Sermons to the People 285.1–287.3

The virtue of the holy martyrs, not only great but also devout—for that is a useful virtue, or rather that alone is to be called true virtue, which serves not vanity but God—prompts us to speak to Your Love and to urge you so to celebrate the solemnities of the martyrs that, by following in the footsteps of the martyrs, you may delight in imitating them. For neither did they have from themselves the fact that they stood out as brave. That fountain did not flow only as far as them. He who gave to them is able to give to us too, since one price has been paid for all of us.

This above all, then, you must be reminded of, as you ought to be reminded constantly and always think on it: that it is not the punishment but the cause that makes a martyr of God. For God delights in our justice, not in our torments; nor in the judgment of the Almighty and true is it asked what each one suffers, but why he suffers. For that we sign ourselves with the Lord’s cross, it was not the Lord’s punishment that brought this about, but his cause. For if the punishment had brought it about, a similar punishment of the thieves would have done the same. There was one place of three crucified men; in the middle was the Lord, who was reckoned among the wicked. They set the two thieves on this side and that; but they did not have a similar cause. They were joined to the sides of the one hanging, but they were far separated. Their own crimes crucified them; ours crucified him. Yet even in one of them it appeared clearly enough what availed, not the torment of the one hanging but the piety of the one confessing. The thief gained in pain what Peter had lost in fear. He committed crime, he mounted the cross; he changed his cause, he purchased paradise. He fully deserved to change his cause, who did not despise in Christ the likeness of his own punishment. The Jews despised him when he worked miracles; he believed in him when he hung there. He recognized the Lord as the sharer of his cross, and by believing he took the kingdom of heaven by force. The thief believed in Christ at the moment when the faith of the apostles trembled. Rightly he deserved to hear, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” This indeed he had not promised himself: he was commending himself to great mercy, but he was also thinking of his own deserts. “Lord,” he said, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Until the Lord should come into his kingdom, he hoped that he would be in punishment, and at least at his coming he begged that mercy be shown him. And so the thief, thinking of his own deserts, put himself off; but the Lord offered the thief what he had despaired of, as if to say: You ask that I remember you when I come into my kingdom: “Truly, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Recognize to whom you commend yourself: the one you believe will come, before I come, I am everywhere. Therefore, although I am going down into the underworld, I have you today in paradise; not entrusted to another, but with me. For my humility has come down to mortal men and to the dead themselves; but my divinity never departs from paradise. So there were three crosses, three causes. One of the thieves insulted Christ; the other, confessing his evils, commended himself to Christ’s mercy. The cross of Christ in the middle was not a punishment but a tribunal: from the cross he condemned the one who insulted him and set free the one who believed. Fear, you who insult; rejoice, you who believe: what he did in humility, he will do in glory.

Divine gifts come from the deep judgment of God: we can marvel at them; we cannot investigate them. For “who has known the mind of the Lord?” and, “How inscrutable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” Peter, following Christ in all his footsteps, is troubled and denies; he is looked upon and weeps; his weeping wipes away what fear had stained. That was not an abandoning of Peter but an instruction. For, loving the Lord, though questioned, he had presumed in his heart that he would even die for him. He had attributed this to his own strength; unless he were abandoned for a little while by the one who guided him, he would not have been shown to himself. He dared to say, “I will lay down my life for you.” The presumer boasted that he would lay down his life for Christ, for whom the Liberator had not yet laid down his own. Finally, when he is troubled by fear, just as the Lord had foretold, he denies three times the one for whom he had promised to die. As it is written, “The Lord looked at him; and he wept bitterly.” Bitter was the memory of the denial, so that the grace of redemption might be sweet. Had he not been abandoned, he would not have denied; had he not been looked upon, he would not have wept. God hates those who presume on their own strength, and cuts this swelling in those whom he loves, like a physician. By cutting he causes pain, but afterward he establishes health. And so the Lord, rising again, entrusts his sheep to Peter—to that denier; but a denier because a presumer, afterward a shepherd because a lover. For why does he question him three times in his love, if not to pierce the heart of the one who denied three times? And so afterward Peter accomplished by the grace of God what at first he could not by confidence in himself. For after he had entrusted the sheep to him—not Peter’s, but his own, so that he should feed them not for himself but for the Lord—he announced to him the future passion that he had first lost, because he was in too much haste. “When you have grown old,” he said, “another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” He said this signifying by what death he was to glorify the Lord. It came to pass: Peter, who had washed away his denial with tears, came to his passion. What the Savior had promised him, the tempter could not take away.

