Ezekiel 44

Who is this gate, if not Mary? Is it not closed because she is a virgin? Mary is the gate through which Christ entered this world, when He was brought forth in the virginal birth and the manner of His birth did not break the seals of virginity.

Some quite emphatically understand this closed gate through which only the Lord God of Israel passes... as the Virgin Mary, who remains a Virgin before and after childbirth. In fact, she remains always a Virgin, in the moment in which the Angel speaks with her and when the Son of God is born.

And he turned me back to the way of the gate of the outer sanctuary which looked toward the east, and it was shut; and the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, and it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it, because the Lord God of Israel has entered (or will enter) by it, and it shall be shut for the prince: the prince himself shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord; he shall enter by the way of the vestibule (that is, 'aelam') of the gate, and by its way he shall go out. (Where it is written in the Hebrew: It shall be shut for the prince, the Seventy translated: And it shall be shut, because the leader himself shall sit in it.) There are many gates which Scripture mentions in the description of Ezekiel's temple, both within and without; the preceding discourse also ran through the shape of the altar, its consecration and its sacrifices. That being finished, he comes to the gate of the outer sanctuary which looked toward the east, and it was shut; and at once that man who was the prophet's guide and was showing him everything spoke to him: 'This gate, which you see shut, will always be shut, and it will not be opened, and none of men will pass through it'; and he gives the reasons why it is always shut: Because the Lord of Israel has entered (or will enter) by it, and it shall be shut — according to the Hebrew — for the prince (whom the Seventy translated 'leader'): who, the prince (and leader, that is, 'nasi') shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord, and: By the way of the vestibule of the gate he shall enter, by the same he shall go out.

But just as He who was conceived kept her who conceived still virgin, in like manner also He who was born preserved her virginity intact, only passing through her and keeping her closed. [Ezekiel 44:2] The conception, indeed, was through the sense of hearing, but the birth through the usual path by which children come, although some tell tales of His birth through the side of the Mother of God. For it was not impossible for Him to have come by this gate, without injuring her seal in anyway.

The ever-virgin One thus remains even after the birth still virgin, having never at any time up till death consorted with a man.

On the contrary, It is written (Ezekiel 44:2): "This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it." Expounding these words, Augustine says in a sermon (De Annunt. Dom. iii): "What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that 'no man shall pass through it,' save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this—'The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it'—except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this—'it shall be shut for evermore'—but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?"

What is that gate of the sanctuary, that outer gate facing the east and remaining closed? Is not Mary the gate through whom the Redeemer entered this world?

What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that 'no man shall pass through it,' save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this - 'The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it' - except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this—'it shall be shut for evermore' - but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?

In Ezekiel (Ezek. 46:1 and so on) it is written that the temple shown to him had three gates: the eastern, the southern, and the northern. God commands that the eastern gate always remain shut, with only the Prince entering and leaving through it. The eastern gate represents the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, who remained shut before the Prince, that is, Christ, entered, and remained shut forever after he left.

The word was made flesh without sexual intercourse, being conceived altogether without seed; then he was born without injury to her virginity.

Could it be possible that in that entrance there were both seven steps and eight? Just notice what he says: the east gate, the gate from which the light enters—our Lord and Savior. There is indeed a gate, and no one enters it except the high priest. And what does holy Scripture say about it? "This gate is to remain closed"; it is not opened, moreover, except to the priest. Even so the Covenant, both Old and New, has always been closed; it has not been opened except to the Savior.… One gate, then, has both seven steps and eight. In the Old Testament, for example, the divine mysteries point to the Gospels, and in the New Testament back to the law.

What, then, is this gate which is always shut, and by which the Lord God of Israel alone will enter? Surely it is the one of which the Savior speaks in the Gospel: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, and: Woe to you, doctors of the law, woe, who take away the key of knowledge: you yourselves do not enter, and those who are entering you hinder — of this, under the name of a book, Isaiah writes: The words of this book shall be like sealed words; when you give it to a man who does not know letters, and say to him: Read; he will answer you: I do not know letters. And they will give it to a man who knows letters, saying: Read; and he will say: I cannot read, because it is sealed: and this is the book whose seals no one can loose and open, neither in heaven nor on earth nor under the earth, except him of whom it is said in the Revelation of John: Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, the root and offspring of David, to open the book and loose its seals: for before the Savior assumed a human body and humbled himself, taking the form of a servant, the law and the prophets and all the knowledge of the Scriptures were shut, paradise was shut; but after he hung on the cross and said to the thief: Today you will be with me in paradise, at once the veil of the temple was torn and all things were opened; and with the veil taken away we say: But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. But if all things have been unveiled — for in Christ, according to the word of Paul, all things are unveiled — how is it: The gate shall be shut, and it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it? From this we learn — even though we may have come to the highest knowledge, by comparison with the divine knowledge — that now we know in part and understand in part: But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. Hence in another place too the Apostle himself says that he is imperfect and again perfect, which, if it lacks interpretation, seems to be a contradiction; for he says: Not that I have already received, or am already perfect. Brethren, I do not reckon that I have laid hold; but one thing: forgetting what lies behind, stretching forward to what lies ahead, I pursue the appointed goal, toward the prize of the upward calling of God; and when we would think that by his own profession he is not perfect, and that he is seeking rather than has found what is true, he says that not only he himself but others with him are perfect: As many then as are perfect, let us be of this mind; and the sense of this place is: 'In comparison with the rest of men, who have no care for the knowledge of the Scriptures nor of the mysteries of God, I confess that I am perfect; but as regards the knowledge of the divine majesty, I now see in an enigma, and through mist and darkness, and I say with the prophet: Your knowledge has become wonderful to me; it is too strong, and I shall not be able to reach it' —.

