Homilies on Ezekiel 10.1–10.4

The first thing is to do no work that brings shame, but only such things as can look upon God with an open brow. But since, being men, we often sin, we must know that the second plank, so to speak, after works that bring shame is to blush, and to cast down modest eyes for one’s crimes, and not to go about with a shameless face, as though one had done nothing wrong at all. For it is good after works that bring shame to be ashamed; for the craftsman of wickedness often breaks in on this too, so that the sinner does not return to repentance but acts as if he were still persevering in righteousness. We can see and learn from daily life that many people after their sins not only do not mourn what they have done, but even defend their own downfalls with a shameless brow. So a great benefit is kept for Jerusalem, if only she believes the Lord when he says, “And you, be ashamed.” And do not think that these words were said only to Jerusalem, and not to each of us who are held liable for offenses. Let each one consider himself: what he has done that deserves shame, what shameful thing he has said, about which he cannot be bold as if it were well said, what he has thought that seems worthy of a blush to him who sees the hidden things of hearts and kidneys; and when he has carefully looked over his thoughts, deeds, and words, then he will hear the prophet saying, “And you, be ashamed.” After which the prophet adds: “And bear your disgrace, in that you have justified your sisters.” Disgrace follows shame, and to one who has done what deserves shame God gives disgrace too, and says to him: “And bear your disgrace.” You will be able to understand what is said if you consider what happens daily in the cities. It is a dishonor for a citizen to be exiled from his homeland, an infamy for a councillor to be struck from the roll of the council, and for a man of any other condition to be left alive indeed, but in disgrace, living either in the public works or on some deserted island. Imagine with me a just judge saying to one who has done what deserves infamy: “You who are guilty and liable to punishment, do not accept your exile with resentment; for you will not deserve mercy if you are angry at the punishment. Rather understand that you suffer deservedly what you suffer; and when you have humbled yourself and said that just judgment has been done upon you, perhaps you will obtain mercy from him who can, after condemnation, call you back to your former standing.” For as a great prince may free someone from an island, from exile, and from public chains, much more may the God of the universe restore to his former honor one who has been dishonored, provided that, perceiving his offense, he confesses that he has deservedly endured what he suffered. I will give another example from the custom of the Church. It is an infamy to be separated from the people of God and from the Church. It is a disgrace in the Church to rise from the bench of the presbyterate, or to be cast down from the grade of the diaconate. And of those who are cast out, some stir up seditions, while others accept the judgment made against them with all humility. Whoever are deposed and, in their grief at their deposition, stir up the people to make a schism and solicit a multitude of the wicked, do not accept their dishonor in the present, but store up for themselves a treasure on the day of wrath. But those who, whether deposed deservedly or undeservedly, leave the judgment to God with all humility and patiently endure what has been judged concerning them, will obtain mercy from God, and are often recalled by men too to their former grade and to the glory they had lost. So the teaching is excellent, both in what is said, “And you, be ashamed,” and in what follows, “And bear your disgrace.” And I say these things in order to bring in a deeper sense concerning the dishonor to come. For there too there will be some disgrace for those who have done work deserving disgrace, since some “will rise to eternal life, and others to reproach and eternal shame.” What is this but to undergo the penalty of infamy? So while we still may, we ought to bear our humiliation patiently, so that, having endured sorrow bravely here, in the age to come we may move, so to speak, the heart of God’s mercy and his kindness, so that he calls us back to our former state from disgrace and shame; just as, on the contrary, it is impossible for one who has a heart of stone, who does not feel his offense at all and is proud before the face of almighty God, to obtain mercy. For we see some good people gladly bear the sentence passed on them and, for their salvation, justify God’s judgment; but the wicked blaspheme against God’s providence and say, “I was not deservedly sentenced to this infamy; I suffer these things unjustly.” If we justify Providence, we dissolve our infamy; but if we do not accept God’s judgments, we multiply our infamy. And as with infamy, so with punishments and the rest. For such things usually befall those who are condemned by God for their own offenses.

