Homilies on Jeremiah

Homilies on Jeremiah

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Homily 14

1 Doctors of the body spend their time with the sick. They give themselves constantly to caring for the sick, as the purpose of the medical art requires. They see dreadful things and touch unpleasant ones. From other people’s misfortunes they harvest sorrows of their own, and their whole life is spent in difficult circumstances. They are never with the healthy, but always with the wounded, with those who have spreading ulcers, with those full of pus, fevers and every kind of disease. And if someone wants to practice medicine, he will not be vexed, nor neglect the purpose of the art he has taken up, when he is among such people as I have described. I have said this by way of introduction because the prophets too are, as it were, doctors of souls, and they always spend their time where those who need healing are. “For those who are well,” it says, “have no need of a doctor, but those who are ill.” What doctors suffer from undisciplined patients, the prophets and teachers suffer from those who do not want to be healed. They are hated because they give orders contrary to the sick people’s chosen desires, as though they were forbidding pleasure and indulgence to people who, even in their sickness, do not want to receive what their sicknesses deserve. So the undisciplined among the sick run away from their doctors. Often they even abuse them and speak evil of them and do whatever an enemy would do to an enemy. They forget that the doctors come as friends. They look only at the hardship of the diet and at the pain of the doctor’s iron instrument, not at the end that comes after the pain. They hate the doctors as though they were only fathers of pains, and not of pains that lead the patients to health.

2 That people was sick, then. There were all kinds of diseases among the people who bore God’s name. God sent them doctors, the prophets. Jeremiah was one of these doctors. He rebuked those who were sinning, wanting to turn back those who were doing wrong. But when they ought to have listened to what he said, they accused the prophet, and they accused him before judges just like themselves. The prophet was always in lawsuits, brought by people who, as far as his prophecy went, might have been healed, but were not healed because of their own disobedience. Over these things he sometimes says: “And I said, I will not speak, and I will not name the name of the Lord. And it became like a burning fire blazing in my bones, and I am worn out on every side and cannot bear it.” At other times, seeing himself always in court, abused, accused and falsely testified against, he says: “Woe is me, mother, that you bore me as what?” He called himself a man who does not judge but is judged, who does not decide but is contended against “by the whole earth.” And since the sick would not listen to his good and medical counsel, he says: “I have not helped.” And since, though he lent them spiritual silver, they did not want to hear what he said, so that they might profit from what they heard, he says: “No one has owed me anything, and I have not owed anyone.”

3 But I said these things ahead of time, before explaining the words “I have not owed, and no one has owed me.” The reading comes in two forms. In most copies it is “I have not helped, and no one has helped me.” But in the most accurate copies, which agree with the Hebrew, it is “I have not owed, and no one has owed me.” So I must explain the reading that is well worn and in circulation in the churches, and I must not leave unexplained the reading that comes from the Hebrew Scriptures. So then, he proclaimed the word, and no one accepted what was said. It was like a physician who used up his medicines on patients who were undisciplined and kept indulging their own desires. It is as if he said, “I have not helped, and no one has helped me.” Perhaps there is a kind of mutual response, owing to the kindness of the one who has been helped toward the one who helped him. So the speaker too comes to be helped, since “blessed is the one who speaks into the ears of those who listen.” In this way, then, a teacher would be helped by hearers who are advancing and improving; he would be helped by having fruits among them. [Having no such help from the Jews, Jeremiah says:] “No one has helped me.” For suppose the speaker ought to have fruit among his hearers, but the hearer turns aside and stays outside what is said. Then it is said, “No one has helped me.” For he does not receive the help he would have received if the hearer, once helped, had become a cause of progress and blessedness to the one who helped him. And in another way, too, every teacher, in the very act of teaching, is helped in what he teaches and what he learns, the more intelligent his pupil is. Those who speak become stronger in the lessons they pass on when the hearers are intelligent and do not simply accept them, but test them in return, ask questions, and examine the meaning of what is said. [So I have not helped, and no one has helped me.]

4 But since another explanation is also necessary, because the more accurate copies read “I have not owed, and no one has owed me,” let us explain the passage in that form as well. Consider the person who pays everyone what is owed: fear to the one due fear, tax to the one due tax, tribute to the one due tribute, honor to the one due honor. He gives everyone what is fitting, so that he owes no one the duties he should do. He honors parents as parents, so to speak, brothers as brothers, sons as sons, bishops as bishops, presbyters as presbyters, deacons as deacons, believers as believers, catechumens as catechumens. If he pays all that is fitting, he has not owed. But if he owes a fitting duty and has not done it, he cannot say, “I have not owed,” for he owed and did not pay. How then shall I explain “and no one has owed me”? I was lending, and I wanted to give the spiritual money. But they turned away from what was said and did not make themselves ready to receive, so that they might owe. For this reason no one owed me. For who accepted what was said, so that by accepting it he would become a debtor for what he heard, and be required, as a debtor, to pay interest on what was said? In this respect, then, it is better for the hearer to receive rational silver from the speaker and owe, than not to accept and not to receive, and so not to owe. For “no one has owed me” is also set down as a charge against them.

5a “Woe is me, mother, that you bore me as a man of lawsuit and dispute to all the earth.” I do not think this fits the other prophets as it fits Jeremiah. Most of the prophets began to prophesy after some time had passed, after a change that followed their wickedness and sins. Jeremiah, though, prophesies from childhood. We can give an example from what is written. Isaiah did not hear, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came out of the womb I sanctified you; I have made you a prophet to the nations.” Nor did he say, “I do not know how to speak, because I am too young.” But when he saw the vision recorded in his prophecy, he saw it and said, “Woe to me, wretched man, for I have unclean lips and I live among a people with unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Sabaoth.” He says, “One of the Seraphim was sent to me, and touched my lips and said: See, I have taken away your lawless deeds, and this will cleanse your sins.” So it was after the sins he had committed earlier that Isaiah was later made worthy of the Holy Spirit and prophesied. You could find something similar in the case of another prophet. Jeremiah was not like this. Adorned with the prophetic Spirit even from his swaddling clothes, he prophesied from childhood. So he said (I am explaining the plain sense first): “Woe is me, mother, that you bore me as a man of lawsuit and dispute to all the earth.” One of those before me made a comment on this passage, saying that he spoke these words not to his bodily mother but to the mother who gives birth to prophets.

5b Who gives birth to prophets, if not the wisdom of God? So he was saying, “Woe is me, mother”; “to what sort of man did you bear me, O Wisdom?” The children of wisdom are also recorded in the Gospel: “And wisdom sends out her children.” So the meaning is: “Woe is me, my mother Wisdom, that you bore me as a man of lawsuit. Who am I, that I have been born to such a destiny, to be put on trial and in dispute because of my rebukes, my reproaches and my teaching, before all who are on the earth?” If Jeremiah says this, “that you bore me as a man of lawsuit and dispute to all the earth,” I cannot explain the words “to all the earth.” Jeremiah was not in dispute with all the earth. Or shall we force the sense and say that “all the earth” means “all Judea”? For his prophecy, as he prophesied then, did not reach the whole earth. But perhaps, as I have shown in countless other places that the name Jeremiah was spoken in place of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall say the same here too. At the beginning I noted the words: “See, I have set you over nations and kingdoms, to uproot and to tear down and to destroy and to build and to plant.” Jeremiah did not do this. But Jesus Christ uprooted the kingdoms of the [earth’s] sins, tore down the buildings of wickedness, and in place of those kingdoms made righteousness and truth reign [in us], in our souls. Just as those words fit better when applied to Christ than to Jeremiah, so I think many other words do too, and these as well.

