Sermons 81–85

[On the fifth appearance of Christ, made to the disciples when Thomas was absent.] While rebellious Judea strove to war down its Creator and raised impious hands to kill its author, it took peace away from the earth, dissolved the concord of things, and so broke the covenant of the elements as to call the whole world back to its ancient chaos. In short, it puts the day to flight, invades with night, takes away light with darkness and heaven from the world, makes the earth tremble, mixes the dead with the living, confounds the underworld with the world above, and, with order scattered, left absolutely nothing peaceful, nothing friendly, to the injury of the Creator. That is why Christ, returning from the underworld to give peace back to the world, exclaims: “Peace to you.” “While the disciples were saying these things,” it says, “Jesus stood in their midst and said to them: Peace to you.” He rightly adds “to you,” because the earth had already become steady, the day had returned, the sun had run its course again, and the fabric of the world already held its restored order. But for the disciples war still remained, and the conflict of faith and faithlessness clashed sharply within them. The whirlwind of the passion had not shaken the earth so much as the disciples' hearts; and so the battle lines of belief and unbelief laid waste their minds in stubborn combat; throngs of thoughts pressed on their minds, and their breasts, strong though they were, were burst by the sallies of despair and hope. Between the countless miracles of Christ's signs and the many kinds of his sufferings, between the marks of deity and the weaknesses of the flesh, between the losses of death and the gifts of life, the disciples' senses and minds were carried to and fro: now their spirit was lifted to heaven, now their souls were dashed to earth; and with such a storm raging within them they could find no harbour of rest, no anchorage of peace. Seeing this, Christ, the searcher of hearts, who commands the winds, gives orders to the storms and by a mere nod changes tempests into calm, at once calms them with his peace, saying: “Peace to you; it is I; do not be afraid.” It is I, who was crucified, who died, who was buried. It is I: through myself God, through you man. It is I: not a spirit in the shape of flesh, but the truth itself in flesh. It is I: I am alive from the dead, I am on high from the underworld. It is I, whom death fled, at whom the underworld trembled; Tartarus confessed God when it trembled. Do not be afraid, Peter, that you denied; you, John, that you fled; all of you, that you deserted me, that you judge me with wholly unbelieving thoughts, that you do not yet believe though you see me (Matt 26; Mark 14). Do not be afraid, it is I, who called you by grace, chose you by pardon, sustained you with love, carried you with charity, and now receive you by goodness alone; because a father does not know how to see faults when he receives his son, when affection takes back its own. “Troubled,” it says, “and terrified, they thought they saw a spirit.” Why? Because the Lord had come in when the doors were shut. So the disciples, stunned by the sleep of grief, ascribed to Christ not what divine power can do but what human nature admits. “They thought they saw a spirit” (Luke 24:37). For the spirit of man passes through the walls of the womb and penetrates walls, so as to enter an enclosed body while the body remains closed; so too the soul, when it brings life to its end and withdraws from the sweet fellowship of the body, is not held by the bars of houses or by worldly obstacles: a heavenly substance cannot be shut in earthly prisons, according to the word: “The spirit: you do not know where it comes from or where it goes” (John 3:8). So the disciples, after the resurrection, when the Lord had entered with the doors shut, did not believe that he had brought back the solidity of a body, suspecting that the soul alone had returned in the image of flesh, as bodily images usually appear to those asleep. “They thought,” it says, “that they saw a spirit.” So, as we said, the wars of thoughts in the disciples were not quieted but grew greater and greater, and the tumult of their minds was increased by the very visions; and from the very thing that confirmed faith in the resurrection arose the scruple of every hesitation. That he had come was a fact; that he had entered with the doors shut was not a matter of ordinary belief but of power; it was not human, and yet it was a man, so that it might be a true body in the might of the deity, and not an empty appearance of flesh to the injury of the resurrection. So, to suppress the conflicts of thoughts arising from this, Christ answered: “Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts rise up in your hearts?” Rightly “rise up,” not “come down”: because human thoughts, pressed down by the weight of the flesh, try to climb to the lofty mystery of God, and in those very efforts are broken, fall and are cast down to earth, unless he helps who grants man to think divine things. “Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts rise up in your hearts? See my hands and feet.” “See,” that is to say, “Wake up.” Why? Because what you see is not a dream. “See my hands and feet.” Since with heavy eyes you cannot yet look at the head, see the wounds of the flesh, since you do not see the works of God; consider the inscriptions left by the enemies, since you have not yet considered the marks of God; touch, so that at least the hand may produce faith, since the seeing