Sermons to the People 351.9–352.3

Whoever, then, after baptism is held bound by the deed of some of his former evils, is he so much his own enemy as still to hesitate to change his life while there is time, while he sins and still lives? For certainly in that he sins so persistently, he stores up for himself wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God. But in that he still lives, the patience of God leads him to repentance. Entangled, then, in the bonds of such deadly sins, does he refuse, or put off, or hesitate to take refuge in the very keys of the Church, by which he may be loosed on earth so as to be loosed in heaven; and does he dare to promise himself some salvation after this life because he is merely called a Christian; and does he not tremble at that truthful thunder of the Lord's voice: “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he will enter the kingdom of heaven”? What of the same apostle to the Galatians? Does he not, listing such things, close with the same end? “The works of the flesh are manifest,” he says, “which are fornications, uncleanness, luxury, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strifes, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, carousings, and the like; of which I forewarn you, as I have forewarned, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God.” Let a man, then, judge himself by his will in these things while he can, and change his conduct for the better, lest, when he can no longer, he be judged by the Lord even against his will. And when he has pronounced on himself the sentence of a most severe medicine, but still a medicine, let him come to the bishops, through whom the keys are administered to him in the Church: and, as one now beginning to be a good son, keeping the order of the mother's members, let him receive from those set over the sacraments the measure of his satisfaction; so that, devout and suppliant in offering the sacrifice of a crushed heart, he may still do what profits not only himself for recovering salvation but also others for an example. So that if his sin is not only to his own grave harm but also to the great scandal of others, and this seems to the bishop to be expedient for the good of the Church, let him not refuse to do penance in the knowledge of many or even of the whole people; let him not resist, let him not, out of shame, add swelling to a lethal and deadly wound. Let him always remember that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. For what is more unhappy, what more perverse, than not to blush at the wound itself, which cannot be hidden, and to blush at its bandaging?

Let no one think, brothers, that he ought to despise the counsel of this saving repentance because he perhaps notices and knows many who approach the sacraments of the altar whose crimes of this kind he is not ignorant of. For many are corrected, like Peter; many are tolerated, like Judas; many are unknown until the Lord comes, who will light up the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the thoughts of the heart. For many do not want to accuse others because they wish to excuse themselves through them. But many good Christians keep silent and bear the sins of others which they know, because they are often lacking proofs and cannot prove to the church judges what they themselves know. For although some things are true, they are not easily to be believed by a judge unless they are shown by sure evidence. We, indeed, cannot forbid anyone communion (although this prohibition is not yet deadly but medicinal) unless he has either confessed of his own accord or been named and convicted in some court, whether secular or ecclesiastical. For who would dare to take both roles on himself, so as to be both accuser and judge of someone? The apostle Paul too is understood to have briefly indicated such a rule in the same Letter to the Corinthians, when, having mentioned certain such crimes, he gave from some of them the form of church judgment for all similar ones. For he says: “I wrote to you in the letter not to associate with fornicators: not, of course, with the fornicators of this world, or the greedy, or robbers, or idolaters; otherwise you would have had to go out of this world.” For people living in this world cannot but live with such people; nor can they gain them for Christ if they avoid their conversation and company. Hence the Lord too, eating with tax collectors and sinners, says: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. For I did not come to call the just, but sinners.” And so the apostle goes on and adds: “But now I write to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother if he is a fornicator, or an idolater, or greedy, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber; with such a one not even to eat. For what is it to me to judge those who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? God will judge those who are outside. Remove the evil one from among yourselves.” By these words he shows clearly enough that the wicked are to be removed from the Church's communion not rashly or in any way whatever, but by judgment: so that if they cannot be removed by judgment, they should rather be tolerated, lest someone, perversely avoiding the wicked and himself departing from the Church, should bind to hell those very ones he seems to flee. For to this end too examples have been set before us in the holy Scriptures, as in the harvest, that the chaff be borne until the final winnowing; as within those nets, where good fish are borne with the bad with calm until the separation that will take place on the shore, that is, at the end of the world. Nor is what the apostle says in another place contrary to this passage: “Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” For he did not want a man to be judged by a man at the discretion of suspicion, or even by a usurped extraordinary judgment, but rather by the law of God according to the order of the Church, whether he has confessed of his own accord or been accused and convicted. Otherwise why did he say, “If anyone who is called a brother is a fornicator, or an idolater,” and so on, unless he wanted that naming to be understood which takes place against someone when sentence is pronounced in judicial order and integrity? For if naming suffices, many innocent people must be condemned, because often they are falsely named in some crime.

