Homilies on Numbers 16.9–17.5

“It will not sleep until it devours the prey and drinks the blood of the wounded.” In these words who will be so contentious an advocate of the historical narrative, or rather who will be found so dull, as not to shudder at the sound of the letter and, by sheer necessity, flee for refuge to the sweetness of allegory? For how will this people, so praiseworthy, so magnificent, of which the word of God recounts such great praises, come to drink the blood of the wounded? when the eating of blood is forbidden by God with such strong commands that even we who have been called from the Gentiles are ordered, as a necessity, to abstain, as from things sacrificed to idols, so also from blood. Let them tell us, then, which is this people that is accustomed to drink blood. These were the words which, in the Gospel too, those of the Jews who were following the Lord heard and were scandalized, and said: “Who can eat flesh and drink blood?” But the Christian people, the faithful people, hears these things, and embraces them, and follows him who says: “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in yourselves; for my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink.” And certainly he who said this was wounded for men; for he “was wounded for our sins,” as Isaiah says. And we are said to drink the blood of Christ not only in the rite of the sacraments, but also when we receive his words, in which life consists, as he himself also says: “The words that I have spoken are spirit and life.” He himself, then, is the wounded one whose blood we drink, that is, we receive the words of his teaching. But no less were they also wounded who preached his word to us. For when we read their words, that is, the words of his apostles, and obtain life from them, we drink the blood of the wounded. “It will not sleep,” then, it says, “until it devours the prey.” For this people, which is compared to a lion’s whelp or a lion, will not rest or sleep until it seizes the prey, that is, until it seizes the kingdom of heaven; for “from the days of John the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize it.” And so that you may know more plainly that these things are written of our people, which is joined in covenant in the sacraments of Christ, hear how Moses elsewhere too declares similar things, saying: “Butter of cattle and milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs and rams, of sons of bulls and of goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and they will drink the blood of the grape as wine.” And here, then, the blood that is named “of the grape” belongs to that grape which grows from the vine of which the Saviour says: “I am the true vine, and the disciples are the branches. And the Father is the vinedresser,” who prunes them so that they may bear much fruit. You, then, are the true people Israel, who know how to drink blood, and know how to eat the flesh of the Word of God and drink his blood, and to drain the blood of that grape which is from the true vine and from those branches which the Father prunes. The fruit of these branches is rightly called the blood of the wounded, which we drink from their words and teaching, if only we rise up like lion’s whelps and exult like a lion. Let this, meanwhile, suffice as said about the second vision of Balaam. But let us pray the Lord that, for understanding the rest of what he prophesied, he may deign to open to us senses clearer and nearer the truth, so that, considering in the Holy Spirit the things written through the Spirit, and comparing spiritual things with spiritual, we may explain what is written in a manner worthy of God and of the Holy Spirit who inspired it, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is the glory and the dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

We now have in hand the third prophecy of those which the word of God uttered through Balaam, so that we may also discuss some things about it (as the Lord may grant). For that unhappy Balak, thinking that Balaam the diviner had lacked a suitable place for cursing rather than the will, and judging it more useful to change the place, says: “Come, and I will take you to another place, if it pleases God, and you will curse them for me from there.” And Balak took Balaam himself to the top of Mount Phogor, which stretches toward the desert. Those whom God calls he sets on the top of Mount Sinai; but this Balak, who is opposed to God, sets Balaam on the top of Mount Phogor. Phogor is interpreted “delight.” This Balak, then, sets men on the top of delight and lust. For he is a lover of pleasure rather than of God, and therefore he sets them on the summit and top of pleasure, in order to shut them out from God. For Balak is interpreted “shutting out” and “devouring.” That, finally, is why Phogor stretches toward the desert, that is, toward the things that are in the