Homilies on Ezekiel 5.1–5.4

The famine that is brought upon the sinful land has been discussed as far as our powers allowed, and after the famine we spoke of the worst beasts which God will send upon sinners. For at the beginning we set out four vengeances, of which two remain, concerning the sword and concerning death. And in the first, the name of sons and daughters is passed over; but in the second, and in the third, which we are now attempting to expound, the name of sons and daughters is attached: that is, in the sword, by which fall those who have done what deserves its slaughter. What, then, is this sword, that is, this rhomphaia, which we ought to dread, lest it ever be sent upon our land (upon the land which we have expounded figuratively), so that it may be necessary for us too to pass through a sword that has something double in it? For the very nature of a sword divides and cuts the one on whom it is brought; but if even the touch of its edge is penal, the one who is to be punished by this sword is tormented doubly. For it is written: “He set a fiery rhomphaia, and the cherubim, to guard the way of the tree of life.” And just as a sharp, glowing sword brought upon a body gives a double torment, of burning and of cutting, so too the rhomphaia which is said to have been set to guard paradise, which we have now taken up to explain the present sword, inflicts double torments, while it burns and divides. To make this clearer from things we know: it is known from the discipline of medicine that for certain cures of bodies not only cutting but also burning is necessary. For to those who are rotting with the long-standing disease of cancer, physicians apply a glowing blade of a razor or some very sharp kind of iron, so that by the fire the roots of the cancer are burned out, by the incision the rotten flesh is cut away, and a way is opened for applying medicines. Our sin, so to speak, is like a cancer, so that neither the simple edge of the iron nor the burning of fire alone suffices for it, but both are applied. By whom is it burned and cut? Hear the Savior signifying the account of fire and iron in two places. In one place he says: “I did not come to send peace upon the earth, but a sword.” In another: “I came to send fire upon the earth, and would that it were already burning!” So the Savior brings both, sword and fire, and baptizes those things that could not be cleansed by the purification of the Holy Spirit. The divine mysteries are ineffable and known to God alone, yet they consist more in the giving of graces than in varieties of torments. For if physicians, by the discipline of their art, reasonably cut and burn those they heal, give them a cup of the bitterest mixture, and do many other things as the case requires, God, the Lord of the universe, does not inflict punishments on sinners without a rational wisdom and without a dispensation worthy of his majesty. For he does not apply punishments only in order to torture, as some think; but as a father he knows the wounds of all of us; he knows from what cause each sore has arisen, from what beginning the rottenness of the unhappy soul is drawn, what kind of pain comes from what sin; he knows the forms, manners, and numbers of sins: who has sinned once, twice, three times; who has often fallen into one kind of offense; who has erred only once each in different kinds of vice. He wants us to seek all these things according to God’s wisdom, as it is written, “God searches hearts and kidneys,” and to understand the punishments he inflicts as worthy of God and fitting his dispensation, not merely to be tormented. For “he created all things that they might be, and he made the generations of the world wholesome, and there is no poison of destruction in them.” But because, by despising him, we did not do what he wished, he too did not carry out in us what he had desired. The discussion has compelled us to say something about the kinds of punishment that are brought upon the land.

We ought to know that death does not follow at once wherever there is famine. For it can happen that someone enduring famine stays alive, though tormented by hunger, squalor, and leanness. It can happen that when evil beasts are sent, not all perish at once, being preserved by the help of flight. It can happen that when the sword gives way, the destruction ceases. Some are now wounded and cut and, so to speak, pierced with frequent blows, and yet they do not perish. Therefore death, the last penalty, is now brought into the list of punishments. Perceiving something of this sort, the most holy Apostle said, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death”; I will dare to say: but it is the last enemy that is to be destroyed, death. There was an enemy before death, that is, the sword; there was an enemy before death, the worst beasts; there was an enemy before the worst beasts, famine. All these are enemies to the enemies of religion. For if you do not wish to become a friend to God, who invites you to reconciliation and says through the Apostle, “I beseech you on behalf of Christ” … why did you wish to be under the rule of enemies? Do you not know that God sent upon Egypt fury and wrath and distress, a sending by evil angels, because they were his enemies and were ruled by his adversary? Far from us be the punishments of these four penalties: famine, the worst beasts, the sword, and death! For whichever of them is brought comes upon those who are God’s enemies; it passes by his friends and does not dare touch those who glory in kinship with him. And just as it is rightly believed of fire, on the testimony of the Scriptures, that the righteous pass through it and are not burned (“for the fire will test what sort of work each one’s is”), so in these punishments too may someone be found to be a Daniel, a Noah, a Job, and he will suffer none of the penalties.

