The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

16....“Your eyes did see Mine imperfect one, and in Your book shall all be written”, not only the perfect, but also the imperfect. Let not the imperfect fear, only let them advance. Nor yet, because I have said, “let them not fear,” let them love their imperfection, and remain there, where they are found. Let them advance, as far as in them lies. Daily let them add, daily let them approach; yet let them not fall back from the Body of the Lord: that, compacted in one Body and among these members, they may be counted worthy to have that said of them. “By day shall they wander, and none among them.” “The Day” was yet on earth, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Whence He said, “Walk while you have the day.” But “by day shall” His imperfect ones “wander.” They too thought that our Lord Jesus Christ was only man, that He had not within Him the hidden Godhead, that He was not secretly God, but that He was that only which was seen: this they too thought....But what is, “In the day they shall wander”? Shall they perish? Where then is, “In Your book shall all be written”? When then did they “wander in the day”? When they understood not the Lord set upon earth. And what follows? “But to me Your friends are made very honourable, O God”; those very ones, who “wandered in the day, and none was in them,” became Your friends, and were made very honourable to me. That bone was made in them in secret after the resurrection of the Lord, and they suffered for His Name, at whose death they had been amazed. “Mightily strengthened were their chieftainships.” They became Apostles, they became leaders of the Church, they became rams leading their flocks, “mightily strengthened.”

17. “I will number them, and they shall be multiplied above the sand”. By means of them, who “wandered in the day,” lo! There has been born all this great multitude, which now is like the sand innumerable, save by God. For He said, “they shall be multiplied above the sand,” and yet He had said, “I will number them.” The very same who are numbered, “shall be multiplied above the sand.” For by Him is the sand numbered, by whom “the very hairs of our head are numbered.” “I have risen, and yet am I with You.” Already have I suffered, says He, already have I been buried; lo! I have risen, and not yet do they understand that I am with them. “Yet am I with You,” that is, not yet with them, for not yet do they recognise Me. For thus do we read in the Gospel, that after the resurrection of oar Lord Jesus Christ, when He appeared to them, they did not at once know Him. There is another meaning also: “I have risen, and yet am I with You,” as though He would signify this present time, wherein He is as yet hidden at the right hand of the Father, before He is revealed in the brightness, wherein He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.