Sermons

[On the two sons, the prodigal and the thrifty; and first, on the prodigal's departure from his father.] Today the Lord has called a father with two sons and brought them out into our midst, to set forth in a beautiful figure the immense proof of his own fatherly love, the savage envy of the Jewish nation, and the suppliant return of the Christian people. “A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father: ‘Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.’ And he divided,” it says, “the property between them” (Luke 15). As loving as the father was, so impatient was the heir: he grows weary of his father's living on, and since he cannot take away his father's time, he strives to carry off his father's property. He deserved not to have the very privilege of a son, who refused to possess with his father what was his father's. But let us ask what drove the son to such daring, what lifted him to the confidence of so great a request. What? Surely this: he knew that the heavenly Father is to be closed by no end, concluded by no time, undone by no power of death. And so, since he would not wait to be enriched by the goods of one who was dying, he wants to enjoy his freedom while the father lives. That this was the offence in his request, the father's very generosity proved: “And he divided,” it says, “the property between them.” Though only one asked, he at once divided the whole property between both, so that the sons might know that what the father had held before he had held not from greed but from love, and had not given it out of foresight, not out of grudging. The father was holding the property to keep it for his sons, not to deny it to them, wanting it to remain for his children, not to perish. Blessed are the sons whose whole property lies in their father's love! Blessed are those whose whole possession remains in obedience to their father, in the care of their father! Otherwise, possessions split unity, separate brotherhood, scatter kinship, and ruin and violate the love of parents, as becomes clear from what follows: “Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me. And he divided,” it says, “the property between them. And not many days after, the younger son gathered everything together and set out abroad into a far country, and there he squandered his property by living extravagantly. And after he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want; and he went and attached himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his farm to feed pigs. And he longed to fill his belly with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything.” See what greed headlong for wealth does! See how wealth without the father stripped the son instead of enriching him: wealth took the son from his father's lap, threw him out of the house, removed him from his homeland, robbed him of his good name, stripped him of chastity. Of life, of morals, of devotion, of freedom, of glory, it left him nothing. It changed the citizen into a foreigner, the son into a hireling, the rich man into a beggar, the free man into a slave; it joined to pigs the one it had separated from a most loving father, so that he who scorned to obey holy devotion should serve a filthy herd. “Having gathered everything,” it says, “the younger.” Younger plainly not in age but in sense: he gathered his father's goods and went far away, much more in mind than in place, so as to sell himself wretchedly into slavery, paying the price instead of receiving it. So the merchant comes to such a bargain who does not know how to pay what is owed to parents, who does not know how to give back in return to the one who begot him. With the father there is a sweet condition, a free service, complete protection, a joyful fear, a gentle punishment, a rich poverty, a secure possession. For the labor looks to the father, the fruit overflows to the sons. “He squandered,” it says, “his property.” What had been put in order under the father's management is scattered by the son's prodigality, so that he may learn, if only too late, that his father had been the guardian of the property, not one who brooded over it. “By living extravagantly.” That life is deadly, because it dies to the virtues: whoever lives for vices is buried to good repute and perishes to glory; whoever remains in shamefulness grows in infamy. “And after he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country.” Famine is set as torturer over extravagance, belly, and gullet, so that avenging punishment may rage where punishable guilt had blazed up. “A severe famine arose.” To such an end gluttony always tends; to such a limit comes the outpouring of pleasure that should be shunned. “And he began to be in want.” The property once given makes the son to be in want, the property that, when denied, would have kept him rich; so that he who had abounded with his father by not having now fails on his own by having. “And he attached himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his farm to feed pigs.” So he who denies himself to his father, who entrusts himself to a stranger, finds a severe judge, having fled a most indulgent provider. The deserter of affection, the runaway from devotion, is assigned to pigs, handed over to pigs, delivered into the service of pigs; he runs through the muddy pastures of pigs, is trampled by the restless herd and soiled by its running about, so that he may feel how wretched, how bitter it is to have lost the blessedness of his father's peace. “And he longed to fill his belly with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything.” What a cruel service: he cannot even share the pigs' food, he who lives for pigs! Wretched is he who falls short of the filthy herd and hungers for their fodder! Wretched is he who longs for filthy food and does not obtain even that! Taught by these things, instructed by such examples, let us remain in our father's house, let us stay in our mother's lap, let us be held close in the embrace of our relatives, let a father's heart hold us fast, so that the pitiable freedom of youth may not drag us into the evils described above. Let reverence for a father hedge us in, a mother's affection settle us, the affection of relatives guard us. Among the eyes of kinsfolk sins cannot move about: as many eyes of kinsfolk, so many lamps. A mother's look is daylight; the sun shines in a father's face. So for one who lives among so many lights of virtues, the darkness of crimes cannot come near. But the father's table feeds us with the food of virtue, the banquet of salvation, the delights of honor and glory. And since the long series of the reading compels us to set out this parable at greater length, we will inquire in the next sermon, with our common prayers, who the father is who is ready in giving and readier in receiving back; who the brother is who is most saddened at his brother's salvation; who the younger son is, foolish in his going away, most wise in his return.

[On the same; where it treats of the son's return to the father.] In the previous sermon we touched, as well as we could, on the evils that so struck the extravagant son, the son who deserted a most loving father, that, wasted by hunger, he sat down to the service of pigs. Now, with a better hope and in happier words, let us follow his return and his repentance. “Coming to himself,” it says, “he said: ‘How many hired servants of my father have bread in plenty’” (Luke 15:17), and so on. He came to himself; he first returns to himself, so that he might return to his father, he who had first gone away from himself when he went away from his father. He moves away from himself and passes entirely from man into beast, forgetful of fatherly love, unmindful of his parent's kindness. “How many hired servants of my father have bread in plenty, but I am perishing here with hunger.” Hunger calls back the one whom fullness had exiled; hunger gave him the sense to think of his father, when plenty had taken away his feeling for his parent. And if hunger, even unwilling, achieved so much, prove what voluntary fasting can bestow. A loaded belly lays the heart down to vices, weighs down the mind, so that it cannot feel the love from above. “The body,” it says, “which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks many things” (Wis 9:15). Hence the Lord too says: “Take heed that your hearts be not weighed down with carousing and drunkenness” (Luke 21:34). The belly must therefore be emptied by the moderation of fasting, so that the mind, unburdened, may reach up to the heights, climb to the virtues, and fly, all on wings, to the very author of love. Elijah proves this: purged of the weight of the flesh by continuing the Lord's fast, he flew up to heaven as conqueror of death (1 Kgs 19:8; 2 Kgs 2:11). “I will arise and go to my father.” He who said “I will arise” was lying down: he recognized his fall, felt his ruin, saw himself lying in the slippery mire of shameful extravagance, and so he cries out: “I will arise and go to my father.” With what hope? What trust? What confidence? With what hope? With this: that he is his father. I have lost what belonged to a son; he has not lost what belongs to a father. No stranger intercedes with a father; within the father's breast is the very affection that intervenes and pleads. A father's heart is moved to beget his son again through pardon. I will go to my father guilty; but the father, at the sight of his son, will soon cover the guilt; he will set aside the judge, wishing rather to fulfill the parent; and he will quickly turn the sentence into pardon, wishing his son to return, not to perish. “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” Confession opens up the father; repentance speaks the parent. “I have sinned against heaven and before you.” The one against whom sin is committed in heaven is not an earthly father, but the heavenly one; therefore he added, “before you,” before whose eyes, in heaven and on earth, all things that are done stand. “I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” This man set out abroad and fled into a far country, but he did not escape his accusers, his witnesses, the eyes of the divine Father. David opens this more clearly, saying: “Where shall I go from your Spirit? And where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend to hell, you are present. If I take my wings at dawn and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me” (Ps 139:7–10). He sees that through the whole world sins stand naked before the eyes of God: that not heaven, not earth, not the seas, not the abyss, not night itself can veil sins from God. He perceives how great a crime, how great an evil it is to sin in the very sight of God, and therefore he cries: “Against you only have I sinned and done evil before you” (Ps 51:4). So this younger son likewise cries out and calls: “I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He does not say, “I am not worthy to be your son,” but “I am not worthy to be called your son,” because being called belongs to grace, being belongs to nature. Hear the Apostle saying: “From him who called you into his grace” (Gal 1:6). This younger son, then, because he had lost what belonged to nature, judges that he does not deserve what belongs to grace. “Make me like one of your hired servants.” See what the son in his own power has come to! Pleasure of extravagance, freedom of youth, see where they have brought the son! “Make me like one of your hired servants”: so that his servitude may be renewed by yearly hire, his hired condition worn down by constant labor, so that he may sigh all day at work as a wretched slave for wages, may always be the seller of himself and never be able to deny his servitude. And he asks this because he who had felt with a stranger a freedom that was slavery believed that with his father he would have a servitude that was free. I would now wish, brothers, to open the mystery of this reading, if regard for its usefulness did not call me back: for I see that you hear these things not as our own concern, with the grief they deserve, but hurry to pass over them in your understanding as if they concerned others. Christ always speaks to us of things that are ours, ours, and profitable to all, and to correct us the Lord repeatedly uses mystical examples, he who wished to be the father of his servants, who wished to be loved rather than feared, who gave himself as the bread of life, who poured out his blood as the cup of salvation. By past comparisons he corrects the present and the future, so that we may not desert the good Father, the loving parent, and head for the distant and all too foreign parts of the world, and there, living extravagantly, squander the whole substance of salvation and life, and, everything spent, suffer a most grievous famine of hope; and so be handed over to the chief man of that country, that is, the devil, the author of despair, and he send us into his farm, that is, into the alluring valleys of this world; send us to feed pigs, that is, those who, always bent toward the earth, live for the belly, and cool the heat of the flesh in a wallow of mud, press it in the filth, refresh it in the whirlpool of vices. That he sends his hired men to the pigs is done by insatiable cruelty, which is not content that people become criminals unless it makes them leaders in vices and teachers of crimes. When he has made them such, he does not let them be filled even with the pigs' food and drink, so that, hungry for vices, they may sin the more: satiety cannot hold the extravagant, pleasure does not know how to be filled. So let us be with the good Father, let us remain with the loving parent, so that we may avoid the devil's snares and enjoy our Father's goods without end. We shall search out the depths afterward, because we owe more to the common good and to morals.

[On the same; where it treats of the father's running to meet the son.] So far, in two sermons, we have run through the extravagant son's departure, return, guilt, and repentance; now let us follow the father's meeting, the father's goodness, the father's unspeakable mercy. “Rising,” it says, “he came to his father; but while he was still far off, his father saw him and was moved with mercy, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). “Rising, he came to his father.” He rose from the ruin of mind and body; he rose from the depth of hell, reaching the heights of heaven; with the heavenly Father a son rises more by pardon than he fell by guilt. “Rising, he came to his father.” He came not by the steps of his feet but by the movement of his mind; he did not need the length of an earthly journey, because he found the shortcuts of the way of salvation. He does not know how to seek the divine Father by running along roads, who, seeking by faith, soon finds him present. “Rising, he came to his father; but while he was still far off.” How is he far off who comes? Because he has not yet arrived. He who comes has come to repentance, but has not yet arrived at grace; he has come to his father's house, but has not yet arrived at the glory of his former dress or honor. “But while he was still far off, his father saw him.” That Father saw who dwells on high and looks on lowly things and knows lofty things from afar (Ps 113:5–6). “His father saw him.” The father saw him, so that he too might be able to look at his father; the father's look lit up the face of the son coming, so that all the darkness that guilt had spread around him might be put to flight. The darkness of night is not like the darkness that comes from the confusion of sins. Hear the prophet saying: “My iniquities have taken hold of me, and I could not see” (Ps 40:12). And elsewhere: “My iniquities have become heavy upon me” (Ps 38:4). And afterward: “And the light of my eyes is not with me” (Ps 38:10). Night buries yesterday's light; sins bury the senses; the limbs confound the mind. Unless, then, the heavenly Father had shone into the face of the returning son and removed all the gloom of confusion by the light of his look, this son would never have seen the brightness of the divine face. “He saw him from afar and was moved with mercy.” He who cannot be moved from place is moved with mercy; he ran, not by advancing his body but by the affection of love. “He fell on his neck.” Not by a collapse of his body but by a collapse of compassion. “He fell on his neck,” to raise up the one lying so low. “He fell on his neck,” to lift off the burden of sins by the burden of love. “Come to me,” he says, “all you who labor and are burdened. Take my burden upon you, for it is light” (Matt 11:28–30). You see that the son is helped by this father's burden, not weighed down. “He fell on his neck and kissed him.” So the father judges, so he corrects, so he gives his sinning son kisses, not lashes. The force of love does not see offences, and so the father redeemed his son's sins with a kiss and shut them in with an embrace, so that the father might not lay bare his son's crimes, so that the father might not disgrace his son. So the father heals his son's wounds, so as to leave his son no scar, no blemish. “Blessed,” it says, “are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered” (Ps 32:1). If this young man's deed displeases us, if his departure horrifies us, let us never depart from such a Father. The Father's look puts crimes to flight, drives out guilt, repels all wickedness and temptations. Certainly, if we have departed, if we have scattered the whole of our Father's property by our way of living, if we have committed any crime and offence anywhere, if we have come to the whole precipice of ungodliness, to total ruin, let us rise at last and return to such a Father, invited by such an example. “But when he saw him, he was moved with mercy, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” I ask, what place is there here for despair? What occasion for excuse? What pretense of fear? Unless perhaps the meeting is feared, the kiss terrifies, the embrace disturbs, and the father is believed to seize for punishment, not to receive for pardon, when he draws his son with his hands, encloses him in his lap, binds him with his arms. But this thought, the destroyer of life, the enemy of salvation, is utterly overcome, utterly removed, by what follows: “But the father said to his servants: ‘Quickly bring out the first robe and put it on him, and put a gold ring on his hand and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and feast, for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and is found.’” Having heard this, do we still delay? Do we still not return to the Father? “Quickly bring out the first robe and put it on him.” He bore with his son's crimes, who did not bear his nakedness: hence he wanted his son clothed by the servants before he was seen, so that his nakedness might be known to the father alone, because only the father could not see his son's nakedness. “Quickly bring out the first robe.” This father, who did not allow the sinner to be in second place, wants to have joy from pardon more than from justice. “Quickly bring out the first robe.” He did not say: Where do you come from? Where have you been? Where are the things you took? Why have you exchanged such glory for such disgrace? But: “Quickly bring out the first robe and put it on him.” You see that the force of love does not see offences. A father does not know slow mercy. Whoever examines offences exposes them. “And put a ring on his hand.” A father's love is not content to restore innocence alone unless it also restores his former honor. “And put shoes on his feet.” How poor he returned who had gone away enriched, and from his whole property does not bring back even shoes on his feet! “Put shoes on his feet”: so that the ugliness of nakedness might not remain even on his foot; surely, so that, shod, he might return to the course of his former life. “And bring the fatted calf.” An ordinary calf is not enough unless it is fat, unless it is fattened: the fat calf bears witness to the richness of the father's love. “And bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and feast; for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and is found.” We are still speaking the literal story, and already we are thinking of laying bare the hidden mystery: the dead son is raised from death by the calf, and one calf is poured out as a feast for the whole household. But this must be put off, so that we may follow the elder brother's long-standing grief and his yet older envy.

[On the same; where it treats of the elder son's jealousy toward the returning prodigal.] Rejoicing at the younger son's return and salvation, we now set out with tears and lament the envy of the elder, who lost the highest good of thrift through the extreme evil of jealousy and spite. “Now his elder son,” it says, “was in the field; and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked what these things were. And he answered: ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe.’ But he was angry and would not go in.” “Now his elder son,” it says, “was in the field.” He was in the field tilling the earth while neglecting himself; he breaks up the hardness of the sod, yet hardens the disposition of his heart; he roots out thorns and weeds, yet does not pull out the goads of envy. So in the crop of greed he gathers the fruit of jealousy and spite. “And as he came,” it says, “and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.” The music of love puts the envious to flight, the dance of charity shuts him out; and the one whom the reason of nature calls to come to his brother and draw near to the house, jealousy does not let arrive, spite does not allow to enter. Envy is an ancient evil, the first stain, the old poison, the venom of the ages, the cause of death. In the beginning it cast the angel himself out and down from heaven. It shut out of paradise the man who was the head of our race. It shut this elder brother out of his father's house. It armed the offspring of Abraham, a people of holiness, for the slaughter of its own author, for the death of its own Savior. Envy is an enemy within: it does not batter the walls of the flesh or break down the enclosures of the limbs, but rams the very citadel of the heart, and before the inward parts feel it, the robber, given life, seizes the very mistress of the body and leads her off captive. If, then, we wish to deserve heavenly glory, if we wish to possess the blessedness of paradise, to inhabit the house of the eternal Father, if we wish not to be held guilty of heavenly parricide, let us drive off the dark snares of envy by watchful faith and by the light of the Spirit and shut them out, let us crush envy with the whole strength of heavenly arms; because as charity joins us to God, so envy separates us from God. “So his father came out and began to entreat him.” The anxious heart of the father is pressed by the varied movements of his sons, and between the different fortunes of his children the father's love runs about bewildered; for he sees one brother at once put to flight by his brother's return, and one lost to him through the other's salvation, and a long grief, made up for by a brief joy, disturbed by the spite of envy. O swelling of jealousy: an ample house cannot hold two brothers! And what wonder, brothers? Envy brought it about, it brought it about that the whole breadth of the world was too narrow for two brothers; for it raised Cain to the murder of the younger (Gen 4), so that the spite of jealousy made him alone whom the law of nature had made first. “But he answered and said to his father: ‘Father, see, these many years I have served you.’” So thinks one who dares to judge his father's love. “See, these many years I have served you.” See with what servitude a son repays his father for the benefit of birth! “I never transgressed your command.” Not your innocence but your father's pardon gave you this, because in his great love he preferred to cover his son's faults rather than expose them. “And you never gave me a kid, that I might feast with my friends.” A mind envious of a brother cannot be grateful to a father; and he who is unmindful of brotherly love is not mindful of a father's generosity. He denies that a kid was given him, who received the whole part of the property at the time of the division. For when the younger brother asked that the share of the property be given him, the father at once divided the whole between both brothers, as the evangelist says: “And he divided the property between them.” But the envious man always pretends; the envious man always lies. “And you never gave me a kid, that I might feast with my friends.” He does not count his father's friends as his own: he believes those to be not friends but strangers by whom he saw himself loved for his father's sake. “But when this son of yours came, who has devoured his property with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf.” Here he grieves that his brother has returned, not that the property has perished; nor is the complaint made on account of loss, but of spite: he ought to have honored his returning brother from his own goods, not so to have disgraced him over what was lost. The father's whole property is in his son, and so the father lost nothing when he received his son back. The brother thought it a loss when he saw that a co-heir had returned. And when is the envious man not greedy, when does he not count as lost whatever another has? “But he said to him: ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours; but it was fitting to feast and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and is found.’” O what the force of love does! Though to a bad son, he does not know how not to be a father, he cannot not be a father. He sees that his son has degenerated in spirit; he sees that he has nothing of a father's love or of his father's stock; and yet he calls him son; he urges his affection back to kindness, or to the hope of his generosity, saying: “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” That is to say: Allow the son to have returned to his father; permit the father to have received his son; he sought nothing other than a father, who on coming wished to be placed not as a son but in the place of a hired servant, saying: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” Let all things be yours; the father is enough for him; and that you may not think anything of the present or the old has been diminished for you, I will seek new and future things for him. Surely, if you follow your father's counsel and command, share the present with your brother, so that the future may be common to you with him. Rejoice then, and rejoice at the one found, so that he may rejoice that you have not perished. But let us now conclude the historical sermon, so that afterward, with Christ revealing, we may lay open what is mystical and deep.

[On the same, as figuring the Jew and the Gentile.] It is the mark of a crafty and shameless debtor often not to pay what he has agreed, and to put off a most patient creditor with long and artful quibbling. This is our fifth sermon on the departure and return of the extravagant son, in which, as we promised, we shall try to raise the historical sense to a mystical and singular understanding of the Godhead. Pray that, since in so great a debt I am not a fit debtor by myself, I may prove a fit payer to you through God. “A certain man,” it says, “had two sons.” Since Christ took up the burden of our flesh and God put on human remains, God truly calls himself a man; the Lord truly names himself the father of two sons, because the Godhead mingled with humanity and love joined to the Godhead have blended man and God, and have united the Lord into a father. This man, then, this father, had two sons by the kindness of a Creator, not by the necessity of one who begets; he had two sons whom he did not earn but commanded to be: for Christ was a man before our eyes in such a way that as God he always remained in the secret of his majesty. “He had two sons”: that is, two peoples, the Jewish and the Gentile; but he made the Jewish the elder by the wisdom of the law, and the folly of paganism rendered the Gentile the younger. For as wisdom gives gray hairs, so folly takes away whatever is manly. Character, then, not age, made this one the younger; not years but sense made that one the elder. “And the younger of them,” it says, “said to his father: Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.” He asks the knower of the heart not with his voice but with his whole self, because our own will brings back good or evil from God. Then this son, possessor of the whole lot together with his father, came by his own will to a part, saying: “Give me the share of the property that falls to me.” And what is this share? What is it? Bearing, speech, knowledge, reason, judgment, which fall to man above the other living creatures in his earthly dwelling: that is, according to the Apostle, the law of nature. And so he divided the property between them, giving the younger these five things we have named, the gifts of nature, and writing for the elder by divine power the five books of the law: so that the property would be unequal in worth but equal in number; the one would hold to the human order, the other would stand by divine institution; yet each law would lead both sons to knowledge of the father and keep them in reverence for their author. “And not many days after,” it says, “the younger, having gathered everything, set out abroad into a far country, and there squandered his property by living extravagantly.” We said that not years but character made him the younger, and so it said, “not many days after.” For with the very beginning of the world the Gentiles hurried to the homeland of idols; they went abroad in mind to the far country of the devil, wandered not in place but through the elements with empty thoughts, were tossed about the earth not by bodily movements; for he was before the father yet without the father, and though he was in himself he was not with himself. This is why the extravagant son, through desire for worldly eloquence, through the brothels of the schools, through the crossroads of the sects, squandered God the Father's property in mad disputation. And when by conjectures he had used up whatever there was of speech, knowledge, reason, and judgment, he most wretchedly endured utter poverty, a great famine of knowing the truth: for philosophy imposed the labor of seeking the Godhead but brought no fruit of finding the truth. This is why he attached himself to the chief man of that country, by whom he was sent into this world, that is, into one farm of many superstitions, to feed pigs, that is, demons, who say to the Lord: “If you cast us out, send us into the pigs” (Matt 8:31); to feed the demons with incense, victims, and blood, and to bring back as wages for such labor false oracles. A beast was slain so that what knew nothing alive might foretell when slain, and what had never spoken with its mouth might speak dead from its entrails. But when the Gentile found nothing divine, nothing saving, nothing of use in such things, despairing of God, of providence, of judgment, of things to come, he passed from the school to the gluttony of the belly, longing to be filled with the pods that the pigs were eating. The Epicureans know this: having run through the Platonic and Aristotelian schools and found there no teaching either of divinity or of knowledge, they hand themselves over to Epicurus, the last author of despair and pleasure. And they eat pods, that is, they gape after the evilly sweet pleasures of the body, and they feed the demons, who always grow fat on the vices and filth of bodies: for as “he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor 6:17), so he who joins himself to the devil is one demon. But this younger son, though he longed, did not fill his belly with those pods. Why? Because no one gave him any. The devil indeed wanted, through the famine of knowledge and the difficulty of pleasures, to make the Gentile greedier to seek out unlawful things and to commit crimes; but God the Father let the Gentile go hungry for this reason, that the occasion of error might become the ground of salvation: for he so left the Jew as not to destroy him, and allowed the Gentile to suffer famine so that he might return. And he returns to the father and cries: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” That the younger son has returned to his father's house and calls God Father is attested by the daily voice of the Church, which says: “Our Father, who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). “I have sinned against heaven and before you.” He sinned against heaven when he blasphemously said that the sun, moon, and stars in heaven were gods, and profaned these very things by worshiping them. “And I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” That is to say: since I no longer deserve the glory of a son, or of pardon, let me at least obtain wages for a hireling's labor; and let him who has lost the honor of offspring at least keep life's sustenance in daily bread. But the father runs to meet him, and runs to meet him from far off. “While we were still ungodly, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8–9). The father runs to meet him, runs to meet him in the Son, when through him he comes down from heaven and reaches the earth. “The Father,” he says, “who sent me is with me” (John 8:29). “He fell on his neck.” He fell when through Christ the whole Godhead bent down to us and lay upon us in the flesh. “And he kissed him.” When? When “mercy and truth have met; justice and peace have kissed” (Ps 85:10). He gave the first robe: that which Adam lost, the everlasting glory of immortality. He put a ring on his hand: the ring of honor, the title of freedom, the outstanding pledge of the Spirit, the seal of faith, the earnest of the heavenly wedding. Hear the Apostle: “I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor 11:2). “And shoes on his feet”: so that the feet might be shod for the preaching of the Gospel, so that the feet of those who bring good news of peace might be blessed (Rom 10:15). “And he killed for him the fatted calf”: the one of which David sang: “And it will please God more than a young calf putting forth horns and hoofs” (Ps 69:31). The calf is killed at the father's command, because Christ, God the Son of God, could not be killed without the Father's will. Hear the Apostle: “He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all” (Rom 8:32). This is the calf who is sacrificed daily and continually for our banquet. But the elder brother, the elder son coming from the field, is the people of the law, “the harvest is great, but the laborers few” (Luke 10:2): he hears music in his father's house, hears dancing, and will not go in. This we see daily with our own eyes. For the Jew comes to the father's house, that is, to the Church; he stands outside through envy; he hears David's harp resounding, hears the harmony of the prophets' concord, hears the dances from the varied gathering of the peoples, and will not go in, standing outside through envy. While he judges his Gentile brother by his former life and shrinks from him for his morals, he removes himself from his father's goods, he shuts himself out of his father's joys. As for his saying, “See, these many years I serve you, and I never transgressed your command, and you never gave me a kid,” we have already said that it is better passed over in silence than spoken of, because it is the Jew who speaks, and these are the words not of one who does but of one who swells with pride. The father comes out and says to his son: “Son, you are always with me.” How? Through Abel, through Enoch, through Shem, through Noah, through Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, through Moses, through all the saints through whom the Jewish lineage read in the Gospel descends, when it says: “Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob” (Matt 1:2). “And all that is mine is yours.” In what way? Because for you is the law, for you prophecy, for you the temple, for you the priesthood, for you the sacrifices, for you the kingdom, for you the gifts, for you (what is above all) Christ was born. But because through envy you wish to destroy your brother, you deserve not to have your father's feast and your father's joys. In a narrow sermon we have not been able to open very wide matters as we wished; but for your knowledge and understanding what seems narrow in our sermon is broad. Let this plain and hidden discourse not be unwelcome, which compelled us not to narrate or declaim, but to open and explain mystical and lofty things.

[On rejoicing at the bringing of the Gentiles to faith and grace. On Psalm 100.] Since at the younger son's return the whole household danced and sang a heavenly music, it is fitting that we too today should take up a psalm, strike the drum, set up the organ, touch the harp, and sound David's melody for so great a joy of God the Father. “Shout with joy to God,” it says, “all the earth” (Ps 100:1). What is it that the understanding of this exultation seeks? Why is it that after such great, such terrible, such wonderful commands of the Godhead the earth is now called and invited to shouts of joy? “Shout with joy to God,” it says, “all the earth.” What else, except that after the terrible God chose the office of a most gentle shepherd and put on the person of a shepherd, so that as a merciful shepherd he might gather into one the wandering peoples, the straying multitudes, the nations scattered far and wide, like wandering sheep; indeed, so that he might lead the wild nations, the prey of death, thirsting for the food of flesh, the drink of blood, the fury of beasts, to the use of milk, to the food of grass, and restore them to the whole gentleness of sheep? He commands and enjoins on all the earth a shepherd's discipline, saying: “All the earth, shout with joy to God.” As a terrible trumpet leads the soldier out to war, so the sweetness of joyful shouting invites the sheep to pasture. So it was fitting to soften the roar of warfare with a shepherd's gentleness, so that so gentle a grace might save the nations that natural savagery had long destroyed. That the return of the shepherd would be good when he came to earth, Christ himself has cried out today: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10:11). This is why the master himself seeks helpers, seeks partners for the care of the whole world, saying: “Shout with joy to God, all the earth.” This is why, about to return to heaven, he entrusts his sheep to Peter in his place, to feed them. “Peter,” he says, “do you love me? Feed my sheep.” And so that he would not drive the tender beginnings of the return by power but carry them by love, he repeats: “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.” He entrusts the sheep, he entrusts the offspring of the sheep, because the shepherd in his foreknowledge already knew the fruitfulness of his flock to come. “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep” (John 21:16–17). To these sheep Paul, Peter's fellow shepherd, offered in loving pasture udders full of milk, saying: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food” (1 Cor 3:2). The blessed king perceived this, and so instead of bleating he cries: “The Lord feeds me, and I shall lack nothing; in a green place he has set me; beside the water of refreshment he has brought me up” (Ps 23:1–2). After the continual groans of wars, then, after the sad life of blood, the next verse announces to one now returning to the pastures of the Gospel's peace a joyful service. Man was the slave of sin, the captive of death, the chattel of demons, the house-slave of idols, the whipping-boy of vices, the chained prisoner of crimes. So man rendered an evil and wretched service to such great and evil masters. When was man under sin not sad? When under death not mourning? When under demons not pale? When under idols not trembling? When under vices not suspect? When under crimes not despairing? And so man breathed his last sighs while he continually endured such cruel masters. The prophet, then, seeing us freed from such masters and called back to the obedience of the Creator, to the Father's grace, to the free service of one good Lord, rightly cries out: “Serve the Lord with gladness; enter,” he says, “into his presence with exultation.” Enter not by place but by heart. “Enter into his presence with exultation.” For those whom guilt had cast out, whom conscience had expelled, grace brings back and innocence lets in. “Enter into his presence with exultation.” Whoever enters into his presence with exultation is free from guilt and fully secure of his reward. Yet what is it that this prophet urges, that he strives to persuade? “Enter into his presence with exultation.” Who is free in the sight of God? Who lies before the divine eyes? Who exults before the terror of the supreme majesty? Archangels tremble, angels are afraid, powers fear, the elders fall on their faces before heaven; the elements flee, the rocks are dissolved, the mountains flow down, the earth trembles; and how fearlessly will a man of earth enter? And will he still stand exulting? From where does the prophet so presume that we ought to do this? From where? From what follows: “Know,” he says, “that the Lord himself is God.” Because that Lord is God who was little in our flesh; this is why that Lord is God who was contained in our cradle, sweet in the lap, gentle in his bearing, kind in sharing our life. And so: “Enter into his presence with exultation.” For he hid all the dread of the Godhead, all the fear of the judge, in our condition, and set it in a provident aspect, so that one who enters may not fear the penalties of a judge but may count on the embrace of a parent. And how should he not exult who finds as parent the one whom he had feared as examiner? “Enter into his presence with exultation; know that the Lord himself is God; he made us, and not we ourselves.” The labor of father and mother is empty unless the work and authority of the Creator is present in the offspring. “Your hands,” it says, “made me and formed me” (Ps 119:73). And elsewhere: “You formed me and laid your hand upon me” (Ps 139:5). So that we are born, that we exist, we do not owe to ourselves, because we owe it all to the Author. “But we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.” It has been proved very often in figures that the shepherd came from heaven to call back with heavenly shouts of joy to life-giving pastures the sheep that wandered and were wounded by deadly grass. “Enter,” it says, “his gates with confession.” Confession alone makes us enter by the door of faith. “His courts with hymns: confess to him, praise his name.” We said that, now placed within the Father's house, we must take up the spiritual music of heavenly songs, so that we may have confession at the entrance, hymns in the courts, praise in the inner rooms, where the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells. “Confess to him, praise his name.” Confess to him, because he is God; praise his name, through which we have been saved, at which things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth bend the knee, and the creature loves the Lord God. “For the Lord is sweet.” Why? “Because his mercy is forever.” Truly he is sweet through mercy, through which alone he deigned to remove the most bitter sentence on the whole world. “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” “And his truth to the age of ages.” For God shows mercy without harm to truth, who so gives pardon to sins as to keep justice and reason in his very mercy, who is blessed for ages of ages. Amen.

[On hypocrisy and almsgiving. On Matthew 6: “When you fast, do not be gloomy like the hypocrites.”] When God changed from Lord into Father, he wished to reign by love rather than by power, and preferred to be loved rather than feared; so with a father's affection he warned us, so that nothing of our most just labor might be lost to us. The evangelist says this: “When you fast, do not be gloomy like the hypocrites; for they disfigure their faces so as to be seen by men as fasting. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward” (Matt 6:16). Hypocrisy is a subtle evil, a secret poison, a hidden venom, the varnish of virtues, the moth of holiness. All other adversaries strive with their own strength, fight with their own arms, attack openly; so they are guarded against as easily as they are seen. Hypocrisy feigns security, deceives with prosperity, lies with curiosity, and with cruel art cuts down virtues with the sword of virtues: it kills fasting by fasting, empties prayer by prayer, lays mercy low by compassion. Hypocrisy, kin to fever, offers burning heat in a cold cup. What dropsy is to bodies, hypocrisy is to souls: dropsy thirsts by drinking, hypocrisy thirsts when drunk. “For they disfigure their faces so as to be seen by men as fasting.” Hypocrisy, while it longs to capture eyes, is itself made captive to eyes. “For they disfigure their faces.” And if they disfigure their faces, what adornment of the body will remain? Truly, as the Lord said: “If the light that is in you is darkness, how great will the darkness itself be?” (Matt 6:23). Hypocrite, though your face is unkempt, your skin neglected, your look gloomy, your appearance disfigured, you have not found praise from men, and you have lost the fruit of fasting with God. Hypocrite, you have labored at fasting so that the labor of fasting would profit you nothing. Hypocrite, you entered the waves of abstinence, climbed the billows of continence, swam the sea of fasting, and in the very harbor of fasting you suffered shipwreck: for you did not acquire gain but bought vanity, you who out of God's loan carried on a human business. This is why you will render an account to God, you who received from men the interest of wretched praise. Brothers, we must flee the poison, beware the plague, which creates diseases out of remedies, produces sickness from medicine, turns holiness into crime, makes guilt out of acts of appeasement, breeds danger out of propitiation. Whoever flees hypocrisy conquers; whoever runs into it falls. Let us flee hypocrisy, brothers, let us flee it: let our fasting be from simplicity, holy from innocence, pure from purity, sincere from sincerity; let it be hidden from men, unknown to the devil, known to God. Whoever does not hide a treasure betrays it; virtues betrayed will not remain. As virtues desert those who betray them, so they strive to guard their guardians. So let fasting, which is our first virtue against vices, be placed in the citadel of the breast: for while it presides within, the vices will not be able to shake us from without. Christ urges this, so that a Christian may have it, when he says: “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” When he says, “Anoint your head and wash your face,” the serious master does not enjoin that the hair of the head overflow with seductive ointment, nor does he want the face to shine with its usual washing; but he wants the Christian's fasting to be hidden under the appearance of one who has dined, because he does not want fasting to claim the Christian by an artificial gloom. But let us return to what we began. “Anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret.” So he does not indulge voluptuous looks, but he excludes faces that pretend: a face cast down with gloom courts reputation; it does not profess a voluntary fast. If he is willing, why gloomy? If he is unwilling, why fasting? Rightly does he live under such a penalty, who makes for himself a vice out of virtue, a lie out of truth, a loss out of reward, sin out of remission. If a farmer does not drive in the plowshare, does not dig the furrow, does not cut out the thorns, does not pull up the weeds, does not lay the seeds in safety, he lies to himself, not to the earth; he does no harm to the earth, but produces no fruit for himself; and so he empties himself, so he deceives himself, so he fights against himself, who lies to the earth with a deceitful hand. What will he do, what will he have, what will he find, who lies to God, the flesh hungering while hypocrisy feasts? Since we have mentioned the farmer, let him know that he undergoes labor in vain and will have nothing, who presses the plow of fasting, cuts out the weeds of gluttony and roots out the thorns of extravagance, but sows no seeds of mercy. The Lord wished to make this plain, who in teaching about fasting at once added this: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where rust and moth destroy and where thieves dig through and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth destroys, and where thieves do not dig through or steal.” What is so fatherly? What comes so from love? What counsel so provident from charity? He wants nothing of yours to perish, who wants your things to be stored in the heavenly treasuries. How securely he sleeps who has deserved to have God as the guardian of his goods! How he knows no cares, how he lays aside anxieties, how free he is from worry, how he lacks the arrogance of servants, who entrusts his goods to the Father to be kept! How a father's affection keeps what servile fear cannot keep so: a father, when he gives his own to his sons, does not diminish what the sons have entrusted to him. He does not know what a father is, he does not know that he is a son, who does not trust his father. Bolts do not shut out the moth but shut it in; they breed it, they do not repel it; stored things nourish rust, they do not avoid it, because what is born of a thing is not avoided. Where there is need, thieves cannot be lacking. So whoever puts his goods among moths, rust, and thieves, does not store them up. As the moth is born of clothing, rust of metal, thieves of need, so greed is acquired from riches, covetousness from gain, the passion for having from having. So whoever wants to conquer greed, let him spread his riches abroad, not store them up. Let us send our treasures ahead into heaven, brothers; let the poor be the carriers, who can carry what is ours in their bosom to the heights. Let no one doubt the honesty of the porters: this transport is safe, by which our goods are carried to God with God as guarantor, to whom is all honor and glory, power and dominion, and thanksgiving for all ages of ages. Amen.

[On fasting and almsgiving.] When a prudent helmsman casts off from the shore, when, about to cross the sea, he enters the waves, he lays aside his cares for house, homeland, wife, and children, and is so wholly taken up in mind, body, and sense with the labors of sailing that he can overcome the dangers of the waves and, victor over peril, enter the anchorage of a profitable harbor. So let us, brothers, having entered on the journey of abstinence, the sea of fasting, the way of Lent, cast off the ship of our body from the shore of the world; let us renounce the cares of our worldly homeland; on the tree of the cross let us spread all the sails of the mind; with the ropes of the virtues, the oars of wisdom, the rudders of discipline, let us secure the course of our vessel. And, drawn away from the earth, let us watch the sky, so that under the guidance of the heavenly signs we may keep an unerring track along the watery paths of the hidden way; and so, with Christ at the helm and the Holy Spirit blowing, the foam of pleasures overcome, the waves of vices surmounted, the storms of crimes run through, the rocks of sins passed by, and the shipwrecks of all offences avoided, we may enter the harbor of Easter, the gain of life, the joys of the resurrection. But since we are to make our way across bare plains, through deceptive whirlpools, through uncertain wastes, where all our food and drink must be carried, let us load on abundant mercy to stock our provisions. Brothers, fasting hungers, fasting thirsts, when it is not fed with the food of kindness, when it is not watered with the drink of mercy. Fasting is cold, fasting fails, when the fleece of almsgiving does not cover it, when the garment of compassion does not clothe it. Brothers, what spring is to the earth, mercy, we know, is to fasting. As the breezes of spring make all the buds of the fields flower, so mercy brings all the seeds of fasting into flower, makes the whole power of fasting bear fruit for the heavenly harvest. What oil is to a lamp, kindness is to fasting: as the richness of oil kindles the lamp's light and with moderate feeding makes it shine for the comfort of the whole night, so kindness makes fasting shine and radiate the full brightness of continence. What the sun is to the day, almsgiving is known to be to fasting: as the sun's splendor makes the day brighter and scatters all the darkness of clouds, so almsgiving sanctifies the holiness of fasting and shuts out the whole night of greed by the light of kindness. And not to linger over many examples: what the soul is to the body, generosity is to fasting. For as the body dies when the soul leaves the body, so the departure of generosity is the death of fasting. Fasting indeed is the death of vices, the life of virtues. Fasting is peace for the body, the grace of the limbs, the ornament of life. Fasting is the strength of minds, the vigor of souls. Fasting is the wall of chastity, the bulwark of modesty, the city of holiness. Fasting is the school of merits, the mastery of masteries, the discipline of disciplines. Fasting is the saving provision for the Church's journey. Fasting is the unconquered leadership of the Christian army. But among these virtues fasting flourishes, conquers, triumphs only when it fights with mercy as its leader. Mercy and kindness are the wings of fasting, by which it is lifted and carried to heaven; without them it lies and rolls on the ground. Fasting without mercy is a likeness of famine, not an image of holiness; without kindness, fasting is an occasion of avarice, not a resolve of thrift, because such thrift swells in the purse as much as it dries up in the body. Fasting without mercy is not truth but a figure; but where mercy is, there truth is too, as the prophet proves when he says: “Mercy and truth have met” (Ps 85:10). Fasting without mercy is not virtue but hypocrisy, as the Lord says: “But when you fast, do not be gloomy like the hypocrites; for they disfigure their faces so as to be seen by men as fasting” (Matt 6:16). Whoever does not fast for the poor is pretending to God; whoever fasts and does not give away his meal but stores it up is shown to fast for greed, not for Christ. So, brothers, when we fast let us store our meal in the hand of the poor, so that the hand of the poor may keep for us what the belly would have lost for us. The hand of the poor is Abraham's bosom, where the poor man at once stores whatever he has received. The hand of the poor is the treasury of heaven: what it receives, it stores in heaven so that it may not perish on earth. “Store up for yourselves,” he says, “treasures in heaven” (Matt 6:20). The hand of the poor is Christ's treasure chest, because whatever the poor man receives, Christ accepts. So give earth to the poor, O man, that you may receive heaven. Give a coin, that you may receive a kingdom. Give a crumb, that you may receive the whole. Give to the poor, that you may give to yourself; for whatever you give the poor you will have; what you do not give the poor, another will have. God cries: “I desire mercy” (Hos 6:6). Whoever denies God what God wants wants God to deny him what he desires. “I desire mercy.” God asks, O man, but for you, not for himself: “I desire mercy.” He asks for human mercy so as to bestow divine mercy. There is mercy in heaven, which is reached through earthly acts of mercy. “Lord,” it says, “your mercy is in heaven” (Ps 36:5). When you are to plead your case at God's judgment, take mercy as your advocate, through whom you can be set free. Whoever is sure of mercy's advocacy may be secure of pardon and need not doubt his acquittal. Mercy not only goes ahead of the case and anticipates the judge, but even recalls the sentence and acquits the condemned. The Ninevites prove it (Jonah 3): they were already under sentence, handed over to punishment, standing ready for the sacrifice, given over to death, when mercy so snatched them, so held them, so went ahead of them that God preferred to have the sentence withdrawn rather than deny mercy anything. Fasting indeed stood then also to plead the case, sprinkled ashes, spread sackcloth, uttered groans, shed tears; and what it could not excuse by words it softened by mourning; but it could not change the sentence unless mercy had come to its aid and pleaded to the end. Mercy both frees sinners and restores the saints: for had mercy not been present, even David, when he committed adultery, would have lost his prophecy (2 Sam 11); and Peter, when he denied, would have lost the leadership of the apostolic order (Matt 26); and Paul, when he blasphemed, would have remained a persecutor. Paul admits this when he says: “I who was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent; but I obtained mercy” (1 Tim 1:13). Brothers, let us acquire mercy through acts of mercy to the poor, so that we may be free from punishment and secure of salvation. “Blessed,” he says, “are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt 5:7). He hopes in vain for mercy there who has not done mercy here. Whoever does mercy runs to his reward; whoever does not do mercy runs down to punishment.

[On the same. On the words of Matthew: “Take heed not to do your righteousness before men.”] God deals with us, deals with us in this world, so that nothing may be lost to us in the next, as shines out from the very beginning of the reading. “Take heed,” he says, “not to do your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 6:1). And how is what is done by men not done before men? How can the sense of open righteousness be hidden, what is secret in a public work? Whoever can hide the rays of the sun will be able to hide the brilliance of righteousness. Righteousness, the light of things, is not veiled by dark counsels. Righteousness, when it shines for itself in a deed, enlightens all by example. And why is it that the Lord does not want that righteousness to be done before men, through which human affairs gain their stability? And where is that saying: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16)? How does he want righteousness hidden whose works he wants so to shine out? Brothers, here the heavenly precept wants to take away boasting, remove display, abolish vanity, set aside empty glory: in this way it wants righteousness hidden. Righteousness, which by itself abounds in glory, does not seek the spectacle of the people, the praises of the crowd, the favor of men, the glory of the world: born of God, it looks to heaven; it acts in the divine eyes; mingled with the powers above, it always waits to be glorified by God alone. But this is the righteousness that is from God; that righteousness which is hypocrisy is not righteousness: it lies to the eyes, deceives the sight, mocks those who see, cheats those who hear, seduces crowds, draws peoples, sells reputation, buys applause; it is done for the world, not for God; it seizes a present wage, does not seek a reward in the future; it blinds eyes, and, itself blind and not seeing, wants to be seen. Because of this blindness Christ begins his present precept thus: “Take heed.” That is, do not be eager to be noticed. “Not to do your righteousness before men.” Why? “In order to be seen by them.” And if you are seen, what then? “You have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Brothers, here the Lord does not judge but explains: he lays open the tricks of thoughts, lays bare the secrets of minds, and declares the measure of just repayment to those who handle righteousness unjustly. Righteousness that places itself before human eyes cannot expect the reward of the divine Father: it wanted to be seen, and was seen; it wanted to please men, and pleased them; it has the wage it wanted; the reward it did not want to have it will not have. Let us hear from what follows why these things were said first. “When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do.” Rightly a trumpet, because such almsgiving is hostile, not civil, devoted not to mercy but to noise: the house-slave of sedition, not the nursling of kindness; a market of ostentation, not a commerce of charity. Whoever shows off his almsgiving insults. “When you give alms,” he says, “do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be glorified by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.” You hear how he marks almsgiving in the assembly, in the squares, at the crossroads, not spent for the relief of the poor but set forth for the favor of men, so that they are shown to display mercy, not to give it. Hypocrisy must be fled, brothers, fled, because, captive to glory, it does not relieve the shame of the poor but wears it out; it seeks the display of its own boasting from the groaning of the needy, it spreads its own praise from the poor man's pain, it broadcasts the fame of its ostentation from the misery of the beggar. But someone says: Must mercy then be refused in the assembly, in the squares, at the crossroads? Must food not be given? Certainly, in every place and at every time mercy must be done, food given, nakedness covered; but in the way the author of mercy taught, so that mercy may be known not to earth but to heaven, not made known to men but to God. In the squares, at the crossroads, kindness has its own secret; on the other hand, it is a square, it is a crossroads, when the hypocrite in secret does nothing secret. Brothers, in warning, God blames motives, not places; the intention, not the works; the aim, not the giver: he rebukes the one who gives for his own fame, not for the poor man's hunger; he judges not where you do it, or when you do it, but how you do it: for God measures deeds by hearts, not by hands, and gathers the quality of works from the intention, not from the places. He wants mercy done before himself alone, who alone is both rewarder and witness of mercy, and who says: “I was hungry and you gave me to eat” (Matt 25:35). He wants it given to himself in the poor; and he who wants it given to himself wants to owe what is given; and he who wants to owe what is given wants nothing to be lost to those who give. God asks small things, about to repay the greatest. So, O man, if you lend to God in the poor, do not seek human witnesses: faith does not require arbiters. He who gives nothing without mediators questions the good faith of the recipient; whoever publishes his loans burns the debtor with shame. So, O man, when you are about to give to God, give in secret, so that what you give may be not a burden but an honor. For this reason the one who enriches you comes to you in the poor man, so that you may not doubt that he will repay what he received, who by grace gave you the means to give. How bashful poverty in the poor man is, seeking the secrecy of your generosity, he himself reveals when he says: “But when you give alms, let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing.” How much do you think he wants another not to know, when he wants you yourself who do it not to know it with some part of yourself? “Let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing.” As the virtues are on our right side, so the side of the vices is on our left. So what the silent giver does is the work of the right hand; what the chattering giver does is the hypocrisy of the left. Hypocrisy, guile, pretense, fraud, lying, pride, swelling, boasting press upon us and threaten from the left. So whenever we are dealing with goodness, kindness, mercy, let the left hand not know it. It is the left that always declares war on souls and labors so that the virtues may not come to fulfillment. Ungodliness acts so that there may be no godliness; greed fights so that almsgiving may not conquer; avarice rages so that mercy may not grow strong; so that innocence, purity, simplicity, holiness may not reign, hypocrisy alone does battle, which Christ shuts out from us by this teaching: “But when you give alms, let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing.” Brothers, in this world let us flee what is on the left, if in the future we long to stand on the right and to hear: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34). O man, give on earth to the poor what you want to remain for you in heaven. O man, serve here as a fellow soldier with the poor, if you want to reign there with our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is blessed for ages of ages. Amen.

