Homilies on Leviticus 9.5–9.9

Perhaps in another way too the ready and clean man who leads away the goat whose lot has come to the wilderness, and who, by the very act of leading him out, as though he had touched something unclean, is said to wash his garments in the evening and to be clean, can be understood as our Lord and Saviour himself, in respect of that part in which he took up the garments of our nature, that is, of flesh and blood, which he washed in the evening. This is why the prophet had long before said of him: “And I saw Jesus the great priest, clothed in soiled garments, and the devil standing at his right hand to oppose him.” He washed, then, his robe in wine, that is, in his own blood, in the evening, and became clean. And perhaps it was for this reason that after the resurrection he said to Mary, who wished to hold his feet: “Do not touch me.” Do you want to see yet another figure of the two lots? Consider those two robbers who at the time of his cross hung one at his right and one at his left, and see that the one who confessed the Lord became the Lord's lot and was led without delay to paradise, while the other, who blasphemed, became the lot of the apopompaeus, to be led into the wilderness of hell. And also in what is said, that he nailed the opposing principalities and powers to his cross and triumphed over them, he fulfilled in them the lot of the apopompaeus and, as the ready man, led them away into the wilderness. Indeed, in the Gospel too the Lord says that “when an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it goes through deserted places seeking rest, and does not find it.” Thus our Saviour too can be understood as the ready man, who made his church the Lord's lot and consecrated it to the divine altar, but made the opposing powers the lot of the apopompaeus: the spirits of wickedness and the rulers of this world of darkness, whom, as the Apostle says, he led out with power, triumphing over them in himself. He led them out: where did he lead them out, if not to the wilderness, to deserted places? For just as by saying to the one who confessed, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” he opened the gates of paradise, and through this gave the way of entrance to all who believe and confess, which Adam by sinning had formerly shut (for who else could remove the flaming and turning sword which was set to guard the tree of life and the doors of paradise? Who else could turn aside the cherubim keeping watch in sleepless guard, but he alone to whom all power has been given in heaven and on earth?), so, I say, as no one but he could do these things, so no one else could triumph over the principalities and powers and the rulers of the world whom the Apostle enumerates, and lead them away into the wilderness of hell, but he alone who said: “Take courage, I have conquered the world.” Therefore it was necessary that my Lord and Saviour not only be born a man among men but also descend to the underworld, so that as the ready man he might lead the lot of the apopompaeus into the wilderness of hell, and, returning from there with his work completed, ascend to the Father, and there be more fully purified at that heavenly altar, so as to endow with perpetual purity the pledge of our flesh which he had carried up with him. This, then, is the true Day of Atonement, when God was made propitious to men. As the Apostle too says: “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” And again he says of Christ: “Making peace through the blood of his cross, whether things in heaven or things on earth.” It is commanded in the law, then, that on the Day of Atonement all the people humble their soul. How the people are to humble their soul he himself says: “Days will come,” he says, “when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” Several feast days are kept according to the law. There is a solemn day in the first month, and another in the second. And in the first month there is one festival of the Passover and another of the unleavened bread, although the festival of the Passover seems joined to the unleavened bread, for the beginning of the unleavened bread is joined to the end of the Passover. Only that day is called Passover on which the lamb is killed; the remaining days are called days of unleavened bread. For it says: “You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread seven days.” This, then, is the first festival. After this, it says, “when you have reaped your harvest and gathered the produce of your field, you shall keep a feast day of the first fruits of your crops.” This is the day seven weeks after the Passover, that is, Pentecost, when one is also commanded to say: “and you shall cleanse the holy things from my house.” After this, in the seventh month, comes the new moon of the trumpets, as it is said in the Psalm: “Blow the trumpet at the beginning of the month of the trumpet.” On the tenth day of the seventh month is the festival of atonement. On this day alone the high priest is clothed in all the high-priestly garments; then he puts on the manifestation and the truth; then he enters those inaccessible places which may be approached only once a year, that is, the Holy of Holies. For once a