Selections from the Prophets

Those with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, singing to God, say: “Bless the Lord, you heavens; sing to him and exalt him forever.” Then: “Bless the Lord, you angels.” Then: “Bless the Lord, you waters and all that are above the heaven.” So the Scriptures rank the heavens and the waters among pure powers, as is also shown in Genesis. Fittingly, then, since the word “power” is used in various senses, Daniel adds, “Let every power bless the Lord”; then next, “Bless the Lord, sun and moon.” And: “Bless the Lord, stars of heaven; bless, all who worship the Lord, the God of gods; sing and give thanks, for his mercy is forever.” [It is written in Daniel, when the three children were singing in the furnace.]

“Blessed are you who look into the depths, seated upon the Cherubim,” Daniel says, agreeing with Enoch, who said, “And I saw all the kinds of matter.” For the abyss is what is boundless in its own substance, but bounded by the power of God. Material substances, then, from which the individual kinds and their species come into being, are called depths; since he would not have called water alone an abyss. And yet water too is interpreted allegorically as the abyss, or matter.

“In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth”: the earthly things and the heavenly. That this is true the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of prostitution, for the land will surely commit prostitution, departing from the Lord.” For he does not mean the element, but those who live on that element and have an earthly mindset.

That the Son is the Beginning, Hosea teaches clearly: “And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they too will be called sons of the living God. And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint for themselves one head (beginning) and will go up from the land, for great is the day of Israel.” For a person chooses the one they believe in. And one believes in the Son, who is the Beginning. That is why he also said earlier, “But I will have mercy on the sons of Judah and will save them by the Lord their God”; and the Savior who saves is the Son of God. He, then, is the Beginning.

Through Hosea the Spirit says, “But I am your instructor”; “Blow the trumpet on the hills of the Lord, sound the alarm on the heights.” And is not baptism itself, as a sign of rebirth, a way out of matter through the Savior's teaching, matter which is a great and violent stream always rushing on and sweeping us along? So the Lord, leading us out of disorder, enlightens us, leading us into the light that has no shadow and is no longer material.

Two prophets cut and divided this river of matter and the sea by the power of the Lord, matter being bounded at each separation of the water by God's will: both served as pure leaders, through whom the signs were believed, so that the righteous man might come out of matter, having first journeyed through it. Indeed, one of the two leaders also bore the name of our Savior.

Thus rebirth is through “water and spirit,” as all birth is too. “For the Spirit of God was borne over the abyss.” And for this reason the Savior was baptized, not needing it himself, so that he might sanctify all water for those being reborn. In this way we are cleansed not only in body but also in soul. A sign, at any rate, that our invisible parts too are sanctified is that unclean spirits intertwined with the soul are strained out by the new and spiritual birth.

“Water above the heaven”: since baptism is through “water and spirit,” being a defense against the twofold fire, that which touches invisible things and that which touches visible ones, water too must be partly perceptible to the mind and partly to the senses, a defense against the twofold nature of the fire. Earthly water cleans the body, but the heavenly water, because it is perceptible to the mind and invisible, is interpreted allegorically as the Holy Spirit, the cleanser of invisible things, as a water of the spirit, as the other is of the body.

God has mixed fear with goodness, out of goodness. For he at once provides what is advantageous to each, as a physician to the sick, as a father to his unruly child. “For he who spares his rod hates his son.” And the Lord and his apostles lived in fear and labors. When, then, a believer's body is sick, it is either because the Lord is rebuking some previous sin, or guarding against future ones, or even not preventing an attack from outside, through the activity of …, for some benefit to him or to his neighbors as an example.

Those who dwell in a decaying body, as though sailing in an old ship, are not careless, but always pray with their hands raised to God.

The elders were very distressed if they did not suffer something in the body from time to time; for they feared that, if they did not receive the consequences of their sins here, which follow those in the flesh in great number through ignorance, they would receive their punishment all at once there; so they thought it best to receive treatment here. One must fear, then, not the illness from outside, but the sins because of which illness comes, and illness of soul, not of body; because “all flesh is grass,” and bodily and external goods are “temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal.”

