Death And Salvation

Adjuva me, et salvus ero, et meditabor in justificationibus tuis semper. Superius dixerat, Adjutor et susceptor meus, nunc autem nominum commemoratorum rem precatur, ut qui susceptor est, suscipiat; et qui adjutor, adjuvet. Non abesse a se adjutorium adjuvantis precatur. Non orat ne malignantes non habeat, quia per passionum patientiam fides probatur: sed ut adversus eos adjuvetur orat, quia auxilium a Domino semper orandum est. Sed quemadmodum in superiore susceptus vivet: ita et in hoc adjutus salvabitur. Adhuc enim sibi obeunda mors est, adhuc inferi sustinendi. Tunc salvabitur, cum ex corporea terranaque natura in spiritalem gloriam transformatus, nullum adversantis inimici periculum metuat, vivat inter electos angelos, sit paradisi incola, et absorpta corruptione ex mortali immortalis exsistat. Sed quod meditaturum se in justiis Dei dicit, et meditaturum semper: numquid non meditatur, qui et in meditatione speravit? Potest quidem et in praesens vitae opus accipi, ut quousque in corpore sit, semper justificationes meditetur: sed nihilominus et in futurum sermo procedit. Scit in coelo omnes angelos in meditatione justificationum Dei esse. Nihil enim illic otiosum, nihil iners est: omnes virtutes coelestes in opere ministerii sui permanent. Et cum nobis tunc vita angelorum vivendum sit; potest secundum eos qui semper operantur, nobis quoque aeterna justificatonum esse meditatio. Sanctus Hilarius Pictaviensis, Tractatus super Psalmos, Tractatus in Psalmum CXVIII Source: Migne PL 9.603b-604a

Help me, and I shall be saved, and I shall contemplate your justifications always. 1 Above he said, 'My helper and my redeemer,' 2 and now he prays for the thing the name commemorates, that He who is the redeemer, redeem, and He who is helper, help. He does not pray that His helper begone, he does not pray that he be spared the wicked, for through suffering the patience of faith is proved, 3 but he prays that he be helped against them, because one must always pray for help from the Lord. But as it was before that he who is redeemed lives, so even with this help he is saved. For as yet death troubles and as yet hell is opposed, but then he shall be saved when from the body and the earthly nature he is transformed into spiritual glory, when he shall not fear any trial of the hostile enemy, when he shall live among the chosen angels, and be a dweller in paradise, living with corrupt mortality absorded by immortality. 4 But because He says that he shall contemplate the justifications of God, and contemplate them always, does he not now contemplate them, he who has hoped in contemplation? 5 It is possible to understand that in the state of this present life that he who is for at time in the body may always meditate on His justifications, but even so the word given here refers to the future. He knows that in heaven all the angels meditate on the justifications of God. For there is nothing useless there, nothing pointless, all the heavenly powers are active in the work of His ministry. And when then we are given to live the life of angels, 6 as they who always active in it, so it is possible for us also that there shall be eternal meditation of His justifications. Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Homilies on the Psalms, from Psalm 118 1 Ps 118.117 2 Ps 118.114 3 Rom 5.3-4 4 1 Cor 15.54 5 Ps 118.24 6 Mt 22.30