transitory joy; here, however, prizes are immortal for the crowned ones, the crowns are everlasting, the joy is with the angels, the brilliance with the saints in the resurrection. These are the rewards of the struggles laid up for the victorious: by whose prayers may we also be preserved, and may this good pastor be kept for us for many decades of years in Christ, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
On Drought
A Who will give to my head water, and to my eyes a fountain of tears? (Jer. 9:1). May the most merciful of all the prophets grant me an introduction abundantly. Yet he was lamenting the desolation of one city, Jerusalem; I, however, seeing the calamity encroaching upon the whole of this region, break out into tears and weeping. For the heaven is closed because of our sins, and the clouds have withered away because of the solar heat, as in a furnace (Ps. 101:4). The springs of waters have dried up, and the beds of the perennial rivers have failed; the earth indeed, burning with heat, refuses to yield its customary fruits. Woe for our evils! Even the brute animals themselves are endangered because of our sins. The earth is dried up and its hay; nay rather, it has not sprouted, and it is corrupted by this plague. The ox bellows miserably, and as if with a lethal voice; the sheepfolds send forth a mournful bleating, while they see the watering of the waters like a burning crater, and the pastures dried up before the time; so that the prophecy of Joel is now fulfilled among us: The herds of cattle have wept, because there was no pasture for them, and the sheep-folds are destroyed, because the exits of the rivers have dried up (Joel 1:18, 20). So greatly have our transgressions moved the propitious nature of God into just anger. And because we do not cease daily to kindle the fire of sins, we are justly chastised by drought and heat. And perhaps the prophet cries to us: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame which you have kindled (Isai. 50:11). Certainly, God had promised through the prophet to the Israelites, if they kept his precepts: I will send upon you the early and the latter rain; and your threshing floors will be filled with corn, and your vats with wine (Joel 2:23-24). The promise, however, has been turned to the opposite for us; nay rather, the curse of Jeremiah has overtaken us: Let the heaven over your head be brass, he says (Deut. 28:23): the prophet indicating by this commination an utter drought and shortage of water. Is this not already being fulfilled in us? The earth, broken by heat, and turned as it were into stone, renders the labor of the farmers vain, and admits neither plow nor hoe: the crops, as they sprouted a little and gave good hope, before they can conceive the ear, wither away and perish; and only the sprouting of vines and trees is left, which perhaps will soon wither. Such is the fruit of sins, such are the orgies of wickedness, because we have not walked in the ways of God; but we have been subject to evil works, envying others, extolling ourselves above the lesser, desiring to be satisfied with the goods of others, rejoicing in the calamity of a neighbor, devouring one another with slanders, subject to absurd desires, becoming wanton horses (Jer. 5:8), as the Scripture says, and rapacious wolves; keeping the memory of injuries like camels, not showing mercy to the poor, not empathizing with those who have fallen, neglecting the gatherings of the Church, despising the saints, not venerating their memories, fleeing from confession, acting as if in a frenzy toward the servants of God. The priests are a bad example to the peoples, bringing insult, keeping the memory of injuries, given to enmities and treacheries, looking at faces, not reproving or amending those who have fallen, but by their silence are participants in the injustice, like that ancient Eli. The laity, abandoning their own affairs, curiously scrutinize the business of the priests, and they are inexorable judges: Do I not speak the truth? Is not our charity full of these evils? Do I not testify to this daily? Have I not labored crying out that one should abstain from oaths? Have I not foretold: God will not overlook it, seeing the holy Gospel so neglected, and handled so irreverently by avaricious hands? Therefore, bring the fruits from the field which you have usurped out of avarice, that field which will not produce even the seeds cast into it. But you will not even reap the vintage which you have avariciously seized. For what God once threatened the Jews through Micah, these things he has now fulfilled in us: You shall sow, and you shall not reap; you shall press the oil, and you shall not be anointed with oil: and you shall not drink wine (Micah 6:15). What then? Someone might say: but not all are avaricious, not all are perjurers. How then, when few are sinning, is the wormwood of God's anger mixed for all? For it is fitting that punishment be brought only upon the wicked. But just as in one body, if it fester in one part, the whole body requires purgation: so also among us, because we are one body, and all members of Christ, with one part ailing, we all are participants in the pain. So once, when the son of Saul sinned, the whole army was stricken; and when David numbered the people against the pleasure of God, a common destruction was