Sermons 154–159

[On St Stephen the first martyr.] As titles fixed to the boundaries of estates declare their owner, so the very names of the saints often indicate their merits and testify to their distinctions. So Abraham showed in the casting off of his name what he believed by faith, when from Abram he is divinely named Abraham, so that he who was to be enlarged in his descendants might first be enlarged in name, as the Lord says: “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of many nations” (Gen 17). So his holy wife, when from barren she became fruitful, was called Sarah instead of Sarai, so that she too might grow in name before she grew in offspring; and because, by the Lord's permission, she laughed at the thought that an old woman already furrowed with wrinkles should conceive, that fruitfulness already despaired of should give birth, that barrenness at the very end of old age should become pregnant, she at once named the one she bore Laughter, and fitted into his name what she felt when she laughed: “And she called his name Isaac,” which is interpreted laughter (Gen 21). So Jacob, who began to wrestle in the womb before he saw, to prevail by strength before he had limbs, even within his mother's womb obtained the name of supplanter, because before he was born he is known to have supplanted his brother, whom God had rejected (Gen 25). And since it would be long to go through them one by one: as Peter obtained his name from the rock, because he first deserved to found the Church by the firmness of faith, so Stephen was named from the crown, because he first deserved to undergo combat for the name of Christ, he first deserved to dedicate martyrdom with the blood of Christ's soldiers. Let Peter hold the ancient primacy of the apostolic choir, open the kingdom of heaven to those who enter, bind the guilty by his power, mercifully absolve the penitent; Stephen is the first of the martyrs, Stephen leads the purple-clad army, an eager warrior who pours out his blood for the still warm blood of his Lord. And since he won for himself a purple dyed with his own blood, he rightly obtained a crown from his king, he who even at his birth received his name from a crown: truly him whom he foreknew and predestined he has now called first to the glory of martyrdom.

[On the Kalends of January, which were polluted by various superstitions of the gentiles.] As soon as Christ was graciously born for our salvation, the devil at once bred numerous and pernicious monstrosities against the divine goodness, so as to make a mockery of religion, turn holiness into sacrilege, and make out of God's honor an insult to God. Hence, brothers, hence it is that today the gentiles drag about, pull apart and draw along their gods, done up with exquisite filthiness, with contrived disgrace, more shameful than shame itself, to be gazed at, whom they make fit not to be seen. What vanity, what madness, what blindness, to confess gods and defame them with wretched mockeries! They are mockers, not worshipers, who make sport of the gods they venerate; they insult, they do not honor, who so deform the gods by whom they think themselves formed; they confound them, they do not glorify them, who make them up out of confusion itself. Truly, as the Apostle says: “Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do what is not fitting” (Rom 1): when they give divine honors to those to whom they deny human ones, when they judge worthy of heaven those whom they make unworthy of the earth itself, truly they have been given up to a reprobate mind; and this is not of human judgment, it is of God's wisdom, that those who are shown to be the authors of insults to God should themselves be the avengers of God's insults. What wrath, what vengeance could so carry out against the idols the offense against God, as that those whom antiquity, with altars, incense, victims, gems and gold, falsely claimed to be gods, posterity by a shameful cult should judge to have been most shameful men, and should mark their life, morals and deeds on their very faces, and teach that such are to be fled rather than worshiped! Let us weep, brothers, both for those who have followed such things, and rejoice that by heaven's help we have escaped them. Those whose adulteries they shape in statues, whose sexual immoralities they commit to images, whose incests they label in pictures, whose cruelties they commend in books, whose parricides they hand down to the ages, whose impieties resound in tragedies, whose obscenities they play out: by what madness would they believe these to be gods, unless, possessed by desire for crimes and love of wickedness, they wish to have criminal gods? He who desires to sin worships and venerates the authors of sins. Hence the adulterer has attached himself to Venus; hence the cruel man devotes himself to Mars. We have said this, brothers, to expose the reason why today the gentiles make their gods commit such things as we endure, and make them such that they are a horror and a shame to those who see them; may they make them so that those who make them may one day shudder at them and leave them, and Christians may glory that they have been freed from such things through Christ: provided only that they are not defiled by their spectacles, do not