Homilies on Luke 14–16

On the text: “When the days of his circumcision were fulfilled,” up to the place where he says, “a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons.” Chapter 2. In that Christ died, he died for sin: not because he himself sinned, for he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth; but he died so that we, who died to sins when he died, might no longer live to sin and vices (Rom 6:10–11). Hence it is written: as we died together with him then, when he died, and rose together with him when he rose, so we were circumcised with him and, after the circumcision, cleansed by a solemn purification. Therefore we no longer need fleshly circumcision. And so that you may know that he was circumcised for our sake, hear Paul proclaiming it most plainly: “In him,” he says, “dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all principality and power; in whom you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which we also rose again through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col 2:9–12). His death, then, and his resurrection and his circumcision were done for us. “When,” it says, “the days for circumcising the child were fulfilled, his name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.” The name of Jesus, glorious and worthy of all adoration and worship, was not brought into the world by human beings but by a more excellent and greater nature. Hence the evangelist pointedly added: “And his name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Then follows: “And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him to Jerusalem.” “For their purification,” it says. Whose? If it were written “for her purification,” that is, of Mary who had given birth, no question would arise, and we would boldly say that Mary, being a human being, needed purification after childbirth. But as it is, when it says “the days of their purification,” it seems to mean not one person but another as well, or several. So Jesus needed purification, and was unclean, or polluted by some defilement. Perhaps I seem to speak rashly, but I am moved by the authority of the Scriptures. See what is written in Job: “No one is clean from defilement, not even if his life be but one day.” He did not say, “No one is clean from sin,” but “No one is clean from defilement.” For defilement and sins do not mean the same thing. And so that you may know that defilement means one thing and sin another, Isaiah teaches plainly, saying: “The Lord will wash away the defilement of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst, the defilement by a spirit of judgment and the blood by a spirit of burning” (Isa 4:4). Every soul that has been clothed with a human body has its own defilement. And so that you may know that Jesus too is to be understood as defiled, according to the shame of the cross, not according to the holy flesh he assumed, which, the apostle says, was “in the likeness of sinful flesh” by his own will, because he had taken a human body for our salvation, listen to the prophet Zechariah saying: “Jesus was clothed in filthy garments” (Zech 3:3). This also tells against those who deny that our Lord had a human body and say that it was woven of heavenly and spiritual elements. For if his body was from heavenly things, and, as they falsely assert, from the stars and some other more sublime and spiritual nature, let them answer why a spiritual body could be filthy, or how they interpret what we have quoted, “Jesus was clothed in filthy garments.” And if they are compelled by necessity to accept that a filthy garment is to be understood as a spiritual body, they must consequently say that what is set down among the promises has been fulfilled, namely, “It is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body,” and that we shall rise polluted and filthy; which it is sacrilege even to think, especially for one who knows that it is written: “It is sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it rises in glory; it is sown in weakness, it rises in power; it is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:42–44). It was fitting, then, that for our Lord and Saviour, who had been clothed in filthy garments and had taken an earthly body, those things should be offered which according to the law were accustomed to cleanse defilement. Prompted by this passage, I take up again a question often asked among the brothers. Little children are baptized for the remission of sins. Of what sins? Or at what time did they sin? Or how can there be any reason for the washing in little children, except according to the sense we spoke of a little earlier: “No one is clean from defilement, not even if his life on earth be but one day”? And because the defilements of birth are put away through the sacrament of baptism, for this reason little children too are baptized. For “unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” (John 3:5). “When,” it says, “the days of their purification were completed.” The days of righteousness too are completed. For the soul is not purified as soon as it is born, nor can it attain perfect purity at its very birth; but as it is written in the law, “If she has borne a male, the mother shall sit seven days in unclean blood, and then thirty-three in pure blood,” and at the last the infant himself will sit in the purest blood: so, because the law is spiritual and has a shadow of the good things to come (Rom 7:14; Heb 10:1), we can understand that true purification comes to us after a time. I think that even after the resurrection from the dead we shall need a sacrament that washes and purifies us, for no one will be able to rise without defilements, nor can any soul be found that is at once free of all vices. Hence in the regeneration of baptism the sacrament is taken up, so that just as Jesus, according to the dispensation of the flesh, was purified by an offering, so we too may be purified by spiritual regeneration. “They brought him, according to the law of Moses, to Jerusalem, to present him before the Lord.” Where are those who deny the God of the law, who say that it was not this God but another who was proclaimed by Christ in the Gospel? “God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Are we to think, then, that the good God made his Son subject to the law of the Creator and to the jurisdiction of an enemy, a law which that enemy himself had given? Rather, he was made under the law precisely “to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal 4:4–5), and to make them subject to another law, of which we read a little while ago, “Attend, my people, to my law,” and the rest. So they brought him and set him before the Lord, fulfilling the precepts of what Scripture? Surely of that one: “As it is written,” it says, “in the law of Moses, that every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”; and three times a year every male shall appear before the Lord God. The males, which were holy because they had opened their mother’s womb, were offered before the altar of the Lord. “Every male,” it says, “that opens the womb.” This sounds like something sacred. For whatever male you speak of that comes forth from the womb, he does not open his mother’s womb as the Lord Jesus did, because in all women it is not the birth of an infant but intercourse with a man that opens the womb. But the womb of the Lord’s mother was opened at the time when the child was brought forth, because before the birth of Christ no male at all touched that holy womb, worthy of all reverence and honour. I dare to say something: that in what is written, “The Spirit of God will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35), there was the beginning of the seed and of the conception, and the new fetus grew in the womb without the womb being opened. Hence the Saviour also says: “I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people” (Ps 22:6). He saw in his mother’s womb the uncleanness of bodies; hemmed in on every side by her inward parts, he suffered the confinement of earthly dregs; hence he likens himself to a worm and says, “I am a worm and not a man.” For a man is usually born of male and female; but I was not born of male and female according to human custom and nature, but after the manner of a worm, whose seed comes from nowhere else, but whose origin is in, and from, the very bodies in which it grows. Because, then, “every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord,” he was brought to Jerusalem to appear before God, and on account of what follows: “to offer a sacrifice according to what is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” We see a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons offered for the Saviour. For my part, I think those birds blessed which were offered for the Lord’s birth; and as I marvel at Balaam’s ass and heap felicity upon it because it was found worthy not only to see the angel of God but also to open its mouth and break out into human speech, so much more do I proclaim and extol these birds, because they were offered for our Lord and Saviour. “To offer for him a pair or two young pigeons.” Perhaps I shall seem to bring forward something new, though little enough for his majesty. Just as the generation of the Saviour was new, not from a man and a woman but from the Virgin alone, so too the pair of turtledoves and the two young pigeons were not such as we behold with the eyes of the flesh, but such as the Holy Spirit is, who descended in the form of a dove and came upon the Saviour when he was baptized in the Jordan (Matt 3:16). Such too was the pair of turtledoves: they were not birds like those that fly through the air; something divine and more august than human contemplation appeared in the form of a dove and a turtledove, so that he who was being born for the whole world, and was to suffer, should not be cleansed before the Lord by such victims as all human beings are, but so that his dispensation, which was new in everything, might have new sacrifices also, according to the will of almighty God in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

On Simeon, that he came into the temple in the Spirit, up to the place where he says, “Now you are dismissing your servant, Lord, in peace.” Chapter 2. A reason worthy of God’s gift must be sought. Simeon, a holy man pleasing to the Lord, as is written in the Gospel, waiting for the consolation of Israel, had received an answer from the Holy Spirit that he would not meet death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. What did it profit him to see Christ? Did he have in the promise only this, to see him, and gain no benefit from seeing him? Or is there hidden some gift worthy of God which blessed Simeon both deserved and received? A woman touched the fringe of Jesus’ garment and was healed (Matt 9:20–22). If she gained so much benefit from the edge of his garment, what are we to think of Simeon, who took the infant into his arms and, holding him, rejoiced and was glad, seeing that he carried the little one who had come to