Homilies on Ezekiel 1.11–2.5

“And I looked, and behold, a spirit rising came from the north.” Consider carefully the number of the things that are said. “A spirit rising,” or “taking away,” “came from the north”: behold, one thing. “And a great cloud was in it”: behold, two. “And brightness round about it”: behold, three. “And flashing fire”: behold, four. “And in the midst of it as the appearance of amber in the midst of the fire”: behold, five. “And light in it”: behold, six. After these, “the likeness of four living creatures,” and their appearance, and the account of the vision: behold, seven. “And in the midst of the living creatures, as it were fire”: behold … Who can set these out in detail? Who has so much room for the Spirit of God as to explain these mysteries? The accusers of the Creator and of the God of the prophets ought first to understand what is said by the prophets, and afterwards to accuse. For one who truly accuses ought to accuse what he knows. But if the heretics are not even close to divine understanding, how can they reasonably accuse what we prove they do not know? Let them learn what the meaning is in this vision. First there appears a spirit taking away. Second, a great cloud in the spirit taking away. Third, flashing fire. Fifth, in the midst of it as the appearance of amber, no doubt in the midst of the fire. Sixth, brightness in the same amber. I gladly acknowledge a saying spoken by a wise and faithful man, which I often take up: it is dangerous to speak even true things about God. For not only are falsehoods spoken about him dangerous; even true things, if they are not uttered at the proper time, bring danger to the speaker. A pearl is genuine, but if it is cast wrongly, there is danger that it be trampled under their feet. And to give an example from our own circumstances: these gatherings, not only in Aelia, not only in Rome, not in Alexandria, but throughout the whole world alike, bear the likeness of the dragnet that catches fish of every kind. Not everything that falls into it can be good. For the Savior says: “When they have drawn it out and sat down by the shore, they will choose the good into their vessels, but the bad they will throw out.” So in the net of the whole Church there must be both good and bad. If all are already clean, what do we leave for the judgment of God? And according to another parable, both wheat and chaff are held on the threshing floor, though only the wheat is to be gathered into Christ’s barns, and the chaff is separated from it by him “whose winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will clean his threshing floor and gather the wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” I do not assert that the threshing floor is the whole world; I understand the threshing floor to be the assembly of the Christian people. Just as each threshing floor is bounded and is full of wheat or chaff, and is neither all wheat nor again all chaff, so in the earthly churches one person is wheat, another chaff. But there, the chaff is not chaff by its own doing or by its will, nor is the wheat wheat by its own choice; here, however, it is placed in your power to be chaff or wheat. These things should teach us that if anyone at any time sees a sinner in our congregations, he should not be scandalized nor say: “Look, a sinner is in the holy assembly. If this is allowed, if this is granted, why should I not sin too?” While we are in the present age, that is, on the threshing floor and in the net, both good and bad are held in it. But when Christ comes, the separation will take place, and what the Apostle says will be fulfilled: “We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what he has done in his body, whether good or bad.” This, by way of preface, concerns the interpretations of the visions: which he sets forth, which he leaves after touching lightly, which of them are to be expounded more plainly and which more obscurely, if indeed we are able to accomplish what we desire.

