Sermons to the People 237.1–239.7

What followed in the Gospel according to Luke on the resurrection of the Lord was finished today, where we heard that the Lord appeared in the midst of his disciples, who were disputing about his resurrection and not believing it. So unexpected and incredible was it to them that even seeing they did not see. For they saw him alive whom they had mourned as dead; they saw standing in their midst him whom they had grieved over hanging on the cross. So they saw; and because they did not believe their own eyes so as to see the truth, they thought they were deceived. For they supposed, as you heard, that they were seeing a spirit. What the worst heretics later believed about Christ, the wavering apostles believed first. For there are today those who do not believe that Christ had flesh: because they also destroy the virgin birth and will not believe him born of a woman. “The Word became flesh”: this they altogether estrange from their faith, or rather from their unbelief. This whole dispensation of our salvation, that he who had made man became man in order to find man; all this, that Christ shed true, not false, blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and with his true blood blotted out the bond of our sins: all this the damnable heretics try to empty out. All this, as the Manichees believe, when it appeared to the eyes of men, was spirit; it was not flesh.

See, the Gospel speaks. The Lord stood among his disciples, who did not yet believe that he had risen. They saw him and thought they were seeing a spirit. If there is nothing bad in believing that Christ was spirit, not flesh; if there is nothing bad, let the disciples be left in that opinion. Pay attention, so that you may understand what I want to say; and may God grant that I say it, that is, that I say it as it is good for you to hear. See, I repeat this very thing. Sometimes those detestable people, who detest the flesh and live according to the flesh, say this and so deceive: Who believe better about Christ, those who say that he had flesh, or we who say: He was God, he was spirit, and to the eyes of men there appeared not a body but God? Which is better, flesh or spirit? What shall we answer but that spirit is better than flesh? If, then, he says, you confess that spirit is better than flesh, I think better of Christ, I who say that he was spirit, not flesh. O unhappy error! Why? Do I say that Christ was only flesh? You say spirit; I say spirit and flesh. You do not say better; you say less. Hear, then, all that I say: that is, what the Catholic faith says, what the most firmly founded and serene truth says. You who say that Christ was only spirit: what our spirit too is, that is, our soul, this you say Christ alone was: hear what you are saying. I state what you say: his spirit was of that nature and substance of which our spirit also is. See how much less you say. The Word was there; the flesh was there. You say: a human spirit alone. I say: Word, spirit, body; God and man. If I do not want to say two, if I do not want to say two things, I use this short form: God and man. Both true God and true man. Nothing false in the humanity, nothing false in the divinity. But if you ask me about the man himself, I again say two things: a human soul and human flesh. You are a man because of soul and flesh; he is Christ because of God and man. See what I say.

But you think you speak better, because you say: He was spirit, a spirit appeared, a spirit was seen, a spirit lived among men. This you say: as I said, this the disciples too thought. If you say nothing bad, if what you say is good, then what the disciples thought was also good. If the Lord left them to think so, you too are to be left alone. For they believed what you believe: if what you believe is good, what they believed was good. But it was not good. The Lord said to them, “Why are you disturbed?” Disturbance believed what you believe. What? They thought they were seeing a spirit. And the Lord to this: “Why are you disturbed, and why do thoughts rise up in your heart?” These thoughts are earthly. For if they were heavenly, they would come down into the heart, not rise up. For why is it said to us, “Lift up your heart,” unless so that our heart, which we have placed on high, may not find earthly thoughts before it? So: “Why are you disturbed, and why do thoughts rise up in your heart? See my hands and my feet; handle.” He did not say only “Touch,” but “Handle and feel.” Let your hands prove it to you, if your eyes lie: “Handle and see”; have eyes in your hands. Handle what, and see what? “That a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” You were erring with the disciples; be corrected with the disciples. It is human, I grant it. You think Christ a spirit: so did Peter, so did the others who thought they were seeing a spirit; but they did not remain in that error, so that you may know that it was certainly in their hearts. The physician did not leave them so: he came near, he applied the remedy: he saw wounds in their hearts; and in his body he bore scars with which to heal the wounds of their hearts.

