

VERS. 12.-- « Lest at any time he be angry. » (Ibid.) The doubt is not according to the prophet, but according to those men themselves, who think upon the anger of God with doubting. « From the just way, » that is, being taken away from Christ, or from good working.

847CVERS. 13.-- « When his wrath shall be kindled. » (CASS.) Now he does not burn when he chastises, as a father, but in the time to come he will burn, because there will be nothing of patience in the time to come. « In a short time his anger. » Because he examines not each of these things separately, but all of them together.

VERS. 1.-- « A psalm, » (AUG.) concerning the passion and resurrection of Christ: the son is Judas, from whom he fled, when, at his departing, he withdrew with the rest into the mountain; or rather when the wisdom of God forsook his mind, so that he was wholly the devil's, which forsaking is called a flight because of its swiftness. Whence: « That which thou dost, do quickly (Joan. XIII). » To him Christ showed peace, as David also did to his wicked son, whence he is called the peace of the father: but Judas, like Absalom, perished by hanging. He sets forth two opposed 847Dparts. The voice of Christ, as it were wondering, when he came to save: « Lord, why, etc. »

VERS. 2.-- « Lord, why. » (CASS.) The first psalm of those which treat briefly of the passion and the resurrection, against those men, and chiefly the pagans, who do not think that the glory of majesty can descend to lowly things.

VERS. 3.-- « Many say, etc. » (AUG.) Or this each man says who is assailed by vices and desires.

« They say to my soul: There is no salvation, etc. » By the heaping up of vices there creeps in a despair of health, as though the vices were insulting the soul; or also by devils and his angels, through suggestions.

848AVERS. 4.-- « Thou art my upholder. » (CASS.) In Christ. The head, that is, Christ, or the mind which serves the law of God. « Thou hast struck all. » It is rightly said in the predestination concerning the devil and his angels. « Upon the people. » This is each one of us. (ID.) Or the Church and its head speaks this, set amid the storms of persecutions throughout the whole world. Many say, desiring to extinguish the Christian name, « There is no salvation. » Otherwise they would not hope to destroy the Church that was sprouting far and wide. « Upholder. » Because it was taken up in Christ and exalted with him. The head is he himself who first ascended into heaven.

VERS. 5.-- « And he hath heard me from the mount, etc. » That is, by Christ the prayer of the Church is heard, or its righteousness.

VERS. 6.-- « I have slept: » according to that word: 848B« Rise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee (Ephes. V). » It is no wonder that the Saviour says these things, when he did far greater things for the salvation of souls at that time when he was absent from the body, which things are recounted in the catholic epistle under the name of Saint Peter: « When he preached, having gone forth, to those spirits who were in prison, who had at one time been unbelieving (I Petr. III). » [Vulg. 1 Pt 3:19 spiritibus veniens praedicavit, "coming, he preached to the spirits"; Migne prints profectas, an unconstruable feminine accusative for what the sense requires as profectus, "having gone forth."]

VERS. 7.-- « I will not fear thousands, » who try to extinguish the name of Christ.-- « Rise up. » O Christ our head, in whose resurrection is salvation.

VERS. 8.-- « For thou hast struck, etc. » Now that the Church reigns, the enemies have been struck with confusion. « The teeth of sinners, » that is, their cursing words; or the princes become teeth unto destruction. Therefore believe, O men, 848Cthat « salvation is the Lord's, » and, O Lord, « let thy blessing be upon thy people. With my voice. » These things are mine by desert, because « with my voice. » He who is good, and asks good things, cries with his own voice; with another's voice, that is, with one not according with his own life. « I have slept. » The end of the matter, whence he sets forth that there is nothing to fear. « I, » with weight; as though: they rage, but I would not sleep, unless I willed it. Or, I slept by consenting; I was made drowsy, by doing evil; I rose up, by forsaking sins. « For. » (AUG.) He does not weigh back, nor besides does he make safe because he has struck: but from thence the teeth were broken, because he struck; that is, the cursing words were brought to nothing; or, the teeth are those who cut off certain men from the number of the saints, and incorporate them among the evil.

• 848D

VERS. 1.-- « Unto the end. » (AUG.) The end is said in two ways, when something fails, or when it is completed. (Ibid.) A canticle indicates gladness. Psalms are those things which are sung to the psaltery, which the Prophet used in a great mystery. « A psalm, » concerning morals, for the doing of them, that the false gods and the vanities of the world may be forsaken; « Of a canticle, » because mention is made of the eternal delight.

VERS. 2.-- « When I called upon, etc. » (CASS.) By his own example he rebukes the unbelieving concerning false things. « Thou hast enlarged for me. » (Ibid.) From the straits of sadness thou hast led me into the breadth of joy. V. « We rejoice in tribulations, knowing that tribulation, etc. » (Rom. V.) [Vulg. Rm 5:3 gloriamur in tribulationibus, "we glory in tribulations."] He first showed that he had been heard: now, as though having God in his heart, 849Ahe speaks to him. « Have mercy on me. » He had mercy concerning righteousness and concerning the enlarging. Again, have mercy against the miseries of this life. « My prayer. » Concerning the good things that are to be asked for. And when it is thus concerning me, « Ye sons of men, how long will ye be heavy of heart? »

VERS. 3.-- « Ye love vanity, etc. » (CASS.) With your desire you embrace, with labour you seek vain idols, and lies, which are not God: or earthly things, which do not do what they promise.

VERS. 4.-- « And know ye, etc. » The new man being set forth, he bids them put off the old. (AUG.) Note that « And » is placed at beginnings, so that it may join the things said with the vision that is in the heart, so here, as: « Love not vain things. And know ye. » But the diapsalma forbids their being so joined. Diapsalma, according to Jerome, is always, the Hebrews, 849BSela, that is, always, in confirmation of the preceding part. Sympsalma, that is, the joining of a psalm. « The Lord will hear. » Concerning rest it is thus, and so with you: and therefore cry out, being thus worthy to be heard.

VERS. 5.-- « Be ye angry. » If a motion of the soul arises which is not in our power, let not reason consent to it. (CASS.) A motion of the soul is not in our power, but by the grace of God we are able to temper it: what therefore belongs to custom, he permits; what belongs to fault, he forbids.

(HIER.) This the Apostle teaches: « Let not the sun go down upon your anger (Ephes. IV), » so that it is altogether a sin to be angry even lightly: but it is righteousness to soften anger by a swift repentance. « In your hearts. » (AUG.) Concerning those things which you handle in the heart, which God knows: that is, concerning consent; and concerning those things which you turn over 849Cin the bed, that is, in the delight of the flesh, in which reason dwells captive, as a wild beast in its lair, « Be ye pricked, » through penance; or the beds are the thoughts of the fierce. (CASS.) Venial is the anger which is not carried through to effect. Diapsalma. « Sacrifice ye. » (CASS.) The old man being laid aside, we are bidden to be offered in sacrifice, because we are sure of good things. (AUG.) « The sacrifice of righteousness, » a contrite spirit, that, punishing itself, it may be slain to God: or, just works after penance, which the diapsalma marks, that from the old life there may be a passing over to the new, and so hope ye for good things. But because there is scarcely one who loves the inner goods, he adds:

VERS. 6.-- « Many say: Who showeth us good things? » Things to come, namely, of which they doubt and despair. Answering to which he shows briefly what 849Dgood things are to be sought.

VERS. 7.-- « The light is signed upon us, etc. » (AUG.) This light is the whole and the true good of man, wherewith he is signed, as a penny with the image of the king. « Light. » (AUG.) Light, that is, a shining countenance, and one that enlightens us, an image whereby thou art known. (CASS.) Or: the cross has been imprinted upon us, for a sign of our king, which is the light of the countenance: because in such men God shines out. The image of creation is reason; of re-creation, grace; of likeness, the whole Trinity. « In the heart. (AUG.) Not without in vain things, but within, where God dwells, is gladness to be sought.

VERS. 8.-- « From the fruit. » (CAS.) Because they think that in these things the good is consummated. These three, as being more suited to human 850Auses, he sets down for all riches.

VERS. 9.-- « In peace in the selfsame. » (CASS.) But I will sleep in the peace of the mind, here forgetful of the world, and I will rest in the time to come: because I am already in one hope, not in the manifoldness of the world. « In peace I will sleep and I will rest. » (AUG.) From all the things of the world, when this mortal shall put on immortality: and this will truly be, because it is already hope: and this is: « For thou, O Lord, » and assuredly that will be which is hoped for.

VERS. 1.-- « For her that obtaineth the inheritance. » Because he is honoured here to whom the inheritance is affirmed to belong, from which the rival is shut out. It is the Church, 850Bwhich receives the inheritance, that is, eternal life, God himself, which here speaks of the inheritance which it asks for itself and asserts, saying that the rival is shut out. (BEDA.) That is, for the Church, which, at Christ's rising again, received the gifts of spiritual goods, which is itself also sometimes called the Lord's inheritance, purchased with his precious blood: whence it is said: « Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles, thy inheritance. » The whole psalm therefore is uttered in the person of the catholic Church, which in the first section asks that her prayer be heard, proclaiming that heretics and schismatics are to be shut out from the Lord's gifts. In the second section she prays that by the understanding of the divine Scriptures she may be directed by a straight path to that happy country, asserting that the faithless are thereby made utterly 850Cstrangers to it. At the last, calling to mind the rewards of the blessed, that by one preaching the punishment foretold might convert the wicked also, and the promised rewards rouse the just.

VERS. 2.-- « My words. » (CASS.) Here the prophet hints that a threefold prayer is to be made. For there are three principal vices in prosperity, three in adversity: against which we ought to make a threefold prayer. In prosperity, against the concupiscence of the flesh, against the concupiscence of the eyes, against the pride of life. In adversity, against the fear of death, of peril, of profit. (Ibid.) A threefold prayer: words, the psalmody of the mouth, a cry, the affection of the heart, therefore: « Thou shalt hear. » Behold, three times of the same thing. « With thine ears. » The ears of God are power, mercy. Power, whereby he can: mercy, 850Dwhereby he wills to hear; for unless there were mercy, he would hear no one's prayers.

VERS. 3.-- « To the voice. » That prayer has a voice which is worthy to be heard. « King. » (AUG.) Properly the Son, rightly first king, because through him one goes to the Father, whence he adds: And « my God: » and yet he does not say attend ye, but attend, because God is one.

VERS. 4.-- « For, etc. » (AUG.) Thus far the prayer, that it may be heard, etc., as far as and this in the morning, as soon as it forsakes the darkness.

VERS. 5.-- « In the morning I will stand. » (CASS.) Or, in the morning when eternity shall begin, and then I shall fully see that iniquity pleases not: because then it shall not dwell, « but the wicked shall be taken away, that he may not see the glory of God (Isa. 851AXXVI): » [Vulg. Is 26:10 et non videbit gloriam Domini, "and he shall not see the glory of the Lord"; the Vulgate has nothing answering to tolletur impius] and then they shall not remain, even though they have had his mercy.

VERS. 6.-- « Neither shall the unjust remain. » Who do evil things. For thou hast hated those who work them, not those who have worked them.

VERS. 7.-- « Thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie. » (AUG.) Because this is contrary to truth. Truth is of that which is. A lie is not a substance or a nature, but is of that which is not, and deservedly is that destroyed which turns aside from that which is to that which is not. (Ibid.) To lie is to speak against that which is felt in the mind. (Ibid.) There are certain lies told for safety's sake, etc., as far as I did not consider that one raving could demand it back.

VERS. 8.-- « But I. » (AUG.) Thirdly, he says that he 851Bwill be the house of God, and that now he draws near in fear, before that consummation which casts out fear.

« I will go in. » (CASS.) By this I shall go in, because I shall adore. (Ibid.) He asks against those things which the rival brings in: whence she herself shall perish.

VERS. 9.-- « Lord, lead me. » (AUG.) Fourthly, making progress amid hindrances, he prays to be helped within, lest he be turned aside by deceitful tongues. « In thy justice. » (CASS.) Because thou receivest the penitent and the suppliant. « In thy sight. » (AUG.) Where man does not see, who is not to be believed whether he praise or blame: because he does not see into the conscience, in which the way to God is directed. Therefore he adds: « For there is no truth in their mouth. »

VERS. 10.-- « For there is not, etc. » Not only is there no truth in the mouth, but a sepulchre: because they bring forth stinking things 851Cto corrupt, and if they do not prevail with them, they act deceitfully, that is, they do not only contrive, but accomplish.

VERS. 11, 12.-- « Judge them, O God. Let them fall from their thoughts. » He does not wish it, but foretells what shall be. He falls away who is disappointed of a good hope.

« And let them be glad. » (CASS.) After the retributions of the wicked he adds the rewards of the good, that as the punishment terrifies, so the rewards may incite.

VERS. 13.-- « As with a shield. (CASS.) In one word he indicates the free benefits of God. The will which calls is a defence against all things, and a crown, and a shield. Fitted to the head it is a crown, to the heart, a defence.

851DVERS. 1.-- « The octave » is the coming of the Lord, in which the sinner fears to be rebuked, and therefore repents. (AUG.) Some call the octave the coming of the Lord, etc., as far as whence the Church, fearing, here prays.

VERS. 2.-- « O Lord, not in thy fury. » (BASIL.) It is a deprecatory confession, which avails with God. First there is an exordium, in which he wins goodwill, by the power of the judge, by his own weakness, by the custom of sparing: because he wills to be entreated not by the dead, but by the living. « Rebuke. » (AUG.) To be rebuked is graver than to be accused, whence damnation is feared. To be chastised is milder, that is, to be amended or instructed. They are rebuked in the judgment, who are without a foundation. They are amended, that is, purged, who have built upon that foundation wood, hay, stubble. 852AHere therefore he says: « Heal, » lest there be work there, whence he adds: « Have mercy. »

VERS. 3.-- « Weak » (AUG.) The soul is made weak by guilt, from which do thou heal her, because the bones, that is, the mind, is troubled at his presence, and the soul, that is, sensuality: therefore how long dost thou put it off, as if he said: What remains but that thou shouldst heal? « How long. » (AUG.) He hints that he has long wrestled with vices. But God's delay is not cruelty, but is that he may convince the soul into what evils she has flung herself. For she does not yet pray so perfectly that it may be said to her: « While thou art yet speaking I will say, behold I am here (Isa. LXV). » [Vulg. Is 65:24 adhuc illis loquentibus, ego audiam, "while they are yet speaking, I will hear"] That out of the difficulty of the healing she may thereafter be the more on her guard, and that it may be shown what punishment there is for the unconverted, if there is so great a difficulty for the converted, whence: « If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly appear? » (I Petr. IV.)

852BVERS. 5.-- « Turn thee. » (CASS.) Thou who wast turned away, or, from vengeance. « Deliver, » from imminent death. Or, deliver the soul bound by sins. « Save me, etc., » by giving virtues.

VERS. 6.-- « For there is not. » (CASS.) Therefore I hasten to be released here, because after death and in hell confession is not received. « In hell. (AUG.) The rich man confessed who saw Lazarus, although out of the deep, and by comparison with him he was compelled to confess his own evils, even so far as to ask that his brothers also be forewarned by these: but after the judgment, in the deeper darkness, they shall see no light of God, to whom they might confess. Or, he calls death the sin in which he is unmindful of God who despises his commandments.

VERS. 7.-- « I have laboured. » (CASS.) He narrates the hardships 852Cby which penitents are turned away poenitentes avertitur; he groans while he sees what he has done, and what punishment is to come. « The bed. » The conscience, which to some is rest, to some torment. The couch, sensuality; I will make fertile what was dry. Or, the bed is the delight of the body, in which a man is dissolved. The couch, the heap of sins as of garments, which being loosed, by the shower of tears, a new harvest of virtues may grow.

VERS. 8.-- « From wrath. » (AUG.) From anger, either God's, which is in the judgment, etc., as far as lest any despair because of the grievousness of his sins, he adds: « Depart, etc. » (CASS.) A chastisement, that he may be separated from those in whose company he sinned, and may press on in the commandments of God. « Enemies, » (AUG.) that is, vices, or evil men, who are truly the enemies of those who turn themselves to God, from whom 852Devery good man is separated, not in place, but in mind. But because so great a labour of penitence is not vain, signifying that he has been heard, he adds: « Depart. »

VERS. 9, 10.-- « The Lord. » Thrice the Lord, because he shows that the Trinity was present to his prayers: he began with tears, being heard he exults. « The Lord hath heard. » (CAS.) He gives an example that those who pray faithfully are heard.

VERS. 11.-- « Let them be ashamed and be troubled. » (CASS.) As in conclusion, now free from sins, exulting, he prays for his enemies, that they may be converted, that, like himself, they may have pardon. (AUG.) « Let them be ashamed. » Not here (where rather they mock those who leave all things, and make the weak ashamed), but in the judgment.

• 853A

VERS. 1.-- « Unto the end, a psalm. (AUG.) Chusi, who went over to Absalom's party, etc., as far as for it was not to be hidden from those for whom it was done. (AUG.) This psalm can be understood in the person of Christ; if any things are said humbly, let them be referred to our weakness, which he bore. First he asks to be delivered out of all tribulations.

VERS. 2.-- « O Lord my God. » (CASS.) This is the first of those psalms in which by the acts of David the future mysteries of the Lord are signified. The mystery of the incarnation was a silence to the Jews; as David from his son, so Christ endured persecution from the people whom he had nourished. « Deliver. » (AUG.) As it were, when 853Bevery war of the vices has been overcome, now indeed nothing remains but the envious devil.

VERS. 3.-- « Lest he seize, etc. » « Who may redeem, etc. » (CASS.) Proper words: it belongs to the Lord to deliver, to the lion to seize. The order, first he sets the persecutors, then the lion. For when a man has been cleansed from all spiritual wickednesses he is delivered from the devil.

VERS. 4, 5.-- « O Lord, if I have done this. » (Ibid.) Literally, of David and Absalom. « If I have done this, » that is, if this evil has befallen me through a past fault. Or, if there be now iniquity in my hands, that is, in my works. Or, « if I have rendered evils to them that repaid me, etc., » (which is called equity among men), « deservedly » (even though it may not seem so to men) « let me fall away from my enemies empty, » from the fruit of meekness.

853C(AUG.) « If I have done this, » or, the universal sin, which he named without a name, which is pride, which is the root of all evils. Or, that which follows, « if there is iniquity, » which is taken of every sin. « If I have rendered. » (Ibid.) That is, if I have not imitated thee in a just silence, that is, in the patience which thou didst work for me. « Let me deservedly fall away from my enemies. » (Ibid.) He does not imprecate this on himself by an oath, but says what befalls those who avenge themselves: he prophesies therefore, he does not swear by an execration; which is the gravest kind of oath. Made empty by a vain and proud gladness, in that he could as it were not be overcome: Solomon, « Better is he that overcometh anger than he that taketh a city » (Prov. XVI). [Vulg. Prv 16:32 Melior est patiens viro forti, et qui dominatur animo suo expugnatore urbium, "Better is the patient man than the valiant, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh cities"]

853DVERS. 6.-- « Let him tread down, etc. » (Ibid.) The soul of the sinner, of which, « Earth thou art, and into earth thou shalt return (Gen. III), » [Vulg. Gn 3:19 pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, "dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return"] is the food of the serpent, to whom it was said in the malediction, ( « Earth shalt thou eat, » ) that is, of the devil, because it is earth, that is, earthly. And therefore he here says: « Let him tread down my life in the earth, that is, let him incorporate it into himself when it has been brought down to earth, and let it there be despicable. « My glory. » (Ibid.) Which ought to be in the conscience, where God sees; and solid in the Lord, as: « He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (I Cor. I). » « Let him bring down into the dust, » that is, into pride and boasting, namely that I should wish to glory among men. « Let him bring down into the dust. The dust which the wind casteth forth. » (Ibid.) The boasting of the proud. He wishes therefore that 854Ahis glory be solid within, where God sees: for it is dust, if he glories among men; behold how greatly pride is to be shunned.

VERS. 7, 8.-- « Arise, O Lord. » He asks that the glory of Christ's resurrection may come to his aid. « In thy anger. » For this perfect man does not here pray against men, but against the devil, that he may lose his possession, namely sinners and the ungodly, who are his possession. And because the taking away of a man, because it is a punishment to the devil, is called the anger of God against him. Or, he prays here for Christ's resurrection, as in the preceding for his incarnation: as « O Lord my God, etc. » « In the borders. » The world, or hell, are the borders of the devil.

« And arise, O Lord. » The devil is proud, because 854Bhe is overcome by iniquity, he adds: Or, « Arise, » that is, be made known in the whole world, by rising again. « In the precept, » that thou mayest make the precept of humility to be fulfilled: and this follows thereupon, because the Synagogue, out of divers peoples, or specially of the Jews, « shall compass thee about, » by loving, or by persecuting: « For this, » that is, for her that loves, « return, » that is, make them know thy omnipotence, thou who didst descend that they might see thee; or « for this, » that is, for her that persecutes, in whom thou findest no place, « return on high, » that is, withdraw thyself from those who persecute thee. « Synagogue. » (Ibid.) The congregation of the people, etc., as far as the Lord judges, of the judgment of him that returned, that is, of Christ. « Innocence. » (Ibid.) Because I have not rendered to them that repaid me. « Upon me. » (Ibid.) Justice and innocence 854Care upon me, because not from me, but from God.

VERS. 10.-- « Searching the hearts. » (Ibid.) What each one thinks. « The reins. » What delights each one; because the end of care and of thought is delight, to which one strives to attain. Men can see our works in words and in deeds: but with what mind they are done, and whither they desire to attain, God alone sees; who, when he sees the heart to be in heaven, and not to be delighted in the flesh, but in the Lord, that is, when the thoughts are good, directs also their ends, the just man, and not only directs, but helps the just man.

VERS. 11.-- « A just help. » (Ibid.) There are two offices of medicine, namely to heal disease and to keep health. According to the first he said in another psalm: « I am weak, heal me, O Lord. » According to 854Dthe other this perfect man here says, « my just help is from the Lord. » For both that medicine and this make men whole: but that one carries a man over from sickness to health, this preserves him in health itself. That one is a remedy for escaping disease; this affords a remedy lest he fall back into disease. By that one we are healed when sick, by this we are kept when whole.

VERS. 12.-- « God the judge. » (CASS.) Here he terrifies by the fear of the judgment to come, and promises hope to those who return. « Is he angry. » (AUG.) Another reading: « Doth he bring anger every day. » In the Greek more significantly, « he bringeth anger: » because the anger with which he punishes is not in himself, but in the angels of anger, through whom he punishes: who are delighted with human punishment not for the sake of the justice in which they do not rejoice, but for the sake of 855Amalice: whom he does not gather every day for vengeance, but by patience invites to repentance.

VERS. 13.-- « His sword. » (AUG.) Another reading: He hath made bright his javelin. (CASS.) « His sword, » he will exercise manifest vengeance, nor is this said unequally, because he hath bent his bow, » he threatens, lest his patience be thought remiss; « he hath prepared, » that he may be thought about presently to send the arrow. « His bow. » (Ibid.) From a like case. For as he who has bent a bow threatens, so through sacred Scripture he threatens the wicked, lest the patience of God be thought remiss; and « he hath prepared, » who may be thought about presently to send an arrow: as one prepares a bow, that he may send an arrow. « He hath bent his bow, » (AUG.) by tempering the Old Testament 855Bthrough the New Testament: « He hath prepared, » by explanation. (Ibid.) Or, « he hath prepared. » God prepares and disposes, etc., as far as but for those burning with zeal, arrows.

VERS. 15.-- « Behold. » As it were, these things God hath prepared in the Scriptures. (Ibid.) Whence it seems to a man to be the cause of damnation. But « behold » that it is not from God, but from man, because « he hath opened a pit, etc. He hath conceived sorrow, » (Ibid.) that is, by the appetite of temporal things. « He hath brought forth, » he has effected, sent out: and in the iniquity sent out there is a pit, that is, a downfall for others. Whence he adds:

VERS. 16.-- « He hath opened a pit. » And so he is comparable to one opening a pit: for he opens by conceiving 855Cfraud: he digs out by travailing, by pressing on the work of fraud; he falls in by bringing forth fraud, namely, by perpetrating it.

VERS. 17.-- « His sorrow shall be turned, etc. » The head, the soul, the crown, the reason: over which sins have dominion, and remain over: and they shall come down upon it when they shall thrust it into punishments.

VERS. 18.-- « I will confess to the Lord. » (CASS.) The conclusion, as it were gathering all things into a sum, he says that he confesses cheerfully.

