Augustine of Hippo

"Take the Psalm and give the tabret" [Psalm 81:2]. Both "take," and "give." What is, "take"? What, "give"? "Take the Psalm, and give the tabret." The Apostle Paul says in a certain place, [Philippians 4:15] reproving and grieving, that no one had communicated with him in the matter of giving and receiving. What is, "in the matter of giving and receiving," but that which he has openly set forth in another place. [1 Corinthians 9:11] "If we have sowed unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your carnal things." And it is true that a tabret, which is made of hide, belongs to the flesh. The Psalm, therefore, is spiritual, the tabret, carnal. Therefore, people of God, congregation of God, "take ye the Psalm, and give the tabret:" take ye spiritual things, and give carnal. This also is what at that blessed Martyr's table we exhorted you, that receiving spiritual things ye should give carnal. For these which are built for the time, are needful for receiving the bodies either of the living or of the dead, but in time that is passing by. Shall we after God's judgment take up these buildings to Heaven? Yet without these we shall not be able to do at this time the things which belong to the possessing of Heaven. If therefore you are eager in getting spiritual things, be ye devout in expending carnal things. "Take the Psalm, and give the tabret:" take our voice, return your hands.

"A testimony in Joseph He made that" [Psalm 81:5]. Look you, brethren, what is it? Joseph is interpreted augmentation. You remember, you know of Joseph sold into Egypt: Joseph sold into Egypt is Christ passing over to the Gentiles. There Joseph after tribulations was exalted, and here Christ, after the suffering of the Martyrs, was glorified. Thenceforth to Joseph the Gentiles rather belong, and thenceforth augmentation; because, "Many are the children of her that was desolate, rather than of her that has the husband." [Isaiah 54:1] "He made it, till he should go out of the land of Egypt." Observe that also here the "fifth of the sabbath" is signified: when Joseph went out from the land of Egypt, that is, the people multiplied through Joseph, he was caused to pass through the Red Sea. Therefore then also the waters brought forth creeping things of living souls. [Genesis 1:20] No other thing was it that there in figure the passage of that people through the sea foreshowed, than the passing of the Faithful through Baptism; the apostle is witness: for "I would not have you ignorant, brethren," he said, "that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." [1 Corinthians 10:1-2] Nothing else then the passing through the sea did signify, but the Sacrament of the baptized; nothing else the pursuing Egyptians, but the multitude of past sins. You see most evident mysteries. The Egyptians press, they urge; so then sins follow close, but no farther than to the water. Why then do you fear, who hast not yet come, to come to the Baptism of Christ, to pass through the Red Sea? What is "Red"? Consecrated with the Blood of the Lord. Why do you fear to come? The consciousness, perhaps, of some huge offenses goads and tortures in you your mind, and says to you that it is so great a thing you have committed, that you may despair to have it remitted you. Fear lest there remain anything of your sins, if there lived any one of the Egyptians! [Exodus 14:29-30]

But when you shall have passed the Red Sea, when you shall have been led forth out of your offenses "with a mighty hand and with a strong arm," you will perceive mysteries that you know not: since Joseph himself too, "when he came out of the land of Egypt, heard a language which he knew not." You shall hear a language which you know not: which they that know now hear and recognise, bearing witness and knowing. You shall hear where you ought to have your heart: which just now when I said many understood and answered by acclamation, the rest stood mute, because they have not heard the language which they knew not. Let them hasten, then, let them pass over, let them learn.

For if there be error in you, You will not worship a strange god. If you think not of a false god, you will not worship a manufactured god: for "there will not" be in you any strange god. "For I am." Why would you adore what is not? "For I am the Lord your God" [Psalm 81:10]. Because "I am I that Am," and indeed "I Am" He says, I that Am, over every creature: yet to you what good have I afforded in time? "Who brought you out of the land of Egypt." Not to that people alone is it said. For we all were brought out of the land of Egypt, we have all passed through the Red Sea; our enemies pursuing us have perished in the water. Let us not be ungrateful to our God; let us not forget God that abides, and fabricate in ourselves a new god. "I, who led you out of the land of Egypt," says God. "Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it." You suffer straitness in yourself because of the new god set up in your heart; break the vain image, cast down from your conscience the feigned idol: "open wide your mouth," in confessing, in loving: "and I will fill it," because with me is the fountain of life.

