Sermons to the People 255.1–257.3

Since the Lord has willed that we should see Your Love at the Alleluia, we owe you a word about Alleluia. Let it not be a burden if I remind you of what you know: for we say Alleluia itself every day, and every day we delight in it. For you know that Alleluia is said in Latin “Praise God”; and sounding together in this word with the mouth and agreeing with the heart, we exhort one another to praise God. Only that man praises in security who has nothing in him to displease. And in this time of our pilgrimage we say Alleluia for the comfort of our journey; now Alleluia is for us the song of a traveler: but we are heading by a laborious road to the restful homeland, where, all our activities being withdrawn, nothing will remain but Alleluia.

Mary had chosen this most delightful part for herself: she was at leisure, she was learning, she was praising; but Martha her sister had been busy about very many things. She was indeed doing a necessary thing, but one that would not last: she was doing a thing of the road, not yet of the homeland; she was doing a thing of the pilgrimage, not yet of possession. For she had received the Lord and those who were with him. And the Lord had flesh; and as he deigned to take on flesh for us, so he deigned to hunger and thirst. And from his deigning to hunger and thirst, he deigned to be fed by those whom he himself had enriched; he deigned to be received, not out of want, but out of grace. Martha, then, was doing what belonged to the need of the hungry and thirsty; with anxious activity she was preparing what would be eaten and drunk by the saints and by the Holy of holies himself in her house. A great work, but a passing one. Will there always be hunger and thirst? When we cling to that most pure and most perfect goodness, there will be no reason to serve necessity. We shall be happy, needing nothing; having much, seeking nothing. And what is it that we shall have, so that we seek nothing? I have said it: what you believe, you will see afterward. As to what we said, then, having much and seeking nothing, that is, needing nothing: what is that which we shall have? What will God give to those who serve him, worship him, believe in him, hope in him, love him?

For we see how much he gives in this time to those who distrust him, despair of him, are turned away from him, blaspheme him; we see how great gifts he lavishes. For from him first is health, which is so sweet that it never becomes tedious. When a poor man has it, what does he lack? When a rich man does not have it, what good is whatever he has? From him, then, that is, from the Lord our God whom we worship, from the true God in whom we believe, in whom we hope, and whom we love, comes so great a thing, health. Yet see, though health is a great thing, how he gives it both to the good and to the bad, both to those who blaspheme him and to those who praise him. And what shall I say? Both are men. Even a bad man is better than any beast. He gives health even to cattle and serpents; down to flies and little worms he grants health; and he who created all things preserves all things. So, to pass over other things (since we find nothing better than health), God gives it not only to men but also to beasts, as the Psalm says: “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord, as your mercy has been multiplied, O God.” For so you are, because you are God, that your goodness does not stay in the highest things and abandon the lowest. It reaches from the angels to the last and tiniest animals. “For it reaches from end to end mightily, wisdom, and orders all things sweetly”; and in that sweet ordering of his, health is sweet to all.

Since, then, he gives so great a good both to the good and to the bad, both to men and to beasts, what is it, my brothers, that he keeps for the good? For he had already said, “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord, as your mercy has been multiplied, O God.” And then he added: “But the sons of men.” Who are these? As if men, of whom he had said a little before, “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord,” are one thing, and the sons of men another. For are men something other than the sons of men, and the sons of men something other than men? What then does this distinction mean? Unless perhaps that men belong to the man, the sons of men to the Son of man: men to the man, the sons of men to the Son of man. For there is a certain man who was not a son of man. For he who was made first was a man; he was not a son of man. What then came to us through the man, and what came to us through the Son of man? I recall what came through the man, and I speak the Apostle’s words: “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned.” See what the man served us to drink; see what we drank from our parent and can hardly digest. If this came through the man, what through the Son of man? “He did not spare,” he says, “his own Son.” “If he did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us all things with him?” Again: “As through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many will be made righteous.” Through him, then, sin; through Christ, righteousness. All sinners, then, belong to the man; all the righteous to the Son of man. Why then do you marvel that sinners, the ungodly, the unrighteous, despisers of God, those turned from God, lovers of the world, embracing iniquity, hating truth, that is, men belonging to the man, why do you marvel that they have this health, when you hear the Psalm, “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord”? So that men themselves should not exalt themselves because they have temporal health, beasts were added to them. What then is it you rejoice in, O man? Is it not common to you with your donkey, with your hen, with any animal in your house, with these sparrows? Is not bodily health common to you with all these?

