Homilies on Jeremiah

Homilies on Jeremiah

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Homily 9

1a As for the recorded coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, his visit in the body was universal and shone out on the whole world, when “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” For “the true light was there, which lights every person coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” But we must know that he also visited earlier, though not in the body, in each of the saints. And after this visit of his which could be seen, he visits us again. If you want proof of this, pay attention to “the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Hear,” and so on. For who is “the word that came from the Lord,” whether to Jeremiah or to Isaiah or to Ezekiel or to anyone at all, if not the one who “in the beginning was with God”? I know of no other word of the Lord than the one of whom the evangelist said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We must also know this: the Word’s visit is made to each person, especially those who can be helped by it. For what good is it to me if the Word has visited the world, but I do not have him?

1b On the other hand, even if he has not yet come to the whole world, grant that I have become like the prophets, and then I have the Word. I would say that Christ came to Moses, to Jeremiah, to Isaiah, to each of the righteous. What he said to the disciples, “Behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age,” was already being fulfilled in fact before his coming. For he was with Moses, he was with Isaiah, and with each of the saints. How could those men have spoken a word of God if the Word of God had not come to them? This needs to be understood above all by us who belong to the Church, who want the God of the law and the God of the gospel to be the same, and the same Christ then and now and for all ages. There will be people who cut off the older divinity, the one before the Savior’s coming, from the divinity proclaimed by Jesus Christ. That is at least their own opinion. But we know one God, then and now, and one Christ, then and now. I say this because of the words, “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying.” So what should we hear? “Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to those living in Jerusalem.” We are the men of Judah, through Christ. For it is plain that “our Lord has risen out of Judah.” And if I show that the name of Judah, according to the Scripture, refers to Christ, then the men of Judah are not the Jews who disbelieve in Christ, but all of us who believe in Christ.

1c “Judah, may your brothers praise you. Your hands are on the back of your enemies.” “May they praise you.” His brothers did not praise that Judah, the son of Jacob. But the brothers will praise this Judah, since he says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing hymns to you.” That is not said to the other Judah. “Your hands are on the back of your enemies.” Where is that Judah found laying his hands on the back of his enemies? The history records nothing of the kind about him. But if you understand the coming of the Lord Jesus, who brings the devil to nothing, who strips off “the principalities and powers,” and makes a public spectacle of them, and leads them in triumph on the wood, you see how the prophecy that says, “Your hands are on the back of your enemies,” has been fulfilled in this Judah. If that is so, and the word is now spoken “to the men of Judah,” to whom could it be speaking if not to those who believe in Christ, who are somehow also called Judah on account of the tribe of Judah?

2a The word is spoken “to the men of Judah” and “to those living in Jerusalem.” This is the Church. For the city of God is the Church, the “vision of peace.” In her is the peace that he brought to us. If we are indeed children of peace, that peace increases and is seen. So “hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to those living in Jerusalem. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed is the man who does not listen to the words of the covenant that I commanded your fathers.” Who above all listens to “the words of the covenant that God commanded the fathers”? Is it those who believe in him? Or those who are shown, by their not believing in the Lord, not even to believe Moses? For the Savior says to them, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” So they have not believed Moses. But we, believing in Christ, believe the covenant given through Moses, and it is also spoken to us, so that we may not become accursed: “Cursed is the man who does not listen to the words of the covenant that I commanded your fathers.” They, then, are the ones under the curse, for they did not listen to “the covenant that God commanded the fathers.” “In the day,” he says, “when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.”

2b God has also brought us out “of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.” This is especially so for anyone who understands what is written in John’s Revelation, that the place “where their Lord was crucified is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt.” If it is “called spiritually Egypt,” then it is not this Egypt, the one we can see, that is spiritually called Egypt. Clearly, then, if you understand the Egypt that is called so spiritually and you come out of it, you are the one who has come out “of the land of Egypt and out of the iron furnace,” and the word is spoken to you: “Listen to my voice and do according to all” these things. Then there is a promise of God to those who listen, if they do what has been commanded: “And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” Not everyone who says he is God’s people is God’s people. So the one who promised to be God’s people heard the words “you are not my people,” in the saying “because you are not my people.” That people was told “not my people,” and then this other people was in turn called a people. For “they made me jealous with what is no god.” He says this about those others: “They provoked me to anger with their idols. And I will make them jealous with what is no nation; with a senseless nation I will provoke them to anger.”

3a So we have become a people for God, and “the righteousness of God” belongs to the people who come from the nations. For this people is born all at once. It is also said in the prophet: “If a nation was born at one time.” A nation was born at one time when the Savior came to live among us, and five thousand believed in a single day, and on another day three thousand more were added. We can see a whole people being born by the word of God, and the barren woman, who had not borne children before, giving birth all at once. To her it is said: “Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labor, because the children of the desolate one are more than those of the woman who has a husband.” The church is “desolate” of the law; she was desolate of God. The synagogue is the one called the woman who has a husband, the law. What, then, does God promise me? “You shall be my people, and I will be your God.” He is not God of everyone, but only of those to whom he gives himself, just as he gave himself to that patriarch to whom he said, “I am your God,” and again to another, “I will be your God,” and about others, “I will be their God.” When, then, do we attain, each one of us individually, to having God be our God? And if you want to learn whose God he is and to whom he grants his own name, he says: “I am the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God [of Jacob].”

3b Explaining this, the Savior says: “God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” Who is the dead person? The sinner, the one who does not have the one who said, “I am the [life]”; the one who has dead works, who has not yet repented from dead works. Of these the apostle says: “not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works.” If, then, “God is not the God of the dead but of the living,” and we know who the living person is, namely the one who lives as a citizen according to Christ and remains with him, then if we want God to be the God of each one of us, let us renounce the works of death. Then he will fulfill his promise, which says: “And I will be your God, so that I may establish my oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey.” Notice that he says, “I will establish my oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey,” as though he had not yet given them “the land flowing with milk and honey.” For this is not the land that God called “flowing with milk and honey.” It is the land the Savior taught about when he said: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

4a Next the prophet answers what the Lord had said before. The Lord had said, “Cursed is the man who will not listen to the words of this covenant.” And the prophet says, “I answered and said, ‘So be it, Lord.’” What does “So be it, Lord” mean? Cursed is the one who will not remain in the words of this covenant. “And the Lord said to me: Read these words in the cities of Judah and outside Jerusalem.” We too read the words of God to those outside, calling them to salvation. “Hear the words of this covenant and do them.” And they did not do them. “And the Lord said to me: A conspiracy was found among the men of Judah and among those living in Jerusalem.” Or are we going to repent over the sins spoken of concerning the men of Judah, knowing that we are the men of Judah, since Christ was prophesied and spoken of as Judah? Perhaps, because there are some among us who are sinners and act contrary to the right word, the prophet says for this reason, “A conspiracy was found among the men of Judah and among those living in Jerusalem.” For when a bond of injustice and a bond of sins is found in some who are called by the name of the church, so that what is said of the sinner fits them, “each man is held fast by the cords of his own sins,” then God might say, “A bond was found among the men of Judah.” May no such bond be found among us! But how is no bond found among us, if even to this day there is a bond in some? “Loosen every bond of injustice, undo the knots of violent contracts, tear up every unjust written agreement. Break your bread for the hungry.” So “a bond was found among the men of Judah and among those living in Jerusalem. They turned back to the injustices of their fathers, those of earlier times.”