set prisoners free and to free himself from the bonds of the body; knowing that no one can release anyone from the prison of the body with hope of the life to come except him whom he held in his arms? Hence he says to him: “Now you are dismissing, Lord, your servant in peace.” For as long as I did not hold Christ, as long as I did not clasp him in my arms, I was shut in and could not go out of my bonds. This is to be understood not only of Simeon but of the whole human race. If anyone is departing from the world, if anyone is being released from prison, the house of those in bonds, to go and reign, let him take Jesus in his hands and put his arms around him and hold him wholly in his embrace, and then he will be able to go rejoicing where he desires. Consider how great a dispensation went before, that Simeon might deserve to hold the Son of God. First he had received an answer from the Holy Spirit that he would not see death unless he had first seen the Lord’s Christ. Then he did not enter the temple by chance or for no reason, but came into the temple in the Spirit of God. For “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Rom 8:14). The Holy Spirit, then, led him into the temple. You too, if you wish to hold Jesus and embrace him with your hands and become worthy of going out of prison, strive with all labour to have the Spirit as your guide and to come to the temple of God. Behold, you now stand in the temple of the Lord Jesus, that is, in his church; this is the temple built of living stones. And you stand in the temple of the Lord when your life and conduct are most worthy of the name of church. If you come into the temple in the Spirit, you will find the child Jesus, you will lift him in your arms and say: “Now you are dismissing your servant, Lord, in peace, according to your word.” Notice at the same time that peace has been added to the release and dismissal. For he does not say, “I wish to be dismissed,” but, with an addition, to be dismissed “in peace.” The same was promised also to blessed Abraham: “But you shall go to your fathers in peace, nourished in a good old age” (Gen 15:15). Who is it that dies in peace, except one who has the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding and guards the heart of the one who possesses it? Who departs from this world in peace, except one who understands that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and has nothing hostile, nothing opposed to God, but has taken into himself all peace and concord through good works, and so is dismissed in peace to go to the holy fathers, to whom holy Abraham also went? Why do I speak of the fathers? He goes to Jesus himself, who is the prince and Lord of the patriarchs, of whom it is said: “It is better to depart and be with Christ” (Phil 1:23). He has Jesus who dares to say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). That we too, then, standing in the temple and holding the Son of God and embracing him, may be worthy of release and of departure to better things, let us pray to almighty God, and let us pray also to the child Jesus himself, whom we long to speak with and to hold in our arms; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

On the text: “His father and mother were marvelling at what was said about him,” up to the place where he says, “Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel.” Chapter 2. “And his father,” it says, “and his mother were marvelling at what was said about him.” Let us gather together what was said and written about him at the birth of Jesus, and we shall then be able to see that each item is worthy of wonder. That is why his father (for Joseph was so called, because he was his foster father) marvelled, and his mother marvelled, at all that was said about him. What, then, were the things that report had spread about the child Jesus? There were shepherds in that region, keeping watch and observing the watches of the night over their flock. At the very hour of Jesus’ birth an angel came and said to them: “I bring you news of great joy. Go, and you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger.” The angel had not yet finished speaking, and behold, a multitude of the heavenly host began to praise and bless God. When the shepherds had seen this in fear, and the angel had departed from them, they said to one another: “Let us go to Bethlehem and see what has come to pass, which the Lord has shown us.” They came and found the child. Both they and the parents, seeing what had happened, marvelled at it. And it is written of Simeon that he increased the report of the wonder, or rather was a great part of it: he held the child in his arms and said: “Now you are dismissing your servant, Lord, in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” The summit, and so to speak the crown, of the things that were being spread about Jesus, at which his father and mother marvelled, was the word of Simeon. For it was not enough for him to hold the child and to utter what is written of himself; he blessed the child’s father and mother, and prophesied also of the infant himself, saying: “Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that will be spoken against. And a sword will pierce through your own soul too, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” What does he mean by saying, “Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel”? I have found something like this written in the Gospel according to John: “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (John 