Sermons to the People 345.1–347.3

Let me speak to your Charity, brothers, about what concerns contempt of the present world and hope of the world to come. If you ask what you should despise: every martyr despised the present life. If you ask what you should hope for: I say the resurrection, since today the Lord rose. O man, if you totter in your present state, be firm in hope; and if the work troubles you, let the reward itself lift you up. The apostle too admonishes us when he instructs Timothy, saying: “Instruct the rich of this world not to be proud-minded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, who provides us with all things. Let them be rich in good works, give easily, share, lay up for themselves a good foundation, so as to lay hold of the true life.” And the rich especially ought to hear this. Hear, you rich, who have gold and silver and yet burn with greed: when the poor look at you, they murmur, they groan, they praise and envy; they long to be equal and grieve that they are unequal; and amid their praises of the rich they very often say, “Only these people live; they alone live.” Because of these words with which humble men flatter the rich when they say, “Only these people live,” do not be lifted up into pride, you rich; but rather hear the apostle, the healer of disease and not the flatterer of words. This life is your sleep; these riches flow away as in dreams. Paul says, “so as to lay hold of the true life.” Listen to Paul, and do not be proud. Hear the psalm too, O most poor rich man: what do you have, if you do not have God? or what do you not have, if you have God? The psalm says of the rich, “They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands.” Sometimes a beggar too, lying on the ground and shivering with cold, overtaken by sleep, dreams of treasures; he rejoices, exults, grows proud, and scorns to look at his ragged father. What you see is in dreams, beggar, you who sleep and rejoice. Yet until he wakes he is rich: when he has slept, he finds what he grieves over for certain. The rich man who dies, then, is like that poor man asleep and dreaming of treasures. For that rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, not named and not to be named, who despised the poor man lying before his gate, feasted splendidly every day; afterwards he died and was buried; he woke up and found himself in the flame. He slept his sleep, and after sleep he found nothing, because he had done nothing with his hands, that is, with his riches.

Riches are sought for the sake of life, not life for the sake of riches: how many have made terms with their enemies to ransom only their life? However much they had, they gave it all, only so as not to lose their life. Did you give the barbarians everything you had, brother? “Everything,” he says, “I gave; I was left naked; though naked, I shall live.” And why? “I was to be killed whole; so I gave the whole.” And why did this happen to you? Shall I tell you? Because before the barbarian came upon you, you did not help the poor, so that through the poor your almsgiving might reach Christ. To Christ you did not give a little, and to the barbarians you gave everything you had, and gave it on oath. Christ asks, and does not receive; the barbarian tortures, and takes everything away. If you ransomed a perishing life at so high a price, at what price is eternal life to be bought? You who give to the enemy so as to live a beggar, give something to Christ so as to live blessed. To live a few days you do what the enemy demands, and you despise what Christ demands? All the days of a man from infancy to old age are few: even if Adam himself were dying today, he would have lived few days, because he had come to the end of them all; he who indeed had lived six thousand years; and yet they were few, because he had ended them all. You ransom a few toilsome days, full of temptations, so as to have a little land, that is, a farm. Look, the enemy who had captured you says to you, “Give me whatever you have”; and to live you gave everything; ransomed today, to die tomorrow; ransomed from this one, to be slaughtered by another. See how much men suffer from barbarians for the sake of temporal life, and it irks them to suffer something for eternal life! Let these dangers teach us, brothers. Look, you gave everything, you threw it away; and you rejoice because you live, and you say this: “Though poor, naked, needy, a beggar, I rejoice because I live, and I have not lost this sweet light.” Let Christ appear; let him too make terms with you: not the barbarian who had captured you, but he who was captured for you, who deigned to be killed for you. He who gave himself for you says to you himself: “Make terms with me. Do you want to have yourself? Have me too. You must hate yourself and love me. By losing your life you will find it, lest by holding it you lose it.”

