The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

⁴ “Free among the dead”. In these words our Lord's Person is most clearly shown: for who else is free among the dead but He who though in the likeness of sinful flesh is alone among sinners without sin?...He therefore, “free among the dead,” who had it in His power to lay down His life, and again to take it; from whom no one could take it, but He laid it down of His own free will; who could revive His own flesh, as a temple destroyed by them, at His will; who, when all had forsaken Him on the eve of His Passion, remained not alone, because, as He testifies, His Father forsook Him not; was nevertheless by His enemies, for whom He prayed, who knew not what they did,...counted “as one who has no help; like them that are wounded, and lie in the grave.” But he adds, “Whom thou dost not yet remember:” and in these words there is to be remarked a distinction between Christ and the rest of the dead. For though He was wounded, and when dead laid in the tomb, yet they who knew not what they were doing, or who He was, regarded Him as like others who had perished from their wounds, and who slept in the tomb, who are as yet out of remembrance of God, that is, whose hour of resurrection has not yet arrived. For thus the Scripture speaks of the dead as sleeping, because it wishes them to be regarded as destined to awake, that is, to rise again. But He, wounded and asleep in the tomb, awoke on the third day, and became “like a sparrow that sits alone on the housetop,” that is, on the right hand of His Father in Heaven: and now “dies no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him.” Hence He differs widely from those whom God has not yet remembered to cause their resurrection after this manner: for what was to go before in the Head, was kept for the Body in the end. God is then said to remember, when He does an act: then to forget, when He does it not: for neither can God forget, as He never changes, nor remember, as He can never forget. “I am counted” then, by those who know not what they do, “as a man that has no help:” while I am “free among the dead,” I am held by these men “like them that are wounded, and lie in the grave.” Yet those very men, who account thus of Me, are further said to be “cut away from Your hand,” that is, when I was made so by them, “they were cut away from Your hand;” they who believed Me destitute of help, are deprived of the help of Your hand: for they, as he says in another Psalm, have dug a pit before me, and are fallen into the midst of it themselves. I prefer this interpretation to that which refers the words, “they are cut away from Your hand,” to those who sleep in the tomb, whom God has not yet remembered: since the righteous are among the latter, of whom, even though God has not yet called them to the resurrection, it is said, that their “souls are in the hands of God,” that is, that “they dwell under the defence of the Most High; and shall abide under the shadow of the God of Heaven.” But it is those who are cut away from the hand of God, who believed that Christ was cut off from His hand, and thus accounting Him among the wicked, dared to slay Him.

5. “They laid Me in the lowest pit”, that is, the deepest pit. For so it is in the Greek. But what is the lowest pit, but the deepest woe, than which there is none more deep? Whence in another Psalm it is said, “You brought me out also of the pit of misery.” “In a place of darkness, and in the shadow of death,” whiles they knew not what they did, they laid Him there, thus deeming of Him; they knew not Him “whom none of the princes of this world knew.” By the “shadow of death,” I know not whether the death of the body is to be understood, or that of which it is written, “That they walked in darkness and in the land of the shadow of death, a light is risen on them,” because by belief they were brought from out of the darkness and death of sin into light and life. Such an one those who knew not what they did thought our Lord, and in their ignorance accounted Him among those whom He came to help, that they might not be such themselves.

6. “Your indignation lies hard upon Me”, or, as other copies have it, “Your anger;” or, as others, “Your fury:” the Greek word θυμὸς having undergone different interpretations. For where the Greek copies have ὀ ργὴ, no translator hesitated to express it by the Latin ira; but where the word is θυμὸς, most object to rendering it by ira, although many of the authors of the best Latin style, in their translations from Greek philosophy, have thus rendered the word in Latin. But I shall not discuss this matter further: only if I also were to suggest another term, I should think “indignation” more tolerable than “fury,” this word in Latin not being applied to persons in their senses. What then does this mean, “Your indignation lies hard upon Me,” except the belief of those, who knew not the Lord of Glory? who imagined that the anger of God was not merely roused, but lay hard upon Him, whom they dared to bring to death, and not only death, but that kind, which they regarded as the most execrable of all, namely, the death of the Cross: whence says the Apostle, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs upon a tree.” On this account, wishing to praise His obedience which He carried to the extreme of humility, he says, “He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death;” and as this seemed little, he added, “even the death of the Cross;” and with the same view as far as I can see, he says in this Psalm, “And all your suspensions,” or, as some translate “waves,” others “tossings,” “You have brought over Me.” We also find in another Psalm, “All your suspensions and waves have come in upon Me,” or, as some have translated better, “have passed over Me:” for it is διῆλθον in Greek, not εἰσῆλθον: and where both expressions are employed, “waves” and “suspensions,” one cannot be used as equivalent to the other. In that passage we explained “suspensions” as threatenings, “waves” as the actual sufferings: both inflicted by God's judgment: but in that place it is said, “All have passed over Me,” here, “You have brought all upon Me.” In the other case, that is, although some evils took place, yet, he said, all those which are here mentioned passed over; but in this case, “You have brought them upon Me.” Evils pass over when they do not touch a man, as things which hang over him, or when they do touch him, as waves. But when he uses the word “suspensions,” he does not say they passed over, but, “You have brought them upon Me,” meaning that all which impended had come to pass. All things which were predicted of His Passion impended, as long as they remained in the prophecies for future fulfilment.