Sermons to the People 83.1–85.7

Yesterday the holy Gospel admonished us not to neglect the sins of our brothers: “But if your brother sins against you,” it says, “rebuke him between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he despises you, take with you two or three, so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. But if he despises them too, tell the Church. And if he despises the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector.” Today too the passage that follows, which we heard just now when it was read, concerns the same matter. For when the Lord Jesus had said this, Peter went on to ask the Master how often he should forgive a brother who had sinned against him; and he asked whether seven times would be enough. The Lord answered him: “Not only seven times, but seventy times seven.” Then he told a very terrible parable: that the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who settled accounts with his servants, and among them he found a debtor of ten thousand talents. And when he had ordered that all he had, and all his household, and he himself be sold, and the debt paid, the man fell at his master’s knees and asked for delay, and obtained remission. For his master had pity on him, as we heard, and forgave him the whole debt. But he, free of the debt but a slave of iniquity, after he went out from his master’s presence, himself found a debtor of his, who owed not ten thousand talents, as much as his own debt had been, but a hundred denarii: he began to drag him by the throat and to say, “Pay what you owe.” And that man begged his fellow servant as he himself had begged his master; but this one did not find such a fellow servant as the other had found a master. Not only would he not forgive him the debt, but he did not even grant delay. He dragged him by force to payment, he who was already free of his debt to the master. The fellow servants were displeased, and reported to their master what had happened; and the master had the servant brought and said to him: “Wicked servant, when you owed me so much, I had pity on you and forgave you everything; should you not then also have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” And he ordered all that he had forgiven him to be exacted.

So he set forth this parable for our instruction, and by warning us he showed that he did not want us to perish. “So also,” he says, “your heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your hearts.” See, brothers, the matter is plain, the warning useful; and a very wholesome obedience is owed, so that what is commanded may be fulfilled. For every man is both God’s debtor and has his brother as his debtor. For who is not God’s debtor, except one in whom no sin can be found? And who does not have a brother as his debtor, except one against whom no one has sinned? Do you think anyone can be found in the human race who is not himself bound to his brother by some sin? Every man, then, is a debtor, yet himself has a debtor too. Therefore God, being just, has set you a rule regarding your debtor, which he too will follow with his. For there are two works of mercy that set us free, which the Lord himself set down briefly in the Gospel: “Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.” “Forgive, and you will be forgiven” concerns pardon. “Give, and it will be given to you” concerns doing good. As to what he says of pardon: you too want to be pardoned for your sins, and you have another whom you can pardon. Again, as to doing good: a beggar asks of you, and you are God’s beggar. For all of us, when we pray, are God’s beggars: we stand before the door of the great householder, indeed we prostrate ourselves, we groan as suppliants, wanting to receive something; and that something is God himself. What does the beggar ask of you? Bread. And what do you ask of God but Christ, who says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven”? Do you want to be pardoned? Pardon: “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Do you want to receive? “Give, and it will be given to you.”

But hear what can trouble one in this plain command. In forgiveness, where pardon is asked and is owed by the one who forgives, there can be a difficulty, the one that troubled Peter. “How often,” he says, “must I forgive? Is up to seven times enough?” “It is not enough,” says the Lord: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Now count how often your brother has sinned against you. If you can reach the seventy-eighth fault, so as to pass seventy times seven, then contrive revenge. Is what he says really so, and is it truly the case that if he sins seventy times seven you are to forgive, but if he sins seventy-eight times you may then refuse to forgive? I dare, I dare to say that even if he sins seventy-eight times you are to forgive. If, as I said, he sins seventy-eight times, forgive. And if he sins a hundred times, forgive. And why should I name this number and that? Altogether, as often as he sins, forgive. Have I then dared to go beyond my Lord’s measure? He fixed the limit of forgiveness at the number seventy-seven: shall I presume to leap over this limit? It is not so; I have not dared anything more. I heard my Lord himself speaking in his Apostle, where no measure or number is set. For he says: “Forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another, as God in Christ forgave you.” You have heard the pattern. If Christ forgave you sins seventy times seven, if he pardoned up to that point and refused beyond it, then set a limit yourself, and do not forgive beyond it. But if Christ found thousands of sins in sinners and yet forgave them all, do not withdraw your mercy, but ask for the explanation of that number. For not without reason did the Lord say seventy times seven, since there is no fault whatever that you ought not to forgive. See, that very servant who, while a debtor, was found to have a debtor, owed ten thousand talents. For I think that ten thousand talents are, to say the least, ten thousand sins; for I would not say that a single talent comprises all sins. But how much did that fellow servant owe him? He owed a hundred denarii. Is this not already more than seventy times seven? And yet the Lord was angry because he did not forgive it. For not only are a hundred more than seventy-seven, but a hundred denarii are perhaps a thousand asses. But what is that to ten thousand talents?

