Tractates 19–21

[Or] the reply of the same holy bishop to Paul the deacon. Before this place of the holy Gospel, whose understanding you ask of me by letter with faithful zeal, brother Paul, most dear by the kinship of flesh and of spirit, Christ, the Son of the living God, is known to have said very much about the one and perfect substance of his divinity with the Father, when he said to the Jews, "I and the Father are one"; when he answered holy Philip, "He who sees me sees the Father also"; when he said to the blessed apostles in common, "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me." After these, then, and many such sayings, by which he proved that he is one with the Father and of the same essence, now, being about to bring in something that would heap up the fullness of knowledge for minds strong in faith, and provide a scruple to the doubtful and fuel for blasphemy to the faithless (since the word of God is set for the fall and rising of many), he forewarned the eleven blessed apostles, and with them those who would follow the footsteps of their faith, lest anyone's mind should suffer disturbance on hearing the word to be spoken. "Let not your heart be troubled," he says, "nor let it be afraid. You have heard that I said to you: I go away, and I come to you. If you loved me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I." This is the most notorious question of the Arian heretics, by which with sacrilegious mouth they contend that the Son of God is less than his Father, bringing forward his own testimony, since he says, "for the Father is greater than I." The wickedness of their heart has blinded them, so that they should not recognize the meaning of this saying from the words that went before; or rather, so that they should not follow the truth once known.

There is a twofold substance in Christ: one his own, the other ours, now his; that is, one of God, the other of man. For the Son of God, from the time when the inviolate Virgin bore him, conceived of the Holy Spirit, and by this manner of birth the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, the same who in the beginning was with the Father as Son of God, God the Word, began to be also Son of man. Thenceforth, through the growth of age, the Creator of times advances to perfect manhood, as the evangelist testifies: "And the child grew and became strong and was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him." Understanding that this advance was made for our advance, the apostle Paul said: "Until we all arrive," he says, "at the perfect man, at the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ"; although the perfect divinity, which will always be what it was, and without end, will have needed no increase. All things, then, that Christ, placed in this twofold substance, either said or did or suffered, showed now the almighty nature of God, now the weak nature of the man he assumed. The birth of the flesh shows the man; the unheard-of childbirth of a Virgin proves God. The narrow cradle of the manger and the usual wrapping of swaddling clothes mark a human infancy; but the voices of angels announce to the shepherds that he who has been born is God. For when the angel said, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people; for to you is born today in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger," suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will." Then Herod persecutes the little child; but the brightness of the obedient star declares him great God, whom the magi, envoys of all the nations, adoring in supplication, offered the honour due to the heavenly King by the offering of mystical gifts. At twelve years old the boy Jesus is found in the temple by his anxious parents; but the crowds of teachers sitting round marvel at him in his words as the Wisdom of God. And he who did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth, comes to the baptism of John as if a sinful man, to wash away our crimes in his body; but there too at once the voice of his Father thunders from heaven the property of his divine nature, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him."