These we have expounded specifically, punishment by punishment; and the prophet, joining them together in the last part, says: “Thus says Adonai the Lord: But if I send my four worst vengeances, the sword and famine and the worst beasts and death.” Upon what? Not upon the land, but upon Jerusalem. For if the land is punished, one chastisement suffices for it. But if Jerusalem is chastised, upon which the name of God has been called, four torments are brought upon it together. It would have been far more useful for us not to have believed the divine word than, after believing, to turn back again to the sins we committed before. For consider how Scripture says that punishments are brought upon the land one by one, and does not add which land; but when it comes to Jerusalem: “But if I also send my four worst vengeances, the sword and famine and the worst beasts and death, upon Jerusalem,” showing that we are Jerusalem. When we sin, we are the Jerusalem that is destroyed; but when we remain in the commandments, we are called the Jerusalem that is saved. All the lamentations we read over Jerusalem, all the complaints with which God bewails her, pertain to us who have tasted the word of God and afterwards have done what is contrary to his commandments. One who despises the laws of Solon is not punished so, nor is one who abandons the decrees of Lycurgus punished in this way. Another punishment belongs to one who tramples on and despises the law of God handed down through Moses; but the greatest of all is the punishment of one who has counted the commandments of the Son of God as nothing. For “anyone who sets aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses; how much worse punishment do you think he deserves who has trampled the Son of God underfoot?” Those whom we have listed did not trample on the Son of God, but only transgressed the law of God, especially those who lived before the coming of the Lord. But not even those who crucified my Savior are liable to so great a punishment as those of whom the Apostle speaks: “trampling the Son of God, insulting the Spirit of grace,” and whatever else he indicates in the place where he recounts the sins of those who sinned after faith in God.

These things concern the four worst vengeances that are brought upon Jerusalem. And all of us who have learned the divine Scriptures, whether we live well or badly, are Jerusalem. If we live badly, we are that Jerusalem which is punished with torments and endures the four vengeances; if well, that Jerusalem which rests in God’s bosom. And there is a great difference, as in the rest of the land, so also within Jerusalem itself. For all who are sinners in the Church, who have tasted the word of God and transgress it, deserve punishments, but each will be tormented according to the measure of his rank. He who presides over the Church and sins has the greater punishment. Is not a catechumen more deserving of mercy …? Is not a layman more worthy of pardon, compared with a deacon? And again, does not a deacon deserve more pardon in comparison with a presbyter? What follows you know without my saying it. Therefore, fearing God’s judgment, and setting before my eyes the order of judgment contained in the Scriptures, I remember that saying: “Do not lift a weight beyond yourself.” And that: “Do not seek to become a judge, lest you be unable to remove iniquities.” What does it profit me that I sit first on the chair, leaning back, that I receive the honor of the greater, if I cannot have works worthy of my dignity? Will I not be tormented with a greater punishment, because the honor due to a righteous man is paid to me by all, when I am a sinner? In going over more carefully what was said about the four vengeances on the land, it was necessary to add this: that Jerusalem was in the tribe of Benjamin, and that the priests of the temple, the Levites who served in God’s ministries, and the other orders which the word of Scripture includes dwelt in it. This city receives the four worst vengeances, which are not alike for those who live in it. For the threat is not directed in the same way to the people and to the Levites. An Israelite who sins falls into an Israelite’s offense; but one who is greater than an Israelite, the more noble the Levite or the priest is in rank, the greater the punishments he will endure. And if the chief of the priests sins, Eli his fellow priest says to him: “If a man sins against a man, they will pray for him; but if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?” This is for the exposition of the word by which vengeances were threatened, singly and specifically upon the sinful land, and all together