[On bringing unbelievers to baptism. On Psalm 29.] All who lighten hard tasks and relieve hardships prove that song was given to us by nature as a comfort in labor. So sailors overcome the dangers of the sea by singing; so they haul immense loads with the relief of songs; so a ringing voice makes travelers climb steep hills; so song going before them rouses soldiers themselves to face the bitterness of war. In short, sweet song overcomes and accomplishes everything that is hard work and labor. So let us, brothers, join divine songs to the Lenten fast, so that heavenly music may temper and lighten the weight of abstinence, as blessed David calls us to this. While he soothed and delighted his dear flock in the pastures with his pipe, he learned by song to overcome the hardships of war; by song he was able to call the nations, bring back the Jews, put the demon to flight, and summon the sons of God to the service of the Father above, as his melody sang, inviting well: “Bring to the Lord,” it says, “you sons of God” (Ps 29:1). Do you think he is calling the heavenly powers in this way? Or is he fitting men to be sons of God, and raising earthly flesh to a heavenly nature? “Bring to the Lord, you sons of God.” Men, brothers, it is men the prophet names here, whom elsewhere he so celebrates as sons of God: “I said, you are gods, and all sons of the Most High” (Ps 82:6). We have heard, brothers, to what the divine condescension has brought us, to what the fatherhood above has raised us: let us believe ourselves sons of God, let us answer to our birth; let us live for heaven; let us reflect our Father by likeness, so that we may not lose through vices what we have obtained by grace. “Bring to the Lord, you sons of God.” You see that the heavenly Father perceives love by gifts, affection by what is given, and tests charity by offerings. And truly, brothers, he does not know himself a son, he lacks natural feeling, he denies his nature, he is ungrateful to his father, who does not please the author of his life with obedience, does not win him with worship, does not honor him with gifts. “Bring to the Lord, you sons of God.” Let us see what it is that the prophet here reminds and urges us to bring to so great a Father. “Bring to the Lord, you sons of God; bring to the Lord the young of rams.” Is this all that he asks, all that he requires: that the divine offspring offer to the divine Father the young of sheep, the cheap offspring of earthly cattle, births strewn along the road, seeds poured out over the fields? Or does God, the Creator of all things, now require Jewish victims, bloody sacrifices, offerings bleating under the knife? And where is that which he says: “I will not take calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks; for all the wild beasts of the forest are mine, the cattle on the mountains, and the oxen. I know all the birds of the air, and the beauty of the field is with me. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all its fullness” (Ps 50:9–12)? And if he rejected these, what young of rams does he demand to be brought to him? He speaks to Abraham: “Take your beloved son and offer him to me as a burnt offering” (Gen 22). Abraham the ram, ripe for innocence, aged in faith, perfect for the offering, ready for the burnt offering, brought his son, the son of a ram; indeed he sacrificed himself in his son, sanctified his mind, gladdened his faith, so that he was at once victim and high priest, priest and sacrifice. The whole passion was the father's there where the son was being sacrificed; the son was set there unaware, the son was fitted to the bonds unknowing, so that he might carry off the reward of the martyrs from the passion, from the father's suffering, and snatch the crown from the father's struggle. At last the father's right hand was held back, the father's sword removed, because the son's death was not sought, but the father's love was tested; nor was the son's blood required, where the whole victim consisted in the father's love, as Scripture says: “Now I know that you love God, since you did not spare your only son for my sake” (Gen 22:12). We have called Abraham a ram so that we might prove Isaac the son of a ram, and so that it might be clear what young of rams the prophet wants us to offer to the Lord. “Bring to the Lord the young of rams”: the children of fathers, of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, the Christian is now urged to bring, when the Lord's flock of faith is let out to pasture, when the heavenly shepherd wants his lambs brought to the Lord's fold, so that, scattered through the wild places of the nations, they may not be devoured by the attacks of wolves. But let us now say more plainly what the divine voice urges. “Bring to the Lord the young of rams.” Bring to the Lord those to be baptized; bring those whom faith conceives, not flesh; bring those whom God's grace begets, not worldly nature; bring those whom innocence makes lambs, not those who have the dullness of beasts; bring, bring those whom necessity forbids, or age hinders, or ignorance delays from coming of their own accord, or whom vices hold, or offences detain, or expectation deceives, or poverty misleads through shame; bring the willing, draw the unwilling, make for yourselves a reward out of another's need. If a master has a slave who is a catechumen, let him bring him, so that he may now have him as one of the faithful. Let a father offer his son and not delay him, so that he may confer the future life on the one to whom he gave the present life. Let a husband lead his wife to the faith, so that what is one in the flesh may not be divided in spirit. Let a friend draw his friend to salvation, so that he may prove human charity by divine grace. Let a citizen lead the stranger, a householder his guest, to God's table, so that he may be generous from the divine stores at no cost to himself. Draw the unwilling: let no one say, “He does not want to,” because Abraham too bound his son so as to offer him (Gen 22:9); and the angels, to snatch Lot from the flames, took hold of him and dragged him out by the hands (Gen 19:16); and the Lord, so that Peter might go to martyrdom where he did not wish, girded him with the power of his help, saying: “Another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish” (John 21:18). And the heavenly Father not only receives the willing but also draws the unwilling, as the Son says: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). How does he believe himself a Christian who does not lead the old and aged to Christ? Or how does he judge his house to be God's fold where God's flock gives no bleating of young? I beg and entreat you, dearest brothers, by our Lord, that you all be watchful in this, so that in these days no one may be left an exile from God's grace, no one from divine rebirth, so that what God is going to confer on others by his grace may increase your joy and overflow into it. We are human beings living amid uncertainty, “and we do not know what the coming day may bring forth” (Prov 27:1). Let us act, then, dearly beloved, so that our slaves, children, spouses, and parents may not be overtaken by death and lose the present life without reaching the future one.

[On fasting and the temptations of Christ.] What human curiosity, the labor of the ancients, and worldly wisdom, seeking and long seeking, could not find, the divine law has made easy to know and to be ignorant of. Whence evil, whence guilt, whence the force of vices, whence the frenzy of crimes, whence the wars of bodies, whence the conflicts of the soul, whence so great a storm of life, whence so cruel a shipwreck of death: man would not know, had not God's law betrayed the devil. The devil is the author of evil, the origin of wickedness, the enemy of the world, always the enemy of man; he spreads snares, prepares falls, digs pits, arranges ruins, goads bodies, pricks souls, suggests thoughts, sends in angers, gives virtues over to hatred and vices to love, sows errors, nourishes discords, disturbs peace, scatters affections, tears unity apart; he knows enough of evil, nothing of good; he violates divine things, tempts human ones. Hence the reckless tempter is reported to have reached even to Christ, in this way: “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry; and the tempter came and said to him: ‘If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves’” (Matt 4:2–3). Let those who hear this not go against God, not accuse nature, not insult the Creator, not blame the flesh, not complain of the soul, not attack the seasons, not impute it to the stars; let them stop defaming the innocence of creation; let them perceive that evil is an accident, not created, and that God is the creator of good, the devil the inventor of evil; and so let them ascribe evils to the devil, goods to God; let them turn from evil and do good, having God as their helper in good, who gives the power to do what he commands and himself does what he enjoins: for as the devil drives to evil, so God leads to good. Let no one, then, obey the vices as if they were created together with him, and think that what belongs to crime belongs to nature; but let him take up with Christ the arms of fasting, drive back the onslaughts of crimes, cast down the camps of vices, and with Christ fighting win the victory over the very author of evil. Once the devil is conquered, the vices will have no power, because when the tyrant is destroyed the tyrant's battle lines are broken up. Hear the Apostle saying: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). “Then,” it says, “Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit.” Not by the devil, so that it might be a divine course, not a human assault; so that it might be the Spirit of foreknowledge and not human ignorance, the power of God and not the power of the enemy. The devil always assails the beginnings of good, tempts the first lessons of the virtues, hurries to extinguish holy things at their very birth, knowing that he cannot overturn them once they are founded. Christ, not ignorant of this, patiently gave himself over to the devil who was seeking him, so that the enemy might himself be held by his own snare and be caught where he thought he was catching, and so, conquered by Christ, he might give way to Christians. “And when he had fasted,” it says, “forty days and forty nights.” You see, brothers, that our fasting of Lent is not a human invention but a divine authority; it is mystical, not presumptuous; it does not come from earthly custom but from heavenly secrets. The forty contains in four tens the four-square discipline of faith, because perfection is always four-square. What mysteries the number four and the number ten hold in heaven and on earth there is no time to open now; let us explain the fast that the Lord began. “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights.” O man, God fasts in you, hungers in you; rather, he fasts for you, hungers for you, he who, as he does not know how to eat for himself, so cannot hunger for himself. So when Christ fasts on your account, he hungers for you. “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry.” This is not a sign of weakness but a mark of power; for when it says “afterward he was hungry,” it proves that for forty days and forty nights there was no hunger in him. To feel hunger and conquer it belongs to human labor; to have no hunger belongs to divine power. So Christ does not grow weary with fasting nor hunger with famine; but Christ hungered so that the devil might find material for tempting, because he did not dare approach one who was fasting, since fasting so, he perceived him as God, not man. Then he perceived a man, then he believed him mortal, then he thought he could be tempted, when the crafty spy saw him hungry. “And the tempter came and said.” He came with the guile of a tempter, not with the affection of one who would serve. He came, more shameless in his coming than in his going. But let us hear what he offered the hungry one: “Command that these stones become loaves.” He offers stones to the hungry: such is always the enemy's kindness; so the author of death feeds; so the one who envies life. “Command that these stones become loaves.” Devil, your foresight deceives you. He who can change stones into bread can turn hunger into fullness. What use is your counsel to one whose own power suffices? “Command that these stones become loaves.” Devil, you have both betrayed yourself and not fed your Lord. “Command that these stones become loaves.” Wretch, you want to be evil but cannot; you long to tempt but do not know how; to the hungry you should have offered soft things, not hard; you should have coaxed hunger with flattering things, not rough ones, pressed starvation with dainties, not with horrors. With these you could not ensnare even a son of man, let alone the Son of God. Understand, tempter, that your arts perish in the presence of Christ. “Command that these stones become loaves.” He who turned water into wine can make loaves from stones. But signs are to be given to faith, not to guile; they are to be given to one who believes, not to one who tempts; they are to be done for the salvation of the one who asks, not to the injury of the one who does them. Devil, what are signs to you, whom nothing helps toward salvation, for whom everything remains for punishment, for whom even signs serve only for ruin? But take the answer, so that you may understand yourself and submit to your author: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Hear the Word of the Father hungering for the words of our salvation, not for bread, and acting so that man may always live by the heavenly word, not always by earthly bread; and so live for God as to know nothing of his own toil; for truly that is the life which knows no sweat, has no pains, has no end.

[On the same.] Since we see that the springtime of fasting, the season of spiritual wars, has arrived, let us, as soldiers of Christ, lay aside the sluggishness of body and soul and go out to the field of the virtues, so that limbs softened by winter idleness may be strengthened by exercise with heavenly arms. We have given the body a year; let us give the soul days. We have spent our times on ourselves; let us set apart a time for the Author. Let us live a little for God, we who have lived wholly for the world. Let us put aside household cares and remain in the camp of the Church; let us keep watch in Christ's battle line; let us not seek the sleep of our beds; let us join the brave; let us be separated from soft embraces; let the love of triumphs hold us, and let the coaxing of little children not call us away; let the divine voice sound in our ears, and let the noise of the household not confuse our hearing; let a sparing meal be taken from the heavenly ration, and let no abundance of earthly luxury be sought; in drinking let sobriety be kept, so that it may last; let drunkenness not unnerve our strength. Whatever is left over from our pay, let the poor fellow soldier take, so that no harmful waste may lose anything: in the battle you will have as your help the hungry comrade whom you feed. So fortified, brothers, so equipped, let us declare war on sins, set a battle against crimes, announce a conflict with vices, secure of victory: for earthly enemies will not be able to overcome heavenly arms, nor worldly adversaries oppose the divine King; no hostile overthrow will be able to surprise those set in the battle-readiness of faith; nor will the devil prevail to throw into confusion with his sudden attacks the cautious, the watchful, the sober; certainly he will not dare to challenge us, so armed, to an open fight, nor presume to attack us with tricks. Let the mind keep to its heavenly watchtower; let it beat down and turn aside the devil's deceitful and hidden snares. The devil is wicked of himself, but he becomes more wicked when provoked. Hear the Apostle saying: “The devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8). When we fast, the devil goes hungry, he who always feeds on our faults. He turns our food into gluttony and spreads our drink into drunkenness, to make the mind mindless, to turn the flesh into mud, and to reduce the body, the dwelling of the mind, the vessel of the soul, the wall of the spirit, the school of the virtues, the temple of God, into a stage for crimes, a parade of vices, a theater of pleasure. He takes his fill, receives pleasure, is sated with feasts, when luxury dissolves us, lust goads us, display carries us off, ambition drives us, anger presses us, fury fills us, envy kindles us, greed inflames us, cares disturb us, lawsuits vex us, profits capture us, interest binds us, bonds tie us, purses weigh us down, gold crushes us. When the virtues die, the vices live, pleasure flows out, honor perishes, mercy fails, avarice abounds, confusion reigns, order collapses, discipline is laid low. These fight against the soldier of Christ; these are Satan's cohorts, these the devil's legions; these are what have besieged the world with tombs, conquered peoples, laid waste nations, led the whole world captive. These are what no mortal could withstand by himself; and so to conquer them God himself came, the King of heaven himself came down, the one victor himself arrived, setting the forty days' fast in battle array, so that by the four tens of fasting he might fortify the whole square of the world with an impregnable wall. Fasting, brothers, we know to be God's citadel, Christ's camp, the wall of the spirit, the banner of faith, the sign of chastity, the trophy of holiness. Adam would have kept it in paradise, from which gluttony dragged him (Gen 3). Noah guarded it in the ark when drunkenness drowned the world (Gen 7). Through it Lot put out the fire of Sodom, he who through drunkenness was burned by the fire of incest (Gen 19). It made Moses shine with the light of divine fervor when feasting and drunkenness darkened the people of Israel with the errors of idols (Exod 32). It carried Elijah up to heaven when drunkenness cast the impious Ahab down to the lower world (2 Kgs 2). It made John greater among those born of women when drunkenness made King Herod a murderer at the command of women (Mark 6). The fast of Lent, brothers, has betrayed and exposed the devil's old snares. For the devil, who had despised Christ when he ate and had reckoned him a mere man when he drank, when he saw him fasting suspected that he was God and confessed him Son of God. “If you are the Son of God,” he says, “command that these stones become loaves” (Matt 4:3). In speaking so, the devil wants to show a man, not God: he does not want to prepare food but to cut off the fast. “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves.” After a fast it is not divine power but human weakness that seeks bread; nor, if God grows weary from hunger, does he give up providing food for himself, which is within his power. From what follows, the devil reveals what he is attempting: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” He wants very much to prove him a man, providing for him not an ascent but a fall: the human condition is found hard to rise, easy to fall. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” You are wrong, devil, you do not even know how to tempt: God cannot fall. “Then he showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said to him: ‘All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.’” O the devil's daring! He says to God, “Worship me”; but soon he felt the one he was seeking to be God in his powers, judge in his punishments, and suppliant in his rewards. For at the name of Christ, the name of the one who fasted, he began to be driven out of possessed bodies and, trembling, to give glory to the one whom in his pride he had cunningly insulted. He conquered by fasting so that he might in this way grant us the strength and the pattern for conquering. “This kind,” he says, “is not cast out except by fasting and prayer.” Let us fast, then, brothers, if we wish to imitate Christ, if we wish to overcome the devil's deceitful cunning.

[On the same.] Behold the time when the soldier goes out to the field, when the Christian hastens to God's fasts. Behold the time when idleness of the flesh, sloth of mind, care for the belly, and the whole torpor of household service must be laid aside. Behold the time when the strength of soul and body must be exercised in practice with heavenly arms. Behold the time when, with Christ presiding and the angels standing by, the courage of our wrestling must be exercised. Now is the time when gluttony fights with fasting, abstinence with excess, chastity with lust, faith with faithlessness, godliness with ungodliness, patience with fury, greed with generosity, mercy with avarice, humility with pride, holiness with guilt, with Christ as rewarder. If anyone, then, with God looking on, the heavenly trumpet already sounding, the angelic encounter pressing, ensnared by the allurements of the bedroom, unnerved by the softness of palms, wholly relaxed by conjugal caresses, neglects to come to the exercise of virtue, he loses the prize of the wrestling, the glory of virtue, the palm of the contest, the crown of righteousness, and will be fined in the future besides with the crime of a deserter. Today, brothers, Christ our King has addressed his fellow soldiers from the Gospel tribunal, declared war on the enemies, promised rewards to those who will fight, set out the causes of the wars, exposed the enemies' tricks and attempts, and by his triumphal ordinance marked where, when, and how we must fight. And although he alone can win the victory, yet for our sake and because of our fear he ordered all the forces from above to be present. Whoever, then, refused to hear these things, whoever knowingly despised such great ordinances of our King, judge whether he has not stripped himself of the oaths of our service and made himself an exile from the heavenly fellowship. But you, brothers, who wish in this Lenten fast to follow the pattern of the Lord's fast, prove from the very temptations that follow the Lord's fast that you will fight, as we said, against the troops of vices, the battle lines of crimes, the shapeless shapes of lusts, all the aerial, all the scattered and countless legions of demons, and that you will triumph. For when the Lord undertook the Lenten fast with that untiring proof of his power, the devil at once came to fight with tricks, because he could not resist one who fasted by force. For as much as he dominates those given to excess and the drunken, so much he fears the one who prays, so much he flees those who fast, as the Lord says: “It is not cast out except by fasting and prayer” (Matt 17:21). But let us hear with what deceit the devil dared to tempt: “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves.” You have heard what the enemy himself thinks and judges about fasting: “If you are the Son of God.” You see that he now believes him to be not a man but the Son of God, whom he had seen free from slavery to the belly. The devil perceived, he perceived, that fasting is set before all the virtues. He had seen John exchange the delights of cities for a dwelling in the rough wilderness, trample the softness of the flesh under the roughness of his garment, bridle the whole luxury of the world with rustic food, and, what is the sole mark of divinity, forgive people their sins. And yet he did not say to him, “If you are the Son of God.” But when he saw the Lord fasting continually, he cries out: “If you are the Son of God.” The devil errs who hurls the wickedness and arguments of his cunning against the Lord. “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves.” Why is it that when Christ fasts he looks for all the signs of divinity in the mere promise of bread? And the one whom by the continual sign of fasting he senses to be the Son of God, he wants to prove the Son of God by the provision of bread, by care for the belly? “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves.” Why did he not say, “If you are the Son of God, command that men or angels or something else come to be,” but “command that these stones become loaves”? He asks for the sign of bread who dreads the sign of fasting. He asks for the sign of bread to escape the sign of fasting that he finds so fearful. The evil counselor thrusts bread forward to change the virtue, to violate the resolve of the one fasting. But let us see what the Bread that came down from heaven answered about bread: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” How truly the Word of God lives by the word of God! How truly the Bread does not need bread! How divinely he turns stones into men, who raises up children to Abraham from stones as a sign of his majesty! And since the shameless enemy does not know how to be conquered once, for the manifold triumph of the conqueror, “he set the Lord on the pinnacle of the temple and said: ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.’” What a sign! “Throw yourself down.” He would more fittingly have said, “If you are the Son of God, ascend to heaven,” since it is surely man's part to fall to the depths, God's to climb to the heights. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” So he always persuades his own, so he always provides for his own; so he raises his own up, to hurl them from on high more violently to ruin. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” The devil betrays himself by his counsels. “Throw yourself down.” He seeks falls, commands headlong plunges; and by such counsel he makes martyrs throughout Africa without clamor, saying: “If you want to be a martyr, throw yourself down,” so as to drive them from on high to death, not to lift them from low places and raise them to a crown. And as the devil betrays himself by his counsels, so the Lord reveals himself by his answer, when he says: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Deut 6:16). By saying this he surely wished himself to be understood as Lord, as God, he who gave himself not only from the pinnacle of the temple to the earth, but cast himself down from heaven even to the lower world, so that it might be not the pattern of those who fall but the resurrection of the dead. Notice, brothers, whether a more savage enemy could be found, who, though often defeated, yields to man, hears and perceives the Lord God, and yet does not stop tempting. “He set him on a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said to him: ‘All these I will give you if you fall down and worship me.’” He says this not as one who can give but as one who can deceive; not to bestow what he promises but by promises to take away what is possessed. “All these I will give you.” He offers to God the things that are God's; he promises to the Author what belongs to the Author; he urges him to worship who is to be worshiped by all; and, blinded by his daring, he confesses to the judge before the judgment how he deceives the simple. The Lord answers him not so much with the testimony of the law as with the command of his own divinity: “You shall worship the Lord your God” (Deut 6:13); you shall worship that Lord God to whom every knee bends, not only of things in heaven and on earth but also of things under the earth (Phil 2:10). You then, gnashing and howling in hell, shall worship him whom now, reckless deserter, you invite to worship you. So the devil, so often and so thoroughly beaten back by the Lord, now rushes about us his servants in full fury; and as Christ addresses his soldiers, so he addresses his and arms his ministers. The devil then says: “The season now heavily defeats us by the observance of fasting; we cannot attack men through gluttony, excess, drunkenness, or lust. Arm lawsuits, sow discords, stir up hatreds, rouse angers, breathe in lies, extort perjuries, suggest blasphemies, spread idle talk, pour in deceits, fan avarice, provide shameful profits, so that what the belly does not now spend on luxury the purse may at least shut up and store away for punishment. Beware above all that mercy, almsgiving, and kindness do not wipe out our past labors, take away our present ones, and remove our future ones.” But let us, brothers, recognizing our King's warnings and hearing what the devil has commanded his own, carry out our fasts without strife, without clamor, without anger, without guile, without pretense, with complete mercy, charity, and kindness, so that the Lord Christ, who spurned the bloody victims of cattle and required the sacrifice of a contrite spirit and a crushed heart, may, appeased and favorable, accept the offerings of our fast in the silence of peace.

[On the fruits of almsgiving. On Psalm 41.] To those skilled in battle the military trumpet sounds out discipline; to the unskilled it gives only a terrifying noise; as teacher of wars it gives strength to its own and fear to the enemy. Whoever fights without a trumpet is no soldier: he is carried by fury, not by battle; he acts not by courage but by danger; he seeks to perish, not to conquer. We have said this so that the soldier of Christ may understand why heavenly song has been provided. Set on the field of the world, we sustain a fight with the devil and with the vices. So whenever the prophetic blast thunders to us, it makes us cautious in peace, brave in the battle line, and unconquered in combat. For today the blessed Psalmist calls us by his shout to a higher understanding: “Blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor” (Ps 41:1). And what understanding is there where poverty is professed? The power of understanding lies in searching the inward parts, detecting what is hidden, laying bare what is covered. But things placed before the eyes, exposed in public, thrust upon us, are not understood but seen. When a man is stiff with cold from nakedness, wasted with hunger, parched with thirst, trembling with weariness, pale from want, what labor is there in understanding that he is needy? And if there is no labor of understanding, where is the fruit of understanding? Let us pray, brothers, that he who shows that he is to be understood in the poor may grant us to understand what is to be understood. That he who covers the heaven is naked in the poor man, that the fullness of all things hungers in the hungry, that the fountain of fountains thirsts in the thirsty: how is it not a great thing to understand this? How is it not blessed to understand that poverty is ample for one for whom heaven is narrow; that he who enriches the world is in need in the needy; that the giver of all things seeks a crust of bread and a cup of water; that God so lays himself down for love of the poor man as not merely to stand by the poor man but to be himself poor? To whom God has given to see this, he sees it. But how he has either poured the poor man into himself or poured himself into the poor man, let him now tell us himself: “I was hungry,” he says, “and you gave me to eat.” He did not say, “The poor man was hungry and you gave him to eat,” but, “I was hungry and you gave me to eat” (Matt 25:35). He cries that what the poor man received was given to him; he says that he eats what the poor man has eaten; what the poor man drinks he testifies was poured into him. O what love of the poor does! God glories in heaven over what makes the poor man blush on earth, and reckons as an honor to himself what is counted an insult to the poor. It would have been enough to say, “You gave me to eat, you gave me drink”; but he puts first, “I was hungry, I was thirsty,” because the love of the poor would have been small had he taken on the poor man without taking on the poor man's sufferings; and certainly true love is proved only by sufferings. True love has made another's hardships its own. It is a great thing that the poor man's food tastes good to God: he who does not hunger for the goods of all creation proclaims that he has been fed in the poor man's food, in the kingdom of heaven, before all the angels, in the assembly of those who rise again. What Abel suffered (Gen 4), how Noah preserved the world (Gen 6), what Abraham received by faith (Gen 15), how Moses brought the law (Exod 20), how Peter mounted the cross head downward, God passes over in silence, and proclaims only this: what the poor man ate. In heaven the first ration is that of the hungry; the poor man's pay is dealt with first in heaven; the outlay for the poor is written first in the divine daily ledgers. Blessed is he whose name is read before God as often as the account of the poor is recited in heaven. But let us hear the fruit of this blessedness: “In the evil day the Lord will deliver him.” Whoever knows that he leads his life amid the evils of the world, let him always lead with him the help of almsgiving, let him call to his defense troops of the poor, let him overflow as a generous provider in feeding the poor, let him often give to the poor and not tremble in giving out: he cannot fail to whom a sparing receiver stretches out his hand; that treasure cannot be exhausted from which a coin is enough. “In the evil day the Lord will deliver him.” In the evil day God will stand by as deliverer for him who delivered the poor man from evils. In distress God will hear him crying who heard the poor man when he cried. He will not see an evil day who made the poor man have good days. He will see an evil day who enters the day of judgment without the advocacy of poverty. Sins accuse in vain him whom the poor man excuses. He cannot be excused whom the poor man's hunger has accused. “May the Lord,” it says, “preserve him and give him life.” It did not say, “preserves and gives life,” but “may he preserve and give life.” It said it so that this might be the voice not of one announcing but of one praying. He who heard the needy man praying, behold, has heard the Church throughout the world praying for him in this way: “May the Lord preserve him and give him life.” May he preserve him, so that he is not snatched away to punishment; may he give him life, so that he may rise from the dead and receive life. “And may he not hand him over into the hand of his enemy.” Which enemy? Surely the devil: he is the prince of enmities; he despises enemies who has trampled on the very author of enmities. “But may the Lord help him on the bed of his pain.” The prophet goes through all the hardships of human frailty. “But may the Lord help him on the bed of his pain.” What is the bed of our pain but our body, in which the soul lies, and lies in pain, and grieves, because, longing to return to heaven, it is pressed down by the earth of the body? “You have turned all his bedding in his sickness.” The Lord does not turn the bedding of the just nor of the unjust, but turns the bedding for the sick. It is the flesh, then, that is turned and turns. It is the flesh that is rolled about in adversity and turns about in prosperity. So the Lord turns our bedding when he turns adversity into prosperity for us; and since the sick mind was rolling on the bed of pain, that is, on the bed of the body, the one who was rolled about cries out: “I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” Because he perceives that his mind has contracted sickness through consent to the flesh, he begs that his soul be healed; and he asks for mercy confidently, because he showed mercy to the poor. Blessed is he who, by lending to the poor, has made his very judge his debtor.

[On the centurion.] You are going to hear today, brothers, how a centurion of a Roman cohort became a leader of the Christian army; and rightly, because he began to teach before he believed. “Jesus came,” it says, “to Capernaum, and a centurion came to him, entreating him and saying: ‘Lord, my servant lies at home paralyzed and is terribly tormented.’ And Jesus said to him: ‘I will come and heal him.’ And the centurion answered and said: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my slave, Do this, and he does it’” (Matt 8:5–9). You see that the centurion, before he took on the office of discipleship, was allotted the place of teacher. For he gives a pattern for asking, a rule for believing; he lays open the grounds of faith; he commends examples of the virtues, though he had not yet entered the discipline of the Christian school. “The centurion came to him, entreating him.” This is to be wise, not merely to ask. “My servant lies at home.” He pleads the servant's case like a teacher: truly a centurion, who changed earthly pay into the hundredfold fruit of heaven and raised the servitude of worldly soldiering to divine dignity. “Lord, my servant lies at home.” Whoever calls him Lord faithfully confesses his own servitude. And how did this centurion, who so recognizes the Lord, dare to profess the servant as his own, as if not knowing that a slave's property belongs to the master? Or is he ignorant of common things who teaches such secret, such deep ones? “My servant”: I say “mine” because he lies prostrate; if he were yours, Lord, he would not lie prostrate. The prophet proves this when he says: “Behold now, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord” (Ps 134:1). “Who stand,” he says, not “who lie”: your servants stand, the servants of men lie prostrate. My servant who lies prostrate, let him rise so that he may be yours; mine, because paralyzed; so that he may be yours, let him now be healed. Mine, because terribly tormented; so that he may be yours, let him no longer be in pain. Lord, it does not befit your servants to lie under evils; the punishment of your servants is an insult to you; the force of evils ought not to possess your servants. Your servants, even if they suffer evils, do not suffer them as punishment, but undergo them for crowns. Adversities are not for them the causes of necessity but the cause of victory. It is the servants of men who suffer evils unwillingly, because their masters, in despair of them, cannot help them. But you, Lord, whom powers serve, whom cures obey, whom healings follow, how will you count as your servant one whom you see to be the servant of such diseases? Your goodness toward the wicked is known; even the ungodly confess your kindness; outsiders proclaim your mercy. Should I call this one yours, whom your kindness does not seek out as he lies there? “He lies at home and is terribly tormented.” This is why the greatness of the pain does not allow him to be brought and offered to you, lest a household sickness, shown in public, should cause both pain and shame. The centurion moved the judge as he pleaded such great things; and he so moved him that he brought the very Lord of heaven to want to go to his servant. “I will come,” says Christ, “and heal him.” Brothers, the centurion did not draw the author of kindness to kindness, nor did he compel Christ to go to what Christ had come for; rather, the centurion is taught to perceive and understand why Christ came to a servant in the form of a servant, why God came to man in a man: surely to lift up those lying prostrate, to raise up the crushed, to free those in chains, and, as most merciful carrier of his own work, to carry those whom no one could any longer bring or offer. But let us now hear what the centurion answered: “Lord,” he says, “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” He gave the answer owed by humility, and by his singular awe he marked him out as the Lord, fearing to bring him into the house of his soul, into the secret of his heart, under the roof of his conscience, into the inner room of his mind, where the household of thoughts moves about disordered and confused and does not allow the hall of the human breast to remain in the silence of sincerity without the din of vices. So he answered with a master's fear: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” Hence Peter too, when he recognized Christ as the author of all things, cried out, saying: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). Peter asks him to depart from him in the same way that the centurion begs him not to come to him; for each acts so that the unworthiness of the lodging may not result in an insult to the guest. “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” This would have been well said before God entered the lodging of our flesh; but now why does the centurion forbid Christ to enter his roof, when he sees him already dwelling wholly under the roof of his body? Brothers, the centurion already saw in Christ the form of his own body, but he did not see in him the passions of his own body. Christ was born in the flesh, but born of the Holy Spirit; he took the lodging of flesh, but in the hall of a virgin, so that there might be the truth of a human body and yet he might have nothing of the pollution of the human body. Rightly, then, the centurion judges his roof unworthy of Christ, because Christ dwelt under a singular roof of our body, according to the prophet's word: “I kept watch and became like a lone sparrow on the roof” (Ps 102:7). “But only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” This centurion, though he was without the law, did nothing without the law. He says: “Only say the word,” because it had been said: “He spoke, and they were made” (Ps 148:5). And if all things were made perfect by speaking, how should a single sickness not be burned away by speech alone? “Only say the word”: and what is said without a word? But he asks for a word not in the ordinary sense of speaking but in the power of doing: the word of which it was said: “He sent his word and healed them” (Ps 107:20). “Only say the word.” For he believed that all powers abide in the Word. Your word, Lord, is health; your word is life; where your word comes, pain at once flees from there, sickness soon withdraws; the word in which Peter let down his nets and caught a multitude of fish, without which he spent a night of ignorance and, though a wakeful fisherman, found no fruit: “Lord,” he says, “we toiled all night and caught nothing, but at your word I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:5). And as if what he had argued about the word were not enough, he establishes by facts and commends by example that what he asks can be accomplished by a word: “For I too am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my slave, Do this, and he does it.” “For I too am a man”: that is to say, you are God; “placed under authority”: that is, you are the very authority of authorities; “with soldiers under me”: that is, you have the powers; “and I say to this one, Go, and he goes”: that is, say to the sickness, Go, and it goes; “to another, Come, and he comes”: that is, say to health, Come, and it comes; “and to my slave, Do this, and he does it”: that servant of mine will also be your servant when he has recovered his health. Let him hear; hear what? “You have been made well; sin no more” (John 5:14). Let him do righteousness, so that he may be freed from the paralysis of all sins and be able to sing with the prophet: “Turn, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done good to you; for he has rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will please the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps 116:7–9). Brothers, let whoever desires to reach the hundredfold fruit imitate the centurion. So that we may not pass lightly over this centurion's wisdom, let what has been said about him today suffice; for the mystery by which the Gentile is figured is very great.

[On the two demoniacs.] That Christ crosses seas and goes around places is not a matter of human desire but the cause of human salvation. Christ walks about not to see places but to find people who had perished by various misfortunes. What new thing would he who had made the places see in them? Or what was absent to him who was everywhere? As man he was seen in places, but as God he saw everywhere; he surely saw, and he saw the desperate, to whom he was going to bestow divine remedies; he went to the care of those for whom human care had already failed, as today's reading has proved. “When Jesus had come,” it says, “across the lake into the region of the Gerasenes, two men who had demons met him, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass by that way” (Matt 8:28). It is pleasing that the Lord knew and saw what evil, what danger was found in those places, and went there in order to help those so desperate, afflicted, and wretched. “Two men who had demons met him, coming out of the tombs.” The authors of death had made their dwelling in the tombs. Notice what savagery, what fury, what madness the demons have toward the human race: they cannot bear even the short time of human life; they are not content that men die, but long to bury men alive; they commit themselves to tombs so as to bring men back into tombs; they feed on corpses, grow fat on decay, take delight in stench, they whose whole pleasure is that men perish. But let us perceive what they contrive by frauds, what they work by evils, whose cruelty has no limit when it is in the open. What do they do when they show off riches, but sow avarice? To implant pride they set display before us. They sell singularity, so as to shut out what belongs to communion. To nourish anger they color its causes. To violate affection they give grievances to the feelings. They feign philosophy, so that by seeking more men may know nothing. They fashion many gods, so that God, who is one and true, may not be known. “Two men who had demons met him.” When it indicates that many demons came together against two men, a whole legion against one, it does so to teach that demons are to be guarded against, not feared; and at the same time it shows how singular Christ's power is, since by the name of Christ alone the whole multitude of demons is put to flight. “Two men who had demons met him.” They came, presented against their will, at the command of the one who ruled, not by their own daring; they were drawn unwilling, not running of their own accord. Then, at Christ's presence, the men come out of the tombs, and in turn carry as captives those by whom they had been taken captive; they bring to punishment those by whose tortures they had been racked; they fit for sentence those by whom they had already been consigned to the tombs. “Two men who had demons met him, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass by that way.” You see that the demons had closed the way to those coming to Christ and had denied passage. For this is the demons' concern, that men may not find a way back to God. For they cannot possess men except by drawing them away from fellowship with their Author. “So that no one could pass by that way.” This is why Christ became the way. “So that no one could pass by that way”: that way, not this one. “I am,” he says, “the way” (John 14:6); so that the force of demons might not be able to resist those coming to the way by the way, to God by God: one cannot arrive at God except through God. But let us now hear what the demons cried out: “What have we to do with you, Son of God?” That is to say: Author of life, what have you to do with the dead? Dweller in heaven, what have you to do with tombs? Fragrance of paradise, what have you to do with stench? We whom you cast down from heaven, shut out of paradise, from whom you now take away cities and to whom you deny habitable regions, let us at least inhabit tombs; and if we deserve so great a persecution, you do not deserve so great an injury. “What have we to do with you?” What? What a judge has to do with a defendant, an avenger with a criminal, a king with a deserter. “What have we to do with you, Son of God?” Thieves say this to the owner, robbers to the master; they hold the spoils, they carry the plunder, and they ask what they have to do with him who claims back what is his. “What have we to do with you, Son of God?” What? That you give back the men, that you restore the world to its Author, and that, now the Creator has come, you know that nothing more is permitted you among his creatures. “What have we to do with you, Son of God? Have you come to torment us before the time?” “What have we to do with you?” And what have you to do with men? “What have we to do with you, Son of God?” They recognize, they recognize God, they confess him as judge, they cry that they are owed to judgment, and they plead the time limit. “What have we to do with you, Son of God? Have you come to torment us before the time?” They set time against the Author of times. “Have you come to torment us before the time?” They complain about time as if they had made it together with time, as they had buried the living in tombs. “Have you come to torment us before the time?” Untimely cruelty cuts time short, forestalls death, buries the living; and it complains about time, as if it ought unjustly to have what it desires before the time, and not be punished as soon as its malice arose: the hardened wickedness of the age makes time its pretext. To the wicked patience is short, to the good vengeance is slow; what is long to the injured is narrow to those who injure. “There was,” it says, “not far from them a herd of many pigs feeding. And the demons begged him, saying: ‘If you cast us out, send us into the herd of pigs.’” An unworthy servitude asks for what is worthy of it. “Send us into the herd of pigs.” Wickedness begs to be sent from the tombs into pigs, because it does not know how to give up stenches, only to change them. “Send us into the herd of pigs.” Those who fell from heaven seek mud; after heavenly dwellings they canvass for the wallows of pigs. “Send us into the herd of pigs.” A herd is sent into a herd, so that the multitude of the demons may be betrayed, so that it may appear that two men had carried what a great number of pigs could not bear. “He said to them: ‘Go.’ And they came out and went into the pigs; and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and died in the waters.” The worthless beasts are handed over not at the will of the demons, but so that by such a deed it might become known how they rage against men, how they seek the deaths of men, who sought the pigs in order to destroy them. The demons burn to destroy, not to possess, everything that exists, is driven, moves, and lives. Let no one presume, then, that a man becomes such as they are: they have an ancient enmity toward the human race, a fixed anger, a determined malice. Demons do not yield unless bound; they cannot harm unless ordered. So the worthless beasts are handed over, so that it may be clear that the demons, who needed a command even to be allowed into the pigs, are permitted nothing against men. Either, then, we by our vices make them receive the power to harm, or by our virtues, with Christ triumphing, we trample the necks of the demons, subjected to us.

[On the demoniac.] From today's Gospel reading we have learned that the Lord came across the lake into the region of the Gerasenes, and that as he came out of the boat a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit, bound with chains and fetters, at once met him (Mark 5:1–3). The author of death, who had his dwelling in the tombs, broods over the mansions of death, and, greedy for human slaughter, longs to bury alive in deadly fashion those whom he cannot kill by his cruelty. The greedy exactor of our destruction rages and storms: it is punishment to him that a man is born, torment that he dies too slowly; he strives to banish even this very short life of man into horrid tombs; a confused enemy, perverse in both directions, he thrusts the living into tombs and sets food before the dead; he pours out wine, so as both to kill the living and to disturb the dead. The man was held bound with chains and fetters: bound for another's crime, the innocent dwelling was tortured for the crime of its inhabitant. The devil's guilt overflowed into the man's punishment, and the robber, shut in, fattened on the miseries of his prey; accursed envy exposes not the doer but the sufferer. Wishing to help this disease, the Lord crosses the sea: that is, in the ship of our body he crosses to the ends of the tossing world; he reaches the shores of our salvation, filled with shipwrecks, and floods with the splendor of his light a region steeped in the blind darkness of ignorance, to catch the snares of the crafty enemy and to put to flight with royal power the very prince of spiritual wickedness with his legions, so as at last to make free those whom the enemy's power had long held captive. “Seeing Jesus from afar,” it says, “he ran and worshiped him, and crying out with a loud voice he said: ‘What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of God Most High? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’” At Christ's nod the order of punishments was reversed: before, while the devil played the robber, an innocent man was harassed; now the man runs, but the devil runs into trouble; the flesh bows, but the unclean spirit lies flat and is laid low. “He ran and worshiped” (Mark 5:6). What is this, devil? The one whom you provoked to a fall with a threefold temptation, the one whom you craftily canvassed to worship you for a kingdom, do you now, trembling and pitiable, fall down and worship? See, he who promised all the honors of a kingdom and of glory is found dwelling in tombs in the fetid corruption of corpses. So, so he deceives when he promises, so as to drag down to the lower world with him those whom, as a lying promiser of heavenly things, he mocks when they consult him. “What have I to do with you, Son of God Most High?” For even now he worships as a flatterer, not as one devoted and obedient, wishing to escape punishment and dreading to lose his prey. The wretch believes that he can sway by flattery the one whom he could not conquer by temptation nor bend by gifts; but he is accustomed to release the bound, recall captives, and restore to himself the bounds, not of what he acquired but of what he created; to strike the enemy with free power, not to seek back from the enemy by seductive dealing the owner of his own. “And crying with a loud voice he says: ‘What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of God Most High? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’” What is happening? What does human frailty suffer, subject to such great miseries? See, the devil cries out with the man's voice as his advocate, to seek the man; and all the man's limbs fight for their enemy to their own ruin. “What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of God Most High?” “What have I to do with you?” What one to be punished has to do with the judge, a deserter with the king, an invader with the master. “What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of God Most High?” If you recognize the Son, you surely know the heir; if you know the heir, why do you presume to seize the inheritance? “I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” The evasive one is afraid, and pretends: he confesses the Son, but with solid art he contends that he should not be understood as God; he adjures God by God, so as to make him seem another than himself, to deceive and mislead the hearing of those standing by. “Jesus asked him: ‘What is your name?’” He asks: he is not ignorant, but fulfills the role of judge and keeps the procedure of an examiner. He asks the name so as to examine his condition, judge his guilt, sentence him for his crime, and by passing sentence demonstrate that he is God. “Legion answered, for we are many.” Christ's question thus drives away our ignorance; it opens to us what was hidden: a legion against one man. The cowardice of a soldier is evident if he deserts the battle line, draws back his step, dreads to engage; here he foresees that one man, a captive, is stronger than a numerous enemy. What are these in the presence of the King, who to capture one man, not even a recruit, gathered with the whole column of their cohort? Where would they be if they had already seen the banner of the cross there, the standards of Christ? Come, Christian, march on secure: so great and so numerous a force, which so fears an unarmed man, will flee far if it sees, perceives, recognizes him armed. “The spirits begged him, saying: ‘Send us into the pigs.’” See where Satan wants to set up his seat: from tombs into pigs. Once infected with rottenness, he seeks fetid and unclean dwellings; he delights in filth and mud, he who always feeds on the stench of crimes and the squalor of vices. But his stench is so hellish and cruel that not even the nature of pigs could bear it: in the end they preferred to be drowned in the sea and perish in the waves rather than suffer his uncleanness and endure his rottenness. But what can the demons presume to do, who cannot even touch pigs unless the divine power permits them? Wretched is he who, abandoning the judge, has in vain abandoned himself to the favor of the executioner, who can neither harass nor spare, neither lessen nor add torments, but, himself a condemned slave, does everything according to the law and decision of the judge.

[On Peter's mother-in-law, sick and healed.] From today's reading the attentive hearer has learned why the Lord of heaven, the restorer of all things, entered earthly and servile dwellings. But it is no wonder that he graciously came to everything who mercifully came to help everyone. “When Jesus had come,” it says, “into Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever” (Matt 8:14). You see what invited Christ to Peter's house: surely not the pleasure of reclining at table but the sickness of one lying down; not the need to dine but the occasion of salvation; a work of divine power, not the display of a human banquet. In Peter's house it was not wine but tears that were being poured out; the household was disturbed there not by the care of a banquet but by care for the sick woman; there fever, not appetite, was burning. So Christ entered there not to receive a feast but to give back life. God seeks people, not human things; he wants to give heavenly things, not to find earthly things he covets; Christ came, then, to receive us, not to seek what is ours. “When he had come,” it says, “into Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever.” Having entered Peter's house, Christ saw what he had come for: he did not look at the quality of the house, at the crowds coming to meet him, at the display of those greeting him, at the gathering of the household, certainly not at the decoration that had been prepared; but he looked at the groaning of the sick woman, he gave his attention to the burning of the fevered one. He saw the danger of one given up for lost, and at once stretched out his hands to the work of his divinity; Christ did not recline at the human meal before the woman who lay sick rose to divine things. “He took,” it says, “her hand, and the fever left her.” You see how fever leaves the one whom Christ has held: sickness does not stand where the author of health stands by; there is no approach of death where the life-giver has entered. “He took,” it says, “her hand.” What need was there of touching where there was the right of commanding? But Christ took the woman's hand for life, because Adam had received death from the woman's hand. “He took her hand”: so that the hand of the Author might restore what had been lost by the hand of the presumptuous one. “He took her hand”: so that the hand that had plucked the sentence of death might receive pardon. “And she rose,” it says, “and served him.” Did Christ need a woman's service, and that of a woman of advanced age, of extreme old age, weighed down with children? Was there in Peter's house no house-slave, no servant, no member of the household, no relative, certainly no wife, who might go before the mother in service? And finally, did Peter himself not see the grounds for his own shame, that an old woman, a mother-in-law, should do for the master what the disciple owed? Brothers, Christ did not require human service from her on whom he had spent the ministry of his divinity; but he allowed her to serve as a sign of her restored health. Christ so drives away diseases as soon to bring back former strength: where art cures, the weariness of sickness remains; where power heals, weakness leaves no trace. But if we want to know what spiritual understanding lies hidden in this choice, let us not seek little flowers of words: whoever seeks the fruit of fullness despises the pleasantness of the fields; violets, roses, lilies, narcissus are pleasing flowers, but bread is more pleasing. What fragrance is to the nostrils, ornament of speech is to the ears; what bread gives to life, knowledge gives to salvation. The pleasure of eloquence must therefore be set aside when the strength of knowledge is demanded. “When Jesus had come,” it says, “into Peter's house.” Christ came to Peter's house so that Peter's house might come to Christ. Christ came to Peter's house when he entered the dwelling of our flesh. “When Jesus had come into Peter's house” (Matt 8:14). What is Peter's house? That of which the Lord says: “And you, Bethlehem, house of Judah, are by no means least among the princes of Judah; for from you shall come forth a leader who will rule my people Israel” (Mic 5:2). Hence the Apostle too: “From whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God blessed forever” (Rom 9:5). “When he had come into Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever.” He saw the synagogue lying in the darkness of its unbelief, prostrate under the burden of its sins, feverish with vices to the point of frenzy; and so he took her hand, because he works the salvation of the Jewish nation not only by word but with his hands. Hear the prophet: “But God our King before the ages has worked salvation in the midst of the earth” (Ps 74:12). “He took her hand”: so that her hand might be cleansed of the blood of the prophets before it received the sacrament of the Church's ministry. “And she rose and served.” Hence she who lay prostrate has been raised up and serves Christ, when she now sanctifies in good works the hands that she formerly polluted with evil works. “When evening came,” it says, “they brought to him many who had demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word.” How can this be understood in human terms, that, letting the day go by, people eager for health should carry many, and those badly wounded, to the remedies of health in the evening? But it is evening when the day of the world ends, when the world declines from the light of the times. The restorer of light came late, so that to us Gentiles, who came in the night of the ages, he might give back the everlasting day. “When evening came, they brought to him many who had demons.” In the evening, that is, in the last time, the devout and solemn zeal of the apostles offers us Gentiles to God; and the demons are driven from us, who used to command us to worship idols. Hear the prophet: “All the gods of the nations are demons” (Ps 96:5). For, not knowing the one God, we served countless gods in a sacrilegious and most sordid servitude. “And he cast out the spirits with a word” (Matt 8:16). Because Christ did not come to us in the flesh, he came in words: so when faith came from hearing, and hearing through the word, he made us free from slavery to demons, and made the demons captives of their own impious domination. This is why the demons are tortured under our hands at our command, they who used to subject us to wood, attach us to stones, and daily harass us with empty fear through vain images. Now, brothers, let unbelief not call us back to their servitude: let us not be ensnared by auguries, deceived by divination, caught by lots, led on by the spirits of the dead, seduced by deaths, held captive by panting plagues; but let us commend ourselves and our actions to the Lord, entrust them to the Father, believe God; for God directs the times of men as God, and therefore guides the actions of his children as a father, and as Lord does not abandon the care of his household.

