Sermons to the People 135.1–136.6

The Lord Jesus, as we heard when the holy Gospel was read, opened the eyes of a man who had been born blind. Brothers, if we consider our inherited penalty, the whole world is blind. That is why Christ came as the enlightener, because the devil had been the blinder. He who deceived the first man made all to be born blind. Let them run to the enlightener: let them run, believe, receive the clay made with spittle. The spittle is, as it were, the Word; the earth is flesh. Let them wash their face in the pool of Siloam. It fell to the evangelist to explain to us what Siloam signifies, and he says, “Which means Sent.” Who is this Sent one, but he who said in this very reading, “I have come,” he says, “to do the works of him who sent me”? See, here is Siloam: wash your face, be baptized, so that you may be enlightened, and see, you who did not see before.

See, first, at this saying open your eyes, as if you were washing your face in him who was sent, in Siloam. What then do you say? “See,” he says, “he himself said it.” What did he say? “I have come to do the works of him who sent me.” “So not his own?” No. And what of the saying of Siloam himself, the Sent one himself, the Son himself, the Only One himself, whom you complain is not of his Father’s nature? What of his saying, “All that the Father has is mine”? You say that he was doing another’s works, because he said, “I will do the works of him who sent me.” I say that the Father had another’s things; I am speaking according to your way of thinking. Why do you want to lay down the law to me because Christ said, “I have come to do the works of him who sent me,” as if they were not his own but those of him who sent him?

I ask you, Lord Christ: solve the question, end the dispute. “All that the Father has,” he says, “is mine.” So are they not the Father’s, if they are yours? For he did not say, “All that the Father has, he has given me”: though even if he had said that, he would have shown equality. But what is troublesome is that he said, “All that the Father has is mine.” If you understand it, all that the Father has is the Son’s; all that the Son has is the Father’s. Hear him in another place: “All mine are yours, and yours are mine.” The question about what the Father and the Son have is finished: they hold it in concord; do not you quarrel. The Father’s works he calls his own works, because “yours are mine”: for he speaks of the works of that Father to whom he said, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine.” So my works are yours, and your works are mine. “For whatever the Father does”: he himself said it, the Lord said it, the Only-begotten said it, the Son said it, the Truth said it. What did he say? “Whatever the Father does, these the Son also does likewise.” A great expression, a great truth, a great equality. “All that the Father does, these the Son also does.” It would be enough to say, “All that the Father does, these the Son also does.” It is not enough; I add, “likewise.” Why do I add “likewise”? Because those who do not understand, and walk about with eyes not yet opened, are accustomed to say: “The Father did it by commanding, the Son by obeying; so, unlike.” But if “likewise,” then as the one, so the other; so what the one does, these the other does.

“But the Father commands,” he says, “that the Son should do.” You think carnally indeed; but, without prejudice to the truth, I concede it to you. See, the Father commands, the Son obeys: is the Son therefore not of his nature, because the one commands and the other obeys? Give me two men, a father and a son: they are two men; he who commands is a man, he who obeys is a man: he who commands and he who obeys have one and the same nature. Did not he who commands beget a son of his own nature? Did he who obeys lose his nature by obeying? Take it, then, for the present, as you take two men: the Father commanding, the Son obeying, yet God and God. But those are together two men, while these are together one God: this is the divine miracle. Meanwhile, if you want me to acknowledge obedience with you, first acknowledge nature with me. The Father begot what he himself is. If the Father begot other than what he himself is, he did not beget a true Son. The Father says to the Son, “From the womb before the morning star I begot you.” What is “before the morning star”? By the morning star times are signified. So before times, before everything that is called “before”; before everything that is not, or before everything that is. For the Gospel does not say, “In the beginning God made the Word,” as it said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”; or, “In the beginning the Word was born”; or, “In the beginning God begot the Word.” But what does it say? “Was,” “was,” “was.” You hear “was”: believe. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So many times you hear “was”: do not look for a time, because he always was. He, then, who always was, and was always with the Son, since God is able to beget without time, said to the Son, “From the womb before the morning star I begot you.” What is “from the womb”? Did God have a womb? Shall we think that God is arranged in bodily members? Far from it. And why did he say “from the womb,” except so that it might be understood that he begot him from his own substance? So what came forth from the womb was what he himself was who begot. For if he who begot was one thing, and what came forth from the womb another, it is a monster, not a son.

