But if they had descended to the lower parts of the house, they would have been slain by the spies who had been sent to seize them. The housetop therefore is the office of a lofty mind and the summit of the soul, by which the naked weakness of the body is covered. Whence it also seems to me that that paralytic too was holy, who was let down from the housetop by four young men, because by the support of four virtues — prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice — he subjected himself by a certain lofty reasoning at the feet of Christ. For nothing is more exalted than humility, which, being as it were superior, knows not how to be lifted up, because no one aspires to what he judges to be beneath himself. But since we are engaged in the matter of judgment, let us not depart from the housetop, lest, while we desire to carry off the goods that are in the house, we be caught.
For not in every house are there vessels of gold and silver, but in most there are wooden ones, nor is every house full; for there are also empty ones, which the prophet knew, who said: what has now happened to you, that you have ascended into empty houses? The city is filled with those who cry out. And he added: all your princes have fled, all who in you are wounded, and they have lapsed from faith into faithlessness. Sabellius was wounded, Valentinus was wounded, Arius was wounded; for they were found in an empty house. Do you wish to see a full house? Follow Peter, when he was hungry, going up to the upper parts of the house. There he recognized the mystery of the Church to be gathered, that he should not judge the gentile people unclean, whom faith could cleanse from all contagion.
But the vessels are of clay; therefore the vessel is the body. And therefore beware lest by the desire of the body you forsake the splendid pursuits of the mind. If Peter did not receive the mystery while placed in the lower parts, how will you receive it? He received it because he ascended, that he might preach the Lord and not fear the suffering of the body. Therefore let him who is on the housetop not go down, and let him who is in the field not turn back. Whence shall I understand what the field is, unless Jesus Himself teach me, saying: no one putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of heaven? The idle man sits in the villa, the laborious man sows in the field; the feeble man is at the hearth, the strong man at the plow. Good is the smell of the field; for the smell of Jacob is the smell of a full field. The field is full of flowers, full of diverse fruits.
Plow therefore your field, if you wish to be directed to the kingdom of God. Let the fruitful harvest of good merits flourish for you. Let there be an abundant vine on the sides of your house and a young olive plant round about your table. Let your soul, now conscious of its fruitfulness and sown with the word of God, plowed also with spiritual tillage, say to Christ: come, my brother, let us go out into the field; and let Him answer: I have entered into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh. For what is better than the vintage of faith, by which the fruit of resurrection is stored up, by which the fountain of perpetual gladness is watered? And so, when you are forbidden to look back, much more are you forbidden to return and to take up your tunic; for you have learned that to him who asks your tunic of you, you ought to give up your cloak also.
Therefore, being directed to the kingdom of God, do not seek riches and patrimony. I know also of another tunic that is written of, concerning which the Apostle exhorts us that, putting off the old man with his deeds and being clothed with the new, we should not seek again the tunic of the former error. Whence she also says: by night I have put off my tunic, how shall I put it on? — meaning that you ought not only to renounce sins, but also to abolish all memory of the former conduct. Finally Paul, forgetting the things behind, put off his fault but did not omit repentance. And therefore the Lord says: remember Lot's wife, who, because she looked back, lost the gift of her nature; for behind is Satan, behind is Sodom. Wherefore flee intemperance, turn aside from luxury.
And that you may know that not all are able to flee into the mountain, recall that the one who did not turn himself back to his old pursuits — for he had chosen Sodom beforehand — therefore escaped, because he reached the mountain; while she who was the weaker, because she looked back to the things behind, and was not aided by her husband's support, could not reach the mountain, but remained behind. In that night there shall be two in one bed; one shall be taken and the other left.
He rightly called it night, because Antichrist is the hour of darkness, in that he pours darkness over the breasts of men, when he says that he is Christ, while false prophets arise who assert that he now dwells in the deserts of the laws, that they may delude with the error of wandering opinion, now in the inner chambers, that those who have heard may be constrained by the name of an exalted power. But Christ, like the flashing lightning, scatters the globes of His light throughout the whole world, and therefore neither wanders in the deserts nor is enclosed in any places, because 'I fill heaven and earth,' says the Lord, but shines with the light of His brightness, so that in that night we may be able to see the glory of the resurrection. What then does He mean when He says:
two in one bed, and two grinding, and two in the field; one shall be taken and the other left? Is God then unjust, that He should distinguish by the reward of recompense those who are equal in pursuits and in the fellowship of living, and undivided in the quality of their actions? It is not so; but according to the actions of a man is the quality of his recompense. Therefore the practice of partnership does not equalize the merits of men; for both father against son and son against father rise up in the zeal of religion, because not all accomplish what they undertake, but he who shall have persevered to the end, he shall be saved. Then further the Lord searches out not the outward compliance, but the inner affection; for if you offer justly and do not divide justly, the sacrifice is not accepted by God.
