Sermon 184
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. 1. The birthday of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, on which truth has sprung up from the earth (Ps 85:11 (84:12)) and a day born for us out of day has shone forth, to be celebrated by us today in its yearly return: let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps 118:24 (117:24)). For what so lofty a humility has bestowed on us, the faith of Christians holds, while it is far from the hearts of the ungodly; for God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to little ones (Matt 11:25). Let the humble, then, hold fast to the humility of God, so that by this great help, as upon the beast of their own weakness, they may come to the height of God. But those wise and prudent ones, while they seek the heights of God and do not believe his lowly things, pass these by, and for that reason do not reach those heights either; empty and frivolous, puffed up and lifted high, they have hung, as it were, in the windy middle between heaven and earth. For they are wise and prudent, but of this world, not of him by whom the world was made. For if there were in them the true wisdom that is God's and is God, they would understand that flesh could be taken up by God without his being changed into flesh; they would understand that he took up what he was not and remained what he was; that he came to us in a man and did not depart from the Father; that he persevered as what he is and appeared to us as what we are; that power was placed in an infant body and was not withdrawn from the mass of the world. He whose work, as he abides with the Father, is the whole universe, his work, as he comes to us, is the birth from a Virgin. For the Virgin Mother gave a token of his majesty: as much a virgin before conception as a virgin after the birth; found pregnant by a man, not made so; with child by a male, without a male; the happier and more wonderful for a fruitfulness added, an integrity not lost. So great a miracle these prefer to think feigned rather than done. Thus, since in Christ, who is man and God, they cannot believe, they despise the human; since they cannot despise it, they do not believe the divine. But for us, the more lowly it is to them, the more pleasing let the body of the God-man be in the humility of God; and the more impossible it is to them, the more divine let the virgin birth be in the nativity of the man.

2. 2. And so let us celebrate the Lord's birthday with due attendance and festivity. Let men rejoice, let women rejoice: Christ was born a man, born of a woman; and both sexes are honored. Now then let him pass over to the second man, who in the first had been condemned. A woman had persuaded us to death: a woman bore life for us. The likeness of sinful flesh was born, by which the flesh of sin might be cleansed. Let not the flesh, then, be blamed, but rather, that nature may live, let the fault die; for he was born without fault, in whom the one who was in fault may be reborn. Rejoice, holy children, who have chosen above all to follow Christ, who have not sought marriage. He whom you have found to be followed did not come to you through marriage, that he might grant you to despise that through which you came. For you came through fleshly nuptials, without which he came to spiritual nuptials: and he gave you to spurn marriage, you whom he called above all to marriage. Therefore you do not seek out that from which you were born; for you have loved him who was not born in this way more than the rest. Rejoice, holy virgins: a Virgin has borne for you one to whom you may be wed without corruption; whom by neither conceiving nor bearing can you lose what you love. Rejoice, you righteous: it is the birthday of the Justifier. Rejoice, you weak and sick: it is the birthday of the Savior. Rejoice, you captives: it is the birthday of the Redeemer. Rejoice, you slaves: it is the birthday of the Ruler. Rejoice, you free: it is the birthday of the Liberator. Rejoice, all Christians: it is the birthday of Christ.

2. 3. He who was born of a mother commended this day to the ages, who, born of the Father, created all the ages. That birth could have no mother, nor did this one seek out a human father. In short, Christ was born both of a father and of a mother; and without a father and without a mother: of the Father God, of the mother man; without a mother God, without a father man. His generation, then, who shall declare? (Isa 53:8) — whether that one without time or this one without seed; that one without a beginning, this one without precedent; that one which never was not, this one which was neither before nor after; that one which has no end, this one which has its beginning there where it has its end.

3. 3. Rightly, then, did the prophets announce that he would be born, but the heavens and the angels that he was born. He who contains the world lay in a manger: he was both an infant and the Word. He whom the heavens cannot hold the bosom of one woman bore. She ruled our King; she carried the one in whom we are; she nursed our Bread. O manifest weakness and wondrous humility, in which all divinity so lay hidden! The mother under whom his infancy lay he ruled by his power; and her whose breasts he sucked he fed with truth. May he perfect his gifts in us, who did not shrink from taking up even our first beginnings; and may he himself make us children of God, who for our sake willed to become the son of a man.

Sermon 185
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. It is called the Lord's birthday, when the Wisdom of God showed himself an infant, and the Word of God, without words, sent forth the voice of flesh. Yet that hidden divinity was both signified to the Magi by the witness of a star and announced to the shepherds by an angel's voice. This day, then, we celebrate with yearly solemnity, on which was fulfilled the prophecy that says: truth has sprung up from the earth, and righteousness has looked down from heaven (Ps 85:11 (84:12)). Truth, which is in the bosom of the Father, sprang up from the earth, that it might be also in the bosom of a mother. Truth, by which the world is held together, sprang up from the earth, that it might be carried by a woman's hands. Truth, by which the blessedness of the angels is incorruptibly fed, sprang up from the earth, that it might be nursed at fleshly breasts. Truth, for which heaven does not suffice, sprang up from the earth, that it might be laid in a manger. For whose good did such sublimity come in such humility? For none of its own, surely; but for ours, great indeed, if we believe. Awake, O man: for you God became man. Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you (Eph 5:14). For you, I say, God became man. You would have been dead forever, had he not been born in time. You would never have been freed from the flesh of sin, had he not taken up the likeness of sinful flesh. Everlasting misery would have possessed you, had this mercy not come to be. You would not have come back to life, had he not met your death. You would have failed, had he not come to your aid. You would have perished, had he not come.

2. Let us joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festal day on which the great and eternal day came from the great and eternal day into this our day, so brief and temporal. He was made for us righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord (1 Cor 1:30-31). For so that we might not be like the proud Jews, who, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish their own, did not submit to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3): therefore, when he had said, truth has sprung up from the earth, he at once added, and righteousness has looked down from heaven — lest mortal weakness should claim it for itself, lest a man should call it his own and, believing himself justified by himself, that is, made righteous by himself, should reject the righteousness of God. Truth, then, has sprung up from the earth: Christ, who said, I am the truth (John 14:6), was born of a virgin. And righteousness has looked down from heaven: because one who believes in him who was born is justified not by himself, but by God. Truth has sprung up from the earth: because the Word was made flesh (John 1:14). And righteousness has looked down from heaven: because every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above (Jas 1:17). Truth has sprung up from the earth, flesh from Mary. And righteousness has looked down from heaven: because a man can receive nothing unless it is given him from heaven (John 3:27).

3. Being justified, then, by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom we also have access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:1-2). To these things, brothers, which you recognize along with me in a few words of the Apostle, it is a delight to add a few words of this psalm, and to find a harmony. Being justified by faith, let us have peace with God: because righteousness and peace have kissed each other (Ps 85:10 (84:11)). Through our Lord Jesus Christ: because truth has sprung up from the earth. Through whom we also have access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. He did not say, "of our glory," but, of the glory of God: because righteousness did not proceed from us, but looked down from heaven. Therefore let him who boasts boast not in himself but in the Lord. For from this also, when the Lord was born of the Virgin, whose birthday we celebrate today, the proclamation of the angelic voice was made: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14). For whence is peace on earth, unless because truth has sprung up from the earth, that is, Christ was born of flesh? And he himself is our peace, who made the two one (Eph 2:14): that we might be men of good will, sweetly bound together by the bonds of unity. In this grace, then, let us rejoice, that our glory may be the testimony of our conscience (2 Cor 1:12): where we boast not in ourselves but in the Lord. For from this it is said: My glory, and the one who lifts up my head (Ps 3:3 (3:4)). For what greater grace of God could shine upon us than that, having an only-begotten Son, he should make him the son of a man, and so in turn make the son of a man the Son of God? Seek the merit, seek the cause, seek the righteousness; and see whether you find anything but grace.

Sermon 186
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. Let us rejoice, brothers: let the nations be glad and exult. This day was consecrated for us not by this visible sun, but by its invisible Creator; when the Virgin Mother poured forth, from fruitful womb and unbroken purity, the one who for our sake was made visible, by whom, invisible, she herself was also created. A virgin conceiving, a virgin bearing, a virgin with child, a virgin pregnant, a virgin forever. Why do you marvel at this, O man? God had to be born thus, when he deigned to be man. Such did he make her who was made from her. For before he was made, he was: and because he was almighty, he could be made while remaining what he was. He made for himself a mother, while he was with the Father: and when he was made of a mother, he remained in the Father. How would he cease to be God, when he began to be man, who granted to his own mother that she should not cease to be a virgin when she gave birth? Therefore, that the Word was made flesh (John 1:14) does not mean that the Word, by perishing, yielded into flesh; but that the flesh, that it might not perish, came over to the Word: so that, just as a man is soul and flesh, so Christ might be God and man. The same is God who is man, and he who is God the same is man: not by a confusion of nature, but by a unity of person. In short, he who as Son of God is coeternal with the one who begets him, always from the Father, the same began to be the son of man from the Virgin. And thus humanity was added to the divinity of the Son; and yet there was not made a quaternity of persons, but the Trinity remains.

2. Therefore let not the opinion of certain people creep upon you who are too little attentive to the rule of faith and to the oracles of the divine Scriptures. For they say: he who is the son of man was made the Son of God; but he who is the Son of God was not made the son of man. In saying this, they attended to what is true, but they were not able to express the truth. For what did they attend to, except that human nature could be changed for the better, but the divine could not be changed for the worse? This is true: but even so, that is, with the divinity in no way changed for the worse, the Word was nevertheless made flesh. For the Gospel does not say, "the flesh was made Word," but it says, the Word was made flesh. But the Word is God; for God was the Word (John 1:1). And what is flesh, but man? For in Christ the flesh of a man is not without a soul. Hence he says, My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matt 26:38). If, then, the Word is God, and man is flesh, what else is the Word was made flesh, but, He who was God was made man? And by this, he who was the Son of God was made the son of man, by the taking up of the lesser, not by the conversion of the greater; by receiving what he was not, not by losing what he was. For how would we confess in the rule of faith that we believe in the Son of God who was born of the Virgin Mary, if not the Son of God, but the son of a man, was born of the Virgin Mary? For what Christian would deny that the son of a man was born of that woman? But still, that God was made man, and thus man was made God. For God was the Word, and the Word was made flesh. It must therefore be confessed that he who was the Son of God, in order to be born of the Virgin Mary, was made the son of a man by taking up the form of a servant, remaining what he was and taking up what he was not: beginning to be that in which he is less than the Father (John 14:28), and always remaining in that in which he and the Father are one (John 10:30).

3. For if he who is always the Son of God was not himself made the son of a man, how does the Apostle say of him: Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man (Phil 2:6-7)? For it is not another, but he himself, equal to the Father in the form of God, who is surely the only-begotten Son of God, who emptied himself, being made in the likeness of men. Nor is it another, but the very same one, equal to the Father in the form of God, who humbled not another but himself, being made obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:8). All of which the Son of God did only in that form in which he is the son of a man. Again, if he who is always the Son of God was not himself made the son of a man, how does the Apostle say to the Romans: set apart for the gospel of God, which he had promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was made for him of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom 1:1-3)? Behold, the Son of God, which he always was, was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, which he was not. Again, if he who is the Son of God was not himself made the son of a man, how did God send his Son, made of a woman (Gal 4:4)? By which name, according to the Hebrew tongue, virginal dignity is not denied, but the female sex is shown. For who was sent by the Father, except the only-begotten Son of God? How, then, made of a woman, except that the very one who was the Son of God with the Father was sent and made the son of a man? Born of the Father with no day of time, born of the mother on this day. For this day, which he created, he chose to be created on, just as he was made of a mother whom he made. For the very day from which the day henceforth receives an increase of light signifies the work of Christ, by whom our inner man is renewed from day to day (2 Cor 4:16). For to the eternal Creator, in created time, that day had to be the birthday on which a temporal creation would be fitting.

Sermon 187
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord (Ps 145:21 (144:21)): of that Lord through whom all things were made (John 1:3), and who was made among all things: who is the revealer of the Father, the creator of his mother: the Son of God from the Father without a mother, the son of a man from a mother without a father: the great day of the angels, a small one in the day of men: the Word, God before all times, the Word made flesh at the opportune time: the founder of the sun, founded beneath the sun: ordering all the ages from the bosom of the Father, consecrating this present day from the womb of his mother: abiding there, proceeding from here: the maker of heaven and earth, risen under heaven upon the earth: ineffably wise, wisely an infant: filling the world, lying in a manger: ruling the stars, suckling at the breast: so great in the form of God, so small in the form of a servant; that neither was that greatness diminished by this smallness, nor was this smallness pressed down by that greatness. For when he took up human limbs, he did not abandon his divine works: nor did he cease to reach mightily from end to end and order all things sweetly (Wis 8:1), when, clothed in the weakness of flesh, he was received, not enclosed, in a virginal womb; so that the food of wisdom might not be withdrawn from the angels, and we might taste how sweet the Lord is.

2. Why do we marvel at this concerning the Word of God, when this speech which we bring forth flows so freely into the senses that the hearer both receives it and does not enclose it? For unless it were received, it would instruct no one: if it were enclosed, it would not come to others. And surely this speech is divided into words and syllables: yet you do not, as from food for the belly, take away from it single particles; rather, all of you hear the whole, each of you grasps the whole. Nor do we fear, while we speak, that one might consume the whole by hearing it, and another not be able to have what he takes: but we wish you to be so attentive, defrauding no one's ear and mind, that each of you may both hear the whole and leave the whole to be heard by the rest. Nor does this happen at alternating times, so that when the speech that is uttered first enters into you, it goes out from you, that it may enter another: but it comes to all at once, and the whole reaches each. And if the whole could be held in memory, then, just as you all came to hear the whole, so each of you would return with the whole. How much more the Word of God, through whom all things were made (John 1:3), and which, remaining in itself, makes all things new; which is neither enclosed in places, nor stretched out in times, nor varied by short and long intervals, nor woven of voices, nor ended by silence; how much more could this Word, so great and such as it is, by taking up a body make fruitful the womb of a mother, and not depart from the bosom of the Father? go forth from here to human eyes, illuminate angelic minds from there? proceed to the earth from here, stretch out the heavens from there? become man here, make men there?

3. Let no one, then, believe that the Son of God was turned and changed into the son of a man: but let us rather believe that, the divine substance not being consumed and the human being perfectly taken up, the Son of God, remaining so, was made the son of a man. For it is not because it is said, God was the Word, and the Word was made flesh (John 1:1,14), that the Word was so made flesh as to cease to be God: since in that very flesh, that the Word was made flesh, Emmanuel was born, God with us (Matt 1:23). Just as the word that we bear in the heart becomes a voice when we bring it forth from the mouth, yet that word is not changed into this voice, but, remaining whole, takes up the voice in which it may proceed, so that what is understood remains within, and what is heard sounds without; yet the same thing is brought forth in sound that had before sounded in silence; and thus the word, when it becomes a voice, is not changed into a voice, but, remaining in the light of the mind and taking up the voice of the flesh, proceeds to the hearer and does not desert the thinker. This is not when the voice itself is thought in silence, which is either Greek, or Latin, or of some other tongue: but when, before all diversity of languages, the very thing that is to be said is still in some way bare in the chamber of the heart to one who understands, which, that it may proceed from there, is clothed with the voice of the speaker. Yet both of these, both what is thought in understanding and what sounds in speaking, is changeable and unlike: neither will that remain when you have forgotten it, nor this when you have fallen silent: but the Word of the Lord remains forever (1 Pet 1:25), and remains unchangeably.

4. And when he took up flesh in time, that he might proceed to our temporal life, he did not lose eternity in the flesh, but rather bestowed immortality even on the flesh. So he himself, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, rejoiced like a giant to run his course (Ps 19:5 (18:6)). Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped: but that for our sake he might become what he was not, he emptied himself; not losing the form of God, but taking the form of a servant: and through this being made in the likeness of men; not by his own substance, but found in fashion as a man (Phil 2:6-7). For all this that we are, whether in soul or in body, is our nature, his fashion: we, unless we were this, would not be; he, if he were not this, would still be God. And when he began to be what he was not, he was made man while remaining God: so that not one of these, but both, might most truly be said; both, on account of which he was made man, For the Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and, on account of which he remained God, I and the Father are one (John 10:30). For if the Word were changed and turned into flesh, that is, God into man, only the one would be true, The Father is greater than I, because God is greater than man: but that other would be false, I and the Father are one, because God and man are not one. But perhaps he might say: I and the Father are not one, but were one. For what was and ceased to be, surely is not, but was. But now, both on account of the true form of a servant which he had taken up, he truly said, The Father is greater than I; and on account of the true form of God in which he remained, he truly said, I and the Father are one. He emptied himself, then, among men, not so made what he was not as to cease to be what he was: but hiding what he was and showing what he had been made. Accordingly, because the Virgin conceived and bore a son, on account of the manifest form of a servant, a child is born to us (Isa 9:6). But because the Word of God, which remains forever, was made flesh, that it might dwell among us (John 1:14), on account of the form of God hidden but remaining, as Gabriel announced, we call his name Emmanuel (Matt 1:23). For he was made man, remaining God, so that the son of a man might rightly be called God with us: not one God, another man. So let the world rejoice in those who believe, for whose salvation he came through whom the world was made. The maker of Mary, born of Mary: the son of David, the Lord of David: the seed of Abraham, who is before Abraham: the maker of the earth, made in the earth: the creator of heaven, created under heaven. He himself is the day that the Lord has made, and the day of our heart is the Lord himself. Let us walk in his light (Isa 2:5), let us rejoice and be glad in him.

Sermon 188
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. 1. If we should attempt to praise the Son of God — as he is with the Father, equal and coeternal to him, in whom all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible (Col 1:16), the Word of God and God, the life and the light of men (John 1:4) — it is no wonder that no human thought, no speech, suffices. For how could our tongue worthily praise him whom our heart is not yet able to see, where he set the eye by which he might be seen, if iniquity be purged, if weakness be healed, and they be made blessed who are pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8)? It is no wonder, I say, that we do not find words by which to speak of the one Word, in whom it was spoken that we should be (See Ps 33:9 (32:9)), we who might say something of him. For these words, thought and uttered, our mind forms, but by that Word our mind itself is formed. Nor does man make words in the same way that he himself was made through the Word: for neither did the Father beget the one Word in the same way that he made all things through the Word. For God begot God; but at once the one begetting and the one begotten are one God. But God made the world; the world passes away, and God remains. And just as the things that were made surely did not make themselves, so he was made by no one through whom all things could be made. It is no wonder, then, if man, made among all things, does not unfold in words the Word through whom all things were made.

2. 2. So let us turn our ears and minds here a little, to see whether we may be able to say something fitting and worthy, not from this, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), but from this, that the Word was made flesh: to see whether we may say by what means he dwelt among us (John 1:14); whether there he can be utterable where he willed to be visible. For on this account we celebrate this day, on which he deigned to be born of a virgin: a generation of his which he caused to be in some manner recounted by men. But in that eternity in which God was born of God, his generation, who shall declare? (Isa 53:8) There no such day exists, to be solemnly celebrated. For it does not pass away, to return in the yearly cycle, but remains without setting, because it did not begin by rising. There is, then, that one Word of God, that life, that light of men (John 1:4), the eternal day indeed: but this day, on which, joined to human flesh, he was made like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber (Ps 19:5 (18:6)), is now today, and tomorrow becomes yesterday. Yet today commends the eternal one born of a virgin, because the eternal one born of a virgin consecrated today. What praises, then, shall we speak to the love of God, what thanks shall we give? He who so loved us that for our sake he came to be in time, he through whom times were made; and was younger in age than many of his servants in the world, more ancient than the world itself in eternity; that he who made man might become man, that he might be created of a mother whom he created, carried by the hands he formed, that he might suck the breasts he filled, that the Word might wail with speechless infancy in a manger — the Word, without whom human eloquence is speechless.

3. 3. See, O man, what God became for you: recognize the teaching of such great humility, even in a teacher who does not yet speak. You once were so eloquent in paradise that you gave names to every living soul (See Gen 2:19-20): but for your sake your Creator lay an infant, and did not even call his mother by her name. You lost yourself in the most spacious estate of fruitful groves, by neglecting obedience: he, obedient, came into the narrowest lodging of mortality, that by dying he might seek the dead. You, when you were man, willed to be God, that you might perish (See Gen 3:5); he, when he was God, willed to be man, that he might find what had perished. So far did human pride press you down that nothing but divine humility could lift you up.

3. 4. Let us then celebrate with joy the day on which Mary bore the Savior, a married woman the creator of marriage, a virgin the prince of virgins; both given to a husband and a mother not by a husband; a virgin before marriage, a virgin in marriage; a virgin with child, a virgin nursing. For the almighty Son, in being born, in no way took away the virginity of his holy Mother, which, about to be born, he had chosen. For fruitfulness in marriage is good: but integrity in holiness is better. Therefore Christ the man, who as God could grant both (for the same is man and the same is God), would never so give to his Mother the good that married people love as to take away the better good for the sake of which virgins disdain to be mothers. And so holy Mother Church celebrates today the Virgin's childbearing. For to her the Apostle says: I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor 11:2). Whence is there a chaste virgin among so many peoples of both sexes, among so many not only boys and virgins, but also married fathers and mothers? Whence, I say, a chaste virgin, except in the integrity of faith, hope, and charity? Christ, therefore, about to make virginity in the heart of the Church, first preserved it in the body of Mary. For in human marriage a woman is handed over to a bridegroom, so that she may be a virgin no longer: but the Church could not be a virgin, had she not found, as a bridegroom to whom she might be handed over, the son of a virgin.

Sermon 189
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. For us this day was sanctified by the day that made every day; of which the Psalm sings: Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord and bless his name, proclaim his salvation, day from day (Ps 96:1-2 (95:1-2)). Who is this day from day, but the Son from the Father, light from light? But that day which begot the day that was to be born of the Virgin on this day; that day, then, has no rising, has no setting. I call God the Father day. For Jesus would not be day from day, unless the Father too were day. What is day but light? Not of the eyes of flesh, not light common to men and beasts, but the light that shines for the angels, the light by seeing which hearts are purified. For this night in which we now live passes away, in which the lamps of the Scriptures are lit for us; and there will come that of which another Psalm sings: In the morning I will stand before you, and I will contemplate you (Ps 5:3-4 (5:4-5)).

2. That day, then, the Word of God, the day that shines for the angels, the day that shines in that homeland from which we are pilgrims, clothed itself in flesh, and was born of the Virgin Mary. He was wondrously born. What is more wonderful than a virgin's childbearing? She conceives, and is a virgin; she bears, and is a virgin. For he was created of her whom he created; and he brought her fruitfulness, he did not corrupt her integrity. Whence was Mary? From Adam. Whence Adam? From the earth. If Adam from the earth, and Mary from Adam, then Mary too is earth. If Mary is earth, let us recognize what we sing: truth has sprung up from the earth. What benefit has he bestowed on us? Truth has sprung up from the earth, and righteousness has looked down from heaven (Ps 85:11 (84:12)). For the Jews, as the Apostle says, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish their own, did not submit to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3). Whence can a man be righteous? From himself? What poor man gives himself bread? Who that is naked is clothed, unless he has received a garment? We had no righteousness; here there were only sins. Whence righteousness? What righteousness is there without faith? For the righteous lives by faith (Rom 1:17). He who calls himself righteous without faith lies. How does he not lie, in whom there is no faith? If he wishes to speak the truth, let him turn himself to the truth. But it was far off. Truth has sprung up from the earth. You were sleeping; it came to you: you were snoring; it woke you: it made a way for you through itself, lest it lose you. Therefore, because truth has sprung up from the earth, our Lord Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin; righteousness has looked down from heaven, that men might have a righteousness not their own, but God's.

3. What great condescension! What indignation went before it! What indignation went before? We were mortal, weighed down by sins, bearing our punishments. Every man, when he is born, begins from misery. Do not look for someone prophesying; question the newborn, and see him weeping. When, therefore, there was upon the earth this great indignation of God, what condescension was suddenly made? Truth has sprung up from the earth. He created all things, was created among all things; he made the day, came into the day; he was before times, marked out the times. The Lord Christ is forever, without beginning, with the Father: and yet ask today what he is. It is a birthday. Of whom? Of the Lord. Does he have a birthday? He does. In the beginning the Word, God with God (John 1:1), does he have a birthday? He does. Unless he had a human generation, we would not come to the divine regeneration: he was born, that we might be reborn. Let no one doubt that he is reborn; Christ was born: he was begotten, not to be regenerated. For who needed regeneration, but the one whose generation is condemned? Let his mercy, then, come to be in our hearts. His mother bore him in the womb; let us bear him in the heart: the Virgin was made pregnant by the incarnation of Christ; let our breasts be made pregnant by faith in Christ: she bore the Savior; let us bring forth praise. Let us not be barren: let our souls be fruitful for God.

4. The generation of Christ from the Father is without a mother; the generation of Christ from the mother is without a father: both generations are wonderful. The first generation is eternal, the second temporal. When was he born of the Father? What does "when" mean? Do you ask "when" there, there where you will not find time? Do not ask "when" there. Ask "when" here: when of the mother you ask well. When of the Father you do not ask well: he was born, and he has no time; he was born eternal of the eternal, coeternal. Why do you marvel? He is God. Let there be a consideration of his divinity, and the cause of wonder perishes. And when we say he was born of a Virgin, a great thing, you marvel. He is God, do not marvel; let wonder pass, let praise draw near. Let faith be present: believe that it happened. If you do not believe, that has still happened, but you remain an unbeliever. He deigned to become man: what more do you seek? Is it too little for you that God was humbled for your sake? He who was God was made man. The lodging was cramped: he was wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger: you heard it when the Gospel was read. Who would not marvel? He who filled the world found no room in the lodging; laid in a manger, he became our food. Let two animals draw near to the manger, two peoples: for the ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's manger (Isa 1:3). Attend to the manger: do not be ashamed to be the Lord's beast of burden. You will carry Christ, you will not go astray walking along the way: the Way sits upon you. Do you remember that little ass led to the Lord? (See Matt 21:1-7) Let no one be ashamed, we are it. Let the Lord sit upon us, and call us where he wills. We are his beast of burden, we go to Jerusalem. With him sitting upon us we are not pressed down, but lifted up; with him leading we do not go astray: to him we go, through him we go, we do not perish.

Sermon 190
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. 1. Our Lord Jesus, who was with the Father before he was born of a mother, chose not only the virgin of whom he would be born, but also the day on which he would be born. Erring men for the most part choose days, one for planting vines, another for building, another for setting out on a journey, and sometimes even another for taking a wife. When a man does this, he does it so that something born from it may be happily nourished. Yet no one can choose the day on which he himself is born. But he was able to choose both, who was able both to create both. Nor did he so choose the day as those choose who vainly hang the fates of men upon the disposition of the stars. For he who was born was not made happy by the day; but he made happy the day on which he himself deigned to be born. For the day of his nativity, too, holds the mystery of his light. For the Apostle says thus: The night is far gone, the day is at hand: let us cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light; let us walk becomingly as in the day (Rom 13:12-13). Let us recognize the day, and let us be day. For we were night, when we lived faithlessly. And because that very faithlessness, which had covered the whole world in the manner of night, had to be diminished as faith grew; therefore, on the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, the night begins to suffer losses, and the day to receive increases. Let us, then, brothers, keep this solemn day; not like the faithless on account of this sun, but on account of him who made this sun. For what was the Word was made flesh (See John 1:14), that for our sake it might be under the sun. In the flesh, indeed, under the sun: but in majesty above the whole world, in which he founded the sun. But now even in the flesh he is above this sun, which those worship as God who, blind in mind, do not see the true Sun of righteousness.

2. 2. This day, then, Christians, let us celebrate not as that of his divine nativity, but of his human one, namely that by which he was made proportionate to us; that through the invisible made visible, we might pass from visible things to invisible. For by the catholic faith we ought to hold that there are two nativities of the Lord: one divine, the other human; that one without time, this one in time. But both wonderful: that one without a mother, this one without a father. If we do not comprehend this one, when shall we declare that one? Who could comprehend a newness so new, so unwonted, unique in the world, the incredible made credible, and incredibly believed by the whole world: that a virgin should conceive, a virgin bear, a virgin remain a virgin in bearing? What human reason does not discover, faith grasps: and where human reason fails, faith advances. For who would say that the Word of God, through whom all things were made (John 1:3), could not make flesh for himself even without a mother, just as he made the first man without a father and a mother? But because he himself surely created both sexes, that is, of male and female; therefore he willed in being born also to honor both sexes, which he had come to set free. You know, surely, the fall of the first man, that the serpent did not dare to speak to the man, but to cast him down used the ministry of the woman. Through the weaker he overcame the stronger: and he who penetrated through the one triumphed over both. Therefore, that we might not shudder at our death in the woman as by an impulse of righteous grief, and believe it condemned without repair; the Lord, coming to seek what had perished, willed to honor and commend both, because both had perished. In no sex, then, ought we to do injury to the Creator: the Lord's nativity commended both for the hope of salvation. The honor of the male sex is in the flesh of Christ: the honor of the female is in the mother of Christ. The grace of Jesus Christ conquered the cunning of the serpent.

3. 3. Let both sexes, then, be reborn in him who was born today, and let them celebrate this present day: the day on which the Lord Christ did not begin to be, but, being always with the Father, brought forth into this light the flesh he received from his mother; bringing his mother fruitfulness, not taking away her integrity. He is conceived, born, an infant. Who is this infant? He is called an infant because he cannot speak, that is, talk. So he is both an infant and the Word. Through the flesh he is silent, through the angels he teaches. The prince and shepherd of shepherds is announced to the shepherds: and in the manger lies the food of the faithful beasts of burden. For it had been foretold through the Prophet: The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's manger (Isa 1:3). Therefore he sat upon a little ass, when he entered Jerusalem with the praises of the crowd going before and following after (See Matt 21:1-9). And let us, too, recognize him, draw near to the manger, eat the food, carry our Lord and ruler; that with him leading we may come to the heavenly Jerusalem. Weak is Christ's nativity from his mother; but ample is his majesty from the Father. In temporal days he has a temporal day; but he himself is the eternal day from the eternal day.

3. 4. Rightly are we kindled by his psalm, as by the voice of a heavenly trumpet, where we hear: Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, and bless his name (Ps 96:1-2 (95:1-2)). Let us recognize, then, and proclaim the day from day who was born in the flesh on this day. The day, the Son from the day, the Father, God from God, light from light. For this is the salvation of which it is said elsewhere: May God have mercy on us and bless us; may he make his face shine upon us: that we may know your way upon earth, your salvation among all nations (Ps 67:1-2 (66:2-3)). What he said, upon earth, he repeated, among all nations: and what he said, your way, he repeated, your salvation. We remember that the Lord himself said: I am the way (John 14:6). And just now, when the Gospel was read, we heard that the most blessed old man Simeon had received a divine answer that he would not taste death unless he first saw the Christ of the Lord. When he had received the infant Christ in his hands, and had recognized the great one as a little child: Now you dismiss, he said, your servant, Lord, according to your word, in peace: for my eyes have seen your salvation (Luke 2:29-30). Well, then, let us proclaim the day from day, his salvation. Let us proclaim his glory among the nations, his wonders among all peoples (Ps 96:3 (95:3)). He lies in a manger, but contains the world: he sucks the breast, but feeds the angels: he is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but clothes us with immortality: he is nursed, but adored: he finds no room in the lodging, but makes himself a temple in the hearts of believers. For that weakness might become strong, strength was made weak. Let us, then, marvel at his fleshly nativity rather than despise it; and there let us recognize the humility of such great loftiness for our sake. From there let us kindle love, that we may come to his eternity.

Sermon 191
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. 1. The Word of the Father, through whom times were made (See John 1:3), made flesh, made his own birthday for us in time: and in his human rising he willed to have one day, without whose divine nod no day rolls round. He himself, with the Father, precedes all the spans of the ages: he himself, of his mother, on this day entered into the courses of the years. Made man, the maker of man: that he might suck the breast, who rules the stars; that the Bread might hunger, that the Fountain might thirst, that the Light might sleep, that the Way might be wearied by the journey, that the Truth might be accused by false witnesses, that the Judge of the living and the dead might be judged by a mortal judge, that Righteousness might be condemned by the unrighteous, that Discipline might be scourged with whips, that the Cluster of grapes might be crowned with thorns, that the Foundation might be hung upon a tree, that Strength might be weakened, that Health might be wounded, that Life might die. To bear these and such unworthy things for us, that he might free the unworthy; since neither did he, who for our sake bore such evils, deserve any evil, nor did we, who through him received such goods, deserve any good: for these things, then, he who was before all the ages, without beginning of days, the Son of God, deigned in the last days to be the son of a man; and he who was born of the Father, not made by the Father, was made in the mother whom he made; that from her there might at some time arise the one who, except through him, could never and nowhere have existed.

1. 2. Thus was fulfilled what the Psalm had foretold: truth has sprung up from the earth (Ps 85:11 (84:12)). Mary a virgin before conception, a virgin after the birth. For far be it that in that earth, that is, in that flesh from which truth sprang up, integrity should perish. Indeed, after his resurrection, when he was thought to be a spirit, not a body: Handle me, he said, and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have (Luke 24:39). And yet the solidity of that youthful body brought itself in to the disciples through doors that were not open (See John 20:19,26). Why, then, could he who was able to enter, fully grown, through closed doors, not also go forth, an infant, through uncorrupted members? But the unbelieving will believe neither this nor that. Therefore faith rather believes both; because unbelief does not believe either. For it is unbelief itself to which no divinity seems to be in Christ. But further, if faith believes that God was born in the flesh, it does not doubt that both are possible for God; that both his body of greater age might present itself to those placed within, with no door of the house unbarred, and the bridegroom, an infant, might proceed from his chamber (See Ps 19:5 (18:6)), that is, from the virginal womb, with the mother's virginity unharmed.

2. 3. For there the only-begotten Son of God deigned to join human nature to himself, that to himself, the immaculate Head, he might unite the immaculate Church: which Paul the apostle calls a virgin, considering in her not only those who are virgins also in body, but desiring the uncorrupted minds of all. For I have betrothed you, he says, to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor 11:2). The Church, then, imitating the mother of her Lord, since she could not in body, is nevertheless in mind both mother and virgin. In no way, therefore, did Christ, in being born, take away virginity from his mother, who, by redeeming his Church from the fornication of the demons, made her a virgin. From her uncorrupted virginity were begotten holy virgins, who, despising earthly marriages, have chosen to be virgins also in the flesh: rejoicing, solemnly celebrate on this present day the Virgin's childbearing. For he was born of a woman who was not begotten by a male in a woman. He who brought you something to love did not take from his mother what you love. He who heals in you what you drew from Eve, far be it that he should mar what you loved in Mary.

3. 4. She, then, whose footsteps you follow, both did not remain with a man in order to conceive, and remained a virgin when she bore. Imitate her as much as you can; not in fruitfulness, for this you cannot, with virginity preserved. She alone was able to do both, of which you have wished to have the one; for you lose this if you should wish to have both. She alone was able to do both, who bore the Almighty, through whom she was able. For it was fitting that the only-begotten Son of God alone should become the son of a man in this unique way. Nor yet for that reason is Christ nothing to you, because he is the offspring of one virgin. For the very one whom you could not bring forth as a son in the flesh, you have found as a bridegroom in the heart: and such a bridegroom that your happiness so holds him as Redeemer that your virginity need not fear him as a slayer. For he who did not take away virginity from his mother even by a bodily birth, much more in you preserves it by a spiritual embrace. Nor on that account should you consider yourselves barren, because you remain virgins. For that holy integrity of the flesh itself belongs to the fruitfulness of the mind. Do what the Apostle says: that you do not think of the things of the world, how you may please your husbands; think of the things of God, how you may please him in all things (See 1 Cor 7:32-34); so that you may have a womb not fruitful with offspring, but a mind fruitful with virtues. Finally, I address all, I speak to all; the whole chaste virgin whom the Apostle betrothed to Christ I summon with this voice. What you marvel at in the flesh of Mary, do in the inmost places of the soul. He who believes with the heart unto righteousness conceives Christ: he who confesses with the mouth unto salvation (Rom 10:10) bears Christ. So in your minds let both fruitfulness abound and virginity persevere.

Sermon 192
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. Today truth has sprung up from the earth (Ps 85:11 (84:12)), Christ was born of flesh. Rejoice solemnly, and, admonished also by today, think on the everlasting day; with firmest hope long for the eternal gifts; presume, with the power you have received, to be children of God (See John 1:12). For your sake the maker of times was made subject to time, for your sake the Founder of the world appeared in the flesh, for your sake the Creator was created. Why do you still, being mortal, take delight in mortal things, and try, if it could be done, to hold onto a fleeting life? A far brighter hope has shone forth on earth, that to those of earth life might be promised in heaven. That this might be believed, a more incredible thing was bestowed beforehand. He who was God was made man, that he might make gods of those who were men: not losing what he was, he himself willed to become what he had made. He himself made what he should be, because he added man to God, he did not lose God in man. We marvel at the virgin's childbearing, and we try to persuade the unbelieving of the new manner itself of being born: that in an unsown womb the seed of offspring arose, and that bowels free from the embrace of flesh brought forth the son of a man, whose father they did not bear a man; that the integrity of virginity remained both closed in conception and uncorrupted in the birth. Wondrous is this power, but more to be wondered at is the mercy, that he who could be born thus willed to be born. For he who was born the only Son to the mother was already the only Son to the Father: and he himself was made in the mother who had made for himself the mother; everlasting with the Father, of today from the mother: after the mother, made of the mother, before all things, of the Father not made: without whom the Father never was, without whom the mother never would have been.

2. Rejoice, virgins of Christ, the mother of Christ is your companion. You could not bear Christ, but for the sake of Christ you chose not to bear. He who was not born of you was born for you. Yet if you remember his word, as you ought to remember, you too are his mothers, because you do the will of his Father. For he himself said: Whoever does the will of my Father, he is my brother and sister and mother (Matt 12:50). Rejoice, widows of Christ: to him who made virginity fruitful you have vowed the holiness of continence. Rejoice also, you chastity of marriage, all you who live faithfully with your spouses: what you have lost in the body, preserve in the heart. Where now the flesh cannot be intact from intercourse, let the conscience be a virgin in faith, according to which the whole Church is a virgin. In Mary holy virginity bore Christ: in Anna widowhood, aged, recognized the little Christ: in Elizabeth marital chastity and aged fruitfulness served Christ. All the ranks of the faithful members conferred on the Head what by his grace they were able to confer. Therefore, because Christ is truth and peace and righteousness, conceive him by faith, bring him forth by works; that what the womb of Mary did in the flesh of Christ, your heart may do in the law of Christ. But how do you not belong to the Virgin's childbearing, when you are the members of Christ? Mary bore your Head, the Church bore you. For she too is both mother and virgin: a mother in the bowels of love, a virgin in the integrity of faith and piety. She bears peoples, but they are members of one, whose body and spouse she herself is, bearing in this too a likeness to that Virgin, because in the many she also is the mother of unity.

3. And so let us all, of one mind, with chaste minds and holy affections, celebrate the day of the Lord's birth: on which day, as we began this sermon, truth has sprung up from the earth (Ps 85:11 (84:12)). For now what follows in the same psalm has also come to pass. For he who sprang up from the earth, that is, was born of flesh, since he came from heaven and is above all (See John 3:31), without doubt, when he ascended to the Father, righteousness also looked down from heaven. For this righteousness he himself commends by his words, in promising the Holy Spirit: He, he says, will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they did not believe in me: of righteousness, because I go to the Father; and you will see me no longer (John 16:8-10). This is the righteousness that looked down from heaven. For his going forth is from the height of heaven, and his circuit even to its height (Ps 19:6 (18:7)). But lest anyone despise truth because it sprang up from the earth, when, like a bridegroom, he came forth from his chamber (Ps 19:5 (18:6)), that is, from the virginal womb, where the Word of God was joined to the human creature by a certain ineffable union: lest, then, anyone should despise this, and, though born wonderfully and wonderful in words and deeds, should nonetheless, on account of the likeness of sinful flesh, believe Christ to be nothing more than a man: when it had been said, Like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, he rejoiced like a giant to run his course; it was at once subjoined, His going forth is from the height of heaven. What you hear, then, truth has sprung up from the earth, is condescension, not condition; mercy, not misery. That truth might spring up from the earth, it descended from heaven: that the bridegroom might come forth from his chamber, his going forth is from the height of heaven. Hence it is that he was born today, on the day on which no day is the least in the earth, from which, however, the days take their increase. He, then, who was bowed down and lifted us up chose the smallest day, but the day from which the light grows: by his very coming thus, exhorting us also silently, as by the sound of a great cry, that we who became poor for his sake (See 2 Cor 8:9) may learn to be rich in him; that we for whose sake he took the form of a servant (Phil 2:7) may receive liberty in him; that we for whose sake he sprang up from the earth may possess heaven in him.

Sermon 193
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. When the Gospel was read, we heard the voice of the angels by which the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin's childbearing, was announced to the shepherds: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14). A festal voice and one of rejoicing, not for one woman, whose womb had brought forth offspring, but for the human race, for which a Virgin had borne the Savior. For it was fitting, and this was altogether seemly, that for her who had given birth, who had brought forth the Lord of heaven and earth and had remained intact after the offspring was brought forth, not little women with human ceremonies, but the angel with divine praises, should celebrate the birth-rites. Let us then say, and let us say it with as much exultation as we can, who announce him born not to shepherds of cattle, but celebrate his birthday with his sheep: let us say, I say, we too, with faithful heart and devout voice: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. And these divine words, these praises of God, this angelic joy, examined with as much attention as we are able, let us meditate on with faith and hope and love. For just as we believe and hope and desire, so we too shall be glory to God in the highest, when, our body rising spiritual, we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ (See 1 Thess 4:17): if only, while we are on earth, we pursue peace with good will. For in the highest is life, because there is the region of the living; and there are good days, where the Lord himself is the same, and his years do not fail (Ps 102:27 (101:28)). But whoever wants life and loves to see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil, and let his lips not speak deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good (Ps 34:12-14 (33:13-15)): and so let him be a man of good will. And let him seek peace and pursue it (Ps 34:14 (33:15)): because on earth peace to men of good will.

2. But if you say, O man, Behold, the will is present with me, but to perform the good I do not find; and you delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but you see another law in your members at war with the law of your mind, and leading you captive in the law of sin which is in your members (See Rom 7:18,22-23): persist in good will, and cry out what follows: Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25). For he himself is peace on earth to men of good will, after the war in which the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that you may not do the things that you would (Gal 5:17): for he himself is our peace, who made the two one (Eph 2:14). Let good will, then, persist against evil desires, and persisting, let it implore the help of the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is opposed by the law of the carnal members, and behold, now it is even taken captive: let it implore help, let it not trust in its own strength; and, at least wearied, let it not disdain to be one who confesses. For he will be present who said to those whom he already saw believing in him: If you continue in my word, you will truly be my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32). The truth will be present and will free us from this body of death. For on this account Truth, whose birthday we celebrate, sprang up from the earth (Ps 85:11 (84:12)), that there might be peace on earth to men of good will. For who is fit to will and to be able, unless he aids us by inspiration that we may be able, who by calling granted that we should will? For everywhere his mercy goes before us, that we who were unwilling might be called, and that we might obtain the power to do what we will. Let us say to him, then: I have sworn and resolved to keep the judgments of your righteousness (Ps 119:106 (118:106)). I have resolved indeed, and because you commanded, I have promised obedience: but since I see another law in my members at war with the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members (Rom 7:23); I am humbled exceedingly, Lord, give me life according to your word (Ps 119:107 (118:107)). Behold, the will is present with me (Rom 7:18): therefore accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, Lord (Ps 119:108 (118:108)); that there may be peace on earth to men of good will. Let us say these things, and whatever else piety, instructed by the holy readings, suggests: that we may not vainly throng the festival of the Lord born of the Virgin, begun in good will, to be perfected in fullest love; which is also poured out in our hearts, not through ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5).

Sermon 194
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. 1. Hear, children of light, adopted into the kingdom of God; dearest brothers, hear; hear, and exult, you righteous, in the Lord, that praise may befit the upright (Ps 33:1 (32:1)). Hear what you know, recall what you have heard, love what you believe, preach what you love. As we celebrate this day yearly, so await the sermon due to this day. Christ was born, God of the Father, man of the mother. Of the Father's immortality, of the mother's virginity. Of the Father without a mother, of the mother without a father. Of the Father without time, of the mother without seed. Of the Father the beginning of life, of the mother the end of death. Of the Father ordering every day, of the mother consecrating this day.

2. 1. For he sent ahead as a forerunner the man John, who was to be born then, when the days began to shorten: and he himself was born when the days began to lengthen, that by this might be prefigured what the same John says: He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30). For human life ought to fail in itself, to advance in Christ; so that those who live may live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and rose again for all (2 Cor 5:15): and let each one of us say what the Apostle says: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20). For he must increase, but I must decrease.

2. 2. All his angels praise him worthily, whose food he is, eternal, giving them life with incorruptible nourishment; for he is the Word of God, by whose life they live, by whose eternity they live forever, by whose goodness they live forever blessed. They praise him worthily, God with God, and give glory to God in the highest (Luke 2:14). But we are his people and the sheep of his hands (Ps 95:7 (94:7)); according to the measure of our weakness, let us, reconciled, merit peace through good will. For the voice of those very angels is truly today's voice, which, exulting, they poured forth when the Savior was born for us: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14). They, then, praise fittingly; let us too praise obediently. They are his messengers, we too are his flock. He filled their table in heaven, he filled our manger on earth. For the fullness of their table is that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). The fullness of our manger is that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). For that man might eat the bread of the angels, the creator of the angels was made man. They praise by living, we by believing: they by enjoying, we by asking: they by receiving, we by seeking: they by entering, we by knocking.

3. 3. For who among men could know all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ (See Col 2:3), and concealed in the poverty of his flesh? For he became poor for our sake, though he was rich, that by his poverty we might be enriched (2 Cor 8:9). For when he took up mortality and consumed death, he showed himself in poverty: but he promised riches deferred, he did not lose them taken away. How great is the abundance of his sweetness, which he has hidden for those who fear him, but accomplishes for those who hope in him (Ps 31:19 (30:20))! For we know in part, until that which is perfect comes (1 Cor 13:9-10). That we might be made fit to grasp him, he who is equal to the Father in the form of God, made like us in the form of a servant, refashions us to the likeness of God: and, made the son of a man, the only Son of God makes many sons of men sons of God; and, having nourished servants through the visible form of a servant, he perfects them as free to see the form of God. For we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. And we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). For what are those treasures of wisdom and knowledge, what are those divine riches, except that they suffice for us? And what is that abundance of sweetness, except that it satisfies us? Show us, then, the Father, and it is enough for us (John 14:8). And in a certain psalm, one of us, or in us, or for us, says to him: I shall be satisfied when your glory is made manifest (Ps 17:15 (16:15)). But he and the Father are one: and he who sees him sees also the Father (See John 14:9). Therefore the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory (Ps 24:10 (23:10)). Turning us, he will show us his face; and we shall be saved (Ps 80:3 (79:4)), and we shall be satisfied, and it will suffice for us.

4. 4. Conclusion. So let our heart say to him: I have sought your face; your face, Lord, will I seek; turn not your face from me (Ps 27:8-9 (26:8-9)). And let him himself answer our heart: He who loves me keeps my commandments: and he who loves me will be loved by my Father; and I will love him, and will show myself to him (John 14:21). Those to whom he said this surely saw him with their eyes, and heard the sound of his voice with their ears, and thought of a man with a human heart: but he was promising to show that very one whom eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9), to those who love him. Until that comes to pass, until he shows us what suffices us, until we drink of him, the fountain of life, and are satisfied (See Ps 36:8-9 (35:9-10)); meanwhile, while, walking by faith, we are pilgrims away from him (See 2 Cor 5:6-7), while we hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt 5:6) and long for the beauty of the form of God with ineffable ardor, let us with devout homage celebrate the birthday of the form of a servant. We cannot yet contemplate that he was begotten of the Father before the morning star (Ps 110:3 (109:3)); let us frequent the fact that in the night hours he was born of a virgin. We do not yet grasp that his name remains before the sun (Ps 72:17 (71:17)); let us recognize his tabernacle set in the sun (See Ps 19:4-5 (18:5-6)). We do not yet behold the Only-begotten remaining in his Father; let us remember the bridegroom coming forth from his chamber. We are not yet fit for the banquet of our Father; let us recognize the manger of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sermon 195
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. The Son of God and likewise the son of man, our Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Father without a mother, created every day; born of the mother without a father, he consecrated this day; invisible by his divine nativity, visible by his human, wonderful in both. Accordingly, of which one the prophet rather said what he foretold of him, His generation, who shall declare? (Isa 53:8), it is difficult to judge: whether of that one in which, never not born, he has the Father coeternal, or of this one in which, born at some time, he had already made the mother in whom he would be made: whether of that one in which he was always born who always was; for who shall declare how light was born of light, and both are one light? how God was born of God, and the number of gods did not grow? how, as of something completed, it is said that he was born, when in that nativity time neither passed by, by which it should be past; nor went before, by which it should be future; nor was present, as if it were still coming to be and were not complete? Who, then, shall declare this generation, when that which is to be declared remains above time, but the speech of the one declaring passes away in time? And this generation too, from a virgin, who shall declare, whose conception in the flesh was not made fleshly, whose rising from the flesh brought abundance to her who nursed, and did not take away integrity from her who bore? Whichever of them, then, or both, his generation, who shall declare?

2. This is the Lord our God, this is the mediator of God and men, the man, our Savior (See 1 Tim 2:5), who, born of the Father, created even his mother; created of the mother, glorified even the Father: without a female childbearing the only Son to the Father, without a male embrace the only son to the mother. This is the one beautiful in form beyond the sons of men (Ps 45:2 (44:3)), the son of holy Mary, the bridegroom of the holy Church, whom he rendered like to his own mother: for he both made her our mother, and keeps her a virgin for himself. For to her the Apostle says: I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor 11:2). Of her he says again that she is our mother, not a slave woman but free, whose deserted children are more than those of her who has a husband (Gal 4:26-27). There is therefore in the Church, as in Mary, perpetual integrity and uncorrupted fruitfulness. For what Mary merited in the flesh, the Church preserved in the mind: except that Mary bore one, the Church bears many, to be gathered into one through the One.

3. This, then, is the day on which he came into the world, through whom the world was made; on which he was made present in the flesh, never absent in power: for he was in this world, and he came to his own (John 1:10-11). He was in the world, but the world did not know him: for the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5). He came, then, in the flesh, to cleanse the vices of the flesh. He came in healing earth, from which he might cure our inner eyes, which our outer earth had blinded: so that, with them healed, we who were before darkness might be made light in the Lord (Eph 5:8); and the light might no longer shine in the darkness, present to the absent, but appear certain to those who see. For this the bridegroom came forth from his chamber, and rejoiced like a giant to run his course (Ps 19:5 (18:6)). Beautiful as a bridegroom, strong as a giant, lovable and terrible, severe and serene, fair to the good, harsh to the evil, remaining in the bosom of the Father, he filled the womb of his mother. In which chamber, that is, the womb of the Virgin, the divine nature joined to itself the human: where the Word was made flesh for our sake, that, coming forth from the mother, it might dwell among us (John 1:14); that, going ahead to the Father, he might prepare for us where we may dwell (See John 14:2-3). This day, then, let us joyfully celebrate solemnly; and let us faithfully long for the eternal day, through him who was born for us, eternal in time.

Sermon 196
On the Birthday of the Lord

1. Today the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ has shone forth festal for us. The birthday on which the day was born. And it is on this day, because from today the day grows. The nativities of our Lord Jesus Christ are two; one divine, the other human: both wonderful; that one without a female mother, this one without a male father. What the holy prophet Isaiah says, His generation, who shall declare? (Isa 53:8), can be referred to both generations. Who can worthily declare God begetting? Who can worthily declare a virgin's childbearing? That one without a day, this one on a certain day: both beyond human estimation, and with great wonder. Attend to that first generation: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Whose Word? The Father's own. What Word? The Son himself. Never the Father without the Son. And yet he who is never without the Son begot the Son. And he begot, and did not begin. To one begotten without a beginning there is no beginning. And yet he is the Son, and yet begotten. A man is going to say: How begotten, and yet he has no beginning? If begotten, he has a beginning: if he has no beginning, how begotten? How, I do not know. Do you ask of a man how God was begotten? I labor at your question; but I appeal to the Prophet: His generation, who shall declare? Come with me to this human generation, come with me to this one, in which he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:7); to see whether we may be able to grasp even this one, to see whether we may be able to say even something of this one. For who could grasp, Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Phil 2:6)? Who could grasp this? Who could worthily think it? Whose mind would dare to search this out? Whose tongue would dare to pronounce it? Whose thought could grasp it? Meanwhile let us pass this over: it is too much for us. But that it might not be too much for us, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men (Phil 2:7). Where? In the Virgin Mary. From there, then, let us say something, if perhaps we can. The angel announces, the virgin hears, believes, and conceives. Faith in the mind, Christ in the womb. The virgin conceived; marvel: the virgin bore; marvel more: after the birth, she remained a virgin. This generation, then, who shall declare?

2. I say what may delight you, dearest ones. There are three lives in the Church among the members of Christ: married, widowed, virginal. Because these very lives, these very chastities, were to be in the holy members of Christ; all these three lives bore witness to Christ. The first, the married: when the virgin Mary conceived, Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah, had herself also conceived; she bore in her womb the herald of this Judge. Holy Mary came to her, as to greet her kinswoman. The infant leaped in the womb of Elizabeth. He leaped, she prophesied (See Luke 1:39-45). You have one bearing witness to married chastity. Where is the widowed? In Anna. You heard just now, when the Gospel was read, that there was a holy prophetess, a widow of eighty-four years, who had lived seven years with her husband; frequenting the temple of the Lord, serving in prayers night and day. And she too, a widow, recognized Christ. She saw the little one, recognized the great one. And she too bore witness (See Luke 2:36-38). You have in her the widowed life. In Mary, the virginal. Let each one choose for himself of these three whichever he wishes. He who wishes to be apart from these does not order himself to be among the members of Christ. Let not married women say: We do not belong to Christ. Holy women had husbands. Let not virgins exalt themselves. The greater they are, let them humble themselves in all things (See Sir 3:18). All the examples of salvation are set before our eyes. Let no one stray. Let no one be apart from a wife: it is better without a wife. If you seek married chastity, you have Susanna: if widowed, you have Anna: if virginal, you have Mary.

3. The Lord Jesus willed to be man for our sake. Let mercy not become cheap: Wisdom lies on the earth. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). O food and bread of the angels: with you the angels are filled, with you they are satisfied, and do not grow weary; on you they live, by you they are wise, in you they are blessed. Where are you for my sake? In a cramped lodging, in swaddling clothes, in a manger. For whose sake? He who rules the stars sucks the breast: he fills the angels, speaks in the bosom of the Father, is silent in the bosom of the mother. But he will speak at the fitting age, fulfilling the Gospel for us. He will suffer for us, die for us, rise again as an example of our reward, ascend into heaven before the eyes of the disciples, come from heaven to judgment. Behold, he who lay in a manger was diminished, but did not lose himself: he received what he was not, but remained what he was. Behold, we have the infant Christ; let us grow with him.

4. Let this be enough for your Charity. Because I see many here on account of the solemnity, I must speak. The Kalends of January are coming. You are all Christians; God being favorable, the city is Christian. There are two kinds of men here, Christians and Jews. Let not those things be done which God hates: through play, iniquity; through jesting, wickedness. Let men not make themselves judges, lest they come into the hands of the true Judge. Hear, you are Christians, you are members of Christ. Think what you are, think at what price you were bought. Finally, if you wish to know what you do: I say it to those who do these things. Do not take it as an injury to yourselves, you to whom these things are displeasing: I speak to those who do them, and to whom they are pleasing. Do you wish to know what you do, and what sadness you bring upon us? Do the Jews do that? Even so, blush, that it may not be done. On the birthday of John, that is, six months earlier (for the herald and the Judge have that many months between them), from a superstitious pagan solemnity, Christians used to come to the sea and there baptize themselves. I was absent: but, as I have learned, the presbyters, moved by Christian discipline, gave certain people a worthy and ecclesiastical discipline. Men murmured at this, and some said: How much would it have cost to make it known to us? If we had been warned beforehand, we would not have done it. Had the presbyters themselves warned us beforehand, we would not have done it. Behold, the bishop warns you beforehand; I admonish, I proclaim, I declare. Let the bishop be heard commanding, let the bishop be heard admonishing, let the bishop be heard pleading, let the bishop be heard adjuring. I adjure you by him who was born today: I adjure, I bind you, let no one do it. I absolve myself. It is better that I be heard admonishing than felt grieving.

1. Dearest brothers, the invisible sublimity of our Lord Jesus Christ was made a visible humility. His sublimity has no day, his weakness took on a day. Where there is humility, there is weakness. But the weakness of God is strength to the humble. Out of his sublimity he made the world, out of his humility he conquered the world. Unless Christ deigned to be humble, no believer would today be signed with the sign of Christ. You heard what the Apostle said of him, that though he was true God he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. How was that a thing to be grasped which he was by nature? But what did he do? He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:6-7). And this is what we celebrate today. Many despised the humble Christ and did not come to the height of Christ. But those who adored the humble one found the exalted one. So on the eighth day, after that custom, the Lord was circumcised, and there was offered for him the sacrifice that Moses commanded (See Luke 2:21-24). The Jews hear and say: Christ is ours. But if you recognized him, why did you kill him? A great dispensation, dearest ones! About to take away circumcision, he received circumcision. He received the shadow, about to give the light. He received the figure, about to fulfill the truth. For circumcision itself, which was instituted so that a little infant should be circumcised on the eighth day, signified Christ. But you say to me: How are we circumcised in heart by the resurrection of Christ? This, then, was prefigured in the body which he was going to do in the heart. For the apostle Paul says of the Lord Christ, who was handed over for our trespasses and rose for our justification (Rom 4:25). Circumcision is justification. What is circumcision? To set aside the affection of the flesh, to be circumcised from the world, to serve God and have truth in the heart. For what is added to a man whose little fold of flesh is removed? But it is a sign. It is a sign where the truth is in Christ. How in Christ? I have already said. By his justification we are justified. Therefore by his justification we are circumcised in heart. Look to the eighth day, the Lord's Day. On the sixth day of the week Christ died, on the seventh he was buried, on the other day he rose. See, then, that he rose after the sabbath, that is, on the first day of the week. So if any Jew has heard that Christ was circumcised, let him come and be circumcised by Christ. But he says to me: I do not depart from my law. Would Christ himself have refused to receive circumcision? Would he have condemned what he commanded to be observed? Where would be the fact that he himself gave the law? Or do you think that Christ began to be then, when he was born of Mary? Christ was before his mother, for he created her for himself as a mother. He was before Abraham. I say little to you: He was before Adam. And this too I say little: He was before heaven and earth, for all things were made through him (John 1:3). Do you, then, think that anyone gave the law through Moses but the only-begotten Word of God of the Father? I ask you, dearest ones, what greatness did the old man Simeon see in the little one? What he saw the mother carried. What he understood ruled the world.

2. Tell me what Elisha did when he raised the son of his hostess? In that figure the law was given. What happened? It was announced to him: the infant is dead. He gave his servant his staff and said: Go and lay it upon the dead one. The servant took his staff, laid it upon the dead one, and he did not rise. Elisha himself came, conformed himself to the dead one, and raised the dead one (See 2 Kgs 4:18-37). Attend, brothers, attend. The staff through the servant, that is, the law through Moses. The staff was laid upon the dead one, and he did not rise. The Jews could receive the law, but they could not live in it. Let them not, then, despise the humility of Christ; let them not despise him set in weakness. Behold, he is believed and conceived, clothed with flesh, born of a woman, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger. Do not despise him while he does such things. He conforms himself to the dead one. See at what you laugh. If you are converted, from that you will live. The humility of Christ conformed itself to us, as to dead ones to be made alive. Through this we have risen meanwhile in faith, and one day truly in the flesh. But, he says, I hold to what God handed to Moses. Hear what God says through the Prophet. What does God speak to Jeremiah? Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will establish over the house of Jacob a new covenant (Jer 31:31). Let go the old, take up the new, and you see that you ought to let go circumcision and the fleshly unleavened bread and the fleshly sabbath and the fleshly sacrifices. Hear how the New Covenant is promised: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will establish for them a new covenant, not according to the covenant that I gave to their fathers when I led them out of the land of Egypt (Jer 31:31-32), when the commanded law was given, when the people was led through the desert. Not according to that covenant will I give the new one. Do not, then, wear the old tunic. It crucified Christ. Your father crucified, you hate. He with the hand, you with the heart, both have committed the crime. Let your father, then, displease you, and hear what your Lord did.

3. For the solemnity and brevity of the day, a few words will be enough for you. For these are the shortest days in the year, on which Christ was born, but on which the days begin to grow. Let Christ, then, grow in your hearts. Advance and believe, that you may come to eternal life.

Sermon 197
On the Kalends of January, Against the Pagans

1. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (Rom 1:18). Of whom, except both Jews and Gentiles? But lest it be said: Why against the ungodliness of the Gentiles? For the Gentiles never received the Law and became transgressors. Rightly is the wrath of God revealed against the Jews, to whom the Law was given and who refused to observe it; but to the Gentiles it was not given. Behold, brothers, and understand how he shows all to be guilty, and all to be in need of salvation and of the mercy of God. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of those men who hold the truth in iniquity (Rom 1:18). See how he did not say, They do not have the truth, but, They hold the truth, he says, in iniquity. And as though you should ask, saying: How can those who did not receive the Law have the truth? he goes on: For what is known of God, he says, is manifest in them (Rom 1:19). And how could what is known of God be manifest in those who did not receive the Law? He goes on, and says: For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made; his eternal power also and divinity (Rom 1:20). Surely we are to supply, are understood and seen. For why should anyone attend to the works, and not seek the maker? You attend to the earth bearing fruit, you attend to the sea full of its animals, you attend to the air full of birds, you attend to the heaven gleaming with stars, and the rest, and you do not seek the maker of so great a work? But you say to me: These things I see, him I do not see. To see these things he gave the eyes of the body, to see himself he gave the mind. For neither do you see the soul of a man. As, then, from the movements and management of the body you understand the soul, which you do not see, so from the management of the whole world, and from the governing of the souls themselves, understand the Creator. But it is too little to understand. For they understood; and see what the Apostle says: Because, knowing God, they did not glorify him as God, or give thanks; but they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened (Rom 1:21). By what desert, except of pride? For see what follows: For claiming, he says, to be wise, they became fools (Rom 1:22). For they ought not to have claimed for themselves what he had given, nor to have boasted of what they had not from themselves, but from him. That ought surely to have been rendered back to him, so that, to hold to what they could see, they might be healed by him who gave them to see. For if they had done this, they would have kept humility, and could have been purged, and would have clung to that most blessed contemplation. But because there was pride in them, the false and deceitful and proud one interposed himself, who would promise them that their souls would be purged by some stages of pride or other, and he made them worshipers of demons. Hence all the rites that are celebrated by the pagans, which they say avail for the purgation of their souls. And hear the Apostle saying these things in consequence, that they received these as the reward of pride; because they did not so honor God as God is to be honored. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man (Rom 1:23). Now they are idols. And these indeed of all the Greeks and other nations, which have the likeness of men. But because there is no greater and more superstitious idolatry than that of the Egyptians; for Egypt flooded the world with such figments as the Apostle next describes. When he had said, into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, he added: and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents (Rom 1:23). For have you, brothers, in other temples seen an image with a dog's head or a bull's, and the figments of the other irrational animals? For these are the idols of the Egyptians. Embracing both kinds, the Apostle says: into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents. Therefore God handed them over to the desires of their heart, to uncleanness; that they might dishonor their bodies among themselves (Rom 1:23-24). These evils of theirs are from the ungodliness of pride. But these sins, because they are from pride, are not only sins, but also punishments. For when he says, God handed them over, it is now of the vengeance of some sin, that they should do these things. Who changed the truth of God into a lie (Rom 1:25). What is, They changed the truth of God into a lie? Into the likeness, namely, of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents. And lest any of them should say: I do not worship the image, but what the images signify; he at once subjoined: And they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25). Understand prudently. For they worship either the image or the creature. He who worships the image turns the truth of God into a lie. For the sea is truth; but Neptune is a lie made by man, the truth of God being turned into a lie: for God made the sea; but man, the image of Neptune. So God made the sun; but man, by making an image of the sun, turned the truth of God into a lie. But lest they say: I do not worship the image, but I worship the sun; therefore he said: They worshiped the creature rather than the Creator.

2. But perhaps someone will say: Even if he himself was born in humility, he wished to boast in the nobility of his disciples. He did not choose kings, or senators, or philosophers, or orators: rather, he chose common folk, the poor, the unlearned, fishermen. Peter a fisherman, Cyprian an orator. Unless the fisherman had gone faithfully before, the orator would not have followed humbly. Let no one cast down despair of himself: let him hold to Christ, and his hope will not be false.

