Verses 89–96

The twelfth octave follows under the letter or word “lamed”—“to teach.”

“To teach” signifies both teaching others and learning oneself, committing to memory. For the present octave only the latter meaning applies. It speaks of meditation on God’s law, that is, of coming to understand God’s will and acting in accordance with it. This subject is vast, and the prophet has already turned his attention to it more than once. In the present case he shows to what conviction his meditation on God’s law has led him and what blessings it has brought him. Having studied the law, he says, I became convinced that if anyone wishes to live truly, he cannot achieve this in any other way than by conforming himself to God’s law, which expresses God’s will for us. Look: in the invisible heaven and in the visible heaven, and on the earth, and in all its manifestations—everything submits to God’s will. If you wish to live among creatures so ordered, then direct yourself also according to God’s will; otherwise you will be ground down by such a universal movement if you go against it (vv. Ps. 118:89–91). I resolved to act thus, and here is what I received: in all humiliating circumstances, I did not perish (v. Ps. 118:92); acting according to God’s ordinances, I was quickened (v. Ps. 118:93); having sought them, I became close to God and feel myself saved (v. Ps. 118:94); enemies laid snares for me, but did not bring about my destruction, because understanding of God’s testimonies taught me to discern their snares and avoid them (v. Ps. 118:95); finally, having entered the path of God’s will, I feel that I have entered into breadth and freedom, into a realm that has no end (v. Ps. 118:96). Beginning his exposition of this octave, Saint Ambrose prays as follows: “Come, Lord Jesus, open for us the door of this prophetic teaching, for it is closed to many, though at first glance it seems to stand open.”

Ps. 118:89. For ever, O Lord, Your word endures in heaven.

In verses Ps. 118:89–91 the prophet depicts how everything in creation submits to God’s will. In the present verse he says that the word of the living God is immutably fulfilled in the intelligible and material heavens; in the next he will say that on earth also everything abides because God so ordained it in His wise will; and then he will add that all phenomena on earth, from the greatest to the smallest—such as the succession of days and nights—all come to pass according to God’s will, so as to draw from all of this the conclusion: “for all things are Your servants.”

“For ever, O Lord, Your word endures”: What word? — The word uttered by God when He created the world. God said, let there be light—and there was; God said, let there be a firmament—and there was; God said, let there be sun, moon, and stars—and they appeared. And everything to which the word “it was” was then spoken, remains as it is. God’s will for the existence of the world was realized in its existence; and it continues to exist because by its very continuance it fulfills God’s will for its continuation. God wills that all things abide—and they abide, and moreover they abide as He is pleased. The word of God, the counsel of God and His decrees, are immutable.

“For ever” likewise means “from the beginning of time,” that is, from the very beginning of the existence of the universe. But it can also mean the whole of this age, from the beginning of existence until the end of the world, after which a “new heaven” shall appear. That is why it does not say “to the age of the age” or “to ages of ages,” but simply “for ever.” So explain the word Saint Hilary, Anthimus, and others. Throughout the entire period of the present form of the world’s existence, as everything began to be in heaven, so it continues and shall continue until the end of the age.

Blessed Theodoret writes: “You, O Master, the prophet says, can do all things easily, for Your commandment is kept by the immovable vaults of heaven.” He said the same thing in Psalm 148: “He established them for ever; He has made a decree which shall not pass away” (Ps. 148:6).

Saint Ambrose draws from this the following conclusion: “You see, that which abides in heaven must also abide in you. Therefore keep God’s word in your heart, and keep it so that it is not forgotten. Keep God’s law and meditate on it. If you wish to know the power of the prophetic saying, rise from the visible to the intelligible and draw from it moral lessons. If God’s word abides in heaven, let us imitate heaven, where it abides. Take your example for life from heaven. Is there any violation of law in the sun? Does it not always observe its accustomed course? And does not the moon always in the same order wane or wax its disc? And is not the relationship and movement (visible) of the stars across the sky always the same? Thus everything in heaven keeps its law and remains in its order. So too let God’s word, which determines the manner of your acting, remain in you unchangingly.”

