Spiritual Homilies 1 part 11/36

For the Lord has become an example to all, so that just as he, through dishonor and disgrace and the utmost death, conquered the enemy, so we too, conducting ourselves in sufferings and humiliation and dishonor, and despising shame even unto death, may be able to conquer the devil and receive life and acquire the priceless pearl, who is Christ, according to what is said:

"You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood, in your struggle against sin."

Let us conquer death through death, not consenting to evil, nor falling under evil reasonings.

But it is shameful that merchants should cross such seas and despise deadly dangers for the increase and addition of wealth, while we, who long to lay hold of eternal life, and wish to acquire the incorruptible light of that fairest pearl, and desire to trade in the merchandise of the true treasure, do not despise the temporary death (that is, the pleasures of the world).

I exhort you, therefore, brethren, to despise death, and to hold your own soul as nothing, and to become, even unto death, imitators of the Lord, who has become for us a pattern and example in all things, and who, in death, conquered death.

For in the Law, by a mystical example and shadow concerning the death of the Lord, Moses, the good servant of God, also enigmatically brings this about: having commanded that the heifer be sacrificed outside the camp, in a desert place, for the remission of sins — the ashes and blood of which, being sprinkled, sanctified all the people and the priests and the vessels of ministry and the book itself and the tabernacle.

Just as the apostle also, discoursing to the Hebrews, expounded the true image of this mystery:

"For if," he says, "the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on those who are defiled, sanctify them to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God."

But that the heifer is sacrificed outside the camp, in the wilderness, is understood in two ways:

Either because, the souls being deserts and having neither the voice of God nor a way within them, but being filled with terrible thorns, the Lord suffered, that he might cleanse them and bring them to peace; or because it is necessary for the souls that go out from their homelands and from their kinship and from the terrible fellowship of the wicked spirits of darkness, in which they used to pass their time and live, to go forth by the power of the Lord and withdraw into the pure land of life, where there are no voices of wickedness, no murmur of evil spirits, and no throng of unclean demons.

And the heifer had never borne a yoke, because the Lord did not bear the yoke of sin and slavery, but died for us;

and we too are able to prevail, by following the way of the Lord.

And in a typological sense the law commanded that those coming in from the nations be circumcised and be numbered together with the people of God, thereby prefiguring the entrance of the nations who were about to believe and be numbered together with the heavenly church.

And the law also spoke concerning the feast:

"He shall be utterly destroyed," it says, "from among the nation, every one who does not keep the feast of the Passover" — speaking concerning the feast that was to come to pass according to the soul.

"He shall be utterly destroyed," it says, "every uncircumcised one from the tribe of Israel, and he shall have no inheritance among his brothers, every one who is uncircumcised."

So here too, the one who is uncircumcised in heart, who has not been circumcised by the knife of the Spirit, is not called a son of God, or an Israel that sees God, nor is he numbered together with the inheritance of life.

...the soul from the spirits of wickedness, giving the law of the Spirit in the heart.

And again, concerning the feast of the Passover and of unleavened bread, he writes, saying:

"All leaven shall be utterly destroyed in the feast of the Passover, and in whatever house old leaven is found, it shall be utterly destroyed." By "house" he hints at the body:

"In whatever house the leaven of sin is found, it shall be utterly destroyed."

There is old leaven, and unleavened bread, and new leaven, because it requires that the will and the purpose be wholly unmatched and out of harmony with wickedness; or because he calls the first Adam "unleavened," and calls the new leaven the Godhead and the power of the Spirit, in which the soul is leavened and blended together.

And he also commands that the unleavened bread be eaten with bitter herbs, teaching us to endure bitter afflictions, whether the visible ones, or the unseen constrictions wrought in the heart by the evil one.

But the goodness and sweetness of the good and spotless Lamb, Christ, causes those who taste of him to forget the harshness and bitterness of afflictions.

And, in sum, all the things according to the law happened to them as types, and were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

Let us, then, also entreat God and believe, that we may be anointed with the blood of Christ (that is, with the Holy Spirit of the promise), and be freed and redeemed from the slavery of sin, and be set free from the bonds of darkness, and thus live together with him unto the endless ages.

The blessed Paul says, writing to the Corinthians:

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of God (that is, the noetic light), are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory."