And so let us be ready to forgive all the faults committed against us, if we desire to be forgiven. For if we consider our sins and count what we have done by deed, by eye, by ear, by thought, by countless impulses, I do not know whether we can sleep without owing a talent. So every day we ask, every day we knock at the divine ears by praying, every day we prostrate ourselves and say: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” What debts of yours? All, or some part? You will answer: All. So, then, you too must forgive all to your debtor. This, then, is the rule you lay down; this the condition you state; this the pact and agreement you recall when you pray, saying, “Forgive us, as we also forgive our debtors.”

What, then, does seventy times seven mean? Hear, brothers, a great mystery, a wonderful sacrament. When the Lord was baptized, the holy evangelist Luke recorded there his generations: in what order, in what series, by what line of descent one came to that generation in which Christ was born. Matthew began from Abraham and came down as far as Joseph, descending; but Luke began to count ascending. Why the one descending, the other ascending? Because Matthew was setting forth the generation of Christ by which he came down to us; so, since Christ was born, he began to count descending. But Luke began to count when Christ was baptized—there is the beginning of ascent—so he began to count ascending, and in counting he completed seventy-seven generations. From whom did he count? Pay attention: from whom. He began to count from Christ up to Adam himself, who first sinned and begot us with the bond of sin. He reached as far as Adam, and seventy-seven generations are counted: that is, from Christ to Adam, the seventy-seven we mentioned, and from Adam to Christ seventy-seven. If, then, no generation has been passed over, no fault is passed over that ought not to be forgiven. For that is why he enumerated seventy-seven generations of Christ, the number which the Lord commended in the forgiveness of sins: because he began to count from the baptism, where all sins are loosed.

And in this, brothers, receive a still greater sacrament. In the number seventy-seven is the mystery of the forgiveness of sins: so many generations are found from Christ to Adam. Then question the secret of this number a little more carefully, search out its hiding places: knock more carefully, so that it may be opened to you. Righteousness consists in the law of God: that is true. For the law is set forth in ten commandments. That is why that man owed ten thousand talents. This is that memorable Decalogue, written by the finger of God and delivered to the people through Moses the servant of God. So that man owed ten thousand talents: it signifies all sins, because of the number of the law. And the other owed a hundred denarii: no less from the same number. For a hundred times a hundred make ten thousand, and ten times ten a hundred. The one owed ten thousand talents, and the other ten times ten denarii. For there is no departure from the number of the law, and in both you will find all sins. Both are debtors, both bewailed their debt and obtained pardon; but that bad servant, ungrateful, unjust, would not pay back what he received, would not grant what had been granted to him though unworthy.

See, then, brothers: everyone begins from baptism; he goes out free; the ten thousand talents have been forgiven him; and when he goes out, he will find his fellow servant his debtor. Let him consider sin itself, then: for the number eleven is the transgression of the law. For the law is ten, sin eleven: the law by ten, sin by eleven. Why is sin by eleven? Because to go to eleven is to transgress ten. In the law a measure is fixed; transgression is sin. As soon as you transgress ten, you come to eleven. So great a mystery was figured when the tabernacle was ordered to be built. Many things were stated there by number, in a great sacrament. Among other things, curtains of goat’s hair were ordered to be made, not ten but eleven, because goat’s hair signifies the confession of sins. What more do you seek? Do you want to know that all sins are contained in this number seventy-seven? Seven is commonly reckoned for the whole, since time revolves in seven days, and when the seven is finished it returns again to the beginning, so that the same form revolves. By revolutions of this kind the ages pass; yet the number seven is never departed from. For he spoke of all sins when he said seventy times seven: because if you take that eleven seven times, it makes seventy-seven. So he who marked them out beforehand by the number seventy-seven willed all sins to be forgiven. Let no one hold the debt fast against himself by not forgiving, lest it be held fast against him when he prays. For God says: Forgive, and you will be forgiven. I forgave first: at least forgive afterward. For if you do not forgive, I will call you back, and whatever I had forgiven you I will demand again. For the Truth does not lie; Christ does not deceive or be deceived, who added, saying: “So also your Father who is in heaven will do to you.” You find a Father: imitate the Father. For if you will not imitate him, you are arranging to be disinherited. “So also,” he says, “will your heavenly Father do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brothers from your hearts.” Do not say with the tongue, “I forgive,” and put it off in your heart. For God shows you the punishment by threatening vengeance. God knows where you speak. Man heard your voice; God inspects your conscience. If you say, “I forgive,” forgive. It is better to shout with your mouth and forgive in your heart than to be smooth in mouth and cruel in heart.

