On the Duties of the Clergy 3.17–3.22

Let us consider another deed, done in captivity, which held the highest beauty of the honourable. For the honourable is hindered by no adversity; it stands out in adversity and excels more than in prosperity. Amid chains, then, amid arms, flames, slavery (which for free men is heavier than any punishment), amid the punishments of the dying, the destruction of the fatherland, the fear of the living, and the blood of the slain, care for the honourable did not fall away from our forefathers, but amid the ashes and embers of their overthrown fatherland it shone and gleamed in their devoted affections. For when our fathers, who were then worshippers of the almighty God, were being led into Persia, the priests of the Lord took fire from the altar and secretly hid it in a valley. There was there a kind of open well, little frequented because of the withdrawal of the water, not open to common use, in an unknown place remote from witnesses: there they sealed up the hidden fire with sacred secrecy and silence. It was not their concern to bury gold or hide silver to keep for their descendants; but, caring for the honourable in their last extremity, they thought the sacred fire must be preserved, lest the impure defile it, or the blood of the dead quench it, or a heap of ugly ruins blot it out. So they went off to Persia free only in religion, since that alone could not be wrung from them by captivity. But after a long time, when it pleased God, he put it into the mind of the king of the Persians to order the temple in Judea to be restored and the lawful rites repaired at Jerusalem. For this task the king of the Persians sent Nehemiah the priest. And he brought with him the grandsons of those priests who, when about to leave their native soil, had hidden the sacred fire lest it perish. When they came, as is handed down by the account of the fathers, they did not find fire but water. And since there was no fire with which to kindle the altars, Nehemiah the priest ordered them to draw the water, bring it to him, and sprinkle it on the wood. Then—wonderful to see!—though the sky was overcast with clouds, the sun suddenly shone out, a great fire was kindled, so that all, amazed at so evident a grace of the Lord, were filled with joy. Nehemiah prayed; the priests sang a hymn to God. And when the sacrifice was consumed, Nehemiah ordered the larger stones to be drenched again with the remaining water; when this was done a flame was kindled, but the light shining from the altar was at once consumed. When this sign became known, the king of the Persians ordered a temple to be made in the place where the fire had been hidden and water was afterwards found, to which very many gifts were brought. Those who were with holy Nehemiah called it Ephthar, which means purification; by most it is called Nephthe. It is found in the records of the prophet Jeremiah that he ordered those who would come after to take of the fire. This is the fire that fell on the sacrifice of Moses and consumed it, as it is written: “For fire went out from the Lord and consumed all the burnt offerings that were on the altar.” With this fire the sacrifice had to be sanctified; and so against the sons of Aaron, who wished to bring in strange fire, fire went out again from the Lord and consumed them, so that they were cast out of the camp dead. And Jeremiah, coming to the place, found a dwelling like a cave, and brought the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense there, and blocked the entrance; and when those who had come with him searched curiously to mark the place for themselves, they could by no means grasp or find it. When Jeremiah learned what they had attempted, he said: “The place will be unknown until God gathers the congregation of the people and becomes merciful. Then God will show these things, and the majesty of the Lord will appear.”