VERS. 1.-- « Unto the end, for the winepresses, etc. » For the winepresses, that is, for the Churches, etc., as far as souls flow out into rest.

855DVERS. 2.-- « O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name! etc. » (CASS.) First the praises of God, his majesty, and his exalted working are described. « In the whole. » (Ibid.) Let not the Jews therefore, or any others, claim for themselves what belongs to all, which is the intent. « Above the heavens. » (AUG.) Literally, or the Scriptures: because it exceeds the utterances of all the Scriptures; or, « above the heavens. » Continuing with what follows, that is, into the Scriptures, which he bends down to babes, on account of the enemies of the cross: who are destroyed, when the Scriptures are seen, that is, understood, to be led down as far as babes: and when through them they are nourished unto strength, and are raised to the sublimity of understanding.

VERS. 3.-- « Out of the mouth of infants. » (Ibid.) Of the unwise, to whom the Apostle gave milk, whom those signified 856Awho praised the Lord, in whom the Lord uses this testimony. Out of these he hath perfected praise, because if only the perfect were in the Church, no counsel would be taken for the human race; as now, when even the least, not yet capable of the knowledge of spiritual things, are nourished by faith in the history of things temporal. « Enemies » are all who speak things contrary to the dispensation made through the Crucified. « Defenders » the heretics seem of the faith, the philosophers of wisdom, although yet the former impugn the faith, and the latter true wisdom. « Sucklings, » (CASS.) not in age, but as Peter has it, « as newborn babes (I Petr. II), » who cannot yet take food, but milk; and it is: thou art proclaimed not only by the perfect, but also by the unwise. Or, he calls infants and sucklings the apostles, who were simple and unlearned men; whence: « The foolish things of the world 856B« God hath chosen, that he may confound the strong (I Cor. I). » [Vulg. 1Cor 1:27 quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus, ut confundat sapientes, "the foolish things of the world God hath chosen, that he may confound the wise"; fortia answers to a second clause, infirma mundi elegit Deus] The praise is more perfect. Or, out of the mouth of infants and sucklings, that is, out of the words of the Hebrew children thou hast perfected praise, which seemed to be done childishly, on account of the enemies, that it might not seem to be human wisdom, but divinely given. « Thine enemies. » The pagans. « The enemy. » The Jew, who is an enemy of God, while he defends the Father alone: because « he that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not « the Father, » or an enemy in his will.

VERS. 4.-- « For I shall see. » Before the Jew, in spirit. « Thy heavens, » the apostles, I shall see present in their descendants; this well suits those of the first age. « The works of thy fingers. » Because they are perfected by the cooperation of the Trinity, which is signified here in the three fingers, as there: « Who weigheth the bulk of the earth with three fingers. » (Isa. XL.) And through them, 856C« The moon and the stars which thou hast founded. » Not they.

VERS. 5.-- « What is man. » (Ibid.) Secondly, he says that the nature of man, once corrupted, is exalted in Christ above all things. For before he had shown the omnipotence of the Godhead. By man, sinners; by the son of man, the spiritual. (Ibid.) Man, any vile person, of whom God is mindful in showing mercy, the Son of man, Christ as man: since through him thou visitest him, when the Word was made flesh, in which the physician came to the sick. « Or the son. » (AUG.) The disjunction hints that there is a distance between man and the son of man. Every son of man is man, but not conversely, as Adam. Every man therefore, who bears the image of the earthly: the Son of man, who is heavenly, and deservedly a new man, 856Dson of man: because the new is made out of the old by a certain change. (AUG.) Why, leaving the higher things, does he speak of these lowest ones? But the sheep, etc., as far as who by the seed of the word of God make the hearts of men to bear fruit.

VERS. 8.-- « Moreover the cattle also. » He notes therefore that the wicked also are subject to Christ, which seems less: for these carnal men dwell in the breadth of the plain, that is, in the amplitude of pleasures, not in the mountains of virtues. « The cattle of the field. » (Ibid.) Who live in the flesh, where they climb nothing steep: but the broad way, to which they cling, is that which leads to destruction: whence also Abel is slain in the field.

VERS. 9.-- « The birds, » the proud: of whom, « They have set their mouth against heaven (Psal. LXXII). » Whose head says: « I will ascend into heaven, and I will exalt 857Amy throne, and I will be like the Most High (Isa. XIV). « The fishes of the sea that walk through the paths of the sea, » the curious. These three, the pleasure of the flesh, pride, curiosity, include all vices, which are the concupiscence of the flesh, the ambition of the world, that is, pride, the concupiscence of the eyes, since through the eyes curiosity chiefly prevails.

VERS. 1.-- « Unto the end, for the hidden sons. » [Vulg. Ps 9:1 pro occultis filii, "for the hidden things of the son", a genitive singular, which is what the gloss's cujus presupposes] Nor is it added whose, by excellence he is the only-begotten of God. « Hidden. » Because other things of his are manifest, etc., as far as and of the punishment by which he judges, in purging, in converting, in blinding.

VERS. 2.-- « I will confess to thee, O Lord, with my whole « heart, etc. » The prophet sings joyfully, because the worship 857Bof the devil is destroyed by the coming of Christ: and Christ reigns, judges, helps.

VERS. 4.-- « When my enemy is turned back, etc., » « they shall perish, etc. » (AUG.) Because when thou hast turned the devil backward, his members are weakened, so that they can do no hurt, and they shall not be, or, they shall be utterly destroyed by thy assault, when thou shalt say, « Go, ye cursed (Matth. XXV), » [Vulg. Mt 25:41 Discedite a me maledicti, "Depart from me, ye cursed"] or, they shall perish when God takes away iniquity from them.

VERS. 5.-- « Thou hast made my judgment and my « cause. » (Ibid.) Because they have served me to my profit, because « thou hast sat. » « Thou judgest. » (HIER.) The Father, that Christ might die for the race of men. (AUG.) Or, Christ shall judge at the end, to whom the Father hath given all judgment.

857CVERS. 6.-- « For ever and for ever. » (Ibid.) The age is this present one which rolls on: the age of the age is eternal, of which that one is the image. Or, it is a determination, lest thou shouldst take this present one.

VERS. 7.-- « The javelins. (CASS.) The power of the devil shall be destroyed at the end of the world. « Cities. » His peoples. « With a noise, » that is, with the greatest outcry, as happens when prosperous things are shut up with a heavy « end. » But on the contrary the Lord remaineth. « The end, (AUG.) » is the sword which he shall brandish at the second coming, judging openly, and which now judges secretly, up to which the javelins of the enemy avail somewhat, but then they shall wholly fail. « Of them. » (CASS.) In the plural, although above he said the enemy in the singular, because although the demons are many, yet because in 857Dmalice they are alike, they are as it were one.

« With a noise. » (AUG.) That is, both the din and the tumult of impiety hath perished: or, when impiety is overthrown, a din is made, because none comes to the highest peace but he who has fought with the vices with a great din. « His throne. » (CASS.) The judiciary power, he who was judged in humility shall judge in majesty.

VERS. 10.-- « And he is become. » How great a thing it is, that he who is judge should be a refuge to the poor man, who desires nothing of the world. « In opportunities. » (AUG.) Man is not more opportunely turned away from the world, unless to these pleasures labours and sorrows be mingled.

VERS. 11.-- « Let them hope. » (AUG.) When they cease to hope in the things of the world. Those turned away from the world, seeking where to fix their hope, the knowledge of the name receives. The name 858Ais known, when he whose the name is, is known. His name is Lord, which he knows who willingly serves him, or, who is, and therefore let no one hope in transitory things, which have nothing besides "it was" and "it will be." For what in them is to come, when it has come, straightway becomes past, it is awaited with desire, it is lost with sorrow, it is not held with certainty. « For thou hast not forsaken. » The prophet provokes the faithful to praise, looking upon the benefits of the present time and of the time to come.

VERS. 12.-- « Sion. » (Ibid.) Contemplation, which is practised now, that we may come to the vision of peace, that is, from Sion into Jerusalem: but any zealous contemplation falls into error, unless the Lord dwell in it. « Pursuits. » (HIER.) That is, his commandments, upon which zeal is to be spent.

858BVERS. 13.-- « For requiring. » (Ibid.) But as if they who are sent to evangelize should say, No one believes us, and we are slain, he answered: not without fruit, because « requiring in vengeance their blood, » [Vulg. Ps 9:13 quoniam requirens sanguinem eorum, without ultione] in the judgment, where there shall be glory to the slain, punishment to the slayer: « he hath remembered, etc » (Ibid.) not after forgetfulness, but after a long time, according to the feeling of the weak, who think him forgetful, because it is not done so quickly as they wish: to whom also add, nay, he is not forgetful, as you think: and if I have said « he hath remembered, » this is against the complainers, who because of the delay think him forgetful.

VERS. 14.-- « Have mercy. » (CASS.) In his own person he says what each one asks. « See. » (Ibid.) The look of God is help, and when it comes, the light also puts the darkness to flight: from the pride of the enemy is measured the humility of the sufferer, 858Cbecause these are humbled just so much as those are exalted.

VERS. 15.-- « Who liftest me up from the gates of death, etc. » (AUG.) That is, from all covetous desires, by which one goes to death: death now is that very gladness in the enjoying of things desired; whence the Apostle: « A widow that liveth « in delights is dead (I Tim. V). » [Vulg. 1Tim 5:6 Nam quae in deliciis est, vivens mortua est, "for she that is in delights is dead while she liveth"] « In the gates of the daughter « of Sion. » They are all the best pursuits, etc., as far as which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard. (CASS.) Gates against gates, because these are of death, those of life. « Sion. » (Ibid.) She begat all the Churches of the world, because there Christ was born, whence faith began.

VERS. 16.-- « I will exult. » (AUG.) Thus far the cry, thereafter the Church which is afflicted says, I will exult in Jesus. (CASS.) For by hope she is saved. « In the snare. » (Ibid.) 858DA hidden snare is a deceitful thought: the foot is the soul's love, which, if it be crooked, is called covetousness, if right, charity. For by it the soul is moved as it were to a place, whither it rejoices to have come by love. « In the snare » therefore, that is, in a fraudulent counsel: the foot, that is, the love which through fraud comes to a vain gladness, is caught, because that delight binds them, so that they dare not break off their love from thence and turn it to useful things. For if they should try, it is grief to leave the things which delight, and that grief does not suffer them to depart.

VERS. 17.-- He shall be known. (CASS.) Or, of the judgment to come, etc., as far as as certain men falsely think.

VERS. 18.-- Let sinners be turned. (AUG.) Here is the canticle of the diapsalma, as it were the hidden gladness of the separation: 859Awhich is made here not by place, but by affection, between the good and the evil. (CASS.) To sinners with Antichrist he foretells the end of evils; as it were this meanwhile, but at last they shall be turned, lest they rejoice in their own things. Into hell, lest they think themselves to be sent elsewhere.

VERS. 19.-- Patience. (AUG.) Patiently, for this chiefly will God be mindful of the poor, namely because of their patience.

VERS. 20.-- Arise. (AUG.) He prays for the judgment to come. (CASS.) The prophet, speaking of the end of the world, foresaw the coming of Antichrist; whence as if terrified he cries: arise.

VERS. 21.-- Let them know. That is, being tormented let them find by experience that they were foolish men.

859BVERS. 1.-- Why. (AUG.) Diapsalma, because it will be permitted to him (to Antichrist) to do such great things that he may be thought God: he adds, as it were, the voice of those who groan and who ask concerning the deferring of judgment.

(CASS., AUG.) Why. He treats at length of the evils of that time, etc., as far as but opportunely, namely thus, While the wicked man is proud.

VERS. 2.-- The poor man is set on fire, they are caught in the counsels which they devise. (AUG.) Wondrously does the providence of God work out of evils, etc., as far as thus the evil are damned, the just are saved.

VERS. 3.-- For the sinner is praised. Therefore he is proud, or is caught, because he is praised by his own, by the fulfilling of the desires of his sensuality.

(AUG.) The tongues of flatterers bind souls fast in sins: 859Cfor it is a delight to do those things in which not only is no reprover feared, but a praiser is even heard.

VERS. 4.-- Of his wrath. (CASS.) Of Antichrist's, because he will do all things turbulently and cruelly; or, of God's: he will not seek God by repenting; or, God will not seek him out, that he should take vengeance here, but is about to punish him more heavily in the time to come.

VERS. 5.-- Defiled. (CASS.) The cause of his wickedness is that he does not hold God before his eyes, and therefore his ways, that is, his thoughts and his works, are foul.

At all times. (AUG.) His own, namely of his life, etc., as far as and because he shall have dominion over all his enemies.

VERS. 6.-- He hath said, etc. I will take possession of all nations, but not without evil, that is, without sin, which is proper 859Dto him. Or: I shall always be without evil; this he promises himself, whose mouth is full of cursing, etc.

I shall not be moved. (AUG.) Or, he will think that he will come by evil arts, and not otherwise, from a mortal generation into an eternal one, which Simon Magus also thought.

VERS. 7.-- Under the tongue. (CASS.) That is, his thoughts are of the labour of the saints and of bodily sorrow, which is plain in the martyrs. Or, the labour of the saints and the sorrow which lies in the punishments of the body is under his tongue, that is, it is the lighter; his tongue, which harms within: that other, namely, is the punishment without.

Or, under the tongue, because words are more feared and will do more harm than stripes, by which the soul is cast headlong and will perish.

860AVERS. 8.-- In secret places, etc. (AUG.), that is, in ambiguous ones, where it is not easily seen what is to be sought and what is not.

VERS. 9.-- His eyes are upon the poor man, etc. (Ibid.) He sets out the ambushes: the eyes, as though with mercy and affection; or, he so deceives others that his eyes look cruelly upon the poor in spirit.

A lion in his den, etc. Because in him is violence and guile, etc., as far as through heretics and false brethren.

VERS. 10.-- He shall bow himself down. (CASS.) When through excessive prosperity he has let his mind slacken into idleness, he shall fall by a sudden destruction: and the Lord shall slay him with the spirit of his mouth.

Unto the end. They deny that God sees, etc., as far as he rouses the Lord, Arise, O Lord.

VERS. 12.-- Arise, O Lord God, and let 860Bthy hand be exalted, that thou mayest forget, etc. [Vulg. Ps 9:33 exaltetur manus tua ; ne obliviscaris pauperum, "let thy hand be exalted: forget not the poor"] (Ibid.) He prays for judgment, that these things may be quickly ended here, things so great that no one would wish the time in which they happen to be prolonged.

Arise. As it were unlooked for, that they may be crushed, while thine own, exalted with thee, are glorified.

VERS. 13.-- Wherefore hath the wicked provoked God. [Vulg. Ps 9:34 Propter quid, the interrogative "for what reason"] (AUG.) And so now, both understanding and exulting concerning that judgment, he says, wherefore? that is, what does it profit to do such great evils?

For God hath said in his heart, etc. [Vulg. Ps 9:34 dixit enim in corde suo, with no Deus: the speaker there is the wicked man] (Ibid.) This sense calls for a delivery, etc., as far as lest they toil, or grow angry.

(AUG.) Christ bore with Judas and sent him to preach, and gave him the eucharist, that he might show that the gifts reach those who receive the faith, such as 860CJudas was.

VERS. 14.-- For thou seest that thou considerest labour and sorrow. This thou hast already foreordained, where thou deliverest them into thy hand.

To the fatherless, etc. (AUG.) To him for whom the world dies as a father, by which he was carnally begotten, so that he may say: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world.

VERS. 15.-- Break thou the arm. By punishments he terrifies, by good things he soothes.

It shall be sought. (AUG.) While it is still needful for our purging, as above, while the wicked man is proud, etc.; but because it shall not be found, that is, because there is now no one in whom there is room for his sin, smooth iron has no need of a file.

860DVERS. 16.-- The Lord shall reign for ever, and unto ages of ages. This kingdom will be the more welcome for the evils that run alongside it, in that it will come when Antichrist has been destroyed; from this kingdom ye shall perish, O nations, but the poor shall have it, because the desire of the poor, etc.

VERS. 17.-- The preparation of the heart. (CASS.) Or, concupiscence, which is where a thing is sought more ardently with all the powers of the soul. Or, this, which God himself has prepared in their hearts. Or, that God may hear as soon as they wish to ask.

The ear, etc. (AUG.) When members are named which in us are visible and bodily, in God powers of operation must be understood.

To judge for the fatherless and the humble, etc. The second coming 861Awill be manifest, etc., as far as the author of evils will be damned with his own people.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. (AUG.) A psalm of David the prophet, teaching men to resist heretics.

VERS. 2.-- In the Lord I put my trust. (AUG.) Of the heretics who wish to turn Catholics to their own depravity.

(Ibid.) In the Lord I put my trust. As to the letter it can be read of the passion; and Christ says, according to his manhood, as he is wont, against the terrors of the Jews, In the Lord I put my trust.

In the Lord I put my trust. When sinners wish to shoot at the upright.

861BFor behold. (Ibid.) These are the terrors of those who threaten us with sinners, that we may pass over to them as to just men. For they say: The sinners have bent their bow, the Scriptures, whence they may send poisoned arrows, which they prepare in the secret place of the heart.

VERS. 3.-- In the dark. (CASS.) Those who live in the simple sense, or in their own ambiguous opinions; not that Scripture avails for this, but because:

VERS. 4.-- For the things which thou hast perfected. He turns his speech away from these to God, as it were: Why do they say, Remove? Why is he terrified by sinners, who bend the bow to shoot at the upright? because the things which thou hast perfected they have destroyed in their assemblies, where they slay with poisons the little ones who were to be nourished with milk, out of whose mouth praise is perfected.

861CBut the just, what hath he done? (AUG.) According to either part, etc., as far as he harms his own soul, not the just man, who believes God.

VERS. 6.-- The Lord questioneth, etc. But the just. He threatens judgment, by fear of which they may forsake their falsehoods.

He questioneth. (Ibid.) That is, he proves; because the good are not wearied by obscure things, but are exercised in knowledge: they are not puffed up, but confirmed.

The things which thou hast perfected. That is, thou hast published them perfectly, or by fulfilling what was foretold. They have destroyed them by expounding them ill.

(Ibid.) In the dark. Or when the moon is dark. There are two opinions about the moon, etc., as far as he then calls the sacraments holy, when they are given through holy men.

VERS. 7.-- He shall rain upon. He shows what he renders to the wicked. --(AUG.) He rains from the clouds, that is, from false prophets. 861DOr from good things, whence snares flow out when they are ill understood: but not save upon those who are sinners. Fire. First they are laid waste by the fire of covetous desires: thence by the stench of evil works they are cast out from the saints, thence they are plunged in eternal punishments.

VERS. 8.-- Justices. (Ibid.) In the plural, that thou mayest take it of the just, in whom there are many justices, though God's is one.

He hath beheld equity. Equity was seen in his face, that is, in the knowledge of him: for his face is the knowledge of him, that is, the power by which he will become known to the worthy. Or he hath seen, because he does not give himself to be known to the evil, but to the good, which is equity.

VERS. 1.-- For the octave. (CASS.) For the octave, because 862Ahere the prophet asks that the iniquity of the world be destroyed, so that he may come through to the truth of the promise to come.

(AUG.) The octave stands for the day of judgment, as was said in the sixth psalm.

VERS. 2.-- Save me. And he calls men back from the falsehoods of the world to the words of God, where salvation is; he asks to be saved from the perversity of the world.

For there hath failed. (CASS.) He sets out the many things he feared, gathering them into one, that the force may be the greater.

The holy one. (Ibid.) God, who is everywhere present, has failed so far as concerns men, who do not believe in him.

VERS. 3.-- His neighbour. (AUG.) Every man is a neighbour, since with none is evil to be done: by the condition of the first birth every man is a neighbour; by kinship of the flesh, friends and kinsmen; by the reckoning of mercy, 862Bany man who does good.

With a heart, etc. Germination [Germinatio; read Geminatio, "the doubling"] signifies a double heart, in which the deceitful man is described; whence: A man double in mind is inconstant in all his ways. The good have one heart and one soul.

VERS. 4.-- May the Lord destroy all lips, etc. (CASS.) That is, let them perish on every side who come together in one depravity.

The tongue that speaketh great things. (Ibid.) That is, a proud one: these are hypocrites, having a show in speech to deceive men, and not subject to God. (REMIG.) Or, philosophers.

VERS. 5.-- Who have said: our tongue. (CASS.) They boast of the power of their lips, as though they had not received it from God.

862CVERS. 6.-- Of the needy and the groaning of the poor. AUG., (CASS.) The needy, the Gentiles, who had neither the law nor the prophets; the poor, the Jews. Now. Which was not so in the former people. I will arise. I shall appear in the Son. I will set. The consolation of the poor. With confidence. Powerfully, in that nothing resists him.

VERS. 7.-- The words of the Lord. (Ibid.) Against the evils of the world Christ was sent by the Father, whose words are true, those of the wicked false. Chaste. Against that which is above, they have spoken vain things.--Tried by fire. Against, with deceitful lips, in a heart and a heart have they spoken.

Sevenfold. (AUG.) Perfectly, etc. as far as and it shows what is perfect.

VERS. 8.-- Thou, O Lord. (CASS.) Turning himself to the Lord, he 862Dshows the usefulness of the divine words.

VERS. 9. Round about. A conclusion concerning either part. (AUG.) Round about, that is, in the desire of temporal things, which are rolled round in seven days and do not come to the eighth, that is, to the eternal: whence a wise king is the winnower of the wicked, and brings in upon them the wheel of evils (Prov. II), [Vulg. Prov 20:26 Dissipat impios rex sapiens, et incurvat super eos fornicem, "a wise king scattereth the wicked, and bendeth an arch over them"] that is, the circuit of things that roll.

Thou hast multiplied the children of men. (Ibid.) There is also a multiplication in temporal things which turns a man away from the unity of God: but the just are multiplied according to the height, when they go from virtue to virtue.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. (CASS.) A psalm concerning the charity 863Aof Christ, etc., as far as according to that word: I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. (Phil. I.)

VERS. 2.-- How long. (CAS.) Great is the ardour of him who endures, etc., as far as because hope is drawn out.

Counsels. (AUG.) There is no need of counsel, etc., as far as grieving and praying for eternal things.

VERS. 3.-- How long shall he be exalted, etc. (CASS.) He says that before the coming of Christ the devil held men captive. Or over me, that is, over my cruelty, because he is worshipped in the whole world; and because the world so perishes, he weeps.

VERS. 4.-- Look thou upon me. (Ibid.) After the complaint, a prayer, that he may be enlightened, lest he yield to the frauds of the enemy, he who trusts in mercy. Look thou upon me. (AUG.) Send him whom thou art to send. Hear me. (CASS.) For all, for whom he asks in general. Enlighten. If not in body, 863Blet us see at least in mind. That I sleep. When, the light of faith being buried, they are shut up in carnal delight. In death. That is, in the sin which is committed against the Holy Spirit, of which John says: There is a sin unto death, I do not say for it that any man should pray.

VERS. 6.-- They shall rejoice. (AUG.) Not only for enlightening me, but lest the enemy rejoice. I have hoped (CASS.) And though he makes haste, yet he is patient: because even if it is put off, he is firm in hope, and already seeing inwardly he exults over him whom he longs to see in the flesh: whence he who before complained says that good things have already been given him. He hath given. Not, he will give: the great power of faith already has what is to come. My heart shall rejoice. If he desires so much, if he so serves him who is to come, what must be done when he has been received?

863CVERS. 1.-- The fool hath said. (CASS.) A rebuke of the Jews, their malice being described. The first psalm concerning the rebuke of the Jews, etc., as far as this man is not God.

VERS. 2.-- The Lord from heaven. (Ibid.) But from thence they are without excuse, because the Lord looked down, that is, he stood forth out of human nature. (AUG.) From heaven, that is, he looks down through holy souls: for by himself nothing lies hidden from him. Or, from heaven, through holy souls, which are the heaven and the seat of God. Or, the Lord the Father from heaven, that is, from the secret of the divine mind. (CAS.) Or, from the equality of God the Father. If there be one that understandeth. Or, he saw whether there be one that understandeth, and he found that not one understands: because he does not seek, but turns aside, for: All have gone aside, etc.

VERS. 3.-- A sepulchre. (Ibid.) Thus made useless to others, 863Dbecause their throat is a sepulchre, etc. A sepulchre. These three verses, which run as far as the second division, at Shall they not know, etc., are said not to be from the Hebrew, etc., as far as it does not have them.

Destruction (AUG.) Thus they have been made useless to themselves, etc., as far as and unhappiness in the time to come.

