Homilies on Luke 30–34

Both the Son of God and the Antichrist are eager to reign. But the Antichrist desires to reign in order to kill those he has subjected to himself; Christ reigns in order to save. And each of us, if he is blessed, is ruled by Christ: by the Word, by wisdom, by righteousness, by truth. But if we are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, we are ruled by sin, of which the apostle says: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body” (Rom 6:12). Two kings, then, hasten to reign in rivalry: the devil, king of sin, over sinners; Christ, king of righteousness, over the righteous. And the devil, knowing that Christ had come to take away his kingdom, so that those who were under him might begin to be under Christ, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and of the people of this age: how some are ruled by sexual immorality, others by avarice; some are carried away by the pursuit of popularity, others captured by the allurements of beauty. Nor should it be thought that, in showing him the kingdoms of the world, he showed him, for example, the kingdom of the Persians and that of the Indians; but he showed him all the kingdoms of the world, that is, his own kingdom, how he reigned in the world, so that, urging him to do what he wanted, he might begin to have even Christ subject to him. “Do you want,” he says, “to reign over these people?” He showed him the countless multitudes of people who were held under his rule. And indeed, if we are willing to confess our misery and unhappiness plainly, the devil is king of almost the whole world; hence he is called by the Saviour the prince of this world. When he says, then, “You see these people who are under my rule,” he showed him in a moment of time, that is, in the present course of the ages, which in comparison with eternity is like a moment. For the Saviour had no need for the dignities and affairs of this age to be shown him: as soon as he turned the gaze of his eyes to look, he saw the sins that reign and those who are ruled by vices, and the prince of the world himself, the devil, coming upon him and rejoicing, to his own destruction, that he had so many under his rule. So the devil says to the Lord: Have you come to fight against me and take from my rule those whom I now hold subject? I do not want you to contend, I do not want you to struggle, lest you have any trouble in the contest. There is one thing I ask: fall down and worship me, and receive all the kingdom I hold. But our Lord and Saviour does want to reign, and to have all nations subject to him, so that they may serve righteousness, truth, and the other virtues; but he wants to reign as righteousness, so as to reign without stain and do nothing unseemly; and he does not want to be crowned without labour by becoming subject to the devil, nor to reign over others in such a way that he himself is ruled by the devil. So Jesus says to him: “It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” (Matt 4:10). All these, he says, I want to be subject to me precisely so that they may worship the Lord God and serve him only. This is the desire of my kingdom. But you want me to receive from you sins, which I have come to destroy, and which I long to take away from others too. Know and understand that I abide by what I said: that the Lord God alone may be worshipped; and I will bring all these under my power and subject them to my kingdom. Let us too rejoice to be subject to him, and let us pray the Lord that he may put to death the sin that reigns in our body, and that Christ Jesus alone may reign in us, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Search the Scriptures, so that even in passages thought to be simple you may find mysteries of no small importance. Let us search the beginning of the Gospel reading, all of us who heard it today, and what was hidden comes into the open. “And the devil brought Jesus to Jerusalem.” It is incredible that the devil should lead the Son of God and that he should follow. He followed, plainly, as an athlete going to the contest, setting out of his own accord. He did not dread the tempter, nor fear the snares of the most cunning enemy, and in a sense he said: Lead where you will, tempt as you please. I give myself freely to be tempted; I endure what you suggest. I offer myself in whatever you tempt me with; you will find me stronger in everything. “So he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” He brought him to the top, to the summit of the temple, and urges him to throw himself down from there. When he proposed this deceitfully and pressed him with the lure of glory, the Saviour said: “It is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” And consider at the same time how the devil tempts. He dares to tempt from no other source: taking a testimony from the divine books, from the psalms, he says: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written: He has commanded his angels concerning you, and they will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” Where did you get the knowledge, devil, that these things are written? Have you read the prophets, or come to know the divine oracles? Though you are silent, I will answer for you. You read them, not that you yourself might become better by reading holy things, but that by their plain sense you might kill those who are friends of the letter. You know that if you wished to speak from other books, you would deceive no one, and your assertions could have no authority. So Marcion read the Scriptures, like the devil; so Basilides, so Valentinus, so as to say with the devil to the Saviour: “It is written that he has commanded his angels concerning you, and they will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone” (Matt 4:6). If ever you hear a testimony from Scripture, take care not to assent at once to the speaker, but consider whose it is, what his opinion is, what his intent; lest perhaps he pretend to be holy when he is not, and, infected with the poison of heresy, a wolf lurk under a sheep’s skin, lest perhaps the devil be speaking in him from the Scriptures. And as the devil speaks from the Scriptures as occasion offers, so, on the contrary, Paul, for the benefit of his hearers, takes testimony not only from the Scriptures but also from secular books, and says: “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies.” And again, from another: “For we are also his offspring.” And from the comic poet: “Evil conversations corrupt good morals” (1 Cor 15:33). But neither will the devil, if he speaks from the Scriptures, be able to deceive me on that account; nor will Paul, if he takes some example from pagan literature, in any way put me off his words. For Paul took words even from those outside precisely in order to sanctify them. Let us see, then, what the devil says to the Lord from the Scriptures. For it is written: “He has commanded his angels concerning you, and they will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” See how crafty he is even in the testimonies themselves. For he wants to diminish the glory of the Saviour, as though he needed the help of angels and would strike his foot unless he were lifted up by their hands. He takes a testimony and interprets it of Christ, though it is written not of Christ but of the saints in general. Freely and with full confidence I contradict the devil: this cannot be understood of the person of Christ. For he has no need of the help of angels who is greater than the angels and has obtained an inheritance and a name better than theirs. “To which of the angels did God ever say: You are my Son, today I have begotten you?” (Heb 1:5). To none of them did he speak as to a son: “Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire”; but he spoke so to his own Son properly, of whom he says countless things in the prophets. The Son of God, I say, has no need of the help of angels. Learn rather, devil, that unless Jesus helps the angels, they will strike their foot. And if any of the angels has been seen to strike his foot (of whom we read a little while ago that “we shall judge angels”), he struck it because he did not stretch out his hand to Jesus, so that, held by him, he might not stumble. For because you trust in your own power and do not call upon the protection of Jesus, you strike your foot, and you have refused to believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God. And so that you may know that you have interpreted it badly, and that what follows is to be understood not of Christ but of the saints, listen. It is not Jesus Christ whom God delivers from ruin and the noonday demon, but the saints. Read the ninetieth psalm, which begins, “He who dwells in the help of the Most High will abide in the protection of the God of heaven,” and you will find that these words fit a righteous man rather than the Son of God: “A thousand will fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you; yet with your eyes you will look and see the reward of sinners,” and the rest, which is to be interpreted of the person of the righteous man. But even so, perversely adducing testimonies so as to claim that they are to be understood of the Saviour, the devil keeps silent and passes over the verses written against himself. For when he had said, “He has commanded his angels concerning you, and they will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone,” he kept silent about what follows: “You will walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and you will trample the lion and the dragon.” Why are you silent, devil, unless because you are the basilisk, you are the little king of all serpents, having more harmful poison than the rest? You kill anyone as soon as you see him, and you take as your ally another opposing power, which is called the asp and is subject to the righteous man; and for this reason you keep silent about it all. You are the dragon, you are the lion, of whom it is written: “You will tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and you will trample the lion and the dragon.” But though you keep silent, we who read the Scriptures more rightly know that we have power to trample you, and that this authority has been given us not only in the Old Testament, as is now sung in the psalm, but also in the New, as the Saviour says: “Behold, I give you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you” (Luke 10:19). Let us take up arms, strengthened by so great a power, and do everything so that by our conduct we may trample the lion and the dragon. And so that you may know how the lion is trampled and the dragon crushed, read the Epistle of Paul in which he says that sinners are trampled by the Son of God. As, then, one who is a sinner is trampled by the Son of God, so, on the contrary, one who is righteous tramples the lion and the dragon, and tramples all the power of the enemy, in the name of Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

