Homilies on Joshua, Homily 15

Unless these physical wars represented spiritual wars, the books of Jewish history would never, I think, have been handed down by the apostles to the disciples of Christ, who came to teach peace, to be read in the churches. For what good would this description of wars do for those to whom Jesus says, “My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you”? And to whom it is commanded and said through the Apostle, “Not avenging yourselves,” and, “Rather accept injury,” and, “Rather put up with being cheated”? Hence the Apostle, knowing that no more wars are to be waged by us in the flesh, but that the soul must struggle hard against spiritual adversaries, like a commander gives an order to the soldiers of Christ, saying: “Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the tricks of the devil.” And so that we might have examples of these spiritual wars from the deeds of the ancients, he wished these narratives of events to be read to us in church, so that we, if we are spiritual, hearing that the law is spiritual, may compare spiritual things with spiritual in what we hear. From the nations that visibly attacked Israel in the flesh, we can see how great are the nations of hostile powers among spiritual beings, which are called the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, and which stir up wars against the church of the Lord, which is the true Israel. The Moabites come, and the Ammonites, and all those kings and invisible nations that we mentioned above come to fight against us, in order to make us sin. For just as the body dies when it receives a wound from iron, so the soul dies when it receives the wound of sin. And I think that saying the same things more often should not be tiresome for us, but is necessary for you. I wish you would hold on to these things, repeated so often and impressed on your minds, so that when you read these books you hold neither a Jewish sense nor a heretical one in them! But now that we have given this general warning, it will not be superfluous to discuss a few things specifically about what has been read. Let us go back, then, over what was passed over earlier, and discuss it.

“And Jesus did to them,” it says, “as the Lord had commanded him. He hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire. And Jesus turned back at that time and took Hazor and killed its king with the sword, and killed with the edge of the sword everyone who breathed in it, and all were exterminated, so that no one was left in it who breathed.” A command is said to have been given by God to Jesus that, after he had defeated the enemies mentioned above, he should spare none, but hamstring their horses. Hence Jesus, as if fulfilling a command of God, did as the Lord had commanded him. In this, first of all, we say to those who want it to be understood only according to the letter: if some of the enemies had survived, it would seem logical to hamstring the horses, so that no one could use them to flee. But now, since it is said that none of the enemy was left who breathed, why are the horses too ordered to be hamstrung, when they could certainly have been of use and service to the victors? And do you want to know that the Israelites were accustomed to take care of this matter and its usefulness, and to keep the animals for their own use when the enemy had been conquered? In Numbers we read it written that when, by God’s command, they had gone out to fight against the Midianites, after conquering the enemy they kept several thousand donkeys from the goods captured from the enemy, to be useful for their own needs, and it is not related there at all that they killed the donkeys after overcoming the enemy.