So let the Son do the works of him who sent him, and let the Father do the works of the Son. “Certainly,” you say, “the Father wills, the Son carries it out.” See, I show that the Son wills and the Father does. Where do you show it, you say? I show it now. “Father, I will.” Now if I wanted to make false charges: see, the Son commands, and the Father does. What do you will? “That where I am, they too may be with me.” We have escaped; we shall be where he is: we shall be there; we have escaped. Who can blot out the Almighty’s “I will”? You hear the will of power; hear also the power of will. “As the Father,” he says, “raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he will.” “To whom he will.” Do not say, “The Son gives life to those whom the Father commands him to give life.” “He gives life to whom he will.” So to those whom the Father wills, and to those whom he himself wills; because where there is one power, there is one will. Let us hold, then, in a heart not blind, the one and same nature of the Father and the Son: because the Father is true, the Son is true. What he is, he begot; for the begotten did not fall short of his begetter.

I do not know what in the words of the man who had been blind may disturb people, and perhaps make many who do not understand them well despair. For among his other words the same man whose eyes were opened says: “We know that God does not hear sinners.” What are we to do, if God does not hear sinners? Do we dare to ask God, if he does not hear sinners? Give me one who asks; see, there is one who hears. Give me one who asks; examine the human race from the imperfect to the perfect. Climb from spring to summer: for we sang this: “You made summer and spring.” That is, you made both those already spiritual and those still carnal; because the Son himself also says, “Your eyes saw my imperfect part.” “The imperfect that is in my body your eyes saw.” And what then? Have the imperfect any hope? Plainly they have. Hear what follows: “And in your book all will be written.” But perhaps, brothers, the spiritual ask and are heard, because they are not sinners. What do the carnal do? What do they do? Will they perish? Will they not ask God? Far from it. Give me that tax collector. Come, tax collector, stand in the middle, show your hope, lest the weak lose hope. See, “the tax collector went up with the Pharisee to pray, and with face cast down to the ground, standing far off, beating his breast, he said: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. And he went down justified rather than that Pharisee.” He who said, “Be merciful to me a sinner”: did he speak truly or falsely? If he spoke truly, he was a sinner; and he was heard and justified. What is it, then, that you said, you whose eyes the Lord opened, “We know that God does not hear sinners”? See, God hears sinners. But wash your inner face; let there be done in your heart what was done in your face; and you will see that God hears sinners. The imagination of your heart deceived you. There is still something for him to do for you. Certainly the man was cast out of the synagogue: the Lord heard of it, came to him, and said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” And he said: “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?” He saw, and did not see: he saw with his eyes, but did not yet see with his heart. The Lord said to him: “You both see him” (that is, with your eyes), “and he who speaks with you is he.” Then he fell down and worshiped him. Then he washed the face of his heart.

Apply yourselves, then, to prayer, you sinners; confess your sins, pray that they may be blotted out, pray that they may be lessened, pray that as you advance they may themselves fade away: yet do not despair; pray, sinners though you are. For who has not sinned? Begin with the priests. To the priests he said, “First offer sacrifices for your own sins, and then for the people.” The sacrifices convicted the priests: so that if anyone called himself righteous and without sin, he would be answered, “I do not attend to what you say, but to what you offer; your victim convicts you. Why do you offer for your sins, if you have no sins? Or are you lying to God in the sacrifice?” But perhaps the priests of the old people were sinners, and the priests of the new people are not sinners. Indeed, brothers, since God has willed it, I am his priest; I am a sinner; with you I beat my breast, with you I ask pardon, with you I hope for God’s mercy. But perhaps the holy apostles, the first, the chief rams of the flock, shepherds who are members of the Shepherd, perhaps they had no sin. Truly they too had it, they had it: they are not angry, because they confess it. I would not dare to say it of my own accord. First hear the Lord himself saying to the apostles, “Pray thus.” As those priests were convicted by sacrifices, so these by prayer. “Pray thus.” And among the other things he commanded them to pray, he put this too: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” What do the apostles say? Daily they ask that their debts be forgiven. They come in as debtors, go out absolved, and return to prayer as debtors. This life is not without sin, and so as often as we pray, so often are sins forgiven.

