Homilies on Exodus 7.1–7.8

… mystery, after the dances and timbrels, after the triumphal hymns, one comes to Marah. At Marah the water was bitter, and the people of God could not drink it. Why, then, after such great and such marvellous wonders, are the people of God brought to bitter waters and the danger of thirst? For it says: “And the sons of Israel came to Marah, and they could not drink the water from Marah, because it was bitter; and for this reason the name of that place was called Bitterness.” But what does it add after this? “Moses,” it says, “cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he put it into the water, and the water became sweet. And there,” it says, “God laid down for him ordinances and judgments.” There, where there is bitterness, where there is thirst, and, what is worse, thirst amid an abundance of waters, there God laid down for him ordinances and judgments. Was there no other place more worthy, more suitable, more fruitful than this one, where there is bitterness? And then, because it said, “The Lord showed him a tree, and he put it into the water, and the water became sweet,” it is quite remarkable that God should show Moses a tree to put into the water to make it sweet. Could God not make the water sweet without a tree? Or did Moses not know the tree, so that God had to show it to him? But we must see what beauty the inner sense holds in these things. I think that the law, if it is taken according to the letter, is quite bitter, and is itself Marah. For what is so bitter as that a boy should receive the wound of circumcision on the eighth day, and tender infancy should suffer the harshness of the iron? Quite bitter, very bitter indeed, is a cup of the law of this kind, so much so that the people of God (not that which was baptized into Moses in the sea and in the cloud, but this which has been baptized in the Spirit and water) cannot drink of this water; it cannot even taste the bitterness of circumcision, nor can it bear the bitterness of sacrificial victims, nor the observance of the Sabbath. But if God shows the tree which is put into this bitterness, so that the water of the law becomes sweet, it can drink of it. What is this tree which the Lord showed Moses? Solomon teaches us when he says of wisdom that “it is a tree of life to all who embrace it.” If, then, Christ, the tree of wisdom, has been put into the law, and has shown us how circumcision ought to be understood, how the Sabbaths, how the law of leprosy is to be kept, how the distinction between clean and unclean is to be held, then the water of Marah becomes sweet, and the bitterness of the letter of the law is turned into the sweetness of spiritual understanding, and then the people of God can drink. For if these things are not interpreted spiritually, the people that has abandoned idols and fled to God, if it hears the law giving commands about sacrifices, at once shrinks back and cannot drink; for it perceives this as bitter and harsh. “For if,” says the Apostle, “I build up again what I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” In this bitterness of Marah, then, that is, in this letter of the law, God laid down ordinances and testimonies. Does this not seem to you to say that God stored up the treasures of his wisdom and knowledge in the letter of the law, as in a kind of vessel? This, then, is what it says: “And there God laid down for him ordinances and testimonies.” This was what the Apostle too said: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the excellence of the power may be of God and not from us.” So that this water from Marah may be drunk, then, God shows a tree to be put into it, so that whoever drinks may not die, may not feel the bitterness. Hence it is clear that if anyone wishes to drink of the letter of the law without the tree of life, that is, without the mystery of the cross, without faith in Christ, without spiritual understanding, he will die of the excessive bitterness. Knowing this, the apostle Paul said that “the letter kills.” That is to say openly that the water of Marah kills if it is drunk unchanged, without being turned into sweetness.

