Sermons to the People 359.1–361.2

The first reading of the divine words, from the book called Ecclesiasticus, commended to us three excellent things most worthy of consideration: concord of brothers, love of neighbours, and a husband and wife in harmony with each other. These are plainly good things, pleasant and praiseworthy in human affairs; but in divine things much more powerful. For who does not rejoice with brothers in concord? And, what is to be lamented, in human affairs so great a thing is rare: the thing is praised by all, kept by very few. Blessed are those who embrace in themselves what they are compelled to praise even in others. No brothers fail to praise brothers in concord. And why is it hard for brothers to be in concord? Because they quarrel about earth, because they want to be earth. For sinful man heard from the beginning, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go.” So let us examine and search out the word that the just man ought to hear in contrast. For if it was rightly said to the sinner, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go,” it is rightly said to the just, “You are heaven, and to heaven you shall go.” Or are the just not heavens, since it is most plainly said of the evangelists, “The heavens tell the glory of God”? And indeed that it was said of them the sequel teaches well enough. “And the firmament,” it says, “announces the work of his hands.” Those he called heavens he called firmament. “Day to day pours forth the word, and night to night shows knowledge. There are no speeches or words whose voices are not heard.” You ask whose, and you find none but the heavens'. So it was said of the apostles, said of the announcers of the truth. Hence it follows: “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” “There are no speeches or words whose voices are not heard.” When the Holy Spirit came upon them, and God began to dwell in the heaven he had made from earth, they spoke, the Holy Spirit filling and granting it, in the tongues of all nations. Hence it was said, “There are no speeches or words whose voices are not heard.” And because they were sent from there to preach the Gospel through all nations, “their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” Whose? The heavens', to whom it is rightly said, “You are heaven, and to heaven you shall go,” as it is rightly said to the sinner, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go.”

Brothers, then, if they want to be in concord, let them not love earth. But if they want not to love earth, let them not be earth. Let them seek a possession that cannot be divided, and they will always be in concord. Whence discord among brothers, whence the disturbance of family affection? Whence one womb and not one mind, except when their soul is bent down, and each looks to his share, and spends effort on fattening and enlarging his share, and wants to have unity in his own possession, who with his brother possesses division? “This is a fine property: whose is it?” “Ours.” “A great property!” So it is usually said. “Is it all yours, brother?” “No; I have a co-owner here: but if God wills, he will sell me his share.” The flatterer answers, “May God do it!” May God do what? That the neighbour be crushed and sell his share to his neighbour. “May God do it: you think well; may God fulfil it for you.” “For the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul; and he who does iniquity is blessed.” What is so iniquitous as to want to grow rich from another's poverty? And yet this abounds: he who does iniquity is blessed; and perhaps he has prevailed, and perhaps he has pressed and oppressed, twisted and extorted, not any co-owner but perhaps a brother. “It is better that I buy than a stranger.” And the one easily oppressed, if he is just, has consolation. Let him hear the Scripture which he has just heard. He labours in want; his brother is full of plenty. But full of earth, and empty of justice. Notice, earth, what that poor man hears: “Do not fear when a man has become rich, nor when the glory of his house has been multiplied: for when he dies, he will not take these things.” You, poor man, hold what you will not leave when dying, and what you will acquire living for ever. Hold justice; you will not regret it. Are you sad because you are poor on earth? He was poor here who created the earth. The Lord your God consoles you, your Creator consoles you, your Redeemer consoles you. Your brother who is not greedy consoles you. For our Lord deigned to be our brother. The only brother most faithful without doubt, with whom concord is to be possessed. I said he is not greedy, and perhaps I find him greedy. He is greedy: but he wants to have us, he wants to acquire us. For us he gave so great a price, himself: nothing can be added to this price. He gave himself as the price, and became our Redeemer. For he did not give himself as a price so that the enemy would let us go and possess him. He gave himself to death, killing death. For by his death he killed death; he was not killed by death; and having killed death, he freed us from death. For death was living while we were dying; it will die while we live, when it is said to it, “Where, death, is your struggle?”

