Homilies on Joshua 8.1–8.7

We beseech you, hearers of the sacred books, not to listen with weariness or distaste to what is read because its narrative seems less delightful. For you ought to know that what is read is indeed worthy of the utterance of the Holy Spirit; but to explain it we need the grace of the Holy Spirit, the grace of which the Apostle says: “To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit.” We too, then, need this in the present passages, in which it is related that Jesus succeeded Moses and himself leads the people; and in the present reading an account of the following kind is sketched. Those who lived in the city of Ai at first seemed to conquer and rout the sons of Israel because of the sin they had committed. But after the evil was removed from their midst, Jesus, the leader of the people, is commanded by God to divide the people into two parts, so that one part should feign flight, while the other remained in ambush, by which Ai would be deceived when Jesus gave the command. When this had been so arranged, the king of Ai, seeing Jesus and the sons of Israel from afar, is roused to battle against them. And as they feigned flight, the men of Ai pursued them more fiercely, and, as if about to carry off spoil from their enemies, all went out of the city together, so that, as Scripture says, they left the city empty. But after they had advanced to the appointed place, Jesus turned and gave the signal for those in ambush to rise up and cut down the enemy from behind; and so, the one group behind and the other in front, they shut in the enemy between them and destroy them all. And in this way, when the inhabitants of Ai had been conquered, they hanged their king on a double tree.

When they have heard these things, the hearers are likely to say: What is this to me? What does it profit me to know that the inhabitants of Ai were conquered, as though similar or even greater wars had not been fought, or were not being fought? Was this the concern of the Holy Spirit, that, leaving out the destruction of so many and such great and famous cities, the taking of the town of Ai should be committed to writing in the sacred books? Perhaps what we are doing is rash, in trying to explain such steep and difficult places of holy Scripture; but if you help us with your prayers, not only shall we escape the charge of boldness, but God, the Father of the Word, embracing our devotion, will give a word when we open our mouth, by which you will be edified and we will not appear lacking in devotion. Praying, then, and with attentive minds, listen. At first we were conquered because of our sins, and the inhabitants of Ai killed very many of us. Ai is interpreted “chaos.” And we know that chaos is the place or dwelling of the contrary powers, whose king and prince is the devil. Coming against him, Jesus divides the people into two parts, and sets some in the front and others in the rear, who come unexpectedly behind the backs of the enemy. And see whether the first part of the people is not that of which he says, “I came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and of which Paul says, “Grace and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first, and then also to the Greek,” that is, to the Gentile who comes later. This, then, is the people that is placed first and that, as it were, flees with Jesus. But the later people is that gathered from the Gentiles; coming unexpectedly (for who would have hoped that the Gentiles would be saved?), they cut down the adversaries fiercely from behind; and so both peoples lay low and conquer the band of demons shut in between them. But perhaps you will say to me: How, then, is the earlier people represented as fleeing? Very fittingly. For those who follow Jesus were seen to flee from the burdens and precepts of the law, from the observance of the sabbath, from the circumcision of the flesh, from the slaughter of victims. But again, he has not fled who has followed Christ, the perfection and fullness of the law.

After all this, the king of Ai too is said to have been hanged on a double tree. In this place a mystery is covered which is hidden from very many; but with your prayers we will try to open it, not by our own opinions but by the testimonies of divine Scripture. We said above that the king of Ai can be compared to the devil; here it is worth knowing clearly how he was hanged on a double tree. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ was double. Perhaps what I say seems strange and new to you, that the cross was double, that is, that it has a double and twofold meaning: because visibly the Son of God was crucified in the flesh, but invisibly on that cross the devil with his principalities and powers was nailed to the cross. Will this not seem true to you if I produce the apostle Paul as witness to these things? Hear, then, what he declares about them: “What was contrary to us,” he says, “he took out of the way, nailing it to his cross; stripping the principalities and powers, he made a public example of them, triumphing over them boldly on the wood of the cross” — although in other copies it has “triumphing in himself,” among the Greeks it has “on the wood.” There is, then, a twofold meaning of the Lord’s cross: the one of which the apostle Peter speaks, that Christ, being crucified, left us an example; and this second one, by which that cross was a trophy over the devil, on which he was both crucified and triumphed over. That is why the apostle Paul too said: “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” You see that here too the Apostle has set forth a twofold meaning of the cross. For he said that two things contrary to each other were crucified: himself, a saint, and the sinful world, undoubtedly after the pattern of Christ and the devil which we stated above. For we are crucified to the world when the prince of this world comes and finds nothing in us. And the world is crucified to us when we do not admit the desire of sin.

