Augustine of Hippo

"You made us a similitude among the heathen" [Psalm 44:14]. What is meant by a "similitude"? It is when men in imprecating a curse make a "similitude" of his name whom they detest. "So may thou die;" "So may thou be punished!" What a number of such reproaches were then uttered! "So may thou be crucified!" Even in the present day there are not wanting enemies of Christ (those very Jews themselves), against whom whenever we defend Christ, they say unto us, "So may thou die as He did." For they would not have inflicted that kind of death had they not an intense horror of dying by such a death: or had they been able to comprehend what mystery was contained in it. When the ointment is applied to the eyes of the blind man, he does not see the eye-salve in the physician's hand. For the very Cross was made for the benefit even of the persecutors themselves. Hereby they were healed afterwards; and they believed in Him whom they themselves had slain. "You made us a similitude among the heathen; a shaking of the head among the peoples," a "shaking of the head" by way of insult. "They spoke with their lips, they shook the head." This they did to the Lord: this to all His Saints also, whom they were able to pursue, to lay hold of, to mock, to betray, to afflict, and to slay.

"My shame is continually before me; and the confusion of my face has covered me" [Psalm 44:15]. "For the voice of him that reproaches and blasphemes" [Psalm 44:16]: that is to say, from the voice of them that insult over me, and who make it a charge against me that I worship You, that I confess You! And who make it a charge against me that I bear that name by which all charges against me shall be blotted out. "For the voice of him that reproaches and blasphemes," that is, of him that speaks against me. "By reason of the enemy and the persecutor." And what is the "understanding" conveyed here? Those things which are told us of the time past, will not be done in our case: those which are hoped for, as to be hereafter, are not as yet manifest. Those which are past, as the leading out of Your people with great glory from Egypt; its deliverance from its persecutors; the guiding of it through the nations, the placing of it in the kingdom, whence the nations had been expelled. What are those to be hereafter? The leading of the people out of this Egypt of the world, when Christ, our "leader" shall appear in His glory: the placing of the Saints at His right hand; of the wicked at His left; the condemnation of the wicked with the devil to eternal punishment; the receiving of a kingdom from Christ with the Saints to last for ever. These are the things that are yet to be: the former are what are past. In the interval, what is to be our lot? Tribulations! "Why so?" That it may be seen with respect to the soul that worships God, to what extent it worships God; that it may be seen whether it worships Him "freely" from whom it received salvation "freely."...What have you given unto God? You were wicked, and thou were redeemed! What have you given unto God? What is there that you have not "received" from Him "freely"? With reason is it named "grace," because it is bestowed (gratis, i.e.) freely. [Romans 11:6] What is required of you then is this, that thou too should worship "Him freely;" not because He gives you things temporal, but because He holds out to you things eternal....

"Our heart has not turned back; and You have turned aside our goings out of Your way" [Psalm 44:18]. See here is "understanding," in that "our heart has not gone back;" that we have not "forgotten You, have not behaved frowardly in Your covenant;" placed as we are in great tribulations, and persecutions of the Gentiles. "You have turned aside our goings out of Your way." Our "goings" were in the pleasures of the world; our "goings" were in the midst of temporal prosperities. You have taken "our goings out of Your way;" and hast shown us how "strait and narrow is the way that leads unto life." [Matthew 7:14] What is meant by, "hast turned aside our goings out of Your way"? It is as if He said, You are placed in the midst of tribulation; you are suffering many things; you have already lost many things that you loved in this life: but I have not abandoned you on the way, the narrow way that I am teaching you. You were seeking "broad ways." What do I tell you? This is the way we go to everlasting life; by the way ye wish to walk, you are going to death. How "broad and wide is the road that leads to destruction: and" how "many there be that find it! How strait and narrow the way that leads unto life, and" how "few there be" that walk therein! [Matthew 7:13-14] Who are the few? They who patiently endure tribulations, patiently endure temptations; who in all these troubles do not "fall away:" who do not rejoice in the word "for a season" only; and in the time of tribulation fade away, as on the sun's arising; but who have the "root" of "love," according to what we have lately heard read in the Gospel....

