The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

¹³ “And I have covered in fasting My Soul, and it became to Me for a reviling”. His fasting was, when there fell away all they that had believed in Him; because also it was His hunger, that men should believe in Him: because also it was His thirst, when He said to the woman, I thirst, “give Me to drink:” yea for her faith He was thirsting. And from the Cross when He was saying, “I thirst,” He was seeking the faith of them for whom He had said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But what did those men give to drink to Him thirsty? Vinegar. Vinegar is also called old. With reason of the old man they gave to drink, because they willed not to be new. Why willed they not to become new? Because to the title of this Psalm whereon is written, “For them that shall be changed,” they belonged not. Therefore, “I have covered in fasting My Soul.” Lastly, He put from Him even the gall which they offered: He chose rather to fast than to accept bitterness. For they enter not into His Body that are embittered, whereof in another place a Psalm says, “They that are embittered shall not be exalted in themselves.” Therefore, “I have covered in fasting My Soul: and it became to Me for a reviling.” This very thing became to Me for a reviling, that I consented not to them, that is, from them I fasted. For he that consents not to men seducing to evil, fasts from them; and through this fasting earns reviling, so that he is upbraided because he consents not to the evil thing.

14. “And I have set sackcloth my garment”. Already before we have said something of the sackcloth, from whence there is this, “But I, when they were troubling Me, was covering myself with sackcloth, and was humbling My Soul in fasting. I have set sackcloth for My garment:” that is, have set against them My flesh, on which to spend their rage, I have concealed My divinity. “Sackcloth,” because mortal the flesh was: in order that by sin He might condemn sin in the flesh. “And I have set sackcloth my garment: and I have been made to them for a parable,” that is, for a derision. It is called a parable, whenever a comparison is made concerning some one, when he is evil spoken of. “So may this man perish,” for example, “as that man did,” is a parable: that is, a comparison and likeness in cursing. “I have been made to them,” then, “for a parable.”

15. “Against Me were reviling they that were sitting in the gate”. “In the gate” is nothing else but in public. “And against Me they were chanting, they that were drinking wine.” Do ye think, brethren, that this has befallen Christ alone? Daily to Him in His members it happens: whenever perchance it is necessary for the servant of God to forbid excess of wine and luxuries in any village or town, where there has not been heard the Word of God, it is not enough that they sing, nay more even against him they begin to sing, by whom they are forbidden to sing. Compare ye now His fasting and their wine.

16. “But I with My prayer with You, O Lord”. But I was with You. But how? With You by praying. For when you are evil spoken of, and know not what you may do; when at you are hurled reproaches, and you find not any way of rebuking him by whom they are hurled; nothing remains for you but to pray. But remember even for that very man to pray. “But I with my prayer with You, O Lord. It is the time of Your good pleasure, O God.” For behold the grain is being buried, there shall spring up fruit. “It is the time of Your good pleasure, O God.” Of this time even the Prophets have spoken, whereof the Apostle makes mention: “Behold now the time acceptable, behold now the day of salvation.” “It is the time of Your good pleasure, O God. In the multitude of Your mercy.” This is the time of good pleasure, “in the multitude of Your mercy.” For if there were not a multitude of Your mercy, what should we do for the multitude of our iniquity? “In the multitude of Your mercy; Hearken to me in the truth of Your Salvation.” Because He has said, “of Your mercy,” he has added truth also: for “mercy and truth” are all the ways of the Lord. Why mercy? In forgiving sins. Why truth? In fulfilling the promises.

17. “Save Me from the mire, that I may not stick”. From that whereof above he had spoken, “Fixed I am in the clay of the deep, and there is no substance.” Furthermore, since you have duly received the exposition of that expression, in this place there is nothing further for you to hear particularly. From hence he says that he must be delivered, wherein before he said that he was fixed: “Save Me from the mire, that I may not stick.” And he explains this himself: “Let Me be rescued from them that hate Me.” They were themselves therefore the clay wherein he had stuck. But the following perchance suggests itself. A little before he had said, Fixed I am; now he says, Save Me from the mire, that I may not stick: whereas after the meaning of what was said before he ought to have said, Save Me from the mire where I had stuck, by rescuing Me, not by causing that I stick not. Therefore He had stuck in flesh, but had not stuck in spirit. He says this, because of the infirmity of His members. Whenever perchance you are seized by one that urges you to iniquity, your body indeed is taken, in regard to the body you are fixed in the clay of the deep: but so long as you consent not, you have not stuck; but if you consent, you have stuck. Let then your prayer be in that place, in order that as your body is now held, so your soul may not be held, so you may be free in bonds.

18. “Let not the tempest of waters drown Me”. But already he had been drowned. “I have come into the depth of the sea,” you have said, and “the tempest has drowned Me,” you have said. It has drowned after the flesh, let it not drown after the Spirit. They to whom was said, If they shall have persecuted you in one city, flee ye into another; had this said to them, that neither in flesh they should stick, nor in spirit. For we must not desire to stick even in flesh; but as far as we are able we ought to avoid it. But if we shall have stuck, and shall have fallen into the hands of sinners: then in body we have stuck, we are fixed in the clay of the deep, it remains to entreat for the soul that we stick not, that is, that we consent not, that the tempest of water drown us not, so that we go into the deep of the clay. “Neither let the deep swallow Me, nor the pit close her mouth upon Me.” What is this, brethren? What has he prayed against? Great is the pit of the depth of human iniquity: every one, if he shall have fallen into it, will fall into the deep. But yet if a man being there placed confesses his sins to his God, the pit will not shut her mouth upon him: as is written in another Psalm, “From the depths I have cried to You, O Lord; Lord, hearken unto my voice.” But if there is done in him that which another passage of Scripture says, “When a sinner shall have come into the depth of evil things, he will despise,” upon him the pit has shut her mouth. Why has she shut her mouth? Because she has shut his mouth. He has lost confession, really dead he is, and there is fulfilled in him that which elsewhere is spoken of, “From a dead man, as from one that is not, there perishes confession.”...