Sermons to the People 138.1–139.5

We have heard the Lord Jesus commending to us the office of the good shepherd. In this commendation he certainly reminded us, as we are given to understand, that there are good shepherds. And yet, lest a multitude of shepherds be understood in a wrong way, he said, “I am the good shepherd.” And what makes a good shepherd he showed next: “The good shepherd,” he says, “lays down his life for the sheep. But the hireling, who is not the shepherd, sees the wolf coming and flees, because he does not care for the sheep; for he is a hireling.” So Christ is the good shepherd. What of Peter? Was he not a good shepherd? Did he not also lay down his life for the sheep? What of Paul? What of the other apostles? What of the blessed bishops and martyrs who followed in their times? What of this holy Cyprian too? Were they not all good shepherds, not hirelings, of whom it is said, “Amen I say to you, they have received their reward”? So all these were good shepherds, not only because they shed their blood, but because they shed it for the sheep. For they did not shed it out of pride, but out of love.

For among heretics too, those who have suffered some troubles because of their iniquities and errors boast of the name of martyrdom, so that, whitened by this cloak, they may steal more easily, because they are wolves. But if you want to know in what number they are to be counted, hear a good shepherd, the apostle Paul: for not all who hand over their bodies in suffering, even to the flames, are to be reckoned to have shed their blood for the sheep; rather, against the sheep. “If I speak,” he says, “with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. If I know all mysteries, and have all prophecy and all faith, so that I move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” So faith that moves mountains is indeed a great thing. Those things are great: but if I have them without love, he says, it is not they but I who am nothing. But he has not yet touched those who glory falsely in their sufferings under the name of martyrdom. Hear how he touches them, or rather pierces them through. “If I distribute,” he says, “all my goods to the poor, and hand over my body to be burned”: here they are now. But see what follows: “but have not love, it profits me nothing.” See, it comes to suffering, it comes even to the shedding of blood, it comes to the burning of the body: and yet it profits nothing, because love is lacking. Add love, and all things profit; take away love, and the rest profits nothing.

What a good thing is this love, brothers! What is more precious? What more radiant? What firmer? What more useful? What safer? There are many gifts of God which even the wicked have, who will say, “Lord, in your name we prophesied, in your name we cast out demons, in your name we did many mighty works.” And he will not answer, “You did not do them.” For in the sight of so great a judge they will not dare to lie, or to boast of what they did not do. But because they did not have love, he will answer them all: “I do not know you.” But how does he have even a little love who, even when refuted, does not love unity? Commending this unity to good shepherds, the Lord would not speak of many shepherds. For, as I have already said, it is not that Peter was not a good shepherd, nor Paul, nor the other apostles, nor the holy bishops who came after, and blessed Cyprian. All these were good shepherds; and yet he did not commend good shepherds to good shepherds, but the good shepherd. “I am,” he says, “the good shepherd.”

Let us question the Lord with whatever understanding we have, and let us converse with so great a householder in most humble discussion. What do you say, Lord, good shepherd? For you are the good shepherd, you who are the good lamb; the same is shepherd and pasture, the same lamb and lion. What do you say? Let us hear; and help us to understand. “I am,” he says, “the good shepherd.” What of Peter? Is he not a shepherd, or a bad one? Let us see whether he is not a shepherd. “Do you love me?” You said to him, Lord, “Do you love me?”, and he answered, “I love you.” And you said to him, “Feed my sheep.” You, you, Lord, by your questioning, by the firmness of your word, made the lover a shepherd. So he is a shepherd, to whom you entrusted your sheep to feed. You yourself entrusted them: he is a shepherd. Now let us see whether he is not good. We find it in that very question and his answer. You asked whether he loved you: he answered, “I love you.” You saw his heart, that he answered truly. Is he not good, then, who loves so great a good? Where did that answer, brought out from his inmost heart, come from? Peter, having your eyes as witnesses in his heart, was grieved that you asked him not once only but a second and a third time (so that by a threefold confession of love he might blot out the threefold sin of denial); grieved at being asked again and again by one who knew what he was asking and had given what he heard: where then did he get the words he answered, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you”? Would he lie in confessing, or rather professing, such things? So he answered truly of his love for you, and from his inmost heart brought forth a lover’s voice. But you have said: “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things.” So he is both a shepherd and a good shepherd: nothing, indeed, compared with the power and goodness of the Shepherd of shepherds; but still he too is both a shepherd and good; and the others like him are good shepherds.

