The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^17. I will mention another opinion also. For perhaps even in hell itself there is some lower part where are thrust the ungodly who have sinned most. For whether in hell there were not some places where Abraham was, we cannot define sufficiently. For not yet had the Lord come to hell that He might rescue from thence the souls of all the saints who had gone before, and yet Abraham was there in repose. And a certain rich man when he was in torments in hell, when he saw Abraham, lifted up his eyes. He could not have seen him by lifting up his eyes, unless the one was above, the other below. And what did Abraham answer unto him, when he said, “send Lazarus.” “My son,” he said, “remember that thou in your lifetime received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is at rest, but you are tormented. And besides this,” he said, “between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that neither can we go to you, nor can any one come from thence to us.” Therefore between these two hells, perhaps, in one of which the souls of the just have gotten rest, in the other the souls of the ungodly are tormented, one waiting and praying here, placed here in the body of Christ, and praying in the voice of Christ, said that God had delivered his soul from the nethermost hell, because He delivered him from such sins as might have been the means of drawing him down to the torments of the nethermost hell....Some one having a troublesome cause was to be sent to prison: another comes and defends him; what does he say when he thanks him? You have delivered my soul out of prison. A debtor was to be hanged up: his debt is paid; he is said to be delivered from being hanged up. They were not in all these evils: but because they were in such due course towards them, that unless aid had been brought, they would have been in them, they rightly say that they are delivered from thence, whither they were not suffered by their deliverers to be taken. Therefore, brethren, whether it be this or that, consider me to be herein an inquirer into the word of God, not a rash assertor.

18. “O God, the transgressors of the law have arisen up against me”. Whom calls he transgressors of the law? Not the Pagans, who have not received the law: for no one transgresses that which he has not received; the Apostle says clearly, “For where there is no law, there is no prevarication.” Transgressors of the law he calls “prevaricators.” Whom then do we understand, brethren? If we take this word from our Lord Himself, the transgressors of the law were the Jews....They did not keep the law, and accused Christ as if He transgressed the law. And we know what the Lord suffered. Do you think His Body suffers no such thing now? How can this be? “If they called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household? The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.” The body also suffers transgressors of the law, and they rise up against the Body of Christ. Who are the transgressors of the law? Do the Jews perchance dare to rise up against Christ? No: for it is not they that cause us much trouble. For they have not yet believed: they have not yet owned their salvation. Against the Body of Christ bad Christians rise up, from whom the Body of Christ daily suffers trouble. All schisms, all heresies, all within who live wickedly and engraft their own character on those who live well, and draw them over to their own side, and with evil communications corrupt good manners; these persons “transgressing the law rose up against Me.” Let every pious soul speak, let every Christian soul speak. That one which suffers not this, let it not speak. But if it is a Christian soul, it knows that it suffers evils: if it owns in itself its own sufferings, let it own herein its own voice; but if it is without suffering, let it also be without the voice; but that it may not be without suffering, let it walk along the narrow way, and begin to live godly in Christ: it must of necessity suffer this persecution. For “all,” says the Apostle, “who will live godly in Christ, suffer persecution.”

“And the synagogue of the powerful have sought after My soul.” The synagogue of the powerful is the congregation of the proud. The synagogue of the powerful rose up against the Head, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, crying and saying with one mouth, Crucify Him, crucify Him: of whom it is said, “The sons of men, their teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.” They did not strike, but cried: by crying they struck, by crying they crucified Him. The will of those who cried was fulfilled, when the Lord was crucified: “And they did not place You before their eyes.” How did they not place Him before them? They did not know Him God. They should have spared him as Man: what they saw, according to this they should have walked. Suppose that He was not God, He was man: was He therefore to be slain? Spare Him a man, and own Him God.

19. “And You, Lord God, art One who hast compassion and merciful, longsuffering, and very pitiful, and true”. Wherefore longsuffering and very pitiful, and One who hast compassion? Because hanging on the Cross He said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Whom prays He to? For whom does He pray? Who prays? Where prays He? The Son prays to the Father, crucified for the ungodly, in the midst of very insults, not of words but of death inflicted, hanging on the Cross; as if for this He had His hands stretched out, that thus He might pray for them, that His “prayer might be directed like incense in the sight of the Father, and the lifting up of His hands like an evening sacrifice.”