(CASS) The way of the wicked, etc., as far as: The fear of God before their eyes, etc.

VERS. 4.-- Shall they not know. He threatens judgment to the wicked.

VERS. 5.-- The Lord they have not called upon, etc. (AUG.) For they do not truly call upon him who love the things that displease God.--(CASS.) Thence destruction is increased, because they must needs do evil, since the proud will not call upon God. As 864Ait is caution to fear at the fitting time, so it is cowardice to tremble unfittingly, as for nation and place, the fear of God being cast away.

VERS. 6.-- The counsel of the needy. (CASS.) An invective against the Jews, etc., as far as, that is, proceeding from the Jews, etc.

VERS. 7.-- Who shall give out of Sion, etc. (CASS.) Last of all the conversion of the Jews is foretold, which will come to pass when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. When he shall have turned away. For the Jews too the Apostle sets down this testimony of Isaiah: There shall come out of Sion he that turneth away the captivity, or the impiety, from Jacob.

VERS. 1.-- Lord, who? (CAS.) This psalm is properly an instructor in morals, a repressing of presumption: where 864Bit treats of the unity of the present Church and of the quiet to come. First the prophet asks, as a priest standing before the face of the Lord, and seeks answers; wishing to know whom God judges worthy of his Church.

VERS. 2.-- He that. (Ibid.) The answer of the Lord, etc. as far as as Christ the lamb, without breaking of members, who properly entered the temple, not that he might be expiated like the rest, but without stain. He worketh justice. As when he cast out of the temple those that sold and bought.

VERS. 3.-- He that speaketh. Here he follows it out more fully. Truth is when the thing is so as it is said: this Christ did properly. In his heart, who at times kept silence toward the unworthy who questioned him fraudulently. He hath not wrought deceit. Deceit is in the tongue, when one thing is said and another is in the breast. Or, he hath not wrought deceit, because all that he heard from the Father, 864Cwithout any addition or suppression, he made known to his neighbours, that is, to the disciples; to the Jews, his neighbours according to the flesh. Nor hath he done evil to his neighbour. But he prayed for them; he did not take up reproach against his neighbours, as is plain from this, that he did not tear Judas with a biting rebuke.

VERS. 4.-- To nothing, etc. (AUG.) This is perfection, that the malignant one avail nothing in a man, and that this be in his sight, that is, that he know for certain that no one is malignant save he who turns from the Creator to created things. The malignant one, that is, the devil, is despised; as when he said: Go back, Satan, etc. On the contrary, he glorifieth them that fear the Lord. He swore, when he promised the apostles with most certain truth: Now I will not call you servants, but friends.

864DVERS. 5.-- He that sweareth to his neighbour, etc. (Ibid.) These three things are not great, etc., as far as since in the conclusion above he set down a past tense, he is brought to nothing.

Money. Either it is earthly, which is utterly forbidden to be given out at usury, and which the Lord handed over to Judas to be paid out to the poor, not for usury. Or it is spiritual, which is commanded to be given out at usury, that is, preaching for the instructing of men. And gifts against the innocent. Christ does indeed receive gifts, as from the Magi, and daily devout offerings; but not against the innocent; rather he gave his soul for them. He that doeth these things shall not be moved. Behold the complete answer to the questioner: he does them (he says), that he may invite us to the act, not only to 865Athe singing of them. He that doeth these things shall not be moved. (CASS.) The conclusion. In like manner he that doeth these things shall rest on the mountain.

VERS. 1.-- The inscription of a title. (CASS.) This title is taken from the Gospel, not from the Old Testament. What the title noted, that is, victory and kingdom, belongs to Christ, and that is what is treated of here.

VERS. 2.-- Preserve me, etc. The second psalm, which touches briefly on the passion and the resurrection; first, Christ, showing the one nature of man, asks to be preserved, saying that all that he endured has been brought through to the glory of his inheritance. (AUG.) Christ speaks here according to his manhood, of whom the royal title stood out in the passion: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.--Of my 865Bgoods, etc. (CASS.) If God has no need of the goods of Christ the man, but Christ the man has all things from him, the arrogance of men is overthrown, and the heresy of the Pelagians, who think that anything is done by their own good powers.

VERS. 3.-- To the saints who are in the land. (Ibid.) Christ has now set out how he prayed; he now tells what good things God did for him. (AUG.) To the saints, etc., as far as and power that I might rise again.

He hath made wonderful. (CASS.) As if to say, these things I said to the Lord: but the Lord made them wonderful, that is, he made my wills wonderful; and they are wonderful in that those who obey them become heavenly out of earthly.

VERS. 4.-- They are multiplied. (Ibid.) Whereby he made them wonderful, 865Cetc., as far as which sound together in one note, by which his wills are shown.

VERS. 5.-- The portion of my inheritance. (AUG.) Let others choose other things, etc., as far as but those who choose God as their portion. (CASS.) Or, the Lord is the portion, that is, the share and the reward, of my inheritance, that is, of the saints. And the portion of my cup, that is, the wage of the passion. For the inheritance belongs to the Gentiles, the cup to the passion, which when drunk gives resurrection. But let no one think himself an heir save he that is illustrious.

VERS. 6.-- The lines, etc. (Ibid.) As it were by lot, in which is the divine election, as the lot also fell upon Matthias, and each man takes according to his own measure. In goodly places. That is, among the saints.

VERS. 7.-- I will bless the Lord. (Ibid.) He gives 865Dthanks to the Father for understanding, and for the passion, in which by his favour he conquers, and for the resurrection, and for confession; and these are the things through which the inheritance is restored, so that he is king of the Jews, as the title says. Understanding, etc. (AUG.) Whereby this inheritance can be seen and possessed. Moreover, etc. That is, above understanding. Even till night, etc. That is, till death, he hath instructed me, that is, my lower part, the assumption of flesh, that he might drive out the darknesses of mortality which that understanding does not have, because for them it could neither be troubled nor fail. My reins. From whom according to the flesh I came forth, namely my kindred: they have chided me with injuries, with temptation and with passion.

VERS. 8.-- I set the Lord before me. (Ibid.) From this draw an example, whereby sins may be shunned: for he who 866Aalways beholds God with the keen edge of the mind is not bowed down by sins.

VERS. 1.-- The prayer of David. (CASS.) The prayer belongs to the person of the Lord, the Church being joined to him, which is his body. Hear, O Lord. (Ibid.) This psalm makes us attend to the true nature of his humanity. The prayer of Christ is an instruction of the faithful: as by weeping over Lazarus he taught us to have charity toward our neighbour; he fled his persecutors, that he might take from us the boldness of ill-considered rashness. First, he asks that it be rendered to him according to justice. Not in deceitful lips. As one who is unjustly condemned; or, as one who says: Lord, Lord, and does not do the works. (AUG.) Or, let my judgment come forth from thy countenance not in deceitful lips, so that in judging I may not put forth 866Banything other than I understand.

VERS. 2.-- From thy countenance. (CASS.) That is, according to those things which thou knowest in me, who have no sin. Judgment. Whereby he who was judged may be seen to have come forth as his own. From thy countenance, not from the disposition of the Jews, which deed is plain in the resurrection. Or, judgment, whereby he discerns all things.

VERS. 3.-- Thou hast proved. (CASS.) From the likeness of a furnace, etc., as far as thou knowest me to be pure.

VERS. 4.-- Hard ways. (Ibid.) Namely the works of men: which, namely, the works of men deserve. Or, which men ought to imitate, for whom the road of the vices is easy, that of the virtues hard. Or, it was not found, so that he should not speak, that is, that I may not say these things boastfully, or, that I may not sin with my tongue, which is the work of men. 866C(AUG.) Or, the hard ways of the thief, etc., as far as after I had gone along the hard ways and completed my steps.

VERS. 5.-- Perfect thou. (CASS.) Even to the end: before that there is nothing but a beginning. Steps, that is, human actions, so that they who wish to imitate may not be moved away from thee, nor their footsteps from them.

VERS. 6.-- I have cried. (Ibid.) Secondly, he prays that his purity be delivered from the ambushes of the Jews. I too have cried, as though thou shouldst say, this belongs to none but the just man, who prays with confidence, because he knows he is heard.

VERS. 7.-- Make wonderful. (AUG.) Wonderful are the things that are new: these are the things which he yielded in the flesh, the Jews marvelling.

VERS. 8.-- The apple of the eye. It is very small, and yet through it the keen edge of sight is directed, whereby light and darkness are distinguished, 866Djust as through the humanity of Christ the godhead is what discerns between the good and the evil.

VERS. 10.-- Their fat. (CASS.) From the likeness of animals, which are puffed up from fat, that is, they have kept pride, not lean, that is, not humble; the fat, that is, they have kept the carnal understanding; or, fattened with crimes they have lost true understanding, whence it remains for them to speak proud things. Their mouth hath spoken pride. Not their heart, because often the wicked condemn in their heart what they defend with their mouth.

VERS. 12.-- They have taken me, etc. (Ibid.) Whence had they this opportunity? I answer: they took it from God, whose ordering it is; or, from the betrayer; or, they received it greedily from the judge. As a lion prepared, etc. (AUG., CASS.) 867AThe princes are to be compared to the lion, the devil, by whose authorship they act: the people is the young of a lion, that is, the son of the devil, dwelling, remaining in ambushes, because it is the way of evil men to cover their vows, that they may accomplish them secretly.

VERS. 13.-- Arise, O Lord. (CASS.) A prayer concerning retributions. Prevent, etc. (Ibid.) From the likeness of one running: there is no one who does not sin against himself before he sins against another. Supplant him: from the likeness of one wrestling, that is, make them ineffectual and cast them down. Deliver my soul from the wicked one. (AUG.) By raising it again from the death brought upon it by the wicked. The sword. My soul is the sword, which thy hand, that is, thy power, took up, that through it he might war down the kingdoms of iniquity and divide the just from the wicked. Divide them, etc., (CASS.) that is, the Jews divided, etc., as far as misery, as though deservedly: because, of the hidden things. Of the hidden things 867Bthat are thine. That is, of uncleannesses, etc., as far as that is, they shall be sharers of evils even to satiety. Of the hidden things. (AUG.) Not only is this punishment visible to them, but from hidden things, that is, from sins (which are hidden away from the light of thy truth), their memory is full, so that they forget God.

VERS. 1.-- I will love thee, O Lord, my strength, etc. (CASS.) Christ says this, and so the Church, that is, the whole Christ.

(Ibid.) First, the prophet, gathering up the sum, gives thanks for the deliverance.

VERS. 3.-- My refuge. (Ibid.) When there was need of counsel, David fled to him and found it. My deliverer, as one who, being powerful, sets free a man taken captive by his enemies. My protector, 867C(AUG.) because I have not presumed upon myself, as though raising a horn of pride against thee; but I have found thee the height of my salvation, and that I might find it thou hast taken me up.

VERS. 4.-- Praising I will call upon. (CASS.) After all things he does not boast of himself, puffed up, but ascribes all to God: and therefore he is safe; for he who does otherwise, left to himself, perishes, even though he seemed to have conquered.

VERS. 5.-- They have compassed me about. (Ibid.) In the person of the just before the coming of Christ, etc., as far as who have been troubled by rushing iniquities.

VERS. 6.-- The sorrows of hell. The Gentiles, to be tormented in hell with the sorrow they have deserved. The snares of death have prevented me, there follows:

VERS. 8.-- It was moved. Behold how, etc., as far as and this, which mortality and possibility forestalled.

867DOut of his temple. (CASS.) Either of heaven, or of the body of Christ that was to come.

It was moved. (AUG.) Thus, when Christ was glorified, sinners were moved and trembled. The foundations, etc. (CASS.) The presumptions of the proud, that is, riches and the like on which they leaned: for the hope of the world, which God hates, has passed away.

VERS. 10.-- The heavens. (Ibid.) That is, he bowed the preachers down from the contemplative life to ministry, and to the bearing of troubles. He came down, etc. He himself suffered in them, and came into the knowledge of certain men. Darkness: the dark, who even persecute, are under his power; or, those who believe simply are subject to him.

868AVERS. 11.-- And he ascended. For he makes certain men full of knowledge, in whom he stands out above, whose swiftness of understanding he transcends: but the dark he uses secretly: whence, Assur is the rod of my wrath, yet he himself hath not known it, but his own know. He flew upon the wings of the wind. [Vulg. Ps 17:11 volavit super pennas ventorum, "the wings of the winds", plural — the plural the gloss's own Ventos takes up] The winds, than which nothing is swifter, his fame outstrips, as when, newly born, he was rather announced by a star.

VERS. 12.-- Darkness. (AUG.) The obscurities of the sacraments; or, in these darknesses, where seeing we walk by faith, and not by sight (Matth. II).

Not through the heavens. (CASS.) He came down and ascended (II Cor. V), but through the ethereal clouds (which is in the Hebrew), that is, through the prophets in whom the teaching is obscure; but through the clouds which (not of the ether, that is, the Apostles) 868Bare exceedingly bright in the knowledge of him, that is, contemplating more nearly.

VERS. 13.-- Hail. (AUG.) Rebukes, which strike hard hearts; but if the fire of charity dissolves them, in a gentle soul it becomes water that satisfies [ alias saliens]. And coals, because by that fire dark hearts are kindled and come to life again.

VERS. 14.-- He thundered. (CASS.) To the letter, as when the thunder was seen, God saying: I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. He gave his voice: in that he did not say: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

VERS. 15.-- And he sent. (Ibid.) The Lord thundered, and the Lord sent: for the passing over to the Gentiles was not always held to be certain nor reasonable.

VERS. 16.-- And the fountains appeared. When Christ came, 868Cthere lay open what the obscurity of the divine word had covered. At thy rebuke. A turning to God: as it were with thanksgiving, because through preaching he rebuked sinners, and breathed into them that they should fear the wrath to come.

He sent. (Ibid.) Thus far concerning the coming of the Lord; from here on, concerning Christian times. He sent, the Father, Christ. He took me. The Church his bride. Out of the waters. (Ibid.) Of baptism. Or he sent the Spirit, who is the gift. From on high, because he is equal to the Father and to the Son. He took, as it were a runaway. He assumed, into the height of virtue and of good work.

VERS. 18.-- From my enemies. (AUG.) That is, from vices, which above all enemies do the more harm. And from them who, etc. That is, from outward enemies, men, and also demons, as must needs be, because they have been strengthened 868Din a certain respect. Behold, they have prevented, that is, they have prevailed. By this he delivers the more, because they have been strengthened; for when the Church is afflicted, it grows the more.

VERS. 20.-- Into a large place. (Ibid.) Through the savagery of the wicked, the Church grows in number and in merit. He hath saved me, in that it came to the faith. Because he would have me. (AUG.) That is, he chose freely.

VERS. 21.-- And he will reward according to the justice of a good will. And according to the cleanness of the hands (Ibid.) the works which come after the first benefits of God, namely faith and charity, which God bestows freely, without preceding merit.

VERS. 22.-- Because I have kept. (Ibid.) Or, joining it thus 869Awith the preceding verse, etc., as far as and as I have begun, I shall be unspotted, whence in time to come he will reward me.

VERS. 24.-- With him, cleaving to him. And I will keep myself, lest I fall again. From iniquity, which is the death of the blessed man.

VERS. 25.-- And he will reward. (CASS.) God rewards in two ways: here in the present, that the just may be justified, and he that is in filth may be filthy still, whence here he says: With the holy thou wilt be holy, etc.; and in time to come a reward for the good and a punishment for the evil, whence there: For thou wilt save the humble people, etc., as if to say, so here: because in time to come thou wilt save the humble people.

(AUG.) And he will give: now not only for the breadth of faith which works through love, but for long-suffering he will reward me. In the sight: 869Bthis belongs to the just, that as they always behold God, so God may continually look upon them.

VERS. 26.-- With the holy. (CASS.) He had said that it was rendered according to justice, etc., as far as because thou, O Lord, wilt save the humble people. And thou wilt bring down the eyes of the proud.

(AUG.) There is also a hidden depth, by which thou art understood to be holy with the holy, because it is thou that sanctifiest.

For thou dost light. What he declared concerning the elect and the sanctified, he now prays concerning others.

VERS. 29.-- My lamp. (Ibid.) There were preachers, in whom was light, that is, the knowledge of truth, by which they enlightened others; whence: We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Darkness. (AUG.) those who are still in darkness. Mine. By predestination.

869CVERS. 30.-- In my God. (CASS.) For my God is the way, undefiled, by which one goes to heaven. Or, the way by which the holy and immaculate Virgin came into the world. And whatever he said has been tried by the Holy Spirit, that is, it is useful and honourable: as a wise man first judges within himself whatever he says. I shall go over. (Ibid.) A man cannot utterly pull it down, but by the help of God he passes over the wall, the obstacle of sins.

VERS. 31.-- My God. (Ibid.) And, joining them, there follows: Thou wilt deliver me from the contradictions of the people. The rest he interposes by way of commendation. The words. They are proved by the fire of trial. Of all. (Ibid.) No one is excepted, save he who will not hope.

VERS. 32.-- For who. (Ibid.) I say God: for who is another God, save he who also 869Dis Lord over things? And because he is known in Judea, not the gods of the nations; these things are against the pagans, who fashion many for themselves.

VERS. 33.-- God who. (Ibid.) Still further, beyond what is common, he commends him by what is special, for thirdly Christ is commended for his virtue and his power. He hath girded. (Ibid.) That is, he has armed him thoroughly. Or, from the likeness of one running. Or, it marks dignity and strength, which belongs to him who by his own power will judge the people, or the world. Unspotted, without sin. The stag leaps over thorns and gaping places, so Christ over the thorns and pits of sins: and as the stag climbs the heights, so Christ ascends above all creatures.

VERS. 35.-- Who teacheth: I make him wary of the ambushes that threaten. Hands, works or wills. To battle, 870Aagainst the devil. As a bow, etc., by the likeness of a thing which does not exist, that is, unrelenting strength. Arms. The prophets of Christ, and the apostles, through whom he works: who are a brazen bow, because they do not grow soft by preaching, but, always strong, hurl forth the words of salvation.

VERS. 36.-- The protection of salvation. Not that I should suffer nothing, which nevertheless is for my profit. Tribulation is correction, and teaching, and enlargement, and confirmation.

VERS. 37.-- Thou hast enlarged (AUG.) Lest fleshly straits hinder, because thou hast made wide the charity that works cheerfully, even out of those things which are under me, namely out of mortal things and members.

VERS. 38.-- I will pursue. (CASS.) By reproving, by wearying them with divers afflictions.

VERS. 43.-- And I will break them small. (AUG.) Behold the same 870Boperation of the Father and of the Son. Above he says: Thou hast destroyed, O Father, and now he says, I will break them small, that is, I will take away their powers, so that afterwards they may yield to every wind of doctrine.

VERS. 44.-- Thou wilt deliver. (CASS.) Upon them, wrath: But thou wilt deliver me, the casting down of the Jews, and the exalting of the Gentiles.

VERS. 46.-- The children. The Jews whom I nourished, made strangers: They have lied to me, as to my honour. They have grown old and have halted from their paths, following their own traditions rather than God's.

VERS. 47.-- He liveth. (Ibid.) Fourthly, the Church exulting praises in sum the gifts of God. Or he liveth, because he gives life. Blessed, because he blesses all things. And let the God of salvation be exalted. (AUG.) I will not think of the God of my salvation after an earthly manner, nor of that salvation itself as earthly, 870Cbut on high I will hope in him.

VERS. 48.-- Revenges. (CASS.) The vengeance is dutiful, when the rebel is subdued. From the wrathful. It is a greater glory to deliver from raging evils.

VERS. 51.-- Magnifying, the salvations. God who magnifies: Doing, God who does.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. (CASS.) A psalm of the first coming, whereby the tyrant falls and man is set free; here the prophet looks unto the end, that is, unto Christ, or unto the last times.

VERS. 2.-- The heavens shew forth. (Ibid.) First, speaking of the incarnation, he commends the preaching of the new law. (AUG.) The heavens, the apostles, concerning the glory of Christ in which 870Dhe is equal to the Father. (CASS.) Or the heavens, they who sent the star. The glory. (Ibid.): That God freely forgives sins. The works. (AUG.) Those which are according to man, etc., as far as and these same are made night to him, giving to the darkened the knowledge which is of things human. (CASS.) And this so wonderfully, that it is in all tongues; and so widely, that it is in every part of the compass of the earth.

VERS. 3.-- Day unto day. (CASS.) He treats of it by demonstration. (AUG.) Day unto day. The Spirit brings forth to spiritual men the fullness of wisdom, etc., as far as this teaching is continued by days and by nights down to those who come after.

VERS. 4.-- Speeches. (CASS.) Public persuadings. Words. Common narrations. Whose voices are not heard. He would say more plainly, in whom their voices are not heard, 871Aor, the voices of all their words are heard: he does the same thing by means of the relative.

(AUG.) The Spirit made the first men speak with all tongues, he who was to gather all nations into one; then one man was for all, so now one Christ, head and body.

VERS. 6.-- In the sun (CASS.) What he praises others for having done, he himself does: he preaches the incarnation. Or in the sun, in the open sight of the world, or in labour. The sun burns, and shines, and varies the seasons. His tabernacle. (AUG.) As it were a soldier's dwelling, that is, the dispensation of his incarnation, in which he came to storm the errors of the world. Or the tabernacle, the Church in the open, not in secret, so as to lie hid. A bridegroom. (CASS.) So often promised by the prophets, a great likeness of the sacrament: therefore born of 871Ba virgin, that he might join to himself the Church a virgin. Out of his bride-chamber. (AUG.) That is, the virginal womb, where God was joined to human nature as a bridegroom to a bride. Behold, humble in mercy, but strong in majesty. As a giant to run. (CASS.) Unshaken, not to be called back, overcoming human nature by his power. From the highest. Here the Trinity is shewn, etc., as far as it marks the unity of the Trinity. Neither is there any that can hide himself, etc. (AUG.) The Word made flesh permitted no man to excuse himself out of the shadow of death: because the heat of the Word pierced even that. Or, the heat is the Spirit, whom he sent when he had returned, who is law, testimony, justice, commandment, fear and judgments, because he does these things.

VERS. 8.-- The law of the Lord. (CAS.) Secondly, he praises the precepts of the New and the Old Testament. (Ibid.) The law given through 871CMoses, correcting all things by the distinction of its words, and sending them on to the grace of Christ. Converting. (AUG.) By liberty, unto the imitating of himself, not pressing down with the yoke of servitude. Souls. Wills, not merely hands, as the Old Testament did. The testimony. Whatsoever Quaecunquae testimonies he gave to Israel are full of truth, and have given wisdom to the humble. Wisdom: concerning things divine.

VERS. 9.-- The justices of the Lord. (Ibid.) All are right in him, who taught not what he did not do, so that they who imitate them might rejoice in them, seeing they would do them freely with charity, not slavishly with fear. (CASS.) Justices, the law which justifies; whatsoever it commands is just.

VERS. 10.-- The fear of the Lord. (Ibid.) The fear of the world is not holy, because it is not profitable, and it changes with the times. The fear of the Lord is without any perturbation, 871Dbecause it is a love mingled with dread, because if it fears the judge, it knows him merciful. (AUG.) Fear, not that penal fear for earthly things, for love of which the soul is afraid, but the chaste fear whereby, the more it loves, the more it is wary of offending the bridegroom, and therefore it is not cast out, but abides. Judgments. The judgments of God need not another's authority.

VERS. 11.-- Desirable things. (Ibid.) Or, much to be desired, or much gold and stone; or much that is precious. Desirable above gold, etc., as far as, whose will he sets before his own, and they are sweeter than he himself is to himself. Above gold, that is, everything that is sought after, whether for riches, or for power, or for pleasure. Honey. The food of God is honey; that is, one now loosed from the world; and the honeycomb, that is, because he is still wrapped about, for whom there is need 872Aof the pressure of God's hand squeezing him out, that he may go into life.

VERS. 13.-- Who understandeth sins. (Ibid.) Thirdly he asks to be purged of vices, that he may be a worthy psalmist, to report these sacraments. To a mind that sees, truth is sweet, and judgments sweet; to one that does not see, what sweetness is there? But why is it not seen? Because of sins: nor is it any wonder: For who understandeth sins? (CASS.) Sins: all of them, for certain of them are known. Mine defile, others' afflict, and now spare, drive back the persuader. From my secret ones. He includes all sins under two heads, etc., as far as whereby man was seduced; and by consenting he made it his own. (AUG.) There is no greater sin than to apostatize from God, which is the beginning of pride: but pride is the beginning and the cause of all sin.