[On the scribe whom Christ did not allow to follow him.] Today the evangelist began thus: “When Jesus saw great crowds around him,” it says, “he ordered them to cross to the other side” (Matt 8:18). Whenever the unteachable crowd spreads itself around the Lord, and, tossed in the storm of conscience, deserts calm, seeks the waves, deserts the harbor, enters shipwrecks, and, straining toward the heights, is plunged into the depths, then Christ orders this sea, so troubled by such crowds, to be crossed. “When Jesus saw great crowds around him, he ordered them to cross to the other side.” Not to flee men, he who had come for the salvation of men; but he gives the foolish a truce in which to believe, he waits for the wandering to return; he offers patience and pardon, not wishing to pronounce sentence; he bears with the stubborn, wishing not to destroy but to save what he made. “One of the scribes,” it says, “came up and said to him: ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’” He who rashly promises to follow the Lord goes away rather than comes near. Who can promise that he is able for everything? He would have spoken more cautiously had he said, “I will follow you wherever you command”; more humanly certainly, “wherever you wish.” “I will follow you wherever you go.” So speaks one who does not know what difference there is between himself and the Lord; so speaks one who understands Christ not as God but as a teacher. “I will follow you wherever you go.” Peter follows across the sea, but sinks; he follows to the passion, but denies. And if Peter so fails, gives way in a few things, who is this who so promises to follow the Lord in everything? “I will follow you wherever you go.” He speaks as if he could undergo the conflict with Christ, go through the shame of the cross to glory, enter the citadel of death, kill death by death, penetrate the unknown recesses of hell, break the bonds of the lower world, call back to their own bodies souls long hardened through the ages and forgetful of the light, shake the earth, split rocks, open tombs, lead the buried out of the lower world, bring forth witnesses of his resurrection. Let him add, further, that he will go wherever Christ goes: sit on the shoulders of angels, climb the heavens, sit with the Father, hold the summit of all heavenly dignities. To such things, to these things, why does the foolish scribe, the proud slave, promise to follow the Lord? But he receives from Christ an answer worthy of so great a presumption: “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” What is this? The fox, weak in strength, powerful in cunning, inventor of guile, artisan of fraud, mistress of pretense, empty of simplicity, full of tricks, plunderer of domestic birds, enemy of household roofs: rightly does Christ make it a type of Herod, the ruler of the Jews, who, forgetful of former liberty and standing under Roman power, ruled by art, reigned by cunning, commanded by fraud, presided by guile, and was strong in pretense; and since he could not bring back plunder from foreign nations, he devoured his own common people, his home-born populace, like domestic birds. Christ proves this when he sends word to Herod: “Go and tell that fox” (Luke 13:32). Truly a fox, who seized by guile a kingdom that he had earned neither by birth nor by life. This Herod, then, set up for himself in the hearts of the scribes, even to the killing of Christ, holes for his crimes, and left no place where Christ could lay his head, which is God (1 Cor 11:3). “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests.” Here he also calls birds the demons flying in the air, who themselves have made nests of their malice in the breasts of the scribes, where they might breed all the offspring of their wickedness. Hence, when the devil mingled himself with Judas's mind, he at once conceived the fruit of guile and gave birth to the traitor's crime. You see that Christ did not repel the scribe because he was willing, but exposed him as pretending and shrank from him as presumptuous. Or why would Christ, the author of kindness, the bestower of salvation, forbid this man who wished to come, when he at once kept back another disciple who wanted to go, so that he would not leave? “Another,” it says, “of the disciples said: ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him: ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’” Does Christ thus deny the last service of devotion? Does he forbid the final duty owed to parents? He does not deny the service of devotion, but he sets divine service before human affections. Hear what the disciple said: “Let me first go and bury my father.” This ought to have been not first for him, but second; the earthly father is to be placed after the heavenly Father. “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” That is to say: follow me to the shame of the passion, so that with me you may come to the glory of the resurrection. “Let the dead bury their own dead.” Why should a son of faith return to the house of unbelief? Why should the offspring of salvation weep over the lost with the lost? Why should the pledge of the resurrection concern himself with a parent's tomb? “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” How do the dead bury their own dead? Brothers, he himself said: “I am the life” (John 14:6). What the soul is to the body, Christ is to the soul; without the soul the body does not live, the soul does not live without Christ: when the soul withdraws, stench, corruption, decay, worm, ashes, horror, and everything detestable to see at once follow for the body; when God departs, the stench of sins, the corruption of crimes, the decay of vices, the worm of conscience, the ashes of vanities, the horror of unbelief at once come into the soul, and in the tomb of the living body there is the funeral of the soul already buried. Added to the case was that the corpse of unbelief was being handled with unbelieving rites, and devotion was being cared for by a ministry of impiety. “Jesus,” it says, “having entered the ruler's house, saw the flute players” (Matt 9:23). Do not such people make a sacrilege out of devotion, who hire music for mourning and strangers' lamentations for the funerals of their own? Where there is no lament, there is a bought and hired song. Not the professional's pipe but simple affection mourns the dead. Christ, then, did not wish his disciple to be absent from his father's funeral rites, but did not wish him to take part in profane mourning.

[On the calming of the storm at sea.] The Church's readings are so arranged by a divine secret that they confer higher knowledge on the learned and bestow on the simple the grace of saving understanding. When Christ went up into the boat, it says, a storm dared to make a great disturbance. “When he went up into the boat,” it says, “his disciples followed him; and behold, a great disturbance arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered by the waves; but he was asleep” (Matt 8:23–24). The sea that lowered its swollen back to Christ's feet, laid its crests flat, bridled its motion, bound its waves, and served him as a watery road with the firmness of stone (John 6): why does it now rage, storm, and strive even to the danger of its Author? Why did Christ himself, who foreknows the future, seem so ignorant of the present that he did not guard against the coming squall, the hour of the storm, the time of danger, but, while all were awake, he alone was held in sleep at the very moment so great a danger threatened him and his own? Brothers, calm weather does not prove the helmsman's skill, but a stormy tempest: with a gentle breeze the lowest sailor steers the ship; in the confusion of the winds the art of the chief master is sought. This is why the disciples, after they saw that the sailors' industry had failed them, that the seas were raging against them, that the waves were attacking them, that the whirlwinds had joined against them, fled trembling to the very helmsman of all things, the ruler of the world, the master of the elements, asking him to calm the waves, remove the danger, and restore safety to the desperate. Then, when his command alone subdued the sea, beat back the winds, removed the whirlwinds, and gave calm, the sailors perceive, believe, and confess that he is the Author of all things. But let us now bring out what is within. When Christ boarded the ship of his Church to cross the sea of the world, the blasts of the Gentiles, the whirlwinds of the Jews, the squalls of persecutors, the clouds of the mob, the mists of demons so rushed upon it that there was one storm of the whole world. The waves of kings foamed, the billows of authorities boiled, the madness of subjects roared, the whirlpools of peoples rolled, the rocks of unbelief stood out, the Christian shores bellowed, the shipwrecks of the lapsed were tossed about, and there was one danger, one shipwreck, of the whole world. “Then the disciples came to the Lord and woke him, saying: ‘Lord, save us, we are perishing.’ And Jesus says to them: ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’” Roused by the disciples, then, Christ rebukes the sea, that is, the world; he calms the globe, softens kings, appeases authorities, stills the waves, settles peoples, makes Romans Christians. From them too he has made executors of the word of the Christian faith those who had been persecutors of the Christian name. This calm Christian princes preserve, the Church holds, Christendom possesses, paganism admires. “Then,” it says, “rising, he commanded the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying: ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’” Those who come to the Lord, who wake him, who beg with humble supplication to be saved, are disciples; but those who marvel that the elements so obeyed Christ are called men. They are truly men, and men of the world, who marvel that the world has been so turned to obedience to Christ, who are astounded that the summits of the temples have been cast down like swollen waves, who see that the foam of idols and the whirlwinds of demons have fled, whom the deep and widespread calm of the Christian name throughout the world leaves astonished. And truly, brothers, when Christ slept in death a great storm arose in the Church; when Christ rose from the dead, as it is written, a great calm was given back to the Church. Now let us wake Christ, asleep in us, with the whole groaning of our hearts, the voice of faith, Christian tears, deep weeping, apostolic cries, and let us say: “Lord, save us, we are perishing.” And since the reading fits the time well, and, as it is written, “The north wind is a harsh wind” (Prov 27:16), but by name it is called the right-hand wind, which carries to us such fierce, such bitter nations: so this north wind, a harsh wind, through the west, through the southwest, through the south, through the east spreads itself in a grim whirlwind, confounds the seas, blots out the sky, casts down mountains, swallows cities, drowns provinces, and forces the whole world into one shipwreck. This is why Christ's little boat is now lifted to heaven, now goes down to the depths of fear, now is steered by Christ's strength, now tossed by dread, now covered by the waves of sufferings, now swims out with the oars of confessions. But let us, brothers, cry again and again: “Lord, save us, we are perishing.” And truly, brothers, if we were one human body, if we believed that those who are perishing are our own inward parts, we would cry continually, with the affliction of fasting, the groaning of prayers, the pouring out of tears: “Lord, save us, we are perishing.” And we would be eager to help ourselves in our brothers: we would not see a sea of our blood on earth from the raging sword, nor feel such great shipwrecks of bodies, and now of souls too, and we would pray with humble voice: “Lord, save us, we are perishing.” And yet no compassion, no devotion, no fear, no shame or compunction rouses us to grief. It is God, it is God, who causes us to be pressed by evils, to be always beaten, the nations to be strong, the hail to fall, the blight to infect, ungodliness to prevail, diseases to dominate, death to rage, the earth to tremble: yet we neither tremble nor fear, nor turn from evil, nor strive for good. Avarice rages, display pants, iniquity pleases, others' goods delight us, but our own perish; God's scourges come, but our faults provoke them. If God is just, he is surely merciful to us. Brothers, let us return to the Lord so that God may return to us; let us renounce evils so that good things may answer us; let us serve God, who is good, so that we may not serve evil nations and wicked powers, with the help of Christ our Lord and helmsman, whose honor and majesty abide without end for ages of ages. Amen.

[On the same.] Whenever Christ sleeps in our ship and is lulled in the body by the sleep of our sloth, a squall rushes in with a total confusion of winds, the threatening waves rage, and while they are often lifted and fall with foaming billows, they breed bitter shipwrecks for the sailors by the very expectation of them, as the present reading of the evangelist has declared, saying: “And Jesus said to them on that day, when evening had come: ‘Let us cross over.’ And leaving the crowd, they took him with them just as he was in the boat” (Mark 4:35–36). “And Jesus said to them on that day.” Which day? Surely that day on which, according to Isaiah, he rises to shatter the earth (Isa 2:19); that day on which the whole brightness of worldly light grows dark; that day on which, as the night of temptations draws near, the images of vanities that are to be fled grow thick. “When evening had come.” It is evening when the last time and the final hour announce to human senses the confusions of things that are coming. “Let us cross over”: from earthly things to heavenly, from present to future. And rightly “over,” because divine things are always contrary to human things: while these drag those subject to them toward frailty, those raise their followers toward virtue. “And leaving the crowd.” They leave the crowd who desert popular favor and the mob that always wanders with uncertain judgment; they are not delayed from the path of virtue by devotion to human rumors, but, firm and secure in a good conscience, with Christ accompanying them, they pass through the lying waves of praise and disparagement. “And they took him,” it says, “just as he was in the boat.” What is this? Christ is one way in heaven, another way he is held in the boat; he is perceived one way in the Father's majesty, another way in the lowliness of man; one way coeternal with the Father, another way seen as temporal, laid out in the stages of age; one way he sleeps in our body, another way he keeps watch in the holiness of his Spirit. “They took him,” it says, “just as he was in the boat.” It is the praise of faith to receive Christ as he is and is held in the boat, that is, in the Church: to confess that he was born, grew up, suffered, was crucified, was buried, ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, from where he will come as judge of the living and the dead: this is singular salvation. Whoever has so confessed and taken Christ into our boat, even if he is pounded by the stumbling blocks of the waves, is not sunk by the dangers nor overwhelmed by the billows. “And there arose,” it says, “a great squall of wind, and it was throwing the waves into the boat, so that the boat was being filled.” “And there arose a great squall”: it did not dare to probe the power of the sleeping Lord, but to beat upon the faith of the disciples, to expose their fear, so as to show its Author how much service it owed. “And he was,” it says, “asleep in the stern.” The wakeful flee to the sleeper, and believe that he whom they see ruled by sleep in deepest repose can resist the raging elements; they observe that the slumber of human necessity has so overtaken him that neither the crash of the sea nor the roar of the waves nor imminent shipwreck could wake him. And where is that saying: “Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Ps 121:4)? In himself the majesty that knows no weariness and no need of rest does not sleep, nor slumber for itself; but he does everything through me for me, who, as often as he changes the appearance of his action and of his face, so often rebukes the changes of our conduct and the faults of our souls. Hear the prophet saying: “His eyelids question the children of men” (Ps 11:4). See how God's eyes are closed so as not to see those who sin, in order to punish them: “Turn away,” it says, “your face from my sins” (Ps 51:9). And again, being open, they look on suppliants, to spur on those running and lift up those growing weary. Here, then, the Lord's sleep tests the disciples' faith, exposes their doubt, and reveals them to be of little belief, who believe that the elements can rise up not only against themselves but against their very Author. “The waves,” it says, “were throwing into the boat.” For as much as the masses of the Gentiles strike the Lord's ship from outside and pour in like waves, so much do the swollen billows of heretics rush in and rage within. Blessed Paul declares that he endured this storm when he says: “Fighting without, fears within” (2 Cor 7:5). “So that the boat was being filled.” Rightly the evangelist reports that the ship was filled with foaming waves, since the Church suffers nearly as many heresies as we read there are questions in the divine law. “And he himself,” it says, “was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they wake him and say to him: ‘Teacher, does it not concern you that we are perishing?’ And rising he rebuked the wind and said to the sea: ‘Be silent, be still.’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said to them: ‘Why are you afraid? Do you not yet have faith?’” While the reading lays open the event, it commends the time by its example. For a great and very grievous stormy tempest threatens, while a raging and destructive whirlwind thrusts itself in from every side: the seas roar, the very islands are overturned from their foundations, and every shore is struck with a mournful sound. But since, as we have said, Christ sleeps in our ship, let us approach him by faith rather than by body, and let us knock on him more by the work of mercy than by the touch of the desperate. Let us wake him not with insolent noise but with the cry of spiritual songs; not with wicked murmuring but with watchful supplication. Let us give God some of the time of our life, so that this unhappy vanity and pitiable anxiety may not consume the whole day, nor destructive sleep and empty slumber spend the whole night; but likewise let part of the day and night be set apart for the very Author of times. Keep watch, O man, keep watch; you have an example: what the cock renders to you, its host, you should show to your Creator; especially since it crows for your benefit, when it rouses you to work, when it announces that the day is already near: how much more fitting is it for you to rouse God from his heavenly seat with heavenly hymns to your salvation. Hear the prophet saying: “In the night my spirit keeps watch for you, O God” (Isa 26:9). And the Psalmist: “With my hands by night before him, and I was not deceived” (Ps 77:2). The same Psalmist advises that three times of the day are to be set apart for God, saying: “Evening and morning and at noon I will tell and announce, and he will hear my voice” (Ps 55:17). While Daniel diligently prayed to God at these three times, he obtained not only foreknowledge of the future but also deserved the freedom of his long-captive nation (Dan 6:10). Let us say, then, what the prophet says: “Rise up, why do you sleep, O Lord? Rise up, and do not reject us forever” (Ps 44:23). Let us say with the apostles: “Teacher, does it not concern you that we are perishing?” And truly Teacher, because he is not only the maker of all the elements but also their governor and ruler: when he has heard us, when he has deigned to wake, the waves will be leveled, the swollen billows and hills laid flat; the winds will scatter, the squall will perish, and this tempest that threatens, this great tempest, will be changed into the greatest calm. [Sermon 22. On despising care for earthly things, and on the watchful servant.] Rewards are always set for those to whom hard contests are proposed, and the greatness of the reward is set according to the greatness of the contest. This is why Christ places the kingdom in the lap of his disciples, so that in the contest they may not yield to dangers or to fear: whoever strives for a kingdom despises dangers; one eager for victory does not know how to fear. “Do not fear,” he says, “little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). A flock little to the world, great to God; little, because he calls glorious those whom he has trained to the innocence of sheep and Christian gentleness; it is a little flock, which is not diminished from great but grows from little; “little flock” so designates the infancy of the newborn Church, which he promises will soon come, by heavenly increases, to the insignia of his kingdom. “Do not fear, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.” He added what one who is to reign must do: “Sell what you possess and give alms; make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in heaven that does not fail.” “Sell what you possess”: no one can rule over all things except one who is not held by his own; it is the mark of a cast-down mind to remember household property when called to a kingdom; a low, plebeian spirit sets a little coin before royal treasures; a poor understanding, brooding over small things, loses great ones; and, gaping after temporal things, deserts the everlasting. “Sell,” he says, “what you possess and give alms; make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in heaven that does not fail.” O man, by such a warning Christ wished to enrich you, not to strip you; he wished your goods to remain yours, not to perish; to be made perpetual, not emptied: he commanded purses; he ordered you to transfer, not to lose. “A treasure in heaven that does not fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” He acts more by a father's counsel than by a master's right: he rebukes you for storing your goods amid the snares of robbers and the bites of moths; you are reminded not to make for yourself sleepless nights, anxious days, troubled times. The guardian of gold, the keeper of silver, has no security, knows no rest; and whoever lacks security has lost rest: he is rich in punishment, not in wealth. “A treasure in heaven that does not fail.” That is to say: where I am, put it there; I keep what is given to me. O man, give to the Father, entrust to God, because a father will not refuse an heir, nor God a man, what has been entrusted; he cannot keep what is yours, because he has given what is his. Does he need human things who bestows divine things? Is he greedy for our goods who has made us heirs of his own? Surely, what will he deny to those on whom he has conferred a kingdom? O man, if you are going to remain here, store your goods here; if you are going there, why do you leave your goods here? Whoever keeps what must be left behind is a guardian of others' goods, not of his own. If in this life, in which we live as pilgrims, it grieves us to be poor, sad, without honor for a little while, what will it be like in the everlasting homeland, among eternal citizens, to endure grief from contempt, punishment from obscurity, reproach from nakedness, and to be consigned to punishments when others are promoted to a kingdom, when the poor man is led to the assembly of God and the rich man dragged to the company of the punished? Alas, how lamentable the reversal, when those despaired of among men will possess the divine hope, and those endowed with human goods will be cheated of heavenly goods! And this is the work of treasure, which either lifts a man's heart to heaven through almsgiving or sinks it into the earth through avarice. And so he said: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” O man, send, send ahead your treasure into heaven, so that you may not sink your heavenly soul into the earth. Gold comes from the depth of the earth, the soul from the heights of heaven. It is better, therefore, for gold to be carried to the seat of the soul than for the soul to be sunk in the tomb of gold. Those, then, whom he has granted to reign in heaven he commands to serve as his soldiers in the world, stripped of all the cares of riches and unencumbered in every way. “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning in your hands, and you yourselves like men waiting for their master, when he returns from the wedding.” “Let your loins be girded”: virtue must be girded there where pleasure must be restrained. Whoever lays aside the belt of virtue does not know how to conquer the vices of the body. So, girded with the belt of chastity, which is the badge of Christian soldiering, let us cut down the loose sloth of the flesh, and, watchful in expectation of our King, let us know nothing of the sleepless sleep of the world. “They do not sleep,” it says, “unless they have done evil” (Prov 4:16). “And your lamps burning in your hands.” Blessed are those in whose hands the lamps of good works shine. For thus: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16). And as a lamp before the eyes, so a good work shines in minds. A lamp does not shine only for the one carrying it but for many; and a good work, while it shines in one person's deed, enlightens many by example. A lamp drives back the darkness of nights; a good work puts to flight the darkness of malice. Let us light the lamp of good works in our hands, if we wish to shine before the Lord and before men. “And you yourselves like men waiting for their master, when he returns from the wedding.” Because torches are always friends to weddings, the chastity of weddings is celebrated with the witness of lights. For as one who presumes on unlawful things flees the light, so one who seeks lawful things gleams in manifold light. “And you yourselves like men waiting for their master, when he returns from the wedding.” Those are men who, in the manner of due service, await their master's coming with untiring vigils; but those who so serve the belly that they know nothing of divine service, and, anxious about the pleasure of the flesh, have lost their anxiety about the Lord's coming, are not to be called men but beasts of burden. “And you yourselves like men waiting for their master, when he returns from the wedding.” Since Christ came to betroth his Church, the bridal chamber of the bride has been adorned, and it is adorned with the gold of faith, the silver of wisdom, the gems of virtues, the veils of holiness, the roses of modesty, the lilies of chastity, the violets of shame. And the temple of purity, the pinnacle of virginity, is raised to the heights of heaven; nor are the harps of the psalms lacking, the organs of the prophets, the voices of the apostles, and all the music of the heavenly wedding. He is utterly the slave of sleep who is not roused to the heavenly King's wedding by so great a sound. “And you yourselves like men waiting for their master, when he returns from the wedding, so that when he comes and knocks they may open to him at once.” He comes and knocks: a heart with a good conscience opens, one with a bad conscience shuts; the just mind opens wide to its reward, the unjust shuts itself out because it did not deserve. Let us keep watch, then, dearly beloved, so that we may attain the blessedness that follows: “Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, finds watching.” Let these promises of blessedness suffice; but since Christ speaks of the love that belongs to this very blessedness, let us put it off today, so that we may hear more fully what such a Father has promised his children.

[On despising care for earthly things, and on the promise of the kingdom.] You have heard today how the Lord joined the trumpet blast of heaven to the shepherd's joyful shout, so as to lift the long-bowed minds of the sheep to divine things and at once advance them to the heavenly kingdom. “Do not fear,” he says, “little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Humility has acquired what pride lost, and the little and gentle flock has tamed all the various kinds of savagery by its own gentleness. The little flock has conquered and broken as many kinds of beasts as it has brought different nations under the yoke of Christ. The little and gentle flock long consented to be killed, long allowed itself to be devoured, until pagan savagery, sated with blood or with flesh, tasting the sweetness of the Gospel pasture and the streams of the divine fountain, shunned the whole contagion and pasture of the world, and returned from beast into man, having fallen from man into beast. That the prophets foresaw this, the apostles fulfilled it, the martyrs endured it, is certain, as he testifies who says: “For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter” (Ps 44:22). For this flock entered upon a battle of a new order, where he lives who has been killed, he who has fallen conquers, he who loses his life finds it; it imitated its King, that Sheep; it followed that Lamb who “was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer did not open its mouth” (Isa 53:7). He who suffers willingly is silent; he who is torn apart unwillingly cries out. Nor can he complain of death who took death on himself by condescension, not by compulsion. It is a mark of power when someone dies willingly for many; when he dies unwillingly, it is of extreme necessity; for the one comes from contempt of death, the other from the condition of nature. Christ, then, like a sheep, both willing and silent, is shorn so as to cover the nakedness that the first Adam brought in; like a lamb he is killed so as, once sacrificed, to absolve the sin of the whole world; he lays down his life for the sheep, so as to fulfill both the devotion and the care of a shepherd. For you, then, he became king, for you priest, for you shepherd, for you sacrifice, for you sheep, for you Lamb, for you he became everything, he who had made everything. And he who never changes for himself is changed so often for you; for your sake he is shown in various forms, he who remains in the one form of his majesty. And what more? God gives himself to you as man, as you can bear, because as he is you cannot endure him. But let us now hear what such a shepherd has promised the little flock. “Do not fear,” he says, “little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.” O goodness poured out! O unheard-of kindness! O unspeakable affection! The shepherd takes the sheep into a partnership of wealth, the master admits slaves into a share of lordship, the king admits the flock of the whole people to participation in the kingdom: so, so gives he whose wealth cannot fail, whose kingdom cannot be diminished, whose power cannot be emptied by giving. The Lord began with foresight, saying: “Do not fear, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.” To hear the promise of a kingdom without fear is beyond a servile condition, since one who is scarcely worthy of freedom cannot take hold of the insignia of rule. So the Lord strengthens the minds of his servants with such a word, so that the sudden hearing of the promised kingdom may not overwhelm them. For a slave to want a kingdom is a crime; to approach it is danger; not to fear is rashness. But what is this to Christ? Or what wonder is it that he gives slaves a kingdom, that he makes slaves his partners in lordship, who washes the feet of slaves so as to serve slaves with the lowest servitude? Let them come here, let them come, those who dispute his power, and let them argue about his equality when they can grasp, speak of, and duly appreciate so great a kindness; and let them no longer bring false charges if he says that in our body he is less than the Father, he who not by word only but by deed, when he washed the feet of servants, submitted and subjected himself to the feet of little slaves. O man, spare yourself now, because, so that you might spare yourself, God washed, held, and embraced your feet. But let us return to what we began: “Do not fear, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.” See, he who gives says that the Father gives. Does he deny his own generosity by saying this? Far from it: he does not diminish his power but discloses his affection; by saying this he does not make a distance, but shows the Father's will and his own, and confirms their unity. And in that he said “it has pleased together” (complacuit) and not “it has pleased,” he teaches that it is the gift of the Trinity, because what pleased the Son toward us pleased the Trinity together. “Do not fear, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.” After so great a generosity, then, after his grace has been conferred on you so abundantly, the Lord commands you, who are to reign, to throw away the base and cheap savings of slavery. “Sell what you possess and give alms.” Royal power does not admit plebeian dress; august honor is conferred only with diadem and purple. So he who believes himself divinely consecrated a king must throw away the dress of slavery. This is why the King above ordered the man who dared to enter the banquet of his majesty in an unworthy garment to be bound, thrown out, and driven into the outer darkness (Matt 22:11–13), because the unseemliness of the one invited redounds to the insult of the one inviting. And whoever, now enriched with royal riches, keeps the savings of his former freedom, captive to misery, does not know that he is fortunate. It is the custom, it is the mark of a fortunate spirit, that one who has been raised to a kingdom at once liberally spreads what was his own, what was private, among his parents, relatives, and needy fellow citizens, so that he who has been endowed with wealth and honor may not be a beggar in spirit. With such foresight, then, with such counsel, the Lord commands us, who wish to possess in the heavenly kingdom everything in heaven and on earth, to sell, bestow, and give away what is cheap and perishable. But if you want to keep the price of your estates, and purses that are stored up please you, make for yourself purses such as he commanded who is now the guardian and provider of your desire. In short, when he saw that he had spoken harshly, “Sell what you possess,” he at once added: “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.” Are you saddened again because you are compelled to place what you have in heaven? I beg you, trust your God, you who trust a slave, and commit it to God rather than to man. But if you fear that he may presume on it, that the kindness of the giver may scatter some of it, seal your purses with the ring of faith, so that with such a guardian you may sleep secure, because where he is there is no place for a thief. He cannot deny you your money who has conferred on you all that is his, who has enriched you with the honor and glory of his kingdom.

[On the watchful servant and the happiness of God's kingdom.] No one is unaware that vigils are always and in every respect beneficial, because in truth to watch more is to live more. For what is so like death as the look of one sleeping? What so full of life as the appearance of one awake? Sleep is to be indulged so that it may restore the body, not dissolve it; recall its strength, not unnerve it. So no one is unaware that vigils are always and in every respect beneficial. What art, what work, what time, what authority, what office does not seek out the gains of life by working late? This is why a king, keeping watch in battle readiness, foresees and avoids the snares of a crafty enemy; why a soldier in camp repels sudden night attacks by cautious watching through the night. So a sailor by watching enters the uncertain ways of a wide passage, crosses pathless tracks, and with stealthy course reaches the longed-for anchorage of a profitable harbor. Hence a shepherd joins nights to days and denies himself all time for sleeping, in which, with sleep aiding them, the wolves would be given occasion to attack the flock. So a skillful traveler, by traveling in the night air, gets ahead of the heat of the sun and with foresight sets aside the suitable day for resting. Knowing this, the prophet cried to the Lord not by day only but all night long: “O Lord, God of my salvation, by day I have cried and by night before you” (Ps 88:1). What more? The Lord himself spends the night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12), so as to free us by prayer before he redeems us by his passion. And if the master keeps watch for his servants, rightly does he command servants to keep watch for themselves. “Let your loins,” he says, “be girded and your lamps burning in your hands, and you yourselves like men waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding” (Luke 12:35–36). “Let your loins be girded.” A new order of vigils, a new dress is commanded. “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning in your hands.” The watchful servants are told nothing about clothing, nothing about shoes, nothing about the preparations for the meeting itself; but all their care is commanded in girding the loins, the whole force of the precept is set on binding the loins, with only the comfort of lamps added, without which neither is the darkness of night opened nor does the face of the coming day grow bright. “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning in your hands.” The belt is properly a sign of servitude, which makes servants unencumbered for running and ready to obey. But it would have been enough to say, “Be girded”; why does he name the loins especially? Why does the one commanding make such careful mention of the loins? Do you ask why? Because in the loins lies the whole cause of the body; from the loins all the business of the flesh is stirred up; in the loins is the whole occasion of human falling and human frailty. From there comes what makes people ignorant of virtue and more sluggish. This is why the Lord chiefly commands our loins to be bound with the belt of chastity, and orders all that is loose, fluid, and slack in our flesh to be bound fast with the continual girdle of virtue, so that, the flesh girded up, the gait of our mind may be made free, swift, and unencumbered for meeting the Lord. Yet hearing this, O man, you must know that the flesh does not delay you from meeting God, since it is the inseparable companion of that very meeting and duty, if you put its baggage in order, if you lighten its loads, if, as a provident traveler, you tie up its loose and trailing wrappings. What more? It will be a wholesome companionship for you, if you are not a lazy and slack trainer of it. How you ought to even out its baggage and moderate its unjust weights, the Apostle teaches, saying: “Put to death your members that are on earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, lust, evil desire, and avarice, which is idolatry” (Col 3:5). The flesh, then, must be bound with the belt of continence, so that it may not, poured out in vices and weighed down with the whole weight of sins, be unable to keep to the heavenly paths above. Rightly, then, the Lord added: “And your lamps burning in your hands.” For lamps are always carried at night as a witness of innocence; and as darkness is always a friend to vices, so lamps are always enemies of crimes and always companions of good work. But in the hands of the saints the good works themselves are lamps, as the Lord says: “Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16). And truly they carry their lamps, truly they kindle their lamps with the fuel of works, with the oil of mercy; and though in place and purpose they keep hidden, by their work and virtue they flash and shine through the whole world. And since the Lord knew that the moods of those waiting for him are sad enough and anxious enough, so that no one might be overcome by weariness, no one grow tired with delay, no one succumb to the fatigue of long waiting, he promises to those who persevere a heavenly service leading to heavenly blessedness. “Blessed,” he says, “are those servants whom the master, when he comes, finds watching.” And so that the nature of this blessedness might not be held uncertain, he at once added: “Amen I say to you, he will gird himself and make them recline at table, and he will pass by and serve them.” God will gird himself and make the servants recline, and will serve them. Behold an unheard-of change of things, behold a fearful reversal of lordship, behold an awesome conversion of servitude: because the servant stood for a little while girded in expectation of his master and bore the faith of waiting with brief fatigue, the Godhead, to repay him in kind, sets aside its divinity in its very divinity. “He will gird himself and make them recline at table, and he will pass by and serve them.” God stands by man as he reclines, and stands by him in heaven; the Lord serves the servant as he feasts, and serves him girded; Christ performs ministry to his slaves, his ministers, and does so when already established in the Father's glory. O man, do you still slander Christ for having deferred to the Father, he who on earth, by washing your feet, showed you the lowest service, and promises the lowest servitude in heaven? Believe, heretic, and strive to repay him in kind. He prepares a banquet for you in heaven with himself as server, and you on earth do not cease to heap and breed continual blasphemies against him. He too will make his passings, for “he will pass by and serve them”: he will pass from lordship to the devoted service of his faithful, and will move over; toward you he will pass from Father of mercy to most severe judge. “And he will pass by and serve them.” To those who confess and wait he will serve banquets; he will serve you too, but the sentence your denial deserves. “And if he comes in the second watch, and if he comes in the third watch and finds them so, blessed are those servants.” “If he comes in the second and third watch”: the world knows more watches; the expectation of the Trinity knows only three. Why, though, did he begin from the second and pass over the first? Because the first watch had already passed at the rising of the Lord's birth. The shepherds prove it, who, while they kept watch over their flock, deserved to find, see, and hold in the manger the very shepherd and author of the flock. But let us ask what the second and third watches are. As the first watch is his rising in the flesh, so the second watch is that in which he returns and is raised in our flesh; then, so as to come to the Risen One, the world is roused each year and keeps vigil. The third watch is that in which the whole expectation ends at his final coming, so that, as he rose for us, so we may now rise for him to everlasting life.

[On despising care for earthly things, and on the promise of the kingdom.] You have heard today with what gentle exhortation the Lord consoled the small and earthly beginnings of the Gospel flock. “Do not fear,” he says, “little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). He takes away anxious hopes, removes doubtful outcomes, and drives away and shuts out all fear, when at the very beginning he promises a kingdom to the newborn. “For it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.” Who, certain of a kingdom, secure of lordship, sighs over food, over clothing, over plebeian wealth and the cheapness of a slave's plot of turf? He is very envious of himself who, raised to the highest things, casts himself down to lowly things and lowers himself to want. But it is fitting to know who this Father is, or what sort he is, or what kingdom he promises his children. Who this Father is you know daily, even as you confess it, when you cry: “Our Father, who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). What sort he is, you have seen in the very greatness of his works: from nothing he made heaven, he made the earth firm out of liquid, he set the mountains in the balance, he shut the seas within their lawful bounds by the sole authority of his command. But if you want to know the nature of the kingdom he promises the little ones, he himself discloses it, saying: “Let the little children come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:14). To be in heaven is a wonder; to live in heaven belongs to majesty. Now what it is worth to reign in heaven, mortal understanding cannot estimate; and yet, O man, what you cannot estimate you have received, as the Apostle says: “What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9). And what you doubt that you deserve, you are now compelled to confess that you have and possess. What, then, has he who possesses heaven to do with earth? What has he to do with human things who has already obtained divine things? Unless perhaps groans please, labors are chosen, dangers loved, the worst death delights, and evils inflicted are more welcome than goods bestowed. But let us see what counsel so great a Father gives those who are to reign. “Sell what you possess and give alms.” If you believe that you will live, that you will reign, that you are already rich above, then let your goods go before you to where you will be, where you will move, where you will reign; count wretched riches as mercy; turn human things into divine. And so that no one might lack transport to carry what you send away, the poor man has been pressed into service: the poor carry our burdens, and carry them willingly, because they are not weighed down by such a load but lifted up. “Sell what you possess and give alms; make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in heaven that does not fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old.” You see that this Father wants to enrich his children, not strip them. “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old.” In a new way, indeed in a heavenly way, whoever hears him acquires by selling, stores up by paying out, gains while he loses. How he wants money to endure, purses to be made perpetual, the stores of riches to remain, who says, “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old”! See, he who had begun to urge contempt now teaches avarice: “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old.” And he who rebuked those who store up treasures in time commands that purses without end be sought, to the very kindling of greed. O Christ, where does love for your own draw you? To win over the avaricious man, you make him hear what he desires, not what he ought: you command purses; you want eternal treasures prepared that do not fail; so that the avaricious man, while he runs his accustomed course after gain, may either take hold of virtue or be taken hold of by virtue. Truly you are a Father, who deal so with your little ones of every kind. For we too sometimes, when our little children ask for harmful things, give them wholesome things under the appearance of harmful ones, deceiving their foolishness without being foolish in our affection. You said: “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, treasures in heaven that do not fail.” Why is a purse prepared? What need of locks there, where innocence itself is the guard? What need of a seal there, where there is no suspicion of fraud? If even in heaven there is need of purses, the care is not lost but changed. Lord, you saw that the avaricious have all their faith in treasures, all their hope in purses; and so you want purses that cannot rot prepared in heaven, so that he who does not follow you to heaven may at least follow his purses. Avaricious man, make yourself purses, and make them at God's command, because the divine majesty nods assent to your wishes. But make yourself purses by paying out, because whatever the poor man receives, the heavenly Father takes. And where does he store it? In heaven. And lest perhaps you grieve that you have lost even the interest, you will receive a hundredfold at heavenly interest whatever you send into heaven with the poor man carrying it. The world's interest is one for a hundred; God takes one and gives a hundred; and yet not everyone is willing to have a contract with God. Perhaps they are anxious about security? Why? Is not a man bound to a man by the obligation of a little piece of paper? God gives security in so many great volumes, and is the debtor not held? But you say: Granted he owes, who will compel him to repay? He himself, because he cannot lie to anyone: he is himself both the enforcer and the debtor. He will not be hard in repaying who is lavish in giving. Trust God, O man, with what God has given you; he wants to repay greater things when the giver wants to be a debtor.

[On the faithful steward.] The hearing of many has perceived that what the Lord is read to have answered Peter's question today was said figuratively to the apostles themselves, only to teachers and to those who preside over churches. Peter asks: “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?” The Lord answered him: “Who do you think is the faithful and prudent steward, whom the master has set over his household to give them their measure of wheat in due time? Blessed is that servant whom the master, when he comes, finds so doing. Truly I say to you, he will set him over all that he possesses. But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in two and put his portion with the unfaithful” (Luke 12:41–46). This comparison binds the leaders of the Church first of all, but this figure exempts no human being, no mortal at all; while speaking to the steward, it answered everyone, though only one asked. If there is anyone who has received nothing from God, he will not fear the examination of his stewardship or the office of a steward. O man, if you have received the very thing you give, how will you deny that you have received what you have? The dispenser of the Church will render account and give reasons for the heavenly stores, for the divine granaries. And the greater the trust he takes on, the greater the debt he does not doubt he will repay, as the Lord says: “From him to whom more has been entrusted, more will be required” (Luke 12:48). And elsewhere: “The mighty will be mightily tormented” (Wis 6:6). The higher a man has climbed, the higher he will fall when he slips. What is higher than heaven? Whoever sins in heavenly things falls from heaven; whoever offends in the very eyes of the one who rules runs headlong into despair; and whoever commits a crime with the judge himself as witness lacks excuse. Or what defense does he hope for whom the testimony of the examiner accuses? So the devil, when he was an angel, and in heaven, and always moved most bright and shining before God, while he tempted God's ears, while he grew proud in God's sight, slipped to the earth, was cast down to hell, changed from angel into devil; and he who was a minister of pardon became a leader of punishments. This is why the Apostle warns a man of our order not to fall into pride and the snare of the devil. The steward of the divine word, then, and dispenser of heavenly teaching, who stands continually before the Lord, moves always among the altars, never withdraws from God's eyes, who receives the causes of sins and the sorrows of the people, offers and presents prayers, receives, brings back, and restores what has been obtained, wholly substituted from man into angel, cannot sin except in the very face of God among the holy of holies, so as to take on himself a crime from the place from which he was accustomed to bring back pardon for others. So Nadab and Abihu, priests, sons of Aaron the priest, when they presumed to defile the altar with strange fire, were consumed by the fire of the altar itself, so that those who had made a sin out of propitiation took punishment from the sacrifice (Lev 10:1–2): a sin that drunkenness had stirred up in them; for the smell of wine had driven out the smell of incense, and the fire of drunkenness had provoked the flame of the altar. Hence, because, estranged by wine, they had carried strange fire, they are at once brought back extinguished by divine fire. Drunkenness in another is a crime, in a priest a sacrilege, because another kills his soul with wine, the priest extinguishes the spirit of holiness, as the Apostle says: “Do not extinguish the Spirit” (1 Thess 5:19). Rightly, among the other things that today's reading rebukes in the bad steward, it condemns the madness of wine, saying: “But if that servant says, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk.” He said aptly: “eat and drink and get drunk,” and “beat.” Drunkenness is the mother of slaughter, the parent of quarrels, the begetter of fury, the shameful teacher of insolence: whoever has it does not have himself; whoever has it is not a man; whoever has it does not commit sin, but is himself sin. Drunkenness is a coaxing demon, a sweet poison, a voluntary madness, an invited enemy, an enticement against honor and an injury to modesty: let no Christian know it, let a priest not touch it even by hearing, so that he who is a pattern of virtues may not be made and found from it an example of vices. But since enough has been said to us and to churchmen, let us inquire into the Apostle's saying, to show how the Savior's answer holds everyone, since there is no one who is found a stranger to God's stewardship: “There is no authority except from God” (Rom 13:1). If all authority is from God, a king too has obtained from God the royal dignity of stewardship. So a general, so a soldier, so governors of provinces, so of cities: all these will render account, if in anything they have exceeded the measure of the authority entrusted to them; whether the king has kept justice, held to equity, moderated his power, not omitted mercy; whether he has so held the balance of his weight that the scale of his power inclined to neither side; whether he has had care of all, provided for the peace of the citizens, so moderated taxation that neither the soldier lacked enough nor the taxpayer was worn out. And the general will give account to God, whether he gave his followers an example of courage, whether he was watchful on guard, untiring in maneuvers, whether he sought the peace of all by his own labor. The soldier too will render account, whether he obeyed orders, extorted from no one, earned the pay he received by most just labor. The judge also will face the supreme judge for his judgment. And you who are master of your house, I want you to believe yourself a steward appointed rather than a master, so that you may show your wife a simple love and prudently pour into her the teaching you have learned in church: for the Apostle commanded her to be silent in church and to learn at home with you teaching, saying: “Let women be silent in the churches; but if they want to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home” (1 Cor 14:34–35). Give your children a sober affection and anxious care, and bring them up faithfully in the discipline of the Lord. Give your slaves the food and clothing owed them, forgive their faults, temper your threats, command discipline, and hold as brothers by heavenly birth those whom you possess as subjects by worldly servitude. You slaves too owe your master good faith in the very servitude you bear, because whoever does not render due obedience to a master of the flesh with a devoted and pure heart is liable to God, who sees hearts, before he is to a man, to God who made you equal by grace whom your condition had made unequal by the cheapness of slavery. What shall I say of the rich man? The more he has, the more he owes. [Something is missing here.] … then at once he gives back, at once he hands over to another; and if he will not give it back, let him entrust it to each in parts. And you, poor man, do not think the stewardship of poverty entrusted to you a small one, if you bear it patiently, if you are not ungrateful, if even in your very need you are sober and frugal; if you thank the one who gives and do not heap blasphemous insults on the one who does not give; if you ask only as much as mercy gives, not as much as importunate greed drives you to. Surely you too, poor man, who ask willingly, give willingly to those who ask. But perhaps you say: I have nothing. Let there be the will to give, and the means of bestowing will not be lacking: set out your chair for the newcomer, set out your table, your lampstand, your lamp; surely set out gladly from what you have received. So Elijah (1 Kgs 17), so Elisha (2 Kgs 4), when they turned aside to the empty and needy dwellings of widows, abundantly supplied what the widows lacked. The Lord added, to confirm this comparison: “That servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself or act according to his will will receive many blows; but the one who did not know and did what deserved blows will receive few.” He who sins knowingly rightly pays the heavier penalties of conscience; but he too who sins through the faults of ignorance will not escape the blows of ignorance: as it is not lawful to despise God, so it is not lawful not to know him.

[On removing scandal.] In readiness for war the soldiers' watches are always assigned, so that snares may have no room and tricks no opening. A sudden enemy is most destructive: he either forestalls the unaware, or surprises the incautious, or overwhelms the sleeping. This is why Christ our King before the ages, through the whole night of the world, warned his soldiers, with the turns of the watches ordered in advance, against the subtlest guile of the devil, that is, the old enemy, against the hidden onslaughts of the vices, against the rushing snares of crimes, against the stumbling blocks that arise for us from various causes, against the temptations of the present life, against the burning battle lines of worldly afflictions, warning thus: “Watch and pray, so that you may not enter into temptation” (Matt 26:41). And setting out how watch was to be kept, he added: “And if he comes in the second watch, and if he comes in the third watch and finds them so, blessed are those servants whom he finds watching when he comes” (Luke 12:38, 37). And plainly blessed, because those who watch and anticipate the enemies' tricks will glory in their Lord's coming. Today, however, the Lord roused and armed the very watches of our leaders against scandals, saying to the disciples: “It is impossible that scandals should not come” (Luke 17:1). That is, it is impossible that enemies should not come. And first, brothers, we ought to know what these scandals are. There are different kinds of scandals. The first are those that the devil's deceit brings forth. The second are those that human cunning begets. The third are those that our own suspicious and incautious nature bears from within us. From the devil are those that deceive by appearance, that hold out good things while bringing in evil: like that word to Adam, when he took away human things from us while promising divine things (Gen 3). And that word through Peter: “This shall not be for you, Lord” (Matt 16:22). He strives to empty the triumph of the cross while he pretends to burn with excessive love. For when the Lord spoke of the glory of his passion, he answered through Peter: “This shall not be for you, Lord.” How sweet the serpent's poison! He made the soldier deny his King's victory before the servant himself denied his Lord. So the Lord sends the servant behind himself and sends the scandal back to its author, saying to Peter, “Get behind me,” and to the devil, “Satan, you are a scandal to me” (Matt 16:23). And truly Peter goes behind the Lord, because, to follow him to heaven, he mounted the cross head downward. But there is also the scandal of the same kind that he made for the Jews. For the stone that was broad for setting firm the footsteps he furrowed into a total offence and roughened it, and turned the rock of the whole foundation into a scandal, so that it might be ruin for the wretched. “Behold,” it says, “I lay in Zion a stone of offence and a rock of scandal” (Isa 8:14). This is why the Psalmist begs with anxious supplication: “Keep me from the snare that they have set for me, and from the scandals of those who work iniquity” (Ps 141:9). And since he had leaped over the offence and conquered the scandal, he glories thus: “On the rock you have exalted me and led me, for you have become my hope” (Ps 61:2–3). We have spoken of the first kind of scandal; let us speak also of the second, which we said comes from human cunning. Balaam the soothsayer put a scandal before the people of Israel (Num 31; Rev 2:14), when he met the warriors not with men in iron but with girls made up with every allurement, so as to turn arms into luxury, change triumph into infamy, summon the avengers of guilt into guilt, and in short profane all holiness with shamefulness. Hence Moses marked him with such a sentence when he punished him: “Kill Balaam the soothsayer,” he says, “because he sent a scandal before the sons of Israel.” Jeroboam contrived a scandal (1 Kgs 12), who set up golden cows for the people as gods by a wretched fiction, so that they might not seek the living God, the true temple, the divine law, the lawful kings, the ancestral rites: so the people was enslaved to error. One also causes scandal, according to the Apostle (1 Cor 8), when someone eats what has been sacrificed to idols as though it could do no harm, and thinks that by such a deed senseless stones and wooden gods, which can neither sanctify nor pollute anything, ought to be despised. But what he thinks an example of faith becomes for the ignorant an occasion of error, because it provokes the unknowing not to contempt but to worship, and makes those whom the knowing man consumes for the sake of derision appear to the uninformed as a banquet of religion. So the Apostle rightly concludes and discloses: “And the weak brother, for whom Christ died, will perish by your knowledge” (1 Cor 8:11). The third kind of scandal is that which is bred in us by our own senses, when we are deceived by the eyes, misled by hearing, captured by smell, and corrupted by taste. So Eve was wounded by taste and by sight of the forbidden and deadly food: “And the woman saw,” it says, “that the tree was good for eating, and pleasing to the eyes to look at, and beautiful to contemplate” (Gen 3:6). Rightly, then, the Lord added that the senses themselves cause scandal, saying: “If your eye or your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you: it is better for you to come to life without an eye and a hand than to enter Gehenna with your whole body” (Matt 5:29–30; Mark 9:43–47). And although the Lord commanded us in this way to cut away falls and vices, not limbs, yet if Eve, the mother of the human race, had done so, she would have done better to come to life without an eye and a hand than to send her whole lamentable posterity into death. We must take care, then, brothers, not to cause scandal to others, nor ourselves to suffer it when another causes it. Scandal is what offends the senses, disturbs the mind, confuses the purity of understanding. Scandal is what made a devil out of an angel, a traitor out of an apostle, what brought sin into the world, what led man to death. Hear the Lord saying: “Woe to the world because of scandals” (Matt 18:7). Scandal tempts the saints, wearies the cautious, throws down the incautious, confuses everything, disturbs everyone; and although in the present passage the Lord speaks of the scandal of his passion, and the words point to Judas, through whom came the very scandal of scandals, yet he warned, so that no one might come to this, saying: “It is impossible that scandals should not come; but woe to him through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Luke 17:1–2). Why not a stone, but a millstone? Because a millstone, while it grinds the wheat, pours out the flour, and separates the bran from the fine meal, supplies bread to those who labor devotedly. Rightly, then, for one who chooses to be a minister of scandal rather than of peace, a millstone is tied to his neck, so that what should have drawn him to life may drag him to death: for he turned the senses given for life into a scandal of death, persuading others to see, hear, perceive, and taste otherwise than was in Christ, than was in saving knowledge. Hence he so got around the cornerstone (Isa 28:16), the stone of help (1 Sam 7:12), the stone cut out without hands (Dan 2:45), which is Christ, and dragged it into a scandal for the little ones, that he made not the bread of life but the bread of tears and of grief, as the prophet testifies, saying: “You who eat the bread of grief” (Ps 127:2). Rightly, then, as he said elsewhere, “let a donkey's millstone be tied around his neck” (Matt 18:6), and let him take his punishment from where he took his sense, and be made equal to senseless beasts of burden, he who would not be compared to men who are wise in things above.