brought upon them. This is reported in every external discipline, namely, that the whole state was stricken by the sin of one man. Therefore, the cup of God's anger is mixed for us and pure. For he says: The cup in the hand of the Lord is full of a mixture of pure wine (Ps. 74:9). Do you see how the nature of this cup is changed? If it is pure and unmixed, how is it full of mixture? For what is mixed is not pure. Here, however, it is called both: it is indeed a pure cup, inasmuch as it is not mixed with divine mercy toward those who, having fallen, do not amend, and that is according to justice; but it is mixed with diverse punishments and corrections, with which God is accustomed to punish those who have not despaired in their evils. Just as those who cure bodily diseases, and have attained the skill of healing, are accustomed to purge more difficult wounds with hot waters and sharp remedies, and assuage the gore and the sickness by the art; so God, who knows all things, handles those who do not feel the blows, to whom it would have been better to avert the punishment before it was sent. What then shall we say now? The judgment of God is just: nay, the benevolent Lord is justly angry, and has brought a punishment far less than the proportion of the crimes; not as much as they deserved, but as much as was enough so that we might come to a sense of our sins. For consider the patience of God: we have sinned, and the elements are punished; we have fallen, and the earth is stricken; we lead an evil life, and inanimate things are whipped; we offer insult to the Creator with shameful deeds, and those things which have sinned not receive the blow: just as if someone, when a son was sinning, were to punish a slave. Such a Lord, and so good, do we have: thus he warns us, leading us to amendment; and he stretches the bow of threats, but holds back the arrow of anger. For he does not desire the death of the soul, but expects conversion and repentance. Let us therefore, brothers, be affected as is fitting: let us appease God the merciful, lest we seem worse than the Ninevites. They, although they were gentiles and unbelievers, because they had learned from the prophet the future subversion of the city, showed such repentance as even to compel infants and beasts of burden to fast, and to cover themselves with ashes and sackcloth, and so were rescued from the just anger of God. Let us therefore also weep, let us each confess our sins, let us employ the saints as intercessors before God; then especially the most holy Lady, that ready and inexpugnable protection: let us prostrate ourselves before her praying with tears: Lady, who held God the Word in your womb, who through your birth made our nature divine, who through your birth were the mediatrix between God and men; have mercy on your people and your inheritance, have mercy on this city of yours, which glories in your name; intercede for us your unworthy servants, beseech your only-begotten Son, that He may propitiously bear our sins, and may this anger sent against us B
ON THE RIVER JORDAN
A Why, among all the rivers of the earth, does Christ perform the mystery of baptism in the river Jordan? It is necessary to inquire into the nature of the river, so that from it you may learn the sequence of the initiation. The Jordan, beyond all other rivers, has two sources; for the Jordan does not come from a single spring. It has one source in Paneas, and another near Paneas; the one source is called Ior, and the other Dan; and as they proceed, they divide a little from each other, but at a certain place they come together and form one river. The ancients gave it the name of Jordan—the river born from the Ior and the Dan—having the sources divided at the beginning, and joined at the end. Again, beyond all other rivers, this one does not run into a living sea, nor does the water of a living sea receive it, but the Dead Sea receives it. This one alone, of all rivers, is joined to dead and stagnant waters.
The Jordan is a type of our mortal race, and hear how. From the beginning, our race has two roots: Adam, formed from the earth, and Eve, who came from his side; and there is not one manner and one way of its establishment. For the one was fashioned from the earth, having the earth as his source; but the other came from a side, having the side as her root—a different origin for him, and a different one for her. And they were for a time divided from one another according to the manner of their formation; but they came together into a matrimonial union, and the one body from both was completed, and those who were born were no longer born from a side or from the earth, but from intercourse. For, He says, the two shall be into one flesh. This, then, our formation, running into the sequence of nature, had death as its end. Our formation began from the earth and ended in death; and this formation was received by the Dead Sea—the deep, the subterranean, the abyss of the dead. For what the Dead Sea is to living waters, that is Hades to those who are dying. Wherefore Paul says: *Say not in thy heart, Who shall descend into the abyss?* that is, to bring up Christ from the dead (Rom. 10:7). Around this Jordan, then, which proceeds from living springs and ends in the Dead Sea, God performed every miracle, so that the living water might no longer run toward death.