About your riches, which you love to possess, which you are ready to give for the present life, I give you advice on what to do. If you love them too, do not lose them. But if you love them here, they will perish with you. If you love them, send them ahead to where you will follow, lest while you love them on earth you lose them either living or dead. I have now given advice: I did not say, “Lose them,” but, “Keep them.” I have already said: “Do you want to store up treasure? Good. I do not say, Don't; but I say where.” Take me as an adviser, not a destroyer. It is written: “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth, nor rust destroys.” But perhaps you say: “I do not see a place in heaven where I may put it. What ladder, what machine shall I look for that reaches to heaven, so that I may see where I may put my money?” What do you say? Do you see a place on earth where you bury it? “I see it,” he says. Very well: if you are confident burying it in the earth, why are you anxious about God, who made heaven and earth? Give to God confidently. Entrust yourself to him who keeps your money for you in heaven, since he also governs you on earth as long as you live. Do you want to keep your money? Keep it as you like. If you find a better guardian than Christ, entrust your money to him. “I entrust it,” he says, “to my slave.” Good: how much better to your Lord? And do you put your slave above your Lord? O Christian man! Your slave may perhaps take it and run away: will Christ do that? Many slaves have suddenly become enemies of their masters and handed them over to the enemy along with the very gold. To whom, then, do you entrust it? “To my slave,” he says. “I know my slave's fidelity, and so I entrust my gold to my slave.” Very well: you prefer your slave, you entrust your gold to your slave: your soul to whom? “I entrust my soul to my God.” How much better, man, to entrust your gold too to him to whom you entrust your soul? Or perhaps he is faithful in guarding your soul and unfaithful in guarding your money? He keeps it for you who keeps you too. Do you praise your slave's fidelity? “Yes, I know my slave's fidelity.” His whole fidelity is not to defraud, not to steal: does he see to it that he does not lose it? Look, he put it away, and it was not hidden; another found it and took it. Will anyone do that to Christ? Shake off laziness; take advice. Give to Christ hungry; store up in heaven. Is it toil to store up in heaven? Even if it were toil, it would have to be done, to put your money in a secure place from which no one could take it. Yet when Christ says, “Store up in heaven,” he does not say to you, “Look for ladders, bind machines together, fit on wings.” He says this: “Give to me on earth, and I keep it for you in heaven. That is why I came to be in need on earth, that you might be rich in heaven.” Make a transfer. Perhaps you fear a cheat, lest you lose it; and you look for someone to carry it, someone to move it. Christ is there for you in both. He will not commit fraud; he will also do the carrying besides.

“But where do I find Christ on earth?” he says. “Where do I find him, to give to him? Since my faith holds what I hear in the Church—this I learned, so I believed, with this sacrament I was imbued: he suffered, died and was buried, rose on the third day, after forty days ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, will come at the end. When do I find him here? To whom shall I give, to carry it to him?” Do not fuss; hear the whole thing. Or if you have heard or read the whole, have you never heard this, that when Saul was persecuting the Church, proud, cruel, thirsting for Christian blood, did you not hear what he cried out to him, the one whom you confess seated in heaven? Recall it. What, then, did he say? “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Him whom Paul neither saw nor touched cries out in heaven, “Why do you persecute me?” He did not say, “Why do you persecute my household, my servants, my saints, or my brothers?” He said none of these. And what did he say? “Why do you persecute me?”—that is, my members. For them, trodden on earth, the head cried out from heaven: because even if someone treads on your foot on the ground, your tongue cries out from the head; you do not say, “You are treading on my foot,” but, “You are treading on me.” Why, then, do you hesitate? What do you say? He who said to Saul, “Why do you persecute me?” says to you himself, “Feed me.” Saul raged on earth and touched Christ in heaven: so you too, give on earth, and you feed Christ in heaven. For the Lord himself foretold this question that troubles you. Those too who will be placed on the right will be troubled, and when he has said, “I was hungry, and you gave me to eat,” they will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry?” And they will hear at once, “When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me.” If you have heard this, say openly, “I do not want to give”: and you have nothing to excuse yourself with, but condemn yourself by your own voice. About your riches, then, your Lord says to you: “I have given advice on what to do: do you love riches?” “I love them,” you say. “Then move them, and when you have moved them, follow them meanwhile with your heart while you live: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” But if you bury your heart in the earth, blush because you lie when you answer on hearing, “Lift up your heart.” For it is said, “Lift up your heart,” and at once you answer, “We have it to the Lord.” You lie to God. For one hour in church you do not tell the truth, you lie to God, as you always do to men. You say, “We have it to the Lord,” and you have your heart buried in the earth; because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

