Fragments on Luke 353–369

[Luke 10:42] Verse 42: "Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her." For "One thing is needed," the saying "You shall love your neighbour as yourself" is useful; for "Few things are needed" you will set beside it "You shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness," and anything else said in the same way. You may take Martha for action, Mary for contemplation. Or Martha for those from the circumcision who believed and keep the precepts of the law in a Jewish way, and Mary for those who are freed from these and sit at the feet of Jesus alone. For if you approach it in different ways, you will find Martha more bodily and occupied with many things, and Mary devoted to contemplation alone and to spiritual things. [Luke 11:2] Verse 2: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come." I think that no one would say "Father" to God unless he were filled with the spirit of adoption. The Son, who glorifies the Father, would say "Father"; and so would one who has kept the commandment that says, "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become sons of your Father in heaven." "Your kingdom come": that every rule and authority and power may be abolished, and moreover every kingdom of the world and the sin that reigns in our mortal bodies, and that God may reign over all these. [Luke 11:3] Verse 3: "Give us our daily bread." "Each day" is necessarily added; for our true life needs repair, as it were, so that the inner man may live according to God. [Luke 11:5–7] Verses 5, 6, 7: "Which of you" is said to the disciples; "will have a friend", so that he may call God a friend to the saints, as to Moses and to Abraham. And perhaps midnight is this short span of life, when the destroyer enters every house of the Egypt in the world where the doorpost has not been anointed with the blood of Christ. The disciple asks the friend for three loaves, wishing to nourish with the theology of the Trinity the one who has come to him from the road, as he says: "Apart from me you can do nothing." But how does the friend answer from within, saying, "Do not trouble me"? You will inquire whether those who labour and are burdened hand over their troubles to the Saviour; that is why he bears our weaknesses and suffers pain for us. Or else, just as God does not sleep for this one but is said to be angry with another who sins, so he has trouble from the one who gives it to him. But consider whether bread is the necessary food of the soul

in knowledge, without which one cannot be saved, such as the exact teaching on how one must live; and fish, a kind of relish, is the love of learning, such as knowing the constitution of the world, the working of the elements, the beginning and end and middle of times, and all that Wisdom lists after these. So God does not give a stone instead of bread (the stone that the devil wanted Jesus to eat), nor a snake instead of a fish (the snake that the Ethiopians eat, who are unworthy to eat fish; for there, says the Psalmist, "You crushed the head of the dragon on the water; you gave him as food to the peoples, the Ethiopians"), nor, in general, things inedible and harmful instead of what nourishes and helps. [Luke 11:34] Verse 34: "The lamp of the body is the eye. When your eye is single, your whole body is full of light; but when it is evil, your body too is dark." [Luke 11:35–36] Verse 35: "See, then, whether the light in you is darkness. … it will be wholly full of light, as when the lamp lights you with its flash." I think the meaning of the next saying is this: if, because your body has become full of light, the lamp of the body having lit it, there is no longer any dark part in you, since you no longer sin at all, then the whole body will be full of light, so that its rays may be compared to a lamp in a lightning flash that gives light and dispels the darkness. For the illumination that comes from the mind is like the brightest lightning, and the light in the body is like a lamp in the lightning, … no longer to be darkness, being led wherever the mind wishes. [Luke 11:51] Verse 51: "From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias." Having failed to get Elizabeth and the child, the executioners turn their anger on Zacharias, as the story goes. It also happened, they say, because of the virgin Mary after she had given birth to our Saviour. For when she came to worship, she stood in the place of the virgins; and when those who knew that she had given birth tried to stop her, Zacharias said to those who were stopping her that she was worthy of the place of the virgins, since she was still a virgin. So, as though he were breaking the law, they killed him between the temple and the altar, while he was ministering and sacrificing to God, and they mixed his blood with the blood of the sacrifices. [Luke 12:6] Chapter 12, verse 6: "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God." [Luke 12:7] Verse 7: "But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, then; you are worth more than many sparrows." Note that he did not speak of a sparrow falling to the earth, as Matthew does. Five sparrows here hint at the senses of the righteous man, which of things on high

