Homilies on Leviticus — Homily 16 (Lev. 26 — the blessings (and curses) of Leviticus)
Latin source: Origen's Greek homilies on Leviticus, surviving only in Rufinus of Aquileia's Latin translation (c. 403–405), from the reading text of W. A. Baehrens (ed.), Origenes Werke VI (GCS 29, Leipzig, 1920), pp. 280–507. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the blessings of Leviticus.
1. In bodily contests certain grades and distinctions of the several ranks are customarily observed, so that each one may be rewarded with the prize of victory according to the quality of the struggle. For instance, if someone should have a contest among boys, or among youths, or among men, what observance ought to be kept for each rank, what may be done and what may not be done, and what rule of the contest is to be guarded, and what palm of reward the victor deserves after these things—all this is nonetheless provided for by the very laws of the games. So now too Almighty God, appointing for mortals in this world a contest of observing His law, after He had handed down very many things to be observed and had prescribed what ought to be done and what ought not to be done, fittingly, at the very end, in the book of Leviticus, in which it is laid down concerning each of the several observances, announces what reward he carries off who has fulfilled them and what penalty he undergoes who has not observed them. But if the law, according to what the Jews will have it and those who think the Scriptures are to be understood in their sense, is not "spiritual" but carnal, there is no doubt that, observed carnally, it also bestows carnal blessings on those who observe it. But if, as it seems to Paul the Apostle, "the law is spiritual", then without doubt it is to be observed spiritually, and from it a spiritual reward of blessings is to be hoped for. For it is of the whole consequence that "the spiritual law" gives spiritual blessings, and it is nonetheless of the same consequence that also the curses and condemnations of "the spiritual law" are not bodily. But that what we say may be beyond doubt, let us use the voice of the Apostle Paul himself, who, writing to the Ephesians concerning spiritual blessings, pronounces in this manner: "Blessed", he says, "be God, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ". Since indeed he knew that some readers, reading about blessings, could slip into this, that they should think them bodily and earthly, he wished to open more evidently to them what is the nature of the divine blessings, or where it is to be sought, and therefore he says: "who has blessed us", he says, "with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ". But also this, which he added, "with every blessing", is not idle, but full of apostolic vehemence. For because he knew that there are many things to be fulfilled which are commanded in the law, and that in each single commandment its own contests exist, in which through each one whoever should conquer would deserve a blessing, therefore he said: "who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing", that he might show them both to be many and to be spiritual. But in this saying, in which he says, "with every spiritual blessing", this too can be understood: that, for instance, every just and perfect person may receive the blessings of Leviticus, of which the discourse is now, and may receive also those which are written in the book of Numbers, and also those which are contained in the book of Genesis—the blessings of Noah to Shem and Japheth, and the blessings of Isaac to Jacob, and likewise the blessings of Jacob to Joseph and to Ephraim and Manasseh, and after these to the twelve patriarchs. Since therefore many are the blessings set down in the divine Scriptures, which seem indeed to be directed to each one of the saints—for instance, to Shem or Japheth or Joseph—yet not, as it seems to some, are they so directed to those alone that another cannot share in them, therefore the Apostle named them "spiritual", so that whoever can be made in virtue and spirit, for instance, a Shem or Japheth or Joseph or Isaac or Jacob, just as John also was "in the spirit and power of Elijah", may himself also become a partaker of that blessing whose virtue and spirit he has borne.