Of the things of knowledge, we already share in some, and others we hope for firmly through what we have; for we have neither received everything nor lack everything, but we have received, so to speak, a “pledge” of the eternal good things and of the Father's riches. And the provisions for the Lord's journey are the Lord's beatitudes. For he said, “Seek and be concerned for the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you; for the Father knows what you need.” So he limits not only our occupations but also our worries. “For you cannot,” he says, “add anything to your stature by worrying.” For God knows clearly what it is good for us to have and what to lack. So he wants us, having emptied ourselves of worldly cares, to be filled with care for God. “For we groan, longing to put on” the incorruptible, before putting off corruption. For when faith is poured in, unbelief flows out; likewise with knowledge and righteousness. So one must not only empty the soul, but also fill it with God. For it is no longer evil, since that has ceased, nor yet good, since it has not yet received it; and what is neither good nor evil is nothing. “For there returns to the swept and empty house,” if nothing saving is put into it, the unclean spirit that lived there before, bringing with it seven other unclean spirits. That is why, having emptied the soul of evils, we must fill it with the good God, which is the chosen dwelling. For when what was empty is filled, then the seal follows, so that what is holy may be kept for God.

“Every word is established on two or three witnesses”: on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; the commandments that have been spoken must be kept with these as witnesses and helpers.

Fasting is abstinence from food according to its literal meaning, and food makes us neither more righteous nor less righteous; but according to its mystical meaning it shows that, just as for each person life comes from food and lack of food is a symbol of death, so we too must fast from worldly things, so that we may die to the world and after that, partaking of divine food, live to God. Besides, fasting empties the soul of matter and presents it, together with the body, pure and light to the divine words. The worldly food, then, is the former life and sins; the divine food is faith, hope, endurance, knowledge, peace, self-control. “For blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God; for they shall be filled.” And the soul, not the body, receives this appetite.

The Savior showed the believing apostles that prayer is stronger than faith, in the case of a man possessed by a demon whom they had not been able to cleanse, saying, “Such things are accomplished by prayer.” The one who has believed has received forgiveness of sins from the Lord; but the one who has attained knowledge, since he no longer sins, obtains from himself the forgiveness of the rest.

Just as healings, prophecies, and signs, so too the teaching of knowledge is accomplished through human beings, God working in them; for God shows his power through human beings. And the prophecy rightly says, “And I will send them a man who will save them.” So he himself sends forth, at one time prophets, at another apostles, saviors of human beings. So God does good through human beings; for it is not that God can do some things and cannot do others, nor is he ever weak in anything, nor do some things happen with his will and others against it, some by him and others by another; but he has both begotten us through human beings and instructed us through human beings.

God made us when we did not exist before. For if we had existed before, we would have had to know where we were, and how and why we came here; but if we did not exist before, God alone is the cause of our coming into being. As, then, he made us when we did not exist, so, once we have come to be, he saves us by his own grace, if we show ourselves worthy and fit; but if not, he will let us go to our own end. “For he is Lord of the living and the dead.”

See the power of God, not only in bringing human beings into existence when they did not exist and bringing those who have come into existence to maturity as they grow older, but also in saving those who believe, according to what is proper to each; and he changes seasons, times, fruits, and elements. For this is the one God, who has measured both the beginning and the end of things that have come to be, fittingly for each.

A man who has advanced from faith and fear to knowledge knows how to say “Lord, Lord,” but not as the slave does; he has learned to say “Our Father.” Having freed himself from “the spirit of slavery leading to fear,” and advanced through love to “adoption,” he now reveres through love the one he feared before; for he no longer abstains from what should be avoided through fear, but holds to the commandments through love. “The Spirit himself,” he says, “bears witness,” when we say, “Abba, Father.”

The Lord buys us “with precious blood,” freeing us from the bitter masters of old, the sins through which “the spiritual forces of wickedness” ruled over us. So he leads us into the freedom of the Father, as sons who are joint heirs and friends. “For my brothers,” says the Lord, “and joint heirs are those who do the will of my Father.” “So call no one on earth your father”; for there are masters on earth, but in heaven is the Father, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” For love rules the willing, and fear the unwilling, this being the bad kind of fear; but the fear that instructs for good leads to Christ and is saving.

If anyone conceives of God (in no way worthily, for what conception is worthy of God? but as far as possible), let that person conceive of him as a great, incomprehensible, and most beautiful “unapproachable light,” endowed with every good power, every fine virtue, caring for all, compassionate, incapable of suffering, good, knowing all things, foreknowing all things, pure, sweet, bright, undefiled.

Since the soul moves of itself, the grace of God asks from it what the soul has, its eagerness, as a contribution toward salvation; for he wants the good that the Lord gives it to be the soul's own, since it is not senseless, to be carried along like a body. Possession, then, belongs to the one who has received; receiving belongs to the one who has chosen and desired; and keeping what one has received belongs to the one who has practiced keeping it and is able to do so. That is why God has given the choice to the soul, so that he may point out what is needed, and it, having chosen, may receive and keep it securely.

Just as the Savior spoke and healed through the body, so too formerly through the prophets, and now through the apostles and teachers; for the church serves the Lord's working; so at that time too he took on a man, so that through him he might serve the Father's will. And always the God who loves mankind puts on a human being for the salvation of human beings, formerly the prophets, now the church. For it is fitting that like should serve like for a like salvation.

When we were earthly, we belonged to Caesar. Caesar is the temporary ruler, whose image is also the earthly one, the old man, to whom he had returned. To him, then, must be given the earthly things, which “we have borne in the image of the earthly,” and “the things of God to God”; for each of the passions is like a letter, stamp, and sign on us. Now the Lord impresses on us another stamp and other names and letters: faith instead of unbelief, and so on. So we are brought over from material things to spiritual, “having borne the image of the heavenly.”

John says, “I baptize you with water, but after me comes the one who baptizes you with the Spirit and fire.” But he baptized no one with fire. “Some,” as Heracleon says, “marked the ears of those being sealed with fire,” understanding the apostolic saying in this way. “For the winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor, and he will gather the wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” “Through the Spirit” is added to “through fire,” since, as the wheat is separated from the chaff (that is, from the material garment) through the wind, and the chaff is separated by being winnowed by the wind, so the Spirit has a power to separate material activities. And since some things have come from the unbegotten and imperishable, the seeds of life, these are gathered like the wheat and stored; but the material remains as long as it is joined to the better; when it is separated from that, it perishes, for it had its being in another. What separates by its power, then, is the Spirit, and what consumes is the fire; and by fire, material fire is to be understood. But since what is saved is like wheat, and what has grown around the soul like chaff, and the one is nonphysical while what is separated is material, he set the Spirit, subtle and pure and almost beyond the mind, against the nonphysical, and fire against the material; fire that is not wicked or evil, but strong and cleansing of evil. For fire is understood as a good and strong power, destructive of the worse and preserving the better. That is why this fire is called “wise” by the prophets.

So too when God is called “a consuming fire,” it must be understood as a name and symbol not of evil, but of power. For as fire is the strongest of the elements and masters all, so God too is almighty and ruler of all, able to master, create, make, nourish, increase, and save, having authority over body and soul. As fire, then, excels the elements, so the Almighty excels gods, powers, and principalities. And the power of fire is twofold: one suited to creation, to the ripening of fruits, and to the birth and nourishment of living things, whose image is the sun; the other to consuming and destruction, like earthly fire. When God, then, is called “a consuming fire,” he is a strong and irresistible power, to which nothing is impossible, but which can also destroy. About such a power the Savior too says, “I came to cast fire on the earth,” meaning a power that cleanses the holy, but that, as they say, destroys the material, while, as we would say, it disciplines. And fire carries fear, and light gladness.

The elders did not write, neither wishing to distract their care for teaching the tradition with the other care of writing, nor spending on writing the time for reflecting on what was to be said. And perhaps, persuaded that the gift of composing and the gift of teaching are not of the same nature, they left writing to those naturally suited to it. For the speaker's stream flows unhindered and with force, and may perhaps even carry the listener away; but writing, tested every time by its readers, receiving exact examination, is thought worthy of the greatest care, and is, so to speak, the written confirmation of teaching, the voice being passed on in this way through composition to later generations. For the deposit of the elders, speaking through writing, uses the writer as a servant for handing on the tradition for the salvation of those who will read it. Just as the magnet, passing over other material, attracts only iron because of its fitness, so books too, though they have many readers, draw only those able to understand. For the word of truth is found to be “foolishness” to some, “a stumbling block” to others, but to a few “wisdom” and so also “the power of God.” But the one who knows must have no envy. That is why he asks which is worse, to give to the unworthy or not to hand on to the worthy. And through great love he runs the risk of sharing not only with everyone fit, but sometimes even with an unworthy person who begs earnestly, not because of the begging (for he does not seek fame), but because of the perseverance of the one who asks, training himself for faith by much asking.

There are some who, calling themselves gnostics, envy their own people more than outsiders. But as the sea is open to all, and one swims, another trades, another catches fish; and as the earth is common, and one travels, another plows, another hunts, someone else searches for metals, another builds: so too, when Scripture is read, one is helped toward faith, another toward character, and another is rid of superstition through knowledge of reality. But the athlete, having come to know the Olympic stadium, strips for the teaching, competes, and becomes victorious, having outmaneuvered and defeated the opponents who assail the way of knowledge. For knowledge is necessary both for exercising the soul and for dignity of character, making the faithful more worthy of respect and exact observers of reality. For as it is not possible to believe without instruction in the faith, so neither to comprehend without knowledge.

For since there are things useful and necessary for salvation, such as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and also our own soul, the account of them, which is knowledge, must certainly be both useful and necessary. And for those who have undertaken the responsibility of helping others, wide experience is useful, so that nothing of what others are thought to know necessarily and learnedly escapes them. And the explanation of teachings that differ from the accepted faith also gives joint exercise to an inquiring soul, and keeps the learner of the truth undeceived, having practiced in advance, when the trumpets of war sound around him on every side.

Just as Crete is said to produce no deadly beasts, only the life of the one who knows is free from every evil deed, thought, and word; he has no enemy at all, and is beyond envy, hatred, every blasphemy, and slander.

Over a long life he should be called blessed, not because he lived long, but because by living well he became worthy of living forever. He has grieved no one, except by instructing with the word those wounded in heart, as with saving honey, which is both sweet and stinging. So above all the one who knows would keep what is fitting together with what is reasonable. For when all passion has been cut away and removed from the whole soul, he lives and dwells from that point on with the best part, which has become pure and been set free for adoption.

Pythagoras thought that the one who gave names to things should be considered not only the most learned but also the oldest of the wise. So we must examine the Scriptures carefully, since they are acknowledged to have been spoken in parables, and look in the names for the meanings which the Holy Spirit, having them about things, teaches, impressing his own thought, so to speak, on the words; so that, examined carefully by us, the names spoken in many senses may be unfolded, and what is hidden under many coverings, felt out and learned, may be revealed and shine forth. For as lead, when rubbed, blossoms white out of black, as white lead, so too knowledge, pouring brightness and radiance on things, would be the truly divine wisdom, the pure light that enlightens the pure among men, like the pupil of the eye, for sure sight and apprehension of the truth.

Having lit ourselves, then, from the source of that light, and from our longing for it trying as far as possible to become like it, filled with light, we become truly Israelites of light. For he called friends and brothers those who hold fast to becoming like the divine by desire and pursuit.

… which pure places and meadows received, having voices and certain visions of holy apparitions; but every man who has been exactly purified will be counted worthy of divine teaching and power.

I know that the mysteries of knowledge bring mockery from most people, especially when they are not patched up with elaborate rhetorical figures; but the few, like a light suddenly brought into a darkened banquet, they astonish at first; then, having become used to them, brought up in them, and exercised in reasoning, as though gladdened by pleasure and rejoicing … the Lord. For as pleasure has as its essence release from pain, so knowledge has the removal of ignorance. For as those who are most deeply asleep think they are most awake, falling into more vivid and uninterrupted dream fantasies, so those who are most ignorant think they know most. But blessed are those who rise from this sleep and madness and look up to the light and the truth.

Equally, then, whoever wishes to have the disciple obedient must, combining faith with desire, train and practice, always examining for himself the truth of the doctrines; and when he thinks he is well prepared, then he may enter into his neighbors' inquiries too; for fledglings too first try flying in the nest, exercising their wings.

For the virtue of the one who knows is everywhere noble, gentle, harmless, painless, and blessed, and prepared to converse in the best way both with everything divine and with human beings, at once contemplative and practical, making the human being a divine image and a lover of the beautiful through love. For the beautiful, as there it is contemplated and understood by wisdom, here is practiced by self-control and righteousness through faith, by one who has practiced angelic service in the flesh, as one who has consecrated his mind in the body as in a transparent and undefiled place.

To Tatian, who says that “Let there be light” is a prayer, we must reply: if, then, praying, he knew of a God above him, how does he say, “I am God, and besides me there is no other”?

He said that there are punishments for blasphemies, idle talk, and licentious words, which are punished and corrected by word; and he said that women are punished for their hair and adornment by the power set over these things, which also gave Samson power in his hair, and which punishes women who, through the adornment of their hair, entice others to sexual immorality.

As they are made good by an emanation of the good, so they are made evil by an emanation of evil. The judgment of God is good: the separation of the faithful from the unfaithful, the prior judgment to prevent falling into a greater judgment, and judgment that is discipline.

Scripture says that infants who have been abandoned are handed over to a guardian angel, by whom they are instructed and grow up. “And they will be,” it says, “like the faithful of a hundred years here.” That is why Peter too says in the Apocalypse: “And a flash of fire leaping from those infants and striking the eyes of the women,” since the righteous man “shines out like a spark through dry stalks and judges nations.”

“With the holy you will be holy.” Your name has been glorified according to the praise of the holy, God being glorified according to our knowledge. So too with “The Lord lives” and “The Lord has risen.”

“A people whom I did not know served me”: did not know according to the covenant. “Foreign sons”: those who have zealously pursued the things of another.

“Making great the deliverances of his king.” All the faithful are called kings, being called to the kingdom both by knowledge and by inheritance.

“Patience is sweeter than honey,” not because it is patience, but on account of the fruit of patience. For neither is the self-controlled person free of passion, since he masters the passions only through effort; but when it becomes a settled state, he is no longer self-controlled, the man having become one in a single state with the Holy Spirit.

“Spirits”: the passions in the soul are called spirits, not spirits in their actual substance, since then the passionate man would be a legion of demons, but by their tendency. For the same soul, taking on different qualities of vice through its changes, is said to have taken on spirits.

The Word does not command us to give up possessions, but to manage possessions without attachment; and if something happens to us, not to be upset or grieved or desire to acquire; for he commands us to give up passionate possession and all attachment. Divine providence does not end with those in the flesh alone.

For instance, Peter in the Apocalypse says, “The infants who were aborted, who will have the better portion, are handed over to a guardian angel, so that, having received knowledge, they may obtain the better dwelling, having suffered what they would have suffered if they had been in the body.” But the others will obtain salvation alone, being pitied as wronged, and will remain without punishment, receiving this as their reward.

“And the milk of the women, flowing from their breasts and congealing,” says Peter in the Apocalypse, “will breed small flesh-eating beasts, and running back upon them they devour them,” teaching that punishments come about because of sins. He says they are born from the sins, as the people were sold because of their sins, and, as the apostle says, “because of their unbelief in Christ they were bitten by the snakes.”

An elder used to say that what is in the womb is a living being. For the soul enters the womb when it has been prepared for conception by the purification, and, introduced by one of the angels who preside over birth, who knows beforehand the time of conception, it moves the woman to intercourse; and when the seed has been sown, the spirit in the seed is, so to speak, claimed as its own, and so is conceived together with the formation. … he called a testimony to all. And whenever the angels bring good news to barren women, they introduce the souls, as it were, before conception. And in the Gospel “the babe leaped,” as a being with a soul. … and barren women are barren for this reason, that the soul is not introduced to bind the sown seed into the holding of conception and birth.

“The heavens declare the glory of God.” Heavens are spoken of in many senses: both those in space and revolution, and the immediate activity of the first-created angels in the covenants; for the covenants were brought into effect by the more sovereign presence of angels: that with Adam, that with Noah, that with Abraham, that with Moses. For the first-created angels, moved by the Lord, acted on the angels next to the prophets, declaring “the glory of God,” the covenants. But also the works done on earth by angels

came about through the first-created angels for “the glory of God.” The heavens are properly the Lord, then also the first-created, and after them the holy men before the law, like the patriarchs, and Moses and the prophets, and then the apostles. “The firmament proclaims the work of his hands.” He calls God the firmament, incapable of suffering and unchanging, as the same David says elsewhere: “I will love you, Lord, my strength; the Lord is my firmament and my refuge.” The firmament itself, then, proclaims the work of his hands, that is, shows and reveals the making of his angels; for it proclaims and shows those whom he made. “Day to day pours forth speech.” As the heavens are meant in many senses,

so too is day. And speech is the Lord, and he too is called day in many ways. “And night to night proclaims knowledge.” The devil knew that the Lord would come, but did not know whether Jesus was he; that is why he tempted him, to know whether he was powerful. … it says, “And he departed from him for a time,” that is, he postponed the discovery until the resurrection. For he knew that this was the Lord who would rise. Likewise the demons, since they suspected that Solomon was the Lord, but knew that he was not when he sinned. “Night to night”: all the demons knew that the one who rose after the passion was the Lord. And already Enoch says that the angels who transgressed taught human beings astronomy, divination, and the other arts.⁠a

“There are no speeches or words whose voices are not heard,” either of the days or of the nights. “Their sound has gone out into all the earth.” He transferred the saying to the saints alone, whom he called both heavens and days.

The stars, spiritual bodies which share with the angels set over them and are governed by them, are not causes of birth, but signs of what is happening, will happen, and has happened, concerning changes of the air, fruitfulness and infertility, plagues and fevers, and concerning human beings. The stars do not produce the effects in the slightest, but they signify “what is, what will be, and what was before.”

“And in the sun he set his tent.” Here there is a transposition; for the saying is about the second coming. So the transposition must be read in order: “And he himself, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, will rejoice like a giant to run his course. His going forth is from the end of heaven; there is no one who will be hidden from his heat.” And then: “In the sun he set his tent.” Some, then, say that the Lord sets aside his body in the sun, as Hermogenes does; and by body some mean his tabernacle, others the church of the faithful. But Pantaenus, our …, used to say that “prophecy utters its words indefinitely for the most part, and uses the present tense instead of the future, and again the present instead of the past,” which is the case here too. For “he set” is used both of the past and of the future: of the future, because when this period of the present state is completed, the Lord will come to the righteous and faithful, in whom he rests as in a tent; for all who, from the same race, have chosen the same faith and righteousness are one body, to be restored to the same unity; but some as head, others as eyes, others as ears, others as hands, others as breast, others as feet, will be set in the sun, luminous, “shining like the sun,” or in the sun, since a ruling angel is in the sun; for it is appointed to rule the days, as the moon to rule the night. And angels were called days. With the angels who are with the sun, he says, they will be ranked (the sun being like the head of one body), and they too will someday, according to a certain period, be rulers of days, as the one set over the sun will advance to a greater office, to which the one before him in the same place has moved on. And again, rising by advancement, they will come to the first dwelling place. But according to the past tense, “he set” the first-created angels no longer to provide care for what has been assigned to them, but to be at rest and devoted to contemplating God alone; and those next to them will advance to the rank they have left, and so the lower ones proportionately.

According to the apostle, then, the first-created are those in the highest restoration; and the first-created, though they are powers, would be “thrones” because God rests in them, as also in those who believe. For each, according to his own advancement, has his own knowledge of God, on which knowledge God rests, those who know becoming eternal through their knowledge. And perhaps “in the sun he set his tent” is to be understood in this way: in the sun (ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ) he set it, that is, in the El, that is, in God, as in the Gospel “Eli, Eli” instead of “My God, my God.” And “far above every principality and authority and power and every name that is named” are those who have been perfected, from men, angels, and archangels, into the first-created nature of angels. For those who pass from human beings into angels are taught by the angels for a thousand years, being restored to perfection; then those who taught are transferred to archangelic authority, and those who learned in turn teach those who pass again from human beings into angels; then in this way, in fixed periods, they are restored to the proper angelic state of the body.

“The law of God is blameless, converting souls.” The Savior himself is called “law and word,” as Peter says in the Preaching, and the prophet: “For out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

“The testimony of the Lord is faithful, making infants wise”: the covenant of the Lord is true, making wise the infants, the innocent, the apostles, and then us too. But also the testimony of the Lord himself, according to which he suffered and rose, having become true in the very deed, led the church to firmness of faith.

“The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever and ever.” He says that those who have turned from fear to faith and righteousness remain forever. “The judgments of the Lord are true”: firm and unchangeable, allotting according to worth and restoring the righteous “into the unity of the faith.” For this is what “justified together” means. These things are “more desirable than gold and precious stone.”

“For your servant keeps them”: not a servant like David only, but all the people being saved, called God's servant through obedience to the commandment.

“Cleanse me from my hidden faults”: from thoughts contrary to sound reason, the remnants; for these he calls “alien” to the righteous man.

“If they do not have dominion over me, then I will be blameless.” This is equivalent to: if those who persecute me, as they did the Lord, do not have dominion over me, I will not be blameless; for no one becomes a martyr unless he is persecuted, nor is anyone shown righteous unless, when wronged, he does not wrong in return, nor patient under mistreatment …

“Lord, save the king,” that is, the people anointed for the kingdom; not only David. That is why he adds, “and hear us on whatever day we call upon you.”

When Scripture speaks of the good “coming up into the heart,” it means that the good counsel prevails.