Augustine of Hippo

"His seed will I make to endure world without end" [Psalm 89:29]. Not only for this world, but unto the world without end: whither His seed, which is His heritage, the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, will pass. But if you are Christ's, you are also Abraham's seed: and if you are destined His heirs for ever, "He will establish His seed unto world without end: and His throne as the days of Heaven." The thrones of earthly kings are as the days of the earth: different are the days of Heaven from those of earth. The days of Heaven are those years of which it is said, "You are the same, and Your years shall not fail." The days of the earth are soon overtaken by their successors: those which precede are shut out from us: nor do those which succeed remain: but they come that they may go, and are almost gone before they have come. Such are the days of earth. But the days of Heaven, which are also the "One day" of Heaven, and the never failing years, have neither beginning nor end: nor is any day there narrowed between yesterday and tomorrow: no one there expects the future, nor loses the past: but the days of Heaven are always present, where His throne shall be for ever and ever.. ..

This is a strong pledge of the promise of God. The sons of this David are the children of the Bridegroom; all Christians therefore are called His sons. But it is much indeed that God promises, that if Christians, that is, "If his children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments" [Psalm 89:30]; "if they profane My statutes, and keep not My commandments" [Psalm 89:31]; I will not spurn them, nor will I send them away from Me in perdition: but what will I do? "I will visit their offenses with the rod, and their sin with scourges" [Psalm 89:32]. It is not the mercy of one that calls them only; but also that chastises and scourges them. Let therefore your Father's hand be upon you, and if you are a good son, repel not chastening; for "what son is there, to whom his father gives not chastening?" [Hebrews 12:7] Let Him chasten him, so long as He takes not from him His mercy: let Him beat him when obstinate, as long as He does not disinherit him. If you have well understood the promises of your Father, fear not to be scourged, but to be disinherited: "for whom the Lord loves He chastens: and scourges every son whom He receives." [Hebrews 12:6] Does the sinful son spurn chastening, when he sees the only Son without sin scourged? "I will visit their offenses with the rod." Thus too the Apostle threatens: "What will you? Shall I come unto you with a rod?" [1 Corinthians 4:21] Let not pious sons say, if You are coming with a rod, come not at all. For it is better to be taught with the Father's rod, than to perish in the caresses of the robber.

"Nevertheless, My mercy will I not utterly take from Him" [Psalm 89:33]. From whom? From that David to whom I gave these promises, whom "I anointed with my holy oil of gladness above His fellows." Do you recognise Him from whom God will not utterly take away His mercy? That no one may anxiously say, since He speaks of Christ as Him from whom He will not take away His mercy, What then will become of the sinner? Did He say anything like this, "I will not take My loving-kindness utterly from them"? "I will visit," He says, "their offenses with the rod, and their sin with scourges." You expected for your own security, "I will not utterly take my loving-kindness from" them. And indeed this is the reading of some books, but not of the most accurate: though, where they have it, it is a reading by no means inconsistent with the real meaning. For how can it be said that He will not utterly take His mercy from Christ? Has the Saviour of the body committed anything of sin either in Heaven or in earth, "who sits even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us"? [Romans 8:34] Yet it is from Christ: but from His members, His body which is the Church. For in this sense He speaks of it as a great thing that He will not take away His mercies from Him, supposing us not to recognise the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; [John 1:18] for there the Man is not counted for His Person, but the One Person is God and Man. He therefore does not utterly take His mercies from Him, when He takes not His mercy from His body, His members, in which, even while He was enthroned in Heaven, He was still suffering persecutions on earth; and when He cried from Heaven, "Saul, Saul," not why do you persecute My servants, nor why do you persecute My saints, nor My disciples, but, "why do you persecute Me?" [Acts 9:4] As then, while no one persecuted Him when sitting in Heaven, He cried out, "Why do you persecute Me?" when the Head recognised its limbs, and His love allowed not the Head to separate Himself from the union of the body: so, when He takes not away His mercies from Him, it is surely that He takes it not from us, who are His limbs and body. Yet ought we not on that account to sin not without apprehension, and perversely to assure ourselves that we shall not perish, be our actions what they may. For there are certain sins and certain offenses, to define and discourse of which it is either impossible for me, or if it were possible, it would be too tedious for the time we have at present. For no man can say that he is without sin; for if he says so, he will lie; "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." [1 John 1:8] Each one therefore is needfully scourged for his own sins; but the mercy of God is not taken away from him, if he be a Christian. Certainly if you commit such offenses as to repel the hand of Him who chastens, the rod of Him who scourges you, and art angry at the correction of God, and fliest from your Father when He chastens you, and will not suffer Him to be your Father, because He spares you not when thou dost sin; you have estranged yourself from your heritage, He has not thrown you off; for if you would abide being scourged, you would not abide disinherited. "Nor will I do hurt in My truth." For His mercy in setting free shall not be taken away, lest His truth in taking vengeance do harm.