year the high priest, leaving the people, enters that place where the mercy seat is, and above the mercy seat the cherubim, where also the ark of the covenant is and the altar of incense, where no one may enter but the high priest alone. If, then, I consider my true high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, how, placed in the flesh, he was with the people throughout the whole year (that year of which he himself says, “He sent me to preach good news to the poor, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of release”), notice how once in this year, on the Day of Atonement, he enters the Holy of Holies: that is, when, his dispensation fulfilled, he passes through the heavens and enters to the Father, to make him propitious to the human race and to intercede for all who believe in him. Knowing this propitiation of his, by which he makes the Father propitious to men, the apostle John says: “I say these things, little children, that we may not sin. But if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.” And Paul likewise mentions this propitiation when he says of Christ: “whom God put forward as a propitiator in his blood through faith.” The Day of Atonement, then, remains for us until the sun sets, that is, until the world comes to its end. For we stand before the doors, awaiting our high priest, who abides within the Holy of Holies, that is, with the Father, and intercedes for the sins of those who await him; he does not intercede for the sins of all. For he does not intercede for those who come into the lot of that goat which is sent out into the desert. He intercedes only for those who are the Lord's lot, who await him before the doors, who do not depart from the temple, devoting themselves to fasting and prayer. Or do you think that you, who scarcely come to church on feast days, and are not attentive to hearing the divine words, and take no pains to fulfil the commandments, can have the Lord's lot come upon you? Yet we pray that, having heard these things at least, you will take pains not only to hear the words of God in church but also at home to exercise yourselves and meditate on the law of the Lord day and night; for there too Christ is, and he is present everywhere to those who seek him. For this reason it is commanded in the law that we meditate on it when we walk on the way, when we sit in the house, when we lie in bed, and when we rise; and this is truly to await before the doors the high priest who abides within the Holy of Holies, and to be made the Lord's lot.

But let the hearer not take what we say about the lot as though some such lot were meant as is usually cast among men by chance and not by judgment. The Lord's lot is to be taken as if it were said “the Lord's choice” or “the Lord's portion”; and again the lot of the one sent into the wilderness is to be taken as that portion which, because of its unworthiness, is spurned and cast off by the Lord. Indeed the very word apopompaeus rather carries the meaning of something cast off and rejected. From this we can also understand the following. Suppose, for example, an evil thought rises in your heart, a desire for another man's wife or for your neighbour's property: understand at once that this belongs to the lot of the apopompaeus; cast it off immediately and drive it out of your heart. How do you cast it off? If you have with you the hand of the ready man, that is, if the divine reading is in your hands and God's commandments are kept before your eyes, then you will truly be found ready to cast off and repel what belongs to the alien lot. And if anger rises in your heart, or jealousy, or envy, or malice to trip up a brother, be ready to cast them off, drive them out, and send them away into the wilderness. But if it rises in your heart to think the things of God, about mercy, righteousness, piety, and peace, these belong to the Lord's lot; these are offered at the altar; these the high priest receives, and in these he reconciles God to you. For this reason, then, the one who casts out the goat that bears the lot of the apopompaeus, that is, evil thoughts and evil desires, is not a sluggish man nor one occupied with worldly business, but is ready, prompt, and watchful; and even if he seems to be soiled because he has touched something unclean, he will at once wash his garments and be clean. As regards each of us, according to the moral sense, we can understand the ready man to be the reason itself that is within us, by which we discern good and evil. Even if it seems to be soiled while it discerns and handles evil things, yet if it casts them off, drives them from the heart, and puts them to flight far away, then the rational mind, as though purified and washed by better thoughts, will appear clean. And do not be surprised that we have also applied to the person of the Saviour the one who casts out the goat and drives it into the wilderness, because he is said to wash his garments and become clean, for we read in the prophet, as we said above, that it is said of the Lord: “And I saw Jesus the great priest clothed in soiled garments.” If this is rightly understood as said of his taking flesh, the same figure can be kept here also in the washing of the garments.

