Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 14 — Psalm 76 (LXX; MT 77), Homily I: vv. 1–11
Greek source: Origen's homilies on the Psalms, preserved in a single manuscript (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. graec. 314, 12th century), from the reading text of L. Perrone et al. (eds.), Die neuen Psalmenhomilien. Eine kritische Edition des Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, Origenes Werke XIII (GCS NF 19; Berlin, 2015), pp. 293–312. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the 76th Psalm, Extempore Homilies
On the 76th Psalm, Homily 1
1. Among the priestly liturgies there was also the lengthy and unrewarding arrangement ordered for the songs. Whoever wishes to learn it, let him read the first book of Chronicles and observe it, not being weighed down by the catalogue of names, but attending to the fact that the Holy Spirit wrote everything for the edification of those who attend. One of the priestly liturgies, then, was that certain persons were appointed over the songs as soon as the temple was opened. And since they differed, some being able to be moved by the Holy Spirit to write psalms, while others did not have this gift but were appointed to hymn God and to recite psalms and to praise, sometimes those able to compose the psalms would give them as a gift to those appointed to the liturgy of hymning God and reciting psalms and praising.
This, then, I think, is indicated in the title of the psalm, which runs thus: "To the end, for Jeduthun, a psalm of Asaph". The one who wrote the psalm was Asaph, who was one of the prophets. The one to whom he gave it after writing it was Jeduthun, who was appointed to hymn God, so that he, receiving it from Asaph, might sing hymns to God. It is likely too that, as it happened, Asaph wrote the psalm for Jeduthun, as one who had composed it in his person, that one having given it to him; "A brother", for, "helped by a brother is like a city both strong and lofty". Suppose someone newly appointed to the episcopate, who has not practiced making the eucharist, were to receive the pattern of the eucharist from a bishop who has already had more time in the liturgy, since he himself is not yet able to make the eucharist through not having practiced. Understand something of this sort in the case of Asaph and Jeduthun: Asaph wrote, and Jeduthun received the psalm and spoke it. And Jeduthun too is righteous; we have learned this about him not only from this book but also from the first book of Chronicles. And the person he takes on, being righteous, is that of a righteous man.
2. Let us see, then, what the righteous man says, and let us keep watch throughout the whole psalm, so that we may become such as to say such things ourselves: "With my voice I cried to the Lord, with my voice to God, and he attended to me". The "voice" of the many is not carried up "to the Lord", for such a voice does not proceed according to the Lord. But of the righteous man not only the voice in prayer but every voice is consecrated to the Lord. What I am saying about every voice of the righteous man being dedicated to the Lord you will understand from the narrative about Hannah and Samuel. For before giving birth Hannah vowed to dedicate the child to be born to the Lord. And just as among the gentiles they dedicate to idols irrational animals, or lifeless statues, or images, or some woven fabric, so among the saints the one who dedicates to God dedicates a son, dedicates a rational living being.
We Christians, then, let us also learn to dedicate to God offerings worthy of him. What, then, shall we dedicate to him? He has made us rational, and the many do not use reason well. Let us ourselves, then, dedicate to God the reason which he gave us, so that we may always converse about God and the things of God, so that we may always speak for edification and benefit of soul. Let us dedicate our voice to God, so that all our voice may be according to God. Or let us dedicate (if one must so speak) our eyes to God, so that we may see all things that are according to God and shut them where one ought not to see. And one ought not to see impurities, nor the shedding of blood, nor these things performed on earth in the cities to the harm of the many.
