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Frequent is our discourse on fleeing this world—and would that the affection were as guarded and careful as the discourse is easy! But what is worse, the enticement of earthly cupidities often creeps in, and the overspreading of vanities seizes the mind, so that the very thing you strive to avoid, this you think upon and turn over in your soul. What it is hard for a man to guard against, it is impossible for him to put off. In short, the prophet testifies that this is rather a matter of vow than of accomplishment, when he says: 'Incline my heart unto your testimonies, and not unto covetousness.'
For our heart and our thoughts are not in our own power—thoughts which, overspreading unawares, confound the mind and the soul and drag them elsewhere than where you had purposed, call them back to worldly things, insert mundane things, force in pleasurable things, weave in enticing things, and at the very time when we prepare to lift up the mind, by the empty thoughts that are inserted we are for the most part cast down to earthly things. But who is so blessed that he always ascends in his heart? Yet how can this come to pass without divine aid? In no way at all. In short, the same Scripture says above: 'Blessed is the man whose help is from you, O Lord: ascents in his heart.'
Blessed indeed is he whom delight does not call back, whom pleasure does not bend down, who does not look back to lower things—which not even Lot's own wife was able to escape. Warned by which example, the Apostle, forgetting the things behind and reaching forth to the things before, hastened to the prize and earned to attain it, because he saw Christ before him, by whom he was called to the crown of righteousness. But he attained it who denied his very self to himself, that he might gain Christ. In short, he himself did not live, but Christ lived in him. For who, amid so many passions of this body, amid so many enticements of this world, can keep his footstep safe and undefiled?
The eye looked and turned aside the perception of the mind; the ear heard and bent its attention away; smell breathed in and hindered thought; the mouth tasted and brought back a crime; touch made contact and kindled fire. 'Death entered through the window,' said the prophet. Your window is your eye. If you should see a woman to lust after her, death has entered; if you should hear harlot-like words, death has entered; if luxury should seize your senses, death has penetrated. And therefore he who wishes to ascend, let him follow not the glad things of the world, not the pleasant, not the delightful, but the things full of grief and weeping; for it is better to go into the house of mourning than into the house of joy. In short, not even Adam would have descended from paradise, had he not been deceived by delight.
Beautifully therefore does David, who had experienced even those perilous sights of man, call him blessed whose every hope is in the name of God. For thus he does not look upon vanities and madnesses, if he ever fixes his gaze on Christ, ever beholds Christ with his inward eyes. Whence again, turned to him, he says: 'Turn away my eyes, that they may not see vanity.' Vanity is the circus, because it profits nothing; vain is the swiftness of horses, because it is deceitful unto salvation; vanity is the theater, vanity is every game. 'All is vanity,' said Ecclesiastes, of the things that are in this world. In short, he who wishes to be saved, let him ascend above the world, let him seek the word with God, let him flee this world, let him leave the lands;
For one cannot lay hold of that which is, and is forever, unless one first flees away from here. Hence the Lord too, wishing to draw near to God the Father, said to the apostles: 'Arise, let us go hence.' The Law also teaches you that the world must be fled and God must be followed. For what else does it teach when it says: 'You shall set apart for yourselves cities of refuge, and they shall be for you places of refuge, whither the manslayer may flee, everyone who strikes a soul unwillingly,' and further on: 'Six cities shall be for you as places of refuge. Three cities you shall give beyond the Jordan, and three cities you shall give in the land of Canaan'? Plainly, indeed, these refuges were appointed for those fleeing this charge of manslaughter; but let us consider more deeply. There are four things which warn us that the secrets of this lesson must be examined more profoundly.
The first: by what reason, out of those cities which fell to the Levites by lot as their portion, were six cities given as a refuge to those burdened with the charge of manslaughter, and why were the cities of the other tribes not also assigned to this office. The second: by what reason were they six in number; for this number seems prescribed not idly, neither of more nor of fewer cities. The third: why were three cities set beyond the Jordan and three in the region of Canaan, to serve as refuge for those who sinned. The fourth: why is there a counting and definition of the time included, within which the manslayer is to dwell in the city of refuge, until the great priest dies, and after the death of the great priest the manslayer returns to the city of his own dwelling.