eye is so blinded; the eye does not see, let touch see. Let your fingers enter the prints of the nails, let your hands probe the depths of the wound, open the holes in the hands, furrow the side, renew the wounds; for I cannot deny to disciples for their faith what I did not deny to enemies raging for my punishment. Touch, touch, and as arduous investigators reach even to the bones, so that at least the bones may establish the truth of the flesh, and the wounds I have kept may testify that I am the same. I ask, why do you not believe that I have risen, I who raised countless dead before your eyes? Unless perhaps the power that was present for others was lacking for me, according to that voice which mocked me as I hung on the cross, saying: “He saved others; he cannot save himself; if he is the king of Israel, let him come down from the cross, and we will believe him” (Matt 27:42). And which is greater: to shake off the nails and come down from the cross, or to trample death and climb up from the underworld? See, I have saved myself too, and, breaking the chains of the underworld, I have climbed to the heights; and yet I have not found faith in my deity even among you. Or perhaps a death of three days denies the trust to believe? Did not my voice call back from the underworld before your eyes Lazarus, four days dead and already stinking; did not my command recall him to life (John 11)? And if the servant four days dead rises, why will the Lord three days dead not rise? “But while they still did not believe for joy and were wondering.” Joys prayed for are scarcely believed even when they have been given; things longed for, when they arrive, cause astonishment. That is why the apostles wonder at Christ's resurrection, which came more quickly than they had hoped; and that they believe more slowly comes not from faithlessness but from love; for by examining faith in this way they do not deny it but seek it; and while they look more deeply, they long for what they see to be true. Brothers, what made the disciples slow at these things and stunned at such great things was not fear born of faithlessness but the greatness of the matter; not to see what was seen, not to know what was known, not to believe what was believed: not unbelief does this, but a unique miracle. Brothers, nature is too much an infant for virtues; unless it grows through God it cannot grasp mature things or perceive perfect things. So may God grant that what we cannot do by ourselves we may grasp and perceive through him.

[On the resurrection of Christ, and the fourth appearance, made to the two going to the village.] Since holy Matthew has already shown us, for our salvation, what he knew of the Lord's resurrection, today let us hear what blessed Mark also reports. “And when the sabbath was past,” it says, “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Jesus” (Mark 16:1). Here the women hurry about with womanly devotion; they bring to the tomb not faith, as to one living, but ointments, as to one dead, and they prepare for one buried the services of mourning, not for one rising the joys of divine triumphs. Christ accepted death so that death might die; Christ, while he was being killed, killed that which was killing all; Christ entered the tomb to open the underworld. So when the law of Tartarus had been dissolved, the prison of the underworld destroyed and the very empire of death slain, Christ was no longer to be anointed as one dead but adored as victor. The women spend the night awake, keep watch, go without sleep, make their way through the darkness of the breaking dawn; hence they seem to bear an uncertain light no less of heart than of body. “And very early,” it says, “on the first day of the week, they come to the tomb, the sun having already risen.” If very early, how was the sun already risen? Does the evangelist not know what he is saying? The evangelist knows what he says; it is the one who has not learned who does not know what he hears. This account is not of error but of truth; it does not suffer a lapse of human speech but discloses the truth of a deed done from heaven. He had said: “From the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness” (Mark 15:33). So the sun, which had withdrawn out of season to suffer with the Lord, ran ahead of time with its brightness when the Lord rose; and the sun, which to die with its author had put to death its own noonday brightness, broke out before daybreak, darkness overcome, to rise with its author. “Very early”: because then the sun rose early to make the morning; and the sun that before had fled from the night now itself anticipates the night to put it to flight, giving back to light for us the hours which the terror of the Lord's passion had invaded. “They said,” it says, “to one another: Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” From the entrance of the tomb, or of the heart? From the sepulchre, or from the eyes? Women, your breast is barred, your eyes are closed, and so you do not see the glory of the opened tomb. If you wish to see, pour oil not on the Lord's body but into the lamp of your heart, so that what is shut in the darkness of unbelief may be laid open by the light of faith. “And looking up,” it says, “they saw that the stone had been rolled back; for it was very large.” Plainly large, and very large, and large now more in merit than in size, since it sufficed both to shut in and to cover the body of the world's Creator. “And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right, clothed in a white robe.” They entered the tomb so