For I read of him who, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself — and he emptied himself in order to take the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself even unto death; I read him saying: 'He who exalts himself shall be humbled'; I read him saying: 'Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.' He did not say, 'Learn of me because I am mighty'; he did not say, 'Learn of me because I am glorious'; but, 'Learn of me because I am humble,' which you can imitate. Do not exalt yourselves, do not lift up your heart.
He taught me, therefore, to be humbled and to incline my heart to perform righteous deeds — to incline it not to iniquity, but to equity, for the sake of the recompense. The recompense is the kingdom of heaven and the dwelling in paradise. XV. THE LETTER SAMECH. 'Samech' begins the fifteenth letter, which has the interpretation 'hear.' There is also another interpretation of it which is called 'firmament.' What is 'hear'? It is not said idly that which is common to all and is available to all by the very right of nature. And therefore it is not idle that you are admonished to hear, since even unwilling and doing something else we are nonetheless wont to hear a sound or a voice.
But since it is not only to hear that which is supplied by the function of nature, but also that which is greater — to hear not so much by the use of the body as by the understanding of the mind — therefore consider more diligently the interpretation of this letter and the sequence of the verses that follow. And that you may know that 'to hear' is mystical, so that you may hear and understand mysteries, it is written of the Jews that they heard the mysteries of the law but did not understand them. Whence the Lord says: 'Hear, my people, and I will speak.' The law is indeed spiritual; hear, therefore, spiritually. Finally, he who knew how to hear says: 'I will hear what God speaks in me,' that is, 'I will know what God has spoken in me.' And therefore he says elsewhere:
'How great things we have heard and known them,' so that he might comprehend that he had not only heard but also understood; for no one knows unless he has first understood. Hear, therefore, lest, if Peter sees you negligent, he come, snatch up his sword, and cut off your ear, because you have superfluously the ear of the body, you who have not known how to hear and to examine. And perhaps they may have amputated the power of the soul, by which whatever is heard is examined — they who cannot hear with that loftiness with which it is written. And deservedly have others interpreted this letter 'firmament,' which agrees with the former interpretation; for unless each one hears what he ought to follow, no one is made firm. In the office of hearing, therefore, is the firmament of all.
The prophet Jeremiah, therefore, says to you in the Lamentations through this letter: 'Hear.' And that you may know that what you ought to hear is mystical, he subjoined the following sequence to this letter: 'The Lord has taken away all my mighty ones from my midst, he has called a time against me, to crush my chosen ones; the Lord has trodden the winepress for the virgin daughter of Judah.' The Lord did not take away all the mighty ones of Judah at that time when the people of the Jews was led captive into the region of Babylon, but when Christ came and the captive did not see the freedom of her soul, not knowing, bowed down by grievous sins, how to lift up the neck of her mind and to raise a certain neck of faith toward the light of knowledge.
Therefore the passion of the Savior became a winepress to the Jews, which to the nations showed a harbor of salvation, because the cross of the Lord is to those who do not believe a precipice, to those who believe it is life. For this reason he prefaced 'hear,' that you might know things to come. In another place too he subjoined this to this letter: 'All who pass by the way have stretched out their hands over you, they have hissed and shaken their head over the daughter of Jerusalem; this is the city, they will say, the crown of glory and the joy of the whole earth.' Prophesying the passion of the Savior, Jeremiah ceased to bewail the destruction of the Jews. And this can be understood from other passages as well as from that one, because in what follows he has:
'The spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in our destruction, under whose shadow we said: We shall live among the nations.' What is more manifest than this, when both the name was expressed, and the seizure among the hands of treacherous persecutors was declared, and the life-giving shadow and the grace to be conferred on the nations was described? But the very words also signify those things which we read in the Gospel concerning the passion of the Lord, because in this passage his death was announced through the prophet. For thus Matthew wrote: 'And those passing by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying: Aha, you who destroyed the temple of God and in three days rebuilt it! Free yourself, if you are the Son of God.' The common crowd, when it insults someone, is wont to hiss.