2. But let us now see what is the opening of the blessings in Leviticus. "If", He says, "you walk in my precepts, and keep my commandments and do them". There are three things which He says: "one must walk in the precepts, one must keep the commandments and do the things which are commanded". Whence it seems to me that a precept is, for instance, when it is enjoined that he who has not kept the sabbath "be stoned by the whole synagogue", or "he who has cursed God, that he be destroyed with stones", and any such things that are enjoined. But that commandments are those by which it is enjoined, for instance, that tithes be offered to the Levites, or "to appear before the Lord three times in the year", or "not to appear empty in the sight of the Lord". "To keep" therefore is "the commandment" to understand or to attend to the things which are enjoined; but "to do" is "the commandment" to fulfill the things which are enjoined. Thus therefore I think it is to be understood, what He said: "if you walk in my precepts, and keep my commandments and do them". But let us see what is the first blessing for those who have fulfilled the things which are commanded. "I will give", He says, "you rain in its season". Therefore let us first say to the Jews and to those who suppose these things are to be understood simply or bodily: if this "rain" is given as a reward for labors to those who "keep the commandments", how is it that also to those who do not keep the commandments one and the same "rain" is given in its seasons, and the whole world makes use of the common rains given by God? For "He rains upon the just and the unjust". But if "rain" is given "to the just and the unjust", it will not be an exceptional reward for those who have kept the commandments. See therefore that, even if the Jews do not acquiesce in the words of Jesus our Lord, yet you, who are reckoned by His name and are called a Christian, ought to believe Him when He says that His heavenly Father "rains" this common rain "upon the just and the unjust", and you ought not to think that He has set apart for "the just" an exceptional portion, this which He has appointed common even with "the unjust". Let us therefore seek in the Scriptures what is the "rain" which is given to the saints alone and concerning which "it is commanded to the clouds that they rain not this rain" upon the unjust. What then this "rain" is, Moses himself, the lawgiver of these things, teaches us. For he himself says in Deuteronomy: "Attend, O heaven, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words from my mouth; let my utterance be awaited as rain". Are these my words? Do we by rhetorical arguments violently bend the sense of the divine law? Is it not Moses who says that what he speaks is "rain"? "Let my utterance", he says, "be awaited as rain, and let my words come down as dew, as a shower upon the grass, and as snow upon the hay". Attend diligently, O hearer, lest you think we do violence to the divine Scripture, when, teaching the church, we say that either waters or showers or other things which seem to be said bodily are to be understood spiritually. Hear Moses, how he now names the word of the law "rain", now calls it "dew", now "shower", now even says "snow". And just as Moses speaks various and diverse things, as though speaking out of the grace of the manifold wisdom of God, so also Isaiah, when he says: "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken". But also each one of the prophets, when he has opened his mouth, brings down showers "upon the face of the earth", that is, upon the ears and hearts of the hearers. Knowing this, the Apostle Paul also said: "For the earth, drinking in the rain that comes often upon it and bearing herb fit for those by whom it is tilled, receives blessings from God; but that which brings forth thorns and thistles is reprobate and near to a curse, whose end is unto burning". Did the Apostle say these things about this earth? But neither does the earth receive blessings from God "when it has drunk in the showers" and produced fruit; nor, if after the rain "it has brought forth thorns and thistles", does it obtain curses from God. But our earth, that is, our heart, if it should receive "the rain that comes frequently upon it" of the doctrine of the law and should bring forth the fruit of works, receives blessings. But if it should have, not spiritual work, but "thorns and thistles", that is, the cares of the world, or the desires of pleasures and riches, it is "reprobate and near to a curse, whose end will be unto burning". Therefore each one of the hearers, when he comes together to hear, receives "the shower" of the word of God; and if indeed he has brought forth the fruit of a good work, he will obtain "blessing"; but if he has despised the word of God he has received, and has neglected what he has often heard, and has subjected himself to the care of worldly affairs and to lust, as one who has choked the word with "thorns", he will procure "a curse" instead of a blessing, and instead of the end of beatitude he will find "the end of burning". "I will give", therefore, He says, "you rain in season". Necessarily He added also "in season". For just as this earthly shower, if it come unseasonably, that is, when the harvest is being gathered, when the grain is threshed on the threshing-floors, will seem to hurt rather than to help, so also those to whom "the rain" of the word of God is committed to be ministered ought to observe this which the Scripture says, that they furnish it "in season", that is, that they not press the word of God upon one who is glutted and drunken, nor upon a mind occupied with other things, when it cannot be attentive, or when it is constricted by the languor of some vice, and the inner hearing is offered not to the teacher but to one's own disease. Prudently therefore let him conjecture where the mind can be at leisure, where the hearer is sober, where watchful, where attentive, and there let him minister "the rain in season"; so also "the faithful and prudent servant" in the Gospel is bidden "to give to his fellow-servants their measure of wheat in season". But in another way too we can understand this which is commanded, "the shower is to be given in season". Someone is a child and "a little one in the faith": he needs rain, but the "rain" of "milk"; for so says he who knew how to dispense "rains in season": "I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you were not yet able". He has advanced after these things in the faith, "he has grown in age and wisdom": without doubt he has become fit to receive "more solid food". Someone is weak and, not according to the season but according to weakness, cannot receive the things that are robust; for instance, he cannot fully receive a discourse about chastity: one must have compassion and measure the doctrine according to the quality of his strength, and to such ones marriage is to be conceded. This is to feed "the weak one" with "vegetables" and to fit to measures of the soul of this kind, as it were, the thin "rain" of the word, like unto "dew". But there is another earth which can receive strong "showers", and even bear "rivers" of the word of God and carry rushing "torrents". For concerning such ones the prophet says in the Psalms: "and you will give them to drink of the torrent of your delight".
