Sermons & Tracts 1 part 5/37

which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, that there may be one flock and one shepherd' (John x, 16). Those two women, then, that is, Leah and Rachel, who had been joined to blessed Jacob, figured those two peoples: Leah that of the Jews, Rachel that of the Gentiles. To these two peoples, as to two walls, Christ was joined as a cornerstone. For in Him they kissed one another, and in Him they deserved to find eternal peace, as the Apostle says: 'He is our peace, who made both one' (Eph. ii, 14). How did He make both one? Surely by joining the two flocks, and by coupling the two walls to one another. 3. Jacob returning rich, a figure of Christ. Finally, see what he obtained afterwards.

For Scripture says that after these things blessed Jacob was made rich (Gen. xxx, 43). For just as holy Jacob increased and was enriched, and returned to his homeland with boundless substance, so also the true Jacob, our Lord Jesus Christ, coming into this world, in order to associate to Himself those two peoples, that is, of the Gentiles and of the Jews, spiritually begot and created innumerable sons from them, and was enriched exceedingly. Finally, hear Him saying: 'All power is given to me in heaven and on earth' (Matt. xxviii, 18).

For, having despoiled the devil, returning to the Father He carried back great riches with Him, according to what the Psalmist had long before foretold of Him: 'Ascending on high, He led captivity captive' (Ps. lxvii, 19). 4. Laban a type of the devil. But when Jacob was returning to his homeland, Laban with his companions pursued him, and searched all his substance, and found nothing of his own belongings: and because he found nothing of his own, he could by no means hold him back (Gen. xxxi, 23-33). Laban here is not unfittingly said to have held the type of the devil; who both served idols, and was an adversary to blessed Jacob, who bore the type of the Lord. He pursued Jacob, then; he found nothing of his own belongings with him.

Hear the true Jacob too saying this in the Gospel: 'Behold, the prince of this world comes, and in me he finds nothing' (John xiv, 30). May the divine mercy grant us that our adversary also may recognise nothing of his own works in us. For if he finds nothing of his own, he will not be able to hold us or to call us back from eternal life. And therefore, dearest brethren, let us diligently look into the little chests of our conscience, let us search out the hiding-places of our heart; and if we find nothing there that pertains to the devil, let us rejoice, and give thanks to God; and let us strive, as much as we can, with His help, that the doors of our heart may always be opened to Christ, and closed to the devil unto the end.

If we perceive that anything of the devil's works or cunning lurks in our souls, let us hasten to vomit it out or spit it forth like deadly poison: so that when he wishes to lie in wait for us, and can find nothing that belongs to him, he may depart confounded, and we, giving thanks with the Prophet, may cry out to the Lord: 'Thou hast delivered us from them that afflict us, and hast put to shame them that hate us' (Ps. xliii, 8). Leah, then, as we said above, signifies that people which from among the Jews was joined to Christ; but Rachel bore the type of the Church, that is, of all the Gentiles. And therefore Leah did not steal her father's idols, but Rachel (Gen. xxxi, 19);

because after the coming of Christ the Synagogue is not known to have everywhere served idols, as is most manifestly proved of the Church of the Gentiles; and therefore the idols of Laban we read to have lain hidden not with Leah, that is, the Synagogue, but with Rachel, who bore the type of the Gentiles. 5. Jacob's wrestling designates the Jews persecuting Christ. But that Jacob came to the Jordan, and, having sent over all his belongings, himself remained alone, and wrestled with a man until the dawn came; Jacob in that wrestling figured the people of the Jews; the Angel who wrestled with him bore the type of the Lord and Saviour. Jacob wrestles with the Angel; because the people of the Jews was to wrestle with Christ. Jacob was overcoming the Angel:

because the people of the Jews was to persecute Christ even unto death. And because not the whole people of the Jews stands unbelieving toward Christ, as we have already said above, but no small multitude is read to have believed in His name; therefore the Angel touched Jacob's thigh, and he began to limp. For that foot in which he was limping figured the Jews who did not believe in Christ; but that other which remained sound bore the type of those who received Christ the Lord. Finally, attend diligently, that in that wrestling Jacob both was overcoming and was asking for a blessing. For when the Angel had said, 'Let me go,' Jacob answered, 'I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me.'