4b “They turned back to the injustices.” Whose? He does not simply say “of the fathers.” What is the addition? “They turned back to the injustices of their fathers, those of earlier times.” We were saying that these things are said to us, and to those among us who sin. How then did those among us who sin turn back not simply to “the injustices of the fathers,” but to those “of their fathers of earlier times”? Perhaps our fathers are of two kinds, and there is among us a worse kind of fathers. Before we believed, we were, let us say, sons of the devil, as the word of the Gospel shows when it says, “You are of your father the devil.” But when we believed, we became sons of God. So whenever we sin, we turn back to the injustices not simply of the fathers, but of our earlier fathers. To show that we have two fathers, I will use words from the forty-fourth Psalm, which read: “Listen, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and the house of your father.” He says “forget the house of your father” as a father himself, for as a father he says, “Listen, daughter.” So then we have two fathers. But “forget the house of your father” means the earlier one. If you forget your earlier house and then turn back again to sins, you have committed the sins spoken of here. “They turned back to the injustices of their fathers, those of earlier times.” I was saying that the devil was once our father, before God became our Father, since now the devil is not our father. We will show this also from the catholic letter of John, where it is written, “Everyone who practices sin has been born of the devil.”

4c If “everyone who practices sin has been born of the devil,” then in a sense we are born of the devil as many times as we sin. So the one who is always being born of the devil is wretched, just as, on the other side, the one who is always being born of God is blessed. For I will not say that the righteous person was born of God once for all. He is always being born, with each good deed, in which God begets the righteous person. Now suppose I bring you to the Savior and show that the Father did not beget the Son once and then release him from his begetting, but always begets him. Then I will show that something similar holds for the righteous person. Let us see who our Savior is. He is “the radiance of glory.” The radiance of glory was not begotten once and then ceased to be begotten. Rather, as long as the light is producing the radiance, so long is the radiance of God’s glory being begotten. Our Savior is the wisdom of God, and wisdom is “a radiance of eternal light.” If, then, the Savior is always being begotten, this is also why he says, “Before all the hills he begets me.” He does not say, “Before all the hills he has begotten me,” but “Before all the hills he begets me.” And so the Savior is always being begotten by the Father. In the same way, you also, if you have the Spirit of adoption, are always being begotten by God in him, in each work and in each thought. Being begotten in this way, you become one who is always being begotten as a son of God in Christ Jesus. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

Homily 10

1a If the oracles of God are in the Law and the Prophets, in the Gospels and the Apostles, then the one who is learning from the oracles of God must have God as his teacher. For “the one who teaches man knowledge” is God, as it is written in the Psalms. And the Savior also testifies that no one should be given the title of teacher on earth, saying, “And do not call anyone teacher on earth, for you have one teacher, the Father in heaven.” The Father in heaven teaches either by himself, or through Christ, or in the Holy Spirit, or through Paul, say, or through Peter, or through some other of the saints. Only let the Spirit of God and the Word of God come to dwell among us and teach. Why have I said this? Because the prophet says, “Make it known to me, Lord, and I shall know.” For I shall not know unless you make it known to me. But if I come to know because you make it known to me, “then I shall see their practices,” and I shall understand what each one is doing and what his purpose is. That is what the prophet says. Next, let us see what the Savior says in the prophet: “I, like an innocent lamb being led to be sacrificed, did not know.

1b They devised a plan against me, saying: Come, let us put wood into his bread, and wipe him out from the land of the living, so that his name will be remembered no more.” As the prophet Isaiah also says, Christ “was led like a sheep to slaughter, and like a lamb silent before the one who shears it, so he does not open his mouth.” There, then, Isaiah speaks about him. Here Christ speaks about himself: “I, like an innocent lamb led to slaughter to be sacrificed, did not know.” He did not say what he did not know. He did not say, “I did not know evil things,” nor “I did not know good things,” nor “I did not know sin.” He said simply, “I did not know.” So he has left it to you to investigate what he did not know. And learn what he did not know from the words, “He made him who did not know sin to be sin for us.” For to know sin is to commit sin, just as to know righteousness is to practice righteousness. So the one who proclaims what concerns righteousness but does not practice righteousness has not known righteousness.

2 “They devised a plan against me, saying: Come, let us put wood into his bread.” That the Jews crucified him is plain, and we proclaim it openly. But how you are to fit this to the words “they devised a plan against me, saying: Come, let us put wood into his bread” takes some effort to understand. The bread of Jesus is the word, on which we are fed. So when he was teaching among the people, they wanted to attach a stumbling block to his teaching by crucifying him, and they said, “Let us put wood into his bread.” For whenever the fact that the teacher was crucified is attached to the word of Jesus’ teaching, wood has been put into his bread. Let them, then, speak as men who plotted with malice: “Come, let us put wood into his bread.” But I will say something even more surprising: the wood put into his bread has made the bread better. I take an example from the law of Moses: the wood thrown into the bitter water made it [sweet]. In the same way the wood of the suffering of Jesus Christ, coming into the word, has made his bread sweeter. Before the wood came into his bread, when it was only bread and there was no wood in his teaching, “his voice did not go out into all the earth.” But since the bread received power through the wood put into it, the word of his teaching has been distributed over the whole inhabited world. And the wood then was a symbol of the suffering of Jesus, through which the bitter water becomes sweet. For I say that the law, when it is not understood, is bitter water. But if the wood of Jesus comes, and the teaching of my Savior takes up residence, the law of Moses becomes sweet and most pleasant when it is read and understood. So they said, “Come, let us put wood into his bread.”

3 They also say, “Let us wipe him out from the land of the living, and let his name be remembered no more.” That was how they killed him: as though they were erasing his name. But Jesus knows how he dies and why. So he says, “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” So the death of Jesus becomes an ear of wheat, making what was sown many times over and abundant in yield. Suppose, for the sake of argument, he had not been crucified and had not died: the grain of wheat would have remained alone, and many would not have come from it. Consider his words, then, to see whether he did not mean this: “If the grain of wheat does not fall into the earth and die, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” The death of Jesus bore fruit in all these people. And if his death bore fruit in so many, in how many will the resurrection bear fruit?

4a “Lord of hosts, who judge justly, who test the kidneys and hearts, may I see your vengeance on them.” He prays this prophetically: to see God’s vengeance on them. For Jerusalem has been surrounded by armies, and its desolation has drawn near, and it has been told, “See, your house is left to you.” So: “May I see your vengeance on them, for to you I have revealed my cause. Therefore the Lord says this concerning the men of Anathoth who seek my life, who say: Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord, or you will die at our hands. See, I will visit them: their young men will die by the sword, and their sons and daughters will perish by famine. And there will be no remnant of them, for I will bring evil on the inhabitants of Anathoth in the year of their visitation.” The name of Anathoth is taken here for the sake of a pretext. But the whole Jewish mystery is spoken of in it figuratively, for Anathoth is interpreted “Obedience [of hearing]” (or “Answering”). Since there was a hearing of God among that people, as there was also the kingdom of God, and the saying came true about the kingdom, “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing its fruits,” so too it came about that “the men of Anathoth,” those who were in the place of Hearing, sought the life, not of Jeremiah (for the history does not say that the men of Anathoth sought the life of Jeremiah.