• 872B

Unto the end. (CASS.) A figure of the working; the Prophet sings the things that are to come.

(Ibid.) The Prophet out of exceeding charity wishes a prosperous issue for the Church, which he saw would come to pass through Christ.

VERS. 2.-- May he hear thee: the things which he wills to be done for her in the time of tribulation. In the day of tribulation, wherein we pray to God with the greater desire. Of the God of Jacob, that as to him, so to thee he may give the grace of blessing, and set thee before the Jews.

VERS. 3.-- May he send: the Father. Help, by sending the Son.

VERS. 4.-- Mindful. He treats as it were of a priest about to offer sacrifice and of a king about to fight. Of thy sacrifice. (Ibid.) He foresaw the sacrifice 872Cof the Church, not of cattle, but of the blood and the body of Christ.

VERS. 5.-- May he give. Diapsalma, the things which he wishes and affirms for the time of glory. All thy counsel. (AUG.) Not only in that thou hast laid down thy soul for the life of very many; but also in that blindness in part hath happened in Israel, and so all Israel should be saved.

VERS. 6.-- We shall rejoice. (Ibid.) Therefore this prayer, because we shall rejoice and shall be magnified; he shews himself to be one of the Church so long a time before.

VERS. 7.-- In powers. (AUG.) Our powers are the salvation of his favour, since he gives help even out of tribulation, because vain is the salvation of men, which is of the left hand, whence also pride is born. The salvation of his right hand. 872D(Ibid.), that is, spiritual grace, etc., as far as they who presume upon earthly dignity.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. The third psalm, of the two natures in Christ; it describes the heavenly king, that the world might believe by hearing him whom the Jew, having seen him, despises. He makes a demonstrative oration in praise of God.

VERS. 2.-- Lord, in thy strength shall he rejoice. (CASS.) He sets forth the sum, namely, the merit and the reward.

VERS. 4.-- For thou hast prevented him. (CASS.) Diapsalma; he describes his virtues and his glory, etc., as far as as it were for a crown to the head. A crown. (Ibid.) Because the circuit 873Aof the Apostles hemmed him about as he taught, or the whole circle of the world, that is, the general Church.

VERS. 6.-- In thy salvation: glory and great beauty, etc. (CASS.) By the Word of the Father, whence comes that glory. Glory as to the judgment, because he shall judge in his Godhead. Beauty in majesty, which shall then appear. Glory and great beauty, etc. Glorious, as Peter, by whose shadow the sick were healed; and beauty is upon him, beside whom there is no other foundation. Therefore upon him, because thou shalt give . . . . .

VERS. 7.-- In joy with thy countenance. For the king hopeth in the Lord, and in the mercy, etc. (ID.). That is, of this, that his own shall rejoice with thy presence, when thou shalt be all in all.

VERS. 9.-- Let thy hand be found, etc. (ID.) Of 873Bthe punishments of his enemies, as above of the praises of Christ.

VERS. 11.-- Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed. There shall not be for them the fruit of blessedness in the land of the living.

VERS. 13.-- For thou shalt make. (CASS.) Things said of what is to come, etc., as far as that when they thought to kill, salvation might come to be.

VERS. 14.-- Be thou exalted. (ID.) The conclusion.

VERS. 2.-- God, my God. (CASS.) A complaint of being forsaken is set before, and prayer also, as in all the psalms of the passion. (AUG., CASS.) God, my God: he doubles it out of affection, or God of all through 873Cthe power of creation, mine properly through worship. (AUG.) When he had said this on the cross, he shewed that this psalm was written of himself. Look upon me. (CASS.) It is not in the Hebrew, but was added by the seventy interpreters. Why hast thou forsaken me? (AUG.) This is a wonder, since God also was with him; but it was for us, who in him are his body. Far from my salvation, that is, from that of my old man, because salvation is far from sinners, and these are the words not of justice, but of sins. Or, far from salvation are the words of my sins, which are to be taken away.

VERS. 3.-- I shall cry. (AUG.) He speaks of us, of his own body, as when perchance he says: Let this chalice pass from me, that is, he is thought to have feared to die; but he said these things for his own weak ones who fear to die, and so this also is the voice 873Dof the members: I shall cry and thou wilt not hear. By day, and thou wilt not hear, and by night, and not unto folly. [Vulg. Ps 21:3 cries "by day" once only, without the doubled "and thou wilt not hear," and closes with mihi] (CASS.) Because there are no shadows in him, and yet he is not heard unto bodily salvation.

VERS. 4.-- Thou dwellest in the holy place. (AUG.) And so it is a wonder, because thou hast delivered the fathers; but I am a worm.

(CASS.) Thou dwellest in the holy place, because God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The praise of Israel, (AUG.) that is, of him that sees thee, not of him who wished to hide himself from thy sight.

VERS. 5.-- In thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped. (CASS.) It is a great beauty, while he repeats they have hoped.

874AVERS. 7.-- But I am, etc. (AUG.) Thus far Christ in the person of the old man; here now he speaks properly in his own person. But I am. Now properly Christ: I was born without seed, that I might be beyond men in man, in whom I was made a reproach, that at least so the pride of man might imitate the humble. A worm and no man, a reproach. (CASS.) So vilely trodden down, etc., as far as a worm, born without coupling, mortal, humble and vile, creeping in silence.

VERS. 9.-- He hoped in the Lord, etc. (CASS.) Saying: Hope thou in the Lord, etc. The irony of the Jews; behold, as it were a historical narration, not a prophecy, lest there be any excuse, lest there be any ambiguity.

VERS. 10.-- From the breasts. Not from the time when I began to be suckled, etc., as far as but thou hast been my God. From the womb.

VERS. 11.-- From the womb. (AUG.) Not only of a mother, which is the law of being born for all; but from the darkness of the Synagogue, in which he is unbelieving, 874Bnot yet born into the light of Christ, who trusts in those carnal observances of the sabbath and of circumcision.

VERS. 12.-- Depart not from me, thou who hast already begun.

Thou hast drawn me out: not a man; lest the virgin's childbearing be doubted, it was done by the power of God. My hope from the breasts: true humanity and great perfection; for from the breasts he does what one scarcely come of age can do.

In thee was I cast, not into the sins of man. Others are cast into Adam, whence they are guilty. From my mother's womb, 874Cmy God. (CASS.) Neither was the conception without God, nor in sin, as man's is; whence the Angel: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee.

VERS. 13.-- They have surrounded. (ID.) The passion is described, which prayer concludes; to convince the Jews he relates things to come as though they were past.

VERS. 14.-- They have opened. (ID.) As wild beasts wishing to swallow him down, their mouth, not unlocked unto wisdom. As a lion. (AUG.) As a lion seizing they surrounded him, as one roaring they opened their mouth.

VERS. 15.-- As water. When water is poured out, etc., as far as whence, leaving him, they fled. (CASS.) As water is the sacrament of the washing away of sins, etc., as far as and it was made solid. Like wax. Well does he compare the mysteries of the law 874Dto wax, etc., as far as for they have surrounded. In the midst of my belly. (AUG.) The belly signifies the weak in the Church, or the memory of the Church.

VERS. 16.-- My strength is dried up like a potsherd. (CASS.) Not as hay, but as a potsherd, which by fire is made the firmer. My tongue. (AUG.) They kept my precepts with them, through whom I was to speak: and through them I was brought down into the kindred of those who were the dust of death.

VERS. 17.-- They have dug. (ID.) The gospel narration. Although these things are so to the letter, the digging of the hands hints that they did not believe his works; of the feet, that they mangled the Apostles. (CASS.): they have dug. 875ADug earth bears fruit, so Christ wounded gave the fruit of life.

VERS. 18.-- They have numbered all my bones. (CASS.) The punishment of the cross is properly described. Thus they numbered the bones, that is, the Apostles; lest they should grow into a greater number, they sought to extinguish them. They have looked upon me. (ID.) With diligence and with delight, whereas the eyes are wont to be turned away from a cruel thing. Behold how obstinate they are: nothing was done by chance, nor was their heart softened by so many miracles.

VERS. 19.-- They parted my garments among them, etc. (AUG.) His own sacraments could be divided by heresies, but not the coat from above, that is, given by God; this is charity, or unity, which no man can divide. (CASS.) But perhaps it came to certain men even by the gift of God, 875Betc., as far as as the olive branch brought by the dove to the ark. (AUG.) Or, through the one soul the head and the body, which being one rejects diversities.

VERS. 22.-- From the unicorns, my lowness, etc. (ID.) The Jews, seeking earthly things only: or, boasting themselves singularly of the worship of God, or being singularly proud, the son also having been slain after the servants.

VERS. 24.-- Ye that fear the Lord, praise him, etc. (CASS.) Human fear brings forth not praise, but blame.

VERS. 25.-- Let all the seed of Israel fear him, because he hath not despised, etc. Whom he means by the seed of Jacob he opens, adding: Of the poor man. (AUG.) Not of him who cries out with the words of sins out of a vain life, but 875Cof him who is not swollen with the pomps of the world.

VERS. 26.-- With thee is my praise in a great church, etc. (ID.) He places his praise with God, who teaches that there be no presuming in man.

VERS. 27.-- They shall praise the Lord that seek him: they shall live. (ID.) The poor are rich in God: therefore poor, because they praise God that they may seek him, and he himself is the riches of the poor. Their hearts shall remember for ever and ever, and shall be converted to the Lord. (ID.) Because he is the food of the heart.

VERS. 30.-- They have eaten and have adored. (ID.) Let not the dispenser forbid to eat, but let him warn the exactor to fear. In his sight shall they fall. (CASS.) The Church receives both, but he himself sees and discerns.

875DVERS. 32.-- It shall be shewn, etc. (ID.) Or to the angels, who offer the prayers of men to God, not for instruction, but for ministry.

(CASS.) Note that the psalms of the passion end in the great hope of Christians, that it may be known that salvation is from the passion.

VERS. 1.-- A psalm of David. (CASS.) The Prophet foretold the return of the people from Babylon. The Lord ruleth me. A psalm of mercy, enumerating ten graces, that all may hope in the mercy of God. (AUG.) The Church speaks of Christ.

VERS. 2.-- In a place of pasture. (CASS.) The first grace, a place of pasture, that is, the divine word, which fattens those who meditate upon it. 876AUpon the water. The second grace, the water of refreshment.

VERS. 3.-- My soul. (ID.) The third grace, etc., as far as but first he brought me up upon the water of refreshment, first he converted my soul. He hath led. (ID.) The fourth, in that he led me upon the precepts of charity. Upon the paths. (AUG.) The narrower commandments and the more perfect counsels; as it were upon paths few just men walk, even as paths are narrower than roads.

VERS. 4.-- For though I shall walk. (CASS.) The fifth, that in the shadow of death he fears no evils. Thou art with me. (AUG.) In the heart by faith, that after the shadow of death I may be with thee. Thy rod. (CASS.) The sixth, correction; or the rod is strictness, which converts vices. The staff is governance, which upholds the faithful.

876BVERS. 5.-- Thou hast prepared in my sight. (CASS.) The seventh, the table of the Lord, the blessed banqueting, the fullness of faith, the heavenly food, of which the Apostle: He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself. In my sight a table: even if not that of the wicked. Of this it is said: But these at the table of the rich man, that is, of Christ, know that thou too must prepare the like, that is, to suffer as he did. Thou hast anointed: the eighth, the anointing of the head, namely of Christ, which was dried up by no barrenness of sin, whence the rest of the members rejoice, because from the head the ointment ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, and unto the skirt of his garment. And my chalice. The ninth, the chalice, the blood of Christ, which so inebriates that it makes men sober. Mine, because I receive it. Or, thine, because thou givest it. The table and the chalice, flesh and blood, although they are one sacrament, yet under diverse 876Cspecies, because both are taken, are here set down separately.

VERS. 6.-- And mercy. (CASS.) The tenth, mercy following after unto keeping, which goes before unto the conferring of grace.

VERS. 7.-- And that I may dwell. (HIER.) This is joined to all the things above. As though: thou hast placed, thou hast brought up, thou hast led, etc., and this to the end that I may dwell.

VERS. 1.-- A psalm of David. (AUG.) On the first day of the week the world was founded, on the same day man was restored through the resurrection of Christ: (CASS.) whence he admonishes us to receive the conqueror with triumph. The earth is the Lord's. First he says that the whole world is God's, etc., as far as 876Dbut who shall be in his mountain, save the innocent?

VERS. 2.-- And upon the rivers. (AUG.) As rivers glide into the sea, so the covetous glide into the world; and these too the Church overcomes, which, its covetous desires being conquered, is made ready for immortality.

VERS. 3.-- Who shall ascend? He determines with what virtues they are endowed in the Church.

VERS. 4.-- Who shall stand? (HIER.) For many ascend who do not abide. (ID.) The innocent: toward his neighbour, in hand and in heart, and he who is innocent toward himself, etc., as far as they should desire his presence and his knowledge. Who hath not taken. (AUG., HIER.) That is, who has not reckoned his soul among things that do not abide, but perceiving it immortal shall desire things eternal, and therefore 877Ahas not sworn deceitfully. In vain. (HIER.) That is, who has stained it with no dregs of sins after baptism.

VERS. 7.-- Lift up. Diapsalmus. Christian religion having been declared, etc., as far as which were set there by the prince the devil. And be ye lifted up. Against the gates of death. Ye everlasting gates: all the grace which, at Christ's coming, was given.

VERS. 8.-- Who is? he asks. The Prophet, to convict the perfidy of the Jews, and that by commending him the more he may invite others.

VERS. 10.-- The Lord strong is described by his powers as though by his proper name. Strong, (AUG.) even if ye took him with swords.

Mighty, even if ye delivered him to Pilate.

877BMighty in battle, lest ye think ye have overcome him in the fight. The powers. (Hier., AUG.) The ministering powers going before Christ in the ascension cry out to the other heavenly ones, that they may open the way to the Lord as he comes: and these, astonished at the new mystery of one clothed in flesh, ask, who is he?

Lift up. (CASS.) A doubling, etc., as far as who gives all good things to all, or of the heavenly powers, that is, of the angels.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. (Hier.) Here the penitent who has been scourged is set before the rest, lest they murmur in adversities: he who, having had the trial in himself, coaxes through mercy and terrifies through justice.

877CTo thee, O Lord, have I lifted up. (AUG.) A psalm against the adversities of the world, etc., as far as who not through all, the less perfect.

(CASS.) First he asks to be taught the ways of the Lord, because he is raised up toward God.

(ID.) Toward the contemplating of thee; he easily despises earthly things who beholds things divine.

VERS. 2.-- I trust. (ID.) Having had trial of my own weakness in evils, I shall not blush because of my enemies.

Neither let my enemies laugh at me: and I am sure that he deceives none that endures patiently.

In vain. (ID.) Because all things are vain and unfruitful which are alien from God.

Shew me thy ways, O Lord. (CASS.) The ways are of the order of life, etc., as far as: Direct, belongs to life, 877Dteach to knowledge.

VERS. 5.-- Teach. (AUG.) Truth itself, that I may understand what I believe, because I have endured; and if this suffices not: Remember.

God my saviour. (CASS.) There are two things which make men good, that we believe God our saviour, and that we patiently await his retribution.

VERS. 6.-- Remember. (ID.) Of former sins and of those which are daily done, he prays through the mercy shewn to the ancients, and because he fears a true judge.

Of thy tender mercies. Compassion is properly in the shewing forth of good things.

Which are from of old. (AUG.) That is, they are from the beginning of the world: therefore let him not fail in me.

878AVERS. 7.-- Sins. (CASS.) They are when the way of equity is forsaken.

Of my youth. Not for age, but for the rashness of headlong haste, which is then, when the heat of the mind exceeds moderation.

Ignorances. We do those things which we do not know to be evil. Or the sins of ignorance in little ones, who are held at any rate by original sin.

(HIER.) Of my youth. Before I went out of the house of my wicked father.

Remember me, thou. (AUG.) Whose work it is to have mercy and to forgive sins.

According to thy mercy. That is, thy mercy is ample. Mercy is toward the wretched, goodness toward any whatsoever. But God does good both when 878Bimplored by the wretched, and when led by his goodness: none is good but God.

VERS. 8.-- Sweet. (ID.) Because he forgives all former things, where grace is without merits.

Right. Because after mercy, etc., as far as Sweet, because he gives sweet things; right, because he corrects.

Therefore. (CASS.) Because he is sweet and right; not out of cruelty, but out of kindness.

In the way. That is, faith, or the precepts of God. Or in the way of this life, where one must live rightly, he will give a law.

VERS. 9.-- In judgment. While he punishes, he will direct to better things. But let them be meek who are corrected: for from wild beasts they are tamed, that they may bear it. For if they are mild, that is, of a gentle mind, as though having this by nature: he will teach them the precepts for the neglect of which came 878Cthe scourges.

VERS. 10.-- Mercy and truth. (AUG.) But what ways he will teach, etc., as far as and then he guards against the severity of the judge.

Testament. (CASS.) The New, which is excellently called a Testament, where there is a clear and certain promise of an inheritance, which is confirmed by death also.

And the Testament. Of the old law, where the Prophets were witnesses of the promises.

VERS. 11.-- For thy name's sake, O Lord. (AUG.) That is, thy glory, etc., as far as and they are interpreted the clean, who assert themselves clean of all sin.

VERS. 12.-- Who is the man? (CASS.) Here he treats of things eternal; how they are had, labouring and praying, that both 878Dhe himself, and all Israel, may be freed from these evils.

VERS. 13.-- Soul. (ID.) and if not at once, etc., as far as whatever others may do, etc.

Seed. (Hier.) It is good, whence fruit is gathered.

Is a firmament. (AUG.) Fear seems to belong to the weak, but the Lord is a firmament to them that fear him, and he brings it about that his Testament be made manifest to them.

Eyes. Sal. The eyes of a wise man are in his head, that is, in his heart.

VERS. 16.-- Only. (ID.) An only one is the more loved, a poor man the more pitied.

VERS. 17.-- From necessities. That is, from adversities, 879Awhich are necessary for all who wish to live godly in Christ.

VERS. 19.-- Behold. (AUG.) The perdition of so many men cannot be without grief, and therefore he prays for them.

VERS. 21.-- The innocent and the upright have adhered. (ID.) The evil were borne with; they did not adhere.

VERS. 22.-- Israel. (AUG.) The people, whom thou hast prepared for the vision of thee.

VERS. 1.-- A psalm. (CASS.) This psalm admonishes that the fellowships of the wicked be shunned, and that we be joined to the just, because from living together manners are formed.

Judge. (AUG.) Because after mercy, etc., as far as they are carried off by the wind of pride.

879B(CASS.) Judge: it is not the presumption of a just man, but the certainty of God's mercy, which he shews there in hoping in the Lord; then, I shall not be weakened.

In innocence. (AUG.) Not that of angels, but such as is of men.

VERS. 2.-- Prove me. (CASS.) That is, first look upon my strength, etc., as far as I regard not merits, but the mercy which has made me such.

(CASS.) Prove me. But do thou prove me in temptations, that no sin remain, etc., as far as lest any man murmur about them.

Burn my reins. (ID.) With the fire of thy word, the heart with the heat of the spirit. Heart for thoughts, reins for delights.

VERS. 3.-- Mercy. (CASS.) Which suffers not 879Cthat we be tempted above our strength; or that very burning is mercy, not harshness

I have been well pleased in truth. (AUG.) He to whom his own lie is displeasing, and who himself is pleasing along with her and in her.

VERS. 4.-- I have not sat. (CASS.) I have been well pleased in truth, because I have not sat. I have hated, which is to shun evils. And I will wash, which is to do right things.

The vain. (CASS.) The vain are they who labour about perishable things; the wicked are heretics, who pervert the Scriptures: those seek superfluous things, these poisonous.

VERS. 5.-- Of the malignant. (ID.) Who do evils to their neighbours.

VERS. 6.-- I will wash. (AUG.) By doing penance. And the altar, I will adorn my mind with virtues, or faith, because there is no place of true sacrifice outside the catholic Church.

879DAmong the innocent. (AUG.) Conversing; that I may hear from them, that is, that I may learn with what voice thou art to be praised; or, that I may hear: Come, ye blessed of my Father.

VERS. 7.-- The voice of praise of the Holy Ghost, who teaches to praise thee.

VERS. 8.-- Lord. (CASS.) He asks that he be not mingled with the wicked in the judgment, because it is not with them, but with the house of God, that he agrees.

I have loved the beauty. (CASS.) These things therefore will I do, because I have loved to make for thee a comely house, and a place wherein thou mayest dwell in glory, that I may take in something of the glory and the essence of God.

VERS. 9.-- Destroy not. (CASS.) And if for the present thou sufferest us to be together, destroy us not together.

880A(CASS.) Destroy me not in time to come with the wicked, with whom here I have no fellowship.

VERS. 10.-- Their right hand, (AUG.), that is, if they do any good, etc., as far as let mercy accompany in all things, which thou owest, because:

VERS. 12.-- Foot, that is, affection, which is wont easily to slip, hath stood unmoved against all scandals, stretching beyond, and persisting in the right way. And because thou so redeemest in the churches, I will bless.

It hath stood. (CASS.) Even though shaken on every side, or confounded by scandals.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. [Vulg. Ps 26:1 heads this psalm Psalmus David, priusquam liniretur, "before he was anointed"] (AUG., CASS.) First, David chosen, etc., as far as whence groaning and labouring in the sacrament; that he may rejoice in the reality.

880BThe Lord is my light, etc. (CASS.) Of the first anointing, through which the second is made sure, he speaks here.

The Lord is the protector of my life. (AUG.) He gives the life of the virtues, which he also protects, without which all his gifts are lost.

Of whom shall I be afraid? (ID.) Whom should the flesh fear, when it shall have put on corruption [corruptionem; read incorruptionem, "incorruption"].

VERS. 2.-- The wicked upon me. (ID.) That, insulting, they may prefer themselves to me: which God turns to the better, so that with their cursing tooth they consume not me, but my carnal desires. Or let them eat, that is, let the cruelty of my enemies take its delight in my death, the flesh; the soul they cannot.

They were weakened. (ID.) While Christ took flesh, they were made to waver, and afterwards submitted themselves wholly to faith.

880C(CASS.) Or, being weakened little by little they came to the ruin of the soul.

VERS. 3.-- Camps. (CASS.) Efforts, battle, conflicts.

In this will I hope. (AUG.) I have hope of victory in the Lord of the eternal reward.

VERS. 4.-- One thing I have asked. (AUG.) This one house is eternal, in which one may abide always, where the days are eternal; why there? That I may contemplate the delight of God, which is the true good.

All the days of my life. (AUG.) That as long as I live, etc., as far as I will make manifest the work.

That I may see. (ID.) Another reading: That I may contemplate the delight of the Lord, that is, to this end, that at last he may appear, 880Detc., as far as and therefore not rashly do I ask one thing, though a sinner.

VERS. 5.-- In secret: (AUG.) as it were there are many parts, etc., as far as him whom presently he calls a rock.

VERS. 6.-- I have gone round. (AUG.) Because he offered himself to me as a leader, etc., as far as that I might fulfil all his wills.

(HIER.) Or I have looked round upon all created things, or the examples of the saints.

(AUG.) I have gone round in mind all created things, etc., as far as the more ardently it desires.

VERS. 7.-- Hear, O Lord, my voice, etc. (CASS.) What labour, what groaning? The prayer before the second 881Aanointing, that he may be able to have that which he also promises himself by the spirit of prophecy.

VERS. 8.-- To thee hath said. (CASS.) The heart, the reason taught by thee, converses with thee of the one thing, that it may handle nothing other than what thou teachest.

VERS. 9.-- Turn not away. (AUG.) Another asks here for temporal goods from God, and rejoices in what is given; this man asks nothing but one thing. Another, having them, fears him angered, lest he take them away; this man thinks there is no anger unless he turn away his countenance, even if he punish something in him; nothing more divine could he have said.

Turn not aside. (AUG.) He does not turn aside in anger, when he turns his face from sins; or, turn not aside, so as to let me slip in anger, that is, in what thou mayest punish; but that our weakness may be made more wary.

881BMy saviour, etc. (AUG.) As though: in vain hast thou created and re-created, etc., as far as he was chosen by the Lord through Samuel.

VERS. 10.-- For my father, etc. He made himself a little one to God, and made him his own father: because he commands, calls, founded and rules. A mother, because he cherishes, contains, suckles and nourishes; but the world is a father, or the devil, the mother Babylon, that is, the fellowship of the wicked.

VERS. 11.-- Set me a law, etc.

VERS. 12.-- Of them that trouble me. (CASS.) As of Saul and his helpers, etc., as far as because they are false.

