8. The ointment of grace is fragrant, from which the Virgin gave birth, and the Lord Jesus assumed the sacrament of the Incarnation. The bond, he says, is my cousin, the bunch of grapes is my brother Cyprus, resting among my breasts. For the Lord Jesus, taking on a body, bound himself with the bonds of love: and he bound himself not only to our members and natural passions, but also to the cross; therefore, just as the bunch of grapes rests in the faith and moral grace of the Church. Nardus Cypri, my cousin, in the vineyards of Engaddi (Cant. I, 13). Engaddi, if we seek the place, is a certain region in Judea, and it is called so, in which balsam is produced. If we seek the interpretation, Engaddi signifies 'temptation' in Latin. In those vineyards, there is a tree that, if someone punctures it, emits perfume: this is the fruit of the tree. If the tree is not punctured, it does not smell as fragrant; but when it is punctured by the hand of the artisan, then it distills tears: just as Christ, on that tree of temptation, crucified, shed tears for the people, in order to wash away our sins, and poured forth the ointment from the bowels of His mercy, saying: Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they do (Luke, XXIII, 34). Then, therefore, the spear pierced the wood, and blood and water poured forth from it, more fragrant than any ointment, a sacrifice accepted by God, pouring out the odor of sanctification throughout the whole world: and as balsam flows from a tree, so did power flow from his body. Hence, it is said that the expression 'opobalsamum' comes from there, because by the piercing of the wood, balsam bursts forth through the cavity of the wound. Therefore, Jesus, pierced, poured forth the fragrance of forgiveness of sins and redemption. For the Word was made flesh, and was bound, and He made Himself poor, though He was rich, so that we might be enriched by His poverty. He was powerful, yet He allowed Himself to be despised, so that Herod could mock Him and ridicule Him. He moved the earth and clung to the wood; He covered the heavens with darkness, and crucified the world; and He Himself was crucified. He bowed His head, and the Word went forth; He was emptied, and He filled all things. God descended, man ascended; the Word was made flesh, so that the flesh of the Word might claim a throne for itself at the right hand of God. A wound was inflicted, and ointment flowed forth; the scarab beetle was heard, and God was recognized.
9. And Christ answered: Behold, you are my good neighbor, behold, you are good (Song of Solomon 1:14). For the Church knew the mystery and preached the crucified Lord Jesus for the redemption of the whole world, she deserves to hear: Behold, you are good; you who say I am good, and you yourself are good, who have seen the glory of my beauty, and you yourself are good and beautiful. But what does it mean for Christ to say: You are good, or you are beautiful; except for that Gospel saying: Be of good cheer, daughter, your sins are forgiven (Matthew 9:22)?
10. (Verse 17.) Therefore, the one to whom Christ has forgiven sins rightly says: Pay your servant so that I may live and keep your words. He has no reason to despair about retribution, for the Lord Jesus came to save the world, not to destroy it. Therefore, He forgets the injury and remembers the grace, as He Himself testifies in the prophetic book, saying: I am, I am the one who blots out your iniquities and will not remember them; but remember me, and let us be judged. Declare your iniquities that you may be justified (Isaiah 43:25-26). Therefore, whoever confesses his sins to God, is justified; and whoever is justified, does not fear retribution, but asks for it; and whoever does not fear retribution, shall live.
11. But why did he say, 'I will live,' and not 'I am living'? Because this life is not a place of reward, but a place of death. The Prophet laments that he has been brought down to the dust of death (Psalm 21:16). The Apostle desires to be liberated from this mortal body (Romans 7:24). And do we think that the Prophet takes delight in this life? Everything here is full of death. Death enters through the window, it enters through the door; unless the Lord sets a guard at your door. Finally, sin is born out of excessive talk. Read the commandments of the Law, and you will find written: If a living person touches a dead body, they become unclean (Numbers 19:11). How many dead bodies do we touch? Among how many dead bodies do we live? Therefore, the Author of life tells you: Leave the dead to bury their own dead (Matthew 8:22). Therefore, elsewhere it is said to you: Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead (Ephesians 5:14). How could it be said to you, 'Arise from the dead,' unless you were living among the dead? Let us consider you to be free from dead works and from the pollution of sin; how can you be free, who are in a body of death, who live among the graves of the dead? Peter needed to speak to the dead, so that they would come out of their own tombs.