In that he was overcoming, Jacob signified the Jews who would persecute Christ; in that he was asking for a blessing, he figured that people which would believe in Christ the Lord. Finally, what did the Angel say to him? 'If thou hast been strong against the Lord, how much more shalt thou prevail against men?' (ibid., xxxii, 24-28). This was then fulfilled when the people of the Jews crucified Christ the Lord. 'Let me go,' said the Angel, 'now the dawn is rising.' Here he figured the Lord's resurrection; because the Lord, as you know very well, is read to have risen from the dead before daybreak. 6. Jacob carrying a staff, the image of Christ bearing the cross.

That Jacob figured the type of the Lord, we know also from this, that praying to God to snatch him from the hand of his brother Esau, he said: 'Lord, I am less than all Thy mercies; with my staff I crossed over the Jordan, and behold, I return with two companies' (ibid., 10). It is true, dearest brethren, with the staff of the cross Christ laid hold of the world, and with two companies, that is, with two peoples, returned to the Father in triumph. These things, therefore, dearest brethren, ponder more frequently, and, like clean animals spiritually chewing the cud, provide beforehand for your souls that useful and necessary food: that food, surely, of which the Lord says, 'Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures unto eternal life' (John vi, 27):

to which may the Lord through His own compassion lead you, to whom is honour and dominion with the Father, etc. SERMON XIII. On blessed Joseph. 1. Jacob bore the type of God the Father, Joseph the type of Christ. The brothers of Joseph designate the Jews and sinners. As often as the lessons from the Old Testament are recited to you, dearest brethren, as I have frequently admonished, you ought not to attend only to what sounds in the word, but to what is understood and savours in the spirit. So also the Apostle admonishes us, saying: 'The letter kills, but the spirit gives life' (2 Cor. iii, 6). For here all the things that are read in the Old Testament, as the Apostle says, befell them in figure, but were written for our sake (1 Cor. x, 11).

For when the Christian people faithfully comes to church, what does it profit them to hear how the holy Patriarchs either took wives or begot sons, unless they perceive with a spiritual sense why these things were done, or what those very things figured? Behold, we have heard that blessed Jacob begot a son, and called his name Joseph, and loved him more than the rest of his sons (Gen. xxx, 24; xxxvii, 3). In this place blessed Jacob had the figure of God the Father, and holy Joseph too bore the type of the Lord and Saviour. Jacob, then, loved his son; because God the Father also loves His only-begotten, as He Himself said: 'This is my beloved Son' (Matt. iii, 17).

Jacob sent his son to take care for his brothers: and God the Father sent His only-begotten to visit the human race, languishing in its sins. Joseph, while he sought his brothers, wandered in the wilderness; and Christ was seeking the human race, which was wandering in the world, in which world He too, as it were, wandered, because He was seeking those who wandered. For Joseph was seeking his brothers in Shechem. Shechem is interpreted 'shoulder.' For sinners always set their back rather than their face toward the face of the just. For the shoulders are behind. For just as the brothers of Joseph, smitten with envy, offered their back rather than their face to brotherly love;

so also the unhappy Jews, when the Author of salvation came to them, chose rather to envy than to love. Of such it is said in the Psalm: 'Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and bow down their back always' (Ps. lxviii, 24). 2. On the price of Joseph's sale the translations do not agree. Joseph therefore found his brothers in Dothan. Dothan is interpreted 'defection.' Truly they were in a great defection, who were plotting fratricide. Seeing Joseph, then, his brothers took counsel concerning his death: just as the Jews, seeing the true Joseph, the Lord Christ, resolved by one common counsel of all to crucify Him. His brothers stripped Joseph of his coat of many colours and reaching to the feet;

and the Jews stripped Christ through the death of the cross of His bodily coat. Joseph, stripped of his coat, is cast into a cistern, that is, into a pit; and Christ, stripped of His human flesh, descended into hell. Joseph, after he is lifted out of the cistern, is sold to the Ishmaelites, that is, to the Gentiles; and Christ, after He returns from hell, is purchased by all the nations through the commerce of faith. Joseph, by the counsel of Judah, is bargained away for thirty pieces of silver; and Christ, by the counsel of Judas Iscariot, is sold for the same number. But that in the different translations Joseph is written to have been sold for an unequal price—some said for twenty pieces of silver, others for thirty—

this spiritually signified that Christ was not to be believed in or loved equally by all. Finally, even now in the Church some love Him more, others less. For to him Christ is worth more, who loves Him with the greater charity. Joseph went down into Egypt; and Christ into the world. Joseph saves Egypt from the scarcity of grain; and Christ delivers the world from the famine of the word of God. For unless Joseph's brothers had sold him, Egypt had perished. Brethren, it is true; unless the Jews had crucified Christ, the world had perished. 3. Through the poison of envy death entered into the world. Let us see, however, dearest brethren, from what cause his brothers raged so cruelly against blessed Joseph.