We hold the congregation of the people; we recognize the mercy of the Lord our God, which the propitiator wrought in his passion. I think we cannot be ignorant of this fire either, since we have read that the Lord Jesus baptizes in the Holy Spirit and fire, as John said in the Gospel. Rightly the sacrifice was consumed, since it was for sin. That fire was a type of the Holy Spirit, who was to descend after the Lord’s ascension and remit the sins of all; who, like fire, inflames the faithful soul and mind. Hence Jeremiah, having received the Spirit, says: “And it became in my heart like a burning fire, flaming in my bones; and I am dissolved on every side and cannot bear it.” Also in the Acts of the Apostles, when the Spirit had descended on the apostles and on many who were waiting for the Lord’s promises, we read that tongues as of fire were distributed. Indeed the soul of each was so warmed that those who had received the diversity of tongues were thought to be filled with new wine. What, then, is the meaning of the fact that fire became water and water kindled fire, unless that spiritual grace burns away our sins by fire and cleanses them by water? For sin is washed away and burned away. Hence the Apostle too says: “Fire will test what sort of work each one’s is”; and below: “If anyone’s work burns, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” We have put this to prove that sins are burned away by fire. It is known, then, that this is truly the sacred fire which then, as a type of the future remission of sins, came down on the sacrifice. This fire, then, is hidden in the time of captivity, when guilt reigns; but in the time of liberty it is brought out. And though changed into the appearance of water, yet it keeps the nature of fire, so as to consume the sacrifice. Do not wonder, since you have read that God the Father said: “I am a consuming fire”; and elsewhere: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water.” The Lord Jesus himself too inflamed the hearts of his hearers like fire and refreshed them like a fountain; for he himself says in his Gospel that he came to cast fire on the earth, and to supply a drink of living water to the thirsty. In Elijah’s time too fire came down, when he challenged the prophets of the nations to kindle the altar without fire. And when they could not do it, he drenched his own victim three times with water, and the water ran round about the altar, and he cried out, and fire fell from the Lord out of heaven and consumed the burnt offering. You are that victim. Consider each thing in silence. The vapour of the Holy Spirit descends on you; he seems to burn you up when he consumes your sins. Indeed the sacrifice consumed in Moses’ time was a sacrifice for sin. Hence Moses says, as is written in the book of the Maccabees: “Because what was for sin was not eaten, it was consumed.” Does it not seem to you to be consumed when in the sacrament of baptism the whole outer man perishes? “Our old man has been nailed to the cross,” the Apostle cries. There, as the examples of the fathers teach you, the Egyptian is drowned and the Hebrew rises, renewed by the Holy Spirit, who even crossed the Red Sea with unharmed step, where the fathers were baptized in the cloud and in the sea. In the flood too, in Noah’s time, all flesh died, yet the just man with his offspring was saved. Is not man consumed when that which is mortal is absorbed by life? Indeed the outer man is corrupted, but the inner is renewed. And not only in baptism, but also in penance, there is a destruction of the flesh for the advance of the spirit; as we are taught by apostolic authority, holy Paul saying: “I have judged, as present, to hand over him who has done this to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This longer digression seems to have been made for the sake of the wonderful mystery, while we strive to set out more fully the sacrament revealed, which is so full of the honourable that it is full of religion.

How great a care for the honourable our forefathers had, that they avenged by war the wrong done to one woman by the lust of intemperate men, and, having conquered the people, swore that they would not give their own daughters in marriage to the tribe of Benjamin! The tribe remained without any support for posterity, unless it had received permission for a necessary fraud. Yet that indulgence does not seem free of a punishment fitting their intemperance, since they were allowed only this, to enter marriages by abduction, not by the sacrament of wedlock. And truly it was fitting that those who had broken up another’s union should themselves lose the solemnity of marriage. How full of pity the story is! A man, it says, a Levite, had taken a wife for himself (whom I think was called concubine, concubina, from concubitus, lying together), who some while later, offended by certain things, as happens, went off to her father and was there four months. And her husband rose and went to his father-in-law’s house, to restore favour with his wife and to call her back and bring her home; the woman met him and brought her husband into her father’s house. The young woman’s father was glad; he came to meet him and sat with him three days; and they feasted and rested. And on the next day the Levite rose at dawn, and was held back by his father-in-law, so as not to leave the pleasure of the feast so soon. And on another day and a third, the young woman’s father did not allow his son-in-law to set out, until all joy and good feeling between them was complete. But on the seventh day, when the day was already declining toward evening, after the meal and the feasting were over, though he pleaded the nearness of the coming night, so that he would think it better to rest among his own than among strangers, he could not hold him, and sent him off together with his daughter. But when they had gone some way, as evening was pressing nearer and they had come close to the city of the Jebusites, the servant said that his master should turn aside to it; his master did not agree, because that was not a city of the sons of Israel, but he aimed to reach Gibeah, which was inhabited by people of the tribe of Benjamin. And