Homilies on Ezekiel 7.1–8.3

The catalogue of Jerusalem’s sins, however it is understood, edifies the hearer. For just as, if the master in his house rebukes one of the household and sets out his sins, another slave who was recently bought, seeing the master’s discipline, what he blames and what he praises, is instructed not to do what his fellow slaves did before, and hastens with all his effort to do the things by which others have earned honor and freedom from their master, so we too, hearing for what things God blames Jerusalem, or all Judea, or any one of the tribes that offends in particular, receive no small profit, so that we may not fall into the things into which the others fell. The beginning of today’s reading is that Jerusalem received garments from God and made from them stitched images for herself, and committed sexual immorality upon them. Of these I spoke in the previous sermon as well as I could, teaching that those who tear the Scriptures to pieces and rip words away from words, sewing them together and composing fabricated doctrines, serve idols which they have clothed with the garments of the Scriptures. “You will not enter my tabernacle; you are outside, and outside you will remain.” Scripture knows that the saints are inside and sinners outside. So, since Jerusalem committed such sins that she does not deserve to enter into God’s promises, and it is said to her, “And you will not enter,” let us beware lest perhaps it be said to us too some day: “And you will not enter.” “Nor will it be.” What is said, “nor will it be,” is not complete, and so something must be understood from outside so that the sense can be filled out: the good things which were promised to you, and which you were going to receive, will not be.

Another offense follows: “And you took the vessels of your glory, of your silver and of your gold, which I gave you, and made yourself male images.” According to the common sense it can be understood thus: the vessels of glory, of which Moses wrote in Numbers (censers, bowls, the golden lampstand, the ark gilded inside and out, and the rest), you took and melted down, and made male images, and committed sexual immorality with them. But according to allegory it will be explained thus. We have golden and silver vessels, that is, censers, bowls, and the rest of this kind, in the sacred Scriptures. So when we twist the sense of Scripture into another sense that is contrary to the truth, we melt down the divine words and change the things of God into other images. Doing this, we fall into …

There follows: “And you took the varied garments and covered them.” A varied garment is (and this is one passage of the Scriptures) that with which we are clothed when we put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience in bearing with one another. If we tear and rend these varied garments and fine clothes which God has granted us, and wrap them around false doctrine to deceive people, there is no doubt that we cover idols with varied garments. You will understand what is said if we describe the thing itself more plainly. Show me some Marcionite, or a disciple of Valentinus, or a defender of any heresy, and consider how he clothes his idols, that is, the fictions which he himself has composed, with meekness and chastity, so that a discourse adorned by the goodness of his life may creep more easily into the ears of the hearers. And when he has done this, understand that he has taken the varied garment of morals and of the best conduct and put it on the idols he himself has built. And in my judgment a heretic of good life is far more harmful, and has more authority in his teaching, than one who stains his teaching by his conduct. For one who leads a very bad life does not easily draw people to false doctrine, nor can he deceive the simplicity of his hearers by a shadow of holiness. But one who is perverse in speech, with teachings contrary to salvation, yet has orderly and adorned manners, does nothing else than take the varied garments of good practice and of quiet conduct and wrap them around his idols, to deceive his hearers the more. Therefore let us carefully beware of heretics of excellent conduct, whose life perhaps not God so much as the devil has formed. For just as fowlers set out certain baits of food so as to catch birds more easily through the pleasure of the gullet, so (to speak more boldly) there is a kind of chastity of the devil, that is, a snare for the human soul, so that by such chastity, meekness, and righteousness he can catch it more easily and entangle it with false words. The devil fights with various snares to destroy wretched man: he gives a good life to the wicked to deceive those who see it, and he brands the good with a bad conscience. For me myself, who preach in the Church, he often sets snares, so as to confound the whole Church through my conduct. And therefore those who stand in the middle are attacked the more by the enemy, so that through the fall of one man, which cannot be hidden, a scandal may arise for all, and faith may be hindered by the very bad conduct of the clergy. As we said, the devil works all things, both those that seem to be good and are not, and those that are evil by their nature; he devises everything against the human soul. Hence one who cares for his life is neither caught by the meekness of the heretics so as to consent to their teaching, nor will he be scandalized by my offenses, who seem to preach in the Church; but, considering the doctrine itself and examining the faith of the Church, he will turn away from me but accept the teaching, according to the command of the Lord, who says: “The scribes and Pharisees sat on Moses’ seat. Whatever they tell you, hear and do; but do not do according to their works, for they speak and do not do.” This word is about me, who teach good things and do the contrary, and sit on Moses’ seat like a scribe and Pharisee. This is the command to you, O people: if you have no charge of very bad teaching or of doctrines foreign to the Church to bring, but have seen that my life and sins are blameworthy, do not shape your life after the speaker, but do what I say. Let us imitate no one; and if we wish to imitate someone, Christ Jesus is set before us to imitate. The acts of the apostles are described, and we know the deeds of the prophets from the sacred books; that is the firm exemplar, that the solid model, and one who desires to follow it goes safely. But if we look for blameworthy people to emulate, so as to say, “He teaches, and himself does the contrary of what he teaches,” we act against the command of the Lord, who ordered that the teachings of teachers should be considered rather than their lives. This we say about what is written: “You took your many-colored garment and covered them,” that is, the vessels of glory which you changed into idols.