6a First we must ask about the cry “Woe is me.” Because the words sound so ill-omened, can the Savior say it, when he himself pities others with a “woe”? I will show from words everyone accepts, words that suit no one but the Savior, how he even wept over Jerusalem. Now “Woe is me” is the voice of someone weeping. And it is written in the Gospel that when he saw Jerusalem he wept over it and said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together,” and so on. These other words, too, were plainly spoken by the Savior in the cry: “Woe is me, for I have become like one gathering stubble at harvest, and like a gleaning at the grape harvest, when there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripened fruit. Woe, my soul, for the devout man has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among men. All of them are on trial for blood.” For he came to the harvest to reap, and he finds many sinners, and says, “Woe is me, for I have become like one gathering stubble at harvest.” He came to gather the fruit of life among men, and he finds many sins in us, and so he says, “and like a gleaning at the grape harvest, when there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripened fruit.”

6b Elsewhere he says something similar to these words, speaking to the Father: “What profit is there in my blood, in my going down to corruption?” What good have I done for human beings, great as it was? What have they done that is worth the blood I poured out for them? “What profit is there in my blood, in my going down” from the heavens? I came down, I came to the earth, I gave myself up to corruption, I put on a human body. What worthwhile thing has been set right among men? “What profit is there in my blood, in my going down to corruption? Will dust confess you, or declare your truth?” So then, is the first thing the Savior says here, “Woe is me, mother, that you bore me as a man of strife,” of the same kind? The Savior does not say “Woe is me, mother” as God, but as man, as in the prophet: “Woe, my soul, for the devout man has perished from the earth.” His soul was a human soul; for that reason it was troubled, and for that reason it was deeply grieved. But the Word who was in the beginning with God was not troubled; he would not say “Woe.” For the Word does not admit death. It is the human nature that admitted it, as we have often shown.

7 “Mother, why did you bear me as a man put on trial and judged in all the earth?” If you will look with me at the martyrs everywhere, brought to trial and standing before judges in every church, you will see how Jesus Christ is tried in each of the martyrs. For he is the one on trial in those who bear witness to the truth. You will be persuaded to accept this when you notice that he does not say you are in prison when you are in prison, but himself; not you who are hungry when you are hungry, but himself; not you who are thirsty, but himself. “I was in prison and you came to me. I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink.” So then, even if a Christian is put on trial for no other reason, not for his own sins but because he is a Christian, it is Christ who is on trial. Christ Jesus is therefore on trial in all the earth. As often as a Christian is tried, it is Christ who is on trial. And not only in these courts. Suppose a Christian is slandered, accused falsely of something; even then Christ is unjustly tried. “Mother, why did you bear me as a man put on trial and judged in all the earth?”

8 And here is another way to understand how he is “judged and contended over in all the earth.” Who does not put the Christian message on trial? Which of the nations does not at least examine it in some fashion? Which of the Jews does not have something to say about Christians? Which of the Greeks? Which of the philosophers? Which of the ordinary people? Everywhere Jesus is tried and judged. Some condemn him, and others do not condemn him. If you do not condemn him, he becomes welcome: you open the windows to him, he comes in to you; you believe in him, and he dines with you. But if you hear about Christianity and refuse to accept it, you have done nothing other than condemn Jesus as a liar, as one who led people astray, as one who does not speak the truth, because you have not believed the word he teaches. “Why did you bear me, mother, as a man being judged and contended over in all the earth?” Those who are completely unbelieving condemn him. Those who do not disbelieve but are in doubt about him are divided over him. Jesus suffers two things among human beings: by the unbelieving he is condemned, and by the double-minded he is contended over. If you put on “the image of the heavenly one” and lay aside “the image of the earthly one,” you are not the earth that condemns him. You are not the earth in which he is condemned. You are no longer earth, contending over him.

9 “My strength has failed among those who curse me.” The apostle says of the Savior that “he was crucified out of weakness.” And the prophet says things much like this: “Lord, who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We proclaimed before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land. We saw him, and he had no form or beauty, but his form was without honor, lacking beside the sons of men. He was a man in affliction and in toil, who knew how to bear weakness, because his face was turned away from dishonor; he was dishonored and not esteemed. He bears our lawless deeds and suffers pain for us, and we considered him to be in toil and in affliction and in ill-treatment. But he was wounded for our lawless deeds, and made weak for our sins. The discipline that brings our peace was upon him; by his bruise we were healed.” So he took up the weakness of our sins and bore us, and he came to those who cursed him. As he came down from heaven, his strength failed among those who cursed him. For at the same time he took the form of a slave and emptied himself, as the apostle said: “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” So he says, “My strength has failed among those who curse me.”

10 Let us see whether, if the Word himself grants it, we can say something clearer than what has been said on the words, “My strength has failed among those who curse me.” “There was the true light, which lights every person coming into the world.” The “true light” is the Son of God, “who lights every person coming into the world.” Whoever is rational shares in the true light, and every human being is rational. Now among all the people who share in the Word, in some the strength of the Word has grown, and in others it fails. If you see a soul that is ruled by passions and sinful, you will see there the strength of the Word failing. But if you see a holy and righteous soul, you will see the strength of the Word bearing fruit day by day, and you will apply to the righteous what was said about Jesus. For it is not only in himself that “Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and people.” In each of those who receive advancement in wisdom, stature and grace, “Jesus” also advances “in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and people.” So the Word, the Son of God, who is in the one who said, “Woe is me, mother,” and so on, says, “My strength has failed among those who curse me.” Whoever curses the Word immediately receives punishment for cursing the Word and finding fault with the teaching of Jesus. For the strength of Jesus fails in such a person, and there is no strength of the Word in him. Then again, from the opposite side: if you bless Jesus and receive him, his strength experiences the opposite of what it suffered among those who curse him. As it failed there among those who cursed, so here it grows among those who bless.

11 “May it be so, Lord, as they are set straight. Did I not stand before you in the time of their evils?” What is the meaning of “May it be so, Lord”? Let anyone who can gather this out for himself. “Master and Lord, as they are set straight,” let it be so: let the strength be failing among those who curse, when, after speaking evil of me, they repent, turn to the straight way, and walk it. “May it be so, Master, as they are set straight. Did I not stand before you?” Then he defends himself concerning those who slander him, saying, “Did I not stand before you in the time of their evils?” He stood before the Father, being “the propitiation for our sins,” and he pleaded for them in the very time of our evils. For he did not stand before him after the time of our evils; rather, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” “Did I not stand before you in the time of their evils, in the time of their afflictions, for good things toward the enemy?” He says: in the time of their affliction, the affliction they suffered from the enemy, I stood before you on their behalf. Who is the enemy but “our adversary the devil,” who afflicted us? And clearly, in the time of that enemy’s hostility against human beings, our Savior stood before the Father and pleaded for our captivity, so that we might be ransomed and rescued from the enemy. Let the Savior, or the prophet, have said these things. For the prophet too could have said such things and prayed them on behalf of the people “in the time of their evils.”