"My covenant will I not profane, nor reject the thing that is gone out of my lips" [Psalm 89:34]. Because his sons sin, I will not on this account be found false: I have promised; I will do. Suppose they choose to sin even as past hope, and so fall into sins as to offend their Father's countenance, and deserve to be disinherited; is it not still God Himself, of whom it is said, "From these stones" He "will raise up sons to Abraham"? [Matthew 3:9] Therefore I tell you, brethren, many Christians sin venially, many are scourged and so corrected for their sin, chastened, and cured; many turn away altogether, striving with a stiff neck against the discipline of the Father, even wholly refusing God as their Father, though they have the mark of Christ, and so fall into such sins, that it can only be announced against them, "that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." [Galatians 5:21] Nevertheless, Christ shall not be destitute of an inheritance on their account: not for the chaff's sake shall the wheat also perish: [Matthew 3:12] nor on account of bad fish shall nothing be cast into the vessels from that net. [Matthew 13:47] "The Lord knows them that are His." [2 Timothy 2:19] For He who predestined us before we were born, promised undoubtingly: "For whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." [Romans 8:29-30] Let desperate sinners sin as far as they choose: let the members of Christ reply, "If God is with us, who shall be against us?" God will not therefore do hurt in His truth, nor will He "profane His Testament." His Testament remains immovable, because in His foreknowledge He predestined His heirs; and "He will not reject the thing that is gone out of His lips."

Listen for your confirmation in hope, for your security, if you know yourself to be among the members of Christ. "I have sworn once by My holiness that I will not lie unto David" [Psalm 89:35]. Do you wait till God swear a second time? How often is He to swear, if in one oath He is false? One oath He made for our life, who sent His Only One to die for us. "I have sworn once by My holiness, that I will not lie unto David." "His seed shall endure for ever" [Psalm 89:36]. His seed endures for ever; because the Lord knows them that are His. "And His seat is like as the sun before me:" "and as the moon perfect for evermore: and the faithful witness in heaven" [Psalm 89:37]. They are His seat, in whom He sits and reigns. But if His seat, His members also; because even our members are the seat of our head. See how all our other members sustain our head: but the head supports nothing above itself, but is itself supported by the rest of our limbs, as if the whole body of a man were the seat of his head. His seat, therefore, all in whom God reigns, "shall be like as the sun before Me," He says: because the righteous in the kingdom of My Father "shall shine like the sun." [Matthew 13:43] But the sun is meant in a spiritual, not a bodily sense, as that which shines from Heaven, which He makes to rise upon the just and unjust. [Matthew 5:45] Finally, that sun is not before men's eyes only, but even those of cattle and the smallest insects; for which of the vilest animals sees not that sun? What does he say to distinguish the sun meant here? "Like as the sun before Me." Not before men, before the flesh, before mortal animals, but "before Me, and as the moon." But what moon? One "that is perfect for evermore." For although that moon which we know becomes perfect, the next day she begins to wane, after her orb is full. "He shall be as the moon perfect for evermore," He says. His seat shall be made perfect as the moon, but that moon is one which will be perfect for evermore. If as the sun, why also as the moon? The Scriptures usually signify by the moon the mortality of this flesh, because of its increasings and decreasings, because of its transitory nature. The moon is also interpreted as Jericho: one who was descending from Jerusalem to Jericho fell among robbers: [Luke 10:30] for he was descending from immortality to mortality. Similar then is the flesh to that moon, which every month suffers increase and decrease: but that flesh of ours will be perfect in the resurrection: "and a faithful witness in heaven." Thus then, if it was our mind only that would be perfected, he would compare us only to the sun: if our body only, to the moon; but as God will perfect us in both, in respect of the mind it is said, "like as the sun before Me," because God only sees the mind: and "as the moon," so is the flesh: which "shall be made perfect for evermore," in the resurrection of the dead: "and a faithful witness in Heaven," because all that was asserted of the resurrection of the dead was true. I beseech you, hear this again more clearly, and remember it: for I know that some understand, while others are yet enquiring perhaps what I meant. There is no article of the Christian faith which has encountered such contradiction as that of the resurrection of the flesh. Finally, He who was born for a sign that should be spoken against, resumed His own flesh after death to meet the caviller; and He who could have so completely cured His wounds that their scars would have entirely vanished, retained those scars in His body, that He might cure the wounds of doubt in the heart. Indeed nothing has been attacked with the same pertinacious, contentious contradiction, in the Christian faith, as the resurrection of the flesh. On the immortality of the soul many Gentile philosophers have disputed at great length, and in many books they have left it written that the soul is immortal: when they come to the resurrection of the flesh, they doubt not indeed, but they most openly deny it, declaring it to be absolutely impossible that this earthly flesh can ascend to Heaven. Thus that moon shall be perfect for evermore, and shall be the faithful witness in heaven against all gain-sayers.

