Sermons to the People 70.1–71.15

It seems strange to some, my brothers, when they hear the Lord saying, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me that I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is gentle and my burden light”; and they consider that those who have bowed their necks to that yoke without fear and taken that burden on most gentle shoulders are tossed about and exercised by such great difficulties of this world that they seem to have been called not from labors to rest but from rest to labor; since the Apostle too says, “All who want to live godly in Christ will suffer persecution.” So someone says: How is the yoke gentle and the burden light, since to bear that yoke and burden is nothing other than to live godly in Christ? And how is it said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you,” and not rather, “Come, you who are idle, that you may labor”? For he also found idle men whom he hired into the vineyard to bear the heat of the day. And under that gentle yoke and light burden we hear the Apostle say: “In all things commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulations, in necessities, in distresses, in beatings,” and so on. And in another place in the same epistle: “From the Jews five times I received forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea”; and the other dangers, which can indeed be counted, but cannot be endured except with the help of the Holy Spirit.

All those harsh and heavy things that he mentioned he endured quite often and abundantly; but surely the Holy Spirit was with him, who, in the decay of the outer man, renewed the inner man day by day, and, giving him a taste of spiritual rest in the abundance of God’s delights, softened all present hardships in the hope of future blessedness and lightened every burden. See how sweet a yoke of Christ he bore, and how light a burden: so that all those things listed above, hard and monstrous, at which every hearer shudders, he called a light tribulation, seeing with inner and faithful eyes at what price in temporal things the future life is to be bought: not to suffer the eternal labors of the ungodly, and to enjoy without any anxiety the eternal happiness of the righteous. People let themselves be cut and burned so that pains, not eternal but those of a somewhat longer-lasting ulcer, may be bought off at the price of sharper pains. For a feeble and uncertain leisure, very brief and at the end of life, the soldier is worn down in the most savage wars, perhaps restless in labors for more years than he will rest in leisure. With what storms and tempests, with what horrible and dreadful savagery of sky and sea do merchants contend, to acquire windy riches, full of greater dangers and storms than those by which they were acquired! What heat, what cold, what dangers from horses, from ditches, from cliffs, from rivers, from wild beasts do hunters endure! What labor of hunger and thirst, what straits of the cheapest and filthiest food and drink, to catch a beast! And sometimes not even the flesh of the beast for which they endure all this is needed for their tables. Though even when a boar or a stag is caught, it is sweeter to the hunter’s mind because it has been caught than to the eater’s palate because it has been cooked. To what torments of almost daily beatings is the tender age of boys subjected! With what troubles of sleepless nights and abstinence are they exercised even in the schools, not to learn wisdom, but for the riches and honors of vanity, so that they may learn arithmetic, letters, and eloquent deceits!

But in all these things, those who do not love them suffer the same things as heavy; but those who love them suffer the same things, yet seem not to suffer them as heavy. For love makes all savage and monstrous things wholly easy and almost nothing. How much more surely and easily, then, does charity do for true blessedness what desire did, as far as it could, for misery? How easily is any temporal adversity borne in order that eternal punishment may be avoided and eternal rest obtained? Not without reason did that vessel of election say with great joy: “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that will be revealed in us.” See why that yoke is sweet and the burden light. And if it is narrow for the few who choose it, yet it is easy for all who love it. The psalmist says: “Because of the words of your lips I have kept hard ways.” But what is hard to those who labor becomes soft to the same people when they love. For this reason it was so arranged by the dispensation of divine goodness that, for the inner man who is renewed day by day, no longer placed under the law but under grace, freed from the burdens of countless observances—which was truly a heavy yoke, but fittingly laid on a hard neck—whatever troubles that prince who was cast out might bring on the outer man from outside should become light through inner joy, by the ease of simple faith and good hope and holy love. For nothing is so easy to a good will as itself; and this suffices to God. However much this world may rage, then, the angels most truly cried out when the Lord was born in the flesh, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will”: because the yoke of him who was born is sweet and his burden light. And as the Apostle says, “God is faithful, who does not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear, but with the temptation also makes a way out, so that we can endure.”

