Augustine of Hippo

"O God, Your way is in the Holy One" [Psalm 77:13]. He is contemplating now the works of the mercy of God around us, out of these he is babbling, and in these affections he is exulting. At first he is beginning from thence, "Your way is in the Holy One?" What is that way of Yours which is in the Holy One? "I am," He says, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." [John 14:6] Return therefore, you men, from your affections...."Who is a great God, like our God?" Gentiles have their affections regarding their gods, they adore idols, they have eyes and they see not; ears they have and they hear not; feet they have and they walk not. Why do you walk to a God that walks not? I do not, he says, worship such things, and what do you worship? The divinity which is there. You then worship that whereof has been said elsewhere, "for the Gods of the nations are demons." You either worship idols, or devils. Neither idols, nor devils, he says. And what do you worship? The stars, sun, moon, those things celestial. How much better Him that has made both things earthly and things celestial. "Who is a great God like our God?"

"You are the God that doest wonderful things alone" [Psalm 77:14]. You are indeed a great God, doing wonderful things in body, in soul; alone doing them. The deaf have heard, the blind have seen, the feeble have recovered, the dead have risen, the paralytic have been strengthened. But these miracles were at that time performed on bodies, let us see those wrought on the soul. Sober are those that were a little before drunken, believers are those that were a little before worshippers of idols: their goods they bestow on the poor that did rob before those of others...."Wonderful things alone." Moses too did them, but not alone: Elias too did them, even Eliseus did them, the Apostles too did them, but no one of them alone. That they might have power to do them, You were with them: when You did them they were not with You. For they were not with You when You did them, inasmuch as You made even these very men. How "alone"? Is it perchance the Father, and not the Son? Or the Son, and not the Father? Nay, but Father and Son and Holy Ghost. For it is not three Gods but one God that does wonderful things alone, and even in this very leaper-over. For even his leaping over and arriving at these things was a miracle of God: when he was babbling within with his own spirit, in order that he might leap over even that same spirit of his, and might delight in the works of God, he then did wonderful things himself. But God has done what? "You have made known unto the people Your power." Thence this congregation of Asaph leaping over; because He has made known in the peoples His virtue. What virtue of His has He made known in the peoples? "But we preach Christ crucified,...Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." [1 Corinthians 1:23] If then the virtue of God is Christ, He has made known Christ in the peoples. Do we not yet perceive so much as this; and are we so unwise, are we lying so much below, do we so leap over nothing, as that we see not this?

"You have redeemed in Your arm Your people" [Psalm 77:15]. "With Your arm," that is, with Your power. "And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" [Isaiah 53:1] "You have redeemed in Your arm Your people, the sons of Israel and of Joseph." How as if two peoples, "the sons of Israel and of Joseph"? Are not the sons of Joseph among the sons of Israel?...He has admonished us of some distinction to be made. Let us search out our spirit, perchance God has placed there something— God whom we ought even by night to seek with our hands, in order that we may not be deceived— perchance we shall discover even ourselves in this distinction of "sons of Israel and of Joseph." By Joseph He has willed another people to be understood, has willed that the people of the Gentiles be understood. Why the people of the Gentiles by Joseph? Because Joseph was sold into Egypt by his brethren. [Genesis 37:28] That Joseph whom the brethren envied, and sold him into Egypt, when sold into Egypt, toiled, was humbled; when made known and exalted, flourished, reigned. And by all these things he has signified what? What but Christ sold by His brethren, banished from His own land, as it were into the Egypt of the Gentiles? There at first humbled, when the Martyrs were suffering persecutions: now exalted, as we see; inasmuch as there has been fulfilled in Him, "There shall adore Him all kinds of the earth, all nations shall serve Him." Therefore Joseph is the people of the Gentiles, but Israel the people of the Hebrew nation. God has redeemed His people, "the sons of Israel and of Joseph." By means of what? By means of the corner stone, [Ephesians 2:20] wherein the two walls have been joined together.

