Homilies on Leviticus 14.1–15.3

A narrative has been read to us, and although its telling seems plain, yet unless we follow more carefully the sequence of it according to the letter, the inner sense will not easily be open to us. This, then, is the passage of Scripture to be discussed: “And there went out,” it says, “the son of an Israelite woman, and he was the son of an Egyptian, among the sons of Israel; and they quarrelled in the camp, the one who was of the Israelite woman and an Israelite man. And the son of the Israelite woman, naming the name, cursed; and they brought him to Moses. And his mother's name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in prison, to judge concerning him by the command of the Lord. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Bring out the one who cursed outside the camp, and all who heard shall lay their hands on his head, and the whole congregation shall stone him.” Let us see, then, first what the narrative we have set out means, and although it seems plain, let us still try to set it before our eyes more clearly. Let us suppose, then, one man rejoicing in the nobility of the name of Israelite from father and mother; another only from his mother, not also from his father, and so noble, as it were, in part, and not on the father's side, which certainly seems the better, but on the mother's, which is the lesser. For if the father had been an Israelite and the mother an Egyptian, it would have been something more. For this is what Manasseh and Ephraim were. But now it is written that he was the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian father. If, then, you have carefully followed these two men, one wholly noble, the other in part, look now at them quarrelling with one another: in this quarrel the one who seems born of an Egyptian father and only an Israelite mother, naming, cursed, and for this the one who had cursed was brought to Moses. But Moses dared neither to acquit him nor to condemn him without God. For he handed him over to custody until he should receive an answer from God as to what he wished to be done with him. This is the content of the narrative; now let us see what spiritual meaning there is in it, which ought to build up the church.

First of all the text says that the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian father went out, and it does not say from where or to where he went out. For both are found placed in the camp, as the word of the Lord indicates, saying: “Bring the man who cursed outside the camp.” If, then, he is brought out of the camp, he was necessarily in the camp. Why, then, when he had not yet gone out of the camp, does the divine Scripture say of him, “And the son of the Israelite woman went out”? I think the divine word wishes to teach us that one who sins is said to go out in two ways. First he goes out from a good purpose and right judgment; he goes out from the way of righteousness; he goes out from the law of God. Afterwards, when he has been convicted of the sin, he goes out also from the assembly and congregation of the saints. For if, for example, we say, “One of the faithful has sinned,” even if he is not yet cast out by the bishop's sentence, he has nonetheless already been cast out by the very sin he committed; and although he enters the church, yet he has been cast out, and is outside, separated from the fellowship and unanimity of the faithful. The son of an Egyptian father and an Israelite mother, then, went out. One who is wholly outside the faith is wholly an Egyptian. But one who is among us and sins seems, in the part by which he believes God, to be of Israelite origin; but in the part by which he sins, he derives his descent from the Egyptian. Scripture, then, has set out two quarrelling: one wholly an Israelite, who quarrelled but did not sin; the other, whose sin it points out, it shows to be for the most part mixed with the Egyptian race; against him the Israelite quarrels, and perhaps fittingly and reasonably. For in Exodus too an Israelite and an Egyptian quarrel, where the Israelite prevails and the Egyptian falls. So I too today, if I defend the truth, if I fight for the faith of the church against one who believes in Christ in part and receives the Scriptures, but does not receive their sense wholly or faithfully, I quarrel against one who is an Israelite by his mother but an Egyptian by his father. If anyone, then, is a Christian and catholic both in belief of faith and in profession of name, he is an Israelite on both sides. But one who is a Christian in profession but a heretic and perverse in the understanding of the faith has an Israelite mother but an Egyptian father. How, then, does this happen? When someone reads the Scriptures and follows the letter but rejects the spiritual understanding, he has an Israelite mother, that is, the letter; but because he follows not the spiritual sense but the carnal, his father is an Egyptian; and therefore he quarrels against the churchman and catholic, that is, against one who is an Israelite on both sides, who is an Israelite according to the letter and according to the