Homily 6, on Psalm 66
Latin source: Germanus Morin (ed.), Sancti Hieronymi Presbyteri Tractatus sive Homiliae in Psalmos , Anecdota Maredsolana III (Maredsoli, 1897) — public domain. Psalm numbering follows the Septuagint/Vulgate (Morin).
May God have mercy on us and bless us. Let him not be our judge, but be merciful. May God have mercy on us. This is the voice of the apostles speaking to the people gathered from the nations: You have indeed believed at our voice; behold, this Church is gathered together in the name of God; therefore we say, May God have mercy on us and bless us, that by his blessing he may undo the first curse laid upon man. May he make his countenance shine upon us. Let us not see him sorrowful, but rejoicing; let us not see him sorrowful over our sins, but rejoicing in our virtues; let us not experience him as a judge, but as a Father. May he make his countenance shine upon us. What is the face of God? Surely his image. For the apostle too says that the Son is the image of the Father. Therefore let him make us shine with his image — that is, let him make his image, the Son, shine upon us, so that the Son himself may make us shine. For the light of the Father is the light of the Son. He who sees the Father sees also the Son; and he who sees the Son sees also the Father — where there is no distance between glory and glory, both are one glory.
That we may know your way upon earth. This is what we ask: that you may make your countenance shine, that is, your image, upon us — that image which has always been hidden with you, and was, as it were, in the secret and darkness of your mysteries, according to what is written: "He made darkness his hiding-place." This is what we ask, that you make it shine upon us, so that the mystery which was hidden from the generations, as the apostle says, may be revealed in us. But why do we ask for all this? Why do we desire it? Unless you make your image shine upon us, we cannot know your way and your knowledge. Therefore it follows, That we may know your way upon earth: that your majesty, which is known in the heavens, we may hold known also upon earth. That we may know your way upon earth. "I am," he says, "the way and the life and the truth." That we may know your way upon earth. Let us know it upon earth. "Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth"; that the one whom the angels adore in the heavens, men too may adore upon earth. But someone may say that the way of God was known. "For God is known in Judaea, in Israel his name is great." God was known, but the way of God was not known in Judaea. Since, then, the way of God the Father was not known among the Jews, therefore he now says: Among all the nations your salvation. Not in one people, but in all the nations. Among all the nations your salvation. Where we have in Latin "salvation" (salutare), in Hebrew it is called "Jesus." And indeed the angel too speaks this: "And you shall call," he says, "his name Jesus: for he shall save his people." Among all the nations your salvation. Behold, what the apostles prayed for is fulfilled: among all the nations his salvation is known. Wherever human speech can be, there Jesus resounds.
Let the peoples confess to you, O God, let the peoples confess to you. The Jews? No: all peoples. Just as all the nations, so also all peoples. Let the peoples confess to you, O God. What should they confess? Surely their sins — or at least let them confess that your image is in you: let them confess you in the Son, in him let them see you, in him let them adore you. Let the nations be glad and rejoice. Because they have been freed from the captivity of the devil; because those who before were bent down to adore idols, wood and stones, now with upright face look upon the heavens. Because you judge the peoples in equity. Wherever there is equity and judgment, there is not gladness, but the dread of sinners. And how did he say, May God have mercy on us and bless us; and now he says, Let the nations be glad and rejoice, because you judge the peoples in equity? It seems to be contradictory. For if they need mercy, how are they glad and rejoice, because you judge the peoples in equity? For wherever there is mercy, there is no judgment; but where there is judgment and the equity of judgment, there mercy is far off. But this is the sense. Let the nations be glad and rejoice: why should they be glad? Because you judge the peoples in equity: because you in no way show favoritism to one nation, but are the God of all. Not the Jews alone are pleasing to you, but the whole world is yours. Someone may say: You are doing violence to Scripture; it did not speak in this sense. Let Scripture interpret itself, which says, Because you judge the peoples in equity. Which peoples? And you direct the nations upon earth. The nations which before did not walk with upright foot, the nations which before did not walk on an upright path, you made them to walk in your way: that we might know your way upon earth, that we might walk in the way, not in the ways, that through one way we might come to you, from whom the way is born. For we do not go to the Father except through the Son. Someone may say: This is the doctrine of the Arians. So, then, one comes to the Father through the Son? I say this: that through the image we go to the face, and in the light we see the light, in the Son we see the Father. It is the mystery and the dispensation that speaks. But if anyone thinks it blasphemous that we have called the Son the way, and that through the way we go as it were to God, let us see what this very way says. "No one comes to me, unless my Father draws him to me." So, just as the Son leads to the Father, so also the Father leads to the Son. These are human words. But both the Son leads to the Father, and the Father leads to the Son: and there is one nature, one substance.
