Homilies on Jeremiah

Homilies on Jeremiah

continued

Homily 5

1a It is written plainly in the Acts of the Apostles that the apostles first went into the Jewish synagogue. They announced to the Jews, as to kinsmen through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, what was written about the coming of Jesus Christ. But when those people did not accept what was said, and others had to become the hearers of the message, then the apostles made their defense to the Jews and left them. For it is written: “It was necessary that the word of God be announced to you first; but since you judge yourselves unworthy, look, we turn to the Gentiles.” What is said plainly in the Acts of the Apostles has been said in effect in many places by the prophets too. The Holy Spirit speaks first and foremost to those from that people. But if at some point, after saying much, he is not listened to, he prophesies the word that is proclaimed to the Gentiles. This has also happened at the beginning of today’s reading. Before it, these words are spoken to those from Israel: “Even if you call me Father, you will not turn away from me. Yet as a woman is faithless to the man who lives with her, so the house of Israel has been faithless to me, says the Lord.” When these things had first been said about Israel, and the sons of Israel had heard that “they had done wrong in their ways and forgotten their holy God,” then the Holy Spirit moves the word on to us who are from the Gentiles and says: “Turn back, sons who turn back, and I will heal your fractures.”

1b For we are the ones full of fractures, each one of us might say, even if now he has been cleansed and healed of the fractures. “For we too were foolish, foolish, going astray, slaves to desires and many varied pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness and love for humanity of our Savior God appeared, through the washing of rebirth he poured out his mercy upon us.” I will try to make that apostolic saying clearer, though I have mentioned it once already. For he did not say, “We were once foolish, disobedient,” as though speaking of others. Paul, the apostle, who was from Israel, who had become “blameless in the righteousness that is in the law,” says: “For we too were once (those from Israel) disobedient, foolish.” Not only were those from the Gentiles foolish, and not only were those from the Gentiles disobedient, and not only were they sinners. We too, who had been taught the law, were like that before the coming of Christ. So after what has been said to Israel, these words are spoken to us who are from the Gentiles: “Turn back, sons who turn back, and I will heal your fractures.”

2a But someone will object: “This was said to Israel, and you are dragging it over to the Gentiles.” We want to show that when God wishes to speak to Israel about repentance, he does not wait a long while but adds the name of Israel at once. So the very next words are: “If Israel turns back to me, says the Lord, he will indeed turn back; and if he removes his abominations from his mouth, and is reverent before my face, and swears, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth and in judgment and in righteousness, then the nations will bless themselves in him.” So the earlier words were spoken to those from the Gentiles. For when the full number of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel will be saved, according to what the apostle says in the letter to the Romans. Notice how God urges us who are turning to turn completely. He promises that if we turn to him, “turning back,” he will heal our “fractures” through Jesus Christ. And we answer, as people who do not hesitate or delay over our salvation the way that Israel did: “Here we are; we shall be yours.” God said, “Turn back, sons who are turning back, and I will heal your fractures.” And those from the Gentiles say, “We shall be your servants.” Yet we were not yours before. We belonged to demons, and we found ourselves under opposing powers. For when the Most High divided the nations, we did not become your portion, nor the measured share of your inheritance with the people of Jacob. We became the portions of others. Even so, we who were once those portions hear you say to us, “Turn back, sons who are turning back, and I will heal your fractures,” and we answer, “Here we are.” This is what we were waiting for, the calling. We do not decline when we are called, as those others were called and declined.

2b For we have it in the parables of the gospel that when some were invited first, one said, “Hold me excused, I have married a wife,” and another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen and I am going to try them out; hold me excused.” We from the Gentiles are not like that: we are called, and we do not decline. Why? What field would we need to be busy with? What wise woman? What else should we be occupied with? So God has said to us, “Turn back, sons who are turning back, and I will heal your fractures.” And when we see our own fractures and the promise of healing, we answer at once and say, “Here we are; we shall be yours, because you are the Lord our God.” Having heard, then, and having said “We shall be yours,” let us remember that we made a promise to God when we said to him, “We shall be yours.” And having said “We shall be yours,” let us not become anyone else’s. Let us not belong to a spirit of anger, or a spirit of grief, or a spirit of desire. Let us not belong to the devil or to his angels. Rather, having been called and having said, “Here we are; we shall be yours,” let us show by our works that we have become his and have given ourselves to no one but him. And we say, “Because you are the Lord our God.” For we confess no other god. It is not the belly, as the gluttons do, “whose god is the belly.” It is not silver, as the lovers of money do, and not greed, which is idolatry. We do not deify or make gods of anything else that the many make gods of. For us the God over all, the one who is over all and through all and in all, is God. And since we are bound to God by love, for love glues us to God, we say, “Here we are; we shall be yours, because you are the Lord our God.”

3a Then, having condemned our former evils, we speak as people who are turning back. There was a time when we thought the idols great and lofty. We bowed down to them and thought the things we served were wonderful. Now we have judged that all of that was false and was nothing at all. So we say as we turn: “Truly the hills were for a lie.” We say it because we have condemned the lofty things we once held and the wonders we once admired. Perhaps, if we take the trouble, we will find a difference between the hills and the mountains among the nations. Those who said, “Behold, here we are, we will be yours, for you are the Lord our God,” have left them behind and accuse them of being false, both hills and mountains. What, then, is the difference between the mountains and the hills among the nations? Having condemned them, we say, “Truly the hills were for a lie, and so was the power of the mountains.” This is what we say when we condemn our former ways. Among the nations, some of the things they worship are worshipped as gods and some as heroes. For they themselves admit that some of them were once human beings and were made gods. They worship Heracles, not as a god who was born a god, but as one changed from a man into a god. They worship Asclepius as one who was changed from a man into a god because of his virtue. But when they worship the fathers of these, whom they call gods, they do not worship them as men who were changed into gods. As those people suppose, these have been gods from the beginning.

3b So the mountains, and “the power of the mountains,” will be those the nations have thought to be gods from the beginning. Those they now think to be gods, but who were formerly human beings, are “the hills.” Having come to know both ranks of the things worshipped, we say, “Truly the hills were for a lie, and so was the power of the mountains.” For those who serve them do not suppose that these things are false. So they think the oracles and the healings are true healings. They do not see the difference in “all power and signs and wonders of falsehood, with every deceit of wickedness for those who are perishing.” [The text is corrupt at this point; a few words are lost or garbled in the Greek, and the Greek then runs on into a reference to “the fullness of the nations” coming in and “all Israel” being saved, and to Christ Jesus.] The things Christ Jesus did were signs of truth. Before him, what Moses did was a power of truth. But what the Egyptians did were signs and wonders too, yet of falsehood. So also with what Simon the magician did after Jesus’ time. He led the nation of Samaria astray, and he was thought to be the power of God. These too were signs and wonders of falsehood. So when we condemn those things, we who have condemned them say, “Truly the hills were for a lie, and so was the power of the mountains.”

