he pursues them all the more, as if he could conquer those whom the divine majesty had foretold would be victors. 2. The same argument is treated. Amid these things he commanded the midwives to be summoned, and orders that if the male children of the Hebrew women should be born, they be killed, and the inferior sex be preserved. O reckless audacity of fury! Punishment is decreed even for those not yet born, and peril is stirred up before the beginning of life. Restrain, wicked man, your madness. You pursue those whom you do not yet see: what is more villainous? You kill those not yet born. Let your ferocity keep order; let those be born first whom you would punish.
Nevertheless the attendant midwives performed the deliveries; they were unwilling to exercise unto destruction what they had learned unto salvation, saying that the Hebrew women gave birth more easily than the Egyptian, and that the ministries of midwives were not necessary for those to whom God comes to deliver their souls. O great genius of humanity, and a pious lie for salvation's sake! So greatly did the midwives fear God, that they despised the commands of the king, and preserved the sanctuaries of the women. But the unbelieving Pharaoh turned himself to another way of doing harm, so that what he had before attempted in secret, he might do openly among the peoples; he ordered every male offspring of the Hebrews to be killed. When rumor of this reached the ears of the mothers, heaven was beaten with their lamentations;
and when the offspring, torn away from the very breasts, was snatched to death, there succeeded a grief surpassing the grief of childbirth. Yet no mother was more unhappy than she who was more fruitful. All indeed wished rather to be barren than that, being fruitful, they should bring forth. Why do you rage impiously? Why do you savage cruelly? Though you inflict bitter deaths upon very many of the innocent, and cruelly consume the souls of the wretched, the guilt of slaughter is increased for you, and the merit of punishment is not diminished. 3. The mystical name of Moses. For when everywhere the little bodies of the infants were being cast into the river, a human hand received Moses, whom they sought as the cause of the whole vengeance.
For when Pharaoh's daughter sought the flowing baths on the green trembling bank, she found in a little basket him whom her father could not have nourished by way of punishment. To rear him, his mother is brought as a nurse (Exod. 2:5); to feed him, the occasion joined an affection which the king's fear had divided. A new kind of miracle: the daughter of a parricide showed mercy. For while, unknowing, she kept the little one, unwary, she deceived her father. It was worthy of the malice of his crime, that he should perish by the provision of his daughter—he who had forbidden mothers to give birth. A fitting divine vengeance proceeded, that he should be punished by his own affections, and that Moses should be drawn out to strip others of their evils.
Finally, Moses received his name by a mystical tongue from the waters, and the death of Pharaoh, which he had prepared in name, he found in the flood of the sea. This man, the rod working, sets his steps as if over dusty ground through the midst of the waves, and by command raises up the wave held suspended in the height of mountains, so that he might render God's people safe. 4. He commands the male children of the Hebrews to be cast into the river. You have heard the wicked and most cruel voice of the most hardened Pharaoh: 'Cast the males into the river, keep the females alive.' The enemy commands the little ones to be cast into the river, commands the innocent to be killed by a cruel death. He does not forbid birth, while he decrees that the born be killed. For those whom nature had not yet granted to live, the sentence already holds fast unto punishment.
O new and unheard-of cruelty! Judgment is celebrated before the guilty party himself is condemned; the sentence is pronounced before the one liable is shown to be liable to the sentence. Surely it is the custom of the accused that they are wont to await the sentence of their guilt. For an accused man cannot be condemned before his fault has begun to be made manifest. But these were neither born as accused, nor rightly consigned to the sentence of their guilt. For they were being born, not that they might receive the fruit of life's salvation, but that there might be those whom cruelty would make into mourning for the world. Now you command what, once done, you ought to avenge. Neither the tenderness of the newborn, nor the grief of the parents bends you, who, amid the death of the infants and the grief of the parents, rejoice that the sentence of your savagery is fulfilled.
O cruel vows of the parents, joy changed into lamentations! Whatever had gone forward in their happiness turned to their calamity. The enemy rejoiced most gladly amid the weeping of all who were drenched with tears. How many prayers of the grieving perished, how many tears were poured out in vain, how many groans and howlings of many arose, when the parents saw their children set out with their own hands—children who would themselves nonetheless soon do the same! Some now discerned their own fate in others. Some, holding back their sons, when they could no longer conceal them, exposed them; others exposed them soon after they were born, lest by retaining them longer, they should send them forth all the more cruelly. How many wished to die for their sons? How many wished to despise the tyrant's sentence?