I think something of the same kind happened also in these holy martyrs Castus and Aemilius, whose day we celebrate today. Perhaps they too had earlier presumed on their own strength, and therefore failed. He showed them who they were and who he was. He checked them when they presumed, and called them when they believed; he helped them as they fought, and crowned them as they conquered. Indeed, at the first encounter, when they gave way to their pains, the enemy was already rejoicing over them, counting them on his side; he was already exulting, already had them as his own. But as much as was granted them by the Lord’s mercy: other martyrs conquered the devil as tempter, these conquered him even as triumphant. And so, my brothers, let us remember whose celebration we are celebrating today: let us not wish to imitate that in which they were conquered, but rather that in which they conquered. The falls of the great were not hidden, so that those who presume on themselves may fear. Everywhere the humility of the good teacher is most diligently commended to us. Since indeed our salvation in Christ is the humility of Christ. For there would be no salvation for us, had Christ not deigned to become humble for us. Let us remember that we are not to trust overmuch in ourselves. Let us commend to God what we have; let us implore from him what we lack.

Prayer is made for the other faithful departed; for the martyrs prayer is not made. For they went out so perfect that they are not our dependants but our advocates. And not in themselves, but in him, the head, to whom they cleaved as perfect members. For he is truly the one advocate, who intercedes for us, sitting at the right hand of the Father; but one advocate, as also one shepherd. For “I must,” he says, “bring those sheep too which are not of this fold.” Is Christ a shepherd and Peter not a shepherd? On the contrary, Peter too is a shepherd, and the others like him are shepherds without any doubt. For if he is not a shepherd, how is it said to him, “Feed my sheep”? But yet the true shepherd is the one who feeds his own sheep. For it was said to Peter, not “Feed your sheep,” but “mine.” Peter, then, is a shepherd not in himself but in the body of the shepherd. For if he fed his own sheep, those he fed would at once become goats.

For against what is said to Peter, “Feed my sheep,” there is said in the Song of Songs, “Unless you know yourself, O beautiful among women.” We surely recognize to whom it is said, and in her we too hear it. For the Church hears this from Christ, the bride hears it from the bridegroom: “Unless you know yourself, O beautiful among women, go out.” What a bad word, “Go out”! “They went out from us,” it says, “but they were not of us.” Contrary to this sad word, “Go out,” is that joyful word in the good sense, “Enter into the joy of your Lord.” So, “Unless you know yourself, O beautiful among women,” O Catholic Church, beautiful among heresies: “unless you know yourself, O beautiful among women, go out”; for I do not cast you out, but you go out. For they went out from us who separate themselves, natural men, not having the Spirit. For it is not said, “They were cast out,” but “They went out.” Divine justice kept to this also in the case of the first sinners. For as if they were already sinking by their own weight, he sent them away from paradise; he did not shut them out. So, “Unless you know yourself, O beautiful among women, go out”: I do not cast you out; you go out. I wish you to be healed in my body; you seek to have your rottenness cut off. This was said to those who were foreseen as going to go out, so that those who were to remain might recognize themselves and be on guard. For why did those also go out, if not because they did not know themselves? For if they knew themselves, they would see there that what they gave was not theirs but God’s. “I give: what I give is mine; and therefore it is holy, because I give it.” You did not know yourself; rightly you went out. For you would not listen to the one saying, “Unless you know yourself, O beautiful among women.” For you were beautiful once, when you cleaved to the members of your bridegroom. You would not listen, then, and weigh what “Unless you know yourself” means: because he surely found you ugly, because he made you beautiful from ugly, because he made you white from black. “For what do you have that you did not receive?” You do not notice, then, how it was said, “Unless you know yourself, go out.” And you thought you ought to feed your own sheep, not as was said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” But see what was added for you, what this foretold for you: “Go out in the footsteps of the flocks”; not of the flock, but of the flocks. For the sheep of Christ are fed where there is one flock and one shepherd. Go out, then, in the footsteps of the flocks, divisive, divided, torn apart; go out in the footsteps of the flocks, and feed your kids; not, like Peter, “my sheep,” but your kids: “by the tents of the shepherds,” not in the tent of the shepherd. Peter enters by love; you go out by animosity: because Peter knew himself, he therefore wept over himself when presuming, and deserved to find the one who helps: therefore, you go out. He, “my sheep”; you, “your kids.” He in the tent of the shepherd; you in the tents of the shepherds. Why then do you boast of your bad punishment, which has no good cause?