When the prophet says that God’s word abides in heaven, he directly means the visible heaven; but in reflection nothing prevents one from rising from the visible heaven to the invisible—the hosts of angels and saints. “By this saying,” says Blessed Theodoret, “the prophet also gives us to understand that the hosts of angels, who dwell in heaven, keep God’s law and are free from every stumbling.” To a similar thought come also Saint Ambrose, Saint Hilary, Anthimus, and Zigabenus. However, even in that heaven there once appeared a transgressor of God’s will, but he was quickly cast out from there together with all whom he had managed to draw away; and now the intelligible heaven abides pure, shining in the angels with God’s word, which abides and constitutes the immutable norm of all their movements, both inward and outward. God’s will is fulfilled there with such perfection that the Lord has ordained for us always to pray that it may be fulfilled in us as it is in the angelic heaven.

Dwelling on this thought, Saint Ambrose urges us to zeal in establishing a similar heaven also on earth. How is this to be done? — Thus: hear, he says, what the apostle writes: “as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:49). There is your heaven! Such people have full boldness to say: “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20), for there faith, self-restraint, and detachment from all things are present—a heavenly life. As one who fell away from heavenly grace through breaking the commandment and became bound by earthly passions is called earth, so it is right to call heaven one who through detachment from all earthly things emulates the angelic life. Heaven is where heavenly virtues are present, even if it be on earth. “Heaven is My throne,” says the Lord through the prophet. This is not the material heaven, I think, but rather that heaven into which Christ enters and in which He sups, having first with His knock aroused the loving desire to receive Him. And He does not enter alone, but with the Father, as He Himself said: “I and My Father will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).

Continuing the same line of thought, Saint Hilary says: “When the prophet said that God’s word abides in heaven, that is, in the world of angels, one should not suppose that it is absent from the earth, that is, from the hearts of rational creatures. Among us (the baptized) there is no one who is deprived of the gift of heavenly grace and who does not have God’s word abiding within him—when he is sober-minded, lives peaceably with all, practices self-restraint, shows mercy, and in general submits to God’s commandments, fulfilling the works they lay upon us. In those in whom it is not violated by anger, by lust, by deceitfulness, or by people-pleasing, God’s word abides as in heaven.”

Ps. 118:90. Your truth endures to all generations; You have established the earth, and it abides.

After indicating heaven’s unswerving adherence to God’s decrees, it would have been natural to indicate the same unswerving adherence of the earth to those same decrees; but the prophet inserts in the middle one highly significant saying: “Your truth endures to all generations.” With what thought?

These words can be set in relation to the preceding verse: in place of “for ever” stands “to all generations,” and “Your truth” corresponds to “Your word.” In that case they serve as an explanation of that verse. And “Your truth” will denote the same immutable laws of heaven’s existence as are expressed by the words “Your word.” I look at heaven, and it suggests to me that Your word endures for ever; the same was seen by the generation before us, and the one before them. From generation to generation passes the truth of the immutability of the orders You have established in heaven.

But one may suppose that these words contain a moral application of all that has been said in the first three verses of this octave (Ps. 118:89–91) about the immutability of the orders of the physical world. Having pointed to this immutability in heaven, he will point to it also on earth: “You have established the earth, and it abides.” “By Your ordinance the day endures.” It would have followed to add: so it is in the material world, but no differently is it in the moral world; and here too “Your truth” abides “to all generations.” The prophet chose, however, to place this not at the end but higher up, so that this truth, high as the height of heaven, would not be distanced from the indication of the immutability of God’s orders in heaven. Thus the prophet teaches that just as in the visible world the laws of existence established by God are immutable, so too in the moral world God’s truth abides to all generations. What truth is this? — Both the truth that all the heavens proclaim to all, that God exists, Creator, Almighty, Providence, and Judge of the universe—to whom rational creatures are obliged to give pleasure by faithful following of the laws written in the conscience. This truth is confessed by all; in every generation it governs above all the life of peoples, and no force can silence its voice. It abides from generation to generation and will abide for all generations and ages of ages. And especially the truth communicated to men through Revelation. God revealed His will to Adam, to Noah, to the patriarchs—the forefathers of the chosen people, and above all to Moses on Sinai. But even after him He did not cease to enlighten His people through holy men, to whom He Himself appeared or to whom He sent His angels. The prophet David himself experienced such revelations.