If you have done with your riches what you have heard, if you have become such a rich man as the apostle describes—not proud-minded, nor hoping in the uncertainty of riches, so as to store up for yourself a good foundation for the future, so as to lay hold of the true life—now ask your God and Lord, and say to him: “Look, Lord, I have already moved into heaven what I had; or what I have, I have as though I did not have it. Is the kingdom of heaven worth as much as my estate?” It is worth more. For it is not really such as to be worth only that much. This is what your Lord says, whom you asked about your estate: “You will live for a time and afterwards die; in my kingdom you will never die, but live for ever. There you will be truly rich, where you will never be in need. For that is why you seek many animals for transport, so that you may not fail; for food, plentiful banquets; for clothing, costly garments. Are you really rich in having many things, and my angel poor? He has nothing; he uses no horse, rides in no carriage, fills no table with fine furnishings; no garment is woven for him, because he is clothed with eternal light.” Learn, rich man, to seek true riches. You want to have these riches so as to have the means to eat much, because you faint: he truly makes you rich who grants you never to hunger for ever. For however much you have, when the fifth hour comes, before you go to table you are hungry and faint, because you are wretched. Does an angel endure this? Far from it. An angel has neither hunger nor faintness. Lastly, at these banquets you pant in your pride. This is not a filling of needs but a smoke of cares. When you think about increasing your riches, see whether you sleep easily. Unless I am mistaken, where you found riches you lost rest. When you are awake, you think of increasing your riches; when you sleep, you dream of robbers. Anxious by day, fearful by night, always a beggar. He wants to make you truly rich who promises you the kingdom of heaven: and do you think you will buy those true riches, that true and blessed life, at the price you are ready to pay to ransom these wretched and toilsome days? Something that is much more must be worth much more, since it is the kingdom of heaven.

“And what shall I do?” you say. “Look, holy bishop, I have heard your admonitions, I have obeyed your advice, I have not spurned the Lord's command; what I had I have given to the poor, and what I have I share with the needy; what more can I do?” You still have something: you have yourself. You yourself are more; you must add yourself to your goods; you must be added. “Have you followed your Lord's counsel?” “I have,” he says. Why do you lie? You have not done it all: you have done it in one part; in the other you have touched nothing. Hear what he commands: “Go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor.” Did he stop there? And so that the man should not think he was losing what he spent on the poor, he made him secure, saying, “And you will have treasure in heaven.” Is this enough? No. And what? “Come, follow me,” he says. Do you love him, and do you want to follow the one you love? He has run, he has flown: ask which way. “I do not know which way.” O Christian! Do you not know which way your Lord went? Shall I tell you which way you should follow him? Through afflictions, through insults, through false accusations, through spitting in the face, through slaps and the blows of the scourge, through the crown of thorns, through the cross, and through death. Why are you lazy? Look, the way has been shown you. “But the way is hard,” you say; “who follows him along it?” Blush, barbarian, blush: you are called a man from manly strength. Women have followed, whose birthday we celebrate today. We are celebrating the feast of the women martyrs of Suburbitum. Your Lord, our Lord, their Lord, the Redeemer of our life, by going ahead on the narrow and rough way, has paved it for you: a paved way, safe, protected, Christ our Lord, who reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Remember with us, dearly beloved brothers, that the apostle said: “As long as we are in the body, we are pilgrims away from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight.” For our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” willed that we should walk both through himself and to himself. For along what do we walk, except along the way? And to what do we walk, except to the truth and to the life, that is, eternal life, which alone is to be called life? For this mortal life, in which we now are, is shown, by comparison with that life, to be death; it varies with so much changeableness, is made firm by no stability, and is ended by a very short course. And so the Lord answered that rich man who had said to him, “Good master, what shall I do to obtain eternal life?”: “If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments.” He was certainly in some kind of life; for he was not speaking to a corpse but to a living man. But since he had asked about obtaining eternal life, the Lord did not say, “If you wish to come to eternal life,” but, “If you wish,” he says, “to come to life, keep the commandments”: wanting this to be understood, that what is not eternal life is not even to be called life, because true life is only eternal life. Hence the apostle too, when he was instructing that advice about almsgiving be given to the rich, says, “Let them be rich in good works, give easily, share, lay up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so as to lay hold of the true life.” What did he call true life, except eternal life, which alone is to be called life, because it alone is blessed? For certainly those rich men, to whom he said it must be enjoined that they lay hold of the true life, had this life in an abundance of riches: yet if the apostle had judged it to be true life, he would not say, “Let them lay up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so as to lay hold of the true life”: admonishing nothing else but that the life of the rich is not true life—a life which fools call not only true but even blessed. But how is that blessed which is not true? So the blessed life is only the true life, and the true life is only eternal life, which the rich are understood not yet to hold through any delights; and so they are admonished to lay hold of it through almsgiving, so that at the end they may hear: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave me to eat.” For that this very kingdom is eternal life the same Lord shows a little later, saying: “They will go into eternal burning, but the just into eternal life.”

