Êxodo 15
Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Êxodo 15:1
As far as we are concerned, you see, they are dead, because they cannot lord it over us anymore; because our very misdeeds, which made us into their subjects, have been, so to say, sunk and obliterated in the sea, when we were set free by the bath of holy grace. — SERMON 363.2
Êxodo 15:1
"For he has been gloriously extolled" who has already granted us in the bath of regeneration what we have been singing about: "horse and rider he has cast into the sea." All our past sins, you see, which have been pressing on us, as it were, from behind, he has drowned and obliterated in baptism. These dark things of ours were being ridden by unclean spirits as their mounts, and like horsemen they were riding them wherever they liked. That's why the apostle calls them "rulers of this darkness." We have been rid of all this through baptism, as through the Red Sea, so called because sanctified by the blood of the crucified Lord. Let us not turn back to Egypt in our hearts, but with him as our protector and guide let us wend our way through the other trials and temptations of the desert toward the kingdom. — SERMON 223E.2
Êxodo 15:4
And the worldly pride and arrogance and the troops of innumerable sins which were fighting for the devil in us, he obliterated in baptism. — SERMON 363.2
Êxodo 15:4
The devil had placed "teams of three" in each chariot, who were to terrorize us by haunting us with the fear of pain, the fear of humiliation, the fear of death. All these things were sunk in the Red Sea, because "together with him," together with the One who for our sakes was scourged, dishonored and slain, "we were buried through baptism into death." Thus he overwhelmed all our enemies in the Red Sea, having consecrated the waters of baptism with the bloody death which was utterly to consume our sins. — SERMON 363.2
Êxodo 15:5
But if our enemies "went down into the depths like a stone," the only ones the devil remains in possession of and the only ones who have the hardness of the devil are those about whom it is written, "When the sinner has come into the depths of evil, he behaves disdainfully." They don't believe, you see, that they can be forgiven for what they have done; and in that mood of despair they plummet to greater depths than ever. — SERMON 363.2
Êxodo 15:9
The enemy does not understand the power of the Lord's sacrament, which is available in saving baptism for those who believe and hope in him. He still thinks that sins can prevail even over the baptized, because they are being tempted by the frailty of the flesh. He doesn't know where and when and how the complete renewal of the whole person is to be perfected, which is begun and prefigured in baptism and is already grasped by the most assured hope. — SERMON 363.2
Êxodo 15:12
Certainly at that time no yawning chasm of the earth swallowed up any of the Egyptians; they were covered by water, they perished in the sea. So what's the meaning of "You stretched out your right hand, the earth devoured them"? Or are we correct in understanding God's right hand to be the one of whom Isaiah says, "And the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed"? That, you see, is the only Son, whom the Father did not spare "but handed him over for us all." And thus he stretched out his right hand on the cross, and the earth devoured the godless, when they thought of themselves as victorious and of him as despicable in defeat. — SERMON 363.2
Êxodo 15:20
This is what Moses sang and the sons of Israel with him, what Miriam the prophetess sang and the daughters of Israel with her. It is what we too now should sing, whether it means men and women or means our spirit and our flesh. "Those who belong to Christ Jesus," you see, as the apostle says, "have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires." This can be suitably understood in the drum which Miriam took to accompany this song: flesh, you see, is stretched over wood to make a drum. So they learn from the cross how to accompany in confession the sweet strains of grace. — SERMON 363.4