Homilies on Leviticus 13.1–13.6

One who is perfect is taught by God himself about the meaning of the festivals, and does not use a human teacher to learn these things but learns from God, if anyone is able to receive the voice of God. But one who is not such, but lower, learns from one who has learned from God. There is, then, a twofold account of the festivals. One is taught by a prophetic mind enlightened by the Spirit, which, so to speak, is learned more by the gaze of the mind than by the sound of the voice, and through which the truth itself, not the shadow and image of the truth, is recognized. But those who cannot receive the very brightness of God, nor behold the whole radiance of the truth with the keen gaze of the mind, hear about the festivals in the second place from those who learned first; and whereas to the former the very nature of their seeing has given the truth of the realities, to the latter hearing alone brings the shadow of the truth. Conscious of this mystery the Apostle said of the Jews that they serve a shadow and copy of the heavenly things. For Moses is described as having seen the heavenly things themselves, but as having handed on to the people types and images of what he had seen. For so the divine word says to him: “See,” it says, “make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” Such, then, is what was read in this place also, that the Lord spoke about the festivals to Moses. And after this: “And Moses spoke,” it says, “the solemn days of the Lord God to the children of Israel.” Having finished the discourse about these, let us see what Moses is taught after this: first about the lamp and the lampstand and the oil that is poured into it; second about the table and the loaves of presentation, their number, and who ought to use them. Let us then attend more carefully to what is written, and pray that the grace of the Lord be granted us to discern these things, so that in the letters we read we may recognize what the will of the Holy Spirit is. “Command,” it says, “the children of Israel to bring you pure oil pressed from olives for the light, so that a lamp may burn continually outside the veil in the tabernacle of testimony; and Aaron and his sons shall light it from evening until morning before the Lord without ceasing, a perpetual ordinance for your generations. On the pure lampstand you shall light the lamps before the Lord until morning.” It names a pure lampstand, orders the lamps to be lit by the high priest, and commands that their light be supplied from oil given by the people. And so, unless the people give oil, the lamp will without doubt go out, and there will be no light in the holy place. According to the letter, then, the sequence was this: the people contributed pure oil pressed from olives, so that light might be supplied to the lamp from it; and Aaron lit the lamps from evening until morning, giving food to the light from the supply of oil that the people had contributed.

But since the law is spiritual, let us ask the Lord (if indeed we have turned to the Lord) to take away from us the veil over the reading of the Old Testament, so that we may perceive what the meaning of the lampstand and its lamps is according to spiritual understanding. Before the coming of my Lord Jesus Christ the sun did not rise for the people of Israel, but they used the light of a lamp. For the lamp among them was the word of the law and the prophetic word, enclosed within narrow walls, which could not pour its light out into the world. For the knowledge of God was shut up within Judaea, as the prophet too says: “God is known in Judaea.” But when the sun of righteousness, our Lord and Saviour, rose, and the man was born of whom it is written, “See, a man, East is his name,” the light of the knowledge of God was poured out through the whole world. The word of the law, then, and the prophetic word was a burning lamp, but it burned within a house and could not send its brightness beyond it. That the word of the law and of the prophets is called a lamp the Lord himself taught us, saying of John the Baptist: “He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for an hour in his light.” And elsewhere he says that the law and the prophets were until John. John, then, is a burning lamp, in whom the law and the prophets are concluded. As long, then, as that people had oil to contribute for the light, the lamp was not put out. But when the oil of mercy, the oil of good works, failed among them, and purity was not found among them (for pure oil was required for the light), then, because the oil of mercy failed in them, the lamp was necessarily put out. But what shall we say? That these things happened to them, while they are foreign to us? Rather, the Christian has a greater care to procure oil. For see how the Lord in the Gospels, through a parable, names as foolish the virgins who did not carry oil in their vessels; so foolish that, because they lacked oil to light their lamps, they were shut out of the wedding chamber, and the bridegroom ordered that it should no longer be opened to those who had neglected the care of oil when they knocked. I remember, however, that some time ago, when we were expounding the hundred and eighteenth psalm, at that verse in which it is written, “Your law, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths,” we showed according to our strength the difference between a lamp and light. For we said that he assigned the lamp to the feet, that is, to the lower parts of the body, but gave light to the paths, which paths in another place are called eternal paths. Since, then, according to a certain mystical account, this world is understood as the lower parts of creation, therefore the lamp of the law is said to be lit for those who in this world are, as it were, the feet of the whole creation. But eternal light will belong to those paths along which each will walk in the age to come according to his merits. But of these things enough has been said in its place, according to our strength. Now, then, since it is evening and night until