Three times God divided this Jordan, so that its sequence might no longer be toward the Dead Sea, but run back to the ancient, living roots. It was cut at the time of Joshua the son of Nun; it was cut at the time of Elijah, B because he cut it with his mantle; it was cut by Elisha, when he turned and cut it. Joshua the son of Nun was the first to cut the Jordan; and hear how he cut it. He did not stand at the streams of the springs, but turned the water backward, as the Psalmist bears witness, saying: *What aileth thee, O sea, that thou fleddest? and thou, Jordan, that thou wast turned backward?* (Ps. 113:5). And the "backward" were the sources. The Savior, therefore, checking our race which was running into death, causes it no longer to run into death, but to return to the ancient, living roots, not to end in the Dead Sea. Mortal nature is therefore restored to its ancient form.
And no one is seen to have cut the Jordan without some symbol. Joshua the son of Nun cut it having the ark. Elijah had a mantle. Elisha, having again the mantle of the master, cut it. For since mortal nature did not suffice to stay the stream by itself, Jesus entereth first, bearing the designation of the Master, and bringing with him the ark, the symbol of the master’s body. And the Jordan is seen neither honoring that Jesus—I mean the son of Nun, the mere man—nor fearing the Jews, nor being ashamed of the priests. And that it might be shown that it does not give way to the people, but fears the ark, Joshua says: *Behold, the ark of the Lord of all the earth passeth over the Jordan. And it shall come to pass, when the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark… shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off* (Jos. 3:11, 13), not fearing the priests, but the ark. And whence this? Hear. David questions it, saying: *What aileth thee, O sea, that thou fleddest? and thou, Jordan, that thou wast turned backward?* To these things the creation answers, saying: *At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved* (Ps. 113:7). The presence of the Lord was the form of the ark. For what the ark was to the Law, with the tablets and the jar and the rod, that was the master’s flesh to the incomprehensible divinity, bearing the divinity as in an ark. Of this holy ark the blessed David said: *Arise, O Lord, into thy rest, thou and the ark of thy covenant* (Ps. 131:8). And see what he does: for the Jordan was dried up, not having lost the streams, but having returned to the ancient roots. C He took, he says, twelve large stones from the Jordan, and set them beyond the river; and he placed other twelve stones in their stead in the river (Jos. 4:8, 9). What does this mean, the taking away of twelve stones and the placing of other twelve instead? Because, as I have already said, he was checking mortal nature; or rather, he wishes to show that He raises up humanity from the depths, and brings it up to heaven. For the stones that had never seen a solar ray, nor received the sight of light, he brought into the light, and they were, as it were, stones snatched from the abyss.
Why did he take twelve stones from there? Because through the twelve apostles he was going to raise up humanity from mortal nature. But let it be: he took away the stones that were below, in order to show to the sun and to the light, and to the men who would come after, a clear sight of how they crossed the Jordan; for he even signaled the cause: *If thy son asketh thee, saying, What are these stones? say to him, That we crossed the Jordan on dry land, the Lord having stayed the water before our face* (Jos. 4:6, 7). But so be it, the brought-up stones were set up so that they might appear to those who come after; but the stones set in their stead—why were they set in their stead? He took from the depths those who were submerged, and gave to the abyss, in return, pledges of salvation. The stones that were placed are pledges; those taken are security. And the theory concerning these is great, and why stones were placed, and why stones were removed. Christ both takes and gives. He came into the world, and took our body, having given us His own power. Through the apostles He places in the river twelve stones, a pledge of salvation and an earnest of things to come. For he who has given something to someone for a matter, gives him a pledge for the future. Since, therefore, this name was to be kept for Him again, when He was about to be baptized by John, He took beforehand the pledges of the manifestation, and set up the stones: those which He took from there, the patriarchs, whom He raised then; and those which He set in their stead, the apostles, whom He gave in exchange for those. *For instead of thy fathers, sons were born to thee* (Ps. 44:17). Thus he crossed the Jordan, and the Jordan becomes for Joshua the son of Nun the beginning of the possession of the land. Until he passed the Jordan, he did not inherit the promised land; until Christ passed the Jordan, He did not begin to preach the kingdom. The Jordan is the beginning of the possession of the land, the Jordan is the beginning of the possession of the kingdom of heaven. For this reason the prophet says: *I will remember thee, O Lord, from the land of Jordan.* For the memory is...