But what shall I say? Perhaps when they learned the prayer they were still weak. Someone may say this: “When the Lord Jesus taught them the prayer, they were still little ones, still weak, still carnal; they were not yet spiritual, and the spiritual have no sin.” What then, brothers? When they had become spiritual, did they stop praying? Then Christ ought to have said, “Pray such things for now,” and given another prayer to the spiritual. It is one, it is the same; the one who gave it is the same: so pray that same prayer in the Church. But let us remove the dispute: when you say that the holy apostles were spiritual, you will say that they were carnal until the Lord suffered. Indeed, and this is true, while he hung on the cross they trembled; the apostles despaired at the very time the thief believed. Peter dared to follow when the Lord was led to his passion; he dared to follow; he reached the house, and in the courtyard he grew weary; he stood by the fire and was cold: he stood by the fire, and froze with cold fear. Asked by a maidservant, he denied Christ once; asked again, he denied; asked a third time, he denied. Thanks be to God that the questioning stopped: if the questioning had not stopped, the denial would have been repeated long. So after he rose, then he strengthened them; then they became spiritual. So did they then have no sin? Spiritual apostles wrote spiritual Epistles and sent them to the churches: they had no sin, you say. I do not believe you; I ask them. Tell us, holy apostles: after the Lord rose and strengthened you with the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, did you stop having sin? Tell us, I beg. Let us hear, so that sinners may not despair, may not stop asking God because they are not without sin. Tell us. One of them speaks. Which one? He whom the Lord loved more than the others, who reclined on the Lord’s breast and drank in the secret of the kingdom of heaven, to pour it forth. I ask him: “Do you have sin, or not?” He answers and says: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” And this is that John who said: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” See how much he had passed beyond to reach the Word. Such and so great a man, who flew like an eagle above the clouds, who saw with serenity of mind, “In the beginning was the Word,” he it was who said, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all iniquity.” So pray.

We have heard the reading of the holy Gospel that we are used to; but it is good to be reminded; it is good to renew the memory from the torpor of forgetfulness. Indeed, this very old reading delighted us as if it were new. Christ gave light to a man blind from birth: why do you wonder? Christ is the Savior: by his kindness he gave back what he had left unmade in the womb. When he left his eyes unmade, he certainly did not make a mistake; he was postponing it for a miracle. Perhaps you say: “How do you know?” I heard it from him: he said it just now; we heard it together. For when his disciples asked him and said, “Lord, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”, what he answered you heard with me: “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God might be shown in him.” See why he postponed it when he left the eyes unmade. He did not do it, so that he might do it; he did not do what he knew he would do when it was fitting. And do not think, brothers, that his parents had no sin, or that he himself did not contract original sin when he was born, for the remission of which little ones are baptized for the forgiveness of sins. But that blindness was not because of his parents’ sin, nor because of his own sin, but that the works of God might be manifested in him. For all of us contracted original sin when we were born; and yet we were not born blind. Examine it carefully, and we were born blind. For who was not born blind? But in heart. But the Lord Jesus, because he had created both, healed both.