upon unhappy Jerusalem. Let us look also at what follows in Scripture. Since the prophet heard these things in a parable, we need set out only the sense, leaving aside the order of the text itself and sending the hearer to the book. As the wood of the vine is more honorable than all woods for its fruit, especially than those that bear fruit in the forest, so for other works it is more useless than all woods. From other woods small vessels can be made, and things of necessary use for various works of service; but from the branches of the vine not only can no vessel or anything for useful work be made, but not even a peg is of use. So the divine word says that, as the vine branch becomes more honorable than other woods if it bears fruit, so it is judged inferior to all if it lacks that by which it excels; and in this way those who have been steeped in the words of God are more honorable than all, and are placed in some way in the dignity of the vineyard, when they bear fruit, the clusters of salvation, of which it is written: “But I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true.” And elsewhere: “The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel.” And again: “You brought a vine out of Egypt,” and so on. But if they do not bear fruit, so that God can say, “How have you turned to bitterness, a foreign vine?” then they are found much worse than those woods which, though they are cheaper, still bear their own fruits. For just as forest trees excel unfruitful vines, in the same way, within a certain dispensation of divine wisdom, some things necessary for the house are made from cheaper woods. And do not be troubled, thinking that we assert what we say apart from the Scriptures: that it will come about that something useful is made from the woods of the forest, that is, from myself, if I do not bear the proper fruits of my nature. For the Apostle too takes up an image of the vessels found in human life, saying: “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and earthenware” (note that he named wooden vessels), “some for honor and others for dishonor.” These wooden vessels which the Apostle declares to be in the great house are not made from vines, nor from the branches of vineyards, but from other woods, which grew in the groves as of a lower order. How great an evil it is, then, and how great a peril, that some cheap woods are found in the great house of the master of the house, while the branch of my vine is useless in the house and is thrown into the fire! For this is written: that the fire consumes its yearly pruning. So much on Ezekiel. But the Savior summed up the sense of this parable in the Gospel, saying: “I am the vine, you are the branches, my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch that abides in me and bears fruit my Father prunes, that it may bear greater fruit; the branch that abides in me and does not bear fruit my Father cuts off and throws into the fire.” Do you see how close the two sayings are? Do you see how the Father cuts off and throws into the fire? We senseless people, as if Scripture were to be neglected, unwilling to learn what strikes fear into us but wanting to hear what brings pleasure to itching ears, have gladly listened to what overturns us and deceives us. One says to his neighbor, “God forgives us our sins”; we even make sport of such mysteries, promising one another, “God will drop the signal,” and, “Because he is good, he dissolves the sins of all.” We ought rather to sit and say with an anxious heart: if we sinned yesterday, let us repent today. But to this branch (for it is a living being) which says, “God is powerful and a good vinedresser, who will not cut me off and throw me into the fire,” the vinedresser will answer: “But if the branch is such that it is in the vine to no purpose, can it be left? If it is left, will it not hinder the vine from bearing green and fruitful branches in place of the dry branch?” For as it belongs to a good vinedresser to cut off and prune what is dry and give the fruitless branches as food to the fire, so it belongs to the good God to cut off the fruitless branches from all the vines and hand them over to the fire for destruction. But we deceive ourselves, and, deceived and deceiving alike, we would rather err with the many than be turned from error, when we ought rather to seek what builds up, what increases the fear of God, what calls back to repentance, what leads to the confession of sin, what makes us think day and night how we may please the Lord, so that we may become fruitful branches in the true vine, Christ Jesus, clinging to his root: to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.