Indeed elsewhere he says: 'And I was wasting away over Your enemies; with a perfect hatred I hated them,' reckoning the arms of faithlessness to be heavier than those of war; for no enemy is more grievous to all than he who wounds the Author of all. Therefore the people of the nations was acquired with great zeal, since God was being denied by His own people; for they could keep neither the devotion of faith nor the discipline of virtue, who did not retain the memory of the heavenly precepts. Thus Adam was cast out of paradise, thus the Jewish people was shut out from the prerogative of election. There follows the fourth verse: 'Your word is exceedingly fiery, and Your servant has loved it.'
The Lord indeed sent fire upon the earth, not that He should burn it again with a Sodomitical conflagration, as it is written, nor that He should shut it out from the gift of granted fruitfulness or from the use or flower of its verdure; for the Lord is wont rather to approve and to increase His own work than to diminish or condemn it. Nor indeed was it fitting that the innocent elements should pay the penalty of our crime. What had nature done amiss, if the now grown offspring had erred? The birth was not in fault, if the progeny had slipped by a wandering error, but the use was in the fault. What fire, then, did the Lord scatter in the New Testament? That which should inflame the hidden affections of the mind with the ardor of divine knowledge, which should kindle the warmth of faith and devotion, which should set ablaze the desire of virtue.
Warmed by this fire, Jeremiah says: 'And there was a flaming fire in my bones.' Heated by this fire of heavenly discourses, Cleopas and that other, who together with the Lord had made the journey from Jerusalem to the village, said: 'Was not our heart burning within us, while He opened to us the Scriptures?' This fire, then, is the word of Christ, and a good fire which knows how to warm, which knows not how to burn up save sin alone. By this fire that apostolic gold, laid upon a good foundation, is tried; by this fire that pure silver of works is assayed; by this fire those precious stones are illumined, but the hay and the stubble are consumed. This fire, then, cleanses the mind, consumes error. Whence the Lord also says:
'Now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.' This is the fire which burns before the Lord; for unless one has taken up the burning of devotion, he will not be able to have the presence of the Lord. Kindle first this fire in your minds, that the light of Christ may shine forth upon you. By this fire the bush was burning and was not burnt up; for the word burns in order that it may correct the conscience of the sinner, it does not burn up in order to destroy. This fire is wont to blunt, this fire to extinguish, the savage burnings of material flames; indeed the Hebrews, kindled by this fire, could neither fear nor feel the vapor of the burning furnace. Rightly, then, does the good servant love the fiery utterance of the Lord, by which love is put on, which casts out fear.
And beautifully he added 'exceedingly,' because every teacher indeed inflames the affection of his hearers, but above all others is the word of God, dividing the joints and penetrating the inmost marrow. In a threefold way, therefore, describe to yourself the fiery utterance of God: either as that which cleanses, or as that which kindles, or as that which illumines the hearers. Therefore the Lord says: 'I searched Jerusalem with a lamp,' but He found in it no one who might be either cleansed or kindled or illumined; therefore He left it in darkness. Nor wonder if the servant loves the fiery utterance of the Lord, which the Bride too has loved, who says: 'Your lips are like a scarlet thread'; for in the scarlet there gleams the appearance of fire and the blood of the Lord's cross.
Scarlet are the lips of the Lord, which spoke of His own passion. And indeed in Exodus scarlet is set in place of fire. For the world consists not of scarlet but of the four elements; yet in scarlet the figure of fire is expressed, whose vapor, unless it penetrated heaven and air, the seas and the lands, all things would be dissolved as though their powers were spent. By the thread, then, we recognize the bond of persuasion; by the scarlet, either the ardor of desire which sparkles in the souls of the hearers, or a token of the passion. Whence elsewhere too the Bride says: 'His lips are lilies dropping choice myrrh.' For by the myrrh is declared the ointment of the passion and the grace of the resurrection, which pours the reviving fragrance of life into the inward parts of the dead now raised up.
Rightly, therefore, the Bride, receiving the sweetness of His utterance, exclaiming testifies: 'His throat is sweetness, and He is altogether desire.' There follows: 'I am young and despised; I have not forgotten Your justifications.' This little verse can fit many of the saints, who from their earliest youth were exercised with hard labors. For Joseph too, when he was sold by his brothers into Egypt, was younger and despised, who was sold to the injury of servitude.