Let the peoples confess to you, O God — he had already said this above, and in this little psalm he repeats these two verses again. For he had said above, "Let the peoples confess to you, O God, let all the peoples confess to you. Let the nations be glad and rejoice," and so on: and now again he repeats these very verses. It is as though the apostles lead the chant for all the nations. "Often have they fought against me from my youth, let Israel now say: often have they fought against me from my youth." See how they lead the chant, and the throng of all the nations responds. So too now, when they say at the beginning "Let all the peoples confess to you," and when they urge the peoples and say "Let the peoples confess to you, O God, let all the peoples confess to you" — because they see them falling silent, therefore they rebuke them with the same words, and say, Let the peoples confess to you, O God, let all the peoples confess to you. Once we have said it, and you did not hear; let us say it again, that you may sing. But why have we said all this, both once and a second time, that the peoples should confess to God? Why do we say this? Why do we urge this? The earth has given its fruit. The earth — holy Mary — from our earth, from our seed, from this clay, from this mud, from Adam. "You are earth, and into the earth you shall go." This earth has given its fruit: what it lost in paradise, it has found in the Son. The earth has given its fruit. First it gave a flower. He says in the Song of Songs: "I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys." This flower, then, has been made fruit, that we might eat him, that we might feed on his flesh. Do you wish to know what this fruit is? A virgin from a virgin, the Lord from a handmaid, God from man, a son from a mother, fruit from the earth. See what this fruit himself says. "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it cannot bear much fruit." The earth has given its fruit, it has given the grain of wheat: which grain of wheat fell into the earth and died, and therefore brings forth much fruit. It was multiplied in the ear of corn: what had fallen as one thing, rose again with many. For the grain of wheat fell into the earth, and an abundant harvest sprang up. The earth has given its fruit. Therefore Let the peoples confess to you, O God, let all the peoples confess to you: the earth has given its fruit.
What is this fruit? May God bless us, our God; may God bless us. God — the Father; our God — the Son. For he himself is our God. "And you shall call," he says, "his name Emmanuel" — that is, God with us. Our God. May God bless us — the Holy Spirit. See the mystery of the Trinity comprehended in one little verse, The earth has given its fruit with many; in this fruit the mystery of the Trinity is contained. May God bless us, our God. He who is the God of all by nature has been made our God in a proper sense. May God bless us. May he drive out the old curse. The curse cast us out of paradise: may the blessing bring us back. May God bless us, our God; may God bless us.
And let all the ends of the earth fear him. He did not say, Let all the ends of the earth love him: "for perfect love casts out fear." To fear belongs to beginners, to love belongs to the perfect. He who still fears is placed at the start, he does not have perfect and full faith; but he who loves God, all things turn out to good for him. This little sentence seems brief and simple: but let us fan it out, and in these simple words we shall discover immense mysteries. We shall find within what lay hidden without. "But to those who love God all things work together for good." Job, the holy man, was tempted: he lost his sons and daughters, his house collapsed, he lost everything, he lost all things suddenly — neither father nor master; for nothing sound remained to him in his body, except only his tongue with which he might blaspheme. See the tempter, the devil. "From the sole," he says, "of his foot to the crown of his head he struck him with a most grievous wound" — that is, with elephantiasis. From it worms flowed over his whole body, and gore, and rottenness. His tongue alone he kept intact for him, that he might be able to blaspheme his God. "In all these things Job did not sin with his lips." See the greatness of the temptation, see the greatness of his virtue. See and consider that the apostle's saying is fulfilled: But to those who love God all things work together for good. At the time when he was losing his possessions, when he was losing his sons, the things that had happened did indeed seem to him to be adverse: but because he loved the Lord, those evils, which he brings upon him, work together to his good. Those worms of his body were preparing for him the crown of heaven. Before he was tempted, God had never spoken to him: but after he was tempted, God came to him, and speaks familiarly, as a friend with his friend. Let the plagues come, every kind of punishment, so long as after the plagues Christ arrives.
We have gone out of the psalm, but not uselessly; because we had said And let all the ends of the earth fear him, and we had said that to fear belongs to the little ones, but to love belongs to the perfect; and to prove this we had cited from the apostle, But to those who love the Lord all things work together for good. And let all the ends of the earth fear him. By no means Judaea alone, but all the ends of the earth. But according to the figurative sense (tropology), all the ends of the earth — not all the middles of the earth, not those who are in the middle of the earth, but those who are at the end of the earth, who leave the earth behind and hasten to go to heaven. This, then, which the apostles said at the beginning, let us say at the end. May God have mercy on us and bless us: may he make his countenance shine upon us, and have mercy on us.