the consummation of the age, and until the new day of the age to come and of the new light shines forth, this lamp burns for each of us, giving as much brightness of light as the supply of oil from the abundance of works has furnished. Indeed Job too, in one place, when he set out the good of his works, added this also: “When,” he says, “the lamp shone above my head.” This lamp, then, shines for each of us in so far as it has been lit with the oil of good works. But if we act badly and our works are evil, we not only do not light this lamp but put it out for ourselves; and what Scripture says is fulfilled in us, that he who does evil is in darkness, and he who hates his brother walks in darkness. For he has put out the lamp of love, and therefore he walks in darkness. Does not he seem to you to have put out the lamp who has put out the light of love? But he who loves his brother abides in the light of love, and can say with confidence: “But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God,” and: “His sons like young olive shoots around his table.” Oil, then, is commanded to be offered by the people, and not just any oil, but pure; and not from just any seeds (as is the custom in various regions), but pressed from olives, in which a sign of peace is shown. For your works cannot be acceptable to God unless they are done in peace, as the apostle James too says: “But the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace.” And therefore, I believe, the Lord too handed over a faithful deposit to his disciples, saying: “My peace I give you, my peace I leave you.” From this olive, then, let us press the oil of our works, from which a lamp may be lit for the Lord, so that we may not walk in darkness. These things we have said, then, as regards the lamp of the lampstand and its oil.

Now let us see what is written in what follows about the loaves of presentation. “And you shall take fine flour,” it says, “and make twelve loaves of it. Each loaf shall be of two tenths, and you shall set them in two rows, six loaves in a row, on the pure table before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense and salt on the row, and the loaves shall be set before the Lord for a memorial. On the sabbath day they shall be set before the Lord continually by the children of Israel, as an everlasting covenant. And they shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat them in a holy place, for they are the holy of holies. This shall be for them an everlasting ordinance from the things offered to the Lord.” According to what is written, in the twelve loaves a memorial of the twelve tribes of Israel seems to be made before the Lord, and the command is given that these twelve loaves be set without ceasing in the sight of the Lord, so that the memory of the twelve tribes may always be kept before him, by which a kind of entreaty and supplication seems to be made through these for each one. But such intercession is quite small and slight. For how much did it avail for propitiation, where the fruits of each tribe are to be considered through the loaf, and its works through the fruits? But if these things are referred to the greatness of the mystery, you will find that this memorial has the effect of a mighty propitiation. If you return to that bread which came down from heaven and gives life to this world, that bread of presentation whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood; and if you look to that memorial of which the Lord says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” you will find that this is the only memorial that makes God propitious to men. If, then, you recall more attentively the mysteries of the church, you will find the image of the future truth prefigured in what the law writes. But it is not necessary to discuss these things further, for it suffices to understand them by recollection alone. But we can also speak otherwise. Every word of God is bread, but there is a difference among loaves. For there is a word which can be brought before a common audience and teach the people about the works of mercy and all beneficence, and this is the bread that will be seen as common. But there is another which contains secrets and discourses about faith in God and the knowledge of realities. This bread is pure and made of fine flour. This must always be set in the sight of the Lord and laid out on the pure table. This is reserved for the priests alone and granted to the sons of Aaron as an everlasting gift. But lest you think that we are telling things thought out by our own understanding and not observed in the divine books, let us bring forward for you from the Scriptures how among different men a difference of bread was kept according to each one's merit. It is related in Genesis that the patriarch Abraham received angels as guests, and likewise Lot. But Abraham, who excelled in merits, is described as having set out loaves of fine flour, which he also called enkryphiai, that is, hidden and stored away. But Lot, because he did not have fine flour, set before his guests loaves of meal; not that he was so poor as not to have fine flour, since he is described as not inferior in riches to his uncle; but by these signs the difference of the merits of each is indicated: the one to whom mysteries were to be revealed by the Lord, and to whom it was said, “I will not hide from my servant Abraham what I am about to do,” who was to be instructed and taught about the hidden and secret things of God, is written to have had loaves of fine flour; but the other, to whom nothing of the sacrament was brought, but only the account of present safety and life, is written to have had common loaves made of meal only. You too, then, if you have knowledge of secrets, if you can discourse knowledgeably and carefully about faith in God, the mystery of Christ, and the unity of the Holy Spirit, offer to the Lord loaves of fine flour. But if you know only how to give the people common, plain admonitions and to treat the moral topic which concerns all, know that you have offered common bread.

