On the Mysteries 1–8

We have given daily discourse on morals, when the deeds of the patriarchs or the precepts of Proverbs were read, so that, formed and instructed by them, you might grow accustomed to enter the ways of the forefathers, to follow their path, and to obey the divine oracles; so that, renewed by baptism, you might hold to the way of life that befits those who have been washed. Now the time warns us to speak of the mysteries and to set forth the very meaning of the sacraments. If we had thought this should be taught before baptism to those not yet initiated, we would be thought to have betrayed rather than set it forth. Besides, the light of the mysteries itself pours itself better into those who do not expect it than if some discourse had run ahead of it. Open, then, your ears, and enjoy the good odour of eternal life breathed on you by the gift of the sacraments: which we signified to you when, celebrating the mystery of the opening, we said “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened”; so that each one who was about to come to grace might know what he would be asked and must remember what he was to answer. Christ celebrated this mystery in the Gospel, as we read, when he healed the deaf and dumb man. But he touched the mouth, because he was healing both a dumb man and a man: in the one case, to open his mouth to the sound of the voice poured in; in the other, because that touch befitted a man, but did not befit a woman.

After this the holy of holies was unlocked to you; you entered the sanctuary of regeneration. Recall what you were asked; recognize what you answered. You renounced the devil and his works, the world and its luxury and pleasures. Your word is kept, not in a tomb of the dead but in the book of the living. You saw there the Levite, you saw the priest, you saw the high priest. Do not consider the outward forms of bodies, but the grace of the mysteries. You spoke in the presence of angels, as it is written: “For the lips of the priest guard knowledge, and they seek the law from his mouth; for he is the angel of the Lord almighty.” There is no deceiving, no denying: he is an angel who announces the kingdom of Christ and eternal life. He is to be valued by you not by his appearance but by his office. Consider what he has handed on; weigh its use, and recognize his standing. You entered, then, to look upon your adversary, whom you thought you should renounce to his face; you turn to the east; for he who renounces the devil turns to Christ and looks on him with a direct gaze.

What did you see? Water, certainly, but not water alone: Levites ministering there, the high priest questioning and consecrating. First of all, the Apostle taught you that we are not to contemplate the things that are seen but those that are not seen, since the things that are seen are temporal, but those not seen eternal. For elsewhere too you have: “The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are understood by the things that are made; his eternal power and divinity also are reckoned from his works.” Hence the Lord himself too says: “If you do not believe me, believe the works.” Believe, then, that the presence of the Godhead is there. Do you believe the working and not the presence? From where would the working follow, unless the presence went before? But consider how old the mystery is, prefigured in the very origin of the world. In the very beginning, when God made heaven and earth, “the Spirit,” it says, “was borne over the waters.” He who was borne over the waters, was he not working over the waters? But why do I say “working”? As regards presence, he was borne over them. Was he not working who was borne over them? Recognize that he was working in that framing of the world, when the Prophet tells you: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the Spirit of his mouth.” Both are supported by prophetic testimony, that he was borne over and that he worked. That he was borne over, Moses says; that he worked, David testifies. Take another testimony. All flesh was corrupted by its iniquities. “My Spirit,” said God, “will not remain in men, because they are flesh.” By which God shows that spiritual grace is turned away by fleshly uncleanness and the stain of graver sin. So God, wishing to restore what was lacking, made the flood and commanded righteous Noah to go up into the ark. And when, as the flood went down, he had first sent out a raven, which did not return, he sent out a dove, which, we read, returned with an olive branch. You see the water, you see the wood, you behold the dove, and do you doubt the mystery? The water, then, is that in which the flesh is plunged, so that all fleshly sin may be washed away. Every crime is buried there. The wood is that on which the Lord