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| Ephesians 6:14
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Homily XXIII.
Ephesians vi. 14
“Stand therefore, having
girded your loins with truth.”
Having drawn up this army, and roused their zeal,—for both these
things were requisite, both that they should be drawn up in array and
subject to each other, and that their spirit should be
aroused,—and having inspired them with courage, for this was
requisite also, he next proceeds also to arm them. For arms had been of
no use, had they not been first posted each in his own place, and had
not the spirit of the soldier’s soul been roused; for we must
first arm him within, and then without.
Now if this is the case with
soldiers, much more is it with spiritual soldiers. Or rather in their
case, there is no such thing as arming them without, but everything is
within. He hath roused their ardor, and set it on fire, he hath added
confidence. He hath set them in due array. Observe how he also puts on
the armor. “Stand therefore,”476
| 476 [“‘Stand,’ here, is not, like the
preceding στῆναι (in verse 13), the standing of the
victor, but the ‘standing forth of the man ready for the
combat.”—Meyer.—G.A.] |
saith he. The very first feature in tactics is, to know how to stand
well, and many things will depend upon that. Hence he discourses much
concerning standing, saying also elsewhere, “Watch ye, stand
fast.” (1 Cor. xvi. 13.) And again, “So
stand fast in the Lord.” (Philip. iv. 1.) And again,
“Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he
fall.” (1 Cor. x. 12.) And again,
“That ye may be able, having done all, to stand.”
(Eph.
vi. 13.) Doubtless then he does not mean merely any way of standing, but
a correct way, and as many as have had experience in wars know how
great a point it is to know how to stand. For if in the case of boxers
and wrestlers, the trainer recommends this before anything else,
namely, to stand firm, much more will it be the first thing in warfare,
and military matters.
The man who, in a true sense,
stands, is upright; he stands not in a lazy attitude, not leaning upon
anything. Exact uprightness discovers itself by the way of standing, so
that they who are perfectly upright, they stand. But they who do not
stand, cannot be upright, but are unstrung and disjointed. The
luxurious man does not stand upright, but is bent; so is the lewd man,
and the lover of money. He who knows how to stand will from his very
standing, as from a sort of foundation, find every part of the conflict
easy to him.
“Stand therefore,”
saith he, “having girded your loins with truth.”477
He is not speaking of a literal,
physical girdle, for all the language in this passage he employs in a
spiritual sense.478
And observe how
methodically he proceeds. First he girds up his soldier.479
| 479 [“As for the actual warrior, the whole aptus habitus
(prepared state) for the combat would be wanting in the absence of the
girdle; so also for the spiritual warrior, if he is not furnished with
truth.”—Meyer.—G.A.] | What then is the meaning of this? The man
that is loose in his life, and is dissolved in his lusts, and that has
his thoughts trailing on the ground, him he braces up by means of this
girdle, not suffering him to be impeded by the garments entangling his
legs, but leaving him to run with his feet well at liberty.
“Stand therefore, having girded your loins,” saith he. By
the “loins” here he means this; just what the keel is in
ships, the same are the loins with us, the basis or groundwork of the
whole body: for they are, as it were, a foundation, and upon them as
the schools of the physicians tell you, the whole frame is built. So
then in “girding up the loins” he compacts the foundation
of our soul; for he is not of course speaking of these loins of our
body, but is discoursing spiritually: and as the loins are the
foundation alike of the parts both above and below, so is it also in
the case of these spiritual loins. Oftentimes, we know, when persons
are fatigued, they put their hands there as if upon a sort of
foundation, and in that manner support themselves; and for this reason
it is that the girdle is used in war, that it may bind and hold
together this foundation, as it were, in our frame; for this reason too
it is that when we run we gird ourselves. It is this which guards our
strength. Let this then, saith he, be done also with respect to the
soul, and then in doing anything whatsoever we shall be strong; and it
is a thing most especially becoming to soldiers.