Concerning each, then, we must speak, and resolve the questions in the order in which we have set them forth. And so, first, it must be explained why the cities of the Levites were given as a refuge. And it is plainly a fitting provision, because the Levites are fugitives from this world, so that they may please God, leaving their fatherland, parents, children, all kinship, that they may cleave to the one God. So too it was said to Abraham: 'Go forth from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house.' But perhaps you may say: he was not a Levite. Yet he had Levi in his loins, as we read written in the Letter to the Hebrews. And the Lord speaks to the Levites when he speaks with his disciples, that is, with the apostles, saying:
'If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me'—although it has already been said to all: 'But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people unto adoption.' The fullness has come, the remnants have ceased. For Christ has called all; to all the going-forth lies open, that all may follow; to all the kingdom is set before them, and eternal life. Therefore he whose portion is God ought to care for nothing but God, lest he be hindered by the obligation of some other necessity. For whatever is devoted to other duties is plucked away from the worship of religion and from this our office. For this is the true flight of a priest: the renunciation of his household and a certain estrangement from those most dear, so that he who longs to serve God may deny himself to his own.
Rightly, then, did the sanction of the eternal Law commend the fleeing to the fleeing, so that those who have forgotten this world may receive those who, condemning their own sins and deeds, seek the forgetting of their former life, and desire to abolish the worldly things they have done. A fugitive, therefore, is the minister of God's holy altar. Whence the Lord, as it were the prince of priests, giving a pattern to the Levites in the Gospel, said: 'Who is my mother, or who are my brothers?' That is: I do not acknowledge a mother, I do not recognize brothers, I know not my kin. 'My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.' The minister, therefore, knows the word of God alone, since he knows those in whom the word of God works. And for this reason he is an exile from the world.
Fleeing the body, fleeing the passions, he renounces himself to all things, that he may remain alone, as Elijah said: 'And I am left alone.' Yet he was not alone, for Christ was with him. And the Lord himself was left alone, but, he says, 'I am not alone, for the Father is with me.' There is also this reason: that the Levites are ministers of God. And therefore their cities are by the Law assigned to manslayers who flee, because it is theirs by right to carry out the divine commands concerning those who have committed a mortal crime. The Church does not know how to publish its own laws as the state does: it knows how to make the priest obey the Lord's command. Hear the Levite saying: 'I have handed over such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
Smitten therefore by the Levitical sword, let the sense of the flesh die in us, that our soul may live. For unless the sense of the flesh is slain, there can be no fruit of eternal life. Now the refuges of the six cities are these: the first city is the knowledge of the Word and the form of living after his image. For whoever has entered into that knowledge is safe from punishment, according to what the Lord also says: 'You are now clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.' And elsewhere: 'But this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.' This city, therefore, is as it were the mother-city, to which the other five cities of the Levites lie adjacent.
The second city is the consideration of the divine operation by which the world was created. The third city is the contemplation of the royal power and the eternal majesty. The fourth city is the beholding of the divine propitiation. The fifth city is the contemplation of the divine Law, which prescribes what is to be done. The sixth city likewise is that portion of the Law which lays down what is not to be done.
How great is the abundance of the divine mercy, how great the riches of his loving-kindness, that, considering the pursuits of individuals and the frailties of the human condition—by which we are led to fault even unwilling and resisting, and, overcome by enticements, frequently commit involuntary offenses—he should set before us diverse refuges, namely of six cities, so that by the same number whereby the world was formed, by that same number a remedy should be provided against the vices of the world and against the shipwrecks of this present age!
The first remedy, then, is that if a fault has crept upon a man of good purpose, he—without any delay, if he would have perfect security—should hasten to the very citadel of all things, where is the Word of God in that fatherly bosom, that is, in the secret and inmost recess of God, where is the fountain of wisdom, whence in place of death he may draw the immortal draught of eternal life.
The second remedy is that he who cannot foretaste the knowledge of that good, and is rather slow either in natural ability or in the apprehension of faith—since it is by a swift vigor of mind and keenness of intellect that one strives toward the heights of knowledge—should at least consider the works of the Lord, and from the things that have been made contemplate the author of so great a work; since from these good things which are in the constitution of this creation—'for they are very good,' as the Lord said—that highest and eternal Good is apprehended. What an order of things, what a discipline, what grace! Is not even a slow mind provoked by these to love its own author? For if we love our parents because they begot us, how much more ought we to love the Creator of our parents and our own Maker!
