Sermon 214/A
(Dolbeau 1)

[1] Clearly, even believing belongs to knowing.

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

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

[4] For if a fellow citizen speaks with me and, on this point, a man of my own region and province contradicts me, harassing me as though I were ignorant because I have not seen it, I ask him how he knows that Alexandria exists, which he has not seen, and that there are so many cities in which he has never been, which he nonetheless knows to exist so surely that he would even swear to it without hesitation if challenged.

[5] See, I put the question back to him: How do you know that Alexandria exists? He will say: I have believed it. I will reply: Whom did you believe? What else will he say but that he believed other people? You, then, believed those who saw Alexandria; I believed those who prophesied about God. If you consider the truth, if you weigh the force of the testimonies, I have believed more reliable witnesses than you. For about Alexandria you believed those who, being there, were able to see it present before them; I believed those who said that the things now being done would come to pass before they existed.

Sermon 359/B
(Dolbeau 2)

1. The disturbance of yesterday, ours as much as yours—and, on your account, ours more than yours—commanded silence, I confess; but because love, which we must serve, bids us speak about our lord and brother—and because there is in you too a desire to hear, on which we pray that God may deign to bestow fruit in your conduct and obedience—we serve you in the name of Christ, since we serve Christ, whose members you are. Yet this I confess in the sight of God, before him and before you, to whose ears my thought is a voice: I call him to witness upon my soul that what brings us to this city, to speak to you something the Lord grants, is above all the love of your bishop—I do not mean the love by which we love him, but rather that by which we feel ourselves loved by him without any pretense. For although you know us, you can in no way know us as we ourselves know one another, who serve you in the love of Christ. For we do love you, and you see it, God knows it. And yet, dearly beloved, know this—I say it before Christ—that if you longed for us more than all the things you long for, and we sensed in the heart of your bishop even a slight will set against us, you would not be seeing us here.

2. For just now he deigned to send us such a letter as to say that, if we thought our coming should be either postponed or made a matter of deliberation, whether to come or not, we would offend love itself, which has been called God. Consider our weakness, undertaking such long journeys in the middle of winter. Let your love grasp something further. The blessed and venerable old man Xanthippus, primate of Numidia, summoned a council at Constantina for the twenty-eighth of January. The council was summoned by the primate of Numidia for the bishops of Numidia, among whom we too are numbered. And in that city of Constantina, your love knows, I think, that there is a bishop of our own side. For he was reared in the word of God and held the presbyterate in the town of Thagaste, and from there was given as bishop to Constantina. We cannot tell you with what letters he wished to draw me, that I should come to Constantina: with the council also summoned, he removed all my delays and hesitations. And yet, dearly beloved, such a letter came to my lowliness from my lord and brother, your bishop Aurelius, as to overcome by the gravity and weight of its sentiments whatever I had previously arranged, and not so much to bring me as to seize me, setting all else aside. For I considered that, since he deigned to command not with great confidence only but even with such great insistence—not on his own behalf but on God's—I should say to myself that, if I came here and yielded to his will—indeed to God's will through him—I might satisfy with his letter my departure from there before the lord and old man Xanthippus, lest perchance he be angry with me because, leaving the council of the Numidians, where the reckoning of my own order required me to be present, I chose rather to go here.

3. But to what does all this that I have said tend? Yesterday my eyes saw that there was a space not filled by the brethren, near to our ears and our voice; we were not the authors of the proposal that the discussion be held there instead, because we saw that it was better for those few to comply by coming to the bishops than for the bishops to come to those places, with great disturbance to the larger crowd that had already, in a manner, settled itself around the apse with the assurance of hearing: a far greater crowd would have had to be moved from these places to those. But were the men, perhaps, to be disregarded—what then of the weaker sex? Without doubt the women, once they began to press in out of eagerness to draw near, would they not have made a greater commotion and uttered cries that it would be most unseemly to hear in church? This alone, then, was asked: that those few who were leaning on the rails would deign to come up to the spaces nearest the place where we were speaking. What great thing was it that we were asking? But this they were unwilling even to hear, and a disturbance arose, and great sorrow for us, which God has just now deigned to wipe away through the sermon of your truly venerable bishop. But for the rest, brethren, we warn you not to think that a place to preach was denied me by him there, where it was so stubbornly demanded and tumultuously clamored for by certain people. See why I have said all this: because, if we felt even a slight contraction in the heart of our most blessed brother, we would not—especially when other necessities press upon us—have come to this city.

4. For what of it? Does your love not recall that I argued against the party of Donatus from that place, in the middle of the rails, for four days running? Was it waited for that you should ask? Was it even suggested by us? He himself saw of his own accord that it should be done, and did it; he did not see that it should be done, and did not do it. But perhaps you say: What great or difficult thing were we asking? Even if what you were asking is a small thing, the obedience we require of you is not a small matter. For from this rather let me speak. For I heard some of the brethren saying: See, he himself argued that the weak must be served. He argued this the day before; on another day he did not act on it. Let us, then, be served. Why did he come down? Why I came down, I tell your holiness. For he himself ought rather to pardon me, since I came down without his command. And my plan in coming down was such that I did not even consult him, lest he forbid it. And surely if I had consulted him and he had forbidden it, I could then do nothing but obey: it would have been necessary not to come down. I preferred, then, to ask pardon, because I came down without consulting or being commanded by him, rather than not to do what I thought ought to be done.

5. Now then, hear why I thought this ought to be done. How this people has always obeyed its bishop when present, not only we know, but all Africa, and perhaps the whole world, wherever the church of this city is known. For what dissoluteness and confusion of women and men there was here before, we all know, since we ourselves in our former years were part of this stain. It was brought about by the Lord through his servant that the mingled sexes should no longer keep vigil together. As a boy keeping vigil while I studied in this city, I kept such vigils amid women mingled with the wantonness of men, where occasion sometimes even tempted chastity. How honorably now the vigils are kept, how chastely, how holily! This diligence cannot displease even those against whom it was established. The wanton themselves, the insolent themselves, the very plotters against the chastity of others may grieve at this diligence, but they cannot fault it. But was this done only that we might rejoice in this one thing? What of the various approaches and entrances? How carefully it was managed, with what prudence devised, with what persistence accomplished, that those who, once they had entered, were to be in separate places, should also enter by separate ways, lest, entering in a narrow space, those wicked and shameless servants should begin what they would afterward strive to carry out—the things they are wont to say to the faces of matrons passing by! How vigilantly these things were seen to, with what vigor done away with! In the church of Mappalia, by the memorial of the blessed bishop and martyr Cyprian, how great were the things that used to happen—if we remember, perhaps we shall still grieve; if we forget, we give God less thanks. Let your love recall it with us, brethren: I am commemorating God's benefits to you through your bishop. Where then shameless little songs used to resound, now hymns ring out; where vigils were kept for indulgence, now they are kept for holiness; in short, where God was offended, God is appeased. I ask your love not to forget these things: they are near, they can be compared; they were yesterday, today they are not. And when could your bishop accomplish these things, unless he had an obedient people? That I may say something—and no small something—even about the good of your obedience: if, when your bishop attempted such things, your zeal did not consent, could he have carried it out in any way at all? God's mercy, then, was present both in his diligence and in your obedience. Since, therefore, we knew how you are wont to be submissive, since we set you before others as an example to imitate, so as to say to the small congregations in the countryside that make an uproar and resist their bishops, Go, look at the people of Carthage—since, then, we rejoiced abundantly in your good example, how could we yesterday be saddened, brethren, at your disobedience, as though our frequent coming had taught you disobedience?

6. Let your love, then, attend. As for my coming down, I grieved at the wretchedness of my ministry. You were asking to hear. What could the speaker build up, when the hearer was threatening ruin? Why ruin? you say. What great thing were we asking? What evil were we seeking? I will tell you what ruin—I will tell you that you may fear, not that you may fall. Do you not know that from a spark a fire arises? Do you not know that the tiniest drops fill rivers and sweep away foundations? Do not let disobedience seem to you a slight sin. Let us put it plainly: it made no difference whether you heard here or there; that there were spaces around us that could be filled by the crowd, both we know and you. What, then, remained, that you were unwilling to move over here, but mere obstinacy: Either let only what we want be done, or let not be done what you want? For we wanted you to hear, and what we wanted was useful to all. But certain people, because they were clinging to the rails, when their unreasonable wish was not granted, even shouted: Let there be the dismissal! Surely, however far off you are and however slowly I said it, Let there be the dismissal—see, you all heard it, because you patiently kept silence. What if we wanted to prove your very obedience? But in a small matter, someone says, how could you prove it? If in a small matter you did not obey, will you obey in a greater? Have you not read the Lord saying: He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and he who is unfaithful in a very little is unfaithful also in much (Luke 16:10)?

7. Do you wish to know what an evil disobedience is, since I said, The hearer was threatening ruin? God planted all things in his paradise good. If in the whole world he made all things good—as Scripture says, And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Gen 1:31)—if all things, how much more those that he set, more joyful, in paradise. Where, then, he had planted all things good, what does this mean: Do not touch that tree (See Gen 2:17)? Do you not know that people are wont to make a problem of this, who cannot see either how great a good obedience is or how great an evil disobedience? See, all good things had been planted. Do not touch, God says. What am I not to touch? Did you put something evil here? If you put something evil here, take it away, and do not forbid me to touch. Do not touch this tree, he says—which surely, unless it were good, would not be in paradise. Or do you perhaps think this, that outside paradise God had filled the earth with all good things and in paradise had planted an evil? In the rest of the earth too there were indeed good things, but in paradise certainly better ones. Yet because, among all the good things set in paradise, obedience was better, God forbade something from some quarter, lest by forbidding nothing he should not be Lord. And what? Perhaps someone thinks that God wished to be Lord out of his own arrogance. God's lordship is useful not to God but to him over whom he is Lord. He is neither less when we despise him nor greater when we serve him. To be under such a Lord is to our advantage, not to his. He who wishes to be Lord over us wishes it for our benefit, not for his own. He needs no good of ours; we are in need of all his goods, and of God himself, our highest good. For our highest and best good, than which nothing is better, is God himself. See the servant confessing; hear him from the psalm: I said to the Lord, You are my God, for you have no need of my goods (Ps 16:2 (15:2)). Therefore God forbade something, that he might impose a precept, that the one who is Lord might be served, that obedience might be distinguished from disobedience as virtue from vice; and that tree was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not because fruits of good and evil hung there, but it was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because, if a man touched it against the precept, in that tree he would learn by experience what difference there is between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience. For from that tree, the precept being despised, death followed; the precept being kept, immortality would have followed. You see, then, how great an evil disobedience is, my brethren: it was itself the first ruin of man.

8. Surely we wish to rise from that fall: why do we go back to where we fell from? Let Adam suffice; Christ has come. In Adam all die, in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:22). From Adam the root of evil, disobedience, passed into the human race; in Christ the root of immortality is obedience. Therefore Adam was for us the author and example of disobedience, but Christ of obedience. And how is Christ an example of obedience? Though he is equal to the Father, he says that he serves the Father. Surely you acknowledge with me, catholics, the catholic faith; you acknowledge: I and the Father are one (John 10:30); you acknowledge: He who sees me sees the Father (See John 14:9); you acknowledge: And the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1); you acknowledge: Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Phil 2:6). For to Christ equality is not a robbery but his nature: he for whom it was a robbery fell while standing; he for whom it was his nature remained even while descending. But let the same apostle Paul set forth the commendation of the obedience of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is worth the effort to recall and hear the whole passage. See, behold the Son equal to the Father in the form of God, but read what follows: Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But what did he do? But he emptied himself (Phil 2:7). How did he empty himself? I fear he may have lost his equality. Do not suspect it: hear what follows, hear from what he emptied himself, hear that he emptied himself not by losing what he was but by taking on what he was not. He emptied himself, he says. How? I beg you, tell me now. Taking the form of a servant. Who took the form of a servant? He who, though he was in the form of God—there he was, here taking—taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men—made, surely, in a mother whom he had made—being made in the likeness of men and found in form as a man. But we were speaking of obedience. We have now said much, and we have not heard of obedience. I heard He emptied himself, I heard taking the form of a servant, I heard being made in the likeness of men, but prove that he did this by obeying. Hear at the end: being made in the likeness of men and found in form as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death (Phil 2:7-8).

9. Let us look upon the Lord of the servant: the Lord obeys, and the servant despises? Let no one say in his heart: But he did this because he is Lord. What did he do because he is Lord? Did I say this to you: Light the sun, let the moon run its monthly waning and waxing; make the stars shine from heaven, the springs gush from the earth, the animals walk, the birds fly, the fish swim? Finally, did I even say this: Open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, drive off the fever of the sick, raise up the flesh of the dead? I say none of these things: these he did as God; the obedience I demand of you is the obedience he rendered first as a servant. Obedience, I say, I demand. Through immortality you will be like him; through obedience he was made like you. He will give you his life, for he took on your death. But you say: He obeyed God the Father. Whom, then, are you bidden to obey? He obeyed God the Father, as an equal. Or do you think it matters that he served God the Father, and to you it is said, Obey your bishop? For who set the bishop over you, that you should obey him? Or has the Gospel slipped your mind: He who hears you hears me (Luke 10:16); he who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me (Matt 10:40)? Finally you say: He served the Father. What if he served you too? Are you perhaps his father and mother? Because here he deigned to have a mother, not a father, that he might show both his generations to be wonderful, the divine and the human—the divine without a mother, the human without a father—and yet he was a boy subject to his parents (read the Gospel), in his boyhood subject to his parents, in his divine majesty the Lord of his parents—yet you are not his mother, even though he served you too. For he taught us to serve not by word only but by example. It was too little for the Lord to say to his disciples, Serve one another. For the Lord commands it to be done: surely it should have sufficed that the Lord commanded. Or was it to be expected that he should show what he commanded? Would any of us really dare to require that our Lord first carry out what he commanded? And yet, though none of us dared to require it, he gave from himself an example of serving one another to his disciples: Whoever, he says, wishes to be greater among you shall be your servant (Matt 20:26). And at once, lest the disciples be saddened at the servile name and say to him, Then, Lord, shall we be servants, we whom you redeemed? Shall we be servants, for whom you pour out your blood? Do we not recognize the price of our freedom in our cost, your blood?—he consoled, perhaps, their saddened pride, not yet healed: He shall be, he says, your servant, just as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve (Matt 20:27-28). See, he became our minister too, and we are not his mother. Or are we perhaps also his mother? These are my brethren and my mother, who do the will of my Father (See Matt 12:50).

10. But see, someone says, let my bishop take an example from my Lord, and serve me. I say to your love—let him understand who can—: unless he served, he would not command. For he serves who commands what is useful; he serves by his vigilance, he serves by his care, he serves by his solicitude, he serves, in short, by his love. For he too who was here made a minister surely commanded his disciples. Hear him commanding and them serving: Where do you wish us to prepare the Passover for you? (See Mark 14:12) And he sends whom he wishes where he wishes; he bids it be prepared for him where he wishes. What he commanded was done, and yet he himself served the more; for he did not lie when he said: Just as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve. How did he come not to be served but to serve? See, I see the disciples running, preparing the Passover, arranging the supper. How did he come not to be served but to serve? But what is it to serve? It follows: And to lay down his life for his friends (See John 15:13). Do you wish to know what he ministered to us? From this we live today, and from his table we are fed today, the table he ministered then.

11. Go, he says, into the village that is opposite you, and there you will find the colt of a donkey tied, on which no one has sat; bring it, and if they say to you, "What are you doing? Where are you leading the colt?", answer, "The Lord has need of it," and they will let it go to you (See Mark 11:2-3). They heard, they went, they did it. Did anyone resist? Did anyone say: Why does he want a colt brought to him? Surely he who raised the dead has not given out from walking? Hear, servant; do what is commanded by him who surely wants you well, by him who takes care for your salvation. To ask why he commanded is to argue, not to comply. First be a diligent complier, that you may be a fit arguer. Wash yourselves, be clean—these are the words of one commanding. Remove the evils from your souls and from before my eyes—these are the words of one commanding. Learn to do good, give judgment for the orphan, do justice for the widow—have you done what he commanded?—and come, let us argue, says the Lord (Isa 1:16-18). The colt was loosed from the village that was opposite them. What is the village opposite the disciples but this world? Go into the village that is opposite you. This world is opposite the disciples, falsehood opposite truth, lust opposite chastity, disobedience opposite obedience. In this village, which is the world, was a colt tied, on which no one had sat. Who is this colt tied in the opposing village, on which no one had sat? Who is it but the people of the gentiles, bound by the chain of the devil, on which no one had sat, because it had carried no prophet? It is loosed, it is led, it carries God, it is governed by the Lord, it is led along the way by the Lord, it is admonished by the Lord's whip; and in those who complied, that they might bring the colt, there was obedience, and in those who at once let the colt go, hearing that the Lord had need of it, there was obedience. You may understand those people as you wish. For perhaps the ones who had tied the colt are contrary powers; perhaps those men who had tied the colt signify the devil and his angels, by whom the people of the gentiles had been bound with ruinous superstition: yet so great is the power of the one commanding that even they dare not hold back the one whom the Lord says he has need of. What are you, my brethren? What do you wish to be? The looseners of the colt, or the colt? Far be it that you should be those who had tied the colt—and yet not even they resisted. What, then, do you wish to be, my brethren: those who loosed the colt, or the colt itself? You do not dare to claim for yourselves the person of those through whom the colt was loosed: the apostles did this. That is the person of the prelates: this we ourselves, according to the strength the Lord deigns to grant, sustain with all solicitude; from this we speak to you. You are the colt; obey those who lead you to carry the Lord. Surely, dearly beloved, consider how the disciples loosed the colt and led it to the Lord. They led, it followed; they did not drag, and it did not kick back. And yet, because we are speaking of our servitude, when the disciples led the colt to the Lord, they were rather serving the colt; so we too serve you, when we lead you to the Lord, when we teach and admonish obedience: if your weakness were not served, you would not hear us today.

12. Surely, dearly beloved, we too are men; weak ourselves, we carry the weak. You disturbed us yesterday, and in that very disturbance we feared for you more, lest you sadden in us the Spirit of God, through whom we serve you. How do you suppose, brethren, that I, now standing and about to speak to you—how do you suppose I could be disturbed, considering—as I have already recalled—how obedient you are wont to be, and that you showed yourselves disobedient while we were present, as though we teach disobedience, as though we do not, according to our small measure, hold your little rein, to lead you to the Lord? And yet, dearly beloved—as you heard from him, and it is true—however great our care for you or on your behalf, can it be greater than his who serves you in a special way, who so presides as to be beneath you? We seem to preside from a higher place: yet so great is the burden of solicitude and care that it makes us be beneath your feet. In short, tread on us and live. What is it, my brethren, what is any virtue at all in a servant of God without obedience? For what is obedience? You love love: obedience is its daughter, obedience is the daughter of love. But love cannot be barren. Let no one at all deceive you, let no one say: I do not have obedience, but I have love. You have no love at all. Wherever this mother is, she gives birth. If she is there, she has given birth; if she has not given birth, she is not there. The root is hidden, brethren, the fruit is in the open. I do not believe it clings in the soil unless I see what hangs on the branch. Do you have love? Show me its fruit: let me see obedience, let me rejoice in obedience, let me embrace the offspring, that I may acknowledge the mother.

13. See how great are the goods that even pretenders seem to have. Yesterday we heard the praises of a true martyr: what torments he endured, how immense, how many, how relentless! Were love lacking, it would be madness. Whence do we praise, whence do we proclaim, whence do we rejoice together, unless because we see in what Church, for what faith, what commanding king he resisted? For it is not because he resisted one commanding, but because he resisted one commanding what it is sin to comply with—for that is not even to be called obedience, where something ruinous and sacrilegious is commanded. For just as there is no faith when something false is believed, so there is no obedience where something harmful is commanded. For how could I call him obedient who believes a man and despises God? The powers in this world are ordered, and above all powers is the divine power. You would not be obedient if, by complying, you, a servant, were perhaps to despise your master in obeying your father. This I say: if perhaps you were a servant, and your father and a fellow servant commanded you one thing against what your master had commanded you, and you obeyed your father rather than your master, would I not call you disobedient and a subverter of order? For he is rather to be heard who has the greater power, he who has the lawful power. I would not, then, call obedient one who complies with the procurator against the proconsul, with the proconsul against the emperor; so I do not call obedient one who complies with the emperor against God.

14. Whence, then, was Vincent obedient, whence holy, whence the winner of the true crown, victor over so many sufferings, and true to his own name? Whence? See who commanded, whom he commanded, what he commanded. The emperor commanded, he commanded a Christian, he commanded that he offer incense to idols. If you attend to the rank of the one commanding, the emperor commanded a provincial. Some place is given to obedience, as it were, when I hear who commanded, whom he commanded. But wait, attend to what he commanded: to offer incense to idols. Let him who does not offer incense to idols be punished. The provincial now complies, if a greater power commands nothing to the contrary. But raise your ear, hear two voices: hear one from the tribunal, hear the other from heaven. What did you hear from the tribunal? He who does not sacrifice to the gods shall be punished. What from heaven? He who sacrifices to the gods shall be rooted out (See Exod 22:20). Here let your obedience be proved, martyr. Distinguish the voices, set apart the powers. You see him who commands; rather fear him who forbids. This is the crown of martyrdom, this the triumph, the devil being utterly conquered and trampled underfoot, whom the martyr feared when he flattered, whom he had despised when he raged. He himself expressed this—just as the things that were read were being heard, he expressed it in his own words: when the one who was raging wished, as it were, to show mercy, then most of all he seemed to need to be guarded against. For a deceitful mercy did more harm than open cruelty. In the roar of one raging, he did not dread the lion; in the flattery of one showing mercy, he did not keep silent that he had feared the dragon. For it is the very lion and dragon of which it was said: You shall trample on the lion and the dragon (Ps 91:13 (90:13)).

15. Let no one, then, say, dearly beloved brethren, let no one say—for everyone who says it deceives himself—that the Church now suffers no persecution, because the emperors are catholic, because, to render account to God for their rule, they command all things for the Church and are vigilant for its increase; let no one thereafter say that the Church suffers no persecution: it does not suffer the lion, but the dragon does not sleep. Hear that lion, in the open passion of the saints, brought to mind by Peter as he exhorts the martyrs to the triumph of victory: Your adversary the devil, he says, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet 5:8). For then there were dreadful threats and great cruelty of the gentiles against the saints of God, then the onslaught of hostile commands and the great roaring of the powers: the lion was roaring, but neither did the dragon cease. You have heard Peter exhorting against the lion; hear Paul too making us wary against the dragon: I betrothed you, he says, to one husband. For many wished to become the husbands of one wife. But consider, brethren, consider what many husbands do to one wife. They make her what must be thought of so as to be detested, not spoken of so as to be abhorred. There were, then, many husbands wishing to belong to one wife. But that friend of the bridegroom, zealous for the bridegroom and not for himself: I betrothed you, he says, to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear that, as the serpent seduced Eve, so also your minds may be corrupted from the chastity that is toward God in Christ (2 Cor 11:2-3). He feared that she would be corrupted not by the cruelty of the lion but by the flattery of the dragon. Peter admonished you to take no account of the lion for God's sake; Paul admonishes you to be vigilant against the dragon for God's sake, and in God to trample on the lion and the dragon.

16. For do you wish to know what kind of dragon this is, how his snares are to be avoided, how great is the cunning of the enemy? See, now for nearly six thousand years, practiced in the temptations of the saints, against the one and true God he has made many false gods. But one Son of God came, foretold by his heralds sent before him; the Son of God came, undid the works of the devil as it were the binding of that colt, taught by word, confirmed by example; he showed that the one true God is to be worshiped, that he himself is to be adored, and not the angels in his stead, since even the angels, because they love God, because love reigns especially in them, wish God to be loved together with themselves, not themselves in place of God. When, therefore, this Christian teaching had taught these things, it taught this: that the saints must die, if need be, for this teaching. For what teaching? The one that has love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned (1 Tim 1:5). For this teaching he taught the saints of God to die, and commended them to the Church to be venerated. How venerated? Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints (Ps 116:15 (115:15)). Hence precious the death of Peter, hence precious the death of Paul, hence precious the death of Vincent, hence precious the death of Cyprian. Whence precious? From pure love and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. But that serpent saw this, that ancient serpent saw the martyrs being honored, the temples deserted: cunning and venomous in his vigilance against us, because he could not make false gods for Christians, he made false martyrs. But O you, catholic offspring, compare with us a little these false martyrs to the true martyrs, and by pious faith distinguish what the devil tries to confound by his venomous deceit.

17. That enemy wishes to obscure for us the distinction between true martyrs and false; he wishes to extinguish the eye of the heart, lest we discern these things; he wished to oppose them with a like appearance, but against the devil let us attend to the apostle, who says of certain people: Holding the appearance of godliness but denying its power (2 Tim 3:5). What is the power of godliness? Love. It is that mother of obedience. Therefore attend to the appearance by which the devil tries to join false martyrs to true martyrs. See, he says, these too suffer persecution. Still, O enemy, still you confound. They suffer persecution, you say. Set before me also robbers, murderers, parricides, adulterers, poisoners: do not all these too suffer persecution? Did my Lord—whom I will to be mine, and yours, like it or not, since he is mine even though I had not willed it, but my Lord for my good because I will it, for my ill if I had not willed it—did he not foresee you, O ancient enemy, and in foreseeing admonish, when, exhorting his disciples to the glory of suffering, he said: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake (Matt 5:10)? Against all your poisons, against your two-tongued or three-tongued or many-tongued attempts, one word kept watch: for righteousness' sake. On account of this word, murderers suffer persecution and are not martyrs, adulterers suffer and are not martyrs. Now show your martyrs: you boast that they suffer; I ask why they suffer. You praise the penalty; I examine the cause. The cause, I say, I examine; the cause I ask. Tell me why he suffers whom you parade as suffering. For righteousness? Teach this: for that is the cause of the martyrs. For it is not the penalty that crowns martyrs, but the cause.

18. O enemy and cunning seducer, against your false martyrs the true martyrs cried out in the psalm: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from a nation that is not holy (Ps 43:1 (42:1)). Judge me, he says, and distinguish my cause. See, dearly beloved, how much he passed over: he wished his cause to be distinguished. For it is the cause that is distinguished. The true martyr did not say: Distinguish my fasts—for they too fast; he did not say: Distinguish my works that they do for the poor—for they too do them; he did not say: Distinguish my baptism—they have the same; he did not say: Distinguish my creed—they too confess it; in all things he found himself like them, and prayed only that his cause be distinguished. Distinguish my cause. I fast, and he fasts. But why I, why he? I for Christ. But I too, he says, for Christ. Is it so for Christ? If for Christ, I believe, then surely also for the words of Christ; if against the words of Christ, then assuredly against Christ. And what are the things of Christ, he says, against which I suffer? Do you so rage in a false passion that your heart has fallen away from truthful preaching? Look upon the Lord himself, our common Lord, whom you confess with me, even when you do not believe.

19. See whether Christ did not wish to show both himself and his Church, so that those invited to the wedding and clothed in the wedding garment might err in neither—neither in the bridegroom nor in the bride. How did the bridegroom show himself? It behooved Christ to suffer and to rise on the third day (See Luke 24:46). I recognize the bridegroom: this the prophets too said, this said those servants who were sent before to invite to the wedding. It behooved Christ to suffer and to rise on the third day. Such he showed himself to them; he demonstrated to those who doubted that this had been fulfilled in him according to the prophets. What of the bride? Did he by any means keep silent? At once he showed her too. For he saw that he was now consequently desired. It behooved Christ, he says, to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. See, I see the bridegroom, see, I recognize him. What of the bride? And that repentance and forgiveness be preached in his name among all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). This Church, expressed by the mouth of Christ, foretold by the proclamation of the prophets, acknowledge, if you are a martyr; hold to this one; in this and for this pour out your blood, render what was advanced to you. Hear the apostle John: Therefore, he says, Christ laid down his life for us, because we too ought to lay down our life for the brethren (1 John 3:16). Wake up: for the brethren, not against the brethren. What does it profit that you confess the bridegroom, that you honor the head of the household, and his wife you—I will not say neglect, but—assail with false charges? You, a man, having a wife whom you did not redeem with your blood, yet love her so that, if someone were to be obsequious to you, kept watch at your house daily, fell at your feet, attended you with every proclamation, never and nowhere kept silent your praises, but said one charge against your wife, he would pour away all the service he had rendered.

20. Therefore let the confessions of true and false martyrs be brought forth and compared; let us set before our eyes what we beheld yesterday. For we saw a most delightful spectacle: a martyr contending against the impious one who compelled him, a true faith yielding under no penalty, Vincent conquering everywhere. We saw, we were present. That reading spoke with our heart: we were delighted. That serpent, envious of the martyrs, that snake whom Vincent guarded against when he flattered, because he could not blame that passion, stirred up sedition among us. Let those acknowledge it and grieve who lent him their tongues for his ministry. For what did those cries mean—Give the dismissal, the dismissal, give the dismissal—but that that martyr should not be praised a little longer? Let them be compared, then; let the confessions of true and false martyrs be compared. You call yourself a martyr because you resist the power. But what does the power command? See, I hear what was commanded to the true martyrs; let me hear also what is commanded to you. I see how gloriously they refused, because I see what they refused; you, show what you refuse: let me compare your voices, let me see what I ought to imitate, what to follow. Offer incense to the gods. I will not. We have heard the glorious voice of a true martyr; let us hear also from that side: Make peace with your brother. O abominable voice, worthy of damnation not only by the most high God but even by human powers! Make peace with your brother. I will not. Surely you suffer against Christ.

21. Open the Gospel, read: If you offer your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there and go first to be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matt 5:23-24). If, he says, you remember that your brother has something against you. What is has something against you? You offended him, you did something unjustly against him. Go to be reconciled to your brother: I accept the gift from those at peace. Why do you offer a gift at the altar of God, when in your heart is the seat of the devil? Who sowed discord there? Who planted it? Who, in short, dwells there? Is it not he who is always the sower of discords, the author of dissensions, the source of quarrels? If Christ said this of two men, instilled such great care, such great fear, demands concord so urgently, as if to say: You offer one thing, I require another. I take even what you have offered, if you bring what I have required—if this in two men, how much more in two peoples? If to have such a cause against one man is dangerous and ruinous, how much more against the whole world, how much more against that whole bride of Christ, spread among all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47)?

22. But perhaps you have a cause against me? For the Lord says this: If you remember that your brother has something against you. So you will say to me: Your brother, he says, has something against you; I have something against you, for you have nothing against me. Let us inquire, then: if it be found in me, I correct it; if it be found in you, you correct it. Set out for me the cause you have against me, and I will quickly tell what I have against you. This I have against you, which my Lord has against you. You speak charges against his matron, and his matron is the whole world in his saints and faithful; against her you direct your charge. Did you investigate anything, did you judge? On what tribunal were you sitting, when the whole world stood before you to be heard? You do not know the cause of your neighbor: how, then, did you judge concerning the whole world? I read out the records, I show who were the betrayers, I read that they themselves who confessed their own crimes sat in judgment against the innocent Caecilian; the public archives proclaim that your forefathers were the first to bring the cause of Caecilian, bishop of this city, to the emperor Constantine: yet I do not charge you with the crime of your forefathers. All the acts are on my side, and I do not throw others' crimes at you. But you bring forward nothing by which to convict even my forefathers, and you accuse me, who was born so long afterward. If, then, he says, you do not charge me with the deeds of my forefathers, why do you charge me with your own deeds? What deeds of mine? Because you are not with me. And what evil befalls you because I am not with you? Did I not say that I have a cause against you, which my Lord has against you? Hear him speaking: He who is not with me is against me (Matt 12:30).

23. And so, dearly beloved, as much as we could, and perhaps beyond what we could, compelled by your zeal that we might remedy the sorrow of yesterday, we have perhaps been more talkative than the weakness of standing, whether ours or yours, required. But this above all I urge, and to this I rather bring the sermon to a close: that, since I have recalled the saying of the Lord, not to be heard carelessly—If you offer your gift at the altar, go first to be reconciled to your brother (See Matt 5:23-24)—our hearts be reconciled to one another. First and chiefly, do not think that either yesterday or ever at all your bishop is angry out of hatred, but out of love: what is owed to you for Christ's sake is never shaken out of his breast. Let yesterday's clouds clear; and let not only the love that never departed, but also the former joy be recalled, so that it be alike our care—as we have exhorted you in Christ—to serve the weak for their benefit, not for their harmful will. For, dearly beloved, just because one must serve the sick man, when perhaps he asks for food or refuses food, so that he is forced by you, with trouble and solicitude or even some importunity, to take it lest he die—because the sick man is served thus—it does not follow that it must be given to him even if he asks for poison. Do not, then, grow accustomed to the great evil of disobedience. Nor let anyone again say: What of it? Did we ask for poison, because we wished the pulpit moved from place to place? Disobedience is poison; it first killed man. Do we, brethren, fault this, that you asked? Truly we say to your love that, even if you had asked somewhat longer, yet by asking you could not displease us, as you displeased us by being angry and saying: Let there be the dismissal. This is what we want you to grieve over. When you ask, if it seems good, it is granted to you; if it does not seem good, turn yourselves from asking to compliance; but as for anger, abuse, provocation of those who serve you in Christ with such great solicitude—if you choose to break out into these, this is already poison, if indeed it is not death itself. Do not, brethren, we beg you, we beseech you; distinguish the church of God from the theaters. Here all those things that are done wickedly in the theaters are wont to be punished, to be healed, to be brought to confession and to penance, not to be brought in here. To rise up here, to bawl here, to lord it here—may God avert it both from your hearts and from our grief, and may we always rejoice in your obedience.

Sermon 293/A
Augm. (Dolbeau 3)

1. Since the Lord has willed on this day to restore to your love our voice and presence—and this he did, not according to our arrangement, but according to his own will—we give him thanks with you, and render you the service of a sermon, which is our ministry, in which it is both fitting and proper for us to serve you. But it is yours, dearly beloved, to receive the dispensing of God's servants, of whatever sort, with love, and to give thanks with us to him who has granted us to spend this day together with you.

2. Of whom, then, shall we speak today, but of him whose birthday it is today? John, then, holy, born of a barren woman, the forerunner of the Lord born of a virgin, was made the greeter of his Lord from the womb, his announcer after the womb. There was no barren woman to give birth, no virgin to give birth from: the barren woman bore the herald, the virgin bore the judge. But the Lord himself, Jesus Christ, about to come to men from the womb of the virgin, sent many heralds before him. All the prophets were sent before by him, but he himself spoke in them, he who came after them; yet he was before them. Since, then, the Lord sent many heralds before him, what did this one merit so greatly, what greater excellence did he have, whose birthday is commended to us today? For it is not without the sign of a certain greatness that his birthday is not hidden, just as the birthday of his Lord is not hidden. When the other prophets were born, we do not know; of John it was not permitted to be ignorant. This too is great in him, that the others foretold the Lord and desired to see him and did not see, and if they saw in spirit, they saw what was to come; but they were not here present to see him present. And the Lord himself says of them to his disciples that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it (Matt 13:17). Was it not he who sent them? But there was in all a desire, if it could be, to see Christ here in the flesh. But because they went before in dying, as they went before in being born, Christ did not find them here, yet Christ nonetheless redeemed them unto eternal life. And that you may know what kind of desire there was in all to see Christ here, remember that old man Simeon, to whom the Spirit of God announced, as no small good, that he would not depart from this world unless he had seen Christ. Christ was born: he recognized him as an infant in his mother's hands, received him, held in his hands the one by whose divinity he himself was carried; and holding in his hands the infant Word, he blessed God, saying: Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation (Luke 2:29-30). The other prophets, then, did not see him here: Simeon saw the infant; John recognized and greeted him when conceived, announced and saw him as a young man. This one, then, is more excellent than all the rest.

3. Hear also the Lord's testimony about him: he set himself before him, no one else. Very great was he, before whom none but Christ could be set. Accordingly the Lord himself says thus: Among those born of women none has arisen greater than John the Baptist. And to set himself before him: But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven, he says, is greater than he (Matt 11:11). He called himself both less and greater: less in being born, greater in being Lord. For the Lord was born after him, but in the flesh, but of a virgin; while before him in the beginning was the Word (John 1:1). A great thing: John before Christ. For all things were made through him, and without him was nothing made (John 1:3). Why, then, did John come? To show the way of humility, that the presumption of man might be diminished, the glory of God increased. John came, then, a great man commending the Great One; John came, the measure of man. What is the measure of man? No man could be more than John; whatever was more than John was now more than man. For if the measure of human greatness had been bounded in John, you would find no man greater, and yet you have found one greater: confess God, whom you could find greater than the perfect man. John was a man and Christ was a man, but John only a man, Christ God and man. As God, he made John; as man, he was born after John.

4. But yet, see how greatly that forerunner of his Lord, of God and man, humbles himself. He than whom none greater arose among those born of women is asked whether he himself were the Christ. So great was he that men could be mistaken. It was doubted of him whether he himself were the Christ; and it was so doubted that he was asked. Now if he were a son of pride, not a teacher of humility, he would not set himself against erring men, nor act so that they should think it, but would accept what they already thought. Was it perhaps too much for him to wish to persuade men that he himself was the Christ? If he tried to persuade and were not believed, he would have remained abject and cast down, despised among men and damned before God. But he had no need to persuade men; he already saw that they thought this: he might accept their error and increase his own honor. But far be this from a faithful friend of the bridegroom, that he should wish himself to be loved by the bride in his stead. He confessed that he was not what he was not, lest he lose what he was. For John was not the bridegroom. For, when he was asked, he said this: He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him, and rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice (John 3:29). I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but he who comes after me is greater than I (See Matt 3:11). How much greater? Whose sandal-strap I am not worthy to loose (See Mark 1:7). See how much less he would be, if he were worthy; how much he would humble himself, if he said this: He is greater than I, whose sandal-strap I am worthy to loose; for he would have said himself worthy to bend down to his feet. But now how high he commended him, when he said himself unworthy even of his feet, indeed even of his sandals! He came, then, to teach the proud humility, to announce the way of repentance.

5. The voice came before the word. How is the voice before the word? What is said of Christ? 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). But that the Word might come to us, the Word was made flesh, that it might dwell among us (John 1:14). Therefore, that Christ is the Word, we have heard; that John is the voice, let us hear. When it was said to him, Who are you?, he answered: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness (John 1:22-23). A little, then, dearly beloved, a little, as much as the Lord grants, let us treat of voice and word. Christ is the Word, the word that does not sound and pass; for what sounds and passes is a voice, not a word. The Word of God, then, through which all things were made, is our Lord Jesus Christ; the voice of one crying in the wilderness is John. Which is prior, the voice or the word? Let us see what a word is and what a voice is, and there we will see which is prior.

6. What do you think a word is, brethren? Let us set aside that Word of God; let us speak a little about our own words, if we can, from the lowest things, take up some steps of likeness to the highest. The Word of God, through which all things were made, who comprehends it? Who is worthy even to think it, let alone to utter it? A little, then, let us set aside its majesty, its ineffable eternity and co-eternity with the Father; let us believe what we do not see, that by believing we may merit to see. See, let us treat of this word, as of a thing that is daily turned over in our hearts or in our ears or in our mouths. What is a word? Do we now suppose that this is a word, what sounds to your ears? That is the word which you wish to say. You have conceived something in your heart to say: that very conception has already been made a word in your heart, but this word, that is, what you wish to say, the conception made in your heart, what you have taken up to utter, you already know, and it has been spoken within you. Let that Word that is the Son of God be present, that I may be able to bring forth to your ears, as is fitting, what he himself has deigned to give our heart to conceive. But if perhaps, unequal and too weak for the greatness of the matter, I fall short and do not speak as is fitting, you have one to whom you may turn from me: let that same Son of God, the Word of God, preside over your hearts and fill there, by speaking within you, what I, as a man, have not been able to fill in your ears. Yet aid my effort by your attention and by your prayer for me, that I may be able to speak, and for you, that you may merit to hear.

7. A word, then, is, as we said, what you have conceived in your heart in order to say it: the very thing you wish to say, conceived in the heart in order to be said, is called a word. When, therefore, you have conceived the thing you wish to say, and the thing itself, the very thought, has been made a word in your heart, you will attend to the one to whom you are speaking and to whom you wish to say it; and if you see a Greek, you look for a Greek word in which to call forth the word; if you see a Latin, you look for a Latin word in which to bring forth the word; if you see a Hebrew, a Hebrew word; if you see a Carthaginian, a Carthaginian word, if you know those languages. But if you do not know them, when you see standing before you one who alone knows the very language you do not know, you do not fail in the word, you fail in the voice. That word, then, which you had conceived in your heart went before all voices and was before all voices, before the Greek, before the Latin, before the Hebrew, before the Carthaginian, and whatever languages and whatever voices there are throughout the world, that conception went before them, and the offspring of the soul was carried by the soul in travail, and how it might be brought forth was sought, since what was already held in the heart could not be brought forth to another except through some voice. But that voice, unless it were distinct, whence could it be recognized? And the voice had to be distinguished by the diversity of languages, so that you speak Greek to a Greek, Hebrew to a Hebrew, Carthaginian to a Carthaginian. But that word which you had conceived before all voices was neither Latin nor Greek nor Carthaginian nor anything of the sort. See, then, the great mystery. Accordingly, if you were silent altogether, would the word therefore not live in your heart, and, even if there were no one to whom to speak, would what you had conceived in your heart not lie open within you? It would lie open without any difference of language, in simple knowledge.

8. For example, let us say something, that it may become plainer. God is a certain thing above all that he has made—if indeed he is to be called a thing; therefore God is something pre-eminent over all that he has made, from whom and in whom and through whom are all things. Is all this that I have said, which God is, two syllables, and is all that great power bounded by these two syllables? But God existed even before I conceived this in my heart. How was I able to say this very thing, "God"? But what is called in Latin "Deus," what is called in Greek "theos," what is called in Punic "ylim"—I have named three languages—what I conceived in my heart was none of those languages; but when I wished to bring forth what I had conceived in my heart concerning God, if I found a Carthaginian, I said "ilim"; if I found a Latin, I said "Deus"; if I found a Greek, I said "theos"; before I found any of them, that which was in my heart was neither Greek nor Punic nor Latin. That, then, which I conceived to be brought forth was the word; that which I employed to bring it forth was the voice.

9. We have discussed voice and word: the word before all languages, the voice in some language. Which, then, is prior, the word or the voice? With me the word is prior. For unless I conceived the word in my heart, I would not employ the voice by which to bring forth the word. The word, then, was conceived before the voice, and it employed the voice as a kind of vehicle, through which it might come to you, not in which it might exist in me. For I know what I am going to say, even if I do not say it. See, before I speak, I have not employed a voice, and the word is with me. But that I may make it known to you, I employ a voice, so that, when you have heard the voice, the word may be in you too. Therefore with me, that I may teach, the word goes before, and the voice follows. But with you, that you may learn, the voice goes before, and the word follows. Attend diligently and understand, with the Lord's help. For I know that I am speaking of hidden things, set in the secret place of mysteries, but I speak, such as I am, to faithful Christians whose faith anticipates what I am going to say. With me, then, the word went before, and to the preceding word a voice was joined. With you, my voice went before, and then you understood the word that was in my heart.

10. If, then, Christ is the Word, John the voice, the Word, Christ, went before with God; but to us the voice went before, that the Word might come to us. The Word, then, was with God, and John the voice was not yet. For before John was the voice, was the Word not with God? It was there; but that the Word might be spoken to us, John was taken up as a voice. And that the Word might come to us, the voice went before. Therefore Christ too was before John from eternity; and yet he ought not to be born first, but John, so that the voice might go before the Word to us. Blessed be the Lord our God, for I have spoken as I could, and you have understood what you could. May he increase and multiply your understanding, and may the Word that sent the voice before it shine clear to you.

11. But see, my brethren: the voice sounds and passes, the word remains. See what I am saying. See, I said "God"; first I conceived in my heart what I would say, then those two syllables sounded and passed. Does what I conceived in my heart pass away with them? Again, when I said "God," it was brought about in your heart that you thought of God; and in my heart it went before, that I might say it, and in your heart the thought of God was brought about, when you heard those two syllables. Those two syllables fulfilled their ministry and passed away; yet that which I had conceived in my heart did not pass away: it was in me, and after those two syllables were spoken it remained in me; and what was brought about of thought in your heart, when those two syllables touched your ear, remained in your heart even after they passed away. Therefore, brethren, the ministry of the man John was, like a voice, to pass away. Rightly he received baptism too, but the baptism of John was transitory and was called the baptism of John. There is the baptism of Christ and the baptism of John, but the baptism of John, like a voice, was transitory; the baptism of Christ remains and remains forever, just as the word remains.

12. And the more we advance in God, the more the voices are diminished and the word grows in us. But why do we have voices, except that we may understand something? If there were fullness of understanding in us, there would be no need of voices. If we could see our thoughts, would there be any need of a tongue, that we might speak with one another? There will be a time, then, when we shall see the Word, as it is seen by the angels, and there will be no need of your voices. For there will be no need of preaching the Gospel then, when we shall see the Word itself. All temporal things will pass away, because the voice is of the flesh, is of the hay; but the splendor of the flesh is as the flower of the hay: the hay has withered, the flower has fallen, but the word of the Lord remains forever (See Isa 40:6-8; 1 Pet 1:24-25). Because, then, the more we advance toward understanding, the less there will be need of the voices through which we are led to understanding, therefore John himself said: He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30). As the word increases, the voice is diminished. What is it, as the word increases? For the Word itself does not increase, but we increase in it, we advance in it, we are enlarged in it, so that we no longer have voices as necessary. This appeared also through the very nativities of the word and the voice. The Word was born on the eighth day before the Kalends of January, from which the day begins to increase; the voice was born before the Word of God, when the day begins to decrease. He must increase, but I must decrease. And their very passions showed this: John was diminished, struck in the head; Christ increased, raised up on the cross.

13. And so let us celebrate the birthday of the voice in honor of the Word, and let us not attend to or be deceived by the quibbles of empty men, who do not understand what they say. For because John had a baptism, and it is found in the Acts of the Apostles that those who had only John's baptism were baptized—for certain disciples were found having John's baptism, and were bidden by the apostle Paul to be baptized, because they had only a transitory baptism, because they had the baptism of the voice, not yet of the Word; for now you seek John's baptism and do not find it: for the voice sounded and passed away, but the baptism of Christ remains today—because, then, for the sake of that very mystery the apostle Paul bade those who had John's baptism to be baptized, from this the heretics wished to draw an argument for rebaptism, whose error we lament and at whose deliverance we rejoice. Let us, then, answer something to this briefly.

14. You think, then, that a man who has received the baptism of Christ ought to be rebaptized, because the apostle Paul bade men who had John's baptism to be baptized, and you argue thus: If after John the Baptist, of whom the Lord said, Among those born of women none has arisen greater than John the Baptist (Matt 11:11), if after him the apostles baptized, how much more ought one to be baptized after the heretics! I answer: You think an injury is done to John the Baptist, because there was baptizing after him, if there is no baptizing after the heretics. And I too lament that very injury, but I reply to you thus: If there was baptizing after John, ought there not to be baptizing after Optatus? Why do you say this to me? Who was John? Among those born of women none shall arise greater than John the Baptist. You have some presbyter, even a drunkard—I will not say "usurer," I will not say "adulterer"—but for now, what abounds and is done publicly, you have at least a drunkard for a presbyter. Very well. Why do you not rebaptize after him? If you baptize after John, who drank no wine, ought you not to baptize after a drunkard? Here surely he is confounded and has nothing to say. What then? Hear from me.

15. Paul too bids those to be baptized who had John's baptism and did not have Christ's. But why do you not baptize after a drunkard? Because he gave no baptism but Christ's. For it is the baptism of Christ: let a sober man give it, let a drunkard give it, it is Christ's; it is neither the sober man's nor the drunkard's. Peter gave this baptism: it is Christ's; Judas gave it: it is Christ's. For it is not Peter's baptism because Peter gave it. Why? Just as that was called John's baptism, it was not so called in those whom Peter baptized, in those whom Paul baptized, in those whom John the Evangelist baptized, in those whom Judas baptized; it was not called Peter's baptism, Paul's baptism, Judas's baptism; but in those whom Peter baptized, in those whom Paul, John, Judas baptized, it is the baptism of Christ. But those whom John's disciples baptized, it was John's, because John had received this dispensation and fore-ministry: the voice before the word. You, then, are unwilling to baptize after a drunkard; nor will I baptize after a heretic.

16. And if perhaps you think that a heretic does not enter the kingdom of heaven but a drunkard does, the apostle Paul made it clear, saying: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleanness, wantonness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkenness, carousings, and the like; which I tell you beforehand, as I have told you before, that those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21). There he put heresies where he put drunkards, and concluded: Those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God. Set before me a heretic and a drunkard: if he persists in heresy, he does not enter the kingdom of heaven; so too the drunkard, if he persists in drunkenness, does not enter the kingdom of heaven. Teach me. Whose baptism do they both give? Both are outside the kingdom of heaven, but they give the thing of the kingdom of heaven. The herald pronounces the sentence, but he does not free the innocent. The judge frees, who commissioned the herald to say what he says. Sometimes the herald is a scoundrel, and through him the innocent man is freed. The scoundrel herald says, "I have ordered him released," and through the scoundrel the innocent man is freed. Why? Because the voice of the herald is the sentence of the judge. But the drunkard baptizes: it is a ministry; the heretic baptized: it is a ministry. The gift of baptism is the gift of almighty God. Clearly, if he baptized in the name of Donatus, he must be baptized again. But if I recognize there the baptism of Christ, if I recognize the words of the Gospel, if I recognize the stamp and mark of my king, even though you were a deserter and could be convicted by the mark and put to death, come to the camp with the mark of the Lord: you can merit pardon; the mark cannot be changed in you.

Sermon 299/A
Augm. (Dolbeau 4)

1. The festival of the holy day that gathers us together today, well known to your ears and minds and deeds, we commemorate as sharers in the same rejoicing with you and joyful with you. The birthday of the apostles Peter and Paul has shone forth, a birthday not that entangled them in the world, but that freed them from the world. For by human weakness man is born to hardship; by Christian love the martyrs are born to a crown. And this day, on account of their merit, is set before us as a festival, both for the solemnity of celebrating and for the holiness of imitating, so that, recalling the martyrs' glory, we may love in them what those who killed them hated, and, loving their virtue, may honor their passion. In virtue the merit was won, in the passion the reward was repaid in the crowning. One day of two martyrs and two apostles: as far as we have received by the tradition of the Church, the two did not suffer on one day, and yet the two suffered on one day. Today Peter suffered first, today Paul suffered later: the merit matched the passion, love kept the day. This was wrought in them by him who was in them, who suffered in them, who suffered with them, who helped them as they contended, who crowned them as they conquered. But since we have said that a day of solemnity is set before us, not idly nor for celebrating a carnal joy, but for imitating a spiritual crown—for all wish to be crowned, but few to contend—let us, according to the order of the passions, not the order of the readings, hear from the Gospel the merit of Peter, and hear from the apostolic epistle the merit of Paul.

2. The Gospel was just now read, just now we heard: The Lord said to Peter: "Simon Peter, do you love me?" He answered: "I love you," and the Lord: "Feed my sheep." And again the Lord: "Simon Peter, do you love me?" And he: "I love you, Lord," and again the Lord: "Feed my sheep" (See John 21:15-17). He asks a third time nothing other than what he had asked twice. To ask a third time pertained to him; to answer a third time was now wearisome to Peter. For Peter was saddened, says the Gospel, because the Lord asked him a third time, and he said: "Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you." And the Lord: "Feed my sheep" (See John 21:17). He who asks what he knows wishes to teach something. What, then, did the Lord wish to teach Peter, asking a third time what he knew? What do we think, brethren, but that love might take away weakness, and that Peter might know that he must confess three times through love, who had denied three times through fear? Peter's merit, that he fed God's sheep, would never have been crowned with true martyrdom, if he had fed his own sheep. Not without cause did the Lord three times add my sheep, unless there were to be those who would wish to boast of martyrdom while feeding their own sheep. The apostolic soul, the catholic soul, simple, humble, subject to God, not seeking its own glory but his, that he who boasts may boast in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31), feeds for the shepherd and in the shepherd is a shepherd. Heretics feed their own sheep, but they impose the Lord's mark on their sheep not for the sake of truth but for the sake of defense. For there are many—as we know, for everything is full of examples—who, fearing to lose their possessions, affix the titles of certain powerful men, so that by this deed one may possess and another may terrify. Because, then, they do not see their own name glorified throughout the world, they have imposed the name of Christ on their sheep, and would that they were bought and not plundered! One bought them, the others stole them. He bought them who redeemed them from the devil, who gave his blood as the price: a worthy price indeed, by which the whole world might be bought. Perhaps more was given than we were worth, but the buyer was a lover. They possess the sheep, then—I will not now say their own, but those they wish to be their own—lost servants; by their thefts they have imposed the Lord's mark. But the true Lord does not rest; in his other servants he utters true voices to the sheep, that they may recognize the shepherd's voice and return. Let them return to the flock, let them return in safety: we receive the sheep, but we do not corrupt the mark.

3. Perhaps some of the brethren wondered that, since we have great zeal for gaining and recovering our brothers from the ruin of error, in the sermons we gave earlier we said nothing about the heretics; and it has been reported to us that those wretched and pitiable men too have said that silence was imposed on us by the terror of the Circumcellions. It is indeed true that they do not cease to try to terrify us from preaching the word of peace; but if the wolves terrify us, what shall we answer to him who says: Feed my sheep (John 21:17)? They bare their teeth to tear; we bare our tongue to heal. We speak plainly and do not keep silent, and we say the same things, often the same things: let them hear what they do not wish to hear, let them do what they ought to do. To the unwilling, indeed, we are importunate; but if for this reason we are loved among the willing, so that we are endangered among the unwilling, we will have in the name of Christ a confidence that perseveres to preach the word of God, aided by your prayers. For we believe that, when you hear of our dangers, how we dwell amid the fury of brigands, you pray for us: this our mutual love shows us. For we have not entered into your hearts, but he who is in you shows it to us, because he is in us too. This indeed I urge, that when you pray for us, you pray this: that God may guard above all our salvation, which according to him is eternal salvation. About this temporal salvation, let him do what he knows is expedient for us and for his Church. For we have heard from the same master, shepherd, prince, and head of shepherds: Let us not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (See Matt 10:28); we have heard also from the voice of the psalm a most healthful prayer: Do not hand me over, Lord, to the sinner from my desire (Ps 140:8 (139:9)). For each one is handed over to the sinner from his own desire to his harm; the martyrs were not handed over to sinners from their own desire, the apostles whose birthdays we celebrate today were handed over to sinners, but first the Lord of the martyrs and apostles was handed over to sinners: all these were handed over to sinners, but not from their own desire. Who, then, are those who are handed over to sinners from their own desire, but those who, for the sake of some worldly desire, consent to their persecutors? For instance—not to depart from this example in which we dwell—if, when they threaten and rage with cudgels, swords, and burnings, we keep silent out of desire for this life, we will have been handed over to sinners from our own desire, and we live dead, having the health of the flesh, losing the soul of love. But that we may live well, let us love both you, that you be not seduced, and them, that we may gain them. They threaten: let us reprove; they rage: let us pray; they drive us off: let us teach.

4. For we have heard also the merit of Paul, so that now I may speak also of his merits in the order I had promised; he was saying to his disciple, about to announce to him his own coming passion and to take fear from him by his own example: I testify before God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his manifestation and his kingdom. He bound him by this testimony and added: Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season (2 Tim 4:1-2). Hearing this, we too, according to our small measure, are in season for you, out of season for them. Yet the word of God, the preaching of peace, we do not cease to bring forth and repeat in the name of Christ, in season and out of season. He is in season who offers bread to the hungry; he is out of season who forces food on the sick: to the one food is offered, on the other it is pressed; to one the refreshment is welcome, to the other bitter, but love forsakes neither. Let us, then, take in their examples the merits of the apostles; but let us not only not fear the passions, but even, if it be necessary, undergo them. Hear what the same apostle says: For I am already being offered up, or poured out as a libation—some manuscripts have poured out, some offered up: to be poured out and to be offered up both pertain to sacrifice—: he knew his passion to be a sacrifice to God. Not those who were killing him, but he himself was offering such a sacrifice to the Father, the priest who had said: Do not fear those who kill the body (See Matt 10:28). The time, he says, of my dissolution is at hand (2 Tim 4:6). What, then, O Paul, do you hope for in that dissolution? O toiling one, for what rest? The time, he says, of my dissolution is at hand. What have you done? What do you hope for? I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith (2 Tim 4:7). Whence did he keep the faith, but because he was not terrified by his persecutors from preaching the word of God in season and out of season? How wicked, then, it is for us, when we are afraid, not to keep the faith, especially to him who teaches us both to love the better things and to fear the greater!

5. Whatever sweetness this life can have, it is not paradise, it is not heaven, it is not the kingdom of God, it is not the fellowship of the angels, it is not the company of those citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. Let the heart be borne upward, let the earth be trodden underfoot by the flesh. The Lord taught us to despise transitory things, to love eternal things; he taught us, he cared for us, and he cares, because he deigns to: for the physician came not to find the healthy but to the sick. The cup of the passion is bitter, but it heals all diseases thoroughly; the cup of the passion is bitter, but the physician drank it first, lest the sick man hesitate to drink. Let it be drunk, if he so wills: for his will toward us is better than ours; he is more prudent than we, knowing better than we ourselves what is good for us, and knowing better than we what is being done in us. As with a sick man and a physician, the one suffers and does not know what ails him, the other examines another's suffering and pronounces the truth. A man asks another what is being done in him, and desires from one outside testimony about his own inner parts. And if the art of a human physician can do this, how much more the power of the Lord! For from this very day of today I am admonished to set forth an example of this matter. Before the Lord's passion and as the Lord's passion was at hand, Peter himself, whose day we celebrate today, was sick and did not know what was being done in him: he did not at all know the inner parts of his own weakness. He had presumed that he would die with the Lord: he dared more than he could. The sick man presumed the coming passion, the physician pronounced the coming denial. What wonder, then, if in that weakness the physician's judgment was found truer than the sick man's? It came, as it were, to the access of a greater fever, and he could not follow the passion. Therefore let this cup be drunk, if he gives it who knows what he gives and to whom he gives it. But if he does not wish it to be drunk, let him heal in another way, provided only he heals. Let us, however, be subjected without fear to the physician's hands, wholly certain that he will apply nothing that is not good for us.

6. For the debt that Paul demanded, he claimed back as if by merit. And what merit? I have finished the course, I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith. These you have done: what do you hope for? For the rest there remains for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will render to me on that day (2 Tim 4:8). The righteous judge will render it. But that he might render it, the merciful Father brought it about. For what kind of Saul, who afterward was Paul, did Christ find him—was he not languishing and in peril, frenzied by a kind of madness against the Jews? Is he not that Saul who was present when Stephen was stoned, who guarded the garments of those stoning him, that he might stone in the hands of all? Is he not the one who, having received letters from the chief priests, was going wherever he could, to bind Christians and lead them to punishment? Did he not, while he went breathing threats and slaughter, as we read, get called, cast down by a heavenly voice, recalled by a word to the Word? That the Lord should so call him, then, what merits of his had gone before? I do not say what had gone before to be crowned, but what not to be damned. He made the persecutor of the Church a preacher of peace; he loosed all his sins; he set him in that place, so that through him the sins of others might be loosed. These were gifts of mercy, not debts of merits. Hear Paul himself, not at all ungrateful to the grace of God, hear him recalling and proclaiming these things: I who formerly, he says, was a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, but I obtained mercy (1 Tim 1:13). Did he say there, "it was rendered to me"? For if he said: I who formerly was a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, but it was rendered to me, what was to be rendered for those deeds, but damnation? But he says: I obtained mercy. Punishment was not rendered to me, that afterward a crown might be rendered. See, brethren, to whom punishment was owed, a crown is owed. I formerly was, he says, a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent. You see the merit: punishment was owed. Therefore punishment is not rendered; he obtains mercy in place of punishment. But having received mercy, not ungrateful, he fights the good fight, finishes the course, keeps the faith. He made the forgiver of sins his debtor. There remains for me, he says, a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will render to me on that day. He does not say "gives," but will render; if he will render, he owed it. I dare to say outright: if he will render, he owed it. And had he received a loan, that he should owe? He owes a crown, he renders a crown, made a debtor not from any loan of ours but from his own promise. For when he crowned his merits, he was crowning his own gifts.

7. Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, therefore God is a debtor, because he is a promiser. Accordingly, if someone promises us something, when we meet him that he may give it, we use this word: "Render what you promised me." We demand of a debtor when we say "Render," but yet we confess his benevolence when we say "Render what you promised," not "what you received." He promised, then, both to us all and to the whole world; he promised certain things, and those very things are great. Not to say many things, he promised Christ, the passion of Christ, the blood of Christ for us; he promised through his prophets, he promised through his books, he promised the Church spread throughout the world, he promised victories to the martyrs, he promised the Church the breaking of idols, he promised at the end judgment and eternal life. Not to recall many things—for it is difficult to enumerate all his promises—let us for now consider these things I have said. He promised Christ: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us (See Isa 7:14; Matt 1:23), and the rest that you know, which it is long to recall. He promised concerning his passion, his resurrection, his glorification: these have come to pass. He promised that there would be martyrs for his name, strong in their passions, victors in perseverance. The world rages, it was promised to rage, not that the seed might be trampled, but that the harvest might be sown; the blood of the martyrs was poured out everywhere; the harvest of the Church filled the world: these things have come to pass. The Church itself was promised in the Scriptures as about to reign, but in reality it was not yet shown. The apostles preached it, they sowed everywhere; not yet had come what was said: And all the kings of the earth shall adore him, all the kings shall serve him (Ps 72:11 (71:11)), not yet had it come, but it was held in a pledge. For God so willed that human weakness be made secure about his promise, that he not only said it but also wrote it. To the believing he spoke, for the doubting he made provision; and all was held in a kind of bond, in holy Scripture, not yet in the experience of fulfillment. The kings too believed; for it was in God's bond: All the kings of the earth shall adore him, all the nations shall serve him. Now that all the nations too may serve, the Church has been spread wide. You have this too in the bond: And in the idols of the nations there shall be a regard; you have in the bond: Lord God, my refuge, to you the nations shall come from the end of the earth and shall say: Truly our fathers worshiped lies, idols, which did not profit them (See Jer 16:19). Not idols indeed, but for the sake of idols demons and men raged, killed the martyrs, made them triumph over themselves: it is repaid to Babylon what she did.

8. For a certain impious city is described, spread through all lands as a kind of consensus of human impiety, and this is mystically named Babylon in the Scriptures. Again, a certain city is a pilgrim in this earth among all nations in the consensus of piety, and this is named Jerusalem. Now both cities are mingled; at the end they will be separated. And divine Scripture addresses both in many places, and in one place it says to Jerusalem: Repay her double for what she did, repay her (See Rev 18:6), that Jerusalem might repay Babylon double. What is this double? How do we understand the double being repaid to the city of Babylon? She, for her idols, killed Christians, but she could not kill Christ, our God. She ravaged the flesh of Christians, but she did not harm the spirit, she did not touch our God. The double is repaid to her, in her men and in her gods. For they killed men, but they could not kill our God. But now in Jerusalem men, their faithlessness slain, are received; the images are broken. They seek their own and do not find them: for out of pagans Christians are made. He who is not what he was has been slain. As Paul, who was first Saul, though the preacher lives, yet the persecutor has been slain. Formerly the Christians sought where to hide themselves while the pagans raged; now the pagans seek where to hide their gods. And when these are broken, their defenders still are unwilling to be silent, but yet they murmur in part, as though, if they ever dared, they could do anything but what he who possesses us promised, or as though, when they did it, they did it by their own power. See, Christians were seized, they confessed Christ, and they were killed. Let someone confess Mercury, swear by Mercury; when he sees one guard, even a cloaked one, "I did not do it, I was not present, I did not sacrifice; where did you see me?" But those holy servants of God: "Were you in the assembly of the Christians?" "I was." We read the confessions of the martyrs, we exult in the joy of the examples. These things came to pass, repaid by the Lord because promised. Formerly they were held in Scripture, now they are also displayed. And these things I have said about the idols have been displayed and are being displayed. And the Church, spread throughout the world, has now held almost all nations, and those it does not hold, it will hold; it grows daily, the Christian people is everywhere increased in the name of Christ.

