Sermons to the People 10.1–11.3

The Scripture of the Kingdoms proclaims Solomon's wonderful judgment between two women contending over a little son. For it is written: "Then two women who were harlots came to King Solomon and stood before him, and one woman said: Hear, my lord: this woman and I lived in one house, and I gave birth in the house; and it happened on the third day after I gave birth that this woman also bore a son; and we were together, and there was no one with us except the two of us in the house: and this woman's son died in the night, because she lay on him; and she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my arms and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom; and I got up in the morning to give my son milk, and he was dead: I looked at him in the morning, and behold, it was not my son whom I had borne. And the other woman said: No, the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son. And she said: No, the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son. And they spoke before the king. And the king said to them: You say, This is my son who lives, and her son is dead; and you say, No, but my son lives, and her son is dead. And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. And the king said: Divide the living child in two, and give half of him to this one, and half of him to that one. And the woman whose son was the living one answered and said to the king, for her womb was troubled over her son, and she said: Hear, my lord, give her the child, and do not put him to death. And the other said: Let him be neither mine nor hers, but divide him. And the king answered and said to the woman who said, Give him to her, and do not put him to death: Because this is his mother." The king's wisdom, granted by God's gift, stands out wonderfully in this judgment. For it was not fitting nor right to judge any other woman to be the child's mother than the one who in a way conceived him again when she learned he had been taken away, and gave birth again while she defended him from the false mother, and bore him again when she did not allow him to be killed. Yet as the ancient divine books are accustomed to convey not only the truth of what happened but also a mystery of what was to come, this Scripture must be considered, whether in these two women it shows us something signified and figured.

And the two women first present themselves, at first glance, as the Synagogue and the Church. For the Synagogue is shown to have killed, while sleeping, its son Christ, born of the Jews according to the flesh; that is, following the light of the present life, and not understanding the manifestation of the truth in the Lord's words: indeed it is also written, "Arise, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light." That the two lived alone in one house signifies, not absurdly, that apart from circumcision and uncircumcision no kind of religion has been found in this world: so that in the person of one woman you may set the one race of the circumcised, comprised under the worship and law of the one God; and in the person of the other woman you may understand the whole Gentile world of the uncircumcised, given over to the worship of idols. Both were harlots: for the Apostle says that Jews and Greeks are all under sin. For every soul that has deserted the eternity of truth and delights in earthly filth commits fornication away from the Lord. And that the Church, coming from the fornication of the Gentiles, did not kill Christ is plain; but how she too is Christ's mother must be considered. Attend to the Gospel, and hear the Lord saying, "Whoever does the will of my Father, he is my mother and brother and sister." Where, then, did this woman sleep, not so as to smother the child in her sleep, but so that the dead one could be put in her bosom and the living one taken away? Perhaps it is this: that the very sacrament of circumcision, which had remained dead among the Jews, because they understood it wholly carnally (this sacrament of circumcision, then, which did not live among the Jews, who had killed Christ, who is the life of all sacraments, since in him is understood in a living way what is celebrated visibly among the Jews), this sacrament of circumcision, then, like a lifeless body, certain Jews wanted to press upon the Gentiles who had believed in Christ, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles, saying that they could not be saved unless they were circumcised? And they pressed this on people ignorant of the Law, as if putting the dead son in her place in the darkness of night. Yet that persuasion could have no force except when the sleep of folly crept over the Church of the Gentiles in some part. The Apostle seems to wake her, as if sleeping, crying out, "O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" and a little later, "Are you so foolish," he says, "that having begun in the Spirit, you are now being completed in the flesh?" As if he said: Are you so foolish that, though you first had a living spiritual work, having lost it you now accept a dead one that is not yours? For the Apostle himself says elsewhere, "The Spirit is life because of righteousness"; and elsewhere, "To be carnally minded is death." At these and similar cries that mother wakes up; and it becomes morning for her when, through the word of God, that is, through Christ, who was rising, that is, speaking in Paul, the darkness of the Law is lit up. For he lit it up when he said, "Tell me, you who want to be under the Law, have you not heard the Law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman; but the son of the slave woman was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise; which things are an allegory. For these are the two covenants: one from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which corresponds to the present Jerusalem: for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free." It is no wonder, then, if on account of dead works the dead child belongs to the one who is below, and on account of spiritual works the living child belongs to the Jerusalem which is above. For the underworld is below, to which the dead belong; the realms above are above, to which the living belong. By this illumination, as when morning has come, the Church understands spiritual grace, rejecting from herself the carnal work of the Law as a dead child not her own, and claiming for herself living faith, since "the righteous lives by faith": which she obtained in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and so she recognizes with certainty her three-day-old son and does not let him be snatched from her.