A great question has been set before us by the Gospel reading just heard, and, as far as we ourselves are concerned, we are unequal to solving it; but our sufficiency is from God, insofar as we can receive or grasp his help. First, then, notice the greatness of the question, so that when you see its weight laid on our shoulders, you may pray for our labors, and in the help that is given us you may find edification for your minds. When one who had a demon, blind and mute, had been brought to the Lord, and he had healed him so that he spoke and saw, and all the crowds were amazed and said, “Is this not the son of David?”, the Pharisees, hearing it, said: “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons.” But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste; and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then will his kingdom stand?” In saying this he wanted it understood, from their own confession, that by not believing in him they had chosen to be in the kingdom of the devil, which, being divided against itself, certainly could not stand. Let the Pharisees choose what they like, then. If Satan cannot cast out Satan, they could find nothing to say against the Lord; but if he can, let them look out for themselves all the more and withdraw from his kingdom, which, divided against itself, cannot stand.

But by what power the Lord Christ casts out demons, lest they think it is the prince of demons, let them attend to what follows: “And if I,” he says, “cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.” He said this, surely, of his disciples, the sons of that people, who as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ were well aware that they had learned no evil arts from their good master, so as to cast out demons by the prince of demons. “Therefore,” he says, “they will be your judges.” They, he says, they, the low and despised things of this world, in whom appears not crafty malice but the holy simplicity of my power, they, my witnesses, will be your judges. Then he adds: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” What is this? If I, he says, cast out demons by the Spirit of God, and your sons, to whom I gave not a malicious teaching but simple faith, can cast them out in no other way, then without doubt the kingdom of God has come upon you, by which the kingdom of the devil is overthrown, and you are overthrown with it.

And since he had said, “By whom do your sons cast them out?”, to show that this was his grace in them, not their merit, he says: “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house?” Your sons, he says, who either have believed in me or are yet to believe, and to cast out demons not by the prince of demons but in simple holiness; who certainly either were, or are, what you also are, that is, sinners and ungodly, and therefore in the devil’s house and the devil’s vessels: how could they be rescued from him who held them firmly through prevailing iniquity, unless he were bound with the chains of my righteousness and I snatched away his vessels, which had been vessels of wrath, and made them vessels of mercy? This is what the blessed Apostle too says, rebuking the proud who boast as if of their own merits: “For who distinguishes you?” That is: from the mass of perdition that comes from Adam and from the vessels of wrath, who distinguishes you? And lest anyone should say, “My righteousness,” he says, “For what do you have that you did not receive?” Hence he also says of himself, “For we too were once by nature children of wrath, like the rest.” So he too was a vessel in the house of that evil strong man, when he was a persecutor of the Church, a blasphemer, insolent, living in malice and envy, as he confesses. But he who bound the strong man snatched a vessel of perdition from him and made it a vessel of election.

Then, lest unbelievers and the ungodly who oppose the Christian name should think, because of the various heresies and schisms of those who gather flocks of the lost under the Christian name, that Christ’s kingdom too is divided against itself, he goes on to add: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters.” He does not say, “He who is not under the sound of my name, or under the outward form of my sacrament,” but, “He who is not with me is against me.” Nor does he say, “He who does not gather under the sound of my name,” but, “He who does not gather with me scatters.” So Christ’s kingdom is not divided against itself; but men try to divide what was bought at the price of Christ’s blood. For “the Lord knows those who are his; and let everyone,” it says, “who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” For if he does not depart from iniquity, he does not belong to Christ’s kingdom, even though he names the name of Christ. To mention some things, then, by way of example: the spirit of avarice and the spirit of luxury, since the one hoards and the other squanders, are divided against each other, and both belong to the devil’s kingdom. Among the worshippers of idols, the spirit of Juno and the spirit of Hercules are divided against each other, and both belong to the devil’s kingdom. The pagan enemy of Christ and the Jewish enemy of Christ are divided against each other, and both belong to the devil’s kingdom. The Arian and the Photinian, both heretics, are both divided against each other. The Donatist and the Maximianist, both heretics, are both divided against each other. All the vices and errors of mortals, being contrary to one another, are divided against each other, and all belong to the devil’s kingdom: therefore his kingdom will not stand. But the righteous and the ungodly, the believer and the unbeliever, the Catholic and the heretic, are indeed divided against each other, but they do not both belong to Christ’s kingdom. The Lord knows those who are his. Let no one flatter himself on account of the name. If anyone who calls on the name of the Lord wants the name of the Lord to profit him, let him depart from iniquity.