Let us, then, comparing holy Scripture with itself and comparing spiritual things with spiritual, ask why it is not written of the donkeys that they were hamstrung, nor are the captured goods or animals of the Midianites said to have been killed, but to have been useful for the needs of the Israelites; whereas concerning these enemies, who had not donkeys but horses, the Lord himself commanded and said, “You must hamstring their horses,” which Jesus also fulfilled as he was commanded by the Lord. Do we think that these things happened by chance, that the enemy’s horses were destroyed and the donkeys kept, and do we suppose that chance things occur in the commandments of God? Or does it seem more worthy for us to think that Scripture indicates something mystical in these things? Indeed, the sons of Israel are never reported to have used horses, and the law commands nothing about horses but about donkeys, as animals that seem to exist to help human labors and to carry their burdens, whereas horses exist rather for the destruction of men, for this is what is done with them in battles. The horse is taken as an animal with unruly movements and a proud neck. Donkeys, then, are often set by Scripture as a type of the Gentiles; just as the Savior too is shown sitting on a donkey, but is never related to have sat on a horse. And when he sends his disciples to untie the donkey and the donkey’s colt, he says to them: “If anyone questions you, say that the Lord has need of them.” And sitting on it he enters Jerusalem, and he is never said to have entered sitting on a horse. The prophet too had foretold of him that he would come to Jerusalem sitting on a donkey, saying: “Look, your king, meek, sitting on a beast of burden and a young colt of a donkey. And he will destroy the chariots of Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem.” You see, then, that according to the prophet’s saying, he who sits on a donkey will destroy the chariots of Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem. And therefore the donkeys, as we said, seem to me to bear the figure of the Gentiles, on whom the Lord is written to have sat; but the horses and chariots that are destroyed bear the figure of those who, who were in the heavens, fell through unrestrained desire and pride, when they either offered themselves as inciters to lust after the daughters of men, or followed him who said, “I will set my throne above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High.” Hence perhaps the prophet too says: “A horse is a vain hope for safety.” And again he says of those who trusted in demons: “Some in chariots and some in horses, but we will call on the name of our God.” For he would not have compared chariots and horses with God as objects of invocation, but he surely shows this: that as we call on the true God, so they call on chariots and horses, that is, on demons, whom those nations invoked that were waging war against Israel. Scripture also mentions the horses of the Egyptians, and these very horses that it now orders to be destroyed. From this we are given to understand that in the type of the donkeys the nations that come to faith are rightly preserved, while in the type of the horses and chariots the demons, who are the adversaries and enemies of human salvation, are rightly destroyed. And if we understand that the passions of the body, that is, lust, uncontrolled desire, or pride and frivolity, on which the unhappy soul rides and is carried off to precipices, are what are now called horses and chariots, and that they are what God’s command orders to be hamstrung, this understanding will not be contrary to our reasoning. For a horse is hamstrung when the body is humbled by fasts and nights spent awake and every affliction of abstinence. And the chariots are burned with fire when the word of the Lord is fulfilled in us, who says: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” With this fire those confessed that they were already burning who said: “Did not our heart burn within us when he opened the Scriptures to us?” Therefore a horse is called a vain hope for safety, if we allow the motions of our body to run unbridled and do not put the wanton and proud necks of the flesh under the yoke of abstinence. And now, if perhaps someone is stirred and pierced by these words of God that we are speaking, and he who yesterday was carried headlong and hot into lust like a horse, today, having heard these things, repents and is converted, and, according to the prophet, pierced with the fear of God, reins himself in, checks himself, calls himself back from sin, and from now on leads a modest and chaste life, then we too will be seen to have hamstrung the horses with the drawn sword of the word of God; and by this God’s command is more worthily fulfilled than if someone were to hamstring horses taken from the goods captured from the enemy. But whose horses are hamstrung? This too is worth asking. The horses, it says, of Jabin are to be hamstrung. And Jabin is interpreted “prudence” or “understanding.” What is this prudence, or what understanding, whose chariot is to be hamstrung? Surely that of which the Apostle says that “the prudence of the flesh is hostile to God,” and that understanding of which he speaks, “puffed up by the understanding of his flesh.” And Jabin is king of Hazor. Hazor is interpreted “courtyard.” This is the Hazor which is said to hold the rule over all these kingdoms: he is understood as the prince of the world, reigning in his courtyard, that is, over the earth, or, what is more, in the vices of the flesh. And the horses of all those kings too, whose power we explained before according to the interpretation of their names, are said to be killed by Jesus. If we serve rightly as soldiers under the leadership of Jesus, we must cut off these vices in ourselves and, taking the spiritual sword, hamstring all this most wicked cavalry of vices. And we must also burn the chariots, that is, cut away from ourselves every spirit of arrogance and self-exaltation, so that we may no longer call on horses or arms, but on the name of the Lord our God. And how will we fulfill in ourselves this too, that none is to be left who breathes? We must see what it is that by the Lord’s command is not allowed even to breathe. For example, if anger rises in my heart, it can happen that I do not carry out the works of anger, either deterred by fear or restrained by dread of the judgment to come; but this, it says, is not enough; rather you must act so that not even the very stirring of anger has any place in you. For if the mind boils up and is disturbed, even if it has not carried out the deed, the disturbance itself is unbecoming to one who serves under the leadership of Jesus. The same must be thought of the vice of desire, and of sadness, and of all the rest. With all these the disciple of Jesus must so deal that nothing of them at all breathes in his heart; for if either the habit or the thought of some small vice is left in the heart, it grows strong in course of time and, lurking, gradually gathers strength, and at last calls us back to our vomit, and the last state of the man to whom this happens becomes worse than the first. This is what the prophet too foresaw and warned of in the Psalms, saying: “Blessed is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock” — the little ones of Babylon, that is, who are understood to be nothing else than the evil thoughts that confuse and disturb our heart; for this is what Babylon is interpreted to mean. These thoughts, while they are still little and just beginning, must be seized and dashed against the rock, which is Christ, and killed at his command, so that nothing remains in us that breathes. As, then, there it is blessed to take the little ones of Babylon and dash them against the rock, and to kill evil thoughts at once in their beginnings, so here too it must be understood as blessed and perfect if nothing is left in us that can breathe in the manner of the Gentiles.