Let us see after this what the high priest is to do. “And he shall take,” it says, “a censer full of coals of fire from the altar which is before the Lord.” We read also in Isaiah that the prophet is purged with fire by one of the seraphim, who was sent to him, when he took with tongs one of the coals that were on the altar and touched the prophet's lips and said: “See, I have taken away your iniquities.” These things seem to me mystical, and to indicate this: that to each person, according to that in which he sins, if he is worthy to be purified, coals are applied to his members. For since the prophet here says, “I have unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips,” therefore the coal taken with tongs by the seraph cleanses his lips, the only part in which he confesses that he is not clean. From this it is shown that his sin was found only as far as speech, while in deed or work he had not sinned at all; otherwise he would have said, “I have an unclean body,” or “I have unclean eyes,” if he had sinned by coveting what belonged to others, and he would have said, “I have unclean hands,” if he had polluted them with wicked works. But now, since perhaps he was conscious only in speech of that fault of which the Lord says, “For you will give account even of an idle word on the day of judgment,” because it is hard even for the perfect to avoid faults of speech, therefore the prophet needed only the purging of his lips. But as for us, if each one returns to his own conscience, I do not know whether we can excuse any member of the body as not needing fire. The prophet, because he was clean in all the rest, deserved that one of the seraphim be sent to him to purge only his lips. But I fear that we deserve fire not in single members but in the whole body. For when the eyes run wanton, whether through unlawful desires or through the devil's spectacles, what else do they gather for themselves but fire? When the ears are not turned away from vain listening and from the slandering of neighbours, when the hands are in no way held back from murder, nor from robbery and plunder, when the feet are swift to shed blood, and when we hand over the body not to the Lord but to sexual immorality, what else are we doing but handing over the whole body to Gehenna? Yet when these things are said, they are held in contempt. Why? Because faith is lacking. Otherwise, if you were told today that the judge of this world means to burn you alive tomorrow, and after hearing this you had the space of one day free, how much would you do? How and to whom would you run? How humble, how mournful and squalid would you go about? Would you not pour out all your money on those by whose intercession you believed you could escape? Would you not make everything you possess the ransom of your soul? And if anyone tried to delay or hinder you, would you not say, “Let everything perish for my safety, and let nothing remain, so long as I live”? Why would you do this? Because there you would not doubt; here you doubt. And therefore the Lord rightly says: “When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on earth?” And why do I speak of certain and undoubted dangers? If only a case is to be pleaded before an earthly judge which seems to carry some fear under the laws, does one not keep watch through every night, are not gifts prepared for the advocate and patron, even if the danger is doubtful, or a matter only of fear of disgrace or of loss? Why do we not believe that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive what is due for what he did in the body, whether good or evil? If we believed this wholeheartedly, it would be for us as it is written: “The ransom of a man's soul is his riches.” But how can we feel, believe, or understand these things, when we do not even come together to hear them? For which of you gives a hearing when the Scriptures are read? God threatens through the prophet, and indeed in great wrath: “And I will send a famine on the earth, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of God.” But now God has not sent a famine on his church, nor a thirst for hearing the word of God. For we have the living bread which came down from heaven; we have living water springing up to eternal life. Why do we kill ourselves with hunger and thirst in a time of plenty? It belongs to a sluggish and idle soul to suffer want in an abundance of everything. Have you not heard from the divine Scriptures that there is a struggle in men, of the flesh against the spirit and of the spirit against the flesh? And do you not know that if you nourish the flesh alone and cherish it with constant softness and unbroken delights, it will necessarily grow insolent against the spirit and become stronger than it? If that happens, it will without doubt bring the spirit under its sway and force it to obey its laws and vices. But if you come often to church, turn your ear to the divine writings, and take in the explanation of the heavenly commandments, then, as the flesh grows strong on food and delights, so the spirit will grow strong on divine words and meanings, and, made stronger, will force the flesh to submit to it and obey its laws. The nourishment of the spirit, then, is the divine reading, constant prayers, and the word of teaching. On these foods it is fed, by these it grows strong, by these it is made victorious. Since you do not do this, do not complain of the weakness of the flesh; do not say, “We want to, but we cannot; we want to live in self-control, but we are deceived by the frailty of the flesh and assailed by its goads.” You give your flesh its goads; you arm it against your spirit and make it powerful, when you sate it with meats, flood it with too much wine, pamper it with every softness and nourish it for allurements. Or do you not know that this building of the church cannot be built of leprous stones? Hear what the Apostle says: “A little leaven corrupts the whole lump. Clean out, then, the old leaven, that you may be a new lump.” But let us return to our subject.