4b We have the books of Kings, where Scripture mentions Jeremiah, and nothing of the kind is said there, nor in Chronicles. We also have the prophet’s own book, and the men of Anathoth have said nothing like this there. So these words are spoken about Christ. “Those who seek my soul, who say: You shall not prophesy in the name of the Lord.” The Jews forbade Jesus to teach. “Otherwise you will die at our hands. See, I will visit them. Their young men will die by the sword, and their sons and daughters will die by famine.” They did not die by the sword at that time. But after his coming, famine has now come upon them: “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of the word of the Lord.” For among them it is no longer said, “Thus says the Lord Almighty.” This is the famine: that there is no longer any prophecy among them. And why do I say prophecy? There is not even teaching. Though they may be called wise ten thousand times over, the word of the Lord is no longer in them. For this has been fulfilled: “The Lord will take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the strong man and the strong woman, the giant and the mighty man, the warrior and the judge and the prophet and the diviner and the elder and the captain of fifty and the wonderful counselor and the wise master builder and the understanding hearer.” There is no longer anyone among them who can say, “As a wise master builder I have laid a foundation.” The master builders have moved over; they came to the church and laid the foundation, Jesus Christ. Those who come after them build on this.

5 So that people have been left behind in famine. For he will bring “evils upon those who live in Anathoth, in the year of their visitation.” “You are righteous, Lord, so I will plead my case before you. Yet I will speak my judgments to you. Why does the way of the ungodly prosper? Those who deal treacherously have flourished.” We still ask whether the God who gave the law and the prophets is good, when we see that “the way of the ungodly prospers” and he does not punish the ungodly. “All who deal treacherously have flourished.” These are the very people who speak against the Creator and slander him: “They have flourished, they have been planted and have taken root, they have produced children and borne fruit.” How great was the fruit when Marcion produced children, or Basilides, or Valentinus! For this is what is prophesied about the ungodly and said in the words, “They have produced children and borne fruit.” “You are near in their mouth, but far from their inward parts.” They name the name of Jesus, but they do not have Jesus, for they do not confess him as they ought. “And you, Lord, know me; you have seen me; you have tested my heart before you. Purify them for the day of their slaughter.” What shall I do to make this clear? He calls punishments a purification of those who are punished. For he says, “Purify them for the day of their slaughter.” Purify them by their being slaughtered. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and scourges every son whom he receives.”

6 “How long will the earth mourn, and the grass of the field wither because of the wickedness of those who live in it?” Here too the prophet speaks as though the earth were a living being, saying that the earth mourns because of the wickedness of those who walk upon it. So in the case of each one of us, the earth either mourns or rejoices. For it either mourns “because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it,” or it rejoices because of the virtue of those who dwell in it. In each one of us, then, this very element either rejoices or mourns. And perhaps the other elements do the same. I will say the same of water, and of the angel appointed over the water, so that I may explain what is meant by the earth mourning or not mourning. For it is not this body, “the earth,” that mourns “because of those who live in it.” Rather, understand with me that in the ordering of the whole, one being is appointed over the earth, another over the waters, another over the air, and a fourth over the fire. In the same way, let my argument carry you up to the whole order among living creatures, and among the heavenly stars. An angel is appointed over the sun, another over the moon, another over the stars. These angels, with whom we are, as far as we are earth, either rejoice if we act justly, or mourn over us when we sin. “The earth mourns,” he says, “because of those who live in it.” He gave the angel the same name as the earth itself. For it is like the saying, “The thing made by hands is accursed, and so is the one who made it.” That does not mean the lifeless thing itself is accursed. What is called “made by hands” is the one who sits beside the lifeless idol and answers to that name. In the same way, I will say that the angel appointed over the earth is called “earth,” and the angel appointed over the water is called “water.” This is the sense of the saying: “The waters saw you, O God; the waters saw you and were afraid; the depths were troubled by the roar of many waters; the clouds gave a voice, for your arrows go forth.”

7 “I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance, I have given my beloved soul into the hands of her enemies.” See the one who exists “in the form of God,” who was in the heavens. See his house, which is above the heavens. If you want to look higher still (for he is “in the Father”), see that God himself is his house. He leaves “father and mother,” the “Jerusalem above,” and comes into the region around the earth, and says, “I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance.” For that was his inheritance: the places with the angels, the rank among the holy powers. “I have given my beloved soul into the hands of her enemies.” He handed over his soul into the hands of the enemies of the soul: into the hands of the Jews who killed him, into the hands of rulers gathered against him, into the hands of kings, when “the kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.”

8 “My inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest.” This inheritance of his on earth, the one he had inherited, turned wild against him. The Jews, enraged against him, became his inheritance “like a lion in the forest.” It is no wonder that his inheritance then became “like a lion in the forest,” because even now there are lions in the forest, who want to curse Jesus, who speak evil of him and plot against those who believe in him. “My inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest. It has raised its voice against me; therefore I hated it. Is my inheritance to me a hyena’s den?” He prophesies about this inheritance. Has the inheritance become a hyena’s den? A hyena is the fiercest of creatures, a devourer of corpses that haunts the tombs and eats the bodies of the dead. “Is my inheritance to me a hyena’s den?” “Or is there a den against it all around? Go!” Since they have become such, I command you, the angels, to go and gather the wild beasts and hand them over to the beasts. “Go and gather all the beasts of the field, and let them come to devour it.” The “beasts of the field” have come and are devouring that people. You can see their hearts being devoured by the opposing powers. If Jesus did not spare those people, but said, “Go, gather the beasts,” how much more will he not spare us? If we do not keep the law of God, the word of the gospel, he will say again: Go, gather the beasts and hand it over. But we have boldness to say in our prayers, “Do not hand over to the beasts a soul that confesses you.” Let us confess our offenses and repent, and we will not be handed over to the beasts. Instead we will be handed over to holy angels, who will be our nurses, carrying us in their arms and bringing us across from this age to the age to come, in Christ Jesus, to whom belong the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Homily 11

1 Who is the one who says, “Because of me the whole land has been laid waste with utter desolation”? It is Christ who says this. Before his coming among us, the people had committed many sins, but not such as would cause them to be abandoned completely and handed over to a long captivity. But when they filled up “the measure of their fathers,” and added to the killing of the prophets and the persecution of the righteous the murder of “the Christ of God,” then came the word, “Your house is left to you.” And they suffered these things because of him, and “the whole land was laid waste with utter desolation.” 2 But if you want to hear a higher meaning of “Because of me the whole land has been laid waste with utter desolation,” look at the land within you, and how it was laid waste when Jesus came. It was laid waste when the members that are on the earth were put to death, and the land no longer does its own works. In the righteous person the works of the flesh, with which the flesh used to flourish, no longer appear: no more fornication, no more uncleanness, no more licentiousness, no more idolatry, no more sorcery, and the rest. The Savior also says, “Do you think that I came to bring peace on the earth? I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” It is true: before he came there was no sword on the earth, and neither did the flesh desire against the spirit nor the spirit against the flesh. But when he came, and we were taught what belongs to the flesh and what belongs to the Spirit, the teaching became like a sword on the earth and divided the flesh, the land, from the Spirit. So “the land was laid waste” when we carry about in the body the putting to death of Jesus, and no longer live according to the flesh, but the Spirit lives. We sow nothing to the flesh but everything to the Spirit, so that we may not reap corruption from the flesh but eternal life from the Spirit.

