HOMILY XXIII.] HOMILIES ON EPHESIANS. I65 charged to do. For why did they eat the pass- over with their loins girded ? Art thou desirous to hear the ground of it ? According to the his torical fact, or according to its mystical sense, 1 shall I state it? But I will state them both, and do ye retain it in mind, for I am not doing it without an object, merely that I may tell you the solution, but also that my words may become in you reality. They had, we read, their loins girded, and their staff in their hands, and their shoes on their feet, and thus they ate the Passover. Awful and terrible mysteries, and of vast depth ; and if so terrible in the type, how much more in the reality ? They come forth out of Egypt, they eat the Passover. Attend. " Our Passover hath been sacrificed, even Christ," it is said. Wherefore did they have their loins girded ? Their guise is that of wayfarers ; for their having shoes, and staves in their hands, and their eating standing, declares nothing else than this. Will ye hear the history first, or the mys tery ? 2 Better the history first. What then is the design of the history? The Jews were continu ally forgetting God s benefits to them. Accord ingly then, God tied the sense of these, His benefits, not only to the time, but also to the very habit of them that were to eat. For this is why they were to eat girded and sandalled, that when they were asked the reason, they might say, " we were ready for our journey, we were j.ust about to go forth out of Egypt to the land of promise and we were ready for our ex odus." This then is the historical type. But the reality is this ; we too eat a Passover, even Christ; "for," saith he, "our Passover hath been sacrificed, even Christ." (i Cor. v. 7.) What then ? We too ought to eat it, both san dalled and girded. And why? That we too may be ready for our Exodus, for our departure hence. MORAL. Let not any one of them that eat this Passover look towards Egypt, but towards Heaven, towards " Jerusalem that is above." (Gal. iv. 26.) On this account thou eatest with thy loins girded, on this account thou eatest with shoes on thy feet, that thou mayest know, that from the moment thou first beginnest to eat the Passover, thou oughtest to set out, and to be 1 The word avayuiyr), when used of Scripture exposition, has various senses, but always implies an interpretation not literal, grammatical, or historical. Sometimes it stands for a " moral " in terpretation, i.e. one conveying a moral lesson ; e.g. Chrys. in Psalm cxix. (120) init.; Basil, in Esai. v. 152. Sometimes for an interpretation with reference simply to heavenly persons and things; vid. Mosheim, de Ret. ante Const, p. 644 ; Dipnys. Hierarck Cal. i. 2. Origen enumerates three senses of Scripture, literal, moral, and mystical, the last being either allegorical or anagogical; Clem ent four, literal, moral, mystical, and prophetical; but the more common division has been into literal, tropological, allegorical, and anagogical. [Cassian, a pupil of Chrysostom, defines avayiayrf. Anagoge vero de spiritalibiis mysteriis ad sublimiora quaedam et sacratiora coelorum sccreta conscendens, " leading up from spiritual mysteries to higher and more sacred secrets of heaven. See also Sophocles Greek Lex. sub "voce." G. A.] - avaytayriv. upon thy journey. And this implies two things, both that we must depart out of Egypt, and that, whilst we stay, we must stay henceforth as in a strange country ; " for our citizenship," saith he, " is in Heaven " (Phil. iii. 20) ; and that all our life long we should ever be prepared, so that when we are called we may not put it off, but say, " My heart is fixed." (Ps. cviii. i.) " Yes, but this Paul indeed could say, who knew noth ing against himself; but I, who require a long time for repentance, I cannot say it." Yet that to be girded is the part of a waking soul, hearken to what God says to that righteous man, " Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto Me." (Job xxxviii. 3.) This He says also to all the prophets, and this He says again to Moses, to be girded. And He Himself also appears to Ezekiel (Ezek. ix. u, Sept.) girded. Nay more, and the Angels, too, appear to us girded (Rev. xv. 6), as being soldiers. From our being girded about, it comes that we also stand bravely as from our standing our being girded comes. For we also are going to depart, and many are the difficulties that intervene. When we have crossed this plain, straightway the devil is upon us, doing everything, contriving every arti fice, to the end that those who have been saved out of Egypt, those who have passed the Red Sea, those who are delivered at once from the evil demons, and from unnumbered plagues, may be taken and destroyed by him. But, if we be vigilant, we too have a pillar of fire, the grace of the Spirit. The same both enlightens and over shadows us. We have manna ; yea rather not manna, but far more than manna. Spiritual drink we have, not water, that springs forth from the Rock. So have we too our encampment (Rev. xx. 9), and we dwell in the desert even now ; for a desert indeed without virtue, is the earth even now, even more desolate than that wilderness. Why was that desert so terrible? Was it not because it had scorpions in it, and adders? (Deut. viii. 15.) "A land," it is said, "which none passed through." (Jer. ii. 6.) Yet is not that wilderness, no, it is not so barren of fruits, as is this human nature. At this instant, how many scorpions, how many asps are in this wilderness, how many serpents, how many " offsprings of vipers " (Matt. iii. 7) are these through whom we at this instant pass ! Yet let us not be afraid ; for the leader of this our Exodus is not Moses, but Jesus. How then is it that we shall not suffer the same things? Let us not commit the same acts, and then shall we not suffer the same punishment. They murmured, they were un grateful ; let us therefore not cherish these pas sions. How was it that they fell all of them ?