— That the eastern gate beyond the bounds of the world is always shut and by no means lies open to human sight, the Gospel of John proves — when it says: No one has ever seen God except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; he has made him known, as if he had said in other words: And it shall be shut for the prince: the prince alone shall sit in it to eat the bread 'of perfect and consummate knowledge': for No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him —. Some fittingly understand the shut gate, through which the Lord God of Israel alone enters, and the leader for whom the gate is shut, as the Virgin Mary, who remained a virgin both before giving birth and after giving birth — for both at the time when the angel was saying: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and that which will be born of you will be called Holy, the Son of God, and when he was born, she remained a virgin forever —, to confound those who think that after the Savior's birth she had sons by Joseph, taking occasion from his 'brothers' who are so called in the Gospel: on which little question I know that in my youth, at Rome, I wrote a book of no great size against Helvidius, a heretic of that time —.

The Lord God, maker of the universe, enters and departs through one gate, made from sensible material and always closed.

There is a key of knowledge to open what is closed.

Even though my God has not come, the law was closed, the prophetic word closed, the text of the Old Testament veiled.

It is very likely that these words refer to the womb of the Virgin, through which no one enters and from which no one departs other than the only one who is the Lord.

Christ himself is a virgin, and his mother is also a virgin; though she is his mother, she is a virgin still. For Jesus has entered in through the closed doors, and in his tomb—a new one hewn out of the hardest rock—no one is laid either before him or after him.… Mary is the east gate, spoken of by the prophet Ezekiel, always shut and always shining and either concealing or revealing the Holy of Holies.

This gate, then, which is shut to all — for No man shall pass through it —: It shall be shut for the prince (or for the leader), and will be reserved for his coming: who shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord — of which he himself declares in the Gospel, saying: My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work —; he himself is prince and high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, both victim and priest, who in the sight of the Father eats the heavenly bread with us and drinks the wine — of which he speaks in the Gospel: I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until I drink it new in the kingdom of my Father: namely in that kingdom of which the Apostle also writes: The kingdom of God is within you —; and the gate will be shut: for no one can know the mysteries of the Lord's passion and of his body and blood as the majesty of the thing deserves; and our prince is of such goodness and mercy that, although he alone sits in the gate which is shut and eats bread before the Lord, he wills to have many sharers of his table and banquet — and he says: Behold, I stand and knock; if anyone opens to me, I will come in to him, and I will sup with him, and he with me —; but he alone eats bread before the Lord, because his substance and divine nature is set apart from all the substances of created things. He himself enters and goes out through the same gate of the vestibule, because he is both within and without — that is, poured into all things and poured around all things —: entering through the gate to bring in with him those who cannot enter without his teaching and help, and going out to bring in others again, and to speak to those who do not grasp the more difficult things.

Without seed the Son of God was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and in the Virgin's womb he formed for himself a fleshly body, animate with a reasonable and intelligent soul. From it [he came] forth in one substance but in two natures, perfect God and perfect man. It preserved undefiled, even after birth, the virginity of her that bore him. Being made of like passions with ourselves in all things, yet without sin, he took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. For, since by sin death entered into the world, he who was to redeem the world had to be without sin, and not by sin subject to death.

As the priest does not eat his food in the house or in any other place, except in the Holy of Holies, so does my Savior eat the bread, and no one can eat with him.

Each one of us asks for "daily bread" and when asking for "daily bread" does not receive either the same bread or the same measure. So without ceasing, thanks to pure prayers and a clean conscience, in the works of justice, we eat daily bread. And if anyone is less pure, he eats the daily bread in another way.

And he brought me by the way of the north gate in front of the house; and I looked, and behold, the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord, and I fell on my face. And the Lord said to me: Son of man, set your heart, and see with your eyes, and hear with your ears all that I say to you concerning all the ceremonies of the house of the Lord, and concerning all its laws; and you shall set your heart on the ways of the temple, through all the exits of the sanctuary. The man who is the prophet's guide, and through whose showing he learns everything in the temple, after he had shown him the gate shut, never to be unbarred and yet open to him who entered through shut doors, leads the prophet to the way of the north gate, which itself too was in front of the house: no doubt this signifies the temple; and when the prophet, from directly opposite, had seen the house of the Lord full of the glory of the Lord — the same, namely, which he had beheld facing him when he was placed in the region of the north —, at once he fell on his face, not enduring to bear the majesty of the glory of the Lord.

Therefore, because he had been cast down in humility, it is no longer the man but the Lord who says to him: Son of man, set your heart, and the rest: at the completion of the tabernacle and at the building of the temple which was erected by Solomon the glory of the Lord appeared, which afterward was done away by comparison with the glory of the Gospel — as the Apostle says: For what was glorified has not been glorified in this respect, because of the surpassing glory. For if what is done away was through glory, much more what remains is in glory —; and we must beware of thinking the doing away of the former glory to be its abolition, but must understand it thus: After that which is perfect has come, that which was in part will be done away — as if you were to compare a torch to the rays of the sun, or the light of a torch to a little lamp; for which reason it is also said of John the Baptist: He was a lamp shining in the house; but after the sun of righteousness came, the light of the lamp was hidden, as the prophet and Baptist himself says: He must increase, but I must decrease —; and the prophet fell on his face lest, while he longed to discern more than human frailty can behold, he should lose even the very light of his eyes; hence the Lord calls him more familiarly son of man, and commanded him to set his heart, and see with his eyes, and hear with his ears — for first the mind must be opened to understand what is said, second the eyes of the heart must be directed, of which it is said to Abraham: Lift up your eyes and see the stars of heaven, third one must hear with those ears of which the Savior says: He who has ears to hear, let him hear —, so that he may be able to understand all the ceremonies of the temple and its ordinances, and finally to set his heart on the 'ways' of the temple — because there are various entrances to it —, or the 'way' of the temple — it signifies the order of the ceremonies —, and the exits of the sanctuary. It is, then, a preface and a preparation of the prophet for understanding what he is afterward to learn concerning the order of the temple. And this too must be noted: that in the region of this world, which lies in the evil one and is set in the cold of the north, the order of the heavenly ceremonies is shown to us.