3. What did Simon want, but to be praised in miracles, to be lifted up in pride? For that very thing compelled him to think the gift of the Holy Spirit something to be bought with money (See Acts 8:18-19). Contrary to this pride, the Apostle, by remaining in humility, fervent in spirit (Rom 12:11) at noonday, shining with prudence, says: Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters; but God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:7). For he had said: I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the growth (1 Cor 3:6). And again: Was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor 1:13) See how he refuses to be worshiped in place of Christ, and is unwilling to display himself as a bridegroom to a fornicating soul. Does it not seem great to plant and to water? But neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters. How did he fear? He says he is not anything toward the salvation of those whom he desired to build up in Christ.

4. Nor did the Apostle himself wish hope to be placed in himself, but in the truth which he announced. What was said through him was better than he himself, through whom it was announced. Even if we, he says. It is too little; hear what follows: or an angel, he says, from heaven should announce to you anything beyond what you have received, let him be accursed (Gal 1:8). He saw that a false mediator could transform himself into an angel of light (See 2 Cor 11:14), and announce something false. As, then, proud men wish to be adored in place of God, to claim for themselves whatever they can, to be named, and, if it can be done, to surpass Christ himself in glory: so do the devil and his angels. The Donatists hold Donatus in place of Christ. If they hear someone, a pagan, disparaging Christ, they will perhaps bear it patiently, more than if they hear someone disparaging Donatus.

5. Because Christ himself speaks in his saints, as the Apostle says: Do you seek proof of Christ who speaks in me? (2 Cor 13:3) And although he says, Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters; but God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:7) — not because he wished himself, but because he wished him to be loved in himself — yet he bears witness to certain ones, saying: Because you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus (Gal 4:14). In all his saints, then, he himself is to be loved, who says: I was hungry, and you gave me to eat (Matt 25:35). For he does not say: You gave them; but: You gave me. So great is the love of the Head toward his body!

6. What is Juno? Juno, they say, is the air. A while ago he was inviting us to worship the sea in Neptune, to worship the earth in the image of Tellus: now he invites us to worship the air. These are the elements of which this world consists. So, setting this forth, the apostle Paul in his Epistle says: Beware lest anyone deceive you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the elements of this world (Col 2:8). For he was touching upon those very ones who expound idols as if more prudently. Therefore, when he said philosophy, in the same place he says, according to the elements of this world: admonishing that they are to be guarded against not as common worshipers of images, but as more learned interpreters of signs.

Sermon 198
On the Kalends of January, Against the Pagans

1. We admonish your Charity, brothers, since we see that you have, as it were, assembled solemnly today, and gathered more frequently than usual on this day; that you may remember what you just now sang, lest the tongue be clamoring while the heart is mute; but that what you sounded with your voice to one another's ears, you may cry with feeling to the ears of God. For this you were singing: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles, that we may confess your holy name (Ps 106:47 (105:47)). And now, if the solemnity of the Gentiles, which takes place on this day in worldly and fleshly joy, in the din of the most empty and most base songs, in banquets and shameful dancing, in the celebration of that false festival — if the things that the Gentiles do do not delight you, you will be gathered from among the Gentiles.

2. You certainly sang, and the sound of the divine song is still fresh in your ears: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles. Who can be gathered from among the Gentiles, except when he is made safe? Those, then, who mingle with the Gentiles are not safe; but those are saved who are gathered from among the Gentiles, by the salvation of faith, the salvation of hope, the salvation of most sincere love, spiritual salvation, the salvation of the promises of God. He, then, who believes, hopes, and loves, is not at once to be called safe. For it matters what he believes, what he hopes, and what he loves. For no one lives in any sort of life without these three affections of the soul: believing, hoping, loving. If you do not believe what the Gentiles believe, do not hope what the Gentiles hope, do not love what the Gentiles love; you are gathered from among the Gentiles, set apart, that is, separated from the Gentiles. Nor let the bodily commingling frighten you in so great a separation of mind. For what is so separated as that they should believe demons to be gods, while you believe the one and true God? that they should hope for the empty things of the world, while you hope for eternal life with Christ? that they should love the world, while you love the maker of the world? He, then, who believes one thing, hopes another, loves another, let him prove it by his life, show it by his deeds. Are you going to keep the celebration of New Year's gifts, like a pagan, to play at dice, and to make yourself drunk: how do you believe one thing, hope another, love another? How do you sing with free brow: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles? For you are set apart from the Gentiles, mingled in body with the Gentiles, by an unlike life. And how great that separation is, see, if only you do it, if only you prove it. For now our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who for our sake was made man, gave a price for us. So he gave his own price: he gave it for this, that he might redeem, that he might gather us from among the Gentiles. But if you mingle with the Gentiles, you are unwilling to follow him who redeemed you: and you mingle with the Gentiles in life, in deeds, in heart, by believing such things, by hoping for such things, by loving such things: you are ungrateful to your Redeemer, and do not acknowledge your price, the blood of the spotless Lamb. That you may, then, follow your Redeemer, who redeemed you with his blood, do not mingle with the Gentiles in the likeness of manners and deeds. They give New Year's gifts, you give alms. They are called away by songs of luxuries, you call yourselves away by the words of the Scriptures: they run to the theater, you to the church: they get drunk, you fast. If today you cannot fast, at least dine with sobriety. If you do this, you have sung well: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles.

3. And so many will struggle today in their heart with the word they have heard. For we said, Do not give New Year's gifts, give to the poor. It is too little to give only as much, give even more. You do not want more? then give as much. But you say to me: When I give New Year's gifts, I too receive for myself. What then, when you give to a poor man, do you receive nothing? Surely you do not believe this, which the Gentiles believe; surely you do not hope this, which the Gentiles hope. Behold, if you say that you receive nothing when you give to a poor man, you have become a part of the Gentiles: in vain you have sung: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles. Do not forget that precept, where it is said: He who gives to the poor will never want (Prov 28:27). Have you now forgotten what the Lord is going to say to those who have given to the poor: Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom (Matt 25:34)? and what will be said to those who have not given: Send them into eternal fire (Matt 25:41)? Now those who have heard willingly what he said stand surely with those who have not heard willingly. I now speak to true Christians. If you believe one thing, hope another, love another; live otherwise, and prove your differing faith, hope, and love by differing manners. Hear the Apostle warning: Do not, he says, be yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity? or what communion has light with darkness? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? or what agreement has the temple of the Lord with idols? (2 Cor 6:14-16) And elsewhere he says: For the things that the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. I do not want you, he says, to become partners with demons (1 Cor 10:20). Therefore their manners delight their gods. But he who said: I do not want you to become partners with demons, willed that we should be separated, in life and manners, from those who serve demons. For those demons take delight in songs of vanity, take delight in trifling spectacle, and in the various base things of the theaters, the madness of the circus, the cruelty of the amphitheater, the heated contests of those who, for pestilent men, take up quarrels and disputes even to enmities, for a mime, for an actor, for a pantomime, for a charioteer, for a hunter. Doing these things, they place, as it were, incense to demons out of their hearts. For the seducing spirits rejoice in the seduced; and they are fed on the evil manners and the base and infamous life of those whom they have seduced and deceived. But you, as the Apostle says, have not so learned Christ: if indeed you have heard him, and have been taught in him (Eph 4:20-21). Do not, then, become partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light (Eph 5:7-8): that we too, who preach the word of the Lord to you, may be able to rejoice with you and over you in that perpetual light.

Sermon 198/A
On the Kalends of January, Against the Pagans

1. The apostle Peter says to the Church, which is the body of Christ (See Col 1:24): A holy people, a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9). For then one priest was anointed, now all Christians are anointed. The king was anointed, and the priest was anointed; the rest were not anointed. The Lord bore both persons, not in figure, but now in truth, both of king and of priest. For this reason the Apostle says of the Lord himself: Who was made for him of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom 1:3). Behold, then, the royal line. So Christ is said to be of the seed of David on account of Mary, because she was of the seed of David. But what line is in Mary? It is written in the Gospel that the priest Zechariah had as wife Elizabeth of the daughters of Aaron (Luke 1:5). Therefore of the priestly line, since that whole tribe is Levi. But it is said in the Gospel to the virgin Mary by the angel: Your kinswoman Elizabeth (Luke 1:36). If, then, Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Aaron the priest, was kin to Mary, there is no doubt that the virgin Mary belonged not only to royal but also to priestly blood. Wherefore there is in the Lord, according to the man whom he took up, both persons, the royal and the priestly. So, then, two were anointed in figure, the king and the priest, which was fulfilled in that Head of ours, of whom it is manifest that we, the Church, are the whole body. Hence rightly are we called a royal and priestly line.

2. In those old sacraments our one Lord Jesus Christ was prefigured. One priest entered into the holy of holies, but all the people stood outside. Are you now, while the bishops stand at the altar, outside, and not within? Then one priest entered into the holy of holies once a year. "Year" signifies the whole of time. Once, then, in the whole of time, our one priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, rising from the dead, entered into the holy of holies, not figured but true, beyond the veils of the heavens, offering himself for us (See Heb 9:7,11-12,24-25). He entered, and is there. But the people still stand outside with us; we have not yet risen to go to meet Christ and to remain forever within with him, when it is said to the good servant: Enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21). This, then, was prefigured then by the one priest alone entering into the holy of holies, and the people standing outside, which is now fulfilled by our Lord Jesus Christ alone entering above the secret places of the heavens, and the people still groaning outside, made safe by hope, awaiting the redemption of its body, which will be in the resurrection of the dead (See Rom 8:23-24).

3. For he himself, the high priest, offers our prayers, who offered himself a holocaust for us. He himself is the one who leads us through, interposing himself, not to shut us out, but to direct; not to separate, but to reconcile; not to hinder, but to break the hindrances. He himself is the one pontiff and the one priest, who was prefigured in the ancient priests of God. Therefore a priest was sought without blemish of body (See Lev 21:17-21), because he alone lived without blemish of sin even in mortal flesh. For what was prefigured in their body was signified as future in his life.

Sermon 198
Augmented

1. We admonish your Charity, since we see that you have, as it were, assembled solemnly and gathered more frequently than usual at this hour and at this place, that again and again you may remember what you were just now singing, lest the tongue be clamoring while the heart is mute; but that what you sounded with your voice to one another's ears, you may cry with feeling to the ears of God. And this you sang: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles, that we may confess your holy name (Ps 106:47 (105:47)). And now, if the solemnity of the Gentiles, which takes place on this day in worldly and fleshly joy, in the din of the most empty and most base songs, in the celebration of that false festival — if the things that the Gentiles do today do not delight you, you are gathered from among the Gentiles.

2. You certainly were singing, and the sound of the divine song is still fresh in your ears: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles. Who can be gathered from among the Gentiles, except when he is made safe? Those, then, who mingle with the Gentiles are not safe. But those are saved who are gathered from among the Gentiles; they are saved by the salvation of faith, spiritual salvation, the salvation of the promises of God, the salvation of good hope, the salvation of most sincere love. He, then, who believes and hopes and loves, is not at once now to be called safe. For it matters what he believes, what he hopes, what he loves. For no one lives in any sort of life without these three affections of the soul: believing, hoping, loving. If you do not believe what the Gentiles believe, do not hope what the Gentiles hope, do not love what the Gentiles love, you are gathered from among the Gentiles. Nor let the bodily commingling frighten you in so great a separation of mind. For what is so separated as that they should believe demons to be gods, while you believe God who is the true God? that they should hope for the empty things of the world, while you hope for eternal life in Christ? that they should love the world, while you love the maker of the world? He, then, who believes one thing, hopes another, loves another, let him prove it by his life, show it by his deeds. Are you going to keep today the celebration of New Year's gifts with a pagan, to play at dice with a pagan, to make yourself drunk with a pagan: how do you believe one thing, hope another, love another? how do you sing with unblemished brow: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles? For you are set apart from the Gentiles, mingled in body with the Gentiles, by an unlike life. And how great that separation is, see, if only you do it, if only you prove it. For now the Lord our God Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who for our sake was made man, gave a price for us. And so, if he has already given the price, he gave it for this, that he might redeem, that he might gather us from among the Gentiles. But if you mingle with the Gentiles, you are unwilling to follow him who redeemed you. And you mingle with them in life, in deeds, in heart, by hoping for such things, by believing such things, by loving such things. You are ungrateful to your Redeemer, and do not acknowledge your price, the blood of the spotless Lamb. That you may, then, follow your Redeemer, who redeemed you with his blood, do not mingle with the Gentiles in the likeness of manners and deeds. They give New Year's gifts, you give alms. For we do not say to you, brothers, "They give, you do not give"; rather, give more than they give, but as those who believe one thing, hope another, love another; for we do not say to you, "They believe, you do not believe; they hope, you do not hope; they love, you do not love"; but we say to you: "They believe that, you believe this; they hope that, you hope this; they love that, you love this; they give that or give to those, you give this or give to these." They give New Year's gifts, then; you give alms. They commit themselves to the chances of earthly things, you commit yourselves to the words of the divine Scriptures. They run to the theater, you to the church. They get drunk, you fast. If you do these things, you have truly sung: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles. Now those who willingly heard what I said stand surely with those who did not willingly hear; and yet the former are now gathered from among the Gentiles, while the latter are mingled with the Gentiles.

3. I now speak to Christians: if you believe what the Gentiles believe, if you hope what the Gentiles hope, if you love what the Gentiles love, live as the Gentiles live; but if you believe one thing, hope another, love another, live otherwise, and prove your differing faith and hope and love by differing manners. What is it that the Gentiles believe? As I have already said, they call gods those whom the apostle Paul shows us to be otherwise: For the things that the Gentiles sacrifice, he says, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to become partners with demons (1 Cor 10:20). Therefore their manners delight their gods. But he who said: I do not want you to become partners with demons, willed that we should be separated, in life and manners, from those who serve demons. For those demons take delight in songs of vanity, take delight in trifling din and in the various base things of the theaters, the madness of the circus, the cruelty of the amphitheater, the heated contests of those who, for pestilent men, take up both quarrels and disputes even to enmities, for a mime, for an actor, for a charioteer, for a hunter. Doing these things, they place, as it were, incense to demons out of their hearts. For the seducing spirits rejoice in the seduced, and they are fed on the evil manners and the base and infamous life of those whom they have seduced and deceived. But now, if you say to a man, "You love a charioteer," he answers, "Of course I love him," because, even if he denies it, he is caught favoring him, shouting for him, brawling for him. And if you add, "You love him greatly," he will answer, "Greatly." If you say to him, "May you be such a one, and your sons," at once, if he appears respectable, he will answer, vexed, "Why have you done me an injury?" "Do I do you an injury when I say, May you be such a one, or do you, who so love such a one as you dread to be?" You, on the contrary, love the martyrs. So, just as you say to a pagan, "You love that charioteer," and he says, "I love him," and does not blush, so say to a Christian, "You love Cyprian," he answers, "I love him"; say to him, "May you be such a one," he answers, "Would that God might grant this!" How sincere that love is, how chaste, how secure, especially of one already crowned! For of one still struggling, love is anxious; yet all are loved in him who has already conquered, who now sits at the right hand of the Father (See Mark 16:19), who now from above, as the president of that contest which Paul recalls (See 2 Tim 4:7-8), not only watches those who struggle, but also helps those who endure.

4. And so many will struggle today in their heart with the word they have heard. For we said: Do not give New Year's gifts, give to the poor. It is too little to give only as much, give even more. You do not want more? then give as much. But you say to me: "When I give New Year's gifts, I too receive." What then? When you give to a poor man, will you receive nothing? Surely you do not believe this, which the Gentiles believe; surely you do not hope this, which the Gentiles hope; surely you do not love this, which the Gentiles love. Behold, if you say that you receive nothing when you give to a poor man, you have become equal to the Gentiles, in vain you have sung: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles. You have forgotten what will be said to those who have given: Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom (Matt 25:34), and what will be said to those who have not believed: Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41). If he so gave the kingdom to these as to give nothing to those but only to leave them, you ought to love what he gives and to be unwilling to be cheated of so vast and ineffable a good. But this is not the only thing, that he sends these into the kingdom but not those; rather, he also says: Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. Let fear and love compel you. If you love less what he promises, fear what he threatens. For you begin from fear, you are perfected in love. By fearing hell you do what is commanded, but as long as you do it by fearing, you do it as a slave; but when you do it loving, you now do it free. Be a good slave, that you may merit to be free. Begin to fear the one you should love, whom, when you have loved him, you will not fear. For it is written: Fear is not in love, but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). The apostle John says this. But if perfect love casts out fear, let fear first possess the breast: there love will be born, and so, as love grows, fear will decrease; as the one increases, the other will be diminished; when the one is perfected, the other is shut out. For fear is not in love, but perfect love casts out fear. You do it if you love; if you do not yet love, do it if you fear; but if you neither fear nor love, in vain you will sing: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles. For you are still Gentiles, yoked together with unbelievers (See 2 Cor 6:14). What your Lord did for you, do you for the pagans, because, when the Lord did it for you, you were not yet a Christian. Let those who believe one thing, hope another, love another, hear, whether they will or not: let us say what we know; let them do what they will, only let them know that they do not for nothing whatever they do. For there is a reward not only for good deeds, but also for evil. The reward of evil deeds is called punishment, of good deeds, a crown.

5. What, then, did your Lord do for you, before you were a Christian? He suffered for you. And what does he say in the psalms? But I, when they were troublesome to me, clothed myself in sackcloth, and humbled my soul in fasting (Ps 35:13 (34:13)). If you understand it figuratively, the Lord, as it were, fasted, by not receiving the ungodly into his body. And by that very fasting he hungered, when, finding no fruit on that tree, he cursed it, and it withered (See Matt 21:18-19). What is it that he says: I clothed myself in sackcloth? As though, with his power hidden within the weakness of the flesh, I set that same mortal flesh before the eyes of my persecutors. For in that flesh, which he had taken up from the old age of our mortality without any sin of his own, he bore our sins (See 1 Pet 2:24). And sackcloth surely pertains to sins, on account of the haircloth of the goats' hair that will be set on the left (See Matt 25:33,41), unless they first pass over into the lamb. In that form of a servant, then, sinning in nothing, and therefore owing nothing to death, he nonetheless rendered for us what he did not owe, that he might free us from our debt. In that sackcloth he bore our price. For from "sack" (saccus) the diminutive "little purse" (saccellus) is also derived. But our great price he bore in the sackcloth with which he clothed himself, setting it before his persecutors, by whose ungodliness he humbled his soul in fasting. Finally, when he hung on the cross, the sackcloth was torn open by the lance, and the price of the whole world flowed out (See John 19:34). Your Lord, then, suffered for you before you were a Christian, that he might buy you and you might become a Christian.

6. But what does Scripture say? As he laid down his soul for us, so we ought to lay down our soul for the brothers (1 John 3:16). If we cannot yet suffer for the Gentiles, we can at least fast for the Gentiles. How far you are from the imitation of your Lord! and when you have fasted, how far you still are from it! And it is good to draw near. But how is it that you shrink from that very perfection, whose step you fear, a step so near, so lowly! That step is near, on the ground — I do not know if it should even be called a step — which you are unwilling to ascend. For what great thing is it to fast at this season, to dine late on so short a day? It is no great thing, it is not laborious at all. The care of a single business often forces one to do what you are unwilling to render to God out of devotion. Because the Church of God wills it, you do not want to fast. If you were playing at dice, you would fast, and you would fast so as not to get up conquered. To win, fearing lest you should be beaten of money by a man, you would fast, and you do not fast, not fearing lest in your heart you should be beaten by the devil. For nothing is easier than fasting on such short days. But on the Kalends of January you do not want to fast. Prove yourselves, that you may rejoice over yourselves, that we may rejoice over you. How small a temptation! Yet it proves the Christian breast.

7. You hear the sermon now: you are held in suspense, you are quickened by the word of God, and the exhortation itself grows warm in the heart. We kindle something in your minds: we see it, we recognize it; but let that flame take hold of the timber. For from this place, a little while after the sermon is finished, you are going out to the storms and to the cold of the world. You know that this world seems to seethe in a perverse solemnity: the winds are cold, where it is to be feared lest Christian hearts freeze. And so, brothers, as I said, let the divine word take hold of the strength of your heart. And if it takes hold, those storms which you will suffer outside a little while hence will rather kindle a greater flame — they will not put it out — if it is no small spark that can be extinguished. If your heart now burns like tow, when you shout, when you love, when you rejoice in the word of God, you are going out a little while hence, and it will be extinguished by the breath of one mouth, when it is said to a man: "Are you really going to fast today?" It will be extinguished at once, because it had begun to burn like tow. But if it so burns as coals of fire, however many contrary blasts of perverse persuasion arise, they will increase the fire and more vehemently kindle it. But those burn like coals who have come back to life. For coals, when they burn, as it were come back to life from the dead. Many have even this word in custom; when they send to kindle a fire, they say, "Bring live ones," meaning those that are burning. By which surely they signify the extinguished ones to be, as it were, dead. If, then, you have come back to life by the fervor of the love of Christ, let his desire so burn in your hearts that no blast of those dissuading may extinguish it. For I know what you are going to suffer when you go out from here, and thanks be to God that you have assembled. For that you assemble more frequently on these days does not displease us, but rather even pleases us. For you have found the way, because those whose manners are unlike yours hasten to other things and occupy themselves in various empty pleasures, and so they grant you leisure and free time, that there may be done in you what was said: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the Gentiles. Therefore you are now gathered; and even if you go out and are mingled with them in bodily association, yet, if you do not consent with them in evil and trifling things, you will remain gathered from among the Gentiles, wherever you may be in body. And would that you might suffer wicked dissuaders only in the streets, and not perhaps even in your homes! The father wants to fast, the son does not; or the son wants to, the father does not; or the husband wants to, the woman does not; or she wants to and he does not. He, then, who does not want to, and for this reason does not want to because he thinks this day a festival, is a contrary blast: but let that other so burn that not only can he himself not be extinguished, but the other can be kindled by him.

8. My brothers, if you understand well what you hear, I do not doubt that you grieve for those who are still held by that madness. You grieve for them, because you too perhaps were once held by madness of this kind; and now your heart is healthy, which you have compared to their madness, and, pitying them, you grieve, but you do not grieve with despair. For if it could be brought about in you that what you loved yesterday you do not love today, it can be brought about in him too. But if it can be brought about in him too, as long as he is such and you grieve for him, pray for him. And that your prayer may be heard, fast for him and give alms, and in this wear out the day for him whom you love — let him, not loving himself, wear himself out in contrary things: for he who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Ps 11:5 (10:6)) — that at some time he too may hate iniquity, loving his own soul, and within may grieve with you for others, and with you pray and fast for them. For, brothers, although the other days also hold them in trifles, yet especially on their solemnities a greater license of trifles rouses them to a greater love of the world and to the ruin of pleasures. For when one does it in his house, he is less mad amid colder neighborhoods; but when all do it, they kindle one another. But I have already told you: their ardor is your cold. All love is ardor. But it matters what is loved. When the heart burns for the world, it is cold toward God. Therefore let it grow cold toward the world, and burn for God. When, then, they do these things more ardently and more frequently, just as they rouse themselves to wickedness against themselves, so let them rouse you to mercy on their behalf. They are indeed always to be grieved for, as long as they are pagans, as long as they pursue vanities, as long as they are given over to demons. As long as they wish to adore what they have made, forgetting by whom they were made, they are always to be lamented. But through their solemnities they rouse a new grief. When you see them flowing apart through various trifles, through the pleasures of luxury, through immoderate drunkenness, through dice and manifold madnesses, let their new commotion make for you a new grief, if you are a Christian, if you have mercy; because, even when you were not what you are, the Church had mercy on you, which was then still among a few. But now that she is grown and copiously and widely spread abroad in the name of Christ, are not those rather to be grieved for who are still heavy of heart and love vanity and seek a lie (See Ps 4:2 (4:3))? To those, surely, who, now separated from the human race, by I know not what most stubborn obstinacy remain a few, a greater grief is owed, because a greater disease makes them vanish away and not be healed by the authority of so great a medicine.

9. And would that we lamented only pagans! We would soon lament almost no one. Let Christians not go to the theaters: the pagans flee from there, if not for love of the truth, at least for shame at their fewness. A greater sacrifice of prayers, surely, must be offered by us, in a sharper grief of heart, that those who are called Christians may merit to be corrected. It is not, then, shameless, brothers — rather it is a very opportune fast — when it is made for those who labor because they wish to, who, if they did not wish to, would not labor. For they are pressed by their own sins and congratulate themselves on their most filthy pleasures, and do not hear the voice of him who says: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you (Matt 11:28). They are unwilling to be refreshed in the sweetness of Christ, and think themselves refreshed in the satiety of lust. That is not refreshment, but ruin. Nor should you celebrate the very festal days of the Christians as drunkards do, although fasts ought to be relaxed on account of the sacrament of joy. Yet it is one thing to signify joy by the relaxation of a fast, another to repel righteousness by a burdened heart. The Lord says, the Truth says: Let not your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness (Luke 21:34). It is foolish and irreligious to wish to please the martyrs by that very thing which they, had they not despised it, would never have come to the glory of a martyr.

10. But perhaps you will not suffer pagans of this kind. For some of the pagans themselves despise those given over to the wickedness of pleasures and drunkenness, and say: "Just as you have bad Christians, so we have bad pagans. For the good pagans, see what they are." Then they name, as it were, the wise men and philosophers of the world, as endowed with surpassing learning. But let them not frighten you. Greatness is one thing, swelling is another. For what swells also appears, as it were, great, but it is not sound. Hear the Apostle saying: Beware lest anyone lead you astray through philosophy and empty seduction, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world and not according to Christ; for in him dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily, and you are filled in him, who is the head of all principality and power (Col 2:8-10). For, that they may interpret their idols learnedly and as it were prudently, they flee to the elements of the world. You reprove someone for worshiping idols, and it is manifest that he adores an idol: he is convicted by the thing itself, and there he has his affection — namely, in that idol — there he places his being heard; but a, as it were, more skilled and more learned pagan, what does he say to you? "Unskilled pagans do this, that they adore an idol as an idol, just as your people do too who adore the columns in the church."

11. Therefore I say, brothers: do not do that by which the pagans may insult us; so enter the church that you give no occasion to the pagans why they should be unwilling to enter the church. For the church is entered for the sake of the brotherly assembly. For the temple of your prayer is your heart. Cleanse the place where you pray, and you will be heard. For if you cleanse the visible place where you make your prayer, not on account of the eyes of God — for he sees all things just as he created all things — but lest your own eyes be offended and turn away your attention, how much more ought you to cleanse the place where, and that with which, you call upon God? Have your inner chamber, into which you may enter and shut the door, as the Lord himself says (See Matt 6:6), that is, the sense of your body, barred against bodily enticements; but the brotherly assembly makes for ardor in praying and praising God. As, if some weight were being moved, and what is called a work-chant were sung, would not the very multitude of those singing together and working together, harmonious in one voice and most concordant in one effort, rouse even your feeble strength, so that you too would want to hold the rope and rejoice in the fellowship of that work? The gatherings of the brothers, then, sharpen love. And every man prays within, when he prays well, as the Lord answered the Samaritan woman: The hour will come, he says, and now is, when you will adore the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem (John 4:21). And a little after: The hour will come, he says, and now is, when the true worshipers will adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeks such to adore him. God is a spirit, and those who adore him must adore him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). If, then, God is to be entreated in spirit, let a dwelling be made: the dweller will be present. We come to him, he says, I and my Father, and we will make our dwelling with him (John 14:23). Come, then, to the church, that the fervor of praying may be roused, that the devotion of a peaceful assembly may make the merit of being heard before God; not because God dwells in an earthly place, where he may hear you. Do not think that within walls of this kind God hears only: in prison he heard the martyrs. What house, he says, will you build for me, or what is the place of my rest? Has not my hand made these things? (Isa 66:1-2) And yet he said that he has a place in the pious heart of a man. For he says: Upon whom does my Spirit rest? Upon the humble and the quiet and him who trembles at my words (Isa 66:2).

12. Why have we said this? Lest, when we insult the pagans, we do that by which the pagans may insult us. Come to the places of the martyrs in such a way that out of the places there may be a pious commemoration in your hearts, and out of the honor of the martyrs there may arise an affection toward God, who did not desert the martyrs in tribulation, who helped them as they fought, who crowned them as they conquered. So you make yourselves worthy ones for whom the martyrs may pray. Otherwise a good servant is greatly indignant if, the Lord being despised, he himself should be adored — a good servant, who was even made a son out of a servant (See Gal 4:7). For one thing is a servant still, who is also to be a son out of a servant, and another a son already. One thing a servant by fear, another a son by love. A great house has all: hired men and servants and sons. The hired men are those who seek worldly advantages in the Church, of whom the Apostle says that they announce the Gospel not chastely (See Phil 1:15-17), and yet he permits it, saying: Whether in pretense or in truth, let Christ be announced (Phil 1:18). But the servants are those who out of fear do what is commanded by the Lord. They belong to the house indeed, and are more inward in the great house than the hired men; out of these servants sons are made, when they have begun to serve out of love. So, then, as I had begun to say, the great house has all. What do we think the martyrs are, my brothers? Far be it that we should count them among the hired men, but neither among those who are not yet sons! For they loved Christ, and for love of him despised not only all the pleasures of the world, but also all torments, made drunk with the cup of his Spirit, of which it is said: Your cup that makes drunk, how excellent it is! (Ps 23:5 (22:5)) A good servant, then, as I said, who is now even called a son, does not want himself to be adored, but his Lord. Attend, brothers, and recall what you frequent daily, what the truth teaches in the Church. The faithful know in what order the martyrs are commemorated in the sacraments, when our vows and prayers are directed to God; the faithful know it, and let the catechumens hasten to know it. For who repels them? To whom is what is closed for one who defers not open to one who wills?

13. But let us attend, brothers, to what the good servants did while still set in this body, when they were honored by men and began to be worshiped as gods of the nations: Paul and Barnabas, because they worked miracles in Christ, because they had exceeded the human measure, the pagans according to their custom called Barnabas Jupiter, but Paul Mercury, because he was readier in speaking, and they had begun to offer victims to them; which honor they so shuddered at that they tore their garments and taught them, as much as they could, who was the one to be adored, by whose power they did these things (See Acts 14:11-15). Attend to these things, brothers, that you may be strong and fortified against even the more elegant pagans. Why do I say more elegant, who are rather in greater peril? For the more learned they seem to themselves, the more unteachable they become. For they blush to learn, lest they confess that they are ignorant, and there is not in them that pious humility which alone the humble God came to teach. Or perhaps someone will say: "Paul and Barnabas refused the honor of the sacrifices that was offered to them for this reason, that those made the one Jupiter, the other Mercury, whom the apostles, by the Christian religion, detested as false gods, and so they were indignant at being compared to demons or idols, not because they wished God to be adored rather than themselves." They would, then, have said this to those who wished to sacrifice: "You do us an injury, you compare us to demons, than whom we are better"; rather, they tore their garments, grieving, and humbly admonished that these things ought to be done neither to them nor to anyone, but that men ought to be turned from these vanities to the one God, saying: Men, what are you doing? We are men like you, announcing to you that you should return from these vanities to him who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them (Acts 14:15). Saying these and such things, they scarcely persuaded them not to sacrifice to them. But that you may more fully show the ungodly that they refused these sacrifices not because they thought an injury was done them, but that God alone might be honored, to whose worship they labored most that all might be converted, attend to Peter: when men marveled at his deed — rather, not his, but God's — when that lame man of forty years, who sat at the Beautiful Gate, rose at the word of God and walked, he did not want glory to be given to himself, but to Christ, and said: Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, or why do you gaze at us, as though by our own power or authority we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Son, whom you handed over to judgment (Acts 3:12-13).

14. But if it is too little that men did this, that they wished glory to be given not to themselves but to God, look at the angels. In the Apocalypse a holy angel — for there are also perverse angels, for whom and for the devil their prince the eternal fire is prepared — an angel, then, not fallen by pride, but remaining in holy humility under God, not raising himself up in elation against God nor saying: I will set my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:13-14), but remaining in the south, where Christ feeds and where he lies down... For it is written: Where you feed, where you lie down at noon (Song 1:7). For to the southern region the northern is contrary: therefore it signifies the cold and the dark. But the south signifies the enlightened and the fervent. Those, then, who are good, as it were at noon, are fervent and shine; but those who are evil, as it were in the north, cold, are darkened by a dark gloom. With those at noon God feeds and lies down, whence it is said: Where you feed, where you lie down at noon; not with those of whose party the devil says: I will set my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High. For he could be adored only by such as these, that they might think him a god. That angel, then, remaining in the south, fervent with holiness and bright with wisdom, was showing certain things in the Apocalypse to the apostle John. But he, disturbed, fell at the feet of the angel (See Rev 19:10).

15. See, brothers, before all things, to which angels humble men are like, and to which the proud are like. For those who make schisms and heresies wish their own name to be named and the name of Christ to be darkened, and they too choose a seat in the north. For men would not follow them, the Church deserted, as though they were Christ, unless they were darkened in understanding and estranged from the fervor of love (See Eph 4:18). But to which are those like who, holding to humility, choose to be cast away in the house of the Lord rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners (Ps 84:10 (83:11))? What did Simon want, but to be praised in miracles, to be lifted up in pride? For that very thing compelled him to think the gift of the Holy Spirit something to be bought with money (See Acts 8:18-19). Contrary to this pride, the Apostle, in humility, by remaining in the south, fervent in spirit (See Rom 12:11), shining with prudence, says: Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:7). And again: Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor 1:13) How he refuses to be worshiped in place of Christ, how zealous he is for the bridegroom, and is unwilling to display himself as a bridegroom to a fornicating soul! Such, then, were those holy ones, according to their measure — for they will be perfect as the angels after the resurrection of the body — but yet, according to their measure, just as the angels also, they refused the honor that men paid them as though it were properly theirs, while they wished him to be worshiped and all hearts to be turned to him, in whom they too gloried (See 1 Cor 1:31), truly good and faithful servants, sons, such also the holy angels. For even though still men set in the flesh and placed in such great temptations, they refused the honor that was conferred on them toward pride, that the one might be honored in all who alone is honored without peril to the one honoring. For that he might be honored, where do they place themselves? how do they cast themselves down? Does it not seem great to plant and to water? But neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters. He says he is not anything toward the salvation of those whom he desired to build up in Christ. If, then, men still living in the flesh do these things, how much more the martyrs and the angels! For the more holily they live, the more they love the glory of God and have their hope in him alone (See Ps 39:7 (38:8)). For we too shall be as the angels, but after the resurrection. So the Lord said: They will be equal to the angels of God (Luke 20:36).

16. Return, then, with me to what I had begun to relate, and be instructed wholesomely as to why you give your leisure to God. That angel, then, was showing in the Apocalypse wonderful and mystical visions to the apostle John, the servant of Christ, the son of mother Church and made among the sons of God. But he, disturbed in a certain vision, fell, as I had begun to say, at the feet of the angel. But the angel did not accept the honor offered to him by the man, which was owed to God, and said to him: "Rise, what are you doing? Adore God. For I too am your fellow servant, and of your brothers" (Rev 19:10). Why have we said this — contemplate the sum. We had begun to deal with the pagans as though more learned — for those are less learned about whom these are unwilling to be measured — since they say to us: "You too have adorers of columns and sometimes even of pictures." And would that we did not, and may the Lord grant that we do not! But yet this the Church does not teach you. For which of their priests ever ascended, and from a higher place commanded the people not to adore idols, as we in Christ publicly preach that neither columns nor stones of buildings in holy places nor even pictures should be adored? Rather, their very priests, turned toward the idols, offered victims for the peoples, and still desire to offer them.

17. "We," they say, "do not worship images, but what is signified through the image." I ask what the images signify, I ask what the image of the sun signifies: surely nothing other than the sun? For the interpretations of other images perhaps have hidden meanings. Meanwhile let us pass these by and set them aside to be taken up a little later. The image of the sun certainly signifies nothing but the sun, and that of the moon the moon, and that of Tellus the earth. If, then, they do not adore that which they see in the image, but that which the image signifies, why, having before their eyes those very most well-known things which are signified by those images, do they adore the images for them? For if what is signified were not seen, the sign might rightly be adored in place of the thing signified. But since they see the sun, which is signified by the image of the sun, why do they put their back to him who is signified, and their face to the sign by which he is signified? For if they did not make images of the things that are seen, and made images only of those that are not seen, they could deceive the less prudent and say: "Behold, we worship the sun. But because we see him, we have set up no image for him. Likewise the moon and the stars, as we see them, so we worship; we have made or have no images of them. For it is foolish to set a visible sign in a closed temple of that thing which can be seen and adored in the open sky. But when we worship the mind, or genius, or soul, or virtue, or righteousness — these now are invisible — we set up visible images for them, that, when these are seen and adored, we may think reverently of those invisible things." But now they are most plainly convicted of being given over to the images themselves, not to the things signified through the images, since they have made images even of visible things set before the eyes of all. The sun has an image, which, if they adored it in the sky, they would be justly reproved with the truest piety and religion. Furthermore, they have come to such madness that they put their back to the sun and their face to its image. How will so perverse a one hear you, when you leave him and turn to his false and most deceptive image made by the hand of a man? As if you should come to the house of a head of household to ask something, and he stands in his courtyard, but you turn your back to him and your face to a tablet where he is painted, and as if you pour out the prayers of your desire not only not to the man but to the picture, indeed even in the presence of the man himself, whose image that picture is, would he not order you, mocked or counted as mad, to be driven from his house? Nothing would be more like this folly than what these men do, even if the sun were to be adored. But because these things are not to be adored, we will say so in the name of the Lord, if he gives space and opportunity. But now we say these things, as to how these men are caught in their works. You made a temple of the moon, you set up an image for her; the moon herself rises daily, scarcely for two or three days in a month can she not be seen: adore her, if she is to be adored, if you have now come to this disgrace, that you wish to adore the visible creature as God, than which the invisible creature is surely superior, which yet not even itself, but the Creator alone, is to be adored as God. But behold, before your eyes are the very things you worship, whether the sun or the moon or the stars or the earth: why do you seek their images, when they themselves, present, are to be adored by you, unless because men are given over to the things they have made with their hands, forgetting him by whose hands they were made?

18. But now let us see how they interpret the images. "I do not," he says, "call the statue of Neptune Neptune, but Neptune is some other thing that is signified through this image." What is Neptune? "The sea," he says. This is the whole meaning, that Neptune is the sea. But the Christian neither worships that statue which you call Neptune, nor the sea which you interpret as Neptune. And what does he worship? Namely him who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them (Acts 14:15). But what do you say? "That statue signifies the sea." And this is said as it were in part, in secret, in the ear, that it may be thought a great mystery, that that statue signifies the sea, so that, namely, if anyone adores that statue, he may seem to himself to adore the sea. Only the inlanders, then, who do not see the sea itself, ought to have images of Neptune, so that those who do not have the thing might have a sign in place of the thing. But now they have made a shrine of Neptune right beside the sea, and, putting their backs to the sea, they adore Neptune. Nor do the very waves crashing at their backs turn their adorer toward themselves; and, what is more foolish, the one who prays wants the sea to be silent and the statue to hear, because, of course, the sea has its hearing not in its salt waves, but in the foreign bronze ears.

19. So too the image of Tellus. "It is not," he says, "this that you see that is worshiped, but this signifies the earth." This, even if he did not say it, would be apparent. In vain he wishes to bring forth as though from a mystery what he proclaims in the name. For Tellus is by another word the earth. Yet they call the same one mother earth, for whom they have made a temple and an image. Behold, I understand, as in the case of the sun, as in the case of the moon: there is no need for him to expound it; for these images are called by the same name as the very things of which they are images, which we surely see and which appear most well-known. Or is it perhaps that what they add, "and mother," this must be learned? "She is," they say, "the mother of all that are born." And let her be the mother of all that are born: am I therefore to adore the earth, and not him who said: Let the earth bring forth (Gen 1:24) whatever it brought forth? For without his word it would not only be barren, but would not exist at all. What, then, does this man, as it were an expounder of mysteries, wishing to turn us from the Creator and to turn us to the creature, expound to me as something great, that I should worship the earth? Clearly this is rightly said to farmers, that, if they do not wish to suffer hunger, they should cultivate the earth, not by adoring, but by plowing.

20. So I ask about the image of Juno: now here we need a mystical interpreter. For Juno does not, like mother earth, show by her name what she signifies, or like the image of the sun or moon. The great secret of Juno, then — what secret, I ask you? "This," he says, "few know." Perhaps the many heard from those few and told it. Perhaps their own writings betray to those whom they do not wish what they worship, although our writings too betray to them what we worship, but we do not fear. Our books are publicly offered for sale: the light does not blush. Let them buy, read, believe; or buy, read, mock. That Scripture knows how to hold guilty those who read and do not believe. The book is carried about for sale, but he who is preached in the book is not for sale. Or is he too for sale, because he set himself to be bought by the nations at whatever price each one has? Zacchaeus bought him with half his patrimony, the widow bought him with two mites, the poor host bought him by holding out a cup of cold water (See Matt 10:42); and he is possessed by all his buyers: to no one is he cramped, all he enlarges. Such is the one who is preached in the book. Buy you the book and read; we do not blush. You hide the books of your rites in secret caves: so great is the curiosity of men that it both searches out and betrays.

21. What, then, is Juno? "Juno," they say, "is the air." A while ago they were inviting us to worship the sea in Neptune, to worship the earth in the image of Tellus; now they invite us to worship the air. These are the elements of which this world consists. So, warning of this beforehand, the apostle Paul in his epistle says: Beware lest anyone deceive you through philosophy and empty seduction, according to the elements of this world (Col 2:8). For he was touching upon those very ones who expound idols as if more prudently. Therefore, when he said, through philosophy, in the same place he says, according to the elements of this world. He admonished that they are to be guarded against, not as common worshipers of images, but as more learned interpreters of signs. "Therefore," they say, "Juno is the air." Let them call by whatever name a thing known to all: I will not worship the air, for it cannot even be cultivated as the earth is cultivated by farmers. For in the earth the farmer works, as I said above, not by adoring but by laboring, that he may find fruit. But this air can neither be cultivated thus nor is it to be adored. Praise the work, adore the maker. "That you may know," they say, "that the air is Juno, the Greeks call her so: she is called Hera in Greek; and aer, often repeated, sounds like Hera." But we, who say that the one Creator must be served in religion, do not adore Juno for this reason, that she is an image; we do not adore her for this reason, that she is a creature.

22. But this I ask of these men: if I worship God alone, is the air angry? for if I worship the air, God is angry; although he is always tranquil and administers and rules all that he created without any disturbance, yet in some unutterable way God is angry. He who, when he wishes himself alone to be worshiped, alone wishes this not out of pride: for he alone is worthy to be worshiped, and he wishes to be worshiped not for this, that he himself may be the more exalted, but that man may be the better. For he does not need worshipers, but you need the one worshiped. I said, says the prophet, to the Lord: You are my God, for you have no need of my goods (Ps 16:2 (15:2)). If, then, he alone, without pride, requires that he be worshiped, whoever else requires it and claims it for himself privately, that he may, as it were, be worshiped in his own right, who is not satisfied to be worshiped in him who created him, requires it out of pride. And the pride of the devil is to be avoided, that being humble we may come to the height of God. For the devil alone wishes to be worshiped in place of God, because he himself said: I will set my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:13-14).

23. For what are they going to say of the sign of Vulcan, for example, that we may recall all the elements — for they say there are four: earth, water, air, fire; and of heaven we have already spoken, when we spoke of the sun and moon? "Vulcan," they say, "is fire," not the ethereal fire, where the sun and moon and the other stars are, but this fire which is on earth, fitted to the uses of men. "For," they also say, "Vulcan is therefore painted lame, because the motion of this fire flickers as though limping." What then? Since a man has fire in his power, who kindles it and extinguishes it when he wishes, and uses it as he wishes, is the power of men over a god so great, and does he who blows on a lamp extinguish a god? I do not know whether it is worse to worship the image itself by itself, than such an interpretation of it. But what is it to us? For perhaps they may interpret even invisible things: for these are visible. Let us come quickly to the security of our faith, that we may not be corrupted by them at all.

24. "When I worship Mercury," he says, "I worship genius; genius is not seen, it is something invisible." We too plainly concede that genius is something invisible, and that it is so invisible and is such a thing that it is better than the sky, than the earth, than the sea and all these things that are seen; for an invisible substance, since it is a kind of life, is better than every visible substance, because everything visible is a body. And genius is a great thing: yet if you consider that very genius which they say they worship, what has it done? Do not many err with a great genius? And perhaps those most of all who think genius is to be worshiped in the image of Mercury. If, then, the human genius can err without God as its guide, when the human genius is sound, it does not want to be adored in place of God, but wants him to be adored by whom it wishes to be enlightened. For unless the human genius is enlightened by the enlightening God, it is dark in its errors. But I ask you, what do you worship in Mercury? "Genius," you said. Genius is a kind of middle thing, because genius either, turned away from the Creator, is darkened and becomes foolish, or, turned toward the Creator, is enlightened and becomes wise. But you said something middle, when you said you worship genius. "Yes," he says, "middle, for the very name of Mercury sounds, as it were, running in the middle." For Mercury is said to have been named as, it were, running in the middle. If, then, he is worshiped for this reason, that he is something middle, why is not he rather worshiped who calls back to himself the middle thing which you call genius, that, suspended from lower things and turned away, he may make it cleave to himself, such as are the geniuses of the saints, the geniuses of the martyrs, the geniuses of the angels? For if the genius be such as that of this angel whom I recalled, enlightened by God, it repels from itself the adoration of a man and admonishes its adorer rather to adore God. Adore God, he says, for I am your fellow servant and of your brothers (Rev 19:10). Ought you, then, to worship a middle genius, for which a better genius would reprove you? For if you worship a middle genius, the enlightened genius will reprove you. Why? Because the enlightened genius does not want genius to be worshiped, but the enlightener of geniuses. For by that very enlightenment it is kind and benevolent, and wishes all geniuses to be turned to him by whom it knows itself also to be enlightened. Or does perhaps a foolish genius want itself to be worshiped? Plainly this is true. Beware, then, lest, when you wish to worship Mercury as genius, you worship the devil, who has a foolish genius. For the devil too, when he said: I will set my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:13-14), was unwilling to worship God and wished to be worshiped in place of God, rising up against God. But because he departed, as it were, from the south to the north, his genius was made dark, and because dark, also proud, and because proud, therefore by you, deceived, he wishes Mercury to be worshiped, that, while you worship Mercury, you may worship the devil.

25. Let your Holiness attend, and from men see what we say. Direct your mind and understand. Every creature is either corporeal or spiritual. The Creator alone is spiritual; but the creature, as we said, is corporeal or spiritual. Attend, that you may have, according to our strength, as much as the Lord has helped, against the pagans, not just any sort, but those who think themselves more learned and interpreters of images, and are puffed up and puff up others, and, empty, mock the very name of truth. Every creature, as I said, is either corporeal or spiritual. Corporeal, such as the earth and all that is begotten in it, such as the sea and all that swims or creeps in it, such as the air and all that flies in it, such as the heaven and all that gleams in it. All this creature is corporeal. But the spiritual is better than the corporeal. What is the spiritual creature? That which is perceived not by the senses of the body, but by the understanding of the mind, such as are all souls, whether irrational as in beasts, or rational as in men, or failing as in the ungodly, or advancing as in the converted, or perfect as in the angels and archangels, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers of the higher dwelling. Since, then, a creature is either corporeal or spiritual, and no third can be found, the highest bodies, than which there are none better, are the heavenly. Now what is beyond — not by spans of place, but by force of nature — is not a body, but spirit: a kind of life, but a changeable life, because it is a creature; the true unchangeable life is the Creator. Changeable life, then, that is, the spiritual creature, is also formable and able to be enlightened, that is, it can be formed and enlightened; but the unchangeable life, that is, the very substance of the Creator, is the maker and the enlightener. The creature is formed and enlightened, but the Creator forms and enlightens.

26. Attend and understand. Every life, then, that can be enlightened and come to wisdom, when it is of good will, loves the God who enlightens it, and, turned toward him, advances, and, clinging to him, is formed unto the integrity and perfection of wisdom, and, in its own kind, unto the fullness of blessedness: the rational and intellectual life, namely, such as is that of the angels, such as is that of men. If, then, such a life, when it is praiseworthy, loves its enlightener, every such life that by a culpable will deserts the life that enlightens it is darkened and becomes proud, such as is the life either of an unrighteous angel or of an unrighteous man: for it does not want to cleave to God, but wants by a certain private haughtiness to be held in place of God. Into such a proud and unrighteous life having fallen and turned, the archangel and his angels was made the devil and those demons, and they received a certain space of this murky air, where they might rule over all unrighteous men. And therefore the Apostle says: According to the prince of the power of this air, who now works in the children of unbelief (Eph 2:2). And again, exhorting us to endure the persecutions of this world: For we have not, he says, a wrestling against flesh and blood, that is, against men, but against the principalities, he says, and powers and rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12). For because he said that the prince of the power of this air works in the children of unbelief, lest they fix their attention on men and think they must struggle with them, through whom they suffered persecutions, and not behold in mind that enemy whom they ought to conquer in Christ: You have not, he says, a wrestling against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers and rulers of this darkness, and against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. And indeed, lest, calling them rulers of the world, he should be thought to call them rulers of this whole fabric which God created, he showed of what world he spoke, by adding and saying: of this darkness. And what the darkness is you can recognize. For that the unbelieving are signified by the name of darkness the Apostle himself says, when he was speaking to the faithful: For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). So too what he said, in the heavenly places, must be understood as said not of those highest seats of the holy angels, where the luminaries and stars are also set, but because this air too is called heaven, whence also the birds are called birds of heaven.

27. Let your Holiness, then, attend, that the mercy of the Lord may enlighten you. For we sound in the ears; he works within, as we believe, as we hope, of the mercy of him to whom we sing praises. So, as I had begun to say, a soul turned away from God, as from the light of truth and as from the south, comes to be in the north. But the kingdom of the north is the kingdom of the devil who says: I will set my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:13-14); there the hearts of men grow cold, and, made cold away from that fire of divine wisdom, they cannot savor spiritual things. And so they begin to think only of bodies, so that they seek even divinity itself in bodies, that is, in the sea, in the earth, in the air, and most of all in the heavenly bodies, as in the moon or the sun or the stars. For because the chief among the senses of the body is the sense of the eyes, whatever gleams to the eyes, if it also surpasses in place in the world, is thought great. But if anyone tells them that there is something great which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9), they say there is nothing that cannot be seen. Such hearts, then, have grown cold. If they have grown cold, they are in the north; if they are in the north, he rules over them who said: I will set my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High. But those who in any way have raised up their hearts and, as much as they could, have sharpened them by zeal, that they might see something that cannot be seen by the eyes of the body, transcending — which was easy — the earth they trod and all that is in the earth, transcending also the sea and whatever swims or creeps in it, transcending the air too and all the birds — for this too is a corporeal element — transcending the whole ethereal heaven with all the luminaries that shine there or whatever others perhaps lie hidden, they saw that there is something that is not seen, such as is the mind, such as is genius, such as is reason; they saw also that this too is changed, and they sought something unchangeable, they passed by, in thought and in the keen edge of the mind, even the spiritual creature, and understood the Creator Spirit, and, as though beaten back by the unwonted brightness of wisdom, they returned, as if to rest in the darkness of their flesh, and some of them felt that there was need of a purgation of their soul, which, cleansed from all fleshly desires, might be made fit to obtain that whose ineffable light had grazed them.

28. Attend, my brothers, and mark it with grief. They saw that there was need of a purgation, that that light which cannot be grasped by the weak gaze of the mind might, when that gaze was healed and formed and strengthened, be grasped. They saw that there was need of medicine, and, as they sought that very medicine, the devil at once interposed himself, because they sought proudly, boasting, as it were, in their own teachings, especially because they could, those who could, by the sharpness of genius and the keen edge of the mind, having transcended all creatures both corporeal and spiritual, reach so far as to know that there is something both spiritual and unchangeable, and that from it are all these things that subsist either spiritually or corporeally; but that that Creator is not moved by places, not moved by times, whereas bodies are moved by places and times; but that the substance of the soul, that is, the spiritual creature, is indeed not moved by places, but yet is moved by times through the changeableness of its various affections, and therefore that it is something middle, because the highest God is moved neither by places nor by times, while the substance of bodies — that is, the lowest creature — is moved both by places and by times. Whence the soul is a middle thing, because it is not moved by places, as neither is God, but is moved by times, as bodies are. When, then, they saw and sought purgation, that proud devil forestalled them as they sought proudly and boasted proudly, and set himself before them as a mediator, through whom it might seem to them that their souls could be purged. He, persuading by certain signs of his pride that he was necessary, that it might seem to men that the soul which wishes to come to God can be purged through magic arts, instituted sacrilegious rites in the temples, which promise purgation to the sacrilegious. For many of the images, as Scripture says, were instituted out of the honors of men who were held great, whether absent or dead. All of which, in the name of Christ, now abolished by public laws, have ceased to be done publicly, since some of them were, as it were, public magic. But just as before there was private magic, so now these things are done secretly, after they were forbidden to be done publicly.

29. Since, then, that proud and unrighteous enemy of souls set himself before them as a mediator, hear the Apostle teaching why he set himself before them, namely, because their pride gave him a place. Whence he admonishes, saying: Do not give place to the devil (Eph 4:27). But how we may discover their pride, let the same Apostle say. And first let us attend to the fact that some even of them had come to the knowledge of God, whom yet he wished to be saved through Christ. For they had come to the knowledge of God, but they had not come to salvation. For it is one thing to come to the knowledge of God, another to come to salvation, where that knowledge itself also becomes full, when the knower cleaves to the known. When the Apostle was speaking among the Athenians as to pagan men, because they boasted of the height of their learning above the other nations, and among them there was, as it were, the highest philosophy — for there indeed arose the learned and wise of this world — when, then, the Apostle was speaking there, he did not bring forth to them testimonies from the prophets, but brought forth from their own, nor was he silent that they were theirs, not ours, because, even if something good is found there, many evil things are found there, not as our prophets, whatever they have in their Scriptures is good. So among the Athenians, when the Apostle spoke of God: In him, he says, we live and move and are, as also some of your own have said (Acts 17:28).

30. But what those "some" were, and why they were disapproved, expounding in another place: The wrath of God, he says, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (Rom 1:18). What do we understand by against ungodliness, except both that of the Jews and that of the Gentiles? But lest it be said: "Why is the wrath of God revealed against the ungodliness of the Gentiles, since you said against all? For did the Gentiles receive the Law and become transgressors? Rightly is the wrath of God revealed against the Jews, to whom the Law was given and who refused to observe it; but to the Gentiles it was not given," behold, brothers, and understand how the same Apostle shows all to be guilty, and all to be in need of salvation and of the mercy of God. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, of those who hold the truth in iniquity (Rom 1:18). Understand, brothers, see how he did not say, "They do not have the truth," but, They hold the truth, he says, in iniquity. And as though you should ask, saying: "How can those who did not receive the Law have the truth?", because what is known of God, he says, is manifest in them (Rom 1:19). How could what is known of God be manifest in those who did not receive the Law? He goes on and says: For his invisible things, from the foundation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made; his eternal power also and divinity (Rom 1:20), surely we are to supply, "is understood and seen." Through what is it seen? Through the things that are made.

31. For why should a man attend to the works, and not seek the maker? You attend to the earth bearing fruit, you attend to the sea full of its animals, you attend to the air full of birds, you attend to the heaven gleaming with stars, you recognize the changes of the seasons, you consider the fourfold year, the leaves falling from the trees and returning, the numbers given to their seeds, that there are measures for each thing, their weights (See Wis 11:20), that all things are administered by their orders, that the higher heaven has all its peace, the lower earth has the beauty proper to its own kind of things yielding and succeeding: beholding all these things, you see that all is now made alive by the spiritual creature, and you do not seek the maker of so great a work? But you say to me: "These things I see, him I do not see." Because he made for you one thing by which to see these things, another by which he himself is seen — to see these things he gave the eyes of the body, to see himself he gave the mind — you are not, then, permitted vainly to say: "I do not see him"; look at these things according to the understanding, and you will see the one who works. For neither do you see the soul of a man; for the soul of a man is not seen, but from the management of the body, when we behold him walking, working, speaking, moving all his members according to the proper functions of each, we say: "He lives, there is in him what we do not see," and we understand it through these things which we see. As, then, from the movements and management of the body you understand the soul, which you do not see, so from the management of the whole world, and from the governing of souls, understand the Creator.

32. But it is too little to understand; for they too understood, and see what the Apostle says, consider those very words that I had begun to say from the outset. The wrath of God, he says, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in iniquity, because what is known of God is manifest in them: for God manifested it to them (Rom 1:18-19). And as though you should ask whence he manifested it, his invisible things, he says, from the foundation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made; his eternal power also and divinity — that is, is understood and seen — so that they are, he says, without excuse (Rom 1:20). Why without excuse? For because he had said, They hold the truth in iniquity, he showed how. Because, knowing, he says, God — he did not say, "Because they did not know God," but what does he say? — because, knowing God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened (Rom 1:21). By what desert, except of pride? For see what follows: For claiming, he says, to be wise, they became fools (Rom 1:22). For they ought not to have claimed for themselves what he had given, nor to have boasted of what they had not from themselves, but from him: which ought surely to have been rendered back to him, so that, to hold to what they could see, they might be healed by him who gave them to see. For if they had done this, they would have kept humility, and could have been purged and have clung to that most blessed contemplation. For to such would the true and truthful physician, the mediator, the conqueror of pride, the exalter of humility, have been revealed. But you will say: "Had he not yet been born in humility?" But he would have been revealed through prophecy, as he was revealed to Abraham — for the Lord himself said: Abraham longed to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56) — as he was revealed to the other fathers and prophets. For so they were saved by faith in the one who was to be born and to suffer, as we are saved, being born and having suffered. But it is no wonder that he revealed himself to their humility and veiled himself from their pride. But because there was pride in them, the false and deceitful and proud one interposed himself, who would promise them that their souls would be purged through arts of pride or other, and he made them worshipers of demons, that is, of evil angels. Hence all the sacred rites that are celebrated by the pagans, which they say avail for the purgation of their souls.

33. And hear the Apostle saying this in consequence, that they received these things as the reward of their pride, because they did not so honor God as God is to be honored. Their foolish heart, he says, was darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools (Rom 1:21-22), now indeed through that false mediator who rejoices in images, who rejoices when the unclean beasts are fed — that is, the swine that that younger son fed, having gone far from the father (See Luke 15:13-15): for as the Lord is near to those who have crushed their heart (Ps 34:18 (33:19)), that is, to the humble, so the Lord is far from those who have lifted up their heart, that is, the proud. Claiming, he says, to be wise, they became fools, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man (Rom 1:22-23). Now they are images, and these indeed of all the Greeks and other nations, which have the likeness of men. But because there is no greater nor more superstitious idolatry than that of the Egyptians — for Egypt flooded the world with such figments as the Apostle next describes — when he had said, into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, he added: And of birds and of four-footed beasts and of serpents (Rom 1:23). For have you, brothers, in other temples seen images with a dog's head or a bull's, and the figments of the other irrational animals? Has anyone seen these in any temple, except in the temple of Isis? For they are the idols of the Egyptians. Embracing both kinds, the Apostle says: Into the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and of serpents. Therefore God handed them over to the desires of their heart, to uncleanness, that they might dishonor their bodies among themselves (Rom 1:23-24). These evils of theirs are from ungodliness. For the head was pride. But these subsequent sins are not only sins, but also punishments. For when he says, God handed them over, it is now of the vengeance of some sin, that these things should be done; but these punishments are still also sins. Why? Because from them one can still return, if he wishes. But when it has come to the punishment, return is no longer granted; that will be the punishment which is no longer called sin. For in these middle things there are both punishments and sins. The first thing, which is pride, is sin alone, not yet punishment. The things that follow are both sins and punishments. He who is unwilling to return from them will come to a punishment which is no longer sin, but the penalty of all sins. But because the first sin is pride, it is openly written elsewhere: The beginning of all sin is pride (Sir 10:13). And how is covetousness the root of all evils (1 Tim 6:10)? Because to wish for more than God is covetousness, to wish for more than suffices is covetousness. For God alone suffices for the soul. Whence it is said by Philip: Show us the Father, and it is enough for us (John 14:8). But what is prouder than he who, presuming on himself, deserts God? What more covetous than he for whom God does not suffice? It is, then, that very pride which, as covetousness, is at the origin of sins. Therefore the soul, a fornicatress, having deserted the one true and as it were lawful husband, God, prostitutes itself to many false gods, that is, to demons, and is in no way satisfied.

34. How many gods the Romans worshiped! At first, as it were, their own, having dismissed the one true and unchangeable God, they worshiped, as it were, their own gods. They began to fight with other nations, and, believing those nations to be, as it were, defended by their gods, they pressed on and tried by certain sacrifices to turn the gods of those nations into transgressors, and they increased the number of their gods, by taking up the sacrilegious rites of the nations either subdued or to be subdued: so they invited in the dog-faced and bull-faced and serpent forms and the bird forms and all the monsters of the Egyptians, and so, as it were by propitiating them, they appeased them. For one reads in their own authors that the gods of the Egyptians were even hostile to the gods of the Romans not long before the time of the Lord's incarnation. For as the Apostle says of the Cretans: A certain prophet of their own said: The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies (Titus 1:12), so we too can say: A certain prophet of their own said:
monsters of gods of every kind, and barking Anubis,
against Neptune and Venus and against Minerva
hold their weapons (Virgil, Aeneid 8.698-700).
For it seemed unworthy to this poet that the dog-heads of the Egyptians fought against the human images of the Romans. But the demons fought against themselves, those of the Egyptians for the Egyptians, and those of the Romans for the Romans. But that they might possess both nations together, they composed their differences among themselves, and by the Romans all began to be worshiped. For so the Apostle says: Not that an idol is anything, but that what the nations sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to become partners with demons (1 Cor 10:19-20). As these men do, deceiving themselves and saying: ... as though you despised the idol which the craftsman made, because it has no life: you would despise the idol, if you despised the demon that rejoices in the idol. In vain, then, do you interpret the image as a signification of the creature, because neither does the creature rejoice in such worship of venerating men, except a sinful creature which, proud, requires an honor not due, fallaciously terrifying human frailty. God handed them over, he says, to the desires of their heart, to uncleanness, that they might dishonor their bodies among themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever (Rom 1:24-25). What is they changed the truth of God into a lie? Into the likeness, namely, of an image of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and of serpents (Rom 1:23).

35. And lest any of them should say: "I do not worship images, but what the images signify," he at once subjoined: And they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25). Understand prudently, dearest ones. For they worship either the image or the creature. He who worships the image turns the truth of God into a lie. For the sea is truth, but Neptune is a lie made by man, the truth of God being turned into a lie, because God made the sea, but man the image of Neptune. So God made the sun too, but man, by making an image of the sun, turned the truth of God into a lie. But lest he say: "I do not worship the image, but I worship the sun," let him hear what follows: They worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. Having dismissed the Creator, then, they fell to the creature. And, what is more shameful, they were not even content with that. For if, having dismissed God, they worshiped what God made, they would be detestable. But how much more detestable are they who, having dismissed even the things God made, worship the things that craftsmen made? Having dismissed the creature, you go to the image, and, confounded about the image, when you try to defend yourself, you return to the creature. Plainly, then, at some point, that you may truly defend yourself, pass over from the creature to the Creator. "But I cannot," he says, "come to him except through these things." Who says this? That learned man. Who says this? He who holds the truth of God in a lie. Who says this? He who, when he had known God, did not glorify him as God or give thanks: not he who did not know, but he who knew.

36. But of these proud men who hold the truth of God in a lie, there are two kinds. Some committed themselves to their own virtue, sought no helper, judging that their souls could be purged through philosophy, as though needing no mediator. But of these we need not dispute at present. We are now dealing against the sacrilegious rites of the pagans. But they said that no sacrifices helped them. They say Pythagoras was such a one. Let that boasting itself see what it promises itself from its own strength! He who presumes on himself presumes on a man. But the unhappy man, who will free him from this body of death, except the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25), through the one true mediator, God and man (See 1 Tim 2:5)? Who, if he were only man, would not be a mediator; if he were only God, would not be a mediator. But if he were not a mediator, he would not reconcile man to God, who through iniquity had been far separated. And these men, too, hold the truth of God in a lie, because they presume on themselves, whereas every man is a liar (Ps 116:11 (115:11)), and no one is freed except through the confession of sins, with a propitiator interposed. And these men, not indeed through sacrilegious rites, but in another way, that proud enemy of souls seduces, making them like himself through the haughtiness of human presumption, not seeking again with humility the one from whom they fell by pride. Such were all to whom Christ was not revealed, even if they wished to be purged by no false rites. For it is itself a great uncleanness of an unclean soul to think it can be purged by itself. But of those who worshiped no idols and bound themselves to no Chaldean or magic rites, nothing should be rashly said, lest perhaps it be hidden from us that that Savior was in some way revealed to them, without whom no one can be saved.

