Homilies on Leviticus

Just as in the last days the Word of God, clothed with flesh from Mary, came forth into this world, and what was seen in him was one thing and what was understood was another (for the sight of his flesh lay open to all, but the knowledge of his divinity was given to few, and to the elect), so also when the word of God is brought forth to human beings through the prophets or the lawgiver, it is not brought forth without fitting garments. For as there it is covered with the veil of flesh, so here with the veil of the letter: so that the letter is seen as the flesh, while the spiritual sense hidden within is perceived as the divinity. This, then, is what we find now as we unroll the book of Leviticus, in which are described the rites of sacrifices, the variety of victims, and the ministries of the priests. But these things according to the letter, which is as it were the flesh of the Word of God and the garment of his divinity, the worthy perhaps may see or hear, and the unworthy as well. But blessed are those eyes which see the divine Spirit covered within by the veil of the letter; and blessed are those who bring to the hearing of these things the clean ears of the inner man. Otherwise in these words they will plainly feel the letter that kills. For if, following some even of our own people, I adopt the simple understanding, and receive the voice of the lawgiver without any of what they are accustomed to mock in us as verbal trickery and the cloud of allegory, then I, a churchman living under the faith of Christ and placed in the midst of the church, am compelled by the authority of the divine precept to sacrifice calves and lambs, and to offer fine flour with incense and oil. For this is what they do who force us to be slaves to the literal account and to keep the letter of the law. But it is time for us to use against wicked presbyters the words of holy Susanna, which they indeed reject, and so have cut the story of Susanna out of the catalogue of the divine books. But we both accept them and fittingly bring them forward against them, saying: “I am hemmed in on every side. For if I consent to you to follow the letter of the law, it will be death to me; but if I do not consent, I shall not escape your hands. But it is better for me to fall into your hands without any act than to sin in the sight of the Lord.” Let us also, then, fall into your disparagements, if it must be so, provided only that the church, now turned to Christ the Lord, may recognize the truth of the word of God covered under the covering of the letter. For so the Apostle says: “If anyone turns to the Lord, the veil will be taken away; for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” The Lord himself, then, the Holy Spirit himself, must be entreated by us to deign to take away every mist and all the darkness which, thickened by the filth of sins, obscures the sight of our heart, so that we may be able to behold the spiritual and wonderful understanding of his law, according to him who said: “Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law.” Let us therefore touch briefly, as best we can, on a few things out of many, not striving after the explanation of individual words (for that is the task of one who writes at leisure), but bringing forward what pertains to the building up of the church, so as to give our hearers occasions for understanding rather than pursue expositions at length, according to what is written: “Give an occasion to a wise man, and he will be wiser.”

The beginning of Leviticus, then, says that the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tabernacle of witness, so that he might promulgate to the children of Israel the laws of sacrifices and gifts, and he says: “If a man offers a gift to the Lord, he shall offer it from the cattle or the flocks,” that is, lambs or kids. “But if from birds, turtledoves or young pigeons. But if not a man but a soul offers a gift to God, from fine flour,” he says, “let it bring unleavened loaves baked in an oven,” or else fine flour mixed with oil from a frying pan, or kneaded likewise with oil from a griddle. Then next we are taught that nothing leavened at all may be offered at the altar of God, nor may honey ever be mixed with the sacrifices, but every sacrifice or gift must be salted with salt. In the second place he gave commands about the sacrifices of first fruits, which he orders to be offered to the Lord fresh, roasted, and well cleaned. After this, under the same body of law, instructions are given concerning the sacrifices of peace offerings: first from the cattle, second from the sheep; among which, however, whether lambs or kids, it is permitted to offer either females or males; and he decrees that nothing besides these animals is to be offered in the peace offerings. But let us go back a little, and see first of all what it means when he says: “If a man of you offers a gift,” as if anyone other than a man could offer. And surely it would have sufficed to say, “If any of you offers a gift”; but as it is he says: “If a man of you offers a gift.” And in what follows he says: “But if a soul offers a gift.” Further on, when the Lord now speaks a second time to Moses and gives commands about the sacrifices to be offered for sin, he speaks thus: “If the high priest sins, let him offer this and that”; or “if the whole synagogue sins,” or “if a ruler sins,” or “if a single soul sins”: each is commanded what to offer. What then? Do we think this distinction of persons is empty, so that one thing is commanded to be offered under the name of “man”, another under that of “soul”, another under that of “high priest”, another under that of “synagogue”, another again under the title of “ruler” or of “a single soul”? For my part, in the meantime, within the smallness of my understanding, I think that the “man” whom he named in this place, and placed first of all to offer a gift to God, is to be understood as the whole human race, and that it is this that is called the “man” who offers as a burnt offering a calf from the cattle without blemish. And this calf without blemish, see whether it is not that fatted calf which the father slaughtered for the son who had returned and been restored to him, the one who had been lost and had squandered all his substance, and made a great feast and had rejoicing, so that the angels in heaven rejoiced over one sinner doing penance. This man, then, who “was lost and is found,” since he had nothing of his own substance to offer (for he “had squandered everything, living riotously”), found this calf, sent indeed from heaven, but coming from the order of the patriarchs and from the connected succession of generations from Abraham; and therefore he did not say “a calf” and stop, so that any calf whatever might seem to be commanded, but “a calf from the cattle,” that is, coming by descent from the patriarchs. “And it shall be a male without blemish.” He is truly a male who does not know sin, which belongs to feminine frailty. He alone, then, is the male, he alone is without blemish, “who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth,” and who, accepted before the Lord, is offered at the door of the tabernacle. “At the door of the tabernacle” is not inside the door but outside the door. For Jesus was outside the door, because “he came to his own, and they did not receive him.” He did not, then, enter that tabernacle to which he had come, but was offered as a burnt offering at its door, because “he suffered outside the camp.” For those wicked tenants too cast out the son of the householder when he came, outside the vineyard, and killed him. This, then, is what is offered at the door of the tabernacle, accepted before the Lord; and what is so acceptable as the victim of Christ, who offered himself to God?

And yet, he says, “he shall lay his hand on the head of the victim, and they shall slaughter the calf before the Lord, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall offer the blood, and they shall pour out the blood on the altar round about, which is at the door of the tabernacle of witness.” It may indeed seem to have been said on this account, that Annas and Caiaphas were of the sons of Aaron, and all the others who took counsel against Jesus and pronounced him guilty of death, and poured out his blood around the base of the altar of the tabernacle of witness. For there the blood is poured out where the altar and its base were, as the Lord himself said: “It cannot be that a prophet perish outside Jerusalem.” He laid his hand, then, on the head of the calf; that is, he laid the sins of the human race on his own head. For he is the head of his body, the church. But perhaps this too is not done without reason: that whereas earlier he had said, “he shall bring it to the door of the tabernacle of witness,” afterwards he repeats it and says again, “to the altar which is at the door of the tabernacle of witness,” as though it were not enough to have designated the same place once in the same narrative. Unless perhaps he wished this to be understood: that the blood of Jesus was not only poured out in Jerusalem, where the altar was, and its base, and the tabernacle of witness, but that this same blood also sprinkled the altar above, which is in the heavens, where the church of the firstborn also is; as the Apostle too says that “he made peace through the blood of his cross, whether the things on earth or the things in the heavens.” Rightly, then, does he name a second time the altar which is at the door of the tabernacle of witness, because Jesus was offered as a victim not only for earthly but also for heavenly beings; and here, for human beings, he poured out the very bodily substance of his blood, while in the heavens, for the priests ministering there, if there are any such, he sacrificed the life-giving power of his body as a kind of spiritual sacrifice. Do you wish to know that there was a twofold victim in him, suited to earthly beings and fitted to heavenly ones? The Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says: “Through the veil, that is, his flesh.” And again he interprets the inner veil as heaven, which Jesus passed through, so as now to appear before the face of God for us, “always living,” he says, “to intercede for them.” If, then, two veils are understood, through which Jesus entered as high priest, consequently the sacrifice too must be understood as twofold, by which he saved both earthly and heavenly things. Indeed, what follows also seems to fit the heavenly sacrifice rather than the earthly.

“And when they have flayed the burnt offering,” he says, “they shall divide it limb by limb, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar, and they shall pile wood on the fire, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall lay the divided limbs, and the head, and the fat, on the wood which is upon the altar. But the entrails and the feet they shall wash with water, and the priest shall lay all of it on the altar; it is a victim and a sacrifice, an odour of sweetness to the Lord.” How the flesh of the Word of God, which is here called a calf, is flayed, and how it is divided limb by limb by the priests, is worth considering. I think that the priest who strips the hide from the calf offered as a burnt offering, and draws off the skin by which its limbs are covered, is the one who removes the veil of the letter from the word of God and lays bare its inner parts, which are the limbs of spiritual understanding; and he places these limbs of the inner knowledge of the word not in some low place, but in a high and holy one, that is, he sets them upon the altar, when he opens the divine mysteries not to unworthy people who lead a low and earthly life, but to those who are the altar of God, in whom the divine fire always burns and flesh is always consumed. On such as these, then, this calf of the burnt offering, divided limb by limb, is placed. For he divides the calf limb by limb who can explain in order, and discuss with fitting distinction, what progress it is to have touched the fringe of Christ; what, to have washed his feet with tears and wiped them with the hair of the head; and how much more than these it is to have anointed his head with ointment; and what eminence it has to have reclined on his breast. To discuss, then, the reasons for each of these, and to fit some to beginners, others to those who are already making progress in the faith of Christ, and others to those who are already perfect in knowledge and in love of him: this is to divide the calf limb by limb. And he too who knows how to show what were the beginnings of the law, what progress was added in the prophets, and what fullness of perfection is found in the Gospels; or who can teach with what milk of the word the little ones in Christ are to be fed, and with what vegetables of the word those who are weak in faith are to be refreshed, and also what is the solid and strong food with which the athletes of Christ are to be fattened: whoever knows how to divide each of these things by spiritual reasoning, such a teacher can be seen as that priest who lays on the altar the burnt offering divided into its limbs. He also adds wood to the altar, by which the fire may be kindled and burn, he, that is, by whom discourse is woven not only about the bodily powers of Christ but also about his divinity. For the divinity of Christ is from above, where this fire hastens. Fittingly, then, the heavenly fire consumed all these things that were done by the Saviour in the body, and restored them all to the nature of his divinity. Yet this fire is kindled when wood is applied. For the passion of Christ in the flesh extended as far as the wood. But when he was hung on the wood, the dispensation of the flesh was ended. For rising from the dead he ascended into heaven, whither the nature of fire shows his course. Hence the Apostle too said: “Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.” For the burnt offering of his flesh, offered through the wood of the cross, joined earthly things to heavenly and human things to divine. The word of the precept commands that the entrails together with the feet be washed with water, announcing the sacrament of baptism under a figurative proclamation. For he washes the entrails who cleanses the conscience. He washes the feet who receives the fulfilment of the sacrament and knows that “he who is clean needs only to wash his feet,” and that no one can have part with Jesus unless he has washed his feet.

But if you wish to turn these things also to the moral sense, you too have a calf that you ought to offer. Your flesh is a calf, and a very proud one: if you wish to offer it as a gift to the Lord, so as to keep it chaste and pure, bring it to the door of the tabernacle, that is, where it can receive the hearing of the divine books. Let your gift be male; let it not know the female, let it reject desire, let it flee frailty, let it seek nothing loose or soft. Lay your hand also on your victim, so that it may be acceptable to the Lord, and slaughter it before the Lord; that is, put on it the bridle of continence, and do not take the hand of discipline away from it, as he laid his hand on his own flesh who said: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate.” And slaughter it before the Lord, putting to death, no doubt, your members which are on earth. And let the sons of Aaron the priest offer its blood. The priest is in you, and his sons: the mind that is in you and its senses, which are rightly called the priest and the sons of the priest; for they alone understand God and are capable of the knowledge of God. The divine word, then, wishes you to offer your flesh to God in chastity with a rational sense, according to what the Apostle says: “a living victim, holy, pleasing to God, your rational service.” And this is to offer the blood at the altar through the priest or the sons of the priest: when someone becomes chaste in both body and spirit. For there are others who do indeed offer their flesh as a burnt offering, but not through the ministry of the priest. For they do not offer knowingly, nor according to the law which is in the mouth of the priest; they are indeed chaste in body, but in mind they are found unchaste. For either they are stained with the desire for human glory, or polluted by the greed of avarice, or soiled by the misery of envy and spite, or tormented by the savagery of raging hatred and anger. Whoever, then, are such, though they are chaste in body, nevertheless do not offer their burnt offerings through the hands and ministry of the priest. For there is not in them counsel and prudence, which exercises priesthood before God; but they are of those five foolish virgins who were virgins indeed and kept chastity of body, but did not know how to store in their vessels the oil of love and peace and the other virtues, and therefore were shut out of the bridegroom's chamber; since continence of the flesh alone cannot reach the Lord's altar if it is abandoned by the other virtues and the priestly ministries. And therefore let us who read or hear these things devote our effort to both sides: to be chaste in body, upright in mind, clean in heart, reformed in conduct, advancing in works, watchful in knowledge, faith, and actions, perfect in deeds and understanding, so that we may deserve to be conformed to the likeness of the victim of Christ, through our Lord Jesus Christ himself, through whom to God the Father almighty with the Holy Spirit is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

The former discussion of the opening of Leviticus taught us the law of the sacrifices which are called gifts: that if a man offered a gift, he should offer it from animals, that is, from the cattle, or the sheep, or also the goats; but if from birds, he should bring a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. But if a soul offers a gift, it should offer fine flour from the oven, that is, unleavened loaves of fine flour, or fine flour mixed with oil from a frying pan or also from a griddle. And if anyone offers a sacrifice of first fruits, from the first fruits of the crops, he wishes the fine flour to be fresh, that is, new, and also roasted with fire and broken in the middle, so that it is not much crumbled, because it is first fruits, and well cleaned; and that oil and incense be put on it, and so it be offered. But if anyone offers a peace offering, he is commanded to offer from the cattle, or also from the sheep or goats, and apart from these no other kind of sacrifice is substituted among the peace offerings. For involuntary sins, the soul is commanded in general to offer, and after this the law goes through various and different persons, and it is commanded that if it is the high priest who has transgressed and offers a sacrifice for sin, he should offer a calf as a burnt offering, but not with the same rite with which he offered it as a gift. For from this one he shall lay on the altar of burnt offerings only the fat, and the two kidneys with their fat, and the fat that covers the inward parts. Of its blood also he dips his finger and sprinkles it seven times before the Lord, and smears some of it on the horns of the altar of incense. But the rest of the flesh, with the hide and the entrails and the dung, he commands to be burned with fire outside the camp in a clean place. It is certainly to be observed that in the case of the high priest's sin the lawgiver did not add that he had sinned through ignorance or unwillingly. For ignorance cannot befall one who was promoted in order to teach the others. And if it is the sin of the whole synagogue, the synagogue is likewise commanded to offer a calf as a burnt offering. But in the case of the synagogue's sin it is said: “If it was ignorant, and the matter was hidden from the eyes of the synagogue, and it did one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done.” From this it appears that the whole synagogue too can transgress through ignorance. The Lord also confirms this in the Gospels when he says: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” But if it is a ruler who offers a victim for sin, he is commanded to offer a he-goat from the goats, not as a burnt offering, but only so that the priest may put some of its blood on the altar and offer all its fat on the altar, while the rest remains for the priests to eat, only the blood being poured out at the base of the altar. “But if it is a single soul,” he says, that offers for sin, let it offer a female goat, with the same rite, namely, with which we said above the he-goat was sacrificed. “But if his hand is not able,” he says, “to provide a goat or a lamb, he shall offer a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” And if he cannot find even this, he is commanded to offer a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour, without oil and without incense. These things, one by one, were read to us in the earlier reading, but their explanation was omitted because we were shut out by the time. I do not think it absurd now to remind briefly all who are studious, and those also who remember the earlier readings, of that explanation, although we are pressed on toward what has just been read.

And first I would like to see what this difference is, that in one place he says a man offers, in another a soul, in another a high priest, in another the synagogue, in another a ruler, in another a single soul from the people of the land. And I think that the “man” ought to be understood as the one who, made in the image and likeness of God, lives rationally. This man offers a calf as a gift to God when he has conquered the pride of the flesh; a sheep, when he has corrected irrational and foolish impulses; a kid, when he has overcome wantonness. He offers also a pair of turtledoves when he is not alone, but has joined his mind to the word of God as to a true spouse, as this kind of bird is said to keep a single and chaste marriage. He offers also two young pigeons when he too has understood the mystery by which the bride's eyes are said to be like doves by the fullness of the waters, and her neck like a turtledove's. These, then, according to what we have expounded above, are the gifts of the man. But the gifts of the soul he describes as far inferior. This soul has neither a calf, nor a sheep, nor a kid to offer to God; it does not even find a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. It has only fine flour: from it it offers unleavened loaves from the oven, from it a work made in a frying pan, or mixed with oil on a griddle. Hence it seems to me that this one who is called “soul” is to be understood as that man whom Paul names the “natural” (literally “soulish”) man: one who, even if he is not pressed by sins nor headlong toward vices, nevertheless has nothing spiritual in himself, nothing that could figuratively be reckoned as the flesh of the Word of God. For so the apostle Paul himself says of him: “The natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because they are spiritually discerned. But the spiritual man examines all things.” This one, then, who is called “soul”, cannot offer all things, because he cannot examine all things; but he offers only fine flour and unleavened loaves, that is, this common life, set, for example, in farming, or in sailing, or in some of the ordinary uses of common life. Yet he too offers a gift to God, although he is said to offer only fine flour sprinkled with oil. For every soul needs the oil of divine mercy, and no one can get through this present life unless the oil of heavenly compassion is with him. In the second place an offering of first fruits, that is, of the beginnings of the crops, is commanded. This, if you remember well, the law orders to be done on the day of Pentecost. In this, plainly, the shadow was given to them, but the truth was reserved for us. For on the day of Pentecost, when the sacrifice of prayers had been offered, the church received the first fruits of the Holy Spirit coming upon the apostles. And truly these were fresh, because it was new; hence they were also said to be filled with new wine. “Roasted with fire”: for tongues of fire settled on each of them. “And broken in the middle”: for they were broken in the middle when the letter was being separated from the spirit. “And well cleaned”: for the presence of the Holy Spirit cleanses all filth, granting the remission of sins. The oil of mercy also is poured on this sacrifice, and the incense of sweetness, through which we are made the good fragrance of Christ. After this he speaks of the peace offerings, which are offered from animals, that is, from the cattle, or goats, and sheep; and nothing beyond these is substituted for sacrifice, not even birds, which earlier had been substituted in the offering of gifts. For the one who offers peace offerings (literally “saving victims”) is no doubt already conscious of his salvation; and therefore one who has come to salvation must offer things that are great and perfect. For so the Apostle too says: “But solid food is for the perfect.” Next the order of sacrifices is directed to the victims to be offered for sins, in which it is said, for the second time: “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Any soul that sins before the Lord unwillingly.” Rightly he says “soul” of the one he describes as sinning. For he would not have called it “spirit” when he was to say that it would sin. But neither would he call it “man”, in whom, once sin has intervened, the image of God would by no means remain. It is not, then, the spirit that sins; for “the fruit of the Spirit,” as the Apostle describes, “is love, joy, peace, patience,” and the rest like these, which are also called the fruits of life. Indeed elsewhere too he says: “He who sows in the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; and he who sows in the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.” Since, then, the one who sows is one thing and that in which he sows is another, and one sows either in the flesh, when one sins, so as to reap corruption, or in the spirit, when one lives according to God, so as to reap eternal life, it is clear that it is the soul which sows either in the flesh or in the spirit, and that it is the soul which can either rush into sin or be converted from sin. For the body follows it to whatever it has chosen, and the spirit is its leader toward virtue, if it is willing to follow it.

But these things were said in general; now they are divided by kinds. “If the high priest,” he says, “who is anointed sins, so as to make the people sin, he shall offer for his sin a calf from the cattle without blemish to the Lord.” Terror and mercy at once are displayed in the divine laws. Is nothing safe, then, not even the high priest? And what high priest? He who is anointed, he who kindles the divine altars with sacred fire, who sacrifices gifts and peace offerings to God, who intervenes between God and men as a kind of mediating propitiator: not even he, I say, remains immune from the contagion of sin. But see the mercy of God, and learn it more fully with Paul as teacher. For he, writing to the Hebrews, says: “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men to offer victims to God.” And a little later: “The law,” he says, “appoints as priests men who have weakness, so that they may offer as for their own weakness, so also for the people's.” You see, then, the dispensation of divine wisdom. He appointed as priests not those who could in no way sin (otherwise they would not be human beings), but those who ought indeed to imitate him “who did no sin,” yet “to offer sacrifices first for their own sins, then also for the sins of the people.” But what is especially to be admired in such a priest? Not that he does not sin, which is impossible, but that he recognizes and understands his sin. For he who does not think he has sinned never amends. At the same time, he who is stung by the awareness of some weakness of his own can also more easily pardon those who sin. And what is the priest's offering “for sin”? “A calf,” he says, “for a burnt offering.” For the second time we find a calf offered by the high priest for a burnt offering: once as a gift, once for sin. But the one that is offered as a gift is consumed on the altar of burnt offering; while the one offered for sin is commanded to be burned outside the camp, with the hide and the entrails and the dung, in a clean place, only the fat and the kidneys being offered on the altar. To distinguish each of these things, though it is beyond our strength and beyond your hearing, we shall nevertheless try to seek out some occasions for understanding and bring them forward for you. See, then, whether perhaps Jesus, whom Paul says made peace through his blood not only for the things on earth but also for those in the heavens, is himself that calf which in the heavens was offered not for sin but as a gift, while on earth, where sin reigned from Adam to Moses, he was offered for sin. And this is to have suffered outside the camp: outside, I think, that camp which Jacob had seen, the heavenly camp of the angels of God, of which it is written in Genesis: “And Jacob saw the camp of God drawn up, and the angels of God met him; and Jacob said when he saw them: This is the camp of God.” Outside that heavenly camp, then, is this whole earthly place in which we dwell, in which Christ suffered in the flesh. And as to his saying that it is burned with the dung and the entrails, see whether perhaps, in comparison with heavenly bodies, this body of human nature is figuratively called dung. For it is earth, and taken from earth. And that basket of dung too, which is put to the roots of the fig tree that was to be cut down, what else does it show but the mystery of the dispensation he took up in the body? Yet the entrails are not said to be lacking to it. For although he bore the lowly form of a servant, yet the fullness of divinity dwelt in him. These things, although they have been discussed boldly, nevertheless, since the hearing of all the faithful ought always to be nourished toward greater things, the same things are also to be understood concerning the calf of the synagogue.

In the moral sense, this high priest can be seen as the sense of piety and religion in us, which through the prayers and supplications that we pour out to God performs, as it were, a kind of priesthood. If it offends in anything, it at once “makes” the whole “people” of good actions that is within us “sin.” For we do nothing of right action when the leader of good works, the mind, has turned aside to evil; and therefore for its amendment not just any victim is required, but the sacrifice of the fatted calf itself. Likewise also the fault of the synagogue, that is, the amendment of all the virtues within us, is restored in no other way than through the putting to death of Christ. “But if a ruler,” he says, “sins, he shall offer a he-goat from the goats.” This ruler can be seen as the power of reason which is within us. If it sins in us, and we do something foolish, we must fear that sentence of the Saviour which says: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its savour, it is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men.” This one too, then, has his victim. “And a single soul,” he says, “if it sins,” shall likewise offer a female goat, according to that substitution of victims which we mentioned above. But perhaps the hearers in the church will say: “Things went better for the ancients than for us, since for them, when sacrifices were offered by various rites, pardon was granted to those who sinned. With us there is only one pardon of sins, which is given at the beginning through the grace of the washing. After this no mercy, no pardon at all, is granted to one who sins.” It is indeed fitting that the Christian, for whom Christ died, should be under a stricter discipline. For them sheep, goats, oxen were slaughtered, and birds, and fine flour was sprinkled; for you the Son of God was slaughtered, and does it still delight you to sin? And yet, so that these things may not so much rouse your spirits to virtue as cast them down into despair: you have heard how many sacrifices for sins there are in the law; hear now how many remissions of sins there are in the Gospels. There is this first one, by which we are baptized for the remission of sins. The second remission is in the suffering of martyrdom. The third is that which is given for almsgiving. For the Saviour says: “But give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” A fourth remission of sins comes to us through our also forgiving our brothers their sins. For so our Lord and Saviour himself says: “If you forgive your brothers their sins from the heart, your Father also will forgive you your sins. But if you do not forgive your brothers from the heart, neither will your Father forgive you”; and as he taught us to say in prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” The fifth remission of sins is when someone turns a sinner from the error of his way. For so the divine Scripture says: “Whoever makes a sinner turn from the error of his way saves his soul from death and covers a multitude of sins.” A sixth remission also comes through abundance of love, as the Lord himself too says: “Truly I say to you, her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much.” And the Apostle says: “For love covers a multitude of sins.” There is yet also a seventh, though hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner washes his bed with tears, and his tears become his bread day and night, and when he does not blush to make known his sin to the priest of the Lord and to seek a remedy, according to him who says: “I will declare my injustice against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the ungodliness of my heart.” In this is fulfilled also what the apostle James says: “If anyone is sick, let him call the presbyters of the church, and let them lay their hands on him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and if he is in sins, they will be forgiven him.” You too, then, when you come to the grace of baptism, have offered a calf, because you are baptized into the death of Christ. When you are led to martyrdom, you have offered a he-goat, because you have slaughtered the devil, the author of sin. When you give alms and with anxious devotion lavish a merciful affection on the needy, you have loaded the holy altar with fat kids. For if you forgive your brother his sin from the heart, and, having laid aside the swelling of anger, gather within yourself a gentle and simple spirit, be confident that you have sacrificed a ram or offered a lamb in sacrifice. Further, if, instructed by the divine readings, meditating like a dove and keeping watch in the law of the Lord day and night, you turn a sinner from his error, and, his wickedness cast off, call him back to the simplicity of the dove, and by attaching him to the saints make him imitate the companionship of the turtledove, you have offered to the Lord a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. And if that love which is greater than hope and faith abounds in your heart, so that you love your neighbour not only as yourself but as he showed who said, “No one has greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” know that you have offered loaves of fine flour kneaded in the oil of love, without any leaven of malice and wickedness, in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. But if in the bitterness of your weeping you are worn out with grief, tears, and lamentation, if you chastise your flesh and make it dry with fasts and much abstinence, and say, “My bones are parched like a frying pan,” then you will know that you have offered the sacrifice of fine flour from the frying pan or from the griddle. And in this way you are found to offer more truly and more perfectly, according to the Gospel, the sacrifices which Israel can no longer offer according to the law.

But let us see how we should understand the things that were read differently: “But if,” he says, “a single soul from the people of the land sins unwillingly, by doing one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done, and transgresses, and the sin which it sinned becomes known to it, it shall bring as its gift a goat from the kids, a female without blemish it shall bring for the sin which it sinned.” And after this he recounted the whole rite of the sacrifice, as we expounded above. How we should understand the soul which he says offers after falling under sin, we explained in what preceded as best we could; but what he added in this place, saying, “If a soul from the people of the land sins,” does not seem to me idle. For who would doubt that what the law says was said to souls, or to the people, who are on the earth? What need was there, then, to add to his words “If a single soul sins” the words “from the people of the land”? But we must see whether perhaps this soul that has sinned is said to be from the people of the land to distinguish it from another people which is not from the land. For this saying cannot fit him who said: “But our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus.” How, then, could I rightly call that soul “from the people of the land” which has nothing in common with the earth, but is wholly in heaven, and has its citizenship there where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, whither it also desires to return and be with Christ, for that is far better, but considers it necessary to remain in the flesh for our sake? For this soul that sins is from the people of the land, doing one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done. For a long time a kind of amazement held me astonished at this saying. For I do not see that it follows logically that a soul has sinned and done one of the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done. For if it is a commandment of the Lord, how ought it not to have been done, since surely the commandments of the Lord are given in order to be done? And how is the soul said here to have sinned which did one of the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done? And perhaps to some it will seem that an error of expression was made by the translators; but on inquiring more carefully I found that all the translators rendered it alike, and therefore it is not an error of expression, but the sense of a deeper understanding must be sought. As far, then, as it can occur to us, this seems to me the solution. Some commandments of the Lord were given in order to be done, others in order not to be done. But human necessity required that those which ought to be done should be set forth with those inserted among them which ought not to be done. For example, to bring forward an instance from these very sacrifices which we now have in hand, a lamb is commanded to be sacrificed at the Passover, not because God truly required the victim of a lamb every year, but because it signified that that Lamb must be sacrificed who takes away the sin of the world. This, then, he willed to be done; that he did not will. For so he says through Isaiah: “What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the Lord. I am full of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of goats and bulls.” Have you heard how he does not want the victim of rams nor the fat of lambs? Yet he gave a command how the victim of bulls or of lambs ought to be offered. But he who understands the law spiritually seeks to offer these things spiritually. But if anyone has offered according to the outward form of the fleshly commandment, this is the single soul from the people of the land, which sinned unwillingly by doing one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done, and transgressed; and therefore he adds in what follows: “And when the sin which it sinned becomes known to it, it shall bring its gift before the Lord.” For the soul ought to offer its gift when it has come to know that God does not seek a fleshly sacrifice, because “a sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit.” Its sin becomes known to it, then, when it has learned from the Lord, who says, “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice,” and when it has learned to offer the sacrifice of praise in the church and to pay its vows to the Most High, through Christ our Lord, to whom be praise and glory for ages of ages. Amen.

The discourse is about the sacrifices which are offered by those who have sinned through ignorance or unwillingly. Hence also earlier, when we were speaking of the sacrifices of the high priest, we observed that it is not written of him that he was ignorant. But if anyone remembers well what was said, he can say to us that we set down the sacrifice which we said the high priest offered for sin as holding the figure of Christ; and it will not seem fitting that Christ, who knew no sin, should be said to have offered a sacrifice for sin, even though the matter is carried out in a mystery, and the same one is set down as both high priest and victim. See, then, whether we can meet this too in this way: that Christ indeed did not commit sin, yet he was made sin for us; while he who was in the form of God deigns to be in the form of a servant; while he who is immortal dies, and the impassible suffers, and the invisible is seen; and since for us human beings both death and all the remaining frailty in the flesh have been brought about by the condition of sin, he too, who was made in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man, no doubt offered to God as a victim, for the sin which he had taken from us, because he bore our sins, a calf without blemish, that is, undefiled flesh. But what shall we do about what is joined in what follows? For where he says, “If the high priest who is anointed sins,” there is added: “so as to make the people sin, he shall offer for his sin.” How then will it fit that, because Jesus himself was made sin through his flesh which he took from us, he made the people sin? Listen to this too, in case we can answer with some consistency. The passion of Christ brings life to those who believe, but death to those who do not believe. For although salvation and justification come to the Gentiles through his cross, yet to the Jews it is destruction and condemnation. For so it is written in the Gospel too: “Behold, this one is born for the fall and the rising of many.” And in this way, through his sin, that is, through his flesh driven to the cross, in which he had taken up our sins, he freed us who believe from sin; but the people who did not believe he made to sin, since to the evil of unbelief there was added for them the impiety of sacrilege as well. And in this way this high priest made the people sin through his sin, since, placed in the flesh, he could both be seized and be killed. For let us suppose, for example, that if the Lord of majesty had not come in the flesh, had not rebuked the Jews, had not been a burden to them even to behold, he certainly could not have been seized, nor handed over to death; never, without doubt, would his blood have come upon them, “his blood upon them and upon their children.” But because he came in the flesh and was made sin for us, and could suffer these things, therefore he is said to have made the people sin, he who made it possible for them to sin against him.

But let us now see what this soul does too, which hears the voice of an oath and is a witness, or which has seen something and is aware of it, and does not make it known; from which it too receives, no doubt, the sin of the one who either did something wickedly or swore. This builds us up even according to the literal account, and teaches us never to pollute our consciences with another's sins, nor to give consent to those who do evil. And by consent I mean not only acting together, but also keeping silent about things done unlawfully. Do you wish to know that these things agree also with the Gospel precepts? The Lord himself says: “If you see your brother sin, rebuke him between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take with you two or three others. And if he does not listen to them either, tell the church. But if he does not listen even to the church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector.” But the Gospel precept is given more perfectly in that it established the manner and discipline of making known a sin. For it does not want you, if perhaps you see your brother sinning, to fly off at once to the public and proclaim it everywhere and spread abroad another's sins: that would certainly be not the act of one who corrects but rather of one who defames. Alone, he says, between you and him alone, rebuke him. When the one who sinned sees that confidentiality is kept for him, he too will keep the modesty that leads to amendment. But if he sees himself defamed, he will at once turn to the shamelessness of denial; and you will not only not have amended the sin, but will even have doubled it. Learn, then, the order from the Gospels. First, he says, alone between you and him. Second, take with you two or three others. Why two or three? “For at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand.” Since indeed he commands that the rebuke be brought to the church the third time, he wants two or three witnesses to be brought in the second time, so that if the one rebuked in their presence will not amend himself, when his sin has been brought to the church he can be refuted with the two witnesses who were present. For it often happens that someone who fulfils the Gospel commandment seems to be a slanderer if he brings the charge to the church and lacks witnesses. So that this may not happen, therefore, he ordered two or three witnesses to be brought in at the second meeting. Since, then, such is the commandment of the Gospel, and the law prescribes that if one keeps silent he will receive the other's sin, it must be known that if anyone either does not make known what he sees in his neighbour's fault according to the rule given above, or, called as a witness, does not say what is true, he himself will take on the sin which the one he conceals committed, and the penalty of the deed will roll back upon the one who was aware of it. In this chapter, then, the text of the literal account itself has built us up sufficiently. Yet I think that that soul too, which reads written in the law of God, “The Lord has sworn and will not repent: you are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek,” hears the voice of an oath, as the scribes and Pharisees do who are always meditating on these things; but they keep silent and are unwilling to announce it to the people, so as not to bear witness to the coming of Christ. Therefore they will receive the sin, in that by not announcing to the people what is true they make Israel sin.