And you shall say to the house of Israel that provokes me: Thus says the Lord God: Let all your crimes suffice you, house of Israel, in that you bring in alien sons (or foreigners) uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary and to pollute my house; and you offer my loaves, the fat and the blood, and you dissolve my covenant (or you pass over my precept) in all your crimes. And you have not kept the precepts of my sanctuary, and you have set keepers of my observances in my sanctuary for yourselves. When he says: Let all your crimes suffice you (or your iniquities), he exhorts to repentance for former sins, lest we add sins to sins and prepare fuel for the fire to come — but let us hear what Isaiah says: Woe to those who draw sins as with a long cord, and iniquities as with the yoke-strap of a calf —.

And the first sin is that they bring in alien sons — or foreigners — uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in the sanctuary of God and to pollute the house of the Lord — for A little leaven corrupts the whole lump, and in some copies of Proverbs there is found: Do not bring the wicked man into the tents of the righteous —. At this place the Jews and the Ebionites — who accept circumcision of the flesh — press us as to how we can explain the present passage: uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, meaning, that is, that after the spiritual understanding we ought also to undergo circumcision of the flesh; but — we who read Paul saying: And I testify to every man who is circumcised that, if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing, and that word of Jeremiah: Behold, your ears are uncircumcised, and you would not hear, and in Exodus: Moses spoke before the Lord, saying: Behold, the sons of Israel have not listened, and how will Pharaoh listen to me? But I am slow of speech (for which the Seventy said: Ἐγὼ δὲ ἄλογός εἰμι [But I am without speech], which is better rendered in the Hebrew: But I am uncircumcised of lips) —, let us question them — nay, let us compel them to circumcise their ears and cut off their lips, that they may be seen to fulfill the Scripture —: but if they begin to interpret circumcision of the 'ears' as when we allow ourselves to hear nothing base and unseemly, and circumcision of the 'lips' as when we speak nothing indecent, let us say to them: you ought to keep the same exposition also for 'heart' and for 'flesh': we circumcise the 'heart' with the knife of God, and the foreskin is removed from our heart, when base thoughts in no way go forth from our heart — and it is not said of us: The heart of this people has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily —; so the 'flesh' too is likewise circumcised, so that we by no means do the earthly works which we are compelled to do for the necessity of the body — to take food and drink and sleep and to use clothing —, which we circumcise then, if we do all these things not for pleasure and for luxury and for idleness, but for the necessity of nature and the sustenance of this body — he who drinks a little wine for his stomach and his frequent infirmities and hates drunkenness circumcises his flesh; he who sleeps as much as nature allows will hear from Solomon: If you sit, you will be without fear; if you sleep, you will sleep sweetly: and you will not fear the terror coming upon you, nor the assaults of the wicked coming upon you; and he who flees fornication and renders to his wife her due, coming together again lest Satan tempt him, will hear with the people of Israel: On this day I have taken away from you the reproach of Egypt; he will also use clothes that keep off the cold, not those that by their thinness show bodies naked —: the flesh worn down by fasts and circumcised by continence escapes the reproach of the Egyptians: Who are of great flesh — and it can say that which is read in most copies according to the edition of the Seventy: As my flesh has wasted away, in a land desert and pathless and waterless, so in the holy place I have appeared to you —. If ever, then, we wish to bring foreigners into the temple of God, let us circumcise their ears and lips and heart and all their flesh, and their eyes, taste and smell: so that we may do all things with the fear of God and with reason; let the bishops and presbyters and the whole ecclesiastical order hear this, that they may not bring in alien sons uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, lest they be in his sanctuary and pollute his house; for if they do this, what follows will be fitted to them: And you offer my loaves — the loaves, namely, of proposition, in all the churches and throughout the world, springing up from the one bread —, and not only the loaves but also the fat — of which it is written: He fed them with the fat of the wheat —, and the blood — which was poured out in the passion of Christ —.

And it must be read thus, and the order of the reading rendered so: 'Since you bring alien sons, uncircumcised in heart and in body, into my sanctuary and pollute my house, you dare to offer loaves and fat and blood — the mystic sacraments — and you do not understand what you have dissolved, and that you have transgressed my covenant in all your crimes and impieties; and that you have not kept the precepts of my sanctuary nor set keepers of my ceremonies in my sanctuary' — and the whole threat is against those who have not heeded the Apostle warning beforehand: Lay hands hastily on no one, and do not share in other men's sins —; or certainly it must be understood thus: 'You have dissolved my covenant in all your crimes and have not kept the precepts of my sanctuary, and you dare to set unworthy and alien keepers in the observance of my sanctuary — so that 'for yourselves' is understood, not 'for me', and the sense is —: who serve you and minister to you in carnal things, and for the sake of your comforts pollute my sanctuary'.