9. Few among Christians live well, many among Christians live badly. But these few are few in comparison with their own chaff; in comparison, I say, with their own chaff they are few. This threshing floor will be winnowed, there will be a huge heap of chaff, but the shining mass of the saints will also appear. The chaff will go into the fire, the wheat into the barn, but for now both are everywhere. Whence is this? Through those who sowed, brethren, whose memory we celebrate today, through them God displayed to them what he promised them, and through them what he promised us. What did he promise them? For the rest there remains for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will render on that day. What did he promise us? In your seed all the nations shall be blessed (Gen 22:18). How was it done through these men? Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Ps 19:4 (18:5); Rom 10:18). What will the heretics recite against these things? I suppose that they too celebrate the birthday of the apostles today; they affect indeed to celebrate this day, but they do not dare to sing this psalm.

Sermon 114/B
(Dolbeau 5)

1. The Gospel reading, most beloved, which we have just heard—not, as is usually done, procured by us, but yet by the ordering of the Lord, who governs our acts—strongly accords with this psalm of which we have resolved to speak to your love. For the Lord was speaking of his last coming and the end of the world, and he had already recalled many terrible things that human affairs must suffer, the more the end draws near. Then, reproving those who wish to live secure, not in the region of security, he terrified them dreadfully; saying that the coming of the Son of man to that judgment—dreadful to all, but yet even to be desired by the pious faithful—would be such, saying, then, that his coming would be such as it was in the days of Noah, he gravely terrified every heart, if there is faith there: For just as, he says, in the days of Noah, they were eating and drinking, marrying, taking wives, buying, selling, while the ark was being built by Noah, and the flood came and destroyed them all (See Matt 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27). For they were spending their time in ruinous security, in all worldly joys, and in these they took delight, until Noah entered the ark, and the flood found them naked and destitute. Saying this, then, he has now terrified every soul, but we have time to wake up. It is not yet the day of judgment, it is not yet the flood; still the incorruptible timbers are being cut from the forest, still the ark is being built.

2. For if those men were foolish, and deservedly perished by their own madness and contempt, who did not say in their heart: "Not without cause does this servant of God, righteous, acceptable to God, and wise, with such effort, with such works, build so great an ark, except that he has learned that something hangs over the world. In a manner, the building of this ark is a herald crying out: Turn to God"—for if they had thought this and changed their life and, turning themselves from impiety to God, made satisfaction to him for their offenses, groaning to his mercy, they would not have perished. For God was not merciful in Nineveh and would prove cruel toward the whole human race, if it turned to him. In three days Nineveh shall be overthrown, said Jonah, on account of their excessive sins (See Jonah 3:4). What is so brief as three days? Yet they did not, in so narrow a span of time, despair of God's mercy: they believed that even three days' lamentation and tears sufficed to bend his clemency. If, then, so great a city had three days' space to bend the mercy of God, through the hundred years' span in which the ark was being built, if those men changed their ways and conduct, and offered, to appease God, the sacrifice of a contrite heart, would they not, without any doubt, escape that destruction unharmed by the mercy of him whom they had bent? The three days of the Ninevites, then, reprove the hundred years of the ark's building. But here is one greater than Noah: see how long a time it is, see, since he has been building this ark. I think, brethren, that if the years be reckoned from when Christ began, by cutting incorruptible timbers from the forest of the gentiles, to set up and build the frame of this ark—that is, the Church—more are found than a hundred, and than two hundred, and than three hundred. And see, so many years have passed, and still it is being built, still Noah cries out, still the very building cries out. Nothing will destroy men but unbelief. Let them change their ways; let them believe God who promises so much, threatens so much, deceives in nothing.

3. It is long to say many things on this, and on account of the shortness of time and our common frailty, we hasten to the treatment of this psalm. But I would that someone briefly tell me why he does not change his evil ways and make them good. What does he lose thereby? If he believes, let him do it, because it will be true; if he doubts, let him do it, lest it be true. To the believing it is sure, to the doubting it is doubtful. I enumerate so many things from the beginning of the world to this day, which have happened according to the Scriptures, so that we read absolutely nothing in the Scriptures of God that we do not now see fulfilled for the greater part. Very few remain: are these alone false? Will the few that remain be false? Brethren, what great thing is it? We desire the work of an ordinary heart. Count up so many past things that have happened, and believe the few that remain. Let the faithful man consider that it is most firmly true; or at least he ought to consider this, lest perchance it be true.

4. For example, you had a journey by a shortcut, and you had resolved to go by the better road. Someone—anyone at all—announced to you that that road was beset by robbers. This road, which has been announced to you as beset by robbers, is level, easy, pleasant, hospitable, delightful; but someone or other announced to you that it is infested by robbers and so beset that either it cannot be crossed or can be crossed only with the greatest difficulty and danger. There is another road: it has much toil, difficulty, harshness, narrowness; not only are delights not found there, but scarcely is fitting hospitality provided. Does your heart not at once say to you, wishing to gain a few days of this life and looking to a life that must someday end: "By this road we go better; though with toil and difficulty and want, though with the wearing down of ourselves or our beasts, yet by this we go better"? Why better? Because safer. But now, if someone wishing to lead you by that delightful road says to you: "And did you so quickly believe him who said this road was beset by robbers?"—if you know the man to be trustworthy, and perhaps so known to you that he has never deceived you, what will you answer? "It cannot be that that man deceives me; I know the man, I have found him a serious man, I hold many proofs of him: he has always told me the truth, he has never lied." But you knew the man to be such: let us set down another, who did not know him. Would not this one too say: "I do not indeed know the man and am ignorant how truthful he is: it may be that he tells the truth, it may be that he lies; yet on account of the very doubt, lest perchance what he says be true, why do I not rather endure a laborious loss than undertake the delightful road with danger?"

5. Come now, my brethren, we are Christians; we all wish to make a journey; even if we are unwilling, we make a journey: no one is permitted to remain here, all who come into this life are compelled by the turning of times to pass on. There is no place for sloth: walk, lest you be dragged. As we make our journey and stand, as it were, at a kind of fork in the road, a certain man meets us—not a man, but God for the sake of men a man; he said to us: "Do not go this way; this passage seems indeed easy and light and delightful, worn by many and broad, but the end of this road has destruction. Since you are neither permitted nor is it expedient for you to stand and dwell here, you must go, but go this way: you will walk through certain difficulties, but, the difficulty quickly ended, you will come to a great breadth of joys, and you will escape those snares that no one escapes who chooses to walk that other way." This he said—I think he is known to us, if there is faith in us. Or does it still please you to test his trustworthiness? Let us recall past times and the old Scriptures. Is not that man the Word of God? Was not the Word afterward made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14)? But before it became flesh and dwelt among us, did it not speak through the patriarchs and prophets? See what they announced to the human race.

6. God spoke, surely by his word, to Abraham, that his offspring would first be—when he himself, to whom it was said, by reason of old age now could not—that first there would be offspring from old Abraham and from Sarah, an aged and barren woman: it was believed, it came to pass; that this very offspring, that is, the people born of it according to the flesh, would be in servitude in Egypt, and for how many years: it came to pass; that it would also be freed from that captivity: it was freed; that it would receive the land of promise: it received it. Many things were said through the prophets; it was said to Abraham himself that he should look not only to that people, but in your seed, he says, all the nations shall be blessed (Gen 22:18). Near things were said, far-off future things were said: the near things came to pass; the things that were far in the future are now being done. The word of God spoke through the prophets that that nation would sin, that it would be handed over into the hands of its enemies, because it offended the Lord: all came to pass; that it would come into the captivity of Babylon: this too came to pass; that from there would come a king, Christ: Christ also came, Christ was born; because he himself foretold that he would come, Christ also came. It was said that the Jews would crucify him: they crucified him. It was foretold that he would rise and be glorified: it came to pass, he rose, he ascended into heaven. It was foretold that in his name all the earth would believe, it was foretold that kings would persecute his Church: these things came to pass. It was foretold that kings would believe in him: we now hold the faith of kings, and do we doubt the faith of Christ? The fragmentings of heresies too were foretold: do we not see these too, and groan amid them as they clamor on every side? It was foretold that the gentiles would oppress the Church for the sake of their idols: and it came to pass; it was foretold that those very idols would be destroyed through the Church and the name of Christ: and this too we see fulfilled. Scandals in the Church itself were foretold, the weeds were foretold, the chaff was foretold: all these things we both behold with our eyes and bear with whatever strength the Lord has imparted. In what did he deceive you who said to you: "Go this way"? Say securely, if you are faithful, taking such proofs of him who speaks to you—prove him by deeds, for he has deigned to be so proved. Say: "He tells me the truth in all things, I hold all his words true, in nothing has he lied. Such I have known him, he is the word of God. Through the mouths of his servants he spoke, and did not deceive: can what he says by his own mouth deceive?" But let him to whom he is not yet known, who still doubts about Christ, say even he: "I will go this way, lest perchance he tell the truth, whom the whole world has now believed"; and yet it will come to pass just as he foretold.

7. Brethren, many unbelievers will be found on the last day just as that multitude was found in the days of Noah. None escaped but those who were in the ark. Make yourselves, then, such: the builder's hands are present, Christ is building the ark. Fit yourselves to it, give yourselves into his hands, be squared, be joined together; let no one refuse the fingers of this craftsman. His grace knows how to fit you together; only do not you be, by perverse pride, rotten wood. So it will be; yet, my brethren, many laugh at these things.
I see that the shortness of time is withdrawing from me the exposition of the psalm. For I do not wish to leave the passage of the Gospel I have undertaken unfulfilled, as far as the Lord prompts. For now, then, if it please your love, let us defer the psalm. It is not put off for long: there is soon to be the show that they call a public spectacle. We too have a producer, to whom let us come together. If the people from that broad road, laughing and jeering at that faithful guide of the journey, run to watch a spectacle they are not going to receive—and whoever should receive it would deceive himself; yet to what they are not going to receive, they so run, so flock together—how much more eagerly ought we to come together, we who are going to receive what we watch! If you come together for my sake, nothing is poorer than I; but if for his from whom I too receive, nothing is richer than he, nothing richer than he who is poor for our sake. Let us all receive from him, let us all rejoice in him. And if perhaps he shows you through me what he deigns to give, love also the producer's servant, but for the producer's sake, because I too, brethren, love you in him and for his sake. For apart from him we all are nothing.

8. Therefore, briefly, what in the Gospel reading is perhaps obscure to someone I will not pass over in silence, with the Lord's help. Let men fear lest they be found so on that last day. Let us fear, my brethren. We now exult, we rejoice, we acclaim. I beg you: let that day find us ready. He who says it does not lie, he has never lied; if you still doubt, beware lest perchance it be true. But one of you says to me: "It is necessary, then, that it sink into the heart of the faithful"; for I am not, merely by speaking these things now, going to make all such as the Lord said: If anyone does not take up his cross and follow me (See Luke 14:27), nor am I going to make all such as the Lord said: If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me (See Matt 19:21). Brethren, is that road, then, so to be feared, where the guide says: Follow me? I know that I will not suddenly make all to whom I speak, or even very many, such. Now then, because it has been heard from the thunder of the Gospel—if indeed there are faithful hearts to be alarmed—because it was said: In the days of Noah it was thus: they were eating, drinking, marrying, taking wives, buying, selling, until Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all—many say to themselves: "We are bidden to await that day, and not to be found such as those were found who perished in that flood outside the ark. Surely the word of God frightens us, the Gospel trumpet frightens us. What do we do, if no wife is to be taken?"—some young man, some youth, says this—"is there to be no eating, no drinking, must we always fast?" Many say these things. And he who perhaps wished to buy something says to himself: "Is nothing now to be bought, lest I be found in the number of those who perished?"

9. What, then, do we do, if it is so? We must weep, as the apostles were saddened over the human race when they heard the Lord saying what perfection was: Sell all you have and come, follow me (See Matt 19:21), because he to whom it was said went away saddened. And when he called him good master, of whom he sought counsel for eternal life, he seemed a good master so long as he should say what he was asked. He said it, and saddened him. But as the man departed sad, the Lord followed up and said: How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven! (See Matt 19:23) Hard, but yet at least hard. But a further example was added by the Lord, and what he had called hard he pronounced impossible. It is easier, he says, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 19:24). As though he closed it against the rich. What will be done, what will be done? It is closed: Knock and it will be opened to you (Matt 7:7). "With what," he says, "shall we knock?" With what but the hands? "What is: with what but the hands?" With what but works? Let us see, brethren, whether the Lord gave the rich too a place for such works. Let us say this from the Scriptures, lest we be found not so much announcers as flatterers. First the same Lord in that very place: Sell all you have and come, follow me. For the disciples were saddened, because the Lord said this. And saddened surely not for themselves, for they had left all and were following the Lord. And being saddened, what did they say? Who then can be saved? (Matt 19:25) Now here I ask the apostles: O chief members of Christ, O pillars of his resurrection to be made firm, why so, why Who then can be saved?; has despair been formed about the rich? The rich are few, thousands of the poor will be able to be saved. What did the Lord say? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Did he say: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a man to enter the kingdom of heaven"? He said: a rich man. Let me say it quickly, brethren—we all indeed wish well, because this is commanded and this is hoped for, but yet I attend to the heap of chaff in the Scriptures that is to be consumed by fire, and I can say: Would that as few went into the fire as there are rich men! See, brethren, in this whole people that hears these things, how many are rich? I did not say this, that they themselves should go into the fire; but as many as are going to go, and those who are going to go, would that they could be as few as the rich are few in the human race! But as it is, both from the number of the rich many are going into the kingdom of heaven, and from the number of the poor many are going into the eternal fire. Until I make this clear in a few words, attend.

10. The Lord said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man into the kingdom of heaven. And the disciples, saddened, said: Who then can be saved?, since they attended to so many thousands of the poor and so few rich in the human race. But what? They attended prudently, not who was rich in means, but who burned with greed. Someone or other, with an abundance of all things, is called rich, and so appears. But this man holds all those things as nothing, despises them, and truly holds them as a possessor, is not held by them, as it is written: His hope is in the Lord his God (See Ps 39:7 (38:8)); not arrogant, not boastful, not overbearing in oppressing the poor, not greedy, not gaping after others' goods, not badly guarding and hoarding his own, but truly rich toward God and reckoning the riches themselves as nothing but the giver of riches: such a man is both rich and enters the kingdom of heaven. For to the saddened disciples the Lord said: What is hard for men is easy for God (See Matt 19:26). You were stirred by the difficulty, because I named a camel through the eye of a needle, and what is truly hard and impossible for men is most easy for God. If he wills, he passes even that most enormous beast called a camel through the eye of a needle. And of himself he deigned to do this, and therefore the rich man too can enter the kingdom of heaven, because for his sake the camel went through the eye of a needle. What is this? Let us see if it appears. For not without cause did John the Baptist, the herald of the Lord himself, have a garment of camel's hair, because, for the judge who was to come after him, before whom he went, he had, as it were, a cloak from him. I recognize clearly, the camel being named, a certain figure of my Lord; I recognize the great one, and yet of humble neck; I recognize the great one whom no one would load with sufferings unless he had set himself down upon the earth. I see also the eye of the needle, through which one so great entered. In the needle I understand the prick of compunction, in the pricking the passion, in the eye the narrow straits. Now then the camel has gone through the eye of the needle: let not the rich despair, who are to follow into the kingdom of heaven.

11. But what kind of rich? See, someone or other off to the side, clad in rags, exulted and smiled when it was said that the rich man does not enter the kingdom of heaven. "I," he says, "will enter. These rags will obtain this for me; those will not enter who do us injuries, who oppress us." Clearly such will not enter, but you too, see whether you will enter. What if you too are poor and greedy, what if you are pressed by want and burn with avarice? If, then, you are such, whoever you are who are poor, you did not refuse to be rich, but you were unable. Peace, he says, on earth to men of good will (Luke 2:14). God, then, does not look at your means, but at your will. Attend to what your heart is full of, not to what your chest is empty of. If, then, you are such, of evil life, of evil desire, withdraw from the number of God's poor; you will not be among those of whom it was said: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3). See, I find such a rich man—from comparison with whom you boasted and dared to aspire to the kingdom of heaven—I find him poor in spirit, that is, humble, pious, following the will of God and, if perhaps he loses something of that abundance of things, saying at once: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). O rich man who is meek, not resisting the will of God, truly rejoicing in that land of the living! For blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land as their inheritance (Matt 5:5). But you are perhaps insolent, you have nothing in your storeroom, and out of the fantasy of your greed you dream of utterly empty treasures. This man rather, this rich man will enter; against you the kingdom of heaven will be closed, because it is closed against the greedy, closed against the proud and covetous. "But that widow who put two small coins into the treasury was poor!" Just so: she poor, but Zacchaeus rich. Did the widow enter, and Zacchaeus get shut out? Rather, it is truly the kingdom of the free for this reason, that it is given equally to the poor and the rich. In that kingdom Zacchaeus will not be richer than that widow, even though here he gave more than she. For he gave half his goods to the poor, she gave two small coins. They had unequal means, but equal love.

12. The rich man, then, enters the kingdom of heaven. Hear what kind he is described as; how the way is made for him, how he is called to enter, hear, you who have the substance of the world, hear and do something before the flood, hear the apostle writing to Timothy: Charge the rich of this world (1 Tim 6:17). And as if he asked what the Lord charged—"Sell all you have, give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, and come with me, follow the Lord"—the Lord had already charged this: let him who holds the promiser hold Christ the one who charges. Let him who wishes do it; let him undertake what he has heard from the Lord. To certain others the apostle says—and through the apostle the Lord: Do you wish proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? (2 Cor 13:3) What, then? Charge, he says, the rich of this world, what is the head of the evil, what is feared in riches, not to be high-minded (1 Tim 6:17). Let us describe this briefly. The rich man easily says: "Bad servant"; he is, as it were, high-minded and, unless he says it, perhaps does not rule his house. For very often he rules more by a terrifying word than by a savage lash. He says this—perhaps the necessity of ruling the house compels him to say it: let him not say it within, let him not say it in his heart, let him not say it in the eyes and ears of God; let him not therefore think himself better because he is rich; let him consider the frailty of his flesh, his garments laid aside. What shall I say, brethren, what shall I say? Let him consider, if all those outward ornaments be taken away, what kind of thing a rich man can be, since he is flesh and blood, since he came likewise from that mass from Adam and Eve; but the rich man cannot consider this: with difficulty do you take from him all his ornaments. Nor is it to be wished that they be taken away; it was to be wished that they be cast away. With difficulty, then, is he persuaded what kind of thing he is, whom all these things surround. Let him consider himself in his mother's womb, once naked and destitute, like that poor man too; he came into being possessing nothing; what he received will so remain here as it was not brought hither. Considering these things, the rich man is inwardly poor in spirit, that is, he deflates pride, he lowers himself. And if he has a terrifying face toward those who must be ruled by him, yet within is a humble heart under the eyes of God, and he knows with what conscience he beats his breast. But see whether what follows appears in such men. For he did not say: Not to be high-minded, and stop; for every rich man would answer you: "God knows I am not high-minded; and if perhaps I shout, and if I say something harsh, God knows my conscience, that I say these things from the necessity of ruling, not that I exalt myself over others"—as though more powerful because richer. Within, God sees these works. Let us see what follows. Not to be high-minded, he says, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches (1 Tim 6:17). Here too he may yet say it; and whether he speaks the truth, God alone can see, whether he does not presume on what he has, whether he does not place his hope there; for it follows: But in the living God, who furnishes us all things to enjoy (1 Tim 6:17).

13. "And then what?" he says. Let them be rich in good works. This now comes out even to the eyes of men, there is no hiding it. Either it is done and appears, or it is not done and there is no way to lie. Let them be rich in good works, let them give readily, share (1 Tim 6:18). There humility appears. You have: let it be shared with him who has not. Let them share. And to what good is this? Let them treasure up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may obtain true life (1 Tim 6:19). If the rich be such, let them be secure: when the last day comes, they will be found in the ark, they will be in the building, they will not belong to the destruction of the flood; let them not be terrified that they are rich. And if a man is young and cannot contain himself, he is permitted to take a wife. Will the last day, then, find him among those of whom he said: They were taking wives? It will not so find him, if it finds him such as the apostle says. See how he joins together in the ark those who feared. For the apostle says: For the rest, brethren, the time is short. And what follows? It remains that those who have wives be as though not having them, and those who buy as though not buying, and those who weep as though not weeping, and those who rejoice as though not rejoicing, and those who use this world as though not using it: for the figure of this world is passing away. I wish you to be without anxiety (1 Cor 7:29-32). Brethren, if you wish to be secure, do not set your happiness in these things. And if some duty or the necessity of weakness compels you to use these things, do not trust in them, do not cling to them, count them among transitory and temporal things. For all these things slip away in a kind of river of things. You see that all those adversities that press upon human affairs cut down all these superfluous things.

14. Brethren, daily there is murmuring against God: "Bad times and hard times." Trifles get a beating—the very thing we were speaking of: bad times, hard times, troublesome times; and yet the public shows are put on. They are bad, they are hard: let them be corrected. You call the time hard? How much harder are you, who are not corrected by the hard time! So great still flourishes the madness of pomps, after such great superfluities men gape! Greed has no end, even when cut down. By what things, I ask, by what doings do they wish prosperity, what do they wish security for the doing of? Let some security be given: we shall see how many diseases come forth into the open, how great a luxury will overflow, greater than now. Security and quiet, for the sake of theaters and organs and pipes and pantomimes! You wish to use what you long for badly, and therefore you do not receive it. Hear, hear the apostolic voice, much freer than mine—for I know how many I offend; suppose me more timid: I do not dare to wound your weak spot—hear from the apostle what you do not wish: You covet, and do not have—these are the apostle's words—you kill and are jealous, and cannot obtain; you quarrel, you wage war, and do not have; you ask, and do not receive, because you ask badly, that you may spend it on your lusts (Jas 4:2-3). Surely he flattered no one; in many rotten places the iron reached the living flesh. Let us be healed, brethren, let us be corrected, let us be corrected: he is coming who came and was mocked and, because he came, is still mocked; he is coming, and there will be no leisure for laughing. My brethren, let us correct ourselves: see, better times will be, and see, they will be soon. What do you hope for here? Change your place, change your dwelling: "Lift up your heart." What do you hope for here? The human race arose, came to a kind of youth—these affairs flourished in the world—it sinks and declines into old age, it is now nearly decrepit. What do you hope for here? Seek something else. Do you seek rest? You seek a good thing: seek it in its own region. There is one place from which he came down to you, another to which he bids you ascend. Do not hope for times other than such as are read of in the Gospel; I do not say this kind or that kind: daily the books of the Lord are for sale, the reader reads; buy for yourself and read when you have leisure, indeed make sure you have leisure: for it is better to have leisure for this than for trifles. Read what kind of things are foretold up to the end of the world, and believe yourself, do not flatter yourself. The times are not bad because Christ came, but because they were hard and bad, he came who would console.

15. Attend, my brethren: it was necessary that the times be such, troublesome and hard. What would we do, if so great a consoler were not present? The human race was going to be gravely sick. As a physician taking on one great sick man, from Adam to the end—that is, that physician taking on the whole wounded human race—for from the time we were born here, from when we were sent out of paradise, there is surely sickness, but at the end it was going to be greater, and perhaps near to health for some, near to death for some. Since, then, the human race was sick, that great physician, taking on the sick man lying on a kind of great bed, the whole world, as a most skilled physician attends to the times of the sick man, both saw and foresaw what would come to pass, since indeed he himself, for the sake of his justice, procured this same sickness for the punishment of our sin. Therefore in the milder times of our sickness, that physician first sent his servants to examine us, he sent the prophets. They spoke, they preached; he cured some through them and healed them. They foretold a great access of fever in the final sickness, and a great tossing of this sick man, for which it was needful that the physician himself be presented and himself come. This, then, our physician said: "In the last time the sick man will be tossed more strongly and violently, to take up whose cure it is fitting that I come at that time; I will restore, I will console, I will exhort, I will promise, I will heal the believer." So it was done. He came, he became man, a sharer in our mortality, that we might be made sharers in his immortality. And still the sick man is tossed. And when he gasps in fever and is much in a heat, he says to himself: "Since this physician came, I suffer sharper fevers, I am tossed more grievously. O monstrous heats, whence did they come upon me? I think he did not enter the house with a good foot." So say all who are still sick with vanity. Why are they still sick with vanity? Because they are unwilling to take from him the draught of sobriety. You see those wretches tossed by their cares and by the various tribulations and terrors of the world, and saying: "Since Christ came, we suffer these times; since there have been Christians, the world fails in all things." O foolish sick man, not because the physician came has your sickness grown worse, but the physician came because your sickness was going to be worse: he foresaw it, he did not cause it; but he came to console you, and that you may be truly healthy.

16. For what is taken from you, what is removed, but the superfluous? For you were gaping after harmful things; the things you gaped after were not good for your fever. Is the physician harsh because he snatches harmful fruits from the hand of the sick man? What does he take from you, but the bad security you longed to swallow to the ruin of your bowels? And this very thing, that you groan and murmur, pertains to his medicine. Wishing to cure, he does not want you to be tortured unwillingly. It is necessary that the times be harsh. Why? Lest earthly happiness be loved. It is altogether necessary—it is medicinal—that this life be troubled, that the other life be loved. See, if, with such great sloth, men still cling to earthly things, still go mad in the theaters, what if all things smiled on vanity, what if your trifles were nowhere struck down? See, so many bitternesses are mingled in, and still the world is sweet. Come now, my most beloved brethren, I beseech you by the Lord, by his cross, by his blood, by his love, by his lowliness, by his loftiness I beseech and adjure you, do not hear these things in vain, do not think that we stand in this place truly as if for a spectacle. His mercy knows, under whose eyes we so tremble, that we are led by the duty of love to say these things to you, and compelled by that fear with which we know that we ourselves will render to the Lord an account of all things.

Sermon 23/B
(Dolbeau 6)

1. To what hope the Lord our God has called us, what we now bear, what we endure, and what we await, I do not doubt is known to your love. We bear mortality, we endure weakness, we await divinity. For God wishes not only to give us life but also to deify us. When would human weakness dare to hope this, unless divine truth promised it? But divine truth not only promised it, as we said, and that we are to be gods—it not only promised this—and because it promised it, it is surely true, for neither does so faithful a promiser deceive, nor is so omnipotent a giver hindered from fulfilling what he promised. Yet it was too little for our God to promise us divinity in himself, unless he also took on our weakness, as if saying: "Do you wish to know how much I love you, how certain you ought to be that I will give you my divine nature? I took on your mortal nature." Let it not seem to us incredible, brethren, that men become gods, that is, that those who were men become gods. More incredible is what has already been granted us, that he who was God became man. And that indeed we believe to have already been done; the other we await as to come. The Son of God became the Son of man, that he might make sons of men sons of God. Hold firmly to this, which I believe you remember we have already spoken of to your love: that he is mortal not from what is his own, nor are we immortal from what is our own—not from his own, not from his nature, not from the substance by which he himself is God; but in another way from his own, because from his creation, because from what he founded, from what he created: for the maker of man became man, that man might become a partaker of God. And now we have this in faith, and it is kept for us in hope; at a fixed time it will appear; they will rejoice who now, while it does not appear, have believed. But those who, while it does not appear, were unwilling to believe, will be confounded when it appears.

2. Let not the Christian mind, then, shudder and as it were be terrified—the mind that is told to mock the gods of the gentiles and to worship and know that the one God is to be worshiped—when it hears in the psalm, which we just now sang: For God stood in the synagogue of gods (Ps 82:1 (81:1)). What is a synagogue? Since it is a Greek word, I think many of you know and many do not. "Synagogue" in Latin is called an assembly; this, then, we sang: For God stood in the assembly of gods. To what end this? In the midst to distinguish the gods (See Ps 82:1 (81:1)). Our God, the true God, the one God, stood in the synagogue of gods, surely of many, gods not by nature but by adoption, by grace. There is much difference between God who exists, God always God, the true God, not only God but also a God who deifies—that is, so to speak, a deifying God, a God not made who makes gods—and the gods who are made, but not by a craftsman.

3. And because everyone who makes is surely better than what he makes, now see what gods the pagans adore, and what God you adore. You adore the God who makes you gods; but they adore gods whom, by making and adoring, they lose, so that they themselves may become gods; by making false ones they fall from the true. And to those they make they do not grant that they be gods, but that they be called what they are not. They themselves lose what they could be, and they do not give to those the being they cannot be. He who makes a false god offends the true one, and by making what he cannot, he himself does not become what he can. For he himself, if he wills, becomes a god—not such as the one he worships, but such as he who makes the one he worships. What, then, do men wish: to become gods, or to make gods? It seems more powerful to them if they make gods than if they become gods. But even if they could make them, would it be a god because it is so called? He on whom you impose the divine name will be called a god; but it will be either wood or stone or gold, or whatever else it is. Indeed you, O impious man, wish to make a god whom you do not make, but you can form an image and impose a name on it. It will not be what you call it, but it will be what he made whom you do not call upon. For God made wood, God made stone, gold, silver; you, out of that stone which God made, wish to make a god. You neither give it what you made, nor take from it what he made.

4. You, then, did not make what you made: for if I ask you what you made, you will answer "a god"; the very one you made answers better than you. For we can in a manner question even these things, which have neither soul nor sense, so that when questioned they do not perceive, but yet bear before them an appearance, by which appearance they declare, so to speak, to our senses what they are. You made a god, of wood for example. Surely if it is a god, it is not wood; if it is wood, it is not a god. And yet you answer that you made a god; but I, setting you the wooden one aside, question the wood itself. But lest you think me wooden too, because I question the wood—what if I were to question it?—see: the voice does not question the soul, but the eyes the form. My sight questions the appearance and matter of that wood. And lest perhaps mortal sight be deceived, my touch also questions it. And if you think this too little, even an axe can question your god, that my God made it wood. In all these questionings it answers me that it is wood, which you call a god, without its own voice, yet more trustworthy than your voice.

5. You say God lies, but you are refuted by the very thing you made. Nor, because you are refuted by it, will it be better than you; even if you lie and it does not lie, you call it a god and it declares itself wood, it will not be better than you. There is no occasion for you to wish to adore it as a better thing. You perceive, it does not perceive; you hear and it does not hear; you see and it does not see; you walk and it does not walk; you live, and I cannot say "it is dead," because it never lived. You are better than what you made; adore the better one who made you. It is an injury to you to be made like what you made. What kind of being do you seek to adore? You are angry at one who curses you, if he says to you: "May you be such," and yet you adore what you would detest to be, and by adoring you are in a certain manner made like it—not that you become wood and cease to be a man, but that you in a manner make your inner man such as you made the outer. For God made your mind as it were eyes, and you are unwilling to see the truth. God made your understanding as it were hearing, and you are unwilling to understand justice. But if our inner man had no sense of smell, there would be no reason for the apostle to say: We are the good fragrance of Christ in every place (2 Cor 2:14-15). If that inner man had no mouth, the Lord would not say: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice (Matt 5:6). The inner man, then, has all things—God gave them—but he is unwilling to use them, and wishes to become like the image he himself formed, of which the prophet says: They have eyes and do not see, they have ears and do not hear, they have nostrils and do not smell, they have a mouth and do not speak, they have hands and do not work, and the rest. And see how it concludes: Let all who make them become like them, and all who trust in them (Ps 115:5-8 (113:13-16)). How can men become like mute images? But according to this likeness which we are commending: if the inner man become in a manner without sense, he becomes in a certain way like the image and, the image of him by whom he was made being lost in himself, he wishes to take on the image of the one he made. For why did the Lord say: He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Matt 11:15), unless because there are some who have ears and do not hear?

6. Let not your heart, then, be terrified, because God stood in the synagogue of gods, and in the midst to distinguish the gods. For distinguishing in the midst, he says certain precepts; and those who despise these precepts are unwilling to be what he said we should be. And some will charge it to themselves: "Why does he distinguish, if all are gods?" For why does he distinguish, if all are gods? Except because there are those who hear, there are those who despise. For there are those who give thanks, there are those who are ungrateful to grace and are distinguished, but by him who knows how to distinguish. Let no one who is made wish to distinguish; let him distinguish who made; let the maker judge of his own works, who cannot err when he judges. But by giving his Spirit he makes men too to judge, not through themselves, not from themselves, not by their own nature, not by their own merit, but by his grace and his gift. We, he says, have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things given to us by God. But the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God: for it is folly to him, and he cannot know it, because it is spiritually discerned. But the spiritual man discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no one (1 Cor 2:12-15). But if we have the Spirit of God, let us distinguish not only ourselves, but also ourselves from images.

7. For truly, brethren, men who do not distinguish themselves from them are to be grieved over, not praised for distinguishing—unless perhaps a man is to be praised who knows that there is much difference between himself and a stone. But what kind of man would he be, if he thought himself to be what a stone is! And would that he might advance even this far! He makes himself better than a stone, to which, if he were like it or made himself like it—for he never will be: for however far he follows his own work, he will not kill in himself the work of God—if, then, he made himself like it, by thinking himself like it, I do not say: he would do himself an injury—for perhaps he makes little of his own injury, and rightly does such a man make little of his injury—this I say which should move him: he does God an injury. By comparing himself badly, he becomes sacrilegious against the one by whom he was made: for man was made to the image of God. If, then, you were, or rather would be called, sacrilegious by the public laws for doing injury to the image of the emperor, what will you be by doing injury to the image of God? Which is worse: to throw a stone at the image of a man, or to make a stone the image of God? Let us, then, leave those as if too dead, because, even though they can be roused, they cannot be roused by us. Yet we ought not therefore to despair of them, because we cannot rouse them: for God is able to raise up sons of Abraham from these stones (Matt 3:9).

8. But we ought to distinguish ourselves also from the divinities of those stones, woods, gold, and silver, because there are those who think they can be defended by a kind of reasoning, when they say: "We too know that the images are empty things, but we do not worship them." And when you ask: "What, then, do you worship?", they answer: "The divinities of the images. We adore indeed what we see, but we worship what we do not see." What are these divinities? Let us hear our God saying through the prophet: For all the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens (Ps 96:5 (95:5)), where it is not fitting for demons to dwell. In one way the prophet mocked the demons, in another way he mocked the images. The images, how? The images of the nations, silver and gold. He did not wish to say stone and wood, but what they hold for great, what they think precious, their choicest things he sets forth to be mocked: silver indeed and gold, but yet the works of men's hands (Ps 115:4 (113:12)). But what did man make there? That it should be gold? That it should be silver? This God made. What, then, did man make? That they have eyes and do not see. This, then, man made in the god he made, which he would not wish to be done in himself by the one who made him. He made a blind god, and he would not wish to be made blind by God. What, then? Because he named gold and silver, precious metals, and chose this for mockery which they hold for great, does it therefore make any difference as to what he mocked? Gold differs somewhat from wood—gold is more precious than wood—but as to having eyes and not seeing, they are equal. The usefulness or splendor is unequal, but yet the blindness is equal.

9. In one way, then, these images were mocked—without soul, without sense, without life; but in another way those things which they worship there for great, that is, the demons, when he says: All the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens. And the apostle in one way mocked the idol: We know, he says, that an idol is nothing (See 1 Cor 8:4); but in another way he charged that the demons must be guarded against, saying: What the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not wish you to become partners of demons (1 Cor 10:20). He did not say: "I do not wish you to become partners of idols." For you would perhaps fear to be what you could never be, to be a partner of a wooden idol, lest you be cast together into the fire; fear to be a partner of demons, lest you be cast together into the eternal fire. For attend, brethren, to what I say. To be a partner of an idol, even if you wished, you cannot; but a partner of demons, if you wish, you will be, if you do not wish, you will not be. For to all the partners of the devil and his angels it will be said at the end: Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41). I seem to myself, brethren, in a manner to distinguish the gods in the midst, but not I: the Word of God, whether it be expounded or sung or read, itself has the force and power of distinguishing.

10. But someone from the crowd will say to me: "Far be it that I should seek out demons, and not rather detest them. I utterly detest and flee and execrate them." That indeed is a good word, a good profession. But what if your head aches and you seek a soothsayer? What if you have a perilous lawsuit and desire a diviner? These are vessels of demons. Why do you seek the vessels of those you detest? If you speak the truth, I shall recognize it by your deed. Your profession seems certain, before there is a temptation. Recognize the one who speaks to you: for Satan will never speak to you through an image, but through an evil man whose heart he possesses: for he works, as the apostle says, in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2). When, then, you begin to hear: "Provide for yourself, take counsel for yourself; there is one whom you may consult: he will tell you all things truly; there is one who will commend your cause, who will commend your business: he will choose you a day for beginning the affair," then see the devil speaking out of the form of a man, whom he has already seduced into his fellowship. And if you do not wish to be a partner of demons, shun the partner of demons. For you will be a partner of Christ, not to equal majesty, but to one inheritance, as the apostle says: Heirs indeed of God, but coheirs of Christ (Rom 8:17).

11. But whence do men seek the fellowship of demons? By losing endurance: For woe to those who have lost endurance (Sir 2:16). Who does not know that you are in straits, pressed by affliction, tossed by weakness, wasted by decay, harried by the snares of the enemy? So be it. These things are true, they are troublesome, they trouble, they press, they grind. What of it? Were you called by Christ to delights? I think God would have spoken justly to you, if he said: "Suffer: for you are a man, made mortal by your own will, by my law." For our very first nature sinned, and from there we draw the fact that we are born. Let us bear our condition. The creator says: "I will recreate you; those whom I created mortal, I will recreate immortal. Bear your condition, that you may receive your possession." God speaking to man, I think, would speak these things justly: "Bear, endure; it is decay, it is corruption; bear the physician's cutting: let all the rot be penetrated, let all that was badly conceived burst forth." How much do men suffer under human physicians! They are bound, cut, burned, as long as it pleases him who promises an uncertain health, as long as it pleases him who did not make you, as long as a man pleases against a man, and he endures all things. It is too little that he endures the one cutting; he asks him to do it. Do you not, then, think that you are being purified, when you suffer tribulation? Do you not, then, believe him who said: For as gold and silver are tried in the fire, so acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation (See Sir 2:5)? Bear, then, what the physician applies to the sick man, what the goldsmith applies to the gold to be purified.

12. For this world is like the craftsman's furnace. In the goldsmith's furnace there is both chaff and gold and fire; so too in this world, there is both the unbeliever and the believer and temptation. The unbeliever is the chaff, the believer the gold, temptation the fire. These three are in a narrow place; yet this place is so narrow that all three have their own properties: the fire to burn, the chaff to be consumed, the gold to be purified. Do not wonder, then, that you see the world full of scandals, iniquities, corruptions, afflictions, men blaspheming, finding fault with the Christian times, because these things rush in grievously. Let not these blasphemies and this fault-finding be feared by you: the chaff burns; they say these things indeed with eloquent and as it were flaming words. Do not wonder at the chaff glittering when it burns: a little after it will be ash. It blazes, it crackles, it sends forth smoke. O gold, be silent and be purified. The chaff burns in its blasphemies; be you purified of your filth.

13. "But many evils there are, and many grow more frequent, since the times began to be Christian." This indeed is not easily to be conceded to the unlearned. Let them read the evils of former ages in their own writings; let them read of greater wars of their elders; let them read of the devastations of regions; let them read of the captivities of nations, as success alternated, now on this side, now on that, contending to snatch the kingdom to themselves. There were among the ancients too famines and plagues: let them read, if they have leisure for it; but if they have no leisure to read, why have they leisure to talk much? Yet we confess that certain things happen more frequently, that through the failure of resources and a worse state of affairs, the things that were built before with great pomp now fall and slip into ruins. The pagan wonders that what was made by the hand of men falls, and he himself, made by the hand of God, wishes to fall. Consider, my brethren—I will speak more freely from this place, where the Lord gives you confidence to preach his truth: for the person of no one is to be regarded—I do not say of any man, but of the age itself, especially because the psalm just now reproved thus: How long will you judge iniquity and accept the persons of sinners? (Ps 82:2 (81:2)), distinguishing between gods and gods; terrified, then, we terrify, and bidden we speak—consider, recall what extravagance of things built the theaters and amphitheaters. Were the times better, because trifles were more licentious, because the reins of baseness were looser, because to each it was easily permitted what badly pleased him? Surely those are the dens of baseness. Attend to what is done there, and see when the times are better: when those were being built, or when they fall?

14. We ask them that, if they are angry with us, they read their own authors. Let them see whether their own philosophers approved these basenesses for them, did not mock them, did not forbid them, did not accuse them. Let them choose any of the better among their own, and in them first recognize their own vices, before they come to the grace of our Christ. How much was said by those authors of theirs against the dissolute, how much said against the prodigal, how much said against those who pour out their goods to merit statues, and, that they may be of stone, wish to be in rags! Let them, then, read these things among their own: there is no need for them to wish to learn even their own literature from us, because we, if we love them, teach them unbecomingly, and perhaps more becomingly forget them. Yet, as far as we can remember, they found fault with many such things, which these men zealously do. And because the means, the wealth, the license, the prosperity for these trifles do not avail them, they accuse Christ, ungrateful to the master who came over them like boys playing badly, and by the severity of his vigor struck from the hands of the weeping boys, as it were, balls of clay and little cells of glass, with which even in playing they were vexing themselves, but who, if they were willing, would be healed. But let those things go as they go, let them go as it was foretold: so is the promise of God fulfilled.

15. Flee evils, lay hold of goods: the time of the winepress has come. As on freer branches the olive was shaken by various blasts, in the first times running riot in the license of trifles: in the hanging olive the oil and the dregs grew together. That these two may be separated from one another by a due division, pressure is needed. The psalm is inscribed For the winepresses (See Pss 8, 81, 84 titles (Vg)), and its text speaks nothing of the vat, nothing of the press, nothing of the baskets; whatever it speaks pertains to the human race. You hear the name of the winepress: attend to the winepress of what thing. The human race too must be brought from a kind of freer coalescing to certain tribulations, to certain pressures; it must be set to the threshing, weights must be laid upon it. Amid the threshings and pressures you see more abundant luxuries, you see more rapacious avarice, you see more unbridled lusts: the dregs run through the streets. You find fault with these things and say: "See, in Christian times even robberies grow greater, and harsher importunities are exercised against men." The dregs are black, foul, useless, running through the public square. O if you could have eyes, by which you might also see the oil flowing into the storage jars! You attend to the multitude of adulterers: why do you not attend to the multitude of holy virgins? You attend to men fornicating: why do you not attend also to those who, by equal consent with their wives, are continent? You attend to men receiving others' goods with great avarice, without any shame: why do you not attend to those who give away their own with great mercy, without any madness? So many badly rich men displease you: let so many well-poor men please you, because dire iniquity made those rich and pious will made these poor. Why your eye on the dregs alone, that you may accuse the pressures and be unwilling to be in the pressure? Be the oil that is separated inwardly from the dregs, not that is sent out from it. Say with a certain oil: I found tribulation and sorrow, and I called upon the name of the Lord (Ps 116:3-4 (114:3-4)); say with a certain oil: It is good for me that you humbled me, that I might learn your judgments (Ps 119:71 (118:71)). Whence is it that you see some blaspheming in the pressures, others giving thanks in the pressures, those black, those shining? whence this, but because what is sung for the winepresses is being fulfilled? Do not, then, find fault with him who comes to press, because he comes to distinguish; rather recognize the time of distinguishing, and you will not have a tongue of supplanting.

Sermon 142
Augm. (Dolbeau 7)

1. Concerning the burial of catechumens, the lord, father, and brother, since he deigns to, bids me make it known to your holiness. And in truth it is especially his care, but in that love of which we were speaking we share all things with you, that we may be sharers of Christ. Grief is wont to be somewhat—and pardonably—prone to ill will. For who would not forgive one who grieves and is troubled, if perhaps he speaks with ill will? Yet you all ought to know, dearly beloved, what many of you and almost all know, that according to the custom and discipline of the Church, the bodies of deceased catechumens ought not to be buried among the bodies of the faithful, where also the sacraments of the faithful are celebrated, nor can it be granted to anyone. Otherwise it will be nothing but a culpable respecting of persons. For why should it be granted to the richer and not granted to the poor, if there is there any solace for the dead? For the merits of the dead are regarded, not in the places of their bodies, but in the affections of their souls. My brethren, learn to think these things too, as the faithful do: for the sake of the sacraments, bodies cannot be placed where they ought not to be.

2. Yet we lament that the catechumen has departed hence, and we grieve over him who was in question. And from this we admonish you, brethren, that no one be certain that he will live tomorrow. Run to grace, change your ways: let this avail you for admonition. What was healthier than he, what more vigorous than his body? Suddenly he died. He was well, he is deceased, and would that he were deceased and not truly dead. For what shall I say, my brethren? Shall I flatter the man and say that catechumens too go where the faithful go? Do we so coax the griefs of men that we argue against the Gospel? We cannot, my brethren. One must run while alive, lest the dead be truly lamented and be truly dead. If men ran for the sacraments of the living as they run for the tombs of the dead, perhaps no one would reasonably be lamented: for even if he were lamented, he would be lamented with carnal affection. For he is not to be lamented who is allotted better things, the temptations of the world forsaken, and nowhere fearful, secure in Christ, not fearing the adversary devil, not shuddering at a slanderous man.

3. For perhaps that Lazarus was not buried, whose wounds the dogs licked: for God was silent about his burial. Nothing was said of him except that, when he had died, he was carried away into Abraham's bosom. It was not even said that he was buried. For he who, living and hungry, was despised, perhaps was also cast out unburied when dead. And yet he was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom. But the rich man also died, he says, and was buried (See Luke 16:22). What did even a marble tomb profit the soul among the dead, thirsting for a drop from the fingertip and not receiving it? I do not wish to say more, my brethren; it is enough to have terrified thus far, lest we increase the grief of certain of our brethren who have been struck by this misfortune. For I ought not even to have said these very things, except that we were compelled to exhort and admonish you all.

4. Consider human frailty, my brethren; run while you live, that you may live; run while you live, lest you truly die. The discipline of Christ is not to be feared. He cries out: My yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:30), in this very passage which we were treating a little before: Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:29-30), and you argue against it and say: "I do not wish to be faithful yet"? "I cannot." What is "I cannot," but that the yoke of Christ is harsh, and the burden heavy? Your flesh, then, suggests the truth to you, and Christ lies? He says: It is easy, and your vanity says: "It is harsh." He says: It is light, and your vanity says: "It is heavy." Believe Christ rather, because both his yoke is easy and his burden light. Do not be afraid, submit your neck without fear. The yoke will be the easier for your neck, the more faithful the neck itself is. And so, brethren, we have said these things and admonished your love for two reasons: that no one ask this and be saddened if he does not obtain it, and that each of you, O catechumens, while you live, beware lest, being dead, you perish, and lest neither your own nor mother Church herself find how you may be helped.

Sermon 29/B
(Dolbeau 8)

1. The divine word exhorts us and says: Give praise to the Lord, for he is good (Ps 118:1 (117:1)). Give praise, it says, to the Lord. And as if you sought the reason, it adds: For he is good. Let not the guilty man fear the severity of the judge: the security of the confession is the goodness of the hearer. You delay before a man who takes cognizance, if you confess; you delay before God who has foreknowledge, if you do not confess. A man, when he hears you, waits to learn from your confession what kind of case you have. But God judges even while you are thinking. Confess, then, that you may have God favorable. For you who deny cannot be hidden. God, when he admonishes you to confess, does not expect from you contempt of himself, but your humility. Now confession in the holy Scriptures is wont to be spoken and understood in two ways: one is of your punishment, the other of the praise of God. Of your punishment, I say, when you repent. For everyone who repents punishes himself, lest he be punished by the Lord. That confession, then, is spoken in two ways—that is, that there is not only a confession of sins, but also of the praise of God—let us first prove, and afterward we will discuss both these kinds of confession, as the Lord grants.

2. The confession of sins is customary and known, nor is there need to prove it, but only to admonish concerning it. We ought rather to seek how we can prove confession in praise of God. For so accustomed are men to call confession that which concerns their own sins, that almost always, when "Confess" is heard from the mouth of the reader, breasts are at once beaten, and a murmur resounds as conscience is admonished. This almost always; yet confession is not always said of sins; for sometimes it is also of praise, as Scripture says in a certain place: Give praise to the Lord, and you shall say this in confession: all the works of the Lord are exceedingly good (See Sir 39:14-16). When you hear: You shall say this in confession: all the works of the Lord are exceedingly good, it is manifest that this confession is of the praise of God, not of your iniquity. For you confess that all the works of the Lord are good, not your own evil deeds. You have another instance, whence likewise there can be no doubt. The Lord Jesus surely had no sin, and yet he says in the Gospel: I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Then follows the praise: Because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing before you (Matt 11:25-26). This is the confession of one praising God, not of one accusing himself. Since, then, he who confesses either accuses himself or praises God, attend a little to what usefulness each confession has.

3. He who accuses himself because he is evil is displeased with himself. Insofar as he is displeasing to himself as evil, he now begins to be good, because the evil man is not pleasing to him. This is the beginning of the joining of our heart with the law of God, that what he punishes you too may punish, what is displeasing to him may be displeasing to you also; you now begin with God to hate sin, and you begin with him to hate yourself, that he may begin to love you. For sin cannot be unpunished. You do not wish him to punish it: punish it yourself. For sin cannot be left unpunished. Either you punish it and he frees you, or you overlook it and he punishes it. For whence was the publican justified rather than that Pharisee, whence did he merit to be spared, but because he did not spare himself? He cast his eyes to the ground and had his heart above, he beat his breast and healed his conscience. What more? He went down justified, rather than that Pharisee. If you seek the reason, because he who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted (Luke 18:14).

4. About to come before the judge, be a judge to yourself. Anticipate the one who judges, and you will find one who frees. What is "anticipate"? Before he punishes, you punish. For surely you have read: Let us anticipate his face in confession (Ps 95:2 (94:2)). Two words seem contrary to each other: to acknowledge and to overlook. You wish him to overlook: you acknowledge. See what the one who accuses himself in repentance says in the psalm: Turn away your face. But from what? He does not say: "From me." For in another place he says: Do not turn your face from me (Ps 27:9 (26:9)). From what, then, he says? Turn your face from my sins (Ps 51:9 (50:11)). By what merit does he wish God to turn his face not from himself but from his sins, so that by not seeing them he may see him? By what merit? Attend, and imitate. For he says in the same psalm: For I acknowledge my iniquity. Therefore do you overlook it. And my sin, he says, is always before me (Ps 51:3 (50:5)). He touched those who put others' sins before them, their own behind them, others' before them which they reproach by biting, their own behind them which they defend by carrying.

5. Therefore the Lord, since those who put their sins behind them are unwilling to see them and pretend not to acknowledge them, threatens the sinner: You did these things, and I kept silent. What is I kept silent? I did not avenge, I did not punish, I did not send into hell. You did it and lived, and did it again, because you mocked the one who spared you. You suspected iniquity, that I would be like you (Ps 50:21 (49:21)), that is: you thought me like yourself, as though iniquity pleased me as it pleases you. You see, then, how much it profits you, if your iniquity displeases you. For from this you begin to be like God, lest, being perverse, you wish God to be like you. For see how perverse you are: God made you to his likeness, and you wish to bring God to your likeness. Therefore you did it, and I kept silent, that is: I did not avenge. You suspected iniquity, that I would be like you. All the evil, the wicked, the lost, the blasphemers and criminals say this: "Truly, if these things we do displeased God, we would not be alive." What is "if these things displeased God, we would not be alive"? Do you say this? Then these things please God. You suspected iniquity: these things do not please God, God will not be like you. Correct yourself rather, and you will be like God. But you are unwilling, you put yourself behind you; you do not do what is written: And my sin is before me, but you put yourself behind you. Hear what follows: I will reprove you and set you before your face (Ps 50:21 (49:21)). What you are unwilling to do, he says, I do: I set you before yourself, I punish you out of yourself. Therefore do it, lest he do it; set yourself before yourself and say securely: For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is always against me; let it not be before you, because it is before me; turn away your face, from which I do not turn away; overlook what I acknowledge. Therefore do not fear to die, confess lest you die.

6. See now the confession of praise: because in the confession of sin you were displeased with yourself, in the confession of praise God will please you. Let what you did in yourself displease you, let him who made you please you. For sin is your work, you are God's work. God hates your work in his own work. Turn, then, to him, confess to him, and by accusing yourself and praising him you will then be upright. For perverse men do the contrary: they praise themselves, they accuse God. See, and if you recognize it in yourself, amend it, because, even if you are not now what I am about to say, you once were. This is the way of perverse men. Blasphemers, when they do anything good, wish themselves to be praised; when they do anything evil, they wish to accuse God. "Ungrateful one," says the inflated and arrogant spirit, "ungrateful one, I bestowed this and that on you, and conferred these and those things on you." There it sounds, as if with puffed cheeks: "I, I!" On the other hand, if a sin is caught out, a theft, an adultery, or something of the kind, when you begin to be accused in the presence of the governor, you say: "My evil fate," or if you do not name fate: "If God did not wish it, would I have done it?" Whether you accuse God by a shortcut, or by going around through fate—since in fate you accuse the stars, but the stars are God's works—in whatever way you wish to find fault with God, to defend yourself. Correct it, and let what you were putting above be below; what you had put below, lift above. You sinned: accuse yourself. You did well: praise God.

7. In your sin say the word of the psalm: I said: Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you (Ps 41:4 (40:5)). Here say "I." Where you say I have sinned against you, there say "I." Why do you withdraw yourself from there, where God will find none but you? Attend and learn. I, he says, said: Lord, I have sinned against you. I said. Remember that I said, not fate, not fortune, not you, not, finally, the devil himself, because, unless I had willed it, I would not have consented. For both to accuse the devil and to excuse oneself is not good. For God commanded pardon to be given to those who confess. You have not done it: pardon is not given you, because you have done nothing. You ask pardon: confess your fault, lest you find punishment. But the devil himself wishes to be the object of your anger; when he is accused, he rejoices utterly, provided he takes confession from you. Therefore when you sin, say "I"; but when you do well, say what the apostle says: It is not I who live, but the grace of God with me (See 1 Cor 15:10). You will be corrected by confessing both your sins and the praise of God: your evil works, his good ones. And you confess to the Lord, because he is good; and when you confess, he has mercy not for a time, as in this transitory life, for his mercy is forever (Ps 118:1 (117:1)). Turned to the Lord, etc.

Sermon 28/A
(Dolbeau 9)

1. The apostle says: But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed, therefore I spoke," we too believe, therefore we also speak (2 Cor 4:13). He who wishes to speak about what he does not believe wishes to pour out what he has not filled. It must be filled, that you may pour out. But it must be so poured out to others that you do not remain empty. Therefore the Lord, promising the abundance of his Holy Spirit to believers: There will be in him, he says, a fountain of water springing up to eternal life (John 4:14). For it is proper to a fountain so to pour forth that it is not emptied. And if God grants this to us, what shall we render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to us? Therefore, full of the grace of God, he who was speaking in the psalm as we have heard, and considering in himself the gift of God, looking around for his recompense and not finding himself a fit one to respond, hesitated, asking, and said: What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? (Ps 116:12 (115:12)) For he did not give to me, but rendered to me, because I deserved evil for evil, and he rendered good for evil. What shall I, he says, render to the Lord, surely if I am to render anything to the Lord, when to him it is said in another psalm: I said to the Lord: You are my God, for you have no need of my goods (Ps 16:2 (15:2))? If, then, he is Lord because he has no need of my goods, what shall I render to the Lord? And yet he seemed to have found what to render. I will take, he says, the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord (Ps 116:13 (115:13)). This is to render, indeed this is to receive again.

2. But he had said above: I said in my alarm: every man is a liar (Ps 116:11 (115:11)). In which matter he seems to have given to men—but to those who understand little and do not carefully attend—not a confession but an occasion. Every man is a liar, Scripture said. Someone says: "I will lie securely, because every man is a liar. For I am not a man unless a liar." You have received security, hear also the warning: You will destroy all who speak a lie (Ps 5:6 (5:7)). Carefully, then, return and inquire, because even he who said this did not say "in security," but in alarm. I could therefore say to you: he said it in alarm, he said it trembling, he does not know what he said, he said it troubled; I could say this, were it not that the apostle Paul confirmed this sentence, saying: God alone is truthful, but every man a liar, as it is written (Rom 3:4). Therefore if God is truthful and alone truthful, but every man a liar, whence will a man be truthful, unless he comes to him who is not a liar? Finally to men it is said: You were once darkness (Eph 5:8). See, every man is a liar. But to God it is said: With you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light (Ps 36:9 (35:10)). And because God alone is truthful, since God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all (1 John 1:5), men are darkness, God is light; man a liar, God truthful. When will a man be truthful? Draw near to him and be enlightened (Ps 34:5 (33:6)). This, then, Scripture wished to show, that every man, absolutely every man, as far as the man himself is concerned, is a liar. For he is a liar only from what is his own, that is, from the body, which consists of earthly matter. For the soul is divine; and from it he is truthful, not a liar. Nor does he have anything of his own, except to be a liar, not because he cannot be truthful, but because he will not be truthful from what is his own. Therefore, that he may be truthful: I believed, therefore I spoke. Take away believing: Every man is a liar. For when he has withdrawn from the truth of God, he will remain in his own lie, since he who speaks a lie speaks from what is his own (John 8:44). Therefore if you have now been made truthful, learn from what you were made so, lest in that very thing you be a liar. For a truthful man, when you say "I am truthful from what is my own," in that very thing you will be a liar. If, then, you are truthful, you have been filled, you have been made a partaker of truth. You were empty, but you have been filled with truth from the heavenly fountain; therefore you will say: What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? In my alarm I said, and I said the truth: Every man is a liar. But he rendered to me not punishment for the lie, but good for evil, and by justifying the impious he made out of a liar a truthful man.

3. What, then, shall I render to the Lord? I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. I will take the cup of salvation: I will take the cup of Christ. For he is the salvation of God. For of him that Simeon said: Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation (Luke 2:29-30). You, then, if you ask: What shall I render to the Lord?, for all that he has rendered to you, take the cup of salvation. What cup? Of salvation. Whose salvation? Christ's. What cup of the salvation of Christ, but that of which he answered certain men seeking lofty things and despising humble ones: Can you drink the cup that I am to drink? (Matt 20:22) Take this cup, if you wish to render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to you. For just as Christ laid down his life for us, so we too ought to lay down our life for the brethren (1 John 3:16). This is to render to him, by taking the cup of salvation. But why do you fear, why do you tremble at such a cup? He himself will be the help, who went before as the example. For see what that inquirer renders, and as it were, in that very recompense, the finder of the cup, as if saying: "I have found what to render: I will take the cup of salvation"; and being fit, he dared to drink and say: And I will call upon the name of the Lord. Accordingly, when you seek to render what you received, you have not rendered, but received yet more in addition. You received once what you believed, again what, by drinking the cup of salvation, you drank. From him, then, all things have been given us; through him we have what we are, if we are anything good.

4. Whence also that reading which preceded the psalm seems to us to hint at something of this kind, if only we are able to grasp the will of the one who hints. For it says: If you sit down to dine at the table of a powerful man, consider sensibly what is set before you, and put forth your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things yourself (Prov 23:1-2). What is this? If you sit at the table of a powerful man, you are bidden sensibly to understand what is set before you; then next you are bidden to put forth your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things yourself. Who is more powerful than Christ? Sit down to dine at his table: approach his altar humbly, for sitting is a sign of humility. Sensibly, then, understand what is set before you. What you receive, the inviter himself is. You have sat down at the table of your shepherd: for you find the death of your inviter. Those who sit at this table know what I am saying. It is no light thing: he who called you sets himself before you. Sensibly, then, understand what is set before you, and put forth your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things yourself. What this is, I have already said a little before: For just as Christ laid down his life for us, so we too ought to lay down our life for the brethren. This is the table of that powerful one: to this supper you have come, if you have sat down humbly; rather, at this supper you have sat down, if you have come humbly. See what is prepared for you: Christ laid down his life for us. This you receive, see whither you put forth your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things yourself. Say, then, what follows: So we too ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Therefore you take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord: for you received a precious death, therefore you drank the cup. What follows? Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints (Ps 116:15 (115:15)). See how you eat such things, you prepare such things.

5. But what is it that follows in the same reading? Let us notice, let us see; if we can, let us examine it. But if you are too greedy, it says, do not covet his foods: for these have a deceitful life (Prov 23:3). I see: it is closed. And where is the knocking? Knock with me, that it may be opened to us. He is powerful, it is a powerful man's table; you sit at it, you are humbled before it, putting forth your hand, knowing what kind of things you must prepare: to suffer for the name of the Lord who suffered for you. But if you are too greedy, it says, do not covet his foods. What is If you are too greedy? If you are too greedy, do you wish to know what it is? If you give yourself more than you are. In so great a depth of this mystery, to me knocking as best I can, this for now occurs as what he deigns to grant; this for now he has opened. See, the powerful one's table, Christ's table, full of the grace of the Lord's passion. Sit at it: do not approach proudly. Put forth your hand: let not the tongue sound while the deed is silent. For this is to put forth the hand: let there be no voice except with solidity, no faith without works. Put forth your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things. From what will you put it forth, you who are poor? Is it from what is your own? Woe to you, if you think this! You will display nothing, you will have nothing. If, then, you are too greedy—you give yourself more than you are—do not covet his foods. For if you give yourself more than you are and covet his foods, see what follows: For these have a deceitful life.

6. These, it says, have a deceitful life. What have a deceitful life? That you are too greedy, give yourself more, assign yourself more than you know yourself to be, is a deceitful life, it is hypocrisy, boasting, not obedience. It is altogether a deceitful life. For he who thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceives himself (Gal 6:3). Will you render to so powerful a one from what is your own, will you, taking such things from so powerful a one, prepare such things from what is your own? O detestable greed, O deceitful life! Then, when it had said: For these have a deceitful life, if you give yourself more than you are, and in this are too greedy and do not understand grace, approaching the table of grace, see what it adds and how it admonishes you. For what were you saying? "I will render from my own, I will repay from my own, I will prepare from my own and will prepare such things as that rich man displayed." See what follows: Do not stretch yourself out against the rich man, since you are poor (Prov 23:4). A most healthful admonition, if there is one to hear it, if the poor man hears it, if he does not consider himself rich from what is his own, if he does not stretch himself out against the rich man. For by stretching himself out he is inflated more easily than he is filled. You say: "From my own, from my own"; against whom do you say it? For what do you have that you did not receive? (1 Cor 4:7) He is full, you are inflated. Do not stretch yourself out against the rich man, since you are poor. This is the deceitful life, you remain in what you said in alarm: Every man is a liar. Do not stretch yourself out against the rich man, since you are poor: do not against God, since you are a man; do not against the just one, since you are a sinner; do not against him who had no sin, you a man who do not live without sin. Do not stretch yourself out against the rich man, since you are poor; but restrain yourself by your own sense (Prov 23:4): measure yourself, do not go outside to mock me, but enter into yourself and see yourself.

7. For if you fix, it says, your eye on him, he will nowhere appear. For he has made himself wings like an eagle's, and goes into the house of his superior (Prov 23:5). Who is that powerful one, to whose table you were approaching, from whom you were taking, and such things, as if from your own, you were arranging to render? For you stretch yourself, poor man, against the rich one, and do not rather restrain yourself by your own sense, so that he may know you as one to be helped, lest he find you one to be condemned. But who is this powerful one, whom you seek as it were to feed from your own, and to feed in the way he himself fed you? Who is this, do you wish to know? If you fix your eye on him, he will nowhere appear. What is this? He terrified, when he said: he will nowhere appear. But when will he nowhere appear? If you fix your eye on him, that distorted eye of yours, by which you see badly, by which you do not rightly understand, that eye if you fix on him, he will nowhere appear. For he will be hidden, he will not show himself; you will not grasp him, you will not understand him; acknowledge yourself the lesser, that you may be able to understand him the greater. It can also be understood thus: If you fix your eye on him, the human eye, seeking him as if a man, he will nowhere appear, because he is not a man. He will nowhere appear: seek in the east, seek in the west, seek in the patriarchs, seek in the prophets, seek in the apostles, nowhere will he appear to you: for he is not only a man, but God-man. Accordingly, if you fix your eye on him, that is, the human eye, not the divine Spirit, he will nowhere appear: if you seek him as a man, you do not find him; if you seek as a man the one who fed you, you do not find him: he will nowhere appear.