that, buried with Christ, they might rise with Christ from the tomb, and the Apostle's word might be fulfilled: “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you also rose” (Col 2:12). They see a young man, so that they might perceive the age of our resurrection; they see a young man, because the resurrection does not know old age, and eternal perfection does not admit ages. Where man does not know birth, he does not know death; and where he knows neither birth nor death, he neither suffers the losses of age nor needs growth. They see a young man sitting on the right, because the resurrection admits nothing on the left. “The ways,” it says, “that are on the right the Lord knows” (Prov 4:27 LXX). And: “Then he will set the righteous at his right hand” (Matt 25:33). Pray, brothers, that we too may die to vices and be buried to the pomps of time, so that we may rise to eternity in Christ, and, placed on the right, may be worthy to hear: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world” (Matt 25:34). “Clothed in a white robe.” This robe is not from a mortal fleece but from living power; it shines with heavenly light, not with earthly colour; it is bright by the Creator's gift, not by the fuller's art, as the prophet says: “Clothed with light as with a garment” (Ps 104:2); and of the righteous: “Then the righteous will shine like the sun” (Matt 13:43). Earthly beings are covered with earthly garments, and so, as they shine when new, they grow dirty with age; but heavenly beings are wrapped in the garment of heavenly light, and, raised above earthly squalor, are never defiled by age nor darkened by any dirt; the garments which the resurrection has once given are clothed with perpetual light. “And they went out from the tomb and fled; for trembling and fear had seized them.” The angel sits in the tomb, the women flee from the tomb, because he is confident from his heavenly substance, while they are troubled from their earthly condition. He who cannot die does not know how to fear a tomb; but the women tremble at the event and, being still mortal, dread the tomb in a mortal way. That is why they say nothing to anyone. “And they said nothing to anyone.” Because to women it is given to hear, not to speak; to learn, not to teach, as the Apostle says: “Let women be silent in the church” (1 Cor 14:34). Then the same Mary afterwards both goes and announces, but now bearing not the woman but the church, so that there, as a woman, she is silent, and here, as the church, she proclaims and speaks. “After this,” it says, “he appeared to two of them as they were walking.” Why not to three, why not to four, but to two? Because here the faith of the resurrection is shown as to be preached to two peoples, that is, to Gentiles and to Jews; hence, as we said, it is proved that one church is figured in the two disciples, as in the two women. “He appeared in another form.” Let no one think that by his resurrection Christ changed the form of his face, so that he who was the same in his wound was another in his face. Rather, the form is changed when he becomes immortal from mortal and incorruptible from corruptible, so that this means he changed his substance, not his person, and acquired glory of face without losing the recognizability of his face. And lest a hurried sermon either flee from the questions or fly over them, we shall make known what follows in the next sermon, with the Lord revealing it.

[On the ninth appearance of Christ, made to the eleven disciples at table.] Today the blessed evangelist has reported the apostles, at the very time of the cross, as given to tables, gaping at feasts, busy with banquets, forgetful of the Lord's passion. “As the eleven were reclining at table,” it says, “the Lord appeared” (Mark 16:14). Reclining at table; where? From the Lord's tomb straight to the servant's table? Is this the faith of servants? Is this the charity of disciples? Is this Peter's ardour? Is this the love of John, taken up from Christ's very breast? Is this the affection acquired over so long a time, by such gifts and such mighty works, that at the very moment of the passion, with death still warm, the funeral still fresh, the enemies exulting and all Judea mocking, the disciples should dine with all the trappings of the couch and all the pleasure of those at table? When Moses died, angels stood by (Jude 9); God himself took care of his tomb; the camp of Israel halted, the journey was put off, the dreadful halt in the desert was endured, thirty days of mourning were proclaimed, and a servant's funeral was honoured with a long service of lamentation (Deut 34). And does Christ, the true and only Lord, the creator of things and the redeemer of all, after that tragic passion, after death, and the death of the cross, three days dead, not deserve tears from his disciples? The earth trembles, Tartarus is thrown into confusion, rocks are split, tombs burst open, the sun flees, the day is buried, everything becomes night, and the disciples alone feast securely on a high crescent couch, in one company, in complete leisure, amid delights? And is this, brothers, how the master himself found them on his return from the underworld: “As the eleven were reclining at table, the Lord appeared and reproached their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him risen”? To this, faithful Peter, most devoted Peter, what shall we say? “As they were reclining.” Surely not dining? Brothers, this was not reclining at table but lying prostrate; that company was not a banquet but a gathering of grief; there the bread