In praises of God, in confessions of sins, in hymns and in songs, in prayers, "There is a multitude of the sound of waters. The clouds have uttered a voice" [Psalm 77:17]. Thence that sound of waters, thence the troubling of the abysses, because "the clouds have uttered a voice." What clouds? The preachers of the word of truth. What clouds? Those concerning which God does menace a certain vineyard, which instead of grape had brought forth thorns and He says, "I will command My clouds, that they rain no rain upon it." [Isaiah 5:6] In a word, the Apostles forsaking the Jews, went to the Gentiles: in preaching Christ among all nations, "the clouds have uttered a voice." "For Your arrows have gone through." Those same voices of the clouds He has again called arrows. For the words of the Evangelists were arrows. For these things are allegories. For properly neither an arrow is rain, nor rain is an arrow: but yet the word of God is both an arrow because it does smite; and rain because it does water. Let no one therefore any longer wonder at the troubling of the abysses, when "Your arrows have gone through." What is, "have gone through"? They have not stopped in the ears, but they have pierced the heart.

"The voice of Your thunder is in the wheel" [Psalm 77:18]. What is this? How are we to understand it? May the Lord give aid. When boys we were wont to imagine, whenever we heard thunderings from Heaven, that carriages were going forth as it were from the stables. For thunder does make a sort of rolling like carriages. Must we return to these boyish thoughts, in order to understand, "the voice of Your thunder is in the wheel," as though God has certain carriages in the clouds, and the passing along of the carriages does raise that sound? Far be it. This is boyish, vain, trifling. What is then, "The voice of Your thunder is in the wheel"? Your voice rolls. Not even this do I understand. What shall we do? Let us question Idithun himself, to see whether perchance he may himself explain what he has said: "The voice," he says, "of Your thunder is in the wheel." I do not understand. I will hear what you say, "Your lightnings have appeared to the round world." Say then, I had no understanding. The round world is a wheel. For the circuit of the round world is with reason called also an "orb:" whence also a small wheel is called an "orbiculus." "The voice of Your thunder is in the wheel:" Your "lightnings have appeared to the round world." Those clouds in a wheel have gone about the round world, have gone about with thundering and with lightning, they have shaken the abyss, with commandments they have thundered, with miracles they have lightened. "Unto every land has gone forth the sound of them, and unto the ends of the orb the words of them." "The land has been moved and made to tremble:" that is, all men that dwell in the land. But by a figure the land itself is sea. Why? Because all nations are called by the name of sea, inasmuch as human life is bitter, and exposed to storms and tempests. Moreover if you observe this, how men devour one another like fishes, how the stronger does swallow up the weaker— it is then a sea, unto it the Evangelists went.

"You have led home Your people like sheep in the hand of Moses and of Aaron" [Psalm 77:20]. Why He has added this is somewhat difficult to discover....They banished Christ; sick as they were, they would not have Him for their Saviour; but He began to be among the Gentiles, and among all nations, among many peoples. Nevertheless, a remnant of that people has been saved. The ungrateful multitude has remained without, even the halting breadth of Jacob's thigh. [Genesis 32:32] For the breadth of the thigh is understood of the multitude of lineage, and among the greater part of the Israelites a certain multitude became vain and foolish, so as not to know the steps of Christ on the waters. "You have led home Your people like sheep," and they have not known You. Though You have done such great benefits unto them, hast divided sea, hast made them pass over dry land between waters, hast drowned in the waves pursuing enemies, in the desert hast rained manna for their hunger, leading them home "by the hand of Moses and Aaron:" still they thrust You from them, so that in the sea was Your Way, and Your steps they knew not.