These promises, so sure, so firm, so open, so unquestioned, were made concerning Christ. For although some are mysteriously veiled, yet some are so clear, that all that is obscure is easily revealed by them. Such being the case, see what follows: "But You have approved and brought to nothing and forsaken Your Anointed" [Psalm 89:38]. "You have overthrown the testament of Your servant, and profaned His holiness on the ground" [Psalm 89:39]. "You have broken down all His hedges, and made His strongholds a terror" [Psalm 89:40]....How is this? You have promised all those things: and You have brought to pass their reverse. Where are now the promises which but a little before filled us with delight? Which we so joyfully applauded, which we so fearlessly made our boast of? It is as if one promised, and another destroyed. And this is the mystery: for the words are not "another," but "You," Thou who promised, who even swore in condescension to human doubt, You have promised this, and done thus! Whence shall I get Your oath, where shall I find Your promise fulfilled? Would then God promise, or swear thus falsely? And yet why then these promises, and these acts? I answer, that He acted thus in fulfilment of those promises. But who am I, to say this? Let us see therefore whether it is the language of the Truth; what I say will not then be without foundation. It was David to whom the fulfilment of these promises in his seed, that is, in Christ, was promised: and as they were addressed to David, men expected their completion in David. Further, lest when any Christian asserted these promises to have referred to Christ, another by applying them to David, because he described the fulfilment of all of them in David, might thus err; He cancelled them in David, thus obliging us when we see them unfulfilled in David, to look to another quarter for their fulfilment. Thus also in the case of Esau and Jacob, we find the elder worshipped by the younger, though it is written, "The elder shall serve the younger;" [Genesis 25:23] so when you see it unfulfilled in those two brothers, you look for two peoples in whom to discover the completion of what God in His truth deigns to promise. "From the fruit of your body," says the Lord unto David, "shall I set upon your sea." He promised from his seed something for evermore: and, Solomon, born to him, became master of such wisdom, that the promise of God respecting the fruit of David's body was believed to have been fulfilled in him; but Solomon fell, and gave room for hoping for Christ; that since God can neither be deceived nor deceive, He might not make His promise to rest in one who He knew would fall, but you might after the fall of Solomon look back to God, and demand His promise. Have You, O Lord, deceived? Have You failed to fulfil Your promise? Do You not exhibit what You have sworn? Perhaps God might reply, I swore and promised: but Solomon would not persevere. What then? Did not You, Lord God, know beforehand that he would not persevere? Indeed You knew. Why then did You promise me what should be eternal in one who would not persevere? Have You not answered; "But if his children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments; if they keep not My statutes, and profane My testament;" yet My promise shall remain, and My oath shall be fulfilled: "I have sworn once in My Holiness," within, in a certain mystery, in the very spring whence the Prophets drank, whence they burst forth to us of these things, "I have sworn once" that I will not fail David. Show forth then what You have sworn, give us what You have promised. The fulfilment is taken from that David, that it might not be looked for in that David: wait therefore for what I have promised.

