For just as the cedar does not rot, so neither is the glory of the elders corrupted by any age. Our paneled ceilings are of cypress. This kind of tree never loses its greenness; scorched in winter and feeding its foliage in summer, it is not changed by a different color. This tree alone the wind never despoils of its honor; alone it is never stripped of its old garment nor clothed with new flower. So too the apostolic grace knows no failing and flourishes in its own loveliness. The soul, then, knows not how to be corrupted, which thrives with flourishing members, and ever upholds with patient magnanimity the heights of righteousness and of the other virtues, and therefore does not flow away nor fail, because there is nothing chinked or slack in it.
nothing fickle, nothing slippery, nothing that can pour out of it through a fault of speech. And therefore the prophet asks to be confirmed in his words, lest his feet be moved, lest his steps be poured out. And these things, if anyone be strong with an upright heart, he does not suffer, but, rooted and grounded, he perseveres immovable against all the waves of the passions. Confirmed, therefore, in his words, he says: Remove from me the way of iniquity, and have mercy on me by thy law. He did not say, 'remove me from the way of iniquity,' but: Remove the way of iniquity from me, as though it were in us and seemed to be inherent in us. For as long as we practice anything wicked, the way of iniquity remains within and does not depart from us; and therefore let us act diligently to separate it from us.
But since a hereditary glue of iniquity has cleaved to human minds, there is need of the help of a Deliverer. Pray, you also, and say: 'Wretched man that I am, who shall remove from me the way of iniquity? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' And beautifully he said the way of iniquity, not iniquity, because iniquity is not in us as it were by nature, but is worn smooth by the footsteps of the elders running on after their sins. And deservedly, because the wound is great and old, having long crept on, it demands the remedies of a more perfect medicine, beseeching that it be cured by the lawful mercy of the Lord. For a wound that has not been healed by the law of medicine is quickly reopened — nay, the cure even feels a slower progress.
And therefore if the poison creeps into the inner parts, it does not feel the medicaments applied outside. The method of medicine therefore requires that it be cured either by cutting or by cauterizing. For unless the putrefied parts are cut away or the useless humor is boiled off, in vain are the hands of medicine applied to the wounds. And therefore the good physician says that such a sick man must be lawfully cured, that the medicine may be able to profit. He, then, has mercy by law who has mercy with righteousness and wisdom, so that he remits those things which he knows can rightly be remitted, lest, while he has mercy on another, he make himself liable to the law. After Agag was granted to mercy, he made Saul to sin: for Saul sinned in that very mercy, and therefore sinned after mercy.
Let us also consider lest we even make the one worse on whom we have mercy unjustly: for often not to restrain wrongdoers belongs to a greater severity than if you take vengeance. For they are handed over to passions of dishonor, whoever have committed anything shameful, and they bear no price for their fault. Finally, those who did not think God the discerner of their crimes and lived as it were without a judge and without law — God, it says, handed them over to a reprobate mind, because they chose the way of iniquity, but refused to choose the way of truth. But the prophet, who wished to be converted with a sincere affection, says: I have chosen the way of truth; I have not forgotten thy judgments.
He cannot say this who errs in doctrine, the Arian cannot say it, the Sabellian cannot, nor the Manichaean; the covetous man cannot say it, who craves worldly and material things, the trader cannot say it; for the zeal of possessing, the greed of owning, is not the way of truth. How is it the way of truth, when that rich man in this age cannot carry his riches with him, and after death begins to be more needy than that beggar Lazarus? The honor of the age, the anxiety of the world, is not the way of truth. Finally, he who has chosen the way of truth says a little after: Turn away my eyes, that they may not behold vanities. Vanity belongs to temporal things, truth to eternal things.
If, therefore, we wish to walk the way of truth, let us be pilgrims to the world rather than to God, and let us walk by faith. For he who walks by faith is present to God; he who walks by sight is present to the world. He is a pilgrim from the Lord; but this man is quickly confounded. Whence, fleeing from such a man, David says: I have cleaved to thy testimonies, O Lord; do not confound me. He has cleaved to the testimonies of the Lord who does not reject His commandments, who does not forget His judgments nor indulge his own pleasures. He who cleaves to the testimonies of the Lord renounces the world, forgets the things behind, strains toward the things before, that he may attain to the prize, which is the badge of victory.