[On the call of Matthew, the rich tax collector; on Christ eating with tax collectors; and on his choosing poor apostles.] That poverty is akin to the virtues, both earthly and heavenly discipline prove. The athlete comes naked to the wrestling; the sailor fights the waves naked; the soldier stands in the battle line only when unencumbered; whoever strives for philosophy first despises everything in material things. Poverty, then, is akin to the virtues; and if poverty is so held to be the parent and companion of the virtues, it is fitting to understand why Christ so chose the poor for the office of virtue. Peter and Andrew, James and John, brotherhood paired, or rather poverty doubled, are chosen as princes of the apostles: poor in wealth, lowly in place, mean in trade, obscure in life, common in labor, bound to night watches, enslaved to the waves, denied honors, given over to insults, with only a net for protection, seeking food and clothing by catching fish alone. But as mean as their worldly appearance seemed, so precious were the souls God's gaze then saw in them. They were poor in wealth, but rich in innocence; lowly in place, but lofty in holiness; mean in trade, but precious in simplicity; obscure in life, but shining in the merit of life; common in labor, but singular in purpose; bound to night watches, but already called to heavenly victories; enslaved to the waves, but not sunk by the waves; denied honors, but rather enriched with honors, not denied them; given over to insults, but not abandoned to insults; catchers of fish, but already appointed fishers of men. “Come,” he says, “and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt 4:19), so that by casting the food of life, by the hook of the heavenly word, they might lift souls from the whirlpool of death to everlasting light. Catchers of fish become fishers of men; they pass from labor to labor, because labor that is practiced does not know how to grow weary. Everything that comes from habit does not tire. Virtue perseveres by exercise. This is why Christ wished to exercise his apostles in human labors, so as to make them untiring in divine ones: God wished their strength to remain and to supply virtue from exercise. And since fruit comes from labor, he wished them not to lose their labors but to change them; he who afterward gave them the endurance of virtue first granted them the practice of labor. This is how they so conquered kingdoms, nations, prisons, chains, tortures, deaths, and raging men in every land. We have said that in the apostles poverty, the friend of virtues and dear to God, was chosen. What shall we say about Christ's choosing for the apostolate Matthew, rich from the tax office, wealthy from interest, loaded with the gains of the world? Today Matthew began about himself in this way: “And as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him: ‘Follow me’” (Matt 9:9). Matthew the tax collector raises for us by his gains no small question, and sets before us by his business a great piece of business. But someone says: What question? What business? God took up the poor, but he does not reject the rich. He takes up one who has, and draws to himself those who have not. Abraham was rich (Luke 16), Job rich, David rich. And who is more blessed than Abraham? Who braver than Job? Who holier than David? For Abraham, after earthly sorrows, gathers devout souls flying back to heaven into the bosom of his consolation. And Job, amid the very engines of riches, both himself conquered the devil and left us an example of conquering him. Abraham so possessed riches that he often despised them when offered and trampled them when granted (Gen 14), and so loved to possess riches as not to be possessed by riches, to have them as material for generosity, not as fuel for greed. But to this it is answered that the saints' riches were innocent, since they were given by God, not shamefully acquired; granted for the use of life, not for the usury of death. But riches so published Matthew the tax collector as a master of greed, so baked him in the furnace of avarice, so bound him with the chains of bonds, so pressed him with the weights of purses, that he could not be raised to innocence, rise to justice, advance to virtue. So his sitting was a sinking down, not a sitting. Why Christ called such a man to himself, why he chose him for divine things, unless it is examined more deeply, makes a very deep question, and not only a question but also a scandal, as the attitude of the bystanders at that time made plain. For how would human weakness not be troubled when it saw that with Christ money was so powerful as to give faith to a cheat, grace to a hireling, the office of generosity to a master of greed, the mastery of holiness to a teacher of usury, the heavenly secret to a tax collector of the world? It burned those who saw it that usury, which lays waste the earth, was being lifted to heaven, and that the Godhead was summoning one whom men detest. That those who saw it then felt this way, Matthew himself discloses, who, being about to tell the truth about himself, could not keep silent about this. “And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and reclined with him and his disciples. And the Pharisees, seeing this, said to his disciples: ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” And the Pharisees said this so that it might be a great evil, which could displease even the wicked: and if it was wrong for tax collectors to share with Christ even in food, what was it to join a tax collector to divine things? Brothers, the interpreter's ingenuity would labor over this question, if the Lord himself, to whom the question is put, did not take away everything that is questionable. Let us go back, then, over the order of the reading: let us hear why Christ came to Matthew. “As Jesus passed on,” it says. It did not say, “when he stood there”; Jesus passed on and passed by from there, so that Matthew would not remain there; Jesus passed from there, so that Matthew would not stay there in that way. “He saw a man.” It did not say, “he saw Matthew,” because in Matthew he had set free the man; that is, men whom money possessed cannot serve God while they serve money. “You cannot,” he says, “serve God and mammon” (Matt 6:24). “Come, follow me.” He did not say, “Bring to me,” because he was seeking Matthew, not Matthew's purses. “Come, follow me.” That is: lay down your weights, break your chains, loosen your snares. Follow me. Seek yourself, lose usury, so that you may be able to find yourself. But let us now hear what he answered the Pharisees: “Those who are well,” he says, “have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” See why Christ had come to Matthew: to heal the wounds of avarice, to cure the pus of usury. “Go,” he says, “and learn what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” He desired mercy, so that Matthew might spend in acts of mercy what he had taken by misery, and might redeem his punishment from the same source from which he had acquired his guilt. “I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” Saying this, he did not reject the righteous but shut out the unrighteous who falsely claimed to be righteous. Christ, then, in coming to sinners, wished to blot out sins, not to remain with sinners. To give generosity to a miser is to give life to a dead man. So Christ's calling Matthew is not a matter of money but wholly a matter of virtue. In the end Matthew at once became poor on earth so as to be counted rich in heaven.

[On the same, and on gold.] When the Lord calls Matthew the tax collector to the summit of the apostolate and raises him up, he gives a hand to the fallen, restores hope to the desperate, gives back to life those whom death was already holding as its own. “As Jesus passed by,” it says, “he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office” (Mark 2:14). He was sitting, surely, because he could not stand, weighed down by the burden of greed and wholly bent by the very consciousness of fraud. Gold, heavy by nature, becomes much heavier by avarice. This is why it weighs down the one who has it more than the one who carries it, and burdens hearts more heavily than bodies. It is born in the deep earth, follows the very foundations of the mountains, and runs through the lowest veins in blind windings; and while it always seeks its own nature, it brings heavenly minds down to the lower world: it always darkens the senses, always sinks the heights of minds into earthly things. To pay gold out is good, to store it up is bad, to despise it is strong, to flee it is quite safe: as to conquer it belongs to virtue, so to have escaped it belongs to good fortune. The madness for gold burns more fiercely in the human breast than a whole furnace blazes with fire, and dissolves men on earth more sharply than it is dissolved in the heat of the flames. A master of cruelty, a savage enemy, it harms by being loved, strips by enriching, captivates even the very sight, breaks faith, violates affection, wounds charity, disturbs quiet, takes away innocence, teaches theft, persuades to frauds, commands robbery. And what more? This is what the Apostle said: “The root of all evils is avarice” (1 Tim 6:10). There is indeed one exchange, if a prudent man sends it ahead to heaven before he, like a fool, is sent by it into hell. Let him send it by the hand of the poor, because whatever he has given to the poor for God's sake he sends to heaven without delay. Rightly, then, the Lord, wishing to free Matthew from such chains, raises him up, hindered as he was, saying: “Follow me.” That is: follow me as I go from the heights to the heights, and not gold sinking from the lower world to the lower world. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt 6:21). Gold so corrupted the stock of the patriarchs, the holy offspring, the singular crown of so great a brotherhood, and made it so exiled from all devotion, that they handed Joseph to the Egyptians, a brother to barbarians, an innocent to the guilty, a freeborn man to slavery (Gen 37). So it dried up their minds, so it pressed down their hearts, so it changed whatever human feeling had been in them into bestial madness, that it did not allow them to remember offence to God, the grief of their holy father, or the feeling of their own blood. Consider what is heavier than gold, which, when it destroys men's morals, destroys their nature as well. Gold so captivated the Jewish people with its look, conquered them with its allurements, so thoroughly deceived them with its appearance, that they believed it to be God and denied the true God, the God known by so many benefits; it so turned men into beasts of burden that they believed a calf's head to be their head and set a beast's head before the head of all things (Exod 32). Notice how this plague is to be fled, which, having destroyed men's morals, honor, and life, wished and strove to take even God himself away from man. This is what made Judas a traitor, so as to force a man to deny God, to sell a brother of his own blood, to put up for sale the Creator, and to set a price on the very blood that the Lord was freely going to give as our price (Matt 26). But lest many examples on this point breed weariness, let us pass to the rest. “Follow me. And rising, he followed him.” A useful virtue is often read of even in an enemy, often proved even in an adversary. Matthew is not withdrawn from his work but changed, and he takes up his tax office rather than leaves it, so as to acquire for God what will last, not for man what will perish; so that he is no longer a sad accountant reducing the thirtieth coin to the fortieth and the fiftieth, but a glad one storing up the thirtyfold into the sixtyfold and hundredfold fruit of joy, to profit divine interests. “Rising, he followed him.” A noble spirit, who so easily, as if they were nothing, despised the things he had thought great: it appears that he had formerly acquired present gains through ignorance, and as soon as he felt and saw himself free from them, he was swept up to divine things. “And it came to pass, as he reclined in his house, that many tax collectors and sinners reclined with Jesus and his disciples.” Jesus reclined more in Matthew's mind than on his couch, and feasted not on food but on the sinner's return, so as to call back by the banquet, by fellowship, by human affection, by his own sweetest conversation, those reclining, whom he knew could be undone if they recognized the judge's power, struck down by the terror of his majesty, and at once laid low by his naked presence: he who wished to help man was veiled in a human body. He hid the Lord, who deigned not to deny confidence to his servants; he covered his majesty, who was eager to embrace the frail with a parent's love. But the Jews are offended, saying: “Why does your teacher eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” You wonder, Jew, why he mingles in the banquet of sinners, who for sinners' sake was willing to be born and did not refuse to be killed; you bark at him for drinking the wine of sinners, who poured out his own blood for sinners. And if you want to hear more, he himself took on sin so as not to lose sinners; the judge turned his sentence back on himself, so as to show that he loved sinners, more by paying the debt than by forgiving it. But let it suffice that the Lord himself answered such people: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; for I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” And who was not sick, when the very nature of the human race was so sick? He came, then, to all, since he found all sick so that he might heal them; but he plainly deserved to die who despised the physician so as not to accuse himself or confess himself sick. But the Lord at once disclosed the figure of his saying, saying: “For I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” Here the Lord does not reject the righteous but the proud, and marks those who boast that they are righteous when they are not. And where were the righteous, when, according to the prophet, “there was none who did good, no, not one” (Ps 14:3)? Let them understand their sickness, admit the physician so as to be healed, confess themselves sinners, so that Christ, now as parent and fellow guest, may grant pardon, and not afterward as judge pronounce against the stubborn the sentence they deserve, without end.

[On the same.] Today's Gospel reading so changed Matthew the tax collector into an apostle that he who was a defrauder of money became a distributor of grace, and came from the school of ungodliness to the mastery of godliness, and he who had been a trainer in avarice became a teacher of mercy. “As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office” (Matt 9:9). “As Jesus passed on from there”: well did he pass on from there: he was passing Judea to come to the Gentiles; he was passing by the Synagogue so that the Church might remain; he was passing beyond the homeland of the flesh to return to the seat of his divinity. In Christ, brothers, the injury of the flesh is transitory; in him the honor of divinity is everlasting. “As he passed on from there, he saw a man.” He saw more with divine eyes than with human. He saw a man, so as not to see the man's sins. He saw his own work, so as to look past the works of sins. God saw him, so that he might see God. Christ saw him, so that he might no longer see the hiding places of money. Christ saw him sitting, because, pressed by the weight of greed, he could not rise. Brothers, this tax collector sat at the tax office in a worse state than the paralytic, of whom we spoke before, lay on his bed. For the one suffered paralysis of the flesh, the other of the mind; in the one the joints of the limbs had been disturbed, in the other the whole order of the senses had been scattered; the one lay captive in the flesh, the other sat captive in body and soul; the one succumbed to pains unwillingly, the other served vices willingly; the one seemed to himself innocent in the crime of avarice, the other knew himself a sinner amid his wounds; the one heaped up the sins of gains, the other blotted out sins with the groans of pains. Rightly, then, it is said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven you” (Matt 9:2), because he had made up for his offences by pains; but to the tax collector it is said: “Come, follow me”; that is, so that by following me you may recover what you lost by pursuing money. But someone says: Why is the tax collector, who seems greater in crime, held greater in gift? For he was at once marked out with the sure dignity of the apostolate, and he not only received forgiveness of sins himself but granted it to others; he illumines the whole world with the splendor of Gospel preaching, while the paralytic is scarcely held worthy of pardon alone. Do you want to know why the tax collector obtained more? Because, according to the Apostle, “where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). We know that the tax collector bears the type of the Gentile people, and the paralytic is a figure of the Jewish people, which even today is held in bed with bad health, so that, unless it is carried by the faith of the Gentiles, offered to Christ by the compassion of the saints, and saved by the belief of the Christian people, it cannot reach the house of faith, the house of its homeland. “And as he reclined in the house, behold,” it says, “many tax collectors and sinners came and reclined with him and his disciples. And the Pharisees, seeing this, said to his disciples: ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” God is accused because he bends down to man, why he reclines with the sinner, why he hungers for repentance, why he thirsts for the return of sinners, why he accepts the dishes of mercy, why he takes the cup of devotion. Brothers, Christ came to the meal, Life came to the banquet, so as to make those who were to die live with him; the Resurrection reclined, so that those who lay in tombs might rise; Pardon lay down, so as to lift sinners to forgiveness; divinity came to humanity, so that humanity might come to divinity; the judge came to the meal of the guilty, so that kindness might forestall the sentence of guilt; the physician came to the sick, so as to restore the weary by eating with them; the good shepherd bent his shoulders, so as to carry the lost sheep back to the saving folds. But the Pharisee detests and reproves this, who thinks the Lord's meal is a matter not of virtue but of the belly; not of the spirit but of the flesh; not of divine goodness but of human pleasure; of earthly luxury, not of heavenly grace. So, so he sees himself who does not see God. Who blames a physician for lying beside those who lie sick, except an enemy of human health? Who reproaches a shepherd for supporting a weary sheep, except one who does not know love for a profitable flock? Who judges a judge for his kindness, except one who was in despair? Who spurns communion with God, except the sacrilegious? Who shudders at pardon, except the cruel? “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And who is a sinner, except one who denies that he is a sinner? He is more a sinner, and, to speak more truly, he is himself already sin, who does not understand that he is a sinner. And who is unrighteous, except one who judges himself righteous? You have read, Pharisee, that “no living person will be justified in your sight” (Ps 143:2). As long as we are in a mortal body and frailty rules in us, even if we conquer sins in act, we cannot conquer the sins of thoughts and flee unrighteousness: even if we can avoid them in the body, and even if we can overcome a bad conscience, how can we abolish the faults of negligence and the sins of ignorance? Pharisee, confess your sin, so that you may come to Christ's table, so that Christ may be bread for you, and the bread itself may be broken for the pardon of your sins, so that Christ may become a cup for you, who is poured out for the remission of your offences. Pharisee, dine with sinners, so that you may dine with Christ; acknowledge yourself a sinner, so that Christ may dine with you; enter your Lord's banquet with sinners, so that you may cease to be a sinner; enter the house of mercy with Christ's pardon, so that you may not be punished, shut out from the house of mercy with your own judgments. Recognize Christ, hear Christ, hear your Lord, hear the heavenly physician decisively refuting your false charges: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” If you want healing, acknowledge your sickness. “I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” If you desire mercy, crush your sin. “Go,” he says, “and learn what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Hos 6:6). Christ desires mercy and not sacrifice; or what sacrifice will he seek, who himself became a sacrifice in order to seek you? “I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” He did not reject the righteous, but no one is held innocent on earth without Christ. “I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” In saying this he did not reject the righteous, but he found all to be sinners. Hear the Psalmist: “The Lord looked down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there is anyone who understands or seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Ps 14:2–3). Brothers, let us be, let us be sinners by our confession, so that by Christ's pardon we may not be sinners.

[On the fasting of the Pharisees and of John's disciples.] Goodness is the mother of virtues, malice the origin of vices; glory accompanies the virtues, its kindred shame clings to the vices; as vices are covered by guile, so virtues are made illustrious by freedom. This is why Christ, the light of virtues, acted freely, spoke purely, bestowed as God, suffered as a parent, rebuked as Lord; but the Jews, the brood of vipers, the death of their mother, the murder of their father, burst the womb of their mother the Synagogue when they killed Christ. Truly, as it is written, “brood of vipers” (Matt 3:7): they lowered their heads, flattered with the tongue, gave wounds by guile, poured out poison in blasphemies; and as if contempt were not enough for hatred, nor scorn for injury, they so persecuted Christ with snares, tried him with tricks, battered him with questions, attacked him with insults, and surrounded him with every kind of eager pretense. They put before him people to be healed on the sabbath, so that if he did not heal, contempt might arise from his inability; if he healed, a false charge might flow from the law. They asked by what authority he worked miracles at his command (Luke 20:2), so that if he said, “by that of divinity,” they might stir up ill will; if he kept silent, they might bring the charge of magic. For they said: “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons” (Matt 12:24); and, as was read today, they put together before the disciples a slur against the master about the tax collectors' banquet. Before the master they accused the disciples of not knowing fasting and being given to gluttony; and so out of spite they scattered causes of hatred and seeds of discord, to the disciples about the master and to the master about the disciples. “John's disciples came to him,” it says, “saying: ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’” (Matt 9:14). And what fellowship have John's disciples with the Pharisees, except that envy had joined those whom discipline had separated? Here jealousy now loses its own laws: accustomed to separate, it joined. The Jews could not bear Moses to be placed after the Lord; John's disciples did not want Christ to be set above John in any way: so both raged against Christ with a common fury. “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Why? Because with you fasting comes from the law, not from the will; fasting looks not to one who fasts but to one who does so gladly. And what fruit of fasting do you have, who fast an unwilling fast? Fasting is the singular plow of holiness: it cultivates hearts, roots out crimes, pulls up offences, overturns vices, sows charity, nourishes abundance, prepares the harvest of innocence. Christ's disciples, then, set amid the whole crop of holiness and gathering the sheaves of virtues, already having the bread of the new fruit, cannot fast the old fasts, which are boasted of in words, displayed by pallor, advertised by weakness, which please human eyes, not divine. “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” The Lord answered: “Can the sons of the bridegroom fast as long as the bridegroom is with them?” What is this? John, when asked, so testified that Christ is the bridegroom: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears with joy, rejoices at the voice of the bridegroom” (John 3:29). Fittingly, then, he answered John's disciples with the voice of their own master, so that they at least might believe and not force the joyful times of the bridegroom to enter a sad fast: because he who seeks a bride lays aside fasts, leaves austerities, gives himself wholly to joys, indulges in feasts, goes about all gentle, all lovable, all festive, and does everything that the tender affection of a bride requires. Christ, then, who was at that time betrothing the Church, gave himself to tables, did not deny himself to those who dined, made himself humane, courteous, and gentle with devoted love, until he should join human things to divine and make a heavenly partnership out of an earthly fellowship. The Lord added, saying: “No one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for it takes away its fullness from the garment, and a worse tear is made.” He calls the old law's furnishing a garment worn out by Jewish pursuits, torn by corrupt senses and by sects, made shabby by impure acts; he calls the Gospel's clothing unshrunk cloth. But understand the cloth not as part of a tear but as the beginning of a weaving. For then the web of the royal garment was first being woven from Christ's fleece, from the fleece the Lamb gave: “The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). And the royal garment was being woven which the blood of the passion would dye to purple brightness. Rightly, then, Christ forbade this unshrunk cloth to be put on the Jewish oldness, so that a worse tear might not be made if Christian newness tore the Jewish oldness. And he doubles the example, saying: “Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins perish; but they put new wine into new skins, and both are preserved.” He calls the Jews old wineskins; he names Christians new wineskins: for as skins are cleansed of all filth and smeared with fragrant ointments so that they can keep the flavor of the wine unspoiled, so by fasting human bodies are cleansed of all the filth of carnal offences and become skins fit for the divine winepresses, so as to receive new wine from the press of the cross and keep its newness uncorrupted. But as Christians receive this, so Jews, unless they become Christians, will not have it: corrupted by vices and grown old in evils, they would receive the new wine, which is the word of the Gospel, only to burst and spill it. We must recognize, then, that by these examples Christ did not refuse to let his disciples fast, but refused to mix true fasting with deceitful fasting.

[On the man who had a withered hand.] All the works of Christ's signs, amazing works of power, are to be believed to have happened not humanly, nor by chance, but by divine provision, as the Gospel word has shown us today. “And Jesus entered,” it says, “the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand” (Mark 3:1). Christ indeed enters the synagogue, but the Jew neither receives him as he enters, nor recognizes him as present, nor, blinded, understands him as he works. See how bodily presence is nothing where there is a pitiable separation of mind; as, on the contrary, bodily absence does no harm where hearts have been joined by faith. “And a man was there who had a withered hand.” In this man the image of all men is figured; in him the cure of all is carried out; in him the long-awaited health of everyone is restored. For the man's hand had withered more from the numbness of faith than from the dryness of the sinews, and more from the guilt of conscience than from fleshly weakness. This sickness was very old, one that had befallen at the very beginning of the world, and it could not be healed by human art or kindness: contracted by God's just indignation, it had touched forbidden things, presumed on what was not granted, when it stretched itself out to the tree of knowing good and evil (Gen 3); it needed an author, not one to put on a poultice, but one who could relax the sentence imposed and by pardoning loosen what he had bound in indignation. In this man only a shadow of our health is carried out; perfect salvation is kept for us in Christ, because the withering of our hand is dissolved by compassion when it is bathed in the blood of the Lord's passion, when it is stretched out on that life-giving wood of the cross, when it plucks fruitful power from pain, when it embraces the whole tree of salvation, when it is fixed with the nails to the Lord's body, so that it may never return to the tree of concupiscence and of a withered will. “The Pharisees,” it says, “were watching to see whether he would heal on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him.” To the infamy of the judge and the wickedness of the examiner, a crime is sought from a cure, an accusation from kindness, guilt from power, punishment from health. But it is no wonder: good things always offend the wicked, devout things the ungodly, holy things the profane; or when does the wanton not accuse discipline, the vicious virtue, the criminal innocence? The priests anxiously watched on the sabbath, not whether he would sin but whether he would heal, so that they might accuse him. Lovers of crimes keep watch, lie in wait to accuse virtues, as if the sabbath had been provided against health, not for health. “Whether he would heal on the sabbath,” they watch: with such an interpreter of the law, not to say a sick man labors too much, he even breathes his last. The sabbath did not ungodlily deny healing to the sick, but with full kindness sometimes gave rest to mortals wearied by too much labor. “And he said to the man who had the withered hand: Rise up into the middle”: you who profess your own weakness, you who demand heavenly kindness, witness of divine power, proof of Jewish unbelief. Rise up into the middle, so that those whom so great a power of signs does not move, whom the works of so great a healing do not bend, may at least be bound and softened by pity for so great a weakness. “Then he said to them: Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or evil, to save a life or to destroy it?” By saying this he commends the goodness of his work and accuses the conscience of the malice they had conceived: for while he was eager to save the man in body and soul, they in their zeal to accuse were working to destroy him, they who were letting him heal on the sabbath, lying in wait in their minds to see whether he would heal, so that when he had healed they might be condemned by the malignity of their own minds, and be by such patience more wicked than malice itself, and more raging in guile than mad in such a judgment. “But they were silent; and looking around at them with anger, grieved at the blindness of their heart.” It says “looking around,” not “looking at”; that is, not looking only at the face like a man, but, like God, contemplating bodies, hearts, minds, senses, past, present, and future. “Looking around at them with anger, grieved.” He is angry as Lord, grieved as parent, pained as man, observing as God. “He says to the man: Stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.” “Stretch out your hand”: it is loosed by command, which had been bound by command. “Stretch out your hand.” The punishment recognized its judge, the work betrayed God as its Creator by his pardon. Pray, brothers, that the Synagogue alone may be darkened by such a weakness, and that there may be no one in the Church whose hand greed withers, avarice contracts, robbery weakens, stinginess binds in sickness; but if this very thing happens, let him hear the Lord and quickly stretch it out in the work of kindness, relax it, and hold it out in mercy and almsgiving. He does not know how to be healed who does not know how to lend to the poor. “Then the Pharisees went out and at once took counsel with the Herodians how they might destroy him.” The Jew is always joined to the Herodians to attack Christians. “Jesus,” it says, “withdrew with his disciples to the sea,” so as to prove and show by comparison with the waves that the error of the Jews was more crooked. But since Jesus, with the little boat, that is, the Church, at his service, separates himself from the confusion of the crowds, and the helmsman of the Christian people sits untiring with various kinds of healing, he also commanded the winds and the sea (Mark 4), so that they might at last rest in the obedience of calm, according to the prophet: “Let us break their bonds and cast their yoke from us” (Ps 2:3), so that, remaining under the yoke of devotion, we may deserve to be sharers in divine glory.

[On the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, and on the woman suffering from a flow of blood.] You are going to hear today, brothers, and, as the holy evangelist Mark reports, you will learn together with me how the rulership of the Synagogue falls down and prostrates itself before Christ, and confesses him in two ways as God and Lord: when it worships him according to the command of the law, which says, “You shall worship the Lord your God” (Deut 6:13), and when it shows him to be the restorer of life by begging for the health of a dying daughter. “There came to him,” it says, “one of the rulers of the synagogue named Jairus; and seeing him he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly, saying: ‘My daughter is at the point of death; come, lay your hand on her, so that she may be saved and live’” (Mark 5:22–23). Before the sermon opens the sacrament of the Gospel meaning, I would like here to set out a little the sufferings of parents, which they take on and show out of their affection and love for their children. With the household standing around amid the tender and gentle attentions of relatives, the daughter lies on a soft little bed; the father lies prostrate on the dry ground and rolls on the earth; she fails in body, he wastes away in mind and spirit; she endures the hidden sufferings of her sickness, he, all disheveled and mournful, is carried and tossed about among the whole people; she dies to rest, he lives to punishment. And indeed we have left out the anxious prayers of parents when they beget, the dangerous stages when they bring forth offspring, when they nurse them, the sad labors and constant pains when they are sick: worse than death is the day when children go before them. Alas! Why do children not know such things? Why do they not feel them? Why do they not labor to repay their parents? And yet the parents' devotion perseveres, because whatever parents spend on their children, God, the parent of all, will repay to the parents. But let us return to our subject. “One of the rulers of the synagogue named Jairus came, and seeing him he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly, saying: ‘My daughter is at the point of death; come and lay your hand on her, so that she may be saved.’” That he so laments his daughter's last moments with tearful supplication, that he so asks for a remedy for her sickness, proves and shows well enough an affection in despair; this is why he asks for an order of cure: “Come, lay your hand on her.” A sick man does not command how he is to be cured, but only begs to be cured. But since he was a ruler of the synagogue, he had knowledge of the law; and while everything else was made by a word, he had read that man was fashioned by the hand of God. So he believed God, that by the same hand by which he perceived his daughter had been created, she could be recreated and brought back to life. We have learned what it means: “Come and lay your hand on her”: that he who of his own accord laid it on to create, being entreated, may lay it on again to restore. This is what the prophet confesses when he sings in the Psalms: “You formed me and laid your hand upon me” (Ps 139:5). For he who laid it on when he formed from nothing laid it on again to re-form from what was lost. Then the same Psalmist, when he felt the saving power of this hand and obtained its generosity, broke out in a repeated cry: “The right hand of the Lord,” he says, “has done mightily; the right hand of the Lord has exalted me; the right hand of the Lord has done mightily” (Ps 118:16). And to show that he had obtained what the ruler of the synagogue had asked, he added: “I shall not die, but live.” The one, when he asked, had said: “Come, lay your hand, so that she may be saved and live”; the other, having already obtained it, exults: “I shall not die, but live.” Christ is the right hand of the Lord, as we are taught by the prophetic word. And truly he has done mightily when he conquers the devil; when, having bound the strong man, as he himself said, he plunders the strong man's goods (Matt 12:29); when he destroys hell, when he kills death itself. And truly he has exalted us, whom he lifted from the depth and raised to heaven. But now let the sermon pass to the woman, who so sought a remedy for her hidden wound and shameful sickness as both to cover her own modesty and to keep reverence for the one who healed. “And he went with him, and a great crowd followed him,” it says, “and pressed upon him. And behold, a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered much from many physicians, and had spent all she had, and had gained nothing but rather grew worse, when she heard about Jesus came up in the crowd behind him and touched his garment, saying: ‘If I touch even his garment, I shall be saved.’ And at once the source of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.” Two seas are not so confounded by their waves as this woman's mind was tossed by a doubtful heap of thoughts. After the desperate struggles of physicians, after costly medicines, after empty and most anxious treatment, when the art and skill of those treating her had failed, when all the sick woman's substance had been used up, her shameful wound met its very Author, not by chance but by divine design, so that what could not be cured by human art for so many years might be cured by faith and humility alone. The woman stood at a distance, she whom nature had suffused with shame, whom for this reason the Jewish law had marked as unclean, saying: “She shall be unclean and shall not touch what is holy” (Lev 12:4; 15:19–27); fearing to touch, lest she incur Jewish fury, lest she fall under the sentence of the law. She did not dare to speak, lest she confound and burden the hearing of those standing around, lest she become the talk of the people, she who for so many years had been a stadium and arena of sufferings. For the long and continuous pain did not allow her to bear and endure any longer, and the speed of Christ passing by cut off time for deliberation, and on the other hand she knew that health would not be given to one who was silent, who hid her disease. Amid these wars of thoughts, the woman found the only way of salvation, to steal her cure, so that silently she might seize what she could not ask for, both for her own modesty and for reverence toward the one who would grant it; and that she, who did not deserve it in body, might reach the physician with her heart, God by faith, and touch only his garment with her hand: knowing that this fraud would bring not only pardon but also a remedy, since not will but shamefaced necessity had produced it; especially since it sought the thief's gain and caused no loss to the one from whom it was taken. A devout robbery, committed with faith as servant and faith drawing it on! See where power was sought by contrary means, where fraud, with faith agreeing, obtained what it strove for. The woman comes among those pressing upon him so as not to be known, and presumed that she could steal a cure by faith alone, so as to stay hidden in her dress and body; she comes from behind, and judged herself unworthy to be seen. Faith healed in a moment of time what human art could not heal in twelve years. After this example, whoever does not know how to be healed by faith alone, but is burdened with the expense of spices, drags out long times in sicknesses through his own fault and labors long by his own negligence. The woman touched his garment and was healed, and was freed from an old sickness. Wretched are we, who daily handle and receive the body of the Lord, and are not healed of our wounds. It is not Christ who is lacking to the sick, but faith: for much more now, abiding in us, can he heal the wounded, who, passing by, so healed the hidden woman. Let it suffice today, brothers, to have told of the thefts of faith and the power of the Lord passing by; but why the Lord, as if not knowing, asks for the woman whom he knows to have been healed by the work of his power, since it is long now, we will tell in the next sermon.

[On the same.] All the Gospel readings, dearest brothers, bestow on us great benefits for the present and future life. But today's reading has conferred all that belongs to hope and shut out whatever belongs to despair. Our condition is hard and lamentable: inborn frailty forces us to sin, and the shame that is akin to sin forbids us to confess; for to do evil is no shame, yet to confess is a shame: we fear to say what we do not fear to commit. But today the woman, when she sought a silent medicine for her shameful wound, found a silence through which a sinner can come to pardon. The first happiness is not to have come into the shamefulness of sins; but the second happiness is to have found pardon of sins while the sins lie hidden. The prophet had perceived this, who said: “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered” (Ps 32:1). “Behold,” says the evangelist, “a woman who had suffered a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment” (Matt 9:20). The woman, for whom long treatment had failed, fled to sudden faith: she who was ashamed to ask for medicine wanted to steal health; she wanted not to be known by him by whom she believed she could be saved. As the air is disturbed by the whirlwind of the winds, so the woman was disturbed by the storms of thoughts: the cause fought with faith, hope with fear, necessity with shame; the chill of fear put out the heat of belief, the force of shame darkened the light of faith, shamefaced necessity broke the confidence of hope. So the woman was tossed like a great sea in confused tides: she sought how to make something hidden out of something public, something secret out of a crowd; she acted so that health might return to her and her modesty not perish; she took care that her cure should not bring injury to the one who cured; she provided that salvation might be given back to her with the Savior's reverence kept safe. With such understanding, then, the woman rightly came from the edge of the fringe to the whole summit of the Godhead. “She came,” it says, “behind him.” But where is “behind”? “And she touched the fringe of his garment.” “She came behind him.” But where? There was nothing behind him; there she found the face she was avoiding. In Christ the body was manifold, but the Godhead was simple; he was all eye, who so saw the suppliant behind him. “She came behind him and touched the fringe of his garment.” O what did this woman see dwelling in Christ's inward parts, she who saw the whole power of the Godhead dwelling in Christ's fringe! O how this woman taught how great Christ's body is, she who showed that so much is in Christ's fringe! Let Christians hear, who daily touch the body of Christ, what medicine they can take from that very body, when the woman seized complete health from the fringe of Christ alone. But what we must weep over is this: the woman took medicine from a wound, while for us the medicine itself is turned back into a wound. This is why the Apostle warns and laments those who touch the body of Christ unworthily: “For whoever touches the body of Christ unworthily takes judgment on himself”; and, because rashness catches sickness from the place where faith ought to receive health, he went on: “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and many sleep” (1 Cor 11:29–30). He calls the dead “sleeping,” whom he mourns as already buried in a living body. Peter and Paul, the princes of the Christian faith, spread knowledge of Christ's name through the whole world; a woman first handed down the discipline of approaching Christ; a woman first gave the pattern of how a sinner by silent confession may blot out sin without shame; how one who offends, known to God alone, may not be forced to lay bare before men the shames of conscience concerning guilt; how a person can forestall judgment by pardon. “But Jesus,” it says, “turning and seeing her, said: ‘Take heart, daughter, your faith has saved you.’” “But Jesus turning”: not by a movement of the body but by the gaze of the Godhead Christ turned to the woman, so that the woman might be turned to Christ, so that she might receive a cure from him from whom she had received life, and might know that the cause of her present wound had been the matter of her perpetual salvation. “Turning and seeing her.” He saw her with divine eyes, not human; he saw her so as to restore her to health, not to recognize one he already knew; he saw her: whoever God has seen is given good things and is free of evils. The whole world perceives this from usage, saying of the fortunate: “God has looked on him.” So God looked on this woman, whom by healing he made so fortunate. And what more? Christ taught by the woman's example how faith alone avails for full salvation. But let us now speak of the ruler of the synagogue, who, while leading Christ to his daughter, gave the way by which the woman might come to Christ. Today's reading began thus: “Behold, a ruler came and worshiped him, saying: ‘Lord, my daughter has just died; but come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.’” It did not escape Christ, who foreknows the future, that the meeting with this woman would take place, through which the ruler of the Jews would learn that God is not moved by places, not led by a journey, not drawn by bodily presence, but is to be believed in, since God is present everywhere, wholly everywhere, everywhere always; and that he can do everything by command, not by labor; send powers, not carry them; drive away death not by hand but by command; add life not by art but by precept. “My daughter has just died; but come.” That is to say: the warmth of life still remains, traces of the soul are still seen, the spirit is still on its way, the master of the house still has his daughter, hell does not yet know her as dead; so hurry, so that you can hold back the departing soul. The foolish man thought that Christ could not raise the dead girl unless he held her. This is why Christ, when he reached the house and saw the girl being wept over as lost, so as to move unbelieving minds toward faith, says that she is asleep, not dead, so that they might believe that one can rise from death more easily than from sleep. “The girl is not dead,” he says, “but sleeping.” And truly with God death is sleep: for God raises a dead person to life more quickly than a sleeper is roused from sleep by a man, and God pours life-giving warmth back into limbs cold with death before a man can pour vigor into bodies buried in sleep. Hear the Apostle: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead will rise” (1 Cor 15:52). The blessed Apostle, because he could not express the speed of the resurrection in words, fitted it to examples. Or how could he compress the speed of speech there, where divine power outstrips speed itself? And how does time appear there, where eternal things are given without time? As time brought temporality, so eternity has shut out time.

[On the woman subject to a flow of blood.] What it is to touch Christ, the woman afflicted with a flow of blood taught today: when she touches Christ's fringe she knocks on the secret of the divine breast, and by a theft of faith she seized the summit of power from the edge of the fringe. A happy fraud, which both brought the gain of salvation and at once removed the losses of shame! The hearing of the Gospel reading proves it: “Behold,” it says, “a woman who had suffered a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, saying within herself: ‘If I only touch his garment, I shall be saved’” (Matt 9:20–21). In severe illnesses the force of pain often gives counsel; in desperate cases necessity is often the teacher; suffering itself finds its own medicine. This is why the woman found how to help her shameful wound: to slip in by the silence of faith what she could not slip in by public outcry, so as to reach the heavenly physician by the secret way of the spirit, when she could not reach him by the open road of the flesh. The healer's kindness gave much boldness, but the necessity of a shameful sickness took away confidence; the greatness of her pain compelled her to approach Christ, but the foulness of her sore did not allow her to go up to Christ. So the woman, wavering and with faith's counsel trembling, preferred to be judged by her faith rather than perish so by a foul wound. “She came behind him and touched the fringe of his garment”: knowing that touch does not pollute God, nor sight offend him, nor smell irritate him, nor hearing wound him, nor human thought defile him. For if the sun touches dung and is not defiled by the dung, how much more does the Creator of the sun touch all things and yet cannot be defiled by any contacts? And if a physician, when he handles the pus of wounds, when he treats the private parts of the body, counts it not an insult but an honor, how much more does God not think it an insult, while he looks on our wounds to heal them, to be touched for a remedy, to visit for health? It is the wounds of sins, not of pains, that offend God's sight; the diseases of crimes, not the sufferings of bodies; the pus of vices, not the flux of the inward parts: a person is held willing in offences, unwilling in sicknesses. This is why the sinner receives punishment, the sick person receives healing. The woman, then, conscious not of a will but of a pain, confounded not by crime but by sickness, came from behind so as to avoid the eyes of the crowd, not to escape Christ's gaze; she wanted not to be known by the people, not by Christ; she was eager to hide not from God but from men: because one who was hidden could be seen, one silent heard, one concealed healed, only by God alone. “She came and touched the fringe of his garment”: because she believed nothing in Christ to be last, judged nothing in him to be outermost; because God is not diminished in man, nor power thinned out in the fringe, nor is the heavenly nature varied by the functions of the limbs. This is why the woman came to the face by way of the back, penetrated to the inner parts by way of the garment, and through the fringe touched the summit of the head. Nor is this without mystery; hear the prophet saying: “Like the ointment that comes down on the edge of his garment” (Ps 133:2). You see, brothers, that into the fringe of this garment the whole fullness of the divine anointing, the whole power of the divine head, has passed. Knowingly, then, the woman was eager to touch Christ's sacred fringe, so as to take medicine from the hidden mystery for her wound. Brothers, this woman is great and very wonderful: she surpassed the teachers of the law in knowledge, outdid all the Jews in grasp of the sacrament, went before an apostle in faith. For Judea with its scribes and teachers despised the whole of God in the body; the apostle Thomas, in order to believe Christ to be God, put in his hands, thrust in his fingers, opened the wounds, and to believe Christ, made Christ suffer again (John 20:25–27). But let us inquire by spiritual understanding whose person this woman bears, whose type she shows, whose image she presents. Who is she whom inborn blood, natural weakness, original sickness so brought to the causes of death, to a deadly wound, to the straits of a foul sickness? Whom vices so defiled, crimes so fouled, secret wounds so wounded, that art could not heal her, the eye could not bear to see her, decency could not bear her; whom the law itself could not cleanse; rather, whom the law had ordered to be kept from the temple, forbidden the sacred rites, kept away from all holy things; and whom it had so declared unclean that whatever she touched was held unclean? This is she, brothers, this is the Church, which, wounded by the sin of the first man, was flowing wholly with blood and running wholly, from her origin, toward death.

[On the woman with the hemorrhage and the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue.] [Note in the printed edition: At this point blessed Peter fell silent; the reason for his silence is given fully in Sermon 86.] It is the mark of a debtor with a sense of shame to pay what he has promised at once, and neither to mock the creditor's mind with delays nor keep it in suspense with long waiting. Since the narrative of the ruler of the synagogue and of the woman with the hemorrhage, joined together and drawn out, departed from the customary brevity of our sermon, we preferred to divide the treatment in half, so that your hearing would not be burdened as much as it would be refreshed. The ruler of the synagogue meets the Lord and falls flat on the ground; he states his case, makes known his grief, moves the affection of the one who grants, and bids him hurry and come to heal; on the other hand, the Lord, not sought, meets the woman, and, passing by, offers her the occasion of health; in silence he recognized the cause of the silent woman, and saw the hidden wound even of one who concealed it. Between the Lord and the woman so great a transaction of stolen health is carried on; and while, at a public request, he makes his way as one entreated, the thought of faith penetrates the divine and reaches the secret. Happy woman, who in so great a multitude is alone with Christ, so that she alone knows both the health restored and the exalted power! Blessed is she who found such an approach that no one could block! Blessed is she who by such a way rushed and crept to her Author; who, before she could be put to shame by a man over her wound, was rid of the foulness of the wound itself, knowing that with men and through men every approach to health was closed to her, since they are accustomed to shudder at wounds more than to heal them! God wipes away human wounds; he does not despise them; nor does he shudder at the sicknesses of men but drives them away, nor does he detest the uncleanness of the human body but amends it: because God knows no defilement at the touch of his own creature; God cannot be soiled. But the evangelist raises a question when he says: “And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, turned to the crowd and said: ‘Who touched my garments?’” (Mark 5:30). In asking, does he as it were profess ignorance? Does he perceive that power has gone out from him and not know to whom it went? Does he know what he has bestowed and not know on whom? Does he doubt the person, who is certain of the health conferred? But here the Lord asks not by the error of one who does not know, but by the majesty of one who knows and foreknows; nor does he seek what was hidden from him, but shows that it is well known to him, since by asking in this way he alone discloses to all who do not know what lay hidden. The silent petitioner, pleading by her thoughts alone and clinging behind his back to the counsels of his power, he brings into the middle, not as an ignorant examiner but as a foreknowing inquirer, and makes her stand before his eyes, so that she who had carried off health for herself might bring back faith for all, and she who had proved his power might recognize his majesty, and might not return unknown, as she thought, she who had given full knowledge of herself. While she blushes at her wound, while in such a cure she fears him as God, the woman suffered no small clouds over her faith, and in the light of her mind she was herself darkened by the mists of confusion. So the voice of the Lord inquiring, like a saving breeze, put the clouds to flight, scattered the mists, lit up her faith, and made her who lay hid in the darkness of night brighter than the sun itself. Or is she less than the sun, she who shines through the whole world, who gleams and shines out in the whole assembly of the Church? If she had returned unseen in this way, forgive me, she would have cheated the physician, not proved him; and she could have ascribed what she obtained to herself, not to the healer; she who believed that she had seized her cure from the healer's fringe, not from his mind. Or what did she believe to be his, whose power she had felt in herself, while in her wish she judged him a stranger? And indeed, even if before the cure it was from modesty that she hid, from humility that she judged herself unworthy, why after the cure did she not come forward of her own accord to give thanks, to render honor, to report the glory of so great a work? But after she saw the Lord persist in his inquiry, and saw, with the disciples excusing and pleading the pressing of the crowd, that she could not stay hidden, after fear and trembling of conscience began to accuse her, she came into the middle, to profess openly as physician him whom she had secretly felt, to worship him as God, and so that from so great a sickness of hers there might be medicine for those present as well as those to come, as the evangelist says: “But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.” But since the historical account must always be raised to a higher understanding, and future mysteries are to be known through present figures, we must now lay open in an allegorical sermon what sacrament the ruler of the synagogue, or his daughter, or the woman with the flow of blood hold under the appearance of these persons. The daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, to whom Christ comes, to whom he goes and hurries and makes a journey with human step, he who in his divinity cannot be moved in place, is without doubt the Synagogue, as the Lord says: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 15:24). But while Christ is going toward her, the Church, set among all the nations, having lost the good of nature, was losing and pouring out the blood of the human race; and while human skill strove to cure her sickness, it only heaped it up: for the censure of human frailty and the strictness of worldly discipline always shed the blood of peoples, and yet could neither abolish enemies, nor check the wars of citizens, nor wipe out the madness of crimes. She, then, pierced through by such cures, when she saw that whatever of her substance had been and was had been used up, that is, mind, intelligence, sense, talent, labor, industry, reason, which we lend to rulers as to physicians for our progress, when she perceived the presence of Christ passing by, came from behind, because, polluted with blood, she did not deserve to see him. She comes from behind, that is, she follows the hearing of faith and touches the outermost parts of Christ as if his very fringe, since she is not honored in the fathers, not sanctified in the law, does not boast in the prophets, is not honored by the Lord's own body, since she is held a stranger to that order of Christ's lineage. Behind his back, that is, in the last time, she follows Christ and is consecrated by the hidden sacrament of faith; and she truly touched the garment, which she found in the tomb, through which she believed and proclaimed the signs of the Lord's rising. But while Christ is occupied with his powers around her, the Synagogue fails and dies in the ruler's daughter, so that she too might return to life through faith, she who had died through the law and perished through nature. “Meanwhile they come from the ruler's house and say: ‘Do not trouble the teacher; the girl is dead.’” Even today the Jews do not want Christ troubled, wishing that he not come, and they pronounce death, having unbelievingly lost the hope of resurrection. And how well this fits our assertion, that the ruler's daughter is reported to have lived twelve years, and this woman is recorded to have persisted twelve years in her wound, since at the last and completed time of each, health and life were restored. For this number encloses the time of human life, which, to make a year, is divided and counted in twelve months; hence the prophet indicates that Christ came under the acceptable year of the Lord, and the Apostle confirms that Christ came in the fullness of time, saying: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son” (Gal 4:4). Pray, brothers, that as the Synagogue died to itself and to the law so that it might live to Christ, so we too may die to sins and to the flesh, so that we may be able to live in Christ.