There follows: “And you set my oil and my incense before their face.” We have learned from the teaching of Scripture that the prayer of the saints is incense. For it says: “The incense is the prayers of the saints.” If, then, having been trained for prayer, when we ought to offer it to God (that is, to the God of the law and the prophets, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and the Father of Jesus Christ), we offer it to the things we ourselves have made up, so that we set God’s incense before idols, we do what is said in the present passage: “You set my oil and my incense before their face.” Let this be the understanding of the incense. What shall we answer about the oil? Oil is that with which the holy man is anointed: the oil of Christ, the oil of holy teaching. When, then, someone has received this oil with which the holy man is anointed, that is, the sacred Scripture which teaches how one ought to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and, changing a few things, has dipped someone and in a way said, “You are no longer a catechumen; you have obtained the washing of the second birth,” such a man takes God’s oil and incense and sets them before the face of idols. “And my loaves which I gave you; with fine flour and honey and oil I fed you.” Behold our loaves: the purest fine flour in the Scriptures, and the honey of the bees, the prophets. All these God gave us, and he fed us with the loaves of the prophets and with …, and we set these very things before idols. For when, wishing to undertake the defense of false doctrines, we say, “It is written in the prophet,” “Moses testifies,” “The Apostle says,” what else do we do than take the loaves of truth and set them before the images which we ourselves have fashioned? Marcion made an idol and set before it the loaves of the Scriptures; Valentinus, Basilides, and the other heretics did the same. “And you set them before their face for a sweet odor.” By nature the things God has given us are of the sweetest odor. One who acts or understands against the power of the Scriptures sets this sweetest odor before idols.

“And it came to pass, says Adonai the Lord, and you took your sons and your daughters whom you bore, and sacrificed them for consumption.” When sinful Jerusalem has borne sons and daughters, the end of those who are born is slaughter. For salvation is not the end of the very wicked. Therefore it is written: “You sacrificed them for consumption.” “As if you had committed sexual immorality but a little, you killed my children and gave them up.” Properly he says, “You took your sons”; and significantly he added, “You killed my children.” For whoever are born in the teachings of the heretics, and took there the beginnings of their faith, are sons of the harlot and sinful Jerusalem. But whoever was born in the Church and afterwards was deceived by heretical falsehood, being a son of God, has been seized by sinful Jerusalem and made a victim to her idols. “This is beyond all your sexual immorality and your abominations.” To take the sons of the Church and sacrifice them to idols: this is beyond … concerning the nakedness and shame of Jerusalem. “You ought, then, in your iniquity to have remembered” how I spread my wings over you, took you up from your blood, and washed you. But you forgot all these things. These are the things that befit one who is naked, acting shamefully, and mixed in her own blood.

“And it came to pass after all your wickedness (woe to you, says the Lord) that you built yourself a brothel and made yourself a showplace in every street.” If you consider a soul exposed to its lovers, you will see how it makes a brothel and receives all the lovers we have mentioned. Understand what we mean from what follows, that is, who the lovers of Jerusalem are. The human soul is very lovely and has a wonderful beauty. For its Maker, when he first created it, said: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” What is more beautiful than this beauty and likeness? So certain adulterous and sordid lovers, enticed by its comeliness, desire to corrupt it and to commit sexual immorality with it. That is why the wise man Paul says: “But I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his wickedness, so your minds be corrupted.” By carnal sexual immorality our senses are corrupted; but by spiritual sexual immorality the mind is corrupted and the soul itself is wounded.