He, then, is not put to shame whom the enticing seductions of this world have not captured; he is not put to shame, even if he has committed deeds that ought to bring a blush, who asks pardon for his sins from Christ. And therefore it is answered to him: 'Your sins are forgiven you. Go in peace.' But he is not put to shame in this way only if the remission of sins has so wrought within him as to take away not only the sins but even the inclination to sin. Let righteousness remit iniquities, fortitude remit fear, temperance remit impurities, so that the remission of sins becomes not merely temporal but even everlasting. Let Christ enter into your soul, let Jesus dwell within your mind, so that in the tabernacle of virtue there may be no place left for sin. 'I have run,' he says, 'the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart.'
For he could not run the way if his heart were straitened by narrow confines. Hence the Apostle says to those who run the Lord's way: 'Be enlarged, you also, and do not bear the yoke together with unbelievers'; and of himself he says: 'Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.' Therefore also it is said of Solomon: 'The breadth of his heart was like the sand of the sea.' And mark the difference: let the way be narrower, the heart broader, so that it may sustain the dwelling-place of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, lest the Word of God come and knock, and seeing the narrowness of the heart, disdain to dwell there. Hence Wisdom is sung at the going-forth, and acts with confidence in the broad streets. The streets are broad; therefore Wisdom is sung not in the narrow ways, but in the breadth of the heart.
In this field, therefore, of the inner man, not in the narrowness of the mind, must we run, that we may lay hold; for it is written: 'So run, that you all may lay hold.' Indeed he lays hold who has so run that he could say: 'I have finished my course'; for he ran like a good horse. Christ has his own horses, of whom the prophet says: 'You sent your horses into the sea, troubling many waters,' because the apostles, by preaching the Gospel, stirred the peoples of the nations, who are moved like many waters and roused like the surging of the waters, so that, rising up from the earthly rites of idols, they believed in Christ. And above he says: 'You mounted upon your horses, and your horsemanship is salvation.'
O wondrous twelve-yoked team of good horses, whose reins are peace and whose bridles are charity! Bound together among themselves by the bonds of concord and subjected to the yoke of faith, conveying upon the four wheels the mystery of the Gospel to the bounds of the whole world, bearing the good Charioteer, the Word of God, by whose lash the seductions of the age have been put to flight, the prince of this world cast out, and the course of the righteous fulfilled. O great contest of the rational horses, O wondrous mystery! A wheel ran within a wheel and was not hindered—the New Testament within the Old Testament: within that by which it was announced it was running.
The wheels went into four parts and did not turn back, because the spirit of life was in those who ran into the four quarters of the whole world, and they ran without stumbling, because the good life of the horses was four-square. The horses ran, therefore, because he who had mounted the horses did not sleep. Jesus, then, is the Charioteer of our souls, who wills that we too mount our horses—that is, our bodies—yet always to be vigilant, lest it be said of us: 'They slept who had mounted the horses.' This sea must be crossed without slackening. It is scarcely crossed by the vigilant; but if anyone falls asleep, he will not be able to cross, but will be drowned like the Egyptian, whose soul and body alike perished:
for 'he cast the horse and rider into the sea,' those who did not follow the Law but persecuted it. V. THE LETTER HE. There follows the fifth letter, 'He,' which in Latin means 'is,' or, as we find elsewhere, 'I live.' Both interpretations agree with one another; for he who is, lives, and he who lives, is. Hence the Gentiles are not, and therefore they do not live, but are dead. But Jesus is 'the same yesterday and today and forever,' and he who is, lives; 'for I live,' says the Lord. For how can he not be who lives? But Jesus lives, who even makes the dead alive and calls the things that are not as though they were. It is no wonder if nature yields to the Lord, so that even the dead are made alive and begin to be the things that were not.
And therefore, because the way is also life according to him who said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life,' let us seek the way, that we may be counted worthy to have life. Let us therefore hear him who lives in Christ—and he lives who says: 'But we who live bless you, O Lord'; for in Christ Jesus whoever has died, lives. Let us hear, I say, what he said, that he might live: 'Set me, O Lord, the law, the way of your judgements, and I will seek it always.' The soldier who enters upon the road of his march
does not arrange the order for himself, nor pluck out a way according to his own choice, nor snatch at pleasurable short-cuts, lest he withdraw from the standards; but he receives his itinerary from the commander and keeps it, advances by the prescribed order, marches with his comrades, and accomplishes his journey by the straight road, that he may find the provisions of supplies made ready. If he marches by another route, he does not receive his ration, he does not find his lodging prepared, because the commander orders all these things to be prepared for those who follow and turn aside neither to the right nor to the left from the prescribed route. And deservedly he does not fail who follows his commander; for he marches with moderation, because the commander considers not what is useful to himself but what is possible for all. Therefore he also appoints the resting-places;
the army marches for three days and rests on the fourth. Cities are chosen in which three, four, or more days are interposed, if they abound in water and are frequented for trade. And thus the journey is accomplished without toil, until it reaches that city which is chosen as a kind of royal seat, in which rest is provided for the wearied armies. I would have you recognize that this law of marching was prescribed under the leadership of Christ for his saints as they journey. For our fathers too set out from the land of Egypt through long stretches of country; and all their resting-places and lodgings were recorded, until they reached Cades, that is, the holy land. These are the resting-places of the children of Israel, which Moses recorded by the Lord's command.