So first appears the spirit taking away. What we said a little earlier, that our Lord is a consuming fire, we now repeat and affirm that it agrees with this testimony. How is the spirit taking away set before us? God is spirit, and the spirit is seen taking away. What does he take away from me and from my soul, that he is rightly proclaimed as taking away? Evil things, surely; and then I perceive his goodness, if he has taken away from me everything that is worst. Yet we must not think that being freed from evils is the end of blessedness; to be without sin is the beginning of happiness. And in Jeremiah it is written (for I claim for the most merciful God all that is written in the prophets): “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth; behold, I have set you over nations and kingdoms to root up and to dig under and to destroy, and to build and to plant.” God is kind in giving words for rooting up. But what is it that must be rooted up and overturned? If there is any evil planting in the soul, any wicked sect, this the prophetic word roots up, this it overturns. Would that such a word might be given to me as would root up the seeds of the heretics and the teaching that flows from the devil’s fountain, and take away the planting of idolatry from the soul of one who is now entering the Church for the first time! “I have put my words in your mouth. Behold, I have set you to root up and to dig under”: that is, so that if any building is very bad, it may be torn down. How I too would like to dig under whatever Marcion has built in the ears of those he has deceived, to root it up, overturn it, and scatter it, as Jacob destroyed the idols! To this very day there is destroying and building. The heretics have heard only “destroy” and “overturn,” but to the word about building and planting they have turned deaf ears. For they will not observe that the sad things are spoken first, and the glad things second. Why do we mention these things now? To make it plain that the word of God overturns evil and builds up what is best, roots out vices like a good farmer, so that in the cleared field a most abundant harvest of virtues may spring up. So much for the spirit taking away. For he saw first the spirit taking away, then a great cloud in it. When you have been cleansed by the spirit that takes away, so that every evil is taken from you, and all the wickedness that dwells in your soul … by the spirit taking away. This cloud is closest to the cloud we read of in the Gospel, from which came the voice: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The spirit taking away, then a great cloud in it, afterwards a most brilliant light round about it. Evil has been taken away from you. A great cloud has been given you, to rain showers on your vineyard, according to what is said elsewhere: “I will command the clouds not to rain upon it,” that is, upon the very bad vineyard. If this is commanded concerning a bad vineyard, there is no doubt that, on the contrary, if you are a good vineyard, the cloud will rain upon you.

“And brightness round about it”; then “flashing fire, and in the midst of it as the appearance of amber.” God takes away evils from us in two ways, by spirit and by fire. If we are good and attentive to God’s commands, and are instructed by his words, he takes away our evils by spirit, according to what is written: “But if by the Spirit you put to death the works of the flesh, you will live.” But if the spirit has not taken away our evils, we need the cleansing of fire. Therefore observe carefully each pairing. The first pairing is of spirit and cloud; the second, of fire and light; the third, of amber and brightness; and each thing that seems grievous is balanced by the nearness of more pleasant things. For whether the spirit arises, at once a cloud follows; or fire appears, light is joined to it; or amber goes before, brightness is round about it. For we must be smelted like gold in the furnace, and like amber in the fiercest fire. And in this prophet whom we are now expounding you have the Lord sitting in the midst of Jerusalem and smelting those who are mixed with silver and tin and black matter and lead, and complaining in a plaintive voice of those who have in themselves a mixture of baser material. “You have become mixed silver,” he says, “and like a grape seed you have become rejected silver.” For when on God’s creation, which is good from the beginning, we bring vices and passions from our own evils, then we mix bronze, tin, and lead with silver and gold, and fire is necessary … When we come to that fire, let us pass through it safely, like gold and silver and precious stone … Let us not so much be burned as be tested.

“Behold, a spirit taking away came from the north.” And the fact that the spirit taking away came from the north, and afterwards returns, has a reason. For from the north evils flare up upon those who dwell in the land. The north wind is the most violent wind (we call it by another name …), which, among the four quarters of heaven from which the winds are said to blow, is the colder and fiercer. And what is written in Numbers about the order of the camps in Israel also holds a figure of this. For the last camp, Dan, is placed to the north. The first camp, Judah, is to the east; then after it Reuben; afterwards toward the sea Ephraim; at the end, as we said, Dan to the north. And the pot that is described as heated is kindled from the face of the north. For figuratively the north stands for the opposing power, that is, the devil, who is truly a most harsh wind. For the spirit taking away came from the north, and a great cloud in it. We have explained that vices come from him. “And brightness round about it, and flashing fire.” It could have said “burning fire,” but Scripture was reluctant to name what is grievous and to describe its work, and so in place of the force of punishment it set down only brightness.

“And in the midst of it as it were the likeness of four living creatures; this was their appearance: the likeness of a man was in them. And each had four faces, and each had four wings, and their legs were straight, and their feet winged.” You see what kind of beings are ruled by God, as in that verse: “You who sit upon the cherubim, appear.” Cherubim means “fullness of knowledge,” and whoever is full of knowledge becomes a cherub, whom God rules. But what do the four faces mean? The beings that are to be saved bend the knee to the Lord Jesus, and they are named threefold by the Apostle: “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.” And those who bend the knee to the Lord Jesus are subject to him. And those who are subject say: “Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation”; and: “He must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet.” What then is the fourth? Heavenly, earthly, and infernal are only three. Surely it is this: “Praise the Lord, heavens of heavens, and let the water that is above the heavens praise the name of the Lord.” All these are ruled by God and led by his majesty.