At the same time, because those who denied the Word had no voice, they hissed like irrational animals, and therefore they passed by the way who ought to have stood in the way. They did not stand, then, as those who are steadfast, but passed by as those who are unstable. But the feet of the just stood in the courts of Jerusalem, in which the treacherous could not stand and therefore passed by, as Mark signified. A shadow passes, not the truth. 'His days pass like a shadow' — the days of him who forgets, who forsakes. But we also read that the unfaithful pass, as is that: 'And all who pass by the way gather it as in vintage.' For who but the treacherous plunders the vineyard of Christ? But elsewhere too it is written: 'And those passing by the way did not say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you'; for to those who stand it is said:
'Behold, now bless the Lord.' Yet we also read of passing by in a good sense, as is that of Moses: 'Passing by I will see this great sight'; and he who saw the wicked exalted above the cedars of Lebanon says: 'I passed by, and behold he was not'; and 'no one says to a servant: Pass by, recline.' Let us therefore consider what the distinction may be, unless perhaps it is this: that where passing by is taken in a good sense, it is said absolutely — he did not say 'passing by this' or 'that,' but only 'passing by'; where in a bad sense: 'passing,' he says, 'by the way.' For the way is good which is frequented by travelers, and is not easily assailed by robbers, who are wont to beset the byways; the royal road is fortified. But Moses did not pass by the way, but stood in the way, to whom it was said:
'But you, stand here with me.' He stood with him who says: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' He who passes by this way slips. But Moses did not slip, but passed over from worldly things to spiritual, from temporal to eternal. And he who saw the wicked man did not remain, but passed over, escaped, because he did not cling to the wicked, lest he become one body, but separated himself from him. And he to whom it is said, 'Pass by, recline,' surely escapes the toilsome present servitude, that he may have the glorious rest of things to come. And to the bride it is said: 'Come here from Lebanon, bride, come here from Lebanon — you shall pass over and pass through from the beginning of faith.' She passes and passes through who hastens to the bridegroom; she passes through the world, she passes over to Christ.
Now let us discuss what it is to shake the head. Who is the head of the people but Christ? For the head of the woman is the man, but the head of the man is Christ. But the law too is the head of the intelligible woman; for the woman was under the law as under a husband. But when the Jewish rite, which was according to the letter of the law, had been put to death, the woman was married to him who rose from the dead. Whence some have mystically interpreted that, the Jewish rite having been put to death like a deceased brother, that intelligible woman wished by the law to marry the gospel — the rite of the old covenant — because the law preceded the gospel by a kind of brotherly proclamation.
Therefore the head of the synagogue is dead, that is, its head, the law, is dead — namely the observance of the law; the letter of the law has been made void, its spiritual understanding is built up. Of this commotion David makes mention in the forty-third psalm, saying: 'You have set us as a parable to the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples,' in that from the law to the gospel a commotion was made as a kind of transit. But in the twenty-first psalm, in which the whole sequence of the passion is prophesied, it has thus: 'All who looked on me despised me and spoke with their lips and shook the head: He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him; let him save him, since he wants him.' They therefore shook the law which seemed immovable, and Christ, the end of the law, entered in.
Those who had shaken their heads were the Pharisees, that is, those separated from the truth, whence also they did not believe in the truth. But it can also be taken thus: they shook their head, Christ, who had come into his own, but they shook him, because his own did not receive him. And they shook him, saying: 'Away, away, crucify him.' And they shook their head who were unwilling to move their own burdens, since they bound heavy burdens and laid them on others, but they themselves, he says, are unwilling to move them with a finger. Which is mystical, because they were never willing to change the observance of the bodily rite and to introduce the spiritual understanding. We read 'finger' for 'spirit,' as the law was written with the finger of God, and therefore the law is spiritual.
