The Psalm continues: But Thou, O Lord, do not remove Thy help far from me. Be ready to aid me. Rescue my life from the sword, and my only begotten from the paw of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns.
This likewise again teaches and foreannounces His state and what would happen to Him. For I have already shown that He was only begotten of the Father of the universe, having become in His own being from Him Word and Power, and afterwards becoming man by the Virgin, as we have learned from the Memoirs.
That He was crucified and died, He likewise foretold. For the sentence, Rescue my life from the sword and my only begotten from the paw of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns, was likewise the utterance of One who indicated the kind of suffering by which He was to die, namely, crucifixion. For I have already explained to you that the shape of the horns of the unicorns is that of the cross only.
And his asking that his soul might be saved from sword, and from lion’s mouth, and from dog’s paw, was a prayer that no one should lord it over his soul, that, when we come to the end of this life, we may ask the same of God, who can turn back every shameless and evil angel from seizing our soul.
Now that souls survive I have shown you from the fact that even Samuel’s soul was called up by the ventriloquist woman, as Saul demanded. And it appears further that all the souls of those who were similarly righteous men and prophets fell under the authority of such powers, as is in fact proved in the case of the ventriloquist woman by the events that took place.
By this God also teaches us by His Son, that we should do our utmost by all means to become righteous, and at our death to ask that our souls do not fall under any such power. For when He gave up His spirit on the cross He said: Father, into Thy hands I entrust My spirit. This also I have learned from the Memoirs.
Further, when He was urging His disciples to surpass the Pharisees’ mode of life, saying that, if they did not, they must know that they would not be saved, He is recorded in the Memoirs to have said: Except your righteousness exceed the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.