Sermons to the People 46.36–47.7

See, however, brothers, let us examine these words as best we can; the Lord will be present, so that you may see the sound sense there. First, what is very easily judged by all, even the unskilled: they divide the words themselves wrongly. You will hear it now; you will test it now. For the text of the reading itself runs thus. The bride speaks to the bridegroom: “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you lie down.” That the bride says this to the bridegroom, the Church to Christ, neither we nor they doubt. But hear all the bride’s words. Why do you want to give to the bridegroom a word that still belongs to the bride? Say all that the bride says; then the bridegroom will answer. Hear more clearly this division that I am about to state; you will find nothing more. “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you lie down at noon.” She is still speaking: “where you feed, where you lie down at noon.” And see that she is still speaking. For it follows: “lest perhaps I become like one veiled, among the flocks of your companions.” I think everyone, skilled or unskilled, can tell masculine from feminine gender. “Veiled” (operta): I ask of what gender it is; I ask every man: is it masculine or feminine? “Tell me,” she says, “you whom my soul loves.” When she says “whom,” she is addressing a male; she is addressing the bridegroom. That a woman is addressing a man, the following words show: “Tell me where you feed, where you lie down at noon, lest perhaps I become like one veiled.” Hear “veiled,” so that these things may be unveiled for you. “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you lie down at noon, lest perhaps I become like one veiled among the flocks of your companions.” Up to here are the words of the bride; now the bridegroom’s words begin, plainly: “Unless you know yourself.” Recognize clearly a woman: “yourself” is feminine. “O fairest among women: unless you know yourself, O fairest among women, go out in the tracks of the flocks and feed your kids beside the tents of the shepherds”: not beside the tent of the Shepherd. See how the bridegroom threatens; see how, in the face of danger, sweet as he is, he has put flattery aside. How sweetly she speaks! “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you lie down at noon. For midday will come, when the shepherds gather to the shade, and perhaps it will be hidden from me where you feed and where you lie down; and I want you to tell me, lest perhaps I become like one veiled,” that is, like one hidden and unrecognized. “For I am in plain view; but I do not want, as one veiled and concealed, to fall among the flocks of your companions.” For all the heretics went out from Christ; all who have become bad shepherds, having their own flocks under the name of Christ, were his companions and received his banquet. For companions (sodales) are so called as sharers in one banquet: in the Latin language they are called sodales as if “simul edales,” because they eat together. Hear him in the psalm rebuking bad companions, that is, sharers in one banquet: “If my enemy had reproached me,” he says, “I would have borne it; and if he had spoken great things against me, I would have hidden myself from him; but you, my close friend and my acquaintance, my guide, who took sweet food together with me.” So many companions, ungrateful to the Lord’s table, went outside; bad companions made their own tables, set up altars against the altar. Among these she fears to go astray.

