Tractates 2.13.1–2.17.3

Truly, dearest brothers, his heart does not sleep who knows the dream and secrets of this man: for prophecy always speaks with varying figures; but one thing is found in all. So Jacob bears the image of Christ; and so too does the stone which he is known to have placed at his head, since the head of man is Christ, who is sometimes called a stone. The ladder signifies the two Testaments, which, woven with the precepts of the Gospel, have been accustomed to raise believing people who do God's will into heaven as if by certain steps of observance. This John in the Apocalypse called the two-edged sword with one hilt, which he described as coming out of the Lord's mouth. For the sword is the Holy Spirit, having one hilt, that is, one substance, power, deity, majesty and will of the Father and the Son; bearing two edges, that is, carrying the two Testaments; by whose royal admonitions the credulous and devout are kept, and the unbelieving and deserters punished. Isaiah saw this in the form of tongs, by which, he prophesied, a coal was taken from God's altar by one of the Seraphim to refine his unclean lips. For by the unclean lips we must understand the two peoples, of the Jews and the Gentiles: since they were defiled by the crimes of their former life, one by blaspheming and persecuting Christ, the other by asserting gods and worshipping abominable fictions, by the touch of the coal they are known to have been fused into one people through the confession of Christ's name. For fusing signifies both purity and unity: for the coal is the word of God, the altar the law, the tongs the two Testaments, which hold the believers and cut the unbelievers.

But David too called this a pen, saying: 'My tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly.' A pen is split, brothers, and bears two points arranged in the fineness of one tip, making one letter with both; if you take away one, its use is thereafter empty. Hence rightly there are two Testaments, which likewise with two heads trace one letter, that is, by the two edicts of the sacred law they write one Christ, the Son of God, with spiritual blending. They cannot be useful without each other, because as the new gives faith to the old, so the old bears witness to the new, as it is written: 'Once the Lord has spoken, and we have heard these two things.' And the Lord himself in the Gospel expresses this reasoning, saying to Peter: 'Cast a hook into the sea, and take the first fish that comes up, and opening its mouth you will find two denarii; give them for me and for you.' By the first fish rising from the dead we must understand Christ, from whose mouth two denarii, that is, the two Testaments, were brought forth, which have benefited two peoples for salvation, with the glory of the Lord and the happiness of Peter, on whom he built the church. That the sea signified the world is not doubtful. The hook means preaching, because as a hook cast into the sea shows the death of the fish, so the Gospel preaching sent through the world testifies to the Lord's death and coming, as it is written to the Corinthians: 'You will proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.' 'You will open the mouth of the fish,' that is, the sacrament; or, 'what I have spoken in proverbs, you will explain to those who do not understand.' In short, elsewhere he says this more plainly to all the disciples: 'Go therefore and teach all nations, dipping them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you.' 'You will give for me and for you,' that is, you will preach my cross, and you too will rejoice likewise in the dignity of your own cross.

Of what material this ladder was, on which the Lord leaned, we learn from David's saying: 'Your rod and your staff, they have comforted me.' The rod and staff are surely the two Testaments, which are compared to the material of wood either because in its use the testator's will remains written perpetually and wholly, or because, running together as if crosswise into one faith, they announced that the Son of God was to be crucified; and they confirm that he was most rightly placed on the ladder, because the history of the whole of Scripture was fulfilled both for him and by him as author. In short, he says thus to the disciples: 'Every scribe learned in the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasures new things and old.' The scribe, brothers, is the preacher; the householder Christ; his treasures the Father's substance of undiminished deity and the Father's will; the new and the old the two Testaments, which you see were rightly clothed by the Lord here too without ambiguity in the figure of two denarii, for this reason, that he wished the two Testaments to be understood in his treasures by newness and oldness as two denarii. These two denarii the Lord recalls were given by the Samaritan to the innkeeper for the man who had suffered the robbers' assault; and this parable, removing all doubt, laid open the sacrament of the ladder to those who look spiritually: for the man who suffered the assault is known to be Adam, the robbers the devil, Eve lust, the Samaritan the Lord, to whom the Jews said: 'This man is a Samaritan and has a demon.' The innkeeper is the teacher of the law, who, having received two denarii, that is, the saving admonitions of the two Testaments, receives in the inn, that is, in the church, into which the divine flocks come, by the venerable sacrament, the man who suffered the robbery of the devil and his angels and this world, and cures him with the daily medicines of preaching.

