Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 76:5

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"There have been troubled all the unwise in heart" (ver. 5)....How have they been troubled? When the Gospel is preached. And what is life eternal? And who is He that hath risen from the dead? The Athenians wondered, when the Apostle Paul spake of the resurrection of the dead, and thought that he spake but fables. But because he said that there was another life which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it gone up into the heart of man, therefore the unwise in heart were troubled. But what hath befallen them? …

Exposition on Psalm 76 ↗

Jerome

They slept their sleep, and found nothing. Truly this life is a sleep, and riches too: for when we seem to hold them, at once we lose them. Just as that which is written in the prophet: "As one who is thirsty sleeps, if he finds water he drinks; afterward, when he has awakened, the thirst itself remains," so also are riches in this world: while we hold them, we lose them.

Homily 9, on Psalm 75 ↗

Bonaventure

Such art is both one and manifold. How this can occur cannot be seen unless there come about an illumination "from the everlasting mountains," and when "despoiled are the stouthearted," that is, the foolish. For it is fitting to think of God in the highest way. Speculation is also manifold, for it represents many things distinctly and certainly. Hence I will see myself better in God than in myself. And yet it is supremely one.

Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 12 ↗