4 Next, we who are from the Gentiles know that “by their transgression we received the way of salvation,” and that Israel has been thrown out until our fullness comes in. We also know that if “the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, after this all Israel will be saved.” That is why we say first, “Truly the hills were for a lie, and the power of the mountains.” Second, we speak about Israel after the fullness of the [Gentiles]: “Yet the salvation of Israel is through the Lord our God.” Since we have now mentioned the apostle’s saying, that salvation has come to the Gentiles through the transgression by which Israel fell, let us unfold what these passages say. The saying goes on: when “the fullness of the Gentiles comes in,” Israel remains outside, and after that fullness has come in, “then all Israel will be saved.” There was an Israel that was being saved. The great mass of Israel fell away, but “a remnant according to the election of grace came to be.” It was about this remnant that the saying was spoken in a hidden way “in Elijah”: “I have left for myself seven thousand men, who did not bend the knee to Baal.” The apostle explains this remnant when he says, “So then, in the present time also, a remnant according to the election of grace has come to be.” So there is an Israel being saved, even if only a remnant, while the rest of Israel is left behind. If you are able, carry these two groups over for me to those from the Gentiles. He did not say, “When all the Gentiles are saved, then all Israel will be saved.” He said, “When the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.” So [the saved Israel] comes after “the fullness of the Gentiles,” not after all the Gentiles without exception. If anyone is able, let him go further. Just as he found Israel being saved after the fullness of the Gentiles, let him consider when all will serve God under one yoke, as it is said [in the prophet], with sacrifices coming from the ends of Ethiopia. That is the time when, as the sixty-seventh Psalm says, “Ethiopia will hasten to stretch out her hand to God.” And the word commands the kingdoms “of the earth,” saying, “Sing to the Lord, sing psalms to the God of Jacob.”

5 So we who are from the Gentiles speak about ourselves, repenting of the falsehoods we used to think were true: “Truly the hills were for a lie, and the power of the mountains.” About the Israel that will be saved after us we say: “Yet the salvation of the house of Israel is through the Lord our God.” Then we confess the sins in which our fathers lived, and we ourselves too, serving idols, and we say: “But shame has consumed the labors of our fathers from their youth, their sheep and their oxen, their sons and their daughters.” “Shame has consumed the labors of our fathers,” and the words that follow. So if the wretched labor and false work of the fathers is going to be consumed, shame must come. Before shame, the labor of the fathers is not consumed, nor are the things that follow. Therefore let us consider the differences among sinners. There are people who sin and are not ashamed. They feel no embarrassment over their sins and do not blush. Such are those who have become callous and have handed themselves over to every kind of licentiousness and uncleanness. [The text here is unclear.] Among the Gentiles, for example, people sometimes list their fornications and adulteries as if they were heroic achievements. They are not even embarrassed to admit that they have done such things, and they do not call them sins. As long as they are not ashamed, their labors are not consumed, and their sins are not consumed. The beginning of good things is for someone to be ashamed of what he was not ashamed of before. For this reason I do not take it as a curse when the prophets say, “Let all who hate Zion be ashamed and turned back.” The prophet is praying that those who feel nothing about their shameful deeds will come to a sense of them. Then, having been ashamed, they will be able to consume their labors and their sins.

6 The irrational impulses of our fathers he called “sheep” and “calves.” For not everything irrational is praiseworthy. Some of it is blameworthy, like the sheep of the fathers who sinned. But some irrational things are praiseworthy, for example: “My sheep hear my voice.” These too were sheep, but sheep to whom we have a counterpart in reason, since we have the good shepherd in our souls. For when the Savior says, “I am the good shepherd,” I do not hear it only as everyone hears it, that he is the shepherd of those who believe (and that is sound and true). I must also have Christ within me, in my own soul: the good shepherd within me. He shepherds the irrational impulses in me, so that they no longer go out to pasture wherever they happen to go. Led by the shepherd, those that were once strangers to him become his own. For this reason, if the shepherd is in me, he now rules over my senses. They are no longer under an alien mind, or under Pharaoh, or under Nebuchadnezzar, but under the good shepherd.

7 “Shame, then, consumed the labors of our fathers from their youth, their sheep and their oxen.” There is something in us that works the land, and it works it either badly or well; we speak of “badly” or “well” for the one who farms. If it farms badly, there is a labor of the fathers that is consumed by their shame. But if it farms well, it is not the fathers’ labor [in that sense]; it is a labor from which the firstborn are brought up to the altar of God. “Their sons and their daughters,” these people say. Whose sons and daughters? “Of the fathers.” The sons are consumed by their shame. As we have often said, these are the offspring of the soul: thoughts are the sons, and the works and actions done through the body are the daughters. Since there are some wretched thoughts, such as the Gentiles thought, and also wretched deeds, therefore sons and daughters are consumed by those who made them, if shame comes upon them over their sins. May we never produce sons and daughters for that kind of consuming by shame.

8a After this, those who are confessing say, “We lay down in our shame.” And after that they say, “and our dishonor covered us.” We have often spoken about the veil that lies over the face of those who do not turn to the Lord. Because of that veil, “whenever Moses is read,” the sinner does not understand him, for “a veil lies over his heart.” Because of that veil, when the old covenant is read, the hearer will not understand. Because of that veil the gospel too is hidden for those who are perishing. So we were saying about the veil that shame is the veil. As long as we have “the works of shame,” clearly we have the veil, according to what is said somewhere in the forty-third Psalm: “and the shame of my face covered me.” I put this beside it because the person who has no works of shame has no veil. Paul was like that when he said, “But we all, with unveiled face, behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.” So Paul has an unveiled face, for he has no works of shame. Whoever is not like Paul has a veiled face. So just as it is said there, in the forty-third Psalm, “the shame of my face covered me,” in the same way it is said here: “our dishonor covered us.” As long as we do works of dishonor, we have a veil lying on our heart. If we want to put away the veil that comes from dishonor, let us come to the works of honor. Let us understand what was said by the Savior, “that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father,” and let us also understand what is said in the apostle: “Through the breaking of the law you dishonor God.”

8b The righteous person, as he honors the Father, honors the Son. Dishonor, when I dishonor the Son (this is the very thing by which I dishonor the Father or the Son), becomes a covering over my face, and I say, “And our dishonor covered us.” So then, now that we understand the veil that lies on us from works of shame, from our deeds, let us take the veil away, let us take it away. It is up to us to have the veil removed; it is up to no one else. For “when Moses turned to the Lord, the veil was taken away.” Do you see how Moses is sometimes taken to stand for the people? As long as he did not turn to the Lord, being a symbol of the people who do not turn to the Lord, he had a veil lying over his face. But when he turned to the Lord, becoming a symbol of those who turn to the Lord, then “the veil was taken away.” And it was not as though God commanded him, “Put on the veil” (for the Lord did not say to Moses, “Put on the veil”). Rather, Moses saw that the people could not look at his glory, and then he put “the veil over his face.” And he did not wait for God to say, “Take off the veil,” whenever he turned to the Lord.