So let not those whom we urge to do penance look for companions in punishment, nor rejoice because they find many. For they will not burn less because they burn with many. This is not a sure counsel of health but an empty comfort of malice. Or perhaps they notice that many even in the very offices of the Church, among those set over it and its ministers, do not live in keeping with the words and sacraments that are ministered by them to the people? O wretched men, who by looking at these forget Christ! who foretold so long before that the law of God is to be obeyed rather than that those are to be imitated who do not do what they say; and who, tolerating his betrayer to the end, even sent him with the others to preach the Gospel. These people are as absurd, as backward and as wretched in choosing to imitate the bad conduct of those set over them rather than to keep the Lord's commands preached through them, as if a traveller thought he should stay put on his journey on seeing that the stone milestones, full of letters, show the way and do not walk it. For why, if he wants to arrive, does he not rather look to such companions, and follow them, as both show the way well and walk in it steadily and briskly? But if these are lacking, or rather are less visible—for they cannot be lacking: for men do not seek with eager love what they may proclaim for imitation as they seek with suspicious iniquity what they may grumble about for deception, partly not finding good people since they themselves are bad, partly afraid to find them since they always want to be bad—still, let us grant that there are no people now visible worthy of imitation. Whoever you are who think this, look with your mind at the Lord, who became man to teach man how to live. If Christ dwells by faith in the inner man in your heart, and you remember what John says, “Whoever says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk as he walked,” then you will not lack someone to follow, and when another sees you, he will stop complaining of a shortage of good people. For if you do not know what it is to live rightly, learn the divine commands. For perhaps many live rightly; but to you no one seems to live rightly because you do not know what it is to live rightly. But if you know, do what you know; so that you too may have what you seek and show others something to imitate. Look in spirit at Christ, look at the apostles, the last of whom is he who says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” Look in spirit at so many thousands of martyrs. For why does it delight you to celebrate their birthdays with shameful banquets, and does it not delight you to follow their life with honourable conduct? There you will see not only men but also women, and finally boys and girls, neither deceived by imprudence, nor perverted by iniquity, nor broken by fear of danger, nor corrupted by love of the world. So, finding nothing to excuse yourself with, you will be surrounded not only by the inescapable rightness of the commands but also by the countless multitude of examples.

But on the usefulness and healthfulness of repentance, to finish at last what we began: if, now despairing of health, you add sins to sins, as it is written, “The sinner, when he has come into the depth of evils, despises”—do not despise, do not despair; cry out even from the depth to the Lord and say to him: “From the depths I have cried to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. If you mark iniquities, Lord, Lord, who will stand? For with you is propitiation.” From such a depth the Ninevites cried, and found this propitiation; and the prophet's threat was more easily made void than the humiliation of repentance. Here perhaps you say: “But I have already been baptized in Christ, by whom all my past sins were forgiven me; I have become exceedingly vile by repeating my ways, and a horrid dog in the eyes of God, turned back to his vomit. Where shall I go from his spirit? And from his face where shall I flee?” Where, brother, except to his mercy by repenting, whose power you despised by sinning? For no one rightly flees from him except to him, from his severity to his goodness. For what place will receive you fleeing, where his presence will not find you? If you go up to heaven, he is there; if you go down to hell, he is present. So take your wings again straight forward, and dwell in hope in the farthest parts of this world: for there his hand will lead you and his right hand will bring you. For whatever you have done, whatever sins you have committed, you are still in this life, from which God would altogether have taken you if he did not want to heal you. Why, then, do you not know that the patience of God leads you to repentance? He who by crying out did not persuade you not to go away cries out by sparing you, that you may return. Look at King David: he too had certainly already received the sacraments of that time; he was already circumcised, which our fathers had in place of baptism. For to this effect the apostle says that holy Abraham received the seal of the justice of faith. He was also already anointed with the venerable anointing by which the royal priesthood of the Church was prefigured. Yet having suddenly become guilty of both adultery and homicide, it was not in vain that from so enormous and sheer a depth of crime he cried out repenting to the Lord, saying: “Turn your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.” By what merit, after all, except because he also says: “For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is before me always”? And what did he offer to the Lord to make him propitious to himself? “For if you had wished sacrifice,” he says, “I would certainly have given it; with holocausts you will not be pleased. A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit: a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” So he not only offered devoutly, but also by saying these things showed what ought to be offered. For it is not enough to change one's conduct for the better and to withdraw from evil deeds, unless satisfaction is also made to God for those that have been done, by the grief of repentance, by the groaning of humility, by the sacrifice of a contrite heart, with almsgiving cooperating. “For blessed are the merciful, for God will have mercy on them.” For it was not said only that we should abstain from sins: “But for past ones too,” it says, “pray to the Lord that they may be forgiven you.” And Peter was already one of the faithful; he had already baptized others in Christ. Look, then, at Peter presuming, accused; fearing, wounded; weeping, healed. Even after the coming of the Holy Spirit from heaven, a certain Simon, already baptized in Christ, wanted to buy that same Holy Spirit with money, contemplating a most wicked and impious traffic: and yet, rebuked by Peter himself, he received the counsel of repentance. The apostle Paul too, who certainly sent his Letters to the faithful, says: “Lest when I come to you again God humble me, and I mourn many of those who sinned before and did not repent of the uncleanness and luxury and fornication which they committed.” So we are surrounded both by commands to do right and by examples not only of those who do right but also of those who repent so as to recover the salvation that had been lost by sinning. But suppose it uncertain whether God pardons. What does he lose by supplicating God, who did not hesitate to lose salvation when he offended God? For who is certain that even the emperor will pardon? And yet money is poured out, seas are crossed, the uncertainties of storms are undergone; and almost, to avoid death, death itself is undertaken. Then a man is supplicated through men: these things are done without hesitation, though it is doubtful how they will end. And yet the keys of the Church are surer than the hearts of kings: by these keys whatever is loosed on earth is promised to be loosed in heaven too. And far more honourable is the humility by which one humbles oneself to the Church of God; and a lighter labour is imposed, and eternal death is avoided with no danger of temporal death.