The devil, the tempter, approaches him as a man; but when the devil has been conquered, at once the ministries of serving angels come to Christ as to God. He often avoids the seditions of the raging Jews as a man; but as God he puts legions of demons to flight like servants by the command of his word. He sits by the well tired from the journey as a man; but as God, the searcher of human minds, he unlocks the secrets of the Samaritan woman; and not only unlocks them, but also cleanses her by the washing of the water that springs up to eternal life. And he cleanses her as she faithfully supplicates, "Cleanse me from my hidden faults"; for the woman says to him: "Lord, give me this water, that I may thirst no more": the heat of sins, that is, being extinguished. To hunger, to thirst, to be tired, to sleep, belong to man; but to satisfy five thousand men with five loaves belongs to God. And to bestow living water, one draught of which gives the drinker never to thirst again, but that there should be in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life, belongs only to God. And he who as a man is worn out by the labour of an earthly journey walks again, the same, upon the waters as God. For when the Lord had ordered his disciples to sail across the strait while he dismissed the crowds, when the crowds had gone away he went up on the mountain and prayed. And in the evening, when the boat was already being tossed in the middle of the sea by the waves stirred up by a contrary wind, he himself, borne up by the power of his majesty, walked on the back of the sea, and the swelling wave did not touch the soles of his steps. The apostles, in danger, in the fourth watch of the night, see Christ coming from afar. Peter asks: "Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the waters." And he, so as to refuse nothing to a faithful desire, said: "Come." "And Peter," it says, "getting down from the boat, walked on the waters to come to Jesus. But seeing the strong wind he was afraid; and when he began to sink he cried out, saying: Lord, save me. And at once Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, saying to him: O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" When he feels fatigue walking on land, he is man; but when, walking with secure power over the waves, he lifts up the sinking Peter, the same is God. And at the same time let the Arians consider in this place that a deadly sinking is prepared for those who doubt in the faith of Christ, unless through a true confession they turn in supplication to his omnipotence. Elsewhere too the holy evangelist describes Christ the Lord as having slept while sailing, when the disciples, placed in the extreme danger of the storm, woke him, saying, "Lord, save us, we are perishing"; when, rising, he commanded the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. He sleeps as man, and rising commands the elements as God. For he checked the swelling waves with a word, and at once the rebuked storm fell silent, and at the voice of its Creator the mass of the swollen flood at once lay flat.

But lest I seem to wander too far from the proposed discourse by going over each of these things, I shall add a few more from the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, from which you may see in him both the condition of human nature and the divine power. He says to the Jews: "Why do you seek to kill me, a man," and so on. And elsewhere he pronounces Peter blessed when he confesses, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," because he was worthy that God the Father should pour this faith into him; confirming by this utterance that he is the true Son of God. And he who had said, "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again," says again: "My soul is sorrowful even to death." And the same who says, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," says again: "Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me." By the same reasoning, then, he who had said in the person of God, "I and the Father are one," says in the person of the man he assumed, "for the Father is greater than I."

Now, for one who understands what has been said, the following explanation will declare more openly for what reason what is written is said, and what it means that he says, "for the Father is greater than I"; although it is plainly clear from the testimonies cited above that the Son of God, begotten of the Father without any beginning, after he deigned to be born of blessed Mary, is both God and man; and that now he did or said or suffered all lowly things according to the flesh, now he both taught by words and proved by wonderful deeds the immense sublimity of the nature of God. Yet the most wicked Arians do not follow the rule of this distinction, but with the deceit of Jewish innkeepers they mix water with wine, that is, human things with divine; and so they confuse that pure and apostolic faith by an adulterous mixture, ascribing to God ignorance, weakness, fear, inability, doubt, pain, hunger, thirst, weariness and the other passions of man; which the Son of God so took up and bore together with the man, without loss of his divinity, that he counted as his own the insults he suffered in the flesh, but his divinity, retaining the force of its nature, remained impassible. Hence the holy Apostle, the state of the divine incorruptibility being preserved, records that the Lord of majesty was crucified. For his passion, carried out not in his divinity, which is impassible, but in his man, came to the help of a perishing world; for by his wound we have been made whole. Not that his divinity could be wounded, but because he took up our infirmities and bore our sins and grieved for us, according to the prophet's teaching; for he himself was neither made weak, nor sinned, nor did he himself feel the pains of the cruel wounds. For how could it happen that he who had cured the manifold diseases of illnesses by the power of his command, and had given renewed life to the dead by his order, should himself, according to his divine nature, have been subject to suffering? He bore, then, as man the insults of the passion in the flesh, and as God worked mighty works by his own authority. Hence the Apostle says: "He was crucified out of weakness, but he lives by the power of God." And hence it is that, when he is led to his passion, he forms a new ear for Malchus by the touch of his right hand, an ear cut off, against the purpose of his patience, by the sword of Peter avenging him; and that, hanging on the cross, he gives paradise to the confessing thief; and that, laid in the tomb, he raises the bodies of the saints; and that, rising, he is seen in the same arrangement of limbs in which he had suffered, and comes in to the apostles gathered in one house when the doors were shut; and that, ascending to heaven, he does not desert his faithful disciples, promising that he will remain with them until the consummation of the age.