From what, if not from the poison of envy, through which death entered into the world? Finally, hear the Scripture saying: 'His brothers envied him, and could not speak anything peaceable to him.' For blessed Joseph saw a dream, as if he were standing in the field with his brothers, and binding sheaves, and his brothers' sheaves adored his sheaf (Gen. xxxvii, 4, 7). This was then fulfilled in that Joseph, when in Egypt his brothers adored him. And not unfittingly were the barren sheaves compelled to adore the fruitful sheaf, through which they were to be delivered from perishing by famine. 4. The dream of Joseph fulfilled at least in Christ. He saw also another dream, that the sun and the moon and eleven stars adored him.

His father answered him, 'Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow down to you upon the earth?' (Gen. 37:10). This could not be fulfilled in that Joseph; but in our Joseph, that is, in the Lord Jesus Christ, the mysteries of that dream were fulfilled. For the sun and the moon and the eleven stars adored him when, after the resurrection, holy Mary, like the moon, and blessed Joseph, like the sun, together with the eleven stars, that is, the blessed Apostles, bowed down and prostrated themselves before him; and the prophecy was fulfilled which had said: 'Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you stars and light' (Ps. 148:3).

For truly in that Joseph the interpretation of this dream was not fulfilled, since we read that his mother had died many years before he beheld the aforesaid dreams. And indeed, how could it fit his brothers that they, as though stars, should adore him, when the night of envy had made them dark and shadowy? For they had already lost the brightness of stars, they who had extinguished in themselves the light of charity. Rightly therefore we more truly believe that this was fulfilled in our Lord and Saviour, whom, as I said before, we read that both blessed Joseph and blessed Mary, together with the eleven Apostles, more often adored (Matt. 28:17).

Now that the Apostles possessed the light of stars, the Lord himself declares in the Gospel: 'You are the light of the world' (Matt. 5:14). And again, concerning them and such as they, he says: 'Then shall the just shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father' (Matt. 13:43). 5. In Joseph only Egypt, in Christ the whole world has increase. Who is he that renders evil for good? Joseph is interpreted 'Increase' or 'Enlargement.' But in that Joseph only Egypt had enlargement; in our Joseph the whole world deserved to have increase. That Joseph dispensed wheat; ours deigned to dispense the Word. 'Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world' (Ps. 18:5, of the Apostles).

We therefore, most beloved brethren, who by no preceding merits, but through the mercy of the true Joseph, our Lord Jesus Christ, have obtained such great goods, and to whom there came not the shadow of the Old Testament but Truth itself—let us labour, as much as we can, with the grace of God, that what he bestowed upon us when judged may find us whole when he is to judge. He who bestowed upon you so much knows how much he requires again. He himself, when he shall come, is to render what he promised; but he will require what he lent, and what he gave at his first coming he will exact at his second. Let no one therefore render to Christ our Lord evil for good. Who is he that acts so impiously? He who receives sweetness and renders back bitterness;

he who receives life and restores death—for he restores death who kills himself by living wickedly. Who is he that renders evil for good? He who, when he ought to give what is his own, snatches what belongs to another; who for charity renders hatred, envy for kindness, pride for humility, wantonness for chastity. Who is he that renders to Christ evil for good? He who, when he ought to devote himself to reading and to hasten to the Church, chooses rather to play at dice, to frequent frenzied, bloody, or shameful spectacles; and he who ought to consume his sins by praying, reading, and giving alms, strives rather to increase them and to heap them up the more. Who is he that renders evil for good?

He who restores darkness for light, malice for kindness, drunkenness for sobriety, rapacity for almsgiving, iniquity for justice. Let him, then, who by the Lord's help has not committed these evils, guard as much as he can the gifts made rich within him; but let him who feels himself liable to these evils and understands himself entangled in them run quickly to the medicine of penance, and before the darkened soul departs from the body of its death, let him acquire for himself, by alms, fasts, and prayers, a remedy against the day of need. So then let us act, brethren, that before the tribunal of Christ both those who are good may obtain a crown, and those who are negligent may obtain pardon; that an upright life may adorn the former, and a corrected life may avail to excuse the latter:

by the bounty of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong honour and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen. SERMON XIV. On blessed Joseph, II. 1. Envy spares not even one's own brothers. Concerning blessed Joseph it is written, most dear brethren, that his brothers envied him, and therefore could not speak peaceably to him (Gen. 37:4). It is true, most beloved, that the disease of envy is so pernicious that it can spare neither kinsmen—not to say strangers. Indeed, at the very beginning of the world, the unjust brother Cain slew the just Abel (Gen. 4:8).