But these revelations often pertained to particular occasions. What truth among those revealed abides from generation to generation? — The truth that the Redeemer was to come and save our race. This truth was the soul of all the revelations and all God’s institutions among His people. Holy David received it from the preceding generations and transmitted it to the following, depicting in his God-inspired psalms the coming Redeemer as though he saw Him with his own eyes. This truth was confessed generation after generation before holy David; and he foresaw that it would be confessed in subsequent ages also, generation after generation. Each generation receives this truth from the one before, transmits it to the one after, and, having confessed that it abided before it from generation to generation, vouches that it will abide unchangingly for all generations after it as well. And there is no power that could cut short the passage of this truth from generation to generation.

For the prophet this truth was yet to be hoped for; for us it is an accomplished fact. But at the same time, as soon as it was accomplished, it ceased to be the possession of one people of God alone and became the possession of all peoples. And having once taken root in one known people, it abides from generation to generation and will abide for all generations to ages of ages.

Our commentators, with regard to this saying of the prophet, dwell chiefly on the passing of God-revealed truth from one people into the possession of all other peoples. Thus Blessed Theodoret writes: “‘Your truth endures to all generations.’ You did preserve it for the Jewish generation and for another that came after it. We mean the people gathered from the Gentiles, who received salvation from our Savior Jesus Christ.” Saint Athanasius says: “There are two generations that have received God’s truth: the Jewish people, who have the law and the prophets, and the Church. Therefore God’s truth is not to generations, but to the first generation and to the second. The other peoples remain in error. But when the first generation rejected the truth and said: ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth’ (Acts 22:22), then the truth passed from the first generation to the second.” “Thus,” concludes Saint Ambrose, “falsehood reigns among all peoples; truth is only in the Church, for all the faithful constitute one generation. The Church unites all, and she alone possesses the truth.”

Ps. 118:91. By Your ordinance the day endures; for all things are Your servants.

The end of the preceding verse—“You have established the earth” and “it abides”—is connected in commentary with the present verse, since together they express one thought, namely that both on earth and in heaven all things come to pass and move according to God’s will.

“God established the earth”—that is, He assigned it its place in the chain of planets of the solar system and established its relationship to the sun, the moon, and other bodies; and as He established it, so all of this abides to this day and will abide as long as it pleases God for it to abide thus. And on the earth itself God established all things. He disposed in orderly relation the air, water, and earth, the strata of the earth, salts, metals—all is the work of His hands, and where He appointed each thing to lie, there it lies. The various kinds of plants did not appear of themselves but came forth from the earth at the command of God’s creative word; likewise, air, water, and earth were filled with animals because the Lord of all so commanded. Thus God established the earth with all that is in it and upon it, and as He established it, so all things abide.

“By Your ordinance the day endures.” “To the earth,” says Blessed Theodoret, “You gave long duration, and it abides as You commanded. The day You did separate from the night, and they proceed according to Your laws.”

The rotation of the earth upon its own axis, in its definite relationship to the sun, gives the alternation of day and night. But since God ordained both that the earth should rotate upon itself and that it should stand in such a relationship to the sun, the alternation of days and nights was part of the plan of the earth’s establishment. We are accustomed to this alternation and therefore it does not seem to us a great thing; but in reality this alternation, upon which the change of seasons also depends, conditions the cycle of life of all creatures that are upon the earth. When the prophet says that “by God’s ordinance the day endures,” he wishes to bring to our minds that the patterns of changes on earth are all appointed by God in such a way that creatures might live upon it, and that if they do live, it is because, by God’s ordinance, those patterns remain unchanged.