8. For he has made himself wings like an eagle's. He did this: He made himself wings like an eagle's: he was taken up, he flew, since of him it had been said: His life shall be lifted up from the earth (See Acts 8:33; Isa 53:8). And he will go into the house of his superior. He returns to the Father, you remained among men. He who made you surpasses you. For he is despised by you, because he was made for your sake. If you wish to repay him anything, receive it from him. Poor men do this, when they are invited by their rich patrons and wish themselves also to invite them: they ask from those very men what they may be able to display to them. His Father begot one equal to himself, begot one coeternal with himself, begot one of one substance with himself; but for your sake he made him lesser, and became his superior, so that his Son, his only one, coeternal with him, equal to him, says of him: The Father is greater than I (John 14:28). What he begot, do you wish to know? Ask and hear: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). What he was made for your sake, if you wish to know, ask and hear: For the Father is greater than I. Acknowledge his justice, love his obedience, beware of pride, praise his power, marvel at his patience, obtain his grace.

Sermon 162/C
(Dolbeau 10)

1. We know, brethren, and with sure love we are confident that you rejoice with us when you see justice in us. For it follows that, when God's holy ones see just priests, they rejoice in their shepherds and in turn gladden them by their own conduct. This too we have just now sung to the Lord our God, with one voice and one heart: Let your priests be clothed with justice, and your holy ones shall exult with exultation (Ps 132:9 (131:9)); seeing them clothed with justice, they will rejoice with true joy and with wholly entire love, with no flattery. Therefore, that you may exult with exultation, holy ones of God, we must be clothed with justice and offer you an example for every good work. But you who wish to rejoice over us, pray for us. For justice must be put on, as we have sung. And who gives this garment, but he who, after the error and ruin of the younger son, brought forth the first robe (See Luke 15:22)? For by the very fact that justice is commended as a garment, this is signified, that we do not have it from ourselves . . .

2. (the leaf being torn, the text is missing, of which a small fragment was preserved by Bede) A bishop, therefore, must be irreproachable (1 Tim 3:2). Who denies this? But since a bishop must be irreproachable, is it fitting that a Christian be reproachable? "Bishop" is a Greek word, but in Latin it can be said "overseer" or "visitor." We are bishops, but with you we are Christians. We are properly called from the visitation, all in common from the anointing. If the anointing is common, the struggle too is common. But why do we visit, if there is no good that we may see in you?

3. . . . be found. If we wished this, if we dared this by a headlong fall and rashness, surely we would be terrified by today's reading. For we all heard, when the letter of the apostle Paul to the Galatians was read: When Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was reproachable (Gal 2:11). Peter was reproachable, and shall I dare to profess myself altogether without any reproach? Shall I, a weak sheep, not dread this whirlpool, when I see the ram that dried the fleeces? He himself rose bravely from this whirlpool; if I fall in, who will find me? I will avoid, then, the swelling of this wave, I will not throw myself in, I will not hurl myself down, even if I were altogether conscious that nothing could be found in me by men for which I might be reproached. The eyes of God are one thing, the eyes of him are another, to whom it was truly said: No living man will be justified in your sight (Ps 143:2 (142:2)). And yet Peter, as we heard just now when it was read, had been reproached even by men. Whence the Christian mind ought to be wholly a stranger to this rashness, lest it dare to profess a life of such a kind in which not even men find what they could reproach. Let even a man reproach, if there is something to reproach; let him by all means reproach; if I take it badly, let him reproach twice. For Peter brought it about that he was reproached once, when the one who reproached him was borne with an even mind; he did not offer an example, as Christ did, of every kind of perfection, but he offered an example of all humility. He received the reprover with an even mind, the one who in the apostolate did not precede but followed. Let the apostle Paul grant pardon: what he did is easy; what Peter did is hard. We live in human affairs, we are surrounded by daily experiences: I have often seen a man reproaching; I do not know whether I have ever seen one bearing his reprover with an even mind. Paul, then, acted more sincerely, but Peter more wonderfully. But I do not know whether it is even more sincere to recognize another's fault than to acknowledge one's own willingly.

4. But it troubles some that Peter is said to have been reproached, it troubles them and they dispute; but they are not to be despised, if it is not their own presumption that troubles them, but love for Peter. They are unwilling to believe that he was truly reproached; they think this was pretended, shadowed forth to the eyes of men. "Within," they say, "one thing was being done, another was being shown to the people." O man, you fear the fault of one: do you not wish me to fear the deceit of both? Out of love for Peter you do not believe he was reproached. You, out of love for Peter, do not believe he was reproached; I, out of love for Paul and Peter, believe he was reproached. I am unwilling to believe of the apostles that they did one thing within and held out another to the people. We are bishops, we follow their footsteps according to our strength: I do not wish it to be permitted us to deceive you. If one thing is done within and another is held out to the people, what holiness is not feared? We neither wish to deceive you nor to be deceived by you. For if you think that we deceive you and we think that you deceive us, where is the love that believes all things? Love, it says, believes all things (1 Cor 13:7). That it may possess them, it believes, not that it may be deceived.

5. "But answer: What did Paul reproach in Peter?" What but what he himself said, he himself wrote? He himself put the letter on record for memory, he himself propagated it to posterity to be read in the Church. What in the divine books do I believe more securely, if I do not believe what is written in that letter? It is an apostolic letter, a canonical letter, a letter of Paul, who labored more than all of them, yet not he, but the grace of God with him. Therefore it is a letter of the grace of God. And if we recall who was speaking in him, it is a letter of Christ. Do you wish, he says, to receive proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? (2 Cor 13:3) Hear and fear. He says proof, not fiction. But if you think this too little, hear the very preacher, indeed the one who calls God to witness. What he was setting forth he began to narrate thus, as if foreseeing that there would be certain disputers: But the things I write to you, behold, before God, that I do not lie (Gal 1:20). Does he, then, calling God to witness thus, lie, when even without God's witness the mouth that lies, he says, kills not the body but the soul (Wis 1:11)? I beg you: do not so love Peter as to kill Paul; I beg you: let not Paul be killed in his soul for Peter's sake—they were slain together in the flesh for Christ. And again you ask and say to me: "What did Paul reproach in Peter?" Again I answer you: This Paul reproached in Peter, which he said and wrote. Under God's witness Paul narrated that he had reproached Peter: what do you ask of me? The letter is read by all: recall it with me. When Peter, he says, had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was reproachable. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the gentiles. But when they had come, he withdrew, fearing those who were of the circumcision, and the rest of the Jews also pretended along with him, so that even Barnabas was led into their pretense (Gal 2:11-13). See, you have heard what Paul reproached in Peter. Let us expound it, and this I will do with the Lord's help, that you may understand. For I will do it not for your sake, but for the sake of those who hear both me and you.

6. The sacraments of the Jews—namely circumcision, the keeping of the Sabbath, the avoidance of certain foods, and the rest of this kind—were given by God, written in the law, commanded by God as a figure of things to come. These were not like the abominable sacrileges of the gentiles, these were not like the sacrifices of demons, this was not like the worship of idols. God had commanded this to his people through Moses, the one God, the true God, that God who said: I am who I am (Exod 3:14). But after the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law (Gal 4:4), for he was circumcised. But of a woman a virgin, indeed according to the custom of Hebrew speech: for unless a virgin too were called a woman, Eve would not first be formed in a woman. After, then, in the fullness of time God sent his Son, made of a woman through whom he made the woman, made under the law through whom he gave the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal 4:4-5), the shadows began to be unnecessary, the light having come; yet not because they were not necessary were they now, like the sacrileges of the gentiles, sacred things to be condemned. It was not to be said to a Jew, "Do not circumcise, because you have believed in Christ," as it was to be said to a pagan made a Christian, "Do not sacrifice to idols, because you have believed in Christ." For if you set up two things—the sacrifice of the pagans and the sacrament of the Jews—one of these was never necessary, always ruinous; but the other was once necessary, afterward not necessary, but for those who then received the Gospel from among the Jews, not yet ruinous. Since, then, even those sacraments of the Jews were not necessary after the coming of Christ, but through them was foretold the one through whom they would not be necessary, they were to be ended with honor, not rejected with horror. Since these things were so, the apostle Paul, who had been sent especially to preach the Gospel to the gentiles, ought to have borne especial care in his desire that the salvation of the gentiles not be hindered by the sacraments of the Jews. Therefore, with Christ speaking this in him, with God breathing and revealing this in him, he decreed at that time, in the newness of the Gospel, to forbid none of the Jews from these sacraments, to compel none of the gentiles to these sacraments. Thus those, like a father's funeral rites to be quickly abolished, like bodies now without the soul of prophecy, were to be led with respect as it were to the tomb; yet, because they were unaccustomed and dead, he judged that they must by no means be laid on gentile shoulders.

7. What sin, then, there was at that time in those sacraments, for which Peter was reproached, attend, and aid our powers, perhaps less than fit to break and resolve so great a mass of a question, which then agitated the apostles themselves; but aid us: I beseech you. You have indeed already heard much, but as new men hear what you more wish to hear, and I stand speaking to you and grow weak. Surely, since the question is as it were set before you anew, our narrative seems to bear on this. For now already the one who was questioning me a little before, before I set forth by my narrative what I wished—what Paul reproached in Peter—made more cautious by my narrative, says this: "If at that time abstinence from such sacraments was not laid on those who had come from among the Jews, and the observance of such sacraments was not laid on the gentiles, Peter, who did such things, came from among the Jews; how did Paul rightly reproach him?" I say, brethren, what the very words indicate. Paul did not reproach this in Peter, that he observed the Jewish sacraments, but that he laid them on the gentiles. For a Jew who then believed in Christ, if he wished to observe those things, was not forbidden; if he did not wish, was not compelled. But of the gentiles, whoever had believed, when would he wish to be circumcised, when he heard that this was not necessary to salvation? Perhaps the Jews themselves would scarcely be circumcised, unless infants underwent this. But what was it to compel the gentiles to observe those sacraments, in which we said Peter was reproached by Paul—if perhaps someone asks, what was it to compel them? Were they held unwilling, bound, and circumcised? Far from it! What, then, was it to compel, what do we think, but to say to them: "You will not be able to be saved, unless you observe those legal precepts, as the Jews do"? For by this proposed condition, because they were seeking salvation and were told that they could not otherwise attain salvation, they were compelled, unwilling, to observe those sacraments, not because they loved them, but because they desired salvation.

8. That moderation, then—that neither the Jews be forbidden nor the gentiles compelled—was preserved by the apostles and decreed in council. For when this question agitated many, troubled many, they came together at Jerusalem, and with all the apostles and elders of the Church gathered, that is, the presbyters and all the preachers of the Gospel and overseers of the Churches, by common council, with the Lord surely inspiring, it was established that neither should the Jews be forbidden these things, nor the gentiles compelled to them. Many recall that this is written in the Acts of the Apostles; let those who do not recall it read it. This way, then, was most temperate, most religious, most cautious. If they had commanded those things to be at once so rejected, like the sacrifices of idols, the one who had commanded them would not be believed to be the true God. This, then, Paul reproached in Peter, not because he himself observed these things, but because he was driving the gentiles to them. How driving? By consenting to those, though in pretense, who said the gentiles could not otherwise be saved unless they observed the Jewish sacraments. This too is written in the Acts of the Apostles, narrated in the same book: There came, it says, to Antioch certain men from James, that is, from Jerusalem, namely Jews, who had now believed in Christ, and they said to the brethren from among the gentiles who were coming: "You cannot otherwise be saved, unless you observe the legal precepts." This is to compel: to say that they cannot otherwise be saved.

9. Against this the apostle Paul fought with most ardent zeal. He was removing this stone of dreadful pressure, that the wretched gentiles might at last rise again as from the tomb of Lazarus. For if he reproached that observance, not the compulsion, he would reproach even himself. For he himself too undertook them, and celebrated certain Jewish sacraments at Jerusalem with the Jews in the temple; but, as one coming from among the Jews, he observed these, he did not compel the gentiles to them. Coming from among the Jews, Paul, the evangelist of the gentiles, both the decreer and the fulfiller of the holy counsel of the apostles, showed rather by his own example what pleased the Holy Spirit in such a question, what he decreed and established. For James said to him, when he had now arrived at Jerusalem: "Many," he says, "think that you oppose the ancestral legal observances and are an enemy and foe of the law. What, then? Hear me. There are here certain men who have come to undertake a purification: purify yourself with them, that all may know"—it is not said "that all may think": for devotion was commanded, not pretense suggested—"that all," he says, "may know that you are a zealot of the law and of the ancestral observances." This Paul did as a Jew from among the Jews, yet not that he might be justified by those very sacraments, but lest he be thought to condemn them.

10. Therefore he also did this. For he even circumcised Timothy, born of a Jewish mother, on account of the scandal of the Jews—Timothy being willing, not compelled—that through him too he might show that he did not condemn those things, but did not lay them on the gentiles as necessary to salvation. But after he had circumcised Timothy by this indifference which I have often commended and which I think is now aptly understood by you, certain men from among the Jews, who did not lay aside that old skin and therefore wished the gentiles to be circumcised, because they said that without those sacraments there could be no salvation for them. Whence a heresy too arose: for even today there are some who both believe in Christ and circumcise their sons, that is, who believe that they cannot have salvation without those sacraments. When, then, by this indifference of devotion, not by necessity, he had circumcised Timothy, certain of these, as I said, placing salvation there, which displeased Paul, for which he reproached Peter, began to boast to deceive others, that Paul too held this. They said: "What we too say, this he also believes, that without these sacraments there can be no salvation. For if he does not believe this, why did he circumcise Timothy?" When Paul heard this—Paul, who had done it by liberty, not by necessity, on account of the scandal of the Jews, not on account of Timothy's salvation—he saw that they had taken occasion for another sort of preaching and for stirring up an evil suspicion against Paul, and he was unwilling to circumcise Titus. But it appears why he was willing for the one, why he was unwilling for the other. He was willing for the one on account of the scandal of the Jews, he was unwilling for the other on account of the occasions of those who believed badly.

11. And see how evidently and clearly he commends this in his letter. But not even Titus, he says, since he was a Greek, like Timothy, was compelled to be circumcised (Gal 2:3). And as if it were said to him: "Why was Titus not compelled to be circumcised, when Timothy, though likewise a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised?" Why? Do you wish to hear? On account of the false brethren stealthily brought in, who slipped in to spy out our liberty (See Gal 2:4). In circumcising Timothy, then, there was not necessity, but liberty; but in Peter the necessity was reproached, not the liberty. On account of the false brethren stealthily brought in, he says, who slipped in to spy out our liberty, that they might reduce us to servitude. That they might reduce us, he says, to servitude, by making out of liberty a necessity, to whom we yielded in subjection not even for an hour (Gal 2:4-5). To what end? That the truth of the Gospel might remain among you (Gal 2:5). What is the truth of the Gospel? That a Jew then was not to be forbidden, a gentile not to be compelled; the sacraments of the Jews not to be condemned for the Jews, not to be laid on the gentiles. What is the truth of the Gospel? That one can attain to salvation through Christ without those sacraments. This those men denied, to whom Peter consented in pretense. And therefore it is added: Those other Jews consented in pretense, so that even Barnabas was led into their pretense. But when I saw, he says, that they did not walk rightly toward the truth of the Gospel (Gal 2:13-14), as there he says: That the truth of the Gospel might remain among you. You hear the truth commended everywhere, and you suspect deceit everywhere, so everywhere: even in the apostles. He saw, then, that they did not walk rightly toward the truth. He saw, beyond this, that they thought those sacraments were necessary to the salvation of the gentiles. This is not the truth of the Gospel. Those things were no longer necessary to salvation: perhaps once, when they foretold that Christ would come. The Petrine knife was once necessary, before the rock itself came.

12. When I saw, he says, that they did not walk rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before all (Gal 2:14). I said to Peter: Paul to Peter, the lesser to the greater, the follower to the one who preceded; and I said and to Peter and before all: great confidence, but great patience on his part. Since you have made yourselves attentive, let us hear what you said to Peter, Paul, and where. Let us understand what you did, what you arranged, because nowhere did you wish to be a liar. I said, he says, to Peter before all: "If you, being a Jew"—what is "since you are a Jew"? To whom it was permitted to observe those things indifferently—"live like a gentile and not like a Jew"—because before certain men came from James, he ate with the gentiles—"if you, being a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew," it should have followed and said: "Why now do you keep the Jewish sacraments?" He did not say this, but where Peter was reproachable, whence these things were being stirred, whence he was zealous for God, what hindrance he was striving to remove from the Gospel, this he said with confidence, this he said before all: "If you, being a Jew, live like a gentile, why do you compel the gentiles to judaize?" "You compel them," he says, "to judaize." I have already said how: by consenting to those who said that the gentiles could not otherwise have salvation, "you compel the gentiles to judaize." This Paul did not do, when he undertook the purifications with certain men; he did not compel the gentiles to judaize, when he circumcised Timothy according to that indifference, because both circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing (1 Cor 7:19); he did not compel the gentiles to judaize. And lest he be thought to compel, he did not circumcise Titus; Paul did not compel the gentiles to judaize. This he himself did not do, and therefore he rightly reproached this in Peter, because he himself did not do it.

13. But let me suppose that he too did this—although it is not found, not proven; I do not say this on my own view, but on that of certain men, that for now I may say it—let us suppose that Paul did what Peter did, and that Paul reproached in Peter what he himself, Paul, had also done: both would more easily have to be corrected, than that a detestable moth should creep upon us, that is, lying or the suspicion of lying, like a malignant little worm, to gnaw at every letter of Scripture, to be feared lest it persuade us that Paul lied about something in his canonical letter, which he commends to the Church propagated by posterity. I beg you: fear this evil; let us all fear it, lest we all afterward lament in vain. This is no light evil: I admonish you, fearing I terrify. Pardon my solicitude: we speak to you more rarely than you wish. Those whisper who find your ears ready, when they wish—we are not permitted to speak to you except rarely and from this place—I do not say malevolent in mind, I do them no injury, but beware of those who err, and so deal with them that they themselves rather be corrected, not that you be depraved by them. For when they have said these things to you: "Peter acted in pretense, in pretense Paul rebuked him; Paul did not write the truth in his letter that Peter was reproachable; Paul did not write the truth in his letter that he saw them not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel; Paul did not write the truth in his letter that Peter was compelling the gentiles to judaize, but all was pretended"—what truth shall we hold, what page shall we not hold suspect of lying?

14. See, we men are pressed by most evident authority, and scarcely do they yield to the thundering and flashing truth! Where shall we go? What shall we do, when perhaps I shall say to someone: "It is good to marry, but better not to marry, as the apostle Paul wrote," if the condemner of marriage says to me: "Paul utterly condemned marriage, but wrote this in pretense, since the truth itself could not be borne by the weak; because continence is laid on laboriously, therefore he said: It is good to marry, for he knew it was evil to marry"? Whence do you prove that Paul lied, where he says: He who gives in marriage does well (1 Cor 7:38)? "Whence do I prove it?" he says: "in the same way as he lied, where he says: When I saw that they did not walk rightly toward the truth of the Gospel—for Peter was not failing to walk rightly toward the truth of the Gospel—; in the same way as I said to Peter before all: If you, being a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, why do you compel the gentiles to judaize?—for Peter was not really compelling the gentiles to judaize. As, then, Paul said these things in pretense, so too, when he saw that the excellence of virginity could not be borne by fleshly men, he said: He who gives in marriage does well. He was doing one thing, holding out another." If these things are so, where shall we go? What oracles shall we consult? For the divine words committed to us in the canonical Scriptures ought to be to us just as they truly are, oracles. Is deceit to be feared there, where truth is found, where one presumes upon truth? I beseech you: foresee this little worm, that you may beware of it; do not admit it to the cupboard of your heart. If you admit it, unless you quickly shake out the cloths, you will find nothing whole there.

15. I have said what I thought, with great solicitude, had to be said; long have I held your love, long has your solicitude held me. All the things written in the holy canonical books, we who dispute and write books write far otherwise: we write by advancing, we learn daily, we dictate by searching, we speak by knocking. Surely I do not rest, as much as I can, where I can be useful to the brethren, both by speaking and by writing. I admonish your love, from me, up to me, that you not wish to hold the book or disputation of anyone's argument as canonical Scripture. In the holy Scriptures we learn to judge; in our own writings we do not disdain to be judged. That indeed is to be chosen, and this rather of the two to be wished, that in writing or speaking we say true things, that we err nowhere. But since this is difficult to fulfill, therefore the firmament of the canon is something else, like the heaven where the luminaries of the Scriptures are set, as it were between the waters and the waters, between the peoples of the angels and the peoples of men: those above, these below. Let us hold Scripture as Scripture, as God speaking; let us not seek there an erring man. For not in vain was the canon established in the Church: this is the office of the Holy Spirit. If anyone, then, reads my book, let him judge me: if I have said something reasonable, let him follow not me, but reason itself; if I have proved this by a most evident and divine testimony, let him follow not me, but the divine Scripture. But if he wishes to reproach something that I have rightly said, he does not act rightly, but I am more angry with such a praiser of mine, who takes my book as if canonical, than with one who reproaches in my book even things not to be reproached. I beg you: although I see you attentive and as it were quite fresh, as if you had just begun to listen, yet I do not wish to say anything more, that you may firmly hold this which I said last. Turned to the Lord, etc.

Sermon 90/A
(Dolbeau 11)

1. In this Gospel reading which has just been read, let us too, as it were seeing the Lord, not with the eyes of the flesh but—which is more healthful—with the eyes of faith, take up the disposition of the one asking what is the great commandment in the law. For he who was asking, because he saw not with the eyes of faith but of the flesh, was testing rather than seeking. But let us, believing, seek, that by seeking we may find; let us too say: Lord, what is the great commandment in the law? (See Matt 22:36) But let us say it not with the cunning of one testing, but with the disposition of one learning. For he now answers us what he answered that man, who, if he did not believe, sought for us, not for himself; but if he believed, now let the hearer be the more instructed, if then the tester could be corrected.

2. Let us first observe this, how that man asked about one commandment, desiring to know what was the commandment in the law—not what was the only one, but what was the great one; but the Lord answered not one, but two commandments. For perhaps the man, when he had heard what was the great one, would ask the several following ones; but the Lord, lest after the great one many be asked, joined a second one, that there might be fulfilled in it what had been prophesied so long before: For the Lord will make a word shortened and finished upon the earth (See Rom 9:28; Isa 10:23). Now it is done, in this reading it is fulfilled. For many are the precepts of the law, and like an incomprehensible forest a growth of commandments springs up through all the pages. And who could fulfill what no one is able to retain in the mind? But the Lord Christ, full of mercy, just as he showed himself great in a small body, so he enclosed the wide law in a brief precept. In that smallness of body we have the whole Son of God; in the brevity of these commandments we hold the whole law of God. Mercy ended sloth. Do not think how long you may learn, but rather how you may do what you have quickly learned.

3. You shall love, he says, the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second, he says, is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets (Matt 22:37-40). Why were you stretching yourself out through the spreading of the branches? Hold these roots, and the whole tree is in your hand. The Lord, as we see, briefly intimated this; we are compelled to say more about these two commandments. Or are we perhaps not compelled, and does what we have heard from the Lord suffice? Clearly it suffices, but not for all. For the greater anyone is, the more what is said briefly suffices for him. The great seek brief things; the small, because they understand less, desire more. We fear to offend the disdain of the former, we do not wish to burden the weakness of the latter. Yet if we are silent, those who understand less complain; and let those who already understand bear with us, that those who do not yet understand may grasp us.

4. What better, what briefer could be said to you, O man, than that you love the Lord God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind? Do it, and be secure about eternal life and about the blessed life. For if you love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, you leave yourself nothing from which you might love yourself. Love your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole mind. And what will remain from which you may love yourself? But if nothing will remain from which you may love yourself, in the second precept how will you love your neighbor as yourself? See, here is one question, hear it. The Lord says, as we noticed in the reading itself when it was read: On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. But further, the apostle Paul, if you noticed when his letter too was read, says that the man fulfills the law who loves his neighbor, not adding the first and great commandment, that one love God with the whole heart, soul, and mind. For he says thus: For "You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love of the neighbor works no evil. The fullness of the law, then, is love (Rom 13:9-10). Here he says: He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. And if he named only three precepts, You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not covet, we would think that in love of the neighbor only these three precepts are contained. But when he added and said: If there is any other commandment, he enclosed the whole in love of the neighbor. What here remains for the love of God? When you hear: God with the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole mind, nothing seems to remain for love of the neighbor. Again, when you hear: This and this and this, and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: You shall love your neighbor as yourself, nothing seems to remain for love of God. How, then, did the Lord say not "in one," but on these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets?

5. Therefore, to expound this which I have set forth, briefly, as much as we can with the Lord's help, let us begin rather from love of the neighbor. We too are men, mortal, ignorant, not yet made equal to the angels, far unlike the fellowship of incorruption, and by this very unlikeness God is far from us, although by mercy he is near. Who, then, are we, and by what powers of our thinking should we dare to conjecture the Lord? We have a neighbor; in the neighbor now strive to love God with the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole mind. O man, if you do not love the brother whom you see, how will you be able to love the God whom you do not see? (1 John 4:20) You recognize the words taken from the discourse of the apostle John. It is prescribed for us, then: let us begin from the neighbor, that we may arrive at God.

6. But someone will say to me: "I love God and my neighbor, not in words but in deeds." Prove it. "I love," he says, "my neighbor." What great thing do you do? Do you not see in irrational animals how mutual love prevails, how birds desire to be with birds of their own kind and are wearied by solitude? Do you not see, when animals have shared a stall together, how on a journey they desire to follow one another, and one is separated from the other with the greatest difficulty? What great thing, then, do you do, if a man wishes to be with a man? It still belongs to beasts of burden. I do not know whether such love is required of us by God. You say perhaps: "I love my neighbor; for I love my son, and as myself." This too is easy. Tigers love their young. For none of these would be propagated, unless one were loved by another. Transcend the things given into your power: none of these was made to the image of God. God made man to his image, that he might have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth (Gen 1:26). See what you have beneath you, and by what love of his image you are far otherwise fashioned for the creator. Whence, finally, do you prove that you love your son? Your son himself, I say, whence do you prove that you love him? Because you were keeping for him an inheritance which he will not be able to possess together with you? For he does not hold it with you, but at your decease he will succeed. Do you not remember that in that inheritance your father too made his passage before you? And if it remains the same from of old, your grandfather too passed through it: all passing, none remaining. You leave, then, mortal things to one about to die, or, what is truer, you do not know for whom you gather them, and you boast yourself a lover of your son.

7. They shall announce, it says, to their sons, that they may put their hope in God (See Ps 78:6-7 (77:6-7)). If you love thus, you love. If you love otherwise, you do not even love, because you do not even love yourself. For surely, what have you heard? You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This rule I lay down—rather, I do not lay it down, but recognize it. For I both behold it and recall it as laid down for us all. This is the rule: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I do not now say: You shall love son, spouse, near friend, near acquaintance as yourself. Perhaps you answer: "I love them." First I ask whether you love yourself. Here is the whole force of the precept, here the whole question turns: for you will not be able to love your neighbor as yourself, if you do not yet love yourself. "For who is there," you say, "who does not love himself?" I would wish to find one who loves himself. For I do not attend to how the creature errs, but to what the creator teaches. He who made us knows us better. Let us, then, hear him. Since you were saying: "I love myself," even if I required you to prove it, you would answer me: "When I am hungry, I restore my body, because I love myself; I do not wish to be worn out by labors, because I love myself; I do not wish to be straitened by want, because I love myself; I do not wish to have a fever, because I love myself; I do not wish to be in pain, because I love myself." Do you wish to hear what he says who made you? See only how very well you love yourself: whether you do not love iniquity. For he who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Ps 11:5 (10:6)). I do not ask you, ask yourself. If you wish to grow by another's harm, if you wish it to go ill with another that it may go well with you, surely, if you so wish, if you wish this, you love iniquity, you hate your own soul. If, then, you have hated your own soul, I do not entrust to you your neighbor, that you may love him as yourself. Shall I entrust to you another man, so that I seek two? You who have destroyed yourself, are you to preserve me? First, then, love yourself, that you may know how to love your neighbor as yourself.

8. How you should love yourself, do you wait to hear from me? Let us rather hear him who made both you and me. See how you should love yourself: attend to the great precept, that you may love yourself. For toward that which you love, you must needs wish to bring the one you love. And you love iniquity: thither you will lead the one you love as yourself. The many pursuits of men, whether evil or good, are set before the eyes of all. You love a charioteer: you urge all you love to watch with you, to love with you, to shout with you, to go mad with you. If they do not love him, you insult them, you call them dolts, as you would yourself. And if you do not wish to give him half, you wish him whom you love as yourself to have only as much. For you do not wish him to grow rich at your loss, you do not wish his good at the detriment of your own good. Why? Because you think gold a good, therefore you reckon yourself great because you have gold. You wish him to increase, not yourself to decrease. Why do you love this thing which you would diminish by your loss? In all these things you love iniquity, you hate your own soul. When you wish securely to draw your neighbor, whom you love as yourself, draw him to that good which no multitude of fellow sharers straitens; which good, however many possess it, is whole to all and to each. Unless you love such a good, how will you love your neighbor as yourself?

9. What is that? In the first and great commandment you have: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. For when you begin to love God, then you love yourself. Do not fear: however much you love God, you will not be excessive. The measure of loving God is to love him without measure. Love, then, with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole mind, because you have nothing more. For what more do you have from which to love your God, than your whole self? Do not, then, fear lest, by leaving yourself nothing from which to love yourself, you perish. You do not perish, because by loving God with your whole self you will be there where you do not perish. Rather, if from there you slacken your love toward yourself, you will not be in him, but in yourself. Then, therefore, you perish, because you will be in one who perishes. If you wish not to perish, be in him who cannot perish. This the force of love has, this the ardor of love has. In those most foul and base pursuits let us see these things. The lovers of a charioteer in the show hang wholly on him, they are nowhere but in the one they watch; the lover does not at all regard himself, he does not know where he is. Accordingly the one more lukewarm in that pursuit, who stands beside him and sees him so fervent, says: "He is not with himself." And you, if it can be, when you are in God, do not be with yourself. If you are with yourself, you entrust yourself to yourself, you are about to lose yourself, you are not fit to preserve yourself.

10. Remember how he went and perished, who said to his father, his preserver: Give me my portion of the substance that falls to me (Luke 15:12). See, he went away, see, he consumed all, see, he fed swine, see, he was worn down in want: made far from his father, when he wished to be with himself. For, wishing to be with himself, he did not even remain with himself. If you slip away from your God, you more quickly slip away also from yourself, and you go out from yourself, and you forsake even yourself. Therefore to such men it is said: Return, transgressors, to the heart (Isa 46:8), return to yourselves, that you may be able to return also to him who made you. Whence he too, when he was in want, his father forsaken, forsaken by himself, what is said of him? And returning to himself, he said (Luke 15:17). Returning to himself: you see that he had forsaken even himself. Well, son, you have corrected yourself, you have returned to yourself. Do not remain in yourself, lest you lose yourself again. He too, partly amended, remembered this. For as soon as he returned to himself, he was unwilling to remain in himself, because, returning to himself, he said: I will arise, and I will go to my father (Luke 15:18). Well returned, he understood that he ought to be there whence he had fallen . . . to be that very thing, indeed he did not deserve to be.

11. If you love this, if you cherish it, I entrust to you your neighbor. For I see whither you tend and whither you have willed yourself. Thither lead him, nor can you lead elsewhere the one you love as yourself: for now you love yourself too. Lead your neighbor, draw him, seize him, be urgent in season. If the day of the show were dawning, you, a lover of the hunter, would not be lulled by due sleep, nor would the hour of going to the amphitheater pass you by. And when the hour of going had come, you would most troublesomely rouse your neighbor too, perhaps lulled in sleep and preferring to sleep rather than to go; you would press the sluggard; you would wish, if it could be, to snatch him from his bed and set him in the amphitheater, nor would you be troublesome to him, except until sleep was shaken off. For, sleep shaken off, he would proceed and give thanks for your trouble. And perhaps, having now snatched him with you to the amphitheater, whither you had both hurried, the one you loved being defeated, you would return confounded. Love God wholly, with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind: so alone, so will you love yourself. In this way alone do you love your neighbor as yourself. For you draw him to one over whom you cannot blush.

12. Therefore it was necessary that those two precepts be commended, because he does not love who loves his neighbor, unless he first loves God. For when he loves God, he does not love iniquity, lest by loving iniquity he hate his own soul. If, then, he does not love iniquity, let him love equity, and there he loves God. Let him not seek him as it were with the eyes: let him seek him with the mind, let him love him rather with the heart and with affection. Let him not set before himself what is not God, lest he love and not God, lest he love an empty thought. For lest perhaps in this thought we should err and compose God for ourselves according to a fleshly affection and fashion him as we wished, Scripture, taking us away from thoughts of this kind, says: God is love (1 John 4:8). If, then, you love, love that from which you love, and you love God. Have you not heard? For he who loves iniquity hates his own soul. If you love, love this very thing from which you love, and you love God. For that from which you love is love. You love by love; love love, and you have loved God, since God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God (1 John 4:16). Therefore the two precepts had to be commended. For one would suffice: You shall love your neighbor as yourself, but lest man err in loving his neighbor, because he was erring in loving himself, the Lord willed in the love of God to fashion your love, by which you may love yourself; and then he entrusted to you your neighbor, that you might love him as yourself.

13. Now, then, if you please, let even one precept of the apostle suffice you. You have now understood two; even one suffices. For before you understand two, one does not suffice. For you begin to love yourself badly, and you love badly the one you love as yourself. Nor is it to be said: You love badly, but: You do not love. Therefore you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not covet, where the whole is, there he recalls you to yourself. For you can refrain from adultery from fear of punishment, not from love of justice. You shall not kill: you can both wish to kill and fear the punishment. The murder will not be in your hand, but in your heart you will be held guilty. For you wish to kill a man, but you fear; you wish to kill: you do not yet love not to kill. Let what you do be within, let it be there where he sees who crowns; there fight, there conquer: for there you have one who watches you. Therefore you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You love God too. You cannot have this without that; this second follows the first. Let the first be, and it draws the second. The second cannot be without the first. Fulfill, then, the one, you who were thinking about two. You cannot fulfill one, except in two. For the second too is called second from following. Therefore it follows. Love your neighbor as yourself: this suffices me. Can you not also think about God? How, then, do you begin to love yourself? Love of the neighbor works no evil. The fullness of the law, then, is love. But where is love? In love of God and in love of the neighbor. Choose which love you will. You choose love of the neighbor: it will not be true, unless God be loved. You choose love of God: it will not be true, unless the neighbor be understood along with it.

14. But you do not yet have love: groan, believe, ask, obtain. What is commanded, what the law enjoins, faith obtains. For if you already have what faith obtains, for what do you have that you did not receive? (1 Cor 4:7) But if you do not yet have it, ask that you may receive. It is love that we ask for; if we do not yet have it, let us ask, lest we remain empty. For whence shall we have it from ourselves, who have deserved nothing good, but evil? We shall have it from him to whom our soul says: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his recompenses, who is gracious to all your iniquities (Ps 103:2-3 (102:2-3)). This happens in baptism. But if this alone happened, what would we remain? But there follows: Who heals all your weaknesses (Ps 103:3 (102:3)). For our weaknesses healed, we shall not loathe our bread. See, then, what follows, our weaknesses healed: Who will redeem your life from corruption (Ps 103:4 (102:4)). This happens now in the resurrection of the dead. And what follows the redemption of our life from corruption? Who crowns you. Perhaps by your merits? Attend to what follows: Who crowns you in pity and mercy (Ps 103:4 (102:4)). For judgment without mercy to him who has not done mercy (Jas 2:13). Therefore, our sins forgiven, our weaknesses healed, our life redeemed from corruption, our crown rendered to us in his mercy, what shall we do, what shall we have? Who satisfies you with good things (Ps 103:5 (102:5)), not evil. You were greedy: you were not satisfied with gold, because the greedy man is not satisfied with gold. Be just and be satisfied with God. Nothing at all satisfies you but God; nothing suffices you but God. Show us the Father, and it suffices us (John 14:8). Let us, then, love the works of mercy, while our weaknesses are being healed, so that, our weaknesses healed, our desires may flourish; and being healed, may flourish; and flourishing, be satisfied; so that there may be for us a judgment, but with mercy. For it is grievous if it be without mercy. It is difficult that he find nothing in you to punish. You have already pleased yourself well: for he knows something that is hidden from you, he finds in you what you were hiding, or perhaps even what you did not know. Therefore let the works of mercy be fervent, and in this want of temporal things let us love our neighbors, that we may merit to feel judgment with mercy.

Sermon 354/A
(Dolbeau 12)

1. The Lord's readings and, in the holy Scriptures that have just been read, the divine word and heavenly authority exhort the human race to remember its mortality in this, that an end is to come. For to every man, that is, to each individual man, the end is near, even if perhaps the end of the human race itself is far off. This, then, as I had begun to say, the divine word seems to exhort, that we remember our mortality in this, that an end is to come. But let him meditate on the life where there is no end: he will deserve to attain immortal life who remembers that he is mortal.

2. You have heard that the Pharisees asked the Lord, testing him, whether it was lawful to dismiss a wife for any cause whatever. He answers the truth, because he is the truth. For those who tested him did not make the Lord lie, so that both the faithful and the unfaithful might learn the truth; and that the worshiper of God might be instructed, the tester hears the truth. This I have said for this reason, lest men think that the Lord God said anything otherwise than the matter stands, since they were asking not faithfully but testing through a question. Let it, then, make no difference to us of what sort were those who asked, but what he said; not what sort of man struck the rock, but what sort of water flowed forth. Therefore in the Lord's answer the married have something to learn, and those too who are not yet married, or who have already from a good resolve despised marriage. According to these words of the Lord, the time too admonishes us to say something, because, as is thought, it is the last.

3. What the apostle says now pertains more to us, with greater care and fuller solicitude and richer devotion: For the rest, brethren, the time is short. It remains that those who have wives be as though not having them, and the rest, and those who buy as though not buying, and those who rejoice as though not rejoicing, and those who use this world as though not using it. For the figure of this world is passing away. I wish you to be without solicitude (1 Cor 7:29-32). Then he adds: He who is without a wife thinks of the things that are God's, how he may please God; but he who is bound in marriage thinks of the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife (1 Cor 7:32-33). A great difference: to think of the things that are God's, and to think of the things that are of the world. It cannot be that comparison join what thought so divides. But if some married man has burned to promise continence, let him look to his side, let him see whether she follows, and if she follows, let him lead her on; if she does not follow, let him not dismiss her. Perhaps he can and she cannot, or she can and he cannot; let him understand that he is one flesh. You have heard not some man, but the very Lord of men, in answering the Jews, giving precepts to Christians: Have you not read, he says, that from the beginning God made them male and female, and said: For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh? Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What, therefore, he says, God has joined, let not man separate (Matt 19:4-6).

4. It seems shameless to dispute somewhat carefully about this. But we ought not to think ourselves so healthy that we do not feel compassion for the sick. For what are we compared to the holiness of the apostle Paul? And yet with pious humility, with healthful speech, with divine medicine, he entered human bedchambers. And such great holiness drew near to the beds of the married, looked upon them lying there, did not lay aside the habit of holiness, and yet gave counsel for weakness: Let the husband, he says, render to the wife her due (1 Cor 7:3). It is a due: let him render it. Likewise also the wife to the husband. The wife has not power over her own body, but the husband (1 Cor 7:3-4). This is no wonder. For the woman is subject to the man, and in the man is authority, in the woman compliance. But yet in this matter, in which both sexes are joined, although in other things the woman ought to be the man's handmaid, in this matter, I say, the condition is equal. It was too little, then, for the apostle to say: The woman has not power over her own body, but the husband—decently he named the sex by the word of the body, to avoid obscenity. What he meant, he gave to be understood: The woman has not power over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband has not power over his own body, but the woman (1 Cor 7:4). In which matter the sex is set apart from the wife. It is another's: it is owed to the woman.

5. The husband cannot have such authority thence as to say: "I can now be continent. If you can, do this with me; if you cannot, you shall in no way hinder me: I do what I can." What, then? Do you wish, O husband, that your other side perish? For if the weaker flesh cannot be continent, the more languid will will commit fornication, and by fornicating will be damned. Far be it that her punishment be your crown! "You are mistaken: it will not be, it will not be so. It will not be as you say to me, that, since she will be damned by fornicating, better she alone than both together." If you say this, you are mistaken. For marriage is not condemned, that which God has joined is not condemned, only let not man separate it. You are a man; by seizing continence without the consent of your spouse, you, like a man, wish to separate what God has deigned to join. "But God," he says, "separates it, because I do it for God's sake." Clearly, if you read anywhere that God said: "If you have intercourse with your wife, I will damn you," do what you wish, lest you be damned together. But when you hear the apostle of Christ saying: The wife has not power over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband has not power over his own body, but the woman. Do not defraud one another . . . (1 Cor 7:4-5).

6. He said defraud: by denying the due, not by committing adultery. For he was speaking of dues to be rendered, and was binding the married to render their dues to one another. For he would not have permitted adulteries in the following words, where, when he had said: Do not defraud one another, he added, saying, except by consent for a time (1 Cor 7:5). Are adulteries, then, to be committed by consent? If you think that what was said, Do not defraud one another, pertains to adulteries, what does except by consent mean? Far be it that by consent husband and wife permit adulteries to be committed between them. Modest and patient matrons are wont to bear such things. To tolerate such a husband pertains to a woman's chastity. But let not the husband therefore be secure; let him rather beware lest he be afterward condemned, who is now said to be tolerated. But the matter is plain, nor does the apostolic word require exposition; since do not defraud one another he says to this end, that they not deny one another the conjugal dues, except by their consent for a time, that you may have leisure, he says, for prayer (1 Cor 7:5). You see, then, that the apostle commanded a certain continence, indeed a truce of continence, for stirring up and offering prayers, and with that solicitude with which such great health did not disdain to approach the beds of the weak: And again be together (1 Cor 7:5).

7. When you have been continent for a time, that you may have leisure for prayer, again be together. Do you command this, apostle? "This," he says. And where is shame, where the modesty of such great holiness? "But I," he says, "know the danger of weakness." Then he did not keep silent the reason for his counsel. "Do you wish to hear," he says, "why I said: Again be together? Lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence (1 Cor 7:5)." Then it follows, lest he seem to have not permitted but commanded this—for one thing is what is permitted to weakness, another what is commanded to faith—: But this, he says, I say by way of indulgence (1 Cor 7:6). "What I say, Again be together, I say by way of indulgence, not by way of command. I do not command this to chastity, but permit it to weakness. It is not praiseworthy, but pardonable: by way of indulgence. For I would that all were as myself, but each has his own gift from God, one thus, another thus (1 Cor 7:7)." Whence the Lord too: Let him who can grasp it, grasp it (Matt 19:12).

8. Here someone perhaps will say: "If the apostle granted this by way of indulgence and yielded to the weakness of men, marriage is a sin. For to whom is indulgence granted, if not to sin?" Clearly this which the apostle granted to weakness by way of indulgence—I dare to say—is a sin, but there is not the good of marriage. Distinguish, then, brethren, and aid me by your attention as I labor in a most difficult place and toil for you before the Lord. He grants indulgence to such a deed; surely he attends to the intercourse of the married, not of adulterers, and yet he says by way of indulgence, not by way of command. "I pardon, I do not command." Let the married man say: "O apostle, if you pardon, I sin. I do not, therefore, wish a defender of the marriage good to bring me this reasoning, so as to say: Marriage is a good for this reason, that adulteries not be committed. I wish it to be a good, not a small evil. For he who says: Marriage ought to be entered for this reason, that adulteries not be committed; for marriage too is pardoned, and to marriage indulgence is granted, names two evils, not one good and one evil, but two evils, one small and the other great."

9. But the apostle was not reproaching the good of marriage, but the evil of incontinence, which is to use one's wife even beyond the necessity of begetting children. For why do you take a wife? Read not my disputations, but your own tablets. Read, attend, and if you do anything more, blush. Read, and let me too hear: for your sake it is necessary to me. Surely you read thus: "for the sake of begetting children." If, then, there is anything more, it is from evil (See Matt 5:37). See, examine, test yourself. If you do nothing more than what must be done "for the sake of begetting children," you have nothing for the apostle to pardon you. But if you do anything more, it is evil that you do, it is sin that you do. But yet do you wish to know what the good of marriage is? Through the marriage good the evil of incontinence is pardonable. Concupiscence was stirred: you were overcome, you were drawn, but you were not drawn away from your wife. Penalties would have received you, overcome by incontinence, unless marriage interceded for you. Therefore, if you are married and wish that there be nothing for the apostle to grant you by way of indulgence, do not exceed the limits of your tablets.

10. But you are not yet bound: do not even seek this. For he who can use his wife only "for the sake of begetting children" can also not use her. He is a victor over lust, he masters the motions of the flesh, he firmly holds the reins of temperance, he sends that motion off like a horse where he wishes, he does not lose the right of holding it. Therefore, such as you are and not yet bound and not yet tied, loosed from a wife, do not seek a wife (See 1 Cor 7:27). For if it is said to the married: The time is short, it remains that even those who have wives be as though not having them, why do you wish to have, when you can, with continence safe, not have?

11. For why must a people still be propagated for God, through whom Christ, the salvation of the nations, might come? For when that people was being propagated, those who could also be continent were compelled by the very duty of piety to take wives. By a duty of piety the holy fathers begot sons, by a duty of piety the holy mothers bore sons: they could also have been continent. They served the people to be propagated: it was a duty. Now already a multitude lies open on every side, from which spiritual sons may be chosen and a holy people made for Christ in the adoption of immortality unto the heavenly inheritance. Therefore then was the time for embracing, now is the time for refraining from embrace. The prophet says, let us hear: There is a time for everything. A time for embracing, a time for refraining from embrace (Eccl 3:1, 5). A time for embracing: the prophetic time; a time for refraining from embrace: the evangelical time. A time for scattering stones, a time for gathering them (Eccl 3:5). It was the time for scattering stones, for propagating men. For God is able to raise up sons of Abraham from these stones (Matt 3:9). Why are they still scattered? Let those now who have been scattered be gathered. It was said that stones should be scattered: Cursed be he who does not raise up seed for Israel (See Deut 25:5-10). It is said that the stones should be gathered: The time is short, it remains that even those who have wives be as though not having them. Now, then, let him who can grasp it, grasp it. Then he who could grasp it did not undertake the office of continence: yet the virtue was in the man. Thus they had wives for God's sake—unless perhaps we think that if it had been said to Abraham that he should be continent, so great a pious virtue could tremble, which was able, bidden by the Lord, even to offer that same heir to be slain by the one from whom he had received him to be reared? Their time, then, was another.

12. Let no one, then, prescribe from this, let no one think that the necessity of this matter is laid upon him. Let him who can grasp it, grasp it. "But I cannot," he says. You cannot? "I cannot." A certain nurturing authority of the Apostle has taken you up, that if they cannot contain themselves, let them marry (1 Cor 7:9). Let something be done whence one may come to indulgence. Let it pertain to indulgence, lest one rush into eternal punishment. Let what is lawful be done, whence what is not lawful may be pardoned. This is what follows indicates: I would rather they marry than burn (See 1 Cor 7:9). "I granted," he says, "something to incontinence, because I feared something greater: I feared eternal punishments, I feared what awaits and remains for adulterers." Even this, by which the married, overcome by concupiscence, use one another beyond the necessity of begetting children, let them put among those things for which it is daily said: Forgive us our debts, as we too forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). But those who can grasp it, let them grasp it, and that they may be able, let them pray. Faith obtains even continence: When I knew, says holy Scripture, when I knew that no one can be continent unless God grant it, this very thing too was wisdom, to know whose gift this was (Wis 8:21). When you fear continence as a punishment, you do not knock at grace. Do not think it a punishment. When you are able, it will not be troublesome. He will grant it, whose gifts must be obtained. Knock: you will receive; ask, seek: you will find. The fountain always flows, let not faith be sluggish. And yet let him who can grasp it, grasp it; let him who cannot, if he cannot contain himself, marry.

13. Love one another. The husband can, the wife cannot: do not demand the due, render it. And in rendering it, you who do not demand, if you do not demand, you do an act of mercy. I dare to say outright: it is mercy. For if you do not render it, your spouse, overcome by concupiscence, or if you, woman, do not render it, your husband, overcome by concupiscence, will become an adulterer. I do not wish you to be so honored that you would wish him to be condemned. Indeed, if you no longer demand, but only render: it is reckoned to continence. For it is not exacted by lust, but rendered by mercy. Say outright to your God: "Lord, you know in me what you have given, but I hear too what you have admonished, that you made both me and my spouse, and willed that no one perish." Turned to the Lord . . .

Sermon 159/A
(Dolbeau 13)

1. The solemnities of the holy martyrs are exhortations to martyrdoms, that it may delight us to imitate what it delights us to celebrate. To this both the holy Scripture, fresh in our ears, exhorts us and in a manner kindles us, the apostle saying: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter (Rom 8:35-36). Then follow other things that seem violent toward separation, in which, however, he gives the victory, that we not be separated from him who is not separated from us. For on account of these straits and impending pressures, the faithful promiser and kindly giver deigned to promise us that he would be with us unto the consummation of the world (Matt 28:20). For I am sure, he says, that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither things present nor things to come, neither power, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature—for he could not name them all—will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-39). And that he might make us most strong, lest we be separated from Christ, by hope and confidence against all the temptations of this world, because our strength in no way suffices if we are forsaken by divine aid, he said above: If God is for us, who is against us? (Rom 8:31) The apostle, having briefly recalled certain things that seem to assail the Christian faith by raging, lest such things separate us from the love of Christ, armed us to endure all things for Christ.

2. But because not only the things that rage try to separate us, but also the things that flatter, just as we are armed with the apostolic words against the things that try to separate us from Christ by raging, so we are armed by the Lord Christ himself against the things that strive to seduce us by flattering. For it is to be feared lest perhaps one whom the cruel sword does not separate, carnal affection may separate. Therefore, against those things too which assail our faith by flattering, lest they storm what they assail, let us hear the Lord saying: If anyone comes to me and does not hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and moreover his own soul, he cannot be my disciple. And he who does not bear his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26-27). The Lord recalled both: both what is sweet by enticing, that it may deceive, and what is grievous by threatening. For against the flatteries of deception from carnal affection he says: If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife, children and the rest; but against those things which by their roaring and terrifying turn one away from the faith, he fortifies us, built up and armed with the one name of the cross. He who does not, he says, bear his cross and follow me, that is, he who does not tolerate—for this is to bear—all the things that are bitter and hard in this world as a cross, and follow me, cannot be my disciple.

3. Now, then, let us set the martyr of Christ in the midst between those who threaten and those who flatter; both doors are knocked at, by which one enters to the heart: desire and fear. The door of desire is knocked at by father, mother, wife, children, brothers: all are alluring, agreeable, sweet. But are they sweeter than God? Are they sweeter than Christ? If you do not believe, taste and see how sweet the Lord is (Ps 34:8 (33:9)). The door of fear is knocked at by threats, fury, reproaches, and finally the very pains of the body, which no one can fail to feel by despising them. For if he despises money, he suffers losses, not pains. All this is in the mind of the one who despises: he does not torture you who takes from you what you do not love. But you love money: you fear the one who threatens losses, nor does he torture you, but you have tortured yourself, because you have entangled yourself in pains. For the love of money is the root of evils, which certain men coveting have strayed from the faith and entangled themselves in many pains (1 Tim 6:10). He threatens losses: he who does not find you covetous, finds you free; you laughed at him as empty-handed, because you did not entangle yourself. So too the other things that we learn by healthful teaching to despise, we are admonished not to love, that we may be found free in temptations. To which freedom that apostolic reading exhorts us, where it is: And let those who use this world be as though not using it (1 Cor 7:31), that they may have the use of liberty, not the affection of desire. For the figure of this world is passing away. I wish you to be without solicitude (1 Cor 7:31-32).

4. But there remains the weakness of the flesh, which each of us, as long as he lives in this world, cannot put away from himself. What do you do? When the flesh is pricked, does the heart not grieve? It is a wound of weakness, until it takes on the garment of immortality. There is a great struggle there. The will turned away from money, the martyr of God stands secure against those who terrify with losses. "Let him take," he says, "what I do not love, where do I feel it?" He threatens exile, but threatens one by whom the heavenly fatherland alone is desired. Here the Christian, wherever he goes, is a pilgrim. He threatens reproaches. He has what to answer: This is our glory, the testimony of our conscience (2 Cor 1:12). He threatens dishonor. How great is a transitory honor! A man threatens dishonor, but the Lord of men promises eternal honor. All these things despised, liberty is safe. But what of the flesh? There remains the soul with its garment, and that garment which only death takes off. Now the man, that is, the soul, is pressed from close by, from the weakness of his own flesh. Therefore those words of the Lord in the magnificent psalm, where almost the Gospel is recited, are seen, indeed understood, as words of one hanging on the cross, where it is said: They have dug my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones. But they considered me, they divided my garments among themselves and cast lots over my clothing (Ps 22:16-18 (21:17-19)). They are words of one already suffering, already hanging on the cross, and yet there it is said: Do not depart from me, for tribulation is near (Ps 22:11 (21:12)). If you understand near as "of approaching time," they will not be the words of one hanging on the cross: tribulation was already present, if he was hanging. But why was it said: it is near? It is already in the flesh. Nothing is nearer to the soul than the flesh which it carries. Other things are outside, they are called external, because they are outside. When the flesh is tortured, the soul is knocked at from close by.

5. These things are grave, but in all these we more than conquer through him who loved us (Rom 8:37). But why do we conquer in these too? Because if God is for us, who is against us? Therefore the Lord deigned by the name of the cross to signify all things terrible, hard, bitter, intolerable, and savage. For even among the very kinds of death, nothing is more intolerable than the cross. For it was added with great weight by the same apostle, when he commended to us the lowliness of the Lord; for he says: He did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in form as a man (Phil 2:6-7). How great the humbling of the Lord, to become a man! But hear yet more. See, he was humbled, because he became a man. What further? He humbled, he says, himself, becoming obedient unto death (Phil 2:8), not only unto human birth, but even unto death. Do you have anything to add to this? "I do," he says: even the death of the cross (Phil 2:8). Looking to this end of the Lord, the bitterest of all, he called a cross all the things that the Christian flesh suffers rightly for his name, if the faith has endured them. For faith suffers nothing, indeed it even makes the sufferings tolerable. Equipped, then, on both sides, and having fortified both doors of desire and fear, desiring nothing more than what God promises, fearing nothing more than what God threatens, we drive off both flatterers and threateners.

6. But someone arises and makes us a question and says: "Whatever is bitter, whatever is hard, whatever is savage and harsh to endure must indeed be borne for the faith of Christ, must wholly be borne, but it troubles me that he who among his precepts set the first precept for loving the neighbor: Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment in a promise, that it may be well with you (Eph 6:2-3); and when the apostle recalled this as a great thing, the Lord says to me: If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother. Where shall I hear? Which of these shall I take? How shall I comply with the one commanding that I honor father and mother, and likewise commanding that I hate father and mother? Is it not one and the same who commands both, or—as certain vain men think—is one he who gave the law and another he who propagated the Gospel, since in the law it is written: Honor father and mother, in the Gospel: Whoever does not hate father and mother?" Far from it! He himself is both the giver of the law and the propagator of the Gospel, he himself entirely. You, acknowledge the Lord: lest he command contrary things, he distributed the precepts among times. For if you think that the precept by which we are bidden to honor father and mother, because it is read earlier in the Old Testament, is contrary to the evangelical precept, in the same Old Testament there is written something such as what we just now heard in the Gospel when it was read. He who says to father and mother: I do not know you, and who does not acknowledge his own sons, he has kept my covenant (See Deut 33:9). How alike it is, how twin, how equal it is recognized. Therefore the one Lord commands both, but let us distinguish the times.

7. The martyr is armed for the crown, and there comes a flattering father and mother, to hinder what God promises, promising a vain inheritance and taking away the eternity of light. Here clearly do not acknowledge those who hold you back; rather hate the father here, out of piety hate such a one, lest he remain such. So hate father, so mother, so children, so brothers, so the wife, in whom there is a greater question, when it has come to this point, hate even her, if she too tries to hinder. Beware of Eve: then she is not your member, but the serpent's instrument. You who once foolishly heard her first voice, and did not profit by experience, but that very wife, to hinder a martyr husband from his crown, with womanish wiles prescribes to the man, as it were, from the law and from the Gospel itself. "Hear," she says, "the precept." What precept? "What God has joined, let not man separate (Matt 19:6). Clearly hear it, do not spurn it. What God has joined, let not man separate." But see, lest the wife separate you from God. "But what he has joined, man ought not to separate." Ought human affection separate a man from God himself? And where will be what you just now heard: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Here, then, do not fear: man does not separate what God has joined, but God separates the one who tries to separate. Do not, then, listen to your wife saying to you: "I am your member, see, you are a member." Answer: "If my member were rotting and by rotting were trying to make the whole body waste away, would it not be cut off by the physician? Do I not hear the Lord himself and true physician saying: For it is expedient for you that one of your members perish, rather than that your whole body go into hell (See Matt 5:29)?" Therefore answer, the law well understood, against one misusing the law. For the serpent does no great thing, attempts no great thing in wishing through Eve to deceive you from the law, who deceived the first Adam without the law. For he saw you now feeding on the law, and he sets a snare in your food. But say: My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the snare (Ps 25:15 (24:15)). Therefore in this peril too, where you are tempted from the law, let your eyes be toward the Lord, because he too was tempted by the same serpent from the law.

8. For when the Lord, to set us an example of combat and victory, had deigned to be tempted by the devil, just as he deigned to be crucified by the impious, in the first temptation—for we read that it was threefold—he answered from the law the devil who said: If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread (Matt 4:3), he from the law: Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God (Matt 4:4). Again in another temptation: Fall down and adore me, and I will give you these things (See Matt 4:9), and he from the law: It is written: You shall adore the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve (Matt 4:10). But when that cunning serpent saw himself twice over repelled from the law, he stretched a third snare from the law: "Cast yourself down," he says, from the pinnacle of the temple, "if you are the Son of God." And at once to the instrument of the law, that he might fight from where he had been overcome: "For it is written," he says, "He has given his angels charge over you, in their hands they will lift you up, lest perhaps you strike your foot against a stone (Matt 4:6). Because, then," he says, "if you are the Son of God, the angels take you up lest you be hurt, cast yourself down and prove to us what you are." Did the Lord here, because the devil dared to lay his hand on the law, take his hand from the law? Here too from the same law he wounded the enemy, laid him low, made him go off confounded. For he says: It is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God (Matt 4:7). Here too, then, when you see your wife trying to hinder you from martyrdom, reciting the law to you and saying: "What God has joined, let not man separate," you too recite there the law of the Gospel: Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children . . ."

9. Do not, then, be angry, wife. The one with whom you here are angry in this cause, because he hates you, hates also the father in this cause, hates also the mother. But it is too little for the wife, because it is written: A man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife (Matt 19:5). For if the parents, that is, father and mother, say to the son: "If your wife does not wish to remain with us, you remain with us, and dismiss her," let the wife take up this precept and fight, prescribe to the man and say from the law of God: "Rather dismiss them and do not dismiss me. For I recite: A man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife." You have recited, you have understood, you have conquered; clearly no one doubts that the father and mother trying to separate the son from his wife are to be dismissed, that the wife not be deserted. But attend, woman, if you deign to be faithful, and do not disdain to hear the word of faith, attend: whence you have conquered, thence allow yourself to be conquered. See, we restrain your father-in-law and your mother-in-law, the father and mother of your husband, who begot, who reared, who brought him to this age at which he became your husband; we wholly restrain them and we have reproved them by divine authority and said: "Do not wish to separate the son from his wife on your account, for he is better separated from you than from her. If it can be, be all together. But if this cannot be, it is better that he be with her than with you without her." We have pleaded your cause. You have conquered in this judgment: allow yourself to be conquered in another, because there too we plead your cause. Then, having faithfully pleaded the cause of your flesh, ought we to forsake the cause of your everlasting salvation? Learn. The father and mother of your husband did not separate you from your husband: you shall not separate your husband from your God.

10. There a fornication more to be feared is that against the chastity which the soul owes to God; there a fornication more to be feared, which the apostle feared, saying: I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds too be corrupted from the chastity of God which is in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 11:2-3). You see that there too chastity is required. Why do you not wish to be separated from your husband? Lest you have a necessity of fornication? But in your husband's martyrdom you ought to fear nothing. For when he is crowned and translated from human affairs to divine ones, you will be a widow; if you marry, you will not be a fornicator. But perhaps, as the wife of a martyr, you blush to marry further. See, with your husband crowned, let your faith too be in safety. Do not draw your husband away from the embrace of the spiritual marriage. There too chastity is required, and more there because greater there, more there because eternal there. You have destroyed everyone who fornicates away from you (Ps 73:27 (72:27)). For what else do you do, that your husband be overcome by your flatteries, but that there be no virtue in him? In whom there will be no virtue, how badly off will your husband be! He is overcome, beaten down, made effeminate by your flatteries: how will he be your husband, who will no longer be a man? For what do you do, but that he yield to your flatteries, despise the precepts of God, deny Christ, sacrifice to idols? See, the one whose flesh you seek, his soul fornicates; see, he hears: You have destroyed everyone who fornicates away from you. But you wish him to cleave to you and be separated from God: hear what follows: You have destroyed everyone who fornicates away from you; but for me it is good to cleave to God (Ps 73:27-28 (72:27-28)). Hear your husband armed with faith, hurling against your iniquity the darts of justice: I am sure, he says, that neither death nor life, neither angel nor principality, neither height nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:38-39). Perhaps here you say: "But in all these he did not name the wife." In all these, you say, he did not name the wife. Deceitful one, the apostolic virtue kept watch even against you by adding: nor any other creature. Or will you perhaps dare to say that you are not a creature? If you are a creature, indeed because you are a creature, neither will you separate him whom no creature will separate.

11. We have spoken as though men hasten to martyrdoms and are hindered by their wives: let us also console the weaker sex. How many women have been crowned and were not overcome by husbands flattering unmanfully! Whence was Perpetua made perpetual, unless . . . perpetual? Whence was Felicity capable of such great felicity, unless because temporal unhappiness did not terrify her? Therefore, lest women too in this cause be seduced by the flatteries of husbands, let Perpetua be attended to by them, let Felicity be attended to, and let perpetual felicity be held fast.

12. Let not, then, father and mother be angry in such a cause, nor wife, nor children, nor brothers; and if they are angry, it was added: hate moreover your own soul. In this cause, then, you love your wife badly, you who are bidden also to hate your own soul. For what does it profit a man, he says, if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul? (Matt 16:26) And yet you are bidden to hate it too, lest it too seduce you, wishing to be here, wishing always to cleave to this flesh, unwilling to migrate to better things; hate such a soul, lest you have such a one. For what else does it whisper within in men whom the peril of persecution tempts, but "Deny, live: you will do penance afterward"? It is the soul: it wishes to perish. Hate it as it wishes to perish. Lest you permit it to perish, chastise, rebuke, fashion it, call God to your aid. For it withers from you and fails in the perils of this life, it contemplates eternal life with eyes of faith that are not straight: lift it up by exhortation and say: Why are you sad, my soul, and why do you trouble me? (Ps 42:5 (41:6)) Perhaps it will answer you: "Because I am weak." Then you have what follows: Hope in the Lord, he will be your strength, he will be your firmness. Hope in the Lord, for I will confess to him, I will not deny him, for I will confess him. But you, soul, were murmuring: "Deny him." I will confess to him: the salvation of my countenance and my God (Ps 42:5-6 (41:6-7)). Therefore he who loves his soul, let him lose it here, that he may find it in eternal life. Therefore do not listen to those whispering contrary things, neither father nor mother, nor wife, nor children, nor your own soul.

