Homily 71, on Psalm 93 (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).
Deus ultionum Dominus, Deus ultionum libere egit — "The God of vengeance is the Lord; the God of vengeance has acted freely." Whether you say the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, according to the principle of the Trinity which we set forth in the Gospel, he is both God and Lord. "The God of vengeance has acted freely": he who was despised in his lowliness will afterward take vengeance in his majesty.
"Be exalted, you who judge the earth." You judge the earth, because heaven does not deserve to be judged. Listen, heretic, to how the Lord judges the earth. If there is a fall in heaven, why is there not also a judgment in heaven? If souls sinned in heaven, why is the earth alone judged? "Render their recompense to the proud." All sins indeed must be guarded against, because all are contrary to God; but they are so in various ways: proud sins are enemies to God. For "the Lord resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace." The devil is the prince of the proud. "Lest," he says, "puffed up in pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil." For everyone who exalts his own heart is a sharer with the devil, who used to say: "By my strength I will act, and by the wisdom of my understanding I will remove the boundaries of the nations" — and the rest, which it would be tedious to enumerate, in which the prophet describes the pride of the devil. The other vices earn the mercy of the Lord, because by their humility they are made subject to God: pride alone, which lifts itself up beyond its strength, resists God. The adulterer or the fornicator has not dared to lift his eyes up to heaven; with a downcast spirit he hopes, in supplication, for the mercy of the Lord; but the man whom his conscience makes turn away, it humbles upon the earth, yet it lifts him up to heaven. Pride and the appetite for glory, when they raise a man up, then abase him, because they make God the enemy of his sin.
"How long shall sinners, O Lord, how long shall sinners glory?" The sinner who beseeches God earns pardon; but he who glories in his wickedness is proud: and pride has God for its enemy. This which he says, "how long?" — it is to be understood ἀπὸ κοινοῦ ("in common," carried over), so that we may recognize it thus: "How long shall sinners glory? How long shall they utter and speak iniquity? How long shall they speak, all who work injustice?" Human impatience therefore marvels at the patience of God, and says: I, a sinner, cannot endure sinners; how can you, who are just, bear with them? "How long, O Lord, shall sinners glory?" He did not say, "How long shall sinners sin?" He has a great sin who sins, and moreover glories in his sin. "Shall they utter and speak iniquity?" All sins are cloaked with speech: but pride betrays its iniquity, while it glories in its own wickedness.
"Your people, O Lord, they have humbled, and your inheritance they have harassed." Who? The proud. "The widow and the stranger they have slain." The plain sense is clear: but if we should wish to interpret according to the anagogy, every day the proud devil with his satellites oppresses and harasses the humble in the Church. "Saying, The God of Jacob will not see, nor understand." They took the Lord's patience for ignorance.
"Understand, you who are foolish among the people; and you fools, at last be wise. Shall he who planted the ear not hear? Shall he who fashioned the eye not consider?" By an argument from nature he rebukes and convicts the sinners. O you who suppose that mortal things do not pertain to the Lord, you who, along with Epicurus, say that God's care is kept apart from human affairs, listen to the argument from nature: because you are little children, I will offer you little examples. He who gave hearing to man, shall he himself not hear? And at the same time, see what he says. He did not repay like with like: for he did not say, "Shall he who planted the ear not himself have an ear?" or "Shall he who fashioned the eye not himself have an eye?" But because in God there are no members, therefore he speaks in such a way that we, as often as we read such things about God as are frequently found in the Scriptures, may understand that an operation is signified, not members. In Solomon we read: "In the hand of the tongue are death and life." Does the tongue then have a hand? But in order that we may come more easily to the understanding of the sense above, we have brought forward this testimony: for by the same reasoning by which you would give the tongue a hand, by that same reasoning you are going to give God all members.
"He who instructs the nations, shall he not reprove?" This is what he says: he who gave the law, gave it for this purpose, that he might instruct those who hear, or punish those who despise. "He who teaches man knowledge." He did not add, "Shall he himself not have knowledge?" But what did he say?
"The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain." Men marvel at the philosophers and poets who say: "O the cares of men! O how much emptiness there is in things!" Behold, the psalm of David, many ages before, spoke the same sentiment. "The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain." As long as we are men, we have vain thoughts. "I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High."
