in the fire, the grace of the Holy Spirit, through which the pleasures of lusts and the thistles of sins are consumed. In the eighth plague locusts are introduced, an animal harmful with its tooth; and in them is signified the pride of malicious men, who persecute one another with false testimonies and betrayals. Of whom the Apostle says: 'If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another' (Gal. 5:15). In the ninth plague darkness is brought in; through which the blindness of the mind or heart is reproved. In the tenth plague the firstborn are struck;
in whom either spiritual wickednesses or original sins can be understood, which, when Christ comes, are most manifestly proven to be blotted out or extinguished through the mystery of the cross and the grace of Baptism. These things, therefore, dearly beloved brethren, which we read to have been done at that time through figures and images, let us rejoice and give thanks to God, because we both perceive and see them fulfilled in us through his mercy: while our Lord Jesus Christ reigns, to whom belong honor and dominion with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen. SERMON XXI. On the ten Plagues and the ten Precepts. Exodus, chapters VII-XII; and chapter XX, 3, 17. 1. In the plagues, wounds; in the precepts, remedies.
It is not without cause, most beloved brethren, that the number of the precepts of God's Law seems to be made equal to the number of the plagues with which Egypt is struck. For as there are ten precepts of the Law, by which the people are admonished to the worship of God; so ten plagues are read of, by which the pride of the Egyptians is afflicted. Let us consider, therefore, why both there ten precepts, and here ten plagues, are recorded. Without doubt it is because in the former there were wounds, and in the latter remedies; and it was necessary that to the wounds of ten plagues, so perilous, the remedies of ten precepts should come to aid. Whence I ask you, brethren, do not receive this idly;
for if, with God's help, you attend diligently, you will be able to recognize that those ten precepts are set opposite to those ten plagues in order, one against another. For by the first precept the first plague is struck, by the second the second, by the third the third, and so on until the number ten is reached. 2. The water is turned into blood, because the sense of the impious is darkened. The first precept is in the Law concerning the one God. 'You shall not have,' he says, 'other gods besides me.' The first plague of the Egyptians, water turned into blood. Compare the first precept to the first plague. Take the one God, from whom are all things, in the likeness of water, from which all things are generated. But to what does blood pertain, if not to mortal flesh?
What, then, is the turning of water into blood, except that those who would not believe in God, as the apostle Paul says, 'Their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise, they became fools' (Rom. 1:21-22)? The water, therefore, is turned into blood; because the sense of the Egyptians is made obscure and dark. And by the just judgment of God it came about that they should drink blood from that river in which they had been accustomed to slay the little ones of the Hebrews. 3. The frogs, philosophers or heretics. The second precept is: 'You shall not take the name of your God in vain.' For whoever takes the name of his God in vain shall not be cleansed. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ is truth. For he himself says: 'I am the truth' (John 14:6).
And because truth cleanses, vanity defiles; let us see the plague contrary to this second precept. What is that second plague? An abundance of frogs. In the frogs are understood heretics and philosophers. You have fittingly signified the vanity of the philosophers or heretics, if you consider the loquacity of frogs. For philosophers or heretics, because they say that all things in Christ are false, are nothing but croakers in muddy marshes: for they can have pride, empty contentions, and the din of the voice; they cannot instill the teaching of wisdom. For those who contradict Christian truth, and, deceived in their own vanity, deceive others, are frogs bringing weariness to the ears, not food to minds. 4.
The spiritual sabbath. Gnats, the restless and turbulent. The third precept is: 'Remember,' he says, 'to sanctify the sabbath day.' In this third precept is instilled a certain declaration of rest, namely the repose of the heart, the tranquillity of the mind, which a good conscience produces. For there is sanctification, because there is the Spirit of God. Finally, see the rest, that is, the quiet. 'Upon whom,' says the Lord, 'shall I rest, except upon the humble and quiet one who trembles at my words' (Isa. 66:2)? The restless, therefore, recoil from the Holy Spirit—lovers of quarrels, sowers of slanders—by their restlessness they do not admit rest to themselves, being lovers of contention rather than of charity, of the spiritual sabbath.
For they do not observe the spiritual sabbath, except those who so temperately accommodate themselves to earthly works, that yet they attend to reading and prayer, if not always, at least frequently, according to that word of the Apostle: 'Attend to reading and to teaching' (1 Tim. 4:13); and again: 'Pray without ceasing' (1 Thess. 5:17). For those who are such daily keep the sabbath spiritually. But those who are restless, so as to be continually entangled in earthly acts—of whom it is written, 'The impediments of the world have made them wretched'—cannot have the sabbath, that is, rest. Against the restlessness of such it is said, that they should have in their heart, as it were, a sabbath and the sanctification of the Spirit of God.