So, then, we believe. I know that you believe so; but lest perhaps there be some bad weed in this field of the Lord, I address also those whom I do not see. Let no one believe about Christ anything but what Christ willed to be believed about him: before whom it is good for us to believe what he willed to be believed about him, he who redeemed us, who sought our salvation, who shed his blood for us; who endured for us what was not owed to him, who brought us what was not owed to us: let us believe this. What is Christ? The Son of God, the Word of God. What is the Word of God? What cannot be said by the word of man: that is the Word of God. You ask me what the Word of God is. If I wanted to tell you what the word of man is, I do not explain it, I grow weary, I hesitate, I give way; I cannot explain the power of the human word. See, before I tell you what I want to say, there is already a word in my heart; it has not yet been said by me, and it is with me; it is said by me, and it reaches you, and it does not withdraw from me. You are attentive to hear a word from me; I feed your minds when I speak. If I brought food for your bellies, you would divide it among yourselves, and the whole would not reach each one; but the more of you there were, into the more pieces you would divide what I set out, and the less each would receive, the greater the multitude of those receiving. But now I have brought food for minds; I say, Take, receive, eat: you have taken, you have eaten, and you have not divided it. Whatever I say is whole for all and whole for each. See how the power of a man's word cannot be adequately explained: and you say to me, What is the Word of God? The Word of God feeds so many thousands of angels. For they are fed by the mind, filled by the mind. He fills the angels, fills the world, fills the virgin's womb: he is neither spread out there nor squeezed here. What is the Word of God? Let him say it himself: he says it of himself briefly, but what he says is great: “I and the Father are one.” Do not count, I tell you; weigh the words. What then? Many words do not suffice to explain the one Word. So the Word which cannot be explained “became flesh and dwelt among us.” He took on the whole, as it were full, man, the soul and body of a man. And if you want to hear something more precise: since cattle too have a soul and flesh, when I say a human soul and human flesh, he took on the whole human soul. For there were those who made a heresy of this, and said that the soul of Christ did not have a mind, did not have understanding, did not have reason, but that the Word of God was for him in place of mind, understanding, and reason. Do not believe so. He who created the whole redeemed the whole: the Word took on the whole, freed the whole. There is the mind of man and understanding; there the soul giving life to the flesh; there true and whole flesh: only sin is not there.

So the sacred and perennial reading of the Gospel shows us the true Christ and the true Church, lest we err in either of them, either putting another bride in the place of the holy bridegroom's own, or bringing to the holy bride not her own husband but another. So that we may not err in either of them, then, let us hear the Gospel as their marriage contract.

Concerning the Lord Christ there have been, and there still are, those who are so deceived as not to believe that he had true flesh. Let them hear what we have just heard. He is in heaven, but he sounds here; he sits at the right hand of the Father, but he speaks among us. Let him show himself, let him manifest himself. What need is there for us to seek another witness about him? Let us rather hear him. He appeared to his disciples and suddenly stood in their midst. You heard it when it was read. “But they were disturbed: for they supposed that they were seeing a spirit.” This is what they think who do not believe that he has true flesh: they are Manichees, they are Priscillianists, and whatever other plagues are not even to be named. For they do not think that Christ is nothing; they do not think that; but they think he is a spirit, that he did not have flesh. What do you say, Catholic Church? What do you say, bride, not adulteress? What do you say, then, but what you have learned from him? For you could find no better witness about him than himself. So what do you say? You have learned that Christ is the Word, and a human spirit, and human flesh. What have you learned about the Word? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: he was in the beginning with God.” What have you learned about the human spirit? “And bowing his head he gave up the spirit.” What have you learned about the flesh? Hear now. Pardon those who think what the disciples, erring, thought first. But they did not persevere in error. For the disciples thought what the Manichees think today, what the Priscillianists think today: that there was no true flesh in the Lord Christ, but only spirit. Let us see whether he left them to err. See how bad an error it is, which the physician hastened to heal and would not confirm. They thought, then, that they were seeing a spirit; and he who knew that these were evil thoughts, rooting them out of their hearts, said: “Why are you disturbed, why are you disturbed, and why do thoughts rise up in your heart? See my hands and my feet; touch and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” Hold this against all the insane thoughts of all; hold what you have received: otherwise you have perished. Christ is the true Word, the only-begotten, equal to the Father; a true human spirit; true flesh without sin. This flesh died, this rose, this hung on the wood, this lay in the tomb, this sits in heaven. The Lord Christ wanted to persuade the disciples that what they saw was bones and flesh: but you contradict. Is he lying, then, and you speaking the truth? Are you building up, and he deceiving? Why did Christ want to persuade me of this, but because he knew what it profits me to believe and what it harms me not to believe? Believe so, then. He is the bridegroom.