The one, then, who dedicates his eyes to God will not go off to the horse races, nor will he watch the theaters, nor will he go off to those cruel spectacles of the hunts. Dedicating his sight to God, he will always see the heaven while reckoning who made it; he will always see the earth while marveling at the things that have come to be in it; he will always see men while seeking whom he may benefit; he will always see money while seeking to give out of what he has. And he will seek clothing not so much for the sake of having it as, along with having it, to distribute it to those who do not have, so that he may hear: "I was naked, and you clothed me". Let us too, then, try to dedicate all things as fine offerings to God, and so let us dedicate all our voice, so that, praying and crying to God, we may be able to say: "With my voice I cried to God, with my voice to God, and he attended to me". For if we do not pray with a soul wholly dedicated to him, but pray only at the moment, we shall cry to God with our voice, but, praying with a voice that is not pure, we shall not be heard. But if we first sanctify it and first cleanse it by always saying what we should, and then send it up to God, we shall say: "With my voice I cried to God, with my voice to God, and he attended to me".
3. As for me, even if God attends to me, I do not perceive, because of the folly in me, that God "attended to me". But the one who has already crossed over and is making progress in the wisdom of God is not without perception of God's attention or of his turning away. Just as one who has a seeing eye perceives an eye turned away from him and not looking at him, in the same way the eye of the righteous man, which sees and is pure and is neither blinded nor shut, perceives when the mind of God attends to him and when it has turned away from him. If ever you perceive God turned away from you, whether through temptation or in whatever way, say: "Why do you turn your face" away from me? Let us, then, become such that we too may perceive when God attends to us, and, perceiving it, may say not only the first stich but also the second, which says: "With my voice to God, and he attended to me; in the day of my affliction I sought out God, with my hands by night before him, and I was not deceived".
The many, when they are in affliction, are darkened by the afflictions, and, being darkened, they do not even pray, though they ought above all at that time to render prayer more fully. You would find those who have escorted their own kin to burial shrinking from sending up prayer to God at their death, as though it were not then a time for prayer. You would find those who have lost money humbled by grief and shrinking from coming to prayer. Not to pray in affliction, then, is the work of a sinner; but it belongs to the righteous man to pray, and to intensify his prayer when there is affliction.
4. Therefore the righteous man says: "In the day of my affliction I sought out God". It is no ordinary feat, then, to seek God most of all at the very time when affliction comes upon one. But how was it that "God", he says, "I sought out in the day of affliction"? "With my hands". And when? "By night". And where? "Before him". And what happened? That "I was not deceived". How, then, one seeks God with the hands must be considered. I remember saying on another occasion too that "hands" stands for "actions". For this is to seek God: to do the things from which God is found.
And just as one who seeks something fallen on the ground seeks it by looking and by touching and by working to find it, in the same way God is sought not with petty phrases, as among the heretics, among whom they show themselves babblers, seeking of what substance God is before accomplishing the works they ought. If anyone wishes, by seeking, to find and to grasp, let him seek rightly. For it is written: "Having sought him rightly, they found peace". For he seeks rightly who seeks not in little words but in actions. For so is God sought: God is sought through righteousness, so that he may be found by righteousness; he is sought through temperance, so that he may be found through temperance; God is sought through courage and a robust spirit, so that he may be grasped; God is sought through wisdom, so that God may be found by the one who seeks with wisdom. Here, then, the prophet, wishing to set forth with boldness how one must seek God, said: "With my voice I cried to the Lord, with my voice to God, and he attended to me; in the day of my affliction I sought out God with my hands".
I also have a second explanation for "with my hands I sought out God". "I wish", says the Apostle, "the men to pray in every place, lifting up holy hands without anger and disputing". When someone lifts up "holy hands", seeking God with holy hands, he will find him divine, as will be said from Scripture. Moses sought God with his hands; therefore when Moses lifted up his hands Israel prevailed, but if ever he grew weary and lowered his hands, Amalek prevailed.
The discourse is about to say something, and I say that Christ sought God with his hands, having stretched them out on the wood on behalf of the whole world and fixed them so that he might then pray, with the stretching out of his hands and of his whole body, and with his soul stretched out along with him, not over the body but over the whole world, on behalf of the whole world. And you too, if you take up the cross and follow Jesus, thus also seek God with your hands. And above all, if you can say: "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world", you have stretched out your hands to God on the cross, since you have been crucified to the world, and you seek in the world to have died to the world and to have been crucified to it; and seeking him you will find him.