Until we lay hold of this life, we are pilgrims away from the Lord, since we walk by faith, not by sight. For he says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In faith we have the way; in sight, the truth and the life. “Now we see through a mirror in an enigma”: and this is faith; “but then face to face”: that will be sight. Again he says, “that Christ may dwell in the inner man by faith in your hearts”: this is the way, where we know in part. But a little later he says, “to know also the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”: that will be sight, when in that fullness, when what is perfect has come, what is in part will be taken away. Again he says, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”: this is faith. Then he adds, “When Christ, your life, appears, then you too will appear with him in glory”: that will be sight. John too says, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be”: this is faith. Then he adds, “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is”: that will be sight. Therefore the Lord himself, who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life,” when he was speaking to the Jews, among whom were some who had already believed in him, directing his words to these, said, “If you abide in my word, you will truly be my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” These had already believed: for the evangelist says, “Jesus said to those who had believed in him: If you abide in my word, you will truly be my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” So they had already believed, and had already begun to walk in Christ as on the way. So he urges them to arrive by abiding. Arrive where, except at what he says, “The truth will set you free”? What is that freeing, except from all the changeableness of vanity, from all the corruption of mortality? This, then, is the true life, eternal life, which we have not yet laid hold of as long as we are pilgrims away from the Lord; but we shall lay hold of it, because we walk by faith in the Lord himself, if we abide most steadfastly in his word. For in keeping with what he says, “I am the way,” he says, “If you abide in my word, you will truly be my disciples.” And in keeping with what he says, “and the truth and the life,” he says, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In this pilgrimage, then, and on this way, that is, in faith, to what do I exhort you, brothers, except in the words of the apostle who says, “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord”? For those who demand that the light of the purest and unchangeable truth be supplied to them before they believe, though they cannot behold it except by faith, once the heart is cleansed—for “blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God”—are like blind men who want first to see the bodily light of this sun in order to be healed of blindness, when they cannot see it unless they are healed first.

Many precepts have been given us, brothers, about the fear of God, and the divine words have sounded countless times how useful it is to fear God. From that most abundant supply, pay willing attention as I recall a few and discuss them as far as the shortness of time allows. Who would not be glad to be wise, or, if he is not yet, want to be? But what does Scripture say? “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” Whom would it not delight to reign? But let us hear what the Spirit urges in the psalm: “And now, kings, understand; be instructed, you who judge the earth: serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice to him with trembling.” Hence the apostle too says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” We read also written: “You have desired wisdom: keep justice, and the Lord will give it to you.” For we find many most careless of justice and most eager for wisdom. Divine Scripture teaches these that they cannot reach what they seek except by keeping what they neglect. “Keep justice,” it says, “and the Lord will give you the wisdom you have desired.” But who can keep justice unless he fears God? For it says in another place, “For whoever is without fear cannot be justified.” So if the Lord gives wisdom only to one who keeps justice, and whoever is without fear cannot be justified, we come back to that saying: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.”

