Sermons to the People 71.31–73.4

So the little ones in Christ established in the Church, still natural and carnal, have this Spirit, though they are unable to perceive, that is, to understand and know, what they have. For how would they be little ones in Christ unless they had been reborn of the Holy Spirit? Nor should it seem strange that someone has something and does not know what he has. For, to say nothing of the divinity of the Almighty and the unity of the unchangeable Trinity, who easily perceives by knowledge what the soul is? And who does not have a soul? Finally, that we may know most certainly that the little ones in Christ who do not perceive the things of the Spirit of God nevertheless have the Spirit of God, let us look a little further on at the apostle Paul, how, rebuking these very people, he says: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” He would by no means say this to those separated from the Church, who were said to be “not having the Spirit.”

But neither is he to be said to be in the Church and to belong to this fellowship of the Spirit who mingles with Christ’s sheep only by bodily mixing, with a feigned heart. For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful. Therefore, whoever are baptized in the congregations, or rather segregations, of schismatics or heretics, although they are not reborn of the Spirit, being like Ishmael, who was born to Abraham according to the flesh, not like Isaac, who was born according to the Spirit, because through promise, yet, when they come to the Catholic Church and are joined to the fellowship of the Spirit, which outside they without doubt did not have, the washing of the flesh is not repeated for them. For this form of godliness was not lacking even to those placed outside; but there is added to them what cannot be given except within: the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. For before they were Catholics they were such as the Apostle speaks of: “Having the form of godliness, but denying its power.” For the visible form of a branch can exist even apart from the vine; but the invisible life of the root cannot be had except in the vine. So the bodily sacraments, which even those separated from the unity of Christ’s body carry and celebrate, can display the form of godliness; but the invisible and spiritual power of godliness cannot be in them, just as feeling does not follow a member of a man when it is cut off from the body.

Since this is so, the forgiveness of sins, since it is not given except in the Holy Spirit, can be given only in that Church which has the Holy Spirit. For this is what the forgiveness of sins does: that the prince of sin, the spirit divided against itself, may not reign in us; that, rescued from the power of the unclean spirit, we may from then on be made the temple of the Holy Spirit; and that we may receive as our indweller, for producing, increasing, and perfecting righteousness, the very one by whom we are cleansed in receiving pardon. For at his first coming, when those who had received him spoke in the tongues of all nations, and the apostle Peter was addressing the amazed bystanders, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the apostles: “What then shall we do, brothers? Show us.” And Peter said to them: “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Both certainly took place in the Church, in which the Holy Spirit was: that is, both the forgiveness of sins and the receiving of this gift. And it was “in the name of Jesus Christ” because, when he promised the same Holy Spirit, he said, “whom the Father will send in my name.” For the Holy Spirit does not dwell in anyone without the Father and the Son, as neither does the Son without the Father and the Holy Spirit, nor the Father without them. For the indwelling of those whose working is inseparable is inseparable; but they are often shown singly through signs in creatures, not in their own substance; just as their names are pronounced separately by the voice, in syllables each occupying its own span of time, and yet the persons are not separated from one another by any intervals and moments of time. For the names can never be spoken together, while the persons cannot be except always together. But, as we have said more than once, the forgiveness of sins, by which the kingdom of the spirit divided against itself is overthrown and expelled, and the fellowship of the unity of God’s Church, outside of which this forgiveness of sins does not take place, is as it were the proper work of the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son of course cooperating, because the Holy Spirit himself is in a certain way the fellowship of the Father and the Son. For the Father is not had in common as Father by the Son and the Holy Spirit, because he is not the Father of both. And the Son is not had in common as Son by the Father and the Holy Spirit, because he is not the Son of both. But the Holy Spirit is had in common by the Father and the Son, because he is the one Spirit of both.

