Homily 40, on Psalm 115
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).
I believed, therefore have I spoken. In the Hebrew the one hundred and fourteenth psalm and the one hundred and fifteenth are one psalm. So then, what did he say? I believed, therefore have I spoken. What did you believe? What did you speak? The earlier psalm ended thus: "I shall please before the Lord in the land of the living." So the prophet says: I believed, therefore have I spoken. What did I believe? That I shall please before the Lord in the land of the living. This I believed, and I spoke. But what did I speak? But I was humbled exceedingly. O the great understanding of the divine utterance! I believed, he says, that I shall please the Lord, that I shall be an angel, that I shall be in the heavens: and yet I was not proud, I was not lifted up, but I was humbled exceedingly. That I shall be in the land of the living, that belongs to the Lord's mercy. But I have come to know my own self, that I am earth and ashes: therefore I say, But I was humbled exceedingly. And what is earth and ashes?
But I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a liar. In the Hebrew it stands otherwise: "I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a lie," which is said ZECAM. I shall please the Lord in the land of the living: but I know my own self, that according to the condition of the body I am nothing: for there is no truth in our substance, but it is a shadow and as it were a lie. I speak of the bodily substance, not of the soul. And what he says is this. I shall please the Lord in the land of the living: but when I ponder human life, and consider its various errors, I do not find truth in this world. Since indeed "we know in part, and we prophesy in part." Therefore I say: Everything that we see, everything that we understand, is a lie. In what way, then, is it a lie? He called it here a lie, as it were a shadow, as it were an image; just as it is said also in another place: "Yet man passes away in an image." By the same understanding it is now also said, Every man is a lie: that is, every man is a shadow. But this we say according to the Hebrew truth. But let us speak also according to the Seventy translators. For someone may say: What is it to me, what does the Hebrew have? I follow the Church. I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a liar. Does David speak the truth, or does he lie? If it is true, Every man is a liar, and this that he says, Every man is a liar, is true, then he too lies: for he too is a man. But if he too lies, then this that he said, Every man is a liar, is not true. However you turn it, it comes out to the contrary. And since he too is a man, then he too lies: or if he lies that every man is a liar, then he lies in another manner. You see, then, that these are the syllogisms of the philosophers. Indeed, according to this proposition the syllogism of Aristotle is woven. In fact you say — speak to another — : If you lie, and you speak the truth that you lie: then you lie. See how the proposition turns to the contrary. For what does he say? O you who speak with me, if you lie, and you speak the truth about this very thing, that you lie: then you lie, and in the same utterance it comes about that he both speaks the truth and lies. Therefore it has been read in the Apostle: "See that no one deceive you through philosophy and the vain deceit of men, according to the elements of the world." For the philosophers found out by their deceit and their own art how in the same utterance a person may both speak the truth and lie. But let us say that David spoke the truth, that every man is a liar. As long as we are men, we lie: but when we have become gods, we cease to lie. "For where there are jealousies and contentions among you, are you not men, and do you not walk according to man?" "I said: you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." If, then, anyone is holy, he is made a god; and when he has become a god, he ceases to be a man, and now he does not lie. For what does the Apostle also say? "But let every man be a liar, but God be truthful."
Let us interpret it also in another way. I believed, therefore have I spoken. When a master teaches a disciple, unless he himself has first believed what he teaches, he cannot teach another. So he says that first he believed, and thus teaches another. But I was humbled exceedingly. But when I had obtained the grace of God, I was not lifted up into pride, knowledge did not puff me up: but what did I do? I was humbled exceedingly. Yet I who taught by word, was able to teach also by humility. I said in my ecstasy, Every man is a liar. I was teaching, he says, my disciple: and considering the heavenly contemplation, and pondering more divine things, I understood that everything that man knows is lies. For what truth can there be in this world, when our life upon the earth is a shadow? If, then, he who teaches a disciple confesses that every man is a liar: how much more ought the disciple not to exalt himself, and to reckon himself to be something?
What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that he has rendered to me? Since I have said, I shall please the Lord in the land of the living, and this very thing I believed, therefore have I spoken, and I was humbled exceedingly, and I said, Every man is a lie, every man is a shadow, every man is an image: for such great benefits, that I shall please the Lord in the land of the living, what have I worthy to render? I am earth, I am ashes: he promised me that I shall please him in the land of the living: he made me a master: I believed, therefore have I spoken. What have I worthy, that I may render to him for such great benefits? Whatever I shall give him is his own, and I give it back to him rather than bestow it. I have nothing else that I may render to him, unless I pour out my blood for him, unless I stand forth a martyr for him. This is the only worthy recompense, to render blood for blood, so that we who have been freed by the Savior may gladly pour out our blood for the Savior.