'Let us sate him,' they say, 'and fill his savagery with our mourning.' 5. The just smiting of the firstborn of Egypt. Egypt is smitten by the loss of the firstborn, that they might learn from themselves how great is the grief for sons—they who had killed the sons of the Hebrews. Egypt, I say, is smitten by the loss of the firstborn, and a deadly outcry arises. Dignity excused no one, nor did condition oppress another. Not the servant unto obedience, not the master unto command. Honor did not excuse the king, nor did necessity set apart the poor man. The Hebrews stood unharmed while vengeance held sway—whom not only their own safety had made glad, but the plague of their enemies had made gladder still. They go forth glad, they go forth secure, unconquered under the Lord's protection.
Then Pharaoh repents that he lives, and his so great crimes did not endure that he had escaped: so that he who had corrected no fault amid so many plagues, now sought out what was fitting. He yokes the chariots, prepares the army, marshals the battle-line; no one is left who deserves to be saved. The Hebrews are shut in by the pursuing Egyptians between the sea and the enemies, between the waves and the swords. On this side the sea foams, on that the arms flash: on this side the roar of the waters, on that the din of arms. Thus God is accustomed to work for his own, that where human counsel has failed, there divine aid may intervene. 6. God wondrously provides for his own. At which sights the people, terrified, was afraid.
When they beheld the sea rushing in swift courses upon the shores, its surfaces rolling and dashing together as they slackened, at once they all cried out to the Hebrew leader: 'While we wished to be free from Pharaoh's dominion,' they say, 'we have found ruin; and while we are unwilling to serve willingly, we come to peril: you display evils, with which you still even now make promises; nor do you understand that you are the author of our destruction, while you do not recognize that you are liable to such great evils.' To whom the most holy Moses said: 'Do not be afraid, men, be armed with faith. Believe the word which you shall perceive to come to pass; believe that your victory now hastens, and the destruction of the raging nation.'
'The winds not consenting, the rolling masses of the waters are reined in by unfinished courses, lest they punish your enemies before they are commanded.' Immediately, by divine command, the sea is broken by the stroke of the rod, and, the waves divided, it displayed plains which nature had not known. With the waves gaping, the wave declares the secret and hidden things of the strait and of the sea. The deep is raised into a heap, and after the manner of walls displays the suspended waves. There is a shore where there had been deep, and a way is stretched out by a straight path, where the people of the Lord might wondrously walk. For at these sights the people of the Lord recognized that all things were done for its sake, and by divine command entered in undaunted. 'It walked,' he says, 'secure, unconquered while the Lord fought.'
There follows Pharaoh's army, about to perish by the punishment of the waters. He thought that he could fight there, where he alone with his own was about to perish. Thus therefore the Lord spoke to Moses: 'Now Egypt's destruction has come. For those whom I willed to destroy, I have disposed to remove by this punishment. The sea shall return to its former state, which it had been; that it may work salvation for the just, destruction for the unjust.' Straightway, by divine command, with a rush the Egyptians are seized, and, overwhelmed by the ruin of the waters, are cast by the rolling flood upon the shore—the Egyptians dead before the Hebrews arrive unharmed. This vengeance was due, that he should perish the sooner who refused to attain salvation. SERMON XXIV. On the journey of three days. Exodus 8. 1.
The crossing of the Red Sea, a figure of Baptism. The triple immersion. In the divine readings which were recited to us on the past days, we heard that Moses said to Pharaoh: 'We will go a journey of three days into the desert, to sacrifice to the Lord with all the people.' Let us see, most beloved brethren, what that is which Moses said: 'We will go a journey of three days into the desert, and we will offer sacrifice to the Lord our God.' This indeed Moses wished; but Pharaoh contradicted, and was unwilling that the children of Israel should depart far from him. The prince of this world was unwilling that the army of the Lord should come to know the sacraments of the three days; those sacraments indeed of which the prophet said: 'He will revive us after two days, on the third day he will raise us up' (Hos. 6:3).
The first day is the passion of the Lord and Savior, the second is that in which he descended to hell, the third is the day of the resurrection. And therefore on the third day God went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, but by night in a pillar of fire; and the people is led through the Red Sea. For the three days we can not incongruously call the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: because the Father is day, and the Son is day, and the Holy Spirit is day; and these three are one day. The journey of three days, by which one goes out of Egypt, is rightly understood to be he who said: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life' (John 14:6). For no one comes to the Father except through him. He is the way, through whom the people that is joined to God is led out of Egypt, that is,
led out from the observance of idols: and through the Red Sea—reddened by the blood of Christ, and in a certain manner already then consecrated in mystery—as if through the sacrament of Baptism, Pharaoh being drowned, the people of God is rescued. And truly so it is done, brethren: when in the saving laver the Christians are immersed a third time, then the Egyptians, that is, original sins or actual crimes, are buried as it were in the Red Sea; and while the children of Israel pass over to the service of God, the sins alone suffer shipwreck. And if anyone doubts and thinks that not all sins are blotted out through Baptism, let him recognize and understand that, just as no Egyptian remained, so nothing whatsoever remains of sins. 2. The cry of the saints without a voice.
