It is enough for you to know that you are a bird, fitted by nature for flying, as the Lord says through the Prophet: 'Free yourselves from the snare of the hunters and from the troubling word' (Psalm 90:3); for nets are not unjustly stretched out for the birds. You are a bird, O man, who, like a bird, have been renewed in a certain youth as an eagle. And therefore nets are not unjustly stretched out for the birds. For why do you cast yourself down to the earth when you were already seeking the heavens? Nets are not unjustly stretched out for the renewed; for you have already begun to belong to Christ and to cease belonging to hunters. Beware the snares of hunters. Before, the devil captured his prey with his own right: now, why does someone attack the merchandise of the Lord's Cross? However, you can also avoid these snares, so that you do not say: the hunters caught me like a sparrow; if you escape the snare of the heart, which the devil sent into the heart of Judas, and thus armed him for the crime of betrayal. May God turn away these snares from us, which he pours upon sinners. And therefore, the Prophet says (Psalm 34:8): You will give them, Lord, the snare of their hearts, which you have prepared for them. But give us, O Lord, help; so that we may follow after you, bound by your chains. For there is nothing more powerful, nothing more pleasing, than the bonds of charity. He who is bound to you is free from the world.
40. (Verse 111.) I have inherited your testimonies forever; for they are the joy of my heart. This is also the voice of the martyrs, saying that they have received the inheritance of heavenly testimonies. Therefore, the Prophet says: I am the heir of your commandments, I have sought your succession of faith and piety by right. One cannot say this unless they keep the commandments, acquired with heaven and earth as witnesses. For the Lord has said: Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth (Isaiah 1:2). The Lord testifies the elements in order to prove those who refuse to keep divine commandments; so that he may close all the excuses. He also testifies men, saying: Be my witnesses, and I am a witness, says the Lord (Isaiah XLIII, 10). Therefore, the commands of the Lord are full of testimonies, and they themselves are testimonies, of which God, who does not lie, is a sufficient witness, before whom your conscience also bears witness, accusing or even defending your thoughts, faithful enough even in an unfaithful heart; because the judge of all things that have been committed cannot be deceived. For if in an earthly court even someone who has come prepared to lie, when convicted by the testimony of another, usually reveals the truth; how much more is it necessary in the heavenly court before the Lord Jesus for those who have spoken falsely to confess the truth, whom He knows to know what has happened?
And he rightly says: I have sought your testimonies as an inheritance, because just as we were heirs of the sinner before, now we are heirs of Christ. That was the inheritance of sins, this is the inheritance of virtue: that bound us, this sets us free: that adjudicated us, enslaved by the interest of sins, to the enemy, this acquired us, liberated by the title of Christ's passion, to Christ. The succession of Eve's evils devoured the whole person: the glorious inheritance of Christ liberated the whole person. Not to one or a few, but to all, Jesus wrote His Testament. We are all heirs, not in proportion, but in universality. The Testament is common, and the right of all, the inheritance of all, and the stability of each. Each approaches the New Testament, and all possess it: what is claimed by coheirs does not diminish the inheritance of the heir. The benefit remains intact, and it grows even more for each individual, the more it is acquired by many. Another condition of human inheritance is this: if the profits are divided, they are diminished; and the division is the loss of the co-heir. The kingdom of Christ is undivided, the inheritance undivided. How could the inheritance be divided, when the fruit of the inheritance is undivided, which is the kingdom of heaven? Gold, silver, a property abandoned by a man to multiple people, is distributed and divided: solid gifts from Christ reach each individual: all have, and no one is cheated.
42. Therefore, let us listen to the hereditary benefits. The forgiveness of sins is the inheritance of Christ. Certainly, it is solid for each individual and profitable for the community; for whoever receives it, it does not depart from anyone, it is added to everyone. It is acquired by the body, whatever is relaxed for each person. For if the angels rejoice over one repentant sinner, because they consider it their gain in the redemption of mankind, how much more of a gain is it for the race, which is the gain of nature? The inheritance of Christ is the resurrection. Can anyone call this their loss, who finds it under the common name of grace? For when Christ rose, He rose for all; because through a man is the resurrection of the dead. So how can it be a loss for individuals, which is the renewal of the whole body and the human race? Therefore, let the Testament be recited, and let us consider its teachings. But the Holy Spirit is our witness. For when He said, 'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds,' then He adds: 'Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more' (Hebrews 10:15 et seq.). O truly eternal testator, who fixes His laws in our hearts and writes them on our minds, so that we may think of nothing else but divine precepts and feel nothing else but the oracles of God. He gave grace, reformed nature, and to himself, who forgets nothing, he took away the memory of my sins and gave me his commandments.