stain themselves by touching their incense, and flee the danger of assent to such things, because assent is always equal to deeds, as the Apostle proves when he says: “Not only those who do them, but also those who consent to those who do them” (Rom 1). And if there is such condemnation for assent, who can sufficiently mourn those who make themselves into images of idols? Have these not lost the image of God, destroyed the likeness, stripped off the garment of Christ, who have formed themselves in the sacrilegious forms of idols? But someone says: “These are not pursuits of sacrilege, these are vows of jest; this is the gladness of newness, not the error of antiquity; this is the beginning of the year, not an offense of paganism.” You err, man: these are not games, they are crimes. Who plays with impiety, who jokes about sacrilege, who calls a sacrilege a laugh? He deceives himself well enough who thinks so; he is a tyrant who presumes to put on a tyrant's dress. He who makes himself a god sets himself against the true God; he did not want to bear the image of God who chose to bear the mask of an idol; he who chooses to jest with the devil will not be able to rejoice with Christ. No one plays safely with a serpent; no one jokes with the devil with impunity. If, then, there is any tender mercy in us, any regard for humanity, any affection for a brother's salvation, let us drag away those who run so to perdition, are snatched to death, are drawn to Tartarus, hasten into Gehenna. Let the father drag away his son, the master his slave, a kinsman his kinsman, citizen citizen, man man, the Christian all who have compared themselves to beasts, made themselves equal to cattle, fitted themselves to brutes, formed themselves into demons. And he who frees them finds a reward; he who neglects them incurs offense. Blessed is he who is the guardian of his own life and provides for another's salvation.

[On the Epiphany and the magi.] Whenever the careful skill of physicians blends an antidote of healthful juices against deadly diseases, if the sick man presumes to take it beyond the art, beyond the prescription, beyond the time, what was provided for health becomes a cause of danger; so the word of God, if a rash hearer presumes to know it beyond the teaching, beyond the doctrine, beyond the documents of faith, what is the material of life becomes an occasion of perdition. We must take care, brothers, lest through unskilled hearing what was divinely written for our progress should turn to the harm of our souls. Do you think that the evangelist today taught that Chaldeans, searchers of the stars, magi wandering among the constellations, inquiring into the business of heaven in the darkness of the nights, ascribing the causes of birth and death to the courses of the stars, affirming men's good or evil fortunes by the will of the stars, found the rising of Christ, hidden for ages, with a star as guide? Far from it. So the world thinks, so the gentiles understand, so the surface of the reading makes it seem; but the word of the Gospel speaks not human things but divine; not customary things but new; not things deceiving by art but resting on truth; not things playing on the eyes but fixed in hearts; not things wavering on conjectures but confirmed by authority; coming from God, not from fate; not gathered by numbers but acquired by powers. “When Jesus had been born,” it says, “in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, magi came from the East to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him” (Matt 2). When Jesus is born, the origin of things rises, the giver of the race is begotten, the author of nature is born, so as to restore nature, give back the race, re-create the origin. Adam, the first man, father of the race, source of generation, so lost by his offense the good of nature, the freedom of the race and the life of the offspring that a lamentable succession carried the evil of nature, the slavery of the race, and the death of the offspring. Hence Christ by being born gave back nature, by dying took away death, by rising calls back life; and he who had given man a soul from heaven made man from there consist also of flesh, so that earthly stain might not again sink the heavenly sense into the fall of the flesh, as the Apostle says: “The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly: as was the earthly, so are those who are earthly; and as is the heavenly, so are those who are heavenly” (1 Cor 15). And John the Evangelist: “Everyone who is born of God does not sin, but the generation of God keeps him” (1 John 5). This, then, is why Christ is born: to lift those lying in earthly offspring to a heavenly nature. “When Jesus had been born in Bethlehem of Judea.” Bethlehem, brothers, in Hebrew is called “house of bread.” By these words, then, the house of Judah is marked out, the tribe is named, so that the faithfulness of the promise and the truth of prophecy might be fulfilled, as Jacob says: “Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hands will be on the back of your enemies; the sons of your father will worship you” (Gen 49, following the LXX). And afterward: “A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is laid up, and he will be the expectation of the nations.” Hence