Psalms 94:2

"Be exalted, you who judge the earth." You judge the earth, because heaven does not deserve to be judged. Listen, heretic, to how the Lord judges the earth. If there is a fall in heaven, why is there not also a judgment in heaven? If souls sinned in heaven, why is the earth alone judged? "Render their recompense to the proud." All sins indeed must be guarded against, because all are contrary to God; but they are so in various ways: proud sins are enemies to God. For "the Lord resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace." The devil is the prince of the proud. "Lest," he says, "puffed up in pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil." For everyone who exalts his own heart is a sharer with the devil, who used to say: "By my strength I will act, and by the wisdom of my understanding I will remove the boundaries of the nations" — and the rest, which it would be tedious to enumerate, in which the prophet describes the pride of the devil. The other vices earn the mercy of the Lord, because by their humility they are made subject to God: pride alone, which lifts itself up beyond its strength, resists God. The adulterer or the fornicator has not dared to lift his eyes up to heaven; with a downcast spirit he hopes, in supplication, for the mercy of the Lord; but the man whom his conscience makes turn away, it humbles upon the earth, yet it lifts him up to heaven. Pride and the appetite for glory, when they raise a man up, then abase him, because they make God the enemy of his sin.

And what followed, because He dealt confidently? "Be exalted, Thou Judge of the world" (ver. 2). Because they imprisoned Him when humble, thinkest thou they will imprison Him when exalted? Because they judged Him when mortal, will they not be judged by Him when immortal? What then saith He? "Be exalted," Thou, who hast dealt confidently, the confidence of whose word the wicked bore not, but thought they did a glorious deed, when they seized and crucified Thee; they who ought to have seized on Thee with faith, seized Thee with persecution. Thou then who hast among the wicked dealt confidently, and hast feared no man, because Thou hast suffered, "be exalted;" that is, arise again, depart into heaven. Let the Church also bear with long-suffering what the Church's Head hath borne with long-suffering. "Be exalted, Thou Judge of the world: and reward the proud after their deserving." He will reward them, brethren. For what is this, "Be exalted, Thou Judge of the world: and reward the proud after their deserving"? This is the prophecy of one who doth predict, not the boldness of one who commandeth. Not because the Prophet said, "Be exalted, Thou Judge of the world," did Christ obey the Prophet, in arising from the dead, and ascending into heaven; but because Christ was to do this, the Prophet predicted it. He seeth Christ abased in the spirit, abased he seeth Him: fearing no man, in speech sparing no man, and he saith, "He hath dealt confidently." He seeth how confidently He hath dealt, he seeth Him arrested, crucified, humbled, he seeth Him rising from the dead, and ascending into heaven, and from thence to come in judgment of those, among whose hands He had suffered every evil: "Be exalted," he saith, "Thou Judge of the world, and reward the proud after their deserving." The proud He will thus reward, not the humble. Who are the proud? Those to whom it is little to do evil: but they even defend their own sins. For on some of those who crucified Christ, miracles were afterwards performed, when out of the number of the Jews themselves there were found believers, and the blood of Christ was given unto them. Their hands were impious, and red with the blood of Christ. He whose blood they had shed, Himself washed them. They who had persecuted His mortal body which they had seen, became part of His very body, that is, the Church. They shed their own ransom, that they…