They were therefore unwilling to move their own burdens, which are heavy, and to take up the light yoke of Christ and his pleasant burden. But since the Savior's passion has redeemed all, it is not unreasonable to understand that they moved their heads in the very manner that the well-known ruler of the synagogue prophesied: 'It is expedient that one man die for the people.' He meant to say one thing, yet signified another. And these too moved their head in a different way, as though insulting, and announced something other than they intended; for it was he who came to stir up that sluggish and earthbound governing part of men, so that, the observance of the letter being emptied out, we might seek the mystery in the words. Whence he says: 'You have made us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples.' This is certainly taken in a good sense, for he had said before:
'And you have scattered us among the nations.' For the Jews were scattered, so that their remnant might be saved according to the election of grace; but they were set up as a byword, so that we might learn from their downfall that the things spoken through the parable have been revealed, or might be warned by their example to beware of unbelief. For then did Jeremiah more clearly recognize that Judaea was to be lamented, and therefore he prophesied that Jerusalem would be taken at that very time, when it did not receive its own Redeemer. It is therefore against her that insult is directed, of whom he says they will say:
'This is the city of all the earth' — because where once there was the gladness of faith, there is now the bitterness of unbelief; or rather, by moving its own head and passing over from things bodily to things spiritual, she might be counted worthy to hear, once she has believed in Christ, that she is a crown of glory. Now what is the crown of glory but the Church, which crowns its head, Christ? What is the gladness of all the earth but the house of the Christian people, the hall of the saints, of whom it is written: 'Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world'? Therefore, because the Church is a crown of glory, it is said in the Song of Songs:
'Go forth and behold King Solomon in the crown wherewith his mother crowned him on the day of his espousals and on the day of the gladness of his heart.' It is said to souls, that they should go out from the dens and prisons of the body, go forth beyond the thoughts of the flesh, depart from desires and from cares and from the other affections of this flesh and its slippery passions, ascend above the world, go out from this world, run to meet Christ, and be ready, shining with burning torches. As though Christ's angels speak these words: 'You cannot see his brightness and his glory unless you go forth from the body of human frailty, O daughters of Jerusalem' — as if they should say:
'Why do you seek the living among the dead?' Christ is not sought within this world, he who willed his disciples to be above the world. What is the crown wherewith Christ is crowned but the crown of glory? Joseph had the crown of chastity, Paul of righteousness, Peter of faith — these are crowns of individual virtues —: Christ alone has the crown of glory, with which the Church crowned him. In this crown are all crowns, for glory is not the portion of a single crown, but the reward of all crowns. By a third tradition they moved their head, that is, Christ, who is the head of his people: 'his head is gold, fine gold.' Whence Aquila said 'rock of gold,' Symmachus 'golden stone,' which signifies a steadfast and lofty wisdom.
The body of Christ is the Church. Of this body the 'head of gold' is the precious wisdom of the saints, that is, men righteous and prudent. 'His locks are like fir trees, black as a raven,' of which he says elsewhere: 'your hair is as a flock of shorn sheep.' It is called hair because the power of all the senses is in the head; for 'the eyes of the wise man are in his head.' Thus deep is the prudence of the teachers, which is able to reveal the things that are obscure and to open up the heights of meaning. And disputants of this sort are the hair of the Church, like the young of ravens, to whom the Lord gives food, as he gave to holy Jacob from his youth and fed him. These lofty and profound ones the Lord feeds with heavenly mysteries out of the abundance of doctrine. 'His eyes also are as doves.'
The eyes are clearly the men adorned with spiritual senses, who are sharp to behold mysteries and ready to penetrate the secrets of the divine Scripture, gleaming with reasonable milk, in whom there is no spotted confusion of guile, but the pure and unspotted sincerity of a simple affection. Therefore he made mention of these doves as washed in milk amid an abundance of waters.
Now the rest — the teeth and the cheeks and the bride's lips like a scarlet thread — we understand to be the virtues of the soul and the diverse gifts of the teachers, who either dispense spiritual nourishment to the mind with diligent care, or by the preaching of the Lord's cross bind the hearer as with a certain line of the word, or who, by their modesty of bashfulness and most pleasing in the flower of youth, even if they are called back by shame from discoursing, yet in them may still breathe forth the fragrance of Christ; and as upon the cheeks the ointment came down as though from the priestly head, so may the beauty of doctrine shine forth.
And the synagogue moved this head, and therefore the Lord took away the wonderful counselor and the prudent architect and the wise hearer: 'the head,' he says, 'and the tail'; for those who had not held the head cannot have the last things. But let us now consider what is joined to this. 'I have hated the unrighteous, and I have loved your law.'
With how great an affection he inclines toward the Lord, the holy prophet David declared in this little verse; for, since he by no means persecuted his enemies — inasmuch as he could scarcely guard against the peril to his life from the snares of King Saul, yet did not think that Saul's life should be sought after nor that his death should be avenged, and grieved over the death of his parricide son, and, though assailed by the outrages of many who persecuted him, forgave them, as he himself says, because he did not repay an injury to those who wounded him — yet, hating the transgressors of the divine law, he shudders at them. In this surely is laid open both the clemency of his character and the gentleness of his piety, and the vehement intent of his devotion in accord with the discipline of the gospel precept, which he foresaw by the prophetic spirit.
For indeed the Lord Jesus both commanded that we should seek to love even our enemies, and that the enemies of God, even if they are joined to us by the bond of parents or children or marriage or kinship, are to be pursued with hatred. For so it is written: 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and moreover his own soul also, he is not worthy of me.' But should anyone receive this with careless ears, perhaps he would say: 'You, Lord Jesus, gave the law saying, Love the Lord your God, love your neighbor, and you came to fulfill this law. You said through the law, Honor your father and mother, and in the gospel you command that I should hate my parents? How do these precepts agree with one another?'