13. Let the wife be heard with the fear of conjugal separation only so long as she does not urge something whereby God is offended. Thus all ranks will keep their order: virginity excelling, widowhood following, marriage third, none without reward. Let virgins think of Mary, widows of Anna, the married of Susanna. All have their rewards, and from all these ranks martyrs have by no means been lacking. The husband fears in the crisis of martyrdom lest his wife be Eve to him; the wife too fears in the crisis of martyrdom lest her husband be a serpent to her. But let neither hear anyone urging something against God. Thus far let carnal affection avail; let not the weakness of the flesh transcend the spiritual wall: let it be below, because it is below. Let the soul, subject to God, lead the flesh; let not the soul be seduced from God into the rule of the flesh: that is perverse. You wish to have rule in your own house, much more does God in his. Hold and meditate on these things, imitate these things in all the solemnities of the martyrs, and the God of peace will be with you (Phil 4:9). Turned to the Lord . . .

Sermon 352/A
(Dolbeau 14)

1. The Lord Jesus, the founder of the holy Gospel, as it were by a law of mercy wishing no one to perish, since for that reason he came to save what had perished, cried out as if in an assembly of the human race, as we have heard: Since the times are fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near, repent and believe in the Gospel (Mark 1:15). This voice the founder of the world uttered, and the world heard it. Let what he said be done, who came to come to our aid, lest he come to judge those who despise him. Let it be done, while the voice of mercy sounds, before the tribunal of justice comes. He to whom it was said in the psalm: Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, Lord (Ps 101:1 (100:1)), himself kept the order of his help. First he came to dispense mercy, about to come to exercise judgment. For not judgment, but mercy and judgment I will sing to you, Lord. What greater mercy can be desired, asked, demanded, than that God did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, that with him he might give us all things? What greater mercy than to come to die not for the just, but for the impious? What greater mercy than to come and not condemn those worthy to be condemned, but free those unworthy to be freed?

2. But let not this mercy be despised, my brethren. The Lord is merciful and compassionate. Add yet: long-suffering. Add yet: and very merciful. Fear what follows: and truthful (See Ps 86:15 (85:15); Exod 34:6). Far be it from us to despise the merciful one, that we should experience the truthful one! What need, then, is there for us to cry out? Let us rather hear the one who cries out: Since the times are fulfilled. For the fullness of times came, as the apostle says, and in the fullness of times God sent his Son made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law, and that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal 4:4-5). Commending this fullness of times, the Lord said: The times are fulfilled; he came, awaited by few, found by many. Therefore the times are fulfilled: repent. How long ago it is that this is cried out, and would that it were sometime heard: Since the times are fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near, repent and believe in the Gospel! Renounce and be converted. This is repent and believe in the Gospel: renounce dead works, believe in the living God. What does it profit to believe without good works? It was not the merit of good works that brought you to faith, but faith begins, that good works may follow. This is said to the holy Church in the Song of Songs: Come, my bride, you shall come and pass through from the beginning of faith (See Song 4:8). But who believes God, unless he has renounced the devil? Therefore, that you may renounce, repent; believe, that you may be saved.

3. This was said to the Jews, said to the idolatrous gentiles. Is it still to be said to Christians? It is still to be said to Christians who daily read that the times are fulfilled, still to be said to Christians that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near, still to be said to Christians: Repent and believe in the Gospel? Clearly, the one to whom I say "Believe in the Gospel" is not yet a Christian. No one, I suppose, hears me in this multitude who does not yet believe in the Gospel. Many hear me who are not yet made faithful by baptism, and still catechumens: not yet born, but already conceived. But when or how would they be conceived in the womb of mother Church, unless they were marked with some sacrament of faith? Many also hear me who are baptized and, neglecting in themselves the grace of God, love to sin. And to these what shall I say: The times are fulfilled? They answer: "We know." The kingdom of God has drawn near? They answer: "Long ago we heard it, long ago we believed it." What, then, shall I say? Since I am speaking to men who love to sin, despising in themselves the grace of the redeemer, what shall I say? Repent. I shall say it clearly, even if they do not permit me to say: The times are fulfilled, since they know it; The kingdom of heaven has drawn near, because they know this too; the very last that was set down: Believe in the Gospel, they do not permit me to say to them, because they have already believed; but let them hear: Repent, because they have not yet done so. From here, then, let us speak to the catechumens and to the negligent faithful. Let the diligent hear, since they too cannot be lacking among the members of Christ. Let them not think me wordy and superfluous, if they have love: it is a common business; they wish me to speak also to those whom they desire to be corrected together with them.

4. Let those, then, hear me saying not: The times are fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven has drawn near, believe in the Gospel, but saying: Repent. The catechumen answers me: "Why do you say to us: Repent? Let me first be faithful, and perhaps I will live well, and I will not be a penitent." I answer such men: That you may be faithful, repent. For those coming to baptism come through repentance. For unless by repenting they condemn their old life, they will not, as candidates, come to the new life. That I might say this, I have not dared beyond measure, nor usurped anything to myself unwonted to the Scripture of God. Let the catechumens hear the Acts of the Apostles. When the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, were speaking to the crowds, because they were speaking in all tongues, the crowds, astonished and made more attentive, heard from the apostles the word of God. All, because they were men of diverse tongues, were pricked to the heart, and because they were Jews, they repented of having crucified Christ, and, troubled about their own salvation and fearing certain damnation for so great a crime, they said to the apostles: What shall we do, brethren? (Acts 2:37) And the apostles: Do penance, and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38). You have heard how those not yet baptized were bidden to come to baptism through penance. This, then, we too will say to the catechumens. For we have recalled the testimony of the Scriptures, lest they think we say to them impudently that, before they are faithful, we wish them to be penitents.

5. But now let those who are faithful and live badly not think that I say to them impudently: Repent. Now, then, I will speak to both: Change your life, lest you lose your life. Condemn past sins, fear future evils and hope for good things. The evil man first does not contradict himself, that he should hope for good things, who is not good. You hope for a good: be what you hope for. First hear the one who commands, and then demand of the one who promises. God has become your debtor not by borrowing, but by promising. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid him? (Rom 11:34-35) What did he receive from you, who gave you all? Therefore he deigned to become a debtor, because he promised, and so to become a debtor that he even made a bond. This bond is the Gospel, it is Scripture, in which God made himself your debtor not by borrowing, as I said, but by promising. Therefore hear: Repent, believe in the Gospel. Hear the command, and then demand the bond. "Tomorrow," he says. For he did not find what to say to me, set before his own face and now displeasing to his own eyes. How much more, then, to the purer eyes of God! When, then, he had been displeased with himself in his evil ways, "Tomorrow," he says, "I will amend; do not press me, let today too pass. Why do you hasten? Tomorrow I will amend. Why do you press me on the day?" Because the day does not depend on you. All contention with such men is about delay. Since they say: "Let today pass as yesterday did. Tomorrow I shall be corrected, changed, amended, I shall fulfill what is commanded: I shall repent," that is: the whole matter turns on delay. Tomorrow is no great thing. But see, lest, just as you wished today to be like yesterday, so you wish tomorrow to be like today. Although I could say: Why not today, but tomorrow, you who do not know what will befall you tomorrow? But see, let us bear with it. Do not make tomorrow like today. "For what," he says, "if I do? Do I not hold what is written: On whatever day the wicked and impious man is converted, I will forget all his iniquities? It is said, and divinely said." I confess: it is divinely written. How well you have remembered God's bond! You hold what is owed you, you forget what you owe.

6. Impious men hear these things, not knowing the law, exiles from the grace of God, unworthy of the mercy of God, because it is said in our Scripture: On whatever day the wicked man is converted, I will forget all his iniquities, and they say to us: "You make men sin, who promise them such great impunity when suddenly converted." Do we dare not to promise what God promised? "Not a good law," they say, "which makes sinners abound." I would wish to know whether the one who speaks does not judge himself a sinner. And he is angry at God who waits, the very man whom God awaits. What if God did not promise this, who by his patience leads to repentance? If he did not promise this, would not more become sinners through despair? Let your love attend a little. Who is found not a sinner? The flesh weak, the age feeble, the sense narrow, the mind fearful, the nature ignorant of things—into how many sins does it hurl the incautious and negligent? How few can appear and exist who are not convicted of being sinners? Take away this mercy, take away this promised indulgence, take away in this most turbulent sea of iniquities the harbor of pardon, let there be nowhere for those tossed about to take refuge: do they not through despair add sins to sins, and say to themselves: "I am now a sinner, there is no mercy upon sinners, damnation is necessarily owed; why do I not do what I wish, why do I not fulfill my lusts, why do I not at least now do whatever delights me, since I am to lose this life and receive none afterward?" So desperate are gladiators, whence too a proverb has arisen: Back away from the wounded one. For the wounded one seeks where to die, and does not hesitate to do evil, because he hopes for no indulgence. He lets the reins go very loose to his desires, he is carried where he can, he desires that whatever pleases him be lawful for him: therefore he perishes by despairing. But you too, do not perish by hoping. Two voices, both contrary, both dangerous, through which men perish, but yet God despised neither voice: he provided for both this and that. What are those two voices? "Why should I not sin, why should I not do whatever I wish? When I am converted, all is forgiven me." Such perish by hoping. The other voice, on the other side, contrary indeed, but equally dangerous. "Why should I not do whatever I wish, I to whom no mercy is owed, to whom no indulgence will be given? I will do whatever I wish." They perish by despairing.

7. Which shall I accuse first: perverse hope or unbelieving despair? Why do you perish by hoping, why do you perish by despairing? Let those hear a few words who wish to perish by hoping: Return, transgressors, to the heart (Isa 46:8). Hear God saying, because you say: "Tomorrow, tomorrow," Do not delay to be converted to the Lord (Sir 5:7). To you I say, who prepare to be converted to the Lord, but put it off; to you I say, for whom I fear lest hope destroy you: hear not me, but him in whom you hope and by hoping too much in whom you perish: Do not delay to be converted to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day. For suddenly his wrath will come, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy you (Sir 5:7-9). Where is what you were saying: "I put it off to tomorrow and tomorrow to another tomorrow, since God promised me indulgence, saying: On the day the sinner is converted; for he did not say: If today he is converted, but: On whatever day he is converted?" God answers you: "I promised you indulgence, I did not promise you a tomorrow." Or do you perhaps wish to join and couple together two promises, what God promised and what the astrologer promised? For God promised indulgence, the astrologer perhaps promised you a tomorrow. Watch out, wretch: the astrologer is mistaken, and God condemns you. How many, suddenly snatched away, were permitted neither to make satisfaction to God nor to accuse the astrologers.

8. Let him too hear who had perished by despairing the things he was saying: "I have now committed such great evils that I hope for no indulgence. It remains to fulfill my lusts, to satiate my delights, that at least here I may have rest, which there I will not have." Hear you too the voice of God, not your own: "Despairing one, return to hope." Hear Paul saying: Therefore I obtained mercy—I who persecuted the Church of God—that in me Christ Jesus might show all his long-suffering, for the instruction of those who shall believe in him unto eternal life (1 Tim 1:13, 16). Therefore you have a pattern: do not despair, hear the bond which a little before the one who hoped badly was reciting, and from it let the despairing one be corrected. What were you hearing? Whence did he flatter himself, that he put it off from day to day? "God, God to me: On whatever day the wicked and impious man is converted, I will forget all his iniquities." Read and return. You were sitting on the bank, or carrying a noose in despair, you longed to bring death upon yourself, perhaps, having nothing to live on, you wished to die: return, you have whereby to live: see, the bread of God. I do not wish the death of the impious, so much as that he turn back and live (See Ezek 33:11).

9. Therefore, brethren, there is no reason for us to complain about God, there is nothing in which he displeases the perverse, although he cannot displease any but the perverse. The straight does not please the perverse; the crooked cannot be fitted to the straight. For there is nothing to be said. You were saying: "See, Christians grant impunity: they make sin abound." I have given the reason, that men would perish more by despairing, if no harbor of indulgence were set before the one tossed about. Both, then, God did not forsake, both those who hope badly and those who despair badly. For the sake of those who despair badly he gave the harbor of indulgence; for the sake of those who hope badly he made the day of death uncertain. There is nothing to be said, but there is something to be done. Let them say to me, then: "What shall we do?", who are moved by the word of truth; let them say not with their voices, but with their hearts: "What, then, shall we do?" What shall I answer, but what we have heard: Repent? What more shall I say? Repent. You are a catechumen: repent and you will be renewed; you are a bad baptized person, not a badly baptized one: repent and you will be healed. I do not find what to say to this; you know what to do. Turned . . .

Sermon 283
Augm. (Dolbeau 15)

1. Let us so marvel at the fortitude of the holy martyrs in their passion that we proclaim the grace of God. For neither do they themselves wish to be praised in themselves, but in him to whom it is said: In the Lord shall my soul be praised (Ps 34:2 (33:3)). Those who understand this are not proud. With trembling they ask, with joy they receive; they persevere, they do not lose it. For because they are not proud, they are meek. And therefore, when he had said: In the Lord shall my soul be praised, he added: Let the meek hear, and rejoice (Ps 34:2 (33:3)). What is the weak flesh, what is it but worms and rottenness? Or wherever anything might be, unless what we sang were true: My soul will be subject to God, for from him is my patience (Ps 62:5 (61:6))? For that the martyrs might endure all things for the faith, their virtue is named patience. For there are two things that either entice or drive men into sins: pleasure and pain. Pleasure entices, pain drives. Against pleasures, continence is necessary; against pains, patience. For in this way it is suggested to the human mind, that it may sin. Sometimes it is said: "Do this, and you will have this"; but sometimes: "Do this, lest you suffer this." A promise precedes pleasure, a threat precedes pain. Therefore, that men may have pleasures, or may not suffer pain, they sin. And therefore God, against these two things, one of which is in an alluring promise, the other in a terrible threat, deigned both to promise and to terrify: to promise the kingdom of heaven, to terrify with the punishments of hell. Pleasure is sweet, but God is sweeter. Temporal pain is evil, but eternal fire is worse. You have what to love against the loves of the world, indeed against unclean loves; you have what to fear against the terrors of the world.

2. But it is too little to be admonished, unless you obtain help, which pertains to the threat. Against all pleasures the law cries out to you: You shall not covet (Exod 20:17). You have heard: it is a divine oracle, God said it. That he commanded well and admonished truthfully, no one of the faithful has doubted. But see what the apostle says: The law came, and sin revived (Rom 7:9). For before it was said to you: You shall not covet, you thought you sinned lawfully, nor was it thought a sin, when it was not forbidden. Because sin was forbidden, it was known. Known, therefore, let it be avoided, if you were seeking the help of the law. You have heard. What more do you desire from the law? You shall not covet. The letter of the law has stuck in your mind, you have something with which to struggle, but you will be conquered if you have no help. Whence the help? From grace. For love has been poured out in our hearts, not by ourselves, but by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). Take away this grace, remove this help: the letter kills (2 Cor 3:6). The world held you at first a sinner; with the letter coming without help, it will hold you also a transgressor. Therefore the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6), because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. To this end the law terrifies, that it may compel us to ask for help. The law, as the apostle himself says, is as it were a tutor (See Gal 3:24). The tutor does not instruct, but leads to the master. Instructed and fortified by the master, one will no longer be under the tutor. For the letter will no longer terrify you, whom grace helps.

3. We have said this on account of what is written: You shall not covet. For this precept seems set against those sins which are committed through the enticement of pleasure, and the apostle set this down as it were generally, as if it were the sole voice of the law: You shall not covet. Does this precept avail anything against the fears of pain as well? Perhaps it avails. For what then? He does not wish to grieve: he covets health. He who fears to die covets life. Against this depraved coveting of bodily health, where there is no need, and of bodily death, which, like it or not, is to come, extend the precept: You shall not covet, and say with the prophet: And the day of men I have not coveted: you know (See Jer 17:16). This voice was in the martyrs: they did not covet the day of men, lest they not arrive at the day of God. They did not covet the day with a brief end, that they might arrive at the day without end. What did they despise, and what did they receive? For temporal losses are in no way to be compared with those gains. One labors for one hour, and eternity is acquired.

4. Consider, brethren, the day of the martyr; it is good for us to dwell in the very exhortation of his patience. Consider the labors of soldiers, of those who bear arms, what perils they undergo, what hard and arduous things they endure, in cold, in heat, hunger, thirst, wounds, deaths. Daily they live amid perils, setting before their eyes not the labor of the soldier, but the leisure of the veteran. "See," they say, "the labor ends, after a few years leisure will follow, it will be well with us, our means will not be lacking, immunity will be there, we shall be summoned to no public duties of the cities, no one after the burden of military service will lay his own on us." With this reward set before them, one labors toward an uncertainty. For he who, soldiering, says: "The labor ends," whence does he know that he himself may not end before the labor ends? Perhaps even when the labor is ended, leisure now attained, he dies at once. And he for whom it had been set, on account of the promised leisure, to labor somewhat longer, is not permitted to enjoy for long the very leisure to which by labor he came. In these uncertainties one labors, and yet for uncertain leisure a certain labor is undertaken. Awake, Christian hearts; soldier for God, with whom labor cannot be void, with whom peril cannot be fruitless. For the soldier of the world will by death lose his reward in battle, the soldier of Christ by death finds his reward. Finally, after a labor of brief time, not rest of long time is received, but of no time. For there we rest, not where there will be long time, but where there will be no time at all. For our age will be eternity, where there is neither growth nor aging nor will a day be added, because no day will depart. If, then, it were said to you: "Labor twenty years that you may rest forty," who would not wish, for a single labor, a double rest? Yet scarcely does it befall any veteran, even if he grows old, to enjoy leisure for as long a time as he labored. But of us, what is said? And our commander, who is to render us an eternal reward, not a daily wage, how does he exhort us through the apostle? For what is, he says, the momentary lightness of our tribulation, works for us beyond an incredible measure an eternal weight of glory (2 Cor 4:17).

5. What words, brethren! How he made light of what we suffer, how he commended what we hope for! What is, he says, the momentary lightness of our tribulation, beyond an incredible measure . . . For the incredible measure eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it ascended into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9). To the faithful, then, he says: Beyond an incredible measure it works for us an eternal weight of glory; light and momentary tribulation he calls it to the faithful. Beyond an incredible measure: we are bidden to believe what is incredible. Faithful soldier, believe the incredible, for to God nothing is impossible. He said weight by which you may become heavy, lest you be light. In a weighty people, he says, I will praise you (See Ps 35:18 (34:18)). He said weight, that the gravity of love may confirm you, that the wind of temptation may not carry you off. Consider the threshing floor and love gravity, fear lightness. There is chaff, there is wheat: both are shaken by the winnowing fan, but not both are snatched by the wind. The one remains through gravity, the other flies through lightness.

6. This, then, will be done in us, when for the sake of faith and justice we endure all adversities; for not for the sake of any rest whatever. Blessed, he says—which we have heard—are those who have suffered persecution for justice's sake (Matt 5:10). By this addition he distinguished us from adulterers, robbers, murderers, parricides, the sacrilegious, sorcerers, heretics. For they too suffer persecution, but not for justice's sake. If you wish to avoid temptation, see the distinction. Choose the cause, lest you shudder at the penalty. Choose the cause, lest you suffer the penalty in vain. And when you have chosen the cause, commend it too to God and say to him: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from a nation that is not holy (Ps 43:1 (42:1)). By him your cause is distinguished, from whom is your patience. For he grants true patience. For in a bad cause it is hardness, not patience. Whatever has hardened in the body, sensation lost, is healed with more difficulty. For all praiseworthy virtues have neighboring vices, by which the incautious are deceived; they have also contrary ones. It is easy for a man to take care not to rush into the contrary. To avoid the neighboring one is hard. For the neighborhood of the vices has a certain appearance and shadow of the virtues. What I say, having set forth certain examples, the rest recalled, I leave to be understood.

7. See, we speak of patience itself: to this virtue impatience is contrary. Patience is the endurance of evils for justice; impatience is the non-endurance of evils for any cause whatever. This endurance is contrary to non-endurance. Endurance in vice is hardness. For hardness imitates patience, but is not patience. See, then, lest perhaps it deceive you by its neighborhood, lest perhaps you be hard and seem to yourself patient. For just as he is better than the rest who is not driven to evil even by evil, so he is worse than the rest who is not even called back from evil by evil. Pain is an evil, iniquity is an evil. A reward was promised that you might do iniquity, you do not consent: you have conquered the desire of rewards. From another side you were assailed. Pains will be set before you, conquer also the bite of pains, you who conquered the pleasure of rewards. He who promises you a reward to lead you to iniquity, as it were by a good entices you to evil. He who threatens you with evil to compel you to iniquity, by an evil drives you to evil, but by a small evil to a great evil. But you will not be great, if you despise the one who promises; you will be greater, if you despise the one who terrifies, if you conquer the one who rages. Therefore I said: Just as he is better than the rest who is not driven to evil even by evil, so he is worse than the rest who is not called back from evils even by evil. You admonished a man not to be an adulterer, he despised your admonitions, he was not called back from evil by good. But if you begin to threaten pains, to inflict blows, to impose certain troublesome things, if not even then he restrains himself from evil, how much worse is he who could not even by evil be called back from evil. See to what calamity hardness, neighbor to patience, is subject. For to this end is hardness in the hearts of the impious, that they not be called back from evil deeds, neither by the proposal nor by the infliction of punishments. Whence you boasted, you are worse. "I endured," you say, "I conquered, I did not yield, I was not bent." I would praise this, if I recognized patience. But now I detest hardness . . . patience from hardness. "Do not question my voice, but my cause. Let the cause itself answer you." He is a robber: he suffers penalties for his robbery. He is tortured, and what he knows to be true in his conscience he does not confess. Shall we say: "Great patience"? Rather let us say: "Detestable hardness." But if he does this for a crime, what do you do for the faith? In him not to confess seems wonderful, in you to confess is glorious. For he suffers for a crime which must be denied, you for Christ who must be confessed. But sometimes the hardness is so great that one both confesses the evil and for the very confession of his iniquity suffers evils, lest he fall or depart from evils. He is ready to be tortured for Donatus, nor does he cover this by denying it, but he confesses it, nor does he blush: he boasts of his iniquity. Would that he were hidden from himself, while there is what appears. The wound you do not wish to be healed, you even dare to lay bare. This is not health with sensation, but hardness without sensation.

8. Let us love patience, let us hold patience, and, if we do not yet have it, let us ask for it. For from him is our patience, from whom is continence. From him is our continence against pleasures, from him is patience against pains. But the present psalm which we sang taught us that from him is our patience, surely against pains. Whence do we find that from him is also our continence, which is necessary against pleasures? We have a most evident testimony: And when I knew, he says, that no one can be continent unless God grant it; this very thing too was wisdom, to know whose gift this was (Wis 8:21). Therefore if you have anything from God, and do not know from whom you have it, you will not be rewarded, because you remain ungrateful. If you do not know from whom you have it, you do not give thanks: by not giving thanks, even what you have, you will lose. For to him who has, it shall be given (Matt 13:12). What is it to have fully? To know whence you have it. But he who does not have, that is, does not know whence he has it, even what he has shall be taken from him (Matt 13:12). Finally, just as he says: This very thing too was wisdom, to know whose gift this was, so too the apostle Paul, when he commended to us the grace of God in the Holy Spirit, said: We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God. And as if it were said to him: "Whence do you distinguish it?", he went on and said: That we may know the things given to us by God (1 Cor 2:12). Therefore the Spirit of God is the Spirit of love; the spirit of this world is the spirit of pride. Those who have the spirit of this world are proud, are ungrateful to God. They have many of his gifts, but they do not worship the one from whom they have them: therefore they are unhappy. Sometimes one man has greater gifts, another has lesser: for example, intelligence, memory. They are gifts of God. You will sometimes find a man most keen in talent, with a memory of incredible wonder; but you will find another of small understanding, of no tenacious memory, but endowed with both small: yet the one proud, the other humble; the one giving thanks to God for small things, the other attributing the greater things to himself. Incomparably better is he who gives thanks to God for a small thing than he who exalts himself over a great one. For the one who gives thanks for a small thing, God sometimes admits to great things; but he who does not give thanks for great things loses even what he has. For to him who has, it shall be given; but he who does not have, even what he has shall be taken from him. How does he not have, if he has? He who does not know whence he has it has without having. For his thing is taken away by God, and his iniquity remains to him. Therefore no one is continent unless God grant it. You have a gift against pleasures: since this very thing too, he says, was wisdom, to know whose gift this was: no one is continent unless God grant it. You have a gift against pains: For from him, he says, is my patience. Therefore hope in him, all the assembly of the people. Hope in him, do not trust in your own strength. To him confess your evils, from him hope for your good things. Without his help you will be nothing, however proud you have been. Therefore, that you may be humble, pour out your hearts before him. And lest you remain badly in yourselves, say what follows: God is our helper (Ps 62:8 (61:9)).

9. This helper, that he might conquer, the blessed martyr had, whom we admire, whose solemnity we celebrate today. Without him he would not conquer. And if he conquered pains, he would not conquer the devil. For sometimes those conquered by the devil conquer pains: not having patience, but hardness. That helper, then, was present, that he might grant him true faith, make him a good cause, and for the good cause grant patience. For there is patience when a good cause precedes. For even faith itself none but God grants. The apostle briefly commended both, that the cause for which we suffer, and the patience by which we endure evils, are from God for us. For, exhorting the martyrs, he says: Because it has been granted you for Christ's sake (Phil 1:29). See, a good cause, because for Christ's sake! For sacrilege is against Christ; for heresy and schism, against Christ! For Christ says: He who does not gather with me scatters (Matt 12:30). Therefore: To you, he says, it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only that you believe in him, but also that you suffer for him (Phil 1:29). This is true patience. This patience, then, let us love, this let us hold; and if we do not yet have it, let us ask for it. And rightly we sing: My soul will be subject to God, for from him is my patience.

Sermon 72
Augm. (Dolbeau 16)

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ admonished us to be good trees and to be able to have good fruits. For he says: Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit (Matt 12:33). Where he says: Make the tree good, and its fruit good, this is surely not an admonition, but a healthful precept, to which obedience is necessary. But what he says: Make the tree bad, and its fruit bad, is not a precept, that you do it, but a warning, that you beware. For he said this against those who thought that they, being evil, could speak good things or have good works. This the Lord Jesus says cannot be. For the man must first be changed, that the works be changed. For if the man remains in what is evil, he cannot have good works; if he remains in what is good, he cannot have evil works.

2. But who was found good by the Lord, since Christ died for the impious? He found, then, all the trees bad. But he gave power to become sons of God to those believing in his name. Whoever, therefore, is today a good man, that is, a good tree, was found bad, and was made good. And if, when he found the trees bad, he had wished to root them out rather than that they remain, which would not have been worthy to be rooted out? But he came to dispense mercy first, that afterward he might exercise judgment, he to whom it is said: Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, Lord (Ps 101:1 (100:1)). He gave, then, to believers the remission of sins, he was unwilling to keep account with them about the past records. He gave the remission of sins: he made the trees good. He put off the axe: he gave security.

3. Of this axe John speaks, saying: Now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire (Matt 3:10). Of this axe the householder threatens in the Gospel, saying: See, it is three years that I come to this tree and find no fruit on it. Now I ought to clear the ground: therefore let it be cut down (See Luke 13:7). And the vinedresser intercedes: Lord, let it be this year too: I will dig around it and apply a basket of dung; if it bears fruit, well; if not, you will come and cut it down (See Luke 13:8-9). As if through three years the Lord visited the human race, that is, in three certain times. The first time is before the law; the second, in the law; the third is now, which is the time of grace. For if he did not visit the human race before the law, whence Abel? whence Enoch? whence Noah? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? whose God he wished to be called, whose were all the nations, as though he were the God of three men: I am, he says, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob (Exod 3:6). But in the law, if he did not visit, he would not give the law. After the law the householder himself too came: he suffered, died, and rose, gave the Spirit, made the Gospel preached throughout the whole world. And still a certain tree has remained unfruitful. There is still a certain part of the human race: it still does not correct itself. The vinedresser intercedes: the Apostle prays for the people: I bend, he says, my knees for you to the Father, that, rooted and founded in love, you may be able to grasp with all the saints what is the breadth and length, the height and depth, and to know also the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph 3:14, 17-19). By bending the knees, he intercedes for us before the householder, that we be not rooted out. Therefore it is necessary that he come: let him find us fruitful. The digging around the tree is the humility of the penitent: for every ditch is humble. And the basket of dung is the filth of the penitent: for what is filthier than dung? and yet, if you use it well, what is more fruitful?

4. Let each one, then, be a good tree. Let him not think that he can have good fruits, if he remains a bad tree. There will be no good fruit but of a good tree. Change the heart, and the work will be changed. Root out greed, plant love. For just as greed is the root of all evils, so love is the root of all good things. Why, then, do men mutter among themselves or contend: "What is good?" O if you knew what is! The good which you wish to have is not greatly good. The good which you do not wish to be, this is the great good! For do you wish to have health of body? Be it so, let it be a good. Yet it is not a great good which even an evil man can have. Do you wish to have gold and silver? See, this too I say: it is a good, but if you use it well; but you do not use it well, if you are evil. And through this, gold and silver to the evil is evil, to the good is good: not because gold and silver makes them good, but because, finding them good, it is turned to good use. Do you wish to have honor? It is a good, but this too if you use it well. To how many has honor been an occasion of ruin! to how many has honor been a service of good work!

5. Let us distinguish, then, these goods, if we can, because we are speaking of good trees. And there is nothing that anyone ought to think of, except to strive, as far as he can, to turn back from the rest by which the eyes are corrupted, to turn his eyes upon himself, to descend into himself, to examine himself, to inspect himself, to seek himself and find himself; and what displeases, let him kill, and what pleases, let him adopt, and what he adopts, let him plant. For when a man has found himself empty of the better goods, why is he greedy for exterior goods? See, what does a chest full of goods profit, with an empty conscience? You wish to have goods, and you do not wish to be good! Do you not see that you ought to blush at your goods, if your house is full of goods and has you, its owner, evil? For what is there that you wish to have evil? Tell me. Nothing at all: not a wife, not a daughter, not a son, not a servant, not a farm, not a tunic, finally not a boot; and yet you wish to have an evil life! I beg you, prefer your life to your boot. All the things that lie around your eyes, elegant and beautiful, are dear to you; and to yourself you are cheap and foul! If your goods could answer you, the goods with which your house is full, which you wished to have, which you trembled to lose, would they not cry out to you: "As you wish to have us good, so we too wish to have you a good master"? With a silent voice they plead against you before your Lord: "See, you gave such great goods to this man, and he himself is evil! What does it profit him to have what he has, when he does not have the one who gave all?"

6. He asks, then, admonished by these words of mine, and perhaps pricked, he asks what is good, what kind of good, whence one is good. You have understood well that you ought to ask this. I will answer the one who asks, and say: This is good, which you cannot lose unwillingly. For you can lose gold even unwilling; you can lose your house, your honors, you can lose the very health of the flesh. But the good by which you are good, you neither receive unwilling nor lose unwilling. I ask, then, what kind of good this is. The psalm indeed admonishes us of a great thing, perhaps what we are seeking. For it says: Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? (Ps 4:2 (4:3)) How long that tree in the three years? Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? What is heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek a lie? (Ps 4:2 (4:3)) And after this it says what is to be sought: Know that the Lord has magnified his holy one (Ps 4:3 (4:4)). Now Christ too has come, now he has been magnified, now he has risen and ascended into heaven, now throughout the whole world his name is preached: How long will you be heavy of heart? Let past times suffice: now, with that holy one magnified, how long will you be heavy of heart? After the three years what remains, but the axe? How long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek a lie? Still vain things, still useless things, still pompous things, still fleeting things—thus, with Christ the holy one magnified, are these things still sought! Now truth cries out, and still vanity is sought! How long will you be heavy of heart?

7. Deservedly is this world strongly scourged: for the world has now come to know the words of the Lord. And the servant, he says, not knowing the will of his lord and doing things worthy of stripes, will be beaten with few (Luke 12:48). Why? That he may seek the will of his lord. The servant, then, not knowing the will: this was the world, before the Lord magnified his holy one: it was a servant not knowing the will of his lord, and therefore was beaten with few. But the servant now knowing the will of his lord: this is now, from the time the deity magnified his holy one, and not doing his will, will be beaten with many. What wonder, then, if the world is much beaten? It is a servant knowing the will of the lord and doing things worthy of stripes. Let it not, then, refuse to be beaten with many, since, if it is unwilling to hear the teacher unjustly, it will justly suffer the avenger; let it not murmur against the chastiser, when it sees itself worthy of stripes, that it may merit mercy.

8. <...> ...
/ beyond peace? To those who here have peace in love, he will give them peace also; he will give them peace in immortality, not to those who say: "Peace, peace, and there is no peace (Jer 6:14). Seek, therefore, peace and pursue it (Ps 34:14 (33:15))." Thus, then, in this psalm he has magnified his holy one. Therefore there is one to hear us, because we have one who intercedes for us. So, when he had said: The Lord has magnified his holy one, he added: The Lord will hear me, when I cry to him (Ps 4:3 (4:4)). For now I have there an advocate, who sits at the right hand of God and intercedes for us (See Rom 8:34).

9. But because he does not hear so as to give full peace, except him who withdraws from evil and does good—and to withdraw from evil is to be angry with oneself, to be pricked on one's couch; and to do good is to sacrifice the sacrifice of justice; to seek peace is to hope in the Lord—when he had said: Sacrifice the sacrifice of justice, he added: And hope in the Lord (Ps 4:5 (4:6)). You have now been angry with yourself, you have now been pricked, you have now withdrawn from evil, you have now offered the sacrifice of justice still in hope in good works: one thing you do not yet hold, lest perhaps you say: "I have now done all these things and have as yet received nothing"—there remains for you the work of endurance. For tribulation works patience, patience proof, proof hope. And hope does not confound (Rom 5:3-5). Be secure: you will not be confounded. Hope in him. Now it is still as it were night: you do not yet see God nor hold what he promised, but in this night do what the psalm says: In the day of my tribulation I sought God with my hands in the night before you, and I was not deceived (See Ps 77:2 (76:3)). In the day of my tribulation: reckon this whole life as the day of tribulation, and say: I sought God with my hands, not with my eyes. For it is still night. Seek with your hands, merit by your works, do good things and say that in this night you sought the Lord with your hands. There follows what follows for you too: And I was not deceived. By night I sought, by groping I sought, and yet I found. This is I sought with my hands: diligently and by works I sought. But how with those very hands did I seek? Before him, on account of that: Do not do your justice before men (Matt 6:1), not that you avoid men's faces, but that you not seek your own praise. For if you avoid the faces of those watching when you do good things, where is that: Let your works shine before men, that they may see your good deeds? But see what follows: And they may glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt 5:16)—that he may be glorified in you who made you good. For you were fit to make yourself bad, you are not fit to make yourself good. You were fit to wound yourself, you are not fit to heal yourself. Therefore when you do good works, wish this, that God may be glorified in you, because, when you have sacrificed the sacrifice of justice—that is, good works—it follows that you hope in the Lord.
10. "And what shall I hope for? how long shall I hope?" Here do not; it is not of this earth what you seek. You wish to be happy, I know. For who does not? You seek a good thing, but you do not seek it in its own region. As if you heard that gold is good and cannot be found except under the earth, and you snatched up a hoe and dug in your house. Asked what you seek, you would answer: "Gold." But he who knows where gold is found would answer you: "You seek a good thing, but not where you ought." You seek to be happy, you wish to be full of joys, you wish to be satisfied with goods so that you want for nothing at all and nothing is lacking to you: a great thing, but it is not here. How you may arrive, I tell you. What shall I say, but what I said? Be angry with yourself, be pricked on your couch, change yourself. Sacrifice the sacrifice of justice and hope in the Lord. In him you will have what you seek; when you come to him, there you will have it, because you will have him himself, of whom it is said: Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us (John 14:8).

11. Finally, here too what follows? When he had said be pricked—that is, may it repent you that you were bad—sacrifice the sacrifice of justice—be fervent in good works—he added: Hope in the Lord, and he says: Many say: "Who shows us good things?" (Ps 4:6 (4:7)) See, they have been pricked. "On my couch I was bad: I was angry with myself. I was a thief, I was a plunderer, I was this and that: I was angry with myself, I was pricked on my couch, I changed myself. Now I do good works: when I see a hungry man, I hold out bread; when I see a naked man, I clothe him; when I see a stranger, I take him in; when I see men quarreling, I reconcile them; when I see one oppressed, I redeem him; when I see a sick man, I visit him; when I see a dead man, I bury him: where is the good that was promised me? I have now amended myself, now I have changed, now corrected from evil works I do good ones: where are the things promised me?" Many say—would that few said it—many say. What do many say? "Who shows us good things?"—where is what was promised me? "I dispense my gold and see nothing. What I dispense, I see; what is promised me, I do not see." It is night. Seek: your hands will not fail, and you will not be deceived. Many say: "Who shows us good things?"

12. What was he going to say, the one to whom they were saying: "Who shows us good things?" And what is the good itself? The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord (Ps 4:6 (4:7)). See the good. The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord. We were made to the image of God, and we are not re-engraved except by him who made us, nor re-formed except by him who created us. Therefore the light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord, that we may be your coin and be stored in your treasury. The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord. This is the coin of Christ: the face of our emperor is stamped on us. This coin Christ as a tax-collector sought, when to those slandering him about the tribute he said, as they showed the coin and answered that it had the image of Caesar: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's (Matt 22:21). Caesar seeks his own image in your gold; will God not seek his in your soul? See what the good things are. Why do many still say: "Who shows us good things?" How long will you be heavy of heart? (Ps 4:2 (4:3)) You seek good things in which you may fear many things. You seek transitory good things, you seek temporal good things, you seek good things by which, living, you are sent away, or, dying, you let them go. How long, then, will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek a lie? Do you wish me to show you a good? Have it, and you will know. It can be had in the heart, it cannot be shown to the eyes.

13. Finally, see what follows the light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord: You have given, he says, gladness in my heart (Ps 4:7 (4:8)). In my heart, not in my storeroom, not in my chest, but in my heart. See that the light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord. For one acquires gold too and puts it in his chest: his heart rejoices, but over vanity, not over truth. Do you wish to see how vainly he rejoices who so rejoices and who supposes the false to be true? This man has a full chest: he goes out from his house; wherever he turns, he rejoices, because his chest is full. Another had a full chest and lost by a thief what he had: he does not know it, he still rejoices; he does not know it has perished, he still rejoices. How was that yours which was not in you? See, now it perishes, and you still rejoice. You feed on empty hopes. Whence, but because you seek vanity? Why? To what good, with what fruit? See, you have lost it, even though you loved what you lost. And how have you perished? Return, then, to the highest good, that you may be able to say: "The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord. We have been made your coins: gather us to your treasuries, and we render the tribute of Caesar, ourselves to you, to Caesar what you gave, to you what you made, to you who made us. You have given gladness in my heart: there is that from which I rejoice, the good is within, it is stored in the inner chest." This you cannot lose unwilling; there is he himself who made it, delighted in his temple, because you were pricked on your couch.

14. Finally, after he said: The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord; you have given gladness in my heart, he looked back at those many who were saying: "Who shows us good things?", and said: From the time of their grain, wine, and oil they have been multiplied (Ps 4:7 (4:8))—their grain, their wine, their oil. These things they attended to and coveted earthly things. And when it was well with them, they were filled with these earthly things—they were multiplied—they called the people happy who have these things. But you, what do you say? Happy is the people whose God is the Lord himself (See Ps 144:15 (143:15)). Because the light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord. But those, multiplied from the time of their grain, wine, and oil, let them withdraw from me; let those who love such things not say to me: "Who shows us good things?" There is what I would show, but there are not those to whom I would show it. Therefore from the time of their grain, wine, and oil they have been multiplied.

15. You, what? In peace, in the selfsame. What is in the selfsame? What is not changed, what is not variable, what is not temporal, what is not now thus, now otherwise. In the selfsame I will sleep (Ps 4:8 (4:9)). It is difficult to explain what I feel about what he said: I will sleep in the selfsame. I will sleep in peace: in the selfsame I will sleep. He who sleeps in a manner has a holiday from the senses of the flesh. Why, then, do you seek outside, for your blessed life, forms and colors for your eyes, songs and sweet melodies for your ears, various flavors for your taste, various pleasures for your touch? Not such is the good by which you are good, not such the good of which you said: "Who will show us good things?" Within, in the image of God, is the good, whence is formed this good which neither eye has seen nor ear heard (1 Cor 2:9). Therefore sleep, take yourself away from the desire of the eyes, do not converse with the senses of the flesh, that your Lord may say to you: Enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21). Therefore in peace, in the selfsame I will sleep and rest (Ps 4:8 (4:9)).

16. Whence does one come there? For you, Lord, have made me dwell singularly in hope (Ps 4:8 (4:9)). This which was being said: Hope in the Lord, was said with iniquity now strained off, with the sacrifice of justice now offered. Hope in the Lord, but you have made me dwell singularly in hope. What is singularly? Not like the many who say: "Who will show us good things?", coveting many things and dissipated by various pleasures—one seeks this, another that, they do not seek one thing. From another's evil one wishes his own good. The one cannot grow rich, unless the other comes to want. The bigger fish cannot be satisfied, unless the smaller fish is devoured. Those who seek these goods do not seek goods, because they seek non-goods. Singularly, then, you will receive what the impious do not receive. O you singular man—the whole body of Christ—O you singular man—the body whose head is Christ—dwell singularly in hope, do not seek the goods of the nations. For all these things the nations seek. Seek first the kingdom and the justice of God (Matt 6:32-33)—this is the sign of the countenance of God. Seek this in yourself and, if need be, all these things will be added to you (Matt 6:33). Does he feed the robber and will he forsake you? The earth is the Lord's and its fullness (Ps 24:1 (23:1)).

17. Do not you withdraw from your God, love your God. To whom you say: "Give me this and give me that," say to him sometimes: "Give me yourself." If you love, love freely, do not be an unchaste soul. Your wife would not please you if she loved your gold, if she loved you for this reason, that you gave gold, that you gave a good tunic, that you gave a most excellent farm, a choice servant, a handsome eunuch, because, if she loved these things in you, she would not love you. Do not rejoice in such a love: an adulterer can often give more. You wish your wife to love you freely, and do you wish to sell your faith to God? "Because I believe in you," you say to your God, "give me gold." Do you not blush? "Because I believe," you say, "give me gold." You have pledged your faith: see its price. It is not worth so much, it is not worth gold or silver, your faith is not worth so much; it has a great price: God himself is its price. Love him and love him freely. For if you love him for the sake of something else, you do not love him. You ought not to wish him for the sake of something else, but whatever else you wish you ought to wish for his sake, so that all things are referred to the love of him, not he referred to other loves, but he preferred to other loves. Love him, love him freely. To this that great athlete was provoked by a great adversary saying: "Does Job worship God for nothing? (Job 1:9)"

18. Therefore if you wish a good, when you say: "Who shows us good things?", God himself is, who made you good and who makes you better, he himself is good by no other good, but good by himself. For to you, that you be good, another good comes; to him, that he be good, no good comes. For he himself is good to himself by himself. Commending this great good, the Lord says: "Why do you ask me about the good? No one is good but God alone (See Matt 19:17)." Are there not other good things? Is it not written: God made all things very good? But all these things are good through God. But God is not good through these, nor is he good through other things which have goods, but he is the good of goods. See what kind of good: seek it. Why do you still love vanity and seek a lie? See what good: seek the good of goods. You seek riches: it is not singular. Attend: You have made me dwell singularly in hope. Why is it not singular? Both the good and the bad have it. You seek health of body: both the good have it and the bad, both men and beasts, it is not singular. You seek honors: even the bad attain them, it is not singular. That is singular which only the good will have. To the good here God gives goods, and to the bad; he himself gives evils both to the good and to the bad: to the one for torment, to the other for exercise. Evils are common to the good and the bad. The singular evil, the bad eternal fire; the singular good, the good eternal God. For whatever else there is of creatures, God gives those even to his enemies: earth and heaven; they use the lights of heaven, the fruits of the earth, health of body, the honors of the world, his enemies use them. It is a creature: what he created he gives them. He who created keeps himself for you, but if you love freely. For the time will come when he gives himself to you, and to the impious it will be said: Let the impious be taken away, that he see not the glory of God (See Isa 26:10). Therefore, brethren, let us love God freely, let us do good things, let us endure evils, let us hope in him, that someday, with himself given back, we may be satisfied with him alone, who lives and reigns for immortal ages. Amen.

Sermon 110/A
(Dolbeau 17)

1. We have often admonished your love and, according to the small measure of our strength, with the Lord granting it, we have taught that in the holy Gospel the wonderful deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ are not only mighty works and works—for what else are they, but the more wonderful the more divine?—but are also as it were visible words, admonishing us to understand also what they signify. If we do not understand them, they delight by the miracle alone and lift up the heart in the praise of God. Accordingly, just as even one who does not know letters admires and praises a scribe writing beautifully, merely by looking at what he writes, and, ignorant of the meaning, is delighted by the beauty of the strokes—not knowing the sense, he praises the form; but he who also knows how to read gathers an abundant fruit—so when we hear what wonders the Lord did, even if we do not understand what they signify, like those who do not know how to read and look only at those, as it were, letters, we admire the work of the one doing it, even if we do not know the will of the one signifying. What is more wonderful than this deed? For eighteen years a bent woman was held by infirmity: in one moment by the word of the Lord she was made upright, and a most aged sickness yielded to the one commanding, because it obeyed the one ruling. He loosed the bond of the one who entangles, he did the work of the creator. She who was bent was made upright, she who was bound was loosed, and this by a word, because he who made the word—and all things were made through him (John 1:3)—came to seek what had perished. Let us admire, praise, love. Yet after admiring the strokes of this writing, let us seek a little more attentively its meaning.

2. For in the same Gospel passage, in the same context where it is recalled concerning eighteen men that the tower of Siloam fell and they died, the woman, infirm for eighteen years, was healed and made upright. Both are there: it is narrated in one connected account. In that very connection too is what the Lord says about that tree, to which he came and found it unfruitful, now in the third year. When he ordered it to be cut down, the vinedresser interceded: that he should apply to it, dug around, some dung, and, if it bore fruit, well; but if not, he would come and cut it down. This about the tree was said figuratively, not done by a miracle. But that about the men on whom the tower fell was neither said figuratively by the Lord, nor was the matter commended by any miracle: men were crushed by the ruin. It can be reckoned as it were by chance, except that the impious understand that not even a sparrow falls without the will of the Creator. But that the Lord might of his own accord recall those eighteen men whom the ruin of the tower crushed, it had been reported to him that certain men had been killed by King Herod in a dreadful manner, so that he mingled their blood with their sacrifices. When men shuddered at this, they reported it. And the Lord said: Do you think that they, because this befell them, were sinners above the rest of men? Amen, I say to you: unless you do penance, you will all likewise perish (See Luke 13:2-3). Then of his own accord he added, and in recalling subjoined, saying: Or those eighteen men on whom the tower in Siloam fell and died, do you think that they were debtors above other men—that is, sinners? Amen, I say to you, that unless you do penance, you will all likewise perish (See Luke 13:4-5). Then he speaks of that fig tree, he now raises up the woman. I beseech you, aid our weakness by your attention; first what this means, I think, we ought not negligently to inquire.

3. Amen, he says, I say to you: unless you do penance, you will all likewise die. Likewise how? Like those, namely, whose blood Herod mingled with their sacrifices. Again, unless you do penance, you will all likewise die. How likewise? Like those on whom the tower fell. Since they died unlike one another—surely in one way those with whose sacrifices their blood was mingled, in another those whom the ruin crushed—how will all, unless they do penance, likewise die? Those who are to die in that way are not to die in this way, and those in this way, surely not in that; and yet by their merits they likewise die. The divine Scripture cannot lie, the mouth of truth cannot lie. Clearly, if we understand it, it is true. All the evil, the wicked, all the lost, the criminal, the disgraceful, the lovers of the world, the wanton and abject, unless they do penance, likewise die. How likewise? Both like those and like those. Not bodily and visibly, therefore likewise. For if bodily, they cannot die in both ways. But if we understand and compare spiritual things with spiritual and draw certain signs from bodily likenesses to intelligible things, all likewise die. For all the wicked ask evil things of God, and what they think good for themselves are evil, because they think badly. Whence? From evil concupiscence, from the work of flesh and blood, from the work of corruption, namely, which will not possess the kingdom of God. Therefore their sacrifices, that is, their prayers, are mingled with their blood, because they ask according to flesh and blood. This a certain Scripture designates and reproves, saying: You ask and do not receive, because you ask badly, that you may consume it in your concupiscences (Jas 4:3). You, then, offer your sacrifice: let it be mingled with your blood; for you are wise according to the flesh and, according as you are wise carnally, you ask God. For you are of flesh and blood; you wish to incline God to your flesh, when you ought to lift your heart up to God, nor do you attend to what the apostle says to you: If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; be wise about the things that are above, not the things on the earth (Col 3:1-2), lest your prayers, coming from flesh and blood, punish you with such a punishment as those were punished with whose blood the angry king mingled with their sacrifices. Separate your sacrifice from your blood, say to your God: I will render to you my vows, which my lips have distinguished (Ps 66:13-14 (65:13-14)). For the spiritual man judges all things. But he himself is judged by no one (1 Cor 2:15). By judging all things, he does not mingle the sacrifice with the blood.

4. How, then, do those who do not do penance die likewise, just as those died on whom the tower of Siloam fell? <Siloam is interpreted "Sent."> Who is Sent, but our Lord? The tower in Siloam, the cross of Christ. If, then, you have not been mortified, fixed to his cross by the evil concupiscences of flesh and blood, the crucified one falls upon you. Why do you sign yourself? If you do not act, you do not sign yourself. This is a ruin, not grace. Acknowledge the crucified one, acknowledge the one suffering, acknowledge the one praying for his enemies, acknowledge the one loving and wishing to heal those by whom he suffered such things. If you acknowledge, do penance and, if you ever willed badly, make it that you will well. Blot out the fault, lest you fear the penalty. But if you do not do this, will Christ profit you anything? He who eats unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself (1 Cor 11:29). If by eating unworthily he eats and drinks judgment to himself, what else but a tower falls upon him? For you will all likewise die, he says—and he says truly—unless you do penance for your evil deeds. Furthermore, if you do it, you are raised up and you will be like that woman. Furthermore, if you do it, you receive the filth of penance, as it were a heap of dung, not unfruitfully, lest you be cut off.

5. It remains to ask about the number, why eighteen men, and eighteen years, and how they fit the three years of that tree. That angry ruler of the synagogue admonished us to solve a question of this kind, since the Lord Jesus healed that bent woman on the Sabbath. For he said to the crowds: For there are six days on which one ought to work; come then and be healed, not on the Sabbath day (See Luke 13:14). The beast indeed is convicted by the beast. Hypocrites, he says, does not each of you on the Sabbath day loose his beast of burden and lead it to water? (See Luke 13:15) Nor was it fitting that he be convicted otherwise, who was like the horse and the mule, having no understanding. And yet he seemed to himself to speak from Scripture, when he said: There are six days on which one ought to work. From Scripture indeed, but he mingled the sacrifice with the blood, since what was said spiritually he understood carnally. Let us, however, take from him an occasion of understanding, and let us too recall that in six days God worked all things that we see, heaven and earth and all things that are in them; but on the seventh day God rested. And all those six days have an evening, because heaven and earth will pass away; but that seventh day of rest has no evening, because, when we too after good works have rested, we will have no end in that rest. We find, then, that in six days all things were made: by the number six it signified time. Furthermore, if time is signified to you by the number six, look to the three years of the tree, because there a threefold time is signified: one before the law, another under the law, the third which we now spend, surely under grace. Whoever is not corrected even in this time, let him expect the axe, not security. Therefore, because that tree, at least in the third time, was to be corrected and changed from sterility to fruitfulness, that it might hear the one baptizing unto penance: Bring forth fruits worthy of penance (Luke 3:8), and the number six signifies time, beyond doubt those eighteen whom the tower crushed were not corrected in all that threefold time. For if six signifies time, three times six is eighteen.

6. But that woman in the time of grace is raised up in eighteen years, as if she were the one who had said: They bent down my soul (See Ps 57:6 (56:7)). For the soul is bent down which is pressed by earthly things, the soul is bent down which is weighed down by the desires of things, the soul is bent down which lies in saying that it has its heart up to the Lord. For if you have your "heart up," you are not bent. If you always seek earthly things, if you desire to be happy from earthly things, if you do not think you worship God fruitfully unless earthly happiness has abounded for you, you are bent: your heart is not with the Lord. But this penalty came from the dominion of the devil. The whole human race was held bent under the devil, the whole human race was weighed down by earthly desires; there came one who would promise the kingdom of heaven. There is another life, there is the fellowship of the angels; there is a fatherland where no violent man, no enemy is to be feared; there is a fatherland walled by the will of God, surrounded by the shield of the good will of God, by which the enemy is not permitted in, whence a friend does not perish; there is a fatherland where no one departs, no one succeeds. That fatherland is called Jerusalem, Jerusalem is interpreted "vision of peace." Be raised up from your bentness, do not be wise about the earth. You have risen with Christ, he is in heaven: stretch toward him and you will not be bent.

7. But you did not do this, O malignant human race, you did not do this before the law, you did not do this under the law: do it under grace. In eighteen years he found you bent, who came upright, who came to be crucified for you, that he might loose you from the bond of the devil. The creditor's bond held you bent. For the devil had bound his debtors and had as it were put them in fetters; he came, no debtor, and paid what he did not owe and blotted out our bond. The bond of our debt, whence was it blotted out? By the blood of the just one. For why would the one set over death hold men unto death? He clearly held them, by the condition of sin, as his own tree: he conquered and held, he conquered and possessed. He held by right those whom by evil persuasion he had deceived. He came, persuading good things, having nothing evil, born of a virgin, not bearing the propagation of sin, but clothed with the penalty of death, having the likeness of sinful flesh, that he might free us from the flesh of sin. Hear him about to go to the passion and saying: Behold, the prince of the world comes, and in me he will find nothing (John 14:30). Not as the world in you, not as in all the human race, in me he will find nothing. Therefore if he will find nothing in you, why will you die? What follows? After he said: In me he will find nothing, as if it were said to him: "Why then will you die?", but that all may know, he says, that I do the will of my Father: arise, let us go hence (John 14:31). He arises and goes to the passion, that he may fulfill the will of the Father, as it were sent as Siloam, not because he owed it, but that he might pay for the debtors, as if it were said of him in prophecy: What I did not seize, then I paid back (Ps 69:4 (68:5)). He alone, then, undeserving of death. But we are all deserving, because we have all drawn the merit of death together. He drew to himself no merit of death, and yet he took on death for us. Therefore he paid what he did not owe, freed the debtors, blotted out the ancient records, established new records. What need have we now to keep account with the old records? He burned them with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

8. Acknowledge the redeemer, do not make yourself further a debtor. But on account of certain daily sins, even if lesser, he gave a daily remedy. From faith say, from the heart say, from good will say: Forgive us our sins. For add, not only by saying, but also by doing, what follows: As we too forgive our debtors (See Matt 6:12). Therefore God, whose debtor you are, wished you to have a debtor. Your debtor is he who does iniquity to you, who oppresses you unjustly, who takes something from you unjustly. He is your debtor, he owes you a penalty. Do you wish to know that he is your debtor? Look, read. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (See Exod 21:24), etc. The law established that each one suffer what he has done. On the contrary, the Gospel, when it says: But I say to you: love your enemies (Matt 5:44), does not speak against the law, as some who understand badly suppose, that the gentleness of the Gospel is contrary to the harshness of the law. It is not so. The law shows what is owed you. The Gospel would not make you a forgiver, unless the law showed you a debtor.

Sermon 306/E
(Dolbeau 18)

1. The foretold day of your love's solemnity of the crown of Quadratus has dawned today: let us celebrate it both by assembly and by sermon. Of the glory of the martyrs before God and men, then, we speak as often as we celebrate their solemnities. Let assiduous celebration be frequent exhortation, that there may be exultation. We sang a psalm fitting indeed for the feast of martyrs: I was pushed as a heap of sand, that I might fall, and the Lord took me up (Ps 118:13 (117:13)). For this the whole choir of martyrs says, this the body of Christ in the world, living like Lot in Sodom amid temptations, seeing many things it does not wish, but by no means consenting to the deeds of the wicked. For in diverse ways the human mind is driven to sin, either by the enticement of pleasure or by the bite of tribulation, and whoever, lest he sin through enticement, has conquered pleasure, has made much progress, yet has not yet achieved perfection. For the love of justice ought to be so great that pleasure yields to it, and that it itself does not yield to pain. Whoever has arrived at this has achieved perfection. Therefore the martyrs are believed to have gone out from the world perfect, because they conquered by contending not only against the pleasures of the world but also against tribulations. Finally, as the faithful know, among the Christian sacraments we do not pray for the martyrs. And not only do we not pray for them, but we commend ourselves to their prayers.

2. This perfection the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews demands by rebuking and exacts, where it is said: For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin (Heb 12:4). This perfection is demanded; he to whom it is said "You have not yet done it" is admonished to do it. For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. But the martyrs strove unto blood. And they strove not against a persecuting man, but against the plotting devil, and—if you gather the truth—against their very own weakness. For in the man himself a great contest is waged, where the theater is the conscience; but the supreme spectator is the inspector of the conscience. But if he were only the inspector of the conscience and not also the helper, every striver would fail. Accordingly, in the very words we sang you have what I say: As a heap of sand, he says, I was pushed, that I might fall. Why, then, did you not fall? And the Lord took me up. As if confessing he said this of his weakness. As far as concerns me, he says, I would fall, but the Lord took me up. Be, then, in the Lord, remain in the Lord and, when temptation pushes you, you do not fall, because you do not yield. If by resisting you do not yield, by not consenting you do not fall.

3. Take a likeness from the very name of him whose solemnity we celebrate: he was called Quadratus. A squared stone, when you push it, yields and does not fall. It yields by not resisting, but does not fall by remaining on every side in uprightness. For the squared one is straight on every side: it is pushed on one side, received on another, it can never fall. Rightly too the Lord God commanded the ancient just man Noah to build the ark of squared timbers. He willed timbers to be applied to the structure both incorruptible and squared. Incorruptible on account of eternity, squared on account of avoiding temptation. Let us too be squared, indeed let the whole body of Christ be the Mass of the Squared one. For this has the cornerstone, as it was sung: The stone, he says, which the builders rejected, this has been made the head of the corner (Ps 118:22 (117:22)). How, then, was the stone which the builders rejected made the head of the corner? He wishes the Pharisees and scribes and doctors of the law to be understood. They rejected him as if he were not the one; they said: "He is not the one. We indeed await the Christ, but we do not acknowledge this one." By confessing that they awaited the Christ, they were as it were builders; but by saying that they did not acknowledge the very one who was the true one, they rejected the cornerstone, because they themselves were not on the rock but on the sand. Therefore those builders, by boasting rather than by doing it, rejected the cornerstone. But lest you wonder how a stone rejected by the builders was made the head of the corner, Scripture subjoined: This was done by the Lord (Ps 118:23 (117:23)). Rejected by those builders, but made the head of the corner by the Lord. From opposite sides walls ran into this corner: circumcision and uncircumcision. If you attend to whence they come, what is so diverse? If you attend to where they cohere, what is so one? For the walls coming from opposite sides make the corner, but cohering with one another in one place in the bond of peace. It was done: they came from the circumcision, they came from the uncircumcision, they were joined to one another in the cornerstone. It was fulfilled what the apostle says: He himself is our peace, who made both one (Eph 2:14).

4. Accordingly, dearly beloved, striving toward the cornerstone, come squared, that the builder may not reject you. Yet hope wholly in God; he himself squares who joins together. You, says the apostle Peter, like living stones, are built up into a holy temple of God (See 1 Pet 2:5). We ought so to think of the temple of God that we likewise know that God does not need a temple, but the temple needs God, lest we suppose that we bestow a benefit on God, that he may have where to dwell. That God dwell in you profits you. By so dwelling in you he makes you blessed, he is not made blessed by the dwelling. For he is so the true lord, who does not need a servant, and yet has a servant whom he does not need, but for whom he provides. For human weakness needs a servant, that the servant may do some work which the master cannot, and in doing what he can may help the master who cannot. For God is omnipotent, he does not need you, who made you. For you do not merit anything because you carry the Lord, you who merited to be made by the Lord. Do not think you bestow on God, because you believe in God. For if you do not believe, you are harmful not to him, but to yourself. This voice is expressed in the psalm where it is said: I said to the Lord: You are my God, for you have no need of my goods (Ps 16:2 (15:2)). Therefore my Lord, the true God, the Lord, who has no need of my goods, but I of yours.

5. Let no one think himself fit to square himself, just as he was fit to deprave himself, because no one ought to think himself fit to heal himself, even if he was fit to wound himself. In the power of the eye is darkness, for it is closed and is in it. When you close it, you are in darkness. Therefore it was in your power to be in darkness by closing your eyes; but is it in your power to see, when you have opened your eyes, unless there be light in which you can see? The closing of your eyes had no need of help for not seeing, but the opening of the eyes has need of help for seeing. For unless light be present, of the sun or a lamp or the moon or any kind of light, unless it be present to the opening, your eyes, though open, see nothing. It is ours, then, to receive, it is ours to have. But what do you have that you have not received? (1 Cor 4:7)

6. Therefore the pious voice as a heap of sand, not a heap of sand, but as a heap of sand; for the body of Christ, when it was made solid and squared, was thought by the blind to be a heap of sand, and because it was thought a heap of sand, therefore it did not fall. Nor yet did it attribute even this to its own strength, since it subjoined: The Lord took me up. In all these temptations of the world, then—for now Sodom has not yet burned, another indeed great Sodom, for that one burned for an example, the other is kept for judgment—in these temptations of the world, then, let us meditate to strive daily against sin unto blood, which by another saying is said: Strive for the truth unto death (Sir 4:28). What was there said against sin, this is said here for the truth. And what was there said unto blood, this is said here unto death. The very disposition of a martyr one ought to have, for God is not delighted by blood poured out: he has many martyrs in secret. Peace on earth to men of good will (Luke 2:14).

7. Nor is that persecution to be wished for which our forebears suffered from earthly powers, that they might become martyrs. The world does not cease, the abundance of temptations does not cease. Sometimes a fever, and you strive. To pass over the various threats of adversaries, the various temptations of each individual, what I had begun to say: a fever, and you strive. You are in bed, and you are an athlete. You are sick, and you fight, and you conquer. For what if, to one with a fever and set in peril of death, there comes someone who promises by certain incantations to drive off your fever, and those incantations are unlawful, devilish, to be detested and anathematized, then by the one who urges this, and of those who were so healed, many examples are set before you, and it is said to you: "When that man had this, he did it for him, he chanted over him, he purified him, he was present to him, and he was made well. Ask him, question him, hear him." And let those too say: "Truly it was done, we were nearly dead, and so we were freed, and let it be a proof to you that, if you admit that incantation, you will at once be freed from that plague." If you do not consent, will you not be a martyr, you who chose rather to die and did not consent to the sacrilegious one? For what the unjust judge said to the martyr set in chains or on the rack: "Consent to sacrifice, and I release you from this tribulation," this the devil says in secret to the one with a fever: "Consent to this sacrilege, and I release you from this fever."