“Wherever the spirit went, the living creatures went too.” And the living creatures themselves have the likeness of a man upon them, although they have four faces. Nor was it said at the beginning that they have four faces; but because among the four faces the human face stands out and holds the first place, there is described both what is called the human face, and the face of a lion on the right of the four, and the face of an ox on the left of the four, and the face of an eagle on all four. Let us see, then, whether it signifies the tripartite soul (about which the opinions of others must also be discussed) … What is the tripartite division of the soul? By the man its rational part is indicated, by the lion anger, by the ox desire. But the spirit, which presides to give help, is not on the right like the man or the lion, nor on the left like the ox, but stands above the three faces. For in another place the eagle signifies … the spirit of the soul. I mean the spirit of man which is in him … heavenly, earthly, and infernal, and those that are above the heavens; and we all become cherubim, which are under the feet of God, to which the wheels are joined and follow them. We do not live under the wheel, nor under the sway and the affairs of the world, since through the passion of Christ we have already been freed from the business of the world. “And a wheel in the midst of a wheel.” If you consider how the whole of things unfolds through contrary events, whether in those who are thought to err or in those who are said to be free of error, you will see how a wheel is in the midst of a wheel. And this rules all things and turns them wherever it wills.

Scripture passes over no kind of sinner without teaching its readers about it. For the Word of God, sent to heal those who heard, had to touch on every spirit of sinners and speak to all people, so that no one would be cheated of the saving remedies and of the medicines that can help to cure wounds. So, just as some things are said about the people, others about the high priests, some about the presbyters, and some about stewards, and praise is ascribed to good stewards and blame to bad ones, so that some may receive encouragement toward better things and others may not fall into worse, in the same way divine teaching must be given about false and true prophets: so that by prophets are understood, in the end, those who minister the words of God, while by false prophets are meant those teachers of the churches who, either in word or in life, do not rightly agree with the teaching they preach. Therefore let us be … if Scripture admonishes us, teaching … and let me love it the more if the word of God touches some of our …, as we wish to be healed and turned from our sins.

“The word of the Lord came to the prophet Ezekiel, saying to him: Son of man, prophesy for me against the prophets.” There were indeed prophets of Israel in name rather than in truth. But today too, in the true Israel, that is, the Church, there are certain false prophets and false teachers, whom this word warns of beforehand. If the word of God reproves me, I will try to be converted; nor must I, who seem to be a teacher of the Church, keep silent because some things are said against me. Rather, not sparing myself, I will reveal everything that is said and everything that is hiddenly signified, so that it may be shown that the prophecy is aimed at the one who teaches against God’s will, who prophesies from his own heart. According to the simple understanding, some of the prophets, speaking from the divine Spirit, did not speak from their own heart but from the mind of God; while others, pretending to be prophets and saying, “Thus says the Lord,” when the Lord was not speaking in them, turned out to be false prophets. But the present word can also fit those who teach in the churches, if they teach otherwise than the truth demands. If anyone teaches the very things that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke, he speaks the words of Jesus the Son of God not from his own heart but from the Holy Spirit. If he agrees with the will of the Holy Spirit, who spoke in the apostles, he speaks not from his own heart but from the heart of the Holy Spirit, who spoke in Paul, who spoke in Peter, and who spoke in the other apostles. But if anyone, reading the Gospel, fits his own sense to the Gospel, not understanding it as the Lord spoke, he is a false prophet, speaking from his own heart in the Gospel. And it is not absurd to understand these words of the heretics. For they discourse as if in the Gospels and as if from the apostles, setting out the fables of their own people from their own heart, not from the heart of the Holy Spirit. For they cannot say: “But we have the mind of Christ, so that we may see the things that have been given to us by God.” But when it comes to me too, who am called a man of the Church, who take up the holy book and strive to interpret it, I beg my hearers to apply what can be understood of the heretics, to attend carefully, and to receive the grace of the Spirit of which it is said, “the discernment of spirits,” so that, having become approved money-changers, they may carefully observe when I am a false teacher and when I preach what belongs to piety and truth. So if I find the mind of Christ in Moses and in the prophets, I speak not from my own heart but from the Holy Spirit. But if, finding nothing fitting, I make up what I say, drifting in words that are foreign to God, I speak from my own heart rather than from the mind of God.