“And you defiled your beauty.” Even if a man is not caught in the greatest sins, yet, because the beauty of the soul is great, it is disfigured even by association with lesser ones. Look at the powers of the soul which God has implanted in it; see its beauty: invention, arrangement, expression, memory, delivery; what talent it has; how it first understands, then judges what it has understood, so as to be stirred to perception and to apply perceptions to the mind; what impulses it has, what thoughts about God. One who possesses these is of great beauty, but is corrupted by the sects of the heretics and by a teaching foreign to religion. “And your legs passed over every passer-by, and you multiplied your sexual immorality.” There is sexual immorality differing from sexual immorality; and just as in sexual immorality of the flesh there is someone not given to excessive immorality, yet polluted by immorality, while another multiplies his immorality, so also in that immorality which stains the soul and the mind, one is overwhelmed by a multitude of immorality, while another has not been led so far astray by immorality. Therefore “with the measure with which we have measured, it will be measured back to us.”

“And you committed sexual immorality with the sons of Egypt, your neighbors.” The sons of Egypt are the opposing powers. Nor is it surprising if our neighbors are called Egyptians, since the borders of Egypt and of Jerusalem lie near each other. They are “of great flesh,” not because they have huge flesh (indeed Scripture seems to have signified their private parts decently with a changed word, that is, “of great flesh”), but because fleshly understandings make us “of great flesh”; as, on the contrary, there is a certain flesh that faints, of which it is said: “As my flesh in a desert land, pathless and waterless, so in the holy place I appeared to you.” So Jerusalem commits sexual immorality with the sons of Egypt, her neighbors, of great flesh. “And in many ways,” he says, “you committed sexual immorality to provoke me.” You committed many kinds of immorality to stir me up. “But if I stretch out my hand against you, I will take away your lawful portions and hand you over to the souls of those who hate you, the sons of foreigners.” You see that she is handed over to the souls of foreigners, being unworthy of the use of the law and of the words of God. “Who turned you from your way. You acted impiously and committed sexual immorality with the sons of Assyria.” First with the sons of Egypt, then with the sons of Assyria. These are kinds of sins. For when the Assyrians took the sons of Israel captive, what Scripture reports did indeed happen; but it was written because of our frequent captivity, which is carried out by spiritual Assyrians, of whom the Apostle says: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of wickedness.”

“And not even so were you satisfied; you committed sexual immorality and will not be satisfied.” When someone is not filled with sinning, but always joins new sins to former ones, gathering iniquities as with a long rope and as with the strap of a heifer’s yoke, never turning to better things nor repenting of his evils, it is said to him: “And you will not be satisfied.” “And you multiplied your covenants with the land of Canaan.” When God makes covenants with us and we consent to them, we are blessed; but when we commit sexual immorality with the spiritual forces of wickedness, then we turn God’s covenants toward the land of Canaan and make a pact with it. Understand this also of the Chaldeans and the other nations, whenever we are reproved for any sin. “And covenants with the Chaldeans; and not even so were you satisfied.”

After the catalogue of sins, it is said to sinful Jerusalem: “What shall I do to you, says Adonai the Lord, since you do all these things, the works of a shameless harlot?” Let us climb a little higher in our discourse, because it is not always useful to speak of sexual immorality, and far be it that there should be anyone in the Church who needs words urging him away from sexual immorality. For if anyone needs to hear, “You shall not commit sexual immorality,” or, “If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him,” he is like those of whom the Apostle says: “The law is not laid down for the righteous, but for the lawless and disobedient, the impious and sinners.” So, just as the law is not laid down for the righteous but for the lawless and disobedient, so the teaching that warns us to keep away from sexual immorality is not laid down for the chaste, but for the lawless, the sexually immoral, and the disobedient. So we have no need to learn to keep away from sexual immorality; rather let us press on from the elementary principles of Christ toward more perfect things. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers,” he says, “you need someone to teach you again the elements of the beginning of the words of God, and you have become such as need milk, not solid food.” Every word that commands, “You shall not commit sexual immorality, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal,” is not solid food, but is offered like milk to infants. The food of athletes is to understand about almighty God and about his mysteries, which are hidden and secretly signified in the Scriptures. See how Paul speaks to the Corinthians: “I gave you milk to drink, not food, for you were not yet able, and even now you are not able.” And because they still needed milk, they learn what little children usually learn: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman; but because of sexual immorality,” and the rest. And again they are instructed not to eat what is sacrificed to idols. All this teaching is the milk of little ones, of those who are still infants in Christ. But when he writes to the Ephesians, he offers them solid food. For in Ephesus nothing is heard about eating things sacrificed. From this we are taught what solid food is: that the moral part is the rational and guileless milk, and the mystical understanding is solid food. Blessed, then, are we if we hasten to those things, passing over the first principles. And that the moral part is milk the Apostle teaches when, after saying some things about milk, he adds: “Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works.” Such are all who are still fed with milk; but the perfect man needs other teachings. Let these things be said by the way, because I had climbed higher in my discourse so as not to run straight from the exposition of one sexual immorality into another, which I will now explain. For it is said to Jerusalem: “And you committed sexual immorality threefold in your daughters.” What does he mean, that Jerusalem committed sexual immorality threefold in her daughters? We need God’s help, so that he himself may explain to us the obscurity of this passage. And just as Moses heard God and then brought out to the people what he had heard from God, so we need the Holy Spirit speaking mysteries in us, so that through your prayers we may hear the Scriptures and in turn make known to the people what we have heard. What, then, is “You committed sexual immorality threefold in your daughters”? If you understand sexual immorality of the flesh, of the soul, and of the spirit, and see someone committing immorality in all of these, you will see Jerusalem committing immorality threefold. But he who is threefold chaste deserves to hear from the Apostle: “May the God of peace sanctify you in all things, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept whole and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