Joseph therefore, a holy and faithful servant of the Lord, is shown to be all the more just amid tribulations; who first, through envy, was consigned into slavery by his brothers to the Ishmaelites, and sold by those to whom he had seen himself adored; then, handed over to an Egyptian master, nonetheless always kept the dignity of a noble spirit; and he taught by his own example both slaves to be free in not sinning, and that it is not one's condition but one's mind that harms anyone. 2. The fault lies in him who sees wrongly, not in him who does not wish to be seen wrongly. Though he was comely and fair of face, he did not turn the beauty of his countenance to another's injury, but preserved it for his own grace:

judging himself the more beautiful if he were proved more comely not by the squandering of chastity but by the reverence of modesty; and judging that to be true beauty which captivates no alien eyes nor wounds frail minds. For the crime was his mistress's, who saw wrongly; not blessed Joseph's, who did not wish to be seen wrongly. Nor is there fault in him who was seen: because it was not in a servant's power not to be seen by his mistress; the husband ought to have guarded his wife's eyes. Let husbands then learn to guard the eyes of women, when even those who do not wish to be loved are loved. In short, Joseph was passionately desired, he who had scorned the one desiring him; and Scripture well excuses him, saying: 'His master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph' (Gen. 39:7):

that is, this man did not display himself, nor did he catch her unaware; but she cast out her own nets, and was caught in her own snare; she spread out her chains, and was bound in her own fetters. And she said to him, 'Lie with me' (Gen. 39:7). The first darts of adultery are those of the eyes, the second those of words; but he who is not caught by the eyes can resist words. He is excused for having entered; he is praised for having slipped away. Nor did he value the garments of his body more than the purity of his soul: he left as though not his own what the adulteress held in her hands; and he judged those things alien which could be seized by an unchaste woman's touch.

A great man indeed, who, sold into slavery, then knew no servile disposition; being loved, he did not love in return; being entreated, he did not consent; being seized, he fled away. 3. Unchaste love is not love. The young man is lusted after by his mistress, yet he is not provoked to lust; he is entreated, and he flees; in this one matter she coaxes and beseeches, she who in all else was wont to command. Did she love him, or rather herself? I think she loved neither him nor herself. If she loved him, why did she wish to destroy him? If she loved herself, why did she wish to perish? Behold, I have proved that she did not love: she burned with the poison of lust, she did not shine with the flame of charity. But he knew how to see what she did not know. Joseph was more beautiful within than without: more beautiful in the light of the heart than in the face of the body:

there, where that woman's eye did not penetrate, he himself enjoyed his own beauty. Gazing therefore upon the inner beauty of chastity in the mirror of his conscience, when would he have allowed it to be stained, when to be violated by that woman's temptation? What he then beheld, you too, if you will, are able to behold—the inner and spiritual beauty of purity, if you have any eyes at all for it. For example, let me set something before you. Do you love this very thing in your wife? Then do not hate in another woman what you love in your own. For what do you love in your wife? Surely chastity. This you hate in another woman, with whom, by lying, you wish to destroy her chastity. What you love in your own, do you wish to forbid in another?

How, being a murderer of chastity, will you have the prayer of purity? Preserve therefore in another's wife what you desire to preserve in your own: for even in your own wife you love chastity rather than the flesh. 4. Chastity is to be loved, not the flesh. But perhaps you suppose yourself to be a lover of your wife's flesh, and not of chastity. A sordid thought indeed, a wretched and voluptuous lust; yet I will not let you go without an example. You suppose that you love your wife's flesh; but I say that you love chastity more in your spouse. But that I may show you most conclusively to be a lover of chastity rather than of the flesh, you love this more in your daughter. For what man is there who does not wish his daughters to be chaste?

What man is there who does not rejoice together with his daughters in their chastity? Do you love the flesh there also? Do you lust after a beautiful body where you shudder at incest? Behold, I have convicted you of being a lover of chastity rather than of the flesh. In short, if you should have a beautiful wife, and perhaps neither chaste nor sober, do you love the beautiful flesh, and not rather detest it? The beauty of the body is indeed considered outwardly; but inwardly the beauty of chastity is sought; and if this be lacking, straightway all love of the body grows cold; because, although the beauty be considered, yet the reciprocity of love is required more within. If therefore I have convicted you of being a lover of chastity, why are you offended, that you do not love it in yourself?