12a After this, what does God answer to the people who were accused by the prophet, or by Christ? He says this to them: “Your strength is iron and a bronze covering.” That is, it is hard, unyielding, not to be driven. “Your strength is iron and a bronze covering” means that your strength is a kind of cutting and dividing strength, a strength that is not used for good. “And I will give your treasures for plunder, as an exchange for all your sins.” Which treasures of the sinners does God give “for plunder,” and give “as an exchange for all their sins”? Is it the treasures they store up for themselves on earth? Every person stores up treasure. If he is worthless, he stores it on earth. If he is good, he stores it in heaven, as we were taught from the Gospel. Or is God saying to that people, “Because of your sins I am going to give your treasures for plunder”? Then which treasures of that people were given for plunder? Look: Jeremiah was one of the treasures, Isaiah another, and Moses was a treasure too. God took these treasures from that people and gave them to us, through Christ, who said, “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation that produces its fruits.” So “because of your sins I will give your treasures for plunder.” And he did give the treasures of that people to us. They were the first to be entrusted with the oracles of God. Then after them we were entrusted, when the oracles of God were taken from them and given to us. And we say that the saying “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation that produces its fruits” was spoken by the Savior and has been fulfilled. It is not that the Scripture was taken from them. It is that they no longer possess the law and the prophets, because they do not see the meaning in them.

12b For they do have the books. But how was the kingdom of God taken from them? The meaning of the Scriptures was taken from them. No longer is there kept among them any [legal] explanation or [prophetic ...] concerning the coming of Christ. “I said to that people: You will hear with your ears and never understand, and you will look and look and never see. For the heart of this people has grown fat.” What Isaiah said has also been fulfilled: “The Lord will take away from Judea and from Jerusalem the strong man and the strong woman, the giant and the man of war, the judge and the prophet and the diviner, the wise master builder and the understanding listener.” God took all these things away from them, and gave them to us who are from the nations, if only we will receive them. All this is because of the words, “And I will give your treasures for plunder.” “An exchange for all your sins, and in all your borders.” It is as if he were saying: because of your sins, which have reached to all your borders. For there is no border of that people that has not been filled with sin. And how could every border of theirs not be filled with sin, when they, as far as it lay in them, killed righteousness, if Christ is righteousness, killed wisdom, if Christ is wisdom, and killed truth, if Christ is truth? By condemning the Son of God to death, they threw away and lost all these things. And when my Lord Jesus rose from the dead, he never again appeared to those who had killed him. We do not have it in the history that he appeared to those who killed him. He appeared, risen from the dead, only to those who believed.

13 “And I will enslave you among all your enemies in a land you did not know.” That people has been enslaved among its enemies, and has come to be in a land it did not know. “Because a fire has been kindled from my anger; it will burn against you.” After this, the one who prayed earlier completes his prayer, after the threats spoken against the people, and joins these words to what came before: “You know, Lord; remember me and visit me, and clear me of those who pursue me, not in your patience.” Let the prophet say this, since he was pursued by those he rebuked and hated by those who could not bear the truth. For he became an enemy to his hearers by telling them the truth. But let our Savior say the same, for he too was pursued by the people, and he says, “not in your patience.” What does “not in your patience” mean? You have always been patient with the people over their sins; but over what they have dared against me, do not be patient. And truly God was not patient. If you examine the times of the suffering and fall of Jerusalem and the razing of the city, and how God abandoned that people because they killed Christ, you will see that he no longer showed the people patience. If you wish, listen: from the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar to the razing of the temple, forty-two years were completed. For a short time had to be allowed for repentance, above all for the sake of those from the people who were going to believe because of the signs and wonders that would be done by the apostles.

14a “Know that I have borne reproach for your sake from those who set aside your words.” Let this be the prophet, speaking and despised for what he said, set aside by sinners. For he himself says, “I have continually been mocked.” So he was reproached by those who set aside the words that God spoke through him, and because of the reproach he prays to be helped by God, saying, “Know that I have borne reproach for your sake from those who set aside your words; bring them to an end.” Let the prophet say it. But “bring them to an end” fits better when spoken by the Savior. For an end did come on Jerusalem and the people, because of what happened through the people’s plotting against our Savior. After this it is necessary, because the prophets suffered much in rebuking, in speaking on behalf of the word, and in receiving what God commanded, to remind the hearers of their way of life, of their promises, and of our own purpose. Then, as far as we are able, if we want to have rest with the prophets, we should strive to imitate the works of the prophets. What I mean is this. We often say in our prayers: “Almighty God, give us our portion with the prophets; give us our portion with the apostles of your Christ, so that we may be found with Christ himself.” But when we say this we do not realize what we are praying. For in effect we are saying: grant us to suffer what the prophets suffered; grant that we too be hated as the prophets were hated; give us such words that we will be hated for them; grant that we fall into as many trials as the apostles did. For to say “Give me a portion with the prophets,” when I have not suffered what the prophets suffered and do not even want to suffer it, is unjust. To say “Give me a portion with the apostles,” when I do not want to be able to say truthfully, from Paul’s own disposition, “in labors far more, in beatings far more, in imprisonments beyond measure, in deaths often,” and so on, is the most unjust thing of all.

14b So if we want to be with the prophets, look at the prophets’ lives. They were brought to trial, cross-examined and condemned for rebuking, reproaching and reprimanding. “They were stoned, sawn in two, tested, they died by the slaughter of the sword, they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in deserts.” This was at a time when the Jews had many synagogues. Yet these men were “wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth.” Why then is it strange if someone who wants to imitate the prophetic life is slandered, hated and plotted against for rebuking and reprimanding the sinner? The same thing had to happen in the church of God in the present case. The man who was condemned was condemned; so-and-so [sitting?] was doing such-and-such things. Church discipline had to take place, and it did. The one entrusted with the task did what he had to do. Now that man goes around speaking ill of the one who upheld the truth. But let us not do this. Let us not lend our ears to those who, because they have been expelled, speak ill of the one who expelled them or of the one who voted with him. [The text is corrupt here: something like “when injustice is exposed and has been done.”] The wonderful apostles were insulted countless times for the truth, and they say, “I am content in weaknesses, in insults and necessities, in persecutions and distresses, for Christ.” May I only know, when I am insulted, that I am insulted for no other reason than Christ. When I am in hardship, may I know that the cause of the hardship is Christ. When I am reviled, may I know that the reason for the reviling is nothing other than this: I uphold the truth and speak on behalf of what is written, so that everything may happen according to God’s word. For this I am blasphemed. So let all of us, as far as we are able, hurry toward the prophetic life and the apostolic life, and not run away from what is troublesome. For an athlete who runs from the trouble of the contest will not receive the sweetness of the crown.

15 “And your word will be to me for gladness.” It is not so now, but “will be.” For at present your word brings me prisons, lawsuits, troubles, slander and labors. But the end of these things will be gladness. “And your word will be to me for gladness and the joy of my heart, because your name has been called upon me, Lord Almighty.” Even when Christ is the speaker, the name of the Father has been called upon him. “I did not sit in the assembly of those who play.” If the prophet ever saw an assembly of people who were not in earnest but playing, he avoided gathering with them rather than hurrying to the gathering of those who play. So you need to understand the difference between an assembly of those who play and an assembly of those who are in earnest. This assembly here is in earnest. It does everything with earnestness and things worthy of earnestness, and, as the saying goes, its word is earnestness and its life is earnestness. It is wholly an assembly not of those who play but of those who are in earnest. But when an assembly abandons earnestness about what is necessary and spends its leisure on the games of this age and on games that come from wickedness, it becomes an assembly of those who play. So this man says, “I did not sit in the assembly of those who play, but I stood in awe before the face of your hand.” Two choices lay before him. One was to sit in an assembly of those who play, to stumble against you, God, and not please you. The other was to rise from the assembly of those who play and do what was dear to you. He says: I chose rather to get up from the assembly of those who play and be your friend, than to do the opposite and become an enemy of your blessedness. “I did not sit in the assembly of those who play, but I stood in awe before the face of your hand.” Our Saviour also did not sit “in the assembly of those who play,” but withdrew from them. A sign that the Saviour rose up from an assembly of those who play is his saying: “Your house is left to you desolate.” For the Word of God abandoned the council of the Jews and made for himself another council and a church, the one from the nations.