“And you, be ashamed, and bear your disgrace, in that you have justified your sisters.” We deserve disgrace the more when we do such things that other sinners are justified: so that, in comparison with my offenses, mercy frees the crimes of the wicked who were condemned long ago, because I, coming after them, have committed worse things. So it is said to sinful Jerusalem: “Bear your disgrace, in that you have justified your sisters.” Then, if anyone has fulfilled what is written, “Be ashamed,” and has carried out God’s next sentence, “Bear your disgrace, in that you have justified your sisters,” let him see the grace too: how in return for shame a recompense of clemency is given, because he did not despise God’s judgment, but received with all humility what had been judged about him. What, then, is promised? “I will turn back their turning, the turning of Sodom and her daughters, in that you justified your sisters Sodom and Samaria”: the lesser Sodom and the elder Samaria, as we said earlier. “I will turn back their turning”: that is, of the three whose turning away he turns back to better things: first of Sodom, then of Samaria, and third of Jerusalem. “When,” he says, “I turn back the turning of Sodom, and of Samaria, and of Jerusalem,” then they will be restored to their former state: first Sodom, whose turning he turns back first; second Samaria, which he turns back second; third Jerusalem, to whom the third turning is assigned. So healing is given to sinners in the turning back of Sodom and her daughters and in the turning back of Jerusalem herself; and it is given later to those who are more loved by God. For Sodom, justified by Jerusalem (that is, the Gentiles), obtains mercy first. Samaria (that is, the heretics) receives healing in second place. Third, as unworthy of a swifter cure, those who were of Jerusalem are restored to their former state. So the Gentiles and the heretics will obtain clemency before we do, if we are impious, if sins weigh us down too. For the nearer we have been to God and the closer to blessedness, the farther we will be from it when we sin, and the nearer to terrible and very great punishments. For God’s judgment is just, and “the mighty will be mightily tormented.” But he who is least deserves mercy sooner. Sodom is least, and after her, in comparison, Jerusalem is least; yet Samaria is not as Sodom; and so he turns back their turnings first, and afterwards Jerusalem’s, saying: “And I will turn back your turning.” For this is said to Jerusalem in the third grade. So it will be with me when he turns back my turning, if I am found to be Jerusalem, a sinner in the midst of my sisters, when I hear: “That you may bear your torment.” Therefore in the third place he says, “I will turn back your turning,” and after all the others, “that you may bear your torment, and be dishonored for all that you have done.” There is a certain measure of sin which each will receive for what he has sinned. If I have fifty sins, I have fifty disgraces; if a hundred, my punishment will be doubled for my deeds, and disgrace will be given me according to the greatness of my offenses. Great torment is joined to the greatest sins. But God alone, the true judge, can see the greatness of sins, the proportion of disgrace, and the number of sins. So it is said to Jerusalem: “That you may bear your torment and be dishonored for all that you have done in provoking me.” See, on the contrary, God justifying himself, and in a way testifying by these words that he himself has no anger, but that the sinner stirs God to anger against himself. Hence the Apostle too says: “Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and gentleness and patience, not knowing that God’s goodness leads you to repentance? But by your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself.” This word separated anger from God. For anger is truly something other than God, and is not joined to him as something inherent. Hence it is also said of sinners: “You sent out your wrath, and it consumed them.” No one can send out what is his own companion and kin; what is sent out is something other than the one who sends it. So we, by sinning, provoke God to send the wrath which he himself does not have.

After these things, that is, after the turning back, it is said: “Sodom your sister and her daughters will be restored as they were from the beginning.” I come to the images and figures, and I see after how long a time Sodom, having been tormented, is restored to her former state. And if what is said figuratively is so, what will become of one who has truly been Sodom? Immediately after the flood, in the tenth generation, Sodom suffered what is read in Genesis. For before that it was like the paradise of God and like the land of Egypt; yet what happened to Sodom can be seen even now in the traces of its region. See how many cycles of time have already passed: behold, it is three thousand years, and Sodom has not yet been restored; not the Sodom which is set down as a sign and in a riddle, but the Sodom which is seen in the account of the truth. The Hebrews say that Sodom is to be restored to the same state in which it stood before, so that it may again be compared with the paradise of God and the land of Egypt. Whether this is so, and whether it will come to pass or not (for such matters are inquired into among the most learned), yet, granting that what is said will happen, three thousand years will be completed for me, and then Sodom, tormented for three thousand years, will be restored: that is, my soul, Sodom, in punishment for my sins. A great interval of time is placed between the ruin and the restoration. Even if you are restored as you were of old, see how many evils you must drain, by how many calamities you will first be crushed. And what we have said of Sodom we must understand of Samaria too. For it too has not yet been restored; from the time when the ten tribes were cast out of Judea and Samaria, it endured captivity and kept its name without having its own inhabitants. But it too will be restored as it was at the beginning, when the ten tribes have returned, so that what is written may be undone: “The people was led captive into Assyria to this day.” But if what went before as a sign is restored only after so long a time, when will you be restored (if you are restored at all), O Samaritan and heretical soul, who believed in images and false feasts and fictions that came from the heart of Jeroboam? When will you be restored, O unhappy soul, when the pattern of you is restored only after so many ages? And if this happens to Sodom and Samaria, which were justified by Jerusalem, what must be said of Jerusalem herself, who justified the crimes of the aforesaid? “And you will be restored as you were from the beginning. And you and your daughters will be restored as you were in the beginning.” Isaiah too knows what is meant by “as you were in the beginning,” when he says: “And I will restore your judges as at first, and your counselors as at the beginning.”