Now, then, undisciplined boys plead and do not want to be beaten, and they raise this objection against us when we want to discipline them: “I have sinned, forgive me.” See, I forgave, and he sins again. “Forgive.” I forgave. He sins a third time. “Forgive.” A third time I forgave. Now, the fourth time, let him be beaten. And he says: “Have I tired you out seventy times seven?” If by this objection the severity of discipline falls asleep, with discipline suppressed wickedness rages unpunished. What, then, is to be done? Let us rebuke with words, and if need be with blows too; but let us forgive the offense and cast the fault out of our heart. For that is why the Lord added, “from your hearts”: so that, if discipline is imposed out of charity, gentleness may not depart from the heart. For what is so kind as a doctor carrying his scalpel? The one to be cut weeps, and is cut; the one to be cauterized weeps, and is cauterized. That is not cruelty; far be it that the doctor should be called savage. He is severe on the wound so that the man may be healed; for if the wound is merely stroked, the man is lost. So let me warn you of these things, my brothers: let us love in every way our brothers who have sinned, let us not let charity toward them go out of our hearts, and let us give discipline when it is needed, lest through the relaxing of discipline wickedness grow and we begin to be accused before God; for it was read to us, “Rebuke those who sin before all, so that the rest may have fear.” Certainly, if one distinguishes the occasions, which alone is right, the question is solved, and it is true. If the sin is in secret, rebuke in secret. If the sin is public and open, rebuke publicly, so that he may be corrected and the rest may fear.

The Lord said to a certain young man: “If you want to come to life, keep the commandments.” He did not say, “If you want to come to eternal life,” but, “If you want to come to life,” defining as life that which would be eternal life. So let us first commend the love of this life. For even this life, of whatever kind, is loved; and people fear and dread to end even this life, of whatever kind, full of hardship and misery. From this we must see, from this consider, how eternal life is to be loved, when this miserable life, which will someday end, is loved so much. Consider, brothers, how much that life is to be loved where you never end life. You love this life, then, where you labor so much, run, bustle, pant; and the things necessary in a miserable life can scarcely be counted: sowing, ploughing, planting new vines, sailing, grinding, cooking, weaving; and after all this you will end your life. See what you suffer in this miserable life that you love; and do you think you will always live and never die? Temples, rocks, marbles, held together with iron and lead, still fall: and does man think he will never die? Learn, then, brothers, to seek eternal life, where you will not endure these things but will reign with God forever. For he who wants life, as the prophet says, loves to see good days. For in bad days death is wished for rather than life. Do we not hear and see people, when they are placed in some tribulations and straits, in conflicts and sicknesses, and see themselves suffering, say nothing but, “God, send me death; hasten my days”? And sometimes sickness comes: people run, doctors are brought, gold coins and gifts are promised. Death itself says to you: “See, here I am, whom a little while ago you were asking of the Lord; why do you want to flee me now? I have found you a deceiver, and a lover of a miserable life.”

Of these days that we spend, the Apostle says: “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Are the days not evil, then, which we spend in the corruption of this flesh, in so great, or under so great, a burden of a corruptible body, among so many temptations, among so many difficulties, where pleasure is false, there is no security of joy, fear tortures, desire is greedy, sadness is dry? See how evil the days are; and no one wants to end those evil days, and people ask God much for this very thing, that they may live long. But what is it to live long but to be tortured long? What else is living long but adding evil days to evil days? And when boys grow, days seem to be added to them; and they do not know that they are being diminished: it is a false reckoning. For as they grow, days are taken away rather than added. Allot some newborn man, for example, eighty years: whatever he lives, he subtracts from the total. And foolish people rejoice at many birthdays, both their own and their children’s. O prudent man! If the wine in your skin diminishes, you are sad: you lose days, and you rejoice? So the days are evil, and all the worse because they are loved. This world flatters so much that no one wants to end a life of hardship. For true and blessed life is this: when we shall rise again and reign with Christ. For the ungodly too will rise again, but to go into the fire. So there is no life except blessed life; and blessed life cannot be except eternal, where the days are good—and not many, but one. They are called “days” from the custom of this life. That day knows no rising, knows no setting. No tomorrow succeeds that day, because no yesterday precedes it. This day, or these days, and this life, the true life, we have in promise. It is, then, the reward of some work. If we love the reward, let us not fail in the work, and we shall reign with Christ forever.

The Gospel reading that has just sounded in our ears, brothers, wants a hearer and a doer more than an expounder. What is clearer than this light: “If you want to come to life, keep the commandments”? What, then, am I to say? “If you want to come to life, keep the commandments.” Who is there who does not want life? And yet who is there who wants to keep the commandments? If you do not want to keep the commandments, why do you seek life? If you are lazy about the work, why do you hurry to the wages? That rich young man said he had kept the commandments; he heard greater precepts: “If you want to be perfect, one thing you lack: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor”—you will not lose it, but “you will have treasure in heaven”—“and come, follow me.” For what does it profit you if you do this and do not follow me? But he went away sad and sorrowful, as you have heard, for he had great riches. What he heard we too have heard. The Gospel is the mouth of Christ. He sits in heaven, but he does not cease to speak on earth. Let us not be deaf, for he cries out. Let us not be dead, for he thunders. If you do not want to do the greater things, do the lesser. If one of the greater is too much for you, at least take hold of the lesser. Why are you lazy toward both? Why do you oppose both? The greater are: “Sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and follow me.” The lesser are: “You shall not commit murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not seek false testimony; you shall not steal; honor father and mother; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Do these. Why do I cry out to you to sell your goods, when I cannot wring from you that you not seize the goods of others? You heard, “You shall not steal”; you plunder. Before the sight of so great a Judge I now hold you not as a thief but as a robber. Spare yourself; have pity on yourself. This life still gives you time; do not reject correction. You were a thief yesterday; do not be one today too. Perhaps you have been one today too; not tomorrow. At some time end the evil, and claim good as your reward. You want to have good things and do not want to be good: your life contradicts your wishes. If it is a great good to have a good country estate, how great an evil is it to have a bad soul?

The rich man went away saddened, and the Lord said: “How difficult it is for one who has riches to enter the kingdom of heaven!” And how difficult it would be he showed by the comparison he set forth, showing it to be so difficult as to be altogether impossible. For everything impossible is difficult, but not everything difficult is impossible. See how difficult it is; consider the comparison: “Amen I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” A camel entering through the eye of a needle! If he had said a flea, it would be impossible. Then, hearing this, the disciples were saddened and said: “If it is so, who then can be saved?” Who of the rich? Poor people, hear Christ: I speak to the people of God. You poor are more numerous; you at least take this in; and yet listen. All of you who glory in poverty, beware of pride, lest humble rich people outdo you; beware of ungodliness, lest godly rich people outdo you; beware of drunkenness, lest sober rich people outdo you. Do not glory in poverty, if they ought not to glory in riches.

Let the rich hear, if there are any; let them hear the Apostle: “Command the rich of this world”—because there are rich of another age. The poor are rich of another age; the apostles were rich of another age, who said, “As having nothing and possessing all things.” That you may know of which rich he speaks, he added, “of this world.” Let the rich of this world, then, hear the Apostle: “Command,” he says, “the rich of this world not to be proud-minded.” The first worm of riches is pride. An evil moth, it gnaws the whole and reduces it to ashes. “Command them,” then, “not to be proud-minded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches,” lest perhaps you go to sleep rich and rise poor. “Nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches” (these are the Apostle’s words), “but in the living God,” he says. A thief takes away your gold; who takes away your God? What does the rich man have, if he does not have God? What does the poor man not have, if he has God? So he says not to hope in riches, “but in the living God, who provides us richly with all things to enjoy”; and with all these things, himself.

If, then, they ought not to hope in riches, not trust in them, but in the living God, what are they to do with their riches? Hear what: “Let them be rich in good works.” What is this? Explain, Apostle. For many do not want to understand what they do not want to do. Explain, Apostle; do not give occasion for evil work through obscurity of speech. Tell us what you said: “Let them be rich in good works.” Let them hear, let them understand: let them not be allowed to excuse themselves, but rather let them begin to accuse themselves and to say what we just heard in the psalm: “For I acknowledge my sin.” Tell us what “Let them be rich in good works” is. What is “Let them give readily”? Is this not understood either? “Let them give readily, let them share.” You have, another does not have: share, so that it may be shared with you. Share here, and you will share there. Share bread here, and you will receive bread there. What bread here? That which you gather with sweat and toil, from the curse on the first man. What bread there? He who said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” You are rich here, but you are poor there. You have gold, but you do not yet hold Christ present. Pay out what you have, so that you may receive what you do not have. “Let them be rich in good works, let them give readily, let them share.”

Are they, then, to lose their goods? He said “let them share,” not “let them give everything.” Let them keep for themselves as much as is enough; let them keep more than is enough. Let us give from it a certain portion. What portion? A tenth. The scribes and Pharisees gave tithes. Let us blush, brothers: they gave tithes, they for whom Christ had not yet shed his blood. The scribes and Pharisees gave tithes; so do not think you are doing something great because you break bread for the poor; that is scarcely a thousandth of your means. And yet I do not blame it: at least do this. So thirsty am I, so hungry, that I rejoice even at these crumbs. But I will not keep silent about what was said by the Living One who died for us: “Unless your righteousness exceeds,” he says, “that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Let him not flatter us: he is a doctor; he cuts to the quick. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and Pharisees gave tithes. What about you? Question yourselves. See what you do, and out of how much you do it; what you give, what you leave yourselves; what you spend on mercy, what you reserve for luxury. So: “Let them give readily, let them share, let them store up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold of true life.”

I have admonished the rich: hear, you poor. You rich, pay out; you poor, do not plunder. You rich, give away your means; you poor, restrain your desires. Hear, you poor, the same apostle: “But godliness is great gain.” Gain is the acquisition of profit. “Godliness,” he says, “with sufficiency is great gain.” You have the world in common with the rich; you do not have a house in common with the rich; but you have heaven in common, light in common. Seek sufficiency, seek what is enough, do not want more. The rest weighs down rather than lifts up; burdens rather than honors. “Great gain is godliness with sufficiency.” Godliness first of all. Godliness is the worship of God. “Godliness with sufficiency. For we brought nothing into this world.” Did you bring something here? But neither did you rich bring anything. You found everything here; you were born naked with the poor. [Common to both is the] weakness of the body, common the crying of infants, witness of our miseries. “For we brought nothing into this world” (he is speaking to the poor), “but neither can we take anything out. Having food and clothing, [let us be content with these. For those who want to] become [rich]”: those who want to become rich, not those who are. For those who are, let them be. They have heard what concerns them: that they be rich in good works, give readily, share. They themselves have heard. You who are not yet rich, hear: “Those who want to become rich fall into temptation and snares, and many harmful desires.” Do you not fear? Hear what follows: “which plunge men into ruin and perdition.” Do you not fear? “For avarice is the root of all evils.” Avarice is wanting to become rich, not already being rich. That is avarice. Do you not fear being plunged into ruin and perdition? Do you not fear avarice, the root of all evils? You root out the root of thorns from your field, and do you not root out from your heart the root of evil desires? You clean your field, from which your belly may get its fruit, and do you not clean your heart, where your God may dwell? “For avarice is the root of all evils; following it, some have wandered from the faith and have pierced themselves with many sorrows.”

You have heard what to do; you have heard what to fear; you have heard how the kingdom of heaven is bought; you have heard how the kingdom of heaven is hindered. Be all of one mind in the word of God. God [made] both rich and poor. [Scripture says: The rich man] and the poor man have met each other. On what road, if not in this life? The rich man was born, the poor man was born. You have met each other walking the same road. You, do not oppress; you, do not defraud. This one is in need; that one has. But the Lord made both. Through the one who has, he helps the one in need; through the one who does not have, he tests the one who has. We have heard, we have spoken: let us fear, let us beware, let us pray, let us arrive.