What you love in your daughter, love this here in another's wife: for your daughter too will be another man's wife. Love chastity therefore in yourself as well. For if you love another man's wife, you will not straightway possess her; but if you love chastity, you will soon possess it, with the Lord's help. Thus you ought to love a beautiful maidservant or an elegant wife of another only as something to be sought outside you and abroad; but if you love chastity, what you love is with you. Holy chastity coaxes you within, in the chamber of your heart; sweet is its embrace, its converse has no bitterness. Chastity does not quarrel with you, does not overthrow you, contradicts you in nothing in the household of your conscience. Love chastity therefore both in yourself and in others, that you may have eternal blessedness.

If therefore you love this exceedingly beautiful thing in yourself also, which is called chastity, you will imitate blessed Joseph, who was unwilling to consent to unlawful intercourse with the shameless woman; he repelled the lust that was another's, he embraced the modesty that was his own. Yet she did what she had threatened, she lied to her husband, and was believed—God still patient. Holy Joseph is delivered into prison, he is kept as though guilty, though God was not offended by him. But not even there was God lacking, because he was not liable. The Lord was present to holy Joseph. And because he loved the holy one, the chaste spirit is not overcome by the woman's love, nor did the youthfulness of his age move him, nor the authority of the one who loved him, to frequent the mistress he had scorned.

For she lays snares for the very youth she had made her own; secretly and without witnesses, her shameless hand seizes him; with more brazen words she urges him to the crime; yet not even there is he overcome; but as he answered words with words, so also deeds with deeds; for he who, often entreated, had refused, then, being seized, fled away. 5. The kindness of Joseph. You have marvelled at Joseph's chastity; behold now his kindness. He renders charity for hatred; and when he saw his brothers—nay, his enemies from among his brothers—and wished to be recognised by them, he testified the affection of love with tender grief.

He kissed each one, and bedewing the necks of the trembling men with streaming tears, he washed away the hatred of his brothers with the tears of charity; those brothers whom, both while their father lived and after he was dead, he always loved with a brotherly love. He does not recall him whom they had cast down into the pit to his death; he did not think of the kinship sold for a price; but rendering good for evil, he then already fulfilled the apostolic precepts not yet given. Blessed Joseph therefore, pondering the sweetness of true charity, strove with God's help to drive from his heart the poison of envy by which he had known his brothers to be stricken. 6. Envy is compared to rust and to vipers.

And in truth, brethren, what profit does envy bring to the unhappy envious man, whom the malice itself tears apart with certain secret bites of conscience, and makes another's happiness his own torment? What reward, I ask, will he receive from his hatred, save the dreadful darkness of the soul and the horror of a confused mind—he who, ever mourning in countenance and spirit, tortures himself by the very wish with which he desires to harm another, and who, agitated by the most savage goads, is driven from all counsel and soberness of mind? And therefore let us watch, brethren, against the onset of this vice, lest perchance we be found partakers of the devil's work, and be condemned to a like sentence with him. For thus it is written: 'By the envy of the devil death entered into the world.'

'And they imitate him who are of his party' (Wisd. 2:24-25). This evil harms a little even those against whom it is directed; yet more grievously and more perniciously it afflicts first those from whom it proceeds. For just as rust consumes iron, so envy destroys and consumes that very soul in which it dwells. And as they say that vipers are born by tearing and bursting apart that very maternal womb in which they were conceived, so also envy consumes and destroys that very soul by which it was conceived. What a moth of the soul is this, what a wasting of the thoughts, how great a rust of the breast—to be jealous of God's gift in a man, and to turn another's goods into one's own evil, and to make another's glory one's own punishment;

and as it were to bring executioners against one's own breast, to apply torturers to one's own thoughts and feelings, who tear one apart with inward torments? To such a man no food is joyful, no drink can be pleasant. He ever sighs from the same cause, and groans, and grieves; day and night his beleaguered breast is torn without ceasing: because jealousy has no limit, being a perpetually abiding evil and a sin without end. And the more that one whom he envies advances by better success, so much the more does the envious man blaze up into a greater fire of malice by the flames of spite. Hence comes pallor in the face, trembling in the lips, gnashing in the teeth, headlong words, and unbridled abuse.