What, then, is it that you commend one shepherd to good shepherds, except that in one shepherd you teach unity? And the Lord himself explains it more plainly through our ministry, reminding your Charity from the Gospel itself and saying: “Hear what I have commended. I said, I am the good shepherd: because all the others, all the good shepherds, are my members.” One head, one body, one Christ. So there is the Shepherd of shepherds, and the shepherds of the Shepherd, and the sheep with the shepherds under the Shepherd. What is this but what the apostle says: “For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ”? So if “so also is Christ,” rightly Christ, having in himself all the good shepherds, commends one, saying, “I am the good shepherd.” I am, I am one; with me all are one in unity. He who feeds outside me feeds against me. “He who does not gather with me scatters.” So hear this unity commended still more strongly: “I have,” he says, “other sheep, which are not of this fold.” For he was speaking to the first fold, of the race of Israel according to the flesh. But there were others of the race of the faith of that same Israel, and they were still outside; they were among the Gentiles, predestined, not yet gathered. He knew them who had predestined them; he knew them who had come to redeem them by shedding his blood. He saw them while they did not yet see him; he knew them while they did not yet believe in him. “I have,” he says, “other sheep, which are not of this fold”: because they are not of the race of Israel according to the flesh. But they will not be outside this fold, “for I must bring them too, so that there may be one flock and one shepherd.”

Rightly, then, to this Shepherd of shepherds his beloved, his bride, his fair one (but made fair by him: first foul with sins, afterwards beautiful by pardon and grace), loving him and burning for him, speaks and says to him, “Where do you feed?” And see how, with what affection, spiritual love is raised up here. Those take more delight in this affection who have tasted something of the sweetness of this love. Those hear it well who love Christ. For in them, and of them, the Church sings this in the Song of Songs: those who love Christ, as if he were ugly, though he alone is beautiful. “For we saw him,” it says, “and he had no form or beauty.” So he appeared on the cross; so he showed himself crowned with thorns, ugly and without beauty, as if he had lost his power, as if he were not the Son of God. So he was seen by the blind. For Isaiah said this in the person of the Jews: “We saw him, and he had no form or beauty.” When it was said, “If he is the Son of God, let him come down from the cross. He saved others; himself he cannot save.” And striking him on the head with a reed: “Prophesy to us, Christ, who struck you?” Because he had no form or beauty. So you saw him, Jews. Because blindness has come upon Israel in part, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, until the other sheep should come. Because blindness came, therefore you saw the beautiful one without beauty. “For if you had known, you would never have crucified the Lord of glory.” But you did it, because you did not know. And yet he who bore with you as if he were ugly prayed for you as the beautiful one: “Father,” he says, “forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” For if he is without beauty, what is it that she loves, who says, “Tell me, you whom my soul has loved”? What is it that she loves? What is it that she burns for, what is it that she so fears to stray from him, what is it that she so delights in him, for whom the only punishment is to be without him? What would there be to love, if he were not beautiful? But how would she love him so, if he appeared to her as he did to the blind persecutors who did not know what they were doing? Whom, then, did she love? “Beautiful in form above the sons of men. Beautiful in form above the sons of men, grace is poured on your lips.” So from those very lips of yours “tell me, you whom my soul has loved.” “Tell me,” she says, “you whom” not my flesh but “my soul has loved. Tell me where you feed, where you lie down at noon; lest perhaps I become like one veiled among the flocks of your companions.”

It seems obscure; it is obscure, because it is the mystery of the sacred bridal chamber. For she herself says, “The king has brought me into his chamber.” This is the secret of such a chamber. But you who are no strangers to this chamber, hear what you are, and say with her, if you love with her; and you love with her if you are in her. Say it, all of you, and yet let one say it, because unity says it: “Tell me, you whom my soul has loved.” For they had “one soul and one heart” toward God. “Tell me where you feed, where you lie down at noon.” What does noon signify? Great heat and great brightness. So: “make known to me who are your wise ones, fervent in spirit and shining in doctrine. Make your right hand known to me, and those instructed in heart in wisdom.” Let me cling to them in your body, let me be joined to them, with them let me enjoy you. Tell me, then, tell me where you feed, where you lie down at noon; so that I may not run into those who say other things about you, think other things about you, believe other things about you, preach other things about you, and have their own flocks, and are your companions, because they live from your table and handle the sacraments of your table. For they are called companions (sodales) because they eat together, as if “eaters-together.” Such are reproached in the psalm: “For if my enemy had spoken great things against me, I would surely have hidden from him; and if he who hated me had spoken great things against me, I would surely have hidden from him. But you, my one-minded friend, my guide and my familiar, who took sweet food together with me: we walked in the house of God in harmony.” Why now against the house of the Lord in discord, except that “they went out from us, but they were not of us”? Therefore, O you whom my soul has loved, lest I fall in with such, your companions (but companions such as Samson’s were, who did not keep faith with their friend but wanted to corrupt his wife); lest I run into such, lest I come upon them, that is, fall in with them, like one veiled, like one hidden and obscure, not like a city set on a mountain: tell me, then, O you whom my soul has loved, where you feed, where you lie down at noon; who are the wise and faithful in whom you most rest; lest perhaps, like one hidden, I run into flocks not yours, but your companions’. For you did not say to Peter, “Feed your sheep,” but, “Feed my sheep.”