there was no one to receive the travellers as guests except a stranger advanced in age. When he saw them and asked the Levite, “Where are you going, or where do you come from?” and he answered that he was a traveller returning to the hill country of Ephraim and that there was no one to take him in, he offered him hospitality and prepared a meal. But when they had eaten their fill and the tables were removed, men of pestilence rushed upon the house and surrounded it. Then the old man offered to the men of iniquity his virgin daughter and the companion with whom she used to sleep, so long as no violence was done to his guest. But when reason made little progress and force prevailed, the Levite gave up his wife; and they knew her and abused her all night. Overcome by this atrocity, or by grief at the wrong, she threw herself down before the door of the host where her husband was lodging and breathed out her spirit, yet keeping, as a last service of her life, the affection of a good wife, so as at least to leave to her husband the burial of her body. When this became known (not to delay you with much), almost the whole people of Israel blazed into war; and when the battle remained doubtful with uncertain outcome, yet at the third time of fighting the people of Benjamin were delivered to the people of Israel and, condemned by the divine sentence, paid the penalty of their intemperance. It was also decreed that no one of the number of the fathers should give his daughter to them as wife; and this was confirmed by the sacrament of an oath. But, pricked that they had brought so harsh a sentence against their brothers, they so tempered its severity that they took for themselves in marriage virgins bereaved of their parents, whose fathers had been slain for an offence, or joined in union by abduction; because, for the crime of so shameful a deed, those who had violated the right of another’s marriage had shown themselves unworthy of obtaining marriage. But lest one tribe perish from the people, the connivance of a fraud was granted. How great a care for the honourable our forefathers had appears from this, that forty thousand men drew the sword against their brothers of the tribe of Benjamin, wishing to avenge the wrong done to modesty, because they would not tolerate violators of chastity. So in that war sixty-five thousand warriors were slain on both sides, and cities burned. And though the people of Israel were at first the weaker, yet, not moved by fear of adverse war, they did not set aside their grief in avenging chastity. They rushed into battle, ready even with their own blood to wash away the stain of the crime committed.

And what wonder if the people of God cared for that seemliness and the honourable, when even lepers, as we read in the books of Kingdoms, did not lack regard for the honourable? There was a great famine in Samaria, because the army of the Syrians had besieged it. The king was anxiously inspecting the military watches on the wall; a woman appealed to him, saying: “This woman persuaded me to bring my son, and I brought him, and we cooked him and ate him; and she promised that afterwards she too would bring her son, and we would eat his flesh together; but now she has hidden her son and will not bring him.” The king, moved that women seemed to have fed not only on human corpses but on those of their own children, and roused by the example of so dreadful a calamity, threatened death to the prophet Elisha, in whose power he believed it lay to break the siege and drive away the famine; or because he had not allowed the king to strike the Syrians whom he had struck with blindness. Elisha was sitting with the elders in Bethel, and before the king’s messenger came in to him, he said to the elders: “Have you seen that the son of that murderer has sent to take away my head?” And the messenger came in and delivered the king’s order, which threatened immediate danger to his life. The prophet answered him: “At this hour tomorrow a measure of fine flour will be a shekel, and two measures of barley a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.” And when the messenger sent by the king did not believe, saying that even if the Lord rained abundance of grain from heaven this could not be done, Elisha said to him: “Because you have not believed, you will see it with your eyes and will not eat.” And suddenly there was in the camp of Syria as it were a sound of chariots, and the noise of many horsemen, and the noise of a great host, and a huge tumult of war; and the Syrians thought that the king of Israel had called the king of Egypt and the king of the Amorites into alliance for battle; and they fled at dawn, leaving their tents, because they feared that they would be overwhelmed by the sudden arrival of new enemies and could not resist the kings’ combined forces. This was unknown in Samaria, because the people, overcome by fear and wasted by hunger, did not dare even to look out. Now there were four lepers at the gate of the city, for whom life was a punishment and death a gain; and they said to one another: “Here we sit and are dying. If we go into the city, we shall die of hunger; if we stay here, no means of living is available to us; let us go into the camp of Syria: either it will be a shortcut to death or a remedy for life.” So they went on and entered the camp; and behold, everything was bare of enemies. Going into the tents, they first drove away their hunger with the food they found, then carried off as much gold and silver as they could. And though they alone were intent on the plunder, they decided nevertheless to report to the king that the Syrians had fled; because they thought this honourable rather than to suppress the news and cherish plunder gained by fraud. At their report the people went out and plundered the camp of Syria, and the supplies of the enemy brought abundance and made grain cheap, according to the prophetic word, so that a measure of fine flour cost a shekel and two measures of barley the same. In this joy of the people, the messenger on whom the king leaned was crushed in the haste of those going out and the exultation of those returning, trampled by the people, and died.