But let us now see what the making of these loaves of presentation is, which are commanded always to be set before the Lord. “Let each loaf,” it says, “be of two tenths.” He said two tenths, but did not state of what measure these are tenths; whereas it would certainly have been consistent, if he wished the quantity to be known, to name the measure itself of which he ordered two tenths to be taken. What, then, is this thing whose measure and amount could neither be comprehended nor counted? The number ten is everywhere found to be perfect. For the account and origin of all number arises from it. Fittingly, then, God, the author and origin of all things, seems to be shown under this number. But if in the church I speak of the Father alone and proclaim his praises alone, I have made a loaf of one tenth. Or if I make a discourse about Christ alone, and declare his passion and preach his resurrection, I have offered a loaf of one tenth. But if I say that the Father is always with the Son and he himself does his works; or if I say that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and he who sees the Son sees the Father also, and that the Father and the Son are one, I have offered one loaf of two tenths of pure fine flour: the true bread that gives life to this world. The heretics do not make one loaf of two tenths; for they deny that God the creator is the Father of Christ, and they do not make the Old and New Testaments one loaf, nor do they confess one Spirit in both instruments. But we say that one and the same Holy Spirit is in the law and in the Gospels, and in this way also we offer one loaf of presentation of two tenths. Those heretics, then, who separate Christ from God the creator, his Father, and the Jews, who receive the Father alone and do not receive Christ, his Word and wisdom, do not make one loaf of two tenths. But we, though we cannot comprehend or find the name or account of the measure itself, that is, of the substance, yet, confessing the Father and the Son, make one loaf of two tenths; not so that one loaf is made of one tenth and another of the other, so that the two tenths are separated, but so that these two tenths are one mass and one loaf. How do two tenths become one mass? Because I do not separate the Son from the Father nor the Father from the Son: “For he who has seen me,” he says, “has seen the Father also.” The loaves, then, are made each of two tenths and are set in two rows, that is, two orders. For if there were one row, the discourse about the Father and the Son would be confused and mingled. But now there is indeed one loaf, for there is one will and one substance; but there are two rows, that is, two properties of the persons. For we call that one the Father who is not the Son, and this one the Son who is not the Father. And in this way we keep two tenths in one loaf, and confess two rows before the Lord. But truly it belongs to a great baker, so to speak, and a learned craftsman, to keep these measures very carefully and so to temper the discourse about the Father and the Son, joining where it is fitting and again separating where it is proper, that neither are the two measures ever lacking, nor does anything but one loaf ever appear. Twelve loaves, then, are commanded to be made from this fine flour, according to the number of the tribes of the carnal Israel of that time, in which, it seems to me, the form of the whole rational creation is contained. For there are thought to be twelve general orders of the rational creation, whose figure was in those twelve tribes. Among them there was one royal order, which is called Judah. Another was the priestly order, called Levi. There was also another order neighbouring Judah, called Benjamin, in whose territory the temple of God and the altar were placed. Another order is Issachar, and Zebulun, and Ephraim, and others whom the divine Scripture designates by name, whose meaning there is no time to explain now. Yet there is a loaf of each tribe, or order, before the Lord. And though there is a tribe that descends not from the free woman but from a concubine of Israel, and is partly free and partly slave, yet for all a loaf of two tenths is set before the Lord, and in all the two tenths of fine flour are present. And they are commanded to be set on a pure table. But which of us has so pure a table that loaves may be offered to the Lord upon it? “If you sit,” says Solomon, “to dine at the table of a powerful man, consider intelligently what is set before you.” What, then, is the table of the powerful man, if not the mind of him who said, “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me,” and, “When I am weak, then I am powerful”? On the pure table of this powerful man, that is, in his heart, in his mind, a loaf is offered to the Lord. If you sit at the table of this powerful Apostle, consider intelligently what is set before you, that is, attend spiritually to what is said by him, so that you too may be able to do what is added; for it says: “knowing that you must prepare such things.”

