Fragments on Luke 335–351

[Luke 8:18] "… has, it will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him." [Luke 8:16] Anyone who wishes to apply the lamp to most of the disciples of Jesus will be put to shame by what is said of John, that "he was the lamp that burns and shines." But "the lamp of the body is the eye," which refers to the mind in each person. And the words "Let your lamps be burning" were said to all the disciples of Jesus. One who has lit a lamp in a rational soul must not hide it, but set it on a lampstand, a symbol of which Moses placed in the tent of witness. For let the fellow servants receive their measure of grain from the faithful and wise servant by the bushel; but let them see the rays of the lamp set on the lampstand, that is, the church of all. Nor do they put the lamp under the bed, where one rests, nor beneath any other vessel. For one who does this does not provide for those who come into the house. For them the lamp must be set by those who kindle the mind within them with the true light, the bright word and the rays of wisdom; the mind has a nature according to which the creator made it, needing a lamp, from those who care for it, so as to have in the soul a most clear-sighted mind, sharing in him who said: "I have come as light into the world." For those who light the lamp and set it on the lampstand, so that it may shine for all in the house, will urge those in the house who see the brightness of the lamp to light their own lampstand too. [Luke 8:38] Verse 38: "But Jesus sent him away, saying," [Luke 8:39] verse 39: "Return to your house, and tell how much God has done for you. And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him." He sends him to his house. For the man did not have such a measure as to be able, clothed, to sit at the feet of Jesus and be with him. And since those of the surrounding region had no room for the presence of Jesus, he nonetheless provided for the salvation of those there who were able to receive it, by sending away the man who had sat long enough at his feet, so that he might teach what God had done for him. Some might be hearers and disciples of such a man, who, though he had no room for more, proclaimed from the little he had received. You might also refer the passage to the nature of man outside Israel, for whose sake Jesus sails down to the country of the Gadarenes, and to whom Jesus goes out onto the land. [Luke 8:27] "And the man," it says, "wore no clothing": for he had not put on what covers his shame. "And he did not stay in a house": for he was not, like Jacob, a plain man dwelling in a house. That is why he sent this very man away, saying: "Return to your house." "And he stayed among the tombs": not with the living but with the dead. [Luke 8:32] "And there was," it says, "a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain." But perhaps swine do not feed on a mountain. How, then,

did the herd rush down the steep bank? Perhaps, then, the lovers of pleasure, friends of the belly and of what lies below the belly, feed where the tombs are, near the legion of demons; and Jesus in his goodness destroys the herd of demons together with the swine in the water, and checks the breath of the evils of the lovers of pleasure and of the body, perhaps by means of the demons, and such a person comes to his right mind? And if anyone is in his right mind, he is beside Jesus; but the one who is beginning to be in his right mind is at his feet. [Luke 7:50] Verse 50: "And he said to the woman: Your faith has saved you; go in peace." The more advanced soul, having served the Word of God well, has boldness to come to the very head (and the head of Christ is God), so as to pour ointment on it and produce a fragrance for the glory of God; and God is glorified through the fragrance of the life of the righteous. But the less perfect woman and soul is occupied with the feet and the lowlier parts, and we are close to her. For we have not even repented of our sins. Where are our tears? Where is our weeping, so that we might at least be able to come to the feet of Jesus? For we cannot yet reach the head itself. It is something to be glad of if after our sins we bear the fragrance of repentance, so that one may stand second, as the woman who anoints the feet, not the head: that is, one who does not touch the more perfect and loftier things, but the extremities and the last. [Luke 8:52] Verse 52: "And all were weeping and mourning for her." He also said: "Do not weep; she is not dead but sleeps." [Luke 8:53] Verse 53: "And they laughed at him, knowing that she had died." Such, then, is the account of the miracle. But perhaps one should also contemplate it more finely and more loftily. Let the simpler and more guileless marvel at the great works of God in this way, for these things edify even when understood bodily. But we who are able to pass on to seeing that "these things too happened to them as types, and were written for our sake," let us pray to God and ask for the word that makes these things clear as well. How is it that Jesus goes first to the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, not to the woman with the flow of blood, and yet she, meeting him on the way, is healed first? The Son of God came first to the synagogue of the Jews, and found it sick and dead; for the transgressions of Israel caused it to die. But the woman with the flow of blood, the one on the way, full of uncleanness, flowing not at the time of her separation but always bleeding and sick, she will believe in the Son of God before the other. And he goes away there, but she wishes to touch the fringe of his garment. And Luke added what Matthew did not say, that the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue was twelve years old, and the woman with the flow