3a The sinners are told, “Sow wheat and reap thorns.” Even if people busy themselves with the oracles of God, those who do not handle them well, who do not live as they should and do not believe, sow wheat and reap thorns. This is best understood of those who hold other doctrines and read the Scriptures. They reap thorns, not from the Scriptures, but from their own inventions. “Their lots will not profit them.” Others have also explained these words. Since we do not reject their explanation, we gladly bring it forward, not as though we had discovered it, but as those who have learned a good lesson. This word will profit you and us alike, if we pay attention to what is written. We seem to belong to a certain “lot,” since we preside over you, so that some people want to come to this lot. But you know that the lot does not by any means save. Many presbyters will perish, and many lay people will prove blessed. Some in the clergy do not live in a way that profits them or adorns the clergy. For this reason, say those who explained the passage, it is written, “Their lots will not profit them.” What profits is not simply sitting in the presbyters’ seat, but living worthily of the place, as the word demands. The word demands that you live well, and that we do too.

3b But if one may put it this way, “the mighty will be mightily tested.” More is required of me than of the deacon, more of the deacon than of the lay person, and still more is required of the one who has been entrusted with the leadership over all of us, the leadership of the church itself. For this reason the apostle, who was entrusted with great things, says (listen): “So let a person regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Here, moreover, it is required of stewards that someone be found faithful.” And so it is rare to find a faithful and good steward. Jesus, “who knows all things before they come to be,” says: “Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his master will set over his household to give the portion of food to his servants at the proper time?” Then he blames certain stewards and says: “But if that wicked servant begins to say, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in two, and will put his portion with the unfaithful.” So much for “Their lots will not profit them.”

4 Let us look next at a necessary rebuke, which it is good to take up on the moral level: “Be ashamed of your boasting, of your reproach before the Lord.” There are things in which we boast out of foolishness, though they are not worth boasting about. For instance, if someone boasts that he is rich and has acquired many possessions, it may be said to him, “Be ashamed of your boasting.” If someone boasts of this outward nobility of birth, it will be said to him, “Be ashamed of your boasting.” If someone boasts of expensive clothes, or of building a richly furnished house, such boasting is foreign to the boasting of the saints. So it will be said to such a person, “Be ashamed of your boasting.” Listen to the word of the prophet Jeremiah, who commands us not to boast even in wisdom. “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom,” he says, “nor the strong man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches. But let the one who boasts boast in this: to understand and know that I am the Lord.” If you want to boast, and not hear “Be ashamed of your boasting,” boast as the apostle did and say: “But may it never happen to me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” If you want to boast so that it is not said, “Be ashamed of your boasting,” listen to Paul boasting and learn when he says: “Most gladly, then, I will boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Listen to what kind of things he boasts of: “in labors more abundantly” (which of us can say this?), “in prisons beyond measure, in deaths often. Five times I received forty lashes less one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked.” So we learn that there are differences among kinds of boasting. Some boasting deserves shame, and of it that apostolic saying could be used: “and their glory is in their shame.” They think they are glorified in the very things over which they ought to be ashamed.

5a After this, let us look at the matter of the loincloth. For “Thus says the Lord: Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth, and put it around your waist, and you will not pass through water. And I bought a loincloth according to the word of the Lord and put it around my waist. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Take the loincloth that is around your waist, and get up and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole in the rock.” After some days he comes there and finds the loincloth rotted. Then the Lord adds, giving the starting point for explaining the loincloth: “As the loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to myself, says the Lord, so that they would be for me a renowned people, a boast and a glory. And they did not listen to me.” So the prophet is taken to stand in the place of God. He wraps the linen loincloth around his waist, as God does with the people. For God says, “I made this people cling to myself.” So the people become, as it were, the loincloth of God. But why does the people become a loincloth around God’s waist? Let anyone who is able read Ezekiel, and see God, as it were, given a body in the account. In Ezekiel the parts of him from the waist down [are fire], and the parts from the waist up are electrum. Let that reader search out the reason why the lower part of God is fire. The things that belong to the waist and to birth, these are fire. For everything that exists in the realm of birth needs the cleansing that comes from fire. Everything in the realm of birth needs punishment.

5b But the parts above the waist, which have passed beyond birth, are made of a substance that is, as it were, the purest and most precious. For electrum is said to be more precious than gold. Scripture uses illustrations to teach that the upper part of God’s body is more honorable and the lower part less so. This is why it presents God as made up of fire and electrum. [And there is a body of God † and he himself] In the realm of birth each of us is fire; we are not the electrum. But if we ascend and make progress, we shall pass through the fire and be the electrum around the higher part of God’s body. (For it is possible to move from being among the lower things today to becoming the upper part of God’s body.) 6. So he makes the linen loincloth cling around his waist. Why? To show that the people are, as it were, a covering for God. For against those who want to accuse God, the people stand up and, as it were, shield him, and do not allow anything improper to be said about God. But when we sin, it is as when the prophet takes off this loincloth and condemns it to the river Euphrates so that it may be ruined there. In the same way the one who sins is thrown off from God’s waist. Once thrown off, he is cast into the river Euphrates, the river of Mesopotamia, where the Assyrians, Israel’s enemies, are, and where the Babylonians are. And there he is ruined. For although there are so many rivers, the prophet is sent from Judea to the river Euphrates to do business there and to carry away a little linen loincloth. Why also “linen”? Because it has its origin from the earth. It is a plant that grows up from the ground. Then, after it has been farmed, it is combed, washed, and scoured, [and worked on at great length], so that it becomes fit to be a loincloth or whatever else.

5c So all of us, too, have our origin like the Lord’s waistcloth. Since we have our origin from the earth, we need a great deal of preparation: to be combed, to be washed, to lose the color of the earth. The natural color of flax in its origin is one thing, and the color it gets from the working is another. The color of flax in its origin is rather dark, but through the working it becomes brilliantly bright. Something like this happens to us who are in the realm of birth. We are dark at the beginning of believing. That is why it is said at the beginning of the Song of Songs, “I am dark and beautiful.” At the beginning we resemble Ethiopians in our soul. Then we are cleaned so that we may become brighter, as in the words, “Who is this who comes up made white?” And we become “bright and clean linen.” Then we are also woven into God’s waistcloth, when we are worthy to be joined to God. God does not set us aside. He set aside the first people, “the whole house of Judah” and “the house of Israel.” It came to the point that they were no longer of use, for he no longer girds himself with them. In their place God has girded himself with us. He did not throw away the waistcloth and stay naked; he wove himself another waistcloth. This waistcloth is the church from the nations. Let her know that if God did not spare the former ones, how much more will he not spare her if she sins, unless she is worthy of God’s waist. “But the one who is joined to the Lord is one spirit,” in Christ Jesus, to whom belong glory and power forever. Amen.

Homily 12

1a What the prophet is commanded by God to say must be worthy of God. But if we stay with the letter, it appears not to be worthy of God, so that someone who hears the letter might say, “These writings are foolishness.” The natural person will say this: “The natural person does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him.” So look at what the text says. “And you shall say to this people: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.” What he says as “the Lord, the God of Israel” must be worthy of the Lord of Israel. “Every wineskin will be filled with wine. And if they say to you, ‘Shall we not indeed know that every wineskin will be filled with wine?’” Now if those who answer, standing on the plain wording, say this, claiming to know that “every wineskin will be filled with wine,” they are lying. For not “every wineskin will be filled with wine.” There are, at any rate, wineskins filled with oil or some other liquid. [Some, then, are lying; for not every wineskin will be filled with wine.] And the people answer, saying, “Shall we not indeed know that every wineskin will be filled with wine?” This will receive from us, as far as we are able, an explanation of the following kind. If we know the differences among wines and what is said about them, then, following these, we will see about the wineskins that it is true that “every wineskin will be filled with wine.”