3. "I will give", therefore, He says, "you rain in its season, and the earth shall give its births". After the first blessing of rain, this is the second, in which it is said that "the earth", having received the rain, "gives its births". We find that Isaac also, blessing Jacob, says: "May the Lord give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, an abundance of grain and wine". Do you suppose that Isaac was giving in blessing to his son Jacob such grain as sinful men also have, and with which even the impious Pharaoh abounded? Was this the blessing of so great a patriarch? Do you wish that I still show you how others also, the unjust, have a multitude of grain? Behold that man in the Gospel, whose "field brought forth many fruits, who says": "I will pull down my barns and build greater ones, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; eat, drink, and be merry". Do we therefore believe such to be the goods which by divine blessings were handed over to the saints and to the faithful? Other fruits of the earth do I behold, and otherwise do I regard the multitude of "birth". For if my "earth" bring forth fruit, if it produce "its births" out of the Lord's blessing, my understanding will perceive and be able to explain what and of what kind is this "earth" which, having received the heavenly rain, brings forth the "births" of rational crops. Take a testimony from the Gospels, how "he who sows went out to sow, and some indeed fell along the way, but some upon the rock, some among thorns, but some upon the good earth". If therefore those things which "fell upon the good earth" have brought forth fruit, "the earth has given its fruit" and "its births", it has produced "a hundredfold and sixtyfold and thirtyfold".
4. "But also the trees", He says, "of the fields shall give their fruit". We have within our very selves also "the trees of the fields which produce their fruit". What are these "trees of the fields which produce their fruit"? Perhaps the hearer says: what is this word-hunter doing again? Why does he seek out words from everywhere, so as to escape the explanation of the reading? How will he teach that there are "trees" and shrubs within us? If you do not rashly disparage, you will now hear that: "a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit". We have therefore trees within us, whether good or bad; and those which are good "cannot bear bad fruits", just as those which are "bad bear not good fruits". Do you wish that I set forth for you also the terms and appellations of the very trees which are within us? It is not a fig or an apple or a vine, but one tree is called justice, another prudence, another fortitude, another is named temperance. And if you will, learn yet a greater multitude of trees, with which perhaps the paradise of God will be thought more worthily planted. For there is there a tree of piety, and there is another tree of wisdom, and there is another of discipline, and there is another "of the knowledge of good and evil". But above all is "the tree of life". Does it not seem to you rather that the heavenly "Father", "the husbandman", cultivates trees of this kind in your soul and establishes plantings of this kind in your mind? Thus therefore says the Savior: "a bad tree cannot bear good fruits, nor a good one bad fruits". This is what He teaches: the tree of chastity is "good", it cannot bear the fruits of unchastity; the tree of justice is "good" and cannot bear the fruits of injustice. So also, on the contrary, if you should have the root of "a bad tree" planted in your mind, it cannot render "good fruits". For if there be in you a root of malice, it will not give "good fruits"; if there be within your heart a plant of folly, it will never bring forth the flower of wisdom; if it be a tree of injustice, if of iniquity, never can such trees rejoice in "good fruits". If therefore we keep the commandments of God, having received "the rain" of the word of God, of which we spoke above, the trees also which are planted in the fields of our soul and in the breadth of our heart will bring forth glad fruit of good sweetness. But do you wish that I show you from the Scriptures that these several virtues, which we mentioned above, are called trees or shrubs? I bring forward as witness the most wise Solomon, saying concerning wisdom: "it is a tree of life", he says, "to all who embrace it". If therefore "wisdom is a tree of life", without doubt there is also another tree of prudence, and another of knowledge, and another of justice. For it is not consequently said that of all the virtues wisdom alone deserved to be called "a tree of life", but that the other virtues by no means received the appellations of a like lot. "The trees", therefore, "of the field shall give their fruit". This, I believe, blessed David also felt concerning himself, when he said: "but I am like a fruitful olive in the house of God". From which he manifestly shows that a just and holy man is called a tree of olive.
5. "And the threshing shall reach for you unto the vintage". If good seed has been sown in my soul and, having received "rain" from God, it has grown and come to the ear, of necessity the harvest also will follow; and if the harvest, then also "threshing" will follow, in which the grains are cleansed. For indeed the soul which germinates from the word of God and, watered by the heavenly "rain", produces its sprout unto harvest, it is necessary that the very harvest which it brings forth be cleansed on the floor, that is, that the meanings which the soul has begotten it bring forth into the midst, and confer them—the things which it perceives—either with the other teachers or even with the divine volumes themselves; so that, if there be anything in them empty and superfluous, if there be anything like chaff or awns, it may shake it out with the spirit of discernment blowing within it, and retain the pure grain, by which alone it can nourish its fellow-servants and "dispense the measure of wheat in season". "And there shall reach", He says, "for you the threshing unto the vintage". Since "bread", as the Scripture says, "strengthens the heart of man, and wine gladdens it", whatever things are said concerning continence, concerning observances and the keeping of the commandments, these can be seen as grain, out of which "bread" is made and "strengthens the hearts" of the hearers. But those things which pertain to knowledge and by the explanation of hidden things "gladden" the minds of the hearers will seem to be fitted to "wine" and the vintage. For gladness is bestowed on the heart when the things that are hidden and obscure are explained. — "And the vintage", He says, "shall reach unto the sowing". As if we should say: first I sowed the things which are of the law and, after the sowing was done, I prayed that "the Lord would give rain in season": the harvest was made. After this I do not remain idle, but again I sow; I take the prophetic Scripture and from it I sow the lands and the fallow-grounds of the hearers. After these things I sow also other things from the evangelical discourses. Diverse are the things that are sown; through the whole year we can sow; for we can also cast many seeds from the apostolic writings. There is always something to be sown; in the whole of our life there is no time of idleness. As long as we breathe, let us sow; only let it be that "we sow in the spirit, that of the spirit we may reap eternal life". — "And you shall eat your bread in fullness". Neither do I take this to be of bodily blessing, as though he who keeps the law of God obtains this common bread in abundance. For what? Do not the impious and the wicked eat bread not only in abundance, but even in delicacies? Rather therefore, if we look to Him who said: "I am the living bread, who came down from heaven; and he who eats this bread shall live forever", and if we advert that He who said these things was "the word" by which souls are fed, we understand of what bread it was said in the blessings from God: "and you shall eat your bread in fullness". Things similar to these Solomon also pronounces in the Proverbs, saying concerning the just man: "the just man eating shall fill his soul; but the souls of the impious shall be in want". If you take this according to the letter, that "the just man eating shall fill his soul, but the souls of the impious shall be in want", it will seem false. For rather the souls of the impious take food with avidity and are eager for "fullness"; but the just at times even hunger. In fine, Paul was just and said: "even unto this hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted". And again he says: "in hunger and thirst, in many fastings". And how does Solomon say that "the just man eating shall satisfy his soul"? But if you consider how "the just man" always and "without intermission" eats of "the living bread" and fills his soul and satisfies it with the heavenly food, which is the word of God and His wisdom, you will find how out of the blessing of God the just man "eats his bread in fullness". — "And you shall dwell secure upon your land". The unjust is never inwardly, but is always moved and "tossed and carried about with every wind of doctrine, in the deceit of men, unto the deception of error". But the just man, who keeps the law of God, "dwells secure upon his land". For firm is the understanding of him who says to God: "confirm me, O Lord, in your words". "Confirmed" therefore and "secure" and "rooted" he "dwells upon the land", "founded in the faith", because "his building is not set upon the sand" nor is his root "upon the rock", but "his house" indeed "is founded" upon the land, but his plant is rooted "in the depth of the land", that is, in the inmost parts of his soul. Rightly therefore to a soul of this kind it is said in the blessings: "and you shall dwell secure upon your land; and I will give peace upon your land". What "peace does" God "give"? That which the world has? Christ denies that He gives this. For He says: "my peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you; not as this world gives peace, do I also give to you". He denies therefore that He gives "the peace of the world" to His disciples, because elsewhere too He says: "do you think that I came to send peace on the earth? I came not to send peace, but a sword". Do you wish then to see what "peace God gives upon our land"? If the land be that "good" one which "bears fruit a hundredfold or sixtyfold or thirtyfold", it will receive from God that "peace" which the Apostle speaks of: "but the peace of God, which surpasses every mind, shall guard your hearts and your understandings". This then is the "peace" which "God gives upon our land".
