142. And again, when the soul of the body does not yield to enticements, nor is overcome by the delight of carnal pleasures, but rather the pure and clean mind stripped of the service of this world draws the senses of the body into their own illicit urges and attract pleasures, so that it may feast on the fruits of virtue by the use of hearing and reading, and satisfy its hunger for spiritual nourishment with the unknown food of inner sap. For truly, prayer is the food of the mind, and a splendid nourishment of sweetness, which does not burden the limbs, nor turns itself into the shameful parts of nature, but rather transforms itself into the temple of God, and starts to be the lodging of virtues, the sanctuary of vices. Indeed, it is then that it does so when the flesh, having returned to its nature, recognizes the nourishing power and, with the audacity of contempt put aside, joins with the moderate soul's will: just as it was when it undertook to inhabit the secret places of the paradise before it became infected with the venom of the deadly serpent, and knew the sacrilegious hunger and passed by the memory of divine precepts adhering to the senses of the soul, in its eagerness for gluttony.
143. Hence it is evident that sin originated, as it were, from the flesh and the soul, while the nature of the body is being tested, the sickly soul suffers. If the soul restrained the desire of the body, the origin of sin would have been extinguished at its very birth. But as if infused into the body by a masculine movement, the soul, also corrupted by its own vigor, gave birth to heavy works of others. For, indeed, the more violent and stronger sex is carried by a certain powerful impulse, like a masculine affection: she desires to maintain a softer rather than a more vehement reasoning. From these, therefore, arose the movements of various desires.
But when the soul returns to itself, meeting its deformed offspring with shame, it disowns degenerate heirs, renouncing worldly passions, hating sin. The flesh, also weary from the burden of heavy labor and the shameful troubles of usury, where it grieves to be pierced by its own desires like thorns of the world, hastens to shed its old self; so that it may take itself away, lest it leave behind a heedless parent, a succession destined to perish. Again, attracting the irrational movements of desires, as if adorned with the beauty of a certain form, enticed by the allurements of pleasure, he has enrolled it for himself as if for the use of society: thus, like a certain pleasure of the body and soul, it joins the corrupt motion of desire.
Therefore, as long as it remained in one house, with vices conspiring, there seemed to be no division in the indivisible and inseparable agreement. But when Christ sent fire to burn the sins of the flesh, or the sword that signifies the drawn blade of power, by which the secrets of the spirit and the marrow are penetrated, into the world; then the flesh and the soul, renewed by the mysteries of regeneration, begin to be what they were not: and thus, it separates the fellowship of the old vice, although beloved before, and eliminates the bond of prodigal posterity. So that parents are divided from their children, when intemperate motion is expelled by temperance of the body, and the soul withdraws from the partnership of guilt, and there is no place left for external and foreign pleasure.
146. Moreover, children are divided among their parents, while the faults of old age are avoided by the renewed judgment of the human being, and the pleasure of youth, like a serious house, flees from discipline. It is not incongruous also if we think that they divide themselves for the purpose of becoming better than their parents; especially when he said in the following passage: 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father or mother, or children, and brothers, and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple' (Luke 14:26). And therefore, according to the simple form of understanding, a son who follows Christ is preferred to pagan parents; for religion surpasses the duties of piety.
147. Moreover, according to a deeper interpretation, because sin is born from the flesh and operates as it were in the womb of the flesh, as the Apostle says: For what I do, I do not understand; for I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate (Rom. VII, 20). When the Lord's blood, poured out for the life of this world, has eradicated vices, it is converted into grace from offense: For sin abounded, that grace might much more abound (Rom. V, 20); and it happens that repentance, arising from sin, impels one to conversion of purpose and desire for spiritual grace. So what was for me unto death, this will be unto salvation. Therefore, sin washed by the flowing fountain is separated from the flesh from which it was generated: and while everyone desires to redeem their sin, from the sequence of guilt comes the earnest pursuit of discipline.