So let us honor the martyrs inside, in the tent of the shepherd, in the members of the shepherd, having grace, not audacity; piety, not rashness; constancy, not obstinacy; gathering, not division. Therefore, if you wish to imitate true martyrs, choose a cause for yourselves, so that you may say to the Lord, “Judge me, O Lord, and distinguish my cause from an unholy nation.” Distinguish, not my punishment, for an unholy nation has that too, but my cause, which only a holy nation has. Choose a cause for yourselves, then; hold to a good and just cause, and with the Lord’s help fear no punishment. Turning to the Lord, etc.

“Martyrs” is a Greek word, but custom now uses that word in place of a Latin one; in Latin, however, they are called “witnesses.” So there are true martyrs and false ones, because there are true witnesses and false ones. But Scripture says, “A false witness will not go unpunished.” If a false witness will not be without punishment, neither will a true witness be without a crown. And it was easy indeed to bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the truth, since he is God; but to do so even to death was a great work. There were some, whom the Gospel notes, rulers of the Jews, who had believed in the Lord Jesus; but because of the Jews, it says, they did not dare to confess him publicly. And at once a mark was added to the heading; for the evangelist goes on to say, “For they loved the glory of men more than that of God.” There were, then, those who blushed to confess Christ before men; and there were others, already better, who did not blush to confess Christ before men, but who could not confess him even to death. For these are gifts of God, and sometimes they are nourished in the soul by degrees. Attend first, and compare these three witnesses with one another: one who believes in Christ and barely whispers Christ timidly; another who believes in Christ and confesses Christ publicly; a third who believes in Christ and is ready in his confession to die for Christ. The first is so weak that shame overcomes him, not fear; the second already has a firm brow, but not yet to the point of blood; the third has everything, so that there is nothing further left. For he fulfills what is written: “Strive for the truth even to death.”

What do we say about Peter? He preached Christ, he was sent, he proclaimed the gospel even before the Lord’s passion. For we know that the apostles were sent to preach the gospel: he was sent, and he preached. How far he had surpassed those Jews who were afraid to confess publicly! But still he was not yet like Protasius and Gervasius. He was already an apostle, he was the first, he cleaved to the Lord. It had been said to him, “You are Peter”; but he was not yet a Protasius or a Gervasius, not yet a Stephen, not yet the boy Nemesianus; Peter was not yet this; not yet what certain women, what girls, what Crispina, what Agnes were; Peter was not yet what the womanly weakness of these women was. I praise Peter, but first I blush for Peter. How ready a soul! But not knowing how to measure himself. For surely if he had not been ready, he would not have said to the Savior, “I will die for you. Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” But the physician, who knew how to examine the pulse of the heart, foretold the danger of an attack. “Will you,” he said, “lay down your life for me? Recognize the order. I lay mine down first. Will you lay down your life for me? Amen I say to you, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” The physician foretold what the sick man did not know. The sick man found, then, that he had presumed falsely, when he was asked, “Are you one of them?” The maid who asked was the fever. See, the fever has come on, see, it clings: what shall I say? See, Peter is in danger, see, Peter dies. For what else is it to die than to deny life? He denied Christ, he denied life, he died. But he who raises the dead, the Lord, looked at him, and he wept bitterly. By denying he perished; by weeping he rose again. And the Lord died first for him, as was fitting; and afterward Peter died for the Lord, as the very order required; and the martyrs followed. The way, at first thorny, was paved, and, worn down by the feet of the apostles, was made smoother for those who were to follow.

