Homily 51, on Psalm 140
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).
O Lord, I have cried to you, hear me. Moses was standing with the people, and Pharaoh was pursuing behind his back, and on every side there was distress for him. At that time he wept to God, and immediately God said to him: 'Why do you cry out to me?' While he was praying in silence, he was heard; yet Scripture does not record that he spoke, but only that he wept. And the blood of the martyrs always cries out to the Lord, and it is heard. And the Lord spoke to Cain: 'The blood of your brother cries out to me.' And in the Apocalypse of John the souls of the righteous beneath the altar were saying to the Lord: 'How long, O Lord, will you not vindicate us?' And at the same time let us consider that the souls of the righteous are an altar to the Lord. Attend to my voice, when I have cried out to you. That is, see and consider, O Lord, what I ask of you: for I do not ask of you a bodily desire, or gold, or any such thing of this world, but that I may obtain mercy. Therefore he says, attend, that is, listen carefully, because I ask nothing that is foreign.
Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight. That is, let my prayer come straight to you, having no filth or faults or diabolical thoughts. Now incense is the prayers of the saints. And this we know from the Apocalypse, when the twenty-four elders held censers and said: 'These are the prayers of the saints.' The lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice. The lifting up of the hands points to the Lord, and in the lifting up of the hands we behold the Creator. But notice that he did not say, the stretching out of my hands. For stretching out is not lifting up; but one stretches out both behind his back and to the side, that is, into faults, just as the Lord too says: 'When you stretch out your hands to me, I will not hear you.' The evening sacrifice, of the eleventh hour: that is, in the Gospel I lift up my hands. And again the Apostle: 'Lift up your hands to prayers.' And when Moses lifted up his hands, Jesus was winning; but when he lowered them, he was being beaten. If I understand the Scriptures according to the history and according to the letter, Moses holds his hands downward: but if spiritually, he lifts his hands on high.
Set, O Lord, a guard to my mouth. 'Death and life are in the hands of the tongue.' And again: 'Amen I say to you, that for every idle word which you have spoken, you shall render an account on the day of judgment.' This therefore the prophet asks, that everything he speaks may not be idle, but holy and worthy of God. And set a door of enclosure to my lips. He asks for a door of enclosure like a wall around the whole house, so that he may be overcome in nothing. For Jeremiah says: 'Death has entered through your windows.' Now we have five windows: that is, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. If therefore I have looked at a woman to lust after her, I have already committed adultery with her in my heart; and death has entered through my window, that is, through sight. If the lyre or the organ or the reed-pipe as it were dissolves me, death has entered through my hearing. But if I touch something soft, and am unstrung by the softness of the body, death has entered through my touch, and the rest likewise. Therefore this the prophet begs for, a door of enclosure, that is, that his whole house may be fortified, so that the adversary may have no place by which to enter and to lord it over men. For it is said in the epistle of St. Peter: 'Our adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.' The devil does not quickly fight against anyone by great faults, but by small ones; so that he may somehow or other enter, and lord it over the man, and afterward drive him into greater faults. Not through fornication, not through avarice, but through lesser faults does he enter.
Incline not my heart to words of malice, to make excuses for excuses in sins. O most wretched human race, who excuse our sins, saying, I was overcome by nature: when it is in our power both to sin and not to sin. We always excuse ourselves, and say: I did not want to sin, my flesh overcame me. That woman came to me, she sent for me, she touched me, she said that to me, she called me; and instead of doing penance and saying, Lord, I have sinned, we make excuses and join sins to sins. We all have an equal body, but different labors. 'God is no respecter of persons.' Do you wish to know that we and the saints have an equal body? Paul the Apostle says: 'But I see another law fighting against the law of my mind, and taking me captive in the law of sin.' And again after this: 'Therefore I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest, preaching to others, I myself should be found reprobate.' And again: 'Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' We have, therefore, different labors; and as much as each one labors, so much reward also does he receive.
With men that work iniquity. From the common sense it is understood: Incline not my heart with men that work iniquity. And I will not communicate with their chosen ones. Just as the Lord has his chosen saints, so the devil too has his own chosen ones. Understand for me the leaders of the heretics, and you do not doubt about their chosen ones. For if he had said the chosen ones, and not with the qualification 'their,' he would now be excluding the chosen of God. 'I will communicate' is understood in two ways: either I will consent, or I will become a second, that is, unclean. For you know that Scripture calls two things unclean. The Apostle says: 'That he might create both, that is, two men into one new man': two, the interior and the exterior; that is, making the unclean holy. And again Noah brought into the ark with him seven and seven of the clean, but two and two of the unclean.