“And all their kings,” it says, “Jesus killed with the edge of the sword.” Sin reigned in all of us, and vices reigned in all of us, and there was a general kingdom of sin in all of us, as the Apostle says: “For all have sinned and lack the glory of God.” Yet each one had in himself some particular king who reigned in him and lorded it over him. For example, in one greed held the kingdom, in another pride, in another lying reigned, in another lust ruled, and another endured rage as his king. And that this is so, and that sin reigns in each of us, believe the apostle Paul, who says: “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so as to obey it.” There was, then, a kingdom of sin in each of us before we believed. But after Jesus came and killed all the kings who held the kingdoms of sin in us, he commanded us to kill all these kings and to leave none of them. For if anyone keeps any of them alive in himself, he cannot be in the army of Jesus. If, then, greed still reigns in you, or boastfulness, or pride, or lust, you will not be a soldier of Israel, nor are you fulfilling the command that the Lord gave to Jesus: “As Moses,” it says, “the servant of the Lord commanded him.” Here Moses the servant of the Lord is the word of the law itself, as he says in the Gospel: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” The law, then, commanded us to kill all the kings of sin that provoke us to sin. So Jesus did, and he did not violate anything of all that Moses commanded him. We have spoken, according to our earlier order of exposition, of how Jesus fulfills in us whatever the law of God, which is here called Moses, commanded; and it is he who kills the vices in us and overthrows the most wicked kingdoms of sin. But it can also be said of our Lord and Savior himself that what Moses commanded in the law Jesus did, and did not violate anything; since the Apostle says that when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, placed under the law. If, then, he was placed under the law, while he was under the law he fulfilled all that the law commanded, so that he might redeem us from the curse of the law. And he says of himself: “I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.”

“And Jesus took them all in war, because it came from the Lord that their heart was strengthened and that they came out to battle against Israel.” He did not say that Jesus took some in war and did not take others, but that he took all, that is, captured all and destroyed all. For the Lord Jesus has purged away the kinds of sin and destroyed them all. For we were all senseless, unbelieving, going astray, serving various desires, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another, and every kind of sin that is found in men before they believe. Rightly, then, it says that Jesus killed all who came out to war. For there is no kind of sin so great that Jesus, who is the Word and Wisdom of God, is not superior to it. For he surpasses and conquers all things. Do we not believe that every kind of sin is taken away when we come to the saving washing of baptism? For the apostle Paul too indicates this: after listing all kinds of sins, he adds at the end and says: “And such indeed you were; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In this way, then, he is said to have taken all in battle and destroyed all, because it came from the Lord that their heart grew strong and that they came out to battle against Israel, so that they might be exterminated. For as long as the hostile powers that work sins in us do not come out, do not provoke us to sin, and do not challenge us to fight, they cannot be killed or exterminated. That is why God is said to permit, and indeed almost to incite, the adverse powers to come out to battle against us, so that we may win the victory and they may meet destruction. Hence there seems to me to be an infinite number of hostile powers, because there are certain spirits in almost every single person, devising different kinds of sins in men. For example, there is a spirit of sexual immorality, another spirit of anger; there is a spirit of greed, and another of pride. And if there happens to be someone who is driven by all these evils, or even more, he must be thought to have all these hostile spirits in him, or even more. Hence too we must believe that there are several for each person, because individual men do not have single vices or commit single sins, but each is seen to commit several. And again, we must not think that one spirit of sexual immorality seduces both the man who, for example, commits sexual immorality in Britain and the one who does so in India or in other places, nor that there is one spirit of anger that drives different men in different places; but I rather think that there is one prince of the spirit of sexual immorality, but innumerable spirits who obey him in this office, and that different spirits serving under that prince tempt each person into sins of this kind. Likewise I think there is one prince of the spirit of anger, but innumerable spirits working under him, who kindle the sins of this vice in each individual man. Likewise there is one prince of greed, and so of pride and of the other evils. And therefore the Apostle speaks not of one principality among the hostile powers, but of several, against which he writes that he and all of us have a struggle. Yet I think there is a prince of all these, more eminent, as it were, in wickedness and higher in crime, who alone, as leader of all the princes and master of the whole wicked army, harasses the whole world, which each of those spirits tempts in part to sin through the various kinds of sins; and his figure we revealed above, as far as the small grasp of our understanding allowed, when we were discussing Jabin.