“For all things are Your servants.” This is the conclusion drawn from all that has been said and its confirmation. All things slavishly submit to God, nor can it be otherwise. The Creator is also the Sustainer, and He sustains what He sustains as He sees fit. When the prophet says “all things are God’s servants,” he excludes nothing. The cloud moves and carries rain where God commands, to water some fields and leave others to the scorching heat of the sun. The storm rushes where God directs it, fulfilling the judgments of His righteousness or mercy. Fire is kindled and sometimes devours cities and villages, because God so commanded it. And nothing happens by chance; all things move according to the laws of God’s mercy and righteousness, wisely and purposefully.

Thus both in heaven and on earth all things submit to God; but they submit because they cannot do otherwise, having no freedom. Only rational creatures have received freedom and amid the universal servitude of creatures walk as kings, unhampered by the bonds of unchanging laws. God honored them with self-mastery, but not so that they might act willfully, but so that they might freely and willingly submit to the same will of God. He also gave them laws and inscribed them in their hearts; but He did not bind their freedom, leaving it to their own choice to fulfill them or not, having only forewarned them that if they do fulfill them they will be blessed, and if not, they will suffer.

The servitude of all creatures He placed before their eyes so that they might find in it a motive and a reminder. If all things are servants of God, it is not fitting for you either to deviate from the common order. Submit therefore your freedom under the yoke of God’s will willingly.

When in some complex machine—a mill, say, where many wheels are in motion—one particular wheel were to refuse to submit to the common movement, all the other wheels, without ceasing to act under the influence of the force that drives them, would grind it down and crush it. So it is with a free creature too: though freely, yet it is nonetheless necessary to submit, together with all creatures, to God’s will, in order to live a blessed life. If a creature dares to depart from God’s will—then all creatures grind it down and crush it, instructively reminding it of its departure from the common order and solicitously calling it to return to the common rank, so as together with all things to serve God with all the soul, all the heart, all the strength, and all the mind.

Ps. 118:92. Unless Your law had been my meditation, I should then have perished in mine affliction.

Having explained how all things in the world are servants of the Lord God, the prophet passes over in silence the fact that in consequence of this state of affairs he himself resolved firmly to walk always in God’s will—he passes it over because that is an inevitable matter for anyone who has understanding—and speaks only of what good consequences followed for him from this. The first is that in humiliating circumstances only meditation on God’s law saved him from ruin.

We see that the prophet David from childhood cleaved to God with all his heart and strove in every way to please Him. For this he was chosen as king of the chosen people, and after overcoming Goliath went by a happy path toward exaltation. Now he was already Saul’s son-in-law; but the enemy stirred up envy in his father-in-law against him, and David was forced to flee from the royal court and wander in daily fear for his life. God alone preserved him in these circumstances. The prophet felt this tangibly and never ceased to confess it when happy days returned to him.

Why did God show him such mercy? — Because he remained faithful to Him and in nothing allowed himself to depart from the recognized will of God. Whatever befell him, he looked not at what he himself might have wished or at how to act more advantageously, but at what God willed of him in each situation; he looked into the law and meditated in it, seeking what path to choose so that it would be pleasing to God. What could have been better and more convenient than to kill Saul when he lay before him without defense? But the thought did not even occur to him, because he counted the person of God’s anointed as inviolable. The fear of God, always present in his heart, restrained him from evil not only in deeds but also in thoughts. And because he was always so disposed and had constant assurance in his conscience that he had not violated God’s will for his own gratification, his heart was full of hope in God; and such strong hope always draws God’s mercy and His protection. Recalling this, he now confesses that then, in humiliating circumstances, he would certainly have perished had not God’s law been the teacher whom he followed in all things. Without this—there would have been no protection of God over him; and upon whom there is no protection of God, him the malice of men and the devices of the ancient enemy of our salvation overwhelm.

