Homilies on Ezekiel 11.1–11.5

Exercise of the body both gives strength as a whole to those who are trained and, part by part, makes each member and the senses of the members more vigorous for enduring something or for perceiving: for instance, the keenness of the eyes, if it is exercised in seeing, becomes sharper for seeing; and the ears, if they hear more often, can better catch the differences of sounds. This can be observed in the other members too, as we have shown in a few. But what does it profit me for blessedness and for eternal life if the body is strengthened by exercises? What gain is it to me even if I become very strong in body, even if I go about vigorous in all my members? But, on the contrary, if I have the senses of the soul exercised for perceiving, if I have spent days and nights in learning, it not only benefits me in this life but will also go with me when I depart from the body. That is why God has spoken in parables and riddles: so that our mind might stretch itself, or rather, gathering itself together, might look into the subtleties of what is said, and, withdrawing from the vices of the body while it understands the truth, might direct the course of its life according to that truth. We have said these things by way of preface because the word of God came to Ezekiel, saying: “Son of man, tell a tale and speak a parable to the house of Israel.” Instead of what the Seventy translators put, “tale,” another of the translators rendered “propose a problem,” another “bring forth a problem,” another “signify a riddle.” So what has been read is a problem, a riddle, and a parable. If ever we have needed the illumination of the knowledge of God, we need it now most of all, so that, through your prayers, not so much I as the grace of God in me may set out the solution of the problem and riddle, or parable.

What, then, is the parable of the eagle which the Holy Spirit shows in the present passage? It is described not only as an eagle, but, in comparison with other eagles, as a great eagle, with huge wings, long in extent, and full of talons, or, as one translator has it, full of feathers. Not only in what we have said is it greater than other eagles; it is especially distinguished in this, that it has the leading to enter Lebanon. For entering there, from the choice cedar tree that stood in Lebanon it plucked the tender shoots and the topmost parts, and brought them to the land of Canaan, into a city of merchants, or a trading city, or a city of those who carry across, or, as others have translated, a walled city; and it put there what it had taken from the cedar of Lebanon, to be planted and to grow in the land of Canaan. After this the same eagle took to itself seed from outside, from the seed of the land from which it had taken the tops of the cedar, and planted it in a leafy plain over many waters. And this very thing that had been taken from the land of Canaan by the one who had plucked the tops of Lebanon (that is, what it had taken the second time) became a vine, not strong but weak, and small in stature too; and the branches of this vine bent down toward what had been taken from Lebanon and the cedar, so that it had its roots planted under its trunk. And indeed it became a vine, and made shoots, and spread out its branches. And after this came another eagle, it too great, with great wings and abundant feathers or talons; and behold, this vine of which we have just spoken, when the second eagle came, turned its covenant toward it, scorning the covenant it had first made with the tree under which it had become a bent vine and, having made shoots, had spread its branches more widely; and it embraced the second eagle and transferred its roots from the first to the next. Then it sent out branches to the second eagle, that it might water it, with the soil of its planting, in a good plain with much water. And indeed this vine was watered and transferred to the second eagle, so that it might grow, bear fruit, and become a great vine. Therefore the prophet is commanded to say that the vine which transgressed the covenant it had made with the first eagle and established it with the second will not prosper, nor will the roots of its tenderness spring up; rather its fruits will rot because of its going over, and everything that sprang from it will wither, and it will no longer have a great arm and many people; it will be plucked up by the roots, and though it has been watered it will not last nor prosper in fruitfulness; and as soon as the scorching wind touches it, it will wither and dry up together with the soil of its planting. The setting forth of the story itself requires that we tell more plainly, with some added words, what was said obscurely. But if it is so great a labor to understand what is said, what need is there to say how much obscurity the question itself holds: who is the first eagle, what is Lebanon, what is the cedar, what the top of the cedar, who the second eagle, what the transfer of the vine from the first to the next? If ever we needed God’s help (and in understanding the Scriptures we always need the Holy Spirit), now surely is the time for him to give us help and himself open what he has said. Just as our Savior in the Gospels himself interprets certain parables, so now too the prophet, in the second prophecy which was read in what remains, indicates that the first eagle is Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who entered Lebanon, that is, Jerusalem, and took from the tops of the cedar, that is, the king of Jerusalem and his princes, and brought them to the land of the Chaldeans, namely Babylon. For he planted the sons of Israel by taking them into captivity, and settled some of the royal seed and of the race of princes in that land. After this, and after the royal stock, another multitude too was taken by him, and it became a vine, not as strong as it had been when it was in God’s vineyard and in the holy land, where God’s sacrifices are offered: transplanted into Babylon, it was a weak vine. When these things had happened, war arose between Pharaoh king of Egypt and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. So the people that had been carried off by the Assyrians with its kings and the stock of its nobles, finding an occasion to throw off Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke and be freed from his rule, betook itself to the second great eagle with great wings, that is, Pharaoh. Then, as the course of events ran on, because God had handed them over not to Pharaoh but to Nebuchadnezzar, and they, not enduring his judgment and rule, had shaken Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke from their necks and gone over to Pharaoh, the wrath of God fell upon them, and the opposite of what they had expected happened. For one who is condemned by God must not flee his sentence, nor want to change the will of the judge, but must endure most patiently until God himself, who condemned him, sets him free. So, because the people went over to Pharaoh, it is abandoned by God’s help and suffers worse things than it had suffered before from Nebuchadnezzar. We have given the solution of the parable according to the letter and to what is written; there follows a harder interpretation, difficult to understand, concerning the true Nebuchadnezzar and the true Pharaoh and the words spoken of the eagles. We have set out this exposition briefly and concisely before bringing in the following reading, so that the present passage may be understood more easily, while a fuller exposition is kept for its place, and the following parable may also be discussed at length according to allegory.