As if with the seed of blood the earth was filled with martyrs, and from that seed the crop of the Church sprang up. The martyrs asserted Christ more when dead than when alive. Today they assert him, today they proclaim him: the tongue is silent, the deeds resound. They were held, bound, shut up, brought out, tortured, burned, stoned, struck, thrown to the beasts. In all their deaths they were mocked as if worthless; but “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Then precious only in the sight of the Lord, now also in our sight. For then, when it was a disgrace to be a Christian, the death of the saints was worthless in the sight of men: they were detested, they were held as accursed; they were cast up as a curse: “May you die like that, may you be crucified like that, may you be burned like that!” Now what believer does not wish for these curses? We celebrate today, then, brothers, the memorial set up in this place of the saints Protasius and Gervasius, martyrs of Milan. We celebrate not the day on which it was set up here, but today’s day, when the death of his saints, precious in the sight of the Lord, was discovered through Bishop Ambrose, a man of God; of whose great glory of the martyrs at that time I too was a witness. I was there, I was in Milan, I know the miracles that were done, God bearing witness to the precious deaths of his saints, so that through those miracles that death might now be precious not only in the sight of the Lord but also in the sight of men. A blind man very well known to the whole city was given sight; he ran, he had himself led there, he returned without a guide. We have not yet heard that he has died; perhaps he is still alive. In their very basilica, where their bodies are, he vowed that he would serve all his life. We rejoiced to see him seeing; we left him serving.

God does not cease to bear witness; and he knows how he ought to commend his own miracles. He knows how to act so that they are magnified; he knows how to act so that they do not grow cheap. He does not give health to all through the martyrs; but to all imitators of the martyrs he promises immortality. What he does not give to all, let the one to whom he does not give not seek; nor let him murmur against him because he does not give, so that he may give what he has promised at the end. For those who are healed now, after a little while, sometime, die; those who rise at the end will live with Christ. The head has gone before; it awaits the members that are to follow: the whole body will be completed, Christ and the Church. There let him count us written; and in this life let him give what is expedient. For he knows what is expedient for his children. “If you then,” he says, “though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” What good things? Temporal ones? He gives those too; but he gives them also to unbelievers. He gives those too; but he gives them also to the impious, he gives them also to those who blaspheme him. Let us seek good things that we do not have in common with the evil. That Father knows how to give such good things to his children. Now his son asks him for bodily health: and he does not give it, he still scourges. But does a father not give when he scourges? He brings out the scourge, but think what kind of inheritance he is preparing. “He scourges,” it says, “every son whom he receives. For whom the Lord loves, he reproves.” I say these things, my brothers, so that you may not be saddened when you ask and do not receive, and think that God does not have you before his eyes if for a time he does not grant your wish. For the physician does not always grant the sick man his wish, though he undoubtedly cares for and seeks his health. He does not give what he asks for, but he provides what he does not ask for. He asks for cold water; he does not give it. Has he who came to heal become cruel? It is a matter of skill, not of cruelty. He does not give for the moment what delights, so that the man may be healthy; to one not yet healthy certain things are refused.

Consider the promises of God. To these very martyrs, do you think he gave everything they asked? No. Many wished to be let go, and let go with some miracle, as the three young men were let go from the furnace. What was the word of King Nebuchadnezzar? “Because,” he says, “they hoped in him and changed the king’s word.” What testimony does he bear who was trying to kill them? He wished them burned, he who afterward believed through them. If they had died in the fire, they would have been crowned in secret; it would not have profited him. Therefore they were preserved for a time, so that the unbeliever might believe, so that he who had condemned them might praise God. He who was the God of the three young men was the God of the Maccabees. He freed those from the fire; these he let die in the fire. Has he changed? Did he love those more than these? A greater crown was given to the Maccabees. Certainly those escaped the fire, but they were preserved for the dangers of this world; these ended all dangers in the fire. No further temptation remained, only the crowning. So the Maccabees received more. Examine your faith, bring out the eyes of the heart, not human eyes; for you have other eyes within, which the Lord made for you, who opened the eyes of your heart when he gave faith. Question those eyes: who received more, the Maccabees or the three young men? I question faith. If I were to question the lovers of this world, a weak soul would tell me, “I would have wished to be among the three young men.” Blush before the mother of the Maccabees, who wished her sons to die before her, because she knew they were not dying.

