(2) Someone may say that even if
they had repented they could not have entered the promised land, because God
had passed definite sentence upon them when He said: ‘You shall not enter the
land which I promised on oath to your fathers, but your bodies shall fall here
in the desert.’ This is not true, beloved brethren; if only the sinner would
have recourse to repentance as quickly as God is willing to change that fixed
sentence. Listen to the Lord Himself through the prophet promise the greatest
hope to the human race: ‘I will suddenly threaten a nation that I will do evil
to them for their sins; but if they repent of their iniquities, I also will
repent of the evil which I threatened to do to them, and will not do it.’
Behold how great is our God’s goodness to us, brethren, and learn whether He
will refuse His mercy, since He longs to change His sentence if we be
converted. Therefore, let us turn to Him, dearly beloved, and not wish to defer
our amendment until the end of our life. Let us listen to the prophet when he
says: ‘Delay not your conversion to the Lord, put it not off from day to day,’
‘for you know not what any day may bring forth.’ O man, why do you delay from
day to day, when perhaps today you are going to have your last day? For this
reason let us always call to mind with great fear and trembling, dearly
beloved, that so great is the justice of our God that, as was already said
above, out of six hundred thousand only two men entered the land of promise. If
we will continually reflect upon these truths with a humble and contrite heart,
instilling into ourselves a salutary fear, we will derive remedies for
ourselves from the wounds of others and their death will avail to our
salvation. Notice carefully who those two men are that invite the Jewish people
to the land of promise, and what they spiritually signify. The two of them
represent the New and Old Testaments; under the leadership of those two men,
that is, of the Old and New Testaments, the promised land or eternal happiness
is reached. Concerning those two Testaments, we read: ‘In the middle of the two
animals you will be known’; for although the Old and New Testaments in some
places differ in the letter, still they agree in truth and both say one thing
in a different way. Nevertheless, those two men can be understood in another
way. The ascent to the promised land was made under two leaders, because Christ
is reached historically and allegorically, by faith and works, by love of God
and charity toward the neighbor. (Caesarius of Arles, “Sermon 109:
On the Spies and the Forty Years Spent in the Desert,” in Saint Caesarius of
Arles: Sermons, 3 vols. [trans. Mary Magdelene Mueller; The Fathers of the
Church: A New Translation; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America, 1964]: 2:140-42)