16a “I sat alone.” Here too the words are fitting. When there is a crowd of sinners who cannot bear a righteous man living righteously, it is not out of place for him to flee the council of wickedness and imitate the one who said, “I sat alone.” He may also imitate Elijah, who says, “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars, and I am left all alone, and they seek my life to take it.” Perhaps, if you examine “I sat alone” more deeply, you will find a meaning worthy of the prophet’s depth. When we imitate the life of the many, so that a person is not set apart, better than the many and distinguished from them, I cannot say, “I sat alone,” but rather, “I sat with many.” But when my life becomes hard to imitate, so that I become such a person that no one is like me in character, in speech, in actions, in wisdom, then, because I am alone in being such and no one imitates me, I can say, “I sat alone.” So even if you are not a presbyter, not a bishop, and not honored with any church office, you may say this. Strive after “I sat alone,” and take up a way of life that lets you say, “I sat alone.” “For I was filled with bitterness.” [If] “the way is narrow and hard,” is your feast kept with bitter herbs? For when you keep the feast, it says, “you shall eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs.”

16b We must consider what the word means when it says that the one who keeps a feast to God must eat “unleavened bread with bitter herbs.” The apostle has explained the unleavened bread; the interpretation is not mine. But the interpretation that follows must necessarily be like the apostle’s explanation. The apostle explained the matter of the unleavened bread when he said, “Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” So we must give an account of the bitter herbs that fits with the unleavened bread being the bread of sincerity and truth. Have sincerity and truth, and there will be bitter herbs for you, and you will eat the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth with bitter herbs, as Paul did. Since he ate the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, he also ate bitter herbs. How did he eat bitter herbs? When he said, “I have become your enemy by telling you the truth.” How did he eat bitter herbs? “In toil and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, apart from the things I leave out.” Now the law said, “You shall eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs.” It did not say, “Eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs until you are full,” as it is said of certain other things: “You shall eat and be filled.” But the prophet intensifies it, saying that he did not merely eat bitterness but “was filled with bitterness.” As far as he was able, he shared in bitter experiences, so that he partook of the very fullest bitter herbs.

17 “Why do those who hate me prevail?” He had many troubles. He suffered from those who did not want to hear the truth, and they were stronger than he, here in this age. For the kingdom of God is not from this age but from better regions, as the Savior says: “If my kingdom were from this world, my servants would have fought, so that I would not be handed over to the Jews.” So those who grieved the prophet prevailed over him in this world. That they do prevail, look at the martyrs. The judge sits in judgment and lives in luxury in the courtroom. The Christian, in whom Christ is on trial, is filled with bitterness, is overpowered by the unjust man, and is condemned. 18 “My wound is hard; from where shall I be healed?” Those who overpower me strike me, and my wound is hard. The words may prophesy the cross of the Lord, for the cross is a hard wound, as far as those who crucify him are concerned. Or they may be said about all the righteous, in whom he receives a hard wound. Or you may hear them as said about the prophet himself, who also suffered the things written in the prophecy. In every case the phrase “my wound is hard” carries the same sense. “From where shall I be healed?” Even if it is the Savior who says “from where shall I be healed?”, he is prophesying the resurrection from the dead after the hard wound. And if it is taken of the righteous man, there is healing again after the wounds. “It has become for me like deceitful water, which has no faithfulness.” For the wound does not remain; it passes away. “Therefore thus says the Lord: if you turn back, I will also restore you.” This is said again to each person whom God will call to turn back to him. And it seems to me that a mystery is hidden here in the words “I will restore you.” No one is restored to a place where he has never been at all; restoration is to what is one’s own. For example, if a member of my body is dislocated, the physician tries to bring about the restoration of the dislocated joint. When someone is outside his homeland, whether justly or unjustly, and receives back the ability to live again in his homeland according to its laws, he has been restored to his own homeland. Understand the same of a soldier who has been driven out of his own battle line and is restored to it. So here he is saying to us who have turned away that, if we turn back, he will restore us. For the end of the promise is of this kind, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles in the words “until the times of the restoration of all things that God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,” in Christ Jesus, to whom belong glory and might forever and ever. Amen.

Homily 15

1 Those who call the prophets blessed, and by calling them blessed pray to have a share with the prophets, should gather from the prophetic words the choice qualities of their prophesying. If they seek these out and live by them (even if it will seem hard to them in this life to imitate the prophetic life), they may be persuaded that they will obtain rest and blessedness with the prophets. There are many places from which one can gather the choice qualities of the prophets: their freedom, their vigor, their watchfulness, their alertness. Because of their freedom they did not worry about the dangers they fell into. They cared only to rebuke and to turn people back. The prophets did this by speaking the word of God boldly, with sharp reproof to those who sinned, even when those under rebuke seemed to have great power. Still, even though one can do this from anywhere in the prophets, let us look at what was read today. The prophet rebuked many, and spoke to many. For he arose against people who had become sinners, as is plain from the fact that the captivity happened in his time. Having rebuked many, and been judged by many, he utters words like these.

2 First let us look at this from the prophetic word itself, and then, by way of a higher reading, see whether it is a prophet’s foretelling. “Woe is me, mother! To what sort of life did you bear me, a man at law and in dispute with the whole earth?” O mother, why did you bring me into the world as a man who goes to court against everyone on earth and is set in dispute against everyone on earth? For this prophet, like Isaiah and the rest, had the prophet’s task laid before him: to teach, to rebuke and to turn people back. So this prophet too had it laid before him to judge between people and to rebuke. He was able to contend, and to be contended against, with sinners, and to expose the sins of the people. And what the people did to them, why should I even say? One they stoned, another they sawed in two, another they killed “between the temple and the altar,” and this one, because he rebuked them, they threw into a pit of mud. Our Savior did the same thing toward them all, and did it better than they, as the Lord of the prophets. For indeed, though he was himself scourged, crucified and handed over by the Jews, or by the teachers of the Jews and the ruler of the people, he said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” And he adds to each charge “Woe,” and “because of this,” this and that. So we too, if we are eager for the blessings pronounced on the prophets, should do the same. Then, because we speak and are put on trial before many people, we may say, “Woe is me, mother! To what sort of life did you bear me, a man at law and in dispute with the whole earth?”

3a This saying can apply more properly to the Savior. Suppose we grant that the prophet says it. Still he will not say it truly, but perhaps by exaggeration, for he was not in dispute with the whole earth. But if I come to my Savior and Lord, and above all because of the words “he will come into judgment” and “that you may be justified in your words, and may prevail when you are judged,” I will see that my Savior and Lord is going to stand before the Father, judged along with all of us human beings. And he is judged along with all people. I say he is judged, he too is examined. He stood as one who vindicates the truth, not as an accuser. “Woe is me, mother! To what sort of life did you bear me, a man at law and in dispute with the whole earth?” A prophet cannot say “the whole earth.” But some who love our Lord are indignant and say that the Savior does not say this, that the voice does not fit the Son of God. We must show, then, that “Woe is me, mother” is not foreign to the Son of God. “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death,” and “my soul is troubled,” and in the same way what is said in the prophets, as here: “Woe is me, mother! To what sort of life did you bear me, a man at law and in dispute with the whole earth,” or when the gleaning is lost, so that no cluster can be found: “Woe, my soul, for the devout man has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among people.”