37. But there are others who, when they had seen or believed that there is a God to whom they are to be reconciled, and did not presume on their own strength, wished to be purged by rites, but, themselves too swollen with vain curiosity and preferring themselves to others by the teachings of demons, through that very pride gave place to the devil, and through the deceits and empty mysteries of the aerial powers, that is, of demons, judged that they could be cleansed. Such the Apostle recalled, when he said: They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and of serpents (Rom 1:23). For some of them stretched themselves out and, the whole creature transcended, understood the Creator above all, but, remaining weak, even grew proud in him. And now such men say to us, or those who follow their authority: "We cannot be purged except through these mediators," powers, namely, of this kind. So they seek a mediator. Why? "Because the human mind, wrapped up and oppressed by its desires, has need of purgation. And unless it be purged, that which it sees to be unchangeable does not delight it, even if it can in some degree and in some way be seen." And that indeed they rightly perceive, that without a mediator no one can come to God.

38. But what the mediator is must be sought. For there is a false mediator, there is a true one. The false mediator, as we have often said, is the devil. He interposes himself with those who seek badly and wish to be proud, doing certain signs and miracles. For the magicians of Pharaoh too did the like, as Moses did, although they could not do everything (See Exod 7:11-12,22; 8:18-19), because these do as much as the aerial spirits through whom they do it are permitted. But God did as much as it pleased him. Through certain signs, then, as I said, the spirits interpose themselves with the proud and promise them purgation. But the true mediator is the one Lord Jesus Christ, whom the humble of old also recognized through revelation, and through him wished to be purged. Before he was born of Mary, he was revealed to the worthy, that through faith in him who was to be born and to suffer they might be saved, as we are saved through faith in him who was born and has suffered. Therefore he came so humbly, to show that he does not purge and save any but the humble. For even in that time, before the Word was made flesh, he was revealed not only to the holy patriarchs and prophets among the Hebrew people, but examples are found also in other nations, since, whoever sought humbly, the humble mediator was not lacking to them, who alone reconciles to the Father and alone most truly says: No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6), fitting his humility to them, that, persevering in humility, they might merit to be purged through him who is the humble mediator. For was Melchizedek of the people of Israel? And yet Scripture commends him as a priest of the most high God (Gen 14:18), in prefiguration of that very mediator. For by him Abraham is even blessed (See Gen 14:19). Was Job, that man so great, so mighty a wrestler with the devil and a victor, who, sitting in dung, full of worms, humble, conquered him by whom Adam, proud, with an intact body, in paradise, was conquered — was this man of the people of Israel? And yet in his words that true mediator is understood to be proclaimed and foretold. But as the mediator recalls certain ones, as much as was enough, so it is to be believed that the revelation of the mediator, through whom they might be purged, was present to all, even before he had appeared in the flesh, who humbly sought the purging mediator, without whom no one is purged. But no one, except one purged through the mediator, comes to that which, even though it can be gazed upon in some small part through a certain understanding of the soul, yet cannot be obtained except by the most purged. Therefore, even if some sought in such a way, as the Apostle says, that they perceived the invisible things of God through the things that are made, but in such a way that they held the truth of God in a lie, that is, that they called themselves wise and were puffed up through pride, not worthily honoring him from whom they had received understanding, to such, as I said, that mediator sets himself, proud to the proud, as humble to the humble, by certain congruities and by a certain ineffable and wondrous justice, remaining in the inmost places of God, which, though we cannot see it, let us honor. The proud mediator, then, meets the proud, the humble the humble, but to the humble he is humble for this, that he may lead them to the height of God; to the proud he is proud for this, that he may shut off from the lofty within them the height of God.

39. For see how the devil interposes himself as a mediator. He is not mortal in the flesh, but a sinner. But the Lord willed to be mortal in the flesh, but not a sinner. He shared death with men, not sins. For even if he were a sinner, he could not be a mediator. For if he were both mortal and a sinner, he would be what the rest of men are, and would no longer be a mediator, but would need a mediator. For any man is a sinner and mortal. But God is righteous and immortal. The humble mediator is righteous, mortal, and not righteous in any way whatever, but righteous because God, mortal because man. But the proud mediator is unrighteous and immortal: for he is not dissolved in body, because he was not clothed with flesh — in this respect I call him immortal; for true immortality is none but God's, according to what is said: Who alone has immortality and dwells in light inaccessible (1 Tim 6:16), according to which the only Son too is immortal, because he and the Father are one, but he willed to be mortal, a man being taken up. The devil, then, unrighteous and in a certain manner immortal, interposed himself as a mediator with man, unrighteous, mortal. There are two things at the bottom, two at the top. But that the things at the bottom may be reconciled to those at the top, they need a mediator. What two at the bottom? Unrighteous, mortal. What two at the top? Righteous, immortal. The mediator, then, who purges and leads back, if he were both unrighteous and mortal, would not be a mediator, since he would not have one thing from the bottom and one from the top, but both from the bottom, both iniquity and mortality. Again, if he had immortality from the higher things and iniquity from the lower, he would have one from here and one from there, and through this would seem a mediator, but not one leading back, because not purging. For having iniquity in common with man, he would be held worthy of punishment with him, and so would be a mediator in such a way as to shut off the way to God. For sins know only how to separate from God; hear Scripture saying: Has God burdened his ear, that he should not hear? But your sins separate between you and God (Isa 59:1-2).

40. Sins, then, shut off; but mortality does not shut off, because mortality is the penalty of sin, coming from the judgment of God. That shuts off which merited this penalty. We say this: not what God did to you shuts off your way to God, but what you did to yourself. For God made the mortality of your body, but you yourself made the sin. So that true and truthful mediator shared with you what God did in punishing you, but did not share with you what you did in sinning. He shared with you mortality, but did not share with you iniquity. For he was made in mortal flesh, yet was not made, through sin, a debtor to death. For he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man (Phil 2:7). Which is so said that we should not think him changed, but that he willed to appear humbly and in the manner of a servant, remaining in secret the Lord and God with God, the Son equal to the Father, through whom all things were made. So, mortality being taken up and the weakness of our penalty shared with us, he purges from sins and frees from mortality itself: therefore worthy, by dying, to slay death, because he suffered death unworthily. This is the true and truthful mediator, the humble and exalted mediator, the mediator who leads back to that from which we fell. But that proud mediator, the false and deceitful mediator, has iniquity in common with sinful men; but he does not have the mortality of the flesh, and therefore does not dissolve their mortality, while he offers iniquity to be imitated, because, just as the iniquity of the first life made the desert of this death, so the iniquity of this life, persevering, makes the desert of eternal death. Which the devil will indeed suffer in common with those whom he seduces, for whom he does not now take up the mortality which is carried out in the mortality of the flesh; and therefore he wishes to be a mediator, because he has one thing in common with them — that is, iniquity — but does not have the other — that is, mortality.

41. For this reason the proud one rather seduces the proud, because mortality offends the proud more than iniquity, and therefore they rather abominate mortality in the humanity of Christ than iniquity in the pride of the devil. And so he leads those puffed up with empty and false teachings through I know not what sacrilegious rites, promising purgation in the temples, and through magic consecrations and detestable secrets he draws them to astrologers, to soothsayers, to augurs, to diviners. He dares to boast himself stronger and better than Christ, because he was not born in the flesh of a woman, was not seized, was not scourged, was not spat upon, was not crowned with thorns, was not hung on a cross, did not die and was not buried: all of which the proud deride, which the humble mediator took up, not taking up iniquity with men but taking up humanity that he might heal them of the swelling of pride and make them victors over that false mediator, when they had learned to confess their sins, and through the righteousness of Christ might be purged from their own unrighteousness, and through the humble fellowship of his mortality might come to the sublime summit of immortality.

42. Let us therefore reject, brothers, the malign mediator, the false and deceitful mediator, the mediator not reconciling but more and more separating. Let no one promise you any purgation outside the Church, whether in temples or anywhere through sacrilegious rites; let no one outside unity, even through the Christian sacraments, because, although there is a sacrament outside unity — which we cannot deny nor dare to violate — yet the power and salvation of the sacrament, making one a coheir with Christ, is not except in unity and in the bond of the peace of the Church. Let no one seduce you from God, no one from the Church, no one from God the Father, no one from the Church the mother. That false mediator, transforming himself into an angel of light, wishes to separate you from God, and his ministers, transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness (See 2 Cor 11:14-15); if he cannot lead you to sacrilegious rites, he wishes to separate you from the Church, either to heresies or to schisms, that, by deserting the mother, the Father may be offended. We had two parents who begot us mortally, we have two who beget us immortally: God and the Church. Those begot successors to themselves, these beget those who remain with them. For to what else were we born of human parents, except that we should succeed the dead? But by God the Father and the Church the mother we are so begotten that we may live forever with our parents. Whoever goes to sacrilegious rites or to magic arts or to consult astrologers, augurs, diviners about his life or what pertains to this life, and the diabolical contrivances of this world, is separated from the Father, although he does not withdraw from the Church. But if anyone is separated from the Church by the division of schism, although he seems to hold the Father for himself, he most perniciously deserts the mother. But he deserts both who relinquishes both the Christian faith and the mother Church. Hold to the Father, hold also to the mother. You are a little one: cling to the mother. You are a little one: suck the milk of the mother, and, nourished with milk, she will lead you to the table of the Father.

43. Your Savior took up flesh, your mediator took up flesh, and by taking up flesh he took up the Church. He tasted beforehand, as it were from the Head, what he might offer to God, a priest forever (Ps 110:4 (109:4)) and the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2). The Word took up human nature, and the two became one, as it is written: The two will be in one flesh. This is a great sacrament, he says, but I speak of Christ and the Church (Eph 5:31-32). The chamber of this marriage was the womb of the Virgin. And he himself, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, rejoiced like a giant to run his course (Ps 19:5 (18:6)). A giant because strong, by weakness conquering weakness and by death slaying death. But he ran in the way: he did not stand in the way, lest he become a man who is signified as having stood in the way of sinners. For when the psalm says: Blessed is he who has not gone in the counsel of the ungodly and has not stood in the way of sinners (Ps 1:1), it signifies someone who stood in the way of sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ, then, ran in the way of sinners, but Adam stood in the way of sinners. And because he stood, wounded by robbers, he fell and lay. But he who so walked this way as not to stand but to run, saw the wounded one, set him on a beast and handed him to the innkeeper (See Luke 10:30-35), because he ran the way, that he might fulfill what was foretold of him: He will drink from the torrent in the way; therefore he will lift up his head (Ps 110:7 (109:7)). For this age is a torrent. Torrent waters are those that flow from sudden rains, whether wintry or from floods, surely about to pass away quickly. So are all these temporal things: it is a torrent passing by, soon to cease. On this present day of the Kalends of January, those who rejoice in the luxuries and vanities of the world do not see the rush of the torrent sweeping them away. Let them call back, if they can, the day like it of the former year; let them call back at least yesterday. They do not see even their joys passing like a torrent, so that afterward they say: These are they whom we once held in derision and as a byword of reproach. We, fools, esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor. How are they reckoned among the sons of God, and is their lot among the saints? Therefore we strayed from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness did not shine for us, and the sun did not rise for us (Wis 5:3-6). What sun? Surely not this visible one? This rises for them daily. For of this the Lord says: Who makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil (Matt 5:45). There is another who made this sun, invisible and intelligible, that sun of righteousness, of whom it is said in another place: The sun of righteousness has risen for me (See Mal 4:2). He has not risen for these. And hear what they lament: What did pride profit us, and what did the boasting of riches confer on us? All those things passed away like a shadow (Wis 5:8-9). As if that torrent had now flowed away; but yet he who was born, suffered, was crucified, was buried, rose again: from that torrent he drank in the way, passing from here to the Father, with the faithful to follow, for whom from this torrent he drank in the way; therefore he lifted up his head, that is, himself.

44. For he himself is the Head of the Church (See Eph 5:23), who has already ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father (See Mark 16:19), showing us in his holocaust what we ought to hope for even of our flesh. For as the Apostle says: For by hope we were saved, and we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body (Rom 8:24,23). For we are adopted, but he was born the only Son: in the beginning the Word, God with God, as the evangelist witnesses (See John 1:1), and equal to the Father, as the apostle Paul says (See Phil 2:6), yet he was made humble, that he might be the one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5). But of what kind that evil and false mediator is who shuts off the way to God, of such kind do all proud men strive to be: wherever they are, they wish to be like their mediator. And as you see in men, so also in angels. He who willed to be the mediator and reconciler to God, of whom we have said much, that is, the humble and exalted mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, took up the whole creature — for in man there is the whole: for we said above that the creature is either spiritual or corporeal — he took up, then, the whole man, taking the form of a servant; whatever is in the rational mind, whatever is in the soul, whatever is in the flesh, he took up wholly, except sin. So in him are all things, lest anyone should err in seeking, for his purgation, a creature as mediatrix and as it were cleanser; therefore that mediator has all, therefore that mediator took up all, because a creature can be such a cleansing mediatrix, able to cleanse from iniquities and to free from mortality, which does not presume itself to avail anything, but cleaves personally and in an ineffable manner is joined and commingled with God the Word, so that it could be said: The Word was made flesh (John 1:14). Whose humility was for this despised and exalted, lest humble men despair of themselves and the proud presume. When, then, proud men want themselves to be worshiped, and, if God is preferred to them, are angry, they are imitators of that deceitful mediator. On the contrary, holy humble men, when they are so honored by erring men who want to place their hope in a man, not attending to the divine Scripture that says: Cursed is everyone who places his hope in man (Jer 17:5), grieve for them in their heart and faithfully admonish them, as much as they can, to hope in God, not in man, when not even the Apostle himself wished hope to be placed in himself, but in the truth which he announced. What was said through him was better than he himself through whom it was said, and he wished those who believed to place their hope in what was said through him, not in him through whom it was said. Even if we, he says — it is too little, if we, hear what follows — or an angel, he says, from heaven should announce to you anything beyond what you have received, let him be accursed (Gal 1:8). He saw that a false mediator could transform himself into an angel of light and announce something false. As, then, proud men want themselves to be worshiped in place of God, to claim for themselves whatever they can, to be named, and, if it can be done, to surpass Christ himself in glory, so do the devil and his angels.

45. My brothers, we speak to catholics. The Donatists hold Donatus in place of Christ. If they hear someone, a pagan, disparaging Christ, they bear it perhaps more patiently than if they hear someone disparaging Donatus. You know what I say, and you are compelled to experience this daily. They love Donatus so perversely that they prefer him to Christ. For not only do they have nothing to say, but they even know that they have nothing to say. For nothing holds them but the name of Donatus under the name of Christ; for the name of a man they have been seduced against Christ. For this reason they have contracted against us a most monstrous hatred, because we cry out to them: "Do not place your hope in man, lest you be cursed." They hate those who preach peace, and, if they suffer anything for so great a crime of theirs — and not for Christ, but for Donatus — they think themselves martyrs; and because we say to them: "Do not blow away the baptism of Christ, love peace, give yourself back to the whole world: Christ redeemed the whole with his blood, do not bring back to a part the buyer of the whole," for this they hate us and, if opportunity be given, kill us by the hand of the Circumcellions. But because the Lord helped us, we escaped, giving thanks to the mercy of the Lord. Whence we admonish and ask you to pray for us, that the Lord may always inspire in us confidence to preach his peace, and that we may not fear them, but rather love them and rejoice to have fulfilled in us what is written: With those who hated peace I was peaceable; when I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause (Ps 120:7 (119:7)). And if they cannot be healed otherwise, let them fight against us, strike us, kill us, and yet be healed.

46. But let us return, brothers, to what I had begun to say; for grief snatched me away from what I had intended. As there are proud men — they prefer themselves to be worshiped rather than God — so proud angels prefer themselves to be worshiped rather than God. And as there are holy men — they prefer God to be worshiped rather than themselves — so all the holy angels, which is also to be believed of the martyrs without any doubt, prefer God to be worshiped rather than themselves. They want him to be honored whom they honor; in him they choose to be loved; private honors from men they not only do not accept, but even reject. Whence we also gave an example, as much as the Lord granted, from that angel in the Apocalypse, who refused to be adored by a man, but God (See Rev 19:10). Do not fear, then, brothers, lest perhaps, if you worship God alone with religious service, you offend some holy angel or some martyr. For if the prudence of the flesh persuades you of this, that, measuring from yourselves — if perhaps you delight to be honored by a certain private haughtiness of pride, not in God nor for the sake of God, but in yourselves for your own sakes, so that, if it is not done, you are indignant — you should thus think that either the holy angels or the holy martyrs rejoice in such homage of men and require for themselves the service that is owed to God, you will be deceived by a most easy seduction by the pagans, and will withdraw altogether far from the Lord your God, of whom we have received this command: You shall adore the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve (Matt 4:10). Do you wish securely to honor the holy angels and the holy martyrs? Worship him in whom alone they wish themselves to be honored. For if they are holy, they are angry with you, if you worship them privately and not him alone from whom they too received the grace of their blessedness. Because, then, they are holy, all the more do not offend them by wishing to worship them apart. For in worshiping God you worship everyone who, by pious love and holy devotion, cleaves to God. But if one is angry because he himself is not worshiped by some sacraments proper to him, he is now that proud transgressor and false mediator, transforming himself into an angel of light (See 2 Cor 11:14). And if he has turned you aside to himself, he has shut off the way: not only can you not come through him, but rather through him you are not allowed to come.

47. Let them not sell you their empty talk and say: "We worship the virtues of God, that through them we may come to God, and we make these rites to Saturn, those to Jupiter, those to Pluto, those to Neptune, those to Mars, those to Ceres." For this is why they do not all rejoice in the same rites, because they claim for themselves private and proper worships; and through this they are not sacred rites, but sacrileges. And in all these their prince exults and triumphs, delighted not so much in those rites as in the deception and error of men through proud malevolence. So let them not seduce you, when they say to you: "If you worship the martyrs and think yourselves helped by them before God, how much more ought we to worship the virtues of God, through which we may be helped before God?" For attend to the sacraments of the Church and see whether a sacrifice is offered to any martyr, so that we should exhibit one thing to this martyr, another to that one; but at all the memorials we offer one thing, and not to any one of them, but to the Lord of us all, in which sacrifice we honor the martyrs too according to their rank, not in themselves, but in him through whom they conquered the devil. And they are mindful of us so much the more dearly, the less we bring them private rites, because, in him alone in whom they have their joy, in him alone they have their honor. If anyone says to you: "Invoke the angel Gabriel thus, invoke Michael thus, exhibit this to that one, this to this one," do not be deceived, do not consent; nor let it deceive you for this reason, that the names of these angels are read in the holy Scriptures: attend rather to how they are read there, whether they required anything for themselves from men of private religion, and did not rather always wish glory to be given to the one God whom they obey.

48. But not only if a man, but if anyone as though an angel, whether by some visitation or through a dream, should wish to tempt you and say: "Do this for me, celebrate this for me, because I am the angel," for example, "Gabriel," do not believe it. Worship securely the one God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. He rejoices in such worship of yours, if he is an angel; but if he is angry because you did not give something apart, he is now to be understood as the one of whom the Apostle says that he transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14): he wishes to shut off the way, he interposes himself wickedly; he is not a reconciling mediator, but rather a separating one. For that angel in the Apocalypse and the other such ones do not want to be adored, but God (See Rev 19:10). They are messengers, announcing what they have received to be announced; they are ministers, doing what they have been bidden to do, carrying our prayers to God, not themselves requiring them in place of God. An angel says to a man: I offered your prayer in the sight of the brightness of God (See Tob 12:12). Yet he was not asking the angel himself, and that angel was asking God: as a minister he offered his prayer. Did he say, as the perverse and corrupt ministers of certain powers do: "Give me something, if you want me to announce it, if you want me to admit you"? Our Lord does not have such a great house. His servants love him, his sons love him. If you should wish to corrupt any of them, as it were privately, that you may be admitted to their Lord, you will be driven far from that great house. For if they imitate the angelic life — because it is written: There was one soul and one heart toward God, and no one had anything of his own, but all things were common to them (Acts 4:32), as we read in the Acts of the Apostles that so many thousands of men of the number of the Jews were converted (See Acts 4:4), to whom, possessing nothing of their own, out of the common stock it was distributed to each as each had need (Acts 4:35) — if, then, these imitate the angelic life, and if to any of them some friend of his, whether brother or father or mother or any near one, should wish to offer something privately, he not only rejects it, but also admonishes that, if it is to be offered and received, it be offered to God, as those did who laid the prices of their possessions at the feet of the apostles (See Acts 4:34-35), as also those whom the Apostle exhorted to make some offering for the poor of the saints who were in Jerusalem (See Rom 15:26) — and this he teaches, that they may know they offer to God what they do — how much more those angels, surely more perfect, who in the heavenly hosts and in the great house and the heavenly city Jerusalem, the mother of us all (See Gal 4:26), serve God in most concordant love, want no honor to be exhibited to them privately and properly, but rejoice in that honor alone which is exhibited in common to God as God, and to the city itself as his temple, that is, to the whole Church.

49. And therefore, on account of the purgation which is made through the mediator, the one who is equal to the Father willed to be the one mediator and himself to become man, that through a kindred substance — which is man — we might come to the highest substance — which is God. And therefore he descended, because we were in the lower places, and ascended, lest we should remain in the lower places. That one mediator is true, who deceives no one, who, even though he is equal to the Father, willed for our sake also to be less than he, not losing what is equal, but taking up what is less. He has now freed even our flesh in his flesh. Now he dies no more, and death will no longer have dominion over him (Rom 6:9). To him our prayers come, although in the sacraments of the Church they are directed to the Father. Now he dies no more. For he himself, the high priest, offers them, who offered himself a holocaust for us. He himself is the one who leads us through, interposing himself, not to shut us out, but to direct; not to separate, but to reconcile; not to hinder, but to break the hindrances. He himself is the one pontiff and the one priest, who was prefigured in the ancient priests of God. Therefore a priest was sought without blemish of body, because he alone lived without blemish of sin, even in a mortal body. For what was prefigured in their body was signified in his life. But all of us bishops are called priests for this reason, that we are set over the people. Yet the whole Church is the body of that priest. To the priest belongs his body. For the apostle Peter too says to that very Church: A holy people, a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9).

50. Then one priest was anointed, now all Christians are anointed. The king was anointed, the priest was anointed; the rest were not anointed. The Lord bore both persons, not in figure, but now in truth, both of king and of priest. For for this reason, in king David himself, of whose seed he was made according to the flesh, both were figured. He was a king, which we know and which is manifest. There was prefigured in him also the person of a priest, when he ate of those loaves of proposition, which it was not lawful to eat except for priests alone (See 1 Sam 21:6): which the Lord himself also recalled in the Gospel (See Matt 12:3-4), so that by those who can understand he might be recognized as having been prefigured in David. For Mary herself too drew her origin not only from royal but also from priestly line. And from the royal line it is manifest; for which reason the Apostle says of the Lord himself: Who was made for him of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom 1:3). For although Joseph is called his father by the effect of love, yet he was not born of his seed, as is declared in the Gospel (See Matt 1:18-20). It remains, then, that Christ is said to be of the seed of David on account of Mary, because she was of the seed of David, that is, of the royal line. But how do we find also the priestly line in Mary? It is written in the Gospel that the priest Zechariah had as wife Elizabeth of the daughters of Aaron (See Luke 1:5). Therefore Elizabeth was of the priestly line: for Aaron, the brother of Moses, was a priest, and that whole tribe is Levi. But it is said in the Gospel to the virgin Mary by the angel: Your kinswoman Elizabeth (Luke 1:36). If, then, Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Aaron the priest, was kin to Mary, there is no doubt that the virgin Mary belonged not only to royal but also to priestly blood. Wherefore there is in the Lord, according to the man whom he took up, both persons, the royal and the priestly: the royal, leading us to every imitation of spiritual warfare, until he puts his enemies under his feet (1 Cor 15:25), and the last enemy, death, will be destroyed (1 Cor 15:26) — for our king himself too was tempted by our enemy (See Matt 4:1), that the soldier might learn to do battle — but the priestly, by which, to expiate and purge our sins, he offered himself a holocaust. Therefore then, in figure, two were anointed: the king and the priest.

51. For this reason too there are two fish with those five barley loaves (See John 6:9). For fish belong to the relish: but relishes are usually seasoned with oil. Two fish, then, with five loaves, that is, with the Old Testament, where the five books of Moses hold the chief place. But with the seven loaves, which are not called barley and now signify the New Testament, a few fish are said to have been (See Matt 15:34), because Christians had now begun to be few, that is, the anointed, out of whom the whole Church throughout the world would be filled. For the five barley loaves signify, covered as it were with little husks, those things which are to be understood spiritually in the Law itself, which, when expounded, the Lord taught the apostles. Whence there, from the remnants of the fragments, twelve baskets are filled (See John 6:13). But the seven loaves signify the sevenfold operation of the Spirit in the New Testament, as John too says in the Apocalypse (See Rev 1:4). For the seven spirits are understood to be recalled for the seven spiritual operations, of which Isaiah first had made mention: of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and fortitude, of knowledge and piety, and of the fear of the Lord (Isa 11:2-3). And therefore from those remnants of the fragments seven hampers were filled (See Matt 15:37), by which number the whole Church is signified. Whence also the same apostle John writes to seven churches (See Rev 1:4). And in the epistles of the apostle Paul the same number seven is found, not of epistles, but of churches. And many things in those sacraments, more diligently sought, are more sweetly found. But now I have recalled something from there on account of the anointing of the fish, to show that the royal and priestly person was signified by the two fish then, because two were anointed then, the king and the priest. But from "chrism," that is, from anointing, he is called Christ. But the body of Christ is the Church. And therefore all Christians are anointed, by a sacrament hidden from the rest, but known to the faithful. But the priest alone is the mediator himself, the Head of the Church without sin, through whom is made the purgation of our sins.

52. Whence it comes to my mind to recall, with great grief, that Parmenian, once a bishop of the Donatists, dared in a certain letter of his to set down that a bishop is a mediator between the people and God. You see that they set themselves up in place of the bridegroom: with sacrilegious adultery they corrupt souls not their own. This is no slight audacity, and it would seem to me altogether incredible, had I not read it. For if a bishop is a mediator between the people and God, since there are many bishops, it follows that many mediators are to be understood. So that the letter of Parmenian may be read, let the letter of the apostle Paul be deleted, who says: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5). But between whom is a mediator, except between God and his people? Therefore between God and his body, since his body is the Church. So that pride is monstrous which dares to constitute a bishop a mediator, claiming for itself the marriage of Christ by adulterous deceit. Let us look at the friend of the bridegroom, zealous for the bridegroom, not setting himself up in place of the bridegroom. Does he say: "I have betrothed you to myself"? He can say this who says he is a mediator between the people and God, not this one who says: Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor 1:13); not this one who says: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5); not this one who says: I have betrothed you, to present you to one husband as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor 11:2). And therefore that adulterer, who did not have the wedding garment, was cast out of the wedding feast (See Matt 22:11-13): for he did not have the garment in which to honor the bridegroom, but through that attire sought his own honor at the bridegroom's feast.

53. Therefore we have one mediator, brothers, who is also our Head. But we, in the name of Christ, even if we are not set over the Churches together with you, are yet together with you members of the body of Christ: we have one Head, not many; for a body that wants to have many heads is now a monster. But we were speaking of anointing, because then the priest alone was anointed, and the king, but now all Christians. Hence see that you all belong to the body of the priest along with us, that is, because you are all faithful; yet especially are those called priests who are set over the Church, but not for that reason is the rest of the body not the body of the priest. And therefore in those old sacraments, because that one was prefigured, that is, our Lord the priest Jesus Christ, one priest entered into the holy of holies; but all the people stood outside. Are you now, while the bishops stand at the altar, outside, and do you not within see and hear and bear witness and receive? Then one priest entered into the holy of holies once a year. "Year" signifies the whole of time. Once, then, in the whole of time, our one priest, rising from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ, entered into the holy of holies, not figured but true, beyond the veils of the heavens, offering himself for us. He entered, and is there. But the people still stand outside with us: we have not yet risen to go to meet Christ and to remain forever within with him, when he will say to the good servant: Enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21). This, then, was prefigured then by the one priest alone entering into the holy of holies, and the people standing outside, which is now fulfilled by our Lord Jesus Christ alone entering above the secret places of the heavens, and the people still groaning outside, made safe by hope, awaiting the redemption of its body, which will be in the resurrection of the dead. But yet we have a priest and pontiff who intercedes for us in the holy of holies, sitting at the right hand of the Father, that we may not fear in this our pilgrimage, if we do not stray from the way of truth, if we do not love another in place of him, but love one another in him, so that in every brother of ours walking in his ways we may behold him, honor him, receive him, who was handed over for our trespasses and rose for our justification (Rom 4:25); because he himself speaks in his saints, as the Apostle says: Do you wish to receive proof of Christ who speaks in me? (2 Cor 13:3) And although he says, Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:7), not because he wished himself, but because he wished him to be loved in himself, he bears witness to certain ones, saying: You received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus (Gal 4:14). In all his saints, then, he himself is to be loved, because he says: I was hungry, and you gave me to eat (Matt 25:35). For he does not say: "You gave them," but: You gave me; so great is the love of the Head toward his body!

54. And so, because the mediator and priest himself alone entered into the holy of holies, but the Church — which is his body — still, as we said, groans outside in tearful prayers and laborious works, we do not find in the old books that a priest commended himself to the people, that prayer be made for him, because he figured our Lord Jesus Christ, for whom no one prays. For of whom was the priest a figure, for whom no one prayed, except of our Lord Jesus Christ, who intercedes for us (Rom 8:34) and does not need our prayers for himself? Which he himself deigned to figure even on this earth, when he prayed alone on the mountain, while the disciples in the little boat were tossed by storms (See Matt 14:23-24). And we too, as in a ship, in the Church are tossed by the storms of this age; but because he, as then on the mountain, so now in the heights of the heavens, intercedes for us, let us be secure.

55. The apostle John also says: I write these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: he is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1-2). See who John is? He who reclined on the breast of the Lord and drank from that breast at that feast what he might belch forth among the peoples: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Did that John, then, say: "And if anyone has sinned, you have me with the Father: I pray for you"? See who says what. For not only did he not say this, but even if he said: "And if anyone has sinned, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: he is the propitiation for your sins," he might perhaps seem proud and arrogant. He did not say this. And if he did not say this, with how great pride would he say: "You have me as an advocate with the Father!", with how much more monstrous a sacrilege would he say: "You have me as a mediator with the Father!", so as to wish to interpose himself between sinners and God! And this these men neither fear nor blush to say, that a bishop is a mediator between God and men. Plainly he is a mediator, but on the side of Donatus, to shut off, not to lead through, as Donatus did: for he interposed his own name, to shut off the way to Christ. For from there they are unwilling to come to the Church, because Donatus shut it off, because... through a whitewashed wall: for it is earthly, but not by the Christian religion. He whitewashed it to deceive ... and those coming all the way to him could not pass over to Christ, that is, to the body of Christ which is the Church spread throughout the whole world. Behold how he made himself a mediator, how that proud angel too does, of whom we have already said much. But attend to that saying of John: I write these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). He would not say we have, except because he knew himself well and humbly commended himself. And he is, he says, the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2). He did not say "your," as though making himself alien from sins. For if he said this, there would be recited to him his own saying in another place: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).

56. And so, brothers, give effort that you may not sin, strive mightily that you may not sin. But if anyone has sinned, he will expiate us who is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2). Avoid all those evils through which the name of God is blasphemed (See Rom 2:24), so that, in your good conduct, it may be to the glory of the name of Christ that others are to be won. Avoid most of all those things which can separate you from the altar of God. But those sins which daily creep in through the custom of daily life, and, as from the waves of the sea of this age, through a certain weakness of ours cease not to steal in, bail out with good works, lest you suffer shipwreck. Let those daily wounds be healed by the daily medicines of alms, fasts, prayers. Be fervent in all these good works, and neither show to men what you do for the sake of your own glory, nor avoid the eyes of those wishing to imitate you, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt 5:16). Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31), that he, the humble and exalted one, may make us exalted out of the humble. For so our alms will reach him who for our sake became poor, though he was rich (2 Cor 8:9), as our fasts will reach him who for our sake fasted; so our prayers will reach him, even when in them we truly ask that our debts be forgiven us, as we too forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12), as he too forgave his debtors, hanging on the cross and saying: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Let him be blessed, who gave you to be able to do what you do. For if you attribute to yourselves and claim for yourselves your good works, so that in the very sacrifices of humility pride puffs you up, you will give place to that false mediator, that he may interpose himself and shut off the way to you. For he seeks all approaches and, through the good works themselves, tries to creep in by serpentine slidings. And if he finds a man as it were working well and attributing to himself what he does, and by a certain swelling lifting himself above one who does not, he sets himself before him at once, to deceive him in place of a mediator.

57. But as I had begun to say, we do not find any priest in the old books commending himself to the people, that it might pray for him, because they figured the one for whom no one was going to pray, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the one mediator and priest, not figured but true. But the apostle Paul, who knew himself to be of the body of the priest along with the other members, commends himself to the prayers of the Church, because the members are anxious for one another; and if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together, and if one member suffers, all the members suffer together (1 Cor 12:25-26). The Head intercedes for all the members; let the members intercede for one another under the Head. What, then, does the Apostle say? Praying, he says, also for us at the same time, that God may open to us a door of the word (Col 4:3). And the Church prayed for Peter when Peter was in chains (See Acts 12:5), and was heard, as Peter too prayed for the Church, because the members pray for one another. These men do not call themselves mediators and pray for those by whom they wish to be prayed for, while those call themselves mediators, who, if they took themselves out of the middle, the two would become one, which a wicked pride has divided. Far be it, then, from the hearts of Christians what is shown in the pride of heretics! As we have said to your Charity, that first priesthood bore a certain figure: now what was then figured is fulfilled. We have a mediator and pontiff: he ascended into heaven, he entered within the veil, into that true, not figured, holy of holies. The sacrament of this is celebrated in the Church: within you pray with us, to the words of the bishop you answer "Amen." For so the people, as it were, subscribes, because all belong to the body of the priest. Let no one, then, as it is wont to be said, sell you smoke: we have one mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ; he is our prayer, he is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2); securely let us hold to him.

58. For you see, brothers — that we may now return to what I was saying against the pagans — how you are fortified, that you may not only not be overcome by them, but — as much as can be done through you — may, by convincing them, win them to salvation and pray and fast for them, that they may know God and honor him as he is to be honored, not as the Apostle says of certain ones: that, when they had known God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened (Rom 1:21), so that they sought a superstitious and sacrilegious defilement under the name of purgation. For wishing to cleave to that thing which always is, which is always of the same kind, remains unchangeable, which by some sharpness of genius they were able to attain, but with a humble heart were unwilling to honor, they fell into that false mediator, envying the human soul and trying by all means lest it pass from the labors in which he rules to the rest where it would be more sublime than he, to whom belong all sacrilegious rites and the contrivances of the most deceitful iniquity of astrologers, soothsayers, diviners, Chaldeans.

59. But you, my brothers, who perhaps do not see with the keen edge of the mind what they saw, and are not yet fit to transcend in the thought of the mind the whole creature, not only the corporeal but also the spiritual, and to see the unchangeable God, from whom and through whom and in whom are all things (See Rom 11:36), do not be alarmed, do not despair, because he who willed to descend even to the lowest and the weak made himself the way for you. For what does it profit them that, proud, they see the homeland from afar? They do not find the way, since to that height of the homeland the way begins from humility. They see the homeland as it were from the mountain of pride, they see it from the contrary mountain. But no one ascends to it unless he first descends. They are unwilling to descend, that they may be able to ascend, that is, they are unwilling to be humble, that they may be able to be Christians. When they say to themselves: "And am I to be this, which my doorkeeper is, and not rather what Plato was, what Pythagoras?", with reckless mouth blowing out empty things, they are unwilling to descend, they cannot ascend. For our Lord descended to us from the height of his majesty, and these men are unwilling to descend to him from the swelling of their pride. He descended, then, that he might choose the weak things of the world to confound the strong, and the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the ignoble things of the world and the contemptible he chose, and the things that are not, as though they were, that he might bring to nothing the things that are (1 Cor 1:27-28).

60. For for this reason he willed to become man, that God made man might teach humility, not by changing himself into man, but by taking up man. To this humility it would seem that nothing could be added, and yet even in human things he did not choose those of which men are swollen. For he willed to be born of a woman who was betrothed to a carpenter, lest anyone should boast against the righteousness of the poor and ignoble man about the nobility of his parents and be incurably puffed up. He did not even choose a noble city in which to be born — Bethlehem is of few men: he was indeed from there himself, of the tribe of David. Yet in that tribe, as in the rest, there were many poor and ignoble. And David himself, of whose seed the Lord Jesus Christ was made according to the flesh, did he not pasture sheep, before he was divinely chosen for the kingdom (See 1 Sam 16:11-13)? For even in him he had chosen the ignoble things of the world, that the noble might be confounded (See 1 Cor 1:28), and in him too was prefigured what would be fulfilled through his seed. He chose, then, also a humble line, from which to be born. But perhaps someone may say: "Even if he himself was born in humility, he wished to boast in the nobility of his disciples." He did not choose kings, or senators, or philosophers, or orators. Rather, he chose common folk, the poor, the unlearned, fishermen. Peter a fisherman, Cyprian an orator. Unless the fisherman had gone faithfully before, the orator would not have approached humbly. Let no one cast down despair of himself: let him only hold to Christ, and his hope will not be false.

61. For those who from afar, as I had begun to say, and from the contrary mountain of pride, see the homeland, spurn humility: therefore they do not hold to the way. For our way is humility. This Christ showed in himself. If anyone strays from this way, he will run into a mountain tangled and inextricable, interposing itself, into the devil interposing himself as a mediator perniciously and fallaciously through innumerable sacrilegious rites, through soothsayers, augurs, diviners, astrologers, magicians. For those given over to these do not descend to the way, but err on a certain wooded mountain, from which some of them lift up their eyes and see the homeland, but cannot come to it, because they do not hold to the way. But those who now hold to the way, that is, the true and truthful mediator, the mediator who leads through and does not shut off, the mediator who purges and does not entangle, walk perseveringly in what they hold. For some of them see the homeland, some of them do not see it. But let those not yet seeing the homeland not withdraw from the way, and they will come there where those also who see. For the keenness of the eyes is in some such that they can see from afar. To these it profits nothing to see where they go and not know by what road they proceed. But if they have come to know the way, it profits them not so much that they see from afar where they are to come, as that they have come to know whither they are tending. But those who have not such keenness, if they walk together, will come together. He of you, then, who can transcend the whole creature in mind and see the ineffable light of wisdom, when he sees it will see that it cannot be told, and will see that all things that have been said of it are unworthy of its greatness, although they are fitted to the little ones, who are nourished for this, that they may hear as it can be told, until they hear what cannot be told. But those who cannot transcend the creature and see the ineffable truth, let them hold to the mediator, whom, unless even those also hold who now see something unchangeable, they surely see in vain. In him we have the corporeal creature, which he took up even in flesh; in him also the spiritual creature, because there is the soul, there is the rational mind; in him the very Word through whom all things were made, because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Holding to this way, let us not stray from it, lest we run into false mediators who promise us purgation and bring in hindrances.

62. For he alone is the mediator, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3), who is the head of all principality and power (Col 2:10); through that which we hold, he leads us through to that which we ought to hold. For nothing so holds a man as human affection. Therefore he, God and man, through that which we hold, carries us across to that which is to be held. For, lest a man should think that the Word of God, through whom all things were made, is far from human nature ... but is near to the heavenly or supercelestial virtues, and therefore should wish those very virtues to become his mediatrices and cleansers unto that Word, and so through pride and vain curiosity should fall into the aerial powers which deceive and beguile the senses of human weakness with various and manifold errors, envying its passage to God and desiring to rule over the captured: therefore the Word itself through whom all things were made was made flesh (John 1:14), that is, joined to itself even a fleshly nature from man, that thus man might learn that it is not far from his own nature, which he thought drew near to the heavenly things alone, and, purged through the known middle thing, might cleave to the unchangeable divinity. For this reason he deigned to do both earthly and heavenly miracles, to show that even those things were subject to him, by which men could be terrified in lying signs and wonders (See 2 Thess 2:9). He showed also that every spiritual power either fears Christ or loves Christ, so that what fears Christ may not be feared by a Christian, but what loves Christ may be loved in Christ.

63. Wherefore, dearest brothers, let not men frighten you on this score either, because they say that these powers of the elements, on account of the necessities of this life and on account of the temporal things that are necessary for our uses, must be appeased and honored with their rites: neither do they have any power in these things, except as much as they are permitted from above. Remember that holy Job could not be proved by such great temptations, unless the tempter received the power from the Lord God (See Job 1:12; 2:6). And attend to the Apostle saying: God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you may be able to endure (1 Cor 10:13). Attend also to those who presume on such things and bind the souls of the light to the sacrilegious sacraments of demons and to magic arts, how they lose their salvation for nothing. For they do not fail to suffer the things that other men suffer, or even suffer worse, with the torment of a bad conscience: losses, diseases, condemnations, deaths, for the most part from the common scourge of the human race, for the most part also for their very deeds. See whether those who worship Neptune sail more happily than those who do not worship him; whether those who are bound to the temple of Tellus have more fruitful fields than those who are held by no such superstition; whether women who worship Juno give birth with less pain or peril than Christian women who detest her; whether those who worship Mercury are sharper than those who deride such figments, or, because he is also said to be the god of merchandise, whether those who sacrifice to him make more profits than those who contaminate themselves with no such sacrilege. And so, through all these temporal advantages, lead the prudent eye of the mind: you will find all things governed under the most high power of God, serving whom alone the Christian, and holding to the way, his mediator, does not care for the deceitful enticements and terrors of vanity, giving honor to the truest God, whether his temperance be proved by the prosperities of temporal things or his fortitude by adversities, because God is faithful, who does not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear, but makes with the temptation also a way of escape, that we may be able to endure (1 Cor 10:13), consoling us in all things and filling us with the joy of a good hope, until he leads us where the way leads, which he deigned to offer to our weakness. Turning to the Lord, and so on.
Here ends the treatise of Saint Augustine, delivered on the Kalends of January against the pagans, concerning the false mediator the devil and the true mediator Christ.

Sermon 199
On the Epiphany of the Lord

1. 1. Recently we celebrated the day on which the Lord was born of the Jews: today we celebrate the day on which he was adored by the Gentiles. For salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22): but this salvation reaches to the ends of the earth (See Acts 13:47). For on that day the shepherds adored, today the Magi. To the former the angels, to the latter the star, announced it. Both learned from heaven, when they saw the King of heaven on earth, that there might be glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14). For he himself is our peace, who made the two one (Eph 2:14). Now from here the infant, born and announced, is shown to be that cornerstone (See Eph 2:20); now in the very first beginning of his nativity he appeared. He began already to join two walls to himself from different directions, leading the shepherds from Judea, the Magi from the East: that he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace; peace for those who were far off, and peace for those who were near (Eph 2:15,17). And therefore the former, drawing near from close by on that very day, the latter, coming today from afar, marked out two days to be celebrated by posterity, yet both saw one light of the world.

1. 2. But today we must speak of those whom faith led to Christ from distant lands. For they came and sought him, saying: Where is he who is born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the East, and we have come to adore him (Matt 2:2). They announce and inquire, they believe and seek; as though signifying those who walk by faith and long for the sight (See 2 Cor 5:7). Had not other kings of the Jews already been born so many times in Judea? What is it, that this one is recognized by foreigners in heaven, sought on earth; gleams on high, lies hidden in the lowly? In the East the Magi see the star, and understand that a king is born in Judea. Who is this king so small, so great; not yet speaking on earth, already publishing edicts in heaven? Yet for our sake, to whom he willed to become known from his holy Scriptures, he willed even those very Magi, to whom he had given so clear a sign in heaven, and to whose hearts he had revealed that he was born in Judea, to believe nonetheless concerning himself from his prophets. For in seeking the city in which he was born, whom they desired to see and adore, they had to inquire of the chief men of the Jews; so that those, from the holy Scripture which they bore in the mouth, not in the heart, unbelieving, might answer the believing about the grace of faith, liars on their own behalf, truthful against themselves. For how great a thing would it have been, that they should become companions to those seeking Christ, when they had heard from them that, his star being seen, they came desiring to adore him; that they themselves should lead them to Bethlehem of Judah, which they had indicated from the divine Books, see together, understand together, adore together? But now, having pointed out to others the fountain of life, they themselves died of drought. They became to them like the stones at the milestones: to travelers walking they showed something, but they themselves remained stolid and immovable. The Magi sought, that they might find: Herod sought, that he might destroy: the Jews read the city of the one being born, did not understand the time of the one coming. Between the pious love of the Magi and the cruel fear of Herod, they vanished, pointing out Bethlehem: but the Christ who was born there, not then sought but seen later, they would deny, and would slay not then the infant but later the one speaking. Happier rather is the ignorance of the infants whom the terrified Herod persecuted, than the knowledge of these whom, disturbed, he consulted. The former could suffer for Christ, whom they could not yet confess: the latter did not follow the truth of the one teaching, whose city, when he was born, they could know.

2. 3. The Magi, indeed, that star led to the very place itself where God the Word was an infant. Here now let sacrilegious folly blush, and a certain, so to speak, unlearned learning, which thinks Christ was born under the decree of the stars, because it is written in the Gospel that, when he was born, the Magi saw his star in the East (See Matt 2:2). Which would not be true, even if men were born under such a decree: because they are born not by their own will, as the Son of God, but by the condition of mortal nature. But now it is so far from the truth that Christ was born under a starry fate, that whoever rightly believes in Christ believes that no man is born thus. But let vain men say of the births of men what they foolishly opine, let them deny the will by which they sin, let them feign the necessity by which they defend their sins; let them try to fix even in heaven their ruined morals, through which they are detested by men on earth, and lie that these flow from the stars: yet let each one of them see how he thinks that not his life, but his household, must be ruled by some power of his own; since, holding such opinions, he is not allowed to beat his servants sinning in his house, unless he is first compelled to blaspheme his gods shining in heaven. Yet these men cannot, even according to their most empty conjectures and their books, not indeed prophetic, but plainly lying, think that Christ was born under the decree of the stars, because, when he was born, the Magi saw his star in the East. For hence rather Christ appeared not under its dominion, but as its Lord: because that star did not hold sidereal paths in heaven, but to men seeking Christ pointed out the way as far as the place in which he had been born. Whence it did not make Christ live wondrously, but Christ made it appear wondrously; nor did it decree Christ's wonders, but Christ displayed it among his wonders. For he himself, born of a mother, showed a new star from heaven to earth, who, born of the Father, formed heaven and earth. At his birth a new light was revealed in a star, at his death the ancient light was veiled in the sun. At his birth the things above shone with new honor, at his death the things below trembled with new fear, at his rising the disciples blazed with new love, at his ascending the heavens opened with new homage. Let us therefore celebrate with devout solemnity this day too, on which the Magi from the Gentiles adored the recognized Christ, just as we celebrated that day on which the shepherds from Judea saw the newborn Christ. For the Lord our God himself chose the apostles as shepherds from Judea, through whom he would gather to be saved sinners even from the Gentiles.

Sermon 200
On the Epiphany of the Lord

1. 1. To adore the childbearing of the Virgin, the Magi came from the East. This day we celebrate today, to it we pay the solemnity and sermon that are due. To them this day first shone forth, to us it has returned in a yearly festival. They were the firstfruits of the Gentiles, we the people of the Gentiles. To us the tongue of the apostles announced this, to them the star as it were the tongue of the heavens: and to us the same apostles, as it were the heavens, declared the glory of God (See Ps 19:1 (18:2)). For why should we not recognize as heavens those who were made the seats of God? as it is written: The soul of the righteous is the seat of wisdom (See Wis 7:27). For through these heavens that maker and dweller of the heavens thundered, by which thunder the world trembled, and behold, now it believes. A great sacrament. He lay then in a manger, and led the Magi from the East. He was hidden in a stable, and recognized in heaven; that, recognized in heaven, he might be made manifest in the stable, and this day be called "Epiphany," which in Latin can be called "manifestation": commending at once his loftiness and his humility, that he who was shown in the open heaven by sidereal signs, sought in a narrow lodging, might be found; weak in infant limbs, wrapped in infant swaddling clothes, might be adored by the Magi, feared by the wicked.

1. 2. For King Herod feared him, when those same Magi announced it to him, while they were still seeking the little child whom they knew, with heaven as witness, to be already born. What will the tribunal of the one who judges be, when the cradle of an infant terrified proud kings? when now more wisely kings seek not, as Herod, to kill him, but rather, as the Magi, delight to adore him, especially now that he, even the death itself which the enemy desired to inflict, endured, even for those very enemies, from his enemies, and, being slain, slew it in his own body. Let kings now piously fear him as he sits at the right hand of the Father, whom that impious king feared while he still suckled at his mother's breasts. Let them hear what is written: And now, you kings, understand; be instructed, you who judge the earth: serve the Lord in fear, and exult in him with trembling (Ps 2:10-11). For that king, the avenger of impious kings and the ruler of the pious, was not born as kings are born in the world; for he too was born whose kingdom is not of this world (See John 18:36). There was nobility in his being born, in the virginity of her who bore him; and nobility in her who bore him, in the divinity of him who was born. In short, when so many kings of the Jews had already been born and had died, the Magi never sought to adore any of them: because they learned of none of them by the speech of heaven.

2. 3. Yet, which must not be passed over, this enlightenment of the Magi stood as a great testimony to the blindness of the Jews. In their land these men sought the one whom those did not recognize in their own. Among them these men found the infant whom those denied among themselves as he taught. In these lands these pilgrims from afar adored the child Christ not yet bringing forth words, where those, his fellow citizens, crucified the young man working miracles. These men recognized God in small limbs; those did not spare him even as a man in great deeds: as though it were more to see a new star gleaming at his nativity than his sun mourning at his death. But now, that the same star which led the Magi to the place where God the infant was with his virgin mother — which surely could have led them even to the city itself — yet withdrew itself, and did not appear to them at all, until the Jews themselves were questioned about the city in which Christ would be born, so that they themselves should name it according to the testimony of the divine Scripture, they themselves should say: In Bethlehem of Judah. For so it is written: And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of you will come forth a leader who will rule my people Israel (Matt 2:5-6) — what else did divine providence signify here, except that among the Jews there would remain only the divine writings, by which the Gentiles would be instructed, they themselves blinded; which they would carry not to the aid of their own salvation, but to the testimony of ours? For today, when we bring forth the prophecies foretold about Christ, now made clear by the light of accomplished facts, if perhaps the pagans, whom we wish to win, say that these things were not foretold so long before, but composed by us after the event, so that what has been done might be thought prophesied: we recite the books of the Jews, that the doubt of the pagans may be removed: who were already figured in those Magi, whom the Jews instructed, from the divine oracles, about the city in which Christ was born, and yet themselves neither sought him nor recognized him.

3. 4. Now therefore, dearest ones, sons and heirs of grace, see your calling (1 Cor 1:26), and, Christ being made manifest to Jews and Gentiles as a cornerstone, cleave to him with most persevering love. For he was made manifest in the very cradle of his infancy to those who were near and to those who were far off (See Eph 2:17); to the Jews in the nearness of the shepherds, to the Gentiles in the distance of the Magi. The former are believed to have come to him on the very day on which he was born, the latter today. He was made manifest, then, neither to the learned nor to the righteous. For unskillfulness prevails in the rusticity of the shepherds, and impiety in the sacrileges of the Magi. Both that cornerstone joined to himself: for he came to choose the foolish things of the world, that he might confound the wise (See 1 Cor 1:27); and to call not the righteous, but sinners (See Matt 9:13); that no great one might be proud, no lowly one despair. Whence the scribes and Pharisees, while they seem to themselves too learned and too righteous, of whose being born they pointed out the city by reciting the prophetic oracles, rejected him, building. But because he was made the head of the corner (Ps 118:22 (117:22)), and what he showed in being born he fulfilled in suffering: to him let us cleave, with the other wall, having the remnants of Israel, which by the election of grace have been saved (See Rom 11:5). For those shepherds prefigured them to be joined from close by, that we too, whose calling from afar the coming of the Magi signified, may now no longer be pilgrims and strangers, but remain citizens of the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone (See Eph 2:19-20): who made the two one, that in one we may love unity, and may have an untiring love for gathering the branches which, grafted even from the wild olive, by pride broken off, became heretics, since God is able to graft them in again (See Rom 11:23-24).

Sermon 201
On the Epiphany of the Lord

1. A very few days ago we celebrated the birthday of the Lord: but today we celebrate, with no less due solemnity, the manifestation by which he began to be made manifest to the Gentiles. On that day the Jewish shepherds saw him born: today the Magi, coming from the East, adored him. For that cornerstone had been born, the peace of two walls from the circumcision and the uncircumcision, not from a small diversity of those coming; that they might be joined in him who was made our peace, and made the two one (See Eph 2:14). This was foreshadowed in the shepherds of the Jews and the Magi of the Gentiles. From there began what would bear fruit and grow in the whole world. So let us hold these two days, of the Nativity and the Manifestation of our Lord, most dear with spiritual joy. The Jewish shepherds were led to him by the angel's announcing, the Gentile Magi by the star's pointing. This star confounded the empty calculations and divinations of the astrologers, when to the worshipers of the stars it pointed out the Creator of heaven and earth as rather to be adored. For he himself, being born, declared a new star, who, being slain, darkened the ancient sun (See Matt 27:45). By that light the faith of the Gentiles was begun; by that darkness the faithlessness of the Jews was accused. What was that star, which neither ever before appeared among the constellations, nor afterward remained to be pointed out? What was it, except a magnificent tongue of heaven, which would declare the glory of God (See Ps 19:1 (18:2)), which would proclaim the unwonted childbearing of a virgin with an unwonted brightness, to which, afterward not appearing, the Gospel would succeed throughout the whole world? What, finally, did the Magi say in coming? Where is he who is born king of the Jews? What is this? Had not so many kings of the Jews been born before? Why did they so greatly desire to know and adore a king of a foreign nation? For we saw, they say, his star in the East, and we have come to adore him (Matt 2:2). Would they have sought him with such devotion, longed for him with so great an affection of piety, unless they recognized him as the king of the Jews, who is also the king of the ages?

2. Hence Pilate too was surely breathed upon by some breeze of truth, when in his passion he wrote the title: King of the Jews: which the Jews tried to correct as faulty. To them he answered: What I have written, I have written (John 19:22): because it was foretold in the Psalm: Do not corrupt the inscription of the title (See Ps 57 (56) title). So let us mark this great and wonderful sacrament. The Magi were of the Gentiles, Pilate himself too was of the Gentiles: those saw a star in heaven, he wrote a title on wood: yet both sought or recognized not a king of the Gentiles, but of the Jews. But the Jews themselves neither followed the star nor consented to the title. So now there was foreshadowed what the Lord himself afterward said: Many will come from the East and the West, and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven: but the sons of the kingdom will go into the outer darkness (Matt 8:11-12). For the Magi had come from the East, Pilate from the West. Whence the former bore witness to the rising, that is, the being born, the latter to the setting, that is, the dying, of the king of the Jews: that with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, from whom the Jews drew their origin, they might recline in the kingdom of heaven; not propagated from them through the flesh, but grafted into them through faith: so that he of whom the Apostle speaks, the wild olive to be grafted into the olive, was already foreshown. For this reason indeed, not a king of the Gentiles, but of the Jews, was sought or recognized by those same Gentiles; because the wild olive came to the olive, the olive did not come to the wild olive. Yet the branches to be broken off, that is, the unbelieving Jews, both answered the Magi inquiring where Christ would be born: In Bethlehem of Judah (Matt 2:5); and, when Pilate reproached them for wishing their king to be crucified, they raged most stubbornly. And so the Magi adored, the Jews pointing out the place of Christ's being born; because in the Scripture which the Jews received, we come to know Christ. Pilate, of the Gentiles, washed his hands, the Jews demanding the death of Christ (See Matt 27:24); because with the blood which the Jews shed, we wash away our sins. But of Pilate's testimony through the title, in which he wrote that Christ is the king of the Jews, there is another place for discussing it: which is the time of the passion.

3. But now, as far as concerns the manifestation of the newborn Christ, of whose day of manifestation, which by a Greek word is named Epiphany, by which he began to be made manifest to the Gentiles when the Magi adored him, let us say the few things that remain. For again and again it is a delight to consider how, when the Magi inquired where Christ would be born, the Jews answered: In Bethlehem of Judah (Matt 2:5); and yet they themselves did not come to him, but, as they departed, the same star led the Magi to that place in which the infant was; that it might be shown that it could point out the city too, but for this had withdrawn itself a little, that the Jews might be questioned. For the Jews were questioned for this, that it might be shown that they carry the divine testimonies not to their own salvation and recognition, but to that of the Gentiles. For on this account that nation was driven from its kingdom and dispersed through the lands, that it might everywhere be compelled to become a witness of the faith of which it is the enemy. For, the temple, sacrifice, priesthood, and kingdom itself being lost, in a few old sacraments they keep their name and race; lest, mingled with the nations without distinction, they perish, and lose the testimony of truth: as Cain received a sign, that no one might kill him, who, envious and proud, killed his righteous brother (See Gen 4:8,15). This, no doubt, can also be not unfittingly understood in the fifty-eighth psalm, where Christ speaks from the person of his body and says: My God showed me concerning my enemies, Do not slay them, lest at some time they forget your law (Ps 59:11,10 (58:12,11)). For in those enemies of the Christian faith it is shown to the Gentiles how Christ was prophesied: lest perhaps, when they had seen the prophecies fulfilled with so great a manifestation, they should think those Scriptures composed by the Christians, when the things foretold about Christ are recited, which are seen to be fulfilled. So the books are brought forth by the Jews, and thus God shows us concerning our enemies; whom for this reason he does not slay, that is, does not utterly destroy from the lands, lest they forget that law: which, by reading and by observing certain parts of it, however carnally, they remember, so that they take judgment for themselves and provide testimony for us.

Sermon 202
On the Epiphany of the Lord

1. 1. What this day's solemnity, known throughout the whole world, brings us of festivity, or what it commemorates in its yearly recurrence, the season admonishes us to tell also in a yearly sermon. "Epiphany," in Greek, in Latin can be called "manifestation." For on this day the Magi are reported to have adored the Lord; admonished, namely, by the appearing of the star, and led by it going before. For on that day on which he was born, they saw the star in the East; and they recognized whose birth it had indicated. From that day, then, to this day they hastened, terrified King Herod with the news, and, the Jews answering from the prophetic Scripture, found Bethlehem, the city where the Lord had been born. Then, the same star leading, they came to the Lord himself, adored him when pointed out; offered gold, frankincense, and myrrh; returned by another way (See Matt 2:1-12). The Lord was indeed made manifest also on the very day of his nativity to the shepherds, admonished by the angel; on which day too, through the star, he was announced to those far off in the East: but on this day he was adored by them. The whole Church of the Gentiles, then, most devoutly took up this day to be celebrated: for what were those Magi too, except the firstfruits of the Gentiles? The shepherds Israelites, the Magi Gentiles: the former near, the latter far: yet both ran together to the cornerstone (See Eph 2:20). For coming, as the Apostle says, he announced peace to us who were far off, and peace to those who were near. For he himself is our peace, who made the two one, and created the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and reconciled both in one body to God, slaying the enmities in himself (Eph 2:17,14-16).

2. 2. Rightly have the Donatist heretics never willed to celebrate this day with us: because they neither love unity, nor are in communion with the Eastern Church, where that star appeared. But let us celebrate the manifestation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by which he tasted the firstfruits of the Gentiles, in the unity of the Gentiles. For then the child, before he knew how to call upon father or mother, as had been prophesied of him, received the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria (Isa 8:4): that is, before he brought forth human words through human flesh, he received the power of Damascus, that, namely, on which Damascus presumed. For in riches that city, flourishing according to the world, had once presumed. But in riches the chief place is given to gold, which the Magi suppliantly offered to Christ. But the spoils of Samaria were those very ones who inhabited it. For Samaria is put for idolatry. For there the people of Israel, turned away from the Lord, were turned to the worshiping of idols. About to war down, namely, the kingdom of the devil with the spiritual sword throughout the whole world, the child Christ first drew these spoils from the dominion of idolatry, that he might turn the Magi, converted to adore him, away from the pestilence of that superstition, and, not yet speaking in this land through the tongue, might speak from heaven through the star; that both who he was, and whither, and on whose account he had come, he might show not by the voice of the flesh, but by the power of the Word, which was made flesh. For this Word, which in the beginning was God with God, now also made flesh, that it might dwell among us (See John 1:14), had both come to us and remained with the Father; above not deserting the angels, and below gathering men to himself through the angels; and to the heavenly dwellers, according to the Word, it shone with unchangeable truth, and on account of the narrow lodging lay in a manger. By it the star was pointed out in heaven, and it pointed out itself, to be adored, on earth. And yet the infant so powerful, so great, a little one, fled into Egypt, his parents carrying him, on account of the enmities of Herod: thus, not yet by speech, but already by his deeds, his own members speaking, and, silent, saying: If they persecute you in one city, flee to another (Matt 10:23). For he bore mortal flesh, in which he prefigured us, in which he was also, for our sake, going to die at the opportune time. Whence from those Magi he had received not only gold, to be honored, and frankincense, to be adored, but also myrrh, to be buried. Of what kind those would be who were to die for his name, how innocent, how humble, he showed in the little ones whom Herod killed. For by their being two years old he signified also that number of precepts on which the whole Law and the Prophets hang.

3. 3. But now whom does it not make attentive, what it means that to the inquiry of the Magi, where Christ would be born, the Jews answered from Scripture, and themselves did not adore with them? Do we not see this even now, when, out of the very sacraments to which their hardness is subjected, nothing else is shown than Christ, in whom they are unwilling to believe? Do they not, even when they kill the sheep and eat the Passover (See Exod 12:6-8), show Christ to the Gentiles, whom they themselves do not adore with them? For what kind of thing is it, that often, concerning the prophetic testimonies by which Christ was foretold, to certain men who doubt lest perhaps those things were written by Christians, not as still future, but as done, we appeal to the books of the Jews, that we may confirm the minds of the doubters? Do not even then the Jews show to the Gentiles the Christ whom they are unwilling to adore with the Gentiles?

3. 4. We therefore, dearest ones, whose firstfruits those Magi were, we the inheritance of Christ to the ends of the earth, on whose account a partial blindness has happened in Israel, that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter (See Rom 11:25), having come to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who for the sake of consoling us then lay in a narrow lodging, now for the sake of exalting us sits in heaven; let us so announce him in this land, in this region of our flesh, that we may not return by the way we came, nor seek again the traces of our former conduct. For this is what those Magi too did: they did not return by the way they had come (See Matt 2:12). The way changed, the life changed. To us too the heavens have declared the glory of God (See Ps 19:1 (18:2)); and us too the gleaming truth from the Gospel, as a star from heaven, led to adore Christ; we too received with a faithful ear the prophecy celebrated in the Jewish nation, as an indication of the Jews not proceeding with us; we too, recognizing and praising Christ as king and priest and dead for us, have honored him as it were in gold and frankincense and myrrh: it remains that, announcing the gospel of him, we take a new way, and not return by the way we came.

Sermon 203
On the Epiphany of the Lord

1. "Epiphany," a word of the Greek tongue, in Latin can be called "manifestation." On this present day, then, the Redeemer of all nations, made manifest, made a solemnity for all nations. Whose nativity, then, we celebrated a very few days ago, his manifestation we celebrate today. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, born thirteen days ago, is today reported to have been adored by the Magi. That it happened, the truth of the Gospel tells: but on what day it happened, the authority of this so illustrious solemnity everywhere proclaims. For it seemed just — as it truly is just — that, since those Magi were the first of the Gentiles to know Christ the Lord, and, not yet moved by his speech, followed the star appearing to them and visibly speaking for the infant Word, as it were the tongue of heaven (See Matt 2:2), the Gentiles should gratefully recognize the day of the salvation of their firstfruits, and should dedicate it to the Lord Christ with thanksgiving in solemn homage. For the firstfruits of the Jews unto the faith and revelation of Christ appeared in those shepherds, who, on the very day on which he was born, saw him by coming from close by. To the former the angels, to the latter the star, announced it. To the former it was said: Glory to God in the highest (Luke 2:14): in the latter was fulfilled: The heavens declare the glory of God (Ps 19:1 (18:2)). Both indeed, as the beginnings of two walls coming from different directions, of the circumcision and the uncircumcision, ran to the cornerstone: that it might be their peace, making the two one (See Eph 2:14).

