Homily 69, on Psalm 91 (Alternate Series)
Latin source: Germanus Morin (ed.), Sancti Hieronymi Tractatus sive Homiliae in Psalmos quattuordecim (alternate series), Anecdota Maredsolana III, Pars III (Maredsoli, 1903) — public domain. Psalm numbering follows the Septuagint/Vulgate (Morin).
It is good to give praise to the Lord, and to sing psalms to your name, O Most High. Why did he not say first, "It is good to sing psalms," and afterward "to give praise"? But because this was the order of true confession, therefore he spoke thus: it is good first to do penance, and for a person to confess his sins to the Lord; and when he has confessed his sins, then to sing psalms to him, when by doing penance he has earned the free voice with which he can burst forth in the praise of God without the confession of sin.
To announce your mercy in the morning, and your truth throughout the night. Why is mercy sung in the morning, and truth in the night? Pay careful attention, for the things that are being said are obscure. First he said, "It is good to give praise to the Lord"; then praise follows upon confession; and thus the one who after penance earns the right to praise will also begin to announce the one whom he praises. But what does it mean that he said mercy is announced in the morning, and truth is sung in the night? Wherever the mercy of the Lord is, there is light, there is morning, there is the hour in which the sun rises and the darkness of blind night will perish. And your truth throughout the night. Where there is truth, there is justice; where there is justice, there is judgment; [where there is judgment,] there is no mercy; where there is no mercy, there is the peril of sinners, there is night and not day, as the prophet says, "What good is the day of the Lord to you? For this is darkness, and not light" — on which day the examination is to be conducted according to the merit of each one. Whence in another little verse the prophet says that the day is to be feared even by himself... "...will endure it?"
On the ten-stringed psaltery [with a song] upon the harp. For you have delighted me, O Lord, in your making, and in the works of your hands I will exult. This cannot be said except by a learned man, one who knows that by the providence of God each single thing has been created; who is not scandalized by the work of creation, but understanding the reason of each individual thing, glorifies the Creator and says, "For you have delighted me, O Lord, in your making, and in the works of your hands I will exult." Hear, O Manichaean, hear, O Marcion, Valentinus, and the rest of you heretics, who dare to disparage the Creator, and see that in the very thing over which you will suffer scandal, the prophet is delighted and exults in the works of the Creator, knowing that if anything should seem to be flawed, it has come not from nature, but from the will.
How magnified are your works, O Lord: your thoughts have been made exceedingly deep. Whence the apostle too says, "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Therefore, then, because your thoughts have been made exceedingly deep, and his works, which neither human sense nor reason can attain, in another place it is said, "All your works are in faith." See what he says, "Your works are in faith." If the creature stands firm in faith and not in reason, how much more the Creator himself and the Founder of all things? When therefore it is said, "And all your works are in faith," I too, who am speaking, am in faith — since indeed I am a part of his works. I too stand firm in faith and not in reason: for I cannot know by reason how I move my steps, how the tongue makes its sound, how thought arranges itself, the will commands, and the body serves the will, how the soul, which is immortal, is joined to this body which is mortal, how my soul runs to and fro here and there, and that vast breadth of the world does not contain a thing which is comprehended by the body. Why do I say all this? Because I heard that among the brothers there was a contention — nay rather, a disputation — over the faith. I say a disputation, not a contention: for where there is contention, there is sin; but where there is disputation, there is a pious desire for knowledge. For each one was not seeking to prove the things he did not know, but they brought their ignorance to my knowledge: for they did not wish to teach what they did not know, but to know what they were ignorant of. Therefore their question is not foreign, which was raised concerning the mercy of the Lord. It is said in Isaiah concerning the Lord Savior, "Who shall declare his generation?" When it is said, "Who?" every creature is excluded. For he did not say, "Which of men shall declare his generation?" but generally, "Who?" — that is, not an angel, not an archangel, not a cherub, not a seraph. For if that which is spoken of was hidden in God from the heavenly creatures, what wonder if it seems unknown to us who were made from clay? It was reported to me, brothers, that certain brothers among themselves in disputing had asked how the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are both three and are one. You see from the question how perilous disputation is: mud and an earthen vessel disputes about the Creator, and cannot arrive at the reason of its own nature; and it curiously seeks to know about the mystery of the Trinity, which the angels in heaven cannot know. For what do the angels say? "Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory." Likewise in Isaiah it is said, "Who is this who ascends from Edom, his garments white?" See what they say: they proclaim his beauty, and about his nature they are silent. Therefore let us too speak simply. Do you