But now we must take up a few points and, with a kind of equipment drawn from what the grace of God grants us, pave the way for the interpretation to come, knowing that we will expound it more fully in what follows. And first we must see why Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh are called eagles. Perhaps someone who does not read the Scriptures idly and in passing asks: Nebuchadnezzar is a great eagle with great wings, and here Pharaoh is another great eagle, likewise with huge wings; yet in the law the eagle is set among the unclean animals. Why, then, does the righteous man who has become rich prepare for himself the wings of an eagle, so that he can return to the house of his master? Why too is there a promise in the prophet Isaiah, who says: “The righteous will take wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not hunger”? For if the eagle is unclean, we ought not to take wings like an eagle when we are righteous, nor, when riches have grown for us, ought we … So, just as the lion is spoken of both in a bad sense and in a good, it is not unfitting that the eagle too be taken in both senses. And I suspect that the righteous man is not an eagle but like an eagle; for he imitates the eagle. And just as the bronze serpent was a type of the Savior (for it was not truly a serpent but imitated a serpent, as the Lord says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up”), in the same way the righteous man is not so much an eagle as like an eagle, because it is useful for him to follow the image of the eagle. According to this understanding the righteous man received a command in another place to be wise as a serpent: not to become a serpent, but so as not to be caught by the cunning of the true serpent. But if the word of God, examining the Scriptures diligently, and the Spirit of whom it is written, “The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God,” comes into someone’s soul, he will show most clearly from the Scriptures that the eagle and the lion too are placed among the clean animals: the cherubim of God have the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right of the four, and the face of an ox and the face of an eagle on the left of the four; and the things that are seen in the cherubim, that is, the eagle and the lion, are clean. For nothing is unclean in God’s chariot. And just as you, believing from among the Gentiles, have been made clean (and “What God has cleansed, do not call common” is said of all the things that were shown to Peter hanging from heaven), so the lion and the eagle that appeared in the cherubim have been cleansed. And there is another thing that is foretold for the coming of Christ: it knows a clean lion and a clean eagle, though they are called unclean. “For the wolf and the lambs will feed together.” The wolf that feeds harmlessly with the sheep is no longer to be guarded against. Of such a wolf it is not said to me: “Beware of those who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.” He spoke pointedly, saying, “But inwardly they are ravening wolves.” For there are others that are not ravening, when wolves and lambs will feed together, and the calf and the bull and the lion will eat together. And when such an association of natures so different from one another has come about in the faith of Christ, the lion will no longer be unclean but will forget its fierceness, and all the animals that are called unclean in God’s law will receive back the purity of their original condition. This has already been done in part, and will be fulfilled most fully at the second coming. So the mystery that was shown in the cherubim anticipated the truth of the thing; and the faces of the lion and the eagle are so closely akin to the other faces that what appeared in the cherubim seems to us greater than the calf, the bull, and the lion feeding together. For Isaiah promises nothing of these foretold things as cohering and joined to one another; but in the cherubim each living being is akin to another: the face of the ox to the face of the lion, and the face of the man to the face of the eagle. So do not greatly wonder when Pharaoh, and Nebuchadnezzar before him, are called eagles, while the righteous man is said to take wings like an eagle, and the man made rich in God’s portion prepares for himself the wings of an eagle to fly.