What of Queen Esther? To rescue her people from danger, which was seemly and honourable, did she not offer herself to death and not tremble at the fury of a cruel king? The king of the Persians himself too, fierce and proud of heart, yet judged it seemly to show gratitude to the one who had revealed the plot prepared against him, to rescue a free people from slavery, to snatch them from death, and not to spare him who had urged such unseemly things. Indeed he handed over to the cross the man whom he held second to himself and chief among all his friends, because he perceived that he had been dishonoured by his fraudulent counsels. For that friendship is approved which guards the honourable, and it is certainly to be preferred to wealth, honours, and powers; but it is not usually preferred to the honourable, rather it follows the honourable. Such was Jonathan’s, who for the sake of loyalty shrank neither from his father’s displeasure nor from danger to his life. Such was Ahimelech’s, who for the duties of hospitality thought he should undergo his own death rather than the betrayal of a fleeing friend.

Nothing, then, is to be preferred to the honourable; and lest it be passed over through zeal for friendship, Scripture admonishes us about friendship too. For there are many questions among the philosophers: whether anyone ought to take a position against his fatherland for a friend’s sake, so as to obey his friend; whether one ought to desert good faith while indulging and attending to a friend’s advantages. And Scripture indeed says: “A club, a sword, and an iron arrow: so is the man who bears false witness against his friend.” But consider what it establishes. It does not blame testimony given against a friend, but false testimony. For what if someone is compelled to give testimony for God’s cause, or for his fatherland’s? Ought friendship to outweigh religion, to outweigh love of fellow citizens? Yet in these very matters the truth of the testimony must be sought, lest a friend be attacked by the faithlessness of a friend by whose good faith he ought to be acquitted. A friend, then, ought neither to gratify the guilty nor to lay snares for the innocent. Certainly if it is necessary to give testimony, if one has learned of some fault in a friend, let him reprove him secretly; if he does not listen, let him reprove him openly. For reproofs are good, and often better than a silent friendship. And even if your friend thinks himself hurt, reprove him nevertheless; and even if the bitterness of correction wounds his mind, reprove him nevertheless, do not be afraid: “For the wounds of a friend are more bearable than the kisses of flatterers.” Reprove, then, an erring friend; do not desert an innocent one. For friendship ought to be constant and persevere in affection; we ought not to change friends in a childish way by some wandering judgment. Open your heart to a friend, that he may be faithful to you and that you may take from him the delight of your life. “For a faithful friend is the medicine of life” and the grace of immortality. Defer to a friend as to an equal, and do not be ashamed to anticipate your friend in service; for friendship knows no pride. So the wise man says: “Do not blush to greet a friend.” Do not desert a friend in need, nor abandon him, nor leave him destitute; since friendship is a help to life. Therefore let us bear one another’s burdens, as the Apostle taught; for he says this to those whom the love of the same body has embraced. For if a friend’s prosperity helps his friends, why should not the help of friends also be at hand in a friend’s adversity? Let us help with counsel, contribute our efforts, suffer with him in affection. If necessary, let us endure even harsh things for a friend’s sake. Often enmities must be undergone for a friend’s innocence, often disparagement, if you resist or answer when your friend is blamed and accused. Do not regret an offence of this kind; for it is the voice of the just man: “Even if evils befall me because of a friend, I bear them.” For a friend is proved in adversity; for in prosperity all seem to be friends. But as in a friend’s adversity patience and endurance are necessary, so in his prosperity a fitting authority, to check and rebuke the insolence of a friend who exalts himself. How beautifully Job, placed in adversity, says: “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity.” This is not an abject voice but a censorious one. For when he was unjustly blamed by his friends, he answered: “Have pity on me, my friends”; that is, you ought to show mercy; but you oppress and attack a man whose hardships you ought to have suffered with out of friendship. Keep, then, my sons, the friendship you have entered into with your brothers, than which nothing is finer in human affairs. For it is the comfort of this life to have someone to whom you