Sermons to the People 128.1–128.14

We have heard the words of the holy Gospel; and this may disturb someone, that the Lord Jesus said, “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” How then is the witness of the Truth not true? Is he not the one who said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”? Whom then are we to believe, if the Truth is not to be believed? Surely whoever chooses not to believe the Truth wants to believe nothing but falsehood. So this was said with reference to them, so that you may understand it thus and take this sense from these words: “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true,” that is, as you think. For he knew that his witness about himself was true: but because of the weak, because of the unbelieving, because of those who did not understand, the sun was looking for lamps. For their bleary eyes could not bear the brightness of the sun.

So John was sought out to bear witness to the truth; and you heard what he says: “You went to John. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for an hour in his light.” This lamp was prepared for their confusion, because it was said of it so long before in the Psalms: “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ.” Why a lamp for the sun? “His enemies I will clothe with confusion, but upon him my sanctification will flourish.” Indeed, they were once confounded on this very point through John himself, when the Jews said to the Lord, “By what authority do you do these things? Tell us.” He answered them: “You tell me too: the baptism of John, is it from heaven, or from men?” They heard, and fell silent. For they quickly reasoned among themselves: “If we say, From men, the people will stone us, for they hold John to be a prophet. If we say, From heaven, he will say to us, Why then did you not believe him?” For John had borne witness to Christ. Hemmed in their hearts by their own questions, and caught in their own snares, they answered, “We do not know.” What other voice could darkness have? It is right for a man, when he does not know, to say, “I do not know.” But when he knows, and says, “I do not know,” he is a witness against himself. Certainly they knew John’s excellence, and that his baptism was from heaven: but they would not yield to the one to whom John bore witness. But when they said, “We do not know,” Jesus answered them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” And they were confounded, and it was fulfilled: “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ; his enemies I will clothe with confusion.”

Are not the martyrs witnesses of Christ, and do they not bear witness to the truth? But if we think more carefully, when those martyrs bear witness, he bears witness to himself. For he dwells in the martyrs, so that they may bear witness to the truth. Hear one of the martyrs, the apostle Paul himself: “Do you want proof of Christ who speaks in me?” So when John bears witness, Christ, who dwells in John, bears witness to himself. Let Peter bear witness, let Paul, let the other apostles, let Stephen: he who dwells in them all bears witness to himself. For he is God without them; what are they without him?

Of him it was said, “He ascended on high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men.” What is “he led captivity captive”? He conquered death. What is “he led captivity captive”? The devil brought about death, and the devil himself was taken captive by the death of Christ. “He ascended on high.” What do we know higher than heaven? Plainly, before the eyes of his disciples, he ascended into heaven. This we know, this we believe, this we confess. “He gave gifts to men.” What gifts? The Holy Spirit. He who gives such a gift, what must he himself be? For great is God’s mercy: he gives a gift equal to himself; for his gift is the Holy Spirit, and the whole Trinity is one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What has the Holy Spirit given us? Hear the apostle: “The love of God,” he says, “has been poured out in our hearts.” From where, O beggar, has the love of God been poured out in your heart? How, or in what, has the love of God been poured out in the human heart? “We have this treasure,” he says, “in earthen vessels.” Why in earthen vessels? “That the excellence of the power may be of God.” Indeed, when he had said, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts,” lest anyone think that his loving God came from himself, he at once added, “through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” So that you may love God, then, let God dwell in you and love himself from you; that is, let him move you to love of him, set you on fire, enlighten you, rouse you.