3b Who is it that says there, “Alas, for I have become like one gathering stubble at harvest”? Did the prophet gather, and does he want to gather? Does the prophet have a field? No. Gathering everything from the harvest and from what has been sown belongs to no one except the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There are many fallen among the nations, and among us too there are sins. So he says, “Alas for me, for I have become like one gathering stubble.” Let each of us examine himself. Is he an ear of grain? Will the Son of God find in him something to gather or to reap? We will find that some of us are wind-blasted. Perhaps we have a little left in us, two or three grains, and our sins are many against us. So when he sees the churches, those that bear the name, full of sinners, he says, “Alas, for I have become like one gathering stubble at harvest and like a gleaning at the grape harvest.” He came looking for fruit in the vineyard. Each of us is planted [. . .], and as a vine “in a fertile place.” “He brought a vine out of Egypt.” “I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true.” He comes and looks for something to gather. He finds a bit of gleaning and a few small clusters, not flourishing and not many. Which of us has clusters of virtue? Which of us has the fruits of God? “O Lord our God, how wonderful is your name in all the earth.”

4 Let this be said by way of a digression, on the words “Alas for me, mother.” My point is that it is not foreign to the divinity of our Savior, as he looks at the sins of human beings, to say “Alas” now. He says it not as God but as man, not as wisdom but as soul. That is why I set beside it that prophetic word: “Alas, my soul, for the devout man has perished from the earth, and there is none among men who acts uprightly.” The blessed soul came into human life and took a body for the sake of human beings. If he sees our sins, he says to the Father, “What profit is there in my blood, in my going down into corruption? Will dust confess you?” But let him not say “Alas” over us. Let the angels of heaven not say it over us. If our Savior says “Alas,” they will say “Alas” too. They are not greater than our Savior, and they also see our failings. But blessed are those over whom the angels will not say “Alas,” but who are counted blessed. For “there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine who have no need of repentance.” This is said by way of comfort. “Alas for me, mother, what kind of man did you bear me to be?” Whom does he mean by mother? Among women, could he mean the soul, and Mary? But if someone accepts the saying, “Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me and carried me up to the great mountain, Tabor,” and what follows, he can see his mother in that. “Alas for me, mother, what kind of man did you bear me to be, a man in dispute and in judgment in all the earth?” He is brought to trial before all the earth and is examined, and he will say to each person: “I did this and this. My dispensation accomplished this and this, and I endured for your salvation.” When the Savior says these things, what shall we do? For he is going to be examined in all the earth.

5 Next I want to look at what follows. By one line of interpretation it can refer to the prophet, and it can also refer to the Savior. Let us look at the next words: “I have not owed, and no one has owed me.” “The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me.” And truly he did not owe. But each of us is a debtor through our sins, a debtor who holds a written bond. [The text is damaged here: after his bond was wiped out, how many bonds have they made?] “He who did no sin, and in whose mouth no deceit was found” made no bond. What does “no one has owed me” mean? How shall we explain “no one has owed me” in the case of the Savior? Even if we read it this way, we should know that most copies of the Septuagint edition do not have it so. Later we examined the other editions as well, and we recognized it as a scribe’s error. [The Greek here is corrupt: “yet to me not even one”?] So no one owed him, because he forgave everyone their debts. “A certain creditor had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Since they had nothing to pay back, he forgave them both.” Do you want to see the two debtors, the one who owes five hundred and the one who owes fifty? People from two peoples have believed in God. The people from the Jews, who do not believe in Christ, owe the fifty. Perhaps we from the nations, who had become the most ungodly of all, owe the five hundred. That is the point of what is said about that repentant prostitute. Someone might ask how the five hundred applies to her. It comes from the words “what sort of woman is this who is touching him,” in answer to which he said to Simon, “A certain creditor had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty,” and so on. I had to explain all this to you because of the words “I have not owed, and no one has owed me.” “I have not owed, and no one has owed me; my strength has failed among those who curse me.” Even if he died “from weakness, yet he lives by the power of God.”

6a After many words had passed, there was more to say about each of the things already mentioned, but time does not allow it. So let us speak on the next passage that was read: “Cursed is the man who has his hope in man.” [The text is damaged here] aimed at those who think that the Savior, the Son of God, was a man. For along with their many other human evils, they have dared to say this too: that he is not God, “the only-begotten,” “the firstborn of all creation.” For “cursed is whoever has his hope in man.” Clearly those who put their hope in a man are cursed. I would say: I do not put my hope in a man. Hoping in Christ Jesus, I know no man. Not only do I know no man, but I know wisdom, righteousness itself, the one through whom “all things were created” [in the authorities; the Greek here is uncertain]. “Cursed is the man who has his hope in man.” Even if the Savior bears witness that the one he put on was a man, then even if he was a man, he is now in no way a man. For the apostle says, “Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, we no longer know him so.” Because of him I am no longer a man, if I follow his words. For he says, “I said: you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.”

6b So, just as he is “the firstborn from the dead,” in the same way he became the firstborn of all human beings, having changed into God. “Cursed, then, is the man who has his hope in man, and will make the flesh of his arm firm.” That means anyone who gives authority to fleshly things, who gains bodily strength and wages war according to the flesh. But the holy person is not like that. “He does not make the flesh of his arm firm,” for he “always carries about the putting to death of Jesus in his body,” and he puts to death “the members that are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness.” Having put these to death, “he does not make the flesh of his arm firm.” “Cursed is whoever has his hope in man.” This is also said against those who hope in high positions. “So-and-so is my friend, he is a centurion, he is a procurator. So-and-so is my friend, and he is rich and provides for me.” Then this saying is spoken to such a person as well: “Cursed is the man who has his hope in man.” We hope in no man, even if they seem to be our friends. For we hope not in them but in our Lord, who is Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Homily 16

1a In the Gospel according to Matthew it is written that our Savior came to the Sea of Galilee and saw “Simon and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.” Then the account says that the Savior saw them and said, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And they left their nets and followed him. Jesus made them take up fishing again, this time for people. He also found two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with their father, mending their nets. These he called to the same craft, and he made them fishers of men too. Consider those who have received from God the grace of speech. That speech is woven like nets and put together from the holy Scriptures like a casting-net, so that the woven mesh is thrown around the souls of the hearers. Consider also that this is done skillfully, according to the craft. Now our Savior sends out fishers of men, having trained them, so that we may be able to come up out of the sea and escape its bitter waves. But those lifeless fish, when they are brought up in the dragnets, the casting-nets, the nets or on the hooks, die a death that is not followed by life. The one who is caught by the fishers of Jesus and brought up out of the sea dies too. But he dies to the world and dies to sin. After he has died to the world and to sin, he is made alive by the Word of God and takes up another life. Suppose you could imagine, for the sake of argument, the soul of a fish changing after it leaves the body of the fish and becoming something better than a fish. I am only offering an illustration; let no one take occasion from it [as though he had not heard]. Think of something like this.

1b You have come up out of the sea, having fallen into the nets of Jesus’ disciples. When you come out, your soul changes. You are no longer a fish spending your time in the salty waves of the sea. At once your soul changes and is transformed, and becomes something better and more divine than it was before. That it is transformed and changed, hear Paul saying: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord, the Spirit.” And this fish that was caught by the fishers of Jesus, once transformed, leaves its former haunts in the sea and makes its home in the mountains. So it no longer needs fishers to bring it up from the sea, but a second kind of men, who are called hunters, who hunt “from every mountain and from every hill.” So you, having come up from the sea and been caught in the nets of Jesus’ disciples, change from the sea. Forget it. Come to the mountains, the prophets, and to the hills, the righteous, and make your dwelling there. Then afterward, when the time [of your hunting comes, you may be taken by the hunters, just as you were first taken by the fishers]. Who might these be but those appointed to receive the souls that are on the hills, the ones not lying down below? And see whether the prophet did not cry out these things in a mystery, setting forth this very meaning in the words: “Behold, I am sending many fishers, says the Lord, and they will fish them. And after this I will send many hunters, and they will hunt them on every mountain and on every hill.”