Jesus was fastened when he suffered for us. The dove is that in whose form the Holy Spirit descended, as you have learned in the New Testament, who breathes into you peace of soul and tranquillity of mind. The raven is the figure of sin, which goes out and does not return, if in you too the watchfulness and pattern of the just man are kept. There is also a third testimony, as the Apostle teaches you: “For our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” Indeed Moses himself says in his Song: “You sent your Spirit, and the sea covered them.” You notice that already then, in that crossing of the Hebrews, a figure of holy baptism went before, in which the Egyptian perished and the Hebrew escaped. For what else are we taught daily in this sacrament but that guilt is drowned and error abolished, while piety and innocence remain safe? You hear that our fathers were under the cloud, and a good cloud, which cooled the fires of fleshly passions. A good cloud overshadows those whom the Holy Spirit visits. Indeed he came upon the virgin Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, when she bore the redemption of the human race. And that miracle was done through Moses in figure. If, then, the Spirit was present in the figure, is he not present in the truth, since Scripture tells you: “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”? Marah was a most bitter spring; Moses threw wood into it, and it became sweet. For water without the preaching of the Lord’s cross is of no use for future salvation; but when it has been consecrated by the mystery of the saving cross, then it is tempered for the use of the spiritual washing and the saving cup. As, then, Moses, that is, the prophet, threw wood into that spring, so the priest throws the preaching of the Lord’s cross into this font, and the water becomes sweet for grace. Do not, then, trust only the eyes of your body: what is not seen is more truly seen; because the one is temporal, the other is beheld as eternal, which is not grasped by the eyes but discerned by the soul and mind. Indeed let the reading from Kingdoms that has been gone through teach you. Naaman was a Syrian and had leprosy, and could not be cleansed by anyone. Then a girl from among the captives said that there was a prophet in Israel who could cleanse him from the contagion of leprosy. Taking gold and silver, it says, he went to the king of Israel. The king, learning the cause of his coming, tore his clothes, saying that he was being tested, since things not in a king’s power were being asked of him. But Elisha sent word to the king to direct the Syrian to him, that he might know that there was a God in Israel. And when he came, he told him to plunge himself seven times in the river Jordan. Then he began to reason with himself that he had better waters in his own country, in which he had often plunged and never been washed from his leprosy; and, held back by this, he did not obey the prophet’s commands. But at the admonition and persuasion of his servants he gave way and plunged. Cleansed at once, he understood that it is not of the waters that each is cleansed, but of grace. Recognize now who that young girl from among the captives is: namely, the congregation gathered from the nations, that is, the Church of the Lord, formerly pressed down by the captivity of sin, when she did not yet have the liberty of grace; by whose counsel that vain people of the nations heard the prophetic word, which it had long doubted; but afterwards, when it believed that it should be obeyed, it was washed from every contagion of vices. And he indeed doubted before he was healed; you have already been healed, and so you ought not to doubt.

So it was told you beforehand not to believe only what you saw, lest perhaps you too should say: “Is this that great mystery which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man? I see water, which I used to see every day: is this to cleanse me, into which I have often gone down and never been cleansed?” From this learn that water does not cleanse without the Spirit. And so you have read that the three witnesses in baptism are one: water, blood, and the Spirit; for if you take away one of these, the sacrament of baptism does not stand. For what is water without the cross of Christ? A common element, without any sacramental effect. Nor again is there the mystery of regeneration without water: “For unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” The catechumen too believes in the cross of the Lord Jesus, with which he too is signed; but unless he is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot receive remission of sins nor draw the gift of spiritual grace. That Syrian, then, plunged seven times under the Law; but you were baptized in the name of the