Listen to this, all you who are heedless of your children, who ignore their singing diabolical songs, while you pay no attention to the divine stories. Those people were not like that; on the contrary, they passed their life without interruption in stories of God’s great deeds and achieved a double advantage. On the one hand, it was a good experience for them to keep in mind the divine favors, and they were the better for it; on the other, their offspring gained no little grounding in the knowledge of God from these stories, and were moved to imitation of virtue. For them, you see, books were the mouths of their forebears, and these stories were a feature of every study and every employment, nothing being more agreeable or more profitable. After all, if mere adventure stories, fables and fictions generally divert the listeners, much more do these stories reveal his beneficence, power, wisdom and care, stimulate the listener with enjoyment and make them more observant. You see, those who were present during the events and eyewitnesses passed them on for our hearing, and hearing is equally effective for faith development as sight.

The majesty that with the Father dwelled,

His spirit and thought, the way of his designs,

Which made not by his hand or spoken word,

Breathed from the Father’s heart, declared his will. THE

So which triumphs is he recalling? Which successes? Some in Egypt, some in the desert, some in the land of promise, but especially those in the promised land. . . . They had no need of weapons; instead, they captured cities by a mere shout, and crossing the Jordan they overran the first city that stood in their way, Jericho, as though by dancing rather than fighting.^[1] I mean, they went out fitted with weapons not as if for battles but for a festival and dance, bearing arms for appearance’s sake rather than security; wearing sacred robes and having the Levites preceding the army, they encircled the wall. It was a marvelous and extraordinary sight to see, so many thousands of soldiers marching in step and order, in silence and utter regularity, as though no one was about, with that daunting harmony of trumpets keeping everything in time.

You, O Lord, he is saying, drove out from here the Canaanites along with the other nations, settling our ancestors in their place: it was not by trusting in strength or depending on armor that they emerged stronger that such people, but led by your grace they felled some and took others into slavery, since you accorded them a special relationship with you—the meaning of you took delight in them.

Our ancestors, as heirs and next of kin of the patriarchs, were planted in the promised land. They did not gain this by any merits of their own. It was not Moses who led them in, for fear they should attribute it to the Law and not to grace. For the Law examines our merits; but grace looks to faith. How excellently the apostle has followed the faith of his ancestors when he says, he that plants is nothing, he that waters is nothing. It is God who gives the increase.^[1] It was not Joshua, son of Nun, even though he led the people in and planted them—but God who gave the increase. To him first be the glory.

When God is pleased with us, it is because he has given us the grace to be pleasing to him. Scripture teaches us that this is a gift specially bestowed on people in pure and utter kindness and not to be arrogantly usurped.

You are the same even now, Lord, he is saying, ruling in similar fashion, overpowering in a similar fashion, exercising the same force, your nature undergoing no change. For you simply a word suffices for salvation: give the nod, and the people will enjoy it.

In the Scriptures it is often the custom for horns to designate the eminence of faith and of the virtues with which we ought to strike out against and overcome the hostile advances of our ancient enemy, joining the prophet in saying to the Lord, Through you we will fight against our enemies with the horn.

Behold, this is the true and the Christian humility. In this you will best govern both yourself and those in your charge. In this you will be able to achieve victory over every vice, by attributing to God rather than to yourself the fact that you have won. The reason why our vices recover their strength at the very moment when they have almost been subdued is, in my opinion, only because we do not say to God what his warrior David said when fighting the wars of the Lord: Through you, he said, we have struck down our foes; and through your name we trample down our adversaries. And again: No one prevails by his own strength. The Lord makes his adversary weak. But perhaps I shall receive the answer: Are we then not to offer thanks to God, not to render praises? I think so, but the trouble is that when we do it, we do it in words only, and inwardly: to God we offer thanks in private, to ourselves in public. We render praise to God on our lips, but to ourselves both on our lips and in our heart. This is what often raises up the enemy when he is already humbled, for the sin of our vanity is his strength.

Blessed is the one engaged in praise the whole day, namely, through his life, which lacks the uproar of emotions and is filled with an understanding of God.

The rich glory in their wealth; the luxurious in their dinner parties; the impure glory in night and darkness; the powerful glory in this life that has nights. But the just does not glory in this life but in the Lord God whom he strives to please in all that he does.