When the mind is longingly involved with one of these stirrings—this depends on the urgency of the matter at the time of supplication and is the result of great eagerness—the gaze of its stirring is drawn by the eye of faith inside the veil of the heart, and the entries of the soul are fenced off, keeping out alien thoughts, which are called "strangers," who are not permitted by the law to enter inside the tent of witness. This is what they describe as "an acceptable sacrifice of the heart" and "pure prayer." Prayer's boundaries reach this point: afterwards it is not to be named prayer.

Thus says the Lord God: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh shall enter my sanctuary, no alien son who is in the midst of the sons of Israel. But also the Levites who went far away from me in the straying of the sons of Israel, and strayed from me after their idols, shall bear their iniquity, who were in my sanctuary temple-keepers and doorkeepers of the gates of the house and ministers of the house: and they slaughtered the holocausts and the victims of the people, and they stood before them to minister to them. Because, then, they ministered to them in the sight of their idols and became to the house of Israel a stumbling block of iniquity, therefore I have lifted up my hand against them, says the Lord God, and they have borne their iniquity. And they shall not draw near to me to exercise the priesthood for me, nor shall they approach any of my sanctuary next to the Holy of Holies, but they shall bear their shame and their crimes which they committed. And I will make them doorkeepers of the house in all its service and in all that is done in it. But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept the ceremonies of my sanctuary when the sons of Israel strayed from me, they shall approach me to minister to me, and they shall stand in my sight to offer me the fat and the blood, says the Lord God. They shall enter my sanctuary, and they shall approach my table, to minister to me and to keep my ceremonies. (LXX: "Therefore thus says the Lord: No foreign son uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh shall enter my holy places, among all the sons of foreigners who are in the midst of the house of Israel. But also the Levites who went away from me when Israel strayed from me after their own thoughts, and they shall receive their iniquities, and they shall be in my holy places ministering, porters at the gates of the house and ministers of the house: they shall sacrifice the holocausts and the victims for the people, and they shall stand before the people to minister to them, because they ministered to them before the face of their idols, and it became to the house of Israel a torment of iniquity. Therefore I have lifted up my hand against them, says the Lord God, and they shall receive their iniquity: that they may not approach me to exercise the priesthood for me, nor to offer at all the holy things of the sons of Israel nor at my Holy of Holies, and they shall bear their disgrace in the error in which they strayed. And they shall appoint them to keep the charges of the house in all its works and in all that they have done in it. The priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept the charges of my holy places when the house of Israel strayed from me, they shall approach me to minister to me, and they shall stand before my face to offer me the sacrifice, the fat and the blood, says the Lord God. They shall enter into my holy places, and they shall approach my table, to minister to me and to observe my charges.") I have set down the testimony according to both editions, so that by comparing them we may be able to know what the Seventy meant and what the Hebrew contains. The Seventy signify this: that foreigners uncircumcised in heart and flesh, who dwell in the midst of the sons of Israel, ought not to enter the sanctuary of God; but that the Levites, that is, the priestly rank, who went far away from the Lord in the straying of the sons of Israel and strayed after their idols, after they have received their iniquity, are to stand in the sanctuary of the Lord as temple-keepers and doorkeepers and ministers of the house, and slaughter the holocausts and victims of the people, and be in their sight to minister to them, because they ministered to them in the sight of their idols and became to the house of Israel a torment of iniquity; and that the Lord God therefore says he has lifted up his hand against them, so that they may not approach him and exercise the priesthood for him nor offer for him in the Holy of Holies, and may bear their disgrace in the error in which they strayed: so that, namely, they are appointed to the observance of the charges of the house in all its works and in all that is done in the house — but if this is so, how can it stand that the Levites — who went far away from God in the straying of the sons of Israel and strayed from him after their idols — should themselves minister in the house and slaughter the holocausts and victims of the people, and themselves stand in their sight to minister to them — for what more are the priests, the sons of Zadok, to do, who kept the ceremonies of the sanctuary of God, of whom he says: They shall approach me to minister to me, and they shall stand in my sight to offer me the fat, and the rest —? —. But the Hebrew has this sense: 'No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh shall enter my sanctuary, even though he seems to be with the people of Israel. But the Levites, that is, the priestly rank, who went far away from me in the straying of the sons of Israel and followed idols, shall bear their iniquity, because they were in my sanctuary ministering in the office of the gates of the house and its ministers: for they offered the holocaust and the victims of the people, and they stood in their sight to minister for them. Because, then, they ministered for them in the sight of their idols and were to the house of Israel a stumbling block of iniquity, therefore I have lifted up my hand against them, says the Lord God, and they have borne their iniquity. And they shall not draw near to me to exercise the priesthood for me, nor shall they approach any of my sanctuary next to the Holy of Holies, but they shall bear their shame and their crimes which they committed — for instead of the priestly office, they who had been accustomed to offer the holocaust and the victims and every sacrifice will be reduced to the lowest rank —. And they will be doorkeepers of the house, to everlasting disgrace — so that they may be seen by the whole people, entering and going out, from what lofty dignity they have come to what lowest rank —. But the priests,' he says, 'that is, the Levites who are the sons of Zadok — that is, of the righteous, or of the righteous one of God — and who in the time of the straying of all Israel kept the ceremonies of my sanctuary, they shall approach me to minister to me, and shall stand in my sight and offer me the fat — that is, the richest sacrifice —, and the blood — that is, a living sacrifice and pleasing to God —. And they shall enter my sanctuary and approach my table, to burn incense to me and to keep the whole rite of sacrifice' — but if this is so, that those who in the time of error or of persecution followed idols which they had fashioned from their own heart, and asserted not only by voice but also by the subscription of their hand that the Son of God is a creature: And they served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever: how do they assume for themselves the priestly and pontifical eminence, and dare to offer victims to God, they who were once worshipers of idols? — but, as the most ardent poet testifies: Whatever is sinned by many goes unpunished; the multitude of sinners has made pardon easier for the impious to obtain: so that those who, reduced to the laity, ought to have bewailed the former crimes of their sacrilege, now sit leaning back on the pontifical throne, and belch at us the nauseas of a feigned faith, nay rather the open epitomes of a misborn perfidy —; let them hear, then, at least late, and observe the precepts of almighty God: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh shall enter my sanctuary, though he be a son, though joined by kinship, though he cling to us by an old bond: if he is uncircumcised in heart or flesh, let him not be brought into the sanctuary of God, lest we make the ministers of Christ our own ministers, and pollute the altars of the Lord for the sake of carnal comforts —.

But also he who holds heretical thoughts in his mind and arranges blasphemous assertions against the knowledge of Christ in his heart, this man is "uncircumcised" in "heart." But he who guards a pure faith in the sincerity of conscience, he is circumcised in heart; of whom it can be said: "blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God."

How is it that in the book of Ezekiel, where a description is given of the future church and of the heavenly Jerusalem, the priests who have sinned are degraded to the rank of sacristans and doorkeepers, and although they are in the temple of God, that is, on the right hand, they are not among the rams but among the poorest of the sheep?

For certainly no one does more harm in the Church than one who has the name and rank of sanctity, while he acts perversely. For him, when he transgresses, no one presumes to take to task; and the offence spreads forcibly for example, when out of reverence to his rank the sinner is honoured.

Where we have put: And I will make them doorkeepers of the house in all its service and in all that is done in it, them, namely, of the Levites who went far away from God in the straying of the sons of Israel and followed idols to which they sacrificed victims, Symmachus, considering the order of the reading and its sense, translated more correctly, saying: For I had made them keepers of the doors of the house, of all its service and of all that is done in it, so that it does not refer to those who are to be in the temple, but to those who were.

And when they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with garments (or robes) of linen, and nothing woollen shall come upon them (or and they shall not be clothed with woollens) while they minister in the gates (or from the gates) of the inner court and within. Linen fillets shall be on their heads (or they shall have linen turbans upon their heads), and linen breeches shall be on their loins, and they shall not be girded in sweat (or violently). And when they go out to the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments (or robes) in which they had ministered, and they shall lay them (or them) up in the chambers (or exedras) of the sanctuary (or of the holy places), and they shall clothe themselves in other garments (or robes), and they shall not sanctify the people in their garments (or robes). But they shall not shave their head, nor let their hair grow long, but clipping they shall clip their heads (or: They shall not shave their heads, and they shall not crop their hair close; covering they shall cover their heads). And no priest shall drink wine when he has entered into the inner court. First the words of the history must be laid open. Among the other things which the word of the Lord commanded the priests, it orders this too to be observed: that in the very gates of the inner court they be clothed with garments — that is, robes — of linen, and that they not use woollen clothing, whether in the gates of the inner court or within — that is, in the inner shrines and the Holy of Holies —; that linen fillets too — or turbans — be on their heads, linen breeches on their loins; and what follows according to the Seventy: And they shall not be girded violently (for which Aquila and Symmachus translated in sweat, Theodotion expressing the Hebrew word itself, 'in ieze', Aquila's second edition 'buza'), by which he signifies that they are not to be girded violently, tightly and constrictedly like men in bonds, lest in the priestly and Levitical ministries they become unfit both to hold and to slay the victims, and be unable also to drag them and to run about.

What all these things indicate according to the spiritual sense, what follows will show. That there are holy and spiritual garments the Apostle teaches, saying: Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and in another place: Put on the bowels of mercy, goodness, humility, meekness and patience, and again: Strip off the old man with his works, and put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of the Creator; and I think this too signifies the same: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And when this corruptible has put on incorruption — and this mortal immortality —, then shall come to pass the word that is written, and the rest — concerning the priestly garments it is written more fully in Exodus, and we once published a book to whose interpretation the diligent reader must be sent: for we cannot comprehend a broad subject in a brief discourse —; these garments we make for ourselves by our own labor, woven from the top — such as the tunic which the Lord also had, which cannot be torn —, and we are clothed with them when we know the secrets and hidden things of the Lord and have the spirit which searches even the high and deep things, which are not to be shown to the crowd nor brought out to the people who are not sanctified nor prepared for the holiness of the Lord — lest, if they hear things greater than themselves, they be unable to bear the majesty of knowledge and be choked, as it were, by solid food, they who are still to be nourished with the milk of infancy —; but that there are, on the contrary, very evil garments the divine Scripture teaches, as is that which is sung in the Psalms of Judas the traitor: And he put on cursing like a garment, and a little after: Let it be to him like a garment which is wrapped about him, and like a girdle with which he is always girded: hence the Lord too, who suffered for us and bore our sins, is said in Zechariah to have filthy garments — of which it is written: And Jesus was clothed in filthy garments —, which he afterward lays aside — as Scripture says: Take the filthy garments from him and clothe him with a full-length robe, and the rest —.

The priests of Egypt use linen garments not only within but without — but the divine religion has one dress for the ministry, another for common use —; and the fillets and breeches are rightly put on, so that seemliness and decorum may be preserved — namely, lest in climbing the steps of the altar and running about at the ministries they uncover their shame —; shaven heads belong to the superstition of the Gentiles; but from wine, as far as my knowledge goes, I do not think any of the Gentiles abstains.

As for what follows: Linen fillets (or turbans) shall be on their heads, I think it shows the crown of grace of which it is written: For your head shall receive a crown of graces; nor let that which the Apostle says about the uncovered and bared head raise a question for us: A woman ought to have authority over her head because of the angels. For if a woman is not veiled, let her be shorn; but if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man: for if it belongs to men not to cover the head, it seems contradictory how the priests are now ordered to cover their heads with linen fillets or a turban; but let us read more carefully: the present words will be resolved from the preceding ones: for it is said above: When all minister in the gates of the inner court and within — for if we enter into the holy places and stand in the sight of the Lord, we ought to cover our heads, because: No living man shall be justified in the sight of the Lord, and from infancy the heart of man is set on malice —; and further, we use breeches within, lest any shame of a polluted conscience and of the marriage act appear in the sight of the Lord: with which breeches the Savior also girds his apostles, saying: Let your loins be girded, and lamps burning in your hands, and the Apostle says to believers: Stand therefore, having your loins girded in truth, and let the imitators of Christ hear what is written of him: He shall be girded with righteousness about the loins and encompassed with truth; and with this very holy Levitical girdle he who is holy and has climbed to the summit of the virtues is by no means bound violently, lest he seem to keep the good of continence unwillingly and to eat bread in the sweat of his face, rather than to do the Lord's precept with his will.

And because he had once commanded what garments the priests ought to use when they are within at their ministries, he orders again that, going out into the chambers — or exedras — of the holy places, they put off their former garments and put on others, lest, if they have the holy garments, they sanctify the people placed outside, who have not yet been sanctified nor prepared themselves for the sanctification of the temple, so as to be a Nazirite of the Lord; by which we learn that we ought not to enter the Holy of Holies in everyday garments, any whatever, polluted by the use of common life, but to hold the sacraments of the Lord with a clean conscience and clean garments.

Further, when he goes outside and mingles with the people, he lays aside the priestly garments in the chamber in which the riches of the Lord are kept, and the priests use other garments and other teaching for the common crowd, lest the people be sanctified in their robes: for it is a grave thing to take up the burden of the multitude beyond one's strength, as Solomon says: It is a snare to a man to sanctify hastily anything of his own: for when he has made a vow, repentance steals upon him. — Further, the Nazirites too offer themselves of their own accord; and whoever has vowed anything and has not fulfilled it is guilty of the vow; hence it is also said of widows: When they have grown wanton in Christ, they wish to marry, having condemnation because they have made void their first faith — for It is better not to promise than to promise and not to perform —: Hannah offered Samuel, who remained in perpetual holiness; and Manoah offered his son Samson, but the lust of Delilah defiled the consecration of his hair: then the Lord departed from him and he was condemned to blindness, except that afterward, as his hair grew, he received his former strength, and, in a type of Christ, by far more of the foreigners did he kill in death than in life —.

They are rightly called priests who are set over the faithful for giving them sacred guidance. But hairs outside the head are thoughts in the mind, which, as they spring up without notice above the brain, denote the cares of the present life, which sometimes come forth unseasonably, due to negligent perception, since they arise without our feeling them. Because all who are over others ought indeed to have external anxieties, and yet should not be overly concerned about them, priests are rightly forbidden either to shave their heads or to let their hair grow long. This means that they may neither cut themselves off entirely from thoughts of the flesh for the life of those who are under them, nor again allow such thoughts to occupy them too much.

As for what follows: But they shall not shave their head, nor let their hair grow long, but clipping they shall clip their heads, it is clearly shown that we ought neither to have shaven heads like the priests and worshipers of Isis and Serapis, nor again to let our hair hang down, which is properly the mark of the luxurious and of barbarians and soldiers, but that the seemly bearing of priests should be shown at first sight; as for what the Seventy said: They shall not shave their heads, and they shall not crop their hair close, but covering they shall cover their heads, according to them we learn that baldness is not to be made with the razor, nor is the head to be cropped so close that it seems like those of the shaven, but the hair is to be let grow only so far that the skin is covered — or certainly that the priests are always to cover their heads, according to that line of Vergil: Covered, to veil his locks with a purple mantle; but this is a forced interpretation —.

And the Lord wills his priests to have perpetual hair of consecration and to cover their heads, not with any veil from outside but with their own natural hair, not for ornament and luxury but for seemliness — hence the hairs of the head of the apostles too are numbered, as the Savior says: But even the hairs of your head are all numbered: of that head of which it is also written in Ecclesiastes: The eyes of the wise man are in his head. And the head of the man is Christ, which the sinner tramples and despises and, so to speak, shaves with a razor and takes away its beauty: which the Ammonites also did to those whom David had sent as envoys —; but if transgression of the law dishonors God, it follows that he who keeps the precepts of the law honors him — that what is written may be fulfilled: That all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father —.

And wine the priests and Levites shall not drink, not only for their ministry, but indeed when they are about to enter the Holy of Holies, lest the mind be weighed down and the understanding become duller — hence the Apostle too says: It is good, he says, not to drink wine and not to eat meat, and in another place: And wine, in which is debauchery — for The people ate and drank, and rose up to play —; and what he grants Timothy, to drink a little wine, he clearly shows why he granted it: For your stomach, he says, and your frequent infirmities —.

Further, as for what follows, that: No priest, when he is about to enter the inner court, shall drink wine, it is clear that by drunkenness and strong drink the state of the mind is overturned, and that we are not fully wise when the mind is taken up with wine and satiety; but drunkenness is shown not only in the drinking of wine but in all things by which, both in contracts and in the business of the world, in losses and gains, in love and hatred, the mind is made drunk and wavers and cannot keep its state; and because we are encompassed by frail flesh and are compelled — for food and clothing and the necessities which pertain to the body — to do some things which we ought not to do, at least this is required of us: that — when we return into ourselves and know why we were born and enter the inner parts and shrines of the temple — we withdraw from the vices of the world and commit not even the least sins; by which it is shown both that we sin — when it is for the necessities of the flesh — light sins, and again that there is a time when — entering the inner court — we ought to be clean and estranged from all drunkenness.

A widow and a divorced woman (or a woman cast out) they shall not take as wives, but a virgin of the seed of the house of Israel; but also a widow who has been the widow of a priest they may take. And they shall teach my people; what the difference is between holy and polluted, between clean and unclean, they shall show them. And when there is a controversy (as is added in the Seventy, of blood), they shall stand in my judgments, and they shall judge; my laws and my precepts they shall keep in all my solemn feasts, and they shall sanctify my sabbaths. And they shall not go in to a dead man, lest they be polluted, except to father and mother, son and daughter, brother and sister who has not had another man: in these they shall be defiled. And after he has been cleansed, seven days shall be counted to him, and on the day of his entry into the sanctuary, into the inner court, to minister to me in the sanctuary, he shall offer for his sin, says the Lord God. But they shall have no inheritance; I am their inheritance, and you shall give them no possession in Israel, for I am their possession. The victim both for sin and for trespass they shall eat, and every vow of Israel shall be theirs; and the first portions of all the firstborn, and all the libations of all that are offered, shall be the priests'; and the first portions of your foods you shall give to the priest, that he may lay up a blessing for his house. Anything that has died of itself or been caught by a beast, of birds or of cattle, the priests shall not eat. This whole passage contains precepts for the priests, who, after the many things which we have expounded above, are ordered not to take as wives a widow and a divorced woman, or one cast out — the widow and the divorced woman is the Synagogue, that is, the congregation of the Jews, which did not receive the Lord; hence the Synagogue is also rightly called 'cast out' or 'widow': but the one cast out is the throng of heretics, who went out from us because they were not of us —, but: A virgin, he says, of the seed of the house of Israel, who has been nurtured in the house of God, in the law and the prophets, of whom the Apostle also speaks: I wish to present you all as a holy virgin to Christ; this is the virgin of whom the divine word also says elsewhere: Love her and she will keep you, encircle her and she will exalt you, honor her that she may embrace you; and who the virgin is who is to be loved and guards her lover, he will know who has read this: Her I loved and sought from my youth, and I sought to take her as my bride, and I became a lover of her beauty; and the Lord of all loved her. And not only a virgin, but also a widow the priest ought to marry, one, however, who has been the wife of another priest: knowledge, namely, which another worshiper of God has found; for we ought not to be content with new teaching only, but also to cultivate the old and join it to our company, provided it has been trained in sacred worship.

It is the office of the priest too to teach the people: What the difference is between holy and polluted, between clean and unclean, so that we refer the first to doctrines, the second to the works which are performed through the flesh — for who understands transgressions? —.

And when there is a controversy 'about any matter' or, as the Seventy translated, 'of blood', that is, what pertains to a mortal crime: The priests shall stand in my judgments, so that they do not judge according to rank nor accept the person of poor or rich in judgment, but stand in the judgments of God — and remember that psalm: God has stood in the synagogue of gods, and in the midst he judges gods, calling 'gods' those who have the power of judging men —: for with what judgment they have judged, they themselves will be judged. My laws, he says, and my precepts they shall keep in all my solemn feasts, so that they may know how Christ our Passover was sacrificed, how we ought to fulfill seven weeks of joy and gladness, and humble our souls in fasting and in the sound of trumpets, and understand also spiritual feasts of Tabernacles — in which we say: I am a sojourner and a stranger, as all my fathers were —; these are the true solemn feasts of God, which one discussing the Pentateuch will interpret more fittingly: the first virtue of a priest is not only to teach what he knows, but to keep all the festivals of God, so that he may be able to command others to keep what he himself has observed — that it is the office of priests to have knowledge of the law we learn also in Malachi, who says: The lips of the priest shall guard knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts —. And they shall sanctify my sabbaths. And they shall not go in to a dead man, lest they be polluted (for which the Seventy translated: And they shall not go in upon the soul of a man, lest they be polluted), except to father, he says, and mother, son and daughter, brother and sister who has not had a man: they shall be defiled. And after he has been cleansed, seven days shall be counted to him, and on the day of his entry into the sanctuary and into the inner court, to minister to me in the sanctuary, he shall offer for his sin to the Lord God (or he shall offer a propitiation). And there shall be to them their inheritance, and you shall give them no possession in Israel, I am their possession, the priests are still being commanded; in which it must be observed that he did not say absolutely: and they shall sanctify 'sabbaths' — or, according to Isaiah: Your new moons and sabbaths my soul hates —, but with a distinction: 'my' sabbaths — hence it is written in the Gospel too: The priests in the temple violate the sabbath and are without blame: not the sabbath of God, but the sabbath of the letter, the sabbath of the Jews, which they rightly violate who are: A chosen race, a royal priesthood —; but the sabbath that has been sanctified let us understand as that which the Apostle too teaches has been left for the people of God — of which it is written: If they shall enter into my 'rest', which in Hebrew is called 'sabbath' —; and he sanctifies the sabbath of God who does not carry the burden of sin on the sabbath nor say: Like a heavy burden they have weighed heavy upon me: he who is such does not gather wood on the sabbath, nor build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ wood, hay, stubble, nor kindle a fire to consume useless material, and on the sabbath day he remains in one place and does not go outside, but remains set like a pillar in the temple of God — of which John writes in the Revelation: He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more —.

As for what follows: And they shall not go in to a dead man, lest they be polluted: it belongs properly to the priestly office not to touch dead things, so that he who prays for the vices of others may himself approach the altar clean — of which dead the Savior too speaks in the Gospel: Leave the dead to bury their own dead —; these are defiled in a dead father when they forsake their Creator, and in a dead mother, departing from the Church, in a son also and a daughter, in that the one pertains to thoughts, the other to works — which is said more expressively in Greek, νοητὰ καὶ αἰσθητὰ [things of the mind and things of the senses] —; in brother also and sister: he who, reborn of the same spirit, if he has reckoned him dead, is defiled in him, only on this condition, if the sister has remained a virgin and not been stained by the embrace of any man — from which we understand the virginal privilege, that the contact of any man whatever takes away perfect purity; whether these things have been said rightly or wrongly, let us leave to the judgment of the reader —; the affection of nature too is approved herein, so that in the order of charity — according to what is written: Set charity in order in me —, after God the parent of all things, the father of the flesh too is loved, and the mother, son and daughter, brother and sister, only on this condition, if she has not gone out of the house nor passed into the power of another.

And after the priest has been cleansed by the order of purification which is written in the Mosaic law: Seven days shall be counted to him — either the perfect number of penitence, or after the consummation of the world, when we have passed over to the true ogdoad —, that he may enter the Holy of Holies — for this is the inner court — and be able to minister in the sanctuary and always to offer a victim for the sin of conscience; and let there be no time in which he does not remember that he was stained over father and mother, son and daughter, brother and sister: for we are compelled to do many things, set as we are in the straits of this world, either by the condition of the flesh or by the frailty of nature.

But he who shows himself such as to minister in the sanctuary and enter the inner court and always offer sacrifice to the Lord — so that, a true priest, he may be true, or rather an imitator of him of whom it is written: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek —, he shall have no inheritance except God, who is his inheritance, nor shall he receive a possession in Israel — that is, among the common crowd —, but a priestly one, so that the Lord may say of him: I am the inheritance and: I am their possession — whom, when they have found him, they will speak and say: I will hold him and will not let him go, and they will sing with the prophet: The Lord is my portion —.

The victim both for sin and for trespass (or for ignorance) they shall eat, and every vow (or separation) in Israel shall be theirs; and the first portions of all the firstborn, and all the libations of all that are offered, shall be the priests'; and the first portions of your foods you shall give to the priest, that he may lay up a blessing for his house (or that he may put blessings upon your houses). For 'victim' and sacrifice, which in Hebrew is called 'manaa', Aquila and Symmachus translated 'gift'; again, for 'vow', which the Seventy translated ἀφόρισμα, that is, 'separation', Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion translated ἀνάθημα [a thing devoted], which in Hebrew is called 'herem'; and it must be considered that all the things which the Lord now speaks through the prophet he had already said before through Moses; and it must be asked why he repeats the same things that have been said: namely, that the things which are in the minds of men, blotted out either by negligence in reading or by contempt and forgetfulness in hearing, may be renewed by the living voice: things which are not written with pen and ink but by the Spirit and the Word of God — hence the Savior too left no volume of his teaching of his own, as the ravings of the apocrypha invent in many places, but by the Spirit of the Father and his own he speaks daily in the heart of believers —; and this will be the answer against those who slander the prophets: why they repeat in their own volumes what is contained in the Pentateuch. The victim, then, both for sin and for trespass (or ignorance) the priests are to eat — of whom it is written: They shall eat the sins of my people —; and we should not so much rejoice at the offering of gifts as fear the condemnation of our honor if we abuse it unworthily.

The first portions, according to the letter, are those of living and lifeless things which are born first and which the earth first brings forth; the firstfruits of our foods too are offered to the priests, so that we taste nothing of the new crops unless the priest has tasted it first; and we do this so that the priest may lay up our blessing and offering in his house, or so that at his prayer the Lord may bless our houses: great is the dignity of priests, but great the ruin if they sin; we rejoice at the ascent, but let us fear the fall: it is not so great a joy to have held the heights as it is a grief to have fallen from the loftier places — for we shall render account not only for our own transgressions but for those of all whose gifts we abuse; and we are by no means anxious for their salvation —.

Anything that has died of itself or been caught by a beast, of birds or of cattle, the priests shall not eat; and according to the letter these precepts befit every chosen race, royal and priestly — which refers properly to Christians, who have been anointed with the spiritual oil of which it is written: God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows —: that he not eat 'what has died of itself', whether of birds or of cattle, whose blood has not been shed — which in the Acts of the Apostles is called 'strangled', and that these things must necessarily be observed the letter of the apostles from Jerusalem warns — and what has been caught by a beast, because that too is likewise strangled: and it condemns priests who, out of the greed of the gullet, do not keep these things in the case of thrushes, figpeckers, dormice and other things of this kind. But according to ἀναγωγὴν [anagogy, the higher sense] we can call that dead of itself in which the blood of the soul has died, and which imitates 'Nabal' the Carmelite, whose name means 'fool', and who, when he heard of the wrath of David, trembled with fear: And his heart died within him; and caught by beasts — the beasts by whose bites the prophet sighs not to be torn, saying: Do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses you — must be said of him who is devoured by the bites of the adversary lion, and of the leopard which does not change its spots, and of the she-bear raging for her stolen cubs, and by the fury of wolves, and of the other beasts, which we take as the variety of demons; and the birds we say are those who set their mouth in heaven; and those cattle, the ones that, bent down and turned toward the earth, serve only the belly and the things that are below the belly.