Homilies on Joshua 5.1–6.4

Of those who crossed the Red Sea the Apostle says that all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Of those who crossed the Jordan we too can declare in a similar way that all were baptized into Jesus in the Jordan, so that the things related as done at the Jordan bear the form of the sacrament that is celebrated through baptism. But what is written, “And the people hastened to cross the Jordan; and it came to pass, when all the people had crossed, the ark of the covenant of the Lord also crossed,” does not seem to me to have been added idly by the Holy Spirit, when he said that the people hastened to cross. Hence I too think that for us also, when we come to saving baptism and receive the sacraments of the word of God, the matter must not be handled idly or sluggishly, but we must hasten and press on until we have crossed everything. For to cross everything is to fulfill everything that is commanded. Let us hasten, then, to cross, that is, first to fulfill what is written: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” so that, laying aside all arrogance and taking up the humility of Christ, they may be worthy to attain the promised blessedness. But when we have fulfilled this, we must not stand still or cease, but cross the others too that follow, that we may hunger and thirst for righteousness. We must cross what follows, that we may mourn in this world. The rest too must be crossed quickly, that we may become meek and remain peacemakers, so that through this we may be called sons of God. We must also hasten to cross the time of persecutions by the virtue of patience. And when we have gained each of these things that belong to the glory of virtue, not sluggishly or remissly but with all urgency and speed, this seems to me to be crossing the Jordan in haste. But when we have crossed and been able to obtain what we ought to obtain, again there follows the care of diligence and caution, lest perhaps, walking more carelessly, our steps should slip by some unforeseen fall, as the prophet also says: “My steps had nearly slipped.” Nor should our concern be less in keeping the virtues than in acquiring them.

Are not these signified to you in what is said, that forty thousand men girded, or ready for action, crossed over for battle in the sight of the Lord to take the city of Jericho? Let us ask who these are whom Scripture calls girded or ready. I do not dare to presume anything of myself and pronounce on it; let us rather be taught in such matters by the letters of the Apostle. Let us learn from Paul’s exposition who these girded men are. Hear what he says: “Stand, then, having your loins girded with truth.” You see, then, that Paul recognizes as girded those who are girded with the belt of truth. Truth, therefore, ought to be our belt too, if indeed we keep the sacrament of this military service and of its belt. For if truth is our belt, with which we are girded for the service of Christ, whenever we speak falsely and a lie proceeds from our mouth, we are ungirded from the service of Christ and stripped of the sword-belt of truth. So if we are in truth, we are girded; if in falsehood, ungirded. But let us rather imitate these forty thousand girded men who go before into battle in the sight of the Lord, and let us always be girded with truth. Nor shall I pass over idly what Scripture adds, that the girded men go forward in the sight of the Lord. For it is not enough to seem to keep the truth before men. It is possible to deceive men and to seem truthful, but you are not therefore girded with truth unless you keep the truth in the sight of the Lord too, that is, not only in what men hear with the voice, but also in what God sees in the heart, so that nothing false is laid up in the heart, as the prophet says of such men: “Who speak peace with their neighbor, but evil is in their hearts.” One who wishes to go forth girded in the sight of the Lord to take Jericho must be free of all these things, because in crossing the river Jordan we cross over to battles and wars. Do you want to learn again what battles await us, what wars receive us? Do not learn it from me, but again from the apostle Paul himself; he teaches you, saying: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” What is written are forms and figures. For so the Apostle says: “All these things happened to them in figure, but they were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” If, then, they were written for our sake, come, why do you delay? Let us go out to war, that the city of this world’s malice may be taken by us, that the walls of proud sin may be destroyed. Perhaps you look about for the road by which you must advance, for the battlefield you must seek. What I am about to say will perhaps seem new to you, but it is true: look for nothing outside, apart from yourself. Within you is the battle you are to fight; within is the evil building that must be torn down; your enemy proceeds from your own heart. This is not my word but Christ’s. Hear him saying: “For from the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies.” You see how great and of what kind is the army of your enemies that proceeds against you from your heart? These must be routed by us in the first slaughter, these laid low in the first line of battle. If we can overthrow their walls and cut them down to destruction, so that we leave none of them to bring word or to draw breath, if none of them at all breaks out alive again in our thoughts, then through Jesus that rest will be given us, that each may rest under his vine and under his fig tree, when there is no longer anyone to terrify the sons of Israel.