And afterward, when, brought forth from prison and set over Egypt, he was distributing grain to the peoples, did not repay his brothers in kind for the injury, but, returning their money, gave them sustenance, delivered his father's aged years from famine and hunger, and—with his chariot bowed before him as he came to meet them, and with all the rest waiting upon him as servants amid the insignia of his ample power—he was adored; rightly did he say: 'I am younger and despised; I have not forgotten Your justifications.' David too, younger than his brothers, when he pastured his father's sheep, sent away as it were to a lowly service, was not presented to the priest as though unworthy to be anointed unto the kingdom; but sought by the priest and summoned from the pastures, he received the prerogative of the royal anointing.
Afterward too, having gone forth to war, when Goliath, despising the whole people of the Jews by the mass of his own body, challenged them to single combat, while the rest were afraid, he asked of the king that he be permitted the opportunity of engaging. Not even then was he reckoned fit for so great a contest, the king saying: 'You cannot go against the foreigner and fight with him, for you are a boy and he is a man of war from his youth.' Nor would he have been admitted, had he not given proof that in his boyhood he had strangled a lion with his own hands and slain it, dragging out the legs of the sheep that had been seized. He himself too, having cut down the foreigner—because he had advanced against the armed warrior with a staff and stones—declared that he relied not on his own strength, nor on arms,
but that, trusting in the name of the Lord, he had gone forth to battle, that he might take away the reproach of the harassed people. This young and despised man, then, laid low the foreigner, and having gained the victory, triumphed by the testimony of ten thousand singing maidens. For he bore the type of Him who, as it were despised, was to come to the earth, and without legate, without helper, without messenger was to free the whole people of this world by the battle of His cross; to whom the souls of the saints, renewed through the sacraments of baptism, would applaud, because He had slaughtered with the sword of His word that true Goliath, revealed to us and betrayed. There lies, therefore, the true Goliath, laid low by the humility of the Son of God; he lost the head which he was turning to many arts and frauds.
Now the souls sing in security, which before were bewailing the torments of their sins. With timbrels—that is, with their own bodies dead to sin—resounding, they say: 'Saul has triumphed over thousands, David over ten thousands.' That hard king, the devil, is indignant and angry, because the maidens were singing that the son of harshness deceived few, but Christ redeemed the whole world. Christ, then, born of a virgin, says: 'I am young and despised; I have not forgotten Your justifications.' The people of the nations too says this—despised in its first election, still raw in faith, a youth in the eagerness of its first devotion, or surely renewed with the eagle's youth through the sacraments of baptism: 'I am young and despised;'
'I have not forgotten Your justifications.' That despised I am now set before others, now placed before the chosen; that people once despised, full of sinners, now have the venerable fellowship of the heavenly sacraments, now am I received into the honor of the heavenly table. For my banquets no rain is showered down, the offspring of the earth toils not, nor the fruit of trees; for my drink no rivers are to be sought, no fountains. Christ is my food, Christ is my drink, the flesh of God is my food and the blood of God is my drink. No longer do I wait for the yearly produce to my satisfaction; Christ is ministered to me daily. I shall not fear lest any inclemency of heaven or barrenness of the field diminish Him for me, if the diligence of pious worship persevere.
No longer do I wish the rains of quails to come down for me, which formerly I marveled at, nor the manna which formerly I preferred to all foods, because those who ate the manna, the fathers, hungered. My food is that which, if anyone eat of it, he shall not hunger; my food is that which does not fatten the body, but strengthens the heart of man. The bread from heaven had formerly been to me a thing to marvel at—for it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat'—but that was not the true bread, but the shadow of what was to come. That true bread from heaven the Father has kept for me. To me that bread of God came down from heaven, which gives life to this world. It came not down to the Jews, came not down to the synagogue, but came down to the Church, came down to the younger people of God.