David too: “Judah is my king” (Ps 60:7 [LXX 59:9]). “When Jesus had been born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod.” Why is it that God comes down to earth in the time of a wicked king? that the Godhead is mingled with flesh? that heaven enters into commerce with an earthly body? Why? And when does the true king not come to drive out a tyrant, avenge the homeland, restore the world, give back freedom? Herod, a renegade from the Jewish nation, invaded the kingdom, took away freedom, profaned holy things, confounded order; whatever there was of discipline, whatever of worship, he abolished; rightly, then, since human help failed the holy nation, divine help came to its aid, and God stood by the one whom no man was standing by. So Christ will come again, to overthrow Antichrist, to free the world, to give back the homeland of paradise, to make the freedom of the world everlasting, to take away all the slavery of the age. “Behold, magi came from the East.” The magi come from the East to the East, so that he who had ordered them to come might receive them as they came: for when would a magus seek God unless God ordered it? When would an astrologer have found the King of heaven unless God revealed him? When would a Chaldean on earth worship one God without God, who in heaven served as many gods as there are stars? The sign from heaven is greater in the magi than in the star: that the magus knows the King of Judea, the Author of the law, and the Jew does not know him; Chaldea brings him gifts, Judea does not; Jerusalem turns away and flees, Syria follows and worships. “Behold, magi came from the East, saying: Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We have seen his star.” And yet what is it that is seen? Truly, as the Apostle said: “Though he was rich, he became poor” (2 Cor 8); though he was rich in his Godhead, he became poor in our flesh; and he who made, has and holds all creation began to have one star. “We have seen his star.” At last the magus sees him who has a star and is not had by a star; he is not driven by the course of a star, but he drives the star's course, whose course through the sky he so directs, whose going he so governs, whose way he so regulates, that it serves the magi's steps and is sent according to them. For when the magus walks, the star walks; when the magus sits, the star stands; when the magus sleeps, the star keeps watch: so the magus perceives that those who share the same condition of traveling share the same necessity of serving; and he no longer believes the star a god, but judges it a fellow servant, seeing it so bound to his service. “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.” In saying, “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?” they do not ask but taunt: since the knowing question the ignorant, it is not that they themselves do not know, but they rebuke the negligent, reprove the slothful, expose the wicked, scourge the stubborn, and accuse the servants of not having gone out to meet their Lord. For why do they ask men, who knew through God what they were seeking? Why do they need the office of human direction, whom the stars of heaven served for this purpose? What need had they of the lamp of the temple, for whom a wonderful star of heaven was shining? “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?” That is to say: Why does the King of the Jews lie in a manger and not recline in the temple? Why does he not shine in purple but lie in rags? Why does he hide in a cave and not appear openly in the sanctuary? The beasts received in a manger him whom you scorned to receive into your house. “The ox,” as it is written, “knew its owner, and the ass its master's manger” (Isa 1); but you, Israel, did not seek your Lord. “We have seen his star.” The star appeared not by its own will but by command; not by the nod of heaven but by the impulse of the Godhead; not by the law of the stars but by the novelty of signs; not by the climate of heaven but by the power of the one being born; not by art but by God; not by the astrologer's knowledge but by the Creator's foreknowledge; not by arithmetical reckoning but by divine decree; by heavenly providence, not Chaldean curiosity; not by magic art but by Jewish prophecy. So when the magus saw that human cares had perished, his arts had failed, the labors of worldly wisdom were emptied, the sweat of all the sects had frozen, the treasures of all philosophy were exhausted, the pagan night had fled, the clouds of opinions had fallen, the very shadows of the demons had hidden themselves, and the star did not, like a comet with streaming hair, hide what it announced or darken what it lit, he says: “It is right that I see you shine with a new ray, a sign-bearing light, a sure splendor, toward Judea, and show there a king born beyond the law of the world, beyond the order of the flesh, beyond human nature.” So, laying aside his error, he follows, runs, arrives, finds, rejoices, falls down, worships; because not through the star, not through his art, but through God, he marvels that he has found God in human flesh. So, brothers, the present reading does not confirm the error of the magi; it dissolves it. But let this suffice for today, so that, through God, what follows may shine out clearly.