VERS. 13.-- I believe to see. (AUG.) But among all perils, God directing, I believe to see.

Good things. (ID.) Good things which are true, eternal. Those men 881Cpersuade to a blessedness in this earth, which is the earth of the dying.

VERS. 14.-- Expect. (CASS.) As I am sure of it, etc., as far as endure what thou sufferest.

A psalm to this one. [Vulg. Ps 27:1 heads it Psalmus ipsi David] By David is sometimes understood the head, that is, Christ; sometimes the body, that is, the Church; sometimes both together, that is, the whole Christ is understood, as here.

(CASS.) The third psalm, which treats briefly of the passion and the resurrection.

(ID.) Here Christ is set forth (and though he is so worthy) as not trusting in himself, but asking the whole from God; a useful example to the just.

VERS. 1.-- To thee, O Lord. (ID.) A prayer had in the time 881Dof the passion.

Be not silent. Less is in the Hebrew, etc., as far as and the raising up from death.

Be not silent, etc., and I shall be likened, etc. (HIER.) From this, that the Word is always united to me, I am not such a man as the rest, who are born into the deep misery of the world.

(AUG.) Where, as it were, if thou be silent, thy word is not known.

VERS. 2.-- To the temple. (CASS.) According to the custom of the Jews, to whom it was commanded that wheresoever they were they should pray toward that quarter where they knew Jerusalem to be: which Jesus also did, fulfilling the law. Or toward heaven, whence we hope for help.

882AVERS. 4.-- Give to them. ( Ibid. ) It is to foretell, not to wish, according to what they intended, not according to what came of it: or he wishes the justice of God to be preserved in this.

VERS. 5.-- Because not, etc. (ID.) And if works were wanting, this would suffice for damnation, that they understood not through the law and the Prophets the things which God invisibly works through me, nor even the visible things.

Thou shalt destroy. (AUG.) That nothing hurt me, nor afterwards thy Church, or mine.

Blessed. (CASS.) Having been heard, in the resurrection he gives thanks, adding of the salvation of them that believe.

The Lord. (ID.) The same who is my helper, and my protector, is the strength of the people which trusts in him, and 882Ba protector that they be not hurt, and thou, O Lord:

VERS. 9.-- Save. Behold how great is the hope of them that believe, when he prays for them: he who suffered for them is judge and advocate.

And rule them, etc. (ID.) Lest they turn aside to crooked things.

Lift up, etc., from earthly things to the seeking of things eternal, and by the understanding of the Scriptures, and by good work, through this whole world unto the end.

VERS. 1.-- A psalm of David in the consummation. (ID.) The ark brought back from the Philistines, etc., as far as that they may offer themselves to such a consummator.

Bring to the Lord. (ID.) First he admonishes that sacrifices be offered.

882CThe sons of rams. (AUG.) Because assault is not wanting, etc., as far as and the seventy-two disciples sent to preach are signified.

The voice of the Lord. (CASS.) The preaching of Christ terrified minds within, which is, that it gave the spirit of fear to the Jews and to the Gentiles.

(GREG.) This man ascends from the lowest, that is, from the spirit of fear to the spirit of wisdom, etc., as far as that is, spiritual understanding: these the Lord shakes.

(HIER.) As a husbandman a barren land, etc., as far as and he will give strength, and will bless the same in eternal peace.

VERS. 3.-- The voice of the Lord upon the waters, etc. (CASS.) Of the establishing of the Church, where he enumerates the powers of the Holy Ghost 882Dwith great proclamation.

Of Libanus. Libanus is interpreted a whitening. The cedars of Libanus, that is, high men lifted up in earthly things, whom God by breaking will crush small, that is, will bring them back from pride to himself through his beloved Son: and this he will crush by the spirit of fortitude, as a unicorn taken is crushed.

VERS. 7.-- The desert. (CASS., AUG.) The Jewish people, etc., as far as whence flows the living water.

VERS. 10.-- The Lord. He shews what is done for the Church now established.

I have given, he says, you power to tread down upon serpents. [Vulg. Lc 10:19 has calcandi supra serpentes, "to tread upon serpents"] But as it is unheard of that stags should strike every kind of wild beast with the horn; so that the Apostles, unlettered, should refute all philosophy.

883AA flood. (CASS.) The waters of baptism, which purges the crimes of the world.

VERS. 1.-- A psalm of a canticle, at the dedic. (AUG.) Above, concerning the finishing of the tabernacle in a time of war: but this is a psalm of gladness, because the house is dedicated, that is, made firm, which shall abide in eternal peace: the body being made new, not only Christ's but also the whole Church's. The whole Christ speaks in this psalm, because some things belong to the head, some to the body, some to both.

(ID.) The psalm is briefly of the passion and the resurrection: that the passion may not terrify those whom the hope of the resurrection gladdens.

The house of David. (CASS.) The whole Christ is the bridegroom, etc., 883Bas far as the second state, the state to come, when there is rest in it.

(CASS.) First he treats of his own dedication: and bids the saints who hope for the same to utter praises.

VERS. 3.-- O Lord my God, I have cried to thee, etc. (AUG.) Christ, etc., as far as but not in the dedication.

VERS. 4.-- Into the pit. (HIER.) That is, out of the pit of hell, where the souls of sinners are, lest, like them, I should fall headlong into death.

VERS. 5.-- Confess ye, etc. (AUG.) Because out of his own goodness and holiness, not ours, he was mindful of us.

VERS. 6.-- For wrath. (ID.) That is, vengeance, by which he avenged upon us the first sin, which by death you have 883Cloosed.

At evening. (ID.) Because wrath, etc., as far as that is, in the time of grace after the time before the law and under the law.

(HIER.) At evening. Because, when the Lord had suffered and been buried, the Apostles and the women continued in weeping and groaning. And in the morning gladness. Because coming to the sepulchre in the morning they received from the Angels the glory of the resurrection. Weeping. (CASS.) It shall abide for men who look toward the evening, at which Adam turned aside and went out from paradise: but there shall be gladness for those who look toward the morning, at which Christ rose again.

VERS. 7.-- But I. How he acted before the dedication and deserved it. (AUG., CASS.) He acts at evening. But I, while abundance was mine in paradise, 883Dsaid: I shall not be moved from this good, believing the devil who said: Thou shalt not die the death (Gen. III) [Vulg. Gn 3:4 has the plural and a stronger negative, "ye shall by no means die the death"]. But, O Lord, in thy will thou hast given strength to my beauty; which is, I was good and strong not of myself, but of thee. And that thou mightest show it: Thou hast turned away thy face, that is, thou hast sent me forth out of paradise: but now, set here, I will cry to thee, etc.

VERS. 8.-- Thou hast turned away. (CASS.) God turned away his face from Christ, by exposing him to the passion and to death; and thus Christ was troubled: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. (Matth. XVI.) Troubled. (AUG.) Calling to mind that time of trouble and of misery, and set in it, I hear the voice of the head who is to die for me, saying: To thee, O Lord, will I cry.

884AVERS. 10.-- What profit is there in my blood. (ID.) He shows the necessity by which he does not suffer him to go down into corruption. Whilst I go down into corruption. For if I do not rise again at once, and the body is corrupted, I shall announce to no one, I shall gain no one. Confession is twofold, let us never be without it: when it is ill with us in tribulations, let us confess our sins; when it is well, let us confess praise to God in the exultation of justice.

VERS. 11.-- The Lord hath heard. (CASS.) He treats of how he received it, namely the dedication. He said: I will cry, I will beseech, but the Lord heard me beseeching.

VERS. 12.-- Thou hast cut my sackcloth. (ID.) Sackcloth is a rough garment, granted for the use of labour or in a time of 884Bsadness, as to the Ninivites; that is, human flesh, which was rent by dying: and there came forth the corn of the glorious resurrection, or of the godhead. Or else, the penalty of sin, which being destroyed in the resurrection, the godhead before hidden was brought forth: just as what the sack conceals whole, it opens when rent. (AUG.) Sackcloth of goats or of kids is mortality, which Christ drew or took from sinners; whence: Whilst they were troublesome to me, I was clothed with haircloth (Psal. XXXIV), that they might not see what was within.

VERS. 13.-- I shall not be pricked. (ID.) I shall not now die unto the end. O Lord God, I will confess to thee for ever. What is: I will confess to thee for ever? For ever I will praise thee.

884CVERS. 1.-- Unto the end, a psalm. (AUG.) Ecstasy is here taken as the dread of a people troubled by the persecution of all the nations and by the failing of faith throughout the world.

(CASS.) Against dread, hope and prayer are set first, etc., as far as: They shall be two in one flesh (Gen. II), therefore in one voice also. (AUG.) The Redeemer speaks first, then the redeemed, giving thanks. Then, at length concerning the disturbance, the voice of the Prophet is put in near the end, and at the end. Here is described the humbling of Christ and of the martyrs: whence follows the exaltation.

VERS. 2.-- In thee, O Lord, have I hoped, etc. (ID.) There is an eternal confusion, from which he asks to be delivered: and there is a temporal one, for an hour, namely the kind that profits.

VERS. 3.-- Make haste. (ID.) In the things to be done, in the 884Dsouls to be loosed and the like, that thou mayest rescue me on the third day and not defer it to the common resurrection; and that this may be, be thou to me a protector as great as it befits God to be. Be thou to me. He said: Give justice, etc., as far as he affirms the deliverance.

VERS. 5.-- Thou wilt bring out. (CASS.) From death to the things above, so that the counsels of the Jews may be in vain. Out of the snare which they have hidden. (AUG.) The devil tempts by two gates, etc., as far as whence: Thou wilt bring me out of the snare.

VERS. 6.-- Into thy hands. (CASS.) Note that he speaks here who uttered these same words in the passion. (AUG.) Into thy hands. From these words which he said on the cross, he gives notice that he has spoken in this psalm.

VERS. 8.-- But I, in the Lord, etc. (CASS.) Of 885Ajoy, because he hopes in the Lord, who hates the vain. I will exult and be glad. To exult is to rejoice with great eagerness of soul: to be glad, with a tempered affection. My humility. He takes it for weakness, and for the very virtue of humility. From necessities. (AUG.) Necessities are unbounded, etc., as far as and fully in the world to come.

VERS. 9, 10.-- In a spacious place. (CASS.) The spacious place of going freely to the fatherland of the virtues is charity: but because the flesh is weak and evils press: Have mercy on me, O Lord. Now the dread is recounted, that is, how many and how great are the things that disturb, against which is the prayer, I am troubled. (AUG.) Since he said before: Thou hast set my feet in a spacious place, etc. But for some the place is spacious, out of the thanksgiving of deliverance; for others, out of tribulation, it is a narrow strait. Troubled. He is angry 885Bfor the sins of the chaff, etc., as far as for the life of the perfect is the advancement of others. In anger the eye. In the anger of the persecutors, etc., as far as that God may be sought from every degree. (CASS.) Or the understanding is disturbed and the mind confounded, etc., as far as neither in mind nor in body can there be any presumption of man. (AUG.) Anger through vice blinds the eye of the mind; anger through zeal troubles it: because this too, the mind being shaken, scatters contemplation, which is not except with an unquiet mind; but thereafter, after a little, it profits the more toward seeing.

VERS. 11.-- In poverty. (ID.) Or in want. I lack health of body, and the torments are not spared. I lack release, and death is spared; and in this my confidence has been weakened.

885CVERS. 12.-- Above all my enemies. (ID.) They live worse than the pagans and the Jews, etc., as far as for whom even their acquaintance are afraid, lest all be such. (CASS.) Or, among all my enemies, or, held in greater reproach than those who are worthy of it; and to my neighbours, to kinsfolk, or to those about to believe; and to my acquaintance, to those of the household.

VERS. 13.-- They that saw me without. (HIER.) Without, Christ, that is, those who thought him a mere man. I am forgotten as one dead from the heart. (CASS.) Or, I have fallen out of their heart, like a dead man whose memory is buried with his body, of whose restoration there is despair. A vessel that is destroyed, Jesus dead is thought fit to be cast away.

VERS. 14.-- The blame of many. (AUG.) 885DThey are blamed, etc., as far as not any man. Round about. In that while they assembled together. (CASS.) Of errors, etc., as far as that is, by the appetite of temporal things.

VERS. 16.-- My lots. (ID.) Or, the times of life. (AUG.) Because we live or die when thou wilt: therefore deliver. Although the order of election is with thee, just and hidden, yet I, etc., as far as which, without merits, chooses whom it will.

VERS. 17.-- Illumine. (CASS.) Make thy good will manifest upon me, that as they despair of the dying, so they may have confidence in the rising. (AUG.) Illumine. Let it appear who belongs to thee, since now there is confusion; whence elsewhere: Distinguish my cause (Psal. XLI); yet 886Alest he seem to justify himself, he adds: Save me in mercy, not in my own justice.

VERS. 18.-- I have called upon. (ID.) Thou callest upon God when thou callest him into thyself, and when thou invitest him into the house of thy heart.

VERS. 19.-- Let them be made dumb. (CASS.) Which here are talkative, while they do not fear the judgment. Dumb in punishments, in hell.

Which speak. He fitly sets iniquity over against the just man.

In pride and in abuse. (CASS.) Because the creature is against the Creator, and by a perverse use of the benefits of God, who, besides all else, came for their sake.

VERS. 20.-- How great. (CASS.) Which are the goods of God against the evils aforesaid, and they lighten those very evils. (AUG.) Seeing these things and marvelling, the Prophet cries out, etc., as far as but in the world to come it will lie open.

886B--VERS. 21. From the disturbance. (AUG.) That he may now suffer no human disturbance, even those who are now in tribulation, entering with the mind to the face of God, are not troubled. Thou shalt protect. (CASS.) Lest the promise only of what is to come should trouble them, he adds this: thou shalt protect, that they be not harmed.

VERS. 22.-- Blessed. (ID.) As if to say, what more? He concludes the fullness of the benefit with praise, comparing it to his own feebleness. And it is the Prophet that speaks, or the faithful people. He hath made wonderful. (AUG.) The Spirit being sent, he filled the whole world, etc., as far as whence: Thy name is ointment poured out. [Vulg. Ct 1:2 has oil, not ointment, and no verb: "oil poured out is thy name"] (CASS.) Or else, God the Father made his mercy wonderful, etc., as far as according to that saying: He rested in the heart of the earth.

VERS. 23.-- I said in my excess. (AUG.) A figure of our fear, etc., as far as: Therefore thou hast heard the voice of my 886Cprayer. (AUG.) In the excess of my mind. Either, his mind being caught up, he saw a height from which he feels himself cast very far off: or, he went out from reason by fearing. From the face of thy eyes. If I were in thy face, etc., as far as but I accused my own heart.

VERS. 24.-- O love the Lord, all ye, etc. (CASS.) An oratorical or hortatory conclusion, for the obtaining of the things aforesaid. (AUG.) Having experienced the things aforesaid, he now exhorts us; as if to say: I was in tribulation, I feared, I cried out, I was not confounded: so you also. His saints, whose part it is to love God, because they do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world; the friend of this world is set down as the enemy of God. Learn therefore not to love the world, that thou mayest learn to love God: turn away, that thou mayest be converted; pour out, that thou mayest be filled. The Lord will require, etc. Even here sometimes, 886Dif he did this to none, the divine providence would not seem to be watchful, if to all, the divine patience would not be preserved.

Abundantly to them that do. Those who do not quickly repent.

Pride. For every vice, because it is the root of all.

VERS. 25.-- Do ye manfully, etc. The force of the whole psalm, that the frailty of the flesh may not fear so many evils of the world.

The understanding of David. [Vulg. Ps 31:1 heads the psalm with the dative, "to David himself, understanding"] (AUG.) A psalm concerning the grace by which we are Christians, as the Apostle says (Rom. IV). This psalm therefore begins with pardon, treating against the vice of men who do not know their sins or else defend them, and who boast of their merits. (CASS.) Against the vice of men, then, 887Athis psalm is set, etc., as far as he strengthens those who stand in it.

VERS. 1.-- Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, etc. (AUG.) Not those in whom he finds no sin, but those to whom he forgives it. Iniquities. He means the tinder of sin, namely concupiscence, etc., as far as but that sin may be no more. (HIERON.) Iniquities, before faith and baptism: sin, after faith and baptism.

VERS. 2.-- Blessed is the man. (HIERON.) To whom God forgives, for not of himself. He covers it, that it be not revealed in the judgment; and so it will not be imputed unto punishment. There is no guile in him that accuses himself: he holds in the heart what he confesses here with the mouth.

Blessed: because formerly, not confessing to God, I came into sin, while I cried out, if I did any good.

VERS. 3.-- I was silent. (AUG.) He who will not confess 887Bhis sins labours without cause in the defence of sins: and since in this he also boasts of his merits, his strength fails the more. (CASS.) Blessed is he to whom he hath not imputed. To some, who have grievous sins, God imputes them; to others he does not impute them, through mercy, even though they have some — namely to those who do not proclaim themselves just when they are evil, but acknowledging themselves make satisfaction. This I now profess, but formerly: Because I was silent, etc. (AUG.) Or, I was silent, as to sin with my voice, while I cried out all the day: while the penalty of sin, or an inward blinding, showed me a sinner, or while my evil life cried out, though I was silent, whether I had done any good.

While I cried out all the day, etc. Although a man be not conscious to himself of anything, yet he is not just: for who understands his offences? Whence: There is a just man that perisheth in his own justice. And the Apostle: I am conscious to myself of nothing, etc.

887CVERS. 4.-- The thorn is fastened in. (CASS.) The thorn, which lifts up the whole body, that is, pride. (AUG.) Likewise misery, etc., as far as: in the hands of a drunken man.

VERS. 5.-- My sin. Diapsalma. Confession, whence pardon, as above the growing old from governance. I have made known. (CASS.) For I said before, etc., as far as and God hears.

VERS. 6.-- For this shall he pray. (ID.) Diapsalma. Commending repentance, he says it is common to all the saints; which sundry sects reject, against whom he flees for refuge to God. (AUG.) For this. Therefore every saint prays, because thou hast forgiven, otherwise he would not be a saint. In the time, etc. It is the time of grace, the law, pressing and convicting the guilty, compelled them to cry out, grace heals. But yet in the flood, etc. (AUG.) Although the saint pray, 887Detc., as far as the saint will pray, saying: Thou art a refuge. To him. That is, to God, for he changes the person, as often. They do not draw near who say that fate makes them sin, or fortune, which rules all things, or the people of darkness, which rebels against God.

VERS. 8.-- I will give thee understanding. (ID.) Diapsalma. It is answered to the penitent: I will give thee understanding, etc. Behold a psalm of understanding, lest the suppliant be thought neglected, with God for witness. Thou, deliver. (CASS.) Thou who hast promised, I will give thee understanding. Or Christ answers the penitent: A glad end, God gives understanding: whence he exhorts others to the same.

VERS. 9.-- Become ye not as the horse and the mule, etc. (AUG.) Having received understanding, this penitent turns himself 888Ato the proud who defend their sins: therefore you, whom I invite, etc. The horse, the untamed Gentile; the mule, the Jew slow to believe. (CASS.) The horse, without discernment of its riders; the mule, takes any burdens whatever, etc., as far as that is, boasting of one's own strength. Their jaws. Or, the jaws with which they chew, that is, give victuals more sparingly, that being compelled by necessity they may return. (AUG.) Or, thou wilt break them here, and in the world to come there will be many scourges. Or: Become ye not as the horse, because there are many scourges here and in the world to come. Who come not near to thee. (CASS.) For there are those who, if they sin through the weakness of the flesh, do not withdraw from devout prayers.

VERS. 10.-- Many are the scourges of the sinner, etc. (AUG.) After the bridle, scourges are added for taming, lest he be of those unpunished ones to whom a roving licence 888Bof their own way is now given: so this man above said that he was tamed.

Unto the end. [Vulg. Ps 32:1 heads this psalm as a psalm of David, with no such title] (CASS.) Here the prophet enumerates the power and the works of God, and so invites to the praise of God; first he admonishes the just and the upright to praise, because we cannot exult in him save by praising: praise together, he says, becomes the upright.

VERS. 1.-- Exult ye, etc. (AUG.) The crooked man praises God when it is well with him; he blasphemes when it is ill: the upright man always, like Job.

VERS. 2.-- On the harp. (ID.) It sounds from below, and is of the earth, whence we may praise, that is, prosperity and adversity, which are ours from him. On the psaltery. When thou attendest to the higher things which he has given thee, the heavenly doctrine. 888CBy the harp the flesh is understood, by the psaltery charity: to which the ten precepts of the law belong: three in the first table toward God, seven in the second toward the neighbour.

VERS. 3.-- Sing ye to him, etc. As if to say, what more shall I say? Be glad especially over the incarnation. A new canticle. (CASS.) Because it does not suffice, unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees (Matth. V).

Sing ye a new canticle. Of the incarnation, over which the world exults, of which the Angels sang.

VERS. 4.-- For it is right. He has set out the manner of praise: now, why is he to be praised? And all his works. (AUG.) Lest anyone think that he has come to faith by merits, since in faith are all the works which God loves, that is, 888Drewards, (ID.) because he does not work save in the faithful; whence: Thy faith hath made thee whole (Matth. X). Or, all works are right, etc., as far as because he remains wicked, and the more wicked for this, that he sees the just man favour him.

In faith. As if in outward things, if a man has been faithful for the sake of justice, He will add inward faith, whom not knowing he feared; whence: who will not give him the things that are his own, who was faithful in another's? (AUG.) God is faithful in giving to man what he promised: man is faithful in believing him that promises, and by the promise God is our debtor.

VERS. 5.-- The earth. (ID.) The Church everywhere upon the earth.

VERS. 6.-- By the word. That is, by the wisdom of God the Father. 889AThe heavens. The Apostles were fully instructed, by conversing with him even bodily: and afterward all their power, once had, was strengthened by the Spirit of the Son, through the heavens made firm he gathers and consolidates men into the unity of faith, hope and charity. The bottle, the Church, in which is dead flesh. Even the depths, that is, those deep in the darkness of vices, he sets among those who are a treasure, whence wisdom enriches others. (AUG.) The earth. The heavens do not need mercy, etc., as far as which he works. Their power. Since they were among wolves, etc., as far as licence.

VERS. 7.-- As in a bottle. (CASS.) According to the letter: as he shuts in the sea by its shores, so he shuts within the Church the wavering peoples; and in the treasures of his wisdom he places the deep heights, that he may prove who searches the Scriptures with a zeal for godliness.

889BVERS. 8.-- Let all the earth fear. (ID.) The Church out of the sea, etc., as far as but let the earth fear the Lord. Let it fear — nay rather, let them be moved by the hand of mercy out of the likeness of one asleep. By him, because he himself created it: and therefore he governs it profitably, because something is moved by the devil also, but what is moved by God is moved profitably, therefore by him. Let them be moved. (AUG.) Not by the terrors of men, etc., as far as power not save from God.

VERS. 9.-- He spoke and they were made. He notes creation and formation together. He commanded the re-creation.

VERS. 10.-- He scatters the counsels. (CASS.) That the counsels against himself, as those of the Jews, and against his own, may have no effect. Of the Gentiles. When he destroyed idolatry. Of the peoples. Of the Jews, whose will, though fulfilled, was yet reproved by the resurrection. Of the princes. Of tyrants 889Cor of demons.

VERS. 11.-- But the counsel of the Lord, etc. (ID.) The secret of the incarnation, in which he took counsel for man.

Standeth for ever. Because it is unto the obtaining of eternal salvation for us.

The thoughts. Predestination, in which all things are laid up, which also so abide as they were foreseen.

VERS. 12.-- Blessed is the nation. (CASS.) He calls him blessed who has come to the worship of God: which happens in Christian times, in which the Gentiles are converted, these are the just and the upright whom praise becomes. (AUG.) All blessedness is in the mind, etc., as far as blessed is the people that has God for its possessor.

VERS. 13.-- From heaven. (AUG.) From the man Christ. He looked forth in the coming of the Son and saw mercifully, 889Dnot the sins, (CASS.) from which he turns away his face; but he saw all the children of men, that is, all who wish to be born again unto a new life. (AUG.) How did he choose? etc., as far as he inspired every good will.

VERS. 15.-- He hath fashioned. (AUG.) He formed them with the hand of grace. Severally, giving to single ones certain single things. (HIER.) Whence nevertheless the unity of the body, that is, of the Church, may come to be. Severally, that is, not out of Adam, as some say that a soul comes from a soul, and he knows them all at once, and all their acts.