For how did the bread which gave life come down to the Jews, when all who ate that bread—that is, the manna, which the Jews supposed to be the true bread—died in the desert? How did it come down to the synagogue, when the whole synagogue has perished and, wasted by the eternal fast of faith, has failed? Indeed, if they had received the true bread, they would not have said: 'Lord, evermore give us this bread.' Why do you ask, O Jew, that He grant you the bread which He gives to all, gives daily, gives always? It is in yourself to receive this bread; come to this bread and you shall receive it. Of this bread it is said: 'All who depart far from You shall perish.' If you withdraw far from Him, you shall perish; if you draw near to Him, you shall live. This is the bread of life; he, therefore, who eats life
cannot die. For how shall he die, to whom life is food? How shall he fail, who has had the vital substance? Come to Him and be filled, for He is bread; come to Him and drink, for He is a fountain; come to Him and be illumined, for He is light; come to Him and be set free, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; come to Him and be absolved, for He is the remission of sins. Who this is, you ask? Hear Him saying it Himself: 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.' You have heard Him and seen Him and have not believed in Him, and therefore you are dead. At least now believe, that you may be able to live. But you marvel at Moses, because he led your fathers through the sea with dry feet.
Moses did not command, but obtained by entreaty; he did not give orders to the sea, but served the One who gave orders to the waves. You praise Moses, because he drowned king Pharaoh with his army. Moses prayed and another commanded; Moses besought, Christ wrought; Moses fled, Christ pursued; Moses followed the pillar, that he might avoid the nocturnal darkness, Christ gave light. You acknowledge Moses, who tempered the bitterness of the water; you acknowledge Moses, who brought forth water from the rock: you do not acknowledge Christ, who laid low the army of that true Egyptian king and drowned it in the depth of the abyss, who frees us daily from the waves of this world, lest the storm of the age plunge us under.
What did it profit the fathers to cross through the Red Sea, when it was not granted them to reach the land of resurrection? For whoever went out of Egypt perished in the desert. Aaron died, Miriam died, Moses himself also died; only Joshua son of Nun the likeness of the sacred name preserved. Let the Jew applaud, because the rocks vomited forth a wave for him as he thirsted: for me an eternal fountain has flowed from the body of God. Christ drank my bitternesses, that He might grant me the sweetness of His grace. The Christian people therefore says: 'I am young and despised; I have not forgotten Your justifications.' Well does he say this who has justified God by the sacraments of baptism.
For he who is baptized justifies God, because he confesses his own sins and awaits from the Lord the pardon of his own offenses. David justified God, who says: 'Against You only have I sinned and done evil before You, that You may be justified in Your words.' The Pharisees did not justify God, who would not be baptized with the baptism of John, as you have read in the Gospel. Nor is it enough only to justify, but also not to forget the justifications of God; that is, that one keep undefiled the gifts of spiritual grace and preserve the favors of sacred remission inviolate and unimpaired. These things are general. But also a special prerogative is at hand for individual Christians of saying: 'I am young and despised'—if he be humble in heart, if meek and gentle.
Let him therefore say: 'I am young and despised,' premising the general boastfulness of age, that he may the more commend the grace of his humility. Humility is not wonderful in old age, which, exhausted in its strength, broken by infirmities, sorrowful with pains, panting with sighs, scorched by the heats of cares, and downcast by the very weariness of living, has forgotten the alacrity of boasting. Rare indeed in the young is humility, and therefore to be marveled at. While age is vigorous, while strength is firm, while the blood is hot, while care is unknown, while weakness is unfelt, while gladness is frequent, then boastfulness seethes.
Then the proud disposition of youth exalts itself, then humility as it were grows cheap, is despised as abject, then the submission of a lowly conscience is reckoned weakness. A great maturity of character, therefore, must be habituated, which may overcome nature. Finally, let us consider thus: in paradise humility failed, and therefore it came from heaven; in paradise disobedience arose, and therefore obedience descended with the Savior. The flesh was puffed up, whence the submission of meekness could not be found on earth; the whole inheritance of the transgressor had swollen up. The Lord Jesus, coming, first emptied Himself, not deeming it robbery to be equal with God, taking the form of a servant;
and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death. Let it not move you that it is written 'as a man'; for He did not take on the likeness of a man, but the truth. For the Apostle himself says elsewhere: 'the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus'; and, to bring an example from the Gospel: 'We beheld,' says John, 'His glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' Surely, because he said 'as of the only-begotten,' did he wish the likeness of the only-begotten rather than the truth to be reckoned? Not in vain, then, did Christ come. Now man can say: 'I am young and despised,' who before, in the former people, was a proud old man. He says: 'I am young and despised,' as does the Church:
'I am black and comely.' She put 'black' first, that she might increase the comeliness; so too here he put 'young' first, that he might increase the humility. She did not say 'I am black, comely,' lest what is black should be reckoned comely; nor did she say 'I am young, despised,' lest youth should be thought despicable; but she says 'young' and—what you may marvel at—'humble.' Not 'proud,' nearer to the cast-down than to the swelling. So too: 'I am black' by the former sin, but 'comely' by confession of sin and zeal of correction and love of virtue.