I sometimes remind you of the booklets of the miracles of the martyrs which are read in your presence. Some days ago a booklet was read in which, when a certain sick woman who was tormented by the sharpest pains had said, “I cannot bear it,” the martyr himself who had come to heal her said to her, “What if you were undergoing martyrdom?” Many, then, undergo martyrdom in bed: truly many. There is a certain persecution by Satan, more hidden and more cunning than there was then. A believer lies in bed, is tormented by pains, prays, and is not heard; or rather he is heard, but he is being tested, being exercised; he is scourged so that he may be received as a son. So, when he is tormented by pains, there comes the temptation of the tongue: some little woman comes up to the bed, or a man, if he is to be called a man, and says to the sick person, “Wear that amulet, and you will be well; let that incantation be applied, and you will be well. So-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so, ask them: they were made well by it.” He does not give way, he does not obey, he does not incline his heart; yet he struggles. He has no strength, and he conquers the devil. He becomes a martyr in bed, crowned by him who for him hung on the wood.

The narrative is long, but the hearer’s labor is repaid by the sweetness of truth: we heard, when the holy Gospel was read, of the illustrious birth of the most blessed John, the herald and forerunner of Christ. From this let Your Love consider how great a man’s birth took place. The Church has celebrated the birthday of the flesh for none of the prophets, none of the patriarchs, none of the apostles: it celebrates only two birthdays, his and Christ’s. The very seasons at which both were born prefigure a great mystery. John was a great man, but a man. Yet he was so great a man that whatever was more than he was God. “He who comes after me is greater than I.” John said this: “He is greater than I.” If he is greater than you, what is it that we heard him say, who is greater than you: “Among those born of women none has arisen greater than John the Baptist”? If no human being is greater than you, what is he who is greater than you? Do you want to hear who he is? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

And how did the Word of God, God, through whom all things were made, who is without a beginning in time, through whom times were made, find a birthday in time? How, I say, did the Word through whom times were made find a birthday in time? Do you ask how? Listen to the Gospel itself: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Christ’s birthday is the birthday of the flesh, not of the Word; but it is the birthday of the Word for this reason, that the Word became flesh. The Word was born, but born in the flesh, not in himself. In himself he is indeed from the Father, but he has no birthday in time.

Wonderful are both births, Christ’s and John’s, though there is so great a distance between them. John was born, and Christ was born; John was announced by an angel, Christ was announced by an angel. Both a great miracle. A barren woman bears the servant forerunner from an old man; a virgin bears the Lord and owner without a man. A great man was John; but Christ more than a man, for he was both man and God. A great man; but man had to be humbled, so that God might be exalted. Indeed, because man had to be humbled, listen to the man himself: “I am not worthy to loosen the strap of his sandal.” If he had called himself worthy of this, how much would he have humbled himself? He did not call himself worthy even of this. He laid himself completely low, and he laid himself low under the rock. For he was a lamp, and he was afraid of being put out by the wind of pride. Indeed, that every man had to be humbled before Christ, and so John too; and that Christ, the God-man, had to be exalted, both the birthday and the kinds of their deaths showed. John was born today: from today the days grow shorter. Christ was born on the eighth day before the kalends of January: from that day the days grow longer. John in his passion was shortened by his head; Christ was lifted up on the wood. How well it was announced to the virgin Mary, how truly, how holily! “How will this be, since I do not know a man?” She believed, but she asked about the manner. And what did she hear? “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High”—that same Holy Spirit, that is, the power of the Most High—“will overshadow you. And therefore the holy one that will be born of you will be called the Son of God.” “The power of the Most High will overshadow you.” There will be conception in you; there will be no lust of concupiscence. There will be no heat where the Holy Spirit makes shade. But because our bodies are feeling the heat, let this suffice for Your Love; well thought over, it will be more.