As for his saying 'angels ascending and descending', some think the ascending are angels of light, the descending angels of darkness. But I notice, dearest brothers, that this is quite absurd and unfitting; because neither do the fugitives descend, who are known never to have been received into heaven after their sin, nor do the angels of light ascend, because they never remained on earth but always in heaven. Hence I think that men are rightly called angels, to whom the Lord says through the Holy Spirit: 'I said: You are gods, and all sons of the Most High; but you will die like men.' And we remember it was said thus of John the Baptist: 'Behold, I send my angel before your face, who will prepare your way.' So it is plain that in the manner of prophecy just and unjust men are generally called angels. But who the ascending and descending are, we recognise from examples. The descending are those who, renouncing the world, turn back again to the world, of whom the Lord says: 'No one who looks back and puts his hand on the plough is fit for the kingdom of God.' And again: 'Remember Lot's wife.' And the Apostle thus: 'How do you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements?' The ascending are the just, who with upright conduct are carried daily into heaven by the steps of the observance of the divine precepts in the glory of the spiritual journey, whom the apostle Paul exhorts and shows, saying: 'If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.' We can also understand this, brothers, as said of the ministers and angels whom we find to have served the Lord when he was on earth, as he himself says: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man'; as indeed happened, as the Evangelist says: 'Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.' Hence there is no doubt that the way to the airy summit is one for the angels of light and for just men.

All these things, then, combined, are brought together into the sum of one fruit, since all of them, though known to be twin, yet flow from one root. The Testaments are two, but the testator is one. The writing reed is divided, but the pen is one. The tongs extend into two blades, but their bite is one. The sword bears two edges, but they are the sides of one body. The denarii are two, but stamped with one coin. The ladder has two shafts and many steps, but its ascent is one. And its steps, dearest brothers, if you wish to know what they are called, hear: conversion, hearing, understanding, belief, fear, wisdom, sobriety, gentleness, temperance, chastity, devotion, love, faith, truth, humility, grace, honour, modesty, patience, perseverance, completion. The names of the shafts are the two Testaments. But the ladder by its proper name is called the cross, because through it the Lord Jesus Christ, accomplishing and concluding all the mysteries, brought Adam back to the Father and opened the way to heaven for all who follow him.

Judah had three sons, Er, Onan and Shelah. He took a woman named Tamar as wife for his eldest son. When this son behaved wickedly before the Lord, as Scripture testifies, he is said to have been killed by God. Judah commands the second to go in to his brother's wife according to custom and raise up seed for his brother; and he went in and spilled his seed on the ground. When this too seemed wicked to God, he condemned him to the same death. But Judah excuses the union of the third son with his daughter-in-law because of his age, frightened lest he too should likewise die, and he instructed the woman to remain a widow in her father's house and wait for a timely marriage. When things stood so, his wife dies. When, comforted, he was going to shear his sheep, and this was reported to Tamar, who had seen that Shelah was grown up and yet she had not been married to him, she puts off her widow's garment, puts on summer clothes, arranges herself handsomely, and places herself where Judah was going to pass. But he, seeing the woman, thinks her a harlot, she who showed the integrity of her modesty by veiling her face. He propositions her, asks to go in, promises to send her a kid. But she asks for a pledge of the promise, more content with it than with the reward. And she received from him his necklace, ring and staff. Then, the business done, marked by conception, she again put on the widow's garment, which true harlots hate and always avoid. Meanwhile, as agreed, the kid is sent, the harlot is sought, and the inhabitants report that none was ever there. But with the passing of time our Tamar's womb advances too. See a truly wonderful mystery. She who had hidden her face does not hide her belly. The pregnant widow is reported as guilty of fornication without the trouble of an accuser. Her father-in-law is angry and orders her to be brought out and burned. But she stands firm, she who had procured the business not for unchastity but for the future in herself, and says she owes the conception to the man whose necklace, ring and staff she held. When this was recognised, Judah not only restrained himself from her but also declared her righteous.