We have expounded what was read first; today let us begin from what is written: “Since you do all these things, the works of a shameless harlot”; and of “you committed sexual immorality threefold in your daughters” we have already spoken. There follows: “When you built your brothel at the head of every way and made your base in every street; and you were not like a harlot gathering wages. The adulterous woman, like you, took wages from her husband, and you gave wages; she gave wages to all her lovers, and you gave wages to all your lovers, and you honored them so that they might come to you from round about for your sexual immorality.” A man can also establish a man: the evil man in evil, the good man in good. For “bad company corrupts good morals.” No doubt the speaker’s word urges the hearer toward worse things, when a heretic by his speaking establishes his hearer in heretical perversity. And to come to better things: if the one who speaks is able to do good, and his life agrees with his words, he establishes his hearer in good things. We who are of the least rank, if we hear a word that commands chastity, try to be established upon it. If we ourselves speak of purity, we also establish our hearers in purity; if we preach about righteousness, we drive them to righteousness; if about faith, we instil faith, so that … we may obey in the Lord in a manner worthy of the divine majesty. If, then, we men, though we are evil, are accustomed to establish the heart of the hearer either in good things, if we are good, or in evil things, if we act badly, do you think that God does not have the power to establish someone in better things, or else, by abandoning him, to become the occasion of his being established in the worst? According to the present passage, wretched Jerusalem sinned greatly, whom God very often wished to establish in better things through his prophets; but because she would not hear counsel, would not receive God’s commands, God hesitates and says he does not know what to do. “In what shall I establish your heart, says Adonai the Lord?” What shall I do? In what shall I establish you? You are bound fast by many chains of sins; your offenses prevent your life from being established by my words. I myself often wished to establish you, speaking to you through my saints, and you did not hear. Now I do not know what to do, and I say to you: “In what shall I establish your heart, says Adonai the Lord, since you do all these things, the works of a shameless harlot?” We have often said that the opposing powers love the beauty of the human soul, and that when the human soul receives the seeds of its lovers it in a way commits sexual immorality with them. But since in ordinary life too there are some harlots who commit immorality with shame, wishing to stay hidden, while others not only do not veil their offenses with shame but prostitute themselves with all shamelessness, he therefore took the example of the harlot soul in this sinful Jerusalem and says that she became like a shameless harlot in her immorality. Such things are often committed by us. For those who have not wholly withdrawn from religion, but are overcome by sin and, when they sin, wish to stay hidden, act like a harlot who blushes. But those who wholly turn away from religion, so that they care nothing for the bishop, the presbyters, the deacons, or the brothers, but sin with all shamelessness, become like a harlot who prostitutes herself boldly. So in the present passage God complains of sinful Jerusalem because she does the works of a shameless harlot, and says to her: “And you committed sexual immorality threefold in your daughters.” We expounded this when the words were said to us: “You built your brothel at the head of every way, and made your base in every street.”