[On the same.] The Lord's feasts declare their causes by their names: for as Christ by being born gave the day of his birth, and by rising gave the day of resurrection, so by the light of signs he showed the day of his illumination. For he who by being born first veiled himself in a human body, afterward by working revealed himself by a heavenly mystery: afterward God himself appeared in a threefold way, who as man in childbirth was shown singly. Rightly, then, the present solemnity is called by the name Epiphany, on which the Godhead shone forth that was obscured for us in our flesh. This is, brothers, this is the feast which, conceived at different times, has brought forth three insignia of the Godhead. Through the Epiphany the magi confess Christ the Lord with mystical gifts, and worshipers of the stars, dwellers in the night, find the Author of light in thick darkness: so that this may be the grace of the Author, not the industry of the one seeking; not of the star but of God; the gift of the Creator, not the benefit of a creature; not of human art but of divine gift. “Behold,” it says, “magi came from the East, saying: Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him” (Matt 2). “We have seen his star.” And what is not his? The star is his; he is not the star's. “His star”: which received being and did not give it; a star whose rising the Author held, not one that held the Author's rising. “His star”: coming not from a horoscope but from the Begetter; by command, not by fate; not from a calculator but from the Author; not one that would give a rising but one that would undergo a setting. A star not law-giving but sign-bearing; bearing not the order of days but the light of nights. This star was a servant of the way, not of life; the companion of the magi, not a kinswoman of Christ; not the mistress of the Ruler but a little handmaid of servants. But someone says: “Why magi? Why by a star? If there is no cause in the stars with birth, no reason with nature, why magi? why a star?” So that through Christ the very material of error might become the occasion of salvation, just as through Christ the cause of death became the cause of life. To rout an enemy with his own sword is a singular mark of valor. With the magi the fault was ignorance, not will; and in their crime there was not zeal but error. To seek God and not know how to seek is necessity rather than guilt. It was kind, therefore, for God both to grant that he be found by those seeking him and to put down the fault to error. In short, Paul by such a judgment was made a preacher from a persecutor, because through zeal for the law he fought against the law, and sinned against God out of love of God. Hence faith runs to Paul, faithlessness runs back to ignorance. But the hearer still says: “Granted that the star, not by its own will but by God's command, showed the way to the magi as they sought: where did they get such knowledge of mystical gifts, where such mysteries in the gifts?” Not from Chaldean art, but from the ancient tradition of the holy forefathers: they were of the race of Noah, of the sons of Abraham, who had learned that Christ would be born through God, not through art, and had known by a deep mystery that he was man, God, king, and one who would die. Hence they brought gifts suited to the faith of the fathers, so as knowingly to offer gold to the king, incense to God, myrrh to one who would die, and by such a gift satisfy both devotion and honor. But enough about the magi. Through the Epiphany Christ at a wedding gave water the savor of wine (John 2), so that Christ's presence at the wedding was a matter of power, not of pleasure; not of humanity but of might; it was for the sake of a sign, not of the belly; it was not a preparation for drunkenness but a showing of the Godhead. In short, when water changed its nature, it at once revealed its Author, and the Creator of the elements was revealed to the creature by its change. Happy the wedding, happy those weddings at which Christ is present, which are consecrated not by luxury but by virtues. What did not pass into grace there, where water passed into wine? Through the Epiphany Christ, to consecrate our baptism, entered the bed of the Jordan (Matt 3), so that those whom he had taken up on earth by being born he might raise to heaven by their being reborn; so that he might have as free in himself those whom he had seen to be captives outside himself; might himself make living those whom guilt had made mortal; might make everlasting those whom death had made temporal; and might make his partners in heaven those whom the devil had made exiles from earthly things. Hence, brothers, the Holy Spirit came down with his whole descent at the moment when the Father cries from heaven: “This is my beloved Son” (Matt 3), so that those whose work with the Son in creating us had been one might share one condescension in our restoration; and so that Christ, at different times but on one and the same day, by the gift of the magi, the change of the water, and the Father's voice, might be known as God by a threefold testimony, and one sacred solemnity of Epiphany might be made from the threefold showing of Christ.