Therefore from one couch — for there is a couch of human weakness, since it is written: you have turned all his couch in his weakness — one is left, the other taken. He who is taken is caught up to meet Christ in the air; but he who is left is rejected. Two grinding in the mill. The sense indeed is that these seem to signify those who seek nourishment from hidden things and bring it forth into the open from inner places. But nevertheless we must inquire what these women grind, unless perchance it be what we read in Isaiah: if you bring fine flour, it is vain — so that the fine flour may be that which is offered by the grinders. Let us therefore discuss what they grind, and what they grind it into, and what the mill is.
And perhaps this world is the mill, in which I think it more fitting that the form of the human body be represented, in which our soul is enclosed as it were in a bodily prison, to work, if it takes good counsel, the heavenly bread. In this mill therefore either the synagogue or the soul liable to transgressions, grinding wheat moistened and corrupted by heavy moisture, cannot separate the inner from the outer, and therefore is left behind, because its fine flour displeased.
But the holy Church, or the soul stained by no contagions of transgressions, which grinds such wheat as is parched by the heat of the eternal sun, which God has both willed and clothed, and which the angels have cleansed from every stain of impurities, offering good fine flour from the inner chambers of men, presents to God the libations of its sacrifice. And not only shall there be two grinding, but also two working in one field, of whom one shall be taken, the good sower, who has not sown upon the roads, but upon the plowed and cultivated soil, that the earth may multiply the fruit pressed down by humility, not scattered by ostentation; but the sower of tares shall be left, from whom is made the rejected fine flour.
But who these differing husbandmen are, we can discover, if we observe by what reasoning the Apostle said that there are two minds, that is two νοῦς, in us; for perhaps it is because the one is of the outer man, the other of the inner, who is renewed through the sacraments. And the former is perhaps the worse, who is puffed up, vainly inflated by the mind of his flesh and not holding the head, because he turns aside from the observance of the saving precepts of our Lord Jesus Christ; for He Himself is the head of all, who is the author of all. The other is more excellent, who loves humility, seeks wisdom, does not omit mercy — the good sower indeed;
for he has dispersed, he has given to the poor, his righteousness remains forever. This one therefore is spiritual, that one is carnal. For just as by the words of the Apostle we understand that one, the seducer exalting himself with a swollen mind, to be inflated by the mind of his flesh, so also we show the holy man to be renewed by the spirit of his mind, the same Apostle saying: but be renewed in the spirit of your mind. He demonstrates therefore that there are two minds: one which becomes the mind of the flesh, conquered by sin; the other which, joined to the spirit, forswears the enticements of the flesh. And not only are there two minds, but also two laws in us, both of which the Apostle has explained to us, saying:
for I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. There is therefore a law of the inner man, and there is also one of the outer: the one which forbids sin, the other which persuades it; the one which condemns error, the other which suggests it; the one which instructs the mind, the other which tempts it. There are also two other more vehement laws in us, one of God, the other of sin, according to the same Master, who says: so then I myself with my mind serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin. And it is shown that if you should speak of the mind alone, you would show the flesh to be contrary to it;
for when Paul says that he serves the law of God with his mind, he surely demonstrates that the mind, of itself, unless it be conquered by the flesh, is good and so created by nature that it resists error. And so when it is conquered, it is the mind of the flesh, having from nature not what slips, but from the flesh; and the conquered, as it were, succeeds into the name and property of the victor; but the nature of the flesh is adverse. Finally, with the mind we serve God, with the flesh sin. But the mind shall be better if, as a fellow-worker with the Holy Spirit, it does not interrupt its religious office. These then are the women working in our field, of whom one by diligence gives good fruit, the other by carelessness loses it, which the giver of the law calls blood, saying: the soul of all flesh is its blood.