9 This has been written so that you also, when you put the veil on your face through works of dishonor and shame, may yourself bring about the removal of the veil. If you turn to the Lord, then you take the veil away, and you will no longer say, “Our dishonor covered us.” For example, when anger against someone lies on our soul, a veil lies over our face. For this reason, if we want to say in prayer, “The light of your face has been marked upon us, Lord,” let us take away the veil and do what the apostle says: “I want the men, then, to pray in every place, lifting up holy hands, without anger and disputing.” If we remove anger, we have removed the veil, and so too if we remove all the passions. But as long as these things are in our mind, in our reasoning, the veil and the dishonor lie over the inner face, our governing faculty, so that we do not see the glory of God shining. It is not God who hides his glory from us; it is we who, because of wickedness, put the veil on the governing faculty.

10 “Because we have sinned before our God, we and our fathers.” I wish that we too would speak as these people do, in the person the prophet takes on for them. “We have sinned.” “We have sinned” is not the same as “we are sinning.” Let the one who is still in sin not say “we have sinned.” Let the one who has sinned before, and has repented thoroughly, say “we have sinned.” So it is written in Daniel, a confession of people who no longer sin, saying, “We have sinned, we have acted lawlessly.” And in the Psalms the prophet says, “Do not remember our ancient lawless deeds.” So let us also confess our sins. I wish they were not those of yesterday or of three days ago. I wish that our confession would be about sins committed fifteen years before, because we have had no sin since then for fifteen years. But if we sinned yesterday, we are not yet trustworthy when we confess our sins, and there is no room yet for these sins of ours to be wiped out. “Because we have sinned, we and our fathers, from our youth until this day.” Let the earlier remarks be taken otherwise, as teaching about the best way of confessing. But these words are an accusation of having sinned for a long time. “From our youth,” he says, “until this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.” We have sinned, and we have not obeyed up to the present. Then, having turned and having the beginning of conversion, they say, “We have sinned, and we have not obeyed.” For we do not obey immediately, the moment we wish to obey. Time is still needed. As with wounds there is time needed for healing, so with conversion there is time needed to turn to God completely and purely.

11 After this God says about Israel: “If Israel turns back to me, says the Lord, he will indeed be turned back.” That is, if he turns back completely, he will be turned back in earnest, and not merely if he has, so to speak, begun to turn. Then he says: “And if he removes his abominations from his mouth, and takes care before my face, and swears, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth and in judgment and in righteousness, then the nations will bless themselves in him.” If they do these things, “the nations will bless themselves in him.” And what must they do, so that the nations will bless themselves in him? “If he removes his abominations from his mouth.” What does it mean to remove abominations from the mouth? Whatever evil we speak is an abomination in our mouth. So let us remove the abominations from our mouth: let us take away slander, empty words, idle words, the kind that will bring charges against us “in the day of judgment; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” If, then, we want this to come true for us, “and the nations will bless themselves in him, and in him they will praise God in Jerusalem,” let us do what was said at the beginning. And what is the first thing? To remove “the abominations from our mouth.” Next comes “you will take care before my face.” Let us do this second thing, and not carelessly, merely to be cautious. For there can be a caution that does not come from the face of God. Those who fear without understanding, who simply set themselves to be afraid, are not taking care before the face of God. But those who take care with understanding are those who always look at, and picture to themselves, “the face of God set against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.” These are the ones who take care before the face of God.

12 “If he removes his abominations from his mouth, and takes care before my face, and swears, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth and in judgment and in righteousness.” Let us who swear oaths examine ourselves, and see how we swear not in judgment but without judgment, so that our oaths come from habit rather than from judgment. We get carried away, and the word exposes this when it says: “And if he swears, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth and in judgment and in righteousness.” We know that in the Gospel the Lord said to the disciples: “But I say to you, do not swear at all.” Let us look at this saying of Jeremiah as well, and if God grants it, we will examine the two together. For perhaps a person must first swear “in truth and in judgment and in righteousness,” so that afterward, having made progress, he may become worthy not to swear at all, but to have a “yes” that needs no witnesses to show that it is yes, and a “no” that needs no witnesses to show that it is truly no. “And if he swears, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth.” In the one who swears I look first for no falsehood but truth, so that he swears with truth. But we, wretched as we are, even swear falsely. Yet suppose it is “with truth”: even so the oath is not rightly made unless it is also “in judgment.” Grant that I swear out of habit: then I am not swearing “in judgment.” If it were necessary to bring the God of the universe, and his Christ, into such an oath for this matter, how great would the matter have to be before I would bend my knees and swear? Perhaps I might do it at some time, to cure the unbelief that has arisen in some people about my word. But if I swear just as it happens, I would sin. “If he swears, then, ‘As the Lord lives,’ with truth and in judgment,” not without judgment, “and in righteousness,” not unjustly, “then the nations will bless themselves in him.” He has joined both together, those from the nations and Israel. He has spoken about the nations, and he has spoken about Israel too.

13a The prophet goes on: “And the nations will bless themselves in him, and in him they will praise God in Jerusalem. For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to those who live in Jerusalem.” He has spoken to those from the nations, and he has spoken to those from Israel; now he speaks to those from Judah. I remember what was said earlier about the figurative meanings of Judah and of those who live in Jerusalem. For we live in Jerusalem, if God grants it. “Where the treasure is, there the heart is also.” If we store up treasure in heaven, we have our heart in the Jerusalem above, of which the apostle says, “But the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother, as it is written,” and so on. “Thus,” then, “says the Lord to the men of Judah and to those who live in Jerusalem: Break up fresh ground for yourselves, and do not sow among thorns.” This word is spoken above all to teachers, so that they do not entrust what they say to their hearers before they have made fresh ground in their souls. For when people “put their hand to the plow” and make fresh ground in their souls, and those who hear them are “good and fine soil,” then they sow, and not among thorns. But suppose someone takes the holy seeds before the plow, before fresh ground has been made in the ruling part of the hearers. The seeds are the word about the Father, the word about the Son, the word about the Holy Spirit, the word about the resurrection, the word about punishment, the word about rest, the word about the law, about the prophets, and in short about each of the things written. If he sows them, he breaks the commandment that says first, “Break up fresh ground for yourselves,” and second, “do not sow among thorns.” But one of the hearers will say: “I am not a teacher; I am not subject to this commandment.” You too must become a farmer of yourself, and not sow among thorns. Make fresh ground for me of the field that the God of the universe has entrusted to you. Look carefully at the field. See where the thorns are: where “the cares of life and the deceitfulness of wealth and the love of pleasure” are.