spirit, since he himself is an Israelite according to the letter but an Egyptian according to the spirit. What happens, then, when both quarrel? Necessarily the one who follows the carnal sense, as deriving his descent from the Egyptian, names the name and curses. For he names the name of God, and names it with a curse: for he denies that he is the creator of the world, denies that he is the Father of Christ. But we, who are Israelites of both lineages and defend both the letter and the spirit in the holy Scriptures, quarrel against those who seem half Israelites, and say that God must neither be cursed according to the letter nor blasphemed according to the spiritual understanding. For by the sentence of the apostle Paul the slanderer, not only against God but also against his neighbour, is excluded from the kingdom of God. For see how the Apostle says: “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor slanderers will possess the kingdom of God.” See among what crimes, among adulterers, among men who lie with males, among the greedy, whom he elsewhere calls idolaters, he has also placed slanderers, and excluded them from the kingdom of God together with them. Let those, then, who accustom their mouth to this vice by almost daily habit see what danger hangs over them. For thinking this a light and easy sin, they do not readily guard against it; but let them consider how the Apostle excludes slanderers from the kingdom of God, and how God through Moses orders the slanderer to be punished. Hence I too have greatly wondered that in this passage which we have in hand Scripture did not state openly that the one descended from the Egyptian cursed God, but put only that, naming, he cursed, and left it open whether to suspect it of God or of a man. Hence it seems to me that it did not wish to pronounce openly of God, lest it seem to have given licence concerning men; and therefore it was silent as to God or man, so that one might beware of both.

But since we have set out the sentence of the Apostle, who says that slanderers are to be excluded from the kingdom of God, this discourse asks for some consolation, lest we seem to pronounce utter despair on those who are carried away by an almost daily habit of slandering and neglect to set a guard or a door upon their mouth. Of the future promise there is not one manner nor a single kind; but as the Lord himself taught in the Gospel, he calls blessed the poor in spirit and says that the kingdom of heaven is theirs. And again he calls the meek blessed, yet promises them not the kingdom of heaven but the inheritance of the earth. He calls the peacemakers blessed, but not even to them did he give the kingdom of heaven, though he declares that they are sons of God. And while he promises different things to different people, he calls all blessed who attain the promises; yet he did not promise the kingdom of heaven to all. It can happen, then, that someone may be corrected and perfect in his other works and deeds, yet at times be overtaken by a fault of the mouth and a slip of speech: to him, even if according to the Apostle's sentence the kingdom of heaven is denied, the place of another blessedness is not cut off. Yet all the more, if anyone is perfect in other things, he ought to labour in this too, lest the vice of a bad habit creeping upon him snatch from him the kingdom of heaven, which is the summit of all the beatitudes, although the Lord said, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.” We can still add this too: that the nature of sin is like the material which is consumed by fire, which the apostle Paul says is built by sinners who build on the foundation of Christ wood, hay, stubble. In this it is plainly shown that there are some sins so light that they are compared to stubble, on which fire, when brought to it, cannot linger long. Others are like hay, which the fire also consumes without difficulty, yet lingers on somewhat longer than on stubble. Others are such as are compared to wood, in which, according to the quality of the crimes, the fire finds long and great fuel. So, then, each sin pays the just penalty according to its quality or quantity. Yet what need is there for the faithful, and for those who have known God, to think about the kinds of punishment? What need is there to lay wood, hay, or even stubble on the foundation of Christ? Why do we not rather lay gold, or silver, or precious stones on the precious foundation, where, when the fire comes, it will find nothing to consume? For if it comes to stubble, it will turn the stubble to embers and ashes; but if it comes to gold, it will make the gold purer. Let these things be said by us for those who neglect to cut off the habit of a slanderous mouth: who, even if they do not slander from the heart, even if they do not utter slanders with a wicked wish and mind, yet incur uncleanness of lips, according to the word of Isaiah, and defilement of the mouth. But this man, who though born of an Israelite mother was yet begotten of an Egyptian father, went out and, naming the name, cursed. Of him I think that if he had not gone out, he would neither have quarrelled against the true Israelite nor, naming, have cursed. For he went out from the truth, he went out from the fear of God, from faith, from love, as we said above, how by these things one goes out of the camp of the church, even if he is not cast out by the voice of the bishop. Just as, on the contrary, it sometimes happens that someone is driven away and sent outside by the unjust judgment of those who preside over the church. But if he did not go out before, that is, if he did not act so as to deserve to go out, he is not harmed at all by seeming to have been expelled by men with an unjust judgment. And so it happens that sometimes the one who is sent outside is within, and the one is outside who seems to be kept within. Do you want me to show you another who is said to have gone out though cast out by no one? It is written of Cain that he “went out from the face of God.” Where did he go out from the face of God? For where was the face of God not? But he is said to have gone out because he transgressed the law of nature and was the first to stain the earth, ignorant of so great a crime, with a brother's blood. Yet there are also those who go out well, and blessed are those who go out. I will show this too from the Scriptures. In Exodus it is written: “All,” it says, “who sought the name of the Lord went out to Moses outside the camp.” These went out well outside the camp, who followed Moses, that is, the law of God. And of others it is said: “Go out, my people, from their midst, and do not touch what is unclean.” “There went out, then,” it says, “the son of an Israelite woman, and he was the son of an Egyptian, among the sons of Israel; and they quarrelled in the camp, the one who was of the Israelite woman and an Israelite man.” See how great is the care of the divine Scripture, if only you attend, if you look carefully: the one born of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father it did not call a man; but the one who was an Israelite of both lineages it named a man. Do we think these things were written by accident? Do we think it was added by chance, that the one should not be called a man and the other should? These things are not accidental; there is a reason. For nothing in the words of God is written without a deep reason. For the one who was partly an Egyptian, partly an Israelite, did not yet deserve to be called a man. But the one who was wholly an Israelite, that is, who saw God with the mind, is called a man: that inner man who was made in the image of God and can see God.

After this, what is related next is not without a certain difficulty, about which many have inquired without being able to explain much. But if you help me with your prayers, we too will try to bring forward what the Lord may give. “A man,” it says, “if he curses God, shall receive sin. But whoever names the name of the Lord, let him be put to death.” What is this? The one who curses God does not have the penalty of death, but the one who names the name of the Lord? Is it not much more grievous to curse God than to name him, even if he is said to have named him in vain? And how does the one who curses only receive sin, while the one who names is punished with death? These, then, are the things that usually raise a question in this place, which to those ignorant of the sense of the Scriptures seem to be said inconsistently and unfittingly. For they think that the one who curses the name of God should be punished at once, while for the one who names it, it is enough to have received sin. But let us try to open the coherence of the passage in some such sense as this. We cannot doubt that the sin in which God is cursed is greater than that in which he is named. It remains for us to show that it is much more grievous to receive sin and to have it with oneself than to be punished with death. The death inflicted as a penalty for sin is a purging of the very sin for which it is ordered to be inflicted. The sin, then, is absolved by the penalty of death, and nothing remains for the day of judgment and the penalty of eternal fire to find for this crime. But when someone receives sin, he has it with him, and it remains with him, and it does not pass away by any punishment by which it is washed away; it is with him even after death; and because he did not pay temporal penalties here, he pays eternal punishments there. You see, then, how much more grievous it is to receive sin than to be punished with death. For here death is given as vengeance, and with the Lord, the just judge, there is no punishing twice for the same thing, as the prophet said. But where the vengeance has not been paid, the sin remains, to be extinguished in those eternal fires. And that these things are so I can bring you witnesses from the divine books: the patriarchs Reuben and Judah speaking to their father Jacob when they wished to take Benjamin with them and lead him to Egypt because of the pledge they had made with their brother Joseph. There Reuben speaks thus to his father: “Kill both my sons if I do not bring Benjamin back to you.” But Judah says: “I will be a sinner against you if I do not bring him back to you.” Jacob their father, then, knowing that what Judah had promised in saying “I will be a sinner against you” was much more grievous than what Reuben had promised in saying “Kill my sons,” did not entrust his son to Reuben, as one who had chosen the lighter penalty, but handed him over to Judah, knowing that what he had chosen was more grievous. In this way, then, the divine Scripture fittingly assigned to the one who cursed God that he receive sin, but to the one who offended more lightly that he be put to death. And do you want to learn from the Gospels too that one who has received his evils in this life does not receive them there, while for one who has not received them here, all are kept for him there? The example of Lazarus the poor man and of that rich man teaches us, to whom the patriarch Abraham says in the underworld: “Remember, son, that you received good things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things. But now you are tormented, while he is at rest.” And men ignorant of the judgments of God, which are a great deep, are accustomed to complain against God and to say: “Why do wicked men, unjust robbers, the impious and criminal, suffer nothing adverse in this life, but all things turn out prosperously for them, and honours, riches, power, even health itself and bodily vigour serve them? While on the contrary countless troubles come upon the innocent and pious and those who worship God; cast down and lowly, despised, they live under the blows of the powerful, and sometimes even diseases of the body itself rule them more cruelly?” But, as I said, those complain of these things who do not know what order there is in the divine judgments. For the more severely they wish those to be punished at whose power and injustices they groan, the more necessary it is for the punishments to be deferred; for if they were not deferred, they would certainly be temporal and lighter, since they would end with death; but now, because they are deferred, it is certain that they will be eternal and will stretch out with the ages. On the contrary, then, if they wish good things to be repaid to the just and innocent in the present age, those good things too would be temporal and soon come to an end. But the more they are deferred into the future, the more they will be perpetual and know no end. This, then, is what this passage of Scripture, comprised in a few words, has taught us: that we may know that it is much more grievous to receive sin and to have it and carry it with oneself to the underworld than to pay the penalty for the offence in the present. And therefore the apostle Paul, knowing that these things are expedient for the faithful, says of the one who had sinned: “Whom I have handed over,” he says, “to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,” that is, punished with death. And what the fruit of this death is he shows in what follows, saying: “that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You see, then, how plainly the Apostle set out the usefulness of this death. For when he says, “I handed him over for the destruction of the flesh,” that is, for the affliction of the body which is usually undergone by penitents, he called it the destruction of the flesh, a destruction of the flesh which nonetheless confers life on the spirit. Hence now too, if any of us perhaps remembers within himself the consciousness of some sin, if anyone knows himself to be liable for an offence, let him flee to repentance and willingly undertake the destruction of the flesh, so that our spirit, purged in the present life, may go clean and pure to Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

We see three different laws about the sale and redemption of houses given through Moses in Leviticus. Let us first treat their content according to the literal account, so that after this we may also be able to ascend to the spiritual sense. Some houses are in walled cities, some in villages or fields that have no walls. He says, then, that if someone sells a house in a walled city, he has the opportunity to redeem it for a whole year; but after the year no power of recovering it is granted. “For the house,” it says, “becomes the secure possession of the buyer,” if the one who sold it has not been able to free it within the year. The second law is that if the house that was sold is in a village that has no wall, yet to which a field is adjacent, the seller may, even after the year and whenever he can, restore the price and recover the house he had sold. The third law is that if the house happens to belong to a Levite or a priest, wherever such a house may be, whether in a walled city or in a village that has no wall, it is always lawful, at any time, for the Levite or priest to redeem his house whenever he can; and the divine laws never permit a priestly or Levitical possession to be confirmed to another who is not of the same order. These, then, are the laws which that former people used, even according to what is indicated by the literal account, providing quite religiously and piously for the priestly and Levitical orders.

But let us quickly refer these things to ourselves, whom the law of Christ, if we follow it, permits to have neither possessions on earth nor houses in cities. And why do I say houses? It does not allow us to possess several tunics or much money: “For having food and clothing,” it says, “let us be content with these.” How, then, shall we observe the laws given about houses, whether situated in a walled city or in villages that have no walls? We find in other places of Scripture that the divine word names a house with a greater mystery, as when it says of Jacob, and sets it down as though in his praise: “For Jacob,” it says, “was a simple man, dwelling in a house.” And again I find it written of the Hebrew midwives: “And because the midwives feared God,” it says, “they made houses for themselves.” We see, then, that for the midwives the fear of God was the cause of making houses, while for Jacob simplicity and innocence gave the cause of dwelling in a house. Indeed of Esau, because he was wicked, it is not written that he dwelt in a house, nor of anyone else who did not have the fear of God. What, then, is this house, and what kind of building is it? Paul explains it more openly when he says: “We have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” This, then, is the house which no one can build unless he fears God. This is the house which no one can construct or inhabit except in simplicity of mind and purity of heart. But since it usually happens that even one who has built well, and has constructed a heavenly house for himself by acting well, living well, and believing rightly, incurs the debt of some sin and is forced to sell it to a most cruel creditor and transfer his labours to another, the piety and clemency of the lawgiver come to his aid, so that it can be redeemed within a certain time: “if only,” it says, “your hand finds the price to restore.” What price? Without doubt one gathered by the tears of repentance, and found by the hands, that is, by the labour of good work. And this year can be understood as the one which the Lord came to proclaim, the acceptable year, in which he sets the broken free in remission and gives salvation to those who confess their offences. And as for his speaking of a house in a walled city: rightly, as I think, the house which is said to be in heaven is understood to be in a walled city. For the wall of such houses is the very firmament of heaven. But few can have such a house: perhaps those who, walking on earth, have their citizenship in heaven, and of whom the Apostle says, “You are God's building.” But the others, who have houses in villages that have no wall but have a fertile field adjoining, are perhaps those who prepare a dwelling for themselves in the land of the living, and in that land which the Lord promises to the meek, saying: “Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the earth as an inheritance.” For these houses, then, if a fall should happen to anyone, as we explained above, there is always the possibility of recovery. For example, if some fault has overtaken us which consists not in a mortal crime, not in blasphemy against the faith, which is surrounded by the wall of the church's and apostolic teaching, but in a fault either of speech or of conduct: this is to have sold a house which is in a field, or in a village that has no wall. This sale, then, and a fault of this kind can always be repaired, nor are you ever forbidden to do penance for offences of this kind. For in graver crimes the opportunity of repentance is granted only once; but these common ones, which we frequently incur, always admit repentance and are redeemed without ceasing.

“If this house,” it says, “is priestly or Levitical, wherever it is, whether in a city or in a field, it always has redemption.” In this place I seek a priestly sense and a Levitical understanding. For the hearer of these things ought not to be inferior, if possible, to the very one who wrote and established them. What, then, does it mean that the priest and the Levite always have redemption for his house, wherever it may be? According to the spiritual understanding, the mind consecrated to God is called a priest, and that one is called Levi who unceasingly stands before God and ministers to his will. Perfection, then, in understanding and in work, in faith and in deeds, is to be understood as the priest and the Levite. If, then, it should happen to this perfect mind at some time to sell the house which it has, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and to give it into the hands of another, as happened once to the great patriarch David when from his roof he looked upon the wife of Uriah the Hittite, it redeems it at once, repairs it at once; for he said at once, “I have sinned.” Indeed, we ought to see something still more sublime in this sense: how the houses of priests and Levites, that is, of perfect minds, always have their offences redeemed and are always purged. Whenever we read the divine Scriptures and review in them some offences of the holy fathers, if we say, according to the sentence of the apostle Paul, that all these things happened to them as a figure, but were written for our admonition, in this way their house is always redeemed, because purgation and satisfaction for their faults is always applied by the teachers, who show from the divine Scriptures that these were forms and images of future things, not to convict the offences of the saints, but to show that sinners and the impious are enrolled into the portion and fellowship of the saints. Never, then, is the priestly possession separated from the priest; even if it has been taken away for a time, even if it has been sold, it is always redeemed, always repaired, as if he were saying: “Love, which is perfect, suffers all things, hopes all things, endures all things; love never falls.” So too, then, the possession and house of the saints never falls, is never taken away, is never separated from their right. How can the house be separated from the priests which is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, in which Jesus Christ himself is the cornerstone? But that this house can at some time be sold, that is, that such a building can fall into sin, hear how the apostle Paul speaks of such: “Like a wise architect,” he says, “I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one see how he builds on it. For no one can lay another foundation than the one that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. But if anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble.” You see, then, that you can build on the foundation of Christ wood, hay, stubble, that is, the works of sin; whoever builds them has without doubt sold his house to the worst of buyers, the devil, from whom each sinner obtains as the price of sin the satisfaction of his desire. If anyone should incur this, which God forbid, let him quickly redeem it, quickly repair it, while there is time for repairing, while there is room for repentance, as we pray together that we may not be defrauded of a dwelling in the eternal house, but may be counted worthy to be received into the eternal tabernacles, through Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.