"Hearken ye," He says, "My people, to My law" [Psalm 78:1]. Whom may we suppose to be here speaking, but God? For it was Himself that gave a law to His people, whom when delivered out of Egypt He gathered together, the which gathering together is properly named a Synagogue, which the word Asaph is interpreted to signify. Hath it then been said, "Understanding of Asaph," in the sense that Asaph himself has understood; or must it be figuratively understood, in the sense that the same Synagogue, that is, the same people, has understood, unto whom is said, "Hearken, My people, unto My law"? Why is it then that He is rebuking the same people by the mouth of the Prophet, saying, "But Israel has not known Me, and My people has not understood"? [Isaiah 1:3] But, in fact, there were even in that people they that understood, having the faith which was afterwards revealed, not pertaining to the letter of the law, but the grace of the Spirit. For they cannot have been without the same faith, who were able to foresee and foretell the revelation thereof that should be in Christ, inasmuch as even those old Sacraments were significants of those that should be. Had the prophets alone this faith, and not the people too? Nay indeed, but even they that faithfully heard the Prophets, were aided by the same grace in order that they might understand what they heard. But without doubt the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven was veiled in the Old Testament, which in the fullness of time should be unveiled in the New. "For," says the Apostle, "they did drink of the Spiritual Rock following them, but the Rock was Christ." [1 Corinthians 10:4] In a mystery therefore theirs was the same meat and drink as ours, but in signification the same, not in form; because the same Christ was Himself figured to them in a Rock, manifested to us in the Flesh. "But," he says, "not in all of them God was well pleased." [1 Corinthians 10:5] All indeed ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink, that is to say, signifying something spiritual: but not in all of them was God well pleased. When, he says, "not in all:" there were evidently there some in whom was God well pleased; and although all the Sacraments were common, grace, which is the virtue of the Sacraments, was not common to all. Just as in our times, now that the faith has been revealed, which then was veiled, to all men that have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, [Matthew 28:19] the Laver of regeneration is common; but the very grace whereof these same are the Sacraments, whereby the members of the Body of Christ are to reign together with their Head, is not common to all. For even heretics have the same Baptism, and false brethren too, in the communion of the Catholic name.

"I will open," he says, "in parables My mouth, I will declare propositions from the beginning" [Psalm 78:2]. From what beginning he means, is very evident in the words following. For it is not from the beginning, what time the Heaven and earth were made, nor what time mankind was created in the first man: but what time the congregation that was led out of Egypt; in order that the sense may belong to Asaph, which is interpreted a congregation. But O that He that has said, "I will open in parables My mouth," would also vouchsafe to open our understanding unto them! For if, as He has opened His mouth in parables, He would in like sort open the parables themselves: and as He declares "propositions," He would declare in like sort the expositions thereof, we should not be here toiling: but now so hidden and closed are all things, that even if we are able by His aid to arrive at anything, whereon we may feed to our health, still we must eat the bread in the sweat of our face; and pay the penalty of the ancient sentence [Genesis 3:19] not with the labour of the body only, but also with that of the heart. Let him speak then, and let us hear the parables and propositions.

"How great things we have heard, and have known them, and our fathers have told them to us" [Psalm 78:3]. The Lord was speaking higher up. For of what other person could these words be thought to be, "Hearken ye, O My people, to My law"? Why is it then that now on a sudden a man is speaking, for here we have the words of a man, "our fathers have told them to us." Without doubt God, now about to speak by a man's ministry, as the Apostle says, "Will ye to receive proof of Him that is speaking in me, Christ?" [2 Corinthians 13:3] in His own person at first willed the words to be uttered, lest a man speaking His words should be despised as a man. For it is thus with the sayings of God which make their way to us through our bodily sense. The Creator moves the subject creature by an invisible working; not so that the substance is changed into anything corporal and temporal, when by means of corporal and temporal signs, whether belonging to the eyes or to the ears, as far as men are able to receive it, He would make His will to be known. For if an angel is able to use air, mist, cloud, fire, and any other natural substance or corporal species; and man to use face, tongue, hand, pen, letters, or any other significants, for the purpose of intimating the secret things of his own mind: in a word, if, though he is a man, he sends human messengers, and he says to one, "Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to his servant, Do this, and he does it;" [Luke 7:8] with how much greater and more effectual power does God, to whom as Lord all things together are subject, use both the same angel and man, in order that He may declare whatsoever pleases Him?...For those things were heard in the Old Testament which are known in the New: heard when they were being prophesied, known when they were being fulfilled. Where a promise is performed, hearing is not deceived. "And our fathers," Moses and the Prophets, "have told unto us."