5. "With my hands by night, and I was not deceived": indeed the whole world of the life here is night compared with the true life, just as the Apostle too, teaching about the whole world of the life here, says: "The night has advanced, and the day has drawn near". For the day of departure has drawn near, and of the second age, which is other than this one.
"By night", then, "I sought with my hands" God in this age, when it is night and when we wrestle "against the world-rulers of this darkness". The present age, then, is night for the present according to one illustration, for according to another it will be said again that it is day. In this night I seek God, and I need a lamp, about which the Savior says: "Let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning". For he says to those who are in life as in night: "Let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning". The prophet too, in the hundred and eighteenth psalm, wishing to show that all things here are darkness and need the light of a lamp, said: "Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths". By night, then, I seek God in this way. I know another explanation of the passage too: the times of relief are days for us, while those of afflictions, being gloomier, are nights. "Before him".
6. Not having become far from God, "I sought God", but "before him, and I was not deceived". Blessed is he who can truly say: "I sought God and I was not deceived". For many who sought God were deceived. Those from the heresies also sought, but since they did not seek rightly, nor seek "with their hands", they were deceived. At any rate they hold false opinions about Jesus, and so do all those among us who babble and inquire about God before setting their morals right, before ordering their life. These too, seeking God, are deceived and hold false opinions about him. Who, then, is the one able to say: "I sought God with the hands, and I was not deceived", if not the one who has known the truth, who does not hold false opinions, who has not fallen into deception through thinking something about God or Christ other than the truth?
"My soul refused to be comforted; I remembered God and was gladdened": he recounts two passions that befall a man in times of distress, so that we may be benefited by learning what we should say first, and how, when we suffer, we shall be healed of suffering, if ever something painful befalls us, or we sometimes become wholly given over to grief and affliction and do not listen to the one who consoles us, but say: "My soul refused to be comforted". But if, after being mastered by the passion and refusing to be comforted, we wish to be comforted and gladdened, remembrance of God is enough for us. For he goes on to say: "I remembered God and was gladdened".
If, then, something painful ever befalls you, as one who prays to be a man of the church, and you see yourself darkened by grief and mastered by that very grief, remember his words of hope, of the blessedness in Christ, and at once the grief will fall away.
For just as "what share has righteousness with lawlessness, and what communion has light with darkness, what accord has Christ with Beliar", so what accord has the remembrance of God with passion? Where there is remembrance of God, passion has been put to flight; where there is passion, one does not remember God. For this reason "there is no one in death who remembers you; and in Hades who will confess to you?" Even to remember God is already a great good. The saints even have names, being named after remembering God.
For Zachariah is interpreted "remembrance of God", since "zachar" in the language of the Hebrews is "remembrance". For it is someone remembering the Lord, which the father prays may belong to the son born to him. For just as some, according to their prayers, give their sons the names they wish (for instance, when someone loves money, he gives his son the name "Philargyros", Money-lover, and we know some who are so called, while another gives his son the name "Philotheos", praying that the son be loved by God or become a friend of God), in the same way the saints gave Zachariah this name, praying that they might always remember God. Then, in the gospel, they want to call John Zachariah, but the Spirit in Elizabeth does not wish it, but wishes him to be called John; and further his father too, not wishing him to be called Zachariah but John, recovered his voice.
By this I want to say why John is not called Zachariah. The one who wishes to remember God while God is absent shows, by remembering him, that God is not present to him; but where one is present there is no need of remembrance concerning the one who is present. For instance, I remember a brother who is abroad, I remember a friend who is away, but I do not remember one who is present, for I see him. Since, then, John also said: "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world", and was going to point out the Son of God, God the Word, for this reason he is not called, like those before him, "Zachariah" and "one who remembers God", but "one who points out".
And let us ourselves pray to come from remembering God to John, so that we may see him present, and so no longer need remembrance of God but sight of God, because he is present; since "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God". For if the remembrance of God gladdens, what will his presence do for the one who perceives it? I too will coin a word for it: "overgladdens" (ὑπερευφραίνει).