Let us hear also about the bride: because some, again, favoring adulterers, want to overthrow the true one and put a false one in her place. Let us hear also about the bride. When, then, they had touched his feet, hands, flesh, and bones, the Lord added and said: “Do you have anything here to eat?” so that he might be proved a true man also by sharing food. He took, ate, gave; and while they were still trembling for joy, he said to them: “Were not these the things I told you while I was still with you?” Why was he not with them now? What does “while I was still with you” mean? While I was still mortal, as you too are. What, then, did I tell you? “That everything written in the Law and in the Prophets and in the Psalms about me had to be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures; and he said to them that thus the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.” Take away true flesh, and there will be no true passion, there will be no true resurrection. See, you have the bridegroom: “The Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.” Hold the head; hear about the body. For what ought we to show now? We who have heard the bridegroom, let us recognize the bride too. “And that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name.” Where? From where? How far? “Through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” See, you have the bride. Let no one sell you fables; let not the madness of the heretics bark from a corner. The Church is spread throughout the whole world: all nations have the Church. Let no one deceive you: she is the true one, she is the Catholic. We have not seen Christ; we see her: let us believe about him. The apostles, on the contrary, saw him and believed about her. They saw one thing and believed another; and we, on the contrary, see one thing: let us believe another. They saw Christ and believed in the Church, which they did not see; we too see the Church: let us believe in Christ, whom we do not see; and holding fast to what we see, we shall come to him whom we do not yet see. Knowing, then, the bridegroom and the bride, let us recognize them in their marriage contract, lest we quarrel at so holy a wedding.

Today, see, for the third time we have heard from the Gospel the resurrection of our Lord, as you remember I told you, since this is the custom: that the Lord's resurrection be recited according to all the evangelists. It is Mark's Gospel which we heard just now when it was read. And Mark merited this dispensation though he was not in the number of the twelve, as neither was Luke. For though there are four evangelists, Matthew, John, Mark, and Luke, two of them are from the twelve apostles, that is, Matthew and John. But their going before was not unfruitful, so as to have no companions following. Mark and Luke were not equal to the apostles, but nearly equal. For this is why the Holy Spirit willed to choose two even from those who were not among the twelve to write the Gospel: lest it be thought that the grace of evangelizing reached only as far as the apostles, and that the fountain of grace failed in them. For since the Lord says of his Spirit and his word that if anyone receives it and holds it worthily, it will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life: a fountain surely shows itself by flowing, not by staying still. Through the apostles grace reached others, and they were sent to evangelize. For he who called the first called the second too: he has called even to the latest time the body of his only-begotten, that is, the Church spread throughout the whole world.

What, then, did we hear Mark say? That the Lord appeared on the road to two, as Luke also said, whose Gospel we heard yesterday: “He appeared,” he says, “to two on the road in another form.” Luke said the same thing in other words, but did not depart from the same meaning. For what did Luke say? “Their eyes were held, so that they did not recognize him.” And what did Mark say? “He appeared to them in another form.” What the one said, “Their eyes were held so that they did not recognize him,” the other said with “in another form.” For it was another form that was seen, because their eyes were held, not opened. What then, brothers? Since Luke said, as I think you remember very freshly from yesterday's reading, that when he broke the blessed bread their eyes were opened, what do we think? If their eyes were opened then, were they accompanying him on the road with closed eyes? And could they know where to put their steps if they had closed eyes? So they were opened to recognition, not to sight. So our Lord Jesus Christ, before the breaking of bread, speaks with men unrecognized; in the breaking of bread he is recognized: because there he is received where eternal life is received. He who prepares a house in heaven is received as a guest. For he says according to the evangelist John: “In my Father's house are many dwellings; otherwise I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. But if I go and prepare, I will come again and take you to myself.” The Lord of heaven willed to be a guest on earth, a stranger in the world, he through whom the world was made: he deigned to be a guest so that you might have the blessing of receiving him; not because he was in need when he came in as a guest.

In a time of famine the Lord fed holy Elijah by a raven; and him whom men persecuted, birds served. The raven brought the servant of God bread in the morning and meat in the evening. So he whom God fed through birds as ministers was not in need; and yet, though Elijah was not in need, he is sent to a widow in Zarephath, and it is said to him: “Go to that widow; she will feed you.” Had God failed, that Elijah should be sent to a widow? But if God always provided bread for his servant without human ministry, whence would the widow have her reward? So one not in need is sent to one in need, one not hungry to one hungry; and he says to her: “Go and bring me a little, that I may eat.” She had a little, which she was about to use up and then die. She answered and told the prophet how much she had; and the prophet said to her: “Go, bring it to me first.” She did not hesitate, but brought it. She offered refreshment and merited a blessing. Holy Elijah blessed the jar of flour and the flask of oil. That which was stored in the house was about to be used up, and that oil hanging on a peg was about to run out: the blessing came, and those vessels became treasuries. The little flask of oil became a fountain of oil; the flour outdid the richest harvests.