13b When you have seen the thorns in your soul, look for the rational plow, of which Jesus says, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Seek it and find it. Then gather from the Scriptures the clean working oxen, plow, and break up the ground. So that it may no longer be old, make it new. “Having put off the old man with his practices and put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge,” you will make fresh ground for yourself. When you have made the fresh ground, take seeds from those who teach. Take seeds from the law, take them from the prophets, from the writings of the gospels, and from the words of the apostles. Having taken these seeds, sow your soul through remembering and meditation. These seeds will seem to spring up on their own. But in truth they will not spring up of themselves after you have remembered them; God will make them grow. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” And if anyone has been able to understand the Scriptures, he has made fresh ground, and having made fresh ground he has sown, and not among thorns. God arranges that these seeds do not suddenly become an ear of grain. Rather, as in the Gospel according to Mark, “first the blade, then the ear, then” the full grain. When it is ready for harvest, those who are sent out to reap will come. When it is ready for harvest, they will come to those to whom the word says, “Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are already white for harvest.” So he says to us: “Break up fresh ground for yourselves, and do not sow among thorns.” But suppose that before you have cleansed your soul, while you still have thorns, you approach a teacher, whether he is truly able or only thought to be, or you ask for lessons and spiritual seeds. Then you break the commandment that says, “Do not sow among thorns.”

14a Next it says: “Be circumcised to your God; circumcise the foreskin of your heart.” “Be circumcised to your God.” The words “to your God” are added of necessity. You will understand it from the example we can see with our senses. I mean that not only those of the circumcision under the law of Moses are circumcised, but many others as well. The priests of the Egyptians are circumcised to idols. But that circumcision belongs to idols, and it is not a circumcision done to God. The circumcision of the Jews, perhaps, but certainly at that time, was done to God. So if the word says, “Be circumcised to your God,” once you have grasped the plain sense, go on to the figurative meaning. There you will find how, among those who are circumcised in the figurative sense (so that some of them might even say, “We are the circumcision”), some are circumcised to God, while others are circumcised, but not to God. For there are other teachings besides the teaching of the truth, besides the teaching of the church. Those who practice philosophy have their habits and their heart circumcised, so to speak; they discipline themselves. So do those from the heresies, and a circumcision comes about for them. But it is a circumcision, and not to God. For among them the circumcision comes about by a false teaching.

14b But when you share in the rule of the church and in the purpose of sound teaching, you are not merely circumcised, you are circumcised “to God.” “Be circumcised,” then, to your God, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart. Who would not pass over this as plain? So there is such a thing as a foreskin of the heart, and it must be circumcised. Whoever examines the word carefully will look into this passage for questions like these: the foreskin is born with a person, while circumcision is acquired, and circumcision removes what came with birth. If, then, the word commands us to remove “the foreskin of the heart,” something must have been born together with the heart, which it calls a foreskin, and which must be removed so that someone is circumcised in “the foreskin of the heart.” Suppose someone understands the saying, “We were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.” Suppose someone understands “the body of humiliation” in which we were born. Suppose someone understands the saying, “No one is clean from filth, not even if his life were one day; his months are numbered.” He will see how we were born with uncleanness and with a foreskin of our heart.

15a To put it by a simpler example, one that can lead you to see “the foreskin of the heart,” I will point out that in the earliest stage of life false opinions inevitably arise in the soul. For it is not possible for a person to receive true doctrines from the beginning. The divine Word made provision for history and for the Scripture according to the letter, so that it might first nourish the one born to Abraham according to the flesh with words that belong to the flesh. [The text is corrupt here: it seems to say that he might first be born of the slave woman] so that after him the son of the free woman, the one born through the promise, might be able to be born. [Corrupt: “why this was taken up”] The foreskin of the heart can be understood as what comes before circumcision. We therefore need to receive the word that cleanses our doctrines and removes everything that has arisen in us through false opinion. This is what it means to put off the foreskin of our heart. For if the heart, in our case, is the ruling part, where thoughts are, from which “the evil reasonings” come out, then the one who removes the evil reasonings removes “the foreskin of the heart.” The one who puts away false opinion has been circumcised in “the foreskin of his heart.” He becomes a man of Judah and a dweller in Jerusalem, being circumcised.

15b But if someone does not put away “the foreskin of his heart,” let us see what the word threatens him with: “Lest my anger go out like fire and burn, and there be no one to quench it.” So the anger of the Lord goes out like fire against those who have not been circumcised to God, against those who have not put away “the foreskin of their heart.” “And there will be no one to quench it, because of the wickedness of their practices.” That fire has as its fuel the wickedness of our practices. Where there is no wickedness of practices, the fire has nothing to feed on. And that the fuel of that fire is the wickedness of our practices, hear the prophet say: “And there will be no one to quench it, because of the wickedness of your practices.” “Announce it in Judah, and let it be heard in Jerusalem. Speak, announce, sound the trumpet over the land, and cry out loudly.” He means: say these things that are being announced to those of the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Christ. “For it is plain that our Saviour has risen from Judah.”

16a “Sound the trumpet over the land.” The trumpet stands for the lofty word that wakes up the hearer. It prepares him for the struggle against the passions and against the working of the opposing powers. It also prepares him for the heavenly feasts. (The trumpet is mentioned for both of these purposes.) In the book of Numbers, a word of this kind is a trumpet. For example, the word commands me, and anyone else to whom it is given (it is given to the one who wishes and who searches out the mind of the Scriptures), to make “silver trumpets, hammered out.” So the word says: “Sound the trumpet over the land, and cry out loudly. Say: Gather together, and let us go into the fortified cities.” The word of God does not want us to enter an unwalled city, but [the city] of the living God, the church, fortified by the [power] of the word. (For he is the wall.) It is in the seventeenth Psalm, that God is also a wall. “Gather your things and flee to Zion.” All of you who are outside Zion, “gather your things and flee to Zion. Hurry, do not stand still.” You who are making progress, hurry to the Watchtower, “for I am bringing evils from the north, and a great destruction.” These evils are brought “from the north,” the north of the adversary, as has often been said. If anyone is found not to have hurried and not to have entered “into the fortified cities,” not to have come to be “in the churches of God,” but standing outside, he will be caught by the enemies and destroyed.