For there is a wrestling in this body: as long as we live, we fight; as long as we fight, we are in danger: but in all these things we overcome through him who loved us. You heard our fight described just now, when the apostle was read: “The whole law,” he says, “is fulfilled in one word, in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This love is from the Holy Spirit. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” First see whether you already know how to love yourself; then I entrust to you your neighbor, to love as yourself. But if you do not yet know how to love yourself, I fear you will deceive your neighbor as you deceive yourself. For if you love iniquity, you do not love yourself. The psalm is witness: “But he who loves iniquity hates his own soul.” And if you hate your soul, what does it profit you that you love your flesh? If you hate your soul and love your flesh, your flesh will rise again; but so that your soul may be tormented. So the soul must first be loved, and it must be subjected to God, so that this service may keep its order: the soul to God, the flesh to the soul. Do you want your flesh to serve your soul? Let your soul serve God. You must be ruled so that you can rule. For this wrestling is so dangerous that if the ruler lets go, ruin follows.

What wrestling? “But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit.” I am saying the words of the apostle that were read just now from his Epistle: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not fulfill the desires of the flesh.” “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and the desires of the flesh”: he did not say, “do not have”; nor did he say, “do not do”; but “do not fulfill.” What this means I will tell, with the Lord’s help, as well as I can: be attentive, so that you may understand, if you walk by the Spirit. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not fulfill the desires of the flesh.” Let what follows come too, so that perhaps what is obscure here may be more easily understood from his following words. For I said that it was not without reason that the apostle did not choose to say, “Do not have the desires of the flesh,” nor even to say, “Do not do the desires of the flesh,” but said, “Do not fulfill the desires of the flesh.” He has set the wrestling itself before us. We are engaged in this battle if we serve as God’s soldiers. What then follows? “For the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do the things you will.” If this is not understood, it is heard with the greatest danger. Therefore, anxious lest people perish by understanding it wrongly, I have undertaken, with the Lord’s help, to explain these words of the apostle to your Charity. We have time; we began in the morning; the dinner hour is not pressing: on this day, that is, the Sabbath, those who hunger for the word of God usually gather in the greatest numbers. Hear and attend; I will speak as carefully as I can.

What is it, then, that I said, that it is heard with danger if it is not understood? Many, overcome by carnal and damnable desires, commit every kind of crime and outrage, and wallow in uncleannesses so foul that it is shameful even to name them; and they quote these words of the apostle to themselves: “See what the apostle said: So that you do not do the things you will. I do not want to do it; I am forced, compelled, overcome; I do what I do not want, as the apostle says: For the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do the things you will.” You see how dangerously it is heard if it is not understood. You see how it belongs to the shepherd’s office to open covered springs and to serve pure, harmless water to the thirsty sheep.

Do not, then, be overcome when you fight. See what kind of war he has set before us, what kind of fight, what kind of brawl, within, inside yourself. “The flesh desires against the spirit.” If the spirit does not also desire against the flesh, commit adultery. But if the spirit desires against the flesh, I see a struggle, I do not see a defeat: there is a fight. The flesh desires against the spirit: adultery delights. I admit it delights. But the spirit desires against the flesh: chastity delights too. So let the spirit overcome the flesh, or at least not be overcome by the flesh. Adultery seeks darkness; chastity longs for light. Live as you want to be known: as you want to be known by men, so live even out of men’s sight; for he who made you sees you even in the darkness. Why is chastity praised publicly by men? Why do not even adulterers praise adultery? “He who seeks the truth comes to the light.” But adultery delights. Let it be contradicted, resisted, fought. For you do not lack the means to fight. Your God is in you; the good Spirit has been given to you. And yet the flesh itself is permitted to desire against the spirit with wicked suggestions and inborn delights. Let what the apostle says be done: “Let not sin reign in your mortal body.” He did not say, “let it not be.” It is already there. And it is called sin because it came about as the desert of sin. For in paradise the flesh did not desire against the spirit, nor was this fight there, where there was only peace: but after the transgression was committed, after man would not serve God and was handed over to himself (and not so handed over to himself that he could at least possess himself, but possessed by the one by whom he was deceived), the flesh began to desire against the spirit. And it desires against the spirit in the good: for in the wicked it has nothing to desire against. For it desires against the spirit where the spirit is.

