Gregory the Great, on Judg 6:19

“So Gedeon went in, and boiled a kid, and made unleavened loaves of a measure of flour: and putting the flesh in a basket, and the broth of the flesh into a pot, he carried all under the oak, and presented to him.”

“"But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." "The humour," therefore, "is wiped off," when sin is not only severed from the deed, but also from the thought. It is hence that Jerubbaal saw the Angel when he was winnowing corn from the chaff, at whose bidding he forthwith dressed a kid and set it upon a rock, and poured over it the broth of the flesh, which the Angel touched with a rod, and thereupon fire coming out of the rock consumed it. For what else is it to beat corn with a rod, but to separate the grains of virtues from the chaff of vices, with an upright judgment? But to those that are thus employed the Angel presents himself, in that the Lord is more ready to communicate interior truths in proportion as men are more earnest in ridding themselves of external things. And he orders a kid to be killed, i.e. every appetite of the flesh to be sacrificed, and the flesh to be set upon a rock, and the broth thereof to be poured upon it. Whom else does the "rock" represent, saving Him, of Whom it is said by Paul, "And that rock was Christ"? We "set flesh then upon the rock," when in imitation of Christ we crucify our body. He too pours the juice of the flesh over it, who, in following the conversation of Christ, empties himself even of the mere thoughts of the flesh themselves. For "the broth" of the dissolved flesh is in a manner "poured upon the rock," when the mind is emptied of the flow of carnal thoughts too. Yet the Angel directly touches it with a rod, in that the might of God's succour never leaves our striving forsaken. And fire issues from the rock, and consumes the broth and the flesh, in that the Spirit, breathed upon us by the Redeemer, lights up the heart with so fierce a flame of compunction, that it consumes every thing in it that is unlawful either in deed or in thought.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.

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