"They have not been hidden from their sons in another generation" [Psalm 78:4]. This is our generation wherein there has been given to us regeneration. "Telling forth the praises of the Lord and His powers, and His wonderful works which He has done." The order of the words is, "and our fathers have told unto us, telling forth the praises of the Lord." The Lord is praised, in order that He may be loved. For what object can be loved more to our health? "And He has raised up a testimony in Jacob, and has set a law in Jacob" [Psalm 78:5]. This is the beginning whereof has been spoken above, "I will declare propositions from the beginning." So then the beginning is the Old Testament, the end is the New. For fear does prevail in the law. "But the end of the law is Christ for righteousness to every one believing;" [Romans 10:4] at whose bestowing "love is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which has been given to us:" [Romans 5:5] and love made perfect does cast out fear, [1 John 4:18] inasmuch as now without the Law the righteousness of God has been made manifest. But inasmuch as He has a testimony by the Law and the Prophets, [Romans 3:21] therefore, "He has raised up a testimony in Jacob." For even that Tabernacle which was set up with a work so remarkable and full of such wondrous meanings, is named the Tabernacle of Testimony, wherein was the veil over the Ark of the Law, like the veil over the face of the Minister of the Law; because in that dispensation there were "parables and propositions." For those things which were being preached and were coining to pass were hidden in veiled meanings, and were not seen in unveiled manifestations. But "when you shall have passed over unto Christ," says the Apostle, "the veil shall be taken away." [2 Corinthians 3:16] For "all the promises of God in Him are yea, Amen." [2 Corinthians 1:20] Whosoever therefore does cleave to Christ, has the whole of the good which even in the letters of the Law he perceives not: but whosoever is an alien from Christ, does neither perceive, nor has. "He has set a law in Israel." After his usual custom he is making a repetition. For "He has raised up a testimony," is the same as, "He has set a law," and "in Jacob," is the same as "in Israel." For as these are two names of one man, so law and testimony are two names of one thing. Is there any difference, says some one, between "has raised up" and "has set"? Yea indeed, the same difference as there is between "Jacob" and "Israel:" not because they were two persons, but these same two names were bestowed upon one man for different reasons; Jacob because of supplanting, for that he grasped the foot of his brother at his birth: [Genesis 25:26] but Israel because of the vision of God. [Genesis 32:28] So "raised up" is one thing, "set" is another. For, "He has raised up a testimony," as far as I can judge, has been said because by it something has been raised up; "For without the Law," says the Apostle, "sin was dead: but I lived sometime without the Law: but at the coming in of the commandment sin revived." [Romans 7:8-9] Behold that which has been raised up by the testimony, which is the Law, so that what was lying hidden might appear, as he says a little afterwards: "But sin, that it might appear sin, through a good thing has wrought in me death." [Romans 7:13] But "He has set a law," has been said, as though it were a yoke upon sinners, whence has been said, "For upon a just man law has not been imposed." [1 Timothy 1:9] It is a testimony then, so far forth as it does prove anything; but a law so far forth as it does command; though it is one and the same thing. Wherefore just as Christ is a stone, but to believers for the Head of the corner, while to unbelievers a stone of offense and a rock of scandal; so the testimony of the Law to them that use not the Law lawfully, [1 Timothy 1:8] is a testimony whereby sinners are to be convicted as deserving of punishment; but to them that use the same lawfully, is a testimony whereby sinners are shown unto whom they ought to flee in order to be delivered....