The creative power of God, therefore, though it is not seen, is yet estimated from its works, and his works betray the worker, so that he who is not comprehended may be understood. Whence the Lord also says: 'If you do not believe me, at least believe the works.' Good, therefore, is this city too as a refuge, which testifies to the grace of its builder and stirs up our affection, that we may be the more desirous of him who is seen to have bestowed upon us so great a beauty of this fabric. The third order is the contemplation of royal power, that we may be subject to the King, if we do not show reverence to him as to a parent.
For out of fear of the one presiding, he who is ungrateful for salvation often becomes obedient to authority, so that he who would not and could not acknowledge the grace of loving-kindness may acknowledge the necessity of sobriety. Necessity, therefore, corrects him whom loving-kindness ought to have summoned. These are the three cities beyond the Jordan given as a refuge for a more perfect prudence, that first we may flee fault by a leading of the mind that conforms us to the image of God. For so we were created, God saying: 'Let us make man after our image and likeness.' This, then, is the law of that first city. Then, if through the frailty of the flesh and the enticements of the world we cannot so form our mind, let us lift ourselves up by reverence for the Father's begetting and by devotion as offspring.
For love covers a multitude of sins. He, therefore, who has not been able to be after the image of God, let him be unto the fullness of love. That city excludes fault; this one absolves it. This, then, is the law of the second city: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.' But if again they are of a narrow and small mind, who cannot receive the abundance of love and its grace, you have the third city, that the dread of the divine power may make you sober and that fear may bend you. And this is the third law: 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'
These, then, are the chief virtues, and therefore set beyond the Jordan as belonging to the few, not to the many: that you may express the archetype as an image, that you may love the Father as a son, that you may worship the King as a subject. But those who shall have crossed the Jordan—for Jordan is interpreted 'their going down'—those, therefore, who shall have descended from those higher virtues to these lower things, that is, in whom integrity, love, humility have wavered, have refuges nearer to man which they may seek; so that those who are liable to offenses and bent by involuntary vices may hope that the Lord can be reconciled to them if they ask pardon, may hope that they can be corrected if they follow the precepts of the heavenly testaments, by which we are either formed unto innocence or recalled from fault.
These, then, are the cities within the Jordan that follow, that we may make God propitious to us, may follow what he commands, may avoid what he forbids. Let there be, therefore, an eager seeking of the divinity that is to be made propitious, an obedience to the precept that is to be followed, a wariness of the transgression that is forbidden; by which we may venerate the propitiatory mercy of God and his law-giving providence, either by obedience to his institutions or by turning away from his prohibitions. There remains the fourth point, which he speaks concerning the death of the high priest: that until that time the manslayer shall be in the city of refuge, until the great priest dies—in which, according to the letter, the interpretation sticks fast. First, the very flight is determined more by lot than by the equity of any examination; then, in like causes, the outcome is unequal;
for it could happen that, after the refuge of that manslayer, the great priest should die the very next day. But what sentence is this, under such uncertainty? Therefore, because the letter sticks fast, let us seek the spiritual things. Who is this great priest but the Son of God, the Word of God, whose advocacy on our behalf we have with the Father, who is without share in all offenses, whether voluntary or accidental, in whom subsist all things that are on earth and that are in heaven? For by the bond of the Word all things are bound together and are contained by his power and stand firm in him, since in him they were created, and in him dwells all the fullness. And therefore all things remain, because he does not allow those things to be dissolved which he himself has bound together, since they subsist by his will;
for he constrains and governs all things by his command as long as he wills, and binds them together by a natural concord. The Word of God lives, therefore, and lives especially in the souls of the godly, nor does the fullness of the Godhead ever die. For the everlasting Godhead and the eternal power of God never die. Yet he does indeed die to us, if he be separated from our soul—not that he is corrupted by death, but that our mind is loosed and stripped from union with him; for the true death is the separation of the Word and the soul. Then straightway the soul begins to lie open to voluntary sins. We have these kinds of virtues not adumbrated but expressly set forth in the Apostle when he says: 'So, as far as in me lies, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also who are at Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel;'
for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in him, that is, in him who has believed. And then he added: 'from faith to faith, as it is written: but the just shall live by faith.' In whom, then, is the righteousness of God revealed, but in him who is conformed to the image of the Son of God? You have the first precept, after the image of God. The second, because the invisible things of God are understood through the things that are made, that is, his everlasting power and divinity is known by his works. This is the creative power.