8. If, then, you do not consent, if you conquer not a man but the devil, not any peer of yours, a sinner, but the very prince of sinners—but because your struggle is not against flesh and blood, that is, against men from whom you suffer troubles whether of persuasions or of tribulations, but against the principalities and powers and rulers of the world, not of heaven and earth, but of this darkness (Eph 6:12), that is, of the unclean and the wicked, whence to the freed the apostle says: You were once darkness (Eph 5:8)—if, then, you do not consent, do not think yourself not a martyr. Your solemnity indeed is not celebrated, but your crown is prepared. For it is the custom that the solemnity of those is celebrated who strove publicly. How many martyrs have gone forth from their bed, and from that infirmity passed as victors to things above. Know, then, that you are tempted, if you suffer anything of the kind, if anything of the kind is urged upon you; there it is needful that you have the disposition of a martyr, since he who made you watches you, and he who called you helps you. There it is that you may say that voice of the saints which I found: "God is able to free me from this deadly fever, but even if not (See Dan 3:17-18)." Let the enchanter be your contest, because the one to whom you speak is not a deceiver. So after these words, what shall please your Lord about you will be done. Either you are restored alive, or you are joined to the angels. He will do what he chooses about you: be you prepared for both, if you wish to be squared.

9. For do you think those words of the psalm which you just now heard, Chastening, the Lord has chastened me, and has not handed me over to death (Ps 118:18 (117:18)), are only the voice of Daniel, who closed the mouths of the lions? Do you think this voice is only that of the three boys, who by faith tested the flames among which they walked? Do you think this voice is only theirs: Chastening, the Lord has chastened me, and has not handed me over to death, because the lions did not devour him, nor the fires burn them? Far from it! Do not think this, this voice is not only theirs: it is also the Maccabees'. For the God of these is not another, of those another, or present to these, absent from these, or to these a helper and to those angry. He himself is the same God, able to free in both ways, that he may show that he has all in his power. By closing the mouths of the lions, he chastened Daniel in humiliation, but did not hand him over to death. By cooling the fires, he chastened the three boys in humiliation, but did not hand them over to death. By making the Maccabees victors in the fire, who would not yield to torments, but would strive unto blood against sin, chastening he chastened them, and did not hand them over to death. For they all live. To what death did he not hand them, I say? The devil wished to hand them over to the second death, the eternal death, not the transitory one. Those, then, he openly freed, those he secretly crowned, neither these nor those did he hand over to death.

10. Prepared, then, we ought always to be for both, I have said. For God is able to free from all tribulation. But above all we ought to pray that he free us from tribulation, that we be victors over tribulation, that we not yield to tribulation so as to sin. Nor think yourself a martyr only if it be said to you: "Deny Christ," and you do not deny. When you think to do something against justice, nothing else is said to you than: "Deny Christ." Surely the great martyr John the Baptist was beheaded, and yet it was not said to him: "Deny Christ." He was speaking the truth to a bad king: the angry king ordered him shut up, delighted he ordered him killed. For there was dancing that he might be killed: she danced, he fell. For he rather fell, by killing the just one. For not the one killed fell, but the one who ordered the killing. And yet it was not said to him: "Deny Christ," but because he died for the truth, he died for Christ, who said: I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

11. And he who says to you: "Bear false witness for me," says nothing else to you than: "Deny Christ." For if you confess Christ with your tongue and bear false witness, there comes about in you what Paul says: For they confess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him (Titus 1:16). You confessed by word, you denied by deed. God judges more the one who denies by deed than the one who confesses by word. For deeds are more than words. To do and to speak is good, but not to speak and not to do. Therefore you think yourself a martyr, if you strive. "Bear false witness for me." "I do not." "Just take this and say it." "I do not take it." You have conquered greed. If you also conquer fear, you have striven unto blood against sin. He who did not entice you by a reward will try to break you by threats, setting forth that he will display enmities, will harm more grievously and, when he has power, will kill—and perhaps he already has it—what do you do? He does not say: "Deny Christ," yet he says: "Do against Christ," that is, against the one who said: You shall not bear false witness (Exod 20:16). How many such temptations daily, not against all, as it were against the whole Church, as if a heap of sand were pushed, which is thought a heap of sand, but very often the enemy fights against single grains, sometimes tempts one by one. What does it matter whether he tempts one by one, or compels universally? The tempter is not lacking, but let the wrestler not be lacking either, because the crowner will not be lacking. Turned to the Lord . . .

Sermon 130/A
(Dolbeau 19)

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who called himself bread, seeks the hungry. But nothing hungers for this bread except the health of the mind, that is, of the inner belly. From this visible bread take a likeness. Since sick men, who through disease have contracted a distaste, can praise the best bread but cannot eat it, so too the inner languor of the inner man is not moved to eat this heavenly bread, since it is pressed by distaste, and, although it praises it, is not delighted to take it. But the Lord himself says, as we have heard: Work for the food that does not perish, but that remains unto eternal life (John 6:27), distinguishing it from this visible and bodily food, of which in another place: Everything that enters the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the privy (See Matt 15:17)—therefore it perishes. Work, then, for the food that does not perish, he says, but that remains unto eternal life. This food he called bread and showed that he himself was the bread. But what is it to work for this food, but to eat this food? For if this food is bread, likewise it is Christ. Who of us works Christ, who of us makes Christ, but by doing what Christ commanded? You are, says the apostle, the body of Christ and its members (1 Cor 12:27). Let us work Christ, that is, let us work this food.

2. Well did those who asked and were listening hear for us and ask for us. What shall we do, they say, that we may work the work of God? And with that wonderful and great brevity: This is, he says, the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent (John 6:28-29). This is brief: if you weigh it, it is great. It is quickly said, not easily accomplished. Someone of so great a multitude of those standing around says to me, he says: "Who of us is there who has not believed in Christ?" If, then, we have all believed in Christ, we no longer find what to be admonished about. Why? Because this is the work of God. Do you seek anything else but to do the work of God and to await the reward of God? Why, then, do you trouble yourself, why do you busy yourself through the great pages of Scripture and labor by running through them to seek and find how you may do the work of God? See, you have, in your Lord speaking to you, truth and brevity: do not stretch yourself out, do not sweat, do not labor, do not grow hot. This is the work of God, that you believe, he says, in him whom he sent. Where, then, is what James admonishes, saying: Do you believe that God is one? You do well. The demons too believe and tremble? (Jas 2:19) Do not think, he says, that you do something great by believing that God is one: The demons too believe and tremble. But perhaps the demons have no belief about the Son of God? And what is it that they say to him: We know who you are? (Mark 1:24) Or do they perhaps say it lying? do they say what they do not know? See, in another place more plainly: You are the holy one of God, they say, even You are the Son of God they say. When Peter had said this, he heard from the Lord: 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, Simon Bar-Jona, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church (Matt 16:17-18). On account of what was all this? Because he said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt 16:16). This the demons too said, to whom it was said: Be silent (Mark 1:25). Who would easily distinguish these things, why an equal voice is not praised, but because the heart was unequal? Understand, then, dearly beloved, as we admonish, what you daily read and say. The demons too believed that Christ existed and was the Son of God. They believed Christ, but did not believe in Christ. Now the whole intent of our sermon rests on explaining, as much as we can, if with the Lord's help we can, what it is to believe in Christ.

3. For this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. He did not say "believe him" or "believe him to be," but believe in him. We have heard the words of the prophets: we believe them, but we do not believe in them. We have heard the apostles preaching: we believe their preaching, but we do not believe in them. We do not believe in Paul, but we believe Paul. For he repels from himself certain men who wished to place their hope in him and as it were to believe in him, that they should not believe in him, but he with them in Christ. Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in his name? (1 Cor 1:13) Finally, not only the apostles and holy teachers, but even we ourselves, not to be compared even to the least footprints, daily say: "Believe me," but we never dare to say: "Believe in me." "Believe me": who does not say it? "Believe in me": who says it, or who is not mad who says it? In whom, then, must one believe? Of whom the same Paul says: To the one who believes in him who justifies the impious, his faith is reckoned unto justice (Rom 4:5). Therefore Paul does not justify the impious, for then you would believe in him and your faith would be reckoned unto justice: in him, namely, you would believe who justifies the impious. For when you do not believe in him—for Paul does not justify the impious, nor Elijah, nor any angel, but the just one of the just, the holy one of the holy, of whom it is said: That he himself be just and justifying the one who is of faith (Rom 3:26). Of you it can be said that you be just; it is never heard that you also be justifying. For what is justifying, but making just? As vivifying is making alive, as saving is making safe, so justifying is making just. Who is it that makes just? He who came just without sin. Who is it that makes just? He who was not made just here, but came just. See in whom we believe, that we may do the work of God, because this itself is the work of God, to believe in him who justifies the impious.

4. "It suffices me, then," someone says; "I have believed in Christ: why do you admonish me further? This is the work of God: let him who promised the reward exact nothing else of me. For he who promises a reward commands me what to do, and pledges what I shall receive. He circumscribes, then, the boundary of the work, when I have burned with love of the reward. He himself says to me: 'Do you wish to live forever?', on account of the one who asked: What shall I do, that I may have eternal life? (Luke 10:25), 'do you wish to live forever? Do this, and you will live (Luke 10:28).' When I ask: What shall I do?, he answers most briefly: 'This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent.'" Why then to that rich man: If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments (Matt 19:17), and when he said: "Which commandments?", the precepts of the law were enumerated: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 19:18-19)? Could he not have answered him too with that most brief summary, when he said What shall I do, that I may have eternal life?: "Believe in me"? For this is the work of God, since he defined it above, to which he added nothing. This is the work of God—what more do you seek?—that you believe in him whom he sent. To that man commandments are given, and many; to us it is said: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. Or did the Lord perhaps deal graciously with us; did he wish to burden that man, not relieve him? Far from it! Let us, then, understand, if we can—which we promised we would explain, as we can—what it is to believe in Christ, and let us do this, let us work this, let us daily make progress in this, let us approach this from day to day, until by approaching we arrive. For this we promised even at the beginning of our faith, that we should begin in some part, and, when we have completed it, nothing more will be exacted of us. For this is the work of God, nor is there any other work of God, but that we believe in him whom he sent.

5. And since a little before we distinguished that it is one thing to believe him, to believe him to be, and to believe in him—to believe him is to believe that the things he speaks are true, to believe him to be is to believe that he himself is the Christ, to believe in him is to love him—now examine these things of yours: to believe that the things he speaks are true, to believe that he himself is the Christ, to love Christ. To believe that the things he speaks are true, many even of the bad can do. For they believe that they are true and are unwilling to do them: they are sluggish to act. But to believe that he himself is the Christ, this even the demons could do. Peter, then, said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, by loving; the demons said this by fearing. But not everyone who fears loves; everyone who loves fears. But perhaps—indeed not perhaps, but surely—everyone who loves fears, but with a chaste fear—for the fear of the Lord is chaste, remaining forever and ever (Ps 19:9 (18:10))—not with a servile fear. For perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). It is one thing to fear lest he come, another to fear lest he forsake. For to fear lest he come was in those who said: We know who you are. Why have you come to destroy us before the time? (See Matt 8:29) But the fear lest he forsake was in the one who had said: I will be with you unto death (See Matt 26:35). When, then, you hear: "Believe in Christ," let it be too little for you to believe Christ, that is, that the things Christ speaks are true; let it be too little for you to believe Christ to be, that is, that he himself is the one whom God foretold through the prophets; but believe in Christ, that is, love Christ. When you have fulfilled this, nothing more will be exacted of you, since love is the fullness of the law (Rom 13:10). When you have so believed in Christ that you love Christ with that ardor, see whether these will not be your words: Who shall separate us from the love of God? (Rom 8:35) Do not, then, long seek how to do what Christ commands: you cannot fail to do it, if you love Christ. Love, and you do it. As much as you love, so much you do; as much as you do less, so much you love less. Fulfill love, and you complete the working. See how truly it was said: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent, that is, that by loving you may go into him, that is, be incorporated into him.

6. For someone can answer me and admonish me to speak more cautiously: "You said that to believe in Christ is to love Christ, and you said that we ought to believe in Christ, but not to believe in Paul; ought we not, then, to love Paul?" Therefore, just as we distinguished between believing and believing, so this loving too must be distinguished. I love Paul, and I do not believe in Paul. I do not love Christ, unless I have believed in Christ. For I love Paul, but I do not—by loving—go into Paul: I shall be with Paul, I shall not be in Paul. For what is Apollos, what is Paul? Ministers through whom you believed (1 Cor 3:5; 3:4-5), not in whom you believed. Therefore, brethren, it is a work to believe in God, by believing and loving to go into Christ. Believe in God, says Christ himself, and believe in me (John 14:1). Which prophet dared to say this, which patriarch, which apostle, which martyr, which angel? Therefore let us believe in him, let us love him, but by loving let us be incorporated into him. Let us understand that our God was even made man for us, and that from the fact that God was made man he justifies us. For if he were only a man, he would have to be justified along with us, he would not be the justifier. But now, because he is our God and on account of nature was made what he was not, on account of possession remained what he was, so that in him we might have both whereby to go and whither to come. Let us believe in him, that is, let us love him as God, so that by loving we may go into him, from whom by neglecting we had withdrawn.

7. But if this be in us, the bread delights: there is now no distaste; we do not praise and abhor, but we eat in silence even the praised bread, because we love it, the distaste removed, because the languor healed. For what will our soul render him, the soul that says: What shall I render to the Lord?, that says: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his recompenses, who is gracious to all your iniquities? (Ps 103:2-3 (102:2-3)) This was done when we were washed. But what follows is done: Who heals all your weaknesses (Ps 103:3 (102:3)). For as the weaknesses are healed, so much does the heavenly food delight; so much does the bread of life that came down from heaven delight, as our weaknesses are healed. But by whom are they healed, but the one to whom we said: Convert us, God of our salvations? (See Ps 85:4 (84:5)) Convert us: you convert us, because, before you heal, we are averse and unwilling to touch the praised bread out of distaste. We are averse when languid, we are converted when healed. Convert us, then, God of our salvations, and turn away your anger from us (Ps 85:4 (84:5)). For the languor itself is the anger of God. He who believes in the Son has eternal life (John 3:36). Why? Because he has worked the work of God. For this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. But he who is unbelieving toward the Son will not have life, but the anger of God remains upon him (John 3:36). It does not come upon him, but remains upon him. He is forsaken, not healed. Attending, then, the one who said: Convert us, God, because we cannot be converted except insofar as we are healed, added: of our salvations. For this bread does not delight one who is not healthy. As if, then, he brought forward a reason whence we may be converted. What is: Convert us? Heal us. For because we are not healthy, we are less converted to the bread of salvation. We praise, but we are not delighted. Who does not approve, who does not say: "It is true," when I have said: What you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to another? (See Tob 4:15) "It is true": you cry out, and you cry out nothing truer. Eat what you praise. You wish to deceive a man, you wish to be deceived by no one. You wish to grow rich from another's evil, you do not wish anyone to grow rich from your evil. Do you not set up a law against yourself, and is your heart not prescribed by which you may be punished? Why do you not wish it to be done to you, if it is good? Why do you do it, if it is evil? What will you answer, what will you say? "It delights me to do it and it delights me to do it," "this delights and this delights": these are the words of one languishing. Cry out: Convert us, God of our salvations, and turn away your anger from us.

8. For in that very psalm this too was said: The Lord will give sweetness, and our earth will give its fruit (Ps 85:12 (84:13)). But the fruit of the Spirit is love (Gal 5:22). Whence this fruit, unless the Lord give sweetness, by which the love of God has been poured out in our hearts? Not from ourselves, but by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). You see that the Lord will give sweetness, that our earth may give its fruit. You see that our earth, that is, our heart, our soul, our earth, does not give its fruit, unless God rains. The earth was moved (Ps 68:8 (67:9)). It was moved to conceive and bring forth. But why moved? For the heavens dropped down not of themselves, but from the face of God (Ps 68:8 (67:9)). For what is Apollos, what is Paul? Ministers of God through whom you believed (See 1 Cor 3:5). They are clouds of God: unless they are filled, they do not pour. The earth, then, was moved—with God of our salvations converting it—the earth was moved, for the heavens dropped down from the face of God. By God it was moved, for it would not be moved, except by the voluntary rain, as there follows. After it was said: The earth was moved, for the heavens dropped down from the face of God, lest you think that very rain of the heavens was not God's, a rain, he says, voluntary, not owed—for what did he owe us, but punishment? A voluntary rain, then—because with the shield, he says, of your good will you have crowned us (Ps 5:12 (5:13)), not by the brilliance of our merits, but with the shield of your good will—a voluntary rain, then, setting apart, God, for your inheritance, and it was weakened (Ps 68:9-10 (67:10-11)). She who gives birth is also weakened. For the earth was moved to bring forth, nor would she bear, unless weakness preceded. But you perfected her (See Ps 68:9-10 (67:10-11)).

9. What is it was weakened? She did not presume on herself. What is it was weakened? She hoped wholly in you. What is it was weakened? When I am weak, then I am powerful (2 Cor 12:10). Therefore it was weakened, she understood that it was of the grace of God, not of her own merits, of her own strength; she understood, it was weakened, and lost presumption, that she might receive the blessing. It was weakened. Let her, then, not presume on herself, let her, weak, cry to the Lord: Convert us, God of our salvations. There follows, then: And it was weakened, but you perfected her. Why you perfected her? Because she herself was weakened, because she understood that she could not be perfected by herself. Therefore because she was weakened, you perfected her. That very earth cries out in Paul: On account of which I asked the Lord, that he would take it from me (2 Cor 12:8), namely the corrective sting of my flesh. For why did he say it was applied to him, except for the sake of restraining his own presumption and strength? For by the greatness of the revelations, he says, lest I be exalted, there was given to me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me (2 Cor 12:7). Therefore be weakened. The voluntary rain has been set apart for you, not owed. Cry out from weakness, because I am not worthy to be called an apostle (1 Cor 15:9). Therefore be weakened, that he may perfect you. For he said to you as you prayed: My grace is sufficient for you, strength is perfected in weakness (2 Cor 12:9).

10. So the same apostle himself, in the reading we heard, concluded thus: That I may be found in him. How in him? Not having my own justice (Phil 3:9). For if your own, not in him. What is not having my own? As if gained by me, because fulfilled by my own strength. Not having my own justice which is from the law, but that which is through faith (Phil 3:9). How my own, if it is from the law? A troublesome question, but we are now wearied. Accordingly, if I say anything too little, let him whose we are complete it. And may I be found in him not having my own justice. If he did not add: which is from the law, who would not think that he was saying this: Not having my own justice, as if that which comes from human teaching? Whence the Lord Christ said in another place: My teaching is not my own (John 7:16), that is, human, it is not of this visible substance which you see. For how is it not his, since the teaching of the Father is his Word? And who but Christ is his Word? Would men, then, think the apostle said this, when he says: May I be found in him not having my own justice, unless he added: which is from the law, but the justice which is from the faith of Jesus Christ? (Phil 3:9) Why? Did not Christ also give the law? If you had the justice which is from the law, how would you have your own, since you did not give yourself the law, but received it from Christ, from the Son of God? For Christ did not begin to be from the virgin, but from the Father before the mother whom he created so that he might be created from her, when he made that from which he might be made. For "Mother Sion," said a man, "and a man was made in her." And—he who was made a man in her—the Most High himself founded her (Ps 87:5 (86:5)). He himself, then, made her, in whom he might be made. He himself, then, was in the time of Moses, the one who gave the law, because surely Moses, with many intervening steps, was from Abraham; but Christ says: Before Abraham, I am (John 8:58). It is too little to say before Abraham, before all the angels, before heaven and earth, before all creation: for all things were made through him (John 1:3).

11. What, then, is that I may be found in him not having my own justice, and he added: which is from the law? I will say it, if I can briefly; the giver of grace will perfect it in your hearts. What is it, but that the Jews so had that very law that they did the works of the law out of fear of damnation, not out of the fire of love? Therefore, because they did it out of servile fear, they were servants. But if you begin to do out of love what is written in the law: You shall not covet, whence is this to you, but that the love of God has been poured out in your heart, not from yourself, but by the Holy Spirit who was given to you? Since setting apart a voluntary rain, God, for your inheritance, and it was weakened, it would hope nothing of itself. For it was said to it: "Do," and it did; "Do not kill," and it did not kill; "Do not commit adultery with another's wife," and it did not commit adultery. It was said: "Do," and it did. It was said: "Love what you do," and it was weakened. You do not kill your enemy out of fear: if impunity were granted, would you spare him? Would you do what David did, to whom the Lord so gave his enemy into his hands that he might do to him what he wished? He chose to spare, he chose to spare the one whom he could kill with impunity. If, then, impunity were granted you for killing your enemy, would you spare him? How would you spare him from dying, of whom you say: "O that he would die"? Therefore the law imposed on one fearing servilely forbade the evil deed, it did not root out the evil desire. You restrain yourself from the deed, but you have the desire of doing it. Why have you the desire of doing it? Because you have not the love of justice. Therefore there is nothing more to be forbidden you. Love. What shall I do, that I may love? <...> Therefore by love, because, if you do it out of fear, you do not love. It will be your justice, although from the law, because you do not do what the law forbids, yet your own: for you do not do it out of fear, not out of love. When will it not be your justice? If it be from the faith of Christ. For by believing in him you have obtained what he commands.

12. This the Scripture of the present psalm attends to. Does not God say: Be converted to me? The Scriptures are full of it. Be converted to me, be converted to me. For the languor began to be moved. For what is: Be converted to me? Not—which is easily done—that, you who were attending to the west, attend to the east. Would that you might do this within, because this is not easy! You turn the body from hinge to hinge: turn the heart from love to love. Be converted to me: God cries out. The earth feared, lest, unconverted, it be condemned; it moved itself, that it might be converted: the languor did not follow, the bread did not delight the sick. Be converted to me. The languor saw it could not do what was commanded, and cried out through the prophet: Convert us, God; faith entered the heart; it asked that what was commanded be done, it said: Convert us, God. Because it was weakened, but you perfected her, that I may be found in him not having my own justice which is from the law, but the justice of Christ which is from faith. What is from faith? That which it obtained by asking, as much as it could not under the one commanding. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10:13). This is the justice of faith which we preach; this is the living bread that came down from heaven (See John 6:51), healing that it may be eaten, strengthening because it is eaten, fattening because it is desired, since of it it was said to our soul that he satisfies your desire with good things (Ps 103:5 (102:5)). Etc.

Sermon 14/A
(Dolbeau 20)

1. Brethren, let us attend to what we sang. Whence the psalm took its theme, thence the psalm is set before us. With the Lord's help let us say something from what is written, and what is fresh in our voices and ears: Your discipline has directed me unto the end, and your discipline itself will teach me (See Ps 18:35-36 (17:36)). For we seek unto what end we are directed, and what is the discipline that directs us, and what is the teaching of this matter. We wish to be directed, and perhaps we inquire whither we are directed. We have heard: unto the end. But the end, when it is said, is either of consumption or of consummation. Consumption makes a thing not to be; consummation makes it to be perfect. Food is ended by eating, a garment is ended by weaving. Food is ended by eating, so that it is not; a garment is ended by weaving, so that it is perfect. Unto such an end, then, without doubt, we seek to be directed, whereby we may be perfected, not whereby we may be consumed.

2. What, then, is this end, and what the discipline? The end is Christ, the discipline is the law. Hear the apostle: The end of the law is Christ, unto justice for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4). This is, then—that we may now say it more plainly and expound what we sang—this is your discipline has directed me unto the end, which is, your law has directed me unto the end, your law has directed me unto Christ. The Jews have the law, but it did not direct them unto the end. They came indeed to the end, because they saw Christ, but by stumbling on the final stone they transgressed, by stumbling on Christ they fell and fell outside the end. For they rejected him to whom they ought to have come. Finally, that very end was made to those not believing a stone of stumbling, to those believing a cornerstone. To you, says the apostle Peter, who have believed, the stone which the builders rejected has been made the head of the corner, but to those not believing a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal (1 Pet 2:7-8).

3. Who the end is, we know; what it is to be directed unto the end, we have already spoken on a past Lord's day. For to be directed unto the end is to come to Christ, that is, to believe in Christ. Are the same things to be repeated more often? For you are to be reminded, not burdened. Although to say the same things to you is indeed not irksome to us, but safe for you. For we treated, on account of those who think it enough for themselves to believe and love to live badly, thinking that by believing they will be saved and by living badly will not perish. This, then, we treated, that there ought to be a difference between the faith of Christians and the faith of demons, because they too believe—they said to Christ: We know who you are (Mark 1:24). They believed Christ, but did not believe in Christ. Whence, then, is one distinguished who believes Christ from one who believes in Christ? Because everyone who believes in Christ at once without doubt believes Christ, but not everyone who believes Christ at once believes in Christ. But the whole work of God the Son of God defined in this, by saying: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent (John 6:29). By what end, but himself? Do not seek the end apart from him, lest by seeking the end apart from him you be consumed, not consummated. For what is the end, but that to which we wish to arrive, to stand, and to seek nothing beyond? For if you come, but still seek, you have not yet arrived at the end. Therefore to arrive at the end is to arrive where you say: "It suffices."

4. Since Philip thought the Father alone to be and said: Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us (John 14:8), the Lord showed him that the end is God, but God the Trinity. Accordingly, when you say: "The end is Christ," you do not separate from it God the Father, nor when you say: "The end is God the Father," do you separate from it Christ. He who wished as it were to separate, thinking that this alone was Christ which he knew by his eyes, joyfully says: Show us the Father, and it suffices us. What is: It suffices us? There is the end of desire: we will seek nothing further; there will be our satiety, there we will say: "It suffices, I wish nothing more." Why this? Because we now know you; show us the Father. For when we see you and do not see him, it does not suffice us. We rejoice that we see you, but show him, and it suffices us: we will seek nothing more. And the Lord to him, because he too is the end, because he too is the one who satisfies, that he might take from him what he thought—for he thought that he did not see the Son of God, when he saw the form of a servant—said to Philip: So long a time I am with you, and you have not known me? When you seek the end and what you see you do not see—therefore surely you seek the end, because you do not see the end standing before you—Do you not believe, he says, that I am in the Father and the Father in me? (John 14:9-10)

5. To this we too exhort by the reading which follows, which today was read from the Gospel: This is the will of the Father, that whoever sees the Son and believes in him have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:40). You were seeking the end: do you seek more than eternal life? This is the will of the Father, that whoever sees the Son and believes in him have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. What do we say, my brethren? For this vision what eyes do we seek? For see another definition to be demonstrated today, like indeed the past one, of which we have already spoken: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. And here what does he say? This is the will of the Father, as if he said: This is the work of God. For he who does the work of God does the will of God. This is the will of the Father, that whoever sees the Son and believes in him have eternal life. He said two things. This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. But here he added: whoever sees and believes. The Jews saw, but did not believe: they had the one, the other was lacking; how without the other could they arrive at eternal life? If, then, those who saw therefore did not arrive because they did not believe, we who have believed but have not seen—if those two merit eternal life: to see and to believe, and those to whom one is lacking do not arrive at the reward of eternal life—what shall we do? One was lacking to the Jews, the other to us. To them was present seeing, but lacking believing. To us is present believing, but lacking seeing. For according to this, that believing is present and seeing is lacking, we have been blessed in prophecy by the Lord himself, since, when Thomas, one of the twelve, touched the scars by handling them . . .

Sermon 159/B
(Dolbeau 21)

1. The divine readings, which feed us spiritually, admonish us to dispense to you, waiting and attentive, and as it were from the Lord's storeroom, of which we are the stewards, to set something before the hungry. The apostolic reading has been announced to us in these words, which your holiness recalls with us: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid him? For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory forever and ever, amen (Rom 11:33-36). But that the Apostle might cry out and, as it were terrified by a certain depth of the judgments of God, say: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, he had said above: God has shut up all under sin, that he might have mercy on all (See Rom 11:32). After this sentence, then, where he says: God has shut up all under sin, that he might have mercy on all, because truly there is something deep, I know not what, in men being first made manifestly guilty in their own conscience, that they might, by confessing, be helped, he cried out: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Where is the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God? In this, that God has shut up all under sin, that he might have mercy on all. Under what sin? Of unbelief. For he used this word: God has shut up all, he says, under unbelief, that he might have mercy on all. Therefore let the Lord our God himself be present, whose riches the apostle praising cries out, and let him deign to impart to us something of those very hidden and deep riches of his, that, what we feel to be inexplicable, we may in some way say, not that we may explain it, but that we may commend things inexplicable. For the apostle seems, by a certain human weakness, as it were to have failed in explaining what he rejoiced in beholding. He saw something, I know not what, that the tongue could not explain; he beheld with the heart what he was less fit to express in words, and he did not find how to make us attentive to that which he saw, except by crying out and lifting up our hearts, saying: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, that our hearts, lifted up, may be directed to him whose riches, seeing, he cried out, not to the mouth of a weak steward who could not explain those riches. This, then, according to our small measure, let us have done, and let us have directed your hearts to him whose we all are and under whom, the one master, we are all fellow disciples in this school, where are the riches of God, where is the depth of the riches, and where are his inscrutable judgments and his unsearchable ways, because he has shut up all under unbelief, that he might have mercy on all.

2. He who has shut up all under unbelief seems to be angry, but he who has mercy on all is gentle. Therefore the passage of the Apostle agrees with the psalm: God, you have rejected us and destroyed us, you have been angry and have had mercy on us (See Ps 60:1 (59:3)). Hear the angry and the merciful. God has shut up all under unbelief, that he might have mercy on all. What did the Lord our God wish to do? First to be angry, to reject, to humble, and afterward to come to aid, to call the one turned away, to hear the one converted, to help the one heard, to change the one helped, to crown the one changed. Join other testimonies of the Scriptures. The very voice of a certain man laboring on this earth says—that is, of Adam himself, of the human race—which human race, however, the second man from heaven did not abandon, that, being first earthly, they might afterward become heavenly. For because we were humbled, hence earthly; because we were set down, hence earthly; because we were rejected, hence earthly; but because he who rejected and set down and humbled had mercy on us, hence heavenly. Let us, then, hear the voice of that same man saying elsewhere: Before I was humbled, I sinned (Ps 119:67 (118:67)). Groaning in his humiliation, he acknowledged his sin; he attributed iniquity to himself, justice to God. For what does he say? Before I was humbled—which is the penalty God inflicted—I, he says, sinned. Lest God who humbled me seem unjust, my sin went before, my humiliation followed. The Lord my God is therefore a just judge. For I would not have come to this humiliation, unless I first sinned. And since that very humiliation of his seems indeed to sound the anger of God the judge, but pertains to mercy, hear his voice elsewhere: It is good for me, he says, that you humbled me, that I might learn your justifications (Ps 119:71 (118:71)). Let your love attend to what he says: Before I was humbled, I sinned. In the penalty he seems to groan, in fetters to sigh, in this mortality and earthly weakness to seek his help by confessing, whom he had offended by sinning. For these words sound this: Before I was humbled, I sinned, that is: I do not charge my humiliation to you, my God: I did what is malignant, you did what is just.

3. With these words agree those words which we sang. For he who says: God, you have rejected us and destroyed us, he himself says: Before I was humbled, I sinned. For you have heard that God rejected; you have heard that God set down, that is, cast from a height to the ground. You have heard. Seek the cause why God did this: Before I was humbled, I, he says, sinned. You have heard your sin preceding and the justice of God following; hear that even that very justice of God, which humbled you, indicates not only the severity of a just judge, but also the clemency of a merciful one. For he says, as I said a little before: It is good for me that you humbled me, that I might learn your justifications. What then, my brethren? Was God angry when he humbled, or was he merciful? If the humiliation profited us nothing, let it be reckoned to excessive severity of God; which severity, if it existed, we could not complain of his injustice. For let the sinner repay his own desert; let not the proud and unjust man flatter himself; let him first find what he is worthy of, that he may thus recognize what God has bestowed. Does the heart of any sinful man dare to promise itself anything but punishment, to promise itself anything but a most just penalty? Or if punishment has followed a man's iniquity, can it be said to a just judge: "You did wrong to condemn the sinner"? This, then, let us as sinners promise ourselves, let us so confess in our penalties both our sins and the justice of our God: for thus we will deserve, in our very penalty, to find the mercy of God. This, dearly beloved brethren, no one finds, except one who has first humbled himself. And because I am about to say it as I can, I do not think any of you will understand what I am about to say, unless he first suppress the smoke of pride, by which the eyes of the mind are darkened, lest the mercy of God in the penalty itself can be understood.

4. But first see this in daily life itself—for thence you can have a way to understanding, because he did not abandon the mortality of men—by certain likenesses in their very deeds, that it may be shown us that a penalty can be inflicted mercifully. What shall I say? You discipline your servant, and in giving discipline surely in the very thing in which you seem to punish, you show mercy, but I do not say "to a servant": perhaps you are so angry with a servant that you hate him. Indeed you ought not so, if you are a Christian; you ought not so, if you consider yourself to be a man; you ought not so, if you consider that "servant" and "master" are indeed diverse names, but not diverse "man" and "man." You ought not so to persecute with hatred a sinning servant. But because men are wont to do so, let us reject this likeness, let us set down a son. No one can but love his sons: for a man is not to be praised who loves his son. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? the Lord says; do not the publicans do this? (Matt 5:46) How much more sons, whom men beget as successors to themselves. No one at all can, by the very right of nature, hate the one he begot. Nor is a man to be praised in that which is found in a beast. No one praises a man for loving his sons. You find this not only in gentle cattle: the ferocity of lions grows gentle toward their young, tigers love their young, serpents brood over their eggs and nourish their cubs. Therefore if those things that seem to be savage and harsh in creation do not keep their harshness and savagery toward those they beget, what great thing does a man do to love his son? But I have said these things, brethren, that you may see there can be a penalty of one showing mercy, from the example of sons, from that thing which no one can hate. So someone sees his son going into pride, exalting himself against his father, claiming for himself more than is fitting, wishing to dissolve into delightful trifles, wishing to squander what he does not yet possess; and that son, while he does this, is glad, laughing, rejoicing, exulting; but the father restrains him with rebuke, penalty, lashes, takes away his laughter, brings on weeping, seems to have taken away a good and brought in an evil—see what he took away: gladness; see what he brought in: groaning—and yet, if he had let that gladness go unpunished, he would be cruel; because he forced him to weeping, he is found merciful. If, then, a father who forces to weeping is found merciful, why do we not understand that our Creator too could do what we sang: God, you have rejected us and set us down? But why this? Is it for ruin, is it for destruction? Hear what follows: You have been angry and have had mercy on us. Why is he justly angry with you? Join, since we said: Before I was humbled, I sinned. What does it profit you that you were rejected and set down? It is good for me that you humbled me, that I might learn your justifications.

5. Let us now bring back our mind to that apostolic saying: God has shut up all under unbelief, that he might have mercy on all. The first sin of man was pride: so we read in Genesis, so we find in another Scripture. What do we read in Genesis? That man, created and formed, was placed in paradise, under a certain law, under a certain commandment; the commandment imposed on him showed him this: that he was so made great that he had a greater one above himself. God commanded, then, that humility be always kept by man, who was subject to him, that is, that the humility of man, set under God, be preserved. Man was indeed made to the image of God and, as it is written in another place, he gave him the power of containing all things: all things were under him, but above him was he who made all things. So, then, man ought to have attended to the things that were beneath him, so as the more to attend to him who was above him; for by clinging to the superior, he would more securely possess the inferior; but by withdrawing from the superior, he would be made subject to the inferior. As if we set down three men: one man having a servant, and having also a master, as it often happens that servants with property of their own have servants. Attend: he has a servant, he has a master; he is under one, he is over another; he is superior to the servant, inferior to his master. We set down the third as the servant of the servant, the first as the master of the master, the middle one as both servant and master: master of his servant and servant of his master. That third is nothing but a servant, that first is nothing but a master, that middle one is both servant and master. But he securely possesses his servant, if he does not offend his master. And we have indeed spoken of three men: all are of the same kind, all subsist of the same substance and nature. Not so those three: God and man and the creature inferior to man. For of another kind and not of the same substance are the founder and the founded, the maker and the made, the craftsman and the work, the creator and the creature. But the things that were created are indeed generally all called created, but they differ in natures and orders and merits and places. For first are the spiritual things and afterward the carnal, the very things that God founded, that God made. The first place the spiritual things have, the last the corporeal. But something spiritual is the human mind, where the likeness and image of God is imprinted; but corporeal are all the things which we perceive to lie under the senses of the body: they are known to all, they are seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched; hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth, all these are called corporeal, they are inferior. Above all these man was set, but according to the mind, according to that which in him was made to the image and likeness of God. For God is not circumscribed and shut in by a corporeal form, so that on one side he has a back, on another side has eyes, but he is a certain light, not such as we see with the eyes, nor, if you enlarge this which we see with the eyes, expanding it through the fantasy of your thoughts, and make fields of light and mountains of light and trees of light, flitting about through the vanities of your thoughts. Do you wish to understand spiritual light? Seek whence you understand.

6. This very light, I say, understand, by which you understand. What did I say? You see white and black things with the bodily eyes, you are aided from without by the light either of the sun or the moon or a lamp or some little fire. Furthermore, if that light from without did not aid your eyes, your lights would lie open in vain and without cause be called lights. But what lies open in you and is sound, that is, the eye, and what is applied from without as help, that is, the light, and what it is for the seeing of which you are aided, that is, colors and forms, you know and distinguish. This we have said about the eyes. You hear sounds, you know whence you hear. The eyes do not hear, but neither do the ears see. Something is lacking to the eyes for perceiving sounds, and something is lacking to the ears for perceiving colors. But to you none of these is lacking, because through the eyes you see, through the ears you hear. You know also the things that smell, and what member you apply whereby you perceive an odor, you know. For you do not apply the ear to perceive the sweetness of an odor, but you bring that which God created in you for smelling. Nor, when you wish to taste some dish, do you put it to the ears or the eye: you know that there is no sense there for distinguishing flavors. And do you wish to perceive whether something is hard or soft, cold or hot? You know that with your whole body you can perceive touch. These things you know. Well. Attend to that which is within: who is this within to whom all these senses report what men perceive? For these are as it were instruments, these are as it were placed in servitude. The perceiver is some inner ruler, I know not who, to whom these messengers report whatever they find outside. But that inner one, who distinguishes all these things, is surely superior to all these things. Therefore the eye has what to see, the ear what to hear, the nostrils what to smell, the mouth what to taste, the hand what to touch, and does the mind not have what it can behold through itself? The mind itself indeed perceives white and black, but with the eyes reporting; it itself perceives in sounds the melodious and the harsh, but with the ears reporting; it itself perceives in odors the sweet-smelling and the foul-smelling, but with the nostrils reporting; it itself perceives the sweet and the bitter, but with the mouth reporting; it itself perceives the hard and the soft, but when the hand, handling, has reported. Can it, then, perceive these so many and various things, with the body reporting: can it not by itself perceive something, with no member of the body reporting to it? Seek, then, what it perceives by itself, and you will find where the image of God is. White and black it perceived through the eyes, melodious and absurd the ears reported. And, not to run again through these things one by one which lie next to the body, the members of the body reported them. The just and the unjust—do the eyes report it? The just and the unjust the mind distinguishes and says: "This is just, this is unjust." Seek who has reported it. If justice is a color, the eyes reported it; if justice is a sound, the ears reported it; if it is an odor, the nostrils reported it; if a flavor, the mouth reported it; if it is hardness or softness, the hand reported it. If it is none of these, who reported it, but the inner light? This nature, then, this substance which you see to be excellent, of which, if I wished to speak more fully, time would not suffice, something inner, something divine in us made to the image and likeness of God, is above all corporeal things, and was so made that all corporeal creation, subject to it, served it; but yet the mind itself is not God. For if it were God, would it have sinned? For God is unchangeable. But our mind, because it was created, because it was made, is not what God is. It is changeable. We see even now its very changes. It is wise, it is foolish; it remembers, it forgets; it wills, it wills not; it is delighted, it is saddened. These changeabilities do not befall God, who is above the mind, and is the creator of the mind.

7. But yet all this which I have said is above the body, beneath God, beneath the master and above the servant. These are the three of which I was speaking a little before. If, then, three men, since they are all men, are ordered by a certain condition of this life, so that one of them is master only, another of them is servant only, but another of them is both servant of a master and master of a servant, how much more, do you think, and how much more easily and more distinctly is the whole creation ordered? The nature and substance of the mind set under God, the nature of the whole body set under the mind. But as I was saying: then he securely possesses his servant, if he has not offended his master; so that mind, if it did not, by a certain pride, by which it wished to be of its own power, offend its master, the whole nature of the body would always, like a servant, be subject to it. But because by pride it offended its Lord, the creature of the body, which had been given into its service, was made for it a torment of punishment, a torment of vengeance. For through the difficulty of the body the mind is now tortured, when it formerly had dominion over the whole nature of the body. As if that man—for from this you better grasp a clearer likeness, because this very thing, that we understand it with difficulty, pertains to the penalty by which we were humbled: from custom we give certain proofs. Set those three servants again before your eyes, because you scarcely understand this, though it is more distinct; for these things are more distinct in that they are diverse: for God is far other than the mind, and the mind is far other than the body. But in those three there is man, and man, and man. The nature is not diverse, but the condition makes an order; yet because those things are in our custom, we more easily understand them than those things which are more distinct. Now then understand what we say. Suppose that middle one—because he is so a servant that he is also a master; he is so a master that he is also a servant: servant of the superior, master of the inferior—suppose, then, that he offended his master. Whence did he offend? Through a certain pride. For he considered that he too had a servant, and dared to be exalted against his master, by the very fact that he seemed to have his servant in his power. He raised himself against his master; his master ordered that he be beaten by his own servant. For that master of the master was the master of both. For that servant did not have his servant in his power as much as the master of both had both. For when could he despise that master, no one's servant, so as not to beat his master, at the bidding of the more powerful master of both? Our God commanded, then, because we offended him, that we be tortured by our body; and our body was made mortal, and we began to suffer penalties thence, whence we dared to be proud against the Lord. We are therefore now beaten by our servant. We are tortured in the torments of our flesh; the Lord humbled us, that we might be beaten by a servant.

8. But why did he humble us, that we might be beaten by a servant? Because we first sinned: Before I was humbled, I sinned. Set, then, under the lash of your servant, cry out to the Lord your God, and say to him: It is good for me that you humbled me, that I might learn your justifications. What justifications of yours? That, just as I have my body as a servant, you too have me as a servant. And just as I seek that the body obey me, so I ought to obey you. Therefore from this I learned your justifications, as it were with the Lord speaking to me from above and saying: "O wicked servant, at least now, set in this humiliation, acknowledge whom you have offended, and to whom you have been subjected. Surely you are tortured by your servant: you have a body and you wish it to obey you in all things, you wish that when you raise your hand, the hand follow; when you raise your foot, the foot follow. And although I have willed that you be beaten by your servant, still your servant serves you." For when we wish to walk and to move the body to another place, we command the feet, and they obey; we command the eye to see, when we wish to behold something: it does not contradict us, it turns, it reports to us. We apply the ear to sounds, at once it reports what sounds; we raise the hand to handle something, it does not resist. For in that the body serves us, it indicates that we are its masters; but in that it resists us, it indicates that we have a Lord. But let us see in what your body does not obey you. For example, you can walk ten miles, you wish twenty: it does not obey. You can walk fifty miles, you wish sixty: it does not obey. You wish to stay awake two nights: it obeys in part, in another part it does not obey. You wish to move the hand to lift something: you lift something; you try for something else: it does not obey. Add so many tormenting difficulties of its weakness and corruption which cannot be numbered, and attend how the body, in that it is corrupted, weighs down the soul. In that, then, it serves you, it shows that you are its master; but in that it resists you, it admonishes you to serve your Lord. Therefore say to your Lord: It is good for me that you humbled me, that I might learn your justifications. How do you learn his justifications? That you may no longer disdain to serve your Lord, just as you wish your body to serve you. And you begin now to serve your Lord, and your body does not yet serve you as you wish. For you believe, who were unbelieving, you follow the precepts of your Lord, you walk the way, but justice is not yet perfected in you: therefore obedience is not yet perfected in your servant; there still remains something of bitterness, lest this world grow sweet to you, and you not desire your Lord who made the world.

9. Cry out from the ends of the earth to him, O Church spread through the world, say in the psalm: From the ends of the earth I cried to you, when my heart was in anguish (Ps 61:2 (60:3)). In the psalm these things are written: On a rock you exalted me, you led me, because you have become my hope (See Ps 61:2-3 (60:3-4)). For God exalted us on a rock. On what rock? But the rock was Christ, says the Apostle (1 Cor 10:4). And how was our hope made there? Because our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we were made, is himself the Word of God, through whom all things were made. He took flesh from the mass of our mortality, and the death that pertained to the penalty of sin he took on, not sin, but by the mercy of freeing from sin he handed over that very flesh of his to death. For he was not handed over unwilling; he would not be crucified, unless he had handed himself over. For even that Judas handed him over, he handed him over willing. Yet there is not imputed to Judas the merit of the will of Christ, but the merit of his own greed. For when he handed over the Lord, he did not consider our salvation, but his own avarice and his own perfidy. For Judas handed him over, Christ handed himself over, the Father of Christ handed him over. All seem to have done one thing. They did one thing, but they did not do it with one intention. The Father handed over the Son out of mercy, the Son handed himself over by that same mercy, Judas handed over his master out of perfidy. There seems to be no difference between handing over and handing over, but between mercy and perfidy there is the greatest difference. How did the Father hand over? Hear the Apostle: Who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all (Rom 8:32). How did the Son hand himself over? The same Apostle says of the Lord himself: Who loved me and handed himself over for me (Gal 2:20). He handed over, then, this flesh to be slain, that you might fear nothing for your flesh. He showed in his resurrection after three days what you ought to hope for at the end of the world. He leads you, then, because he has become your hope. You walk now toward the hope of resurrection, but unless our head first rose, the other members would not find what to hope for.

10. What then, my brethren? Although, even before the Lord suffered, the body served him as its Lord—for he was not so bound to the body as if for vengeance, as if for a penalty, that he should be beaten by a servant as we are; but if he wished to suffer anything in his body, he suffered it by will and by power, not by necessity and want, as he himself said: I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again: no one takes it from me, but I myself lay it down (See John 10:18). Great, then, is the power in him; yet what he wished to suffer in the flesh, there he showed what you deservedly suffer. He suffered undeservedly, you suffer deservedly. But that you may bear what you suffer deservedly, he who suffered undeservedly consoles you. Bear, then, what you suffer, until your mortality pass away. Your kingdom comes, then, by fixed measures of time; he displays what he promised, because in himself he has already displayed that he rose. For he rose after three days; he willed to rise first and to show us what we ought to hope for at the end. We thought the flesh was going to perish; therefore he was unwilling to take flesh from anywhere else than where we too have flesh. For if he took it from elsewhere, we would say: "The flesh could rise that was taken from elsewhere. Was it taken from where we were taken?" He did not indeed admit to the mother the consort of a man, because he was the only Son of God. Because he had a Father above, on earth he sought only a mother. He showed us that what he created is not evil: he created male and female, he himself created both. But because through a woman man had been seduced, women might despair of themselves, unless through the Virgin Mary that sex were honored. He chose to be born of a woman; it was fitting that he who took on a man be born a man. But God had created not only a man, he had created a woman too. Women could, as I said, despair of themselves and say that they did not pertain to the mercy of God, because through a woman man was deceived; he deigned to be born of a woman, having taken on a man, and he honored the sex; he showed himself the founder of both sexes, and afterward the liberator. For because through a woman death was prepared for man by the serpent, to men themselves life was announced through women. For the women first saw the rising Lord and announced it to the apostles, the men. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, showed us in his flesh what we ought to hope for at the end. Therefore he humbled us, that we might learn his justifications.

11. Now then let us return humbled, who were cast down proud. For the whole cause of our mortality, the whole cause of our weakness, the whole cause of all our torments, of all difficulties, of all the hardships in this world which the human race suffers, is nothing but pride. You have Scripture saying: The beginning of all sin is pride (Sir 10:13). And what else does it say? The beginning of man's pride is to apostatize from God (Sir 10:12). If pride seems a small evil to you, at least tremble to apostatize from God. Furthermore, if you tremble to apostatize from God, cast down the cause of apostatizing. For pride made man apostatize from God. Because, then, it is itself the head of all our diseases, for we are sick in this life. As a skilled physician, when he sees a man languishing with various diseases, does not attend to the proximate causes and leave the origin of all the causes—for if he cures the proximate causes while the source of the diseases is kept, the derivations of the calamity return, and he seems for a time to heal, but does not heal thoroughly; but that physician is found most skilled who gathers well all the causes of all the diseases, and whatever first cause he finds, whence all those diverse things seem to have arisen like branches, he cuts the root, and the whole forest of pains is cut down—so the Lord Jesus Christ—why he was called Savior, and who said: The healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are ill (Matt 9:12), came to the sick, because the sick could not come to him; he sought those not seeking him, he turned himself to the weak, he suffered many things, he endured being killed by the blind, that from his very death he might heal their eyes—he did all these things, and because he saw pride to be the cause of all our diseases, by his humility he healed us.

12. Do not, then, mock the humility of Christ. For many pagans mock that Christ came humble—and would that only pagans!—and many heretics who call themselves Christians. It is foul to them that Christ was born of a woman; it is foul to them that he was fixed to the cross and wounded, and that those wounds he received were real, and those nails that were driven in were real; it is foul to them and they say: "He simulated all those things, he feigned them and did not endure them." Did truth, then, free you by a lie? Were you laboring under a lie, and were you healed by a lie? How can it be? But whoever say these things show what kind of masters they themselves are. For if the Lord rose and offered to his doubting disciple his hands to be touched and his scars to be handled, the disciple saying: "I will not believe, unless I put my fingers into his side," he showed himself not only to be seen with the eyes but also to be handled with the hands; but the disciple, when he handled the scars, found the truth made manifest and cried out: My Lord and my God (John 20:28). If, then, Christ deceived, will you tell the truth? How shall I hear you, tell me. Do you wish me to hear you as a master? "As a master," he says to me. What do you say to me, what do you teach me? "I teach you," he says, "that Christ was not born of a woman, and did not have real flesh, and that death was not real, nor those wounds real, and if not real wounds, then not real scars." And I, on the contrary, learned from the Gospel about the Lord Jesus Christ, who, when the disciple doubted, offered him his scars. Surely he could have risen without scars, who could heal the eyes of one born blind. But why did he wish to bring the testimony of the scars? Because the testimony of the scars of the body was the medicine of the wounds of the mind. What, then, will you teach me: that these things were false, and Christ simulated all these things, and the disciple, deceived by falsehood, cried out: My Lord and my God? If, then, he wished to make one healthy out of falsehood, how do I know whether you tell me the truth or lie? For you do not think it a crime to lie, when you try to set Christ before me as the author of a lie. For I am going to say to you: You lie, and you to me: "Far from it, I do not lie." You lie outright. "Far be it from me to lie." This you will say to me, that I may believe you. For say to me: "I am lying," I wish to know whether I am to believe you anything. But that I may believe you anything, you will say to me: "Far be it that I lie." Why did you say: "Far be it that I lie," unless you think it a crime to lie when you teach? What, then, you think a crime for yourself, this you assign to Christ? Therefore let human deceits withdraw: as it is written in the Gospel, so Christ came. Let not the humility of Christ be foul to you; that humility is foul to pride. Do not be proud, and the humble Christ will not be foul to you.

13. The Apostle says: All things are clean to the clean. But to the unclean and unbelieving nothing is clean, but both their mind and conscience are polluted (Titus 1:15). With a chaste heart say: "A woman conceived, a virgin conceived." She conceived by faith, the virgin conceived, the virgin gave birth, the virgin remained. Believe all these things, and let not those innards seem to you unclean. For even if that flesh had been altogether unclean, Christ coming to the flesh would cleanse the unclean, he would not be made unclean by the unclean. See the humility of your Lord: if it horrifies you, you are proud. Humility horrifies the proud. So, as you are proud, force yourself, that the cup of your swelling not horrify you. For when you are proud, you swell; you are not great. If you swell, drink the cup, that your innards may subside, that you may be able to be healthy. This cup the physician tempered for you, that you may drink. The physician himself tempered the chalice for you: drink the bitter chalice, if you wish to be healthy. Do you not see that you swell, do you not see that your innards are not healthy? You think yourself great, and you swell. That is not greatness, but disease. Do you wish to be free of disease, do you wish to be free of swelling? Drink the cup of humility. He tempered it for you, who came to you humble. And lest you doubt to drink, the physician drank first, not because it was necessary for the physician, but that he might take away doubt from the sick. Do not, then, despise the humility by which you are healed. The head of all diseases is pride. To heal the head of all diseases came he who deigned to become the head of the Church. The head of all diseases removed, you will be healthy. Be humbled and you will be healthy, and you will say more securely: It is good for me that you humbled me, that I might learn your justifications. For you raised yourself and were humbled. Humble yourself and you will be raised, because God resists the proud, but to the humble gives grace (Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5). Therefore God has shut up all under unbelief, that he might have mercy on all.

14. Man withdrew from God, followed his own concupiscences, let go the reins: by erring, by wandering, he came even to the worship of idols. The Jewish people too, who worshiped one God, had grown proud, had grown proud and gone into iniquity. God, wishing to show them that they are weak, wishing to show them that they lie under the frailty of their own flesh, that that concupiscence which was drawn from the propagation of their parents still remained in them, gave them the law and commandments just and good and holy, as the Apostle says: And so the law indeed is holy, and the commandment just and holy and good. Did, then, that which is good become death to me? Far from it! But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me through the good (Rom 7:12-13). See how he called good that very law which had been given to the Jews. He called it good, because God had given it. And truly he had commanded all good things in the decalogue. Or was there perhaps anything evil: You shall not steal, you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not bear false witness and the rest, you shall not covet your neighbor's thing? For even if you have not taken it away, but only coveted it, the laws do not hold you in the forum, but God holds you in judgment. Attend, then, brethren: the law was given to the Jews, weak but proud. They began to try to do the justices of the law and to be cast down by their concupiscences, and they were made guilty, who before were unjust, but were not guilty of the law, were not transgressors. Whence the Apostle says: For where there is no law, neither is there transgression (Rom 4:15). When the law is given, he who acts against the law, although he does what he was doing, yet when he did this without the law, he was a sinner, he was not a transgressor; but when he now does it, the law having been received, he is not only a sinner, but also a transgressor. Because, then, he is not only a sinner but also a transgressor, that is fulfilled which the Apostle says: But the law entered in, that the offense might abound (Rom 5:20). But why did the offense abound? For this is: God, you have rejected us and set us down. But it follows and he says: But where the offense abounded, grace superabounded (Rom 5:20). Because, then, the offense abounded, we rightly say: God, you have rejected us and set us down, you have been angry. But because grace superabounded, we rightly subjoin: And you have had mercy on us. Let not the Jews, then, say: "We are something." For God has shut up all under unbelief, that he might have mercy on all.

15. Let us, then, dearly beloved brethren, know our life, our Lord Jesus Christ; let us hold the medicine of our pride, the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us believe in him, let us hope wholly in his mercy, who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all; and when perhaps we make progress in his justifications, let us not be proud and despise others, but let us attend, on the road of justice, not to how much we have passed over, but to how much remains for us to traverse; and everywhere let us groan, and let us groan as long as we are pilgrims, because our joy will be only in the fatherland, when we have been made equal to the angels. As long as we are in the body, we are pilgrims away from the Lord (2 Cor 5:6). Why are we pilgrims away from the Lord? For we walk by faith, he says, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). Faith is to believe what you do not see, sight is to see what you had believed. When, then, sight comes, that flame of love will be keener, because what, absent, you desired, present, you embrace; what, absent, you believed, present, you see. And if God believed is sweet, what will he be beheld? When, then, all these things are ended which still torment us on account of the remnants of our sins, then there will be the fullness of justice, then, joined to the angels, we will sing the everlasting hymn "alleluia": the praise of God will be ours without failing, nor will hunger drive us from it, because the body does not hunger, except that which is corrupted and weighs down the soul; nor will we thirst nor be weak nor grow old nor sink into sleep nor be wearied by any tiredness, but such as are the bodies of the angels, such will our flesh be in the resurrection of the dead. Do not wonder that this flesh will be heavenly bodies in the resurrection of the dead. Consider that, before we were, we were nothing, and from this believe what we will be when we have risen. Let each one consider himself: before he was born, what was he, where was he, where did he lie hidden? All this distinction of the body: ears, eyes, face, the spirit quickening the whole mass of the body, where were all these things? Surely in the secret of nature, surely where they were not seen. They came forth thence, God formed you who were not. What great thing is it for God to make an angel out of a man, who made man out of mud? What were you? and you are a man; you are a man, and will you not be an angel? An angel is made out of a man more nearly than a man is made out of what you were. He who did what is more wonderful in you, will he not do what remains?

16. You must believe, and let your faith not abandon Christ, not abandon the Gospel, not abandon his promises. Understand that all the things that are written are nearly accomplished, few are the things that remain. This Church, which you see spread throughout the world, a little while ago did not exist. You, a few years ago, were pagans, now you are Christians; your parents served demons, before, the temples were full of those offering incense, now the Church is full of those praising God. How suddenly did God change human affairs? Before all these things were, the Scriptures were read, they were believed and not seen; now we see the things which our forebears read. If, then, these so great things have been fulfilled, will the few that remain not come? Believe firmly that they will come, brethren, because all these things that have already come, came no otherwise than as they were written and foretold before they came. Many thousands of years ago, when it was said to Abraham: In your seed all the nations shall be blessed (Gen 22:18), it was said to one man: In your seed all the nations shall be blessed; he considered himself one, and this seed, and his wife already aged and worn out by old age itself, and it was said to him not only: "There will be seed from you"—which, if it alone were said, what more wonderful?—it was too little to say to one worn out by old age: "You will have a son," In your seed, he says, all the nations shall be blessed. God said wonderful things, he said impossible things, but easy for himself. That one man believed what he did not see, and we see it; what he believed, has been displayed to us, indeed has been repaid to us, what has been displayed in us. For of the seed of Abraham was Isaac, and of Isaac Jacob, and of Jacob the Jewish people, and of the Jewish people David, and of the seed of David the Virgin Mary, and of the Virgin Mary the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore in the seed of Abraham all the nations shall be blessed, because all the nations are blessed in Christ. See, now there has been displayed to us what was promised to him. Therefore God, omnipotent and faithful, what he promised to one man, he displayed: what he promised to all, will he not display? My brethren, let your faith be built up, let your hope be strengthened. He did not deceive one man, will he be able to deceive the whole world? He displayed to one man the world full of Christians, he will display the world living with Christ his Son forever.

17. Holding these things, brethren, understand that the Church is not in a part, but is in the whole. Christ bought the whole, he gave his blood for the whole: the whole world has Christians, the unity of Christ is the Church. Without cause do the heretics quarrel with the Church of Christ: it is too little that they wished to be disinherited, they also slander the heirs. You draw them into unity, to the whole; let them not seduce you to a part. If you follow them, you will go to a part; if they hear you, they will come to the whole: by their own gain they are conquered. For Christ bought the whole, when he hung on the cross, my brethren: the commerce of Christ, the passion of Christ; there he bought us, where he was crucified. For there he poured out his blood, our price, there where it was foretold in the psalms as yet to come. See how many years ago it was foretold: They have dug my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones; but they themselves gazed and considered me, they divided my garments among themselves and cast lots over my clothing (Ps 22:16-18 (21:17-19)). All these things can scarcely be distinguished whether they are heard in the psalm or recited from the Gospel. Are they not, just as they are sung in the psalm, so read in the Gospel: They have dug my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones? There Christ bought us, where all his bones were numbered; where his hands and his feet were dug with nails, there he bought us. For there he poured out his blood, which is our price. In the psalm itself it is understood what he bought. Do you wish to know? Question the psalm itself. What did Christ buy, hanging on the wood? For after a few verses it says: All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall adore in his sight (Ps 22:27 (21:28)). Why shall they adore? For the kingdom is his, and he will rule the nations (Ps 22:28 (21:29)). As if it were answered why, who is this to whom all the ends of the earth shall turn and in whose sight all the families of the nations shall adore? Because the kingdom is his, he says, and he will rule the nations. Why is it his? Because he bought it.

18. Now the enemy possessor rushes in, and this under the name of Christ. He can divide some garments of Christ; that tunic no one will divide, which is woven from above. They divided, he says, my garments among themselves and cast lots over my garment (See Ps 22:18 (21:19); John 19:23-24). And the evangelist says: There was there a certain tunic woven from above, and they said among themselves—those who crucified the Lord—Let us not divide it, but cast lots over it (See John 19:23-24). It was not set in the division, that tunic was apart from the division. Why was that tunic apart from the division? Because it was woven from above. It was signified why what was woven from above did not deserve to be divided. What is it that is woven from above? Whence it is said to us "hearts up." And so he who has his heart up cannot be divided into parts, because he will belong to that tunic which cannot be divided. Therefore, my brethren, that tunic fell by lot to our Lord Jesus Christ himself, because his lot is his inheritance. And since the inheritance was his, he bought it. But those who were divided can belong to the other garments of Christ, because he is clothed with all. All who believe in him, in whatever way he is clothed with them. But whoever seek earthly honors, temporal advantages, corporeal fantasies, are not woven from above, because they desire worldly things. They, then, can be divided. But that tunic which is woven from above cannot come into division. Rejoice that you belong to it, you who are offshoots of the catholic Church. Question your heart, whether you seek from Christ nothing but the kingdom of heaven: not vain things, not temporal things, not corporeal images, not the things that delight in this world and on this earth. When you have questioned yourselves, your conscience answers you that you have your "hearts up." And if you have your "hearts up," you are woven from above; if you are woven from above, you cannot be divided.

Sermon 341
Augm. (Dolbeau 22)

1. This psalm, as is known to all Christians, since it is written there: They have dug my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones; but they themselves considered and gazed at me, they divided my garments among themselves and cast lots over my garment (Ps 22:16-18 (21:17-19)). For it was figured in the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But how the person of our Lord Jesus Christ is commended and intimated to the hearts of the faithful, although I do not think it hidden from you, you must yet be reminded, because some do not know, and many have forgotten what they heard, and some wish to be confirmed in what they hold, nor are there lacking those who wish to hear even that in which they are firm from us, for our own sake. But this understanding, which, according to the strength the Lord deigns to supply, I try to intimate to your love, avails for understanding many obscure things in the most sacred books, that is, how Christ is spoken of.

2 [1]. For, as far as we have been able to observe the holy pages, he is named in three ways, when he is preached whether through the law and prophets, or through the apostolic epistles, or through faith in the deeds which we know in the Gospel. One way is according to God and that divinity coequal and coeternal with the Father before the assumption of the flesh. Another way is that by which, the flesh assumed, he is now the same God who is man and the same man who is God, according to a certain property of his excellence by which he is not made coequal to the rest of men, but is the mediator and head of the Church, and is read and understood. The third way is when, in a manner, the whole Christ in the fullness of the Church, that is, head and body, according to the fullness of a certain perfect man, in which perfect man we are members, is both preached to believers and offered, recognizable, to the prudent. Yet we cannot, in so small and narrow a time, either recall or explain all the testimonies of the Scriptures by which all these three kinds are proved, but yet we will not leave them unproved, so that, certain testimonies recalled, the rest which we are not permitted to recall on account of the shortness of time you may now be able by yourselves to observe in the Scriptures and find.

3 [2]. To the first way, then, of intimating our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, the only Son of God, through whom all things were made, pertains that which is most noble and most illustrious in the Gospel according to John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was nothing made. What was made, in him is life; and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:1-5). Wonderful and astonishing are these words, before they are understood; understood, they are to be embraced. But that they be understood, it is not furnished by human resources, but by him himself inspiring to know them, who deigned to inspire fishermen to say them. For that fisherman said this, the son of Zebedee, who left his father and his boat and his nets and followed God, not leaving a human father, but choosing God as Father. To him, who left a little boat and nets, surely the whole world was reckoned as left. For our Lord Jesus Christ did not attend to what the poor who followed him left, that is, what they left of their own substance, but what they left of their own desire. For everyone who has little wishes to have more, and he who leaves the little he had left more which he desired to have. And therefore, when that rich man had withdrawn saddened from the Lord, whom, to receive counsel, he called good master, and the one giving counsel he left as if a bad master, the disciples, after that man was saddened and withdrew, after they heard that through the mercy of God even the rich can enter the kingdom of heaven—of whose salvation they had despaired, when they heard that a camel more easily enters through the eye of a needle than a rich man into the kingdom of heaven—subjoined, saying: Behold, we have left all things and followed you: what then will there be for us?; and the Lord: You will sit, he says, on twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt 19:27-28). He also promised to others leaving all their things and following him a great reward, and a great solace in the very promise and joy in the display, since whoever for his sake leaves all that he had in this world, shall receive, he says, in this world a hundredfold, but in the world to come eternal life (See Matt 19:29). All these things, if expounded more diligently, hold us and turn us from the matter proposed. Yet let your love now attend to what pertains to the matter undertaken, that the first poor men left all their things and followed God and were made apostles, and as much is reckoned to them leaving few things as is reckoned to those leaving great things. And what is truly to be wondered at, then, hearing from the mouth of the Lord that all things must be left and God must be followed, the rich man withdrew sad, hearing this from the mouth of the Lord; now, the Lord not seen in the flesh, men hear this from his Gospel and do what that man did not do, and so it is fulfilled in them: Blessed are those who do not see and believe (See John 20:29).

