Homilies on Joshua, Homily 5

Of those who crossed the Red Sea the Apostle says that all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Of those who crossed the Jordan we too can declare in a similar way that all were baptized into Jesus in the Jordan, so that the things related as done at the Jordan bear the form of the sacrament that is celebrated through baptism. But what is written, “And the people hurried to cross the Jordan; and when all the people had crossed, the ark of the covenant of the Lord also crossed,” does not seem to me to have been added idly by the Holy Spirit, when he said that the people hurried to cross. Hence I too think that for us also, when we come to saving baptism and receive the sacraments of the word of God, the matter must not be handled idly or sluggishly, but we must hurry and press on until we have crossed everything. For to cross everything is to fulfill everything that is commanded. Let us hurry, then, to cross, that is, first to fulfill what is written: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” so that, laying aside all arrogance and taking up the humility of Christ, they may be worthy to attain the promised blessedness. But when we have fulfilled this, we must not stand still or cease, but cross the others too that follow, that we may hunger and thirst for righteousness. We must cross what follows, that we may mourn in this world. The rest too must be crossed quickly, that we may become meek and remain peacemakers, so that through this we may be called sons of God. We must also hurry to cross the time of persecutions by the virtue of patience. And when we have gained each of these things that belong to the glory of virtue, not lazily or carelessly but with all urgency and speed, this seems to me to be crossing the Jordan in haste. But when we have crossed and been able to obtain what we ought to obtain, we must then take care to remain diligent and cautious, so that, if we walk less carefully, our steps will not slip into an unexpected fall, as the prophet also says: “My steps had nearly slipped.” Nor should our concern be less in keeping the virtues than in acquiring them.

Are not these signified to you in what is said, that forty thousand men with their belts fastened, or ready for action, crossed over for battle in the sight of the Lord to take the city of Jericho? Let us ask who these are whom Scripture calls belted or ready. I do not dare to assume an answer of my own and pronounce judgment on it; let us rather be taught in such matters by the Apostle’s letters. Let us learn from Paul’s exposition who these men with their belts fastened are. Listen to what he says: “Stand, then, with truth fastened around your waist.” You see, then, that Paul recognizes as ready those whose belts of truth are fastened. Truth, therefore, ought to be our belt too, if indeed we keep the sacrament of this military service and of its belt. For if truth is our belt, which we fasten on to serve Christ, whenever we speak falsely and a lie comes from our mouth, our belts for Christ’s service are unfastened and stripped of the sword-belt of truth. So if we are in truth, our belts are fastened; if in falsehood, they are unfastened. But let us rather imitate these forty thousand men with their belts fastened who go before into battle in the sight of the Lord, and let us always have truth fastened around us. Nor will I pass over idly what Scripture adds, that the men with their belts fastened go forward in the sight of the Lord. For it is not enough to seem to keep the truth before men. It is possible to deceive men and to seem truthful, but this does not mean that your belt of truth is fastened unless you keep the truth in the sight of the Lord too, that is, not only in what men hear with the voice, but also in what God sees in the heart, so that nothing false is stored in the heart, as the prophet says of such men: “Who speak peace with their neighbor, but evil is in their hearts.” One who wishes to go out with his belt fastened in the sight of the Lord to take Jericho must be free of all these things, because in crossing the river Jordan we cross over to battles and wars. Do you want to learn again what battles await us, what wars receive us? Do not learn it from me, but again from the apostle Paul himself; he teaches you, saying: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” These written accounts are patterns and symbols. For so the Apostle says: “All these things happened to them in figure, but they were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” If, then, they were written for our sake, come, why do you delay? Let us go out to war, that the city of this world’s malice may be taken by us, that the walls of proud sin may be destroyed. Perhaps you look around for the road by which you must advance, for the battlefield you must seek. What I am about to say will perhaps seem new to you, but it is true: look for nothing outside, apart from yourself. Within you is the battle you are to fight; within is the evil building that must be torn down; your enemy comes from your own heart. This is not my word but Christ’s. Listen to him saying: “For evil thoughts come from the heart, murders, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies.” Do you see how large the army of your enemies is, and what kind of army comes against you from your heart? These must be routed by us in the first slaughter, these laid low in the first line of battle. If we can overthrow their walls and cut them down to destruction, so that we leave none of them to bring word or to draw breath, if none of them at all breaks out alive again in our thoughts, then through Jesus that rest will be given us, that each may rest under his vine and under his fig tree, when there is no longer anyone to terrify the sons of Israel.

Yet forty thousand armed men cross the Jordan, with their belts fastened, in the sight of the Lord for battle, and then Scripture says that “on that day the Lord exalted Jesus in the sight of all the people of Israel.” This exaltation may well have belonged to the son of Nun, so that as leader of that people he might be held in honor among those he ruled; but let us see how our Jesus, my Lord, the leader and ruler of this people, is exalted in the sight of all the people of Israel. I think that he is always exalted and lofty with the Father. But what is needed is that God should exalt him in our sight. And he is exalted in my sight when the supreme greatness of his divinity is revealed to me. When, then, was his lofty divinity revealed to me? Surely then, when I crossed the Jordan and was being armed for the battles to come with the various defenses of the sacraments.