Trinity. You confessed the Father—remember what you did—you confessed the Son, you confessed the Holy Spirit. Keep the order of things in this faith: you died to the world and rose to God. And as though buried together with Christ in that element of the world, dead to sin, you were raised to eternal life. Believe, then, that the waters are not empty. So it was said to you: “An angel of the Lord came down at certain times into the pool, and the water was stirred; and whoever went down first into the pool after the stirring of the water was made whole of whatever infirmity he had.” This pool was in Jerusalem, in which one each year was healed; but no one was healed before the angel had come down. So that there might be a sign that the angel had come down, the water was stirred, for the sake of unbelievers. For them a sign, for you faith; for them an angel came down, for you the Holy Spirit; for them a creature was stirred, for you Christ himself, the Lord of creation, works. Then one was healed; now all are healed, or certainly the one Christian people alone; for in some there is even a deceitful water. The baptism of the faithless does not heal, does not cleanse, but pollutes. The Jew baptizes pitchers and cups, as though insensible things could receive either guilt or grace. But you, baptize this sensible cup of yours, in which your good works may shine, in which the splendour of your grace may gleam. So that pool too was in figure, that you might believe that a divine power comes down into this font. Indeed that paralytic was waiting for a man. Whom, but the Lord Jesus born of the Virgin, at whose coming not a shadow would heal individuals, but the truth would heal all? He, then, is the one who was awaited to come down, of whom God the Father said to John the Baptist: “He on whom you see the Spirit descending from heaven and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” Of him John testified, saying: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and remaining on him.” And why did the Spirit descend here like a dove, unless that you might see, that you might recognize that that dove too which righteous Noah sent out from the ark was a likeness of this dove, so that you might recognize the type of the sacrament? And perhaps you say: “Since that was a real dove which was sent out, and here he descended as a dove, how do we say that there was a likeness there and here the truth, when according to the Greeks it is written that the Spirit descended in the likeness of a dove?” But what is so true as the Godhead, which remains for ever? The creature cannot be the truth but a likeness, which is easily dissolved and changed. At the same time, because the simplicity of those who are baptized ought to be not in appearance but true. Hence the Lord too says: “Be wise as serpents and simple as doves.” Rightly, then, he descended as a dove, to admonish us that we ought to have the simplicity of a dove. And we read that “likeness” is to be taken for truth both of Christ, “And found in likeness as a man,” and of God the Father, “Nor have you seen his likeness.”

Is there still anything you ought to doubt, when the Father clearly cries out to you in the Gospel, saying, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased”; when the Son cries out, over whom the Holy Spirit showed himself like a dove; when the Holy Spirit cries out, who descended like a dove; when David cries out: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of majesty has thundered, the Lord is upon many waters”; when Scripture testifies to you that at Jerubbaal’s prayers fire came down from heaven, and again, at Elijah’s prayer, fire was sent which consecrated the sacrifice? Do not consider the merits of the persons, but the offices of the priests. And if you look at merits, as you consider Elijah, look also at the merits of Peter or of Paul, who handed on to us this mystery received from the Lord Jesus. To them visible fire was sent, that they might believe; for us invisible fire works, who believe; for them as a figure, for us as an admonition. Believe, then, that the Lord Jesus is present, invoked by the prayers of the priests, who says: “Where two or three are, there am I too”; how much more, where the Church is, where his mysteries are, does he deign to impart his presence! You went down, then. Remember what you answered: that you believe in the Father, believe in the Son, believe in the Holy Spirit. You do not have there: “I believe in a greater and a lesser and a last”; but you are bound by the same pledge of your voice to believe in the Son just as you believe in the Father, and to believe in the Holy Spirit just as you believe in the Son; with this one exception, that you confess you must believe in the cross of the Lord Jesus alone.

