Sermons to the People 6.1–7.7

While the holy readings were being read, we turned our minds to what is written in the first reading that was recited to us, and we take care to share briefly with your Holiness what the Lord suggests, lest, taking the divine mysteries carnally, you not only fail to advance but even fall away. What first meets our eyes in that divine reading is that God appeared to Moses. But to appear through his own substance, as he is, he deigns only to pure hearts. For so it is written in the Gospel: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." But if ever God willed to appear to the bodily eyes of the saints, he appeared not through himself but through a visible and perceptible creature, so far as it can be perceived by this flesh: either through a voice sounding in the ears, or through fire to the eyes, or through an angel appearing in some visible form but bearing the person of God. So we understand, brothers, that God appeared to Moses. For that majesty which made heaven and earth, and which rules the whole universe, to which the angels always cleave, contemplating its beauty with pure minds, could not appear to the mortal eyes of man except by taking up a visible and perceptible creature belonging to these visible eyes of the body; since even the Wisdom of God itself, through which all things were made, would not have appeared to human eyes had it not taken human flesh. So just as the Word of God, that is, the Son of God, took flesh in order to appear to eyes, so God has always, in order to appear to the eyes of men, deigned to appear in some visible creature. For you have it most plainly in the Acts of the Apostles that an angel appeared to Moses in the bush. Is that Scripture true and this false? Or that true and this false? What then? If we are Christians, if we believe rightly, both are true. If, then, both are true, how did God appear here, and how is an angel said to have appeared there, unless that Spirit who said in the Acts of the Apostles that an angel appeared explained this reading of how God appeared? That statement is the explanation of this obscurity: so that you would not understand that God appeared through himself, it is explained to you there how God appeared through a creature, an angel. Why, then, are you surprised that, when an angel appears, it is said, "God said," and "God called Moses, and he came to the place," and "the Lord said to Moses"? Because the angel, the temple, is not what is attended to, but the one who dwells in the angel. For the angel himself was the temple of God. For if he deigns to dwell and speak in a man, so that when a prophet speaks it is said, "God said," how much more through an angel? And when it is said, "God said through Isaiah," what was Isaiah? Was he not a man bearing flesh, born of father and mother, like all of us? And yet he speaks, and what do we say in his utterances? "Thus says the Lord." How, then, is it God, if it is Isaiah, unless because it is God through Isaiah? So here too, when the angel speaks, God is said to speak. Why, if not because God speaks through the angel?

Now that the question is solved, notice also this: of what thing it seems to have been made a sign, that he appeared in a bush; and the bush was not burned, not set on fire: it appeared as fire, and did not set the bush on fire. Do we think the bush signifies something good, when it is made of thorns? For if the fire had consumed the thorns, it would signify that the word of the Lord spoken to the Jews had consumed their sins too, and that that light had ended their iniquities. For if the fire is in the bush as the Law is in the Jews, the thorns of the bush are as the sins of the Jews: so here the fire did not burn up the thorns, as the Law did not burn up sins.

And the Lord speaks to Moses (you know these things already, and we should not keep you longer because of the shortness of time): "I am who I am"; "He who is has sent me." For when he asked God's name, this was said: "I am who I am. You shall say this to the sons of Israel: He who is has sent me to you." What does this mean? O God, O our Lord, what are you called? "I am called Is," he said. What does "I am called Is" mean? Because I remain for ever, because I cannot be changed. For things that are changed are not, because they do not remain. For what is, remains. But what is changed was something and will be something; yet it is not, because it is changeable. So God's unchangeableness deigned to make itself known by this name, "I am who I am."