And if you think that “noon,” the South, is Africa (although I could maintain that the south of the world is rather the regions of Egypt and those lands scorched by the sun where rain does not appear, since that is the south, where midday blazes; and there the desert is full of thousands of servants of God; so that, if we want to look to the south of the earth’s places, why should he not rather feed there and rest there, since it was foretold, “The breasts of the desert will be fruitful”?)—but see, I concede it: let the South be Africa. Let Africa be the South; these are the bad companions. The Church overseas, in one of her members sailing to Africa, anxious not to go astray, calls on her bridegroom and says to him: “I hear that heretics abound in Africa; I hear that rebaptizers abound in Africa; but I hear that your own are there no less. I hear this, and I hear that; but who are yours, I want to hear from you. Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you lie down at noon. In that South, where I hear there are two parties, one of Donatus, the other cleaving to your whole world, tell me where to go, lest perhaps, like one veiled, that is, unknown, I fall among the flocks of your companions; lest I run into the flocks of heretics, who try to set stone upon stone which will be pulled down; lest I rush in among the rebaptizers: tell me.” And he who commends the unity of the Shepherd, who in this reading said, “I will feed,” and who rejects the shepherds who wanted to be many and lost unity, answers most severely, not sweetly, but in proportion to the greatness of the danger: “Unless you know yourself,” he says, “O fairest among women.” You are fair among women; but know yourself. Where will you know yourself? In the whole world. For if you are fair, unity is in you; where there is division, there is ugliness, not beauty. “Unless you know yourself.” You have believed in me; know yourself. How have you believed in me? Those bad companions too agree that the Word became flesh, was born of a virgin, was crucified, rose again, ascended into heaven: you have believed in me as such, and they too proclaim me as such. Know yourself and me: me in heaven, yourself in the whole world. Christ addresses any one member of the Church as the Church. For how could the Church be seeking the Church? I speak according to their own view. “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you lie down.” What is she looking for? The Church. And he, as though pointing out the Church, says, “At noon,” as they would have it. Let them answer me, how does the Church look for the Church? “Tell me, you whom my soul loves.” Who is speaking? The Church. What does she want to be told? “Where you feed, where you lie down,” that is, where the Church is. The Church speaks and asks where the Church is; and he answers, as they think, “At noon.” If she is only in the South, as they say, in Africa, how is she asking where she herself is? Or does a portion of the Church overseas rightly ask about the South, so as not to go astray here? Christ addresses each of the members of his Church as his Church and says, “Unless you know yourself, O fairest among women, go out.” Going out is the mark of heretics. Either know yourself, or go out; for if you do not know yourself, you will go out. Go out where? “In the tracks of the flocks”: by following bad flocks. Lest perhaps you think that you are following sheep if you go out, hear what follows: “Go out in the tracks of the flocks, and feed your kids”: no longer sheep. You know, brothers, where the kids will be. On the left will be all who have gone out from the Church. To Peter, who remains, it is said, “Feed my sheep”; to the heretic who goes out, “Feed your kids.”

“There is,” they say, “another testimony too.” It is no less against you: speak; let us hear. It will be against you just as the one you thought was for you. “If you interpret ‘noon’ as Egypt,” they say. We interpret “noon” in many ways, and we can understand it as Egypt as a place in the world, and Africa itself likewise. Hear what I understand by “noon”: I understand the fervor of the spiritual, burning with the fire of charity and shining with the light of truth. For it is said in a certain psalm, “Make your right hand known to me, and those who are instructed in heart in wisdom.” The right hand, not the kids; and those instructed in heart in wisdom: they are the noon. Hence the prophet says, “And your darkness will be like noon.” We can understand “noon” in many ways, then; but I take it simply as Africa; I take it entirely as Africa. I accept from you something perhaps better than I would have thought of, had you not reminded me: let Africa be the South. The Church overseas fears to fall among the rebaptizers; she fears to fall, as one unknown, among the flocks of the companions; she asks her bridegroom to tell her where he feeds and where he lies down at noon. Because in that very South he feeds in some and not in others; he lies down in some and not in others. Let her hear the advice; let her come to the Catholic Church; let her not run into the flocks of the companions; let her not feed her kids. But say the other thing that you said you were going to say. “The prophet,” he says, “says, God will come from Africus.” And where there is Africus, surely there is Africa. What a testimony! “God will come from Africus.” Will God come from Africa? The heretics proclaim that another Christ is born in Africa and goes through the world. I ask, what does “God will come from Africus” mean? If you said, “God has remained in Africa,” you would be saying something shameful enough; but now you even say, “He will come from Africa.” We know where Christ was born, where he suffered, where he ascended into heaven, from where he sent his disciples, where he filled them with the Holy Spirit, where he ordered them to evangelize the whole world; and they obeyed him, and the world is being filled with the Gospel; and you say, “God will come from Africa”?