But what did it add? After God had laid down ordinances and judgments for him, “there,” it says, “he tested him, saying: If you listen attentively to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is pleasing before him, and listen to his commandments and keep them, I will not bring upon you any disease that I brought upon the Egyptians. For I am the Lord your God who heals you.” This seems to me to explain with what purpose the ordinances and judgments and testimonies of the law were given: so that God, it says, might test them whether they would listen to the voice of the Lord and keep what was commanded. For as regards the former people, what good or perfect thing would be commanded to them, murmuring and contradicting as they were? Indeed, a little later they even turn to idols and, forgetting the benefits and wonders of God, set up the head of a calf. For this reason, then, commandments are given to them in which they might be tested. That is why the Lord also says to them through the prophet Ezekiel: “I gave you commandments and ordinances that were not good, in which you shall not live.” For when tested in the commandments of the Lord they are not found faithful. For this reason the commandment that was for life was found to be for them unto death; because one and the same commandment produces life if it is kept and death if it is not kept. According to this, then, that it produces death for those who do not keep it, the commandments are called not good, in which they do not live. But because he mixed the wood of the cross of Christ into them, and they have been turned into sweetness and are kept as spiritually understood, these same commandments are called commandments of life, as it says elsewhere too: “Hear, Israel, the commandments of life.” But let us see what is promised to them if they are kept. “If,” it says, “you keep my commandments, I will not bring upon you all the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians.” What, then, does it seem to say? That if anyone keeps the commandments he will suffer no sickness, that is, he will neither have a fever nor bear other pains of the body? I do not think that these are what is promised to those who keep the divine commandments. Otherwise, most righteous Job, most observant of all piety, is evidence against us, who was covered with a most grievous sore from head to foot. Those who keep the commandments are not said to be free from these infirmities, but they will not have the infirmities that the Egyptians have. For Egypt is figuratively called the world. To love the world, then, and the things that are in the world is an Egyptian sickness. To observe days and months and seasons, to seek out signs, to cling to the courses of the stars, is an Egyptian sickness. To be a slave to the luxury of the flesh, to devote oneself to pleasures, to give one's time to delights, is an Egyptian sickness. So the one who keeps the commandments is free of these infirmities and sicknesses.

After this it says that they came to Elim, and there were twelve springs of water there and seventy palm trees. Do you think there is any reason why the people are not led first to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water with no bitterness in them, and rather great pleasantness from the thickness of the palms, but were first led to the salt and bitter waters, and only after these had been made sweet by the tree shown by the Lord do they come to the springs? If we follow only the literal account, it does not build us up much to know to what place they came first and to what second. But if we search out the mystery hidden in these things, we find the order of faith. For first the people is led to the letter of the law. From this letter of the law, as long as it remains in its bitterness, it cannot withdraw; but when it has been made sweet through the tree of life, and the law has begun to be understood spiritually, then one passes from the Old Testament to the New, and comes to the twelve apostolic springs. There too the seventy palm trees will be found. For not only the twelve apostles preached the faith of Christ; seventy others too are related to have been sent to preach the word of God, through whom the world might recognize the palms of Christ's victory. It is not enough, then, for the people of God to drink the water of Marah, even though it has been turned to sweetness, even though all the bitterness of the letter has been driven out through the tree of life and the mystery of the cross. The Old Testament alone is not enough to drink from; one must come to the New Testament, from which one drinks without hesitation and quaffs without any difficulty. The Jews are even now at Marah; they still sit by the bitter waters. For God has not yet shown them the tree by which their waters might become sweet. For the prophet foretold to them: “Unless you believe, you will not understand.”