desert, affairs deserted by God. “And Balaam said to Balak: Build me seven altars here, and prepare for me here seven calves and seven rams. And Balak did as Balaam told him, and offered a calf and a ram on each altar.” The Apostle’s statement is plain, when he says: “For what the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.” And the prophet likewise says: “They sacrificed to demons and not to God.” Yet since the law of God also gives commands about sacrifices and hands down to the sons of Israel the rite of sacrificing, it may perhaps be asked why these things, which seem dedicated to demons, are also commanded to be offered to God. And there will indeed be a simple and quick answer: just as we showed elsewhere that the giving of a bill of divorce was not the will of God, who did not want what he had joined to be separated, but Moses wrote this specifically because of the hardness of heart of the Jews, so too it may seem to be with this. For God, as he says through another prophet, does not eat the flesh of bulls nor drink the blood of goats. And again, as is written elsewhere: “I did not command you concerning sacrifices or victims on the day when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.” But Moses commanded these things to them because of the hardness of their heart, on account of the very bad habit with which they had been imbued in Egypt, so that those who could not keep themselves from sacrificing should at least sacrifice to God and not to demons. Yet we must consider whether there is perhaps also some more hidden and secret reason for sacrificing to God. Whether, I say, the sacrifices offered to God may be made for the destruction of those sacrifices which are offered to demons: so that, since souls are wounded through the latter, they may be healed through the former; just as those also affirm who are skilled in medicine. For they say that the venoms of serpents are driven out by remedies made, no less, from serpents. So too the poison of demonic sacrifices is driven out by sacrifices offered to God, just as the death of Jesus does not allow the death of sin to have dominion over believers. And indeed, while the time allowed, sacrifices were set against sacrifices; but when the perfect victim came, the spotless lamb who was to take away the sin of the whole world, those sacrifices which were offered one by one to God seemed now superfluous, since by one victim all worship of demons was driven away. But this Balaam, whether according to the purpose of his heart, which he had not amended, or according to that figure in which we said he plays the part of the teachers and Pharisees of the unbelieving people, still renews victims and orders sacrifices to be prepared. For in these those whose heart does not receive faith in Christ place all their hope.

But what follows? “And Balaam, seeing,” it says, “that it is good in the sight of the Lord to bless Israel, did not go as usual to meet the auspices, but turned his face toward the desert; and Balaam, lifting up his eyes, sees Israel encamped by tribes, and the Spirit of God came upon him, and taking up his parable he said.” It may perhaps be asked from what Balaam saw that it is good in the sight of the Lord to bless Israel, and it will be thought that he understood it from the sacrifices which he had offered. For when he saw that no demon was present, that no opposing power dared to attend his victims, that all the ministers of wickedness whom he used to employ for cursing were shut out, he could have understood from this that it was good in the sight of the Lord to bless Israel. I, however, understand it rather thus: that that people which is now vain, and those teachers who, not believing in Christ, hold the people in vanity, will at some time see, that is, in the last days, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and all Israel begins to come to faith in Christ; those, I say, who now having eyes do not see, will then see. For they will lift up their eyes to higher and spiritual senses, and will see and understand that it is good in the sight of the Lord to bless the spiritual Israel. For they will see him arranged by tribes, by houses, and by families, and each one, in his own order, about to obtain the glory of the resurrection; and taking up their parable they will understand what is written in parables, which now, because of the veil that is laid over their heart, they neither see nor understand. Then: “He did not go,” it says, “as usual to meet the auspices.” For he will not, as was his habit, be carried away by foolish and soulless senses, considering the will of God from dumb animals and cattle, like those who gather auspices from such things; but he too will recognize that God does not care about oxen, nor likewise about birds or other animals, but will understand that if anything is written about them, it was written for the sake of men.