After this another law is promulgated. “Any soul,” he says, “that touches any unclean thing, or the carcass of unclean beasts, and it was hidden from him, and he is defiled; or if he touches any uncleanness of a man, any uncleanness by which he may be defiled,” and so on. These things are observed among the Jews unbecomingly enough and uselessly. For why should one be held unclean who has touched, for example, a dead animal, or the body of a dead man? What if it is the body of a prophet? What if of a patriarch, or even the body of Abraham himself? What if he has touched the bones of Samuel: will he be unclean? What if he touches the bones of Elisha, which even raise the dead? Will the one who touches them be unclean, and do the bones of the prophet make unclean even the very man whom they raise from the dead? See how unfitting the Jewish understanding is. But let us see first what touching is, and what touch it is that makes one unclean. The Apostle says: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” This touch is unclean; for this is what the Lord said in the Gospel: “If anyone looks at a woman to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” For the vice of desire has touched his heart, and his soul has become unclean. If, then, anyone touches anything in this way, that is, either through desire for a woman, or through greed for money, or through any other longing for sin, he has touched the unclean and is defiled. If you touch any such thing, then, you must know how to offer the sacrifice, according to what we mentioned earlier, so that you may be made clean. Do you wish me to show you a soul that touched the unclean and became unclean, and again touched the clean and became clean? She who suffered a flow of blood and spent all her substance on physicians and could gain nothing had sunk into this through the uncleanness of sin. For she had touched sin, and therefore had received a scourge in the flesh. But after, full of faith, she touched the fringe of Jesus, the flow of her blood stopped, and suddenly she who had lived unclean for so long a time was made clean. And just as, when she had touched the Lord and Saviour, he himself said, “Who touched me? For I felt power go out from me” (that power, no doubt, which had healed the woman and made her clean), so we must understand that if anyone touches sin, a kind of evil power goes out from that sin which makes unclean the one who has touched it; and this is truly to have touched the unclean. By similar reasoning we must speak also of the carcass of a man, or the carcass of a clean or unclean beast. For he touches the carcass of a man who follows or imitates someone dead in his sins. But since the differences between the several cases must be examined, let us go through them one by one. The carcass of a man, as we said above, we can call that of which the Apostle speaks to the Corinthians: “I wrote to you in the letter,” he says, “not to associate with the sexually immoral; not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy, or robbers, or idolaters, since then you would have had to go out of this world. But now I have written to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother if he is sexually immoral, or unclean, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber; not even to eat with such a one.” This, then, is to touch the carcass of a man: to make oneself his companion even at table, one who, made a man in Christ, is again dead in sins. For that widow too of whom the Apostle speaks, who “living in pleasures is dead,” can be called the carcass of a man. But we must also look for the animal carcasses which are in the church. If certain simpler people, besides having acted without any prudence, also wallow in the filth of sins, then if anyone follows them or touches them with that touch which we explained above, he has touched the carcass of animals. And that the church has animals too, hear how it says in the Psalms: “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord.” Those, then, who pursue the study of the word of God and of a rational way of life are called men. But those who live without such studies and do not seek the exercises of knowledge, yet are faithful, are called animals indeed, but clean ones. For just as there are some men of God, so there are also some sheep of God. For it is written that Moses was not a sheep of God but a man of God. And Elijah was not a sheep of God but a man of God. For so he himself says: “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Do you wish to hear of the sheep of God? It is said through the prophet: “My sheep are holy sheep, says the Lord.” And again the Saviour says in the Gospel: “My sheep hear my voice.” And I do not think he would have said of men, “Men hear my voice,” but “sheep.” But let him who has ears to hear hear these things: how sheep hear the voice, but men hear his word. These, then, are animals clean indeed because of Christ, but carcasses because of sin. If anyone touches them, that is, if anyone follows them in sin, he will be unclean. And if anyone touches the carcass of such a man, that is, of one who at first lived according to reason and exercised himself in the word of God, and afterwards fell into sin, if anyone follows or imitates him, he touches the carcass of a man and will be unclean. But if you touch what was caught by a wild beast, you will be unclean. What is the wild beast? Is it a lion, or a wolf, which seizes men or cattle? That, I believe, is the wild beast of which the apostle Peter says: “Your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, firm in faith.” And again those of whom the apostle Paul says: “After my departure savage wolves will come in, not sparing the flock.” If, then, you see anyone caught by these wild beasts, do not follow him, do not touch him, lest you too be made unclean. There are besides other unclean animals, whose carcass he forbids to be touched. The unclean animals are people who are outside Christ, in whom there is neither reason nor any religion. If, then, you see the carcasses of all these, that is, their sins, the lawgiver tells you: do not touch, do not be defiled, do not handle. And these are the uncleannesses which are rightly to be fled. But do not shrink from touching a man, or a dead body, to which burial should rather be devoutly given. These are Jewish and useless fables, having the appearance of piety but denying its power. The first law, then, was given concerning uncleannesses: if anyone was a witness of some oath or offence and did not make it known, and through this became himself unclean in a way by sharing in the sin. The second law, by which it is forbidden to touch anything unclean or a carcass.

A third law is now promulgated, of this kind: “And the soul,” he says, “which swears, declaring with its lips to do evil or to do good, according to all that a man may say with an oath, and it was hidden from him, and he comes to know it, and sins in any one of these things, let him declare the sin which he sinned, and he shall offer to the Lord for what he transgressed, for the sin which he sinned, a female from the sheep,” and so on. How I am guilty of sin if I declare with my lips or swear to do good and do not do it is not difficult to show; but how I have sinned if I swear or declare that I will do evil and do not do it is hard to explain in words. For it seems absurd, for example, that if in anger I said I would kill a man, and did not do it, I should be forced, so as not to seem to perjure myself or deceive, to carry out the deed which I rashly and unlawfully promised. Let us seek, then, what the thing is in which, if we promise to do evil and do not do it, we sin, but if we do it we are excused from sin, so that the truth of the precept may stand rationally. As far as seems to be understood in this place, to do evil is to oppose someone and not allow him to do what he wishes. We too, then, when we come to God and vow to serve him in chastity, declare with our lips and swear that we will chastise our flesh, or do evil to it, and bring it into subjection, so that we may save the spirit. For so he too said that he had sworn, who says: “I have sworn and determined to keep all your precepts.” Since, then, it is the voice of the flesh that says, “For I do not do what I want, but what I hate, that I do,” it is no doubt afflicted and constrained by the spirit; for it resists and fights against the spirit, and unless evil is done to it, so that it is afflicted and weakened, the spirit cannot say: “When I am weak, then I am strong.” If, then, anyone has sworn and declared to do evil to the flesh that resists and fights against the Spirit, and to afflict and chastise it, and has not done so, he is guilty of sin, in that he swore to torment his flesh and bring it into subjection, and did not do it. And by the same oath he resolves also to do good to the spirit. For in doing evil to the flesh he does good to the spirit. If, then, anyone has sworn this and not done it, he is made guilty of sin. And do you wish to know that good cannot be done to one of them unless you do evil to the other? Hear also the Lord himself saying: “I will kill, and I will make alive.” What does God kill? The flesh, surely. And what does he make alive? The spirit, no doubt. And again in what follows he says: “I will strike, and I will heal.” What does he strike? The flesh. What does he heal? The spirit. So that the one may fail and the other advance; so that he may make you put to death in the flesh, made alive in the spirit. But lest perhaps you too serve the law with your mind and have not been able to keep it, hear what the order of the law prescribes: “If he sins,” he says, “in any one of these things, let him declare the sin which he sinned.” There is a wonderful secret in this, that he commands the sin to be declared. For in every way all that we do must be declared and brought out into public. If we do anything in secret, if we have committed anything in speech alone, or even within the secrets of our thoughts, all must be made public, all brought out: brought out, moreover, by him who is both the accuser and the instigator of sin. For he now incites us to sin, and he also accuses us when we have sinned. If, then, in this life we anticipate him and are ourselves our own accusers, we escape the wickedness of the devil, our enemy and accuser. For so the prophet says elsewhere: “Tell your iniquities first,” he says, “so that you may be justified.” Does he not clearly show the mystery we are treating when he says, “Tell first”? To show you that you ought to anticipate him who is ready to accuse. You, then, he says, tell first, so that he may not anticipate you; because if you tell first, and offer the sacrifice of penance according to what we said above was to be offered, and hand over your flesh to destruction so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, it will be said to you too: “You too received evil things in your life, but now rest here.” David too speaks in the same spirit in the Psalms and says: “I made my iniquity known, and did not hide my sin. I said: I will declare my injustice against myself, and you forgave the ungodliness of my heart.” See, then, that declaring one's sin merits the remission of sin. For the devil, anticipated in accusation, will no longer be able to accuse us; and if we are our own accusers, it profits us for salvation; but if we wait to be accused by the devil, that accusation will turn to our punishment; for he will have as companions in Gehenna those whom he convicts as companions in crimes.

It would be a great task now to go through the differences of the victims and the rites and varieties of the sacrifices, and a work far other than that word which the crowd receives in a common audience. But, so that we may appear to touch on some things in passing: almost every victim that is offered has something of the form and image of Christ. For every victim is summed up in him, so much so that after he himself was offered, all the victims ceased which had preceded him in type and shadow; and concerning these we showed above, as best we could, how the calf offered by the high priest, whether as a gift or for sin, bore his form. The fat which is offered in the gift, covering the inward parts and clinging to the kidneys, can be understood as that holy soul of his, which veiled the inward parts, that is, the secrets of his divinity, while it clung to the kidneys, that is, to the bodily matter which had been chastely taken from us; and placed midway between the flesh and God, it lays the nature of the flesh on the sacred altars, to be deified and sanctified, and to be illumined by the divine fires and preserved with itself for heaven. As for the kidneys given to the fire, who would doubt that they indicate that there were no stirrings of the genital parts in Christ? And when the priest is said to sprinkle the blood of the victim seven times before the Lord, plainly the power of the Holy Spirit of sevenfold grace is designated under a mystery. The four horns of the altar, which are smeared with blood, indicate that the passion of Christ is related by the four Gospels; and the lobe of the liver is offered. In the liver anger is slaughtered; in the lobe is shown the swift and roused force of fury. And the rest of the blood, which is poured out at the base of the altar, I think designates the form of that grace by which in the last days, after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, all Israel that remains, placed last as at the base of the altar, will itself also receive the outpouring of the blood of Christ. Of the lambs and kids, the turtledoves and doves, and also of the fine flour mixed with oil or baked in unleavened loaves, enough has been said above, as far as the matter allowed.

Let us now see what law is set forth for offering victims for sin. “And the Lord spoke to Moses,” he says, “saying: If any soul is unaware and sins unwillingly in the holy things of the Lord, let it offer for its offence a ram without blemish from the sheep, bought at the price of silver by the holy shekel; and what it has transgressed and sinned in the holy things, it shall restore, and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to the priest, and the priest shall make entreaty for him with the ram of the offence, and it shall be forgiven him.” In the earlier laws, which concerned the sacrifices for uncleanness, wherever he said that, for example, a sheep or a kid was to be offered, he added: “But if his hand is not sufficient for a kid or a lamb, let him offer a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” And again: “But if he is not sufficient even for this, let him offer fine flour.” But in this law, where he discusses the sin committed in the holy things, he has substituted no second or third inferior victim, but has decreed that only a ram is to be offered; and he shows that the sin committed in the holy things cannot be loosed otherwise than if one slaughters a ram: and not simply a ram, but a ram bought at a price, and a fixed price, “by the holy shekel”, he says. What then? If someone is poor and does not have a holy shekel with which to buy a ram, will his sin not be loosed? Must riches then be sought by each person, so that his sin can be absolved? But if the Lord deigns to open either our eyes to see or your ears of the heart to hear, we shall inquire what the sense of the lawgiver, covered by mysteries, means. And first let us see what this very passage that was read is like according to the letter. For it seems to speak of those into whose hands holy things have been entrusted, that is, the things offered among the gifts of the Lord: for example, the vows and gifts which are offered by devout and religious minds in the churches of God for the use of the saints and the ministry of the priests, or for the needs of the poor. If anyone has taken any of these away through some presumption, the law decrees that if he remembers that he has sinned and of his own accord receives compunction of heart (for for one who is not compunct of his own accord but is convicted at another's pressing, the remedy is harder), this man, then, who remembers his sin of his own accord, will restore, it says, the very thing he had taken away, and will add a fifth to it, and will offer a ram for the sin, bought at the price of the holy shekel. As for his saying, “he will add a fifth to it,” the simpler sort think it is said in such a way that, for example, if five coins were taken away, one is added, so that he is seen to return six for five. But those who have skill in the discipline of numbers reckon the number of this word far otherwise. For in the Greek too it does not have what simply makes “a fifth”, but has what we might call “over-fifths”: unless one were to say that this is among them the word for a special number, by which it is indicated that for five, another five are to be given and one over; so that, for example, it is understood that one who has stolen five coins restores those five, and another five with one added. Yet these things are not at once to be understood of thefts or frauds; but even if anyone has taken money from the holy things for his own necessary uses and delayed in restoring it, he is bound by a law of this kind. This law, even according to the letter, ought to build up its hearers. For it is a very useful and necessary observance, especially for those who preside over the church's administrations, that they may know that they must be more careful and diligent with what has been offered for the use of the saints.

But let us too, to whom perhaps these things do not happen, see in what respect the word of the law builds us up. I too today, though I am a sinner, yet because the dispensing of the Lord's word has been entrusted to me, seem to have the holy things of God committed to me. And not now for the first time, but often already and long since, we exercise this dispensing toward you. If, then, any of you receives from me the Lord's money, and, as usually happens, going out of the church and carried off by the various occupations of the world, gives over to oblivion what he had heard, and fulfils no work from the word which he received, this is the one who has not returned the money received from the holy things. Let him, then, at least on hearing this, recall to memory that he neglected what had long ago been entrusted to him in the word of God. Let him return, then, what he received, and add to it the “fifths” in the way we have already described: that is, so that there are twice five, and one is added over. Let us see, then, how these five are returned. The number five is often, indeed almost always, taken for the five senses. We should know, then, that these five senses can be restored to holy actions in this way: that if perhaps we presumed to misuse them in worldly actions, and spent their use on things which we did not do according to God, we should now restore those five to holy actions and religious ministries, and add to these five others, which are the senses of the inner man: by which, made clean of heart, we see God; or have ears to hear what Jesus teaches; or catch that fragrance of which the Apostle says, “For we are the good fragrance of Christ to God”; or also take that taste of which the prophet says, “Taste and see that the Lord is sweet”; or that touch of which John says, “what we have looked upon with our eyes, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.” And to all these let us add one more, so that we refer all these things to the one God. And let this be said about restoring the things that were taken from the holy things by any fault.

But what shall we say of the sacrifice of the ram bought at a price, and at the price of the holy shekel, which is commanded to be offered for the expiation of sin? He will need to be rich who can purge his offences at the price of a ram. Let us inquire what these riches are. The most wise Solomon teaches us, saying: “The redemption of a man's soul is his own riches.” Do you hear how the words of wisdom express the force of each expression with the necessary precision? He speaks of riches fit for the redemption of the soul, and riches not another's, nor common, but one's own riches. By this he shows that there are some riches that are one's own, and some that are not one's own. But the Lord declared this more clearly in the Gospels when he said: “And if you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is yours?” showing by this that the riches of this present age are not our own but another's. For they pass, and go by like a shadow. But those riches are one's own of which the prophet says: “And to you I will gather the riches of the nations.” With these riches perhaps Abraham too was made very rich, in gold and silver and flocks and goods. Do you wish me to show you from what treasures these riches come down? Hear the apostle Paul saying of the Lord Jesus Christ: “In whom,” he says, “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And in the Gospels too the Lord says that the rich scribe “brings out of his treasures things new and old.” Of these the apostle Paul too says that “in everything you were made rich in him, in all speech and in all knowledge.” From these riches, then, which are brought out of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, we must buy this ram which ought to be offered for those sins, namely, which have been committed in the holy things; and it must be bought by the counting out of the holy shekel. We have already said above that every victim bears the type and image of Christ, much more the ram, which once was substituted by God to be sacrificed in place of Isaac. With the holy shekel, then, we must acquire Christ, who dissolves our sins. The holy shekel holds the form of our faith. For if you offer faith as the price, you will receive the remission of sins through Christ, given as a victim like a ram without blemish. I feel that in explaining these things the greatness of the mysteries surpasses our strength. But although we are not able to discuss everything, yet we perceive that everything is full of mysteries. And so let it suffice to have set down indications for all who are studious, by which, roused, they may reach the higher and deeper sense of these things, and understand from what flocks a calf is sought for the victim, from what sheep a ram is to be provided. “For I have,” says Jesus, “other sheep too, which are not of this fold, and I must bring them also, so that there may be one flock and one shepherd.” Let them know too where turtledoves, where doves are to be sought. “Your eyes,” it says, “are like doves upon the fullness of the waters.” We must hasten, then, to the fullness of the waters, for in them the beauty of the bride is described. “And your neck,” it says, “is like a turtledove's.” In doves the eyes are praised. For as to his saying, “doves upon the fullness of the waters”: they say that this kind of bird, when it comes to the waters, because there it usually suffers the ambush of the hawk, catches sight of the enemy coming from above by looking in the water at the shadow of the one flying, and by the sharpness of its eyes escapes the snare of the threatening danger. If you too can thus foresee and guard against the ambushes of the devil, you will have offered to God the sacrifice of a dove. And let those who care about such things inquire also from what fields the fine flour should be offered. I think, from the crops of that land which yields fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Let them inquire also, unless it seems more curious than it should, by what grinders this fine flour is prepared for the sacrifices. And let it not escape them that there are two women grinding, of whom one will be taken and the other left. From the mill of the one who is to be taken, then, the fine flour will have to be offered. And as for the holy shekel, which is said to be needed for the price of the ram, see from where and how it is to be sought. The shekel is a name for the Lord's money, and in many places of the Scriptures the Lord's money is mentioned under various names. But some is called approved, and some rejected. Approved was that money which the householder, about to set out abroad, gave to his servants when he had called them, to each according to his ability. Approved too was that money called a denarius, which he agreed on with the hired labourers, and which was given from the last to the first. You must know, then, that there is also another, rejected money. Hear the prophet saying: “Your silver is rejected.” Since, then, there is some that is approved and some that is rejected, therefore the Apostle says, as to approved moneychangers: “Testing all things, holding fast what is good.” For our Lord Jesus Christ alone can teach you such an art, by which you may know how to discern which money holds the image of the true king, and which is counterfeit and, as people commonly say, struck outside the mint, having indeed the king's name but not holding the truth of the royal figure. For there are many who have the name of Christ but do not have the truth of Christ. And because of this the apostle Paul says: “For there must also be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you.” Therefore in the present reading too the lawgiver, looking wholly to the mystical and spiritual sense, added that this ram, which is acquired for this purpose, that it may absolve sin, should be acquired not with any shekel whatever, that is, not with any money whatever, but with the holy shekel. If he were not looking to the mystery, what reason would there seem to be that a ram should be bought to be offered as a victim, and at a fixed price? And it was not enough to have named the money “shekel”; he added “holy shekel” too. What if someone had in his flocks excellent rams worthy of the divine sacrifices? Or what if someone was so poor that he could not have a holy shekel? Is this, then, the lawgiver's moderation, that unless someone has a fixed sum of money his sin cannot be absolved? This plainly seems absurd according to the letter; but according to the spiritual understanding it is certain that no one receives remission of sins unless he brings a whole, approved, and holy faith, by which he can buy the ram whose nature is this: to wipe away the sins of the believer. And this is the holy shekel: an approved, as we said, and sincere faith, that is, one in which no deceit of faithlessness, no perversity of heretical cunning, is mixed, so that, offering a sincere faith, we may be washed by the precious blood of Christ as of an unblemished victim, through whom to God the Father almighty with the Holy Spirit is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

If, according to the faithfulness of the divine law, these things that are read to us, “The Lord spoke to Moses,” are the Lord's, I think that, as words of God, they ought to be understood not according to the incapacity of the hearers but according to the majesty of the speaker. “The Lord,” he says, “spoke.” What is “the Lord”? Let the Apostle answer you, and learn from him that “the Lord is spirit.” And if the Apostle's word does not suffice you, hear the Lord himself speaking in the Gospels, that “God is spirit.” If, then, both the Lord and God are spirit, we ought to hear spiritually what the Spirit speaks. I say something more still: that what the Lord speaks must be believed to be not only spiritual but also spirit. I shall prove this not from my own sense but from the Gospels. Hear our Lord and Saviour saying to his disciples: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” If, then, we have learned from the voice of the Saviour himself that the words he spoke to the apostles are spirit and life, we ought by no means to doubt that the words he spoke through Moses too must be believed to be spirit and life.

But let us see what the things are about which we ought now to say something, as best we can. “And the Lord spoke,” he says, “to Moses, saying: Any soul that sins, and passing by passes over the commandments of the Lord, and lies to his neighbour about a deposit, or partnership, or robbery; or has harmed his neighbour in any way, or has found something lost and lies about it, or has sworn unjustly about any one of all the things a man may do, so as to sin in them: then it shall be, when he has sinned and transgressed, that he shall restore the robbery which he robbed, or the injury by which he harmed, or the deposit which was entrusted to him, or the lost thing which he found, of anything about which he swore unjustly; and he shall restore the principal itself, and shall add fifths besides, and shall give it to him to whom it belongs, on the day he is convicted.” Up to this point, meanwhile, the kinds of sin are set out; afterwards its purification through victims is commanded. If any are weak and incapable of the deeper mystery, let them be built up from the letter, and know that if anyone passing by passes over the commandments of the Lord, and lies to his neighbour about a deposit, or partnership, or robbery, he will be established as guilty of an enormous sin. But far be it from the church of God that I should believe there is anyone in this assembly of saints who would act so wretchedly as to deny his neighbour's deposit, or defile a partnership with fraud, or himself plunder another's goods, or receive goods robbed by others, and, if they are demanded of him, swear against his conscience about them. Far be it, far be it, I say, that I should think these things of any of the faithful. I say confidently of you, then, that you did not so learn Christ, nor were you so taught; nor indeed does the law itself prescribe these things for the saints and the faithful. Do you wish to know that these things are not said to the saints and the righteous? Hear the Apostle distinguishing them: “The law,” he says, “is not laid down for the righteous, but for the unjust and insubordinate, for the wicked and defiled, for parricides, matricides,” and those like them. Since, then, the Apostle says that the law is laid down for men of this kind, let the church of God, which far be it from being stained with such crimes, leave the letter to others and be built up more holily by the Spirit.

Let us see, therefore, now what the deposit is which each of the faithful has received. I think that we have received from God as a deposit both our soul itself and our body. And do you wish to see another, greater deposit which you have received from God? To your very soul God has entrusted his image and likeness. This deposit, then, must be restored by you as whole as it is agreed to have been received by you. For if you are merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful, the image of God is in you, and you keep the deposit whole. If you are perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect, the deposit of God's image remains in you. Likewise in all the rest: if you are devout, if you are just, if you are holy, if you are clean of heart, and if all the things which are present in God by nature subsist in you by imitation, the deposit of the divine image is safe with you. But if you act to the contrary, and instead of merciful you show yourself cruel, instead of devout impious, instead of kind violent, instead of peaceful turbulent, instead of generous a robber, then, having cast away the image of God, you have taken up in yourself the image of the devil, and have denied the good deposit entrusted to you by God. Or was this not what the Apostle, under a mystery, commanded his chosen disciple Timothy, saying: “O Timothy, guard the good deposit”? I add this too: that we have received Christ the Lord as a deposit, and we have the Holy Spirit as a deposit. We must see to it, then, that we do not use this holy deposit unholily, and, when sins solicit us to consent to them, swear that we have not received the deposit. For surely if we have it in us, we cannot consent to sin. But also the rational sense itself which is in me has been entrusted to me, so that I may use it for the understanding of divine things; my talent, memory, judgment, reason, and all the movements that are within me seem to have been entrusted to me by God, so that I may use them in what the divine law has commanded. But if we turn a skilful and sharp talent to evil arts, and misuse the things of God in what God does not want, this is to forswear the deposit and to turn benefits into faithlessness.

Let us now see what “partnership” too is to be understood as. Do you think there is anyone who needs to be warned according to the letter not to deceive a partner by fraud, perhaps in a money account or some other kind of partnership? That soul is of the lowest wretchedness into which this kind of fraud can still fall. Nevertheless, since there is much frailty in man, let us warn about these things too, since the Apostle was not reluctant to command them either. For he says: “Let no one defraud his brother in business, since God is the avenger of all these things.” But now let us inquire what the partnership of the spirit also is. Hear the Apostle speaking of it in these very words: “If there is any comfort of love, if any partnership of the spirit, if any affections of compassion, fulfil my joy.” You see how the apostle Paul understood the law of partnership. Hear also John, how he speaks in one and the same spirit: “And we have partnership,” he says, “with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” And again Peter says: “You have become partakers,” he says, “of the divine nature,” that is, partners. And again the apostle Paul says: “For what partnership has light with darkness?” But if light has no partnership with darkness, then light can have partnership with light. If, then, partnership with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit has been given us, we must see to it that we do not deny this holy and divine partnership by sinning. For if we do the works of darkness, it is certain that we have denied the partnership of the light. But the Apostle also calls us partners of the saints; and no wonder. For if we are said to have partnership with the Father and the Son, how not also with the saints, not only those who are on earth but also those who are in the heavens? Since Christ too through his blood made peace for heavenly and earthly things, so as to join earthly things in partnership with the heavenly. This he plainly indicates where he says that there is joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance; and again when he says that those who rise from the dead will be like the angels of God in heaven, and when he promises the kingdom of heaven fully to human beings. Whoever, then, by his evil deeds and evil thoughts is separated from union with them, breaks and denies this partnership. After this robbery is spoken of. There are evil robbers and good ones; and the good are those of whom the Saviour says that they seize the kingdom of heaven by force. But there are also evil robbers, of whom the prophet says: “And the plunder of the poor is in your houses.” And the Apostle declares bluntly, saying: “Do not be deceived: neither adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with males, nor thieves, nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God.” There is, however, also a culpable robbing according to the spiritual understanding, just as those others laudably seize the kingdoms of heaven. For example, let us say: if a man not yet purged of vices, not yet separated from profane and sordid deeds, wishes to thrust himself secretly into the gathering of the saints and the perfect, and to hear the discourse in which perfect and mystical things are treated, such a man wrongly seizes the knowledge of secret and perfect things. For we must remember the Saviour's precept in which he says that no one puts new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wineskins will burst and the wine will be lost: showing that the secrets of the new mysteries, which the world has come to know through Christ, ought not to be entrusted to souls not yet renewed but persisting in the oldness of the letter.

The lawgiver then adds: “Or if he has harmed his neighbour in anything, or has found something lost.” The law of the letter seems here to command that if anyone finds what another has lost, and it is sought, he should return it and not perjure himself about it. This too is a useful edification for the hearers. For many think it is without sin if they keep what they have found belonging to another, and say: “God gave it to me; to whom should I return it?” Let them learn, then, that this sin is like robbery, if anyone does not return what he has found. Nevertheless, if the lawgiver had wished only what is thought to be according to the letter to be understood, he could have said, “If he has found what had perished,” or “what someone had lost.” But now, when he says “he has found perdition,” he wished us to understand something more. Those who sin greatly are called “perdition” in the Scriptures, as we read it said in the prophet Ezekiel: “You have become perdition, and you shall not stand for ever.” It is possible, then, to show who by much seeking finds perdition: as, for example, let us say, heretics, in order to construct and defend their doctrines, search and discuss much in the divine Scriptures, so that they find perdition. For when they have sought many testimonies by which to support what they wrongly think, they must be said to have found perdition for themselves. But if perhaps one of them, hearing the word of God treated in the church in the catholic manner, comes to his senses and understands that what he had found is perdition, he shall restore, it says, what he found. Both the one who found perdition and the one who found robbery, and also the one who denied the deposit, and everyone who in any way harmed his neighbour's soul or swore unjustly: “He shall restore,” it says, “the principal itself, and shall add fifths besides, and give it to him to whom it belongs,” according, of course, to the explanation which we gave earlier about adding the fifths. “And he shall offer,” it says, “to the Lord a ram from the sheep without blemish, at a price, for that in which he transgressed, and the priest shall pray for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him for any one of all the things that he did and in which he transgressed.” We said earlier what it is to offer a ram, and that one bought at the price of the holy shekel. Now it remains for us to state this difference: that there he set the price of the holy shekel, but here he says only “a price”, and he designated neither the amount of the price nor the name of the money. For earlier, where the law was given concerning the sin committed in holy things, we said that the holy shekel was named, and that “shekel” is the name of a coin; as elsewhere an obol, elsewhere a drachma, elsewhere a mina, or a talent, or a mite, or a denarius is mentioned. Here, then, none of these is named, but the ram is only said to be offered “at a price”. For there is a difference between sinning in holy things and sinning outside holy things. Do you wish to see this very distinction elsewhere too? Hear how in the books of Kingdoms Eli the priest says to his sons: “If anyone sins against a man, the priest will entreat for him. But if he sins against God, who will entreat for him?” Likewise also the apostle John says: “There is a sin unto death; I do not say that one should pray for that.” Since, then, we ought to learn from the spiritual law the differences of sins, in which sins a ram is only to be bought and in which it is to be purchased with the holy shekel, let us also inquire who those are who sell the rams. I think that those who sell rams for sacrifice are the same as those who sell oil for the lamps of the virgins, of whom the wise virgins said to the foolish: “Go to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.” Who else, then, sell either oil for the lights or rams for the sacrifices but the holy prophets and apostles, who, when I have sinned, show me and give me counsel how I ought to correct my errors and amend my sins? Isaiah sells me a ram to sacrifice for sin when he says to me, as in the person of God: “I do not want burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs, and the blood of goats and bulls.” And a little later he adds: “Take away wickedness from your souls, from the sight of your eyes; learn to do good, rescue the one who suffers injury, judge for the orphan and justify the widow; and come, let us reason together, says the Lord. And if your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and if like crimson, I will make them like white wool.” Daniel too sells me a ram when he says that “there is no place to sacrifice before you, that we may find mercy. But with a contrite soul and a spirit of humility may we be received, as in a multitude of fat lambs; so let our sacrifice be in your sight today.” David too sells us a ram for sacrifice when he says: “A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” Since, then, each of the prophets, or of the apostles too, has given counsel to those who transgress by which they may correct or amend their sin, they will rightly be seen to have sold them rams for sacrifice. And what price they take from the buyers, I think, is this: zeal for reading, vigils for hearing the word of God, and, above all, as the worthiest price, obedience, of which the Lord says: “I desire obedience rather than sacrifice, and hearkening to my word more than burnt offerings.”

After this there follows: “And the Lord spoke,” he says, “to Moses, saying: Command Aaron and his sons, saying: This is the law of the burnt offering. This burnt offering shall be in its burning on the altar all night until morning, and the fire of the altar shall burn on it and shall not be put out. And the priest shall put on a linen tunic, and shall put linen drawers about his body; and he shall take away the victim which the fire has consumed, and the burnt offering, from the altar, and shall put it beside the altar; and he shall take off his robe and put on another robe; and he shall carry the victim that has been burned outside the camp to a clean place. And the fire on the altar shall burn and shall not be put out, and the priest shall burn wood on it in the morning, and shall heap the burnt offering on it, and shall lay on it the fat of the peace offering; and the fire shall always burn on the altar and shall not be put out.” Hear that there must always be fire on the altar, you too, if you wish to be a priest of God, as it is written: “For you shall all be priests of the Lord.” For to you too it is said: “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for God's possession.” If, then, you wish to exercise the priesthood of your soul, let the fire never depart from your altar. This is what the Lord too commands in the Gospels: “Let your loins be girded, and your lamps always burning.” Let the fire of faith and the lamp of knowledge, then, always be kindled for you. And what the Lord said in the Gospel, “your loins girded,” is the same as what the lawgiver now commands, that the priest be girded with linen drawers, and so, having laid aside the old ashes, renew the sacred fires. For we too ought to say: “Behold, the old things have passed away, and all things have become new.” For he is girded with linen drawers, or, as it is said elsewhere, wears breeches, who has bound wantonness and loose lust with the girdle of chastity. For before all things the priest who attends the divine altars ought to be girded with chastity, and he will not be able to purge the old and restore the new unless he is clothed in linen. Of linen it has often been said already, and especially when we were speaking of the priestly garments, that this kind holds the form of chastity, because the origin of flax is so drawn from the earth and brought forth from the earth that it is conceived from no mixing. It must be observed, however, that the priest uses some garments while he is in the ministry of the sacrifices, and others when he goes out to the people. This Paul did, the most knowing of high priests and the most skilled of priests. When he was in the gathering of the perfect, as if placed within the Holy of Holies and clothed in the robe of perfection, he said: “We speak wisdom among the perfect, but a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are being destroyed; but we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which none of the rulers of this age knew. For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty.” But after this, as if going out to the people, he changes his robe and puts on another, far inferior to that one. And what does he say? “I decided,” he says, “to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” You see, then, how this most learned priest is clothed. When he is to go among the perfect, as into the Holy of Holies, he uses one robe of teaching. But when he goes out to those who are not capable, he changes the robe of the word and teaches lesser things; and some he gives milk to drink, as little children; others he feeds with vegetables, as weak; and for others he prepares strong food, namely for those “who, according to their capacity to receive, have their senses trained to distinguish good and evil.” So Paul knew how to change robes, one for the people, another in the ministry of the holy things. But our Lord and Saviour himself, the high priest of high priests and the priest of priests, of whom the Apostle says that he is “the high priest of the good things to come,” hear how he did these things first, and so left them to his disciples to imitate. The Gospel relates of him and says that “he spoke to the crowds in parables, and without parables he did not speak to them. But privately he explained them to his disciples.” You see how he himself taught that the high priest ought to use some garments when he goes out to the crowds, and others when he ministers in the holy things to the learned and perfect. Hence we must pray and act so that Jesus does not find us such, so unprepared and so bound by the cares of the world, that he speaks to us in parables with the crowds, so that seeing we do not see and hearing we do not hear; but rather that we may deserve to be found among those to whom he says: “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.”

After this: “This,” he says, “is the law of the sacrifice which the sons of Aaron the priest shall offer before the altar before the Lord. He shall take from it a full handful of the fine flour of the sacrifice with its oil, and with all its incense, which are for the sacrifice, and shall lay on the altar the victim, an odour of sweetness, its memorial to the Lord. And what is left of it Aaron and his sons shall eat. It shall be eaten unleavened in a holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of witness they shall eat it. It shall not be baked leavened; I have given it to them as their portion from the victims of the Lord. They are holy of holies, as is the sin offering and the offence offering. All the males of the priests shall eat it. A perpetual ordinance for your generations from the victims of the Lord. Everyone who touches them shall be sanctified.” In what is set before us, the manner of sacrificing is given to the priests, and observances by which God might be seen to be worshipped, or the people purified, or also by which provision might be made for the priests and ministers in what was necessary for their living. For a measure is set for the fine flour to be offered in the sacrifice, which is called the tenth part of an ephah; oil is poured on it, and incense is laid on it. But when it has come to the altar, the priest, he says, shall take a full handful of it, so that he encloses within the fullness of his hand both the oil that was poured in and the incense that was laid on, so that this may be a libation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness. The rest, he says, let it remain for the priests to eat; but the law handed it over to be eaten in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle, so that none of it is leavened. For this, he says, I have given as a portion to the priests, and these are holy of holies. He wished this also to be observed, that only males should eat of it, and no woman touch it. He adds this too, that whoever touches them is sanctified. But if we wish now to ask those who hold to the obvious meaning about each point, for what reason this was said in this way or that in another way, they will satisfy us with a peremptory answer, saying: “So it seemed good to the lawgiver; no one questions his Lord.” And so, yielding to them in the rest, let us ask about this last saying, that they may tell us how everyone who touches the sacrifice of the holy things is sanctified. If a murderer touches it, if a profane man, if an adulterer, if one guilty of incest, will he be sanctified? For he made no exception, but said: “Everyone who touches them shall be sanctified.” For let us suppose that even now the state of that temple were intact, victims were offered, sacrifices consumed. Someone wicked, unjust, impure enters the temple, finds the flesh of the sacrifices set out, and touches it: will he at once be declared sanctified? By no means: neither the nature of the thing nor the truth of religion admits this. And therefore we must return to the Gospel and apostolic explanations, so that the law can be understood. For unless the Gospel has taken away the veil from the face of Moses, his face cannot be seen, nor his sense understood. See, then, how in the church the disciples of the apostles stand by what Moses wrote and defend it, showing that it can be fulfilled and was written reasonably; whereas the teachers of the Jews, following the letter, make these things both impossible and unreasonable.

Therefore the sacrifice for which all these sacrifices had gone before in type and figure, the one and perfect sacrifice, is Christ, who was sacrificed. If anyone touches the flesh of this sacrifice, he is at once sanctified. If he is unclean, he is cleansed; if he is under a scourge, he is healed. So, indeed, did that woman understand whom I mentioned a little earlier, who suffered a flow of blood: that he was the flesh of the sacrifice, and the flesh of the holy of holies; and because she truly understood what the flesh of the holy of holies was, therefore she approached. And she does not dare to touch the holy flesh itself, for she had not yet been cleansed, nor had she grasped the things that are perfect; but she touched the fringe of the garment by which the holy flesh was covered, and by her faithful touch she drew power from the flesh, which both sanctified her from uncleanness and healed her of the scourge she suffered. Do not the words of Moses seem to you better able to stand in this order, when he says: “Everyone who touches the holy flesh shall be sanctified”? For this flesh, which we have expounded, all who believed from the Gentiles have touched. He too touched it who said: “For we too were once foolish and unbelieving, going astray, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness and humanity of God our Saviour shone forth, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” And elsewhere he says: “And such indeed you were, but you were justified, you were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” For if, as we said, anyone touches the flesh of Jesus in the way we expounded above, and approaches Jesus with full faith and all obedience, as the Word made flesh, this one has touched the flesh of the sacrifice and has been sanctified. And he too touches the flesh of the Word of whom the Apostle says: “But solid food is for the perfect, those who according to their capacity to receive have their senses trained to distinguish good and evil.” He too, then, touches the flesh of the Word of God who examines its inner parts and can explain its hidden mysteries. And if we had such understanding, we could discern by spiritual interpretation each thing written in the law, and bring out into the light of subtler knowledge the sacrament covered in each saying; if we could so teach the church that nothing of what has been read remained ambiguous and nothing was left obscure, perhaps it could be said of us too that we have touched the holy flesh of the Word of God and have been sanctified. In this way I take also what was said, that all the males of the priests shall eat it. For no woman, no remiss and dissolute soul, will be able to eat the holy flesh of the Word of God. A male is sought to eat it. Indeed it is the males who are brought into the count; never are women, never are little children counted; hence the Apostle too said: “But when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.” Such a male, then, and such a man is sought, who can eat the holy flesh, and eat it not in just any place, but in a holy place, within the court of the tabernacle. Let those hear this who divide the church and, introducing foreign and perverse doctrines, think they can eat the sacred flesh outside the temple of God and outside the Lord's court. Profane are their sacrifices, which are carried on contrary to the law of the commandment. It is commanded to be eaten in a holy place, within the courts of the tabernacle of witness. The courts of the tabernacle of witness are those which the wall of faith surrounds, which the columns of hope hold up, which the breadth of love widens. Where these things are not, the holy flesh can neither be had nor eaten.