Isaiah the prophet too, when he commended those seven very well-known spiritual gifts, began from wisdom and came to the fear of God, as if coming down from on high to us, to teach us to go up. So he began where we want to arrive, and arrived where we ought to begin. “The Spirit of God,” he says, “will rest on him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and fortitude, the Spirit of knowledge and piety, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord.” As he, then, not by failing but by teaching, came down from wisdom to fear, so we, not by pride but by progress, must go up from fear to wisdom. “For the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” For this is the valley of weeping, of which the psalm says, “He has set ascents in his heart in the valley of weeping.” For by the valley humility is signified. And who is humble, except one who fears God and by that fear crushes his heart in tears of confession and repentance? “For a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” But let him not fear that he will remain in the valley. For in that very contrite and humbled heart, which God does not despise, he himself has set ascents by which we may rise to him. For so the psalm says: “He has set ascents in his heart in the valley of weeping, to the place which he has set.” Where do the ascents take place? “In the heart,” it says. But from where must one go up? From the valley of weeping, surely. And to where must one go up? “To the place,” it says, “which he has set.” What is that place, except one of rest and peace? For there is that bright wisdom which never fades. So, to exercise us, Isaiah came down by certain steps of teaching from wisdom to fear, that is, from the place of everlasting peace to the valley of temporal weeping: so that we, grieving, groaning, weeping in the confession of repentance, may not remain in grief and groaning and weeping, but, going up from this valley to the spiritual mountain, where the holy city Jerusalem, our eternal mother, is founded, may enjoy undisturbable gladness. So when he had put wisdom first, the unfailing light of the mind, he added understanding: as if to those asking how one comes to wisdom, he answered, “From understanding”; how to understanding, “From counsel”; how to counsel, “From fortitude”; how to fortitude, “From knowledge”; how to knowledge, “From piety”; how to piety, “From fear.” So to wisdom from fear, since the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord: from the valley of weeping to the mountain of peace.

“For blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” They are the humble in the valley; they, in trembling, sacrifice a contrite and humbled heart to God: from there they go up to piety, so as not to resist his will, whether in his words, where they do not grasp his meaning, or in the very order and government of creation, when many things happen otherwise than a man's private will demands; for there one must say, “Yet not what I will, but what you will, Father.” “For blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth by inheritance”: not the land of the dying, but the land of which it is said, “You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living.” From this piety they will deserve the step of knowledge, so as to know not only the evils of their past sins, which they wept over with sorrow in the first step of repentance, but also in what evil they are in this mortality and pilgrimage away from the Lord, even when worldly happiness smiles on them. For that is why it is written, “Whoever adds knowledge adds sorrow too.” “For blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” From there they rise to fortitude, so that the world is crucified to them and they to the world, so that in the perversity of this life and the abundance of iniquity love may not grow cold, but hunger and thirst for justice may be endured until they come to its fullness in that immortality of the saints and fellowship of the angels. “For blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be filled.” Yet because of the restlessness of temptations, and because it is said, “Woe to the world because of scandals,” if any faults perhaps creep in little by little and stealthily, by which human weakness is overtaken, counsel must not be lacking. For that step of fortitude cannot accomplish so much in this mortal life that one who fights in continual struggle with a most cunning adversary is never struck: especially through temptations of the tongue, where if anyone says to his brother, “Fool,” he will be liable to the hell of fire. What, then, is the counsel, except what the Lord says, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven”? And so, as among the steps we learn through Isaiah counsel is fifth, so in the Gospel, in those praises of blessedness, there is placed in fifth place, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Sixth in Isaiah is understanding, where hearts are cleansed from all the falsehood of fleshly vanity, so that a pure intention may be directed to the end. Therefore in sixth place the Lord too said, “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.” But when the end has been reached, now one stands firm, now one rests, now one triumphs in secure peace. And what is the end, except God, Christ? “For Christ is the end of the law, for justice to everyone who believes.” And who is the wisdom of God, except Christ? And who is the Son of God, except Christ? In him, then, whoever become wise and children of God become so: and this is full and perpetual peace. So since in Isaiah wisdom is seventh for those going upward, from where he himself began to come down to us in teaching, the Lord, who raises us up, also put in seventh place, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Having therefore these promises, and striving towards the Lord by these steps, let us bear all the harsh and hard things of this world, and let not its savagery break us; when it is overcome we shall rejoice in eternal peace. For to this the eighth saying, the end having now been shown, exhorts us: “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for justice's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”