But let us now see what it is that Balaam utters in the third prophecy. “Balaam son of Beor said,” it says, “the man who truly sees said; he said, hearing the words of the mighty one, who saw the vision of God in sleep, his eyes uncovered.” It is truly astonishing how Balaam is held worthy of such great praise, he who, taking up his parable, pronounces these things about himself. For how Balaam can be a man who truly sees, he who gave himself to divination and auguries, who even pursued magic, as we showed above, is very hard to say; unless perhaps, because it was said above that the Spirit of God came upon him and that the word of God was placed in his mouth, it is thought that such great praises were written of him for that reason. For neither Moses nor any other of the prophets will easily be found lifted up with such praises. Hence it seems to me rather that these things fit that people at the time when, having now turned to the Lord, it has put away the veil that was over its heart. “The Lord is the Spirit.” That, finally, is why he says, “his eyes uncovered,” as of one whose eyes had until now been closed, and now through the Spirit of God, who has come upon him, are uncovered with the veil taken away. Now, then, is when he truly sees, and truly hears the words of the mighty one, and sees the vision of God in sleep: that is, he will see fulfilled the times which were marked out in the prophecy of Daniel in his dreams, and he will see those visions which were brought to him in sleep: that is, he will understand and recognize them with uncovered eyes. For he will become like those who said: “But we all, with uncovered face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.” I should like, however, to ask what these eyes of his are which are said to be uncovered: whether perhaps they are the ones which in other places of Scripture, as we read in certain copies, are called eyes of the earth, and the thing Paul calls the mind of the flesh when he says of someone, “Vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh.” Of these eyes, I believe, the serpent too spoke to Eve, saying that the Lord knew that on whatever day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. And a little later: “And they ate,” it says, “and their eyes were opened.” For unless there were differences of eyes, and some were the ones that would be opened through transgression, and others those with which Adam and Eve saw before these were opened, Scripture would certainly never have said, while their eyes, those opened through transgression, were not yet opened: “And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and pleasing to the eyes to see, and beautiful to look at; and taking of the tree she ate, and gave to her husband with her, and they ate, and the eyes of both were opened.” For if the eyes of both had not yet been opened, how did the woman see that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eyes to see? And with what eyes is it said to have been beautiful to look at? But I, hearing the voice of my Lord Jesus Christ and understanding the power of his goodness, take what he says, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind,” in this way: that in sinners it is not those better eyes that see, but those that are called the mind of the flesh and were opened by the serpent’s counsel. It is, then, the magnificent work of our Saviour and Lord that those who do not see what is good with the better eyes, but look at what is evil with those that were opened by the serpent’s counsel, should become blind; and that those who were blind in the eyes which the serpent’s persuasion opened should see the good things of the Lord with these eyes which Jesus our Saviour came to open. For unless the sight of evil things is first closed, the view of good things will not lie open. So I also take in this way that saying of the good God: “Who made the seeing and the blind?” seeing, that is, according to Christ, but blind according to the counsel of the serpent. We have recalled these things so that it might shine out more clearly which are the eyes that are closed and which are the eyes that are uncovered; and at the same time so that from this may be understood what is written in the prophet: “Seeing you will see, and you will not see,” that we may know with which eyes they see, and with which, while seeing, they do not see. It appears, then, that this Balaam too, because his eyes had been uncovered, says of himself “the man who truly sees,” and says, “he said, hearing the words of the mighty one.” For in the same order in which some eyes are closed and others opened, so too some ears are understood to be closed and others to be opened. But if anyone wishes to take these things as said also according to the literal account, he can say that in Balaam’s seeing that it is good in the sight of the Lord to bless Israel, his eyes are shown to have been uncovered and he became a man who truly sees. For he truly saw what was to happen concerning Israel or Jacob. And he says that he heard the words of the mighty one when God came to him and said in sleep, “The word that I put in your mouth, take care to speak it”; and this was the vision of God which he saw in sleep; and through this he asserts that his eyes were uncovered, because he was able to see what he saw. So much for what Balaam in his preface appeared to prophesy about himself.