I think indeed that all the saints, fighting against these spirits that incite to sin, conquering them and overcoming each one of them, diminish the army of the demons and, as it were, kill very many of them. For example, when someone has overcome the spirit of sexual immorality by living chastely and modestly, it is no longer permitted for that spirit, conquered by that saint, to attack another man again; but just as those spirits begged Jesus not to be sent into the abyss — which the Lord granted for the present, for the sake of the present stage of his plan — so it seems consistent that each wicked spirit, when conquered by the saints, is led away either into the abyss or into the outer darkness or into whatever place it deserves, by Christ the just judge, who presides over the contest of mortals in this life. And hence it is that, now that a very great number of demons have been removed, the nations are set free to come to faith; which they would by no means be allowed to do if the legions of demons remained whole as they had been before. But if what we say seems hard to anyone, that many demons are occupied with each sinner, or if he thinks it a made-up story, let him return to the authority of the Gospel, and he will find that the man who lived among the tombs, suffering from a demon, when asked by the Savior, “What is your name?” answered, “Legion; for we are many demons,” he says. Why, then, does it seem strange if individual demons are assigned to individual kinds of sin, when it is written that a whole legion of demons was in one man? I remember that I said something similar in those places where we were expounding the verse of the psalm in which it is written: “In the mornings I killed all the sinners of the land, to destroy from the city of the Lord all who work iniquity.” So too it is said that two-edged swords are in the hands of the righteous, undoubtedly to kill the hostile powers. And I think that a stronger proof of what we have said can be brought from that statement of the apostle Paul, when he says: “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” For if Satan is one, how can he be crushed under the feet of the servants of God and then be at work again? For if he has been crushed, and crushed by God, he certainly cannot work any longer. Perhaps, then, we must think that there are as many Satans as there are those who do the works of Satan. For this seems to me to be indicated also in Wisdom, where it is said that “when the ungodly man curses Satan, he curses his own soul.”⁠a And in a short book called the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, although it is not held in the canon, we find this idea: individual Satans are to be understood in individual sinners.⁠b The meaning of his name, as people who know Hebrew explain, seems to make the same point more clearly. For Satan means “adversary.” All, then, who oppose the will of God can be called Satan. We have said these things because of what is written: “The Lord strengthened their hearts to come out to battle against Israel, so that they might be exterminated.” Blessed, then, is he who holds the spiritual sword unceasingly and does not withdraw it from the necks of these enemies of whom we spoke above, as the prophet Jeremiah too says: “Cursed is the man who does the works of the Lord negligently and keeps back his sword from the blood of the enemies.” If we understand this according to the letter, we will have to shed blood unceasingly. The Jews, who are wholly flesh and blood, think this and become cruel and implacable, saying that a curse is laid on those who cease from shedding blood; and therefore their feet are swift to shed blood. But let such an understanding seem right to them, since they are flesh and blood; as for me, may the Lord grant that I never neglect the works of the Lord nor withdraw the spiritual sword of the word of God from the blood of the hostile powers, but put them to death in each of my hearers. And they are killed in you only if, having heard these things, you do not do their works.

And it is said in what follows that “Jesus took all the land, as the Lord had commanded Moses.” In the case of Jesus the son of Nun, I do not see that he took all the land. For how much land did he take, who held only Judea? But our Lord Jesus truly took all the land himself, in that the multitude of believers runs to him from all the earth and from all nations. After this it is also added, once Jesus had taken all the land: “And the land,” it says, “rested from wars.” How will this be seen to be truly said of the son of Nun, that the land rested from wars, when in his times it hardly ever rested from wars? But this is fulfilled in my Lord Jesus Christ alone. For if you consider yourself, who have come to Jesus and through him, by the grace of baptism, have obtained the forgiveness of sins, and in whom the flesh now no longer fights against the spirit nor the spirit against the flesh, your land has rested from wars — provided that you carry about the death of Jesus Christ in your body, so that, when all wars have ceased in you, you are made a peacemaker and are called a son of God. But this will happen after you have fought through your wars and conquered your adversaries. Then rest will be given you, so that you may rest under your vine, which is Christ Jesus, and under your fig tree, which is the Holy Spirit, and so give thanks to God the Father almighty in Christ Jesus our Lord himself, to whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.