of blood had had the flow for twelve years: so with the other's birth this one began to bleed. For this woman is free of her suffering as long as the synagogue lives, and the same boundary of time marks the end of the one and the beginning of the other's salvation. At twelve years that one dies, and after twelve years of suffering this one believes and is healed, she who could not be healed by any of the physicians. For many physicians promised to heal those from the nations: if you see the philosophers promising truth, they are physicians trying to heal. But though she spent all she had on them, she could not be healed by any of the physicians. She touched the fringe of Jesus' garment by faith, and was healed. If we look at our faith in Jesus Christ, and consider how great the Son of God is, and what of him we have touched, we shall see that, compared with what is in him, we have touched only a fringe. This fringe heals us and makes us hear from Jesus, "Daughter, your faith has saved you," and we are healed. And the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue will rise as well; for "when the fullness of the nations has come in, then all Israel will be saved." [Luke 9:27] Chapter 9, verse 27: "But I tell you truly, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God." Some refer this to Peter, James and John, who went up with Christ onto the high mountain and did not taste death before they saw the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, that is, in the glory of his transfiguration. But if one must say something more searching about standing with Jesus and about tasting death: there were some standing where Jesus was, their soul supported by him. Their standing was akin to that of Moses. For "I too," says Moses, "stood on the mountain forty days and forty nights," being counted worthy to hear: "And you, stand here with me." Few, and friends of God, are those who have their standing in the good, as the Baptist himself says of himself: "The friend of the bridegroom, who stands, rejoices with joy." And those standing beside the Word differ in their standing. So not all who stand by the Saviour, but some of them, as standing better, do not taste death until they see the Word who came to dwell among men, and so is called Son of Man, coming in his kingdom. For he does not always come in his kingdom: not to beginners, who would say that he has "no form or beauty." But to the perfect, according to David, he appears "beautiful in comeliness beyond the sons of men." There is, then, a most kingly dignity of the Word, seen by some of those standing by Jesus who were able to follow him as he went up onto the high mountain of his manifestation, which one is counted worthy

being Peter, and having what cannot be shaken in faith; or sons of thunder, who also do not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Christ is life, and its enemy is death, whether the death that comes through sin or death understood in another way; each of us chooses one or the other by what he does. Just as Christ is living bread, so his enemy, death, is dead bread. Every rational soul is fed by one or the other of these, one only tasting them, another eating a great deal. And perhaps those who sin rarely and in small things only taste death, while those who have taken up virtue do not even taste it, but are always fed on living bread. For Peter, then, against whom the gates of Hades did not prevail, it follows that he does not taste it; for one tastes death when the gates of Hades prevail against him. And for the sons of thunder too, born of a thunder of divine utterance, it was impossible to taste death, which is very far from thunder, their mother. The word "until" here indicates the time pressing upon what is spoken of; it does not set a limit after which the contrary happens, as in: "And behold, I am with you until the end of the age." At any rate not even the apostles tasted the spiritual death just mentioned after they had seen the vision of such great goods. And since it is said in the Psalms, "Who is the man who will live and not see death?", and "Let death come upon them", and in one of the prophets, "Death prevailed and swallowed," and in the Apocalypse, "Death and Hades follow" some, perhaps it is a lesser evil to see death, a greater one to taste it, worse still for death to follow someone, and not only to follow, but already to come upon him and overtake the one it was following before. But to be swallowed up by death seems to me heavier than all of these. And if you consider what is said and the difference among sins, you will not hesitate, I think, to accept that something of this kind was meant by the Spirit who caused these things to be written in the oracles of God. What, then, is shown by seeing the Son of Man coming in his kingdom and in his glory? And what does "having come in power," in Mark's words, mean? Whatever shines in our hearts, or is found by those who seek, or comes into our thoughts, we shall set out more clearly. The one who contemplates and grasps the superiority of the Word, who dissolves and refutes all the plausible arguments of those