Judah, as far as can be understood, was partly the type of the prophets, partly of the patriarchs and fathers, who because of the justice of God counted all men as sons. So Er, the firstborn son, is the first people, that is, the demigods, all the most powerful men and kings, who, fighting with ferocity of strength and rage of lust, had corrupted the whole world, decreeing besides temples for themselves instead of houses, raising altars to their own name, not knowing what tombs they would have, promising themselves heaven, at whose deeds, if it could, the earth itself would blush; finally asserting that they were gods against God: they whom men of sound mind judged not worthy even of the name of men. For these reasons they were not only destroyed by God but also destined to perpetual penal punishment.

Onan, the second brother, is the Jewish people, who is commanded to raise up seed for his brother, not of course that which was seen rightly condemned by God, but so that he might rouse the remaining nations, which the poisons of idolatry, which we mentioned, scattered abroad, had consumed, to the worship of God by examples of good life and religious exhortations from the sacred law. But he spilled his seed on the ground. The seed signifies not that of the creature but of the heart. For the seed of the heart is the word of God, as the Lord says according to Luke (this is the parable): 'The seed is the word of God ... Those along the way are those who hear the word, and the devil comes and takes the word from their heart, lest believing they be saved.' The ground signifies man and the idol, because God formed man from the earth, and man made the idol from the earth. So he spilled his seed on the ground, that is, he neglected God's commandments and poured them out on idols: for which he too likewise received from God the present sentence of condemnation, because as he is detestable who, being a man, makes himself out a god, so he is more detestable who worships a god whom he has himself arranged.

Shelah, the third and youngest of the brothers mentioned, painted the image of the new people coming from the Gentiles; Tamar that of the church, who was rightly not married to him, because, reborn in her bosom by the spiritual water of baptism when Christ came, he was to be the church's son, not her husband. Judah loses his wife, that is, the faith of the synagogue dies. When it says 'he was comforted', it is certainly understood by the hope of Christ's coming, who not only gave comfort to the prophets desolate at the synagogue's fall, but has also been accustomed to refresh all of us placed in any distress. He goes to shear his sheep, that is, he asks of just men the fruits of good works. Hearing this, Tamar, being in her father's house, that is, in the temples and the infamous places of all the shows (for the father of all who live corruptly is designated as the devil, as the Lord rebukes the Jews thus: 'You are of your father the devil, and you want to do your father's desires'), laid aside her widow's garment, that is, cast off the filthy rites of a filthy religion. She puts on summer clothes. Summer clothing, brothers, is both clean and well fitted, with which work can easily be done and the heat of summer endured, that is, of temptation; and it cannot be doubted that this is belief: because whoever has it must live unencumbered and clean. Then, so as not to be recognised, she necessarily covers her face with a veil, because Christ, the champion of her modesty, had not yet come. She is not recognised by her father-in-law: for the prophets had been sent to the Jews, not to the Gentiles. He rightly thinks her a harlot, because she served the people of the gods. He desires to come together with her, because the Gentiles rather than the Jews were to believe the prophecy, as the Lord says: 'Amen I say to you, the tax collectors and harlots will go before you into the kingdom of God.' He promises her a kid, that is, he shows what the wages of sin are for the sinner. This she avoided receiving, because in the time to come he who has received the pledge of the Trinity is counted among the lambs, not among the kids. In short, she is described as asking for and receiving the necklace, the ring, the staff. To what is this meaning fitted? The necklace, dearest brothers, is the law, which has been accustomed to adorn with saving admonitions (monita), with diverse virtues and diverse gifts, not the necks but the hearts of all believers. The staff through its wood announced the sacrament of the Lord's passion, as a plain example declares, which is found thus in the book of Psalms: 'Your rod and your staff, they have comforted me. You have prepared a table before me against those who trouble me. You have anointed my head with oil, and your cup that inebriates, how excellent it is!' Surely, brothers, the cup signifies the blood, the table the body, the oil the gift of the Holy Spirit, the rod with the staff the cross, on which God deigned to hang for man, so as to change into God the man he had put on. The ring too is the seal of faith, which is Christ, by the shining of whose majesty we are impressed and sealed, by which, living sincerely for the safekeeping of our salvation, we reproduce through the Holy Spirit the image we hold. That he came together with her signified the sacrament of the holy communion of the faithful. Tamar conceived in her womb, the church conceived in her heart: the one by seed, the other by the word. A kid is sent to her, the sign of temptation: for whoever follows justice must be tested. In short, the harlot was sought and not found; because he who is reborn through water and the Holy Spirit ceases to be what he was and begins to be what he was not. It follows that she again put on the widow's garment, not of course to do what she had done, but to lament having done what she had done; for otherwise no one can be saved, however just, unless, making confession, he both extinguishes his present sins and repels future ones. Tamar is accused of having conceived from fornication. And the church, as if an adulteress against the law, is accused by the elders of the Jews of breaking the sabbath and casting off their traditions. Tamar brought out the necklace, the ring, the staff, and freed herself from the threatening punishment by the sacrament of the number. The church, by the truth itself in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not only extinguishes the present fires of the devil but will also overcome the burnings of the future day of judgment. The one went away justified; the other, glorified by the increase of the true number and of faith, will remain with Christ for eternal ages, through our Lord and preserver Jesus Christ, who is blessed with the Father and the Holy Spirit before the ages and in the ages and for all ages of ages. Amen.