But if perhaps one of the hearers is more attentive, he can say: The pattern of the events does seem fitting, but this still troubles me: as far as the figure of the account shows, the devil and his army were destroyed; how is it, then, that we see the devil and the contrary powers still so strong against the servants of God that even the apostle Peter warns with great caution and says we must watch, because “our adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour”? Let us see, then, whether in this too we can find something worthy of the utterances of the Holy Spirit. One coming of Christ has been fulfilled in humility; another is awaited in glory. And this first coming in the flesh is called in the holy Scriptures, in a certain mystical language, his shadow, as the prophet Jeremiah also proclaims, saying: “The breath of our face, Christ the Lord, of whom we said: In his shadow we shall live among the nations.” And Gabriel too, bringing Mary the good news of his birth, says: “The power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Because of this we understand that very many things are foreshadowed in this first coming of his, whose fulfillment and perfection will be accomplished in the second coming. And the apostle Paul says that “he raised us up with him and made us sit together in the heavenly places.” And certainly we do not yet see believers either already raised up or seated in heaven; but these things are now foreshadowed through faith, because in mind and hope we are lifted up from earthly and dead works and daily raise our heart to heavenly and eternal things; this will be fulfilled at his second coming, so that what we have now anticipated by faith and hope we may then hold bodily, in actual fact. So, then, it must be understood of the devil too that he has indeed been conquered and crucified, but for those who have been crucified with Christ; for all believers, however, and for all peoples alike, he will be crucified then, when what the Apostle says is fulfilled: that “as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” In this, then, there is also a mystery of the future resurrection. For then too the people will be divided into two parts, and then too some will be first and others last; and when they have come together to Jesus as one, then there will no longer be any devil at all, because there will no longer be death. Do you want us to prove this too to you by divine testimonies? Hear the Apostle saying: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not go before those who have fallen asleep; for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead who are in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.” And speaking of the devil, he says: “The last enemy, death, will be destroyed”; for death will truly be conquered then, when this mortal is swallowed up by life.

But let us see what follows next: “And Jesus burned Ai,” it says, “and it became a city that is not inhabited forever.” You see that what follows belongs more to the truth of the mystery than to that of the history. For that place on earth is not so much uninhabitable forever as the place of the demons will be uninhabitable, when no one will sin any longer and sin will not reign in anyone, when the devil and his angels will be handed over to the eternal fire, while our Lord Jesus Christ sits as king and judge and says to those who conquered, the earlier and the later: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you by my Father.” But to others he will say: “Go into the eternal fire, which God has prepared for the devil and his angels,” until he provides for every soul by the remedies that he knows, and all Israel is saved.

But something else occurs to me in this place as I consider Jesus fleeing before the army of Ai. What do you think Jesus in flight signified? Let us see whether perhaps there is something that we conquer by fleeing, and whether there is a certain perfect virtue in flight. The apostle Paul teaches us, saying: “Flee sexual immorality.” You see, then, that there is a certain spirit of sexual immorality that we must flee, all of us who wish to remain chaste, devout, and pure in Christ. This, then, is the flight that brings salvation; this flight belongs to virtue; this flight confers blessedness. And not only must the spirit of sexual immorality be fled; but in the same way that it was said, “Flee sexual immorality,” let us hear it said to us: Flee anger, flee avarice, flee evil-speaking. Yet I do not know whether anyone escapes these, whether anyone gets away. Such was the army of Ai which Jesus taught his soldiers to flee; and perhaps it is about these that he commands his disciples, saying: “If they persecute you in this city, flee to another; and if in another, flee to another.” For he wants us to flee from enemies of this kind; he wants us to be far removed from evils of this kind. And if meanwhile we can escape the contagion of these evils by fleeing, then all the holy powers, seeing our devotion and the purpose of our mind — perhaps those of which the apostle Paul says, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”, who are perhaps the holy angels — seeing that we suffer the pursuit of the demons, rise up against those who pursue us and destroy them all, cutting them down from behind. For Jesus is with those who suffer pursuit rather than with those who pursue. And rightly, for Jesus delights to be with those who flee sexual immorality, who flee pride, who flee deceit, and who flee lying. If, then, we understand what is written in this way, the reading will perhaps seem worthy of the pen of the Holy Spirit. For what does it profit me to know that the king of Ai was hanged on a double tree? But if I know that the power of the cross is twofold, on which both Christ is hanged in the flesh and the devil with his army is triumphed over, my soul will be edified by understanding the mystery. And, that we may perhaps extend the breadth of the mystery still more loftily, in this tree is understood the knowledge of good and evil, on which both the good one, Christ, and the evil one, the devil, hung: the evil one so that he might perish, the good one so that he might live by power, as the Apostle too says of Christ, that “he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God”; indeed, not only that he might live, but that he might also give life, because he himself is the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. But these things are to be understood as said figuratively. For Christ himself is called the tree of life. But just as in other places he is shown to be both priest and victim and altar, and one understanding is not hindered by another, but each is perceived figuratively of him in its own place, so now too, in the figures of the mysteries, a diversity of persons drawn from one and the same thing will be no hindrance.