“And was not Sodom your sister a byword in your mouth in the days of your pride, before your wickedness was uncovered, as now you are the reproach of the daughters and of all who are round about you, the daughters of the foreigners who surround you on every side? You bear your impieties.” O most merciful God, who explains himself about the restoration and says, “You bear your impieties and your iniquities!” Not in vain do I say, “You will be restored”; but when you have drained out your impieties and your iniquities, then you will be restored to your former place. As wounds in the body often happen in a short time, but their cures are applied with great torments, not in proportion to the time in which they were inflicted but according to the method of healing (for example, a fracture of the hand or a crushing of the foot happens in a moment of time, and what happened in a moment is scarcely healed in about three months and a long time), so too pleasure, which cuts the sinews of the soul, and luxury, and all sins together, when in a short time they have enticed the unhappy soul and drawn it into vices, afterwards earn a long time in punishments and torments. That is why the Lord says: “And I will do to you as you have done, as you have despised these things by transgressing my covenant; and I will remember.” First, as you have done I will do to you; then, I will remember my covenant which I made with you in the days of your infancy. For he made a covenant in the days of her infancy; we have said above how he made a covenant with her. “And I will raise up for you an everlasting covenant.” “I kill, and I will make alive,” he says. He who promises these things causes pains, and will restore again. “He struck, and his hands will heal.” It is said in Micah: “I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he himself justifies my cause.” How is my cause justified? When I have borne the wrath of the Lord, I who despised the riches of his goodness and patience and long-suffering, and by my hardness and impenitent heart stored up wrath for myself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God. “And you will be dishonored, in that you received your elder sisters with the younger, and I will give them to you for building up.” Above he called one sister Sodom and the other Samaria; now he repeats and says “your elder sisters,” though only Samaria is the elder and Sodom the younger; but because their daughters are counted with them, he says they are all of one kind. As many as are the daughters of Sodom, so many are those of Samaria. “And I will give them to you for building up, and not from your covenant; and I will raise up my covenant with you.” Consider the end of the promise: “And you will know that I am the Lord, so that you may remember and be ashamed”: that is, when you have received back your sins and have remembered them, then you will be ashamed. “And you will no longer be able to open your mouth.” When I have received back my sins and have been restored, and the covenant has been made with me, then I understand my evils the more and am ashamed, and, conscious of them, I punish myself of my own accord. And see what happens to me, that I am no longer free to open my mouth for shame, and when it happens: “When he is propitious to you.” Not even then, when he is propitious to me who have sinned much, can I open my mouth; nor, when he forgives my crimes, am I free of disgrace; but, feeling my crimes, I am perpetually tormented by the fire of my conscience. Therefore, since eternal disgrace and shame are laid up for us if we sin, let us pray God with all our heart to grant us to strive for the truth to the end with all the strength of soul and body; so that, even if a time comes that tests our faith (for as gold is tested in the furnace, so our faith is examined in danger and persecutions), even if persecution breaks out, it may find us prepared, lest our house fall in the winter, lest our building, as if built on sand, be scattered by the storms; so that when the winds of the devil, that is, the wicked spirits, blow, our works which have stood until this day may stand fast (if indeed they have not been secretly undermined), and, girded for the campaign, we may show the love we have toward God in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.