Homilies on Ezekiel 6.1–6.11

As I consider the steadfastness of the prophets, wonder comes over me at how, truly believing God rather than men, they despised death, dangers, insults, and all that they suffered from those whom they rebuked, while in their prophesying they served God’s will. I once admired Isaiah, before I compared him with Ezekiel, and I was astonished at how he could say: “Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom; attend to the law of the Lord, people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord.” For he said these things when he could either speak or keep silent. For the prophets did not, as some suppose, go out of their minds and speak under the compulsion of the spirit. “If something is revealed,” says the Apostle, “to another who is sitting, let the first be silent.” From this it is shown that the one who speaks has the power to speak when he wishes and to be silent when he wishes. And it is said to Balaam: “But the word which I put into your mouth, this you shall take care to speak,” as though he had the power, having received the word of God, to speak or to keep silent. What, then, do I admire in Ezekiel? That when he was commanded to testify and to make known to Jerusalem her iniquities, he did not set before his eyes the danger that would follow from his preaching, but, only to keep God’s commands, spoke whatever he commanded. Granted that it is a mystery, a sacred revelation of understanding about Jerusalem and whatever is said about her; nevertheless in prophesying he convicts her of sexual immorality, because she spread her feet to every passer-by, he testifies with a voice of reproach, and he rebukes the city of crimes. But because he was confident that he was doing God’s will, ready both to die and to live, he spoke without fear.

Let us look, then, at the prophecy itself, and first let us consider how it was placed in the prophet’s power whether to speak or not. “The word of the Lord came to him, saying: Son of man, testify to Jerusalem her iniquities, and you shall say: Thus says the Lord.” Not by the necessity of inspiration but by the will of the speaker did the Lord appoint him to testify to Jerusalem her iniquities; and he says, “You shall say.” What shall you say? The things that follow. It lay with the prophet, when he heard “You shall say,” whether to speak or not, as it lay with Jonah. For it was in the power of him who heard, “Say: Yet three days and Nineveh will be overthrown,” whether he wished to speak or to keep silent. And because it was placed in his choice and he did not wish to speak, see how much befell him afterwards: the ship was endangered because of him, he was found out by lot as he hid, a sea monster came to him … or to other prophets: they saw that distress threatened them from every side: from the world, persecution, if they spoke the truth; from the Lord, his displeasure, if from fear of men they offered false things for true.

Therefore Ezekiel testified and made known to Jerusalem her iniquities, and said: “Thus says the Lord: Your root and your birth are from the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.” Which of the cities was so exalted, and thought so highly of itself in the world, as the city of God? And yet this very city, promising itself great things as being close to God and his own city, because it sinned is reproved by the Holy Spirit as degenerate and foreign. For “her father is an Amorite”: now an Amorite, no longer God. As long as she did not sin, her father was God; but when she sinned, her father became an Amorite. As long as she did not sin, her father was the Holy Spirit; when she sinned, her mother became a Hittite. As long as she did not sin, she had as her root Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; when she sinned, her root became Canaanite. I have often wondered at what was said by Daniel to the sinful elder, to whom he gave a name for his sin, saying: “Seed of Canaan and not of Judah.” Daniel was great, most steadfastly calling the sinful elder seed of Canaan and not of Judah; but greater by comparison is Ezekiel, who reproaches not one elder, nor two men, with a shameful birth, but says: “Your root and your birth are from the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.” Because Jerusalem committed many sins, the prophet, rebuking her, marked her not with one or two names but with three. In Genesis seven nations are listed by God in one place, whose land he gave to the sons of Israel. These are the seven: “into the land,” he says, “of the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” If it had been possible to gather all seven and through them to reproach the low birth of sinful Jerusalem, the prophet would certainly have done it. As it is, what did he do? Out of the seven he chose the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and said that Jerusalem has something in common with them: with the Canaanite in root and birth, properly with the Amorite as her father, properly with the Hittite as her mother. If such things are said of Jerusalem, of which such great and wonderful things are written and to which such things were promised, what will become of wretched me if I sin? Who will be my father? Or who will be my mother? So great and so noble a Jerusalem is said to have her root and birth from the land of the Canaanites, her father an Amorite and her mother a Hittite. If I sin, who believe in Christ Jesus and have given myself over to so great a teacher, who is going to be my father? Not an Amorite, surely, but a far worse father. Who is he? “Whoever commits sin is born of the devil.” And again: “You are of your father the devil.” If, then, Jerusalem is said to be of the root and birth of the land of Canaan, what will be said to us? Fathers are found for us too, who beget us in sins. For just as, if I am good and established in the best conduct, Jesus says to me, “Son, your sins are forgiven you,” and Paul the disciple of Jesus says to me, “For in Christ Jesus I begot you through the gospel,” so, if I become a sinner, the devil, begetting me in sins and taking to himself the voice with which God the Father spoke to the Savior, says to me: “You are my son; today I have begotten you.” And I will have many other fathers too, to whom I am going to go. Each one sets out to his own fathers. If anyone is of Abraham, it is said to him: “But you shall go to your fathers in peace, nourished in a good old age.” But if anyone departs from the world not with peace but with the war of sins, and in an old age that is not good, grown old in evil days, surely it is said to him: “But you shall go to your fathers with war, nourished in a bad old age.” We are taught by God, under other names, what we ought to do.