[On the same.] We often ask why Christ enters the world in such a way as to experience the narrowness of the womb, suffer the indignity of childbirth, bear the bonds of swaddling clothes, endure a weak cradle, seek the nourishment of the breast with tears, and feel the stages and needs of the ages of life. And how ought he to have come, who wished to bring grace, drive out fear, and seek love? Nature teaches everyone what infancy can do and what it deserves. What barbarity does infancy not overcome, what savagery not soften, what cruelty not restrain, what fury not check, what power not lay down, what rigor not soften, what hardness not melt? What love does it not call forth, what affection not wring out, what favor not impose, what love not obtain? Fathers know this to be so, mothers feel it, all approve it, human hearts bear witness. So he who wished to be loved, not feared, willed to be born like this: and yet hear what infancy, so gentle, so tender, so dear, achieves with human malice. “Herod the king,” it says, “hearing this, was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and gathering all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born” (Matt 2). If Jerusalem, if the king, if the scribes, if the chief priests are so troubled at the infancy of Christ, what would they have done if Christ had come at once as a grown man, if he had been supported by riches and a multitude, with suspect followers, with foreigners? They who give nothing to time, nothing to age, nothing to the poor, nothing to a parent; but as soon as they hear he is born, they prepare death for the one born, snares for the innocent, crime for the holy one, swords for the naked, soldiers for one alone, slaughter for one wailing, punishment for a parent; and so that violence may be mixed with blood, bitter cruelty declares war on cradles, presses breasts with weapons, dashes shields against laps, so as to make a human and divine offspring enter the tomb before the world. Granted that King Herod was driven to such schemes by love of his kingdom and fear of a successor; why Jerusalem, why the chief priests, why the scribes? Because the profane does not want God to be born, the slave his master, the guilty his judge, the rebel his prince, the faithless his examiner. Jerusalem had drenched itself with various pollution; the priests had profaned holy things, and, selling sins, had turned pardon and godliness into gain. The scribes had changed heavenly doctrine, saving knowledge, life-giving teaching into savage sense, into the fall of faithlessness, into deadly empty talk. Hence they do not want Christ to be born, they fear him to live, because they knew that they would soon be given over to disgrace, dragged to reproaches, cast out of the temple, deprived of the priesthood, emptied of the profit of offerings. For once inflamed with greed, captured by pomp, wounded by vices, drunk with vanity, soaked in luxury, since they could think nothing of correction, they hoped nothing of pardon. A good steward, when by continuous labor he has gained abundant fruit, wants his master to come to his gain, longs for him to come to his joy; a diligent workman, when he has finished the work he undertook, wants the householder to come so that he may receive his wages; a devoted soldier after the conflict, after the victory, wishes for the king's presence, so as to have his sweat and wounds repaid with rewards; so he who lays low the wars of the world with tireless virtue wants Christ to come to his palm; so he does not want Christ to come who, overcome by the allurements of the world, trembles at punishment and presumes nothing of pardon. Brothers, let us do good, turn away from evil; let us flee vices, follow virtues; let us disregard the present, think of the future; let us seek our kingdom, come to our palm, long for glory, strive with all our prayers for the crown. But let the sermon now return to what follows. “Then Herod,” it says, “secretly calling the magi, learned diligently from them the time of the star that had appeared to them, and sending them to Bethlehem, said: Go and inquire diligently about the child, and when you have found him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship him.” He calls the magi secretly, because a pretending mind, a deceitful conscience, dares nothing openly. He calls the magi secretly, because the thief loves the night, the robber lays his ambush in hiding. He inquires diligently the time of the star; but while he fears for his kingdom, he does not fear the sign of heaven, he does not dread the Author of time. Why are you troubled, Herod? Why are you so anxious about a successor? He for whom the stars serve as soldiers is not held by an earthly empire. “Go and inquire diligently about the child, and when you have found him, report to me.” Herod, you err: the magus was ordered to worship, not to inform; he came to bear witness, not to betray; to