Even David himself knew this. Consider his words; "You have rejected and brought him down to nothing." Where then is Your promise? "You have put off Your Anointed." This expression cheers us, among much that is sorrowful: for the promise of God is still valid; for You have put off Your Anointed, not taken Him away. See then what was the fate of that David, in whom the ignorant hoped for the fulfilment of the promises of God, in order that those promises might be more firmly relied upon for their fulfilment in another. "You have put off Your Anointed: You have overthrown the testament of Your servant." For where is the Old Testament of the Jews? Where that land of promise, in which they sinned while they dwelt in it, on the overthrow of which they wandered afar? Ask you for the kingdom of the Jews; it exists not: you ask for the altar of the Jews; it is not: you ask for the sacrifice of the Jews; it is not: you ask for the priesthood of the Jews; it is not. "You have overthrown the testament of Your servant, and profaned his holiness on the earth." You have shown that what they thought holy, was earthly. "You have broken down all his hedges," with which You have entrenched him: for how could he have been spoiled unless his hedges had been broken down? "You have made his strongholds a terror." Why terror? That it should be said to the sinners, "For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not you." [Romans 11:21]

"All they that go by the way have spoiled him:" that is, all the heathen that go by the way, meaning, all who pass through this life, have spoiled Israel, have spoiled David. First of all, see his fragments in all nations: for it is of the Jews that it is said, "They shall be a portion for foxes." For the Scripture calls wicked, crafty, and cowardly kings, whom another's virtue terrifies, foxes. Thus when our Lord Himself was speaking of the threatening Herod, He said, "Go, and tell that fox." [Luke 13:32] The king who fears no man, is not a fox: like that Lion of Judah, of whom it is said, "Stooping down You rose up, and slept as a lion." [Genesis 49:9] At Your will You stooped down, at Your will rose; because You would, You slept. And thus in another Psalm he says, "I slept." Was not the sentence complete, "I slept, and took rest, and rose up again, because the Lord shall uphold Me"? Why is the word ego added? And thus with a strong emphasis on the word I, they raged against Me, they troubled Me: but had I not willed, I had not slept. Those then concerning whom it was declared that they should be a portion for foxes, are now spoken of as follows; "All they that go by have spoiled him: and he has become a reproach to his neighbours" [Psalm 89:41]. "You have set up the right hand of his enemies, and made all his adversaries to rejoice" [Psalm 89:42]. Look at the Jews, and see all things fulfilled that were predicted. "You have turned away the help of his sword." How they were used to fight few in number, and to strike down many. "You have turned away the help of his sword, and You give him not victory in the battle" [Psalm 89:43]. Naturally then is he conquered, naturally taken prisoner, naturally made an outcast from his kingdom, naturally scattered abroad: for he lost that land, for which he slew the Lord. "You have loosed him from cleansing" [Psalm 89:44]. What is this? Amongst all the evils, this is a matter for great fear; for howsoever God may beat, howsoever He may be angry, howsoever He may flog and scourge, yet let Him scourge him bound, whom He is to cleanse, not "loose him from cleansing." For if He loose him from being purified, he becomes incapable of cleansing, and must be an outcast. From what cleansing then is the Jew loosed? From faith; for by faith we live: [Galatians 3:11] and it is said of faith, "purifying their hearts by faith:" [Acts 15:9] and as it is only the faith of Christ that cleanses; by disbelief in Christ, they are loosed from purification. "You have loosed him from cleansing, and cast his throne down to the ground." And so You have broken it. "The days of his seat have You shortened" [Psalm 89:45]. They imagined that they should reign for ever. "And covered him with confusion." All these things happened to the Jews, Christ yet not being taken away, but His advent deferred.

