Sermons to the People 23.1–23.18

Let us believe that what we have sung to the Lord has been set before us as the subject of our speaking: let our sermon to you come from it. And may he to whom we said, “You have held my right hand, and in your will you have led me, and with glory you have taken me up,” himself take up our hearts to a clearer understanding, and may he help with his mercy and grace both me as I speak and you as you judge. For although, for the convenience of making the voice carry, we seem to stand in a higher place, yet in that higher place it is you who judge and we who are judged. We are called teachers, but in many things we are looking for a teacher, and we do not wish to be taken for masters. For it is dangerous and forbidden, since the Lord himself says, “Do not wish to be called masters; one is your master, Christ.” Mastership, then, is dangerous; discipleship is safe. That is why the psalm says, “To my hearing you will give joy and gladness.” For the hearer of the word is safer than the one who utters it. That is why the friend of the bridegroom stands secure and hears him, and rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.

And because the apostle had taken on the role of a teacher out of necessity, see what he says: “I was with you in fear and in much trembling.” It is safer, then, that both we who speak and you who listen should know that we are fellow disciples under one Master. It is altogether safer, and this is expedient, that you listen to us not as masters but as your fellow disciples. For see what anxiety is laid on us where it is said, “Brothers, do not become many masters; for in many things we all offend.” Who would not tremble when the apostle says “all”? What follows? “Whoever does not offend in word, he is a perfect man.” But who would dare to say that he is perfect? The one who stands and listens, then, does not offend in word. But the one who speaks, even if (which is difficult) he does not offend, still suffers and fears that he may offend. You ought, then, to be not only hearers of those who speak but also those who pity those who are afraid: so that in what we say truly, since everything true is from the Truth, you may praise not us but him; and where, as human beings, we offend, you may pray to the same one for us.

The holy Scriptures are … truthful, they are blameless. “All Scripture divinely inspired is useful for teaching, for reproof, for exhortation, for instruction.” There is nothing, then, for which we should accuse Scripture if perhaps, not having understood it, we go astray in something. When we understand it, we are upright; but when, not having understood it, we are crooked, we leave it standing upright. For by being crooked we do not make it crooked; it stands upright so that we may return to it to be set straight. Yet to exercise us, the same Scripture in many places speaks as if carnally, although it is always spiritual. For “the law,” as the apostle says, “is spiritual; but I am carnal.” Though it is spiritual, then, it often walks as if carnally with the carnal. But it does not want them to remain carnal. A mother, after all, loves to nurse her little one, but she does not love him to remain little. She holds him in her lap, cherishes him in her hands, comforts him with caresses, feeds him with milk: she does everything for the little one, but she wants him to grow, so that she need not always do such things. Look at the apostle; we do better to look at him, for he did not disdain to call himself even a mother, where he says, “I became a little one in your midst, like a nurse cherishing her own children.” The apostle, out of the genuine and devoted affection of love, took on the role both of the nurse, by saying “cherishing,” and of the mother, by adding “her own children.” For there are nurses who cherish children, but not their own; and there are mothers who give their children to nurses and do not cherish them themselves. This same nurse and … says in another place what I mentioned a little before: “I was with you in fear and in much trembling.”

But you say: What sort of people were they, that he was among them in fear and in much trembling? “As to little ones in Christ,” he says, “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not able; and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal.” Those he calls carnal he still calls little ones in Christ; he rebukes them in such a way as not to disown them. Both carnal and little ones in Christ: yet he does not want those he calls little ones in Christ to be carnal; he wishes them to be spiritual, judging all things, and judged by no one. “For the natural man,” as he himself says, “does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know them, because they are judged spiritually. The spiritual man judges all things; but he himself is judged by no one.” The same man says: “We speak wisdom among the perfect.” Why then do you speak, if among the perfect? For what need is there for you to speak to a perfect man? But ask in what he is perfect. For perhaps I do not find a perfect knower, but I do already find a perfect hearer. There is, then, also a perfect hearer, whose mind is already capable, to whom solid food causes no upset and brings no indigestion. Who is he, and we will praise him? Yet I do not doubt that there are some spiritual people who listen well and judge well: with them I do not labor. For either the carnal man is still unsure and deals kindly with me, or he grasps what I say and rejoices with me.