16b Who is the enemy? Let us see from what follows how he is described: “A lion has come up from his lair; he has set out to destroy nations.” This is the enemy we must flee. A lion is hunting us down. Who is this? Peter teaches us, saying: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to swallow. Resist him, firm in the faith.” And according to the ninth Psalm: “He lies in ambush in secret; he lies in ambush like a lion in his lair.” And this lion lies in ambush not by day, but when night comes. For according to the hundred and third Psalm: “You appointed darkness, and it became night. In it all the beasts of the forest will prowl, young lions roaring to seize their prey and to seek their food from God.” 17 “A lion has come up from his lair.” Where from? When? He is down below, fallen; he has gone down into the lowest parts of the earth. “A lion has come up from his lair.” You are a human being, and you are higher than the devil. You are stronger than he is, whatever kind of person you are, because he is down below on account of his wickedness. “A lion has come up from his lair; he has destroyed nations and carried them off.” He has come up “from his lair,” the place that fits his own punishment. “He has destroyed nations and carried them off. He has gone out from his place to turn your land into a desolation.” He wants to get into your land, of which we were speaking a little while ago. He wants to graze on each one of us. So he comes “to turn your land into a desolation,” so that the lion may trample down the seeds and make your land a wilderness. “And your cities will be pulled down, so that no one lives in them. Because of this, gird yourselves with sackcloth.” Since a lion has come up, and a lion threatens you and wants to wipe out your land, put on sackcloth. Weep and mourn. Through your prayers call upon God to destroy this lion away from you, so that you do not fall into his mouth. For it says, “As when the shepherd snatches from the lion’s mouth two legs or the lobe of an ear.” This lion is trying to seize you by the ears, so that through your itching appetite he can set false words before you and drive you away from the truth. He wants to seize your feet from the truth and devour you. But you, gird yourself with sackcloth, beat your breast, weep and wail, seeing the enemy standing over you, so that “the fury of the Lord’s anger” may turn away from you. And when that fury has turned away, may you be free from anxiety, with the lion no longer creeping up on you because you have entered the walled city, and may you be able to glorify God, who rescues you in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Homily 6

1 “Lord,” he says, “your eyes are upon faith.” Just as “the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous” (for he turns them away from the unrighteous), so the eyes of the Lord are upon faith, for he turns them away from unbelief. So it was well said by the one who understood what he is saying in the prayer: “Lord, your eyes are upon faith.” What is written here, then, is: “Lord, your eyes are upon faith.” But “if a man of understanding hears a wise word, he will praise it and add to it.” So see how much can be drawn out from “Lord, your eyes are upon faith.” Paul says, “But now these three remain: faith, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love.” Just as the eyes of the Lord are upon faith, so the eyes of the Lord are upon hope, and the eyes of the Lord are upon love. And since there is “a spirit of power and of love and of self-control,” as the eyes of the Lord are upon love, so the eyes of the Lord are upon power, and so the eyes of the Lord are upon self-control. [The text seems to have a gap here.] The eyes of the Lord are upon righteousness. So the eyes of the Lord are upon all the virtues. If, then, you also want the rays of God’s intelligible eyes to reach you, take up the virtues. And just as it says, “Lord, your eyes are upon faith,” so it will be “Lord, your eyes” are upon each of the good things you acquire. And if you become such a person that the eyes of the Lord shine upon you, you will say, “The light of your face, Lord, has been marked upon us.”

2a Next, let us look at what is said about sinners: “You scourged them, and they did not suffer.” These perceptible scourges, when they are laid on living bodies, cause pain whether the people scourged want it or not. God’s scourges are of a different kind. Some of those who are scourged feel pain, and some do not. Let us see whether we can explain what it is to feel pain from God’s scourges and what it is not to feel it. Those who feel no pain from God’s scourges are wretched, and those who do feel pain from them are blessed. For Wisdom says: “Who will set scourges over my mind, and over my lips a seal of cunning, so that they may not spare me for my ignorances, and my sins may not destroy me?” Notice the words “Who will set scourges over my mind?” So there are scourges that scourge the mind. The scourges of God scourge the mind. A word that takes hold of the soul and brings it to a sense of what it has done wrong scourges it. It scourges the blessed person, who feels pain under the scourges, because what is said strikes home and he does not despise the one who rebukes him. But when someone is found, so to speak, past feeling, it will be said of him: “You scourged them, and they did not suffer.” Take the same word spoken in rebuke, for example, aimed at the mind of a person whose conscience has been defiled by some sin. If one of the hearers is pained, so that it is said of him, “Did you see how he was cut to the heart?”, and another of the hearers feels no pain but is numb to those who rebuke him, then clearly it will be said of the one who feels nothing: “You scourged them, and they did not suffer.” That is one explanation of “they did not suffer” or “they suffered.” Let us see whether we can find another. In bodies, some parts become dead and dried up, and often the dead limbs behave differently from the living ones. When things able to cause pain are applied to a living limb, the person to whom they are applied feels pain. But when the same things are applied to the insensible limb, he does not feel it, since deadness is in it.

2b If you have seen this in the body, transfer it to the soul, and see that there is also a soul whose members are deadened, so that it does not feel the scourges, even if painful things are brought to it. Terrible things are brought to it, but this particular soul will not feel them, while another soul will. And perhaps the one who feels nothing under the pains brought to him grieves more over not feeling than over feeling. He would rather suffer pain if painful things were applied, since that is a sign that he is alive. He is distressed at feeling nothing under painful things. Just as this happens with bodies, so I think that in the words “they would wish they had been burned by fire” something like this is shown. When fire is applied to someone and the one being burned does not feel it, those people, having understood the contrast between those who feel nothing under their pains and those who do feel, would wish to feel the fire rather than not feel it. And when that fire which has been appointed for sinners is applied to them, a person might pray to feel it rather than not feel it. All this is on account of “You scourged them, and they did not suffer.” “You consumed them, and they were not willing to accept instruction.” When God, who provides for all things, applies cleansing remedies for the salvation of the soul, he has, for his part, finished the work. You will understand “You consumed them, and they were not willing to accept instruction” from the example of one who hands on knowledge and one who is unwilling to receive knowledge from the one handing it on. Let the teacher do everything on his side and spend himself wholly on handing on knowledge, and let the pupil refuse to accept what is said. I could say to the teacher about such a pupil: “You have finished your work with this man, and he was not willing to accept instruction.” So if everything from providence is directed toward us so that we may be brought to completion and made perfect, and we do not accept what providence does, which draws us toward perfection, then someone who understands might say to God: “Lord, you have consumed them, and they were not willing to accept instruction.”

3a “They made their faces harder than rock.” You can understand this too from more bodily things. Among those who sin, some hear words of rebuke for their sin and blush, shrink back, and bow down when the word of rebuke touches them. Others are such that they are shameless. They feel no shame over what they are rebuked for, over what they have done wrong. Of these who feel no shame you could say, “They made their faces harder than rock.” If you have understood this about the body, then let my argument carry you over to the soul, and think of a face of which it is said, “but then face to face.” Picture a hard soul, like the hardened heart of Pharaoh. In the face of what is announced to it, it stands resistant. It throws off what is said, as it were, and is not shaped by what is proclaimed. For there you will find that the words fit: “They made their faces harder than rock, and they were unwilling to turn back. And I said, Perhaps they are poor, because they were unwilling to know the way of the Lord and the judgment of God. I will go to the great ones and speak to them.” The prophet has thought about those who are unwilling to be disciplined and who take no notice of God’s scourges, and he says that he has understood the cause. Their soul is poor. “And I said, Perhaps they are poor, because they were not able, because they did not know the way of the Lord and the judgment of God.”