And it is well that the things too which are offered from the sacrifice of fine flour are offered by the full handful with oil and incense, for an odour of sweetness to the Lord. The apostle Paul briefly explained this passage to the Philippians, saying: “I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, for an odour of sweetness, an acceptable victim, pleasing to God.” In this he shows that the mercy which is shown to the poor pours oil on God's sacrifice, while the ministry rendered to the saints lays on it the sweetness of incense. But it is commanded that this be done with a full hand. For so the same Apostle says that “he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. But he who sows in blessing will also reap from blessing eternal life.” There is, however, something in the sacrifice itself which is called the “memorial”, which is said to be offered to the Lord. If I could meditate on the law day and night and retain all the Scriptures in memory, I would have offered to the Lord the memorial of my sacrifice. Certainly, if we cannot do everything, let us at least commit to memory the things that are now taught in the church or that are read, so that, going out of the church and doing works of mercy and fulfilling the divine precepts, we may offer to the Lord a sacrifice with incense and oil for a memorial. Be taught by these things, then, that, like clean animals, as if chewing the cud, you should call back to memory what you have heard in the church and compare in your heart what has been said. But if any things remain beyond your memory and surpass your understanding, do what the authority of the present commandment prescribes, saying: “And what is left over of these, Aaron and his sons shall eat.” If anything has remained over and exceeded your understanding or your memory, keep it for Aaron: that is, reserve it for the priest, reserve it for the teacher, so that he may eat it, he may examine it, he may expound it; as the same Moses says elsewhere too: “Ask your fathers, and they will tell you; your elders, and they will say to you.” For they know how these unleavened loaves ought to be eaten, and expounded in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

It is added in what follows: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: This is the gift of Aaron and of his sons, which they shall offer to the Lord on the day when you anoint him: the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour in sacrifice continually, half of it in the morning and half of it in the afternoon. It shall be made in a frying pan with oil, and mixed, he shall offer it tender, a sacrifice of broken pieces, a sacrifice for an odour of sweetness to the Lord. The priest who is anointed in his place from among his sons shall make it: an eternal law; all of it shall be consumed. And every sacrifice of the priest shall be a whole burnt offering, and shall not be eaten.” In the other precepts the high priest renders a service to the people in offering sacrifices; but in this commandment he attends to his own affairs and carries out what concerns himself. For he is commanded, from the day on which he is anointed, to offer continually and for ever fine flour mixed with oil, tender, from the frying pan, which he names a sacrifice of broken pieces, for an odour of sweetness; and he commands that this remain by an eternal law and be handed on to posterity. He adds, indeed, that it must be observed that no sacrifice of the priest, that is, what he offers for himself, be eaten by anyone, but that it become a whole burnt offering, that is, be consumed by fire. The precept is clear according to the letter; yet I should like to see what type is formed in this, and what figure. He wishes half of this sacrifice to be offered in the morning and half in the evening, a fixed measure of fine flour mixed with oil, tender, from the frying pan. See whether, as I suspect, the sacrifice of the priest is not this very law which is promulgated through Moses, half of which is commanded to be offered in the morning, and half toward evening. This law he commanded to be divided into two parts, namely into letter and spirit. And the half part, which is the letter, he commands to be offered in the morning, that is, in the first time of the law, because to those to whom it was then given according to the letter it brought forth a new light and a new day; but the other half of it he commanded to be offered toward evening. For in the evening the coming of the Saviour was given to us, in which that other half, that is, the sense or spirit of the law, according to which the law is spiritual, may be offered, mixed with oil and tender. The oil refers to mercy, which ought to abound in priests. “Tender” pertains to subtle and pure understanding. And as to its being said to be “from the frying pan”, I think he wishes the priest to be strict, and dry and parched by much continence, so that nothing slack toward wantonness, nothing loose toward lust, can be found in him. And as to his naming the sacrifice itself “of broken pieces, for an odour of sweetness”, I think he wishes the broken pieces of the priests to be understood: when the letter of the law is broken by them, and the spiritual food hidden within it is drawn out, so that the listening crowds may be refreshed, as the Lord too is related in the Gospels to have done, where he blessed the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples, breaking them, set them before the crowds. And when all had been satisfied, there were left over, it says, twelve baskets of broken pieces. This, then, is the sacrifice of broken pieces: when we examine bit by bit the holy things of the law, so as to take from them spiritual and pure food. “And this,” he says, “is an eternal law.” The apostle John in the Apocalypse says that there is an eternal Gospel; we find here too that it is written that there is an eternal law. But I should like those who wish to follow the law according to the letter to tell me now how the law of this sacrifice can be eternal, since certainly, once the temple was destroyed, the altar overthrown, and all the things that were called holy profaned, this rite of sacrifices could not remain. How, then, will they call eternal what is agreed to have long since ceased and come to an end? It remains that this law be called eternal according to that aspect in which we say that the law is spiritual, and that through it spiritual sacrifices can be offered, which can never be interrupted nor cease. For they are not in a place which is overthrown, nor in a time which changes, but in the faith of the believer and in the heart of the one who sacrifices. And as to his saying, “Of the sacrifice of the priest none shall be eaten, but it shall be a whole burnt offering”, it is certain that this refers to the person of our Lord and Saviour. For of his sacrifice none shall be eaten, but it shall be a whole burnt offering. In this place the sacrifice is to be taken as his very word and teaching, of which no one shall eat, that is, no one disputes it, no one revises it; but it is a whole burnt offering. For whatever he said, whatever he established, endures by an eternal consecration, and no one is found so mad or profane as to be able to revise any of his words; which we ought to hold with all worship and veneration as a whole burnt offering, a sacrifice offered to God, because “heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will not pass away,” but remain for ever, as he himself remains for ever. Through him to God the Father with the Holy Spirit be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying: This is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt offerings are slaughtered, they shall kill also that which is for sin before the Lord: they are holy of holies. The priest who offers it shall eat it in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle of witness. Everyone who touches its flesh shall be sanctified; and on whomever any of its blood is sprinkled, whatever garment it is sprinkled on, that too shall be washed in a holy place. And the earthen vessel in which it is boiled shall be broken; but if it is boiled in a bronze vessel, he shall scour it and rinse it with water. Every male among the priests shall eat them: they are holy of holies to the Lord. And all the sin offerings, from whose blood some is brought into the tabernacle of witness to make entreaty in the holy place, shall not be eaten, but shall be burned with fire.” All these things, unless we take them in another sense than the text of the letter shows, will, as we have often said already, when they are read in church, offer an obstacle and an overthrow to the Christian religion rather than exhortation and edification. But if it is examined and found in what sense these things were said, and they are considered in a manner worthy of God, who is said to have written them, the one who hears them will indeed become a Jew, but not he who is one outwardly, but he who is a Jew inwardly; according to that distinction of the Jew which the apostle Paul draws, saying: “For not he is a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, by circumcision of the heart, in spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God.” Not understanding this difference between the visible Jew and the invisible Jew, the impious heretics have fled not only from these Scriptures but also from God himself, who gave this law and the divine Scriptures to men, and have fashioned for themselves another god besides him who made heaven and earth; whereas surely the truth of the faith holds that one and the same God is God of the law and of the Gospels, creator of things visible and invisible: since the visible things too keep a very great kinship with the invisible, so that the Apostle says that “the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made.” Just as, then, visible and invisible things bear a kinship to one another, earth and heaven, soul and flesh, body and spirit, and this world consists of their conjunctions, so also we must believe that holy Scripture consists of visible and invisible things: as of a kind of body, namely the letter which is seen; and of a soul, the sense which is grasped within it; and of a spirit, in that it also holds certain heavenly things within itself, as the Apostle said: “they serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” Since, then, these things are so, calling upon God, who made the soul and body and spirit of Scripture (the body for those who were before us, the soul for us, and the spirit for those who “in the future will obtain the inheritance of eternal life,” through which they may reach the heavenly kingdoms), let us now seek that soul of the law of which we spoke, as far as concerns the present for the time being. And I do not know whether we can rise even to its spirit in what has been read to us about the sacrifices. For we ought to show of him whom we called a Jew inwardly that, just as we showed that he is circumcised not in the flesh but in the heart, so also he sacrifices not in the flesh but in the heart, and that he will eat of the sacrifices not flesh but spirit.

But let us now see what the things are that are related in the law. “And the Lord spoke,” it says, “to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: This is the law of the sin offering,” and the rest that has been read at present. And I remember that we have said before that the law is not always given to the same persons; but one is given to the children of Israel, another to the sons of Aaron, another again, as we observed long ago, to Moses and Aaron; and there is also another law which is given to Moses alone, so that not even Aaron becomes a partaker of that law. Who is so illumined by God with the gift of knowledge that he can discuss wholly and openly the distinctions and differences of each of these? For we find in what follows a precept of the Lord given to Moses alone, and it is commanded that the breast of the ram of perfection be given to Moses, “as the Lord commanded Moses,” it says. In this portion neither Aaron nor his sons become partakers. And the law which pertains to the ram of perfection is found unable to reach as far as Aaron or his sons, much less the rest of the children of Israel, but only Moses, who was the friend of God. But what need is there to anticipate what is to be read later? For the moment, the law has been read which is promulgated to Aaron and his sons, the law of sin, that is, of the victim which is offered for sin: “In the place,” it says, “in which the burnt offerings are slaughtered, there they shall kill also that which is for sin, in the sight of the Lord: they are holy of holies.” Much indeed has already been said above, with God's help, about the rite of the sacrifices according to the spiritual understanding; but now too, if the grace of the Lord deigns to visit us and you strive with your prayers, we shall add what the Lord gives. Some victims are God's alone, so that no human being partakes of them. Some are Aaron the priest's and his sons'; some are his, and his sons', and his daughters', so that even the priest's wife may eat of them. Some are the priests' and their sons' and daughters', but such that the children of Israel too may eat of them. And in those victims of which the children of Israel may eat, no doubt the priests and the priests' sons also have a share; yet not every victim which the priest eats may the children of Israel also eat. Since, then, there are these differences of victims, that one which we said is God's alone, of which it is not lawful for Moses, nor Aaron, nor his sons to partake, we find sometimes named holocaustomata, and sometimes not holocaustomata but holocarpomata, as if we should say that it is the whole fruit, namely that which is offered to God. The first legislation about sacrifices, then, if you have observed or diligently retain what was read and discussed, and if neither what we say nor what is read from the divine books runs past your ears in vain, the first victim, then, is the whole burnt offering. For it was not fitting that any other victim should be named first than that which was offered to almighty God. The second victim is the one assigned to the priests for eating. The third, that of which even the children of Israel may lawfully touch or eat, namely those who offer it. But not all the children of Israel, only those who are clean. For only those who are clean are bidden to eat of the sacrifices. But all these victims, you who are a Jew inwardly, do not seek among visible animals, nor think that what is fitting to offer to God is found among dumb beasts. Seek these victims within yourself, and you will find them within your soul. Understand that you have within yourself herds of cattle, those which are blessed in Abraham. Understand that you also have flocks of sheep and flocks of goats, in which the patriarchs were blessed and multiplied. Understand that there are within you even the birds of the sky. And do not be surprised that we say these things are within you: understand that you are another world in miniature, and that within you there is a sun, there is a moon, there are also stars. For if this were not so, the Lord would never have said to Abraham: “Look into the sky and see the stars, whether they can be numbered for multitude; so shall your offspring be.” Do not be surprised, I say, if it is said to Abraham, “So shall your offspring be, as the stars of the sky are,” namely of those who, born of his faith, live rationally and keep the divine laws and precepts. Hear something more: the Saviour saying to the disciples, “You are the light of the world.” Do you doubt that there is a sun and moon within you, to whom it is said that you are the light of the world? Do you wish to hear something still greater about yourself, lest perhaps, thinking small and lowly things of yourself, you neglect your life as cheap? This world has its governor; it has almighty God, who rules it and dwells in it, as he himself says through the prophet: “Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord?” Hear, then, what almighty God himself says also about you, that is, about human beings: “I will dwell,” he says, “in them, and walk among them.” He adds something more toward your person: “I will be,” he says, “a father to them, and they shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord.” This world has the Son of God, it has the Holy Spirit, according to what the prophet says: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth.” And again elsewhere: “For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world.” Hear also what Christ says to you: “Behold, I am with you all days, until the end of the age.” And of the Holy Spirit it is said: “I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh, and they shall prophesy.” Since, then, you see that you have all that the world has, you ought not to doubt that you have within you even the animals which are offered as victims, and that from them you ought to offer spiritual victims.

But of these things we have explained above as best we could. Now we add what he says, that in the place in which the burnt offerings are slaughtered, there also are the victims for sin. See how great the mercy and kindness of God is, that where the burnt offering is slaughtered, that which is offered to God alone, there also the victim which is for sin is commanded to be sacrificed; so that, namely, one who has sinned, and repents, and, turned to the Lord, slaughters the victim of a contrite spirit, may understand that he now stands in a holy place and is joined to the things that pertain to God. There, then, the victim for sin is sacrificed where the burnt offering also is, “in the sight,” it says, “of the Lord.” Perhaps it is possible to offer a sacrifice in the sight of the Lord, and not to offer it in the sight of the Lord. Who, then, is it that offers in the sight of the Lord? He, I think, who has not gone out from the sight of the Lord, as Cain did, and become fearful and trembling. If, then, there is anyone who has the confidence to stand in the sight of the Lord, and does not flee from his face, nor avoid his gaze from consciousness of sin, this one offers a sacrifice in the sight of the Lord. This victim, then, which is offered for sins, he says is holy of holies. The word wishes to dare something greater, if only your hearing follows. What is the victim which is offered for sins and is holy of holies, if not the only-begotten Son of God, my Lord Jesus Christ? He alone is the victim for sins, and he is the victim that is holy of holies. But what he adds, “The priest,” he says, “who offers it shall eat it,” seems difficult to understand. For what he says is to be eaten seems to refer to the sin; as the prophet too says elsewhere of the priests that “they will eat the sins of my people.” Hence here too he shows that the priest ought to eat the sin of the one who offers. We have often shown from the divine Scriptures that Christ is both the victim which is offered for the sin of the world and the priest who offers the victim. This the Apostle explained in a single phrase when he says: “Who offered himself to God.” This, then, is the priest who eats and consumes the sins of the people, of whom it was said: “You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.” My Saviour and Lord, then, eats the sins of the people. How does he eat the sins of the people? Hear what is written: “Our God,” it says, “is a consuming fire.” What does God, the fire, consume? Shall we be so foolish as to think that God, the fire, consumes wood, or straw, or hay? But God, the fire, consumes human sins: he takes them away, he devours them, he purges them, according to what he says elsewhere too: “And I will purge you with fire until you are pure.” This is to eat the sin of the one who offers a sacrifice for sin. For he himself took up our sins, and in himself, like fire, eats and consumes them. So, indeed, conversely, those who remain in sins are said to have been swallowed by death, as it is written: “Death, prevailing, will swallow them up.” This I think is what the Saviour said in the Gospel: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it be kindled.” And would that my earth too might be kindled with the divine fire, so that it no longer bears thorns and thistles. So you ought to understand also what is written: “A fire has been kindled by my anger; it will devour the earth and its generations.” The law says, then: “The priest who has offered it shall eat it in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle of witness.” For it follows that, after the image of him who gave the priesthood to the church, the ministers and priests of the church also should receive the sins of the people, and they too, imitating the master, should grant remission of sins to the people. The priests of the church themselves, then, ought to be so perfect and so always learned in their priestly duties that they consume the sins of the people in a holy place, in the courts of the tabernacle of witness, by not sinning themselves. And what is it to eat sin in a holy place? There was a holy place to which Moses had come, according to what was said to him: “For the place on which you stand is holy ground.” Likewise, then, in the church of God the holy place is perfect faith, love from a pure heart, and a good conscience. Whoever stands in these in the church, let him recognize that he stands in a holy place. For the holy place is not to be sought on earth, on which sentence was once given by God, who said: “Cursed is the earth in your works.” Whole faith, then, and holy conduct is the holy place. Placed in this place, therefore, let the priest of the church consume the sins of the people, so that, slaughtering the victim of the word of God and offering the victims of sound doctrine, he may purge the consciences of his hearers from sins. The priest, then, will eat the flesh of the sacrifice in the court of the tabernacle of witness when he has been able to understand what reason there is in these things, or what mysteries, which are described concerning the courts of the tabernacle of witness. For to these secret and hidden courts no one approaches; they are open to none but the priests: if indeed they are open, if by their knowledge and mystical understanding they have been able to penetrate their secrets. And I know that there are also certain other, more secret doctrines in the church, which not even the priests themselves may approach. I mean those where the ark is hidden, where the urn, where the manna and the tablets of the covenant are. Not even the priests themselves are given access there, but only the one high priest, and to him it is granted to enter that secret place once a year with certain mystical purifications. There are also other doctrines of the church which even Levites can reach, but they are lower than those which the priests are permitted to approach. I know also that there are others which even the children of Israel, that is, the laity, can approach; yet not foreigners, unless they have already been enrolled in the church of the Lord; for “the Egyptian will enter the church of God in the third generation.” I believe it is because of the faith of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in which everyone believes who is joined to the church of God, that the third generation is mystically spoken of. Nevertheless, it must be known that of the victims that are offered, although they are granted to the priests to eat, not all of them are granted; but some part of them is offered to God and handed over to the fires of the altar: so that we too may know that even if it is granted to us to grasp and recognize some things from the divine Scriptures, there are yet some things which must be reserved for God; which, since they surpass our understanding and their sense is above us, we keep for the divine fire, lest perhaps they be set forth by us otherwise than the truth is. And therefore in this place too, the things which have been granted to human beings to eat we have consumed, as best we could, within the tabernacle of the Lord; but if any things remain over, and surpass either you in hearing or us in speaking, let us keep them for the fire of the altar, as that part which is commanded to be offered on the altar of the Lord for sin.

“And this,” he says, “is the law of the ram which is for offence: it is holy of holies. In the place in which they slaughter the burnt offerings, they shall slaughter also the ram which is for offence before the Lord,” and so on. In the divine Scriptures “sin” indeed often seems to be named for “offence”, and “offence” for “sin”, indifferently and without any distinction; in this place, however, it is found to be distinguished. For after giving above the rite and order of the sacrifice in the victim for sin, he now commands separately the sacrifice for offence; and although everything is commanded in the same order and with the same observance, and he adds at the end, “As that which is for sin, so also that which is for offence: there shall be one law for them,” yet he wished to show that there is some difference between those for which he commanded separate sacrifices. In this I think that an offence committed is somewhat lighter than a sin. For we find it said of sin that there is a sin unto death; of offence we do not read that it is said to be unto death. I know, however, also that difference which has seemed right to some of the wise: that an offence is when we do not do what we ought to do, while a sin is when we commit what we ought not to commit. But since we do not always find these things under this distinction in the divine Scriptures, we cannot affirm it generally. The sacrifice which is offered for offence, then, is to be taken in the same way and according to the same tradition as we expounded above concerning that which is for sin. For likewise the fat of the ram, that which is around the kidneys and that which covers the inward parts, is commanded to be laid on the altar: so that you too who hear these things may know that everything within you that is grosser and covers your inward parts you ought to offer to the fire of the altar, so that all your inward parts may be purged, and you too may say, as David said: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, his holy name.” For unless that grossness which covers your inward parts is taken away, they cannot grasp the subtle and spiritual sense, nor grasp the understanding of wisdom, and therefore they cannot praise the Lord. But if all that is fat has been taken away from the kidneys and from all the inward parts of the bowels, then, truly purged of every vice of lust, you have slaughtered the victim for offence and offered a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness. “It shall belong,” he says, “to the priest who offers it and makes propitiation with it.” Let the priests of the Lord who preside over the churches learn that a portion is given to them with those whose offences they have propitiated. And what is it to propitiate an offence? If you take up a sinner, and by warning, exhorting, teaching, instructing, lead him to repentance, correct him from error, reform him from vices, and make him such that, once he is converted, God becomes propitious to him for his offence, you will be said to have propitiated it. If, then, you are such a priest, and such is your teaching and your word, a portion is given to you of those whom you have corrected; so that their merit may be your reward, and their salvation your glory. Or does not the Apostle too show this, where he says that “what someone has built on, he will receive a reward”? Let the priests of the Lord understand, then, where their portion has been given them, and let them devote themselves to this and give their effort to it. Let them not entangle themselves in empty and superfluous activities, but let them know that they will have a portion with God in nothing else than in what they offer for sins, that is, in having converted sinners from the way of sin. This too must be noted, that what is offered as a burnt offering is the inward parts; what is outward is not offered to the Lord. The hide is not offered to the Lord, nor does it go into the whole burnt offerings. Such was that son of Judah who was called Er, which is interpreted “hide”. Therefore he was very wicked, and God killed him, because such as these are not offered to the Lord.

“And every sacrifice that is made in the oven, and every one that is made on the griddle or in the frying pan, shall belong to the priest who offers it.” What do we say? Do we think that almighty God, who gave answers to Moses from heaven, gave commands about an oven, a griddle, and a frying pan, so that the people might learn through Moses that God would become propitious to them through these things, if they fried some things in a frying pan, baked some in an oven, and roasted some on a griddle? But the children of the church did not so learn Christ, nor were they so instructed in him by the apostles, as to accept anything so lowly and so cheap about the Lord of majesty. Rather, according to the spiritual sense which the Spirit gives to the church, let us see what this sacrifice is which is baked in the oven, or what this oven ought to be understood to be. But where shall I now find, on the spur of the moment, a divine Scripture which may teach me what an oven is? I must call on my Lord Jesus, that he may make me find as I seek, and open to me as I knock, so that I may find in the Scriptures an oven where I can bake my sacrifice, that God may accept it. And indeed I think I have found it in the prophet Hosea, where he says: “All who commit adultery, like an oven heated for burning.” And again: “Their hearts,” he says, “grew hot like an oven.” The heart of man, then, is an oven. And if vices have kindled this heart, or the devil has inflamed it, it will not bake but burn up. But if he has kindled it who said, “I came to cast fire on the earth,” then the loaves of the divine Scriptures and of the words of God, which I receive in my heart, I do not burn up to perdition, but bake for sacrifice. And perhaps those things are said to be baked in the oven which are inward and hidden and cannot easily be brought out to the crowd; for there are many such things in the divine Scriptures, as in Ezekiel, where the cherubim, or God, and that magnificent vision are described. These things, if they are not baked in the oven, cannot be eaten raw as they are. For we must not believe that there is a certain living creature set in the form of a lion, on which God rides, or another in the form of a calf or an eagle. These things, then, and any of this kind, are not to be brought out raw, but are to be baked in the oven of the heart. There are, therefore, these three things in which he says the sacrifices ought to be prepared: in the oven, in the frying pan, on the griddle; and I think that the oven, according to its shape, signifies the deeper and unspeakable things in the divine Scriptures; the frying pan, those things which, if they are turned over frequently and often, can be understood and explained; and the griddle, those which are in the open and are seen without any covering. For we have often said that a threefold mode of understanding is found in the divine Scriptures: historical, moral, and mystical. Hence we have understood that there is in it a body, and a soul, and a spirit. This threefold preparation shows the threefold form of the sacrifices of this understanding. And elsewhere too, that is, in these very things that are related about the sacrifices, we find mention of the holy basket of perfection, in which three loaves are commanded to be kept. Do you see how the forms of all the sacraments agree with one another? The basket of perfection, in which three loaves are commanded to be placed, what else should we take it to be but the divine Scriptures, setting food before the hearers in a threefold way? Do you wish us to bring forward examples of a similar mystery from the Gospels too? Let us recall the Lord's words, where he says that at midnight someone came to his friend, knocking at his door, and said: “Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.” In this, to touch on it briefly, the night is the time of this life, and the three loaves are: one which is baked in the oven, another in the frying pan, the third on the griddle.

After this he says: “And every sacrifice made in oil, or not made, shall be for all the sons of Aaron, for each equally.” What sacrifice is made in oil, or what is not made in oil? The peace offering is commanded to be made in oil, as we have already said above. But the sacrifice for sin is not made in oil. For he says: “He shall not put oil on it, because it is for sin.” For that which is for sin, neither the oil of gladness nor the incense of sweetness is put on it. For of those who sin the Apostle says: “And I may mourn those who sinned before and did not repent.” Nor is there in it the odour of sweetness, because it is said in the person of the sinner: “My wounds have grown putrid and corrupt.” These things, for the time being, we have observed on the preceding chapter, where the law of the sacrifice for offence is written. But I do not doubt that there are many things which escape us and surpass our understanding. For we are not of such merit that we too can say: “But we have the mind of Christ.” For he alone is the mind to whom all things are open that are hidden within the secret of the letter in the laws of the sacrifices. For if I deserved to be given the mind of Christ, I too would say in these things: “that we may know the things given us by God, which we also speak.” But now, content with the smallness of our understanding, let us look at the beginning of the second chapter.

“This,” he says, “is the law of the peace offering which they shall offer to the Lord. If he offers it for praise, he shall bring for the sacrifice loaves of praise made of fine flour in oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and fine flour mixed with oil. Over leavened loaves he shall offer his gifts, for it is the sacrifice of praise of his peace offering; and he shall offer from it one out of all his gifts, a portion set apart for the Lord, for the priest who pours out the blood of the peace offering; and the flesh of the sacrifice of praise of the peace offering shall be his, and on the day on which the gift is offered they shall eat it, and they shall leave none of it until morning.” The sacrifice which is called the peace offering he divides into two parts, and he names one the sacrifice of praise, the other of a vow; yet both are named peace offerings. But since it is not for us now to restore sacrifices according to the letter, let us seek in ourselves who is so great and of such a kind as to offer to God a peace offering and a sacrifice of praise. I think he is the one who in all his actions causes God to be praised, and through whom is fulfilled what our Lord and Saviour says: “That men may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” He, then, has offered a sacrifice of praise on account of whose actions, teaching, precepts, word, conduct, and discipline God is praised and blessed; just as, on the contrary, there are those of whom it is said that “through you my name is blasphemed among the nations.” Observe, however, here too how loaves made of fine flour in oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and fine flour mixed with oil are set down, and the peace offering is again offered with a threefold sacrament; and finally, “It shall be,” he says, “for the priest who pours out the blood of the peace offering.” Above he said: “It shall be for the priest who makes propitiation.” Here: “It shall be for the priest who pours out the blood of the peace offering.” He uses a fitting order; for first propitiation must be sought, and after this the peace offering (literally “saving sacrifice”) offered. For no one can have salvation unless he first makes God propitious to himself. “And the flesh,” he says, “of the sacrifice of praise of the peace offering shall be his.” We have already said that flesh in the Scriptures signifies solid food and perfect teaching. According to the Scriptures I know that there is a certain food of the soul which is milk, another food of the soul which is vegetables, and another which is flesh, as the Apostle himself says of certain people: “I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you were not yet able, nor are you able even now, for you are still fleshly.” And again elsewhere he says: “One believes he may eat everything, but he who is weak, let him eat vegetables.” And again elsewhere: “But solid food is for the perfect,” and so on. Here, then, the flesh of the peace offering, which is offered for praise, is commanded to be the priest's own. Of the fine flour offered in three ways, as we said above, only the one which pleases the priest is assigned to him; the rest belong to the lay offerer, yet so that they are eaten within the day and nothing of them remains till morning. The flesh, then, in which there is solid food and perfect knowledge, is assigned to the priests, because they ought to be perfect in all things, in teaching, in virtue, in conduct. For if they do not have this in themselves, they will not eat of the flesh of the sacrifices. And in that one portion which is set apart as the choicest of the three prescribed from the fine flour, I think is designated that part of knowledge of which we spoke above, which indicates perfect and deep teaching. But perhaps you will ask how, when above he utterly rejected leaven from the sacrifices, he now commands the sacrifice to be put upon leavened loaves. But look more carefully: the leavened bread is taken not for the sacrifice but for the service of the sacrifice. Let us see, then, what this means. The Lord in the Gospels calls leaven the human teaching of the Pharisees, who handed down as traditions the precepts of men, when he says to the disciples: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” Likewise, then, human teaching is, for example, the art of grammar, or rhetoric, or also dialectic. From this teaching nothing is to be taken up for the sacrifice, that is, in what we must believe about God; but clear speech, the splendour of eloquence, and the method of argument are fittingly ordered to be admitted for the service of the word of God. Did not he have the sacrifice of the word of God set on this leaven who said, “Evil company corrupts good morals”? And: “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies,” and other such things taken from the leaven of the Greeks.

As to his saying, “It shall be eaten within the day, and none of it shall be left until morning,” let us compare it with the other sacrifices and see what reason there is that in this peace offering he commanded the things offered to be eaten on the same day, while in another sacrifice he allows them to be kept even to the second day, and up to the third, but on the third day commands that what is left be given to the fire, so as not to pollute the offerer. Let us see, then, what this difference means. But truly we need the help of God, that he may deign to cut away all the fat that covers our inward parts and remove every veil of grosser sense, so that we may perceive these things according to what is said to be commanded by God. Let us compare, then, the divine Scripture with itself, and follow whatever path of solution it opens to us. For we find concerning the sacrifice of the Passover, which is commanded to be sacrificed in the evening, that a command is likewise given that nothing of the flesh remain until morning. It is not idle, then, that the divine word does not want us to feed on yesterday's flesh, but always on fresh and new, especially those who sacrifice to God the sacrifice of the Passover or the sacrifice of praise: he commands them to eat new and fresh flesh of that very day, and forbids yesterday's. I remembered that the prophet Ezekiel too says something similar, when the Lord had commanded him to bake his bread on human dung. For he answered the Lord and said: “Lord, my soul has never been defiled, and nothing that died of itself or unclean has entered my mouth. Nor has yesterday's flesh entered my mouth.” I often asked myself about this, what this exultation of the prophet was, by which he brought forward before God, as something great, and said that he had never eaten yesterday's flesh. But, as I see, taught from here and steeped in these mysteries, the prophet said these things to the Lord: “I am not so abject and degenerate a priest as to feed on yesterday's, that is, old flesh.” Hear these things, all you priests of the Lord, and understand more attentively what is said. The flesh which is assigned to the priests from the sacrifices is the word of God which they teach in the church. For this reason they are admonished by mystical figures that, when they begin to bring forth a discourse to the people, they should not bring forth yesterday's things, nor speak out old things which are according to the letter, but by the grace of God should always bring forth new things and always find spiritual ones. For if you bring forth today in the church what you learned yesterday from the Jews, this is to eat yesterday's flesh of the sacrifice. If you remember, in the offering of first fruits too the lawgiver used the same word, that they should be, he says, new and fresh. You see that everywhere the things which pertain to the praises of God (for this is the sacrifice of praise) ought to be new and fresh, lest perhaps, when you bring forth old things in the church, your lips speak and your mind is without fruit. But hear what the Apostle says: “If I speak in tongues,” he says, “my spirit prays, but my mind is without fruit. What then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also.” So you too, unless from spiritual learning, from the teaching of the grace of God, you bring forth a present and fresh word in the praises of God, your mouth indeed offers a sacrifice of praise, but your mind is reproached for the barrenness of yesterday's flesh. For the Lord too did not put off the bread which he gave to the disciples, saying to them, “Take and eat,” nor did he command it to be kept until the next day. Perhaps this mystery is contained also in his not commanding bread to be carried on the journey, so that you may always bring forth fresh the loaves of the word of God which you carry within you. Indeed, those Gibeonites are condemned and become hewers of wood and carriers of water for this reason, that they brought old loaves to the Israelites, whom the spiritual law commanded always to use fresh and new ones. There is indeed another figure of the sacraments, which commands that what is left be eaten even on the second day, but nothing be kept to the third day; of this we shall see in its place. But let this too not escape us: that there is a certain time in which it is a blessing to feed on old things. For of the seventh year, which is called the year of remission or the sabbatical year, it is said: “You shall eat old things, and the oldest of the old.” Then, under the mystery of the seventh year, as we said, it is a blessing to eat old things; but now it is forbidden. But it is a great digression to dwell on each of these things and, on the occasion of testimonies, to wander farther afield, when the explanation of the sacrifices is now in hand.

It is said, then, in what follows, that “if it is a vow, or if he sacrifices his gift as a freewill offering, on whatever day he offers his sacrifice it shall be eaten also on the next day. And what is left of the flesh of the sacrifice until the third day shall be burned with fire. But if he eats any of the flesh on the third day, it will not be accepted for the one who offers it; it will not be reckoned to him; it is defilement. And if any soul eats of it, it will receive sin.” This is no doubt what David too says in the Psalms: “Let his prayer become sin,” when not only no merit but even much guilt is gained from the sacrifices. For you hear the lawgiver decree that if anyone eats of what is left until the third day, he will receive sin. Hence it must be recognized how great a stain of sins threatens the human condition, since sin arises even from that from which the victim of propitiation is offered. Considering this, I believe, blessed David said in the Psalms: “Who understands sins?” It is, then, the sacrifice of a vow and of free will, of which it is lawful to eat even on the second day, but which is wholly forbidden on the third. But he gives a remedy to the negligent. If, he says, you are unable and cannot finish all the flesh of the sacrifice on the second day, eat none of it on the third day, but give what is left to the fire. For if you wish to eat of the sacrifice after two days, you will receive sin. For my part, as far as the capacity of my understanding allows, I think that in these two days the two Testaments are to be understood, in which it is lawful for every word that pertains to God (for this is the sacrifice) to be sought and examined, and for all knowledge of things to be taken from them. But if anything is left over which the divine Scripture does not decide, no other third scripture ought to be accepted for the authority of knowledge, because this is called the third day; but let us give to the fire what is left, that is, reserve it for God. For God did not wish us to know everything in this present life, especially since the Apostle also says this: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, the things that are in part will be done away.” This, then, is the fire for which we ought to keep what is left over to the third day, and not, with rash presumption, claim for ourselves the knowledge of all things, so that it may rightly be said to us by the same Apostle: “understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions.” Lest perhaps, then, our sacrifice not be accepted, and this very thing, our desire to take knowledge from the divine Scriptures, be turned into sin for us, let us keep those measures which the spiritual law announces to us through the lawgiver.

“And whatever flesh is touched by anything unclean shall not be eaten; it shall be burned with fire. Everyone who is clean shall eat the flesh. And whatever soul eats the flesh of the peace offering which is the Lord's, while his uncleanness is on him, that soul shall perish from its people. And whatever soul touches any unclean thing, whether the uncleanness of a man, or of unclean four-footed beasts, or any unclean abomination, and eats of the flesh of the peace offering which is the Lord's, that soul shall perish from its people.” The lawgiver has here set out three causes of uncleanness. One, that the flesh of the sacrifices should not be touched by any uncleanness. Another, that he who eats the flesh of the sacrifice should not be unclean, with his uncleanness on him. The third, that even if the flesh is clean and he who eats is clean, he should not have touched anything unclean, whether from cattle or from birds or from any of the things that have been declared unclean. And this indeed is the will of the lawgiver when he ordains the rite of bodily sacrifices. But according to the order of our exposition, where the holy flesh is understood to be the divine words, the observance must be of this kind: that it often happens that clean flesh is touched by something unclean; as, for example, I might say, if someone makes a pure and sincere discourse about God the Father, and about his Only-begotten, and the Holy Spirit, worthy of the mystery of the Godhead, and likewise about all rational creatures as made by God for this purpose, that they might grasp and understand him, but does not add, in the mystery that follows, the resurrection of the flesh as well. His first discourse indeed, since he discussed perfectly and holily, is solid food, is holy flesh; but what is added to it, by denying the resurrection of the flesh, because it is foreign to the faith, joined to the preceding perfect and faithful words, has contaminated and polluted the holy flesh. Therefore, then, the lawgiver commanded that such flesh not be eaten, to which the uncleanness of some unbelief is joined. For this reason the Apostle too says: “For let us celebrate the feast not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” The second kind of uncleanness is that he who eats the flesh should not himself be unclean, with his uncleanness on him; which can be understood in this way: for example, if someone is of flourishing nature and ardent talent, he will not at once seem fit to receive the mysteries of the word of God, but this too is required, that he first be separated from profane actions and unclean works, and so at last become capable of instruction, if he has first become capable of holiness. Something similar we read written in Numbers, where the Lord gave the children of Israel flesh from heaven and says: “Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, that you may eat flesh,” showing this, that unless they were first sanctified and made clean, God would not give them flesh. And the lawgiver well shows the Lord's clemency in not saying, “Let him not eat the flesh in whom there was uncleanness,” but saying, “in whom his uncleanness is on him.” For hardly anyone is found in whom there was no uncleanness. But one can be found in whom there was indeed uncleanness, but who, having heard the law of the Lord, has it no longer. But if his uncleanness remains in him, and having heard these things he will not be converted and amended, that soul, it says, shall perish from its people. The third kind of uncleanness is that by which one who is clean, if he touches something unclean, is polluted not so much by his own sin as by another's contagion: as, for instance, if someone is joined in friendship and companionship with an envious, or angry, or adulterous man, and he himself does not by his own actions take part in his crimes, yet sees him and understands how he hates his brother and is a murderer, or how he lies in wait for another man's wife and is an adulterer, or how he is sacrilegious in other respects, and, having detected these things, does not withdraw from his companionship: this is the one who has touched something unclean, whether an animal, or a bird, or a carcass, and is polluted by another's uncleanness. Of the differences of unclean things we spoke above, as far as could occur to us. Or did not the Apostle too give commands according to this same pattern, when he says: “But now I write to you in the letter not to associate with the sexually immoral; if anyone called a brother is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a one”? In all of which, what else does he command but that they should not be polluted by others' sins and uncleannesses?