Such a brother, then, was appealed to by a certain brother against his brother, between whom there was no concord because of land, and he said to him: “Lord, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. He has taken it all; he will not give me my share; he has despised me; let him at least listen to you.” What did it matter to the Lord? As we lowly ones think lowly things, crawling on the earth, set in this life, wanting no one to be saddened, and often saddening more gravely as a result, what would we say? “Come, brother, give your brother his share.” The Lord did not say this. And what is more just than he? Who could find such a judge to appeal to against his brother's greed? Was not that man glad to have found at last a great comfort? He hoped, beyond doubt, for great help too, saying to so great a judge, “Lord, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But what did he say? “Man, who made me divider of the inheritance between you?” The Lord rebuffed him, did not give what was asked, did not grant a free favour. What great thing was it? What would he lose by it? What labour did that favour cost him? He did not give it. Where is “Give to everyone who asks you”? He who gave us an example of living did not do this. How shall we do it? Or how shall we give what costs us, if we do not give a favour where we spend nothing, pay out nothing, lose nothing? The Lord did not give this, yet he did not give nothing. He refused the lesser, but gave what is more. He said plainly, he said, “Give to everyone who asks you.” What if someone asks of you, I do not say what is useless to give, but what is shameful to give? What if some woman asks what the woman asked of Joseph? What if some man asks what the false elders asked of Susanna? Is that general saying, “Give to everyone who asks you,” to be followed here too? Far from it. Shall we then act against the Lord's command here? Rather, let us act according to the Lord's command, and not give evil things to those who ask, and we shall not act against that saying. For it was said, “Give to everyone who asks you.” It was not said, “Give everything to one who asks you.” “Give to everyone who asks you”: give, certainly; if not what he asks, still give something: he asks for evil, you give good. Joseph did this. He did not give what the unchaste woman asked; and yet he gave what she ought to hear, so that by his example she might not be unchaste: and he himself did not fall into the pit of lust, and gave the counsel of chastity. For he answered this: “Far be it from me to do this to my master, to defile the bed of him who has entrusted everything in his house to me.” If a slave bought with money kept this faith with his master, what faith ought a wife to keep with her husband? This was admonishing. “I, a slave, will not do this to my master: ought you, a wife, to do it to your husband?” Susanna too gave, and did not send them away empty, if they were willing to be filled with the counsel of chastity. For she not only did not consent; she also did not keep silent about why she did not consent. “If I consent to you,” she said, “I perish to God; if I do not consent, I do not escape your hands: but it is better to fall into your hands than to perish to God.” What is “It is better to fall into your hands than to perish to God”? You who ask such things have perished to God. So hold this rule. Give when you are asked, even if not what you are asked. This the Lord did. He asked—what? The division of the inheritance. The Lord gave—what? The destruction of greed. What was he asking? What did he receive? “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” “Say, man, who made me divider of the inheritance between you? But I say to you”—what? “Beware of all greed.” And I tell you why. For perhaps you ask for half the inheritance in order to grow rich. Hear: “The land of a certain rich man prospered”; it had great success, that is, it was made fruitful with many crops. “And he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do, where shall I gather my crops? And thinking carefully, I have found, he says, what to do. I will pull down the old barns, I will make new ones, I will fill them.” “For I will make them larger than the old ones were. And I will say to my soul: You have many goods; be filled, rejoice.” God said to him: “Fool”—you who think yourself very clever: for you know how to pull down the old and build the new, and you have remained in the oldness of ruin, you who ought to have pulled down the old things in yourself, so as no longer to savour earthly things—“Fool,” what have you said? To whom have you said it? To your soul you said, “Rejoice, you have many goods. This night your soul will be required of you,” the soul to whom you promised such things. “What you have promised, whose will they be?” So “do not fear when a man has become rich; because when he dies, he will not take these things.”