1b For if a wineskin is good (let us name one that way, a wineskin among wineskins), it will be filled with wine according to its own goodness. And if it is worthless, when wineskins are compared and judged, it too will be filled with worthless wine according to its worthlessness. How then can we take from Scripture what it says about the different wines? About the worse ones it is written: “For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, and their branch from Gomorrah. Their grape is a grape of gall, a cluster of bitterness for them. Their wine is the rage of dragons, and the incurable rage of asps.” About the better ones: “Your cup makes me drunk, like the strongest.” And Wisdom calls people together to her own mixing bowl, saying, “Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mixed for you.” So there is wine from Sodom, and there is wine which Wisdom mixes. And again: “A vineyard was made for the beloved on a horn, in a fertile place,” planted by God, the one called the vine of Sorek, being something chosen and wonderful. And there is also a vine of the Egyptians, which God strikes, according to what is written: “God struck their vine with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost.”

2a Now consider with me that all human beings, figuratively speaking, are able to hold wine. In that sense I call them wineskins. I say that the wicked person has been filled with “wine from the vine of Sodom,” with Egyptian wine, and with the wine of Israel’s enemies. But the holy person, who has been helped, has been filled with wine from the vine of Sorek, with the wine about which it is written, “Your cup makes me drunk, as the strongest [wine] does,” and again, the holy person has been filled with the wine which Wisdom mixed. Let me understand these things in terms of evil and virtue, so that the saying “every wineskin is filled with wine” may be seen to hold. But if we must also look at what comes through evil and through virtue (punishments for evil, blessings and promises for virtue), let us show from the sacred writings how punishments and promises are both called wine. “Take the cup of this unmixed wine, and you shall make all the nations drink, those to whom I send you.” Jeremiah says this, and the text goes on: “And they will drink and vomit and go mad and fall.” So here he has called punishments unmixed wine, which those drink who are worthy of unmixed wine, that is, of unmixed punishment. But there are others who drink a punishment that is not unmixed but mixed. For “there is a cup in the hand of the Lord, full of unmixed wine, a mixture. He tilted it from this one into that one. Yet its dregs were not emptied out; all the sinners of the [earth] will drink.” If you also want to see a cup of blessing, which the righteous drink, the cup of Wisdom would be enough, about which she said, “Drink the wine which I have mixed for you.” But look also at the Savior going up for the Passover into “a large upper room, furnished and prepared.” He keeps the feast with his disciples and gives them a cup. About this it is not written that he mixed it. For when Jesus gladdens his disciples, he gladdens them with unmixed wine, and he says to them: “Take, drink; this is my blood, poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink, in remembrance of me.” And: “Truly I tell you, I will not drink it from now on until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God.”

2b Do you see that the promise is the cup of the new covenant? Do you see that punishments are a cup of unmixed wine, and that another kind of punishment is a mixed cup? So for each person the cup is mixed according to the worth of the good deeds mingled with the bad deeds, and that is what he will drink. Understand it this way. Those who are altogether strangers to godliness, who pay no attention to themselves at all but live however they happen to, drink the unmixed wine, about which we quoted the words of Jeremiah. But those who have not wholly fallen away and are not simply sinners, though they are unworthy of the cup “of the new covenant,” and who do now better deeds and now opposite ones, drink wine “of an unmixed mixture.” For God “tilted it from this one into that one.” Which “this one”? I see two cups, according to what is said: “He tilted it from this one into that one; yet its dregs were not emptied out.” Think of the cup of your good works in one hand of God. Or, if you want me to say it more boldly, let the cup of your good works be in God’s right hand, and let the cup of your sins be in God’s left hand. So when you are about to be punished for your sins, since you have also done some better works, there is a cup “in the hand of the Lord, full of unmixed wine, a mixture. And he tilted it from this one into that one,” from the one in the left hand into the one in the right. For you cannot drink only the cup of good deeds, since you have not done only good works. Nor can you drink only the cup of sins, for some good things have also been done by you.

2c This is why “he tipped it from this one into that one.” Wrath and punishment are mixed for you in proportion to your works, so that your punishment is either more diluted or sharper and more painful. As I said before, the sins are weighed against the good deeds in proportion. The effect of the cup of wrath, which is given [in measure] for each of the sins, is somehow softened or else not softened. But if you are good and noble through and through, you say, “I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call on the name of the Lord.” So “every wineskin,” whether good or wicked, “will be filled with wine.” According to the fitness of the skin, wine will be poured into it, following the sense of the “wineskins” named here. Oil is not poured into wineskins, nor any other liquid. Every wineskin must be filled with wine.

3a Next he teaches, on account of those who sinned then in Jerusalem and in Judea (as far as the plain wording goes), what kind of wine God means to fill these wineskins with, that is, the sinners. For it is written: “If they say to you, ‘Will we not know for certain that every wineskin will be filled with wine?’ then you shall say to them: This is what the Lord says: Look, I am filling all who live in this land, and the kings, the sons of David who sit on his throne, and the priests.” The one who is about to punish spares no one. It is not the case that because someone served as a prophet, yet has sins, he will not be filled with the threats that are spoken. Nor does God spare a priest, who held the office and seemed to have a more honored name among the people, so as to keep him from being punished when he sins. The things written about those people, the apostle says, were written for our sake, “upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” So if anyone sins among these priests (by which I mean us, the presbyters), or among these Levites who stand around the people (I mean the deacons), he will receive this punishment. In the same way there are certain priestly blessings. God willing, we shall learn about them not long from now, after we have worked through the prophetic word, when Numbers is read, for something is going to be said there about priests. So God says he will fill “the priests and the prophets and Judah and all who live in Jerusalem” with “drunkenness,” and will scatter “them, a man and his brother, their fathers and their sons.” Let us understand this as follows: God gathers the righteous together, but scatters sinners. For this reason, as long as people did not move away from the east, God did not scatter them. But when they moved “from the east” and “each man said to his neighbor, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach to heaven,’” God says about them, “Come, let us go down and confuse their language there.” Then each one is confused and scattered to some place on the earth.

3b The people of Israel, too, were in Judea so long as they did not sin. But once they sinned, they were scattered from the inhabited world and spread everywhere. Think of something like this for all of us. There is a church of the firstborn, enrolled in heaven, [where there is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem]. The blessed will be gathered there, so that they may be together. But sinners are punished in just this way: they are not with one another. I know of people in this life who, to punish and torment, want to hand someone over to an island, and who scatter the household of one who has offended the kingdom. The wife goes here, one son there, another son somewhere else, so that even in their misfortune the mother cannot enjoy her son, or the brother his brother. Think of something like this in the case of the unjust. You, the sinner, being managed by God, must taste something more bitter, so that you may be taught and saved. You do not punish your servant or your son simply because you want to torment him, but to turn him around through hardship. In the same way God will discipline, through the pains that come from suffering, those who are not turned by the word and have not been healed. What he puts around them, he puts around them for discipline, as it has been said: “Continually you will be disciplined, Jerusalem, by hardship and the lash.” So that the disciplining pain may increase, those who suffer are scattered from one another, so that this one and that one are not together. For the severity of the pain would be broken if each one found comfort in the other.