You have seen this blind man with the eyes of faith; you have also seen him seeing after being blind: but you have heard him in error. In what this blind man erred, I will tell you: first, in that he thought Christ a prophet and did not know that he was the Son of God. Then we heard one answer of his that was altogether false: for he said, “We know that God does not hear sinners.” If God does not hear sinners, what hope do we have? If God does not hear sinners, why do we pray, and declare the testimony of our sin by beating our breasts? Where then is that tax collector who went up into the temple with the Pharisee, and, while the Pharisee boasted and aired his merits, stood far off with his eyes fixed on the ground, beating his breast, and confessed his sins? And he who confessed his sins went down from the temple justified rather than that Pharisee. Certainly God hears sinners. But he who said this had not yet washed the face of his heart in Siloam. The sacrament had gone before in his eyes, but in his heart the benefit of grace had not yet been worked. When did this blind man wash the face of his heart? When the Lord received him to himself after the Jews had cast him out. For he found him and said to him, as we have heard: “Do you believe in the Son of God?” And he: “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?” Certainly he already saw with his eyes: did he already see with his heart? Not yet. Wait: soon he will see. Jesus answered him: “I am he, who speak with you.” Did he doubt? At once he washed his face. For Siloam was speaking with him, which means Sent. Who is the Sent one, but Christ? He often testified, saying, “I do the will of my Father who sent me.” So he himself was Siloam. The blind man drew near in heart, heard, believed, worshiped: he washed his face; he saw.

But those who cast him out remained blind, since they brought a false charge against the Lord because it was the Sabbath when he made clay with spittle and anointed the blind man’s eyes. For when the Lord healed by a word, the Jews made charges that were plainly false. For he did no work on the Sabbath when he spoke and it was done. It was a plainly false charge: they charged him for commanding, they charged him for speaking; as if they themselves did not speak on the Sabbath. I could say that they speak not only not on the Sabbath but on no day at all, since they have withdrawn from the praises of the true God. Still, as I said, brothers, it was a plainly false charge. The Lord said to a man, “Stretch out your hand”: he was made whole, and they made a charge that he healed on the Sabbath. What did he do? What work did he perform? What burden did he carry? But now, spitting on the ground, making clay, and anointing a man’s eyes is work. Let no one doubt it: it was work. The Lord was breaking the Sabbath, but he was not guilty for that. What do I mean, he was breaking the Sabbath? The Light himself had come; he was removing the shadows. For the Sabbath was commanded by the Lord God, commanded by Christ himself, who was with the Father when that Law was given: it was commanded by him, but in the shadow of what was to come. “Let no one judge you, then, in food or in drink, or in respect of a feast day, or a new moon, or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.” He had come whose coming these things announced. Why do the shadows delight you? Jews, open your eyes: the sun is here. “We know.” What do you know, you who are blind in heart? What do you know? “That this man is not from God, who breaks the Sabbath so.” The Sabbath, you wretches, the Sabbath itself proclaimed Christ, whom you say is not from God. You keep the Sabbath carnally; you do not have the spittle of Christ. Notice in the earth of the Sabbath the spittle of Christ too, and you will understand that Christ was prophesied by the Sabbath. But because you do not have the spittle of Christ in the earth upon your eyes, you have not come to Siloam, you have not washed your face, and you have remained blind: to the good of that blind man, or rather, no longer blind, neither in flesh nor in heart. He received the clay made with spittle, his eyes were anointed, he came to Siloam, washed his face, believed in Christ, saw; he did not remain under that very terrible judgment: “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”

A great terror! “That those who do not see may see”: good. It is the Savior’s office, the profession of medicine, “that those who do not see may see.” What is it, Lord, that you added, “and that those who see may become blind”? If we understand it, it is most true and most right. Yet who are “those who see”? They are the Jews. So they see? According to their own words they see; according to the truth they do not see. What then is “they see”? They think they see, they believe they see. For they believed they saw when they defended the Law against Christ. “We know”: so they see. What is “We know” but “We see”? What is “This man is not from God, because he so breaks the Sabbath”? They were seeing: they read what the Law said. For it was commanded that whoever broke the Sabbath should be stoned. That is why they said that this man was not from God: but though seeing they were blind, because he who will be judge of the living and the dead came into the world for judgment. Why do you come? “That those who do not see may see”: that those who confess that they do not see may be enlightened. “And those who see may become blind”: that is, that those who do not confess their blindness may be more heavily hardened. In the end it was fulfilled, “that those who see may become blind”: the defenders of the Law, the expounders of the Law, the teachers of the Law, the interpreters of the Law, crucified the author of the Law. O blindness! It is the blindness that has come upon Israel in part. That Christ might be crucified and the fullness of the Gentiles come in, blindness came upon Israel in part. What is “that those who do not see may see”? “That the fullness of the Gentiles might come in, blindness came upon Israel in part.” The whole world lay blind: but he came, “that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” He was not recognized by the Jews, he was crucified by the Jews: of his blood he made eye-salve for the blind. Made harder, made blind, those who boasted that they saw the light crucified the Light. What blindness! They killed the Light: but the crucified Light gave light to the blind.

