The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^4. Accordingly it is said, “O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is Your Name in all the earth!”. I ask, how is His Name wonderful in all the earth? The answer is, “For Your glory has been raised above the heavens.” So that the meaning is this, O Lord, who art our Lord, how do all that inhabit the earth admire You! For Your glory has been raised from earthly humiliation above the heavens. For hence it appeared who You were that descended, when it was by some seen, and by the rest believed, whither it was that You ascended.

5. “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings You have made perfect praise, because of Your enemies”. I cannot take babes and sucklings to be any other than those to whom the Apostle says, “As unto babes in Christ I have given you milk to drink, not meat.” Who were meant by those who went before the Lord praising Him, of whom the Lord Himself used this testimony, when He answered the Jews who bade Him rebuke them, “Have ye not read, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings You have made perfect praise?” Now with good reason He says not, You have made, but, “You have made perfect praise.” For there are in the Churches also those who now no more drink milk, but eat meat: whom the same Apostle points out, saying, “We speak wisdom among them that are perfect;” but not by those only are the Churches perfected; for if there were only these, little consideration would be had of the human race. But consideration is had, when they too, who are not as yet capable of the knowledge of things spiritual and eternal, are nourished by the faith of the temporal history, which for our salvation after the Patriarchs and Prophets was administered by the most excellent Power and Wisdom of God, even in the Sacrament of the assumed Manhood, in which there is salvation for every one that believes; to the end that moved by Its authority each one may obey Its precepts, whereby being purified and “rooted and grounded in love,” he may be able to run with Saints, no more now a child in milk, but a young man in meat, “to comprehend the breadth, the length, the height, and depth, to know also the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ.”

6. “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings You have made perfect praise, because of Your enemies.” By enemies to this dispensation, which has been wrought through Jesus Christ and Him crucified, we ought generally to understand all who forbid belief in things unknown, and promise certain knowledge: as all heretics do, and they who in the superstition of the Gentiles are called philosophers. Not that the promise of knowledge is to be blamed; but because they deem the most healthful and necessary step of faith is to be neglected, by which we must needs ascend to something certain, which nothing but that which is eternal can be. Hence it appears that they do not possess even this knowledge, which in contempt of faith they promise; seeing that they know not so useful and necessary a step thereof. “Out of the mouth,” then “of babes and sucklings You have made perfect praise,” You, our Lord, declaring first by the Apostle, “Unless you believe, you shall not understand;” and saying by His own mouth, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and shall believe.” “Because of the enemies:” against whom too that is said, “I confess to You, O Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hid these things from the wise, and revealed them unto babes.” “From the wise,” he says, not the really wise, but those who deem themselves such. “That You may destroy the enemy and the defender.” Whom but the heretic? For he is both an enemy and a defender, who when he would assault the Christian faith, seems to defend it. Although the philosophers too of this world may be well taken as the enemies and defenders: forasmuch as the Son of God is the Power and Wisdom of God by which every one is enlightened who is made wise by the truth: of which they profess themselves to be lovers, whence too their name of philosophers; and therefore they seem to defend it, while they are its enemies, since they cease not to recommend noxious superstitions, that the elements of this world should be worshipped and revered.

7. “For I shall see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers”. We read that the law was written with the finger of God, and given through Moses, His holy servant: by which finger of God many understand the Holy Ghost. Wherefore if, by the fingers of God, we are right in understanding these same ministers filled with the Holy Ghost, by reason of this same Spirit which works in them, since by them all holy Scripture has been completed for us; we understand consistently with this, that, in this place, the books of both Testaments are called “the heavens.” Now it is said too of Moses himself, by the magicians of king Pharaoh, when they were conquered by him, “This is the finger of God.” And what is written, “The heavens shall be rolled up as a book.” Although it be said of this æthereal heaven, yet naturally, according to the same image, the heavens of books are named by allegory. “For I shall see,” he says, “the heavens, the works of Your fingers:” that is, I shall discern and understand the Scriptures, which You, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, hast written by Your ministers.