If the Arian heretics followed this distinction, they would never turn the mystery of our life into an insult to the Son of God, asserting with blasphemous voices that he is less than God the Father, whom the vessel of election testifies to be equal to the Father, opening all that reason for which the Son of God, who is also man, said, "for the Father is greater than I." "Have this mind in you," he says, "which was in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God." The Apostle testifies he is equal; Arius tries to assert he is less. It is left to the judgment of the hearers whom they think should be believed: whether the apostle Paul, who, chosen by Christ as teacher of the Gentiles, like a wise architect laid the foundation of the faith, and who, caught up to the third heaven, heard heavenly secrets; or the accursed Arius, who in the time of the emperor Constantine, when with poisoned heart he was feigning a confession of the catholic faith, seeking the friendship of the king and to be recalled to the rank of presbyter, from which he had deservedly been driven, like Judas the betrayer burst open in the middle and all his bowels were poured out, lest the wolf should enter under sheep's clothing to devour the Lord's flock. The Arians who follow this wicked man's assertion will follow the example of his death as well. But let us who follow the apostolic faith and teaching lend the ears of our minds with faithful affection to the explanation of the most blessed Paul mentioned above. For it follows: "but he emptied himself" (by voluntary goodness, that is), humbling himself. And it is added: "taking the form of a servant" (not being made a servant, surely); "made," he says, "in the likeness of man." For "what was made in him is life": namely, what was made in him according to the flesh is our life, as he himself testifies: "I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly." Then he added: "and found in appearance as a man"; for the appearance of God, how great it is, that is, God himself properly, "no one has ever seen." Then: "he humbled himself, becoming," he says, "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross"; for with spontaneous humility, with the Father's will, he willingly bore the cross, so that his death might become the life of believers. "Therefore," he says, "God exalted him." Whom? Him, namely, who underwent the punishment of the cross and of death; not God considered singly, who is always exalted by nature. "And gave him the name which is above every name." The name above every name is God; and it is surely not given to God that he may be God. For in the beginning the Son, God the Word, was with the Father; but the man assumed by the Son is promoted into God, so that the Son of God, who had always been, might be God equally, and, together with the substance which he took from the Virgin, wholly God again: "that at the name of Jesus," of God, that is, and man, "every knee should bend, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father"; that is, that after the mystery of the passion and the triumph of the ascension, the Son of God, now whole, together with what he deigned to assume for us, might be adored in the glory of God the Father (abiding, that is, in the divinity of his nature) by all the powers of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth.

Before, then, he suffered; before, having triumphed over death, he ascended to heaven as victor; before he returned into the bosom of the paternal divinity with all the substance in which he had been born of the Virgin; before the Lord Jesus was recognized and adored in the glory of God the Father by every rational creature of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, he rightly said to the disciples: "If you loved me, you would surely rejoice that I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I." For the Son of God, born in the flesh, was still less, until he should set the nature of the man he had assumed in his ancient glory. And therefore elsewhere he says in his own person to the Father: "Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before this world was": so that he might possess, with the whole substance of his bodily birth, the glory of divinity which he, God the Son, had always had with God the Father before the foundation of the world. For this reason too, after his resurrection, he speaks thus to certain people who hesitated about this dispensation: "O foolish," he says, "and slow of heart to believe in all that [the prophets have spoken]" …