wish to know the nature of God? Do you wish to know what God is? Know this: that you do not know. And do not be saddened in this, that you do not know: because the angels too did not know, and likewise every creature. But someone may say: Do I then believe what I do not know? How am I a Christian, who do not know how I am a Christian? I will speak simply, before we bring forward anything from the Scriptures. O Christian, why do you think you know nothing? If you know this very thing, that you do not know, do you not rather seem to yourself to know more? The pagan man sees a stone, and thinks it a god; the philosophers see the sky, and think it a god; others see the sun, and think it a god. But you — see how much greater knowledge you have over these, you who say: A stone cannot be a god, the sun cannot be a god, which runs at the command of another. See that in the very thing in which you say you know nothing, you know more; but the pagans, in that which they say they know, do not know, because the things they have come to know are false. And at the same time consider what you are called: faithful indeed, not rational. In short, when baptism has been received, we say this: He has become faithful, or, I have become faithful. I believe what I do not know: and therefore I know, because I know myself not to know what I do not know. But someone may say: This is not to explain, but to flee the explanation; and we knew that we knew what we did not know — you, teach us to know what we are ignorant of. Is it not better piously to profess ignorance than rashly to lay claim to knowledge for oneself? On the day of judgment I am not condemned because I say, "I did not know the nature of my Creator," but if I should say something rashly: rashness has punishment, ignorance earns pardon. Let us say something from the Scriptures, not following reason, but the authority of the Lord Savior. For what does he say, about to ascend to heaven, speaking to the apostles, to whom he preaches as master and Lord? No one knows how to speak about his own nature as does he who is himself God: let it suffice for us to know about the Trinity what the Lord has deigned to explain. For what does he say to the apostles? "Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." I hear three names, and one is spoken: for he did not say, "in the names," but "in the name." He says three names: and how does he say one, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"? The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one: but it is the name of the Trinity. For what is said is, in the name of the Father who is God, in the name of the Son who is God, in the name of the Holy Spirit who is God: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one name of divinity. But you ask of me how three are called by one name? I do not know, and I freely profess that I do not know, what Christ did not wish to make known. This alone I know, that in this I am a Christian, that I confess one God in Trinity. But if I should say that there is one person of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I shall be called a Sabellian, and I begin to be not a Christian but a Jew: because the Jew too says there is one God, but because he does not know the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore he does not hold the mystery of the Trinity. Therefore if we so say "one God" that we exclude the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit from the mystery of the Trinity, we become Jews. I speak freely, not from myself, but from the judgment of the Savior, of the scandal that arises in the mind of the hearer: How are three one? How are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit not divided in divinity? Whenever I say "persons," I beg you, do not think that I am speaking of persons of men: I do not speak of persons in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as though persons of men, but according to distinctive properties. I speak of the person of the Father, because he is the Father, and of the Son, because he is the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, because he is the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit the Father or the Son: for they are divided by properties, but united by nature. See, this very scandal the apostle Philip once bore, when he said to the Lord, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." To whom the Lord in answer said, "Philip, so long a time I am with you, and do you not know the Father? He who sees me, sees the Father also." That the Father himself is the Son, this is impious to say. In that you see the Son, understand the Father: for he cannot be called Son, unless he has had a Father. When Father is said, it is not said unless he has had a Son.
There are many things that might be said: but let it suffice for the faithful to have heard a few things about the mystery of the Trinity. I beg you, let there rather be a contest among us in the monastery over how we may seek to triumph over the adversary, how we may fast, how we may bewail our sins, how our thought may not drag us captive into lust, how we may have patience against every injury, how we may not resist a brother doing us an injury, but may conquer him in the humility which we have learned from Christ, "who, when he suffered, did not threaten." If ever a thought should come and add, "What is God? and what is the reason of the Trinity?", let it suffice for us to believe that he is. And we ought not rashly to seek the reason, but to fear, and always to pray to the Lord; and in this matter let us show him our knowledge alone, that day and night we may sing praises to him. To whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.