Let the good shepherd, then, “beautiful in form above the sons of men,” answer this beloved one: let him answer her whom he has made beautiful from among the sons of men. Hear what he answers; understand; beware of what terrifies, love what admonishes. What then does he answer? How far from flattering! He returns severity for her endearments. He rebukes, so as to bind, so as to keep. “Unless you know yourself,” he says, “O fair among women.” For however fair other women may be with your husband’s dowry, they are heresies; they are fair in their finery, not within; they shine outside and outwardly; they whiten themselves with the name of righteousness. But “all the beauty of the king’s daughter is within.” “Unless, then, you know yourself”: that you are one, that you are throughout all nations, that you are chaste, that you must not be corrupted by the perverse talk of bad companions. Unless you know yourself: that he rightly espoused you to me, to present a chaste virgin to Christ; and that you rightly present yourself to me, lest by evil talk, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds too be corrupted from my chastity. Unless, then, you know yourself as such, go out; go out. For to others I shall say, “Enter into the joy of your Lord.” To you I will not say, “Enter,” but, “Go out”: so that you may be among those who went out from us. “Go out.” But go out only if you do not know yourself. If you know yourself, enter. But if you do not know yourself, “go out in the footsteps of the flocks, and feed your kids in the tents of the shepherds.” Go out in the footsteps not of the flock but of the flocks; and feed not my sheep, as Peter did, but your kids; in the tents not of the shepherd but of the shepherds; not of unity, but of dissension; not placed where there is one flock and one shepherd. She was strengthened, built up; the beloved was made stronger, ready to die for her husband and to live with her husband.

These words which we have recalled from the holy Song of Songs, from a kind of wedding song of bridegroom and bride (for it is a spiritual marriage, in which we must live with great chastity; for Christ granted to the Church in the spirit what his mother had in the body, to be both mother and virgin), these words the Donatists take in a very different sense, according to their own perverse understanding. How they do so I will not keep silent; and what you should answer them I will, with the Lord’s help, briefly point out as best I can. When we have begun to press them with the light of the unity of the Church spread through the whole world, and have demanded that they themselves show some testimony from the Scriptures where God foretold that the Church would be in Africa, as if all the other nations were lost, they usually have this testimony on their lips and say: “Africa is in the south (meridies). So the Church asks the Lord where he feeds, where he lies down, and he answers, At noon (in meridie)”: as if the voice of the one asking were, “Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you feed, where you lie down,” and the voice of the one answering, “At noon,” that is, “in Africa.” If, then, she who asks is the Church, and the Lord, answering where he feeds, says, “In Africa,” because the Church was in Africa, then she who asks was not in Africa. “Tell me,” she says, “you whom my soul has loved, where you feed, where you lie down”; and he answers a certain Church outside Africa: “In the south: in Africa I lie down, in Africa I feed,” as if to say, “I do not feed in you.” Further, if she who asks is the Church, which no one doubts and which even they do not contradict, and they hear something about Africa, then she who asks is outside Africa; and since she is the Church, there is a Church outside Africa.