But these words of the Gospel, though they had something of obscurity, which I think has been explained with the Lord’s help, were not of as great difficulty as what follows appears to be: “Therefore I say to you: every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come.” What, then, will become of those whom the Church longs to win? Is a false hope held out, in the forgiveness of all sins, to those who are corrected and come to her from whatever error? For who is not convicted of having spoken a word against the Holy Spirit before he became a Christian or a Catholic? First, those who are called pagans, worshippers of many false gods and adorers of idols: when they say that the Lord Christ worked miracles by magic arts, are they not like those who said that he cast out demons by the prince of demons? Then, when they daily blaspheme our sanctification, what else do they blaspheme but the Holy Spirit? What of the Jews, who said of the Lord the words from which this discourse arose? Do they not to this day speak a word against the Holy Spirit, denying that he is in Christians just as those denied that he was in Christ? For they did not revile the Holy Spirit either by saying that he does not exist, or that he exists but is not God but a creature, or that he has no power to cast out demons: they said no such unworthy things, nothing like them, about the Holy Spirit. For the Sadducees denied the Holy Spirit, while the Pharisees defended his existence against the heresy of the Sadducees; but they denied that he was in the Lord Jesus Christ, who they thought cast out demons by the prince of demons, when he cast them out by the Holy Spirit. And so both the Jews and all heretics who confess the Holy Spirit, but deny that he is in the body of Christ, which is his one Church, and that certainly none other than the one Catholic Church, are without doubt like the Pharisees, who at that time, even though they confessed that the Holy Spirit exists, nevertheless denied that he was in Christ, whose works in casting out demons they attributed to the prince of demons. I pass over the fact that certain heretics contend that the Holy Spirit himself is not the Creator but a creature, like the Arians, the Eunomians, and the Macedonians; or deny him altogether, by denying that God is a Trinity and asserting that God is only the Father, who is sometimes called the Son and sometimes called the Holy Spirit, like the Sabellians, whom some call Patripassians because they hold that the Father suffered; and since they deny that he has any Son, they without doubt deny that the Holy Spirit exists. The Photinians too, saying that the Father alone is God and the Son only a man, deny altogether that there is a third person, the Holy Spirit.

It is plain, then, that the Holy Spirit is blasphemed by pagans, by Jews, and by heretics. Are they, then, to be abandoned and counted as without any hope, since the sentence stands fixed, “Whoever speaks a word against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come”; and are only those to be considered free of the guilt of this gravest sin who have been Catholics from infancy? For all who have believed the word of God so as to become Catholics have certainly come into the grace and peace of Christ either from the pagans, or from the Jews, or from the heretics. If the word they spoke against the Holy Spirit has not been forgiven them, it is in vain that men are promised and preached to that they should turn to God and receive peace and the forgiveness of sins, whether in baptism or in the Church. For it was not said, “It will not be forgiven him, except in baptism,” but, “It will not be forgiven,” he says, “neither in this age nor in the age to come.”

Some think that only those sin against the Holy Spirit who, having been washed in the bath of regeneration in the Church and having received the Holy Spirit, then, as if ungrateful for so great a gift of the Saviour, have plunged themselves into some deadly sin, such as adultery or murder, or departure itself, whether from the Christian name altogether or from the Catholic Church. But I do not know how this view can be proved, since a place for repentance for any crimes whatever is not denied in the Church, and the Apostle says that the heretics themselves are to be corrected for this very purpose: “In case God may perhaps give them repentance to know the truth, and they may come to their senses out of the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will.” For what is the fruit of correction without any hope of forgiveness? Finally, the Lord does not say, “Whatever baptized Catholic speaks a word against the Holy Spirit,” but “Whoever speaks,” that is, anyone at all, whoever speaks, “it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come.” Whether, then, he is a pagan, or a Jew, or a Christian, or a heretic from among the Jews or the Christians, or bears any other name of error, it is not said, “this one or that one,” but, “Whoever speaks a word against the Holy Spirit,” that is, blasphemes the Holy Spirit, “it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come.” Furthermore, if every error contrary to the truth and hostile to Catholic peace, as we showed above, speaks a word against the Holy Spirit, and yet the Church does not cease to correct and gather out of every error those who are to receive the forgiveness of sins and the very Holy Spirit whom they had blasphemed, I think we have shown how great a secret this so great question holds. Let us, then, seek the light of explanation from the Lord.

Lift up, then, brothers, lift up your ears to me and your minds to the Lord. I tell your Charity: perhaps in all the holy Scriptures no greater, no more difficult question is found. So, to confess something about myself to you, in the sermons I have preached to the people I have always avoided the difficulty and trouble of this question: not because I had nothing at all that I thought about it, for in so great a matter I would not neglect to ask, to seek, to knock; but because I did not think I could do justice, with words that come at the moment, to the understanding that had been somewhat opened to me. But today, hearing the readings on which I was to preach to you, when the Gospel was read, my heart was so knocked upon that I believed God wished you to hear something on this through my ministry.

First, then, so that you may notice and understand, I point out that the Lord did not say, “Every blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven,” nor did he say, “Whoever speaks any word whatever against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him,” but, “Whoever speaks a word.” For had he said that, nothing at all would remain for us to discuss. For if every blasphemy and every word spoken against the Holy Spirit were not forgiven men, the Church would win no one from any kind of ungodliness among those who contradict the gift of Christ and the sanctification of the Church, whether pagans, or Jews, or any heretics whatever, or even some of the unlearned within the Catholic Church itself. But far be it that the Lord should have said this: far be it, I say, that the Truth should have said that every blasphemy or every word spoken against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness, neither in this age nor in the age to come.

For he wished to exercise us by the difficulty of the question, not to deceive us by the falsity of the sentence. Therefore it is not necessary for anyone to think that every blasphemy or every word spoken against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness; but it is plainly necessary that there be some blasphemy and some word which, if spoken against the Holy Spirit, never merits any pardon and forgiveness. For if we take it as “every,” who could be saved? But if, on the other hand, we think there is none, we contradict the Saviour. There is, then, without doubt some blasphemy and some word which, if spoken against the Holy Spirit, will not be forgiven. But what this word is the Lord wished us to ask; that is why he did not state it. He wished it to be sought, I say, not denied. For the Scriptures are accustomed to speak so that, when something is said in a way that is determined neither as of the whole nor as of a part, it is not necessary that, because it could be meant of the whole, it should not also be understood of a part. This sentence, then, would be pronounced of the whole, that is, universally, if it were said, “Every blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven,” or, “Whoever speaks any word whatever against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come.” But it would be pronounced of a part, that is, particularly, if it were said, “A certain blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven.” Since, then, the sentence is stated neither universally nor particularly (for it is not said, “Every blasphemy of the Spirit,” or “a certain blasphemy,” but only indefinitely, “Blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven”; nor is it said, “Whoever speaks any word whatever,” or “whoever speaks a certain word,” but indefinitely, “Whoever speaks a word”), it is not necessary for us to understand every blasphemy or every word; but it is plainly necessary that the Lord wished a certain blasphemy and a certain word to be understood, though he did not wish to state it, so that if by asking, seeking, and knocking we receive some right understanding, we may not hold it cheap.

That you may see this more clearly, notice what the same Lord says of the Jews: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin.” For this was not said in such a way that he wished it understood that the Jews would have been entirely without any sin if he had not come and spoken to them. For he found them full of sins and burdened with them. That is why he says: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.” With what, except the loads of sins and the transgressions of the law? For “the law came in so that offense might abound.” Since, then, he himself also says elsewhere, “I came not to call the righteous but sinners,” how would they not have sin if he had not come, unless because this sentence, pronounced neither universally nor particularly but indefinitely, does not compel us to understand every sin? But plainly, unless we understand some sin that they would not have had if Christ had not come and spoken to them, we would be saying—far be it—that the sentence is false. So he does not say, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin,” lest the Truth should lie. Nor again did he say definitely, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have a certain sin,” lest godly zeal should be too little exercised. For in all the abundance of the holy Scriptures we are fed by what is plain and exercised by what is obscure: by the one hunger is driven away, by the other distaste. Since, then, it is not said, “They would have no sin,” let us not be troubled when we acknowledge that the Jews were sinners even if the Lord had not come. But yet, because it is said, “If I had not come, they would not have sin,” it necessarily follows that, even if not every sin, they nonetheless contracted from the Lord’s coming some sin that they did not have before. That is surely this: that they did not believe him when he was present and speaking to them, and, regarding him as an enemy because he spoke the truth, they even killed him. This sin, so great and horrible, they would certainly not have had if he had not come and spoken to them. As, then, there, when we hear, “They would not have sin,” we understand not every sin but some sin, so in today’s reading, when we hear, “Blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven,” we ought to understand not every blasphemy but a certain one; and when we hear, “Whoever speaks a word against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him,” not every word but a certain one.

For this very thing that he says, “But blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven,” we must surely understand of blasphemy not of every spirit but of the Holy Spirit. Even if he did not say this more plainly elsewhere, who would be so senseless as to understand anything else? By this rule of speech this too is taken: “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit.” For he does not say there, “and the Holy Spirit”; yet this is understood. Nor, because he said “of water and the Spirit,” is anyone compelled to understand every spirit. So when you hear, “But blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven,” just as you should not take it of every spirit, so you should not take it of every blasphemy of the Spirit.

I see that you now want to hear, since it is not every blasphemy, what that blasphemy of the Spirit is which will not be forgiven; and what the word is, since it is not every word, which, if spoken against the Holy Spirit, will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the age to come. I too would like now to say what you are so intently waiting to hear; but bear with some delays for greater care, until, with the Lord’s help, I set out all that occurs to me. For the other two evangelists, Mark and Luke, speaking of this matter, did not say “blasphemy” or “word” so that we might understand not every blasphemy but a certain one, nor every word but a certain one. What, then, did they say? In Mark it is written thus: “Amen I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and the blasphemies with which they blaspheme; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness forever, but will be guilty of an eternal offense.” In Luke thus: “Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit it will not be forgiven.” Do we depart from the truth of the same sentence because of some difference of words? For there is no other reason why the evangelists do not say the same things in the same way, except that we may learn from it to put things before words, not words before things, and to seek nothing else in a speaker but his intention, for the conveying of which words are uttered. For what difference does it make whether it is said, “Blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven,” or “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him”? Except perhaps that the same thing is said more plainly in this way than in that, and one evangelist does not destroy another but explains him. “Blasphemy of the Spirit” is said obscurely, because it is not stated whose spirit. For not every spirit is the Holy Spirit. Again, “blasphemy of the spirit” can be said when someone blasphemes with the spirit, as “prayer of the spirit” can be said when someone prays with the spirit. Hence the Apostle says: “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind.” But when it is said, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,” those ambiguities are resolved. Likewise what is written, “He has no forgiveness forever, but will be guilty of an eternal offense”: what is it but what is read in Matthew, “It will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come”? The very same sentence is expressed in other words and another manner of speaking. And what is in Matthew, “Whoever speaks a word against the Holy Spirit,” the others put more plainly, lest we understand anything other than blasphemy: “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit.” Yet the same thing was said by all, and none of them departed from the intention of the speaker, for the understanding of which words are spoken, written, read, and heard.

But someone says: “See, I have accepted and understood that when ‘blasphemy’ is said, and it is not stated whether every blasphemy or a certain one, a certain one can be understood, or every one; but it is not necessary that it be every one; yet unless a certain one is understood, what is said is false. So too with ‘word’: if it is not said ‘every’ or ‘a certain,’ it is not necessary that every word be understood; but unless at least a certain word is understood, what is said can in no way be true. But where one reads, ‘Whoever blasphemes,’ how am I to understand a certain blasphemy, where ‘blasphemy’ is not read, or a certain word, where ‘word’ is not read, but it seems to be said generally, as it were, ‘Whoever blasphemes’?” To this objection we answer thus: here too, if it were said, “Whoever blasphemes with any blasphemy whatever against the Holy Spirit,” there would be no reason to think we should look for some particular blasphemy, since we would have to understand every one. But since every one cannot be understood, lest the hope of forgiveness, if they correct themselves, be taken away from pagans, Jews, heretics, and every kind of men who by their various errors and contradictions blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, it certainly remains that in what is written, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness forever,” that man is to be understood who has blasphemed not in any way whatever but in such a way that he can never be pardoned.

For just as, in the saying “God tempts no one,” it must be understood that God tempts no one not with every kind of temptation but with a certain kind—lest what is written be false, “The Lord your God tempts you”; and lest we deny that Christ is God, or call the Gospel false, where we read that he questioned a disciple, testing him, “but he himself knew what he would do”—for there is a temptation that leads to sin, by which God tempts no one, and there is a temptation that proves faith, by which God too deigns to tempt: so when we hear, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,” we ought not to take it of every kind of blaspheming, just as there we do not take it of every kind of tempting.