..."And He fed them of the fat of wheat, and from the rock with honey He satisfied them" [Psalm 81:16]. In the wilderness from the rock He brought forth water, [Exodus 17:6] not honey. "Honey" is wisdom, holding the first place for sweetness among the viands of the heart. How many enemies of the Lord, then, that lie unto the Lord, are fed not only of the fat of wheat, but also from the rock with honey, from the wisdom of Christ? How many are delighted with His word, and with the knowledge of His sacraments, with the unfolding of His parables, how many are delighted, how many applaud with clamour! And this honey is not from any chance person, but "from the rock." But "the Rock was Christ." [1 Corinthians 10:4] How many, then, are satisfied with that honey, cry out, and say, It is sweet; say, Nothing better, nothing sweeter could be thought or said! And yet the enemies of the Lord have lied unto Him. I like not to dwell any more on matters of grief; although the Psalm ends in terror to this purpose, yet from the end of it, I pray you, let us return to the heading: "Exult unto God our Helper." Turned unto God.

This Psalm, like others similarly named, was so entitled either from the name of the man who wrote it, or from the explanation of that same name, so as to refer in meaning to the Synagogue, which Asaph signifies; especially as this is intimated in the first verse. For it begins, "God stood in the synagogue of gods" [Psalm 82:1]. Far however be it from us to understand by these Gods the gods of the Gentiles, or idols, or any creature in heaven or earth except men; for a little after this verse the same Psalm relates and explains what Gods it means in whose synagogue God stood, where it says, "I have said, You are gods, and you are all the children of the Most High: but you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." In the synagogue of these children of the Most High, of whom the same Most High said by the mouth of Isaiah, "I have begotten sons and brought them up, but they despised Me," [Isaiah 1:2] stood God. By the synagogue we understand the people of Israel, because synagogue is the word properly used of them, although they were also called the Church. Our congregation, on the contrary, the Apostles never called synagogue, but always Ecclesia; whether for the sake of the distinction, or because there is some difference between a congregation whence the synagogue has its name, and a convocation whence the Church is called Ecclesia: for the word congregation (or flocking together) is used of cattle, and particularly of that kind properly called "flocks," whereas convocation (or calling together) is more of reasonable creatures, such as men are....I think then that it is clear in what synagogue of gods God stood.

"How long will you judge unrighteously, and accept the persons of the ungodly" [Psalm 82:2]; as in another place, "How long are you heavy in heart?" Until He shall come who is the light of the heart? I have given a law, you have resisted stubbornly: I sent Prophets, you treated them unjustly, or slew them, or connived at those who did so. But if they are not worthy to be even spoken to, who slew the servants of God that were sent to them, you who were silent when these things were doing, that is, you who would imitate as if they were innocent those who then were silent, "how long will you judge unrighteously, and accept the persons of the ungodly?" If the Heir comes even now, is He to be slain? Was He not willing for your sake to become as it were a child under guardians? Did not He for your sake hunger and thirst like one in need? Did He not cry to you, "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart"? [Matthew 11:29] Did He not "become poor, when He was rich, that by His poverty we might be made rich"? [2 Corinthians 8:9] "Give sentence," therefore, "for the fatherless and the poor man, justify the humble and needy" [Psalm 82:3]. Not them who for their own sake are rich and proud, but Him who for your sake was humble and poor, believe ye to be righteous: proclaim Him righteous. But they will envy Him, and will not at all spare Him, saying, "This is the Heir, come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours." "Deliver," then, "the poor man, and save the needy from the hands of the ungodly" [Psalm 82:4]. This is said that it might be known, that in that nation where Christ was born and put to death, those persons were not guiltless of so great a crime, who being so numerous, that, as the Gospel says, the Jews feared them, and therefore dared not lay hands on Christ, afterwards consented, and permitted Him to be slain by the malicious and envious Jewish rulers: yet if they had so willed, they would still have been feared, so that the hands of the wicked would never have prevailed against Him. For of these it is said elsewhere, "Dumb dogs, they know not how to bark." Of them too is that said, "Lo, how the righteous perishes, and no man lays it to heart." He perished as far as lay in them who would have Him to perish; for how could He perish by dying, who in that way rather was seeking again what had perished? If then they are justly blamed and deservedly rebuked, who by their dissembling suffered such a wicked deed to be committed; how must they be blamed, or rather not only blamed, but how severely must they be condemned, who did this of design and malice?