[On the sign of the prophet Jonah.] Brothers, the deeds of the saints are not to be put down to accidents but to signs; and what are thought to be their faults are to be applied to mysteries, not to lapses, as the Lord's instruction marked and disclosed today, saying: “As the crowds were gathering, Jesus began to say: ‘This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah; for as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation’” (Luke 11:29–30). See, the prophet's flight is turned into a figure of the Lord himself, and what is celebrated as a deadly shipwreck becomes the sacrament of the Lord's resurrection. For the text of the history written about him shows how Jonah held and fulfilled the type of the Savior in every respect. “Jonah fled,” it says, “from the face of God” (Jonah 1:3). Did not the Lord, in order to put on the face and form of man, flee the face and form of his own Godhead? As the Apostle says: “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:6–7). The Lord took the form of a servant so as to be hidden from the world, so as to forestall the devil; he puts himself to flight into man. And the type of Christ is well kept in Jonah's very words. He did not say, “I flee God,” but, “I flee from the face of God.” God, who is everywhere, has nowhere to flee from himself; but Christ, so as to flee the face of the Godhead not in place but in appearance, took refuge wholly in the countenance of our servitude. “Jonah,” it says, “went down to Joppa to flee to Tarshish.” Hear the one who goes down: “No one,” he says, “has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven” (John 3:13). The Lord descended from heaven to earth, the Godhead descended to human things, the supreme lordship descended to our servitude. And yet he who had gone down to the ship went up into the ship to sail: so Christ, who descended into this world, by powers and wonders went up into the ship of his Church. And what does the storm stirred up by the winds mean, except the devil, who, entering the heart of Judas, lifted up kings, nations, peoples, soldiery, judges, like the sea, and blew them into waves, so that the rising and falling waves sought their author for the calm of the world? Hear the waves of the world, hear the prophet saying: “Why have the nations raged, and the peoples devised vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ” (Ps 2:1–2). And since the lot that would betray Jonah was not lacking, it fulfills concerning Christ the prophecy of David, which says: “And for my clothing they cast lots” (Ps 22:18). That Jonah was the author of his own sinking, when he says, “Take me up and throw me into the sea,” indicates the Lord's voluntary passion; for why do they endure being commanded to do this, who could have helped themselves of their own accord in such danger? For when the safety of many demands the death of one, the death is placed in the decision of the one who is to die, because the will can delay the death of one who is to die, and the death of one in danger can forestall the danger: so here, where everything is carried out as a figure of the Lord, the authority of the one dying is awaited, so that dying may be not a necessity but a power. Hear the Lord saying: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again; no one takes it from me” (John 10:18). How? Because Christ, though he gave up his spirit, did not lose it; for he who receives and holds the souls of all in his hand is not seen to be able to lose his own soul. Hear the prophet saying: “My soul is always in your hands” (Ps 119:109). And elsewhere: “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Ps 31:5). But what more? The beast from the deep runs, meets him, is there, to fulfill and betray, or rather to conceive and give birth to, the whole mystery of the Lord's resurrection; the beast is there, the horrid and cruel image of hell, which, while it is carried with greedy jaws upon the prophet, felt and tasted the vigor of its Author, for in devouring it ran into a fast. But trembling it fits and prepares the dwelling of its heart as a lodging for the heavenly guest, so that the very thing that had been the whole cause of danger might become the unheard-of carriage for the necessary voyage, keeping its passenger and after three days bringing him back to the upper world; and it gave the Gentiles what it had taken from the Jews, to whom, when they sought a sign, the Lord decrees that only this sign is to be given, through which they might know that the glory they had hoped for in Christ was wholly to be conferred on the Gentiles. “This generation,” he says, “is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.” For by the tossing of Jewish unbelief Christ was sunk into the depth of hell; and running in a three days' course through all the hidden places of the lower world, when he rose he gave proof of Jewish cruelty, of his own majesty, and of death destroyed. Rightly, then, the Ninevites will rise at the judgment and condemn that generation, because they were corrected by the preaching of one prophet, shipwrecked, a stranger, unknown; these, after such great powers, such great wonders, with the whole flash of the resurrection, do not come to faith, are not moved to repentance. For they do not believe the very sign of the resurrection, but are eager to defame it, while with the soldiers' bribe they shut eyes and corrupt hearts so that they might keep silent about what they knew and saw, buying a lie to take away the truth. They turned their own crime back on Christ's disciples, saying: “Say that his disciples came by night and stole him” (Matt 28:13). You are wrong, Jew: it was not the disciples who took this away, but the master; and he who seemed to have been killed stole himself away. But I wonder that the Jew seeks Christ, whom he had cruelly placed between two robbers: he entrusts him wickedly, guards him impiously, seeks him more unjustly; Jew, Christ cannot perish, but you have lost him for yourself by your crime. The queen of the south will come, will come to the judgment, and with him who was thought to have been stolen as judge she will condemn you: because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and you, most unhappy one, killed the wisdom of God coming to you. The Ninevites were then provided as a figure of the nations who would believe, the queen of the south of the Church. Blessed are we, brothers, because what went before in type, what was promised in figure, we venerate, see, and possess in reality and truth.

[On bearing injury with equanimity.] How great is the greatness of the heavenly philosophy, how great the virtue of Christian soldiering, the Lord taught today, saying: “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the other also” (Matt 5:39). He thinks this hard who does not know how great are the rewards of patience. Do you think a man can find victory through wounds who will not acquire a crown even at the blow of a palm? Can he seek glory by death, to whom a human insult seems heavy compared with divine honor? O man, are not the first lessons of your infancy arranged by such precepts? Slaps are the blows of little children, not of men. This is why the childhood of Christ's people is encouraged by light commands, so that the Gospel youth may now come with full strength to heavier ones, so that it may rejoice to obtain by labors, punishments, and death what it could not acquire in infancy by small injuries. And so that what has been commanded may be shown not to be hard, let the very series of commands be unfolded. “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist evil; but if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, offer him the other also; and if anyone wants to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go a mile, go with him two more” (cf. Exod 21:24; Deut 19:21). “You have heard that it was said to the men of old.” To which men of old? Surely to the Jews, whom malice more than age had made old, whom the fury of vengeance held so greedy that for an eye they demanded a head, for a tooth a life. This is why the law restrained them to an exchange in vengeance, so that those who could not know how to pardon a fault might at least know the measure of retribution and exact only as much vengeance as the force of the one raging had inflicted injury. But this was for the men of old; let us hear what divine goodness commands us, renewed through grace: “But I say to you.” To whom? Surely to Christians: “Do not resist evil.” In saying this, he wants us not to repay vices with vices but to overcome them with virtues, and to put out anger while it is still in sparks, for if it reaches the full blaze of fury it is not calmed without blood. Anger is conquered by gentleness, fury put out by meekness, malice soothed by goodness, cruelty laid low by kindness, impatience punished by patience, contention overcome by courtesies, pride laid flat by humility. So, brothers, whoever wants to conquer vices, let him hold the arms of kindness, not of fury. And although it may be clear to the wise why the Christian beginnings are trained by injuries, yet because some do not understand that this is the summit of virtue, the height of goodness, the pinnacle of kindness, that this belongs to divine, not human, philosophy: not to resist evil but to overcome evil with good, to bless the one who curses, not to deny the one who strikes leave to strike again, to let the one who takes the tunic have the cloak, to make a generosity out of the plunder of the one who seizes, to add to the one who forces a mile one's own service for two thousand more paces, so that will may conquer necessity, kindness ungodliness, and the virtue of the one who suffers may do what the force of the one compelling commands; therefore, although these things teach how the soldier of Christ is strengthened for virtue by injuries, yet, so that it may be more evident, let us ask more deeply for what reason they were commanded. Brothers, when the disease of sins, the crime of vices, the frenzy of ungodliness poured itself into human minds and extinguished whatever there was of knowledge, sense, and reason, it made the nations spread over the world, in insane fury, flee God, follow demons, worship creatures, despise the Creator, desire vices, shudder at virtues, be driven by swords, rush into wounds, perish alive by deaths. So men could not be healed otherwise than if the heavenly physicians, armed with all kindness and patience, strove, bearing the injuries of the sufferers' frenzy, carrying their curses, enduring their blows, being torn by their wounds, until they brought them back to soberness of sense, sincerity of spirit, health of mind; and so brought them to seek God, flee demons, feel their sickness, savor health, throw off vices, take up virtues, avoid wounds, shudder at blood, refuse death, desire life. And if you want what we have said to be more fully known, let us speak of the examples of physicians of the flesh. Is it not so that whenever the fire of bile has inflamed a wretched man and, with fever ruling him, has made the sick man insane, his sense is disturbed, his mind perishes, savagery comes on, humanity departs, and, in short, while the man is dying the fury lives? This is why he gnashes with his teeth, tears his parents, rends his neighbors, strikes with his fist, attacks with biting, and assails those who serve him. Then the physician, for the praise of his virtue, the glory of his art, the increase of his reputation, is armed with patience: he takes up endurance, despises injuries, bears bites, carries labors, and suffers no light pains, so as to free the sufferer from pain; he soothes him with oil, persists in care, dispenses medicine, certain that the sick man will repay his services with the reward of honor when he has recovered health. I ask, what greater frenzy, what heavier force of fury, what madness is equal to striking the cheek of a holy man? To beating the face of a gentle brother? To suffusing the grace of a calm face with a sad bruise? To stripping a man of the only garment that covers him, and for a cheap prize to leave nothing to God, nothing to man, nothing to nature, nothing to shame? To force a man busy with his own affairs into service, and to count another's pain one's own comfort? So, brothers, if we have recognized that those who do such things suffer from the gravest frenzy, let us obey Christ and bear the bites, blows, and burdens of our raging brothers with the full virtue of kindness, so that we may both free our brothers from punishment and obtain the eternal reward of patience. Nor let a servant disdain to receive from fellow servants what the Lord graciously received from servants and for servants: he did not withhold his face from slaps; to the one who took his tunic he gave up his cloak and his body too; the one who forced him to labor he followed gratefully and willingly to death. So, brothers, if the Lord counted it worthy to suffer, how, how can it seem unworthy for a servant to suffer? We are wrong, we are wrong, brothers: whoever does not do what the Lord commanded hopes in vain for what the Lord promised.

[On perseverance in prayer.] Divine things are always sufficient in themselves, but they are often conveyed to men by human examples, because heavenly providence attends not to what it can say but to what the hearer can grasp. So a spring at first bursts out through slender channels of veins and gradually creeps in narrow streams, until, by fitting growth, it bursts out into the full breadth of rivers and pours itself forth mightily. And to speak to you of ourselves: when a little child is born, nature at once prepares a nourishment of the same age, changes food into drink, and with a long infusion of milk fits the still numb throat and the sluggish inner passages for the use of more solid food. So the Lord raises and forms us to grasp divine things by homely examples, saying: “Which of you will have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him’; and he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is already shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give to you’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs” (Luke 11:5–8). O how he wants to give, who allows himself to be so disturbed, so roused! O how he wants what lies in his power to seem a matter of necessity! O how he longed to meet the one knocking, who so placed the bed of his privacy right at the door! O how he did not want to refuse, who showed even while refusing how he might be prevailed upon! O how the Lord was not only at the door, but the Lord was the door itself! “I am,” he says, “the door” (John 10:9), who, while the servants slept, alone and first came to the need of the one knocking. O how kind, how merciful, who proves and forms by examples what he teaches by commands! “When you give alms,” he says, “do not sound a trumpet.” And again: “Let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing” (Matt 6:2–3). “Which of you will have a friend, and go to him at midnight?” It is not enough that night veiled the one doing mercy, that the persistence of the one asking covered the generosity of the one giving, unless sleep too was added to heap up the veiling of kindness. He sets in this kindness a twofold form of necessity, of the one asking and of the one sleeping, so that the guest compels the one to ask and sleep compels the other to give: since he says that he will give to him at the time for this reason, that he may seem not to come to his friend's aid but to hurry back to sleep, and that he would rather be allowed to sleep than be pleased to give to one asking in this way. What more? See, sleep rather than sound proved the advocate of the one knocking. Nor do I think it idle that he so discloses, so marks, the hour of asking, saying: “Which of you will have a friend, and go to him at midnight?” As if at the first, second, and third hours of the night, when gentle slumber first pours itself into the bodies of the sleepers and glides sweet and whole into the inward parts wearied by the day's labor, the persistence of one disturbing would not be troublesome and harsh. But this is the time that shows the devout and constant judgment of one who keeps watch through the night; this is the time when the mind, burning, but toward divine things, between past and future labors, indulges nothing to the body, nothing to rest, but before it finishes the works of the day gone by, begins and anticipates those of the day to come. This hour is quite effective for obtaining. Knowing this, the prophet asserts that this was the very time of his supplication, singing: “At midnight I rose to give thanks to you” (Ps 119:62). At this hour that heavenly bridegroom always comes to meet those who keep watch, who says: “At midnight there was a cry: behold, the bridegroom comes” (Matt 25:6). He could not fail to obtain what he wanted, who, so as to receive a guest and refresh a guest, denied himself all rest. Or how would he not answer one so asking, so knocking, who confesses that he is received in the guest, when he says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matt 25:35)? I think that the one knocking said this, or perhaps addressed him in another way: “I did what you commanded; give what you promised; I believed you when you said, ‘Do not be anxious about tomorrow’ (Matt 6:34). Hence yesterday left nothing that I could set before the guest: if I am troublesome to you who have, how much more troublesome has he been to me who have not? And yet I could not excuse myself to him, because I strove to obey you. Here the shame of the one commanding labors now more than that of the one who has not. The guest is in the house, and you are sleeping; rather you are sleeping who do not sleep. I have received the guest; unless you give bread, it is you who have denied bread to the guest.” Rightly, to one so knocking, so asking, this Gospel lender gave as many loaves as he needed. What do they do who lay themselves not in a bed but in a very tomb? Who give themselves over not to sleep but to death? Whom the cock does not warn, the morning star does not rouse, the sun itself does not call back and bring out to the light? These have lost the time of supplicating, the reward of the guest, and the very works of the day. We are saddened, brothers, when we stand before the Lord at dawn and do not see our sons with us. He knocked so at midnight, in whose house a guest had come. I ask, why do you not keep watch even at dawn, who have a guest in your house? What he gave to grace, you give at least to sloth; what he gave to humanity, spend at least on necessity, you who are a lover of sleep more than of yourself. Certainly, so that you who sleep unto death may be able to keep watch unto life, listen to what follows: “And I say to you,” he says, “ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and whoever seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” But you say: Granted that I can ask, how will I be able to knock at the heavenly secret? How? By repeating prayers, by awaiting the judgment of the giver, by most patiently bearing the delays of the one giving; for whoever, having knocked once, is at once indignant if he is not heard, is not a suppliant petitioner but an imperious exactor. Hear the prophet saying: “Wait for the Lord; act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened” (Ps 27:14). And if he puts it off again into the future, wait patiently for your Lord. But if you want to know where you ought to seek, riches are in the bosom of the poor, and the kingdom of heaven is within you. “The kingdom of heaven is within you,” says the Lord (Luke 17:21). But who the friend is who sleeps, who the friend is who comes from a journey, who the children are who sleep, who this is who knocks, and why with a fixed number he asks for only three loaves: when I have asked, sought, knocked, and, as a wakeful disturber, deserved to receive, I will not deny it to you, friends of my Lord. But you say to me: See, a friend of your Lord has come to you; this one is accustomed to give, not to receive; in short, this eager shepherd has filled this provision bag from the abundance of his own provisions, so as to taste of the very poor preparation of our poverty; nor did he, the richest of guests, allow me in the dead of night to seek elsewhere for him what he himself had. And no wonder, brothers: the rich man always wants to give to the poor when he turns aside to him. This man always remains at the door of that Gospel friend; in this man's bedchamber that Gospel giver with his children abides, in whose heart the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit always make and set their dwelling. What more? He is the Father: from him I believed I was asking, in him seeking, through him knocking; and so I declared, not as a careless promiser, that I would give to you.

[On the good shepherd.] When the time of the spring breeze has begun to open the yearly births of the sheep, when it has begun to scatter the abundant offspring of the fruitful flock through fields, meadows, and roads, the good shepherd lays aside his songs, and with anxious running about seeks, picks up, and gathers the tender young, and, a happy carrier, sets them on his neck, shoulders, and arms, so as to carry them all safely and bring them to safe folds. So we, brothers, when with the smile of Lent's spring we see the Church's flock pour out rich births, laying aside the songs of our treatises and the feasts of our customary preaching, have spent all our care, anxious, with the heaviest labor, in gathering and carrying together the heavenly offspring. But since we see the lambs restored to the flock and all now within the folds of Christ, we are called back, most joyful, to the divine songs, setting before you with full exultation the life-giving stores of the Lord's food, so that we may have as partners in joys those whom we found to be companions in labor. And since this preface of ours has made and brought in mention of the good shepherd, let the whole intent of our sermon and treatment be filled with and occupied by him who alone is good, alone shepherd, alone shepherd of shepherds. “The good shepherd,” he says, “lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10:11). The force of love makes one brave, because true love reckons nothing hard, nothing bitter, nothing heavy, nothing deadly. What iron, what wounds, what punishment, what deaths can prevail to separate perfect love? Love is an impenetrable breastplate; it spits out javelins, shakes off swords, mocks dangers, laughs at death: if it is love, it conquers all. But let us ask whether this death of the shepherd is beneficial to the sheep, which deserts the sheep, hands the defenseless flock to wolves, leaves the dear flock to the bites of beasts, gives it up to plunder and exposes it to death, as is proved from the death of the shepherd Christ himself. For from the time he laid down his life for his sheep and allowed himself to be killed by Jewish fury, his sheep have been plundered by the attack of the Gentiles as by robbers; they are shut up in prisons to be slaughtered as in robbers' dens; they are torn without ceasing by persecutors as by raging wolves; they are bitten by heretics with rabid tooth as by strange dogs. The slain choir of the apostles proves this, the blood of the martyrs spread through the whole world cries it out, the limbs of Christians given to beasts, consumed by fires, drowned in rivers plainly show it: all of which, just as the shepherd's death brought it on, so the shepherd's life could have prevented it. So the shepherd proves his love for you by death, because when he sees danger threatening the sheep and cannot defend the flock, he would rather die than see any evil befall his sheep. But what are we to make of it, since Life could not die unless it wished? Who could have taken away the soul from the giver of souls against his will? As he himself says: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again; no one takes it from me.” So he willed to die, who, since he could not die, allowed himself to be killed. Let us ask, then, what the force, what the reason of this love is, what the cause of this death, what the usefulness of this passion. And plainly the force is certain, the reason true, the cause shining, the usefulness of so great a blood wide open: for from the one death of the shepherd a singular power shone out; the shepherd for the sheep went to meet the death that threatened the sheep, so that in a new order, captured, he might capture the author of death, the devil; conquered, conquer him; slain, punish him; and by dying open to the sheep the way of conquering death. For the devil too, while he went after man, leaped upon God; while he raged against the guilty, he ran into the judge; he found punishment while he inflicted penalty; he himself received sentence while he gave it; and death, living by feeding on mortals, dies while it devours Life: death, swallowing the guilty, is swallowed while it gulps down the author of innocence; and death itself perishes, which destroyed all, while it wishes to destroy the salvation of all. In this way, then, the shepherd went before the sheep; the shepherd did not withdraw from the sheep; nor did he give them to the wolves, but he handed over the wolves to them, to whom he granted to choose their own robbers in such a way that, slain, they would live; torn, they would rise; dyed in their own blood, they would gleam with royal purple and shine with snowy fleece. So the good shepherd, when he laid down his life for the sheep, did not lose it; and he so held the sheep that he did not leave them; nor did he desert the sheep in this way, but in life and strength called and led them through deadly fields, along the road of death, to life-giving pastures. But someone says: When will these things be? See, meanwhile the sheep, that is, the apostles, prophets, martyrs, and confessors, lie buried; torn apart, they are scattered through the whole world; wrapped in blood, they are shut in dark tombs. And who doubts that the slain martyrs rise, live, and reign, when Christ, slain, has risen for them, lives, and reigns? Hear the voice of this shepherd: “My sheep hear my voice and follow me.” Those who followed to death must follow to life; those who accompanied him to insult must accompany him to honor; and those who were sharers in the passion must be sharers in the glory. “Where I am,” he says, “there will my servant be also” (John 12:26). Where? Surely above the heavens, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. O man, let faith not disturb you, let a longer hope not weary you, because what is kept for you in the very Author of things is a sure thing for you. “You have died,” it says, “and your life is hidden with Christ in God; but when Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:3–4). The laboring reaper will see in the harvest what he does not see in the seed, and he who weeps in the furrow will rejoice in the fruit.

[On fasting and almsgiving.] We read that very many men overcame the wars of nations, whom yet we read did not conquer the battles of the flesh; and we have heard that those who did not turn their backs to enemies surrendered their breasts to offences. O grief! The conquerors of nations were captives of vices; the lords of peoples served crimes in shameful servitude; they stood amid raging swords and collapsed amid enervating seductions; they were a terror to kingdoms and a laughingstock to sins; fasting, they crushed opposing battle lines, and, drunk with excess, they dissolved the camps of their own virtues; those who did not know how to lie low in shed blood lay low in spilled wine. Why is this? Why? Because this is not reason but sickness; not life but fever; frenzy, not nature. For whenever indigestion of foods casts down the vital parts, weakens the stomach, corrupts the blood, vitiates the humors, kindles the bile, and produces the extreme blaze of fever, the sick man loses his mind and his sense, is carried away by desires, is driven by contrary things, spits out what is wholesome, seeks what is harmful, flees treatment. Then the physicians busy themselves to help with the remedy of abstinence, so that he may be healed, so that abstinence may heal what voracity had wounded. And if the sick obey physicians for temporal healing and keep a hard frugality, why should it be hard for eternal salvation to obey Christ in moderate fasts, to govern the body by measure, rule the mind by frugality, bridle the senses by sobriety? As earthly clouds darken the sky, so intemperate banquets obscure souls; as whirlwinds confound the elements, so heaped-up dishes disturb the stomach; as a wave sinks a ship, so drunkenness sinks the body, gives man to the deep, takes away the gains of life, and makes him suffer the shipwreck of death. There is, then, a fever, there is a fever which the blessed Apostle laments panting in the human inward parts thus: “I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom 7:18). If not good, then surely evil. What evil? Frailty, certainly, which, while it creeps in the flesh, seethes in the veins, enters the bones, is stored in the marrow, boils in the blood, breaks out thus into the frenzy of vices. Frailty is the fever of nature, the mother of sicknesses, the begetter of passions; it is frailty that imposes such necessities on us; and where there is necessity, not will, where captivity stands by condition, judgment does not rest on power. It is frailty through which a man goes not where the will invites but where necessity leads. Hear the Apostle saying: “What I want, I do not do” (Rom 7:15). Frailty, while it provides man with necessities, brings him to what is not necessary; while it provides food, it leads to excess; it urges drunkenness while it serves drink; it offers sleep so as to hand over to sloth; it cares for the burdens of the belly so as to take away care for salvation; it gives everything to the flesh so as to leave nothing to the soul; it makes the body a parade of passions; it makes a man the death of himself and the life of vices. So if a man feels himself sick in this way, let him hand himself over to the heavenly physician, let him confidently comply with his advice, restrain himself from foods, keep measure in drink, so that he may thus overcome the sickness of frailty, flee the frailty of passions, avoid the fever and frenzy of vices. Abstinence is man's first medicine; but for a full cure it requires the expense of mercy. Abstinence puts out the fever; but limbs dried up by the burning of a long fever cannot return to complete health unless they are bathed in generous ointment, moistened with soothing poultices, helped by the expense of medicine: so fasting, though it shuts out the diseases of vices, cuts off the passions of the flesh, and drives away the causes of crimes, yet without the ointment of mercy, without the stream of kindness, without the expense of almsgiving, does not restore perfect health to minds. Fasting heals the wounds of sins, but without mercy it does not cleanse the scars of the wounds. Hear the Lord saying: “Give alms, and behold, everything is clean for you” (Luke 11:41). Fasting, by singular cultivation, pulls up vices, roots out crimes, prepares the field of mind and body for good fruits; but unless it lays the foundations of mercy, it (…) the labor and zeal of the one fasting. Fasting is the offering of holiness, the sacrifice of chastity; but without the incense of mercy it cannot rise before the divine sight as a sweet fragrance. What the soul is to the body, mercy is agreed to be to fasting: when fasting lives from mercy, then it gives life to the one fasting. Fasting, the ship of the virtues, carries the profit of life and brings in the gain of salvation. But whoever enters the sea of the flesh, cleaves the waves of vices, passes between the rocks of crimes, sails by the shores of passions, unless he quickly enters the harbor of kindness, cannot exercise virtues, cannot have the gain of virtues. Whoever knows that he stands on the slippery ground of this life, who understands that he passes along the way of the flesh by slipping, who feels himself subject to the attacks of ignorance and the falls of negligence, let him so hold to fasting as not to leave mercy. Fasting opens heaven to us, fasting brings us in to God; but unless mercy is then present to us as advocate of our cases, we who cannot rely on our innocence will not be secure of pardon, as the Lord says: “Judgment without mercy to him who has not shown mercy” (Jas 2:13). A day is welcome, but a clear day is more welcome: so our fasting will be brighter if the splendor of mercy gives us clear days of Lent. God cries: “I desire mercy” (Hos 6:6). O man, give God what he wants, if you want God to give you what you want. “I desire mercy” is the voice of God; God asks mercy of us, and if we give it, what will he say? What was read today: “I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink.” And what then? “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34–35). Whoever gives bread to the hungry will give himself a kingdom; those who deny a cup of water to the thirsty will deny themselves the fountain of life. For love of the poor God sells his kingdom; and so that every man may be able to buy it, he sets a fragment of bread as the price, because he wants to have all, who asks only as much price as a man is able to have. God sells his kingdom for a fragment of bread: who can excuse the one who does not buy, whom so great a cheapness of sale accuses? Brothers, let our lunch be the poor man's supper, so that Christ's table may be prepared for our lunch, as he himself promises, saying: “You will eat at my table in my kingdom” (Luke 22:30). Brothers, let our fasts be the delights of the poor, so that our temporal fast may be changed for us into eternal delights. O man, in giving to the poor you give to yourself; for what you do not give to the poor, another will have. You will have only what you give to the poor.

[On the same.] Brothers, in the previous sermon we touched, as well as we could, on the good things of fasting, and in the very conclusion of the sermon we made plain that prayer is akin to fasting. But since fasting without mercy fails, fasting without kindness goes hungry, prayer without compassion grows weak, prayer without generosity grows weary, let us refresh our fasting by the showing of mercy, let us lift up our prayer by attending to kindness, let us add mercy to fasting as its advocate. For fasting without mercy is the hunger of avarice, and fasting without kindness is the punishment of greed: it is vengeance, not devotion, to fast not for God but for the purse; to wear oneself down with abstinence and be swollen with the dropsy of greed; to unload the belly of foods and weigh down the mind with the weight of money. He reduces himself to a purse who does not know how to spend money but only to shut it up: he is a guardian of others' goods, not the master of his own, because he prepares for another and denies himself, while the merciful man pays out what the miser kept pressed down. One who fasts without compassion is a cultivated field without seed. A cultivated field lacks thorns, avoids weeds, escapes everything that belongs to neglect and squalor. But as without seed it becomes barren, gives no fruit from its very cultivation, gives labor, and cannot reach a good crop; so the one fasting tills his soul again, purifies his senses, cleanses his heart, cuts off vices, roots out crimes, gives cultivation to the mind and grace to the body; but without mercy he does not reach the fruit of life, does not go to the reward of salvation. What a royal hall is without a king, fasting is without generosity. A king's hall shines with gold, gleams with marble, glitters with paintings, grows large with spaces, rises to a summit, is made pleasant with greenery, is awesome in its very privacy; but without the king it has no honor, lacks glory, is an empty solitude, a closed wilderness, a horrid waste. So fasting shines with innocence, radiates with chastity, gleams with action, is painted with morals, sparkles in its bearing, is magnified with the whole adornment of holiness; but without mercy it has no glory, lacks reward, does not hold the palm, loses the confidence of supplicating, does not attain the merit of obtaining, as Scripture attests, which says: “Whoever shuts his ear so as not to hear the weak will himself cry out, and there will be no one to hear” (Prov 21:13). How will he ask mercy who has denied it? “Judgment,” it says, “without mercy will be for him who has not shown mercy” (Jas 2:13). Whoever does not give mercy to another takes it away from himself. Mercy will be his who scatters to the poor. “He has scattered,” it says, “he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains for ever and ever” (Ps 112:9). Whoever sows mercy for the needy will reap for himself. “Those who sow,” it says, “in tears will reap in joy” (Ps 126:5). Rain does not so soak the earth as the tears of the poor water fasting. O man, cast the seeds of your fasting into the tears of the poor, because the virtues of fasting dry up, the harvests of those who fast wither, if they have not been watered by the weeping of the poor. Heaven's rain soaks the earth; the poor man's tears water heaven; so heaven thirsts and awaits the lament of the poor in place of dew, because mercy plows the fields of heaven, kindness draws furrows across the heights, mercy sows there; because what the hand of the poor has received, he reaps there; there he gathers the crop who has entrusted his seed to the poor to be sown here. Blessed is he for whom, sowing in this way, eternal granaries are prepared for unending life. The blessed Apostle described this sower when he said: “But I say this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows in blessings will also reap from blessings; each one as he has resolved in his heart, not out of sadness or necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:6–7). Great are the works of the Lord, but the greatness of mercy surpasses their greatness: for when the prophet had said, “Great are the works of the Lord” (Ps 111:2), he added elsewhere: “His mercies are above all his works” (Ps 145:9). Mercy, brothers, fills heaven and fills the earth. “Lord,” it says, “your mercy is in heaven” (Ps 36:5). And the same: “The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord” (Ps 33:5). And truly, brothers, everything that God had made would have perished had mercy not come to its aid. Guilt and punishment were carrying off whatever had come into this world; because frailty always tended to fall, and the censure of the judge was always compelled to vengeance. So the angel is cast down from heaven (Isa 14); so man is exiled from paradise (Gen 3); so the world is destroyed by the flood (Gen 7); so the nations are confounded in their languages (Gen 11), given to the sword (Gen 14); so cities are burned up by divine fire (Gen 19); so the people led out of Egypt were buried in the desert (Num 14); so the gaping earth swallows the people (Num 16); and, not to say much, so the Roman army, avenger of Christ's blood, destroyed Judea (Matt 24). This is the great, generous, singular mercy of Christ, which has kept all judgment for one day and has assigned to man all time as a truce for repentance, so that what infancy takes up from vices, adolescence seizes, youth invades, at least old age may correct; and that a man may repent of sin at least then, when he feels that he can no longer sin; and may abandon guilt at least then, when guilt has already abandoned him; may make a virtue of necessity; may die innocent who lived wholly in crime. This is why the prophet runs wholly to mercy, because he had no confidence in his own righteousness: “Have mercy on me, O God,” he says, “according to your great mercy” (Ps 51:1). And why great? “Because your mercy,” he says, “is great upon me, and you have rescued my soul from the lower hell” (Ps 86:13). And if God gives back by mercy what had perished by judgment, O man, what did you think could stand, could hold firm, for you without mercy? It has been proved to you, then, that not fasting alone but all the virtues totter without mercy. Burning hospitality, spent on God, made Abraham the chief of the heavenly banquet (Gen 18): for because he received two with God at an earthly table, he received the peoples of the East and the West at the heavenly table. “They will come,” it says, “from the East and the West, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 8:11). Lot, because he received angels as guests, forestalled judgment (Gen 19). Hence he conquered Gehenna in the flesh: the divine fire does not know how to burn up the merciful man. Whoever wishes not to fear the fire of Gehenna, then, let him show mercy. In short, Christ at his coming argues about mercy before he judges about guilt. “When he sits,” it says, “on the throne of his glory, he will say: I was hungry and you did not give me to eat” (Matt 25:31, 42). He did not say, “You killed, you committed theft,” but, “I was hungry and you did not give me to eat.” He will not give account of crime whose case for mercy stands firm. Why? Because “give alms, and behold, everything is clean for you” (Luke 11:41). He will not be judged for fault to whom praise for generosity is given by the judge; he who acknowledges the debt of kindness does not incur vengeance. “I was hungry,” he says, “and you did not give me to eat.” God eats in heaven the bread that the poor man has received on earth. “As long as you did it to one of these least, you did it to me” (Matt 25:40). Give bread, then, give drink, give clothing, give shelter, if you want to have God as debtor, not as judge; nothing will harm us on earth if mercy is our advocate in heaven.

[On prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.] To the people we must speak in a popular way; the community must be addressed in common speech; what is necessary for all must be said in the manner of all; natural language is dear to the simple and sweet to the learned; let the teacher speak what will profit all; so today let the learned pardon an unskilled word. There are three things, three, brothers, by which faith stands, devotion holds firm, virtue remains: prayer, fasting, mercy. What prayer knocks for, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy, fasting: these three are one, and they give life to one another. For fasting is the soul of prayer; mercy is the life of fasting. Let no one cut them apart; they do not know how to be separated. Whoever has only one of them, or does not have them together, has nothing. So let whoever prays fast; let whoever fasts show mercy; let him who, when he asks, wants to be heard, hear the one who asks; he opens God's hearing to himself who does not close his own hearing to the suppliant. Let the one who fasts understand fasting; let him feel for the hungry who wants God to feel for his hunger; let him show mercy who hopes for mercy; let him who seeks kindness do it; let him who wants it granted to himself grant it. He is a shameless petitioner who asks for himself what he denies another. O man, be for yourself the pattern of mercy: in the way you want mercy shown to you, in the measure you want, as quickly as you want, so quickly, in such measure, in such a way, show mercy yourself to others. So let prayer, mercy, fasting be one advocacy for us before God, let these be one plea for us, let these be one threefold prayer for us. These are they, brothers, these are they that hold the citadel of heaven, that knock at the secret of God the judge, that plead the cases of the human race before the tribunal of Christ, that ask indulgence for the unjust and earn pardon for the guilty. Whoever does not have these standing by him in heaven does not stand firm on earth: since these hold the leadership in heaven, they govern the sum of things on earth: these rule prosperity, these drive away adversity; these extinguish vices, these kindle virtues; these make bodies chaste, hearts pure; these give peace to the limbs and quiet to minds; these make human senses a school of discipline; through these human breasts rise up into a temple of God; these make a man an angel; these bring to man the honor of divinity. This is why by their support Moses becomes a god (Exod 7:1), and commands all the elements for his military triumphs: he orders the sea to part, the waves to harden, the depths to dry (Exod 14), the sky to rain; he gives grain, compels the winds to scatter meat (Exod 16); he lights up the night with the brightness of the sun, he tempers the sun with the veil of a cloud (Exod 13); he strikes the rock so that from the fresh wound it may give cool streams to the thirsty (Num 20); he is the first to give the earth the law of heaven, he writes the rule of life, he fixes the boundaries of discipline (Exod 24; 34). Through these Elijah does not know death, leaves the earth, enters heaven, lives among angels, dines with God; and an earthly guest possesses the mansions above (2 Kgs 2). Through these John becomes an angel in the flesh, heavenly on earth, and alone grasps, holds, and embraces the whole Trinity by hearing, sight, and touch. And we, brothers, if we wish to be joined to the glory of Moses, the life of Elijah, the virtues of John, the merits of all the saints, let us persist in prayer, devote ourselves to fasting, serve mercy. Whoever lives in these, whoever is fortified by them, will not fear, as a Christian armor-bearer, a soldier of the Lord, the javelins of sin, the darts of the devil, the engines of the world, the wedges of vices, the evils of the flesh, the snares of pleasures, the weapons of death. But we who rise to an uncertain day, who spend the day amid snares, who endure the changes of the hours, the movements of moments, the slips of words, the dangers of acts, why is it that we do not want to enter the church in the morning? Why is it that we do not want to ask by morning prayer for protection for the whole day? Why is it that it pleases us to attend on a man all the time, and it does not please us to stand before God even for a moment? It is not our doing, brothers, it is not our doing; this stealthy suggestion is the enemy's: he prepares to deceive those whom he does not allow to be fortified by prayers. Why does he complain of adversity who does not pray for prosperity for himself? Let us hear the voice of God warning: “Pray, so that you may not enter into temptation” (Matt 26:41). He goes into temptation who does not go to prayer. Knowing this, the prophet sang: “Come, let us worship and fall down before him, and weep before the Lord who made us” (Ps 95:6). Do you think he will deign to shed tears before God who does not deign to bring out words? Let us rise early, let us pray, at least from human fear if not from divine love; if not invited by good things, at least compelled by evil ones. It is contempt of God that makes bad times for us, not the course of the times. So what we have lost by contempt, let us recover by fasts: let us sacrifice our souls by fasts, because there is nothing more excellent we can offer God, as the prophet proves when he says: “A sacrifice to God is a crushed spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise” (Ps 51:17). O man, offer God your soul, and offer the oblation of fasting, so that it may be a pure offering, a holy sacrifice, a living victim, which both remains for you and is given to God. Whoever does not give this to God will not be excused, because one who is to give himself cannot fail to have it. But so that these may be accepted, let mercy follow; fasting does not sprout unless it is watered by mercy; fasting dries up with the drought of mercy: what rain is to the earth, mercy is to fasting. However much the one who fasts cultivates his heart, cleanses his flesh, roots out vices, sows virtues, if he does not release the streams of mercy he gathers no fruit. You who fast, your field fasts when mercy fasts; you who fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows for you in the granary. So, O man, do not lose by keeping, but gather by spending; O man, by giving to the poor, give to yourself: because what you leave to another you will not have.

[On the counsel of the ungodly, the way of sinners, and the chair of pestilence. On Psalm 1.] A skilled physician, whenever he wishes to give full medicine to those worn out by various sicknesses, lays open the deep causes of diseases, explains the hidden onsets of plague, warns them to beware of pestilential regions, shows very many kinds of remedies, discloses the powers of herbs, speaks of the qualities of medicines, and promises very long health to the obedient: so he persuades the sick and leads them to hard and harsh treatments. This is why the holy prophet, about to bring forth from heaven medicine for body and soul, lays open the deep recesses of ungodliness, lays bare the hidden ways of sinners, displays iniquities, and with wonderful reasoning brings out the secret poison, the natures of vices, the origins of offences, the roots of crimes. So with devoted moderation, according to age, sex, time, and strength, he leads the sick minds of mortals by divine treatment continually to health. The psalm we sang today is the preface of the Psalms, rather the psalm of psalms, the title of titles; it is the argument that begets arguments, the whole cause of the songs that follow. And as the key of a royal hall, once it has opened the first door, makes the inner and manifold apartments accessible, so this psalm, once it has unlocked the first approaches of understanding, lays open the mystery, lays open the secret, of all the psalms. “Blessed is the man who has not walked away in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the chair of pestilence” (Ps 1:1). “Blessed is the man”: as for one about to fight with beasts and undergo the dangers of the hardest contests the prizes, rewards, and crowns are announced beforehand, so the prophet put blessedness first, to challenge man to conquer the whole savagery of crimes that he enumerates afterward. “Blessed is the man who has not walked away in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners.” That he spoke of walking away in counsel and standing in the way may perhaps seem absurd, since to stand in counsel and walk in the way is more in human usage. To the perverse indeed all things are perverse, and things not done in order cannot keep order. Yet here the prophet speaks not of the gait of the body but of the mind, and does not forbid slips of the feet but wards off the ruin of souls. “Blessed is the man who has not walked away in the counsel of the ungodly.” He walked away, walked away from himself, when the ungodly man withdrew from God; nor does he stand in counsel who wanders with ungodly thoughts. Such a man is now carried to heaven, now brought back to earth; he is tossed through the seas, lifted by the waves, sunk in the deep; and since he always rolls about in his own mind like a drunkard, he does not reckon himself, and he reckons the heavens. He who thinks he knows everything does not know himself; for if he knew himself he would never worship the heaven, the sun, the moon, wood, stones, which are all given and subjected to his service; but he worships stone and serves wood, who has despised serving the living God, the true God. And to go over the deeds of ungodliness from the very beginning of things: the counsel of ungodliness brought down to hell the angel from on high, changed the messenger of the heavenly secret into the devil, sent man from the government of life into the exile of a mortal dwelling, drove him from the delights of paradise to the wearisome labors of the world; it cast woman down from the glory of virginity to childbirths that know groaning. Hence it is that before she rejoices she does not escape pains, and pays the penalty for guilt before she rejoices in the coming forth of offspring. “I will greatly multiply,” he says, “your sorrows and your groanings; in sorrow and groaning you shall bear children” (Gen 3:16). What sort of end is there where the origin is penal? Whom will joy hold on the way, who takes the beginning of life from grief? The prophet knew this, who said: “In iniquities I was conceived, and in offences my mother bore me” (Ps 51:5). If so, brothers, we are thrown from the womb onto the way of sinners and run the whole road of offences through every age, let us think of the vanities of infancy, the slips of adolescence, the ruins of youth, the diseases of old age, and then we will see that we are taking not the way of life but the way of sinners. Christ marks this way, saying: “How wide and spacious is the way that leads to perdition, and many are those who enter by it” (Matt 7:13). Wide with offences, spread out with waves, spacious with crimes; and truly the present life is a way, into which man comes and on which he goes. “A generation goes,” it says, “and a generation comes, and the earth stands forever” (Eccl 1:4). And so he first said: “Blessed is the man who has not walked away in the counsel of the ungodly and has not stood in the way of sinners.” He did not say, “has not come”; for no one does not come onto the way of sinners, onto which the very law of nature and of death leads us; but blessed is he who does not stand on it. He stands, he lingers on it, who lifts the burdens of sins, and, a loaded traveler, arrives late and finds the heavenly dwelling shut against him. Hindered by these weights the prophet wept, saying: “My iniquities have gone over my head, and like a heavy burden they are heavy upon me.” And since he bore them all the time of his life, he cries: “I have become wretched and am bowed down to the end” (Ps 38:4, 6). That traveler passes through the way of sinners who sees the evils of this life but despises them, feels them but tramples them, suffers them but conquers them, and, while he flees them, runs the more: so the heavenly doorkeeper comes to meet him, the heavenly dwelling does not shut itself against him. But why is it that he put the counsel of ungodliness before the way of sinners: “Blessed is the man who has not walked away in the counsel of the ungodly and has not stood in the way of sinners”? Because although man, once born, at once comes onto the way of sinners, yet he first lies there: he does not at once run on the way of sin, but when he has begun to taste the poisons of ungodliness, then he draws flavor from the richness of sins. The ungodly man strains against God, goes away from God when he offends; sinners despise God, who commanded beforehand that they ought not to sin. Darkness flees light; darkness returns when light withdraws: where God is, there is no sin; where sin is, God is not there. And so that you may know, O man, that a man runs about on the way of sinners away from the sight of God, hear the prophet: “God is not in his sight; his ways are polluted at all times” (Ps 10:4–5). So a man slips more heavily on the way of sinners when he glides onto it over the precipices of ungodliness. “And has not sat in the chair of pestilence.” He who does ungodliness approves it; he who approves loves it; he who loves cannot fail to teach it: hence it is that, teaching ungodliness, he sits in the chair of pestilence, and with honeyed speech pours out the poison of deadly doctrine on his hearers. He set philosophy as the chair of pestilence, which taught either many gods, or that he who is either does not exist or cannot be found: which gave creation itself to nature so as to deny nature's Author. The Pharisee set up a chair of pestilence, who, setting human traditions before heavenly decrees, poured out a vast plague on the Jewish people. In the chair of pestilence the heretic has sat, who under the appearance of faith splits, breaks, and tears apart unity. “Blessed, then, is the man who has not walked away in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the chair of pestilence.” And plainly blessed, because by turning away from these three he has deserved to come to the blessedness of the Trinity. Let him meditate, then, on the law of the Lord, and meditate on it day and night, so that he may deserve to see in the future and to hear more fully at a suitable time what follows.

[On frail man praying God not to rebuke him in anger. On Psalm 6.] Your affection proves and recognizes with me that the responsory we sang today with the prophet in supplication is timely and fitting for our present evils. “Lord,” he says, “do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chastise me in your fury” (Ps 6:1). Does God swell with anger? Does he grow hot with fury? Far from it, brothers. God is neither subject to passion, nor kindled with anger, nor disturbed by fury; but the anger of God is the punishment of offenders, the fury of God is the penalty of sinners. Brothers, compacted from dust, molded from mud, we are trodden down by vices, subjected to offences, worn out by cares, withered in our limbs, dissolved by death, made horrible in fetid tombs; and so we are found unfit for virtues and fit for vices. The prophet, then, mindful of human frailty and conscious of his fleshly substance, because he did not trust in merits, flew to the help of mercy, so that God's judgment on him might rest on kindness, not severity. “Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger.” That is to say: rebuke me, but not in anger; chastise me, but not in fury; rebuke me as a father, not as a judge; chastise me not as a master but as a parent; rebuke me not to destroy but to correct; chastise me not to kill but to amend. And why? Because I am weak. “Have mercy on me, Lord,” he says, “for I am weak.” What is weaker than man, whom sense misleads, ignorance deceives, judgment circumvents, display harms, time deserts, age changes, infancy dulls, youth throws headlong, old age breaks? For God, then, to be angry with him in anger, indignant in fury, is not the mark of a devoted Creator but of a most severe examiner. “Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak.” And what do you want? “Heal me, Lord.” He feels the wounds of his state, feels the bite of the ancient serpent, feels the ruin of the first parent, recognizes that he came into these weaknesses by being born, recognizes that he has come by nature to death; and since human art could not remove death, he is compelled to seek divine medicine; and so as to obtain treatment for his sickness more easily, he lays open the causes of the sickness itself, recounts its qualities, discloses its greatness, expresses the force of the pain. “Heal me, Lord.” Why? “Because my bones are troubled.” The bones carry the whole structure of the body; and if the bones are troubled, what firmness of limbs is there? What strength of sinews? Where is the pitiable substance of the flesh? The bones are troubled, brothers, by the weight of sins, by fear of death, by terror of judgment. Hear him say this elsewhere: “There is no health in my flesh because of your anger; there is no peace in my bones because of my sins” (Ps 38:3). And afterward: “My soul is filled with mockeries, and there is no health in my flesh” (Ps 38:7). Rightly, then, he adds: “And my soul is greatly troubled.” Between God's commands and the passions of the heart, between virtues and vices, between adversity and prosperity, between punishments and rewards, between life and death, standing in the battle line, sustaining wars, receiving wounds, rarely standing, falling in sense, the soul is troubled, greatly troubled, because, hindered by the weights of the flesh, before it comes to the virtues it is first made captive to the vices. The Apostle describes these wars when he says: “The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do the things you want” (Gal 5:17). And elsewhere: “I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin” (Rom 7:23). So the blessed prophet, pleading these weaknesses, these wars, these disturbances of minds, addresses God with this cry: “And you, Lord, how long?” That is: how long do you endure? How long do you overlook? How long do you not help? How long do you allow your work to be scattered, your image blotted out, your creature to perish? Where is your Christ, announced so often through the law, through us, promised in many ways through the prophets? Let him come, let him come, before the world perishes and he finds nothing in the world to save. Let him come, let him come, to restore the flesh, renew the soul, change nature itself into a heavenly substance. Let him come to take away sin, blot out death, destroy hell, give back life, grant heaven, so that the earthly stain may no longer find in us anything to destroy. That the prophet asks this the following verse shows: “Turn, O Lord.” Does a man speak so to God, a defendant to the judge, a condemned man to the examiner? “Turn, O Lord.” Man sins, and God turns? Yes, brothers, because, according to the prophet: “He bears our sins and grieves for us” (Isa 53:4, according to the Septuagint). And blessed John: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). He took on sin so as to take sin away, not to have it. “Turn, O Lord.” From where? To where? From God into man, from master into servant, from judge into father, so that turning may show you devoted, whom power threatens as terrible. “Turn, O Lord; deliver my soul” from the lower hell. “Save me for your mercy's sake.” Not for my merit, whom labor afflicts, groaning wounds, tears dissolve, anger disturbs, the enemy attacks. But so that this may be clear, let the prophet's own prayer be sung: “Save me for your mercy's sake.” Why? “Because in death there is no one who remembers you, and in hell who will confess to you? I have labored in my groaning; every night I will wash my bed; I will water my couch with my tears.” Holy David said this while set on the royal summit, who so exercised the leadership of human power as to keep in himself the holiness of the spirit and the grace of a prophet; and we, set wholly under God's anger, do not know how to say: “Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury.” The earth denies its fruits, the sky its mildness, the air its healthfulness: hence a pestilence spread everywhere through cities and fields consumes every race of mortals with various kinds of diseases; and yet we do not say: “Lord, do not rebuke us in your fury, nor chastise us in your anger.” He, after his triumphs, filled his nights with groans and his days with tears; we, lying under the enemy's sword, give God no times, shed no tears to God even for an hour; but continually we hand ourselves over and give ourselves to robberies, frauds, perjuries, deceits, detractions, so as to rouse more and more God's anger against us with the fuel of crimes. Come, brothers, come with the prophet: “Come, let us worship and fall down before him, and weep before the Lord who made us” (Ps 95:6); come, let us say: “Lord, do not rebuke us in your anger, nor chastise us in your fury,” so that, mindful of his mercy, he may change anger into mercy, give back what is lost, free the captives, and grant us now to serve him with joy, who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

[On spiritual rejoicing and the confession of sins. On Psalm 95.] As a cool spring, very welcome and very wholesome, meets one who is burning hot and inflamed with long thirst, so today the prophetic song rouses us, set in grief and pressed down by too great a weight of troubles, to joys: “Come,” he says, “let us exult in the Lord” (Ps 95:1). “Come”: where to, or from where? From yourself, O man, into yourself, where not a change of place but a conversion of the senses drives off adversity, puts griefs to flight, casts away despair, shuts out distress, and, entering the dwelling of a sincere breast, prepares an eternal mansion for divine joy. “Let us exult in the Lord.” And where is that saying: “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matt 5:4), and “Woe to you who laugh” (Luke 6:25)? Plainly, blessed are those who mourn to the world and woe to those who laugh to the world; but blessed are those who exult in the Lord, who do not know how to rejoice in robberies, in frauds, in the tears of their neighbors. “Let us exult in the Lord.” He exults in the Lord who by word, act, and work exults not for himself but for his Author. “Let us exult in the Lord.” He exults in the Lord for whom God is always the sole and whole joy. “Let us shout with joy,” he says, “to God our salvation.” This is not the voice of sheep but of the shepherd, who with sweet joyful shouting and varied melody either leads the flock out to pasture, or keeps the tired flock at rest under a shady grove, or urges them to climb the heights of the hills by desire for more wholesome grass, or to descend gradually, with every need, to the slopes of the valleys. But blessed are those sheep who take in, draw on, nourish, and gather to the voice of their shepherd, and truly shout for joy to their shepherd: who strive to multiply for the Lord the offspring of his flock. “Let us come before his face with confession.” And who comes before the examiner of sins, the searcher of hearts, the one aware of thoughts, the foreknower of the future, present always and everywhere? But he is to be come before not by nearness of the senses but by sharpness of mind; not by swiftness of feet but by the foresighted service of confession: for he did not say only, “Let us come before him,” but, “Let us come before his face with confession.” That is, while there is hope of mercy, while it is the time of pardon, while there is room for repentance, let us confess to the Father so as not to feel the judge; let us disclose what we have done to kindness, so as not to be forced to pay to severity for what we keep silent; let us tell our offences in the time of indulgence, so that if we keep silent we may not weep at receiving the sentence. And what more, brothers? The most merciful prophet urges us to come before not the judge but the judgment. “And in psalms,” he says, “let us shout with joy to him”: so that the shouting might not be thought irrational, uttered without being spoken in our breast. “In psalms let us shout with joy”: so that in psalms the divine sacrament may resound and move the minds of the hearers to the advancement of salvation. “For God,” he says, “is a great Lord.” Here he opens the sacrament of the Lord's body, because God even in our body is a great Lord. “And a great king above all gods.” According to that saying: “Who will be like God among the sons of God?” (Ps 89:6): because all the powers above, though they rule the rest, are themselves ruled by Christ. “For in his hand are all the ends of the earth.” Because what is in God's hand cannot be obtained without God, if we desire to widen our borders, extend our boundaries, recover what is lost. Let us, then, entreat God with the strength of faith, by offending whom these things are lost to us, and by appeasing whom they return enlarged, who gives as he wills and takes away when he wills; if he cannot give back, he is not held almighty; he does many things as a sign of his majesty and as an example for our amendment and correction. Foreign defenses are empty if our King's help does not come to our aid. “For the sea is his, and he made it.” Do not think it sought out and found, and not founded by God. “The sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.” Where are those who imagine that God shaped the world out of matter, and above all out of water? Our God in heaven and on earth, not as discoverer but as creator of matter, made all things perfect from nothing. “Come,” he says, “let us worship.” What follows, brothers, shows to the ignorant the prophet as if forgetful of his exultation, since he at once calls those whom he had invited to joys to weeping: “Come,” he says, “let us worship and fall down before him, and weep before the Lord who made us.” He had said, “Come, let us exult”; but here the prophet desires us to shed with him tears of his joys: because tears are always brought forth by great joy as by great grief, and they set out and attest the affection of the inner breast. So he wants those who used to prostrate themselves before stones and wood, now that the true God is at last known, to worship, fall down, and make up with tears and with continual service of devotion what we neglected for a long time. So he weeps while he repents of the past, rejoices in the present, burns and fears for the future. That the weeping was of perfect joy the following words show: “Come, let us worship and fall down before him, and weep before the Lord who made us.” And as if he were asked why, he gives the causes, opens the reasons: “Because he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.” From this, surely, as devoted as one who rejoices is, so ungrateful certainly is one who is saddened. But let us now hear more attentively what he warns: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the desert, where your fathers tempted me; they tested me and saw my works. For forty years I was near to that generation, and I said: they always err in heart; and they did not know my ways; so I swore in my anger, they shall not enter into my rest.” When he says “today,” he addresses you, he speaks to you, whoever you are, O man, who hear, so that having heard his voice you may not incur the guilt of contempt and the crime of stubbornness, you whom neither precepts nor example have corrected. For this is why he narrated Jewish hardness in a long passage, to make you more cautious, Christian, with whom God lives and dwells not for forty years only, but for the whole time of life provides and fights for your salvation.