What does it mean, then, that afterwards he again gave himself another name, when it was said: "And God said to Moses: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; this is my name for ever"? How is it that there I am called this, "because I am," and see, here another name, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? Because, as God is unchangeable, he made all things in mercy, and the Son of God himself deigned, by taking changeable flesh while remaining what the Word of God is, to come and help man. So he who is clothed himself with mortal flesh, so that it could be said, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

Next, consider the signs that he gave Moses, when he said, "If the people say to me, 'God did not send you,' by what signs shall I show that you sent me?" It was said, "Throw down the rod you have in your hand"; and he threw down the rod, and it became a serpent, and Moses shuddered. The Lord said again, "Take hold of its tail"; he took hold of it, and it became a rod as it was. He gave another sign too: "Put your hand into your bosom"; and he put it in. "Bring it out"; he brought it out, and it became white as snow, that is, leprous. For a white color in human skin is a disease. "Put it into your bosom again"; he put it in, and it recovered its color. He gave him a third sign: "Take water from the river and pour it on the dry ground"; he took it and poured it, and it was turned into blood. "By these signs the people will hear you: if they do not hear at the first, at the second and third they will hear."

Let us try, as far as God helps, to state what these things signify. The rod signifies kingship; the serpent, mortality. For death was served to man by the serpent. The Lord deigned to take that death upon himself. So the rod, coming to earth, took the form of a serpent, because the kingdom of God, which is Christ Jesus, came to earth. He was clothed with mortality, which he nailed to the cross. Your Holiness knows that when that stiff-necked and proud people murmured against God in the desert, they began to be bitten by serpents and to fall from the bites. In his mercy God gave a remedy, a remedy that brought health in the present but proclaimed a wisdom to come. He said to Moses: "Hang a bronze serpent on a pole in the middle of the desert, and say to the people, 'Whoever is struck, let him look at this serpent.'" And those who were struck looked at the serpent and were healed. And the Lord bears witness in the Gospel to such a sign. For when he was speaking with Nicodemus, he said: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life." That is: whoever is struck by the serpents of sins, let him look to Christ, and he will have health in the forgiveness of sins. So, brothers, this is the mortality which was taken up by the Lord, which his body must have, whose head is a man in heaven. So the Church has mortality, because the wound was inflicted through the serpent's persuasion. For we owe death on account of the sin of the first man: but through it we shall come to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. But when does it come to life, and return to the kingdom? At the end of the world. That is why he held the tail, where the end is, so as to restore it to what it was before.

What is that hand? It is certain that that hand too signifies the people itself. What is a man's bosom? The bosom of Moses is the secret place of God. While man was in the secret place of God, he was unharmed and of good color. He went out of the secret place of God; Adam went out of paradise, having offended God, and became diseased. So that hand became white: but it returned to the bosom, through the bosom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and recovered its color. And what is that water? That water signifies wisdom. For water has often been used as a likeness of wisdom; and it was said, "There shall be in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." But that water, wisdom, which on the earth became blood, does it not show us the Word made flesh and dwelling among us? Certainly it does. So all things of the people to come are signs and mysteries of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if there are any other sacred signs in the ancient books, whether we understand them or do not understand them, they want one who seeks, not one who finds fault. Let us ask, then, seek and knock, that it may be opened to us. To them the sacred signs were foretold as future: we see them present in the Church.

When the divine reading was being read, we too waited in our hearts on the great miracle which had made Moses, the servant of God, most attentive; for we too were made attentive to how fire appeared in the bush and the bush was not burned. Next we noticed that holy Scripture first said that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the bush. Then Moses spoke no longer as with an angel, but as with the Lord. Thirdly we noticed that when Moses asked God's name, so as to have something to say to the sons of Israel when they asked what was the name of the God who had sent him to them, he answered: "I am who I am." And not in passing, but commending it by repetition, he added: "So you shall say to the sons of Israel: He who is has sent me to you." Finally, having stated his name, he added further: "You shall say this to them: The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. And this is my name for ever." Hear about these things what the Lord grants. They are great, indeed, like the wrappings of God's mysteries: if we tried to unroll them fittingly and sufficiently, neither strength nor time would suffice.

What, then, we can say briefly is this: not in vain, not emptily, not without signifying some hidden thing, was there a flame in the bush, and the bush was not burned. For the bush is a kind of thorn plant; and what the earth produced for the sinner could not be set down in any praise. For it was said at the very beginning to the man who sinned, "The earth shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you." Nor ought we to think it something good that the bush was not burned, that is, was not caught by the flame. For if the flame in which the angel, or the Lord, appeared signifies something good (which is why, when the Holy Spirit came, divided tongues as of fire were seen by them), we ought to be caught by this fire, not to escape burning because of our hardness. The bush which it did not burn was a people that struggled against God. So the bush signified the thorny people of the Jews, to whom Moses was being sent. And so the bush was not burned, because the hardness of the Jews, as I said, struggled against the law of God. For if that people were not signified by thorns, Christ would not have been crowned with thorns by it.