6. "And you shall sleep and there shall be none to terrify you". Solomon too in the Proverbs said: "for if you sit, you shall be without fear; and if you sleep, you shall gladly take sleep; and you shall not fear the terror coming upon you, nor the assaults of the impious coming upon you". These things he said concerning the just and wise man, and these things are said in the blessing: "you shall sleep, and there shall be none to terrify you". For if I become just, no one can terrify me; I fear nothing else, if I fear God; for "the just man", he says, "is confident as a lion", and therefore he does not fear the lion, the devil, nor "the dragon", Satan, nor "his angels", but says according to David: "I will not fear the nocturnal terror, the arrow flying by day, and the business walking in the darkness, the ruin and the noonday demon". He adds also this: "The Lord is my illumination and my Savior, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defender of my life, of whom shall I tremble?". And again: "if camps stand against me, my heart shall not fear". You see the constancy and virtue of the soul that keeps the commandments of God and has the confidence of an inborn liberty. After these things, "and I will exterminate", He says, "the evil beasts from your land". Those bodily beasts are neither evil nor good, but something in between; for they are dumb animals. But those evil beasts are spiritual, which the Apostle calls "spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places". And that is the evil beast of which the Scripture says: "but the serpent was wiser than all the beasts that are upon the earth". This itself, then, is that "evil beast" which God promises "He will exterminate from our land", if we keep His commandments. Do you wish to see also another evil beast? "Your adversary", he says, "the devil, as a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour; resist him, strong in the faith". But if you wish to learn yet more beasts, the prophet Isaiah will teach you, who, under "the vision" which he entitled "of the quadrupeds in the desert", speaks by the prophetic spirit certain such things concerning beasts: "in tribulation", he says, "and anguish, the lion and the lion's whelp; thence also the offspring of flying asps, who carried upon asses and camels their riches to a nation which shall not profit them". Can these things in any way be seen as said of bodily beasts, even by those who are exceedingly friends of the letter? For how can "the lion and the lion's whelp" or "the flying asps" "carry upon camels and asses their riches"? But evidently the prophet, filled with the Holy Spirit, enumerates the contrary powers of the most wicked demons, and designated that they place "the riches" of their deceptions upon souls stolid and perverse, which by a figure he compares to camels and asses. And that his soul might not be handed over to these beasts, fearing God he prayed, saying: "deliver not to the beasts the soul that confesses to you". — "And I will exterminate", He says, "the malignant beasts from your land, and war shall not pass through your land". Many are the "wars" which "pass through our land", if we do not keep the law of God nor observe His precepts. Let each one return to his own soul and shake himself out by inner recollection, and see how our land, that is, our flesh, is now pressed by the spirit of fornication, now by that of anger and fury, now is agitated by the darts of avarice, now is struck by the weapons of envy, now is bored through by the arrows of lust, and in whatever ways "the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh", it is always agitated by inner battles. But what shall I say of the wars of thoughts, which the enemy suggests to our heart, that he may strip us of the faith of Christ and of the hope of our calling? For when he has stirred up for us the afflictions of temptations and the troubles of the world, consequently he then suggests to the thought that it is superfluous and foolish to endure these things for Christ, that it is much better to lead a secure life and without persecutions. Knowing this, the Apostle Paul too said: "destroying thoughts and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ". He therefore who "keeps the divine precepts and keeps His commandments and does them", does not suffer this war and these battles, but God takes them away "from" his "land" and does not permit them "to pass" through the soul of the just. — "And you shall pursue your enemies". What "enemies", except "the devil" himself "and his angels" and the malignant spirits and "the unclean demons"? We shall pursue them not only that we may drive them away from ourselves, but also from others whom they assail, if we keep the divine precepts. "You shall pursue", He says, "your enemies, and they shall fall before you by death". If "God should crush Satan under our feet swiftly", "the enemies shall fall before us by death". By whose "death"? I think, by ours; for if we "mortify our members, which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness", if we inflict this death upon our members, "they shall fall before us". How "shall they fall before us"? If you be just, injustice has fallen "before" you; if you be chaste, lust has fallen; if you be pious, impiety has collapsed before you.
