Psalm 89 [MT 90]

It is plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son's eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases "he was not" and "before" and "when" are in the same Scriptures predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the generation of our world, says, "And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground." And in Deuteronomy, "When the most High gave to the nations their inheritance." And the Lord said, "If you love me, you will rejoice because I said, I go to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you might believe." And concerning the creation he says in the words of Solomon, "Before the world existed, when there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth." And, "Before Abraham was, I am." And concerning Jeremiah he says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." And David in the psalm says, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, you are God from everlasting and world without end." And in Daniel, "Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God, you know the secrets, and know all things before they are." Thus it appears that the phrases "once was not," and "before it came to be," and "when" and the like, belong to things that have an origin and were created, which come out of nothing but are alien to the Word.

"Lord," he saith, "Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another" [Psalm 90:1]: either in every generation, or in two generations, the old and new: because, as I said, he was the Minister of the Testament that related to the old generation, and the Prophet of the Testament which appertained to the new. Jesus Himself, the Surety of that covenant, and the Bridegroom in the marriage which He entered into in that generation, saith, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me." [John 5:46] Now it is not to be believed that this Psalm was entirely the composition of that Moses, as it is not distinguished by any of those of his expressions which are used in his songs: but the name of the great servant of God is used for the sake of some intimation, which should direct the attention of the reader or listener. "Lord," he saith, "Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to the other."

The resurrection of the Lord is our hope, the Lord's ascension our glorification. Today, you see, we are celebrating the feast of the ascension. So if we are to celebrate the Lord's ascension in the right way, with faith, with devotion, with reverence as God-fearing people, we must ascend with him and lift up our hearts. In ascending, however, we must not get above ourselves. Yes, we should lift up our hearts, but to the Lord. As you know, not lifting up hearts to the Lord is due to pride; lifting up hearts to the Lord is called "taking refuge." After all, we say to the one who has ascended, "Lord, you have become a refuge for us."He rose again, you see, to give us hope, because what rises again is what first dies. So it [Christ's resurrection] was to save us from despair at dying and from thinking that our whole life ends with death. We were anxious, I mean, about the soul, and he by rising again gave us an assurance even about the flesh. So he ascended—who did? The one who descended. He descended in order to heal you; he ascended in order to lift you up. You will fall if you have lifted yourself up; you remain standing if you have been lifted up by him. So, lift up your hearts, but to the Lord—that is taking refuge. Lifting up your heart, but not to the Lord, that is pride. So let us say to him as he rises again, "Since you, O Lord, are my hope"; and as he ascends, "You have placed your refuge very high." How, I mean, can we possibly be proud, if we lift up our hearts to him, seeing that he humbled himself for our sakes, so that we should not remain proud?

Therefore, "God is our refuge and strength." To him who is able to say, "I can do all things in him," Christ, "who strengthens me," God is strength. Now, it is the privilege of many to say, "God is our refuge," and "Lord, you have been our refuge." But to say it with the same feelings as the prophet is the privilege of few. For there are few who do not admire human interests but depend wholly on God and breathe him and have all hope and trust in him. And our actions convict us whenever in our afflictions we run to everything else rather than to God. Is a child sick? You look around for an enchanter or one who puts superstitious marks on the necks of the innocent children; or finally, you go to a doctor and to medicines, having neglected him who is able to save. If a dream troubles you, you run to the interpreter of dreams. And, if you fear an enemy, you cunningly secure some man as a patron. In short, in every need you contradict yourself in word, naming God as your refuge; in act, drawing on aid from useless and vain things. God is the true aid for the righteous person. Just as a certain general, equipped with a noble heavy-armed force, is always ready to give help to an oppressed district, so God is our helper and an ally to everyone who is waging war against the wiliness of the devil, and he sends out ministering spirits for the safety of those who are in need.

A prayer of Moses, the man of God. There are four psalms that are headed with the title "prayer": the sixteenth, and the one that follows it, and the eighty-ninth, and the hundred and first. In the hundred and first it says: "A prayer of the poor man, when he is downcast, and pours out his prayer in the sight of God." This one: A prayer of Moses, the man of God. We read the song of Moses in Exodus, at that time when the people crossed the Red Sea, and when Pharaoh and all his army had been drowned, Miriam and Moses sang. Then we read one in Deuteronomy also, since he had written that song in Deuteronomy. If therefore these psalms and these songs belong to Moses, why are they not found in his own books? So we have already explained how the hundred and first psalm is inscribed, A prayer of the poor man: and it is another who wrote about him, and that poor man who intercedes for us is the Lord, "who, though he was rich, became poor for our sake," and the rest. So too here is Moses, since from the very beginning of the human race he himself wrote the history: for he himself wrote how heaven and earth were made, how man too was made, about the creation of man; and this psalm speaks about the creation of man, what man is, and why he was born. He therefore who in Genesis wrote about the creation of men, is now himself also brought in by the Holy Spirit to discourse on what man is.

Lord, you have been made a refuge for us from generation to generation. He who seeks a refuge, seeks it either from excessive heat and scorching, or because a beast is pursuing him, or because enemies are pursuing him, to kill him. We too, then, are in the heat of this world; and a beast pursues us too, of which we say, "Do not hand over to the beasts a soul that confesses to you"; and enemies pursue us too; and therefore we flee for refuge under your wings. From generation to generation: both in the past, and in the present, and in the future. In another sense, From generation to generation: both in the old people of the Jews, and in our own people of Christians.

The eighty-ninth psalm has been read, whose title is this: A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. It is the beginning of the fourth book, for we ought to know that the psalter is divided into five books. From the first up to the fortieth is the first book; from the fortieth up to the seventy-first is the second book; from the seventy-first up to the eighty-eighth is the third book; from the eighty-eighth up to the hundred and fifth is the fourth book; from the hundred and fifth to the end is the fifth book. And therefore this is the opening of the fourth book: A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. The Hebrews think that not only this psalm, but also the other ten that follow, since they bear no title, were composed by Moses. And for that reason they think that those which are without a title belong to the same author as the one that has a title, because they seem to lie adjacent to the one that is inscribed with a title.