"Blessed is the man whom you shall instruct, O Lord, and shall teach him out of your law." You see, then, that the law is to be learned, so that the things which are obscure may be more diligently understood. For the apostle says that "the law is spiritual." And David: "Reveal my eyes, and I will consider the wondrous things of your law." This, then, is what he says. "Blessed is the man whom you shall instruct, O Lord, and shall teach him out of your law." Why do you teach him? Render the reasons. "That you may soften it for him from the evil days." Therefore you teach him, so that in the future you may spare him: therefore in the present you rebuke him, so that in the future you may not condemn him. For the judge's sentence is an evil to the one who endures the evils: not that the sentence is evil, but that the one suffering it, while he feels the punishment, feels a just and good sentence as evil. "Until the pit be dug for the sinner." Who is it that digs the pit for the sinner? Let us see what the prophet says elsewhere. "He opened a pit and dug it out, and he fell into the trench which he made." God, therefore, does not make the pit, but the sinner, so that he may fall into it. "The blind," he says, "if he offers guidance to the blind, both fall into the pit."
"Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Or who will stand with me against those who work iniquity?" When he says "Who?", he signifies either something rare, or none at all. For the prophet speaks thus in the person of a weak man. "Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?" Moses came, and could not make me better: the prophets came, and did not free me from the snares of sinners. Who then will rise up for me? Beautifully did he say "will rise up": as of one sleeping, as of one lying down. "Arise, why do you sleep, O Lord?" "Master, save us, we perish." Who will rise up for me against the multitude of demons? Who will furnish help? "Who will stand with me against those who work iniquity?" Beautifully did he say, "Who will stand with me?" For unless the Lord stand with us, who lay in his passion, unless he rise up who slept in death, we cannot overcome our adversaries. For this reason Stephen, doing battle against the assaults of the Jews, sees Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father. He saw him standing, because he was fighting on behalf of his martyr. "Unless the Lord had helped me." Unless Christ had risen from hell, my soul would have descended to the netherworld.
"If I said, My foot has slipped: your mercy, O Lord, was helping me." The confession of weakness quickly earns God's help, and by however much pride gives offense, by that much is he appeased by humility. "If I said, My foot has slipped": if I confess my sins, if I say that my foot has stood on slippery ground, if I do not trust in my own strength, if I acknowledge that I am not, though fallen, strong, at once "your mercy helps me." "According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul." This is what he said above: he pursues the same sense, the same intention. "According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul." As great a sorrow as you saw in my heart from the groaning of repentance, so great a measure of your mercy will you minister: for the greatness of the sorrow became the material of consolation. "Shall the seat of iniquity cling to you?" You who judge righteousness, can you have iniquity for a neighbor? "You who fashion sorrow in a commandment?" The commandments of God have the sorrow of repentance; but that sorrow itself is good, because it furnishes the medicine of sinners. For unless with sweat and toil, we shall not do the commandments of God. Let no one, then, suppose that he will be crowned amid delights. "The widow who is in delights, while living, is dead." What the apostle said of one person, let us apply to all: for the apostle's care was not for widows alone, since he stood forth as the teacher of the whole Church. Now, because he did not name the virgin, nor the monk, nor the churchman, ought a man for that reason not to hold himself back from delights? For if the widow is a human being, I think the rest are human beings too: who, on account of the common frailty, can incur through delights that which the widow dreads. Listen, then, to what he says, "You who fashion sorrow in a commandment." For it is commanded us that we fast, it is commanded us that we be sober, that to the one striking our cheek we offer the other, that to the one taking away our tunic we let go our cloak also. All these commandments are not accomplished without toil. "For on account of the words of your lips I have kept hard ways." You see, then, that no one is crowned amid delights. "For narrow and strait is the way that leads to life." For whatever virtues there are, they are not accomplished without difficulty. With immense toil we reach the summits of a mountain: how much more into heaven? This is what is said in the Gospel: "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence." It suffers violence, because that which is not subject by nature is made subject to us through grace: so that from where the angels fell, men may ascend: so that where bodies did not fall, souls together with their bodies may go. Let someone say: How then will these same bodies of ours go into heaven? If Christ reigns, we reign with Christ: what he already possesses, he promises to us after the resurrection. If the firstfruits reign, the remnant also will reign. The flesh which reigns in Christ, why should it not reign in those who believe in Christ? "For when Christ shall appear, then we also shall appear with him in glory." If the flesh is adored by the angels in heaven, why should it not reign in men, who have merited the dignity of the kingdom? It is said elsewhere: "And adore his footstool, for it is holy." Some suppose it was said of the earth, "his footstool": but to me it seems that, in comparison with the divine majesty, the incarnation of the Savior is rightly named a footstool on account of the subjection of its lowliness; but because it is Christ's, it is adored. For nothing is lacking to the divinity: for whatever is οἰκονομία (the dispensation) in Christ is not added to him, but profits us: he is taken up into glory, so that the grace of our future hope may be shown to us, who have reigned with him. To whom is glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.