“On the day you were born, they did not bind your breasts,” or, “your navel was not cut.” For in the Hebrew it reads: “Your navel was not cut.” He brings in Jerusalem allegorically as a girl, from her birth in infancy. And let us know that what is said of Jerusalem pertains to all people who are in the Church. Her first time is of this kind, and her second is as it is described; but far be it from us to have a third time such as is spoken of to Jerusalem! For all of us who were at first sinners are called Jerusalem by God, and the things said first apply to us. The second things pertain to us if, after God’s visitation and the knowledge of him, we have persisted in sins. The third evils, which we utterly detest, we will go through in order. Now, to return to the first: it is written as if of Jerusalem, “On the day you were born, your navel was not cut.” We need God’s help to be able to find the uncut navel of sinful Jerusalem, or else to expound the cut navel of one who has not sinned. So I seek, whether of Jerusalem or of anyone else, a navel in another Scripture, so that, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, I may find how Jerusalem’s navel was not cut. It is written in Job of the dragon: “His power is in the navel, and his strength upon the navel of the belly.” I know, from what divine grace has granted me, that when I was expounding that passage I said that the dragon is the opposing power. For this is “the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.” His strength is in the navel; and no doubt, for the beginning of evils for men is found in the loins. And that is why Levi, still in his father’s loins, is said to have been there before he was born, because human seed is gathered in the loins. So wherever there is seed, there the opposing power tries to show the force of its snares. Against males his power is in the loins; against females his power is in the navel of the belly. And see how decently Scripture named the genitals of man and of woman with veiled names, so as not to signify something shameful by the words that lie ready to hand. If the example we brought from Job has been understood, understand with me that as in a man the foreskin is circumcised, so in a woman the navel is cut. For when a woman has been chaste and has kept the cleanness proper to women, that is, so as not to fall into sordid things and the shamefulness of sins, then her navel has been cut. But if she has sinned, her navel has not been cut. So he rebukes Jerusalem as a woman whose navel was not cut. The Seventy translated this place, “They did not bind your breasts,” setting out the sense of the words rather than rendering word for word. In the Song of Songs breasts are taken as standing for your thoughts and mind: “For your breasts are better than wine.” And he who was to share in his understanding lay upon the breast of Jesus. So when the sense is firm, and the notion bound fast and solid, and the speech does not flow away, it is plain that your breasts have been bound. But when what is said is loose and flows away, the breasts are not bound.