The narrative of sacred history, dearest brothers, has been handed down to us to be read for this purpose, that we may imitate the conduct of our ancestors, if possible, at least in some part, if we cannot imitate their virtues: for they lived with such uprightness that it is part of happiness to know what they did. So Job was a just and truthful man, set apart from all the lusts of this world, clear in his way of life, clearer in mind, so circumspect and irreproachable that he was praised by God's testimony. Hence not undeservedly the blessed man enjoyed a blessed life. For he had a most splendid house, a rich estate; a rich number of children too, and (what is pleasing to parents) of both sexes, and loving one another; for whose number he offered daily sacrifices to God. And he was fortified by so great a wall of purity and faith that the devil did not dare attack him without God's permission. Now consider, brothers, how he raged when roused, who cannot be borne when gentle. So a famous battle is joined. On one side the devil, thundering horribly with all his arms, and rousing his servants besides to help, sounding the terrible trumpet, the hearts of robbers set alight with a furious torch, with frequent assaults invades everywhere all the resources of the man of God: suddenly by robbery, fire and sword he destroys everything in one moment. On the other side Job, strong with a deep root of faith, is battered by so many mournful messages, and is not moved; but only blesses God, and keeps his resources by despising them. But when the devil recognises that he has gained nothing by such great assaults, he pours out all the rage of his impiety on his children. For when they were feasting together as usual in one house, suddenly, its four corners shaken with all his force, he buries that most holy band of brothers under a confused mass, as walls and roofs collapse, before he slays them; and the destruction devised by impiety is such that, in that crowd of a single funeral, a father's grief was not enough for the bereavement, not knowing whom to mourn first, whom to find first, to whom first to pay the dues of a cruel funeral. On receiving this message the servant of God tore his garments, not to stir up envy against God, but to fight the enemy unencumbered. In short, he despised the rich man in his lost resources; he concealed the father in his lost children, the just man in the punishment of his body. For struck by the enemy's blow from the top of his head to the lowest nails of his feet, he was not spotted with crowded ulcers, but became wholly one wound. Yet in all these things he says nothing wicked against God. He does not yield to his wife urging what is unlawful; he does not give way to friends insulting him; but, victor over cruelty and impiety, he sits on a stinking dunghill swarming with worms, as if he had suffered nothing, content with the fear of God alone. O happy man! who by wonderful patience deserved God's favour, conquered the devil, recovered his health, and did not lose but changed his resources and his children.

