Psalms 9:18

The absence of respect of persons in God is not then in time, but from eternity. Nor had His beneficence a beginning; nor any more is it limited to places or persons. For His beneficence is not confined to parts. “Open ye the gates of righteousness,” it is said; “entering into them, I will confess to the Lord . This is the gate of the Lord . The righteous shall enter by it.” Explaining the prophet’s saying, Barnabas adds, “There being many gates open, that which is in righteousness is the gate which is in Christ, by which all who enter are blessed.” Bordering on the same meaning is also the following prophetic utterance: “The Lord is on many waters;” not the different covenants alone, but the modes of teaching, those among the Greek and those among the Barbarians, conducing to righteousness. …

In the psalm he exclaims: “Defend the fatherless and the needy; do justice to the humble and the poor; deliver the poor, and rid the needy out of the hand of the wicked.” Similarly in the seventy-first Psalm: “In righteousness shall He judge the needy amongst the people, and shall save the children of the poor.” And in the following words he says of Christ: “All nations shall serve Him.” Now David only reigned over the Jewish nation, so that nobody can suppose that this was spoken of David; whereas He had taken upon Himself the condition of the poor, and such as were oppressed with want, “Because He should deliver the needy out of the hand of the mighty man; He shall spare the needy and the poor, and shall deliver the souls of the poor. …

17. Let us take an instance for the purpose from visible things. Somebody whom you do not recognize, says to you, You know me; and in order to remind you, tells you where, when, and how he became known to you; and if, after the mention of every sign by which you might be recalled to remembrance, you still do not recognize him, then you have so come to forget, as that the whole of that knowledge is altogether blotted out of your mind; and nothing else remains, but that you take his word for it who tells you that you once knew him; or do not even do that, if you do not think the person who speaks to you to be worthy of credit. But if you do remember him, then no doubt you return to your own memory, and find in it that which had not been altogether blotted out by forgetfulness. Let us return to that which led us to adduce this instance from the intercourse of men. …

17. Here is interposed, “The song of the diapsalma” ( ver. 16 ): as it were the hidden joy, as far as we can imagine, of the separation which is now made, not in place, but in the affections of the heart, between sinners and the righteous, as of the corn from the chaff, as yet on the floor. And then follows, “Let the sinners be turned into hell” ( ver. 17 ): that is, let them be given into their own hands, when they are spared, and let them be ensnared in deadly delight. “All the nations that forget God.” Because “when they did not think good to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.”

2. When by such faith and knowledge the saints have embraced this true life, they receive, doubtless, the joy which is in heaven; for which the wicked not caring, are deservedly deprived of the blessedness arising from it. For, ‘let the wicked be taken away, so that he shall not see the glory of the Lord.’ For although, when they shall hear the universal proclamation of the promise, ‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,’ they shall rise and shall come even to heaven, knocking and saying, ‘Open to us;’ nevertheless the Lord will reprove them, as those who put the knowledge of Himself far from them, saying, ‘I know you not.’ But the holy Spirit cries against them, ‘The wicked shall be turned into hell, even all the nations that forget God..’ Now we say that the wicked are dead, but not in an ascetic life opposed to sin; nor do they, like the saints, bear about dying in their …

17. And the wicked shall not arise in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous . And even as the righteous who are perfected in good works shall not come into the judgment to be judged, so of the wicked also whose sins are many, and the measure of whose offences is overflowing, it shall not be required that they should draw nigh unto the judgment, but when they have risen again they shall turn back to Sheol, as David said, The wicked shall turn back to Sheol, and all the nations that forget God. And Isaiah said, All the nations are as a drop from the bucket, and as the turning of the balance. And the isles as a grain of sand shall be cast away, and all the nations are esteemed as nothingness by Him. For destruction and the sword are they esteemed by Him . …

24. My beloved, men who are inferior in understanding, dispute about this that I write to thee, and say: “What is the place in which the righteous shall receive a good reward; and what is the place in which are torments, in which the wicked shall receive the punishments of their works?” O man that thinkest thus, I will ask thee, and tell thou me, why is death called death, and why is Sheol called Sheol? For it is written that when Korah and his companions made a schism against Moses, the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and they went down alive into Sheol . Therefore that was the mouth of Sheol that was opened in the wilderness. David also said, The wicked shall turn back to Sheol. We say that to Sheol, in which Korah and his companions were swallowed up, thither shall the wicked be turned back. …