The Seasons of Refreshment

To all those to whom you have gone and to whom I have destroyed all your enemies from before your face, as it is written through the prophet Nathan (Ps 88:36). And he says that he exalts him by his own mercy and with the diligence pertaining to the righteous. Just as he also unexpectedly obtained victories in wars and was invincible.

God swears by himself, because he has nothing greater by which to swear, just as Paul says. For he says, 'I have sworn by my holy one,' or as the E edition says, 'According to my sanctification' instead of 'According to my holiness' (Ps 88:39). [These things were likewise set forth by Theodore similar to Apollinaris.]

It seems to seek something greater and beyond man (Ps 88:49), despising the life we live as being nothing, claiming that men move into something futile, not indeed into vanity, but as he deems worthy of not adding corruption, since it is clearly stated that the kingdom will be restored when even corruption is loosed and the living unto the ages is given. For where would escape from death come to us? And where, if not from you? For this would not exist for a man from himself; there is no one who will live and will not die, nor will he be able to save himself from death. But these things seek in opposition to the heavenly king, the redeemer of futility, the same who is stronger than death and a savior of men from death, transforming the futility of the present life into truth and constructing the eternal kingdom upon eternal life.

He did not reject the mercy, but seeks the promise and invokes the justice of God against the impious nations who revile the righteous, having done evil against his own race and having fallen (Ps 88:51); whom he says are enemies of God, yet revile the trace of the righteous king as if it were erased. Having urged these things, he blesses. And the blessing is of one hoping. And of one hoping, he seems to mean the prayers will reach the promise and will not fall away, just as Paul says, 'Is it possible that the word of God has fallen away?' (Rom 3:3).

If he has spoken thus concerning a thousand years (Ps 89:10), it is evident that the span of human life will be the most minute and as if indivisible. The whole, he says, human life is described in a seventy-year period.

Regarding the greater part, he says this: not even this is given in ease, but almost entirely in hardship; for either we are being instructed as infants, or we are laboring as youths, or we are being afflicted as old men. Therefore, he rightly said, 'And the greater part of them is labor and toil' (Ps 89:17). For thus, because the order according to age exists, a little time is stolen away toward joy.

Night, it is fitting, he called the whole time in which a dying man sleeps, but the first is the dawn in which we shall live, when the Lord has appeared and mercy has descended from heaven. It is worthy that the sun and day should shine forth and be given continuously to the righteous as joy instead of the days in which we were harmed, falling into countless evils. These are the Seasons of Refreshment which Peter foretells, to whom he says that our pre-appointed Jesus the Lord will be sent.

Furthermore, he says a thousand shall fall from the auspicious sides, and ten thousand from the right (Ps 90:8), before even approaching and turning away some evil, so that they fall seeing helplessly, and to the perishing he will repay from God, just as it happened to Jehoshaphat according to the promise, so that not having fought, but singing and praising God among one another, he saw the enemies being destroyed. For he says, 'They came upon the lookout of the wilderness and looked and saw the multitude, and behold, all dead having fallen upon the earth, and there was no one being saved.' Near to this also happened to other kings hoping in God, the promise of God being made true, which says, 'I will hate your enemies and I will oppose those who oppose you.' Yet it is not necessary always to think that victories are effortless for the righteous. Since even coming through battle, many times they have conquered, but regarding the most manifest in these things, he says, 'help,' in which most especially God the helper appears to be.

He brought the face of the one hoping near, saying to himself toward God that he placed his hope in him (Ps 90:9). And again he exclaims to such a one, 'Because you have chosen the Most High as a house of safety, no evil shall hold you, nor shall your house be filled with divine plagues' (Ps 90:10). For it is evident that if a righteous man suffers, and the house of a righteous man, it is a struggle.