To which most refer also that which is written: you shall not eat flesh with the blood, lest we reckon the pleasures of the body, bloodied by the wounds of the soul, rather as a place of refreshment than as the guilt of blood — we who ought to be refreshed by the word of God. There is therefore a food of refreshment, there is a food of blood; for just as the flesh of the Lord truly is food, so His blood truly is our drink. Let us therefore offer good nourishment to the Lord from our works, lest again, when He comes and, as in that fig tree, finds no fruit, fasting through the unfruitfulness of our merits, He turn away the purpose of His mercy, saying to that soul which He has found bare of fruits and bloodied with blood: may fruit never be born of you forever.
There is therefore a soul of all flesh, which is its blood. There is also a more excellent soul, of which God said: all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son are mine. Nor does it escape us that we should interpret two peoples, that is, that in this world, which is very frequently compared to a field, there are two peoples: one of believers, the other which does not believe, who shall receive the recompense of their merits; and therefore the one who is faithful is taken, the other who is unfaithful is left. But those two grinding are two souls, or certainly the Church and the synagogue; for in the divine Scriptures there is wont to be not one figure only, but a manifold one, so that one saying may comprehend several senses.
And so the mind of the flesh and the soul of the flesh and the synagogue gather that wheat and grind that fine flour which is offered in vain; but the mind which is joined to the soul, and the soul which is the receiver of salvation, or the Church of God, cultivate and grind the spiritual fine flour of the true law. Whence also are made the loaves of proposition, which the priests alone eat, to whom it is prescribed to eat purer bread, namely that which came down from heaven. But we are all, if our merits permit, priests of righteousness, who by the anointing of gladness are consecrated unto a kingdom and a priesthood.
Therefore let us so exercise and cultivate our field, being appointed to the office of this husbandry, that in that higher Jerusalem, where the true keeping of the law is celebrated, we may have fine flour from our sheaves, which blessed are they who shall be able to gather, that coming they may come in exultation, carrying their sheaves. These therefore are the spiritual fruits and the happy true yields of labor, which are moistened by no useless rain; but the fruit of the flesh is subject to corruption, and therefore he who has sown carnal things shall reap carnal things. But what shall I say of the field, when it is manifest that in the work of the cultivator there is either praise or blame? And answering they said: where, Lord? This the disciples spoke, but the Lord —
where He had forewarned both whither one must flee and where one must remain and what was to be avoided, He embraced the sum with a general definition, saying: wherever the body shall be, there the eagles shall be gathered together. And so let us first conjecture what the eagles are, that we may define what the body is. For the souls of the just are compared to eagles, because they seek the heights, leave the lowly things behind, and are said to live a long-lasting age. Whence David also says to his soul: your youth shall be renewed like the eagle's. If therefore we have understood the eagles, we can no longer doubt concerning the body, especially if we remember that Joseph received the body from Pilate.
Do not Mary of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of the Lord, and the gathering of the apostles around the Lord's burial, seem to you to be eagles around the body? Do they not seem to you eagles around the body, when the Son of Man shall come with intelligible clouds, and every eye shall see Him, even they who pierced Him? There is also a body, of which it was said: my flesh truly is food and my blood truly is drink. Around this body are eagles, which fly about with spiritual wings. There are also eagles around the body who believe that Jesus came in the flesh, because every spirit that confesses that Christ came in the flesh is of God. Where therefore there is faith, there is the sacrament, there is the lodging-place of holiness.
There is also a body, the Church, in which through the grace of baptism we are renewed in spirit, and the declining things of old age are restored to renewed ages. Let the children come to me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. And this age is weak in strength, feeble in talent, immature in counsel. Therefore age is not preferred to age; otherwise to grow up would be a hindrance. What need is there of prayers that maturity of age may follow, if it is going to take away from me the merit of the heavenly kingdom? Did God then give the advance of life unto vices, not unto the increase of virtue? And why did He Himself choose apostles not of childish, but of more advanced age? But why does He say that children are fit for the kingdom of heaven?
Perhaps because they do not know malice, have not learned to deceive, dare not strike back, are ignorant how to investigate, and do not crave riches, honor, ambition. But it is no virtue to be ignorant of these things, but to despise them; nor is it praise of continence where there is the integrity of weakness. Therefore not childhood, but a goodness emulating childlike simplicity is designated. For it is no virtue to be unable to sin, but to be unwilling, and so to maintain perseverance of will, so that the will may imitate infancy, the one may imitate nature. Finally the Savior Himself expressed this, saying: unless you be converted and become as this child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Who then is the child to be imitated by the apostles of Christ? Surely one of the little ones? Is this then the virtue of the apostles?