VERS. 16.-- The king is not saved. Thus are the just made, but neither, once made, are they saved by their own strength. Not only spiritual things are from God, but outward things also. (HIER.) No one has anything except from him, because neither the powerful, like a king, nor the strong, 890Aetc., as far as even if he be in great abundance of strength.

VERS. 17.-- The horse is deceitful. (AUG.) An animal in whose swiftness or strength trust is put, figuratively, any greatness of the world whereof men are proud: but the higher thou art lifted up upon it, the heavier thou fallest. (CASS.) Or, the horse is the body of a man, however comely and well formed, yet it is deceitful for bodily health, and for spiritual. (AUG.) Or, the horse is worldly happiness, which carries men, and while it hurries too much, the horse falls and destroys its rider. The horse, human wisdom. A giant, someone proud, lifting himself up against God.

VERS. 18.-- Behold the eyes. In his own in strength no one is saved, but: Behold whence salvation is, the eyes, etc. The eyes, 890Bthe regard of the godhead, which will protect them. Them that fear him. (CASS.) To fear the Lord and always to hope are joined together.

VERS. 19.-- That he may deliver, etc. (ID.) These are the two desires of the faithful man: that in the judgment he may be snatched from death, and that here he may be fed with spiritual things, where there is want of them.

VERS. 20.-- Our soul waiteth for the Lord. What he thinks of the things aforesaid, as it were a conclusion.

VERS. 21.-- For in him. (AUG.) Because to those who were absent he sent his name through faith.

We have hoped. That we shall come to God, not by our own merits. (CASS.) Because in him — lest anyone murmur about patience — he adds the gift, namely that he is glad here in the Lord. And we hope in the name of Christ, whom the Prophet, glad and patient, awaited as one to come: We have hoped. 890CIt notes a continuous time, because it is not lawful to leave off, whence the weary soul can always be refreshed.

Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, etc. He desires that the incarnation be accomplished, that he may be able to be perfect. In thee. He says this to the end that every superstition and depravity be shut out.

VERS. 1.-- A psalm of David. [Vulg. Ps 33:1 heads the psalm with the dative alone, "to David," and names no psalm] (AUG.) Christ speaks, and in him the Christian: he teaches humility, while he commends the body and the blood. When he changed the countenance — Christ, that is, the sacrifice — before the Jews, who are the kingdom of his own father David, according to that saying: And the Lord shall give unto him the seat of David, the Church is the kingdom of the Father.

890DVERS. 2.-- I will bless. (CASS.) The second psalm through an imperfect alphabet, etc., as far as he is glorified together with him.

VERS. 3.-- In the Lord shall my soul be praised. (ID.) For his own praise is the preaching of his Lord, as a good servant glories in the good repute of his lord. The meek. Not the learned, not those who fast, because they are proud: but the meek, because they have temperance in all things. The meek, not being proud of their own understanding; not bearing the yoke of God after the manner of the untamed.

VERS. 4-6.-- O magnify the Lord. Spiritual grace does not wish to do alone what profits many; whence it calls others: Magnify, that it might draw those invited, 891Ait tells what goods came to it thereby: I sought the Lord. Out of all. It cannot be told piecemeal how great things he obtained who sought nothing other than God. Come ye. (CASS.) Now piecemeal he admonishes the saints concerning the new countenance. As if to say, Magnify: and if among the first, come ye into what is pleasant. Or, Magnify, and in what order? behold: Come ye by faith. (AUG.) Come ye by cleaving with faith, and by running with the two feet of a twin charity. (CASS.) The praises being set first, he exhorts to communion. Let them not be confounded. (AUG.) Whatever happens here to the just man, he does not blush, because he is always the higher with God: but the proud man blushes in adversities, because he has not drawn near to God.

VERS. 7.-- The poor man. (CASS.) This one is here the spiritual man, because he draws near and is enlightened, and shall not blush; because, 891Bwhen he cries out, he is freed from all the straits of the world at his death, when he now passes over to God.

VERS. 8.-- He shall send in an Angel. Come ye, [Vulg. Ps 33:8 has the nominative and no such object: "the angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him"] and as this poor man cried out and was heard, in the same way he shall send in an Angel, etc. (AUG.) He shall send in an Angel. Other interpreters have rendered it thus: The Angel of the Lord surroundeth in a ring them that fear him. An Angel from heaven, or a man, who is a minister of the will of God. Faulty codices have it. The Lord shall send in an Angel.

VERS. 9.-- Taste and see. Here openly of the sacrament which he bore in his hands. Taste the flesh and blood of Christ. The Lord is sweet. (ID.) And delightful: because he is life to him that takes him, driving away all troubles in the world to come, that is: Hope through this for eternal life. (CASS.) And because God is life, the flesh which he 891Cunited to himself is life-giving.

VERS. 10.-- All ye his saints. (CASS.) No one, however well deserving, shall leave off from this, let him not presume upon security. For. (AUG.) The Lord was feeding him that despised him, and he will forsake him that fears him. But he promises not superfluous things, but necessary ones. There is no want. Because even in the present they have as much as nature requires.

VERS. 11.-- The rich have wanted and have suffered hunger. (CASS.) Because they have not faith. They have suffered hunger, because they are not filled with the body of the Lord. For what have they who have not God? Or, the rich have wanted, that is, they shall lack the highest good, although they hunger, that is, desire. But those who seek with their whole zeal shall have without diminution the good which is every good.

891DVERS. 12.-- Come, children, hear me. Diapsalmus. The sacraments of the Church having been treated, he admonishes those who are outside, who take the first rudiments of faith, lest the name of fear be shuddered at, he adds: I will teach you, the sons, the fear of the Lord, as a useful thing.

(CASS.) Now he warns beginners also from what things they should abstain.

VERS. 13.-- To see good days. Because all confess that they wish it.

VERS. 14.-- Keep. (ID.) Note that he says the tongue is to be restrained first, since, when we wish to speak, we first move the lips, which the motions of the tongue soon follow. Keep thou who desirest life. Behold how they ought to fear.

892AVERS. 15.-- Turn away from evil. (CASS.) This avoids fault, etc., as far as otherwise he will not be received in the world to come.

VERS. 16.-- The eyes of the Lord, etc. (ID.) Of the retributions of the good and of the evil, lest in dangers the just man grow soft with any doubt.

The eyes of the Lord. Nor shouldst thou distrust out of thy weakness, because the eyes.

Unto the prayers. (ID.) The swiftness of hearing, since the hearer dwells in them.

VERS. 17.-- The memory. (AUG.) That not even the mention, etc., as far as which they have committed.

VERS. 19.-- The Lord is nigh. He delivered: for he is inclined to this, because he is nigh; or, there is an allusion to the crying out.

VERS. 20.-- Many are the tribulations of the just. As 892Balso in the New Testament, he is nigh, and he will save, which is necessary, because many are the tribulations. (CASS.) Many; from the devil, from envious men, and from oneself. He will deliver. (AUG.) Not bodily, but by giving them patience: or, he will deliver spiritually.

VERS. 21.-- The bones. (ID.) The virtues. And one, etc., that not even patience may perish.

VERS. 22.-- Most evil. (ID.) Not merely evil, although it end amid riches and perfumes and the lamentations of men, yet it is most evil, because in sins it drags down to hell.

That hate. Whose? Not of all, because they are sinners; but of those who hate the just one, who justifies, that is, Christ, through whom he that is not reconciled perishes: but he will redeem the souls, in respect of which the death is 892Cmost evil.

VERS. 1.-- Judge, O Lord. (CASS.) He begins from a prayer for both sides of the battle, with a recalling of the fault, and there was for each one what he deserves, showing how much he bore from his adversaries, and the punishments that are repaid to them for their iniquity.

VERS. 2.-- Arms and shield (HIER.) With arms he strikes the enemies, with the shield he protects us. The shield he calls elsewhere: of good will; the arms are we ourselves, because as we are armed by him, so he himself is armed from us. (AUG.) Or, the soul of Christ, which vanquished the enemies, which does nothing unless God fight on its behalf.

Take hold of arms. Make me to have arms, teaching, miracles. Shield. Steadfastness.

892DArise. Make me to use the things received.

VERS. 3.-- Pour out. Me, who am now in obscurity, make clear so evidently that thou mayest shut them in and convict them, that they may not have what to bark at: and speak to my soul in such wise that all may know that salvation is hers; against this, which they say: There is no salvation for him in his God (Psal.III.) The sword. (AUG.) The sword is the soul of the just man. When the just abound, the sword is poured out, while life flashes forth: whence the enemy is shut in, having nothing to speak ill of us. (ID.) It is a prophecy, not a wish, or this concerns those who are to be converted.

VERS 5.-- Let them be. (ID.) A prophecy: or in that manner in which God does it, by just judgment, not with a bitter mind. As dust before the face of the wind. (CASS.) Loosed 893Aby God, so that they do not even cleave to one another, they whom divine grace does not moisten.

VERS. 8.-- Let the snare which he knoweth not come upon him. (CASS.) Or in a good sense, the snare of truth, which the sinner knows not. And the net which he hath hidden. That is, the hidden death, namely of Christ. Let it lay hold on them. [Vulg. apprehendat eum, "lay hold on him," singular where Migne prints the plural (Ps 34:8)] Namely, that they be not left to their own crimes. And let him fall into the snare. A good one, by which they may be restrained from evils. Into that very one. That is, out of that very death. Into that very one. (AUG.) Not into another, but into the one which they stretched out. For there is no evil man who does not first hurt himself.

VERS. 9.-- But my soul shall rejoice. (CAS.) Having set forth the hope of good and the joy, he relates how malignantly it acts toward the kind one. In the Lord. (AUG.) Than whom nothing is sweeter: nor has he failed, who made all things: seek him therefore, 893Band in him thou shalt have all things.

VERS. 10.-- All my bones shall say. Carnal men have not the word of praise and confession, because things weak before thee are utterly silent; but strong things praise thee as great and tremble. (ID.) All the bones. All the strength of the mind, because another cannot say this, namely: O Lord, who? etc., as if none, because he alone delivered: The helpless out of the hand. (CASS., AUG.) The human race is helpless, because mortal; needy, because it seeks bread in sweat; poor, because, cast down from pure wisdom, it has a thin and shadowy reason.

VERS. 11.-- Unjust witnesses rising up. (CASS.) The calamities of man having been told, lest Christ himself should seem a stranger to them, he sets forth his passion. Which I knew not. (AUG.) They are sins, etc., as far as but not 893Cby committing them.

VERS. 12.-- They repaid. (ID.) When I had brought fruitfulness, they repaid barrenness: I life, they repaid death; I honors, they insults; I medicine, they wounds. Barrenness. In the fig tree the Lord cursed, where, when he sought fruit, he found none, but leaves: so in the Synagogue, words and not deeds; whence: Thou that preachest that men should not steal, thou stealest.

VERS. 13.-- With haircloth. (ID.) The flesh, a haircloth, on account of the likeness of the flesh of sin. My prayer. (CASS.) As he said: Your peace shall return to you (Matth. X); so his prayer, not accepted by the Jews, returned to him. In my bosom. (AUG.) The bosom is a secret place, in which we are commanded to pray. 893DBut the secret place of Christ is his divinity, to which his humanity prays.

VERS. 14.-- As a neighbor and as a brother, etc. Case for case. As it were: as concerning our neighbor and brother, so I was well pleased, that is, I rejoiced in the kinship of those who were persecuting me. Behold grace for hatred, a benefit for injury. (AUG.) As a neighbor. It befits one drawing near to God to say this, and one rejoicing, who pleases God, as to a brother and a neighbor.

As one mourning. (CASS.) Other translators, as a mother mourning her son, I was bowed down over them. As one mourning. Though I did all these things, yet they would not be converted; and yet, though they would not be converted, so was I humbled, that is, I grieved, as a father mourning a son.

894AVERS. 15.-- And against, etc. When I am piously saddened, the Jews impiously rejoice.

VERS. 16.-- They were scattered. (CASS.) Loosed, when the miracles had been seen at the passion, and yet not, for their hardness, pricked to the heart.

Or, scattered through the whole world: nor yet were they pricked to the heart, that is, did not repent. Or, scattered, that is, divided: some say that he is good, others not.

They tempted me. (AUG.) The things done to the head on the cross are done everywhere to the body. They gnashed. It is the way of savagery, when reason fails, to gnash with the teeth: and what it wills, it shows in silence. In prayer he ends these things:

VERS. 17.-- Lord, when wilt thou look. (ID.) When shall we see vengeance upon those who insult us. My only one. (CASS.) The only one is the soul of Christ, 894Bwhich alone is free from sin.

VERS. 18.-- I will confess to thee. (AUG.) Now from the fruit he sends before the confession of the whole Church: thence he prays, with a recalling of the fault, for the confounding of the persecutors and the exultation of the faithful.

VERS. 19.-- Let them not rejoice over me. (ID.) He repeats concerning the passion, that he may add concerning their punishment. They wink. (CASS.) Because by turns they warn one another with silent nods, to deceive and to tempt.

VERS. 20.-- Speaking. (CASS.) That is, while they were speaking peaceably. In wrath. That is, destructively. For a man plots guile who does not wish to kill: but these were plotting thus, because they wished to slay.

VERS. 21.-- And they have opened wide. (ID.) First winking, then plotting guiles, they opened wide their mouth, crying out death with free 894Cand open voice: Crucify, crucify.

VERS. 22.-- Thou hast seen, O Lord. (ID.) This is said when we wish to call something back to memory: thou hast seen that they are cruel, be not silent, delay not to give sentence.

VERS. 23.-- Attend. (ID.) By restoring the name above every name, that I, undeservedly stretched out. In my cause. (Ibid.) The punishment of a like crime, but not the cause: for it is not the punishment that makes a martyr, but the cause.

VERS. 24.-- According to thy justice, O Lord God. (ID.) Which is in himself, or which he gave to him. Let them not rejoice over me. super gaudeant (CASS.) Let them rather weep than rejoice at having fulfilled evils.

894DVERS. 25.-- We devour. (AUG.) Those who are incorporated are devoured.

VERS. 26.-- Let them blush and stand in awe together. (CASS.) Let them rather blush at the glorification of the resurrection, and stand in awe, that is, fear the punishments. Let them blush. He who blushes condemns his own acts by his own estimation: but he can blush who has not reverence; therefore he adds: reverence, that he may mark conversion. Reverence is the fear of the Lord with love. Let them be clothed with confusion and reverence. With shame, as with the haircloth of penitence and a mourning garment. Shame, against the boldness which they had in their raging; reverence, against the shamelessness of falsehood, that by these they may cure those.

VERS. 27.-- Let them rejoice and be glad. (ID.) In great hope is the end of the faithful, as others are concerning the passion. Let them rejoice and be glad. Those say, Well done, to their own soul, from which 895Agladness flees, these not to their own soul, but they turn their vows to God, and place their gladness in his praises, not in themselves, which gladness is perpetual.

VERS. 28.-- And my tongue shall meditate thy justice. (AUG.) Let this be done, and my preachers out of zeal will announce thee just, who hast fulfilled thy promises, and all things universally in which thou art to be praised. (CASS.) My tongue. His tongue meditated justice, when it preached the New Testament to the peoples.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end, a word. [Vulg. Ps 35:1 In finem. Servo Domini ipsi David., "to the servant of the Lord, to David himself"] (CASS.) He treats here of the error of certain men, etc., as far as which nevertheless hangs over all.

There is no fear before the eyes: because there is guile, that is, because 895Bhe obeys the flesh and not God, though reason suggests otherwise, namely that God sees even if no other does: or, that the unjust man himself, what he sees, knows from God, so that it may be found by that same one that his own iniquity is to be held in hatred with God and with all men.

(ID.) First, he asserts that evils are from man.

VERS. 2.-- The unjust hath said, etc. (CASS.) There are two kinds of sinners: because either through the weakness of the flesh they cannot follow the commands of the law; or they are blasphemers who sin freely, as though God cared not for this; whence it is: He hath said, etc. (AUG.) A description of the wicked man. There is no fear of God. (CAS.) Because guile was unwilling to study the law, by which it might be excused through ignorance.

VERS. 3.-- For he hath done deceitfully. (AUG.) Many search out their iniquities, etc., as far as nor are they excused for 895Cignorance.

VERS. 4.-- The words. (ID). He shows the iniquity, etc., as far as that he might act well.

VERS. 5.-- On his bed. That is, in the heart, in which evil works please them; and this is, he hath set himself in every way, with zeal and with lingering: he found indeed, and knew them to be evil, but nevertheless he did not hate them. He was unwilling. (AUG.) Not that he could not; he acts more perniciously against himself who does not will what he can. For there are certain things which men cannot understand even if they will, as: In the beginning was the Word, and yet, that they might act well, they can understand. On his own bed. (ID.) That is, in the heart, where the Lord commanded us to pray with the door shut, etc., as far as wisdom, namely of the flesh, which is an enemy to God.

VERS. 6.-- O Lord, in heaven. (Cass.) Good things are from God 895Dthrough mercy. As if he should say: Evils are from man, but goods from mercy. O Lord, in those who are heaven, that is, who know hidden things, is thy mercy: and that they themselves are clouds, is from thee. (AUG.) Or in heaven, that is, mercy, etc., as far as but announces by sending forth his truth.

Even to the clouds. That is, the preachers, through whom God thunders in announcing, flashes in miracles, rains in teachings. Who are also mountains, whom the sun first clothes with light, which afterward, from them and yet not by them, descends to the lowest of the valleys: for they are ministers of teaching, but God enlightens.

VERS. 7.-- Thy judgments. (AUG.) That thou hast mercy on these, and blindest those; they are utterly searchable to none: 896Ayet thou savest both, these bodily only, those spiritually as well, wherein is great mercy.

VERS. 8.-- Men, etc. He shows that temporal things also are from God.

VERS. 9.-- They shall be inebriated. (ID.) The thing cannot be expressed, but by this likeness he intimates that, being full, they lose their mind, so that they no longer recognize their own fathers, sons, and other friends. Or, then they are drunk in reality, who now hope. With the torrent. As if: There shall be a rush of grace and mercy to inebriate them. (ID.) With the torrent. Not that the beatitude should be passing, but plentiful. Or, thy will breaks all obstacles in man. Or, the wisdom of Christ is a torrent, because it is sudden and swift.

VERS. 10.-- For with thee is the fountain of life. (CAS.) With thee, O Christ, is the fountain, that is, the beginning of every good; 896Band in thy light, because through his preaching we see the light of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, and therefore hold forth, that in this world one may go more safely.

(CASS.) The third psalm, an imperfection of the alphabet: wholly concerning the correction of morals.

VERS. 1.-- A psalm of David. [Vulg. Ps 36:1 Psalmus ipsi David., "a psalm for David himself"] This psalm is as it were the garment of Christ, which covers his whole body with precepts, and protects it from adversities, and cherishes it as in the bosom of counsel. It is a draught against those who murmur at the flowering of the wicked and the toil of the good, as though all things were done by chance, so that, spurning God, they cleave to the world. The Church therefore admonishes that no one imitate the malignant, but that whatever good is hoped for be sought from the Lord, who gives things profitable and 896Ceternal.

VERS. 2.-- The herbs of the grasses. (AUG.) It is now winter, etc., as far as because it hath not yet appeared what we shall be.

(AUG., CASS.) Herbs not of gardens, but of grasses, that is, the meanest, which spring up of themselves through the fields. Hay, the noble, who prosper easily; herbs, the middling: but both those quickly wither and these fall away.

VERS. 8.-- Cease. (AUG.) Anger is sudden, fury lasting; but both are to be forsaken, through which men sin. (CASS.) This is said to him who is still weak, etc., as far as by doing it he flourishes for a time.

VERS. 10.-- And yet a little while, etc. (AUG.) After this short life, etc., as far as nor did he feel the worm of a gnawing conscience.

896DVERS. 12.-- He shall watch, etc. (CASS.) It having been said that the good ought not to emulate the wicked, etc., as far as he strives to slay.

VERS. 13.-- But the Lord, etc. (ID.) So let us also, seeing that they are to perish, laugh even at those who are present, it is a great consolation.

VERS. 14.-- The sword, etc. (ID.) If he prevail neither by flatteries nor by threats, he proceeds to punishment. If he does not prosper so either, he lies in wait with guiles, when by speaking well he intends evil.

VERS. 16.-- Better is, etc. (ID.) A little before, concerning malice and endurance: here, concerning riches and poverty.

VERS. 17.-- But the Lord confirmeth, etc. (AUG.) Chiefly by the example of his cross. For the cross of Christ was ended 897Ain punishment, and abides in glory: for from the places of tortures it has passed to the brows of emperors.

VERS. 18.-- In the days of famine. (CASS.) That is, in this life, etc., as far as by how much the more they are lifted up, by so much the more quickly shall they fail like smoke.

VERS. 21.-- He shall borrow. (ID.) He hears the word of God, he does not repay it in works. And shall not pay. That is, he does not repay in works what he received by hearing. He sheweth mercy and shall repay, etc. Concerning those things which he receives, etc., as far as bounty follows.

VERS. 23.-- The steps. (ID.) Which of themselves are crooked, because we are born in sins. His way. (AUG.) The way of the earth is not hard, but is full of robbers: or, God shall will the way of man.

VERS. 25.-- I have been young, etc. (ID.) He treats here 897Bthat the just man is never forsaken, mingling the rewards of the good and the punishments of the wicked with exhortations set between. (AUG.) The Church speaks as one man, which in the first times was younger, at the end of the world grew old, in a plentiful old age, because she was spread through all nations. (ID.) I have been young. A boy in Abel; in the prophets and patriarchs a young man; in the time of the martyrs as it were an old man; at the end of the world as it were in decrepit age. (CASS.) Young, when I received the beginnings of the law in Adam; I grew old, when in an honorable age I received Christ at the last.

VERS. 26.-- All the day he sheweth mercy. Or, he speaks of almsgiving, which begins from mercy, and afterward opens the hand: or, of spiritual things.

VERS. 28.-- He loveth judgment and will not forsake 897Chis saints. (CASS.) Therefore: do thou also love, that thou mayest rejoice in thy good things.

VERS. 31.-- They shall be supplanted. (ID.) To supplant is to spread pits of ambush before the soles of the feet.

VERS. 33.-- But the Lord (ID.) The consolation of the just man. In his hands. (AUG.) Job's earth was delivered into the hands of the impious, that is, his flesh: but God brings forth his soul unconquered, that it may not yield.

When he shall be judged. (CASS.) Or, he does not permit the just man to be condemned when he is judged by the impious; or, for that impious man, namely to his own harm.

VERS. 34.-- And he shall exalt. (ID.) Because none but one exalted can dwell in heaven. Thou shalt see (ID.) What thou now believest; in two ways he marks the joys of the good; 897Dfirst, because then they shall feel in how great delights they are. Thence, because they shall see the punishments of the wicked, whence the beatitude of those set free from such evil is the more welcome.

VERS. 35.-- I have seen the wicked highly exalted. (ID.) Against this, etc., as far as from whom, being bound, the place of harming has been taken away.

VERS. 36.-- I passed by. The world, striving toward God by a better manner of life: and I saw that it could do nothing, since all those things are nothing in which man glories. I sought. I called back to memory: because the good then grieve the more over the impious, that they are separated from them, when they are changed for the better. The place. Their world is what shall also be dissolved. I passed by. (AUG.) He passes by who attends not to the present, 898Abut to the last things, etc., as far as he who has this virtue is set in the place of the blessed.

VERS. 37.-- The remnants. The good things which shall be left after this life, or a good memory after death.

VERS. 39.-- But the salvation of the just is from the Lord. All these things are for the just, yet the whole is from God, and he gathers it up summarily.

VERS. 1.-- A psalm of David, in the remembrance of the sabbath. (AUG., CASS.) That we may always have in memory the sin which we are utterly unable to flee, so that we may at least restrain ourselves from it, he here brings in the torment of penitence in many ways, so that he seems to set forth Job himself as an example to recruits, that they may embrace torments, less indeed than their deserts, by which we are freed from 898Beternal punishment. (AUG.) The sabbath is the rest of eternity, which he who is conscious of sin dreads to lose, and he who is grievously afflicted desires to have.

VERS. 2.-- Lord, rebuke me not in thy indignation. First, he seeks mercy through punishments summarily. Rebuke me. (CASS.) That the punishment may be from mercy unto correction, not from anger unto vengeance.

VERS. 3.-- The arrows. (AUG.) The vengeances which thou wast threatening to Adam, saying: In whatsoever day ye shall eat, ye shall die the death. [Vulg. Gn 2:17 in quocumque enim die comederis ex eo, morte morieris, "in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death," singular where Migne prints the plural] Because he ate, they are fixed in us also; and not for an hour, but thou hast confirmed them, that it may be even to the end of the world. (AUG., CASS.) For the arrows. He numbers the things he suffers, etc., as far as that which can lightly be hurt.

VERS. 4.-- There is no health, etc. (AUG., CASS.) From 898Cthe pressing of the vengeance put forth upon Adam. Or, he is terrified by the fear of the wrath to come, so that there is no health in his flesh: after the manner of a modest man, who is already afflicted by the scourges to come. Or, from the face of wrath, because I have foreseen the face of wrath, that is, what thou threatenest, that I may not see the wrath. There is no peace. A grievous sorrow reaches to the inward parts from the face of sins, because the holy man is afflicted with sins beyond the punishments of the body, thinking that he deserves heavier things. There is no health. (CASS.) Here he seeks mercy from the power of the judge, and from the weakness of the person. There is no peace in the bones. He takes the bones for the flesh. And he expounds what he had said, adding another thing: namely, from the face of sins.

VERS. 5.-- They are gone over. (AUG.) Or, they have lifted up, that is, because iniquity lifted up the head of the proud man against God, God weighed him down, as with a bundle, and pressed him 898Dthat he should not now be raised up.

VERS. 6.-- They are putrefied. (CASS.) A narration, in which the miseries are enumerated. My scars. (AUG.) Or my bruises; another reading, that is, my sins. He is not sound who has scars, which have putrefied and stink: that, turned away from them, we may adore the sabbath, and groan: Running with the bridegroom after the odor of the ointments.

VERS. 7.-- I am become miserable. (ID.) It having been said in what manner qualiliter the iniquities are gone over, he says how they are made heavy.

VERS. 8.-- For my loins. (CASS., AUG.) Not only do I sin by my own weakness, but also the devil, who afflicts the body and wearies the soul with empty imaginings; and through this there is again no health, as also 899Aabove through the arrows. (AUG.) The loins, or, the soul is filled, etc., as far as when we shall see the truth as it is.

VERS. 9.-- I roared from the groaning. (CASS., AUG.) The groaning is of the heart, the roaring of the voice: from a likeness of the beasts, to which he compares himself: that a stronger groaning may be shown: the virtue of patience, which breaks forth into a groan, not into words.

VERS. 10.-- Before thee is all. (CASS.) Such is it as deserves to be before thee, because he asks for sins. (AUG.) and therefore it is not hidden, but the groaning is heard, because it is godly, for the liberation of the soul: others God cares not for. My desire. (ID.) It is prayer, nor does he ever cease to pray who ceases not to love: charity is a cry.

899BVERS. 11.-- My heart is troubled. (CASS.) He expounds the sorrows of the mind, because the virtue of patience has left him. Troubled, because the mind has succumbed to its own suffering. The light, that is, reason lately disturbed, which he has not with him because of the huge troubles.

VERS. 12.-- My friends and my neighbors. (ID.) And in these two comforts human nature rejoices, but to this man they are a heaping up of suffering. (AUG.) My friends. Thus far he has confessed the things he suffers from himself within, etc., as far as and these things also befit anyone living among men.

VERS. 14.-- As one deaf they heard not [Vulg. Ps 37:14 audiebam, "I heard not"], and as one dumb not opening his mouth. (CASS.) Not opening it to the iniquity of those who counselled him, etc., as far as against 899Cthe sorrows of the body he roared.

VERS. 16.-- For in thee, O Lord, have I hoped, etc. (ID.) Because amid so many evils he hoped in the Lord, he affirms that he is to be heard in the recalling of his amendment. I have hoped. A saving medicine in evils, to hope, not to fail. In thee, O Lord, who changest sad things into glad.

VERS. 17.-- For I said: Lest at any time my enemies should rejoice over me. (AUG.) Likewise the head concerning the weak feet, though it be in heaven. It does not forsake that which it has on earth. While my feet are moved. (CASS.) If they are at any time moved by human weakness, the impious laugh at that whereof the godly grieve.

VERS. 18.-- I am ready. (ID.) Knowing that I have offended. 899DSorrow, because he has offended: the impious man defends himself; the just man is angry against himself.

VERS. 19.-- For my iniquity. (ID.) The two modes of perfect penitence, confession and amendment, through weeping, alms, and the like.

VERS. 20.-- They live. (AUG.) They enjoy the world, being established in worldly things, and daily they become more.

VERS. 22.-- Forsake me not. (ID.) Absolved from things past, professing God with thanksgiving to be the author of salvation, he joyfully cries out that he may not now be left. (CASS.) Because the offense is heavier after pardon. (AUG.) An exultant conclusion, that there may be a sure hope for those who imitate.

Depart not from me. How then is it said above: Why hast thou forsaken me? It is the voice of the old man who was crucified 900Awith him, but here he speaks in his own person.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. (AUG.) Because here it is concerning eternal blessedness, for which it is delightful to leap across, even if it be hard to the flesh. And thence he teaches to pass over from the world to God. But the leaper always draws upon himself, from his good repute, the envy of the wicked and their slander: whence he resolves to keep silence among the wicked, lest he say anything amiss. Idithun. (ID.) Leaping over them, that is, those who remain in the world. (CASS.) First, concerning the restraint of the tongue among blasphemers and slanderers: whence he also desires to know the end, where these things are not.

VERS. 2.-- I said: I will take heed to my ways, etc. (AUG., CASS.) This psalm admonishes, among blasphemers, 900Bthe wicked, and slanderers, restraint of the tongue, and the repressing of contentions and brawls: for this silence is very useful. (CASS.) I said: I deliberated in my heart: where wise men deliberate before they speak. Ways (HIER.) That is, actions and words. That I may not offend by foolish or idle things.

In my tongue. (AUG.) Not without cause is the tongue in the word: because it easily slips. I have set to my mouth. After I passed over earthly delights, etc., as far as teaching us to beware not to imitate this. (CASS.) I have set even to the point that I was dumb, etc., as far as who seeks an occasion of contention.

VERS. 3.-- From good things, and my sorrow, etc. (ID.) To be announced, etc., as far as that is, of those who leap over, I have spoken. (AUG.) Which is, unwillingly I kept silence from the wicked, 900Cetc., as far as and if the acts of one leaping over are anything.

VERS. 4.-- My heart grew hot within me. (AUG.) If the slothful man shall be condemned, etc., as far as he becomes a greedy steward.

VERS 5.-- I have spoken. (ID.) Not to a hearer who is to be instructed, but to God who hears, by whom I am heard within. And the number of my days. (HIER.) The number of the days which now are, is not truly for him who leaps over; but to him who clings it seems to be.

VERS. 6.-- Behold, measurable. (CASS.) As it were, the end being known, and the days which are, he attends to those things which he has left, and compares them one with another. And the substance, etc. (AUG.) He who sees that this substance is nothing, etc., as far as which shall be before thee.

900DVERS. 7.-- But yet. (CASS.) Seeing the coming of Christ, he returns to the weakness which he has among the virtues. (AUG.) Great are the things we have said and believe; but nevertheless that is not eternal, but all is vanity. And, desiring the eternal in place of mutability, he reproaches human life, to which he is subject, in what he says. Lest anyone think the saints strangers to temptations. Or, though the days be measurable, though there be substance, it is nothing: yet all is vanity in the rational creature, which according to divers men craves the whole creation. But yet. Although I gape after eternal things, etc., as far as whose conversation is in heaven. Every man. (AUG.) If he is evil, he is vain in worldly things; if he is good, since he wills to be with Christ, his life is vain.

901A-- But yet. (AUG.) Diapsalmus. How all are under vanity and chance; and thence he sets over against it that he waits for the Lord, and asks to be delivered. He passeth in an image. (ID.) Although he thus pursues vanity, etc., as far as because with misery and toil he craves earthly things. He layeth up treasure. (ID.) Out of the other vices the Prophet chose avarice, to show what he intends: for it is itself the root of all evils.

VERS. 8.-- Expectation. (ID.) Of the first coming, or of the second, etc., as far as not in our purses.

VERS. 9.-- Deliver me from all my iniquities. (CASS.) Not only from these, lest he roll back into those things which I leapt over, but from all altogether. For man is imperfect: because he has not received what he desires; perfect, who knows this very thing that is wanting to him.

901BVERS. 10.-- I was dumb. (ID.) Held in reproach, etc., as far as and it is necessary, because I have failed.

Remove thy scourges from me. (AUG.) Because thou hast made me, do not destroy me; only yield that I may be brought forth; not that I may be broken small

VERS. 11.-- With rebukes for iniquity. With which thou hast rebuked the human race: which nevertheless thou hast rebuked out of our own desert, on account of our iniquities, which rebukes are unto correction; for otherwise iniquity would remain uncorrected. Thou hast corrected man. (AUG.) There is a formless sorrow which does not amend: a formed one, which by its instructions supplies a form. And such a sorrow is a precept, that is, it holds the place and the image of a precept.

VERS. 12.-- And thou hast made the soul to waste away like a spider. (ID.) Dried up from the love of the virtues and of knowledge. 901CAs a spider weaves an empty web in the gathering of temporal things. Or, while it draws forth iniquity from itself like a spider, it dies by the voiding of its bowels. (CASS.) Or, the spider has a slender body, and stands not on the ground but on high, and weaves its webs by the voiding of its bowels: so the soul of one converted and afflicted forsakes earthly things, and, wasted away by the fear of God, accomplishes subtle works. But yet. (AUG., CASS.) Although he be rebuked, although they waste away, yet he is confounded by human weakness in various things, save he who contemplates God with a pure mind.

VERS. 14.-- Hear my prayer. (CASS.) Diapsalmus. A journey. He asks for himself the evils of the world to be at hand, and his sins to be forgiven, that he may go forth with a prosperous end. (ID.) But because I do not ask these things, etc., as far as mercy to be moved.

901DBe not silent, for I am a stranger. (AUG.) Already with thee, but still a lodger: because I am to pass hence to eternal things, where I shall not be a lodger. A stranger with thee. (CASS.) Not received in the city of the devil, but in thine, translated from Babylon to Jerusalem. As all my fathers. Lest anyone be thought excepted from this condition. A stranger. I forsake my own kingdom for thine. A pilgrim. Not yet choosing a seat for myself here.

Forgive me. (ID.) Here he asks that it be forgiven him, so that being sure he may come to the judgment.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end, a psalm. (CASS.) First he brings in the Church as having awaited the Lord, and as having received 902Ahim, and from him the New Testament, which many also are to follow: whence he strikes at all superstitions and invites to the wonders of God.

(ID.) Here Christ, out of his members.

VERS. 2.-- Waiting I have waited. (ID.) He waits, and is ungrateful: but waiting he waits. (AUG.) Authority from the ancients, in Abraham and the rest, etc., as far as who is ours by worship, not of others.

The Lord. (ID.) Not a man, who can deceive and be deceived, and who is in need together with me. He gave heed. (ID.) To me, that he might profit me: not me, as the wicked also.

VERS. 3.-- The pit. (ID.) The darkness of iniquities, that is, of unbelief and of ignorance, etc., as far as: to a rock against mire. (HIER.) But in the pit and in the mire, the Gentiles worshipping idols: or, all who love earthly things.

902BVERS. 4.-- A song. (HIER.) Not a shameful one, not a theatrical one, but through the New Testament. They shall see. (CASS.) The wonders wrought in the time of the incarnation. (AUG.) They shall see: this which he first said of those before, many later peoples shall see.

VERS. 5.-- A name. (ID.) Which is Saviour. As if: Blessed, etc., who hopes not for temporal things from him, but for salvation, which his name indicates. In the Hebrew genitives are often doubled in this manner: or, blessed is he to whom the name belongs, that is, by whom is the praise of God, that from him alone he may believe salvation to be, whence also is his hope. Madnesses. (CASS.) Idols, which deceive away from the truth: or, madnesses, in deceitful spectacles. Therefore in the plural, that it may be taken of them all. These things are false, but thy wonderful works, heaven, earth, dashes superstitions to pieces.

902CVERS. 6.-- Thy wonders. (AUG.) Peter walking upon the waters in a sign, not in the world, that is, in the fruits of the world. (AUG.) Salvation is truthful, madness lying; it is not what it is thought to be. (HIER.) Earthly things are vain, madnesses, angers and brawls, etc.

There is none like unto thee. (AUG.) No authors of the arts. I have declared. Here Christ in the head and in the members. These are the wonders of God, these the thoughts to which no one is like. (CASS.) Behold the wonders: the incarnation, the justice of preaching, the deliverance of men from iniquities, the confounding of enemies, the gladness of those who hope. First, the rude and unformed were prepared, that they might willingly receive the words of Christ. (AUG.) See the wonders of God. I declared beforehand through the Prophets, and afterward I myself spoke. They are multiplied in number. (HIER., AUG.) Above the number 902Dof those to be saved: or, above what anyone could count: or, while I speak, more have believed than of old.

VERS. 7.-- Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire. (AUG.) When the thing came, he did not want, as it were, the words that promise, etc., as far as but he who poured it out, being deaf, hears not. But ears thou hast perfected for me. That is, thou hast made me perfectly understand what thou wouldst. Or, a body thou hast fitted to me, as the Apostle says to the Hebrews (Heb. X), that is, thou hast given me a body fit for offering.

VERS. 8.-- A holocaust. Holocausts also thou didst not require for sin. For sin. Which stands above oblation, as concerning the goat ἀποπομπάιῳ, that is, the emissary, which was sent into the desert with the sins of the people: or, for sin 903Amay be two words. Behold I come (CASS.) Since the sacrifices cease, it is established that Christ comes.

VERS. 9.-- In the head of the book it is written of me. Behold, I come at once to do thy will, because in the head of this book. Or, it is thus predetermined with God the Father, who is my head, I who am the book, that is, the form of justice for men.

VERS. 10.-- A great church. (AUG.) In the whole round of the lands, not a small one as before: and if indeed fear shall rise up, it will not forbid speaking. Lord, thou hast known. (ID.) Lips sound to men, etc., as far as that I be not slothful unto this.

VERS. 11.-- I have not hidden. (CASS.) (When I could profit) the truth, the promise, and the salvation.

903BVERS. 12. Thy mercy. (AUG.) Love and fear lead me through unto thee.

VERS. 13.-- Hairs. (AUG.) Rightly are hairs brought in by way of comparison with offences. For therefore in the Old Testament the priests were shaven, that so they might be seen to have laid aside the vices of the flesh.

VERS. 14.-- May it be pleasing. (CASS.) May it be pleasing, marks the Trinity of persons; to thee, in the singular, marks the unity of essence. (AUG.) May it be pleasing, he says, not distrusting the power of God, if the will be present. As if: If thou wilt, thou canst, Lord. Look. (CASS.) His regard is our help.

VERS. 16.-- Who say to me: Well done, well done. (AUG.) Both he who speaks good things with an evil mind, and he who evil things by praising them deceitfully, each is evil and to be guarded against. Of the first sort 903Che said: Who wish me evils; of the second: Who say to me: Well done, well done.

VERS. 17.-- And let them say. (CASS.) This is their exultation: for this profession makes Christians rejoicing unto eternity.

VERS. 18.-- But I. (CASS.) This Christ, out of the form of a servant: lest any should arrogate to himself the glory of the aforesaid gladness. A beggar, who does not suffice for himself. Delay not. (AUG.) Unless the days had been shortened, etc., as far as who now nourish the things they have sought.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. (HIER.) An understanding for the sons of Core, that although poor and suffering, etc., as far as the Apostle saying: But to me, etc.--(AUG.) It is as it were 903Dthe voice of one man, of the head and of the body.

VERS. 2.-- Blessed. He is mocked who reverences a dead poor man; but blessed. (AUG.) The Prophet celebrates him that understands concerning the needy and the poor. (HIER.) First the Prophet from himself, afterward he will bring in Christ. Who understandeth. (AUG.) Note who understandeth, that it may be given even to those who do not ask: he who gives to one asking does well; he who understands one that is silent is without doubt blessed.

VERS. 3.-- May the Lord preserve. (ID.) Well does the Prophet wish it for him that understands concerning the needy and the poor, which is a sure promise. And may he quicken. (ID.) In the life to come, or, here through justification.

VERS. 4.-- The Lord bring help. (CASS.) Do not think that the blessed man has rest here: he mitigates his sorrows, and prays 904Athat the infirmity of man be not overcome by hard things; as it were, these temporal goods are a bed of rest: as it were, he makes them full of sorrows, that hope be not had in them. The bed. (AUG.) For the whole indeed couch, that is, worldly happiness, God providently turns into straits. (CASS.) Here he himself, trembling, asks for mercy: because he who knew that he had sinned feared to be handed over to these things by right: but lest the servants of God, afflicted by these things, should seem deserted by God, since God himself bore such things; whence he says: My enemies have spoken. Or, a bed of sorrow. (AUG.) The flesh, in which is sin, etc., as far as when Adam was weakened by transgressing. Help (AUG., HIER.) In the infirmity of the flesh, which weighs down the soul. The couch. (AUG.) There is some earthly thing which the sick man, etc., as far as for the house of eternal habitation.

904BVERS. 6.-- My enemies. (CASS.) The Lord concerning his passion, which was after the manner of the needy one. (AUG.) My enemies. These things are said specially of Christ, but they can be said also of his members: and today tribulation is made, that the name of Christ may be extinguished: but through his own death and that of his own the Church has grown the more.

VERS. 7.-- And if he came in. (CASS.) Note that the wicked are to be borne with.

(ID.) Not only open enemies, but also those who feigned themselves friends.

VERS. 8.-- He went forth abroad. From the bosom of truth; an evil entrance, an evil going out. Unto the selfsame. (AUG.) That is, with one counsel they all whispered against me. They whispered. (CASS.) They do not dare to uncover their counsel, because in the crime all are partners: whereas few 904Care wont to be the authors of crimes.

VERS. 9.-- Shall he. (AUG.) He who has the power of laying down his soul, has he not also the power of taking it up again?

VERS. 10.-- I have hoped. (AUG.) In the members, because other brethren hoped somewhat in him, because he seemed such as the rest. So too he says that he hungers in the poor.

VERS. 11.-- But thou, O Lord. (AUG.) Of the resurrection, which is the glory of the needy one, for the confirming of the hope of the faithful. And I will requite them. (AUG.). For because they are scattered through the world, it is for admonition, not yet for damnation.

VERS. 13.-- But me. (ID.) He affirms what he prayed for.

VERS. 14.-- Blessed. (CASS.) A concluding praise, the passion and resurrection having been set forth. The God of Israel. 904D(AUG.) The Jews are our book-carriers, who carry the codices for us: we are Israel. Otherwise the pagans would have thought the things said of Christ and the Church to be feigned, but they are overcome by the testimony of enemies. From the age, etc. (CASS.) From which all things began to be administered, unto the age to come, where all things are eternal.

Let it be done. (HIER.) The doubling shows that this is to be done by all. In place of let it be done, in the Hebrew is written amen, amen, which Aquila translated truly, truly, or faithfully. And here ends the first book of the Psalter according to Jerome.

VERS. 1.-- At the end, an understanding. [Vulg. Ps 41:1 reads "In finem" in the accusative and adds "filiis Core": "unto the end; an understanding for the sons of Core"] (CASS.) Core is interpreted Calvary. Therefore the sons, etc., as far as, whom 905Athe insult of the wicked meets. (HIER.) Sons of Core, that is, sons of the bald man, etc., as far as the word of the boys mocking Elisha.

VERS. 2.-- As the hart desireth, etc. (AUG.) This voice suits catechumens, and also all who are still journeying abroad.

The hart. The hart, burdened with age, its hairs and horns growing out, draws in a serpent by its nostrils: whence, burning with the venom, it most ardently desires a fountain from which to drink; and when it has drunk, it lays aside its horns and its hairs.

VERS. 3.-- It hath thirsted. (AUG.) He determines his desire, because the hart could be understood to desire a fountain for the sake of drinking, or of washing; here all desire is shown to be toward God. When shall I come. What is quicker to God is slow to the desire of man. 905BSuch a hart, while it runs, suffers those who insult; whence: My tears have been my bread. In prosperity also, which he despises, as in adversity. Bread. (CASS.) Not bitterness, or destruction, but bread.

VERS. 5.-- These things I remembered. (AUG.) While they ask, Where is thy God? I also have meditated through all these visible things, and through my own soul, that through those outward things I may find the invisible things of God. Behold the understanding of the title. I poured out. (Ibid.) For understanding and attaining I have spread it out above itself. I poured out. (CASS.) Or, I have rejoiced. My soul is melted within me; not outside, but pricked with compunction it returns into itself. Although I do not see God visibly, yet I consider that through the Church, in which the saints are wonderful, I shall come to the heavenly Jerusalem, 905Ctaken captive by the sweetness of the angelic praise, which is received by the mind. Into the place of the tabernacle. (AUG.) The tabernacle of God on earth, etc., as far as, that is, of those rejoicing in the eternal refreshment. In the voice of exultation. (Ibid.) Of the eternal festival there sounds something sweet to the heart: whence the hart is snatched away to the fountains of waters, and is soothed. But because the world makes a din, and the flesh weighs down the soul, comparing this sorrow with those joyful things, he says:

VERS. 6.-- Why art thou sad? etc. (CASS.) Of the disturbances against which reason strengthens the sensual soul with hope of God. Why dost thou trouble? (AUG.) Who, if thou searchest, there is nothing in the world for which thou shouldst owe this: hope rather for the saving remedy still, and if not now, fully in time to come. Hope. (CASS.) Or he can hope, because still in the present I will confess, that is, I will do penance 905Dfor my sins, that I may not withstand thee.

VERS. 7.-- To myself. Turned to God he tells the troublings from himself, the end of them from God: whence in him is his hope. And this is to myself, or from myself. (CASS.) Behold, he who above was correcting the soul to the condition of man, having turned back says here that the soul is troubled by itself, which, were there not the vices of the flesh, would remain tranquil. Behold out of what diversity man is composed. As if: therefore, that is, on account of the troublings of the soul, I will be mindful. (AUG.) That is, I hasten to thee, because thou shuttest out all evils. Behold the remedy by which he may escape the troublings: whence he subjoins for what things he is mindful: Of the land of Jordan, where the Lord consecrated baptism, in which the humbled are washed, and 906Abecome fruitful earth. (CASS.) He who is mindful of these things is not troubled by evils. Therefore mindful. (AUG.) Whereby the soul is troubled toward me, therefore mindful, etc. No one runs to remission, save he who is displeasing to himself, save he who confesses himself a sinner: which Hermoniim denotes; no one confesses unless he humbles himself, which is denoted in the little one. Jordan. (Ibid.) A going down. Descend therefore that thou mayest be lifted up. (CASS.) In the Jordan the Lord consecrated baptism, in which the humbled are washed, and become fruitful earth, which yields fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold (Matth. XIII). Hermoniim. (AUG.) A small mountain beside the Jordan, etc., as far as because it is not among the proud, but among the humble, that one is mindful of God.

VERS. 8.-- Deep unto deep. (Ibid.) It is fitting that 906BI be mindful, etc., as far as and on account of all these things I pray in adversities, and this is: With me a prayer. (Ibid.) Or deep calleth unto deep, that is, the judgment which God brought upon the sinner, etc., as far as because he fears the judgments. Of the cataracts. Cataracts, according to the letter, are the mouths of rivers.

VERS. 9.-- In the day. (Ibid.) That is, in prosperity, etc., as far as whence we may live in adversity. With me a prayer. (Ibid.) Prayer in troublings is mine, and this is with me.

VERS. 10.-- Why hast thou forgotten. (CASS.) Why dost thou now suffer me to be vexed with these miseries? He saw what sweetness of the fatherland there was, and shuddered at the perils of the world.

VERS. 11.-- While my bones are broken. (AUG.) As it were bones are broken, while the strength of patience is afflicted, 906Cat which the wicked laugh. This is that reproach: While it is said to me: Where is he? either there is none, or he cares not for thee.

Unto the end, a psalm of David. (AUG.) Of the body of Christ, which groans here among the tares, that is, among the wicked, having many things in common with them: to be born, to die, prosperity and adversity: with whom (because it has not a common cause of merits) it cries out: Judge me, etc. (Ibid.) This psalm is against pressures, lest they too draw us back from God. (CASS.) He complains of the mingling of the wicked, and prays for separation.

VERS. 1.-- Judge me. (Ibid.) He does not ask that his own sins be examined, which is dangerous, but that his cause be made ready apart from the impious, that he may be with the elect: whence he adds: And 906Ddistinguish. The nation that is not holy is the unjust and deceitful man, from whom he is separated in the judgment: but here too lest he be corrupted by them.