Job, as far as can be understood, dearest brothers, bore the image of Christ. Let the comparison bring in the truth. Job was called just by God. The Lord is justice itself, from whose fountain all who are blessed drink: for see, it was said of him: 'The sun of justice will rise for you.' Job was called truthful. But the Lord is the true truth, who says in the Gospel: 'I am the way and the truth.' Job was rich. And what is richer than the Lord? Whose servants all the rich are; whose is the whole world and all nature, as most blessed David says: 'The earth is the Lord's and its fullness, the world and all who dwell in it.' The devil tempted Job three times. Likewise, as the Evangelist reports, he tried to tempt the Lord three times. Job lost the resources he had. And the Lord neglected his heavenly goods for love of us and made himself poor, to make us rich. The raging devil killed Job's children. And the mad Pharisee people killed the Lord's children, the prophets. Job was spotted with ulcers. And the Lord, by taking flesh, was soiled with the filth of the sins of the whole human race. Job's wife urges him to sin. And the synagogue presses the Lord to follow the corruption of the elders. Job's friends are said to have insulted him. And the Lord's own priests, his own worshippers insulted him. Job sits on a dunghill full of worms. The Lord too lived on a true dunghill, that is, in the mire of this world, among men seething with various crimes and lusts, who are the true worms. Job recovered both health and resources. But the Lord, rising, gave not health only but immortality to those who believe in him, and recovered dominion over all nature, as he himself testified, saying: 'All things have been handed over to me by my Father.' Job begot children in place of his children. The Lord too after the prophets begot holy sons, the apostles. Job rested blessed in peace. But the Lord remains blessed for ever, before the ages and from the ages and for all ages of ages.

Whenever in this perverse age manifold snares are laid against praiseworthy men, and factious lawsuits arise with various kinds of slander, whatever a pestilent man may devise, or the devil may contrive, let the just man not fear, because God is with him. Hence Susanna, the illustrious Hebrew woman, taught women the beauty of true chastity by the example of her own purity. Susanna stood in the court of the wicked, oppressed by the lies of false witnesses, yet content with the good secrets of her conscience, not so much to receive a sentence as guilty, as, dedicated to God, to die bravely for chastity; and her whom the perverse sentence of the judges had thrown down, the integrity of her illustrious conscience raised up. So for chastity conscience is enough; God is witness. Chastity did not look to what the false witnesses said, or how the deceived judges condemned, or how the devil defamed, who could not overturn the foundations of modesty. Not an adulterous body went to punishment, a body in which the old men's last lust had blazed up, but one which the devil had defamed, virtue had protected, and unharmed modesty adorned. Then the Holy Spirit, entering the holy boy Daniel, said, as she was being led to punishment: 'Return to the court: for these men have borne false witness against her.' The people are astonished that a condemned woman is called back from punishment to a renewed trial. Fear seizes the false witnesses. The devil trembles that his inventions are stripped bare. The angels rejoice that oppressed truth is at last defended on earth. The husband triumphs that he has found his wife chaste. The whole household rejoices that rumour finds nothing in her to strike. The devil is tormented that he has accomplished his will in no part: for he neither carried out the adultery he defamed her with, nor found the murder he was procuring.