On the text: “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit,” up to the place where he says, “And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.” Chapter 4. First, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert for forty days. While he was being tempted by the devil, because he still had to contend against him, the Spirit is mentioned once and twice without any addition. But when he had fought and overcome the three temptations which Scripture records, see what is set down, pointedly and carefully, about the Spirit: “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit.” “Power” has been added, because he had trampled the dragon and defeated the tempter at close quarters. “So Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into the land of Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the region; and he taught in their synagogues and was glorified by all.” Take care not to judge only those people blessed and to think yourself deprived of his teaching. If what is written is true, the Lord speaks not only then in the assemblies of the Jews but also today in this assembly; and not only in this one, but in other gatherings too, and in the whole world Jesus teaches, seeking instruments through which to teach. Pray that he may find me too tuned and fit for singing. For as almighty God seeks prophets at the time when mortals need prophecy, and finds them, for example Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, so God seeks instruments through which to teach his word, or to instruct the peoples in their synagogues, and to be glorified by all. Jesus is glorified by all now more than at the time when he was known only in one province. “Then he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and, entering the synagogue on the sabbath day according to his custom, he stood up to read; and the book of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the book he found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.” It was not by chance that he unrolled the book and found the reading that prophesied of him; this too was God’s providence. For as it is written that a sparrow does not fall into the snare without the will of the Father, and that the hairs of the apostles’ heads are all numbered (Matt 10:29–30), so perhaps this too, that the book of Isaiah in particular was found, and no other reading but this one which spoke of the mystery of Christ, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me” (for it is Christ who speaks these words), is to be thought to have come about not at random and by chance but by the providence and dispensation of God. Let us consider, then, what he spoke in the prophet and afterwards proclaimed of himself in the synagogue. “He has sent me,” he says, “to preach good news to the poor.” The poor signify the nations. For they were poor, possessing nothing at all: not God, not the law, not the prophets, not righteousness and the other virtues. For this reason God sent him to announce to the poor: “to proclaim release to captives.” We were the captives, whom Satan had bound for so many years, holding them captive and subject to himself. Jesus came to proclaim release to captives, and sight to the blind. For by his word and by the preaching of his teaching the blind see. The proclamation of release, then, is to be understood not only of captives but also of the blind. “To send the broken forth into freedom.” What was so broken and crushed as man, who was released and healed by Jesus? “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” According to the simple understanding they say that the Saviour preached the Gospel in Judaea for one year, and that this is what is meant by “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of retribution”; unless perhaps the divine word signifies some mystery in the proclamation of the year of the Lord. For there will be other days, not such as we now see in the world, and other months, and a different order of calendars. As these will be different, so the year of the Lord that is to come will be one that pleases. All these things were foretold so that, after sight in place of blindness, after freedom from chains, after healing from various wounds, we may come to the acceptable year of the Lord. “When Jesus had read these things, he rolled up the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.” Now too, if you wish, in this synagogue and assembly your eyes can be fixed on the Saviour. For when you direct the chief sight of your heart to wisdom and truth and to the contemplation of the Only-begotten of God, your eyes are looking at Jesus. Blessed the congregation of which Scripture testifies that the eyes of all were fixed on him! How I would wish this assembly to have a like testimony, that the eyes of all, catechumens and faithful, women and men and children, not the eyes of the body but of the soul, should look at Jesus. For when you have looked at him, your faces will be brighter from his light and his gaze, and you will be able to say: “The light of your face has been signed upon us, Lord” (Ps 4:6). To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

