The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^27. Why so? “For Him whom You have smitten they have themselves persecuted, and upon the pain of my wounds they have added”. How then have they sinned if they have persecuted one by God smitten? What sin is ascribed to their mind? Malice. For the thing was done in Christ which was to be. To suffer indeed He had come, and He punished him through whom He suffered. For Judas the traitor was punished, and Christ was crucified: but us He redeemed by His blood, and He punished him in the matter of his price. For he threw down the price of silver, for which by him the Lord had been sold; and he knew not the price wherewith he had himself by the Lord been redeemed. This thing was done in the case of Judas. But when we see that there is a sort of measure of requital in all men, and that not any one can be suffered to rage more than he has received power to do: how have they “added,” or what is that smiting of the Lord? Without doubt He is speaking in the person of him from whom He had received a body, from whom He had taken unto Him flesh, that is in the person of mankind, of Adam himself who was smitten with the first death because of his sin. Mortal therefore here are men born, as born with their punishment: to this punishment they add, whosoever do persecute men. For now here man would not have had to die, unless God had smitten him. Why then do you, O man, rage more than this? Is it little for a man that some time he is to die? Each one of us therefore bears his punishment: to this punishment they would add that persecute us. This punishment is the smiting of the Lord. For the Lord smote man with the sentence: “What day you shall have touched it,” He says, “with death you shall die.” Out of this death He had taken upon Him flesh, and our old man has been crucified together with Him. By the voice of that man He has said these words, “Him whom You have smitten they have themselves persecuted, and upon the pain of My wounds they have added.” Upon what pain of wounds? Upon the pain of sins they have themselves added. For sins He has called His wounds. But do not look to the Head, consider the Body; according to the voice whereof has been said by the Same in that Psalm, wherein He showed there was His voice, because in the first verse thereof He cried from the Cross, “God, My God, look upon Me, why have You forsaken Me?” There in continuation He says, “Afar from My safety are the words of Mine offenses.”...

28. “Lay iniquity upon their iniquity”. What is this? Who would not be afraid? To God is said, “Lay iniquity upon their iniquity.” Whence shall God lay iniquity? For has He iniquity to lay? For we know that to be true which has been spoken through Paul the Apostle, “What then shall we say? Is there anywise iniquity with God? Far be it.” Whence then, “Lay iniquity upon iniquity”? How must we understand this? May the Lord be with us, that we may speak, and because of your weariness may be able to speak briefly. Their iniquity was that they killed a just Man: there was added another, that they crucified the Son of God. Their raging was as though against a man: but “if they had known, the Lord of Glory they had never crucified.” They with their own iniquity willed to kill as it were a man: there was laid iniquity upon their own iniquity, so that the Son of God they should crucify. Who laid this iniquity upon them? He that said, “Perchance they will reverence My Son,” Him I will send. For they were wont to kill servants sent to them, to demand rent and profit. He sent the Son Himself, in order that Him also they might kill. He laid iniquity upon their own iniquity. And these things did God do in wrath, or rather in just requital? For, “May it be done to them,” He says, “for a requital and for a stumbling-block.” They had deserved to be so blinded as not to know the Son of God. And this God did, laying iniquity upon their iniquity; not in wounding, but in not making whole. For in like manner as you increase a fever, increasest a disorder, not by adding disorder, but by not relieving: so because they were of such sort as that they merited not to be healed, in their very naughtiness in a manner they advanced; as it is said, “But evil men and wicked doers advance for the worse:” and iniquity is laid upon their own iniquity. “And let them not enter in Your righteousness.” This is a plain thing.

29. “Let them be blotted out from the book of the living”. For had they been some time written therein? Brethren, we must not so take it, as that God writes any one in the book of life, and blots him out. If a man said, “What I have written I have written,” concerning the title where it had been written, “King of the Jews:” does God write any one, and blot him out? He foreknows, He has predestined all before the foundation of the world that are to reign with His Son in life everlasting. These He has written down, these same the Book of Life does contain. Lastly, in the Apocalypse, what says the Spirit of God, when the same Scripture was speaking of the oppressions that should be from Antichrist? “There shall give consent to him all they that have not been written in the book of life.” So then without doubt they will not consent that have been written. How then are these men blotted out from that book wherein they were never written? This has been said according to their own hope, because they thought of themselves that they were written. What is, “let them be blotted out from the book of life”? Even to themselves let it be evident, that they were not there. By this method of speaking has been said in another Psalm, “There shall fall from Your side a thousand, and tens of thousands from on Your right hand:” that is, many men shall be offended, even out of that number who thought that they would sit with You, even out of that number who thought that they would stand at Your right hand, being severed from the left-hand goats: not that when any one has there stood, he shall afterwards fall, or when any one with Him has sat, he shall be cast away; but that many men were to fall into scandal, who already thought themselves to be there, that is, many that thought that they would sit with You, many that hoped that they would stand at the right hand, will themselves fall. So then here also they that hoped as though by the merit of their own righteousness themselves to have been written in the book of God, they to whom is said, “Search the Scriptures, wherein ye think yourselves to have life eternal:” when their condemnation shall have been brought even to their own knowledge, shall be effaced from the book of the living, they shall know themselves not to be there. For the verse which follows, explains what has been said: “And with just men let them not be written.” I have said then “Let them be effaced,” according to their hope: but according to Your justice I say what?