For just as someone who considers royal garments — the purple robe and the diadem, and the other likewise varied and manifold garments — marvels, considering their variety, their loveliness, their delightfulness, the beauty of the precious stones, and the sight of that delightfulness and loveliness becomes insatiable to him; or just as someone who considers the sun sees the flashing of its rays, how, as though alive, they display a varied spectacle, one more excellent than another; or just as someone who considers the water sees the sun gleaming in the water, leaping and shifting in manifold ways —

so also those who wear the heavenly image of Christ and have within themselves the ineffable light, and are clothed with the purple of the heavenly King (that is, the heavenly joy of the Spirit), beholding the beauty of the ineffable light within them with the unveiled face of the soul, see the ineffable variety of the incorruptible glory — how it is transformed from glory to glory, and into the manifold and various beauties of the Godhead, which cannot be expressed with a fleshly tongue;

for these things are inconceivable and ineffable, which God, in his own immeasurable goodness, works together with the saints while they are still in this world.

For these are but parables and images, giving a partial impression to those who understand.

For the things of God are truly known only by experience, by those in whom these very mysteries of the realities are worthily wrought.

It is possible to hear the word of God and to understand it beyond your knowledge, beyond your mind, beyond your consciousness — until these very realities of the mysteries of grace come to be in you.

For that visible purple robe itself and the royal garments provide no benefit or life to those who see them, but delight only by their outward appearance.

But the divine glory and the beauty of the heavenly image bestow, upon the souls that mirror it and have it within themselves, rest and eternal life, true love in purity of heart, heavenly nourishment, understanding, wisdom, and unceasing joy of the Spirit, they themselves also being made like it by the power of its working.

...in their hearts, they are occupied with none of the earthly or material things, but are wholly bound, entirely, to that ineffable beauty.

For just as, if there is a nurse who takes up the infant in her arms, and the child, beholding its mother, rejoices and exults, receiving from her the nourishment of milk, so also those who have the true light of the Spirit within themselves and are clothed with Christ, beholding him, find rest and rejoice with unspeakable joy;

for from him they are nourished with incorruptible food, and in him they live the true life.

All the rulers of wickedness who lurk within the souls of men did not recognize the Lord as incarnate, until he shook their thrones out of the hearts of believing men and overturned their seats and scattered their vessels, so that man might become his own temple and dwelling-place; and then he might place his own vessels — the mysteries of the Spirit — and his own throne, in that dwelling-place made his own.

And again, when the Lord descended to the tombs and to Hades, and seized and took back from it his own souls that had been held captive by the devil, the evil one brought forward the handwritten bonds, saying:

"They happen to be my slaves; I bought them; you sold them to me."

"Why do you wrong me? Why do you seize those who serve me?" Then the Lord says to him:

"I sold them to you, handing them over to you; and behold, you bring forward against them the handwritten bonds."

"Do you have anything against my body? Or in what did my body obey you, that you unjustly put it to death? For it is without sin." Then satan, having called together all his wicked angels, says:

"Seek out the handwritten bond of this body." But they searched everywhere and in every place, and were nowhere able to find it.

So, since nothing at all could be found against the body of the Lord, the Lord says:

"You have no handwritten bond for this." And he, utterly astounded, was put to shame, having nothing to say against the body of the Lord, against which he had sinned:

Having crucified him without cause, therefore, he was condemned.

"Behold, what you wished, you did to my sinless flesh, unjustly crucifying and putting to death that which owed no debt to death."

For this reason, then, this very flesh — of which you could find no handwritten bond, and yet dared to lay your hand upon it — shall redeem and set free all flesh that believes in it, and shall restore it to the heavens unto eternal life; for through his blood and the cross the Lord redeemed from death all who were willing, or are willing, to believe in him and to place their hope in him, and, having raised them, will restore them into the kingdom.

"Are you not your own? You were bought with a price." And again Peter says:

"Knowing that you were redeemed not with perishable things, silver or gold, but with the precious blood, as of an unblemished and spotless lamb — Christ's."

God, then, having put on the flesh as a king puts on the purple, sat down at the right hand of majesty on high.

But the Jews tore the purple of the King — the flesh of the Lord — by crucifying it.

For who can lay hold of the Spirit of the Godhead, when no one can even lay hold of the soul, which is intangible? The Jews, then, are guilty of crucifying God, as having torn the purple of the King.