“Prophesy, and say to the prophets who prophesy from their own heart.” It does not say simply “from the heart,” but “from their own heart.” “And you shall prophesy and say to them: Hear the word of the Lord.” These things are said to me, to the one who professes to be a teacher, so that a greater fear of God may arise in us, lest we be in danger in uttering speech in this way, as if under a record written not by men but by the angels of God. For I know that when that court sits in judgment of which Daniel prophesied, and the books are opened, all my efforts and all my expositions will be brought into the open, whether for my justification or for my condemnation. What was well said will be for my justification; for my condemnation, what was expounded otherwise than truth demands. “By your words,” he says, “you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned”: as to one who has neither all words by which he would be justified, nor again all words by which he would be condemned. If anyone is clean of foreign words and of those that can be blamed, he will be justified by his words and will not be condemned. But if he never spoke rightly, but always uttered crooked things, he will be condemned by his words and will not be justified. But we are not perfect in every part: we neither speak so as always to be justified, nor on the other hand are we such sinners as always to be condemned, and we have some words by which we are justified and others by which we are condemned. So God places both on his scale, weighs them carefully, and judges in which I am righteous and for which words I am to be condemned. What he does with words, he also does with deeds. For there must be some deeds in which we are justified and others in which we are condemned. I am neither so perfect that all my deeds are such that I prove righteous in them, nor such a sinner that I have done only things that condemn me in every part. That there are some deeds of one kind and some of another is clear from what is said: “The sins of some men are evident, going before them to judgment, but those of others follow after. So also good deeds are evident, and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden.” The same holds for thoughts. Therefore, with thoughts accusing or excusing one another, a judgment awaits me concerning all that I do, all that I understand, all that I say, and I wait in uncertainty what my lot will be in that judgment; and the more the fear of God is struck into me of receiving back all that I have done, the more I ought to guard myself: would that it were from all sins! But if I cannot, at least from the greatest. So much for what we set out concerning the prophets who prophesy from their own heart, to whom it is said: “Hear the word of the Lord; thus says the Lord: Woe to those who prophesy from their own heart, who walk after their own spirit.” There are two sins, one of the heart, the other of the spirit. Let us first look at the better part, so that we may also consider its opposite. The Apostle says: “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also.” The mind has its dwelling in the heart. “I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the mind.” So there is both spirit and mind in us. And just as the saint prays with the spirit and prays with the mind, sings with the spirit and sings with the mind, so this false prophet prophesies from his own heart and walks not after the Spirit of God but after his own spirit. For there is a spirit of man which dwells in him. Far be it from me to walk after it; rather, understanding the Holy Spirit of God, may I walk after my Lord Jesus. So the prophets who prophesy from the heart and walk after a spirit that is not so much God’s as their own “do not see at all” (what is said in Greek, τὸ [καθόλου]), and the sense of the wording is ambiguous. For either they do not see the general things, that is, the universal, though they see certain things in part; or, as I think better, they do not see at all, though they seem to themselves to see certain things in part. For we have other eyes in us, better than those we have in the body. These eyes either see the Lord Jesus, who created them to behold him, or else they are utterly blind. If I am a sinner, I see nothing and cannot look upon the light of truth. “For judgment,” he says, “I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” But if I am righteous, I receive grace from God, and of me too it is said, “seer.” For the prophets were called “seers.” “And you who see,” he says, “go, go down into the land of Judah and stay there, and there you shall prophesy. But at Bethel you shall prophesy no more.” And again elsewhere: “The vision which Isaiah son of Amoz saw.” Blessed is he whose eyes the Lord opens to see the wonders of God’s law, according to the prayer of the prophet who says: “Open my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law.”