For when he says, “The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,” do not think it is given to man’s spirit alone. It is the Spirit of God who fights in you against you, against that which is in you against you. For you would not stand by the Lord; you fell, you were broken: as a vessel is broken when it falls from a man’s hand to the ground, so you were broken. And because you are broken, therefore you are opposed to yourself, therefore you are against yourself. Let there be nothing in you against you, and you will stand whole. For so that you may know that this office belongs to the Holy Spirit, the apostle says in another place, “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die: but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” At these words man was already exalting himself, as if he could put to death the deeds of the flesh by his own spirit. “If you live according to the flesh, you will die: but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” Explain to us, apostle, by what spirit. For man too has a spirit belonging to his own nature, by which he is man. For man consists of body and spirit. And of man’s own spirit it was said: “No one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him.” So I see that man himself has his own spirit, belonging to his nature, and I hear you saying, “But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” I ask: by what spirit, mine or God’s? For I hear your words, and I am still unsettled by the ambiguity. For when “spirit” is said, it is sometimes a man’s, and a beast’s spirit is also spoken of; as it is written that through the flood all flesh died that had in it the spirit of life. And so both a beast’s spirit and a man’s spirit are spoken of. Sometimes the wind too is called spirit, as we have in the psalm: “Fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of the storm.” Since, then, spirit is spoken of in many ways, by what spirit, O apostle, did you say the deeds of the flesh are to be put to death? Mine, or God’s? Hear what follows, and understand. The question is removed by the words that follow. For when he had said, “But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live,” he at once added, “For as many as are moved by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” You act, if you are moved; and you act well, if you are moved by the good. So as for what he said to you, “If by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live,” and it was ambiguous to you of what spirit he had spoken, in the following words understand the teacher, recognize the Redeemer. For that Redeemer gave you the Spirit by which to put to death the deeds of the flesh. “For as many as are moved by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” They are not sons of God if they are not moved by the Spirit of God. But if they are moved by the Spirit of God, they fight: because they have a great helper. For God does not watch us fighting as the people watch the hunters in the arena. The people can cheer a hunter; they cannot help him when he is in danger.

So here too: “The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” And what is “so that you do not do the things you will”? For here lies the danger of a bad interpreter. Let there now be the office of an expositor, such as I am. “So that you do not do the things you will.” Attend, all you saints who are fighting. I am speaking to those in battle. Those who fight understand: he who does not fight does not understand me. For he who fights, I do not say understands me: he goes ahead of me. What does the chaste man want? That no desire at all opposed to chastity should rise in his members. He wants peace, but does not yet have it. For when we come to that place where no desire at all rises to be opposed, there will be no enemy for us to wrestle with; nor is victory awaited there, for there one triumphs over an enemy already conquered. Hear that victory itself, as the apostle himself says: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.” Hear the voices of those who triumph: “Where, O death, is your contention? Where, O death, is your sting?” You struck, you wounded, you threw down: but he who made me was wounded for me. O death, O death! He who made me was wounded for me, and by his death he conquered you. And then the triumphant will say: “Where, O death, is your contention? Where, O death, is your sting?”

But now, while the flesh desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, there is death’s contention: we do not do what we will. Why? Because we want there to be no desires, but we cannot. Whether we will or not, we have them: whether we will or not, they tickle, they coax, they goad, they harass, they want to rise. They are held down; they are not yet extinguished, as long as the flesh desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. Will this be so even when a man has died? Far from it. You lay aside the flesh; how could you drag the desires of the flesh with you? But if you have fought well, you are received into rest. From that rest you are to be crowned, not condemned, so that afterwards you may be brought to the kingdom. So, brothers, as long as one lives here, it is so: so too we who have grown old in this warfare have lesser enemies, but still we have them. Our enemies are in a way worn out by age already: but even worn out they do not stop harassing the quiet of old age with motions of one kind or another. The young have a fiercer fight: we know it, we have gone through it. “So the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do the things you will.” For what do you will, O saints, O good fighters, O brave soldiers of Christ? What do you will? That there should be no evil desires at all. But you cannot. Wage the war, hope for the triumph. For now, in the meantime, there is fighting. “The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do the things you will”: that is, that there be no desires of the flesh at all.