For just as the purple of the king is glorified together with him, and a king is not worshiped apart from his purple robe, so the flesh of the Lord is glorified together with his Godhead, and Christ is worshiped together with his flesh.

For the flesh, together with the soul, and the Godhead have become one thing, even though they are two.

The heavenly one, worshiped together with the flesh.

The Lord, then, redeemed all flesh through his own flesh, and all flesh that has believed and followed him and received him is now glorified together with the flesh of the Lord, on that day, just as the apostle says:

"Who will transform the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory."

In this manner, then, the rulers of wickedness who are within the souls of men also did not recognize him when he came, until he removed them and cast them out from the souls that had been persuaded by them, and prepared for himself a throne, a temple, and a pure and holy dwelling-place out of the souls that truly love him; and thus, made blameless through his Spirit, they will rest with him in the kingdom for ever and ever.

Concerning the law's having only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the realities.

The glory of Moses, which he had upon his face, was a type of the true glory.

For in the manner that, there, they were not able to gaze steadily upon the face of Moses, so now Christians receive that glory of the light in the soul, while the darkness, unable to bear the radiance of the light, being blinded, is put to flight.

Those were shown to be the people of God by their circumcision.

But here, the people of God, the peculiar people, receive the sign of circumcision within, in the heart:

for a heavenly knife cuts off the excess of the mind, that is, the unclean foreskin of sin.

Among them there were baptisms that sanctified the flesh, but among us there is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire;

for this John proclaimed, saying:

"He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

There was an outer tabernacle and an inner one:

and into the first the priests continually entered, performing their services, but into the second only the high priest entered, once a year alone — the Holy Spirit thereby signifying that the way into the holy things had not yet been made manifest.

But here, those who are deemed worthy enter into the tabernacle not made with hands, where Christ entered as a forerunner on our behalf.

For it is written in the law that the priest is to take two doves, and sacrifice the one, and sprinkle the living one with the blood, and release it to fly free.

What was done was a type and a shadow of the truth.

For indeed Christ was sacrificed, and his blood, sprinkling us, caused us to grow wings;

for he gave us the wings of the Holy Spirit, to fly unhindered into the air of the Godhead.

To them a law was given, written on tablets of stone; but to us, spiritual laws, inscribed on hearts of flesh.

"Giving my laws upon their hearts, and upon their minds I will write them."

There all things were transient and to be abolished, but now all things are truly accomplished in the inner man.

For the covenant is within, and the priesthood is within, and the promises of the true land; and, in short, whatever happened there took place as a type.

But it was written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

For God made a promise to Abraham and foretold what was to come in two ways, in type and in truth.

For he said to him that your seed shall be a sojourner in a foreign land, and they shall afflict it and enslave it four hundred years.

"And the nation that they serve, I will judge."

says the Lord; and this came to pass.

...of the Egyptians, and it was afflicted with clay and with brick.

For Pharaoh set over them taskmasters and overseers, so that they should do his works by compulsion.

And when the sons of Israel groaned to God because of their labors, then he visited them through Moses, and striking the Egyptians with many plagues in the month of flowers, when the sweet spring first appears and the gloom of winter departs, he brought the people out of Egypt.

And God told Moses to take an unblemished lamb and slaughter it, and to smear its blood on the doors, on the doorposts, so that the destroyer of the firstborn of the Egyptians would not touch them.

And the angel who was sent, seeing the sign of the blood from afar, would turn aside; but he would go in to the houses that were not marked with the blood, and would slay every firstborn.

He also commanded that all old leaven be removed from every house, and he ordered that the slaughtered lamb be eaten together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and that they eat it with their loins girded, sandals bound on their feet, and staffs in their hands.

And thus he commands them to eat the Lord's Passover in haste toward evening, and not to break a bone of the lamb.

And he brought them out with gold and silver, having commanded each one to borrow vessels of gold and silver from his Egyptian neighbor.

And they went out from Egypt while the Egyptians were burying their firstborn.

And to the one there was joy at being freed from harsh slavery, but to the other there was mourning and wailing over the loss of their children.

This is the night in which God made his promise to Abraham; he has fulfilled it for his children—for us, now... And all these things became types and shadows of the true realities.