4 If I should add to the argument another reason for the scattering, I will set that out too. Wicked people who are together look to wicked things and increase them, just as good people together with good people think about good things. So the evil plan, which would have been strong among like-minded people, is broken up and divided when the wicked are scattered from one another. For this reason God arranges that the base are not with one another. Perhaps he is even looking out for them, so that their wickedness may not grow together, but may be diminished by being dissolved. This is the point of the words: “I will scatter them, a man and his brother, and their fathers and their sons together, says the Lord.” “I will not long for them, and I will not spare, and I will not pity, because of their corruption.” 5a Those from the heresies seize on sayings like these and say: “Do you see what the Creator is like? The God of the prophets, who says, ‘I will not spare and I will not pity, because of their corruption’? How can this one be good?” But suppose I take as an example a judge who, for the good of the community, does not show pity, and a magistrate who rightly shows no mercy. From that example I will be able to persuade you that God, while sparing many, does not spare one. I will also take the example of a doctor, to show that in sparing the whole body he does not spare one limb. Suppose, for example, that the task set before a judge is to bring about peace and to establish what is beneficial for the nation under him. Suppose a murderer is brought before him, handsome in appearance and good to look at. Suppose a mother comes and offers pitiful words to the judge, so that her old age may be pitied. Suppose the wife of this man, who does not deserve pity, begs for mercy, and the children stand around and plead for him. In these circumstances, what benefits the community? Is it that he be shown mercy or not shown mercy? If he is shown mercy, he will go back to the same things. If he is not shown mercy, he himself will die, but the community will be improved. So if God spares the sinner, and has mercy and pity on him so as not to punish, who will not be ruined? Which of the base, if their sins were stopped only by the fear of punishments, will not be ruined, and will not become worse? One can see such things happening in the churches too. Someone has sinned, and after the sin has asked for communion. If he is pardoned too quickly, the community is ruined.

5b Then the sin of others grows. But suppose the judge reasons it out. He is not unmerciful or cruel; he cares for the one man too, but he cares more for the many than for the one. He considers the harm that will come to the community if that one man is kept in fellowship and his sin is pardoned. Plainly he will have the one cast out, so that he may save the many. Look also at a physician. Suppose he spares himself the cutting of what needs to be cut, and the burning of what needs to be burned, because of the pains that follow such treatments. In that case the disease grows and gets worse. But if he boldly goes to the knife and the cautery, he will heal by showing no pity, by seeming to have no compassion on the man who is burned and cut. So it is with God. He does not manage one human being; he manages the whole world, and governs everything in heaven and on earth everywhere. So he considers what is good for the whole world and for all that exists. As far as possible he considers also what is good for the one, but not so that the good of the one comes at the cost of the world. For this reason eternal fire has been prepared, for this reason Gehenna has been made ready, and for this reason there is an outer darkness. These are needed not only for the one who is punished, but above all for the community.

6 If you want Scripture as a witness that sinners are punished also for the instruction of others, even if they themselves may sometimes be past hope of cure, listen to Solomon in Proverbs: “When a scoffer is flogged, the fool will become shrewder.” He did not say that the one being flogged would become shrewder and wiser because of the lashes. He says that the fool changes from folly to wisdom because of the lashes laid on the scoffer. That is what the word “shrewdness” signifies here. And the fool changes by seeing others flogged. So the punishment of others is good for us, provided we become worthy of salvation through others being punished. And just as the fall of Israel brought about the salvation of the Gentiles, so the punishment of some will bring about the salvation of others. This is why God, who is good, says: “I will not spare, and I will not have compassion, because of their corruption.”

7 Now that we have set one main point within its limits, let us see what the other teaches us. “Hear and give ear, and do not be lifted up, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord our God before it grows dark, and before your feet stumble on dark mountains. You will wait for light, and there will be the shadow of death, and they will be set in darkness. But if you will not hear in secret, your soul will weep before the face of insolence, and your eyes will shed tears, because the Lord’s flock has been crushed.” He wants the same people both to hear and to give ear. He is not satisfied with their only hearing, or only giving ear. That is why he says, “Hear and give ear.” Then after this he commands them not to be lifted up, and teaches what must be done. Let us understand from the wording itself what hearing is and what giving ear is. “Give ear” means: take it in with the ears. And “hear,” if it is said in contrast with “give ear,” may perhaps mean: take it into the mind. Among the things said in the Scriptures, some are more hidden and mysterious, and others are useful in themselves to those who understand. I think “hear” is said about the more hidden things, and “give ear” about those that are useful in themselves and can benefit the hearer even without interpretation. So if we examine the whole of Scripture, and prove ourselves skilled money-changers, we will say: this part calls for “hear,” and this part for “give ear.” Then, when we have listened and given ear, he commands us: “And do not be lifted up.” For “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.” And the Savior, when he says, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls,” teaches us not to be lifted up. Along with the other human evils, this sin is strong in us. Sometimes we are lifted up quite irrationally, over things we should not be lifted up about even in the smallest degree. At other times we are lifted up with some plausibility, because what we are proud of seems reasonable. Yet even being lifted up over that is not healthy.

8a What I mean will become clear like this. Some people are puffed up because they are the sons of rulers, or because they come from a family with great worldly honors. People like that are puffed up over something that is not their own choice and makes no moral difference. They don’t even have a reasonable-sounding excuse to draw them toward pride. Others are puffed up because they have the power to put people to death. Others are puffed up because they have received what they call a “promotion” so high that they can cut off men’s heads. The “glory” of such people “is in their shame.” Others are puffed up over wealth, and not the true wealth but the wealth down here. Others, let us say, are puffed up because they own a beautiful house or many fields. None of these things is worth talking about, and no one should be puffed up over any of them. But there is a plausible case for being puffed up when someone is puffed up because he is wise. Or he is puffed up because he knows in his own conscience that for ten years now he has not touched sexual pleasure, or has not touched it since boyhood. Or another man is puffed up because he has worn chains for Christ’s sake. Here there is a plausibility that suggests it is reasonable to be puffed up. Yet even over these things, measured by the true account, no one is reasonably puffed up. So it is not reasonable to be puffed up even over these. Paul had material for being puffed up: the appearances, the visions, the wonders and signs, the labors he labored for Christ, and the churches he established. He was ambitious to lay the foundation of a church where Christ had not been named.

8b All this was material for him, if one may speak with that plausibility about being puffed up, so that some people might have thought it right for him to be puffed up. But even so, since being puffed up over such things is not free of danger either, the good Father gave him visions and sights, and in the same way he gave him, as a kind of gift, “a messenger of Satan to strike him, so that he would not be exalted too highly. Three times he begged the Lord about this, that the messenger of Satan would leave him.” That messenger was given to him precisely so that he would not be puffed up. And the Lord answered him (for Paul was worthy of an answer from the Lord) and said to him: “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So there is nothing over which one should be puffed up. A fall follows being puffed up, as it says: “Before destruction a man’s heart is lifted up, and before glory it is humbled.” That is what I have to say on “Hear and listen, and do not be puffed up, for the Lord has spoken.”