Whoever, then, is guilty of impenitence against the Spirit, in whom the unity and fellowship of the communion of the Church is gathered, will never be forgiven, because he has shut himself out from the place where forgiveness is given; and he will rightly be condemned with the spirit that is divided against itself, since he too is divided against the Holy Spirit, who is not divided against himself. The Gospel testimonies themselves also remind us of this, if we examine them more attentively. For according to Luke, the Lord does not say that he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven at the point where he answers those who said that he casts out demons by the prince of demons. From this it appears that the Lord said this more than once, and that there too we must not carelessly pass over the place where it was said. For he was speaking of those who had confessed him or denied him before men, when he says: “But I say to you, whoever confesses me before men, the Son of Man will also confess him before the angels of God; but whoever denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” And lest the salvation of the apostle Peter, who denied him three times before men, be despaired of on this account, he at once added: “And 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”: namely, by that blasphemy of the impenitent heart by which the forgiveness of sins that takes place in the Church through the Holy Spirit is resisted. This blasphemy Peter did not have, for he soon repented when he wept bitterly; and having overcome the spirit that is divided against itself, which had demanded to sift him, against which the Lord prayed for him that his faith might not fail, he also received the very Holy Spirit whom he had not resisted, so that not only was his sin forgiven him, but through him the forgiveness of sins was preached and given.

In the other two evangelists, the occasion for this sentence about blasphemy of the Spirit, as they narrate it, arose from the mention of the unclean spirit, which is divided against itself. For it had been said of the Lord that he cast out demons by the prince of demons; there the Lord says that he casts out demons by the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit who is not divided against himself conquers and casts out the one who is divided against himself, while that man remains in the latter’s perdition who refuses through impenitence to pass over into the peace of the one who is not divided against himself. Mark narrates it thus: “Amen I say to you, all sins will be forgiven 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.” Having recorded these words of the Lord, he then added his own, saying: “Because they were saying, He has an unclean spirit,” to show that the occasion for his saying this arose from their having said that he drove out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Not that this was the blasphemy that is not forgiven, since even this is forgiven if right repentance follows; but because from this, as I said, the occasion arose for the Lord to utter that sentence, mention having been made of the unclean spirit, which the Lord showed to be divided against itself, in contrast with the Holy Spirit, who not only is not divided against himself but makes those he gathers undivided, by forgiving the sins that are divided against themselves and by dwelling in those he has cleansed; so that it may be as is written in the Acts of the Apostles: “The multitude of believers had one heart and one soul.” No one resists this gift of forgiveness except one who has the hardness of an impenitent heart. For in another place too the Jews said of the Lord that he had a demon, and yet he said nothing there about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, because they did not charge him with an unclean spirit in such a way that it could be shown from their own mouths to be divided against itself, as was Beelzebub, by whom they said demons could be cast out.

But in this reading according to Matthew, the Lord disclosed much more plainly what he wished to be understood here: namely, that he speaks a word against the Holy Spirit who with an impenitent heart resists the unity of the Church, where the forgiveness of sins takes place in the Holy Spirit. For, as has already been said, those do not have this Spirit who, though they carry and handle the sacraments of Christ, are cut off from his congregation. For when he had spoken of the division of Satan against Satan, and said that he himself cast out demons by the Holy Spirit, surely by the Spirit who is not divided against himself as that one is, he at once added—lest anyone think, because of those who gather their conventicles under the name of Christ outside his fold, that the kingdom of Christ too is divided against itself—“He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters”: to show that those do not belong to him who, by gathering outside, chose not to gather but to scatter. Then he added: “Therefore I say to you: every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men; but blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven.” What is this? Is blasphemy of the Spirit alone not forgiven precisely because he who is not with Christ is against him, and he who does not gather with him scatters? Precisely so. For he who does not gather with him, in whatever way he may gather under his name, does not have the Holy Spirit.

Here entirely, here he compels us to understand that the forgiveness of every sin and every blasphemy cannot take place elsewhere than in the congregation of Christ, which does not scatter. For it is gathered in the Holy Spirit, who is not divided against himself as that unclean spirit is. And therefore all the congregations, or rather dispersions, which call themselves churches of Christ, and are divided and opposed among themselves, and hostile to the congregation of unity, which is his true Church, do not belong to his congregation because they seem to have his name. They would belong to it, however, if the Holy Spirit, in whom this congregation is united, were divided against himself. But since this is not so—for he who is not with Christ is against him, and he who does not gather with him scatters—therefore every sin and every blasphemy will be forgiven men in this congregation which Christ gathers in the Holy Spirit, who is not divided against himself. But that blasphemy of the Spirit himself, by which this so great gift of God is resisted with an impenitent heart until the end of this life, will not be forgiven. For even if someone is so opposed to the truth as to struggle against God speaking, not in the prophets, but in his only Son, whom for our sake he willed to be the Son of Man so as to speak to us in him, it will be forgiven him when by repenting he has turned to the kindness of God, who, since he does not will the death of the ungodly so much as that he turn and live, gave his Church the Holy Spirit, so that whoever’s sins she forgives in him, they would be forgiven. But if anyone becomes an enemy to this gift, so that he does not seek it through repentance but contradicts it through impenitence, it becomes unforgivable: not any sin whatever, but the very forgiveness of sins despised or even attacked. And so a word is spoken against the Holy Spirit when one never comes from the dispersion to the congregation that received the Holy Spirit for forgiving sins. And if anyone comes to that congregation with an unfeigned heart, even through a bad cleric, reprobate and feigned, provided he is a Catholic minister, he receives forgiveness of sins in that very Holy Spirit. For that Spirit in the holy Church, even at this time when it is threshed like a threshing floor with the chaff, so works that he spurns no one’s true confession and is deceived by no one’s pretense, and so flees the reprobate that he gathers the approved even through their ministry. There is, then, one refuge, lest the blasphemy be unforgivable: to guard against the impenitent heart, and to believe that repentance profits only if the Church is held fast, where the forgiveness of sins is given and the fellowship of the Spirit is kept in the bond of peace.

As I could—if indeed I could to any degree—with the Lord’s mercy and help, I have treated a most difficult question. Yet whatever I have not been able to grasp in its difficulty, let it not be imputed to the truth itself, which exercises the godly to their good even when it is hidden, but to my weakness, since I could not either see what was to be understood or explain what I understood. And for those things which we have perhaps been able both to track down by thinking and to set out by speaking, thanks are to be given to him from whom we sought, whom we asked, at whose door we knocked, so that we might have something both to feed ourselves on in meditation and to minister to you in speaking.

The Lord Jesus Christ has admonished us to be good trees, so that we may be able to bear good fruit. For he says: “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.” When he says, “Make the tree good and its fruit good,” this is certainly not a warning but a saving command, to which obedience is necessary. But when he says, “Make the tree bad and its fruit bad,” it is not a command that you should do it, but a warning that you should beware. For he said it against those who thought that, though they were bad, they could speak good things or have good works. The Lord Jesus says that this cannot be. For the man must first be changed, so that his works may be changed. For if a man remains in being bad, he cannot have good works; if he remains in being good, he cannot have bad works.

But who was found good by the Lord, since Christ died for the ungodly? He found all of them bad trees, then; but he gave power to become sons of God to those who believe in his name. Whoever, then, is good today, that is, a good tree, was found bad and was made good. And if, when he came, he had wanted to uproot the bad trees, which would have remained that did not deserve to be uprooted? But he came to bestow mercy first, so as to exercise judgment afterward, he to whom it is said: “Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord.” So he gave believers the forgiveness of sins; he did not want to settle accounts with them even over their past debts. He gave forgiveness of sins; he made the trees good. He put off the axe; he gave security.

Of this axe John speaks, saying: “Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” With this axe the householder threatens in the Gospel, saying: “See, it is three years that I have been coming to this tree, and I find no fruit on it. Now I must clear the ground; so let it be cut down.” And the cultivator intercedes, saying: “Lord, let it alone this year too; I will dig around it and put on a basket of dung; if it bears fruit, well; if not, you will come and cut it down.” The Lord visited the human race, as it were, over three years, that is, in three periods. The first period was before the law; the second under the law; the third is now, which is the time of grace. For if he did not visit the human race before the law, where did Abel come from? Enoch? Noah? Abraham? Isaac? Jacob? whose Lord he wished to be called; and though all nations were his, he said, as if he were the God of three men: “I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.” And under the law, if he had not visited, he would not have given the law itself. After the law the householder himself came: he suffered, died, rose again, gave the Holy Spirit, had the Gospel preached throughout the whole world; and still a certain tree remained unfruitful. There is still a certain part of the human race that does not yet correct itself. The cultivator intercedes: the Apostle prays for the people. “I bend my knees,” he says, “for you before the Father, that, rooted and grounded in charity, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, height and depth; to know also the surpassing knowledge of the charity of Christ, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.” By bending his knees he intercedes for us with the householder, that we may not be uprooted. Since, then, he must come, let us act so that he finds us fruitful. The digging around the tree is the humility of the penitent, for every ditch is low. The basket of dung is the filth of repentance. For what is filthier than dung? And yet, if you use it well, what is more fruitful?

Let each one, then, be a good tree; let him not suppose that he has good fruit if he remains a bad tree. There will be no good fruit except from a good tree. Change the heart, and the work will be changed. Root out greed, plant charity. For as greed is the root of all evils, so charity is the root of all goods. Why, then, do people mutter or argue among themselves, saying, “What is good?” O, if you knew what is good! What you want to have is not very good; what you do not want to be, that is good. You want to have bodily health: that is good; yet do not think it a great good, since a bad man also has it. You want to have gold and silver: see, I say this too is good, but only if you use it well; and you will not use it well if you are bad. And so gold and silver are bad for the bad and good for the good: not because gold and silver make them good, but because, finding them good, they are turned to good use. You want to have honor: it is good, but this too only if you use it well. For how many has honor been an occasion of ruin! For how many has honor been the means of good work!

Let us distinguish these goods, then, if we can, since we are speaking of good trees. And here there is nothing that each one ought to think about so much as to turn his eyes upon himself, to learn himself, to examine himself, to inspect himself, to seek himself, and to find himself; and what displeases him, to kill; what pleases him, to desire and to plant. For when a man finds himself empty of better goods, why is he greedy for external goods? And what use is a chest full of goods with an empty conscience? You want to have goods, and you do not want to be good? Do you not see that you ought to blush for your goods, if your house is full of goods and has you, bad, as its owner? For what is there that you want to have bad? Tell me. Nothing at all: not a wife, not a son, not a daughter, not a manservant, not a maidservant, not a country estate, not a tunic, and finally not even a boot; and yet you want to have a bad life. I beg you, put your life ahead of your boot. All the elegant and beautiful things that surround your eyes are dear to you; and are you cheap and ugly to yourself? If the goods with which your house is full, which you longed to have and feared to lose, could answer you, would they not cry out to you as well: “Just as you want to have us good, so we too want to have a good master”? With a silent voice they appeal against you to your Lord: “See, you have given this man so many goods, and he himself is bad! What does what he has profit him, when he does not have the One who gave him everything?”

Someone, then, admonished by these words of mine, and perhaps pricked to the heart, asks what is good, what kind of good, where good comes from. You have understood well that you ought to ask this. I will answer the questioner and say: That is good which you cannot lose against your will. For you can lose gold even unwillingly; you can lose a house, honors, even the health of the flesh; but the good by which you are truly good you neither receive unwillingly nor lose unwillingly. I ask, then, what kind of good this is. A certain psalm reminds us of a great thing, perhaps the very thing we are seeking. For it says: “Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart?” How long that tree in its three years? “Sons of men, how long heavy of heart?” What is “heavy of heart”? “Why do you love vanity and seek after a lie?” And then it says what is to be sought: “Know that the Lord has magnified his Holy One.” Christ has already come, has already been magnified, has already risen and ascended into heaven; his name is already preached throughout the whole world: how long heavy of heart? Let past times suffice: now that that Holy One has been magnified, how long heavy of heart? After the three years, what remains but the axe? “How long heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after a lie?” Are vain things still, useless things still, showy and fleeting things still sought, now that Christ the Holy One has been magnified? Truth is already crying out, and is vanity still sought? How long heavy of heart?

Rightly is this world being severely scourged; for the world now knows the words of the Lord. “And the servant,” he says, “who does not know his master’s will and does things deserving of stripes will be beaten with few.” Why? So that he may seek his master’s will. The servant who did not know the will was the world before God magnified his Holy One; it was a servant not knowing his master’s will, and so it was beaten with few stripes. But the servant who now knows his master’s will is the world now, since the Godhead magnified his Holy One; and, not doing his will, he will be beaten with many. What wonder, then, if the world is beaten much? It is a servant who knows his master’s will and does things deserving of stripes. Let it not refuse, then, to be beaten with many stripes; for if it unjustly refuses to hear the teacher, it will justly suffer the avenger. Or at least let it not murmur against the one who chastises it, when it sees itself deserving of stripes, so that it may obtain mercy: through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with God the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

Both yesterday and today, as our Lord Jesus Christ spoke, we have heard the parables of the sower. You who were here yesterday, remember today. Yesterday the reading was about that sower who scattered seed: some fell on the path, and the birds gathered it; some on rocky places, and it dried up in the heat; some among thorns, and it was choked and could not be fruitful; some on good ground, and it bore fruit a hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold. But today the Lord told another parable about a sower, who sowed good seed in his field. While men slept, the enemy came and sowed weeds on top. While it was in the blade, it did not yet show; when the fruit of the good seed began to appear, then the weeds also became plain. The servants of the householder were offended, seeing many weeds in the good crop, and wanted to root them out, and were not allowed; but it was said to them, “Let both grow until the harvest.” And the Lord Jesus Christ also explained this parable: he said that he himself was the sower of the good seed, and he showed that the sower of the weeds was the enemy, the devil; the time of harvest, the end of the age; his field, the whole world. But what does he say? “At harvest time I will say to the reapers: Gather first the weeds to burn them, but store my wheat in the barn.” Why are you in such a hurry, he says, servants full of zeal? You see weeds among the grain, you see bad Christians among the good; you want to root out the bad: be still, it is not the time of harvest. Let it come, and let it find you grain. Why are you vexed? Why do you bear it ill that the bad are mixed with the good? They can be with you in the field; they will not be in the barn.

You know those three things mentioned yesterday, where the seed did not prosper: the path, the rocky places, the thorny places; they are the weeds. They received another name in another comparison. For when comparisons are given, or the proper meaning is not expressed, it is not the truth but a likeness of the truth that is expressed through them. I know that few have understood what I am saying; but we speak for the sake of all. In visible things a path is a path, rocky places are rocky places, thorny places are thorny places: they are what they are, because they are named in the proper sense. But in parables and comparisons one thing can be called by many names; so it is not inconsistent for me to tell you that that path, those rocky places, those thorny places are bad Christians, and that they are also the weeds. Is not Christ a lamb? Is not Christ also a lion? Among wild beasts and cattle, a lamb is a lamb and a lion is a lion: Christ is both. Those are each what they are in the proper sense; he is both by likeness. It even happens that by likeness things very far apart are called by one name. For what is so far apart as Christ and the devil? Yet both Christ and the devil are called a lion. Christ a lion: “The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered.” The devil a lion: “Do you not know that your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour?” So both the one and the other are lions: the one a lion for strength, the other a lion for ferocity; the one a lion to conquer, the other a lion to harm. The serpent is the devil, the ancient serpent: were we then commanded to imitate the devil when our Shepherd said to us, “Be simple as doves, shrewd as serpents”? So yesterday I addressed the path, I addressed the rocky places, I addressed the thorny places, and I said: Be changed while you can; turn the hard ground over with the plough, throw the stones out of the field, pull the thorns out of the field. Do not have a hard heart, from which the word of God quickly perishes. Do not have thin soil, where the root of charity does not settle deep. Do not choke with the cares and desires of the world the good seed that is scattered for you by our labors. For the Lord sows, but we are his workers. Be good ground. Yesterday we said it, and today we say to all: let one bear a hundredfold, another sixtyfold, another thirtyfold. In one the fruit is greater, in another less; but all will belong to the barn. Yesterday we said these things; today I address the weeds. Yet the weeds themselves are sheep. O bad Christians! O you who by filling the Church weigh it down by living badly! Correct yourselves before the harvest comes! Do not say, “I sinned, and what happened to me?” God has not lost his power; but he requires repentance of you. This I say to the bad who are nonetheless Christians; this I say to the weeds. For they are in the field, and it can happen that those who are weeds today will be grain tomorrow. So I address the wheat too.

O you Christians who live well, you sigh as few among many, you groan as few among very many. Winter will pass, summer will come; see, the harvest will soon be here. The angels will come, who can separate and do not know how to err. We at this time are like those servants of whom it was said: “Do you want us to go and gather them?” For we would want, if it could be, no bad person to remain among the good. But it was said to us: “Let both grow until the harvest.” Why? Because you are such that you can be deceived. Finally, hear: “Lest perhaps, while you want to root out the weeds, you root out the wheat with them.” What good are you doing? Will you not lay waste my harvest by your diligence? The reapers will come; and he explained who the reapers are: “The reapers are the angels.” We are men; the angels are the reapers. We too shall be equal to the angels of God if we finish the course; but now, when we are vexed against the bad, we are still men. And we must now hear: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” For do you think, my brothers, that these weeds do not climb up into the apse? Do you think they are below and not above? Would that we may not be such! “But for me it is a very small thing to be judged by you.” I tell your Charity plainly: in the apse there is wheat and there are weeds; and among the people there is wheat and there are weeds. Let the good bear with the bad; let the bad be changed and imitate the good. Let us all, if it can be, belong to God; let us all escape the wickedness of this age in his mercy. Let us seek good days, since we are in bad days; but in the bad days let us not blaspheme, so that we may come to good days.