him it was given to see, to you it was not given to find. “Go and inquire.” As if it were not enough to have asked the magi once! To those who asked devoutly an answer was given; to one without devotion the message of salvation, heard wickedly, was turned into ruin. The stubborn slave hears that his Lord is born, but prepares snares for the Lord at his birth, not honor; he prepares death, so as to escape servitude. But since God could not be ended, nor salvation perish, nor life die, the Lord remains in honor, the slave remained in his crime; and he is dragged to punishment who scorned to come to service; he is seized for sentence who would not come to grace. “Go and inquire diligently about the child, and when you have found him, report to me.” Fittingly he said “report to me” [renuntiate], because whoever hastens to come to Christ always renounces [renuntiat] the devil; the one who is to become a Christian, when he hears from the priest, “Do you renounce the devil?”, answers, “I renounce.” Properly, then, Herod says that the magi must report [renuntiare] to him, since he knew that he held the devil's place and filled the role of Satan. “So that I too may come and worship him.” He wants to lie but cannot: he will come, to be bowed to torments, thrown to punishments, laid low for penalty, he who pretended to worship so as to rage. But the magi, when they had passed through the clouds of Jewish faithlessness and came again into the clear sky of Christian faith, saw again the star they had seen, and with it going before, with it as guide, they came to the most holy place of the Lord's birth. “And opening their treasures they offered him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh.” Gold to the king, frankincense to God, myrrh to one who would die, they offered in devotion to the Lord, the greatest treasures of knowledge for those who would believe in the future; so they return to their own country by the way of innocence, who trampled the path of Herod's fraud to its ruin.

[On the same.] Some days ago, that is, on the eighth day before the Kalends of this month, when the day began to grow because the true day had shone, those who have read it, or have given ear to those reading, easily recall that the Lord Christ Jesus was born in the flesh, as written in the Gospel (Luke 2). The Israelite shepherds, watching over their flock, learned it at the angels' announcement; today the gentile magi, following their curious arts, found him manifested in the same flesh at the guidance of signs. To the former the voice of spiritual ministers spoke, announcing the rising of the Lord's nativity; to the latter a star, as the tongue of the heavens. They, to whom the prophets had often been sent, say: “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this word that has come about for us.” These, to whom none of the prophets had ever spoken, inquire and ask: “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him” (Matt 2). So those come from near at hand, these come from afar, yet both meet with holy devotion at one and the same place of faith: and there they behold, wonder at and recognize Christ the King laid before those two prophetic animals, which bear the type and figure of the two peoples. For “the ox knew its owner, and the ass its master's manger” (Isa 1). The ox, the Jew, recognized him, having shaken off the yoke of the law; the ass, the pagan, also recognized him, having laid aside the wildness of folly; the one leaving the superfluous labor of observance, the other abandoning the wandering error of superstition. Both recognized him, because both came to the one manger of the Lord to feed, to feed not on the hay of death but on the food of salvation. Eat, eat, holy animals, the food of eternal life; and take hold with greedy jaws, as much as you can, of the food of everlasting reward, not dividing it into pieces but taking it whole and entire. For Christ cannot be eaten and divided; he is taken whole by believers, he is received whole in the mouth of the heart. For “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1): he dwelt, from the time he deigned to fill the Virgin's womb. They offered him, as it is written, gold, frankincense and myrrh. We offer the frankincense of faith from a distant region, the myrrh of good odor from a near confession, the sweet-smelling gifts of love; for we offer these three when we confess Christ as King, Lord and man. But let us worship Christ in spirit and truth, if we have offered him the gifts of faith and confession; and let us, like those magi, who are the leaders of our faith and the first of our belief, warned in sleep, that is, in this life, which is like sleep, having eluded King Herod, that is, the devil, the prince of this world, return by another way, that is, by another life, to that homeland of ours from which we were unhappily cast out through Adam, but now mercifully brought back through Christ.