On the text: “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb,” and the rest, up to the place where he says, “But none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” As far as the plain sense of the history goes, Jesus had not yet stayed in Capernaum, nor is he described as having done any sign there, since he had not been there. Moreover, before he came to Capernaum, he is recorded as having been in his own country, that is, in Nazareth. “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we have heard was done in Capernaum, do here also in your own country.” Hence I think some mystery lies hidden in the present passage, and that Nazareth is a type of the Jews, and Capernaum a type of the Gentiles, who have gone before them (Rom 11:25). Knowing, then, that he would not have honour in his own country (neither he, nor a prophet, nor the apostles), Jesus did not wish to preach there, but preached among the Gentiles, lest the people of his own country should say to him: “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, Physician, heal yourself.” For there will be a time when the people of the Jews will say: Whatever signs and wonders I have heard were done in Capernaum, among the Gentiles, do among us too, in your own country; what you have shown to the whole world, show to us too. Preach your word to the people of Israel, so that at least, when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel may be saved (Rom 11:25–26). That is why the Saviour seems, in consequence, to have answered the questioning Nazarenes there: “No prophet is accepted in his own country.” And I think that what is said is true more according to the mystery than according to the letter, although Jeremiah was not accepted in Anathoth, his own country, nor Isaiah, whatever his country was, nor the rest of the prophets. But it seems to me rather to be understood thus: we should say that the country of all the prophets was the people of the circumcision, and that it did not receive the prophets and their prophecies, while the nations, which had been far from the prophets and had no knowledge of them, received the prophecy of Jesus Christ. No prophet, then, is accepted in his own country, that is, among the people of the Jews. But we, who were strangers to the covenant and aliens from the promises (Eph 2:12), have received the prophets with all our heart, and we have Moses and the prophets preaching of Christ more than they have, who, because they did not receive Jesus, did not receive those either who announced him. Hence to what he had said, “No prophet is accepted in his own country,” he adds something else: “But in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months.” What he says is this: Elijah was a prophet, but he was among the people of the Jews. But when he was about to do something wonderful, though there were many widows in Israel, he left them and came to a widow in Zarephath of Sidon, a Gentile woman, unfolding a figure of what was to come: for when famine prevailed, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of God, he came to the widow of whom the prophet too testifies, saying, “Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband” (Isa 54:1). And when he had come, he multiplies her bread and food. You were the widow in Zarephath of Sidon, from whose borders the Canaanite woman comes out, wanting her daughter healed, and because of her faith she deserved to receive what she asked. There were many widows, then, among the people of Israel, but to none of them was Elijah sent except to the widow woman in Zarephath. And he says something else belonging to the same sense: “There were many lepers in Israel in the days of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian,” who surely was not of Israel. Consider the many lepers to the present day in Israel according to the flesh; see, by contrast, those covered with the squalor of leprosy cleansed by the spiritual Elisha, our Lord and Saviour, and yourself cleansed by the sacrament of baptism, and it is said to you: “Rise and go into the Jordan, and wash, and your flesh will be restored to you” (2 Kgs 5:10). Naaman rose and went, and by washing fulfilled the mystery of baptism, and his flesh became like the flesh of a child, of one born in the washing of regeneration in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

On the text: “Teacher, what good shall I do to possess eternal life?” up to the place where he says, “Go and do likewise.” Though there are many precepts in the law, the Saviour set down in the Gospel only those which by a kind of short road lead the obedient to eternal life. For he is answering what the teacher of the law had asked him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to possess eternal life?” (this reading according to Luke was recited to you today). He answered: “What is written in the law? How do you read?” “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” And then: “You have answered well,” he says; “do this and you will live.” There is no doubt that by doing this he would receive the eternal life about which the teacher of the law had asked. At the same time we are clearly taught in the precept of the law to love God. In Deuteronomy it is written: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your mind,” and the rest, “and your neighbour as yourself.” And the Saviour testified to these, saying, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt 22:40). But when the teacher of the law, wishing to justify himself and to show that no one was his neighbour, said, “Who is my neighbour?” the Lord brought in a parable, which begins, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,” and the rest; and he teaches that the man going down was neighbour to no one except to him who was willing to keep the commandments and prepare himself to be a neighbour to everyone who needs help. For this is what is set at the end, after the parable: “Which of these three seems to you to have been neighbour to him who fell among robbers?” For neither the priest nor the Levite was his neighbour; but, as the teacher of the law himself answered, he who showed mercy was his neighbour. Hence the Saviour says, “Go and do likewise.” One of the presbyters, wishing to interpret the parable, used to say that the man who went down is Adam; Jerusalem is paradise; Jericho, the world; the robbers, the opposing powers; the priest, the