4. {Why, then, did the Lord first choose the lowborn, the poor, the unskilled, the uncultivated, when he had before his eyes a great crowd, fewer indeed in comparison with the many poor, but in their own kind many rich, noble, learned, wise, for whom he also afterward provided—for he did not abandon them, all such kinds came to the faith—the Apostle explains the mystery: He chose the weak things of this world, that he might confound the strong; and he chose the foolish things, that he might confound the wise; and the lowborn things of the world God chose, and the things that are not, that is, are not reckoned, as though they were, that the things that are might be emptied out (1 Cor 1:27-28). For he had come to teach humility, to storm pride; God had come humble. In no way here would he seek the lofty, who had come so humble. First, because he chose to be born of that woman, who was betrothed to a carpenter. He did not, then, choose ample birth, lest in this earth nobility be proud. He did not even choose, for being born, the amplest city, but he was born in Bethlehem of Judea, which is not even judged worthy of the name of city. For even today the inhabitants of that place call it a village: so small and slight and almost nothing it is, unless it were ennobled by the nativity of Christ}. He came, then, not one who would be noble from the place, but one who would himself make the place noble, and so the rest of the things of our Lord Jesus Christ which it is long to recall. {He chose, then, the weak, the poor, the unlearned, the lowborn: not because he abandoned the firm, the rich, the wise, the noble, but if he chose those first, they would seem to be chosen by the merit of their dignities, by the merit of their riches, by the merit of their birth, and so, inflated about these things, they would not receive the salvation of humility, without which no one can return to that life, from which he would not have fallen except through pride}. On the contrary, then, the physician heals the disease: the cold by hot remedies, the hot by cold, the dry by moist, the moist by dry. If we see, then, the art of medicine heal the languishing by contraries, it is not to be wondered at if we are healed by the humility of God, who were sick by human pride. More healthfully, then, did the Lord gain an orator from a fisherman, than a fisherman from an orator. For the orator Cyprian was a martyr, but earlier the apostle was a fisherman. Christian emperors were made afterward, but earlier fishermen preached Christ himself. And so far did God, truly choosing the weak things of the world, confound the strong—but he confounded that he might heal, he cast down that he might raise up—that what we have known in our own times and must not be kept silent might be made manifest to us, the faith being known by the very deeds, that God chose the weak things of the world, that he might confound the strong. For in our times an emperor came to the city of Rome: there is the temple of an emperor, there is the tomb of a fisherman. And so, to beg salvation from the Lord, that pious and Christian emperor did not proceed to the proud temple of an emperor, but to the tomb of a fisherman, where, humble, he might imitate that fisherman, that he might then by some regard obtain from the Lord what a proud emperor could not merit.

5. Why, then, did I say this? Because we recalled that way of intimating Christ according to the divinity before the assumption of the flesh, a certain way wonderful and astonishing to all hearers, but known to few who understand, when they so knock that they are as it were dazzled by a kind of flashing of that eternal and ineffable light, saying and recalling: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God and the rest, the understanding of which words, lest you seek superfluously from us, we said that you can understand these things by the inspiration of him by whose inspiration it was brought about that an unlearned fisherman preached them. For that fisherman did not know these things by himself, nor was he of such great talent or learning as to penetrate with the sharpness of his mind and transcend all this air and all the aethereal powers, thence arrive at the natures of the luminaries, virtues, powers, and angels, and all the most supereminent spiritual creation, fallen by no sin, but always clinging to the contemplation of unchangeable truth, and transcend that too and arrive at that which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9). What kind of thing is the Word of the Father, how is it the Word? Was it thought? did it sound? Surely not. For if it was thought, it spent time; if it sounded, the air being struck, it passed through. Not so the Word of God, but a remaining Word, and always the Word, uttered and not taken away, or rather not even uttered, lest a certain corporeal extension be understood. And how it is to be said, no one expresses with a human mouth: it is piously believed that the Word is begotten; he himself can speak and utter himself, the Son of God alone can himself; but the one to whom he utters himself can understand him, but cannot utter him. Whence did the fisherman see this, but because he himself willed to show himself? Whence did the fisherman see this, from where he drank; but whence did he drink this? Let us attend to the banquet of the Lord, if perhaps we shall find whence this fisherman drank. All the disciples were reclining with the Lord; John is written in the Gospel to have been wont to recline upon the breast of the Lord. What wonder, then, if from his breast he drank what he said about his divinity? For the Lord of the banquet and the Lord of those banqueting would not allow his disciple to fill his belly from that table and not fill his mind from his breast. So indeed he did: he fed and satisfied the disciple from his breast. But that one, satisfied, belched, and that very belching is the Gospel. You have seen, then, with the eyes of faith in the Gospel the fisherman feasting; hear him belching: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. You despised it, when you heard "word"—for daily words are heard—now do not despise, because the Word was God. "And how shall I understand God and Word?" Let him make you drink, who satisfied the fisherman. Meanwhile now hear him belching, believe him belching, that you too, ascending by the step of faith, may be satisfied with the liveliness of understanding.

6. "What then?", you will say. "Now I am to believe that the Word of God is the Son of God." The only Son of God, not two words, but one Word, although there are two words of Scripture, for example those two precepts pertaining to the twofold love, or those pertaining to recompense. For the Lord says certain things to the pious set at the right hand, and says other things to the impious set at the left. He does not say to the pious what he says to the impious. As it were two words are distributed by the narrator according to our capacity, according to our merits: here they are distributed, but there a certain thing <...>, as, if I can say a certain likeness from corporeal things—yet fitting to the senses of the weak—if I can say it, how the brightness either of fire or of a star or of the moon or of the sun is one and is in one manner. But if it is attended to by different eyes, by one sincere and sound, by another wounded and bleary, to the one it seems a placid light, to the other as it were raging and angry. For it strikes back the wounded gaze and causes pain, whence to the sound one it caused joy. See, it is placid, see, it is savage. Is the light itself divided, the light itself unlike? No, but according to the merits of those diversely gazing. Attend, my brethren, and from small things know greater. So the one Word of God, but it distributes worthy things according to merits, saying to those: Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the origin of the world, but saying to those: Go into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:34, 41). What is so diverse as come into the kingdom and go into the eternal fire? Is the word, then, diverse? No. It is one, but the merits of the hearers are diverse. Hear the prophet in the psalms saying this same thing: God has spoken once: these two things I have heard (Ps 62:11 (61:12)). A great question: now, if you have understood the things I said, let it not trouble you. He has spoken once, and you have heard two? He has spoken once according to the one Word, how then have you heard two? Because power is yours, he says, and to you, Lord, mercy (Ps 62:11-12 (61:12-13))—power, then, for punishing, mercy for freeing. Hear what follows: For you will render, he says, to each according to his works (Ps 62:12 (61:13)).

7. O the only Word, sweet Word, may it inspire in us its love; but it inspires through the Holy Spirit. For so is the Trinity: the Father who begot, the Word which he begot, the Spirit by whom love is inspired; he who begot, and that which he begot, and that by whom it is inspired. That the most sweet and most excellent and ineffable Trinity be loved, supereminent over all the creation which it began, perfected, ordered, supereminent altogether, it desires the hearts of those who love it. But "desires" is rightly said, because it makes us desire. For the Spirit too is said to rejoice, because it makes us rejoice. And of God: The Lord your God tempts you, that he may know whether you love him (See Deut 13:3). What is that he may know, but that he may make you know? Therefore it feeds the hearts of those who desire, who love purely, who love freely, because they find nothing better to love—or let them find something better, and let them receive this as a reward; let them ask this, if they find nothing better. If, then, your Creator did not give you himself, than whom you find nothing better, you would always have had to groan rather than seek something else; if your Creator did not give you himself, than whom nothing is better—if indeed he admits these words to be said of himself; but he admits them because we are little ones, he admits them because, if we wished to say something worthy, we would say nothing at all—if, then, your Creator, as I had begun to say, were unwilling to give you himself, you would always have had to groan rather than for something else. But now he himself offers himself, and you seek something else; he asks in a manner to be loved, by whom he is not loved. O you are wretched, not he! He seeks, then, hearts that sincerely love him, which by pious intention surpass every changeable creature—but they surpass it, if they have been humble: high places are not surpassed by the high. If you wish to surpass every creature and arrive at that other thing which you heard from the mouth of the belching fisherman, be humble, seek piously. For when you have transcended all changeable things, both corporeal and spiritual, you will come to behold that Trinity, and you will drink whence he drank; to which when you have come, you will laugh at all the slanderers—and when you have first laughed, afterward perhaps you will weep for those who, by vain contentions, stir up smoke for themselves, lest they see it.

8. Let this, then, suffice, brethren, to have intimated to you. But that you may understand, knock at him. Let no one say to himself with carnal thought: "How was the Word with God and how in the womb of the virgin, that it might be born? Did the Word itself, then, descend, so that, when it was in the womb of the Virgin Mary, it withdrew from the Father? If it did not withdraw from the Father, how could it be here? Or did perhaps half remain with the Father, and half be in the womb? Or did perhaps a great part remain with the Father, and a little something or small fragment descend to the womb of the virgin?" Do not cut God up into fragments; let the dissensions of your thoughts be in a manner unified in him, let him not be torn apart in them; let him gather you, do not you scatter him. "And how," you say, "shall I understand it? I do not know, I cannot. He is both with the Father, and is in the womb of the virgin. Who is there who can understand this?" But you hear of God; you make yourself a certain body by the custom of carnal thought. When you have done this, you must now divide. For you do not find the whole everywhere. One part of the earth here, another outside in the street, not the same, because it is earth, because it is a body: one part is large, another small. So too water is divided: one part is near this shore, another near that, and not the same part there which is here; although the whole seems as it were everywhere to be stretched out in its places, yet it does not have the same part everywhere, but one here, another elsewhere. So this diffusion of the air: one air is in this basilica, <another in that>, since one air is throughout the whole, but one part in this, another part in that; not that part there which is here, nor that here which is there. So too the parts of the sky: those are different which we behold when we look at the east, different the parts which we behold when we turn ourselves to the west. It cannot be that one and the same part is everywhere: even if the whole seems through its parts to be everywhere, yet not the whole of it is everywhere, but one part elsewhere, another elsewhere. Do not, then, think corporeally of God in this way. Or can you not think of anything but such things? Perhaps I will give an example, whence this may come into the notice of the intent of your love.

9. You wish to divide the Word of God, and it does not seem credible to you that the whole is with the Father, the whole is in the womb of the Virgin Mary. I say more: the whole is wherever you wish, but it did not everywhere take on the person of a man, with whom God and man might become one. I do not wish you to divide: grasp as much as you can. Do you wish to divide the Word of God? Hear the word of man. Surely it seemed to you that the Word of God could not be both in Mary and with the Father, except as it were distributed in particles, so that one part of it were here, another there. When you hear a word from us, or when you hear words from us—attend to what we say: for from this word you better get the proof, which is said to you who are many, than from those words which you say to one another. For you deal with fewer, we deal with so many: all hear what we say, and all hear the whole. If I set before you bodily food on which to feed, you would divide the food among yourselves, and one would take away this part, another that, to eat it. Even if you all fed on the same and one food, yet not all on the same parts, but you would divide among yourselves, according to your small measures, in particles what was set before you, one taking that part, another this; one food would reach all, but not the whole food all. Surely it would be so. But as that food would be set before your mouth, so now a certain food of voices and words is set before your ears, and yet the whole reaches all. Or does perhaps, when I speak, one take for himself one syllable, another another? or one one word, another another word? If it were so, I would have to say as many words as I see men, that they might reach all, at least single words. And it is indeed easily done: I say more than there are men here, and all reach all. The word of man, then, is not divided through syllables, that all may hear it, and is the Word of God cut into fragments, that it may be everywhere? Do we think, brethren, that these sounding and passing things are in any part to be compared to that Word remaining unchangeably? or, because I said these things, have I compared them? But in whatever way I wished to intimate to you, that what God displays in corporeal things may avail you to believe the things you do not yet see about spiritual things. But now let us pass to better things. For words sound and go away. Think of spiritual things, think of justice. One thinking of justice set in these western parts, another thinking of justice set in the east, whence comes it that the one thinks the whole of it and the other the whole? and the one sees the whole and the other the whole? For he who sees justice, according to which he does something, himself acts justly. He sees within, he acts without. Whence does he see within, if nothing is present to the seer? But if it is present, since he himself is set in a part, will the thought of the other not reach the same part? But since you, set here, see in your mind the same that he sees, set so far away, and the whole shines for you, the whole also for him, see that those things which are divine and incorporeal are everywhere whole, and believe the Word whole in the Father, whole in the womb. For you believe this of the Word of God, who is God with God.

10. [3]. And hear another intimation, another way of intimating Christ, which the Scripture preaches. For it says these things before the assumed flesh. But how does the Scripture preach this one? The Word, it says, was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). For he who had said: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was nothing made, would preach to us the divinity of the Word in vain, if he kept silent the humanity of the Word. For that I may see that, this is done with me; that I may be purified for contemplating that, he himself comes to the aid of my weakness. By taking on from human nature that very human nature, he was made man. He came with the beast of the flesh to the one who lay wounded on the road, that he might fashion and nourish our little faith by the sacrament of his incarnation, and make the understanding serene for seeing that which he never lost through that which he took on. For he began to be man, he did not cease to be God. Therefore this is the preaching of our Lord Jesus Christ according to that he is mediator, according to that he is head of the Church, that he is God-man and man-God, when John says: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

11 [4]. Hear now both in that most well-known passage of the apostle Paul: Who, though he was in the form of God, he says, did not count it robbery to be equal to God (Phil 2:6). This is: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. How did the Apostle say: He did not count it robbery to be equal to God, if he is not equal to God? But if the Father is God, and he is not God, how equal? Where, then, John has: The Word was God, there Paul has: He did not count it robbery to be equal to God. And where John has: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, there Paul has: But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:7). Attend. Through this, then, that he was made man, through this, that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, through this he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. For what did he empty? Not that he might lose the divinity, but that he might put on the humanity, appearing to men as what he was not, before he was man. So by appearing he emptied himself, that is, keeping the divinity of his majesty and offering the garment of the flesh of humanity. Through that, then, by which he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, not taking the form of God—for when he spoke of the form of God, he did not say: he took, but: though he was in the form of God; but when it came to the form of a servant: Taking, he says, the form of a servant—through this, then, he is mediator and head of the Church, through whom we are reconciled to God, through the sacrament of his humility and passion and resurrection and ascension and future judgment, so that those two things may be heard, since God has spoken once. Where may two things be heard? Where he renders to each according to his works.

12 [5]. Holding this, then, do not wonder at the questions of men, which creep like a cancer, as the apostle said; but guard your ears and the virginity of your mind, as those betrothed by the friend of the bridegroom to be presented as a chaste virgin to one husband, Christ. The virginity of the body is in a few of the Church, the virginity of the mind ought to be in all. This virginity the serpent wishes to corrupt, of which the same Apostle says: I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. And I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your senses too be corrupted from the chastity which is in Christ (2 Cor 11:2-3). Your senses, he says, that is, your minds. For this is more proper. For the senses are understood also of this body: of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. The Apostle feared lest our minds be corrupted, where is the virginity of faith. Now then, O soul, keep your virginity, to be made fruitful afterward in the embrace of your bridegroom. Hedge in, then, as it is written, your ears with thorns (See Sir 28:24). The question of the Arians troubled the weak brethren of the Church, but in the mercy of the Lord the catholic faith prevailed. For he did not abandon his Church, even though for a time troubled, that it might always entreat him, by whom it might be confirmed on the solid rock. And still the serpent mutters and is not silent: it seeks, by a certain promise of knowledge, to cast out of the paradise of the Church the one whom it would not permit to return to that paradise, from which it was first cast out.

13 [6]. Attend, my brethren: what was done in that paradise, this is done in the Church. Let no one seduce you from this paradise: let it suffice that we fell thence, or, having had the experience, let us be corrected. He is the serpent, who always suggests impiety; he sometimes promises impunity, just as he promised there too: You shall not die the death, he says, because God said: You shall die the death (Gen 3:4; 2:17). He suggests such things now too, that Christians may live badly: "Will he destroy them all?" He says: "I will damn, I will pardon those who change themselves: let them change their deeds, I change my threats." He is, then, the one who murmurs and mutters and says: "See, it is written: The Father is greater than I (John 14:28), and you call him equal to the Father?" I accept what you say, and I accept both, because I read both. Why do you accept one and refuse the other? For you read both with me. See, The Father is greater than I I accept, not from you, but from the Gospel; and you, accept from the Apostle that he is equal to God. Join both: let both agree, because he who spoke through John in the Gospel, he himself spoke through Paul in the epistle. He cannot disagree with himself, but you do not wish to understand the agreement of the Scriptures, since you yourself love to quarrel. "But from the Gospel," you say, "I prove: The Father is greater than I." And I from the Gospel: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). "How are both true?" How does the Apostle teach us? Hear: I and the Father are one. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God. Hear: The Father is greater than I. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. See, I have shown why greater, you show in what he is equal. For we read both. He is less than the Father, insofar as he is the Son of man; equal to the Father, insofar as he is the Son of God, because the Word was God. Mediator and God and man: God equal to the Father, man less than the Father. He is, then, both equal and less: equal in the form of God, less in the form of a servant. You, then, say whence equal. Is he equal in one part, and less in another? See, the assumption of flesh excepted, show me equal and less. Whence will you demonstrate it, I wish to see.

14 [7]. Attend to the stolid impiety being wise according to the flesh, as it is written: To be wise according to the flesh is death (Rom 8:6). I set aside for now, and I do not yet speak of the incarnation of our Lord the only Son of God, but as if what has already been done were not yet done, I attend with you: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I attend with you: Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God. There show me the less. What will you say? Will you divide God by qualities, that is, by certain corporeal or animal affections, in which we perceive being to be one thing and another? Naturally I can indeed say it, but whether it be so that you too may understand, God shall see. Therefore, as I had begun to say, before the assumption of the flesh, before the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, show me the less, show me the equal. Is God one thing and another, so that on one side the Son is less than him, on another side equal? As if we should say: "There are certain bodies," you could say to me: "Equal in length, but less in strength." For very often two such bodies occur, that in the stature of length they are equal, but in strength one is less, the other greater. Are we, then, going to think of such things as bodies: are we going to think of God and his Son so? May God avert these thoughts from the hearts of Christians. He was whole with the Father, whole in the flesh, whole above the angels. But perhaps you will think so as to say: "Equal both in strength and in length, but they are unequal in color"? Where is color, but in bodies? But there is the light of wisdom. Show me the color of wisdom. Show me the color of justice. If these have no color, would you say those things of God, if you had the color of shame?

15 [8]. What, then, will you say? Are they equal in power, but is the Son less in prudence? God is unjust, if he gave to a lesser prudence equal power. If they are equal in prudence, but the Son is less in power, God is envious, who gave to an equal prudence less power. But in God everything that is said is the selfsame thing. For in God power is not one thing and prudence another and fortitude another and justice another or chastity another. Whatever of these you say of God, it is neither understood as one thing and another, and nothing is worthily said, because these are things of souls, which that light in a manner suffuses and affects according to their qualities. As when this visible light rises for bodies, if it be taken away, there is one color for all bodies, or rather it must be said there is no color; but when, brought in, it has illumined the bodies, although it is itself of one manner, yet according to the diverse qualities of bodies it sprinkles diverse splendors on them. Therefore these are affections of souls, which are well affected by that light which is not affected, and formed by that which is not formed.

16 [9]. Yet we say these things of God, brethren, because we find nothing better to say. I call God just, because in human words I find nothing better: for he is beyond justice. It is said in the Scriptures: The Lord is just and has loved justice (Ps 11:7 (10:8)). But there it is said both that God repents, there it is said also that God does not know. Who would not shudder? Does God not know, does God repent? Therefore yet to these words too Scripture healthfully descended, which you too shudder at, lest you think those things which you think great to be worthily said. As if you wished to believe that, according to a human affection, something causes God to repent, and another who already understands better corrected you, expounding to you that, if you find anything of the kind in the Scriptures, it is not said because God suffers something of the kind, such as you, in the condemnation of your plan or deed, with grief of heart, but on account of this, that he changes otherwise than men suppose, because, if men do anything of the kind, they do it by repenting, if they turn from a purpose, while his plan remains certain and eternal, but because it was hoped he would do one thing and he does another, it is said figuratively that he repents. And so, if you ask: "What, then, is worthily said of God?" Perhaps he answers you and says that he is just. But another, understanding better than this one, says that even this word is surpassed by his excellence, and that even this is unworthily said of him, although it is said congruently according to the capacity of men. But when he wishes to prove from the Scriptures, because it is written: The Lord is just, he is rightly answered that it is set down in the same Scriptures that God repents. As you do not take that according to the custom of those speaking, as men are wont to repent, so understand that what is said, "just," does not befit his supereminence, although Scripture set this down well, that through whatever words the mind may step by step be led to that which cannot be said. You call God just indeed, but understand something beyond the justice which you are wont to think even of a man. But because the Scriptures called him just, therefore they also called him repenting and not knowing, which you now do not wish to say. As, then, you understand those things you shudder at to be said on account of your weakness, so these things which you make much of are said on account of a certain weakness of the stronger. But he who has transcended these things and has begun to think worthily of God, as far as is granted to man, will find a silence to be praised by the ineffable voice of the heart.

17 [10]. Therefore, brethren, because in God power is the same thing as justice—and whatever you say of him, you say the same thing, although you say nothing worthily—you cannot say that the Son is equal to the Father in justice and not equal in power, or equal in power and not equal in knowledge, because from any one thing equal he is equal in everything, because all the things you say there are the same and are worth the same. It suffices, then, that you cannot say how the Son is equal to the Father, unless you grant certain diversities in the substance of God. When you have granted them, truth will cast you outside, nor will you approach that sanctuary, where it is seen most sincerely. But since you cannot say equal on one side and unequal on another, because there are no parts in God, you cannot say equal in one quality, less in another, because there are no qualities in God; according to God you cannot say equal, except in every way equal: whence, then, can you say less, except because he took on the form of a servant? And so, brethren, always attend to these things. If you have received a certain rule in the Scriptures, the light itself will show you everything. Wherever you find the Son named equal to the Father, understand it according to a certain essence of the divinity; wherever you find him less, understand it according to the form of a servant assumed: according to what is said, I am who I am, and according to what is said, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob (Exod 3:14, 6); so you will hold both what is in his nature, and what is in his mercy.

18. But let it not move you that this too was said according to this difference, what the Lord spoke in the Gospel and in the psalm which we just now sang. But that we may expound and intimate it by a clearer testimony, it is said in the Gospel: To my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (John 20:17). Let my Father and your Father not trouble you. For he is always Father to the Son: never was the Son not begotten, never was he not Father. But he is our Father in another way, through the mercy of adoption. Him he begot, us he adopted. Him he begot before the daystar, which do not take as one star, but mystically the daystar (lucifer) is that which bears light (lucem ferat), not that it is light, but that it is illumined by the light, so that it may bear light. For of that archangel too who did not stand in the truth it was said that he rose like the daystar, but he did not stand in the light itself. Therefore every soul that is illumined, so that it may shine, is called a daystar; if it turns itself away from the illuminating light, it is darkened. Therefore John the evangelist says of the Lord himself: He was the true light. And as if it were asked: "What is the true light?", which illumines every man, he says—not, then, that which is illumined, but which illumines. But of John the Baptist he says: He was not the light (John 1:9, 8). But what light was he not? Such as is that which illumines and is not illumined. For the light which is illumined was John, because he had received of his fullness. Whence the Lord himself says: And you wished to exult for an hour in his light (John 5:35). And to his disciples he says: You are the light of the world (Matt 5:14). For they were illumined that they might be light, but he was the true light which illumines every man, another thing is the made light which is illumined. The true light, then, which illumines, this is our Lord Jesus Christ; but the made light which is illumined, this is John, this the apostles, this all the holy souls and most blessed intellectual spirits, which by receiving light become daystars. Therefore before the daystar I begot you, that is, before every creature. It is to be understood as before every creature, in which the spiritual and rational creature holds the primacy, which, illumined, bears light. Both, then, brethren, let us hold in our Lord Jesus Christ: both according to that he is God, he is equal to the Father, and according to that he is man, he is less than the Father. But what I had begun to say, let no one stumble at, that he says: My Father and your Father. For he is always the Father of the only-begotten Son, always he was born and born before the daystar, that is, before every creature which by being illumined becomes light. Rightly, then, my Father and your Father, because we received from him to be sons of God: who gave us power to become sons of God (John 1:12). And our adoption, of which the Apostle speaks, is well known to your love, of which he says: awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body (Rom 8:23), and again: God sent his Son made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal 4:4-5). Rightly, then, first singularly he says my Father, then your Father. But how my God and your God? Now if the rule is known, what do you await from me? My Father always, my God from the time he is man. Hear the psalm which was read: Upon you I was cast from the womb, from my mother's belly you are my God (Ps 22:10 (21:11)). I think enough has been said about that way too, by which our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, head of the Church, made mediator, through whom we are reconciled to God, is intimated in the Scriptures as God and man.

19 [11]. The third way is how the whole Christ according to the Church, that is, head and body, is preached. For both head and body are one Christ, not because without the body he is not complete, but because he deigned to be complete with us too, who without us too is always complete, not only in that he is the Word, the only-begotten Son equal to the Father, but also in that very man whom he took on and with whom together he is God and man. But yet, brethren, how are we his body, if not also with us he is one Christ? Where shall we find this, that one Christ is head and body, that is, the body with its head, the bride with her bridegroom? As it were singularly he speaks in Isaiah, and one and the same speaks, and see what he says: As a bridegroom he bound a miter on me and as a bride he clothed me with an ornament (Isa 61:10). He calls the same one bridegroom and bride: bridegroom according to the head, bride according to the body. They seem two, and it is one. Otherwise, how are we members of Christ, the Apostle saying most openly: But you are the body of Christ and members? (1 Cor 12:27) If we are members of Christ, we are also the body, all together: not we who are only in this place, but also throughout the whole earth; nor we who are only at this time, but—what shall I say?—from just Abel to the end of the world, where now men neither beget nor are begotten, whatever of the just has made its passage through this life, whatever is here now—that is, not in place, but in this life—whatever of those to be born hereafter is to come, all this is one body of Christ, but the individuals are members. If, then, all are the body, but the individuals are members, there is surely a head whose body this is. And he is, he says, the head of the body, the Church, the firstborn, himself holding the primacy (Col 1:18). And because he says of him also that he is the head of all principality and power (Col 2:10), this Church, which is now a pilgrim, is joined to that heavenly Church, where we have the angels as fellow citizens, because we would shamelessly claim that we are to be equal after the resurrection of the bodies, unless the truth had promised, saying: They will be equal to the angels of God (See Luke 20:36); and one Church is made, the city of the great king (Ps 48:2 (47:3)), of which he also willed to be the Son, taking flesh from its pilgrim part, its king and its fructifier, that he might recall what had strayed thence. For it is Sion in the figure of a mystery, of which it is written: Mother Sion, a man shall say, and a man was made in her, and the Most High himself founded her (Ps 87:5 (86:5)), that is, he himself who was made a man in her, though he was most lowly, the Most High himself founded her, because all things were made through him, and without him was nothing made. A truncated body cannot be called whole without the head, but the head wishes to be united with its body. And Christ is one with his body by graciousness, not by necessity. For we are in need of the good of God, God is not in need of our good. Hear the prophet: I said to the Lord: You are my God, for you have no need of my goods (Ps 16:2 (15:2)).

20 [12]. So, then, sometimes in the Scriptures Christ is intimated so that you may understand the Word equal to the Father. So sometimes, that you may understand the mediator man, when the Word was made flesh, that it might dwell among us, when that only-begotten, through whom all things were made, did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made obedient unto the death of the cross (Phil 2:6-8). But so sometimes, that you may understand head and body, the Apostle himself most openly expounding what was said of man and wife in Genesis: And they shall be, he says, two in one flesh (Gen 2:24; Eph 5:31). Attend to him expounding, lest we seem to dare to say something by our own conjectures. And they shall be, he says, two in one flesh, and he added: This is a great sacrament (Eph 5:32). And lest anyone still think it to be in man and wife according to the natural coupling of the two sexes and the corporeal mingling: But I, he says, speak in Christ and in the Church (Eph 5:32). According to this, then, that is taken in Christ and in the Church which was said: They shall be two in one flesh: now not two, but it is one flesh. As bridegroom and bride, so head and body, because the head of the woman is the man (1 Cor 11:3). {Whether, then, I say head and body, or whether I say bridegroom and bride, understand it as one. And therefore the same Apostle, even when he was still Saul, heard: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4), since the body is joined to the head, and when, now a preacher of Christ, he suffered from others what he himself as persecutor had done: That I may fill up, he says, what is lacking of the pressures of Christ in my flesh (Col 1:24), showing that what he suffered pertained to the pressures of Christ. This cannot be understood according to the head, which now in heaven suffers nothing of the kind, but according to the body, that is, the Church, because that body with its head is one Christ.}

21 [13]. Therefore present yourselves a body worthy of such a head, a bride worthy of such a bridegroom. That head cannot have any but a worthy body; nor does that man take any but a wife worthy of himself. That he might present to himself, he says, a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind (Eph 5:27). {This is the bride of Christ, not having spot or wrinkle. Do you not wish to have a spot? Do what is written: Wash yourselves, be clean, remove the evils from your hearts (See Isa 1:16). Do you not wish to have a wrinkle? Be stretched out on the cross. For it is not only needful that you be washed, but also that you be stretched out, that you be without spot or wrinkle. For through the washing sins are taken away, but through the stretching there comes about the desire of the world to come, on account of which Christ was crucified. Hear Paul himself washed: Not, he says, by the works of justice which we did, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5). Hear the same one stretched out: The things, he says, that are behind forgotten, stretched out to the things that are before, according to intention I follow toward the palm of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:13-14). Rightly, then, he himself, without the spot of iniquity and without the wrinkle of a double heart, as a good and faithful friend of the bridegroom, betrothes to him a chaste virgin to be presented to one husband, without spot and wrinkle}. For not without cause is the prophecy of Isaiah recalled beside the way of the fuller.

22. All such things, brethren, are in a sacrament: whatever in the Scriptures sounds as it were absurd, as it were not necessary, is closed. But not closed and empty: God closes over something full, but seeks those who knock, that he may open. Surely, weigh it. For, to say something cheerfully, when boys buy themselves nuts, lest they be deceived, they weigh them in the hand and, when they have found one heavy, they more securely keep what is still closed. Weigh, then, when you hear certain sentences closed in such holy Scriptures, so illustrious, known to the whole world, spread throughout the whole earth; from the time they are preached up to this time, nothing else has been done in human affairs than what was foretold there. A great weight, then, of authority. According to this weight weigh the sentences, and let your soul—which perhaps already wished to despise it—say to you what was said: And they shall be two in one flesh. Now it was saying to itself: "What is this? Was God really going to take care how man and woman are mingled together, that he should say: They shall be two in one flesh?" Do not throw it away; you are a boy: weigh it. "And how," it says, "shall I weigh?" Say to yourself: "Truly any fool would say this, much more anyone whatever who is called a man of God. Moses, who wrote these things, had at least a middling heart." Add, that not without cause these writings have become known to the whole world and are honored throughout the whole world by the religion of believers: "Not without cause would he say: They shall be two in one flesh, unless there were there something, I know not what, which human thought shudders at, but it is in some way closed. It is not empty." When you have said these things to yourself, you weigh it; if you have weighed it, you have found that it is heavy; you hold it securely. But perhaps you are so weak a boy that you cannot break it: only hold it and rejoice, know that you hold something full; there will not be lacking one to break it and feed you. "And who," it says, "will break it?" There is indeed one to break it—as if we are dealing with a little child—give it to a certain kindly father who said: Not to confound you do I say these things, but I admonish you as my dearest sons (1 Cor 4:14). See, there is the apostle—in a certain sure way he is a father—he breaks for you this which you carry closed, which you have already weighed and felt to be heavy. He will break it—do not fear—who has toward you both paternal love, when he says: Though you have many tutors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begot you (1 Cor 4:15), and maternal, when he says: I became a little one in your midst, like a nurse cherishing her sons (1 Thess 2:7). {Therefore he did not say "mother," because sometimes mothers either too delicate or not loving their sons, when they have given birth, hand them to others to be nursed. Again, if he had only said: like a nurse cherishing, and had not added: her sons, he would seem to have received them, born of another, to be nursed. Therefore he both called himself a nurse, because he was nourishing, and his sons, because he himself had given birth, saying: My little sons, whom I again bring to birth, until Christ be formed in you (Gal 4:19). But he brings to birth, as the Church gives birth, by her womb, not by her seed.} Give, then, to this father or mother—call it what you will: he is not angry, since he willed to be both in affection, though he is neither in sex—give to be broken what you carry shut up, so heavy, of such great authority. In the book of Genesis it is written: it is no light thing, something there lies hidden shut up. Does he not seem to have said something who said sacrament? "For I perceive: it is heavy, but it is still closed." But I, he says, speak in Christ and in the Church. See the foods: feed, you who did not despise the closed thing. But he who despises the closed thing and throws it away will not arrive at the food.

23. One thing comes to my mind from another, since I have mentioned a nut, which indeed we weave most fittingly into this sermon, because it came about that we should treat of closed sacraments. For not in vain did Jacob set three variegated rods in the water, whence the flocks, gathered at their time, might drink, and he willed that they be not of one wood, but of diverse. For the effect of what he was contriving it would have sufficed that they be of one wood, nor was it needful that there be three, but either fewer or more, provided only he set variegated rods in the waters. What, then, does it mean that he set three rods and of three woods, unless because it intimates a mystery, but this is closed? According to the strength which the Lord deigns to grant us, I will break and open it to you. Jacob had made a pact with his father-in-law whose sheep he pastured, that, if anything variegated should be born either among the sheep or among the goats, it should be his, that is, should pertain to the wage of the shepherd. This he procured by the variegated rods, which, when the flocks saw them at conception, by such a desire impressed through the eyes they would bear variegated offspring. In the variegated flocks was signified the variety of the nations. And those flocks were of one manner, and conceived variegated and bore variegated. For from the one Jewish nation arose the first preachers of the Gospel, but, that many nations might be begotten, it was needful that they conceive variegated and bear variegated. And this is the portion of Jacob. For in Jacob Christ was prefigured. For the lesser people was in Jacob, whence it was said: And the greater shall serve the lesser (Gen 25:23). You will recall that I have already expounded to your holiness about Esau and Jacob, to whom too it was said in that blessing which he received from his father: All nations shall serve you (See Gen 27:29). The variety of the nations, then, pertained to Jacob, but unless from the people of the Jews there were announcers, so that the flocks of one manner might conceive from that drink of the rods, they would not bear the faithful through the variety of the nations.

24. But whence would the flocks conceive the variety of the nations? From the three rods, namely, this could indeed be done. For the animals were at conception, when he variegated the rods, that is, peeled them in places at intervals, and set them in the waters, whence they might draw in drinking the desire of variety which would appear in the colors of those being born. But from any number and from any rods this could be done! But the sacrament of the future Christian people was not known to the people of the Jews, except to a few holy prophets and a few envious doctors of the law, to whom the Lord says: Woe to you who have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and neither do you enter nor do you permit others to enter (See Matt 23:13; Luke 11:52). Who are signified also in that parable, where the tenants of the vineyard who did not render the wage said: This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours (Matt 21:38)—which they would not say, unless they had in some part known Christ, whose divinity, however, by which he is equal to the Father, was hidden from them: For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8). But he sent preachers not from their number, who chose the weak things of the world, that he might confound the strong, so that it might be said: Where is the wise man? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (1 Cor 1:20) Wherefore the sacrament which was hidden from them, revealed to the unlearned and uneducated, was, through the baptism of Christ, intimated also to the diverse nations: therefore from the three rods set in the water the flocks conceived variegated offspring. For as long as God the Father was preached, but the incarnation of the Son was hidden, which was still being foretold prophetically and understood by very few, the variety of the nations was not brought forth. But it came about that those sheep drank from the three rods, that is, the first Israelites, through whom there would be born, pertaining to the lot of Jacob—that is, to the inheritance of Christ—the variety of the nations; of which Israelites the Apostle says: For I too am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin (Rom 11:1). For Israelites too were Peter and Andrew and John and James and the other apostles and the rest of the first preachers of Christ, of whom the Apostle says that the nations are their debtors: For if, he says, the nations have shared in their spiritual things, they ought also to minister to them in carnal things (Rom 15:27). Those Israelites, then, were as it were flocks of one manner, because they were of one nation: they drank in a manner the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation, that through the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation they might bear in the Gospel diverse nations, that is, a variety of flocks.

25. How, then, is the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation shown in the three rods? Of what were those rods? One was of nut-wood, another was of plane, another of storax. So it is written. Let us, then, question our own faith how the faith of the Lord's incarnation stands. For we believe him born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. His very birth pertains to the nut-rod. For as in a nut through the wood one arrives at the food, so our Lord Jesus Christ would not carry us, unless we arrived at his body through the wood of the cross. Which is so clear that you anticipated my voice by understanding; which, before I explained what I had begun to say, you declared by your own voice. Who led you to this food, that you so quickly understood, but he who hung on the wood? For unless through the cross of the Lord, you would not be Christians; if you were not Christians, you would not so quickly and so sweetly receive this. The rod of plane, to what does it pertain? We say that Christ was born of the Holy Spirit. I think the rod of plane congruently pertains to the Holy Spirit. For the rod of storax which remains is not doubted to be attributed, on account of its most sweet odor, to the inviolate integrity of the Virgin Mary. For from this the report of the most pleasant fragrance and sweet smell of the Lord's nativity arose, that he was born of a virgin. About the rod of plane the understanding is more laborious, how it is shown to pertain to the Holy Spirit. The Lord will be present, your prayers aiding, and will open to you through our ministry and through our humble and devout service to your progress, how we ought to take the rod of plane as the Holy Spirit. In the plane I seek what I may choose, and I find no other reason for the plane tree to be praised, except that it provides a very wide shade to those resting from the heat. Those who know such a tree to be so understand that I speak the truth. For this the plane tree is chosen and sought, on account of the breadth of its shade and the delight of its shadiness, where we rest from the heat. But the Virgin Mary, who was going to conceive a son not by the heat of lust, but in a certain coolness of most faithful chastity and uncorrupted virginity, not gaping after virile embraces, but conceiving by faith, a virgin pregnant, a virgin about to give birth, a virgin to remain—she, then, received of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit himself provided her a coolness from the heat of all carnal concupiscence, and therefore was figured by the rod of plane. I lie, if in the very Gospel the angel does not speak and say to her: The Spirit of God shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you (Luke 1:35).

26. Now, then, dearly beloved, as the Lord willed, he provides something not from our merit, but on account of our faith which he himself deigns. As we always say and must never keep silent: let every advance of the word be found in your works. Very wretched is the earth which, when it is well rained on, either bears no fruit or even brings forth thorns. Grieve with us over those whom we lament. We are wont to say that fasting in these festal days of the pagans is to be practiced for this, that we may pray to God for those very pagans. But we so shudder at the unhappy luxuries of many that we exhort you, brethren, to pray with us for certain Christian brethren, that they may at length suffer themselves to be amended and corrected from that wickedness. For what is this, how great and how much to be lamented an evil! He does not despise such trifling, such empty amusements: what is such a Christian going to despise, what is he going to suffer for Christ, when some temptation of tribulation comes? Whom spittle overwhelms, how does a river sweep him away? Therefore our grief, brethren, I shall not have expressed in vain to your holiness. Let those who are here today who did not fast yesterday grieve that they so lived on the other festal days of the pagans, with us sad for them, and let them at length deign both to take away sadness from us and wickedness from themselves.

Sermon 374
Augm. (Dolbeau 23)

1. The annual celebration of this day demands from us an annual sermon, owed to your ears and hearts and, if you hear it piously, owed also to your conduct. For the fruit of our whole life is justice, the reward is eternal life, the beginning of justice is faith. For we have not been called to that which we already see, nor do we already hold what was promised. But because the promiser is truthful, we must first live in hope, that we may deserve to live in the reality: what God promised he will without doubt give. But because what he is going to give is great, by deferring it he extends desire to this, that he may make us capable of so great a gift. For he is not going to give the perishing goods that are in this world, changing, fragile, which, when they abound, fill with fears, but when they depart, fill with sorrows. But he is going to give—what do you think?—something earthly? Far from it! Something heavenly, such as we see with the eyes of the body? This too is cheap in comparison with the promised gift, for receiving which hearts are cleansed. For if God now gave you something that pertains to the present time, he would seek your eyes for seeing what he gives. But because he will give that which eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it ascended into the heart of man, as the Apostle says, what does he prepare in you to whom he may give it? Blessed, he says, are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8). Therefore our whole reward will be to see God. Or is it a cheap reward to see him by whom you were made? Stretch out the bosom of your desire as much as you please, be greedy to desire what so great a one promised: he cannot give you better than himself. For whatever God made is cheaper and inferior to the maker.

2. And whence does the creation of God begin? From the angels. And where does the creation of God end? Down to earthly mortal things. Upward there is an end of creation, beyond which is God. Downward there is an end of creation, beyond which is nothing. Begin, then, to count for now the gifts you have, not yet having received those to which you have been called. Begin. See the earthly goods, light, a certain nourishment of air without which we can at no time exist, then the fruits of the earth, springs, the very health of the body, and whatever such things can be recalled, which had to be briefly touched on: they are gifts of God, they are divine bounties. But do not covet these things as a great thing from him to whose image you were made. For you see these things to be still common to you with the beast, nor will you find from whom you take them, except from that true God, the creator and bestower of all; yet not because he gives these things too ought you now to be content with these: he keeps something for his image which he does not give to the beast. Let us seek, then, what it is, and recalled let us desire it, desired let us await it and, that we may be able to attain it, let us do what he who promised commands.

3. There is the reward, here the work. The promiser of the reward is also the giver of the precept: he who foretells what you may receive commands what you may do. If you love the reward of faith, do not flee the labor of the work. He will give: for God is truthful. Whoever promises and does not give, in two ways does not give, either because he is a liar, or because he cannot. What such thing can we say of God? Is truth a liar? Is there anything the Omnipotent cannot do? If, then, he is both truthful and has whence to give, why should he deceive you? Lift up your mind, hope securely: he who promised is powerful, is eternal. Or do you fear lest, when you have done it, before you receive it, your promiser be succeeded? Let us rather see, then, what was promised. Let us transcend these goods common with the beasts; let us see what man has proper, more than the beast, which you already hold: to speak, to understand, to discern the true and the false, the just and the unjust, finally him himself by whom he was made.

4. It is a great work to seek him whom it is a great reward to find. Man, then, differs from the beasts by eloquence—indeed, he differs from the beasts by speaking, from certain men by eloquence. This gift of eloquence is great, a great good, but the bad too have it. It is not common with the beasts, but it is common with the wicked. Many have eloquence and are bad, and by that very eloquence they circumvent many and seek temporal power for themselves. All these are to be condemned, but they are nonetheless men. Seek something from God which you have in common neither with the beast nor even with a bad man. Now if I have spoken of eloquence, take this of riches too. For he gave riches not to the beasts, but to men. For to men it pertains to rule, to command, to govern. But yet many even of the bad have riches: still this earthly good both the good have and the bad have, and the good do not have and the bad do not have. Seek something higher. Why do you fear lest, when you have found something choice that can be given neither to the beasts nor to bad men, the Omnipotent cannot give it to you, who called you to do a work and to receive a gift? "I have found something." What will you find? Talent the bad too have, memory the bad too have, riches—as I said—the bad too have, temporal honors and power the bad too have. What will you find?

5. O if you would hear me, seek nothing from God but God. To whomever he gives this, he even makes him good. That cannot be common with the bad which, received, distinguishes from the bad. For one thing is a good of which you may do something good, and another a good by which you may become good. All goods except God are such that of them you may do well, but God is such a good by which you may become good. You have gold: it is a good, but whence you may do well. You have eloquence: it is a good, but whence you may work well. You have health of body: use it well. For many have been corrected by sickness and cast down by health. Many fell sick to their good, and recovered to their harm. Therefore even health of body itself, which is the patrimony of the poor, unless it is turned to good use, is even harmful. Sharp talent is a great good, but still such that both the good can use it well and the bad badly: it is not yet a good by which you become good. All the perversities of all errors, all the sects of transgression and impiety have had authors of great talent. Men of any sort whatever did not bear them; they were instituted by sharp men. The theatrical trifles, all to the ruin of the human race, were not invented except by clever men. "They are all hostile, certainly base." They are base, you say. How, then, is what is done basely watched honorably? You confess this to be base, and you favor that it can exist. I do not know which I should call worse: the seller of baseness or the buyer. And yet these things were invented and instituted by the sharpest talents. Therefore talent too is a good, but if you use it well. So far I have recalled those goods whence you may do well, not whence you may become good. If that good comes by which you become good, you use the other goods well. But if that good does not come by which you are made good, whence, being bad, will you be able to use the other goods well? What is the good by which you become good? He himself is God.

6. There is a certain thing which is beheld by the mind. For the eyes do not have what to see, and the mind not have. Which is better: the body or the mind? I think that even lifeless bodies, if they could, would answer that the mind is better. But it is unwilling to tell me that the mind is better than the body. So I ask: Who is better, he who rules or he who is ruled? Now here I think not even the beasts would doubt to answer that the ruler is better. Who, then, rules? Surely the mind, which is better than the body. If the mind is absent, the windows of the body, though they lie open, have no one to see through them. The eyes lie open, the ears lie open: if the inhabitant is absent, what do the unbarred doors profit? Therefore the mind through the eyes perceives certain things: light, colors, forms; the mind through the ears certain things: voices and sounds; the mind through smell certain things: all odors; the mind through the sense of taste all flavors; the mind through the whole body hard and soft, rough and smooth, cold and hot, light and heavy. The eye does not hear, nor the ear see, yet the mind both sees through the eye and hears through the ear. It cannot do both through either, but yet it alone can what it can through either. Does the mind do nothing through itself? Can it do things through the body, and through itself cannot? It sees through the body white and black things: can it not through itself see just and unjust things? And yet there are many who think that these alone exist which are seen through the body, doing injury to their own mind, ungrateful to God by whom they were made to his image. Within is the inhabitant, it has other eyes of its own.

7. If I wished to show gems, if I wished to show gold and silver, vessels skillfully wrought, precious garments, and whatever precious and most beautiful things are reckoned among the riches of men, if finally I wished to show the sky, and not a paneled but a starred ceiling of the poor, what would I seek? Eyes. When I wish to show the just and the unjust, what do I seek? to whom do I show? But perhaps I do not have what to show. For some have thought this too, that justice is not by nature, but is established by opinion, that is, that this is just—rather, is called just—which men willed to be just by a certain pact of human society, not by any nature of justice. Is there, then, after all, no nature of justice? We labor to show it—and yet we ought to know it most of all, which we know by the mind alone—we labor to show what the nature of justice is, and we do not labor to show that gold exists, that the earth exists, that the sky exists. Do I labor to show these things? Every man cries out that what can be seen through the body exists, and many deny that what cannot be seen except through the mind exists.

8. It is a wonder if this mind is not sick, a wonder if it does not have its own eyes wounded or even extinguished! Whence may they be repaired? whence healed? The door of medicine is faith. For that it may see what it does not see, it must believe that there is something it may see, but that it is not yet such as to see it. "Perhaps I can: show it." But to whom shall I show it? Indeed, neither can I, but he can who shows it even to me, if I see anything from this. The physician comes to a sick man having wounded eyes, or perhaps already lost—he has forgotten that he once saw, or perhaps from his birth he never saw—but yet he is so great a physician that he can by treatment drive off the ancient blindness: he promises that there is something he can show, if the man suffers himself to be cured. But further, before that man sees, if he does not believe, how will he be cured? "There is," he says, "what you may see, but then you will see, when your eyes have been made healthy." And the man: "Unless I see, I will not be cured." How absurd and perverse an answer: to wish first to see in order to be cured, who surely, if he could see, there would be no reason why he should be cured. Believe, then, the physician about to demonstrate, that you may not resist the one about to cure. "Show me," he says. What shall I show you? "God." To whom? "To me," he says, "if you wish me to believe. For I do not believe except what I see." Whom do you seek to have shown, to whom do you seek it shown, by whom do you seek it shown? God is to be shown, to a man he is to be shown, by a man he cannot be shown: he himself shows himself. I can admonish you what to do, that you may merit to see.

9. "There is no God at all," he says. All shudder. Who would say this: "There is no God"? And yet the psalm was not silent about it: The fool said in his heart: There is no God (Ps 14:1 (13:1)). Because it is such a word that all shudder at it, he said it in his heart, he did not commit it to tongue and voice. But yet I too seek something. "Show me," he says, "God." Brother, let us seek together. Yet even if I try to show it and am not able—for there is need perhaps both of time, there is need of some study, there is need of some precepts—yet I too ask something. You say: "Show me God"; I say: Show me your soul. You ask of me the highest thing, I a humble one; you ask the one from whom you are absent, I the one that is present; you ask the one to be sought, I the one seeking. See, if I say that you have no soul, what will you do? For if we must believe the eyes only, you have no soul; unless I see your soul, I will not believe it exists. You will say: "The soul indeed cannot be seen with the eyes, but it can be shown through its works. You see me walking, you hear me speaking; you speak, I answer, and do you doubt that I have a soul?" Meanwhile I have not seen your soul, but I have seen the works of your soul. If through the works of your soul I know your soul, through the works of God know God. Is there a soul, because it moves the flesh, and is there no God who moves the world? Does the order of things not strike you: earthly things subject to heavenly, the alternations of night and day, the disposition of the seasons, the brightness of the sun by which the clearness of day is filled, of the moon and stars by which the darkness of night is tempered, the fruits coming forth from the earth, the springs flowing? The very animals which are born on the earth are born with life: what is made lives, and does not he who makes it live? There is, then, a God: far be it that we doubt! But perhaps let him who doubts still seek, but so seek that he first believe, lest by not believing he fail to merit to find what he seeks.

10. There is, then, a God, and the question rather becomes how he is to be worshiped than whether he is. What then? Let us speak something on this too. To Christians indeed I think I speak easily: that God is to be worshiped just as he commanded himself to be worshiped. For if a Christian asks me how God commanded himself to be worshiped, I do not bring forth my own word, but I read out a book, to which without doubt he is subject by the merit of his faith. For about the divine writings it is not lawful for him to doubt: how God willed himself to be worshiped, he also willed to be written; what he willed to be written, he willed to be read; and he gave such a height and summit of authority to that same Scripture that he set the authors of all other books beneath its feet. For there were those who wrote what they wished, as they wished. Whose book is set on so great a summit of authority that the world answers it "amen"? When we deal with someone perhaps not subject to so great an authority of the books, and contending with me and saying: "Men wrote these things for themselves," what shall I do? whence may we prove that these things are written divinely?

11. Apart from that administration of nature by which the world is governed, men have not shuddered at certain divine works, except at wonderful deeds and sayings. Nature is indeed full of marvels, but all marvels have grown cheap by their constancy. Finally, let one man who was among men rise from death: it is proclaimed by all a divine work; so many daily who did not exist are born, and no one wonders. Christ turned water into wine, a great miracle: who else does this in the vine every year? Do you think it little to be wondered at that moisture is drawn from the earth, turned into the quality of that wood, goes through the branches, unfolds the foliage, even brings forth swelling clusters, increases the unripe, colors the ripe? Whence all these things come, ask the root. What numbers there, what measures, what art of working in so slight and contemptible a form? Still I marvel at the workmanship of the root; the grain of seed is more to be marveled at. How small, how almost nothing, where yet are all the numbers of the future root, trunk, branches, fruits, leaves, and the working numbers drawing the sap, turning it into a work so beautiful and pleasant. These are the astonishing works of the Creator. You have not yet ascended into heaven to see him present, and on earth you already find him fashioning. These things need a considerer. For what is more wonderful than such works? Yet because they are daily, as I said, they have grown cheap. Therefore God, wishing to rouse the minds of men, kept for himself certain works not greater, but certainly rarer. For it is more to make a man than to raise one again. But because no one now wondered at him making daily, he showed himself sometimes raising again. He bestowed light on the blind, hearing on the deaf, speech on the mute. He who does these things without a miracle in seeds, did them with a great miracle in men.

12. These things are written, these are read. "But now," he says, "they are not done, and I fear lest these things too were written by men and were not done." We sometimes endure such questioners; you indeed ought not to be such, but you ought to be able to answer such. I know that to believers I speak almost superfluously, but let me be like one persuading the unbelieving, that you may be equipped against the unbelieving. Certain men say, now indeed few, yet not none: "These things are written, but they were not done." Whence, then, shall I prove that they were done? Every miracle surely is either in a deed or in a saying. The wonderful deeds are those done beyond the accustomed course and order of nature; the sayings are those by which future things are announced. Accordingly, if you do not wish to believe the wonderful deeds which have been written to be read, believe at least the wonderful sayings which are shown true by the very effect. For he shows his trustworthiness who narrated to you wonderful past things, when you behold the present things which he foretold as future. Or is divination perhaps not divine, which from this even received its name, and to which the curiosity of men is so devoted that many today are for this reason unwilling to be Christians, while they wish it to be permitted them to consult the possessed, astrologers, augurs, and—what else shall I say?—magicians? But the power of Christ extinguishes also the works of this art, which led the Magi from so distant a nation to adore him.

13. They came to adore the infant, the Word of God. Why did they come? Because they saw an unusual star. And whence did they recognize it to be Christ's? For they could see the star, but could it speak to them and say: "I am the star of Christ"? Without doubt it was indicated in another way, through some revelation. Yet unusually a king had been born who was to be adored even by foreigners. Were kings not born before in Judea, or throughout the whole earth in diverse nations? Why was this one to be adored—and to be adored by foreigners—with no army terrifying, but with the majesty of his power hidden in the poverty of the flesh? When he was born, he was adored by the Israelite shepherds, to whom the angels announced him. But the Magi were not of Israel: they worshiped idols or the gods of the nations, that is, demons, by whose deceitful power they were deceived. They saw, then, a certain unusual star, they wondered: they sought without doubt of what it was the sign which they saw so new and unusual, and surely they heard. But you will say: "From whom did they hear?" Surely from angels, by some admonition of revelation. You ask perhaps: "From good angels, or bad?" Even the bad angels, that is, the demons, confessed Christ to be the Son of God. But why should they not have heard from the good ones too, since in adoring Christ their salvation was now being sought, not their iniquity being condemned? The angels, then, could say to them: "The star you saw is Christ's, go and adore him where he was born," and at the same time indicate of what kind and how great a one was born. But they, having heard this, came, adored. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh they offered as gifts, according to their custom: for such things they were wont to offer to their gods.

14. But indeed, before they did this, before they found him in the city where he had been born, they came seeking where the king of the Jews was born. Could they not also have known this by revelation, just as they knew that star to be of the king of the Jews, to be adored even by foreigners? Could not the same star have led them to that city, just as it afterward led them to the place where Christ was an infant with his mother? It could indeed, yet it was not done, that they might inquire this from the Jews. Why did God will this to be inquired from the Jews? That, while they show the one in whom they do not believe, they may be condemned by their own demonstration. Attend, because even now it happens. The first-fruits of the nations, the Magi, the more freed from a greater impiety, give the greater glory to the liberator. They ask: Where is he who is born king of the Jews? (Matt 2:2) Herod, hearing the name of king, trembles as a rival. He calls the experts in the law, asks of them according to the Scriptures that they may indicate where Christ would be born. They answer: In Bethlehem of Judah (Matt 2:5). The Magi proceeded and adored: the Jews remained, who had demonstrated it.

15. O great sacrament! Today from the books of the Jews we convict the unbelieving, that they may become believing; through their books we show to the pagans what they are unwilling to believe. For sometimes the pagans make us a question of this kind, when they see the things that are written so fulfilled that they cannot at all deny that those things are presented through the name of Christ in all the nations which are read out as foretold in the holy books, in the faith of kings, in the overthrow of idols, in the change of human affairs; and sometimes they are so moved as to say: "You saw these things happen and wrote them as if they were foretold." A certain poet of theirs did this: those who have read recognize these things. He narrated that a certain man descended to the underworld and thence came into the region of the blessed, and that there were shown to him the princes of the Romans who were to be born, whom the very one who wrote these things already knew to be born. For he narrated past things, but wrote them as if they were foretold as future. "So too you," the pagans say to us, "saw all these things happen and wrote yourselves books, in which they are read as if foretold to come." O glory of our king! Rightly were the Jews conquered by the Romans and not destroyed. All the nations subdued by the Romans passed into the laws of the Romans: this nation was both conquered and remained in its own law; as far as concerns the worship of God, it keeps its ancestral custom and rite. With its temple too overthrown, its former priesthood extinguished, as was foretold by the prophets, it yet keeps circumcision and a certain custom, by which it is distinguished from the other nations. For what other reason, but for the testimony of truth? The Jews are scattered everywhere, carrying the books in which Christ, foretold—and, as he was foretold, presented—can be shown even to the pagans. I bring forth the book, I read the prophet, I show the prophecy to be fulfilled. The pagan doubts, lest perhaps I have feigned this myself: my enemy has this book, anciently commended to him by his forebears. I convict both from it: the Jew, because I have known to be fulfilled what was prophesied there; the pagan, because I did not feign this.

16. Let not the demons, then, seduce the incautious and those badly curious about temporal things by an appearance of divination, nor, deceiving with proud arrogance, demand for themselves the honor of impious sacrifices. The true divine predictions are of the one true God. The true sacrifice is owed to the one true God, whose figures were formerly shadowed forth in incense and victims, that what was going to be in one way the divine providence, foretelling in many ways, might show how great it was. For this too, among the other things foretold to come in the Christian times, was prophesied, that those things which were formerly offered to God in sacrifices were to be wholly changed. "Why, then," you say, "were they commanded, if they were to be changed?" O sick man, do not give counsel to the physician how you are to be cured. One man, Adam, filled the world by propagation. The human race, as one man, a great sick man lying from east to west, must be cured: a great sick man, but a greater physician. Let us, then, take a likeness from the very medicine of human art. The physician comes to the sick man and says: "Take this in the morning, but that in the afternoon." And the sick man to the physician: "Why," he says, "not this in the afternoon which I take in the morning?" Would not the physician rightly answer him: "You can be sick, you cannot cure yourself; leave to the art the counsel of your health"? "Therefore," says the sick man, "the art is inconsistent, ordering one thing first, another afterward." "Be quiet rather and be healed. The art is consistent, it knows what to apply in the morning, what in the afternoon. It is not changed, but your sickness is changeable. It knows what is expedient when, which comes to the aid of changeable diseases according to the diversity of times." So, then, for the benefit of the human race, in earlier times some things profited, in later times other things profit. You ask why? Be a friend of the physician, and perhaps you will know, lest perhaps even today you think we ought not to go to sacrifice to God, except with a bull, with a ram, with incense.

17. "Show," someone says, "that God commanded these things and foretold that they were to be changed, and I will believe, lest perhaps you say these things to me from yourself, not from divine authority." Hear, then, the words of God, a few of many: Behold, the days will come, says the Lord. The prophet speaks. If you think this was feigned by Christians, let the Jew bring forth the book. How, then, can I feign what my enemy anciently carries? Let the book, then, be brought forth from the library of the Jews, and let us read from it. What are we to read? Behold, the days will come, says the Lord, and I will complete for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant (Jer 31:31). "But perhaps he speaks of that covenant which the Jews received, and calls it new, since our fathers received that one which was given through Moses on Mount Sinai, because it was not before in the human race." He has admonished you well, but wait: I demand patience, until I read out the rest. Hear about the New Covenant: Behold, the days will come, says the Lord, and I will complete for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant. Still I do not say the rest. Who is it that speaks? Jeremiah. When did Jeremiah prophesy? Long after Moses, through whom the first covenant was given. If, then, Jeremiah, who says: Behold, the days will come, speaks of the future, and I will complete for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, there is no reason it should be said that that covenant which was given through Moses is signified. Therefore he speaks of another covenant as new. But yet hear the rest too: Behold, the days will come, says the Lord, and I will complete for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day when I took their hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt (Jer 31:31-32). What is more evident? For then was given through Moses the first covenant, which is called old.

18. Come now, brethren, attend to the divine words. We read it foretold, we behold it fulfilled, and do we still doubt about the divine authority of the books? Let no one, then, now say: "See, the Magi gave incense to Christ, why do we not also offer incense to Christ?" First attend that the Magi gave incense, they had not burned it. "But why," you say, "did he accept this gift?" As if indeed these men were going to forbid that any creature be offered to the Creator! God made incense—not the demons—God made myrrh, God made gold. The Magi, by giving these to the demons, sin and by honoring them with these, using a creature to the injury of the Creator. But yet today learn that they gave such things as they were wont to give to their gods. Yet not in vain did Christ permit them to give such things: they were signs rather than gifts. He accepted incense as God, gold as king, myrrh as one about to die, for burial. But then not only incense, but also the victims of cattle were offered both by pagans and by Jews, that is, both by those who worshiped many false gods and by those who worshiped the one true God. These things, I say, were offered to God according to the Old Covenant, but he changed this by the New Covenant. Behold, he says, the days will come, says the Lord, and I will complete for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day when I took their hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

19. "But," someone says, "he did not speak of sacrifices." Do you wish, then, to hear something about sacrifices? That God foretold that it was going to be that all those sacrifices should be taken away and one sacrifice given that truly cleanses sins, the body of Christ, the faithful know. And what I say, I know is not understood by all, but let those who understand rejoice and live worthily of so great a sacrament. But those who do not yet understand, it is in their power to change their life, to receive the sacrament of change, and to know what is offered by the faithful, what is received. For there is that which was foretold: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps 110:4 (109:4)). For there was first a priesthood according to the order of Aaron, but afterward it was said to our priest, and this through the prophet long before he came in the flesh: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Therefore the order of Aaron was changed and the order of Melchizedek came. According to the order of Aaron, the victims of cattle; according to Melchizedek, the body of Christ. "You have not yet said," someone says, "whether God foretold that those sacrifices were to cease." See, I read to you, lest perhaps something escape my memory. For I, brethren, did not learn these letters from adolescence, and other things—which is worse—superfluous I can recite from memory. But these things, which I did not study from boyhood, unless I look at the books, I cannot pronounce. Or perhaps it is more useful that you hear, not from my mouth, but from the divine book, what you may healthfully know. Hear now and do not wonder that men now do not come to Christ with incense, from the time he instituted another sacrifice, of which all the past things were shadows.