3b “I will go to the great ones and speak to them.” Those who are “great” in their souls are spoken of in praise. Among the Greeks too the word “great-hearted” is constantly used, along with the greatness of the rational soul. When someone takes on great matters, has worthy purposes, and always looks to what is needed, namely how to live according to right reason, wanting and seeing nothing low or petty, such a person has this greatness and largeness in the soul. So the first group, whom the word rebuked, did not listen, says the prophet, because they were poor. That is why they did not listen: they are poor. “I will go to the great ones and speak to them.” And if there is a blessing in speaking “into the ears of those who listen,” then it is a blessing when a speaker finds a great-souled hearer. Since this is so, and since we know that the loss is not so much the speakers’ as the hearers’, when they do not accept what is proclaimed (and the prophet accuses them of poverty of mind and understanding), let us ask God to receive, as the word grows in us, greatness and largeness of soul in Christ Jesus. Then we will be able to hear the holy and sacred words. To him belong glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Homily 7

1a God, who judges [according to . . .], gives those he punishes room. He does not, the moment a person sins, bring the full end of punishment down on the sinner. That is why he punishes “by little and little” as he judges. There is an example of this in Leviticus. In the curses on those who transgress the law, after the earlier punishments it is written: “And it shall be, if after these things you do not turn back, says the Lord, I will add to you seven plagues as well.” And again it describes another punishment: “And it shall be, if after these things you do not turn back, but walk toward me crookedly, I also will walk with you in crooked anger.” You will find God measuring out punishments sparingly, because he wants to bring the sinner to repentance, and not paying back all of them at once. So this is what happened to the people, as far as the letter of the text goes. And after the word threatens them with what they will suffer after those things, it says: “And it shall be in those days, says the Lord your God, I will not strike you to the point of complete destruction.” [But if this reaches especially to the punishments to come, ...] If not, let whoever is able move on from what happened to the people in this life to those coming punishments as well. For I would say, being persuaded of it, that just as they “serve a copy and shadow of heavenly things,” so that people was punished for their own sins as a copy and shadow of the true punishments. So the whole punishment in the law and the prophets that touches the people contains a shadow of true punishments.

1b If, then, there was no final destruction for those people because of their sins, but only an end at some point, and if it will not be that there is never any punishment on sinners even after death, [the text is unclear here], then final destruction came on Jerusalem when the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar took place. Yet someone will say that even then it was not a final destruction, nor was it in the time of the Maccabees. But the final destruction of the people came at the coming of my Lord Jesus Christ. For as long as the Savior had not said to them, “Look, your house is left to you,” it was not left. But when he wept over Jerusalem and said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate,” the house was left. “Jerusalem is surrounded by armies,” as though the house had been abandoned, and “her desolation has drawn near.” Then, after their fall, salvation came to us, [who were of the nations]. So they were being punished, and the final destruction did not reach them until the coming of my Lord Jesus.

2 I wonder whether the same kind of thing happens with us too, and some punishments come in such a way that some people never experience a second punishment but are satisfied with the first ones. Others come to the second, though not to the third, and others will come even to the fourth. For the words “I will add seven plagues” point to some mystery: first one plague happens, then a second, then a third, up to the seven mentioned, in the case of some people. But not everyone is struck with seven plagues. I think some will be struck with six, others with five, others with four, others with three or two. And the one who is lowest of all in punishments, I think, will be struck with a single plague. God, then, knows what concerns the plagues. That is why it is written here, at the beginning of the reading, “And it shall be in those days,” the days concerning the things mentioned, “I will not make an end of you.” But the final destruction does not come in those days. For there are certain days when he will bring to final destruction those whom he will bring.

3a “And it shall be, when you say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these evils to us?’ you shall say to them, ‘Because you forsook me and served other gods in your own land, so you will serve them in a land that is not yours.’” Let the plain wording be understood; for now it is enough to bring the reminder, drawn from the wording, to those who are able to hear. The sons of Israel, then, had the holy land and the temple, the house of prayer. They ought to have served God. But they transgressed the divine commandments, worshiped idols, and took over the idols of Damascus, as it is written in the books of Kings, and took up other idols of the nations into the holy land. By taking in the idols of the nations they made themselves deserving of being thrown down into the land of the idols, to end up there, where they bowed down to the idols. So the word says to them, according to the plain text: “Because you forsook me and served foreign gods in your own land, so you will serve foreign gods in a land that is not yours.” But everyone who makes a god of something serves foreign gods. Do you treat food and drink as divine? Your god is “the belly.” Do you honor silver as a great good, and the wealth of this earth below? Your god and lord is Mammon. Jesus himself named it, calling it the lord of those who love money, when he said, “You cannot serve God and Mammon,” and “No one can serve two lords.” So whoever honors silver, admires wealth, thinks it a good thing, welcomes the rich as though they were gods, and despises the poor as though they had no god of their own, that person makes silver into a god.

3b If someone who is in the church of God worships foreign gods, making gods of things that do not deserve to be made gods, he will be thrown out into a foreign land. Let him worship there the gods he worshiped while he was inside. Let the lover of money be outside the church, thrown out. Let the glutton be outside the church. This is one figurative reading. I do not want to pry now into things beyond me, such as the land about which the Savior said, “Who will give you what is ours?” God also arranged it so that when worship was given to idols in a certain land, some were cast out of their own land and came to the land about which it is written: “Hear, Israel: why are you in the land of your enemies? You were counted with those going down to Hades. You forsook the fountain of life, the Lord. If you had walked in the way of God, you would have lived in peace for all time.” Now, then, we are in a foreign land, and we pray to do the opposite of what the sons of Israel did in the holy land. They worshiped foreign things in the holy land. We, in a foreign land, worship the God who is foreign to the land, foreign to the affairs of earth. For the ruler of this age rules here, and God is foreign to his sons. But when I say “foreign,” I do not mean this: I do not mean that God did not create the world. I mean that he is foreign to the lord of wickedness, foreign to the sins now present.

3c And yet, even when we want to worship in this land of affliction the God who is foreign to the works of sin, let us see what we do. We do not say, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Rather we say, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song, [not] in a foreign land?” We are looking for a place to sing the Lord’s song, a place to worship the Lord our God, on foreign ground. What, then, is that place? I have found it. He came to this land wearing the body that saves. He took “the body of sin” “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” so that in this place, through Christ Jesus who came to live here and brought to nothing the ruler of this age and brought sin to nothing, I might be able to worship God here, and after this worship him in the holy land. For if someone who worshiped idols in the holy land has gone away into the foreign land, then someone who has worshiped God in the foreign land will go away to the holy land in Christ Jesus. To him be glory and power forever. Amen.