See, I have now taken up the words of the psalm we just sang: “You have held my right hand.” Give me a carnal hearer: what will he think, except that God appeared in human form, took hold of his right hand, not his left, led him into his own will, and took him up where he wished? If he understands this, or rather if he supposes this, he never understands. For whoever understands, understands what is true; but whoever supposes what is false does not understand. So if a carnal man supposes that the nature and substance of God is divided into members, defined by a form, bounded by size, remaining in a place, what am I to do with him? If I say, “God is not like that,” he does not grasp it. If I say, “He is like that,” he seems to grasp it; but I deceive him. I cannot say, “He is like that,” lest I lie; and not about just anything, but about my God, about my Savior and Redeemer, about my hope, about him to whom I stretch out my hand, my desire. It is no light thing to lie about such a one. To be deceived about such a one is troublesome and dangerous; but to lie about such a one is ruinous and destructive. Not everyone who lies is deceived. But if someone himself thinks true what is not true, he is deceived; and if he says what he thinks true, he does not lie, but he is still deceived. May God grant to him who would not lie that he may not be deceived either.

If then, as I said, that little one of ours believes God to be such a being, with members arranged in definite places of his body, bounded by a shape, limited by a form, remaining in a place and moving from place to place, in keeping with what is said, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? and where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present”; if he is in heaven, if he is on earth, if he is present in hell, what is that little one to do now? If he listens, let him seek with the Samaritan woman for mountains and temples by which to go to God, to Jerusalem, to the mountain of Samaria? No: let him not hurry to a visible temple, let him not look for some temple by which to come to God. Let him be a temple himself, and God will come to him. He does not despise him, does not shun him, does not disdain him; rather, he deigns to come. If he does not disdain, hear him promising; hear him meanwhile deigning by a promise, not disdaining by a threat: “We will come to him,” he says, “I and the Father.” To him whom he described above as one who loves him, obeys his precepts, keeps his commandment, loves God, loves his neighbor. “We will come to him,” he says, “and make our dwelling with him.” The heart of the believer is not narrow for him, for whom Solomon’s temple was narrow. For Solomon himself, when he was building it, said, “If the heaven of heaven does not suffice for you.” And certainly “the temple of God is holy, which you are.” “For we,” he says in another place, “are the temple of the living God.” And how do you prove this, as though someone asked him? “As it is written,” he says, “I will dwell in them.” If some great patron said to you, “I will dwell with you,” what would you do? Since your house is narrow, you would no doubt be troubled, utterly alarmed; you would wish it would not happen. For you would not want to be in cramped quarters when receiving a great man for whose coming your poor little house would not suffice. Do not fear the coming of your God, do not fear the affection of your God: he does not cramp you when he comes; rather, by coming he will enlarge you. And so that you may know that he will enlarge you, he promised not only his coming, “I will dwell in them,” but also breadth itself, by adding, “And I will walk about among them.” This breadth you see, if you love. Fear has torment; therefore it has narrowness; and so love has breadth. See the breadth of love: “Because the love of God,” he says, “is poured out in our hearts.”

But you were looking for a place for him. Let the indweller himself make room: “For love is poured out in our hearts,” yet not from ourselves, but “through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” If love is poured out in our hearts, and God is love, see, already, from however small a pledge, God walks about in us. For we have received a pledge. What is that thing of which the pledge is such? Though the manuscripts that have “earnest” are better than those that have “pledge.” The translators of course meant to say the same thing. Yet in ordinary usage there is some difference between an earnest and a pledge. For when a pledge is given, once that for which the pledge was given has been rendered, the pledge is taken back. I do not doubt that many of you have already understood. I do not see it, but from the murmuring, because you are talking to one another, I sense that those who have understood want to explain it to those who have not yet understood. So I will say it somewhat more plainly, so that it may reach everyone. You receive, for example, a book from your friend; so that he will give it to you, you deposit some pledge. When you have returned what you received, for which you deposited the pledge, he will have what you returned, and you will get back your pledge; for he will not keep both things.