2 So if you want to be caught by the hunters, take care not to make your dwelling in the hollows, and do not linger down below anywhere. Seek the mountains. Go up the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. Go up the mountain to which Jesus went up when he saw the crowds, and the disciples followed him, where “he opened his mouth and taught, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and then the blessings that follow these. These hunters are not permitted to catch anyone from anywhere except from the mountains, the hills, and the holes of the rocks. For these three things are mentioned in the prophet: “For I will send many hunters, and they will hunt them on every mountain, on every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” So where am I to find the meaning of the rocks, and of the holes in the rocks? I go to Exodus and look for a trace of an account of the holes of the rocks. There I find Moses wanting to know God, and God promising him and saying: “Look, I will put you in a hole of the rock, and you will see my back parts, but my face will not be seen by you.” If you understand the rock there, and see the hole in the rock, [and the one who looks sees God through the hole of the rock], you will also see the many rocks and their holes. Then who is that rock, the one rock? “The rock was Christ.” “For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them.” And in the thirty-ninth Psalm it is said: “He set my feet upon a rock.” What is the hole in the rock? If you look at the coming of Jesus, understanding him as a whole to be the rock, you will see the hole in connection with his coming. Through that hole the things that come after God are seen. This is what is meant by “and you will see my back parts.”

3 But I have found one hole of one rock. Now I move in my discourse from the “hole” to the “cleft” of the rock, and I look for the many rocks as well. If I come to the company of the prophets, or of the apostles, or even of the holy angels who have gone up higher, I say that all the imitators of Christ become rocks, just as he is a rock. And just as he has a hole through which the back parts of God are perceived, in the same way each one, giving a way for God to be understood through the things he says, makes a hole in himself, or, if you prefer another name, a cleft. Through that hole or cleft you will see the law through Moses, his prophecy through Isaiah, and other words of God through Jeremiah. And if it is an angel who is speaking, as in the saying, “the angel who speaks in me,” then there too I stop at the angel. There also I see a rock and a hole of the rock, and I see God in an angelic way.

4a But I need an example to show how one can come to an angel and see God through the angel. It is written in Exodus: “An angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire from a bush. And Moses sees that the bush is burning with fire, and the bush is not consumed.” The Scripture did not go on to say “the angel of the Lord,” as it said at the beginning, “an angel appeared.” Instead it says, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” So God was there, seen in the angel, just as God is known through the rock and through the opening in it. You do not know, then, when the hunters are sent. So never come down from the mountains. Do not leave the hills. Do not be outside the holes of the rocks. For if you are found outside, you will be spoken to as one who is outside and speaks the words of those outside: “Fool, this very night they are demanding your soul from you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” These words will be said to you if you say: “I will tear down my storehouses and build bigger ones, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years. Rest, eat, drink, be merry.” You see the man who is below the mountains, below the hills, outside the holes of the rocks. He goes astray even in his judgment about what is good, thinking that these things are good. That is why he says: “And I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years.” He has supposed that grain and the abundance of earthly things are good. He did not see that the truly good things are not in the cursed earth; the truly good things are in heaven. He stored up treasure on earth because he thought the things on earth were good. But if someone, obeying Jesus, changes from storing up treasure “on earth” to storing it up “in heaven,” it will not be said to him, “Fool, this very night they are demanding your soul from you.” Instead the hunters will come. They are not looking for the creatures down below, but for those in the mountains, those on the hills, those sheltered in the holes of the rocks. They will catch these and carry them away from that hunt.

4b To where? To the rest of the holy and blessed ones in Christ Jesus. For he says, “My eyes are on all their ways.” God has his eyes on such people, those who make their dwelling on the mountains, on the hills and in the holes of the rocks, and on all their ways. “And they were not hidden from my face”; that is true of such people, for it is the wicked who hide from the face of God. After the transgression, Adam heard “the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” and he hid. But the holy person does not hide. He has a heart that is bold toward God, a boldness that comes from a holy way of life. For “if our conscience does not condemn us, we have boldness toward God, and whatever we ask we receive from him.” Now Adam, though he sinned, did not sin to an extreme and grievous degree. That is why he hid “from the face of God.” But what did Cain do, who was more sinful than Adam, and utterly impious, the killer of his brother? “He went out from the face of God.” So, comparing evils, hiding from the face of God is the lesser one. For Adam hides not because he has lost all shame, but because he is ashamed before God. “They were not hidden, then, from my face.” These people who did these things were once in sins, and they were fished out of the sins that are in the sea.

5a So that those who have been “fished” and afterward have come to the mountains do not suppose that all this happened to them because of their righteousness, the word reminds not only them but us also of our earlier sins. That is why, after the acts of kindness, it is said: “And their wrongdoings were not hidden from before my eyes.” What follows is going to cause us a struggle. If we understand it as consistent with what came before, we will take careful thought about the repayment of sins. If it seems not to be consistent with what was said earlier about people being fished and hunted, then it throws us into no ordinary struggle. For he says: “And I will repay first, double, their injustices and their sins, by which they defiled my land with the corpses of their abominations, and by their lawless deeds with which they filled my inheritance.” Whether some people removed the word “first” from what was written because they did not understand it, or whether the Seventy arranged to remove it on purpose, God would know. But we compared the other editions and found it standing there: “And I will repay first, double, their injustices.” The point is to show this: even if they are worthy of blessedness because of their later works, they are still human beings and have fallen into sins, so they must first receive back their sins. And see whether this is not true. Who will not receive back his sins, except the one who, after believing and receiving forgiveness of sins (so that he hears Jesus saying, “Your sins are forgiven you”), sins no more? But suppose we sin after the forgiveness of sins and after the dispensation of the washing of rebirth. That is what the many of us do, who have not been made perfect as the apostles were. And suppose that after sinning, and even along with sinning, we do some things as we ought. What awaits us? That needs to be considered.

5b Then if we depart this life having sins, but also having good and courageous deeds, will we be saved on account of the good deeds, and be acquitted of the sins we committed knowingly? Or will we be punished for the sins, and nowhere receive a reward for the good deeds? But neither alternative is in accord with God’s justice. It is not just that we receive the worse things and not the better. It is also not just that we receive the better things and not the worse, since God wishes to cleanse and cut out wickedness. Suppose you have built, on the foundation, Christ Jesus, whom you have been taught, not only “gold and silver and precious stone” (if you have gold, much gold or a little; suppose you have silver and precious stone). But I do not say only these. Suppose you also have “wood and hay and straw.” What do you want to happen to you after your departure? Do you want to enter the holy places with your wood and your hay and your straw, and so defile the kingdom of God? Or, on the other hand, do you want to be left behind in the fire because of the hay, the wood and the straw, and receive nothing for the gold and silver and precious stone? That is not reasonable either.