Let us look also at another word by which false prophets and false teachers are rebuked; and I ask that, through your prayers, I may be found clean of it. What, then, is the rebuke? “Like foxes in the desert are your prophets, Israel.” The fox is a wicked animal, cunning, untamable, wild. “Tell that fox,” says the Savior, “Behold, I perform cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I am perfected.” Samson needed these foxes against the foreigners: binding fire to their tails (for he had caught three hundred), he sent them to destroy the enemies’ crops. Such are the false teachers: cunning, malicious, like beasts. If I am such, I am a fox: not simply a fox, but a fox in the deserts, a fox in ruins, a fox among the rocks, for these readings are found in the different versions. These crafty and wicked ones always stay in deserts, always in wildernesses. For wherever a soul is inhabited by God and is full of the Holy Spirit, there the teaching of the heretics cannot penetrate, nor can their word break through. But where there is the absence of Christ, where there is a desert of righteousness, there the poisons of the most wicked teaching are at home. Therefore, he says, “Like foxes in the deserts are your prophets, Israel. They have not stood in the firmament.” If you wish to consider the teachers, you will see that they are weak, unstable, and unable to say: “He set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps.” And because they are not such as to have stood, grounded with a strong root, therefore “they have not stood in the firmament,” but they loved to move their feet. And this too is a great sin, to move one’s feet even a little, as David the psalmist sings: “How good is the God of Israel to the upright in heart! But my feet were almost moved.” Blessed and very happy is he to whom it is granted, standing most firmly, to have the firm feet of the soul, who is worthy to hear from God: “But you, stand with me.” But the false prophets are not such, the false teachers are not such; for they have not thus “stood in the firmament.”

“And they gathered flocks against the house of Israel”: those whom they teach, whom they train. Whether they are heretics preaching an impious doctrine, or false teachers deceiving those whose ears itch, they collect flocks of schisms against the Church of God, against the house of Israel. “They did not rise up who would say, in the day of the Lord, seeing false things.” Those did not rise; but these, rising, say: “We were buried with Christ through baptism, and we have risen with him.” For just as we have the pledge of the Holy Spirit, whom we shall receive in full after what is perfect has come, so we have a pledge of the resurrection, since none of us has yet risen in the perfect resurrection. Nevertheless we have risen, as Paul says: “We were buried with Christ through baptism, and we have risen with him.” So the false prophets and false teachers have not risen, that is, they have not yet obtained the baptism of resurrection: those who would speak in the day of the Lord, seeing things that are false, and can never behold the truth. Take an example. One who reads Scripture and takes it otherwise than it is written sees Scripture falsely. But one who hears Scripture as the understanding of the truth holds it, and interprets it so, sees the truth. And the saints do not practise divination: “For there is no divination in Jacob.” But sinners divine false things, saying, “Thus says the Lord,” and the Lord did not send them. Hear the heretics, how they say they have the traditions of the apostles. Hear the false teachers, how they affirm that their teaching is the Lord’s teaching, that their understanding agrees with the understanding of the prophets; and they say, “Thus says the Lord,” and the Lord did not send them. “And they began to raise up a word. Have you not seen a false vision?” For these too wish to raise up some word in their own defense, but the Lord rebukes them and says: “Have you not seen a false vision and spoken vain divinations, and said, ‘The Lord says,’ when I have not spoken? Therefore say: Thus says the Lord: because your words are lying.” Pray for us that our words may not be false. Even if some people, from ignorance of judgment, declare them false, so long as the Lord does not say so, it will go well with us. But if a thousand people say they are true, and in God’s judgment they turn out to be false, what good will it do me? The Marcionites too say that their master’s words are true, and those who accept the inventions of his fables say that Valentinus’s is a most powerful sect. What profit is it that very many of the Church, deceived by heretical perversity, have joined in their opinion? This is what is sought: that the Lord should stand by as witness of my words, and himself approve what is said by the testimony of the holy Scriptures. So for this reason the Lord Adonai says to us: “I will stretch out my hand against the prophets who see lies.” These are threats against false teachers and those who speak lies. Let us see what he threatens concerning them: “They shall not be in the discipline of my people.” Sinners are not rebuked by the Lord in one way only. The Lord’s people is reproved in one way, the one estranged from him in another: “Son, do not neglect the discipline of the Lord, nor grow weary when you are reproved by him. For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” “Reprove us, Lord, but in judgment and not in fury”: this is the rebuke of the people. The rebuke of the sinner and the stranger is the one the righteous man refuses, saying: “Lord, do not reprove me in your anger, nor rebuke me in your wrath.” So of the false teachers and false prophets it is said: “They shall not be in the discipline of my people, nor shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel.” As also elsewhere: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.” And now Scripture says: “They shall not be written in the writing of the house of Israel, and they shall not enter the land of Israel.” The heretics will dwell outside the land of promise, which is a very good land, into which we pray to be brought, having been written beforehand in the book of the living by Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.