Homilies on Joshua, Homilia II
Moses my servant is dead§1
1On what is written: Moses my servant is dead. We must recount Moses’ death; unless we understand how Moses dies, we cannot see how Jesus reigns. If you look on Jerusalem overthrown, the altar abandoned, nowhere sacrifices or offerings or drink-offerings, nowhere priests or Levites — when you see all this cease, say: Moses the servant of God is dead. But when you see the nations enter faith, churches raised, altars consecrated by Christ’s precious blood, priests ministering the word of God by the Spirit’s grace — then say that Jesus has taken the principate after Moses: not Jesus son of Nun, but Jesus the Son of God. When you see that our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed and we eat unleavened bread of sincerity and truth; when you see the church’s fruits thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold — widows, virgins, martyrs; when you see Israel’s seed multiplied from those born not of blood nor of the will of flesh, but of God; when you see God’s people keeping a sabbath rest not by idle withdrawal from common life but by rest from the work of sin — then say: Moses is dead, and Jesus the Son of God holds the principate. In a certain booklet outside the canon the figure is drawn of two Moseses — one alive in spirit, one dead in body. The empty letter of the law is Moses dead in the body; if you can remove the veil and understand that the law is spiritual, that is Moses alive in the spirit.
Latin · §1
De eo quod scriptum est: Moyses famulus meus defunctus est. Et Moysi obitum oportet nos enarrare; nisi intellexerimus quomodo moritur Moyses, non poterimus advertere quomodo regnat Iesus. Si consideres Hierusalem subversam, altare destitutum, nusquam sacrificia nec hostias nec libamina, nusquam sacerdotes nec Levitas: cum haec vides cessare, dicito: Moyses famulus Dei defunctus est. Cum vero videris introire gentes ad fidem, ecclesias exstrui, altaria pretioso Christi sanguine consecrari, sacerdotes verbum Dei ministrantes — tunc dicito quia Iesus post Moysen suscepit principatum, non Iesus filius Nave sed Iesus filius Dei. Cum videris pascha nostrum immolatum Christum et azyma sinceritatis, fructus tricesimos sexagesimos centesimos, viduas virgines martyres, semen Israel ex Deo natum, sabbatizare populum ab operatione peccati — dicito: Moyses defunctus est et Iesus filius Dei obtinet principatum. In libello non canonico duo Moyses: unus vivus in spiritu, alius mortuus in corpore — littera legis inanis est Moyses mortuus; lex spiritalis est Moyses vivens.
Jesus minister under the law§2
2The Lord said to Jesus son of Nun, Moses’ minister: Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I give you. How was our Lord Jesus, Son of God, Moses’ minister? Because when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law — by being made under the law he was made Moses’ minister. God bids them cross into a land not given by Moses but that I give you. Moses dead, God gives the land to the people through Jesus — the land of which the Lord says: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Latin · §2
Et dixit Dominus ad Iesum filium Nave ministrum Moysi: Moyses famulus meus defunctus est. Nunc ergo exsurgens transi Iordanen tu et omnis populus in terram quam do vobis. Quomodo minister Moysi fuerit Dominus noster Iesus filius Dei? Quia cum venisset plenitudo temporum, misit Deus filium suum factum ex muliere, factum sub lege — per hoc quod factus est sub lege, Moysi minister effectus est. Dicit autem Deus ut transeant in terram non quam dedit Moyses sed quam ego do vobis. Moyseo mortuo Deus dat terram populo per Iesum — illam de qua: Beati mansueti, qui hereditate possidebunt terram.
Every place your feet ascend§3
3Every place you ascend with the soles of your feet I will give you. What places do we ascend? The letter of the law lies on the ground; whoever follows only the letter never ascends. If you can rise from letter to spirit and from history to a higher understanding, then you have truly climbed the high place you will receive from God as inheritance. If in what is written you discern types and seek the things above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand, you will receive that place — for our Lord says: Where I am, there will my servant be also. If by faith, life, purity, and virtue you reach Christ seated at God’s right hand, and with those feet Jesus washed you tread that place, God will give it to you; then you become not only God’s heir but Christ’s fellow-heir.
Latin · §3
Omnem locum quemcumque adscenderitis vestigiis pedum vestrorum vobis dabo eum. Quae sunt loca quae adscendimus? Legis littera humi posita est et deorsum iacet; nusquam adscendit qui legis litteram sequitur. Si potueris a littera adscendere ad spiritum et ab historia ad intellectum celsiorem, tunc vere adscendisti locum editum quem a Deo in hereditate percipies. Si typos intelligas et quae sursum sunt quaeras ubi Christus est in dextera Dei sedens, tunc illum locum percipies — Ubi ego sum, ibi erit et minister meus. Si usque ad Christum sedentem perveneris fide vita puritate virtute et vestigiis pedum quae lavit Iesus, dabit tibi eum Deus; tunc non solum heres Dei sed et coheres Christi.
Desert and Antilibanus§4
4As I said to Moses: the desert and this Antilibanus as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. God subjected the desert to Jesus — the deserts of which the prophet says: Rejoice, O thirsting desert and More are the children of the desolate than of her who has a husband. He did not say Lebanon but Antilibanus — “over-against Lebanon.” If you see that former people according to the flesh, Israel, who was the true olive, understand him as the true Lebanon; but when for unbelief the kingdom is taken from him and given to a nation producing its fruit, perceive that incoming people as Antilibanus — the church of the living God gathered from the nations through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion forever. Amen.
Latin · §4
Sicut dixi Moysi, eremum et Antilibanum usque ad flumen magnum Euphraten. Eremum Deus subiecit Iesu — deserta de quibus: Laetare eremus sitiens, et: Multi filii desertae magis quam eius quae habet virum. Non dixit Libanum sed Antilibanum. Si videas priorem populum secundum carnem Israel qui erat vera oliva, ipsum intellige Libanum verum; sed cum pro incredulitate auferatur ab eo regnum et detur genti facienti fructum, istum populum Antilibanum senti — ecclesia Dei vivi ex gentibus congregata per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum, cui est gloria et imperium in saecula saeculorum. Amen.