After this it is written: “In the second month,” it says, “after they had set out from Egypt, on the fifteenth day of the month, the people murmured against Moses, saying: Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this desert to kill the whole congregation with hunger.” Granted that the people's sin is made known for the correction of readers, because it murmured and was ungrateful for divine benefits when it received the heavenly manna; why is the very day on which the people murmured described as well? “In the second month,” it says, “on the fifteenth day of the month.” Surely this was not written without reason. Recall what is written in the laws of the Passover, and you will find there that this is the time appointed for celebrating a second Passover by those who have been unclean in soul or occupied in business abroad. Those, then, who were not unclean in soul and were not travelling far away kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. But those who were travelling far away and were unclean keep the second Passover at this time, when the manna too came down from heaven. On the day the first Passover is kept the manna did not come down from heaven, but on that on which the second Passover is kept. Let us see, then, what the order of the mystery in these things is. The first Passover belongs to the first people. The second Passover is ours. For we were unclean in soul, who worshipped wood and stone, and, not knowing God, served those who by nature were not gods. We too were those who were travelling far away, of whom the Apostle says that we were strangers and foreigners to the covenants of God, having no hope and wandering without God in this world. Yet manna is not given from heaven on the day the first Passover is kept, but on that of the second. For the bread that came down from heaven did not come to those who celebrated the first feast, but to us who have taken up the second. For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed, who came down from heaven as the true bread for us. But meanwhile let us see what is shown to have been done on this day. “On the fifteenth day of the second month,” it says, “the people murmured and said: It would have been better for us to die in Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat.” O ungrateful people, which longs for Egypt after seeing the Egyptians destroyed! It seeks the meats of Egypt, after seeing the flesh of the Egyptians given to the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. They raise a murmur, then, against Moses, or rather against God. This is pardoned the first time, pardoned the second time, perhaps also the third; yet if they do not stop but persist, hear what afterwards befalls the murmuring people. It is related in the book of Numbers, and the Apostle too took it up in his writings, saying: “Nor murmur, as some of them murmured and perished by serpents.” The poisonous bite of serpents feeds on the murmuring people in the desert. Let us see to it, we who hear these things, we, I say, for whom they were written: for they happened to them as correction, but they were written for us, “upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” If we do not stop murmuring, if we do not cease from the complaints we often make against God, let us beware lest we incur a similar example of offence. For when we complain of bad weather, of the barrenness of crops, of the scarcity of rain, of the prosperity of some and the misfortune of others, this is to raise a murmur against God. To those who are beginners this is pardoned; but on those who do not stop it is gravely avenged. For serpents are sent against them, that is, they are handed over to unclean spirits and venomous demons, who destroy them with hidden and secret bites and consume them with thoughts shut up within, in the inner recesses of the heart. But I beg you, let the examples of correction set before us profit us: let their punishment be our amendment. For God says: “I have heard the murmuring of the sons of Israel.” You see that our murmuring does not escape God: he hears everything, and if he does not punish at once, he is waiting for our repentance and conversion.

But what was read after this? “The Lord said,” it says, “to Moses: Behold, I will rain bread for you from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather each day's portion for that day, so that I may test them whether they walk in my law or not. And on the sixth day they shall prepare whatever they bring in, and it shall be double whatever they bring in daily, day by day.” On this scripture I would like first to have a word with the Jews, to whom the oracles of God are said to have been entrusted: what do they think of his saying, “For six days in succession you shall gather; but on the sixth day you shall gather double”? It is clear that the sixth day named is the one placed before the Sabbath, which among us is called the Preparation. The Sabbath is the seventh day. I ask, then, on what day the manna began to be given from heaven, and I want to compare our Lord's Day with the Sabbath of the Jews. For it appears from the divine Scriptures that the manna was first given on earth on the Lord's Day. For if, as Scripture says, it was gathered for six days in succession, and on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, it ceased, then without doubt its beginning was from the first day, which is the Lord's Day. But if it is established from the divine Scriptures that on the Lord's Day God rained manna from heaven and on the Sabbath did not rain it, let the Jews understand that even then our Lord's Day was