VERSE 10, 11. -- 'And I set a bar and doors, and I said: Hitherto shalt thou come, and shalt proceed no further, and here shalt thou break thy swelling waves.' 38. The holy preachers, set as doors against the sea raging with the age, could be beaten by the floods but not broken, because Christ strengthened them. These doors stand open to the humble and closed to the proud. -- What is signified by the doors but the holy preachers, and what by the bar but the Lord made incarnate? He indeed set these doors against the onslaught of the raging sea, mightier by as much as He strengthened them by His own watchful care.
For because these doors of holy Church have been made firm by the setting of this bar, they could indeed be beaten by the waves, but they could not be broken through; so that the wave of persecution might dash against them from without, but could in no way penetrate the inward parts of their heart. And because the holy teachers were open to those who followed them by their preaching, yet closed by their authority to those who resisted, they are not without reason called doors -- that is, open to the fellowship of the humble, and closed to the terrors of the proud. Not without reason are they called doors, since they both open an entrance to the faithful, and again set themselves against the perverse lest these should enter.
Let us weigh what a door of the Church Peter proved to be, who received Cornelius as he sought the faith, but repulsed Simon as he sought miracles for a price. Saying, 'In truth I perceive that God is not a respecter of persons' (Acts 10:34), he graciously opened the secrets of the kingdom. Saying to the other, 'Thy money be with thee unto perdition' (Acts 8:20), by a sentence of strict condemnation he shut the entrance to the heavenly court. What are all the apostles but doors of holy Church, when they hear from the voice of their Redeemer: 'Receive ye the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained' (John 20:22-23)? As if it were openly said to them: Through you shall enter
to Me those to whom you open yourselves; and those to whom you close shall be driven back. Therefore, while the sea rages, the Lord sets a bar and doors, because when the storm of persecution spreads itself over the world from bitter and faithless hearts, God exalts the glory of His Only-begotten and the reverence due to His preachers; and while He makes known the mysteries of divine strength, He breaks the waves of fury against the ungodly. 39. By divine providence the storm of persecution either bursts forth or grows still. -- And well is it said: 'Hitherto shalt thou come, and shalt proceed no further.' For surely there is a measure of the hidden judgment, both as to when the storm of persecution should burst forth, and when it should grow still,
so that when unstirred it may not tax the elect, or when unrestrained it may not plunge them into the deep. But when the knowledge of the faith is extended even to persecutors, the swelling of the troubled sea is calmed; and there the sea breaks its own waves, because whoever comes to the knowledge of the truth blushes for all that he wickedly did. For the broken wave is dashed back upon itself, since wickedness once conquered is accused even by the very thought of its own heart; and it receives, as it were, the very violence it had inflicted, because it feels the stings of its own guilt for the depravity it had loved. Whence to certain ones it is said through Paul: 'What fruit therefore had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed?' (Rom. 6:21). As if it were said:
What did the waves of your depravity uplift on high, which now, broken in themselves, confound you turned back from the very source whence they had puffed up your perversity? Rightly therefore is it said: 'And here shalt thou break thy swelling waves.' But as to what is said a second time about the doors in this conclusion concerning the sea, it is in the manner of sacred speech, whereby a thing once said is repeated for confirmation. 40. By the sea may be understood the world, against which God set doors, namely the precepts of the Law and of the New Testament. -- But if in this place we ought to take the sea not specifically as the throng of persecutors, but generally as the world, then a second time the Lord set doors against this sea, because He gave first to the human race the precepts of the Law, and afterward the testament of the new grace.
A second time, by the doors set against it, He shut in the onslaught of this sea, because those whom He took up for the service of His worship He both first restrained from idols by the given Law, and afterward corrected from carnal understanding by revealed grace. A second time the sea received doors, because God first forbade the human race the works of iniquity, and afterward bound it fast even from the guilt of thought. Let us see how the Lord sets the first doors against the swelling sea. For behold, through the Law it is said: 'Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness' (Exod. 20:13-16). Let us see how the Lord shuts this sea with the second doors. Behold, in the Gospel He says: 'You have heard that it was said to them of old, Thou shalt not commit adultery;'
'but I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart' (Matt. 5:27-28). And again it is said: 'You have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thy enemy; but I say to you, love your enemies, and do good to them that hate you' (Matt. 5:43-44). He therefore who first forbids the wickedness of deed, and afterward drains out the faults of the heart, surely sets doors twice upon the swelling sea, that it may not overpass the shores of encompassing justice. [Book XVII.] 41. To the world still near its origin, laws were laid down. Yet God did not yet enlighten it. Under the darkness of the letter the world was as though wrapped in the swaddling-clothes of infancy.
The world, first bound by fear, afterward obtained liberty. The old Law was imperfect and weak. -- And well, when He had said, 'Because He shut in the sea with doors,' He straightway added the time, saying, 'When it broke forth as issuing from the womb.' For manifestly He then met the human race with the precepts of the Law, when the world, still near to its own origin, was going forth, as it were, from its own birth to the advance of the carnal life. For to proceed from the womb is to appear carnally in the light of present glory. And rightly it is added: 'When I made a cloud the garment thereof.'