'Did you come thus, meek and lowly in heart? I cannot, with the right of piety preserved, hate my father, to whom I owe that I was created; or my mother, who bore the burdens of her devoted offspring through the long tedium of ten months, for whom there was more peril in the bringing forth, more weariness in the carrying. What have the sweetest children deserved, that they should be shut out from a father's love, when it is impious to refuse to die for one's children? What of a most dear wife, a certain co-heir of life and a common partnership of nature? What of brothers begotten from the same flesh and formed in the same lodging of nature, sent forth into this use of light? Shall I then hate the pledges of love?'
'Do you so bend the rigor of the over-harsh law by the gentleness of the gospel, that, while the law condemns wrongs done to these, you in your gospel should condemn affection toward them?' I see that I cannot answer an assertion of this kind. But do you, Lord, answer; for you do not need to be excused, you who did not need to be defended in order to conquer. He will therefore answer: Do I condemn piety, I who hate iniquity? Do I command that parents be not loved, I who counsel that enemies be loved? But have you not read: 'a time of loving and a time of hating, and a time of war and a time of peace'? Of what does Ecclesiastes say this? Is it not of that which is done by reason of the season, so that we may love and hate certain people piously, so that it is fitting to hate those you have loved and to love those you have hated?
I did not pour hatred of parents into the hearts of children, nor did I persuade loathing of wives into the minds of husbands. Ask nature what I have demanded — nature which surely testifies to the will of its Author by the inborn affection of each kinship. That fathers should love their sons is the law of nature; that husbands should love their wives is the divine law, which turns the love of marriage into nature, so that they become one flesh and one spirit. That brothers should love brothers is the prerogative of nature, which, having long cherished them in the same dwelling, has accustomed them to the grace of love. I therefore did not enjoin internecine wars of kinships, but I held the enticement suspect.
And was it not justly suspect, when that crafty and cunning serpent, in order to construct the arts of his wickedness — by which he might shake the affection of the firstborn Adam, founded as it was upon the endowment of an uncorrupted and unschooled nature — entrusted it rather to female enticements than to his own venoms? And so the woman drew aside the man, whom the serpent had not dared to tempt, bent by the food of her mouth and the force of love, by a certain soft and beguiling affection of wifely solicitude. And as yet Eve had no children, by whose sake — being as sweet to love as easy to fall — she has often called back very many from the consummation of martyrdom.
In short, we have often learned that one whom the fearful pomp of executioners did not terrify, nor the furrow of his cleft side break, nor the burning plates avail to draw away from the rigor of his triumphant fortitude — that man, already set amid the sacred rewards, a pitiable wife, by the offering of their tender child, by the pity of a single tear, has deceived. Samson was captured through a wife: are you stronger? Solomon was captured in a wife: are you wiser? He therefore, whose wisdom is celebrated through all the ages, became foolish, because he loved his wife too much. What shall I say of brothers? It has been proved, in the children of the prophet's house also, that the kisses of brothers are more to be detested than their hatreds.
And so the father indeed wept over the fratricide, but he was more indignant at the incest. In short, although he recalled the parricide, he yet recalled the perpetrator of incest as a smiter. Therefore 'a time of loving, a time of hating' — that is, a time of martyrdom, when the things that are divine are to be preferred to all the love of kinships; a time of war, in which we may wage war even against unbelieving pledges for the name of Christ; a time of peace, because 'in peace is his place.' Finally, he himself in the gospel plainly set forth by what reasoning we ought to hate our own, saying: 'He who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.' He did not say that they are unworthy who love their parents, but he says that those are unworthy who love their parents more than Christ.
For if we give love to our parents because they are the authors of our begetting, how much more ought we to love Christ, who is the Author of those very parents! They gave what was not of their power but of their ministry; Christ bestows salvation, who preserves the benefits of parents. But beautifully he said: 'I have hated the unrighteous, but I have loved your law'; for, if we love the law, we ought to hate the adversaries of the law, who by their works assail the precepts of the law. The Greek named them better and more properly, saying paranomous: a paranomos is called 'lawless,' one who is outside the law. These, then, he hates who is in the law of Christ, because they do not keep the commandments of the law.