But let us see what is also written in what follows: “And they struck them,” it says, “with the edge of the sword, until none of them was left who was saved, nor any who escaped.” When the Jews read these things, they become cruel and thirst for human blood, thinking that the saints too struck those who lived in Ai in such a way that none of them was left who was saved, nor any who escaped; they do not understand that mysteries are foreshadowed in these words, and that what is indicated to us is rather this: that of those whose dwelling is chaos and who have reigned in the abyss, the demons, we must leave none at all, but destroy them all. And we destroy the demons, not by destroying their substance itself; but because their work and endeavor is this, to make men sin, and this is their life, that we should sin, without doubt their destruction comes if we do not sin. All the saints, then, kill the inhabitants of Ai and destroy them and do not let one of them go: those, undoubtedly, who guard their heart with all diligence, that evil thoughts may not proceed from it, and who also keep watch over their mouth, that no evil word may proceed from their mouth. This is to leave none to escape, when not even an evil word escapes them. Come, then, you too, let us prepare ourselves for battles of this kind; let us strike Ai with the edge of the sword and wipe out all its inhabitants, all the contrary powers. Would that I too, now while I speak the word of God to you, could strike the heart of sinners! If I do so, it is certain that with the sword of my mouth I shall strike sexual immorality, strike malice, check rage, and whatever other evils there are I shall wipe out with the edge of the sword, that is, with the word of my mouth, and leave none of them that is saved or that escapes. For if we wipe out all these enemies of ours, then we shall truly celebrate a feast to God, and, our adversaries conquered, we shall rejoice in a glad solemnity. Something of this kind seems to me to be signified by the holy prophet too in the Psalms, where he says of himself: “In the mornings I killed all the sinners of the land, to destroy from the city of the Lord all who work iniquity.” For whether the city of the Lord is taken to be the church of the living God — the teachers cast out of the church and kill those who work iniquity, the contrary demons and adverse powers who drive men to sin, by teaching, instructing, and unlocking the mysteries hidden in the divine letters, from places such as those in which we now are; or whether we understand the city of the Lord to be the soul of each of us, which is built by the Lord from living stones, that is, from various and diverse virtues — from this city too every holy and diligent person casts out the sinners, that is, kills the worst thoughts and depraved desires in the morning. For the righteous man says: “In the mornings I meditated on you, because you have been my helper.” What is this morning, if not our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the true light, and who, rising in our hearts, enlightening the darkness of our ignorance and revealing to us mysteries of this kind, makes us see light in his light? If, then, you ever read in the holy Scriptures of the battles of the righteous, of the slaughter and carnage of the slain, and that the saints spare no enemies at all — indeed, that if they did spare any, it was counted to them as sin, as it was counted to Saul, who had kept Agag king of Amalek alive — understand the wars of the righteous in the way we have explained above, because these wars are waged by them against sin. And how will the righteous remain righteous if they keep even a little sin in themselves? That is why it is said of them that they did not leave even one who was saved or who escaped. Perhaps you will not believe me that a battle against sin is enjoined on us; believe Paul when he says: “You have not yet resisted to the point of blood against sin.” You see that a battle against sin is set before you, and that this battle must be fought to the point of shedding blood? Or does not divine Scripture show this plainly in those places where it is its custom to say, “Sanctify war,” and, “You shall fight the battle of the Lord”? For what else is it to sanctify war than, when all the enemies of our soul, which are the vices of sins, have been slain, and the members that are on the earth have been put to death and all evil desires cut off, to be made holy in body and spirit, and, acting bravely, to come into the sight of the living God and, as the palm of victory, to be crowned for the merit of virtue by Christ Jesus our Lord? To whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.