“And they feared Jesus,” it says, “as they feared Moses.” Everyone who is under the law fears Moses; but when he has crossed over from the law to the Gospel, with the change of observance the fear too is changed, as the Apostle says: “For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God; I have been crucified with Christ. And now it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

After this the son of Nun is ordered to make knives of stone, and to sit and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time. I would like here to ask the Jews how anyone can be circumcised a second time with the circumcision of the flesh. For once a man has been circumcised, he has nothing further that could be removed a second time. But by us, to whom it is said that “the law is spiritual,” see how worthily and fittingly these things are explained. For we say that one who has been trained in the law and taught by Moses has cast off the errors of idolatry and laid aside the superstition and worship of images. This is the first circumcision, through the law. But if he comes from the law and the prophets to the faith of the Gospel, then he receives also the second circumcision, through the rock, which is Christ, and what the Lord said to Jesus is fulfilled: “Today I have taken away the reproach of Egypt from the sons of Israel.” And as the Apostle said, “They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ,” so we too can fittingly say here: They were circumcised by the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. For unless someone has been purified through the Gospel by the second circumcision, he cannot lay aside the reproach of Egypt, that is, the temptations of bodily vices.

Let us see, however, what this is that is said: “Today I have taken away the reproach from the sons of Israel.” All men, even if they come from the law, even if they have been instructed by Moses, still have in themselves the reproach of Egypt, the reproach of sins. Who will be like Paul, even in the observance of the law? Listen to him saying: “As to the righteousness which is in the law, I lived blameless.” Yet he declares and says: “For we too were once foolish, unbelieving, going astray, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” Do these not seem to you reproaches, and reproaches of Egypt? But since Christ came and gave us the second circumcision through the baptism of regeneration and purified our souls, we have cast all these away, and in their place have taken up the pledge of a good conscience in the Lord. Then through the second circumcision the reproaches of Egypt were taken away from us and the vices of sins purged. Let no one, then, if he has been wholly converted, if he has repented from the heart, if he has faithfully crossed the streams of the Jordan, if he has been purified by the second circumcision through the Gospel, fear the reproaches of his past offenses. You hear that today he has taken away from you the reproach of Egypt. The Lord signifies this too in the Gospels when he says: “Your sins are forgiven you; but now sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” For if after the forgiveness of sins you sin no more, the reproach of Egypt has truly been taken away from you. But if you sin again, the old reproaches roll back upon you again, all the more because it is a far greater crime to trample on the Son of God and count the blood of the covenant unclean than to neglect the law of Moses. For it is a far greater reproach for one who commits sexual immorality after the Gospel than for one who does so while placed under the law, because he takes the members of Christ and makes them members of a prostitute. You see, then, how much heavier and more numerous are the reproaches that roll back upon you if you are negligent. Indeed, no one now accuses you of sexual immorality, but condemns you for the crime of sacrilege, because it is said to you: “Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of God? And if anyone violates the temple of God, God will destroy him.” Even if you did not know this before, yet now, since these words are spoken in your ears and teaching of this kind is poured into your heart, know that, having heard these things, you have now been made the temple of God and a member of Christ. See how far you have advanced from being a little man of earth. You have advanced, without doubt, into the temple of God, in which God must dwell; and you who were flesh and blood have advanced so as to be a member of Christ. But as this advance is great, so departure is terrible, and a fall almost beyond remedy. For you may no longer use the temple of God except in holiness, nor turn the members of Christ back to unworthy business. And therefore if ever the temptation of evil desire attacks you, remember what you now hear, go out to meet that enemy who comes from yourself, that is, from your heart, and resist him with words like these, and say: I am not my own, for I have been bought with the price of the blood of Christ and have been made his member. I may not take a member of Christ and make it the member of a prostitute. Tell him: I have been made the temple of God; I may not bring anything unclean in there, nor is it lawful for me to violate the temple of God. And add this too: that he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body — not against this body only, which has been made the temple of God, but also against that of which it is said that the whole church is the body of Christ; and he who has stained his own body is seen to sin against the whole church, because through one member the stain spreads into the whole body. There is also that reproach of Egypt which, if you are negligent, is suggested even after the crossing of the Jordan and after the second circumcision of baptism by the brand of old habit: to observe auguries, to inquire into the courses of the stars and pry from them into the outcome of future events, to watch for omens, and to be entangled in the other superstitions of this kind. For Egypt is the mother of idolatry, and it is certain that reproaches of this kind sprout from it: if you take them up after the Jordan has been crossed and entangle yourself again in these snares, you undoubtedly drag the reproaches of Egypt along with you. But if ever such curiosity accosts you and an enemy of this kind bursts out of your heart, tell him: I follow Jesus as my leader, in whose power are the things to come. What is it to me to know the things to come? Whatever he wills is what will happen. Therefore, that the second circumcision may truly be fulfilled in us, through which we lay aside the old reproaches of Egypt, we must be wholly separated from all these things, so that, purified in body and heart, we may lift up pure hands to God, and with pure mouth too, with cleansed lips and sincere mind, glorify God by prayer and by deeds in Christ Jesus our Lord, whose is the power and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.