But to return to the subject: something is signified specially about Nebuchadnezzar, that he is great, with great wings and of the widest spread, so much that he dared to say: “By strength I will do it; by the wisdom of understanding I will remove the boundaries of the nations and feed on their strength, and I will shake the inhabited cities, and I will seize the whole world in my hand like a nest, and take it away like broken eggs.” Behold, this is the spread of his wings. Nor is this enough for him: he is full of talons and of many feathers, and he has the leading to enter Lebanon, to pluck the tops of its cedar. As long as those who dwelt in Lebanon did not sin, that is, as long as those placed in Jerusalem were not caught in crimes, this great eagle did not receive power to enter Lebanon, nor did he take for himself the choice things, the royal seed of the cedar and the stock of princes. For these are its tender shoots, which at one time were not hard of heart; yet he seized them, because they sinned against the Lord. This great eagle transferred the tops of the whole tree into Canaan, because figuratively the land of the Babylonians is called the land of the accursed Canaan, of whom Noah says: “Cursed be the boy Canaan; he will be a servant to his brothers.” In the city of merchants, or the trading city, or the city of those who carry across, or the walled city, he put what he had taken from the cedar; and he took for himself of the seed of the land, no longer from the higher ones only but also from the lesser, from the people of the Jews, and put it in a leafy plain; he set it to look out over much water; and it sprang up and became a vine, weak. Truly the people of God was weakened in Babylon, and so it could not sing the Lord’s song, saying: “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Truly the vine that had been planted in Babylon could not but be weak. How could the vine that had begun to be a Babylonian vine keep its former strength? Because it had not borne fruit in the holy land, it was transferred by the eagle and set in the land of Canaan, and became a weak vine, small in stature. As long as it was in the holy land, it was a huge vine; but when it was transferred to the territory of sinners, it became weak and small. So you too, the vine who hear me: if you wish to be great, do not go out of the boundaries of the Church; remain in the holy land of Jerusalem. But if because of your sins you fall into worse things, you will be transferred to another land and become a small vine, and your branches will fall and your roots will dry up, so that afterwards you will long to rest upon another eagle, as is now said, with great wings and many talons. It is good for one who is condemned to remain under the sentence of condemnation as long as it pleases him who condemned. Let us not run willingly to Pharaoh. For if we run to him, we act against God, who said: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” For we do not hasten to Nebuchadnezzar of our own will so much as we are condemned and dragged to him.

There follows: “And it came to pass: another great eagle, with great wings and abundant talons; and behold, this vine will embrace it,” that is, the second eagle. It often happens that we are transferred from one opposing power to another. For God had commanded that the people of the Israelites should submit their necks to Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke, as we read in Jeremiah, so much so that he threatened anyone who turned away from serving him; and at the time when we expounded Jeremiah, we tried to set out what the grace of God granted us through your prayers, or at any rate whatever we perceived. But the vine would not do what had been commanded, but stretched out its branches to Pharaoh in the soil of its planting; by him it was set in a plain over much water to bear the richest fruit; and having deserted Egypt, it desired Egypt again, thinking it would regain its former fruitfulness, and thinking above all that if it went over from Nebuchadnezzar to Pharaoh, it would strengthen its roots, raise its stature, and bear fruit. But everything fell out contrary to what it expected. For all its fruit rotted, and the shoots that had come, small as they were, into Babylon withered with the change of region, so that it was plucked up by the roots, no longer to grow strong in a great arm or in many people. What do these mysteries, so great and of such a kind, contain? What does each word signify? If we had hearers for it, we could climb to another Jerusalem and show you how the great eagle made its way and carried off its tops into this Babylon which we now inhabit. We could speak of more secret things concerning Pharaoh; but because we are pressed for time, and perhaps we boldly promise what we cannot fulfil, let us return to lesser things and rather expound according to the measure of our understanding. To this Lebanon, that is, the Church, where God’s sacrifices are offered and the incense of prayers to him is presented, came this great and true eagle Nebuchadnezzar, that is, the devil, and seized. Far be it from our times that he should carry off into Canaan any of the tops of the cedar, that is, of the leaders, and of the royal seed. Let us pray that what has often happened may not happen. For certain men who were leaders in the Church have been taken and transferred into Babylon, and because of their sin removed from the top of Lebanon. Of them it must be said that the great eagle, with great talons and spread with feathers, took from the tops of the cedar and scraped them off from Lebanon, that is, from Jerusalem, and planted them in the land of Canaan. And this eagle claims for itself not only the tops of the cedar, that is, those of the noblest rank, but also seizes the seed of the land and carries it into the land of Canaan, when someone of the people sins and someone of God’s people is entangled in the snares of the devil. Therefore let us implore God’s help day and night, both for ourselves and for our brothers, that no one may be transferred from Jerusalem into Canaan; that we may not, deserting his sentence and his will, turn to another eagle, so that a greater wrath comes upon us, and the whole planting rots, and the fruit withers together with the roots. For the planting of Jerusalem cannot bear fruit in another land, nor make branches in foreign territory, but at once dries up with its soil if it does not persevere in the will of God and in his Church, that is, in the deeds and words and knowledge of the truth of Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.