“And he shall take,” it says, “a censer full of coals.” Not all are purged by that fire which is taken from the altar. Aaron is purged by that fire, and Isaiah, and any who are like them. But others who are not such, among whom I count myself, will be purged by another fire. I fear it may be that of which it is written: “Rivers of fire ran before him.” This fire is not from the altar. The fire that is from the altar is the Lord's fire; but that which is outside the altar is not the Lord's but belongs to each sinner himself, of which it is said: “Their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched.” This fire, then, belongs to those who kindled it, as it is also written elsewhere: “Walk in your own fire and in the flame that you have kindled for yourselves.” But to Isaiah it is not this kind of fire that is applied but the fire of the altar, which purged his lips all around; and likewise to him of whom it is said: “And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar, which is before the Lord, and shall fill his hands with fine incense of the compound.” This our Lord did more fully. For he filled his hands with fine incense, of which it is written: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight.” He filled his hands, then, with the holy works which he wrought for the human race. And why is it called incense “of the compound”? Because the species of works is not one; what pleases God is compounded of righteousness and of piety, of self-control, of prudence, and of all virtues of this kind. And the word he adds, “fine,” we do not understand idly. For he does not want one who is striving toward perfection to understand the word of God coarsely and carnally, but to search out a fine and subtle sense in it, so that if perhaps he hears it written, “You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain,” he will understand this not of oxen, for God's care is not for oxen, but as said of the apostles. And if anyone can expound the doctrine of God's providence, which is most fine and subtle, he is said to fill his hand with fine incense. Which of us, then, is so prompt and ready that he can offer fine incense of the compound to the high priest as he is about to enter the Holy of Holies? For each of us must offer something to the tabernacle of God, something also for the high-priestly garments, and something which through the hands of the high priest may ascend to God himself as a fragrant odour. Our high priest, then, the Lord and Saviour, opens his hands and wishes to receive fine incense of the compound from each of us; we must seek out the kinds of incense. We must seek frankincense, and not just any frankincense, but clear. The high priest does not want to receive from you anything dark or dirty; he seeks what is clear. He also asks of you galbanum, whose nature is that its odour drives away harmful serpents. He also seeks from you stacte, for he wants our words and our works to be strained and refined. He also seeks onycha, by which, as by a kind of shield, the soul may be covered and remain unharmed. Thus he wants you to be protected by the shield of faith, with which you may quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. Yet he wants all these to be compounded by you: nothing disordered, nothing restless, nothing unseemly, but he wants all our things to be done in order and decently. Even now, then, our true high priest Christ stands and wishes his hands to be filled with fine compounded incense; and from every church under heaven he considers what is offered, how wholly and carefully each compounds its incense, how fine it makes it: that is, how each of us orders his works, and how he examines the sense and words of the Scriptures by spiritual explanation. Nor is the ministry of angels lacking for such offices. For the angels of God ascend and descend upon the Son of Man; they search out and inquire carefully what they may find in each of us to offer to God. They see and scrutinize the mind of each of us, whether it has anything of this kind, whether it thinks anything so holy that it deserves to be offered to God. They look closely and consider whether any of us is pierced in heart by what is said in church and turns his mind to repentance, whether on hearing these things he thinks of correcting his ways, forgetting the past and preparing himself for what is to come, at least like that most impious Ahab, of whom the Lord says: “Have you seen how Ahab's heart was pierced?” But in all this, what shall I say of those who neither hear these things with their ears nor receive them in their heart? What hope of compunction is there in them, what suspicion of conversion, what expectation of amendment? For if we are doubtful even about those who hear, what do we hope for from those who do not hear at all? But let us use the Lord's words and say: “Let those who have ears to hear, hear”; and let those who hear know that it is written: “When you turn and groan, then you will be saved and will know where you have been.” And: “If you first tell your sins, I will hear you as a holy people.” Have you heard how, even if you have been a sinner, provided only that you have turned and ceased from sin, you are now called holy? Nothing, then, is to be despaired of for those who are pierced in heart and turn to the Lord. For the wickedness of sins does not surpass the goodness of God.