See, I grant that Africa is in the south, although Egypt is more in the south, under the midday sun, than Africa. And how this shepherd is in Egypt, those who know recognize; those who do not know, let them ask how great a flock he gathers there, what a multitude of holy men and women he has there who utterly despise the world. That flock has grown so much that it has even driven superstitions out from there. To pass over, then, how by growing it has put to flight from there all the superstition of idols, which had been strong there: I accept what you say, O bad companions; I accept it entirely; I agree that Africa is in the south, and that Africa is signified in the words, “Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon?” But you too, attend equally: these are still the words of the bride, not yet of the bridegroom. It is still the bride who says, “Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you feed, where you lie down at noon, lest perhaps I become like one veiled.” Deaf, blind man: if you see Africa in “noon,” why do you not understand a woman in “veiled”? “Tell me,” she says, “you whom my soul has loved.” Certainly she is addressing a man when she says “whom.” Just as, if she said “her whom my soul has loved,” we would understand the bridegroom to be saying this to the bride, so when you hear, “Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you feed, where you lie down,” add there too: to her words belong also the words that follow, “at noon.” “I ask where you feed at noon, lest perhaps I become like one veiled among the flocks of your companions.” I hear it entirely; I accept what you understand of Africa; Africa itself is signified by “noon.” But the Church of Christ across the sea, as you understand it, addresses her bridegroom, fearing to fall into the African error: “O you whom my soul has loved, tell me, teach me. For I hear that in the south, that is, in Africa, there are two parties, or rather many divisions. Tell me, then, where you feed, which sheep belong to you, which fold there you bid me love, to which I ought to join myself. Lest perhaps I become like one veiled.” For they mock her as if she were hidden, insult her as if she were lost, as if she existed nowhere else. “So lest I become like one veiled, like one hidden, among the flocks” (that is, among the congregations of heretics) “of your companions,” the Donatists, the Maximianists, the Rogatists, and the other plagues that gather outside and therefore scatter, “I beg you, tell me, if I look for my shepherd there, so that I may not fall into the whirlpool of rebaptism.” I exhort you, I beseech you by the holiness of such a marriage: love this Church, be in such a Church, be such a Church; love the good shepherd, so beautiful a husband, who deceives no one, who wants no one to perish. Pray also for the scattered sheep: let them too come, let them too recognize, let them too love; so that there may be one flock and one shepherd. Turning to the Lord, and so on.

The Lord God, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, born of God the Father without any mother and born of a virgin mother without a human father: you have heard what he said: “I and the Father are one.” Receive it so, believe it so, that you may deserve to understand. For faith ought to precede understanding, so that understanding may be the reward of faith. For the prophet said most plainly, “Unless you believe, you will not understand.” What is preached simply, then, is to be believed; what is discussed subtly is to be understood. First, then, to steep your minds by faith, we preach to you Christ, the only Son of God the Father. Why is “only” added? Because he whose only Son he is has many sons by grace. So all the other saints are sons of God by grace; he alone by nature. Those who are sons by grace are not what the Father is. Indeed, none of the saints has dared to say what that Only Son says, “I and the Father are one.” Is he not our Father too? If he is not our Father, how do we say when we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven”? But we are sons whom he made sons by his will, not sons whom he begot of his nature. He begot us too, indeed, but as it is said, adopted: begotten by the kindness of the one who adopts, not by nature. So we have been told this too, that God has called us into the adoption of sons: we are adopted men. He is called the Only, the Only-begotten, because he is what the Father is; but we are men, and the Father is God. Because, then, he is what the Father is, he said, and said truly, “I and the Father are one.” What is “we are one”? We are of one nature. What is “we are one”? We are of one substance.

Perhaps you do not quite understand what “of one substance” is. Let us labor so that you may understand. May God help both me as I speak and you as you listen: me, to say what is true and suitable for you; you, first and above all to believe, then to understand as you can. What, then, is “of one substance”? Let me use comparisons, so that what is less understood may become clear by an example. Suppose, for instance, that God is gold; his Son too is gold. If comparisons are not to be drawn from earthly things for heavenly ones, how is it written, “But the rock was Christ”? So whatever the Father is, this the Son is too: as I said, for example, the Father is gold, the Son is gold. For he who says, “The Son is not of the same substance as the Father,” what else does he say but, “The Father is gold, the Son is silver”? If the Father is gold and the Son silver, the only Son has degenerated from the Father. A man begets a man: of whatever substance the father who begets is, of the same substance is the son who is begotten. What is “of the same substance”? The one is a man, the other is a man; the one has a soul, the other has a soul; the one has flesh, the other has flesh: what the one is, the other is too.