We observe, therefore, who ordained these lodgings, in what manner the children of Israel ought to march. For God went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to refresh the travellers, and by night in a pillar of fire, to show the way to those who walked and to dispel the darkness. The law of the ways was the pillar both of fire and of cloud; hence in the pillar of cloud he spoke to them. When he wished the army to rest from the toil of the journey, the pillar of fire did not move, nor did the cloud of light pass on; but when he wished to move the army, the pillar of fire went forward in the night, and the pillar of cloud in the day.
That pillar of cloud indeed went before the children of Israel in outward appearance, but in mystery it signified the Lord Jesus, who was to come upon a light cloud, as Isaiah said—that is, in the Virgin Mary, who was a cloud according to the inheritance of Eve, but was light according to the integrity of her virginity; she was light who sought to please not man but the Lord; she was light who had not conceived in iniquity but, by the overshadowing of the Spirit, brought forth, and gave birth not in transgression but with grace. It is permitted also to take this interpretation otherwise. Christ came upon a light cloud into Egypt—that is: he came in the assumption of a body into this world; he came upon a cloud whom the mist of the body overshadowed, but light was the flesh that no sins of its own weighed down.
For how could he be weighed down by his own sins, who took away the sins of all peoples? 'Behold,' he says, 'the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sin of the world.' The day before yesterday it was read that 'Jesus stood and had filthy garments'; for he was bearing my sins. He took our garments upon himself, that he might clothe us with the splendour of immortality. He came upon a light cloud as righteousness—for iniquity sits in a leaden weight—Christ into the hearts of the righteous, in whom there were no sins. And therefore it was well read today: 'What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that he has rendered to me?'
For our sake the Word took on the weakness of the flesh; for our sake he hungered, was scourged, was crucified, died, that for us, in whom life was formerly held ignoble and degenerate, death might begin to be precious. But let us return to the accomplishing of the journey and the order of the lodgings. And do you also follow spiritually this law of marching, that you may go out of Egypt, and, advancing thence, pitch your tent in Soccoth. Let this be your first station; Soccoth, the first lodging, signifies 'tabernacle.' Pitch, therefore, the tent that is within you, and establish the station of your mind, that you may remain rooted and grounded in the faith of Christ. There follows the lodging in Marah, that is, in bitterness; not all the lodgings are equal.
Thence they came to Elim, where there were twelve fountains and seventy palm trees; after the bitterness, lest the people should faint, pleasant and fruitful things had to follow. Thence Rephidim, which means 'the praise of judgement.' Thence follows Sinai, having in itself both the temptation of the people and the promulgation of the Law. The merits of the lodgings vary, because in this world there can be no success in living that is unbroken. The good commander, therefore, in one place ministered manna to the hungry people, in another, by gracious provision, commanded drink to flow from the rock to quench the people's thirst, in another gave the Law, in another bestowed triumphs, so that the army, cherished by these benefits, should feel no toil of the long journey.
And so in that people there was a type, in us the truth. Let us therefore commit our journey to the guidance of the Lord Jesus, who first introduced the Law and beforehand, through Jesus (Joshua), gave the land of promise into the possession of his people. But even when Moses seemed to be the leader, Jesus was present with him—present, however, not openly nor manifestly bearing himself as leader or prince of the people; for he waited until Moses should fill up his time, which being completed, Jesus succeeded.