7. "I prattled (ἠδολέσχησα), and my spirit grew faint": everything that a man says, even if he is righteous and blessed in this life, is prattle (ἀδολεσχία) in comparison with what he will say in the age to come. Therefore also "Isaac went out into the plain to prattle"; but if "the perfect comes and what is in part is abolished", prattle too will be abolished. The prophet, then, named all discourse about divine things that takes place here prattle, inasmuch as he said: "I prattled, and my spirit grew faint". As if to say: "In afflictions, reckoning what happens concerning punishments, I grew faint and reckoned the following." And this is what he will say: "My eyes anticipated the watches". We have other eyes besides these, eyes enlightened by the commandment of the Lord; "The commandment", for, "of the Lord is far-shining, enlightening the eyes". Those eyes guard the watches; they anticipate, as it were, the lookouts of the watch. You will understand what is said from an example. In cities at war or expecting war, watches are set around the walls, and ten men, say, are appointed to keep this place, lest the enemies attack; but the general too, coming round, anticipates the watches and keeps watch over everything. Understand for me something of this sort in the case of the eyes of the righteous man, who has learned from Scripture: "With every watch keep your heart". For there are many watches and cities from which the enemy lays plots, in which a man must guard himself with his eyes. With his understanding too, having anticipated all the watches, he observes and prophesies, lest the enemies seize an unguarded place and attack through some way of the watch.
8. In this sense, then, he says: "My eyes anticipated the watches; I was troubled and did not speak". With good sense he both acknowledges what happened to him and says: "Having reached the point of trouble in my ruling faculty, I was not so far overcome as to utter a word of trouble." You will understand "I was troubled and did not speak" from an example of this kind. Often I am provoked by someone who speaks ill of me or reviles me to my face, doing whatever it may be so that I too may say similar things to him. And as a man I am troubled, and, having been reproached, I wish to retaliate in words against the one who reviled me in like manner. Then, when it recognizes by reason that the believer ought not to do this, the ruling faculty goes only as far as trouble, and I do not also speak. If, then, when troubled, I can avoid being overcome by the trouble and keep silent, I too can say: "I was troubled and did not speak". Blessed, then, is this man too, who, even if he is troubled, does not speak.
Have you been troubled by anger? Then see that you do not speak a word of anger, but, like a good charioteer, hold back your word when it is about to escape your teeth. Were you troubled by some word? See that you do not speak a word of anger, but, as a fine and good charioteer, as I said before, rein in your voice, so that you too may say: "With my voice I cried to God, with my voice to God, and he attended to me". Were you troubled by grief? See that you do not utter a word of grief; for often out of grief some have even blasphemed the Deity and found fault with providence. But you, insofar as you are less perfect yet making progress, say: "I was troubled and did not speak". For if, suffering trouble more often, you are trained not to say the things that come from trouble, you will no longer be troubled but will have peace, according to what was said: "And the peace of God, which surpasses every mind, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus".
9. "I considered ancient days, and eternal years I remembered and meditated": the one who wishes to be benefited considers also the "ancient days", beginning from Adam: what happened to Adam, what befell Cain, what was done by Enoch, what came about for Noah. And, so to speak, reckoning up all the days from the beginning, he examines the meaning of the events recorded as having happened in former days. "I considered", then, he says, "ancient days". Then, having considered "ancient days", he ascends still further to what is above the ancient days: "the eternal years". But if one must speak thus: since the things seen are temporal and the years among temporal things are temporal, there are other "eternal years", those before the world, perhaps also those after the world. About these years "the law, having a shadow of the good things to come", contains teaching, teaching what one must do concerning the seventh year and concerning the fiftieth year. For the one who has understood the law as spiritual raises these things up to the eternal years. The righteous man, then, ascends from considering "ancient days" to "the eternal years".
