Homilies on Judges 2.1–2.5

The death of Joshua has also been read to us. That the son of Nun died is no wonder, for he paid what was owed to nature. But since we had undertaken to refer what was read about the son of Nun to our Lord Jesus Christ, we must see how it can be said of him too that "Jesus died." Speaking on the authority of Scripture, I think that in some people Jesus lives, and in others he has died. Jesus lives in Paul and in Peter and in all those who can rightly say: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." And again he says: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." In such people, then, Jesus is rightly said to live. But in whom has Jesus died? Doubtless in those who, by often repenting and sinning again, are said, as it were, to mock the death of Jesus. Writing of them to the Hebrews, the apostle says: "Crucifying the Son of God afresh for themselves and holding him up to contempt." You see, then, that in sinners Jesus is said not only to die but even to be crucified and mocked by them. Consider this yourself: when you think about greed and want to seize what belongs to others, can you say, "Christ lives in me"? Or if you think about sexual immorality, if you are driven by rage, burning with spite, goaded by envy, raving with drunkenness, puffed up with pride, running riot with cruelty, can you say in all these, "Christ lives in me"? So, then, Christ dies in sinners, because in them righteousness, patience, truth, and all those things that Christ is do nothing. But whatever the saints do, Christ is said to do, as the apostle also says: "I can do all things in him who strengthens me, Christ." The Lord himself in the Gospels made a most beautiful distinction on this point, when he says: "Whoever confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father." You have seen that he said those who confess confess in him, as though he himself lived in them and did the works of life. But for those who deny he did not keep the same form of words, so as to say "whoever denies in me, I too will deny in him"; but "whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father," to show that whoever denies is outside him, but whoever confesses is in him. That, then, is why Scripture says here that when Joshua had died, "there arose another generation after them, who did not know Joshua and the works he had done in Israel."

"And the children of Israel did evil before God." Almighty Lord God, may it never happen to us that Jesus Christ, after he has risen from the dead, should die again in us! For what good is it to me if he lives in others by virtue and dies in me through the weakness of sin? What good is it to me if he does not live in me and in my heart, and does not accomplish the works of life in me? What good is it to me if in another he is born and renewed through good pursuits, good faith, and good works, but in me and in my heart he is, in a way, smothered and killed by evil thoughts, wicked desires, and the worst pursuits? See what Scripture adds: "There arose," it says, "another generation, which did not know Jesus and the great works he had done." That generation which did not know the Lord Jesus is the generation of evil thoughts and wicked desires "which come out of the heart." This is the generation that does not acknowledge the Lord Jesus, nor the great work he did in Israel. You see that sinners come so far that they even forget that great and glorious work which the Lord did: that he was crucified "for our sins and rose for our justification." That is why, I believe, the apostle, fearing this forgetfulness, said to his disciple Timothy, whom he held in special regard: "Remember that Christ Jesus has risen from the dead." For he knew that even so great a work as his rising from the dead could be forgotten if a sinful generation arose in the heart. So the other generation that did not know Jesus or the elders did evil before God.

"And they served," it says, "the Baals, and forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers." The ancients did this; but since what was written is said to have been written not for their sake but for ours, "upon whom the ends of the ages have come," let us see whether these things do not seem said of us more than of them. Do you want to see that this is explained as being about us, not by me but by the apostle? Hear what he says: "Do you not know what Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 'Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.' But what does the divine answer say to him? 'I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.'" And he adds: "So too at the present time a remnant has been saved according to the election of grace." You see, then, that he interprets those who bowed the knee to Baal and those who did not as the multitude of unbelievers and the remnant of believers. And he shows that those who were unbelieving and ungodly in the Saviour's time bowed the knee to Baal and worshipped images, while those who believe and fulfil the works of faith did not bow the knee to Baal. For nowhere in the histories, or in the Gospels, or in any other Scriptures is it related that anyone in the Saviour's time bent the knee to images; but it is certainly said of those who were held bound by their sins as if in fetters. Hence it is clear that we too, whenever we sin, when we are led captive under the law of sin, bow our knees to Baal. But we were not called for this, nor did we believe for this, that we should serve sin again and bend the knee to the devil again, but that we should bend the knee in the name of the Lord Jesus, because "at the name of Jesus every knee bends, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth," and that we should bend "the knee to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." But what good is it to me if, coming to prayer, I bend the knees of my body to God and bend the knees of my heart to the devil? For if I do not stand firm against the wiles of the devil, I have bent my knees to the devil. And if I do not stand steadfast against anger, I have bent my knees to anger. Likewise, if I do not steadfastly resist lust, I have bent the knees of my heart to lust. And in every single thing contrary to God I shall be seen to do this unless I stand steadfast and strong, just as they did who "served the Baals and forsook the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt." Let us not think, then, that because we do not appear to worship images, these things do not concern some of us too. Whatever a person worships above everything else, whatever he admires and loves above all things, that is his god. That, indeed, is what God demands of man before all and above all in his commandment: "You shall love," he says, "the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your strength," desiring in a way to claim these affections of the human mind for himself first, and knowing that whatever someone loves with his whole heart, his whole soul, and all his strength is his god. Let each one now examine himself and silently review in his own heart what flame of love burns in it most strongly and above all else, what affection he cherishes more ardently than the rest. Be judges of this yourselves; weigh these things in the scales of your own examination, and if there is anything that outweighs the rest in the pan of love, that is your god. But I fear that in very many the love of gold outweighs the rest, and the weight of avarice presses its pan well down. And to such a one it is certainly said: "You cannot serve God and Mammon" (that is, avarice). I fear too that in others the love of lust and pleasure so outweighs the rest that it sinks to the ground; in others the love of worldly glory and the desire for human rank weigh heavier than everything; and I think there are very few who, measuring their affections within themselves and weighing them on an even scale, will find that the weight of the love of God outweighs everything else that is human. I know one who weighed himself with the most searching examination and, having found that all the affections within him inclined toward the side where the love of God was, said with complete confidence: "Neither death nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." But it is Paul who could say this, that neither things present nor things to come nor any other creature can separate him from the love of God. As for us, would that we could at least say that neither gold nor silver, nor the pleasure of the flesh, nor the glory of the world and its perishable and temporary rank, nor bodily delights, nor fondness for children or wife will be able to separate us from the love of God. Surely we may at least say with confidence that neither the love of worldly literature, nor the sophisms of the philosophers, nor the deceptions of the astrologers and the feigned courses of the stars, nor divinations contrived by the stealthy deceit of demons, nor any love at all of foreknowledge through forbidden inquiries will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Did not the error of all the Gentiles take its beginning here, that they want the things men love greatly to be gods, and ascribe a divine name to every human vice and desire? Those greedy for money and burning with the love of avarice say that Mammon is, among the Syrians, the god of this desire; the lovers of lust and pleasure ascribe to themselves Venus as goddess of the vice that drives them. Likewise in the other vices, they have made into a god for themselves the very passion that presses on them. So too the apostle says the same. For he says: "And avarice, which is idolatry." You see, then, that not only worshipping an image but devotion to avarice is reckoned as the worship and service of idols. So we too, when we are so given over to some vices that we love them with our whole heart, our whole soul, and all our strength, are said to worship idols and to have gone after other gods.