See what counsel the Lord gave to brothers at odds, by which they might be in concord: that they should be free of greed, and at once be filled with truth. Let us find, then, such an inheritance. How long are we to speak of the concord of earthly brothers, which is rare, which is suspect, which is difficult? Let us speak of that concord of brothers which ought to be and can be true. Let all Christians be brothers, let all the faithful be brothers, let those born of God and of the womb of Mother Church through the Holy Spirit be brothers: let them be brothers, and let them too have an inheritance to be given, not to be divided. Their inheritance is God himself. Those whose inheritance they are, he in turn is their inheritance. How are they his inheritance? “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.” How is he their inheritance? “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup.” In this inheritance concord is kept: for this inheritance there is no lawsuit. Another inheritance is acquired by litigating: this one is lost by litigating. Men unwilling to lose this inheritance avoid litigating. And when perhaps they seem to litigate, they do not litigate. But perhaps they seem to litigate, or are thought to litigate, when they want to take care of their brothers. See how much fellow-feeling there is in their lawsuit, how peaceful, how kind, how just, how deep-felt. For we seem to litigate with the Donatists; but we do not litigate. For he litigates who wishes his adversary ill; he litigates who wants his adversary to suffer loss and himself gain; something to go from the other and come to himself. We are not like this. You know it too, you who litigate outside unity; you know it too, you who have been won from division: you know that this lawsuit is not that kind of lawsuit, because it is not malevolent, because it does not aim at the adversary's loss but rather at his gain. For we wanted to gain with us those with whom we seemed to litigate, or still seem to; not to lose them, so that we might gain. Indeed, our cry is different from that of the brother who appealed to Christ walking on earth. For we too appeal to him in this cause, seated in heaven: and we do not say, “Lord, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,” but, “Tell my brother to hold the inheritance with me.”

For we want this, and the public Records bear witness to it: that we wanted it, not only our sermons but also our letters given to them are evidence. Do you love the episcopate? Have it with us. In you we hate nothing, detest nothing, execrate nothing, anathematize nothing, except human error. Human error, we have said, we detest, not divine truth: but what of God's you have, we acknowledge; what of your own you have that is wrong, we correct. The sign of my Lord, the sign of my Emperor, the mark of my law I recognize in the deserter; I seek, I find, I approach, I come near, I seize, I lead, I correct the deserter; I do not violate the mark. If anyone notices, if anyone attends, this is not litigating but loving. We have said that brothers can be in concord in one Church for the sake of peace: for the concord of brothers is a beautiful thing. For there cannot be two bishops. We have said that both might sit in one basilica; one on the throne, the other as a visiting bishop; or one on the Christian throne, and the other who was on the heretical one sitting beside him as a colleague; or again one might preside in his congregation, and the other in turn in his. We have said that repentance for the remission of sins was preached to all nations, the apostles beginning from Jerusalem. What will you answer to this Church, which has been built among all nations, the apostles beginning from Jerusalem? We have said: let us suppose that Caecilian had an altogether bad case. Will one man having a bad case—two men, five, ten—prejudge so many thousands of the faithful spread over the whole world with manifold fruitfulness? We have said these things. Abraham believed, and all nations were promised to him: Caecilian sinned, and all nations perished, so that what iniquity committed is worth more than what truth promised? These things were said: they are read. Against the divine examples, against the testimonies that assert that the Church is spread throughout the whole world—that Church whose unity we hold in the name of the Lord—they could answer nothing at all.