The third concerns imperial power, because the Word of God is royal and judicial and full of priestly righteousness, reserving the reward of good deeds and the requital of evil ones for those who shall come into his judgment, of whom the Apostle says: 'But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who do such things.' And so he who has come to know the truth and righteousness of God ought not to do those things which are worthy of death. There follows the goodness of God, propitiatory indeed, of which he says: 'Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?' That is: it ought to lead you. It calls you, because God is good, that you may be able to hope for the pardon of your sins;
for he who is ready to forgive does not wish to take vengeance. He also wove in the legislation, that is, the law-giving, so that if anyone is loosened by the contemplation of the divine goodness and is provoked rather to negligence than to repentance, he may follow the law; since, as he says, 'whoever have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law, and whoever have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.' Now the law is twofold, natural and written: the natural in the heart, the written on tablets. All, therefore, are under a law, but the natural; yet it is not given to all that each be a law unto himself. But he is a law unto himself who does of his own accord the things of the law, and shows the work of the law written in his heart.
You have what the good things of the law are, which nevertheless we ought not only to know or to hear perfunctorily, but also to do; for it is not the hearers of the law who are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. You have also come to know what the evil things are. First, nature itself is the teacher of good work. You know that you must not steal, and if your servant has committed a theft against you, you beat him; and if anyone has made designs upon your wife, you think he must be prosecuted. What, therefore, you reprove in others you yourself commit: you who preach that one must not steal, you steal; you who say that one must not commit adultery, you commit adultery. There followed also the law which was given through Moses, but through the law is the recognition of sin. You have received also what you should avoid, and yet you do those things which you know to be forbidden.
But what does the law work, except that the whole world should be made subject to God, since it was given not only to the Hebrew, but also called the stranger, for it did not exclude the proselyte? But because the law could stop the mouth of all and yet could not convert the mind, therefore the last remedy of that final city was owed, in which there should be a saving refuge, so that the death of the prince of priests might free us from all dread of death and strip us of fear. Who is he, but he of whom it was read: 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world'? Whom God has set forth as a propitiator through faith in his blood, for the showing forth of his righteousness. But understand that he himself is the great prince of priests. The Father swore concerning him, saying: 'You are a priest forever.'
Rightly 'forever,' because all the others, being temporal, are under sin, but this one has an inviolable priesthood. All are under death, but this one is ever living, since how could he himself perish who is able to save others? 'For such a one,' he says, 'befitted us.' The expression is correct, since indeed among those who exercised a choice of words and expressions, this kind is found, when someone says: 'a place more elevated than befitted the victors.' This I did not pass over without reason, that we may know that the Apostle uses words that are natural rather than common or according to art. 'Such a one, then,' he says, 'befitted us as prince, priest, just, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.'
This, then, is the Word, which, dwelling above the heavens, illumines all things. Whence he is read to be anointed by nature by God the Father, because the Word is light, which 'enlightened every man coming into this world.' This is the Word of God, in whom is the great priesthood, whose intelligible vestments Moses describes in that garment of the prince of priests—the Word which by his own power has clothed the world, and, as it were robed in it, shines forth in all things. He has clothed himself also with the kinship of the human race through the assumption of this body, saying to the Lord ....
and pouring out unspeakable love, giving himself to all by the Spirit and by the fullness of his Godhead, of whose fullness we have all received, that we may know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, and be filled unto all the fullness of God. For Christ is the head of all, from whom the whole body is brought forth and joined together by a mutual connection with itself, receiving its increase by the building up of love. This, then, is the Word, which is supereminent, which says to Moses in the building of that ark of the testimony: 'And you shall put into the ark the testimonies, whatsoever I shall give you, and you shall make the placing of the mercy-seat,' and further on:
'You shall place the mercy-seat upon the ark, from above, and you shall put in the testimonies which I shall give, and I will make myself known to you from there and speak with you from above'—that is: from there where it is above the heavens, where it is with the Father, from there I will speak to you. Let us draw near, therefore, supported by the suffrage of faith and lifted up by its oars to that throne of grace, fleeing this age and its contagion. And this is to flee: to abstain from sins, to take up the form of the virtues unto the likeness and image of God, to extend our powers to the imitation of God according to the measure of our possibility. For the perfect man is the image and glory of God. Whence the Lord also says: 'Be perfect, as also your Father who is in heaven is perfect.'