Therefore, although 'and' is a conjunctive syllable, as the grammarians call it, it nevertheless has a distinction by which confusion is disjoined and separated; so that, if you say Ambrose Bassus is within, one person is thought of, but if you assert that Ambrose and Bassus are within, two are certainly understood. Let him say, then: 'I am young and despised,' because Christ redeemed the world in poverty and lowliness, because Christ overcame the devil by humility. Let him say 'I am despised,' because God does not spurn a humbled heart, because that despised Lazarus now rests in the bosom of Abraham, and that more boastful rich man is tormented in hell. Moses was despised and seemed not suitable to himself, when he was sent to deliver the Hebrew people.
Despised was Jeremiah, who said: 'O Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth'; but the more easily is this despised one chosen; for indeed it is said to him: 'Say not, I am a youth, for to all to whom I shall send you, you shall go, and whatsoever I shall command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.' Despised was that publican, who dared not lift up his eyes to heaven, and therefore was heard more readily than that Pharisee; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. There follows: 'Your justice is justice forever, and Your law is truth.'
Individuals can indeed do works of justice, but not works abiding forever. That rich man, to whom riches abounded in this world, perhaps did some works of justice whose reward he received in the present life, because those works were not great nor worthy of an everlasting recompense. And what of this—that even if we do some works of justice, we do them not continually but rarely? Very many do not seize what belongs to others, yet they know not how to give generously from their own; others, invading undue resources, in order to seek for themselves the appearance of justice, are wont to bestow on the poor. This is not justice forever. Many just men have often grievously offended, not having the fruit of eternal justice.
To God alone does it belong to possess justice in perpetuity through all things, who feeds the just and the unjust; for justice is not to be rendered by benefits alone, but that is true justice which is bestowed even upon enemies themselves. And rightly the Justice of God says: 'Love your enemies.' Therefore, just as justice belongs forever to God alone, so the law of God is truth. But how do we understand this? Is it because the law of God is truth—that is, true—and that whatever God has established is wholly true, as He says below: 'All Your commandments are truth'? or is it because the law of God is truth, because God does not lie? With Him, then, truth is law, falsehood is transgression. But it can also be thus: the law of God is truth; therefore among the Jews there is not the law of God, because they do not receive the truth.
The law of God is spiritual, as the Apostle said; therefore those who have not received it spiritually do not possess the true law. But what is not true is a lie, and what lies kills. The letter, then, which kills, lies; the Spirit, who gives life, is true. Let us understand it also in this way: the law of God is no mere type, no shadow, no copy of heavenly things, but the heavenly things themselves. Hence too it is written that Christ is the end of the law — not, surely, its abolition, but the fullness of the law is in Christ, for He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. For just as there is an Old Testament, yet all truth is in the New Testament, so also the law given through Moses is a figure of the true law. Therefore that law is a copy of the truth; for in the copy the blood of the lamb is poured out.
In the truth Christ is offered in sacrifice. And rightly the Apostle, after he had first mentioned the offering of calves according to the law, added: 'It was therefore necessary that the copies of the heavenly things should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices. For Christ has not entered into a sanctuary made by hands, copies of the true ones, but into heaven itself, and now appears before the face of God for us.' That we may know, moreover, that the Lord Jesus has given a new law, you have the Spirit saying: 'This is the covenant which I will make with them, says the Lord: giving My laws in their hearts, and I will write them in their minds; and of their sin and unrighteousness I will remember no more.' Where, therefore, there is remission, there is no longer any offering for sins.
By this he plainly shows you that all truth is contained in the Gospel; for the law of God is written in the minds and hearts of men, not on tablets of stone — those, therefore, who do not have the precepts of God in their hearts do not have the law — whether because it grows old among the Jews and is made new in us. It is a shadow, not the truth; so that, when an offering is made for sins according to the law, no remission of sins comes about; for it is impossible that sins be cleansed by the blood of bulls and goats. That remission, therefore, was a lie, until the truth of remission should come. What then is more manifest than the saying of John the Evangelist, who says: 'For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ'?