Homily 8

1a The prophet takes up three virtues of God, as it were: his strength, his wisdom, and his understanding. To each of them he assigns its own work: to strength, the earth; to wisdom, the inhabited world; to understanding, the heaven. Listen to what the text says: “The Lord who made the earth by his strength, who set the inhabited world upright by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heaven.” Let us apply this to our own earth too, for it was said to Adam, “Earth you are.” We need God’s strength. Without the power of God we cannot accomplish the things that are not “according to the mind of the flesh.” But when the members that are upon the earth have been put to death, what accords with the wish of the Spirit will come about, since, as the apostle says, the deeds of the flesh are put to death by the Spirit. So “the Lord is the one who made the earth by his strength.” And if you come to this earth as well, and are able to see what is written in Job (as we found it in the more accurate copies), that he set it “upon nothing,” you will see that by God’s strength it lies at the very center. I come now to the inhabited world. I know a soul that is inhabited, and I know a soul that is desolate. If a soul does not have God, if it does not have Christ who said, “I and my Father will come to him and make our dwelling with him,” if it does not have the Holy Spirit, it is desolate. It is inhabited when it has been filled with God, when it has Christ, when the Holy Spirit is in it. The Scriptures speak of this in various and different ways: that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are in the soul of a human being. David, for example, in the psalm of confession, asks the Father for these very spirits, saying, “Establish me with a guiding spirit,” “Renew an upright spirit within my inward parts,” “and do not take your Holy Spirit away from me.”

1b What are these three spirits? The guiding spirit is the Father, the upright spirit is Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. [The Greek of the next clause is damaged; the sense is that] these serve to establish the inhabited world, which stands in no other way than in the wisdom of God. For “wisdom will help the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.” And “whoever despises wisdom and instruction is wretched; his hope is empty, his labors are profitless, and his works are useless,” says the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon. For this reason, as far as we are able, since the inhabited world is set upright by the wisdom of God, let us ourselves also wish to have our own inhabited world set upright, since it has perhaps fallen. For this inhabited world fell when we came into the place of affliction. It fell when “we sinned, we acted impiously, we did wrong,” and it needs to be set upright. So it is God who set the inhabited world upright. But if you do not take “set the inhabited world upright” in this way, and understand the inhabited world in a more ordinary sense, then ask from what he set the inhabited world upright. Ask about the fall of the world, so that when you find its fall you may see its restoration. If anyone, then, is in this inhabited world, if you understand the world in this way, he is [still] before the setting upright. If it has fallen, it clearly needs to be set upright, yet no one who has not fallen needs to be set upright. And if it has been set upright, let us see who it is; clearly each one of those in the world has fallen through sin. It is the Lord who sets upright “those who have been broken down,” and who “upholds all who fall.” “In Adam all die,” and so the world has fallen and needs to be set upright, so that “in Christ all” may be made alive. So I have explained what concerns the inhabited world in two ways: in one, showing in the case of each individual how every soul is either inhabited or desolate; in the other, fixing the discussion on the world itself.

2a “And by his understanding he stretched out the heaven.” It was not by accident that the prophet took “understanding” in connection with heaven. You will find it said in Proverbs: “God by wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding he prepared the heavens.” So there is a certain understanding of God, and you should look for it nowhere except in Christ Jesus. Everything of this kind that belongs to God is Christ. He himself is the wisdom of God, he himself is the [power] of God, he himself is the righteousness of God, he himself is sanctification, he himself is redemption. In the same way he himself is the understanding of God. The subject underneath is one, but by our different ways of thinking about him the many names apply to different things. You do not think the same thing about Christ when you think of him as wisdom as when you think of him as righteousness. When you think of wisdom, you take it as knowledge of divine and human things. When you think of righteousness, you take it as the power that gives to each in the universe what he deserves. When you think of sanctification, you take it as the power that brings it about that those who believe and are dedicated to God become holy. So also you will think of him as understanding when you take it as knowledge of good things, bad things, and things that are neither. [The next lines are corrupt in the Greek, and this is my best reading:] Now evil is separated from good for those who dwell in heaven, or who wear the heavenly man, so that that heaven may no longer be defiled, because heaven was stretched out by the understanding of God. Neither is the righteous man defiled, who is himself heaven. For the righteous man also is heaven, as has been said: “And he stretched out the heaven by his understanding.”

2b How then is heaven stretched out? By wisdom stretching it out. That wisdom does the stretching is shown in the words “Since I stretched out words and you paid no attention.” There he speaks of a kind of stretching out of words, and that is how heaven is stretched out. In the hundred and third psalm it is also said, “stretching out the heaven like a skin.” Our soul too, which was drawn in before, is stretched out, so that it can take in the wisdom of God. But let us return to what we have before us. We were speaking of heaven having been made by understanding. And we say that those who wear the heavenly man are themselves heaven. For if it is said to the sinner, “You are earth, and to earth you will go,” could it not be said to the righteous man, to whom the kingdom of the heavens belongs, “You are heaven, and to heaven you will go”? Or is it rather that, on account of the earthly man, “You are earth, and to earth you will go” is said to the one who wears “the image of the earthly,” but on account of the heavenly man, once you wear “the image of the heavenly,” it will no longer be fitting to say, “You are heaven, and to heaven you will go”? Each of us has heavenly works and earthly works. Earthly works are those that bring down to the earth, which is akin to them, the one who stores them up on earth and does not store up [treasure in heaven]. Again, heavenly works lead up to the places in heaven that are akin to the works the one who stores up [treasure in heaven], the one who has worn “the image of the heavenly,” the things done according to virtue.

3a “And he brought up clouds from the end of the earth.” This saying came up recently in the psalm as well, and we were saying how God “brought up clouds from the end of the earth.” It is necessary to go over these things again. For those who know them, it serves as clarification and a reminder of what was said. For those who have forgotten, or who were not present, it serves to make this clear, whether it is revealed and made plain or understood in some other way. We said that the saints are clouds. For the words “Your truth reaches to the clouds” cannot refer to lifeless clouds. Rather, the truth of God reaches to the clouds that hear God’s command and know where to send rain and from whom to hold it back. Since there are clouds which God commands to rain or not to rain, it is written, “I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it.” Now with these clouds in the sky, if there is no rain, God has not commanded the clouds not to rain on the vineyard or the land. Rather, no cloud appears at all, as it is written in the third book of Kingdoms. There, in the time of drought, no cloud appeared. But when, according to the word of Elijah’s prophecy, the rain was about to come, a trace of a cloud appeared, “like a man’s footprint,” and it became a cloud producing rain.