"O remember what my substance is" [Psalm 89:47]. That David, who was placed among the Jews in the flesh, in Christ in hope, speaks "Remember what is my substance." For not because the Jews fell away, did my substance fail: for from that people came the Virgin Mary, and from her the flesh of Christ; that Flesh sins not, but purifies sins; there, says David, is my substance. "O remember what my substance is." For the root has not entirely perished; the seed shall come to whom the promise was made, ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator. [Galatians 3:19] "For You have not made all the sons of men for nought" [Psalm 89:47]. Lo! All the sons of men have gone into vanity: yet You have not made them for nought. If then all went into vanity, whom You have not made for nought; have You not reserved some instrument to purify them from vanity? This which You have reserved to Yourself to cleanse men from vanity is Your Holy One, in Him is my substance: for from Him are all, whom You have not made for nought, purified from their own vanity. To them it is said, "O you sons of men, how long are you heavy in heart? Wherefore have ye such pleasure in vanity, and seek after leasing?" Perhaps they might become anxious, and turn from their vanity, and when they found themselves polluted with it, might seek for purification from it: then help them, make them secure. "Know this also, that the Lord has made wonderful His Holy One." He has made His Holy One to be admired: thence He has purified all from their vanity: there, says David, is my substance: O remember it! "For You have not made all the sons of men for nought." You have therefore reserved something to purify them: and who is He whom You have reserved? "What man is he that lives, and shall not see death?" This man then who shall live and not see death, shall purify them from nothingness. For He made not all men for nought, nor can He who made them so despise His own creatures, as not to convert and purify them.

"What man is he that shall live, and shall not see death?" [Psalm 89:48]. For being raised from the dead He dies no more, and death has no more dominion over Him. [Romans 6:9] And as in another Psalm it is said, "You shall not leave my soul in Hell, neither shall Thou suffer Your Holy One to see corruption," the Apostolic teaching takes up this testimony, and in the Acts of the Apostles [Acts 2:29] thus argues against the unbelieving; Men and brethren, we know that the patriarch David is dead and buried, and his flesh has seen corruption. Therefore it cannot be said of him, "neither shall Thou suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." Of whom then is it said? "What man is he that shall live, and shall not see death?" Perhaps there is no man such. Nay, but "who is it?" is said to make you inquire, not despair. But perhaps there may be some man "that shall live, and shall not see death," and yet perhaps he did not speak of Christ, who died? There is no man "that shall live, and shall not see death," except Him who died for mortals. That you may be assured that it is said of Him, consider the sequel; "What man is he that lives, and shall not see death?" Did He never die then? He did. How then shall He live, and never see death? "He shall deliver His own soul from the hands of Hell." He is spoken of alone indeed, in that He alone of all others "shall live, and shall not see death: He shall deliver His own soul from the hand of Hell," because although the rest of His faithful shall rise from the dead, and shall themselves live for evermore, without seeing death; yet they shall not themselves deliver their own souls from the hands of Hell. He who delivers His own soul from the hands of Hell, Himself delivers those of His believers: they cannot do so of themselves. Prove that He delivers His own soul. "I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again. No man takes 'it from Me;' for I Myself slept, but I lay it down of Myself, and take it again," because it is He Himself who delivers His own soul from the hands of Hell.

"Remember, Lord, the rebuke that Your servants have" [Psalm 89:50]. Even while Christ was living, and while He was sitting on His Father's right hand, reproaches were cast against the Christians: they long were reproached with the name of Christ. That widowed one who brought forth, and whose children were more than those of the married wife, heard ill names, heard reproaches: but the Church, multiplied as she is, extending right and left, no longer remembers the reproach of her widowhood. "Remember, Lord," in the memory of whom there is abundant sweetness. "Remember," forget not. Remember what? "the rebuke that Your servants have: and how I do bear in my bosom the rebukes of many people." I went, says he, to preach of You, and I heard reproaches, and bore them in my bosom, because I was fulfilling the prophecy. "Being defamed we entreat: we are made as the filth of the earth, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." [1 Corinthians 4:13] Long the Christians bore reproaches in their bosom, in their heart: nor dared resist their revilers; before, when it was a crime to answer a heathen: it is now a crime to remain a heathen. Thanks be to the Lord! He remembered our rebukes: He raised the horn of His Anointed on high, He made Him the Wonderful among the kings of the earth. Now no one insults Christians, or if he does, it is not in public: he speaks as if he were still more fearful of being heard, than anxious to be believed. "I bear in my bosom the rebukes of many people."