“You were not washed with water for salvation.” Let us look at what is in Jerusalem, lest perhaps it be found in us too. Now she was washed; but the question is whether she was washed for salvation, so that we too may fear because of the words “for salvation.” Not all are washed for salvation. We who have received the grace of baptism in the name of Christ have been washed; but I do not know who has been washed for salvation. Simon was washed and, having obtained baptism, he persevered in Philip’s company; but because he had not been washed for salvation, he was condemned by him who said to him in the Holy Spirit: “May your money perish with you.” It is a matter of great difficulty for one who is washed to be washed for salvation. Attend, catechumens, listen, and from what is said prepare yourselves while you are catechumens, while you are not yet baptized; and come to the washing and be washed for salvation; and do not be washed as some who have been washed, but not for salvation, like the one who receives the water and does not receive the Holy Spirit, … thinking that the Spirit could be bought with money, in which washing he was not washed for salvation. These things, which we read were said then to Jerusalem, are said to every sinful soul that seems to believe; not to climb to higher things and seek what is beyond my strength and ability.

“Nor were you salted with salt.” And this too is a charge against Jerusalem, that she had not been worthy of God’s salt. If I believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, he himself will make me salt and say to me: “You are the salt of the earth.” If I believe the Spirit who spoke in the Apostle, I am seasoned with salt and can keep the precept that says: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt.” It is a great work to be salted. One who is seasoned with salt is full of grace. For in common speech too a gracious person is called “salty,” and, on the contrary, one who has no grace “saltless.” If, then, grace comes to us from God and we are filled with his gift, we are salted with salt. Again, sinful Jerusalem was not wrapped in swaddling cloths. Note what we say: the soul that is reborn, and is first brought forth in the washing, is wrapped in cloths. My Lord Jesus himself was wrapped in cloths, as is written in the Gospel according to Luke. So one who is reborn, reborn indeed in Christ, must desire the rational and pure milk; and before he desires the rational and guileless milk, he must be salted with salt and bound in the wrappings of cloths, lest it be said to him, “You were not salted with salt, and you were not wrapped in cloths.” That these are the charges against Jerusalem (that her navel was not cut, that she was not salted with salt, not wrapped in cloths, not washed with water for salvation) the rest of the passage shows, which runs thus: “Nor did your eye spare you, to do for you one of all these things. Therefore I did none of these things for you, so as to suffer anything over you, says the Lord.” I will take an example from ordinary life; then, if the Holy Spirit grants it, I will pass over to Jesus Christ and to God the Father. When I speak to a man and entreat him about something, that he may have pity on me: if he is without pity, he suffers nothing from what I say; but if he is of a soft mind, and nothing of a hard heart has hardened in him, he hears me and pities me, and his heart is softened by my prayers. Understand something like this of the Savior. He came down to earth in pity for the human race; he suffered our sufferings before he suffered the cross and deigned to take our flesh. For if he had not suffered, he would not have come to share in human life. First he suffered; then he came down and was seen. What is this suffering which he suffered for us? Love is a suffering. And the Father himself, the God of the universe, “long-suffering, very merciful and compassionate,” does he not in some way suffer? Or do you not know that when he deals with human affairs he suffers a human suffering? For “the Lord your God bore your ways, as a man bears his son.” So God bears our ways, as the Son of God bears our sufferings. The Father himself is not impassible. If he is entreated, he has pity and feels with us; he suffers something of love, and comes to be in those things in which, by the greatness of his nature, he cannot be; and for our sake he endures human sufferings.

“Your eye did not spare you,” he says, “to do for you one of all these things, so that I might suffer anything over you. And because you became such, you were cast out on the face of the field.” O God, do not let us be such that we are cast out by you and by your Church onto the face of the field; but rather let us go out from the narrowness of our thoughts into the open field. “And you were cast out on the face of the field.” Why? “Through the depravity of your soul, on the day you were born.” Can anyone have depravity of soul on the very day on which he is born? He describes our passions, human vices, and our usual depravities. For through our depravity, if the heart is not upright, we are cast out into the field on the day we are born. If after the regeneration of the washing, if after the word of God, we sin again, we are cast out on the day we are born. Such people are very often found: washed with the washing of second regeneration, and yet not bearing fruits worthy of repentance, nor gladdening the mystery of baptism with a greater fear than they had while they were catechumens, with a fuller love than they practised while they were hearers of the word, and with holier deeds than they did before. To such people applies what is said: “You were cast out on the face of the field through the depravity of your soul, on the day you were born.” But see God’s mercy, see his singular clemency. Although Jerusalem was cast out on the face of the field, he does not so despise her that she remains cast out forever; he does not so abandon her to her depravity as to forget her entirely and never raise her up again as she lies there. Attend to what follows: “And I passed by you.” You were cast out, yet I came to you again; my visitation did not fail you after your fall.