"How great things," he says, "He has commanded our fathers, to make the same known to their sons?" [Psalm 78:5]. "That another generation may know, sons who shall be born and shall rise up, and they may tell to their sons" [Psalm 78:6]. "That they may put their hope in God, and may not forget the works of God, and may seek out His commandments" [Psalm 78:7]. "That they may not become, like their fathers, a crooked and embittering generation: a generation that has not guided their heart, and the spirit thereof has not been trusted with God" [Psalm 78:8]. These words do point out two peoples as it were, the one belonging to the Old Testament, the other to the New: for in that he says, he has implied that they received the commandments, "to make them known to their sons," but that they did not know or do them: but they received them themselves, to the end "that another generation might know," what the former knew not. "Sons who shall be born and shall arise." For they that have been born have not arisen: because they had not their heart above, but rather on the earth. For the arising is with Christ: whence has been said, "If you have arisen with Christ, savour ye the things which are above." [Colossians 3:1] "And they may tell them," he says, "to their sons, in order that they may put their hope in God."..."And may not forget the works of God:" that is to say, in magnifying and vaunting their own works, as though they did them themselves; while "God it is that works," in them that work good things, "both to will and to work according to good will." [Philippians 2:13] "And may search out His commandments."...The commandments which He has commanded. How then should they still search out, whereas they have already learned them, save that by putting their hope in God, they do then search out His commandments, in order that by them, with His aid, they may be fulfilled? And he says why, by immediately subjoining, "and its spirit has not been trusted with God," that is, because it had no faith, which does obtain what the Law does enjoin. For when the spirit of man does work together with the Spirit of God working, then there is fulfilled that which God has commanded: and this does not come to pass, except by believing in Him that does justify an ungodly man. [Romans 4:5] Which faith the generation crooked and embittering had not: and therefore concerning the same has been said, "The spirit thereof has not been trusted with God." For this has been said much more exactly to point out the grace of God, which does work not only remission of sins, but also does make the spirit of man to work together therewith in the work of good deeds, as though he were saying, his spirit has not believed in God. For to have the spirit trusted with God, is, not to believe that his spirit is able to do righteousness without God, but with God. For this is to believe in God: which is surely more than to believe God. For ofttimes we must believe even a man, though in him we must not believe. To believe in God therefore is this, in believing to cleave unto God who works good works, in order to work with Him well....

Lastly, "The sons of Ephrem bending and shooting bows, have been turned back in the day of war" [Psalm 78:9]. Following after the law of righteousness, unto the law of righteousness they have not attained. [Romans 9:31] Why? Because they were not of faith. For they were that generation whereof the spirit has not been trusted with God: but they were, so to speak, of works: because they did not, as they bended and shot their bows (which are outward actions, as of the works of the law), so guide their heart also, wherein the just man does live by faith, which works by love; whereby men cleave to God, who works in man both to will and work according to good will. For what else is bending the bow and shooting, and turning back in the day of war, but heeding and purposing in the day of hearing, and deserting in the day of temptation; flourishing arms, so to speak, beforehand, and at the hour of the action refusing to fight? But whereas he says, "bending and shooting bows," when it would seem that he ought to have said, bending bows and shooting arrows....Some Greek copies to be sure are said to have "bending and shooting with bows," so that without doubt we ought to understand arrows. But whereas by the sons of Ephrem he has willed that there be understood the whole of that embittering generation, it is an expression signifying the whole by a part. And perhaps this part was chosen whereby to signify the whole, because from these men especially some good thing was to have been expected....Although set at the left hand by his father as being the younger, Jacob nevertheless blessed with his right hand, and preferred him before his elder brother with a benediction of hidden meaning. [Genesis 48:14] ...For there was being figured how they were to be last that were first, and first were to be they that were last, [Matthew 20:16] through the Saviour's coming, concerning whom has been said, "He that is coming after me was made before me." [John 1:27] In like manner righteous Abel was preferred before the elder brother; so to Ismael Isaac; so to Esau, though born before him, his twin brother Jacob; so also Phares himself preceded even in birth his twin brother, who had first thrust a hand out of the womb, and had begun to be born: so David was preferred before his elder brother: [1 Samuel 16:12] and as the reason why all these parables and others like them preceded, not only of words but also of deeds, in like manner to the people of the Jews was preferred the Christian people, for redeeming the which as Abel by Cain, [Genesis 4:8] so by the Jews was slain Christ. This thing was prefigured even when Jacob stretching out his hands cross-wise, with his right hand touched Ephrem standing on the left; and set him before Manasse standing on the right, whom he himself touched with the left hand. [Genesis 48:14]