Now let that other woman cry out that the Gospel is hers, as owed to her and born of her. For this is what was said to the Gentiles in that very dispute by those from among the Jews who, thinking carnally, dared to call themselves Christians. For they said that the Gospel had come as something owed to their righteousness. But what they did not know spiritually was not theirs. So, in that they were called Christians, boasting in a name not their own, they even dared, like that woman over the son she had not borne, to contend; whereas they themselves, having shut out spiritual understanding from the works of the Law, had as it were cast the soul out of the body of their own work, and, extinguishing the living spirit of prophecy, had remained with carnal works without life, that is, without spiritual understanding; and these works they wanted to substitute among the Gentiles too, and to take from them the Christian name as a living son. The Apostle refutes them by saying that Christian grace belongs to them the less, the more they claim it for themselves as owed, and boast that it is theirs as of right by works. "For to him who works," he says, "the reward is not reckoned as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness." And so he excludes them even from the number of those from among the Jews who had rightly believed and held on to living and spiritual grace. These he calls the remnant of the Jewish people that has been saved, while the multitude went to perdition. "So too at this present time," he says, "a remnant has been saved by the election of grace. But if by grace, then no longer by works: otherwise grace is no longer grace." So that those are excluded from grace who claim the reward of the Gospel as their own, that is, as owed and given to their works; as if the Synagogue were crying out, "The son is mine." But she was lying; for she too had received him; but sleeping on him, that is, being proud-minded, she had killed him. But this mother was now awake, and understood that it was not by her merits, since she was a harlot, but by the grace of God that a son had been granted her, namely the work of evangelical faith, which she wished to nourish in the bosom of her heart. And so the one sought human glory in another's son; the other kept the affection of love for her own.

And that royal judgment between the two warns us of nothing else than that we should contend for the truth, and drive out hypocrisy, like the false mother, from the spiritual gift of the Church, as from a living son not hers; and not allow her who could not keep her own to lord it over the grace granted to others. But let us do this, defending and contending, not to the point of the danger of division. For that sentence of the judge, when he ordered the little one to be divided, is not the cutting off of unity but the proving of love. For the name Solomon, as the Latins interpret it, means "Peaceful." And a peaceful king does not tear apart members which, by unity and concord, hold the spirit of life: but by threatening he finds the true mother, and by judging he separates the false one. If, then, it comes to a trial of this kind, we are taught to say, so that the unity of Christian grace may not be divided, "Give her the child; only let him live." For she who is the true mother seeks not a mother's honor but her son's safety. Wherever he is, the sincere love of the mother will possess him more than the usurpation of the false one.

Again, I see that these two women in one house signify two kinds of people in one Church: one of those in whom true love reigns, the other of those in whom pretence rules. So that we may regard these two altogether as two women: love and pretence. For pretence deceitfully imitates love. And that is why the Apostle guards against it when he says, "Love without pretence." For although they live in one house as long as that net of the Gospel is in the sea and encloses good and bad fish together until it is drawn to the shore, yet each does her own works. And both were harlots, because all are converted to the grace of God from worldly desire, and no one can truly boast of previous merits of righteousness. And that a harlot commits fornication is her own doing; that she has a son is God's. For all human beings are formed by the one God the Creator. Nor is it to be wondered at that God works well even in people's sins. For even from the crime of Judas the betrayer our Lord worked the salvation of the human race. But there is this difference: that when God has made something good out of someone's sin, the sinner generally did not want it: not only because, when he sins, he does not sin with the intention with which God by his providence works righteousness from his sin (for Judas did not betray Christ with the intention with which Christ allowed himself to be betrayed), but also because, when he learns that the outcome of his sin has turned to something better, which he did not want, he grieves rather than rejoices. As if someone wanting to give poison to a sick enemy were deceived by the look of a medicine and offered something healthful instead; and the sick man is made well by the kindness of God, who willed to turn his enemy's crime into healing: and yet when that wicked man learns of it, he is tormented by the man's recovery, which was brought about by his own hands. But if a harlot willingly keeps the son she has conceived, and is not driven by lust or by greed for a shameful wage to cast out of her womb by a drink for abortion what she had conceived, lest fruitfulness stand in the way of her sinning; then that desire which flowed out to many, turned to the one gift of God, will no longer be called desire but love. The harlot's son, then, is rightly understood as the grace given to a sinful woman. And from the old shame the new man has been born by the forgiveness of sins.

So the Lord, in the very number of his disciples, though he chose them all from sinners, still chose first those who would persevere in love, rather than Judas the pretender. It is not written in what order he was chosen; but it is known that good men were chosen before him; and not without reason is he numbered last. And after the Lord's ascension the Holy Spirit, sent from above according to the Lord's promise, was poured out on all who were together in one place: those from whom the Church began were good and loved without pretence. Afterwards, then, pretence began to work in the Church: and that is why love gave birth first. And the fruit of love is three days older, so that self-control, and righteousness, and the expectation of things to come can now be recognized. But pretence, even if it has given birth, that is, even if it has rejoiced for a short time in the forgiveness of sins, as if overcome by the sleep of worldly desire, when, cast down from the hope of heavenly rewards, it sinks with a heavy heart into earthly rest, as if sleeping it smothers the forgiveness which it had earned by believing. Such people prefer to rejoice in the name of righteousness rather than in its truth; and by obscure deceptions, as if by night, they try by lying to transfer to themselves another's good work, like a living son. And not only do they usurp the good works of others, but they also charge others with their own crimes, as if putting the dead son in their place.

But when will pretence be allowed so much that it boasts of a false name of righteousness with no one forbidding it, and claims for itself, in deceitful pretension to the name of mother, the living spiritual work which it did not beget, and which it had once begotten in itself and smothered by the weight of a most cruel sleep, and substitutes its own crimes by charging them on the good and innocent? When will pretence reign like this, if not when iniquity abounds, that is, when the darkness of sins prevails as in a blind night; and the love of many grows cold, that is, falls asleep over the spiritual work as over the living child? Yet because love will grow cold in such a way that it burns more negligently (for it was not said that it will be utterly extinguished so as not to exist at all), so this mother slept without killing her son; but still she gave room to the frauds of pretence. But when she wakes, and sees herself charged by those who commit it with an impiety she did not commit, and sees pretence daring to boast of the spiritual work of grace which she has kept, herself being called the worker of iniquity and pretence the mother of the good work, she implores the help of the peaceful Judge. For Solomon means Peaceful. We see that he delivered two sentences: the first as though not knowing, the last as judging with clear knowledge. The first sets the contest of devotion; the second gives the prize to the victor: in the first the mother is tested, in the last she rejoices; in the first, weeping, she sows her seed; in the second, with exultation, she brings back her sheaves. This belongs to the two times of the Church, which the Lord Christ, the peaceful judge, governs: one which is now, the other which is to come; in this one we are tested, in that one we are crowned.

But there is no greater proof of love in Christ's Church than when even the honor that seems to exist among men is despised, so that the little one's limbs may not be divided and Christian weakness torn apart by the rending of unity. For the Apostle says that he showed himself like a mother to the little ones in whom he had produced the good work of the Gospel; not he, but the grace of God with him. For that harlot could call nothing her own but her sins: the gift of fruitfulness was from God. And the grace of the giver is loved the more, the more punishment was due. And the Lord well said of the sinful woman, "He to whom more is forgiven loves more." So the apostle Paul says: "I became a little one among you, like a nurse cherishing her children." But when it comes to the danger that the little one may be divided, when pretence claims a false honor for itself and is ready to split unity, let the mother despise her own honor, so long as she sees her son whole and keeps him alive; lest, by claiming too stubbornly the honor due to her womb, she give pretence room to divide the weak limbs with the sword of schism. So let mother love say, "Give her the child." "Whether in pretence or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed." In Moses love cries out, "Lord, either forgive them, or blot me out of your book." But in the Pharisees pretence speaks: "If we let him go, the Romans will come and take away our nation and place." For they wanted to have not the truth but the name of righteousness, and desired to hold by deceit the honor due to the righteous. Yet the pretence reigning in them was permitted to sit in the chair of Moses, so that the Lord could say, "What they say, do; but what they do, do not do." So that, though holding a false honor, they still nourished the little ones and the weak with the truth of the Scriptures. For pretence has its own crime, by which it smothered with the weight of its sleep the new man it had received by the grace of the giver; but the milk of faith which it has is not its own. For even when the little one, who signifies the life that is reborn, has been killed, pretence, now settled in bad ways, still keeps in its memory, as in its breasts, the words of faith and Christian teaching which are handed on to all who come to the Church. From this milk even the false mother could give the sucking infant the nourishment of the true faith. Hence the true mother is secure when, even through pretenders in the Church, her little one is nourished with the milk of the divine Scriptures and of the Catholic faith, when division has been prevented and unity is safe; and by the judge's last sentence, by which the last judgment of Christ is figured, love that has been proved, which for the little one's safety and the strength of unity yielded honor even to pretence, holding love and the embrace of living grace, enjoys the everlasting reward of a devoted mother.