We want now also to interpret what it is to build a brothel, not merely in every way, but at the head of every way; and lest it seem enough to have built a brothel at the head of every way, she has also set her base in every street. So harlot Jerusalem sinned two general sins, when she built her brothel at the head of every way, and when she made her base and set it in every street. What, then, are these ways? “Stand in the ways and ask for the eternal paths, and see which is the good way, and walk in it.” There are many eternal ways. If you remember the explanation I have often given, you know that Moses is a way, and each of the prophets. And just as there are many pearls which one must possess who is to come to the one most precious pearl, so one who is to come to him who says, “I am the way,” must enter the many ways of Moses and of all the prophets. But someone says to me: “What has this to do with the subject you spoke of?” I will answer him thus: Jerusalem built her brothel in every way. If you consider all the heretics, strangers to the truth, building a house out of the words read in Moses and out of those they found in Isaiah and Jeremiah and the other prophets, you understand that the new doctrines are the immorality of Jerusalem, who builds her brothel not in every way but at the head of every way. For if anyone has gone forward, past the beginning of Moses and the opening of the prophets, to reach their depth and the knowledge of them all, this harlot who builds a brothel at the head of every way can do nothing with him. She looks for the one who is first entering the Church, who is receiving the elements of the faith, who is untrained in the mysteries; the one who is set at the beginning of faith she wants to bring into her brothel, building a house of harlotry. And since sexual immorality is frequently named in the Scriptures, I want to explain the reason for this word. The men of the Church who are teachers in the Church purify both their own morals and those of their people, and by this diligence they build the house of God, the Church, and their work is God’s building. The heretics build a brothel in every way: for instance, a teacher from the workshop of Valentinus, a teacher from the assembly of Basilides, a teacher from the tent of Marcion, and those of the other heretics, build a house for the harlot. For the congregation of all the wicked is a brothel. But what does Scripture say? “Son, do not attend to an evil woman, for honey drips from the lips of a harlot.” Where does her honey drip from? For honey drips from the lips of a harlot. She went in to Moses, to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, and from their Scriptures she gathered honey for herself. Go to the heretics as they speak, “Thus says Moses, thus Isaiah, thus Jeremiah,” and you will see how honey does not flow from their lips but drips, as they pluck a very few words from the Scriptures. And so honey drips from the lips of a harlot. So she builds a brothel at the head of every way. Granted that the brothel has been understood, let us interpret also the base which harlot Jerusalem set in all the streets. It is written in another place how the harlot openly calls to passers-by in the streets; for sin hastens to draw us to itself in various ways, whether through heresy or through pagan conduct: through heresy, when it builds a brothel at the head of every way; through pagan conduct, when it sets its base in all the streets. For “wide and spacious is the way that leads to destruction.” So when she asserts from the Scriptures what she says and the things in which she tries to instruct her hearers, she builds a brothel at the head of every way. But when the moral teaching has been loosened, and by commanding luxurious things she has made the hearer wanton, what else has she done but set a base in every way?

“You were not like a harlot gathering wages.” Let us look at a harlot who gathers wages and another, again, who does not. For she is reproached as a harlot who does not gather wages. When I see that there is a harlot who does not gather wages, and read that it is said to this one that she has become like a harlot who does not gather wages, I will say that to gather wages is to become rich by sinning, by sinning to acquire glory in worldly things, by sinning to fare prosperously in the world. When, as I said, these things arise through sin, the soul commits sexual immorality and gathers the wages of its immorality: glory, riches, and the rest, which it has acquired to the destruction of its soul. But when it commits immorality and does not prosper in worldly affairs, but because it has sinned even lives unhappily in the world, it is a harlot who does not gather wages and does the contrary, that is, freely gives wages to those it sins with. “And you gave wages to all your lovers.” Sometimes the soul makes its lovers rich, and they rejoice that they have received wages from it. But a hearer says to me: “Explain more plainly how the soul commits immorality by giving wages from its husband’s goods.” For thus the divine word says, both in the present passage and frequently in other places, that harlot Jerusalem took what belonged to her husband and gave it to her lovers. What is it that her husband gave her, which she afterwards, having become an adulteress, gives wholly to her lovers? The soul’s husband is the word of God, the bridegroom, the true lover, who gave it chastity, gave righteousness, gave the other good things. So when the soul wishes to follow the opposing powers (that is, to speak more plainly, when, having lived chastely for ten years, at the last it commits sexual immorality), it takes the goods of its husband, which it had sought with labor for a long time, and gives them to its lovers. These bloodthirsty lovers snatch the virtues of the wretched soul for themselves, and go about boasting of its riches, saying: “I have taken from it ten years of chastity, I have snatched from it five years of righteousness, I have claimed its courage for myself; God has forgotten all the good deeds it once did, because it has been caught in sin; and he has forgotten it, because our friend has confessed to us the secrets it had heard and has handed over all its goods to us, its lovers.” Learning these things, let us guard our heart with all vigilance, and take heed lest what belongs to our husband be handed over to other lovers; rather let us invite the bridegroom, the word and the truth, to make us golden ornaments marked with varied designs through the varied commandments, so that, adorned, we may be made ready for our husband Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.