may open your heart, with whom you may share secrets, to whom you may entrust the secret of your breast; to place beside you a faithful man, who will rejoice with you in prosperity, suffer with you in sorrows, encourage you in persecutions. What good friends were the Hebrew boys, whom not even the flame of the burning furnace separated from their love for one another! Of this we spoke above. Holy David says well: “Saul and Jonathan, beautiful and most dear, inseparable in their life, and in death they were not separated.” This is the fruit of friendship, that faith not be destroyed because of friendship. For he cannot be a friend to man who has been faithless to God. Friendship is the guardian of piety and the teacher of equality, so that the superior shows himself equal to the inferior, and the inferior to the superior. For between unlike characters there can be no friendship; and so the goodwill of each ought to agree. Let not authority be lacking to the inferior, if the matter requires it, nor humility to the superior. Let him listen as to a peer, as to an equal; and let the other admonish and reprove as a friend, not from zeal for display but from the affection of love. Let admonition not be harsh, nor reproof insulting; for as friendship ought to shun flattery, so it ought also to be free from insolence. For what is a friend but a sharer of love, to whom you join and apply your mind, and so mingle it that you wish one to be made out of two; to whom you entrust yourself as to another self, from whom you fear nothing, from whom you yourself ask nothing dishonourable for your own advantage? For friendship is not a source of revenue but full of seemliness, full of grace. For friendship is a virtue, not a business; because it is born not of money but of grace, not by bidding up prices but by a contest of goodwill. Indeed the friendships of the poor are generally better than those of the rich; and often the rich are without friends, whom the poor have in abundance. For there is no true friendship where there is deceitful flattery. Many, then, gratify the rich by flattery; towards a poor man no one feigns. Whatever is offered to a poor man is genuine; his friendship is free of envy. What is more precious than friendship, which is common to angels and men? Hence the Lord Jesus too says: “Make friends for yourselves of the unrighteous mammon, who will receive you into their eternal dwellings.” God himself makes us friends instead of servants, as he himself says: “Now you are my friends, if you do what I command you.” He gave a pattern of friendship for us to follow: that we do a friend’s will, that we open our secrets to a friend, whatever we have in our breast, and are not ignorant of his secrets. Let us show him our heart, and let him open his to us. “Therefore,” he says, “I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” A friend, then, hides nothing, if he is true; he pours out his mind, as the Lord Jesus poured out the mysteries of the Father. So he who does the commandments of God is a friend, and is honoured with this name. He who is of one mind is a friend, because there is a unity of minds among friends; and no one is more detestable than he who has wronged friendship. Hence in the traitor the Lord found this the gravest thing to condemn his faithlessness, that he did not return gratitude and mixed the poison of malice into the banquets of friendship. So he says: “But you, a man of one mind with me, my guide and my acquaintance, who always took sweet food with me!” That is, this cannot be borne, that you, of one mind, attacked him who had given you favour. “For if my enemy had cursed me, I would certainly have borne it; and I would have hidden myself from him who hated me.” An enemy can be avoided; a friend cannot, if he wishes to lay snares. We are on guard against one to whom we do not entrust our counsels; we cannot be on guard against one to whom we have entrusted them. So, to heap up the odium of the sin, he did not say, “But you, my servant, my apostle,” but “my one of one mind”; that is, you are a traitor not to me but also to yourself, who betrayed one of one mind with you. The Lord himself, when he had been offended by the three kings who had not deferred to holy Job, preferred to pardon them through their friend, so that friendship’s intercession might win the remission of sins. So Job asked, and the Lord pardoned. Friendship profited those whom insolence had harmed. These things I have deposited with you, my sons, for you to keep in your minds; whether they have any profit you will prove. Meanwhile they offer an abundance of examples; for almost all the examples of our forefathers, and very many of their sayings too, are contained in these three books; so that even if the style brings no grace, yet the course of antiquity, expressed in a kind of summary, may bring much instruction.