That the same one who spoke to Moses is called both the angel of the Lord and the Lord is a great question, and it ought not to have a rash asserter but a cautious inquirer. There are two opinions that can be put forward on it, and whichever of them is true, both are in accordance with the faith. When I said, "whichever of them is true," I meant: which of them the writer intended. For when we, examining the Scriptures, perceive something that the writer perhaps did not intend, we still must not perceive anything that is at odds with the rule of faith, the rule of truth. So I put forward both opinions; perhaps there is also a third, which escapes me. Of these two that I set out, choose which you like. Some say that he was called both the angel of the Lord and the Lord because he was Christ, of whom the prophet openly says that he is the Angel of great counsel. For "angel" is the name of an office, not of a nature. For "angelos" in Greek is what is called "messenger" in Latin. "Messenger," then, is the name of an activity: by acting, that is, by announcing something, one is called a messenger. Who would deny that Christ announced to us the kingdom of heaven? Further, an angel, that is, a messenger, is sent by the one who announces something through him. And who would deny that Christ was sent? He who says so often, "I came not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me": he is properly the one sent. For Siloam, that pool, means "Sent." That is why he told the man whose eyes he had anointed with mud to wash his face there. For no one's sight is opened unless he is cleansed by Christ. So the same is angel and the same is Lord.

But here something comes up that must be guarded against. For there is no lack of heretics who say that the natures of the Father and the Son are distinct and discordant, and that they are not of one and the same substance. But the Catholic faith believes the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be one God, a Trinity of one substance, inseparably, equally, not confused by mixture, not separated by distinction. Those, then, who try to persuade people that the Son is not of the same substance as the Father argue from the fact that the Son was seen by the fathers. "The Father," they say, "was not seen; and the invisible and the visible are different natures." "And that is why," they say, "it was said of the Father, 'whom no man has seen or can see.'" So that he who was seen not only by Moses but also by Abraham, and not only by Abraham but even by Adam himself and the other fathers, should be believed to be not God the Father but rather the Son, so that he may be understood to be a creature. The Catholic Church does not say this. But what does it say? God the Father, God the Son; the Father unchangeable, the Son unchangeable; the Father eternal, the Son coeternal; the Father invisible, the Son invisible. For if you say the Father is invisible and the Son visible, you have distinguished, or rather separated, the substances. How have you found grace, you who have lost the faith? This question is solved, then, as follows: God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, is invisible in his own nature; but he appeared when he willed, to whom he willed, not as he is but as he willed, he whom all things serve. For if your soul, though it is invisible in your body, puts forth a voice in order to appear, and the voice in which your soul appears when you speak is not the substance of your soul (the soul is one thing, the voice another), and yet it appears, and in a thing that it is not itself: so too God, if he appeared in fire, is not fire; if he appeared in smoke, is not smoke; if he appeared in sound, is not sound. These things are not God, but they point to God. Holding this fast, we believe without anxiety that the Son who appeared to Moses could be called both Lord and angel of the Lord.