For these are mysteries of the soul that has been redeemed at the coming of the Lord.

For "Israel" is interpreted as "a mind that sees God."

Man, then, is set free from the slavery of darkness and from the spiritual Egyptians.

For since, through disobedience and transgression, the first man died a dreadful death of the soul, according to the sentence and threat of God—for he had said to him:

"In the day that you eat of the tree, you shall die the death"; and so it came to pass. And again:

"You are earth, and to earth you shall go"; and he adds curse upon curse, saying:

"In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread; thorns and thistles the earth shall bring forth for you; you shall till the ground, and it shall no longer yield to you its fruits." For thorns and thistles sprang up and grew in the ground of his heart, and the enemies, through deceit, stripped away his glory and clothed him with shame; his light was taken away, and they clothed him with darkness; they murdered his soul, and scattered and divided his thoughts, and dragged his mind down from its height, and "Israel"—man—became a slave of the true Pharaoh.

And they set over him overseers and taskmasters, the spirits of wickedness, compelling him, whether he wills it or not, to do their evil works, while the demons who have set themselves over his thoughts force him to fulfill the frenzy of brickmaking and clay—that is, having separated him from his heavenly disposition, they dragged him down to material, earthly, and miry things: evil deeds and words and imaginings and wicked reasonings.

For the soul, having fallen from its own height, found a man-hating king and bitter rulers who compel it to do evil works and to build for them the cities of wickedness, the cities of sins.

But if the soul groans and cries out to God, he will send to it the spiritual Moses, who redeems it from the slavery of the Egyptians.

It is able to put forth good and flourishing branches, once the bitter winters of the ignorance of darkness and the great blindness arising from shameful deeds and sins have passed.

For then he commands that all old leaven be removed from this house—that is, the deeds and dispositions of the old man, corrupted by wicked reasonings and filthy imaginings—to be cast away as far as possible.

But the lamb must be slaughtered, and its blood must be smeared on the doors.

And so Christ, the true Lamb, was slaughtered, and his blood was smeared on the doorposts of the heart, so that the blood of Christ poured out on the cross might become, for the soul, life and redemption, but for the Egyptians, mourning and death.

For truly it is mourning for them, but the blood of the spotless Lamb is joy and exultation for the faithful.

Then, after this gift of grace, he commands them to eat the lamb toward evening, and the unleavened bread with bitter herbs, with their belts girded, sandals bound on, and staffs in their hands.

If, then, the soul has not first been prepared in every way through good works, it is not given to it to eat of the lamb.

The lamb is sweet, and the unleavened bread is very good, but the bitter herbs are bitter and harsh.

For the soul eats of the lamb and the unleavened bread with affliction and much bitterness, since the sin dwelling within it afflicts it.

"And toward evening," it says, "you shall eat it." Now the evening hour is the middle point between light and darkness.

So too the soul, right at the moment of its redemption, becomes a mid-point between light and darkness, the power of God standing by and not allowing the darkness to come upon the soul and swallow it up.

This is the night of God's promise, in which he redeemed us; and thus here too the Lord spoke, when a book was given to him in the temple:

"to proclaim," it says, "the acceptable year of the Lord"—and fittingly, the day of redemption.

For that was a type and a shadow of the truth.

For all that was written was a mystical foreshadowing, signifying the true salvation of the soul that is shut up in darkness, bound in poverty and iron, cast down secretly into the lowest pit, enclosed within gates of bronze and bars of iron, and unable to be set free without the help and redemption that come from God.

He therefore brings the soul out of Egypt and out of the slavery within it, while the firstborn in Egypt are being slain at the time of the exodus.

Already a certain part of the power of the true Pharaoh falls.

Mourning holds the Egyptians.

For they groan, grieving over the salvation of the captive.

He commands them to borrow vessels of gold and silver from their neighbors, and, having gotten ahead, to go out.

For the soul, going out from darkness, takes back the vessels of silver and gold—the sound and pure thoughts, refined sevenfold—by which God is served and finds rest, taken back from the unclean spirits that had been its neighbors.

For they had scattered and dispersed the thoughts and held the soul in their grip.

Blessed is the soul that has been redeemed from the slavery of darkness; and woe to the soul that does not cry out and groan to him who is able to deliver it from those harsh and evil taskmasters.