To all of them, verily, what follows is most fitly suited: "They did not know nor understand, they walk on in darkness" [Psalm 82:5]. "For if even they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory:" [1 Corinthians 2:8] and those others, if they had known, would never have consented to ask that Barabbas should be freed, and Christ should be crucified. But as the above-mentioned blindness happened in part unto Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, this blindness of that People having caused the crucifixion of Christ, "all the foundations of the earth shall be moved." So have they been moved, and shall they be moved, until the predestined fullness of the Gentiles shall come in. For at the actual death of the Lord the earth was moved, and the rocks rent. [Matthew 27:51] And if we understand by the foundations of the earth those who are rich in the abundance of earthly possessions, it was truly foretold that they should be moved, either by wondering that lowliness, poverty, death, should be so loved and honoured in Christ, when it is to their mind great misery; or even in that themselves should love and follow it, and set at nought the vain happiness of this world. So are all the foundations of the earth moved, while they partly admire, and partly are even altered. For as without absurdity we call foundations of heaven those on whom the kingdom of heaven is built up in the persons of saints and faithful; whose first foundation is Christ Himself, born of the Virgin, of whom the Apostle says, "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus;" [1 Corinthians 3:11] next the Apostles and Prophets themselves, by whose authority the heavenly place is chosen, that by obeying them we may be built together with them; whence he says to the Ephesians, "You are built upon the foundation of Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner stone." [Ephesians 2:20] ...But the kingdom of earthly happiness is pride, to oppose which came the lowliness of Christ, rebuking those whom He wished by lowliness to make the children of the Most High, and blaming them: "I said, You are gods, you are all the children of the Most High" [Psalm 82:6]. "But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes" [Psalm 82:7]. Whether to those He said this, "I said, You are gods," and to those particularly who are unpredestined to eternal life; and to the other, "But you shall die like men," etc., "and shall fall like one of the princes," in this way also distinguishing the gods; or whether He blames all together, in order to distinguish the obedient and those who received correction, "I said, You are gods, and you are all the children of the Most High:" that is, to all of you I promised celestial happiness, "but you," through the infirmity of your flesh, "shall die like men," and through haughtiness of soul, "like one of the princes," that is, the devil, shall not be exalted, but "shall fall." As if He said: Though the days of your life are so few, that you speedily die like men, this avails not to your correction: but like the devil, whose days are many in this world, because he dies not in the flesh, you are lifted up so that you fall. For by devilish pride it came to pass that the perverse and blind rulers of the Jews envied the glory of Christ: by this will it came to pass, and still does, that the lowliness of Christ crucified unto death is lightly esteemed in the eyes of them who love the excellence of this world.

In every kind of petition we ought first to try to gain the good will of the one we are petitioning and then to state the object of our petition. We usually try to gain the good will by bestowing praise on the one we are petitioning. And the praise is usually placed at the beginning of the prayer, where in this instance our Lord has bidden us to say nothing else than, "Our Father who is in heaven." Praise of God has been expressed in many manners of speech. Anyone can see this as he reads those forms of praise scattered widely here and there throughout the sacred Scriptures. But nowhere is there found any instruction for the people of Israel to say, "Our Father," or to pray to God as to a Father. To them he has been proposed as a Master, for they were servants; that is, they were as yet living according to the flesh. When I say this, I am referring to them when they received the commandments of the law that they were ordered to observe, for the prophets frequently point out that this same Lord of ours would have been their Father as well, if they did not stray from his commandments. For instance, there are the following expressions: "I have reared children and brought them up; but they have despised me," and, "I have said, 'You are gods, and all of you the children of the most High,' " and, "If I am a Master, where is my fear? And if I am a Father, where is my honor?" Even if we were to disregard those prophetic sayings that refer to the fact that there would be a Christian people who would have God as their Father—in accordance with that saying in the Gospel, "He gave them the power of becoming children of God"—there are still many other expressions whereby they are reproved for the fact that by committing sins they refused to be children. The apostle Paul says, "As long as the heir is a little child, he differs in no way from a slave," but he reminds us that we have received the spirit of adoption by virtue of which we cry, "Abba, Father."