But those who think that the angel of the Lord truly was an angel, not Christ, but an angel sent, must be asked for an account of why he was called Lord. For just as those who say it was Christ are asked why he was called an angel, so those who say it was an angel are asked why he was called Lord. Now I have already mentioned how those who say it was Christ get out of the question why he was called an angel: because the prophet openly called the Lord Christ the Angel of great counsel. Those, then, who say it was an angel must answer why he was called Lord. They too answer: just as in the Scriptures a prophet speaks and it is said that the Lord speaks, not because the prophet is the Lord, but because the Lord is in the prophet; so too when the Lord deigns to speak through an angel, as through an apostle, as through a prophet, he is rightly called both an angel on his own account and the Lord on account of God dwelling in him. Certainly Paul was a man and Christ is God; and yet Paul himself says, "Do you want to have proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?" The prophet too said, "I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me." He who speaks in a man speaks in an angel. So the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses and said, "I am who I am." It is the voice of the indweller, not of the temple. For if he was Christ because he was called an angel, since he was one, what do we do when three appeared to Abraham? What do we say here? Three appeared, and Abraham, as if speaking to one, said, "Lord." What do we say? Why three? Was it the Trinity itself? Why then "Lord"? Because the Trinity is one Lord, they are not three lords; and the Trinity is one God, not three: one substance, three persons. For the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit either the Father or the Son. But the Father is Father only of the Son; the Son is Son only of the Father; the Spirit is of both the Father and the Son. Some, however, say that among those three one stood out, whom Abraham called Lord, when he had appeared with two, as Christ with his angels. But what do we do, since when two were sent to Sodom, appearing to Lot, Abraham's brother, he too recognizes divinity in them; and though he sees two, he calls them Lord? The one called the three Lord, and the other called the two Lord. So that we may not divide the Trinity and make a duality in Sodom, I think we understand it better in this way: that our fathers recognized the Lord in the angels, understood the one dwelling in his dwelling place, and gave glory not to the bearers but to the one seated in them. This opinion is confirmed not only by the Epistle written to the Hebrews, where it is said, "For if the word spoken through angels was made firm" (for he was speaking of the Old Testament, and he made the point that angels spoke there; but God was honored in his angels, and through the angels the inner indweller was heard); but also in the Acts of the Apostles Stephen says, accusing and rebuking the Jews, "Stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears." Stiff-necked: thorns not burned. "You always resist the Holy Spirit." That is why the bush was not burned, because the flames of the Spirit were resisted by the thorns of sins: "You always resist the Holy Spirit. Which of the prophets did your fathers not kill?" And here is the point at issue: "you who received the Law at the decrees of angels, and did not keep it." If he had said "of an angel," and not "of angels," there would be no lack of people to say, "It is Christ, because he was called the Angel of great counsel." Christ is an angel; is Christ angels? The apostle Paul too says that the seed of Abraham was dispensed: "ordained," he says, "through angels by the hand of a mediator."

So the angel, and the Lord in the angel, said to Moses when he asked his name, "I am who I am. You shall say to the sons of Israel: He who is has sent me to you." "To be" is the name of unchangeableness. For all things that are changed cease to be what they were and begin to be what they were not. True being, pure being, genuine being, belongs only to him who is not changed. He has being to whom it is said, "You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same." What is "I am who I am" but "I am eternal"? What is "I am who I am" but "I cannot be changed"? No creature can say it, not heaven, not earth, not an angel, not a Power, not Thrones, not Dominions, not Authorities. Since, then, this is the name of eternity, it is something more that he deigned to have a name of mercy: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The one is in himself, the other is toward us. For if he wished to be only what he is in himself, what would we be? If Moses understood, or rather because Moses understood, when it was said to him, "I am who I am," "He who is has sent me," he believed this was a great thing for men, he saw that this was far removed from men. For whoever has worthily understood this which is, and truly is, and has been touched in any way by the light of the most true being, even fleetingly, as by a flash, sees himself far below, far, far removed, far unlike; as that man says, "I said in my ecstasy." For with his mind caught up he saw I know not what, which was beyond him. It was what was true. "I said," he says, "in my ecstasy." What? "I am cast away from the sight of your eyes." So when Moses saw himself far unequal to what was being said, not to what was being seen, and as it were less able to take it in, and so, inflamed with the very desire to see what is, said to God with whom he was speaking, "Show me yourself": as if, then, he despaired, being so far unlike that excellence of being, God raises him up in his despair, because he saw him afraid; as if to say: Because I said, "I am who I am," and "He who is has sent me," you have understood what it is to be, and have despaired of grasping it: lift up your hope: "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob"; I am what I am in such a way, I am being itself in such a way, I am with being itself in such a way, that I do not wish to be lacking to men. If in any way we can seek the Lord and search for him who is, and who is indeed not far from each one of us: for in him we live and move and are: let us, then, praise his being beyond words and love his mercy. Amen.