Who, then, is this child? Is it perhaps the one of whom Isaiah says: 'A child is born to us, a son is given to us'? For it is he who said to you, child: 'Take up your cross and follow me.' And that you may recognize the child: when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he was struck, he did not strike back; for this is perfect virtue. And so even in childhood there is a certain venerable maturity of character, and in old age an innocent childlikeness; for old age is venerable not by length of days nor reckoned by the number of years, but the gray hairs of a man are his understanding, and a spotless life is the age of old age. Whence also it is written: 'Praise the Lord, you children, praise the name of the Lord,' because no one but the perfect praises the Lord; for no one says 'the Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit.
This seems to have been prophesied concerning the people of the Church, which, though younger, surpassed the older people of the Jews in zeal for virtue. And therefore that saying: 'Behold, I and the children whom you have given me.' These are the children who, attending with prophetic voices upon the Lord borne on the colt of an ass, declared that the redemption of the nations had come; these are the children, or infants, who sucked those breasts of Christ with a fuller draught than wine; for 'out of the mouth of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise.' It may therefore seem harsh and unkind to some that the disciples forbade the little infants to approach the Lord, unless you understand either the mystery or the affection;
for they did not act out of any harshness of a mind envious toward the children, but rendered to the Lord the dutiful services of zealous attendance, lest he be pressed upon by the crowds. Indeed, elsewhere it is written: 'Master, the crowds press upon you'; for surely our own advantage is to be refused where there is injury to the divinity. Therefore let us flee pride and follow childlike simplicity, since truth is the adversary of pride, while simplicity, running together with truth, is exalted in that very humility. For God does not dwell in an abject heart, but, as the prophets have handed down to us: 'The throne of virtue is exalted'—namely in him whose wisdom is raised to the height of truth. Nor, like Cain, let anyone hide beneath a brotherly appearance the guile of a murderer, but let him be a brother both without and within.
So much for the affection. But as for the mystery: it was because they longed that the people of the Jews, from whom they had been born according to the flesh, should be saved first. Yet they also interceded on behalf of the Canaanite woman. They knew, then, the mystery—that the calling of both peoples was owed—but perhaps they did not yet know the order. Now mark the difference of words. Where he bids the infants come to him, that he might bless them either by prayer or by laying on of hands, he calls them 'children'; where he commands that they not be made to stumble, he calls them 'little ones'; for those touched by Christ are not made to stumble, those who draw near to Christ do not fall, but those fall whom not the smallness of age but the littleness of virtue has made 'little ones.'
At the same time he also teaches that the weak are not to be tempted, lest the offenses of those be turned upon us whose prayers, even though they themselves be weak in the merits of the virtues, are nevertheless borne up to the Lord by the patronage of the angels. Let no one, then, mock the poor man, for he provokes him who made him; let no one tempt the feeble, lest he wound the angels; let no one cast down the weak, lest he undo the benefit of the Redeemer. And therefore he said: 'Woe to this world because of offenses,' for very many have judged the cross of the Lord to be an offense, although the humility of the Lord's Passion is the sacrament of our salvation, that we may take on the office of virtue and receive the example of humility. Woe, therefore, to him who has not believed in the cross of the Lord, at which the weak are made to stumble;
it were better for him that an ass's millstone be hung about his neck and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea. In the divine Scriptures we ought to weigh not the sequence of words but the import of things; for a certain bestial pomp of an unheard-of and monstrous punishment avails more to restrain sins. Yet, lest from this too some offense be generated for the weak, we do not think it idly that the ass's millstone, the man's neck, and the depth of the sea are set together.
For since the Gentile people has received the type of the ass, does it not seem to you to turn, as it were, the ass's millstone, so long as it is engaged in the error of its own ignorance—bound indeed by the bonds of nature, so as to grind out a word and seek God, yet overspread by the blindness of a covered mind, so that it knows not how to lift up the countenance of the soul to God nor to open the eyes of the heart? And therefore, without any briskness of course, with footsteps often returning upon themselves, unwillingly it labors for another's use. Yet he who turns the mill has at some point an end of completing the work, and bears the hope of being stripped of his blindness. But to whose neck is the millstone hung? He carries a stone who has refused to carry the yoke of the Lord.