12. Therefore we are in need of purification because we have touched the dead (Num. XIX, 1). The Law commands us to be cleansed: who is so great that he is above the Law? If the holy Nazarene himself touches the dead, he declares himself unclean (Num. VI, 9). And so he shaves his head and lays aside his hair as if it were not holy; and again he prays to be heard, for he could not before because of the touch of the dead: he considered the days to be irrational; for he had approached the irrational. Therefore, he must lay down the dead and superfluous of his own head, so that he may be reconciled to Christ. Therefore, if the Nazarene is purified, then we must be purified.
13. We all touch death. For who will boast of having a pure heart, or who will dare to say that they are free from sin? Perhaps there is someone who has not sinned in speech, although such a person is rare, of whom God says, as He did about the holy Job: 'He has not sinned with his lips' (Job 22:10); yet he could not always have pure thoughts of his heart, as the devil constantly attacks the human heart. Even if someone guards their heart with constant and vigilant care, they still find themselves in the midst of sinners and must also purify themselves. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips (Isaiah VI, 5 and 7); Then one of the seraphims flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
14. There is not one baptism: there is one that this Church handed down, through water and the Holy Spirit, by which it is necessary for catechumens to be baptized. There is also another baptism, of which the Lord Jesus says: I have a baptism to be baptized with, which you do not know (Luke, XII, 10). And indeed he had already been baptized in the Jordan, as the previous things make clear (Matthew, III, 13): but let this be the baptism of passion, by which everyone is also cleansed by his blood. There is also baptism in the vestibule of Paradise, which was not there before: but after the sinner was excluded, it began to be a fiery sword, which God placed (Gen., III, 24), which was not there before when there was no sin. Sin began, and baptism began: by which those who desired to return to Paradise might be purified, so that when they returned they could say: We passed through fire and water (Psal. LXV, 12). Here through water, there through fire. Through water, sins are washed away; through fire, they are burned up. But what is worse, we endure both fires here and there.
15. Who is the one who baptizes with this fire! Not a priest, not a bishop, not John, who said: I baptize you in penance (Matthew III, 11); not an Angel, not an Archangel, not Dominions, not Powers: but he, of whom John says: He who comes after me, is mightier than I, of whom I am not worthy to carry the sandals: he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. He has a winnowing fan in his hand, and will cleanse his threshing floor; and will gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Ibid., II and 12). Not of this baptism, which is performed by the priests of the Church, does the Lord himself testify (Matthew, XIII, 49 and 50). For after the consummation of the world, with the angels sent forth to separate the good from the evil, this will be the baptism: when by the fire of judgment, wickedness is consumed; so that in the kingdom of God the righteous may shine like the sun himself in the kingdom of his Father. And if any saint, like Peter or John, is baptized with this fire. Therefore, the great Baptist will come (for I name him thus, just as Gabriel named him: 'He will be great' - Luke 1:15). He will see many standing before the entrance of paradise, he will shake the turning key, and he will say to those on the right who do not have heavy sins: 'Enter, you who presume and do not fear fire.' For I have foretold you: 'Behold, I come like fire' - Isaiah 66:15. And through Ezekiel, I have said: 'Behold, I will set out for Jerusalem and I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, so that you may waste away like lead and iron' - Ezekiel 22:20.
16. Let the consuming fire come, let it burn away the lead of wickedness within us, the iron of sin, and make us pure gold. Let it burn my kidneys and my heart, so that I may think of good things, desire things that are pure. But because he is purified here, he must necessarily be purified there as well. Let him also purify us there, as the Lord will say: Enter into my rest. So that each of us, having been burned by that fiery sword, but not consumed, may enter into that delightful paradise and give thanks to his Lord, saying: You have led us into refreshment. Therefore, whoever passes through fire enters into rest. They pass from the material and worldly things to those incorruptible and eternal.