“And the Lord spoke,” he says, “to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, saying: You shall not eat any fat of oxen, or sheep, or goats; and the fat of animals that died of themselves, and of those caught by wild beasts, may be put to any use, but shall not be eaten as food. Everyone who eats fat from the cattle from which you offer a victim to the Lord, that soul shall perish from its people. And you shall eat no blood in any of your dwellings, whether of cattle or of birds. Every soul that eats blood, that soul shall perish from its people.” The lawgiver forbids the fat of the animals which are offered in sacrifices, and of some others, to be eaten or used, and he forbids the blood of all flesh to be eaten. Earlier, treating the mystical sense, where a calf was given as a burnt offering for sin and the fat was laid on the altar, we took the blood, with which in part the horns were smeared while the rest was poured out at the base of the altar, as a figure of those who are called the remnant of Israel and who hope for salvation in the last days, after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And the fat we said was the soul of Christ, which is the church of his friends, for whom he laid down his life. It may be, then, in this place too, that the command that no one eat the fat of what is offered to the Lord is what the Lord too says: “Let no one cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble.” And that the blood of no animal is commanded to be eaten may perhaps be what the Apostle says of the Israelites: “You will say, then: Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. Well: they were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be high-minded, but fear.” And again: “Do not boast against the branches”: that is, let no one insult their fall; lest perhaps, as the same Apostle says, you too be cut off, and they, if they do not remain in unbelief, be grafted in. And by the blood I think that people is fittingly understood. For they descend not from the faith nor from the spirit of Abraham, but only from his blood.

After this: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, saying: He who offers the sacrifice of his peace offering to the Lord shall bring his gift to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offering. His hands shall offer the victim to the Lord: the fat which is on the breast, and the lobe of the liver; he shall offer them so that the gift is placed before the Lord. And the priest shall lay the fat which is on the breast on the altar, and the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and the right shoulder you shall give as a portion set apart for the priest from your peace offerings. He among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offering and the fat, to him shall belong the right shoulder as a portion; for the breast of the laying-on and the shoulder of the taking-away I have taken from the children of Israel from your peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons, a perpetual ordinance for the children of Israel.” This is the sacrifice which is called the peace offering. This sacrifice no one offers to the Lord except one who is healthy and, conscious of his salvation, gives thanks to the Lord. No one, then, who is sick in soul and feeble in works can offer the peace offering. Do you wish to see that no one sick and feeble can offer that sacrifice? The leper whom the Lord is described in the Gospel as having cured could not offer a victim while he was held by the sickness of leprosy. But when he approached Jesus and was cleansed, then he is commanded by the Lord to offer gifts at the altar, “which Moses commanded,” he says, “as a testimony to them.” You have heard who it is that ought to offer the peace offering; hear now how he ought to offer it. “His hands,” it says, “shall offer the victim to the Lord.” Does not the lawgiver clearly cry out that it is not the man who offers the victim, but his hands, that is, his works? For it is works that commend the victim to God. For if your hand is drawn back from giving and stretched out to receive, your leprosy is still within you, and you cannot offer the peace offering. His hands, then, shall offer the peace offering, and his hands shall offer what is to be offered to the Lord, that is, the fat which is on the breast, and the lobe of the liver. In this place, where we have “his hands shall offer the victim to the Lord,” in the Greek there is, instead of “victim”, a word which is understood as “the whole fruit”: by which he shows that one who is fruitless cannot offer the whole fruit to the Lord, one who does not bring the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of mercy, or also the fruits of the Spirit which the Apostle enumerates: love, joy, peace, patience, unanimity, and the rest like these. Hence in another place too the prophet says: “And may your burnt offering be fat.” He offers, then, the fat which is on the breast, and the lobe of the liver, to be laid on the altar. Of fat we have often spoken already. And as to his saying “the fat which is on the breast”, understand your breast to be your heart, from which all evil thoughts must be removed from you; for from there they proceed; and they must be given to the fire of the altar, so that your heart, made clean, may see God. And he commanded the lobe of the liver also to be offered. We explained before too that the lobe of the liver is the seat of anger or of desire; for he offers the lobe of the liver who cuts out of himself every vice of anger and fury. The fat, then, which is on the breast is laid on the altar, but the breast itself is Aaron's and his sons'. And he commanded the right shoulder too to be set apart, and to be for them in place of a gift from the peace offering. See with what gifts the priest is honoured. He receives the breast and the shoulder, but the right shoulder. Do we think there is no reason why, out of all the members of the animals that are slaughtered in sacrifices, these members especially were chosen? I think that if anyone says he is a priest of God, unless he has a breast chosen out of all the members, he is not a priest; and unless he has a right shoulder, he cannot go up to the altar of the Lord nor be called a priest. What, then, is the priest's breast, or of what kind? I think it is such that it is full of wisdom, full of knowledge, full of all divine understanding; and why do I say full of understanding? Rather, that it is full of God. Such too is the shoulder of the priest which the children of Israel offer him for their salvation, by which they are saved. Each of these things that are written in the law are forms of what ought to be done in the church. Otherwise it would not have been necessary for these things to be read in the church, unless some edification were offered from them to the hearers. If, then, the priest of the church, by words and teaching and his great solicitude and the labour of vigils, has been able to convert a sinner and teach him to follow a better way, to return to the fear of God, to think of the hope to come, to cease from evil deeds and turn to good ones; if, I say, he has done such a work, it follows that the one who is saved by his labour should give thanks to God and offer the peace offering, because he has obtained salvation. In this victim the priest's portion becomes the breast and the right shoulder: so that it may be a sign that his breast and heart, which before thought evil things, converted by the priest's labour, has received good thoughts and has been so cleansed that it can even see God. Likewise in that shoulder there is a sign that he has turned his evil and left-handed works, which were certainly depraved and not good, into right-handed ones, so that they might be according to God; and this is the right shoulder, in which the priest's portion is said to be. And we beseech you too who hear these things: give your breasts, offer your hearts to the priests of God, so that they may remove from them all that is gross and make them the priestly portion. Give us also your shoulders, but it is right shoulders we ask of you: we want nothing left-handed; we require right-handed works of you. And what he adds, that it is called the breast of the laying-on and the shoulder of the taking-away, does not seem to me said without reason. And so I should like to ask what it is that must be laid on the breast, so that it becomes the breast of the laying-on. After all that is gross has been removed from your heart, and it has been cleansed from every covering or defilement which is to be given to the fire, it remains that the grace of the Holy Spirit be laid on it, and then it will become the breast of the laying-on; and also the shoulder of separation, or of taking-away. How will it also be the shoulder of separation? If you know and understand how to discern what are the works of light and what the works of darkness, and separate your actions from darkness, so that your works are in the light, your shoulder becomes the shoulder of separation; or when you separate yourself from every brother who walks disorderly; or certainly when, according to the prophet, those who carry the vessels of the Lord separate themselves and go out from the midst of sinners. Indeed, by a certain native usage of Scripture, what is unclean is called “common”. As the voice too says to Peter: “What God has cleansed, do not call common.” Consequently, then, if what is unclean is called common, what is holy will be named separated. And we add this too. If anyone is the servant of God alone, he cannot be called common. But if anyone is common, there is no doubt that he belongs to many, and is therefore called common. There is a great mystery in this word, which Israel according to the flesh has in use and in feeling, but does not have in understanding. They too call an unclean man common, but why he is called common they do not know. Let them learn, then, from the church that he who is holy belongs to God alone, and has communion with no one. But he who is a sinner and unclean belongs to many. For many demons possess him, and therefore he is called common. Indeed, that man too who was cured by the Lord in the Gospels, when he was asked, “What is your name?” said: “Legion, for we are many.” These things, though in something of a digression, nevertheless seemed necessary to add, so that we might discuss the mystery of the breast of the laying-on and the shoulder of separation, why it was written; which is the eternal portion given to the priests, in which may he deign to make us worthy, so that through purity of heart and uprightness of works we may deserve to have a share in the divine sacrifice, through the eternal high priest, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through whom to God the Father with the Holy Spirit is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

The reason why these things that are read to us can be understood or not, the Apostle shows briefly, saying that the veil of the Old Testament can be removed from the eyes of one who has turned to God; from which he wished it to be known that the less plain these things are to us, the less is our turning to God. And therefore we must strive with all our strength, freed from the occupations of the world and from worldly affairs, and leaving behind, if it can be done, even the superfluous chatter of companions, to devote ourselves to the word of God and meditate on his law day and night, so that, turned with our whole heart, we may be able to look on the unveiled and open face of Moses; and especially in what has now been read, whether about the priestly garments or about the consecration of the high priest, in which such things are said as wholly to shut out even that fleshly Israel from a historical understanding. And therefore, to explain these things, we must strive not with the powers of human talent but with prayers and supplications poured out to God. In this we also need your help, so that God, the Father of the Word, may give us a word in the opening of our mouth, so that we may be able to consider the wonders of his law.

The beginning, then, of what was read today is in these words: “This is the anointing of Aaron and the anointing of his sons from the victims of the Lord, on the day on which he brought them near to sacrifice to the Lord, as the Lord commanded to give them, on the day on which he anointed them, from the children of Israel, a perpetual ordinance for their generations. This is the law of the burnt offerings, and of the sin offering, and of the offence offering, and of the consecration, and of the peace offering, as the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day when he commanded the children of Israel to offer their gifts before the Lord in the desert of Sinai.” When the lawgiver had set out to say, “This is the anointing of his sons,” he did not add what the anointing was, nor explain how he anointed; he does this indeed in what follows, but now, after saying “This is the anointing of Aaron and of his sons,” he added nothing about the anointing. Surely this was to show that the things he had said above, that is, the breast of the laying-on and the shoulder of separation, were themselves the anointing of Aaron and his sons, so that we should not think those things were said about flesh, but so that he might teach that they too were included under the sacrament of the anointing. Indeed, in what follows he repeats what he had set out above, and says: “This is the law of the burnt offerings, and of the sacrifice, and of the sin offering.” “This”, that is, the one set out above; and it seems to be a recapitulation of the sacraments which had been related more fully above. After this he adds: “And the Lord spoke,” he says, “to Moses, saying: Take Aaron and his sons, and the robes, and the oil of anointing, and the calf for sin, and the two rams, and the basket of unleavened bread, and call the whole synagogue together at the door of the tabernacle of witness. And Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and called the synagogue together at the door of the tabernacle of witness. And Moses said to the synagogue: This is the word which the Lord commanded to do. And Moses brought Aaron his brother and his sons near, and washed them with water; and he clothed him with the tunic, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the inner tunic, and put the ephod on him, and girded him according to the making of the ephod, and bound him with it; and he put the oracle on him, and on the oracle he put the manifestation and the truth; and he put the mitre on his head, and on the mitre, in front of his face, he put the golden plate, sanctified, holy, as the Lord had commanded Moses.” Hear with attentive ears and a watchful heart the consecration of the high priest or priest, because you too, according to God's promises, are priests of God: “for you are a holy nation and a holy priesthood.” Moses, it says, according to the Lord's command, took Aaron and his sons, and first he washes them, and afterwards he clothes them. Consider more carefully the order of the words: first he washes, afterwards he clothes. For you cannot be clothed unless you have first been washed. “Wash, then, and be clean, and take away wickedness from your souls.” For unless you have been washed in this way, you will not be able to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, according to what the Apostle says: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in its desires.” Let Moses, then, wash you; let him wash you himself, and let him clothe you himself. How Moses can wash you you have often heard. For we have often said that in his Scriptures Moses is put for the law, as was said in the Gospel: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” It is the law of God, then, that washes you; it rinses away your filth; it, if you listen to it, wipes away the stains of your sins. This is Moses, that is, the law which consecrates priests; and no one can be a priest whom the law has not established as priest. For there are many priests, but whom the law has not washed, nor the word of God made pure, nor the divine discourse cleansed from the filth of sins. But you too who desire to receive holy baptism and to merit the grace of the Spirit ought first to be purged by the law; you ought first, having heard the word of God, to cut back the shoots of vices and to set in order barbarous and savage habits, so that, having taken on gentleness and humility, you may be able also to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. For so the Lord says through the prophet: “On whom shall I rest, but on the humble and quiet, and one who trembles at my words?” If you are not humble and quiet, the grace of the Holy Spirit cannot dwell in you, if you do not receive the divine words with trembling. For the Holy Spirit flees a proud and stubborn and deceitful soul. You ought, then, first to meditate on the law of God, so that if perhaps your actions are intemperate and your habits disordered, the law of God may amend and correct you. Do you wish to see that Moses is always with Jesus, that is, the law with the Gospels? Let the Gospel teach you that when Jesus was transfigured into glory, Moses and Elijah too appeared together with him in glory, so that you may know that the law and the prophets and the Gospel always agree in one and remain in one glory. Indeed, Peter too, when he wished to make three tabernacles for them, is censured for lack of understanding, as one who did not know what he was saying. For the law and the prophets and the Gospel have not three but one tabernacle, which is the church of God. Moses, then, first washes the priest of the Lord, and when he has washed him and rendered him clean from the filth of vices, after this he clothes him. But let us consider what these garments are with which Moses first clothed his brother Aaron, the high priest, in case it is possible for you too to be clothed with the same garments and to be a high priest. There is indeed one great high priest, our Lord Jesus Christ; but he is not only a priest but the priest of priests, and not only a high priest but the high priest of high priests, not a chief of priests but the chief of the chief priests. Just as he is called king not of a people but King of kings, and Lord not of servants but Lord of lords. It may be, then, if you too have been washed by Moses, and have become so clean, as one whom so great and so excellent a Moses has washed, that you may be able to attain even to these garments which Moses brings out, and these robes with which he clothed Aaron his brother and his sons. But for the priestly insignia there is need not only of garments but also of girdles. But before we begin to speak of the kind of garments itself, I should like to compare those unhappy garments with which the first man was clothed when he had sinned with these holy and faithful garments. And indeed God is said to have made those: “For God made,” it says, “tunics of skin, and clothed Adam and his wife.” Those tunics, then, were of skins taken from animals. For with such the sinner had to be clothed, with tunics of skin, I say, which were a sign of the mortality which he had received because of sin, and of the frailty which came from the corruption of the flesh. But if you have now been washed from these and purified through the law of God, Moses will clothe you with the garment of incorruption, so that your shame may nowhere appear, and that this mortal may be swallowed up by life.

Let us see, then, in what order the high priest is appointed. “Moses,” it says, “called the synagogue together, and says to them: This is the word which the Lord commanded.” Although, then, the Lord had given commands about appointing the high priest, and the Lord had chosen him, yet the synagogue too is called together. For in ordaining a priest the presence of the people also is required, so that all may know and be certain that the one who is more excellent than all the people, more learned, holier, more eminent in every virtue, is the one chosen for the priesthood; and this with the people standing by, so that afterwards no one might have any reconsideration, and no scruple might remain. This is what the Apostle too commanded in the ordination of a priest, saying: “But he must also have a good testimony from those outside.” I, however, see something more in his saying that Moses called the whole synagogue together; and I think that to call the synagogue together is to collect all the powers of the soul and gather them into one, so that, when discourse is held about the priestly sacraments, all the powers of the soul may be awake and attentive, no wisdom, no knowledge, no diligence lacking in them, but the whole multitude of the senses present, the whole assembly of holy thoughts present, so that, comparing within the sanctuary of his heart, one may perceive what the high priest is, what the anointing, what his garments. He washed him, then, and clothed him. With what garment? “With a tunic,” it says, “and he girded him with a girdle, and again clothed him with the tunic reaching to the ankles,” or, as we read elsewhere, “the inner one”. With two tunics, as I see, the high priest is clothed by Moses. But what shall we do about Jesus forbidding his priests, the apostles, to use two tunics? We had said that Moses and Jesus, that is, the law and the Gospels, agree with one another. Someone might perhaps say that Jesus' command not to have two tunics is not contrary to the law but more perfect than the law; as also when the law forbids murder, Jesus cuts off even anger, and when the law forbids adultery, Jesus cuts off even the desire of the heart. So it will seem that he clothed the high priest there with two tunics and the apostles here with one. Let this sense too stand, if it seems probable; I, however, do not confine the high-priestly sacraments within the narrowness of this understanding. Something more seems to me to be shown by this pattern: the high priest is one who holds the knowledge of the law and understands the reasons of each mystery, and, to explain it briefly, who knows the law both according to the spirit and according to the letter. That high priest whom Moses was then ordaining knew, then, that there was a spiritual circumcision, yet he also kept the circumcision of the flesh, because an uncircumcised man could not be high priest. He had, then, two tunics: one of the fleshly ministry, and another of spiritual understanding. He knew that spiritual sacrifices too ought to be offered to God, yet he nonetheless offered fleshly ones as well. For he could not be the high priest of those who then lived unless he sacrificed victims. So, fittingly, that high priest is said to be clothed with two tunics. But the apostles, who were to say, “If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing,” and who were to say, “Let no one judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come”: these, then, so that they might utterly repudiate such observances of the law according to the letter, and not occupy the disciples with Jewish fables, and lay on them a yoke which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear, are rightly forbidden to have two tunics; one suffices them, and that the inner one. For that tunic which is outside and which appears on top, the tunic of the law, they do not want. For Jesus permits them to have one, and that the inner one. Moses, however, also puts on the high priest the ephod, which is a kind of ornament of the shoulders formed by wrapping a garment around them. And the shoulders bear the figure of works and are signs of labour. He wishes, then, the high priest to be adorned also with works; knowledge alone does not suffice, because “whoever does and teaches, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

He had already said above that he girded him with a girdle over the tunic, and now again he is girded according to the making of the ephod. What is this double girdle with which he wishes the high priest to be bound on every side? Let him be bound in word, bound in deed, ready for everything, having nothing slack, nothing loose. Let him be girded with the virtues of the soul, bound against bodily vices; let him fear no fall of the soul, none of the body; let him always use both girdles, so as to be holy in body and spirit. And it is well that he is girded according to the making of the ephod. For according to his deeds and according to his works he uses the girdle of virtue. “And after this,” it says, “he put on him the oracle,” which is the rational, “and on the oracle he put the manifestation and the truth, and he put the mitre on his head.” But let us see what the oracle, which is the rational, signifies. After the nakedness has been covered and the shame veiled by garments, after he has been protected by works and strengthened by both girdles, then the oracle, that is, the rational, is handed to him. The oracle is a sign of wisdom, because wisdom consists in reason. But the power of this wisdom and reason shows what kind it is. For he puts on the rational the manifestation and the truth. For it is not enough for the high priest to have wisdom and to know the reason of all things unless he can also make manifest to the people what he knows. Therefore, then, manifestation is put on the rational, so that he may be able to answer everyone who asks him for a reason concerning faith and truth. And truth is put on it as well, so that he may not assert what he can devise by his own talent, but what the truth holds, and never depart from the truth, so that in all his speech truth may always remain. This, then, is to have put on the rational the manifestation and the truth. Unhappy are those who, reading these things, pour out all their understanding on the sense of a bodily garment! Let them tell us what kind of garment manifestation is, or what kind of clothing truth is. If anyone has ever seen, if anyone has heard manifestation and truth named as garments, let them tell us who the women are who wove these things, in what weaving shop these were ever made. But if you wish to hear the truth, it is wisdom that made garments of this kind. She wove the manifestation of hidden things, she wove the truth of all things. Let us pray, then, to the Lord that we may deserve to receive her, and she herself will surround us with such garments. But look also at how holy and how wonderful the very order of things is. Not first the oracle and afterwards the ephod, because not wisdom before works; but works ought to be had first, and afterwards wisdom is to be sought. Then next, not manifestation before the rational, because we ought not to teach others before we ourselves are instructed and rational. And truth is added over these, because truth is the highest wisdom. Indeed the prophet keeps this same order when he says: “Sow for yourselves unto righteousness, reap the fruit of life, light for yourselves the light of knowledge.” You see how he does not say first, “light for yourselves the light of knowledge,” but first, “sow for yourselves unto righteousness”; and it is not enough to sow, but “reap,” he says, “the fruit of life,” so that after this you may be able to fulfil what follows, “light for yourselves the light of knowledge.” So too here the ornament of the ephod is put on, and the ornament alone is not enough, but he is also bound with the girdle. But not even this is enough: he is girded a second time, so that only then the rational may be put on, and after this the manifestation and the truth may follow. Let the high priest use these garments. With such adornment ought he to be clothed who bears the priesthood.

But he has not yet finished, and still another adornment must be added: he must receive also a crown. Therefore he receives first the cidaris, which is either a kind of covering of the head or an ornament. And after this the mitre is put on over it. Before his face, that is, on the forehead of the high priest, a golden plate, sanctified, on which the name of God is said to be engraved. This adornment of the head, where the name of God is said to be placed, is put on over all those things with which the lower members of the body had been adorned. In this it seems to me to be indicated that the knowledge of God, as of the author of all things, is more eminent than everything that can be thought or understood about the world or the other creatures. And because he is the head of all things, therefore this adornment too is put on the head above all things. For nothing is added after this to the high priest's head. And therefore wretched are those of whom the Apostle says that they do not hold fast to the head, from which the whole body, joined and knit together, grows with the growth of God in the Spirit. But we, if we have well understood what the priest's adornment is, and what the honour of his head is above all things, searching the depths of the divine mysteries, should desire not only to know and hear these things but also to fulfil and do them, because not the hearers of the law will be justified before God, but the doers. For you too can, as we have often said already, if by your studies and vigils you prepare for yourself such garments, if the word of the law has washed you and made you clean, and the anointing of the chrism, and the grace of baptism in you has lasted undefiled; if you are clothed with the double garments of the letter and the spirit; if you are also doubly girded, so as to be chaste in flesh and mind; if you shine with the ephod of works and the rational of wisdom; if also the mitre and the golden plate, the fullness of the knowledge of God, crowns your head: know that, even if you are hidden and unknown among men, yet before God you exercise the high priesthood within the temple of your soul. For you are the temple of the living God, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. After this, the things that are said about his consecration and anointing have been discussed by us here and there and often.

As to what he says, “And Moses brought the sons of Aaron near, and clothed them with tunics, and girded them with girdles, and put caps on them, as the Lord commanded Moses,” we must attend to what difference there is between these priests and the higher priesthoods. To these neither double garments are given, nor the ephod, nor the rational, nor the adornment of the head, but only the cap and the girdles which bind the tunic. These too, then, receive the grace of the priesthood, and these too perform the office, but not like him who is adorned with the ephod and the rational, who shines with manifestation and truth, who is decorated with the ornament of the golden plate. Hence I think it is one thing among priests to perform the office, another to be equipped and adorned in all things. For anyone can perform the solemn ministry to the people, but few are those who are adorned in conduct, equipped in teaching, trained in wisdom, thoroughly fit to make manifest the truth of things, and who bring out the knowledge of the faith not without the adornment of thoughts and the brilliance of assertions; which the adornment placed on the head, the golden plate, designates. One, then, is the name of priesthood, but not one the dignity, whether by the merit of life or by the virtues of the soul. And therefore in what the divine law describes, as in a mirror, each of the priests ought to look at himself and gather from it the degree of his merit: if he sees himself placed in all these things which we have expounded above, adorned with the high-priestly ornaments; if he is conscious that he is so great and of such a kind in knowledge, in actions, in teaching, let him know that he holds the highest priesthood not only in name but also in merits. Otherwise let him know that a lower rank is set for him, even if he has received the name of the first. Indeed this too ought not to escape us, which can be brought forward by a studious reader, and about which I myself have often hesitated within myself. For reading in Exodus, where commands are given about the priestly garments, I find that there are eight kinds which are prepared for the high priest. But here only seven are counted. I ask, then, what it is that has been omitted. The eighth kind is set down there as the drawers, or, as we read elsewhere, linen breeches, about which he has been silent here among the other garments. What, then, shall we say? Shall we attribute forgetfulness to the words of the Holy Spirit, so that, when he has related all the others a second time, one kind mentioned above should have escaped him? I do not dare think such things of the sacred words. But let us see, since we said above that this kind of garment seems to be a sign of chastity, by which either the thighs are covered or the kidneys and loins are bound, whether perhaps, I say, he means that these parts were not always bound in those who were priests then. For sometimes indulgence is given concerning the posterity of the family and the succession of offspring. But I would not introduce an understanding of this kind among the priests of the church. For I see another matter that meets the sacrament. For in the church too priests and teachers can beget sons, like him who said: “My little children, with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” And again elsewhere he says: “For though you have many thousands of tutors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begot you.” These teachers of the church, then, in procreating such offspring, sometimes use bound breeches and abstain from begetting, when they find hearers in whom they know they cannot have fruit. Indeed in the Acts of the Apostles too it is related of certain ones that they could not “speak the word of God in Asia”: that is, that they had put on the breeches and restrained themselves from begetting sons, because, namely, the hearers were such that in them the seed would perish and there could be no succession. So, then, let the priests of the church, when they see incapable ears, or when they discern pretending and hypocritical hearers, put on the drawers, use the breeches, so that the seed of the word of God may not perish; because the Lord too commands the same and says: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you.” Therefore, then, if anyone wishes to be a high priest not so much in name as in merit, let him imitate Moses, let him imitate Aaron. For what is said of them? That they do not depart from the tabernacle of the Lord. Moses, then, was unceasingly in the tabernacle of the Lord. And what was his work? Either to learn something from God, or himself to teach the people. These are the two works of the high priest: either to learn from God by reading the divine Scriptures and meditating on them often, or to teach the people. But let him teach what he himself has learned from God, not from his own heart or from human sense, but what the Holy Spirit teaches. There is also that work which Moses does: he goes to wars, he does not fight against the enemies. But what does he do? He prays; and while he prays, his people conquer. If he relaxes and lets down his hands, his people are conquered and put to flight. Let the priest of the church too, then, pray unceasingly, so that the people under him may conquer the invisible enemies, the Amalekites, who are the demons attacking those who wish to live godly in Christ. And therefore let us, meditating on these things and calling them to memory day and night, and persevering in prayer and keeping watch in it, beseech the Lord that he himself may deign to reveal to us the knowledge of what we read, and to show us how we may observe the spiritual law not only in understanding but also in actions, so that we may deserve to obtain spiritual grace, enlightened through the law of the Holy Spirit, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

Many things were read in the previous reading, of which, constrained by the shortness of time, we said very few. For we are now exercising the ministry not of expounding the Scriptures but of building up the churches; although from what we have treated before, every prudent hearer can find clear paths to understanding. And therefore from what has now been read too, since we cannot do everything, we shall nevertheless gather some little flowers that may build up the hearers, as from a full field which the Lord has blessed. Let us see, then, what it is that has now been read to us. “And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying: You shall not drink wine or strong drink, you and your sons with you, when you enter the tabernacle of witness or when you approach the altar, and you shall not die. A perpetual ordinance for your generations: to distinguish between the holy and the defiled, and between the unclean and the clean, and to teach the children of Israel all the ordinances which the Lord spoke to them by the hand of Moses.” A clear law is given both to the priests and to the chief of the priests, that when they approach the altar they abstain from wine and from every drink that can intoxicate, which the divine Scriptures, by a native term, are accustomed to call sicera, strong drink. The divine word, then, wishes the priests of the Lord to be sober in all things, as those who, approaching the altar of God, must pray for the people and intercede for the offences of others; who have no portion on earth, but the Lord himself is their portion; for so Scripture says of them: “To the sons of Levi,” it says, “you shall not give a share among their brothers, because I am their portion, the Lord their God.” He wishes, then, those whose portion is the Lord himself to be sober, fasting, watchful at all times, but especially when they stand at the altars to entreat the Lord and to sacrifice in his sight. These commandments keep their force so far, and must be guarded with such observance, that the Apostle too confirms these same things by the laws of the New Testament. In this he too likewise, setting rules of life for priests or the chiefs of priests, says that they ought not to be slaves to much wine, but sober. For sobriety is the mother of all virtues, as, on the contrary, drunkenness is of all vices. For the Apostle declared openly, saying: “Wine, in which is debauchery,” to show that debauchery is begotten from drunkenness as its first-born daughter. Then besides, the Saviour too, establishing with the authority of Lord and King laws and rights for the priests and the people alike, says: “Take heed lest perhaps your hearts be weighed down with drunkenness and carousing and the cares of the world, and sudden destruction come upon you.” You have heard the edict of the eternal King, and have learned the lamentable end of drunkenness and carousing. If some skilled and wise physician gave you orders in these very words and said, “Take heed that no one, for example, takes too greedily of the juice of this or that herb; for if he does, sudden destruction will come upon him,” I do not doubt that each one, with an eye to his own health, would keep the orders of the physician who warned him. But now the physician of souls and bodies, who is at the same time also Lord, commands that the herb of drunkenness and carousing be avoided, and likewise that the cares of the world be guarded against as deadly juices. And I do not know whether any of us is not consumed by these things, not to say wounded. Drunkenness with wine, then, is ruinous in every way; for it alone makes the soul weak together with the body. For in other things it can happen that, according to the Apostle, when the body is weak, then the spirit is more powerful, and when the outer man is corrupted, the inner man is renewed. But in the sickness of drunkenness the body and soul are corrupted together, the spirit is vitiated equally with the flesh. It weakens all the members; it loosens foot, hand, tongue; it darkens the eyes; oblivion veils the mind, so that a man does not know or feel that he is a man. This, then, first of all, is the disgrace of bodily drunkenness; but if we examine in how many ways the human mind is made drunk, we shall find drunk even those who seem to themselves sober. Anger makes the soul drunk, and fury makes it more than drunk, if anything can be more than drunkenness. Greed and avarice make a man not only drunk but rabid. And obscene desires make the soul drunk, as, on the contrary, holy desires also make it drunk, but with that holy drunkenness of which one of the saints said: “And your cup that makes drunk, how excellent it is!” But we shall see later about the different kinds of drunkenness; for now, see how many things there are that make the soul drunk: fear makes it drunk, and vain suspicion. Envy and spite waste it more than any drunkenness. But it is impossible to count how many things there are that entice the unhappy soul into the vice of drunkenness. For now, let us look at the priests, whom the law commands to abstain from wine when they approach the altar. And indeed as far as the historical precept goes, let what has been said suffice. But as regards the mystical understanding, our profession will be held to in what follows, since, on the authority of the apostle Paul, our Lord and Saviour is called the high priest of the good things to come. He, then, is Aaron, and his sons are his apostles, to whom he himself said: “Little children, yet a little while I am with you.” What, then, did the law command Aaron and his sons? That they should not drink wine and strong drink when they approach the altar. Let us see how we can apply this to the true high priest, Jesus Christ our Lord, and to his priests and sons, our apostles. And first it must be observed how, before he approaches the altar, this true high priest drinks wine with his priests, but when he begins to approach the altar and to enter the tabernacle of witness, he abstains from wine. Do you think we can find anything of the kind done by him? Do you think we can fit the forms of the Old Instrument to the deeds and words of the New Testament? We can, if the Word of God himself deigns to help and inspire us. We are asking, then, how our Lord and Saviour, who is the true high priest, drinks wine with his disciples, who are the true priests, before he approaches the altar of God, but does not drink when he has begun to approach. The Saviour had come into this world to offer his flesh as a victim to God for our sins. Before he offered it, during the delays of his dispensation, he drank wine. Indeed he was called a glutton and a wine-drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But when the time of his cross came, and he was about to approach the altar where he would sacrifice the victim of his flesh, “taking,” it says, “the cup, he blessed it and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take and drink of this.” You, he says, drink, who are not now about to approach the altar. But he himself, as one about to approach the altar, says of himself: “Truly I say to you, I will not drink of this produce of the vine until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.” If any of you approaches with ears purified for hearing, let him behold the secret of an unspeakable mystery. What does it mean that he says, “I will not drink of this produce of the vine until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father”? We said earlier that the promise of this good drunkenness was given to the saints, when they say, “And your cup that makes drunk, how excellent it is!” And in many other places of Scripture we read similar things, as there: “They shall be made drunk with the abundance of your house, and you will give them to drink of the torrent of your delight.” In Jeremiah too the Lord says: “And I will make my people drunk.” And Isaiah says: “Behold, those who serve me shall drink, but you shall be thirsty.” And you will find much mentioned in the divine Scriptures about drunkenness of this kind. This drunkenness is no doubt taken for the joy of the soul and gladness of the mind, as we remember having distinguished elsewhere too: that it is one thing to be drunk by night and another to be drunk by day.