9 Let us see also what he commands us to do after this. “Give,” he says, “glory to the Lord our God before it grows dark, before your feet stumble on dark mountains, and you wait for light.” He wants the one who gives “glory to God” to give “glory to God” while there is light, as if God’s glory could not be declared once darkness has fallen and it has become dark. So when does it grow dark, and when does the darkening not happen? “Work as though the light is in you.” The light is in you if you have in you the one who said, “I am the light of the world.” As long as he rises for you, glorify God. But know that some darkening can come, and that this darkness must not remain. Before it grows dark, give glory to God. 10a Perhaps we will understand what is written if we use a saying from the Gospel, spoken by the Savior, which goes like this: “Work while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” There he called this present age “day.” (I had to add “there,” because I know that “day” is used of other things in other places.) So he called this present age “day,” and he called the end of the age “darkness” and “night,” because of the punishments. For the prophet Amos says, “Why do you long for the day of the Lord? It too is darkness and not light.” Consider what is grim after the end of the world, what follows when almost the whole human race is being punished for its sins. You will see that then the surrounding air has grown dark, and no one can any longer glorify God. Even to the righteous the word of God gives this command: “Go, my people, enter into your chamber, shut your door, hide yourself for a little, just a little, until the fury of my anger passes by.” At the same time, if anyone is able, let him pay attention to what is said here: “a little, just a little.” But that “little” is little to God; it is not little to a human being. For we must see that to each creature there is something small and something great. Let me show by an example that for each one something is small or great.

10b For any living creature, a certain amount of food is small compared with the size of its body, and a certain amount is large compared with its build. So what is small to a human being is great to another creature. What is small to a grown man, say, is a lot to a child. In the same way, the whole span of human life, even of a long-lived man, is a short time compared with the whole age of the universe as it now stands. So too, what is small to God is a great deal to us, and God’s “little” is a whole age. If it is said, then, “Go, my people, enter into your chambers, shut your door, hide yourself for a little, just a little,” we must suppose that the “little” is spoken not in relation to the one who is told to go and enter his chambers, but in relation to the one who gives the command, to whom what is much for the other is small. For if some people must enter their chambers “until the fury of the anger” of God passes by, and there are some whose sins are not forgiven, not only throughout this whole age but also throughout the whole age to come, then it is clear that the “little” stretches out to cover what has been said.

11 “Give glory, then, to the Lord our God.” How do we give glory to the Lord our God? I do not look for giving glory to the Lord our God in voices and little phrases. The one who gives glory to the Lord our God gives it to him in deeds. Glorify God in self-control, in righteousness, in doing good. Give glory to God in courage and endurance. Give glory to God in godliness, in holiness, and in the other virtues. But if this is so, and this is how someone glorifies God, then if I say the opposite, do not think that I am blaspheming, for I will bring Scripture forward as a witness for those things too. The self-controlled person glorifies God; the one who lives without restraint dishonors God. For such a person tears down the temple of God as Nebuchadnezzar did, and “destroys the temple of God,” and “through breaking the law dishonors God.” (This last is also an apostolic saying.) So the sinner puts dishonor on God. Questions about providence are raised too, so that some doubt whether there is providence at all, and the cause is nothing other than wickedness. Take wickedness away, and you do not stumble over providence. Those who stumble over providence say, over and over, things like this: “Why are there so many adulterers and so many effeminate men? Why are there so many godless and ungodly people?” And it is those who sin who have produced the dishonor to providence, the stumbling blocks to God, and the blasphemy against the creator of the world. Some, then, do give glory to God, but those who by their sins do the opposite of what is for God’s glory do not give him glory.

12a “Give glory to the Lord our God before it grows dark, before your feet stumble on dark mountains.” There are dark mountains, and there are mountains full of light. Which is which? The holy angels of God are mountains of light, and so are the prophets, Moses the servant, and the apostles of Jesus Christ. All these are bright mountains, and I think the Psalms speak of them: “His foundations are in the holy mountains.” What, then, are the dark mountains? They are those who raise up high things against the knowledge of God. The devil is a dark mountain. The rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing, are dark mountains. The demon that caused the epileptic fit was also a mountain, and a dark one. The Savior said of it, “You will say to this mountain.” The question was about the epileptic spirit. The disciples said, “Why could we not cast it out?” and the Savior answered, “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain,” the one you brought up, the one you asked about, “you will say to this mountain: Move from here to there, and it will move.” “From here” means from the man; “to there” means to its own place. So those who stumble do not stumble on mountains of light but on dark mountains, when they come to be with the devil and his angels, the dark mountains. “And you will wait for light.” This phrase can be joined with “Give glory to the Lord our God.” If you give glory to the Lord our God before it grows dark, before your feet stumble on dark mountains, then clearly, even if darkness falls, “you will wait for the light,” and the light will take you up. Someone else might say, though I do not know whether he understands it soundly or not, that even those who stumble on dark mountains will wait among the dark mountains, waiting for the light of mercy. For this, he thinks, would be the meaning of “and you will wait for light.”

12b But when someone has come to the dark mountains, let us see what is there: “the shadow of death.” Where the dark mountains are, the shadow of death arises from the dark mountains themselves. 13. “And they will be set in darkness.” “But if you do not listen in a hidden way, your soul will weep before the face of insolence.” Of those who hear, some hear in a hidden way, and others, even if they hear, do not hear in a hidden way. What is it, then, to hear in a hidden way? It is what is meant by “But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory.” And elsewhere it is said again that “most of God’s works are in hidden things.” When I hear the law, either I hear it in a hidden way or I do not. The Jew does not hear the law in a hidden way. That is why he is circumcised openly, not knowing that “the Jew is not the one who is so openly, nor is circumcision the outward one in the flesh.” But the one who hears about circumcision in a hidden way will be circumcised in secret. The one who hears in a hidden way what is laid down about the Passover eats from the lamb, Christ, for “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.” He knows what the flesh of the Word is like, and knows that it is “true food,” and he shares in it. For he heard about the Passover in a hidden way. But this great crowd of Jews killed the Lord Jesus for this reason, and is guilty even today of the murder of Jesus: they did not hear the law or the prophets in a hidden way. If you read about the unleavened bread, you can hear the commandment in a hidden way, or you can hear it openly. Those of you (for the Passover is near) who keep unleavened bread in the bodily sense do not hear the commandment that says, “If you do not listen in a hidden way, your soul will weep.”

12c The same is true of the Sabbath. Women who have not heard the prophet “in a hidden way” do not hear in a hidden way; they hear only on the surface. They do not bathe on the Sabbath day. They go back “to the poor and weak elements,” as though Christ had never come among us, he who brings us to maturity and carries us over from the elements of the law to the perfection of the gospel. So let us take care when we read the law and the prophets, so that we do not fall under the prophecy that says, “But if you do not listen in a hidden way, your soul will weep because of the insult.” Some of you keep the Jewish fast, not understanding it, and observe the day of atonement even after the coming of Jesus Christ. You have not heard about the atonement in a hidden way, but only on the surface. To hear about the atonement in a hidden way is to hear how God [set forth] Jesus as an atonement for our sins, and that “he himself is the atonement for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.” Even when the parables of the gospel are read, if the hearer is one of those “outside,” he will not hear them in a hidden way. But if the hearer is an apostle, or one of those who go in “to the house” of Jesus, he comes to Jesus and asks about the obscurity of the parable, and Jesus explains it. Then that hearer of the gospel hears it in a hidden way, so that his soul will not weep. For the soul weeps for those who do not hear in a hidden way. Notice how wonderfully he did not say, “You will weep, if you do not hear in a hidden way,” but, “Your soul will weep.” There is a weeping of the soul alone, a soul weeping by itself. Perhaps that is the weeping the Savior teaches us about when he says, “There will be the weeping.” And when he says, “Woe to those who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep,” he speaks of that same weeping, which the prophet also threatens here when he says, “But if you do not listen in a hidden way, your soul will weep because of the insult.”