If Elijah was not in need, was Christ in need? This is why, my brothers, holy Scripture reminds us that God often makes needy his servants whom he could feed, so that he may find people doing good works. Let no one be proud because he gives to the poor: Christ was poor. Let no one be proud because he receives a guest: Christ was a guest. The one received is better than the one receiving; the one accepting is richer than the one giving. He who accepted possessed all things; he who gave had received from him to whom he gave what he gave. Let no one, then, be proud, my brothers, when he gives to the poor; let him not say in his heart, I give, he receives; I take him in, he needs a roof. Perhaps what you need is more. Perhaps the one you take in is righteous: he needs bread, you truth; he needs a roof, you heaven; he needs money, you righteousness.

Do not fear that God may judge you a moneylender. Yes indeed, be a moneylender. But God says to you: What do you want? You want to lend at interest? What is lending at interest? Giving less and receiving more. See, give to me, God says to you: I receive less and give more. What? A hundredfold, and eternal life. The man you look for to give to, so that your money may grow, rejoices when he receives and weeps when he repays: he begs in order to receive; he makes false charges so as not to repay. Give indeed to a man too, and do not turn away from one who asks a loan. But accept only as much as you gave. Let the one you gave to not weep: for then you have lost your kindness. And if even what was given, or what he received, is demanded, perhaps he does not yet have it at hand: you bore with him when he asked; wait for him when he does not have it; when he has it, he will repay you. Do not put him in straits whose straits you relieved. See, you gave, and you demand it back; but he does not have the means to repay; when he has, he will repay you. Do not cry out and say: Am I seeking interest? I ask only as much as I gave: what I gave, I will receive. You do well, but he does not yet have it. You are not a moneylender, and you want the one you lent to to look for a moneylender in order to repay you? If you do not demand interest so that he may not suffer you as a moneylender, why do you want him to suffer another moneylender because of you? You press, you choke: even if you demand only as much as you gave, yet by choking him and putting him in straits you have not given a kindness, but rather inflicted greater straits. But perhaps you say: He has the means to repay: he has a house, let him sell it; he has property, let him sell it. When he asked you, he asked so as not to have to sell: let him not do because of you what you came to his help to prevent. Let this be done with regard to men; this God commands, this God wills.

But are you greedy? God says to you: Be greedy, be as greedy as you can; but come to me with your greed. God says to you: Come to me; I made my rich son poor for you. “For Christ became poor for our sake, though he was rich.” Do you seek gold? He made it. Do you seek silver? He made it. Do you seek a household? He made it. Do you seek cattle? He made them. Do you seek estates? He made them. Why do you seek only the things he made? Receive him who made them. Think how he loved you. “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” All things through him, and he himself among all things. He who made all things was made among all things. He who made man was made man: he was made what he had made, lest the one he made should perish. He who made all things was made among all things. Consider the riches: what is richer than him through whom all things were made? And yet he, though he was rich, took mortal flesh in the virgin's womb. He was born an infant, wrapped in infant cloths, laid in a manger; he patiently waited for the ages of life, he patiently bore the times, he through whom the times were made. He sucked, he wailed, he appeared an infant. But he lay there and he reigned; he was in a manger and he held the world together; he was nursed by his mother and worshipped by the Gentiles; he was nursed by his mother and announced by angels; he was nursed by his mother and made known by a shining star. Such riches, such poverty: riches, that you might be created; poverty, that you might be restored. That he, poor, was received as a guest like a poor man, then, was the condescension of one who took on this state, not the misery of one in need.

Perhaps you say to yourself: O blessed those who were found worthy to receive Christ! O if only I had been there then! O if only I had been one of those two whom he found on the road! You be on the road, and Christ will not be lacking as a guest. Do you think you are no longer allowed to receive Christ? How, you say, is it allowed? Having risen, he has already been manifested to his disciples, he has ascended into heaven, he is there at the right hand of the Father; he will not come except at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead: and he will come in glory, not in weakness; to give a kingdom, not to seek hospitality. When he gives the kingdom, have you forgotten what he will say: “When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me”? He who is rich is in need until the end of the world. He is certainly in need, not in the head but in his members. Where is he in need? In those in whom he suffered when he said: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Let us, then, serve Christ. He is with us in his own; he is with us in us: and not in vain did he say, “See, I am with you until the end of the world.” By doing these things we recognize Christ in good works, not in body but in heart; not with the eyes of the flesh but with the eyes of faith. “Because you have seen, you have believed,” he said to a certain disciple of his who was unbelieving and had said, “I will not believe unless I touch.” And the Lord: “Come, touch, and do not be unbelieving.” He touched and cried out: “My Lord and my God!” And the Lord: “Because you have seen me, you have believed.” That is your whole faith, that you believe what you see: I praise those who do not see and believe; because when they see, they will rejoice.