Look, then, for what is promised to the sons of men, and hear what follows: “But the sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings.” Meanwhile they will hope, as long as they are on the way. “But the sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings.” “For in hope we have been saved.” This does not belong to men and beasts, to hope under the shelter of God’s wings. And see, hope suckles us, nourishes us, strengthens us, and consoles us in this laborious life; in that hope we sing Alleluia. See how much joy hope has. What will the thing itself be? You ask what it will be? Hear what follows: “They will be drunk with the abundance of your house.” Of this thing there is hope. We thirst, we hunger; we need to be filled; but on the way hunger, in the homeland fullness. When shall we be filled? “I shall be filled when your glory is made manifest.” But now the glory of our God, the glory of our Christ, is hidden; and with him ours too is hidden. “But when Christ, your life, appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.” Then there will be Alleluia in reality; but now in hope. Hope sings it, love sings it now, love will sing it then too; but now hungry love sings, then love enjoying will sing. For what is Alleluia, my brothers? I have told you: it is the praise of God. See, now you hear the word, and in hearing you are delighted, and in delight you praise. If you so love the dew, how will you love the spring itself? For what belching is to a full stomach, praise is to a fattened heart. For if we praise what we believe, how shall we praise when we have seen? See what Mary had chosen for herself; but she signified that life, she did not yet hold it.

There are two lives: one belonging to delight, the other belonging to necessity. The one that belongs to necessity is laborious; the one that belongs to delight is full of pleasure. But go within; do not seek delight outside, lest you swell up with it and be unable to enter by the narrow way. See how Mary saw the Lord in the flesh and heard the Lord through the flesh, as you heard when the Letter to the Hebrews was read, as through a veil. There will be no veil when we see face to face. Mary, then, was sitting, that is, she was at leisure; and she was listening and praising; but Martha was busy about much serving. And the Lord says to her: “Martha, Martha, you are busy about many things; but one thing is necessary.” One thing, truly: many things will not be necessary. Before we come to the one thing, we need many. Let the one thing stretch us out; let the many not stretch us apart and break us off from the one. The apostle Paul spoke of that one thing, because he had not yet grasped it. “I do not think,” he says, “that I have laid hold of it. But one thing: forgetting what lies behind, stretched out toward what lies ahead.” Not stretched apart, but stretched out. For the one thing stretches out; it does not stretch apart. Many things stretch apart; one thing stretches out. And how long does it stretch out? As long as we are here. When we have arrived, it gathers us together; it does not stretch us out. “But one thing: forgetting what lies behind, stretched out toward what lies ahead, according to intention.” See: stretching out, never stretching apart. “According to intention I follow, toward the prize of God’s upward calling in Christ Jesus.” The order of the words is: “But one thing I follow.” Then, therefore, we shall arrive and enjoy the one thing; but that one thing will be all things to us. For what did we say, brothers, when I began to speak? What is that “much” which we shall have when we shall need nothing? What is the much we shall have? This is what I had set out to say: what will God give us which he will not give them? “Let the ungodly be taken away, so that he may not see the glory of God.” So God will give us his glory to enjoy: from which the ungodly will be taken away, so that he may not see the glory of God. All our “much” that we shall have will be God himself. Greedy man, what were you seeking to receive? What does he seek from God, for whom God is not enough?

But when it is said that we shall have God and be content with him alone, indeed so delighted with him alone that we seek nothing else, since we shall both enjoy him in himself and enjoy him in one another (for what are we if we do not have God? Or what else ought we to love in ourselves but God, either because we have him or so that we may have him?), when, then, it is said that the other things are withdrawn and God alone will be our delight, the soul that is used to delighting in many things feels as it were cramped; and the carnal soul, given over to the flesh, entangled in carnal desires, having its wings caught in the birdlime of evil desires so that it cannot fly to God, says to itself: “What will there be for me where I shall not eat, where I shall not drink, where I shall not sleep with my wife? What sort of joy will I have?” This joy of yours comes from sickness, not from health. Certainly your flesh itself in this time is sometimes sick, sometimes healthy. Pay attention, so that I may say something from which you may grasp an example of a thing I cannot say. Sick people have certain desires: they burn with desire for some spring, or some fruit; and they burn so much that they think that if they become well they ought to enjoy those very desires. Health comes, and the craving perishes. What he desired, he loathes, because it was the fever in him that sought it. And what sort of health is this, in which the sick man recovers? This health by which we are called healthy, what is it? But still, take an example from it. Since sick people have many desires which this health takes away, as this health takes those away, so immortality takes all of them away; for our health is immortality. Recall the Apostle, and see what it will be: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality.” We shall be equal to the angels of God. Are they miserable, who do not feast? Are they not the happier because they do not need these things? Or will just any rich man be made equal to the angels? The angels are truly rich. What are riches called? Means (facultates). The angels have great means, because they have great ease (facilitates). You hear when a rich man is praised: “How great he is! He is a lord, he is rich, he is powerful.” How great, that he goes where he wants: the beasts are there, the funds are there, the slaves are there, the services are there. The rich man has all these: he goes where he wants, he suffers no labor. An angel will be wherever he wants; nor does he say, “Harness,” nor “Saddle,” which the rich say with pride, wanting to swell up because they have people to whom they can say, “Harness” and “Saddle.” Wretch, these are words of weakness, not of means. We shall need nothing, then, and so we shall be happy. For we shall be full, but of our God; and all the things we desire here as great he himself will be to us. Here you seek food as a great thing: God will be your food. Here you seek the embrace of the flesh: “But for me it is good to cling to God.” Here you seek riches: how will you lack anything when you have him who made all things? And to make you secure with the Apostle’s words, he said this of that life: “That God may be all in all.”