But do what you can; what the apostle himself says in another place, which I had already begun to mention: “Let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.” See, I do not want it: evil desires rise; but do not obey. Arm yourself, take up the instruments of war. God’s commandments are your arms. If you hear me well, you are armed even by what I am saying. “Let not sin,” he says, “reign in your mortal body.” For as long as you bear a mortal body, sin fights against you: but let it not reign. What is “let it not reign”? That is, “so that you obey its desires.” If you begin to obey, it reigns. And what is obeying, but presenting your members to sin as weapons of iniquity? Nothing could be clearer than this teacher. What do you want me to explain to you now? Do what you have heard. Do not present your members to sin as weapons of iniquity. God has given you power through his Spirit to keep hold of your members. Lust rises: you keep hold of your members. What will the thing that has risen do? You keep hold of your members: do not present your members to sin as weapons of iniquity; do not arm your adversary against yourself. Hold your feet, so that they do not go to forbidden things. Lust has risen: keep hold of your members: hold back your hands from every crime: hold your eyes, so that they do not look wrongly: hold your ears, so that they do not gladly hear words of lust: hold your whole body, hold its sides, hold its highest parts, hold its lowest. What can lust do? It knows how to rise; it does not know how to conquer. By constantly rising for nothing, it learns not to rise as well.

Let us return, then, to the words of the apostle that I had set out as obscure, and we shall see that they are now plain. For I had pointed out that the apostle did not say, “Walk by the Spirit, and do not have the desires of the flesh,” because we must have them. Why then did he not say, “Do not do the desires of the flesh”? Because we do them; for we desire. Desiring itself is doing. But the apostle says: “It is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.” What then must you guard against? This, without doubt: that you do not fulfill them. Damnable lust has risen; it has risen, it has made its suggestion: let it not be listened to. It burns, it does not check itself, and you would want it not to burn. And where is “so that you do not do the things you will”? Do not give it your members. Let it burn for nothing, and it consumes itself. So these desires do arise in you. It must be admitted: they arise. Therefore he said, “Do not fulfill them.” Let them not be fulfilled. If you have decided to do it, you have fulfilled it. For you have fulfilled it if you decide that adultery is to be committed, and do not commit it only because no place has been found, because no opportunity is given, because perhaps the woman by whom you seem to have been stirred is chaste: see, she is chaste, and you are an adulterer. Why? Because you have fulfilled the desires. What is “you have fulfilled”? In your mind you have decided that adultery is to be committed. And if (God forbid) your members too have carried it out, you have rolled down into death.

Christ raised a dead girl in the house, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. She was in the house; she had not yet been carried out. So it is with the man who has decided on an outrage in his heart: he is dead, but he lies within. But if he has gone as far as committing it with his members, he has been carried out of doors. But the Lord also raised the widow’s young son, when he was being carried out dead outside the gate of the city. So then I dare to say this: you have decided in your heart; if you call yourself back from your act, you will be healed before you commit it. For if you strike your heart in repentance because you had decided on an evil, criminal, shameful, and damnable thing, there where you lay dead within, there within you have risen. But if you have carried it out, you have already been carried out of doors: but you have one to say to you, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” Even if you have committed it, repent; come back from near at hand: do not come to the tomb. But here I have a third dead man, who has even been brought to the tomb. Now he has the weight of habit upon him; the earthly mass presses heavily on him. For he is much practiced in outrages; he is weighed down by his excessive habit. Christ cries out here too: “Lazarus, come forth.” For a man of the worst habit already stinks. Rightly did Christ cry out there: and not only cry out, but cry out with a loud voice. For at Christ’s cry even such as these, though dead, though buried, though stinking, will yet rise themselves; they will rise. For no one lying dead is to be despaired of under such a raiser. Turning to the Lord, and so on.