was not of joy but of mourning; there the cups were mixed with the gall of the cross, not with the sweetness of wine. “They were shut in,” it says, “for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19). If they were afraid, if they were shut in, surely they were not dining; and if they were not dining, that was not a house but a prison; that was not a dining couch but a tomb. Then the whole penalty of the Lord's passion had passed over to the disciples; the whole lance of grief was fixed not only in their sides but in their hearts; then their hands and feet were held fast by the nails of sadness; then Jewish bitterness offered them vinegar, then gall; then the sun set for them and the day fled; then the deepest night possessed their minds and souls; then the fiercest temptation of their thoughts dashed them against the rocks of faithlessness, into the shipwreck of faith; then despair, which is the worst of all evils and always comes last in adversity, laid them out in funeral tombs. Hence, as we said, the Lord found them not reclining, not feasting, but lying prostrate, buried; and so he reproaches their unbelief, because they had believed despair so much that they believed nothing of the resurrection the Lord had foretold, and did not believe it when servants announced it; and they left in themselves nothing of faith and salvation, but, dead to the age and buried to the world, they all believed that one house to be one tomb for them all. That is why the Lord, seeing that they had removed themselves from the world, calls them back to the world and sends them back into the world, saying: “Go into the whole world, preach the gospel to the whole creation.” Come out into the world, so that you who think that you all now lie in one dwelling may suddenly see the whole world lying beneath you. “Go into the whole world, preach the gospel to the whole creation.” That is to say: Be hope for all, you who were the cause of despair for yourselves; and prove how great your unbelief is when you see the world believe what it hears from you, you who could not believe your own sight; and know how great is the hardness of your heart when you see the fiercest nations throughout the world confess me without seeing me, me whom you denied when I was set before your eyes. You will see those scattered over the earth, shut in on islands, hanging on cliffs, remote in solitudes, the half-learned of the magi, the quarrelsome of the Greeks, the experts of the Romans, seek by faith alone the faith which you sought with hand and finger in my furrowed wounds. But since I send you as witnesses of my passion, my death and my resurrection, I grant that you have searched these things out more deeply, provided only that your hesitation becomes a firm foundation for those who will believe you. “Whoever believes,” he says, “and is baptized will be saved.” Brothers, what the soul is to the body, faith is to baptism; that is why one born from the font lives by faith: “The righteous,” it says, “lives by faith” (Rom 1:17). So everyone who is without faith dies. “Whoever believes”: that the Trinity is one God; that in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit there is one majesty in complete equality; that the Godhead is distinguished in Trinity, not confused in unity, but is one in Godhead and threefold in persons; that God is the name of the Trinity; that Father and Son are not to be reckoned by rank but valued by love; that the Holy Spirit is not to be held inferior, more or less, nor to be held external, more or less, because the Godhead knows nothing external; that Christ became man in such a way that he remains what God is, and died in such a way as to raise by his death the dead of all ages; that he rose not for himself but for us; that he brought us into heaven when he raised himself to heaven; that he sits in the authority of a judge, not in the rest of one who is tired; that he will come, not by moving from place to place, since he is everywhere, nor to take possession of his world, since he possesses the whole world, but so that the world may now for ever merit the sight of its author. Let man also believe the forgiveness of sins, because the heavenly region, broad as it is, does not admit a sinner; nor let man despair because of the greatness of his sins, because if there is anything that God cannot forgive, he is not almighty. Let him also believe the resurrection of the flesh, so that it may be the man himself who rises, so that the very one who sins may receive the punishment, and the very one who labours the reward. Let him believe eternal life, so that the second death may have no place. And that demons, that is, the ancient enemies, are driven out of human bodies; that speech in various tongues pours out of one mouth; that serpents touched through Christ forget their venom; that those who drink poisoned cups cannot be harmed, through Christ; that bodily diseases flee at the touch of one who preaches Christ: this, brothers, is the highest sign of belief. “These signs,” he says, “will follow those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will pick up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly it will not harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” So, O man, be your own physician through faith, so that you may not be forced to submit to outside physicians at your own cost and pay dearly for what you possess free. Pray, brothers, that in the present we may always feel the medicine of faith, and that, waiting for Christ, we may glory in our conscience at his second coming.