20. Among many things the prophet Isaiah says, whose book I hold in my hands. What does Isaiah say? There is no reason for you to be mindful of the former things, nor to bring the old things into your mind (See Isa 43:18). See now, brethren, the abolition of the old things is manifest. "But still," you say, "he has said nothing about sacrifices. Perhaps he changed other things, these he did not change." Although it is general, nor bring the old things into your mind, and there it is permitted me to understand what the apostolic teaching afterward taught me, what I am to offer, what I am now not to offer—I have an expounder of this obscurity, I have a master telling me according to what I am to take this—yet not even the prophet himself permits a man to conjecture what he pleases: for he openly says what you are about to hear. Therefore hear: There is no reason for you to be mindful of the former things, nor to bring the old things into your mind. For I will make new things which shall now arise, and you will understand (Isa 43:18-19). What is this: For I will make new things which shall now arise, and you will understand? That is: I will make new things which were not, that you may be able to understand those which were. A beast was slain, blood was poured out, and by blood God was appeased. Is God so appeased by blood, and does God desire blood, and is God delighted by the smoke of sacrifices, or does he seek the odor of incense or of the other spices who creates all things, who gives you all things? Far be it that you believe it! He is fed by your devotion, and that indeed useful to you, not to him whom you serve. Every man who is the servant of a human master serves his master for the benefit of his master, and again that master provides for his servant for the benefit of his servant. Not so is God. Whoever serves him, serves him for his own benefit, not for his. And do I perhaps say this from myself? Hear the prophet: I said to the Lord. What? You are my Lord. Why? For, he says, you have no need of my goods (Ps 16:2 (15:2)). You have an absolute sentence, there is no reason to doubt: God has no need of your goods. Do not, then, believe that your God needs such sacrifices, but seek what they teach, what they signify. Formerly blood was poured out in victims, because in one true victim blood was foretold to be poured out, the blood of your Lord, the blood your price, the blood by which the record of your debt would be blotted out, that is, the oldness of your sin abolished. It has come, it has been poured out, he himself is offered. Let the day now breathe, and let the shadows be removed (Song 2:17; 4:6). There is no reason for you to be mindful of the former things, nor to bring the old things into your mind. For I will make new things which shall now arise, and you will understand. Now then we understand why those things went before which foretold the things to come. All things are interpreted unto Christ, all things have their end unto Christ. I will make, he says, new things which shall now arise, and you will understand. Before all these new things were made, the old things were carried on and not understood.

21. What then follows? I will make a way in the wilderness. In what wilderness? Surely of the nations, where there was no worship of the true God. I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the dry land (Isa 43:19). Nowhere among the nations were the prophets read, now throughout all nations their Scripture is spread. See rivers in the dry land. The beasts of the field shall bless me. What is the beasts of the field, but the nations are understood? The beasts of the field shall bless me, and the sirens, daughters of sparrows (Isa 43:20). Certain impious souls, daughters of demons, shall bless me. Whence, but by forsaking the devil, converted to Christ? "But these things are still obscure and according to our talent something more open is interpreted. Say whence it may be demonstrated that the sacrifices of victims displeased God." If I could not read out something more open, I would not dare to take this book in my hands. Let your love, then, hear with patience. The beasts of the field shall bless me, and the sirens, daughters of sparrows. Why shall they bless? Hear what follows: Because I have given water in the desert, and rivers in that place where there was no water, that I might give drink to my chosen race (Isa 43:20). To what race of yours? To my people whom I have acquired for myself. I did not now call you Jacob, nor did I make you Israel that you should labor. To what end have I sheep for whole-burnt offerings? (See Isa 43:21-23) Come now, brethren. I do not know if there is anyone who would say to me: "I do not understand. You say what you will, you interpret what you will." I am now made not a disputer, but a reader. Refer this to that from which we began, where he says: There is no reason for you to be mindful of the former things, nor to bring the old things into your mind. For this appears, that God first commanded those things to be done for the sake of a certain sacrifice, foretelling that just blood was to be poured out and shadowing it forth by the likeness of victims. For now what does he say? To what end have I sheep for whole-burnt offerings? For neither in your sacrifices did you honor me, but neither did you serve me in your sacrifices. For I did not make you for this, that you should labor in incense (See Isa 43:23). Lest perhaps someone say that he forbade the victims, but permitted the incense: Neither did I make you for this, he says, that you should labor in incense, nor that you should buy me incense with silver, nor did I desire the fat of your sacrifices (See Isa 43:23-24).

22. Let us dare to say to the Lord our God: "And why did you institute these things first?" Now here we seek understanding. Because in these there was not abolition, but the testifying of sins. What I have said, I know to be obscure and somewhat to be made manifest. But I say it briefly, because I have already said much; if perhaps I am less able to explain this on account of the shortness of time, the Lord will be present that at another time I may be able. Yet this I say: that people was such that it had certain wise men, holy, just, and had also a carnal crowd, not knowing why those things were commanded, doing rather than understanding; but now through this prophet he briefly shows why he commanded those things. When he had said: Nor did I desire the fat of your sacrifices and the rest of the kind, at once, as if it were asked why he then commanded them, he subjoined and said: But in your sins and iniquities you stood before me (See Isa 43:24). For all those things availed for a testimony to the sinning. Why this? Unless to lay down the neck of pride. Why this? Unless because Christ was going to come with grace, blotting out the record of sins, and the Jews were going to say: "We are just." But what does the Apostle say to them? For all have sinned and need the glory of God (Rom 3:23). "Whence," he says, "do you prove that we have sinned?" "The sacrifices which you offered for sins speak as testimonies against you." This God says: Neither did I desire the fat of your sacrifices, but in your sins and iniquities you stood before me. Whence the sacrifices which you offered convicted you, did not cleanse you. Now then let the guilty people, with pride broken, confessing their sickness, seeking health, say to themselves: "What, then, shall I do? If by those sacrifices my sins were not cleansed, whence shall I be cleansed?"

23. Hear what follows: I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, that you may be justified (See Isa 43:25). I am, I am, not the bull, not the ram, not the he-goat, not any spices, not incense, but I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, that you may be justified. How greatly he commended his grace! Lest anyone glory in the merits of works or the abundance of victims, it did not suffice to say once: I am, but by doubling it he more vehemently commended it: I am, I am. He himself the physician, he himself the medicine. The physician, because the Word; the medicine, because the Word made flesh. He himself the priest, he himself the sacrifice. I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, that you may be justified. Lest perhaps, because he says: I blot out your iniquities, it always delight you to sin, to this end he blots them out that you may be justified, that is, that, the former iniquities blotted out, you may afterward live rightly, that you may receive what he promised. Rightly too those Magi, the first-fruits of the nations, in whom, as much as sin had abounded, so much grace superabounded, divinely admonished not to return to Herod, returned by another way (Matt 2:12). He who then changed the way of the Magi, he himself even now changes the life of the bad. His manifestation in the flesh, which in Greek is called Epiphany, the nations, justified in the Spirit, celebrate together on this day's solemnity, that the solemnity may renew the memory, piety flourish by devotion, love grow hot by assembly, truth shine to the envious.

Sermon 360/A
(Dolbeau 24)

1. The promises of God made faith for our fathers, the gifts of God fulfilled faith for us. In them it was promised to us, in us it was repaid both to us and to them. There are two senses of the body through which faith enters: hearing and sight. They heard, we see. But both in us they see, and we in them have heard. Therefore God addresses the Church herself too: Hear, O daughter, and see. Hear, he says, and see, and forget your people and your father's house, for the king has desired your beauty. Who is the king? It follows and says: For he is your God (Ps 45:10-11 (44:11-12)). What, then, and how great a dignity of a woman, to whom the king is God and to whom God is husband? Hear, he says, and see, and forget your people and your father's house. He fixes something in the memory, that he may take away something from the memory. For she was under another father and in another people. To the still unbelieving, and still in darkness, the Lord said: You are of your father the devil (John 8:44). But the people of the impious is the son and crowd of the devil, pertaining as members to a lost head. The house of this father and this people she is bidden to forget by hearing and seeing, that she too may answer in her faithful from another psalm: As we have heard, so also we have seen (Ps 48:8 (47:9)).

2. It was heard by our fathers: In your seed all the nations shall be blessed (Gen 22:18). This is seen by us, because it is fulfilled in us. It was heard: There shall be a root of Jesse, and one who shall rise to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope (Rom 15:12; Isa 11:10). From Jesse, David; from David, the offspring of Christ. The root of Jesse, Christ, rules among the nations; in him the nations hope. They hope in their king, the provincials of the king and the servants of the ruler and the coheirs of the brother. This, as it is woven into the variety of the queen's garment, so is it clear to our eyes and faith. For it was said of this queen: The queen stood at your right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety (Ps 45:9 (44:10)). What variety of garment? The multitude of tongues. The Latins speak in one way, the Greeks in another, the Carthaginians in another, the Hebrews in another, the Syrians in another, the Indians in another, the Cappadocians in another, the Egyptians in another. Variety in color, unity in the weave. For many colors, enclosed in the unity of the weave, paint, do not tear. A variety of tongues, but not a variety of teachings. A variety of speech, but a unity of love. And how does the Apostle say: This is our glory, the testimony of our conscience (2 Cor 1:12), where the eyes of God are, where is the sight of him whom we have pleased, except because, when we were sinners, by forgiving us that wherein we displeased, he granted us that wherein we may please? Because, then, this was brought about, that we could, by his gift, not by our merit, say with the Apostle and from the Apostle: This is our glory, the testimony of our conscience, therefore of that queen too it is said: All the beauty of the king's daughter is within (Ps 45:13 (44:14)). By her garment she is adorned outwardly toward the face, by faith she is formed inwardly toward salvation. Whence, but by hearing and seeing, she to whom it was said: Hear, O daughter, and see, that she might answer, as we said, and sing together and in a manner resound through all her members: As we have heard, so also we have seen?

3. The world was bare of Christians and dry with the want of grace. One people worshiping God, born of Abraham by the stock of flesh and the series of generation; in which people were many holy ones, prophets, just men, patriarchs, our fathers; there was grace in worshiping God, and the merit of deserving and the hope of receiving the reward. And this was the one nation among all the nations, while the whole world was empty of this grace. It came to our times: that one nation remained dry of this grace, and the world was watered. How this was prefigured among our fathers, hear. After the solution I set forth what is wont to be set forth and solved. And so now, after this preface, when I have said it, pardon me. In the book of Judges it is written that Gideon, about to go to battle and to fight for his fatherland against foreigners, asked for a sign. He seemed to ask a sign for the present business, but that sign did not fit the present business. He asked for a present thing, he foretold a future one. For what does he ask? Hear. He asks of God that he set a fleece of wool on the threshing floor, in which fleece he wished to find rain, so that the fleece was moist, the whole floor dry. He asks another sign and says to God: "Lord, let not your fury be angry with me. I will ask yet another and will test yet again in the fleece (See Judg 6:39). This I ask, that the whole floor be moist, the fleece dry." He received it; he found on another day the fleece dry, the floor watered. The floor is the world, in the fleece is the people of the Jews. The whole world was empty of that grace; the floor, then, was dry. This grace was among the Jewish people, but in the fleece. What is in the fleece? Not in the manifestation of faith, but it was in the cloud of secrecy, but it was not in the open. It was not to be shown that it might appear, but to be wrung out that it might flow. The fleece was wrung out, and it filled a basin with water (See Judg 6:38). Not in vain a basin (pelvis). For the basin is named from washing the feet (a pedibus luendis), that is, from washing the feet, as it were a basin (pelvis), because it washes the feet (pedes luat). Therefore the very wringing of the fleece poured out Christ. For Christ, commending humility, washed the feet of the disciples in a basin. Now, then, the fleece is dry, Christ has been wrung out from it. Truly he was wrung out, because he was cast out by pressures. For the tenants said: This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours. And they killed him, he says, and cast him out of the city (See Matt 21:38-39). The fleece wrung out, they sent the water outside. But that humility might be stretched out from those wrung out, he took away thence whom he wished, and went to the nations, that he might fulfill the other sign: the fleece dry, he watered the floor. And this faith is not in the cloud of the fleece, but in open manifestation: it is preached to all, it is known by all. It has its sacrament in secret, its word in public. As these things were said, so they are; as promised, so repaid. As we have heard, so also we have seen, because to us in unity it was said: Hear, O daughter, and see.

4. But the heretics, separated from the framework of this world, neither wish to hear what they read nor to see what they know. We have been invited to a wedding, we have praised the bride and commended her from the divine testimonies. We have commended ourselves to ourselves, indeed the Lord commends us to all. For he himself promised, he himself displayed. Let them open their eyes and see what they have heard. You hear with me, see with me. Indeed, what is worse, you both hear with me and see with me and are not with me. What wonder, then, brethren, if the pagans are unwilling to hold what they spurn, when the Donatists are unwilling to believe what they read? The pagan wished to throw my book into the flame, he detested the Scripture itself, he persecuted it itself. What wonder, if he grieves to see what he wished to burn? But you, heretic, say that you saved this book from the flame. The one you were unwilling to have burned, recognize when it is brought forth, hear when it is read. Surely in this book is: In your seed all the nations shall be blessed. Surely you were unwilling for these letters to burn. Why did you burn in them with the desire of dissension? Why, I beseech you, unless because you lie, unless because you say you saved what you handed over? Let us not seek the ancient things that were done: let the book itself be brought forth, let the one saved from the flame itself judge between us. Let us see who pertains to the eternal flame, who handed over the book to the temporal flame. And he who dared both to burn and to hand over willed it to perish, but it did not perish. It was saved, it is safe: it is brought forth. You ask by whom it was handed over, you ask by whom it was saved? Let it be brought forth, let it be read. He who believed it did not hand it over. Do you wish to see how dear that Scripture is to me? It is read, and I follow. Do you wish to see how hateful it is to you? It is read, and you fight back, you resist, you turn away your hearing. Since you do not have ears in your heart, you have closed your heart; the Scripture which you say you saved knocks, and you do not open. If you truly saved this book, your chest is better than your heart. But far be it that I believe you sought to save what I see you refused when it was read. From the saved book you wish to fashion my crime, from the read book I show your crime. The pagan, if he does not believe, hates what I read; you, who do not wish to seem led to impiety through a pagan, have conquered the pagan in impiety. He hates and throws it away, you hold it and deny it. You say I burned the testament, you who see me hold the inheritance; you say you saved the testament, when you have made yourself disinherited. I bring forth the testament, I read the testament: you do not wish me to bring it forth, you bring it forth. Let it be brought forth by you, which is read for me. You bring it forth, you hold it, you open it, see, read. The hands of one holding, the eyes of one seeing, the tongue of one sounding fight for me. From you, against you, I plead my cause. He who reads out the book in your congregation is your reader, my witness. But these hear and see, those neither hear nor see. Let us pass from these and leave them, if it can be done without the zeal of animosity, to think about their own impiety.

5. But the remaining pagans, still remaining for this reason, that our faith may still have rejecters, that it may have God as approver. Let him address them, and let them know that what is done was written before it was done, and was foretold because it was going to be; and let them not be terrified that what they themselves do not wish is done, but let them believe that what God promised would come to pass is done. They would wish their own will to be done, but God preferred to fulfill his promise. Let them not be angry. He is better, I think, he is more powerful. However proud they are, God is greater. A few things, then, which we could on account of the shortness of time, we have excerpted from the holy Scriptures, how the prophets foretold that it would come to pass at certain times that the idols would be taken away from the midst, and this has been fulfilled, just as they foretold that it would come to pass that the Church would be spread throughout the whole world, and so it has been fulfilled. Let us not, then, be much angry with the pagans, because they are unwilling to believe about the idols, when the heretics are unwilling to believe about the Church. Both see, both do not believe, but some neglect, some read. The crime of the pagan is not so great, not to believe what he neglects, as that of the heretic, not to believe what he reads. But yet the pagans too, by the very fact that the things foretold are fulfilled, ought to acknowledge the foreteller and fulfiller. The things, then, that were said about this matter, hear.

6. In the book of Wisdom it is written thus: For this reason there shall be a regard even upon the idols of the nations (Wis 14:11). For it was as if God did not regard the long-adored idols, the long-sacrificed-to idols. He who always sees, at some time regarded. He saw unto patience, he regarded unto vengeance. Upon the idols, he says, of the nations there shall be a regard, because the creatures of God were made an object of hatred (See Wis 14:11). For they provoke God by the creatures of God. How do they provoke God by his creatures? For the smith made a god, but God the wood. The goldsmith made an idol, but God the gold. What do you do with his thing that he hates, you who from a creature of God fashion badly what he hates? You, fashion well what he loves. You wish to set your image in wood; receive the image of God in yourself. Why do you blot out within and carve without? The creatures, he says, of God were made an object of hatred, and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the foolish. For the beginning of fornication is the seeking out of idols (Wis 14:11-12). If a woman having many husbands is praised, let a soul worshiping many gods be praised too. If a woman is an adulteress through true husbands, how much more a soul through false gods? For the beginning of fornication is the seeking out of idols, and the invention of them is the corruption of life (Wis 14:12). See how he charged it; let us see what he foretold: For neither were they from the beginning, nor will they be forever (Wis 14:13).

7. The holy prophet Zechariah too says: In that day. See what he says, and recognize the day. For he sets "day" for "time," as the Apostle: Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2). What, then, does Zechariah say? In that day there shall be an open place for the house of David (See Zech 13:1). This is what I was saying, that it was closed in the fleece, open on the floor. There shall be an open place, the Church shall be manifest. What is there shall be an open place? A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden (Matt 5:14). There shall be an open place for the house of David. And it shall be in that day, the Lord will exterminate the names of the images from the earth, and there shall be no mention of them at all (See Zech 13:2). Let the pagans hear these things. Let them see this happen which was foretold. If they love divination, let them recognize the divinity. Why do they go, as for a great thing, to one raving astrologer, consulted about one man—and let him say more false things than true by chance, who in false things meets his downfall? Why, then, does he wish to hear an astrologer about to speak about one man? Let him hear God foretelling about the human race. From the earth the names of the idols are blotted out, in heaven the names of the Christians are written.

8. Let Isaiah too say: The injury of men shall be humbled and shall fall, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, and they shall hide all things made by hand, bringing them into caves and into the caverns of the rocks (See Isa 2:17-19). See whether it is not so, see whether it does not happen, see whether the Scripture lies. As though we seek the idols and do not wish to make the worshipers of idols worshipers of God, they hide them in the earth, they hide them in a cave, they hide them in the cavern of a rock. Wherever they hide them, it is dug out thence, when in the heart it is overthrown. How many have hidden their false gods, perverse, and, corrected, have given them up. For we see altogether two kinds of men in the Church, indeed one kind there in the Church, the other now in the neighborhood of the Church: both of those who hide and of those who repel and bring forth. Both kinds God foretold. You have heard about the kind that hides; hear about the kind that gives up and throws away, in the same passage, in one testimony of Isaiah: The Lord, he says, alone shall be exalted in that day, and they shall hide all things made by hand, in caves and in the caverns of the rocks and in the clefts of the earth, from the face of the fear of the Lord, from the brightness of his strength, when he shall arise to shatter the earth (See Isa 2:17-19). What is to shatter the earth? To terrify the earthly. Therefore every bold man, if he has feared, we say is shattered by fear. No wonder that the earth fears, for the heaven thunders. In the prophetic Scriptures there are thunders. Therefore those will hide. What of the others? They too out of fear, but a better one. Those out of fear of the laws hide, these out of fear of the divine law bring forth and throw away. In both there is fear, but by fear some make progress, some fail. We have heard of those hiding; let us hear of the other kind. For in that day a man shall cast away his abominations of silver and of gold which they made (See Isa 2:20). It is a wonder that gold and silver are cast away: piety casts away what impiety loves. They cast away their abominations: do they not also cast away the wooden ones, do they not cast away the earthen ones, do they not cast away the stone ones? Yet for the commendation of a more devout mind, they cast away, he says, the gold and silver ones. What does he love, who now does not love gold? What losses does he fear, who does not fear the losses of gold and silver? They cast away the abominations of silver and gold which they made to adore. The vain and harmful things some hide, others cast away: yet the abomination is taken away. Let it be taken away, and would that, as from the places of the lands, so from the hearts of the earthly. Through the hands of his servants let God take these things away from places, through his own hand from hearts.

9. Let us hear Jeremiah too. Although I recalled this yesterday too, it is too sweet, and let it be repeated today as well—for we cannot grow weary of it: Lord, my strength and my help and my refuge in the day of evils (Jer 16:19). No longer is stone and wood my refuge, no longer is gold and silver, the works of men's hands, my refuge. I do not, he says, flee to those who cannot flee: For they have feet and do not walk (Ps 115:7 (113:15)). Lord, my refuge in the day of evils, in the day of temptations, in the day of this labor, in the day of weak life, in the day of sighs from desire of the heavenly Jerusalem. For as long as we are not where we long to be, it is the day of evils. In hope we rejoice, not yet in the reality. Hence it is also in another psalm: You led me because you have become my hope (See Ps 61:3 (60:4)). Our hope is on the way, while he leads. And how a refuge? A tower of strength from the face of the enemy (Ps 61:3 (60:4)). What then of the idols, what was going to be? To you, he says, the nations shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say: How did our fathers possess lies? (See Jer 16:19) The very how is the wonder of the sons at the error of their fathers, as if they said: "How were our elders prudent, how did they worship these things, how did they bend their uprightness before wood and stones, how, forsaking him by whom they were made, did they possess the vain things they made, how did our fathers possess lies?" What are those lies? Images, and there is no usefulness in them (See Jer 16:19). For lies sometimes seem to certain greedy men to be useful; and the merchant swears that he may sell dearer, in gain he swears that he may acquire, in gain he lies that he may acquire, in an idol he lies that he may perish. Nor in those lies is there usefulness, if we consider the true and healthful usefulness. But there is at least that which seems to men, which is thought by the unskilled. Here what, finally, do you spend that you may hire a craftsman, you spend that you may feed it, you spend that you may adorn it, you spend that you may set it up, you spend that you may sacrifice? You spend the whole that you may acquire nothing, you lose many things that you may perish.

10. Likewise Jeremiah: Do not walk according to the ways of the nations. Come now, my brethren, let none of you defend the idols. Every defender of an idol is near to a worshiper. Do not walk according to the ways of the nations, and do not fear the signs of heaven, since they fear them, the sights of them (See Jer 10:2). Since it is the custom of the nations to fear the signs of heaven, that is, to choose days when you set out, when a wife is taken, when a web is set up and when another is cut down, since their customs are vain (See Jer 10:3). And now hear about the idols: It is a wood cut from the forest, the work of the smith and a casting of silver (See Jer 10:3-4). He seems to say a known thing, but too deaf is the one to whom he says it. He rouses him as from sleep, that he may see also with the heart what he sees with the eyes. The work of the smith and a casting; they have adorned them with silver and gold, they have fastened them with anvils and nails, and they shall not be moved. For by themselves they shall not be moved: men, movable in body, carry the immovable one. They would not, movable in body, carry the immovable one, if they were immovable in heart. They have fastened them with anvils and nails, and they shall not be moved. Carved silver. And it is added: They shall not walk. From Tarshish shall come the gold of Ophaz—precious and great gold—and the hand of the artificers, every work of the artificers; with hyacinth and purple they shall clothe them. Lifted up, they are carried, because they do not walk. Do not fear them, because they will not harm, and there is no good in them. Thus you shall say to them. What shall we say to them? The gods who did not make heaven and earth, let them perish from the earth and from under heaven (See Jer 10:9-11). What is thus you shall say to them? You are Christians, you hear the prophet: thus say to them, do not be silent. The gods who did not make heaven and earth, let them perish from the earth and from under heaven. Surely from heaven, where they never were? Let those worshipers too attend to these foretold things, let them attend and believe. Let these perish from under heaven, let those be written in heaven. Surely thus you say to them; do not be seduced by those who say: "Neither worship nor mock them." Receive rather, Christian, the prophet; hear God rather through the prophet: You shall say to them: The gods who did not make heaven and earth, let them perish from the earth and from under this heaven. And as if he said: "Whom shall I worship, when those have perished?", God made heaven and earth in his strength (Jer 10:12). Why do you wish to worship the earth, when you are earth and on the earth and made from earth? You have God founding the earth. He has not withdrawn from you in his work, he is not far also from your heart. He made what you tread, he made what you look up to, he is the one in whom you believe. God made the earth in his strength, founded the world in his wisdom (Jer 10:12). Did he perhaps not speak of Christ who said: God made the earth in his strength, founded the world in his wisdom? Hear the apostle Paul: Christ the strength of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). He stretched out the heaven and the multitude of waters in heaven, and brought clouds from the end of the earth, made lightnings into rain and brought forth light from his treasuries. Every man has been made foolish by his own knowledge, and every artificer has been confounded over his graven things, because they cast lies, there is no spirit in them. They are vain, works of mockery; in the time of their visitation they shall perish (See Jer 10:13-15). The false gods perish, but you have not remained without the true God, if you are the younger son Jacob, whom the elder serves. Let the false gods perish, hold you the true one. For hear what follows: Not of this kind is the portion of Jacob (Jer 10:16). Those vain things, those false gods will perish, but the portion of Jacob does not perish. The portion of Jacob: the inheritance of Jacob. The inheritance of Jacob, which God gives, or God himself? I dare to say that it is God himself. I take a psalm, the sentence is evident: Lord, the portion of my inheritance (Ps 16:5 (15:5)). Not of this kind is the portion of Jacob, for he who fashioned all things, he is his inheritance, the Lord is his name (Jer 10:16).

11. We have heard the foretold things, what is going to be for the idols; let us hear the precepts, what is to be done to the idols. Let no one say: "Surely the images were said to be going to perish: let him destroy them. Why do you break them?" But God willed to destroy them through those whom he did not will to perish. And he will bring you, he says, to the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, and I will wipe them out. You shall not adore their gods nor serve them. You shall not do according to their works, but by casting down you shall cast down and by breaking you shall break their images (See Exod 23:23-24). And again: Behold, I will cast out before your face the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite. Make no covenant with those who dwell in the land into which you will enter to them, lest it be an offense among you. Their altars you shall cast down and their pillars you shall break and their groves you shall cut down. For you shall not adore foreign gods. For the Lord God is jealous, his name is the Jealous God (See Exod 34:11-14). Hear, brethren, you shudder because it is said: The Lord is jealous. O soul of the Church, O that spouse, you fear a jealous husband: keep your chastity.

Sermon 360/B
(Dolbeau 25)

1. The word of God does not cease to exhort and console us by faithful promises and by healthful threats. For neither not to love nor not to fear is expedient for us. But as God the promiser is to be loved, so the threatener is to be feared. In neither does he deceive the hearer, in neither does he deceive the believer. Let no one say in his mind: "He promises true things, but threatens false ones." Both are true. Love and fear. Without any doubt he is going to come who has already come. But he came to teach you patience, he is going to come to crown patience. He will surely crown when he comes what he taught when he had come. And what he threatened when he had come, he will inflict when he comes. But there are these two things: the promise of God, eternal life; the threat of God, eternal punishment. If you do not yet know how to love what he promises, begin to fear what he threatens. For so it is written: The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Ps 111:10 (110:10); Sir 1:16). But the apostle John says: Fear is not in love, but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). When, then, we have heard: The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, let us begin to fear. But because fear has the torment of the heart, you will not be long in torment, if in you love has grown and been perfected. Nor yet can it be begun in you, unless by fear you have furnished your heart for sowing it. But love, born, the more it grows, the more fear is diminished. And if, as it grows, fear is diminished, when it is consummated, fear is consumed.

2. For what God promises, dearly beloved, exceeds not only our words, but even the thoughts of all men. For so too it is commended: What eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it ascended into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9). If it were some color like the light which the bodily eyes know, it would not be said: Nor has eye seen; if it were some sweet sound such as human ears are wont to be delighted by, like that of instruments and any musical things, it would not be said: Nor has ear heard. And because men cannot turn over good things in their minds, except those which they have perceived by the bodily senses, it was added: Nor has it ascended into the heart of man. For you, O man, cannot think of a good, except such as you are wont to see or hear or touch by some such sense. Whatever has not entered through the sense of your body cannot even be thought by your soul.

3. And so, when it has been said to us that we will be in paradise, we think of some pleasant garden. And if we think of a larger one than we are wont to see, yet we enlarge this very kind of thing. If we are wont, for example, to see small trees, we think of them large; and if we are wont to see such or such apples or fruits, we think of larger ones. If we are wont to see meadows of some extent, we turn over in our mind immense ones without end: yet we enlarge by thinking the same things we know by the eyes. Again, when we hear: God dwells in inaccessible light (1 Tim 6:16), from this light which we know by the bodily eyes we measure that one and amplify it into an immense measure, yet by enlarging what we know, although that light is of a far other kind: for that light is not of the eyes, but of minds. And just as the eye of the flesh must be cleansed that it may be able to bear this corporeal light, which either shines down from heaven or flashes from the nocturnal lights, and if the eyes are wounded and disturbed by some internal humor or by some thing rushing in from without, they will have that very light by which they were wont to be quickened as a thing of pain and will be tortured by that in which they were wont to rejoice, so too for that intelligible and immortal light, not the eye of the flesh, but the eye of the heart must be cleansed. For just as phlegm, which causes bleariness, disturbs the eye of the flesh, so iniquity disturbs that one. It too has its own weakness, has its own uncleanness, coming not from dust, but from sin. As, then, this eye of the body must be cleansed to see its corporeal light, so too that inner eye must be cleansed to see that light which neither eye has seen nor ear heard nor has it ascended into the heart of man.

4. Why does it not ascend into the heart of man? For it is beheld by the heart, when it is beheld. But why does it not ascend into the heart of man? Because of man. What "because of man"? Those who know the Scriptures understand and anticipate by thought what I am about to say. Sometimes, by a certain definite signification, our Scripture calls those "men" who are still wise according to the flesh. For they are men, that is, they are Adam. But you know that Adam sinned, and thence draws the origin of carnal concupiscence whoever is mortally born. He carries with him, then, a wound of the eye, and as long as he is a man, as long as there is in him that which was wounded and disturbed by the first sin. Whence a certain one cries out in the psalms and says, sighing and groaning to God: And the light of my eyes is not with me (Ps 38:10 (37:11)). As long, then, as a man is so, perceiving carnally, he cannot think nor grasp with the mind that light, and therefore it is said: What eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it ascended into the heart of man. What is of man? Of one perceiving carnally. What is of man? Of one still carrying Adam. Whence those who were men, what did he wish to make them, to whom it was a reproach that they were men? For he says to them: For when each one of you says: I am of Paul, but I of Apollos, but I of Cephas (See 1 Cor 1:12; 3:4). For they had divided among themselves the ministers of God and made themselves parts of the Church of Christ, the evil of schisms beginning, which were afterward confirmed by the error of men. These things they said, perceiving carnally and placing their hope not in God but in man, not singing with the heart what we sang a little before: In you our fathers hoped (Ps 22:4 (21:5)).

5. Rebuking these, then, as saying such things, the Apostle says: Are you not men and do you not walk according to man? (1 Cor 3:3-4) Again in the psalm it is said in the person of God speaking: I said: You are gods and all sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men and shall fall like one of the princes (Ps 82:6-7 (81:6-7)). As you know, by "one of the ancient princes" he means the devil. For though he was an angel, fallen by pride he was made the devil. He, then, who, fallen then, envied the one standing, he himself even now envies the one returning. Men were therefore made mortal, that by a greater affliction of penalty they might be schooled to humility, and, scourged in a manner by their mortality and considering that they cannot live here longer and, if they lived longer, yet would not always live and this life would at some time have to be ended, they might humble themselves to God and try to grasp the future, the present fleeing. For what flees or slips away cannot be held. Or can any of us now, while either we stand and speak or you stand and hear, hold his ages, that either boys not grow up or young men not grow old? You see that, from the time we speak, it is time. And if, from the time we speak, it is time, and by the length of time it comes about that we incline into old age, even now, in this very time in which we have spoken, we have aged somewhat. But these our changes are grasped by reason, but cannot be seen by the eyes. For neither are your hairs seen when they grow, and yet unless they grew continually, you would not after a few days seek the barber: for what the barber is going to take off tomorrow does not grow in a single night. But just as the hairs both grow now and cannot be seen, so age itself both grows old now and cannot be grasped by the eyes.

6. Men, then, love the present life, which they cannot hold as it flees, and, as those things increase and these fail, it slips away. How much better, then, do they hold something firm, to which, these things ended, they are going to come. To this is added that, since the life of man is short, it is also uncertain. For if old age itself were certain for every man, he ought to consider that life is short, even if it were permitted to all to be led to its bounds. For what is long that is ended? To this, then, is added that death is the companion of mortality, and as it walks with you in a manner on the way, when it may seize you, you surely do not know. Since, then, both life itself is short, and death is uncertain to every age, men thinking thus ought to be humbled to God, to entreat the Creator, to confess, to groan in their sins, to allege their sickness to the physician, that they may be healed within and change that eye whence that light can be seen, which is not seen as long as the inner eye of man is still of man. Let them wake up, then, when they hear from God: I said: You are gods and all sons of the Most High. What is I said? I call to this, I wish to do this. Hear the Gospel: He gave them power to become sons of God (John 1:12). When, therefore, I say: You are gods and all sons of the Most High, but you shall die like men, and not even your very mortality profits you to correct you, but as though you were immortal, so you fall like one of the princes, that is, you grow proud just as the angel dared to grow proud. But if pride cast down an angel, what will it do to a man? You shall, then, be gods. And if you do not worship false gods, you shall be gods. And how shall you be? By the making of him who made men too. For he who made us men wishes to make us gods, not that we be worshiped in his place, but that he himself be worshiped in us.

7. There is, then, as I had begun to say, dearly beloved, an inner eye which sins, carnal concupiscences, and earthly desires wound and disturb, so that the very sinning man heard: You are earth and into earth you shall go (Gen 3:19). If, then, the proud and unjust man deserved to hear: You are earth and into earth you shall go, why should not the humble and pious man hear: "You are heaven and into heaven you shall go"? For by humility and piety one becomes a seat of God. Now when he has been made a seat of God, is he not heaven? It is said in the Scriptures: Heaven is my seat, but the earth is the footstool of my feet (Isa 66:1). If, then, heaven is the seat of God, be heaven that you may carry God. When you have begun to carry God, you will be heaven. But that you may carry him fully, he himself will cleanse you, when he begins to dwell in you, until he brings that eye of the heart to such cleanness that it can see his face, in whom unseen it believed. Believe, then, before you see, that by faith, the heart cleansed, you may merit even to see what you believed. For light is promised you, which neither eye has seen, because it is not a color, nor ear heard, because it is not a sound, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, because the man who is properly called man, carnal, weak, animal, cannot think of anything but what he has drawn from the senses of the body. Not such is that light. Let the soul not dare to form anything for itself, as in a fantasy, about God: the one it wishes to find, let it first learn not to find.

8. What is it that I said: let it first learn not to find? That, when perhaps it thinks of God and there begins to occur to it what it has seen, the beauty of the earth occurs, let it spit it out from its mind; the appearance of waters occurs, the tranquility of the serene air occurs, let it spit this out too by its thought; let it say to itself: "This is not my God, it is the work of my God." This is not, I say, my God, it is the work of my God: what was made, you think of. O my soul, seek him who made it. But when your thought has come even to the heavenly bodies, let not the heavenly light entice you, not even that which is highest. For the highest heavenly light is in the sun. The primacy of brightness of the heavenly bodies is found in the sun, which suffices for the day. Do not think your God to be anything such, nor increase that very brightness into something greater and wander off for yourself through the spaces of your fantasy; neither is this God which is figured in your soul such as is wont to shine to the eyes of the body. This is not God.

9. Come to the soul itself, because it too is not seen. The soul is not seen, and great is the power of an incorporeal nature. For the soul is not a body, it is something invisible, and something great: it cannot be seen, but from its works marvel at what you do not see. What delights you in human affairs? Look around at the order of things, the beauty of cultivated fields, of forests cleared, of fruitful trees grafted, and whatever we see and love in the fields, the very order of the commonwealth, the masses of buildings, the varieties of arts, the abundance of tongues, the depth of memory, the richness of eloquence. All these are works of the soul. How great works of the soul you see, and you do not see the soul itself! When, therefore, a certain such nature has begun to occur to you, is it now your God whom you were seeking? It is not seen, it is now something incorporeal, something spiritual, something great, which quickens even the mortal members, which restrains and holds the flowing, in a manner, rottenness of the body. But this even the soul of a beast can do. Something great indeed is even the soul of a beast, something invisible is this too. But transcend to the soul of man: behold where man was made to the image of God. For to the image of God he was made not in the body, but in the mind, in that thing by which he governs all these, in that thing by which he surpasses the beasts. For how many beasts surpass us both in firmness of body and in keenness of carnal senses! Both in speed and in strength, in many corporeal endowments we are surpassed by beasts. Whence are we better than the beasts, but because we understand, because we have reason by which we can even tame a wild beast? But by a wild beast we cannot be tamed. But just as a man is fit to tame a beast, so to tame a man none is fit but God. When, therefore, something such occurs to you, that you think of the human mind even as free from corporeal bonds, dare to suspect God to be nothing such. Now indeed you seem to be near, but at a long interval. Near, in such a way that there is nothing higher that approaches God, but yet between your mind and God who created your mind there is very much difference. No nature or place lies between, but by unlikeness it is far off, since this was made, he made; nor can what was made in any way be compared to the maker. Yet the image of your God is in some measure in your mind.

10. Transcend, if you can, even your mind, if indeed you have arrived by cognition at your mind. Consider, brethren, what I say. For perhaps, even when you think of your mind, you think of something corporeal by the custom of the carnal senses, so that your mind seems to you to be either air or fire or this light which you behold. You think of something such, when you think of your mind. Do not think of anything such. As soon as that which you understand has occurred to you, "what is it that I understand?", say to yourself. For surely, unless a certain light were there, you would not understand. For so you behold a certain light within, as you behold a certain light without. For the light of your body is your eye. But the light being absent, what does your open eye profit? You have indeed whole eyes, but you are aided by another light that you may see. So too when you understand, you have something or other of the kind, which can enjoy the inner light, which is not this which you see with the eyes. Think your mind to be something such, if you can; but if you cannot, what is that which is above your mind, which terrifies your mind, which exhorts your mind, which forms your mind? You cannot think the mind worthily: whence can you him, whom you are to see with a pure mind? Therefore if you cannot do even this, then not the earth, not the heaven, not the air, not this starry light, not the so wonderful power and nature of the rational soul itself can rightly be called your God, but everywhere you ought to say: "This is not my God." You cannot, then, know what he is, unless you have first learned what he is not. Therefore first think what he is not, that you may find what he is.

11. This is what I said a little before: learn to be ignorant of God, that you may merit to find him. For you learn to be ignorant of him by a better ignorance than a false knowledge. For better is an ignorance that does not err, than a knowledge that is so called and is not. For you will say to me: "I know God." I ask what God is. You begin to wish to explain, and first by this very thing you are ignorant, in that you suppose you can explain what you cannot think. You are going to tell me, then, your thoughts, you are going to tell me those that have ascended into your heart. But see that you are a man, and that what you are going to tell me has ascended into the heart of man. But he who promises himself to be enjoyed by those who love him surely does not promise what eye has seen nor what ear has heard nor what has ascended into the heart of man. But how do they love him whom they do not see, except because they believe before they see? To those who love him, then, what does he promise? What eye has not seen nor ear heard. Can it perhaps be thought? Do not deceive yourself: nor has it ascended into the heart of man.

12. What then? How do you prepare yourself? Say. "I wish to see my God." Say to him: "I wish to see," say to him who says: Ask and you will receive, knock and it will be opened to you (Matt 7:7). Knock, set before the door, knock vehemently. He who closes does not drive away: he wishes to exercise the knocker. Knock, then, knock, not with a corporeal hand, but with the affection of the heart. Say to the Lord your God what you sing in the psalms: To you my heart has said: I have sought your face, your face will I seek (Ps 27:8 (26:8)). Say too what is said in another psalm: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may contemplate the delight of the Lord (Ps 27:4 (26:4)). Desire to contemplate and say to him: "I wish to see you." But whence shall I see? If with eyes of flesh, then you are a corporeal light. Now my heart already reports to me that you, my God, are not a corporeal light. What, then, are you? I have transcended all those things, I have now arrived at my mind, and even that is not my God. And yet the nature of the mind transcends all corporeal things whether terrestrial or heavenly, but it is not yet my God. For my mind is changeable: but my God is unchangeable. I seek something unchangeable, when I seek my God. But whence do I recognize the mind to be changeable? Now it remembers, now it forgets; now it is wise, now it is foolish; now it wills, now it does not will; now it is angry, now it is calmed. I seek something unchangeable, when I seek my God. So my God has spoken to me in the Scriptures, that I may in some way think what I believe, not yet have what I see. I seek something which always remains unchangeable.

13. But whence shall I see? The Gospel will answer you: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8). If, then, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, but we carry hearts unclean from the weight of sins, what shall we do? Whence shall we cleanse our inner eye, by which the face of our God can be seen? Whence shall we cleanse it? You have this too in Scripture: Cleansing their hearts by faith (Acts 15:9). Let us, then, hold these two testimonies: one from the Gospel, the other from the Acts of the Apostles. What from the Gospel? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. You have looked at yourself, you have found a certain uncleanness of your heart; desiring to see God and hearing that he is not seen except by clean hearts, inflamed by the desire of seeing, you surely seek to cleanse your heart. Whence, then, shall you cleanse it? Attend to the one saying in the Acts: Cleansing their hearts by faith. Hold these two: one in the promise, the other in the action. In the promise what? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. In the action what? Cleansing their hearts by faith. Believe, then, before you see, that you may be able to rejoice when you see.

14. Let not a vain thought ascend into your heart: "What is this that the Christians say: Believe, believe?" The physician says this, who knows what is being done in your eye. Now resist also the hands of the physician and say: "I do not believe, unless you show me." The physician will answer you: "There is no one to whom I may show it; I wish to heal in you that by which you can see what you now desire me to show." Suppose a physician to say to a man blinded by some mist, and perhaps from the beginning of his life, so that he does not now even know what is seen by the seeing: "There is what I may show you; behold, by a certain sense you know yourself to be blind, but others to be seeing: since you need a guide which they do not need, there is surely some difference between them and you. They see, then, something which you do not see; which, if you saw, you would greatly rejoice." He rouses in him a desire of seeing what he does not know, wishing to cure him, that he may be able to see what he does not see. But if he is so absurd and averse from all reason of truth that he says to the physician: "You shall not cure me, unless you demonstrate to me what I am to see," what do you suppose the physician will answer? "You must be cured that you may see, not see that you may be cured. You are perverse, you are preposterous. Let that be done first which you do not wish, that you may be able to arrive at that which you wish. If you had eyes by which I could show you what I say, there would be no need for you to be cured." Perhaps he will answer: "And what am I to do? Cure me as you wish." And the physician: "I am going to apply certain sharper salves, which may wipe away your mist, of whose sharpness you are going to feel some pain. But you must bear the healthful pain patiently and not, anxious and impatient of pain, push away my hands. For I know what I am doing in your eyes, that there may be eyes which now are not even to be called eyes. I know what I am doing, and therefore I foretell to you that you are going to suffer something troublesome, with the fruit of enlightenment." Perhaps he, terrified lest he be bitten by those medicines which the physician is going to apply, returns again to that worn-out and rejected: "Am I to suffer such great pains, which you are going to lay on me? Unless I first see what you are going to demonstrate, I will not bear them." On the contrary, he: "You cannot. This is what I seek; I beg you: to be cured. You will see, the mist will be driven out, that light will shine again for you which you hear those who see name and you do not see. For you hear: light, color, brightness; these names you hear. These names are of certain things, the things themselves you do not see. Those who see are more blessed than you. Bear, then, some pain in compensation for great joys." If he consents, he will be cured and will see. If he does not consent, wishing first to see rather than to be cured that there may be that whence he may see, most absurd and an enemy of his own salvation, he will forsake the physician.

15. Attend now: the healthful physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, came to us, found the blindness of our heart, promised the light which eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it ascended into the heart of man. This the angels see, of it they rejoice. For just as those healthy men see what the blind man does not see, so the angels see what man does not see. Why does man not see? Because he still wishes to be a man. Let the man himself, then, begin to be cured, that from a man he may become one among the sons of God, because he gave them power to become sons of God (John 1:12). This is: he gave them power, that they may be cured, that the mist of the heart may be wiped away, because blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And hear that what is said elsewhere is in the Gospel too: Cleansing their hearts by faith. When the Lord had said: He gave them power to become sons of God, he at once subjoined: to those believing in his name (John 1:12). If, then, he gave to believers the power to become sons of God—and the sons of God will be able to see what does not ascend into the heart of man—he cleanses their hearts by faith that they may be able to be pure in heart, because they shall see God.

16. Blessed, then, are you, brethren, who believe; pray for those who do not believe, that they too may merit to see. Blessed are you who believe: you do not see, but you believe; you are not yet healthy, but you are still being cured. Your salvation is in hope, not yet in reality. Persevere under the hands of the physician, bear his precepts like sharp salves, abstain from the ruinous pleasures of the world: let not the unlawful things of the nations lead you, not the theatrical trifles, not the luxury of drunkenness, not the poison of unlawful curiosity. From all these abstain yourselves. But you have been wont to rejoice in these things, and when you begin to abstain from them, the greed of a broken habit will grieve. But these are the sharp salves by which the eyes are cured. Receive the precepts of the physician. Whatever he lays on you to bear, he himself first bore. And in him indeed there was nothing to be cured, because he was sick with nothing, but by the office of healing he bore what he laid on the sick. He gave a certain bitter cup to one swelling and inflated with pride; he, coming humble, suffered all humble things from proud men.

17. The humility of Christ is the medicine of your pride. Do not mock that by which you are cured. Deign to be humble, on account of him for whom God became humble. For he judged that you were to be healed by this medicine, who well knows both whence you are sick and whence you are to be healed. In all the members of the body good physicians seek the cause whence are drawn all those things that are most difficult to bear. And therefore many unskilled men, curing the accidental causes and not curing the original one, seem for a time to heal, but, the source as it were of the diseases remaining, what persists in the origin flows out again into streams of calamity. Hear, then, whence man is sick, whence he has not only eyes, but no members healthy. Hear whence he is sick, take it from the Scriptures where the art of the physician is written. For he is not more sure to you who reads to you of disease from Hippocrates, than he who demonstrates to you from the divine Scripture whence you are inwardly sick. Hear, then, the Scripture saying: The beginning of all sin is pride (Sir 10:13); and yet you run for the health of your body, for the soul you are slothful. If a straw rushes into your eye, it is not deferred that you remove it. Iniquity presses the eye of your heart, and you do not run to the physician. Although, while you could not run to the physician, the physician himself came to you and—what is more grievous—this very thing, that he came to you, you mock, you hold his mercy for nothing. He came, he wishes to help, he knows what to apply. Therefore God came humble, lest he be not imitable by man. For how would you imitate the lofty? Without imitating him, how would you be healed? He came, then, humble, because he knew what kind of cup he was giving you. Somewhat bitter indeed, but healthful. But you mock the one bringing the cup and still say to yourself: "What kind of God shall I have? Born, suffering, smeared with spittle, crowned with thorns, hung on a cross?" Unhappy soul! You see the humility of the physician, you do not see the swelling of your pride. Therefore the humble one displeases you, displeases your pride, the medicine which the physician gives you displeases your disease.

18. If you still mock, you are frenzied. The frenzied even often strike physicians, and the merciful not only are not angry with those who strike, but even seek the health of those who strike. But sometimes they prevail so as even to be able to kill the physician. But he vehemently avoids being killed by the frenzied, because he cannot rise again and heal the frenzied. But that physician of ours neither feared to be killed by the frenzied, and from his very death he prepared medicines for the frenzied. For he died and rose again. And see that the true physician is not angry with the frenzied who strike him, but rather pities them and from what he suffers wishes to heal the raging. Hear the physician hanging on the cross; the crowd of raging frenzied ones surveyed, he says: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do (Luke 23:34). Nor was his voice in vain. For after he rose and was glorified in the eyes of his disciples, so that he showed them even the scars of that same flesh raised again, and offered himself not only to be seen but also to be handled, he ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit: miracles began to be done in the name of the slain one, in the name of the crucified one, and they were then more pricked who had killed him than when they saw him hanging on the cross. For they considered that such things were done in the name of him who was thought slain among their hands. They felt him living, whom they had mocked dying. They were pricked at heart, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles; many of those very Jews who crucified the Lord sought counsel from the apostles; they received counsel too, because not in vain did he say, hanging: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. The apostle said to them: {Do penance, and let each one be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins are forgiven you (See Acts 2:38). It was done: they were baptized and believed} in him whom they crucified. This is what I said, brethren, that even from his very death he made medicines for the frenzied.

19. Thence it went to the nations. The apostles were sent to the nations: they found the whole world given over to images. The disciples themselves too of that physician, in whom the physician himself presided, because they had been made heaven and carried God, began, then, to preach him who was crucified and died for our offenses and rose again for our justification (Rom 4:25). With signs and so great miracles bearing witness with them, the world began to be filled. And first, that it might be filled, the disciples of the physician too were slain, just as the physician himself had been slain. But when would they fear to be killed, when in their head they beheld even the flesh risen again? For whom would they fear, souls never to die, when in body they had already risen in the Lord? But he made all believers as it were a body to a head, so that he himself was their head, but all those who believe in him cohered as it were as members. But from the beginning of the world to the end, Christ has been believed in and will be believed in, because even before he was born of the Virgin Mary, many believed that he would come, just as now they believe in him who has already come. And through that very faith all are healed, nor is there any other salve for that mist of the spiritual eye, except as it is written: Cleansing their hearts by faith (Acts 15:9). He made, then, all the saints a body for himself, of which body he himself is the head. Nor would he be the head of this body, unless he had something from that body. For whence did he take on flesh, which could die in him? For if the soul of man cannot die, when could the divinity of the Word die? Thousands of martyrs too, then, were slain, and as it were their blood being sown, the harvest of the Church arose throughout the whole world.

20. Therefore, brethren, thousands of years ago these things were foretold and, as they were foretold, so they are seen expressed and displayed. Few remain which we read and believe, for more we already read and see. But from these which we read and see, it is no great thing to believe the fewer that remain. It was a great thing to believe for those who saw none of these things which we see. Now it is no longer praiseworthy to believe, but damnable not to believe. Let those at length wake up and be cured who still were unwilling to be cured. Let them believe: they will see. Let them not be so perverse as to say to us: "Let me first see and then I will believe." What is "let me see and then I will believe"? {For he who sees, does he believe? He believes who does not see. It is one thing to believe, another to see. Believe what you do not see, that by believing what you do not see you may merit to see what you believe. The merit of vision is faith. The reward of faith is vision. Why do you seek the reward before the work? Believe, then, and walk in faith: your salvation is in hope. For the best physician has begun to cure you, to whom no disease is incurable. Do not fear your past crimes, however immense, however incredible, which you perhaps committed: the diseases are great, but the physician is greater. Do not, then, care about the past: in one moment of the sacrament they will be forgiven, and absolutely all will be forgiven}. Nothing of the past will remain that may distress your care. You will be secure not in your own strength, but in the hand of the physician. Be, then, secure under him, because he will also heal what remains: that very weakness of our mortality, whence indeed lesser sins, while we live here, creep in. He will heal the whole, he will cleanse the whole. All the mist will be taken away, but let such an eye of the heart be given that you may be blessed when you see, because believing you have heard: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Let those who have not yet believed behold, O my brethren, let them behold how great things God has displayed. All the things that are seen done throughout the whole world in the name of Christ were foreseen, foretold, prescribed. In our hands are the books, before our eyes the deeds.

21. And if we consider the truth, brethren, he did a more difficult thing than what he is going to do. What is it that is more difficult? He justified {the impious, from an idolater made a believer, from a drunkard a sober man, from a wanton man a frugal one, from a greedy man one giving away his goods, not giving to hunters with the devil applauding, but giving to the poor with Christ crowning, and acquiring for himself that which cannot pass away. The thing he did was more difficult. For he who from an impious man made a pious one, will he not render a reward to the pious one? Attend, my brethren. What is more incredible? To make a pious man out of an impious one, or to make an angel out of a pious one? The impious and the pious are contraries. The pious and the angel are not contraries. Will he not fill you from the neighboring thing, who changed you from the contrary? For now, when you have begun to be pious, you begin to imitate the life of an angel. But when you were impious, you were removed from the choir of angels. But faith came and justified you. You are humbled to God, who blasphemed God. And you who had turned to the creature now desire the Creator. See what he has bestowed on you: he has displayed his Church in the world; as he promised it, he displayed it. Idolatry was foretold to be at some time slain and taken away: our forebears read these things and did not see them, but we read and see them}. Heresies were foretold, schisms were foretold: these too exist. Whence Christians are not troubled when they see heresies and schisms. For they hope more surely that the things promised will come to pass, when the things foretold come to pass.

22. Flee, then, the crimes of all heresies and schisms, flee the sacrileges of the nations, the curiosities of demons, the adorations of idols, the sacrileges of remedies, the consultations of astrologers. Flee these things, brethren. You have nothing to hope for in them. For the future life they have never promised; for the present, if they say it, they lie to you. Let someone arise who says: "I know the astrologer told me the truth, and I know the soothsayer told me the truth, and I had that remedy, and it availed." Let your love know this alone, which can easily be seen. The happiness and unhappiness of the present time, which is neither true happiness nor full unhappiness, is mingled and scattered through all men. If only those were happy according to time who do these things, you, brethren, who have believed, ought, on account of future happiness, to despise the present. But since you see, mingled, both healthy those who do them and those who do not do them, mingled, dying both those who do not do them and those who do them, mingled, rich and poor both those who do them and those who do not do them, mingled, honored and lowborn both those who do them and those who do not do them—since, then, you see temporal happiness or unhappiness mingled in the human race, why do you not beware eternal unhappiness, when it will be said: Go into the eternal fire, and procure true happiness, when it will be said: Receive the kingdom? (See Matt 25:34, 41)

23. "Juno," he says, "bestows on those giving birth, and Mercury on hunters or men of letters, and Neptune on those sailing." These things are false. For if they are true, let not the women bear well who blaspheme Juno. What great thing is it, my brethren, to open the eyes to see these things? Did the prophets perhaps foretell these things too? Question yourselves: let the human race answer. Are all shipwrecked who do not worship Neptune? Do all merchants suffer loss who mock Mercury? But if these things are false, they have never promised you future life, they profit nothing for the present life. Why are they worshiped, except to bind the feet of those going the way of the Lord, lest they seek immortality and some rest after the labors and difficulties of this life? For that devil sets himself against them with his angels, and as it were makes himself necessary, that he may reduce you to servitude. Use rather your liberty; greater is he who redeemed you than he who assails you. Whoever consent to this one will be condemned with him; whoever believe in Christ will condemn with him. These things are to come, but from those which have already come conjecture those which remain.

24. Persecutions to come for Christians from the kings of the world were foretold: they came to pass, the slaughter of the martyrs was made, and those who did these things thought they could finish off the Christians by killing them. The Church grew by its own blood, the persecutors were conquered, those who suffered persecution conquered. This too was foretold. The kings themselves too we find in the holy Scriptures going to submit their necks to the yoke of Christ, by whom at first persecution of the Church seemed as it were to be feared. And this came to pass, brethren: now the cross of Christ is on the foreheads of kings, kings adore what the Jews mocked. And because it was said thus: God chose the weak things of this world that he might confound the strong, and the lowborn things of this world he chose, and the things that are not as though they were, that the things that are might be emptied out (1 Cor 1:27-28), our Lord Jesus Christ came for the salvation not only of the poor, but also of the rich, not only of plebeians, but also of kings. Yet he was unwilling to choose kings into discipleship, he was unwilling to choose the rich, the noble, the learned, but he chose the poor, the uneducated, the lowborn, fishermen, where his grace might more shine forth. For he came to give a cup of humility and to heal pride. And if he first called a king, the king would say his rank was chosen in him; if he first called a learned man, he would say his learning was chosen. Those who were called to humility had to be called through humble men. And so Christ did not gain a fisherman from an emperor, but an emperor from a fisherman.

25. Now kings come to Rome. A great thing, brethren, how it has been fulfilled. When it was being said, when it was being written, none of these things existed. It is wonderful: attend and see, rejoice. Let those be curious who are unwilling to attend to it; for these things we wish them to be curious: let them forsake the crimes and trifles of vain curiosities, let them at some time be curious about the divine Scriptures, let them find that the things they now see were foretold so long before. For they wonder that in the name of the crucified one the human race runs together and flocks, from kings to those clothed in rags. No age has been passed over, no sect, no teaching. For it is not that the unlearned believed and the learned did not believe, or the lowborn believed and the noble did not believe, or women believed and men did not believe, or boys believed and old men did not believe, or servants believed and the free did not believe. Every age has been called to salvation, every age has now come, every dignity, every abundance and human means. Now let all be within. Now few have remained outside and still argue; let them at length wake up at least to the noise of the world: the whole world cries out.

26. Kings come, as I had begun to say, to Rome. There are the temples of the emperors who by their pride exacted divine honors for themselves from men and, because they could—for they were kings and rulers—extorted rather than merited them. From whom could a fisherman extort any such thing? There is the tomb of the fisherman, there is the temple of the emperor. Peter is there in a tomb, Hadrian is there in a temple. The temple of Hadrian, the memorial of Peter. The emperor comes. Let us see where he runs, where he wished to bend his knees: in the temple of the emperor, or in the memorial of the fisherman? His diadem laid aside, he beats his breast where is the body of the fisherman, whose merits he considers, whose crown he believes, through whom he desires to come to God, by whose prayers he feels and finds himself helped. See what that crucified one, mocked on the cross, did; see whence he laid the nations low, not with the raging sword, but with the mocked wood. Let the proud, then, drink the cup of humility, with Christ humbled. Let them deign to be humble, let them now know their medicine, let them come and believe.

27. Exhort them, brethren, not only with words, but also with your conduct, and we exhort them now not to delay. For perhaps some think and say: "Tomorrow I will be a Christian." If tomorrow it is good, today too it is good. For that he may be a Christian, he is not to ask an astrologer for a day. God made every day. That is a good day for you on which you have done something good. If, then, it is good to believe in Christ, that by faith the heart may be cleansed and that eye healed which is to see so great a light, why is it deferred, why has the crow's voice remained in men? "Tomorrow, tomorrow," says the crow, which, sent from the ark, did not return; the dove returned. The crow cries "tomorrow," the dove daily groans. Let there not, then, be in you the voice of one deferring, but the groan of one confessing. Whoever are wearied by hearing, let them pardon the eager. Whoever still wish to hear, let them pardon the wearied, because we too are pressed by time to finish the sermon. For we see your eagerness in Christ to be so great that you could hear more, but we cannot hold the time. Whoever are here who have not believed, see, we are here, see, here is the Church: if they will, let them believe. If they think it should be deferred, which, I think, they ought now not to think, let them make room for those about to perform the divine mysteries.
And after the pagans had gone out:

28. Now, brethren, both yesterday we said to you and now we say and always we ask, that by living well you may gain those who have not yet believed, lest you too have believed in vain. We ask you that, as the word of God pleases you, so it may please also in your conduct, not in the ear alone, but in the heart, not in the heart alone, but in your life, that you may be the family of God, fit and pleasing in his eyes for every good work. Altogether, brethren, we do not doubt that, if you live worthily of God, soon none of those who have not yet believed will remain in unbelief.

Sermon 198
Augm. (Dolbeau 26)

1. {We admonish your love, since we see that you have come together as it were solemnly and are gathered at this hour and at this place more frequently than usual, that again and again you remember what you were just now singing, lest the tongue be resounding while the heart is mute, but that what you sounded with your voice into one another's ears you cry with affection into the ears of God. But this you sang: Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may confess to your holy name (Ps 106:47 (105:47)). And now, if the solemnity of the nations which takes place on this day in worldly and carnal joy, in the noise of most vain and most base songs, in the celebration of that false festivity, if the things which the nations do today do not delight you, you are gathered from the nations.

2. You surely sang, and still the sound of the divine song is fresh in your ears: Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations. Who can be gathered from the nations, except when he is made safe? Those, then, who are mingled with the nations are not safe. But those are saved who are gathered from the nations, saved by the salvation of faith, by spiritual salvation, by the salvation of God's promises, by the salvation of good hope, by the salvation of most sincere love. He, then, who believes and hopes and loves is not at once now to be called saved. For it matters what he believes, what he hopes, what he loves. For no one lives in any life whatever without these three affections of the soul: of believing, of hoping, of loving. If you do not believe what the nations believe, do not hope what the nations hope, do not love what the nations love, you are gathered from the nations. And let not the bodily mingling in so great a separation of mind terrify you. For what is so separated as that they, the demons, believe in gods, you believe in God who is the true God? that they hope for the empty things of the world, you hope for eternal life in Christ? that they love the world, 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. You are going to perform today the celebration of new-year gifts with a pagan, you are going to play dice with a pagan, you are going to make yourself drunk with a pagan: how do you believe one thing, hope another, love another? how with unblushing brow do you sing: Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations? For you are separated from the nations, mingled in body with the nations, by an unlike life. And see how great this separation is, 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 became man, has given a price for us. And so, if he has now given a price, he gave it to this end, that he might redeem us, that he might gather us from the nations. But if you are mingled with the nations, you do not wish to follow him who redeemed. But you are mingled in life, in deeds, in heart, by hoping 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 immaculate Lamb. That you may, then, follow your redeemer, who redeemed you by his blood, do not be mingled with the nations by likeness of conduct and deeds. They give new-year gifts, you give alms (See Luke 11:41).} For we do not say to you, brethren: "They give, do you 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, do you not believe; they hope, do you not hope; they love, do you 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 to those, you give this or to these." They give, then, new-year gifts, you give alms. {They commit themselves to the chances of earthly things, 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, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations. Now those who have gladly heard what I said certainly stand with those who have not gladly heard,} and yet those are now gathered from the nations, those are mingled with the nations.

3. {I now speak to Christians:} if you believe what the nations believe, if you hope what the nations hope, if you love what the nations love, live as the nations live; {but if you believe one thing, hope another, love another, live otherwise, and prove your differing faith and hope and love by differing conduct.} What is it that the nations believe? As I have already said, they call those gods whom the apostle Paul shows us otherwise: {For what, he says, the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not wish you to become partners of demons (1 Cor 10:20). Therefore the conduct of those men delights their gods. But he who said: I do not wish you to become partners of demons, willed that we be separated in life and conduct from those who serve demons. For those demons are delighted by the songs of vanity, are delighted by frivolous noise and the various basenesses of the theaters, the madness of the circus, the cruelty of the amphitheater, the spirited contests of those who, for the sake of pestilent men, undertake both quarrels and contentions even to enmities, for a mime, for an actor, for a charioteer, for a hunter. Those doing these things as it were set incense to the demons from their hearts. For the seducing spirits rejoice in the seduced, and are fed by the evil conduct 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: "Surely I love him," because, even if he denies it, he is caught favoring him, shouting for him, quarreling for him. And if you add: "You love him greatly," he will answer: "Greatly." If you say to him: "May you be such, and your sons," at once, if he appears honorable, in vexation he will answer: "Why have you done me an injury?" "Do I do you an injury, when I say: May you be such, or do you, who so love such a one as you dread to be?" You, on the contrary, love the martyrs. Therefore, 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," he answers: "Would that God might bestow this!" How sincere is this love, how chaste, how secure, especially of one already crowned! For of one still struggling love is anxious, but yet all are loved in him who has already conquered, already sits at the right hand of the Father, already from above, as it were the umpire of that contest which Paul recalls, not only watches those struggling, but also helps those enduring.