Having been redeemed, the sons of Israel set out on their journey, having kept the Passover.

The soul makes progress, having received the life of the Holy Spirit, having tasted of the lamb, having been anointed with his blood, and having eaten the true bread, the living Word.

A pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud went before them.

The Holy Spirit, keeping watch, sustains them, warming and guiding them in the perception of the soul.

...he, together with all his people, having gone out against them, was hastening to destroy them.

And when they were now about to clash and had drawn near, the cloud stood in the midst, hindering and darkening the one side, but giving light to and guarding the other.

But when the people saw the whole army of Pharaoh drawn up behind them, and before them the sea blocking their flight, although they were in the midst of the cloud and the pillar, they despaired of themselves and already thought themselves dead, having fallen into great affliction and into the death that they tasted.

But the Lord was present, watching over them, and commanding Moses to strike the sea with his rod and to make a way for the people.

For the sea, having been divided, became a wall of water on the right and on the left, until all the people had passed through as on dry land.

And the Egyptians also went in after them, supposing that the sea was, for them too, passable and gentle.

And all the people came out from the sea, while every soul of the Egyptians went into the sea.

The entrance was the same for both, but the exit was not the same.

What does the Lord say to Moses? "Turn your rod and strike the sea"; and the Red Sea struck down Pharaoh and his army.

And the people, seeing this great salvation—their enemies perishing in the Red Sea—rejoiced and greatly exulted over their own salvation.

And Miriam took the tambourine, and together with the lyres she sang, with all the people, hymns of victory to God.

And they were redeemed with a perfect redemption from the death that was at hand.

Grasp, then, the meaning of this comparison here.

For when the soul first fled from the Egyptians, the power of God drew near and helped it, guiding it toward the truth.

So when the spiritual Pharaoh, the king of the darkness of sin, perceived that the soul was departing from him and fleeing his kingdom together with the thoughts—I mean those formerly held captive by him, for these were her possessions—

for this dreadful Pharaoh supposed that she would return again and turn back to him.

But now, perceiving that the soul was escaping entirely from his tyranny, and that already some part of his power had been destroyed through the slaying of the firstborn, he rushed forward all the more shamelessly, fearing lest, the soul having escaped completely, he would no longer be able to accomplish his will.

He therefore pursues her through afflictions and temptations and invisible wars.

Here she is tested, here she is tried, here is manifested her love for the God who brought her out of Egypt;

for she is handed over to be tested and afflicted in every way.

And she beholds the power of the evil one wishing to attack and to put her to death, yet not prevailing;

for the Lord stands between the Egyptians and the Israelites.

And she beholds before her a sea of bitterness and of evil power, and she is able neither to retreat backward, seeing the enemies ready at hand, nor to advance forward;

for evil powers and dreadful and manifold afflictions encompassing her make her see nothing but death.

For she despairs of herself, having within herself the sentence of death, because of the swarm of evil beings that has surrounded her; and when God sees the soul fallen into the fear of death, and the enemy ready to swallow her up, then, even then, he gives a little help.

For thus does God bear long with the soul that is in such a state.

For God has appointed such a road leading to life—one accompanied by affliction and testing and much distress and most bitter temptations—so that from this the soul might arrive at the true land of the glory of the children of God,

away from the darkness and the all-devouring fire.

These are mysteries of the soul, truly coming to pass in the person who is eager to come to the promise of life, who is redeemed from the kingdom of death, who receives the pledge from God, and who partakes of the Holy Spirit.

Then the soul, having been delivered from her enemies and having passed through the bitter sea by the power of God, and seeing before her eyes the destruction of the foes whom she formerly served, exults with unspeakable and glorified joy, being comforted by God and resting in the Lord.

Then the spirit, which she received anew, through the timbrel—that is, the flesh—and the harp of the soul and the rational strings, her most subtle thoughts, and the plectrum of divine grace, sends up praises to the life-giving Christ.

For just as the breath, passing through the flute, speaks, so through holy and spirit-bearing men it is the Holy Spirit that hymns and sings psalms and prays to God with a pure heart.

In the Law, irrational animals were offered as sacrifice, and unless they were slain, the offerings were not acceptable.

And now, unless sin is slain, the sacrifice is not acceptable to God and true.

The people came to Marah, where there was a spring gushing forth bitter water, unfit for drinking.