preferred to the Jewish Sabbath; that even then it was indicated that on their Sabbath no grace of God would come down to them from heaven, no heavenly bread, which is the word of God, would come to them. For the prophet says elsewhere too: “For many days the sons of Israel will sit without king, without prince, without prophet, without victim, without sacrifice, without priest.” But on our Lord's Day the Lord always rains manna from heaven. And today too I say that the Lord rains manna from heaven. For these oracles which have been read to us are heavenly, and the words which have been recited to us came down from God; and therefore we are happy, who have received such manna. Manna is always given to us from heaven; they, unhappy, grieve and sigh and call themselves wretched, because they do not deserve to receive manna as their fathers received it. They never eat manna: for they cannot eat what is minute like coriander seed and white like frost. For they perceive nothing minute, nothing subtle, nothing spiritual in the word of God, but everything fat, everything gross: “For the heart of this people has grown fat.” And the interpretation of the name says the same. For manna is interpreted, “What is this?” See whether the very force of the name does not call you to learn, so that, when you hear the law of God read, you may always inquire and ask and say to the teachers: “What is this?” For this is what manna indicates. You, then, if you wish to eat manna, that is, if you desire to receive the word of God, know that it is minute and very subtle, like coriander seed. For it has something of the vegetable in it, by which it can nourish and refresh the weak, since “he who is weak, let him eat vegetables.” It has something of stiffness, and so it is like frost. But it has a great deal of whiteness and sweetness. For what is whiter, what more splendid than divine learning? What is sweeter or more pleasant than the oracles of the Lord, which are above honey and the honeycomb? But what does it mean when it says that on the sixth day a double portion is to be gathered in store, enough also for the Sabbath? According to our understanding we ought not to pass over this idly or carelessly. The sixth day is this life in which we now are; for in six days the Lord made this world. On this day, then, we ought to lay up and store away as much as will suffice also for the day to come. For if you acquire some good work here, if you store up some righteousness, mercy, and piety, this will be your food in the age to come. Do we not read so in the Gospel, that he who acquired ten talents here received ten cities there, and he who acquired four received four cities? This is what the Apostle too says through another figure: “For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” What, then, are we doing, we who love to store up what is corrupted, not what remains and lasts to the morrow? The rich of this age store up things that are corrupted in this age, or rather with the age. But if any … the morrow.

Accordingly it is written that those who were unbelieving “kept some of the manna, and worms bred in it, and it rotted.” But what was found for the Sabbath day was not corrupted, nor did worms breed in it, but it remained whole. You too, then, if you store up treasure only for the sake of the present life and out of love of the world, worms at once breed. How do worms breed? Hear what the prophet's sentence is about sinners and those who love the present age: “For their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched.” These are the worms that avarice breeds; these are the worms that the blind greed for riches breeds in those who have money and, seeing their brothers in need, shut up their hearts against them. That is why the Apostle too says: “Command the rich of this age not to be haughty nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but … to be rich in good works, to give readily, to share, and to store up for themselves the true life.” But someone says: If you say the manna is the word of God, how does it make worms? Worms come to be in us from nowhere else than from the word of God. For he himself says: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin.” If, then, anyone sins after receiving the word of God, that very word becomes for him a worm that always digs at his conscience and gnaws the secret places of his breast.

But what more does the divine word teach us? “And in the evening,” it says, “you shall know that I am the Lord, and in the morning you shall see the majesty of the Lord.” … in the morning his majesty is seen. Where was the Lord known in the evening, and his majesty seen in the morning? Answer us, you who are taught from infancy to old age, always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth: why do you not understand that these things are said prophetically? But if you want to understand them, you cannot do so except through the Gospel. For there you will find it written that “in the evening of the Sabbath, as it dawned toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James came to … they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.” There you will hear that an earthquake took place, that tombs were broken open, that the centurion and the soldiers placed on guard found angels sitting at the tomb in great brightness and saying: “He is not here; he has risen from the dead. Come and see the place where he was laid, and go, tell his disciples that he has risen, and he goes before you into Galilee.” So the majesty of the Lord was seen in the morning, when the resurrection was announced through the angels.