So, the cause of the Church being safe, confirmed, and unchangeably fixed and established as on the foundation of the rock, which the gates of hell do not overcome: with this safe, we came also to the case of Caecilian, already secure whatever he might be found to have done. For if, as a man, he were found in some fault, were we going to go to law so as to be judged worthy of condemnation or rebaptism because of the fault of one man? And we said: the cause of the Church being safe, which the sin of Caecilian in no way prejudices—neither does Caecilian's justice crown the Church, nor does Caecilian's fault condemn the Church—let us see what his case is like too. We took it up for discussion, but as the case of a brother, not of a father or mother. God is our Father, the Church is our mother: Caecilian was a brother, or is a brother; if good, a good brother; if bad, a bad brother, yet a brother. If we find him innocent, where will you be then, who have failed even in that human slander? But if he is found guilty, if he is found culpable, not even so are we defeated, because we hold the unity of the Church, which is undefeated. Let him be found guilty outright: I anathematize the man, I do not desert the Church of Christ. This we did, this we said: “From now on we will not recite him at the altar among the bishops whom we believe faithful and innocent.” This only we did. Will you rebaptize the whole world because of Caecilian? With this security established and confirmed, the case of Caecilian began to be discussed. He was found innocent; he was found to have been attacked by slanderers. Once condemned in his absence, three times acquitted in his presence: condemned by a faction, acquitted by the truth of the Church. These things were read, these things were proved. It was asked whether they had anything to say against them. When all the evasions of their slanders had been used up, and they could bring forward nothing against the most evident documents nor against the innocence of Caecilian himself, sentence was pronounced against them. And yet they say, “We have won.” Let them win—but over themselves, so that Christ may possess them; let him win them who redeemed them.

And yet we rejoice over many. Many of them were fruitfully defeated, because they were not even defeated. Human error was defeated; the man was saved. For the doctor does not contend with the sick man; and if the sick man sides with the doctor, the fever is overcome and the sick man is healed. For the doctor aims at this, to win; the fever too aims at this, to win. The sick man is placed as it were in the middle. If the doctor wins, the sick man is saved; if the fever wins, the sick man is lost. In our contest, then, the doctor contended for health, the sick man contended for the fever. Those who heeded the doctor's counsel won; they overcame the fever. We have them healthy and rejoicing with us in the Church. They blasphemed us before, because they did not recognize us as brothers: for the fever had disturbed their mind. Yet we loved them, both detesting us and raging against us, and we served the raging sick. We resisted, we contended, and as it were we litigated; and yet we loved. For all who serve such sick people are troublesome; but troublesome for their health.

But we sometimes find lazy people saying, “It is true, sir, it is true; there is nothing to say.” “What then? Come, act.” “My father died there, my mother is buried there.” You have named one dead and buried. You are alive; there is still someone to talk with. Your parents were Christians on the side of Donatus: their parents perhaps were Christians too, your grandparents or great-grandparents certainly pagans. Those, then, who first became Christians, when they had buried their pagan parents, were they cold towards the truth? Did they follow the authority of their dead parents, and not rather prefer the living Christ to their dead parents? If, then, here is true unity, outside of which you must die for ever, why do you want to follow your dead parents, dead to you and to God? What do you say? Answer. “You say what is true; there is nothing to say.” “What do you want me to do?” Some kind of custom holds such people fast. They are lethargic; they suffer from the opposite disease; they will die sleeping. Others are frantic; they are troublesome. For even if the lethargic man is going to die, he is not troublesome even to the one serving him. The frantic are troublesome, who have lost their minds, and, mad and raging, roam armed here and there, seeking whom to kill, whom to blind. For new things have been announced to us: they cut out the tongue of one of our presbyters. These are frantic. Love must be exercised; even they are to be loved. Many who have been corrected have wept, many have been corrected: we know them; they have come to us from the number of those very madmen. They weep daily over their past, and cannot have their fill of tears when they see the madness of those who, not having slept off the drunkenness of vanity, still rage. What, then, do we do? Love compels us to serve such people. And though we are troublesome to both kinds, both by waking the lethargic and by binding the frantic, we love both.

Concord of brothers is a good thing; but see where: in Christ, the concord of Christians. And love of neighbours. What if he is not yet a brother in Christ? Because he is a man, he is a neighbour; love him too, that you may gain him too. If, then, you are in concord with your Christian brother, and love your neighbour too, even one with whom there is as yet no concord, because he is not yet a brother in Christ, because he is not yet reborn in Christ, does not yet know the sacraments of Christ; he is a pagan, he is a Jew; yet he is a neighbour, because he is a man: if you love him too, you have come to another love by another gift, and so there are two things in you: concord of brothers and love of neighbours. From all these who hold concord with their brothers and love their neighbour is made up the Church devoted to Christ and subject to her husband, so that the third may come about: husband and wife in harmony with each other. So we admonish your Charity, and exhort you in the Lord, my brothers, to despise the present things that you do not carry with you in dying: beware of sins, beware of iniquities, beware of worldly desires. For then our fruit in us is whole, and our reward with the Lord full of joys. For even if we say what must be said, even if we preach what must be preached, and acquit ourselves before the Lord in the sight of the Lord, because we have not kept silent about what we fear, have not kept silent about what we love, so that the one on whom the sword of the Lord's vengeance comes may find nothing to charge to the watchman: still we do not want our reward to be secure with you lost, but with you found. For the apostle Paul too was secure about his reward, and yet what does he say to the people? “Now we live, if you stand in the Lord.” I speak to you and to your Charity, according to the Lord's command, fathers and brothers. I speak also for my brother your bishop, whose joy you ought to be, by obeying the Lord our God. Certainly in God's name this church was built for you by his work, through the beneficent, merciful, devout contributions of faithful brothers. This church has been built for you: but you are more the Church. It was built for you, for your bodies to enter: but your minds ought to be where God enters. You have honoured your bishop by wanting to call this basilica Florentia; but you are his Florentia. For so the apostle says: “You are my joy and crown in the Lord.” Whatever is in the world vanishes, passes. What is this life, except what the psalm said: “In the morning it will pass like grass; in the morning it will flower and pass; in the evening it will fall, harden and wither”? This is all flesh. Therefore Christ, therefore new life, therefore eternal hope, therefore the consolation of immortality promised, and already rendered in the Lord's flesh. For that flesh, which is now immortal, was taken from us, and showed us what he fulfilled in himself. For he had flesh for our sake. For for his own sake, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Why flesh and blood, where was it in the Word? Because he truly wanted to suffer with us and redeem us, he put on the form of a servant, and he who was here came down, so that he who was not absent might appear; and he who made man wanted to become man, to be created from a mother, he who created his mother. He went up even to the cross, he died, and showed us what we knew, to be born and to die. In himself, humble, he fulfilled these old, customary and known things of ours. To be born and to die we knew: to rise again and live for ever we did not know. So, humble, he took on two old things of ours; exalted, he fulfilled two others, great and new. He raised his flesh, he lifted his flesh into heaven, he sits at the right hand of the Father. He wanted to be our head; the head cried out for the members: for even when he was here he said, “Father, I want that where I am, these too may be with me.” Let us hope this for our flesh too: resurrection, change, incorruption, immortality, an eternal dwelling: and let us act so as to arrive. This will be Florentia, the true Florentia.