But what that is which he says, "they have been turned back in the day of war," the following words do teach, wherein he has most clearly explained this: "they have not kept," he says, "the testament of God, and in His law they would not walk" [Psalm 78:10]. Behold what is, "they have been turned back in the day of war:" they have not kept the testament of God. When they were bending and shooting bows, they did also utter the words of most forward promise, saying, "Whatsoever things the Lord our God has spoken we will do, and we will hear." [Exodus 19:8] "They have been turned back in the day of war:" because the promise of obedience not hearing but temptation does prove. But he whose spirit has been trusted with God, keeps hold on God, who is faithful, and "does not suffer him to be tempted above that which he is able; but will make with the temptation a way of escape also," [1 Corinthians 10:13] that he may be able to endure, and may not be turned back in the day of war....Therefore these men have been thus branded: "a generation," he says, "which has not directed their heart." It has not been said, works, but heart. For when the heart is directed, the works are right; but when the heart is not directed, the works are not right, even though they seem to be right. And how the crooked generation has not directed the heart, has sufficiently been shown, when he says, "and the spirit thereof has not been trusted with God." For God is right: and therefore by cleaving to the right, as to an immutable rule, the heart of a man can be made right, which in itself was crooked....

"And they forgat His benefits, and the wonderful works of Him which He showed to them; before their fathers the wonderful things which He did" [Psalm 78:11]. What this is, is not a question to be negligently passed over. Concerning those very fathers he was speaking a little before, that they had been a generation crooked and embittering....What fathers, inasmuch as these are the very fathers, whom he would not have posterity to be like? If we shall take them to be those out of whom the others had derived their being, for example, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, by this time they had long since fallen asleep, when God showed wonderful things in Egypt. For there follows, "in the land of Egypt, in the plain of Thanis" [Psalm 78:12]: where it is said that God showed to them wonderful things before their fathers. Were they perchance present in spirit? For of the same the Lord says in the Gospel, "for all do live to Him." [Luke 20:38] Or do we more suitably understand thereby the fathers Moses and Aaron, and the other elders who are related in the same Scripture also to have received the Spirit, of which also Moses received, in order that they might aid him in ruling and bearing the same people? [Numbers 11:17] For why should they not have been called fathers? It is not in the same manner as God is the One Father, who does regenerate with His Spirit those whom He does make sons for an everlasting inheritance; but it is for the sake of honour, because of their age and kindly carefulness: just as Paul the elder says, "Not to confound you I am writing these things, but as my dearly beloved sons I am admonishing you:" [1 Corinthians 4:14] though he knew of a truth that it had been said by the Lord, "Call ye no man your father on earth, for One is your Father, even God." [Matthew 23:9] And this was not said in order that this term of human honour should be erased from our usual way of speaking: but lest the grace of God whereby we are regenerated unto eternal life, should be ascribed either to the power or even sanctity of any man. Therefore when he said, "I have begotten you;" he first said, "in Christ," and "through the Gospel;" lest that might be thought to be of him, which is of God....Accordingly, the land of Egypt must be understood for a figure of this world. "The plain of Thanis" is the smooth surface of lowly commandment. For lowly commandment is the interpretation of Thanis. In this world therefore let us receive the commandment of humility, in order that in another world we may merit to receive the exaltation which He has promised, who for our sake here became lowly.