Thus were all the righteous saved from ruin. What helped Joseph not to be lost in Egypt and not to disappear without trace? — The fact that he learned from God’s law how to conduct himself in the unexpected and unforeseen circumstances of his life. The fear of God was the reason he preserved his chastity, and from this flowed all God’s mercies. What saved the youths in Babylon? — The fact that, meditating on God’s law, they had it as their sole guide on how to act among the unbelievers, in whose hands their lives lay. From this came their wisdom and their salvation even in the fiery furnace. What above all saved Job in the most extreme upheaval of his life? — The fact that he always meditated on the law of his God and remained faithful to it, despite all manner of temptations.

Blessed Theodoret writes: “This can be said of any one of the godly who falls into calamities: of Joseph, who escaped slavery, adultery, and slander; of Daniel, who was forbidden to pray; of the three youths, who were compelled to bow before the idol; and of the victorious martyrs, who endured all kinds of torments. David had the right to say this too, driven out by Saul and forced to live among foreigners and ungodly people. Perhaps he too would have partaken of their ungodliness, had he not ceaselessly meditated on God’s law.”

Every ascetic can confess the same when the storm of passions and powerful disturbances from demons has passed. The fear of God and unshakeable fidelity to God’s law preserve him from falls. Therefore, after the temptation passes, they too always say from the heart, with the words of Saint Athanasius the Great: “From the assault of evil thoughts and the attacks of hostile powers I should have perished, had not Your law become my support.”

Ps. 118:93. I will never forget Your precepts, for in them You have quickened me.

Previously the prophet spoke of what saving things he experienced from meditation on God’s law and fidelity to it; now he speaks of his resolution in consequence: since You have preserved my life, “quickened me,” left me alive because I meditated on Your law and followed it in all things, from now on I will never forget Your precepts, by following which a person appears righteous before You. “Having learned by experience,” explains Blessed Theodoret, “that Your precepts give life, I shall preserve an indelible memory of them.” “I will not forget”—not only in memory and thought, but in deed and in life—I will not forget, that is, to walk in them, to fulfill them. Experience of the good consequences of fulfilling God’s commandments and precepts inspires one with the resolution to remain faithful to them forever. Nothing can be compared with this sweet quickening that the life according to God’s will provides. Wishing to remain in this quickening always, I no longer wish to know anything but Your precepts. “As one who has recovered,” says Didymus in Zigabenus, “from some grievous illness through the help of certain medicines and never forgets them, so the prophet, having been quickened by God in the precepts he had from Him, says that he will never forget them, citing as the motive for this the quickening he received in them.”

The word of the prophet points not only to the preservation of bodily life on account of fidelity to God’s precepts, but still more to the quickening of the soul, which is always in force even if preservation of life does not follow. That is why he says: “for in them You have quickened me.” This is the same as saying: I feel within myself a life that dwells in me through Your precepts. And indeed, where there is no reproach of conscience, where there is no preference of self-gratification over pleasing God, despite the voluntary and involuntary privations that accompany such a way of life—there alone is there true life; and being true, it cannot but anoint the soul with the oil of gladness, penetrating all its faculties and everywhere leaving traces of contentment and peace. Therefore Saint Athanasius writes regarding this passage: “I shall look upon Your laws, for in them I find life, as You also said to me that ‘the man that does them shall live in them’ (Lev. 18:5). Consequently, only the righteous man is truly alive, though he seems to die; while the unrighteous are dead, though they appear to live, because the former have in themselves the foundation of life—righteousness—while the latter, not having this foundation, are like inanimate things, which are moved not of themselves but from without.”