Now let us see what he says in what follows: “How good,” it says, “are your houses, Jacob, your tents, Israel! Like shady groves, like gardens by rivers, and like tents which the Lord has pitched, like cedars beside the waters.” When he speaks of the good houses of Jacob, I do not think he is praising their earthly dwellings, for nothing of that sort is recorded among them beyond the other nations. But let us consider whether perhaps, since the people was divided by tribes, and each tribe by clans, and again the clans by kindreds, and the kindreds by households of families, and again the households of families were numbered by the count of names and by heads, that is, every male from twenty years old and upward who could go out to war, Balaam, beholding these households in the spirit, magnifies and extols them. But in these things the meaning is not to be looked at in the letter alone, since what Balaam speaks he speaks having taken up his parable. In parables, then, let us too hear what is said. For if you consider those divisions and orders of peoples which there will be in the resurrection in the people of the true Israel, when each one will rise in his own order; if you can behold those tribes and clans and kindreds, in which the kinship is not so much of flesh and blood as of mind and soul, then you will understand how good are the houses of Jacob and how good the tents of Israel. And if you ask also about the differences between houses and tents, and the difference between Jacob and Israel, a certain distinction of this sort must be made here too. A house is a thing founded and stable, and enclosed by fixed boundaries. Tents, however, are the dwellings of those who are always on the road and always walking, and have not found the end of their journey. Jacob, then, is to be taken as standing for those who are perfect in deeds and in work; but by Israel are to be understood those who pursue wisdom and knowledge. Since, then, the exercises of works and deeds are closed by a fixed end (for the perfection of works is not without end), when someone has fulfilled all that he ought to do and has come to the end of the perfection of works, the very perfection of his works will be called his good house. But for those who give themselves to wisdom and knowledge, since there is no end (for what limit will there be to the wisdom of God? where the nearer one has come, the deeper things he will find, and the more he has searched, the more ineffable and incomprehensible he will find them, for the wisdom of God is incomprehensible and inestimable), therefore of those who walk the road of God’s wisdom he does not praise the houses, for they have not come to the end, but he admires the tents in which they always walk and always advance; and the more they advance, the more the road of advancing grows for them and stretches out without measure. And so, beholding these very advances of theirs through the Spirit, he calls them the tents of Israel. And truly, if anyone has made some advances in knowledge and has gained some experience in such things, he certainly knows that when one has arrived at some contemplation and recognition of spiritual mysteries, there the soul lingers as in a kind of tent. But when, from what it has found, it searches out other things again and advances to other understandings, then, as if the tent were struck, it moves on to higher things and there sets the seat of the mind, fixed by the firmness of its perceptions; and from there again, out of these very things, it finds other spiritual senses, which the sequence of the earlier senses has without doubt opened up; and so, always stretching forward to what lies ahead, it seems to advance by a kind of tents. For there is never a time when the soul, kindled by the spark of knowledge, can be idle and rest; but it is always called on from good things to better, and again from better to higher. This road of God’s wisdom, then, he described pleasingly enough and with much beauty, saying: “Like shady groves, and like gardens by rivers, and like tents which the Lord has pitched, like cedars beside the waters.” For those who walk this road walk through shady groves. For the shady groves for them are the whole company of the righteous and the choir of the holy prophets. For under the shade of the meanings which they find written in them, their souls are refreshed, and in their teachings they delight as if walking through the shade of groves; and they are found like gardens by rivers. For these gardens by rivers are like and akin to that garden in which the tree of life is. By the rivers we can understand either the Scriptures of the Gospels and the Apostles, or also the help of angels or of heavenly powers toward souls of this kind: for by them they are watered and flooded and nourished toward all knowledge and recognition of heavenly things; although our Saviour too is the river that gladdens the city of God; and the Holy Spirit is not only himself a river, but also for those to whom he has been given, rivers flow from their belly; and God the Father says: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of the water of life,” the fountain, namely, from which these rivers proceed. Flooded by these rivers, then, the tents of Israel become tents like those which the Lord pitched. But the attentive hearer may perhaps be moved by the fact that the present passage mentions two kinds of tents. For it says: “How good are your houses, Jacob, your tents, Israel! Like shady groves, and like gardens by rivers.” And again it compares tents with tents and says: “And like tents which the Lord has pitched.” After those which we set out above, then, another explanation can also be received, so that we say that the houses of Jacob are the law and the tents of Israel the prophets. For he praises not Jacob himself but his houses, nor Israel himself but his tents; and he praises them when his eyes have been uncovered. For as long as the veil is laid over the reading of the law and the prophets, the tents do not seem good, nor the houses admirable. But when the veil has been taken away, and the law begins to be understood as spiritual, and the prophets likewise, then the houses of Jacob will be good and admirable, then the tents of Israel will be wonderful, when, with the letter that kills removed, you begin to receive from them the life-giving spirit. It can be understood in yet another way, so