True, you may say, but these our
natural loins we gird with a leathern band; but we, spiritual soldiers,
with what? I answer, with that which is the head and crown of all our
thoughts, I mean, “with truth.” “Having girded your
loins,” saith he, “with truth.”480
| 480 [“It is clear that truth does not mean ‘objectively
the gospel,’ for that is designated later, ver. 17, by ῥῆμα θεοῦ (‘the word of God’), but ‘subjectively,’
truth as an inward property, i.e. the ‘harmony of knowledge with
the objective truth given in the
gospel.’”—Meyer.—G.A.] | What then is the meaning of “with
truth”? Let us love nothing like falsehood, all our duties let us
pursue “with truth,” let us not lie one to another. Whether
it be an opinion, let us seek the truth, or whether it be a line of
life, let us seek the true one. If we fortify ourselves with this, if
we “gird ourselves with truth,” then shall no one overcome
us. He who seeks the doctrine of truth, shall never fall down to the
earth; for that the things which are not true are of the earth, is
evident from this, that all they that are without are enslaved to the
passions, following their own reasonings; and therefore if we are
sober, we shall need no instruction in the tales of the Greeks. Seest
thou how weak and frivolous they are? incapable of entertaining about
God one severe thought or anything above human reasoning? Why? Because
they are not “girded about with truth”; because their
loins, the receptacle of the seed of life, and the main strength of
their reasonings, are ungirt; nothing then can be weaker than these.
And the Manicheans481
| 481 The
Manichees considered matter to be uncreate; vid. Note on St.
Augustine’s Confessions, i. b. The Marcionites considered
matter intrinsically evil; vid. Theod. Hær. i. 24.
Valentinus denied that our Lord was born of the substance of Mary; vid.
St. Cyril, Lect. iv. 9. Paul of Samosata and Arius both denied
His Godhead. | again, seest
thou, how all the things they have the boldness to utter, are from
their own reasonings? “It was impossible,” say they,
“for God to create the world without matter.” Whence is
this so evident? These things they say, groveling, and from the earth,
and from what happens amongst ourselves; because man, they say, cannot
create otherwise. Marcion again, look what he says. “God, if He
took upon Him flesh, could not remain pure.” Whence is this
evident? “Because,” says he, “neither can men.”
But men are able to do this. Valentinus again, with his reasonings all
trailing along the ground, speaks the things of the earth; and in like
manner Paul of Samosata. And Arius, what does he say? “It was
impossible for God when He begat, to beget without passion.”482
Whence, Arius, hast thou the boldness to
allege this; merely from the things which take place amongst ourselves?
Seest thou how the reasonings of all these trail along on the ground?
All are, as it were, let loose and unconfined, and savoring of the
earth? And so much then for doctrines. With regard to life and conduct,
again, whoremongers, lovers of money, and of glory, and of everything
else, trail on the ground. They have not their loins themselves
standing firm, so that when they are weary they may rest upon them; but
when they are weary, they do not put their hands upon them and stand
upright, but flag. He, however, who “is girt about with the
truth,” first, never is weary; and secondly, if he should be
weary, he will rest himself upon the truth itself. What? Will poverty,
tell me, render him weary? No, in nowise; for he will repose on the
true riches, and by this poverty will understand what is true poverty.
Or again, will slavery make him weary? No, in nowise, for he will know
what is the true slavery. Or shall disease? No, nor even that.
“Let your loins,” saith Christ, “be girded about, and
your lamps burning” (Luke xii. 35.), with that
light which shall never be put out. This is what the Israelites also,
when they were departing out of Egypt (Ex. xii. 11.), were
charged to do. For
why did they eat the passover with their loins girded? Art thou
desirous to hear the ground of it? According to the historical fact, or
according to its mystical sense,483
| 483 The word ἀναγωγὴ,
when used of Scripture exposition, has various senses, but always
implies an interpretation not literal, grammatical, or historical.
Sometimes it stands for a “moral” interpretation, i.e. one
conveying a moral lesson; e.g. Chrys. in Psalm cxix. (120)
init.; Basil. in Esai. v. § 152. Sometimes for an
interpretation with reference simply to heavenly persons and things;
vid. Mosheim, de Reb. ante Const. p. 644; Dionys. Hierarch
Cæl. i. 2. Origen enumerates three senses of Scripture,
literal, moral, and mystical, the last being either allegorical or
anagogical; Clement four, literal, moral, mystical, and prophetical;
but the more common division has been into literal, tropological,
allegorical, and anagogical. [Cassian, a pupil of Chrysostom,
defines ἀναγωγή:
Anagoge vero de spiritalibus mysteriis ad sublimiora quaedam et
sacratiora coelorum secreta conscendens, “leading up from
spiritual mysteries to higher and more sacred secrets of heaven.”