If, then, we have understood what the drunkenness of the saints is, and how it is given to the saints in the promises for gladness, let us see now how our Saviour does not drink wine until he drinks it new with the saints in the kingdom of God. My Saviour mourns even now for my sins. My Saviour cannot rejoice as long as I remain in iniquity. Why can he not? Because he himself is the advocate for our sins with the Father, as John, his fellow initiate, proclaims, saying that “if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.” How, then, can he who is the advocate for my sins drink the wine of gladness, when I sadden him by sinning? How can he who approaches the altar to make propitiation for me, a sinner, be in gladness, when the grief of my sins always rises up to him? “With you,” he says, “I will drink it in the kingdom of my Father.” As long as we do not act so as to ascend to the kingdom, he cannot drink alone that wine which he promised to drink with us. He is, then, in grief as long as we persist in error. For if his Apostle mourns certain ones who sinned before and did not repent of what they had done, what shall I say of him who is called the Son of love, who emptied himself because of the love he had for us, and did not seek his own, although he was equal to God, but sought what is ours, and for this reason emptied himself? Since, then, he has sought what is ours, he now stands before the face of God, interceding for us; he stands at the altar to offer propitiation to God for us; and therefore he said, as one about to approach that altar, “I will no longer drink of this produce of the vine until I drink it new with you.” He waits, then, for us to be converted, to imitate his example, to follow in his footsteps, so that he may rejoice with us and drink wine with us in the kingdom of his Father. For now, because the Lord is merciful and compassionate, he himself weeps with those who weep with greater affection than his Apostle, and desires to rejoice with those who rejoice. And much more does he himself mourn those who sinned before and did not repent. For we must not think that Paul mourns for sinners and weeps for those who transgress, while my Lord Jesus abstains from weeping when he approaches the Father, when he stands at the altar and offers propitiation for us. And this is not to drink the wine of gladness when he approaches the altar: because he still suffers the bitterness of our sins. He does not wish, then, to drink wine alone in the kingdom of God; he waits for us. For so he said: “Until I drink it with you.” We, then, are the ones who, neglecting our life, delay his gladness. He waits for us so that he may drink of this produce of the vine. Of what vine? Of that, surely, of which he himself was the figure, saying: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Hence again he says that “my blood is truly drink, and my flesh is truly food.” For truly he washed his robe in the blood of the grape. What, then, does this mean? He waits for gladness. When does he wait? “When I have finished,” he says, “my work.” When does he finish this work? When he has made me, who am the last and worst of all sinners, finished and perfect, then he finishes his work. For now his work is still unfinished, as long as I remain unfinished. Indeed, as long as I am not subject to the Father, he himself is not said to be subject to the Father. Not that he himself needs subjection before the Father, but for my sake, in whom he has not yet finished his work, he himself is said not to be subject. For so we read, that we are the body of Christ and members in part. And let us see what he means by “in part”. I now, for example, am subject to God according to purpose and will; but as long as in me the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and I have not yet been able to subject the flesh to the spirit, I am indeed subject to God, but not wholly, only in part. But if I am able to bring even my flesh and all my members into harmony with the spirit, then I shall be seen to be perfectly subject. If you have understood what it is to be subject in part and what it is to be subject wholly, return now to what we set forth about the subjection of the Lord, and see that, since we are all said to be his body and members, as long as there are some among us who are not yet subject with perfect subjection, he himself is said not to be subject. But when he has finished his work and brought his whole creation to the summit of perfection, then he himself will be said to be subject in those whom he has subjected to the Father, and in whom he has finished the work which the Father had given him, so that God may be all in all. But to what do these things look? That we may understand what we treated above: how he does not drink wine, or how he drank before he entered the tabernacle, before he approached the altar. He does not drink now, because he stands at the altar and mourns my sins; and again he will drink afterwards, when all things have been subjected to him, and, all having been saved and the death of sin destroyed, it will no longer be necessary to offer victims for sin. For then there will be joy and gladness, and then “the humbled bones will exult,” and what is written will be fulfilled: “Pain and sorrow and groaning will flee away.” But let us not omit this either: that it is said not only of Aaron that he should not drink wine, but also of his sons when they enter the holy place. For not even the apostles have yet received their gladness, but they too wait, so that I too may become a partaker of their gladness. For the saints, departing from here, do not at once obtain the full rewards of their merits; but they wait also for us, though we delay, though we are idle. For they do not have perfect gladness as long as they grieve for our errors and mourn our sins. Perhaps you do not believe me when I say this. For who am I to dare to confirm the opinion of so great a doctrine? But I have a witness to these things of whom you cannot doubt. For the apostle Paul is the teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. He, then, writing to the Hebrews, when he had enumerated all the holy fathers who were justified through faith, added after all this too: “But these,” he says, “all having obtained a testimony through faith, have not yet received the promise, God providing something better for us, so that they should not attain perfection without us.” You see, then, that Abraham is still waiting to attain the things that are perfect. Isaac too is waiting, and Jacob, and all the prophets are waiting for us, so that they may receive perfect blessedness with us. For this reason, then, that mystery too of judgment deferred to the last day is kept. For it is one body which is waiting to be justified, one body which is said to rise at the judgment. “For though there are many members, yet one body; the eye cannot say to the hand: I have no need of you,” even if the eye is healthy and not disturbed. As far as seeing goes, if the other members are lacking to it, what gladness will the eye have? Or what perfection will it seem to have if it has no hands, if the feet are lacking, or the other members are not present? For even if there is some surpassing glory of the eye, it lies chiefly in this, that it is the guide of the body, or that it is not deprived of the services of the other members. This, I think, we are taught by that vision of the prophet Ezekiel, when he says that bone was gathered to bone, and joint to joint, and that sinews and veins and skin, and each thing, were to be restored to its place. Then see what the prophet adds: “These bones,” he says (he did not say “are all men”, but said), “these bones are the house of Israel.” You will have gladness, then, on departing from this life, if you are holy. But then the gladness will be full when no member of the body is lacking to you. For you will wait for others, as you too have been waited for. But if to you, who are a member, gladness does not seem perfect if another member is lacking, how much more does our Lord and Saviour, who is the head and author of the whole body, say that his gladness is not perfect as long as he sees any of the members lacking to his body? And for this reason perhaps he poured out his prayer to the Father, saying: “Holy Father, glorify me with that glory which I had with you before the world was.” He does not wish, then, to receive his perfect glory without you, that is, without his people, who are his body and who are his members. For he wishes to dwell, like a soul, in this body of his church and in these members of his people, so that he may have all its movements and all its works according to his will; so that the saying of the prophet may truly be fulfilled in us: “I will dwell in them and walk among them.” But as long as we are not all perfect, but are still in sins, he is in us in part; and therefore we know in part and prophesy in part, until one deserves to reach that measure which the Apostle speaks of: “But I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” In part, then, as the Apostle says, we are now his members, and in part his bones. But when bone has been joined to bone, and joint to joint, according to what we said above, then he himself will also say of us that prophetic word: “All my bones shall say: Lord, who is like you?” For all these bones speak, and sing a hymn, and give thanks to God. For they remember his kindness, and therefore “all my bones shall say: Lord, who is like you? You rescue the poor from the hand of one stronger than he.” Of these bones, while they were still scattered, before he came who would gather them and bring them together into one, that prophetic word too was spoken: “Our bones are scattered beside Hades.” Because, then, they were scattered, therefore he says through another prophet: “Let bone be gathered to bone, and joint to joint, and sinews and veins and skins.” For when this has been done, then “all these will say: Lord, who is like you? Rescuing the poor from the hand of those stronger than he.” For each bone of these bones was poor and was being crushed by the hand of the stronger. For it did not have the joint of love, nor the sinews of patience, nor the veins of a living spirit and the vigour of faith. But when he came who would gather the scattered and join the dispersed, uniting bone to bone and joint to joint, he began to build the holy body of the church. These things came up as a digression from this discussion, but they had to be explained, so that the entrance of my high priest into the holy place, not drinking wine until he should perform the priesthood, might become more manifest. After this, however, he will drink wine, but new wine, and new wine in a new heaven and in a new earth, and in a new man, with new men, and with those who sing to him a new song. You see, then, that it is impossible for the new cup from the new vine to be drunk by one who is still clothed with the old man with his deeds. “For no one,” he says, “puts new wine into old wineskins.” If, then, you too wish to drink of this new wine, be renewed, and say that “even if our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner man is renewed day by day.” And of these things enough has been said.

There are many other things which were read. But since we cannot do everything, we must choose what we ought to speak about. And since we have said, as best we could, what it is to drink and not to drink wine, let us now see what it is also to eat the breast of segregation and the shoulder of taking-away. After this we shall discuss clean and unclean foods or animals, as far as the Lord grants and time allows. Scripture says, then: “The breast of segregation and the shoulder of taking-away you shall eat in a holy place, you and your sons and your household with you; for it is given as an ordinance to you and an ordinance to your sons from the peace offerings of the children of Israel, the shoulder of taking-away and the breast of segregation.” Not every breast is the breast of segregation; nor is every shoulder the shoulder of taking-away and separation. But since we have referred the person of the high priest to my Lord Jesus, and his sons to the holy apostles, let us see how he himself eats the breast of segregation, and his sons, while not all others can eat the breast of segregation. What, then, is it that is segregated from all things and has nothing in common with the rest, if not the substance of the Trinity alone? If, then, I understand the reason of the world, but cannot understand about God as is worthy, and the knowledge of God has not been revealed to me, I eat a breast indeed, but not the breast of segregation. Even if I can say, “For he gave me true knowledge of the things that are, to know the reason of the world and the power of the elements, the beginning and end and middle of times, the alternations of changes and the turnings of seasons, the cycles of the year and the arrangements of the stars,” the knowledge of all these things, because it is rational, is food from the breast, but not from the breast of segregation. But if I can think about God things that are great, holy, true, and secret, then I shall eat the breast of segregation, when I have come to know that which surpasses and is segregated from every creature. My true high priest, then, first eats this breast. How does he eat it? “No one,” he says, “knows the Father except the Son.” In the second place his sons also eat. “For no one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him.” And to whom else does he reveal him than to his apostles? And the shoulder of separation, or of taking-away, as we said above too, is actions and works more eminent than the rest, which surely my Saviour and Lord himself first fulfilled. How did he fulfil them? “My food,” he says, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” When, then, he does the will of him who sent him, in this he eats not the breast but the shoulder of separation. And likewise his apostles, when they do the work of an evangelist and become workmen who need not be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth, eat the shoulder of separation or of taking-away. Do you wish to see still more plainly how the Saviour eats the shoulder of separation? Hear what he says to the Jews: “If I have done works among you which no one else has done, for which of these do you wish to kill me?” You see how he truly eats the shoulder of separation, who did works so set apart and so sublime as no one else has done.

But let us now look at some of the things that were read about the clean and unclean, whether foods or animals; and just as in explaining the cup we ascended from the shadow to the truth of the spiritual cup, so also from the foods that are spoken of through the shadow let us ascend to those which through the Spirit are true foods. But to investigate these things we need the testimonies of the divine Scripture, lest anyone think (for men love to sharpen their tongues like a sword), lest anyone, I say, think that I do violence to the divine Scriptures, and drag to human beings the things related in the law about clean or unclean animals, four-footed beasts, or also birds or fish, and claim that these things were said about human beings. For perhaps one of the hearers will say: “Why do you do violence to the Scriptures? Animals are spoken of; let animals be understood.” So that no one may believe these things are distorted by human ingenuity, then, apostolic authority must be called upon for them. Hear first of all how Paul speaks of them: “For all,” he says, “passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” Paul says this, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, according to the law a Pharisee, and taught at the feet of Gamaliel, who certainly would never have dared to call it spiritual food and spiritual drink unless he had learned that this was the sense of the lawgiver through the knowledge of the truest teaching handed down to him. Hence he adds this too, as one confident and certain about the meaning of clean and unclean foods, that they are to be observed not according to the letter but spiritually, and he says: “Let no one, then, judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.” You see, then, how all that Moses says about food or drink Paul, who had learned these things better than those who now boast that they are teachers, says is all a shadow of things to come. And therefore, as we said, we ought to ascend from this shadow to the truth. The discourse is from Christians to Christians, to whom the authority of the apostolic sayings ought to be dear. But if anyone, swollen with arrogance, despises or spurns the apostolic sayings, that is his concern. But for me it is good to cleave, as to God and our Lord Jesus Christ, so also to his apostles, and to take understanding from the divine Scriptures according to their tradition. There will perhaps be a suitable time, if it is God's will and circumstances are calmer (for we do not know what the coming day will bring forth), for us to show also from the Old Testament, according to what seemed good to the apostles, the meaning of clean and unclean foods, and the understanding, to be referred to human beings, of the animals, birds, and fish about which the law writes. But now, since there is no time to use a wider explanation, let us be content with two lights of the apostles as witnesses, Peter and Paul. And what Paul thought we have already brought forward. But the apostle Peter, when he was in Joppa and wished to pray, went up to the upper room. I, however, take it that this very thing, that he would not pray below but went up to the upper part, is not said in vain. For it was not superfluously that the counsel of so great an apostle chose the upper part for praying, but, as I think, so that it might be shown that Peter, because he had died with Christ, was seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and not the things on earth. He went up there, to those roofs, to those heights of which the Lord too says: “Let him who is on the roof not go down to take anything from the house.” Indeed, so that you may know that we do not say this of Peter's going up to the upper part on mere suspicion, you will find it proved from what follows. “He went up,” it says, “to the upper part to pray, and he saw heaven opened.” Does it not yet seem to you that Peter had gone up not only in body but in mind and spirit? “He saw,” it says, “heaven opened, and a certain vessel let down like a sheet to the earth, in which were all four-footed beasts, and reptiles, and birds of the sky, and he heard a voice saying to him: Rise, Peter, kill and eat”: commanding him, no doubt, to eat the four-footed beasts and serpents and birds which, placed on the sheet, had been brought down to him from heaven. But he said: “Lord, you know that nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” And the voice, it says, came to him a second time: “What God has cleansed, do not call common”; and this happened three times. “And after this,” it says, “the sheet was taken up into heaven.” The question here is about clean and unclean animals. Concerning these the apostle is taught the knowledge of the matter from heaven, since indeed he had no one more eminent and greater than himself on earth; and he is taught not by one voice nor by one vision but by three. Nor do I take this very fact, that these things are said three times, as said idly. It is said to him a third time, and through him to all of us: “What God has cleansed, do not call common.” For the things he has cleansed are not cleansed under one name, nor under a second; but unless a third name also is named, no one is cleansed. For unless you have been cleansed in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, you cannot be clean. Therefore, then, the things that were shown for cleansing are shown not once, nor twice, but a third time, and are commanded a third time. There were, then, on that sheet all the four-footed beasts and reptiles and birds of the sky. “And after this,” it says, “Peter was pondering within himself what this might be. And while he was still pondering there came,” it says, “those who had been sent by Cornelius the centurion from that city,” that is, from Caesarea to Joppa. For Peter was there, and was lodging with a certain Simon, a tanner. And it is well that Peter stays with a tanner, perhaps that one of whom Jacob says: “You have clothed me with skin and flesh.” But let these things be said in digression. Meanwhile those who had been sent from Cornelius to Peter arrive; receiving them, he hears from them what Cornelius sends to him. And going down from the upper part, he came to Cornelius. “He went down,” it says: for Cornelius was still below and remained in the lower parts. He came, then, to Caesarea, found many gathered at Cornelius's house, and said to them, after many things: “And God has shown me,” he says, “to call no man common or unclean.” Does it not seem to you that the apostle Peter clearly transferred all those four-footed beasts and reptiles and birds to man, and understood as human beings the things which had been shown to him on the sheet let down from heaven?

But perhaps someone will say: “You have given an account of the four-footed beasts, reptiles, and birds, that they should be understood as human beings; give one also of the things that are in the waters.” Since the law designates some of these too as clean and others as unclean, I ask that nothing in this matter be believed on my word unless I produce suitable witnesses. I will give you our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself as witness and author of these things, how fish are said to be human beings. “The kingdom of heaven,” he says, “is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers fish of every kind; and when it is full, sitting on the shore they put the good into vessels, but the bad are thrown out.” He clearly taught that the fish said to be gathered in the nets are either good or bad people. These, then, are the ones who according to Moses are named clean or unclean fish. These things having been proved from apostolic and Gospel authority, then, let us see how each human being can be shown to be clean or unclean. Every human being has in himself some food which he offers to the neighbour who comes to him. For it cannot happen that, when we human beings come to one another and join in conversation, we do not either take or give some taste among ourselves, whether from a reply, or a question, or some gesture. And if the person from whom we take a taste is clean and of good mind, we take clean food. But if the one we touch is unclean, we take unclean food, according to what was said above. And therefore, I think, the apostle Paul says of such people, as of unclean animals: “Not even to eat with such a one.” But so that what we say may become clearer to your understanding, let us take an example from greater things, so that, descending gradually from there, we may come down to the lesser. Our Lord and Saviour says: “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in yourselves. My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink.” Jesus, then, because he is wholly and entirely clean, his whole flesh is food and his whole blood is drink; because every work of his is holy and every word of his is true. For this reason, then, his flesh too is true food and his blood true drink. For with the flesh and blood of his word, as with clean food and drink, he gives drink to and refreshes the whole human race. In the second place, after his flesh, Peter and Paul and all the apostles are clean food. In the third place, their disciples; and so each one, according to the measure of his merits or the purity of his understanding, becomes clean food to his neighbour. He who does not know how to hear these things may perhaps twist them and turn away his hearing, like those who said: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Who can listen to him?” And they went away from him. But you, if you are children of the church, if you are steeped in the Gospel mysteries, if the Word made flesh dwells in you, recognize what we say, that these things are the Lord's, lest perhaps he who does not know be not known. Recognize that the things written in the divine volumes are figures, and therefore examine and understand what is said as spiritual and not as fleshly people. For if you take these things as fleshly people, they harm you and do not nourish you. For there is in the Gospels too a letter that kills; not only in the Old Testament is a killing letter found. There is also in the New Testament a letter that kills him who does not perceive spiritually what is said. For if you follow according to the letter this very saying, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood,” this letter kills. Do you wish me to bring forward from the Gospel another letter that kills? “He who has no sword,” he says, “let him sell his tunic and buy a sword.” Behold, this too is a letter of the Gospel, but it kills. But if you take it spiritually, it does not kill, but there is in it a life-giving Spirit. And therefore, whether in the law or in the Gospels, take spiritually what is said, because “the spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one.” As we said, then, every human being has in himself some food; and if he is good, and brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart, he offers clean food to his neighbour who takes from it. But if he is evil and brings forth evil things, he offers unclean food to his neighbour. For someone innocent and upright of heart can seem a clean animal, a sheep, and offer to him who hears him clean food, as a sheep, which is a clean animal. And likewise in the other cases. And therefore every human being, as we said, when he speaks to his neighbour, and either profits or harms him by his words, becomes to him a clean or an unclean animal, of which we are commanded either to use the clean or to abstain from the unclean. If according to this understanding we say that the supreme God promulgated laws to human beings, I think the legislation will seem worthy of the divine majesty. But if we sit by the letter, and take what is written in the law according to this, or according to what seems right to the Jews or to the crowd, I blush to say and confess that God gave such laws. For the laws of men would seem more elegant and reasonable, for example those of the Romans, or of the Athenians, or of the Spartans. But if the law of God is taken according to this understanding which the church teaches, then plainly it surpasses all human laws, and will truly be believed to be the law of God. And so, these things having been set out first, let us touch on a few points about the clean and unclean animals with a spiritual understanding, as we have urged.

“Every beast,” he says, “that divides the hoof and has hoofs and brings up the cud among the cattle, these you shall eat. Besides these, you shall not eat of those which bring up the cud and do not divide the hoofs, and have hoofs. The camel, because it brings up the cud and does not divide the hoof, shall be unclean to you. And the hare, because it brings up the cud and does not divide the hoof, shall be unclean to you; and the hedgehog, because it brings up the cud and does not divide the hoof, is unclean to you; and swine,” and so on. He decrees, then, that such animals not be eaten as seem clean in part and unclean in part: as the camel seems clean in that it chews the cud, but is called unclean in that it does not have divided hoofs. After this he names the hare and the hedgehog, and of them too he says that they chew the cud but do not divide the hoofs. And he makes another class of those which, on the contrary, divide the hoof but do not chew the cud. First, then, let us see who these are who chew the cud and divide the hoof, whom he calls clean. I think that he is said to chew the cud who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night. But hear how it is said: “He who divides,” it says, “the hoof and brings back the cud.” He brings back the cud, then, who brings back what he reads according to the letter to the spiritual sense, and ascends from the lowest and visible things to the invisible and higher. But if you meditate on the divine law and bring back what you read to a subtle and spiritual understanding, but your life and your actions are not such as to make the distinction between the present life and the future, between this age and the age to come; if you do not discern and divide these things with fitting reason, you are a crooked camel; for when you have received understanding from meditating on this divine law, you do not divide nor separate the present and the future, nor do you distinguish the narrow way from the broad way. But let us explain what is said still more clearly. There are those who take up the covenant of God in their mouth, and though they have the law of God in their mouth, their life and actions are far at odds with their words and speeches. For they say and do not do; of whom the prophet too says: “But to the sinner God said: Why do you recount my righteous deeds and take up my covenant in your mouth?” You see, then, how he chews the cud who has the covenant of God in his mouth. But what is said to him in what follows? “But you have hated discipline, and have cast my words behind you.” In this he clearly shows that this one chews the cud but does not divide the hoof; and therefore whoever is such is unclean. And again there is another, either of those who are outside our religion or of those who are with us, who divide the hoofs and so walk in their ways as to prepare their actions for the age to come. For many even of the philosophers think in this way and believe that there will be a judgment. For they hold that the soul is immortal, and acknowledge that a reward has been laid up for all good people. Some of the heretics also do this, and, as far as it concerns them, bear the fear of the coming judgment, and temper their actions more carefully, as things to be examined at the divine scrutiny. But neither of these chews the cud or brings back the cud. For on hearing what is written in the law of God, one does not meditate on it and bring it back to a subtle and spiritual understanding; but as soon as he hears anything, he either scorns or despises it, and does not seek what precious sense lies hidden in humble words. And these have the hoof divided, but do not bring back the cud. But you, who wish to be clean, have a fitting life, consonant with your knowledge, and actions with your understanding: so that you may be clean in both, so that you may both bring back the cud and divide the hoof, and also grow out, or cast off, the hoofs. Let us seek a testimony of this matter too, how we grow out, or, as is read elsewhere, cast off the hoofs. It is written in Deuteronomy: “If,” it says, “you go out to war against your enemies and see there a woman of beautiful appearance and desire her, you shall take her, and shave all the hair of her head and her nails, and clothe her in mourning garments; and she shall sit in your house mourning her father and her mother and her father's house, and after thirty days she shall be your wife.” But it is not now our purpose to explain these things which have been called as testimony; we have mentioned it because here too mention is made of nails. Yet I too have often gone out to war against my enemies, and have seen there among the spoil a woman of beautiful appearance. For whatever we find said well and reasonably among our enemies, if we read anything said wisely and knowingly among them, we must cleanse it, and from the knowledge that is among them remove and cut off everything that is dead and empty: for this is all the hair of the head and the nails of the woman taken from the spoils of the enemies; and only then make her our wife, when she has nothing of those things which are called dead through unbelief, has nothing dead on her head, nothing on her hands, so that she bears nothing unclean or dead either in her thoughts or in her actions. For the women of our enemies have nothing clean, because there is no wisdom among them with which some uncleanness is not mixed. Yet I should like the Jews to tell me how these things are observed among them. What cause, what reason is there for the woman to be shaved bald and her nails removed? For example, let us suppose that he who is said to have found her found her such that she had neither hair nor nails: what did she have that the law would command to be removed? But we, whose warfare is spiritual, and whose weapons are not fleshly but powerful through God for destroying counsels, if a beautiful woman is found among the enemies, some rational discipline, will purify her in the way we said above. He who is clean, then, must not only divide the hoofs, and not only discern the actions and works of the present age and of the future, but also grow out, or, as we read elsewhere, cast off the hoofs, so that, purifying ourselves from dead works, we may remain in life.

Let these things be said in general about the animals. As for those in the waters, which are said to be clean if they have fins and scales, but unclean, and not to be eaten, if they do not: this is shown in them, that if anyone is in these waters, and placed in the sea of this life and in its waves, he ought nevertheless to strive not to lie in the depths of the waters, like those fish which are said to have neither fins nor scales. For their nature is said to be such that they always stay in the depths and around the very mud, like eels and things like them, which cannot rise to the surface of the water nor reach its upper parts. But those fish which are helped by fins and protected by scales rise more to the upper parts and come nearer to this air, as if seeking the freedom of the spirit. Such, then, is every saint, who, enclosed within the nets of faith, is called a good fish by the Saviour, and is also put into the vessel, as having fins and scales. For he would not have had fins, would not have risen from the mud of unbelief, nor come to the net of faith, unless, helped by fins, he had come to the upper parts. And what is it that he is said to have scales too? As one ready to lay aside old garments. For those which have no scales are as it were wholly flesh and entirely fleshly, unable to lay anything aside. If, then, anyone has fins with which to strive toward the upper parts, he is clean. But he who has no fins, but remains in the lower parts and always turns about in the mud, is unclean. And likewise of birds. “You shall not eat,” it says, “these, because they are unclean: the eagle, and the vulture,” and the rest like these. For the food of these birds is always dead bodies, and they live on dead carcasses. All, then, who lead such a life are to be held unclean. I think that those too are named in these who brood over others' deaths and by some art or fraud substitute wills. For men of this kind are rightly called vultures and eagles, as gaping after the carcasses of the dead. I know other birds too, which live by plunder. These are souls which, in that they are rational and imbued with liberal studies or rational disciplines, seem to be birds. For they read and inquire either about the reason of the heavens or how the world is governed by God's providence; in this respect, then, they are named birds. But if men of this kind act wickedly and do contrary to the law, plunder their neighbours, so that while heavenly learning seems to be in their words, in their actions they do fleshly and dead works, they are rightly to be called vultures or eagles, which swoop from the heights onto dead and stinking flesh. To this must be referred also the rapacity of the hawk and of all the others; of which some birds are devoted to rapacity, while others love not so much rapacity as obscurity and darkness. “For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light,” like the owls and bats and the rest which the law has declared unclean. Guarding ourselves from all these with spiritual observance, and seeking food from clean animals, we too shall be made pure and clean, through Christ our Lord, through whom to God the Father with the Holy Spirit be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

That our Lord Jesus Christ is called a physician in the divine Scriptures we shall be led to see even by the Lord's own saying, as he says in the Gospels: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. For I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Every physician composes from the juices of herbs or trees, or from the veins of metals, or from the natures of animals, medicines that will benefit bodies. But if someone happens to see these herbs before they are compounded according to the method of the art, if they are in the fields or on the mountains, he treads on them and passes them by as cheap hay. But if he sees them arranged in order within the physician's surgery, although they give off a gloomy, strong, and harsh smell, he will nevertheless suspect that they contain something of cure or remedy, even if he does not yet know what or what kind of power of healing and remedy there is. This we have said of ordinary physicians. Come now to Jesus the heavenly physician; enter this station of his medicine, the church; see lying there a multitude of the sick. There comes a woman who has been made unclean by childbirth; there comes a leper who has been separated outside the camp because of the uncleanness of leprosy; they seek from the physician a remedy, how they may be healed, how they may be cleansed. And because this Jesus who is the physician is himself also the Word of God, he procures medicines for his sick not from the juices of herbs but from the sacraments of words. If anyone sees these medicines of words scattered rather roughly through the books, as through fields, not knowing the power of each saying, he will pass them by as cheap and having no polish of speech. But he who has learned in any measure that the medicine of souls is with Christ will surely understand that from these books which are read in the church, as from fields and mountains, each one ought to take healing herbs, at least the force of the words, so that if there is any sickness in his soul, he may be healed not so much by the outer leaf and bark as by drawing out the power of the inner juice. Let us see, then, against the uncleanness of childbirth and the contagion of leprosy, how diverse and how various are the medicines of purification which this present reading prepares.

“And the Lord spoke,” it says, “to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: Any woman who has conceived seed and borne a male shall be unclean seven days.” First let us consider according to the literal account whether it does not seem added as it were superfluously, “a woman who has received seed and borne a male,” as if she could bear a male otherwise than by conceiving seed. But it is not added superfluously. For to distinguish her who conceived and bore without seed, the lawgiver added this expression for the other women: so as not to designate as unclean every woman who had given birth, but her who had given birth after conceiving seed. To this can be added also that this law, which is written about uncleanness, pertains to women. But of Mary it is said that a virgin conceived and bore. Let women, then, bear the burdens of the law, but let virgins be held exempt from them. But if some clever person meets us and says that Mary too is called a woman in the Scriptures (for so the Apostle says: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law”), we shall answer him that in this the Apostle named “woman” not to indicate the loss of integrity but as a sign of sex; so that, since he was saying that the Son of God had been sent, he might at the same time explain that he had come into this world by the entrance common to all. Further, this word also denotes an age: namely that in which the female sex passes beyond the years of puberty and comes to the time when she seems fit for a husband. Just as, conversely, he is called a man who has passed the time of adolescence, even if he does not yet have a wife whose man he could be called; by which name even those are usually called whom no stain of union with a woman has touched. If, then, he too is rightly called a man by reason of manly age alone who has known union with no woman, how by the same consequence is not a virgin who has remained undefiled also named a woman by reason of maturity of age alone? Indeed Abraham too, when he sent his servant to Mesopotamia to the house of Bethuel to take from there a wife for his son Isaac, and the servant inquired rather carefully, said to him: “But if the woman will not follow me, shall I bring your son back there?” And he did not say, “if the virgin will not follow me.” Let this, then, be said by us about what we observed written, that the lawgiver did not add superfluously, “a woman if she has conceived seed and borne a son”; but that it is a mystical exception which set apart Mary alone from the other women, whose childbearing was not from the conception of seed but from the presence of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High.

Now let us inquire also why the woman who renders service to those born into this world is said to become unclean not only when she has received seed but also when she has given birth. Hence for her purification too she is commanded to offer young pigeons or turtledoves for sin at the door of the tabernacle of witness, so that the priest may make propitiation for her; as though she owed propitiation and purification from sin because she rendered service to a human being born into this world. For so it is written: “And the priest shall make propitiation for her, and she shall be cleansed.” I dare say nothing in such matters; yet I perceive that certain hidden mysteries are contained in them, and that there is something of a hidden secret for which the woman who has conceived from seed and given birth is called unclean, and, as if guilty of sin, is commanded to offer a victim for sin, and so to be purified. And the one who is born himself, whether of male or female sex, Scripture declares of him that he is not clean from filth, even if his life is of one day. And so that you may know that there is some great thing in this, and such that it has not come to the mind of any of the saints, none of all the saints is found to have kept a feast or a great banquet on his birthday; no one is found to have had rejoicing on the birthday of his son or daughter. Only sinners rejoice over a birth of this kind. For we find in the Old Testament Pharaoh, king of Egypt, celebrating his birthday with festivity, and in the New Testament Herod. Yet each of them stained that very festivity of his birthday by shedding human blood. For the one beheaded the chief of the bakers, the other the holy prophet John in prison. But the saints not only do not keep festivity on their birthday, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, curse this day. For so great and so excellent a prophet (I mean Jeremiah, who was sanctified in his mother's womb and consecrated a prophet to the nations) would not have set down anything idly in books that will remain for ever, unless it contained some secret and was full of great mysteries, where he says: “Cursed be the day on which I was born, and the night in which they said: Behold, a male. Cursed be he who brought the news to my father, saying: A male is born to you. Let that man rejoice like the cities which the Lord destroyed in wrath and did not repent.” Does it seem to you that the prophet could have called down such grave and burdensome curses unless he knew that there was something in this bodily birth which seemed worthy of such curses, and for which the lawgiver charged so many uncleannesses, on which he consequently imposed fitting purifications? But it is a long task, and one for another time, to explain the testimonies we have taken from the prophet; for our purpose now is to discuss not Jeremiah but the reading from Leviticus. Job too, speaking not without the Holy Spirit, cursed the day of his birth, saying: “Cursed be the day on which I was born, and the night in which they said: Behold, a male. Let that night be darkness, and let the Lord not seek it again, nor let it come into the days of the year, nor be numbered among the days of the months.” But if it does not seem to you that Job speaks this by a prophetic and divine Spirit, consider it from what follows; for he added: “But let him curse it who cursed that day, who is to slay the great sea monster.” You see, then, how in the Holy Spirit he foretold the great sea monster which the Lord was to kill, of which that sea monster of Jonah was a type; hence the Lord too, who was to kill that sea monster, the devil, says: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so the Son of Man must be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” And if you wish to hear what other saints too thought about this birth, hear David saying: “In iniquities,” he says, “I was conceived, and in sins my mother bore me”: showing that whatever soul is born in the flesh is polluted by the filth of iniquity and sin; and that for this reason that was said which we have already mentioned above: that no one is clean from filth, even if his life is of one day. To these things this too can be added, that one may ask why, since the baptism of the church is given for the remission of sins, according to the observance of the church baptism is given even to little children; since surely, if there were nothing in little children that ought to pertain to remission and pardon, the grace of baptism would seem superfluous. “Any woman, then, who has conceived seed and borne a male shall be unclean seven days”; just as she too who, according to the days of her purification, is separated for seven days from everything clean. For she spends seven days in unclean blood, and thirty-three days in clean blood; but this in the birth of a male; in the birth of a female she spends double the days. She begins, then, to be in clean blood from the eighth day, and she is in clean blood thirty-three days, that is, three tens and three units. And when she who has given birth has begun to be in clean blood, then she circumcises the infant: “For on the eighth day,” it says, “you shall circumcise the flesh of his foreskin.” This is the law of the letter; but you, seek what circumcision the Apostle preaches, which he bids us both receive and have. “For we,” he says, “are the circumcision, who serve God in the spirit.” And as for what he says in the Psalm, “Sinners are estranged from the womb,” consider whether he does not say this of those who receive that circumcision with which the Apostle forbids us to be circumcised; and it is then that sinners are estranged from the womb, when they are circumcised not in the spirit but in the flesh. For “those who are circumcised in the law have fallen from grace.” The woman, then, who having conceived seed has borne a male is said to become unclean; but she who has borne a female will be not only unclean but doubly unclean. For she is written to remain in uncleanness for twice seven days.

But meanwhile, she who has borne a male: on the eighth day the one who was born is circumcised, and she becomes clean. It is quite a laborious matter, in this shortness of time, to touch on these things one by one; yet, so that we may say something in passing, this week can be seen as the time of the present life. For the world was completed in a week of days. In it, as long as we are placed in the flesh, we cannot be wholly pure, unless the eighth day comes, that is, unless the time of the age to come arrives. Yet on that day he who is male, and has acted manfully, is purified at once at the very coming of the age to come, and at once the mother who bore him is made clean. For she will receive back in the resurrection a flesh purified of vices. But if he had nothing manly in himself against sin, but was slack and effeminate in his actions, whose sin is such as is not forgiven either in the present age or in the one to come, he passes through one week and another in his uncleanness, and only when the third week begins to dawn is he purified from the uncleanness which she contracted by bearing a female. The victims which are commanded to be offered for such uncleanness are distinguished in two ways. First a lamb of a year old without blemish is commanded to be offered as a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for sin. But a second victim is commanded: “If,” it says, “her hand does not find what suffices for a lamb, let her take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for sin.” Hence it seems remarkable that the offering of Mary had not the first victim, that is, a lamb of a year old, but the second; as one whose hand did not suffice for the first. For so it is written of her: “His parents came,” it says, “to offer a victim for him, according to what is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” But in this too it is shown that what is written is true, that Christ Jesus, though he was rich, became poor for our sakes. Therefore, then, he chose a poor mother of whom to be born, and a poor homeland, of which it is said: “And you, Bethlehem, are least among the thousands of Judah,” and the rest. But we are forced to run through these things briefly, and not to discuss each thing that is written, since indeed we are hastening to treat something also of the laws of leprosy which have been read.

We find, then, that six kinds of human leprosy are set forth; and these six kinds are described in this way. Either a scar appears on the skin of the body, and a whitish mark, and then the contagion of leprosy appears on the skin of his body. Or the leprosy breaks out in bloom and covers all the skin, the contagion from his head to his feet. Or a third kind: an ulcer arises on the skin of the flesh and is healed, and in the very place of the ulcer a white scar appears. Or a burn by fire arises on the skin of the flesh, and afterwards, when the burn is healed, it will be shining white, or white with redness. The fifth kind, when the contagion of leprosy appears in a man or a woman on the head or in the beard. The last kind is written when the contagion of reddish leprosy appears on a bald head, or a bald forehead, which is leprosy breaking out on the bald head or forehead. These things, to use a short form of exposition, since our purpose now is to admonish the hearers briefly from what has been read, and there is no time to discuss each thing clearly, seem to me to be referred to each kind of sin, and in them we must look at the stains of the soul which befall it from sins. It must be said first, then, that by these are designated the sins which we commit while placed in this life; of which some can be cured now and some cannot. And secondly it must be understood that those very sins also are signified which pass with us after this life, and that among them some are so fixed in souls that they cannot be abolished, while others are such as can receive purification, according to the inspection and judgment of that high priest from whom hidden things cannot be concealed, and who will dispose the souls of each according to whether he sees in them stains of leprosy that are expiable or inexpiable. To gather the differences of this matter from the present reading, and to search out one by one, according to the indication of this Scripture, the things that can move us, this extempore discourse, as I said above, does not allow. For these things could scarcely be set in order and composed in many volumes by those from whom the Lord has drawn away the veil in the reading of the Old Testament. Let us, then, according to our powers, carry out as much as is fitting to bring forward, the apostle Paul opening the way of understanding to us, in which he says that the law has a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things; and according to which he declares that what seems written in the law about oxen is to be taken not of oxen, for which God has no care, but of the apostles. From this we are taught by logical consequence that what is written about leprosy too is a shadow, having in other things the image of the truth. Let us apply first, then, if it seems good, the very shadow of Scripture, and then inquire about its truth. In wounds of bodies, after they have been cured, there sometimes remains a mark of the wound itself, which is called a scar. For there is scarcely anyone who is so cured that no sign of the wound he received seems to remain. Pass now from this shadow of the law to its truth, and see how the soul which has received the wound of sin, even if it is cured, nevertheless has a scar of sin remaining in the place of the wound. This scar is seen not only by God, but also by those who have received from him the grace by which they can perceive the sicknesses of souls, and discern which soul has been so cured that it has cast off in every way the trace of the wound inflicted, and which has indeed been cured but still bears, in the very trace of the scar, signs of the old disease. That there are wounds of the soul Isaiah teaches, saying: “From the feet to the head there is no wound, nor bruise, nor festering sore,” speaking these things, no doubt, of the offences of the people: since there are some to whom the remedy of a poultice can still be applied. But that others are such great sinners that no cure can be applied to them the same prophet indicates in this way: “It is not possible,” he says, “to apply a poultice, nor oil, nor bandages.” And that bruising and the wound of pain through corruption are applied to the soul for the sake of cure Jeremiah teaches, saying: “Thus says the Lord: I have raised up the bruising of your wound with pain; there is none to judge your judgment; you have been healed with pain, there is no profit in you. All your friends have forgotten you, nor will they ask after you any longer; because I have struck you with the wound of an enemy, with a strong chastisement, for all your iniquity, because your sins have been multiplied. Why do you cry out over your bruising? Your pain is violent; because of the multitude of your iniquities your sins have prevailed, and have done these things to you. Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured, and all your enemies shall devour their own flesh; and those who afflicted you shall be in affliction, and all who plundered you I will give up to plunder; because I will bring back your health, and from the pain of your wound I will call you back, says the Lord.” Remember more carefully what you have heard from the prophet said about wounds and scars and swellings. For these are necessary for us for the exposition of the scars or wounds or other such things which are mentioned in the inspections of leprosy. We shall add, however, what the same Jeremiah mentions in another place too about the wounds of the soul and their cures, in which, however, traces of the wounds have remained after the scar has formed, in these words: “Behold, I will bring on its scar, and at the same time I will cure them, and I will show them peace and faith, and I will turn the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Jerusalem.” If, then, we have learned sufficiently from the prophet about the wounds and scars of souls, and the cures and healings which are applied by God as physician, look now at that soul of which the Lord says, “I have brought on its scar.” After the wounds, no doubt, he brings the scar and health. “And I will cure them, and I will show them peace and faith.” If, then, after the knowledge and medicine of God, after the manifestation of peace and faith which we have received through Christ, some sign of a former sin rises again in this scar, or some mark of an old error is renewed, then there appears on the skin of our body the contagion of leprosy, which must be inspected by the high priest according to what the lawgiver has set out.