“And I saw you spattered in your blood”: as if he said, I saw you guilty of murders, guilty of blood and of deadly sins. “And I said to you: From your blood be filled with life.” Rise from your blood and be filled with life. “Like the growth of the field I made you.” I had pity on you after you had been cast out; I saw you spattered with blood and sins; “like the growth of the field” …, “and you were multiplied and magnified.” “I made you into multitude and greatness”: that is, I made you grow and multiply. For it is through this that we grow and are multiplied. “And you entered into cities of cities.” Again he sets out the errors of Jerusalem as she enters into cities of cities. Let us consider how she entered criminally into cities of cities. If any man of the Church enters the various cities in which there are heresies and doctrines foreign to God, and becomes a sharer in such cities, he hears: “You have entered into cities of cities.” “Your breasts grew”: after such great crimes you flourished again, and your time came, and the time of those who turn aside. I am told: “Do not allegorize; do not expound figuratively.” Let them answer me, I ask: Jerusalem has breasts, and there is a time when they are not bound and a time when they rise; and she has a navel, and she is reproved because it was not cut. How can these things be understood without allegorical exposition? “Your breasts rose, and your hair grew.” With all decency the divine word describes what usually happens to the bodies of maidens. “And your hair grew; but you were naked and disgraced.” One who has not put on Jesus Christ is naked; one who has not put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, so as to bear with his neighbor, is disgraced. “But you were naked and disgraced, and I passed by you.” A second time he came to her and saw her sinning … and yet he returns again; … the merciful and kind God visits. “And I came to you, and saw you, and behold, your time, and the time of those who turn aside.” What is this that he says, “your time”? Time signifies adolescence, in which by reason of age people can already commit sexual immorality. And again: “And the time,” he says, “of those who turn aside.” Who are these who turn aside? While we are little children, those who want to turn aside to us, who strive to overturn us, such as the worst Christians, unclean demons, and angels of the devil, have no opening and so cannot turn aside to us. But when we are of greater age and are already able to sin, they seek an entrance to turn aside to us; and this both the angels of God and the angels of Satan do. But it is impossible for both to turn aside to us. If we sin, the angels of the devil turn aside to us; if we stand with a fixed step, the angels of God turn aside to us. So “your time came, and the time of those who turn aside,” and our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, visits again wretched Jerusalem, that is, our sinful soul. “I spread my wings over you.” Scripture is accustomed to call the edges of garments “wings,” as in Ruth, who came secretly, uncovered Boaz’s feet, and slept under the wing of his garment. So God speaks as one clothed with a garment. “I spread my wings over you and covered your shame.” Blessed is he whose shame God covers with his wings, if indeed he perseveres in the blessedness in which Jerusalem would not persevere. “And I swore to you in covenant, and entered into a covenant with you.” After so many falls, because of which he returns and withdraws again, after such frequent visitation, now for the first time he enters into a covenant with her.

“And you became mine, and I washed you in water.” After all this I took you to myself, and I myself washed you for salvation, “and I washed away your blood from you.” Understanding these things, let us pray that God’s mercy may come upon us and wash the blood from our souls. For if we have done anything worthy of death, that is our blood. “I washed away your blood from you, and anointed you with oil.” God wants to make us anointed ones too. “And I clothed you in many colors.” How great is God’s kindness toward every one of the souls of Jerusalem: to those who believe in him he grants not a tunic of one color, but one of great variety. Even then, as a sign, Jacob made this many-colored tunic, clothing his son Joseph, and dressed him in many colors. If you consider the various understandings and the good deeds, you will truly see the varied tunic which God’s visitation grants to those who are called to salvation. I understand the law, I grasp the prophets, I recognize the Gospels, the Apostle is not hidden from me; I am cautious, I am just, I am merciful: and do you still seek another many-colored tunic, which the Lord put on Jerusalem, saying, “And I clothed you in many colors, and shod you with hyacinth”? He wants our shoes to be flowering and well dyed. What are the shoes? Hear Paul proclaiming it more openly: “Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.”