On Peter and Paul. The venerable bishop of Christ, our common father, with the affection with which he detained me when I was setting out, has now also compelled me, though I excused myself, to address your love again with a discourse of mine. And therefore I shall touch on something in praise of the most blessed apostles, as far as the littleness of my understanding allows, encouraged, however, by the protection of those whose birthday it is. We understand that three births have been granted to the human race by the eternal Trinity. One, of the flesh, belongs to all; two are spiritual, according to the merit of each one's faith. The first is that by which we are created out of nothing into the substance of worldly life; the second, that by which we are regenerated in baptism from iniquity and errors to the truth of righteousness; the third, that by which the most blessed martyrs, for confessing the name of Christ, are born through torments into the kingdom. Such a pattern went before in Christ, who, born of the Virgin, is reborn in the Jordan and baptized on the gibbet of the cross with the blood of his precious gore. For after that baptism which he had received for us in the Jordan, he says to the apostles of his passion: "I have a baptism to be baptized with." For he rose from that very baptism of the passion to a life that will now be closed by no end; he returned to the kingdom, of whose kingdom there will be no end.

In the footsteps of this master walk the faithful disciples Peter and Paul, the birthday of whose passion all the churches throughout the whole world celebrate today with due honour. For on this day, at the city of Rome, the cruelty of Nero killed both for the name of Christ, and the justice of the Lord crowned them. Peter is crucified with his head turned toward the earth and his feet raised on high, declaring himself unworthy to be crucified as his Lord was; Paul is beheaded by the sword. Both are noble, both distinguished: the two lights of the world, pillars of the faith, founders of the church, teachers of innocence, authors of all holiness and truth. We can praise them worthily only if we proclaim them with the divine testimonies with which the Truth itself praised them. To Peter, when he confessed, the Lord says: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." And: "I say to you, Peter, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven," and the rest. Of Paul what shall I say? "For this man," he says, "is a vessel of election to me, to carry my name in the whole world." On the one the church is founded; the other, having become himself a vessel of election, carries by his teaching the precious myrrh of faith among the people. Peter shines with signs and wonders; Paul glories in teaching and persecutions. Peter was formerly a fisherman, Paul a persecutor; but both afterwards were made fishers of men. For they stretched the nets of saving teaching through the whole sea of this world. Peter is commanded to walk on the waves, Paul in the clouds, when he is led to the third heaven; both walk on an element that has no road, lifted up by the power of faith.

Which of them I should dare to put before which, I do not know, since the Lord has shown them equal in their passion under one confession, joined them in true brotherhood, coupled them by the bond of one mind; so that we may most rightly presume that it was proclaimed of them too by the prophetic Spirit: "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity." Moses and Aaron, indeed, are spoken of as brothers. The prophets and apostles are brothers in spirit by one teaching. The inner and the outer man in us are brothers, if they think the same. Peter and Paul too are truly brothers of one blood, whom one faith alike made kin by the communion of their own blood. I shall dare to call them even twin brothers, whom their mother, by one confession, poured forth together from a happy womb into the kingdom. "For blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Let us share, then, brothers, in the memorials of the holy apostles; let us share in the memorials of the saints by faith, works, conduct and speech, so that by their prayers we may be counted worthy to be helped toward all that we ask, by the gift of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be all honour for ages of ages.

Dearest ones, mindful today of the promises of Christ, we pay due honour to our blessed father Philastrius as to one truly living. For he is a son of the patriarchs, and their companion in faith, and an imitator of their way of life: most like their sincerity, and such a one as Christ declares to live to God, when he refutes the unbelief of the Sadducees with a strong argument, saying that he who is called the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is not the God of the dead but of the living. "For all," he says, "live to him." And certainly the divine Scripture had said that they had died according to the condition of the flesh, although in a good old age, and been buried, as their tombs still standing show. What, then, blessed Peter was allowed to say boldly of the patriarch David, that he had died and been buried, though he knew that he had presumed on life after death by prophetic faith (for he had said, "My soul shall live and shall praise you," and other such things): let us too be allowed to say boldly to you of a lawful son of the patriarch, the high priest Philastrius, that he is indeed dead and buried, and his tomb is with us, but his life is hidden with Christ in God. And so "when Christ our life appears, then" he too "will appear with him in glory."