For not only he who knows not the law, but also he who does not act according to the law, is destitute of the law, because 'not the hearers of the law, but the doers of the law shall be justified.' David himself refutes me, if I understand it otherwise. How could he have hated unrighteous men, he who commended his parricide son to the warriors lest anyone slay him, who even avenged the death of King Saul upon the man who himself reported that he had slain him? Therefore he hated not unrighteous men, but unrighteous words. In short, 'the unrighteous,' he said, 'I have hated'; he did not add 'men.' Then, since Jesus says in the gospel: 'Love your enemies,' and the apostle says:
'Bless those who persecute you, and do not curse,' how would this man, living according to the gospel discipline, be excused, if he had hated unrighteous men, unless you understand that he hated iniquity, not those who, even though they were working iniquity, could yet be converted by the gospel preaching? Or surely, unless we so take it, let us take it that, just as he who does not honor his father is unrighteous, yet that same man is to hate his father according to that which is written:
'He who does not hate father or mother or brothers or sisters or his own soul cannot be my disciple,' and is yet held praiseworthy — so also this man hated the unrighteous, in the same way that he hated his transgressing father or his own soul, preferring, that is, the grace of Christ to the sweetness of this life. There follows the second verse: 'You are my helper and my upholder, and in your word have I hoped.' A helper through the law, an upholder through the gospel. Those whom he helped by the law, he took up in the flesh, because it is written: 'He bears our sins,' and therefore in his word I hope.
The Greek, however, has ephelpisa, which is 'I have hoped beyond,' which is said of one who always adds to his hoping and, when he has hoped for something, hopes again and advances by hope, ever stretching himself to higher things and forgetting the things he has passed. And beautifully he says: 'in your word I have hoped' — that is: I have not hoped in the prophets, not in the law, but in your word I have hoped, that is, in your coming, that you may come and take up sinners, pardon offenses, and lay the weary sheep, good Shepherd, upon your shoulders on the cross. If anyone hopes in Christ, he ought to separate himself from the fellowship of the unbelieving. And therefore he says: 'Depart from me, you malignant, and I will search out the commandments of my God.'
By the testimony of this little verse it is signified that, where there is malignity, there the keeping of the heavenly commandments cannot be; for 'into a malevolent soul wisdom does not enter,' and elsewhere: 'the wicked shall seek me and shall not find me.' Christ loves a simple mind, a pure and clarified soul, nor can the unspotted virtue have any fellowship with spotted disgraces. He hates, shuns, and despises contagions, who says: 'Learn of me, for I am meek.' He repels the malignant, he calls the laboring. To the former Jesus says: 'Depart from me, all you who work iniquity'; to the latter he says: 'Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden' — laden surely not with malignity of mind but with infirmity of the flesh; laden, I say, with the inheritance of another's sin.
I come to the aid of the laboring; I ought not to profit the fraudulent, lest they harm more people. Let punishment restrain the latter, let grace amend the former. For malice is the fountain of sin; the fall is the fault of infirmity. To him who labors I ought to come to aid; him also who deceives I ought to hate. He therefore repels evil works. For unless you so take it, he seems to say: 'Depart from me, for I am clean, for I am pure.' This the Pharisee said and was rebuked by Christ. The prophet therefore does not say 'I am clean,' but: 'Create in me a clean heart, O God.' And therefore, the fellowship of the malignant being banished, as one who, having been previously mingled with them, cannot be received by the Lord, he says: 'Receive me according to your word, and I shall live; and do not confound me from my expectation.'
If he lives who is in the bosom of the patriarch Abraham, like that poor man Lazarus, how much more does he live who is received by Christ! For how can he fail to live forever whom everlasting Life has received, whom Christ has wholly taken to himself, who is wholly of the Word, whose life is hidden in Christ Jesus? But even he who sits in Abraham's bosom has been received by Christ. Yet it would seem an intolerable presumption to say to God, 'Receive me,' unless he were to add his promise, that is: 'You yourself have made it possible for us to dare; we approach you with your own bond, you who took away our bond. We made the bond of death; you wrote the bond of life.' Therefore do not confound your little servant from his expectation, because in you I hope;
for 'hope does not confound.' And if we are afflicted, supply patience, that we may be able to bear it, that, because I wait for you, I may not be overwhelmed by infirmities, nor sink under temptations, nor be cast down by the storms in which patience is to be proved, so that proof may follow, which confirms and strengthens hope, which does not confound. That is: we are often broken by labors, we are wearied; if hope be lacking, we are confounded and troubled in our whole mind. But grant it — let there be some hardy for labors, firm to endure injuries: if you take away hope, patience cannot be perpetual. Patience itself is not proved if faith be lacking, whose root is hope. For what proof can there be, unless for the name of Christ you sustain all hardships or all perils?