who are false yet promise truth, sees the Son of Man coming in his own kingdom. And if he sees him also setting forth his own things more clearly, he would see him with respect to his kingdom and his glory. Such a person would see in himself the kingdom of God having come in power; and he would see this as one no longer in any way ruled by sin, which reigns in the mortal body of those who sin, but always set under the King, the God of all things, whose kingdom is within us potentially, but actually, as Mark put it, "in power", within the perfect only. [Luke 9:28] Verse 28: "And it happened, about eight days after these words, that he took Peter and John and James and went up onto the mountain to pray." [Luke 9:29] Verse 29: "And as he prayed, the appearance of his face became different, and his clothing white, flashing like lightning." [Luke 9:30] Verse 30: "And behold, two men were talking with him, who were Moses and Elijah," [Luke 9:31] verse 31: "who, appearing in glory, spoke of his departure, which he was about to fulfil in Jerusalem." Such, then, is the event and the miracle of the transfiguration. But if one must speak a higher word: it is not without reason that Mark and Matthew say that after six days Jesus went up onto the mountain with the disciples. Since the whole world was made in six days, a perfect number, the one who goes beyond all the things of the world and looks only at what stands firm and is eternal, he is shown to have been taken along by Jesus after six days. For the one who has gone beyond these sees Jesus, who is transfigured for none of those below, transfigured before him. For the Word appears with different forms, to each as he has room to receive him: to some he has no form, to others he is beautiful in comeliness. To those who do not go up through lofty works, and by them to the high mountain of wisdom, he is understood more simply and known according to the flesh. To the perfect he is spoken of as God and contemplated in the form of God, according to their knowledge; and his face shines like the sun to the children of light and of day, as he is revealed as the Sun of righteousness. And his garments too appear white as the light to those whom he has led up onto the high mountain: these are the words and the letters of the Gospels, which he put on, and I think also what is made known in the writings of the apostles. When, then, you see someone treating the theology of Jesus with precision and making clear the whole text of the Gospels, do not hesitate to say that for such a person Jesus' garments have become white as the light. And to one who has seen Jesus in this way, Moses, the law, and Elijah, the prophetic word, would appear conversing with Jesus. The one who has seen the glory of Moses, understanding the spiritual law as one word with Jesus, and the wisdom hidden in mystery in the prophets, has seen Moses and Elijah in glory, when he saw them with Jesus.

[Luke 9:35] Verse 35: "And a voice came from the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son; listen to him." [Luke 9:36] Verse 36: "And when the voice had come, [Jesus] was found [alone]." The voice from the cloud perhaps says "This is" to Moses and Elijah, and perhaps also to the disciples. Hearing it, and unable to bear this glory, they fell on their faces, humbled under the mighty hand of God, greatly afraid, knowing what was said to Moses: "For no one shall see my face and live." But lifting up their eyes they saw Jesus only. For Moses, the law, and Elijah, the prophecy, became, I think, one with Jesus, the Gospel; and they did not remain three, as they had been before. Understand these things more mystically. As for the lofty intention of the letter: Moses and Elijah, having appeared in glory and talked with Jesus, went back to where they had come from. Jesus is not seen to have wished the things of his glory to be told; for those who heard, and the crowds especially, would have been harmed, seeing one so glorified being crucified. So the disciples did not hide it out of envy, but because they feared they would not be believed. They announced it, then, after the ascension, after the coming of the Spirit. For when they were filled with boldness and were counted worthy of the Spirit, and had the voice of the signs pleading for them, everything they said was readily received. [Luke 9:42] Verse 42: "And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father." One must look at these things more loftily, and note that those who suffer, or the relatives of those who suffer, are with the crowds, to whom Jesus comes down from the heights, after arranging what is above them, to heal those who cannot go up the mountain to him because of the diseases that hold their souls. One must examine in which illnesses the sufferers themselves ask, believing in their own healing, either asking him or touching the fringe of his garment; and in which others ask for them, as the centurion for his servant, the royal official for his son, the ruler of the synagogue for his daughter, the Canaanite woman, and now the man who kneels to him for his moonstruck son; and when the Saviour heals of his own accord without being asked, as the paralytic at the Sheep Pool. For these cases, compared with one another, will present many teachings to one able to hear the wisdom of God hidden in mystery, about the different afflictions of souls and the manner of their healing. For as you reasonably refer every disease and weakness that Christ healed among the crowds to the passions in souls, so in the same way consider, along with the lame and the deaf, the case of the moonstruck boy. For this affliction attacks at certain times, and leaves for longer periods,

during which the sufferer differs in no way from one who is healthy. So too some souls are perhaps thought to be healthy in self-control and to live as reason wishes; and then at times they fall under the passions, after seeming to have stood firm … in the deceit of this age and the other desires. These, speaking spiritually, are moonstruck: thrown down by the spiritual forces of wickedness in the passions that lurk within, they fall into the fire of burnings; and sometimes into the water, when the king of all the dragons in the waters throws them down from seeming to breathe freely, so that they sink into the depths of the waves of the sea of human life. The one who speaks in Wisdom will help us with this account, saying of the steadiness of the righteous, "The discourse of the godly is always wisdom," and of those described here, "But the fool changes like the moon." In such people one may see impulses that can draw to praise those who do not notice their instability, so that one might say there is, as it were, a full moon in them, or nearly full. But again you would see the light that seemed to be in them as a mere imitation: not daylight, but night light, and waning until it no longer even seems to be light when one looks for it in them. If, then, every soul is placed under an angel, this father of the moonstruck boy may be the angel, asking Jesus as for his son, since the boy could not be healed of his affliction by the lesser word of the disciples. And the mute and deaf demon is the irrational impulses toward what seems good, cast out by the Word; it produced them by an irrational motion, while those who saw them thought they were acting according to the reason of Jesus' teaching. This affliction is hard to cure and strong: the belief that what was not done well was done well. In such people this working is so great that it is compared to a mountain, which needs to be moved from the sufferer by the whole faith of the one who heals. And the whole faith is compared to a mustard seed, since faith is despised by people, is very small and appears cheap; but when it finds good earth, that is, a soul, it becomes a great tree, so that, while no wingless creature can, the spiritually winged birds of heaven can nest in the branches of such faith. [Luke 9:43] Verse 43: "And while all were marvelling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples," [Luke 9:44] verse 44: "Put these words into your ears: for the Son of Man is about to be handed over into the hands of men." By whom, then, is he to be handed over? The apostle says that the Son was handed over by God, saying: "He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all"; for