Hear one now seeing, who was blind. See what a cross those stumbled over to their harm, who would not confess their blindness to the physician. The Law had remained to them. What does the Law do without grace? O wretches! What did the Law do without grace? What does earth do without Christ’s spittle? What does the Law do without grace, but make people more guilty? Why? Because they are hearers of the Law and not doers, and therefore sinners, transgressors. The son of the woman who gave hospitality to the man of God died, and the staff was sent by the servant and laid on his face, and he did not revive. What does the Law do without grace? The apostle, now seeing, now given light after being blind, what does he say? “For if a Law had been given that could give life, righteousness would certainly be from the Law.” Attend: let us answer and say: what is it that he said? “If a Law had been given that could give life, righteousness would certainly be from the Law.” If it could not give life, why was it given? He went on and added: “But Scripture has shut up all things under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” So that the promise of enlightenment, the promise of love by the faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe, that Scripture, that is, the Law, shut up all things under sin. What is “shut up all things under sin”? “I would not have known desire, had the Law not said, You shall not desire.” What is “Scripture has shut up all things under sin”? It made the offender a transgressor as well. For it could not heal the sinner. It shut up all things under sin: but with what hope? With the hope of grace, the hope of mercy. You received the Law; you wanted to keep it, and you could not: you fell from pride; you saw your weakness. Run to the physician, wash your face. Long for Christ, confess Christ, believe in Christ: the Spirit comes to the letter, and you will be saved. For if you take the Spirit away from the letter, “the letter kills”: if it kills, where is hope? “But the Spirit gives life.”

Let Gehazi, then, the servant of Elisha, take the staff, as Moses, the servant of God, received the Law. Let him take the staff, take it, run, go ahead, get there first, lay the staff on the dead boy’s face. And it was done: he took it, ran, laid the staff on the dead boy’s face. But to what end? What good was the staff? “If a Law had been given that could give life,” the boy would have been raised by the staff: but because “Scripture has shut up all things under sin,” he still lies dead. But why has it shut up all things under sin? “That the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” Let Elisha come, then, who sent the staff by his servant to show that the dead was dead: let him come himself, himself come, let him enter the woman’s guest room, go up to the boy, find him dead, conform himself to the dead boy’s limbs, not dead but living. For this is what he did: he laid face upon face, eyes upon eyes, hands upon hands, footprints upon feet; he drew himself together, he contracted himself; though he was great, he made himself small. He contracted himself; he made himself, so to speak, less. Because “though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” What is it that the living man conformed himself to the dead? Do you ask what it is? Hear the apostle: “God sent his Son.” What is it that he conformed himself to the dead? Let him say it; let him go on and say it himself: “in the likeness of the flesh of sin.” This is the living conforming himself to the dead: coming to us in the likeness of the flesh of sin, not in the flesh of sin. The dead lay in the flesh of sin; the likeness of the flesh of sin conformed itself to him. For he died who had no reason to die. He died, the only one free among the dead; for all human flesh was certainly flesh of sin. How would it revive, unless he who had no sin, conforming himself to the dead, came in the likeness of the flesh of sin? O Lord Jesus, who suffered for us, not for yourself; having no guilt and bearing the penalty, so that you might undo both guilt and penalty.