Thus one may say that if some are unfaithful to God’s commandments, it is because they have not yet had occasion to experience how life-giving is the effect upon the soul of their fulfillment. They are prevented from experiencing this by unbelief: they do not believe that it is so and make no experiments in self-denying fulfillment of the commandments; while the contrary life appears to them to offer proven pleasures, though these pleasures always have a bitter aftertaste. One must believe and enter upon the path of the commandments. The sweetness of life according to the commandments is not given to taste immediately, for the specific purpose of testing faith and giving it time to grow strong. But it exists and is awaited by those who have entered upon this path. When the trial has passed, one is given to sense the sweetness of such a life—as testimony that the quickening of the soul has begun under the salutary effect of fidelity to the commandments—and the further one goes, the more perceptible this quickening. Finally, the fullness of life takes up residence in the heart. This is when the Lord comes with the Father and the Holy Spirit and makes His dwelling in the soul, on account of its long, constant, and patient fidelity to the commandments.

Ps. 118:94. I am Your; save me, for I have sought Your precepts.

God Himself claims as His own those who faithfully fulfill His will, calling them His servants, His faithful ministers, friends, sons, and daughters; and those who enter upon the path of the commandments feel that they are entering as it were into a certain kinship with God, becoming close to Him. So it is also among men: when someone serves another faithfully, he does not consider himself a stranger to him and believes that the one he serves does not consider him a stranger either.

So it is in the things of God. This mutual belonging constitutes the spiritual union of God with faithful souls and of faithful souls with God. It is precisely this kinship with God that the holy prophet confesses here: I am Your, he says, because “I have sought Your precepts”; I sought Your precepts and became Your. I believe that You do now also count me as Your own; save me therefore, as Your own. “I am Your, save me!” “I am Your servant,” says Saint Athanasius the Great, “Your son by grace, Your minister.” “Not everyone,” adds Blessed Theodoret, “can say this: whoever is a slave to sin lies if he calls himself a servant of God: ‘by whom a man is overcome, to the same is he also in bondage’ (2 Pet. 2:19). Therefore, if we, having been freed from sin, resolve to follow God’s laws, we too can say of ourselves the words of the prophet.”

O, what a great gift, what an inexpressible privilege sin deprives us of! “God’s”—such a title is given to those who fulfill God’s commandments, and not merely a title, but the most essential belonging and kinship with God! Whoever dedicates himself to the service of God, having sought His precepts, God transforms by the grace of the Holy Spirit into a new man, and he becomes God’s, as one born of God. What are all earthly titles and all earthly privileges compared with this! Yet few think about it, carelessly abandoning themselves to sin in self-gratification of the flesh, whereas sin not only gives nothing but even squanders what man already has from God the Bountiful. That is why we have no right to say: “I am Your.” For what kind of “His” are we in truth, when our conscience loudly tells us that all we do is gratify the flesh in its lusts?

Carried away by the excellence of such a title, someone might impulsively wish to say: “I am Your, O Lord”—but his immediate masters, whom he serves, rise up and stop his mouth. “Lust comes,” Saint Ambrose explains this thought, “and says: you are mine, for you gratify the flesh; you sold yourself to me for love of such a woman; I paid for you by your fall with such a harlot. Avarice comes and says: you are mine; the silver and gold you possess is the price of your slavery; what you own is payment for your self-rule (on my side) and the sale of your freedom (on your side). Luxury comes and says: you are mine; a single day’s feasting is the price of your whole life; these sumptuous foods are payment for your head; I bought you for cups of wine, acquired you for costly dishes. Ambition comes and says: you are mine; do you not know that in return I gave you power over others, so that you should submit to me? You are my slave because I made others subject to you. And all the other vices and passions come, and each of them says: you are mine—and the one to whom they say this truly has no power to turn his tongue against them. How then can such a one dare to say to Christ the Lord: ‘I am Your’? — No, He will answer you: ‘Not every one that says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 7:21). Not everyone who says to Me ‘I am Your’ is Mine. You are Mine if only your conscience does not convict you of falsehood in your word, if your deeds and the thoughts of your heart do not contradict your speech. I do not deny that the one who does not deny this himself is Mine, or rather, who denies himself. I do not wish to have as a servant one who is a slave to many masters; for how can he be Mine who says with his tongue ‘I am Your’ but refutes it with his deeds and shows by his life that he is given over to the devil? Not Mine is the one whom lust inflames, for Mine is purity; not Mine is the one whom swift-moving anger disturbs, for I am meekness; not Mine is the one who takes delight in feasting, for Mine is strict temperance in all things. I am peace, and quarrelsomeness I know not. What is it to Me who can be said of by the devil: ‘He is mine; he has bowed his neck before me, and I find much of my own in him. He bears Your name but serves me.’ The holy prophet David rightly said: ‘I am Your,’ because he was always devoted to the Lord, ‘for I have sought Your precepts’—that is, I sought nothing foreign to You, but always desired only what is Your: ‘I have sought Your precepts.’ They are my sole possession; and through them You Yourself are my portion, O Lord.”