Yet forty thousand armed men cross the Jordan, girded, in the sight of the Lord for battle, and then Scripture says that “on that day the Lord exalted Jesus in the sight of the whole race of the sons of Israel.” This exaltation may well have belonged to the son of Nun, so that as leader of that people he might be held in honor among those he ruled; but let us see how our Jesus, my Lord, the leader and ruler of this people, is exalted in the sight of the whole race of the sons of Israel. I think that he is always exalted and lofty with the Father. But what is needed is that God should exalt him in our sight. And he is exalted in my sight when the sublimity and loftiness of his divinity is opened to me. When, then, was his lofty divinity revealed to me? Surely then, when I crossed the Jordan and was being armed for the battles to come with the various defenses of the sacraments.

“And they feared Jesus,” it says, “as they feared Moses.” Everyone who is under the law fears Moses; but when he has crossed over from the law to the Gospel, with the change of observance the fear too is changed, as the Apostle says: “For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God; I have been crucified with Christ. And now it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

After this the son of Nun is ordered to make knives of stone, and to sit and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time. I would like in this place to ask the Jews how anyone can be circumcised a second time with the circumcision of the flesh. For once a man has been circumcised, he has nothing further that could be removed a second time. But by us, to whom it is said that “the law is spiritual,” see how worthily and fittingly these things are explained. For we say that one who has been trained in the law and taught by Moses has cast off the errors of idolatry and laid aside the superstition and worship of images. This is the first circumcision, through the law. But if he comes from the law and the prophets to the faith of the Gospel, then he receives also the second circumcision, through the rock, which is Christ, and what the Lord said to Jesus is fulfilled: “Today I have taken away the reproach of Egypt from the sons of Israel.” And as the Apostle said, “They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ,” so we too can fittingly say in this place: They were circumcised by the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. For unless someone has been purified through the Gospel by the second circumcision, he cannot lay aside the reproach of Egypt, that is, the allurements of bodily vices.

Let us see, however, what this is that is said: “Today I have taken away the reproach from the sons of Israel.” All men, even if they come from the law, even if they have been instructed by Moses, still have in themselves the reproach of Egypt, the reproach of sins. Who will be like Paul, even in the observance of the law? Hear him saying: “As to the righteousness which is in the law, I lived blameless.” Yet he declares and says: “For we too were once foolish, unbelieving, going astray, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” Do these not seem to you reproaches, and reproaches of Egypt? But since Christ came and gave us the second circumcision through the baptism of regeneration and purified our souls, we have cast all these away, and in their place have taken up the pledge of a good conscience in the Lord. Then through the second circumcision the reproaches of Egypt were taken away from us and the vices of sins purged. Let no one, then, if he has been wholly converted, if he has repented from the heart, if he has faithfully crossed the streams of the Jordan, if he has been purified by the second circumcision through the Gospel, fear the reproaches of his past offences. You hear that today he has taken away from you the reproach of Egypt. The Lord signifies this too in the Gospels when he says: “Your sins are forgiven you; but now sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.” For if after the remission of sins you sin no more, the reproach of Egypt has truly been taken away from you. But if you sin again, the old reproaches roll back upon you again, all the more because it is a far greater crime to trample on the Son of God and count the blood of the covenant unclean than to neglect the law of Moses. For it is a far greater reproach for one who commits sexual immorality after the Gospel than for one who does so while placed under the law, because he takes the members of Christ and makes them members of a harlot. You see, then, how much heavier and more heaped-up are the reproaches that roll back upon you if you are negligent. Indeed, no one now accuses you of sexual immorality, but condemns you for the crime of sacrilege, because it is said to you: “Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of God? And if anyone violates the temple of God, God will destroy him.” Even if you did not know this before, yet now, since these words are spoken in your ears and teaching of this kind is poured into your heart, know that, having heard these things, you have now been made the temple of God and a member of Christ. See how far you have advanced from being a little man of earth. You have advanced, without doubt, into the temple of God, in which God must dwell; and you who were flesh and blood have advanced so as to be a member of Christ. But as this advance is great, so departure is terrible, and a fall almost beyond remedy. For you may no longer use the temple of God except in holiness, nor turn the members of Christ back to unworthy business. And therefore if ever the allurement of evil desire assails you, remember what you now hear, go out to meet that enemy who proceeds from yourself, that is, from your heart, and resist him with words like these, and say: I am not my own, for I have been bought with the price of the blood of Christ and have been made his member. I may not take a member of Christ and make it the member of a harlot. Tell him: I have been made the temple of God; I may not bring anything unclean in there, nor is it lawful for me to violate the temple of God. And add this too: that he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body — not against this body only, which has been made the temple of God, but also against that of which it is said that the whole church is the body of Christ; and he who has stained his own body is seen to sin against the whole church, because through one member the stain spreads into the whole body. There is also that reproach of Egypt which, if you are negligent, is suggested even after the crossing of the Jordan and after the second circumcision of baptism by the brand of old habit: to observe auguries, to inquire into the courses of the stars and pry from them into the outcome of future events, to watch for omens, and to be entangled in the other superstitions of this kind. For Egypt is the mother of idolatry, and it is certain that reproaches of this kind sprout from it: if you take them up after the Jordan has been crossed and entangle yourself again in these snares, you undoubtedly drag the reproaches of Egypt along with you. But if ever such curiosity accosts you and an enemy of this kind bursts out of your heart, tell him: I follow Jesus as my leader, in whose power are the things to come. What is it to me to know the things to come? Whatever he wills, that will come to pass. Therefore, that the second circumcision may truly be fulfilled in us, through which we lay aside the old reproaches of Egypt, we must be wholly separated from all these things, so that, purified in body and heart, we may lift up pure hands to God, and with pure mouth too, with cleansed lips and sincere mind, glorify God by prayer and by deeds in Christ Jesus our Lord, whose is the power and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