2. Yet the former praised God, from the fact that they had seen Christ; but the latter even adored Christ when seen. In the former grace was earlier, in the latter humility was greater. Perhaps, then, those shepherds, being less guilty, exulted more eagerly over salvation: but those Magi, laden with many sins, more humbly sought pardon. This is that humility which the divine Scripture commends more in those who were of the Gentiles than in the Jews. For of the Gentiles was that centurion who, when he had received the Lord in his whole heart, yet said himself unworthy that the Lord should enter his house, and did not want his sick servant to be seen by him, but to be ordered well (See Matt 8:5-10). So inwardly he held present in his heart the one whose presence he honorably recalled from his roof. Finally the Lord said: I have not found such faith in Israel (Matt 8:10). That Canaanite woman too was of the Gentiles, who, when she had heard herself called a dog by the Lord, and unworthy that the bread of the children should be sent to her, asked for the crumbs as a dog: and therefore deserved not to be one, because she did not deny what she had been. For she too heard from the Lord: O woman, great is your faith (Matt 15:28). Humility had made in her great faith; because she had made herself small.

3. The shepherds, then, come from close by to see, and the Magi come from afar to adore. This is the humility by which the wild olive deserved to be grafted into the olive (See Rom 11:17,24), and to bear olives against nature; because it deserved to change nature through grace. For when with this wild olive the whole world ran wild and grew bitter, made fat through the grace of grafting, it shone. For they come from the end of the earth, according to Jeremiah, saying: Truly our fathers worshiped lies (Jer 16:19). And they come not from one part of the world, but, as the Gospel according to Luke says, from the East and the West, from the North and the South (Luke 13:29), to recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. So the whole world, from its four parts, is called to faith by the grace of the Trinity. According to which number, when four is multiplied by three, the apostolic number twelve is consecrated; prefiguring, as it were, the salvation of the whole world from the four parts of the world, in the grace of the Trinity. For this number that dish too signified, which was shown to Peter full of all animals (See Acts 10:11-12), as it were of all nations. For it too, hung from heaven by four lines, was let down three times and taken up (See Acts 10:16); so that four threes make twelve. Therefore perhaps, twelve days being added after the birthday of the Lord, the Magi, the firstfruits of the Gentiles, came to see and adore Christ, and deserved not only to receive their own salvation, but also to signify the salvation of all nations. Let us therefore most devoutly celebrate this day too; and the Lord Jesus, whom those firstfruits of ours adored lying in a lodging, let us adore dwelling in heaven. For they venerated in him as future what we venerate fulfilled. The firstfruits of the Gentiles adored him reaching for his mother's breasts: the nations adore him sitting at the right hand of God the Father.

Sermon 204
On the Epiphany of the Lord

1. A few days ago we celebrated the birthday of the Lord; today we celebrate the Epiphany, which by a Greek word signifies "manifestation," and refers to what the Apostle says: Without doubt great is the sacrament of piety, which was manifested in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16). So both days pertain to the manifestation of Christ. For on that one he was born a man from a human mother, who without beginning was God with the Father; but he was manifested to the flesh in the flesh; because the flesh could not see him as he was in the spirit. And on that day, indeed, which is called his birthday, the Jewish shepherds saw him; but on this present day, which is properly called "Epiphany," that is, "manifestation," the Gentile Magi adored him. To the former the angels announced him, but to the latter the star. The angels inhabit the heavens, and the stars adorn them: to both, then, the heavens declared the glory of God (See Ps 19:1 (18:2)).

2. For to both the cornerstone was born, that, as the Apostle says, he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and reconcile both in one body to God through the cross (Eph 2:15-16). For what is a corner, except the joining of two walls which come from different directions and there in some way find the kiss of peace? For the circumcision and the uncircumcision, that is, the Jews and the Gentiles, were enemies to each other, on account of two things diverse and contrary between them: on the one side the worship of the one true God, on the other of many and false ones. So, since the former were near and the latter far, he brought both to himself, who reconciled both in one body to God, as the same Apostle consequently adds: through the cross, slaying the enmities in himself. And coming he announced peace to you, he says, who were far off, and peace to those who were near; because through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph 2:16-18). See whether the Lord Jesus did not point out both the two walls, coming from the diversity of enmities, and the cornerstone, to whom both drew near from different directions, in whom both agreed, that is, both those of the Jews and those of the Gentiles who believed in him, as though it were said to them: Both you from close by and you from afar, draw near to him, and be enlightened, and your faces will not blush (Ps 34:5 (33:6)). For it is written: Behold, I lay in Zion a cornerstone, chosen, precious; and he who believes in him will not be confounded (1 Pet 2:6; Isa 28:16). Those who heard and obeyed, both came from here and from there, held to peace, ended the enmities; the firstfruits of both were the shepherds and the Magi. In them the ox began to know its owner, and the ass its master's manger (See Isa 1:3). From the Jews the horned animal, where the horns of the cross were prepared for Christ; from the Gentiles the long-eared animal, whence it had been foretold: A people whom I did not know served me; in the hearing of the ear it obeyed me (Ps 18:43-44 (17:44-45)). For the owner of the ox and the master of the ass himself lay in a manger, and provided common nourishment for both. Because, then, peace had come to those who were far off and peace to those who were near, the shepherds, the Israelites, as it were found near, on the day on which Christ was born came to him, saw, and exulted; but the Magi, the Gentiles, as it were found far off, so many days being interposed from that on which he was born, today arrived, found, adored. So it behooved us, that is, the Church which is gathered from the Gentiles, to join the celebration of this day, on which Christ was manifested to the firstfruits of the Gentiles, to the celebration of that day on which Christ was born of the Jews, and to keep the memory of so great a sacrament with a twofold solemnity.

3. When these two walls are considered, one of the Jews, the other of the Gentiles, cleaving to the cornerstone, keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (See Eph 4:3), let not the multitude of reprobate Jews offend the mind, among whom were those building, that is, wishing to be teachers of the law, but, as the Apostle says: Understanding neither what they say nor concerning what they affirm (1 Tim 1:7). For through this blindness of mind they rejected the stone, which was made the head of the corner (See Ps 118:22 (117:22)). But it would not have been made the head of the corner, unless to two peoples coming from different directions it offered, by the coupling of grace, a peaceful joining. Let there not be considered, then, in the Israelite wall, the persecutors and killers of Christ, as though building the law and destroying faith, rejecting the cornerstone and constructing ruin for the wretched city. Nor let there be considered there that numerous multitude of Jews scattered through the lands, to the testimony of the divine letters which they everywhere carry without knowing. For in them Jacob limps, whose breadth of thigh was touched and dried up, by which would be signified the multitude of the race limping from his paths (See Gen 32:25,31). But in the holy wall, which from them drew near to the peace of the cornerstone, let there be considered those in whom Jacob was blessed. For the same is both blessed and lame: blessed in the sanctified, lame in the reprobate. Let there be considered in that wall those whose abundance went before and followed the little ass of the Savior, crying: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! (Matt 21:9) Let there be considered those who from there were chosen as disciples and made apostles. Let there be considered Stephen, in the Greek tongue called by the name of "crown," and the first after the Lord's resurrection to be crowned with martyrdom. Let there be considered also, from those very persecutors, so many thousands of believers, when the Holy Spirit came (See Acts 2:41). Let there be considered the churches of which the Apostle says: But I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; only they were hearing that he who once persecuted us now announces the faith which he once devastated; and they glorified God in me (Gal 1:22-24). In this way let the Israelite wall be considered, and joined to the wall coming from the Gentiles, which is now conspicuous; and so the cornerstone, first laid in the manger, raised up to the summit of heaven, the Lord Christ, is found not foretold in vain.

Sermon 204/A
A Sermon on the Epiphany

1. The heavens declaring the glory of God, the star led the Magi to adore Christ (See Ps 19:1 (18:2); Matt 2:2,9-11). These Magi were the firstfruits of the Gentiles. They exhort you to do what they themselves did. Today Christ received gifts (See Matt 2:11); put your hands into your bundles, bring forth from there what may be pleasing to Christ. For he willed to be in want in his poor, and there was no room for him in the lodging (See Luke 2:7), for whom the whole world does not suffice, and he was laid, as you know, in a manger. He was sought, to be adored; he lay hidden, when pointed out. The Jews are asked where Christ is born (See Matt 2:4), they say: In Bethlehem (Matt 2:5). They show where one should go, and do not go. The milestones show the way, are fixed in place. The star appears as the tongue of the heavens, leads the Magi, shows the place (See Matt 2:9). The infancy is not despised, he is adored even when small, because he is understood to be great. The Word of God received gifts, the infant was still silent, and yet he was in the teaching of the angels. He was still silent, about whom the Gospel was to be fulfilled.

2. For the heavens too were afterward to declare his glory (See Ps 19:1 (18:2)); the heavens are the apostles, flashing with miracles, thundering with precepts. For of these it is said: Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Ps 19:4 (18:5)). How could the words be hidden from us which came even to the ends of the earth? They came to us and found and transformed us. The weakness of Christ is our strength, the infancy of Christ is our eloquence, the need of Christ is our abundance, because afterward too the death of Christ became our life. The bread from heaven lay in a manger. If you, the Lord's beasts of burden, are hungry, draw near, carry him in your hearts, and you are his beasts of burden. He himself is your rider, he himself your food. You know that he sat on an ass and led that very ass into Jerusalem (See Matt 21:7). Carry him, he knows where to lead you. Walk securely, you will be in no error under so great a rider; there is a way that leads to the heavenly Jerusalem. It is faith; walk in it, that you may carry Christ, and may be able to come to eternal blessedness.

Sermon 205
In Lent

1. We enter on this present day the observance of Lent, presented in its solemn return: on which our exhortation too is solemnly owed to you; that the word of God, ministered through our office, may feed in the heart those who are about to fast in body; and so that the inner man, refreshed with his own food, may be able to carry out the chastisement of the outer, and to sustain it more robustly. For it befits our devotion that we, who are about to celebrate the passion of the crucified Lord, now drawing near, should make for ourselves too a cross of repressing fleshly pleasures, as the Apostle says: But those who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24). On this cross, indeed, throughout this whole life, which is led amid temptations, the Christian ought perpetually to hang. For in this life there is no time for plucking out the nails, of which it is said in the Psalm: Pierce my flesh with nails by your fear (Ps 119:120 (118:120)). The flesh is the fleshly desires; the nails are the precepts of righteousness: with these the fear of the Lord pierces them, which crucifies us as an acceptable victim to him. Whence the Apostle likewise says: I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God (Rom 12:1). This cross, then, on which the servant of God is not only not confounded, but even glories, saying: But far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal 6:14): this cross, I say, is not of forty days, but of this whole life, which is signified by the mystic number of these forty days; whether because man, who is to lead this life, is formed, as some assert, in forty days in the womb; or because the four Gospels agree with the law of ten, and four tens mark this number, and show us that both Scriptures are necessary for us in this life; or for some other more probable cause, which a better and clearer understanding can find. Whence both Moses and Elijah and the Lord himself fasted forty days: that it might be intimated to us, in Moses and in Elijah and in Christ himself, that is, in the Law and the Prophets and in the Gospel itself, that this is dealt with among us, that we should not be conformed and cling to this age, but should crucify the old man, conducting ourselves not in revelings and drunkennesses, not in beds and shameless acts, not in strife and rivalry; but should put on the Lord Jesus, and make no provision for the flesh in its desires (See Rom 13:13-14). So always live here, Christian: if you do not want to plunge your steps into the earthly mire, do not come down from this cross. But if this must be done throughout this whole life, how much more through these days of Lent, in which this life is not only enacted, but also signified?

2. On the other days, then, let not your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness (See Luke 21:34); but on these days also fast. On the other days, do not touch adulteries, fornications, and all unlawful corruptions: but on these days abstain even from your spouses. What you take from yourself by fasting, add by giving in alms. The time that was occupied in rendering the marriage debt, let it be spent on supplications. The body that was loosened by fleshly affections, let it be prostrated in pure prayers. The hands that were entangled in embraces, let them be stretched out in prayers. But you who fast also on the other days, on these increase what you do. You who on the other days crucify the body with perpetual continence, on these cleave to your God with more frequent and more intent prayers. All of one mind, all faithful faithfully, all sighing in this pilgrimage with longing for the one homeland, and fervent with love. Let no one envy in another, let no one mock, a gift of God which he himself does not have. In spiritual goods, count as your own what you love in a brother: let him count as his own what he loves in you. Let no one, under the appearance of abstinence, strive rather to change than to cut off delights; so as to seek precious foods, because he does not eat meat, and unwonted liquors, because he does not drink wine: lest, under the pretext of as it were taming the flesh, he rather carry on the business of pleasure. To the clean, indeed, all foods are clean (See Titus 1:15): but luxury is clean in nothing.

3. Above all, brothers, fast from quarrels and discords. Remember the prophet reproaching certain ones and crying out: In the days of your fasting your own wills are found, because you goad all who are under your yoke, and strike with fists; your voice is heard in shouting (Isa 58:3-4), and other such things. To these, having recalled them, he added: This is not the fast I have chosen, says the Lord (See Isa 58:5-6). If you wish to shout, frequent that shout of which it is written: With my voice I cried to the Lord (Ps 142:1 (141:2)). For that is not of strife, but of love; not of the flesh, but of the heart. It is not such as that of which it is said: I waited for it to do judgment, but it did iniquity; and not righteousness, but a shout (Isa 5:7). Forgive, and it will be forgiven you; give, and it will be given you (Luke 6:37-38). These are the two wings of prayer, by which it flies to God: if one forgives the one who has offended, and gives to the needy.

Sermon 206
In Lent

1. By the yearly return of Lent the time has come on which our exhortation is owed to you: because you too owe to the Lord your works suited to the time: which yet can be useful not to the Lord, but to you. With prayers, fasts, alms, the other times too ought to be fervent for the Christian: yet this solemnity ought to rouse those who on other days are sluggish in these things; and those who on other days are eager for them ought now to exercise them more fervently. For the time of our humility is the life in this age, which these days signify, with the Lord Christ having suffered for us by dying once, as though about to suffer in the solemnity rolled round every year. For what was done once in the whole of time, that our life might be renewed, is celebrated every year, that it may be called to memory. If, then, with the affection of most true piety, throughout the whole time of this pilgrimage, in which we live amid temptations, we ought to be humble in heart: how much more on these days, in which we not only enact, by living, the very time of our humility, but also signify it, by celebrating? The humility of Christ taught us to be humble, because by dying he yielded to the ungodly: the loftiness of Christ makes us lofty, because by rising he went before the pious. For if we have died with him, says the Apostle, we shall also live with him: if we endure, we shall also reign with him (2 Tim 2:11-12). One of these now, as though his passion drawing near; the other after Easter, as though his resurrection completed, we celebrate with due devotion. For then, after the days of this humility, even the time of our loftiness, though it is not yet free to be enacted by seeing, is yet a delight to signify by premeditating. Now therefore let us groan in prayers more urgently: then we shall be more abundantly gladdened in praises.

2. But to our prayers, that by flying they may more easily reach God, let us add the feathers of piety, alms and fasts. From this the Christian mind understands how far it ought to be removed from the fraud of another's property; when it feels that it is like fraud, if it does not bestow its superfluities on the needy. The Lord says: Give, and it will be given you; forgive, and it will be forgiven you (Luke 6:38,37). These two kinds of alms, of giving and of forgiving, let us perform clemently and fervently, who pray to the Lord that goods may be bestowed on us, and evils not repaid us. Give, he says, and it will be given you. What is truer, what more just, than that he who refuses to give should cheat himself, and not receive? If shamelessly the farmer seeks a harvest where he knows he has not first sent the seed; how much more shamelessly does he seek of God, rich and giving, who was unwilling to hear the poor man asking? For in the poor man he willed to be fed, who does not hunger. Let us not, then, spurn our God in need in the poor, that being needy we may be satisfied in the rich one. We have the needy, and we are in need: let us give, then, that we may receive. Yet what is it that we give? And for this small, visible, temporal, and earthly thing, what is it that we desire to receive? What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9). Unless he himself promised, it would be shameless to give these things and to wish to receive those: and unwilling to give even these: which yet, even these things, we would not have, unless he gave them who exhorts us to give. With what brow, then, do we hope in both for the giver, if in the least things we despise the commander? Forgive, and it will be forgiven you (Luke 6:37). That is, Pardon, and it will be pardoned you. Let fellow servant be reconciled to fellow servant; lest the servant be justly punished by the Lord (See Matt 18:23-35). In this kind of alms no one is poor. He can do this so as to live forever, even he who, for the present, has not whence to live. It is given freely, it is heaped up by giving, and is not consumed except when it is not bestowed. Of whom, then, the enmities have lasted up to these days, let them be confounded and ended. Let them be ended, lest they end you: let them not be held, lest they hold you: let them be slain through the Redeemer, lest they slay the one who holds them.

3. Let your fasts not be such as the prophet condemns, saying: This is not the fast I have chosen, says the Lord (See Isa 58:5). For he reproves the fasts of the quarrelsome: he seeks those of the pious. He reproves the oppressing: he seeks the releasing. He reproves the hostile: he seeks the liberating. For on this account, through these days, you rein in your desires from lawful things, that you may not commit unlawful ones. Let no one gorge himself, on any day, with wine, or with adultery, who on these days abstains from marriage. So our prayer, by humility and love, by fasting and giving, by self-restraint and forgiving, by bestowing goods and not repaying evils, by turning away from evil and doing good, seeks peace and obtains it (See Ps 34:14 (33:15)). For prayer flies, supported by such feathers of virtues: and whither Christ our peace went before, it is more easily carried up to heaven.

Sermon 207
In Lent

1. With the help of the mercy of the Lord our God, the temptations of the age, the snares of the devil, the toil of the world, the enticement of the flesh, the waves of turbulent times, and every corporeal and spiritual adversity, must be overcome by alms, fasts, and prayers. Although these things ought to be fervent for the Christian throughout his whole life, yet especially with the Paschal solemnity drawing near, which by its yearly return rouses our minds; renewing in them, by a salutary memory, that our Lord, the only Son of God, showed mercy to us, fasted and prayed for us. For "alms" in Greek is "mercy." But what greater mercy upon the wretched could there be than that which brought down the Creator of heaven from heaven, and clothed the founder of earth with an earthly body; which made him who in the eternity of the Father remains equal coequal with us in mortality, which laid the form of a servant upon the Lord of the world; that the Bread himself might hunger, that Fullness might thirst, that Strength might be weakened, that Health might be wounded, that Life might die? But this, that our hunger might be fed, our dryness watered, our weakness consoled, our iniquity extinguished, our love kindled. What greater mercy, than that the Creator be created, the Ruler serve, the Redeemer be sold, the Exalter be humbled, the Raiser be slain? To us, concerning the giving of alms, it is commanded that we give bread to the hungry (See Isa 58:7); he, that he might give himself to us hungering, first handed himself over for us to the raging. It is commanded us to receive the stranger: he came for our sake into his own, and his own did not receive him (See John 1:11). Finally, let our soul bless him who is propitious to all its iniquities, who heals all its diseases, who redeems its life from corruption, who crowns it in pity and mercy: who satisfies its desire with good things (Ps 103:3-5 (102:3-5)). So let us perform our alms so much the more lavishly, and so much the more frequently, the nearer the day becomes on which the alms bestowed on us is celebrated. Because a fast without mercy is nothing to him who fasts.

2. Let us also fast, humbling our souls, as the day draws near on which the master of humility humbled himself, being made subject even to the death of the cross (See Phil 2:8). Let us imitate his cross, fixing our desires, tamed by the nails of abstinence. Let us chastise our body and subject it to servitude (See 1 Cor 9:27): and lest through untamed flesh we slip into unlawful things, in taming it let us withdraw somewhat even of the lawful. Surfeiting and drunkenness are to be avoided even on the other days: but on these days even permitted lunches are to be removed. Adulteries and fornications are always to be execrated and fled: but on these days we must abstain even from our spouses. Easily will the flesh obey you, that it cling not to what is another's, which has grown used to being reined in even from its own. But surely care must be taken lest you change, not lessen, your pleasures. For you may see some seeking, in place of their usual wine, unwonted liquors, and compensating much more sweetly, by the pressing of other fruits, for what they deny themselves from the grape; seeking out, beyond meat, foods of manifold variety and pleasantness; and gathering, as it were opportunely for this time, sweetnesses which at another time they would be ashamed to pursue: so that, namely, the observance of Lent is not the repression of old desires, but the occasion for new delights. Provide against these things, brothers, with as much vigilance as you can, lest, persuaded of them, they creep upon you. Let frugality be joined to fasts. As the fullness of the belly is to be chastised, so the incitements of the gullet are to be guarded against. The kinds of human foods are not to be detested, but the fleshly delight is to be reined in. Esau was reprobated not by a fat calf or by fattened fowls, but by an immoderately desired lentil dish (See Gen 25:30-34). Holy David repented of having desired water more than was right (See 2 Sam 23:15-17). Not, then, with elaborate or precious foods, but with whatever cheaper ones are at hand and set out, is the body to be refreshed by the fast, or rather propped up.

3. On these days, by the supports of pious alms and frugal fasts, our prayer is lifted up to the heights: because mercy is not shamelessly asked of God, when by a man it is not denied to a man, nor is the serene intent of the asking heart hindered, clouded by the phantasms of fleshly pleasures. But let prayer be chaste, lest perhaps we wish for not what love, but what cupidity seeks; lest we imprecate some evil on our enemies; lest, against those whom we cannot harm by injuring or avenging, we rage by praying. Surely, as we are made fit for praying by alms and fasts, so our prayer itself does alms, when it is directed and poured forth not only for friends, but even for enemies, and it fasts from anger and hatred and from the most pernicious vices. For if we fast from foods, how much more should it fast from poisons? Finally, we are refreshed at the due and opportune times by the taking of food: let us never delight that prayer with such viands. Let it take up these perpetual fasts: because it has its own proper food, which it is commanded to take without interruption. Let it always, then, fast from hatred, always be fed with love.

Sermon 208
In Lent

1. The solemn time has come, on which we should admonish and exhort your Charity in the Lord: although the time itself, even if we are silent, sufficiently admonishes and exhorts you to be fervent, more urgently and more eagerly than usual, in fasts and prayers and alms. But the ministry of our sermon is added, that, by the trumpet of this voice too, your spirit, about to do battle against the flesh, may receive its strength. Let your fasts, then, be without quarrels, shouts, blows: so that even those who are under your yoke may feel a careful and kindly remission; that harsh severity may be reined in, not that wholesome discipline may be loosened. But when, by some kind of foods even permitted and lawful, for the sake of chastising the body, you abstain, remember that all things are clean to the clean (Titus 1:15): lest you think anything unclean, except what unbelief has defiled. For to the unclean and unbelieving, says the Apostle, nothing is clean (Titus 1:15). But plainly, when the bodies of the faithful are subjected to servitude, whatever is lessened of bodily pleasure profits spiritual salvation. And therefore care must be taken lest you seek precious foods, either some in place of others, or even more precious ones without the flesh of animals. For when the body is chastised and subjected to servitude (See 1 Cor 9:27), delights are to be restricted, not changed. For what does it matter in what kind of food immoderate desire is blamed? For not only of meats, but also of certain fruits and crops, was the desire of the Israelites condemned by the divine voice (See Num 11:4-34). And Esau lost his birthright not on account of pork, but on account of a lentil dish (See Gen 25:30-34). To say nothing of what the Lord, hungering, answered the tempter even about bread itself (See Matt 4:3-4): who surely was not taming his own flesh as though rebellious, but mercifully admonishing what we ought to answer in such temptations. Wherefore, dearest ones, from whatever foods it has pleased you to abstain, remember to preserve your purpose with pious temperance, not to condemn the creature of God by a sacrilegious error. Whoever of you too are bound to spouses, now especially do not despise the apostolic admonitions, to abstain from one another for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayers (See 1 Cor 7:5). For what is usefully done on other days too, it is exceedingly shameless if it is not done now. I judge it ought not to be burdensome for the married, by a yearly observance on the solemn days, to do what widows have professed for a part of their life, what holy virgins have undertaken for their whole life.

2. But now to increase alms on these days is in a certain manner a matter of debt. For where do you more justly bestow, by showing mercy, what you take from yourselves by abstaining? And what more unjust than that what abstinence bestows less, remaining covetousness should keep, or deferred luxury consume? Attend, then, to whom you should owe what you deny yourselves; so that what temperance withdraws from pleasure, mercy may add to love. What shall I now say of that work of mercy, where nothing is spent from the storehouses, nothing from the purse, but it is forgiven from the heart; which, if it remains rather than withdraws, begins to be ruinous? I mean anger kept in the heart against someone. But what is more foolish than to avoid an enemy outside, and to keep within the inmost breast one far worse? Whence the Apostle says: Let not the sun go down upon your anger; and soon subjoins: Neither give place to the devil (Eph 4:26-27). As though he does this, who does not quickly drive anger from the mind, that through it, as through a door, he gives the devil an approach. First, then, it must be brought about that this sun does not go down upon anger; lest the sun of righteousness desert the mind itself. But in whosoever's breast it has so far remained, let at least now the day, drawing near, of the Lord's passion drive it out — he who was not angry with his slayers, for whom, hanging on the wood, he both poured forth a prayer and his blood (See Luke 23:34). In whosoever's breast among you, then, it has lasted with most shameless brow up to these holy days, now let anger at least depart from there, that prayer may proceed secure: lest it offend, or palpitate, or, under the goads of conscience, fall silent, when it comes to that place where it must say: Forgive us our debts, as we too forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). You are about to ask something, that it may not be repaid you, and something, that it may be bestowed. Forgive, then, and it will be forgiven you: give, and it will be given you (Luke 6:37-38). These things, brothers, even if I do not admonish you, you ought to care for by perpetual meditation. But since our voice, the minister of so many divine testimonies, is aided also by the celebrity of this present day; I ought not to fear lest any of you perhaps despise me, or rather the Lord of all in me: but rather to hope that his flock, recognizing that what is said is his, may, effectively hearing, hear him.

Sermon 209
In Lent

1. The solemn time has come, when I should admonish your Charity concerning the soul, to be more attentively thought upon, and the body, to be chastised. For these are the forty most sacred days throughout the whole world, which, as Easter draws near, the whole world, which God reconciles to himself in Christ (See 2 Cor 5:19), celebrates together with a devotion to be proclaimed. If any enmities, which either ought not to have been born, or ought to have died quickly, and yet up to this time, whether by negligence, or by stubbornness, or by an immodest but proud shame, could last among brothers; let them at least now be ended. Those upon which the sun ought not to have gone down (See Eph 4:26), let them at least, after many risings and settings of the sun, even they at length at some time be extinguished by their own setting, and be no further renewed by any rising. The negligent man forgets to end enmities; the stubborn man is unwilling to grant pardon when he is asked; the proudly shamefaced man disdains to ask pardon. By these three vices enmities live: but they kill the souls in which they do not die. Let memory watch against negligence, mercy against stubbornness, humble prudence against proud shame. Let him who recalls himself a neglecter of concord shake off torpor by waking up: let him who desires to be an exactor of his debtor think himself a debtor of God: let him who blushes to ask that a brother forgive him conquer evil shame by good fear: so that, the harmful enmities being ended, they being dead, you may live. All this love does, which does not act perversely (1 Cor 13:4). Love, my brothers, insofar as it is present, let it be exercised by living well; but insofar as it is less, let it be obtained by asking.

2. But that our prayers may be aided by fitting supports, since on these days we ought to have them more fervent; let us also bestow alms more fervently. To them let there be added what is withdrawn from us by fasting and by abstaining from our usual foods. Although he ought to have more bountiful alms who, on account of some necessity of his body and habit of food, cannot abstain, so that he may add to the poor what he withdraws from himself: but let the pious man give to the poor for this reason, that he does not withdraw from himself; so that, since he can less aid his prayers by the chastisement of the body, he may enclose a more abundant alms in the heart of the poor, which can pray for him. From the holy Scriptures this is the most wholesome counsel, to be embraced: Enclose, it says, alms in the heart of the poor, and it will pray for you (Sir 29:12).

3. We admonish also those who abstain from meats not to avoid, as though unclean, the vessels in which they were cooked. For so speaking the Apostle says: All things are clean to the clean (Titus 1:15). For what is done in observances of this kind by sound doctrine is done not for the cause of avoiding uncleanness, but of reining in desire. Whence those too who so restrain themselves from meats as to seek out other foods both of more difficult preparation and of greater cost, greatly err. For this is not to undertake abstinence, but to change luxury. How shall we tell these men to give to the poor what they withdraw from themselves, by whom the usual food is so left aside that in providing another the expense is increased? Be, then, on these days both more frequent in fasting, and more sparing in spending on yourselves, and more bountiful in bestowing on the needy. These days also demand continence from marital intercourse: For a time, says the Apostle, that you may give yourselves to prayer: and again return to it, lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence (1 Cor 7:5). This is not hard and difficult, for a few days, for the faithful married, which holy widows have undertaken from a certain point of life to the end, which holy virgins do for their whole life. And in all these things let devotion be fervent, let pride be suppressed. Let no one so rejoice in the good of bounty as to lose the good of humility. For all the other gifts of God do not make anything profit, unless there be present the bond of love.

Sermon 210
In Lent

1. 1. The solemn time has come, which more than throughout the other spans of the year admonishes us, by prayers and fasts, to humble the soul and chastise the body. But why this is celebrated as the solemnity of the Lord's passion draws near, and why it is celebrated by the mystery of the number forty, since it is wont to move some, deservedly we undertake to bring forth to your Charity what the Lord has deigned to grant should be said on this matter. But those whom we know to seek these things not for quarreling but for knowing, by their faith and piety we are much aided, that we may be able to obtain the things to be said.

1. 2. For this is wont to make a question: why the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who, having taken up a human body, appeared made man for men surely for this, that he might offer us an example both of living and of dying and of rising, fasted not before he was baptized, but after he was baptized. For so it is written in the Gospel: But being baptized, he immediately came up from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending upon him. And behold, a voice from the heavens, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Then Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he hungered (Matt 3:16-17; 4:1-2). But we, together with those who are to be baptized, fast before the day of their baptism, which day, the Paschal one, draws near, after which day, for fifty days, we relax our fasts. This would deservedly move us, if it were not lawful to baptize or be baptized except on the most solemn Paschal day. But since throughout the whole year, as for each one there is either need or will, one is not forbidden from baptism, by the gift of him who gave them the power to become children of God (See John 1:12); but the yearly passion of the Lord may be celebrated only on a certain day of the year, which is called Easter: the sacrament of baptism is without doubt to be distinguished from Easter. For this it is lawful to receive on any day: that it is right to enact on one and a certain day of the year. This is given to renew life: that is commended to the memory of religion. But that to that day a far greater number of those to be baptized flows together, here it is not that a more abundant grace of salvation differs, but that a greater joy of the festival invites.

2. 3. What of this too, that even the baptism of John, which Christ then received, is to be distinguished from the baptism of Christ himself, which his faithful receive; nor for this reason is that with which Christ was baptized better than this with which the Christian is baptized, because Christ is better than the Christian; but for this reason rather is this baptism, because it is Christ's, preferred to that? For John baptized Christ, while he confessed himself less than Christ: but Christ baptizes the Christian, who shows himself greater even than John. As, in the circumcision of the flesh — although Christ received it, and no Christian now receives it — better is the sacrament of the resurrection of Christ, by which, to put off the fleshly and old life, the Christian is circumcised, that he may hear the Apostle saying: As Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, so let us too walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4). As that old Passover itself, which was commanded to be celebrated by the slaying of a lamb (See Exod 12:3-11), is not, because Christ celebrated this with his disciples (See Matt 26:18-19), better than our Passover, in which Christ was sacrificed. For it pertained to his offering us an example of humility and devotion, that he deigned, in coming, to take up even those sacraments by which he, who was to come, was foretold: that hence he might show with how great religion it behooves us to take up these sacraments, by which it is announced that he has now come. Not, then, because Christ, after receiving the baptism of John, fasted immediately, is he to be believed to have given a rule of observance, that after receiving the baptism of Christ himself, it is necessary to fast immediately: but plainly by that example he taught that one must fast, when perhaps with a sharper struggle we contend with the tempter. For on this account Christ, who as man deigned to be born, did not refuse as man to be tempted, that the Christian, instructed by his teaching, might not be overcome by the tempter. Whether, then, immediately after baptism, or after any interval of time, when a like battle of temptation is brought upon a man, one must fast: that both the body may fulfill its warfare by chastisement, and the mind may obtain victory by humiliation. In that example of the Lord, then, the cause of his fasting was not the washing in the Jordan, but the temptation of the devil.

3. 4. But why we fast before the solemnity of the Lord's passion, and that relaxation of fasts is completed on the fiftieth day, this is the reason. Everyone who rightly fasts either humbles his soul in the groaning of prayer and the chastisement of the body out of faith unfeigned (See 1 Tim 1:5); or, his intent being suspended from the fleshly enticement by some spiritual delight in truth and wisdom, descends to a certain want, to feel hunger and thirst. Of both kinds of fasting the Lord answered those who asked why his disciples did not fast. For of that first kind, which has the humiliation of the soul: The sons of the bridegroom cannot, he says, mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them. But the hour will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast (Matt 9:15). But of that other, which has the feast of the mind, he consequently spoke thus: No one sews a new patch on an old garment, lest a greater tear be made: nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, lest both the wineskins burst and the wine be spilled; but they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved (Matt 9:16-17). Accordingly, because the bridegroom is now taken away, we, the sons of that beautiful bridegroom, must surely mourn. For, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, whose grace was poured out on his lips (Ps 45:2 (44:3)), among the hands of his persecutors he had no form nor comeliness, and his life was taken from the earth (See Isa 53:2,8). And rightly do we mourn, if we burn with longing for him. Blessed are they who were allowed to have him then present before the passion, to question him as they wished, and to hear him as they ought to hear. Those days the fathers longed to see before his coming, and did not see: because they had been ordered in another dispensation, through whom he who was to come might be announced, not by whom he when coming might be heard. For of these he speaks to the disciples, saying: Many righteous men and prophets wished to see what you see, and did not see; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear (Matt 13:17). But in us that is fulfilled which he likewise says: Days will come, when you will desire to see one of these days, and you will not be able (Luke 17:22).

4. 5. Who is not burned by the flame of holy longing? who does not here mourn? who does not labor in his groaning? who does not say: My tears have become my bread day and night, while it is said to me daily, Where is your God? (Ps 42:3 (41:4)) For we believe in him now sitting at the right hand of the Father: but yet, as long as we are in the body, we are pilgrims away from him (See 2 Cor 5:6), nor can we show him to those who doubt or deny and say: Where is your God? Deservedly his Apostle longed to be dissolved and to be with him: but to remain in the flesh he judged not best for himself, but necessary for our sake (See Phil 1:23-24). Where the thoughts of mortals are timid, and our foresights uncertain; since the earthly habitation weighs down the mind thinking on many things (Wis 9:14-15). Hence human life on earth is a temptation (See Job 7:1): and in this night of the age a lion goes about seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8). Not the Lion of the tribe of Judah, our king (See Rev 5:5); but the lion the devil, our adversary. But he, expressing in himself alone the figures of the four animals from the Apocalypse of John, was born as man, worked as a lion, was sacrificed as a calf, flew as an eagle (See Rev 4:7). He flew upon the wings of the winds, and made darkness his hiding place (Ps 18:10-11 (17:11-12)). He set darkness, and night was made, in which all the beasts of the forest pass through. The whelps of the lions roaring (Ps 104:20-21 (103:20-21)), the tempters, namely, through whom the devil seeks whom he may devour; not indeed having power, except over those whom they receive: for in that very Psalm it follows thus: seeking food for themselves from God (Ps 104:21 (103:21)). In so perilous a night of this age, full of temptations, who would not fear, who would not tremble in all his marrow, lest he be judged worthy to be left to be devoured in the jaws of so cruel an enemy? Whence one must fast and pray.

5. 6. And when rather, when more urgently, than as the very solemnity of the Lord's passion draws near, by which yearly celebration the memory of that same night is in a certain manner carved afresh for us, lest it be deleted by forgetfulness, lest that roaring devourer find us sleeping not in body but in spirit. For the Lord's passion itself, what else did it especially commend to us in our Head, Christ Jesus, than the temptation of this very life? Whence, as the time of his death now drew near, he said to Peter: Satan has asked to sift you like wheat: and I have prayed, Peter, for you, that your faith may not fail; go and strengthen your brothers (Luke 22:31-32). And he plainly strengthened us through his apostleship, through his martyrdom, through his epistles. Where, admonishing too that the night of which I speak is to be feared, by the consolation of prophecy as it were a nocturnal light, he taught us to watch with caution. We have, he says, the more sure prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts (2 Pet 1:19).

5. 7. Let our loins, then, be girded, and our lamps burning, and let us be like men awaiting their Lord, when he comes from the wedding (See Luke 12:35-36). Nor let us say to one another: Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die (1 Cor 15:32; Isa 22:13). But all the more, as the day of death is uncertain and the day of life is troublesome, let us fast and pray, for tomorrow we shall die. A little while, he says, and you will not see me; and again a little while, and you will see me (John 16:16). This is the hour of which he said: You will be sorrowful, but the world will rejoice (John 16:20): that is, this life full of temptations, in which we are pilgrims away from him (See 2 Cor 5:6). But again, he says, I will see you, and your heart will rejoice; and your joy no one will take from you (John 16:22). In this hope of the most faithful promiser we even now in some way rejoice, until that most abundant joy comes, when we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (See 1 John 3:2), and no one will take our joy from us. For of this hope we have received the Holy Spirit, so welcome and gratuitous a pledge (See 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5), who works in our hearts the unutterable groanings of holy desires (See Rom 8:26). For we have conceived, as Isaiah says, and travailed and brought forth the spirit of salvation (See Isa 26:18). And a woman when she is in travail, says the Lord, has sorrow, because her hour has come: but when she has brought forth, there is great joy, because a man is born into the world (John 16:21). This will be the joy which no one will take from us; into which, into eternal light, we shall be poured over from this conception of faith. Now therefore let us fast and pray, while it is the day of travail.

6. 8. Why the fast was instituted by the number forty. This whole body of Christ, spread throughout the whole world — that is, the whole Church does this, and that unity which says in the Psalm: From the ends of the earth I cried to you, while my heart was in anguish (Ps 61:2 (60:3)). Whence it now becomes clear to us why Lent was instituted as the solemnity of this humiliation. For she who cries from the ends of the earth, when her heart is in anguish, cries from the four parts of the earth, which Scripture too frequently recalls: East and West, North and South. Through all this that decalogue of the Law, now not only to be feared through the letter, but to be fulfilled through the grace of love, was proclaimed. Whence, ten being multiplied by four, we see forty completed. But still in the labor of temptation, with pardon of sins. For who perfectly fulfills: You shall not covet (Exod 20:17)? Whence one must fast and pray: yet one must not cease from good work. To which labor that reward is rendered in the end, which is named by the name of "denarius" (See Matt 20:9-10). But as "ternary" took its name from three, "quaternary" from four; so "denary" took its name from ten: which, joined to the number forty, is rendered as it were a reward for the labor. The figure of the number fifty signifies the time of that joy which no one will take from us (See John 16:22): of which in this life we do not yet have the discharge; but yet after the solemnity of the Lord's passion, from the day of his resurrection, through fifty days, in which we relax the fasts, we celebrate this with the Alleluia resounding in the Lord's praises.

6. 9. Now therefore, in the person of Christ, that you may not be circumvented by Satan, I exhort you, most beloved, to make God favorable by daily fasts, more bountiful alms, more fervent prayers. Now is the time when both the married should abstain from their wives, and the wedded from their husbands, that they may give themselves to prayers (See 1 Cor 7:5): although throughout the whole year too, on certain days, they ought to do this; and the more frequently, surely the better: because he too who immoderately seeks permitted things offends the one who permitted them. For prayer is a spiritual thing, and therefore it is so much the more acceptable, the more it fulfills the effect of its own nature. But it is poured forth so much the more by a spiritual work, the more the mind that pours it forth is suspended from fleshly pleasure.

7. 9. Forty days Moses, the administrator of the Law, fasted (See Exod 34:28), forty Elijah, the most excellent of the Prophets (See 1 Kgs 19:8), forty the Lord himself, having the testimony of the Law and the Prophets. Whence he showed himself with those two on the mountain (See Matt 17:1-3). But we, who cannot keep up so long a fast as to take, for so many days and nights, nothing of food, as they did, let us at least do as much as we can; so that, excepting the days on which, for certain causes, the custom of the Church forbids fasting, we may please the Lord our God by a daily or frequent fast. But surely, as abstinence from food and drink cannot, for so many days, be continuous, so can it not be from intercourse? when we see, in the name of Christ, many of both sexes keeping members entirely free from this matter, dedicated to God. I think it is no great thing that the chastity of spouses could last through the whole Paschal solemnity, which virginity can through the whole of life.

8. 10. But now this — although I ought not to have admonished it, since I have, as much as I could, especially commended the time of humbling the soul; yet, on account of the errors of men, who through empty seductions and depraved customs cease not to bring upon us a troublesome care on your behalf, I cannot be silent. There are certain observers of Lent who are delicate rather than religious, seeking out new sweetnesses rather than chastising old desires; who, with copious and precious preparations of various fruits, strive to surpass the varieties and flavors of any relishes whatever: they dread, as unclean, the vessels in which meats have been cooked, and in their own flesh do not dread the luxury of the belly and the gullet: they fast, not that by self-restraint they may lessen their usual gluttony; but that by deferring it they may increase their immoderate greed. For when the time of refreshment comes, they rush to rich tables like beasts to mangers; with more numerous courses they overwhelm their hearts and distend their bellies; with artful and exotic varieties of seasonings they incite the gullet, lest it be restrained even by abundance. Finally, they take in by eating as much as they cannot digest by fasting.

9. 11. There are also those who so do not drink wine that, by the pressing of other fruits, they seek out for themselves other liquors, not for the sake of health, but of pleasantness: as though Lent were not an observance of pious humility, but an occasion for new pleasure. For how much more honorable, if the weakness of the stomach cannot bear to drink water, that it be sustained by usual and moderate wine, than that wines be sought which know no vintage, which knew no winepresses; not that a cleaner drink may be chosen, but that a more frugal one may be disapproved? But what is more absurd than, at a time when the flesh is to be more strictly chastised, to procure such great sweetnesses for the flesh, that the very desire of the gullet would not want Lent to pass by? What is more unfitting than, on the days of humility, when the food of the poor is to be imitated by all, so to live, that, if one lived so the whole time, the patrimonies of the rich could scarcely sustain it? Beware of these things, most beloved: think on what is written: Do not go after your desires (Sir 18:30). If this most wholesome precept must be observed at all times, how much more on these days, when it is so base if our cupidity be loosed to unwonted enticements, that he is deservedly blamed who has not restrained the usual ones?

10. 12. Especially, indeed, be mindful of the poor, that what you withdraw from yourselves by living more sparingly, you may lay up in the heavenly treasure (See Matt 6:20). Let the hungering Christ receive what the fasting Christian receives less. Let the chastisement of the willing be the sustenance of the one who has not. Let the voluntary want of the abundant be the necessary abundance of the needy. Let there also be, in a placable and humble mind, a merciful readiness to forgive. Let him ask pardon who did the injury: let him give pardon who received the injury: that we may not be possessed by Satan, whose triumph is the dissension of Christians. For this too is an alms of great gain, to release a debt to a fellow servant, that it may be released to you by the Lord (See Matt 18:23-35). Both good works the heavenly master commended to his disciples, saying: Forgive, and it will be forgiven you; give, and it will be given you (Luke 6:37-38). Be mindful of that servant, to whom his lord again charged all the debt he had forgiven, because he himself did not repay to a fellow servant owing him a hundred denarii the mercy which he had received for the ten thousand talents he owed. In this kind of good work there is no excuse, where the will alone is the whole ability. Anyone can say: Lest my stomach ache, I cannot fast. He can also say: I want to give to the poor; but I have not whence; or I have only so much that I fear to be in want, if I should give. Although even in these works men for the most part make false excuses for themselves, because they do not find true ones. Yet who is there who would say: I did not forgive the one asking pardon, because health hindered me, or because there was no hand with which I might offer it? Forgive, that it may be forgiven you. Here there is no work of the flesh, no member even of one's own flesh is taken up into the aid of the soul, that this which is asked may be fulfilled. It is done by the will, it is accomplished by the will. Do it securely, give securely, you will feel no pain in the body, you will have nothing less in the house. But now, brothers, see what an evil it is, not to forgive a repentant brother, when one is commanded to love even an enemy (See Matt 5:44). Since these things are so, since it is written: Let not the sun go down upon your anger (Eph 4:26); consider, dearest ones, whether he is to be called a Christian, who at least on these days is unwilling to end enmities which he ought never to have carried on.

Sermon 211
In Lent

1. These holy days which we keep in the observance of Lent admonish us to speak to you of brotherly concord, that whoever has a complaint against another may end it, lest he be ended. Do not despise these things, my brothers. For since this mortal and fragile life, which amid so many earthly temptations is in peril and prays not to be submerged, cannot be in any righteous man without sins of some kind, there is one remedy by which we can live, because God our master taught us to say in prayer: Forgive us our debts, as we too forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). We made a pact and agreement with God, and subscribed in a bond to the condition of paying the debt. Forgive us, we ask with full confidence, if we too forgive; but if we do not forgive, let us not think our sins forgiven us. Let us not deceive ourselves, let no man deceive himself, God deceives no one. It is human to be angry — and would that we could not even do this — it is human to be angry, but your anger, a short shoot just born, ought not to be watered by suspicions and to grow into the beam of hatred (See Matt 7:3-5). For anger is one thing, hatred another. For often even a father is angry with his son, but does not hate his son, he is angry to correct. If he is angry for this, that he may correct, he is angry by loving. Therefore it is said: You see the speck in your brother's eye; but the beam in your own eye you do not see (Matt 7:3). You blame anger in another, and hatred is held in yourself. In comparison with hatred, anger is a speck; but if you nourish the speck, it will be a beam; if you pluck it out and throw it away, it will be nothing.

2. If you noticed... what did you notice? When the letter of blessed John was read, his sentence ought to have terrified you. For he says: The darkness has passed, the true light now shines. Then, continuing, he added: He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness even until now (1 John 2:8-9). But perhaps a man thinks that such darkness is as those shut up in prisons suffer. Would that it were such! And yet in such no one wants to be. But in this darkness of prisons the innocent can be shut up. For in such darkness the martyrs were shut up. Darkness was poured around on every side, and the light flourished in their hearts. In that darkness of prison they did not see with their eyes, but by love of the brotherhood they saw God. Do you wish to know what that darkness is of which it is said: He who hates his brother is in the darkness even until now? In another place he says: He who hates his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15). He who hates his brother walks, goes out, comes in, proceeds, laden with no chains, shut up in no prison, yet bound by guilt. Do not think him to be without a prison: his prison is his heart. When you hear: He who hates his brother is in the darkness even until now, lest perhaps you despise the darkness, he adds and says: He who hates his brother is a murderer. You hate your brother and walk securely and are unwilling to be reconciled, although God gives space for this very reason? Behold, you are already a murderer, and still you live; if you had God angry, with the hatred of your brother you would suddenly be snatched away. God spares you, spare yourself, be reconciled with your brother. But perhaps you are willing and he is not? Let it be enough for you. You have whereof to grieve for him; you have freed yourself. Say, if you are willing to be reconciled and he is not, say securely: Forgive us our debts, as we too forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12).

3. Perhaps you have sinned against him, you wish to be reconciled with him, you wish to say to him: Brother, forgive me, I have sinned against you. He is unwilling to forgive, unwilling to release the debt; what you owe him, he is unwilling to release to you. Let him watch out for himself, when he has to pray. When he is to come — he who was unwilling to forgive you what you perhaps sinned against him — when he is to come to prayer, what will he do? Let him say: Our Father who are in heaven. Let him say, let him draw near: Hallowed be your name. Still say: Your kingdom come. Follow on: Your will be done, as in heaven so on earth. Still walk on: Give us this day our daily bread (Matt 6:9-11). You have said it. What follows, see lest perhaps you wish to pass beyond and say something else. There is no way you can pass by, there you are held. Say, then — or, if you have no reason to say it: Forgive us our debts, do not say it. And where is that which the same Apostle said: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8)? But if the conscience of frailty bites, and in this age there is everywhere an abundance of iniquity, then say: Forgive us our debts. But see what follows. For you were unwilling to forgive your brother's sin, and are you going to say: As we too forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12)? Or are you not going to say it? If you are not going to say it, you are going to receive nothing; but if you are going to say it, you are going to say something false. So say it, and say what is true. How will you say what is true, you who were unwilling to release your brother's sin?

4. Him I have admonished; now I console you, O whoever you are — if indeed you are one — who have said to your brother: Forgive me what I have sinned against you. If you have said it with the whole heart, with true humility, with unfeigned love, as God sees in the heart whence you said it, but he was unwilling to forgive you, do not be anxious. You are both servants, you have a Lord; you owe to your fellow servant, he was unwilling to forgive you, appeal to the Lord of both. What the Lord has forgiven you, let the servant, if he can, exact (See Matt 18:28-34). I say something else. I have admonished him who was unwilling to forgive his brother, when the other asks to be forgiven, to do what he was unwilling to do, lest, when he prays, he not receive what he desires; I have admonished also him who asked pardon for his sin from his brother and did not receive it, that in that which he did not obtain from his brother he should be secure about his Lord. There is also something else that I would admonish. Your brother has sinned against you and was unwilling to say to you: Forgive me what I have sinned against you. This weed abounds; would that God might root it out of his field (See Matt 13:38-40), that is, out of your hearts! For how many there are who know they have sinned against their brothers and are unwilling to say: Forgive me. They did not blush to sin and they blush to ask; they did not blush at iniquity and they blush at humility. So them first of all I admonish, whoever of you have a discord with your brothers and recall yourselves to yourselves and consider yourselves and bear a just judgment upon yourselves, within in your hearts, and find that you ought not to have done what you did, ought not to have said what you said: ask pardon, brothers, from your brothers, do what the Apostle says: Forgiving one another, as God too in Christ forgave you (Eph 4:32); do it, do not blush to ask pardon. Accordingly I say to all, men and women, lesser and greater, laymen and clergy, I say also to myself: let us all hear, let us all fear, if we have sinned against our brothers. We have still received a respite of living, we do not die for that reason; for we still live, we are not yet condemned; while we live let us do what the Father commands who will be the judge, and let us ask pardon from the brothers whom perhaps by sinning against them we have somewhat offended, somewhat injured. There are persons humble in the order of this age, from whom, if you ask pardon, they are lifted up in pride. This is what I say: sometimes a master, a man, sins against his servant; for although the one is master, the other servant, yet both are servants of another, because both are redeemed by the blood of Christ — yet it seems hard for me even to command this, to enjoin this, that, if perhaps a master sins against his servant, by unjustly quarreling, by unjustly striking, he should say: Forgive me, give me pardon. Not because he ought not to do it, but lest the other begin to be proud. What then? Before the eyes of God let him repent, before the eyes of God let him punish his own heart, and if he cannot say to the servant, because it is not fitting: Give me pardon, let him address him gently. For a gentle address is a request for pardon.

5. It remains that I address those against whom others have sinned, and those who sinned against them have been unwilling to ask pardon. For I have already addressed those who have been unwilling to grant it to brothers asking pardon. Now therefore, since I address you all, because the days are holy, lest your discords remain, I believe that some of you have thought in your hearts, you who know that you have some discords with your brothers and have found that it is not you yourselves who sinned against them, but they against you. Even if you do not speak to me now — for it is mine to speak in this place, but yours to be silent and hear — yet perhaps by thinking you speak and say to yourselves: I want to be reconciled, but he injured me, he sinned against me and is unwilling to ask pardon. What then? Shall I say: Go to him and you too ask pardon? Far be it. I do not want you to lie, I do not want you to say: Give me pardon, you who know yourself not to have sinned against your brother. For what does it profit you, when you would be your own accuser? Why do you seek to be forgiven by one whom you did not injure or against whom you did not sin? It profits you nothing, I do not want you to do it. Do you know, have you well examined, do you know that he sinned against you, not you against him? I know, he says. Let this your knowledge be your sentence. Do not come to your brother who sinned against you and further ask pardon from him. There ought to be among you other peacemakers who rebuke him, that he should first ask pardon from you. Only be you ready to forgive, be wholly ready to forgive from the heart. If you are ready to forgive, you have already forgiven. You still have something to pray: pray for him, that he may ask pardon from you, because you know it harms him if he does not ask, pray for him that he may ask. Say to the Lord in your prayer: Lord, you know that I have not sinned against that brother of mine, but rather that he sinned against me, and that it harms him that he sinned against me if he does not ask pardon from me; I, with a good will, ask that you forgive him.

6. Behold, I have told you what... especially through these days of your fasts, of your observances, of your continence, you ought to do, that you may be reconciled with your brothers. May I too rejoice over your peace, I who am saddened by your quarrels, that, all forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another (Col 3:13), we may securely keep Easter, securely celebrate the passion of him who owed nothing to anyone and paid the price for those who owed — I mean the Lord Jesus Christ, who sinned against no one and against whom almost the whole world sinned, and yet he did not exact punishments but promised rewards. We have him, then, as witness in our hearts, that if we have sinned against anyone, we should ask pardon with a true heart; if anyone has sinned against us, we should be ready to give pardon and should pray for our enemies (See Matt 5:44). Let us not wait to be avenged, brothers. What is it to be avenged, except to be fed on another's evil? I know that men come daily, bend their knees, knock their foreheads on the ground, sometimes water their face, washed with tears, and in such great humility and disturbance say: Lord avenge me, kill my enemy. Plainly, pray that he may kill your enemy and save your brother; that he may kill the enmity, save the nature. So pray that God may avenge you: let him perish who was persecuting you, but let him remain who may be restored to you.

Sermon 211/A
In Lent

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ commended to us, in his passion, the labors and afflictions of the present age; in his resurrection he commended the eternal and blessed life of the age to come. Let us endure things present, let us hope for things future. Therefore in these days we enact days signifying the labors of the present age, wearing out our souls in fasts and observance; but in the days to come we signify the days of the age to come. We are not yet there. I said "we signify," not "we hold." For up to the passion there is affliction, after the resurrection praise.

2. For in that life our very business will be, in the kingdom of God: to see, to love, to praise. For what shall we do there? In this age there are works of necessity, and others of iniquity. What are the works of necessity? To sow, to plow, to plant vines, to sail, to grind, to cook, to weave, and whatever like things of necessity; and that good work of ours is of necessity. To break bread for the hungry is not your necessity; but it is his, for whom you break bread. To receive the stranger, to clothe the naked, to redeem the captive, to visit the sick, to give counsel to one deliberating, to free the oppressed, all these pertain to alms; they are works of necessity. What are those of iniquity? To steal, to rob, to get drunk, to play at dice, to exact usury; and who counts all the deeds of iniquity? In that kingdom there will be no works of necessity, because there will be no misery there; there will be no works of iniquity, because there will be no trouble there. Where there is no misery, there are no works of necessity; where there is no malice, there are no works of iniquity. For what will you do to eat, when no one hungers? Those very works of alms, how will you do them? For whom do you break bread, where no one is in want? What sick man do you visit, where perpetual health endures? Whom do you bury dead, where immortality never dies? The works of necessity perish; but the works of iniquity, if you do them here, you do not come there. What shall we do there, tell me? Sleep? For here men, having nothing to do, sleep; there there is no sleep, because there is no failing. Not, then, about to do works of necessity, nor to sleep, what shall we do? Let no one dread weariness, let no one think that even there there will be weariness. Do you now weary of being healthy? All things in this age have loathing; health has no loathing. If health has no loathing, will immortality have loathing? What, then, will be our action? Amen and Alleluia. For here we do one thing, there another, I do not say by day and by night, but by a day without end: which the powers of the heavens, the Seraphim, now say without weariness: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts (Isa 6:3). This they say without weariness. Does the beating of your vein now grow weary? As long as you live, your vein has its beating. You do something, and by tiring you are tired, and you rest, and return to work, and your vein is not tired. As your vein is not tired in your health, so your tongue and your heart will not be tired in the praises of God, in your immortality. Hear the testimony of your business. What is "your business"? This business is leisure. A leisurely business — what? To praise the Lord. Hear hence the sentence: Blessed are those who dwell in your house. The Psalm says this: Blessed are those who dwell in your house. And as though we asked whence blessed: "will they have much gold"? Those who have much gold are much wretched. Blessed are those who dwell in your house. Whence blessed? This is their blessedness: forever and ever they will praise you (Ps 84:4 (83:5)).

Sermon 212
On the Handing Over of the Creed

1. It is time that you receive the Creed, in which is contained briefly, for the sake of eternal salvation, all that is believed. The Creed (Symbolum) is named by a word transferred from a certain likeness, because merchants make a "symbol" among themselves by which their partnership is held by a pact of faith. And your partnership is of spiritual merchandise, that you may be like the traders seeking a good pearl (Matt 13:45). This is the love which will be poured out in your hearts through the Holy Spirit who will be given to you (Rom 5:5). To this one comes from the faith which is contained in this Creed, that you may believe in God the Father almighty, invisible, immortal, the king of the ages, the Creator of things visible and invisible, and whatever else either sincere reason or the authority of the holy Scriptures worthily says of him. And do not separate the Son from this excellence of God. For these things are not so said of the Father as to be foreign to him who said: I and the Father are one (John 10:30), and of whom the Apostle says: Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Phil 2:6). For grasping is the usurpation of what is another's, whereas that equality is the nature of his own; and through this, how will the Son not be almighty, through whom all things were made (John 1:3), since he is also the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24), of which wisdom it is written that being one, it can do all things (Wis 7:27)? But that nature too is invisible, in that very form in which it is equal to the Father. For by nature the Word of God is invisible, which in the beginning was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1); in which nature it remains also altogether immortal, that is, in every way unchangeable. For the human soul too is in a certain manner called immortal, but there is no true immortality where there is so great a changeableness, through which it can both fail and advance; whence its death is to be estranged from the life of God through the ignorance that is in it (See Eph 4:18); but its life is to run together to the fountain of life, that in the light of God it may see light (See Ps 36:9 (35:10)), according to which life you too, through the grace of Christ, come back to life from a certain death to which you renounce. But the Word of God, which is the only-begotten Son, lives always unchangeably with the Father; nor does it fail, because its continuance is not diminished, nor advance, because its perfection is not increased. He himself is also the king of the ages, the Creator of things visible and invisible; because, as the Apostle says: In him were created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or powers: all things were created unto him and through him, and all things consist in him (Col 1:16-17). But because he emptied himself, not losing the form of God, but taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:7), through this form of a servant the invisible was seen, because he was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. In this form of a servant the almighty was made weak, because he suffered under Pontius Pilate; through this form of a servant the immortal died, because he was crucified and buried; through this form of a servant the king of the ages rose on the third day; through this form the Creator of things visible and invisible ascended into heaven, whence he never departed; through this form of a servant he sits at the right hand of the Father, who is the arm of the Father, of whom the Prophet says: And the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed? (Isa 53:1) in this form of a servant he will come to judge the living and the dead, in which he willed to be a partaker of the dead, since he is the life of the living. Through him the Holy Spirit was sent to us by the Father and by him. The Spirit of the Father and the Son, sent by both, begotten by neither, the unity of both, equal to both. This Trinity is one God, almighty, invisible, immortal, the king of the ages, the Creator of things visible and invisible. For we do not say three gods or three almighty or three creators or whatever else of the excellence of God can likewise be said, because there are not three gods but one God; although in this Trinity the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is neither Son nor Father, but he the Father of the Son, he the Son of the Father, he the Spirit of both the Father and the Son. Believe that you may understand, for unless you believe, you will not understand (Isa 7:9 (LXX)). From this faith hope for the grace in which all sins will be forgiven you. For by this you will be saved — not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God — not of works, lest perhaps anyone be lifted up (Eph 2:8-9). For you will be his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works which God prepared, that you may walk in them (Eph 2:10); and, having put off the old man and put on the new man (See Eph 4:22-24), you may be a new creature, singing a new song (See Ps 96:1 (95:1)), about to receive an eternal inheritance through the New Covenant; whence also, after this death which has passed upon all men (See Rom 5:12), which is owed and rendered to the old age of the first man, hope also, at the end, for the resurrection of your bodies, not to the sufferings of pains, as the ungodly will rise, nor to the joys of fleshly desires, as fools think, but as the Apostle says: An animal body is sown, a spiritual body will rise (1 Cor 15:44), where the body will be so subjected to the beatified spirit and so subject, with wondrous felicity, to every ease, that it will no longer weigh down the soul (Wis 9:15) nor seek any refreshment, because it will suffer no failing, but will remain in eternal life, where to our spirit with the body that very eternity will be life.

2. This brief sermon, then, on the whole Creed, I have rendered to you as your due. When you have heard the whole Creed, you will recognize this sermon of ours briefly gathered together. Nor ought you in any way to write it, that you may hold the same words, but to learn it thoroughly by hearing, nor, when you have held it, to write it, but to hold it always in memory and recall it. For whatever you are going to hear in the Creed is already contained in the divine letters of the holy Scriptures, and you are wont to hear it all, piecemeal, where there was need. But that it is so collected and reduced into a certain form is not permitted to be written, that there may be a commemoration of the promise of God, where, foretelling the New Covenant through the Prophet, he said: This is the Covenant which I will ordain for them after those days, says the Lord, giving my laws into their mind, and in their hearts I will write them (Jer 31:33; Heb 8:10). For the sake of signifying this thing, the Creed, by being heard, is written not on tablets or in any other material, but in the hearts. He will grant it, who called you to his kingdom and glory, that, you being regenerated by his grace, it may be written by the Holy Spirit too in your hearts; that you may love what you believe, and faith may work in you through love; and so you may please the Lord God, the bestower of all goods, not by slavishly fearing punishment, but by freely loving righteousness. This, then, is the Creed which has already been intimated to you as catechumens through the Scriptures and the ecclesiastical sermons, but under this brief form it is to be confessed and advanced in by the faithful.

Sermon 213
On the Handing Over of the Creed

1. The Apostle says: It will be that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10:13). To this salvation you run, you who have given your names for baptism; salvation, not of a short time, but of an eternal one; salvation, which is not common to us and the beasts, nor to good and evil men. For you see, and it is certain to us all, that the salvation of the present time, for obtaining or repairing which men labor much, not only men have, but also beasts, great and small: from dragons and elephants to flies and little worms this salvation extends. Then men themselves have this salvation, both those who call upon God and those who blaspheme God; whence the holy Psalm says: Men and beasts you will save, Lord, since your mercy is multiplied, O God; but the sons of men will hope under the covering of your wings (Ps 36:6-7 (35:7-8)). This salvation, then, through the manifold mercy of God, reaches even to the lowest animals: But the sons of men, who pertain to the Son of man, will hope under the covering of your wings. This we do in this life: now we hope for what we may afterward receive. And what does the Psalm itself promise? They will be made drunk with the abundance of your house, and you will give them to drink of the torrent of your delight: for with you is the fountain of life (Ps 36:8-9 (35:9-10)). The fountain of life is Christ: that we might now taste something of him, he was made man; but his abundance, which satisfies the angels and all the heavenly ministries, is kept for us. But this is for afterward: but now, that we may be able to come to it, let us call upon God that we may be saved, according to the Apostle who said: Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10:13). The Prophet had said this before (See Joel 2:32): but Paul the apostle said that the time had now passed when there should be fulfilled what is written: Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. I have already said by what salvation, lest perhaps you now say: Why are even those who call upon the name of the Lord not saved? He will be saved. Then the Apostle himself added: But how will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? or how do they believe him whom they have not heard? But how will they hear without a preacher? Or how will they preach, unless they be sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who announce peace, who announce good things! (Rom 10:14-15) No one, then, can be saved who has not called upon him: no one can call upon him unless he has first believed. Because, then, this is the order, that you first believe, afterward call upon him, today you receive the Creed of faith, in which you may believe; but after eight days the Prayer, in which you may call upon him.

2. The Creed, then, is the rule of faith briefly comprised, to instruct the mind, and not to burden the memory; let it be said in few words, whence much may be acquired. The Creed (Symbolum), then, it is called, in which Christians recognize one another: this is what I will first briefly pronounce to you. Then, as much as the Lord deigns to grant, I will open it to you; that what I want you to hold, you may also be able to understand. This is the Creed. And after the Creed: It is not much, and it is much; there is no need for you to count the words, but to weigh them. I believe in God the Father almighty. See how quickly it is said, and how much it is worth. He is God, and he is Father: God by power, Father by goodness. How happy are we, who have found God our Father! Let us believe, then, in him, and promise ourselves all things from his mercy, because he is almighty: therefore we believe in God the Father almighty. Let no one say: He cannot forgive me my sins. How can the almighty not do so? But you say: I have sinned much. And I say: But he is almighty. And you: I have committed such sins, from which I cannot be freed and cleansed. I answer: But he is almighty. See what you sing to him in the Psalm: Bless, he says, my soul, the Lord, and do not forget all his recompenses, who is propitious to all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases (Ps 103:2-3 (102:2-3)). For this his omnipotence is necessary to us. For to the whole creation it was necessary for this, that it might be created: he is almighty to make greater and lesser things, almighty for heavenly and earthly things, almighty to make immortal and mortal things, almighty to make spiritual and corporeal things, almighty to make visible and invisible things, great in great things, and not small in the least; finally, almighty to make all things that he willed to make. For I tell how many things he cannot do: he cannot die, he cannot sin, he cannot lie, he cannot be deceived; so many things he cannot do, which, if he could, he would not be almighty. Believe, then, in him, and confess: For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom 10:10). Therefore, when you have believed, it behooves you to confess, when you give back the Creed. Receive now what you may hold, and afterward give back, and never forget.