They have blasphemed the change of Christ; but what do you answer? "The blessing of the Lord for evermore. Amen and Amen" [Psalm 89:52]. Thanks to His mercy, thanks to His grace. We express our thanks: we do not give them, nor return them, nor repay them: we express our thanks in words, while in fact we retain our sense of them. He saved us for no reward, He heeded not our impieties: He searched us out when we searched not for Him, He found, redeemed, emancipated us from the bondage of the devil and the power of his wicked angels: He drew us to Him to purify us by that faith, from which He releases those enemies only who believe not, and who for that reason cannot be purified. Let those who still remain infidels say every day what they choose; day by day they shall be fewer and fewer that remain; let them revile, mock, accuse, not the death, but the change of Christ. Do they not see that, when they say these things, they fail in purpose either by believing or by dying? For their curse is temporal: but the blessing of the Lord "for evermore." To confirm that blessing is added, "Amen and Amen." This is the signature of the bond of God. Secure then of His promises, let us believe the past, recognise the present, hope for the future. Let not the enemy lead us astray from the way, that He, who gathers us like chickens under His wings, may foster us: lest we stray from His wings, and the hawk of the air carry us off while yet unfledged. For the Christian ought not to hope in himself: if he hopes to be strong, let him be reared by his mother's warmth. This is the hen who gathers her young together; whence is the reproach of our Saviour against the unbelieving Jerusalem. "Behold, your house shall be left unto you desolate." [Matthew 23:38] Hence was it said, "You have made his strongholds a terror." Since then they would not be gathered together under the wings of this hen, and have given as a warning to teach us to dread the unclean spirits that fly in the air, seeking daily what they may devour; let us gather ourselves under the wings of this hen, the divine Wisdom, since she is weakened even unto death of her chickens. Let us love our Lord God, let us love His Church: Him as a Father, Her as a Mother: Him as a Lord, Her as His Handmaid, as we are ourselves the Handmaid's sons. But this marriage is held together by a bond of great love: no man offends the one, and wins favour of the other. Let no man say, "I go indeed to the idols, I consult possessed ones and fortune-tellers: yet I abandon not God's Church; I am a Catholic." While you hold to your Mother, you have offended your Father. Another says, Far be it from me; I consult no sorcerer, I seek out no possessed one, I never ask advice by sacrilegious divination, I go not to worship idols, I bow not before stones; though I am in the party of Donatus. What does it profit you not to have offended your Father, if he avenges your offended Mother? What does it serve you, if you acknowledge the Lord, honour God, preach His name, acknowledge His Son, confess that He sits by His right hand; while you blaspheme His Church? Does not the analogy of human marriages convince you? Suppose you have some patron, whom you court every day, whose threshold you wear with your visits, whom you daily not only salute, but even worship, to whom you pay the most loyal courtesy; if you utter one calumny against his wife, could you re-enter his house? Hold then, most beloved, hold all with one mind to God the Father, and the Church our Mother. Celebrate with temperance the birthdays of the Saints, that we may imitate those who have gone before us, and that they who pray for you may rejoice over you; that "the blessing of the Lord may abide on you for evermore. Amen and Amen."

