Sermons to the People 382.1–384.3

Joshua son of Nun fought in the desert, and Moses prayed: not that both fought and both prayed, but one fought and the other prayed. Rightly the one who fought did not fail, because the other conquered by praying. So I too seem to be speaking, but I speak while others pray, so that through their prayers there may happen to me what the Lord says, "Open your mouth, and I will fill it." If he was helped by only one man praying, and was not overcome, how much more I, for whom not one but many ask God along with me? In speaking, my heart will not now fear, because my mouth will speak the praise of the Lord. Our Lord Jesus Christ, brothers, commands us something and promises us something. What he commands is here; what he promises is elsewhere. What he commands comes to an end, because it is temporal; what he promises does not end, because it is eternal. What he commands is work; what he promises is reward. Here let your Holiness notice how great his mercy toward us is, that he has set the labor here with an end, and the reward in heaven without end. And therefore we ought to labor here first and afterwards receive the reward in heaven, rather than receive the reward here and labor afterwards. For of some he says, "Amen I say to you, they have received their reward." But perhaps you are eager for the reward and lazy about the labor. With what face do you ask for what God has promised, if you do not do what God has commanded? First hear the admonitions, and then demand the promises. First, I say, hear him who commands, and then make your claim on him who promises. For he commands us and says: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and slander you." You have heard the work; wait for the reward: "That you may be," he says, "sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the bad, and sends rain on the just and the unjust."

Look at the Lord himself, who commanded this, and what he did. After all that the ungodly Jews had committed against him, repaying him evil for good, did he not say as he hung on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing"? He prayed as man, he who hears prayer together with the Father. For even now he prays for us, prays in us, and is prayed to by us. As our priest he prays for us; as our head he prays in us; as our God he is prayed to by us. When, then, he hung on the cross and prayed, he saw and foresaw all his enemies; but he foresaw that many of them would be his friends, and therefore he asked pardon for all. They raged, and he prayed. They said to Pilate, "Crucify"; he cried, "Father, forgive." He hung on harsh nails, but he did not lose his gentleness. He was already asking pardon for those from whom he was receiving such injury. They raged, they barked around him, they shook their heads in mockery, heads that were not sound, because they did not have the head that is Christ; and like madmen raging all around one supreme physician set in their midst, they raged; he hung there and healed. "Father," he says, "forgive them." Pay attention, brothers. Great goodness: he hung, and yet he asked. And he did not come down, because from his own blood he was making a medicine for the madmen. Afterwards, following the resurrection, he healed those whom, while hanging, he had borne with in their utter madness; and the blood which they had shed in their rage they drank by believing; and those who had been persecutors became followers. See why Christ came: not to destroy what he had found, but to seek and to save what was lost; so that by loving his raging enemies he might make them believing friends.

But lest you say that it is far beyond you to imitate your Lord, who suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his footsteps, look at Stephen, your fellow servant. He was a man, as you are; formed from the mass of sin, as you are; redeemed at the same price as you. He was a deacon; he read the Gospels, which you too read or hear. There he found it written, "Love your enemies." He learned it by reading; he perfected it by fulfilling it. When he was being struck by the Jews with a hail of stones, he not only did not threaten them, but even begged pardon for those who were stoning him. For kneeling down he prayed, saying, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." They stoned, and he prayed. They pursued him in fury; he, at peace, followed Christ. They were blinded by malice; he, seeing heaven opened and the Son of God, was enlightened with wisdom. They hurled stones; he sent prayers ahead, as if to say, "Lord, if you kill these enemies now, whom will you make your friends afterwards?"

Finally, brothers, so that you may know how much the prayer of the holy martyr Stephen availed, run back with us to that young man named Saul, who, while holy Stephen was being stoned, kept the garments of them all, and so stoned him, as it were, with the hands of them all. And afterwards, as you know, he received letters from the chief priests, so that whatever Christians he found, men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem to be tortured and punished. As he went along the road, suddenly a light from heaven shone around him, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice from heaven saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And the Lord said to him, "I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goad": for you will wound not the goad but the feet you kick with. What have I to do with you? Why are you persecuting me? Why do you raise yourself against me to your own harm, rather than humble yourself to your own good? For all the great evils you commit against me I ought long ago to have destroyed you; but Stephen my servant prayed for you. The raging man was struck down; the believer was raised up: the wolf was struck down, the lamb was raised up; the persecutor was struck down, the preacher was raised up. Let me say it more plainly, more openly: the son of perdition was struck down, the vessel of election was raised up; Saul was struck down, Paul was raised up. For if the martyr Stephen had not prayed thus, the Church would not have Paul today. But Paul was raised up from the earth because Stephen, bowed down to the earth, was heard.