It is the religious confession of human devotion to know of God what is lawful: for as his testimonies are to be searched out in a simple heart, so his secrets are not to be inquired into with curiosity. For who can know the causes and natures of this heaven and of the higher things? Who can falsely claim that he can discuss the bodily emptiness of this air, as some think? Who would presume to know that the earth is carried by water, or that water is contained in the bosom of the earth? Who will boast that he has grasped the airy spirits, the shapes of the winds, the swellings of rivers among the tides of the sea, in short the workmanship of the Lord and the counsel of God? since the Apostle says: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unspeakable are his judgments and how untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?' For it is not seething in the search for these things that the prophet says: 'Out of the depths I have cried to you, Lord'; he cries out of the depths, that is, from his inmost heart; he cries out of the depths, but those with which he was hemmed in, sad and sorrowful, by human calamities; and he cries not with his voice but with his heart, not with shouting but with faith, which he knows God gladly hears. Crying thus out of the depth, Peter likewise obtained from the Lord that he might both walk over and escape the slippery hollows of the deep sea and the backs of the liquid plain not subject to human steps, by which the trembling traveller was being swallowed up. Paul too cries out of the depths, overwhelmed by blessed calamities, when for the name of the Lord he suffers robbers on the roads, robbers in the cities; when, beaten three times with rods by the Jews, he is washed by a threefold shipwreck; when he is happily hailed on with showers of stones by the furious storm of a mad people; when, having spent a day and a night in the depth of the sea, crying to God, he is spat out from there unharmed.

Likewise the prophet Jonah was sent by God to the Ninevites to announce that destruction threatened their city: for they were weighed down by huge burdens of sins. But he, turning aside on another road, boarded a ship to go to Tarshish; when suddenly the sea, provoked by the violent blast of warring winds, roars, and the anxious flood, with the white rolls of its steep mountains, beating the foaming mouths of the resisting shores, threatens shipwreck at every moment: the gusts grow more frequent and rage, the ropes whistle horribly, the yards groan as the sails give way, the prow, beaten back on all sides, finds no way. The sailors tremble, they hasten in vain, by throwing out the cargo, to lighten the ship of its weights, a ship that was weighed down by the weight of the prophet. Then Jonah, whom alone that good storm sought, chosen by lot, is given over to shipwreck, or rather is transferred from a wooden vessel to a living ship: who, when he was let down into the deep and received in the lodging of the beast's gulf, keeps watch in the whale, he who snored in the ship. Wonderful thing! After the shipwreck, after the swimming tomb, unharmed on the third day after, he enlightens the Ninevites, to bring salvation by terrible oracles to a believing city.

As far as can be understood, brothers, the ship is the type of the synagogue: by its pilot we take the priestly body, by the sailors the scribes and Pharisees, by the throwing out of the cargo the rejection of the prophets and all the saints, whom the Jews, having driven them out of the synagogue, slaughtered with unworthy murders to the loss of their own salvation. The raging winds are various kings, who with the mournful blare of trumpets and the terrible crash of arms, the storms of battles pressing from every side, pitiably scattered Judaea through the whole world. Jonah sleeping in the ship bore the image of the Lord's sacrament: for the material of the ship signified the cross, and sleep the passion. The sea is this swollen world: by its waves we understand the peoples of the Jews and the Gentiles, who raged in vain against God. The lot gave up Jonah to be thrown over; prophecy proclaimed that the Lord would suffer; both willing, the one by his condition, the Lord by his love. That the whale is the underworld is not doubted: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, and, vomited out, betook himself to the city of Nineveh, so the Lord, rising from the underworld on the day after, betook himself to the city of Jerusalem before heaven. But Nineveh bears the image of the church, in which our people from the Gentiles was already dwelling, which not in vain was called by God a great city; for it was to come about that, with the peoples of all nations believing in Christ, the whole world would be rendered to God as one city. In short, the saving deeds, which remain in us too, confirm the comparison. When, brothers, destruction was announced to the Ninevites, they believe and fear; and the more they know that the Lord is not a liar, the more readily they presume upon his mercy; and at once, condemning the deeds of their old life, to redeem their salvation they do not run as usual to stupid images, nor kindle deadly fires on stinking altars, nor burn incense, nor pour out wine, nor consult the fibres of the breathing liver of beasts snatched by an unexpected death, nor by vain conjectures inquire into the state of feathered salvation through the various flights of birds; but they ask a saving remedy from their own heart, and eagerly sacrifice their spirit contrite with all humility: and so, having lawfully celebrated repentance, they made God favourable to them. This we too have done, and ought often to do, so that we may deserve to escape both the temptations of the present time and the punishments of the future judgment, through Christ our Lord.