17. That is another fire in which involuntary sins, but accidental ones, are burned, which the Lord Jesus has prepared for His servants, so that He may cleanse them from this dwelling, which is mixed with the dead. That other fire, He has appointed for the devil and his angels, of which He says: 'Enter into the everlasting fire' (Matthew, 25:41); that fire in which the rich man was burning, who begged for a drop of moisture to be placed on his tongue from Lazarus' finger. But truly, Lazarus, reclining in Abraham's bosom (Luke, 16:24), was enjoying eternal life, which the Prophet promises to himself, saying: 'I shall live and keep Your words.' He says, 'I will live as if I am not yet alive; for here we live in the shadow.'
Therefore, this life in the body is the shadow and image of life, not the truth. Ultimately, man walks in an image, and we stand in the region of the shadow of death. But if someone does not focus the eyes of their mind on earthly things, but raises them to spiritual things; so that they can say: The Spirit of Christ the Lord is before our face; they will be worthy to say: In His shadow we shall live (Lamentations 4:20). For Christ is life; and therefore, whoever lives in the shadow of Christ, lives in the shadow of life. And elsewhere the Holy Lord says: 'In the shadow of your wings protect me' (Psalm 16:8). Therefore, all the saints are also in the shadow, as long as they are in the body: they do not see perfectly, they do not know perfectly, but they know in part. Paul himself says: 'For we know in part' (1 Corinthians 13:9). He himself, the vessel of election, to whom Christ gave eyes and illuminated with his grace, saw not face to face, but through a mirror. And David prays that his eyes may be opened (Inf. 2.17-18), that the shade that obstructs his sight may be removed. But who could doubt that this is the realm of the dead since the Holy One himself says: 'I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living' (Ps. 114:9)? For here no one can please perfectly, even if it were possible for them to not have their own sins; yet by living in the very realm of the dead, they need purification to free them from the contagion of this realm.
19. Therefore, we live in the shadow, and for this reason, we guard the words of God in the shadow. And let us use an example: surely before, they were under the shadow of the Law, when men observed the Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come; just like the Jews today, who do not see the true Sabbath, but serve the copy and shadow. We also, living according to the Gospel, follow the shadow of the words of God. Nathanael appears under the fig tree (John 1:48), David says that he hopes in the shadow of the wings of the Lord Jesus (Psalm 16:8); Zacchaeus climbs a sycamore tree to see Christ (Luke 19:4). Jesus also extended his hands to us, in order to overshadow the whole world. How are we not in the shadow, who are protected by the veil of his cross? How are we not in the shadow, whom the crucified one defends from the wickedness of the world and the heat of the body? Do we not know that the Word of God, coming into this world, did not come as the Word came, which was in the beginning, which was with God: but he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant? He came in a light cloud: and when the power of the Most High overshadowed Mary, he transformed the body of our humility to be like the body of his glory. Just as he changed form when he was born from the Virgin, so too the words of God appear to us transfigured when they are read in the Gospel, when their image is seen in the Scriptures as in a mirror, because the whole truth cannot be comprehended here. But when what is perfect comes, no longer through descent, no longer in appearance as transfigured, but they shine forth with complete and explicit truth.
20. And let it not trouble you that he says: I will keep many words; he who knows one word, knows many words. For in one there are many, and in many there is one. Therefore, it must be proven how one word can be many, and many words can be one. Nor is it difficult to teach, as the Apostle said, because he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in whom all things were created in heaven and on earth, whether visible or invisible, whether Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers; all things were created through him and for him (Colossians 1:15-16). There is therefore one Word, which operates in each individual; and when it operates in each individual, it operates in all things. This one Word, unique, poured itself out in many ways with the Father, because from His fullness we all have received. Therefore, if you see in each individual creature what is of Him, you will see that in each individual there is one Word of all, of which we are participants according to our capacity. In me the Word is human, but let the Apostle provide assistance and say: I also think that I have the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 7:40); in another, the Word is heavenly, and the word of angels is in many. There are those who possess the word of Dominion and Power, the word of Justice, the word of Chastity, the word of Prudence, the word of Piety, and even the word of Virtue. Thus, one word has many meanings, and many words have one meaning. And truly, it is not difficult to understand this; as we read, the Spirit of Wisdom can do all things.
