True, you may say, but these our natural loins we gird with a leathern band; but we, spiritual soldiers, with what? I answer, with that which is the head and crown of all our thoughts, I mean, “with truth.” “Having girded your loins,” says he, “with truth.” What then is the meaning of “with truth”? Let us love nothing like falsehood, all our duties let us pursue “with truth,” let us not lie one to another. Whether it be an opinion, let us seek the truth, or whether it be a line of life, let us seek the true one. If we fortify ourselves with this, if we “gird ourselves with truth,” then shall no one overcome us. He who seeks the doctrine of truth, shall never fall down to the earth; for that the things which are not true are of the earth, is evident from this, that all they that are without are enslaved to the passions, following their own reasonings; and therefore if we are sober, we shall need no instruction in the tales of the Greeks. Do you see how weak and frivolous they are? Incapable of entertaining about God one severe thought or anything above human reasoning? Why? Because they are not “girded about with truth”; because their loins, the receptacle of the seed of life, and the main strength of their reasonings, are ungirt; nothing then can be weaker than these. And the Manicheans again, do you see, how all the things they have the boldness to utter, are from their own reasonings? “It was impossible,” say they, “for God to create the world without matter.” Whence is this so evident? These things they say, groveling, and from the earth, and from what happens among ourselves; because man, they say, cannot create otherwise. Marcion again, look what he says. “God, if He took upon Him flesh, could not remain pure.” Whence is this evident? “Because,” says he, “neither can men.” But men are able to do this. Valentinus again, with his reasonings all trailing along the ground, speaks the things of the earth; and in like manner Paul of Samosata. And Arius, what does he say? “It was impossible for God when He begot, to beget without passion.” Whence, Arius, have you the boldness to allege this; merely from the things which take place among ourselves? Do you see how the reasonings of all these trail along on the ground? All are, as it were, let loose and unconfined, and savoring of the earth? And so much then for doctrines. With regard to life and conduct, again, whoremongers, lovers of money, and of glory, and of everything else, trail on the ground. They have not their loins themselves standing firm, so that when they are weary they may rest upon them; but when they are weary, they do not put their hands upon them and stand upright, but flag. He, however, who “is girt about with the truth,” first, never is weary; and secondly, if he should be weary, he will rest himself upon the truth itself. What? Will poverty, tell me, render him weary? No, in nowise; for he will repose on the true riches, and by this poverty will understand what is true poverty. Or again, will slavery make him weary? No, in nowise, for he will know what is the true slavery. Or shall disease? No, nor even that. “Let your loins,” says Christ, “be girded about, and your lamps burning”, with that light which shall never be put out. This is what the Israelites also, when they were departing out of Egypt, were charged to do. For why did they eat the passover with their loins girded? Are you desirous to hear the ground of it? According to the historical fact, or according to its mystical sense, 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 has been sacrificed, even Christ,” it is said. Wherefore did they have their loins girded? Their guise is that of wayfarers; for their having shoes, and staves in their hands, and their eating standing, declares nothing else than this. Will ye hear the history first, or the mystery? Better the history first. What then is the design of the history? The Jews were continually forgetting God's benefits to them. Accordingly then, God tied the sense of these, His benefits, not only to the time, but also to the very habit of them that were to eat. For this is why they were to eat girded and sandalled, that when they were asked the reason, they might say, “we were ready for our journey, we were just about to go forth out of Egypt to the land of promise and we were ready for our exodus.” This then is the historical type. But the reality is this; we too eat a Passover, even Christ; “for,” says he, “our Passover has been sacrificed, even Christ.” What then? We too ought to eat it, both sandalled and girded. And why? That we too may be ready for our Exodus, for our departure hence.
Moral. Let not any one of them that eat this Passover look towards Egypt, but towards Heaven, towards “Jerusalem that is above.” On this account you eat with your loins girded, on this account you eat with shoes on your feet, that you may know, that from the moment you first begin to eat the Passover, you ought to set out, and to be upon your journey. And this implies two things, both that we must depart out of Egypt, and that, while we stay, we must stay henceforth as in a strange country; “for our citizenship,” says he, “is in Heaven”; 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.” “Yes, but this Paul indeed could say, who knew nothing against himself; but I, who require a long time for repentance, I cannot say it.” Yet that to be girded is the part of a waking soul, hearken to what God says to that righteous man, “Gird up now your loins like a man, for I will demand of you, and declare thou unto Me.” 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 girded. Nay more, and the Angels, too, appear to us girded, as being soldiers. From our being girded about, it comes that we also stand bravely as from our standing our being girded comes.
For we also are going to depart, and many are the difficulties that intervene. When we have crossed this plain, straightway the devil is upon us, doing everything, contriving every artifice, to the end that those who have been saved out of Egypt, those who have passed the Red Sea, those who are delivered at once from the evil demons, and from unnumbered plagues, may be taken and destroyed by him. But, if we be vigilant, we too have a pillar of fire, the grace of the Spirit. The same both enlightens and overshadows us. We have manna; yea rather not manna, but far more than manna. Spiritual drink we have, not water, that springs forth from the Rock. So have we too our encampment, 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? “A land,” it is said, “which none passed through.”. 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” 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.
Source: Homilies on Ephesians (New Advent)