[On the fifth appearance of Christ, made to the disciples when Thomas was absent, and on the sixth, when he was present.] During the forty days in which, after his resurrection, the Lord is reported and believed to have appeared to his disciples in various ways, it is not without reason that the sermon serves the readings themselves and the mysteries themselves, and strives to turn the grief of the Lord's passion, by the manifold signs of the resurrection, into perfect joy for you, beloved; so that he who earlier rose by his own power in our body may now also rise through faith in our hearts. “And when it was evening on that first day of the week, and the doors were shut where the disciples were gathered for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst” (John 20:19). “When it was evening”: it was evening more by grief than by the hour; it is evening when minds are darkened by the cloud of grief and sadness. “It was evening”: because, though the twilight had given some sign of the resurrection, the Lord had not yet shone on them with the full brightness of his light. “And when the doors were shut where the disciples were gathered for fear of the Jews.” The greatness of the terror and of the crime had shut the disciples' house and their hearts together in so great a whirlwind, and had so refused all entry to the light, that, with their senses more and more taken up with grief, the blind spread of night was increased. No darkness of night compares with the gloom of grief and dread, because it cannot be tempered by any light of consolation or counsel. Hear the prophet: “Fear and trembling came upon me, and darkness covered me” (Ps 55:5). “And when the doors were shut where the disciples were gathered for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst.” I ask, why is it doubted that absolute Divinity could penetrate the secret of a closed body and the virginal dwelling barred in complete integrity, when after the resurrection, made solid by the mystery of our body, it enters and goes out through shut doors, and by such a sign shows itself the author of all creation, which does not resist it but serves it in all things? But if virginity cannot refuse conception and birth to its creator, if a shut door cannot deny entry and exit to its creator, how could the stone of the tomb, however large, however sealed by Jewish malice, resist the rising Saviour? But as virginity and the door by their bars produce faith in the deity, so the stone rolled away confirms faith in the resurrection: rolled back, it prepared no exit for its Lord, but grants and admits entry to faith. “Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them: Peace to you.” The disciples' hearts were enduring the battles of a continual conflict of faith and doubt, despair and hope, failure and greatness of soul. So the observer of hidden things, foreseeing the wars of such thoughts, first gives peace to those who see him, so that he who by being taken away had left them matter for conflict might, restored to their eyes, cut off the whole cause of the struggle. “The disciples rejoiced,” it says, “when they saw the Lord.” They rejoiced: as light is more welcome after darkness and calm after the gloom of a storm, so joy is more welcome after grief. “He said to them again: Peace to you.” What does this generosity of repeated peace show, except that he wants the quiet which he had imposed on each one's senses to be kept also among them by the gift of repeated peace? For he knew that they would afterwards have no small disputes about their hesitation, while one boasted that he had stood firm in faith and another grieved that he had doubted. So, to cut off the boasting and swelling of the arrogant, and to heal and shut out the sufferings of the one who had been weak, the loving governor, ascribing whatever had happened to the circumstances and not to the disciples, suppressed by the command of his peace the wars that were about to arise, lest one should reproach another with what he himself, to whom everything was owed, had forgiven for the future. Peter denies, John flees, Thomas doubts, all abandon him (Matt 26; Mark 14; John 20): if Christ had not given them his peace, Peter, who was first of all, would have been thought inferior, and the one who followed might perhaps have been unduly raised up against the first. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” The word “sent” does not lessen the Son but declares him, because here he wanted to be understood not the power of the one who sends but the love of the one who is sent, when he says: “As the Father has sent me.” Not the Lord, but the Father. “So I send you.” Not yet with the authority of one who commands, but with the whole affection of one who loves: I send you to endure hunger, to the weight of chains, to the squalor of prison, to bear every kind of punishment, to take up the yoke of death, accursed by all; all of which charity, not power, commands to human minds. “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose you retain, they are retained.” He who by his breathing poured the Forgiver himself into their hearts and bestowed him, gave them the power to forgive sins. “When he had said this, he breathed on them, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them.” Where are those who lay it down that sins cannot be forgiven to human beings through human beings; who crush those who have once fallen at the devil's prompting so that they may not rise again; who with cruel spirit withhold care from the sick and deny medicine to wounds; who impiously inflict on sinners despair of returning? Peter forgives sins and receives penitents with all joy, and claims for all priests this power granted by God, he who, had he not sought repentance after his denial, would have lost both the glory of apostleship and life itself. And if Peter came back through repentance, who has stood firm without repentance? “But Thomas, when he heard from his fellow disciples that they had seen the Lord, answered: Unless I see the print