Since it has pleased the Lord our God that, being here in bodily presence, we should also sing Alleluia to him with Your Love (which is translated into Latin “Praise the Lord”), let us praise the Lord, brothers, with life and tongue, with heart and mouth, with voices and conduct. For God wants Alleluia to be said to him in such a way that there is no discord in the one praising. So first let tongue agree with life in us, mouth with conscience. Let voices, I say, agree with conduct, lest perhaps good voices bear witness against bad conduct. O happy Alleluia in heaven, where the angels are the temple of God! For there is the supreme concord of those who praise, where there is the secure exultation of those who sing; where no law in the members fights against the law of the mind; where there is no quarrel of desire in which the victory of charity is endangered. Here, then, let us sing Alleluia while still anxious, so that there we may one day sing it secure. Why anxious here? Do you not want me to be anxious, when I read, “Is not human life on earth a temptation?” Do you not want me to be anxious, when it is still said to me, “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation”? Do you not want me to be anxious, where temptation so abounds that prayer itself prescribes for us, when we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors”? Every day petitioners, every day debtors. Do you want me to be secure, where every day I ask pardon for sins and help against dangers? For when I have said because of past sins, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,” at once because of future dangers I add and join, “Lead us not into temptation.” And how is a people in good, when it cries out with me, “Deliver us from evil”? And yet, brothers, in this evil still let us sing Alleluia to the good God, who delivers us from evil. Why do you look around for what he delivers you from, when he delivers you from evil? Do not go far, do not spread your mind’s gaze in every direction. Return to yourself, look at yourself. You are still evil. When, then, God delivers you yourself from yourself, then he delivers you from evil. Hear the Apostle, and understand there from what evil you are to be delivered. “I delight,” he says, “in the law of God according to the inner man; but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and taking me captive in the law of sin which is.” Where? “Taking me captive,” he says, “in the law of sin which is in my members.” I thought he had taken you captive under some unknown barbarians; I thought he had taken you captive under some foreign nations, or under some men as masters. “Which is,” he says, “in my members.” Cry out, then, with him: “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me?” Deliver from what? Say from what. One says from the officer, another from prison, another from captivity among barbarians, another from fever and sickness: you, Apostle, tell us, not where we are to be sent or led, but what we carry with us, what we ourselves are; tell us: “From the body of this death.” From the body of this death? “From the body,” he says, “of this death.”

Another says: “The body of this death does not belong to me: it is my prison for a time, my chain for a time; I am in the body of death, I am not the body of death.” You argue, and that is why you are not delivered. “For I,” he says, “am spirit; I am not flesh, but I am in the flesh: when I have been delivered from the flesh, what will I have to do with the flesh after that?” Do you want me, brothers, to answer this argument, or the Apostle? If I answer, perhaps the greatness of the word will be despised because of the lowliness of the minister. I would rather be silent. Hear with me the Teacher of the Gentiles; hear with me the Vessel of election, so that the controversy of disagreement may be taken from you. Hear; but first say what you were saying. Surely you were saying this: “I am not flesh, but I am spirit. I groan in my prison: when this chain and this workhouse has been dissolved, I go away free. Earth is given back to earth, the spirit is received into heaven: I go, I let go of what I am not.” So this is what you were saying? “This,” he says. I do not answer you: answer, Apostle; answer, I beg you. You preached so as to be heard; you wrote so as to be read; all was done so that you might be believed. Say: “Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” From what does he deliver you? “From the body of this death.” But are you not yourself the body of this death? He answers: “So then I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” But “I myself”: how are you yourself through different things? “With the mind,” he says, “because I love; with the flesh, because I lust: a victor indeed, if I do not consent; yet still a wrestler, with the adversary pressing.” And how is it that when you have been delivered from this flesh, O Apostle, you will no longer be anything but spirit? The Apostle answers, with death now near, the debt that no one escapes: “I do not lay the flesh down forever, but set it aside for a time.” So you are going to return to the body of this death? And what? Let us rather hear his own words. How do you return to the body from which you cried out with so devout a voice that you must be delivered? He answers: “I return indeed to the body, but no longer of this death.” Hear, you unskilled man, deaf to the daily voices of the readings: hear how he returns to a body indeed, but not of this death. Not because it will be another body, but because “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality.” My brothers, when the Apostle said “this corruptible,” “this mortal,” he was in a way touching his flesh with his voice. So not another. “I do not,” he says, “lay down an earthly body and receive an airy body, or receive an ethereal body. I receive the same, but no longer of this death.” For “this corruptible,” not another but this, “must put on incorruption; and this mortal,” not another but this, “put on immortality.” “Then will come to pass the word that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.” Let Alleluia be sung. “Then will come to pass the word that is written”: a word no longer of those fighting but of those triumphing: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Let Alleluia be sung. “Where, O death, is your sting?” Let Alleluia be sung. “But the sting of death is sin”: you will seek its place, and you will not find it.