that the bodies and souls together of this believing and perfect people, which has been gathered to Christ from the Gentiles, seem to be praised; and the house of Jacob is said of the bodies, as is also read in a certain little book, that Jacob is the house of Israel: that is, his body is called Jacob, and his soul Israel. Similarly, then, the bodies of all the perfect may be called praiseworthy houses. For Jacob is a praiseworthy body when it is adorned with continence and chastity, and sometimes also with martyrdom. But the tents can be referred to perfect souls, to which the name Israel, from seeing God, is fitting. And these tents, it says, are like shady groves, and like gardens by rivers, and like tents which God has pitched. It shows, then, that there are other tents which the Lord has pitched, which the tents of Israel resemble. It is fitting for me to go a little further, to see what the tents are which the Lord pitched. They are, no doubt, those which he showed Moses when he was making the tabernacle in the desert, saying to him: “See,” it says, “that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.” In imitation, then, of these tents which the Lord pitched, Israel is commanded to make tents, and each one of us to make ready and build his own tent. Hence it seems to me not to have happened by chance that Peter and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee were found to be fishermen by trade, but Paul a tentmaker by trade. And since they, called from the trade of catching fish, are changed and become fishers of men, as the Lord says, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men,” there is no doubt that Paul too, since he too was called an apostle by our Lord Jesus Christ, was changed by a like transformation of his trade: so that, just as they from fishers of fish became fishers of men, so he was transferred from making earthly tents to building heavenly tents. For he builds heavenly tents by teaching each one the way of salvation and showing the road to the blessed dwellings in the heavens. Paul makes tents also when, from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum, he fills up the gospel of God by building churches: and in this way he too makes tents in the likeness of the heavenly tents which God showed to Moses on the mountain. But each one of us too, if indeed anyone has come out of Egypt and dwells in the desert, ought to dwell in a tent and keep the feast in tents. For just as the remembrance of the departure from Egypt is made through the Passover and the unleavened bread, so the remembrance of the time in the desert is made through the tents. For our fathers dwelt in tents in the desert. And from what should these tents be made, if not from the words of the law and the prophets, from the sayings of the Psalms, and of all that is contained in the law? For when the soul advances from the things that are written, and, always forgetting what lies behind, stretches out to what lies ahead, and, going forward from a lower place, grows and advances to higher things, it will rightly be said to dwell in tents, from the increase of virtues and from the very change of its advances. See, too, whether those are not also tents which God has pitched which the Saviour mentions in the Gospel, saying: “Make friends for yourselves by the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when you fail they may receive you into the eternal tents.” They are said to be pitched by God as being such as are not carried about by every wind of doctrine. And these tents are also like cedars beside the waters. He does not here mean those cedars in which culpable pride is marked, but the cedars of God, which receive the branches of that vine which was transplanted out of Egypt, and on which rests that fruit whose shadow covered the mountains. If you have understood how much rest the road of wisdom holds, how much grace, how much sweetness, do not pretend otherwise, do not neglect it, but set out on this road, and do not shudder at the loneliness of the desert. For as you dwell in such tents, the heavenly manna will come to meet you, and you will eat the bread of angels. Only begin, and do not let the loneliness of the desert, as we said, terrify you. Soon the angels too will come into your company, whom I think are indicated in this place under the figure of the cedars.

But now let us see what he also prophesies about Christ. For it is he of whom he says: “A man will come forth from his seed and will rule over many nations, and his kingdom will be exalted above Gog, and his kingdom will grow. God led him out of Egypt like the glory of the unicorn.” It is Christ, then, who came forth from the seed of Israel according to the flesh; how he rules the nations needs no explanation, especially for one who reads what was said to him by the Father: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.” But what is it that he says, “his kingdom will be exalted above Gog”? Gog is interpreted “upon the roofs”; and in this place it is not put as the name of some nation, as is thought, but, as in several other places, the Hebrew word itself has been left untranslated, and for this reason it seems to be said as if of some nation. The sequence of the words, then, is this: “and his kingdom will be exalted upon the roofs, and his kingdom will grow.” Being exalted upon the roofs is said of the perfection of believers; growing refers to multitudes. In those, then, who are perfect, the kingdom of Christ is exalted upon the roofs, that is, even above those who are on high and dwell in the higher places. For there are perhaps some even in the heavenly places beyond whom those who are in the kingdom of Christ may advance further and be exalted higher. And for this reason too, I believe, the Saviour himself said: “Let him who is on the roof not come down to take anything from the house,” warning that those who have come to lofty perfection should not again come down to the low and abject things of this world, which is now called a house. And that other saying, “What you have heard in the ear, preach upon the roofs,” looks no less to this. So, then, his kingdom is exalted above Gog, and his kingdom grows. For it grows while the churches are multiplied and the number of the faithful is increased; and the kingdom of Christ grows until the Father puts all his enemies under his feet, and destroys also the last enemy, death.