"Shall not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart" [Psalm 44:21]. He "knows," and yet He "searches them out"? If He knows the secrets of the heart, what do the words, "Shall not God search it out," do there? He "knows" it in Himself; He "searches it out" for our sakes. For it is for this reason God sometimes "searches a thing out;" and speaks of that becoming known to Himself, which He is Himself making known to you. He is speaking of His own work, not of His knowledge. We commonly say, "A gladsome day," when it is fine. Yet is it the day itself that experiences delight? No: we speak of the day as gladsome, because it fills us with delight. And we speak of a "sullen sky." Not that there is any such feeling in the clouds, but because men are affected with sullenness at the sight of such an appearance of the skies, it is called sullen for this reason, that it makes us sullen. So also God is said to "know" when He causes us to know. God says to Abraham, "Now I know that you fear God." [Genesis 22:12] Did He then not know it before then? But Abraham did not know himself till then: for it was in that very trial he came to know himself....And God is said to "know" that which He had caused him to know. Did Peter know himself, when he said to the Physician, "I will be with You even unto death?" [Luke 22:33] The Physician had felt his pulse, and knew what was going on within His patient's soul: the patient knew it not. The crisis of trial came; and the Physician approved the correctness of His opinion: the sick man gave up his presumption. Thus God at once "knows" it and "searches it out." "He knows it already. Why does He 'search it out'?" For your sake: that you may come to know your own self, and may return thanks to Him that made you. "Shall not God search it out?"

"For, for Your sake we are killed all the day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter" [Psalm 44:22]. For you may see a man being put to death; you do not know why he is being put to death. God knows this. The thing in itself is hid. But some one will say to me, "See, he is detained in prison for the name of Christ, he is a confessor for the name of Christ." Why do not heretics also confess the name of Christ, and yet they do not die for His sake? Nay more; let me say it, in the Catholic Church itself, do you think there either are, or have been wanting persons such as would suffer for the sake of glory among men? Were there no such persons, the Apostle would not say, "Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing." [1 Corinthians 13:3] He knew therefore that there might be some persons, who did this not from "charity," but out of vainglory. It is therefore hid from us; God alone sees this; we cannot see it. He alone can judge of this, who "knows the secrets of the heart." "For," for Your sake "are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." I have already mentioned that from hence the Apostle Paul had borrowed a text for the encouragement of the Martyrs: that they might not "faint in the tribulations" undergone by them for the name of Christ.

"Awake; why sleepest Thou, O Lord?" [Psalm 44:23]. Who is addressed, and who is the speaker? Would not he be more correctly said to sleep and slumber, who speaks such words as these? He replies to you, I know what I am saying: I know that "He that keeps Israel does not sleep:" but yet the Martyrs cry, "Awake; why sleepest Thou, O Lord?" O Lord Jesus, You were slain; Thou "slept" in Your Passion; to us You have now "awaked" from sleep. For "we" know that You have now "awaked" again. To what purpose have You awaked and risen again? The Gentiles that persecute us, think You to be dead; do not believe You to have risen again. "Arise Thou" then to them also! "Why sleepest Thou," though not to us, yet to them? For if they already believed You to have risen again, could they persecute us who believe in You? But why do they persecute? "Destroy, slay so and so, whoever have believed in You, such an one, who died an ill death!" As yet to them "Thou sleepest;" arise to them, that they may perceive that You have "awaked" again; and may be at rest. Lastly, it has come to pass, while the Martyrs die, and say these things; while they sleep, and "awaken" Christ, truly dead in their sleepings, Christ has, in a certain sense, risen again in the Gentiles; i.e. it becomes believed, that He has risen again; so by degrees they themselves, becoming converted to Christ by believing, collected a numerous body: such as the persecutors dreaded; and the persecutions have come to an end. Why? Because Christ, who before was asleep to them, as not believing, has risen in the Gentiles. "Arise, and cast us not off for ever!"