Therefore, just as others are given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and others the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, others faith in the same spirit, others the gift of healing in one spirit, others the working of miracles, others the discernment of spirits, others the gift of prophecy, others the gift of tongues, others the interpretation of tongues. Yet in all these things it is the same Spirit who distributes to each one as He wills. There is the spirit of the prophets and the spirit of the apostles. There is also the spirit of craftsmen, like Bezalel and Oholiab, whom the Lord filled with the Spirit of divine wisdom, knowledge, and craftsmanship, to make garments and the Tabernacle, as well as the altar, according to the plan that God gave them (Exodus 35:30 et seq.). And they were also given the understanding and ability to do all the work according to everything the Lord commanded. And so they did what they had not learned, nor seen, according to what the Spirit showed them. And it seems to many that there is one spirit of the apostles, another of the prophets, and different in each: but it is not different, but one is the spirit, dividing different kinds of powers. Hence, there should be no doubt that the apostolic word was given to some, the prophetic word to others, the evangelistic word to others, and yet it is one word dividing itself to each according to our ability or according to its voluntary generosity. Therefore, I see this Word, which is the head of all, here through a mirror; and therefore, I cannot keep the words here. But when I see the glory of it revealed face to face, then I will live, and living, I will also keep the divine words.
22. (Verse 18.) Therefore, in the second verse he says: Open my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law. He who asks for his eyes to be opened, certainly understands also the burden. For he does not ask for a physician unless he seeks a remedy for his illness. Therefore, this person says to the physician coming from heaven: Open my eyes. If the eye is disturbed, all pain is easily alleviated by an eye ointment; but if its vision is obscured by an overflow of fluid, more serious remedies are sought. So just as in the eyes of the body, there is also in the eyes of the soul a certain passion of this kind, which must necessarily become worse; unless a good physician removes that covering and the cloud of a congealed humor, which hinders, or rather covers up, so that it may not see what it used to see, is considered the gaze of the mind. The sickness has crept in from an old ferment; because we did not remove either the pagan or Jewish suffusion when we first came to the Church: we did not hear and learn the discipline of a good physician: Putting off the old man with his deeds and putting on the new, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him (Colossians 3:9-10). Therefore, if someone covers himself, he does not uncover himself: a deeper sorrow spreads, a lasting veil weighs down the eyes; no one can take it away, neither an Angel, nor Virtues, nor Dominations, nor Powers. That veil remains, it hinders reading, it obscures vision; as the Apostle says, it is not revealed, that is, by anyone else, unless it is taken away in Christ. But when someone turns to the Lord in this way, the veil will be taken away.
Therefore, you have how you may remove the veil, which remains above the eyes of your heart. Turn to the Lord, and the veil will fall. Paul turned to the blessing of Ananias, as scales fell from his eyes; and he saw, who had not seen for three days before: at the same time, the eye of the body and soul is healed; for that physician had shown him the remedy, who is written: He sent his Word, and healed them, and delivered them from all their infirmities. There is no doctor on this earth who cures all illnesses and heals entire populations. Therefore, Father, send that doctor: let your Word come, open my eyes. And the eyes of the Apostles were closed, unless Jesus opened them. Finally, when the two of them were going to the village called Emmaus, while he interpreted the Scriptures and blessed them, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him (Luke, 24:31). Therefore, unless Jesus had opened our eyes, no one would have seen; unless Jesus removed the veil, the grace of the Gospel would not have shone. And Peter had closed eyes, and John had closed eyes, and James had closed eyes. Finally, they were burdened with sleep on the mountain, but awakened by the brightness of divine majesty, they opened the eyes of their hearts. And because they were thirsty in the body, they could not fully see, they were overshadowed by clouds (Matthew, 27), so that the brilliance of heavenly glory would not dull their bodily eyes.
24. Who, then, is so great as to open the eyes and see the sacraments of the Law; unless Christ himself shows them? Not even Moses was so great. Indeed, at the command of the Lord, he threw down his staff, and it became a serpent, and he fled from it; he took hold of the serpent's tail, and it became a staff (Exodus, IV, 3 and 4); and yet he did not understand the mystery by which it was revealed that the Lord Jesus would descend to earth, and when he humbled himself and was laid in the tomb, he would suffer on the cross and be cast into the tomb, as a serpent made from a staff; for when he was cast into the tomb, from which, according to the oracles of the Law, he would rise again to the glory of God and return to the divine throne as the king's consort, in the form of a serpent. Therefore, let us also apprehend the tail of that crucified serpent, so that we may recognize his royal power. And she who sent the ointment onto his feet held him. Therefore, Moses also apprehended the tail of the serpent, and his mouth was opened. He would not have spoken of it unless the Lord himself had opened his mouth.
25. David opened his eyes and sought here, and in the previous [passage] he said: Who will show us good things (Psalm 4:6)? He was brought up under the Law, and he knew that the Law has a shadow of future goods: he desired to see these goods not through a shadow, but with open eyes (Hebrews 10:1). He knew that the copies and shadows served the heavenly mysteries, which those serving according to the Law of Moses served. He wanted to grasp the truth of divine worship itself; and therefore, in order to remove the veil from his eyes, he turned to the Lord in prayer, saying: Open my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law. He truly understood that the militia is heavenly, which everyone can know from the Law, to which the Lord nevertheless reveals it. For who can ascend from earthly things to heavenly things, from shadow to brightness, from the copy to the innermost truth, without divine guidance?
26. Who can consider that heavenly altar, that true temple, the priests and the Levites, not according to the duties of the flesh, but according to the grace of the spirit? Finally, David desired only this grace for himself, saying: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and that I may see the delight of the Lord, and contemplate his temple (Psalm 26:4). Who could have known that the rich man would offer a great gift, as much as his hand is able, for the forgiveness of his sin? Who could understand, if he did not have it? Who could offer, for example, a ram, because his sin was not being resolved? Who could notice, what were those impurities, which were not resolved by the Law that the Jews think, but by the spiritual law, which Paul recognized? Who could see true remissions of sins, whose example is in the Law, the truth in the Gospel, with the Lord Jesus saying: Your sins are forgiven (Luke, VII, 48); not by the blood of goats, but by the sacrifice of his own body? Therefore, let that rich man read, who by confessing the fullness of perfect majesty in Christ and by offering with his celestial hands to certain people the sin he has been forgiven. He sees the true Priest who sees the Prince of the priests; he considers the true temple who hears him saying: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). It is a great temple, from which power came forth and healed everyone. Marvelous is that altar, upon which the sacrifice of the one Lamb took away the sins of the world. He, the most excellent Levite, who came not to demand a service, but to offer his own service of passion to all: to whom God is his portion, who possessed nothing here, that he might possess all things.
27. But what shall I say about the Hebrew slave, whom the Law commands to serve only six years, and in the seventh year to go out from servitude (Exod., XXI, 2)? Who is this Hebrew slave? Who can be understood as a free Hebrew? How great, so that he may see eternal years in his mind, is the true Hebrew who does not remain a slave forever, but after six years of serving, in the seventh year obtains the grace of liberty? It seems that Isaac, the patriarch, did not ignore the mystery of servitude and liberty, who said: 'You shall serve your brother, and when you shall have taken off and laid aside his yoke from your neck' (Gen. XXVII, 40), signifying the time when even if someone is placed in servitude to his brother, afterwards, after the exact years, which are collected in these six days and these months that we require here, he shall remove the yoke from his neck, which happens in the seventh year of remission. We can infer the true type of the Hebrew people in Joseph, who bore the yoke of slavery: but guilt did not seize him, prison did not confine him, Egypt did not stain him. We infer it in Peter, John, and James, who, although created and trained under the yoke of the Law, nevertheless broke the Jewish yoke of their brother when the legitimate time of rest came, when the forgiveness of sins shone upon them. And yet this was still done here in shadow by comparison with heavenly things.