But before the Red Sea was crossed, Moses cried out to the Lord. How does he cry? No voice of his crying is heard; and yet God says to him, 'Why do you cry to me?' (Exod. 14:15). You may wish to know how the saints cry to God without a voice. The Apostle teaches: 'For God gave the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father' (Gal. 4:6). And elsewhere: 'The Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings; and again, He who searches the reins and hearts knows what the Spirit desires; because according to God he pleads for the saints' (Rom. 8:26-27). Thus therefore, the Holy Spirit inspiring it, the cry of the saints is heard before God through their silence. 3. The mystery of the cross in the rod.
Who extinguishes the spiritual Egyptian. After these things Moses is commanded to strike the sea with the rod (Exod. 14:16). In the rod recognize the mystery of the holy cross. And it is true, brethren: for attend and see, that unless the rod be raised above the sea, the people of God is not taken away from the power of Pharaoh. So it is, most beloved brethren. If the holy cross had not been raised, the Christian people would have perished forever. But when the rod is raised, that is, the cross erected, the sea yields, its waves also yield: this is, the world is conquered, and the powers of this world. The wave is therefore driven into a heap, and the water, pressed back upon itself, is curved. The liquid receives solidity, and the floor of the sea dries into dust. Understand the goodness of the Creator.
If you obey his will, if you follow his law, he compels the very elements to serve you even against their own nature. Let us pray therefore, most beloved brethren, that our Lord may do in our heart and in our body what he did to the Egyptians in the Red Sea, that he may give us the strength and aid of the Holy Spirit, so that in our very selves we may be able to extinguish the spiritual Egyptians. For he extinguishes the spiritual Egyptian who does not do the works of darkness. He extinguishes the Egyptian who lives not carnally, but spiritually. He extinguishes the Egyptian who either drives out from his heart filthy and impure thoughts, or does not receive them at all: as the Apostle also says:
'Taking up the shield of faith, wherewith we may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the wicked one' (Eph. 6:16). In this way, therefore, we can even now see the Egyptians dead and lying on the shore, their chariots and horses drowned. We can even see Pharaoh drowned, if we live with such faith that the God of peace may swiftly crush Satan under our feet. 4. What the journey of three days is to be understood as. The journey of three days can also be understood as: to think well, to speak well, to work well. And truly he who does this, and guards it with all the strength of his mind, walks not in the night, but in the day; he is made not a son of darkness, but a son of light: and there is fulfilled in him that which the Apostle says:
'You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord; walk as children of light' (Eph. 5:8). When were we darkness, brethren? Surely when we walked the ways of the night, that is, when we thought evil, spoke evil, and even worked evil. But afterward, coming to Christ, let us through his grace leave behind the works of darkness, and by thinking well, speaking well, working well, let us hasten to run the way of light. These, therefore, are the three ways by which one arrives at heaven: just as those three others are, by which the lovers of the world arrive in hell, that is, to think evil, to speak evil, to do evil. This is the broad and spacious way which leads to perdition.
And through these ways the rich man clothed in purple descended into hell: but through those other ways Lazarus deserved to reach the bosom of Abraham. The enemy besets these three ways, as we read concerning Pharaoh's army: 'The chosen riders, standing three by three, he sank in the Red Sea' (Exod. 15:4, according to the LXX). 5. The same argument is treated. Who are these chosen riders? Chosen indeed by the devil for luxury, for malice, for pride, the head of all evils. And so these, standing three by three, beset these three ways, that the one may overthrow a man unto evil works, or the other draw forth an evil word, or the other wring out an unjust thought.
But happy is he who, avoiding all these three ways, with God helping, departs for the whole three days from the fellowship of Pharaoh; so that the prince of darkness may withdraw from him no day, nor turn the splendor of his faith into night. And therefore, brethren, let us do that which is written: 'With all watchfulness keep your heart' (Prov. 4:23). Let us consider, with God's help, and guard our heart together with our conscience; and if there is anyone among us into whom some one of the princes of darkness has cast an evil thought, let him labor as much as he can, that at least he may not sin in speech: that is, if the devil has snatched from him one day and turned it into night, he may not be able to obtain a second day in him.