and they perceive things beyond man: they see divine things, hear the voice of God, taste the living bread, smell the fragrance of Christ's ointments, the oil of gladness, and touch the living Word. These, though despised by those who judge the things of the Spirit to be folly, are not forgotten before God. The saying that shows that not even the least sparrow is forgotten before God should be examined together with the sayings that show God forgetting some people because of their sin. According to the letter, then, these words show the minute care of Providence and a knowledge that reaches to the smallest things. In the spiritual sense, the mind falls to the earth like a sparrow when, though it should be carried upward, it seeks the things below, held fast by the evils of the flesh, handed over to dishonourable passion, and having lost its freedom along with its honour. Such is the one who was lifted up by the Word and then set his mind on earthly things. Again, according to the letter, the saying "It will not fall to the earth without your Father" shows not his will but his foreknowledge. For of the things that happen, some happen by his will, some by his good pleasure, and some by his permission. [Luke 13:20] Verse 20: "And again he said: To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?" [Luke 13:21] Verse 21: "It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened." It can be taken in another way: the woman as the church, the leaven as the Holy Spirit, and the three measures as body, spirit and soul. These are sanctified by the leaven of the Holy Spirit, so as to become one lump with the Holy Spirit. Further, the Saviour calls the Holy Spirit leaven, the power brought to perfection from the seed, hinting at it in this way. The word of the heavenly kingdom, having grown after its first sowing among people and yielded perfect fruit, provides the supply of the Holy Spirit to those who have benefited from the first things, like leaven leavening a lump. And the woman, the wisdom of God, hides this leaven in three measures of flour. To those who, by much care and by cultivating the seed, have gained three measures of flour, that is, doctrines, the divine knowledge of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, the wisdom of God supplies the Holy Spirit. In another sense, the same wisdom hides the leaven, the benefit that comes from it, in every person who is from God, composed of body and soul and spirit, by the supply of divine inspiration, in the three measures of flour as just understood, until the whole is leavened. Such a person, transformed and leavened by sharing in the heavenly leaven, will be called a heavenly and spiritual man, and a new lump, as one in whom a single mixture has been made of the three flours and of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in them.

Spirit. And when we have become a new and spiritual bread, according to the apostle who says, "We who are many are one bread and one body," we shall take on the image and likeness of the life-giving bread of all things, which came down from heaven and has made us too like himself. In these words I liken the wisdom of God to a woman; and Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, in keeping with the example of the leaven. For just as in the parable of the seed he brought in the figure of a farmer and sower, and a woman could not reasonably have been mentioned there, so here too, where leaven is put into three measures of flour, the parable fittingly does not liken the sower named in that parable to a woman making bread. [Luke 13:29] Verse 29: "And they will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline in the kingdom of God." In Matthew a parable is woven in which different workers are called into the vineyard, that is, to the commandments, at different ages: at dawn, and about the third, the sixth, the ninth and the eleventh hour. Perhaps, then, the day in the parable is the life of a human being. Those called from childhood and their first youth are those whom the master hired at dawn; those called after adolescence are those from the third hour; those who are brought to piety after the heat and burden of youth, older men, are those about the ninth hour; and those already old, at the very moment of their departure, are shown by the eleventh. And since it is the choice, not the time, that is examined, what one has done in faith, the equal wage of salvation is given to those who have done what fell to them from the time they were called: the denarius of the divine and most kingly image, which the evil one stole in the beginning through deceit, in the transgression of the commandment. By it he seems to me to indicate the mark of the kingdom itself, since the stamp of a denarius signifies the image of a king imprinted on it. Since, then, it was just that all who had come into the vineyard, into the commonwealth of piety, and had set their hand to one and the same work, should share in the same kingdom, the denarius, the symbol of the kingdom, is fittingly given to all: to those called in childhood, to those called at the age of youth, to those called about the middle of human life, to those who had already reached and passed perfect manhood, and to those in old age itself, aged now and at the sunset of life. One might also, explaining it another way, apply what the parable shows to those counted worthy of the divine call from the first beginning of human life to the consummation of the age: so as to say that those called early in the morning to the work of piety were those who were saved first, at the beginning of life;

