To bring destruction upon the unclean world and its King, the Devil, CHRIST JESUS came into these lands. “Do not think,” he says (Matt. 10:34), “that I have come to send peace on the earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword.” And John 16:33: “Be of good cheer: I have conquered the world.” We can, therefore, either consider Christ’s whole life as [one] week, or, properly, only the last week of that same life. In the former mode, these seven days can again be taken in two ways. For either we shall divide his whole life into seven equal parts, or we shall think about the same life without any such minute partition. The Lord lived on earth about 34 years — therefore about seven quinquennia [five-year periods]. And in the first quinquennium he circled that Jericho — to root it out at last, with all its walls and bulwarks — when he was born; and born in such humility, poverty, sharpness of cold, darkness of night, and other like [things], which are altogether opposed to the pride, splendor, pleasures, and delights of Jericho — as St. Bernard beautifully teaches, sermon 3 on the Nativity of the Lord; likewise when, a tender infant, he was circumcised on the 8th day; when he was offered to the heavenly Father [and] brought to Jerusalem, into the Temple, on the very day of the Blessed Virgin’s purification; when, to escape the raging sword of Herod, he sought Egypt, and there hid. In the second quinquennium [is] his return from the Egyptian hiding-place into Judea, and his coming to the town of Nazareth — from which [he has] the surname Nazarene. For these [things] happened in the ninth year of his tender age, as Baronius teaches in volume 1 of his Annals. In the third quinquennium [is] his going up, at the age of 12, with his parents, to the Temple at Jerusalem, and his disputation with the Jewish doctors, when he spoke that illustrious word: “Did you not know that I must be in [the things] which are my Father’s?” [Luke 2:49]. In the fourth quinquennium, the fifth, and the sixth [is] that supreme and incredible obedience and submission, by which — obscure and poor — he lay hidden with his parents, up to the 30th year of [his] age; and in these same [years], as [one] from the common crowd of the other boys and youths…
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…[as] someone [ordinary from the common crowd], he was subject, obeyed them, and most readily undertook all their commands. For this is what St. Luke briefly said, from that twelfth year up to the thirtieth (ch. 2, v. 51): “And he went down with them (his parents), and came to Nazareth; and he was subject to them.” O how marvelous were those circuits of the true Joshua! How Jericho, and its King, were stupefied — [if] it could see this! In the seventh and last quinquennium [is] the most sacred baptism of the same CHRIST the Lord, and his whole most active preaching: “JESUS went about the whole of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom” (Matt. 4:23). And again (ch. 9, v. 35): “JESUS went about all the cities and towns, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom.” And Mark 6:6: “he went about the towns in a circuit, teaching.” For because this part of the life of CHRIST the Lord is like the seventh day, in it he circled not only once, but seven times — that is, he undertook journeys, labors, troubles, and very many and most grievous difficulties; among which [was] also his whole passion, cross, and most bitter death.
But if it is not permitted to partition [his] life so minutely, we can set the first [thing], as it were the circuit of the first day, [as] his descent from the highest of the heavens to the lowest of the lands; the second, [his] Nativity; the third, [his] Circumcision; the fourth, [his] flight into Egypt, and return thence; the fifth, [his] going up to Jerusalem when he was 12 years old; the sixth, that whole subjection and obedience rendered to his parents up to the thirtieth year; the seventh and last, the same [manner] that was said above — of going about the whole of Judea and Galilee, teaching all everywhere, and enduring very many grievous [things]; and together [with it], the whole bitterness of all his torments and of [his] death.