What then, brothers? If God has now given love as a pledge through his Holy Spirit, then when he renders the thing itself, which he promised when he gave the pledge, must the pledge be taken away from us? Far from it! Rather, what he has given he will fill up. So “earnest” is better than “pledge.” For sometimes, for example, you prepare to pay the price for a thing that you hold by a contract made in good faith, and you give something out of that very price; and it will be an earnest, not a pledge: something to be completed, not something to be taken away. Now understand. If I find someone who loves, he has the earnest, and from the earnest he longs for the fullness. Let him consider the earnest itself, for that will be completed of which the earnest was given. Let him think about it, examine it within himself, look into it, question it about that fullness which he does not see, lest perhaps he desire in the fullness something other than what is in what he has received. Perhaps God is going to give gold, to complete a fullness of gold, and has given an earnest of gold. It is to be feared that you may desire lead instead of gold. Look, then, at the earnest, if I can persuade you to look at it: God is love.

From there we have something; from there we have been sprinkled, from there bedewed. If the dew is such, what is the fountain like? Sprinkled with that dew, but burning for the fountain, say to your God: “For with you is the fountain of life.” In that dew desire was born; at the fountain you will be filled. There is what suffices us. “But the sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings.” Why do we desire as something great those benefits of God which he gives even to beasts? They are indeed his benefits, who doubts it? From whom comes even the least well-being, if not from him of whom it is said, “Salvation is the Lord’s”?

But the same psalm says, “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord, as your mercy has been multiplied, O God.” You have mercy so manifold that it reaches not only men but even beasts. You excel in mercy so greatly that you make your sun rise on the good and the evil, and send rain on the just and the unjust. Do your saints receive nothing special from you, does the godly man receive nothing of his own that the ungodly does not receive? Certainly he does: hear what follows. For he had said, “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord, as your mercy has been multiplied, O God”; and he added, “But the sons of men.” What then did you say a little before? Were men not sons of men? “Men,” he says, “and beasts you will save, O Lord: but the sons of men.” What then? “The sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings.” This is not shared with the beasts. Why then “these” and “those” men? Are not men also sons of men? Certainly men too are sons of men. Where then does this distinction come from, unless because there is a man who was not a son of man? A man not a son of man: Adam. A man, son of man: Christ. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” Do they seek salvation with the beasts, who die, and die not to live again, and not seek salvation with the sons of men, so as never to die? This distinction has been made clear. Those belong to “men,” these, the “sons of men,” to the Son of Man.

What then follows? “But the sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings.” See, I hope; see, hope; but “hope that is seen is not hope.” So the future things that are promised will make them drunk: “They will be made drunk with the abundance of your house.” I fear that, just as a little before that hearer was looking for bodily members in God, so in God’s drunkenness he may imagine a surfeit, not of goods beyond words, but the gorging of carnal banquets. Still, let us say it: let him think what he can, if he cannot think greater things; let him not leave the lap, yet let him grow. Let us follow, and let us who can, as far as we can, take delight spiritually. “They will be made drunk,” he says, “with the abundance of your house, and from the torrent of your pleasure you will give them drink.” With what wine? What new wine? What water? What honey? What nectar? You ask with what? “For with you is the fountain of life.” Drink life, if you can. Prepare your conscience, not your gullet; your mind, not your belly. If you have heard, if you have understood, if you have loved as far as you could, you have already drunk from it. Pay attention to what you have drunk. You have drunk love. If you know it, God is love. If then you have drunk love, tell me in what place you drank it. If you know it, if you have seen it, if you love, from what do you love? For whatever you love rightly, you love with love. But how with love? Or what do you love, you who love love? So if you love, from what do you love? It came to you, and you know it, and you see it; and it is not seen in a place, nor sought with bodily eyes, so that it may be loved more ardently; nor is it heard by speech; and when it came to you, it was not perceived by its step. Have you ever felt the footsteps of love walking about in your heart? What then is it? Whose is this, which is already in you and is not grasped by you? Learn to love God in this way.