Thanks be to God, brothers; congratulate your brother, who was dead and has come back to life, was lost and is found. Thanks to the patience and mercy of the Lord our God: to his patience, because he bore with one who delayed; to his mercy, because he deigned to receive one returning. This is the vineyard where I did not work, and I had spent my strength in another's. O vineyard beloved of my Lord, not only did my labour profit you nothing, but I even served your enemy against you. With great sweat I scattered, when I did not gather for you. Thanks to your planter, with whom the wage of the labourers is not withheld even for those called at the last hour. I come late, but I do not despair of the denarius. I who was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent against you: but I obtained mercy, because I acted in ignorance. For I held the words of my parents, not of the patriarchs, not of the prophets, not of the apostles, but of the parents of my flesh. I did not give in to flesh and blood; but I gave in, overcome by the truth, and I came to rest, restored to unity. Did I not read the same Scriptures that I read now? But that teacher of the Gentiles too, the vessel of election, from Saul Paul, from proud least, from robber shepherd, from wolf ram, was a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee, instructed in the law at the feet of the teacher Gamaliel: and yet Christ, whom he read in the prophets, he neither knew to be seated in heaven nor allowed to be worshipped on earth. Not knowing it, he sang with his mouth the faith of his passion and resurrection, and raging in error he laid it waste. According to the prophets, in whom he was born and grew up, Christ, rising from the dead, was already seated in heaven; and he was still blinded by the lie of his elders, that his disciples had stolen him from the tomb. So I too was surrounded concerning the Catholic Church spread through the whole world by the voices of the divine Letters; and the false charges of handing over the Scriptures, levelled by my elders, made me deaf. I do not compare myself with Paul's merits, but with his sins. Even if I did not deserve to be so good, yet I was not so bad without the medicine of correction. He did not recognize the bridegroom in the Books he read, nor I the bride. He who revealed to him about the glorification of Christ what is written, “Be exalted above the heavens, O God,” himself revealed to me about the spreading of the Church what follows, “Your glory over all the earth.” Both testimonies are open to those who see, but closed to the blind. The baptism of Christ opened his eyes; the peace of Christ opened mine. The washing of holy water made him new; but love covered the multitude of my sins.

When the apostle's Letter was being read, we noticed the praiseworthy stirring of your faith and love, how you shuddered at men who, thinking that this alone is life, which we have in common with cattle, and that everything that belongs to man ends at death, and that there is no hope of another, better life, corrupt the itch of bad ears and say: “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.” Let the beginning of our discussion, then, be taken from this, and let this be as it were the hinge of our sermon, to which the other things that the Lord deigns to suggest may be referred.

For our hope is the resurrection of the dead; our faith is the resurrection of the dead. Our love too is, which the preaching of things not yet seen inflames and kindles with desire, by whose greatness our hearts may become capable of the blessedness promised to come, as long as what is not yet seen is believed: so our love itself also ought not to be occupied with these temporal and visible things, so that we should hope to have in the resurrection such things as now, if we despise them, we live better and are better—namely carnal pleasures and delights. So if faith in the resurrection of the dead is taken away, all Christian teaching falls. But when faith in the resurrection of the dead is founded, there is not at once security about the Christian soul, unless that life which is to come is distinguished from this one which passes. So it must be put thus: if the dead will not rise, there is no hope for us of a future life; but if the dead will rise, there will indeed be a future life; but the second question is what it will be like. So the first discussion is whether there will be a resurrection of the dead; the second discussion is what the life of the saints will be like in the resurrection. [3] Those who say that the dead do not rise are not Christians; but those who think that the dead, when they have risen, will live carnally are carnal Christians. Whatever discussion there is, then, against the opinion of those who deny the resurrection of the dead is directed against those who are outside, of whose number I think no one is present here. So our treatment may seem superfluous if it lingers on trying to teach that the dead rise. For a Christian, who already believes in Christ, who in no way thinks that the apostle lies, is to be led by the weight of authority. It is enough, then, that he hear: “If the dead do not rise, our preaching is empty, and your faith is empty too. If the dead,” he says, “do not rise, neither has Christ risen.” But if Christ has risen, in whom is the salvation of Christians, it is certainly not impossible for the dead to rise: since he who raised his Son, and he who raised his own flesh, showed in the head an example to the rest of the body, which is the Church. So the discussion of the resurrection of the dead could be superfluous, so that we might take up at once that which Christians usually have among themselves: when we have risen, what we shall be like, how we shall live, what our occupations will be, whether there will be any or none: if none, whether we shall live idly doing nothing; or if we shall do something, what we shall do; then, whether we shall eat and drink, whether there will be unions of men and women, or some simple and incorrupt common life; and if so, what that life will be like, what the movement, what the form of the bodies themselves. These are the discussions of Christians, faith in the resurrection being kept safe.