"Arise, O Lord, help us" [Psalm 44:26]. And indeed, dearly beloved, He has arisen and helped us. For when he awoke (i.e. when He arose again, and became known to the Gentiles) on the cessation of persecutions, even those who had cleaved to the earth were raised up from the earth, and on performing penance, have been restored to Christ's body, feeble and imperfect though they were: so that in them was fulfilled the text, "Your eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect; and in Your book shall they all be written."

"Arise, O Lord, help us, and redeem us for Your Name's sake;" that is to say, freely; for Your Name's sake, not for the sake of my merits: because You have vouchsafed to do it, not because I am worthy that You should do it unto me. For this very thing, that "we have not forgotten You;" that "our heart has not gone back;" that we "have not stretched out our hands to any strange god;" how should we have been able to achieve, except with Your help? How should we have strength for it, except through Your appealing to us within, exhorting us, and not forsaking us? Whether then we suffer in tribulations, or rejoice in prosperities, redeem Thou us, not for our merits, but for Your Name's sake.

"Mine heart has uttered a good word" [Psalm 45:1]. Who is the speaker? The Father, or the Prophet? For some understand it to be the Person of the Father, which says, "Mine heart has uttered a good word," intimating to us a certain unspeakable generation. Lest you should haply think something to have been taken unto Him, out of which God should beget the Son (just as man takes something to himself out of which he begets children, that is to say, an union of marriage, without which man cannot beget offspring), lest then you should think that God stood in need of any nuptial union, to beget "the Son," he says, "Mine heart has uttered a good word." This very day your heart, O man, begets a counsel, and requires no wife: by the counsel, so born of your heart, you build something or other, and before that building subsists, the design subsists; and that which you are about to produce, exists already in that by which you are going to produce it; and you praise the fabric that as yet is not existing, not yet in the visible form of a building, but on the projecting of a design: nor does any one else praise your design, unless either you show it to him, or he sees what you have done. If then by the Word "all things were made," [John 1:3] and the Word is of God, consider the fabric reared by the Word, and learn from that building to admire His counsels! What manner of Word is that by which heaven and earth were made; [Hebrews 11:3] and all the splendour of the heavens; all the fertility of the earth; the expanse of the sea; the wide diffusion of air; the brightness of the constellations; the light of sun and moon? These are visible things: rise above these also; think of the Angels, "Principalities, Thrones, Dominions, and Powers." [Colossians 1:16] All were made by Him. How then were these good things made? Because there was "uttered forth 'a good Word,'" by which they were to be made....

"Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O most Mighty" [Psalm 45:3]. What is meant by "Your sword," but "Your word"? It was by that sword He scattered His enemies; by that sword he divided the son from the father, "the daughter from the mother, the daughter-in-law from the mother-in-law." We read these words in the Gospel, "I came not to send peace, but a sword." [Matthew 10:34] And, "In one house shall five be divided against each other; three against two, and two against three;" [Luke 12:52] i.e. "the father against the son, the daughter against the mother, the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law." By what "sword," but that which Christ brought, was this division wrought? And indeed, my brethren, we see this exemplified daily. Some young man is minded to give himself up to God's service; his father is opposed to it; they are "divided against each other:" the one promises an earthly inheritance, the other loves an heavenly; the one promises one thing, the other prefers another. The father should not think himself wronged: God alone is preferred to him. And yet he is at strife with the son, who would fain give himself to God's service. But the spiritual sword is mightier to separate them, than the ties of carnal nature to bind them together. This happens also in the case of a mother against her daughter; still more also in that of a daughter-in-law against a mother-in-law. For sometimes in one house mother-in-law and daughter-in law are found orthodox and heretical respectively. And where that sword is forcibly felt, we do not dread the repetition of Baptism. Could daughter be divided against mother; and could not daughter-in-law be divided against mother-in-law?...