“And I girded you with fine linen.” The Apostle speaks more plainly of this girdle: “Stand, having girded your loins with truth.” For fine linen is understood as truth. “And I covered you with trichapton.” Not finding or understanding what trichapton is, I found in another edition, instead of trichapton, “flowering,” and in another, “garment.” So after the varied garment God also clothed us with a flowering tunic. “And I adorned you with ornament; I put bracelets on your hands.” When he has given me occasions for good actions, he puts bracelets around my hands. “And a chain around your neck.” If after deeds of righteousness he adorns me with the understanding of truth, then a wedding ornament, then a lovely chain is placed around my neck. “And I put a ring in your nose.” When I can truly receive the mysteries of sweetness and of good fragrance, then God adorns my nose with rings. “And wheels in your ears”: so that there is not only an earring but a great golden wheel around your hearing. And a golden wheel is one that turns with sacred understandings. “And a crown of glory on your head.” Almighty God, grant us too to be made worthy of a crown of glory on our head. “And you were adorned with gold,” that is, with divine meanings, “and with silver,” that is, with sacred words. “And your coverings were of fine linen.” The depth of meanings is a covering of fine linen. “And flowering”: for this word the Seventy put a very fine garment, meaning a garment made thin, like hairs. “And many-colored.” Behold, Jerusalem is all protected by wings, clothed in varied garments, adorned with jewels. What does the great God, the lover of humankind, do after this? He feeds her with delicate foods. “You ate fine flour and honey and oil.” He does not say simply meal, nor barley bread: what we are now saying to you is fine flour. But wretched Jerusalem, after the fine flour, after the honey, after the oil, is rebuked again as a harlot. Therefore let us take more careful heed lest perhaps, after the pure words of fine flour, after the sweetest discourses of the prophets, after the oil that gladdens the face, with which we wished to anoint our head so that our fasting might become acceptable, we sin again. And we are not only anointed with this oil but also feed on it. “And you became exceedingly beautiful.” He praises her beauty, praises her appearance, proclaims her form. “And you were advanced to a kingdom.” What great progress, that she is even advanced to a kingdom! “And your name went out among the nations.” These things fit one who, after beginning to be free from the world and advancing in his conduct toward the blessed life, has also obtained a glorious name in the world. But far from us be what follows; for it was written to strike fear into the hearers. After her beauty, after her great name, wretched Jerusalem commits sexual immorality. Therefore “do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what the coming day will bring forth.” And elsewhere: “Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in some sin, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.” And again: “Looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

“And your name went out among the nations for your beauty, for it was perfect in the comeliness of the beauty which I set upon you, says Adonai the Lord; and you trusted in your comeliness.” Lovely Jerusalem thought great things of herself and was lifted up by the awareness of her beauty. And because she thought high things, and did not humble herself or glorify God, hear what is said to her: “And you committed sexual immorality in your name, and poured out your sexual immorality on every passer-by.” What is this that he says, “You poured out your sexual immorality on every passer-by”? The opposing power goes around our souls and, surveying them in various ways, seeks a place through which it can break in. Anger wants to commit sexual immorality with me in its own name; sadness, joined to my character, wants in its own name to make me mournful; avarice for its part brings in the desire for gold and silver and the like. If I do not guard myself and shut my door, but admit every speech of the enemy, it is said to me: “You poured out your sexual immorality on every passer-by.” “And you took your garments and made yourself stitched idols.” From the things with which I adorned you, by which you were made beautiful, you made yourself stitched idols. I want to explain further what the stitched idols are, which they sewed together from garments. The garments are the divine Scriptures and the meaning that is in them. The heretics cut up these garments and sewed saying to saying, joining words to words, but not with a fitting and apt joint; and by sewing they made themselves impious images, by which they enticed some to believe and to consent to their worship and to accept a feigned teaching. May God free all of us from these and other images, that we may be magnified in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.