148. The desire for evil things is also transformed into a fervent longing for God's word and is poured into the appetite for divine charity and love, and in the same nature, various disciplines are formed, and the desire for the heavenly mysteries of the body and soul acquires a much better pleasure than before. For the mind is nourished by knowledge of things, and when the promise of future things is discovered, the soul despises its old works. For the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him (I Cor. II, 14); but the spiritual person judges all things, and he himself is not subject to anyone's judgment.
(Vers. 58, 59.)
(Verse 58, 59) While you go with your adversary to the magistrate, make an effort on the way to be freed from him; lest he condemn you before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. I tell you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the very last penny.
Matthew also included this (Matt. 5:25): but he specifically, this generally: for he thought that the former statement was about reconciling the peace of discordant brothers: the latter is about repentance and every amendment of sin. Therefore, let us discuss who the adversary is, who the magistrate is, who the judge is, or who the tax collector is, and who we may consider to be the debtor that, if he does not pay, should be sent to prison.
150. And according to Matthew, there is indeed an adversary with whom it seems you have least agreed in this life, who accuses you before the judge of future life and death, holding you guilty of enduring enmity towards the living and the dead. But according to Luke, our adversary is primarily he who sows the enticements of sin, so that he may have participants in punishment whom he had as companions in error; and therefore he seeks partners in guilt in order to expose them to punishment. The apostle Peter warns us, saying: Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).
151. Our adversary, according to Matthew, is the use of all virtue, and the speech of apostles and prophets, which binds us to more rigorous commandments and more difficult lessons of life: it is fitting for us to agree with him, so that we may imitate him in deeds; lest we be found to have turned away from him due to any stubbornness on our part. However, according to Luke, no one is more of an adversary to us than our own lapses, which accuse us with evidence of our own lives: not that he seeks to be a judge of any accusation, but because he accuses us of our own actions in the presence of the knower of all, while we are found to be at odds with the use of virtue and the apostolic commandments.
Therefore, every use of vice is an adversary to us, lust is an adversary to us, greed is an adversary, every dishonesty is an adversary, every unjust thought is an adversary: in short, a guilty conscience is our adversary, which afflicts us here and will accuse and expose us in the future, as the Apostle testifies, saying: Their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts accusing or even defending one another (Rom. II, 15). But if conscience exposes each person, how much more is our work before God evident, which will be reviewed in our body at the last moment and the secret script of our thoughts will be read in our hearts! Let us therefore make an effort, so that while we are in the course of this life, we may be liberated from evil action as from a malicious adversary; lest while we go with the adversary to the magistrate, our error condemns us on the way.
Therefore, Matthew also says: Be in agreement with your opponent while you are on the way with him (Matt. 5:25). But the Greek word εὐνοέων means benevolens, that is, well-disposed; for if, while we are in this life, we free ourselves from the bonds of the devil, he will not be condemned because of us, and we will be alien to his bonds. Hence the psalm is inscribed as seventy-fifth for the Assyrian. Therefore, you give good counsel to your opponent, and for that Assyrian, that is, vain, you do well if, freed from his snares, you offer this goodwill; so that both the punishment of your fall and death may be evaded. But if you adhere to his bonds, he will hand you over to the magistrate as a guilty person, the same accuser and betrayer.
154. Who is the magistrate, except the one in whose hands all power resides, and who claims for himself the lofty dignity of full and perfect authority? With confidence in his good works and without fear of an adversary, the holy Prophet hastens to say: My soul thirsts for the living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God (Psalm 41:3)? For this magistrate will deliver the accused to the judge, that is, to the one to whom he has granted power over the living and the dead, a power bestowed by nature, not by grace. For he did not receive what he did not have, but rather, he assumed what he had from the substance of the Father when he was generated. He shows you this office and judge, who showed the accuser, and indicates when it should be revealed: 'On the day,' he says, 'when God will judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel through Jesus Christ our Lord' (Rom. 2:16). Therefore, Jesus Christ is the judge, through whom hidden things are convicted, and the punishment for wicked deeds is commanded.
155. Do you want to know Christ as a judge who hands over to the exactor and throws into prison? Ask him yourself, or rather read in the Gospel where he says: Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness (Matthew 22:13). He also showed his exactors in another place where he says: So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:49-50).