'Be,' he says, 'gentle to hear the word, that you may understand' (Sir. 5:15). Cease from your restlessness, that there be not even a tumult in your heart through the corruption of a flitting phantasm, like that of flies, disturbing or pricking you. You are about to understand God saying to you: 'Be still and see that I am God' (Ps. 45:11). Do you, through your restlessness, refuse to be still, and, blinded by the corruption of your contentions, demand to see what you cannot? Attend to the third plague contrary to this third precept.
Gnats were born in the land of Egypt from the mud—most minute flies, most restless, flying about in disorder, rushing into the eyes, not permitting men to rest, since they are driven off yet rush in, and when expelled return again. Such as these flies are, such are restless men, who are unwilling to observe the sabbath spiritually—that is, to be zealous for good works, and to attend to reading or prayer. Such, without doubt, are the phantasms of the heart of contentious men: and just as the human body is afflicted by these flies, so the heart of such men is disturbed and pricked by diverse thoughts. Hold the precept, beware the plague. 5. The dog-fly, the despiser of parents.
There follows the fourth precept: 'Honor your father and your mother.' Contrary to this is the fourth plague of the Egyptians, the kynomyia, that is, the canine fly; for it is a Greek word. For whoever neglects to honor his parents, the canine fly—that is, the wickedness of the devil—spiritually afflicts and torments him: for it is doglike not to acknowledge one's parents; nothing is so doglike as when those who begot one are not acknowledged. 6. The adulterer is changed into a beast. The fifth precept is: 'You shall not commit adultery.' The fifth plague, death upon the cattle. For everyone who either uses his own wife intemperately, apart from the desire for children;
or certainly—which is a most grievous crime—whoever lies in wait for the wife or daughter of another, or for a maidservant, whether his own or another's, overcome by the lust of the beasts, will be as a beast, the man being lost; not as though changed into the nature of a beast, but having, in the form of a man, the likeness of a beast—he who will not hear God saying: 'Do not be made like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding' (Ps. 31:9); and that other word: 'Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts, and became like them' (Ps. 48:13). But if you do not fear to be a beast, at least fear to die like a beast. 7. Good ardor and bad ardor. The sixth precept: 'You shall not kill.'
The sixth plague, pustules on the body, and blisters boiling and gushing, of the burning of ulcers from the ash of the furnace. Such are homicidal souls: they burn with wrath: because through wrath the brotherhood of a murder perishes. Men burn with anger, they burn also with grace. For both he who wishes to help is fervent, and he who wishes to kill is fervent: the one by precept, the other by disease; the one with good works, the other with foul ulcers. Oh, if we could see the souls of murderers, without doubt we should lament more than the putrefying bodies of the ulcerated. 8. Unjust gain. The kindling of soul and body. There follows the seventh precept: 'You shall not steal': and the seventh plague, hail upon the fruits.
What you filch through theft against God's precept, you lose from heaven. For no one has unjust gain without just loss. For example, he who steals acquires a garment, but by the heavenly judgment loses faith: where there is gain, there is loss; visibly gain, invisibly loss; gain by his own blindness, loss from the Lord's cloud. Therefore those who steal outwardly by their evil desire are hailed upon inwardly by the just judgment of God. Oh, if thieves or robbers could look upon the field of their own heart, they would surely mourn and lament, since there they would not find what to put into the mouth of the soul; even though in their theft they had found what to gulp down with the greed of the gullet.
Greater is the hunger of the soul than of the body, greater the hunger, more perilous the plague, and graver the death. What is worse, many through this hunger of the soul walk about dead, and living, carry their own corpses. They seem indeed to live in the body; but by their evil acts they prove themselves dead in soul. And many, famished in soul, glory in vain trifles. Finally, Scripture says that the good Christian is himself rich: 'The hidden man of your heart,' it says, 'who is rich before God' (1 Pet. 3:4); not before men, but before God, where God sees. What then does it profit you, if where man does not see, you steal; and where God sees, by his just judgment you are hailed upon? 9. The locust, the detractor. The eighth precept is: 'You shall not bear false witness.'