VERS. 2.-- Why do I go sorrowful? (AUG.) He seeks the cause of sadness, which is sin, as justice is the cause of gladness. Isaias on account of sin: For a little while indeed I made him sorrowful, for so God punishes.

VERS. 3.-- Send forth thy light. (CASS.) Because, when he comes, all the sadness of confusion will be taken away. (AUG.) Because we now have a sure pledge, since those very things, that is, light and truth, have led the present Church away from her sins, which is the tabernacle.

VERS. 4.-- And I will go in. As the high priest to the Holy of holies. (CASS.) And I will go in. Of the final gladness, 907Afor which he gives praise in tribulation, he who above was sad, whence also he strengthens himself.

VERS. 5.-- I will confess to thee on the harp. (AUG.) He who does the precepts of God, and does not suffer, confesses on the psaltery: but he who does and suffers, which is from the lower nature, on the harp, which sounds from below, as the psaltery from above. On the harp. (CASS.) Behold, he who above was sad about the evils of the world, makes joy for himself out of good understanding. Why dost thou trouble me? (Ibid.) Frequently and vehemently he urges that the sadness of the world must be fled, which extinguishes patience, charity and hope, and confounds the whole life. The salvation of my countenance. (AUG.) And elsewhere: Have mercy on me, etc., as far as almsgiving, and prayer which flies to God on those two wings.

• 907B

VERS. 1.-- Unto understanding. (AUG.) Let them not so seek these things to be done for themselves, etc., as far as and let not these things be loved. (CASS.) He distinguishes the benefits of God, which were given to beginners in the world, to the perfect in heaven.

That it may be the more wonderful that present things are left behind, he recalls things past.

VERS. 2.-- God, with our ears. (AUG., CASS.) First he says: God, which one is wont to do when glad or heavily afflicted.

We have heard. That there may be greater faith in the matter, lest it be thought doubtful.

Fathers. Not young men, that they may be seen as our true ones, who would tell sure things to their own.

907CThe work which, etc. (Ibid.) And although he always works, yet he is said to work when he shows some sign of newness.

VERS. 4.-- But thy right hand. (AUG.) That is, the good success which thou gavest them. And thy arm, etc. (Ibid.) That is, strength; and illumination, that is, wise counsel: all which thou hast done out of thy good will.

VERS. 5.-- Thou art thyself my king and my God. (AUG.) The times are changed; the author is not changed.

VERS. 7.-- For I will not hope in my bow. (CASS.) The lesser strength of man, because it avails less in war.

A sword. The greater strength, which in war is believed to avail more. (AUG.) Or, my sword shall not save me, but thou, because in this world also thou hast saved us, lest they should drag us 907Dafter them, and thou hast made them ashamed: and therefore then we shall be praised.

VERS. 8.-- Thou hast saved, etc. (AUG.) Note also that things said in the past are to be taken for things to come.

VERS. 10.-- But now thou hast cast us off. (CASS.) Diapsalmus. He enumerates the evils which the good did here, yet not having forgotten God. (CASS.) He exaggerates the evils, that he may obtain the good will of the judge. Thou hast confounded, while here they are held in reproach by the wicked. (AUG.) These things are truly to come, etc., as far as this is a fast not of abstinence, but of luxury.

VERS. 11.-- Thou hast turned away. (CASS.) For those who fail. Or, to be turned away is to flee the enemy; whence: If they shall have persecuted you in one city, flee into another. [Vulg. Mt 10:23 reads "Cum autem persequentur vos in civitate ista, fugite in aliam": "and when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another"]

908AThey plundered. This happens to those put to flight, that they fall as prey, who cannot resist their enemies.

VERS. 12.-- Thou hast given us like sheep for food. (CASS.) Those persisting in faith. Here diverse martyrs, that is, diverse kinds of martyrdom: some food for beasts, others delivered to the Gentiles into servitude; whence he says: Like sheep for food, where the slaughter of certain ones is noted.

VERS. 13.-- Thou hast sold thy people without a price. (AUG.) While they are given to foreigners and no one gains: which is done for proving or for correcting; or no one is gained for them, or if any, yet few.

VERS. 14.-- A reproach to our neighbours. (CASS.) A grievous affliction is heaped on by neighbours, because that is not uttered in passing which one inflicts from among those standing round. A derision to those who are round about. (CASS.) Derision is a confused voice of gladness, 908Bannouncing insult with immoderate hilarity. Contempt is abject vileness.

VERS. 15.-- Into the likeness of the Gentiles. (Ibid.) [Vulg. Ps 43:15 has the dative, "in similitudinem gentibus": "for a likeness to the Gentiles"] In the likeness of Christ they are set beside the Gentiles, when they afflicted them with equal punishments.

VERS. 17.-- Of him that reproacheth. (Ibid.) To reproach is to curse to the face; to speak against is to detract from one absent, and to bite deceitfully.

VERS. 18.-- They have come upon us. (Ibid.) Because they were not in us through fault.

VERS. 19.-- It hath not gone back. (Ibid.) So that it should go backward, although sometimes it descends from the contemplation of the deity. Thou hast turned aside. (AUG.) Our paths were in the pleasures and prosperities of the world: but thou hast taken them away from their own way, and hast shown the narrow way which leads to 908Clife. (HIER.) Or and thou hast turned aside, that is, thou hast made our works to hang upon thy law. Or, thou hast not turned aside (another reading), that is, thou hast not permitted our paths to turn aside and go astray. Paths, that is, works; from thy way, that is, from the law; therefore because thou hast humbled us.

VERS. 20.-- The shadow of death. (AUG.) Or, this mortality is the shadow of death: but true death is damnation with the devil.

VERS. 21.-- If we have forgotten the name of God. (Ibid.) This is the understanding of the sons of Core, who on account of all these evils do not forget God, knowing that God will require these things.

VERS. 22.-- He hath known. (Ibid.) God is said to harm Nocere both what he knows and what he makes thee know. He hath known, because he will require on account of thee, that thou mayest find thyself, and give 908Dthanks to him who made thee, as was done in Peter, who proved what he could do. For thy sake we are put to death. (CASS.) Not for our crimes, but that thy faith may be increased among the Gentiles.

VERS. 23.-- Arise. (Ibid.) He prays for help, that he may succour those afflicted here at the time of the resurrection. (AUG.) Thus far not forgetting; and that we may persevere: Arise, for on thy account we are put to death. (AUG., HIER.) And although they know that Christ does not sleep, and that he has risen for himself, yet they pray him to rise through faith, not for himself, but for the Gentiles, who think him dead. For if they too believed that he had risen, believing in him they would not persecute, but they too would believe. (AUG.) Or arise, strengthen.

909AThou sleepest. Thou seemest to neglect. Wherefore, even if we know not, thou knowest why: either for fault, or for benefit. But if for fault, would that it were absent; if for benefit, would that it were present. Some thou dost repel, because thou withdrawest thy face, that is, thy knowledge, from them: thou sleepest to certain ones who groan over evils.

VERS. 24.-- Why dost thou forget? that is, thou givest not the spirit of fortitude, without which we are helpless. And of tribulation. (CASS.) Because thou dost not mitigate it, etc., as far as who easily yield to unlawful motions, and cleave to earthly things.

VERS. 26.-- Arise, O Lord. Here arise is set without sleeping, which pertains to the resurrection, in which is the hope of all the faithful; in which human captivity is destroyed; through which we are helped 909Band set free. In the earth our belly. (AUG.) He who fixes his knees on the earth has whereby he may be more humbled: but he who is more humbled, so that his belly also cleaves to the earth, has nothing further whereby he may be more humbled. He expresses therefore an exceeding humiliation, so that, since it has come to the highest point, the mercy of God may now be present. Or he laments those who are the belly, that is, the carnal, and they have cleaved, that is, consented to the wicked.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end, etc. (AUG.) An epithalamium, that is, the praise of the bridal chamber. A canticle for those who are to be changed and for the beloved, that is, for the bride and the bridegroom, is written for the sons of Core, that they may venerate. For here is described through whom they shall be changed, because the praise of the bridegroom and of the bride is here sung. (CASS.) The Prophet promises that he will utter forth 909Cthe heraldings of God.

VERS. 2.-- It hath uttered forth. (AUG., HIER.) For the Prophet speaks within, etc., as far as before that is which he is about to do. But the counsel of the Father is the Word.

Good. By which all good things were made. I speak. That is, I bring forth the Word: the same here as before; but he says that in that very word are all the works of God; whence: What was made in him was life, so that nothing may be in the work which was not first in the counsel. Of this it is said: God hath spoken once.

A pen. He compares the Word not to sound, which passes away, but to writing, which remains. Or, swiftly, because not one thing after another, but all things together in one eternal Word.

Swiftly. The power of prophecy, which does not under 909Dhuman torment devise what it divulges to others out of the secret of the Godhead.

VERS. 3.-- Beautiful in form. (CASS.) He begins the praise of the bridegroom first from his form. He hath blessed. The former things the Prophet said in the person of God, these from his own; or all from himself. Or, he uttereth forth the word, who says a hymn to God.

I speak my works. (AUG.) to the praise of him who is from him. Tongue, a pen. Because what I say, I also write. Or, swiftly: because the things which I write are quickly to come.

(CASS.) In the lips. Because, when he spoke, the world received the grace of reconciliation.

VERS. 4.-- Gird thyself. (Ibid.) Here he praises him from his power; and do thou, being such, gird thyself.

VERS. 5.-- With thy comeliness and beauty. Comeliness to 910Athe humanity, in which he appeared to the world; beauty to the Deity, by which he adorns all things.

Attend. Pitying, look upon man as he perishes.

Prosperously. Setting men free.

Proceed. From the womb of the Virgin, as a bridegroom: or, from these conquered to others to be conquered.

Reign. Show thy power in the faith of men, thou who hast always reigned. And through this, because both through thyself and through thine own thou teachest the truth, by which thou destroyest our falsehood. And because meek in bearing with the wicked, as when he prayed for his enemies, so also his own: And because he showed the justice of life. And because it shall lead thee on without stumbling through the course of the whole life, or from people to people

Wonderfully. Because all shall wonder, or, because he will do miracles.

910BVERS. 6.-- The peoples shall fall under thee. (AUG.) That is, many of his enemies shall put themselves under him, and this by reason or by will. This is what the title said: For those who shall be changed out of the sons of Core. [Vulg. Ps 44:1 has no preposition and divides the clause: "pro iis qui commutabuntur. Filiis Core": "for those who shall be changed; for the sons of Core"] -- Into the hearts. (CASS.) Of thy enemies, that they may be friends, as Saul was.

VERS. 7.-- A throne. (Ibid.) Here from judgment: A throne pertains to judgment. A rod. (Ibid.) The rule of divine equity, which is truly straight and is never bent: this governs the just, strikes the unjust. (AUG.) Let no one presume much to himself concerning mercy, or flatter himself: because the rod of direction, if it governs some, crushes others: it governs the spiritual, it crushes the carnal.

VERS. 8.-- Thou hast loved. (Ibid.) Or, because thou hast loved justice, etc., these rewards have been rendered, he made thee king, 910Cgiving the name which is above every name.

And thou hast hated. If a man hates iniquity in himself, he acts with God: God hates iniquity, do thou also hate it.

O God. (AUG.) It is set twice openly in the Greek, the one a vocative, the other a nominative. This one is anointed, that one is the stone which Jacob anointed.

VERS. 9.-- Myrrh, etc. (CASS.) Here the Prophet praises the bridegroom from his wife and from his adornment; first from the adornment. (AUG.) Myrrh and stacte. Perfumes are fitly applied to the bridal chamber, etc., as far as that is, redemption, through the water of baptism. Of ivory. (HIER.) In ivory, chastity, which, being dark before, is made bright by saws and files; so the saints, filed down by the cuttings and rubbings of divers punishments, are made bright by the variety of virtues. The daughters of kings. (AUG.) Of earthly ones, not caring for the honour 910Dof their fathers, etc., as far as and they took them for the raising up of seed.

VERS. 10.-- The queen stood, etc. (CASS.) Here he commends the bridegroom from his wife. With variety. (Ibid.) Although there be unity in charity, yet she is adorned with gold, that is, the doctrine of the Apostles, with the scarlet of the martyrs, with the gems of virgins, with the purple of the penitent.

VERS. 11.-- Hear, O daughter. (CASS.) The praise of the bride is lower, but fourfold: from her form, from her glory, from the maidens, from her offspring. (AUG.) Hear, O daughter. The Prophet addresses the queen, as one of the fathers. The Jews saw and slew; do thou hear the Gospel, and by believing thou shalt see God: here through an image, in time to come 911Athrough sight. Or, Hear the prophecies which foretold the incarnation, and see them fulfilled.

VERS. 12.-- And the king shall desire. (CASS.) Here he praises her from her form.

VERS. 13.-- Of Tyre. (CASS.) By Tyre, the neighbour of Judaea, the Gentiles are designated; whence the Canaanite woman is a figure of the Church. (CASS.) Of Tyre, of the Gentiles, the whole from a part. With gifts. (AUG.) That they may offer themselves, etc., as far as the Gentiles, namely, who are in the straits of their sins.

VERS. 14.-- All the glory. (CASS.) From the glory of the bride, as above from the power of the bridegroom. From within. (AUG.) Or inwardly. Let almsgiving therefore be in secret, where God sees. Or not in a circumcision made by hand, as in the old law, but in spiritual things. In fringes. (CASS.) The end of the garment signifies the end of the world or of man. 911BGolden. Not gilded, as above, but golden, because in the end is the whole perfection, where charity is found full.

VERS. 15.-- They shall be brought to the king. (Ibid.) Here the bride is praised from her friends, as above from judgment. (Ibid.) They shall be brought, by opportune preaching. After her. (Ibid.) First unity is spoken of, afterward the enumeration of the parts is distinct, when it is said: Virgins and her neighbours. [Vulg. Ps 44:15 has no connective: "virgines post eam ; proximae ejus", "virgins after her; her neighbours"]

VERS. 17.-- Instead of thy fathers sons are born to thee. (Ibid.) Or in place of the ancient fathers, worshippers of idols, the Apostles were born, princes of preaching. (AUG.) Or after the prophets the Apostles, after the Apostles others.

This psalm is sung on the feast of blessed Mary the Virgin, because the things which are here said generally of the Church can be referred specially to Mary. It is sung also 911Cfor virgins, because it is there said: Virgins shall be brought to the king. And for the Apostles, because where it is said: Sons are born to thee. Likewise of the nativity of the Lord, because there it treats of the praise of the bridegroom and of the bride and of the nuptials of Christ and the Church, whose espousal was made in the incarnation of the Word.

VERS. 1.-- Unto the end. (CASS.) A psalm of David, of some faithful man of Judea, that the testimony may be the more certain.

For the hidden things. For the manifestation of the hidden things, that God is man, that salvation is promised to both peoples, that blindness has befallen Israel, that the Apostles passed over to the Gentiles, that peace is on earth; whence: They shall turn their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles 911D(Isa. II).

For the sons of Core. (CASS.) The sons of the cross. Of the hidden things, that is, he speaks of the coming of Christ.

VERS. 2.-- Our God. (CASS., AUG.) In the coming of the Lord all hope is shown to be had, even in the passing over of the Apostles to the Gentiles. They have found us exceedingly. (AUG.) For we were fleeing them. Or, they have found us exposed through Adam. Exceedingly, by so much the more powerful is he who delivers.

VERS. 3.-- The earth shall be troubled, and the mountains shall be removed, etc. (CASS.) Judea, as it were dry land: without idolatry, hemmed about by the bitterness of the Gentiles. Or, the sea, (AUG.) the world.

The heart of the sea. The savagery of the Gentiles

912AVERS. 4.-- They have sounded, and are troubled, etc. Those who contradict, the Gentiles: or the Apostles by preaching.

And their waters were troubled. The reference is made to the sense, not to the word: that is, the waters of the sea, namely the peoples, or their doctrines, which have been made foolish, the doctrine of the Saviour flashing forth; whence: They were swallowed up, etc. And this is the rod of Moses, which devoured the rods of the Magi.

VERS. 5.-- The stream of the river. (CASS.) Diapsalmus. Because the Church is founded in Christ, to whom the nations and kingdoms are made subject. (AUG.) As if he should say: Thus the sea rages; but amid these waves and noises they fear not, who have fled to that refuge.

VERS. 6.-- He shall help her. (CASS.) Or, with his countenance, that is, by the showing forth of his help, when by helping he 912Bdeclares himself. In the morning. In the very beginning of a good work; and this, at daybreak, that is, through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, who is light as it were of day.

VERS. 7.-- He gave. As it were a great reward. His voice. Preaching, at which the earthly man trembled. He shall tremble for fear of the judge.

VERS. 8.-- The Lord of hosts. (Ibid.) Briefly he defines what Christ is. With us. As it were: He who sent the angels, now he himself has come, and is with us, because with us as our upholder; therefore: Come, as it were I invite you now secure. Ours. Not save of the sons of the cross. The God of Jacob. Who gave us as great things as he gave Jacob: for he is not the God of him alone.

VERS. 9.-- Come and see. (Ibid.) Diapsalmus. The mighty works of the incarnation. He hath set. As it were signs, for the calling of 912Cthe people. Prodigies. As concerning the birth from the Virgin, and the star, and the rest. Making wars to cease. (AUG.) Because through his coming the idolatry and superstition of the whole world perished, or, at that time for his presence the world was at peace.

VERS. 11.-- Be still. (Ibid.) If the arms are burnt up, be still, not having wherewith you may fight.

VERS. 2.-- All ye Gentiles. (AUG.) As if he should say: they insult, the boys, saying: Bald head, bald head, you, all the Gentiles to whom grace has passed over: Clap your hands, etc. The Gentiles to whom grace has passed over, and whom in the former psalm he called to faith, he invites to praise.

VERS. 3.-- High. (HIER.) Powerful in what he wills. 912DTerrible. (REMIG.) Because he is to judge in power.

VERS. 4.-- He hath subdued the peoples unto us. (CASS.) This befits faithful men, to whom all outsiders are made subject, or, he has subjected to himself those who are to be associated with us. The peoples, the Jews. Unto us. (Ibid.) Namely to the universal Church; this it befits all the faithful to say, to whom outsiders are made subject. Under the feet. (Ibid.) By feet, understand preachers, to whom the peoples are made subject. (AUG.) Under the feet. So is the Church exalted, that it has those not yet believing under its feet.

VERS. 5.-- He hath chosen for us, etc. Or in the person of the Apostles, he chose to give us his inheritance, of many peoples, that we may cultivate it, striking their hearts with the sword of preaching, and destroying their malice. 913AThe inheritance. (AUG.) The heavenly inheritance is the beauty of the Christian people, in which he shall be comely, shining as the sun, who now is abject. The beauty of Jacob which, etc. That is, those like to Jacob or signed by Jacob, who give earthly things for heavenly, as Jacob did, which was the grace of God, because he loved him, Esau being reprobate.

VERS. 6.-- He is ascended. (CASS.) Diapsalma, the ascension and the kingdom of God is described, whence he urgently admonishes to sing psalms. In jubilation. (AUG.) The joy of the wondering Apostles, etc., as far as what can neither be kept silent nor be uttered.

VERS. 7.-- Sing ye psalms. (CASS.) Praise by works: very salutary is that which is so often repeated, because it is God who creates, and a king governing the things created.

VERS. 8.-- Of all the earth. (Ibid.) Not as Jupiter of Crete, 913BMars of Thrace. Wisely. He teaches how one ought to sing psalms. Of old they sang psalms without understanding, while they worshipped stones. (AUG.) No one does wisely what he does not understand.

VERS. 9.-- He shall reign. (Ibid.) Now is this prophecy fulfilled: God sitteth upon the holy seat. The holy seat. (AUG.) Thrones, Virtues, and the saints.

VERS. 10.-- The princes of the peoples. (CASS.) The first-fruits of all the Gentiles came together by believing in Christ, because, the Jews being cast out, the Gentiles succeed into the sons of Abraham, having the promise, because the Jews were lifted up in pride. (HIER., CASS.) Or the strong gods, namely the Apostles, whom neither death nor life shall separate from the charity of Christ. Lifted up, by miracles and doctrine.

• 913C

VERS. 1.-- A psalm, or the praise of a canticle, for the sons of Core, the second, etc. (AUG.) On the first day, God made light, etc., as far as of which it is here sung to the sons of Core. (CASS.) Concerning the founding of the city, which he describes commendingly. (AUG.) He commends the city, etc., as far as from its eternal stability.

VERS. 2.-- In the holy mount, etc. (Ibid.) This is that mountain, etc., as far as upon which the Church is founded.

VERS. 3.-- It is founded with the joy. (HIER.) As if he should say, she who before was subject to curses, etc., as far as he himself is Christ, who through the universal Church spreads joys abroad. Mount Sion, the sides. (AUG.) Whosoever 913Dcleave to anyone are called his sides, etc., as far as likewise from the north shall every evil be spread abroad, etc.

VERS. 4.-- In the houses. Or, in the degrees, that is, according to the degrees of merits, because in each one severally he will give the knowledge of himself. When he shall receive her. To be guarded, and what need is there? For the kings against. But seeing by faith, namely thus, that this city is so worthy, they wondered, etc.

VERS. 5.-- The kings. (AUG., CASS.) The princes of the Jews. Being gathered together. By Herod inquiring the place of the nativity. They came together. Saying with one accord: In Bethlehem of Juda according to the Scriptures.

VERS. 6.-- Seeing. The things which they had read in the prophets. They wondered. At so great glory, not lightly or idly. 914ABut they were troubled. For sin, and They were moved. To faith, and so great was the dread, that the body trembled.

VERS. 7.-- There pains as of a woman in labour, Of penance, seeing thus; but:

VERS. 8.-- With a vehement spirit, Of Herod. Thou shalt break the ships of Tharsis. Because, in Tharsus, the ships of Cilicia which were believed to have carried the Magi over into their own country, were broken by Herod. Tharsis. (AUG.) Cilicia is a region named from Tharsus, etc., as far as having run through all he concludes. Therefore:

VERS. 9.-- As we have heard. In the city of the Lord of hosts, because there he appoints angels as guards. He repeats. In the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. That is, the Catholic Church, lest the assembly of heretics usurp this name to itself. But lest it be thought temporal, 914Bhe adds: God hath founded it for ever. Not for an hour, as before the tabernacle of Moses

VERS. 10.-- We have received, O God, thy mercy. (CASS.) Giving thanks for the coming of Christ, he admonishes concerning the degrees of the Church that are to be distributed, through which the Saviour may be known. In the midst of the temple. Jerusalem: they are the more grievously accused, who despise him who was beheld in the midst of them. By this the incarnation of Christ is noted, who according as he is man was presented in the temple.

VERS. 11.-- The right hand. (CASS.) On this side the just are placed.

(AUG.) We have received, O God. In what order she was founded, or what we have heard and seen. Of thy temple. (Ibid.) That is, of a people not receiving sucipientis mercy, who to many: 914Cso that no grains seem to be there, but nevertheless some, because according to the name. According to the name. (CASS.) Which is everywhere spread abroad, because there is none, even if he know not the worship, who does not submit himself to this name. Or according to the name. This is, as the reverence of thy name, etc., as far as thy propitiation hath justified many, who all praise thee.

VERS. 12.-- Let it be glad. (AUG.) Although the just labour among thorns, etc., as far as it is theirs now to gather, God's to separate. Mount Sion, and let them rejoice. (CASS.) The Church, which is in the beholding of the people. The daughters of Juda, because of thy judgments, O Lord. Holy women. By Juda their nation is shown, which is on account of Christ, who is of Juda, and let these rejoice, that in both sexes the Church may be. (AUG.) The cause of gladness is the judgments 914Dto come, wherein they know that they shall come to blessedness. Let those who are within be glad; you who are without, encompass.

VERS. 13.-- Encompass. By showing honours. Embrace her. With charity. Tell in her towers. Set your hearts. (CASS.) Preach to others in the concord of the Apostles, etc., as far as lest, being remiss through gladness, they grow slack.

VERS. 14.-- Her strength. (AUG.) The strength of the city is charity, which nothing overcomes; whence Solomon: Love is strong as death. (CASS.) He admonishes to set the hearts on the strength of the Church. Distribute her houses, that you may relate it in another generation. That is, the offices distinguished, etc., as far as whom the Lord first chose.

VERS. 15.-- For this is, etc. This is what 915Amust be related, a brief sentence, but one which concludes all things. For ever, against those who made temporal men gods.