But even here, among dangers, among temptations both from others and from ourselves, let Alleluia be sung. “For God is faithful,” he says, “who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.” So even here let us sing Alleluia. Man is still guilty, but God is faithful. He does not say, “He will not allow you to be tempted,” but, “He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able; but with the temptation he will also make a way out, so that you may be able to endure.” You have entered into temptation; but God will also make a way out, so that you do not perish in temptation: so that, like a potter’s vessel, you may be shaped by preaching and fired by tribulation. But when you enter, think of the way out: for God is faithful; “the Lord will guard your coming in and your going out.” But further, when this body has been made immortal and incorruptible, when all temptation has perished: for “the body indeed is dead.” Why is it dead? “Because of sin. But the spirit is life” (these are the Apostle’s words): why? “Because of righteousness.” Do we then let the dead body go? No; but hear: “But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.” For now the body is animal, then spiritual. For “the first man was made a living soul, the last man a life-giving spirit.” That is why “he will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit dwelling in you.” O happy Alleluia there! O secure! O without adversary! Where no one will be an enemy, no friend perishes. Praises to God there, and praises to God here: but here from the anxious, there from the secure; here from those who will die, there from those who will live forever; here in hope, there in reality; here on the way, there in the homeland. Now, then, my brothers, let us sing, not for the delight of rest, but for the comfort of labor. As travelers are accustomed to sing: sing, but walk; console your labor by singing; do not love sloth: sing, and walk. What is “walk”? Advance, advance in good. For there are, according to the Apostle, some who advance toward the worse. If you advance, you walk; but advance in good, advance in right faith, advance in good conduct: sing, and walk. Do not stray, do not go back, do not stand still. Turning to the Lord, etc.

What in the Hebrew language is called Alleluia is in Latin “Praise the Lord.” Let us praise the Lord our God, then, not only with the voice but also with the heart. For whoever praises with the heart praises with the voice of the inner man. The voice toward men is sound; the voice toward God is affection.

Someone said in his ecstasy, as you have read, as you have heard: “Every man is a liar.” Hence there was one who would not believe unless he had touched the Lord’s body. It seemed a lie to him that his fellow disciples were speaking the truth; and it was too little for him to hear the truth: he wanted to touch it too. And the Lord showed it to him, in what follows in the Gospel, to be recited later. But whoever hears “Every man is a liar” ought not to fix himself in lying and refuse to rise from it, reasoning idly with himself, as a lying man would, and saying to himself: “When shall I not be a man? But if, as long as I am a man here, I shall be a liar, better that I be a liar than that Scripture lie, which says, Every man is a liar. For if I am truthful, Scripture will be a liar. But because Scripture cannot be a liar, I shall be a liar.” Chattering this way, he seems to himself to rest secure there, as in the harbor of lying, where he will make shipwreck. You wanted to rest comfortably, as in this harbor: hear the rock you will strike: “You will destroy all who speak a lie.” And this is the Scripture of God which says, “You will destroy all who speak a lie.” So he will destroy all, because “every man is a liar”? But what has been said to us? Of what have we been warned? That of our own we are liars. But if we want to be truthful, let us flee to the Lord. Of his we are truthful, of our own liars.

Hear it in this one example, short and great: short, because it is quickly said; great, because it is wisely weighed. Peter alone shows what I want to say. When he said to the Lord Christ, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” what did he answer? “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” You have spoken the truth, but not of your own. From where, then? My Father who is in heaven revealed it to you. Hence blessed, because of God’s; of your own nothing but wretched. After this, when the Lord had said to him, “Blessed are you, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven,” after these words the Lord Christ began to foretell his passion and death. There at once Peter: “Far be it from you, Lord.” “Every man is a liar.” See, a little before, Peter truthful; see, now, Peter a liar. But from where was Peter truthful? “Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” From where was Peter a liar? “Get behind me, Satan; for you do not savor the things of God but the things of men.” “Every man is a liar.” So “Every man is a liar” has been said to us, so that we may flee from ourselves and run to God, who alone is truthful.