But if by his most cunning subtlety he has been able to obtain this too, that we both think evil in the heart and speak it with the mouth; if we have now lost two, let us at least preserve one day with God's help, lest the wickedness of the enemy be able to overthrow us even unto evil works. But if this too has happened, let us nevertheless not despair of mercy; but let us hasten quickly, through penance, to shake off the feet of our soul from the mire of filth. For the Lord does not will the death of the sinner, but that he should be converted and live (Ezek. 33:11). Yet let us so be converted that we do not again look back, nor do the evil works which we have done; nor return like a dog to its vomit;
but tending toward the precious and desirable homeland, let us through the way of good works arrive at the kingdom, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, who lives and reigns unto ages of ages. Amen. SERMON XXV. On the bitter water and the manna. Exodus, chapters 15, 16. 1. The bitter water, the letter of the Law. In the lesson which is to be read to us at the Mass, most beloved brethren, we are about to hear that the children of Israel, after the crossing of the Red Sea, came to Marah, that is, to the bitter water; and the people could not drink the water, because it was bitter. For which reason the Lord showed blessed Moses a piece of wood, and he cast it into the water, and it was made sweet.
It is quite wondrous that God should show Moses a piece of wood which he might cast into the water, and make it sweet: as though God could not have made the water sweet without wood; or as though Moses did not know wood, so that God should show it to him. But it must be seen what beauty the inner sense holds in these things. For the Red Sea signified the sacrament of Baptism; the bitter water signified the letter of the Law. Indeed, the Law, if it be taken according to the letter, is bitter enough. How would that not be bitter which kills, since the Apostle says, 'The letter kills' (2 Cor. 3:6)! For what is so bitter as that a boy should receive the wound of circumcision on the eighth day, and that tender infancy should suffer the harshness of the iron?
Bitter enough and most bitter is this kind of cup of the Law, so much so that the people of God—not that people which was baptized in Moses in the sea and in the cloud, but that which was baptized in spirit and water—cannot drink of this water: but it cannot even taste of the bitterness of circumcision, nor is it able to bear the bitterness of the sacrifices, nor the observance of the sabbath. But if God should show the wood which is to be cast into this bitterness, so that the water of the Law may become sweet, then the Christian people can drink of it. 2. The wood by which the bitter Law grows sweet, which is wisdom. What is this wood which the Lord showed? Solomon demonstrates it, when he says of wisdom, that 'it is a tree of life to all who embrace it' (Prov. 3:18).
If therefore the wood of Christ's wisdom has been cast into the Law, and has shown us how circumcision ought to be understood spiritually, how the sabbaths, how the Law is to be observed, then the bitter water becomes sweet, and the bitterness of the Law is turned into the sweetness of spiritual understanding; and then the people of God can drink. In order, therefore, that the bitter water might be drunk, God showed the wood which was to be cast into it; so that whoever drinks of it might not die, nor feel the bitterness. Whence it is established that if anyone should wish to drink of the letter of the Law without the wood of life, that is, without the mystery of the cross, without faith in Christ, without spiritual understanding, he would die from the excessive bitterness.
Knowing this, the apostle Paul said that 'the letter kills': this is to say plainly, that the bitter water kills, if it be not changed into sweetness through the Spirit. The wood, therefore, is cast into the water, that it may be changed into sweetness. It is true, brethren. Then the bitterness is taken away from the water, when the wood of the cross is joined to the sacrament of Baptism. 3. The manna began to be given on the Lord's day. The manna, the word of God. How it is to be eaten. And note this, brethren, that on the Jews' sabbath God never at all rained down manna, nor did the Jews deserve that on their sabbath grace should descend to them from heaven. But on our Lord's day not only did the manna always come, but even from that very day the beginning of its coming took place.
Always, therefore, the Lord rains manna for us from heaven. For heavenly are these utterances which have been spoken to us, and from God descend the words which have been recited to us: and therefore we who receive such manna, always have manna given to us from heaven. Whence the unhappy Jews are to be pitied and mourned, because they do not deserve to receive the manna as their fathers received it: they never eat the manna. For they cannot eat that which is small like coriander seed, and white like the hoar-frost. For nothing in the word of God is small, nothing subtle; the unhappy Jews perceive nothing spiritual; but everything to them is fat, everything gross. For the heart of this people is grown gross (Matt. 13:15).