The second kind of leprosy is “if,” it says, “it breaks out on the skin so as to cover all the skin of the body from the head to the feet, wherever the priest looks.” When, then, it has covered all the skin of the body, the priest declares him clean from the contagion. But on whatever day living colour appears in him, he is again judged unclean, because living colour has appeared in him which he did not have before. About this some before me have also said that by “living colour” is indicated the reason of life which is in a human being; while it is not yet established in the soul, if any sin occurs there, it is not reckoned, because the one who transgresses seems not yet capable of reason. But when reason has found place and time in him, if he then does anything against reason, he is seen to be rightly culpable. But we, considering more carefully what is written, think that these things are rather to be taken of those whose sense is occupied or overwhelmed by frenzy, or madness, or in any other way, and who act against reason. These, then, are called clean from leprosy, that is, free from sin, who have no awareness of their actions or movements. But if perhaps living colour of the body appears in him, that is, if the health of his sense has been restored in him, and after this he does anything against reason, right, and justice, sin is said to be reckoned to him from the moment when living colour, that is, the sense of living reason, appeared in him.

The third law about lepers is when an ulcer is brought out on the skin of the body, and in the place of the ulcer a white scar with redness is found. The cause of an ulcer is when a filthy and harmful humour abounds in the body. So too in the soul, ulcers are understood as those things that boil up from unclean desires or filthy thoughts. If perhaps these have been cured through the grace of faith and the remission of sins, and the soul has been made healthy, yet a scar remains; and if that scar does not have the same colour as the body but is whiter, it is declared to be leprosy. For desire is so bright and clear to those who see that it shows signs of the sin still remaining in it even to those who see from afar; and perhaps of a sin such as is unto death; and therefore the scar is described as not only white but also reddish. And as to his saying that the scar itself appears lower, it is certain that a stain of sin of this kind makes the soul low and dejected.

The fourth law is where it is said that if a burn by fire arises on the skin, and afterwards, when the burn has been healed, it becomes shining and white with redness, or at least whitish, and its appearance lower than the rest of the skin, this he says is leprosy which has broken out in the burn. See, then, whether there is not a burn in every soul that receives the fiery darts of the evil one; or whether everyone who burns with carnal love is not burned with fire. These, then, are burns and kindlings of fire. But he too suffers a burn who is kindled by desire for human glory, and he who is inflamed by the heats of anger or fury. But if perhaps the soul is cured of these wounds through faith, and after recovering health, despising him who said, “Behold, now you have been made well; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you,” it begins to bring out from the scar that has formed over it the fruit of the old vice, and the scar is not made level with the skin of the rest of the body but is lower, and still keeps the colour which it had at the time of the leprosy, his leprosy has blossomed again in the burn, and therefore he is judged unclean by the priest.

The fifth kind of leprosy is when the contagion appears on the head, or in the beard of a man or a woman, so that the appearance of the contagion is lower than the skin of the body; and this is the leprosy of the head or of the beard. See, then, whether it can be that leprosy of the head is thought to be in one who does not have Christ as head but someone else, for example Epicurus, who preached pleasure as the highest good: does not the head and beard of such a man seem to you unclean? And he too who, when he ought to be a man and act as one perfect, is perhaps easily and like a boy conquered by sin, must also be said to have leprosy of the beard; because, when he ought to conquer the evil one and walk in the priestly honour which is signified by the beard, hindered by the vices of youth, he suffers leprosy of the beard. And it has often been said that a woman in the Scriptures signifies the soul which can not so much put forth the seed of the word as receive it; this soul is designated as having leprosy on the head if it has a husband, who is the head of the woman, that is, a teacher, who is polluted and unclean, following Marcion, or Valentinus, or someone of that kind.

The sixth and last kind of leprosy is set down, which arises on baldness at the back or front of the head; these things, as far as they are in themselves, are clean. For so the law too said: “If anyone's hair falls from his head, he is bald, he is clean. But if it falls from his forehead, he is bald in front, and he is clean.” And these things are fittingly referred to the soul, so that when it casts off and lays aside what is dead by its nature, it is said to be clean. But if after this the things that had previously been purified seem to sprout again more filthily and lower than the dignity of purity requires, they will render the soul unclean and leprous. And this now applies generally to every leper in whom there is the contagion of leprosy and it appears lower than the rest of the skin; for every vice of the soul is lower than its other virtues. The law, which is spiritual, decrees certain other things. “Let his garments,” it says, “be unsewn, and his head uncovered, and his mouth covered.” By this it signifies that one who is leprous in soul, that is, who is pierced through with sins, ought not to sew coverings for himself and cover the shameful things of sin. For just as one whose garments are unsewn shows the shame of his body naked and uncovered, so one who is hemmed in by any sins ought not to cover his evils and crimes with any patches of words or veils of excuses, lest he become a whitewashed tomb, which outwardly appears beautiful to men, but inside is full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. The divine law, then, wishes the sinner not only not to sew his garments, but also not to cover his head: so that if there is any offence of the head, that is, if anything has been committed against God, if there has been sin in the faith, not even these things should be kept covered, but be made public to all, so that by the intercession and correction of all he may be amended and merit pardon. Yet this leper is commanded to cover only his mouth. What is this, that he is commanded to have all the parts of his body bare, and to cover only his mouth? Is it not plain and open that for him who is in the leprosy of sin speech is shut, the mouth is shut, so that confidence of speech and the authority to teach are excluded? For to the sinner God said: “Why do you recount my righteous deeds and take up my covenant in your mouth?” Let the sinner, then, keep his mouth shut, because he who has not taught himself cannot teach another; therefore he is commanded to cover his mouth, who by doing evil has lost the freedom to speak. “He shall be unclean,” it says, “and shall sit apart outside; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” It is clear that everyone unclean is cast out of the assembly of the good and separated from the camp of the saints; and therefore he says, “his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” But if perhaps he has been cleansed, he does not come to the priest of his own accord, by himself; but he is brought, it says, by another, and does not enter the camp. For it was not fitting that on the day he was being cleansed he should enter the camp before what was appropriate had been done for him. For this reason, it says, the priest will go out to him outside the camp. For to him who cannot yet enter the camp, he always goes out who can go out of the camp, who says: “I came out from God and have come into this world.” The priest, then, goes out to him and considers whether he has now recovered health, whether he has been purged of the contagion of leprosy. And when the priest has seen him, he commands that two living birds be taken for the one who is being cleansed, and cedar wood, and twisted scarlet, and hyssop. These two birds too seem to me to have some likeness to the two goats, of which one is offered to the Lord and the other sent out into the desert; for so here too, of the two birds one is sacrificed and the other released into the open field. Here too, then, he who is purged of leprosy gives some part to be cast out into the desert, while the other part is offered to the Lord for him. Yet he who is being purged of leprosy and offers the birds does not yet offer at the altar even that one which is offered to the Lord for him, as he would turtledoves or doves. For on that same day the one who is being purged of leprosy is not yet made worthy of the divine altar. For this reason the lawgiver commands that on the same day on which he is purged two birds be taken for his purification. I think that here too there is hidden the meaning of that hen through which the purification of the sinner is brought about, of which it is written: “How often I wished to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!” Yet the one who is being purified needs to be purified by the cedar wood. For it is impossible that the leprosy of sin be purged without the wood of the cross. Let the wood also be applied, on which the Saviour, as the apostle Paul said, stripped the principalities and powers, triumphing over them on the wood. Twisted scarlet is joined too for the cleansing of this leprosy, and hyssop is added. The twisted scarlet holds the figure of the sacred blood which came forth from his side through the wound of the lance. And hyssop: physicians say that this kind of herb has the nature of rinsing and purging any filth from the corruption of harmful humour that has settled in men's chests. Hence, necessarily, in the purging of sins the figure of this kind of plant has been taken up. And as for scarlet, we find it recorded in the divine volumes that it has often been taken as an aid to salvation, as in the childbirth of Tamar, when one, it says, first put out his hand. “And the midwife, taking scarlet, tied it on his hand, saying: This one will come out first.” And Rahab the harlot too, when she had received the spies and was receiving the pact of salvation, they said to her: “Put as a sign a scarlet cord, and you shall tie it in this window through which you let us down.” Observe also, however, that the priest himself is not said to sacrifice the bird; for the one who was a leper is not yet worthy that the priest himself should sacrifice for him. For this reason too the bird's blood is not offered at the altar, but it says that the bird will be killed in an earthen vessel, in which living water has been put, so that water too may be taken for the purification, and the fullness of the mystery may be fulfilled in water and blood, which is said to have come out of the Saviour's side; and also what John sets down in his Epistle, saying that purification is made in water and blood and spirit. Hence here too I see all these things fulfilled. For the spirit is that bird which is killed, and the living water which is in the vessel, and the blood which is poured over it; not that we think the grace of baptism is to be repeated through these things, but that every purification of sins, even this which is sought through penance, needs the help of him from whose side water and blood came forth. See, then, how both the living bird, and the cedar wood, and the twisted scarlet, and the hyssop are dipped in the blood of the bird and in the living water, so that, sprinkled from this and purified by the water and blood in which that bird too was dipped which is sent out into the field, and sprinkled seven times before the Lord, the one who is being purified may be made clean from all the uncleanness with which he had been possessed by the contagion of leprosy.

But notice also how, when he said above, “This is the law of the leper on the day on which he is cleansed,” he now adds to all these things and says, “and he shall be clean.” For if, having once cast off the leprosy, he has been cleansed, how shall he still be clean? But see that even if someone is cleansed from sin and is no longer in the work of sin, yet the very traces of the crime committed need purification, both that which we have expounded and the others which are commanded in what follows. For we observed that, after what is written of the leper, “on the day on which he is cleansed”, among the other things commanded it is said a third time, “and he shall be clean,” and again at the end it is written, “and he shall be cleansed.” Hence it seems to me that there are certain differences in purification itself, and, so to speak, certain advances of purgation. For it can be said even of one who ceases from sin, “and he shall be clean”; but he will not at once seem so clean as to have reached the summit of purity. Indeed he adds to what he had said, “on whatever day he is cleansed”: “and the living bird,” it says, “shall be sent out into the field, and he who is being purified shall wash his garments.” And after this: “he shall shave,” it says, “all his hair.” And he adds: “and he shall be washed in water.” And after this it is added: “And he shall be clean.” For it would not have sufficed that he had said in the response, “he shall be clean,” had he not added these things too. This one, then, who is being purified from leprosy had filthy garments until now, even after the sprinkling, and now he is commanded to wash them. Yet these garments do not seem to me to have been of altogether bad weave. Otherwise he would have commanded them to be thrown away rather than washed. In this it is shown that his way of life was neither altogether estranged from God, nor kept entirely pure and whole; for he would not wash the garments unless they had been filthy, nor again use them once washed if they had been of a weave wholly foreign. And as to his being commanded to shave all his hair, I think he is commanded to cast off whatever of dead work sprang up in the soul while it was placed in sins (for this is now called hair). For it is fitting for the sinner, if he truly wishes to be purified, to shave off and cast away everything that was born in him, whether in counsel, or in word, or in deed, and not allow anything to remain. But the saint ought to keep all his hair, and, if possible, a razor ought not to come up on his head, lest it cut off any of his wise thoughts, or words, or works. Hence indeed it is said of Samuel too that a razor did not come up on his head; and so of all the Nazirites, who are righteous; because the righteous man, as it is written, “whatever he does shall prosper, and his leaf shall not fall.” Hence too the hairs of the head of the Lord's disciples are said to be numbered: that is, all their actions, all their words, all their thoughts are kept with God, because they are righteous, because they are holy. But every work, every word, every thought of sinners must be cut off. And this is what is said: “That all the hair of his body be shaved, and then he shall be clean.” But observe this too, that it is not enough for him after purification to have washed his garments or shaved all his hair, unless he has also been washed in water. For he must cast off all filth, all uncleanness, not only from his garments but also from his own body, so that no stain of the extinguished leprosy may remain in him. Purified now, then, a third time, he is at last made worthy to enter the camp of the Lord; yet he is not at once permitted to enter his own house, but it is said that he shall remain outside his house seven days, and shave all the hair of his head and beard and eyebrows; as if it had not sufficed that he had earlier shaved all his hair, it is now added that he shave all the hair of his head and beard and eyebrows. For the same thing seemed to have been said in his saying that all the hair was to be shaved. But this repetition does not seem to me empty. For he wishes to admonish the sinner, after he has become clean, after he has received the remission of sins through penance, about the purging of his head, beard, and eyebrows, as if he were saying to him: “Behold, now you have been made well; see that you do not again contract a fault of the head.” For it is a sin of the head to think about the divine doctrines otherwise than the faith of the church holds. In the beard, that he may remember that he has laid aside the sins of manly age, and, converted, become as an infant. In the eyebrows, that he may cast down arrogance and bend the wrongly raised eyebrow to the humility of Christ. In this way, then, all the hair of the body is shaved a second time. And just as these things are doubled, so it is not enough to have washed the garments once in the first purification, but he is commanded a second time to wash his garments and his body with water, and then, a fourth time, it is added: “and he shall be clean.” These things are done while he is now placed within the camp, yet still outside his own house. For it says: after seven days, on the eighth day, he shall take for himself two lambs. Now another does not take them, but he takes them for himself. “Two lambs,” it says, “without blemish, and one ewe a year old without blemish, and three tenths of fine flour mixed with oil, and one cup of oil”; after this, purified by a fifth purification, he will be brought to completion. Of these two lambs, one is sacrificed and is said to be for offence, “in the place,” it says, “in which the sin offering is slaughtered and where the burnt offerings are made, in a holy place.” Behold, he who has been able to reach the fifth purification is now made worthy to offer a sacrifice, and his victim becomes holy of holies. The other lamb becomes a burnt offering, in which the priest is also said to make propitiation for him, so that he may be purged. The first lamb, then, which is for offence, seems to me to hold the form of that very virtue which he who was in sins took up, by which he could drive away from himself the inclination to sin and bear repentance for his old evils; and the second lamb to hold the figure of that virtue now recovered, by which, all vices cast away and put to flight far off, he offered himself whole and entire to God, and became worthy of the divine altars. The ewe, which is taken after the lambs, as far as we can conjecture in such difficult places, I think signifies the fruitfulness of one who has turned from sin and offered himself wholly to God, who after all things abounds in the offspring of good works and is strong in the fruits of innocence. The meaning of this purification, then, that is, of conversion from sin, is divided into three. The first is the victim by which sins are loosed. The second, that by which the soul is turned to God. The third is that of fruitfulness and the fruits which he who is said to be converted shows in works of piety. And because these victims are three, therefore he adds that three measures of a tenth of fine flour are also to be taken, so that we may understand everywhere that purification cannot happen without the mystery of the Trinity. And see that here, in the fifth purification, coarse flour is not taken, but this one who is being purified from sins now has fine flour; fine flour is assigned to him, from which he may now have clean bread, and this is mixed with oil. And his oil too is divided for two uses: one with which the fine flour is mixed, the other of which the priest takes the whole measure of the cup, as it says. In this, as I think, both his bread is made rich through mercy, and the oil by which the true light and the fire of knowledge is kindled is put on his head by the hands of the priest. For so it says: “And the priest who cleanses him shall set him before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of witness.” You see that it belongs to the priest to set firm the one who is converted from sin, so that he may be able to be stable and no longer waver nor be moved by every wind of doctrine. He sets him, then, not only within the camp, but at the very door of the tabernacle of witness before the Lord. And after the victims have been offered for purification, according to what was said above, he applies, it says, also the cup of oil, and sets it apart before the Lord. “And the priest,” it says, “shall take some of the blood and put it on the tip of his right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot.” And after this, it says, the priest shall take not the cup of oil itself but some of it: “And he shall pour it into his left hand, and the priest shall dip his finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord”; and again: “Of what remains in his left hand he shall put on the right ear of the one who is being purified, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot.” And after this: “What is left of the oil,” it says, “the priest shall put from his hand on the head of the one who is being purified.” You see how it belongs to the last and highest purification for the ear to be purified, so that the hearing may be kept pure and clean; and the right hand, so that our works may be clean and nothing unclean and filthy be mixed with them. And the feet too must be purified, so that they may be directed only to good work and no longer incur the falls of youth. And the priest sprinkles some of the oil seven times before the Lord. For after all the things that were celebrated for the one purified, after he was converted and reconciled to God, after the victims were sacrificed, it was in order that he should also invite upon him the sevenfold power of the Holy Spirit, according to him who had said: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a guiding spirit.” Or certainly, since the Lord in the Gospel testifies that the hearts of sinners are besieged by seven demons, the priest fittingly sprinkles seven times before the Lord in the purification, so that the expulsion of the seven evil spirits from the heart of the one purified may be declared by the oil shaken from the fingers seven times. So, then, to those converted from sin purification is given through all the things we said above; but the gift of the grace of the Spirit is signified by the image of the oil, so that the one who is converted from sin may not only obtain purgation but also be filled with the Holy Spirit, by whom he may receive again the first robe and the ring, and, reconciled to the Father in every way, be restored to the place of a son, through our Lord Jesus Christ himself, to whom be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen. [Heading of the next homily:] On the sacrifices of propitiation, and on the two goats, of which one is the Lord's lot and one is for the sending away, which is sent into the desert, and on the high priest's entrance into the Holy of Holies.

All who have sinned need the Day of Atonement, and therefore among the festivals of the law, which contain figures of heavenly mysteries, one is kept which is called the Day of Atonement. What has just been read, then, is the legislation of that festival, which, as we said, is named the Day of Atonement. But let us first see what the content of the letter itself means, so that, while you pray (if indeed you so entreat the Lord as to deserve to be heard), we may receive the grace of the Spirit by which we may be able to explain the mysteries contained in the law. The two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, died when they offered strange fire at the altar of the Lord. It was necessary that Aaron be instructed by heavenly teaching how he ought to approach the altar, and by what rite of supplication he should make God propitious, so that he himself might not incur what his sons had incurred when they approached the altar of God incautiously and unfittingly, offering strange fire and not the fire that had been given from God. For this reason the law concerning these things was set forth in this way: “And the Lord spoke to Moses after the two sons of Aaron had died while they were offering strange fire before the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses: Speak to Aaron your brother, that he not enter at every hour into the inner holy place, which is within the veil before the face of the mercy seat that is upon the ark of the testimony, and he will not die.” From this it is shown that if he enters the holy place at any hour unprepared, not clothed in the high-priestly garments, without having prepared the prescribed victims, and without first making God propitious, he will die. And justly so, as one who has not done what ought to be done before one approaches the altar of God. This word touches all of us; what the law says here pertains to all; for it commands us to know how we ought to approach the altar of God. For there is an altar on which we offer our prayers to God, and we must know how we ought to offer them, namely by laying aside the soiled garments, which are the uncleanness of the flesh, the vices of conduct, the defilements of lust. Or do you not know that the priesthood has been given to you also, that is, to the whole church of God and to the people of believers? Hear how Peter speaks of the faithful: “A chosen race,” he says, “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession.” You have, then, a priesthood, because you are a priestly race, and therefore you ought to offer to God a sacrifice of praise, a sacrifice of prayers, a sacrifice of mercy, a sacrifice of chastity, a sacrifice of righteousness, a sacrifice of holiness. But to offer these worthily you need clean garments, set apart from the common garments of other people, and you need the divine fire, not some fire alien to God but the fire that is given to men by God, of which the Son of God says: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it be kindled.” For if we use not this fire but another, contrary to it, the fire of him who transforms himself into an angel of light, we shall without doubt suffer what Nadab and Abihu suffered. The divine command therefore orders that Aaron not enter the holy place at the altar at every hour, but only when he has first done what is commanded to be done, lest perhaps he die.

But first of all let us show how these things that we say about the sacrifices are figures and forms whose truth is shown in other things, lest perhaps our hearers think us presumptuous and suppose that we violently bend the law of God into a sense other than the one in which it is written, as though we had no apostolic authority going before us for what we assert. Paul, then, writing to the Hebrews, that is, to those who had the law read and meditated and well known but needed understanding of how they ought to think about the sacrifices, speaks thus: “For Jesus did not enter a holy place made with hands, copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, to appear now before the face of God for us.” And again he says of the victims: “For this he did once for all by offering himself as a victim.” But why do we seek testimonies about these things one by one? If anyone reviews the whole Epistle written to the Hebrews, and especially the place where he compares the high priest of the law with the high priest of the promise, of whom it is written, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,” he will find how this whole passage of the Apostle shows that the things written in the law are copies and forms of living and true things. We must therefore seek the high priest who once a year, that is, throughout this whole present age, offered sacrifice to God, clothed in a garment whose character, with the Lord's help, we shall show. “He shall put on,” it says, “a sanctified linen tunic.” Linen springs from the earth; the true high priest, Christ, therefore puts on a sanctified linen tunic when he takes the nature of an earthly body. For of the body it is said that it is earth and will go into the earth. My Lord and Saviour, therefore, wishing to raise up what had gone into the earth, took up an earthly body, so that, lifting it from the earth, he might carry it to heaven. And what is written in the law, that the high priest be clothed with a linen tunic, holds the figure of this mystery. But the added word “sanctified” is not to be heard idly. For the tunic of Christ's flesh was sanctified: it was not conceived from the seed of a man but begotten of the Holy Spirit. “And let linen breeches,” it says, “be upon his body.” Breeches are the garment by which the private parts of the body are usually covered and bound. If, then, you observe that my Saviour indeed took a body and, placed in the body, did human acts, that is, eating and drinking and the like, but did not do that one work which pertains to the private parts of the body, and that his flesh was open neither to marriage nor to the procreation of children, you will find in what way he had sanctified linen breeches, so that it may truly be said of him that “our less honourable parts have more abundant honour.” Consider also the very dress of the high priest: since what by nature seems less honourable in him is covered with the linen breeches and bound with the girdle, it is fitting, even according to the letter, to say of him that “our less honourable parts have more abundant seemliness.” So, then, everyone who, living in chastity, imitates Christ, who knew nothing of this one among human acts, is himself also clothed with sanctified linen breeches and has surrounded his less honourable parts with more abundant seemliness. He is clothed, then, with a sanctified linen tunic, and the linen breeches are upon his body. But lest these breeches by which the private parts are covered should perhaps come loose and slip down and reveal or uncover his shame, it adds (for it says, “You shall not make steps up to the altar, lest your shame be revealed on them”): lest your shame be revealed by the breeches slipping down, the breeches, it says, are to be bound with a girdle. At one time, when we were expounding John the Baptist, and at another Jeremiah, since Jeremiah is said to have had a girdle and John a leather girdle around his loins, we showed sufficiently how these signs declare that in such men that part of the body was so mortified that not even a slight movement, nor any other, was believed to have been in their loins, but only chastity and pure modesty. The high priest, then, is girded with a linen girdle and puts a linen turban on his head: all of linen. What is called a turban is an ornament placed on the head, which the high priest, and the other priests also, use in offering victims. But each of us ought to adorn his head with priestly ornaments. For since the head of every man is Christ, whoever acts so as to bring glory to Christ by his deeds has adorned his head, which is Christ. The adornment of the head can also be understood in us in another way. Since what is first and highest in us, and the head of all, is the mind, a person has adorned his head for the high-priestly dignity if he has adorned his mind with the disciplines of wisdom. These, then, are the things with which the high priest is commanded to be clothed, and only so may he enter the holy place, lest, not having them, he die.

As for the victims, some are commanded to belong to the high priest himself, others are to be taken from the people. To him belongs the calf, which among animals is the more precious and stronger; and as the second animal the ram, which among sheep is without doubt the more precious. From the people gifts are ordered to be offered: a ram from the leaders and two goats from the people, one to be sent away into the wilderness, which is also called apopompaeus, and one to be offered to the Lord. If the whole people of God were holy and all were blessed, there would not be two lots over the goats, one goat bearing the lot to be sent into the wilderness and the other to be offered to the Lord; there would be one lot and one victim for the Lord alone. But now, since in the multitude of those who approach the Lord there are some who are the Lord's and others who must be sent to the wilderness, that is, who deserve to be cast out and separated from the Lord's victim, therefore of the part of the victim offered by the people only one goat is sacrificed to the Lord, while the other is cast out and sent away into the wilderness and is called apopompaeus. Yet the lot falls upon both; and of the one sent into the wilderness it is said that he carries upon himself the sins of the children of Israel, their injustices and their iniquities. For it is not the goat called the Lord's lot, but the one whose lot it is to be sent into the wilderness, that is said to carry them away, in accordance, I believe, with what is written: “I gave Egypt as your exchange, and Ethiopia and Soene in your place, since you became honourable in my sight.” The sins, then, of those who have repented and abandoned wickedness are received upon their own heads by those who have become the lot of the one sent into the wilderness, who have made themselves worthy of such a ministry or of such a lot. What was said can also be fitted to them, as it were in reverse: “To him who has, it will be given.” For as to him who has righteous deeds it will be given, so also to him who has sins, so many that he is found in the lot of the apopompaeus, the one sent out into the wilderness, there will be added what is wiped away from the saints, so that in them also what is written is fulfilled: “But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away,” that it may be added to him who has many minas of sins. But since the one who is in the Lord's lot bears his hope not in the present age but in the age to come, and he whose lot is the Lord dies daily, therefore the one upon whom the Lord's lot has fallen is slaughtered and dies, that by his blood he may purify the people of God; but the one who has fallen into the contrary lot is not worthy to die. For the one who is in the Lord's lot is not of this world, while the one sent away into the world is of this world, and the world loves its own. Therefore he is not killed, nor is he worthy to be slaughtered at the altar of God, nor does his blood deserve to be poured out at the base of the altar.

But let us see who it is that receives the goat on which the lot of the apopompaeus has fallen, to cast him out into the wilderness. “A ready man,” it says, “will receive the goat that has come into its lot,” the one on which the lot of the apopompaeus has fallen, “and will lead him into the wilderness.” The end of that lot is the wilderness, that is, a deserted place: deserted of virtues, deserted of God, deserted of righteousness, deserted of Christ, deserted of every good. For each of us too one of the two lots awaits. Either by acting well we are the Lord's lot, or by acting badly our lot leads us to the wilderness. Do you want me to show you plainly how these two lots are always at work, and how each of us becomes either the Lord's lot or the lot of the apopompaeus, that is, of the wilderness? Consider in the Gospels that rich man living splendidly and luxuriously, and Lazarus lying at his gate, full of sores and longing to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table: what end is marked out for each? “Lazarus died,” it says, “and was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Likewise the rich man too, and he was carried away to hell, into the place of torment.” You notice plainly that the places of the two lots are distinct. See also who they are that carry them away: angels, it says, who are always ready to carry away. For they are ministers of God appointed for this very purpose, to fulfil the lot that you have prepared for yourself. For if you live well, if you break your bread to the hungry from the heart and clothe the naked, judge right judgment, resist the unjust man in his injustice, and do not join your counsel with those who lay snares for the innocent, you will make the Lord your lot. But if you serve lust, are a lover of pleasure rather than of God, love the world, and do not hate wickedness, you have made your lot that of the apopompaeus, to be led away into the wilderness by the hand of the minister of God who has been appointed by God for this very purpose. And he is called “ready” because he respects no one's person, neither of the rich, nor of the powerful, nor of a king, nor of a priest. Do you want to know that what is said pertains to us? Notice that the animals that receive these lots are not unclean nor foreign to the altars of God, but are clean and such as are customarily offered in sacrifices, so that you may know that they hold the figure not of those who are outside the faith but of those who are in the faith. For the goat is a clean animal, consecrated to the divine altars. And you, then, through the grace of baptism have been consecrated to the altars of God and have become a clean animal. But if you do not keep that command of the Lord which he spoke, “See, you have been made well; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you,” but, though you were clean, have again stained yourself with the defilement of sin and have turned aside from virtue to lust, from purity to uncleanness, then by your own fault, though you were a clean animal, you have handed yourself over to the lot of the apopompaeus and of the wilderness.

Perhaps in another way too the ready and clean man who leads away the goat whose lot has come to the wilderness, and who, by the very act of leading him out, as though he had touched something unclean, is said to wash his garments in the evening and to be clean, can be understood as our Lord and Saviour himself, in respect of that part in which he took up the garments of our nature, that is, of flesh and blood, which he washed in the evening. This is why the prophet had long before said of him: “And I saw Jesus the great priest, clothed in soiled garments, and the devil standing at his right hand to oppose him.” He washed, then, his robe in wine, that is, in his own blood, in the evening, and became clean. And perhaps it was for this reason that after the resurrection he said to Mary, who wished to hold his feet: “Do not touch me.” Do you want to see yet another figure of the two lots? Consider those two robbers who at the time of his cross hung one at his right and one at his left, and see that the one who confessed the Lord became the Lord's lot and was led without delay to paradise, while the other, who blasphemed, became the lot of the apopompaeus, to be led into the wilderness of hell. And also in what is said, that he nailed the opposing principalities and powers to his cross and triumphed over them, he fulfilled in them the lot of the apopompaeus and, as the ready man, led them away into the wilderness. Indeed, in the Gospel too the Lord says that “when an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it goes through deserted places seeking rest, and does not find it.” Thus our Saviour too can be understood as the ready man, who made his church the Lord's lot and consecrated it to the divine altar, but made the opposing powers the lot of the apopompaeus: the spirits of wickedness and the rulers of this world of darkness, whom, as the Apostle says, he led out with power, triumphing over them in himself. He led them out: where did he lead them out, if not to the wilderness, to deserted places? For just as by saying to the one who confessed, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” he opened the gates of paradise, and through this gave the way of entrance to all who believe and confess, which Adam by sinning had formerly shut (for who else could remove the flaming and turning sword which was set to guard the tree of life and the doors of paradise? Who else could turn aside the cherubim keeping watch in sleepless guard, but he alone to whom all power has been given in heaven and on earth?), so, I say, as no one but he could do these things, so no one else could triumph over the principalities and powers and the rulers of the world whom the Apostle enumerates, and lead them away into the wilderness of hell, but he alone who said: “Take courage, I have conquered the world.” Therefore it was necessary that my Lord and Saviour not only be born a man among men but also descend to the underworld, so that as the ready man he might lead the lot of the apopompaeus into the wilderness of hell, and, returning from there with his work completed, ascend to the Father, and there be more fully purified at that heavenly altar, so as to endow with perpetual purity the pledge of our flesh which he had carried up with him. This, then, is the true Day of Atonement, when God was made propitious to men. As the Apostle too says: “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” And again he says of Christ: “Making peace through the blood of his cross, whether things in heaven or things on earth.” It is commanded in the law, then, that on the Day of Atonement all the people humble their soul. How the people are to humble their soul he himself says: “Days will come,” he says, “when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” Several feast days are kept according to the law. There is a solemn day in the first month, and another in the second. And in the first month there is one festival of the Passover and another of the unleavened bread, although the festival of the Passover seems joined to the unleavened bread, for the beginning of the unleavened bread is joined to the end of the Passover. Only that day is called Passover on which the lamb is killed; the remaining days are called days of unleavened bread. For it says: “You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread seven days.” This, then, is the first festival. After this, it says, “when you have reaped your harvest and gathered the produce of your field, you shall keep a feast day of the first fruits of your crops.” This is the day seven weeks after the Passover, that is, Pentecost, when one is also commanded to say: “and you shall cleanse the holy things from my house.” After this, in the seventh month, comes the new moon of the trumpets, as it is said in the Psalm: “Blow the trumpet at the beginning of the month of the trumpet.” On the tenth day of the seventh month is the festival of atonement. On this day alone the high priest is clothed in all the high-priestly garments; then he puts on the manifestation and the truth; then he enters those inaccessible places which may be approached only once a year, that is, the Holy of Holies. For once a year the high priest, leaving the people, enters that place where the mercy seat is, and above the mercy seat the cherubim, where also the ark of the covenant is and the altar of incense, where no one may enter but the high priest alone. If, then, I consider my true high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, how, placed in the flesh, he was with the people throughout the whole year (that year of which he himself says, “He sent me to preach good news to the poor, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of release”), notice how once in this year, on the Day of Atonement, he enters the Holy of Holies: that is, when, his dispensation fulfilled, he passes through the heavens and enters to the Father, to make him propitious to the human race and to intercede for all who believe in him. Knowing this propitiation of his, by which he makes the Father propitious to men, the apostle John says: “I say these things, little children, that we may not sin. But if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.” And Paul likewise mentions this propitiation when he says of Christ: “whom God put forward as a propitiator in his blood through faith.” The Day of Atonement, then, remains for us until the sun sets, that is, until the world comes to its end. For we stand before the doors, awaiting our high priest, who abides within the Holy of Holies, that is, with the Father, and intercedes for the sins of those who await him; he does not intercede for the sins of all. For he does not intercede for those who come into the lot of that goat which is sent out into the desert. He intercedes only for those who are the Lord's lot, who await him before the doors, who do not depart from the temple, devoting themselves to fasting and prayer. Or do you think that you, who scarcely come to church on feast days, and are not attentive to hearing the divine words, and take no pains to fulfil the commandments, can have the Lord's lot come upon you? Yet we pray that, having heard these things at least, you will take pains not only to hear the words of God in church but also at home to exercise yourselves and meditate on the law of the Lord day and night; for there too Christ is, and he is present everywhere to those who seek him. For this reason it is commanded in the law that we meditate on it when we walk on the way, when we sit in the house, when we lie in bed, and when we rise; and this is truly to await before the doors the high priest who abides within the Holy of Holies, and to be made the Lord's lot.

But let the hearer not take what we say about the lot as though some such lot were meant as is usually cast among men by chance and not by judgment. The Lord's lot is to be taken as if it were said “the Lord's choice” or “the Lord's portion”; and again the lot of the one sent into the wilderness is to be taken as that portion which, because of its unworthiness, is spurned and cast off by the Lord. Indeed the very word apopompaeus rather carries the meaning of something cast off and rejected. From this we can also understand the following. Suppose, for example, an evil thought rises in your heart, a desire for another man's wife or for your neighbour's property: understand at once that this belongs to the lot of the apopompaeus; cast it off immediately and drive it out of your heart. How do you cast it off? If you have with you the hand of the ready man, that is, if the divine reading is in your hands and God's commandments are kept before your eyes, then you will truly be found ready to cast off and repel what belongs to the alien lot. And if anger rises in your heart, or jealousy, or envy, or malice to trip up a brother, be ready to cast them off, drive them out, and send them away into the wilderness. But if it rises in your heart to think the things of God, about mercy, righteousness, piety, and peace, these belong to the Lord's lot; these are offered at the altar; these the high priest receives, and in these he reconciles God to you. For this reason, then, the one who casts out the goat that bears the lot of the apopompaeus, that is, evil thoughts and evil desires, is not a sluggish man nor one occupied with worldly business, but is ready, prompt, and watchful; and even if he seems to be soiled because he has touched something unclean, he will at once wash his garments and be clean. As regards each of us, according to the moral sense, we can understand the ready man to be the reason itself that is within us, by which we discern good and evil. Even if it seems to be soiled while it discerns and handles evil things, yet if it casts them off, drives them from the heart, and puts them to flight far away, then the rational mind, as though purified and washed by better thoughts, will appear clean. And do not be surprised that we have also applied to the person of the Saviour the one who casts out the goat and drives it into the wilderness, because he is said to wash his garments and become clean, for we read in the prophet, as we said above, that it is said of the Lord: “And I saw Jesus the great priest clothed in soiled garments.” If this is rightly understood as said of his taking flesh, the same figure can be kept here also in the washing of the garments.