See why the Lord says, "Love your enemies": because by loving an enemy you make a friend. But against such great examples, who are you, that you do not love? You bend your knee, you strike your forehead on the ground and say: "O if only my enemy would die! God, if I have deserved anything of you, kill my enemy." And surely you who pray that a man may die are a bad man praying against a bad man, and you have become two bad men: he by doing evil, you by praying evil. You begin to be bad in your praying when you say, "God, kill the bad man." He answers you: "Which of you? You, the bad one, or your enemy?" Let your Holiness pay attention. A human judge does not kill a guilty man himself; he orders it, and the executioner kills him. The judge says, "Kill," and the torturer kills. And you, when you say, "Kill my enemy," make yourself the judge and want God to be the torturer. God answers you: "I will not be, I will certainly not be the torturer of sinners, but their liberator; for I do not will the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. For if I had your will, I would have killed you first, before you came at my invitation. Did you not blaspheme me? Did you not provoke me by your evil works? Did you not want to blot my name out from the earth? Did you not despise me in my commands or in my servants? If I had killed you then as an enemy, whom would I now be making a friend? Why then, by your wicked praying, do you teach me what I did not do to you? Rather," God says to you, "I will teach you to imitate me. Hanging on the cross I said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. This I taught my soldiers; this I taught my martyrs. You too must first be my martyr, my recruit against the devil: otherwise you will by no means fight unconquered, unless you have prayed for your enemies." May he deign to grant this to us, etc.

Every day indeed, and every hour, with altogether unceasing care, dearly beloved, a bishop ought to consider how great a burden of stewardship he carries and what account of it he must render to his Lord. Yet when the anniversary of our ordination dawns, then above all the burden of this office is attended to, as though it were then being laid on us for the first time. There is this difference, however: on the day on which we first took it up, we thought only of how it was to be carried; but on the following days, and above all on the day on which its anniversary is kept, we not only consult with careful foresight about its future, how it ought to be carried from now on, but also call to mind with anxious remembrance its past, how it has been carried: so that we may imitate ourselves in what we did well, and, if anything blameworthy has passed, take care that it is not repeated and pray that it may be forgiven; and so that, where we can, we may escape the devil's accusation by diligence in acting rightly, and, where we cannot, overcome it by the devotion of confessing. For as future sins are committed by neglecting justice, so past sins are made firm by defending injustice. As love, then, sees to it that sins are not committed, so humility blots out those that have been committed, so that what can no longer be prevented by acting rightly may at least be forgiven by not being proud. For we have learned to say to our Father who is in heaven, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." To say this truly, we must certainly love even our enemies, whom nevertheless we ought not to have unless justice compels it. For if people are our enemies because of our own evil deserts, we must take care not to forgive them their debts but rather to fear lest we repay them. For if they hate us deservedly for our iniquity, we are their debtors, not they ours.

On this solemn day of my episcopate, then, I will first speak briefly to my debtors, who without knowing it support me before God by incurring debts that I may forgive, so that I may merit to have my own debts forgiven. To you, then, I say, whether you are present or absent, whose enemy I become by preaching the truth, to whom I seem burdensome by advising you, whose will I am forced to offend by seeking your good: "Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding." For these beasts too attack with hoof and teeth most of all those who tend them, when their wounds are handled to be treated. You do not spare me; I do not spare you: you oppose, I oppose: you resist, I resist. The struggle makes us alike, but the cause separates us. You are an enemy to the physician, I to the disease; you to my diligence, I to your plague. "They repaid me evil for good," it says, "but I prayed." What did he pray, if not "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing"? "When they revile you," he says, "and say every evil against you for righteousness' sake, rejoice and exult, for your reward is great in heaven." Yet correct your perversity, recognize our love, return love for love: we do not want a greater reward at the cost of your perdition. Let these few words now suffice for my debtors, whom I forgive so that I may be forgiven.

Next I must speak a little also to those to whom I am a debtor. For as the apostle says, "I am a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish." For I too am such a debtor, in the measure of my small strength and my little portion of stewardship, not to some but to all. But now I am speaking of those debts which I want to have forgiven me, not to exact. For I am not so puffed up with an empty mind as to dare to say that since I have carried the burden of this office I have wrongly injured no one. For any man occupied and distracted by so many and such troublesome affairs this is, I will not say impossible, but certainly difficult: how much more for me, who know my own weakness, which with my prayers, and with yours for me, I offer day and night to the Lord our God to be healed? Disturbed, then, by the heats and difficulties of various cares, if I have perhaps not listened to someone as he required, if I have looked at someone more sternly than was needed, if I have spoken a harsher word to someone than was right, if I have troubled with an unsuitable answer someone contrite in heart and in need of help, if, intent on something else, I have passed over or put off some poor man who pressed me too insistently, or even saddened him with a harsh nod; if I have been more bitterly indignant than was just with someone who, as one man of another, suspected something false of me; if anyone does not find in his conscience what I, being human, suspected of him: you to whom I confess myself a debtor for these and similar offenses, believe also that I love you. For a mother often treads on the chicks she warms, when they are crowded, but not with the whole weight of her foot; and she does not cease to be a mother. Forgive, that you may be forgiven. Forgive one who loves you the debts that come from difficulty, you who ought not to hold debts of cruelty even against your enemies. In sum, I beg you all, commend to the Lord my care for you; for this is why I justly ask your care for me: that whatever offenses of mine there have been in the past he may graciously pardon and not severely take note of; and that for whatever time I shall have from now on under this burden he may guide me on the way, make me pleasing in his eyes and useful to you, so that in his sight you may be found not my horror and punishment, but my joy and my crown.