The eighth plague, the locust, an animal harmful with its tooth. What does the false witness wish, except to harm by biting, and to consume by lying? And therefore the Apostle admonishes us not to assail one another with false accusations: 'If,' he says, 'you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another' (Gal. 5:15). 10. When the act of matrimony is not without sin. Adulterers are blinded by frenzy. The ninth precept is: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.' The ninth plague, thick darkness. For if it is a sin to know one's own wife, apart from the cause of children; what sin do you think it is, not only to sin in one's own, but also to desire another's? Truly the darkness is thick:
for nothing so grieves in the heart of the one who suffers it, as when his wife is coveted; and he who does this to another, there is nothing he would be willing to suffer himself. Other evils men are wont to receive patiently; but this—I know not whether one could ever be found who would bear it tolerably. Oh, what thick darkness they suffer who do such things and covet such things! Truly they are blinded by a horrible frenzy: for the frenzy is untamed, to wish to defile and pollute another's wife. 11. Those who covet another's inheritance. The firstborn of the heart is faith. The tenth precept is: 'You shall not covet any thing of your neighbor's.' Contrary to this command is the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn. All the things which men have, they keep for their heirs;
and among the heirs nothing is dearer than the firstborn. Those who wish to possess another's things as if justly, seek to be made heirs by the dying: for what seems so just as to possess a thing left to oneself? For someone says: 'It has been bequeathed to me; I read the will.' Nothing seems more just than this saying. You praise, as it were, one possessing by right; God condemns one coveting unjustly. See what sort of man you are, who long to be made heir by another: do you then not wish that he should have his own heirs, among whom nothing is dearer than the firstborn? Accordingly, in your firstborn you shall be punished, you who, by coveting another's things—that is, what by right are not owed to you—as though under the shadow of right, seek them out. You lose, therefore, your firstborn.
But it is indeed easy, brethren, to lose one's firstborn bodily; for men are mortal, whether they are destined to die before their parents or after their parents: this is the troublesome thing, lest through this hidden and unjust covetousness you lose the firstborn of your heart. The firstborn of our heart is faith; for no one works well unless faith has gone before. All your good works are your spiritual sons; but among these your firstborn is faith. Whoever secretly covets another's thing forfeits inner faith. For he will first, without doubt, be a dissembler, obsequious not out of charity but out of fraud, as though loving the one from whom he desires to be made heir. He says he loves the one whom he desires to die, and in order that he may see himself the possessor of his goods,
he wishes that he may not leave his own heir. 12. An exhortation. Let this comparison, brethren, and, in a certain manner, contrariety of the ten precepts and the ten plagues make us cautious, so that we may keep our goods secure in the precepts of God: our goods, I say, our inner goods, and those laid up in the ark of our conscience. These are our treasures, which no thief, nor robber, nor evil neighbor will ever be able to take away from us, where neither moth nor rust is to be feared. For these are the true riches, that is, a good conscience, justice, mercy, chastity, and sobriety. He who is full of such things will be rich, even if he goes out naked from a shipwreck.
But if you diligently attend to these things, and are willing, with God's help, both to flee the things that are evil and to practice the things that are good, you will be the people of the Lord, and, freed from the wicked fellowship of the Egyptians—that is, from the persecution of the spiritual wickednesses—you will be able happily to arrive at the land of promise: our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen. SERMON XXII. Concerning that which is written, 'The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.' Exodus, chapter IX, 12. 1. On the hardening of Pharaoh. As often as that lesson is read, dearly beloved brethren, in which we frequently hear that the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, it is wont to generate scandal not only for the laity, but even for some of the clergy.
For some say among themselves: Why is that iniquity imputed to Pharaoh, when the Lord is reported to have hardened his heart? And because concerning this matter the most unclean Manichaeans are wont, with sacrilegious frenzy, to reprove the Scripture of the Old Testament; I ask you, brethren, attend diligently, because although not as much as we ought, yet certainly as much as we can, we wish briefly to suggest to your Charity how you ought to understand that hardening. 2. The hardening of the heart from despair. God hardens through his patience, not through his power. First let your Love faithfully and firmly believe this: that God never forsakes a man, unless he is first forsaken by the man.