It is added in what follows: “In the evening,” it says, “you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread.” And on this I would like to know, you Jews, in what order you take the prophet's words. For what consistency will there seem to be in your eating meat in the evening without bread, or eating bread in the morning without anything added to it? What civic gift, what tempering of heavenly grace do you show in this? Is this where you place the knowledge of God, that meat is eaten in the evening without bread? And do you say that the majesty of God appears if, in turn, bread is eaten without meat? But keep these things for yourselves and for those who agree with you and think that God can be known in quails. But we, for whom at the end of the age, or toward the evening of the world, “the Word became flesh,” say that God is known in that flesh which he took from the Virgin. For no one ate these meats of the Word of God in the morning, nor at midday, but toward evening. For the coming of the Lord in the flesh took place toward evening, as John too says: “Children, it is the last hour.” “But in the morning,” it says, “you shall be filled with bread.” For us the bread too is the word of God. For he himself is the living bread who came down from heaven and gives life to this world. But how does it say that this bread is given in the morning, when we have said that his coming in the flesh took place toward evening? I think it must be understood in this way: that the Lord came toward the evening of a declining world, set near the end of its course, but by his coming, since he himself is the sun of righteousness, prepared a new day for believers. Since, then, he kindled a new light of knowledge for the world, he in a way made his own day and, as the sun of righteousness, brought forth his own morning; and in this morning those who receive his commandments are filled with bread. And do not wonder that the word of God is called both flesh and bread, and is called milk, and is called vegetables, and is named diversely according to the measure of believers or the capacity of those who take it. Yet this too can be understood: that after his resurrection, which we have shown took place in the morning, he filled believers with bread, in that he gave us the books of the law and the prophets, previously unknown and unfamiliar to us, and granted these documents of the Church for our instruction, so that he himself is the bread in the Gospel, while the other books, of the law, the prophets, or the histories, are called many loaves, by which those who believe from the Gentiles are filled. That this was not done without prophetic authority we show. For the prophet Isaiah had foretold it thus: “They shall go up to the mountain, they shall drink wine, they shall be anointed with ointment. Hand all these things over to the Gentiles: for this is the counsel of the Lord almighty.” So we have fittingly received meat in the evening and are filled with bread in the morning, because it was not possible for us to eat meat in the morning, for the time had not yet come; nor could we at midday. For scarcely do angels eat meat at midday, and perhaps the midday time is granted to that order. Besides, we can also understand this: that for each of us the morning and the beginning of the day is the time when we are first enlightened and come to the light of faith. At this time, then, while we are still in the beginnings of faith, we cannot eat the meats of the Word of God; that is, we are not yet capable of perfect and complete doctrine. But after long exercises, after much progress, when we are now near evening and are pressing toward the very end of perfection, then at last we can become capable of more solid food and of the perfect word. Now, then, let us hasten to receive the heavenly manna: for this manna gives in each one's mouth whatever taste he wishes. For hear the Lord too saying to those who come to him: “Be it done to you according to your faith.” You too, then, if you receive the word of God which is preached in the Church with all faith, with all devotion, that very word will become for you whatever you desire. For example, if you are troubled, it consoles you, saying: “A contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” If you rejoice in the hope to come, it heaps up joys for you, saying: “Rejoice in the Lord and exult, you righteous.” If you are angry, it calms you, saying: “Cease from anger and forsake indignation.” If you are in pain, it heals you, saying: “The Lord heals all your diseases.” If you are worn down by poverty, it consoles you, saying: “The Lord raises the needy from the earth and lifts the poor from the dunghill.” So the manna of the word of God gives in your mouth whatever taste you wish. But if anyone receives it unfaithfully, and does not eat it but hides it, worms breed from it. Do you think the word of God is to be brought down so far as to be thought to become even a worm? Let what you hear not disturb you here; hear the prophet speaking in the person of the Lord: “But I am a worm and not a man.” For just as he it is who becomes for some a fall and for others a resurrection, so he it is who now in the manna becomes for the faithful the sweetness of honey but for the unfaithful a worm. For he is the word of God, who convicts the minds of the wicked and pierces the consciences of sinners with the darts of reproof. He it is who also becomes fire in the hearts of those to whom he opens the Scriptures, who say: “Was not our heart burning within us when he opened the Scriptures to us?” And for others he is fire that burns up the thorns from the bad ground, that is, that consumes malicious thoughts in the heart. And therefore for sinners the convicting worm never dies, and the burning fire is never quenched; but for the righteous and faithful he remains sweet and pleasant. “For taste and see that the Lord is sweet,” he who is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.