The holy and divine words, brothers, are read to us continually, indeed daily, for our salvation, so that our souls may be fed; and in the age to come they will be filled with eternal banquets, as the prophet says, "I shall be satisfied when your glory is made manifest." What that future glory will be like, with what riches it abounds, with what splendor it shines, we can praise but cannot explain. Why? Because we read, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it gone up into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him." If, then, the eternal heavenly goods which the almighty Lord has prepared for his saints, for his catholic and faithful peoples, are so great and of such a kind, what is God himself, who prepared such great things? What, I say, is almighty God? What, if not beyond estimation, beyond speech, beyond comprehension, above all things, outside all things, beyond all things? For he exceeds all his creation, surpasses all his handiwork, excels all things. If you seek greatness, he is greater; if beauty, he is more beautiful; if sweetness, he is sweeter; if splendor, he is brighter; if justice, he is more just; if strength, he is stronger; if goodness, he is more merciful. For no reasoning allows that what is made should be made equal to its maker, or the work compared with the craftsman, as we read in the prophet: "He who made strong things is stronger, and he who made beautiful things is more beautiful than they."

We proclaim the exalted marks of this one Godhead in such a way that we nevertheless also confess the mysteries of the divine Trinity, not as Jews but as Christians. For as the Father is almighty and ineffable, so the Son is almighty and incomprehensible; so too the Holy Spirit, joined without distinction in the Father and the Son, is ineffable and immeasurable. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one almighty God: one in trinity, one in power; unity, trinity, eternal majesty; one, powerful through all things; and the trinity consists in unity and the unity in trinity; but neither is the trinity divided nor the unity separated. Armed and equipped with this catholic faith, then, dearly beloved, let us briefly ask the wicked Arian heretics, who in these times boast impiously and seduce, corrupt, and deceive many of our Christians, how those who think against the Lord pray to the Lord. They answer us: "We pray to the Lord indeed in a trinity, but as we read: the Father greater, the Son less, the Holy Spirit lower; for Christ himself says, The Father is greater than I." We reply to them: "Is this, then, how you pray to and worship God?" "Plainly so: so we read, so we worship, so we pray." To them we say: "If, then, you worship and pray to God in this way, this is not worshipping and calling on the one great God, but making three gods. And where is what we read in the divine law, Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God? And again elsewhere it says, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. For if the Father is one thing, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another, it is no longer one Trinity but a divided power. And how can a power at variance with itself stand, when, as we read in the gospel, a house or kingdom divided against itself cannot stand? And how is the Godhead separated from itself, when the brightness of light or the heat of the sun is in no way separated from it?" For see, as we observe, in the sun there are three things, and they cannot be separated at all. Let us see what the three are: its course, its brightness, and its heat. For we see the sun in the sky running, shining, warming. Divide the sun, then, Arian, if you can, and then divide the Trinity. But perhaps it is hard to reason about dividing the sun, because it is in the sky and set far from us. See, we put forward another element, a lesser one, which is with us on earth: I mean fire, which is held in our hands and yet is not divided. For fire too has three things and cannot be divided: motion, light, and heat. If, then, wicked heretic, you cannot divide the created sun and fire, how can you divide God, the creator of all things?

But hear and learn that this great and unique Trinity was shown from the beginning of the human race. Hear it declared beyond doubt in the Law and the Prophets, in the Psalms and in the Gospel; hear it in the Apostle. Hear, I say, in Genesis: "God made man in the image of God." And to show at the same time the inseparable Trinity, it says in that book, "And the Spirit of God was borne over the waters." Hear the prophet speaking in the person of Christ: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach the gospel to the poor." Hear in the Psalms: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth"; and again, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a sovereign spirit." Hear the same confirmed in the gospel: the Lord Christ says to the apostles, "All power has been given me in heaven and on earth: go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Hear the apostle: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, that he should be repaid? For from him and through him and in him are all things: to him be glory for ever and ever." If, then, it has been sufficiently and openly proved from both the old and the new Scriptures that the divine unity is an inseparable Trinity, let us reject the heretics altogether, according to the apostle who says, "Avoid a heretic after one rebuke," and let us now strengthen our faithful peoples in the catholic faith itself. For there are no greater riches, no treasures, no honors, no greater possession in this world than the catholic faith, which saves sinful men, enlightens the blind, heals the sick, baptizes catechumens, justifies the faithful, restores penitents, increases the righteous, crowns martyrs, keeps virgins, widows, and the married in chaste modesty, ordains clerics, consecrates priests, prepares for the heavenly kingdom, and gives a share in the eternal inheritance with the holy angels; as the Lord himself confirms by his promise: "In the resurrection they neither marry nor take wives, but will be equal to the angels of God"; through Christ our Lord.