3. After this, what? And in Jesus Christ. I believe, you say, in God the Father almighty, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord. If the only Son, then equal to the Father: if the only Son, then of the same substance as the Father: if the only Son, then of the same omnipotence as the Father: if the only Son, then coeternal with the Father. This in himself, and with himself, and with the Father. For our sake, what? to us, what? Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. Behold by what he came, who, to whom: through the virgin Mary, in whom the Holy Spirit worked, not a man, a husband; who made the chaste one fruitful, and kept her intact. So, then, the Lord Christ was clothed with flesh, so he who made man was made man: by taking up what he was not, not by losing what he was. For the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The Word was not turned into flesh, but the Word, remaining, by taking flesh, ever invisible, was made visible when he willed, and dwelt among us. What is, among us? Among men, made one of the number of men: one and only, the only Son to the Father. To us, what? To us too the only Savior, for no one besides him is our Savior; and to us the only Redeemer, for no one besides him is our Redeemer: not with gold, not with silver, but with his own blood.

4. Therefore let us look at those transactions of his by which we were bought. For when it had been said in the Creed: Born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, now what did he suffer for us? It follows: Under Pontius Pilate crucified and buried. What? The only Son of God our Lord crucified? The only Son of God our Lord buried? A man was crucified: God was not changed, God was not slain; and yet according to the man he was slain: For if they had known, says the Apostle, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8). He both showed him to be the Lord of glory, and confessed him crucified: because if someone tears even your tunic, your flesh being unharmed, he does you an injury, nor do you so cry out for your garment as to say: You have torn my tunic, but: You have torn me, you have rent me, you have made threads of me. You speak these things whole, and you speak the truth, and he who injured you took nothing from your flesh. So too the Lord Christ was crucified. He is the Lord, he is the only Son to the Father, he is our Savior, he is the Lord of glory: yet he was crucified, but in the flesh, and buried in the flesh alone. For where he was buried, and when he was buried, then and there there was no soul, the flesh alone lay in the tomb; and yet you confess Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. Who? Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord. Under Pontius Pilate crucified. Who? Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord. And buried. Who? Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord. The flesh alone lies, and you say: our Lord? I say it, plainly I say it: because I behold the garment, and I adore the one clothed. That flesh was his garment; because: Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, not losing the form of God, made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man (Phil 2:6-7).

5. Let us not despise the flesh alone: when it lay, then it bought us. Why did it buy us? Because it did not always lie: For on the third day he rose from the dead. This follows in the Creed; when we have confessed his passion, we confess also his resurrection. In the passion what did he do? he taught what we are to endure. In the resurrection what did he do? he showed what we are to hope for. Here the work, there the reward: the work in the passion, the reward in the resurrection. Nor, because he rose from the dead, did he remain here: but what follows? He ascended into heaven. And where is he now? He sits at the right hand of the Father. Understand the right hand, lest you seek there a left: the right hand of God means eternal felicity; the right hand of God means ineffable, inestimable, incomprehensible blessedness and prosperity. This is the right hand of God, there he sits. What is, There he sits? There he dwells: for "seats" are spoken of where each one dwells. For when holy Stephen saw him, he was not lying who said: He sits at the right hand of the Father. For how does Stephen say it? Behold, I see heaven opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56). Because the one saw him standing, was the other perhaps lying who said that he then sits at the right hand of the Father? He sits, then, it is said: he remains, he dwells. How? as you do. In what posture? Who will say? Let us say what he taught, let us say what we know.

6. What? Thence he will come to judge the living and the dead. Let us confess the Savior, that we may not fear the Judge: for he who now believes in him, and does his precepts, and loves him, will not fear when he comes to judge the living and the dead; not only will he not fear, but he will wish him to come. For what is happier for us than when he comes whom we desire, when he comes whom we love? But let us fear, because he will be our judge: he himself will then be our judge, who now is our advocate. Hear John: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, he says, he is faithful and just, who will forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all iniquity. These things I have written to you, that you may not sin: and if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 1:8-9; 2:1-2). If you had a case to plead before some judge, and you instructed an advocate, were taken up by the advocate, he pleaded your case as he could; and if he had not finished it, and you heard that that judge was to come, how much would you rejoice, because he could be your judge, who was a little before your advocate? And now he himself prays for us, he himself intercedes for us (See Rom 8:34); we have him as advocate, and do we fear him as judge? Rather, because we have sent ahead our advocate, let us securely hope for the judge to come.

7. What pertains to Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord, has been passed over in the Creed; there follows: And in the Holy Spirit, that the Trinity may be completed, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But of the Son much has been said, because the Son took up man: the Son, the Word, was made flesh, not the Father, not the Holy Spirit. But the flesh of the Son the whole Trinity made: for the works of the Trinity are inseparable. So, then, receive the Holy Spirit so as not to believe him less than the Son, or less than the Father. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the whole Trinity, is one God: nothing there differs, nothing is varying, nothing defective, nothing contrary to another; always equal, invisible and unchangeable, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. May the Trinity free us from the multitude of sins.

8. Now what follows pertains to us. In the holy Church. The holy Church is we: but I did not so say "we," as though, behold, those of us who are here, who have just now heard me. As many of us as are here, by the favor of God faithful Christians in this church, that is, in this city, as many as are in this region, as many as are in this province, as many as are also across the sea, as many as are in the whole world; since from the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is praised (See Ps 113:3 (112:3)); so does the catholic Church stand, our true mother, the true spouse of that Bridegroom. Let us honor her, because she is the matron of so great a Lord; and what shall I say? Great is the Bridegroom's singular condescension: he found a harlot, he made her a virgin. That she was a harlot she ought not to deny, lest she forget the mercy of the one who freed her. How was she not a harlot, when she fornicated after idols and demons? Fornication of the heart was in all: in few of the flesh, in all of the heart. And he came, and made her a virgin: he made the Church a virgin. In faith she is a virgin: in the flesh she has few virgins, consecrated ones; in faith she ought to have all virgins, both women and men; for there ought to be chastity and purity and holiness. For do you wish to know how she is a virgin? Hear the apostle Paul, hear the friend of the bridegroom, zealous for the bridegroom, not for himself. I have betrothed you, he says, to one husband. He was speaking to the Church: and to what Church? To wherever those letters could reach: I have betrothed you, to present you to one husband as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, he says, lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds be corrupted from the chastity which is in Christ (2 Cor 11:2-3). Where you fear to be corrupted, there you are a virgin. I fear, he said, lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning. Did that serpent lie bodily with Eve? And yet he extinguished the virginity of her heart. This I fear, he said, lest your minds be corrupted from the chastity which is in Christ. The Church, then, is a virgin. She is a virgin, let her be a virgin: let her beware of the seducer, lest she find a corrupter. The Church is a virgin. You will perhaps say to me: If she is a virgin, how does she bear children? or if she does not bear children, how did we give our names, that we might be born of her bowels? I answer: She is both a virgin, and she bears; she imitates Mary, who bore the Lord. Did not holy Mary both bear and remain a virgin? So the Church both bears and is a virgin; and, if you consider, she bears Christ: because those who are baptized are his members. You are, says the Apostle, the body of Christ and members (1 Cor 12:27). If, then, she bears the members of Christ, she is most like Mary.

9. Unto the forgiveness of sins. If this were not in the Church, there would be no hope: if the forgiveness of sins were not in the Church, there would be no hope of a future life and of eternal liberation. We give thanks to God, who gave this gift to his Church. Behold, you are about to come to the holy font: you will be washed by the saving baptism, you will be renewed by the laver of regeneration; you will be without any sin, coming up from that laver. All things that pursued you in the past will there be blotted out. Your sins will be like the Egyptians pursuing the Israelites; pursuing, but only as far as the Red Sea (See Exod 14:9,21-28). What is, as far as the Red Sea? As far as the font consecrated by the cross and blood of Christ. For what is red, is ruddy. Do you not see how the part of Christ is ruddy? Ask the eyes of faith: if you see the cross, attend also to the blood: if you see what hangs, attend to what it shed. The side of Christ was pierced by a lance, and our price flowed out (See John 19:34). Therefore baptism is signed with the sign of Christ, that is, the water in which you are dipped, and you pass through as it were in the Red Sea. Your sins are your enemies: they follow, but only as far as the sea. When you have entered, you will escape, they will be blotted out; as, the Israelites escaping over the dry ground, the water covered the Egyptians. And what did the Scripture say? Not one of them remained (Exod 14:28). You have sinned many things, you have sinned few; you have sinned great things, you have sinned small; what does it matter, when not one of them remained? But because we are going to live in this age, where no one lives without sin, therefore the forgiveness of sins is not in the washing of holy baptism alone, but also in the Lord's and daily Prayer, which after eight days you are going to receive. In it you will find, as it were, your daily baptism; that you may give thanks to God, who gave this gift to his Church, which we confess in the Creed; so that, when we have said: The holy Church, we may add: the forgiveness of sins.

10. After these, the resurrection of the flesh. This is now the end: but the resurrection of the flesh will be an end without end; but afterward there will be no death of the flesh, no pain of the flesh, no distresses of the flesh, no hunger and thirst of the flesh, no afflictions of the flesh, no old age and weariness of the flesh. Do not, then, shudder at the resurrection of the flesh: see its goods, forget its evils. Absolutely, whatever there is of fleshly complaints now, then there will not be there: we shall be eternal, equal to the angels of God (See Luke 20:36), we shall have one city with the holy angels. We shall be possessed by the Lord, we shall be his inheritance, and he himself will be our inheritance; since we now say to him: Lord, the portion of my inheritance (Ps 16:5 (15:5)), and of us it was said to his Son: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance (Ps 2:8). We shall possess, and be possessed: we shall hold, and be held. What shall I say? we till, and are tilled; but we till as God; we are tilled as a field. That you may know that we are tilled, hear the Lord: I am the true vine, you are the branches, my Father is the husbandman (John 15:1,5). If he is called a husbandman, he tills a field. What field? He tills us. And the husbandman of this visible earth can plow, can dig, can plant, can water, if he finds water, can he rain? can the husbandman give increase, bring forth the shoot, fix the root in the earth, push it up into the air, add strength to the branches, load it with fruits, adorn it with leaves? Yet our husbandman, God the Father, can do all these things in us. Why? Because we believe in God the Father almighty. Therefore hold what we have both set before you, and, as God has deigned to give, have expounded.

11. In eight days you are to give back what today you have received. Let your parents, who receive you, teach you, that you may be found ready, and how you should keep watch at cockcrow, at the prayers which you celebrate here. Now the Creed itself begins to be offered you here, that you may diligently hold it: let no one tremble, let no one, by trembling, fail to give it back. Be secure, we are your fathers, we do not have the canes and rods of the grammarians. If anyone errs in a word, let him not err in the faith.

Sermon 214
On the Handing Over of the Creed

1. According to the measure of our age and of our beginnings, according to the inexperience of the office undertaken and the effect of our love toward you, we who now, as ministers, stand by the altar to which you are about to draw near, ought not to defraud you of the ministry of a sermon. The Apostle says: For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom 10:9-10). This the Creed builds up in you, which you ought both to believe and to confess, that you may be able to be saved. And those things, indeed, which you are briefly to receive, to commit to memory and to bring forth with the mouth, are not new or unheard of to you. For in the holy Scriptures and in the ecclesiastical sermons you are wont to hear them set down in many ways. But, briefly collected and reduced into a certain order and bound together, they are to be handed over to you, that your faith may be built up, your confession prepared, and your memory not burdened. These are the things you are faithfully to retain, and to give back from memory.
After this preliminary, the whole Creed is to be pronounced, without any disputation interposed: I believe in God the Father almighty, and the rest that follows in it. Which Creed you know is not wont to be written. This said, this disputation is to be added.

2. These things which you have briefly heard, you ought not only to believe, but also to commit to memory in those very words and to bring forth with the mouth. But since they must be fortified against those who think differently and are taken captive by the devil, who lie in wait for the faith when they oppose salvation, remember that you so believe God almighty, that there is no nature at all which he himself did not create. And therefore he punishes sin, which he himself did not make, because by it the nature is defiled which he made. All creatures, then, visible and invisible: whatever, with a rational mind, can be a partaker of unchangeable truth, such as angel and man; whatever lives and feels, although it lacks understanding, such as are all animals, on earth, in the waters, in the air, walking, creeping, swimming, flying; whatever, without understanding, without any feeling, is in any way said to live, such as are those things which are fixed by roots in the earth and, sprouting, burst forth and rise up into the air; whatever by bulk alone occupies a place, such as a stone, and whatever elements of the very worldly mass are perceived or even touched; all these the almighty made, joining the lowest and the highest by middle things, and disposing all that he created in fitting places and times. But he made them not from any matter which he himself did not make. For he did not form things foreign to him, but he himself established what he should form. For he who says that he could not make something from nothing, how does he believe that the Almighty made it? Without doubt he denies the almighty, who says that God could not make the world, if he had not whence to make it. For what omnipotence is there, where there is such great want, that, like a craftsman, he could not reach the effect of his work unless a matter which he himself did not establish helped him? From these opinions and errors, then, let him cleanse his mind who believes in God almighty. For that which is called the formless matter of things, capable of forms and subject to the work of the Creator, is convertible into all things which it shall please the Founder to make. God did not find it, as though coeternal with himself, whence to fashion the world: but he himself established it out of altogether nothing, together with the things which he made of it. Nor was there, before the very things which are seen to be made of it, that out of which they were made: and through this the Almighty first made all things out of nothing, together with which he made at the same time that out of which he made them. So the matter of heaven and earth, as these were created in the beginning, was created together with them at the same time; nor was there whence the things should be made which God made in the beginning: and yet they were made which the Almighty made, which, made, he composed, filled, adorned. For if the things which he made in the beginning he surely made out of nothing, even of these things which he made, whatever he wishes to make he is able, because he is almighty.

3. Nor let the unrighteous believe for this reason that God is not almighty, because they do many things against his will. For even when they do what he does not will, he himself will do of these what he wills. In no way, then, do they change or overcome the will of the Almighty: for whether a man be justly damned, or mercifully freed, the will of the Almighty is fulfilled. What, then, the Almighty does not will, this alone he cannot do. He uses the evil, then, not according to their depravity, but according to his own right will. For as the evil use ill their nature, which is good, that is, his good work, so he, good, uses well even their evil works, that the will of the almighty may not in any part be overcome. For if he had not what, being good, he might justly and well do of the evil, in no way would he allow them either to be born or to live; whom he himself did not make evil, because he made men; because he created not the sins which are against nature, but the natures themselves. Yet, foreknowing, he could not be ignorant that they would be evil; but, as he knew what evils they themselves would do, so he also knew what good he himself would do of them. Who could explain in words, who could equal with praises, how great a good the passion of the Savior conferred on us, whose blood was shed unto the forgiveness of sins? And yet so great a good was accomplished through the malice of the devil, through the malice of the Jews, through the malice of Judas the betrayer. Nor is the good justly repaid to them which God, not they, through them conferred on men; but punishment is justly repaid to them, since they wished to harm. But as we could find something which was manifest even to us, how God used well even the evil works of the devil, of the Jews, and of Judas the betrayer for our redemption and salvation; so, in the hidden and secret recesses of the whole creation, which we penetrate neither with the keenness of the eyes nor of the mind, he knows how God uses the evil well, that in all things which are born and administered in the world, the will of the Almighty may be fulfilled.

4. But since I have said that the Almighty cannot do this alone, what he does not will, lest anyone think that I rashly said that the Almighty cannot do something, this too the blessed Apostle said: If we believe not, he remains faithful, he cannot deny himself (2 Tim 2:13). But because he does not will it, he cannot, because he cannot even will it. For righteousness cannot will to do what is unjust, or wisdom will what is foolish, or truth will what is false. Whence we are admonished that God almighty cannot, not only this which the Apostle says, He cannot deny himself, but many things cannot. Behold, I say, and by his truth I dare to say what I dare not deny: God almighty cannot die, cannot be changed, cannot be deceived, cannot become wretched, cannot be conquered. These and such things, far be it that the Almighty could do. And through this not only does truth show him to be almighty, in that he cannot do these things; but truth even compels him not to be almighty who could do these things. For God is willingly whatever he is; eternal, then, and unchangeable, and truthful, and blessed, and insuperable he is willingly. If, then, he could be what he does not will, he is not almighty; but he is almighty, therefore whatever he wills he can do. And therefore what he does not will, cannot be; who is therefore called almighty, since whatever he wills he can do. Of whom the Psalm too says: In heaven and on earth he has done all things whatsoever he willed (Ps 135:6 (134:6)).

5. God almighty, then, who has made all things whatsoever he willed, begot the only Word through whom all things were made: but this not out of nothing, but out of himself: therefore he did not make, but begot. For in the beginning he made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1): but he did not make the Word in the beginning; because: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). This is God of God. But the Father is God, but not of God. This is the only Son of God, because, coeternal of the substance of the Father, equal to the Father, there is no other son. The Word is God: not as a word, whose sound can both be thought in the heart and brought forth by the mouth; but, as it was said, which cannot be said more briefly and better: The Word was God. Remaining unchangeably with the Father, and himself unchangeable too with the Father, of whom the Apostle says: Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Phil 2:6). For to be equal to the Father is nature to him, not grasping. So we believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God the Father, our Lord.

6. But because he who, in the form of God, did not count it a thing to be grasped to be equal to God, through whom we were created, that he might seek and save what had perished, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man (Phil 2:7): so we believe in him that he was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. For both his nativities are truly to be believed wonderful, both of divinity and of humanity. That one is of a father without a mother, this of a mother without a father; that one is without any time, this in an acceptable time; that one eternal, this opportune; that one without a body in the bosom of the Father, this with a body, by which the virginity of the mother was not violated; that one without any sex, this without any male embrace. But we therefore say born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, because, when the holy Virgin had inquired of the angel: How will this be? he answered: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Then he added: Therefore what will be born of you holy will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:34-35). He did not say: "What will be born of you will be called the Son of the Holy Spirit." For the whole man, that is, the rational soul and body, was taken up by the Word, so that the one Christ, the one Son of God, was not only the Word, but the Word and man, the whole of this is the Son of God the Father on account of the Word, and the son of man on account of the man. Through that which is the Word, he is equal to the Father: through that which is man, the Father is greater. And together with the man he is the Son of God, but on account of the Word, by which the man was taken up; and together with the Word he is the son of man, but on account of the man, who was taken up by the Word. On account of whose holy conception in the womb of the Virgin, made not by the burning desire of the flesh, but by the fervent love of faith, therefore he is said to be born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary; so that one of these may pertain not to the begetter, but to the sanctifier, but the other to her who conceived and bore. Therefore, he says, what will be born of you holy will be called the Son of God. Because "holy," therefore "of the Holy Spirit"; because born of you, therefore "of the virgin Mary"; because the Son of God, therefore "the Word made flesh."

7. But it behooved that, in the man taken up, not only the invisible should be seen and the one coeternal with the Father should be born in time, but also the one who cannot be handled should be held, the insuperable should be hung on a tree, the inviolable should be pierced with nails, and Life and Immortality should die on the cross, should be buried in a tomb; all this the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Whence it follows that the same only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, not only born a man from man, but also having suffered human things even to death and burial, we should both believe with the heart unto righteousness and confess with the mouth unto salvation (See Rom 10:10). For since the whole only Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the Word and man, and, that I may say it more expressly, the Word, the soul, and the flesh; to the whole is referred that in the soul alone he was sorrowful unto death (See Matt 26:38), because the only Son of God, Jesus Christ, was sorrowful; to the whole is referred that in the man alone he was crucified, since the only Son of God, Jesus Christ, was crucified; to the whole is referred that in the flesh alone he was buried, since the only Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, was buried. For from the time we began to say that we believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, from that whatever else we say of him, none is understood but Jesus Christ the only Son of God our Lord. Nor wonder: for we so say that the only Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, was buried, when his flesh alone was buried, just as, for example, we say that the apostle Peter today lies in the tomb, when we also most truly say that he rejoices in rest with Christ. For we say it is the same Apostle: for there are not two apostles Peter, but one. The same one, then, we say, both lies in the body alone in the tomb, and in the spirit alone rejoices with Christ. But it is added: Under Pontius Pilate; whether that the truth of the time may be gathered, or that the humility of Christ may be the more commended, that he suffered so much under a man as judge, who is to come as judge of the living and the dead with so great power.

8. But on the third day he rose in true flesh, but in no way thereafter to die. This his disciples proved with their eyes and hands, nor would so great a goodness deceive their faith, nor would the truth beguile it. But on account of brevity it is at once subjoined that he ascended into heaven. For he was with his disciples forty days, lest so great a miracle of his resurrection, if it were quickly withdrawn from their eyes, should be thought a mockery. Where he now sits at the right hand of the Father; which we ought prudently to behold with the eyes of faith, lest we think him immovably fixed in some seat, so that it is not permitted him to stand or to walk. For not because holy Stephen said he saw him standing (See Acts 7:56), did either he see a falsehood, or did he disturb the words of this Creed. Far be it to think this, far be it to say it. But his dwelling in the high and ineffable blessedness was so signified, that he was said to sit there. Whence also dwellings are called "seats," as when we ask where someone is, and it is answered: "In his seats." And of the servants of God it is most and most often said: "So many years that one sat in that monastery"; that is, he rested, sojourned, dwelt. Nor is the holy Scripture ignorant of this kind of speech. For that Shimei, ordered by King Solomon to dwell in the city of Jerusalem, with a threat added, that if ever he dared to go out from there, he should pay the due penalties, is reported to have sat there for three years (See 1 Kgs 2:36-39), which is understood to have dwelt. But the right hand itself of the Father is not so spoken of according to the form of a human body, as though the Father himself were at the left to the Son, if the Son were placed at his right hand according to these bodily positions and postures of the members. But the right hand of God means the loftiness of honor and ineffable felicity, as is read said of wisdom: His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me (Song 2:6). For if earthly convenience lies beneath, then from above eternal felicity embraces.

9. From the lofty dwelling of the heavens, then, where now is even his already immortal body, our Lord Jesus Christ is to come to judge the living and the dead, according to the most evident angelic testimony, which is written in the Acts of the Apostles. For the disciples, gazing at him ascending into heaven, and following him with suspended gaze, heard the angels say: Men of Galilee, why do you stand here? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you, will so come, as you have seen him going into heaven (Acts 1:11). The much and varied human presumption is repressed. In that form Christ will judge, in which he was judged. For so the Apostles saw him ascend into heaven, when they heard that he would so come. That form will be visible to the living and the dead, to the good and the evil; whether we understand the good to be called by the name of the living, and the evil of the dead; or take as living those whom his coming will find not yet to have finished this life, but as dead those whom his presence will raise up, as he himself in the Gospel says: The hour will come, when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment (John 5:28-29). And they will see him in the form of man, those who believed in him, and those who despised him. But the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father, the ungodly will not see. For the ungodly will be taken away, as the Prophet says, that he may not see the glory of the Lord (Isa 26:10 (LXX)). And: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matt 5:8). Let these things, said of Jesus Christ the only Son of God our Lord, be enough.

10. We believe also in the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father, and yet not the Son; remaining upon the Son, and yet not the father of the Son: receiving of the Son, and yet not the son of the Son: but the Spirit of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit and himself God. For he would not have such a temple, if he were not God. Whence the Apostle says: Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19) Not the temple of a creature, but of the Creator. For far be it from us that we should be the temple of a creature, since the Apostle says: For the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor 3:17). In this Trinity nothing is greater or less than another, no separation of works, no unlikeness of substance. One Father God, one Son God, one Holy Spirit God. Nor yet are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit three gods, but one God; so that the Father himself is not the same as the Son, nor is the Son the same as the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit either Father or Son; but the Father, the Father of the Son, and the Son, the Son of the Father, and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and the Son: and each one singly God, and the Trinity itself one God. May this faith imbue your hearts, and direct your confession. By hearing this, believe, that you may understand; that what you believe, you may, by advancing, be able to understand.

11. The holy Church too, your mother, as the heavenly Jerusalem, the holy city of God, honor, love, proclaim. She it is who, in this faith which you have heard, bears fruit and grows in the whole world, the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth (See 1 Tim 3:15): who tolerates in the communion of the sacraments the evil who are to be separated at the end, from whom in the meantime she departs by the unlikeness of manners. She, on account of her grains now groaning amid the chaff, of which the mass owed to the granaries will be declared in the last winnowing, receives the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that in her, through the blood of Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit, may be made the forgiveness of sins. In this Church the soul will come back to life, which had been dead by sins, that it may be made alive together with Christ, by whose grace we have been saved.

12. But neither ought we to doubt of this mortal flesh, that it will rise at the end of the age. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. It is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it will rise in glory: an animal body is sown, a spiritual body will rise (1 Cor 15:53,42-44). This is the Christian, this the catholic, this the apostolic faith. Believe Christ saying: A hair of your head will not perish (Luke 21:18), and, unbelief being driven away, think rather of how much you are worth. For what of ours can be despised by our Redeemer, whose hair cannot be despised? Or how shall we doubt that he will give eternal life to our soul and flesh, who for our sake both took up soul and flesh in which to die, and laid them down when he died, and took them back lest death be feared? All things that are handed over in the Creed, according to the measure of my ministry, I have expounded to your Charity. Which is therefore called the Creed (Symbolum), because there the agreed faith of our partnership is contained, and by its confession, as by a given sign, the faithful Christian is recognized.

Sermon 214/A
Augustine in His Explanation of the Creed

1 ] Plainly, to believe too pertains to knowing.

2 ] We do not believe whatever we know, but we know whatever we rightly believe.

3 ] We know by seeing, we know by believing.

4 ] For if a fellow citizen speaks with me, and in this a fellow countryman and provincial contradicts me, so as to harass me as though I did not know because I have not seen, I ask of him whence he knows that there is an Alexandria which he has not seen, that there are so many cities in which he has never been, which yet he so knows to exist that he would even securely swear it if he were challenged.

5 ] Behold, I put the question: Whence do you know that there is an Alexandria? He will say: I believed it. I will answer: Whom did you believe? What else will he say but that he believed men? You, then, believed about Alexandria those who saw it, I about God those who prophesied. If you consider the truth, if you weigh the weights of the testimonies, I rather believed fit witnesses than you. For about Alexandria you believed those who, being there, could see it present to them, I believed those who said the things that are now done before they were to be.

Sermon 215
On the Giving Back of the Creed

1. The Creed of the most sacred mystery, which you received together and have each today given back, is the words in which the faith of mother Church is made solid and firm upon the stable foundation, which is Christ the Lord. For no one can lay another foundation than that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus (1 Cor 3:11). You have received, then, and given back, what you ought always to retain in mind and heart, what you should say on your beds, what you should think in the streets, and what you should not forget amid your meals; in which, even sleeping in body, you should watch in heart. For, renouncing the devil, his pomps and his angels, withdrawing your mind and soul from them, it behooves you to forget the things of the past, and, the old age of your former life despised, to renew with the new man your very life too by holy manners; and, as the Apostle says, forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching out to the things that are before, to follow on to the prize of the upward calling of God (See Phil 3:13-14); and to believe what you do not yet see, that you may deservedly be able to come to what you have believed. For what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it with patience (Rom 8:24-25).

2. This faith, then, is also the rule of salvation, that we believe in God the Father almighty, the Creator of all things, the king of the ages, immortal and invisible. For he is God almighty, who in the first beginning of the world made all things out of nothing, who is before the ages, and who made and rules the ages. For he is not increased by time, nor stretched out by place, nor enclosed or bounded by any matter; but with himself and in himself remains full and perfect eternity, which neither human thought can comprehend, nor the tongue narrate. For if the gift which he promises to his saints, neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9); how can the very one who promises it either the mind conceive, or the heart think, or the tongue narrate?

3. We believe also in his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, true God of true God, the Son of God the Father, God, but not two gods; for he and the Father are one (See John 10:30); and through Moses he intimates this to the people, saying: Hear, Israel, the commandments of life: the Lord your God is one God (See Deut 6:4). But if you wish to think how the eternal Son was born of the eternal Father without time, the prophet Isaiah refutes you, who says: His generation, who shall declare? (Isa 53:8) So the birth of God from God you will be able neither to think nor to narrate; you are only permitted to believe, that you may be able to be saved, as the Apostle says: For he who draws near to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him (Heb 11:6). But if you desire to know his nativity according to the flesh, which for our salvation he deigned to take up, hear, and believe him born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. Although even this very nativity of his, who shall declare? For who can worthily estimate that God for the sake of men willed to be born a man, that a virgin conceived without male seed, gave birth without corruption, and after the birth remained in integrity? For our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to enter the womb of the Virgin, filled the members of a woman, immaculate, made the mother fruitful without corruption, came forth formed by himself, and preserved the bowels of his mother intact; that her of whom he deigned to be born he might endow both with the honor of a mother and with the holiness of a virgin. Who thinks this? who narrates it? Therefore even this nativity of his, who shall declare? For whose mind suffices to think, whose tongue to utter, not only that in the beginning was the Word, having no beginning of being born, but also that the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), choosing a virgin whom he would make his mother, making a mother whom he would keep also a virgin; the Son of God with no mother conceiving, the Son of man with no man sowing; bringing fruitfulness to the woman by coming, not taking away integrity by being born? What is this? who could tell it? who could be silent? And, wonderful to say: what we are not able to utter, we are not allowed to keep silent; by sounding we proclaim what we do not grasp even by thinking. For so great a gift of God we cannot speak forth, since we are little ones for narrating its greatness; and yet we are compelled to praise it, lest by keeping silent we remain ungrateful. But thanks be to God, because that which cannot be fittingly said can be faithfully believed.

4. Let us believe, then, in Jesus Christ, our Lord, born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. For blessed Mary herself, the one whom she bore by believing, she conceived by believing. For when, the son being promised her, she had asked how it would be, since she did not know a man; surely the only manner of knowing and bearing that was known to her was the one which she herself had not experienced, but had learned from other women by nature's frequent course, namely, that a man is born of a man and a woman; she received the answer from the angel: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore what will be born of you holy will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). When the angel had said these things, she, full of faith, and conceiving Christ in mind before in womb: Behold, she said, the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word (Luke 1:38). Be it done, she says, a conception in the virgin without male seed; let him be born of the Holy Spirit and an intact woman, in whom may be reborn of the Holy Spirit an intact Church. Let the holy one who is born of a human mother without a human father be called the Son of God; since he who was born of God the Father without any mother wondrously, it behooved that he should become the son of man; that, born in that flesh, he should as a little one go forth through closed bowels, in which, raised up, he should as a great one enter through closed doors. These things are wonderful, because they are divine; ineffable, because also unsearchable; the mouth of man does not suffice for explaining, because neither does the heart of man for investigating. Mary believed, and in her what she believed came to pass. Let us too believe, that what came to pass may be able to profit us also. Although, then, even this nativity is wonderful: yet think, O man, what for your sake your God, the Creator for the creature, took up; that God, remaining in God, eternal living with the eternal, the Son equal to the Father, for guilty ones and for sinful servants did not disdain to put on the form of a servant. For neither was this rendered to human merits. For for our iniquities we rather deserved punishments: but if he had marked iniquities, who could endure? (See Ps 130:3 (129:3)) For the ungodly, then, and for sinful servants, the Lord, a servant and a man, deigned to be born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary.

5. This perhaps seems little, that for men God, for sinners the righteous, for the guilty the innocent, for captives the king, for servants the Lord, clothed with the flesh of humanity, came, was seen on earth and dwelt with men (See Bar 3:38): moreover, crucified, dead, and buried. Do you not believe? You say perhaps: When did this happen? Hear at what time: Under Pontius Pilate. For your indication the name of the judge too is set down, lest you doubt even of the time. Believe, then, that the Son of God was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried. But greater love than this no one has, than that one lay down his soul for his friends (John 15:13). Do you think, no one? Absolutely no one. It is true, Christ said this. Let us question the Apostle, and let him answer us: Christ, he says, died for the ungodly (Rom 5:6). And again he says: When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son (Rom 5:10). Behold, then, in Christ we find a greater love, who handed over his soul not for friends, but for his own enemies. How great the love of God toward men, and what an affection, so to love even sinners, that for love of them he died. For God commends his love, the words are the Apostle's, in us, because, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). Believe this, then, you too, and for your salvation do not blush to confess it. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom 10:10). Finally, lest you should doubt, lest you should blush, when you first believed, you received the sign of Christ on your forehead as on the house of modesty. Consider your forehead, that you may not dread another's tongue. For he who, says the Lord himself, is ashamed of me before men, the Son of man will be ashamed of him before the angels of God (See Luke 9:26). Do not, then, blush at the ignominy of the cross, which God himself for your sake did not hesitate to take up. Say with the Apostle: But far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 6:14). And the same Apostle answers you: I did not judge that I knew anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2). He who was then crucified by one people is now fixed in the hearts of all peoples.

6. But you, whoever you are who wish to glory rather in power than in humility, receive consolation, have exultation. For he who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried, on the third day rose from the dead. Perhaps here too you doubt, perhaps you tremble. When it was said to you: Believe him born, believe him to have suffered, crucified, dead, and buried; as of a man you believed it more easily. Now, because it is said: On the third day he rose from the dead, do you doubt, O man? To bring forth one example out of many, attend to God, think on the Almighty; and do not doubt. For if he could make you, when you were not, out of nothing; why could he not raise from the dead his own man, whom he had already made? Believe, then, brothers: where it is a matter of faith, there is no need to use a long speech. This faith alone is what distinguishes and separates Christians from all men. For that he died and was buried, even the pagans now believe, and the Jews then saw; but that on the third day he rose from the dead, neither pagan nor Jew admits. So the resurrection of the dead distinguishes from the unbelieving dead the life of our faith. For the apostle Paul too, when he wrote to Timothy: Remember, he says, that Christ Jesus rose from the dead (2 Tim 2:8). Let us believe, then, brothers; what we believe was done in Christ, let us hope will be in us. For it is God who promises: he does not deceive.

7. After he rose from the dead, then, he ascended into the heavens, he sits at the right hand of the Father. Do you perhaps still not believe? Hear the Apostle: He who descended, he says, is the same who also ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things (Eph 4:10). See lest him whom you are unwilling to believe rising, you feel judging. For he who does not believe is already judged (John 3:18). For he who now sits at the right hand of the Father as advocate for us, thence will come to judge the living and the dead. Let us believe, then, that whether we live or die, we may be the Lord's (See Rom 14:8).

8. Let us believe, then, also in the Holy Spirit. For he is God, because it is written: God is a Spirit (John 4:24). Through him we received the forgiveness of sins, through him we believe the resurrection of the flesh, through him we hope for life eternal. But see lest by counting you suffer error, and think that I have said three gods, because I have named one God a third time. There is in the Trinity one substance of deity, one virtue, one power, one majesty, one name of divinity; as he himself said to the disciples, when he had risen from the dead: Go, baptize the nations, not in many names, but in the one name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (See Matt 28:19). Believing, then, the divine Trinity and the threefold unity, beware, most beloved, lest anyone seduce you from the faith and truth of the catholic Church. For whoever announces to you otherwise than what you have received, let him be accursed. Hear the Apostle, not me, who says: But even if we, or an angel from heaven, announce to you otherwise than what you have received, let him be accursed (Gal 1:8-9).

9. You surely see, dearest ones, even in the very words of the holy Creed, how, in the conclusion of all the rules which pertain to the sacrament of faith, there is added as it were a certain supplement, that it should be said: Through the holy Church. Flee, then, as much as you can, the diverse and various deceivers, whose sects and names, because of their multitude, it is now long to recount. For I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (See John 16:12). One thing I commend to your breasts, that from him who is not catholic you turn away your mind and hearing in every way: that you may be able to lay hold of the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the flesh and life eternal through the one, true, and holy catholic Church; in which is learned the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, to whom is honor and glory forever and ever.

Sermon 216
On the Giving Back of the Creed

1. The first beginnings of our ministry, and your conception, by which you begin to be begotten in the womb of faith by heavenly grace, must be aided by the mouth: that both our sermon may address you wholesomely, and your conception may usefully console us. We instruct by sermons, do you advance by manners. We scatter the sermon of the word, do you render the fruit of faith. Let us all, according to the calling by which we have been called by the Lord, run in his way and path; let no one look back. For Truth, which neither deceives nor can deceive, openly declares: No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back will be fit for the kingdom of heaven (Luke 9:62). That you desire this, that you strive toward this with all the efforts of your mind, your very name, by which you are called "competentes" (those who seek together), shows. For what else are "competentes," but "those seeking together" (simul petentes)? For as "condocentes," "concurrentes," "considentes" sound nothing other than teaching together, running together, sitting together; so too the word "Competentes" is composed from nothing other than seeking together and striving for some one thing. And what is that one thing which you seek or desire, except what someone, his fleshly desires cast away and the terrors of the age overcome, cries fearlessly? If camps stand against me, my heart will not fear; if war rise up against me, in this I will hope. And, expressing what that is, he added and said: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. And, explaining the blessedness of this region and dwelling, he joins and expresses: That I may behold the delight of the Lord, and be protected by his temple (Ps 27:3-4 (26:3-4)).

2. You see, my recruits, to what delight of the Lord you will come, when you cast away the delight of the age? If you despise the world, you will have a clean heart, and you will see him who made the world: and as he conquered (See John 16:33), so you too in his grace will conquer this world. Which surely you will soon overcome and trample, if you presume not on your own strength, but on the help of the most merciful God. Do not despise yourselves, because it has not yet appeared what you will be. But know that, when it has appeared, you will be like him (See 1 John 3:2), when what you will be has appeared. But know that you will see him, not such as he came to us in the fullness of time, but such as, ever remaining, he created us. Strip off the old man, that you may put on the new (See Eph 4:22-24). The Lord begins a pact with you. You have lived for the age, you have given yourselves to flesh and blood, you have borne the image of the earthly man. As, then, you have borne the image of the one who is of the earth, so also from now on bear that of the one who is of heaven (See 1 Cor 15:49). It is a human manner of speaking, since therefore the Word was made flesh, that, as you presented your bodies as weapons of iniquity to sin, so now you may present your members as weapons of righteousness to God (See Rom 6:13). For your destruction your assailant was armed against you with your own javelins: for your salvation, let your protector in turn be armed against him with your members. He will harm you nothing, if, when you take your members from him, he does not hold them. He will rightly leave you, if your vow and will dissent from him.

3. Behold, with the auction and merchandise of faith, the kingdom of heaven is offered to you for sale: look upon and gather together the resources of your conscience, gather with one mind the treasures of your heart. And yet you buy freely, if you recognize the welcome grace which is offered to you. You spend nothing, and yet great is what you acquire. Be not cheap to yourselves, you whom the Creator of all things, and yours, esteems so dear, that for you he daily sheds the most precious blood of his Only-begotten. You will not be so cheap if you distinguish the precious from the cheap; if you serve not the creature, but the Creator; if your lower things have not had dominion over you, that, immaculate, you may be cleansed from the capital and great sin (See Ps 19:13 (18:14)); if in you the seed of the word of God, which even now the heavenly husbandman scatters in the field of your heart, be not either, as on the way, trampled by the passing of the unworthy, or, as among rocky places, by the stolidity of your most hard conscience, already sprouting, choked, or among the thorns of your desires suffocated by pernicious stings (See Matt 13:3-8). If you shrink from the sterility of so ruinous and damnable an earth, a fruitful and most rich earth will surely receive you, and with great joy you will render to your sower and waterer a hundredfold multiplied abundance; or if perhaps you are unequal to this, you will pay the interest of a sixtyfold fruit: but if you do not attain even to this, even a thirtyfold yield will not be ungrateful to you; because all will be received into the heavenly granaries, all will be stored away in eternal rest. From the fruits of all that heavenly bread will be made, and every laborer working in the Lord's vineyard without deceit will be abundantly and wholesomely filled by it: while the glory of so great a sower, waterer, and irrigator, and the giver of the increase himself, is spread abroad by the gospel preaching (See 1 Cor 3:6-7).

4. Draw near to him, then, in the crushing of the heart: since he is near to all who have crushed their heart, and he himself will save you, humble in spirit (See Ps 34:18 (33:19)). Draw near eagerly, that you may be enlightened (See Ps 34:5 (33:6)). For you are still in darkness, and darkness is in you. But you will be light in the Lord (See Eph 5:8), who enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9). You were conformed to the age, be reformed to God. May you at last be wearied of the Babylonian captivity. Behold, Jerusalem, that heavenly mother, comes to meet you on the ways, cheerfully inviting, and beseeches you to be willing to have life and to love to see good days (See Ps 34:12 (33:13)), which you never had, nor will ever have in this age. For there your days were failing like smoke: days for you to be increased and diminished, to grow and fail, to ascend and vanish. You who have lived to sin many and evil years, desire to live to God: not many years to be at some time ended, and running to perish in the shadow of death; but good ones, and near to the truth of a living life; where you will weary with no hunger, no thirst; because your food will be faith, your drink wisdom. For now in the Church you bless the Lord in faith: but then in the sight you will be most abundantly watered from the fountains of Israel.

5. But in this pilgrimage meanwhile let your tears be your bread day and night; while, when men say to you daily: Where is your God? (Ps 42:3 (41:4)) you cannot show to the fleshly what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9). Until you come and appear before the eyes of your God, do not fail. For he himself too will come to pay the promises, who freely professed himself a debtor: who borrowed nothing from anyone, and deigned to be a debtor by his own promise. We owed; and we owed as much as we had sinned. He came without debt, because without any sin; he found us oppressed by a ruinous and damnable usury, and, paying what he had not seized, mercifully freed us from the everlasting debt. We had committed the fault, we awaited the punishment; he, made not a partner of our fault, but made a partaker of the punishment, willed to be at once the forgiver both of fault and of punishment. For he it is who will rescue the souls of believers from usuries and iniquity (See Ps 72:14 (71:14)), and from the heart, in each of those who say: I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living (Ps 27:13 (26:13)). This land is to be desired not with an earthly or dead, but with a heavenly and living heart. For it is that of which, in another psalm, someone burning with love of it and cheerfully singing says: You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living (Ps 142:5 (141:6)). To which they tend who vitally mortify their members upon the earth: not the members by which the framework of this world's body consists, but those members by which the manhood of the soul is wretchedly weakened. Most openly enumerating and designating them, Paul the apostle, the Vessel of election, says: Mortify your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, disturbance, evil desire, and covetousness, which is the service of idols (Col 3:5). Behold what in this land of the dying you ought to mortify, you who desire to live in that land of the living. So let us become members of Christ, that we do not take them and make them members of a harlot (See 1 Cor 6:15). For what is baser, what is more disgraceful, than that very harlot, which is fornication, placed first, and covetousness last? Which he truly called the service of idols; because not only in the luxury of the body, but also in the flux of the soul, you ought to recognize and avoid it, lest you incur that perdition by the threatening and chaste Bridegroom and just Judge, to whom it is said: You have destroyed everyone who fornicates away from you (Ps 73:27 (72:27)). How much more justly, how much more usefully, in the chastity of the heart toward him, will each one of you cry: For me, to cleave to God is good (Ps 73:28 (72:28)). This cleaving that love affords, of which it is likewise said: Love without dissimulation; hating evil, cleaving to the good (Rom 12:9).

6. Behold where your stadium is, behold where the wrestling of those contending, behold where the running of those who run, behold where the boxing of those who strike. If you wish to dash down the most pernicious wrestler of the faith with the arms of your strength, lay low the evil, embrace the good. If you wish so to run that you may lay hold, flee the unjust, follow on after the just. If you wish so to box that you do not beat the air, but strike the enemy manfully, chastise your body and bring it into servitude (See 1 Cor 9:26-27), that, abstaining from all things and lawfully contending (See 1 Cor 9:25; 2 Tim 2:5), you may triumph as partakers of the heavenly prize and the incorruptible crown. What we do in you by the adjured name of your Redeemer, this complete by the scrutiny and tribulation of your heart. We resist by prayers to God and by rebukes the deceits of the inveterate enemy: do you persist by vows and by the contrition of your heart, that you may be rescued from the power of darkness, and transferred into the kingdom of his glory (See Col 1:13). This is now your work, and this your labor. We heap upon him worthy curses for his wickednesses: do you rather, by your turning away and pious renunciation, declare against him a most glorious contest. He is to be ground down, bound, shut out, the enemy of God and yours, and rather of himself. For his fury is shown both insolent against God, and nefarious against you, and pernicious to himself. Let him pant everywhere for slaughter, set snares, sharpen his manifold and deceitful tongues: all his poisons, the name of the Savior being invoked, pour out from your hearts.

7. Whatever by most criminal suggestions, whatever by most shameful enticements he sent in, now will be drawn out, now made public. Now his captivity, by which he tyrannically possessed you, will be laid waste. The yoke by which he monstrously pressed you down will be turned away from you, and laid upon his neck: only give your Redeemer your consent for your own liberation. Hope in him, all you assembly of the new people, and you people who are being born, whom the Lord has made, strive that you may be wholesomely brought to birth, lest you be deadly miscarried. Behold the womb of mother Church, behold, that she may bear you and bring you forth into the light of faith, she labors in her groaning. Do not by your impatience shake the maternal bowels and narrow the doors of your birth. People who are being created, praise your God: praise, you who are being created, praise your Lord. Because you are nursed, praise: because you are fed, praise: because you are nourished, advance in wisdom and age. He too admitted these delays of a temporal birth, who neither fails by shortness of time, nor advances by any length of time, but from eternal days excluded all narrownesses and time. Do not here, as a kindly nurse of the little one admonishes, become children in your minds, but be children in malice, in your minds be perfect (1 Cor 14:20). As "competentes," competently grow up in Christ, that you may grow up youthfully into the perfect man (See Eph 4:13). Gladden, as it is written, your father by the advancement of your wisdom, and do not sadden your mother by your failing (See Prov 10:1; 29:3).

8. Love what you will be. For you will be sons of God, and sons of adoption. This will be given you freely, and conferred freely. In which you will more bountifully and abundantly abound, the more grateful you are to him from whom you received these things. Strive toward him, who knows who are his. But then he will not disdain to know you among those who are his, if, naming the name of the Lord, you depart from unrighteousness (See 2 Tim 2:19). You have, or had, parents of your flesh in the age, who begot you for labor and for punishment and death: but because, by a happier orphanhood, each one of you can say of such ones: My father and my mother have forsaken me (Ps 27:10 (26:10)); recognize, Christian, that Father who, when those forsook, took you up from the womb of your mother, to whom a certain faithful one faithfully says: From the womb of my mother you are my protector (Ps 22:9-10 (21:10-11)). The Father is God, the mother the Church. Far otherwise will you be begotten by these than you were begotten by those. These births, not labor, not misery, not weeping, not death; but ease, felicity, joy, and life will receive. Through those a lamentable generation; through these a desirable generation. Those, in begetting us, beget us unto eternal punishment, on account of the old fault: these, in regenerating, make neither the punishment nor the fault remain. This is that regeneration of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob (Ps 24:6 (23:6)). Seek humble things: which, when you have found, you will come to a secure height. Your infancy will be innocence, your boyhood reverence, your adolescence patience, your youth virtue, your maturity merit, your old age nothing other than a gray-haired and wise understanding. Through these joints or steps of age, you are not unrolled, but, remaining, you are renewed. For the second will not succeed so that the first falls away, nor will the rise of the third be the perishing of the second, nor is the fourth now born so that the third dies; the fifth will not envy the fourth that it may remain, nor will the sixth bury the fifth. Although these ages do not come at once, yet in a pious and justified soul they persevere equally and concordantly. These will lead you to the seventh, perennial rest and peace. Yet, six times, as we read, freed from the necessities of deadly age, now in the seventh the evils will not touch you (See Job 5:19). For those things will not contend which will not be, nor will those prevail which will not even dare. There is secure immortality, there immortal security.

9. And whence these things, except from the change of the right hand of the Most High, who will bless your sons in you, who will set your borders as peace (See Ps 77:10 (76:11); 147:14 (147:3))? Be roused, then, to these things, you who are grown together, you who are set apart; grown together with the good, set apart from the evil: the elect, the beloved, the foreknown, the called, those to be justified, those to be glorified (See Rom 8:30): that, growing, growing young, and growing old in faith and in the maturity of strength, not in the corruption of the members, in a fruitful old age (See Ps 92:14 (91:15)), you may tranquilly announce the works of the Lord, who has done great things for you, who is mighty (See Luke 1:49): because great is his name, and of his wisdom there is no number (See Ps 147:5 (146:5)). You seek life; run to him who is the fountain of life: and, the darkness of your smoky desires being put to flight, you will see light in the light of his Only-begotten, your most merciful Redeemer, and most resplendent enlightener. If you seek salvation, hope in him who saves those who hope in him (See Ps 17:7 (16:7)). If you pursue drunkenness and delights, he will not deny even these. Only come and adore, fall down and weep before him who made you (See Ps 95:6 (94:6)): and he will make you drunk with the abundance of his house, and give you to drink of the torrent of his delights (See Ps 36:8 (35:9)).

10. But beware, lest the foot of pride come upon you; and watch, lest the hands of sinners move you (See Ps 36:11 (35:12)). First, lest it happen, pray that he cleanse you from your hidden things: second, lest it rush in and cast you down, asking that he spare you from those of others (See Ps 19:12-13 (18:13-14)); lying, rise; rising, stand; standing, stand by; standing by, persist. Bear the yoke no longer: rather break their bonds, and cast their yoke from you (See Ps 2:3), lest again you be held by the yoke of servitude. The Lord is at hand; be anxious for nothing (Phil 4:5-6). Eat now the bread of sorrow: the time will come when, after the bread of sadness, the bread of gladness will be ministered to you. But the desert of the latter is the endurance of the former. Your turning away and flight earned the bread of mourning: be converted, be pricked, and return to your Lord. He is ready to bestow the bread of joy on one pricked and returning; if you do not dissemble nor defer to pray, tearfully laden with hardship for your flight. In so great crowds of those troubling you, then, clothe yourselves in sackcloth, and humble your soul in fasting. To humility is rendered what is denied to pride. And you indeed, when you were being scrutinized, and the persuader of that very flight and desertion was duly rebuked in the omnipotence of the dread Trinity, were not clothed in sackcloth: but yet your feet stood mystically in the same.

11. The vices and the fleeces of the goats are to be trodden down: the garments of the goats on the left are to be torn apart. With the first robe the merciful Father will come of his own accord to meet you, who, to drive away your pestilent hunger, did not delay to sacrifice even the fattened calf (See Luke 15:20-23). On his flesh you will be fed, with his blood you will be given drink: by whose shedding sins are forgiven, debts pardoned, stains wiped away. Eat as the poor, and then you will be satisfied: that you too may be of those of whom it is said: The poor will eat and be satisfied (Ps 22:26 (21:27)): and, wholesomely satisfied, belch forth his bread and glory. Run to him, and be converted: for he it is who converts the turned-away, pursues the fugitives, finds the lost, humbles the proud, feeds the hungry, looses the fettered, enlightens the blind, purges the unclean, refreshes the wearied, raises the dead, and rescues those possessed and captured by the spirits of wickedness. From whom, because we have now proved you free, rejoicing with you we admonish you, that the health which has appeared in your body may be preserved in your hearts.

Sermon 217
On the Words of the Lord in the Gospel of John:
"This Is Eternal Life, That They Know You, the Only True God, and Him Whom You Sent, Jesus Christ"
And on the Trinity

1. The Lord Jesus Christ, who hears us with the Father, deigned to pray to the Father for us. What is more certain than our happiness, when he prays for us who gives what he prays for? For Christ is man and God: he prays as man, he gives what he prays for as God. But, which you ought to hold, he assigns all to the Father for this reason, that the Father is not from him, but he himself is from the Father. To the fountain, from which he is derived, he gives all. But he himself too, the fountain born of the Father, is the fountain of life. Therefore the Father, the fountain, begot the fountain. The fountain indeed begot the fountain; but the begetting fountain and the begotten fountain are one fountain: just as the begetting God and the begotten God are one God, the Son, namely, born of the Father. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father; the Father is not from the Son, the Son is from the Father; but yet the Father and the Son are one on account of the one substance, and there is one God on account of the inseparable divinity. Accordingly, what you have heard him say: This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ (John 17:3), see that you do not so take it as to think that the Father alone is the true God, but that the Son is not the true God. For we have a divine testimony on this matter, John saying manifestly in his epistle: That we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ: for he is the true God, and eternal life (1 John 5:20). Hold that Christ is the true God, and eternal life. Therefore, when you hear: That they know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ, you ought to supply: the only true God; that is, that they may know you, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ, as the only true God.

2. From this question we have come out most fully. But what do we do about the Holy Spirit? For if of the Father and Christ what was said: That they know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ, that is, that they know you and Jesus Christ as the only true God; we labor to show how the Holy Spirit too is true God. The Holy Spirit was not passed over because he is unmentioned. He is not only the Spirit of the Father, or only of the Son: but he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. When, therefore, he is unmentioned, the two being named, he is understood in them, who is of both. I will tell you a certain manner of speaking from Scripture, whence you may understand what we say. The Apostle says: No one knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him (1 Cor 2:11). For what are the things of a man? What a man thinks as a man: for there a man is properly, in his thoughts. Does your spirit know my thoughts, or does my spirit know your thoughts? No one knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him. The Apostle said it; and he added: So the things of God no one knows but the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). How do we take this? The sentence is definite. If, then, the things of God no one knows but the Spirit of God, then does the Son of God not know the things of God? Far be from us the devilish thought, let it depart from us. Then the Word of God does not know the things of God? then the Only-begotten of God does not know the things of God? does he not know the things of God, through whom all things were made (See John 1:3)? He knows them: and who so knows them, except the Spirit of God? As, then, where you hear: No one knows the things of God but the Spirit of God, you do not separate the Son from there; so, when you hear: That they know you, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ, as the only true God, do not separate the Holy Spirit.

3. If he is the only true God, says the heresy, I know not what you know; because there is no other true God but the Father, to whom Christ said: That they know you, the only true God. Add: and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I do not wish, he says, to add. But he himself added it. But I, he says, do not wish to add. Nor do I wish to hear you. And yet, you who define the Father alone to be the true God, what will you say of the epistle of John, where it is read of Christ: He is the true God, and eternal life (1 John 5:20)? Finally, to whom was it said, or of whom was it said: who alone does wonders (Ps 72:18 (71:18))? Of the Father, or of the Son, or of both? If of the Father, then the Son does not do wonders. And where is what he himself says: As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son too gives life to whom he wills (John 5:21)? It is of the same power, of the same divinity. If, then, the Son too does wonders, how does the Father do them alone? But if it was said of both, then the Father and the Son are one God. Add the Holy Spirit: add, do not separate, lest you be separated.

4. Let us adore God, whose temples we are. For, brothers, if we were to make a temple of wood and stones, we could make it only to God. If we were pagans, we would make temples to gods: for we would make temples to false gods, as did the unbelieving nations estranged from God. But Solomon, because he was a prophet of God, made a temple of wood and stones, but yet to God: to God, not to an idol: to God, not to an angel: to God, not to the sun, not to the moon: to God, who made heaven and earth: to the living God, who made heaven and earth, and remains in the heavens, he made a temple of earth; and God did not disdain it, rather he commanded that it be made. Why did he command that a temple be made for him? Had he not where to remain? Hear holy Stephen, when he suffered: Solomon, he says, built him a house, but the Most High does not dwell in temples made by hands (Acts 7:47-48). Why, then, did he wish to make a temple, or a temple to be made? That it might be a figure of the body of Christ. That temple was a shadow: the light came, and put the shadow to flight. Seek now the temple which Solomon made, and you find a ruin. Why is that temple a ruin? Because what it signified has now been done. And that temple, the body of the Lord, fell, but rose again; and so rose that it can now no longer fall at all. Finally, when the Jews had said to him: What sign do you do, that we may believe you? he said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he was speaking to them in the temple built by Solomon, and was saying: Destroy this temple; but what this was they did not hear, what this was they did not understand, they thought he was speaking of that temple. Finally they answered him: Forty-six years was this temple built, and will you raise it up in three days? Then the Evangelist at once: But he was saying this of the temple of his body (John 2:18-21). The temple of God, then, is the body of Christ. What are our bodies? members of Christ. Hear the Apostle himself: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6:15) He who said: Your bodies are members of Christ, what did he show, except that our bodies and our Head, which is Christ, together are one temple of God? Let us trust that the body of Christ and our bodies are the temple of God, and we shall be: for if we do not believe it, neither shall we be. Therefore, since our bodies are members of Christ, hear something else the Apostle said: Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19) Behold, he has a temple: and is he not God? If he had one of wood and stones, he would be God: if he had a temple made by hands, he would be God: and is he not God, who has a temple of the members of God? Add, then, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. There is one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Spirit of both is neither Father nor Son: but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one God. Be built up in unity, lest you fall in separation.

5. You heard what he asked for us, rather what he said he wills: Father, those whom you have given me, I will. I will, Father: what you will I do, do what I will. I will. What? That where I am, they too may be with me (John 17:24). O blessed house! O secure homeland! It has no enemy, it has no plague; there we live secure, we do not seek to migrate, we find no safer place. Whatever you choose here on earth, you choose for fear, not for security. Choose for yourself a place, while you are in an evil place, that is, in this age, in this life full of temptations, in this mortality full of groanings and fears; while you are in an evil place, choose for yourself a place to which you may migrate from the evil place. You will not be able to migrate to a good place from an evil place, unless you have done well in the evil place. What kind of place is that? where no one hungers. Therefore if you wish to dwell in a good place, where no one hungers, in this age break your bread for the hungry (See Isa 58:7). Because in that blessed place no one is a pilgrim, all live in their own homeland; if, then, you wish to be in a good place, where you find a pilgrim in an evil place having no place to enter, receive him into your house; offer hospitality in the evil place, that you may come to the place where you cannot be a guest. In the good place no one needs clothing: there is no cold there, there are no heats there: why a roof? why a garment? Where there will be no roof, but protection, behold, even there we find a roof: Under the shadow of your wings I will hope (Ps 17:8 (16:8)). Therefore in this evil place offer a roof to one who has none, that you may be in the good place, where you may have such a roof that you need not make repairs to the roof: because there the rain does not drip, where there is the perpetual fountain of truth. But that rain gladdens, it does not soak; that rain is itself the fountain of life. What is: Lord, with you is the fountain of life (Ps 36:9 (35:10))? And the Word was with God (John 1:1).

6. Therefore, brothers, do well in the evil place, that you may come to the good place, of which he says, who prepares it for us: I will, that where I am, they too may be with me (John 17:24). The Lord Christ ascended to prepare, that we may come secure to what is prepared. He himself prepares himself: remain in him. Is Christ a small house for you? Now you do not even fear his passion: he rose from the dead, and dies no more, and death will no longer have dominion over him (See Rom 6:9). An evil place, evil days, this age; but let us do well in the evil place, and let us live well in the evil days. The evil place passes, and the evil days, and the good place, eternal, will come, the eternal good days; and those good days will be one day. For here why are they evil days? Because one passes, that another may come: today passes, that tomorrow may come: yesterday passed, that today might come. Where nothing passes, it is one day: and that day is Christ. And the Father is day: but the Father day of no day, the Son day from day. Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, and bless his name; proclaim well his salvation, day from day (Ps 96:1-2 (95:1-2)). Christ is day. If you do not recognize it, hear a wise old man: if you are not yet wise, whoever you are, young man, hear the gray hairs of truth. That old man Simeon beheld the infant Lord Christ who was carried by his mother, and contained heaven. He beheld the little one, recognized the great one, and received him into his hands; because he had received an answer from God that he would not see death unless he had seen the Christ of the Lord. He received him into his hands, and said: Now you dismiss, Lord, your servant according to your word in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation (Luke 2:29-30). Therefore, proclaim well his salvation, day from day (Ps 96:2 (95:2)). For so Simeon said: He has come whom I awaited; what do I do here? He received him, to be received by him: he carried the man Christ, he was carried by the God Christ.

7. Therefore hold this: I give you a rule, that you may not be alarmed, when the Son says something where he seems to signify the Father greater: either he says it from the person of the man, because God is greater than man; or he says it from the person of the begotten, in honor of him by whom he was begotten. Seek no more: for God begot God, the great one begot the equal. If God did not beget true God, and the great one did not beget the equal, he begot a monster, not a true son. But because he begot a true son, this is what he himself is whom he begot.

Sermon 218
On the Passion of the Lord, on Good Friday

1. The passion of him by whose blood our sins were blotted out is solemnly read, solemnly celebrated; that by the yearly devotion our memory may be more joyfully renewed, and by the very thronging of the peoples our faith may be more clearly illuminated. The solemnity, then, demands of us that we render to you, concerning the Lord's passion, such a sermon as he himself grants. And indeed, for our salvation and for the usefulness of getting through this life, in the things he suffered from his enemies our Lord deigned to offer us an example of patience; that, for the sake of the gospel's dignity, if he himself should will it, we may not refuse to suffer anything of the kind. Yet because not even in that mortal flesh did he suffer anything by necessity, but all by will; it is rightly believed that he also willed to signify something in each and every deed which was done and recorded concerning his passion.

2. And first, that, handed over to be crucified, he himself carried his own cross (See John 19:17); he gave a sign of self-restraint, and showed, going before, what he ought to do who wishes to follow him. This too he admonished by a word, when he says: He who loves me, let him take up his cross, and follow me (See Matt 16:24). For he in a certain manner takes up his cross, who governs his own mortality.

3. That he was crucified in the place of Calvary (See John 19:17); he signified in his passion the forgiveness of all sins, of which it is said in the Psalm: My iniquities are multiplied above the hairs of my head (Ps 40:12 (39:13)).

4. That two were crucified with him, one on each side (See John 19:18); he showed that some would suffer on his right, others on his left: those on the right, of whom it is said: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness (Matt 5:10); but those on the left, of whom it is said: And if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (1 Cor 13:3).

5. That a title was set above his cross, on which was written: King of the Jews (See John 19:19), that showed that not even by killing him could they bring it about that they should not have him as king, who, by his most evident and most eminent power, will requite them according to their works. Whence it is sung in the Psalm: But I am set as king by him over Zion, his holy mountain (Ps 2:6).

6. That the title was written in three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (See John 19:20); it was declared that he would reign not only over the Jews, but also over the Gentiles. Accordingly, in the same psalm, when he had said: But I am set as king over Zion, his holy mountain, where, namely, he reigned in the Hebrew tongue; he at once subjoins, as it were Greek and Latin: The Lord, he says, said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you: ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and your possession the ends of the earth (Ps 2:7-8). Not because Greek and Latin are the only languages of the nations: but because they especially excel, Greek, on account of the study of letters; Latin, on account of the skill of the Romans. Although in those three languages the totality of all the nations to be subjugated to Christ was shown: yet it was not written there King of the Gentiles, but only of the Jews; that the origin of the seed might be commended in the propriety of the name. For the Law will go forth from Zion, it is said, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa 2:3). For who are those who say in the Psalm: He has subjected peoples to us, and the nations under our feet (Ps 47:3 (46:4)); except those of whom the Apostle says: For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they ought to minister to them also in carnal things (Rom 15:27)?

7. That the chief men of the Jews suggested to Pilate that he should not write absolutely that he is king of the Jews, but that he himself said he was king of the Jews (See John 19:21); with those branches broken, Pilate so figured the wild olive to be grafted in (See Rom 11:17): because he was a man of the Gentiles, writing the confession of the Gentiles, of whom the Lord himself rightly said: The kingdom will be taken from you, and given to a nation doing righteousness (Matt 21:43). Nor for that reason, however, is he not the king of the Jews. For the root bears the wild olive, not the wild olive the root (See Rom 11:18). And although those branches were broken off through unbelief; not for that reason did God reject his people, whom he foreknew. For I too, he says, am an Israelite (Rom 11:1-2). And although the sons of the kingdom, who were unwilling that the Son of God should reign over them, go into the outer darkness; yet many will come from the East and the West, and will recline, not with Plato and Cicero, but with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (See Matt 8:11-12). Pilate indeed wrote king of the Jews, not king of the Greeks or Latins; although he would reign over the Gentiles. And what he wrote, he wrote, nor did he change it at the suggestion of the unbelieving (See John 19:22): to whom so long before it had been foretold in the Psalms: Do not corrupt the inscription of the title (See Ps 57 (56) title). All nations believe in the king of the Jews: over all nations he reigns, but yet King of the Jews. So great was the power of that root, that it could change into itself the grafted-in wild olive, but the wild olive could not take away the name of the olive.

8. That the soldiers took away his garments, divided into four parts (See John 19:23); they signified that his sacraments would spread through the four parts of the world.