6a What then? First it follows that he receives, on account of the wood, the fire that consumes the wood, the hay and the straw. For our God, in his essence, is said, by those who can understand, to be a consuming fire. The prophet kept silent about what it consumes when he said, “Our God is a consuming fire,” but he has left it to us to work out. Since he said, “God is a consuming fire,” there is something that is consumed. What then is consumed? It is not what is according to the image and likeness that he consumes. He does not consume his own creature. He consumes the hay that was built on, the wood that was built on, the straw that was built on. The passage was very hard to explain. There were promises, and after the promises he says: “And I will repay first, double, their injustices.” The word “first” is added of necessity. First the things of injustice, then the things of righteousness are paid back, for God does not repay in the opposite order. If he first paid back the good things, so that we might receive the good things, but now he pays back the evil things, then the good things would have to come to an end so that we could receive the evil things. But we will receive the evil things first, and after that the good things. In this way the punishment of those who suffered it reaches its end through the destruction of the evils, so that after that he may pay back the good things.

6b This is why you will find God in the holy Scriptures saying first the things that seem harsher, and after that the better things. “I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike, and I will heal.” “He himself causes pain and restores again; he struck, and his hands healed.” After hearing this, the person who understands and is rightly disposed toward these words can say: “Lord, who will dwell in your tent? Or who will settle on your holy mountain? He who walks blameless and works righteousness, who speaks truth in his heart; who has not deceived with his tongue, and has done no evil to his neighbor, and has not taken up a reproach against those nearest him.” (But we reproach even those who repent and turn back, though the Scripture says, “Do not reproach a man who is turning away from sin.”) “He has not taken up a reproach against those nearest him; the one who does evil is despised in his sight, but those who fear the Lord we will receive [back], and our sins [with them].”

7 But one of you who are listening will say: “Explain the word ‘double’ as well. Suppose I do receive my sins back first, so that once I have received them, what the apostle said may then be fulfilled: ‘If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.’ Why then do I receive my sins back ‘double’?” We must answer that “the servant who knew the master’s will and did not act according to his will will be beaten”, and not with few stripes but with “many.” So it is fitting that those from the nations who sin should receive their sins back single, but that we should receive our failings back double. For “if we sin willingly after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a jealous fire that is about to consume the adversaries.” What was prophesied concerned those who would be fished and hunted and would first receive their sins back double. After this the calling of the nations is prophesied more clearly. They are no longer being called but have been called. They are no longer ignorant of what to confess or what to give thanks for, but have already learned. For in the earlier passages we learned that they were called, fished, and hunted, and what they would suffer; in the later passages we learn what happens next. Let us see what the prophet says about us, who are now learning to pray, or rather who have already learned.

8 “Lord, my strength and my help and my refuge in the day of evils: to you nations will come from the end of the earth and will say, ‘Our fathers possessed false idols, and there is no profit in them.’” Did the nations come to God from the end of the earth, and did the nations say, “Our fathers possessed false idols, and there is no profit in them”? How is it “from the end of the earth”? Some people on earth are first and some are last. Who are the first? “The wise of the world” are the first of the earth, and not simply first: “the wise of the world, the well-born,” the rich, those of rank. Who are the last? “God chose the foolish things of the world, the lowborn, the despised, the things that are not.” So “nations will come from the end of the earth” is as if he said: from the least of the people on earth, from the foolish, from the lowborn, from the despised. “And they will say: ‘Our fathers possessed false idols, and there is no profit in them.’” He does not mean that some idols are true, so that these are called false by contrast. He means idols that are false by their very nature: “and there is no profit in them.”

9 “If a man makes gods for himself.” People make gods for themselves not only out of statues. You will find people making gods for themselves out of their own inventions as well. Anyone who can invent another god, or another account of the making of the world different from the one the Spirit has written down, an arrangement of the world different from the true world [concerning the arrangement of the world], has made gods for himself and bowed down to the works of his hands. Think, for example, of those among the Greeks who first produced the teachings of this philosophy or that one, or, among the heresies, of those who first produced their doctrines. These people made idols for themselves, inventions of the soul, and they turned and bowed down to the works of their own hands, welcoming their own inventions as truth. So the Word refutes everyone who makes gods for himself, whether by the senses or by the mind, and says: “If a man makes gods for himself, are they not gods? Therefore I will show them my hand at this time, and I will make known to them my power.” What time is this, if not the time of the Lord’s coming? He shows us the time. “And they will know,” he says, “that my name is Lord.”

10a Then there is another prophecy, which, I do not know why, we did not find in the Septuagint. We did find it in the other editions, so it was clearly in the Hebrew. It is full of very necessary matters, able to turn our soul back if we pay attention. The words are these: “The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, engraved with a diamond point on the tablet of their heart.” One could take the easier course and say: this was written about the Jews, that their sin “is written.” But if you see, as we have often shown, that Christ is spoken of figuratively as Judah, then perhaps “the sin of Judah” is the sin of us who believe in Christ, who came from the tribe of Judah. And if you can hear it in a still more hidden sense, perhaps the prophecy is about Judas who betrayed him, so that the prophecy says of him: “The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, engraved with a diamond point on the breast of the heart.” But again, the word “their” does not fit in his case. Perhaps, then, the prophet was speaking about us, saying that if we become sinners, these prophecies reach us. We have sinned, and our sin is not written outside us but in our heart, and it is written “with an iron pen, with a diamond point.” The very fact will show that the sins we commit are engraved on us by our sinning. I was not conscious of this deed or this sin in myself.

10b Once I have done it, I have an imprint of it, and the imprint of my sin, committed in my soul, is, as it were, written there. If my sin had been written in ink, I could have wiped it out. But now it is written “with an iron pen,” written “with a diamond point,” written “on the breast of the heart” of us all. So when I come to the place of instruction, the saying of the prophecy is fulfilled: “Nothing is hidden that will not be made known, and nothing is covered that will not be uncovered.” My breast is laid bare, and my heart, with the letters of sin engraved on it, “by the pen” on my breast, and the imprints of my sins in my heart. “For nothing is hidden that will not be made known,” but also “among one another the thoughts accusing or even defending,” and “Do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the purposes of the hearts.” To whom will he reveal them? Not to himself, for he knows “all things before they come to be.” But to whom, then, will he reveal them? To all who are going to see, because of their own purity, the sin of the one who has sinned, so that sinners may “rise to reproach and to everlasting shame.” May the God of all deliver us from these things, that we may rise to the glory that is in Christ, to whom belong glory and power forever. Amen.

Homily 17

1 We have come to a much-discussed question: who is the partridge, of which Scripture now says, “The partridge called out, it gathered what it did not bring to birth, making its wealth without justice. In the middle of his days they will abandon him, and at his end he will be a fool”? We must take from the writings on the nature of animals what is recorded about the partridge. Then, knowing the facts about the creature, we can tell whether the partridge named here should be put in a better class or a worse one. It is said to be a very malicious, deceitful and crafty creature. It wants to trick those who hunt it, and often rolls about at the hunter’s feet, so that it seems to be close at hand and draws him away from the nest. When it judges that it has drawn the hunter off and that the chicks have escaped, then it flies away too. The creature is also so unclean that the males fight one another over mating, and a male mounts a male. So if this creature is malicious, unclean, crafty and deceitful, it is clear that to place it in a better class and apply it to the Savior would be impious. If we want to interpret it of the Adversary, we must see whether the whole interpretation follows from that.

2 Let us begin, then, with “The partridge called out, it gathered what it did not bring to birth.” The devil, then, does not gather his own creatures, nor what he has begotten. When he calls out, he gathers the creatures of another and makes them his own. The partridge called out through Valentinus, through Marcion, through Basilides, through all the teachers of other doctrines. For none of them could speak the voice of Jesus: “My sheep will hear my voice.” The voice of Jesus is in Paul and Peter. That is why Paul said, “Do you seek proof of Christ speaking in me?” But the voice of the partridge, which gathered what it did not bring to birth, is in those who lead astray and deceive, preying on the simplicity and unpreparedness of the more plain-minded believers. So “the partridge called out, it gathered what it did not bring to birth, making its wealth without justice.” The partridge has grown rich. See how many tens of thousands it has. Many have become the partridge’s, that is, of the opposing power. And it made its wealth without caring about justice or having any judgment, acting without discrimination. That is why it says the partridge is “making its wealth without justice.” But my Savior makes his wealth with judgment, and his wealth is sifted and chosen out.