Those who were not obedient to the commandments of the Lord are called uncircumcised. From this it is understood that those are called uncircumcised who do not obey the commandments of the Lord. And yet, because God loves every soul, he does not wholly abandon either the circumcised or the uncircumcised. For he sent Jesus to circumcise all together, the worthy and the unworthy — not Jesus the son of Nun, for he did not circumcise the people with a true and perfect circumcision, but Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. For he it is who has truly taken away and cut off from us the pollution of the flesh, and purged the defilements of sins from our heart and soul. Hear, then, what Scripture says of those who were prefigured through the son of Nun: “And the sons of Israel, when they had been circumcised,” it says, “rested in the same place, staying in the camp until they were healed; and then the Lord said to Jesus: This day I have taken away the reproach of Egypt from you.” For it is not enough for us to be circumcised; we must also be healed after circumcision, that is, until a scar closes over the wound of the circumcision itself. When, then, does the scar close over the wound of our circumcision? I think that to be circumcised by our Jesus is this: to lay aside our former practices, to cut off foul and disordered habits and whatever is repugnant to the rule of decency and piety. But when we do this at the beginning, we are hampered in a way by the very difficulty of what is new, and as if with a certain labor and pain of mind we change the faults of old habit by new instruction. And therefore, as I said, there is a certain difficulty at the beginning, so that we can only hardly and with pain cut off the first things and take up the second. This, then, seems to me to be the time in which we are said to stay as in the pain of our circumcision, until the scar closes and we are healed. And the scar closes when we now carry out the new practices without difficulty, and what formerly seemed unaccustomed and hard turns into habit for us. And then we are truly said to be healed, when, free of vices, we turn the virtues into nature by new practice. And so at last the divine word rightly says to us what follows: “This day I have taken away the reproach of Egypt from you”; because after the reproach of Egypt was taken away, then it is said: “And the sons of Israel kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.” For they could not keep the passover before circumcision, nor eat the flesh of the lamb immediately after circumcision, before they were healed. But after they were healed, it is said that the sons of Israel kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month. You see, then, that no one unclean keeps the passover, no one uncircumcised, but whoever is clean and circumcised, as the Apostle too interprets it, saying: “For Christ our passover has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Moreover, when the people went out of the land of Egypt, it carried dough wrapped in its garments. When the dough had run out and they had no bread, God rained manna on them. But when they came to the holy land and received the fruits of the region of palms, the manna failed them, and then they began to eat of the fruits of the land. So three kinds of food are described in general. One is that which we eat as we go out of the land of Egypt, but this suffices for a short time. After it comes the manna. Third, we now take fruit from the holy land. In these differences (as far as the understanding of my littleness can reach) I think this is indicated: that the first food, which we carried with us when we came out of Egypt, is this slight secular learning, or, if anyone perhaps has attained to a knowledge of liberal letters, that, which can help us a little. But placed in the desert, that is, in the state of life in which we now are, we eat manna, in that we are instructed by the teachings of the divine law. But he who is found worthy to enter the land of promise, that is, to obtain what has been promised by the Saviour, eats the fruits from the region of palms. For truly he will find the fruit of the palm who has conquered the enemy and come to the promises. For it is certain that however great are the things we can now understand or perceive in the law of God or in the divine letters, much more sublime and lofty will be those which, when the enigma ceases, all the saints will be found worthy to see face to face, because “what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, God has prepared for those who love him.” But if the law is to be understood according to the letter alone, the sons of Israel will undoubtedly be found, while they were enjoying better things (for they received manna from heaven), to have received worse things from the promise, since, when the Egyptian food first failed them, the better food, manna from heaven, had followed. And how will it now be thought that when the better food ceased a worse one followed, unless because a greater and truer meaning is found in the spiritual understanding than in the text of the letter? But meanwhile, after Jesus brought the people into the holy land, then, when all had been conquered, he celebrates the passover.