The resurrection of the Lord is our hope, the Lord’s ascension our glorification. Today, you see, we are celebrating the feast of the ascension. So if we are to celebrate the Lord’s ascension in the right way, with faith, with devotion, with reverence as God-fearing people, we must ascend with him and lift up our hearts. In ascending, however, we must not get above ourselves. Yes, we should lift up our hearts, but to the Lord. As you know, not lifting up hearts to the Lord is due to pride; lifting up hearts to the Lord is called “taking refuge.” After all, we say to the one who has ascended, “Lord, you have become a refuge for us.”He rose again, you see, to give us hope, because what rises again is what first dies. So it [Christ’s resurrection] was to save us from despair at dying and from thinking that our whole life ends with death. We were anxious, I mean, about the soul, and he by rising again gave us an assurance even about the flesh. So he ascended—who did? The one who descended. He descended in order to heal you; he ascended in order to lift you up. You will fall if you have lifted yourself up; you remain standing if you have been lifted up by him. So, lift up your hearts, but to the Lord—that is taking refuge. Lifting up your heart, but not to the Lord, that is pride. So let us say to him as he rises again, “Since you, O Lord, are my hope”; and as he ascends, “You have placed your refuge very high.” How, I mean, can we possibly be proud, if we lift up our hearts to him, seeing that he humbled himself for our sakes, so that we should not remain proud?

He adds, how He became our refuge, since He began to be that, viz. a refuge, to us which He had not been before, not that He had not existed before He became our refuge: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: and from age even unto age You are" [Psalm 90:2]. Thou therefore who art for ever, and before we were, and before the world was, hast become our refuge ever since we turned to You. But the expression, "before the mountains," etc., seems to me to contain a particular meaning; for mountains are the higher parts of the earth, and if God was before even the earth were formed (or, as some books have it, from the same Greek word, "framed" ), since it was by Him that it was formed, what is the need of saying that He was before the mountains, or any certain parts of it, since God was not only before the earth, but before heaven and earth, and even the whole bodily and spiritual creation? But it may certainly be that the whole rational creation is marked by this distinction; that while the loftiness of Angels is signified by the mountains, the lowliness of man is meant by the earth. And for this reason, although all the works of creation are not improperly said to be either made or formed; nevertheless, if there is any propriety in these words, the Angels are "made;" for as they are enumerated among His heavenly works, the enumeration itself is thus concluded: "He spoke the word, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created;" but the earth was "formed," that man might thence be created in the body. For the Scripture uses this word, where we read, God made, or "God formed man out of the dust of the ground." [Genesis 2:7] Before then the noblest parts of the creation (for what is higher than the rational part of the Heavenly creation) were made: before the earth was made, that You might have worshippers upon the earth; and even this is little, as all these had a beginning either in or with time; but "from age to age You are." It would have been better, from everlasting to everlasting: for God, who is before the ages, exists not from a certain age, nor to a certain age, which has an end, since He is without end. But it often happens in the Scripture, that the equivocal Greek word causes the Latin translator to put age for eternity and eternity for age. But he very rightly does not say, You were from ages, and unto ages You shall be: but puts the verb in the present, intimating that the substance of God is altogether immutable. It is not, He was, and Shall be, but only Is. Whence the expression, I Am that I Am; and, I Am "has sent me unto you;" [Exodus 3:14] and, "You shall change them, and they shall be changed: but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail." Behold then the eternity that is our refuge, that we may fly there from the mutability of time, there to remain for evermore.

"For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday, which is past by" [Psalm 90:4]: hence we ought to turn to Your refuge, where You are without any change, from the fleeting scenes around us; since however long a time may be wished for for this life, "a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday:" not as tomorrow, which is to come: for all limited periods of time are reckoned as having already passed. Hence the Apostle's choice is rather to aim at what is before, [Philippians 3:13] that is, to desire things eternal, and to forget things behind, by which temporal matters should be understood. But that no one may imagine a thousand years are reckoned by God as one day, as if with God days were so long, when this is only said in contempt of the extent of time: he adds, "and as a watch in the night:" which only lasts three hours. Nevertheless men have ventured to assert their knowledge of times, to the pretenders to which our Lord said, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father has put in His own power:" [Acts 1:7] and they allege that this period may be defined six thousand years, as of six days. Nor have they heeded the words, "are but as one day which is past by:" for, when this was uttered, not a thousand years only had passed, and the expression, "as a watch in the night," ought to have warned them that they might not be deceived by the uncertainty of the seasons: for even if the six first days in which God finished His works seemed to give some plausibility to their opinion, six watches, which amount to eighteen hours, will not consist with that opinion.