I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. In the Hebrew it stands thus: "I will take the cup of Jesus." This very thing the angel also interprets: "And you shall call his name Jesus, for he himself will save his people." I will take, then, the cup of Jesus. What is this cup of Jesus? "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me," and "Are you able," he says, "to drink my cup?" And immediately there follows: "My cup indeed you shall drink." But why did I say this? So that we may understand the cup to be the sufferings of martyrdom. A great thing is martyrdom. How is it a great thing? Because he renders to the Lord what he received from the Lord. Christ suffered for him, and he suffers for his name. Since we have said that the martyr has nothing else to render to the Lord, the Lord too reckons it to him as an equal, since he sees that his servant has nothing else to render to him. For what is comparable? God suffered for men, the Lord for the servant, the just for the sinner: what equality is there? But since the servant has nothing else to render to the Lord, God, as one merciful, accepts martyrdom as an equal. It is as if some rich man had fed a certain poor man, and it should come about that the same rich man came with his household, and came by chance into the house of the poor man, and the poor man had nothing to set before him and his household and his horses, but only said to him, Enter into the house of your client, and showed his goodwill, since the poor man has nothing else to give and to do more: like that widow who contributed two mites.
I will take the cup of salvation, or of Jesus. And this very martyrdom, he says, is not of my own strength, but of the grace of God: therefore I cannot drink it, unless I have called upon the name of the Lord. Jesus conquers in his martyr; he himself is crowned in his martyr.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Let the Jews now answer, how they say that every human body is unclean. Indeed in the Law, among the Jews, if anyone should die, whether a prophet, or a saint of whatever kind, if anyone should touch him, even if a priest, he is unclean until evening. This is written according to the letter in the Law. Let us say to them: If the body of a dead man is unclean, how is it now said, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints? If the body of a dying saint is precious, how is it unclean? Therefore this is said here of the evangelist, this is proclaimed of the martyr.
O Lord, for I am your servant. And I have already said in the one hundred and fourteenth psalm, where it has "O Lord, deliver my soul," that in the Hebrew it has ANNA, which is translated I ask or I beseech. And here in the Hebrew it stands thus: "I ask, O Lord, for I am your servant." I am your servant. It seems to be a thing of humility, what is said. It is a thing of great dignity and merit, to be the servant of the Lord, and not the servant of sin. Because I do not have, he says, men as masters, because I do not have sin as master: for sin does not reign in my mortal body: therefore I am your servant. A great merit. Indeed it is said of Moses: "But not so my servant Moses." And Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are called servants of the Lord. Therefore the Apostle also begins thus: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ."
You have broken my bonds: to you I will sacrifice a victim of praise. Truly it is of great happiness so to go to the Lord that one has no defiled conscience. Whoever, being holy, dies his own death, although he be holy who has performed works of mercy, wrought signs, cast out demons, does not go to the Lord secure: his conscience shudders when he sees the Lord. But the martyr, even if he has sinned after baptism, yet washed by a second baptism, the baptism of martyrdom, goes secure to the Lord. You have broken my bonds. "For each one is bound fast by the chains of his own sins": but in my martyrdom you have broken the bonds of my sins, and out of the bonds you have plaited for me a crown of victory. "For where sin abounded, grace superabounded." To you I will sacrifice a victim of praise. After martyrdom, where does he sacrifice? In the land of the living. I will sacrifice, he says, to you a sacrifice. What kind of sacrifice? Surely not a goat, or a calf? Those were Jewish things, and they have passed away. I will sacrifice to you a victim of praise. This is the praise of the martyrs. For just as the martyrs praise the Lord purely in the land of the living, so too the monks, who day and night sing psalms to the Lord, ought to have the same purity as the martyrs: since indeed they too are martyrs. For what the angels do in the heavens, this the monks do on earth.
I will pay my vows to the Lord in the sight of all his people. What are the prayers of the martyrs? What are the prayers of the saints? "I will hold you," he says, "and I will not let you go." I will adore, he says, the Lord, whom, reading in the Gospel, I found crucified, and in the heavens I see reigning with the angels. In the sight of all his people. Read Daniel.