And so, if you consider twenty, you will see the mystery of the fullness of times, and the hundred and twenty years, after which both Moses rested on the mountain and Jesus manifestly received the headship of the lodgings, so that the people might no longer be under the fear of the Law, but, raised from the dead, might enjoy the fruit of eternal life. Let us therefore walk according to the teaching of the Law; let the law of God be our way. Walking in this way, the Church says: 'I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys, as the lily among thorns.' For into all the earth the faith of the believing people has gone out, and Christ has set his feet in a spacious place, and therefore beautifully she says she is the flower of the field. Paul too was a flower, who said:
'We are the good odour of Christ to God,' and truly a flower, who could bring forth both new things and old out of the treasury of his heart. Beautifully too the Church is called a lily; for as the lily shines, so also the works of the saints are resplendent. Most beautifully too she is called the lily of the valleys, because in the lowly grace shines forth the more. But this lily is in the midst of thorns—this, among Jews and heretics; this, among the cares of this world, which prick the mind and soul of man. We may also take it otherwise, because, just as the lily stands out among thorns, so the Church of God shines above all assemblies.
It is worth considering too that this lily is surrounded with splendour, but what it has within is red, itself also of good odour, because the flesh of Christ, as it were mortal, hedged about by the brightness of divinity, had the heavenly protection of grace. Hence in the following passages she says: 'My kinsman is white and ruddy'—white with divine brightness, ruddy with the hue of human appearance, which by the sacrament of the incarnation he assumed. And deservedly that which is red smells sweet, because the flesh of Christ is without sin. This the faithless, handling it, defiled with their hands; the saints, venerating it, breathed forth the odour of piety. The Lord Jesus received this odour of his fragrant Church and says: 'Behold, my neighbour is fair.'
And the Church says to Christ: 'Behold, my kinsman is fair. Behold, you are good, as an apple-tree among the trees of the wood.' A fruit of this kind has a fragrant grace, so that it surpasses the fragrance of all other fruits. Christ, then, fixed to the wood, like an apple hanging on a tree, poured forth the good odour of the world's redemption, because he wiped away the heavy stench of sin and poured out the ointment of the saving draught. 'Like an apple,' she says, 'among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman in the midst of the sons,' because, above the prophets and apostles, he soothed the inmost hearts of men with the sweetness of his words. But there is not only odour, but also sweet food in the apple: therefore Christ is sweet food. 'In his shadow,' she says, 'I desired and sat down':
for she had received the Law, this she was following, this way she was running. Resting therefore in the Law, she was resting in the shadow of Christ. A good shadow, which alone defends us from the heat of iniquity. And to whom is it doubtful that the law of God is the shadow of Christ? What is the law of the festival day, of the new moon, of the sabbaths, but a shadow of things to come? What day is it, according to the law of Moses, that I may see six days and again a seventh day, and thus the perpetual ages? What month, according to the law of Moses, that, knowing the month, I may know the first new moon of the month and the true holy offerings to be presented at the new moons? What year, according to the law of Moses, consists of those days of which he says:
'Six years shall the Hebrew serve, and in the seventh year he shall be set free,' so that there are found six years in which a man tills the land, but in the seventh year he shall release it to the sojourners and the poor and the beasts of the earth? What is the seventh year in which all debts are remitted to the Hebrews? In this shadow rested the faith of the fathers and the holy devotion of the prophets. Therefore the religious congregation, or the holy soul, says: 'In his shadow I desired and sat down.' A shadow is the year of Jubilee—for who beholds its mystical things, so as to know face to face the things that were prescribed by the law to be fulfilled in the fiftieth year?
—a shadow are the feast days according to the law, in the first month from the tenth of the month until the fourteenth, and thence until the twenty-first of the month; a shadow is that solemnity between the first and seventh month in that unnamed season; a shadow is the sanctified liberty on the sabbath; a shadow is the festival day of the new moon of the seventh month, and the memorial of trumpets, the tenth day of the seventh month, the day of propitiation. You see that the unit and the ten are two feast days; likewise the fifteenth day, the day of tabernacles, through eight days. In shadow are all these; in shadow the first day called holy, and in shadow the eighth day called holy, which are prescribed for the feast of tabernacles according to the law.