156. Now it remains for us to understand what the figure of a quadrant means. And it seems that the usual expression of the matter is called spiritual understanding. For just as those who pay money repay a debt and do not remove the name of the interest until the entire amount of the debt is paid in any form of payment whatsoever: so by the compensation of charity and other actions, or by any satisfaction, the punishment of sin is dissolved.
157. It is not idle either, because he did not put in two copper coins (as elsewhere, Luke 21:2), not a penny (Matthew 10:29), not a denarius (Matthew 20:2), but a quarter in this place; for the exchange of a quarter is like a kind of compensation, since something different is given and something different is paid: so here, either the injury is redeemed by the price of love, or the punishment is mitigated by the estimation of the injury.
Moreover, we remember that a quadrant used to be given in baths, by the offering of which everyone there receives the opportunity to bathe, so here they receive the opportunity to wash away their sins; because the sin of each individual is washed away with the same kind of condition as mentioned above; as long as the guilty one is punished with penalties, in order to make amends for the committed punishment of error.
159. (Chapter XIII - Verse 1) But of those Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, it seems that a certain figure touches them, who, compelled by the devil, do not purely offer sacrifice: their prayer is unto sin, as it is written of Judas (Psalm 108:7), the traitor, who, being placed among the sacrifices, was thinking of betraying the blood of the Lord.
(Vers. 6.)
He planted a fig tree in his vineyard.
160. What does it mean that in his Gospel the Lord frequently introduces the parable of the fig tree (Matthew 21:19 and Mark 11:13)? For elsewhere it is stated that by the command of the Lord, all the greenness of this leafy tree withered: from which you understand the Creator of all things, who can command nature to either wither suddenly or flourish. In another place, he mentions that the coming of summer is usually inferred from the tenderness of this tree and its leaves (Matthew 24:32), signifying both the empty glory that the Jewish people claimed, like a flower falling at the coming of the Lord, because it was unfruitful in works: and the day of judgment, like the coming of summer, in which the mature fruits of all the earth are gathered, to be measured from the fullness of the Church, into which the Jews also will believe.
So let us seek out some deeper meaning in this mystery. There is a fig tree in the vineyard: and the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth, which He gave to be plundered by the nations. Therefore, He who made His vineyard a prey commanded that the fig tree also be cut down. The comparison of this tree is suitable for the synagogue; for just as this tree, overflowing with abundant leaves, disappoints the hope of its owner with the expectation of fruit: so also in the synagogue, while its teachers boast of unproductive works and wordy excess, the empty shadow of the Law flourishes, and the hopes of false reward mock the desires of the believing people.
162. There is also in the nature of a tree, which you will believe to have been expressed in comparison with the appearance of a synagogue; for if you inquire diligently, you will find the distinguished custom of this nature separated from the use of other trees. For other trees bear flowers before fruit, and they indicate the future fruit with the flower; this tree alone bears fruit instead of flowers from the beginning: in other trees the flower falls, and the fruit is born; in this tree the fruit falls so that the fruit may succeed. Therefore, those empty husks of fruits emerge in place of flowers: thus, early ripening by a certain use of birth, they cannot preserve the benefit of nature because they are ignorant of the order of nature. For that which is accustomed to push itself out from the bark in the middle, the smallest fruits of this kind burst forth. We read about them in the Song of Songs: The fig tree brings forth its green figs (Cant. 2:13). And so, while the rest of the white shoots whiten in early spring, the fig tree alone does not know how to grow gray with its own flower; perhaps because no fruit is more mature in them. As other shoots succeed, these degenerate shoots are rejected and wither with their weak roots, while the renewed shoots with more beneficial sap flourish. However, some very rare shoots remain and do not wither, for they have found favor in this environment. They emerge like a small key breaking through the middle of two branches, taking refuge in the nurturing embrace of nature, growing with the nourishment of a richer sap. Stimulated by a more gentle breeze and the longer days of maturity, when they have shed the wild nature of their previous sap, they stand out in appearance and are preferred for their maturity.