43. Therefore, do not remove the law of God from your heart, and do not affix the law of sin. Do not write the enticements of the devil in your thoughts, and do not erase the commandments of God. Behold, I have painted your walls, says the Lord to Jerusalem (Isa. XLIX, 16); this is to the studious soul of tranquility and peace, which he made in his own image. Do not, I say, take away the heavenly image, and impose the image of death. You have rejected the inheritance of the world: keep the testimonies of Christ; for in them is joy and gladness, since all weeping will be wiped away, and there will no longer be death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor outcry. The image of the Passion of Christ was a reflection of the heavenly kingdom. No one heard his voice in the streets; because in that silence of his passion, he abolished the future outcry of impious voices. He did not want to be mourned, who said to the daughters of Jerusalem: Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves (Luke 23:28). For he was about to take away all tears by the virtue of his cross, and in his own passion he displayed a foretaste of future blessedness, so that no one would weep except those who did not embrace the benefits of Christ.
44. Therefore, rightfully the Evangelical man says: I have sought your testimonies as an eternal inheritance; for they are the joy of my heart. Who would not rejoice, who has sought the heavens and the earth as an inheritance (which two elements God himself proclaimed when he gave the law), because he has sought God, of whom the Holy One says: The Lord is my portion; he has sought the Lord Jesus, he has sought the Holy Spirit; and after that, he has sought the angels, and lives with them, not only today and tomorrow, but for eternity; and for the sake of the Lord’s name, he is not troubled by any wrongs? Finally, the apostles rejoiced when they were beaten, when they were thrown into prison.
45. (Verse 112.) Therefore, rejoicing in the testimonies of the Lord, he rightly said: I have inclined my heart to do your justifications forever, because of recompense. He who hopes for the recompense of good works from God and hastens to Him, inclines his heart to do the justice of Christ. What is the justice of Christ? Without us, he says, fulfilling all justice, by which sin diminishes and guilt is loosened (Matthew 3:15). And he says well, I have inclined; so that it may not be difficult for you, when you turn your mind as if to humble and plain things. Certainly, since the wisdom of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, he seems to bend his heart, who subjects himself to the law, elevating the senses of the body, and he deflects from the gaze of religion. And he, who recently elevated himself in vain and inflated in his mind of the flesh, when he humbles himself, bends.
For Christ himself humbled himself, in order to establish a new Testament. When I read the Gospel, I hear that the Son of God assumed flesh from Mary, and I seem to myself to descend with Christ. For I read about him, who, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself. He emptied himself in order to receive the form of a servant, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself even unto death. For I read him saying: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart (Matthew 11:28-29). He did not say: Learn from me because I am powerful; he did not say: Learn from me because I am glorious; but learn from me because I am humble, which you can imitate. Do not exalt yourselves, do not elevate your hearts. Therefore, he taught me to be humble and to incline my heart towards performing righteousness; not towards iniquity, but towards equity, for the sake of retribution. The reward is the kingdom of heaven, and the dwelling in paradise.
Sermon 15. Samech.
1. The letter Samech, the fifteenth letter, begins here, which has the interpretation, 'Hear.' There is also another interpretation of it, which is called, 'Firmament.' What does 'Hear' mean? It is not said in vain that it is common to all and is available to all by the right of nature itself. And therefore it is not in vain that you are admonished to hear; for even when unwilling and doing other things, we are accustomed to hear a sound or a voice. But because it is not only to hear what is available by the duty of nature, but also that which is greater, namely, to hear not only with the use of the body, but also with the understanding; therefore consider more carefully the interpretation of this letter and the series of verses that follow.
2. But in order that you may know that it is mystical to hear, so that you may hear and understand the mysteries, it is written concerning the Jews: 'With their ears they shall hear' (Isaiah 6:9); for they heard the mysteries of the law, but did not understand. Therefore the Lord says: 'Hear, O my people, and I will speak' (Psalm 49:7). The law is certainly spiritual, so listen spiritually. Finally, he who knew how to hear, says: 'I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me' (Psalm 85:9), that is, I will understand what God has spoken in me. And elsewhere it says: How great things we have heard and known (Psalm 77:3), so that it may grasp not only that it heard, but also that it understood. For no one knows, unless he first understands. Therefore, listen, lest if Peter sees you negligent, he may come and take up the sword and cut off your ear: the ear of the body which you have in excess, while you do not know how to hear and examine. And perhaps those who cannot hear at the altitude at which it is written may have had the virtue of the soul by which they examine whatever is heard amputated.