These eternal years are made up of eternal days, about which it is written in Deuteronomy in this way: "Remember days of the age, understand years of generation of generations". And let us pray to ascend from these days and these months and these years to "the days of the age" and to "the eternal years", and, if one may dare to say it, since there are also spiritual new moons, to the eternal months as well, in which we live as citizens, marked out not by this sun; for "the Lord will be to you an eternal light, and God your glory".
10. "Years", then, "eternal I remembered and meditated; by night with my heart I prattled, and I raked (ἐσκάλευον) my spirit". Learn from the letter too: if ever sleep leaves you and you lie awake, do not waste the time of wakefulness on what is not fitting, but, at whatever time you are awake after sleep has left you, take up thoughts of piety, such as this man took up when he said: "By night with my heart I prattled, and I raked my spirit", and I said: "Will the Lord cast off to the ages, or will he hold back his compassions in his wrath"? These things, he says, "by night I considered, and" by myself "I prattled with my heart and raked my spirit". For since the spirit is given by God for help, as being better than our soul, let the one who wishes to find what he seeks not rake the soul, nor rake the body, but rake the spirit. And just as one who wishes to find something in the earth digs (σκάλλει) the earth, so that he may find what he imagines to be in the earth, in the same way, if you seek spiritual things, dig the spirit, and always seek to find from the spirit the fruits of the spirit.
"I dug my spirit": when you too "search all things, even the depths of God", you dig your spirit; and I say, also the Spirit of God. For it is possible to reach even it and to search it. "Will the Lord cast off to the ages?" Digging the spirit, I considered these things and said: suppose God casts someone off for a year and abandons him to afflictions; suppose someone is abandoned for two years; suppose for the whole time of life here (how many are the years? fifty years and sixty); suppose someone is abandoned for this whole age: will God then abandon him for all the ages too? "Will the Lord cast off to the ages", so that he may not cast us off even for one age. For there are some whom he casts off even for another age beyond this age, about whom the Savior says, when they sin "against the Holy Spirit", that it will not be forgiven them "either in this age or in the one to come". Wretched is that man whose sin is forgiven neither in this age nor in the one to come! For suppose someone has a sin in the times of Adam and is punished for that sin from then until the consummation: see how vast the magnitude of the punishment is, and whether you can join another age to it as well, either equal in time to this age or not equal, for I do not know the magnitudes of the ages. Picture for me someone punished for that age too, and see the magnitude of the punishment, and do not despise it, and understand what is said here by the prophet, that "the Lord will not cast off to the ages".
But see that to be cast off by God even for one hour is a great loss. For when God casts me off, the devil takes me as one cast off and handed over to him, as Paul cast off the man who had committed fornication in Corinth. For this reason he cast him off from the church: he handed him over "to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved". And whichever of us God casts off, no one else receives him but Satan and his angels. It is fearful to come under that one, and if anyone comes under him, he has been handed over by the judgment of God as worthy to come under him.
But let us say: "Will the Lord cast off to the ages, and will he not again be well pleased any more?" However, even if he did not declare the judgments of God, we must do what the Ninevites did. They did not say: "God will repent", but "Let us pray and fast: 'Who knows whether the Lord will repent and turn away his wrath?'".
"Or will he cut off his mercy to the end, from generation to generation?" "And this I considered, and my spirit was digging". Will God, then, in handing us over to punishments, cut off his mercy from us, so that he never runs back to having mercy on us, but, having cut off his mercy from generation to generation, will abandon us? "Or will God forget to have compassion?" As if, having left us to toils and pains, he were going to forget us and never have compassion?
"And I said": "Now I have begun": "When I reckoned all these things, I said: now I am beginning to understand." He understood within himself, but having understood he did not judge it right to say what he had understood. Just as Paul heard "unutterable words" and John heard "the seven thunders", and neither did Paul write the unutterable words nor John the words of the seven thunders, so this man too, having wept and been at a loss, saw the mystery; and having seen the mystery, he hid it, since it was better for everyone who had understood such things to hide it than to speak. "How great is the abundance of your goodness, Lord, which you have hidden for those who fear you" in Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen.
An extempore homily.