The just shall correct me in mercy, and shall rebuke me. 'Whom the Lord loves he corrects, and he chastises every son whom he receives.' Blessed is he who is corrected here: 'the Lord will not requite twice for the same thing.' It is a great wrath of the Lord, when here he is not angry with us: for he reserves us like a calf for the slaughter. For to Jerusalem he says: 'Many are your sins and many your iniquities, therefore I will not be angry with you.' That is, when you were only an adulteress, I was jealous over you as one who loves you; but when you had many lovers, I despised you, and I will not be angry with you. Just as a man is jealous over his wife when he loves her; but if he is not jealous, he hates her, and does not attain to the words of him who says: 'I will visit their iniquities with a rod.' And again: 'And I will not visit their daughters when they have committed fornication.' The just shall correct me in mercy, and shall rebuke me. Set here some teacher, or father, or physician. If a physician sees rotten flesh in a body, and says, What is that to me? know that he is cruel. But if he cuts it away, and applies the cautery, he is merciful: because he saves the man. Likewise a teacher too, if he lets the boy go, and does not demand discipline of him, he hates him. But if he demands it, and like a physician heals him; what is thought to be harshness is clemency. And Ahab is reproved by the Lord concerning Naboth, when he killed him, and took his vineyard, and shed innocent blood. Elijah the prophet was sent to him, who said: 'You have killed, and moreover you have taken possession.' At once, stricken in conscience, he bowed down his neck and his eyes: and this an impious king, and clothed in purple. And afterward Scripture says that he went and put on sackcloth beneath the purple. And God, seeing this, said: 'Because Ahab has reverenced me, I will not bring evil upon him.' See therefore how much the sackcloth availed, and the fasting, and how much blood a little tear washed away. So then one ought to wear sackcloth and to fast in such a way that no one sees. 'Shall correct' is understood in two ways: either he will reprove, or he will teach.
But let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. 'My people, they who call you blessed lead you astray.' The praise of heretics and their oil, with which they anoint the heads of men and promise them the kingdoms of heaven, fattens the head. Now every fat thing Scripture reproves, as it says: 'And Jacob ate, and was filled, and the beloved kicked back, he grew thick, he grew fat, he grew broad.' But the manna of the angels is thin.
For my prayer also is still in their good pleasures. This he says: They indeed were raging; but I was praying for them, that they might be converted. Their judges have been swallowed up, joined to the rock. As elsewhere he says: 'Blessed is he who shall take hold of and dash your little ones against the rock.' 'And the rock was Christ.' Now the little ones are the lesser and small thoughts before they grow up. And now these very heretics, although through Aristotle and Plato they seem to despise the simplicity of the Church, yet when they have come to the Scriptures they are at once swallowed up by the rock, that is, by Christ, and are converted to him. For 'swallowing up' is said for victory, as the Apostle says: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? where, O hell, is your sting?' Now he calls that very swallowing up a victory, the victory which it had in swallowing.
They shall hear my words, for they have prevailed. The Lord himself says: Those who have come to me have been overcome, and have been delighted by my words, and have been converted to me in my Church. As the thickness of the earth. Everything thick is near to the earth: and the soul that sins clings to the earth. For the Lord from the beginning made all things thin. By his own fault, therefore, each one is made thick, and is drawn down to the earth. Let us give an example. As a wound in the body, swelling, is thick, and is full of pus, when the physician comes he cuts it, and heals it and makes it thin, then it is brought back to its own nature, as it was also created. Therefore he says: As the thickness of the earth has been broken up over the earth.
And the Savior — Our bones are scattered beside hell — in the twenty-first psalm says: 'All my bones are scattered.' If we understand according to the letter, it does not stand: since he was only crucified. When you see Arius, Eunomius outside the Church, understand the bones of the Lord to be scattered beside hell. The bone, which is strong: those very greater ones, who seem to be something through their much talking and philosophy and contention, are led astray by the heretics.
Keep me from the snare which they have set for me. Always either heretics or demons stretch snares for us. For faults are near to virtues. They have set a snare for me in almsgiving, if I stretch out my hand so that men may see, and, as though doing a good deed, I come into a fault and into sin. But if I give a tunic to a brother so that another may see, they have set a snare for me. Always nets are stretched for stags and snares are set, where the hunter has caught their tracks. Now the stag is taken for the saints: because it is lofty, and has great horns, and kills serpents. Therefore it is said elsewhere: 'Who made my feet like those of stags.' For it is said to be of such power that with the breath of its nostrils it draws serpents out of their caverns and thus devours them. Those very serpents, therefore, that is, the demons, set stumbling-blocks for us in our very tracks where we walk: in the virtues, in almsgiving, that we may do it before men for the sake of vainglory: in fasting, in prayer, in wearing sackcloth, and showing it to men. For he who wears sackcloth ought to mourn his sins, not to boast and show it to men. And from the stumbling-blocks of them that work iniquity. That is, that I may not stumble.
The sinners shall fall into his net. Above he said, Keep me from the snare which they have set for me, concerning many; but now concerning one, The sinners shall fall into his net. Just as the Lord casts a net, and catches a multitude of fish, and has the apostles as fishermen gathering and bringing to him, that is, those who believe through them: so also the devil has demons, who are subject to him, who both deceive men and bring them to him.
I am alone until I pass over. Jeremiah says: 'I sat alone, for I was filled with bitterness.' That is, I was in penitence. Alone: clean, not a second. And Moses says: 'Passing over, I will see this great vision.' Unless he passes over, that is, all the faults, he cannot see the great vision. Now the vision was great, because the bush was burning, and was not consumed: the thorns were burning, that is, the sins. By this fire Isaiah too is cleansed: for this is the coal which touched his lips, which was upon the altar. Of this coal the prophet David also makes mention: 'The sharp arrows of the mighty one with desolating coals.' This coal is a desolator: it makes solitude, and purges of sins.