second, those around Enoch and Noah; about the third hour, those around Abraham; about the sixth, those in the times of the prophets; about the eleventh, those after the saving manifestation of God. All these, it is shown, will be counted worthy of one and the same wage, signified by the denarius, as it refers to the kingdom of God. All these intervals are equal in number to the senses. Touch is the first call; whence it is said of the plant, "You shall not touch it"; smell belongs to the second, whence in Noah's time "the Lord smelled a fragrant odour"; taste belongs to Abraham, which is why he set before the angels cakes and a calf; hearing belongs to Moses, when the voice of God was heard from heaven; sight, the most precious of all the senses, belongs to the coming of Christ, when they saw Christ with blessed eyes. The evening is the consummation of the age, when the last workers receive their wage first. For those who were earlier attested through faith did not receive what was promised; we who are Christ's own expect to receive the wage first. [Luke 14:12] Verse 12: "And he said also to the man who had invited him: When you give a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends, or your brothers, or …, lest they too invite you in return and you be repaid." [Luke 14:13] Verse 13: "But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind," [Luke 14:14] verse 14: "and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." According to the letter, we are commanded not to invite friends and neighbours, but the poor and maimed, the lame and the blind. Mystically, perhaps, friends would be those who rejoice with us in the doctrines of the truth; brothers, those who hold kindred doctrines; relatives, those who wish to come close to us in these; neighbours, those who dwell not altogether far from our doctrines. "Rich" is to be understood of all of these together. Those who seek applause for their lectures invite rich and poor; but the one who serves the word for true glory is free of vainglory. He invites the poor, that is, those without experience in words, so as to enrich them; the maimed, that is, those whose thinking is damaged, so as to heal them; the lame, those who limp in reasoning, so that they may make straight paths; the blind, those who lack the power of contemplation, so that they may see the true light. And "they cannot repay you" is the same as "they do not know how to carry on a discussion by question and answer, according to the rules of argument." [Luke 14:18] Verse 18: "And they all began alike to make excuses"

all," that is, as if by one agreement. "The first said to him: I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. I ask you, consider me excused." [Luke 14:19] Verse 19: "And another said: I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you, consider me excused." [Luke 14:20] Verse 20: "And another said: I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come." Put simply, some fall away from the call through three things: the fancy of better doctrines, the pursuit of the things of sense, and the love of pleasure. Those who bought a field and excuse themselves from the supper are those who have taken up doctrines other than those of the Godhead, with much plausibility and variety of speech; they despise the field that has in itself … and powers. The one, then, who has not seen or tested the teaching he acquired, because he was already taken up with it, goes out from the supper of necessity and not willingly, and from the one who invited him, and perhaps from himself. He says "I ask you" as one who respects the host in word only. The one who bought five yoke of oxen is the one who despises the intelligible nature and is fond of the things of sense; nor did this man test from the beginning what he had bought. If the number two is assigned to matter, this man honoured material things; that is why he too declined the intelligible supper. The other is the one who said "I have married a wife": the one who thinks he has found wisdom and, by his fellowship with it, declines the true wisdom; or the one united to the flesh, a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God. Such, then, is the parable as a whole; but take the details of the passage in another way as well. [Luke 14:16] Since we are human, it is not good for us to know the wealth of God's kindness. Necessarily God is likened to a man, so that he may speak to us as to men, since we have no room for everything to be arranged for us by God while God remains as he is. He will cease to be likened to a man when, having ceased from strife, jealousy and the other evils, and from walking in a human way, we are counted worthy to hear from God: "I said, You are gods, and sons of the Most High, all of you." He has ceased also to be called by many other names that sinful man needs, panther and lion and bear, as is written in the prophets. In the same way I also understand "Our God is a consuming fire"; for to one who is not deserving to be consumed he is light, according to John, who says, "Our God is light." And again: "It has not yet been revealed what we shall be; but we know that when he is revealed we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." For even if we are counted worthy to see God now with the mind and the heart, we do not see him as he is, but as he becomes for us for the sake of our salvation; but in the restoration of all things, of which he spoke through the mouth of his holy ones, we shall see, not as now what he is not, but, as will befit that time, what he is. Among us, then, who are human, he was likened to a man; but among