By way of contrast he set truth over against the law. For since there is the disjunctive word 'but', it must be understood that the disjunction was inserted for this reason: that, if truth had been in the law, it would not have come to be through Christ. We can also understand it thus: Christ is truth; therefore truth is law, and if the commandment of the Lord is law, much more is the living and effective Word of God the law. There follows the seventh verse: 'Tribulation and necessity have found me; Thy commandments are my meditation.' Tribulations and necessities seek out the just man, and sometimes find him, sometimes do not find him. He is found to whom the crown is owed; he is not found who is not proven fit for the contest. Tribulation, therefore, is as it were a kind of grace;
In short, 'a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God.' Is it not grace that works patience? He, therefore, who knew that there is profit in tribulation, when sought out by tribulation, was found and did not flee. Wisdom says: 'The wicked shall seek me and shall not find me' — not because the Lord was unwilling to be found by men, He who offered Himself to all, even to those not seeking Him, but because He was sought by such works that they were unworthy who sought to find Him. But Simeon, who awaited Him, found Him; Andrew found Him. In short he says to Simon: 'We have found the Messiah, which is interpreted Christ.' Philip too says to Nathanael: 'We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus the son of Joseph, who is from Nazareth.'
And to show how Christ is to be found, he says: 'Come and see.' He, therefore, who seeks Christ, let him come not with the step of the body but with the footfall of the mind; let him see Him not with outward eyes but with inward ones. For the eternal One is not seen by bodily gazes, since 'the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.' Christ, therefore, is not temporal, but is from the Father before all ages as true God, the Son of God, and as everlasting Power above the ages, whom no end of times encloses; as Life above the ages, whom no day of death finds. For 'in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God.' Do you hear what the Apostle said today? 'Unto sin,' he says, 'He died once.'
Once for you, the sinner, has Christ died; do not sin again after baptism. For all in common He died once, and for each one He dies once, not repeatedly. You are sin, O man; therefore the almighty Father made His own Christ to be sin, made Him man, that He might bear our sins. For me, then, unto sin has the Lord Jesus died, that we might be in Him the righteousness of God. For me He died, that for me He might rise again; once He died, once He rose again. And you, having died with Him, buried with Him, raised up with Him in baptism, take care, lest, when you have died once, you die again. No longer will you die unto sin, but unto pardon. Take care, lest, when you have risen, you die a second time.
For 'Christ, rising from the dead, dies no more; death shall no longer have dominion over Him.' Did death, then, have dominion over Him? Surely; for in saying 'shall no longer have dominion,' he showed that it had had dominion. Do not lose so great a benefit, O man. For your sake Christ subjected Himself to the dominion of death, that He might strip from you the yoke of its dominion. He took upon Himself the servitude of death, that He might grant you the liberty of eternal life. He, therefore, who seeks Christ seeks also His tribulation and does not flee His passion. In short David, who was worthy to be sought out by tribulation, himself also sought tribulation; for had he not sought it, he would not have found it. And that he found it, he himself testifies, saying:
'I found tribulation and sorrow, and I called upon the name of the Lord'; and elsewhere: 'In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and He heard me in a broad place.' Good, therefore, is tribulation, which makes us worthy to be heard by the Lord in a broad place; and it is grace to be heard by the Lord our God. He, therefore, who seeks tribulation does not flee it; he who does not flee it is found; for he does not flee who meditates on God's commandments in mind and works. For surely the contests find that athlete who has been set in the practice of training; but whoever has abandoned the training, without doubt cannot be found, because he is unworthy to be sought. David, therefore, as a good athlete, says:
'Tribulation and necessity have found me,' because they always had him ready, not fleeing the battles of necessities and tribulations, but seeking them. There follows: 'Thy testimonies are righteousness forever; give me understanding of them, and I shall live.' Who is so great that he can understand the testimonies of the Lord? And therefore understanding must be sought from the Lord, whose power is so great that its beginning is the fullness of virtue. In short it is written: 'But piety toward God is the beginning of understanding,' which is the foundation of all virtues, the discipline of human and heavenly things. Piety, the friend of God, is pleasing to parents, reconciles the Lord, cherishes kinship, is the worship of God, the reward of parents, the wage of children;