The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^4. And what followed, because He dealt confidently? “Be exalted, Thou Judge of the world”. Because they imprisoned Him when humble, do you think they will imprison Him when exalted? Because they judged Him when mortal, will they not be judged by Him when immortal? What then says He? “Be exalted,” Thou, who hast dealt confidently, the confidence of whose word the wicked bore not, but thought they did a glorious deed, when they seized and crucified You; they who ought to have seized on You with faith, seized You with persecution. Thou then who hast among the wicked dealt confidently, and hast feared no man, because You have suffered, “be exalted;” that is, arise again, depart into heaven. Let the Church also bear with long-suffering what the Church's Head has borne with long-suffering. “Be exalted, Thou Judge of the world: and reward the proud after their deserving.” He will reward them, brethren. For what is this, “Be exalted, Thou Judge of the world: and reward the proud after their deserving”? This is the prophecy of one who does predict, not the boldness of one who commands. Not because the Prophet said, “Be exalted, Thou Judge of the world,” did Christ obey the Prophet, in arising from the dead, and ascending into heaven; but because Christ was to do this, the Prophet predicted it. He sees Christ abased in the spirit, abased he sees Him: fearing no man, in speech sparing no man, and he says, “He has dealt confidently.” He sees how confidently He has dealt, he sees Him arrested, crucified, humbled, he sees Him rising from the dead, and ascending into heaven, and from thence to come in judgment of those, among whose hands He had suffered every evil: “Be exalted,” he says, “Thou Judge of the world, and reward the proud after their deserving.” The proud He will thus reward, not the humble. Who are the proud? Those to whom it is little to do evil: but they even defend their own sins. For on some of those who crucified Christ, miracles were afterwards performed, when out of the number of the Jews themselves there were found believers, and the blood of Christ was given unto them. Their hands were impious, and red with the blood of Christ. He whose blood they had shed, Himself washed them. They who had persecuted His mortal body which they had seen, became part of His very body, that is, the Church. They shed their own ransom, that they might drink their own ransom. For afterwards more were converted....

5. “Lord, how long shall the ungodly, how long shall the ungodly triumph?”. “They answer, and will speak wickedness, they all will speak that work unrighteousness”. What is their saying, but against God, when they say: What profits it us that we live thus? What will you reply? Does God truly regard our deeds? For because they live, they imagine that God knows not their actions. Behold, what evil happens unto them! If the officers knew where they were, they would arrest them; and they therefore avoid the officer's eyes, that they may escape instant apprehension; but no one can escape the eye of God, since He not only sees within the closet, but within the recesses of the heart. Even they themselves believe that nothing can escape God: and because they do evil, and are conscious of what they have done, and see that they live while God knows, though they would not live if the officer discovered them; they say unto themselves, These things please God: and, in truth, if they displeased Him, as they displease kings, as they displease judges, as they displease governors, as they displease recorders, yet could we escape the eye of God, as we do escape the eyes of those authorities? Therefore these things please God....Some righteous man comes, and says, Do not commit iniquity. Wherefore? That you may not die. Behold, iniquity I have committed: why do I not die? That man wrought righteousness: and he is dead: why is he dead? I have wrought iniquity: why has not God carried me off? Behold, that man did righteously: and why has He thus visited him? Why suffers He thus? They answer; this is the meaning of the word “answer:” for they have a reply to make; because they are spared, from the long-suffering of God, they discover an argument for their reply. He spares them for one reason, they answer for another, because they still live. For the Apostle tells us wherefore He spares, he expounds the grounds of the long-suffering of God: “And do you think this, O man, who judges those who do such things, and does the same, that you shall escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; not knowing that the long-suffering of God leads you to repentance?” “But you,” that is, he who answers and says, If I displeased God, He would not spare me, hear what he works for himself; hear the Apostle; “but after your hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up into yourself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds.” He therefore increases His long-suffering, you increase your iniquity. His treasure will consist in eternal mercy towards those who have not despised His mercy; but your treasure will be discovered in wrath, and what thou daily layest up little by little, you will find in the accumulated mass; you lay up by the grain, but you will find the whole heap. Omit not to watch your slightest daily sins: rivers are filled from the smallest drops.

6....“They have humbled Your people, O Lord; and have troubled Your heritage”. “They have murdered the widow, and the fatherless: and slain the proselyte”; that is, the traveller, the pilgrim: the comer from far, as the Psalmist calls himself. Each of these expressions is too clear in meaning to make it worth while to dwell upon them.

7. “And they have said, The Lord shall not see”: He observes not, regards not these things: He cares for other matters, He understands not. These are the two assertions of the wicked: one which I have just quoted, “These things have you done, and I held my tongue, and you thought unrighteousness, that I will be like yourself.” What means, “that I will be like yourself”? You think that I see your deeds, and that they are pleasing unto Me, because I do not punish them. There is another assertion of the wicked: because God neither regards these things, nor observes that He may know how I live, God heeds me not. Does then God make any reckoning of me? Or does He even take account of me? Or of men in general? Unhappy man! He cared for you, that you might exist: does He not care that thou live well? Such then are the words of these last; “and yet they have said, The Lord shall not see: neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.”