But he walked in paradise; but he was seen at the oak of Mamre; but he spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai mouth to mouth. And what of that? See, he who is seen in a place is not perceived by his step. Do you want to hear Moses himself, so that you, a restless infant, do not weary me, though I wish to nurse you? Do you want, then, to hear Moses himself? He certainly spoke with God mouth to mouth. To whom then did he say, if not to the very one with whom he was speaking, “If I have found favor before you, show me yourself”? He speaks with him mouth to mouth, as one speaks to his friend, and he says to him, “If I have found favor before you, show me yourself plainly.” What was he seeing, and what did he know? If it was not he himself, how is it said to him, “Show me yourself”? We cannot say that it was not he himself. If it were not he himself, he would have said to him, “Show me God.” So when he says, “Show me yourself,” he makes plain that it was he himself whom he wished to be shown to him. And he spoke with him mouth to mouth, as one speaks to his friend. Do you want to hear, then? If you can grasp it, God appeared to Moses while remaining hidden. For if he did not appear, there would be no one with whom he could speak mouth to mouth and say, “Show me your very self.” But if he were not hidden, Moses would not still be asking to see that same one. So, if you grasp it, if you understand, God can here both appear and be hidden at once: appear in an outward form, be hidden in his nature.

If you have understood this, as you could, take care that it does not creep into your mind that God, in order to appear, changes his nature into whatever form he wishes. God is unchangeable; not only the Father, but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word himself is unchangeable God, as is God with whom he is. Think of no loss in any person, no change. For God is “the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of turning.” If then he is unchangeable, you say, what is that form in which he appeared as he wished, to whom he wished, by walking, by sounding, or by showing himself even to the very eyes of flesh? You ask me what it is, from what God brings about his presence; as if I could already explain from what he made the world, from what he made heaven, from what he made earth, from what he made you. I see you already answering: “From clay.” There you are, from clay: from what the clay? You answer: “From earth.” But not, I suppose, from an earth that someone else made, but from that earth which he made who made heaven and earth. From what, then, is the earth itself? “He spoke, and they were made.” Good, excellent; you answer well, you acknowledge it: “He spoke, and they were made”: I ask nothing more. But just as, when you say, “He spoke, and they were made,” I ask nothing more, so you too should ask no more when I say, “He willed, and he appeared.”

He appeared as he judged fitting; he remained hidden as he was. True affection is not seen; love is not seen; charity is not seen. From that pledge let the hearer burn for that for which Moses too burned, when he said to him whom he saw, “Show me your very self.” If, then, we seek this, we are his children. “For we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” Not as he was seen at the oak of Mamre, not as he was seen by Moses, so that we should still say to him, “Show us your very self”; but we shall see him as he is. By what merit? Because we are children of God. And this not from our merits, but by the grace of his mercy. “For a voluntary rain you set apart, O God, for your inheritance; and it was weakened”—not by presuming of itself to see what it does not see, but by believing what it longs to see—“but you perfected it.” As his inheritance, then, made perfect, and as his children, we shall see him as he is.

But what did the Lord say about the children? “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” So about such hidden and very difficult questions, if there is anything we understand less well, let us inquire peaceably. “Let no one be puffed up for one against another.” “For if you have bitter zeal, and there are quarrels among you, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but earthly, natural, devilish.” We are children of God, then; and we recognize that we are his children, and we are not recognized as such unless we are peacemakers. For we shall have nothing with which to see God, if by quarreling we put out the very eye within us.

Pay attention to what he says, and why I speak in fear and trembling: “Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will be able to see God.” How did he frighten lovers? He frightened none but lovers. Did he say, “Pursue peace with all, and holiness; whoever does not have it will be cast into fire, tormented with eternal fire, handed over to tireless torturers”? Those things are true too, and he did not say them. He wanted you to be a lover of the good, not one who dreads evil; and he frightened you with the very thing you desired. You will see God: is it for this that you despise peace, for this that you quarrel, for this that you stir up disturbances? “Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will be able to see God.” How foolish two people would be who wanted to see the sun rise, if they argued with each other about which side it would rise on and how it could be seen, and, a dispute having arisen between them, fought, and by fighting struck each other, and by striking put out their own eyes, so that they could not see that sunrise! So that we may be able to see God, then, let us cleanse our hearts by faith, heal them by love, make them firm by peace: for this very thing by which we love one another is already from him whom we desire to see.