4. {And so many will struggle today in their heart with the word they have heard. For we said: Do not give new-year gifts, give to the poor. It is too little to give only as much, give even more. Do you not wish to give more? at least give as much. But you say to me: "When I give new-year gifts, I too receive." What then? When you give to a poor man, will you receive nothing? Surely you do not believe what the nations believe, surely you do not hope what the nations hope, surely you do not love what the nations love. See, if you say that you receive nothing when you have given to a poor man, you have become equal to the gentiles, in vain you have sung: Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations. You have forgotten what will be said to those who have given: Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom, 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 25:34, 41). If he so gave the kingdom to these as to give nothing to those but only forsake them, you ought to love what he gives and to be unwilling to be cheated of so vast and ineffable a good. But it is not only this, that he sends these into the kingdom, but those he does not, but he even 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 said, but as long as you do it by fearing, you do it as a servant; but when you do it loving, you now do it free. Be a good servant, that you may merit to be free. Begin to fear the one you may love, whom, when you have loved, 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: love will be born there, and so, as much as love grows, fear will decrease; as much as that is increased, this will be diminished; when that is perfected, this is excluded. 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 will you sing: Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations. For you are still nations, drawing the yoke with unbelievers. 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, like it or not: let us say what we know; let them do what they will, only let them know that they do not do for nothing whatever they do. For there is a reward not only for good deeds, but also for evil ones. 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 with 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 impious into his body. And by that very fasting he hungered, when, finding no fruit on that tree, he cursed it, and it withered. What is it that he says: I clothed myself with sackcloth? As it were with his power hidden within the weakness of the flesh, I set that same mortal flesh before the eyes of the persecutors. For in that flesh, which he had taken on from the oldness of our mortality without any sin of his own, he bore our sins. And to sins surely the sackcloth pertains, on account of the haircloth of the hair of goats which will be set at the left, 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 yet rendered for us what he did not owe, that he might free us from the debt. In that sackcloth he bore our price. For from sackcloth (saccus) the little bag (saccellus) too is named by diminution. But he bore our great price in the sackcloth with which he clothed himself, setting it before the persecutors, from whose impiety 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 world flowed out. Therefore your Lord 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 life for us, so we ought to lay down our life for the brethren (1 John 3:16). If we cannot yet suffer for the nations, we can at least fast for the nations. How far you are from the imitation of your Lord! and when you have fasted, how far still you are from it! And it is good that you come near. But how do you shudder at that very perfection, whose step you fear, a step so near, so humble! This step is near, on the ground—I do not know whether it is even to be called a step—which you are unwilling to ascend. For what great thing is it to fast at this time, at so small a day to dine late? It is not great, it is not at all laborious. The care of one piece of business often compels you to do what you are unwilling to display to God out of devotion. Because the Church of God wishes it, you are unwilling to fast. If you played dice, you would fast, and you would fast that you might not rise conquered. That you may conquer, fearing lest you be conquered in money by a man, you would fast, and you do not fast, not fearing lest you be conquered in heart by the devil. For nothing is easier in such small days than fasting. But on the first of January you are unwilling 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 very exhortation grows warm in the heart. We kindle something in your minds: we see, we recognize it, but let that flame seize firewood. For from this place a little after, the sermon ended, you are going to go 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 grow frozen. And so, brethren, as I said, let the divine word seize the firewood of your heart. But if it seizes it, those storms which you are going to suffer a little after, outside, will rather kindle a greater flame—not extinguish it—if it is not a small little fire that can be extinguished. If your heart now burns as tow, when you cry out, when you love, when you rejoice in the word of God, you are going to go out a little after, and by the breath of one mouth it will be extinguished, 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 burns like coals of fire, however much by perverse persuasion contrary blasts arise, they will increase the fire and kindle it more vehemently. But those burn like coals who have revived. For coals, when they burn, as it were revive from the dead. Many have this word too in their custom; when they send to kindle, they say: "Bring living ones," wishing them to be understood as burning. Whence surely they signify the extinguished ones to be as it were dead. If, then, you have revived by the fervor of the love of Christ, let the desire of him 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 come together. For that you come together more frequently in these days does not displease us, rather it even pleases us. For you have found a way, because those whose conduct is not like yours hasten to other things and occupy themselves in various vain pleasures, and so they furnish you leisure and vacancy, that there may be brought about in you what was said: Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations. Therefore you are gathered now; even if you go out and are mingled with them by bodily intercourse, yet do not consent to them in evil and frivolous things, you will remain gathered from the nations, wherever you are in body. And would that you suffer the wicked dissuaders only in the streets, and not perhaps even in your houses! The father wishes to fast, the son does not, or the son wishes, the father does not; or the husband wishes, the wife does not, or she wishes and he does not. He, then, who does not wish, and therefore does not wish because he thinks this a festal day, 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 brethren, if you understand well what you hear, I do not doubt that you grieve over those who are still held by that madness. You grieve over them, because you too were perhaps once held by such madness; and now your heart is healthy, which you have compared to their madness, and pitying you grieve, but 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 over him, pray for him. But that your prayer may be heard, fast for him and give alms, and in this spend the day for him whom you love—while he, not loving himself, spends it 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 with you grieve over others and with you pray and fast for them. For, brethren, although the other days too hold them in trifles, yet especially on their solemnities a greater license of trifles rouses them to a greater love of the world and the ruin of pleasures. For when one does it in his own house, with cooler neighborhoods he goes less mad; but when all do it, they kindle one another. But I have already said to you: their ardor is your cold. Every love is an ardor. But it matters what is loved. When the heart burns for the world, it is cold to God. Therefore let it grow cold to the world, let it burn to God. When, therefore, they do these things more fervently and more frequently, just as they rouse themselves to wickedness against themselves, so let them rouse you to mercy for them. They are indeed always to be grieved over, 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 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 movement make for you a new grief, if you are a Christian, if you have mercy, because, when you were not what you are, the Church had mercy on you, which was then in a few. But now grown up and spread copiously and widely in the name of Christ, are not those more to be grieved over who are still even now heavy of heart and love vanity and seek a lie? To those surely who, now separated from the human race by I know not what most hardened obstinacy, have remained few, a greater grief is owed, because a greater disease makes them vanish and not be healed by the authority of so great a medicine.

9. And would that we lamented only the pagans! We would lament almost no one. Let not Christians go to the theaters: the pagans flee thence, even if not from love of the truth, at least from shame at their fewness. A greater sacrifice of prayers must surely 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, brethren, rather it is a most opportune fast, when it is done for those who labor because they will, who, if they were unwilling, would not labor. For they are pressed by their own sins and rejoice together over their most filthy pleasures, and do not hear the voice of him who says: Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, 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 festal days of the Christians as the drunken 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 justice by a burden of the heart. The Lord says, the truth says: Let not your hearts be weighed down in surfeiting and drunkenness (Luke 21:34). It is foolish and irreligious to wish to please the martyrs by that which they, if they had 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 these, given over to the wickedness of pleasures and drunkenness, certain of them themselves despise 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 and the philosophers of the world, as though endowed with excellent teaching. But let them not terrify you. One thing is greatness, another is swelling. For what swells too appears as it were great, but it is not healthy. Hear the Apostle saying: Beware lest anyone seduce you through philosophy and empty seduction according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world and not according to Christ, because 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 learnedly and as it were prudently interpret their idols, they flee to the elements of the world. You reproach someone because he worships 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 hearing-of-prayers; but as it were a more skilled and more learned pagan, what does he say to you? "The unskilled pagans do this, that they adore an idol as an idol, just as yours too do who adore columns in the church."

11. Therefore I say, brethren: do not do anything whence the pagans may insult us; so enter the church that you do not give occasion to the pagans why they should be unwilling to enter the church. For on account of the brotherly assembly the church is entered. 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 for the sake of God's eyes—for he sees all things, just as he created all things—but lest your eyes be offended and turn away your attention, how much more ought you to cleanse where you call upon and to which you call upon God? Your inner chamber, into which you enter and shut the door, as the Lord himself says, that is, the sense of your body, have barred against the corporeal enticements; but the brotherly assembly makes ardor in praying and praising God. As, if some weight were being moved, and that which is called the work-chant were sung, would not the very multitude of those singing together and working together, harmonious in the same voice and most concordant in the same effort, rouse even your feeble strength, so that you too would wish to hold the rope and rejoice in the partnership of that work? The assemblies of the brethren, 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 adorers will adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father too seeks such to adore him. God is a spirit, and those who adore him must adore in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). If, then, God is to be sought in spirit, let there be a dwelling: the dweller will be present. We will 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 the 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 alone does God hear: in prison he heard the martyrs. What house, he says, will you build me, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make these things? (Isa 66:1-2) And yet he said that he has a place in the pious heart of man. For he says: Upon whom does my Spirit rest? Upon the humble and quiet one who trembles at my words (See Isa 66:2).

12. Why did we say this? Lest, when we insult the pagans, we do something whence the pagans may insult us. Come to the places of the martyrs in such a way that from the places there may be a pious commemoration in your hearts, and from the honor of the martyrs there may arise affection toward God, who did not abandon the martyrs in tribulation, who helped them as they fought, who crowned them as they conquered. So you make yourselves worthy, for whom the martyrs may pray. Otherwise a good servant is greatly indignant, if, his Lord despised, he himself is adored, a good servant who has even been made a son from a servant. For one thing is one who is still a servant, who is going to be also a son from 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, and yet he permits it, saying: Whether by occasion or in truth, let Christ be announced (Phil 1:18). But the servants are those who by fear do what is commanded by the Lord. They are indeed of the house, and more inward in the great house than the hired men; from those servants are made sons, when they begin to serve out of love. Therefore, as I had begun to say, the great house has all. What do we think of the martyrs, my brethren? Far be it that we reckon them among the hired men, but neither among those who are not yet sons! For they loved Christ and, before the love of him, despised not only all the pleasures of the world, but even all torments, inebriated with the cup of his Spirit, of which it is said: Your inebriating cup, how glorious it is! (Ps 23:5 (22:5)) Therefore the good servant, as I said, who is now also called a son, does not wish himself to be adored, but his Lord. Attend, brethren, and remember what you daily frequent, 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, and let the catechumens hasten to know. For who repels them? To whom who wills does what is closed to one deferring not lie open?

13. But let us attend, brethren, to what the good servants did while still set in this body, when they were honored by men and began to be worshiped as the 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 far as they could, who was the one to be adored, in whose power they did these things. Attend to these things, brethren, that you may be strong and fortified against the pagans even of the more elegant sort. Why do I say "more elegant," who are rather more in 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 the pious humility which the humble God came to teach alone. Or will someone perhaps say: "Therefore Paul and Barnabas rejected the honor of sacrifices which was offered them, because they made the one Jupiter, the other Mercury, false gods whom the apostles by Christian religion detested, and therefore they were indignant at being compared to demons or idols, not because they wished God to be adored rather than themselves"? They would, then, say this to those wishing 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 themselves nor to anyone, but that from these vanities one ought to turn to the one God, saying: Men, what are you doing? We are men like you, announcing to you that from these vain things you turn 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 impious that they did not reject these sacrifices because they thought an injury was being done them, but that God alone might be honored, to whose worship, that all might be turned, they especially labored, 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, by the word of God rose and walked, he was unwilling for glory to be given to himself, but to Christ, and he says: 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 (See Acts 3:12-13).

14. But if this is too little, what men did, that they wished glory to be given not to themselves but to God, behold 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 by elation against God nor saying: I will set my seat in the north and I will be like the Most High (See 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 part the northern is contrary: therefore it signifies the cold and dark. But noon signifies the illumined and 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 mist. With them at noon God feeds and lies down, whence it was said: Where you feed, where you lie down at noon, not with those of whose part the devil says: I will set my seat in the north and I will be like the Most High. For he could not be adored except by such, that they might think him god. That angel, then, remaining at noon, fervent with holiness and bright with wisdom, was demonstrating certain things in the Apocalypse to the apostle John. But he, disturbed, fell at the feet of the angel.

15. See, brethren, above all, to what angels the humble men are like and to what 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 obscured, and they themselves choose a seat in the north. For men would not follow them, the Church forsaken, as it were following Christ, unless darkened in understanding and estranged from the fervor of love. But to what are those like who, holding humility, choose to be cast away in the house of the Lord, rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners (See Ps 84:10 (83:11))? {What did Simon wish, but to be praised in miracles, to be exalted in pride? For this very thing compelled him to think the gift of the Holy Spirit was to be bought with money. To which pride contrary, the Apostle, in humility, remaining at noon, fervent in spirit, shining in prudence, says: Neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (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 refused to be worshiped in place of Christ, how he is zealous for the bridegroom and is unwilling to display himself to a fornicating soul in place of the bridegroom?} Such, then, those saints were according to their measure—for they will be perfect like the angels after the resurrection of the body—but yet according to their measure, just as they themselves, they rejected the honor which men as it were properly offered them, while they wished him to be worshiped and all hearts turned to him, in whom they themselves too gloried, truly good and faithful servants, sons, such are also the holy angels. For even though still men set in the flesh and placed in such great temptations, they rejected the honor that was conferred on them unto pride, that the one might be honored in all who alone has been honored without peril to the one honoring. For that he may be honored, where do they set themselves? how do they cast themselves down? {Does it not seem a great thing to plant and to water? But neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters. He says that he is not anything for 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. 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 that which I had begun to narrate, and be healthfully instructed why you have leisure for God. That angel, then, was showing in the Apocalypse wonderful and mystical visions to the apostle John, servant of Christ, 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 him by a 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 brethren (See Rev 19:10)." Why did we say this? Behold the sum. We had begun to deal with the pagans as the more learned—for those are more unlearned, from whom these are unwilling to be prescribed to—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 the Church does not teach you this. 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 columns or stones of buildings in holy places or even pictures be not adored? Rather, their very priests, turned to 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 but the sun? For the interpretations of other images perhaps have hidden meanings. For now let us leave these things and set them aside a little to be taken up again. The image of the sun surely signifies nothing but the sun, and that of the moon the moon, and that of Tellus the earth. If, then, they do not adore what 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 of them in their place? For if what is signified were not seen, rightly would the sign be adored in place of the thing which is signified. But since they see the sun which is signified by the image of the sun, why do they set their back to the one who is signified, and their face to the sign by which he is signified? For if they did not make images for those things which are seen and made them only of those which are not seen, they could deceive the less prudent and say: "See, we worship the sun. But because we see it, we have set up no image of it. Likewise too the moon and the stars, as we see them, so we worship them; 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 talent or soul or virtue or justice—these now are invisible—we set up for them visible images, that, seeing and adoring them, we may venerably think of those invisible things." But now they are most openly convicted of being given over to the images themselves, not to those things which are signified through the images, when they have made images even of visible things set before the eyes of all. The sun has an image, which if they adored in the sky, they would justly be reproached by piety and most true religion. Besides, they have come to such madness that they set their back to the sun and their face to its image. How will so perverse a one hear you, when you forsake him and turn to his false and most deceitful image made by the hand of a man? As if you should come to the house of the head of a household to ask something, and he stood in his courtyard, but you turned your back to him and your face to the panel where he is painted, and as if you poured out the prayers of your desire not only not to the man but to the picture, indeed even with the man himself present, whose image that picture is, would he not order you, mocked or reckoned as it were mad, to be driven from his house? Nothing would be like this folly which these men do, even if the sun were to be adored. But because these things are not to be adored, we will speak in the name of the Lord, if he gives space and means. But now how these men are caught in their works, this we say. You made a temple of the moon, you placed in it an image; the moon itself rises daily, scarcely for two or three days in a month can it not be seen: adore it, if it is to be adored, if you have now come to this disgrace, that you wish to adore a visible creature as God, than which surely the invisible creature is better, which yet is not itself, but only the Creator, 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 are present for you to adore, except because men are given over to the things which they made with their own 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 something else which is signified through this image." What is Neptune? "The sea," he says. This is the whole understanding, 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 sea and all that is in them. But you, 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 inlanders, then, who do not see the sea itself, ought to have images of Neptune, that those who do not have the thing might have a sign in place of the thing. But now they have made the shrine of Neptune beside the sea itself, and setting their back to the sea they adore Neptune. Nor do the very waves resounding behind them turn the adorer to themselves, and—what is more foolish—he who prays wishes the sea to be silent and the statue to hear, because, namely, the sea has hearing not in its salt waves, but in the alien airy ears.

19. So too the image of Tellus. "It is not," he says, "this which you see that is worshiped, but this signifies the earth." This, even if he did not say it, would appear. In vain does he wish to bring forth as it were from a mystery what he cries out in the name. For Tellus is by another word the earth. Yet they call the same one mother earth, for whom they made a temple and an image. See, I understand, as of the sun, as of the moon: there is no need that he expound it; for these images are called the same as the very things of which they are images, which surely we see and which appear most well-known. Or is it perhaps that they add "mother," that this is to be learned? "She is," they say, "the mother of all things that are begotten." And let her be the mother of all things that are begotten: shall I therefore adore the earth, and not him who said: Let the earth bring forth whatever it brought forth (See Gen 1:11)? For without his word it would not only be barren, but would not exist at all. What, then, does this man, as it were a narrator of mysteries, wishing to turn me from the Creator and turn me to the creature, what does he expound to me as a great thing, 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 (colant) the earth, not by adoring it, but by plowing it.

20. So I ask about the image of Juno: now here we desire a mystical interpreter. For Juno does not, like mother earth, show by her own name what she signifies, or the image of the sun or moon. The secret of Juno, then, is great. What secret, I ask you? "This," he says, "few know." Perhaps from those few many have heard and told it. Perhaps even their own writings betray to those to whom they do not wish it betrayed what they worship, although our writings too betray to them what we worship, but we do not fear. Our books are carried about publicly for sale: the light does not blush. Let them buy, read, believe; or let them buy, read, mock. That Scripture knows how to hold guilty those who read and do not believe. The book is carried around 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 such a price as each has? Zacchaeus bought him with half his patrimony, the widow bought him with two small coins, the poor host bought him by offering a cup of cold water; and he is possessed by all the buyers: to none is he too narrow, he enlarges all. Such is he who is preached in the book. Buy the book and read, we do not blush. You, hide the books of your rites in hidden caves; so great is the curiosity of men that they both search out and betray.

21. {What, then, is Juno? "Juno," they say, "is the air." Just now they invited 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. This, then, the apostle Paul forewarning in his letter: Beware, he says, lest anyone deceive you through philosophy and empty seduction, according to the elements of this world (See Col 2:8). For he was touching those very men, who as it were more prudently expound idols. Therefore when he said: Through philosophy, in the same place he says: According to the elements of this world. He admonished that not any sort whatever, as it were adorers of images, but as it were more learned interpreters of signs, were to be guarded against.} "Therefore," they say, "Juno is the air." Let them call by whatever name a thing known to all: I will not worship the air, because neither can it be worshiped, as the earth is worshiped 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 so worked nor is it to be adored. Praise the work, adore the worker. "That you may know," they say, "that the air is Juno, the Greeks call her so: {she is called hra in Greek; but era often repeated sounds aer (air)." But we, who say that one must serve the one Creator in religion, do not adore Juno for this reason, that it is an image; we do not adore it for this reason, that it is a creature.

22. But this I ask of these men: if I worship God alone, will the air be angry; for if I worship the air, God is angry; although he is always tranquil and without any disturbance administers and rules all that he created, yet in a certain unspeakable manner God is angry. He who, since 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 himself to be worshiped not to this end, that he himself be more exalted, but that man be better. For he does not need worshipers, but you need to worship. 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 to be worshiped, whoever else requires it and arrogates to himself privately, that he as it were properly be worshiped, for whom it does not suffice to be worshiped in him who founded him, requires it out of pride. And the pride of the devil is to be avoided, that we humble may come to the height of God. For the devil alone wishes himself 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 (See Isa 14:13-14).

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

24. "When I worship Mercury," he says, "I worship talent; talent is not seen, it is something invisible." Clearly we too concede that talent is something invisible, and so invisible and such a thing that it is better than heaven, than earth, than sea and all these things that are seen; an invisible substance indeed, since it is a certain life, better than every visible substance, because everything visible is a body. And talent is a certain great thing: yet if you consider that very talent which they say they worship, what has it done? Do not many err with great talent? And perhaps especially those very men who think talent is to be worshiped in the image of Mercury. If, then, human talent can err without God as guide, when human talent is healthy, it does not wish to be adored in place of God, but wishes him to be adored by whom it wishes to be illumined. For unless human talent is illumined by God who illumines, it is dark in its own errors. But I ask you what you worship in Mercury? "Talent," you said. Talent is a certain middle thing, because talent either, turned away from the Creator, is darkened and made foolish, or, turned to the Creator, is illumined and made wise. But you said something middle, when you said you worship talent. "Yes," he says, "middle, for the very name of Mercury sounds as it were running in the middle." For Mercury is said to be named as it were running in the middle. If, then, he is worshiped for this reason, that he is a certain middle thing, why is not he rather worshiped who recalls to himself the middle thing which you call talent, that, suspended from lower things and turned away, he may make it cohere to himself, such as are the talents of the saints, the talents of the martyrs, the talents of the angels? For if talent be such as that of this angel whom I recalled, illumined 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 brethren." Should you, then, worship a middle talent, whence a better talent may reproach you? For if you worship a middle talent, an illumined talent will reproach you. Why? Because the illumined talent does not wish talent to be worshiped, but the illuminator of talents. For by that very illumination it is kindly and benevolent, and wishes all talents to be turned to him, by whom it knows itself too to have been illumined. Or does a foolish talent perhaps wish itself to be worshiped? Clearly this is true. Beware, then, lest, when you wish to worship Mercury as talent, you worship the devil, who has a foolish talent. For the devil too, when he said: I will set my seat in the north and I will be like the Most High, 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 talent 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. Attend 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 any sort whatever, but those who think themselves more learned and interpreters of images, and are inflated and inflate others and, empty, mock the true name of truth. Every creature, as I said, is either corporeal or spiritual. Corporeal, as the earth and all that is begotten in it, as the sea and all that swims or creeps in it, as the air and all that flies in it, as heaven and all that shines in it. All this creature is corporeal. But the spiritual is better than the corporeal. What is the spiritual creature? That which is not perceived 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, whether failing as in the impious, or making progress as in the converted, or perfect as in the angels and archangels, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers of the higher dwelling. Since, then, the creature is either corporeal or spiritual, nor can a third be found, the highest bodies, than which there are no better, are the heavenly ones. Now what is beyond—not by intervals of place, but by force of nature—is not body, but spirit: a certain life, but a changeable life, because a creature; the true unchangeable life is the Creator. The changeable life, then, that is, the spiritual creature, is also formable and illuminable, that is, which can be formed and illumined; but the unchangeable life, that is, the very substance of the Creator, is the creatrix and illuminatrix. The creature is formed and illumined, but the Creator forms and illumines.

26. Attend and understand. Every life, then, which can be illumined and arrive at wisdom, when it is of good will, loves God who illumines it, and turned to him makes progress and, clinging to him, is formed unto the integrity and perfection of wisdom, and in its own kind unto the fullness of beatitude: namely the rational and intellectual life, such as is that of the angels, such as is that of men. If, then, such a life, when it is praiseworthy, loves its illuminator, every such life, by a culpable will forsaking the life that illumines it, is darkened and made proud, as is that either of the unjust angel or of the unjust man: for it is unwilling to cling to God, but wishes by a certain private arrogance to be held as God. Into this certain proud and unjust life, fallen and turned, the archangel was made the devil and his angels and those demons, and they received a certain space of this dark air, where they rule over all unjust men. And therefore the Apostle: According to the prince, he says, of the power of this air, who now works in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2). And again, exhorting to endure the persecutions of this world: Ours is not, he says, a struggle against flesh and blood, that is, against men, but against the principalities, he says, and powers and rulers of this world of darkness, against the spiritual things 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 sons of disobedience, lest they attend to men and think they struggle with those through whom they suffered persecutions, and not behold in mind that enemy whom in Christ they ought to conquer: Yours is not, he says, a struggle against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers and rulers of this world of darkness, and against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places. For lest, calling them rulers of the world, he be thought to say that they are rulers of this whole fabric which God founded, he showed what he called the world, by adding and saying: of this darkness. And what 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 light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). So too what he said, in the heavenly places, it must be understood that he said it not in those high seats of the holy angels, where the luminaries and stars too are set, but because this air too is called heaven, whence the birds too are called birds of heaven.

27. Let your holiness, then, attend, that the mercy of the Lord may illumine you. For we sound with the ears; within he acts, as we believe, as we hope of the mercy of him to whom we sing praises. Therefore, as I had begun to say, the 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; there the hearts of men grow cold, and, made cold from that fire of divine wisdom, cannot be wise about spiritual things. And so they begin to think of bodies alone, so that they seek even the divinity itself in bodies, that is, in the sea, in the earth, in the air, and especially 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 shines to the eyes, even if it tower above the place of the world, is thought great. But if anyone says to them that there is something great which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, they say that it is not a thing which 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 some way raised their hearts and as much as they could sharpened them by study, that they might see something which cannot be seen with the eyes of the body, transcending—which was easy—the earth which they trod and all things that are on the earth, transcending also the sea and whatever swims or creeps in it, transcending also the air and all the birds—for it too is a corporeal element—transcending all that aethereal heaven with all the luminaries that shine there or whatever others perhaps lie hidden, saw that there is something which is not seen, such as is the mind, such as talent, such as reason; they saw too that this too changes, and they sought something unchangeable, they passed by thought and the keenness of the mind even the spiritual creature, and understood the Creator spirit, and as it were beaten back by the unaccustomed brilliance of wisdom they returned, as it were about to rest in the darkness of their flesh, and certain of them perceived that there was need of a purgation of their soul, which, cleansed from all carnal concupiscences, might be made fit to obtain that whose ineffable light had struck it.

28. Attend, my brethren, and grievingly mark. They saw that there was need for them of a purgation, that that light which cannot be grasped by the weak gaze of the mind, the same gaze healed and formed and strengthened, might be able to be grasped. They saw that there was need of a medicine, and the devil at once interposed himself to those seeking that very medicine, because they sought proudly, boasting themselves as it were in their teachings, especially because they were able, if any were able, to attain, by the keenness of their talent and the sharpness of their mind, all creatures both corporeal and spiritual being transcended, to know that there is something which is both spiritual and unchangeable, and that from it are all these things which subsist whether spiritually or corporeally; but that that Creator is not moved by places, is not moved by times, since bodies are moved by places and times; but 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 it is a certain middle thing, because the highest God is moved neither by places nor by times, but the substance of bodies—that is, the lowest creature—is moved both by places and by times. Whence that 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 a purgation, that proud devil forestalled those seeking proudly and boasting themselves proudly, and set himself in place of a mediator, through whom it might seem to them that their souls could be purged. He, persuading them by certain signs of his pride that he was necessary, that it might seem to men that through magic arts the soul could be purged which wishes to come to God, instituted sacrilegious rites in temples, which promise purgation to the sacrilegious. For many images, as Scripture says, were instituted from the honors of men who were held great, whether absent or dead. All which things, now taken away in the name of Christ by public laws, have ceased to be done publicly, since some of them had been 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 unjust enemy of souls set himself in place of a mediator, hear the Apostle teaching why he set himself there, namely because their pride gave him place. Whence he admonishes, saying: Neither give place to the devil (Eph 4:27). But how we may find out their pride, let the same Apostle say. And first let us attend that even certain 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 had not come to salvation. For it is one thing to come to the knowledge of God, another to come to salvation, where that very knowledge too is made full, when the knower clings to the known. When the Apostle was speaking among the Athenians as to pagan men, because they themselves boasted of the summit of their teaching above the other nations, and among them was as it were the highest philosophy—for there indeed arose the learned and wise of this world—when, therefore, the Apostle was speaking there, he did not bring forth to them testimonies from the prophets, but he brought forth from their own and did not keep 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. Among the Athenians, then, the Apostle, when he spoke of God, says: In him we live, are moved, and are, as certain even of your own have said (Acts 17:28).

30. But what kind those certain were and why they were disapproved, expounding in another place: {The wrath of God is revealed from heaven over all impiety (Rom 1:18). What do we understand by over impiety, but both of Jews and of nations? But lest it be said: "Why is the wrath of God revealed over the impiety of the nations, since you said over all? For did the nations receive the law and become transgressors? Rightly is the wrath of God revealed over the Jews, to whom the law was given and they were unwilling to keep it; but to the nations it was not given," consider, brethren, and understand how the same Apostle shows all to be guilty, and all to need salvation and the mercy of God. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven over all impiety and injustice of men, of those who hold the truth in iniquity (Rom 1:18). Understand, brethren, see how he did not say: "They do not have the truth," but: The truth, he says, they hold in iniquity. And as if you should ask, saying: "How can they have the truth, who did not receive the law?", 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 them who did not receive the law? It follows and says: For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made; his everlasting power too and divinity (Rom 1:20), surely we supply "is understood and clearly seen." Through what is it seen? Through the things that are made.

31. For why does 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 heaven shining with stars, you recognize the changes of the seasons, you consider the fourfold year, that the leaves fall and return to the trees, that numbers are given to seeds, that there are for each thing its measures, its weights, that all things are administered in their orders, that the higher heaven has all its peace, that the lower earth has its own beauty proper to its kind of things yielding and succeeding: beholding all these things, you now behold all things quickened by a spiritual creature, and do you not seek the artificer 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 whereby you may see these, another whereby he himself may be seen—for seeing these things he gave the eyes of the body, for seeing himself he gave the mind—therefore you are not permitted to say in vain: "I do not see him"; look at these things according to the understanding, and you will see the worker. For neither do you see the soul of a man; for the soul of a man is not seen, but from the administration of the body, when we behold him walking, working, speaking, moving all the members according to the proper offices of each, we say: "He lives, there is in him that which we do not see," and we understand this through these things which we see. As, then, from the movements and administration of the body you understand the soul, which you do not see, so from the administration 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 which I had begun to say from the beginning. The wrath of God, he says, is revealed from heaven over all impiety and injustice of men, who hold the truth in iniquity, because what is known of God is manifest in them: for God has manifested it to them (Rom 1:18-19). And as if you should ask whence he manifested it, the invisible things, he says, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made; his everlasting power too and divinity—that is, is understood and clearly seen—that they may be, he says, inexcusable (Rom 1:20). Why inexcusable? For because he had said: The truth they hold in iniquity, he shows how. Because knowing God, he says—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 became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened (Rom 1:21). By what desert, but of pride? For see what follows: For saying themselves to be wise, he says, they became fools (Rom 1:22). For they ought not to arrogate to themselves what he had given, nor boast themselves of that which they had not from themselves, but from him: which surely had to be rendered to him, so that, for holding that which they could see, they might be healed by him who had given that they might see. For if they did this, they would keep humility, and could be purged and cohere to that most blessed contemplation. For to such the true and truthful physician would be revealed, the mediator, the stormer of pride, the exalter of humility. But you will say: "Was he not yet born humbly?" But he would be revealed through prophecy, just as he was revealed to Abraham—for the Lord himself said: Abraham desired to see my day, and he saw it, and rejoiced (See John 8:56)—just as he was revealed to the other fathers and prophets. For so they were saved by faith in the one to be born and to suffer, just as we, born and having suffered, are saved. But it is not to be wondered at that he revealed himself to their humility and veiled himself from their pride. But because pride was in them, the false and deceitful and proud one interposed himself, who promised them that through I-know-not-what arts of pride their souls would be purged, and made them worshipers of demons, that is, of evil angels. Hence all the sacraments which are celebrated by the pagans, which they say avail for the purgation of their souls.

33. And hear the Apostle saying this consequently, that as the wage of their pride they received these things, because they did not so honor God as God is to be honored. Their foolish heart, he says, was darkened. Saying themselves to be wise, they became fools (Rom 1:21-22), now indeed through that false mediator, who rejoices in images, who rejoices when unclean cattle are fed—that is, the swine which that younger son fed, having gone far from the father: for as the Lord is near to those who have crushed the heart (Ps 34:18 (33:19)), that is, the humble, so the Lord is far from those who have exalted the heart, that is, the proud. Saying, he says, themselves to be wise, they became fools, and 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, such as the Apostle next mentions—when he had said: Into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, he added: And of birds and quadrupeds and serpents (Rom 1:23). For have you, brethren, seen in other temples images with a dog's head or a bull's, or the figments of other irrational animals? Has anyone in any temple, except in the temple of Isis, seen these? For they are idols of the Egyptians. But comprehending both kinds, the Apostle says: Into the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and quadrupeds and serpents. Therefore God handed them over to the desires of their heart unto uncleanness, that they should affect their bodies with insults among themselves (Rom 1:23-24). These evils of theirs come from impiety. For the head was pride. But these following sins are not only sins, but also punishments. For when he says: God handed them over, it is now of the vengeance of a certain sin, that these things should come about,} but these punishments are still sins too. Why? Because they can still return from them, if they will. But when it has come to punishment, it is no longer granted to return from it; that will be the punishment which will no longer be called sin. For in these middle things there are both punishments and sins. The first, which is pride, is sin alone, not yet punishment. Those which follow are both sins and punishments. He who has been 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 avarice the root of all evils? (1 Tim 6:10) Because to wish more than God is avarice, to wish more than suffices is avarice. For God alone suffices the soul. Whence it is said by Philip: Show us the Father, and it suffices us (John 14:8). But what is prouder than he who, presuming on himself, forsakes God? What more avaricious than he for whom God does not suffice? It is, then, pride itself which is avarice in the origin of sins. Therefore the fornicating soul, the one true God forsaken as it were a lawful husband, prostitutes itself to many false gods, that is, demons, and is in no way satisfied.

34. How many gods the Romans worshiped! First as it were their own, the one true and unchangeable God dismissed, they worshiped as it were their proper gods. They began to fight with other nations, and believing them as it were defended by their own gods, they pressed on and by certain sacrifices to make the gods of those nations transgress, and they increased the number of their own gods, by taking up the sacrilegious rites of the nations whether subdued or to be subdued: so they invited in the dog-faced and bull-faced and serpent forms and bird shapes and all the monsters of the Egyptians, and so they appeased them as it were by propitiating them. For that the gods of the Egyptians too were even hostile to the gods of the Romans not long before the time of the Lord's incarnation is read among their own authors. 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.
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 together both nations, they composed it among themselves, and by the Romans all began to be worshiped. For so the Apostle says: Not that an idol is anything, but what the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not wish you to become partners of demons (1 Cor 10:19-20). As these do, deceiving themselves and saying: <...> as if you despised the idol which the smith made, because it has no life: you would despise the idol, if you despised the demon which rejoices in the idol. In vain, then, do you interpret the image as the signification of a creature, because neither does the creature rejoice in such worship of venerating men, except the sinful creature which, growing proud, demands undue honor, deceitfully terrifying human frailty. God handed them over, he says, to the desires of their heart unto uncleanness, that they should affect their bodies with insults 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 quadrupeds and serpents.

35. And lest any of them 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. Understand prudently, dearly beloved. For they either worship an image, or a creature. He who worships an image changes the truth of God into a lie. For the sea is the truth, but Neptune a lie made by a man, the truth of God being changed 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, changed 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}. The Creator dismissed, then, they fell to the creature. And what is more shameful, they were not even content with that. For if, God dismissed, they worshiped what God made, they would be detestable. But how much more detestable are they, who, even the things God made dismissed, worship what smiths made? The creature dismissed, he goes to the image, and confounded about the image, when you try to defend yourself, you return to the creature. Now clearly at some time, that you may truly defend yourself, pass from the creature to the Creator. "But I cannot," he says, "come to him except through these things." Who says this? That learned one. 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 him, but he who knew him.

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, thinking their souls could be purged through philosophy, as if needing no mediator. But of these there is no need to dispute at present. We are now dealing against the sacrilegious rites of the pagans. But those said that no sacrifices helped them. They say Pythagoras was such a one. Let that boasting too see what it promises itself of its own strength! He who presumes on himself presumes on a man. But the unhappy man, who will free him from the body of this death, but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25), through the one true mediator, God and man? 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 so these too hold the truth of God in a lie, because they presume on themselves, when every man is a liar, nor is anyone freed except through the confession of sins, with a propitiator interposed. And these the proud enemy of souls seduces, not indeed through sacrilegious rites, but in another way, making them like himself through the arrogance of human presumption, not seeking again in humility him from whom by pride they fell. Such were all to whom Christ was not revealed, even if they were unwilling to be purged by any false rites. For it is itself a great uncleanness for an unclean soul to think it can purge itself by itself. But of those who worshiped no idols nor bound themselves to any Chaldean or magic rites, nothing rash is to be said, lest perhaps it escape us that to them in some way that Savior was revealed, 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 they themselves too, swollen with vain curiosity and preferring themselves to the rest by the teachings of demons, through that very pride gave place to the devil and through the deceits of the airy powers, that is, of demons, and through vain mysteries thought 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 quadrupeds and serpents. For certain of them stretched themselves and, all creation transcended, understood the Creator above all, but, remaining weak, they grew proud even in that. And now such men, or those who follow their authority, say to us: "We cannot be purged except through these mediators," powers, namely, of this kind. They seek, then, a mediator. Why? "Because the human mind, involved and oppressed by its desires, has need of purgation. And unless it is purged, what it sees unchangeable does not delight it, even if somewhat and in some way it can be seen." And that indeed they perceive well, 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 to those seeking badly and wishing to be proud, doing certain signs and miracles. For the magicians of Pharaoh too did similar things to Moses, although they could not do everything, because these do as much as the airy spirits through whom they do them are permitted. But God did as much as it pleased him. Through certain signs, then, as I said, the spirits interpose themselves to the proud and promise them purgation. But the true mediator is the one Lord Jesus Christ, whom both the ancient humble ones acknowledged 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, just as we are saved through faith in him who was born and suffered. For therefore he came so humbly, that he might show that he does not purge and save any but the humble. For neither at that time too, before the Word became flesh, was he revealed 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 who alone most truly says: No one comes to the Father but through me (John 14:6), accommodating to them his humility, 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 a priest of God Most High (Gen 14:18), in prefiguration of that very mediator. For by him Abraham too is blessed. Was Job, so great a man and so great a wrestler with the devil and a victor, who, sitting on a dunghill, full of worms, humble, conquered him by whom Adam, proud, with his body whole, was conquered in paradise—was this man of the people of Israel? And yet in his words that true mediator is understood to be preached 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 was present to all, through whom they might be purged, even before he had appeared in the flesh, who humbly sought the purging mediator, without whom no one is purged. But no one, except purged through the mediator, comes to that which, even if it can be looked at in some small part by 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 beheld the invisible things of God, understood 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 said themselves wise and were inflated through pride, not worthily honoring him from whom they had received understanding, to such, as I said, that mediator opposes himself, proud to the proud, as humble to the humble, through certain congruences and through a certain ineffable and wonderful justice, remaining in the inner sanctuaries of God, which, even though we cannot see it, let us honor. The proud mediator, then, meets the proud, the humble the humble, but therefore the humble to the humble, that he may lead them to the height of God; therefore the proud to the proud, that he may shut off from the lofty in himself the height of God.

39. For see how the devil interposes himself in place of a mediator. He is not mortal in flesh, but a sinner. But the Lord willed to be mortal in 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 whatever is a sinner and mortal. But God is just and immortal. The humble mediator is just, mortal, and not just in any way whatever, but just because God, mortal because man. But the proud mediator is unjust and in a certain manner immortal: for he is not dissolved in body, because he is not clothed with flesh—according to this I call him immortal; for true immortality is of God alone, according to what is said: Who alone has immortality and dwells in inaccessible light (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, having taken on a man. The devil, then, unjust and in a certain manner immortal, interposed himself as a mediator to man, unjust, mortal. Two things at the bottom, two things at the top. But that the lowest may be reconciled to the highest, they need a mediator. What two things at the bottom? Unjust, mortal. What two things at the top? Just, immortal. That mediator, then, purging and leading back, if he were both unjust and mortal, would not be a mediator, who 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 with man, he would be held worthy of punishment with him, and so he would be a mediator in such a way as to shut off the way to God. For sins know nothing but to separate from God; hear the Scripture saying: Has God made the ear heavy, that it does not hear? But your sins separate between you and God (See Isa 59:1-2).

40. Therefore sins 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 yourself did to yourself. For the mortality of the body God made for you, but the sin you yourself made. And so that true and truthful mediator shared with you what God, avenging, did to you, but did not share with you what you, sinning, did. 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 of death. For he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men and found in form as a man (Phil 2:7). Which is so said that we do not think him changed, but that he willed to appear humbly and in servile form, remaining in secret Lord and God with God, the Son equal to the Father, through whom all things were made. And so, mortality assumed 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 unworthy he suffered death. This is the true and truthful mediator, the humble and exalted mediator, the mediator leading back to that whence 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 flesh, and therefore he does not loose 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 indeed the devil will suffer in common with those whom he seduces, for whom he does not now take on mortality, which is accomplished 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 he does not have the other—that is, mortality.

41. Therefore 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, inflating them with vain and false teachings, he leads them through I-know-not-what sacrilegious rites, promising purgation in temples, and through magic consecrations and detestable secrets 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 flesh of a woman, not seized, not scourged, not spit upon, not crowned with thorns, not hung on a cross, not dead and buried: all which things the proud mock, which the humble mediator took on, not taking on iniquity with men and taking on humanity that he might heal them from the swelling of pride and make them victors over that false mediator, when they had learned to confess their sins, and through the justice of Christ be purged from their own injustice, and through the humble fellowship of his mortality come to the lofty summit of immortality.

42. Let us, then, reject, brethren, the malignant 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 else through sacrilegious rites; let no one outside unity, even through the Christian sacraments, because, even if there is a sacrament outside unity—which we cannot deny nor dare to violate—yet the virtue and salvation of the sacrament, making one a coheir with Christ, is only 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. From God that false mediator wishes to separate, transfiguring himself into an angel of light, and his ministers, transfiguring themselves into ministers of justice; if he cannot lead to sacrilegious rites, he wishes to separate from the Church either to heresies or to schisms, that, by deserting the mother, the Father 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 will remain with them. For to what else were we born of human parents, but that we might succeed the dead? But by the Father God and the Mother Church we are so begotten that we may live with our parents forever. 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 machinations 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 ruinously deserts the mother. But he deserts both who forsakes both the Christian faith and the mother Church. Hold the Father, hold also 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 on flesh, your mediator took on flesh, and by taking on flesh he took on the Church. He fore-tasted as it were from the head what he would offer to God, a priest forever and the propitiation for our sins (Ps 110:4 (109:4); 1 John 2:2). The Word took on human nature, and the two were made one, as it is written: They shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament, he says, but I speak in Christ and in the Church (Eph 5:31-32). The bridal chamber of this marriage was the womb of the virgin. And he, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, exulted like a giant to run the way (Ps 19:5 (18:6)). A giant because strong, conquering weakness by weakness and slaying death by death. But he ran in the way: he did not stand in the way, lest he become a man who is signified to have stood in the way of sinners. For when the psalm says: Blessed is he who has not gone in the counsel of the impious and in the way of sinners has not stood (Ps 1:1), it signifies a certain one 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 there. But he saw it, who so walked this way that he did not stand, but ran; he found the wounded one, set him on his beast, and handed him to the innkeeper, because he himself ran the way, that he might fulfill what was foretold of him: He drank from the torrent in the way, therefore he will lift up his head (Ps 110:7 (109:7)). For the torrent is this world. Torrent waters are those which flow from sudden rains, whether winter ones or floods, soon surely to pass away. So are all these temporal things: it is a passing torrent, soon to cease. On this day of the first of January, those who rejoice in the luxuries and vanities of the world do not see the rush of the torrent sweep them away. Let them call back, if they can, a day like that of the prior year; let them call back at least yesterday's day. They do not see even their joys passing like a torrent, that they may afterward say: These are they whom we once had for a laughingstock and a likeness of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness and their end without honor. How are they counted among the sons of God, and their lot is among the saints? Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice has not shone for us, and the sun has not risen for us (Wis 5:3-6). What sun? Is it this visible one? Daily this one rises for them. For of this the Lord says: Who makes his sun to rise upon the good and the evil (Matt 5:45). There is another who made this sun, invisible and intelligible, that sun of justice, of which it is said in another place: The sun of justice 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: he drank of that torrent in the way, passing hence to the Father, with the faithful to follow for whom he drank of this torrent in the way; therefore he lifted up his head, that is, himself.

44. For he himself is the head of the Church, who has now ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, showing us in his own whole-burnt offering what we too ought to hope for of our flesh. For as the Apostle says: For by hope we are saved, and in ourselves we groan, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body (Rom 8:24, 23). For we are adopted, but he is the only one born: in the beginning the Word God with God, as the evangelist testifies, and equal to the Father, as the apostle Paul says, 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 such as is that evil and false mediator who shuts off the way to God, such 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 wished to be a mediator and reconciler to God, of whom we have said much, that is, the humble and exalted mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, took on every creature—for in man is all of it: for we said above that the creature is either spiritual or corporeal—he took on, then, the whole man, taking the form of a servant; whatever is in the rational mind, whatever in the soul, whatever in the flesh, he took on the whole, except sin. Therefore in him are all things, lest anyone err by seeking, for his purgation, a mediatrix and as it were cleansing creature; therefore that mediator has the whole, therefore that mediator took on the whole, because a mediating creature of such a kind can cleanse from iniquities and free from mortality, which does not presume itself to be of any worth, but clings personally and is in an ineffable manner coupled and mingled to God the Word, so that it could be said: The Word was made flesh. Whose humility was despised to this end and exalted, lest men despair of themselves out of humility and presume out of pride. When, therefore, proud men wish to be worshiped and, if God be set before them, are angry, they are imitators of that deceitful mediator. On the contrary, the holy humble men, when they are so honored by erring men who wish to place their hope in man, not attending to the divine Scripture which says: Cursed is everyone who places his hope in man (Jer 17:5), grieve over them in their heart and faithfully admonish them, as far as they can, to hope in God, not in man, since {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 himself through whom it was said. Although if we, he says—it is too little to say if we, hear what follows—or an angel, he says, from heaven announce to you anything besides what you have received, let him be anathema (Gal 1:8). He saw that the false mediator could transfigure himself into an angel of light and announce something false. As, then, proud men wish to be worshiped in place of God, to arrogate to themselves whatever they can, to be named and, if it can be, to surpass Christ himself in glory, so the devil and his angels.

45. My brethren, we speak to catholics. The Donatists hold Donatus in place of Christ. If they hear some pagan detracting from Christ, they perhaps bear it more patiently than if they hear one detracting from Donatus.} You know what I say, and you are compelled to experience this daily. So perversely do they love Donatus that they set him before 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; to the name of a man against Christ they have been seduced. Therefore 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 their so great crime—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 world: Christ redeemed the whole by his blood, do not draw the buyer of the whole back to a part," for this they hate us and, if the chance be given, they 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 that there is fulfilled in us what is written: With those who hated peace I was peaceful; when I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause (Ps 120:7 (119:7)). And if they cannot otherwise be healed, let them fight against us, strike us, kill us, and yet be healed.

46. But let us return, brethren, to that which I had begun to say; for grief snatched me from what I had intended. As there are proud men—they prefer that they be worshiped rather than God—so there are proud angels who prefer that they be worshiped rather than God. And as there are holy men—they prefer that God be worshiped rather than themselves—so all the holy angels, which without any doubt is also to be believed of the martyrs, prefer that God be worshiped rather than themselves. They wish 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 have given an example too, as much as the Lord gave, of that angel in the Apocalypse, who was unwilling to be adored by a man, but God. Do not, then, fear, brethren, 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, measuring from yourselves—if perhaps it delights you, by a certain private arrogance of pride, not in God nor for God's sake, but in yourselves for your own sake, to be honored, so that, if it is not done, you are indignant—and you so think that either the holy angels or the holy martyrs rejoice in such services of men and require for themselves the service that is owed to God, by a most easy seduction you will be deceived by the pagans and will withdraw altogether far from the Lord your God, of whom we have received such a command: You shall adore the Lord your God and him alone 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 beatitude. Because, then, they are holy, the more do not wish to offend them by as it were wishing to worship them apart. For worshiping God, you worship everyone who by pious love and holy devotion cleaves to God. But if he is angry, because he himself is not worshiped by some proper sacraments, he is now that proud transgressor and false mediator, transfiguring himself into an angel of light. Now if he has bent you to himself, he has shut off the way: not only can you not come through him, but through him rather you are not permitted to come.

47. Let them not sell you their empty talk and say: "We worship the powers of God, that through them we may come to God, and we make those rites to Saturn, those to Jupiter, those to Pluto, those to Neptune, those to Mars, those to Ceres." For therefore not all rejoice in the same rites, because they arrogate to themselves private and proper worship; and through this they are not 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. Let them not, then, seduce you, when they say to you: "If you worship the martyrs and think yourselves helped through them before God, how much more ought we to worship the powers of God, through which we are helped before God." For attend to the sacraments of the Church and see whether a sacrifice is offered to any martyr, so that we display one thing to that martyr, another to that one; but at all the memorials we offer one thing, nor to any of them, but to the Lord of us all, in which sacrifice we honor even the martyrs according to their rank, not in themselves, but in him through whom they conquered the devil. And the more dearly they are mindful of us, the less we offer them private rites, because, in whom alone they have their joy, in him alone they have their honor. If anyone says to you: "Invoke the angel Gabriel thus, invoke Michael thus, display this to that one, this to this one," be not deceived, do not consent; nor let it deceive you that the names of these angels are read in the holy Scriptures: attend rather to how they are read there, whether they exacted 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 it were 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 an angel," for example "Gabriel," do not believe it. Worship securely the one God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. By such worship of yours he rejoices, if he is an angel; but if he is angry, because you did not give something apart, he is now to be understood as that one of whom the Apostle says that he transfigures himself into an angel of light: he wishes to shut off the way, he interposes himself badly; he is not a mediator reconciling, but rather separating. For that angel in the Apocalypse and the rest like him do not wish themselves to be adored, but God. They are messengers, announcing what they have received to announce; they are ministers, doing what they have been bidden to do, carrying our prayers to God, not themselves exacting them in place of God. The angel says to a man: I offered your prayer in the sight of the brightness of God (See Tob 12:12). Yet he did not ask the angel himself, and that one was asking God: the minister offered his prayer. Did he say, as the perverse and corrupt ministers of certain powers do: "Give me something, if you wish me to announce it, if you wish 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 one 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 is one soul and one heart toward God, and no one has anything proper, but all things are common to them (See Acts 4:32), as we read in the Acts of the Apostles that so many thousands of men from the number of the Jews were converted, to whom, possessing nothing proper, from the common store 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, or brother or father or mother or any near one, should wish to offer something privately, he not only rejects it, but even admonishes that, if it is to be offered and received, it be offered to God, just as those did who placed the prices of their goods at the feet of the apostles, just as those too whom the Apostle exhorted to make some offering for the poor of the saints who were at Jerusalem—and he teaches this, that they may know they offer to God what they do—how much more those angels, surely more perfect, who in the heavenly arrangements and in the great house and the heavenly city Jerusalem, the mother of us all, serve God in most concordant love, wish no honor to be displayed to themselves privately and properly, but rejoice in that honor alone which is displayed 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 comes about through a mediator, he willed there to be one mediator and that he himself become man, who is equal to the Father, 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 things, and ascended, lest we remain in the lower things. He is the one true mediator, who deceives no one, who even, though he is equal to the Father, willed for our sake to be also less than he, not by losing what is equal, but by taking on what is less. He has already freed our flesh too in his flesh. He now does not die, and death will no longer have dominion over him (Rom 6:9). To him come our prayers, although in the sacraments of the Church they are directed to the Father. He now does not die. {For he himself, the high priest, offers them, who offered himself a whole-burnt offering for us. He himself is the one who leads us through, interposing himself, not to shut off, 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 without blemish of body was sought, because he alone lived without the blemish of sin, even in a mortal body. For what was prefigured in their body was signified in his life.} But we all bishops are called priests for this reason, that we are set over. Yet the whole Church is the body of that priest. To the priest pertains his own body. For {the apostle Peter says to the Church itself: 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. Both persons the Lord bore, not in figure, but now in truth, both of king and of priest. For therefore in that very king David, 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 the priest, when he ate of those loaves of proposition, which it was not lawful to eat except for the priests alone: which the Lord himself too recalled in the Gospel, that by those who can understand he might be recognized to have been prefigured in David. For Mary too drew her origin not only from a royal race, but also from a priestly one. And of the royal race it is manifest; on this account of the Lord himself the Apostle says: Who was made to 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. It remains, then, that Christ be called of the seed of David on account of Mary, because she was of the seed of David, that is, of the royal one. But how do we find also a priestly race in Mary? It is written in the Gospel that the priest Zechariah had Elizabeth as a wife from the daughters of Aaron. Therefore Elizabeth was of the priestly race: for Aaron the brother of Moses was a priest, and the whole tribe of Levi. But it is said in the Gospel to the Virgin Mary by the angel: Your kinswoman, Elizabeth (See Luke 1:36). If, then, Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Aaron the priest, was a kinswoman of Mary, it is not doubted that the Virgin Mary pertained not only to the royal but also to the priestly blood. Wherefore in the Lord, according to the man he took on, both persons are present, the royal and the priestly: the royal, leading us to every imitation of spiritual warfare, until he set his enemies under his feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Cor 15:25-26)—for by our enemy the king himself too was tempted, that the soldier might learn to fight—; but the priestly, by which to expiate and purge our sins he offered himself a whole-burnt offering. Therefore then in figure two were anointed: the king and the priest.}

51. Therefore there are also two fish with those five barley loaves. For fish pertain to the relish: but relishes are wont to be seasoned with oil. Two fish, then, with five loaves, that is, with the Old Testament, where the five books of Moses hold the primacy. But with the seven loaves, which are not called barley and now signify the New Testament, a few fish are said to have been, because Christians had now begun to be few, that is, the anointed, from whom the whole Church throughout the world might be filled. For the five barley loaves signify, covered as it were with little husks, those things in the law itself which are to be understood spiritually, which, when set forth, the Lord instructed the apostles. Whence there from the remnants of the fragments twelve baskets are filled. But the seven loaves signify the sevenfold working of the Spirit in the New Testament, as John too says in the Apocalypse. For the seven spirits are understood to be recalled for the seven spiritual workings, of which Isaiah earlier made mention: of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and fortitude, of knowledge and piety, and the fear of the Lord (See Isa 11:2-3). And therefore from those remnants of fragments seven baskets were filled, by which number the whole Church is signified. Whence the same apostle John too writes to seven churches. And in the epistles of the apostle Paul that same sevenfold number is found, not of epistles, but of churches. And many things in those sacraments, sought more diligently, are found more sweetly. But now from this I have recalled something on account of the anointing of the fish, that I might show the royal and priestly person signified then by the two fish, because two were then anointed, the king and the priest. But from the chrism (chrisma) Christ is named, that is, from the anointing. But the body of Christ is the Church. And therefore all Christians are anointed, by a hidden sacrament to the rest, but known to the faithful. But the only priest is the mediator himself, the head of the Church without sin, through whom comes about the purgation of our sins.

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

53. Therefore we have one mediator, brethren, who is also our head. But we, in the name of Christ, even if we are not set over the churches with you, are yet members of the body of Christ with you: we have one head, not many; for a body that wishes to have many heads is now a monster. But we were speaking of the anointing, because then the priest alone was anointed and the king, but now all Christians. Hence see that you all pertain with us to the body of the priest, that is, because you are all faithful; yet especially are those called priests who are set over the Church, but not therefore is the rest of the body not the body of the priest. And therefore {in those ancient 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. Now when the bishops stand at the altar, are you outside, and do you not see within and hear and bear witness and receive? Then one priest entered into the holy of holies once a year. The year signifies all time. Once, then, in all time he entered into the holy of holies, not the figured but the true, beyond the veils of the heavens, our one priest rising from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ, offering himself for us. He entered, and there he is. But the people still stands outside with us: we have not yet risen to go to meet Christ and to remain always with him within, when he is to say to the good servant: Enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21). This, then, was figured then by the one priest alone entering into the holy of holies, and the people standing outside, which is now fulfilled through our Lord Jesus Christ alone entering above the secrets of the heavens, and the people still groaning outside, saved in hope, awaiting the redemption of its body, which is to 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, that in every brother of ours walking his ways we may behold him, honor him, receive him, who was handed over for our offenses and rose again for our justification (Rom 4:25) {because he himself speaks in his saints, as the Apostle says: Do you wish to receive proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? (2 Cor 13:3) And although he says: Neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7), not because he wished himself, but because he wished him to be loved in himself, he gives testimony to certain ones, saying: As an angel of God you received me, 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 did not say: "You gave to them," but: You gave to me; so great is the love of the head toward its 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 ancient books that a priest commended himself to the people, that it might pray for him, because he was figuring our Lord Jesus Christ, for whom no one prays. For of whom was the priest a figure, for whom no one prayed, but of our Lord Jesus Christ who intercedes for us (Rom 8:34) and does not need our prayers for himself? Which he deigned to figure even on this earth, when he prayed alone on the mountain, while the disciples in the little boat were troubled by storms. And we too, as it were in a ship, in the Church are tossed by the storms of this world; 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 too says: These things I write to you that you may not sin. And if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just: he is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1-2). See who John is? He who reclined upon the breast of the Lord and drank from that breast in that banquet what he would belch forth to the peoples: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 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 just: he is the propitiation for your sins," he would 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 the bishop is a mediator between God and men. Clearly he is a mediator, but in the party 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 thence they are unwilling to come to the Church, because Donatus shut it off, because . . . through a whitewashed wall: for it is earthly, not by Christian religion. He whitewashed it that he might deceive . . . and those coming as far as him could not pass over to Christ, that is, to the body of Christ which is the Church spread throughout the whole world. See how he made himself a mediator, as that proud angel too does, of whom we have already said much. But attend to that saying of John: These things I write to you that you may not sin. And if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father. He would not say we have, unless because he knew himself well and humbly commended himself. And he himself is, he says, the propitiation for our sins. He did not say "yours," as if making himself a stranger to sins. But if he said that, 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, brethren, give heed that you do not sin, strive strongly that you do not sin. But if anyone has sinned, he will expiate us who is the propitiation for our sins. Avoid all those evils through which the name of God is blasphemed, that in your good way of life, others being gained, there may be glory to the name of Christ. Avoid above all those things which can separate you from the altar of God. But those sins which through the habit of daily life creep in daily, and as it were from the waves of the sea of this world through a certain weakness of ours do not cease to enter in, bail out by 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, 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, may make us from humble exalted. For so our alms will come to him who for our sake became poor, though he was rich (2 Cor 8:9), so our fasts will come to him who for our sake fasted; so our prayers will come to him, and when in them we truly ask that our debts be forgiven us, as we too forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12), just as he too forgave his debtors, hanging on the cross saying: Father, forgive them, for they do not know 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 arrogate to yourselves your good works, so that in those very sacrifices of humility pride inflates you, you will give place to that false mediator, that he may interpose himself and shut off the way to you. For he seeks all the entrances and through those very good works 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 exalting himself over the one who does not do it, he at once sets himself against him, that he may deceive him in place of a mediator.

57. But as I had begun to say, we do not find any priest in the ancient books commending himself to the people, that it might pray for him, because they were figuring him 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 with the rest of the members, commends himself to the prayers of the Church, because the members are mutually solicitous 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, at the same time for us too, that God may open to us a door for the word (Col 4:3). And the Church prayed for Peter too, when Peter was in chains, and was heard, just 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; and those call themselves mediators, who, if they took themselves out of the middle, both would become one which by criminal pride they divided. Far be it, then, from the hearts of Christians what is shown in the pride of the heretics! As we have said to your love, that first priesthood bore a certain figure: now is fulfilled what was then figured. We have a mediator and pontiff: he ascended into heaven, entered within the veil, into that true, not figured, holy of holies. The sacrament of this thing is celebrated in the Church: within you pray with us, you answer "Amen" to the words of the bishop. For so the people as it were subscribes, because all pertain to the body of the priest. Let no one, then, as is wont to be said, sell you smoke: we have one mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ; he is the prayer, he is the propitiation for our sins; let us securely hold to him.

58. For you see, brethren, that we may now return to that which I was saying against the pagans, how you are fortified, so that you not only not be conquered by them, but—as far as can be done through you—may, having convicted them, gain 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 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, which remains unchangeable, which in some way by sharp talent they were able to touch, but with a humble heart were unwilling to honor, they fell into that false mediator, who envies the human soul and tries in all ways that it not pass from the labors in which he has dominion to the rest where it would be loftier than he, to whom pertain all sacrilegious rites and the most deceitful machinations of the iniquity of astrologers, soothsayers, diviners, Chaldeans.

59. But you, my brethren, who perhaps do not see with the keenness of the mind what those men saw, and are not yet fit to transcend by the thought of the mind all creation, not only corporeal but also spiritual, and to see the unchangeable God from whom and through whom and in whom all things were made, do not tremble, do not despair, because he who willed to descend even to the lowest and weakest has made himself the way for you. For what does it profit them that, from afar, growing proud, they see the fatherland? They do not find the way, since to that height of the fatherland the way begins from humility. They see the fatherland as it were from the mountain of pride, they see it from the opposite mountain. But no one ascends to it unless he has first descended. 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: "Am I to be this too which my doorkeeper is, and not rather what Plato was, what Pythagoras?", blowing empty things with a reckless mouth, they are unwilling to descend, they cannot ascend. For our Lord descended to us from the height of his majesty, and these 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 he chose the lowborn things of the world and the contemptible things, and the things that are not, as though they were, that he might empty out the things that are (See 1 Cor 1:27-28).

60. For therefore he willed to become man, that, made God-man, he might teach humility, not by changing himself into man, but by taking on man. To this humility it would seem nothing could be added, and yet not even of human things did he choose those of which men are puffed up. He did not choose noble parents or those endowed with any dignity. For he willed to be born of a woman who was betrothed to a carpenter, lest anyone, against the justice of the poor and lowborn, boast of the nobility of his parents and be incurably inflated. He did not even choose a noble city in which to be born—Bethlehem is of few men—: thence indeed he himself was, of the tribe of David. Yet in that very tribe, as in the rest, there were many poor and lowborn. And David himself, of whose seed the Lord Jesus Christ was made according to the flesh, did he not feed sheep, before he was divinely chosen for the kingdom? For even in him he had chosen the lowborn things of the world, that the noble might be confounded, and in that very thing was prefigured what would be accomplished through his seed. He chose, then, a humble race from which to be born. {But perhaps someone would say: "Even if he himself was born humbly, in the nobility of his disciples he wished to boast himself." He did not choose kings, or senators, or philosophers, or orators. Rather he chose plebeians, the poor, the unlearned, fishermen. Peter a fisherman, Cyprian an orator. Unless the fisherman faithfully went before, the orator would not humbly approach. Let no one despair of himself as abject: only let him hold Christ, and his hope will not be false.}

61. For those who from afar, as I had begun to say, and from the opposite mountain of pride see the fatherland, spurn humility: therefore they do not hold the way. For our way is humility. This Christ showed in himself. If anyone deviates from this way, he will run into the perplexed and inextricable mountain that interposes itself, into that devil who interposes himself in place of a mediator, ruinously and deceitfully, through innumerable sacrilegious rites, through diviners, augurs, soothsayers, astrologers, magicians. For those given over to these do not descend to the way, but wander on a certain wooded mountain, from which some of them lift their eyes and see the fatherland, but cannot come to it, because they do not hold the way. But those who now hold the way, that is, the true and truthful mediator, the mediator leading through and not shutting off, the mediator purging and not entangling, perseveringly walk in what they hold. For some of them too see the fatherland, some of them do not see it. But let those who do not yet see the fatherland not withdraw from the way, and they will come there where those too who see arrive. For there is in some such keenness of eyes that they can see from afar. To these it profits nothing to see where they may go and not to know by what way they may proceed. But if they know the way, it does not so much profit them to see from afar whither they may arrive, as that they know whither they tend. But those who do not have such keenness, if they walk together, will arrive together. He, then, of you who can transcend all creation by the mind and see the ineffable light of wisdom, when he has seen it, will see that it cannot be told, and will see that all things said of it are unworthy of its greatness, although they are fit for the little ones, who are nourished to this end, that they may hear as it can be told, until they hear what cannot be told. But those who cannot transcend creation and see the ineffable truth, let them hold the mediator, whom, unless even those hold who now see something unchangeable, they surely see in vain. In him we have the corporeal creature, which he took on even in the 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. Holding this way, let us not deviate from it, lest we run into false mediators who promise us purgation and bring hindrances upon us.

62. For he alone is the mediator, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, who is the head of all principality and power (Col 2:3, 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, conveys us to that which is to be held. For lest a man think himself far from human nature, that Word of God through whom all things were made . . . but to draw near to the heavenly or supercelestial virtues, and therefore to wish those very ones to become for him mediatrixes and cleansers toward that Word, and so through pride and vain curiosity to fall into the airy powers which deceive and beguile the senses of human weakness by various and manifold errors, envying the passage to God and desiring to dominate the captured, therefore the very Word through whom all things were made was made flesh, that is, coupled to himself even a fleshly nature from man, that so a man might learn that what he thought drew near only to the heavenly was not far from his own nature, and, purged through the recognized middle thing, might cleave to the unchangeable divinity. Therefore he deigned to do both earthly and heavenly miracles, that he might show that even those very things were subject to him, by which men could be terrified in lying signs and prodigies. He showed too that all spiritual power either fears Christ or loves Christ, so that what fears Christ may not be feared by the Christian, but what loves Christ may be loved in Christ.