The voice of a penitent is recognized in the words with which we answered the psalm-singer: “Turn your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.” So, though we had not prepared a sermon for your Charity, we recognized that this was what we had to treat, at the Lord's command. For we wanted to leave you today to ruminate, knowing how abundant a feast you had taken. But because you receive healthfully what is set before you, every day you are very hungry. May the Lord our God himself, then, grant both sufficient strength to us and useful hearing to you. For we are not unaware that we must serve your good and useful will. Let us be helped, then, by you with prayer and with eagerness: prayer to God, eagerness for the word; so that we may say the things which he judges useful for you who feeds you through us. The voice of a penitent, then, is recognized in these words: “Turn your face from my sins, and blot out all my crimes.” So we are commanded from on high to say something about repentance. For we did not order the reader to sing this psalm; but what he judged useful for you to hear, he ordered even to a boy's heart. Let us say something, then, about the usefulness of repentance: especially since the holy anniversary day is now at hand, at whose approach it is fitting that souls be humbled and bodies tamed more earnestly.

A threefold consideration of doing penance is found in holy Scripture. For no one rightly comes even to the baptism of Christ, in which all sins are blotted out, except by doing penance for his former life. For no one chooses the new life unless he repents of the old. But we ought to prove this too by the authority of the divine Books, whether those to be baptized did penance. When the Holy Spirit was sent, as promised before, and the Lord fulfilled the faith of his promise, the disciples, having received the Holy Spirit, began, as you know, to speak in all tongues, so that among those present each recognized his own language. Terrified by this miracle, they asked the apostles for counsel for their life. Then Peter announced to them that the one they had crucified was to be worshipped, so that believing they might now drink his blood, which in their rage they had shed. When our Lord Jesus Christ had been announced to them, and they recognized their guilt, so that there was fulfilled in them what the prophet had foretold, “I was turned in my distress while the thorn was fixed in,” they were pricked to the heart. For they were turned into the distress of grief when the thorn of the remembrance of sin was fixed in them. They had thought they had done nothing wrong; the thorn was not yet fixed in. But as Peter spoke—so that you may recognize the thorn fixed in—Scripture said, “As Peter spoke they were pricked to the heart.” So in the same psalm, when it is said, “I was turned in my distress while the thorn was fixed in,” there follows, “I have acknowledged my sin, and my crime I have not covered. I said, I will declare against myself my fault to the Lord; and you forgave the impiety of my heart.” When, then, pricked by that thorn of remembrance, they said to the apostles, “What then shall we do?”, Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and your sins will be forgiven you.” So now meanwhile, if any happen to be present of that number who are preparing to be baptized (for we believe they are present, the more eager for the word the nearer they are to pardon), we address these first briefly, so that they may lift up their minds in hope. Let them love to become what they are not, let them hate what they were. Let them already conceive by desire the new man to be born: whatever gnawed at them from their past life, whatever troubled their conscience, whatever at all, great or small, to be spoken or not to be spoken, let them not doubt that it can be forgiven; lest perhaps human doubt hold against itself what God's mercy wills to forgive.