One who is carried off by people is not necessarily conquered. Take, for example, Paul. He rejoices in his sufferings.^[1] He glories in being let out through a window and lowered in a basket.^[2] Look at holy Jeremiah, holy Ezekiel, holy Daniel. These were led into captivity and plundered by the Assyrians. But their own personal faith was never taken captive. They never sinned against the Lord’s covenant.

What is the meaning of like sheep for slaughter? Making us vulnerable to attack, presenting us as insignificant. Some sheep, you see, those suited to breeding are for purchase; others, . . . whether from age or sterility, are useful only for eating. And what was actually worse, their being scattered even among the nations, which was hardest of all for them, their not being able to observe the Law in all precision there and being divorced from their ancestral way of life. And not in one race, he is saying, but in all parts; we are on the verge of only one thing, and that is being abused, whereas we do not have the strength for taking vengeance or lifting a hand in resistance. This fate, you see, illustrates the likeness of sheep.

It is our custom, remember, to give away even without cost things that are worthless and insignificant, whereas what we put great store by we sell at a high price, should we sell at all, but make available even gratis what we put little store by. . . . Now, if disposing of something below cost demonstrates its lack of value, much more so to take nothing for it, no charge. So this is what he is saying: just as if someone were to let their possessions go without charge, so you too allowed us to be of no value, you spurned us completely.

Our faith . . . may be made ready for the contemplation of what is invisible. . . . All those disasters befell them so that as God’s holy ones were stripped of their possessions, and even of temporal life itself, they might learn not to worship the eternal God for the sake of temporal advantages but in pure love for him to endure all the trials that they had to undergo for a time.

This is the mark of loyal servants, to persevere in serving their master despite their ill treatment. . . . This verse, too, teaches the listeners not to pretend but to serve God with their whole heart. ^[1] GOD ALONE. ZEPHYRINUS [DUB.]: To judge rashly of the secrets of another’s heart is sin; and it is unjust to reprove him on suspicion whose works seem not other than good, since God alone is Judge of those things that are unknown to people. He alone knows the secrets of the heart, and not another. ^[1]

He knows, and he inquires? If he knows the secrets of the heart, why does he bother to inquire about them there? Will God not inquire about these things? He knows them in himself, but he inquires about them for our instruction. Sometimes God inquires and seems to be finding out about some matter because he is making it known to you. He is telling you about his work, not making some new discovery on his own behalf.

It is impossible for anyone transgressing the laws or planning to do so to escape your notice, Lord, because you so carefully occupy our minds.

We cannot see God’s face. But there is a place where, by faith, God shows himself to us. The place is with God; and if we were to stand on the rock—that is, in awareness of this flesh and in firmness of faith—we will see as much as can be allowed to us to see. We cannot see the fullness, but we can, in a certain sense, drink in some remnant of his light. Moses did not see the full and entire divinity that dwells in Christ corporeally.^[1] But he saw the back of Christ. As man he saw his splendor, he saw the glory of his passion, he saw him draw back for us the bolts of the heavenly kingdom.

See how they concluded the discourse: despite their countless good deeds, on what grounds did they appeal to be saved? On the mercy, the lovingkindness, the name of God. Do you see the humility and contrite heart? On what grounds do they appeal to be saved? Lovingkindness, mercy: as though bereft of good deeds, as though not having any claim on salvation, despite being in a position to take pride in so many troubles and dangers, they referred everything to God. Let us, too, living in the age of grace, imitate them and offer up glory to God, to whom be the glory for ages of ages.

That means gratis. Not for any deserving on my part but because of your name; because it is worthy of you to do this and not because I am worthy to receive your help. Even the fact that we did not forget you, that our heart did not turn back, that we did not stretch out our hands to any other god—even this would have been beyond our power had you not been helping us. How could we have found the strength for it had you not been speaking to us within, encouraging us and never deserting us? Whether we are enduring amid troubles or rejoicing amid prosperity, redeem us, not for any merit of ours but for your own name’s sake.

If we are judged unworthy of gaining mercy for all these things mentioned, he is saying, nevertheless be faithful to yourself; Lord, on account of your name conferred on us, free us from the enemy.

Now, all this the grace of the Spirit foretold, teaching those who would experience those troubles to bear nobly what befell them and request relief from them from the God of all. Those remarkable people did exactly that: with their words they appeased God, led by him they routed the enemy, and they recovered their former freedom for their fellow citizens.