[On the parables of the pearl found and of the net cast into the sea.] Christ our God, in that he founded heaven, earth, and sea and in them great, many, and varied creatures, showed wonderful proofs of his power; but in that he takes up human things, acts as man, enters times, passes through ages, teaches by word, heals by power, speaks in likenesses, sets forth examples, he discloses the weight of our affection in himself, and shows the unspeakable love for humanity that is in him. This is why he commends heavenly things by earthly examples, gives understanding of future things from present ones, and represents invisible things by visible proofs; the likenesses that the Gospel hearing cries to us today prove it: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls; and having found one precious pearl, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matt 13:45–46). Let the name of merchant offend no one who hears this: he speaks here of a merchant who gives mercy, not one who always gives interest on a loan; who provides the ornaments of the virtues, not the incentives of vices; who carries the gravity of morals, not the weight of stones; who bears the necklaces of honor, not of luxury; who wears not the display of pleasure but the insignia of discipline. This merchant, then, sets forth these pearls of heart and body, not for human commerce but for divine exercise, not for present advantage but to purchase the future; not for earthly glory but for heavenly; so that he may acquire the kingdom of heaven as the reward of virtues, and with countless goods buy the one pearl of everlasting life. The Lord added a likeness, saying: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea and gathering fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it out, and sitting on the shore they chose the good into vessels but threw the bad away.” “The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea.” This likeness discloses why Christ chose fishermen for the apostolate and made catchers of fish fishers of men: so that the type of divine judgment might be shown by the fisherman's art. The catch gathers fish mixed together, but discernment puts the chosen into vessels: so the Christian calling gathers righteous and unrighteous, bad and good; but divine choice separates good and bad. “The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea.” Into the sea of this world, swelling with display, lifted up at its crest, billowing with sects, tossing with ignorance, noisy with lawsuits, roaring with anger, savage with unbelief, shipwrecked with sins, sunk in ungodliness, Christ sent his fishermen, that is, Peter, Andrew, James, John, proven in their craft, when he says: “Come after me; I will make you fishers of men” (Matt 4:19). So he sent his fishermen carrying nets knotted with the precepts of the law and of the Gospel, bound round with warnings, widened with the gifts and grace of the virtues, gathering a catch without end into the Gospel's fold. This is happening now, brothers, this is being done: through nations, through peoples the nets of Christ are now drawn, and they draw catches mixed together from the whole world, persons without distinction. But since the end of the world is near, and the nets of our catch are now drawing near to the shore of judgment, the fish, that is, men, who will wander free and at leisure through the deep running of the world, disturbed by the dryness of the shore, that is, by the nearness of the end, dash themselves against the whole ordering of things: seeing ungodly nations grow with successive triumphs, Christian peoples taken captive and hard pressed throughout the world, the ungodly rejoice in prosperous successes, the godly trampled by a continuous succession of evils, masters subjected to slavery, slaves lording it over masters, sons rebellious against parents, old men held in contempt by the young, and every state of nature and order of life lost. But though this is so, these things do not disturb the strong; rather they disturb the weak; they cannot disturb the strong, because they take strength from the likeness, firmness from the figure. Fish thrown up from the deep roll about a little on the shore in their confusion, but quick separation, while it throws away the bad, chooses the good; it makes the good not disturbed by this short and soon-passing confusion. This is the heavenly separation, which gives the bad to punishments, carries the good off to honor, brings the ungodly down to hell, sends the godly over to the kingdom, about to console fathers, old men, the righteous, the chosen, all, with perpetual glory after slight insult. The comparison itself proves this, when it is said: “At the end of the world the angels of God will go out and separate the bad from among the righteous.” “At the end of the world”: whoever believes in the end of the world, why does he complain of the world's decline? Whoever trusts that lasting things will follow, why does he seek to have passing things? Brothers, the world takes its beginning from its end; creation is renewed by its end, it does not fail; the world fails not for the Creator but for crime; nor are the elements ended for the righteous but for sinners. “At the end of the world the angels will go out to separate the righteous.” Nor let anyone doubt that angels will obey the saints, to whom Christ too promises his service. The voice of Christ is: “I will gird myself and serve you” (Luke 12:37). “The angels of God will go out and separate the bad from among the righteous.” Bear, righteous ones, bear with them, or rather grant a truce, righteous ones: this brief mixture will be repaid by a long separation. “They will separate the bad from among the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire.” See what dwelling those choose for themselves who throw out their neighbors and drive out guests; see how those who here prepare delights for themselves by the poor man's hunger and others' punishments kindle there for themselves as much fire as their little pleasure. “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” How wretchedly he gnashes there, who here laughs wretchedly; and he who now rejoices in the evils of the poor will then mourn over the goods of the poor, because he could have rejoiced with the poor man but would not. But you, faithful ones, rejoice in the Lord always.

[On Christ being called the carpenter's son, and on envy.] The evangelist, about to expose today the envy of the Jews toward Christ, began thus: “Jesus came,” it says, “to his own country, and taught them in their synagogues, so that they were astonished and said: ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and power? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?’” (Matt 13:54–56). Clouds do not so blind the sky, night the day, darkness the sun, as envy blinds and darkens the mind. Jewish spite proves this: it marvels at Christ's wisdom, is amazed at his powers, extols his works, takes up his sayings, and yet, so that divinity may not be seen in him nor Godhead perceived, it calls to mind and publishes the names of fleshly parents. “Jesus came,” it says, “to his own country.” Let no one wonder that the Founder of things, the Lord of the heavens, the God of all, is allotted a country and a place, since he shuts himself in a womb, measures himself by a cradle, occupies himself at the breasts, confines himself in a lap, gives himself into arms; and to take away human straits he gave and fitted himself to human straits. O man, God lays himself down to you by these things, follows you by them, searches you out through these straits, so as to re-form by example the one he formed by his work, to lead out by affection the one he drove away by judgment, and to keep in himself the one he sees has perished apart from himself. “Jesus came,” it says, “to his own country and taught them in their synagogues.” Not in his temple but in their synagogues. The synagogues could not be his, in which crowds of unbelief, not of faith, gathered; in which a people of envy, not of love, assembled; in which sat the council of the malicious, not the council of good discipline. “He taught in their synagogues, so that they were astonished.” They were astonished in indignation, not in gratitude; amazed in spite, not in praise; they raged because the humility that stood brought forth what the proud benches could not understand. “So that they were astonished and said: Where did this man get this wisdom?” So speaks one who does not know God, from whom comes wisdom, from whom comes power; so speaks one who does not know that Christ is the wisdom of God, the power of God. Where wisdom comes from Solomon proves, who, when he took up the summit of the kingdom as a little one, so as to rule the people entrusted to him by virtue, not by arrogance; by wisdom, not by swelling; by hearts, not from the summit, wanted, asked, and received wisdom from God (1 Kgs 3:9–12). “Where did this man get this wisdom and power?” The power that gives eyes that nature did not give, that restores hearing shut up by weakness, that loosens in the mute the bonds of their speech, that brings the lame back to running, that compels souls already bound in the lower world to return to their own bodies: none but one envious of salvation would deny that it is from God. But the Jews knew that Christ's works were of divine power, not of human possibility; but the cloud of spite and the smoke of malice darkened the sight of the onlookers, so that they might not see through to the light of Christ, the time of the Gospel, saying: “Is not this the carpenter's son?” They said, “This is the carpenter's son”; but whose carpenter's son they did not say; they said “carpenter's son” so that by a mean craft the craft of the Author might be hidden, and the name of a craftsman might hide the name of the Godhead. Christ was a carpenter's son, but of that one who made the fabric of the world not with a hammer but by command; who fitted together the members of the elements not by skill but by order; who forged the mass of the world by authority, not by charcoal; who kindled the sun not with earthly fire but with heavenly heat; who formed the moon, darkness, night, and seasons; who distinguished the stars with varied light; who made all things from nothing, and made them, O man, for you, so that you might weigh the workman by your estimate of the work. But you, Jew, brand the son of this carpenter, to whom for such benefits you ought to repay the debt in his Son: this is why you do not receive future things, because you are ungrateful for present ones. “Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary?” Again, Jew, you cry out the mother's name, you hide the Father's; you speak of a father, you do not speak his name; you say carpenter, you do not say his work. Jew, these things deceive you; they do not deceive those who will believe. “Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?” If the mother, if the brothers, if the sisters are with you, where is the father? He is not with you, because God hates the false, deserts the envious, turns from the ungrateful, does not allow the cruel and ungodly to dwell with him. “And are not all his brothers and sisters with us?” Craftily you thrust forward brothers, you parade sisters, so that by many births the virginity of the holy mother may be hidden, her integrity obscured, and everything human and nothing divine may be perceived of the Son. Jew, those whom you call Christ's brothers and sisters are the children of Cleopha, Mary's sister, not of Mary; and both the divine law and human kinship call the children of brothers and sisters brothers. So it was not the virginity of the mother, who remained a virgin after giving birth, that made them Christ's brothers, but the claim of kinship with his mother's sister. Blessed Mary, had the mother had other sons besides Christ, would not at the very time of the cross, at the very moment of death, have been handed over to a disciple, would not have been entrusted to a stranger. Envy cast the angel down from heaven (Isa 14), shut man out of paradise (Gen 3). It first defiled the earth with a brother's blood (Gen 4). It drove brothers to sell their brother (Gen 37). It put Moses to flight (Exod 2), stirred Aaron to wrong his brother, stained Miriam with spite against her brother (Num 12); and, not to say much, it reached and attacked (what the mind dreads, what the eye trembles at, what the ear cannot take in) the very blood of Christ. Envy is worse than all evils: those it has captured cannot be freed; those it has wounded do not come to healing, do not return to health. Envy is the poison of offences, the venom of crimes, the mother of sins, the origin of vices: whoever does not see it sees good things; whoever does not know it does not know evil; whoever flees it lives. Envy can be avoided by flight; it cannot be overcome by combat. But let us now hear what the Lord answered: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.” Christ indeed came to his own country and his own house, for it is written: “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him” (John 1:11). But by saying, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and his own house,” he teaches that among one's own, to be powerful is a bite, a burning; to stand out among neighboring citizens burns the glory of the neighbors: if kinsfolk owe honor to a kinsman, they count it servitude. “And he did not do many mighty works there,” it says, “because of their unbelief.” Power is not exercised where unbelief does not deserve it. And even if Christ demands no fee when he heals, yet he is indignant when insult is offered him instead of honor, he who is God over all, blessed and glorious for ages of ages. Amen.

[On the same, according to Mark.] Whenever the holy evangelist records that the Lord endured or did human things, he troubles the minds of carnal people as with a total commotion of the waves. For weak minds do not know how to hear, discern, and dispense the mysteries of the Lord's body, as today's reading shows, which says: “Jesus went out from there and went to his own country” (Mark 6:1). From where does he go out, and where does he go in, who is contained by no place, enclosed by no place? To what country does he go, who made and possesses the whole world? As the prophet says: “Yours are the heavens, and yours is the earth; you founded the world and its fullness” (Ps 89:11). But Christ goes out and goes in not for himself through himself, but for you through you, until he brings you in when expelled, recalls the exile, leads back and carries back the one cast out. So “Jesus went to his own country”: not to give his own back to himself, but to give back to you your country, which Adam had lost. “He went to his own country.” If he was born, how not a man? If a man, how not a citizen? If a citizen, who would wonder that he has a country? But this is the manner of his humanity, not the order of his divinity, that he confesses: because he who is and who was before the ages our God, our parent, willed to be among the last through the ages, so as to save by kindness those whom he had made by power, and by sharing their sufferings to receive back those whom he had made exiles by rebuking and commanding. For whatever we read that Christ did or endured through the man he assumed, let us not hear it as an injury to his divinity, but as having advanced the glory of man. “And his disciples,” it says, “followed him.” Rightly do the disciples follow Christ returning to his country, whom so great an election, the fullness of so great a grace, had already made citizens and burghers of the heavenly country, written in the roll of the order above, as the Lord says: “Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). “And when the sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished at his teaching, saying: ‘Where did this man get all these things? And what is the wisdom given to him, and such mighty works done by his hands?’” Unhappy and detestable wickedness of the Jewish mind, always readier to debate than to believe: it is anxiously moved by divine powers not to faith but to false accusation, even because it deserved to hear so great a wisdom. But since it is maliciously curious, or querulous, suspicious of good things, quite ready for harmful ones, it despises the teaching that it admires; it scorns the precepts it approves; slow toward God, very prone to idols; cunning in divine things, wholly relaxed toward wood and stones; rebellious against prophecy, contrary to truth, lost in auguries and lies. I ask: to whom is it a cause for caution that a blind man sees? To whom a cause for anxiety that a dead man rises? To whom a doubt that a mute man speaks? Surely, who would not know that he is God by whose command alone every weakness is healed? Moses had done many signs, Elijah had shown the greatest proofs of power, Elisha had done works not unlike them: why does no one examine their person? Why does no one raise a question about their status? Why has no one, ungrateful, inquired with such curiosity where they came from, who they were, where these things came from, and through whom they did them? But he alone is judged here who alone was unwilling to judge so as not to punish; he is examined with wicked severity who, so as to grant pardon, asked nothing; and though he alone was innocent and found all guilty, as a sign of his immense kindness he preferred to take up the sentence rather than repeal it, so as to give back to mortals the life long lost and restore the slain. Truly, as the Apostle said: “Great is the sacrament of godliness, which is manifested” in the flesh of our Christ (1 Tim 3:16). Yet this carnal rivalry, whose thinking is always hostile to truth, extends its curiosity still further: it does not allow Christ to be believed God by his powers and wisdom, but by the evidence of neighbors, parents, brothers, relatives it asserts, is eager, wishes, and understands him to be only a man, saying: “Is not this the carpenter's son and Mary's, the brother of James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not his sisters here with us?” Caiaphas prophesies with a profane mouth (John 11:49–52); and though he was high priest, he overcame the sense of his own falsehood by the office of truth; he proves his sentence not by his own command but by that of one condemned. Balaam blesses with a mouth meant to curse, and, hired for wickedness, speaks wholly the mysteries of truth (Num 23–24); and as a rose among thorns, that is, as little flowers of wonderful fragrance spring up on a bristling bush, so sometimes the minds of the worst are driven unwillingly to good things by the impulse of the Godhead, so that what they say is a matter not of merit but of mystery. We see that this happened then to Jewish malice, which, to insult the Lord's birth, while through Joseph's craft it exaggerates the truth of Christ's lineage, confesses and speaks of the quality of his true begetter, saying: “This is the carpenter's son.” Well did it keep silent about the name, so as to betray the begetter by his craft, saying not “Joseph's son” but “the carpenter's son.” And what carpenter is such as this one, who fashioned so great and such a world out of nothing? And what carpenter is such as he, who alone is the author and alone the giver of all good craft? Say, then, Jew, “the carpenter's son,” so that you may confess unwillingly “the Son of God”; say “Mary's son,” so that, driven to it, you may confess a true man, but the son of a virgin; say “brothers,” so that you may proclaim and set forth so great a condescension of your Creator. And although by this you strive to hide the virtues of the holy mother, yet the truth of the evangelist proves and asserts that those you call brothers were the sons not of Joseph and Mary but of Cleopha, her sister; for the usage even of the present time is known to call the sons of brothers and sisters brothers. For the Lord would never, against the order of devotion, have entrusted his mother from the cross to an outsider, that is, to John, if she had borne other sons besides him; but he hands over a virgin to a virgin, so that between such persons there might be only the care of the sacrament and only the fellowship of religion; nor would so great a disciple serve worldly concern, but, about to preach the virgin birth, he would have at home the means of proving it to the doubtful. And James could not have had the care of one woman and mother, he who in the beginnings, and in that Jewish fury of the time, ruled the church of Jerusalem by himself. Well did the Lord add: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country.” See how carnal citizens think; see how worldly relatives feel and give honor. Blessed is he who, having deserved to have God as father, seeks nothing besides the heavenly country.

[On the healing of the paralytic.] Today's reading has shown that Christ carried out divine mysteries in human acts and conducted invisible business in visible things. “He got into a boat,” it says, “and crossed over and came to his own city” (Matt 9:1). Is he not the one who, putting the waves of the sea to flight, laid bare the depths, so that the people of Israel passed through amid the astonished waves with dry foot, as through the hollows of mountains (Exod 14)? Is not this the one who bent the crests of the sea under Peter's feet, so that the watery road gave solid service to human steps (Matt 14)? And why does he so deny himself the service of the sea as to make the crossing of a very small lake for a sailor's fare? “He got into a boat,” it says, “and crossed over.” And what wonder, brothers? Christ came to take up our weaknesses and confer his powers on us, to seek human things and grant divine ones, to receive insults and give back dignities, to bear weariness and bring back health; because a physician who does not bear weaknesses does not know how to heal weaknesses; and one who has not been weak with the weak cannot give health to the weak. So Christ, had he remained in his powers, would have had nothing in common with men; and unless he had fulfilled the order of the flesh, his taking on of flesh would have been idle. So he endured these necessities, so as to be proved a true man by human necessities. “He got into a boat.” Christ boarded the ship of his Church, always about to calm the waves of the world, so as to lead those who believe in him to the heavenly country by a calm voyage, and to make citizens of his city those whom he made sharers of his humanity. So Christ does not need the ship, but the ship needs Christ, because without the heavenly helmsman the ship of the Church cannot reach the heavenly harbor through the sea of the world with such great danger. We have said these things, brothers, as far as concerns spiritual understanding; but now let us follow the order of the history itself. “He got into a boat and crossed over and came to his own city.” The Creator of things, the Lord of the world, after he narrowed himself for our sake in our flesh, began to have a human country, began to be a citizen of a Jewish city; he who is parent of all parents began to have parents, so that love might invite, charity attract, affection conquer, kindness persuade those whom lordship had put to flight, fear had scattered, the force of power had made exiles. “He came to his own city, and behold, they brought him a paralytic lying on a bed; and Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic: ‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.’” The paralytic hears pardon and is silent, and returns no thanks, because he was more eager for the healing of body than of soul; and he so lamented the temporal distresses of his loosened body as not to lament the eternal punishments of the loosening of the soul, judging the present life more welcome to himself than the future. Rightly does Christ look to the faith of those who brought him, and so look past the folly of the one lying there, that by the support of another's faith the paralytic's soul might be healed before his body. “Seeing,” it says, “their faith.” You see in this place, brothers, that God does not seek the wishes of the foolish, does not look at the faith of the ignorant, does not examine the foolish desires of the sick, but comes to help at another's faith, conferring by grace alone, since he would not deny whatever is of the divine will. And truly, brothers, when does a physician either seek or accept the wishes of the sick, since the sick man always desires and asks for contrary things? This is why he now applies the knife, now fire, now bitter cups, and administers them to the unwilling, so that when healthy they may feel the cure that they could not feel while sick. And if a man despises insults and scorns curses so as freely to confer life and health on those wounded by disease, how much more does Christ the physician, by divine goodness, draw to health even unwilling and reluctant those wounded with the diseases of sins and suffering from the frenzy of crimes? O if we were willing, brothers, O if we were willing to see through the whole paralysis of our mind, to see our soul, destitute of virtues, lying on the beds of vices, it would be clear to us how Christ both daily looks past our harmful wishes and draws us to saving remedies and presses us on unwilling. “Son,” he says, “your sins are forgiven.” In saying this he wished to be understood as God, who through the man was still hidden from human eyes; for in powers and signs he was compared with the prophets, who through him had themselves done mighty works; but by giving pardon to sins, because this is not in man's power and is the singular mark of divinity, he was setting himself as God in human breasts. Pharisaic spite proves it: for when he had said, “Your sins are forgiven,” the Pharisees answered: “This man blasphemes; for who can forgive sins but God alone?” Pharisee, who by knowing do not know, by confessing deny, by testifying attack: if God is the one who forgives sins, why is Christ not God to you, who by the one gift of his pardon is proved to have taken away the sins of the whole world? “Behold,” he says, “the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). And so that you may grasp greater marks of his divinity, hear that he has penetrated the secret of your breast; see that he has reached the hiding places of your thoughts; understand that he lays bare the silent counsels of your heart. “And when Jesus,” it says, “saw their thoughts, he said: ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Rise and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins’, he said to the paralytic: ‘Rise, take up your bed, and go to your house.’ And he rose and went to his house.” The searcher of souls forestalls the malicious counsels of minds, and showed the power of his divinity by the testimony of a work, while he puts together the limbs of a dissolved body, tightens the sinews, joins the bones, fills the inward parts, strengthens the joints, and rouses to running the steps already buried in a living corpse. “Take up your bed.” That is: carry what carried you; change all roles, so that what was the witness of weakness may be the proof of health, so that the bed of your pain may be the sign of my healing, so that the greatness of the weight may declare the greatness of the strength recovered. “Go,” he says, “to your house,” so that, healed by Christian faith, you may no longer linger in the ways of Jewish unbelief.

[On the healing of the deaf and mute demoniac.] Since the summer heat had poured itself on the earth more than usual, I kept silent for a long time, so that the crowding that is born of the desire to listen might not itself produce for us the burning of the dog-days: now, when the mildness of autumn has tempered the air, we are called back, with the Lord's help, to the Lord's word. When a certain man brought to the Lord for healing his son, possessed by the fury of a deaf and mute spirit, the evangelist so reported the Lord as moved, beyond his custom of patience, that he inveighed against the father's wound before he set himself to the son's healing. “One of the crowd,” it says, “answered and said: ‘Teacher, I brought my son to you, who has a mute spirit; and wherever it seizes him, it dashes him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I told your disciples to cast it out, and they could not.’ And he answered them and said: ‘O unbelieving generation!’” (Mark 9:17–19). “One of the crowd answered.” Why is it that when one asks, many are struck? Why is it that when one complains, all are branded with unbelief? Why is it that at the voice of one the whole generation is called proud with unbelief? Why? Because this man had come not to God but to a teacher, demanding healing not from power but from skill; attributing the slowness of the healing not to the case but to the healer; assigning the disciples' inability to the master's lack of skill; by such clamor satisfying Jewish spite and the envy of the scribes. “And I told your disciples to cast it out, and they could not.” That is to say: that there was a devil who would not believe Christ, a demon that could hold the power of Christ's name cheap. The disciples were driving demons out of possessed bodies not in their own name but in Christ's. So that the demon did not yield at the disciples' command this man was drawing to the weakness of Christ's name, not to the fault of the disciples. Seeing, then, that the crowds of the Jews standing around thought this way, the Lord so brands the unbelief of the fathers in the sons, and so strikes the poisonous offspring in their parents: “O unbelieving generation!” “Coming,” it says, “to his disciples, the Lord saw a great crowd around them and scribes disputing with them; and at once all the people, seeing Jesus, were amazed and greatly afraid”: fearing, surely, that with the master's coming they would lose what they had insulted the disciples with, and that, when so great a demon was driven out, the very thing that had been an occasion of shame would become a cause of glory for the disciples. This is why the Lord, when one asked, answered all: “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you?” By whose unbelief not even one demon is put to flight from a captive body. “How long shall I be with you?” And shall I not send to the nations, where at the voice of one disciple of mine temples collapse, images flee, altars are consumed, idols fall, groves are cut down, the whole power of the demons is put to flight from its ancient and decrepit seats groaning, trembling, and howling; shrines are changed into churches, pagan altars are turned into Christian altars, the victims of dead cattle are changed into the living sacrifice of the heart, and auguries, divinations, and dreams are placed in God's nod alone, in God's decision only? “How long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” He bears with them by patience, not fear; not by necessity but by mercy; he bears with them, carries them, waits for them in expectation, not in dread, who wants the ungodly to return, not to perish. “Bring him to me”: as if he could not heal one placed far away; but bring yourselves the cause of your unbelief, the title of your faithlessness, the proof of your unbelief. “Bring him”: so that you who would not believe God teaching may believe at least the demon confessing, and may feel yourselves more wicked than the devil himself when you see him confess and tremble at once at the presence of his examiner. “And they brought him; and when the spirit saw him, at once it convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming.” The man was rolling, but the devil was being tortured; the cure harassed the one invaded, but the majesty of the judge was rebuking the invader; the captive was being set before him, but the enemy was being punished; the devil's punishment appeared in the torment of the human body. There is need, brothers, there is need of God's light, so that human eyes may not be deceived in God's work. “And he asked his father: ‘How long is it since this happened to him?’ And he said: ‘From childhood.’” The author of time asks the time of the suffering; the physician asks the time of the suffering not as one ignorant but as one knowing, to reveal it to those who do not know. So by such a question he discloses the time, makes known the age, goes back over the infancy, so that the cause of so great an evil may touch not the offspring but the parent, because he had devoted the child given him by God to the favor of the devil, to the honor of demons, as Scripture says: “And they offered their sons and their daughters to demons” (Ps 106:37). What crime had infancy committed, what guilt, to make room for the devil in itself? But little ones are filled with a demon when they are offered to the devil by their parents, led to the demons' care. So he is freed by the father's faith whom the father's unbelief had bound. The father's voice is: “If you can do anything, help us, having compassion on us.” That is: help us, have mercy on us, whose guilt weighs down the innocent, to whose punishment the danger of the child so overflows. And rightly the Lord asks faith of the parent, saying: “If you can believe, all things are possible to one who believes.” And the father: “I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.” The father believes; and, as we said, he is freed by the father's faith who had been condemned by the father's unbelief. For he whom the begetter's faith profited, how could the begetter's unbelief fail to harm him? But how he was healed, or why the disciples, who had cast out many demons, could not drive this one out, we will lay open, with the Lord's help, in the following sermon.

[On the same.] It is the teacher's duty to discuss what has been read, and to set out and show in clear speech what is obscured in mystical meanings, so that lesser understanding may not breed ruin for the hearer from the very source that should and could have conferred saving knowledge. This, then, is the harmony of today's reading: “And one of the crowd answered and said: ‘Teacher, I have brought my son, who has a deaf and mute spirit’” (Mark 9:17). He did not say, “I have brought my son, deaf and mute,” but, “I have brought my son, who has a deaf and mute spirit.” Is spiritual wickedness distinguished by human members and confined by human senses, so as to bear our weaknesses and our sufferings, unable to see except through the windows of the eyes, to take in hearing through the openings of the ears, to bring forth speech by the service of the tongue, and so to endure the pitiable state of the deaf and mute, when its thin and airy nature does not know flesh, rejects bones, passes through the whole world in a moment of time like a breathing breeze, assumes different appearances, is changed into various forms, penetrates hearts, mocks souls, breathes in ungodly and most shameful thoughts, and is not perceived whence it comes or whither it returns, and so, like a flying javelin, pierces innocent minds with a deadly wound and with every ease? It would be little if the father alone had said this in his supplication, “I have brought my son, who has a deaf and mute spirit,” had not the Lord himself driven out the unclean spirit with such a rebuke: “You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him.” But let us now follow what concerns the solution of the question. God, who will burn the demons in everlasting fire, who already now binds them with chains, distresses them with torments, presses them with punishments, can also, when he commands, maim them with every weakness, and in the very way they see, hear, and speak, make them blind, deaf, and mute so that they cannot speak. But in this place let it be declared what the devil did to the man. The ancient runaway, when he found that God had come to earth, stopped up the ears of men, bound the tongue, and, the doors of human sense locked, made and prepared the human breast as the hiding place of his cave, thinking that the hearing of the word and the power of the divine name would not come there; at the same time, as he is crafty and cunning, he believed that by such a fiction he could catch the father and deceive the parents, so that they would despair that one who could neither hear nor speak could be healed, and would believe that what was the devil's work belonged to human weakness, would put down to the child and ascribe to nature what the enemy shut inside had brought in. In fact, as Matthew reports of the same case, he had deceived the father of this wretch with another pretense too; for he begs thus: “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is moonstruck and suffers terribly” (Matt 17:15). The demon wished what had been his own craft to seem then to belong either to human nature or to a heavenly element, fitting the man's sufferings to the courses of the moon; he harassed the body as the moon waxed, so that people would believe that what was the crime and fury of the devil belonged to the moon. So he mocked men, got around the ignorant, defamed among the idle a creature which, made only for light, does not know how to harm men, whom it is rather bound by continual service to help. But after the knower of hidden things came, the most powerful inspector of secrets, whom the hidden fictions of the devil could not withstand, the boy is brought to be healed by divine command, so that whatever the devil had bound might be loosed by Christ. The enemy worked, worked to make what was seen seem to belong to nature. But why could the disciples not cast him out? Because this man is presented as a figure of the Gentile people: for the Gentile people, according to the Apostle, had the spirit of this air. “The spirit of the air,” he says, “who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph 2:2). So this man was deaf and mute, who could neither hear the law nor confess God, but was tossed in the fire of Gehenna and in the waters of the ever-bitter flood; nor could he be healed by the disciples or by any man, because Christ was long since called the hearing of faith, the confession of salvation, the redemption and life of the nations. Then, when the devil was put to flight by Christ's command, what was shut is opened, the bonds are loosed, speech is restored, hearing returns, the man is repaired, and only the devil weeps that he has been thrust out of his long possession. This is why one coming from the Gentiles is first cleansed from the demon by the laying on of hands and exorcisms, and receives the opening of the ears, so that he may take in the hearing of faith and may come to salvation, with the Lord leading.

[On peace.] “Blessed are the peacemakers,” says the evangelist, dearly beloved, “for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt 5:9). Rightly do the Christian virtues flourish in one who has the unanimity of Christian peace, and the title of son of God is not reached except through the name of peacemaker. It is peace, dearly beloved, that strips a man of servitude, gives him the name of freeborn, changes his person with his condition before God, makes a son out of a servant, a free man out of a slave. Peace among brothers is the will of God, the delight of Christ, the perfection of holiness, the rule of justice, the teacher of doctrine, the guardian of morals, and in all things a praiseworthy discipline. Peace is the support of prayers, the easy and successful way of supplications, the fitting fullness of all desires. Peace is the mother of love, the bond of concord, and the clear sign of a pure mind, which demands of God for itself what it wants; which asks whatever it wishes, and takes whatever it asks. Peace is to be kept by royal commands, as the Lord Christ himself says: “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you” (John 14:27); that is to say: I left you in peace, in peace I will find you: departing, he wished to give what on returning he desired to find in all. It is a heavenly command to keep what he gave; there is one word: I will find what I left. To plant peace by the roots is God's work; to tear it out completely is the enemy's. For as the love of brotherhood is from God, so hatred is from the devil; therefore hatreds are to be condemned, for it is written: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). You see, then, dearest brothers, why peace is to be loved and concord cherished; for these are what beget and nourish charity. And you know, according to the apostle, that charity is from God (1 John 4:7); so he who does not have charity is without God. The peace of the people, dearly beloved, is the glory of the bishop, and the perfect charity of the children is the full joy of peace. It is the bishop's part to admonish what is fitting, the people's to hear what he admonishes; it is the shepherd's part to forbid whatever is not lawful, the flock's to hear and to want it not done: if both agree, all is safe: neither does God find in the people anything to punish, nor can the bishop have anything to grieve over. Let us keep, then, brothers, the commands that are of life; let the brotherhood hold itself bound together by the bonds of deep peace, and bind itself with mutual love by the saving chain of charity, which covers a multitude of sins. Love, then, is to be embraced with all desires, which can have as many good things as it has rewards. Peace is to be guarded above all virtues, because God is always in peace. Let us give no room to the enemy, lest he be able to sow tares in the crop of wheat, and, when the farmer is already secure and cheated of the hope of long labor, destroy the awaited fruits at the very ripeness of the harvest; or disturb wine sweet with age, changed into a liquor of faithlessness by the mixing in of dregs; or mix poisons more bitter than gall among sweet honey. Let contentions be sent far off, far off lawsuits, far off curses; and since the tongue of the whisperer and the double-tongued is a snare of death, let each spare his own soul, lest he tie for himself the bonds of death to his own punishment. Love peace, and all is calm, so that you may keep rewards for us and joys for yourselves, so that the Church of God, founded in the unity of peace, may hold perfect discipline in Christ.

[On Zacchaeus.] The blessed evangelist recently, in describing the life and end of the inhuman rich man, moved and saddened human feelings; but today, by reporting the kindness and faith of the rich man Zacchaeus, he has lifted and advanced us to heavenly joy. “And having entered,” it says, “Jesus was passing through Jericho” (Luke 19:1). Why does he pass through, not walk? Because what Moses had walked, Christ was passing through; and the people whom Moses led into the way, Jesus brought to the rest of the promised dwelling. “He was passing through Jericho.” Jericho is the very city that Joshua son of Nun overthrew with the sevenfold blast of trumpets (Josh 6). But since Christ came to save what had perished, he enters Jericho, so that what the law had cast down with terrible shouting, Jesus might lift up with the cry of devoted preaching. “Jesus,” it says, “having entered, was passing through Jericho; and behold, a man named Zacchaeus, and he was a chief of tax collectors, and he was rich.” Zacchaeus is written to have held, in a lost city, the leadership of a lost work: from the place, the person, and the office the greatness of the guilt is shown, so that from the greatness of the crime the greatness of the one forgiving may shine out. “And he sought to see Jesus.” Whoever seeks to see Christ, let him look at heaven, whence Christ is, not at the earth, whence gold is. The rich man, then, who looks upward does not carry riches but tramples them; is not bent by riches but lifted up; and he drives riches to the service of the one who gives, not to the slavery of riches to avarice; the avaricious man is the slave of riches, not their master; but the merciful man proves himself to have as many servants as coins. “He sought to see Jesus and could not because of the crowd, for he was small in stature.” He was great enough in spirit, who seemed small in body; for he touched the heavens with his mind, who did not equal men in body. Let no one, then, worry about the shortness of his body, to which he can add nothing, but let him take care to stand out in faith. “And running ahead, he climbed a tree.” By what steps do you think he reached the branches of the very high tree? He trod on the earth, climbed above gold, rose beyond avarice, and stepped over the whole mass of riches, so that, leaping into the tree of pardon, he might grasp the fruit of mercy, and from the watchtower of confession behold the giver of indulgence. “He climbed a sycamore tree.” By mystery, not by chance: he climbed a sycamore tree, so that from where Adam had covered the nakedness of his body, Zacchaeus might veil the foulness of avarice. “He climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus, because he was to pass that way.” Truly he said “to pass,” because Christ had come through earthly ways and human labors not to remain but to pass by. “And when Jesus came to the place, looking up he saw him.” As if, had he not turned his eyes there, he would not have seen him, he who saw Nathanael from afar under the same tree when he was absent (John 1:48)? But he saw him, saw him for pardon, looked on him for grace, gazed at him for life, beheld him for salvation. God, when he sees someone, does not wish to recognize him as one ignorant, but as one knowing wishes to see him for glory. “He saw him and said to him: ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.’” If he had climbed up well, why is he told to come down? Above it said: “Running ahead, he climbed the tree.” The servant ran ahead of the Lord, and Zacchaeus climbed the tree before the Ruler climbed the cross; that is why he is told: “Hurry and come down.” If you are wise, hurry and come down: come down before the Lord from Adam's tree, so that after the cross of the Lord's passion you may climb up. “Unless one takes up his cross and follows me” (Matt 10:38); he did not say, “goes before me.” Come down, then, so that you may lay down the burdens of so great a fraud, the weights of greed, the mass of interest, the mastery of a tax collector, the leadership of most cruel exaction, and, unencumbered, enter the school of poverty, the discipleship of mercy, the practice of kindness, the discipline of patience, the pursuit of virtues, the knowledge of divinity, the endurance of sufferings, the philosophy of death, and, made perfect, climb the heights of the tree of life. “Come down, for today I must stay at your house.” Whoever's house Christ has not entered will not come to the divine dwelling; and he at whose table Christ has not sat here will not recline at the heavenly table. “And he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.” He rejoices, because he received the one who receives him, because he feeds his shepherd, because the guilty man bends the judge with the support of kindness, because by the interest of food and drink he makes and acquires his debtor for himself; and so it comes about that this tax collector does not lose his profit but changes it. “And when they saw it,” it says, “they all murmured, saying that he had gone in to a sinful man.” And who is without sin? And if no one is, he denies pardon to himself who accuses God for going in to sinners. God, when he seeks a sinner, seeks not the sins but the man, so as to look past the sin, which is the work of man, so as not to lose his own work, which is man. Hear the prophet saying: “Turn away your face from my sins” (Ps 51:9), that is, from my works. But of himself: “Do not despise the works of your hands” (Ps 138:8). A judge, when he wants to pardon, looks at the man, not the fault; a father, when he wants to have mercy on his son, thinks of his affection, not the offence: so in man God remembers his own work so as to forget the human work. You, then, who rebuke, who murmur why Christ turned in to a sinner, take from such an entrance the way of salvation, the example of pardon, the hope of mercy, and take care that what is for you an occasion of salvation may not become for you material for blasphemy. Where does a physician go but to the sick? “Those who are well,” he says, “have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matt 9:12). Where does a panting shepherd go but to the lost sheep? When does a king mingle himself with enemies, except when he wants to free a captive? And whoever loses a precious pearl does not disdain to enter squalid places and does not shrink from searching for it amid the very dung. Into what headlong place does a mother not throw herself after her son? And is God, who created man in his image and likeness (Gen 1:26), blamed for seeking man amid sins with the love of a creator? You murmur, O man, why God seeks man amid sins: what will you do when you see him, for man's sake, penetrate the very darkness of hell? But hear what Christ's entering in to a sinner did. “Zacchaeus,” it says, “stood and said.” You see how he who lay low is raised up. We lie in vices, and lie crushed; we stand when we are raised to progress by good works. “Zacchaeus,” it says, “stood and said: ‘Half of my goods I give to the poor.’” He believes that he will live after death, who sends half his goods ahead on the way to come. Although he is perfect who always sends ahead from here everything he has to the place where he will live, yet this man is a companion of the virtues, a partner of prudence, a sharer of faith, who sends even half to God, because what a man leaves here he loses. And truly, brothers, as this man believes that he lives there who sends his goods there, so that man does not believe that he will live there who has prepared nothing there that he should have. For if we can scarcely bear temporal poverty, who will endure becoming a beggar forever? What soldier does not send to his homeland whatever he acquires by the sweat of war, so that a delightful old age may make up for the labors of youth? And how does a Christian, for whom living in the world is soldiering, not think how to console earthly dangers with heavenly leisure? How a Christian should do this, Zacchaeus himself teaches by word and shows by example: “Half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by fraud, I restore fourfold.” Whoever spends what belongs to others plunders more by giving than by stealing; nor does he still the groans of the grieving but prolongs them. I dare to say: whoever offers to God from fraud heaps up crimes, he does not cleanse them; because in such a gift God sees the spoils of his poor, not acts of mercy. He weeps to God in vain, against whom the poor man has justly wept to God. The voice of God is: “If you take your brother's tunic in pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset” (Exod 22:26). As a lamp betrays a thief, so the sun accuses those who defraud. If we want to offer our goods to God, if we want to possess our goods with God, let us too deserve to hear such things as Zacchaeus heard: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.” The inhuman rich man, though he was a son of Abraham, became a son of Gehenna; this man, though he was a son of plunder, by giving his own and returning others', is adopted as a son of Abraham. Yet let no one think that Zacchaeus, by offering half his goods, held the summit of perfection, he who after all his goods so gave himself also to the Lord that, supported by the honor of the episcopate, he came from the tax collector's table of gain to the table of the Lord's body; and, leaving behind the fraudulent riches of the world, he found in the poverty of Christ the true riches of the world.

[On God's fatherly love for us, on the love of fathers for their children, and on the punishment of the Jews.] Since the precepts of the law, spread through volumes and gathered in books, were not enough to commend divine love to us, God's affection is set and slipped into the hard hearts of men by comparisons and examples. “Which of you,” he says, “if his son asks his father for bread, will give him a stone? Or for a fish will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he hand him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the good Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11:11–13). “Which of you, if his son asks his father for bread, will give him a stone?” Love has no guile, devotion no fraud, affection admits no falsehood. If he is a father, he cannot not love; if he loves, he does not know how to give anything but what is good. He denies his father who is suspicious of his father's generosity; he does not know himself a son whom a father's gifts make anxious. He shuts out everything that belongs to devotion who does not believe that whatever a father gives is wholesome; or how could a father give evil for good to his children, who is always ready to bear evils for his children, who does not shrink from death, does not avoid dangers for his children? And so God made you a father, so he willed that a man be begotten by you, he who, surely, since he had made you from the earth, could have made very many; but he acted so that by begetting you might know how great is the affection of one who begets, and might prove in yourself the love of your Author for you to be as great as you, the author of a child, strive to spend on your child. Certainly God wished you to perceive not only in yourself what the affection of one who begets is, but he willed you to see it in wild beasts, cattle, and birds: when he had brought them forth from the earth by his command alone, he afterward made them feel the labor of begetting, change their homes, seek places fit for dens, fortify their young in difficult places, bring them forth with groans, rear them with the greatest labors, and not refuse themselves to death if they see their young being taken. So if not by comparison with man, then at least by comparison with wild beasts, by the likeness of cattle, by the examples of birds, learn how great is the sincerity in a father's love. If, then, you believe God and have confessed him Father, whatever he has commanded, whatever he has chosen in you, believe that it is quite salutary for you, believe that it is quite life-giving. It is not right to examine a mother's gifts, it is not fitting to call a father's warnings into question; so, though the appearance of a father's command may be rather sad, the thing itself is salutary and life-giving. So Abraham, when he believed God to be Father, did not attend to the harsh and bitter forms of the commands; he accepted shameful circumcision (Gen 17); and what the heavenly Father commands he does not examine but judges glorious: he considers the most criminal parricide, but because God commands it he entrusts everything to devotion. Hence Isaac, when he saw his father's sword over him, rejoiced to be a victim when he could have shuddered and grieved (Gen 22). Hence the daughter of Jephthah paid her father's gift, her father's vows, by her death with full gladness (Judg 11). Why, then, does one who already knows God dispute the gifts of the Father, when a little innocent child asking of its father receives only what is good and profitable for it? But let us inquire why the Lord made these comparisons. “Which of you,” he says, “if his son asks his father for bread, will give him a stone?” He could have said: Will he give tares, will he give darnel, which by nearness and likeness imitates bread but brings distress? But Christ had come to the sons, that is, to the Jews, whom he complained he had begotten, with such a cry: “I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have despised me” (Isa 1:2). So he had come to the sons, the bread from heaven had come, who said: “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41). But for the Jews he was turned into a stone of stumbling (Rom 9:32–33) and a rock of scandal (Isa 8:14), as the Lord says: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal” (Isa 28:16). Why a rock? Because they were eager to bite a rock, not to seek bread from the Father. “Many dogs,” it says, “have surrounded me” (Ps 22:16). In short, after they are proved to have been turned from men into dogs, the heavenly bread was turned for them into a rock, not by the fault of the giver but by the wickedness of the receivers, so that it did not refresh them but killed them; nor, set as a foundation, did it advance them to the summit, but it gave over and rolled into deep ruin those who were bent on the killing of their Father. He added another likeness: “Will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?” Christ was also the fish, drawn up from the bed of the Jordan, who, laid on the coals of the passions, after the resurrection gave his own, that is, the disciples, a life-giving food; but for the Jews this fish is changed into a serpent, as the Lord says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14). The Jews saw Christ in the serpent, because the ungodly eye cannot see God, cannot see kindness. He also gave a third likeness: “If he asks for an egg, will he hand him a scorpion?” It is the usual and established custom that little children always ask for an egg, and parents do not refuse an egg to the little ones asking. But since Christ had come to gather as a hen her chicks (Matt 23:37), he brought forth the egg of the word, by which the holy offspring of the Church might be nourished. But since the Jew out of envy wished to pour out that egg rather than take it, he finds there a scorpion, so that, according to the Apostle, “the commandment that was for them unto life proved to be for them unto death” (Rom 7:10). In commendation of kindness the Lord brought forth and showed three examples, so that by three testimonies, as by three witnesses, he might both encourage the devout to faith in his love and refute the ungodly, showing that they had failed to receive the grace of love not by the Father's fault but by their own. [Sermon 56. On the Apostles' Creed.] The sudden and confused storm of an untimely birth would trouble me, and premature shoots would disturb me, were it not that those about to be born, often breaking through the delays of the times, and by a crude robbery, the barriers of the womb broken, seek and seize the sudden gains of living. This is why a man often, despising the term of the tenth month, casts off and deserts in the seventh month the narrow and confined dwelling of his first home, the womb, so that, a new warrior, he may rejoice to have won the victory before the time rather than pay his servitude to the times. And if this is allowed to human nature, what can resist the heavenly and divine nature? Or what can the Holy Spirit not do, if the flesh can do this? Or how does heavenly grace not accomplish what human frailty obtains and fulfills? Did not Paul so harass the way of our faith and the womb of the mother with bitter pain, as with a heavenly whirlwind and the whole storm of the Church, as to anticipate the time of the one giving birth, so that he was born suddenly and on the way (Acts 9), he who was to provide the Gentiles a way to faith? Rightly does he call himself one untimely born (1 Cor 15:8), and wonders that he was born, who knew that he had undergone no time of conception. For while he, as an enemy, was still striking from outside the womb of the holy mother and dashing her venerable offspring at their very birth, he is suddenly changed into a holy offspring, he who had been the fiercest persecutor of that very offspring. The eunuch too is begotten on the way (Acts 8), so that the one whom human harshness had castrated for a man's service and whom unwilling chastity had placed within a king's palace, a voluntary and vowed chastity might advance and transfer to the glory of the heavenly palace, to the service of the eternal King. Blessed is he to whom it was granted not to lose the insignia of the palace but to change them. This is what reason says, little children, so that you, whom we received sorrowful, we may bring most joyful to the mother's womb in one and the same moment. Hear the faith, learn the prayer. But since, with time hindering us, neither can we open the mystery to you nor can you solemnly give back to us what is handed over, act so that now you learn simply the words of the Creed, and at the Easter season, when these things are handed over more fully, you may be able to come to know the inner meaning of the sacrament itself. Take what you want, seize what you desire, because “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matt 11:12). Take what you want; and what force can take, grace bestows. The entrance of life, the door of salvation, the gateway of faith, a singular, innocent, and pure confession is taught, as the prophet says: “Enter his gates with confession” (Ps 100:4). Hence the same prophet, so admonished, asks for entrance into the house of God who speaks in him, saying: “Open to me the gates of righteousness, and having entered them I will confess to the Lord” (Ps 118:19). You see that he cannot confess who has not entered this house of salvation and faith, into which, as confession lets one in, so denial without doubt shuts one out. But let us hear how we must confess. “With the heart,” says the Apostle, “one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom 10:10). And he showed what is to be believed: “If you believe in your heart,” he says, “the Lord Jesus, and confess with your mouth, you will be saved.” “With the heart one believes unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Little children, we see in this a great shortcut of our faith, when the whole sacrament of human salvation is turned and carried out between the heart and the tongue. You have, O man, the means by which you ought to believe: “with the heart one believes unto righteousness”; you have the means by which you ought to confess: “with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” And what shall I say? He has everything in himself who has himself; but he has himself who has God; and he has God who believes and confesses him as his Author. Sign yourselves. The faith that is received by hearing, believed with the heart, uttered with the mouth for salvation, is to be placed in the secret of the mind, and entrusted to the very vitals of our breast, lest, if it is carelessly written down with paper and ink, it be not kept for believers unto life but betrayed to the unbelieving unto ruin. In yourself, O man, you ought to guard what, placed outside you, could be lost to you.

