Homilies on Ezekiel 14.1–14.3

“And the Lord said to him: This gate will be shut; it will not be opened, and no one will pass through it, because the Lord God of Israel will pass through it and go out, and it will be shut.” Ezekiel, the son of man, describes several gates of the temple one by one, and what he described of each gate he now sets out again, for those who have ears to hear, concerning the outer gate of the holy places which faces east and is always shut. “And the Lord said to him: This gate will be shut; it will not be opened, and no one will pass through it, because the Lord God of Israel will enter by it and go out, and it will be shut.” And he adds another reason why the gate is shut: not only because the Lord God will pass through it, but because “the prince will also sit in it, to eat bread before the Lord, by the way of Elam,” which means “the porch of the gate.” “And he will enter by its way and go out.” Does the Lord God, the maker of the universe, enter and go out through some gate made of sensible matter and always shut, and will no gate ever be unlocked for him who founded heaven and earth, as he enters and goes out?

But there is another account of the outer gate, by the way of the holy places. What, then, is the reason that it remains shut? The prince mentioned above sits there, so that no one may see him eating bread in the sight of the Lord. Does not one who reads this attentively in a way hear Scripture saying, “Rise, you who sleep”? Is he not spurred to rise from the dead and to seek the things that are shut? I will boldly say that all the more secret things are shut, and that the plainer things are unlocked and not shut. In opening what is shut we say this; but the Gospels also testify: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; and woe to you, lawyers, because you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” So there is a certain key of knowledge for unlocking what is shut; and there are very many who neither enter themselves nor allow those who wish to enter. And in another place the sense of the Scriptures is said to be a sealed book: “And the words of this book will be like the words of a sealed book: if men give it to one who does not know letters, saying to him, Read, he will say, I do not know letters; and they will give it to a man who knows letters, saying to him, Read, and he will say, I cannot read, for it is sealed.” The Apocalypse of John contains the meaning of this example more plainly, recording: “An angel went round saying, Who is worthy to open the seals and loose them and read what is written? And no one was found in heaven or on earth or under the earth who could open the seals and read what was written in the book. But I wept, and one came to me and said to me: Do not weep. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root and stock of David, has conquered, to open the book and loose its seals.” And he who was of the tribe of Judah opened it and made known what was written. As long as my God had not come, the law was shut, the prophetic word was shut, the reading of the Old Testament was veiled; and “to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies” on the heart of the Jews. But there are some who love the veil and hate those who interpret what lies under the veil. But let us turn to the Lord, so that, when the veil is taken away, we may say: “But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of God, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” Yet there is a certain gate, one and shut, through which no one has passed. For there are certain things unknown to the whole creation and known to one alone. For the Son has not opened to the world whatever he knows. The creation does not grasp what God grasps; and, to come to greater things, not all grasp knowledge equally. There was more in Paul than in Timothy, for Paul was a chosen vessel. And Timothy, truly a great vessel in the house, in turn grasps what I cannot grasp. And there is perhaps someone who grasps even less than I. There are certain things which Christ alone grasps, and that is why the door of God’s temple is shut. Which, I ask, is this door? The outer one, which opens onto what lies outside worldly things, onto things incorporeal and, so to speak, immaterial. For it is not without reason that it is laid down that the outer door is always shut. What is this outer door? The door of the holy places. Why is it shut? Because the Lord God of Israel alone enters and goes out by it. Why does he enter? To be known. By whom? By the prince. Who is this prince at the shut gate? The Savior, who eats the bread, who shuts the gate with the Father, who is fed with spiritual food, saying, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” So the door is shut, so that no one may see the great priest eating bread in the holy of holies.

To prove what we say, one who reads Leviticus with the veil taken from his heart will be able to recognize the mystery of the priests. For there it speaks of sacrifices and of the foods which only the priests eat. There are certain priestly foods which the priest does not eat in his house, nor with his sons, though they are priestly, nor with his wife, though she married him lawfully; but he eats them in the holy place, and there he eats the food in the holy of holies. Just as the priest does not eat the food in his house or in any other place but in the holy of holies, so my Savior alone eats the bread, no one being able to eat with him. But there is a certain place where, as he eats, he draws me too to eat with him. For “Behold,” he says, “I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens to me, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me.” From this it appears that another too can dine with him. But there is a certain food which he alone eats. For his nature, excelling all creation and set apart from all things, makes him eat daily bread from the nature of the Father. Each of us asks for daily bread, and in asking for daily bread does not receive the same bread nor in the same measure; but always, in pure prayers and with a clean conscience, in deeds of righteousness, we eat daily bread. But if anyone is less pure, he eats daily bread in another way. May the Lord, who is the judge of all, give us living bread, so that, fed and strengthened by it, we may make our journey to heaven, glorifying God almighty through Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.