9. That for the one seamless tunic, woven from above, they cast lots rather than divided it (See John 19:23-24); it was sufficiently shown that the visible sacraments, although they too are the garments of Christ, yet any persons whatever can have these, whether good or evil; but the most sincere faith, which through love works the integrity of unity (because the love of God is poured out in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5)), does not pertain to just anyone, but is given, as it were by lot, by the hidden grace of God. Whence to Simon, who had baptism and did not have this, it was said by Peter: You have no lot nor part in this faith (See Acts 8:21).

10. That on the cross he commended his recognized mother to the beloved disciple (See John 19:26-27); he fittingly showed human affection then, when as man he was dying. That hour had not yet come, when, about to turn water into wine, he had said to the same mother: What is it to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come (John 2:4). For he had not taken from Mary what he had in his divinity, as he had taken from Mary what hung on the cross.

11. That he said: I thirst (John 19:28); he sought faith from his own: but because he came into his own, and his own did not receive him (John 1:11); for the sweetness of faith, they gave the vinegar of faithlessness, and this in a sponge. Truly to be compared to a sponge, not solid, but swollen; not opened by the straight approach of confession, but full of holes by the tortuous windings of treacheries. Indeed, that drink had also hyssop (See John 19:29), which, a humble herb, is said to cling with a most strong root to a rock. For there were in that people some for whom this crime was kept, to humble the soul by repenting, after casting it away. He himself knew them, who received the hyssop with the vinegar. For he prayed even for them, as another evangelist witnesses, when, hanging on the cross, he said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).

12. That he said: It is finished, and gave up the Spirit (John 19:30); he showed not the necessity, but the power of his own death, waiting until all that had been prophesied of him were fulfilled: because this too was written: And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink (Ps 69:21 (68:22)): as though having the power to lay down his soul, as he himself also witnessed (See John 10:18). And he gave up the Spirit by humility, that is, with his head bowed; about to take it back by the resurrection, with his head raised up. That this death and bowing of the head were of great power, that patriarch Jacob, foretelling it in the blessing of Judah: You went up, lying down, you slept like a lion (Gen 49:9): by the going up signifying death, by the lion signifying power.

13. But now that the legs of those two were broken, but not his, because he had died; why this was done, the Gospel itself declared. For it behooved that by this sign too he should show that in the prophecy foretold concerning him the Passover of the Jews had been commended, where this was commanded, that they should not break the bones of the sheep (See John 19:31-36; Exod 12:46).

14. That his side, struck by a lance, poured forth blood and water onto the earth (See John 19:34); without doubt these are the sacraments by which the Church is formed; as Eve was made from the side of the sleeping Adam (See Gen 2:21-22), who was a figure of the one to come.

15. That Joseph and Nicodemus bury him (See John 19:38-39); as some have interpreted the names, Joseph is interpreted "Increased"; but Nicodemus, because it is a Greek name, is more widely known to be composed of "victory" and "people"; because nike is victory, demos people. Who, then, is the one increased by dying, except he who said: A grain of wheat, if it does not die, remains alone; but if it dies, it is multiplied (See John 12:24)? And who too, by dying, conquered the persecuting people, except he who, by rising, will judge them?

Sermon 218/A
From a Sermon on the Passion of the Lord
In the Collection of Bede and Florus

1. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved in his life (Rom 5:10). Therefore Christ died for the ungodly. And Christ is God. How will the righteous, found in the life of God, not reign, when, lest he perish, the ungodly was sought by the death of God? For in the life of God we shall be saved, because in our own life we had perished. But when we hear both the life of God and the death of God, let us distinguish what is from where. For he brought us life, but he received death from us: and yet not for his own desert, but for us.

2. [3]. Therefore Christ is the king of the Jews, under whose gentle yoke even the Gentiles have been sent for salvation; because to them it was granted by a greater mercy. This the Apostle himself shows more openly, where he says: For I say that Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers; but that the Gentiles should glorify God for his mercy (Rom 15:8-9). For it was not right to take the bread of the children and to cast it to the dogs (See Matt 15:26), unless the dogs, humbled to gather the crumbs which they saw fall from the table of their masters, exalted through that very humility and made men, might deserve to draw near to that very table.

3. [5]. For it is not, as some think, that the old man is the body, and the new man the soul; but the body is the outer man; the soul, the inner. In the inner man this old age and newness are carried on. For when the Apostle said: Strip off the old man, and put on the new; he was not commanding that the body be laid aside, but that the life be changed for the better. This, finally, he consequently taught; for, wishing to explain what he had said: Wherefore, he says, putting away lying, let each one speak the truth with his neighbor (Eph 4:22-25).

Sermon 218/B
On the Passion of the Lord

1. Today we solemnly celebrate the great and ineffable sacrament of the Lord's passion; which indeed on other days too departs neither from the altar at which we stand, nor from our mouth and forehead; that what is constantly recalled even to the senses of the body may always be held in the heart. Yet this yearly solemnity much more moves the mind to the remembrance of so great a thing; so that what, many years ago, in one place, was committed by the impiety of the Jews and seen by their cruel eyes, is now, in the gaze of faith, as though done today, beheld throughout the whole world. If they then willingly saw what they cruelly did, how much more willingly should we, with memory recalling, bring back to our minds what we piously believe? If they with pleasure beheld their own iniquity, how much more should we with joy remember our own salvation? For in that one deed their present crimes were marked, but also our future ones blotted out. Finally, where we detest the crimes they committed, there we rejoice in our own forgiven. They were the perpetrators of impiety, we the celebrators of the solemnity; they were gathered raging, we obeying; they lost, we found; they sold, we redeemed; they watched insulting, we venerating adore. Therefore Christ crucified is to the unbelieving a scandal and folly, but to us the Power of God and the Wisdom of God: for this is that weak thing of God, which is stronger than men, and the foolish thing of God, which is wiser than men (See 1 Cor 1:23-25). The events that followed taught these things more clearly. For what did the rage of the enemies then aim at, except to take away from the earth his memory? But he, crucified by one people, has been set in the hearts of so many peoples; and he who was then slain by one nation is now adored by all nations. And yet not only then, but even now the blind read and the deaf sing what was foretold by the prophetic voice so long before as future: They dug my hands and my feet, they counted all my bones. But they themselves looked upon me; they divided my garments among themselves, and over my garment they cast lots (Ps 22:16-18 (21:17-19)). As these things were foretold in the Psalm, so in the Gospel they are read fulfilled; but then by the hands of the Jews was done what struck their ears in vain; and the prophesied passion of the Lord, the less it was understood by them, the more effectively it was fulfilled; but now they both read it foretold, and recognize it fulfilled. And still they choose to deny Christ, because they can no longer kill him.

2. But worse than the Jews are the heretics, for those deny the Christ whom they do not behold; these attack his Church, which they see. And the heretics rage more wretchedly not only than these Jews who now deny Christ, but even than those who killed him; for those did not blot out the title of the one hanging on the wood, these blow away the baptism of the one sitting in heaven. From this present Psalm, then, we answer both adversaries: both the deniers of the head, and the deniers of the body. For the head is Christ, the body the Church. Against the Jews we read: They dug my hands and my feet, they counted all my bones (Ps 22:16-17 (21:17-18)), and the rest that follows. Against the heretics we read: All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will adore in his sight; because the kingdom is the Lord's, and he will rule the nations (Ps 22:27-28 (21:28-29)). But let us hold what that garment woven from above signified (See John 19:23), which those who killed Christ did not divide, but to which those came by lot who were able to come. The sacraments of Christ, then, can be divided by many heretics: no one of the faithful tears or divides the love of Christ; but those who belong to the portion of the lot of the saints in light (See Col 1:12), they hold it as their own, because they love unity spiritually. Wherefore, dearest ones, let us celebrate this day with yearly devotion; but let us glory in the cross of Christ (See Gal 6:14), not once a year, but with continual holiness.

Sermon 218/C
On the Passion of the Lord

1. The passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the confidence of glory and the teaching of patience. For what would the hearts of the faithful not promise themselves from the grace of God, for whom it was too little that the only Son of God, coeternal with the Father, should be born as man from man, unless he should even die at the hands of the men whom he created? Great is what is promised to us by the Lord as future: but much greater is what we recall has already been done for us. Where were they, or what were they, when Christ died for the ungodly (See Rom 5:6)? Who could doubt that he will give his life to the saints, who gave to those same ones, while still ungodly, his death? Why does human frailty hesitate to believe it will be that men will at some time live with God? Much more incredible has already been done, that God died for men. For who is Christ, except that which in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1)? This Word of God was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). For he did not have in himself whereby to die for us, unless he had taken mortal flesh from us. So the immortal could die, so he willed to give life to mortals; about to make us afterward partakers of himself, of whom he had first been made a partaker. For we had neither whence to live of our own, nor he whence to die of his own. So he carried on with us a wondrous transaction of mutual sharing; ours was that whence he died; his will be that whence we live. Yet the flesh, which he took from us whence to die, even that, since he is the Creator, he gave; but the life, by which in him and with him we are to live, he did not receive from us. And through this, as far as concerns our nature, by which we are men, he died not of his own, but of ours; since his nature, by which he is God, cannot die at all. But as far as concerns his own creature, which as God he made, he died even of his own; since the flesh too, in which he died, he himself made.

2. Not only, then, ought we not to blush at the death of the Lord our God, but rather most of all to trust in it and most of all to glory in it; for, taking up from us the death which he found in us, he most faithfully pledged that he would give us in himself the life which we cannot have of ourselves. For he who so loved us that what we deserved by sin he, without sin, suffered for sinners, how will he not give us what righteousness gives, he who justifies? how will he not render, who promises in truth, the rewards of the saints, he who without iniquity bore the punishment of the unrighteous? Let us therefore confess, brothers, undismayed, or even profess, that Christ was crucified for us; not fearing, but rejoicing: not ashamed, but glorying let us say it. The apostle Paul saw this, and commended the title of glory. He who, when he had many great and divine things which he might recall of Christ, did not say that he gloried in the wonders of Christ, that, being God with the Father, he created the world, that, being also man as we are, he commanded the world; but but far be it from me to glory, he says, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 6:14). He saw for whom, who, where he had hung; and from so great a humility of God and divine loftiness the Apostle drew presumption.

3. But these men who insult us, that we worship a crucified Lord, the more they seem to themselves to be wise, the more incurably and hopelessly they are foolish, and do not understand at all what we believe or say; for we do not say that that died in Christ which was God, but that which was man. For if, when any man himself dies, that which is most of all man — that is, that by which he differs from a beast, that he has understanding, that he discerns the human and the divine, the temporal and the eternal, the false and the true, that is, the rational soul — does not suffer death with its body, but, that body dying, departs alive, and yet it is said: The man is dead; why should it not likewise be said: God is dead, so that it be understood that not that which is God could die, but that which God had taken up, mortal, for mortals? For as, when a man dies, his soul does not die in the flesh, so too when Christ died, his divinity did not die in the man. But God, they say, could not be mingled with man, and become with him one Christ. According to that fleshly and empty opinion and human notions, we would believe much more difficultly that spirit can be mingled with flesh than that God can be mingled with man; and yet no man would be a man, unless the spirit of man were mingled with a human body. Since, then, of spirit and body there is a more difficult and more wonderful mixture than of spirit and Spirit; if, then, the spirit of man, since it is not a body, and the body of man, since it is not a spirit, yet, that he might be a man, both were commingled; how much more, that out of both there might be one Christ, could God, who is a Spirit (See John 4:24), be mingled, not with a body apart from a spirit, but with a man having a spirit, by spiritual participation.

4. Let us too, then, glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to us, and let us be crucified to the world (See Gal 6:14); that we might not blush at this cross, we placed it on the very forehead, that is, in the dwelling of modesty. But now what teaching of patience is in this cross, and how wholesome it is, if we should try to unfold, what words would suffice for the matter, what time for the words? For what man, who most truly and most intently believes in Christ, would dare to be proud, when God teaches humility not only by word, but also by his own example? But how useful this teaching is, that sentence of holy Scripture briefly admonishes: Before ruin the heart is exalted, and before glory it is humbled (Prov 18:12); with which this too accords: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5); and this: He who exalts himself will be humbled; and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 14:11). Accordingly, since the Apostle admonishes us not to be high-minded, but to consent to humble things (See Rom 12:16), let him consider, if he can, into how great a precipice of pride a man is borne, if he does not consent to the humble God; and how pernicious it is for a man impatiently to bear what the just God willed, if patiently the God bore what the unjust enemy willed.

Sermon 218
Augmented — a Treatise of Saint Augustine on the Passion of the Lord

1. The passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by whose blood our sins were blotted out, is solemnly read, solemnly celebrated, that by the yearly devotion our memory may be more joyfully renewed, and by the very throng of the peoples our faith may be more clearly proclaimed. The solemnity itself, then, demands of us that we render to you, concerning the Lord's passion, such a sermon as he himself grants. And indeed, for our salvation and for the usefulness of getting through this life, in the things our Lord suffered from his enemies he deigned to offer us an example of patience, that, for the sake of the gospel truth, if he himself should will it, we may not refuse to suffer anything of the kind. Yet because not even in that mortal flesh did he suffer anything by necessity, but all by will, it is rightly believed that he also willed to signify something to us in each and every deed which was done and recorded concerning his passion.

2. And first, that, handed over to be crucified, he himself carried his own cross (See John 19:17), he gave a sign of self-restraint and showed, going before, what he ought to do who wishes to follow him. This too he admonished by a word, where he says: He who loves me, let him take up his cross and follow me (See Matt 16:24). For he in a certain manner takes up his cross, who governs his own mortality.

3. That he was crucified in the place of Calvary, he signified in his passion the forgiveness of all sins, of which it is said in the psalm: My iniquities are multiplied above the hairs of my head (Ps 40:12 (39:13)).

4. That two were crucified with him, one on each side, he showed that some would be on his right, others on his left: those on the right of whom it is said: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness (Matt 5:10); but those on the left of whom it is said: If I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (1 Cor 13:3).

5. That a title was set above his cross, on which was written: King of the Jews, that showed that not even by killing him could they bring it about that they should not have him as king, who, by his most evident and most eminent power, will requite them according to their works. Whence it is sung in the psalm: But I am set as king by him over Zion, his holy mountain (Ps 2:6).

6. That the title was written in three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, it was declared that he would reign not only over the Jews, but also over the Gentiles. Accordingly, in the same psalm, when he had said: But I am set as king by him over Zion, his holy mountain, where, namely, he reigned in the Hebrew tongue, he at once subjoins, as it were Greek and Latin: The Lord, he says, said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you, ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and your possession the ends of the earth (Ps 2:7-8). Not because Greek and Latin are the only languages of the nations, but because they especially excel, Greek on account of the study of letters, Latin on account of the Empire of the Romans. Although in these three languages the totality of all the nations to be subjugated to Christ was shown, yet it was not written there king of the nations, but only of the Jews, that the origin of the seed might be commended in the propriety of the name. For the Law went forth from Zion, as it was said, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa 2:3). For who are those who say in the psalm: He has subjected peoples to us and the nations under our feet (Ps 47:3 (46:4)), except those of whom the Apostle says: For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they ought to minister to them also in carnal things (Rom 15:27)? Or should we not see the nations subjected to the most excellent grace of the apostles, or should we attend to the broken branches, who are today called Jews, or should we not rather hear that Israelite of the race of Abraham (See Rom 11:1), from Saul Paul and therefore from the small the great, admonishing and saying to the grafted-in wild olive (See Rom 11:17): "Understand! You do not bear the root, but the root you" (Rom 11:18)? Therefore Christ is the king of the Jews, under whose gentle yoke even the Gentiles have been sent for salvation. That this was granted to them by a greater mercy, the Apostle himself shows more openly where he says: For I say that Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers, but that the Gentiles should glorify God for his mercy (Rom 15:8-9). For it was not right to take the bread of the children and to cast it to the dogs, unless the dogs, humbled to gather the crumbs which they snatch from the table of their masters (See Matt 15:26-27), exalted through that very humility and made men, might deserve to draw near to that very table.

7. That the chief men of the Jews suggested to Pilate that he should not write absolutely that he is king of the Jews, but that he himself said he was king of the Jews, but he answered: What I have written, I have written (John 19:21-22); as the chief men of the Jews figured those broken branches, so Pilate figured the grafted-in wild olive (See Rom 11:17), because he was a man of the Gentiles writing the confession of the Gentiles, convicting the denial of the Jews, to whom the Lord himself rightly said: The kingdom will be taken from you and given to a nation doing righteousness (Matt 21:43). Nor for that reason, however, is he not the king of the Jews. For the root bears the wild olive, not the wild olive the root (See Rom 11:18). And although those branches were broken off through unbelief, not for that reason did God reject his people, whom he foreknew. For I too, he says, am an Israelite (Rom 11:1-2). And although the sons who were unwilling that the Son of God should reign over them go into the outer darkness, yet many will come from the East and the West, and will recline, not with Plato and Cicero, but with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God (See Matt 8:11-12). Pilate indeed wrote king of the Jews, not king of the Greeks or Latins, although he would reign over the Gentiles. And what he wrote, he wrote, nor did he change it at the suggestion of the unbelieving (See John 19:22), which was foretold so long before in the psalms: Do not corrupt the inscription of the title (See Ps 57 (56) title). All nations believe in the king of the Jews, over all nations he reigns, but yet king of the Jews. So great was the power of that root, that it could change into itself the grafted-in wild olive, but the wild olive could not take away the name of the olive.

8. That the soldiers took away his garments, divided into four parts, they signified that his sacraments would spread through the four parts of the world.

9. That for the one seamless tunic, woven from above, they cast lots rather than divided it, it was sufficiently shown that the visible sacraments, although they too are the garments of Christ, yet any persons whatever can have these, whether good or evil; but the most sincere faith, which through love works the integrity of unity, which love is poured out from above in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (See Rom 5:5), does not pertain to just anyone, but is given, as it were by lot, by the hidden grace of God. Whence to Simon, who had baptism and did not have this, it was said by Peter: You have no lot nor part in this faith (See Acts 8:21).

10. That from the cross he commended his recognized mother to the beloved disciple, he fittingly showed human affection then, when as man he was dying. That hour had not yet come, when, about to turn water into wine as God, he had said to the same mother: What is it to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come (John 2:4). For he had not taken from Mary what he had in his divinity, as he had taken from Mary what hung on the cross.

11. That he said: I thirst, he sought faith from his own. But because he came into his own, and his own did not receive him (John 1:11), for the sweetness of faith they gave the vinegar of faithlessness, and this in a sponge. Truly to be compared to a sponge, not solid but swollen, not opened by the straight approach of confession, but full of holes by the tortuous windings of treacheries. Indeed, that drink had also hyssop (See John 19:29), which, a humble herb, is said to cling with a most firm root to a rock. For there were in that people some for whom this crime was kept, to humble the soul by repenting, after casting it away. He himself knew them, who received the hyssop with the vinegar. For he prayed even for them, as another evangelist witnesses, when, hanging on the cross, he said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).

12. That he said: It is finished, and with his head bowed gave up the Spirit (John 19:30), he showed not the necessity but the power of his own death, he who waited until all that had been prophesied of him were fulfilled, because this too was written: And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink (Ps 69:21 (68:22)): as though having the power to lay down his soul, as he himself witnessed of himself (See John 10:18), he gave up the Spirit by humility, that is, with his head bowed, about to take it back by the resurrection, with his head raised up. That this death and bowing of the head were of great power, that patriarch Jacob, foretelling it in the blessing of Judah: You went up, lying down, you slept like a lion (Gen 49:9), by the going up signifying the cross, by the lying down the bowing of the head, by the sleeping death, by the lion power.

13. But now that the legs of those two were broken, but not his, because he had died; why this was done, the Gospel itself declared. For it behooved that by this sign too it should be shown that in the prophecy to be foretold concerning him the Passover of the Jews had been commended, where this was commanded, that they should not break the bones of the sheep (See John 19:31-36; Exod 12:46).

14. That his side, struck by a lance, poured forth blood and water onto the earth (See John 19:34), without doubt these are the sacraments by which the Church is formed, as Eve was made from the side of the sleeping Adam (See Gen 2:21-22), who was a figure of the one to come (Rom 5:14).

15. That Joseph and Nicodemus bury him (See John 19:38-39); as some have interpreted the names, Joseph is interpreted "Increased"; but Nicodemus, because it is a Greek name, is more widely known to be composed of "victory" and "people," because nikos is victory, demos people. Who, then, is the one increased by dying, except he who said: A grain of wheat, if it does not die, remains alone; but if it dies, it is multiplied (See John 12:24)? And who too, by dying, conquered the persecuting people, except he who, by rising, will judge them?

Sermon 219
On the Paschal Vigil

1. The blessed apostle Paul, exhorting us to imitate him, among many other marks of his virtue, says also: In watchings often (2 Cor 11:27). How much more eagerly, then, ought we to watch in this vigil, as it were the mother of all holy vigils, in which the whole world watches? Not that world of which it is written: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him: for all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ambition of the age, which is not from the Father (1 John 2:15-16). For such a world, that is, the children of unbelief, the devils and his angels rule: against whom the same Apostle says that we have a wrestling, where he says: We have not a wrestling against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers, and rulers of this world, of this darkness (Eph 6:12). Which we too once were, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). By the light of vigils, then, let us resist the rulers of darkness. Not, then, does that world watch in this solemnity: but that of which it is said: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to them their trespasses (2 Cor 5:19). Although the celebrity of this vigil is so clear throughout the whole world, that it compels even those to watch in body who in heart — I will not say sleep, but — are buried in hellish impiety. They too watch this night, of which is visibly rendered what was promised so long before: And the night will be illuminated like the day (Ps 139:12 (138:12)). This happens in the hearts of the pious, to whom it was said: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). This happens also among the rivals of all, both those who see in the Lord, and those who envy the Lord. There watches this night, then, both the enemy world and the reconciled world. This one watches, to praise the physician, being freed: that one watches, to blaspheme the judge, being condemned. This one watches, fervent and shining in pious minds: that one watches, gnashing with its teeth and wasting away. Finally, love permits not this one, iniquity not that one; Christian vigor not this one, devilish envy not that one, to sleep at all in this celebration. Whence by our very enemies, unknowing, we are admonished how we ought to watch for ourselves, if even those who envy us watch on our account. For of those who are in no way marked with the name of Christ, yet this night many for grief, many for shame; some too who draw near to faith, now for the fear of God, do not sleep. This solemnity rouses them for diverse causes. How, then, ought the friend of Christ to watch rejoicing, when even the enemy watches grieving? How may the Christian be kindled to watch in so great a glory of Christ, when the pagan blushes to sleep? How does it befit him who has entered this great house to watch in so great a festival of his, when he already watches who arranges to enter? Let us watch, then, and pray; that both outwardly and inwardly we may celebrate this vigil. Let God speak to us in his readings; let us speak to God in our prayers. If we obediently hear his oracles, he dwells in us whom we entreat.

Sermon 220
On the Paschal Vigil

1. We know, brothers, and hold with most firm faith, that Christ died once for us (See Rom 6:10); for sinners the righteous, for servants the Lord, for captives the free, for the sick the physician, for the wretched the blessed, for the needy the rich, for the lost the seeker, for the sold the redeemer, for the flock the shepherd, and, what is more wonderful than all, for the creature the Creator: keeping, however, what he always is, handing over what he was made; God hidden, man appearing; by power giving life, by weakness dying; by divinity unchangeable, by flesh passible: as the Apostle says: Who was handed over for our trespasses, and rose for our justification (Rom 4:25). That this was done once, you know well. And yet the solemnity, as though it were done often, in the rolling round of times repeats what the truth proclaims, with so many voices of the Scriptures, was done once. Nor yet are truth and solemnity contrary, so that the one lies and the other tells the truth. For what truth indicates was done once in fact, this solemnity, to be celebrated often, renews in pious hearts. Truth opens the things that were done, as they were done: but solemnity, not by doing them, but by celebrating them, does not permit the things past to pass away. Finally, our Passover, Christ, was sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7). He surely once slain, who now dies no more, death will no longer have dominion over him (Rom 6:9). Accordingly, according to the voice of truth, we say the Passover was done once, and will not be again hereafter: but according to the voice of solemnity, every year we say the Passover will come. So I think is to be understood what is written in the Psalm: The thought of man will confess to you, and the remnants of thought will celebrate a solemn day for you (Ps 76:10 (75:11)). For unless thought committed to memory what is said of things temporally done, it would find no remnants after the time. Therefore the thought of man, beholding the truth, confesses to the Lord: but the remnants of thought, which are in the memory, at the known times cease not to celebrate solemnities, lest the thought be judged ungrateful. To this pertains so illustrious a solemnity of this night, where by watching we work, as it were, the resurrection of the Lord through the remnants of thought, which, done once, we more truly confess by thinking. Whom, then, the proclaimed truth made learned, far be it that the deserted solemnity make irreligious. This made this night illustrious throughout the whole world. This shows the multitudes of the Christian peoples, this confounds the darkness of the Jews, this overthrows the idols of the pagans.

Sermon 221
On the Holy Night

1. Since our Lord Jesus Christ made the day which he had made mournful by dying glorious by rising, recalling both times to a solemn memory, let us watch by remembering his death, and let us rejoice by taking up his resurrection. This is our yearly feast, and our Passover; not, as for the old people, figured by the slaying of an animal, but, as for the new people, fulfilled by the victim of the Savior; because our Passover, Christ, was sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7), and the old things have passed away, and behold, they have been made new (See 2 Cor 5:17). For we mourn only as burdened by our sins, or we rejoice only as justified by his grace; since he was handed over for our trespasses, and rose for our justification (Rom 4:25). The one we are glad in by mourning, the other by rejoicing; and what was sadly committed and gladly sent ahead on our account and for us, we do not pass over by ungrateful forgetfulness, but celebrate with grateful memory. Let us watch, then, dearest ones, because the burial of Christ was prolonged up to this night; that in this very night might come the resurrection of the flesh, which then was mocked on the wood, now is adored in heaven and on earth. For this night is understood to pertain to the following day, which we hold as the Lord's Day. And surely he ought to rise by night, because by his resurrection he illuminated even our darkness; nor was it sung to him in vain a little before: You will light my lamp, Lord; my God, you will lighten my darkness (Ps 18:28 (17:29)). Accordingly, our devotion too commends so great a mystery; that, as by his resurrection our faith, strengthened, already watches, so too by our watching even this night, illuminated, may shine before; that we may worthily be able, with the Church spread throughout the world, to consider today, lest we be found in the night. To so many and so great peoples, whom so distinguished a solemnity everywhere gathered in the name of Christ, the sun has departed, the day has not withdrawn, since to the shining sky a shining earth has succeeded.

2. Yet if anyone inquire the causes of this our so great vigil, he can both skillfully find them and faithfully answer. For he who gave us the glory of his name, he himself illuminated this night; and to him whom we say: You will lighten my darkness (Ps 18:28 (17:29)), he offers light to our hearts; that, as with rejoicing eyes we behold this splendor of the lamps, so with an illuminated mind we may see the reason of this so bright night. What is it, then, that on a yearly feast the Christians watch today? For now most of all we watch, nor is any other solemnity wont to be thought such; in this desire, while we seek and say: When do we watch? we watch to so many days; as though, in comparison with this, other vigils were not to be reckoned. The Apostle indeed commended to the Church the assiduity of vigils as of fasts, recalling of himself and saying: In fastings often, in watchings often (2 Cor 11:27); but the vigil of this night is so great that it alone claims for itself, as if its own, the common name of the rest. So first of the general vigil, afterward of the special and present one, as the Lord shall grant, we will say a few things.

3. In that life, for whose rest to be obtained we labor, which Truth promises us after the death of this body, or even after the end of this age, in the resurrection, we shall never sleep, as surely we shall never die. For what else is sleep but a daily death, which neither takes a man entirely from here, nor detains him too long? And what else is death but a long and deepest sleep, from which God rouses a man? Where, then, no death comes, neither does its image, sleep, intervene. Finally, there is no sleep but of mortals. This is not the rest of the angels: they, because they always live, never refresh their health with sleep. As life itself, so there is a vigil without end; nor is it anything else there to live than to watch, nor anything else to watch than to live. But we, in this body, which is corrupted and weighs down the soul (See Wis 9:15), since we live only if we repair our strength by sleeping, interrupt life by a likeness of death, that we may at least be able to live by intervals. And through this, whoever chastely and innocently uses vigils assiduously, without doubt meditates the life of the angels — for as much as the weakness of this flesh is a burden to the earthly, the heavenly desires are repressed — exercising against the deadly mass by a longer vigil, that he may earn for himself merit in perpetual life. For he is not consistent with himself, who desires always to live, and does not love to watch more at length; he wills that death not be at all, and does not will to lessen its image. This is the cause, this the reason, why in vigils the mind is more often to be exercised by the Christian.

4. Now, brothers, while we recall a few other things, attend concerning the special vigil of this night. For it has been said why we ought more often to take away sleep and add vigils: but now it must be said why with so great celebrity we watch especially on this night. That on the third day the Lord Christ rose from the dead, no Christian doubts. But that this was done on this night, the holy Gospel witnesses. For it is not in doubt that the whole day is reckoned from the preceding night; not according to the order of the days which are recalled in Genesis — although there too the darkness went before; for darkness was upon the deep, when God said: let there be light, and light was made (Gen 1:2-3) — but because that darkness was not yet night, was not yet day. For God divided between the light and the darkness (Gen 1:4): and first he called the light day, then the darkness night, and from the light made until the next morning one day was recalled (See Gen 1:5). It is manifest that those days began from light, and, the night passed, were each ended at morning. But after the created man turned away from the light of righteousness into the darkness of sin, from which the grace of Christ freed him, it came about that now we reckon days from nights; because we strive to come not from light to darkness, but from darkness to light, and, with the Lord helping, we hope to. So too the Apostle says: The night is far gone, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light (Rom 13:12). The day of the Lord's passion, then, on which he was crucified, followed its own night already passed; and therefore it was closed and ended up to the Day of Preparation, which the Jews also call the "pure supper," the observance of the sabbath beginning from the start of that night. Then the day of the sabbath, beginning from its own night, was ended at the evening of the beginning night, which pertains to the beginning of the Lord's Day; since the Lord consecrated it by the glory of his resurrection. Of that night, then, pertaining to the beginning of the Lord's Day, we now in this solemnity celebrate the memory. We keep by watching that night on which the Lord rose, and that life of which we were speaking a little before, where there is neither any death nor sleep, he began for us in his own flesh; which he so roused from the dead that now it dies no more, nor will death any longer have dominion over him (See Rom 6:9). For since those who came to his tomb, by whom, loving him, he was sought, did not find his body at dawn, and received an answer from the angels that he had already risen, it is manifest that he rose on that night whose extremity that dawn was. Accordingly, he to whom, rising, we sing together by watching a little longer, will grant that we may reign by living with him without end. But even if perhaps in these hours, in which we keep this vigil, his body was still in the tomb, and he had not yet risen, not even so are we unfitting in watching; because he slept that we might watch, who died that we might live. Amen.

Sermon 222
On the Paschal Vigil

1. Although the very solemnity of this holy night exhorts you, most beloved, to watch and pray; yet our address too is solemnly owed you, that against the contrary and envious powers and rulers of darkness, as against nocturnal beasts, the pastoral voice too may rouse the Lord's flock. For we have not a wrestling against flesh and blood, as the Apostle says; that is, against men weak in mortal body: but against the principalities and powers, and rulers of this world, of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12). Nor for that reason, surely, should you think the devil and his angels, whom the Apostle signifies by these words, to be the rulers of this world, of which it is written: And the world was made through him (John 1:10). For when he himself had said they are rulers of the world, lest anyone should understand the world which in very many places of the Scriptures is named by the name of heaven and earth, he at once added, as if expounding, of this darkness, that is, of the unbelieving. On account of which he now says to the faithful: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). These are, then, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places; not where the arranged stars shine, and the holy angels abide; but in the murky habitation of this lowest air, where also the mist is gathered into a ball (and yet it is written: Who covers the heaven with clouds (Ps 147:8 (146:8))). Where also birds fly: and yet they are called the birds of heaven. In these heavenly places, then, not in that higher tranquillity of the heavenly ones, dwell those most wicked spirits, against whom a spiritual wrestling is declared to us: that, the evil angels conquered, we may enjoy that reward by which we may be joined to the good angels in incorrupt eternity. Whence in another place the same Apostle, when he signified the dark princedom of the devil: According to the spirit, he says, of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, who now works in the children of unbelief (Eph 2:2). What, then, is the spirit of this world, this are the rulers of the world. And as there he expounded what he meant by the world, in the children of unbelief: so here too, when he added, of this darkness. And what there he says, the prince of the power of the air, this in this place, in the heavenly places. Thanks, then, to the Lord our God, who rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love (Col 1:13). Distinguished, then, from that darkness by the gospel light, and redeemed from those powers by the precious blood, watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation (Matt 26:41). For whoever of you have faith which works through love (See Gal 5:6), the prince of this world has been cast outside from your hearts (See John 12:31): but outside, like a roaring lion he goes about seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8). Do not, then, give place to the devil (Eph 4:27), wishing to penetrate from whatever side: but he who cast him out by suffering for you, let him dwell within in you against him. When he had dominion over you, you were once darkness; but now light in the Lord: walk as children of light (Eph 5:8). Against the darkness and its rulers watch in the mother, the light, and pray to the Father of lights from the bosom of the mother, the light.

Sermon 223
On the Paschal Vigil

1. In the book which is called Genesis, the Scripture says: And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided between the light and the darkness: and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night (Gen 1:4-5). If, then, God called the light day, without doubt those to whom the apostle Paul says: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8), were day: since he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness (See 2 Cor 4:6) enlightened them. These infants, whom you behold whitened outwardly and cleansed inwardly, who by the whiteness of their garments prefigure the splendor of their minds, when they were pressed by the night of their sins, were darkness. But now, because they have been cleansed by the laver of pardon, because they have been watered by the fountain of wisdom, because they have been suffused with the light of righteousness: This is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it (Ps 118:24 (117:24)). May the day of the Lord hear us, may the day made by the Lord hear us: may it hear, and obey; that we may exult and rejoice in it. Since, as the Apostle says, this is our joy and crown, if you stand in the Lord (See Phil 4:1). Hear us, then, O new sons of the chaste mother: rather, hear us, sons of the virgin mother. Since you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord: walk as children of light (Eph 5:8), cleave to the children of light; and, that I may say this very thing more plainly, cleave to the good faithful. For there are, what is worse, evil faithful. There are those who are called faithful, and are not. There are faithful in whom the sacraments of Christ suffer injury: who so live that they both perish themselves, and lose others. For they perish themselves by living badly: but they lose others by offering examples of living badly. You, then, dearest ones, do not be joined to such. Seek the good, cleave to the good: be good.

2. And do not wonder at the multitude of evil Christians, who fill the church, who communicate at the altar, who with great voices praise a bishop or presbyter disputing of good manners: through whom is fulfilled what our gatherer foretold in the Psalm: I announced and spoke, they were multiplied above number (Ps 40:5 (39:6)). In the Church of this time they can be with us: but in that assembly of the saints which will be after the resurrection, they will not be able to be. For the Church of this time is compared to a threshing floor, having grains mixed with chaff, having the evil mingled with the good; about to have, after the judgment, all the good without any evil. This floor contains the harvest sown by the apostles, watered by the good teachers who followed up to the present time, not a little ground down too by the persecution of enemies; but, what alone remains, not yet purged by the heavenly winnowing. But he will come of whom you gave back in the Creed: Thence he will come to judge the living and the dead: and, as the Gospel says, he will have his winnowing fork in his hand, and will cleanse his threshing floor; and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Matt 3:12). What I say, let the old faithful too hear. He who is a grain, let him rejoice with trembling, and remain, and not depart from the floor. Let him not try by his own judgment to strip himself, as it were, from the chaff: since, if he should now wish to separate himself from the chaff, he will not be able to remain on the floor. And when he comes who without error distinguishes, what he does not find on the floor, he will not lift to the granary. In vain then will those grains boast themselves of the ear, whatever ones have now departed from the floor. That granary will be filled, and closed. Whatever remains outside, the flame will lay waste. He who is good, then, dearest ones, let him bear with the evil: he who is evil, let him imitate the good. For on this floor grains can fail into chaff; again, grains can be roused up from chaff. These things happen daily, my brothers: this life is full of punishments and consolations. Daily those who seemed good slip and perish: and again those who seemed evil are converted and live. For God does not will the death of the ungodly, but only that he turn back and live (See Ezek 33:11). Hear me, grains; hear me, you who are what I desire to be: hear me, grains. Do not be saddened at the mixing of the chaff: they will not be with you forever. How great is this that the chaff presses? Thanks be to God, because it is light. Let us only be grains, and however great it be, it will not weigh us down. For God is faithful, who will not permit us to be tempted beyond what we can bear; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that we may be able to endure (See 1 Cor 10:13). Let the chaff too hear us; wherever they are, let them hear. I do not wish them to be here: yet let us address them, lest perhaps they be. So hear me, chaff: although, if you hear, you will not be chaff. Hear, then. May the patience of God profit you. May the conjunction, the admonition of the grains, make you grains. The rains of the words of God are not lacking to you: let not the field of God be barren in you. Therefore grow green again, become grain, ripen. For he who sowed you wishes to find ears, not thorns.

Sermon 223/A
On the Beginning of Genesis, on the Paschal Vigil

1. We have heard many divine readings, to whose length neither can we render an equal sermon, nor would you grasp it if we could. As much, then, as the Lord grants, we wish to speak to your Charity of the very head of the Scriptures, where, when it was read, we heard that in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1). Attend and consider who made it. But I know that you cannot consider who made it; consider what he made, and praise him who made it. In the beginning God made heaven and earth. Behold, the things that were made are at hand, are beheld, delight. The work lies open, the maker lies hidden; for both that from which he is seen lies open, and that from which he is loved lies hidden. When, then, we see the world, and love God, that is surely better, from which we love, than that from which we see. With the eyes we see, with the mind we love. Therefore let us prefer the mind to the eyes, because he too is better whom we love out of the hidden, than his work which we see out of the open. Let us ask, then, if it pleases, when God made so great a mass, by what engines he made it. The engine of the maker is the word of the one commanding. Why do you wonder? It is the work of the Almighty. If, then, you ask who made it, God made it; if you ask what he made, he made heaven and earth; if you ask through what he made it, he made it through the Word, which he did not make. The Word, through which heaven and earth were made, that Word was not made. For if it was made, through what was it made? All things were made through it (John 1:3). If whatever was made was made through the Word, without doubt the Word was not made, through which all things were made. Finally, the narrator of the works, the servant of God, Moses: In the beginning, he says, God made heaven and earth. He made heaven and earth in the beginning. Through what did he make it? Through the Word. Did he make the Word too? No: but what? In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1). It already was, through which he made; therefore that which was not, he made. We can understand, and we rightly understand, that in the only-begotten Word itself heaven and earth were made. For through which they were made, in it they were made. This can be and be understood as the beginning, in which God made heaven and earth. For the Word itself is also the Wisdom of God, to whom it is said: You made all things in wisdom (Ps 104:24 (103:24)). If in wisdom God made all things, and his only-begotten Son is without doubt the Wisdom of God (See 1 Cor 1:24), let us not doubt that in the Son were made the things which we have learned were made through the Son. For the Son himself is surely the beginning. For when the Jews asked and said: Who are you? he answered: The Beginning (John 8:25). Behold, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1).

2. But now the rest, whether when they are arranged and disposed, or when they are adorned, or when the things which had not been made in heaven and on earth are created, God says, and they come to be. And God said: let it be, and it was made (See Gen 1:3). And so through each work: he said, and it was made. He himself spoke, and they were made (Ps 33:9 (32:9)). With what tongue did he speak? so that who might hear, did he speak? Let us not always be nourished with milk: raise up your minds with us to solid food. Let no one think of God as a body, let no one think of God as a man, let no one think of God as an angel; although he deigned so to appear to the Fathers, not through his very substance, but through his creature subject to him; for otherwise he would not, invisible, appear to human sight. Let us seek what is better in us, and from there let us try to attain what is better than all. What is better in us is the mind; what is better than all is God. Why do you seek a better thing with a worse thing? In you the body is lower than the mind; in things nothing is better than God. Raise up what is better in you, that you may attain, if you can, to him who is better than all. For I too, when I speak, speak to minds. Visible faces indeed I behold, I myself too visible in body; but through that which I see, I address that which I do not see. I bear within a word conceived in the heart, and I wish to bring forth in your ears what I conceived in the heart; I wish to tell you what is within, to bring forth to you what is hidden: I seek how it may be able to reach your mind. I approach first, as it were the door of your mind, your ears; and since the word, which I conceived in the heart, is invisible, and I cannot draw it to you, I provide it, as it were, a vehicle, sound. Behold, the word lies hidden, the sound lies open; I place the hidden upon the open, and I reach the hearer; and so the word goes forth from me, comes to you, and has not departed from me. If, then, it is permitted to compare small things to great, the lowest to the highest, the human to the divine, God too did this. The Word lay hidden with the Father: that it might come to us, it took up, as it were, a vehicle, it took up flesh; it proceeded to us, and did not depart from the Father; but before his incarnation, before Adam himself the father of the human race, before heaven and earth and all that is in them, in the beginning was the Word (John 1:1), and: in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1).

3. But God made the earth, still before it was adorned, before its form was laid bare. It was invisible and unformed, and darkness was upon the deep. There was darkness, where there was no light; for not yet was light made. The Spirit of God was borne above over the waters (Gen 1:2), and he too the maker, nor separated from the Father and the only-begotten Word. For behold, if we attend diligently, the Trinity is intimated to us. For where it is said: In the beginning he made, it is understood of the Father and the Son: in the beginning, that is, in the Son, God the Father. The Spirit remains, that the Trinity may be completed: The Spirit of God was borne above over the waters. And God said. To whom did God say? Before the creature was made, was there one who heard? There was, he says. I ask, who? The Son himself. To the Son, then, God said. By what word did he speak to the Word? For if the Son already was, as no Christian doubts, surely this too was. The Son was the Word, and to the Word the Father was speaking. Did, then, words run between God and the Word? Far be it: take away, brothers, the hindrances of fleshly thought; think the invisible things invisibly, let not likenesses of the body turn before the eyes of your mind. Pass over whatever is beheld in you: transcend whatever in you is even not beheld; for the body is beheld, the soul is not beheld, but yet is changed. Now it wills, now it does not will; now it knows, now it does not know; now it remembers, now it forgets; now it advances, now it fails. This is not God, God is not this nature, the soul is not a portion of the substance of God. For whatever God is, is an unchangeable good, an incorruptible good. Even if God is invisible, the soul is invisible, yet the soul is changeable, God unchangeable. Transcend, then, not only what is beheld in you, but also that which is changed in you. Transcend the whole, transcend yourself.

4. A certain lover of invisible goodness, a certain lover of invisible eternity, says in his sighs and groanings of his love: My tears have become my bread day and night, while it is said to me daily: Where is your God? (Ps 42:3 (41:4)) How would his tears not truly become for the one groaning and loving his bread, that he might feed on them in some manner as from the pleasure of food, and willingly weep, as long as he does not see what he loves, when it is said to him daily: Where is your God? If I say to a pagan: Where is your God? he will show me idols. If I break the idol, he will show a mountain, will show a tree, will show a cheap stone from the river; for what he took from many stones, and placed in a more honored place, and, bowed down, adored, this is his god. Behold, he says, pointing his finger, behold is my god. When I have mocked the stone, when I have taken it away, when I have broken it, when I have thrown it away, when I have despised it, he points his finger to the sun, to the moon, points to any star you please; that one he calls Saturn, that one Mercury, that one Jupiter, that one Venus. Whatever he wishes, wherever he points his finger, he answers me: Behold is my god. And because I see the sun, and cannot break it, the stars I cannot cast down, heaven I cannot overturn, he seems to himself as it were superior, by showing visible things, and stretching out his finger to whatever he wishes, and saying: Behold is my god. And he turns to me, saying: Where is your God? When I hear: Where is your God? I have nothing to show to the eyes, I find minds barking, blind; for the eyes by which he has whence to see I have not what to show. Whom I truly have to show, he has not eyes whence to see. It pleases me to weep, as it were to feed on bread in tears. For my God is invisible; he who speaks to me requires visible things, when he says: Where is your God? But I, that I might come to my God, as he says in that very Psalm: These things I meditated, and I poured out my soul above me (Ps 42:4 (41:5)). My God is not below my soul, but is above my soul. Whence do I attain to that which is above my soul, unless I pour out my soul above me? And yet to this insolent one, requiring visible things, showing visible things, exulting over visible things, with my God helping, I will try in some way to answer. This certainly you say to me: Where is your God? I answer you: Where are you yourself? I answer, I say, I think not unfittingly. You asked where God is, but I where my questioner himself is. He will say: Behold where I am; you see me, I speak to you. And I to him: I seek my questioner: his face I see, his body I see, his voice I hear, his tongue I observe; I seek the very one who fixes his eyes on me, who moves his tongue, who sends forth his voice, who by questioning desires to know. All this, of which I speak, is the soul. So I will not deal with you longer. You say: Show me your God; I say: Show me your soul. You labor, you are wearied, you are fixed, when I say: Show me your soul; I know that you cannot. Why can you not? Because your soul is invisible. And yet it is better in you than your body; but my God is better than your soul. How, then, shall I show my God, when you do not show me your soul, than which I show my God better? Behold, if you say to me: From the work recognize my soul; because I fix my eyes to see, my ears to hear, I move my tongue to speak, I bring forth my voice to sound, from this understand and know my soul; you see that you cannot show it, but you bid me know it from its works. Behold, I too from the works will show you my God. Nor do I go further, nor do I perhaps send your unbelief to the things you do not grasp. I do not so recall the works of my God: He made invisible things, he made visible things, that is, heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them (Acts 4:24). I do not send you through many things: I return to you yourself. You surely live: you have a body, you have a soul; the body is visible, the soul is invisible; the body the dwelling, the soul the dweller; the body the vehicle, the soul using the vehicle; the body, as it were, a vehicle to be governed, the soul the charioteer of your body. Behold, your senses are manifest, as it were doors in your body, through which something may be announced to your soul dwelling within: eyes, ears, smell, taste, touch, the arranged members. What is that within, whence you think, whence you give life to these? All this, which you wonder at in yourself, he who made it, he himself is my God.

5. Therefore, my brothers, if I have approached your minds, your inner men, by some fitting address, as I could, if by speaking I have reached those who dwell within in houses of clay (See Job 4:19), that is, your souls dwelling in your bodies, do not conjecture about the divine things from those you know. God surpasses all things, heaven and earth. Do not set before your eyes, as it were, some craftsman composing, disposing, contriving, turning on a lathe, twisting some great thing; or surely, as it were, an emperor on a royal seat, bright, adorned, sitting, and by commanding creating. Break the idols in your hearts; attend to what was said to Moses, when he inquired the name of God: I am who am (Exod 3:14). Whatever else is, in comparison with him is not. That which truly is does not know how to be changed in any part. Everything whatever that is changed and flows, and at a certain time does not cease to be changed, was and will be; in it you do not grasp is. But God has not "was" and "will be." But what was, now is not; what will be, is not yet; and what so comes that it may pass away, therefore will be that it may not be. Consider, if you can, I am who am. Do not be rolled by wills, do not be agitated by voluntary and temporal thoughts. Stand at is, stand at the very is. Where do you go? Stand, that you too may be able to be. But when do we hold a flighty thought, and fix it to that which remains? when can we? Therefore God had mercy; and he who is, and he who said: This you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is sent me to you (Exod 3:14), having spoken the name of his substance, afterward speaks the name of his mercy. What is the name of his substance? I am who am. You shall say to the children of Israel: He who is sent me to you. But Moses was a man, and was among those things which in comparison with him are not; he was on the earth, was in the flesh; and in that very flesh was a soul, was a changeable nature, was under the burden of human frailty. For that which was said: I am who am, when did he grasp it? For through that which was seen by his eyes, he was speaking to him who was not seen, and God, hidden, used the one who was seen as, it were, an instrument. For what Moses saw was not the whole of God; because neither is what sounds from me, in that I am a man, the whole of my word. I have in my heart a word which does not sound; the sound passes, the word remains. Therefore when God spoke to a man, the invisible, through that by which he deigned to appear visible, was speaking, the eternal temporal things, the unchangeable fragile things, when he said: I am who am, and: You shall say to the children of Israel: He who is sent me to you, as though that one were unable to grasp what is, I am who am, and: he who is sent me to you, or perhaps, if he himself grasped it, it was to be read by us, who cannot grasp it, at once after the name of substance he spoke the name of mercy. As though he said to Moses: What I said: I am who am, you do not grasp; your heart does not stand, you are not unchangeable with me, nor is your mind unchangeable. You heard what I am; hear what you may grasp, hear what you may hope. God said again to Moses: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exod 3:15). You cannot grasp the name of my substance: grasp the name of my mercy. I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But what I am is eternal: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob indeed eternal, rather I do not say eternal, but made eternal by him. Finally, the Lord himself thus also convicted the calumniating Sadducees, who, when they denied the resurrection, gave them from this the testimony of holy Scripture: Read what the Lord said in the bush to Moses: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all of them live (See Matt 22:31-32; Luke 20:37-38). Accordingly here too God did not add, when he had said: I am who am, this is my name forever. For of this no one doubts that what is, is therefore, because it is eternal; but where he says: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, there he added: This is my name forever (Exod 3:15). As though he said: Why do you fear about the mortality of the human race? why, being strong, do you tremble, lest, when you have died, you be no more? This is my name forever. An eternal name could not be the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, unless Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived forever.
Turning to the Lord, and a prayer.
May the power of his mercy confirm our heart in his truth, may it confirm and tranquilize our souls; may his grace abound upon us, and may he have mercy on us, and take away scandals from us, and from his Church, and from all our dearest ones, and make us please him by his power and the abundance of his mercy upon us forever. Through Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord, who with him lives and reigns, and with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

Sermon 223/B
A Treatise on the Holy Night

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ, about to suffer in the fullness of time for our eternal salvation, admonished the disciples, saying: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation (Matt 26:41). Although the Christian ought assiduously to take care of this, lest sleep consume the single nights, by the example of the Apostle who says: In watchings often (2 Cor 11:27), yet on this night, that the whole world may watch for Christ, a more sacred and holier vigil has been established; that what divine mercy did once, human devotion may celebrate by a yearly solemnity, lest forgetfulness permit it to be blotted out. For Christ died once, the righteous for the unrighteous (1 Pet 3:18). But rising from the dead he dies no more, death will no longer have dominion over him. For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he lives, he lives to God. So let us too reckon ourselves to be dead to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:9-11). That memory might always retain so great a sacrament, the day of the year on which it was done surely ought not to pass like the other nights; but by a most solemn celebrity it returns into the minds of the religious. But for this the Jews killed Christ, that they might destroy his memory from the earth. This is repaid them in the meantime, the eternal punishment excepted, that, his memory being glorified, the world may not forget their crime either; for whoever marvels at the light of this night throughout the whole world, at the same time detests the darkness of the Jews. But let us abominate their crime; yet so great a good, which the Lord granted us out of their evil, let us faithfully hold, and solemnly celebrate.

2. Because on this night, dearest brothers, on which we recall the buried Lord, we celebrate vigils, let us watch at that time at which he slept for us. For he, long before announcing his passion through the Prophet: I slept, he says, and rose, because the Lord took me up (Ps 3:5 (3:6)). He called the Lord Father. On the night, then, on which he slept, we watch, that by the death by which he suffered we may live; by his temporal sleeping we celebrate vigils, that, with him watching for us, having risen into the eternal vigil, we may remain untiring. But on this night he also rose, for whose resurrection our expectation watches. He was handed over for our sins, and slept: He rose for our justification (Rom 4:25). Whence on this very one night, on which he slept, we keep our vigil, that in his vigil, secure, we may at some time lack that same sleep; and we await by watching the hour of his waking, lest in that very justification of ours, on account of which he rose, by creeping negligence we sleep, not in body but in heart. Let us watch, then, dearest ones, and pray, lest we enter into temptation.

Sermon 223/C
On the Holy Night

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ, near to his passion, when for our debts he paid what he did not owe, that the bond by which we were held guilty might be blotted out by his blood (See Col 2:14), said to his disciples: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation (Matt 26:41). From this his commendation this solemnity was instituted: that on the yearly return of that day there should be a watch, on which his resurrection was awaited. May he hear us watching in his solemnity, who slept for our salvation. For in the prophecy of that thing and from his own person it had been said: I slept and took sleep; and I rose, because the Lord will take me up (Ps 3:5 (3:6)). As though he said: Lest the Jews seem to have prevailed against him; I slept, it was of will, not of necessity. He himself surely, he himself slept, as deigning, not as overcome; for he had the power to lay down his soul, and again to take it up (See John 10:18). Yet not for that reason were the Jews without crime, because he slept by power; for that he might show their crime, he said in another Psalm: I slept, troubled (See Ps 6:6 (6:7)). For this he referred to them, who thought him troubled by them, who insulted him as if conquered, and yet, when by nefarious voices they had demanded his death, tried to make themselves strangers to his killing; that it might seem not their deed but Pilate's, who handed him over to the soldiers to be crucified. Therefore that Psalm at once: The sons of men, he says, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword (Ps 57:4 (56:5)). As though he said: Even if not with your own hands, yet with your own mouth you slew the one whose death you demanded. But what does he say in another Psalm? Will not he who sleeps add that he rise? (Ps 41:8 (40:9)) Behold, he rose who had slept; he watched, and was made like a solitary sparrow on a roof (Ps 102:7 (101:8)), that is, above heaven, where he intercedes for us (See Rom 8:34), where now he dies no more, nor will death any longer have dominion over him (See Rom 6:9); because he will not slumber nor sleep who keeps us (See Ps 121:4 (120:4)). Behold, those who thought they had harmed him in something, even the kingdom itself, where they were unwilling that he reign over them, being uprooted from there, perished; that visibly too might be fulfilled what in the same Psalm, about to sleep, he says: Raise me up, and I will requite them (Ps 41:10 (40:11)). Humbling, then, our souls, let us celebrate vigils, that with a watchful heart we may hope for and await the coming of him whose voice will rouse all the sleeping even from the tombs: Those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment (John 5:29). For he it is, of whose sleep, lifted up on the cross, Jacob foretold so long before: You went up, lying down, you slept like a lion (Gen 49:9). He himself, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, conquered (Rev 5:5); for Jacob said that too, when he blessed Judah. Since, then, the lion slept, he was counted among the dead; but because the lion conquered, he will come to judge the living and the dead.

Sermon 223/D
On the Paschal Vigil

1. It is known to you, dearest brothers — for you are not ignorant of what you do — that this vigil is dedicated to the Lord, and preferred to all the vigils which are offered for the worship of God, for this reason, that in it the memory of the Savior is renewed by a yearly solemnity, who was handed over for our trespasses, and rose for our justification (Rom 4:25); so that his whole Church, which is his body, may be able to sing: But I will exult in the Lord, and rejoice in God my Savior (Hab 3:18).

2. For for us too, the night of this age being passed, there will be a resurrection of the flesh unto the kingdom, of which in our Head the example went before. For on this account the Lord willed to rise by night, because, according to the Apostle: God, who said that light should shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts (2 Cor 4:6). That light should shine out of darkness, then, the Lord signified by being born at night, and also by rising at night. For light out of darkness is Christ out of the Jews, to whom it was said: I have likened your mother to the night (See Hos 4:5). But in that nation, as in that night, the virgin Mary was not the night, but in a certain way the star of the night; whence too a star marked his birth, which led the distant night, that is, the Magi of the East, to adore the light; so that in them too might come to pass what was said: Light shines out of darkness. So that the resurrection and the nativity of Christ might agree too, as in that new tomb no dead one was laid before, none after; so in that virginal womb no mortal was either before or after sown.

3. Although, then, in this vigil of ours the Lord is not awaited as though still about to rise, but the memory of his resurrection is renewed by the yearly solemnity, yet in celebrating this we so recall things past that we also figure something, by this same vigil, which we do by living from faith. For all this time, in which this age runs on, in the manner of night, the Church watches with the eyes of faith intent on the holy Scriptures as on nocturnal lights, until the Lord comes. Hence it is that the apostle Peter says: We have the more sure prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts (2 Pet 1:19). On account of which the Savior himself too commands us a spiritual vigil, where, having spoken of his sudden coming, watch, he says, because you do not know the day or the hour (Matt 25:13). As, then, now, who in the name of the Lord have myself come to you, I have found you watching in his name, so the Lord himself, in whose honor this solemnity is celebrated, will find his Church watching with the light of the mind, when he comes, that he may also rouse it, sleeping in the tombs in body.

Sermon 223/E
On the Paschal Vigil

1. So great a brightness and solemnity of this vigil admonishes us, brothers, illuminating the renewed memory of the Lord's resurrection by its yearly return, to recall and to do what he himself said to the disciples about his already impending passion: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation (Matt 26:41). Let us watch, then, and pray, lest we enter into temptation, not on this night only, but throughout the whole time of this life, which on earth is a temptation. For so it is written: Is not human life a temptation upon earth? (Job 7:1) If, then, to enter into temptation is nothing but to be led or brought into temptation, that is, to be deceived and caught, or in any way, to put it all more briefly, to be conquered by temptation, what else must be done throughout the whole night of this life, in which through the light of faith we ought to be day, than what the Lord admonished the disciples: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation? The watch of the mind is, lest faith sleep, hope wither, and love grow cold. But with faith watching, hope flourishing, love fervent, throughout this whole time, in which we are engaged in the night of this age, let us with assiduous prayer say: Bring us not into temptation (Matt 6:13). So, with his help, we do what the Lord says: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. If truly it is not to be dreaded to enter into temptation, when we can also come out of it, according to the apostle James saying: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations (Jas 1:2), it remains that the hope be in what the apostle Paul says: God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you may be able to endure (1 Cor 10:13). Of this way of escape it can not absurdly be understood that we are admonished even by the holy Canticle, where it is read: May the Lord keep your going in and your going out (Ps 121:8 (120:8)); that, as into a furnace, he may suffer us, vessels of clay, not only well formed to enter, but also to be able to come out intact, as it is written: The furnace proves the potter's vessels, and the temptation of tribulation just men (Sir 27:5). But if the matter is so, surely when the Lord said to the disciples: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation, he saw so great a weight of his passion impending, that he did not want them to enter into that temptation, from which he saw them not yet fit to be allowed to come out. On account of which he had already said to the most blessed apostle Peter: You cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward (John 13:36). Who, when he believed himself able not only to follow, but even to go before, saying: I will lay down my soul for you (John 13:37), with the strong winds of the Lord's passion bearing down, and the sea on which they sailed vehemently and deeply troubling it, he would have been submerged at the question of one servant girl, had not, mercy at once obtained by tears, he been freed by the right hand of the Lord. Let us watch, then, brothers, and pray, lest we enter into temptation which we cannot bear, and, into whatever we enter, we may be able, either by a way of escape given to bear it, or by endurance given to come out; that we may not be brought into temptation without a way out, like feet into fetters, like a wild beast into nets, like birds into snares.

2. That we may not suffer this, he will grant it to us to whom we sang to the Lord: For he is gloriously magnified; who in the laver of regeneration has already granted us what we sang: horse and rider he has cast into the sea (Exod 15:1). For all our past sins, which were pursuing us as if from behind, he submerged and blotted out in baptism. Our darkness, which the unclean spirits governed as their beasts of burden, that is, their aids, and, as riders, drove where they wished; and therefore the Apostle calls them the rulers of this darkness (Eph 6:12). Of whom, since we have been freed through baptism, as through the Red Sea, that is, made bloody by the sanctification of the crucified Lord, let us not turn back in heart to Egypt, but, through the other temptations of the desert, with him as our protector and ruler, let us press on toward the kingdom.

Sermon 223/F
On the Paschal Vigil

1. The yearly solemnity of that night, dearest brothers, on which the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, we celebrate by this vigil. I do not now teach, but I admonish you who know, lest you forget. For as the celebration itself, coming solemnly at its own time, does not bring it about that we should know something unwonted, but that we should not blot out by forgetting what we know — for it renews memory, it does not insert knowledge — so too our sermon, even if it is not brought forth to the ignorant, yet seeks attentive ones; because, even if it does not bring it about that you hear what you do not know, yet I wish it to bring it about that you recall with pleasure the things you know.

2. Let us watch, then, and pray, lest we enter into temptation (See Matt 26:41): for our adversary, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8). But that Lion of the tribe of Judah, of whom it was foretold so long before: You went up, lying down, you slept like a lion; who will rouse him? (Gen 49:9) He went up onto the cross, when he suffered, because he was hung up by the will of one showing mercy, not by the necessity of one sinning. He slept, lying down, when, his head bowed, he gave up the Spirit (John 19:30). But like a lion, because even in that very weakness he was strong; for that which is weak of God is stronger than men (1 Cor 1:25); finally, by dying he gave life, and consumed death by death. Who roused him, except the invisible God? For why "who"? because he does not appear to human sight, as also the only-begotten Word of God himself, with the Father, is invisible. He, then, roused him from the dead, and gave him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee may bow (Phil 2:9-10), and the lion seeking to devour is conquered by the lion seeking to free.

3. Let us watch, then, and pray, lest we enter into temptation (See Matt 26:41). Let us watch for him who of his own accord slept for us. For he slept, and took sleep; and rose, because the Lord took him up (See Ps 3:5 (3:6)), to whom he had said: And rouse me up, and I will requite them (Ps 41:10 (40:11)). Who, to the enemies about to rage and to insult him as he died, said in prophecy: Will not he who sleeps add that he rise? (Ps 41:8 (40:9)) Therefore he who slept also awoke, and to himself awaking consecrated this vigil of ours. Let us watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation, since he watched, and was made like a solitary sparrow on a roof (Ps 102:7 (101:8)); therefore he rose, and flew on high, and for us, the only one, intercedes in heaven (See Rom 8:34). To this one, so great an intercessor, let us give our prayers; he grants with the Father what he asked of the Father, because he is mediator and creator: mediator, to ask; creator, to bestow: mediator made in the world, creator through whom the world was made. With a most faithful and most trusting affection, then, with a sober mind let us watch for him, and put forward to him the Prayer which he taught; that what he commanded to be done, with his help we may be able to do; what he promised to be received, with his giving we may take.

Sermon 223/G
On the Paschal Vigil

1. This holy celebration, brothers, which has taken night out of night, putting the darkness to flight by these lamps, and gladdening our faith as the day of the heart, is carried on, as you know, in memory of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. For what could be more fitting than that our vigil should frequent his waking from the dead, that the members, although still about to sleep, should by watching meanwhile sound in unison with their already ever-waking Head, and they too likewise about to awake, and with him about to reign in a perpetual vigil without any sleep? For fittingly, at a certain time, so great a festivity signifies what eternity will have without end of time. Let us watch, then, for the watching Christ, and for a little while, as much as we can, let us abstain from sleep, in honor of him whom no sleep holds. Let us be in his keeping, according to the spirit, the true Israel: For he will not slumber nor sleep, who keeps Israel (Ps 121:4 (120:4)). Watching for this most vigilant keeper by a yearly solemnity, let us bind our heart in his hand by the bond of faith, that, suspended by this binding from him who knows not how to sleep, it may not fall; until, whole and entire, mortality and corruption being consumed, we are gathered into his framework, where neither can we any longer sleep or slumber.

2. This is the fruit of our vigils, this the end of the intent eyes not of the flesh but of the spirit, this the just and holy purpose of reining in and restraining sleep, this the incorruptible reward of the labor borne and the love roused: that he for whom, struggling a little against earthly torpor, we watch, may give us life, where there is a vigil without labor, a day without night, rest without sleep. Not, then, is it praiseworthy to watch, for robbers too watch; but to this end, that, lying in wait for the sleep of husbands, they may come to their wives, the night acting as pander. The followers of magic arts too watch; but to this end, that they may serve demons, and by their aid commit nefarious things. It is long, and not necessary, to recall the vigils of all the wicked. But, to speak of certain even innocent vigils, craftsmen watch, farmers, sailors, fishermen, travelers, merchants, administrators of whatever affairs, judges, advocates, buyers and sellers of letters, those endowed with power, those subject to powers, and whatever there is of arts or industry by which human life is got through; but to this end, that the earth may be inhabited either more conveniently or more becomingly by its sojourners about to pass on with vaporous speed. Finally, the end of all who so watch, the unlawful, is damned by eternal death, and the lawful is consumed by temporal death. But the end of the law is Christ unto righteousness to everyone who believes (Rom 10:4), in regard to whom we watch, who is the end of perfection, claiming us from the end either of damnation or of consumption. And so those, watching either harmfully or harmlessly, yet behold and seek an end about to perish; but our end has no end. Finally, those watch, in that thing to which they desire to come, not about to have a remaining; we watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation. For so we conquer the one who lies in wait for our journey; so we lay hold of him with whom we will remain, the Savior.