Set before me some of those believing from the circumcision, men learned in the Law, of careful observance, and now illumined by the knowledge of the Gospel, fattened with spiritual grace; in such the Church speaks—the Church that sees Christ, that receives the bridegroom, that is fed with his food: 'In his shadow I desired and sat down, and his fruit is sweet in my throat.' What is his sweet fruit but the preaching of the Lord's passion, as he himself says: 'Behold, the inheritance of the Lord are sons, the reward of the fruit of the womb'? For what sweeter fruit can there be in our throats than the remission of sins? And well is the Church a flower, who announces the fruit—that is, the Lord Jesus Christ—of whom it was said to Mary:
'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.' Therefore, when she has tasted the fruit of sweetness, impatient she hastens to more perfect things, saying: 'Bring me into the house of wine, set love in order in me. Strengthen me with ointments, surround me with apples, for I am wounded with love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. I adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field, if you shall stir up and reawaken love, until it shall please.' Rightly that she should seek him, rightly that she should desire him, because our commander has arranged all things well in this course and journey. First of all, he thought this tabernacle must be established upon the foundation of faith:
then, if there is for us any rough and arid and precipitous lodging, this commander nonetheless distinguishes the troubled, irrigates the arid, makes fruitful the deserted. If there is anything of bitterness, anything of temptation, anything of weakness, our leader both tempers the bitter and soothes the anxious, dissolves the hard and strengthens the feeble. Wherever the king of the earth wishes his army to rest, he decrees not an ignoble village, not one lacking in provisions, not sandy and bare of growing things, but a city noble in its buildings, crowded and rich in abundance, or a pleasant field green with pastures, or wooded and open country well suited for encampments.
Therefore, if the kings of the earth know how to provide conveniences for those who follow them, how much more does God, who is good, know how to arrange profitable things for those who love him! And first, if an unknown route must be undertaken, guides of the ways are chosen to run before the column. But these commanders think this a thing injurious to themselves; God, however, went before, when the Hebrews made their journey; hence in the pillar of cloud he spoke to them. And that you may know that he went before: 'God,' he says, 'went before their journey, by day indeed in a pillar of cloud showing them the way, but by night in a pillar of fire, and the pillar of cloud did not fail by day.' Following this preceding pillar of cloud which did not fail, lest she herself should fail, the Church was refreshed by its shadow, and therefore she says:
'In his shadow I desired and sat down, and his fruit is sweet in my throat.' Because she was fed by the Lord, led into a place of pasture and the water of refreshment. 'Bring me into the house of wine.' With her supplies prepared, she seeks to advance to another lodging, in which she may receive the grace of the mysteries and the sweetness of joy. Hence too, advancing upon the true journey, she says: 'Set love in order in me.' A good resting-place, where there is the fullness of charity. 'Strengthen me,' she says, 'with ointments, surround me with apples.' You have other lodgings, to which the Church succeeds with delight. These lodgings are of the cross of Christ and of his burial, in which the Church is wounded—but with the wound of charity;
for the wound is what Christ received, but the ointment is what he poured out, the apple is what hung. This apple the Church tasted and said: 'And his fruit is sweet in my throat.' And that you may know that the Lord is an apple, you read above: 'As an apple among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman.' We too confess the wound when we preach Christ crucified, but we are the good odour to God, because the cross of Christ is to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness, but to us the power of God and the wisdom of God. With this wound the Church is wounded, when she preaches the death of her Saviour; but this wound is of charity. In short, he who does not believe denies, he who loves confesses: the Manichaean denies, the Christian confesses. And therefore it is written:
'The wounds of a friend are more profitable than the willing kisses of an enemy.' Beautifully, then, the Church says: 'For I am wounded with love.' Let us bare our limbs to the good wound, let us bare them to the chosen arrow. This arrow is Christ, who says: 'He set me as a chosen arrow.' It is good, therefore, to be wounded by this arrow. This advance is no lodging of the ordinary sort; not all can say that they are wounded with love. The apostles said it, when for Christ's sake they were stoned and preached Christ; Paul said it, when thrice he was beaten with rods and day and night argued that Christ must be adored by the nations; the martyrs say this, who are wounded for Christ and, because they were counted worthy to be wounded for his name, love the more.
Coming therefore to this lodging, the Church, to this advance—that she may offer her sons for Christ, that she may receive the wounds of charity—as it were finding the good nourishment of faith and the fruits of piety, she herself tasted and began to exhort others, saying: 'Taste and see that the Lord is sweet, like an apple.' And in the apple there is a wound, but nevertheless it is sweet. They came to the valley of the cluster, they saw a grape of so great a size that two could scarcely carry it, one going before, the other following. They tasted the mystery, they tasted it in Joshua son of Nun. They tasted it in Caleb, who said to the people: 'We have seen the land flowing with milk and honey. Taste and see how sweet the Lord is.' And the Church added, saying:
'His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. I adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field, if you shall stir up and reawaken charity, until it shall please.' And these lodgings belong to the Church as she advances along the royal road; 'for many are the mansions in my Father's house,' the Lord Jesus testifies: 'Behold, I come and will summon you.' A good mansion of wisdom, and whether on his left or on his right, a good mansion, because it is the royal road. And therefore the wise messengers say: 'We will go by the royal road, we will not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left, until we pass your borders.'