The Lord our God, not wanting any of us to perish, tending his Church like his field, seeking fruit from his trees before the time of the axe comes, when it will be necessary to cut down the fruitless trees, does not stop warning us to do good works while there is time and while, with God's help, it lies in our power. For when the time for doing good has passed, nothing remains but the time for receiving. No one will say to you after the resurrection of the dead, in the kingdom of God, "Break your bread to the hungry," because you will not find anyone hungry. No one will say, "Clothe the naked," where everyone's tunic will be immortality. No one will say, "Take in the stranger," where all will live in their own homeland. For now we are strangers from there. No one will say, "Visit the sick," where there is everlasting health. No one will say, "Bury the dead," where death dies. All these duties of devotion will not be necessary in eternal life, where there will be only peace and everlasting joy. But in this time, so that we may know how much God commends works of mercy to us, he has made even his saints to be in need; so that when friends are made here by means of the mammon of iniquity, they too may receive their friends into the eternal tabernacles: that is, so that when those who have the riches of the world give alms to the servants of God, who, while they are constantly free for God, are sometimes in need, then, as they make them sharers in earthly goods, so they may be found worthy to have a share with them in eternal life.

I said this because of the reading from the Kingdoms which we heard first. Had God failed to feed his servant Elijah? Did not birds serve him, since men were lacking? Did not a raven bring him bread in the morning and meat in the evening? So God showed that he can feed his servants from wherever he wills and however he wills: and yet, so that he might feed him with a devout widow, he made him be in need. The want of a holy soul was turned into abundance for a devout soul. Could Elijah not have given himself, from the mercy of God, what he gave to the little jar? You surely see, and it is plain, that sometimes the servants of God do not have, precisely so that those who have may be tested. And yet that widow had nothing: what she had left had run out, and she was about to die with her children. So she went out to gather two sticks to make herself bread: and then Elijah saw her. The man of God saw her just when she was looking for those two sticks. That woman bore the type of the Church: and because two pieces of wood make a cross, she, about to die, was looking for that by which she would live for ever. So, with the mystery foreshadowed, Elijah speaks to her what he heard: she tells her situation, says she will die when she has used up what remains. Where, then, is what the Lord had said to Elijah, "Go to Zarephath of Sidon; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you"? You see how God commands: not in the ear, but in the heart. Do we read that some prophet was sent to that woman and it was said to her, "Thus says the Lord: My servant will come to you hungry; serve him from what you have: do not fear want; I will make up what you give"? We do not read that this was said to her. Nor do we read that an angel was sent to her in her sleep and announced that Elijah would come hungry, and that someone admonished that woman about feeding him. But God, who speaks in thoughts, commands in wonderful ways. We say that God commanded by speaking in the heart, suggesting what was needed, persuading the rational soul of the widow woman of what was useful. So too we read in the Prophets that the Lord commanded a worm to gnaw the root of the gourd. What does "commanded" mean, if not "prepared its heart"? So by the Lord's inspiration that widow woman had a heart prepared to obey. Such she had come, such she spoke with Elijah. He who was in Elijah to command was himself in the widow to obey. "Go," he says, "first make something for me from your want; your riches will not fail." For the widow's patrimony was a little flour and a little oil: this little did not fail. Who has such an estate? The widow gladly fed the hungry servant of God, because her patrimony hung on a nail. What is happier than this poverty? If she receives such things here, what will she hope for at the end?

I said this so that we may not hope for the reward of our sowing in this time in which we sow. For here we sow the harvest of good works with toil, but in the future we shall gather its fruit with joy; as it is written, "Going, they went and wept, scattering their seeds; but coming, they will come with exultation, carrying their sheaves." For that was done as a sign, not as a payment. For if that widow received here for feeding the man of God, what she sowed is not great, because she did not reap a great crop. What she received is temporal: flour that did not run out and oil that did not diminish, until God gave rain upon the earth. And so she began to be in greater need just when God deigned to send rain: for then she was going to toil, to wait for the fruits of the field and gather them. But when it was not raining, her food came easily. That very sign which God granted her for a few days was a sign of the future life, where our reward knows no failing. God will be our flour. As those did not fail during those days, so he will not fail for ever. Let us hope for such a reward when we do good; lest perhaps one of you be tempted by a thought like this, saying, "I will feed some hungry servant of God, so that my jug may not run out and I may always find wine in my vat." Do not look for this here. Sow without anxiety; your harvest will come later, it will come more slowly: but when it comes, it will have no end.