The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^15. “Let my heart be made glad, so that it may fear Your name.” There is then fear in gladness. How can there be gladness, if fear? Is not fear wont to be painful? There will hereafter be gladness without fear, now gladness with fear; for not yet is there perfect security, nor perfect gladness. If there is no gladness, we faint: if full security, we rejoice wrongly. Therefore may He both sprinkle on us gladness, and strike fear into us, that by the sweetness of gladness He may lead us to the abode of security; by giving us fear, may cause us not to rejoice wrongly, and to withdraw from the way. Therefore says the Psalm: “Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling:” so also says the Apostle Paul; “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that works in you.” Whatever prosperity comes then, my brethren, is rather to be feared: those things which you think to be prosperous, are rather temptations. An inheritance comes, there comes wealth, there is an abundant overflow of some happiness: these are temptations: take care that they corrupt you not. Whatever prosperity also there is according to Christ, and the true love of Christ: if perhaps you have gained your wife, who was of the party of Donatus: if your sons have been made believers who were Pagans: if perhaps you have gained your friend who wished to draw you away to the theatres, and you have drawn him to the church: if some hostile opponent of yours who was furiously mad against you, laying aside his fury, has become gentle, and owned God, and now barks at you no more, but cries with you against wickedness: these things are pleasant. For what do we rejoice for, if we do not rejoice for these things? Or what other are our joys, but these? But because tribulations also abound, and temptations, and dissensions, and schisms, and other evils, without which this world cannot be, until iniquity pass away: let not that rejoicing make us secure, but let our heart be so made glad, as to fear the name of the Lord, lest it be made glad on one side, be stricken on another. Expect not security in journeying: if ever we wish for it here, it will be the birdlime of the body, not the safety of the man. “Let my heart be made glad, so that it may fear Your name.”

16. “I will confess unto You, O Lord my God, in my whole heart, and I will glorify Your name for ever”: “for great is Your mercy toward me, and You have delivered my soul from the nethermost hell”. Do not be angry, brethren, if I do not explain what I have said as though I were certain. For I am a man, and as much as is granted to me concerning the sacred Scriptures, so much I venture to speak: nothing of myself. Hades I have not yet seen, nor have you: and there will be perhaps another way for us, and not through Hades. These things are uncertain. But because Scripture, which cannot be gainsaid, says, “You have delivered my soul from the nether-most hell,” we understand that there are as it were two hells, an upper one and a lower one: for how can there be a lower hell, unless because there is also an upper? The one would not be called lower, except by comparison with that upper part. It appears then, my brethren, that there is some heavenly abode of Angels: there is there a life of ineffable joys, there immortality and incorruption, there all things abiding according to the gift and grace of God. That part of the creation is above. If then that is above, but this earthly part, where is flesh and blood, where is corruptibleness, where is nativity and mortality, departure and succession, changeableness and inconstancy, where are fears, desires, horrors, uncertain joys, frail hope, perishable existence; I suppose that all this part cannot be compared with that heaven of which I was just now speaking; if then this part cannot be compared with that, the one is above, the other below. And whither do we go after death, unless there is a depth deeper than this depth in which we are in the flesh and in this mortal state? For “the body is dead,” says the Apostle, “because of sin.” Therefore even here are the dead; that you may not wonder because it is called infernum, if it abounds with the dead. For he says not, the body is about to die: but, “the body is dead.” Even now surely our body has life: and yet compared with that body which is to be like the bodies of Angels, the body of man is found to be dead, although still having life. But again, from this infernum, that is from this part of Hades, there is another lower, whither the dead go: from whence God would rescue our souls, even sending there His own Son. For it was on account of these two hells, my brethren, that the Son of God was sent, on all sides setting free. To this hell he was sent by being born, to that by dying. Therefore it is His voice in that Psalm, not according to any man's conjecture, but an Apostle explaining, when he says, “For You will not leave my soul in hell.” Therefore it is here also either His voice, “You have delivered my soul from the nethermost hell:” or our voice by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself: for on this account He came even unto hell, that we might not remain in hell.