“And it came to pass, when Jesus was in Jericho, that he looked up with his eyes and saw a man standing over against him, and a drawn sword was in his hand. And Jesus came near and said to him: Are you ours, or of our adversaries? And he said: I am the prince of the army of the power of the Lord; now I have come.” He looks up with his eyes, then, and sees the prince of the army of the power of the Lord, as one who had not looked up before, but only then, when he was to see the prince of the army of the Lord. Yet when Jesus had seen him, he did not see him as an ordinary man, but understood that he was a certain power. For he is not yet certain whether the one he sees is one of the divine powers or one of the contrary ones, and therefore he asks and inquires, saying: “Are you ours, or of our adversaries?” And he says: “I am the prince of the army of the power of the Lord; now I have come.” And when he had heard this, Jesus worshipped and said: “Lord, what do you command your servant?” What is it that Jesus teaches us by this? Undoubtedly what the apostle says: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God.” Jesus recognized, then, not only that he is from God, but that he is God. For he would not have worshipped unless he had recognized God. For who else is the prince of the army of the powers of the Lord but our Lord Jesus Christ? For the whole army of heaven, whether angels or archangels, or virtues, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all these, which were made through him, serve as soldiers under him as their prince, who is the prince of princes and who bestows rule on rulers. For he it is who says in the Gospel: “Have authority over ten cities.” And elsewhere: “You, have authority over five cities.” This is he who, having received the kingdom, returned.

But meanwhile let us see what the present reading suggests. Jesus is in Jericho; the enemy still holds the city; they are not yet conquered; and yet it is already said to Jesus: “Loose the shoe from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” And how is Jericho holy ground, when it is held by the enemy? Perhaps this is what is indicated: that wherever the prince of the army of the power of the Lord comes, he sanctifies the place; for Jericho itself was not a holy place, but because the prince of the Lord’s army came there, the place is called holy. I dare to say something more: that even where Moses stood was not in itself a holy place, but because the Lord stood with Moses, the presence of the Lord had sanctified the place; and therefore it is said to him: “Loose the strap of your shoe, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” Hence we too, if by our life and merits we approach God and are made worthy that God should stand by us, are told also to loose from the feet of our soul whatever bond of mortality is tied to them. For these are the feet which Jesus washes; and unless he washes them, we will have no part with him. If, then, we loose every bond of mortal care from our soul and senses, God will at once gladly be present with us and stand by us.

But let us see what comes next. Jericho is surrounded; it must be taken. How, then, is Jericho taken? No sword is drawn against it, no ram is aimed at it, no spears are hurled; only the priestly trumpets are used, and by them the walls of Jericho are brought down. For we often find Jericho set in the Scriptures as a figure of the world. For in the Gospel too, the man who is said to have gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho and to have fallen among robbers was undoubtedly a figure of that Adam who was thrust out of paradise into the exile of this world. But the blind men too who were in Jericho, to whom Jesus came to make them see, bore the form of those who were oppressed in this world by the blindness of ignorance, to whom the Son of God came. This Jericho, then, that is, this world, is going to fall. For the consummation of the age has long since been proclaimed in the holy books. How, then, will its consummation be given? By what instruments? “By the sound of trumpets,” it says. What trumpets? Let Paul reveal to you the secret of this mystery. Hear what he says: “The trumpet will sound,” he says, “and the dead who are in Christ will rise incorruptible,” and “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.” Then, therefore, Jesus our Lord will conquer Jericho with trumpets and lay it low, so that from it only the harlot is saved, and all her house. Our Lord Jesus will come, it says, and he will come with the sound of trumpets. But let us pray even now that he may come and destroy the world, which lies in the evil one, and all things that are in the world, because “all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes.” May he destroy these things, may he dissolve them very soon; but may he save this one alone, who received his spies, who placed his apostles, received in faith and obedience, in the upper rooms; and may he join and unite this harlot with the house of Israel. But let us no longer bring up or reckon against her the old fault. Once she was a harlot, but now she has been joined as a chaste virgin to one husband, Christ. Hear the Apostle saying of her: “I have resolved this very thing, to present you as a chaste virgin to one husband, Christ.” He too was of her number who said: “For we too were once foolish, unbelieving, going astray, slaves to various desires and pleasures.” Do you want to learn still more fully how the harlot is a harlot no longer? Hear Paul again, saying: “And such indeed you were; but you were washed, you were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” For so that she might escape and not perish with Jericho, she received from the spies a most powerful sign of salvation, the scarlet cord. For through the blood of Christ this whole church is saved, in Jesus Christ our Lord himself, to whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.