After this, of course, you went up to the priest. Consider what followed. Is it not what David says: “Like the ointment on the head, which ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron”? This is the ointment of which Solomon too says: “Your name is ointment poured out; therefore the young maidens have loved you, and drawn you.” How many souls renewed today have loved you, Lord Jesus, saying: “Draw us after you; we run to the odour of your garments,” that they might drink in the odour of the resurrection! Understand why this is done: because “the eyes of the wise man are in his head.” Therefore it runs down upon the beard, that is, upon the grace of youth; therefore upon the beard of Aaron, that you may become a chosen race, priestly, precious; for we are all anointed with spiritual grace for the kingdom of God and for the priesthood. You came up from the font; remember the Gospel reading. For our Lord Jesus in the Gospel washed his disciples’ feet. When he came to Simon Peter, Peter said: “You shall never wash my feet.” He did not perceive the mystery, and so he refused the service, because he thought the humility of the servant would be burdened if he patiently allowed the Lord’s service to himself. The Lord answered him: “If I do not wash your feet, you will have no part with me.” Hearing this, Peter said: “Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” The Lord answered: “He who is washed needs only to wash his feet, but is clean all over.” Peter was clean, but he had to wash the sole of his foot; for he had sin by succession from the first man, when the serpent tripped him up and persuaded him to error. So his foot is washed, that hereditary sins may be taken away; for our own sins are remitted through baptism. At the same time recognize that the mystery consists in the very service of humility; for he says: “If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, how much more ought you also to wash one another’s feet!” For since the author of salvation himself redeemed us by obedience, how much more ought we his servants to offer the service of humility and obedience!

After this you received white garments, as a sign that you had put off the covering of sins and put on the chaste veils of innocence, of which the Prophet said: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed; you will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.” For he who is baptized is seen to be cleansed both according to the Law and according to the Gospel: according to the Law, because Moses sprinkled the blood of the lamb with a bunch of hyssop; according to the Gospel, because Christ’s garments were white as snow when he showed the glory of his resurrection in the Gospel. He, then, is made whiter than snow whose guilt is forgiven. Hence too the Lord says through Isaiah: “Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.” The Church, having these garments, put on through the washing of regeneration, says in the Song of Songs: “I am black and comely, daughters of Jerusalem”: black through the frailty of the human condition, comely through grace; black, because made of sinners; comely by the sacrament of faith. Seeing these garments, the daughters of Jerusalem say in amazement: “Who is this who comes up made white?” She was black; how is she now suddenly made white? The angels too were in doubt when Christ rose; the powers of the heavens were in doubt, seeing that flesh was ascending into heaven. Indeed they said: “Who is this King of glory?” And while some said, “Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the King of glory will come in,” others doubted, saying: “Who is this King of glory?” In Isaiah too you have that the powers of the heavens said in doubt: “Who is this who comes up from Edom, the redness of his garments from Bozrah, beautiful in a white robe?” But Christ, seeing his Church in white garments—for whom he himself, as you have in the book of the prophet Zechariah, had taken on filthy garments—or seeing the soul clean and washed by the washing of regeneration, says: “Behold, you are fair, my neighbour, behold, you are fair; your eyes are as a dove’s,” in whose likeness the Holy Spirit came down from heaven. The eyes are fair as a dove’s, because in its likeness the Holy Spirit came down from heaven. And below: “Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes, which have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and there is none barren among them; your lips are like a scarlet thread.” This is no small praise. First, by the pleasing comparison with shorn ewes; for we know that goats feed safely on the heights and take their food securely on steep places; then, when they are shorn, they are relieved of what is superfluous. To their flock the Church is compared, having in herself many virtues of souls, which through the washing put off superfluous sins, which bring to Christ the mystic faith and the grace of good conduct, which speak of the cross of the Lord Jesus. In these the Church is beautiful. Hence God the Word says to her: “You are all fair, my neighbour, and there is no blemish in you”; because guilt has been drowned. “Come hither from Lebanon, my bride, come hither from Lebanon; you will pass and pass through from the beginning of faith”; because, renouncing the world, she has passed over the world and passed through to Christ. And again God the Word says to her: “How fair and sweet you have become, O love, in your delights! Your stature has become like a palm tree, and your breasts like clusters.” To him the Church answers: “Who will give you to me, my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother? Finding you outside, I will kiss you; and indeed they will not despise me. I will take you and bring you into my mother’s house, and into the secret chamber of her who conceived me. You will teach me.” Do you see how, delighted by the gift of graces, she longs to come to the inner mysteries and to consecrate all her senses to Christ? Still she seeks, still she rouses love, and asks the daughters of Jerusalem to rouse it for her; by whose grace, that is, the grace of faithful souls, she desires the Bridegroom to be provoked to a richer love of her. Hence the Lord Jesus himself too, invited by the zeal of so great a love, by the beauty of comeliness and grace, because now no faults defile the washed, says to the Church: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm”; that is, you are comely, my neighbour, you are all fair, you lack nothing. “Set me as a seal upon your heart,” by which your faith may shine with the fullness of the sacrament. Let your works also shine and show the image of God, after whose image you were made. Let your love be lessened by no persecution, which many waters cannot shut out nor rivers overflow. So remember that you have received the spiritual seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of holy fear; and keep what you have received. God the Father has sealed you, Christ the Lord has confirmed you, and has given the pledge of the Spirit in your hearts, as you have learned from the reading of the Apostle.