3b But when the clouds exist and are commanded not to rain, because the soul is unworthy of the rain, then it is said, “I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it.” So each of the saints is a cloud. Moses was a cloud, and he spoke as a cloud: “Give heed, heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. Let my utterance be awaited like rain, and let my words come down like dew.” If he had not been a cloud, he would never have said, “Let my utterance be like rain, and let my words come down like dew.” He speaks as a cloud: “like a shower on the grass, and like snow on the hay, for I called on the name of the Lord.” In the same way Isaiah also speaks as a cloud: “Hear, heaven, and give ear, earth, for the Lord has spoken.” And since he himself was a cloud, and was calling the ones who prophesied alongside him clouds, he says in his prophecy: “I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it.”

4 Now that we have understood who the clouds are, let us see how God is the one who “brings up clouds from the end of the earth.” How is it “from the end of the earth”? The Savior says: “Whoever wants to be first among you will be last of all.” Paul kept this commandment, and in this world he was last. So he says: “For I think that God has displayed us apostles last, as men condemned to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men.” If anyone, then, keeps the Savior’s commandment and becomes last as far as this life is concerned, that person becomes a cloud. God does not bring up clouds from the first men of the earth. He does not bring up clouds from consuls, or from rulers, or from the rich. For “blessed are the poor, because yours is the kingdom of God.” Do you see how God brings up from the last, and gives bodily form to the clouds? Therefore, if we want to become clouds, ones that the truth of God reaches, let us become last of all. Let us say in our works and in our disposition, “For I think that God has displayed us apostles last.” Even if I am not an apostle, I am free to become last, so that God, who brings up clouds from “the end of the earth,” may bring me up. “And he made lightnings for the rain.” Those who are skilled in these matters say that lightning comes about when clouds rub against one another. What happens on earth with flint stones, when two stones strike together and fire is produced, they say happens also with the clouds. When clouds collide in the winter, lightning is produced. That is why lightning generally comes together with thunder: the thunder gives the sound of the clouds colliding, and the lightning produces the light.

5 If you have understood the illustration, now look at the spiritual cloud as well. Moses was a cloud; Joshua son of Nun was a cloud. These speak with one another, and from their words lightning comes. Jeremiah was a cloud; Baruch was a cloud. They converse with each other, and the lightning came from the words of Jeremiah and the words of Baruch. In the same way, if you can, gather from the Scriptures how lightning comes. And in the New Testament, Paul and Silvanus were two clouds. They came together, and the lightning of the letter came to be. So God “made lightnings for the rain, and brought out winds from his treasuries.” Are these winds, then, really in treasuries? Or is it not plain that the nature of these winds, as they blow over the earth, is of another kind? No, there are certain treasuries of winds, treasuries of spirits: “a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and godliness,” “a spirit of the fear of God,” “a spirit of power and love and self-control.” And you can gather these winds yourself from the Scriptures. These spirits are in treasuries. What are the treasuries? “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” These treasures are in Christ. From there, then, come these winds, these spirits, so that one person is wise, another faithful, another has knowledge, and another receives some other gift of God whatever it may be. “For to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit.”

6 So God “brought up clouds from the end of the earth, and made lightning for the rain, and brought out winds from his storehouses.” By God’s grace, we too hope to arrive at these storehouses. And since there are many storehouses, perhaps there will be different resting places in God’s storehouses for those who rise again. What I mean is this. The resurrection of the dead takes place in certain ranks. The apostle says, “each in his own rank.” And since the ranks are not mixed together at random, this rank will be in one storehouse of God, that rank in another storehouse of God, and a third rank in yet another storehouse. All these storehouses, however, have one storehouse in which they dwell. That is why Paul said, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Just as I acquire the “one precious pearl” through the many pearls, so I come to the storehouse of storehouses, the Lord of lords, the King of kings, when I have become worthy of the spirits that come from God’s storehouses. For “he brought out winds from his storehouses.”

7 “Every man has been made foolish by knowledge.” If every man has been made foolish by knowledge, and Paul is a man, then Paul too was made foolish by knowledge. He knew “in part,” and in part he was made foolish by knowledge. He saw “through a mirror,” seeing only a very small fraction of things, and, if one may say so, an infinitely small fraction of what he grasped. You will understand “every man has been made foolish by knowledge” from the opposite side. There are sins of Jerusalem, and there are sins of Sodom too. But compared with the worse sins of Jerusalem, the sins of Sodom are righteousness. For it says, “Sodom was justified by you.” Now the sins of Sodom are not really righteousness. They are righteousness only in comparison with the greater injustice. In the same way, what Paul knew, compared with that knowledge which is in the heavens, compared with perfect knowledge, is foolishness. This is why “every man has been made foolish by knowledge.” I think the Preacher grasped something like this when he said, “I said, I will become wise; but wisdom was far removed from me, farther than it was, and it is a deep depth. Who will find it?”

8 The argument is about to venture something bold: it will say that the one who came to live among us in this life emptied himself, so that the world might be filled by his emptying. But if that one who came to live in this life emptied himself, that emptying was wisdom. “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” If I had said “the foolishness of God,” how the fault-finders would have accused me! How they would have blamed me! Other things are said which they themselves consider good, but for this, which they think was not well said, I would have been condemned because I said “the foolishness of God.” But now Paul, as a wise man with apostolic authority, dared to say that all the wisdom that has come to earth, both the wisdom in himself and in Peter and the apostles, all the wisdom that has come to live in the world, is “the foolishness of God.” For compared with that wisdom, which no place on earth can contain, compared with that wisdom above the heavens and above the world, this wisdom that came among us is the foolishness of God. Yet this “foolishness of God is wiser than men.” Which men? I do not mean the foolish ones. It is wiser even than wise men. And even if you speak of the wise of this age, whether rulers or prophets, still the “foolishness of God” that I have described “is wiser than” the rulers of this age.

9 The word is about to say something startling: “the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God,” and “God made the wisdom of the world foolish.” Did he make the wisdom of the world foolish by wisdom? Can the wisdom of the world even take in wisdom, so that it is shown to be foolish? Does the wisdom of God have to struggle against the wisdom of the world in order to prove it wrong? No. Only a little is needed, and that little is the “foolish thing of God.” By this small foolish thing of God the wisdom of this world is made foolish and exposed. For the wisdom of this world could not bear the wisdom of God. Take an example, so that you can see how “the foolish thing of God” “made the wisdom of the world foolish.” Suppose I, who seem to know many things, and more than most, had to argue with someone senseless and uneducated, who understands nothing and has never struggled over any noble arguments at all. Do I need logic against him, or deeper insights, if his thoughts are foolish? Do I not need only a single little word, a bit sharper than his own wording, so that I can expose his folly? So it is with the wisdom of this world, to make it foolish. There is no need for the wisdom of God to fight against it, for that wisdom is down below. The foolish thing of God is enough, because “the foolish thing of God is wiser than men,” and “the weak thing of God is stronger than men.” My Savior and Lord has taken on all these opposites, so that by opposites he might undo opposites. In this way we are made strong by the weakness of Jesus and made wise by the foolish thing of God. Once brought into these, we may be able to go up to the wisdom and the power of God, Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and might for ever. Amen.