Sermons to the People 9.13–9.21

But because you neglect the inner fight, and outward fights delight you, you therefore do not want to belong to the new song, in which it is said, "Who trains my hands for battle and my fingers for war." For there is a war that a man wages with himself, fighting against evil desires, reining in avarice, crushing pride, stifling ambition, slaughtering lust. These fights you wage in secret, and you are not conquered in the open. For this your hands are trained for battle and your fingers for war. This is not in your shows. In those shows the hunter is not the same as the lyre-player; the hunter does one thing, the lyre-player another: in God's show they are one. Touch the same ten strings and you will kill the wild beasts; you do both at once. You touch the first string, by which one God is worshipped: the beast of superstition has fallen. You touch the second, by which you do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain: the beast of the error of the abominable heresies that thought so has fallen. You touch the third string, when you do whatever you do for the hope of future rest: the love of this world, crueller than the other beasts, is killed. For people labor in all their business for love of this world: but you, labor in all your good works, not for love of this world, but for the everlasting rest which God promises. See how you do both at once: you touch the strings and kill the beasts; that is, you are both lyre-player and hunter. Do not such shows delight you, where we earn the eyes not of the giver of the games but of the Redeemer? "Honor your father and your mother": you touch the fourth string, paying honor to your parents: the beast of impiety has fallen. "You shall not commit adultery": you touch the fifth string: the beast of lust has fallen. "You shall not kill": you touch the sixth string: the beast of cruelty has fallen. "You shall not steal": you touch the seventh string: the beast of rapacity has fallen. "You shall not bear false witness": you touch the eighth string: the beast of falsehood has fallen. "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife": you touch the ninth string: the beast of adulterous thought has fallen. For it is one thing not to do any such thing beside one's wife, another not to desire another man's wife. That is why there are two commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," and "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods": you touch the tenth string: the beast of greed has fallen. So, with all the beasts falling, you live secure and innocent in the love of God and in human society. Touching ten strings, how many beasts do you kill? For there are many heads under these headings. On each string you will have killed not single beasts but herds of beasts. So you will sing the new song with love, not with fear.

Do not say to yourself, when perhaps you want to do something wanton, "I have no wife; I do what I like; for I am not sinning against my wife." You already know your price; you already know what you approach, what you eat, what you drink; or rather, whom you eat, whom you drink. Keep yourself from sexual immorality. Lest perhaps you say to me: "I am going to the brothel, I am off to a harlot, I am going to a prostitute: I do not violate the commandment in which it is said, 'You shall not commit adultery,' because I do not yet have a wife, nor do I do anything against her; nor do I violate the commandment in which it is said, 'You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.' I who go to a public woman, what commandment do I run foul of?" Do we not find a string to touch? Do we not find a string? With what cord shall we bind this runaway? Let him not flee; there is something to bind him with: but let him love, and it will be not a bond but an ornament. For in those ten strings we find not a bond but an ornament. For the ten commandments are referred to those two, as we have heard, that we love God and our neighbor; and those two to that one. And the one is: "What you do not want done to you, do not do to another." In it the ten are contained, in it the two are contained.

But you say: "If I steal, I do what I do not want to suffer; if I kill, I do what I do not want to suffer from another; if I do not pay honor to my parents, when I want it paid to me by my children, I do what I do not want to suffer; if I am an adulterer and attempt anything of the kind, I do what I do not want to suffer, for if anyone is asked, he says, 'I do not want my wife to do any such thing'; if I covet my neighbor's wife, I do not want anyone to covet mine; I do what I do not want to suffer; if I covet my neighbor's goods, I do not want mine taken away; I do what I do not want to suffer: but when I go to a harlot, to whom do I do what I do not want to suffer?" What is worse: to God himself. Let your Holiness understand. For "What you do not want done to you, do not do to another" belongs to the two commandments. How does it belong to the two commandments? If you do not do to a human being what you do not want to suffer from a human being, it belongs to the commandment about the neighbor, to the love of neighbor, to the seven strings; but if what you do not want to suffer from a human being you want to do to God himself, what is this? Do you not do to another what you do not want to suffer? Has a human being become dearer to you than God? "So how," he says, "do I do it to God himself?" You corrupt yourself. "And how do I do wrong to God by corrupting myself?" How does someone wrong you who perhaps decides to stone your painted portrait, a portrait with your image in your house, set up idly for your empty honor, neither feeling nor speaking nor seeing? If anyone stones it, is that not an insult to you? But when you corrupt in yourself the image of God, which you are, through sexual immorality and the dissipations of lust, you notice that you have not gone to anyone's wife, you notice that you have done nothing against your wife because you have no wife; and do you not notice whose image you have violated through lusts and unlawful sexual immorality? Finally, God, who knows what is useful for you, who truly governs his servants for their benefit, not his own (for he does not need servants as if for help, but you need the Lord's help): the Lord himself, then, who knows what is useful for you, has allowed a wife, nothing more. This he has ordered, this he has commanded, so that his temple, which you have begun to be, may not fall into ruin through unlawful pleasures. Am I the one saying this? Hear the Apostle: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?" He says this to Christians, he says this to the faithful: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone corrupts the temple of God, God will corrupt him." Do you see how he threatens? You do not want your house to be ruined; why do you ruin God's house? Certainly you do to someone what you do not want to suffer. So there is no escape: he is caught who thought he was not caught. For all human sins belong either to the corruption of shameful acts or to crimes of harming. Since you cannot harm God by crimes, you offend him by shameful acts, you offend him by corruptions, in yourself you do him wrong. For you do wrong to his grace, to his house.

If you had a slave, you would want your slave to serve you: serve, then, a better Lord, your God. You did not make your slave; he made both you and your slave: you want the one with whom you were made to serve you, and you do not want to serve him by whom you were made? So when you want your human slave to serve you, and you do not want to serve the Lord your God, you do to God what you do not want to suffer. So that one commandment contains the two, those two contain the ten, those ten contain everything. Sing, then, a new song on the ten-stringed psaltery. And so that you may sing a new song, be new people. Love justice: it has its own beauty. You do not want to see it because you love something else. For if you did not love something else, you would surely see it. Why do you see it when you demand it? Why do you praise fidelity when you demand it from your slave? What a beautiful thing fidelity is! But it is beautiful when it is demanded from a slave; it is seen when it is required of another: when it is demanded of you, it is not seen. You see gold, you do not see fidelity. As gold shines to the eyes of the body, so fidelity shines to the eyes of the heart. You open the eyes of the heart to it when you want your slave to show it to you. If he shows it to you, you praise the slave, and extol him, and say, "I have an excellent slave, a great slave, a faithful slave." What you praise in your slave you do not show to the Lord: and all the more wickedly, because you want to have a better slave than God has in you. God commands your slave to be good toward you. As he commands your wife that, even if you commit adultery, she should not commit adultery, so he commands your slave that, even if you do not serve your Lord, he should serve you. But see that all this serves to admonish you, not to destroy you. For that slave owes it to God, not to you, that he serves you, unworthy as you are, worthily; that is, that he serves you, who are unworthy, well, and serves faithfully, and loves you sincerely. It is just, then, that you too should notice that you are under the Lord, to whom he too looks in order to serve you. Fulfil, then, what was said, "What you do not want done to you, do not do to another." But when you say "another," consider both, the neighbor and God. Sing on the ten-stringed psaltery, sing a new song: agree with the word of God while it is with you on the way. "Agree with your adversary quickly," lest you come before the judge in discord. If you do what you hear, you have come to agreement with him; but if you do not, you are quarrelling with him, and you have not settled until you do it.

And so that you may come to agreement, keep yourselves from detestable corruptions and from detestable consultations: from astrologers, soothsayers, sorcerers, augurs, from sacrileges; keep yourselves, as far as you can, from frivolous shows. If any delights of the world creep into the soul, exercise yourselves in mercy, exercise yourselves in almsgiving, in fasting, in prayer. For by these the daily sins are cleansed, which cannot but creep into the soul, because of human frailty. Do not despise them because they are smaller; but fear them because they are more numerous. Pay attention, my brothers. They are tiny, they are not great. It is not a beast like a lion, which breaks the throat with one bite: but often many tiny beasts kill. If someone is thrown into a place full of fleas, does he not die there? They are not, indeed, larger beasts: but human nature is weak, and can be killed even by the tiniest beasts. So too small sins: you notice that they are small; beware, because they are many. How tiny the grains of sand are! If too much sand is put into a ship, it sinks it so that it perishes. How tiny the drops of rain are! Do they not fill rivers and bring down houses? So do not despise these. But you will say: "And who can be without them?" Lest you say this (for truly no one can), the merciful God, seeing our frailty, has provided remedies against them. What are the remedies? Those of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer: these are the three. And so that you may speak the truth in prayer, perfect almsgiving must be fulfilled. What is perfect almsgiving? That from what you have in abundance you give to him who does not have; and when someone hurts you, you forgive him.

But do not think, brothers, that adulteries may be committed daily and cleansed by daily almsgiving. Daily almsgiving is not enough to cleanse those greater crimes. It is one thing where you change your life, another where you put up with your life. That life must be changed: if you were an adulterer, do not be an adulterer; if you were a fornicator, do not commit fornication; if a murderer, do not be a murderer; if you used to go to the astrologer and the other sacrilegious plagues, stop now. Do you think these things, unless they stop being done, can be cleansed by daily almsgiving? I am speaking of those daily sins which are easily committed either by the tongue, such as a harsh word, or when someone slips into immoderate laughter, or into daily trifles of this kind. There are sins even in things allowed. Even with one's own wife, if the measure of intercourse owed to the procreation of children is exceeded, it is already a sin. For this is the purpose for which a wife is taken: the marriage contract itself shows it, where it is written, "for the sake of procreating children." When you want to use your wife more than the need of procreating children requires, it is already a sin: and daily almsgiving cleanses such sins. In food itself, which is certainly allowed, if perhaps you exceed the measure and take more than is necessary, you sin. These things I speak of are daily: but still they are sins; and they are not light, because they are many. And since they are daily and very many, the ruin of their multitude is to be feared, even if not of their magnitude. Such sins, brothers, we say can be cleansed by daily almsgiving. But give alms, and do not stop. Look at your daily life, teeming with these sins; tiny ones, I mean.

And when you give alms, do not give proudly, nor pray as that Pharisee did. But still, what did he say there? "I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." And the Lord's blood had not yet been shed. We have received so great a price for us, and we do not pay out even as much as the Pharisee. And you have the Lord saying openly in another place, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." So they give tithes; if you give a hundredth, you boast that you have done something great. For you notice what another does not do, not what God commands you to do. You measure yourself by comparison with someone worse, not by the command of someone better. It is not because he does nothing that you do something great: but because there is rejoicing at certain very small works of yours (since your barrenness is so great that there is rejoicing at little things), you flatter yourselves, as though secure, about tiny grains of almsgiving, and forget the heaps of your sins. Perhaps you have brought out some little thing that another either did not have, or did not bring out when he had it. Do not look behind you at who does not do it, but at what God commands you to do. Finally, why, in these worldly concerns, are you not satisfied with those you have outstripped, but want to be rich, equal to those richer than you? You do not notice how many poorer people you surpass: you want to beat the richer. But in almsgiving there is a measure. Here it is said, "How far am I to go?" and there it is not said, "Than how many rich men am I richer?" The needs of countless beggars are not noticed, the multitudes of poor people behind are not looked back at: but the few rich men ahead are set before the eyes. Why, in good works, is that Zacchaeus not looked at, who gave half his goods to the poor? But we are forced to wish that at least that Pharisee might be looked at, who gave a tenth of all that he possessed.

Do not spare perishable treasures, empty treasures. Do not, under a show of devotion, increase your money. "I am keeping it for my children": a great excuse, "I am keeping it for my children." Let us see: your father keeps for you, you keep for your children, your children for their children, and so on through all of them, and no one will do the commandments of God. Why do you not rather spend everything on him who made you out of nothing? He who made you feeds you from what he made; he feeds your children too. For you do not entrust your children better to your patrimony than to your Creator. And indeed people lie. Avarice is evil: they want to cloak it with the name of devotion and whitewash it, so that people may seem to keep for their children what they keep out of avarice. For so that you may know that this is often what happens, it is said of someone: "Why does he not give alms?" "Because he is keeping it for his children." It happens that he loses one of them: if he was keeping it for his children, let him send his share after him. Why does he keep it in his purse, and drop the son from his mind? Give him what is his; give what you were keeping for him. "He is dead," he says. But he has gone ahead to God; his share is owed to the poor; it is owed to him to whom he has gone: it is owed to Christ, for to him he has gone: and he himself said, "Whoever did it to one of these least, did it to me; and whoever did not do it to one of these least, did not do it to me." But what do you say? "I am keeping it for his brothers." If he were alive, would he not have shared it with his brothers? O dead faith! Is your son dead, then? Whatever you say, you owe to the dead what you were keeping for the living. "My son is dead, but still I am keeping my son's share for his brothers." Do you believe like that that he is dead? If Christ has not died for him, he is dead; but if there is faith in you, your son is alive. He is altogether alive; he has not departed but gone ahead. With what face will you come to your son who has gone ahead, when you do not send his share into heaven for him who has gone before? Or can it not be sent into heaven? It certainly can. Hear the Lord himself saying, "Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven." If, then, that treasure is better kept in heaven, should it not be sent to the son, when if it has been sent, it will not perish? Will it be held here, where it can perish, and not sent there, where Christ is the keeper? Certainly the things you keep here and will not send after your son, to whom do you entrust them? You entrust the share of him who has gone ahead to your stewards, and do not entrust it to Christ, to whom he has gone ahead? Is your agent fit for you, and Christ less fit?

You see, brothers, that what people say, "I am keeping it for my children," is a lie. It is a lie, my brothers, it is a lie: people are avaricious. At least in this way let them be forced to confess what they do not want to, when they are ashamed to keep silent about what they are: let them pour out, let them vomit up in confession what they carry. The breast is weighed down by the surfeit of iniquity; let confession vomit it up: but let there be no returning to the vomit in the manner of a dog. Be Christians. It is very little to be called Christians. How much you give to actors! How much you give to hunters in the arena! How much to disreputable people! You give to those who kill you. For through those very displays of pleasures they slay your souls: and you are mad about who gives more. If you were mad about who keeps more, you would be unbearable. To be mad about who keeps more belongs to avarice; to be mad about who gives more belongs to extravagance. God wants you neither avaricious nor extravagant. He wants you to invest what you have, not to throw it away. You compete over who will win at what is worse; you take no pains over who will be better: and would that you took no pains over who will be worse. And you say, "We are Christians." For the favor of the people you throw your goods away; against Christ's commands you hold on to your goods. See, Christ does not command, Christ asks, Christ is in need. "I was hungry," says Christ, "and you did not give me to eat." He willed to be in need for your sake, so that you might have somewhere to sow the earthly things he gave, and reap eternal life. Do not be lazy and wrongly secure. Amend your ways, redeem your sins. And when you have done these things, give thanks to God, from whom you have received the power to live well. And give him thanks in such a way that you do not insult those who do not yet live well; but encourage them by your conduct. Doing these things, you have perfect righteousness, as far as it can be had in this life. Busying yourselves in good works, in prayers, in fasts, in almsgiving on account of small sins, and keeping yourselves from those great sins, you come to agreement with the adversary: and you say securely in prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." For you have something to be forgiven you daily, you who have something to forgive daily. Walking securely on the way like this, you will not fear the devil's robberies: because Christ has made himself the way and the great highway by which he leads to the homeland. There is all security, all rest: where even the works of mercy will cease, because there will be no need among the wretched there. There, then, will be the sabbath of sabbaths; so that what we long for here, we may find there. Amen.