But let us see how these twelve loaves are set out: “Two rows,” it says, “six loaves in one row.” Do you think this division is idle? Why is the number twelve divided again into sixes? The number six has a certain kinship with this world, for in six days this visible world was made. There are, then, two orders in this world, that is, two peoples, who keep the faith of the Father and the Son in one church, as on one pure table. “And there shall be put,” it says, “pure frankincense on the row.” The kind of frankincense holds the form of prayers. To the loaves of faith, then, we must join watchfulness and purity of prayers. Pure prayer is, as the Apostle says, “lifting up pure hands without anger or quarrelling.” At the same time the sweetness of fragrance fulfils what is written: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight.” If anyone, then, offers prayers to God but does not have a conscience clean from evil works, he seems to put frankincense on the loaves, but not wholly pure. For if all frankincense were pure, Scripture would certainly not have added that pure frankincense is to be put on the loaves of presentation before the Lord. Nor should you think that almighty God commanded this and established it by law, that frankincense be brought to him from Arabia. But this is the frankincense which God seeks to be offered to him by men, from which he receives a fragrant odour: prayers from a pure heart and a good conscience, in which God truly receives a sweet fragrance. “And the loaves,” it says, “shall be set before the Lord for a memorial. On the sabbath day you shall set them out.” If it is not yet clear to you that these loaves are the word of God, be confirmed now by these words. For what is it that makes us remember God? What is it that recalls us to the memory of righteousness and of all good, if not the word of God? That is why it says that they will be set before the Lord for a memorial. And it adds “on the sabbath day,” that is, in the rest of souls. And what greater rest is there for a faithful soul than the memory of God? than to dwell in the sight of God? than to remain in the faith of the Father and the Son? than to offer prayers to the Lord as a fragrant odour? “It shall be an everlasting covenant,” it says, “for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat them in a holy place.” Aaron and his sons are a chosen race, a priestly race, to whom this portion of the holy things is given by God, which we all are who believe in Christ. But I do not look for the holy place on earth so much as in the heart. For the rational soul is called a holy place; that is why the Apostle too says: “Do not give place to the devil.” My soul, then, is a place of the devil if I act badly, of God if well. Indeed, “when the evil spirit,” it says, “has gone out of a man and gone about dry places and not found rest, then it says: I will return to my place from which I came out.” The holy place, then, is a pure soul. In this place we are commanded to eat the food of the word of God. For it is not fitting that an unholy soul should receive holy words; but when it has purified itself from every defilement of flesh and conduct, then, having become a holy place, let it take the food of that bread which came down from heaven. Is not the holy place better understood so than if we think that a structure of senseless stones is called a holy place? Hence in a similar way this law is set before you too, that when you receive the mystical bread you eat it in a clean place: that is, that you do not receive the sacraments of the Lord's body in a soul defiled and polluted by sins. “For whoever eats the bread,” it says, “and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let each one examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

“For they are the holy of holies.” You see how he did not say only “holy,” but “holy of holies”: as if he said, this food is holy; it is not common to all nor for any unworthy person, but belongs to the saints. How much more rightly and fittingly shall we say this also of the word of God: this word is not for all, nor for anyone at all, but belongs to the saints. Not just anyone can hear the mystery of this Word, but only those who are purified in mind, who are pure in heart, who are simple in soul, who are blameless in life, who are free in conscience: it is theirs to hear this discourse, to them these mysteries can be explained. “For to you,” he says, “it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God; but to them”—that is, to those who do not deserve it, who are not such as to deserve it, and cannot be capable of understanding secrets—to them this priestly bread cannot be given, which is the secret and mystical word, but [are spoken to] in parables, which is the common word of the crowd. “This shall be an everlasting ordinance.” For everything mystical is lawful and everlasting. For these present and everywhere visible things are temporal and quickly come to an end: for the form of this world is passing away. And if that of this world passes away, without doubt the form of the letter also passes away, and those things remain which are eternal, which the spiritual sense contains. If, then, we have understood, first, how God spoke to Moses and Moses to the children of Israel; second, the meaning of the pure lampstand and its lamps and oil; and third, if we have understood according to the will of the Spirit the loaves of presentation, each made of two tenths, let us take pains that we too may not be made unworthy of so great and so sublime an understanding, but that our soul may first become a holy place, and that in the holy place we may receive the holy mysteries through the grace of the Holy Spirit, by whom everything that is holy is sanctified. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.