This, then, is to be like God: to have righteousness, to have wisdom, and to be perfect in virtue. For God is without sin, and therefore he who flees sin is after the image of God. There is no doubt, then, that he who abstains from sin flees. Whence the Apostle also cries out: 'Flee fornication.' For the enticements of sins pursue us, lust pursues us; but flee you, as from a raging mistress, who, if she lay hold of you, suffers you to rest neither by day nor by night, but harasses, burns, inflames. Flee avarice, lest it seize you within. Flee faithlessness, lest it entangle you in its nets. Whence the Lord also says: 'But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another.'
'Amen I say to you, you shall not finish the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes.' For although, on account of the weakness of the flesh, he seems to counsel us to flight, yet he flees better who flees worldly enticement, so as not to be held by anxiety for his riches, nor by the contemplation of treasure, nor by desire for this present life, but with a straight intention of soul hastens to the glory of the heavenly kingdom, presses on to the crown, and is not called back from the passion of his own body by regard for earthly things. Flight, therefore, is death, either celebrated or adumbrated. And perhaps it expresses those cities of lawful refuge, that we may flee to the heights of the virtues, which he elsewhere dispenses as rewards to the good investor, saying:
'Because you have been faithful in a little, you shall have authority over ten cities.' The Law knows six cities; but because he fulfilled the Law who could say, 'I came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it,' he grants a more perfect number of reward. Let us not, then, be ashamed to flee; for this flight is glorious—to flee from the face of sin. So Jacob fled at his mother's urging; for Rebecca said: 'Arise and flee into Mesopotamia.' So Moses also fled from the face of King Pharaoh, lest the royal court should defile him, lest power should ensnare him. And indeed he esteemed the reproach of Christ more precious than the riches of Egypt. So David also fled from the face of King Saul, from the face of Absalom. And indeed, fleeing, he added increases of godliness.
For he spared his treacherous foe and prayed for the safety of his parricidal son. So the people of the Hebrews fled, that their faith and life might open a way for them amid the waves. That flight was the path of innocence, the way of virtue, the taking up of godliness. I dare to say that Jonah too fled to Tarshish, not by flight of body, but by an ascent of mind, who ascended even to the likeness of Christ, so that he became a type of Christ. For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, 'so,' he says, 'shall the Son of Man also be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.' For if he had not so fled, he would never have been heard from out of the belly of the whale. But if you doubt, let Rebecca teach you how blessed is the flight which Jacob undertook. Rebecca urged:
'Flee,' she said, 'into Mesopotamia.' And Isaac says: 'Arise, go into Mesopotamia, into the house of Bathuel.' In hymns or oracles, as has been written before us by many, Bathuel is called 'wisdom,' but in the Latin interpretation it signifies 'daughter of God.' Into the house of wisdom, therefore, Jacob is sent, and he is admonished to take a wife from the daughters of Laban, who dwelt in Charran, which signifies 'caverns,' in which is the appearance of the senses, which are as it were in caverns of the body: as sight in the eyes, hearing in the ears, smell in the nostrils, taste in the mouth. For he who delights in this world and exults in the pleasures of the body is subject to the passions of the senses and dwells and lodges among them.
Whence Rebecca also says that he must dwell with him a few days, not for a long time, lest he be tinged by bodily pleasures and be captured by the enticements of the world. But she persuades him to dwell there, that the one eager for discipline may learn the powers of the senses and, as it were, certain sites and regions of the flesh, that he may know himself and may come to know the vehemence of the flesh—what each thing is and for what cause it was created, and how each sense operates. 'Whoever,' it says, 'shall look upon a woman to lust after her.' The eye sees ill in this way. Let the eye, therefore, see and perform its own office, not be directed to a fall by the command of a slippery mind, so as to bring back a vice in place of a duty.