“You, then,” he says, “explain to me what ‘God will come from Africus’ means.” Say all of it, and perhaps you will understand. “God will come from Africus, and the holy one from the shady mountain.” Explain to me, if it is now from Africa, how it is from the shady mountain. The party of Donatus was born in Numidia: they were the first to be sent into dissension, tumult, and scandal, seeking to make a great wound. The Numidians sent them: Secundus of Tigisis sent them; where Tigisis is, everyone knows. The clergy who were sent gathered a congregation outside the Church, refused to go to the clergy of Carthage, set up an administrator of their own, and were received by Lucilla. The author of this whole evil was a Numidian heretic. In Numidia, from which they came here with such great evil, scarcely any shade is found; they live in huts. How is Numidia a shady mountain? Tell me, then: do not recite only as far as “God from Africus”; I demand what follows too: “And the holy one from the shady mountain.” But show me the party of Donatus coming from Numidia, from a shady mountain. You find everything bare: rich fields indeed, but for grain; not fertile with olive groves, not pleasant with other woods. Where, then, is there a shady mountain in the parts of Numidia from which this scandal came?

“You, then,” he says, “explain to me what ‘God will come from Africus, and the holy one from the shady mountain’ means.” See how easily I will explain it. First hear what the Lord says: “The Christ had to suffer and rise on the third day, and repentance and the forgiveness of sins had to be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” See from where he will come. When he said “beginning,” he certainly foretold that from there he would come in his saints to the other nations. Read the division of the land among all the tribes of the children of Israel in the book of Jesus son of Nave: it is plainly said there, “Jebus to the south [ab Africo], which is Jerusalem.” Read, search, and you will find. Would that, when you find it, you would believe; would that you would lay aside your animosity. “Jebus to the south, which is Jerusalem.” And the Lord says, “beginning from Jerusalem”: that is, “God will come from Africus.” How, then, from the shady mountain? Now read the Gospel. From the Mount of Olives Christ ascended into heaven. Follow it. And what is clearer? You hear “from Africus”; you have heard “from the shady mountain.” We recite the Law; we recite the Gospel. You have heard “beginning from Jerusalem”; hear “to all nations” in the same prophet. Follow the words that you despised, the words that you passed over: “God will come from Africus, and the holy one from the shady mountain; his shadow will cover the mountains, and the earth is full of his glory.” To all nations, then, beginning from Jerusalem: “God will come from Africus, and the holy one from the shady and thickly wooded mountain”; that is, from the Mount of Olives, from which he ascended into heaven, from which he sent his disciples, where also, as he was about to ascend, he said, “It is not for you to know the times that the Father has fixed by his own authority; but you will receive power from on high, and you will be my witnesses.” See how the Gospel begins: “And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the whole earth.” So, as God the Christ comes, his name and the preaching of his Gospel come from Jerusalem, that is, from Africus, and from the shady mountain, that is, from the Mount of Olives, because the Gospel has been spread abroad through all nations. “His shadow will cover the mountains,” that is, his refreshment, his protection; “and the earth is full of his praise.” Sing, then, with the whole earth a new song; not the old song with a corner of the earth.

They also say something else: “A certain Cyrenian, Simon, was pressed into service to carry the Lord’s cross.” We read it; but I want to know how it helps you. “A Cyrenian,” he says, “is an African; that is why he was pressed into service to carry the cross.” Perhaps you do not know where Cyrene is: it is in Libya, in the Pentapolis; it borders on Africa, but it belongs rather to the East. Learn it even from the emperors’ division of the provinces: the Eastern emperor sends a governor to Cyrene. I answer briefly: where the party of Donatus is, Cyrene is not found; where Cyrene is, the party of Donatus is not found. Plain truth refutes error. Let him give me Cyrene where the party of Donatus is; let him give me the party of Donatus where Cyrene is. For it is plain, brothers, that in the Pentapolis there is the Catholic Church, and the party of Donatus is not there. But let us, being secure, laugh at those who should be wept over, and weep over those who should be laughed at. What do you say? You recall the great merit of this Cyrenian, because he carried the Lord’s cross, and you call him an African. He is an Easterner. For Libya is spoken of in two ways: either this which is properly Africa, or that part of the East which borders on Africa and is altogether adjacent to it. But let the Cyrenian have been an African. Do you think him blessed because he carried the cross under compulsion? How much better might someone else say that the Church of Christ has remained in Arimathea! For Joseph, that rich man from Arimathea, who had the kingdom of God before his eyes, not pressed into service, not forced, came to the Lord’s cross; when the others were afraid, he asked Pilate for the Lord’s body to bury it, took it down from the wood, attended to the funeral, laid it in a tomb, and is praised in the Gospel. Because this devout man, who showed such service to the Lord’s body, was from Arimathea, has the Church remained in Arimathea? Or, if the one who was pressed into service pleases you more, that is, the one who is forced to carry the cross: then the Catholic emperors do rightly in forcing you into unity.