of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Why does Thomas seek the traces of faith in this way? Why does he examine so harshly the one rising, who suffered so lovingly? Why does a devoted right hand so re-furrow the wounds which an impious hand inflicted? Why does the hand of one who serves strive to dig again the side which the lance of an impious soldier opened? Why does the curiosity of a servant cruelly renew the pains inflicted by the fury of persecutors? Why does a disciple, to test the Lord by torments, God by punishments, the heavenly physician by a wound, search in this way? The power of the devil fell, the prison of the underworld was laid open, the chains of the dead were broken, at the Lord's death the tombs were torn open, and at the Lord's rising the whole condition of death was changed. The stone was rolled back from the Lord's most sacred tomb, the linen cloths were loosed, and at his rising to glory death fled, life returned, and flesh rose never again to know a fall; and why, Thomas, all too clever an investigator, do you alone demand that wounds alone be shown you as proof of faith? What if they had been abolished along with the rest; what danger to your faith would this curiosity have produced? Do you think that no monuments of love, no proofs of the Lord's resurrection could be found unless you furrowed with your hands the flesh so ploughed by Jewish cruelty? Brothers, this love sought, this devotion demanded, that in future not even impiety itself should doubt that the Lord had risen. Thomas was caring for the uncertainty not only of his own heart but of all people; and, being about to preach these things among the Gentiles, he searched, as a vigorous executor, for how he might establish the mystery of so great a faith. Surely it was prophecy rather than hesitation. For why would he have asked for such things, unless he had known by a prophetic spirit that the wounds alone had been kept by the Lord as a sign of his resurrection? Indeed, the Lord freely granted to the rest what this man implores more slowly. “Jesus came,” it says, “and stood in their midst, and showed them his hands and side.” For he who had come in with the doors shut, and was rightly thought by the disciples to be a spirit, could not prove himself to those who so doubted except by the very suffering of his body, by the very marks of his wounds. Then “he came and said to Thomas: Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving but believing”: so that these wounds, opened again by you, may pour out faith over the whole world, as they have already poured out water for the washing and blood as the price of all. “Thomas answered and said: My Lord and my God!” Let the heretics come and hear, and, as the Lord said, let them not be unbelieving but believing. See, from Thomas's cry it is shown not only by a human body but through the sufferings of a body under punishment that Christ is God and Lord. And truly he is God who lives from death and rises from a wound; for, having undergone such great things, he lives and reigns as God through all ages of ages. Amen.

[On Christ's going up into the temple, and the Jews' wonder.] Even if some things seem hidden by the depth of their mystery, no solemnity of the church's worship is without fruit: a divine festival is not to be hallowed according to our wishes but to be celebrated for its own powers. A Christian mind does not know how to bring to despair the things that come by the tradition of the Fathers and are strengthened by time itself, but longs to venerate them with every expression of devotion. “When the feast was already half over,” it says, “the Lord went up into the temple” (John 7:14). What temple? “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). Today the Lord has gone up into the temple of our breast, he who so mercifully came down into the form of our body; and that God's going up takes place in the height of the human heart the blessed prophet asserts when he sings: “Blessed is the man whose help is from you, Lord; your ascents are in his heart” (Ps 84:5). “When the feast was already half over, the Lord went up into the temple.” Rightly did the Lord go up into the temple when the feast was half over, because he was to grant us the complete feast from heaven: whatever was lofty, whatever reached toward heaven in human hearts, the weight of the Lord's passion had bent down to the underworld. That is why Christ stays and lingers on earth for forty days, and, if one may say so, postpones meeting the Father and suspends the Father's embrace, until he reveals himself wholly and re-forms us for the glory of his ascension. So the one in whose temple Christ has not gone up here will not go up to heaven with Christ. “He went up into the temple and was teaching, and the Jews marvelled, saying: How does this man know letters, when he has not studied?” Rightly do they marvel that Christ knows without having studied, since they themselves are shown not to know the precepts of the law which they have studied and teach, as the Lord says: “You are a teacher in Israel, and do you not know these things?” (John 3:10). The Jews, already rebels, marvel; they do not want to believe; they know how to marvel, they refuse to understand, they are able to not know. “The Jews marvelled, saying: How does this man know letters, when he has not studied?” That a virgin gave birth you disparage, you do not marvel at; that God feels and works in our body you reject, you do not confess; that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame run, the dead rise, and Christ speaks all the secrets of God, you do not marvel at? Is it only this you marvel at, that he knows without having studied? This is the one who did not learn letters but gave them; this is the one who created the understanding by which letters are formed. Does one learned in the law marvel that the author of all things did not learn letters? God, surely, is present as the origin of all things, who makes to be what was not; without having studied, he teaches.