The ass, then, to the mill; the blind man to the stone; the Gentile to the rock—he who worships one whom he does not see nor acknowledge; for God does not dwell in things made by hands, nor is he acknowledged in a stone, but in spirit. Each people, then, both Gentile and Jew, is set forth under a certain pageantry of this discourse, but a heavier penalty is decreed against the Jews. For the memory of the Gentiles shall be overwhelmed by the waves of this world and abolished in the mire of this world, those who willed to exist among the things that are not, and, estranged from the knowledge of God, were sunk as it were into the depth of the sea; but the Jews, taken up through the patriarchs, sealed by circumcision, instructed through the Law, shall not perish as the unknown, but shall be punished as the sacrilegious.
For the God unknown to the Athenians was known in Judea, but not received. And therefore: he who is ignorant shall be ignored, he who transgresses shall be condemned; neither is he absolved from guilt who knew not his own Author, nor is that man absolved from pardon who did not receive the Lord. Yet it is more tolerable not to have offered faith to Christ than to have laid hands upon him. Now a certain ruler questioned him, saying: 'Good Master, what shall I do to possess eternal life?' But Jesus says to him: 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.' A crafty question, and therefore a shrewd reply. For this ruler, a tempter, called him 'good Master,' who ought to have called him 'good God.'
For although in the divinity there is goodness and in goodness divinity—for no one is good but God alone, and every man is a liar, and whatever is a liar is surely not good—yet by adding 'good Master' he called him good in part, not in totality; for God is good in totality, man in part. Therefore the Lord: 'Why do you call me good, you who deny me to be God? Why do you call me good, since no one is good but the one God?' He does not, then, deny himself to be good, but signifies that he is God; for what is 'good' but full of goodness? But when it is written: 'There is none that does goodness, there is not even one,' surely he spoke of men, not of God; for God is one, not one of a number.
So also the Son of God is excepted as the only one, not as one out of many, and he is only-begotten, not one out of many begotten. And therefore 'no one is good' does not prejudice Christ, because no one passes judgment on Christ. For 'no one' is said of us as it were in common, but Christ has nothing in common with us. But if it troubles anyone that 'no one is good but the one God,' let this also trouble him, that 'no one is good but God.' But if the Son is not excepted from God, surely neither is Christ excepted from the good.
But since in God the Son is another in person, yet one in power—for there is one God, from whom are all things, and one Lord, through whom are all things, yet God and Lord are not two gods but one God, since 'the Lord your God is one Lord'—surely, since according to majesty God is one in each person, so the Good is one in both. For how should he not be good who is born of the Good? For a good tree produces good fruits. How should he not be good, since the substance of goodness, taken up from the Father, has not degenerated in the Son, which has not degenerated in the Spirit? And therefore: 'Your good Spirit shall lead me into the right way.' But if the Spirit is good, who has received from the Son, surely good also is he who handed it down.
And since the Father is good, surely also he is good who has all things that the Father has; or if you deny the Son to have goodness, you deny it also of the Father. A clear argument needs no examples; nevertheless, follow at least the authority of the Scriptures; for it is written: 'The Lord is a good judge to the house of Israel.' Does he say it of the Son or of the Father? But the Father judges no one, for he has given all judgment to the Son. Therefore the good Lord is the Son. Take another. Those who come to baptism surely confess the Trinity, since they are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: therefore they confess both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. When, therefore, it is said:
'Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good'—good surely is the Father, good the Son, good also the Holy Spirit, yet God is one; and, 'because the Lord is good to those who wait for him.' Is he not good, who bestows good things on the soul that seeks him? Is he not good, who satisfies your soul with good things? Is he not good, who says: 'I am the good shepherd'? But you suppose God to be good for this reason, that he has no judgment, in which lies the necessity of avenging. Although it has already been stated above that he is a good judge to the house of Israel, yet elsewhere you have: 'How good is the God of Israel to those who are upright in heart!' Of whom, then, do you suppose this is said, of the Father or of the Son? If of the Father, then he is not good to all. Why, then, do you detract from the Son? If of the Son, then you confess both God and the Son to be good:
for he is the blessed God of Israel, because he has visited and wrought the redemption of his people. He is the King and God of Israel, to whom it is said: 'Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.' So therefore he says here: 'Since you who tempt me cannot perceive me to be good, why do you call me good? Good indeed am I, but to those upright in heart, to whom it is given to be good by nature, not by craftiness. Good, therefore, is the Son; for he is the brightness of the eternal light and the spotless mirror of the majesty of God and the image of his goodness.' How then is he not good, who is the image of goodness? For as the image of God is God, yet one God, so also the image of the divine goodness is good, yet one goodness.