Ps. 118:95. The wicked have waited for me to destroy me, but I have understood Your testimonies.

The wicked—those who hated me, my enemies—laid an ambush so that I might fall into their hands and be destroyed. But since I neither knew nor wished to know anything except Your testimonies, Your goodness was pleased to take me under Your protection, and I was delivered from their hands; the wicked waited for a favorable opportunity and waited in vain. If a skilled pilot can steer a ship through submerged rocks, how much more does the Lord know how to guide His own through all the dangers that surround and confront them? Here it seems as though something has been left out: “You have taken me under Your protection”; yet this thought flows directly from what preceded: “I am Your; save me”—here only the answering of that prayer is to be understood. Saint Athanasius writes: “One might have said: I attended with my understanding to Your testimonies, and by my thought of You—my prayerful thought—which drew Your help, I brought their evil designs to nothing.” Or perhaps the thought here is this: the wicked lay snares and plots against me, hoping to destroy me; but I, remaining always faithful to Your commandments and directing my steps by them alone, pass through their snares and am saved. I do not even know what they are contriving here or there; but since I strive always to act only as Your testimonies direct, I walk a safe road and make their attempts against me futile.

These words can fittingly be applied to the martyrs. What means did the tormentors not employ to turn them from the faith and so destroy their souls! Yet their blandishments and their schemes remained futile before believers firm in spirit, because the martyrs wished to know nothing except the manifest will of the Lord, who had commanded them to confess Him before men. The tormentors used now one kind of torment, now another, waiting for the moment when those being tortured would at last renounce Christ the Lord—but their expectations were not fulfilled. Saint Ambrose says: “A saint, having left the tribunal where his death sentence had been pronounced, could say: ‘The wicked waited to destroy me’—they used, that is, every form of punishment and torture, but they could not draw me away from my confession. Faith conquered the allurements of life and the torments of the body. The wicked waited to triumph over me; but thanks be to Christ the Lord, who granted me to triumph over my torturers! Remain defeated, you who hoped to win! ‘O death, where is your sting?’ (1 Cor. 15:55). Not yours, but ours is now the victory, for we now conquer in you, in whom we were formerly conquered. And so it is fitting for a martyr to say: ‘The wicked waited to destroy me.’ A moment later—after the beheading—he sees the choirs of angels and says with joy: those who rejoice in the salvation of every soul waited for me to take me from the earth; he sees there the glory of the saints and says: the righteous waited to receive me into their company; he sees the Lord Jesus and says: Christ the Lord waited to crown me.”

These words are fitting for all who strive to please God. Against them the world arms itself both with its attractions and with its hatred; the ancient enemies of our salvation lay hidden snares against them; and both the world and the enemies wait for success—but when the person with whom they engage in battle has his whole mind occupied only with the testimonies of God, all their attempts to destroy him come to nothing. He tears through all the nets of his enemies like a cobweb, and all their arrows glance off him as from an indestructible cliff. His soul is full of another reality, his mind dwells in another world, his heart has sympathy for other objects; and so temptations do not carry him away but instead produce in him an aversion to themselves, an aversion sown by the spirit of prayer. Saint Ambrose puts the following words in the mouth of the one who strives: “Sinners set their snares for me to draw me into sin and destroy me by its infection; but the allurements of sin did not turn me away from the contemplation of the objects of divine knowledge, nor did they divert my attention from dwelling on Your commandments, O Lord. In Your testimonies I was with all my mind, and I understood only them. Had I not been so devoted to them, perhaps sin would have swept me away and I would have perished; but ‘by Your grace I am what I am’ (1 Cor. 15:10).”