[On the Apostles' Creed.] Blessed Isaiah, an evangelist no less than a prophet, laments that he has unclean lips and dwells in the midst of a people with unclean lips, saying: “O wretch that I am, for I am pierced, because, being a man and having unclean lips, and dwelling in the midst of a people having unclean lips, I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa 6:5). He is struck with a more than human grief, because what he perceives and sees of God he cannot speak, cannot announce, cannot confess. As narrow as the flesh is, so cramped are the lips for their mind, so short is the tongue as interpreter of its own mind. A fire shut up in the flesh pants, heats the veins, inflames the inward parts, seethes in the marrow, and always sets all a man's inner parts burning, because what he contemplates with the affection of the mind is not enough to bring forth with the mouth, pour out with the lips, articulate with the tongue, and wholly breathe out in speech. This is why Isaiah, when he saw the King of heaven, that is, Christ, and beheld in clear vision that he was the Lord of hosts, lamented his own lips and his people's as unclean; because as the confessed divinity of Christ enlightens hearts, purifies mouths, and cleanses lips, so the denied majesty of Christ pollutes them. But let us hear what this groaning of the prophet gained. “And one of the seraphim,” he says, “was sent to me, who had in his hand a coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth, saying: Behold, this has touched your lips, and has taken away your iniquities, and has purged your sins.” This is not the time to say why one is sent, and who this one is who is sent, and how great he is who so fearlessly carries a coal of heavenly fire in his hand, indeed so tempers it with his touch as to purify the prophet's lips, not burn them; but now let us too be pierced with the whole affection of the heart, and confess that we are wretched in this misery of the flesh, and with devout groans lament that we too have unclean lips, so that this one of the seraphim may bring to us with the tongs of the law of grace the fiery sacrament of faith taken from the altar above, and may touch the lips of our mouths with such moderation as to take away iniquities, purge sins, and so kindle our mouths into the flame of full confession that this may be a burning of salvation, not of pain. Let us ask also that the heat of this coal may reach even to our hearts, so that from so great a sweetness of the mystery we may take not only a taste with the lips but complete fullness with our very senses and mind; and as Isaiah, after the cleansing of his lips, spoke of the unspeakable childbirth of the Virgin, saying, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb and bear a son” (Isa 7:14), so may we recount the sacrament of the passion and the glory of the resurrection. “I believe in God the Father almighty.” Rightly do you confess today that you have believed in God, when you rejoice that you have fled gods and goddesses differing in sex, confused in number, common in crowd, mean in birth, shameful in reputation, greatest in ungodliness, first in wickedness, singular in crime, accused even by the very faces on their tombs; because it would be a matter of misery, grief, and unhappiness to have had even as little slaves such beings as you have until now endured as masters. But rejoice that you have come to the one living, true, only, but not solitary God, saying: “I believe in God the Father.” Whoever names the Father now confesses the Son: for he who wished to be called Father, to be named Father, mercifully showed that he has a Son, whom he did not receive from time, did not beget in time, did not take up for a time. Divinity neither takes a beginning nor receives an end, nor admits a later one, since it knows no setting. God brings forth the Son not with pains but shows him to exist by powers; nor does he make apart from himself what is from himself, but he begets him; and while he is in himself, he discloses and reveals him. The Son proceeded from the Father, he did not withdraw; nor did he go forth from the Father to succeed the Father, but he went forth to remain always in the Father. Hear John saying: “This was in the beginning” (John 1:2). And elsewhere: “What was from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). What was surely did not come to be; what was clearly did not begin. “I am,” he says, “the first, and I am the last” (Isa 44:6). He who is first does not come after another; he who is last leaves no other after himself; but when he says this he does not exclude the Father, but includes all things in himself and the Father. But let us come to what follows: “And in Christ Jesus, his only Son, our Lord.” As kings are named by the titles of their triumphs, and gain very many surnames from the names of subject nations, so Christ is named by the titles of his good works: for he is called Christ from chrism, the devoted physician who poured the ointment of divinity on the already dried-up limbs of mortals; and as he is called Christ from chrism, so he is called Jesus from salvation, because he poured the divine ointment on us in order to give back sure salvation to the sick and perpetual health to the lost. “And in Christ Jesus, his only Son”: because, though there are many sons by grace, he is one and singular by nature. “Our Lord”: who seeks us, freed from the servitude of so many, so cruel, so shameful masters, not to claim us for our former condition but to manumit us to perpetual freedom. “Who was born of the Holy Spirit.” So and in such a way is Christ born for you, until he changes for you, O man, the order of being born, so that you may have a new rising into life, you for whom the old setting always remained in death. “Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary.” Where the Spirit begets, a virgin gives birth, everything done is divine, nothing human; nor is there any room for weakness where power is joined to power. Adam was put to sleep so that a virgin might be taken from a man (Gen 2:21–22); now a virgin was amazed so that man might be restored from a virgin (Luke 1:29). What can nature claim for itself from so great, such a birth, when, seeing its order renewed, it beholds all its laws changed, and perceives and marvels that its own Author has come into its offspring? Let this seem mean to the unbelieving; to believers it is a great sacrament. “Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried.” You hear the judge's name so that you may know the time of the passion too; you hear “crucified,” so that you may know that the salvation we had lost has been restored through that by which it had perished, and may see the life of believers hanging there where the death of the unbelievers had hung. You hear “buried,” so that death may not be thought to have been mocked. This is the mark of divine power, when death dies by death, the author of death is cut down by his own sword, the robber is captured by his own prey, hell is burst open by the Life it swallowed. “On the third day he rose from the dead.” Christ spent three days of his burial to benefit three dwellings, the lower world, the earth, and heaven: to restore what is in heaven, to repair what is on earth, and to redeem what is in the lower world; at the same time to disclose to men for salvation the grace of the Trinity given by the sacrament of the three days. “He ascended into heaven.” He ascended not to bring himself back into heaven, he who always remained in heaven, but to carry you there, whom he so loosed from bonds and drew out of hell. Understand from where, to where, O man, you have been lifted by God, so that you might be firm in the heavens who were slippery and always tottering on earth. “He sits at the right hand of the Father.” But the Father has nothing of his own on the left. Our confession assigns not places of the divine seating but signs of power: God does not know places; the Godhead admits nothing on the left. “From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” Granted the living, how can he judge the dead? But those live who are counted dead by us. So confess that those whom unbelief thinks have perished will rise for judgment, so that those who have died and those who will be found alive may together give account of their acts and life. “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” After you have confessed the sacrament of the flesh he assumed, you must confess the divinity of the Spirit, so that the equal unity of the Trinity, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through all and in all, may keep and hold in our confession the whole truth of the faith of power. “The holy catholic Church”: because neither are the members separated from the head, nor the bride from the bridegroom; but by such a union of spirit he becomes one, God becomes all and in all. So he believes in God who confesses the holy Church in God. “And the forgiveness of sins.” He grants pardon to himself who trusts that his sins can be forgiven him through Christ. “The resurrection of the flesh.” You believe well if you believe that through God you can rise from death, for whom the elements are always rising: so time from time, so day from night, so seeds from their burial. Nor can you perish when they revive; nor is it hard for God to make of you, an old man, what you yourself always make of a seed. “Eternal life.” This faith, this sacrament, is not to be committed to paper, not to be written in letters, because paper and letters speak a case rather than grace; but where God's grace, a divine gift, is found, faith suffices for the pact, the depth of the heart for the secret: so that the divine arbiter may know this symbol of salvation, this pact of life, and a false witness may not know it. Sign yourselves. May the Lord our God himself guard your senses and your hearts, and in the things he has commanded you may he himself stand by you as your supporter.

[On the same.] Whoever seeks faith does not seek reason; whoever asks for divine things lays aside human ones; whoever is born with God as begetter goes beyond nature, and owes nothing to time, who deserves the Author of time. See, we see you, holy offspring of faith, wishing to be born before you are conceived, to receive the kingdom of heaven before you endure the narrowness of the womb; so to strain toward the joys of the Father as to pass over the pangs of the mother; nor do you think it untimely, what you believe to be ripe through Christ. So Paul the apostle is born ripe through faith, who cries that he was untimely born as to time (1 Cor 15:8). Receive, then, the faith by faith alone; and do not seek to have the reason of faith itself opened to you, which by your haste you have shut within the faith so that you would not seek it. The faith of your Author invites you today, children, to faith, he who fulfills the faith of his promise before he receives the faith of your pledge; and he restores this to human affairs, as he had once promised by word through the prophet: “Open wide your mouth,” he says, “and I will fill it” (Ps 81:10). That is: you open it wide in confession, and I will fill it with the sacrament of that very confession, and enrich it with mystical speech, and fill it with the whole utterance of the heavenly secret. And truly, children, whatever the obedience of the one who hears, whatever that of the one who answers, professes, overflows to the grace of God who gives and teaches. So, as you are about to receive the Creed, that is, the pact of life, the agreement of salvation, the indissoluble bond of faith between you and God, prepare your hearts, not paper; sharpen your sense, not a pen; and write down what you hear not with ink but with the Spirit ministering: because the eternal and heavenly secret cannot be entrusted to perishable and corruptible instruments, but must be placed in the very chest of the soul, in the very library of the inner spirit; lest a profane observer, a wicked examiner, find what he might tear apart, and what has been given for the salvation of the one who confesses and believes become the ruin of the one who scorns and does not know. But to the prophet who says to you, “Open wide your mouth and I will fill it,” you may answer: “I have hidden your words in my heart, that I may not sin against you” (Ps 119:11). “I believe in God the Father almighty.” Whoever has confessed the Father confesses also the Son, because without the Son he cannot be called Father; and because nothing can be increased or added to God, the Son always was, because the Father also always was; the Son does not know how to begin, because the Father does not know how to fail; nor does the Begotten grow, where the Begetter does not grow old: the eternal and coeternal substance of Father and Son is to be reckoned not by human stages but by divine powers. “In Christ Jesus, his only Son, our Lord.” Take “Christ” as “anointed” not with common oil but with the Holy Spirit, by whom he was born. “Who was born of the Holy Spirit.” By such a birth humanity was consecrated in God; by such condescension Godhead was not diminished in man. “Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary.” Virginity believed God, because only through God could she be both virgin and mother. “Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried.” It names the judge to mark the time; it records the crucified to set out the nature of the passion; and from it faith gathers proof of divine power and of a true resurrection, from the very place from which ungodliness took material for insult and an occasion of error. Crucified on a cross, on high, before all his enemies, with all their cruelty watching and all their bitterness observing, he underwent death. He undergoes burial, so that the ungodly might not boast that he did not go to death in order to conquer it but feigned it in order to elude it. “Buried, on the third day he rose.” And if in the passion he proved that he had the true substance of our flesh, by the figure of the three days he rises to the whole glory of the Trinity. “He ascended into heaven.” He ascended carrying us up, not carrying himself back, who never withdrew from heaven. “He sits at the right hand of the Father.” The order there is divine, not human; the Son so sits at the right hand that the Father does not sit at the left: the divine seating together is one and singular, where the power above admits nothing on the left. “From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” Let men stop, let heretics stop judging their judge; let them hope for pardon, so that they may not incur a sentence for such presumption. “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Now your confession in the Trinity is complete, when with faithful voice you have confessed the Holy Spirit to be of one substance with the Father and the Son. “And the holy Church”: because it is so joined to Christ as to be carried over into the whole glory of the Godhead. “The forgiveness of sins.” Acquire pardon for yourself by your faith: because he is very much his own enemy who does not believe that this is given to him, which the most generous forgiver promises with all kindness. “The resurrection of the flesh.” Believe the resurrection of the flesh: for whoever does not believe this has no faith in what was said before, as the Apostle says: “If the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen” (1 Cor 15:16). Whom will God judge, over whom will he reign, if the resurrection does not give back to life and to judgment those whom death took from the world? “Eternal life.” It is plain that eternal life follows when death itself dies.

[On the same.] You have heard the voice of the Father, you have heard the voice of one calling: Come, children; come, come, because the time of faith has come, the day of belief, the hour of confession. Come, seekers of faith, bring a sincere breast, a clean heart, a pure voice, so that what the saving word slips in through us you may take with holy hearing. Faith comes from hearing, hearing rests on the word. Hear with full simplicity of mind the agreement of faith, the pact of grace, the Creed of salvation, so that you may be able both to hear it and to give it back at the time of confession: because to give this back is to have it; whoever gives back the divine gift does not lose it. When God was about to give the law, he ordered the people to wash their clothes, to wash their bodies, and to cleanse themselves wholly from every contagion of the flesh, because man cannot approach God polluted with bodily dregs and worldly squalor (Exod 19:10–15). That law, which held the shadow and figure of grace, rightly sought such great purification, rightly demanded such great purity. How great a purity of mind and body is needed by those who are about to hear the whole sacrament of the Godhead? Let us cleanse our hearts, then, purify our bodies, open our eyes, unlock our sense, throw wide all the doors of the soul, so that we may be able to hear, grasp, hold, and always keep in the very secret of our heart the Creed, which is the pact of faith. “I believe in God the Father almighty.” We believe in God if we deny gods, if we renounce idols, if we renounce the devil and his angels. “Hear, O Israel,” it says, “the Lord your God is one” (Deut 6:4; Mark 12:29). And again: “You shall have no other gods besides me” (Exod 20:3). So he will have the true God, the one God, who has no other god. We believe in God, and confess the same as Father, so that we may believe that he always had a Son: had a Son not conceived, not begun, not separated by birth, not increased by time, not diminished in rank, not changed by ages, but remaining within the eternal Begetter as offspring for ever. “I,” he says, “am in the Father and the Father in me” (John 14:10). We have heard the Father; let us believe the Son, by divine power, not human order; by God's secret, not worldly reason; not by the law of the world but by heavenly power. What we are permitted to know we are not permitted to discuss; it is fitting to believe, not fitting to scrutinize: for this is why we said God almighty, so that we may think nothing impossible for God. “And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” Christ is named from anointing, Jesus from salvation: because the anointing, which had once run through kings, prophets, and priests as a figure, poured itself with the whole fullness of the Spirit of the Godhead into this King of kings, Priest of priests, Prophet of prophets; so that the kingship and priesthood that it had sent ahead temporally through others it might pour back into the Author himself and render everlasting. And Jesus, that is, Savior, is rightly called salvation, because he both gave things being and gives salvation to the perishing. “His only Son.” He is the only Son in himself, who possesses by nature as his own alone what he gives to others by his grace. “Our Lord.” As we said above, Lord God: one God stands firm in Christ, because whatever he is, in Godhead and humanity he is one God. The diversity of substances ceased in Christ when the flesh began to be what the spirit is, man what God is, when the majesty of our body and of the Godhead became one. “Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary.” What earthly thing is born, where by the Spirit's authorship a virgin is called to childbirth? Who would not believe it divine, when she who gave birth felt nothing human? A woman carried God in a virginal temple: hence she both acquired the honor of a mother and did not lose the glory of virginity. “Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried.” We say the judge's name so that the time of the passion and the truth of what was done may thus be made plain. “He was crucified”: so that, since death had come through a tree, life might return through a tree. “And buried”: so that he might fulfill all the duties of death, so that death might die by death, so that from the seed of that body the whole sowing of human bodies might rise and be lifted into a life-giving harvest. “On the third day he rose from the dead”: so that in three days the benefit of the Trinity might be disclosed, so that through a three-day time the human generation of three times might be saved, that is, before the law, under the law, and under grace. “He ascended into heaven”: not as seeking heaven but as returning to it. “No one,” he says, “has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven” (John 3:13). “He sits at the right hand of the Father.” But he does not have the Father at his left. The seating together of the Godhead admits nothing on the left. “He sits at the right hand of the Father,” so as to be of one Godhead with the Father. He sits at the right hand so that he may not be lesser in rank, later in order, but may reign together with the Father in one Godhead, with equal power: “I,” he says, “and the Father are one” (John 10:30). “From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” If we believe that the judge will come, let us prepare ourselves innocent for the judge: he denies that there is a judge who does not believe that he will come; he who lives badly has little confidence about being judged. He judges the living, he judges also the dead, whom, being about to judge them, he raises up. “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Having confessed up to this point the mystery of the Lord's birth, passion, resurrection, ascension, and coming, we now come to the confession of the Holy Spirit: so that as in the Father and the Son, so belief may be in the Holy Spirit, and we may proclaim one Godhead, power, and glory in the Trinity. “And the holy Church.” We believe also the Church, which we believe to have been received and confirmed by Christ, and we confess it unto glory. “The forgiveness of sins.” One who is to be born into the new man, what will he have of ancient guilt, of old sin? Whoever does not believe that his past debts are forgiven him doubts that he will receive the future goods. “The resurrection of the flesh.” Believe, O man, that you can rise from death, because before you lived you were nothing: or why do you doubt that you will rise, when everything in the world rises for you daily in this way? The sun sets and rises again; the day is buried and returns; months, years, seasons, fruits, seeds die when they pass and revive by their own death when they return; and so that you may be continually instructed by a homely example that you will rise, as often as you sleep and wake, so often you die and rise. “Eternal life. Amen.” It is necessary that one who rises live forever, because if he did not live forever he would rise not to life but to death. Sign yourselves. Let your mind hold, let your memory keep, this pact of hope, this agreement of salvation, this symbol of life, this guarantee of faith, so that cheap paper may not cheapen the precious gift of the Godhead, so that black ink may not darken the mystery of light, so that an unworthy and profane hearer may not have God's secret. If your charity always gave me such silence, your hearing would reach all the treatises of my preaching: but may our God deign to grant me confidence in speaking and you the desire to hear.

[On the same.] If the Canaanite woman, by a sudden cry and a quick faith, with Christ's help both received what she asked and wrested out what was being refused (Matt 15:21–28); if the Ethiopian eunuch, passing by, found on the road and seized in passing the secret of the life-giving bath (Acts 8); if Cornelius the centurion came to Christ before he entered baptism (Acts 10); if the thief at the very moment of death seized paradise (Luke 23:43): who will deny you, in a moment of time, the life you seek? So receive faith from faith, and labor, as time goes on, to know the mystery of faith. Moses, about to give the law, calls on heaven and earth: on what will the bishop call, about to bring forth grace? He said: “Give heed, O heaven, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth” (Deut 32:1); I will say: “Give heed, O God, and I will speak, and let man hear the words of my mouth.” He said: “Let my speech be awaited like rain, and let my words come down like dew” (Deut 32:2); I will say: “Let your Spirit come like dew, and let your grace flood like a river, and let there be now a wave of the heavenly Word springing up to eternal life.” He said: “Because I have called on the name of the Lord, give greatness to our God” (Deut 32:3); I will say: “Because I have called on the faith, give belief to your God.” And since the ships of our bodies have been prepared by the Lenten fast, we must now say the agreement of faith, the symbol of heavenly commerce, so that with sure hope we may acquire, across the whole sea of the world and through the faithless waves of the age, gains that will last for ages. Receive, then, the faith; await the reality: because for one in whom faith does not go before in the seed, the reality does not follow in the fruit. Sign yourselves. The word creates hearing, hearing conceives faith, faith gives birth to belief, belief nourishes confession, confession gives perpetual salvation. This is why it meets on my mouth and yours: so faith embraces itself, belief embraces itself; so salvation greets itself with the kiss of confession. “I believe in God the Father almighty.” This utterance confesses and opens the whole sacrament of the Trinity. It says God, not gods, because Christian faith believes one God in the Trinity: it knows the Father, knows the Son, knows the Holy Spirit; it does not know gods. The Godhead is threefold in persons, but one Godhead in the Trinity: the Trinity is distinct in persons, not divided in substance: God is one, but in trinity; God is alone, but not solitary; the Godhead is neither divided by the trinity nor confused by the unity: this is what faith perceives when it says, “I believe in God.” At once it added: “the Father.” Whoever believes that there is a Father confesses the Son; whoever believes the Father and the Son should not perceive ages, should not think of stages, should not suspect times, should not seek a conception, should know nothing of childbirth: whoever believes God has confessed divine things, not human ones. But the heretic says: How is he Father if he does not come first? How is he Son if he does not follow? How does he who begets not give a beginning? How does what is begotten not take its beginning from the begetter? Reason teaches this, nature proves this. You are wrong, heretic: human reason has this, not divine; the nature of the world accepts this, the nature of the Godhead does not admit it: human frailty is conceived and conceives, is given birth and gives birth, is begotten and begets, receives a beginning and gives an end, undergoes death and pays it back, and keeps in its offspring whatever belongs to its condition and nature. But God the Father did not beget in time, because he does not know time; he did not give a beginning, who knows no beginning; he did not pass on an end, who has no end: but he so begot the Son from himself that everything that was in himself might be and remain in the Son. The honor of the Begotten is the honor of the Begetter; the perfection of the Begotten is the form of the Begetter; the diminishing of the Begotten redounds to the injury of the Begetter. But hearing this, heretic, do not say: How can these things be? You have said God, you have believed the Father, you have confessed him almighty; if you doubt, you have lied; if you say “I believe,” how do you not believe, if you discuss? If you think it impossible, you have taken away the almighty whom you confessed. But we who confess the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one majesty and glory, let us now speak the faith of the Lord's body. “And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” After the Son of God poured himself into our flesh like rain on a fleece, with the whole ointment of the Godhead, he was called Christ from the ointment; and he alone was the author of this name, who was so poured over and poured into by God that man and God were one God. This name of ointment, then, he poured out on us, who are called Christians from Christ; and that which is sung in the Song of Songs was fulfilled: “Your name is ointment poured out” (Song 1:3). “And in Christ Jesus his Son.” That is the name of the sacrament, this of the triumph: for as, anointed by God, he receives his name from the ointment, so when he gave back to the world its lost salvation he takes the name of Savior from saving. We have often said already that “Jesus” is said in the Hebrew language, “Savior” in Latin. “And in Christ Jesus his Son.” Whose? Surely God the Father's; so when you say “in Jesus his Son,” you confess that Jesus, who was born of Mary, is the Son of God. Take care, then, no longer to think in Christ of what he was as man, but always confess what he is as God, as the Apostle says: “And even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him so” (2 Cor 5:16). “His only Son, our Lord.” This fits both, because he is both the only Son of the Father and our only Lord: others have received by grace to be sons, others to be lords; Christ alone has and possesses by nature to be Son, to be Lord. “Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary” (Matt 1:20). If, according to the evangelist, what was born in her is of the Holy Spirit, since God is spirit, let the heretic now confess God born of virginal flesh; and let him no longer drag the heavenly mystery, the virgin's childbirth, to worldly conception, to the injury of earthly frailty. “Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried.” You hear the judge's name so that you may know the time of the passion; you hear “crucified,” so that from the shame of the death you may feel the greatness of the love, and may know that the death that came through a tree has been put to death through a tree, and may believe that greater things have been given back to you through this tree than you sighed at having lost through the tree of paradise. You say “buried,” so that the confession of burial may prove the true flesh of Christ and a death not merely gone through, that he underwent death and conquered it, entered the lower world and returned, came into the jurisdiction of hell and dissolved the jurisdiction of hell: this is not frailty but power. You confess that he rose on the third day, so that you may understand that Christ's resurrection was the victory of the whole Trinity. You say that he “ascended into heaven,” so that you may believe him Lord of heaven and confess that he has returned to where he came from, because, the devil overcome, death trampled, the world freed, Christ triumphs above the heavens, who was thought to have been conquered on earth. You cry out, “He sits at the right hand of the Father,” so that, since the Godhead of Father and Son is one and their power equal, in the heavenly seating there may be no injury of a seat on the left. “From there he will come to judge the living and the dead”: because when Christ comes the dead will rise, the living will be set before him, so that together they may give account of their deeds. And since we have now spoken of the sacrament of the Lord's body, let us come to confess the divinity of the Spirit. “We believe in the Holy Spirit,” whom the divine voice proclaims to us as God when it says, “For God is spirit” (John 4:24). “We believe in the Holy Spirit,” whom the prophet sings as fellow worker of the Father and the Son: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth” (Ps 33:6). He is wholly God and the whole power of God, who is proved to be the creator of the heavenly powers. “We believe the holy Church,” which Christ so took into himself as to make her a sharer of his divinity. “We believe the forgiveness of sins”: because whoever has been born through Christ and the Church into the new man will have nothing of the old offence. “We believe the resurrection of the flesh,” so that we may believe that this was the cause of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection, that we might rise from the dead. The flesh will rise, it will rise as we are, so that the recognition of persons may remain, so that the martyr may take joy from the persecutor's punishment and the persecutor take punishment from the martyr's honor. “We believe eternal life”: because after the resurrection there is no end either of good things or of evil. Sign yourselves. Let us commit the faith that we believe and teach not with ink but with the Spirit, to the heart, not to paper; let us give it to memory, not to a book, so that human things may not violate the divine gift, a profane observer may not take up the heavenly secret, and what is for believers unto life may not turn out for the unbelieving unto ruin. The sun gives not light but darkness to bleary eyes; wine does not restore the strength of the feverish but saps it; without a physician the cup of life becomes deadly: so the sacrament of faith without faith is destructive to the unbelieving. As the Apostle says: “Let faith be taken from hearing, and hearing from the word” (Rom 10:17); and let the agreement of life, the pact of faith, the law of salvation cling not to those who will die but be fixed to living senses.

[On the same.] Were I not consoled by the sudden and unexpected conversion of blessed Paul (Acts 9), I would scarcely believe that you could be changed so easily from earthly stain to heavenly glory. For a sudden confession at once made him an apostle instead of a persecutor, and gave the church a distinguished teacher in the man it had found raging as the destroyer of the Christian name. No less am I encouraged by the example of that eunuch, whom faith carried off to grace before his chariot could carry him back to India and home (Acts 8). Add to this the wonderful proof given by the thief, who seized paradise at the very moment he was hung up to pay the penalty of his robbery (Luke 23). Therefore, little children, since you have so arranged the time of your regeneration that we cannot say what is necessary and you cannot hear what is fitting, entrusting faith to faith, we hand on briefly what we cannot commend at greater length. For how could you grasp the mystery of the Creed from our explanation, when you are scarcely able to hold the Creed itself in memory? This alone we urge: let no one entrust to letters what he is to commit to the heart in order to believe, as the Apostle urges: “With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom 10:10). As you are about to hear the form of faith, the rule of belief, the order of confession, make ready the hearing of body and heart together. As a spring flowing from a narrow mouth is widened into the great waters of rivers, so the faith of the Creed, in a short discourse, opens the broadest channels of belief. And as a root fixed deep stretches upward into a lofty shoot, so faith, rooted in the depth of the breast, is raised to the lofty summit of belief. So purge from your hearts the mire of faithlessness, that the pure streams of faith may run through you; cut off at the root the thickets of unbelief within you, that the sturdy plantings of your belief may grow on high. And since, on the Apostle's authority, “with the heart one believes unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom 10:10), give now to the voice of confession what your hearts already believe. “I believe in God the Father almighty.” Let him who believes in God not presume to examine God; it is enough to know that God is. He who asks whence God is, how great God is, what God is, does not know this. The sun darkens the gaze that presses on it; whoever approaches God without leave is blinded. Let him who wants to see God learn to keep to the measure of seeing him; let him who wants to know his God not know the gods of the nations; he who speaks of gods contradicts God. To serve one is freedom; to serve many is captivity. Believe that the God you have confessed is Father, so that, believing in the Father, you may learn that there is a Son; saying “Son”, you may recognize that he is begotten of the Father; recognizing him begotten of the Father, you may not ask how he was begotten, since you have said, “I believe in God the Father almighty.” The Almighty can do all things; and if he can do all things, who will deny that he has the Son in himself, from himself, and always with himself? The generation of God has no beginning, knows no end, admits no departure, since the Begotten continues to abide in the Begetter, as the Lord himself says: “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me” (John 10:38); “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). You have confessed the Father, you have confessed the Son, you have confessed the secret of the Godhead; now confess the mystery of the Lord's incarnation. “And in Christ Jesus his Son.” Christ is named from the heavenly anointing, for he is filled with the whole fullness of the Godhead; Jesus is a name from salvation, the name which everything in heaven and everything in the underworld confesses, trembling, on bended knee, with bowed head (Phil 2:10). “And in Christ Jesus his only Son, our Lord.” As the Godhead of Father and Son is one for us, so let the lordship be one for us. “Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary.” The Spirit and a virgin are no earthly union but a heavenly secret; hence what is born is divine. That he was born, then, must be confessed; how he was born must be passed over in silence, because what is secret cannot be known, what is closed cannot be opened, what is unique is not explained by an example. “Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried.” You hear the judge's name so that you may not be ignorant of the time; you hear “crucified” so that the manner of the death may be made known to you, and you may understand what he spent for you who for your sake underwent the penalty of so great a death. You hear “buried” so that you may know the death was not a pretence but real. Not wanting to die belongs to human fear; to have risen from death belongs to divine power. So let the mention of death not offend here, where the glory of the resurrection hides the injury of death. “On the third day he rose again.” For what dies belongs to the man; what rises belongs to the Trinity. “He ascended into heaven,” bearing the man to the place where he always remained. “He sits at the right hand of the Father.” He sits at the right hand because the Godhead has nothing on the left. “From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” He will judge the living and the dead, because those will rise to judgment who are thought not to exist after death, whom paganism supposes to have perished with the world. “I believe in the Holy Spirit”: so that you may believe and understand that in Father and Son and Holy Spirit there is one Godhead. “I believe the holy church”: so that you may confess that the church, the bride of Christ, will remain in Christ's everlasting fellowship. “I believe the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh.” Whoever does not believe the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the flesh takes pardon away from himself and himself withdraws life. What you have heard and believed, what you have confessed, let the heart hold and memory keep; let paper not know it and the writer be ignorant of it, so that the mystery of faith may not be spread abroad in public and the secret of faith may not pass to an unbeliever. May God, who has given you both to hear and to believe the mystery of faith, himself bring you to eternal salvation.

[On the same.] A loving nurse never brings a little child to perfect manhood unless he makes himself wholly a little child. So he thins his voice, lays words aside, acts by nods, sets aside his own good sense, softens his heart, throws off his strength, loosens his limbs, slows his step, is eager not to walk but to crawl; he pretends to laugh, feigns fear, makes a show of weeping, because in him falsehood is love, playing the fool is wisdom, weakness is strength. I think blessed Paul did this when he says: “I became a little one among you, as if a nurse were cherishing her children” (1 Thess 2:7). But perhaps someone is astonished to see a nurse doing these things: if he is a parent he does not laugh at it; if he is a father he does not wonder; whoever knows how to love cannot call this folly. So I beg you, who are already fathers, already strong, already wise, to allow me to pay to the little ones of my Lord the due services of nursing, and today to bring out words suited to coaxing rather than to skill; not to square off my discourse but to make it run, and to pour it like milk into throats still tender, as the Apostle teaches: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food” (1 Cor 3:2); to change my voice, to love varied feelings, and, in short, to be occupied in mind, heart and body with the weak minds of little ones. But now, loving shoots of the church, I address you in the prophet's words: “Come, children, listen to me” (Ps 34:11); or rather, through me and through my voice, listen to the commands of your true Father, because God calls you by my mouth. “Come, children.” Come where? And to what? “The fear of the Lord,” it says, “I will teach you.” And who comes to fear? He who wants life, he who longs to see good days; he who wants to do good and flee evil; he who, after the conflict of flesh and spirit, longs to obtain the rest of divine peace. “Come, children, listen to me: the fear of the Lord,” it says, “I will teach you. Who is the man who wants life and longs to see good days? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.” As crimes corrupt the conscience, so deceit pollutes the lips and curses defile the tongue; and so one defiled in lips and tongue cannot confess God. And since “with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom 10:10), sanctify your hearts, cleanse your lips, make your tongue righteous, so that the voice that carries the faith may come forth from a pure breast as a full example of holiness. Sign yourselves. An agreement or compact containing the hope of gain, present or future, is called a symbolum: even human contracts teach us this. Yet among men a written document made in duplicate always confirms the symbolum between two parties, and human caution makes it secure by a stipulation, lest bad faith, always the enemy of contracts, steal up on anyone or deceive anyone. But this is among men, among whom fraud always does harm, either to the one who commits it or to the one against whom it is committed. Between God and men, however, the symbol of faith is confirmed by faith alone: credit is given not to letters but to the spirit, and it is committed to the heart, not to paper, because what God lends needs no human security. God does not know how to commit fraud and cannot suffer it, because he is not shut out by time, not overcome by age, not deceived by concealment; he sees what is hidden, holds what is stolen, possesses what is denied. God's account is always safe, because what he has lent has nowhere to be lost; and if it is lost when a man, not God, denies it, it is lost to the one who denies, not to the lender. But you say: He who cannot be deceived, why does he demand an agreement? Why does he seek a symbol? He seeks it for your sake, not for his own; not because he doubts, but so that you may believe. He seeks a symbol because, having come to your lot, he does not disdain to come to your contract; he seeks a symbol because, though he always lends everything himself, he wants to be owed; he seeks a symbol because he now calls you not to the thing itself but to faith, and by a present agreement draws you toward the future and invites you to gain. The Apostle recalls this when he says: “From faith to faith” (Rom 1:17); and elsewhere: “The righteous lives by faith” (Heb 10:38). So let no one be unmindful of the Creed, let no one forget the agreement made with God; let no one, having only now received faith, demand the thing itself; let no one, having come to hope, complain that he does not at once receive what he hopes for. Hear the Apostle saying: “In hope we have been saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what someone sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom 8:24–25). Hope stretches toward things to come; faith carries us over to the things promised; when the realities come and the promises arrive, hope ends and faith ceases. A letter is sweet, but only until the one who sent it comes himself; a bond is necessary, but only until the debt is paid; flowers are pleasing, but only until the fruit comes. Presence cancels the letter, payment breaks the bond, the flowers are consumed by the fruit. And so know that you are now designated by faith a son of the heavenly Father, an heir of God, a co-heir of Christ, a sharer in the heavenly kingdom, a confessor of the divine Judge, a citizen of heaven, an owner of paradise; know that you are now promoted in hope, not in reality. So receive the faith, hold fast to hope, say the Creed, that you may come to the reality and to those good things we spoke of. Sign yourselves. Today, O man, your soul has been presented to God. “I believe in God.” For a long time it spoke of God but did not know him, called on God but was ignorant of him; ignorant indeed, since it sought him in this way through stones and wood. Let it now say, then, let it say: “I believe in God the Father almighty.” For a long time, while it saw stones, it did not see in whom to believe; but he is truly God who has granted you to see by not seeing, whereas the gods of the nations, by being seen, had made you not see. Hear the Lord saying: “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (John 9:39). “I believe in God the Father.” There is fatherly love in God, affection is always in God, fatherhood abides with him; so believe that the Son always existed, lest you blaspheme that the Father did not always exist. But you say: If he begot, how did he always have him? How did he beget? You who ask in this way deny the faith you profess. You said, “I believe”; if you believe, where does “how” come from? “How” is the word of one who doubts, not of one who believes. You said, “I believe in God the Father almighty”; if there is anything he cannot do, he is not almighty. But you think he begot the Son from something, he whom you confess made everything from nothing; from something indeed, if from time. But if the Father is not contained by time, the Son knows no beginning. How wretched, that you should make him temporal who has granted you to be everlasting! Not by a conception in time, not by suffering in the womb, does the Father beget the Son, but while he reveals him to us. “And in Christ Jesus his only Son, our Lord.” Notice, O man, with what reverence the faith is instilled and handed on to you. Hear “the Father,” so that you may perceive, understand and believe the Son, not examine him; and confess that he is, without inquiring as a rash investigator whence and when and how he is. That is why the heavenly word, as soon as it has announced the Father, sends you with your whole mind to Christ, to Jesus, to the Son, to the only one, our Lord: so that when you see that you cannot attain, estimate or grasp even the human things about him, you may not dare to touch the divine. “Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary.” Come, O man, if indeed you are a man: go forward in your heart, rise up in your mind, broaden your senses, sharpen the edge of your wit, rouse the powers of your knowledge; whatever reason is in you, wake it up, examine, discuss, search out; and now, though astonished, explain on your own what it means that the Spirit begets, a Virgin conceives, a Virgin gives birth, and remains a virgin after giving birth; how the Word becomes flesh, God becomes man, man is carried over into God; how a cradle holds him whom heaven does not hold; how he who sustains the whole world is carried on shoulders; why he who made all things, established the universe and governs everything, willed to be born of you, to be guided by you, and arranged to be nursed, so as to live with you as his parent, on whose servile state he had earlier looked down. And if you can reach this from the treasury of the Godhead and bring it out from the secret of the deity, then go further in, climb higher, gaze more freely, and then, as a new explorer, a unique discoverer, a betrayer of the Godhead, set out the times of the Father and the beginnings of the Son. Be greater than Isaiah, who said: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer, without a voice, so he did not open his mouth; in humiliation his judgment was taken away; who will tell his generation?” (Isa 53:7–8). Whose? The generation of him who was led like a sheep to the slaughter. If Christ's generation, whether human or divine, took place, and if how he is begotten cannot be told, what wave, O man, what billows have carried you to this shipwreck? What wind drove you to fly through the air to your ruin? Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one Godhead, one power, one eternity, one majesty; whatever the Son is lessened in, receives, or grows in belongs to my body, not to his own substance. Or are you amazed, O man, that he who deigns to have a mother on earth calls on a Father in heaven? “Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried.” Why, O man, do you accuse him, who in himself is equal to the Father, in this alone, that he willed to be less in you? You hear that he stood while Pilate sat, that he was judged while Pilate examined him; why do you take hold of this alone, that he was handed over to criminal accusers and condemned by the sentence of a guilty man? But he willed to be born of your flesh, willed to be busy at your breasts, to lie on your bosom, willed to be carried on your shoulders, he who always wished to be loved by you, not feared. Ask what he commanded first in the law, and then you will see what he sought in grace. The Lord, asked, as the evangelist said, what was the first commandment in the law, said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt 22:37). That is why he came to your heart and to your mind, because from the beginning he sought to be loved by you with soul, heart and body. “Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried.” Thus far the Jew; the heretic follows. Let him wait: let none of those who feed and fatten on insults to Christ approach their former things. But you, little children, listen, so that after the passion of death you may drive away the grief of burial with the joys of the resurrection. “On the third day he rose again,” so that the resurrection of our body might be the power, grace and gift of the Trinity. “He ascended into heaven”: through what is mine, he who in himself was never absent from heaven. “He sits at the right hand of the Father”: by the order of divine power, not of human honour. We have said that the Son sits at the right hand in such a way that the Father never sits at the left. “From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” And what does the dead man owe to the judge? That is why he rises: so that he may owe. “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” He who denies the Holy Spirit denies the one in whom he believes. “In the holy church.” For the church is in Christ, and Christ is in the church; so he who professes the church has confessed that he believed in the church. “The forgiveness of sins.” Grant yourself pardon by believing, O man, you who slid into all sins by despairing. “The resurrection of the flesh.” This is the whole lesson of faith: that you believe that flesh which has been corrupted, which has rotted, which has perished, can rise again, be fitted together again, and return through God, whom you swore can do all things when you confessed him almighty. “Eternal life.” He rightly added “eternal life,” so that one who will rise through him might believe that he will rise; through him who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, now and always, and through the immortal ages of ages. Amen.

[On Lazarus raised from the dead.] After the apostolic reading, as we wished to return to the mighty works of the Gospel, at once Lazarus meets us, returned from the underworld, bringing the pattern of death conquered, carrying the example of resurrection. So, if you please, before we enter the open sea of the reading, before we take on the billows of the question, before we penetrate the depth of such a deed, let us contemplate the sight of the resurrection itself; for we see that this is the sign of signs, we discern that it is the mighty work of mighty works, we perceive it to be the wonder of wonders. The Lord had raised the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, but while the body was still warm, while death was still halfway, while the body was still present, while the person still lingered among people, while the spirit was still on its way, while the soul did not yet know the bars of Tartarus; in short, he gave life back to the dead girl in such a way that the underworld's right remained intact. He also raised the only son of his mother, but in such a way as to stop the bier, anticipate the grave, suspend corruption and forestall the stench, giving life back to the dead man before, wholly dead, he had entered the domain of death. But what is done concerning Lazarus is wholly unique; his death and his resurrection have nothing in common with those just mentioned. In his case the whole force of death was fulfilled, and the full form of resurrection shines out. I dare to say that if Lazarus had returned from the underworld on the third day, he would have snatched away the whole mystery of the Lord's resurrection; for Christ returned after three days as Lord, while Lazarus is called back after four days as servant. But to prove what we have said, let us now taste something of the reading. “His sisters,” it says, “sent to the Lord, saying: ‘Lord, behold, the one you love is sick.’” Speaking thus, they knock at his affection, appeal to his love, call on his charity; they try to remove one need by the claim of kinship. But Christ, for whom it is more to conquer death than to remove illness, and whose love consists not in relieving the beloved but in bringing him back from the underworld, at once prepared for his beloved not a remedy for illness but the glory of resurrection. Then, “when he heard that Lazarus was sick,” as the Evangelist says, “he stayed in the same place two days.” You see how he gives place to death, gives licence to the grave, allows corruption its power, denies nothing to decay, nothing to stench; he allows Tartarus to seize, drag off and hold; he acts so that all human hope perishes and the whole force of worldly despair arrives, so that what he is about to do may be divine, not human. He stays in the place awaiting the death so long that he himself announces the death, and only then announces that he is going to Lazarus. “Lazarus is dead, and I am glad.” Is this what it is to have loved? Christ was glad, because the grief of death was soon to be turned into the joy of resurrection. “And I am glad for your sake.” Why “for your sake”? Because in the death and resurrection of Lazarus the whole figure of the Lord's death and resurrection was being painted, and what was soon to follow in the Lord was already going before in the servant. He had said to his disciples once and again: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified” (Matt 20:18–19). And as he said this he saw them become very doubtful, very sad, quite cut off from consolation; and he knew that they would be so crushed by the very weight of the passion that nothing of life, nothing of faith, nothing of light could remain in them, but they would be darkened by almost the whole night of faithlessness. And so he extended the death of Lazarus to the space of four days and let it prevail until the stench, so that the disciples might have no doubt that the Lord could rise after three days while still fresh, when they had seen the servant rise after four days, already stinking; and that they might believe that he could easily give life back to himself who had called another back to life in this way. That is why he says: “I am glad for your sake, that you may believe.” The death of Lazarus was necessary, then, so that the disciples' buried faith might rise along with Lazarus. “Because I was not there.” Was there a place where Christ was not? And how was he not there, when from where he was he announced to the disciples that Lazarus was dead? Brothers, Christ as God was there, but Christ as man was not there. Christ as God was there when Lazarus died; but Christ was to come to the dead man now, when Christ the Lord was about to undergo death. So he said, “Because I was not there”: that is, in death, in the tomb, in the underworld, where through me and my death the whole power of death is to be overthrown. “Martha,” it says, “when she heard that Jesus had come, ran to meet him, saying: ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” Woman, you confess him to be God, and you say “if you had been here”? Places do not make God absent, nor do times make him present. Lazarus would not have died if the Lord had been there, who was there; that is, if you, woman, had not been in paradise. Woman, you sought tears, you found groans, you bought death at the price of gluttony, and do you accuse God's absence, when you do not deny that your presence was the cause of death? When death was procured by you, then it was matter for lamentation; but now it has become an occasion for power, because then it was given as a penalty to the sinner, now it is permitted for the glory of the one who raises; then Tartarus found man, now it loses him. But now, woman, seek through faith what you lost through faithlessness. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died; but even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” This woman does not believe but tries to believe; her unbelief confuses her belief. “Whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” God gives from himself; he does not ask of himself. Why do you bring in delays of supplication, woman, when he who is about to grant it stands beside you? Woman, the one you want as advocate is himself the judge; in this there is the power of the giver, not the need of one who asks. “I know,” she says, “that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Woman, to believe this is not to believe; to know this is not to know. The Apostle proved it: when a man thinks he knows something, then he does not know (1 Cor 8:2). But now let us hear what the Lord answered. “Your brother will rise.” And the woman: “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Martha, again you know what you do not know: you know that your brother can rise on the last day, but you do not know that he can rise here too. Or perhaps God, who can then raise all, cannot now raise one dead man? He can, he can: God can raise one dead man as a temporal sign, he who will then raise all the dead to everlasting life. “I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you, and I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Martha, the resurrection you send so far off stands before you: “I am,” he says, “the resurrection.” And why “I am the resurrection,” and not “I raise”? Why? Because he took on man, he took on death, so that he who raises one by commanding may raise all by rising in himself; so that for those to whom Adam was the pit of death, Christ may be the spring of life; and so that the Apostle's word may be fulfilled: “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). “I am,” he says, “the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he has died, will live; and everyone who lives and believes in me will not die for ever. Do you believe this?” And the woman: “Yes, Lord, I have believed and I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into this world.” He had come to Lazarus; why is he so taken up with Martha? Why? So that she might rise in faith before he was raised in the flesh. So acts the one who came to provide for both the living and the dead; nor does he fear delays in acting, since the power and the accomplishment of the deed remain with him. Brothers, bear with having the word put off today, if you wish to hear more fully what follows.