3 “In the middle of his days they will abandon him.” This means all of us who were once under the partridge that called out. For it called out not only through those already mentioned but through absolutely all who deceive, and who invite people to godlessness as though it were piety, toward teachings contrary to the truth. But “in the middle of his days” we have abandoned him. All his days are the days of this age. But since Christ Jesus has rescued “us from the present evil age,” therefore “in the middle of his days” we have abandoned him. “And at his end he will be a fool.” For when was he ever wise, that at his end he should become a fool? But we will say that he was wise. For “the serpent was the wisest of all the wild animals on the earth which the Lord God made.” He was wise, in line with what is said in Isaiah: “I will bring upon the mind, the great one, the ruler of the Assyrians. For he said: I will act by my strength, and by my wisdom

4a …you may receive: “If anyone among you seems to himself to be wise in this age, let him become foolish.” He who cried out before resolves it: “Be foolish and silly, so that you may become wise.” So if there is a kind of wisdom that deserves blame, the kind by which “the children of this age are wiser than the children of light in their generation,” then God is good. He overturns varied things by their opposites, so that what was said is fulfilled: “his last end will be foolish.” When will his last end be foolish? Christ must “reign until God puts all his enemies under his feet.” When God has made everything subject to him, “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” When death has been destroyed, then the partridge’s last days will have come, and his end will have become foolish. That is enough about the partridge. 4. The beginning of the second chapter was also read: “A throne of glory, exalted from the beginning, the place of our sanctification, our support, the endurance of Israel. Lord, let all who have forsaken you be put to shame; let those who depart be written on the earth, because they have forsaken the fountain of life, the Lord.” The blessed prophet Isaiah, seeing the Lord and his kingdom, said: “I saw the Lord of Hosts sitting on a high and lofty throne.” Jeremiah also saw how God reigns, and so, glorifying him, he says: “A throne of glory, exalted from the beginning, the place of our sanctification.”

4b If you want to understand these words of Christ, you will not sin. If you understand them of the Father, you will not think impiously. For the Savior is [also] a throne of glory, high and from the beginning. He is “a throne of glory,” and that is why his kingdom is exalted. And “our sanctification” is Christ: “For both the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one.” “The endurance of Israel”: just as the Savior is righteousness itself, truth itself, sanctification itself, so he is endurance itself. It is not possible to be righteous without Christ, or holy without him, or to endure without having Christ. For he himself is the endurance of Israel. Even if you refer the words to God, you will not be impious in doing so. “Lord, let all who have forsaken you be put to shame, those who have departed.” Each of us, when we sin, forsakes Christ through the very things by which we sin, and by forsaking Christ we forsake God. For in doing wrong he forsakes righteousness. In becoming profane he forsakes sanctification. In making war he forsakes peace. In coming under the enemy he forsakes redemption. And in being outside the wisdom of God he forsakes wisdom. So the prophet pronounces a curse on all who forsake God, teaching us what will happen to them, when he says: “Let all who forsake you be put to shame.” The further they have departed, the more let them be put to shame. “Let them be written on the earth.” All people are written down: the holy in heaven, and sinners on the earth. It is to the disciples that [the Savior] says, “Rejoice that your names are written in the heavens.” So we ought to rejoice if someone becomes the kind of person whose name is written in the heavens.

4c As the names of the saints are written in heaven, so the names of those who live in an earthly way are written on the earth. These people do not pass through the land of Edom. They hold the fields of the land of Edom and its vineyards, and they are written on the earth as people who have abandoned God. For he says, “Let those who have turned away be put to shame; let them be written on the earth.” And indeed, “with the measure you measure, it will be measured to you.” Each person is himself the cause of being written there. If you seek what is on earth, you are not seeking heavenly things. If your soul has leaned toward the things of this world, you are the cause of it yourself, since Jesus says, “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves dig through and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Are you storing up treasure in heaven? Then you are yourself the cause of your name being written in heaven. All this is on account of the words “let them be written on the earth.” And the prophet gives the reason: “because they abandoned the Lord, the fountain of life.” At the beginning the same prophet spoke in the person of God: “They abandoned me, the fountain of the water of life.” And now: “They abandoned the Lord, the fountain of life.” So let us also speak, if we do not want to abandon the Lord, the fountain of life. Let us use the voice of Jesus’ genuine disciples, which they spoke to the teacher when he said to them, “Do you also want to go away?” What then shall we say? “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Here the second passage came to an end.

5a Then there is another prayer, which goes like this: “Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my boast. Look, they say to me, ‘Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come.’ But I did not grow weary following after you, and I did not desire the day of man; you know.” Only to the one who came for those who are sick, the physician who says, “Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” can everyone who wants to be cured of the sickness of his soul say with confidence, “Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed.” But if someone else besides him promises the medicine of souls, you could not truthfully say to that one, “Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed.” For that woman with the “flow of blood” spent “all that she had” on physicians, and “could not be healed by any of them.” It would not have been reasonable to say to any of them, “Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed.” She could say it only to him, for whom it is enough to touch “the fringe of the garment.” So I say to him, “Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed.” For if you heal, the end will follow upon your healing: the cure, so that I am saved.

5b As for all the others who will try to save me, I shall not be saved. The only true salvation is if Christ saves, because then I shall be saved. “The horse is a false hope for salvation”: so everything else apart from God is a false hope for salvation. For this reason I would say to him, “Save me, Lord, and I shall be saved.” And I say this if I am also able to say the next words, having renounced every other boast, so that I may say, “for you are my boast,” or when I fulfil the commandment that says, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches; but let the one who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows that I am the Lord.” Blessed, then, is the one who has renounced every boasting here below, such as in so-called noble birth, in beauty and bodily things, in wealth, in reputation, and who is content with one boast, so that he can say, “for you are my boast.”

6 “See, they say to me: ‘Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come.’ But I did not grow weary following after you.” Jesus says to you, “Take up your cross and follow me,” and “Leave everything and follow me,” and “Whoever does not leave father and mother and follow after me is not worthy to be my disciple.” So if you become the kind of person who always follows Jesus, you will follow, and as long as you follow you will not grow weary. For “there will be no toil in Jacob, and no labor will be seen in Israel.” There is no weariness for the one who follows Jesus; the following itself takes the weariness away. For this reason he himself says, so that we may no longer be weary, since we were weary before we began to follow him: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” So if we come to him weary and follow him, we will say, “I did not grow weary following after you.” It follows from this that we should also say, “I did not desire the day of a man.” There is a day of a man, and there is a day of God. Let each of us long for the day of the resurrection of the saints, not for the day of which it is written: “Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord; and it is darkness and not light.” Who is the one who says, “And I did not desire the day of a man”? The plain sense of the saying will convict us, because we [did] desire the day of a man. Often when we have fallen ill and seem to be facing death, as we are about to depart, we plead with the brothers who visit us and say: “Ask for my recovery; ask that I may remain in this life.” In saying this we are not longing for the holy day of God, but for the day of a man. So let us put away this love of life and this longing for a human day, and let us seek to see that day on which we will obtain the blessedness that is in Christ Jesus, to whom belong glory and power forever. Amen.