law; the Levite, the prophets; the Samaritan, Christ; the wounds, disobedience; the beast, the Lord’s body; and the pandochium, that is, the inn, which receives all who wish to enter, he interpreted as the church. Further, the two denarii are understood as the Father and the Son; the innkeeper, the head of the church, to whom its stewardship has been entrusted. And the Samaritan’s promise that he would return figured the Saviour’s second coming. Though these things are said reasonably and beautifully, it is not to be thought that they apply to everyone. For not everyone goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho, nor do all dwell in the present age for that reason, even though he who was sent came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The man, then, who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho fell among robbers because he himself chose to go down. And the robbers are none other than those of whom the Saviour says, “All who came before me were thieves and robbers” (John 10:8). Yet he fell not among thieves but among robbers far worse than thieves, who, when he had fallen among them on his way down from Jerusalem, stripped him and laid blows on him. What are the blows? What are the wounds with which the man was wounded? Vices and sins. Then, because the robbers who had stripped and wounded him do not stay by the naked man, but, having laid on further blows, leave him, therefore it is written: “Stripping him and inflicting wounds, they went away,” leaving him not dead but half dead. And it happened that on the same road first a priest and then a Levite went down, who perhaps had done some good to other people, but not to this man who had gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho. For the priest saw him (the law, I think); the Levite saw him (the prophetic word, I suppose). And when they had seen him, they left him and passed by. For providence was keeping the half-dead man for one who was stronger than the law and the prophets, namely the Samaritan, whose name means “guardian.” He it is who neither slumbers nor sleeps, guarding Israel. For the sake of the half-dead man this Samaritan set out, not going down from Jerusalem to Jericho as the priest and the Levite did; or, if he did go down, he went down to save and guard the dying man. To him the Jews said, “You are a Samaritan and have a demon” (John 8:48). Though he denied having a demon, he would not deny being a Samaritan; for he knew that he was the guardian. So when he came to the half-dead man and saw him rolling in his own blood, he had pity and came to him, to become his neighbour. He bound his wounds, poured on oil mixed with wine, and did not say what is read in the prophet: “There is no poultice to apply, nor oil, nor bandages” (Isa 1:6). This is the Samaritan whose care and help all who are sick need. The man who went down from Jerusalem, fell among robbers, and was wounded by them and left half alive needed this Samaritan’s help above all. And so that you may know that it was by God’s providence that this Samaritan came down to care for the man who had fallen among robbers, you will be clearly taught by the fact that he had with him bandages, oil, and wine. These, I think, the Samaritan carried with him not for this one half-dead man alone, but for others too who had been wounded for various reasons and needed bandages and oil and wine. He had the oil of which it is written, “to make the face glad with oil”; and without doubt the swellings of the wounds of the man he cared for were soothed with oil too. And with wine he cleanses the wounds, mixing in something sharp. And he set the wounded man on his beast, that is, on his own body, in that he deigned to assume a man. This Samaritan bears our sins and grieves for us (Isa 53:4); he carries the half-dead man and brings him into the pandochium, that is, into the church, which receives all and denies its help to no one, to which Jesus calls everyone, saying, “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you” (Matt 11:28). And after he has brought him in, he does not leave at once, but stays one day in the inn with the half-dead man and tends his wounds not only by day but also by night, giving him all his care and diligence. And when he wished to set out in the morning, from his tested silver, from his tested money, he takes two denarii and charges the innkeeper (without doubt the angel of the church), commanding him to care for the man diligently and bring him to health, the man whom he himself had cared for during the short time. The two denarii seem to me to be the knowledge of the Father and the Son, and the understanding of the mystery of how the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. These are given as wages to the angel, so that he may care more diligently for the man entrusted to him; and he is promised that whatever of his own he spends on healing the half-dead man will be repaid at once. Truly this guardian of souls was more a neighbour than the law and the prophets: he showed mercy to the man who had fallen among robbers and proved himself his neighbour not so much in word as in deed. Since, then, according to what follows, it is possible for us to imitate Christ and to have mercy on those who have fallen among robbers, to come to them, bind their wounds, pour in oil and wine, set them on our own beast, and bear their burdens, therefore the Son of God, exhorting us to such things, speaks not so much to the teacher of the law as to all of us: “Go and do likewise.” If we do likewise, we shall attain eternal life in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.