Let each one also faithfully recall the example shown in that first people. For the apostle says: “All these things were figures of us”—when he was speaking of such things. For what had he said? “For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ.” He said these were figures of us, he whom no believer ever contradicted. And when he had listed many things, he solved only one, in saying, “And the rock was Christ.” By solving one thing he set the rest to be investigated; but lest the investigator stray by withdrawing from Christ, so that he might seek firmly, founded on the rock, he says, “The rock was Christ.” He said those were figures of us, and all was obscure. Who would unroll these wrappings of figures? Who would open them? Who would dare to examine them? In a kind of very dense thicket and thick shade he lit a light: “The rock,” he says, “was Christ.” Now that light has been brought in, then, let us seek what the rest signify, what the sea, the cloud, the manna mean. For these he did not expound, but showed what the rock was. The passage through the sea is baptism. But because baptism, that is, the water of salvation, is not of salvation unless consecrated in the name of Christ, who shed his blood for us, the water is signed with his cross. To signify this, that baptism was the Red Sea. The manna from heaven is openly expounded by the Lord himself: “Your fathers,” he says, “ate manna in the desert and died.” For how would they live, when a figure could foretell life but could not be life? “They ate,” he says, “manna, and died”; that is, the manna they ate could not free them from death: not because the manna itself was death to them, but because it did not free them from death. For he who was to free from death was the one figured by the manna. Manna certainly came from heaven: notice whom it figured: “I am,” he says, “the living bread who came down from heaven.” As eager and wide-awake listeners, attend to the Lord's words, so that you may make progress and know how to read and to listen. “They ate,” he says, “the same spiritual food.” What is “the same,” except the same that we too eat? I see that what I have set out to say is somewhat difficult to bring out and explain; but I shall be helped by your goodwill: may it obtain for me from the Lord the ability. “They ate,” he says, “the same spiritual food.” It would have been enough to say, “They ate spiritual food.” “The same,” he says. I do not find how to understand “the same” except as the one we too eat. “What, then,” someone says, “was that manna the same as what I now receive? Then nothing has come now, if it already existed before. Then the scandal of the cross has been made void.” How, then, is it the same, except that he added “spiritual”? For those who received that manna in such a way as to think only that their bodily need was satisfied and their belly fed, not their mind, ate nothing great; their need was satisfied. God fed some; to others he announced something. Such people ate bodily food, not spiritual food. Whom, then, does he say, our fathers, ate the same spiritual food? Whom do we think, brothers, except those who were truly our fathers? Or rather were not but are our fathers. For all of them live. For so the Lord says to certain unbelievers among them, “Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died.” What is “your fathers,” except those whom you imitate in unbelief, whose ways you follow by not believing and resisting God? In this sense he says to some, “You are of your father the devil.” For the devil did not create any man by power or beget him by generation: and yet he is called the father of the ungodly, not by generation but by imitation. As on the contrary it is said of the good, “Therefore you are the seed of Abraham,” when he is speaking to Gentiles, who did not draw their fleshly stock from Abraham's race. For they were sons not by birth but by imitation. But father Abraham is taken away and made alien from the faithless, when the Lord says to them, “If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.” And so that bad trees glorying in Abraham's fatherhood might be uprooted, children of Abraham are promised from stones. As, then, in this place he says, “Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died”—for they did not understand what they ate, and so, not understanding, they received only bodily food—so the apostle too speaks of our fathers, not the fathers of unbelievers, not the fathers of the ungodly who ate and died, but our fathers, the fathers of the faithful, as having eaten spiritual food, and therefore the same. “Our fathers,” he says, “ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink.” For there were some there who understood what they ate; there were some there to whom Christ tasted more in the heart than manna in the mouth. Why speak of others? First of all Moses himself was there, the servant of God, faithful in all his house, knowing what he was dispensing, and that in that time the things of the present must be dispensed closed and the things of the future open. To put it briefly, then: whoever understood Christ in the manna ate the same spiritual food as we; but whoever sought only fullness from the manna were fathers of the unbelievers, ate, and died. So too the same drink: “For the rock was Christ.” The same drink, then, as we, but spiritual, that is, taken by faith, not drawn up by the body. You have heard “the same drink”: “the rock was Christ.” For it is not one Christ then and another now. That rock indeed was one thing, the stone that Jacob put under his head another; one thing the lamb slain to be eaten as the Passover, another the ram caught in the thorns to be sacrificed when Abraham, commanded, spared his son whom, commanded, he had offered: one sheep and another sheep, one stone and another stone, yet the same Christ; therefore the same food, therefore the same drink. Lastly, that rock was struck with wood so that water might flow: for it was struck with a rod. Why with wood, not with iron, except because the cross came to Christ to pour out grace for us to drink? The same food, then, the same drink, but for those who understood and believed. For those who did not understand, it was only that manna, only that water; that food for the hungry, this drink for the thirsty; neither the one nor the other for the believer. But for the believer it was the same as now. For then Christ was to come; now Christ has come. “Is to come” and “has come” are different words, but the same Christ.