Homilies on Leviticus 16.7

“And five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue many thousands.” Who are these five who can pursue a hundred? The number five is placed both among praiseworthy things and among blameworthy ones. There are five wise virgins and five foolish. So also the number hundred can be taken in both senses. If, then, we are of the five praiseworthy ones, that is, of the five wise, we shall pursue the foolish hundred. For if we fight wisely and approvedly in the word of God, if we discourse prudently on the law of the Lord, we convict and put to flight the multitude of unbelievers. For as the number five indicates both the wise and the foolish, so the number hundred indicates both the faithful and the unfaithful. For Abraham is described as having believed God and been justified at the age of a hundred years; and “the sinner who dies at a hundred years will be accursed.” And here a hundred unbelievers are put to flight by five wise men; and again a hundred faithful, marked not so much by the number hundred as by perfection, will pursue many thousands of unbelievers. For faithful teachers put to flight countless demons, lest they deceive the souls of believers with their ancient fraud. “And your enemies will fall before you by the sword.” Who the enemies are we said above; let us ask by what sword they are said to fall. The apostle Paul teaches us what this sword is when he says: “For the word of God is living and effective, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching even to the joining of soul and spirit, of members and marrow, and it discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” This is the sword by whose edge our enemies fall. For it is the word of God that lays low all enemies and puts them under his feet, so that the whole world may be made subject to God. Do you want to learn from another Epistle of Paul too that the sword is the word of God? Hear him when he prepares arms for the soldiers of Christ, how he says: “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, through every prayer and supplication,” declaring most clearly through these words that through the word of God, which is a two-edged sword, our enemies will fall before us. “And I will look upon you and increase you.” This very thing is full of blessedness, if God looks upon someone. Do you want to see how great salvation there is if God looks upon a man? Peter at one time had almost perished, and had been snatched from the consecration of his apostolic office by the devil inspiring him through the mouth of the high priest's maidservant; but as soon as Jesus only looked at him, as soon as he turned the features of his gentle face toward him, at once he returned to himself and, drawing back his foot that had slipped over the precipice, “he wept,” it says, “most bitterly”; and so, looked upon by God, he recovered by weeping the place he had lost by denying. “I will look upon you,” then, it says, “and increase you.” As if the sun should look upon a crop and it should bear fruit, which would certainly have remained fruitless if it had not looked upon it, so God, looking upon the crop of our heart and enlightening us with the rays of his word, increases and multiplies us, so that we may no longer be little but become great, as Isaac became great, and Moses became great, and John. “And I will establish my covenant with you.” See what great promises are promised if we keep the commandments. “I will establish,” it says, “my covenant with you, and you will eat old things, and old of the old, and you will cast out the old before the new.” How do we cast out the old before the new? We had as the old the law and the prophets, and as the old of the old the things that were before the law from the beginning, when the world was made. The new Gospels came, the apostles came too. Before these we cast out the old. How do we cast them out? We cast out the law according to the letter, so as to establish the law according to the spirit. We can also say it this way: before the man from heaven came and the heavenly man was born, we were all earthly and bore the image of the earthly; but when the new man came, who was created according to God, we cast out the old before him, putting off the old man and putting on the new, who according to the inner man is renewed day by day. “And I will set my tabernacle among you.” If we have in us the things that were said above, if, having cast off the old man, our heart has been renewed, God comes to us and dwells in us, who said: “And I will set my tabernacle among you, and my soul will not abhor you.” The soul of God will not abhor us if we keep the things that are written. Yet I should like to ask what the soul of God is. Are we to think that God has a soul as a human being does? It is absurd to think this of God. But I dare to say that the soul of God is Christ. For just as Christ is the Word of God, and the wisdom of God and the power of God, so he is also the soul of God. And in this way it is said: “My soul will not abhor you,” that is, my Son, “but I will walk among you.” It does not seem to me that God promises this, that he will walk in the land of the Jews, but rather that if anyone deserves to be so pure in heart as to be capable of God, God says that he walks in him. “And you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, when you were slaves, and broke the yoke of your bond.” Truly “he brought us out of the house of slavery,” for “we were slaves” of sin, because “everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” And he “broke the bond of our yoke,” the yoke which he who had “led us into captivity” and bound us with the bonds of sins had laid upon our necks. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, “broke” the “bond” of sin and shook off the “yoke” of our captivity, and laid upon us his own sweet yoke of faith and love and hope and of all holiness. To him be glory for eternal ages of ages. Amen.