7. "And five of you shall pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you shall pursue many thousands". Who are those "five" who can "pursue a hundred"? The number "five" is set both among the praiseworthy and among the culpable. There are "five wise virgins" and "five foolish". So therefore also the number of a hundred can be taken to either part. If then we be of the five praiseworthy, that is, of the five wise, we shall pursue a hundred foolish. For if we fight wisely and provably in the word of God, if we discourse prudently concerning the law of the Lord, we shall convince and put to flight a multitude of the unfaithful. For just as the number five indicates both the wise and the foolish, so also the number of a hundred indicates both the faithful and the unfaithful. For under the number of a hundred years Abraham is described as having believed God and been justified, and "the sinner who dies at a hundred years shall be accursed". And here a "hundred" unfaithful are put to flight by "five" wise, and again a "hundred" faithful, marked not so much by the number of a hundred as by perfection, "shall pursue many thousands" of the unfaithful. For the faithful teachers put to flight innumerable demons, lest by the ancient fraud they deceive the souls of believers. — "And your enemies shall fall before you by the sword". Who the "enemies" are, we said above; but by what "sword" they are said "to fall", let us inquire. The Apostle Paul teaches us what this sword is, when he says: "for the word of God is living and effective and more penetrating than every two-edged sword, reaching even to the joint of soul and spirit, of the members also and the marrows, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart". This is the "sword" by whose edge "our enemies shall fall". For it is the word of God which lays low "all enemies" and puts them "under His feet", "that the whole world may be made subject to God". Do you wish to learn still from another epistle of Paul that the sword is the word of God? Hear him, when he prepares arms for the soldiers of Christ, how he says: "and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, through all prayer and supplication", most evidently pronouncing also through these things that by "the word of God", which is "the two-edged sword", "our enemies shall fall before us". — "And I will look upon you and increase you". Full of beatitude is this very thing, if "God look upon" anyone. Do you wish to see, if "the Lord look upon" a man, how great is salvation? Peter had once almost perished and, by the devil breathing through the mouth of "the maidservant of the high priest", had been snatched from the consecration of the apostolic number; but when "Jesus only looked upon him", when He turned toward him the countenance of a placid face, at once, returning into himself and recalling his foot slipped from the precipice, "he wept", it says, "most bitterly", and thus, looked upon by God, by weeping he recovered his place, which by denying he had lost. — "I will look", therefore, He says, "upon you, and increase you". As if the sun should look upon a crop and bring forth its fruits—which surely, if it had not looked upon it, would have remained fruitless—so God, "looking upon" the crop of our heart and illuminating us with the rays of His word, "increases us" and multiplies us, that we may no longer be "little ones", but be made "great", just as "Isaac was made great", and Moses was made "great", and John "great". — "And I will establish my covenant with you". See how great blessings are promised, if we keep the commandments. — "I will establish", He says, "my covenant with you. And you shall eat the old things and the old of the old, and you shall cast out the old from before the face of the new". How do we "cast out the old from before the face of the new"? "The old" things: "we had the law and the prophets"; but "the old of the old" are those things which were before the law, from the beginning, when the world was made. There came the new Gospels, there came also the Apostles. From before the face of these we cast out "the old things". How do we cast them out? We cast out the law according to the letter, that we may establish the law according to the spirit. We can also say in this manner: before the man came "from heaven" and the "heavenly man" was born, we were all "earthly" and "bore the image of the earthly"; but when there came "the new man, who was created according to God", we cast out "from before the face" of him "the old things", "putting off the old man and putting on the new", "who according to the interior man is renewed from day to day". — "And I will set my tabernacle among you". If we have these things in us which were said above, if, the "old man" having been cast off, our heart has been renewed, God comes to us and dwells in us, He who said: "and I will set my tabernacle among you, and my soul shall not abominate you". "The soul of God" will not "abominate" us, if we observe the things which are written. Yet I should wish to inquire what is "the soul of God". Shall we perhaps suppose that God has a soul as a man has? It is absurd to think this of God. But I dare and say that the soul of God is Christ. For just as Christ is "the Word" of God and "the wisdom of God and the power of God", so also He is the soul of God. And in this manner it is said: "my soul shall not abominate you", that is, my Son, but "I will walk among you". It does not seem to me that God promises this, that He will walk in the land of the Jews, but that, if anyone should deserve to be of so pure a heart as to be capable of God, in him God says that He "walks". — "And you shall be to me a people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, when you were servants, and broke the yoke of your bond". Truly "He brought us out of the house of servitude", for "we were servants" of sin, because: "everyone who sins is a servant of sin". And "He broke the bond of our yoke, the yoke" which he had imposed upon our necks who had "led us into captivity" and bound us with the bonds of sins. "He broke", therefore, the "bond" of sin and shook off the "yoke" of our captivity, our Lord Jesus Christ, and imposed upon us His own sweet yoke of faith and charity and hope and of all sanctity. To Him be glory unto the eternal ages of ages! Amen.