The high priest, then, takes a censer full of coals of fire from the altar which is before the Lord, fills his hand with fine incense of the compound, and carries it inside the veil. Let us understand first what the literal account signifies, and then we shall ask what the spiritual sense contains. The building of the tabernacle of testimony, or of the temple of the Lord, is twofold. The first is the one in which stands the altar of burnt offerings, which is kept burning with perpetual fires; in this building only the priests may stand and celebrate the rites and ministries of the sacrifices, and access is granted neither to the Levites nor to anyone else. The second building is the inner one, separated from the first only by a veil. Within that veil are the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat, over which two cherubim are set, and the altar of incense is placed there. Into this building, once a year, whoever was high priest at the time entered, having first offered the victims of atonement which we have expounded above, with both hands full, one with a censer of coals and the other with the compounded incense, so that as soon as he had entered, the incense being placed on the coals, smoke would rise and fill the whole building, and the cloud of incense would veil the sight of the holy things which the entrance of the high priest had laid open. Now that the ancient custom of the sacrifices is plain to you, let us see what these things contain according to the mystical sense. You have heard of two buildings: one, as it were, visible and open to the priests; the other invisible and inaccessible: except for the high priest alone, all the rest are outside. That first building, I think, can be understood as this church in which we now are, placed in the flesh, in which the priests minister at the altar of burnt offerings, kindled with that fire of which Jesus said, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it be kindled.” And I would not have you surprised that this building is open only to priests. For all who have been anointed with the ointment of the holy chrism have been made priests, as Peter too says to the whole church: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” You are, then, a priestly race, and therefore you approach the holy things. But each of us also has his own burnt offering within himself, and himself kindles the altar of his burnt offering, so that it may always burn. If I renounce all that I possess and take up my cross and follow Christ, I have offered a burnt offering at the altar of God; or if I give up my body to be burned, having love, and attain the glory of martyrdom, I have offered myself as a burnt offering at the altar of God. If I love my brothers so as to lay down my life for my brothers, if I contend for righteousness and for truth even to death, I have offered a burnt offering at the altar of God. If I mortify my members from every desire of the flesh, if the world is crucified to me and I to the world, I have offered a burnt offering at the altar of God, and I myself become the priest of my own victim. In this way, then, the priesthood is exercised in the first building, and victims are offered; and from this building the high priest, clothed in sanctified garments, sets out and enters inside the veil, as we cited above the words of Paul, who says: “Jesus did not enter a holy place made with hands, but passed into heaven itself, and appears before the face of God for us.” The place of heaven, then, and the very throne of God, is designated by the figure and image of the inner building. But behold the wonderful order of the mysteries. The high priest, entering the Holy of Holies, carries fire with him from this altar, and receives the incense in this building. And the garments with which he is clothed he took from this place. Do you think that my Lord, the true high priest, will deign to receive from me also some portion of fine compounded incense to carry with him to the Father? Do you think he will find in me some spark of fire, and my burnt offering burning, so that he may deign to fill his censer with coals from it and in them offer to God the Father a fragrant odour? Blessed is the one whose burnt offering he finds with coals so living and so fiery that he judges them fit to set upon the altar of incense. Blessed is the one in whose heart he finds a sense so subtle, so fine, and so spiritual, and so compounded of the varied sweetness of the virtues, that he deigns to fill his hands from it and offer to God the Father the sweet odour of his understanding. But unhappy, on the contrary, is the soul whose fire of faith is quenched and in whom the warmth of love grows cold: when our heavenly high priest comes to it, seeking from it fiery and burning coals on which to offer incense to the Father, he finds in it dry ashes and cold embers. Such are all those who withdraw and keep themselves far from the word of God, lest by hearing the divine discourses they be kindled to faith, grow warm in love, be set on fire for mercy. Do you want me to show you how fire goes out from the words of the Holy Spirit and kindles the hearts of believers? Hear David saying in the psalm: “The word of the Lord is fiery.” And again it is written in the Gospel, after the Lord had spoken with Cleopas: “Was not our heart burning within us,” it says, “while he opened the Scriptures to us?” From where, then, will you burn? From where will coals of fire be found in you, who are never set on fire by the word of the Lord, never inflamed by the words of the Holy Spirit? Hear David himself saying: “My heart grew hot within me, and in my meditation a fire will blaze.” From where do you grow hot? From where is the fire kindled in you, who never meditate on the divine words? Or, what is more unhappy, you grow hot at the spectacles of the circus, you grow hot at the contests of horses, at the struggles of athletes. Yet this fire is not from the altar of the Lord; it is what is called strange fire, and you heard a little above that those who offered strange fire before the Lord were destroyed. You grow hot also when anger fills you and when rage inflames you; at times you burn with carnal love and are tossed by the fires of the most shameful lust. But all this fire is strange and contrary to God, and whoever kindles it will without doubt bear the lot of Nadab and Abihu.