28. But how great is that rest which is promised by the Law, is revealed in the Gospel, and is still kept intact, with the Lord Jesus saying: I want that where I am, they may be with me (John 17:24)! How blessed is the one who can merit the fruit of this dwelling, the fellowship of this rest! Then he will understand what it means to open his eyes, to see the wonders of God's law.
29. The reading of the Gospel, which has been finished, has well admonished us, in which the leper was healed, who said: If you wish, you can cleanse me (Luke 5:12); establishing the effect of power in the will of the Lord. To whom he responded likewise: I wish, be cleansed (ibid., 13). Preceded by the piety of the will, followed the authority of power. Jesus says to all, I wish, who do not wish to be sin. The will of Christ is common to all; to be cleansed is the act of the believer in Christ. And he touched him. He touches those whose faith is touched. Finally, he says: Someone touched me; for I perceive that virtue hath gone out from me (Luke, 8:46). You have the operation of the immaculate body, you have the remission of divinity.
But in order to be more fully healed, he opened his eyes, saying: 'Go, show yourself to the priest' (Luke, 5:14). The synagogue had many priests, but the one who opens eyes does not see false priests, but sees the truth. Who is the true priest, if not the one who is a priest forever? And therefore the Father said to him: 'You are a priest forever' (Psalm 110:4). So he opened his eyes, and saw, and understood what gift he should offer for his cleansing. Blessed is he who hears these things: how much more blessed is he who sees, who is able to reveal himself to the Priest, so that he does not have to fear being seen by him, who sees himself first, with his face revealed! For unless he sees himself first, he will not dare to show himself; just as Adam who desired to hide himself, because he did not recognize himself. But now let us also consider what follows.
31. (Verse 19.) I am a stranger in the land; do not hide your commandments from me. This is not the voice of just anyone; but of one who has renounced earthly pleasures and has cast off all desire for worldly things. He is a stranger in this land, who can say: 'But our citizenship is in heaven' (Philippians 3:20); who has his portion in the Lord, who can grieve that he lives on earth for a longer time, who is wearied by the length of this life, for whom the elongation of this dwelling place is a source of disgust, which the holy person rejects, and says: 'Woe to those who dwell on the earth' (Revelation 8:13)! He who does not fear to be dissolved; and if he is dissolved, presumes to be with Christ in the future: he is truly a stranger on earth; for he is a citizen of the saints, a member of God's household, and he stores up treasure for himself in heaven. He does not desire to return to this intelligible Egypt, as one who comes out of Egypt desires to return, nor does he fear the confines of old age and death, nor does he build barns for storing harvests, for he will live on the resources of others: but rich only in the abundance of virtues, he gathers those things which death cannot take away from him.
32. (Verse 20.) And rightly so he says: My soul has desired to desire your judgements at all times. Which it certainly does not do unless it is free from bonds, not only from the bonds of worldly anxieties, but also from the bonds of human affection. There are many bonds in this world: the bonds are the desires of life, the bonds are the pleasures of the senses, the bonds are the honors, the bonds are the bonds of marriage. Finally, the good Teacher asks you: Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife (I Cor. VII, 27). However, it is not a sin for one who takes a wife, but it binds him with the chains of the mind; because he is concerned about pleasing his wife. He would be happier if he desired to please God alone. But you see that he is bound, who does not have power over his own body. Therefore, because it is a commandment of God, which is taken from the oracle of the Law and the Apostolic word (Deut., VI, 5; and Matth., X, 37), that no one should prefer a wife, riches, honor, or obligations over God: but whoever does prefer them becomes subject to the judgments of God; therefore, he first demanded that God's commandments not be hidden from him. For whoever knows the commandments of God and keeps them, does not flee from Divine judgments, but desires them; and deservedly, as if the commandments had been revealed to him, he says: I have desired to desire your judgments at all times.