3. And rightfully others have interpreted this letter as a confirmation: because it agrees with the previous interpretation; for unless each person hears what they should follow, no one is confirmed. Therefore, in the duty of listening, there is the confirmation of all.
So Jeremiah the prophet said to you in Lamentations by letter, listen. And so that you may know what you ought to hear is mystical, he added this series to this letter: The Lord has taken away all my strong men from among me. He has called a time against me, to crush my chosen ones. The Lord has trodden the Virgin Daughter of Judah down into the pit (Lam. I, 15). The Lord did not take away all the strong men of Judah at that time when the people of the Jews were led captive into the region of Babylon, but when Christ came and he did not see the captivity of his soul, not knowing how to raise the bent neck of his mind, weighed down by serious sins, and to raise up some of the burdens of faith to the light of knowledge. Therefore, the lake became a passion for the Jews, which showed the Gentiles the port of salvation; because the cross of the Lord is a precipice for unbelievers, but life for believers. He sent this message ahead, saying, 'Listen, so that you may know what is to come.'
In another place, she also added this verse: Hands have been laid on you, all who pass by on the road: they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem. This is the city, they say, the crown of glory, the joy of the whole earth (Lam. 2:15). It is clear that the passion of the Savior is being prophesied, and the destruction of the Jews is being lamented by Jeremiah, which can be understood not only from other passages but also from this one, because later it says: The Spirit of the Lord, the Christ, was taken prisoner in our destruction, under whose shadow, as we have said, we will live among the nations (Lam. 4:20). What is clearer than this, when both the name is expressed and the comprehension of the perfidious pursuers is declared, and the life-giving shadow and the grace to be conferred upon the nations are described?
However, the very words themselves also indicate what we read in the Gospel about the Lord's passion, because in this place his death is announced through the Prophet. For thus Matthew wrote: And they that passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying: Thou that destroyest the temple of God, and in three days buildest it up again, save thyself, if thou be the Son of God (Matt. XXVII, 39-40). When the common people insult someone, they are accustomed to hiss. At the same time, because they did not have a voice, those who denied the Word hissed like irrational animals. And so they passed by, those who should have stood in the way. They did not stand as if they were steadfast, but they passed by as if they were movable. But the just people stood in the courts of Jerusalem, where the faithless could not stand; and so they passed by, as Mark indicated (Mark. XV, 29). Shadow passes, not truth. Its day passes like a shadow, forgotten, abandoned. But we also read about passing through unbelievers, as it is written: And let all who pass by the way plunder her (Psalm LXXIX, 13). For who but a faithless person would plunder the vineyard of Christ? But it is also written elsewhere: And those who pass by the way do not say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you (Psalm CXXVIII, 8). For when people are standing, it is said: Behold now bless the Lord (Psalm CXXXIII, 1). Nevertheless, we also read about passing through in a positive sense, as in the case of Moses: I will go over and see this great sight (Exodus III, 3). And he who saw the wicked exalted beyond the cedars of Lebanon said: I passed by, and behold, he was not there (Psalm 36:36). And no one says to the servant: Pass by, recline (Luke 17:7).
7. So let us consider what this distinction is; for perhaps it was stated absolutely, where a passage occurs in a good sense: He did not say, passing from this to that, but only passing. In an evil sense: They pass, he says, through the way (Psalm 79:13). For the way is good, which is frequented by those who come, and is not easily invaded by bandits, who are accustomed to lie in wait on the back roads: the king's highway is fortified. But Moses did not pass through the way, but stood on the way, to whom it was said: But you stand here with me (Deuteronomy 5:31). He stood with him who said: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. Those who pass through this way, stumble. But Moses did not stumble, but passed from temporal things to eternal things, from worldly things to spiritual things. And whoever has seen the wicked, does not stay, but passes through, escapes; for he does not stick with the wicked, lest they become one body, but separates himself from them. And to whom it is said: Pass by, recline, surely escapes the laborious servitude of the present, so that he may have the glorious rest of the future. And to the bride it is said: Come here from Lebanon, O bride, come here from Lebanon, you will pass through and you will pass by the beginning of faith (Canticles 4:8). She passes through and crosses over, she who hastens to the Bridegroom. She crosses over the world, and hastens to Christ.