9:39). As, then, he came for judgment, so that those of the nations who did not see might see, and those of Israel who saw before might become blind, so he came for the fall and rising of many. For at the coming of the Lord Saviour those who had stood before fell, and those who had fallen rose. This is one interpretation of the saying, “Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel.” But there is also something deeper to be understood, especially against those who bark against the Creator and, gathering here and there from the Old Testament testimonies they do not understand, deceive the hearts of the simple. For they say: Behold the God of the law and the prophets; see what sort of God he is: “I,” he says, “will kill, and I will make alive; I will strike, and I will heal; and there is none who can deliver out of my hands” (Deut 32:39). They hear “I will kill” and do not hear “I will make alive”; they hear “I will strike” and scorn to hear “and I will heal.” On such pretexts they slander the Creator. Therefore, before interpreting the sense of “I will kill and make alive, I will strike and heal,” I will set against them the testimony of the Gospel and speak against the heretics; for there are countless heresies that receive the Gospel according to Luke. If the Creator is bloodthirsty, and so savage and cruel, because he says, “I will kill and make alive, I will strike and heal,” then it is most plain that Jesus too is his Son; for the same things are written of him: “Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel.” Not only for rising, but also for fall. If it is evil to kill, let it be evil also to come for a fall. What will they answer? Will they withdraw from his worship, or will they seek some interpretation and flee to figurative readings, so that his coming for a fall sounds kindly rather than severe? And how will it be just, when something of this kind is found in the Gospel, to flee to allegories and new understandings, but when it is found in the Old Testament, to accuse at once and to accept no explanation, however probable? But even what follows, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind,” they will not be able to make good, however they try to expound it. But I, because I wish to be a man of the church, and to be called not by the name of some heresiarch but by the name of Christ, and to have the name which is blessed upon earth, and because I long both in deed and in understanding to be and to be called a Christian, seek the same kind of reasoning in the old law and in the new. God says, “I will kill”: I gladly accept that God should kill me. For while the old man is in me and I still live as a mere man, I long for God to kill the old man in me and to make me alive from the dead. For “the first man,” it says, “was from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor 15:47–49). In this sense also is understood the saying, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” All of us human beings have in us both sight and blindness. Adam both saw and did not see. Eve too is described as having seen before her eyes were opened. “The woman saw,” it says, “that the tree was good for food and very pleasing to the eyes to look at, and taking of the fruit of the tree she ate, and gave to her husband, and they ate” (Gen 3:6). So they were not blind, but saw. Then it follows: “And their eyes were opened.” So they whose eyes were afterwards opened had been blind and did not see. But they who had seen well before, after they transgressed the Lord’s command, began to see badly, and afterwards lost the sight of obedience, as the offence stole it away. So I understand also what God says: “Who made the mute and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Is it not I, the Lord God?” (Exod 4:11). There is an eye of the body, with which we behold these earthly things, an eye according to the mind of the flesh, of which Scripture says, “vainly puffed up by the mind of the flesh” (Col 2:18). Against it we have another, better eye, which perceives divine things; and because it was blind in us, Jesus came to make it see, so that those who did not see might see, and those who saw might become blind. In this sense, then, is to be understood also the text we now have in hand: “Behold, this one is set for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel.” I have something in me that stands badly, and the pride of sin lifts itself up: let this fall, let this be overthrown. And if it falls, what had fallen before will rise and stand. My inner man once lay crushed, and the outer man stood erect. Before I believed in Jesus, the good in me lay prostrate and the evil stood. After he came, the evil that was in me fell, and this was fulfilled: “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus” (2 Cor 4:10); and this: “Put to death your members which are on earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, lust, idolatry, sorceries” (Col 3:5), and the rest. The fall of all these has been a useful fall. And of this fall it is said: “Wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered” (Matt 24:28). For cadaver (“carcass”) takes its name from casus (“fall”). This is the one fall to which Jesus came first; nor can he bring about a rising unless a fall has gone before. He came first to destroy what was evil in me, so that, when that has been destroyed and put to death, what is good in me may rise and be made alive, and so that we may attain the kingdom of heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.