the whole world, he who was to suffer, so that he might take away its sin. And you will say that he was also handed over by the devil, as Job's yokes of oxen and his asses were handed over to the raiders, then the camels to the horsemen, the sheep to the fire, and his daughters and sons to the wind from the desert. Let the Son, then, be handed over first by the Father into the hands of men; then by Judas, into whom Satan entered after the morsel, handing him over more fundamentally than Judas. But the Father did not spare his own Son out of love for humankind and kindness toward us; Judas, out of the wickedness of his choice. And once put to death, he destroyed the one who has the power of death, that is, of sin: the devil. For sin is death in the proper sense, as in "The soul that sins, it shall die." And the rulers set themselves against Christ; but we, who have benefited from his being killed, say: "Let us burst their bonds." For having been conformed to the death of Christ, we are no longer under the bonds of the enemies; rather they are laughed to scorn by the Father who dwells in heaven and mocked by the Lord. For by rising he has made us conformed to his resurrection too, no longer sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, because the light of God has dawned on us. [Luke 9:57] Verse 57: "And as they were going on the way, someone said to him: I will follow you wherever you go, Lord." [Luke 9:58] Verse 58: "And Jesus said to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." If, then, you are ready, like me, to have nowhere to lay your head, you will choose, because of my teaching, to have no settled place here, in hope of the kingdom of heaven, expecting rest in nothing here but in the age to come. For my disciples, practising righteousness, will have tribulation in this world; but the wicked and the sorcerers, compared to foxes and birds of heaven, will prosper in this life, deceiving and being deceived. More loftily: [Luke 9:59] when the young man's father had died and was dead, then he was called by Jesus. We must think that, just as the world had been crucified to Paul and was dead, since the things of the world had died to him and he no longer looked at them as things seen and temporary, so to each righteous person the devil has died, who lived for him while he was sinning. For "everyone who commits sin is of the devil"; and for everyone who sins and looks to the things here, the evil father is alive. But to everyone for whom the evil one has died, Christ might say: "Follow me." And perhaps such is the mystical meaning of the saying that we must hate our father if we are to be worthy of Jesus. [Luke 9:60] And "Let the dead bury their own dead" is to be taken only as allegory. For in a way the dead bury their own dead within themselves, becoming tombs and monuments.

Completely, then, the one who obeys Jesus leaves the dead man behind and no longer touches him at all; for he knows that whoever touches a corpse is defiled. [Luke 10:1] Luke says these things about the more approved disciples; Mark says that calling the twelve to him he sent them out two by two, giving them authority over unclean spirits. This serving of the word two by two, by the will of God, seems to be ancient, going back to Moses and Aaron when the people went out of Egypt: for God brought Israel out by the hand of Moses and Aaron. And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, both of one mind, calmed the people; … both prophesied in the camp, of one mind. And later too he sent out Paul and Barnabas to the nations; and such men were examples of "two agreeing on earth." These sayings will also fit them: "A brother helped by a brother is like a strong city," and "Two are better than one." That the twelve too were arranged two by two Matthew shows in his list, setting them out in pairs. And just as a farmer works the land with a yoke of oxen, so the Lord, yoking the apostles two by two, sent them out, working with them the land of those who hear in truth and believe. [Luke 10:10] Chapter 10, verse 10: "Into whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets" [Luke 10:11] (verse 11) "and say: Even the dust of your city that clings to us we wipe off against you." For the dust of your sins would justly come back upon you. More simply: "Shake off the dust" means either to show that they received nothing from them, or to serve as a testimony against them of the long journey they made for their sake. Notice that the cities that do not receive the apostles and the sound teaching have broad streets, corresponding to the broad gate and the wide road that leads to destruction, and many are those who go through it. [Luke 10:38] Verse 38: "And as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house." [Luke 10:39] Verse 39: "And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to his word." [Luke 10:40] Verse 40: "But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she came up and said: Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her, then, to help me." [Luke 10:41] Verse 41: "And Jesus answered and said to her: Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; but one thing is needed."