For when anyone has committed grave sins once and twice and a third time, God nevertheless waits for him, as he says through the prophet, that he may be converted and live (Ezek. 33:11). But when he begins to persist in his sins, from the multitude of sins is born despair, and from despair hardening is generated. While men, negligent at first, despise their sins because they are small; as the minute sins grow, they bring in crimes also, and make up a heap, and sink down. And when this has been done, that which is written is fulfilled: 'The sinner, when he has come into the depth of evils, despises' (Prov. 18:5). Of such the Apostle says: 'Do you not know that the patience of God leads you to repentance?
But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath' (Rom. 2:4-5). And concerning such hardening we read also elsewhere: 'An untamed horse turns out hard, and a slackened son turns out headlong.' And again, concerning the son to be corrected, Scripture says: 'Beat the sides of your son while he is a child; lest he grow hard, and not consent to you' (Sir. 30:8,12). These testimonies of the Scriptures we wish to instill into your Charity for this reason, that you may understand that hardening is not accomplished by the compelling power of God, but is generated by God's remission or indulgence: and thus it is to be believed that Pharaoh was hardened not by divine power, but by divine patience.
Finally, as often as the plague of God struck him, being afflicted he repented. But when divine indulgence granted him a respite, again, being exalted, he raised himself up into pride. Believe this therefore most definitely, brethren, and understand this: that as often as the Lord says, 'I will harden the heart of Pharaoh,' he wished nothing else to be understood but, 'I will suspend my plagues and scourges, whereby, through my indulgence, I permit him to be hardened against me.' 3. Another objection concerning the same argument. But perhaps someone may say, why did God, by sparing him, make him hardened, and why did he remove the scourges?
To this I answer without anxiety: God so often removed the scourges for this reason, that Pharaoh, on account of the enormous heap of his sins, deserved not to be corrected as a son unto amendment, but was permitted to be hardened as an enemy. For his iniquities, so great, had preceded, and so often had he despised God with sacrilegious daring, that in him might be fulfilled what the Holy Spirit said of such: 'They are not in the labor of men, and they shall not be scourged with men: therefore pride has held them fast, they are covered with their iniquity and impiety; their iniquity has come forth as it were from fatness' (Ps. 63:5-7). Behold in what manner he is hardened, who does not deserve to be chastened by the Lord unto correction.
But concerning those whom God's mercy does not permit to be hardened, what is written? 'God scourges every son whom he receives' (Heb. 12:6); and again, 'Those whom I love, I rebuke and chastise' (Rev. 3:19); and again, 'For whom the Lord loves, he corrects' (Prov. 3:12). Concerning this hardening the prophet also cries out to the Lord in the person of the people, saying: 'You have hardened our heart, that we should not fear you' (Isa. 63:17). Which is surely nothing other than: 'You have forsaken our heart, that we should not turn back to you.' We know that this thing was fulfilled in the people of the Jews on account of many preceding sacrileges. 4. Hardening follows from the absence of grace.
Let no one, then, presume with the pagans or the Manichaeans to reprove or blame God's justice; but let him most surely believe that it was not by God's violence, but by his own iniquity and untameable pride against God's commandments that Pharaoh was so often made to be hardened. But what is the meaning of what God said, 'I will harden his heart' (Exod. 7:3), except: 'When my grace has been taken away from him, his own wickedness will harden him'? And that this may be more clearly recognized, we set before your Charity a certain likeness drawn from visible things. For just as, whenever water is bound fast by excessive cold, it is loosened when the sun's heat comes upon it, and hardens again when that same sun departs:
so too, without doubt, the charity of many grows cold with the chill of sins, and as it were hardens into ice; and when the warmth of the divine mercy comes upon them again, they are melted—that warmth indeed of which it is written: 'There is none that can hide himself from his heat' (Ps. 18:7). We recognize that this too was fulfilled in Pharaoh, who, whenever the plagues were removed from him, raised himself up hardened against God; but whenever he was afflicted, he pleaded humbly. 5. Why God does not mercifully scourge all. In what sense he is said to harden. But why does our Lord not so mercifully scourge all, that he permits none to be hardened against him?