Let us see after this what the high priest is to do. “And he shall take,” it says, “a censer full of coals of fire from the altar which is before the Lord.” We read also in Isaiah that the prophet is purged with fire by one of the seraphim, who was sent to him, when he took with tongs one of the coals that were on the altar and touched the prophet's lips and said: “See, I have taken away your iniquities.” These things seem to me mystical, and to indicate this: that to each person, according to that in which he sins, if he is worthy to be purified, coals are applied to his members. For since the prophet here says, “I have unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips,” therefore the coal taken with tongs by the seraph cleanses his lips, the only part in which he confesses that he is not clean. From this it is shown that his sin was found only as far as speech, while in deed or work he had not sinned at all; otherwise he would have said, “I have an unclean body,” or “I have unclean eyes,” if he had sinned by coveting what belonged to others, and he would have said, “I have unclean hands,” if he had polluted them with wicked works. But now, since perhaps he was conscious only in speech of that fault of which the Lord says, “For you will give account even of an idle word on the day of judgment,” because it is hard even for the perfect to avoid faults of speech, therefore the prophet needed only the purging of his lips. But as for us, if each one returns to his own conscience, I do not know whether we can excuse any member of the body as not needing fire. The prophet, because he was clean in all the rest, deserved that one of the seraphim be sent to him to purge only his lips. But I fear that we deserve fire not in single members but in the whole body. For when the eyes run wanton, whether through unlawful desires or through the devil's spectacles, what else do they gather for themselves but fire? When the ears are not turned away from vain listening and from the slandering of neighbours, when the hands are in no way held back from murder, nor from robbery and plunder, when the feet are swift to shed blood, and when we hand over the body not to the Lord but to sexual immorality, what else are we doing but handing over the whole body to Gehenna? Yet when these things are said, they are held in contempt. Why? Because faith is lacking. Otherwise, if you were told today that the judge of this world means to burn you alive tomorrow, and after hearing this you had the space of one day free, how much would you do? How and to whom would you run? How humble, how mournful and squalid would you go about? Would you not pour out all your money on those by whose intercession you believed you could escape? Would you not make everything you possess the ransom of your soul? And if anyone tried to delay or hinder you, would you not say, “Let everything perish for my safety, and let nothing remain, so long as I live”? Why would you do this? Because there you would not doubt; here you doubt. And therefore the Lord rightly says: “When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on earth?” And why do I speak of certain and undoubted dangers? If only a case is to be pleaded before an earthly judge which seems to carry some fear under the laws, does one not keep watch through every night, are not gifts prepared for the advocate and patron, even if the danger is doubtful, or a matter only of fear of disgrace or of loss? Why do we not believe that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive what is due for what he did in the body, whether good or evil? If we believed this wholeheartedly, it would be for us as it is written: “The ransom of a man's soul is his riches.” But how can we feel, believe, or understand these things, when we do not even come together to hear them? For which of you gives a hearing when the Scriptures are read? God threatens through the prophet, and indeed in great wrath: “And I will send a famine on the earth, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of God.” But now God has not sent a famine on his church, nor a thirst for hearing the word of God. For we have the living bread which came down from heaven; we have living water springing up to eternal life. Why do we kill ourselves with hunger and thirst in a time of plenty? It belongs to a sluggish and idle soul to suffer want in an abundance of everything. Have you not heard from the divine Scriptures that there is a struggle in men, of the flesh against the spirit and of the spirit against the flesh? And do you not know that if you nourish the flesh alone and cherish it with constant softness and unbroken delights, it will necessarily grow insolent against the spirit and become stronger than it? If that happens, it will without doubt bring the spirit under its sway and force it to obey its laws and vices. But if you come often to church, turn your ear to the divine writings, and take in the explanation of the heavenly commandments, then, as the flesh grows strong on food and delights, so the spirit will grow strong on divine words and meanings, and, made stronger, will force the flesh to submit to it and obey its laws. The nourishment of the spirit, then, is the divine reading, constant prayers, and the word of teaching. On these foods it is fed, by these it grows strong, by these it is made victorious. Since you do not do this, do not complain of the weakness of the flesh; do not say, “We want to, but we cannot; we want to live in self-control, but we are deceived by the frailty of the flesh and assailed by its goads.” You give your flesh its goads; you arm it against your spirit and make it powerful, when you sate it with meats, flood it with too much wine, pamper it with every softness and nourish it for allurements. Or do you not know that this building of the church cannot be built of leprous stones? Hear what the Apostle says: “A little leaven corrupts the whole lump. Clean out, then, the old leaven, that you may be a new lump.” But let us return to our subject.

“And he shall take,” it says, “a censer full of coals.” Not all are purged by that fire which is taken from the altar. Aaron is purged by that fire, and Isaiah, and any who are like them. But others who are not such, among whom I count myself, will be purged by another fire. I fear it may be that of which it is written: “Rivers of fire ran before him.” This fire is not from the altar. The fire that is from the altar is the Lord's fire; but that which is outside the altar is not the Lord's but belongs to each sinner himself, of which it is said: “Their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched.” This fire, then, belongs to those who kindled it, as it is also written elsewhere: “Walk in your own fire and in the flame that you have kindled for yourselves.” But to Isaiah it is not this kind of fire that is applied but the fire of the altar, which purged his lips all around; and likewise to him of whom it is said: “And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar, which is before the Lord, and shall fill his hands with fine incense of the compound.” This our Lord did more fully. For he filled his hands with fine incense, of which it is written: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight.” He filled his hands, then, with the holy works which he wrought for the human race. And why is it called incense “of the compound”? Because the species of works is not one; what pleases God is compounded of righteousness and of piety, of self-control, of prudence, and of all virtues of this kind. And the word he adds, “fine,” we do not understand idly. For he does not want one who is striving toward perfection to understand the word of God coarsely and carnally, but to search out a fine and subtle sense in it, so that if perhaps he hears it written, “You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain,” he will understand this not of oxen, for God's care is not for oxen, but as said of the apostles. And if anyone can expound the doctrine of God's providence, which is most fine and subtle, he is said to fill his hand with fine incense. Which of us, then, is so prompt and ready that he can offer fine incense of the compound to the high priest as he is about to enter the Holy of Holies? For each of us must offer something to the tabernacle of God, something also for the high-priestly garments, and something which through the hands of the high priest may ascend to God himself as a fragrant odour. Our high priest, then, the Lord and Saviour, opens his hands and wishes to receive fine incense of the compound from each of us; we must seek out the kinds of incense. We must seek frankincense, and not just any frankincense, but clear. The high priest does not want to receive from you anything dark or dirty; he seeks what is clear. He also asks of you galbanum, whose nature is that its odour drives away harmful serpents. He also seeks from you stacte, for he wants our words and our works to be strained and refined. He also seeks onycha, by which, as by a kind of shield, the soul may be covered and remain unharmed. Thus he wants you to be protected by the shield of faith, with which you may quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. Yet he wants all these to be compounded by you: nothing disordered, nothing restless, nothing unseemly, but he wants all our things to be done in order and decently. Even now, then, our true high priest Christ stands and wishes his hands to be filled with fine compounded incense; and from every church under heaven he considers what is offered, how wholly and carefully each compounds its incense, how fine it makes it: that is, how each of us orders his works, and how he examines the sense and words of the Scriptures by spiritual explanation. Nor is the ministry of angels lacking for such offices. For the angels of God ascend and descend upon the Son of Man; they search out and inquire carefully what they may find in each of us to offer to God. They see and scrutinize the mind of each of us, whether it has anything of this kind, whether it thinks anything so holy that it deserves to be offered to God. They look closely and consider whether any of us is pierced in heart by what is said in church and turns his mind to repentance, whether on hearing these things he thinks of correcting his ways, forgetting the past and preparing himself for what is to come, at least like that most impious Ahab, of whom the Lord says: “Have you seen how Ahab's heart was pierced?” But in all this, what shall I say of those who neither hear these things with their ears nor receive them in their heart? What hope of compunction is there in them, what suspicion of conversion, what expectation of amendment? For if we are doubtful even about those who hear, what do we hope for from those who do not hear at all? But let us use the Lord's words and say: “Let those who have ears to hear, hear”; and let those who hear know that it is written: “When you turn and groan, then you will be saved and will know where you have been.” And: “If you first tell your sins, I will hear you as a holy people.” Have you heard how, even if you have been a sinner, provided only that you have turned and ceased from sin, you are now called holy? Nothing, then, is to be despaired of for those who are pierced in heart and turn to the Lord. For the wickedness of sins does not surpass the goodness of God.

The high priest, then, takes a censer full of coals of fire from the altar which is before the Lord, fills his hand with fine incense of the compound, and carries it inside the veil. Let us understand first what the literal account signifies, and then we shall ask what the spiritual sense contains. The building of the tabernacle of testimony, or of the temple of the Lord, is twofold. The first is the one in which stands the altar of burnt offerings, which is kept burning with perpetual fires; in this building only the priests may stand and celebrate the rites and ministries of the sacrifices, and access is granted neither to the Levites nor to anyone else. The second building is the inner one, separated from the first only by a veil. Within that veil are the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat, over which two cherubim are set, and the altar of incense is placed there. Into this building, once a year, whoever was high priest at the time entered, having first offered the victims of atonement which we have expounded above, with both hands full, one with a censer of coals and the other with the compounded incense, so that as soon as he had entered, the incense being placed on the coals, smoke would rise and fill the whole building, and the cloud of incense would veil the sight of the holy things which the entrance of the high priest had laid open. Now that the ancient custom of the sacrifices is plain to you, let us see what these things contain according to the mystical sense. You have heard of two buildings: one, as it were, visible and open to the priests; the other invisible and inaccessible: except for the high priest alone, all the rest are outside. That first building, I think, can be understood as this church in which we now are, placed in the flesh, in which the priests minister at the altar of burnt offerings, kindled with that fire of which Jesus said, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it be kindled.” And I would not have you surprised that this building is open only to priests. For all who have been anointed with the ointment of the holy chrism have been made priests, as Peter too says to the whole church: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” You are, then, a priestly race, and therefore you approach the holy things. But each of us also has his own burnt offering within himself, and himself kindles the altar of his burnt offering, so that it may always burn. If I renounce all that I possess and take up my cross and follow Christ, I have offered a burnt offering at the altar of God; or if I give up my body to be burned, having love, and attain the glory of martyrdom, I have offered myself as a burnt offering at the altar of God. If I love my brothers so as to lay down my life for my brothers, if I contend for righteousness and for truth even to death, I have offered a burnt offering at the altar of God. If I mortify my members from every desire of the flesh, if the world is crucified to me and I to the world, I have offered a burnt offering at the altar of God, and I myself become the priest of my own victim. In this way, then, the priesthood is exercised in the first building, and victims are offered; and from this building the high priest, clothed in sanctified garments, sets out and enters inside the veil, as we cited above the words of Paul, who says: “Jesus did not enter a holy place made with hands, but passed into heaven itself, and appears before the face of God for us.” The place of heaven, then, and the very throne of God, is designated by the figure and image of the inner building. But behold the wonderful order of the mysteries. The high priest, entering the Holy of Holies, carries fire with him from this altar, and receives the incense in this building. And the garments with which he is clothed he took from this place. Do you think that my Lord, the true high priest, will deign to receive from me also some portion of fine compounded incense to carry with him to the Father? Do you think he will find in me some spark of fire, and my burnt offering burning, so that he may deign to fill his censer with coals from it and in them offer to God the Father a fragrant odour? Blessed is the one whose burnt offering he finds with coals so living and so fiery that he judges them fit to set upon the altar of incense. Blessed is the one in whose heart he finds a sense so subtle, so fine, and so spiritual, and so compounded of the varied sweetness of the virtues, that he deigns to fill his hands from it and offer to God the Father the sweet odour of his understanding. But unhappy, on the contrary, is the soul whose fire of faith is quenched and in whom the warmth of love grows cold: when our heavenly high priest comes to it, seeking from it fiery and burning coals on which to offer incense to the Father, he finds in it dry ashes and cold embers. Such are all those who withdraw and keep themselves far from the word of God, lest by hearing the divine discourses they be kindled to faith, grow warm in love, be set on fire for mercy. Do you want me to show you how fire goes out from the words of the Holy Spirit and kindles the hearts of believers? Hear David saying in the psalm: “The word of the Lord is fiery.” And again it is written in the Gospel, after the Lord had spoken with Cleopas: “Was not our heart burning within us,” it says, “while he opened the Scriptures to us?” From where, then, will you burn? From where will coals of fire be found in you, who are never set on fire by the word of the Lord, never inflamed by the words of the Holy Spirit? Hear David himself saying: “My heart grew hot within me, and in my meditation a fire will blaze.” From where do you grow hot? From where is the fire kindled in you, who never meditate on the divine words? Or, what is more unhappy, you grow hot at the spectacles of the circus, you grow hot at the contests of horses, at the struggles of athletes. Yet this fire is not from the altar of the Lord; it is what is called strange fire, and you heard a little above that those who offered strange fire before the Lord were destroyed. You grow hot also when anger fills you and when rage inflames you; at times you burn with carnal love and are tossed by the fires of the most shameful lust. But all this fire is strange and contrary to God, and whoever kindles it will without doubt bear the lot of Nadab and Abihu.

The divine word says, then: “And he shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the smoke of the incense shall cover the mercy seat that is over the testimonies, and he will not die; and he shall take some of the blood of the calf and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat toward the east.” It taught how the rite of atonement for men, made to God among the ancients, was to be celebrated. But you who have come to Christ, the true high priest, who by his blood has made God propitious to you and reconciled you to the Father, do not linger over the blood of flesh; learn rather the blood of the Word, and hear him saying to you: “This is my blood, which will be poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.” He who has been initiated into the mysteries knows both the flesh and the blood of the Word of God. Let us not, then, linger over things which are known to those who know and cannot be laid open to those who do not. But do not take idly that he sprinkles toward the east. Atonement comes to you from the east. For from there is the man whose name is the East, who has been made mediator between God and men. You are invited by this, then, always to look toward the east, from where the sun of righteousness rises for you, from where light is always born for you, so that you may never walk in darkness, nor that last day overtake you in darkness, nor the night and gloom of ignorance creep upon you, but that you may always dwell in the light of knowledge, always have the day of faith, always holding the light of love and peace.

After this Scripture adds: “And there shall be no man,” it says, “when the high priest enters within the inner veil into the tabernacle of testimony.” How will there be no man? I take it thus: whoever has been able to follow Christ, and to pass with him into the inner tabernacle and ascend to the heights of the heavens, will no longer be a man but, according to his own word, will be like an angel of God. Or perhaps that word will also be fulfilled upon him which the Lord himself spoke: “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.” Whether, then, having become spiritual, he becomes one spirit with the Lord, or through the glory of the resurrection passes into the order of the angels, he will rightly no longer be a man; but each one achieves this for himself, either to go beyond the name of man or to be reckoned within the condition of this word. For if man, when made in the beginning, had kept what Scripture says to him, “See, I have set before your eyes death and life; choose life for yourself,” the mortal condition would surely never have held the human race. But since, abandoning life, he followed death, he was made a man; and not only a man but also earth, which is why he is said to return to the earth. Yet I ask what this death is of which he says, “I have set it before your eyes.” For of life there is no doubt that God points to himself, who says, “I am the truth and the life.” What, then, is this death, contrary to life, which God has set before our eyes? I think it is said of the one of whom Paul says, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” This enemy, then, is the devil, who was indeed set before our eyes at the first but will be destroyed last. And he had been set before our eyes not that we might follow him but that we might avoid him. Hence I also think that the human soul in itself can be called neither mortal nor immortal; but if it touches life and partakes of life, it will be immortal, for death does not fall upon life; but if, turning away from life, it draws a share of death, it makes itself mortal. And therefore the prophet says: “The soul that sins, it shall die”; although we do not understand its death as the destruction of its substance, but this very thing, that it is estranged and exiled from God, who is the true life, is to be believed to be death for it. There is, then, no partnership of righteousness with iniquity, no fellowship of light with darkness, no accord of Christ with Belial. If we choose life, we shall live forever, death will not have dominion over us, and the word of the Lord will be fulfilled in us, who said: “He who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.” Let us therefore choose life, let us choose light, that we may walk honestly as in the day, so that, following Jesus within the veil of the inner tabernacle, we may no longer be as mortal men but as immortal angels, when the Lord Jesus Christ himself has destroyed the last enemy, death, he who is the way and the truth and the life, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

We who are of the church rightly receive Moses and read his writings, holding of him that as a prophet, with God revealing it to him, he wrote down in symbols and figures and allegorical forms the mysteries to come, which we teach have been fulfilled in their time. But whoever does not receive such a sense in him, whether one of the Jews or even one of our own, cannot even show that he was a prophet. For how will he prove to be a prophet one whose writings he asserts are ordinary, aware of nothing future, and containing nothing of hidden mystery? The divine word therefore rebukes the one who thinks thus when he reads these things, and says: “Do you think you understand what you are reading?” The law, then, and all that is in the law, was imposed, according to the Apostle's judgment, until the time of reformation. And just as those whose craft it is to make figures of bronze and to cast statues first form a model of clay in the likeness of the future image before they produce the true work of bronze or silver or gold, a model which is indeed necessary, but only until the principal work is completed, and when the work for whose sake the clay model was formed has been finished, its use is no longer sought: understand something of this kind also in the things that were written or done in the law and the prophets as a type and figure of things to come. For the craftsman and author of all things himself came, and transferred the law, which had a shadow of the good things to come, to the very image of the realities. But lest perhaps what we say should seem hard for you to prove, consider it point by point. Formerly there was Jerusalem, that great royal city, where a most famous temple had been built for God. But after he came who was the true temple of God, and said of the temple of his body, “Destroy this temple,” and since the heavenly Jerusalem began to open its mysteries, that earthly one was destroyed when the heavenly appeared: in that temple not one stone remained upon a stone, from the time when the flesh of Christ became the true temple of God. Formerly there was a high priest purifying the people with the blood of bulls and goats; but since the true high priest came, who sanctifies believers with his own blood, that former high priest is nowhere, nor is any place left to him. Formerly there was an altar, and sacrifices were celebrated; but when the true Lamb came, who offered himself as a victim to God, all those things ceased, as having been instituted for a time. Does it not seem to you, then, according to the figure that we set out above, that they were like certain forms fashioned of clay through which the images of the truth were expressed? For this reason, finally, the divine dispensation arranged that the city itself and the temple and all those things should be overthrown together, lest anyone still a little child and fed on milk in the faith, if he saw them standing, should be carried away by the very sight of their various forms while he gazed in astonishment at the rite of the sacrifices and the order of the ministries. But God, providing for our weakness and wishing his church to be multiplied, caused all those things to be overthrown and utterly taken away, so that, once they had ceased, we might believe without any hesitation that these things are true for which the type had gone before in those.

Hence we must now also say something to those who think that by the command of the law they too should fast the fast of the Jews. And first of all I will use the words of Paul, who says that if anyone wishes to keep any one of the observances of the law, he is bound to do the whole law. Let him, then, who observes these fasts go up three times a year to Jerusalem, to appear before the temple of the Lord, to present himself to the priest; let him look for the altar that has been turned to dust; let him offer victims with no high priest standing by. For it is written that the people, while fasting, should offer as a sacrifice two goats, over which lots must be cast, so that one of them may become the Lord's lot and be offered as a victim to the Lord, while the lot of the other is to be sent alive into the wilderness, bearing in itself the sins of the people. All these things must be carried out by you in consequence, if you wish to keep the fast according to the precept of the law. We have discussed these things, as far as we could, in the preceding discourse. Yet since the word of God is rich, and, according to the judgment of Solomon, is to be written in the heart not simply but doubly and triply, let us try now also to add something to what was said a while ago according to our strength, to show how, as a type of things to come, here too one goat was offered to the Lord as a victim and the other was sent away alive. Hear Pilate in the Gospels saying to the priests and the people of the Jews: “Which of the two do you want me to release to you, Jesus who is called Christ, or Barabbas?” Then all the people cried out that he should release Barabbas and hand Jesus over to death. See, you have the goat that was sent away alive into the wilderness, bearing with him the sins of the people who cried out and said, “Crucify, crucify.” This, then, is the live goat sent away into the wilderness; and that one is the goat which was offered to the Lord as a victim to atone for sins, and made true atonement for the peoples who believe in him. And if you ask this too, who it was that led this goat into the wilderness, so that it may be shown in him also that he was washed and made clean, Pilate himself can be taken as the ready man. For he was the judge of that nation, and he sent him out into the wilderness by his sentence. But hear how he was washed and made clean. When he said to the people, “Do you want me to release to you Jesus who is called Christ?” and all the people shouted, saying, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend,” then, it says, Pilate asked for water and washed his hands before the people, saying, “I am clean of his blood; see to it yourselves.” Thus he will seem to have been made clean by washing his hands. For us, then, that is, for us who serve not a shadow and a copy but the truth, this is the Day of Atonement, on which the forgiveness of sins was given to us, when Christ our Passover was sacrificed. How, then, having known the truth, do we turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements of this world, which you want to serve again from the beginning, observing days and months and seasons and years? Hear how the prophet too rejects such a fast and says: “I have not chosen this fast, says the Lord, nor a day for a man to humble his soul.” If you wish to fast according to Christ and humble your soul, every season of the whole year is fit for you; indeed, hold all the days of your whole life for humbling your soul, if indeed you have learned from our Lord and Saviour that he is gentle and humble of heart. When, then, is it not a day of humiliation for you who follow Christ, who is humble of heart and the teacher of humility? If, then, you wish to fast, fast according to the precept of the Gospel, and in your fasts observe the laws of the Gospel, in which the Saviour gives this command about fasting: “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face.” And if you ask how you are to wash your face, the apostle Paul teaches how with unveiled face you may behold the glory of the Lord, being formed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. Anoint your head too, but take care that it is not with the oil of sin, for “let not the oil of the sinner fatten your head.” Rather anoint your head with the oil of exultation, the oil of gladness, the oil of mercy, so that, according to the command of Wisdom, mercy and faith may not forsake you. For this is why the Apostle too, wishing to draw us away from these visible and earthly things and to raise our minds and senses to heavenly things, cries out and says: “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, not those that are on earth.” Does he not plainly say to you: Do not seek Jerusalem on earth, nor the observances of the law, nor the fast of the Jews, but the fast of Christ? For when you fast you must go to your high priest Christ, who is certainly to be sought not on earth but in the heavens, and through him you must offer a victim to God. Do you want me to show you further what kind of fast you ought to fast? Fast from every sin; take no food of wickedness, partake of no banquets of pleasure, grow hot with no wine of luxury. Fast from evil deeds, abstain from evil words, restrain yourself from the worst thoughts. Do not touch the stolen bread of perverse teaching. Do not covet the deceitful foods of philosophy, which may lead you away from the truth. Such a fast pleases God. But to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and to do this together with those who crucified Christ, cannot be acceptable to God. The Pharisees were once indignant with the Lord because his disciples did not fast. He answered them that the sons of the bridegroom cannot fast as long as the bridegroom is with them. Let them fast, then, who have lost the bridegroom; we who have the bridegroom with us cannot fast. Yet we do not say this in order to slacken the reins of Christian abstinence. For we have the forty days consecrated to fasting; we have the fourth and sixth days of the week, on which we fast solemnly. Certainly the Christian is free to fast at all times, not from the superstition of observance but from the virtue of self-control. For how is chastity kept uncorrupted among them unless it is supported by the stricter aids of self-control? How will they give attention to the Scriptures? How will they pursue knowledge and wisdom? Is it not through control of the belly and the gullet? How does anyone make himself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven unless he cuts back the abundance of food, unless he uses abstinence as his servant? This, then, is the Christian reason for fasting. But there is yet another, religious one, whose praise is proclaimed in the writings of certain apostles. For we find it said by the apostles in a certain little book: “Blessed is he who even fasts in order to feed the poor.” His fast is highly acceptable to God, and indeed worthily so. For he imitates him who laid down his life for his brothers. Why, then, do we mix new garments with old rags? Why do we put new wine into old wineskins? The old things have passed away; see, all things have become new, through Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

Recently the word of God was read in the hearing of the church, saying: “Be holy, because I too am holy, the Lord your God.” What this name “holy” means, and what it signifies in the divine Scriptures, must be investigated carefully, so that, when we have learned the force of the word, we may also be able to fulfil its work. Let us gather, then, from the divine Scriptures the things of which we find “holy” said, and we shall discover that not only men but also dumb animals are called holy; we find also the vessels of ministry called holy, garments said to be holy, and likewise places situated in cities or their outskirts and assigned to the priests. Among dumb animals, the firstborn of cattle or of flocks are commanded by the law to be sanctified to the Lord, and it is said: “Do no work with them, because they are sanctified to the Lord.” Of vessels, the vessels of ministry in the tabernacle of testimony, censers or bowls or other vessels of this kind, are called holy. Of garments, the robe of the high priest Aaron and the linen tunic and other garments of this kind are called holy. If, then, we look at the sense in which all these things are called holy, we shall see how we too must take pains to be able to be holy. A firstborn ox is born to me: I may not employ it for common work, for it is consecrated to the Lord and is therefore called holy. We understand, then, from this dumb animal, that what the law wants to be holy it commands to serve no one else but the Lord alone. Again, the dishes or bowls that it calls holy are those which are commanded never to go out of the temple but always to be in the holy place, and never to serve any human uses at all. Likewise the garments that are called holy are not commanded to serve the high priest's use at home, but to be in the temple and never to be carried out of it at all, but to be consecrated only for this, that the high priest may be clothed in them while ministering to God, and that they may always be in the temple; for other common uses he is to use common garments. Likewise it is not lawful to use the dishes and bowls that are called holy for human and common uses, but only for divine ministries. If you have understood how an animal or a vessel or a garment is called holy, understand accordingly that by these observances and laws a man too is called holy. For if anyone has devoted himself to God, if anyone has not entangled himself in worldly business, so that he may please him to whom he has proved himself, if anyone is separated and set apart from the rest of men who live carnally and are bound by worldly business, seeking not the things that are on earth but those that are in heaven, he is rightly called holy. For as long as he is mingled with the crowds and rolled about in the multitude of the wavering, and is not free for God alone, nor set apart from the common throng, he cannot be holy. For what shall we say of those who hurry with the crowds of pagans to the spectacles and defile their sight and hearing with shameless words and deeds? It is not for us to pronounce on such people. They themselves can perceive and see what portion they have chosen for themselves. You, then, who hear these things, to whom the divine law is read, whom the word of God himself addresses, saying, “Be holy, because I too am holy, the Lord your God,” understand wisely what is said, that you may be blessed when you do it. For this is what is said to you: Separate yourself not only from every man but also from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the apostolic traditions. For “be separate, you who carry the vessels of the Lord,” it says, “and go out from their midst, says the Lord.” Separate yourself from earthly deeds, separate yourself from the desire of the world. For all that is in the world, according to the Apostle, is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes, which is not from God. When, then, you have separated yourself from all these things, devote yourself to God as a firstborn calf: let sin not work through you, nor wickedness lay its yoke on you; but be set apart and separated, given over to priestly uses only, like a firstborn animal. Set yourself apart and separate yourself, like the holy bowls and the holy censers, free for the uses of the temple alone and the ministry of God. Separate yourself and remove yourself from every pollution of sin, and be set apart and separated within the temple of God, like the holy garments of the high priest. For in the temple of God he is set apart and separated who meditates on the law of God day and night and who greatly desires his commandments. “Be holy, then,” says the Lord, “because I too am holy.” What does “because I too am holy” mean? As I, he says, am set apart and far separated from all the things that are worshipped or venerated, whether on earth or in heaven; as I surpass every creature and am set apart from all things that have been made by me; so you too be set apart from all who are not holy and not God's. And we say “set apart” not by places but by deeds, not by regions but by ways of life. Indeed the very word in the Greek language means, as it were, to be outside the earth. For whoever has consecrated himself to God will rightly be seen to be outside the earth, outside the world; for he too can say: “Walking on earth, we have our citizenship in heaven.” Solomon also says in the Proverbs: “It is a snare for a strong man hastily to sanctify something of his own; for after he has vowed, it comes about that he repents.” And this is certainly what he means: lest anyone, when he gathers fruits from the threshing floor or wine from the presses, should say, “I wish to offer so much to the church, or to give so much for the use of the poor or of strangers,” and afterwards should presume to take something of what he vows for his own uses; then he has not presumed upon his own fruits but has violated the holy things of God. And therefore it is a strong snare to sanctify something, that is, to vow it to God, and afterwards, led by regret, to recall to one's own uses what one had consecrated. But if we consecrate and offer ourselves to God, or even if we vow others, let us beware of this snare, lest perhaps after we have vowed ourselves to God we are again brought under the yoke of human uses or deeds. Each one vows himself, for example, as the Nazirites used to do, consecrating themselves to the temple of God for three or four or however many years they pleased, so as always to be free for it there, observing what is written of the Nazirites: that they should let the hair of their head grow and no iron should come upon their head for the whole time of their vow, that they should not touch wine nor anything from the vine, and whatever else the profession of the vow included. But one may also vow another to God, as Hannah did Samuel: for before he was born she offered him, saying: “And I will give him to the Lord, given for all the days of his life.” From all this it is clear how each of us who wishes to be holy ought to be consecrated to God and occupied with no other business or deeds that do not pertain to God.

After this it is written: “Keep my commandments and do them; I am the Lord.” And to these it adds: “A man, any man who curses his father or his mother, let him die.” And after many things that he commanded, to which he also attached penalties for transgression, he adds at the close: “And keep all my commandments and my ordinances and my judgments.” It therefore seems to me fitting to ask what is indicated in each of these. As far as I have been able to observe, a commandment, or precept, is that which is said in the Decalogue, for example: “You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery”; for this is only commanded, and no penalty for the offence is attached. But now the same things are repeated with these penalties added; for it is said: “Any man who commits adultery with a man's wife, and with the wife of his neighbour, let the one who commits adultery and the woman with whom adultery is committed be put to death. And if anyone lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's shame; let both be put to death, for they are guilty.” About these things commandments had already been given earlier, but what penalty awaited the one who did not observe them had not been written. Now, then, the same things are repeated, and the penalty for each sin is decreed; and therefore these are rightly called ordinances and judgments, by which the one who sins is judged to receive what is just. But observe the order of divine wisdom: it does not at once set penalties alongside the first commandments. For it wants you to keep your father's commandments not from fear of punishment but from love of piety; but if you despise them, the penalty is commanded no longer so much for a man as for a despiser. First, then, you are called by kindness as a son: “For I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.” But if you do not wish to be an obedient son, you will be punished as a despiser, like a slave. After this he says: “And if anyone lies with his daughter-in-law, let both be put to death; they have committed impiety, they are guilty.” He had given these laws or commandments above without penalties, for he had said: “You shall not uncover the shame of your daughter-in-law, since she is your son's wife; you shall not uncover her shame,” and all that follows. And this passage too he wrote there in the same way without punishments, but here with various kinds of punishment. In this place I recall the word which the blessed apostle Paul speaks when writing to the Hebrews: “Anyone who sets aside the law of Moses dies without any mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses; how much greater punishment will he be thought worthy of who has trampled on the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a defiled thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” But listen to why I have mentioned this scripture. According to the law the adulterer and the adulteress were put to death, and they could not say, “We ask for repentance and we beg for pardon.” There was no place for tears, nor was any opportunity of amendment granted, but whoever had fallen foul of the law had to be punished in every case. And this was kept also in each of the crimes to which the penalty of death was attached. Among Christians, however, if adultery has been committed, there is no command that the adulterer or adulteress be punished by bodily death; nor has power been given to the bishop of the church to condemn the adulterer to present death, as was then done according to the law by the presbyters of the people. What then? Shall we say that the law of Moses is cruel, which orders the adulterer or adulteress to be punished, and that the Gospel of Christ by its indulgence loosens its hearers for the worse? Not so. For this is why we cited above the word of Paul, who says, “How much worse punishment does he deserve who has trampled on the Son of God?” and so on. Hear, then, how neither was the law cruel then, nor does the Gospel now seem lax because of the abundance of pardon, but in both the kindness of God is maintained by a different dispensation. The adulteress was punished by present death, and by this very fact she bore the penalty of her sin and paid the due punishment for the crime committed. What will there be after this that threatens their souls with vengeance, if they have committed no other offence, if there is no other sin to condemn them, but they committed this alone, and only then when they were punished and bore the punishment of the law for it? The Lord will not punish twice for the same thing; for they have received for their sin, and the penalty of the crime has been used up. And therefore this kind of commandment is found to be not cruel, as the heretics assert who accuse the law of God and deny that it contains anything of humanity, but full of mercy, because by it the people were purged of their sins rather than condemned. But now no penalty is inflicted on the body, nor does the purging of sin take place through bodily punishment, but through repentance; and whether anyone carries this out worthily, so as to be able to merit pardon for it, you must see. For there are many who are not even inclined to this nor seek the refuge of repentance, but when they have fallen they no longer wish to rise, and delight to wallow in the mud in which they are stuck. Yet we do not forget that commandment which says: “With the measure with which you measure, it will be measured back to you.” For we also say to God: “You have given us the bread of tears and given us tears to drink in measure.” These, then, are the sins which are called “unto death”; hence it also follows that as often as anyone commits such a sin, so often he dies. For the apostle Paul too indicates that there are many deaths of sin when he says: “Who delivered us from such great deaths, and delivers us, in whom we hope that he will deliver us still.” What many deaths does he mention here, if not those of sins? For if he were not saying this of the deaths of sins, Paul would seem by his own statement to be going to remain immortal, exempt from this common death, since he says, “who delivered us from such great deaths, and delivers us, in whom we hope that he will deliver us still.” For if he delivered and will deliver, when will the one die whom the Lord will always deliver? And therefore, according to what we have discussed, we must see whether perhaps it may at some time be more grievous for us, who are not punished at all by this common death for sin, than for those whom the sentence of the law condemned bodily: because for us vengeance is laid up for the future, whereas they were absolved by the punishment paid for their offence. And if there is anyone who has perhaps been overtaken in sins of this kind, let him, now admonished by the word of God, flee to the help of repentance: so that if he has committed it once, he may not do it a second time; or if he has been overtaken a second or even a third time, he may add no more. For with a just judge the measure of punishment is set not only by the quality but also by the quantity.

Among the other sins which are punished by death, the divine law states that whoever curses his father or mother is to be put to death. The name of father is a great mystery, and the name of mother is a hidden reverence. Your father according to the spirit is God; your mother is the heavenly Jerusalem. Learn this from the testimonies of the prophets and apostles. Moses himself writes in the song: “Is not he himself your father who acquired you?” And the Apostle says of the heavenly Jerusalem that “she is free, who is,” he says, “the mother of us all.” First, then, your father is God, who begot your spirit, who also says: “I have begotten sons and exalted them.” And the apostle Paul says: “Let us obey the Father of spirits and we shall live.” Second, your father is the father of your flesh, by whose ministry you were born in the flesh and came into this world, who carried you in his loins, as it is said of Levi that he was still in the loins of Abraham when Melchizedek met him, returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him and received tithes from him. Since, then, the name of father is so sacred and so venerable, therefore whoever curses his father or mother shall die. Similar things are to be thought of the mother, by whose labour, care, and ministry you were born and nourished. And therefore, according to the Apostle, you must make a like return of gratitude to your parents. For if you dishonour your fleshly father, the insult returns to the Father of spirits; and if you wrong your fleshly mother, the wrong overflows to that mother, the heavenly Jerusalem. So also a slave, if he is irreverent to his master, through this bodily master hurls an insult at the Lord of majesty; for he gave his own name to this fleshly master. And therefore in no way is any quarrel to be had, not even in word, against father or mother, nor any contradiction raised. He is your father, she is your mother: let them act, do, and speak as seems good to them; they themselves will answer for it. However much deference we show, we do not yet repay the favour by which we were begotten, carried, by which we drew in the light, were nourished, perhaps also educated and trained in honourable arts. And perhaps through them we came to know God, came to the church of God, and heard the word of the divine law. For all these reasons, then, whoever curses his father or mother shall die. But if these things are decreed concerning bodily parents, what will become of those who assail God the Father with cursing words, who deny that he is the creator of the world, or who, understanding the prophetic sayings in an unworthy sense, reduce the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, to the condition of some earthly city? It is good, then, to take care that we never venerate either our fleshly father or the heavenly one with less worthy honour, and likewise our mother; and to observe also every commandment that commends modesty and chastity to us, so that neither in the present life are we liable to death according to the law, nor, according to the spiritual law, does the future penalty of eternal fire await us; from which may our Lord Jesus Christ grant us all to flee and escape, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Every priest among men is small and slight compared with that priest of whom God said, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” He is the great priest who can pass through the heavens and go beyond the whole creation and ascend to him who “dwells in unapproachable light,” God the Father of the universe. That is why the one who among the Jews was called the great priest entered indeed into the holy place, but one made with hands, built of stones; he did not ascend into heaven, nor could he stand before the Father of lights. But because he fulfilled the shadow and image of these things, he therefore also bore the name of great priest by way of shadow and image. Hence the Jews, who for this very reason ought to have been near to faith, because among them a certain foreshadowing and image of the truth had been played out beforehand, rejected the truth itself as a lie, while they took the types for the truth. But we who receive the great priest must understand how he is truly the great priest. He is truly the great priest who forgives sins not through the blood of bulls and goats but through his own blood. Since, then, we have come to know who the great priest is, and confess that the things written in the law were written of the great priest, that is, of the Saviour, whom the preceding treatment showed to be truly the great priest, let us now see what the law writes of him by the prophetic Spirit.