But the Arian heresy answers me and speaks. What does he say to me? “Attend to what you have said.” What did I say? “That the son of man is to be compared with the Son of God.” Certainly he is to be compared: but not, as you think, as to what is proper to each, but as a likeness. But you, say what you want to make of it. “Do you not see,” he says, “that the father who begot is greater, and the son who was begotten is lesser? How then do you say (tell me), how then do you say that the Father and the Son, God and Christ, are equal, when you see that when a man begets a son, the son is lesser and the father greater?” Wise man, in eternity you look for times; where there are no times, you look for ages. When the father is greater and the son lesser, both are in time: the one grows because the other grows old. For a human father by nature (by nature, as I said) did not beget one lesser, but by age. Do you want to know that by nature he did not beget one lesser? Wait, let him grow, and he will be equal to his father. For a little boy, by growing, reaches his father’s size. But you call the Son of God born lesser in such a way that he never grows and never reaches his Father’s greatness, even by growing. So the son of man, born of a man, is born in a better condition than the Son of God. How? Because he grows and reaches his father’s size. But Christ, as you say, was born lesser in order to remain lesser, and not even an increase of age is to be awaited for him. So you are saying that there is a difference in nature. But why do you say this, except because you will not believe that the Son is of the same substance as the Father? At least first confess that he is of the same substance, and then say “lesser.” Look at a man: he is a man. What is his substance? He is a man. What of the one he begets? He is lesser, but he is a man. The age is unequal; the nature is equal. You too say: “What the Father is, this the Son is, but the Son is lesser.” Say it, take a step: say “of the same substance, but lesser,” and you are on the way to “equal.” For you come not a little nearer, not a little closer to the truth by which you would confess him equal, if in the meantime you confess him of the same substance and lesser. But he is not of the same substance: this is what you say. Because you say this, then, “It is gold and silver,” what you say is as if a man begot a horse. For a man is of one substance, a horse of another. If, then, the Son is of another substance than the Father, the Father begot a monster. For when a creature, that is, a woman, gives birth to what is not a human being, it is called a monster. But so that it is not a monster, what is born is what he is who begot: that is, man and man, horse and horse, dove and dove, sparrow and sparrow.

He has given to his creatures to beget what they are. God has given to his creatures, to mortal, earthly creatures he has given and granted, that they beget what they are; and do you think that he who is before the ages could not keep this for himself? Would he who has no beginning in time beget a son who is not what he himself is, and make him degenerate? Hear what a blasphemy it is to say that the only Son of God is of another substance. Indeed, if that is so, he is degenerate. If you say to some son of a man, “You are degenerate,” what an insult it is! And how is a son of man called degenerate? Suppose his father is brave, and he is fearful and cowardly. Someone sees him and wants to rebuke him, thinking of his father, a brave man: what does he say to him? “Off with you, degenerate!” What is “degenerate”? “Your father was a brave man, and you tremble with fear.” He to whom this is said is degenerate in vice, equal in nature. What is “equal in nature”? He is a man, which his father is. But the one is brave, the other cowardly; the one bold, the other fearful: yet man and man. So he is degenerate in vice, not in nature. When you say that the only Son, the one Son of the Father, is degenerate, you say nothing else than that he is not what the Father is; and you say not that he became degenerate after he was born, but that he was begotten so. Who can bear this blasphemy? If they could see this blasphemy with any eyes at all, they would flee from it and become Catholics.

But what shall I say, brothers? Let us not be angry with them, but pray for them that the Lord may give them understanding; for perhaps they were born into this. What is “they were born into this”? They received from their parents what they hold. They put their family before the truth. Let them become what they are not, so that they can keep what they are: that is, let them become Catholics, so that they can keep being men; so that God’s creature may not perish in them, let God’s grace come to them. For they think that they honor the Father by insulting the Son. When you say to one of them, “You blaspheme,” he answers, “Why do I blaspheme?” “Because you say that the Son is not what the Father is.” And he says to me: “No, you blaspheme.” “Why?” “Because you want to make the Son equal to the Father.” I want to make the Son equal to the Father: is it a stranger? The Father rejoices when I make his only Son equal to him; he rejoices, because he does not envy. And because God does not envy his only Son, therefore he begot what he himself is. You do injury both to the Son and to the Father himself, in whose honor you want to insult the Son. For surely you say that the Son is not of the same substance so as not to do injury to his Father. I will quickly show you that you do injury to both. “How?” he says. If you say to someone’s son, “Degenerate, you are not like your father; degenerate, you are not what your father is,” the son hears it and is angry and says, “So I was born degenerate?” The father hears it and is angrier still. And in his anger what does he say? “So I begot a degenerate son? So if I am one thing and begot another, I begot a monster.” What is this, that when you want to defer to one by insulting the other, you do injury to both? You offend the Son, and you will not win the Father’s favor. When you honor the Father by insulting the Son, you offend both the Son and the Father. From whom are you fleeing? To whom are you fleeing? If the Father is angry with you, do you flee to the Son? What does he say to you? “To whom are you fleeing, whom you have made degenerate?” If the Son is offended, do you run to the Father? He too says to you: “To whom are you fleeing, whom you said begot a degenerate son?” Let this suffice you; hold this, commit this to memory, write this in your faith. And so that you may understand it, pour out prayers to God the Father and the Son, who are one.