Rich in these adornments, the washed people hastens to the altars of Christ, saying: “And I will go in to the altar of God, to God who gladdens my youth.” For, having put off the slough of old error, its youth renewed like an eagle’s, it hastens to approach that heavenly banquet. It comes, then, and seeing the holy altar prepared, cries out: “You have prepared a table before me.” David introduces it speaking thus: “The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing; in a place of pasture he has set me there. Beside the water of refreshment he has brought me up.” And below: “For though I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they have comforted me. You have prepared a table before me against those who afflict me. You have anointed my head with oil, and your inebriating cup, how excellent it is!” Let us now consider this, lest anyone perhaps, seeing visible things—since the things that are invisible are not seen and cannot be grasped by human eyes—should say: “For the Jews God rained manna, rained quails; but for the Church, his beloved, these are the things he has prepared, of which it is said: What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.” So, lest anyone say this, we wish with the greatest zeal to prove that the sacraments of the Church are both older than those of the Synagogue and more excellent than the manna. That they are older the reading from Genesis that has been gone through teaches; for the Synagogue took its beginning from the law of Moses; but Abraham was much earlier, who, when he had conquered his enemies and recovered his own nephew and was enjoying his victory, Melchizedek then met him and brought out those things which Abraham received with reverence. Abraham did not bring them out, but Melchizedek, who is introduced without father, without mother, having neither beginning of days nor end, but made like the Son of God; of whom Paul says to the Hebrews: “That he remains a priest for ever”; who in the Latin interpretation is called king of justice, king of peace. Do you not recognize who this is? Can a man be king of justice, when he himself is scarcely just? Can he be king of peace, when he can scarcely be peaceable? Without mother according to his Godhead, because he was begotten of God the Father, of one substance with the Father; without father according to his incarnation, because he was born of a virgin; having neither beginning nor end, because he himself is the beginning and end of all things, the first and the last. The sacrament you have received, then, is the gift not of man but of God, brought out by him who blessed Abraham, the father of faith, that man whose grace and deeds you admire. It has been proved that the sacraments of the Church are older; now learn that they are more powerful. It is truly wonderful that God rained manna on the fathers, and they were fed with the daily food of heaven. Hence it is said: “Man ate the bread of angels.” But yet all who ate that bread died in the desert; but this food which you receive, this living bread which came down from heaven, supplies the substance of eternal life; and whoever eats this will not die for ever: and it is the body of Christ. Consider now whether the bread of angels is more excellent, or the flesh of Christ, which is indeed the body of life. That manna was from heaven, this is above heaven; that was of heaven, this of the Lord of the heavens; that was liable to corruption if kept to another day, this is foreign to all corruption, for whoever tastes it with reverence will not be able to feel corruption. For them water flowed from the rock, for you blood from Christ; water satisfied them for an hour, the blood washes you for ever. The Jew drinks and thirsts; you, when you have drunk, will not be able to thirst; and that was in shadow, this in truth. If that which you admire is a shadow, how great is this, whose very shadow you admire! Hear that what was done among the fathers is a shadow: “They drank,” it says, “from the rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased; for they were laid low in the desert. Now these things were done as figures for us.” You have learned which are more excellent; for light is better than shadow, truth than figure, the body of the Author than manna from heaven.