For assuredly God did not then present Himself to men by open manifestation, but while He rescued them from the error of faithlessness, He yet did not lay open to them the brightness of His own light; He took them, as it were, out of the darkness, yet still clothed them with a cloud, so that they might both leave behind the deeds of their former depravity, and yet not more surely behold the good things to come. Whence too it is fitly subjoined: 'And I wrapped it as with swaddling-clothes in mist.' For while He taught the untrained peoples not by the open preaching of the Spirit, but bound them by figurative speech to the precepts of the letter, He still wrapped the weak wise ones in the mist of His words as in the swaddling-clothes of infancy, that bound by grosser commands they might grow, lest, evilly free, they should perish in their own pleasures.
When it was not now love, but as yet fear, that bound them to the way of justice, the divine dispensation, as it were, pressed them down in order to nourish them. For the weak people, while it unwillingly bore the swaddling-bands of the precepts, arrived at a firmer state through that very binding. For because fear first restrained it from sin, fittingly afterward it went forth into the liberty of the Spirit. These swaddling-clothes of infancy, which He gave to those who were beginning, the Lord Himself reproves through the prophet, saying: 'I gave them precepts that were not good' (Ezek. 20:25). For evils cease to be evils, as it were, by comparison with worse things, and goods are, as it were, not goods by comparison with better. For just as it is said to Judaea, sinning worse than Sodom and Samaria: 'Thou hast justified thy sisters
'in all thy abominations which thou hast wrought' (Ezek. 16:51), so, in comparison with the better precepts of the New Testament that followed, the good precepts given to the untrained are recorded as not being good. For minds cleaving to the use of the carnal life could not be lifted up from things inmost, unless they advanced by a preaching led on by degrees. Hence it is that, to those set in Egypt, by a pious and just governance a condescension is made to their hidden covetousness, and, the golden and silver vessels of their neighbours being carried off, they are bidden to depart (Exod. 3:22). Yet, led to Mount Sinai and receiving the Law, they soon hear: 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods' (Exod. 20:17).
And hence it is that in the same Law they are commanded to exact eye for eye, tooth for tooth (Exod. 21:24), and yet at length, grace being revealed, when smitten they are bidden to offer the other cheek (Matt. 5:39). For because anger in vengeance ever exacts more than the injury received, while they learn not to repay evils manifold, they might at length learn even to bear willingly those evils when multiplied. Hence it is that from this same untrained people He forbade certain things, but reserved certain others for their former usage, yet these very things He composed as a figure of the better life.
For they used to slaughter brute animals to idols in Egypt, and afterward He retained for them the slaughter of animals as a usage, but forbade the worship of idols; so that while they lost something of their own custom, their weakness might be consoled by this, that they still kept something of their own custom. But by a wondrous dispensation of counsel, what the Lord retained for them from their carnal habit, this He turned more mightily into a figure of the Spirit. For what do the sacrifices of those animals signify but the death of the Only-begotten? What do the sacrifices of those animals signify but the extinction of our carnal life? Whence therefore condescension is made to the weakness of the untrained people, from thence to it, through the shadowed forms of allegories, a greater strength of the Spirit is announced. Rightly therefore is it said:
'And I wrapped it as with swaddling-clothes in mist,' because, from that very source whence He bore with the weakness of its tenderness, thence He made the deep cloud of spiritual significations. [Book XVIII.] 42. Against the immoderate motions of the soul, the precepts of the new life were set, strengthened by the examples of Christ. -- Because He girded it with the boundary of precepts against the immoderate wanderings of the soul, He rightly subjoins: 'I surrounded it with My bounds.' And because He restrained these motions of the human race by sending the Mediator, He fitly adds: 'And I set a bar and doors.' A bar indeed and doors He set, because, our Redeemer being sent against the faults of transgressors, He made firm the preaching of the new life. For closed doors are strengthened by the setting of a bar against them.
God therefore set a bar, because against the wanton motions of the human race He sent the Only-begotten, who solidified by deed the spiritual precepts which He taught by word. And well is it subjoined: 'And I said: Hitherto shalt thou come, and shalt proceed no further, and here shalt thou break thy swelling waves.' For this sea had overpassed the former doors, because the wave of human pride leaped over the barriers of the Law set against it. But after the world found the Only-begotten set against it, it broke the onset of its own haughtiness, and could not pass over, because by His strength it found the boundary of its own fury closed. Whence rightly it is said through the prophet: 'The sea saw and roared' (Ps. 114:3). By the doors too His opened passions may not unfittingly be understood.
Against these He set a bar from that which is hidden, because He strengthened them from His invisible divinity. Against these the waves of the world come, but shattered they leap apart, because the proud despise them in the seeing, yet dread their power in the experiencing. For while the passions of the Only-begotten first the human race mocked, afterward it was terrified; as though against opposing doors, after the manner of dashing seas, it came both uplifted in swelling and shattered leaped apart from His power. But because this is said to blessed Job for this end, that from so many virtues of his heart the glory be pressed down, lest perchance he ascribe to himself what he is not ignorant that he steadfastly maintains, when we weigh with how great his edification these things are said, let us consider whether we may also treat these things morally. Let Him therefore say: