Sermons to the People 95.1–96.9

When we explain the holy Scriptures to you, it is as if we were breaking bread for you. Receive it hungrily, and let your hearts belch forth the rich fare of praise; and you who are rich in feasts, do not be lean in works and good deeds. What I pay out to you is not mine. What you eat, I eat; what you live on, I live on. We have a common storeroom in heaven: for from there comes the word of God.

The seven loaves signify the sevenfold working of the Holy Spirit; the four thousand men, the church established under the four Gospels; the seven baskets of fragments, the perfection of the church. For by this number perfection is very often figured. For why was it said, “Seven times a day I will praise you”? Does a man go wrong who has praised the Lord that many times? What, then, does “seven times I will praise” mean, if not, “I will never cease from praise”? For he who says “seven times” signifies all time. Hence the ages roll on in a cycle of seven days. What, then, is “seven times a day I will praise you,” if not what is said in another place, “His praise is always in my mouth”? Because of this very perfection John writes to seven churches. The Apocalypse is a book of holy John the evangelist: he writes to seven churches. Be greedy eaters; recognize the baskets. For those fragments were not lost; but because you too belong to the church, they have surely profited you. In explaining these things to you, I serve Christ; you, when you listen quietly, are reclining at table. I sit in body, I stand in heart, and I serve you anxiously, lest perhaps the dish, not the food, should offend any of you. You know God’s banquets; you have often heard: they look for minds, not bellies.

Certainly four thousand men were fed on seven loaves: what more wonderful? And yet it was too little unless seven baskets were also filled from the fragments left over. O great mysteries! They were doing works, and the works were speaking. Those deeds, if you understand them, are words. You too belong to the four thousand, because you live under the fourfold Gospel. Children and women were not counted. For so it was said: “Those who ate were four thousand men, not counting children and women.” As if the foolish and the effeminate were without number. Yet let them eat too. Let them eat: perhaps the children grow and will no longer be children; perhaps the effeminate are corrected and made chaste. Let them eat: we pay out, we spend. But who they are, God looks over his banquet; and if they do not correct themselves, he who knows how to invite knows also how to separate.

You know, dearly beloved; recall the Gospel parable, that the Lord came in to look at those reclining at a banquet of his. The householder who had invited them, as it is written, found there a man not clothed in a wedding garment. For that bridegroom “fair in form beyond the sons of men” had invited them to a wedding: that bridegroom who became ugly for the sake of an ugly bride, to make her beautiful. How was he who became ugly beautiful? If I do not prove it, I blaspheme. A prophet gives me testimony to his beauty, saying, “Fair in form beyond the sons of men.” Another prophet gives me testimony to his ugliness, saying, “We saw him, and he had no form or comeliness; but his face was despised, his bearing unsightly.” O prophet who said, “Fair in form beyond the sons of men,” you are contradicted: another prophet comes out against you and says, “You lie: we saw him.” What does it mean that he says, “Fair in form beyond the sons of men”? “We saw him having no form or comeliness.” Are these two prophets, then, at odds in the corner of peace? Both spoke of Christ; both spoke of the cornerstone. At the corner the walls agree. If they did not agree, there is no building, but a ruin. The prophets agree; let us not leave them quarrelling. Rather let us recognize their peace: for they do not know how to dispute. O prophet who said, “Fair in form beyond the sons of men,” where did you see it? Answer, answer, where did you see it? “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count it robbery to be equal with God.” There I saw it. Or do you doubt that he who is equal to God is fair beyond the sons of men? You have answered; let him answer who said, “We saw him, and he had no form or comeliness.” You have said it; say where you saw it. He takes his beginning from the other’s words: where the one ended, there the other begins. Where did the one end? “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God.” See where he saw him fair in form beyond the sons of men. You, say where you saw that he had no form or comeliness. “But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man.” Of his ugliness he says further: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” See where I saw it. So both agree, peaceable both, and both at peace. What is fairer than God? What uglier than the Crucified? So this bridegroom, fair in form beyond the sons of men, became ugly to make his bride beautiful, to whom it is said, “O fairest among women!”, of whom it is said, “Who is this who comes up made white?”, made bright, not darkened by the color of falsehood. This man, then, who called them to the wedding found a man without a wedding garment, and said to him, “Friend, why did you come in here without a wedding garment?” And he was silent: for he found nothing to answer. And the householder who had come in said: “Bind his hands and feet, and throw him into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For so small a fault so great a punishment? Great indeed. Not to have a wedding garment is called a small fault: small, but only to those who do not understand. When would he have been so angry, when would he have judged so as to send him, bound hand and foot, into the outer darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth, because of the wedding garment he did not have, unless it were a very grave fault not to have a wedding garment? I say this because you were invited through me; and if he invited you, he invited you through us. You are all at the banquet; have the wedding garment. I am explaining what it is, so that you may all have it; and if anyone who does not have it is listening to me, let him change for the better before the householder comes and looks over his guests; let him take the wedding garment and recline in safety.

For truly, dearly beloved, the man who was thrown out from there does not signify one man; God forbid. They are many. And the Lord himself who set forth this parable, the bridegroom himself, the one who called the banquet together and gives life to the guests, has himself explained to us that that man signifies not one man but many: there, in that very place, in the same parable. I do not go far afield; there I explain, there I break the bread and set it out to be eaten. For when the man without a wedding garment had been sent from there into the outer darkness, he went on and added: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” You threw out one from here, and you say, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Without doubt the chosen were not thrown out; and they were the few who had remained reclining; and the many were in that one, because that one who has no wedding garment is the one body of the wicked.

What is the wedding garment? Let us look for it in the holy writings. What is the wedding garment? Without doubt it is something that the bad and the good do not have in common: let us find this, and we have found the wedding garment. Among God’s gifts, what is it that good and bad do not have in common? That we are human and not cattle is God’s gift; but it is common to good and bad. That light rises for us from heaven, that rains come down from the cloud, that springs flow, that fields bear fruit: these are gifts, but common to good and bad. Let us go in to the wedding; let us leave outside the others, who did not come when called. Let us consider the guests themselves, that is, Christians. Baptism is God’s gift; good and bad have it. The sacraments of the altar good and bad alike receive. Saul the wicked prophesied, hostile to a holy and most righteous man; while he was persecuting him he prophesied. Are only the good said to believe? “The demons also believe, and tremble.” What shall I do? I have shaken out everything, and I have not yet come to that garment. I have unrolled my bundle, I have considered everything or almost everything, and I have not yet come to that garment. In a certain place the apostle Paul brought me a great bundle of great things; he spread it out before me, and I said to him, “Show me whether perhaps you have found that wedding garment here.” He began to shake out the items one by one and to say: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, if I have all knowledge and prophecy and all faith, so as to move mountains; if I give away all my goods to the poor and hand over my body to be burned.” Great garments; yet that is not yet the wedding garment. Now bring out the wedding garment for us. Why do you keep us in suspense, apostle? Perhaps prophecy is God’s gift which good and bad do not both have. “If I have not love,” he says, “I am nothing; it profits me nothing.” See the wedding garment: put it on, guests, so that you may recline in safety. Do not say, “We are too poor to have that garment.” Clothe others, and be clothed. It is winter: clothe the naked. Christ is naked; and to all of you who do not have the wedding garment he will give it. Run to him, ask him: he knows how to sanctify his faithful, he knows how to clothe his naked ones. So that, having the wedding garment, you may not fear the outer darkness, the bonds on your limbs, hands and feet: let works not fail. If they fail, what will he do with his hands bound? Where will he flee with his feet bound? Hold on to that wedding garment, put it on, and recline in safety when he comes to look. The day of judgment will come: now he grants a long space, so that whoever was once naked may be clothed.

It seems hard and heavy, what the Lord commanded: that if anyone wants to follow him, he must deny himself. But what he commands is not hard or heavy, since he helps us do what he commands. For both are true: what is said to him in the Psalm, “Because of the words of your lips I have kept hard ways”; and what he himself said, “My yoke is gentle and my burden light.” For whatever is hard in the commandments, love makes light. We know how much love itself can do. Often love is even reprobate and lustful: how many hard things have people endured, how many shameful and unbearable things have they suffered, to reach what they loved, whether a lover of money, who is called greedy; or a lover of honor, who is called ambitious; or a lover of beautiful bodies, who is called lustful? And who could count all the loves? Yet consider how much all lovers labor, and they do not feel that they labor; and they labor the more when anyone is kept from the labor. Since, then, people are for the most part such as their loves are, and nothing else ought to concern us about how we live except that we choose what is to be loved, why are you surprised if he who loves Christ and wants to follow Christ denies himself by loving? For if a man is lost by loving himself, surely he is found by denying himself.

The first ruin of man was love of himself. For if he had not loved himself, and had put God before himself, he would have wished always to be subject to God; he would not have turned to neglect God’s will and do his own. For this is what it is to love oneself: to wish to do one’s own will. Put God’s will before these: learn to love yourself by not loving yourself. For so that you may know that loving oneself is a vice, the apostle says: “For men will be lovers of themselves.” And does he who loves himself trust in himself? He begins, having deserted God, to love himself; and he is driven out of himself to love the things that are outside himself: so much so that the same apostle, having said, “Men will be lovers of themselves,” added at once, “lovers of money.” Now you see that you are outside. You began to love yourself: stand in yourself, if you can. Why do you go outside? Have you been made rich by money, lover of money? You began to love what is outside you; you have lost yourself. So when a man’s love goes out even from himself to the things outside, it begins to vanish with vain things and, like a prodigal, to squander its strength. It is emptied, poured out, made destitute; it feeds pigs; and laboring at feeding pigs, it at last remembers and says, “How many hired men of my father eat bread, and I am perishing here of hunger?” But when he says this, what is told of that son who poured out everything on harlots, who wanted to have in his own power what was kept safe for him with his father, wanted to have it at his own disposal, poured it out, and became destitute? What is said of him? “And he came back to himself.” If he came back to himself, he had gone out from himself. Because he had fallen from himself and gone out from himself, he first returns to himself, so as to return to him from whom he had fallen in falling from himself. For as in falling from himself he remained in himself, so in returning to himself he must not remain in himself, lest he go out from himself again. Having come back to himself, so as not to remain in himself, what did he say? “I will arise and go to my father.” See whence he had fallen from himself: he had fallen from his father. He had fallen from himself; he had gone out from himself to the things outside. He returns to himself and goes on to his father, where he may keep himself most safely. If, then, he had gone out from himself, he had also gone out from him from whom he had gone out; in returning to himself so as to go to his father, let him deny himself. What does “deny himself” mean? Let him not presume on himself; let him know he is a man, and look at the prophetic saying: “Cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man.” Let him withdraw himself from himself, but not downward. Let him withdraw himself from himself so as to cling to God. Whatever good he has, let him ascribe it to him by whom he was made; whatever evil he has, he made for himself. God did not make what is evil in him: let him destroy what he himself made, he who fell away from it. “Let him deny himself,” he says, “and take up his cross, and follow me.”

Where is the Lord to be followed? We know where he went: we celebrated that very feast a very few days ago. For he rose again and ascended into heaven: there he is to be followed. Plainly we must not despair, because he himself promised, not because man can do anything. Heaven was far from us before our head had gone into heaven. Why should we despair now, if we are members of that head? There, then, he is to be followed. And who would not want to follow him to such a seat? Above all since on earth there is much toil with fears and sorrows. Who would not want to follow Christ there, where there is the highest happiness, the highest peace, everlasting security? It is good to follow him there; but we must see by what road. For the Lord Jesus did not say these words when he had already risen from the dead. He had not yet suffered; he was to come to the cross, to come to dishonor, to insults, to scourges, to thorns and wounds, to mockery, reproaches, death. The road seems rough; it makes you slow; you do not want to follow. Follow. What man made for himself is rough; but what Christ trod on his way back has been worn smooth. For who would not want to go to exaltation? Height delights everyone: but humility is the step. Why stretch your foot beyond yourself? You want to fall, not to climb. Begin with the step, and you have climbed. That step of humility those two disciples would not notice who said, “Lord, command that one of us may sit at your right hand in your kingdom, and the other at your left.” They looked for the height; they did not see the step. But the Lord showed them the step. For what did he answer? “Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?” You who seek the summit of exaltation, can you drink the cup of humility? So he did not say merely, “Let him deny himself and follow me,” but added, “Let him take up his cross and follow me.”

What does “let him take up his cross” mean? Let him bear whatever is troublesome: so let him follow me. For when he begins to follow me in my way of life and my commandments, he will have many to oppose him, many to forbid him, many to dissuade him, and that from among Christ’s companions, as it were. Those who were forbidding the blind men to cry out were walking with Christ. So whether threats or flatteries or any prohibitions whatever, if you want to follow, turn them into a cross; endure, carry, do not give way. In these words of the Lord martyrdoms seem to be encouraged. If there is persecution, should not everything be despised for Christ? The world is loved; but let him by whom the world was made be put first. The world is great; but greater is he by whom the world was made. The world is beautiful; but more beautiful is he by whom the world was made. The world is alluring; but sweeter is he by whom the world was made. The world is evil, and good is he by whom the world was made. How shall I be able to resolve and explain what I have said? May God help. For what did I say? What did you applaud? See, there is a question, and yet you have already applauded. How is the world evil, if he by whom the world was made is good? Did not God make all things, and behold, very good? Does not Scripture testify one by one that God made good things, by saying, “And God saw that it was good”? And at the end it concluded all of them, how God made all things, and behold, very good.

How, then, is the world evil, and good he by whom the world was made? How? Because “the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.” The world was made through him: heaven and earth and all that is in them. The world did not know him: the lovers of the world; lovers of the world and despisers of God: this world did not know him. So the world is evil in this way, because those are evil who prefer the world to God. And good is he who made the world, heaven and earth and sea, and those very people who love the world. For only the fact that they love the world and do not love God he did not make in them. But themselves, as far as nature is concerned, he made; as far as fault is concerned, he did not make. This is what I said a little earlier: let a man destroy what he made, and he will please him who made him.

For there is also a good world in men themselves; but it was made out of an evil one. For the whole world (if you take men as the world, apart from what we call the world, heaven and earth and all that is in them), if you call men the world, the whole world was made evil by the one who first sinned. The whole lump was corrupted at the root. God made man good; so Scripture has it: “God made man upright, and men themselves have sought out many thoughts.” From the many run to the one; gather what is scattered into one; flow together, be fortified, stay with the one; do not go off into the many. There is blessedness. But we flowed away, we set out for perdition: we were all born with sin, and to what we were born with we added by living badly, and the whole world was made evil. But Christ came, and chose what he made, not what he found: for he found all evil, and by his grace made them good. And another world was made: and the world persecutes the world.

Which is the world that persecutes? That of which it is said to us: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. Whoever loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the age, which is not from the Father but from the world. And the world passes away, and its lust; but whoever does the will of God abides forever, as God also abides forever.” See, I have named both “world,” the one that persecutes and the one it persecutes. Which is the persecuting world? “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the age, which is not from the Father but from the world; and the world passes away.” See, that is the persecuting world. Which is the world it persecutes? “Whoever does the will of God abides forever, as God also abides forever.”

But see, the one that persecutes is called the world; let us prove whether the one that suffers persecution is also called the world. Or are you deaf to the voice of Christ saying, or rather of holy Scripture testifying, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”? “If the world hates you,” he says, “know that it hated me first.” See, the world hates. Whom, if not the world? Which world? “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” The condemned world persecutes; the reconciled world suffers persecution. The condemned world is whatever is outside the church; the reconciled world is the church. “For the Son of Man did not come,” he says, “to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

But in this holy, good, reconciled, saved world; rather, to be saved, but now saved in hope (“for in hope we have been saved”): in this world, then, that is, the church, which follows Christ as a whole, he said universally, “Whoever wants to follow me, let him deny himself.” For it is not that virgins ought to hear this and married women not; or widows ought and wives not; or monks ought and the married not; or clergy ought and laity not: but let the whole church, the whole body, all the members, distinguished and distributed by their proper offices, follow Christ. Let her follow as a whole, the only one; let the dove follow, let the bride follow, redeemed and endowed with the bridegroom’s blood. Virginal integrity has its place there; widowed continence has its place there; married chastity has its place there: adultery has no place there; unlawful and punishable lust has no place there. But let these members that have their place there, each in its kind, its place, and its measure, follow Christ: let them deny themselves, that is, not presume on themselves; let them take up their cross, that is, endure in the world for Christ whatever the world inflicts. Let them love him who alone does not deceive, who alone is not deceived and alone does not deceive: let them love him, because what he promises is true. But because he does not give it now, faith wavers. Hold out, persevere, endure, bear the delay, and you have taken up the cross. Let the virgin not say, “I alone shall be there.” For not Mary alone will be there; Anna the widow will be there too. Let the married woman not say, “The widow will be there, not I.” For it is not that Anna will be there and Susanna will not. But let those who will be there prove themselves in this: that those who have a lower place here do not envy, but love in others the better place. For example, my brothers, so that you may take note: one has chosen married life, one has chosen a life of continence. If the one who chose married life lusts after adulteries, he has looked back: he has lusted after what is unlawful. But whoever wants afterward to go back from continence to marriage has looked back: he has chosen what is lawful, and yet he has looked back. Is marriage, then, to be condemned? No. Marriage is not to be condemned; but see where he had come who chose it. He had already gone on ahead. When he lived lustfully as a youth, marriage was ahead of him; he was stretching toward it; but when he chose continence, marriage is behind him. “Remember,” says the Lord, “Lot’s wife.” Lot’s wife, by looking back, stayed where she was. So let each one fear to look back from where he has been able to reach; and let him walk on the road, let him follow Christ: “forgetting what lies behind, and stretched out toward what lies ahead,” let him press on inwardly in purpose toward the prize of God’s calling in Christ Jesus. Let the married put the unmarried before themselves; let them confess that they are better; let them love in them what they themselves do not have; and in them let them love Christ.