But the very asking about the name means this same thing. For 'manna' is interpreted, 'What is this?' See whether the very force of the name does not summon you to learn; so that when you hear the Law of God read aloud in the church, you should always ask as well and say to the teachers, 'What is this?' For this is what manna signifies. You therefore, if you wish to eat manna, that is, if you desire to receive the word of God, know that it is small and exceedingly fine, like a coriander seed. For it has within itself something of the herb, by which it can nourish and refresh the weak; for he who is weak, let him eat herbs (Rom. 14:2). It has something of a certain harshness, and therefore it is like hoarfrost. But of whiteness and sweetness it has very much.
For what is whiter, what is more resplendent than divine learning? What is sweeter, or what more pleasant than the words of the Lord, which are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb (Ps. 118:103)? 4. What it means to gather double on the sixth day; worms from the manna. But what is it that Scripture says, that on the sixth day a double portion is to be gathered as a store, as much as will suffice even for the Sabbath? According to our understanding we ought not to pass over this idly or carelessly; but through alms we should store up as much as will suffice also for the day to come. For if you acquire here any good work, if you store up anything of righteousness, of mercy and of piety, this will be food for you in the age to come. And indeed the Apostle admonishes this, saying: For whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap (Gal. 6:8).
(6:8). What then are we doing, we who love to store up what perishes, not what remains and endures until the morrow, that is, into the age to come? The rich, greedy and covetous, store up these things which in this age—nay, together with this age—will perish; but those who store up good works, these remain even until the morrow. Indeed it is written that those who were faithless had kept, it says, some of the manna, and worms bred out of it, and it rotted. But that which was laid up for the Sabbath day was not corrupted, nor did worms breed in it; but it remained whole. And you likewise, if you lay up treasure only for the sake of the present life and for the love of the world, worms breed forth at once.
Then hear concerning sinners and those who love the present world what the prophet says: Their worm, he says, shall not die (Isa. 66:24). These are the worms which avarice begets. These are the worms which the blind greed of riches begets in those who have money, and who, seeing their brothers in need, close their bowels of compassion against them. Therefore the Apostle also says: But charge the rich of this world not to be high-minded, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches; but to be rich in good works, to give readily, to share, and to lay up for themselves a true life (1 Tim. 6:17-19). 5. To the sinner the word of God becomes a worm. Someone has said: If you say that the manna is the word of God, how does it produce worms?
It is true, brethren: worms come to be in us from no other source than from the word of God. For thus He says: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin (John 15:22). But after the word of God has been received, whoever sins, that very word becomes to him a worm, which forever gnaws at his conscience and devours the secrets of his breast. 6. The word of God tastes to each as he wills. Now therefore let us hasten to receive the heavenly manna. For this manna, as each one wills, renders such a savour in his mouth. For hear the Lord also saying to those who came to Him: Be it done to you according to your faith (Matt. 8:13).
And so you too, if you receive with full faith and full devotion the word of God that is preached in the church, that word will become for you whatever you desire. For example, if you are afflicted, it consoles you, saying: A broken and humbled heart, O God, You will not despise (Ps. 50:19). If you rejoice in prosperity, it heaps up future joys for you, saying: Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous (Ps. 31:11). If you are angry, it calms you, saying: Cease from anger, and forsake indignation (Ps. 36:8). If you are in pains, it heals you, saying: The Lord heals all your infirmities (Ps. 102:3). If you are consumed by poverty, it consoles you, saying: The Lord raises up the needy from the earth, and lifts the poor from the dunghill (Ps. 112:7).
Thus therefore the manna of the word of God renders in your mouth whatever savour you wish. Yet if anyone receives it faithlessly, and does not eat it but hides it away, worms breed forth from it. Do you suppose the word of God must be brought so far that it may even be thought to become a worm? Let not what you hear disturb you here: hear the prophet saying in the person of the Lord: But I am a worm, and no man (Ps. 21:7). For just as He is the one who becomes to some a downfall, but to others a resurrection, so too He is the one who now in the manna becomes to the faithful the sweetness of honey, but to the faithless a worm. 7. Let us be earnest in devoting ourselves to divine reading.
And therefore, most dear brethren, as much as we can with the help of God, let us be earnest in devoting ourselves to the divine reading, that we may be worthy to know the Law of God spiritually; that the word of God may not become for us a worm, which continually accuses and afflicts our consciences; but that what is written may be fulfilled in us: How sweet are Your words to my throat, O Lord, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth (Ps. 118:103)! Which grace let us pray that God may deign to grant us out of His own mercy; to whom be honour and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen. SERMON 26. On Rephidim, on the smitten rock, and on Amalek. Exodus 17. 1. What it means to come from the desert of Sin into Rephidim.