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. If all men were men of God, it would never have been added, A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Do you wish to know that not all men are men of God? "Man, when he was in honor, did not understand: he was compared to the senseless beasts of burden, and was made like unto them." It is a great thing, therefore, to be called men of God or servants of God. For when this is said of someone, it is a token not of lowliness but of dignity; nor is the condition of servitude shown, but the dignity of one who serves well is displayed. A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. By Moses the law was written down, by Moses the nature of the world is shown, by Moses it was told how man was fashioned in the image of God. What, then, is this that he says, A Prayer of Moses, the man of God? Moses indeed writes how man was made; he himself also writes how man fell. Now, therefore, he prays that the one who fell into death may be lifted up to life, and that the one who fell through sin by the devil's doing may again rise through Christ to glory. For this reason, then, Moses makes a prayer to God, and says:

Lord, you have become a refuge for us. A refuge is never spoken of unless there has been persecution: for unless someone else persecutes us, we have no need to flee to another for refuge. Lord, you have become a refuge for us. Since a great swelter of tribulations and heat wearies us, we take refuge under the shadow of your wings. Lord, you have become a refuge for us. Therefore we flee to your help, because a great beast persecutes us; and since we have many adversaries and enemies, be you at least our one refuge.

Amen I say to you, that this generation shall not pass away, until all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Let us see what this generation is, of which Christ speaks.

And the simple, indeed, refer these words to the destruction of Jerusalem; and they suppose it was said of that generation which existed in the time of Christ and looked upon his suffering, a generation that would not pass away before the destruction of that city came to pass.

But I do not know whether they can expound word for word what he says: "do you not see all these things? amen I say to you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be destroyed" down to that which he says: it is near, at the door. For perhaps in some points they will be able, but in others they will not be able at all, and, sufficiently hemmed in, I do not know whether they will have been able to say anything.

But we, observing in many passages the word "generation," take it in two ways. For we hold that there are two generations, one indeed of the Jews, the other of the Gentiles.

Thus we understand also Ecclesiastes saying: one generation passes away and another generation comes, and the earth stands forever. For, prophesying of the people of the Jews, who were to pass away, he says one generation passes away; but of the people of the Gentiles, who were to believe, he said another generation comes. Something of this kind I think is said also in the eighty-ninth Psalm by Moses in his prayer: Lord, thou hast become a refuge for us from generation to generation. For God is the refuge of the two generations, since there is one God who justifies the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. And since God is the God not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles, therefore the generation shall not pass away of the new testament, which is in the face of the Savior, nor shall it depart to those blessed promises of that age, until all things be done which Christ has spoken. For to each one of us it is fitting that all things be done which have been foretold, as we have handed down through the several expositions. There is, therefore, one generation of the Church, which began from the teaching of the Lord the Savior and lasts until the consummation. And this same generation will indeed at some time pass through this whole age (and it will pass through it, so as to inherit that age which is to come), yet until all these things be done, it shall not pass away;

but when it shall have been sufficient in all these things and shall have remained impassible until the glorious coming of Christ, then it shall pass through.

Yet until all these things be done (not some of the things that have been said, while others are not), those things are not to be; nevertheless this generation shall pass away, when all these things shall have been done, when there shall have passed away not only the earth, but also the heaven, that is, not only those men whose life is earthly, and who for that reason are called earth, but also those whose "citizenship is in the heavens", and who therefore are called heaven. And they shall pass to the things to come, along with all their states, so that they may come to more eminent and better things. For the revelation of these (since they are sons of God) the expectation of the creature awaits, and "every creature groans together with them and is in pain", until, conceiving in the womb from the fear of the Lord, they bring forth "the spirit of salvation", making their own offspring; and then shall pass away the generation of which Christ speaks, and the heaven according to what we have expounded, and the earth according to what we have handed down.

But the words which were spoken by the Savior shall not pass away, since the things which are proper to them they work both now and shall always work. But the perfect, and those who do not receive so that they may now be made better, passing beyond what they are, arrive at that which they are not.

Now in that which he said: but my words shall not pass away, this too I think must be inquired into, lest perhaps the words of Moses indeed and of the prophets have passed away, while the words of Jesus Christ have not passed away: because the things that were prophesied by those men have indeed been fulfilled, but the words of Christ are always full and are ever in the act of fulfillment and are daily being fulfilled and are never fully completed; for they are the very things which in the saints both have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled and are yet to be fulfilled. Or perhaps we ought not to say that the words of Moses or of the prophets are altogether fulfilled: for properly those words too are the words of the Son of God and are always being fulfilled. It is therefore good to unfold the depths of the divine words in simple words; yet for the sake of the few let us examine this, understanding only this much: that the word which in the Word of God is human has not passed away from the creation of the world until the consummation. For it presses on and works, since neither did it receive the beginning of its working before the times of the days, but it began with the creature and with the creature will pass away. But the word which was before the creature will not pass away with the creature.

He adds, how He became our refuge, since He began to be that, viz. a refuge, to us which He had not been before, not that He had not existed before He became our refuge: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: and from age even unto age You are" [Psalm 90:2]. Thou therefore who art for ever, and before we were, and before the world was, hast become our refuge ever since we turned to You. But the expression, "before the mountains," etc., seems to me to contain a particular meaning; for mountains are the higher parts of the earth, and if God was before even the earth were formed (or, as some books have it, from the same Greek word, "framed" ), since it was by Him that it was formed, what is the need of saying that He was before the mountains, or any certain parts of it, since God was not only before the earth, but before heaven and earth, and even the whole bodily and spiritual creation? But it may certainly be that the whole rational creation is marked by this distinction; that while the loftiness of Angels is signified by the mountains, the lowliness of man is meant by the earth. And for this reason, although all the works of creation are not improperly said to be either made or formed; nevertheless, if there is any propriety in these words, the Angels are "made;" for as they are enumerated among His heavenly works, the enumeration itself is thus concluded: "He spoke the word, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created;" but the earth was "formed," that man might thence be created in the body. For the Scripture uses this word, where we read, God made, or "God formed man out of the dust of the ground." [Genesis 2:7] Before then the noblest parts of the creation (for what is higher than the rational part of the Heavenly creation) were made: before the earth was made, that You might have worshippers upon the earth; and even this is little, as all these had a beginning either in or with time; but "from age to age You are." It would have been better, from everlasting to everlasting: for God, who is before the ages, exists not from a certain age, nor to a certain age, which has an end, since He is without end. But it often happens in the Scripture, that the equivocal Greek word causes the Latin translator to put age for eternity and eternity for age. But he very rightly does not say, You were from ages, and unto ages You shall be: but puts the verb in the present, intimating that the substance of God is altogether immutable. It is not, He was, and Shall be, but only Is. Whence the expression, I Am that I Am; and, I Am "has sent me unto you;" [Exodus 3:14] and, "You shall change them, and they shall be changed: but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail." Behold then the eternity that is our refuge, that we may fly there from the mutability of time, there to remain for evermore.

Before the mountains were made, and the earth and the world were formed. At this place a heresy creeps in: If he was made a refuge for us before the mountains were made and the earth and the world were formed, then souls existed before the world came to be. For what does Scripture say? Lord, you have been made a refuge for us: from generation, it says, to generation: from the beginning of the world, before the beginning of the world. This is what they say. And do not think, he says, that I am the one saying it. Before the mountains were made, and the earth and the world were formed, you, he says, have been made a refuge for us. But if you were our refuge before the world was made, then souls existed before the world came to be. You divide the sentence wrongly, O heresy. Why do you slander the Holy Spirit? Speak in the way the Holy Spirit spoke. It should therefore be read thus: Lord, you have been made a refuge for us from generation to generation: and the pause is up to this point. Then another fresh beginning: Before the mountains were made, and the earth and the world were formed, from age to age you are God. You are God before the mountains were made, you are God before the earth and the world were formed, from age to age you are God, you always are, you are eternal.

From generation to generation. In this place the serpent hisses. For those who say that souls were made before the world and before they were put into bodies, say this: Lord, you have become a refuge for us from generation to generation, before the mountains were made or the world was formed — that is, before this world was created, you were our refuge — punctuating badly, understanding badly. For we ought to say it thus: Lord, you have become a refuge for us from generation to generation. And the pause of the sentence goes this far. Then, what follows, thus: Before the mountains were made, and the world was formed, from age to age you are God. This, then, is said, not that man's soul existed before the age, but that the Lord God is shown to have always existed and to be before the ages. Finally the following verse too speaks fittingly, And from age to age you are God. From eternity to eternity you abide, having neither beginning nor end.

But as our life here is exposed to numerous and great temptations, and it is to be feared lest we may be turned aside by them from that refuge, let us see what in consequence of this the prayer of the man of God seeks for. "Turn not Thou man to lowness" [Psalm 90:3]: that is, let not man, turned aside from Your eternal and sublime things, lust for things of time, savour of earthly things. This prayer is what God has Himself enjoined us, in the Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," [Matthew 6:13] He adds, "Again You say, Come again, you children of men." As if he said, I ask of You what You have commanded me to ask: giving glory to His grace, that "he that glories, in the Lord he may glory:" [1 Corinthians 1:31] without whose help we cannot by an exertion of our own will overcome the temptations of this life. "Turn not Thou man to lowness: again you say, Turn again, you children of men." But grant what You have enjoined, by hearing the prayer of him who can at least pray, and aiding the faith of the willing soul.

Turn not man away into lowliness. Moses prays on behalf of man, and what does he say? Do not suffer to perish him whom you fashioned in your image. Turn not man away into lowliness. Consider not the vileness of the body, but the dignity of the soul. Let it suffice us that we once heard, "You are earth, and into earth you shall go," and that because of the consciousness of sin we are brought low. Turn not man away into lowliness. Turn him not away, but turn him back: for you have said through all the prophets, Turn back, you sons of men. Let it suffice that you have sinned: do penance, that you may be able to have salvation. Turn not man away into lowliness. Send your Son, that he may lift the body of our lowliness on high, and, freed from the burdens of the earth, raise it through a new manner of life to heaven.

Do not turn man away into humiliation. And you said: Turn back, sons of men. O Lord, that we might dare to ask this, that we might say, Do not turn man away into humiliation, you have given us confidence by saying: "Return to me, sons, as you turn back, and I will heal your afflictions." And you said: Turn back, sons of men. For a thousand years before your eyes are like a single day that has passed by: do not turn man away into humiliation. And a watch in the night. What did he mean to say by this, And a watch in the night? We ought also to know this according to the literal history: the night is divided into four watches. Indeed in the Gospel too it is said: "But in the fourth watch." One watch, then, is three hours: so the night is divided into four watches. Indeed soldiers have these four stations, when they keep guard and relieve one another. See, then, what he says. All of our eternity: that Adam our forefather, who lived nine hundred and thirty years; even that Methuselah, who lived nine hundred and sixty-five years; suppose he had lived a thousand: in comparison with your eternity, what was great is short. For what can be great that has an end? Our thousand years, before we had committed offense, was one day in your sight. Why do I say, one day? one watch of the night. Do not turn man away into humiliation. See what he says: You deigned for our salvation to come down, you poured out your blood for us: do not allow us to perish, and to die in humiliation. You yourself said: "When I have been lifted up, I will draw all to myself." You have been lifted up, and you have lifted us up: do not abandon us, so that we be dragged down.

"For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday, which is past by" [Psalm 90:4]: hence we ought to turn to Your refuge, where You are without any change, from the fleeting scenes around us; since however long a time may be wished for for this life, "a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday:" not as tomorrow, which is to come: for all limited periods of time are reckoned as having already passed. Hence the Apostle's choice is rather to aim at what is before, [Philippians 3:13] that is, to desire things eternal, and to forget things behind, by which temporal matters should be understood. But that no one may imagine a thousand years are reckoned by God as one day, as if with God days were so long, when this is only said in contempt of the extent of time: he adds, "and as a watch in the night:" which only lasts three hours. Nevertheless men have ventured to assert their knowledge of times, to the pretenders to which our Lord said, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father has put in His own power:" [Acts 1:7] and they allege that this period may be defined six thousand years, as of six days. Nor have they heeded the words, "are but as one day which is past by:" for, when this was uttered, not a thousand years only had passed, and the expression, "as a watch in the night," ought to have warned them that they might not be deceived by the uncertainty of the seasons: for even if the six first days in which God finished His works seemed to give some plausibility to their opinion, six watches, which amount to eighteen hours, will not consist with that opinion.

I certainly believe that to be God is to enjoy an infinite present, where nothing has yet passed away and nothing is still to come. Does it follow that we can say the same of saints and angels? Or at any rate exactly the same? The dead might experience a time which was not quite so linear as ours--it might, so to speak, have thickness as well as length. Already in this life we get some thickness whenever we learn to attend to more than one thing at once. One can suppose this increased to any extent, so that though, for them as for us, the present is always becoming the past, yet each present contains unimaginably more than ours.

In Psalm 90 (4) it had been said that a thousand years were to God like a single yesterday; in 2 Peter 3:8—not the first place in the world where one would have looked for so metaphysical a theology—we read not only that a thousand years are as one day but also that 'one day is as a thousand years'. The Psalmist only meant, I think, that God was everlasting, that His life was infinite in time. But the epistle takes us out of the time-series altogether. As nothing outlasts God, so nothing slips away from Him into a past. The later conception (later in Christian thought—Plato had reached it) of the timeless as an eternal present has been achieved.

For a thousand years before your eyes are as yesterday's day, which has passed. Compared to the eternity of God, all the time of man is short: although it seems long to us, yet in comparison with eternity, because it is bounded by an end, it is reckoned as nothing.

And as a watch in the night. The night has four watches, marked off in periods of three hours each, as it is said in the Gospel, "In the fourth watch of the night" Jesus "came to them," which is understood to be about cockcrow. This, then, is what he says: a thousand years with you are to be compared not only to the shortness of a day, but to the span of three hours.

Next, the man of God, or rather the Prophetic spirit, seems to be reciting some law written in the secret wisdom of God, in which He has fixed a limit to the sinful life of mortals, and determined the troubles of mortality, in the following words: "Their years are as things which are nothing worth: in the morning let it fade away like the grass" [Psalm 90:5]. The happiness therefore of the heirs of the old covenant, which they asked of the Lord their God as a great boon, attained to receive this Law in His mysterious Providence. Moses seems to be reciting it: "Their years shall be things which are esteemed as nothing." Such are those things which are not before they are come: and when come, shall soon not be: for they do not come to be here, but to be gone. "In the morning," that is, before they come, "as a heat let it pass by;" but "in the evening," it means after they come, "let it fall, and be dried up, and withered" [Psalm 90:6]. It is "to fall" in death, be "dried up" in the corpse, "withered" in the dust. What is this but flesh, wherein is the accursed lust of fleshly things? "For all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of man as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of the Lord abideth for ever."

Whatever is in the world fades away, passes away. What is this life, except what the Psalm says: "In the morning it passes away like grass, in the morning it blooms and passes: in the evening it falls, hardens, and withers?" This is all flesh. Therefore Christ, therefore a new life, therefore the hope of eternity, therefore the promised consolation of immortality, and already given in the flesh of the Lord. For that flesh was assumed by us, which is now immortal, and he has shown us in himself what he fulfilled in himself. For he had flesh for us. For he: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Seek flesh and blood: where is it in the Word? Because he truly willed to suffer with us, and to redeem us, he assumed the form of a servant, and descended who was here, that he might appear who was not absent; and he willed to become man who made man, to be created from a mother, who created a mother. He ascended to the cross, died, and showed us what we knew, to be born and to die. He fulfilled in himself these old humble things of ours, known and familiar. We knew to be born and to die: we did not know to rise again and live forever. Therefore he assumed our two old things humbly: he fulfilled two other great and new things exaltedly. He raised the flesh, lifted the flesh into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father. He willed to be our Head, the Head cried out for the members: because even when he was here, he said: "Father, I desire that where I am, they also may be with me." Let us hope this also for our flesh, for the resurrection, the change, the incorruption, the immortality, the eternal abode: and let us act so that we may attain this.

In the morning let it pass like grass, in the morning let it flower and pass away: in the evening let it fall, harden, and wither. O the mysteries of the Scriptures! In the morning let it pass like grass. Our Lord and Savior also speaks in the Gospel about the hay, which springs up in one day and withers in one day. Just as grass that is green and flowers seems in the morning to be, as it were, a flower and green: yet when the sun comes and scorches it, toward evening it wilts, as it were, and falls; so too all our life seems to be, as it were, a flower while it is green, and it withers. Ten years ago you saw a young lad: nothing more beautiful than he, he ran this way and that. If you look at him now, he seems in old age to be, as it were, dead. Though he lives in old age, yet his youth has perished. In the morning let it pass like grass, that is, our youth: for that is the morning. Let it pass like grass, in the morning let it flower and pass away. We flower in youth, we wither in old age. In the evening let it fall, harden, and wither.

Their years shall be counted as nothing. What he says is this: since man from the beginning of the world lived nearly a thousand years, and a thousand years before God are as a watch in the night. Nay, I have said enough: the ages of men are as nothing in comparison with the divine eternity. Do you wish to know more fully how human life is nothing? Hear what follows. In the morning let it pass like grass. As the morning dew passes swiftly, so is the life of men. Our morning is youth. In the morning let it flower and pass. In youth and full age we flowered, but in old age we fall down, and the flower of our strength has withered. For which of us knows how our age passes by? While we scarcely know it, old age steals up on us from behind. In the evening let it fall, harden, and grow dry. Our evening is old age, which, when the flower of youth has been shaken off, is hardened by the manifold horror of diseases. "For all flesh indeed is grass, and its glory is as the flower of grass: it withered and fell; but the word of the Lord abides forever." We still live, and part of us has already perished in old age: though the mind is the same, yet we who feel that we have lost the vigor of our former youth are in a manner become other men.

"In the evening," it means after they come, "let it fall, and be dried up, and withered" [Psalm 90:6]. It is "to fall" in death, be "dried up" in the corpse, "withered" in the dust. What is this but flesh, wherein is the accursed lust of fleshly things? "For all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of man as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of the Lord abideth for ever."

Adam passed over from truth to vanity. "A phantom only, man goes his ways; like vapor only are his restless pursuits; he heaps up stores, and knows not who will use them. — The next morning they are like the changing grass, which at dawn springs up anew, but by evening wilts and fades." For as long as vain, transitory, passing good is loved, man is "passing over." And such passing over Wisdom reproves. This passing over is the cause of every evil.

Making no secret that this fate is a penalty inflicted for sin, he adds at once, "For we consume away in Thy displeasure, and are troubled at Thy wrathful indignation" [Psalm 90:7]: we consume away in our weakness, and are troubled from the fear of death; for we are become weak, and yet fearful to end that weakness. "Another," saith He, "shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not:" although not to be punished, but to be crowned, by martyrdom; and the soul of our Lord, transforming us into Himself, was sorrowful even unto death: for "the Lord's going out" is no other than in "death."

For we have failed in your anger, and in your wrath we have been troubled. Formerly we used to live nine hundred and thirty years, we had reached up to a thousand: behold, our life has been contracted to a brief span.

In your anger we have failed. Because through our sins we have earned your anger, we have lost in Adam the immortality you had given, from whom sin has been handed down to us, as it were naturally, by hereditary right. And in your fury we have been troubled. Beautifully he said, troubled: for one who is troubled does not perish, but is shaken with terror, so that he may feel the power of him whom by sinning he had scorned, and may flee, humble and submissive, to repentance. And in your fury we have been troubled. Because we have given offense, we are thrown into confusion; but because, believing, we have received your Christ, we are consoled.

"You have set our misdeeds before You" [Psalm 90:8]: that is, You have not dissembled Your anger: "and our age in the light of Your countenance." "The light of Your countenance" answers to "before You," and to "our misdeeds," as above.

You have set our iniquities in your sight. Nothing is hidden from you: that is, neither does night hide our sins, nor do shadows envelop them: all things shine bright before you. Our age in the illumination of your countenance. It stands better in the Hebrew: "Our faults in the illumination of your countenance." Whatever we do, whatever we think we are doing in secret, lies open in your eyes.

You have set our iniquities in your sight. Nothing of our sins has been hidden from you: all the evils we have committed are manifest before you.

Our age in the light of your countenance. All that we live, or that we do, is not hidden from your eyes: the very darkness is not concealed from you.

Let everyone above all have this zeal in common so that having made a beginning they not hesitate or grow fainthearted in their labors or say, "We have spent a long time in ascetic discipline." Instead, as though we were beginning anew each day, let each of us increase in fervor. For the entire lifetime of a human being is very brief when measured against the age to come; accordingly, all our time here is nothing compared with life eternal. Everything in the world is sold according to its value and things of equal value are exchanged, but the promise of eternal life is purchased for very little. For it is written, "The days of our life are seventy years or, if we are strong, perhaps eighty; more than this is pain and suffering." When we persevere in ascetic discipline for all eighty or even one hundred years, we will not reign for the equivalent of those one hundred years. Instead of a hundred years, we will reign forever and ever. And although we are contested on earth, we will not receive our inheritance here; we have promises in heaven instead. Once more: when we lay aside this perishable body we receive it back imperishable. LIFE OF ST.

"For all our days are failed, and in Thine anger we have failed" [Psalm 90:9]. These words sufficiently prove that our subjection to death is a punishment. He speaks of our days failing, either because men fail in them from loving things that pass away, or because they are reduced to so small a number; which he asserts in the following lines: "our years are spent in thought like a spider."

And so the human race was lying under a just condemnation, and all men were the children of wrath. Of which wrath it is written: "All our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told." Of which wrath also Job says: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." Of which wrath also the Lord Jesus says: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." He does not say it will come, but it "abideth on him." For every man is born with it; wherefore the apostle says: "We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Now, as men were lying under this wrath by reason of their original sin, and as this original sin was the more heavy and deadly in proportion to the number and magnitude of the actual sins which were added to it, there was need for a Mediator, that is, for a reconciler, who, by the offering of one sacrifice, of which all the sacrifices of the law and the prophets were types, should take away this wrath. Wherefore the apostle says: "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Now when God is said to be angry, we do not attribute to Him such a disturbed feeling as exists in the mind of an angry man; but we call His just displeasure against sin by the name "anger," a word transferred by analogy from human emotions. But our being reconciled to God through a Mediator, and receiving the Holy Spirit, so that we who were enemies are made sons ("For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God"): this is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

For in the most general sense it holds good that it is apparently not possible for any person to remain altogether without experience of ill. For, as one says, "the whole world lies in wickedness"; and again, "Most of the days of human life are labor and trouble." But you will perhaps say, "What difference is there between being tempted, and falling or entering into temptation?" Well, if one is overcome by evil—and he will be overcome unless he struggles against it himself and unless God protects him with his shield—that person has entered into temptation, and is in it and is brought under it like one that is led captive. But if one withstands and endures, he is indeed tempted; but he has not entered into temptation or fallen into it. Thus Jesus was led up of the Spirit, not indeed to enter into temptation but to be tempted of the devil. And Abraham, again, did not enter into temptation, neither did God lead him into temptation, but he tried [tested] him; yet he did not drive him into temptation. The Lord, moreover, tested the disciples. Thus the wicked one, when he tempts us, draws us into the temptations, as dealing himself with the temptations of evil. But God, when he tests, presents the tests as one untempted by evil. For God, it is said, "cannot be tempted by evil." The devil, therefore, drives us on by violence, drawing us to destruction; but God leads us by hand, training us for our salvation.

For all our days have failed. Our lifetime has run its course: and while we are unaware, it slips away, we perish; and this very thing that we are speaking is part of death, and we do not understand. Our years will be pondered like a spider. See what he says. Just as a spider casts out its threads, as it were, and runs this way and that, and weaves all day long, and the labor indeed is great, but the result is nothing: so too the life of men runs this way and that. We seek possessions, we prepare riches, we beget sons, we labor, we are raised up to kingdoms, and we do everything: and we do not understand that we are weaving a spider's web.

For all our days have failed. So do the days pass and death draw near, that in a manner, while we know it not, our whole age and life itself is stolen away, scanty as it is. This very thing, which I now speak and you hear, is cut away from a part of our life; and although we believe there to be in it some advancing of the soul, yet because it uses up the span of hours, it is a loss of time and of age. And thus it comes about that where we think we have gain, there rather loss is brought upon us.

Our years shall be pondered like a spider. He could have said nothing more beautiful than to describe human life and all our anxiety and pursuits, in which we run this way and that and lay up wealth, seek riches, build houses, beget children: and see to what a thing they are compared. Our years shall be pondered like a spider. For just as we see the spider draw out its threads on the walls and weave its webs, which are undone by a sudden wind; so every act of our life is scattered by the sudden onset of tribulation or of death.

They say concerning Abba Apollo, who lived in Scete, that he was originally a rude and brutish herdsman, and that he [once] saw in the fields a woman who was with child and that, through the operation of the devil, he said, "I wish to know the condition of the child that is in the womb of this woman," and that he ripped her open and saw the child in her belly; then straightway he repented, and he purged his heart, and having repented he went to Scete and revealed unto the fathers what he had done. And when he heard them singing the psalms and saying, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and with difficulty [we come] to fourscore years," he said to the old men, "I am forty years old this day, and I have never prayed; and now, if I live for forty years more, I will never rest nor cease nor refrain from praying to God continually that he may forgive me my sins." And from that time onwards he did even as he had said, for he never toiled with the work of his hands, but he was always supplicating God and saying, "I, O my Lord, like a man, have sinned, and do you, like God, forgive me"; and he prayed this prayer both by night and by day instead of reciting psalms. And a certain brother who used to dwell with him once heard him say in his prayer, now as he spoke he wept, and groaned from the bottom of his heart and sighed in grief of heart, "O my Lord, I have vexed you; have pity on me, and forgive me so that I may enjoy a little rest." Then a voice came to him that said, "Your sins have been forgiven you, and also the murder of the woman; but the murder of the child is not yet forgiven you." And one of the old men said, "The murder of the child also was forgiven to him, but God left him to work because this would prove beneficial to his soul."

"The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet is more of them but labour and sorrow" [Psalm 90:10]. These words appear to express the shortness and misery of this life: since those who have reached their seventieth year are styled old men. Up to eighty, however, they appear to have some strength; but if they live beyond this, their existence is laborious through multiplied sorrows. Yet many even below the age of seventy experience an old age the most infirm and wretched: and old men have often been found to be wonderfully vigorous even beyond eighty years. It is therefore better to search for some spiritual meaning in these numbers. For the anger of God is not greater on the sins of Adam (through whom alone "sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men"), [Romans 5:12] because they live a much shorter time than the men of old; since even the length of their days is ridiculed in the comparison of a thousand years to yesterday that is past, and to three hours: especially since at the very time when they provoked the anger of God to send the deluge in which they perished, their life was at its longest span.

The days of our years in themselves are seventy years. Where are the thousand years? We have been contracted into seventy years: but if more, eighty. But if we live longer, it is no longer life, but death. But if among the powerful, eighty years. For whom will you find to be an eighty-year-old and to be healthy? The Greek saying also says: "Old age is itself a disease." And what is beyond them is toil and sorrow. Whatever is more is not life, but sorrow.

This much we have said for the time being according to the literal history: but now let us speak according to the anagogical sense. And indeed every psalm admits of a figurative interpretation; and I could now run through it verse by verse, and give the spiritual understanding in each: but the hour shuts us out. Let me at least give you in a single verse, as it were, a taste of the spiritual understanding, so that whatever I here leave unspoken, you may consider to have been spoken here. The days of our years in themselves are seventy years. Seventy years are seven decades, and eighty years are eight decades. See, then, how the seventh and the eighth number is proclaimed. And just as we said, You have been made a refuge for us from generation to generation, both in the old and in the new testament: therefore now too he sets down both the seventh and the eighth number. This he says also in Ecclesiastes: "Give a portion to seven, and give a portion to eight." Therefore there are also fifteen Psalms of Degrees, that is, seven and eight: which fifteen together lead us to the kingdom of heaven. And indeed, after the seventh Psalm of Degrees has been completed, what does Scripture call that psalm itself? "A psalm," it says, "of Solomon," who had built the old house. And what does it say? "Unless the Lord builds the house, in vain have they labored who built it." What then does Solomon himself say, who is prefixed in the very title? I built the temple: but unless the eighth number builds, the house is built in vain. We read also in the Gospel according to Matthew: Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, and the rest, and there are eight beatitudes. Therefore our Lord enclosed the Gospel in the number eight. Indeed nowhere do we find eight beatitudes together except in the Gospel. In the number eight, that is, on the day of the resurrection. The days of our years in themselves are seventy years. Do you wish that I should meanwhile show you that the seventh and the eighth number contain very many mysteries? Let us read Ezekiel, and at one gate it is said: "And let him enter," it says, "through the gate of the east into the temple that is being built." In Ezekiel, in the last part. "And the high priest shall go up," it says, "by seven and eight steps." And could it be that at that gate there were both seven steps, and eight? But see what he says. The eastern gate, from which the light comes. Our Lord and Savior. There is indeed one gate, and no one enters through it except the high priest. And what is said there? "This gate shall always be shut." And it is not opened except to the priest. So therefore both the new and the old testament was always shut: it was not opened except to the Savior. For he is the one "who holds the key, who opens and no one shuts, who shuts and no one opens." So one gate has both seven and eight steps. And in the old testament indeed there are evangelical mysteries, and in the new testament there are mysteries of the law. Hear greater mysteries. At that time when Solomon, that is, our peacemaker who says, "My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you": for "he himself is our peace," and "the peace that surpasses all understanding," he himself built a temple to God. And see there what Scripture says. "And there were," it says, "seventy thousand stonecutters, and eighty thousand of those who carried burdens." See the number. The stonecutters who cut the stones, who prepare, as it were, the foundations of the buildings, who lift up the stones from the earth to build in the temple of God, are placed in the seventh number, in the prophets, in the patriarchs. For they, drawing out the human race, as it were, from the earth, prepared them for the temple of the Lord. But these others, that is, the eighty thousand, are the apostolic and evangelical preaching, these who together with the Lord the Savior and Solomon himself carried the heavy sins of the nations. Up to this point the mystery seems to be finished: hear greater mysteries. "And those who were in charge," it says, "of these works and of the temple, were three thousand." There can be none greater, even among those who preside over the works, than those who preach the Trinity. The days of our years in themselves are seventy years. There are many things that might be said, but the hour shuts us out.

The days of our years in themselves are seventy years. See how gradually human life has been reduced. First in paradise we had received eternity, which we lost through disobedience: afterward the life of the ancients was extended to a thousand years: now, in the dregs of our time, one scarcely reaches seventy.

The days of our years in themselves are seventy years: but if in strength, eighty years: and more than these is labor and sorrow. See what he says, More than these is labor and sorrow. This is what we said above, that where we think there is gain in our life, there we find loss and disadvantage. Where there is increase of years, there is old age: where old age, there diseases: where diseases, there torments: where torment, there the longing for death.

For mildness has come upon us, and we shall be chastened. What is this mildness, through which we are chastened? "Remember, Lord, David and all his mildness." What is this mildness? "Learn that I am mild and humble of heart." Mildness has come upon us. He did not say, the mild one has come, but mildness has come, which is our Lord Jesus Christ; who, just as in another place he is called not wise but wisdom, so here too he is named not mild but mildness itself.

"For who knows the power of Your wrath: and for the fear of You to number Your anger?" [Psalm 90:11]. It belongs to very few men, he says, to know the power of Your wrath; for when Thou dost spare, Your anger is so far heavier against most men; that we may know that labour and sorrow belong not to wrath, but rather to Your mercy, when You chasten and teachest those whom You love, to save them from the torments of eternal punishment: as it is said in another Psalm, "The sinner has provoked the Lord: He will not require it of him according to the greatness of His wrath." With this also is understood, "Who knows?" Such is the difficulty of finding any one who knows how to number Your anger by Your fear, that he adds this, meaning that it is to the purpose that Thou appearest to spare some, with whom You are more angry, that the sinner may be prospered in his path, and receive a heavier doom at the last. For when the power of human wrath has killed the body, it has nothing more to do: but God has power both to punish here, and after the death of the body to send into Hell, and by the few who are thus taught, the vain and seductive prosperity of the wicked is judged to be greater wrath of God.. ..