8. Now let us discuss what it means to move the head. Who is the head of the people, if not Christ? For the head of a woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ (I Cor. XI, 3). But even the Law is the head of the woman. In fact, the woman was under the Law as well as under the man. But the Jewish rite, which was according to the letter of the Law, was mortified, and the woman who rose from the dead was married to it. Therefore, some have mystically interpreted that, with the Jewish rite being mortified, they wanted that woman, who was intelligible according to the Law, to marry the Evangelical old rite of a dead brother; because the Law preceded the Gospel in a certain brotherly proclamation. Therefore the synagogue is a dead head, that is, its head is the dead Law, the observation of the Law having been evacuated: the letter of the Law is void, its spiritual understanding is established. David remembers this turmoil in the forty-third psalm, saying: You have made us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples (Psalm 43:15); because there has been a transition from the Law to the Gospel, as it were. In the twenty-first psalm, in which the whole series of the passion is foretold, it says: All who saw me scoffed at me; they mocked me with their lips, they shook their heads. He hoped in the Lord, let Him deliver him; let Him save him, because He desires him (Psalm 21:8 and 9). Therefore, they have moved the Law, which seemed immovable; and for this reason, the end of the Law entered, Christ.
9. Those who moved their heads were the Pharisees, that is, divided from the truth; hence they also did not believe in the truth. But it can also be understood thus: They moved their head against Christ, who had come in his own; but they moved him because they did not receive him. They moved him, however, saying: Take him away, take him away, crucify him (John 19:15). And they moved their head, who were unwilling to move their own works; when they bound heavy burdens and imposed them on others: But they themselves do not want to move them with their finger (Matthew 23:4). What is mystical; because they never wanted to change the observation of bodily ritual and introduce spiritual understanding. For we read the finger as representing the spirit, as the Law is written with the finger of God (Deut. IX, 10), and therefore it is a spiritual Law. They did not want to remove their burdens, which are heavy, and take up the light yoke of Christ and his sweet burden.
But because the passion of the Savior redeemed all, it is not absurd to understand that they moved their heads in this way, just as that leader of the Synagogue prophesied: It is expedient for one man to die for the people (John 11:50). He wanted to say one thing, but he meant something else. And these [people] moved their heads differently as if mocking, and they proclaimed something else; because he himself was the one who came to stir up that lazy and earthly principle of men, so that with the elimination of the outward appearance, we would seek the mystery in the words. Where he says: You have set us in a parable to the nations; shaking the head in the people (Psalm 43:15). This is certainly understood in a good sense; because he had said before: And you have dispersed us among the nations (Ibid., 12). For the Jews have been dispersed, so that the remnant of them might be saved according to the election of grace: but they have been set in a parable, so that we might learn from their outcome that the things said in the parable have been revealed, or that we might be warned to beware of faithlessness by their example. Then Jeremiah knew even more that Judea was to be mourned: and therefore he prophesied that Jerusalem was captured at that time, when it did not receive its own Redeemer. They insulted her, of whom they said, 'This is the city... the whole earth' (Lam. II, 15); because where there was once the joy of faith, there is now bitterness of unfaithfulness: or surely by moving her head, and by passing from bodily things to spiritual ones, she may deserve to hear; when she believes in Christ, that the crown is the glory.
11. But what is the crown of glory, if not the Church, which crowns its head Christ? What is the joy of the whole earth, if not the house of the Christian people, the court of the saints, of whom it is written: Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Psalm 18:5)? Therefore, because the Church is the crown of glory, it is said in the Canticles: Go forth... and see King Solomon in the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his espousals, and on the day of the joy of his heart (Song of Solomon 3:11). It is said to the souls that they should come out of the depths and prisons of the body, come out of the thoughts of the body, go out from desires and cares, and from the other affections of this flesh and slippery passions, rise above the world, go out of this world, meet Christ, be prepared with burning torches shining brightly. As if angels of Christ speak these words: You cannot see His clarity, His glory, unless you come out of the cares of human frailty, daughters of Jerusalem. As if to say, why do you seek the living among the dead? Christ is not sought within this world, for He wanted His disciples to be above the world. What is the crown with which Christ is crowned, if not the crown of glory? Joseph had the crown of chastity, Paul of righteousness, Peter of faith. Each virtue has its crown. Only Christ has the crown of glory, with which the Church crowned Him. In this crown, all the crowns are found, because glory is not the portion of one crown, but the reward of all the crowns.