those who have made themselves gods, he was likened to God: "For God," it says, "stands in the assembly of gods." [Luke 15:23] Verse 23: "And bring the fatted calf, and let us eat and be merry." If one must view the passage more loftily, he begins with words: ethical ones, like food, in "let us eat", and contemplative ones, like drink, in "let us be merry"; for wine is the beginning of merriment, as it is written. [Luke 16:17] Verse 17: "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of the law to fall." The one stroke is not only the iota among the Greeks, but also among the Hebrews what they call yod. And the iota can be said symbolically to be Jesus, since the beginning of his name is written with the yod among both Greeks and Hebrews. There is, then, in the law the Word of God, who does not pass away, nor fall before everything has come to pass; but then he falls, so that he may bear more fruit, not conquered, but humbling himself and becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. [Luke 17:12] Verse 12: "And as he entered a village, ten leprous men met him, who stood at a distance." [Luke 17:13] Verse 13: "And they lifted up their voices, saying: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." Indeed, you may take the laws about leprosy as a description of a different state of the soul. For who would not be perplexed to see that in one case leprosy makes a man unclean when it appears on living flesh, and in another case frees from all uncleanness a man who has become wholly leprous? For he is reckoned unclean when living flesh, after he has become wholly leprous, defiles the leprosy that is said to cover the whole … I think that leprosy is taken to stand for the irrational passions of the soul, and the living flesh for its rational condition. The passage seems to me to offer a mystery. In the age of infancy the soul is blameless, its lack of reason freeing it from all blame. But if living flesh appears in it, that is, if reason begins to grow, then the beginning of sin arises, until, when the living flesh has prevailed, that is, when reason grows and is perfected, the whole flesh becomes living and the leprosy disappears completely. [Luke 18:20] Verse 20: "You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honour your father and your mother." In this saying the madness of the Marcionites and the Manichaeans is refuted, who say that the law is foreign to Christ. For Mark says that Jesus, looking at

him, loved him. He would not have loved a man who spoke boldly about keeping these commandments if their fulfilment had been foreign to him. But it raises the question how one who was not going to follow him to life was loved. The one who has kept the precepts of the law is worthy of love for those earlier things; but his neglect of what leads to perfection did not let the love for the earlier things come to completion. [Luke 19:29] Chapter 19, verse 29: "And it happened, as he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the Mount of Olives, that he sent two of his disciples," [Luke 19:30] verse 30: "saying: Go into the village opposite, in which, as you enter, you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it." [Luke 19:31] Verse 31: "And if anyone asks you, Why are you untying it? you shall say this: The Lord has need of it." [Luke 19:32] Verse 32: "And those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them." [Luke 19:33] Verse 33: "As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them: Why are you untying the colt?" [Luke 19:34] Verse 34: "And they said: The Lord has need of it." For where there is obedience and a holy place, there the Lord sends the apostles to untie a tied colt, on which neither the word of Moses nor that of Isaiah nor of any other of the prophets ever sat. And when Christ came, the one Lord by nature and the only one, the many "lords" fall silent before being made subject by the Saviour. For when someone serves wickedness, he is the slave of many passions; but once the Lord has come, he cannot … [Luke 19:35] Verse 35: "And throwing their garments on the colt, they set Jesus on it." [Luke 19:36] Verse 36: "And as he went, they spread their garments on the road." The disciples take the Word and set him on the souls of the hearers. And the good deeds of the apostles, laid upon us, adorn us. For they wish us also to tread on their garments, by examining the apostolic words. [Luke 20:19] Chapter 20, verse 19: "And the chief priests and the scribes sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they knew that he had told this parable against them." [Luke 20:20] Verse 20: "And watching him, they sent spies who pretended to be righteous, so that they might catch him in what he said, in order to hand him over to the power and authority of the governor."

[Luke 20:23] Verse 23: "But perceiving their craftiness, he said to them: Why do you test me?" [Luke 20:24] Verse 24: "Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have? They answered and said: Caesar's." [Luke 20:25] Verse 25: "And he answered and said to them: Then render to Caesar the things of Caesar, and to God the things of God." [Luke 20:26] Verse 26: "And they could not catch him in what he said before the people, and marvelling at his answer they fell silent." More loftily: man, as is written in Genesis, came to be according to the image of God; but later, through his disobedience, he took on also the image of the earthy. And just as the coin bears the image of the one who rules the nations, so the one who does the works of the ruler of this world bears his image, which the Saviour urges us to give back and put off, and to bear the image that was made in the beginning. In keeping with this, Paul too says: "As we have borne the image of the earthy, so let us bear also the image of the heavenly." This, then, is what "Render to Caesar the things of Caesar, and to God the things of God" shows.