Homilies on Joshua, Homily 12

If the things foreshadowed through Moses concerning the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and all that worship are said to be a type and shadow of heavenly things, then undoubtedly the wars waged through Jesus, and the slaughter of kings and enemies, must also be said to be a shadow and type of heavenly things — namely of those wars which our Lord Jesus, with his army and his officers, that is, the peoples of believers and their leaders, wages against the devil and his angels. He is the one who, in Paul and in the Ephesians, fights against principalities and powers and the rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. And see, ungrateful heretic, how wholly the new agrees with the old. To those of old was promised the kingdom of the holy land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land that was then held by sinners and by most wicked inhabitants and kings. Jesus came into that land with the army of the Lord and the leaders of Israel; he attacks them all, kills them, takes possession, and for the merit of victory receives the kingdoms of those he has conquered. To you, through the Gospels, kingdoms of earth are not promised, but kingdoms of heaven are promised. But these kingdoms are not empty or vacant; they have their inhabitants, sinners and wicked spirits, renegade angels. There dwell those against whom Paul, sounding the apostolic trumpet, exhorts you to battle; and as there Jesus said that you will have war against the Amorites and Perizzites and Hivites and Jebusites, so here too Paul declares to you, saying: “Your struggle will not be against flesh and blood,” that is, we will not fight as the ancients fought, nor must we wage battles on earth against men, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness. Now surely you understand in what places struggles of this kind must be undertaken by you. Or if understanding is not enough for you unless the places themselves are marked for you in plain words, listen to what follows: “Against the spiritual forces,” it says, “of wickedness in the heavenly places.” You have heard who those are whom you must drive out of heaven by war and force, so that you may receive those places of the kingdom of heaven by the lot of inheritance. And does not the Lord too in the Gospel plainly indicate this, when he says: “From the days of John the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize it”?

Why, then, heretic, do you not stop bringing false charges even against our Lord and Savior, who commands that the kingdom of heaven, which he had promised to those who believe in him, be seized by force? And certainly, if force must be used, it is certain that it must be used against those in possession. For to do violence is to drive out the possessor and seize the possession. Tell me, then: what else is it that you accuse Jesus, the successor of Moses, of having done? And may we be worthy for the Lord Jesus to open to us the hall of his wisdom and lead us within the treasures of his knowledge, and graciously unlock more fully and open more perfectly to us the things whose figures we now try, step by step, to see and examine in part, as through a mirror and in a riddle. You would see how it would become clear to us which of the spiritual enemies who now attack the spiritual Israel was represented by this prince of Makkedah, and that of Lachish, and that of Libnah; or of what vice or error within you, in which the soul is entangled, each of those bears the form whom the people of the Lord killed under the leadership of Jesus — those, namely, who hear his commands and keep his commands, to whom he gives power to tread on serpents and scorpions and on all the power of the enemy. Let us pray, then, that our feet too may be such, so beautiful, so strong, that they can trample on the necks of enemies, that they can so trample on the head of the serpent that it cannot bite our heel. For he who fights under the leadership of Jesus against the hostile powers must also deserve what is written of the earlier warriors: “And all the people,” it says, “returned safe to Jesus, and none of the sons of Israel muttered with his tongue.” You see, then, that he who serves as a soldier under Jesus must return safe from battle, and must nowhere receive a wound from the fiery darts of the evil one; he must not be polluted in heart, not be stained in thought, not leave room for the demons to wound him through anger, through desire, or through any other deadly blow. And as for the addition that no one muttered with his tongue, this seems to me to show that no one boasted of the victory, no one ascribed his conquest to his own strength; but knowing that Jesus is the one who grants victory, they do not mutter with their tongue. Understanding this well, the Apostle said: “Not I, but the grace of God which is in me.” And I think that the Lord’s command looks to this too, where he says: “When you have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought to have done.” For in this too he seems in a similar way to forbid boasting over things successfully done.

But Marcion and Valentinus and Basilides and the other heretics with them, because they are unwilling to understand these things in the way worthy of the Holy Spirit, have turned aside from the faith and given themselves over to many forms of irreverence, bringing forward another God, the God of the law, the creator and judge of the world, as if he taught a kind of cruelty through these writings, in that they are commanded to trample on the necks of their enemies and to hang on a tree the kings of the land which they invade by violence. May my Lord Jesus, the Son of God, grant me this, and command me to trample with my feet the spirit of sexual immorality, to tread on the necks of the spirit of anger and rage, to tread on the demon of greed, to tread on boastfulness, to crush with my feet the spirits of pride; and when I have done this, to give credit for all the work done not to myself but to his cross, following Paul, who says that through him the world has been crucified to me, and what we mentioned above, where he says: “Not I, but the grace of God which is in me.” If I am found worthy to do this, I will be blessed, and what Jesus says to those of old will be said to me too: “Act courageously and be strong; do not fear nor be afraid of them, for the Lord God has delivered all your enemies into your hands.” If we understand these things spiritually and conduct wars of this kind spiritually, and drive all those spiritual forces of wickedness out of the heavenly places, then at last we will be able also to receive from Jesus, by the lot of inheritance, their places and kingdoms, which are the kingdoms of heaven, by the gift of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.