The words we have sung contain our profession that we are God’s sheep; hence we beg insistently, with tears, for the mercy of him whose sheep we are. For we said: “Let us weep before the Lord who made us; for he is the Lord our God.” So that no one who weeps should despair of being heard, a certain bond was recalled that binds God to hear us: “For he is the Lord our God, who made us.” He is our God; we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hands. Human shepherds, or even heads of households who own flocks, did not themselves make the sheep they have; they did not create the sheep they feed. But our Lord God, because he is God and Creator, made for himself the sheep he was to have and to feed; no one else formed those whom he feeds, and no one else feeds those whom he formed. Let us weep, then, before him. For we are not in a good state while we are in this world. When we please the Lord in the land of the living, then our tears will be wiped away; and we shall sing praises to him who rescued us from the chains of death, our feet from slipping, our eyes from tears, so that we may please the Lord in the land of the living; for it is hard to please him in the land of the dead. Yet here too there is a way to please him: by begging his mercy upon us, by abstaining from sins as far as we can, and, where we cannot, by confessing and lamenting them. So in this life we are hoping for another life, weeping here; or rather, weeping in reality, rejoicing in hope.

Having professed, then, in this song that we are his sheep, the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hands, let us hear what he says to us as to his sheep. Earlier, in the previous reading, he was speaking to shepherds; in the present one, today’s, he speaks to the sheep. In those words of his, then, we listened with trembling, you with security. What, then, of today’s words? Do we in our turn listen with security, and you with trembling? Not at all. First, because even though we are shepherds, a shepherd hears with trembling not only what is said to shepherds but also what is said to the sheep. For if he hears without concern what is said to the sheep, he has no care for the sheep. Second, we already told your Charity on that occasion that two things are to be considered in us: one, that we are Christians; the other, that we are set over you. Because we are set over you, we are counted among the shepherds, if we are good; but because we are Christians, we too are sheep along with you. So whether the Lord speaks to shepherds or to sheep, we must hear everything with trembling; and let anxiety not leave our hearts, so that we may weep before the Lord who made us.

Let us hear, then, brothers, for what the Lord rebukes wicked sheep and what he promises his own sheep. “And you, my sheep,” he says, “thus says the Lord God.” First, if anyone considers how great a happiness it is to be God’s flock, brothers, he will conceive great joy even in these tears and these tribulations. For one is not in the flock of a shepherd whom wolves can beat, or whose sleep robbers can take advantage of. For it was to him that it was said, “You who shepherd Israel”; it was of him that it was said, “He who keeps Israel will neither sleep nor slumber.” He keeps watch over us, then, when we are awake; he keeps watch also when we are asleep. If, then, a man’s flock is secure with a human shepherd, how great ought our security to be with God as our shepherd, not only because he feeds us but also because he made us?

We have one care laid upon us: to hear the shepherd’s voice. And now is the time for hearing, because he has not yet taken up the time for judging. He who speaks is silent for now. For he speaks in his commandment and is silent in his judgment. That is why he says in a certain place: “I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent?” How did he keep silent, when he said this very thing by speaking? He who says, “I have kept silent,” is not silent; for even to say, “I have kept silent,” is not to be silent. So I hear you speaking in so many commandments, in so many sacraments, in so many pages, in so many books; I hear you, finally, in this very saying, “I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent?” How, then, have you kept silent? Because I do not yet say, “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom”; and I do not yet say to the others, “Go, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels.” And I do not yet say these very things in such a way that I do not already proclaim them beforehand. The final sentence that a judge is to pronounce, which he is to write on a tablet with his own hand, and after which he will judge nothing further, the parties do not hear: it is written while they go outside. Both parties are stunned and in suspense, wondering against whom or for whom his sentence will come out. Great is the judge’s secrecy, from which his chamber is named the secretarium. Great is the fear of those involved in the case: what he thinks and what he writes is unknown; and he is a man, and those whom he judges are certainly men. But he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hands. And although he is the Creator and we the creature, he immortal and we mortal, he invisible and we visible, he did not want to hide from us in this life what final sentence he is to pronounce at the end. No one who means to condemn says beforehand, “I condemn”; no one who means to strike says beforehand, “I strike.”

Great, then, is his gentleness, great his mercy, great his mildness; but only if we do not abuse his patience to serve our wickedness, and, while he bears our sins, heap sins on sins as though to add to his burden, as if so that he may carry more because he does not tire in carrying. Our sins, which he still spares because he still bears with them, show his patience and pile up our load. “Do you not know,” he says, “that God’s patience leads you to repentance?” That patience is what he calls silence, when he says, “I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent?” So when he was rebuking certain people and saying, “You who preach that one must not steal, steal; you who say that one must not commit adultery, commit adultery,” and so on, he says: “Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and long-suffering?” Because he is good, because he is long-suffering, because he sees and is silent, because he sees and bears with it, do you think him unjust? “Do you not know that God’s patience leads you to repentance?” And see whether he who is silent now will always be silent: “But you,” he says, “by your hardness and impenitent heart are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works.” So he is silent; shall he always be silent? Again, after listing certain sins, he says: “These things you did, and I kept silent”; that is, you did these things and I did not punish them; “you supposed wickedly that I would be like you.” And indeed many think this: when they have done many evil things and have seen nothing evil happen to them, not only do their evil deeds please them, but they even think they please God. Impiety goes so far that the impious despiser thinks God is like himself. And while God, by warning, teaching, exhorting, and rebuking, draws him toward his own likeness, not only does he not follow God’s likeness, but he wants to draw God toward his own. This is a greater wickedness than the sins themselves from which he does not correct himself. “You supposed wickedly that I would be like you?” And what follows? “I will rebuke you.” Why this? “I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent?” Therefore, brothers, since this word that comes from the mouth of God frightens both me and you (for we all have one good hope in him, and we must all equally fear that, having offended him, we may not find what we hoped for but experience what we despised), let us all listen as God’s sheep while he who is silent speaks, while he who made us warns us and does not yet judge us, while there is time to listen, while it is permitted.

“And you, my sheep,” he says, “thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, and rams and he-goats.” What are he-goats doing here in God’s flock? In the same pastures, at the same springs, the he-goats, though destined for the left, are mixed with those on the right; those who will be separated are first tolerated; and here the patience of the sheep is exercised, after the likeness of God’s patience. For the separation will be made by him, some to the left, others to the right. But now he is silent, and you want to speak. But in what respect do I say, “You want to speak”? In the respect in which he is silent: in the punishment of judgment, not in the word of rebuke. He does not yet separate; you want to separate. He who sowed tolerates the mixture. If you want the grain cleaned before the winnowing, you will be badly winnowed by your own wind. The servants were permitted to say, “Do you want us to go and gather them?” For they were indignant at seeing the weeds, and grieved that weeds were mixed with the good crop; and they said, “Did you not sow good seed? Where, then, did the weeds come from?” He gave the reason why they had appeared; yet he did not allow them to be pulled up before the time. Although the servants themselves were indignant at the weeds, they still sought counsel and a command from their master. Those things displeased them among the crop; but the servants saw that if they did anything of their own accord, even in pulling up the weeds, they themselves would be counted among the weeds. They awaited the Lord’s command and sought their king’s order: “Do you want us to go and gather them?” And he said: “No.” And he gave the reason: “Lest perhaps, when you want to gather the weeds, you root up the wheat with them.” He calmed their indignation and did not leave them in their grief. It seemed hard to the servants that there should be weeds among the wheat; and it truly was hard. But the condition of the field is one thing, the rest of the barn another. Bear with it; that is what you were born for. Bear with it, for perhaps you were borne with. If you have always been good, have mercy; if you were once bad, do not lose the memory of it. And who is always good? If God examines you carefully, he will more easily find you bad even now than you will find yourself always good. So these weeds are to be tolerated among the wheat, the he-goats among the rams, the kids among the sheep. But what does he say about the wheat? “At the time of harvest,” he says, “I will tell the reapers: Gather first the weeds, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but store my wheat in the barn.” The mixture of the field will pass; the separation of the harvest will come. The Lord now requires of us the patience that he sets forth in himself, saying to you: “If I chose to judge now, would I judge unjustly? If I chose to judge now, could I be deceived? If I, who always judge rightly and cannot be deceived, put off my judgment, do you, who do not know how you are to be judged, dare to judge so hastily?” See, brothers, how he did not grant this work to those servants who wanted to root up the weeds before the time, not even at the harvest. For he says, “At the time of harvest I will tell the reapers”; he does not say, “I will tell you.” But what if the servants themselves are to be the reapers? No. For, explaining everything one by one, he says, “The reapers are the angels.” So do you, a man hedged in by flesh, carrying flesh, or perhaps wholly flesh, that is, flesh in body and carnal in mind, dare to seize beforehand another’s office, which will not be yours even at the harvest? So much for separating the weeds. What of the he-goats? “When the Son of Man comes, and all the angels with him, he will sit on the throne of his glory; and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” He will come, and he will separate: the harvest will come, and they will be separated. Now, then, is not the time of separation but of toleration. And we do not say this, brothers, so that the diligence of rebuking may go to sleep; on the contrary, so that we may not come to that judgment unprepared and, blind and careless of our blindness, suddenly find ourselves on the left, let discipline be exercised, but let judgment not be rushed.

What, then, does the Lord say? “Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, and rams and he-goats.” “I judge”: great security! He himself judges; let the good be secure. No adversary bribes their judge, no advocate gets round him, no witness deceives him. But as secure as the good are, so much let the wicked fear. He is not a judge from whom anything is hidden. Will God, when he judges, look for witnesses to learn from them who you are? How can he be deceived about who you are, he who knew who you were going to be? He questions you, not someone else about you. “The Lord,” it says, “questions the righteous and the wicked.” But he questions you not in order to learn from you but in order to confound you. Since we have such a judge, whom no one deceives either against us or for us, let us so act that we do not fear his coming judgment but await and desire it. Does the grain fear being put into the barn? On the contrary, it wishes and longs for it eagerly. Do the sheep fear being placed on the right? On the contrary, nothing seems so slow to them as its coming. These say from the heart and in all sincerity, when they pray, “Your kingdom come.” But at these words the heart of a bad man trembles and his tongue stammers. For how do you say, “Your kingdom come”? See, it will come: in what state will it find you? So act that you may pray securely. And if perhaps there is something of error and sin in your conscience, you have the medicine in the prayer itself: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” For God willed that you should be a debtor in such a way that you also have a debtor. By sinning you make yourself God’s enemy; but take care whether perhaps you too have an enemy. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. What you do, who can be found in sin, he will do to you who can be judged guilty of no sin. But if, being a man set in sin, you do not spare the one who sins against you, and do not consider your own condition in him, and do not shudder at the fall of your frailty for the time to come, what will he do to you, who judges so securely, as one who never sins?