12d For when you are insulted, then you will weep, and your eyes will pour down tears, “because the Lord’s flock has been broken.” Suppose someone now looks at the state of the Jews and compares it with their ancient condition. He will see how “the Lord’s flock was broken.” For this people was once the Lord’s flock, and because they judged themselves unworthy, the word turned to the Gentiles. So if that flock of the Lord was broken, should we not fear even more, we who are the wild olive, grafted contrary to its nature into the cultivated olive of the fathers, that this “flock of the Lord” may also be broken? For it is going to be broken at some time, according to what the Savior said, when “because lawlessness increases, the love of the many will grow cold.” Of whom is this said? Is it not said of those called Christians, “the love of the many will grow cold”? Of whom is it said, “when the Son of Man comes, will he indeed find faith on the earth?” Is it not about us? Therefore let us pay attention to ourselves in everything we do, so that day by day this flock of God may be improved, healed and cared for, and every brokenness may be removed from our souls. So may we be brought to perfection in Christ Jesus, to whom belong glory and power forever. Amen.

Homily 13

1a We want to understand the words spoken to Jerusalem, with all their heavy threat, in this way: “Who will spare you, Jerusalem? Or who will look sorrowful over you? Or who will turn back to ask after your peace? You have turned away from me, says the Lord. You will go backward. I will stretch out my hand against you and destroy you, and I will not let you go any more. And I will scatter them in a dispersion.” Then: “I have been made childless.” I am at a loss over this, so I take an example. Suppose someone has been proved an enemy of the king who reigns on earth. It is not permitted to show mercy to such a man, so that no one may seem to offend the king who condemned him. Some go further: it is not allowed even to share in showing pity to him. They will not even look sorrowful over him, so that by looking sorrowful they may not seem to be displeased with the one the king has judged. If you have understood this, then look at the man condemned by God because of his many sins, and consider him. There are legions of angels appointed to help human nature, yet no one has mercy on him. For each of the angels sees that the one who condemned him is God. He sees that the one who was turned away from is the Creator. He sees that the nature of the sins is such that the good God was compelled, so to speak, to bring the sentence against the one who sinned. So each of those who see it does not spare him, does not look sorrowful, does not show mercy, does not come back to plead for peace with such a man. So let this Jerusalem (for it will be called so because of the letter) sin against me, and let it do such things that Jesus says of it: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

1b Look, your house is left to you.” Let this Jerusalem be left, as it has been left. Let the angels who always helped Jerusalem, through whom even the law of Moses was ordained, “ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator,” leave Jerusalem and say: Its sins have become great. They killed Jesus. They laid their hands on Christ. If the sins had still been smaller, we could still have appealed and pleaded for them. We could have spared Jerusalem. But who will spare it over this? “If a man sins against a man, they will pray for him. But if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?” “Jerusalem has sinned a sin, therefore it has become an object of tossing and shaking.” And it is said to this very city first: “Who will spare you, Jerusalem? And who will look sorrowful over you?” We do not look sorrowful over Jerusalem and its misfortunes, or over what has happened to that whole people. For through their transgression salvation has come to us, to make them jealous. Their transgression became so great a sin that the voice of the Lord said: “Who then will spare you?” And I too say to the city that killed my Jesus: “Who will spare you, Jerusalem? And who will look sorrowful over you?”

2 I now move on from the letter. I have trained myself [in the way the Word gave], and I turn to every soul already counted worthy to see peace. After the divine lessons you have become Jerusalem, though before you were Jebus. The history says that its name was Jebus, and that it later changed its name to Jerusalem. The children of the Hebrews say that Jebus means “Trodden Down.” So Jebus, the soul trodden down by opposing powers, has been changed and has become Jerusalem, “Vision of Peace.” Suppose that, after changing from Jebus into Jerusalem, you sinned. Suppose you trampled the Son of God, as that Jerusalem did, and counted the blood of the new covenant common, and lived in grievous sins. Then it will be said of you also: “Who will spare you, Jerusalem? And who will look sad over you?” That is what will be said if you become the kind of person who betrays Jesus. Each of us, when he sins, and above all when he sins greatly, sins against Jesus. And if he is also an apostate, he does to Jesus in spirit, and all the more, what Jerusalem did to him in the body. Therefore: “How much worse a punishment do you think he will be counted worthy of, who has trampled the Son of God, and counted common the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” If you have trampled the Son of God and insulted the Spirit of grace, “who will spare you? Who will look sad over you? Who will turn back to ask about what makes for your peace?” The sinner’s soul has betrayed the very Son of God, who asked about what makes for your peace. Who, then, can turn back again and plead for peace? We know that it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who became partakers of the Holy Spirit, and who tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age, and then fell away, to be renewed again to repentance. They crucify the Son of God again in themselves and hold him up to public shame. So let us do everything we can so that it is not said of us: “Who will spare you, Jerusalem? And who will look sad over you? Or who will turn back to ask about peace for you?”

3a The next words fit either interpretation of Jerusalem: “You turned away from me, says the Lord. You will go backward.” Why say more about the fact that you turned away from the Son of God, and that by turning away from the Son of God you turned away from God? The Jerusalem in Judea turned away from Christ, and by it we must understand all the Jews. That is why “you will go backward.” There was a time when it did not go backward but forward. Now it goes backward: “and they turned in their hearts to Egypt,” clearly so as to go backward. What does “you will go backward” mean, and what does it mean to stretch forward to what lies ahead? We will explain it this way. The righteous man stretches forward to what lies ahead, [forgetting] what lies behind. Clearly, the one who is the opposite of the righteous man remembers what lies behind and does not stretch forward. And whoever remembers what lies behind refuses to listen to Jesus when he teaches and says: “Let him not turn back to the things behind to take his cloak.” He refuses to listen to Jesus when he says: “Remember Lot’s wife.” He refuses to listen to Jesus when he says: “No one who puts his hand to the plough and turns back to the things behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” It is also written in the Law that the angels said to Lot, who was leaving Sodom: “Do not look back at the things behind, and do not stand anywhere in all the surrounding country. Save yourself on the mountain.”

3b “…lest you be swept away with them.” This also has a meaning worthy of an angelic spirit: “Do not look back.” Always stretch forward to what lies ahead. You have left Sodom; do not turn back toward Sodom. You have left wickedness and sin; do not return to them. “Do not stand anywhere in the surrounding region.” Even if you keep the first command, “Do not look back,” that is not enough for you to be saved unless you also obey the second command: “Do not stand anywhere in the surrounding region.” Someone who has begun to make progress must not stand in the region around Sodom, even if he has passed through Sodom itself. Having passed through, he must go on from standing in the surrounding region and be saved on the mountain, as it says: “Do not look back, and do not stand anywhere in the surrounding region; escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away with them.” If you do not want to be swept away with the Sodomites, never turn back, do not stand in the region around Sodom, and do not go anywhere else except to the mountain. For only there is it possible to be saved. The mountain is the Lord Jesus, to whom belong glory and power forever. Amen.