Either it must be ascribed to the iniquity of those who deserve to be hardened, or it must be referred to the inscrutable judgments of God, which for the most part are hidden, yet never unjust. Let it therefore suffice us to believe piously and humbly that which the Apostle said, 'Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid' (Rom. 9:14); and that which we are accustomed to sing in the canticle, 'God is faithful, in whom there is no iniquity' (Deut. 32:4). Whence, as I have already suggested above concerning Pharaoh, let us believe this without any doubt: that not so much God's power as God's patience made him to be hardened. This thing we plainly recognize by his own confession. For thus he himself, when he was being chastised, compelled by justice, professed:
'The Lord is just, but I and my people are wicked' (Exod. 9:27). With what conscience, then, does a Christian complain that God is unjust, whom even an impious king confesses to be just? For God did not so irrevocably harden him that after the ten plagues he not only let the people of God go, but even compelled them to depart. For what he is read to have done after being struck with ten plagues, he is known to have been able to fulfill after the first chastisement. This same thing we are also accustomed to practice regarding our own household servants, whom we rear too delicately or too indulgently, or whom we pardon when they frequently sin. For when they are made worse by that very remission, we are wont to say to them reproachfully: 'I made you such;'
'by sparing you I have nourished your insolence and negligence.' And we say this, not because it was by our will that they were plunged into such great pride, but because it was rather from our kindness or indulgence that they were hardened. So too God is recognized to have done regarding Pharaoh: while out of his unspeakable benignity he suspended the plagues from him, that man with a hardened heart raised himself up proudly against God. [b.] As often as we have sinned, let us hasten to apply the medicine of almsgiving or penance to the wounds of the soul. To you, most beloved brethren, I have taken care to convey these things by way of suggestion, as it were as certain brief and obscure indications:
but if you, with a devout and faithful mind, as you are accustomed, regard the sacraments of the divine Scripture, then, the Lord granting it, you will more fully come to know what the truth of the matter contains. But we, most beloved brethren, who recognize in truth that from a multitude of sins despair is born, and from despair hardening is generated—according to that which was said above, 'When the sinner has come into the depth of evils, he despises' (Prov. 18:3)—as often as any sins have crept upon us, let us without any delay hasten to provide the medicine of almsgiving or penance for the wounds of our souls. For a poultice is usefully applied to wounds while they are still fresh,
and the wound is quickly brought back to health, which is not allowed to putrefy through long neglect. And therefore, as often as we transgress, let our sins find us to be judges, not patrons; let them recognize us to be their accusers, and not their defenders; according to that which is written: 'I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is ever before me' (Ps. 51:3). Do you acknowledge it, and God pardons it. For how would God deign to pardon what a man disdains to acknowledge in himself? For just as, if some blow or some wound has come upon our body, we seek a physician without any delay, and hasten to apply the remedies: so also we ought to act in the wounds of the soul;
lest perchance, being more solicitous for the health of the body than of the soul, preferring by an unjust judgment the handmaid to the mistress, we deserve to receive the prophetic rebuke: 'Man,' he says, 'when he was in honor, did not understand; he is compared to the senseless beasts, and is become like unto them' (Ps. 49:13). For it is expedient for us to think more of the soundness of the soul than of the body, and so to cultivate the image of God within us, that we may be able to come before the tribunal of the eternal Judge without confusion: our Lord Jesus Christ bestowing it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through all ages of ages. Amen. SERMON XXIII. On the savagery of Pharaoh and his drowning. Exodus, chapters 1, 5, 14.
1. Pharaoh's savagery against the Hebrews. The hosts of the Egyptians, having entered upon an alien path amid the sea's waves, are punished by the avenging water, in order that they might recall into their dominion those who had God as their special defender. Desperate audacity dragged them into the very midst of the sea-bed's gulf; the empty fury of wrath spurred them on all the more with madness; and when the waves came together and returned to their own nature, they grievously received them soon upon the scattered shore, and the sand kept them unburied as food for the beasts. God had chosen Moses to invite Pharaoh by mighty deeds, to admonish him by signs and wonders, to terrify him by vengeance, and to restrain him, once terrified, by severity. But you say: How could one be freed by admonition, who was already being dragged by God's sentence?
'I will harden,' he says, 'the heart of Pharaoh' (Exod. 7:3). He brought forth the sentence which he had promised he would carry out, not one which he was showing he had already carried out. 'I will harden,' he says; not, 'I harden.' It is one thing to do it, another thing that which is promised to have been already done, and yet is not fulfilled, in order that those terrified by fear may be corrected. He commanded the Hebrews to be worn down by toil, and to make bricks, straw being denied them, so that at last, exhausted, if war should befall the Egyptians, they might not be able to resist the state. Siege-engines therefore are raised up to heaven, towers loom high, and they most skillfully construct the fabric: not that buildings were lacking to the city; but he sought that the people should perish who prevailed by divine favor. The people is increased while it is oppressed, and while he thinks it diminished, it grows daily: