Sermon 8

SERMO 8

SERMON ON THE TEN PLAGUES OF THE EGYPTIANS
AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE LAW
Dressed in Carthage at the table of Saint Cyprian

A question proposed by the brothers.

To the Lord our God, whom we worship, it has been said in praise in a certain place of the Scriptures: "You have arranged all things in measure, number, and weight." Then, by apostolic teaching, we are instructed to behold the invisible things of God through those that have been made, and to investigate the hidden things through the manifest ones. Thus, when all of creation is questioned, it responds with a certain voice of its own nature that the Lord God is its maker. Moreover, the Apostle reminds us that what was written in the books, called the Old Testament, happened in a figurative manner: "But they were written for our correction upon whom the end of the ages has come." Therefore, beloved, if those things which appear in the nature of things as if by chance, when diligently examined and prudently investigated and discovered, intimate the praise of the Creator and the divine providence spread and arranging through all, as it is said, "reaches mightily from one end to the other and orders all things sweetly;" how much more so those things which are not only done, but also recounted in the divine Scriptures? Hence, the question proposed to us by the brothers, or rather the inquiry and dispute, about the meaning of the Egyptians being struck with ten plagues and the people of God being instructed with ten commandments, we have undertaken in the name of our Lord, with His assistance and giving, and with the devout intention of your hearts, to explain as much as we can. Those who proposed it know what they have proposed, that is, they know they have proposed it, nor do they recall me having rashly presented this to you. However, whoever did not propose it, listen equally to what we can, so that the concern of the brothers' proposal is the concern of all, and the exposition of our ministry is nourishment for everyone. For we believe that He will assist, if not for our sake, certainly for yours, so that we may say things that ought to be said and are useful to hear, so that walking together on the path of His truth and hastening to the homeland together, we may deserve to avoid the enemies and pitfalls of our journey by recognizing the will of God's law.

We believe the deeds just as we read the deeds.

There are ten plagues by which the people of Pharaoh were struck. There are ten commandments by which the people of God were instructed. Let us see, brothers, that the things accomplished corporally are to be understood spiritually. For we do not think that they were only spoken and written down, but we believe that the deeds occurred as we read them, and yet we know by apostolic doctrine that these deeds were shadows of future things. Therefore, we believe that the deeds are to be spiritually investigated, yet we cannot deny that they happened. Let no one say: "It is indeed written that water was turned into blood in the plague of the Egyptians, but it signifies something, for it could not really happen." He who says this seeks the will of God while offending the power of God. What indeed? If it could signify something by being spoken, could it not also signify by being done? Or is it not that Isaac or Ishmael were born? They were born, they were men, and they were born of Abraham, one from a slave woman, the other from a free woman. Although they were men and were born, they still prefigured two Testaments, the Old and the New. Thus, we must first search for meanings based on the solid reality of accomplished deeds, lest we appear to want to build in the air if we take away the foundation. Therefore, I believe that all who disregard and do not observe the ten commandments of the law suffer spiritually what the Egyptians suffered corporally. Until I explain this proposal with the help of the Lord, I want you to be attentive and praying for us, so that we may speak things useful to you. For as far as we are concerned, perhaps we contemplate; but what we speak, we serve you.

The sign of the rod turned into a serpent

Therefore, first accept this, so that you are not mistaken in counting, that what was first done as a sign, namely, that the rod was turned into a serpent, does not pertain to these ten plagues. For it was an introduction to Pharaoh, by which Moses was commended to lead the people of God out of Egypt. However, those who were stubborn had not yet been struck, but were already terrified by a divine sign. Neither is there now a need, nor is there a purpose, to say anything about the rod itself being turned into a serpent. Nevertheless, because we made mention of it out of necessity so that no one would err in counting, and there should not remain in anyone's mind a scruple about something not understood, we briefly say that the rod signifies the kingdom of God, and indeed the kingdom is the people of God; but the serpent signifies this time of mortality: for death was offered by the serpent. Therefore, as if falling from the hand of the Lord to the earth, they were made mortal. Hence, when the rod was cast from the hand of Moses, it was turned into a serpent. The magicians of Pharaoh likewise did the same: their rods being cast down were turned into serpents. But first the serpent of Moses, that is, the rod of Moses, devoured all the serpents of the magicians. Then at last, being seized by the tail, it was once again made a rod, and the kingdom returned to the hand. For the rods of the magicians are the peoples of the impious. Yet these peoples of the impious, conquered in the name of Christ, when transferred into His body, are as if devoured by the serpent of Moses, until the kingdom of God returns to the hand of God, but at the end of this mortal age, which is signified by the serpent's tail. A great sign: let it be, let it be. You have heard what you ought to desire; hear what you ought to avoid.

The first commandment, the first plague.

The first commandment in the law is about worshiping one God: "You shall have no other gods before me," it says. The first plague of the Egyptians was the water turned into blood. Compare the first commandment to the first plague. Understand the one God, from whom all things are, in the likeness of water, from which all things are generated. To what does blood pertain, except to mortal flesh? What then is the conversion of water into blood, except that their foolish hearts were darkened? For professing to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of corruptible man; the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed animals and reptiles. The glory of the incorruptible God, from whom all things are, is like water; the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and reptiles, is like blood. And this indeed happens in the heart of the impious, for God remains unchangeable: nor because the Apostle also said, "They exchanged," did God therefore change.

The second commandment, the second plague.

The second commandment: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for whoever takes the name of the Lord their God in vain shall not be cleansed. The name of the Lord our God Jesus Christ is truth: for he himself said: I am the truth. Therefore truth cleanses, vanity defiles. And since he who speaks truth speaks of God—for whoever speaks falsehood speaks of himself—speaking truth is speaking rationally; but speaking vanity is more like making noise than speaking. Rightly, because the second commandment is the love of truth, to which the love of vanity is opposed. Now truth speaks, vanity makes noise. See the second plague opposed to this second commandment. What is that second plague? The abundance of frogs. You have a fitting symbol of vanity, if you consider the loquacity of frogs. See the lovers of truth, not taking the name of the Lord their God in vain, speaking wisdom among the perfect, even among the imperfect: not indeed speaking what they cannot grasp, yet not departing from truth, and not proceeding into vanity. For although the imperfect cannot grasp if something somewhat higher were argued about the Word of God, God with God, through whom all things were made, and could grasp what Paul speaks among them as infants in Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus, and him crucified; still, that is not truth, and this is not vanity. It would be vanity, however, if we said that Christ did not truly die, but feigned it, that those wounds were in appearance, that the blood was not real but simulated flowing from the wounds, if we said he showed false scars as if after false wounds. But when we say all these things are true, we say they were done, certain, expressed, fulfilled, we believe and preach, even though we do not speak of that lofty and immutable truth, we do not go into vanity. But those who say all those things in Christ are false and simulated are croaking frogs in a muddy swamp. They can have the noise of a voice, but they cannot insinuate the doctrine of wisdom. Finally, in the Church, those adhering to the truth speak the truth through whom all things were made: the truth, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us: the truth, Christ born of God, one from the one, the only begotten and coeternal; the truth, having taken the form of a servant born of the virgin Mary, suffered, crucified, rising, ascending; everywhere truth, both which a little one can grasp and which a little one cannot grasp; truth both in bread and milk, in the bread of the great, in the milk of the little ones. Indeed, the same bread is conveyed to become milk through flesh. But they who contradict this truth and deceived by their own vanity deceive, are frogs bringing tedium to the ears, not food to the minds. Hear rationally speaking men: There are neither words nor speech where their voices are not heard; but their voices are not empty because their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. But if you want to understand frogs and their opposition, recall that verse of the psalm: Each one spoke vanity to his neighbor.

The third commandment, the third plague

The third commandment: Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. In this third commandment, a certain indication of rest is insinuated, a tranquility of heart, a peace of mind, which a good conscience produces. There is sanctification there, because there is the Spirit of God. Finally, observe rest, that is, quiet: Upon whom, he says, does my Spirit rest? Upon the humble and quiet and those who tremble at my words. Thus, the restless recoil from the Holy Spirit, lovers of quarrels, sowers of slanders, more desirous of contention than of truth, through their own restlessness do not admit the peace of the spiritual Sabbath to themselves. Against the restlessness of these it is said, as though they should have the Sabbath in their hearts by the sanctification of the Spirit of God: Be meek in hearing the word, that you may understand. What am I to understand? God saying: "Cease from your restlessness; let there not be a tumult in your heart caused by the phantasms fluttering through corruption and stabbing you; let it not be so." For you are to understand God saying to you: Be still, and know that I am God. You do not wish to be still through your restlessness, and blinded by the corruption of your contentions, you demand to see what you cannot. For notice the opposite third plague to this third commandment: gnats were born in the land of Egypt from the mud. They are certain very tiny, very restless flies, flying disorderly, rushing into one's eyes, not permitting a person to rest, as they go and rush around, as if banished yet returning, just like the utterly vain phantasms of contentious hearts. Hold fast to the commandment, beware the plague.

The fourth commandment, the fourth plague.

The fourth commandment is: Honor your father and your mother. The contrary to this is the fourth plague of the Egyptians. Cynomya, it is the dog fly: it is a Greek term. It is dog-like not to recognize parents; nothing is so dog-like, as when those who begot are not recognized. Rightly, therefore, even the puppies of dogs are born blind.

The fifth commandment, the fifth plague.

The fifth commandment is: Thou shalt not commit adultery; the fifth plague is the death of the Egyptian livestock. Let us compare. Take an adulterous man, not content with his own marriage. He does not want to tame a certain desire of the flesh within himself, which is common to us and the animals. For indeed, to lie together and procreate is also of the animals; to reason, to understand is of humans. Therefore, reason, which presides in the mind, ought to reign and dominate, to curb the impulses of the lower flesh, not to release them indiscriminately and illicitly at random. And so, by the institution of the Creator, it is given to the animals by nature that they are not moved to females and to mating except at certain times. For neither does the beast restrain itself by reason at other times, but altogether cools down when the very impulse grows cold. However, man can always be moved, for he can also curb the impulse. The Creator gave you the dominion of reason. To you, He has granted the reins of continence as if they were on lower beasts. You hold what the beast cannot, and thus you hope for what the beast cannot. You labor somewhat in maintaining continence, the beast does not labor. But you will always rejoice in eternity, which the beast does not reach. If the work fatigues, let the reward encourage you. For it is moderation itself to curb the inner desire, and not to release what you have in common with the beast indiscriminately like a beast. But if you disdain yourself within yourself, and neglect the image of God in which He made you, overcome by beastly desire, you will be a beast as if you had lost your humanity; not as though you are turned into the nature of a beast but having the form of a man with the likeness of a beast, who does not heed the saying: Do not be like a horse and a mule, which have no understanding. And perhaps you choose to be a beast and wander freely in lust, not restraining the desire of the flesh by any law of continence? Observe the plague. If you do not fear being like a beast, at least fear dying like a beast.

The sixth commandment, the sixth plague.

The sixth commandment: You shall not kill. The sixth plague, boils on the body, and blisters bubbling and bursting, and burnings of wounds from the ashes of the furnace. Such are murderous souls. They burn with anger, because through the anger of murder brotherhood has perished. Men burn with rage, and they also burn with grace. But one is the fervor of health, another the fervor of an ulcer. Burning pimples throughout the body conceived murders. It bursts forth, and is not healthy. It boils, but not from the Spirit of God. For both he who wants to help boils with fervor, and he who wants to kill boils with fervor; the former by precept, the latter by disease; the former with good works, the latter with ulcerous sores. If we could see the souls of murderers, we would mourn more than for the rotting bodies of those afflicted with ulcers.

The seventh commandment, the seventh plague.

The seventh commandment follows: You shall not steal, and the seventh plague: hail on the fruits. What you take away against the commandment, you lose from heaven. For no one has unjust gain without just loss. For example, he who steals gains clothing but by heavenly judgment loses trust. Where there is gain, there is loss; visibly gain, invisibly loss; gain from one's blindness, loss from the Lord's cloud. For nothing is without providence, dearest ones. Or do you truly think that what men suffer happens while God sleeps? These appear to happen everywhere: clouds are gathered, rains are poured down, hail is thrown, the earth is shaken by thunder, terror by lightning. These are thought to happen everywhere and as if they do not pertain to divine providence. Against such thoughts, that psalm is vigilant: Praise the Lord from the earth - when praises had been said from heaven - dragons and all abysses, fire, hail, snow, ice, wind of tempests, which do His word. Therefore, those who with their evil desire steal outwardly are inwardly struck by hail by God's judgment. Oh if they could inspect the field of their heart! Certainly, they would lament, as they would not find there what they could put into the mouth of their mind, even if in their theft they found what their throat's greed could gulp. The hunger of the inner man is greater, the hunger is greater and the plague more dangerous and the death graver. Many dead walk, and many hungry exult in vain riches. Finally, Scripture calls the servant of God rich inwardly: The man of your hidden heart, it says, who is rich before God. Not rich before men, but rich before God; where God sees, there is rich. What then does it profit you if you steal where man does not see, and where God sees you are struck by hail?

The eighth commandment, the eighth plague.

The eighth commandment: You shall not bear false witness. The eighth plague: the locust, an animal harmful with its teeth. But what does a false witness mean, unless to harm by biting and to consume by lying? Finally, the Apostle, warning the men of God not to attack each other with false accusations, says: "If you bite and devour one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another."

The ninth commandment, the ninth plague.

The Ninth Commandment: You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. The Ninth Plague: Dense darkness. For there is a certain adultery against which a command was given above, even in not desiring the chastity of another's wife. For he is an adulterer who does not go to another's wife only because he is not content with his own. But indeed, not only to sin after one's own but also to attempt another's, truly there is dense darkness. For nothing pains the heart of the sufferer so much. And he who does this to another would not wish to suffer it himself. Every man is more prepared for other things. But whether there is one found who tolerates this patiently, I do not know. O dense darkness of those doing this, those desiring such things! Truly they are blinded by a terrible fury: for the fury is untamable, to defile the wife of another man.

The tenth commandment, the tenth plague.

The tenth commandment: You shall not covet any of your neighbor's belongings, not the cattle, not the property, not the slave, you shall covet nothing at all of your neighbor’s. The plague contrary to this commandment is the tenth: the death of the firstborn. When I seek a comparison in this plague, nothing appears to me in the meantime—perhaps it may occur to those who investigate more thoroughly—except that all the things which men have they keep for their heirs, and among heirs nothing is dearer than the firstborn. Here, however, it is reprehensible to covet the property of your neighbor. He who steals also covets. For who steals his neighbor's property without coveting it first? But above there was already a commandment about stealing. There, understand also robbery. For the Scripture would not command about theft and be silent about robbery unless it wanted you to understand that if it is penal to take secretly, it is of much greater punishment to seize violently. Therefore, to take from someone unwillingly, whether secretly or openly, has its own commandment. However, to covet the property of your neighbor, which God notes in your heart, even if you seek just succession, is not permitted. In fact, those who want to possess the property of others as if justly, seek to make themselves heirs to the dying. For what seems more just than to possess a thing left to oneself, to have it by common right? "What are you doing here, man? It has been left to me; I have inherited the estate, I read the will." This voice of avarice seems most just. You praise him as possessing by law; God condemns him as unjustly coveting. See what sort of person you are, who wish to be made heir by someone. You certainly don't want him to have his own heirs, among whom nothing is dearer than the firstborn. Therefore, you are punished in your firstborn, who coveting the property of others, you seek what was not lawfully due to you as though by a shadow of right. And it is indeed easy, brothers, to lose your firstborn bodily. For men are mortal: whether before the parents or after the parents they die, they perish. It is troubling, lest by this hidden and unjust covetousness you lose the firstborn of your heart. For the firstborn in us has the image of the grace of God: newly born, first born. Among all the offspring of our heart, the firstborn is faith. For no one performs good deeds unless faith has preceded. All your good works are your spiritual offspring, but among these, faith was born to you first. Whoever secretly covets another's property loses internal faith. For you will undoubtedly be a deceiver at first, not acting out of love but out of deceit. You seem to love the one from whom you desire to be made heir, but by loving him you seek his death, and in order to see yourself in possession of his property, you envy him his successor.

Secure in the commandments of God.

Brothers, after the ten commandments have been given and the ten plagues inflicted, let the defiance of the Egyptians who scorned these commandments make you cautious, so that you may securely keep your possessions in the precepts of God. Your possessions, I mean your possessions in the inner chest, in your inner treasure; possessions that neither thief nor robber nor powerful neighbor can take away from you, where neither moth nor rust are to be feared, with which the rich man departs even when shipwrecked. Thus, you will be the people of God among the wicked, the Egyptians, while they endure these things in their heart, but you remain intact in your inner selves, until the people are led out of Egypt in a sort of your own exodus. This indeed happens: for that was done once, but this does not cease to be done. For if we pay attention, we also despoil the Egyptians. For indeed, this was not done without mystery, how less intelligent men dare to accuse God here because He commanded that gold, silver, and clothes be asked from the Egyptians. These things were given and taken away: They would have been thieves, unless they had done it by God's command. Let your Love attend: They, I say, would have been thieves, unless they had done it by God's command. But since they did it by God's command, they were not thieves. You no longer accuse them: Are you ready to accuse God Himself? It was for them to obey; for God it was to give the command, who knows who should endure what, and why anyone endures anything by what merit. It would have been a most evident and heinous parricide for Abraham if he had struck his son on his own accord. This very crime he creditably committed because he obeyed God who commanded it. And what would have been cruelty in spontaneous will, was made piety under God's command.

Two examples of the Apostles.

I wish to say something about the Acts of the Apostles, demonstrated in two Apostles, the great rams of the flock, whose feast day we celebrate on the same day, in Peter and Paul. When Peter was imprisoned, an angel came to him, and with the chains loosened from his hands, ordered him to leave. He went out and followed the angel. He was freed from prison by the command of the Lord, by the authority of God. The next day, the judge sought him to be heard. He learned that he had left, and ordered the prison guards to be brought forward. He asked the soldiers who were interrogated to be brought forward; he passed judgment on them, the sentence of the law which seemed to him just to have been pronounced on Peter. What can we say? Was Peter responsible for their death? Would he not have been perversely pious if he had contradicted the will of God and replied to the angel ordering him to leave: "I won’t leave so that the unfortunate prison guards do not die because of me"? He would be answered: Leave these things to the Creator; since you are not the creator for a person to be born, you cannot be the judge for how one dies. However, when Paul, imprisoned and bound, sang to God, and the earth trembled, and the bonds were loosened, he did not leave, lest the prison guard suffer any harm. For there was room for human justice to be considered so that one would not be punished for the sake of another when nothing was commanded against divinely. No one dies except whom God wishes. The decision to die is left to God's judgment, but the desire of a murderer is condemned. For it is not to be considered here what God judged, but what the evil mind desired. We were freed through Judas the betrayer, but Judas did not provide this for us: he wanted to kill, not to free. Praise to God, condemnation to Judas, yet Judas would not have done this if God had not allowed it, who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all.

What it means to lift up the Egyptians.

Let no one, therefore, brothers, let no one scrutinize God. It is proud, impious, foolish. Restrain your desires; do nothing with an evil mind; be prepared to obey, not to harm. Thus did they, and God did. If they had stolen, even so God had willed to allow those who suffered to receive it, when He permitted those who did it to suffer. Nevertheless, He would have exacted punishment from the thieves and some temporal vindication from those who suffered the thieves. Now, however, they did not act insolently: God by righteous judgment willed it to happen. When, if you weigh the cause, perhaps they did not take another's gold but exacted a due recompense. Unjustly oppressed, they made bricks in Egypt for a long time; for hard labor of servitude without recompense they did not leave. And yet God did this for some certain cause. If we are like the people of Israel in Egypt in this world, surely I dare to say to you— for I think that I speak to you by the Spirit of God— take the gold, silver, and clothes of the Egyptians. Their gold, their wise men; their silver, their eloquent men; their clothes, the variety of their languages. Do we not see all these in the Church? Does not the Church do this daily? How many wise men in the world believe in Christ! The gold of the Egyptians is taken away. The holy Cyprian, whose table this is, was once either gold or silver of the Egyptians. But the clothes, with which in some way the senses are clothed, are the various languages. You see them migrate from Egypt to the people of God: there are neither words nor speeches, whose voices are not heard. Here is the gold, here is the silver, here are the clothes of the Egyptians. And we come out rich and bear our reward. For we have not labored in the mud of Egypt for nothing.

The Spirit sanctified the Sabbath day.

Thus, all things, brothers, whether they can be explained by us or cannot yet be explained, whether you can understand them or cannot yet understand, whether in this way as they were said by us or in another better way, believe completely that all these things happened to them figuratively, but were written for our correction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Would I then not be attentive to these things? And you, any spiritual Christian, would we not be attentive, and would we say it happened without purpose that in the third plague Pharaoh's magicians failed? Should I find nothing here? Should I think it was done or written in vain? Pharaoh's magicians turned rods into serpents, turned water into blood, made frogs; they made these things. They came to the third plague, that is, to those insects called gnats, and there they failed who made serpents, who made frogs, they failed at gnats. It is not at all, it is not without purpose. Knock with me. This third plague, to what is it contrary? To the third commandment of God, where it is commanded to the people about the Sabbath, where rest is proclaimed, where sanctification is recommended. For it was said there: Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it. Finally, even in the first works of the world, God made the day, made the sky and earth, the sea, the lights, the stars, animals from the waters, from the earth man in His own image. He made all these things: nowhere is anything sanctified sounded. These things are completed in six days, and the seventh day of God’s rest is sanctified. He sanctifies not His works, but His rest. What shall we say? As rest is sweeter to us who work than labor, do we think the same with God? We should not think this, nor that He made it by laboring and not by commanding. God said: Let it be, and it was done. In this way, even a man would not labor in making. But on that day, a certain rest is recommended to us from all our works, that after our good works we might understand that we will rest without end. For all the days there have an evening, the seventh does not. We work indeed with an end; we rest without an end. There sanctification sounds in a great mystery pertaining to the Holy Spirit. Take what I say, brothers, however, with patience, I beseech you, considering more what I try than what I explain. I know what I say and who I am saying to, a man speaking divine things to humans. Be strenuous with me, labor with me that you may rest with me. As much as the Lord grants, as much as He opens, as much as He signifies, as much as wisdom itself hints, showing itself to its lovers hilariously and meeting them with all providence, the Sabbath day is sanctified, the rest of God. There sanctification first sounds. As it seems to me, as much as you recognize, as much as we believe, there is no divine and true sanctification except by the Holy Spirit. For not in vain is He specifically called the Holy Spirit. Although the Father is holy and the Son is holy, yet this name properly belongs to the Spirit, that the third Person in the Trinity is called the Holy Spirit. He rests upon the humble and quiet, as upon His Sabbath. For this reason, the number seven is also attributed to the Holy Spirit: the scriptures sufficiently indicate this. Let better ones see better things, and greater ones greater things, and let them say or explain something more subtle and divine about this number seven. I, however, see what is present, which is enough, and I remind you to see that this number seven is attributed specifically to the Holy Spirit because sanctification sounds on the seventh day. And how do we prove the number seven is attributed to the Holy Spirit? Isaiah says the Spirit of God comes upon the faithful, upon a Christian, upon a member of Christ: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the fear of God. If you followed, I have enumerated seven things, like a descending Spirit of God upon us from wisdom to fear, so that we might ascend from fear to wisdom: For the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Thus the sevenfold Spirit and the one Spirit, with sevenfold operation one. Do you want something more evident? The holy scripture commemorates the feast day of Pentecost made up of weeks. You have it in the book of Tobit: it clearly says that this festival day was made of weeks. For seven times seven returns forty-nine in total. But, as if to return to the head — we are gathered into unity by the Holy Spirit, not scattered from unity — therefore, to the forty-nine is added one, the honor of unity, and they become fifty. Not without reason, therefore, on the fiftieth day, after the Lord's ascension, the Holy Spirit came. The Lord rises, ascends from the underworld, not yet to heaven. From that resurrection, from that assumption from the underworld, fifty days are counted; and the Holy Spirit came on the fiftieth number, as making a birthday for Himself among us. For forty days He conversed here with His disciples; on the fortieth day He ascended into heaven, and after spending ten days there, as if with the sign of ten commandments, the Holy Spirit came, for no one fulfills the law except by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, brothers, you see clearly that this number seven pertains to the Holy Spirit. But whoever does not cling to the unity of Christ and barks against the unity of Christ is to be understood as not having the Holy Spirit. For contentions and dissensions and divisions are made only by the natural man, of whom the Apostle says: But the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God. Then it is written also in the epistle of the apostle Jude: These are they who separate themselves — he spoke reproachingly — these are they who separate themselves, natural, not having the Spirit. What could be clearer? What could be more evident? Rightly they come, and even if believing the same things as us, yet they are coming to receive the Holy Spirit, whom they cannot have as long as they are enemies of unity. However, the Apostle compares them to Pharaoh's magicians: Having a form of godliness, but denying its power. Having a form of godliness, they did similar things, but denying its power, they failed at the third sign.

Why did they fail at the third sign?

But still, seek with me why they failed in the third. For they could have failed in the second, in the first, in the fourth; what difference does it make where they would fail if they were going to fail anyway? Why then in the third? But first see what I promised, whether the apostle Paul compared the heretics to them more: "Having," he says, "a form of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who crawl into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led by various passions, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Indeed, they always hear the testimony about the Catholic Church and do not want to come to the Catholic Church. Always learning. For do they not always hear: "In your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed"? Do they not always hear: "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession"? Do they not always hear: "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him"? Do they not always hear: "He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth"? They always hear these things but, always learning, they never come to the knowledge of the truth. Now see what I promised, what the Apostle adds subsequently: "Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far." Rightly they failed in the third sign, but they will not get very far. Why will they not get very far? For their folly will be plain to all, as it was with those two. Now see why they failed in the third sign. Remember that those who oppose unity do not have the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the first three commandments of the decalogue are understood to pertain to the love of God, so that the remaining seven are understood to pertain to the love of neighbor, so that in the two tablets of the law and the ten commandments, those two summary commandments are held: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. Therefore, let us refer the first three commandments to the love of God. Which are the first three? The first: "You shall have no other gods before me." The contrary plague is water turned into blood, because the supreme origin of the Creator was brought into the imitation of flesh. The second commandment: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain," pertains, as I believe, to the Word of God, which is the Son of God: for there is one God, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things exist. Against the Word there are frogs. See frogs against the Word, noise against reason, vanity against truth. The third commandment about the sabbath pertains to the Holy Spirit because of sanctification, which was first sounded on the sabbath: which we have strongly, as much as we could, commended to you a little before. The contrary to this commandment is the restlessness of flies born from corruption, rushing into the eyes; hence they are also called men of corrupted minds. Therefore, in this third sign, they failed, who, being enemies of unity, did not have the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit does this as punishment. He does one thing by grace, another by punishment; he does one thing by filling, another by abandoning. Finally, that we might already recognize from their own confession that Pharoah’s magicians acknowledged this, let us see how the Spirit of God is called in the Gospel, what name he received. The Jews, criticizing the Lord, said: “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” to which he replied: “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Another Evangelist narrates: “If I cast out demons by the finger of God.” What one called the Spirit of God, another called the finger of God. Therefore, the Spirit of God is the Finger of God. Hence the Law was given written by the finger of God, which law was given on Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day after the slaying of the lamb. After celebrating the Passover by the people of the Jews, fifty days are completed after the slaying of the lamb, and the law is given written by the finger of God. Fifty days after the slaying of Christ are completed, and the Holy Spirit comes, that is, the finger of God. Thanks be to the Lord, who wisely conceals and pleasantly reveals. Now see how even the magicians of Pharaoh explicitly confess this. Failing in the third sign, they said: "This is the finger of God." Let us praise the Lord, the giver of understanding, the giver of the Word. If these things were not hidden in mysteries, they would never be sought diligently. If they were not sought diligently, they would not be found so pleasantly.