"Make Your right hand so well known" [Psalm 90:12]. This is the reading of most of the Greek copies: not of some in Latin, which is thus, "Make Your right hand well known to me." What is, "Your right hand," but Your Christ, of whom it is said, And to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed? [Isaiah 53:1] Make Him so well known, that Your faithful may learn in Him to ask and to hope for those things rather of You as rewards of their faith, which do not appear in the Old Testament, but are revealed in the New: that they may not imagine that the happiness derived from earthly and temporal blessings is to be highly esteemed, desired, or loved, and thus their feet slip, when they see it in men who honour You not: that their steps may not give way, while they know not how to number Your anger. Finally, in accordance with this prayer of the Man that is His, He has made His Christ so well known as to show by His sufferings that not these rewards which seem so highly prized in the Old Testament, where they are shadows of things to come, but things eternal, are to be desired. The right hand of God may also be understood in this sense, as that by which He will separate His saints from the wicked: because that hand becomes well known, when it scourges every son whom He receives, and suffers him not, in greater anger, to prosper in his sins, but in His mercy scourges him with the left, that He may place him purified on His right hand. [Matthew 25:33] The reading of most copies, "make Your right hand well known to me," may be referred either to Christ, or to eternal happiness: for God has not a right hand in bodily shape, as He has not that anger which is aroused into violent passion.

A hermit said, 'If you lose gold or silver, you can find something as good as you lost. But the man who loses time can never make up what he has lost.'

Make known your right hand, and those fettered in heart in wisdom. In some manuscripts it says "the learned," in others it says "the fettered." "Learned" means one thing, "fettered" means another. What then does he say: Make known your right hand? Why so long do you draw back your right hand, O God? "Why do you turn away your hand into your bosom?" it says in another psalm. What is being said is this: We are laid low in sickness, we lie in sins: send forth your right hand, and lift us up. Why so long do you keep your right hand in your bosom? Let your heart pour out your good Word: send forth your right hand, and set us free. Make known to us the mystery which was hidden from the generations. Make known your right hand. What are you stealing away by stealth, O Arius? He did not say, make your right hand: for God was never without his right hand. But what did he say? Your right hand, which always existed, and was in your bosom, make it known. Since we cannot know him remaining in his deity, let him take on manhood, and thus let us understand him. Make known your right hand thus, and those fettered in heart in wisdom: those who have the fetters of wisdom, that is, who are fettered in the heart through your wisdom. Do not let it trouble you that the passage is obscure. The prophets had wisdom: but that very wisdom, as it were, fettered them; they could not fly without Christ. See, then, what he says: Send forth your right hand, that is, your Son, and make him known to us; and let the prophets, who prophesied, as it were, the shadow, begin to preach the Lord more manifestly.

Make your right hand thus known, and those fettered in heart in wisdom. Your right hand, with which you made the world, enlighten the world. "For the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed?" Your right hand, with which you made man, let it itself take up and save the human body. And those fettered in heart in wisdom. It can be understood thus: those who before wandered freely, let them be fettered by your wisdom. For it is better to be well fettered than to have feet ill at liberty; it is better to stand well than to run badly. Just as that colt in the Gospel, which before was free, and unbridled went along over the precipices, afterward, when sat upon by the Lord, is reined in and is taught to walk well: so we pray you, that you make your right hand known to the world, so that the wandering and unstable may be fettered by your wisdom.

And as when they became so well known, as to despise these things, and by setting their affections on things eternal, gave a testimony through their sufferings (whence they are called witnesses or martyrs in the Greek), they endured for a long while many bitter temporal afflictions. This man of God gives heed to this, and the prophetic spirit under the name of Moses continues thus, "Return, O Lord, how long? And be softened concerning Your servants" [Psalm 90:13]. These are the words of those, who, enduring many evils in that persecuting age, become known because their hearts are bound in the chain of wisdom so firmly, that not even such hardships can induce them to fly from their Lord to the good things of this world. "How long will You hide Your face from me, O Lord?" occurs in another Psalm, in unison with this sentence, "Return, O Lord, how long?" And that they who, in a most carnal spirit, ascribe to God the form of a human body, may know that the "turning away" and "turning again" of His countenance is not like those motions of our own frame, let them recollect these words from above in the same Psalm, "You have set our misdeeds before You, and our secret sins in the light of Your countenance." How then does he say in this passage, "Return," that God may be favourable, as if He had turned away His face in anger; when as in the former he speaks of God's anger in such a manner, as to insinuate that He had not turned away His countenance from the misdeeds and the course of life of those He was angry with, but rather had set them before Him, and in the light of His countenance? The word, "How long," belongs to righteousness beseeching, not indignant impatience. "Be softened," some have rendered by a verb, "soften." But "be softened" avoids an ambiguity; since to soften is a common verb: for he may be said to soften who pours out prayers, and he to whom they are poured out: for we say, I soften you, and I soften toward you.

Turn back, O Lord, how long? We have sinned much, you turn away your face, our sins are not worthy to be seen by your eyes, and therefore we pray: Turn back, O Lord, how long? Behold, now so many ages have flowed by: the prophets have always proclaimed to the nations that you would come, and still you have not come. And direct the sons of men. We who are crooked, may we be set straight by you. And direct the sons of men. Well did he say, direct the sons of men. Direct them for this reason, because they are sons of men. For if they were your sons, they would have been set straight. For you yourself said: "I said: you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men, and shall fall like one of the princes." And in another place: "Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart?" And in another place: "My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh." Since they are men, therefore they are flesh. So because we are sons of men, and we have lost the state of being sons of God, and we have become crooked: therefore direct us, so that we may again be made your sons.

Turn back, Lord, how long? Turn back, Lord, and look upon your image: do not show us your back, but your face. Turn back, how long? He who says how long shows that he desires, and cannot bear the delays of his desire.

Next, in anticipation of future blessings, of which he speaks as already vouchsafed, he says, "We are satisfied with Your mercy in the morning" [Psalm 90:14]. Prophecy has thus been kindled for us, in the midst of these toils and sorrows of the night, like a lamp in the darkness, until day dawn, and the Day-star arise in our hearts. [2 Peter 1:19] For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God: then shall the righteous be filled with that blessing for which they hunger and thirst now, [Matthew 5:8, 6] while, walking in faith, they are absent from the Lord. [2 Corinthians 5:6] Hence are the words, "In Your presence is fullness of joy:" and, "Early in the morning they shall stand by, and shall look up:" and as other translators have said it, "We shall be satisfied with Your mercy in the morning;" then they shall be satisfied. As he says elsewhere, "I shall be satisfied, when Your glory shall be revealed." So it is said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us:" and our Lord Himself answers, "I will manifest Myself to Zion;" [John 14:8, 21] and until this promise is fulfilled, no blessing satisfies us, or ought to do so, lest our longings should be arrested in their course, when they ought to be increased until they gain their objects. "And we rejoiced and were glad all the days of our life." Those days are days without end: they all exist together: it is thus they satisfy us: for they give not way to days succeeding: since there is nothing there which exists not yet because it has not reached us, or ceases to exist because it has passed; all are together: because there is one day only, which remains and passes not away: this is eternity itself. These are the days respecting which it is written, "What man is he that lusts to live, and would fain see good days?" These days in another passage are styled years: where unto God it is said, "But You are the same, and Your years shall not fail:" for these are not years that are accounted for nothing, or days that perish like a shadow: but they are days which have a real existence, the number of which he who thus spoke, "Lord, let me know mine end" (that is, after reaching what term I shall remain unchanged, and have no further blessing to crave), "and the number of my days, what it is" (what is, not what is not): prayed to know. He distinguishes them from the days of this life, of which he speaks as follows, "Behold, You have made my days as it were a span long," which are not, because they stand not, remain not, but change in quick succession: nor is there a single hour in them in which our being is not such, but that one part of it has already passed, another is about to come, and none remains as it is. But those years and days, in which we too shall never fail, but evermore be refreshed, will never fail. Let our souls long earnestly for those days, let them thirst ardently for them, that there we may be filled, be satisfied, and say what we now say in anticipation, "We have been satisfied," etc. "We have been comforted again now, after the time that You have brought us low, and for the years wherein we have seen evil" [Psalm 90:15].

We have been filled in the morning with your mercy. There are mysteries in what is said in the psalms, and all things are full of figures. Moses prays in the person of the human race, that the Son of God may deign to come to the lands of earth. And because he had said, Make your right hand thus known, now, because he feels himself heard, he adds and says, We have been filled in the morning with your mercy, when your Son on the third day rose again from the dead. And because in the evening he descended for our life into the darkness of death, that he might draw us out to the light of morning, in that hour we come to know the fullness of your mercy. Whence the twenty-first psalm is entitled with this heading: "For the morning taking up." Your mercy indeed always appeared to the saints; but never was it so manifestly and so fully poured out as when the Redeemer of all rose again for the common salvation.

And we have exulted and been delighted. After the joy of the resurrection of our Lord, by which we now believe both that we have been redeemed and that we shall rise again, for the remaining days of our life, rejoicing in this confidence, we exult, and with hymns and spiritual songs we render praise to God through Jesus Christ our Lord: to whom is glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

But now in days that are as yet evil, let us speak as follows. "Look upon Thy servants, and upon Thy works" [Psalm 90:16]. For Thy servants themselves are Thy works, not only inasmuch as they are men, but as Thy servants, that is, obedient to Thy commands. For we are His workmanship, created not merely in Adam, but in Christ Jesus, unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them: "for it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure." "And direct their sons:" that they may be right in heart, for to such God is bountiful; for "God is bountiful to Israel, to those that are right in heart."...

Thus, if Isaiah says, "The everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth"; and Susanna said, "O everlasting God";42 and Baruch wrote, "I will cry to the Everlasting in my days," and shortly after, "My hope is in the Everlasting, that he will have you, and joy is come to me from the holy One"; yet forasmuch as the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, "Who being the radiance of his glory and the expression of his person";44 and David too in the ninetieth psalm, "And the brightness of the Lord be on us," and, "In your light shall we see light," who has so little sense as to doubt the eternity of the Son? For when did humankind see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may say of the Son, "There was once, when he was not," or "Before his generation he was not."

"And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us" [Psalm 90:17]; whence the words, "O Lord, the light of Your countenance is marked upon us." And, "Make Thou straight the works of our hands upon us:" that we may do them not for hope of earthly reward: for then they are not straight, but crooked. In many copies the Psalm goes thus far, but in some there is found an additional verse at the end, as follows, "And make straight the work of our hands." To these words the learned have prefixed a star, called an asterisk, to show that they are found in the Hebrew, or in some other Greek translations, but not in the Septuagint. The meaning of this verse, if we are to expound it, appears to me this, that all our good works are one work of love: for love is the fulfilling of the Law. [Romans 13:10] For as in the former verse he had said, "And the works of our hands make Thou straight upon us," here he says "work," not works, as if anxious to show, in the last verse, that all our works are one, that is, are directed with a view to one work. For then are works righteous, when they are directed to this one end: "for the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." [1 Timothy 1:5] There is therefore one work, in which are all, "faith which works by love:" [Galatians 5:6] whence our Lord's words in the Gospel, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." [John 6:29] Since, therefore, in this Psalm, both old and new life, life both mortal and everlasting, years that are counted for nought, and years that have the fullness of loving-kindness and of true joy, that is, the penalty of the first and the reign of the Second Man, are marked so very clearly; I imagine, that the name of Moses, the man of God, became the title of the Psalm, that pious and right-minded readers of the Scriptures might gain an intimation that the Mosaic laws, in which God appears to promise only, or nearly only, earthly rewards for good works, without doubt contains under a veil some such hopes as this Psalm displays. But when any one has passed over to Christ, the veil will be taken away: [2 Corinthians 3:15] and his eyes will be unveiled, that he may consider the wonderful things in the law of God, by the gift of Him, to whom we pray, Open Thou my eyes, and I shall see the wondrous things of Your law.

And let the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us. The Apostle also says to the Hebrews that the Lord and Savior is the splendor of the glory of the Father. And let the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us. This is what is said also in another place: "The light of your countenance has been sealed upon us, O Lord." The sign of the cross is our banner.

This much we have said for the present about the psalter, and I reckon we have lingered longer than we should have. We realize that we have said much more than we ought to have said; but we cannot keep silent about the words of our Lord, we cannot leave a psalm we have begun. Whatever profits the soul is not too much; nothing is enough of what is good, if indeed it is good. Let us therefore ask our Lord and Savior that his splendor may shine forth in our hearts, that it may cast out all our darkness, that it may drive away from our hearts the dark thoughts and those of all sins, that it may illumine our darkness, that the shadows may flee, and that his splendor may dwell in our hearts. The temple of the Lord and the tabernacle and the holy of holies always had a burning lamp, always a lamp was shining in the temple of the Lord. For if the lamp is extinguished, the Lord does not dwell in darkness. Let us therefore say, we too: "Your word, O Lord, is a lamp to our feet."