See also Sophocles’ Greek Lex. sub
“voce.”—G.A.] | shall I
state it? But I will state them both, and do ye retain it in mind, for
I am not doing it without an object, merely that I may tell you the
solution, but also that my words may become in you reality. They had,
we read, their loins girded, and their staff in their hands, and their
shoes on their feet, and thus they ate the Passover. Awful and terrible
mysteries, and of vast depth; and if so terrible in the type, how much
more in the reality? They come forth out of Egypt, they eat the
Passover. Attend. “Our Passover hath been sacrificed, even
Christ,” it is said. Wherefore did they have their loins girded?
Their guise is that of wayfarers; for their having shoes, and staves in
their hands, and their eating standing, declares nothing else than
this. Will ye hear the history first, or the mystery?484
Better the history first. What then is
the design of the history? The Jews were continually forgetting
God’s benefits to them. Accordingly then, God tied the sense of
these, His benefits, not only to the time, but also to the very habit
of them that were to eat. For this is why they were to eat girded and
sandalled, that when they were asked the reason, they might say,
“we were ready for our journey, we were just about to go forth
out of Egypt to the land of promise and we were ready for our
exodus.” This then is the historical type. But the reality is
this; we too eat a Passover, even Christ; “for,” saith he,
“our Passover hath been sacrificed, even Christ.”
(1
Cor. v. 7.) What then? We too ought to eat it, both sandalled and girded.
And why? That we too may be ready for our Exodus, for our departure
hence.
Moral.
Let not any one of them that eat this Passover look towards Egypt, but
towards Heaven, towards “Jerusalem that is above.”
(Gal.
iv. 26.) On this account thou eatest with thy loins girded, on this
account thou eatest with shoes on thy feet, that thou mayest know, that
from the moment thou first beginnest to eat the Passover, thou oughtest
to set out, and to be upon thy journey. And this implies two things,
both that we must depart out of Egypt, and that, whilst we stay, we
must stay henceforth as in a strange country; “for our
citizenship,” saith he, “is in Heaven” (Philip. iii.
20.);
and that all our life long we should ever be prepared, so that when we
are called we may not put it off, but say, “My heart is
fixed.” (Ps. cviii. 1.) “Yes, but this
Paul indeed could say, who knew nothing against himself; but I, who
require a long time for repentance, I cannot say it.” Yet that to
be girded is the part of a waking soul, hearken to what God says to
that righteous man, “Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will
demand of thee, and declare thou unto Me.” (Job xxxviii.
3.)
This He says also to all the prophets, and this He says again to Moses,
to be girded. And He Himself also appears to Ezekiel (Ezek. ix.
11,
Sept.) girded. Nay more, and the Angels, too, appear to us girded
(Rev.
xv. 6.), as being soldiers. From our being girded about, it comes that
we also stand bravely as from our standing our being girded
comes.
For we also are going to depart,
and many are the difficulties that intervene. When we have crossed this
plain, straightway the devil is upon us, doing everything, contriving
every artifice, to the end that those who have been saved out of Egypt,
those who have passed the Red Sea, those who are delivered at once from
the evil demons, and from unnumbered plagues, may be taken and
destroyed by him. But, if we be vigilant, we too have a pillar of fire,
the grace of the Spirit. The same both enlightens and overshadows us.
We have manna; yea rather not manna, but far more than manna. Spiritual
drink we have, not water, that springs forth from the Rock. So have we
too our encampment (Rev. xx. 9.), and we dwell
in the desert even now; for a desert indeed without virtue, is the
earth even now, even more desolate than that wilderness. Why was that
desert so terrible? Was it not because it had scorpions in it, and
adders? (Deut. viii. 15.) “A land,”
it is said, “which none passed through.” (Jer. ii.
6.).
Yet is not that wilderness, no, it is not so barren of fruits, as is
this human nature. At this instant, how many scorpions, how many asps
are in this wilderness, how many serpents, how many “offsprings
of vipers” (Matt. iii. 7.) are these through
whom we at this instant pass! Yet let us not be afraid; for the leader
of this our Exodus is not Moses, but Jesus.
How then is it that we shall not
suffer the same things? Let us not commit the same acts, and then shall
we not suffer the same punishment. They murmured, they were ungrateful;
let us therefore not cherish these passions. How was it that they fell
all of them? “They despised the pleasant land.” (Ps. cvi.
24.)
“How ‘despised’ it? Surely they prized it
highly.” By becoming indolent and cowardly, and not choosing to
undergo any labors to obtain it. Let not us then “despise”
Heaven! This is what is meant by “despising.” Again, among
us also has fruit been brought, fruit from Heaven, not the cluster of
grapes borne upon the staff (Num. xiii. 23.), but the
“earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. i. 22.), “the
citizenship which is in Heaven” (Philip. iii.
20.),
which Paul and the whole company of the Apostles, those marvelous
husbandmen, have taught us. It is not Caleb the son of Jephunneh, nor
Jesus the son of Nun, that hath brought these fruits; but Jesus the Son
of “the Father of mercies” (2 Cor. i. 3.), the Son of the
Very God, hath brought every virtue, hath brought down from Heaven all
the fruits that are from thence, the songs of heaven hath He brought.
For the words which the Cherubim above say, these hath He charged us to
say also, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”485
| 485 [For the use of these words in the church service, see Bingham,
Antiquities, xv. 3, 10, and Hom. III. on
Ephesians.—G.A.] |
He hath brought to us the virtue of the Angels. “The Angels marry
not, neither are given in marriage” (Matt. xxii.
30.);
this fair plant hath He planted here also. They love not money, nor
anything like it; and this too hath He sown amongst us. They never die;
and this hath He freely given us also, for death is no longer death,
but sleep. For hearken to what He saith, “Our friend Lazarus is
fallen asleep.” (John xi. 11.)
Seest thou then the fruits of
“Jerusalem that is above”? (Gal. iv. 26.) And what is
indeed more stupendous than all is this, that our warfare is not
decided, but all these things are given us before the attainment of the
promise! For they indeed toiled even after they had entered into the
land of promise;—rather, they toiled not, for had they chosen to
obey God, they might have taken all the cities, without either arms or
array. Jericho, we know, they overturned, more after the fashion of
dancers than of warriors. We however have no warfare after we have
entered into the land of promise, that is, into Heaven, but only so
long as we are in the wilderness, that is, in the present life.
“For he that is entered into his rest hath himself also rested
from his works as God did from His.” (Heb. iv. 10.) “Let us
not then be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we
faint not.” (Gal. vi. 9.) Seest thou how
that just as He led them, so also He leads us? In their case, touching
the manna and the wilderness, it is said, “He that gathered much
had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack.”
(Ex.
xvi. 18.) And we have this charge given us, “not to lay up treasure
upon the earth.” (Matt. vi. 19.) But if we do
lay up treasure, it is no longer the earthly worm that corrupts it, as
was the case with the manna, but that which dwelleth eternally with
fire.486
| 486 [The text in this passage is very corrupt. Three mss. have οὐκέτι
σκώληξ ὁ
αἰσθητὸς
λυμαίνεται…ἀλλὰ ὁ τῆς
δικαιοσύνης. But as Field says, ὁσκώληξ τῆς
δικαιοσύνης
(“the worm of righteousness”) seems
“absurdissimum.” Three other mss. give the reading which we have adopted: “No
longer the earthly worm,” &c., “but that which dwelleth
eternally with fire,” ἀλλ᾽ ὁ τῷ
πυρὶ
συνδιαιωνίζων
ἡμᾶς
λυμαίνεται. Field, in his text, follows a single ms., and emends even that.—G.A.] | Let us then “subdue all
things,” that we furnish not food to this worm. For
“he,” it is said, “who gathered much had nothing
over.” For this too happens with ourselves also every day. We all
of us have but the same capacity of hunger to satisfy. And that which
is more than this, is but an addition of cares. For what He intended in
after-times to deliver, saying, “Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof” (Matt. vi. 34), this had He
thus been teaching even from the very beginning,487
and not even thus did they receive it.
But as to us, let us not be insatiable, let us not be discontented, let
us not be seeking out for splendid houses; for we are on our
pilgrimage, not at home; so that if there be any that knows that the
present life is a sort of journey, and expedition, and, as one might
say, it is what they call an entrenched camp,488
he will not be seeking for splendid
buildings. For who, tell me, be he ever so rich, would choose to build
a splendid house in an encampment? No one; he would be a laughing
stock, he would be building for his enemies, and would the more
effectually invite them on; and so then, if we be in our senses,
neither shall we. The present life is nothing else than a march and an
encampment.
Wherefore, I beseech you, let us
do all we can, so as to lay up no treasure here; for if the thief
should come, we must in a moment arise and depart. “Watch,”
saith He, “for ye know not at what hour the thief cometh”
(Matt.
xxiv. 42, 43.), thus naming death. O then, before he cometh, let us send
away everything before us to our native country; but here let us be
“well girded,” that we may be enabled to overcome our
enemies, whom God grant that we may overcome, through the grace and
lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Whom together with the
Holy Ghost, be unto the Father glory, strength, honor forever and ever.
Amen. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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