"And they worshipped," it says, "other gods, the gods of the nations that were round about them, and provoked God to anger." You see how much sins accomplish: by sinning we are said to provoke to anger him in whom there is no affection of anger, nor indeed any other movement of passion. He remains unchangeable in his nature and is never troubled by the affections of anger; but I, by the things in which I sin, bring anger on myself, as the apostle says, teaching this very thing: "By your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works."

"So they provoked the Lord to anger and forsook the Lord; they worshipped Baal and Astarte, and the Lord was angry with fury against Israel and handed them over into the hands of plunderers." As long as someone serves God, he is not handed over into the hands of plunderers. But when they forsook the Lord and began to serve their passions, then it is said of them that "God handed them over to dishonourable passions." And again: "God handed them over to a reprobate mind, to do what is not fitting." Why? Because "they were filled," it says, "with all iniquity, wickedness, sexual immorality, avarice," and all the rest that is listed; just as here also: those who served and worshipped Baal and Astarte, God handed them over into the hands of plunderers, and they were in the hands of their enemies. For these things, as I have often said, the Jews read as accounts of things done and past. But we, for whose sake these things are said to have been written, must know that if we sin against the Lord and worship the pleasures of our mind and the desires of the flesh as though they were God, we too are handed over, and by apostolic authority are given into the hands of the devil. Hear him, then, saying of the one who had sinned: "I have handed such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved." You see, then, that God has handed over sinners into the hands of enemies not only through his apostles, but also through those who preside over the church and have the power not only of loosing but also of binding, sinners are handed over for the destruction of the flesh when they are separated from the body of Christ for their sins. And, as it seems to me, even now people are handed over from the church into the power of the devil in two ways. One is the way we described above, when someone's sin becomes known to the church and he is driven out of the church by the priests, so that, marked by all, he may be ashamed and, when he has turned back, what follows may happen to him, that "the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." In the other way a person is handed over to the devil when his sin is not known to men; but God, who sees in secret, looking into his mind and seeing his soul enslaved to vices and passions, and in his heart not only love of the world but avarice or lust or boasting or other things of this kind, the Lord himself hands such a person over to Satan. How does he hand him over to Satan? He departs from his mind, turns away, flees from his evil thoughts and unworthy desires, and leaves the house of his heart empty. And then will be fulfilled in that man what is written: "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it goes about through dry places; and if it finds no rest, it returns to its house, and finding it empty and swept, it takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and entering in, it dwells in that house, and then the last state of that man becomes worse than the first." In this way, then, we must understand that God hands over those whom he hands over: not that he himself hands anyone over, but that he forsakes them, judging them unworthy, since they do not so cultivate themselves and cleanse themselves from vices that God would gladly dwell in them. When he flees and turns away from the soul that lies in impurity and vice, the soul is said to be handed over, because it is found empty of God and is invaded by the wicked spirit. And so let us watch with the greatest care and make haste to be cleansed from vices and evil desires, so that we may hold God within us and he may deign to dwell in us, delighting in our deeds and words and thoughts, if we do everything we do according to his will, so that "whether we eat or drink or do anything else, we do all" in the name of our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.