Sermon 223/H
On the Paschal Vigil

1. We celebrate the solemnities of the Lord's humility, who humbled himself, made obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:8). Whence we too, on this holy night, by fasting, watching, and praying, humble our souls; nor does this fervor here disagree with that humility. For what else is the grain of mustard than the fervor of humility? By this grain mountains were transferred into the heart of the sea (See Matt 17:20; Mark 11:23), that is, the great preachers of the Gospel, the holy apostles, were transferred from Judea to the Gentiles, and held the very heart of the world, that is, the thoughts of the age, the mountains of which it was said: Your righteousness is like the mountains of God (Ps 36:6 (35:7)); the mountains of which it was said: You enlighten wondrously from the eternal mountains (Ps 76:4 (75:5)). For those mountains, enlightened, fervent in their summits, transferred both themselves and that light which enlightens every man (See John 1:9), as the mountain of mountains, the king of kings, and the holy of holies, into the heart of the sea, that is, into the faith of the Gentiles; so that in them might be fulfilled what the Prophet had foretold: In the last times the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, prepared on the summit of the mountains (Isa 2:2); and what he himself had said: If you have faith like a grain of mustard, you will say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, and it will be done (See Matt 17:20). These mountains consecrated for us this night, on which the buried Lord rose, so that the buried grain of mustard, by humbling itself, might not appear, and, by sprouting and growing, spreading its branches everywhere, might surpass all things, and invite the lifted up in heart to take refuge and rest, as birds. Let this mountain dwell also in your heart; for it will not suffer narrowness, where love makes for it the widest room. Turning to the Lord.

Sermon 223/I
On the Paschal Vigil

1. So great and so holy a solemnity admonishes us, most beloved, to exhort you to watch and pray. For our faith does battle against the night of this age, lest our inner eyes fall asleep into the night of the heart. That we may not fall into this evil, let us pray with that voice with which we read, and say to the Lord our God: Enlighten my eyes, lest ever I sleep into death, lest at any time my enemy say: I have prevailed against him (Ps 13:3-4 (12:4-5)). This is that enemy who roused the mad Jews, as his own vessels and weapons, against our Lord Jesus Christ; but he did not prevail against him. The fleshly enemies indeed seemed to themselves to have prevailed; but in them the spiritual foe was overcome. For by the victim of clean flesh the unclean spirit was conquered; and by that very thing by which he inflamed men to do openly what they willed, he secretly suffered what he did not will. For by killing Christ he shed the blood by which those whom he killed might come back to life. But neither does he possess him among the dead. For he grieved that those were joined to the rising one, whom he wished to join to the dying one. His death we celebrate in this life, whose life after this death we hope for. Therefore by our humility let us recall to memory the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us humbly watch, humbly pray, with the purest faith, the firmest hope, the most fervent love, considering what kind of day our brightness will have, if our humility turns night into day. So may God, who said that light should shine out of darkness, shine in our hearts (See 2 Cor 4:6), that we may do within something like what we have done in this house of prayer with the lamps lit. Let us adorn the true dwelling place of God, our conscience, with the lamps of righteousness. But not we, but the grace of God with us, of which we have the promise, the Prophet saying: He will bring forth your righteousness like the light (See Ps 37:6 (36:6)). And so, watching, we will not fear the nocturnal terror and the business that walks about in the darkness (See Ps 91:5-6 (90:5-6)); and, when the beasts of the forest have passed by, seeking food for themselves from God (See Ps 104:20-21 (103:20-21)), he will hand us over to be the food of no wretched one, who for us handed over his Only-begotten. Turning to the Lord.

Sermon 223/J
On the Paschal Vigil

1. The blessed Apostle, when he admonished us about praying, at the same time admonished us also about watching: Persist, he says, in prayer, watching in it (Col 4:2). Unclean love, brothers, compels those whom it possesses to watch. The unchaste man watches, to corrupt; the sorcerer, to harm; the drunkard, to drink; the robber, to kill; the lecher, to squander; the covetous, to gather; the thief, to take away; the plunderer, to seize. How much more, then, ought love to watch in the holy and innocent, if iniquity wrings vigils from the shameful and criminal? But those are pressed by a deep sleep of the heart, so that they are compelled to watch in the flesh. Against this sleep it is cried: Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you (Eph 5:14). But in us this voice has broken the sleep of this age, if we have heard and risen from the dead, of whom it was said: Let the dead bury their dead (Matt 8:22). Let us meanwhile render the vigil of the flesh to the solemnity; but let us keep the perpetual vigil of the heart, with Christ enlightening. Let us watch in the flesh, as much as we can, that we may pray; and let us pray, that we may be able to come where even in the flesh we may watch without end. For the angels do not sleep, whose equality is promised to us in the day of resurrection, if now love watches in us.

Sermon 223/K
On the Paschal Vigil

1. The blessed apostle Paul: You are all, he says, sons of light and sons of the day: we are not of the night nor of darkness. So let us not sleep, as also the rest, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep by night, and those who get drunk, are drunk by night. But we who are of the day, let us be sober (1 Thess 5:5-8). What kind of night is that, brothers, in which the Truth does not wish us to be, in which he says those are who sleep? And what kind of sleep is that, from which he distinguishes us sons of light and of the day, and which sleep he addresses us not to sleep? Without doubt that is not the night whose beginning is the setting of the sun, but the fall of man; nor for which the reddening of dawn makes an end, but the renewal of the soul. In this night even the evil who watch sleep; in this night even the good who sleep are not. The common night, by coming, ends the day; that damnable night took us away from that day which made this day. This sleep, which we now by watching resist, with the senses inculpably lulled, receives death; that sleep, by which the unbelieving sleep in the heart, presses the inner eyes into death. Against this let us hear: Watch and pray (See Matt 26:41); against that let us say: Enlighten my eyes, lest ever I sleep into death (Ps 13:3 (12:4)). Solemnly, then, against the sleep of the body, having these lamps on this night, let us watch; but against that sleep of the heart, as in the night in this age, we ourselves ought to be lamps (See Matt 5:14-15).

Sermon 224
On the Day of Easter

1. On this present day, those baptized in Christ and reborn are to be mingled with the whole people of God, the solemnity of the sacraments being celebrated. Let us address them, and you in them and them in you. Behold, you have been made members of Christ. If you should consider what you have been made, all your bones will say: Lord, who is like you? (Ps 35:10 (34:10)) For this condescension cannot be worthily thought. Does not all speech and sense fail that to you has come gratuitous grace, with no preceding merits? And therefore it is grace, because it was given freely. What grace? That you may be members of Christ the Son of God, that you too may be brothers of the Only-begotten. If he is the Only-begotten, whence are you brothers, except that he is the Only-begotten by nature, you brothers by grace? Because, then, you are members of Christ, I admonish you. Let those hear me with whom you are to be mingled. Today I fear for you, not so much from pagans, not so much from Jews, not so much from heretics, as from evil catholics. Choose for yourselves among the people of God those whom you may imitate. For if you wish to imitate the crowd, you will not be among the few walking the narrow way (See Matt 7:13-14). Abstain from robberies, from frauds, from perjuries. Let the gulf of drunkenness be driven from you. Fear fornications as you fear death — death not that which looses the soul from the body, but where the soul will always burn with the body.

2. I know that the devil plays his parts, and does not cease to speak in the hearts of those whom, by seducing, he draws to his side. I know that to fornicators and adulterers, who are not content with their spouses, the devil says in the heart: "The sins of the flesh are not great." Against this, against the devil's whispering, we ought to have Christ's incantation. Because the enemy deceives Christians through the enticement of the flesh, when he makes light for them what is grave, but by lying, not by truly making it so. What does it profit that Satan makes light what Christ shows to be grave? What does it profit that a great weight of unhappiness is weighed light in the balance of falsehood? What does it profit that the devil tells you light what God tells you grave? Will you not find grave what God told you, and the promiser, the enemy, be far from you? Does the devil do something new? to say to faithful Christians: "It is nothing that you do: you sin in your flesh. For you do not sin in the spirit. It is easily blotted out, pardon is easily given." What great thing does he do? That is the artifice which he spoke in paradise: "You will not die the death." God had said: On the day you eat, you will die the death (See Gen 2:17). The enemy came, and said: "What, because God said to you: You will die the death? You will not die the death, but when you eat, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods" (Gen 3:4-5). The threatening of God was set aside, the promise of the devil was heard. The threatening of God was found true, and the deception of the devil false. But what did it profit, I beg you, what did it profit that the woman said: The serpent led me on, and the man himself: The woman whom you gave me as companion gave me, and I ate (Gen 3:12-13)? Did the excuse avail, and did not the damnation follow?

3. Therefore I say to you, my brothers, my children. You who have wives, know nothing else. You who have not, and wish to marry, keep yourselves intact for them, as you wish them to come intact to you. You who have promised continence, do not look back (See Luke 9:62). Behold, I have told you. I have freed myself. The Lord set me as a dispenser, not an exactor. And yet where we can, where it is granted, where it is permitted, where we know, we rebuke, we chide, we anathematize, we excommunicate. And yet we do not correct. Because neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:7). And now, because I speak to you, because I terrify you, because I admonish you, it is needful that God hear me, and do something in silence in your hearts. Briefly I say it, and this I commend to you. I both terrify the faithful, and build you up. You are members of Christ; do not — hear me, hear the Apostle: Taking, then, the members of Christ, shall I make them the members of a harlot? (1 Cor 6:15) Someone or other has to say: But she is not a harlot, she is my concubine. Do you have a wife, you who say this? I have. Then she, whether you will or not, is a harlot. Go, and say that the bishop did you an injury, if you have a wife, and another sleeps with you. Whoever she is, she is a harlot. But perhaps she keeps faith with you, and knows none but you alone, and does not arrange to know another. Since, then, she is chaste, why do you fornicate? If she has one, why do you have two? It is not lawful, it is not lawful, it is not lawful. They go into hell. At least from this let me be free. At least from this let it be allowed me to say what is true. Let those who are such correct themselves while they live. Suddenly death may come, and there is no one to be corrected. When the last hour may come is unknown. When it is said "tomorrow, tomorrow," it becomes a crow: it goes, and does not return. But hear me, you baptized; hear me, you infants; hear me, you reborn through Christ. I beseech you by the altar to which you have come, by the sacraments you have received, by the name which is invoked over you, by the future judgment of the living and the dead, I beseech, I adjure and I bind you by the name of Christ; do not imitate them, except those whom you have known to be such faithful ones. Amen.

Sermon 225
On the Day of Easter

1. 1. The Son of God, born of the Father without time, commends to us the loftiness of the divine grace toward us. For what was he before he was in man? Suppose you had asked and said. For let us suppose, my brothers, before Christ was born of the virgin Mary, was he, or was he not? Suppose we ask, where it is not permitted to doubt. To these thoughts the Lord himself answered, when it was said to him: You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? For he answered, and said: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am (John 8:57-58). Therefore he was, but man he was not yet. Lest perhaps anyone say, He was an angel; the holy Gospel told you that Christ was. And do you ask what he was? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Behold what he was: In the beginning was the Word. The Word was not made in the beginning, but was the Word. But of this world hear what the Scripture says: In the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1). Do you ask through what he made it? In the beginning was the Word, through which heaven and earth were made. It was not made, but was the Word. Now it remains to ask what kind of Word: because our words too are called words. Our words indeed are conceived by thought, brought forth by the voice; and yet, thought and uttered, they pass away. But that one, what? And the Word was with God. Say where it was, say what it was. I have already said. The holy Gospel told you: In the beginning was the Word. Say where it was, say what it was. And the Word was with God. But I asked what kind of Word. Do you wish to hear what it was? And the Word was God (John 1:1). O Word! what kind of Word? Who could unfold the word: And the Word was God. But perhaps made by God? Far be it. Hear what the holy Gospel says: All things were made through it (John 1:3). What is, All things? Whatever was made by God, was made through it. And how was he himself made, who made all things? Did he perhaps make himself? Finally, if he made himself, there was one who might make him. If, then, there was one who might make himself, he never was not.

2. 2. How is such a Word in a virgin? All things were made through it (John 1:3). What is, All things? Whatever was made by God, was made through it. Do not, brother, separate the Holy Spirit from so great a work. From what so great work? Not a small work, a great work are the angels: the flesh of Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father the angels adore. So great a work, then, the Holy Spirit especially wrought. In this work he was named, when to the holy Virgin through the angel a son was announced as to come. She, because she had purposed virginity, and her husband was not the remover, but the guardian of her modesty — rather not the guardian, because God was guarding her; but the husband was the witness of her virginal modesty, lest she be thought pregnant from adultery — when the angel announced it to her, she said: How will this be, since I do not know a man? If she were disposed to know one, she would not wonder. That wonder is the testimony of her purpose: How will this be, since I do not know a man? How will it be? And the angel to her: The Holy Spirit will come upon you. Behold how will be what you ask: And the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore what will be born of you holy will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:34-35). And he said well: Will overshadow you: lest your virginity feel the heat of lust. And when she was pregnant, it was said of her: Mary was found having of the Holy Spirit in her womb (See Matt 1:18). The Holy Spirit, then, wrought the flesh of Christ. The only-begotten Son of God himself too wrought his flesh. Whence do we prove it? Because of this the Scripture says: Wisdom has built herself a house (Prov 9:1).

2. 3. Therefore mark this. So great a God, God with God, the Word of God through whom all things were made, how is he enclosed in a womb? First, that the Word might be there, did he desert heaven? That the Word might be in the womb of the virgin, did he desert heaven? And whence would the angels live, if the Word deserted heaven? But that man might eat the bread of the angels, the Lord of the angels was made man. Let human thought still wander through its mists, fail, seek, say, that it may find, how the Word of God in the womb of the virgin, through which all things were made, did not desert the angels, did not desert the Father. How could he be enclosed in that womb? He could be there, he could not be enclosed. How, he says, could so great a one be in so tiny a place? Therefore the womb held what the world does not hold. Nor was he lessened, that he might be in the womb. He was in the womb, and he was so great. How great was he? Say how great he was, say what he was.

3. 3. And the Word was with God. Say what it was. And the Word was God (John 1:1). And I too know, I say, who speak with you; nor do I comprehend it: but thought makes us extend ourselves, the extension enlarges us, the enlargement makes us capacious. Yet, made capacious, we will not be able to comprehend the whole: but I deal with my word among you. Behold what I say, what I am about to say, this hear, this comprehend, my word, this is a human word. But if you cannot comprehend even this, see how far you are from that. Surely we wonder how Christ took flesh, was born of a virgin, and did not depart from the Father: behold, I who speak with you, before I came to you, thought beforehand what I would say to you. When I thought what I would say to you, already in my heart there was a word. For I would not speak to you, unless I first thought. I found you Latin, a Latin word is to be brought forth to you. But if you were Greek, I should have to speak to you in Greek, and bring forth to you a Greek word. That word in the heart is neither Latin nor Greek: that which is in my heart altogether precedes these tongues. I seek for it a sound, I seek, as it were, a vehicle; I seek whence it may reach you, when it does not depart from me. Behold, you have heard what is in my heart, now it is in yours too. It is in mine and is in yours: both you have begun to have it, and I have not lost it. As my word took up a sound, through which it might be heard: so the Word of God took up flesh, through which it might be seen. As much as I could, I have said. And what have I said? Since who said it? A man, I wished to speak of God. So great is he, such is he, that we can neither speak him, nor ought we to be silent of him.

4. 4. Thanks to you, Lord, because what I say, or wished to say, you know: yet from the crumbs of your table I have fed my fellow servants; feed you too and nourish inwardly those whom you have regenerated. Behold, what was this multitude? Darkness: but now light in the Lord. For to such the Apostle says: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). O you who have been baptized, you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord. If light, surely day: for God called the light day (Gen 1:5). You were darkness, he made you light, he made you day: of you we sang: This is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it (Ps 118:24 (117:24)). Flee the darkness. Drunkenness pertains to darkness. Do not depart sober, and return drunk: and after midday we will see you. The Holy Spirit has begun to dwell, let him not migrate: do not shut him out of your hearts. A good guest, he finds you empty, he fills you: he finds you hungry, he feeds you: finally, he finds you thirsty, he makes you drunk. Let him make you drunk: for the Apostle says: Do not be drunk with wine, in which is all luxury. And, as if wishing to teach us with what we ought to be made drunk: But be filled, he says, with the Holy Spirit; singing to yourselves in hymns and psalms and spiritual songs, singing in your hearts to the Lord (Eph 5:18-19). He who rejoices in the Lord, and sings praises to the Lord with great exultation, is he not like one drunk? I approve this drunkenness: For with you, God, is the fountain of life, and you will give them to drink of the torrent of your delight. Whence? Because with you, God, is the fountain of life, and in your light we will see light (Ps 36:8-9 (35:9-10)). The Spirit of God is both drink and light. If you found a fountain in the darkness, you would light a lamp, that you might reach it. Do not light a lamp at the fountain of light: it itself shines for you, and will lead you to itself. When you come to drink, draw near and be enlightened. Draw near to him, and be enlightened (Ps 34:5 (33:6)): do not withdraw, lest you be darkened. Lord God, call, and let us draw near to you; strengthen us, lest we withdraw. Make your sons new, from little ones old men, but not from old men dead. For in this wisdom it is permitted to grow old, it is not permitted to die.

Sermon 226
On the Day of Easter

1. So you have heard the Lord Christ proclaimed, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). For he himself is the Lord Christ, who, if he had not humbled himself, but had willed always to remain so, man would have perished. We recognize the Word, God with God, we recognize the only-begotten Son equal to the Father, we recognize light from light, day from day. He is the day who made the day: by day not made, but begotten. If, then, day from day, not made, but begotten; what is the day which the Lord has made? Why day? Because it is light. And God called the light day (Gen 1:5). Let us seek what day the Lord made, that we may exult and rejoice in it (See Ps 118:24 (117:24)). In the first founding of the world it is read that darkness was upon the deep, and the Spirit of God was borne above the water. And God said, Let there be light; and light was made. And God divided between the light and the darkness; and the light he called day, and the darkness he called night (Gen 1:2-5). Behold the day which the Lord made. But is it surely that one in which we ought to exult and rejoice? There is another day which the Lord made, which we ought rather to recognize, and in it rejoice and exult. Since it was said to the faithful believing in Christ: You are the light of the world (Matt 5:14). If light, surely day: because he called the light day. Here too, then, yesterday the Spirit of God was borne above the water, and darkness was upon the deep, when these infants still bore their sins. When, therefore, their sins were forgiven them through the Spirit of God, then God said: Let there be light; and light was made. Behold the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it (Ps 118:24 (117:24)). Let us address this day with apostolic words. O day which the Lord made, you were once darkness: but now light in the Lord. You were, he says, once darkness. Were you, or not? Recall your deeds, if you were not. Look at your consciences, which you have renounced. Because, then, you were once darkness, but now light, not in yourselves, but in the Lord; walk as children of light (Eph 5:8). Let these few things be enough for you, since we are both after labor, and today we must dispute to the infants concerning the sacraments of the altar.

Sermon 227
Delivered on the Holy Day of Easter

1. I am mindful of my promise. For I had promised you, who have been baptized, a sermon in which I would expound the sacrament of the Lord's table, which now too you see and of which last night you were made partakers. You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, what you ought to receive daily. That bread which you see on the altar, sanctified through the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, rather what the cup holds, sanctified through the word of God, is the blood of Christ. Through these the Lord Christ willed to commend his body and blood, which he shed for us unto the forgiveness of sins. If you have received well, you are what you have received. For the Apostle says: One bread, one body, we many are (1 Cor 10:17). So he expounded the sacrament of the Lord's table: One bread, one body, we many are. In this bread it is commended to you how you ought to love unity. For was that bread made of one grain? Were there not many grains of wheat? But before they came to the bread, they were separate; through water they were joined after a certain crushing. For unless the wheat is ground and sprinkled with water, it does not come to that form which is called bread. So you too, before, by the humiliation of fasting and by the sacrament of exorcism, were as it were ground. There came baptism, and you were, as it were, sprinkled with water, that you might come to the form of bread. But it is not yet bread without fire. What, then, does the fire signify, that is, the chrism of oil? For fire, the nourisher of the Holy Spirit, is its sacrament. Note in the Acts of the Apostles when it is read; for that book is now beginning to be read: today began the book which is called Acts of the Apostles. He who wishes to advance has whence. When you assemble at the church, take away empty fables; be intent on the Scriptures. We are your books. Attend, then, and see, that the Holy Spirit is to come at Pentecost. And so he will come: in tongues of fire he showed himself. For he breathes in love by which we may burn for God and despise the world, and our hay may be burned up, and the heart purged as it were like gold. So the Holy Spirit comes, after water fire, and you are made bread, which is the body of Christ. And therefore unity is in a certain manner signified. You hold the sacraments in their order. First, after the prayer, you are admonished to have your heart on high; this befits the members of Christ. For if you have been made members of Christ, where is your head? Members have a head. If the head had not gone before, the members would not follow. Where did our head go? What did you give back in the Creed? On the third day he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father. Therefore our head is in heaven. Therefore, when it is said: Hearts on high, you answer: We have them with the Lord. And lest this very thing, that you have your heart on high with the Lord, you should attribute to your own strength, your merits, your labors, because it is the gift of God to have the heart on high, therefore the bishop, or the presbyter who offers, goes on and says — when the people have answered: We have them with the Lord, hearts on high — : Let us give thanks to the Lord our God, because we have our hearts on high. Let us give thanks, because, unless he granted it, we would have our heart on earth. And you bear witness, saying: It is fitting and right, that we give thanks to him who made us have our heart on high with our head. Then, after the sanctification of the sacrifice of God, because he willed that we ourselves be his sacrifice — which was shown, where that first sacrifice of God was set, and we too, that is, the sign of the thing, what we are — behold, where the sanctification has been accomplished, we say the Lord's Prayer, which you have received and given back. After it is said: Peace be with you, and the Christians kiss one another with a holy kiss. It is a sign of peace: as the lips show, let it be done in the conscience, that is, as your lips draw near to the lips of your brother, so let your heart not withdraw from his heart. Great sacraments, then, and very great. Do you wish to know how they are commended? The Apostle says: He who eats the body of Christ or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord (See 1 Cor 11:27). What is to receive unworthily? To receive contemptibly, to receive mockingly. Let it not seem cheap to you, because you see it. What you see passes away, but what is signified, invisible, does not pass away, but remains. Behold, it is received, eaten, consumed. Is the body of Christ consumed? is the Church of Christ consumed? are the members of Christ consumed? Far be it. Here they are cleansed, there they are crowned. What is signified, then, will remain, although that which signifies seems to pass away. So receive it, then, that you may consider yourselves, may have unity in the heart, may always fix your heart on high. Let your hope be not on earth, but in heaven; let your faith be firm in God, acceptable to God. Because what now here you do not see and believe, you are to see there, where you will rejoice without end.

Sermon 228
On the Day of Easter

1. After the labor of the past night, since, although the spirit is willing, yet the flesh is weak (See Matt 26:41), I ought not to hold you long with a sermon, and yet I owe you a sermon. These days, on which after the passion of our Lord we sing to God Alleluia, we keep as festal in joy up to Pentecost, when the promised Holy Spirit was sent from heaven. Of these days, the seven or eight which are now kept are assigned to the sacraments of the infants. Those who a little before were called Competentes are now called Infants. They were called Competentes, because, by asking, they knocked at the maternal bowels, that they might be born: they are called Infants, because they have now been born to Christ, who before had been born to the world. In them is renewed what in you ought to be made firm: and you who are now faithful, offer them not examples by which they may perish, but by which they may advance. For those just born observe how you, born long ago, live. This is what those do who are born also according to Adam: first they are little ones; afterward, when they have begun to perceive the manners of their elders, they attend to what they may imitate. And since where the elder leads, the younger follows; it is to be desired that the elder go by a good way, lest, by following, both the elder and the younger perish. And so you, brothers, who in a certain manner are now, by the age of your regeneration, parents, I address you, and exhort you, so to live that you may rejoice, not perish, with those who imitate you. The just-born attends to some faithful drunkard; I fear lest he say to himself: Why is that one faithful, and drinks so much? He attends to some usurer, a sad giver, a fierce exactor, and says to himself: I will do it too. It is answered him: You are now faithful, do not do it; you are baptized, you are reborn, your hope is changed, let your manners be changed. And he: Why are this one and that one faithful? I do not wish to say other things; for who could recall them all? Therefore, my brothers, when you live badly, who are now faithful, you will render a bad account to God both of yourselves and of these.

2. Now I address them, that they may be grains on the threshing floor, that they may not follow the chaff which is carried about by the wind, with which they would perish; but may remain by the weight of love, that they may come to the kingdom of immortality. You, then, brothers, you sons, you new shoots of mother Church, I beseech you by that which you have received, to attend to him who called you, who loved you, who sought you when lost, who enlightened you when found, that you may not follow the ways of the lost, in which the name of the faithful errs: for it is not asked what they are called, but whether they are in harmony with their name. If he is born, where is the new life? If he is faithful, where is faith? I hear the name, let me recognize the reality too. Choose for yourselves those whom you may imitate, fearing God, entering the church of God with fear, hearing the word of God diligently, retaining it in memory, ruminating on it in thought, fulfilling it in deeds; choose those to imitate. Let not your heart say: And where shall we find such? Be such, and you will find such. Everything like clings to like: if you live as one lost, none but a lost one will join himself to you. Begin to live well, and you will see how many companions surround you, of how great a brotherhood you may be glad. Finally, do you not find what you may imitate? Be what another may imitate.

3. We owe today, at the altar of God, a sermon to the infants concerning the sacrament of the altar. We have treated to them of the sacrament of the Creed, which they ought to believe: we have treated of the sacrament of the Lord's Prayer, how they should ask; and of the sacrament of the font and of baptism. All these they have both heard disputed, and received handed over: but of the sacrament of the holy altar, which today they have seen, they have heard nothing as yet; today a sermon on this matter is owed them. Therefore this sermon ought to be brief, both on account of our labor, and on account of their edification.

Sermon 228/A
From a Sermon on the Resurrection of the Lord

1. For in that he died, he died to sin once; but in that he lives, he lives to God. So you too reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:10-11). This is the sacrament, in which those who are baptized experience the setting of the old life, and begin the entrance of the new. Whence the same one says: We were buried, then, with him through baptism into death; that as Christ rose from the dead, so we too may walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4). Through this sacrament let us recognize that we are both dead to sin with Christ, and living to righteousness in Christ. In the cross is the pain of those who confess; in the burial the rest of those who are absolved; in the resurrection the life of the just.

Sermon 228/B
On the Sacraments, on the Day of Easter

1. The duty of rendering a sermon, and the care by which we travailed with you, that Christ might be formed in you (See Gal 4:19), compels us to admonish your infancy — you who, now reborn of water and the Spirit, behold this food and drink upon this Lord's table with a new light, and receive it with a new piety — what so great and divine a sacrament means, so clear and noble a medicine, so clean and easy a sacrifice, which now is offered not in one earthly city, Jerusalem, nor in that tabernacle which was built through Moses, nor in that temple which was built through Solomon, which were shadows of things to come (See Col 2:17; Heb 8:5), but from the rising of the sun even to its setting (Mal 1:11), as was foretold by the Prophets, is sacrificed, and, according to the grace of the New Testament, a victim of praise is offered to God. No longer is a bloody victim sought from the flocks of cattle, no longer is a sheep or a goat brought to the divine altars, but the sacrifice now of our time is the body and blood of the priest himself. For of him it was foretold so long before in the Psalms: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps 110:4 (109:4)). But that Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God, brought forth bread and wine, when he blessed our father Abraham, we read and hold in the book of Genesis (See Gen 14:18).

2. Christ therefore, our Lord, who offered by suffering for us what he received by being born from us, made prince of priests forever, gave the order of sacrificing which you see, that, namely, of his body and blood. For his body, struck by a lance, sent forth water and blood, by which he forgave our sins. Mindful of this grace, working out your own salvation, since it is God who works in you (See Phil 2:12-13), with fear and trembling draw near to the participation of this altar. Recognize in the bread what hung on the cross; in the cup what flowed from the side. For those old sacrifices of the people of God figured, by manifold variety, this one thing to come. For Christ himself is both a sheep, on account of the innocence of his simple soul, and a goat, on account of the likeness of sinful flesh (See Rom 8:3). And whatever else in many and diverse ways was foretold in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one thing which was revealed in the New Testament.

3. Receive therefore and eat the body of Christ, you yourselves too, now made members of Christ in the body of Christ; receive and drink the blood of Christ. Lest you be dissolved, eat your bond; lest you seem cheap to yourselves, drink your price. As this is changed into you, when you eat and drink it, so you too are changed into the body of Christ, when you live obediently and piously. For he himself, his passion now drawing near, when he kept the Passover with his disciples, took bread, blessed it, and said: This is my body, which will be handed over for you (See Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). Likewise he gave the blessed cup, saying: This is my blood of the New Testament, which will be shed for many unto the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28). This in the Gospel you either read or heard, but you did not know that this Eucharist is the Son: but now, sprinkled in heart unto a pure conscience, and washed in body with clean water (See Heb 10:22), draw near to him, and be enlightened, and your faces will not blush (Ps 34:5 (33:6)). For if you receive this worthily, which pertains to the New Testament, through which you hope for an eternal inheritance, keeping the new commandment that you love one another (See John 13:34), you have life in you. For you take up that flesh of which Life itself says: The bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world (John 6:51); and: Unless one eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he will not have life in himself (See John 6:53).

4. Having, then, life in him, you will be in one flesh with him. For this sacrament does not so commend the body of Christ as to sever you from it. For the Apostle recalls that this was foretold in holy Scripture: The two will be in one flesh. This sacrament, he says, is great; but I speak in Christ and in the Church (Eph 5:31-32). And in another place, of this very Eucharist he says: One bread, one body, we many are (1 Cor 10:17). You begin therefore to receive what you have also begun to be, if you do not receive it unworthily, lest you eat and drink judgment to yourselves. For thus he says: Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so eat of the bread, and drink of the cup; for he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself (1 Cor 11:27-29).

5. But you receive worthily, if you guard against the leaven of evil doctrine, that you may be unleavened with sincerity and truth (See 1 Cor 5:8); or if you keep that leaven of love, which a woman hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened (See Matt 13:33). For this woman is the Wisdom of God, made through the Virgin in mortal flesh, who in the whole world, which she restored from the three sons of Noah after the flood, as in three measures, sows abroad her Gospel, until the whole is leavened. This is that whole which in Greek is called holon, where, keeping the bond of peace, you will be according to the whole, which is called catholon, and whence the "catholic" Church is named.

Sermon 229
On the Sacraments of the Faithful

1. This which you see, dearest ones, on the table of the Lord, is bread and wine; but this bread and this wine, the word being added, becomes the body and blood of the Word. For that Lord, who in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), on account of his mercy, by which he did not despise what he created in his own image, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14), as you know; for the Word itself took up man, that is, the soul and flesh of a man, and was made man, remaining God. On account of this, because he also suffered for us, he commended to us in this sacrament his body and blood, which he also made us ourselves. For we too have been made his body, and through his mercy, what we receive, we are. Recall what this creature once was in the field, how the earth bore it, the rain nourished it, brought it to the ear; then human labor carried it to the threshing floor, threshed it, winnowed it, stored it, brought it out, ground it, kneaded it, baked it, and scarcely at last brought it to bread. Recall yourselves too: you were not, and you were created, you were carried to the Lord's threshing floor, you were threshed by the labors of oxen, that is, of those announcing the Gospel. When as catechumens you were deferred, you were kept in the granary. You gave your names; you began to be ground by fasts and exorcisms. Afterward you came to the water, and were kneaded, and were made one. With the fervor of the Holy Spirit coming, you were baked, and made the Lord's bread.

2. Behold what you have received. As, then, you see that what was made is one, so be you one too, by loving one another, by holding one faith, one hope, an undivided love. The heretics, when they receive this, receive a testimony against themselves; because they seek division, while this bread indicates unity. So too the wine was in many grapes, and now is one; it is one in the sweetness of the cup, but after the pressing of the winepress. And you too, after those fasts, after labors, after humility and contrition, have now in the name of Christ come, as it were, to the cup of the Lord; and there you are on the table, and there you are in the cup. With us you are this: for together we take it, together we drink, because together we live.

3. You are about to hear what you also heard yesterday, but today there is set out for you what you heard, and what you answered—or perhaps, when the answer was given, you kept silent, though yesterday you learned what was to be answered today. After the greeting that you know, that is, The Lord be with you, you heard: Lift up your heart. The whole life of true Christians is: Lift up your heart; not of Christians in name only, but of Christians in the very reality and truth, the whole life is: lift up your heart. What is it to lift up your heart? It is to set your hope in God, not in yourself; for you are below, God is above. If you have your hope in yourself, your heart is below, it is not lifted up. Therefore, when you have heard from the priest, Lift up your heart, you answer: We have lifted it up to the Lord. Strive to answer truly, for you answer in the presence of the acts of God; let it be as you say, let not the tongue make the sound and the conscience deny it. And because it is God who grants you this very thing, that you may have your heart lifted up, not your own strength, therefore, when you have said that you have your heart lifted up to the Lord, the priest goes on and says: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. Why should we give thanks? Because we have our heart lifted up, and unless he had raised it, we would be lying on the ground. And from there proceed the things that are done in the holy prayers that you are about to hear, that by the coming of the word the body and blood of Christ may be made present. For take away the word, and it is bread and wine; add the word, and now it is something else. And that something else, what is it? The body of Christ, and the blood of Christ. Take away the word, then, and it is bread and wine; add the word, and it becomes a sacrament. To this you say: Amen. To say Amen is to subscribe. Amen in Latin means "true." Then the Lord's Prayer is said, which you have already received and given back. Why is it said before the body and blood of Christ are received? Because, such is human frailty, if perhaps our thought has conceived something improper, if the tongue has poured out something it ought not, if the eye has looked upon something it ought not, if the ear has heard something too flattering that it ought not, if perhaps such things have been contracted from the temptation of this world and the frailty of human life, they are wiped away by the Lord's Prayer, where it is said: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12), that we may approach in security, lest we eat and drink unto judgment for ourselves what we receive. After this is said: Peace be with you. A great sacrament, the kiss of peace; kiss in such a way that you love. Do not be a Judas: Judas the betrayer kissed Christ with his mouth while plotting against him in his heart. But perhaps someone has a hostile mind against you, and you cannot convict him or correct him: you are compelled to bear with him. Do not render him evil for evil in your heart (See Rom 12:17); let him hate, but you love, and kiss in security. You have heard few things, but great ones; let them not seem cheap because they are few, but be dear for their weight. At the same time you are not to be overburdened, so that you may hold fast what has been said.

Sermon 229/A
A Tractate on the Lord's Day of Holy Easter

1. You who have been reborn into a new life, for which reason you are called infants—you especially, who in this way see what these things mean, as we had promised you, listen. Listen also, you faithful who are accustomed to seeing this; a reminder is good, lest forgetfulness steal it away. What you see on the table of the Lord, as far as concerns the appearance of the things themselves, you are accustomed to seeing on your own tables too; it is the same in appearance, but not the same in power. For you yourselves are the same men you were; you have not brought us new faces. And yet you are new; old in the appearance of the body, new by the grace of holiness, just as this too is new. As yet, indeed, in the way you see it, it is bread and wine; sanctification is added, and that bread will be the body of Christ, and that wine will be the blood of Christ. This the name of Christ accomplishes, this the grace of Christ accomplishes, that the very thing that was seen should be seen, and yet should not have the value it had. For before, if it were eaten, it would fill the belly; now, when it is eaten, it builds up the mind. But just as when you were baptized—indeed, before you were baptized—on the Sabbath day we spoke to you about the sacrament of the font, in which you were to be dipped, and we told you, which I believe you have not forgotten, that this is what baptism was and is worth, namely, that it is a burial with Christ, since the Apostle says: For we have been buried together with Christ through baptism into death, so that as he rose from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4); so now too, not from our own heart, nor from our own presumption, nor from human arguments, but from the authority of the Apostle, we must commend to you and impress upon you what it is that you have received or are about to receive. Listen, then, briefly to the Apostle, or rather to Christ through the Apostle, on the sacrament of the Lord's table, what he says: We who are many are one bread, one body (1 Cor 10:17). There it is, the whole of it; I have said it quickly; but weigh the words, do not count them. If you count the words, it is brief; if you weigh them, it is great. One bread, he said. However many loaves are placed there, one bread; however many loaves are on the altars of Christ today throughout the whole world, it is one bread. But what is the one bread? He explained it most briefly: We who are many are one body. This bread is the body of Christ, of which the Apostle speaks, addressing the Church: And you are the body of Christ and his members (1 Cor 12:27). What you receive, you are, by the grace by which you have been redeemed; you subscribe to it when you answer Amen. What you see is the sacrament of unity.

2. Now since the Apostle has briefly intimated to us what this is, consider it more carefully and see how it is made. How is bread made? It is threshed, ground, and goes from the kneading to the baking; in the kneading it is cleansed, in the baking it is made firm. Where was your threshing? This is what you became: it was in the fasts, in the observances, in the vigils, in the exorcisms. You were being ground when you were exorcized. There is no kneading without water: you were baptized. The baking is troublesome, but useful. For what is the baking? The fire of temptations, without which this life is not lived. But how is it useful? The furnace tests the potter's vessel, and the trial of tribulation tests righteous men (Sir 27:5). And just as out of single grains gathered into one and in a way mingled together by the kneading there is made one bread, so the one body of Christ is made by the concord of love. And what the body of Christ has in the grains, the blood has in the clusters of grapes; for wine too comes forth from the press, and what was singly in many flows together into one, and becomes wine. Therefore both in the bread and in the cup there is the mystery of unity.

3. As for what you heard at the table of the Lord, The Lord be with you, this we are accustomed to say also when we greet you from the apse, and we say it as often as we pray; for it is to our advantage that the Lord be always with us, since without him we are nothing. As for what sounded in your ears, see what you say at the altar of God. For in a way we question and admonish you, and we say: Lift up your heart. Do not let it be downward: the heart rots in the earth, lift it up to heaven. But to what end is Lift up your heart? What do you answer? To what end is Lift up your heart? We have lifted it up to the Lord. For this very lifting up of the heart is sometimes good, sometimes evil. How is it evil? It is evil in those of whom it is said: You cast them down while they were being lifted up (Ps 73:18 (72:18)). To lift up the heart, if it be not to the Lord, is not righteousness but pride; and so, when we have said Lift up your heart, because the heart lifted up can still be a heart of pride, you answer: We have lifted it up to the Lord. It is therefore a gracious gift, not an exaltation: and because this is a gracious gift, that we should have our heart lifted up to the Lord, did we accomplish it ourselves? Could we do it by our own strength? Did we raise the earth, which we were, to heaven? Far from it: he did it, he granted it, he put forth his hand, he extended his grace, he made to be above what was below. Therefore, when we have said Lift up your heart, and you have answered We have lifted it up to the Lord, lest you attribute it to yourselves that you have your heart lifted up, I added: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. These are mysteries that are brief, but great: we call them brief in words, but great in affection. For you say these things to yourselves quickly, without a book, without a reading, without a long disputation. Remind yourselves of what you are, and of that in which you ought to persevere, that you may be able to come to the things God has promised.

Sermon 229/B
A Tractate on the Lord's Day of Holy Easter

1. The Lord has indeed made every day: and not only has he made it, but he also makes it; for he makes every day in this way, when he makes his sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). This ordinary day, then, common to good and evil alike, must not be thought to be the one signified in the place where we heard: This is the day that he has made; for it proclaims a certain day more distinctly, and makes us intent upon a certain day by saying: This is the day that the Lord has made. What sort of day is this, where it is said: Let us exult and rejoice in it (Ps 118:24 (117:24))? What sort, if not good? What sort, if not desirable, lovable, longed-for, delightful, the kind of which holy Jeremiah said: And the day of men I have not desired, you know (Jer 17:16)? Who, then, is this day that the Lord has made? Live well, and you yourselves will be it. For it was not of that day which the rising of the sun begins and its setting closes that the Apostle was speaking when he said: Let us walk honorably as in the day (Rom 13:13). Where he also says: For those who are drunk are drunk at night (1 Thess 5:7). No one sees men drunk at midday; but when it happens, it belongs to the night, not to the day that the Lord has made. For just as there is day in those who live devoutly, holily, and religiously, temperately, justly, soberly; so, on the contrary, in those who live impiously, in luxury, proudly, irreligiously, without doubt night will be the thief of such a night: The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Thess 5:2), for so it is written. But when the Apostle recalled this testimony, he turned to those to whom he had elsewhere said: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8); where the day that the Lord has made was made, turning to them, when he had said: You know, brothers, that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, he says to them: But you are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night, nor of the darkness (1 Thess 5:4-5). This song of ours, then, is a reminder of a good life. When we all say with one voice, with joyful spirit, with concordant heart, This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be in harmony with our own sound, lest our tongue speak testimony against us. You who are about to make yourself drunk today say: This is the day that the Lord has made; are you not afraid he may answer you: That day the Lord did not make; and that very day is called a good day which luxury and worthlessness make into a most wicked day for themselves.

2. Behold the joy, my brothers, joy in your assembly, joy in psalms and hymns, joy in the memory of the passion and resurrection of Christ, joy in the hope of the life to come. If what we hope for produces such great joy, what will it be when we possess it? Behold, on these days, when we hear Alleluia, our spirit is in a way changed. Do we not taste, as it were, something of that city on high? If these days produce such great joy in us, what will that day be like, where it is said: Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom (Matt 25:34); when all the saints are gathered into one; when those see each other there who had not known each other; there they recognize each other who had known each other; there they will so be together that a friend will never be lost, an enemy never feared? For behold, we say Alleluia; it is good, it is joyful, it is full of joy, of pleasantness, of sweetness. Yet, if we should say it always, we grow weary of it; but when it comes round at a fixed time of the year, with what pleasantness it returns, with what longing it departs! Will joy be there in such a way, and weariness be there too? It will not. Perhaps someone says: And how can it come to pass that it is thus always, and never weariness? If I show you something in this life that cannot involve weariness, you will believe that there everything will be thus. There is weariness in food, weariness in drink, weariness in a spectacle, weariness in this thing and that; but there was never weariness of health. Just as here, then, in this mortality of the flesh, in this frailty, in this wearisome burden of the body, there could never be weariness of health, so there will never be weariness of love, of immortality, of eternity.

Sermon 229/C
On Holy Easter

1. While we celebrate the Paschal days, we whose Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7), the Jews, still enemies of so clear a manifestation, perform certain nocturnal figures and, when the day has declined, still dream. For they too say that they celebrate the Passover, and, while they pursue perverse shadows of the truth, they are blinded by the night of error. Each year, by the rite of an ancient solemnity, they slay a lamb, and what that lamb signified they do not recognize, even though Christ was slain by their own forefathers. While they read that it was said, and do not understand that it was foretold, they hear when the sayings are recited, and do not see when the things foretold are fulfilled. They have the Law and the Prophets (See Luke 16:29), and what the Law figured concerning the Passover, they are unwilling to recognize through the Prophets. By the Law's command the people were fed by the slaying of a lamb; by the Prophet's foretelling Christ was led like a lamb to the slaughter (Isa 53:7). What the earlier Israelites, freed from Egypt, figured by their festival, this the later ones, taken captive by the devil, did in their iniquity. They were even keeping the Passover itself when Christ was killed by them; impiety was at variance with the truth, and the solemnity was in agreement with the truth; then the lamb was slaughtered for their food, when by their tongues and teeth Christ was being killed. What they signified by their custom, they fulfilled by their crime. Hence Christ himself, figured in the beast, expressed in the man, slew them as they feasted, and feeds us by being slain. And still their children, belching up with undigested vanity the old leaven of their fathers, boast of unleavened bread; nor do they understand that by that food kneaded without the leaven of the old, the new life is signified, which, prefigured in the type, is revealed in Christ.

2. Let us, then, whose Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed, celebrate the festal day, as the Apostle says, not with the old leaven and that of wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Cor 5:7-8); so that what the lawful antiquity announced as future, the Christian festival may show to be fulfilled, and thus we may see that they remained in the shadows, and rejoice that we have clung to the light.

Sermon 229/D
On Holy Easter

1. You ought always, brothers, to remember that Christ was handed over for our offenses, and rose again for our justification (Rom 4:25); but especially in these days, admonished by so great a grace, on which we are not permitted to forget, by the yearly festival, this very thing that was done once for all. Informed by faith, made firm by hope, set aflame by love, let us solemnly observe what is temporal, and without ceasing long for what is eternal. For if God did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how has he not also given us all things with him? (Rom 8:32) Christ suffered: let us die to sin; Christ rose: let us live to God. Christ passes from this world to the Father (See John 13:1); let our heart not cling here, but follow to the things on high. Our Head hung upon the wood; let us crucify the concupiscence of the flesh. He lay in the tomb; buried with him, let us forget the things that are past. He sits in heaven; let us transfer our longing to the things above. He is to come as judge; let us not draw the yoke together with unbelievers. He is to raise up even the corpses of the dead; let us, by changing our mind, do something for our body that is to be changed for the better. He is to set the wicked on the left, the good on the right; let us choose our place by our works. Of his kingdom there will be no end; let us not in the least fear the end of this life. The whole training of our peace is in him, by whose bruises we have been healed (Isa 53:5).

2. Therefore, dearly beloved, let the most persevering meditation upon all these things be for us a daily celebration of Easter. For we ought not to hold these days so special that we neglect the memory of the Lord's passion and resurrection, since we have his body and blood as our daily feast: yet this festival recalls them more clearly, stirs them up more fervently, renews them more joyfully; since by the yearly cycle of the seasons it represents, as it were to our very sight, the remembrance of what was done. Keep this festival, then, as one that will pass, and ever think of the coming kingdom that will abide. For if days that pass away, on which we recall with devout solemnity the passion and resurrection of Christ, so gladden us, how will the eternal day make us blessed, where we shall see him and abide with him whom now we rejoice in by longing and hoping? How great an exultation will he give to his Church, from which, regenerated through Christ, he takes away in a manner the foreskin of carnal nature, that is, the reproach of birth? Hence it is said: And you, when you were dead in your offenses and in the foreskin of your flesh, he made alive together with him, forgiving us all our debts (Col 2:13). For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:22). Therefore in the baptism of Christ is revealed what was covered in the shadow of the old circumcision; and this very thing pertains nonetheless to that same circumcision not made by hand, when the covering of carnal ignorance is taken away. When you pass over, he says, to Christ, the veil is taken away (See 2 Cor 3:16).

Sermon 229/E
A Tractate on the Monday of Easter

1. The Lord's passion and resurrection show us two lives: one that we endure, the other that we desire. For he is able to give us that one, who deigned to endure this one for us. For this shows how greatly he loves us, and he willed that we should believe that he will give us his own good things, who willed to have our evil things in common with us. We were born, and he was born; because we are to die, he died. These two things we knew in this life of ours, the beginning and the end, to be born and to die; by being born to begin our labors, by dying to depart to uncertainties. These two things we knew, to be born and to die: this abounds in our region. Our region is earth; the region of the angels is heaven. Our Lord, then, came to this region from another region; to the region of death, from the region of life; to the region of labor, from the region of happiness. He came bringing us his good things, and patiently bore our evil things. He carried his own good things hidden, he bore our evil things openly; the man appeared, God lay hidden; weakness appeared, majesty lay hidden; the flesh appeared, the Word lay hidden. The flesh suffered: where was the Word, when the flesh was suffering? The Word was not silent, for it was teaching us patience. Behold, the Lord Christ rose on the third day; where is the insulting of the Jews? Where is the insulting of the raging and frenzied chief men of the Jews who killed their physician? Recall, dearly beloved, what you heard when his passion was read. If he is the Son of God, let him come down from the cross, and we will believe him. If he is the Son of God, let him save him (Matt 27:40-43). He heard these things, and was silent; he prayed for those who said them, and did not show himself. For in another Gospel it is written that he cried out for them, and said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). He saw there those who would be his own, he saw those who would presently believe in him; he willed that they be forgiven. Our Head was hanging on the cross, but it recognized its members on the earth.

2. When the book of the Acts of the Apostles was read, there you heard how, when those who had gathered marveled that the Apostles and those who were with them were speaking in the tongues of all nations which they had not learned, by the inspiration and teaching of the Holy Spirit whom they had received, Peter the apostle addressed them as they stood amazed at the miracle, and explained to them that they indeed had done that evil through ignorance, in that they killed the Lord; but God fulfilled his own disposition (See Acts 2:23), that for the whole world innocent blood might be poured out, and the sins of all believers be blotted out; because he died in whom no sin could be found. The bond of our sins was held against us, the devil held the handwriting against us (See Col 2:14); he possessed those whom he had deceived, he held those whom he had conquered. We were all debtors, since all are born with an inherited debt; blood without sin was poured out, and it blotted out the bond of sin. Those, then, who had believed when Peter spoke, in the Acts of the Apostles, said in their dismay: What shall we do, brothers? Tell us (Acts 2:37). For they despaired that so great a wickedness could be forgiven them. And it was said to them: Do penance, and let each of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins are forgiven you (Acts 2:38). What sins? All of them. How far does "all" reach? Even this so great a sin, that you killed Christ. For what more wicked thing could you have done than to kill your Creator, created for your sake? What graver thing could a madman do than to be killed by his physician? Yet even this is forgiven; it was said to them: all are forgiven. You raged, and poured out innocent blood; believe, and drink what you poured out. Those, then, were there who in their despair said: What shall we do? and they heard that, by believing in him whom they killed, they could receive pardon for so great a crime. There they were, he saw them; he saw before his cross those whom he foresaw before the foundation of the world (See Eph 1:4). For these he said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34); they were killing the physician; the physician was making, out of his own blood, a medicine for those who killed him. Great mercy and glory; what is not forgiven them, when it was forgiven them that they killed Christ? Therefore, dearly beloved, no one ought to doubt that in the bath of regeneration absolutely all sins whatsoever, the least and the greatest, are altogether forgiven; for there is a great example and proof of it. There is no graver sin than to kill Christ; and when even this is forgiven, what offense will remain in one who, believing, has been baptized?

3. But let us consider the resurrection of Christ, dearly beloved; for just as his passion signified our old life, so his resurrection is the sacrament of the new life. Therefore the Apostle says: We have been buried together with Christ through baptism into death, so that as Christ rose from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4). You believed, you were baptized; the old life died, it was killed on the cross, buried in baptism. The old life, in which you lived ill, was buried; let the new rise. Live well: live so as to live; live so that, when you have died, you may not die. Consider, dearly beloved, what the Lord said in the Gospel to the man whom he healed: Behold, you have been made well; now sin no more, lest something worse befall you (John 5:14). By this sentence we had been shut in, and reduced to great straits; but his mercy never abandons us. He gave the baptized a prayer, because here one does not live without sin, that we may say daily: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12). There are debts: there is that general bond, and we do not cease to become debtors. We say from whom they are daily forgiven us; but not for that reason ought we to rest, as though secure, in disgraceful acts, in crimes, in misdeeds. Sins ought not to be our friends; we have vomited them up, let us hate them; let us not in dog-like fashion return to our vomit (See Prov 26:11; 2 Pet 2:22). And if they creep in, let them creep in upon us unwilling, not upon us loving or eagerly seeking them; for whoever wishes to keep friendship with sins will be an enemy to him who came to blot out sins, when he himself had no sin. My brothers, consider what I say: the friend of the disease is the enemy of the physician. If you were sick in body, and the physician came to you in keeping with his profession, tell me what he would want in coming to you; what would he want, but to heal you? Since, then, he is your friend, he must of necessity be the enemy of the fever; for if he loved your fever, he would not love you. He hates your fever, then; against it he entered your house, against it he climbed up to your bedroom, against it he came to your bed, against it he felt your pulse, against it he gave you instructions, against it he composed and applied medicines; all against it, all for you. If he, then, is wholly against the fever, wholly for you, you alone, by loving the fever, will be against yourself. You will answer me, I know, you will answer me and say: Who is there that loves a fever? I too know it: the sick man does not love the fever, but he loves what the fever asks for. What is it the physician said when he came in to you, armed with his art against your fever? He says to you, for example: Do not drink cold water. Do not drink cold water—you heard it from the physician, the enemy of your fever. When the physician has left, the fever says: Drink cold water. When the fever says this to you, you must say: that is the burning of the fever. The silent persuasion speaks to you, forces dryness into your throat, makes cold water a delight; remember what the physician said, do not drink. But when the physician is absent, the fever is present. What had the physician said? Do you want to conquer it? Do not yield to it. If you join yourself to the physician against the fever, you will be two; if you consent to the fever, the physician is conquered, but to the harm of the sick man, not of the physician. But far be it that the physician Christ should be conquered in those whom he foreknew and predestined; for these he also called, and those whom he called, these he also justified; and those whom he justified, these he also glorified (Rom 8:29-30). Let vices be restrained, let lusts be checked, let the devil and his angels be tormented with envy. If God is for us, who is against us? (Rom 8:31)

4. But as for what Christ showed by the resurrection of his body, begin by living well to act spiritually. But that very thing, that is, the very property, the very reality, the very incorruptibility of the flesh, do not now hope for; it is the wages of faith, and the wages are paid when the day is finished. Now let us labor in the vineyard, and await the end of the day; for he who hired us to labor does not abandon us, lest we faint. He feeds the laborer at his work, who prepares to give him his wages when the day is finished; so now too the Lord feeds us as we labor in this age, not only with food for the belly, but also with food for the mind. If he did not feed us, I would not be speaking; because he feeds by the word, we do this, who preach him not to your bellies but to your minds. Hungering you receive, feasting you give praise; what is it you cry out, if no food reaches your minds? But what are we? His ministers, his servants; for it is not what is ours, but what is from his storehouse, that we dispense to you. From there we too live, since we are fellow servants. And what do we minister to you: his bread, or himself the bread? Whoever had hired a man to labor in his vineyard could give him bread, not himself. Christ gives his very self to his laborers; he offers himself in the bread, he keeps himself for the wages. We must not say: If we eat him now, what shall we have in the end? We eat, but he is not finished; he restores the hungry, but he himself does not fail. He feeds us now as we labor, for whom the wages remain whole. For what better thing are we to receive than himself? If he had anything better than himself, he would give that: but nothing is better than God, and Christ is God. Attend: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; this was in the beginning with God (John 1:1-2). Who grasps this? Who gathers it? Who beholds it? Who contemplates it? Who thinks of it worthily? No one. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). To this he calls you, that as a laborer you may toil. The Word was made flesh. He himself calls you: your praise will be the Word, the Lord will be your wages.

Sermon 229/F
A Tractate on the Monday of Easter

1. Some saw the resurrection of the Lord; others did not believe it when it was announced; and they are reproached by the Lord himself, now present, because they did not believe those who had seen and announced it. How great is the gracious favor shown to the gentiles, and to those born long afterward! What did God grant to those by whom the churches of Christ are now filled? The holy Apostles walked with the Lord, heard the word of truth from his mouth, saw him raising the dead; and they did not believe that the Lord had risen. But we, who were born long after, never saw his bodily presence, heard no word from the mouth of his flesh, beheld with these eyes no miracle done by him; and yet we believed, hearing the writings of those who at that time were unwilling to believe. A most recent event, announced to them, they did not believe: they wrote what we might read; we have heard, and we believe. As for the fact that the Lord Jesus did not will to appear to the Jews, he did not judge them worthy to see the Lord Christ after the resurrection; he showed himself to his own, not to strangers. And while his own preached, strangers believed; and those who were strangers became his own. For many of them, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles, many of those who crucified the Lord, who were defiled by the pouring out of his blood; many of those who said: His blood be upon us and upon our children (Matt 27:25), afterward believed the Apostles as they announced. His blood was indeed upon them, but to be washed clean, not to be destroyed; upon some to be destroyed, upon others to be cleansed; just upon those to be destroyed, merciful upon those to be cleansed. And now is the faith of all? Just as then some of the Jews believed and some did not believe, so now too among the gentiles; some have believed, others do not believe. Not all have faith (2 Thess 3:2). But those who have faith believe by grace; let them not boast of themselves, it is the gift of God. Did the Lord choose us because we were good? He did not choose the good, but those whom he willed to make good. We were all in the shadow of death, we were all held bound in the mass of sin coming from Adam. With the root corrupted, what kind of fruit could be born from the tree of the human race? But he who would heal vices came without vice; and he who came to cleanse sins came without sin.

2. Do not pay heed to the Jews who are now chaff, that is, of that threshing floor which was then threshed. For if we consider, my brothers: from the Jews come the Prophets, from the Jews the Patriarchs, from the Jews the Apostles, from the Jews the Virgin Mary, who bore Christ; from the Jews afterward Paul, who believed, and so many thousands baptized in a single day; from the Jews the countless churches of Christians. But that wheat has now been stored away in the barn: with the chaff the devil will play. There are faithful Jews, and unbelieving Jews. Where were they first condemned? In the first one, in the very father of them all, Jacob, who was also called Israel. Jacob means "Supplanter"; Israel, "Seeing God." When he returned from Mesopotamia with his sons, an angel wrestled with him, bearing the person of Christ; and while he wrestled, though far surpassing him in strength, the angel as it were yielded to him, and Jacob prevailed. So too the Lord Christ yielded to the Jews: they prevailed when they killed him. By great strength he was conquered: where he was conquered, there he conquered for us. What does it mean, where he was conquered, there he conquered for us? Because by that whereby he suffered, he poured out the blood with which he redeemed us. So, then, it is written, Jacob prevailed against him. And yet Jacob himself, who was wrestling, recognized the mystery. The man who wrestled prevailed against the angel; and when he had said to him: Let me go, the one who had prevailed said: I will not let you go unless you bless me (Gen 32:26). O great mystery! The one conquered blesses, who by suffering sets free; then that very thing was the whole blessing. What are you called? he said to him. He answered: Jacob. You shall not be called Jacob, he says, but you shall be called Israel (Gen 32:27-28). The imposition of so great a name is a great blessing. Israel means, as I said, "Seeing God"; the name of one, the reward of all. Of all: but of the faithful and the blessed, both of Jews and of Greeks. For the Apostle calls all the nations Greeks, because among the nations the Greek tongue is exalted. Glory, he says, and honor—these are the Apostle's words—glory and honor and peace to everyone who works good, to the Jew first and to the Greek; wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of one who works evil, to the Jews first and to the Greeks (Rom 2:10-9). To the good Jews, good; to the evil, evil; to the good gentiles, good; to the evil, evil.

3. Let not the Jews exalt themselves and say: But behold, Jacob is our father; he prevailed against the angel, and was blessed by the angel. We say: People of Israel, look at yourself there; you are not Israel; you are so called, but you are not; the name is mistaken in you, the crime remains in you. But he says to me: Behold, Jacob is my father, behold, Israel is my father; behold the name, where is the crime? Read there, there I have found you. For there it is written: And he touched the breadth of Jacob's own thigh, and it withered, and he was limping (See Gen 32:25, 31). Jacob, one man, both blessed and lame. In what is he blessed, and in what is he lame? If you have believed in Christ, recognize yourself as blessed; if you have denied Christ, recognize yourself as lame; for you are of those of whom the Prophet says: And they have gone limping from their paths (Ps 18:45 (17:46)). Of whom were the holy women, to whom the Lord first showed himself when rising? Were they not of the Jews? Of whom were the Apostles, who, even though they did not at first believe the women who announced it, yet afterward heard him, and acknowledged him as he reproached them, and clung to their Master? Were they not of the Jews? Behold Israel, blessed. But in many things lame, in few things blessed; for the breadth of the thigh is the multitude of the race. He did not simply say: He touched the thigh; but: the breadth of the thigh. Where there is breadth of the thigh, without doubt there is multitude of the race. And what wonder? I recognize the few grains, I marvel at the heap of chaff; but I see what is owed to the barn, what to the flame. And let them hear now, while they still live; let them correct their limping, let them come to the blessing.

Sermon 229/G
On the Tuesday of Easter

1. You have heard what the Lord said to his disciples after his resurrection, when he was no longer to die, and was taking away the fear of death from those who were to die . . .

2. For that Christ is God, not even those deny who refuse to confess that he is of one substance with the Father; they confess that he is God, but they deny that he is equal; therefore they make two gods. But we say that the Son is equal to the Father in such a way that, if it be asked of us singly whether the Father is God, we confess that he is God; whether the Son is God, we confess that he is God; whether the Father and the Son are gods, or God, we confess that he is God. This weak and human hearts do not grasp; this thing so great and divine, since it is about God that we speak, human weakness cannot conceive; but it can believe, so that afterward there may come a fitting thought. For it was said to the Lord: Show us the Father, and it is enough for us (John 14:8). He who said this did not recognize the Father in the Son; for he saw that which the Jews were able to crucify; he did not see him whom the Jews, hidden, struck against. And he thought that all that Christ was, was what he gazed upon with his eyes; and therefore it was not enough for him, because he did not see the whole. And because he believed there was nothing more in Christ, he sought the Father, who would be enough for them. As if to say: You indeed we know, you indeed we see; but we desire still something greater. Show us the Father, and it is enough for us; for there will be nothing further for us to seek, once we have come to know the Father. And he, willing to show himself equal to the Father, said: So long a time I have been with you, and you have not known me? (John 14:9)

3. Philip, he who has seen me has also seen the Father (John 14:9). What does it mean, He who has seen me has also seen the Father, except that you do not see me, because you think the Father greater? He who has seen me has also seen the Father. Not without cause do you think the Father would be enough for you, except that you do not yet see me. Show us the Father, and it is enough for us. See me, and I am enough for you. And yet he said this to one who was seeing him: seeing, and not seeing; seeing the form of a servant, not seeing the form of God. For if he saw the form of God, there he would see the Son equal to the Father; for though he was in the form of God, he did not count it robbery to be equal to God (Phil 2:6). Because it was his nature, it was not robbery. He for whom it was robbery fell; and from where he fell, from there he cast down. For the devil willed to share with the man whom he cast down that very robbery, that he might have as companion in punishment the one whom he willed to have as partner in sin. For what else did he say to human beings, but: Taste, and your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods (See Gen 3:5)? This is the robbery. That pride is robbery, it is usurpation, not a gracious gift. For if we do not usurp, we shall be by grace what by pride we shall not be; for to grace pertains: I have said: You are gods, and sons of the Most High, all of you (Ps 82:6 (81:6)). But I have said: what I have said, he himself accomplishes. But what sort of gods will men be, what sort of gods? Equal to the angels of God (See Luke 20:36). This is what is promised; let us seek no further; for we shall not be equal to God, but, made equal to the angels, we shall on earth, as we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, so also see them. Therefore, because it was too much for Philip to see what the Lord said (for he was still weighed down by a corruptible body; that had not yet come which the Apostle speaks of: We see now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face (1 Cor 13:12))—because it was too much for him to think upon what he heard from the Lord: He who has seen me has also seen the Father . . . Consider that it was not said in vain, has also seen the Father. He did not say: He who has seen me has seen the Father; lest he give occasion to the Sabellians, who are called Patripassians, who say that the very one who is the Son is the Father; but when he wills, he is the Father; when he wills, he is the Son. Lest he give occasion to this other error, he did not say: He who has seen me has seen the Father, but, has also seen the Father: thus both the Father and the Son. Therefore the Father and the Son are two. Two what? If you ask me, the Father and the Son are two.

4. Whatever you say again, I answer again. The Father and the Son, what? Gods? No, two. What then? One God. I do not understand, he says. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father: they are two. The Father is God, the Son is God: and are they not two gods? I do not understand. What, then, am I to say to you who do not understand? Hear the Prophet: Unless you believe, you will not understand (Isa 7:9). You do not understand, so as to believe; but you believe, so as to understand; faith is the work, understanding the reward. Unless you believe, you will not understand. Yet hear the Lord himself, that you may learn what to believe. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I (John 14:28). Now there has arisen, as it were, one who understands. Behold, he says, now I understand. The Father is greater than I. The form of a servant is speaking: seek the form of God. This, then, he said: If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now, in that you see me, there you see me where I am less. Since, then, you see me there where I am less, if you love me, let me go there where I am equal. Do you wonder that the Son is less than the Father in the form of a servant? I tell you that he is less even than himself, for he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:7). But if you understand that it was said of him: He was made a little less than the angels (Ps 8:6 (8:6); Heb 2:9); then, if you have applied yourself to the form of a servant, do not remain there, rise from there, confess Christ equal to the Father. Why do you gladly hear: The Father is greater than I? Hear more gladly: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). Behold the catholic faith, sailing as it were between Scylla and Charybdis, as one sails in that strait between Sicily and Italy; on one side ship-wrecking rocks, on the other a ship-devouring whirlpool. If a ship runs upon the rocks, it is broken; if it runs into the whirlpool, it is swallowed up. So too Sabellius: He is one, he said, they are not two, the Father and the Son. Observe the shipwreck. Likewise the Arian: They are two, one greater, the other less, not of equal substance. Observe the whirlpool. Sail between the two, and hold the straight course. For not without cause are the catholics named orthodox: orthodoxon in Greek is in Latin "straight." If, then, you hold the straight line, you run neither upon Scylla nor into Charybdis. Hold fast, then, you: I and the Father are one.