“And the great priest,” it says, “from among his brothers, on whose head the oil of anointing has been poured, and whose hands have been perfected so that he may put on the holy garments, shall not take the turban off his head, shall not tear his garments, and shall not go in to any dead soul; he shall not be defiled for his father or his mother; and he shall not go out of the holy place, and shall not profane the sanctified name of his God which is upon him, because the holy oil of anointing of his God is upon him: I am the Lord. He shall take as wife a virgin of his own race. A widow, and one cast out, and one defiled, and a harlot, these he shall not take; but he shall take a virgin of his own race as wife, and he shall not defile his seed among his people; I am the Lord who sanctifies him.” Granted, the image of this observance existed among the Jews too, and what the law laid down was kept by the high priests of the Jews; but even if all was carefully kept and everything the law commanded was fulfilled, not even so could all this observance make a great priest. For how can one be called a great priest who can sin? And that all, even the great priests, were under sin we easily see from the very fact that the law commands the priest to offer a victim first for his own sins and afterwards for the sins of the people. How, then, is one great who is placed under sin? But my great priest Jesus is great for this reason, that he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth, and that the ruler of this world came to him and found nothing in him. That is why the archangel Gabriel too announces his birth and says: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” Sin makes a man small and slight; virtue renders him eminent and great. For as sickness of body makes a man's body thin and slight, while health makes it flourishing and strong, so I understand that the sickness of sin makes the soul low and small, while the health of the inner man and the works of virtue make it great and eminent; and the more it grows in virtues, the greater the magnitude it gives itself. So I understand what is written of Jesus, that he advanced in wisdom and in stature and in grace with God and men. For who among men does not advance in stature in childhood, that this should be written of Jesus as something remarkable? I say this to you who hear in a bodily sense that Jesus advanced in stature. Understand, then, that he advanced in the stature of the soul, and his soul became great because of the great and mighty works he did. Indeed the Apostle too, knowing that this stature is to be understood of the inner man, writes thus: “Until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” For to grow and become great in body is not in our power. The body takes the material of its size from its origin in generation, to become either large or small. But the soul has in us its causes and freedom of choice to be either great or small. If, then, the soul is little and small, it can also be made to stumble. For so it is written in the Gospel, that it is better to be cast into the depth of the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. The one who is great, whatever he sees, whatever he suffers, does not turn aside from the faith. But the one who is little and small in soul seeks occasions to stumble, to seem offended in the faith. For this reason, finally, we must take most care for those who are little in faith; we owe less care to the great and strong than to the little and the unwise. For the strong man bears all things, endures all things, and never falls. But with the little and weak in faith we must take care lest they be offended on our account, and fall away from the faith and fall from salvation. Or show me from the Scriptures where any sinner, or one of small merit, has been called great. Nowhere, I think, will you find it. But hear who they are that are called great. Of Isaac it is said that he advanced greatly until he became very great. Moses was called great, and John the Baptist was called great, and now Jesus has been called great, and after him no one has been called great. For before he came who is truly great, the saints whom we mentioned above were called great in comparison with other men. But when he came who was truly great, not by comparison with others but by his own greatness, of whom it is also written that he “rejoiced like a giant to run his course,” no one any longer has been called great. This, then, is the one of whom it is written: “The great priest from among his brothers.” Which brothers? Those of whom he said when he had risen from the dead: “Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” And if you wish to learn of the brothers of Jesus from the ancient writings, read the twenty-first psalm, where it is said in the person of Christ: “I will tell your name to my brothers; in the midst of the church I will praise you.” Jesus, then, is great from among his brothers, from those who had previously been called great; and as he is the shepherd of shepherds, and high priest of high priests, and Lord of lords, and King of kings, so also he is the great one of the great; and therefore it adds, “great from among his brothers.”

After this it says: “on whom the oil of anointing has been poured upon his head.” Do not seek on earth this oil which is poured on the head of the great priest so that he becomes an anointed one; but if you please, learn from the prophet David what kind of oil this is: “You have loved righteousness,” he says, “and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.” This, then, is the oil of gladness which, poured on his head, made him Christ. But he adds yet further to his praises: “Who has perfected hands,” he says. To which of men, I ask, is it fitting to say this? In which of mortals can we find perfected hands? Even if this were Aaron, who seems to be mentioned, how will he be thought to have had perfected hands, with which he fashioned the calf, with which he carved the idol? Even if you put forward Moses himself, how does he seem to have had perfected hands, who did not glorify the Lord at the water of contradiction? For this offence he is even commanded to depart from life. And if you wish to mention any other of the saints, the word of Scripture meets you, which says that there is no man on earth who does good and does not sin. Rightly, then, Jesus alone has perfected hands, he who alone committed no sin, that is, who has perfect and unblemished works of his hands. And therefore it is rightly said of him: “who has perfected hands, so that he may be clothed in the holy things.” For he it is who is truly clothed in the holy things, not those which were in the type, but those which are truly holy. And if you wish to hear of his loftier garments, receive the prophetic words: “Clothed,” it says, “with light as with a garment; the abyss, like a mantle, is his garment.” This is the dress of my great high priest, by which is indicated that he is clothed with deep knowledge and the light of wisdom, which are truly holy garments. “He shall not take,” it says, “the turban off his head.” We said before that a turban is a kind of covering which, placed on the head, gives the high priest adornment. This great high priest of mine, then, never lays aside the adornment of his sacred head. What the head of Christ is, learn from the Apostle, who says: “But the head of Christ is God.” Rightly, then, he never lays aside this adornment of his head, which is God, because the Father is always in the Son, as the Son is always in the Father. “And he shall not tear his garments.” Truly this is he who does not tear his garments, but has always kept them clean, always whole, always chaste. “And he shall not go in to any dead soul.” What is the dead soul? The one which the prophet calls dead: “The soul that sins, it shall die.” Christ does not come upon this dead soul, because he is wisdom, and wisdom does not enter a malevolent soul. For that soul is dead, because in whom there is wickedness there is also sin. “But sin, when it is completed,” it says, “brings forth death.” And for this reason Jesus does not go in to a dead soul. But if the soul is alive, that is, if it does not have mortal sin in itself, then Christ, who is life, comes to the living soul. For as light cannot be with darkness, nor righteousness with iniquity, so neither can life be with death. And therefore, if anyone is conscious that he has a deadly sin within him and has not cast it off from himself through the repentance of the fullest satisfaction, let him not hope that Christ will enter his soul, who does not go in to any dead soul, because he is the great priest.

“He shall not be defiled for his father and his mother.” This passage of Scripture is very difficult to explain; but if by your prayers you entreat God, the Father of the Word, to deign to enlighten us, it may be explained by his gift. Everyone who enters this world is said to be made in a certain defilement. That is why Scripture says: “No one is clean from filth, not even if his life is of one day.” By the very fact, then, that you were placed in your mother's womb, and that you take the matter of your body from the origin of your father's seed, you can be said to be defiled in father and mother. Or do you not know that when a male child is forty days old he is presented at the altar to be purified there, as one who was polluted in the very conception, whether by the father's seed or the mother's womb? Every man, then, is polluted in father and mother; but Jesus my Lord alone entered this birth clean; he was not polluted in his mother. For he entered an undefiled body. For he it was who had long before said through Solomon: “But rather, since I was good, I came into an undefiled body.” He was not, then, defiled in his mother, nor even in his father. For Joseph contributed nothing to his birth except service and affection. Hence, for his faithful service, Scripture grants him the name of father. For so Mary herself says in the Gospel: “See, your father and I have been seeking you in sorrow.” So, then, this is the only great priest who was polluted neither in father nor in mother. But let us see whether we can still find something more sublime and worthy of so great a high priest. God is called the true Father of all. And the Apostle says that the heavenly Jerusalem is the mother. All who sin, then, are defiled in the Father by whom they were created. For whether we have done anything impious, or spoken, or thought against God, when we did not believe God we were defiled in the Father. And would that this had happened only then through unbelief, and had ceased after we believed! So too we are defiled in the mother if, believing God, we either injure the church or defile the freedom of the heavenly mother by the unworthy slavery of sin. Only our Lord Jesus Christ, who knows no sin, was defiled neither in father nor in mother, and did not go out of the holy place. There were indeed several things in the preceding passages to be put to the Jews, to which they could not answer; but leaving those aside, as to this passage, let them tell us, whether they themselves or those who wish the law to be understood according to their sense: if these things are not referred to our high priest and Saviour, how will it be proved according to the letter that the great priest does not go out of the holy place, he who certainly also took a wife, as is said further on, a virgin of his own race? If he does not go out of the holy place, if he goes nowhere, how, or for what uses, is he commanded to take a wife? For it must not be supposed that he could remain with a wife inside the holy place. But let those think these things who are pleased by Jewish fables. We, however, have a great priest according to the order of Melchizedek, Christ Jesus, never going out of the holy place; for he is always in the holy place, and remains always holy in his words, holy in his deeds, holy in all his wishes, and he alone is never found outside the holy place. For whoever sins goes out of the holy place; and as often as anyone sins, so often is he put outside the holy place. But Christ, who never sinned, never went out of the holy place. And you too who follow Christ and are his imitator, if you remain in the word of God, if you meditate on his law day and night, if you are exercised in his commandments, are always in the holy place and never depart from it. For holy things are not to be sought in a place but in deeds, in life and conduct. If these are according to God and held according to God's commandments, even if you are at home, even in the forum (and why do I say in the forum?), even if you are found in the theatre serving the word of God, do not doubt that you are in the holy place. Or does not Paul seem to you to have been in the holy place when he entered the theatre, or when he entered the Areopagus and preached Christ to the Athenians? And also when he had walked about among the altars and idols of the Athenians, where he found written, “To an unknown God,” and from this word took the beginning of his preaching of Christ, even there, surveying the altars of the pagans, he was in the holy place, because he was thinking holy things. And whoever, after receiving the grace of God, guards himself from falling into murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and the like, but remains clean from every contagion of sin, has not gone out of the holy place and has not profaned the sanctification of his God in himself, because the holy oil of anointing of his God is upon him. That oil of which it is written in Exodus: how can it properly, according to the letter, be called God's oil, when it was made by a perfumer by the art of ointment-making? But if you wish to see God's oil, hear whom the prophet says was anointed with God's oil: without doubt him of whom he says: “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.” This, then, is the great priest, who alone was anointed with God's oil, and in whom the oil of the divine anointing always remained holy.

But what is added after this? “He shall take a virgin of his own race as wife; but a widow and one cast out and a harlot he shall not take, but a virgin of his own race; and he shall not defile his seed among his people: I am the Lord who sanctifies him.” Since, then, the order of the whole exposition has been brought back to the true great priest, Christ, let us see now what is to be understood of his marriage. The apostle Paul says: “For I wish to present you all as a chaste virgin to one husband, to Christ. But I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Paul, then, wishes to present all the Corinthians as a chaste virgin to Christ: which he would certainly never wish unless he saw it to be possible. Hence it may perhaps seem wonderful how those who came to the faith of Christ corrupted by various sins can all together be called a chaste virgin, a virgin so holy and so chaste that she deserves to be joined in marriage even to Christ. But since we cannot refer these things to bodily integrity, it is certain that they look to the integrity of the soul, whose virginity, according to the judgment of Paul himself, is called the simplicity of faith that is in Christ. And through this, since Christ, when the sophisms of the philosophers and the superstitions of the Jews had ceased, took the church to himself in simple faith, he took as wife a virgin of his own race. For her faith is not corrupted by philosophical opinion nor by the ambition of circumcision, but she has remained in the simplicity of confession as in virginal integrity. For so he had long before promised through the prophet, saying: “I will betroth you to myself in faith.” Everyone, then, according to the Apostle, who is in Christ is a new creation. And, as the same Apostle says: “that he might present the church to himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and without blemish.” How, then, does he make her who is wrinkled to be without wrinkle, unless by renewing her? According to what is written: “For though our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner man is being renewed day by day.” A widow, indeed, and a harlot and one cast out Christ will not take, nor does such a soul enter the bridegroom's chamber. For whoever enters there not having wedding garments will suffer what you know to be written in the Gospel. He will take, then, a virgin; he will not take a widow, nor a harlot, nor one cast out or defiled. Why Christ does not take in marriage a harlot, a soul cast off and polluted, needs no labour to explain; but why a widow is not received as wife must be looked into more carefully. The apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, says that the law is the husband of the soul, and declares that when the husband has died she is freed from the law of the husband, so that she is no longer an adulteress if she is married to Christ. But if it happens that the law dies to the soul itself, that is, that the soul departs from the law, and yet does not bind itself by the disciplines of a chaster marriage, and, departing from the law, does not take up the yoke of the Gospel teaching, she will not be able to marry Christ, since she has sought the wantonness of freedom, not the cultivation of a virginal and simple faith. This great priest, then, will take a virgin of his own race as wife. It can also seem to be said “of his own race” because the soul of Christ was of the race and substance of all human souls. It can also be said, in accordance with his calling those who believe in him brothers, that the soul which is united to him in faith as in marriage is “of his own race.” Yet I do not want you to be unaware that the Hebrews deny that they have written what we find in the Septuagint translators, “of his own race.” And rightly they do not have it written. For nearness to God has been taken from them, the adoption of sons has been taken away and transferred to the church of Christ. They, then, do not have it written that they are of Christ's race, just as they have not deserved to be. But we who have this written and read it, let us indeed rejoice in God's condescension, but let us take careful and anxious care that our life, deeds, and conduct never make us degenerate, lest this very thing be brought to our condemnation, that though we are the race of Christ we serve unworthy, foul, and devilish deeds. “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.” You hear how Christ is called the bridegroom, and the soul is called the bride, which is proved incorrupt and a virgin by simplicity of faith and purity of deeds. For the Lord says also through the prophet Jeremiah: “Did you not call me Lord and father and guide of your virginity?”

“But a widow and one cast out and one defiled he shall not take.” If any of us has sinned, he is cast out, even if he is not cast out by the bishop, whether because his sin is hidden or because sometimes a judgment is made out of favour; yet he is cast out by the very consciousness of sin. Nor does human favour help, since Christ does not receive such a soul in marriage, as one cast out. He will take, then, neither a widow, as we said above, nor one cast out, nor one polluted. That soul is called polluted which, even if it has not wholly completed the sin, yet by the very fact that it thought it, that it desired it, even if it did not commit it, is polluted, and is not chosen by the great high priest. For he seeks a very pure, very clean and sincere soul to join to himself, because “he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit.” Hence it is also shown that there are differences of sins, and that the one who has sinned a sin unto death is cast out, while the one who does not sin unto death but something lesser is polluted. But the bride of Christ can be neither cast out nor polluted; she is a virgin undefiled, incorrupt, and clean. For remember the apostolic word which we set out a little before: “that he might present the church to himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and without blemish.”

“And he shall not take a harlot.” Which soul is a harlot? The one that has received lovers to itself, of whom the prophet says: “You have played the harlot after your lovers.” Who are these lovers who go in to the harlot soul, if not the opposing powers and demons, who conceive desire for her beauty? For the soul was created beautiful by God, and very comely. Hear how God himself says: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” See of what comeliness, of what beauty, is the soul which has the image and likeness of God. When the opposing powers, that is, the devil and his angels, look on this beauty, they covet her loveliness; and since they cannot become her bridegrooms, they long to play the harlot with her. If, then, O man, you have received the adulterer, the devil, into the bed of your soul, your soul has played the harlot with the devil. If you have received his angels, the various spirits that persuade you to sin, your soul has played the harlot with them. If the spirit of anger, of envy, of pride, of unchastity has entered your soul, and you have received him and consented to him as he speaks in your heart and taken delight in what he suggests to you according to his mind, you have played the harlot with him. The great priest, then, will not take a harlot, “and he shall not defile his seed among his people.” What is this seed which he does not want defiled? In the Gospels it is written: “He who sows sows the word.” He does not want the word of God, then, to be defiled by those who sow. Who, then, are those who sow? Those who bring forth the word of God in the church. Let the teachers hear, then, lest perhaps they entrust the words of God to a defiled soul, a harlot soul, an unfaithful soul, lest perhaps they give what is holy to dogs and pearls before swine; but let them choose clean souls, virgins in the simplicity of faith that is in Christ, entrust the secret mysteries to them, and to them speak out the word of God and the hidden things of faith, that Christ may be formed in them through faith. Or do you not know that from this seed of the word of God that is sown, Christ is born in the hearts of the hearers? For the Apostle says this: “Until Christ is formed in you.” The soul, then, conceives from this seed of the word, and forms within itself the word it has conceived, until it gives birth to the spirit of the fear of God. For so the souls of the saints say through the prophet: “From your fear, O Lord, we have conceived in the womb, and been in labour, and given birth to the spirit of your salvation, which we have made upon the earth.” This is the offspring of holy souls, this their conception; these are the holy marriages which befit and suit the great Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

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.

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.

In bodily contests certain grades and distinctions of the various classes are usually observed, so that each is rewarded with the prize of victory according to the quality of the contest. For example, if someone has a contest among boys, or among youths, or among men, the rules of the games themselves lay down what observance must be kept in each class, what is permitted and what is not, what rule of the contest is to be kept, and also what palm of reward the victor deserves afterwards. So now too almighty God, setting before mortals in this world the contest of observing his law, after he has handed down very many things to be observed and written what ought to be done and what ought not, fittingly at the very end of the book of Leviticus, in which the various observances have been established, declares what reward the one who fulfils them will carry off and what penalty the one who has not kept them will undergo. But if the law, as the Jews would have it, and those who think the Scriptures should be understood in their sense, is not spiritual but carnal, there is no doubt that, being kept carnally, it also grants carnal blessings to those who keep it. But if, as the apostle Paul holds, the law is spiritual, without doubt it is both to be kept spiritually and a spiritual reward of blessings is to be hoped for from it. For it is wholly consistent that a spiritual law gives spiritual blessings; and it is no less consistent that the curses and condemnations of a spiritual law are not bodily. But that what we say may be beyond doubt, let us use the voice of the apostle Paul himself, by which, writing to the Ephesians, he speaks thus of spiritual blessings: “Blessed be,” he says, “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Since he knew that some, reading about blessings, might slip into thinking them bodily and earthly, he wished to show them more plainly what the nature of the divine blessings is and where they are to be sought; and therefore he says: “who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” And his adding “with every spiritual blessing” is not idle but full of apostolic force. For since he knew that many things commanded in the law must be fulfilled, and that in each commandment there are particular contests, in which the one who conquered would deserve a blessing for each, he therefore said: “who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing,” so as to show them to be both many and spiritual. In this phrase, “with every spiritual blessing,” this too can be understood: that, for example, every righteous and perfect person receives the blessings of Leviticus, of which we are now speaking; receives also those written in the book of Numbers, and also those contained in the book of Genesis: the blessings of Noah to Shem and Japheth, the blessings of Isaac to Jacob, and again the blessings of Jacob to Joseph and Ephraim and Manasseh, and after this to the twelve patriarchs. Since, then, there are many blessings set down in the divine Scriptures, which seem to be addressed to each of the saints, for example to Shem or Japheth or Joseph, yet are not, as some think, so addressed to them alone that no one else can share in them, the Apostle therefore called them spiritual, so that whoever has been able to become, for example, Shem or Japheth or Joseph or Isaac or Jacob in power and spirit (as John too was in the spirit and power of Elijah) may himself also become a sharer in the blessing of the one whose power and spirit he has borne.

But let us now see what the beginning of the blessings in Leviticus is. “If,” it says, “you walk in my precepts and keep my commandments and do them.” He says three things: walking in the precepts, keeping the commandments, and doing what is commanded. Hence it seems to me that a precept is, for example, when it is ordered that one who has not kept the sabbath be stoned by the whole congregation, or that one who has cursed the Lord be put to death with stones, and any similar orders. But commandments are those by which it is ordered, for example, that tithes be offered to the Levites, or that one appear before the Lord three times a year, or not appear empty-handed in the sight of the Lord. To keep a commandment, then, is to understand or attend to what is ordered; and to do a commandment is to fulfil what is ordered. So, I think, we must understand what he said: “If you walk in my precepts and keep my commandments and do them.” But let us see what the first blessing is for those who have fulfilled what is commanded. “I will give you,” it says, “rain in its season.” Let us first speak, then, to the Jews and to those who think these things are to be understood simply or bodily: if this rain is given as a reward for their labours to those who keep the commandments, how is one and the same rain given in its seasons to those who do not keep the commandments, and the whole world uses the common rains given by God? For he rains on the just and the unjust. And if rain is given to the just and the unjust, it will not be a special reward for those who have kept the commandments. See, then, that even if the Jews do not assent to the words of Jesus our Lord, you who are reckoned by his name and called a Christian must believe him when he says that his heavenly Father rains this common rain on the just and the unjust; and you must not think that he has set apart as a special portion for the just this rain which he has made common even with the unjust. Let us seek, then, in the Scriptures what rain it is that is given to the saints alone, and about which the clouds are commanded not to rain that rain upon the unjust. What this rain is, let Moses himself, the lawgiver of these things, teach us. For he says in Deuteronomy: “Give heed, O heaven, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words from my mouth; let my speech be awaited like rain.” Are these words mine? Are we bending the sense of the divine law violently with rhetorical arguments? Is it not Moses who says that what he speaks is rain? “Let my speech,” he says, “be awaited like rain, and let my words come down like dew, like a shower on the grass, and like snow on the hay.” Attend carefully, hearer, lest you think that we do violence to the divine Scripture when, teaching the church, we say that waters or showers or other things which seem to be spoken bodily are to be understood spiritually. Hear how Moses now calls the word of the law rain, now dew, now a shower, now even snow. And as Moses speaks out varied and diverse things, as speaking from the grace of the manifold wisdom of God, so too Isaiah when he says: “Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.” And each of the prophets, when he has opened his mouth, brings down showers on the face of the earth, that is, on the ears and hearts of the hearers. The apostle Paul, knowing this, said: “For the land that drinks the rain often coming upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessings from God; but that which brings forth thorns and thistles is rejected and near to a curse, and its end is to be burned.” Did the Apostle say this of this earth? But this earth does not receive blessings from God when it has drunk showers and produced fruit; nor, if it brings forth thorns and thistles after rain, will it incur a curse from God. But our earth, that is, our heart, if it receives the rain of the teaching of the law often coming upon it and brings the fruit of works, receives blessings from God. But if it has not spiritual work but thorns and thistles, that is, the cares of the world, or pleasures and desires for riches, it is rejected and near to a curse, and its end will be to be burned. Therefore each of the hearers, when he comes together to listen, receives the shower of the word of God; and if he brings the fruit of good work, he will obtain a blessing. But if he despises the word of God he has received and neglects what he has often heard, and subjects himself to the care of worldly affairs and to lust, as one who has choked the word with thorns, he procures a curse instead of a blessing, and instead of the end of blessedness he will find the end of burning. “I will give you,” then, it says, “rain in its season.” Necessarily he added “in its season.” For just as this earthly shower, if it comes untimely, that is, when the harvest is being gathered, when the grain is being threshed on the floors, will seem to harm rather than help, so too those to whom the ministering of the rain of the word of God is entrusted must observe what Scripture says, that they give it in its season: that is, that they do not press the word of God on one who is surfeited and drunk, nor on one whose mind is occupied with other things when he cannot be attentive, or when he is bound by the languor of some vice and gives his inner hearing not to the teacher but to his own disease. Let him judge prudently, then, where the place can be free, where the hearer is sober, watchful, attentive, and there let him minister the rain in its season; as in the Gospel too the faithful and prudent servant is ordered to give his fellow servants their measure of wheat in its season. But we can also understand in another way the command that rain be given in its season. Someone is a child and little in faith; he needs rain, but a rain of milk. For so says he who knew how to dispense rains in their season: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able.” After this he advanced in faith, grew in stature and wisdom; without doubt he has become fit to receive more solid food. Someone is weak, and not because of his age but because of weakness cannot receive what is strong: for example, he cannot fully receive the teaching about chastity; one must have compassion and measure the teaching by the quality of his strength, and marriage must be conceded to such people. This is to feed the weak with vegetables, and to fit to such measures a thin rain of the word, like dew. But there is another earth which can receive heavy showers, bear even rivers of the word of God, and carry rushing torrents. Of such the prophet says in the Psalms: “And you will give them to drink of the torrent of your delight.”

“I will give you,” it says, “rain in its season, and the earth will give its produce.” After the first blessing of rain, this is the second, in which the earth, having received the rain, is said to give its produce. We find that Isaac too, blessing Jacob, said: “May the Lord give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth abundance of grain and wine.” Do you think Isaac was giving his son Jacob in blessing such grain as sinful men have, and in which even the impious Pharaoh abounded? Was this the blessing of so great a patriarch? Do you want me to show you further how other wicked men have abundance of grain? Look at that man in the Gospel whose field brought forth much fruit, who said: “I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; eat, drink, and be merry.” Do we believe that such were the goods handed on by divine blessings to all the saints and faithful? I look, then, for other fruits of the earth, and I see the abundance of produce in another way. For if my earth bears fruit, if it brings forth its produce from the Lord's blessing, my understanding will perceive, and will be able to explain, what and of what kind is this earth which, having received the heavenly rain, brings forth produce of rational crops. Take the testimony from the Gospels: how the sower went out to sow, and some fell along the way, some on rock, some among thorns, and some on good earth. If, then, what fell on good earth bears fruit, the earth has given its fruit and brought forth its produce, a hundredfold and sixtyfold and thirtyfold.

“And the trees of the fields,” it says, “will give their fruit.” We have within ourselves trees of the fields too, which bring forth their fruit. What are these trees of the fields that bring forth their fruit? What are these trees of the fields? Perhaps the hearer will say: “What is this word-hunter up to again? Why is he gathering words from everywhere to escape explaining the reading? How will he show that there are trees and woods within us?” If you do not object rashly, you will hear at once that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree bear good fruit. We have, then, trees within us, either good or bad; and those that are good cannot bear bad fruit, just as those that are bad will not bear good fruit. Do you want me to set out for you the names and designations of the trees that are within us? It is not a fig, nor an apple, nor a vine; but one tree is called righteousness, another prudence, another fortitude, another temperance. And if you wish, learn of a still greater number of trees, with which perhaps the paradise of God will be thought more worthily planted. For there is there a tree of piety, and another tree of wisdom, and another of discipline, and another of the knowledge of good and evil. But above all is the tree of life. Does it not seem to you rather that the heavenly Father, the farmer, cultivates trees of this kind in your soul and sets plantings of this kind in your mind? So, then, the Saviour says: “A bad tree cannot bear good fruit, nor a good tree bad fruit.” This is what he teaches: the tree of modesty is good; it cannot bear the fruits of immodesty. The tree of righteousness is good, and cannot bear the fruits of unrighteousness. So also, on the contrary, if you have the root of a bad tree planted in your mind, it cannot yield good fruit. For if there is a root of wickedness in you, it will not give good fruit. If there is a plant of folly within your heart, it will never bring forth the flower of wisdom. If there is a tree of injustice, of iniquity, such trees can never rejoice in good fruits. If, then, we keep the commandments of God, having received the rain of the word of God of which we spoke above, the trees too which are planted in the fields of our soul and in the breadth of our heart will bear joyful and good fruit of sweetness. Do you want me to show you from the Scriptures that each of the virtues we mentioned above is called a tree or wood? I bring as witness the most wise Solomon, who says of wisdom: “She is a tree of life,” he says, “to all who embrace her.” If, then, wisdom is a tree of life, without doubt there is another tree of prudence, and another of knowledge, and another of righteousness. For it is not consistent to say that of all the virtues wisdom alone has deserved to be called a tree of life, while the other virtues have by no means received names of a like lot. “The trees of the field, then, will give their fruit.” I believe the blessed David also had this in mind about himself when he said: “But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God.” By this he plainly shows that a righteous and holy man is called an olive tree.

“And threshing will overtake the vintage for you.” If good seed has been sown in the soul, and, having received rain from God, it has grown and come to the ear, a harvest will necessarily follow; and if a harvest, threshing will also follow, in which the grain is cleaned. For the soul that sprouts, watered by the word of God and the heavenly rain, brings forth its shoot to harvest, and the very harvest it produces must be cleaned on the threshing floor: that is, the soul must bring into the open the thoughts it has begotten and compare them, whether with other teachers or with the divine books themselves, so that if there is anything empty and superfluous in them, anything like chaff or beards, it may shake it out as the spirit of discernment blows upon it, and keep the pure grain, with which alone it can nourish its fellow servants and dispense the measure of wheat in its season. “And threshing,” it says, “will overtake the vintage.” Since bread, as Scripture says, strengthens man's heart, and wine gladdens it, whatever is said about self-control, about observances and the keeping of God's commandments, can be seen as grain, from which bread is made, and which strengthens the hearts of the hearers. But what pertains to knowledge, and gladdens the minds of the hearers by the explanation of hidden things, will be seen as fitting to wine and the vintage. For gladness is given to the heart when things hidden and obscure are explained. “And the vintage,” it says, “will overtake the sowing.” As if we were to say: First I sowed what belongs to the law, and after it was sown I prayed that the Lord would give rain in its season, and there was a harvest. After this I do not remain idle, but sow again: I take the prophetic Scripture and from it sow the lands and fallows of the hearers. After this I sow other things too from the words of the Gospels. The things sown are diverse; we can sow throughout the whole year. For we can also cast many seeds from the apostolic writings. There is always something to be sown; in our whole life there is no time for idleness: as long as we breathe, let us sow. Only let us sow in the spirit, that from the spirit we may reap eternal life. “And you will eat your bread to the full.” Nor do I take this to be a bodily blessing, as if the one who keeps the law of God would obtain this common bread in abundance. For what? Do not the impious and criminal eat bread not only in abundance but in luxury? Rather, then, if we look to him who said, “I am the living bread who came down from heaven, and whoever eats this bread will live forever,” and notice that he who said this was the Word by which souls are fed, we understand of what bread it is said in God's blessings, “And you will eat your bread to the full.” Solomon too declares similar things in the Proverbs, saying of the righteous: “The righteous man eating will fill his soul, but the souls of the impious will be in want.” If you take this according to the letter, that the righteous man eating fills his soul while the souls of the impious will be in want, it will seem false. For the souls of the impious rather take food greedily and are eager to be filled. The righteous, however, sometimes even go hungry. Indeed Paul was righteous, and he said: “To this very hour we hunger and thirst and are naked and are beaten.” And again he says: “In hunger and thirst, in many fastings.” How, then, does Solomon say that the righteous man eating satisfies his soul? But if you observe how the righteous man always and without ceasing eats of the living bread and fills his soul and satisfies it with heavenly food, which is the Word of God and his wisdom, you will find how from God's blessing the righteous man eats his bread to the full. “And you will dwell safely upon your land.” The wicked man is never safe, but is always moved and tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the deceit of men, to the deception of error. But the righteous man who keeps the law of God dwells safely upon his land. For his mind is firm, saying to God: “Strengthen me, Lord, in your words.” Strengthened, then, and safe and rooted, he dwells upon the land, grounded in faith, because his building is not set upon sand, nor is his root upon rock; but his house is founded upon the earth, and his plant is rooted in the depth of the earth, that is, in the inner parts of his soul. Rightly, then, is it said to such a soul in the blessings: “And you will dwell safely upon your land, and I will give peace upon the land.” What peace does God give? That which the world has? Christ denies that he gives that. For he says: “My peace I give you, my peace I leave you; not as this world gives peace do I give to you.” He denies, then, that he gives the world's peace to his disciples, for elsewhere too he says: “What, do you think that I came to send peace on the earth? I did not come to send peace, but a sword.” Do you want, then, to see what peace God gives upon our land? If the land is good, the one that bears fruit a hundredfold or sixtyfold or thirtyfold, it will receive from God that peace of which the Apostle says: “And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds.” This, then, is the peace which God gives upon our land.

“And you will sleep, and there will be no one to frighten you.” Solomon too said in the Proverbs: “For if you sit, you will be without fear; and if you sleep, you will take your sleep gladly, and you will not fear the terror coming upon you nor the onslaughts of the impious coming upon you.” He said this of the righteous and wise man, and this is said in the blessing: “You will sleep, and there will be no one to frighten you.” For if I become righteous, no one will be able to frighten me: I fear nothing else if I fear God. “For the righteous,” it says, “is bold as a lion,” and therefore he does not fear the lion, the devil, nor the dragon, Satan, nor his angels, but says with David: “I will not fear the terror of the night, the arrow flying by day, the thing walking in darkness, ruin, and the noonday demon.” He adds this too: “The Lord is my light and my Saviour; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defender of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” And again: “If armies encamp against me, my heart will not fear.” You see the constancy and strength of the soul that keeps the commandments of God and has the confidence of freeborn liberty. After this, “I will destroy,” it says, “the evil beasts from your land.” These bodily beasts are neither evil nor good, but something in between, for they are dumb animals. But those beasts are evil which are spiritual, which the Apostle calls “spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places.” And that is the evil beast of which Scripture says: “Now the serpent was wiser than all the beasts that are upon the earth.” This, then, is the evil beast which God promises he will destroy from our land if we keep his commandments. Do you want to see another evil beast? “Your adversary,” it says, “the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom to devour; resist him, firm in faith.” And if you wish to learn of still more beasts, the prophet Isaiah will teach you, who, under the vision which he entitled “of the four-footed beasts in the desert,” speaks in the prophetic Spirit of beasts in some such way as this: “In tribulation,” he says, “and distress, the lion and the lion's whelp; from there too the offspring of flying asps, who carried their riches on asses and camels to a nation that will not profit them.” Can these things in any way be thought to be said of bodily beasts, even by those who are great friends of the letter? For how can a lion and a lion's whelp, or flying asps, carry their riches on camels and asses? But plainly the prophet, filled with the Holy Spirit, enumerates the opposing powers of the worst demons, and indicates that they place the riches of their deceptions on foolish and perverse souls, which he compares figuratively to camels and asses. And that the soul that fears God might not be handed over to these beasts, the prophet David prayed, saying: “Do not hand over to the beasts the soul that confesses you.” “And I will destroy,” it says, “the malignant beasts from your land, and war will not pass through your land.” Many are the wars that pass through our land if we do not keep the law of God nor observe his precepts. Let each one return to his own soul and examine himself by inner recollection, and see how our land, that is, our flesh, is pressed now by the spirit of sexual immorality, now by anger and rage, now shaken by the darts of greed, now struck by the weapons of envy, now pierced by the arrows of lust, and in whatever things the flesh desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, it is always shaken by inner battles. And what shall I say of the wars of thoughts which the enemy suggests to our heart, to strip us of the faith of Christ and of the hope of our calling? For when he has stirred up for us the afflictions of temptations and the troubles of the world, he then suggests to our thought that it is superfluous and foolish to endure this for Christ, and that it is much better to lead a life secure and without persecutions. Knowing this, the apostle Paul said: “Destroying thoughts and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ.” Whoever, then, observes the divine precepts and keeps his commandments and does them does not suffer this war and these battles, but God takes them away from his land and does not let them pass through the soul of the righteous. “And you will pursue your enemies.” What enemies, if not the devil himself and his angels and evil spirits and unclean demons? We shall pursue them not only to put them to flight from ourselves but also from others whom they attack, if we observe the divine precepts. “You will pursue,” it says, “and they will fall before you by death.” If God swiftly crushes Satan under our feet, the enemies will fall before us by death. By whose death? I think by ours: for if we put to death our members which are on earth, sexual immorality, uncleanness, if we inflict this death on our members, they will fall before us. How will they fall before us? If you are righteous, unrighteousness has fallen before you; if chaste, lust has fallen; if pious, impiety itself has collapsed before you.

“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.