Ps. 118:96. I have seen an end of all perfection, but Your commandment is exceedingly broad.

“Perfection”—the completion of a matter—can also mean the matter itself, the enterprise, the undertaking. “End” means limit or boundary. The prophet says: I have seen the limit of every deed and enterprise and undertaking; it begins, continues, and reaches its end. But Your commandment is exceedingly broad—that is, it has no end; begin to fulfill it and you will never reach the point where you can say: I have finished; nothing more is required. Furthermore: every undertaking and deed occupies a certain circle within which it operates, and beyond which its influence does not extend. But God’s commandment is boundless and so broad that no limit can be set to it.

In what sense can one speak thus of the commandments? — First, in the sense that no limit can be set to progress in any commandment. The degrees of ascent or perfection in each of them are without end. Each commandment obliges one to the virtue proper to it; but however high a degree you attain in any virtue, you can never say “enough,” for there is still a degree higher than the one on which you stand. Take mercy: can anyone think that he has reached the final limit of perfection in it, when that limit is set to be the mercy of the Heavenly Father, in whom everything is boundless? And whatever virtue you take, its ultimate limit will be perfect likeness to God. And since this limit is never attainable for a creature, the creature will eternally be ascending toward it and will never arrive. When the Lord said, “Be you perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), He thereby pointed to the obligation of those created in the image of God—to strive toward infinite perfection in every virtue. And since this is an obligation—while no one can say of himself that he has already attained it—it follows of itself that humility is the most natural feeling in all who are making progress in virtue, and the higher one is in virtue, the more humble one becomes, for before him an endless road still lies to be traveled. And if it is endless, then all that has been traveled is nothing; the road, one might say, has scarcely begun. This is why such people, with all their efforts and strivings, usually say: “Not as though I had already attained… but I press on, if that I may apprehend” (Phil. 3:12). Saint Athanasius writes: “These are the words of one who, with all his progress, has ascended to the very summit of virtue, has attained the perfect good, and has set both a beginning and an end to many things. For the ending of the first stage of perfection serves as the beginning of the next, according to the saying: ‘When a man has done, then he begins’ (Sir. 18:6).”

Second, the commandment is broad because one who has entered upon its path enters into the realm of the will of God, which encompasses all that exists and comes to pass. This thought stands in agreement with the thought of the first three verses of this octet—namely, that everything in heaven and on earth is subject to the will of God. Since the commandment is the expression of the will of God, one who has begun to walk by the commandments enters into the boundless expanse where the will of God reigns. Whereas one who does not live by the commandments, thereby stepping outside the bounds of God’s will, is subjected to constraint and pressure from everything that is subject to God’s will—one who lives by God’s commandments is in harmony with everything, and this favorable relationship with all things gives him unhindered freedom of existence and action.

From this it follows, thirdly, that the commandment is broad also because it gives breadth—that is, full freedom—to the one who fulfills it. Only the one who walks by the commandments both possesses himself and orders all his deeds and all his relationships according to God; he is not subject to the external, but on the contrary subjects the external to himself. Every passion and passionate habit is a fetter on freedom, by which a person becomes its slave. This everyone knows and experiences in himself. The commandments are given as an antidote to the passions: one who has acquired the habit of fulfilling a particular commandment kills the passion opposed to it. And one who has set out along all the commandments kills all the passions; and if he kills them, he destroys within them their binding property; and if this property is destroyed, then the person attains full freedom. This is precisely what the holy apostle calls “the liberty of the children of God”; and this is what the mystery of redemption consists in.