That he is a lawful son of most blessed Abraham, the examples of his faith and works bear witness. For believing God with the fullest faith, he too went out from his land, and from his kindred, and from his father's house, and followed the word of God, stripped of all the hindrances of the world. And therefore he quickly deserved to attain what, unencumbered, he strove to follow. For, practising a singular continence, keeping vigil over the holy Scriptures, he desired the wisdom of God, counting as his portion Christ the Lord, "in whom are hidden all the treasures" of heavenly "wisdom." When he had filled his desire with them, being a man of heavenly desires, and had been chosen through the laying on of hands of the presbytery as a dispenser of the divine word, he did not at all allow himself to neglect the grace of God. But going round almost the whole circuit of the Roman world, he preached the Lord's word, proving a fit imitator of the apostle Paul. For, full of the Holy Spirit, he fought not only against Gentiles and Jews but also against all heresies, and especially against the Arian faithlessness, which was raging at that time, with such vigour of faith that he was even subjected to beatings and bore in his body the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ. For in the city of Milan too he was once a fit guardian of the Lord's flock, resisting the Arian Auxentius before blessed Ambrose was chosen. At Rome also, staying for no short time, he gained many for the faith by both public and private disputation. Nor, passing through the villages and towns of various regions, did this faithful disciple of Christ ever cease to preach the word of God.

After those journeys, then, which brought salvation to many souls, Brescia was counted worthy of him: once uncultivated, but eager for teaching; ignorant indeed of spiritual knowledge, but praiseworthy for its zeal to learn. At once the good farmer cut down from the lowest roots the bristling forest of various error, and, bending over the plough of teaching, turned over the raw earth with all his strength and turned the neglected soil, with constant furrows, into fruitful new ground, sowing abundantly in its lap the seeds of life-giving commandments. He also planted a vineyard, in whose fruit he might rejoice, since "wine gladdens the heart of man." He also grafted olives of peace onto wild olive trees, and set into the harshness of wild fruit the buds of richness and sweetness, so that the apostolic man might have some fruit among you too, as among the other nations. And he indeed now rejoices with God in the fruits of his completed work; for "the labourer is worthy of his wage," and "the hard-working farmer ought to be the first to partake of the fruits." But I, the least part of him, desire with all my prayers to be able in some way to protect the field well sown by the father and received by a successor not fit enough.

We have touched a little while ago on the zeal of his faith and the greatness of his labours. Now let us remember, dearest ones, how great a gentleness in holy conduct that vehement ardour of soul possessed; how sublime in humility that loftiness of knowledge was; how ignorant of earthly things that expertness in heavenly things was. For he did not know human glory, and was a keen exactor of the honour due to God, "not seeking his own things but those of Jesus Christ." Despising the friendships of the world and worldly duties, cleaving constantly to the service of God, constantly occupied even in human conversation: plainly his heart was there where his treasure was. And what of this, that while he despised all the elaborate and costly things of this world, he enriched the poorest sellers of cheap things as a lavish buyer with a merciful ambition, counting it little, no doubt, what he gave to those who openly professed their need? The same saint was brief in anger, easy in pardon, overcoming by patience, conquering by kindness; strict in reproof, generous in releasing, free in acting; common to every age, condition and sex with an astonishing kindness, and closer to all the humble. He himself too, in his manner of dress, was most clean in utter plainness: pleasing without effort, unassuming without pretence; plainly one who, without caring about it himself, displayed the purity of his mind.

I have recalled these few things of the virtues of the man of God in a very brief speech, so that this day on which our patron, blessed Philastrius, passed to the heavens, whose feast we celebrate today, might not pass inglorious in sad silence. For although I have brought to your hearing many proclamations of his merits, renewing the observance of this solemnity for fourteen years now, I see that many more things that could yet be proclaimed remain untouched. On the fifteenth day before the Calends of August he put off the man and passed to him whom he loved. Let us, then, venerate the memory of so worthy a priest with due affection, so that by his intercession too we may more easily obtain the good things we ask, by the gift of the everlasting Son of God, to whom is all honour, power and glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for all ages of ages. Amen.