12. They transferred the head in the third tradition, that is, Christ, who is the head of his people. The head of Christ is Peter (Song of Songs 5:11). Hence, the eagle called him a golden rock: Symmachus called it a golden stone, which signifies stability and eminent wisdom. The Church is the body of Christ. The head of this body is gold, that is, the precious wisdom of the saints, that is, righteous and prudent men. Her hair is black as a raven (Ibid.); of which it is said elsewhere: Your hair is like a flock of goats (Song of Songs 6:4). Therefore, hair is because the power of all senses is in the head. For the eyes of the wise are in their head (Ecclesiastes 2:14). Therefore, the deep wisdom of the doctors, which can reveal that which is obscure and open the heights of senses. And such debaters are the hair of the Church, like the ravens' chicks, to whom the Lord gives food, as He gave to holy Jacob from his youth and fed him. The Lord feeds these lofty and deep ones with the abundance of doctrine through heavenly sacraments.
His eyes are like doves, that is, adorned with spiritual senses, sharp and ready to see mysteries, and prepared to penetrate the secret Scriptures of God, shining with rational milk, in which there is no tainted confusion of deceit, but pure and immaculate sincerity of simple affection. Therefore, in an abundance of waters, these doves, cleansed, were mentioned in milk.
Now certainly, we understand that the teeth and cheeks, and like a scarlet net, the lips of the bride (Song of Songs 6:5), represent the virtues of the soul and the various teachings of the wise: those who diligently supply spiritual nourishment to the mind; those who bind the listener with the preaching of the Lord's cross as with a certain line of words; those who, though modest and reserved, and even though they may withdraw from discussing immodesty out of a sense of propriety, still emit the fragrance of Christ in their actions, and, just as the anointing oil descends upon the cheeks from the priestly head, the beauty of their doctrine shines forth. And the synagogue stirred up this head, and therefore the Lord took away the wonderful counselor, the prudent architect, and the wise listener: The head, he says, and the tail (Isaiah 9:14); for those who did not hold the head cannot have the last things. But let us now consider the things that are connected.
15. (Verse 113.) I have hated the wicked, and I have loved your law. The holy prophet David declared in this verse how much affection he extends towards the Lord; because although he did not persecute his enemies (since he could barely protect himself from the schemes of King Saul, from whose snares he could hardly escape with his life, and he did not consider life worth desiring, and he considered vengeance to be necessary, and he mourned the death of his impious son, and he forgave the sins of many who were persecuting him, as he himself says in Psalm 7:5, because he did not retaliate against those who were causing him harm), he still detests the transgressors of the divine law: in which, certainly, his kindness of character, the gentleness of his piety, and the strong intention of devotion are revealed, corresponding to the discipline of the evangelical precept, which he foresaw with a prophetic spirit. For indeed the Lord Jesus commanded us to seek the love of our enemies (Matt. 5:44), and that the enemies of God, even if they are connected to us by the bonds of parents, children, or marriage and blood relationships, should be pursued with hatred. For it is written: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, even his own life, he is not worthy of me (Luke 14:26).
16. But if someone with idle ears hears this, perhaps they might say: 'Lord Jesus, you gave the law saying: Love the Lord your God, love your neighbor (Deut. VI, 5); and to fulfill this law, you came: you said through the Law: Honor your father and mother (Levit. XIX, 18); and in the Gospel you command us to hate our parents (Matth. XV, 4).' How do these commandments fit together? Did you come with a gentle and humble heart? I cannot, with a sense of piety, hate the father to whom I owe my creation, the mother who carried the burdens of a pious fetus for ten long months, to whom there is more danger in giving birth and more weariness in delaying it. What do the sweetest sons deserve, that they should be excluded from paternal love; when it is impious not to be willing to die for one's children? What do dearest wives merit, who are certain companions of life, and have a shared partnership in nature? What do brothers, formed from the same bowels and produced in the same womb of nature for this purpose of life, deserve? Shall I hate then the pledges of affection? So by the gentle mercy of the Gospel you soften the severity of the unyielding Law, in such a way that by your Gospel you condemn the grace of those whom the Law condemns for their injustices?