But if we look only at the last week of his life itself, behold — from the things which I noted in [my] book On the Apostles, at [ch.] 21 — [this] table (the planetary sign marks the weekday: ♄ Saturday, ☉ Sunday, ☽ Monday, ♂ Tuesday, ☿ Wednesday, ♃ Thursday, ♀ Friday):
| Day | Event |
|---|---|
| 1. ♄ | The Lord returns from Jerusalem to Bethany (John 12); he suffers slander from Judas concerning the ointment. |
| 2. ☉ | He returns to Jerusalem, carried on an ass; and “Hosanna” is cried out to him (John 12; Matt. 21; Luke 19). |
| 3. ☽ | He returns to Bethany, and on the withered fig tree seeks fruit in vain, and therefore curses it (ibid.). |
| 4. ♂ | He returns to Jerusalem, and exhorts [them] to render obedience even to those who, [though] living badly, sit upon the seat of Moses (Matt. 23); and he foretells the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem (Matt. 24). |
| 5. ☿ | When he had returned from Jerusalem to Bethany, he perseveres in prayer with the Apostles. |
| 6. ♃ | He comes to Jerusalem; washes the disciples’ feet; eats the Passover (Matt. 26; John 12); withdraws into the garden; is seized. |
| 7. ♀ | He is crucified — yet in such a way that, on that very day, one may behold seven of his circuits: the first, from the house of Annas to Caiaphas; the second, from this [one] to Pilate; the third, from this to Herod; the fourth, from this to Pilate; the fifth, from this to the Jews standing before the praetorium and crying “Crucify!”, when it was said, “Behold the Man”; the sixth, to Pilate’s tribunal, in the place which is called lithostrotos [the Pavement], and in Hebrew Gabbatha; the seventh, to that [place] which is called the place of Calvary, in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him, and with him two other robbers, one on this side and one on that, but JESUS in the middle (John 19:17–18). |
Whence, in pious remembrance of these journeys [of Christ], the accustomed piety of our forefathers — which still flourishes somewhere, as at Rome, Cologne, and elsewhere — [is wont] to go around seven churches, or seven altars, on the very day of the Parasceve [Good Friday], with prayers and meditations on the Lord’s passion; as [Johann] Feucht, suffragan of Bamberg, noted concerning these [things] in a certain little book. These circuits of our JESUS have assuredly ruined the diabolical Jericho — have broken through its walls, and overthrown all its towers and ramparts; and even now, in this time, they go on ever to overthrow [it]. These [circuits] indeed seem — since both of old they were made by Jesus himself with great silence, great modesty, and an utterly unusual manner, and now are set forth — [to be], in the eyes of this world, ridiculous, and almost histrionic, and to be despised. But how great their force was, and ever is, the outcome teaches. For 1 Cor. 1:27: “the foolish things of the world God has chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world God has chosen, that he may confound the strong; and the base and contemptible things of the world God has chosen, and the things that are not, that he might destroy the things that are.” But observe that Joshua [Jesus] not only went around, but had very many companions of every rank and sex — that we all might learn what is to be done by us, as was expounded above (qq. 9, 10, 11, & 25). Our Joshua himself invites us, and says (Luke 9:23): “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” His voice the Apostles at once heard; and, with most closely-joined and most silent minds — while they were mocked, despised, [and] oppressed — they went around this Jericho-world with [their] tongues and throats. To these, thereafter, throughout all the ages, were joined the Martyrs, Confessors, and as many as loved God and diligently sought their eternal salvation — pious and holy men of every rank, sex, age, and estate. “For all who wish to live piously in CHRIST JESUS shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). “Let us go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have not here a permanent city, but we seek the [city] to come” (Heb. 13:13[–14]). Let us cry out to God; let us cry out in prayers and groanings; let us cry out to men, and call them away from their heresies and vices; let us cry out in sermons, exhortations, and disputations — that the walls of the errors of the men of Jericho may collapse; that all the bulwarks of [their] crimes may be laid low; that all the towers of every pride, avarice, luxury, and other crimes may fall and lie utterly on the ground. Then a most happy Sabbath will receive us. Then we shall rejoice and exult, like one who finds much spoil. The first and best-fortified barrier to entering the promised inheritance — the land flowing with milk and honey — will be taken away. By our [feet] the substructures of the mad palaces of the worldly, and the proud roof-tops of [their] houses, will be trodden underfoot. But grief, disgrace, ruin, and the devouring and eternal flame will forever torment the most wretched men-of-Jericho of this world. But let us now treat of the anathema upon this city.
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