5. I and the Father: let the Arian hear one, and let Sabellius hear are. When you hear one, you will keep clear of Charybdis; when you hear are, you will save yourself from Scylla. Say We are one, and you will sail rightly. Behold, we have heard we are one; one, because of the same substance; one, because not of a dissimilar and unequal nature; one, because of the highest equality, in nothing discordant, in nothing diverse. Behold why one; why are? Because the Father and the Son are one God. Why, then, is the one God not "we are"? For the one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, is one God; they are three, and there is one God. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but the Spirit of the Father and the Son: and all this is one God. Why one God? Because there is there such great love, such great peace, such great concord, in nothing any dissonance. Now I will tell you whence you may believe what you cannot understand unless you believe. How many souls, tell me, in the Acts of the Apostles, believed when they beheld the miracles of the Apostles? I mean those Jews who had crucified the Lord, who brought bloody hands to it, who had sacrilegious ears, whose tongue was compared to a sword: Their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword (Ps 57:5 (56:5)). Yet because not without cause had Christ poured out a prayer for them, nor without cause had he said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34), very many of that number believed; and, as we read: They believed that day, it is said: three thousand souls (See Acts 2:41). Behold, there are thousands of souls, and behold so many thousands of souls; and yet the Holy Spirit came into them, through whom love is poured forth in our hearts (See Rom 5:5). And what is said of so many souls? They had one soul and one heart (Acts 4:32). So many souls, one soul; not by nature, but by grace. If so many souls, by that grace coming from above, were made one soul, do you wonder that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God? And so, my brothers, hold the strongest and most whole and catholic faith. When you hear or read in the Scriptures where the Father is shown to be greater, recall the form of a servant; but where you read that the Father and the Son are one, believe the divinity.

6. And if you are not capable of conceiving it, yet hold the faith; faith itself leads through, faith itself causes your good works to be accepted by God. For everything that is not of faith is sin (Rom 14:23). Someone says to you: Did Christ die? Confess that he died, but in the flesh. And who died? The only Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Did the divinity, then, die? The divinity does not die. Did not Christ, then, die? Christ God died. How did Christ God die, if the divinity does not die? In the way that the Apostles too died in the flesh, not in the soul. Where, then, the Apostle died in the flesh, so then Christ died in the flesh. Yet Christ died; though in respect of that part by which he could die, yet not in respect of his divinity could he die. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Where is death? Nowhere. In the beginning the Word was not made, as in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1): this the Word made. What was in the beginning? Therefore the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Seek death, you do not find it; there is no where, there is no whence, there is no who. There is no where, because it is not among the hands of the Jews; there is no whence, because it has no flesh and blood; there is no who, it is God, it is equal to the Father. Whence, then, did he die? The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

Sermon 229/H
A Tractate on the Tuesday of Easter

1. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the pattern of the Christian faith. For the fact that he was born of a human being as a man at a fixed time, but as God from God without any time; the fact, then, that he was born in mortal flesh, in the likeness of the flesh of sin (See Rom 8:3), that he bore infancy, passed through boyhood, came to youth, and led this on to death—all this was at the service of the resurrection. For he would not rise unless he had died; he would not have died unless he had been born; and thus, in that he was born and died, it served the resurrection. That the Lord Christ was born a man from a human being, many even strangers and impious men believed; though they did not know that he was born of a Virgin, yet that Christ was born a man both friends and enemies believed; that Christ was crucified and died both friends and enemies believed; that he rose again only friends knew. But on account of what? Now the Lord Christ, in that he willed to be born, in that he willed to die, intended to rise; therein he defined our faith for us. For in our kind, that is, in the human kind, we knew two things: to be born, and to die. That he might teach us also what we did not know, he took up what we did know. It was customary in the earthly region, in the condition of our mortality, altogether customary, to be born and to die; so customary that it cannot be in heaven, it does not cease to be on earth. But to rise again, and to live forever, who had known this? This new thing he brought to our region, who came from God. He was made a man for the sake of man, a great compassion; he who made man was made man. It was no great thing for Christ to be what he was, but he willed it a great thing to become what he had made. What is it, to become what he had made? To become a man, who had made man. This is his compassion.

2. The whole of what is done in this life, in which men wish to be happy and cannot . . . For it is a good thing that they greatly wish for, but they do not seek what they desire in its own region. For certain things are born in their own regions. And on earth gold is not born everywhere, nor silver everywhere, nor lead everywhere; the crops themselves come forth differently in different places; as each region bears or refuses, one fruit in this place, another in that and that, diverse things in diverse places; and nothing is everywhere, except to be born and to die. And yet this very being born and dying is not of the whole universe, but of this lowest part of the world; for in the heavens there is no being born and dying, from the time when all things were established there. The prince of the angels indeed could fall from there with his companions; but in place of those angels who fell, men are to come there, and will fill the place of those who fell. Because, then, the devil saw that man would ascend to the place from which he himself had fallen, he saw, and he envied; he had fallen, and he cast down. But what is it, that the devil fell? What is it, that he cast down man? He conquered the whole, who did not fall, but descended. Man fell: God descended, and was made man. Where, then, being born and dying abound, that is a region of misery; men wish to be happy in a region of misery, they seek eternity in a region of death. The Lord says to us, the Truth says to us: What you seek is not here, because it is not from here. You seek a good thing, which every man wants; you seek a good thing, because to live is good; but for this we were born, that we might die. Do not look at what you wish, but consider on what condition you came. For this we were born, that we might die. To those who desire life, it is not obtained by those who are to die, and therefore they are the more wretched. For if we were to die, and wished to live, we would not be greatly wretched; but we are greatly wretched for this reason, that we wish to live and are compelled to die. Do you not know that any man cannot stay awake always, but wants also to sleep? It is not against his will that he sleeps; he cannot stay awake always, but because he wants also to sleep. Yet a man cannot exist unless he both stays awake and sleeps. One comes to life, and every man says: I want to live, and no one wants to die; and though no one wants to die, he is forced to die. As much as he can he acts—by eating, drinking, sleeping, providing himself the means to live, sailing, walking, running, taking precautions—he wants to live. Often, freed from many dangers, he lives; but let him hold on, if he can, to his lifetime; let him not arrive at old age. A dangerous day passes, and a man says: I have escaped death. How have you escaped death? Because a dangerous day has passed. Yet a day has been added to you: you have lived one more, you have one less, if I reckon. For if you were going to live, say, thirty years, when this day has passed, it withdraws from the sum of what you are to live, and adds to the weight of what you are to die. And yet they say: Years are added to a man. I say that they are withdrawn: for I attend to that sum which has remained, not to what has passed. Added, why? Because he who has lived fifty years now has fifty-one. In which is he living, or which is he to live? Say he was going to live eighty years; he has of these fifty, thirty remain. He has lived one: he has what he has lived, fifty-one; what he is to live, twenty-nine remain; and from this side one has withdrawn, to that side another has been added; but when it has been added, you do not hold what has withdrawn. Fearing, he lives also another, twenty-eight remained; he lives also a third, twenty-seven remained. By living, that whereby one lives is taken away, and by the leading of life, life is diminished and is not; for there is no way to escape the last day.

3. But our Lord Jesus Christ came, and as it were addressed us: Why were you afraid, O men whom I created, and whom I did not abandon? O men, the ruin is from you, the creation from me; O men, why were you afraid to die? Behold, I die, behold, I suffer; behold, do not fear what you feared, because I show you what you may hope for. Behold, thus he did, he showed us the resurrection forever; the Evangelists set it down in their writings, the Apostles preached it throughout the world. For the faith of that resurrection the holy martyrs did not fear to die, and yet they feared to die; for the more would they die, if they feared to die, and by fear of death denied Christ. Yet what is it to deny Christ, but to deny life? How great is the madness, by loving life to deny life! The resurrection of Christ, then, is the very determination of our faith. Hence it is also written, both in the Old and in the New Testament, that we are to do penance and receive the forgiveness of sins, in the man in whom he has defined faith for all, by raising him from the dead (See Acts 17:31). This is the definition of faith, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. You live, if you live; that is, you live forever, if you have lived well. Do not fear to die ill: fear, rather, to live ill. Wondrous perversity! Every man fears what no one will escape, and does not do what he can do. To keep from dying, you cannot do; to live well, you can. Do what you can, and you will not fear what you cannot. For nothing is so certain to man as death. Begin from the beginning. A man is conceived in the womb: perhaps he is born, perhaps he is not born. Now he is born: perhaps he grows, perhaps he does not grow; perhaps he learns his letters, perhaps he does not learn his letters; perhaps he takes a wife, perhaps he does not; perhaps he will have children, perhaps he will not; perhaps he will have good ones, perhaps bad ones; perhaps he will have a good wife, perhaps a bad one; perhaps he will be rich, perhaps poor; perhaps he will be lowborn, perhaps honored. Among these things, can one say: Perhaps he will die, perhaps he will not die? Therefore every man born has fallen into a sickness from which no one born will escape. He dies from that, as the saying goes. He has dropsy: he must die, no one escapes it. He has elephantiasis: he must die, no one escapes it. He is born: he must die, no one escapes it. Because, then, it is necessary that he die, since not even the life of man is permitted to be at least long-lasting—from infancy to decrepit old age—there is nothing left but to flee to him who died for us, and by rising again gave hope; so that, because in this life, in which we run, we can only die, nor can we make eternal that which we so greatly love, we may flee to him who promised us the eternal. For see what the Lord has promised us, brothers: both eternal and blessed. Certainly this life is wretched: who does not know it, who does not confess it? How much we have, how much we suffer that we do not want, in this life! Quarrels, dissensions, temptations, ignorance of one another's heart, so that sometimes, unknowing, we embrace an enemy, and fear a friend; where there is hunger, where nakedness, where cold, where heat, where weariness, where sicknesses, where jealousies. Certainly this life is wretched. Yet, if this very wretched life could be given us as eternal, who would not be glad? Who would not say: I want to be just as I am, only I do not want to die? If you want to have an evil life, what sort is he who will give both an everlasting and a blessed one? But if you want to come to the everlasting and the blessed, have a good temporal one. It will be good in the work, blessed in the wages. But if you refuse the work, with what face do you seek the wages? If you cannot say to Christ: I have done what you commanded, how will you dare to say: Render what you promised?

Sermon 229/I
A Tractate on the Wednesday of Easter

1. The Gospel readings on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ are recited solemnly in order. Today we have heard that the Lord Christ showed his disciples the true flesh in which he had suffered and risen again. They heard him speaking, they saw him present, and yet they even touched him as he said to them: Touch, handle, and see that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have (Luke 24:39). For when they had seen him, they doubted, and thought they were seeing a spirit, not a body. Whoever, then, still supposes that the Lord's resurrection was not bodily but only spiritual, may God forgive him, for he forgave even his own Apostles; but let them not hold to the error, and let them change their thinking, since those also heard, and changed it. And how great was his gracious favor, that, while he showed them himself present in body, he yet confirmed them from the truth of holy Scripture! These are, he says, the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you (Luke 24:44). Why? Was he not then with them, and speaking with them? What, then, does it mean, while I was still with you? Without doubt, while I was still mortal with you, as you are. These are the words that I spoke to you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me. Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:44-45). He it is who to this day opens to us the writings of life, who died for us.

2. But let us see what he said to them: Thus, he says, it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that penance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47). Behold, the disciples both saw Christ after the resurrection, and heard from his own mouth that the holy Scriptures had foretold this would be. We did not see Christ present in the flesh; but the Scriptures, by which they too were confirmed, we hear daily when they are read. And what did he say of the Scriptures? That penance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. This the disciples did not see; they saw Christ speaking of the future Church. And so, as Christ spoke, they believed what they did not see. They saw the Head, the body they did not yet see; we see the body, of the Head we believe. There are two, the bridegroom and the bride, the Head and the body, Christ and the Church. To the disciples he showed himself, and promised the Church; to us he shows the Church, and bids us believe concerning himself. The Apostles saw one thing, another thing they did not see; and we see one thing, another thing we do not see. As they, from the Head present, believed concerning the body, so let us, from the body present, believe concerning the Head. Or are we going to deny it? But the very Truth, crying out, will not allow us to deny. For we see the Church of Christ, from the rising of the sun to its setting, praising the name of the Lord (See Ps 113:3 (112:3)). Beginning, he says, from Jerusalem. So it was done; for he said to them: Sit in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49), for I send to you the promise of my Father.

3. And so, while they sat in the city, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, filled the disciples, and they spoke in the tongues of all nations (See Acts 2:1-4). One man spoke in the tongues of all nations, because the unity of the Church was to be in all nations. All were pricked to the heart at this miracle (See Acts 2:37). For the Jews who heard were struck with amazement and believed; for they saw so great a miracle done by Peter, in the name of Christ whom they had killed with their own hands, and, pricked to the heart, they did penance in a moment. To them all their sins were forgiven, even to this, that the very deed by which Christ was killed was forgiven. The Jews themselves were converted, I say; and those who before the cross wagged their unbelieving head (See Matt 27:39), by believing deserved to have that very Head, Christ; so that thenceforth their Head should not be wagged, since he sits at the right hand of the Father, and forever will not be moved (See Ps 16:8 (15:8)). He will not return to miseries, will not return to the cross, will not return to death, but abides in that true beatitude. Therefore those who killed Christ heard and grieved; and the blood which in their rage they poured out, and died, by believing they drank, and lived. The faithful know what I have said, and these neophytes, for they have now drunk. Those, then, who have not drunk, let them hasten and drink, that their heart may be opened: for now it is closed. And so, as it is written in the book whose name is the Acts of the Apostles, which is read during these days: They were pricked to the heart, and many thousands of men drew near to Christ (See Acts 2:37, 41).

4. Then, because of the necessity of ministry, seven deacons were ordained, among whom Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, stood out. When they had been ordained, the spirit of holy Stephen did not restrain itself from preaching the truth; it was fervent, it gave off sparks, it set things ablaze; until the Jews, filled with zeal for the hardness of their heart, cast upon him a hard stoning, and made for us the martyr who marked out the path for all martyrs. And so, Stephen being killed, the Church which was born in Jerusalem suffered persecution. According to the Lord's promise, then, the foundations of the Church were beginning to be raised, beginning from Jerusalem: and persecution arose, and the brothers were scattered; because from one heap of fire the burning logs, scattered over the earth, set alight whatever they came to. Thus Judea was filled with the Gospel, Samaria was filled; and there was a going forth to the nations, and it reached the ends of the world; not by migrating from its root, but by growing throughout the world we behold the Gospel filling it. Behold, we discern, behold, we hold fast the faith spread through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Let him deny it who dares; my words do not strike his ears, but the very truth strikes the eyes of those who deny, and shuts their mouth; and what is written is fulfilled: For the mouth of those who speak iniquities is stopped (Ps 63:12 (62:12)).

Sermon 229/J
A Tractate on the Wednesday of Easter

1. The Lord Christ deigned to make his resurrection certain and true by many and various proofs, for the sake of building up faith, and driving faithlessness from the heart, and removing all doubt about his resurrection. It was too little to offer himself to be seen with the eyes, if he did not also offer himself to be handled with the hands. What many impious men and the Manichean heretics suspect and believe about Christ, namely, that there was no true flesh, but a spirit having the image of flesh, not to instruct faith but to deceive the eyes—so that he was not a man, but was thought to be one; that he was not flesh, but only seemed to be so—what the Manicheans, then, believe, and from it made a dogma, and confirmed their error, this first thought arose in the hearts of the Apostles. And those Manicheans indeed never believe that Jesus was a man; they fear to give flesh to the Word, and do not fear to set falsehood against the truth. He has true flesh, by which the truth may show falsehood, and may build up the truth in the hearts of men. Those men, then, never believed that the Lord Jesus Christ was a man; but the disciples knew him as a man, with whom they had conversed for so long a time. They saw him walking, sitting, sleeping, eating, drinking; they knew it all, they knew that he had sat down wearied at the well (See John 4:6). From this long association they knew him to be a true man; but after he died, that which they knew, how could they believe could be raised up, when it could die? He appeared, then, to their eyes such as they had known him; and not believing that on the third day true flesh could rise from the tomb, they thought they were seeing a spirit. This error of the Apostles is the sect of the Manicheans.

2. But when these things are objected to them, they are accustomed to answer thus: What evil do we believe, in believing that Christ God was a spirit? We believe he was a spirit, we do not believe he was flesh: spirit is better than flesh. What is better, we believe; what is worse, we are unwilling to believe. What evil do we do? If there is nothing evil in this saying, let Jesus leave his disciples in this error. What evil did they believe? The disciples too believed Christ to be a spirit; for they thought he was not himself, but a spirit. Let the Lord leave it to them, let him confirm in them what they rightly believed; finding them in falsehood, let him not teach them the truth. Hear what evil it is, to believe thus. Hear the Lord. Do you think you are in peril from a slight illness? Hear the physician's verdict. What the disciples thought, that they were seeing a spirit, this you too think, O Manichean. The physician came then to the disciples: he found them believing what you now believe. If he left them uncured, then go astray in security; but if he deigned to heal them, what pleasure do you take in being sick? Hear the Lord: Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts rise up in your heart? (Luke 24:38) What sort of thoughts, surely, but false, sickly, ruinous ones? For Christ would lose the fruit of his passion, if there were no truth of the resurrection. Why are you troubled, and why have thoughts risen up in your heart? As though a good farmer were to say: What I planted there, I will find; not the thorns, which I did not plant. Into your heart faith descended, for it is from above; but these thoughts did not descend from above, but sprang up in the heart itself like evil weeds. But he does not abandon it; he uproots the ill-born weeds, cleanses the field, sows the good. For when he says, Why are you troubled? it is because they were troubled, not set in order. Why do thoughts rise up in your heart? See my hands and my feet. If it is too little to see, handle; if you do not believe your eyes, believe your hands. Handle, and see, that a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see that I have (Luke 24:39).

3. And while they still were trembling for joy (Luke 24:41). They both rejoiced and doubted; they both saw and touched, and scarcely believed. Great is the gracious favor of grace upon us; we neither saw nor touched, and we believed. But while they were still trembling for joy, he said: Have you anything here to eat? (Luke 24:41) At least then you believe that I am alive, if I dine with you. They offered him what they had, a piece of broiled fish (Luke 24:42). The broiled fish is the martyrdoms, faith tested by fire. Why, then, a piece? Because, he says, if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing (1 Cor 13:3). Make, then, the whole body, as it were, of martyrs; some suffer from love, others suffer from boasting. Take away the part of boasting, take the part of love. This is the food of Christ; give Christ his own part; Christ loves the martyrs who have suffered from love. He ate, and it was he himself, the very one who was seen and hung; the very one who was seen, he was touched, food was offered to him, before the eyes of the disciples he took and ate; and all these things were too little. Pardon me, Apostles, who after these things are still hardened. But their correction is our building up; for see what the Lord went on to do, how he removed all the windings. He was seen, he was touched, he ate: it was certainly he himself.

4. Yet, lest in any way he should seem to have deceived the human senses, he sent them to the Scriptures. Let the pagans say what they will: He was a magician, he could show himself. Could a magician, before he was born, prophesy of himself from the Scriptures? See, what you see was provided beforehand, and what you discern was foretold beforehand. Hear, O daughter, and see (Ps 45:11 (44:11)). O holy Church, hear and see: hear the things foretold, see the things fulfilled. It was the Head that persuaded, the Lord Christ; it was the Head of the Church that persuaded that he was alive, true, whole, certain, and led to faith those who believed. What, then, did he say of the Scriptures? Do you not know that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me? Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures. And he said to them: Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day (Luke 24:44-46). Behold, the deed, as it was written; behold, fulfilled, what was foretold; behold, displayed, what was read. Hear the words, discern the deeds; the truth is full, the faith is certain; let heretical faithlessness now at last perish. Behold, thus it is written: Thus it behooved—what? Christ to suffer, it was foretold. To rise from the dead on the third day, it was foretold. The Jews had read these things: they read, and did not see; and so that there might be something for others to believe, they struck against the stone lying in their path. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8); if they had never crucified the Lord of glory, the gentiles would not have believed in him as born and as having suffered. Therefore, that these disciples might be set apart from the Jews, whose heart was closed so that they did not understand the Scriptures, the grace of the Lord made the separation. O Apostle, O Peter, O Matthew, O Thomas, O the rest, for who distinguishes you? (1 Cor 4:7) Perhaps you say: My faith. I believe it; but if he had not given it, you would not have it. Your faith distinguishes you. But what do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? (1 Cor 4:7) Behold grace, behold he rises, behold he shows himself to the eyes of the Apostles, he who did not deign to show himself to the eyes of the Jews. Behold, he offers himself to be seen with the eyes, he offers himself to be handled with the hands. That is too little: he reads, he calls the Scriptures to mind. And this too is too little: he opens the understanding, that you may understand what you read.

5. He persuaded that he is the Head. What of us? What of the body? The Head is Christ, the body the Church; the Apostles saw the Head, but they did not see the future Church. Attend: they saw the Head, they touched the Head, they embraced the Head, they conversed with the Head; the future Church they did not see. We, then, who . . . In a way, in those marriage tablets he ought to have named and expressed both the bridegroom and the bride. But because he has now shown the bridegroom, and kept silent about the bride, the marriage is but half. Let the heavenly vows be fulfilled: the bridegroom has appeared, let the bride also appear; he present, she future; he in the resurrection, she in the preaching; let him be seen, let her be believed. How was he seen? See that a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see that I have (Luke 24:39). Then he opened their understanding. It behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise on the third day. Now we see the Lord, now we know the Lord, we touch, we hear, we believe; what of the Church? That penance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name. Where? How far? Let no strange woman come forth here out of a corner and put herself in place of yours. Where? How far? Through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). Behold, you have heard the Church designated. When the disciples heard these things, they did not see the Church throughout all nations; they saw one thing, they believed another; they saw the Head, of the body they believed. We see the body; of the Head let us believe.

Sermon 229/K
A Tractate on the Thursday of Easter

1. It is good that you should be reminded of what you are accustomed to hear every year; for just as what is written is not enough to be read once, so what is not understood is not enough to be expounded once. Let those, then, who hold in mind and remember well what they have heard and understood, listen patiently, while those also who have perhaps forgotten are instructed, or those hear who have perhaps not yet heard. For it raises a question, why the Lord Jesus Christ said to the faithful woman who sought to reach the body of her Lord, which she could not find laid in the tomb: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father (John 20:17). For if he was unwilling to be touched before he had ascended to the Father, then surely he had not yet ascended to the Father when he said to the disciples: See my hands and my feet; handle and see (Luke 24:39). He was unwilling to be touched, who was willing to be handled. Hence arises a question certainly to be resolved: for no one has heard it said that he was willing to be touched by men before he had ascended to the Father, but kept himself to be touched by women only when he had ascended to the Father. When he was ascending to the Father, or when he had ascended to the Father, who indeed touched him? Did he then keep himself to be touched by women, when he could not have been touched even by men? And yet, on account of love, Saul the persecutor not only touched him, but even laid him waste on earth, when he said from heaven: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4) For the Lord Christ is both there at the right hand of the Father, and here labors on earth; there he is, but here are his members; there he is who is to judge the living and the dead, and the same one is here in his own, of whom he is to say: When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me (Matt 25:40). What, then, does it mean: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father? Christ is better touched by faith than by the flesh; to touch Christ by faith, this is to touch him. So that woman who suffered from a flow of blood drew near with faith, and touched the garment with her hand, the majesty by her faith. And see what it is to touch. Then the Lord, who was being pressed by the crowds, was touched by one. For he said: Who touched me? The disciples, marveling because the multitude pressed him on every side, answered: The crowds press you, and you say: Who touched me? And he: Someone touched me (Luke 8:45-46). For if the crowds press you, they do not touch you: how did she touch you, except that she believed?

2. And now, my brothers, Jesus is in heaven. When he was before the disciples, according to the visible flesh, according to the touchable bodily substance, he was both seen and touched; but now, since he sits at the right hand of the Father, who of us can touch him? And yet woe to us, unless we touch him by faith. We all touch him, who believe. Certainly he is in heaven, certainly he is far off, certainly it cannot be estimated by how great an interval of space he is distant from us. Believe, and you touch. Why do I say, you touch? Because you believe, you have with you the one in whom you believe. If, then, to believe is to touch, or rather if to touch is to believe, what does this mean: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father? What is this? Why do you seek my flesh, you who do not yet understand my divinity? Do you wish to know how that woman wanted to touch him? She sought him as one dead, whom she did not believe would rise. They have taken away my Lord from the tomb (John 20:13); and she weeps for him as for a man. O what a touch! Because, then, he saw her occupied with the form of a servant, and she knew not how to taste, or believe, or understand the form of God, by which he is equal to the Father, he defers the touch, that he may fulfill the touch. Do not touch me, he says, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. You touch me before I ascend to the Father, and you believe in me as only a man; what does it profit you, that you believe? Let me, then, ascend to the Father. From there I never departed; I ascend for you, if you have believed me equal to the Father. For our Lord Jesus Christ did not so descend from the Father as to forsake the Father; for even what ascended from us did not depart from us. For about to ascend and to sit at the right hand of the Father, he yet says to the disciples far off: Behold, I am with you, even to the consummation of the age (Matt 28:20).

Sermon 229/L
A Tractate on the Thursday of Holy Easter

1. From the Gospel reading today according to John the resurrection of the Lord was recited, and we heard that the Lord was sought by the disciples, and not found in the tomb; and this the women announced, not believing that he had risen, but that he had been stolen from the tomb by theft. And when two disciples came—John the evangelist himself (for he is understood to be the one whom Jesus loved), and Peter with him—and they entered, and saw the linen cloths alone, but no body; what is written of John himself? If you have noticed: He entered, he says, and saw, and believed (John 20:8). This that you heard, he believed, is not praised faith; for both true things and false are believed. For if his faith were praised or commended in what was said: he saw, and believed, the Scripture would not go on to say: For he did not yet know the Scriptures, that Jesus must rise from the dead (John 20:9). Therefore he saw, and believed; what, then, did he believe? What did he believe, but what the woman had said, that the Lord had been taken away from the tomb? For she had said: They have taken away the Lord from the tomb, and I do not know where they have laid him (John 20:13). They ran, they entered, they saw the linen cloths alone, no body; and they believed that he had perished, not that he had risen. They saw that he had been taken from the tomb; the men believed he had been taken away, and they departed. The woman stood, and began to seek the body of Jesus with tears, began to weep at the tomb; they had less care, stronger in sex, but lesser in affection. The woman sought Jesus more, because she herself had first lost Jesus in paradise; because through her death had entered, the more she sought life. And yet how did she seek? As the body of a dead man, not the incorruption of the living God; for not even she herself believed that the body had therefore not been in the tomb because the Lord had risen. Entering, she saw angels. Behold, the angels did not show themselves to Peter and John, and they showed themselves to the woman. Plainly, dearly beloved, this is commended, that the weaker sex sought more, the sex that first, as we said, lost. The angels see her, and say: He is not here, he has risen (Luke 24:6). Still she stands and weeps, still she does not believe; she supposed that the Lord had perished from the tomb. She saw Jesus too: she does not think it Jesus, she thought him a gardener, she still demands the body of a dead man. If you, she says, have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away (John 20:15). What need have you of what you do not love? Let it be given to me, she says. She who sought the dead thus, how did she believe in the living? Afterward the Lord calls her by her own name. Mary recognized the voice, looked back at the Savior; and she answered him as though to himself: Rabboni, which means, Lord (John 20:16).

2. What does it mean, what follows: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father? Go, and tell my disciples: I will ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (John 20:17)? This indeed presents no question. I will ascend to my Father, because I am the Only-begotten; and to your Father, because you have been adopted, and you all say together: Our Father who are in heaven (Matt 6:9). And my God and your God. Not mine as yours: my God, because I was made man; your God, because you are always men. For in this respect God is the Father of Christ, because he was made man; therefore he is his God, the God of the creature of the only-begotten Word. Ask the psalm: From my mother's womb you are my God (Ps 22:11 (21:11)). Before the mother's womb, my Father; from the mother's womb, my God. This, then, presents no question. But that other thing somewhat troubles those of lesser understanding, what this means: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. On earth he was not being touched by her; when he had ascended, could he be touched? What, then, does it mean: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father? Recall, when he appeared to his disciples, and they thought he was a spirit, what he said to them. It was read yesterday. Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts rise up in your heart? See my hands and my feet: touch, and see (Luke 24:38-39). To the men he said: Touch, before he ascended to the Father; and would the woman not touch him, except when he had ascended to the Father? What is it, then, that we should understand? Far be it from us to understand it so. Mary, to see, sought the body; let us, to understand, desire his spirit. Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. What is it, Do not touch me? Do not believe only this far, do not be fixed on the man; there is something greater, which you do not understand. You see me lowly on earth: you touch me, and you remain on earth. Touch me as higher, believe in me as higher, believe me to be the Only-begotten, equal to the Father; for when you have understood me to be equal, then I have ascended to the Father for you. But to touch with the heart, this is to believe; for that woman too, who touched the hem, touched with the heart, because she believed. So he feels the one touching, and did not feel the crowd pressing. Someone touched me, says the Lord: he touched me, he believed in me. And the disciples, not understanding what he touched me means, said: The crowd presses you, and you say: Who touched me? I do not know what I should say: Someone touched me? The crowd presses, faith touches. Let Christ, then, ascend for us, and let us touch him, if we believe in him, that he is the Son of God, eternal, coeternal, not from the time he was born of the Virgin, but eternal. For he will make us too eternal, not because we always were, but because we always will be. He coeternal, equal to the Father, without time, before all times, through whom times were made; before the day, day from day, who founded the day. Believe thus, and you have touched. Touch thus, that you may cling; cling thus, that we may never be separated, but may abide with him in the divinity, who for us died in weakness.

Sermon 229/M
A Tractate on the Friday of Easter

1. Your Charity knows that these readings of the holy Gospel, witnesses of the Lord's resurrection, are celebrated at the yearly solemnity. Just as, then, the reading renews the memory, so the exposition of the reading renews the memory; and so, with the Lord's help, we are going to say what you are accustomed to hear every year. But if the reading must be renewed in memory, which can be read at another time too in the Gospel, how much more the sermon, which is heard only once a year? The Lord appeared to his disciples after his resurrection at the sea of Tiberias, and found them fishing, catching nothing. Fishing by night they caught nothing; the day dawned, and they caught; because they saw Christ as the day, and at the word of the Lord they cast their nets, that they might catch. Now we find two catches of fish made by the disciples of Christ, at the word of Christ; the first, when he chose them, and made them apostles; the other now, after he rose from the dead. Let us compare them, if you please, and carefully attend to what difference there is between them; for it pertains to the building up of our faith. Earlier, then, when the Lord found fishermen, whom he had not yet found, even through the whole night they caught nothing, they labored in vain. He bade them cast their nets: he did not say, To the right; he did not say, To the left; but: Cast, he says, your nets (See Luke 5:4). They cast them . . . so that they loaded two boats, so that they were almost sunk by the multitude of fish; and then there was so great a multitude of fish that the nets were breaking (See Luke 5:6-7). So that catch went; what, then, of this one? Cast, he says, the nets on the right side (John 21:6). Before the resurrection the nets are cast indiscriminately; after the resurrection the right side is chosen. Then, in the first catch the boats are weighed down, the nets are broken; in this last one, after the resurrection, neither is the boat weighed down, nor is the net broken. In the first catch no number of fish is given; in this one, after the resurrection, a fixed number of fish is given. Let us bear with the first, then, that we may come to the last. What did I say, Let us bear with the first? Behold the nets, the nets of the word, the nets of preaching, behold the nets. Let the psalm say: I announced and spoke; they were multiplied beyond number (Ps 40:6 (39:6)). It is certain, because it is happening now: the Gospel is announced, Christians are multiplied beyond number. If all lived well, they would not weigh down the boat; if heresies and schisms were not dividing, the net would not be broken. But why were there two boats in the first catch? Recall, brothers: they are those two walls, the circumcision and the uncircumcision, which meet there in the cornerstone, and find the kiss of peace (See Eph 2:14-20). But in the last catch is perfect unity; for it is the right side, it has nothing on the left. This is the holy Church, which now is in the few who labor among the many evil; this same Church will be in that fixed and definite number, where no sinner any longer is found; for it is the right side, it has nothing on the left. And the fish will be great: because all will be immortal, all will live without end. What is so great as that which has no end? And it pertained to the Evangelist that you should renew in memory the first catch. For why did he add: And though the fish were so great, the nets were not torn (John 21:11)? As though to say: Recall that first catch, where the nets were torn. Here will be the kingdom of heaven, no heretic will bark, no schismatic will set himself apart; all will be within, will be in peace.

2. And all, how many will they be? A hundred and fifty-three? Far, far be it from us to say that, even in this people who stand here before me, there will be so few who will be in the kingdom of heaven, where there are thousands, countless thousands, whom John saw clothed in white robes. This he said: They came from every tribe and tongue, a number that no one can number (See Rev 7:9). What, then, does this number mean? I am teaching some, reminding others; let those who have not heard learn; let those who have heard and forgotten recall; let those who hold in memory what they heard be confirmed by my reminding. The reckoning of this number begins from seventeen: it is the seal of all the saints, of all the faithful, of all the just who are to be in the kingdom of heaven. Seventeen: ten because of the law, seven because of the spirit of grace. Impose the law: no one fulfills it, no one keeps it. Add the help of the Spirit: what is commanded is done, because God helps. What does the Law say? You shall not covet. Sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, he says, and through it killed me; and the Law entered in, that offense might abound (Rom 7:11, 5:20). Add the Spirit: The fullness of the Law is love (Rom 13:10). But whence comes love? The love of God has been poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). That the Spirit is commended by the number seven, he knows who reads: but let him hear who reads carelessly, or perhaps who cannot read. God commends the Holy Spirit thus through the prophet Isaiah: The Spirit, he says, of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and fortitude, of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the fear of God (Isa 11:2-3). This is the sevenfold Spirit, who is also invoked over the baptized. The Law is the Decalogue: for ten precepts were written on tablets, but still on stone ones, because of the hardness of the Jews. After the Spirit came, what does the Apostle say? You are our letter, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart (2 Cor 3:3). Take away the Spirit, the letter kills; for it makes guilty, it does not free the sinner. On account of this the Apostle says: For we are not, he says, sufficient to think anything of ourselves as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God, who has also made us fit ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:5-6). Join, then, the seven to the ten, if you wish to fulfill righteousness. When you are bidden to do something through the law, ask the Spirit to help.

3. We have commended the seventeen: but how far they are from a hundred and fifty-three! Yet many know what we are going to say: let those who know bear with the delays. When two walk on the road, one swift and one slow, it is in the power of the swift one that they walk together, if he waits for the other. So he who knows what I am going to say is the swift one; but let him wait for his slow companion, until he too is instructed about the seventeen. They become a hundred and fifty-three, if those very seventeen are counted in such a way that you begin from one, and add them all, until you arrive at seventeen. For if you begin to say: One, two, three, four, you arrive at ten, and you will find nothing in your hand but ten. But if you count thus: one and two are now three; and three, now six; and four, now ten; and five, now fifteen; and six, now twenty-one; and seven, now twenty-eight; and eight, now thirty-six; and nine, now forty-five; and ten, now fifty-five. Behold, now we are near, and there is hope of arriving, because we have gone so far. Add, then, eleven, it makes sixty-six; add twelve, it makes seventy-eight; add thirteen, it makes ninety-one; add also fourteen, it makes a hundred and five. Now the slow follow the swift. Add, then, also fifteen, it makes a hundred and twenty; add sixteen, it makes a hundred and thirty-six; add seventeen, it makes a hundred and fifty-three. There, then, will be all who run to seventeen, who keep the law of God, with the help of the Spirit of God.

Sermon 229/N
A Tractate on the Saturday of the Octave of Holy Easter

1. Behold, the Lord, appearing again to the disciples after the resurrection, questions the apostle Peter; and he compels him to confess love three times, who three times had denied through fear. Christ rose in the flesh, and Peter in the spirit; for when Christ died by suffering, Peter had died by denying. The Lord Christ is raised from the dead; he raised up Peter from his love. He questioned the love of the one confessing, and entrusted to him his sheep. For what could Peter offer Christ, in that he loved Christ? If Christ love you, it profits you, not Christ; and if you love Christ, it profits you, not Christ. Yet the Lord Christ, willing to show where men ought to show that they love Christ, opened it clearly enough by entrusting it in his sheep. Do you love me? I love. Feed my sheep (John 21:17). This once, this a second time, this a third time. Nothing else did Peter answer, but that he loved him; nothing else did the Lord ask, but whether he loved him; nothing else did he entrust to the one answering, but his sheep. Let us love, and we love Christ. For Christ, always God, was born a man in time. As man from a human being, he appeared as a man to men; he did many wonders, as God in a man. He suffered many evils, as a man from men; he rose after death, as God in a man. He dwelt on earth forty days, as a man with men; before their eyes he ascended into heaven, as God in a man, he sits at the right hand of the Father. All this we believe, we do not see; and we are bidden to love the Lord Christ, whom we do not see; and we all cry out and say: I love Christ. If you do not love the brother whom you see, how can you love God whom you do not see? (1 John 4:20) By loving the sheep, show that you have the love of the shepherd; for the sheep too are members of the shepherd. That the sheep might be his members, he deigned to be a sheep; that the sheep might be his members, he was led like a sheep to the slaughter (Isa 53:7); that the sheep might be his members, of him it is said: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). But great is the strength in this Lamb. Do you wish to know how great a strength appeared in this Lamb? The Lamb was crucified, and the lion was conquered. See and consider with what power the Lord Christ governs the world, who by his death conquered the devil.

2. Let us love him, then; let nothing be dearer to us than he. Do you think, then, that the Lord does not question us? Did Peter alone deserve to be questioned, and not we? When that reading is read, each Christian is questioned in his heart. When, then, you hear the Lord saying: Peter, do you love me? consider it a mirror, and attend to yourself there. For what else did Peter himself bear but the figure of the Church? When the Lord, then, questioned Peter, he questioned us, he questioned the Church. For, that you may know that Peter bore the figure of the Church, recall that place in the Gospel: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell will not conquer it; to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt 16:18-19). One man receives them. For what the keys of the kingdom of heaven are, he himself explained: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven (Matt 18:18). If it was said to Peter alone, Peter alone did this; he died, and departed; who, then, binds, who looses? I dare to say it: we too have these keys. And what shall I say? That we bind, that we loose? You bind too, and you loose too. For he who is bound is separated from your fellowship; and when he is separated from your fellowship, he is bound by you; and when he is reconciled, he is loosed by you, because God too is asked by you on his behalf.

3. For we all love Christ, we are his members; and when he entrusts the sheep to the shepherds, the whole number of shepherds is brought back to the body of one shepherd. For, that you may know that the whole number of shepherds is brought back to the one body of the one shepherd: certainly Peter is a shepherd, plainly a shepherd; Paul is a shepherd, so indeed a shepherd; John is a shepherd, James a shepherd, Andrew a shepherd, and the rest of the Apostles shepherds. All the holy bishops are certainly shepherds, so plainly. And how is it true: And there will be one flock and one shepherd (John 10:16)? Further, if it is true: There will be one flock and one shepherd, the whole countless number of shepherds is brought back to the body of one shepherd. But there you are too, you are his members. He was trampling those very members, when the Head cried out for his members—Saul, that former persecutor, afterward a preacher, breathing slaughter, deferring faith. By one voice his whole onslaught was laid low. By what voice? Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4) Could Saul throw even a stone up to heaven, where Jesus sits? Suppose Saul had been in the crowd, when Jesus hung on the wood. Suppose Saul too had said with the crowd: Crucify, crucify (Luke 23:21); and had been among those who wagged their head in mockery, and said: If he is the Son of God, let him come down from the cross (See Matt 27:40). What would he do to one sitting in heaven? What harm would the word do? What harm the shout? What harm the wood? What harm the lance? Nothing could now be done to him, and yet he cried out: You persecute me. When he cried out: You persecute me, he showed that we are his members. By the love of Christ, then, whom we love in you; by the love of Christ, whom you too love in us, amid temptations, amid labors, amid sweats, amid anxieties, amid miseries, amid groans, he will lead us where there is no labor, no misery, no groan, no sighing, no trouble, where no one is born, no one dies, no one fears the wrath of the powerful, while clinging to the face of the Almighty.

Sermon 229/O
A Tractate on the Saturday of the Octave of Holy Easter

1. You have heard the confession of the apostle Peter at the Lord's questioning, whose denial you had heard at a maidservant's frightening. For it had been said to the presumptuous one: You will deny me (See Matt 26:34); it was said to the loving one: Do you love me? (John 21:15) For, so that the apostle Peter might stumble, he presumed on the strength of his own soul. Now long before the psalm had said: Those who trust in their own strength (Ps 49:7 (48:7)) . . . Peter, then, had become like the one of whom it is sung in the Psalms: I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved forever (Ps 30:7 (29:7)). In his abundance he had said to Christ: With you, even unto death (See Matt 26:35); in his abundance he had said: I shall not be moved forever. Yet the Lord, like a skilled physician, knew better what was happening in the sick man than the sick man himself. Physicians do this in bodily illnesses, which the Lord can do also in the illnesses of souls. For what seems to you, I ask, that a sick man should wait to hear from the physician what is happening in him? For he himself can know the pains he suffers; but whether they are dangerous, and what causes they have, whether he can or cannot escape them, the physician inspects the pulse, and what is happening in the sick man he himself reports to the sick man. When, then, the Lord said to blessed Peter: You will deny me three times (See Matt 26:34), he was touching the pulse of his heart. Behold, what the physician foretold came to pass, and what the sick man presumed was found false. For there in the same psalm the Holy Spirit goes on: I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved forever, as one presuming on the strength of his own soul. He immediately added: Lord, in your will you furnished strength to my beauty. You turned away your face, and I became troubled (Ps 30:7-8 (29:7-8)). What did he say? What I had, I had from you, and I believed it was from myself. You turned away your face, you took away what you had given; and I became troubled. I found what I was, because you had withdrawn. The Lord, then, in order to make Peter wholesomely humble, abandoned him for a time: yet when he looked back at him, then he wept. For so you have it in the Gospel: after he had denied three times, and what the Lord had foretold was fulfilled, what is written? The Lord looked back at him, and Peter remembered. If the Lord had not looked back, Peter would have forgotten it all. The Lord looked back at him, and Peter remembered, that Jesus had said to him: Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times. And going outside, he wept bitterly (Luke 22:61-62). Peter, then, needed for the washing away of the sin of denial the baptism of tears, but whence would he have this, unless the Lord gave this too? Therefore the apostle Paul, when he admonished the people how they should deal with certain who held different views, said: Correcting in gentleness those who hold different views, lest perhaps God give them penance (2 Tim 2:25). Therefore penance too is the gift of God. Hard earth is the heart of the proud; it does not soften to penance, unless it is watered by the grace of God.

2. Now, then, after the Lord's resurrection Peter is questioned: the confession is drawn out, the passion is foretold; he is found in love, he is made firm in virtue. The Lord says to him, now after the resurrection: Peter, do you love me more than these? (John 21:15) You who denied me, do you love me? Now enough has been done for you: you see alive the one whom you saw dying, when you feared to die. Behold, I am alive, behold, it is I: why did you fear to die? When you denied me, you certainly did not lose me. Do you love me, then? Because it is I. And he: Lord, yes, you know that I love you (John 21:15). Why do you ask me what you know? You knew it, when you foretold to me that I would deny you. What I did not know in myself, you knew: and what I know, do you not know? For I see in my heart that I love you, but you too see it; for you do not fail to see the present love, you who saw the future fear. And again the Lord knows, and asks; and again, as he asks this very thing, this very thing Peter answers. And the Lord asks a third time, that a threefold confession might blot out the threefold denial. Let us rejoice with the Apostle: He was dead, and came to life again; he was lost, and is found (Luke 15:32).

3. He is armed for greater and higher things; it is said to him: Feed my sheep (John 21:17); wherein surely he was to be in peril in the flesh, to be glorified in the spirit. For in feeding the sheep of Christ, how much was he to suffer for the name of Christ! Feed my sheep, feed my lambs (John 21:16-17). For what are you to offer me, if you love me? The Prince of shepherds appointed a shepherd, that Peter might feed the sheep of Christ, not his own. For certain men, who wished to be the teachers of the Apostles, are called back by the Apostles themselves to a sound mind. For they were the sheep of Christ, and wished to be men's; and some said: I am Paul's, but I am Apollos's, and I am Cephas's. There were sheep there who acknowledged the Lord: But I am Christ's (1 Cor 1:12). But Paul, knowing that Christ had entrusted his own sheep to the Apostles, not his, repelled from himself such lordship; he confesses that he is not the Lord, that he may be with the Lord. Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor 1:13) You are his sheep, you do not know whose sheep you are; read the brand with which you are marked. Feed my sheep. Why? Because you love me, because you have love for me, I commit my sheep to you; feed them, but remember they are mine. But the leaders of heresies want to make their own the sheep that are Christ's; yet, whether they will or not, they are forced to impose the brand of Christ; to make their own private flock, and to inscribe the Lord's name. But what does the divine Scripture say to such men in the Song of Songs? For Christ the bridegroom addresses the bride the Church, and says: Unless you know yourself, O fair one among women (Song 1:8). What is it: Fair one among women? The catholic one among heresies. Attend to how he threatens. Unless you know yourself, whose you are, what you believe, to whom you belong, how far and wide you are spread, by whose blood you have been redeemed; unless you know yourself, O fair one among women, unless you know yourself, I cast you out, go forth. What is it: go forth? What John says in his epistle: They went forth from us, but they were not of us (1 John 2:19). Go forth in the footsteps of the flocks; not in the footsteps of the shepherd, but in the footsteps of the flocks; following the footsteps of men, not of Christ. And feed your kids; not, like Peter, my sheep. And where are you to feed your kids? In the tents of the shepherds (Song 1:8); divided in the tents of the shepherds, not in the tent of the shepherd. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them too, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock, and one shepherd (John 10:16).

4. I announce, then, to your Charity, that yesterday we were not severe in vain; by the sharpness of discipline we have made a gain. One of those four today anathematized the heresy of the Arians and Eunomians, together with Arius and Eunomius themselves, and was made a catholic. And so, the one whom yesterday we showed was to be guarded against, today we show is to be loved. Therefore I commend him to you, whom you may now see rejoicing, not suspect. I commend also that you pray for the rest.

Sermon 229/P
On the Love of Peter

1. Those things are read according to the evangelist John which were done after the resurrection of the Lord. Among them, this was read today, how the Lord questioned the apostle Peter whether he loved him more than the rest (See John 21:15). In this Peter, call to mind the rock. For he it is who, when the Lord asked him whom his disciples said he was, answered: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. On hearing this, Jesus said to him: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to you—as though to say: You said to me, I say to you. What?—You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not conquer it. To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven (Matt 16:16-19). We see the rock commended in Peter. And the apostle Paul says of the former people: They drank of the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:4). Therefore this disciple is "Peter" from the rock, as "Christian" is from Christ. Why did I wish to say these things first? That I might commend to you the Church, to be recognized in Peter. For Christ built the Church not upon a man but upon Peter's confession. What is Peter's confession? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt 16:16). Behold the rock, behold the foundation, behold where the Church is built which the gates of hell do not conquer (See Matt 16:18). What are the gates of hell, but the pride of the heretics?

2. This Peter, then, bearing so great a person as I have commended to you, is questioned by the Lord after the resurrection, as was read, and it is said to him: Simon, son of John—for he was called Simon from his birth: he was the son of John—Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? (John 21:15) Who questions? He who knew all things (See John 21:17). Like one who did not know? He who gave knowledge. The Lord himself did not wish to be instructed, but he wished the other to confess. He asks once, and the other says to him: You know, Lord, that I love you. And he: Feed my lambs. And again he asks, as though once were not enough: Simon, son of John, do you love me? I love you, Lord, I love you, Lord: again this. And again he that: Feed my lambs. And a third time—For whom is once not enough? For one who does not know it is enough. How much more for one who foreknows!—he asks a third time: Do you love me? Peter was made sorrowful, as though for this reason he were continually questioned, because he was doubted of, and he says: Lord, you know all things: you know that I love you (John 21:16-17). If anything were hidden from you, you would do well to question me. If you know all things, you know in all things this that you ask. And he: Feed my sheep (John 21:17). Three times love confessed, which fear had three times denied. Therefore the Lord questioned three times, that a threefold confession might blot out the threefold denial.

3. This is that Peter, the denier and the lover; the denier through human weakness, the lover through divine grace. For when Peter denied, he was shown to himself. For he had presumed and had in a way fanned the air with his own strength in proud boasting, when he said: Lord, I am with you, even unto death (See Luke 22:33), presuming on his own strength. And then indeed he heard who he was. For the sick man was presuming about himself, and the physician was touching the pulse of his heart. In his inmost parts he found the sick man, and like a true and truthful physician he foretold what was to come, as though saying: Even though you seem well to yourself. You do not know that there is still a fever, but now there is a revelation to you. You will be troubled when the onset comes. So when he was questioned by the maidservant, and there was fulfilled in him what the physician foretold, not what the sick man presumed—that before the cock crowed, such a servant should three times deny the Lord—what is written in the Gospel after he had three times denied? The Lord looked back at him, and he wept bitterly (See Luke 22:61-62). He would never have wept, if the Lord had not looked back. Finally, that you may understand how it was said: He looked back at him, inspect the Gospel and see that the Lord was in such a place when Peter denied, that he could not look back at him with bodily eyes; for he himself was being heard by the chief men of the Jews in the inner part of the house. But Peter denied in the courtyard. But where does he not look back, who is everywhere?

4. On account of this he was questioned about love, and the sheep of Christ were entrusted to him. It was said to him: Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep (John 21:15-17). That Lamb was entrusting lambs. He was entrusting his lambs, who made lambs for himself. How did the Lamb make lambs for himself? Behold the Lamb of God. Of him it was said: Behold the Lamb of God. And how did he make lambs for himself? Behold him who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Thus he made these too whom we now see in white. Would that the wolves may not devour them! Do you, Lord, guard them, who entrusted them to Peter. Do you guard them, who guard Peter too. He himself is also the sheep of whom it is written: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter (Isa 53:7). He is always a lamb, because always without sin. And do not wonder that he is without sin: In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God (John 1:1). Whence could there be sin there? Look to the human birth. He willed to be born without sin, whom a virgin conceived, whom no carnal concupiscence desired. The conception of the Son: the faith of the mother. He was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, not drawing original sin from Adam, not drawing it, not adding it. Born innocently, living innocently, dying innocently. Behold the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sin of the world. When he entrusted his sheep to Peter, he was entrusting us. When he was entrusting us to Peter, he was entrusting his members to the Church. Entrust, then, O Lord, your Church to your Church, let your Church entrust itself to you. For we say: Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory (Ps 115:1 (113:9)). For what are we without you, but Peter when he denied you three times? The Lord, to show Peter to himself, that is, to show Peter to Peter, turned his face away from him a little, and he denied. He turned his face to him when he looked back, and he wept. With tears he washed away his fault, he poured water from his eyes and baptized his conscience. Let us look upon him in a certain psalm where it is written: I said in my abundance: I shall not be moved forever (Ps 30:7 (29:7)). Who, if not Peter, is saying: I am with you even unto death (See Luke 22:33), and if I must die for you, I will not depart from you (See Matt 26:35)? In his abundance he says it. What does he say? I shall not be moved forever. But after he was questioned, denied three times, and wept, see what he adds—for they are the words of one now repenting—: I said in my abundance: I shall not be moved forever. Lord, in your will you furnished strength to my beauty. You turned away your face from me, and I became troubled (Ps 30:7-8 (29:7-8)). You turned away your face, and you showed me my own face: I do not know what you say; I do not know the man (See Matt 26:70-74). Behold Peter himself in himself; behold what it is: You turned away your face, and I became troubled. Therefore the Lord, by looking back, gave back his face, and he was made firm.

Sermon 229/R
From the Sermons of the Octave of Easter

1. By the name of light, in an allegory, we understand all the just and faithful to be called, as the Apostle says: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). But this light was made. But there was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9), which was not made, but born of God. That light was not made, and through the unmade light this light was made. So too the firmament: as light was made by the shining God, so the firmament was made by the firm God. And we find that the firmament in the Church ought to be understood as the authority of the divine Scriptures; and therefore first the light, afterward the firmament; because Scripture was made through just men, and unless they were first justified, so as to be light, Scripture could not be propagated, so as to become a firmament between the waters and the waters (See Gen 1:6), a midpoint between the lower peoples of men and the higher peoples of the angels. Why? Because the angels do not desire to make progress from the Scriptures, therefore they are not under the firmament, under the authority of the Scriptures; for they contemplate the appearance of the divinity and of wisdom. But we are rightly under the firmament, we to whom the will of God is opened through the authority of the Scriptures.

Sermon 229/S
From the Sermons of the Octave of Easter

1. We see the earth, we see the sea: they are the works of God; the one lies under our eyes, the other under our understandings; the one is known to our flesh, the other to our mind. What is the dry land in the Church? Every soul thirsting for God is called dry land. For the waters were separated, and the dry land appeared (See Gen 1:9). This sea is this world, and the evil are the bitter waters; they were separated and gathered together into one gathering, that is, predestined to one end, to which God directs all whom he separates from the saints. But God separates them; for man cannot separate these things, and the dry land appears through the separation. Set two men together: one desires the spectacle, the other the church. Joined in body, they are separated in their desires. The one belongs to the bitter water, the other appears as dry land. How do we prove that this earth, which signifies men desiring good things, is dry land? The psalm says to God: My soul is like a land without water to you (Ps 143:6 (142:6)). My soul has thirsted for you. It thirsts, it is dry land; it is separated from the waters of the sea. Let it not heed that it is not yet separated in body; already its desire has made the separation. Some desire God, others desire the world. What, then, does the dry land thirst for? Rain from heaven, rain from the clouds, rain from the Scriptures, rain from the firmament. But when it desires the rain, it desires the sweet water separated from the bitter water. But God knows that the dry land desires, for it lies hidden and is in secret. The desires of the sea, that is, worldly desires, appear. If anyone desires money, he is moved toward that money, he wishes to acquire it; because money is a visible thing, his desire appears. But he who desires God, his desire is hidden; because God, whom he desires, is hidden; he is within, he is a hidden thing. It thirsts indeed, and is dry land; but it appears to the eyes of God. And he did not omit the fruit, but at once said: Let the earth bring forth the herb of fodder (Gen 1:11). Let the earth bring forth on the very day on which it was made dry land. That dry land could not be without fruit for long. Let us too hear the word of God: and let the earth bring forth the herb of fodder, that is, the good works of mercy, of which Isaiah says: Break your bread for the hungry, and bring the needy without shelter into your house (Isa 58:7), and so on. The firmament, then, is the Scripture of God; the luminaries in the firmament, the understanding of the Scriptures; but the lights in heaven, the insights into the Scriptures. Do you wish to come to the heavenly light? First be earth bearing fruit, that is, let the works of mercy go before; for after the works of mercy comes the illumination of that light which you desire.

Sermon 229/T
From the Sermons of the Octave of Easter

1. The Evangelists are the luminaries, the Scripture of God the firmament. But the Gospel, which has its testimony from the Law and the Prophets, is the luminaries in the firmament of heaven. But the little one in the Church cannot yet take solid food, but is content with milk, which signifies the lesser luminary and the stars. And therefore: The greater luminary for the rule of the day, the lesser luminary for the rule of the night (Gen 1:16). As long as men are carnal, and cannot think upon that wisdom through which all things were made, they are in the night: but he did not abandon the night; he furnished faith. For God did not abandon the night; he gave it his luminaries. The day seeks the sun, the sun is enough for it; the moon and the stars are given to the night, they illumine it; and when the moon does not shine upon the earth, that light which is in the air is from the stars. Hence it comes that we go outside at night and see the trees; and though we do not distinguish them, yet we somehow see by the light of the stars; and therefore when the clouds are thick, the light of the stars too is taken away, and a man is then under the open sky as though indoors in a bedroom. Therefore the night too has a certain light of its own. Let us see what the Apostle says about those gifts, those spiritual gifts: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit. How is it given? To one indeed is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge (1 Cor 12:7-8). He who understands the difference between the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge, has understood the difference between the greater luminary and the lesser luminary. Let us hear the word of Wisdom: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; this was in the beginning (John 1:1-2), and so on. Those who comprehend it, it is day, the sun shines for them; but unless first from the night, they have not come to the light: For darkness was over the abyss, and God said: Let there be light (Gen 1:2-3). Let no one say that he began from the light. For we are all justified out of sinners. Let those, then, who can, take what I have said about the Gospel. But they say to me: We have not understood what it is: In the beginning was the Word. If, then, it is still night for you, attend that the Word took flesh, and made for you as it were a night-light: For the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). And in the bush God speaks through an angel to Moses. Hear where the word of Wisdom is. What are you called? said Moses. How do I announce you to the people? If it be said: Who sent you? what shall I say? Hear the word of Wisdom: You shall say to the children of Israel: "Who Is" sent me to you (Exod 3:14). Who can grasp: Who Is? Other things truly are not. Who truly is? He who does not pass away, who always remains unchangeable. But this is the food of the grown; this is the sun of the day. And as though Moses said to him: I am still night, illumine the night, let me say something the night can grasp, let me say something the little ones can hold: I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob (Exod 3:15). Therefore: I am who I am for the rule of the day, I am the God of Abraham for the rule of the night. Faith dispensed in time shines for the night, wisdom always remaining shines for the day. He nourishes in the night, that we may go forth into the day. The stars, then, are the other gifts. For when he had said: To one is given the word of wisdom, as the sun for the rule of the day; to another is given the word of knowledge, as the moon for the rule of the night; he gives also the stars: To another the gift of healings, to another prophecy (1 Cor 12:8-10), and so on.

Sermon 229/U
From the Sermons of the Octave of Easter

1. Let us see, then, what the Scriptures say. Light through light, the just through the Word. The firmament of heaven, the solid foundation of the Scriptures. The waters under the firmament, the earthly people; the waters above the firmament, the heavenly people. The dry land separated from the waters of the sea, souls thirsting for God separated from the multitude of the offenses of the world. The earth brings forth the herb of fodder and fruit-bearing trees, the works of mercy. The luminaries in the firmament of heaven, the preachers of the word, the Evangelists and Apostles, the spiritual gifts. Let us attend, then, to the luminaries going round the whole world, and see how the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls (See Gen 1:20). The Evangelists run about, men are evangelized. Therefore the creeping things of living souls are understood as the sacraments. Why? Because the sacraments are necessary for this, that the nations may be evangelized and men be separated from the nations, that is, that those bitter waters may bring forth and become sweet fish. For it is a great thing. No one can taste the water of the sea, but he can eat fish; they are born and nourished in bitterness. These are the sweet sacraments, which have been sent throughout the whole world. But they are called the creeping things of living souls; not yet a living soul. Why? This is somewhat dense to understand. You have just heard, when the reading was read, that Simon Magus was baptized and did not put off his evil mind (See Acts 8:13-23); he had the form of the sacrament, he did not have the power of the sacrament. Hear what the Apostle says of the impious: Having, he says, the form of piety, but denying its power (2 Tim 3:5). What is the form of piety? The visible sacrament. What is the power of piety? Invisible love. Hear the power of piety: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am become as sounding brass, and so on: and if I have this and that, but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:1-2). For the sacraments are holy and great; but man is nothing, if he does not have love. Therefore the power of the sacrament is love. The heretic does not have this love, though I find with him the form of the sacrament. And so, when a heretic comes to me, I defer to the form of the sacrament, so as not to rebaptize; but I restore the power of the sacrament, so as to instill the root of love. That, then, will be the living soul, which the earth brings forth, so that it may be a living soul, now having the power of the sacrament. This, then, is what was said: Let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls (Gen 1:20), and so on.

Sermon 229/V
From the Sermons of the Octave of Easter

1. On the sixth day God said: Let the earth bring forth the living soul; not the creeping things of living souls, but the living soul. And the earth brought forth all the cattle and beasts and serpents and whatever creeps upon the earth. And God saw that it was good. And God said, on the same sixth day, when the earth brought forth the living soul: Let us make man to our image and likeness (Gen 1:24-26), and the rest that follows. We have said that God made light, that is, all the faithful; he made the firmament in the world, the heaven between the waters and the waters; he made the firmament in the Church, the authority of the Scriptures between the peoples of the angels, to whom this is not necessary, and the peoples of men, who would seek God there; God made in the world the separation of the sea from the land, God made in the Church the separation of the nations from his servants; the dry land thirsts for rain, men in the Church thirst for the heavenly rain; the earth brought forth the herb of fodder and fruit-bearing trees, men in the Church too bring forth the works of mercy; luminaries are made in heaven; the greater luminary, the word of wisdom; the lesser luminary, the word of knowledge; the stars, the gifts of healings, of prophecy, of faith, and the rest; all these in the firmament of heaven. When, then, they had begun to walk and journey through the whole world, the waters generated, that is, out of the nations there arose the creeping things of living souls, the holy sacraments; and men consecrated, having the form; for the form of the sacrament is in man, and sometimes the power of the sacrament follows at once, but now in the earth that has been separated; therefore the earth brings forth the living soul. And indeed, brothers, it is needful to be a living soul. The brothers have received baptism; let the power follow the form. Let baptism be not unto judgment, but unto salvation. It was unto judgment for Simon Magus, unto salvation for Peter. Let us see, then, what the living soul is, which the earth brought forth. Attend to man: he has a body, he has a soul. In the soul itself he has many motions like those of the beasts; and he has something else, which the beasts do not have. What motions has he like the beasts? To eat and drink, to sleep and wake, and to beget. Are these not common to us with the beasts? Whoever casts these motions into self-indulgence has a dead soul, not a living soul. How do we prove it? Hear the Apostle: She who lives in pleasures is dead while living (1 Tim 5:6). What is it to live in pleasures, but to loosen those motions of the soul that we have in common with the cattle into immoderate pleasures and desires, into voracity, into drunkenness, into fornication, into drowsiness? They live in pleasures who live thus; but living, they are dead. But if all these affections are constrained, and these motions are held to chastity, to continence, the earth brings forth a soul; which, because it was dead in pleasures, it remains that, restrained from pleasures, it begin to live and to have the power of piety. But what is the power of piety? Love toward God and neighbor. But he who has love restrains by faith all lusts, all desires, all the motions of his soul which he has in common with the cattle; he will be a living soul. And it follows that man is now formed to the image and likeness of God. But he is formed when all those things that have been spoken of are brought together in that man. Because God made light, it was said of man in the Church; and he made the firmament, the authority of the Scriptures for the sake of man; and he separated the waters from the land, the nations from believers; and the earth brought forth the herb of fodder, the works of mercy; and the lights in heaven, the holy Evangelists in man; and the earth brought forth the creeping thing of living souls, the sacraments; and this in men. Afterward it brought forth the living soul, the restraints of all lusts; and this in man. Join all these things for understanding, and man was made to the image and likeness of God. Attend to how we may prove this. Therefore of each single thing he said: God saw that it was good (Gen 1:10, etc). But when he made the better thing, he did not see that it was made better; but in man himself he concludes all the things that were made, and it was said: God saw all the things he made, and behold, they were very good (Gen 1:31). Long before he had said of each single thing that they were good; with man made, he named them all. It is understood that those single things are all found in man. Do you seek light in man? You find faith. Do you seek the firmament? You find the authority of the Scriptures. Do you seek the separation of the waters? You find the believer separated from the nations. Do you seek the sprouting of herb and fruit-bearing trees? You find good works, the works of mercy. Do you seek the luminaries of heaven? You find the Evangelists. Do you seek the creeping things of living souls? You find the sacraments. Do you seek the living soul? You find continence. Do you seek man in man? You find the image and likeness of God.

2. And now attend: man was set in his punishment, and how much the remnants of the image of God avail, which remained in him. He rubbed away that very image through sin, and that same image, which was worn dim through lust, is reformed through grace. For just as a coin, if it is rubbed by the earth, loses the image of the emperor, so the mind of man, if it is rubbed by earthly lusts, loses the image of God. But there comes the moneyer, Christ, who restrikes the coins. And how does he restrike the coins? By forgiving sins through grace: and he will show you that God seeks his own image. For when it was said to him about the tribute of Caesar: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar? (Matt 22:17)—for they were tempting him, so that if he said, "Let it not be given," they might bring a false charge against him through the collectors of tribute: "Behold, one who teaches that we ought not pay tribute"; but if he said, "Let it be given": "Behold, one who has cursed Jerusalem, who has made it tributary"—what, then, did he himself say, and what did he warn? Why do you tempt me, hypocrites? Bring me a coin. And they offered it to him. Whose image and inscription does it have? They answered: Caesar's. Render, then, the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God (Matt 22:18-21); that is: if Caesar seeks his image on a coin, does not God seek his image in man?

3. The earth brought forth the herb of fodder and fruit-bearing trees; men too in the Church bring forth the works of mercy, after those very works which were shown even to the Lord, when he was in the flesh, not only by men, as it was by Zacchaeus (See Luke 19:8), but also by women, who ministered to him of their own substance (See Luke 8:3).