[On the same.] If single words of Scripture were committed to single books, not even so would the mysteries in them shine clear to the hearers; and what will a sudden and brief sermon do, which like lightning flees before it lights up the eyes, and gives those who see it not light but fright? So pray that, since we live in the darkness of the world and, placed in the flesh, spend the time of night and not of day, Christ may light for us the lamp of his word, so that with it going before us we may enter the dark places of the heavenly mystery and with slow step come to as much brightness of divine knowledge as we can; like those magi who, measuring the eyes of their mind, did not dare to entrust themselves to the splendour of the sun or the divine brightness, but by night took up the tender light of a star with tender eyes and came to the most tender cradle of Christ (Matt 2). But now, as we promised, let us go through what remains of the Gospel reading. “Martha,” it says, “when she heard that Jesus had come, ran to meet him.” Was there no servant, no neighbour, no friend, certainly some comforter present, that a woman alone should run to meet the coming Saviour through the midst of the crowds, through the whole village, outside the town, and in a time of mourning? Brothers, in these persons it is not mere events that run their course; mysteries are signified. The woman runs for death who ran to death; she hurries to pardon who hurried to guilt; she reaches the loving Redeemer, whom the wicked seducer had reached first; she seeks resurrection who sought ruin; and she who brought death to the man pants to bring life back to the man. That is why Christ stopped in the place, why Christ waited, why he did not enter the crowds, did not make for the house, did not turn aside to the tomb, did not hurry to Lazarus, for whose sake he had come; but he waits for the woman, lingers for the woman, receives the woman first, whom the tempter first infected; he drives faithlessness from the woman and calls faith back to the woman, so that she who was the servant of perdition may be the minister of salvation, and through God may at last be the mother of the living, who through the devil was long the mother of the dead. And since the woman had been the head of evil, he deals with the cause of death, so as to wash away the crime before granting pardon, to remove the cause before annulling the sentence; and he takes care that the man should not reject as partner in life the woman through whom he had once been deceived. In short, the woman would have perished if Christ the Lord had come to the man first. That is why, brothers, Christ is born through a woman; that is why a woman always raises the man from the tomb of her womb, to call back by pains the one she drove away by enticements, to restore by weeping the one she lost by eating. Then, when Martha had confessed Christ and by her loving confession had blotted out whatever guilt lay in the person of the woman, she is sent to Mary, because without Mary death could not be put to flight nor life restored. Let Mary come, let the bearer of the mother's name come, so that man may see that Christ dwelt in the secret of a virgin's womb, so that the dead may come forth from the underworld and the dead go out from their tombs. “Jesus,” it says, “seeing Mary weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, groaned in spirit and troubled himself, and said: ‘Where have you laid him?’ They answered: ‘Lord, come and see.’ And Jesus wept.” Mary weeps, the Jews weep, Christ too weeps; do you think it is with a like compassion? Granted that Mary, the sister, wept because she could neither keep her brother nor ward off death: although she was secure about the resurrection, still, at the loss of present comfort, the delay of so long an absence, the sadness of a long separation, she could not but weep; and also because so grim, so deadly, so cruel an image of death could not fail to touch and move even a faithful mind. The Jews wept, both mindful of their own condition and gripped by despair of the future life. Death, bitter enough to the living, disturbs enough by its very departure, but disturbs more by its example: as often as anyone sees a dead man, so often does he wail that he himself is destined for death. So a mortal cannot help grieving over death. Which of these was Christ's case? And if none of these, why did he weep? Certainly he who had said, “Lazarus is dead, and I am glad,” laments over the one whose death made him glad, at the moment he raises him; he who does not weep when he loses him laments when he gets him back; he pours out mortal tears when he pours back the spirit of life. Brothers, the nature of the human body has this property, that the force of joy, like the force of grief, produces tears. Whenever the heart is gripped by an excessive impulse of either joy or sadness, the eyes at once burst into tears. That is why Christ wept, not for the pains of death, but at the recollection of the joy of that day when by his voice, by one voice, he will raise all the dead to everlasting life. He groans in spirit and troubles himself with a whole commotion of heart, because he was still raising Lazarus alone and not yet all the dead. Who then would think that Christ wept here from human weakness, when the heavenly father laments the extravagant son not while he loses him but when he receives him back (Luke 15)? Christ wept for Lazarus on receiving him, not on losing him. Indeed, Christ weeps not when he sees them weeping, but when he asks a question and sees that in those who answer no faith remains. He had said: “Where have you laid him?” And they answered: “Lord, come and see.” They thought that he did not know where he had been laid in the earth, who knew where dread Tartarus held him. By asking in this way he was demanding faith and offering knowledge, so that the bystanders might know that death, the tomb, corruption, decay and stench had come to human beings not from God's ordinance but from man's sin. For when he says, “Where have you laid him?” he rebukes the women, he reproves the women; that is: The one I placed in paradise, in the region of life, see where you have laid him. But the Jews too answered as though the questioner were ignorant: “Lord, come and see.” What? Would they believe that he could command death, could command the underworld, they who believed he did not see what was before his eyes, who argued in this way about his tears? “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have caused this man not to die?” He could have caused him not to die; but he who wished to raise the dead man for his own glory allowed him to die; he allowed him to go down to the underworld, so that he might be seen to be God when he brings a man back from the underworld. But, Jews, your hearts appear more firmly shut than the underworld, your inner parts harder than the dead, your eyes darker than tombs, since the voice that opened Tartarus did not open your hidden places, the command that raises the dead does not raise your minds, the law that lights up the tomb does not illumine your blindness. But let this suffice, so that with Christ we may see more plainly the glory of Lazarus rising.

[On the same.] Since in two sermons we have already touched on the death of Lazarus, Mary's weeping, Martha's tears and the lamentation of the Jews, let us now unburden our minds, cast off our cares and free our senses, so that with our whole minds we may grasp and hear the joy of so great a resurrection. The Evangelist proclaims the Saviour's coming to the tomb in this way: “Jesus,” he says, “again groaning in himself, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone had been laid upon it.” Jesus came groaning to the tomb. Christ groans so that flesh may come to life again; Life groans so that death may be put to flight; God groans so that man may rise; mercy groans so that the sentence may not stand in the way; Christ groans as he overthrows death, because he who snatches a unique victory from the enemy cannot but groan. As for the words “again groaning,” he groans a second time to show the twofold signs of the resurrection: as at Christ's voice those dead in body are raised from their tombs to life, so those dead in faithlessness rise to the life of faith. “It was,” he says, “a cave.” It would have been enough to say that he came to the tomb; why does the Evangelist take such care to mention a cave? Plainly a cave, where the devil's robbery had placed man; a cave, where the woman's deceit had buried the man; a cave, where the greed of death had shut in God's handiwork. “And a stone had been laid upon it.” The door of harsh death was closed, more harshly still, with the hardest stone. But what does one who weeps at a tomb accomplish, when the voice of the weeper does not pierce barriers so hard and so piled up? Christians, let us weep to God for our sins, and let us not weep with the pagans over the dead, who do not hear. “Jesus said: Take away the stone.” Amid his divine mighty works does Christ ask for human help? Is he not able to move a stone who is able to drive away death? Is he not strong enough to unbar a tomb who prevails to open the gates of Tartarus? He had said through the prophet: “I will take away the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezek 11:19). So he commands the Jews to take the heart of stone out of themselves, to roll away the rock of faithlessness, to shut out the flint of hard unbelief, so that souls dead through unbelief might leap out of the tomb of the breast, and might rejoice not so much that Lazarus had risen as that they had risen together with Lazarus. “Take away the stone.” Take away the service of wretched humanity, so that the works of blessed divinity may now shine out. “Take away the stone” that you placed, so that I may now restore the man whom I placed. “Martha answered: He already stinks.” Woman, and whose doing is it that he stinks? “He already stinks.” What came from you now belongs to you: you would not perceive a stench at the tomb if you had refused to listen to the persuader in paradise. “He already stinks.” What stinks to the destroyer does not stink to the Creator. “He already stinks.” What the overthrower of another's work shudders at, the lover of his own work does not shrink from. But by speaking thus you bear witness to the death which you, woman, brought in. You cry out the stench, so that the fullness of death may become known to the hearers, and so that Lazarus's rising may be the return of a spirit that had departed, not of one that lay hidden; that it may be the work of divine power, not of human art; and that the Jews, who say that he casts out demons by the prince of demons (Matt 9:34), may not say again that we raise the dead not by God's command but by human aid. “He already stinks; it is the fourth day.” She names the time too, so that they may know that he is the author of times, on whom no times impose limits. “He already stinks; it is the fourth day.” By speaking thus she heightens the despair, so that those present may see that it is God who in this way gives life to the dead, salvation to those beyond hope, vigour to those who stink. “Lifting his eyes,” it says, “upward.” He lifts his eyes upward to give us a pattern of supplication, not to prepare for himself a way of obtaining; for he who looks upward is always on high with the Father; the Father is always in him and he is always in the Father: “I,” he says, “am in the Father, and the Father is in me” (John 14:10). “Father,” he says, “I give you thanks because you have heard me.” He gives thanks for what has been granted; that the Father heard is said; that the Son asked is passed over in silence. Brothers, between Father and Son there is the affection of hearing, not the necessity of supplicating; there is the assent of love, not the severity of command; there everything is done by love, where no deference is needed, as becomes clear from what follows: “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me; and I knew that you always hear me.” He calls without the trouble of calling, where there is sure confidence of being heard. Or what is the labour of asking doing where the cause of granting is shared? So let no one diminish the Son by his prayers in such a way that he likewise diminishes the Father in the matter of human salvation. Why the Son speaks thus, he himself discloses, saying: “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me; and I knew that you always hear me; but I said it for the sake of the people standing around.” You see that by saying such things he lifts up and makes known his own and the Father's affection, he lays open grace, he speaks of unity. He had said: “All that the Father has is mine” (John 16:15); and if all things are his, how does he ask? When someone asks from what is his own, what he asks comes not from need but from love. “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me; and I knew that you always hear me; but I said it for the sake of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” He said that he was sent, so that the peoples might know that Christ had come from heaven, not that he had left heaven. He is sent, then, in the same way as he receives what he has: in such a way that he did not leave the place from which he came. So the Son receives what he has, and the Father does not lose what he has given. Brothers, that he is heard, that he is sent, that he comes, that he receives, that he is born, that he suffers, that he dies, that he rises: this belongs not to his divinity but to our weakness, to our nature. All this he bore for our sake in our body; he did not undergo it for his own sake in his majesty. But let us return to our subject. What does he mean when he says, “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me”? What? When Christ began to knock at the doors of the underworld, to thrust back the gates of Tartarus, to open the doors of death, to undo the law of Gehenna, to overturn the most ancient right of punishment, to demand back the soul of Lazarus, to open anew a way of return from the underworld, the whole raging power of Tartarus met him, holding up the edict of the supreme Ruler, bearing the decree of the King on high, carrying the sentence pronounced by God's own voice so many ages before. And seeing a man, it asked who he was, what he dared, what he wanted, why he alone, without trembling, was attacking and assailing the dread approaches of death. When it asked who he was, the angels, ministers of the resurrection, answered in the prophet's words: “He is the King of glory, he is strong and mighty in battle” (Ps 24:8). But Tartarus replies: “I know that the King of glory in the heavens presides over all the heavenly powers, whose nod the whole creation cannot bear; but this one I see is one of the earthly, formed from mud, enclosed in a mortal body, and in this very human condition more lowly than men; in short, he is soon to be given to the grave and straightway made subject to my rule.” But the angels persisted and repeated: “He is the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory” (Ps 24:10); he is the ruler of heaven, the creator of the world, the saviour of the age, the redeemer of all; he is himself the giver of the sentence on which you rely in your rage; he will tread on your head, he will crush your empire, he will destroy you by his judgment, you who, ordered to seize the guilty, drag in the innocent, plunder the saints, and threaten the very Son of God. Give back one, then, before you are forced to release many. But Tartarus, still not believing this, runs back to heaven by its usual messengers and makes its lament in this spiteful petition: “Lord, though I am the lowest of your creation, though bound to a grim service, I keep your precepts by an inviolable law; I keep watch lest some new violator change the ancient right of your sentence. But a man has appeared called Christ, who boasts that he is your Son; he censures your priests, refutes your scribes, violates your sabbaths, dissolves your law, and compels souls released from the flesh and already assigned to punishment and to my custody to return to the bodies in which they lived wickedly. Every day he goes on to such daring that he is now trying to break the bars of the underworld and drag out Lazarus, who is already shut in our prison, already bound by our law, already held under our right. Either come quickly to help, or, if once he opens the doors, you will now lose all whom we have kept for so many ages.” To this the Son replied from the bosom of the Father: “Father, it is just that the prison hold not the innocent but the guilty, that punishment torment not the righteous but the unrighteous. How long, under the guilt of one man, for the offence of Adam alone, will this executioner not cease with cruel hostility to drag to himself patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, confessors, virgins, widows, those who remain in the chastity of marriage, all ages, both sexes, even little ones who know neither good nor evil? Father, I will die, so that all may not die; Father, I will pay Adam's debt, so that through me those may live to you who through Adam are dying in hell; Father, because of your sentence I will shed my blood, provided only that your creation returns to you; let the price of my blood, dear to you, be the redemption of all the dead.” At this, by the consent of the whole Trinity, Lazarus was commanded to come out, and Tartarus was ordered to obey by giving back all the dead to Christ. That is why the Son cries: “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me” (John 11:41–42). The Apostle testifies that Christ is our advocate with the Father; so when he sits he judges together with the Father, and when he stands he performs the office of advocate. Then Christ, his pleading complete, “cries with a loud voice: Lazarus, come out.” Then Tartarus, with hands and feet bound, brought Lazarus back to the world above, fearing and trembling lest, while it was loosing him, while it delayed, while it was slow to give back one, it should be forced to bring out all. So he who used to be the robber of the dead became the restorer of the living. For why did Christ burst the chains of the underworld and undo the bonds of death, if not to show us the dreadful servitude of the underworld? For if the devil disputed with the angel about the body of Moses, how would Tartarus not dispute with Christ about the life and resurrection of Lazarus? Pray, brothers, that we who have received a taste of the resurrection, with Lazarus handing us the cup, may be found worthy, when Christ returns, to hear the voices of the universal resurrection.

[On the rich man and Lazarus.] We have had two readings, issued by two evangelists, read today in such a way that your understanding might go out to meet our sermon and hidden things might be laid open. Why the occasion of Lazarus's rising compelled us to mention another Lazarus you will hear in what follows. For now we long to bring out into the open the astonishing changes of fortune of the inhuman rich man and of poor Lazarus, their fearful reversals and their most lamentable conditions; because the rich man who scorned to hear the poor man asking for a share in the present life did not deserve to find the poor man sharing his suffering in the evils to come; nor did he, burning, receive the refreshment of water, who denied the refreshment of bread to the poor man burning with hunger. “When he was in torment,” it says, “he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (Luke 16:23). In vain does he now look up at Lazarus above, who before disdained to look down at Lazarus below. Of such the prophet said: “They set their eyes to bow down to the earth” (Ps 17:11). “When he was in torment.” Punishment stings the one whom repentance did not sting to compunction; torments harass the one whom the sores of Lazarus did not move; and not without cause does he feel the goads of punishment who rolled ungratefully in purple. “He saw Abraham far off.” Abraham was far from him to whom the poor man had not been near. He saw Abraham, a sharer in riches but having no share in inhumanity. Abraham was rich, but more in humanity than in wealth; you, rich man, were greater in your inhumanity than in your riches. Abraham, himself a stranger, was a fellow citizen to his guests; you, possessing palaces, gave the poor man no roof. Abraham, while receiving servants, in this way received the Lord, and setting loaves before all men, received the Lord himself at his table; you, while denying crumbs to one poor man, lost a drop of refreshment. “And he cried out and said.” So he cries out there who here scorned to hear those who cried out; there the voice is empty, here the cry was in vain. Hear the prophet saying: “In hell who will confess to you?” (Ps 6:5). In hell what place is there for mercy? In torments what hope of pardon? And who looks for a time of indulgence at the hour of sentence? “Father Abraham, have mercy on me.” Cruel son, what mercy do you ask, when you denied it to yourself by denying it to the poor man? “And send Lazarus.” Wretched son, if Lazarus had come to your table, you would not have come to this place at table. “To dip the tip of his finger in water.” He who closes his hand to the poor man thus begs the alms of a fingertip, and he thirsts for a drop of water who shut up vats of wine so as not to give a drop. “To dip the tip of his finger.” He who did not give his riches to the poor man in pity thus lessens mercy for himself. “And cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” As if he had the rest of his body free from the burning! But the tongue burns more, which neglected to order that mercy be done; the tongue feels the greater burning, which cursed the poor man and spoke against mercy; the tongue is first in torments, which by disparaging the poor man blasphemed the poor man's maker. But now let us hear what Abraham answered. “Son,” he says, “remember that you received good things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things.” Let no one, hearing this, think that the rich man received good things in return for good, since he is all the more guilty in this: though he received good things from God in return for evil, he scorned to give good things back to God on our behalf. For out of such great riches he neither gave food to the poor man nor paid God a sacrifice of even the smallest offering. But the poor man, rich in sores, naked of wealth, stripped of body, clothed in pains, continually offered to God as a sacrifice the soul, which alone the sores did not hold. That is why he receives rest for pains, glory for reproach, honour for insults, favour for contempt, immortality for punishments, rewards for wounds, a spring of refreshment for thirst, the everlasting delights of the heavenly table for hunger; and him whom a corner of the rich man's house did not take in, the bosom of divine consolation encloses. You, rich man, who once shone in purple, now be covered in dung; instead of scarlet be clothed with flames; instead of a soft couch endure the hardness of torments; instead of sumptuous dishes feast on punishments; pay for your abundance with want; digest your drunkenness with thirst; instead of perfumes be sprinkled with stench; and you whom the services of pleasure attended, let the ministers of punishment now attend you there, because you yourself exchanged these things for yourself in this way by despising the poor man. “And Abraham added, saying: Besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who wish to cross from here to you cannot, nor can they cross from there to here.” By speaking thus he declares that both the righteous and the unrighteous were in the underworld before the Lord's coming, and he shows that they were divided only by being set apart in places, not in different realms. But after the Lord, rising from the dead, opened the underworld, laid open the heavens and unbarred paradise, he granted the saints to enter the rest of paradise and to come to the glory of heaven. Whoever believes this understands what Christ by his coming has given to mortals. Foolishly, then, does the rich man think that places can be changed in the underworld, since a man, by acting well or ill here, appoints for himself there the end either of punishment or of rest. Foolish in life, the rich man is found more foolish in punishment; and he who did not know the time of his good things, wretched man, does not recognize the time of his evils either. “I ask you, father.” Now you ask; now is the time for you to suffer, not to ask. “I ask you, father.” What? “That you send Lazarus to my father's house.” Before, Lazarus lay well enough at that door, on which by his hunger he fixed the inscriptions of your inhumanity, where he crowned your doorposts with the laurels of his sores, where with his pus he painted your crumbs. Allow the reversal to stand, then; lay aside your tricks now. It is plain that you cannot bear to see Lazarus like this; it is known, it is known that Lazarus's happiness torments you more than the fire of Gehenna. “Abraham answered: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.” That is: if they not only did not listen to Moses, who crushed the kingdom of Egypt with the elements fighting on his side (Exod 7), who dried up the sea (Exod 14), who made the waves stand firm, who turned rocks into streams (Exod 17), who covered the sun with a cloud and made the night radiant with light (Exod 13), who made the sky rain meat and drop bread like dew (Num 11), but even tried to kill him, will they deign to listen to Lazarus, who is hedged about by as many wounds as the mighty works that surrounded Moses? Allow me to experience what I have begotten, and you endure what you have done. “No, father Abraham.” Truly not father, because he was not a son of Abraham but of Gehenna. “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” This the rich man says from the heart of all, asks from the desires of all, speaks from the wishes of all who belong to the world; for we are all in the habit of whispering: “Oh, if only someone would come from the dead and report here what is done there, everyone would believe him!” Surely, so that the doubters might say: “Who has come from there, from where no one comes? Who will prove that anyone exists after death? We all speak of what we have heard; we feel what has been instilled by words; for whatever truth faith holds is sunk in the deep.” But that our speaking thus, even while we believe these things, comes from faithlessness and not from ignorance, today's reading that followed, from blessed John the Evangelist, has shown. For as the rich man asked, God sent a Lazarus in place of Lazarus. But what the one who was sent, longed for and risen achieved, listen patiently. “The chief priests,” it says, “planned to kill Lazarus, because on his account many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus” (John 12:10–11). As if he had come, though longed for, only to undergo the dangers of a second death! They do not want, they do not want to report what they have seen, who want what they have heard not to be believed. We know, we know both that life is prepared for the good and that torments are prepared for the wicked; but while, captured by vices, we do not want the time of virtues to come, we pretend not to know what we know, and we do not want anyone to come from the underworld to tell what there is after death, when Christ, coming from heaven and himself returning from the underworld, has both taught by word and confirmed by example what remains for the good in heaven and what awaits the wicked in the underworld. But perhaps we neither believe these things nor want Christ to come because we do not want the world to pass away; or rather, not because we do not want the world to pass away, but because we are grieved to leave our vices behind. Christ comes not to drive away life but death; to drive away death, not life; to call the world back, not to take it away; to destroy vices, not to destroy his own creation. But pray, brothers, that when he comes he may find us such as he desires and commands the sharers of his kingdom to be.

[On the Lord's Prayer.] You have received the hearing of faith, dearest brothers; now hear the form of the Lord's Prayer. Christ taught us to pray briefly, because he wants to grant our requests quickly. Or what will he not give to those who ask him, who gave himself to those who did not ask? Or what delay will he make in answering, who in dictating the prayers so anticipates the wishes of those who pray? What you are about to hear today the angels are astonished at, heaven marvels at, earth trembles at; flesh does not bear it, hearing does not take it in, the mind does not reach it, the whole creation cannot sustain it. I do not dare to say it; I cannot keep silent. May God grant that you may be able to hear and I to speak. Which is more awesome: that God gave himself to the earth, or that he gives you to heaven; that he himself enters into fellowship with flesh, or that he makes you enter into partnership with divinity; that he himself takes on death, or that he takes you back out of death; that he himself is born into your servitude, or that he begets you as free children for himself; that he takes on your poverty, or that he makes you his heirs, co-heirs of his only Son? It is surely more awesome that earth is carried over into heaven, that man is changed by deity, that the lot of servitude obtains the rights of lordship. But though this is to be feared, since the matter rests not with the one who teaches but with the one who commands, let us draw near, little children, to where charity calls, love draws, affection invites. Let our hearts feel God as Father, our voice sound it, our tongue speak it, our spirit cry it, and let everything that is in us respond to grace, not to fear; because he who changed the judge into a father wanted to be loved, not feared. “Our Father who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). When you say this, do not take it as though he were not on earth; do not understand it as though he who encloses all things were enclosed in a place; but understand that you have a lineage from heaven, since your Father is held to be in heaven, and act so that by living holily you may answer to a holy Father. He proves himself a son of God who is not darkened by human vices but shines with divine virtues. “Hallowed be your name.” We are reckoned by the name of him whose lineage we are; so we ask that his name, which in itself and through itself is holy, be hallowed in us; for God's name is either honoured by our conduct or blasphemed because of our actions. Hear the Apostle saying: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Rom 2:24). “Your kingdom come.” And when did God not reign? So we ask that he who always reigned for himself may now reign in us, so that we too may be able to reign in him. The devil has reigned, sin has reigned, death has reigned, and mortality was long held captive. So we ask that, with God reigning, the devil may perish, sin may fail, death may die, captivity may be taken captive, so that we, set free, may reign into everlasting life. “Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth.” This is the kingdom of God: when both in heaven and on earth God's will alone prevails, when in all people God is the mind, God lives, God acts, God reigns, God is everything, according to the Apostle's word: “That God may be all in all” in you (1 Cor 15:28). “Give us today our daily bread.” He who gave himself to us as Father, who adopted us as sons for himself, who made us heirs of all things, who exalted us with his name, who gave us his honour and his kingdom, he himself has bound us to ask for daily bread. In the kingdom of God, amid divine gifts, what does human poverty seek? Does so good, so loving, so generous a Father grant bread to his children only when he is asked? And where is that saying: “Do not be anxious about what you will eat, or what you will drink, or what you will wear” (Matt 6:31)? He commands us to ask for what he forbids us to worry about, because the heavenly Father urges us, as heavenly children, to ask for the heavenly bread. He himself said: “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41). He is the bread which, sown in the Virgin, leavened in the flesh, kneaded in the passion, baked in the oven of the tomb, stored in the churches, brought to the altars, daily supplies heavenly food to the faithful. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” O man, if you cannot be without sin and want always to be forgiven everything, always forgive; as much as you want to be forgiven, so much forgive; as often as you want to be forgiven, so often forgive; or rather, since you want everything forgiven you, forgive everything. O man, understand that by forgiving others you have given pardon to yourself. “And lead us not into temptation.” For in this world life itself is temptation: “The life of man,” he says, “is a temptation” (Job 7:1). So let us ask that he not leave us to our own choice, but hold us fast in every act with fatherly love and strengthen us on the path of life with heavenly guidance. “But deliver us from evil.” From what evil? From the devil, of course, from whom comes all evil. We ask to be delivered from evil, because one who is not free of evil cannot enjoy the good. If those not yet born, still placed in the womb, ask for bread and seek the kingdom, why is there any question about how the Son of God always remained in the secret of God the Father? If the church gives birth, this is not a matter of reason; it is a heavenly mystery. How the Son of God was in God the Father is not to be handled by human reasoning; divinity is not to be estimated in a human way. You have heard “God”: think nothing earthly, nothing human. You have heard “Father of Christ”: believe this by substance. You have heard “your Father”: believe this by grace. He always had it that he was Son; to you he has now given to be a son. So know yourself a son in such a way that you do not forget that you are a servant; so hear that you have been brought back to the likeness of Christ, that you always recognize yourself to be subject to Christ.

[On the same.] The mortal condition, an earthly frame, a muddy substance, a nature uncertain of life and death, worn down by labour, consumed by pains, subject to rot and dust, cannot grasp, is not able to estimate, does not dare to drive off, is afraid to believe what today it is compelled to confess. Human frailty cannot find how it could merit so great a grace of God's gifts, such greatness in his promises, such generosity in his bounty. This, I think, the prophet Habakkuk foresaw without doubt by the gaze of his mind, when, shaken with such fear, so agitated by trembling at this report, he says: “Lord, I have heard your report and was afraid; I considered your works and was terrified” (Hab 3:2 LXX). He feared the report not because so great a prophet heard the Lord at that time, but because the servant then found his Lord turned toward him and heard him as Father; he was terrified not because he contemplated the fabric of this world, harmonious though its elements are so discordant among themselves, but because, considering then the works of such great love toward himself, he was shaken with the trembling and fear of wonder. “I considered,” he says, “your works and was terrified.” He was astounded then at being adopted as a son, when he had lost even the confidence of a servant. Then, so that you may know the feeling of this prayer which the Godhead today instils and pours into you, the prophet, undone as it were by fear of this gift received from heaven, then dares to speak. Observe what he said next: “I kept watch,” he says, “and my belly trembled at the voice of the prayer of my lips” (Hab 3:16 LXX). After he had felt the generosity of the divine gift, he kept watch over himself, lest he should again endure an enemy, a foe, a robber, as in paradise. He becomes more vigilant, a more careful guard of himself, who after the loss of so great a thing kept the heavenly treasure in vessels of clay. “And my belly trembled.” Here the prophet calls the inner parts of the heart the belly; for as the belly is fed and filled with food, so is the heart with thoughts. “And my belly trembled at the voice of the prayer of my lips.” If the understanding of the heart had poured the voice into the mouth and given words to the lips, why did he tremble at his own prayers, at his own desires, at what he was about to pray for? Because he spoke not at the prompting of his own heart but by the breath of the divine Spirit. Hear Paul saying: “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6). When he passed what he heard into his inner self, he marvelled that he had merited so much, and the whole inner man trembled. Rightly he added: “And trembling entered my bones,” because the prophet's very inmost parts were shaken. “And beneath me,” he says, “my strength was troubled.” What does “beneath me” mean? That the same man, already lifted on high by grace, lay below by his former nature, and earthly strength could not bear heavenly power. Mount Sinai smoked once when God came down upon the mountain to give the law (Exod 19:18). What would flesh do when God came down into flesh to confer grace upon flesh? He came as Father, because man could not bear God, nor the servant his master. And since he is faithful in the words he has spoken, “Open your mouth and I will fill it” (Ps 81:10), open your mouths now, that he may fill them with such a prayer and such a cry. “Our Father who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). Where are those who distrust God's promise? See how quickly the confession of faith has been rewarded: as soon as you confessed God as the Father of the only Son, you yourself were adopted as a son of God the Father, so that you might be heir of heaven, you who were held an exile from paradise, and earth; and so now you call, “Our Father who are in heaven.” Because you once had a father who dissolved you into mud, who led and dragged you to the bars of hell, let him who seeks again God the heavenly Father as his origin not know the earth, ignore love of the flesh, not look for a father of dust, permit no vice in himself. And let him who believes himself a son of God answer to so great a lineage by action, life, conduct and integrity, lest, going down again to earthly things, he turn to the very insult of so great a parent. “Hallowed be your name.” If the name of Christ gives sight to the blind, a gait to the lame, health to those wasting with various illnesses, life to the dead, and sanctifies you yourself, O man, and the whole creation, how is it that you pray and ask for the holiness of that name? Because from Christ you are called Christian; and so you pray that the privilege of so great a name may be strengthened in you by merits that follow. “Your kingdom come.” He who holds his coming in his own power commands devotion, demands desire, seeks out prayers. That soldier is faithful who thirsts for the presence of his king, longs for the kingdom, seeks and desires triumphs. But here you ask that he come to you and in you to reign, in whom the devil long held the citadel, death the command, hell the power. Let us pray, then, dearest ones, that Christ may always reign in his soldier, and the soldier always triumph in his king. “Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth.” Blessed that day which joins, unites and makes equal the wills of earthly beings with heavenly ones, so that among unlike substances there may be one and the same will. This is faithful peace, unshaken concord, persevering grace, when by the ordering of one lord a household different in nature becomes one in will and is found the same in mind. “Give us today our daily bread.” After the heavenly kingdom, who would ask for temporal bread? But he wants us to ask for daily bread, for the day, as provision for the journey in the sacrament of his body, so that through this we may come to the everlasting day and to the very table of Christ, and there receive the fullness and complete satisfaction of that from which we have taken a taste here. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” Whoever asks this and does not release debts accuses himself through the very thing he prays; whoever asks that as much be granted and forgiven him as he himself forgives and grants, invites God to an agreement, invites God in this way to a contract. Let each demand that as much be granted to himself as he himself has granted to another. Debts are to be forgiven, brothers, not only of money but of all matters, faults and crimes; whatever you, O man, could fall into, when another has fallen into it against you, you will pardon. He asks pardon for his sins with confidence who gladly pardons one who sins. “And lead us not into temptation.” We are compelled to ask this a thousand times in many ways, brothers, lest frailty, daring too much and presuming to stand firm by itself and not taking the measure of its strength, should succumb in the conflict through poor caution, and God, offended, should then hand over to temptations those who offend. “But deliver us from evil.” He thinks humbly enough of himself and does not presume to be saved by himself, who implores to be delivered from evil through God. Sign yourselves. Understand, little children, how great is the glory and power of the perfect and the strong, when such power is disclosed in the very conception, such majesty in the birth. Not yet born, he calls on the Father, asks for holiness, seeks the kingdom, gives laws to the earth, makes earthly wills equal to heavenly ones, and, already devoted, demands rations for labours that will profit. “Give us,” he says, “today our daily bread.” Blessed are you who have begun to conquer before the battle, to triumph before living, to reach the Father's storehouses before the mother's lap, to take the food of the flock before the juice of milk, to resound with the whole shout of victory before answering with the cradle's wail. Truly, as the Apostle said, “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:25). Or who will be able to tell the mystery of so great a conception, where the virgin mother gives birth daily throughout the world, and does not leave her offspring to toil but sends them ahead to eternal glory? [Sermon 69. On the same.] Do you think a mortal breast can grasp the greatness of the Lord's love toward us? Do you think a mind pressed down by the weight of an earthly body understands and feels the divine affection toward us? For whatever adornment of heaven glitters, shines and gleams, whatever on earth is fragrant in flowers, savoury in fruits, glad in living creatures, was made for love of us and assigned to our service. But however great these things are, they are small as a sign of the heavenly love toward us. For us the principalities of the heavens, for us the powers of the upper air, for us the dominions on high, for us the ranks of angels serve in unwearied watches. But even these are small and lesser for proving the divine bond with us, and as weak as the creature is less than its creator. God, whose face cannot be contemplated, whose sight cannot be penetrated, who cannot be estimated by any sense, inaccessible to the mind, not fully known even by hearing: how often, in what ways, how variously, how diversely has he adapted himself to human sight? How he offered and granted himself to human fellowship and familiarity, when he made Noah a sharer in his counsel, forewarned him that a flood was coming to cleanse the world, and marked out the whole world, with Noah himself as its guardian, in the small seed of the ark (Gen 6)! When he comes to Abraham as a guest, invited he enters with every condescension, does not refuse what is offered, takes what is set before him as though hungry and tired, and as though in need receives and accepts human things in a divine exchange (Gen 18). That is why the old man's deadened limbs soon come to life again, the barren old woman's extinguished womb is revived, and nature, buried in a living corpse, rises again to bring forth its author, and, its time long past, generates multitudes through the one whom it had believed the Creator would give (Gen 21). To Moses God gathers himself as fire in the bush; then he consults with his servant about what is to be done, exerts himself in various mighty works in Egypt, and is made manifest at his servant's nod (Exod 3); he inflicts plagues or takes them away (Exod 8); and in the sea the obedience of the avenging waters shows how great he is and how much he has given to man, when the deep is dried up and the water gives way to the righteous, and, its liquid hardened, provides a wall, offers a defence to those who are to be set free, and with the whole force of its nature rushes down to triumph over the cruellest enemy (Exod 14). God, living in wondrous fellowship in the camp of Israel (Deut 23:14), now strikes numerous nations with lightning, now with hail (Josh 10), now lays them low with nothing but the blast of trumpets (Josh 6), so that without battle and without a wound God leads to victory the ranks he goes before. He was present to their desires, assented to the prayers of individuals, answered questions at once, revealed hidden things, foretold the future, laid open what was sought, granted a king, gave wealth, tempered the rains, made the lands fruitful, adorned marriages themselves with abundance and honour of children. But he still thought it too little to show his affection toward us only by granting prosperity and not also by enduring adversity. After everything, he enters his world poor; he lies in a cradle as a man; by his wailing he implores, seeks and demands the loving care he himself granted to you. The parent of all had you for a parent; he to whom every height is subject was subject to you; he whom all fearful things fear was afraid; he to whom all things flee for refuge fled; the arbiter of the heavens was a guest in the houses of sinners; he who feeds all is fed with bread. And what more? The Pantokrator of the ages is held fast; the founder of the earth is made to stand trial; the giver of pardon to mankind is judged; the searcher of hearts is examined; the giver and restorer of life is punished; the resurrection of all is buried; so that the slow mind of man, and his rather sluggish understanding, might at least through death prove God's affection toward it, the mind which through all the benefits of God already mentioned, countless as they are, had not understood or felt God's love toward it. He who made us exist and gave us life also taught us to pray, because he wanted to grant everything, he who wanted to be entreated with his own prayer. “Our Father who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). See, O man, today Christ, by your own voice, to make you co-heir with himself of God the Father, adopts you as a son when you say, “Our Father.” What belongs to his condescension he willed to be in your power, according to the word: “As many as received him, he gave them power to become children of God” (John 1:12); and yet he commands you to say it, so that it may be the condescension of the giver, not the rashness of one who presumes. “Who are in heaven.” Not that he is not on earth; but he wants you, who now call on a heavenly Father, to strive toward and seek again a heavenly nature, so that our life may answer to so great a lineage and earthly conduct may not degenerate from what the heavenly nature has now given and conferred. “Hallowed be your name.” Not that the name which sanctifies you has to be sanctified by your prayer; but because from the name of Christ you are called Christian, you must ask that this name be sanctified and honoured in you by your conduct. For as the fame of virtues answers to the glory of the name, so the infamy of one who lives badly redounds to the injury of that same name, as the Apostle says: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Rom 2:24). And truly, children, the pagan disparages the Christian name when he sees a Christian living otherwise than he professes and is said to live. “Your kingdom come.” Not that a kingdom should come to God, who always has it; but you ask that it come to you, who do not have it, and that you may receive what the Lord in his love promises you when he says: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34). “Come, blessed”: he did not say “Let us come”; “receive”: he did not say “Let us receive.” Let no one be surprised that one not yet born calls on the Father; for if John leaps (Luke 1:41) and Jacob wrestles in the womb (Gen 25:22), let the wise consider what the divine nature can do, if a human conception can do so much through God.

[On the same.] All the things that are related as divinely said and done are matters of wonder and astonishment, to be dreaded by mortals and trembled at even by heavenly beings; but nothing so astounds heaven, frightens the earth and terrifies the whole creation as what you are about to hear today as we speak. A servant dares to call the Lord Father; the guilty man names his judge his parent; an earthly creature by its own voice adopts itself as God's son; one who lost earthly things reckons himself heir of divinity. But we dare, because there is no presumption on the speaker's part where there is the authority of one who commands; for he who taught us to pray thus wanted us to speak thus today. And what wonder if he consecrated human beings as sons of God, when he gave and fitted himself to be a son of man? He carried the nature of flesh over into the divine when he brought the deity down to human nature; he made man his co-heir in heaven when he made himself a sharer in earthly things. Or what love, what gift could he deny to man, who took on everything that belonged to man, even sin and death? Or how will he not have man as partner in his prosperity, who made himself man's companion in adversity? O man, return to God, loved so much by God; and give your whole self to his glory, who for your sake brought his whole self to insult; and call him Father with confidence, whom you prove, feel and understand to be your parent by so great a love. “Our Father.” Let no one wonder that one not yet born calls on the Father: for God the things that are to be born are already born, the things to come are already done. “What will be,” it says, “already has been” (Eccl 3:15). That is why John in the womb perceives his maker (Luke 1:41), and stands forth as a messenger to his mother while still unaware of his own life. That is why Jacob is read to have fought before he was born, to have triumphed before he lived (Gen 25). That is why those already exist for God who do not yet exist for themselves, who were chosen before the foundation of the world. “Who are in heaven.” Not that he is not on earth, but so that by this you may know that you are a heavenly offspring; and if you confess that you are a son of God, live as a son of God, so that by action, life and virtues you may answer to so great a parent. “Hallowed be your name.” Since from Christ you are called Christian, you ask that the privilege of so great a name be hallowed in you; because God's name, which is holy through itself and for itself, is either hallowed in us by our conduct or blasphemed among the Gentiles because of our conduct. “Your kingdom come.” He himself says: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). If it is within us, why do we pray that it come? It is there in faith, in hope, in expectation; but we pray now that it come in reality. Let it come to us, not to him who always reigns together with his Father and always reigns in the Father; let it come to us: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world” (Matt 25:34). We say “Your kingdom come,” that God may reign in us in such a way that death ceases to reign in us and sin ceases to reign. “Death reigned,” it says, “from Adam to Moses” (Rom 5:14). And elsewhere: “Let not sin reign in your mortal body” (Rom 6:12). “Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth.” Now on earth many things are done according to the will of the devil, the wickedness of the world, the desire of the flesh; but in heaven nothing is done except the Lord's will. So we ask that, when the devil has been slain, the world renewed, the body changed, the rule of death destroyed and the dominion of sin abolished, there may be in heaven and on earth, in God and in human beings, one and the same will of God. “Give us today our daily bread.” After the heavenly kingdom we are not commanded to ask for earthly bread, since he himself forbids it when he says: “Do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat or what you will drink” (Matt 6:25). But since he himself is the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:41), we ask and pray that the very bread by which we are to live daily, that is, continually, in eternity, we may receive today, that is, in the present life, from the banquet of the holy altar, for strength of body and mind. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” By saying this, O man, you have set for yourself the measure of indulgence and the extent of pardon, since you ask the Lord to forgive you as much as you yourself have forgiven your fellow servant. So forgive the one who wrongs you completely, if you want to owe the Lord nothing for your own wrongs; forgive yourself in the other, if you want to escape an avenging sentence. “And lead us not into temptation.” God, as it is written, tempts no one (Jas 1:13); but he is said to tempt when he abandons those who stubbornly go toward the snares of temptations. So Adam ran into the tempter's ambush when he deserted the commands of his Creator. From where and by whom man is tempted he discloses by saying: “But deliver us from evil”: that is, from the devil, who is the author and origin of all evil. The devil was heavenly by nature; now he is spiritual wickedness, older than the world, practised in the habit of doing harm, most skilled in the art of injuring; so he is now called not evil but the Evil, from whom comes everything that is evil. That is why man, bound by fleshly chains, cannot be freed by his own strength. So we must ask God to free us from the devil, God who lent Christ to the earth to conquer the devil. Let man cry out, let him cry out to God, let him cry, “Deliver us from evil,” so that we may be freed from so great an evil, with Christ alone conquering. “Our Father who are in heaven.” He whom you are to entreat has himself granted you, in very few words, the theme of praying, the matter of asking and the rule of supplicating, so that from this you may take the sense of asking, grasp the understanding of requesting, gather the measure of obtaining, and from the briefest lesson in prayer receive the widest instruction. At the same time, as a sign of love, the King himself performed the office of advocate, dictating the prayers that he himself was to answer. All hesitation about obtaining has been taken away, rather complete confidence of obtaining has been conferred, when he who is asked reads himself in the prayers. Fear has no place where a son, with love as interpreter, desires to obtain holy things from his Father.

[On the same.] Dearest brothers, he who granted you to believe has himself also taught you to pray, and has fitted the whole form of asking into a few words; because when a son asks his father he does not labour over long prayer; for as need drives the child to ask, so charity urges the parent to give. So the Father, who grants of his own accord, shows not so much that he is to be asked as what is to be asked, so that the son, who can displease by asking for foolish things, may please by asking for just ones. Hear the Father, and believe that you are now sons, so that you may obtain without hesitation whatever you ask. What faith avails, what belief can do, how much confession is worth, is shown today in you. See, the threefold confession of the Trinity has lifted you from earthly servitude into heavenly offspring; see, the faith that spoke of God as Father has today won God as Father for you; see, the voice that confessed God the Son has adopted you as sons of God; see, the belief that proclaimed God the Spirit has changed you from the mortal substance of flesh into the living substance of the Spirit. Who will be found worthy to declare such great love? God the Father deigns to make human beings his heirs; God the Son does not disdain to have little servants as co-heirs; God the Spirit takes flesh as a partner in divinity; heaven becomes the possession of earthly beings, and those condemned to the jurisdiction of the underworld are received on high, as the Apostle proves when he says: “Do you not know that we shall judge angels?” (1 Cor 6:3). So call God Father, and believe that you, though not yet born, are already designated sons; and take care that you have a heavenly life and divine conduct, and that the whole form of deity shines out in your form; because the heavenly Father enriches with divine gifts the sons who answer to their lineage, and calls back to penal servitude those who degenerate. “Our Father who are in heaven.” A servile conscience would give way and the earthly condition would dissolve, if the authority of the Father himself and the Spirit of his Son did not rouse us to this cry. “God,” he says, “has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6). The mind grows weary, our flesh fails before divine things, unless God himself, who commands, fulfils what he commands to be done. When did mortality ever dare to call God Father except now, when man's inner self is given life by heavenly power? “Our Father who are in heaven.” O man, what have you in common with the earth, you who confess that your lineage is from heaven? So show a heavenly life in your earthly dwelling; because if earthly thought has done anything in you, you have brought a stain on heaven and an insult on your heavenly lineage. “Hallowed be your name.” We ask God to hallow his name, which by its holiness saves and sanctifies the whole creation. Brothers, this is the name that the powers on high fear, that they receive with awed servitude; this is the name that gives salvation to a lost world. But we ask that God's name be hallowed in us by our conduct; for when we act well, God's name is blessed; when we act badly, it is blasphemed. Hear the Apostle saying: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Rom 2:24). So we ask, we ask that we may be found worthy to have as much of its holiness in our minds as God's name is holy. “Your kingdom come.” We now ask that the kingdom of Christ come, as though it had not always been and did not exist now. And where is that saying: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21)? It is among us by faith, but we pray that it may come in reality. Brothers, as long as the devil, by various kinds of wickedness and many arts of deceit, confuses the sight of things, throws human minds and conduct into disorder, rages through idols, raves through sacrileges, deceives by auguries, lies through divination, misleads by signs, mocks by the stars, preoccupies with the shows, besieges with vices, wounds with sins, injures with crimes and lays low with despair, he prolongs Christ's kingdom and keeps it away from us. So we ask that the time may come when, the author of so great an evil perishing, the whole world and the whole creation may reign and triumph to the full glory of Christ alone; and that what follows may be done, that as in heaven so also on earth there may be one will of the Lord. Let earth be heaven, God be life, time be eternity, the homeland be rest, wealth be innocence, honour be immortality, glory be chastity, God be everything. He added: “Give us today our daily bread.” After God's fatherhood, after the holiness of the divine name, after the kingdom of heaven, we are commanded to ask for daily bread. Christ is not subject to forgetfulness; Christ does not command things contrary to his own commands. He himself said: “Do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat or what you will drink” (Matt 6:25). But since he himself is the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:41), who was ground into flour by the millstone of law and grace, kneaded in the passion of the cross, leavened in the mystery of great love; who raised the leavened dough from the tomb; who, to be baked by the heat of his divinity, himself heated the oven of the underworld; who is brought daily to the table of the church as heavenly food; who is broken for the forgiveness of sins; who feeds and nourishes those who eat him to everlasting life: this bread we ask to be given us daily, until we enjoy it to the full in that everlasting day. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” O man, the power of pardon is with you, the power of indulgence is in you; you have been made the author of your own forgiveness. In vain do you ask pardon, you who scorn to pardon yourself in another. O man, you have become the measure of mercy for yourself; as much mercy as you seek, so much show. “And lead us not into temptation.” Temptation, brothers, is a deceptive appearance, which hides prosperity in adversity and adversity in prosperity, and leads human ignorance into treacherous falls. So we ask that we may not fall, driven by our sins, into the pits of temptations. God is said to lead into temptation when he abandons those who run toward crimes. “But deliver us from evil.” Here by evil he means the author of evil, that is, the devil. So we ask that by this one gift we may be free of all evils when we are free of the author of evil. “Our Father who are in heaven.” Let no one who cries out that he is a son be surprised that he remains in the condition of servitude: today you have been designated for the divine lineage, not promoted to it; know that you have obtained the hope, not the reality. Hear the Apostle: “In hope we have been saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what someone sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom 8:24–25). Today is the day of adoption, today is the time of promise: hear, believe, wait. Trust your creditor, who has given credit to you, his debtor; wait a little for him to come, who waited long for you to come; grant him time on his promise, who has already forgiven you whatever you owed. Or why do you grow weary of hope in God, when the whole human race subsists by hope and lives by faith? The farmer would never sow, panting with toil, if he did not hope for the fruit of his labour in due season; the traveller would not undergo the toil of a long journey unless he believed that he would reach his destination; the sailor would not enter the uncertain sea if he did not hope to make up for the perils of the voyage with the gains that follow; the soldier would not spend his whole youth in dangers if he did not hope for the abundant honours of old age; the son would not endure the period of his father's authority if he did not hope to be heir to his father's property. And you too, if you now believe that you are a son of God, according to the prophet: “Wait for the Lord, act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened” (Ps 27:14); wait, so that you may obtain the inheritance of God through faith in waiting and the virtue of patience. Hear the Apostle: “We are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). And again: “Your life is hidden with Christ in God; but when Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:3–4). Brothers, blessed are the sons of God, because they will possess the inheritance of all things and will never see a time of mourning over a father's death.

[On the same.] What I am now about to say with great trembling, what you are now about to hear with awe, or rather to call out with awe, the angels are astonished at, the powers dread, the highest heaven does not contain, the sun does not see, the earth does not sustain, the whole creation does not attain. What is a mortal breast before this? What is the weak mind of man before this? What the narrowness of human understanding? What the breath of the human voice? What the human tongue, soon to fall silent? When Paul had seen this invisibly, he disclosed it by not disclosing it, saying: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9). When Isaiah had begun to hear this, he doubted whether even faith in it could reach human beings, saying: “Lord, who has believed our report?” (Isa 53:1). When Jeremiah had conceived this by divine hearing, he could not bear the birth of heavenly thoughts, and cried: “My belly, my belly, I am in pain, and the thoughts of my heart are troubled” (Jer 4:19). Habakkuk was pleading this by the breath of the divine Spirit when he says: “I kept watch, and my belly trembled at the voice of the prayer of my lips; and trembling entered my bones, and beneath me my strength was troubled” (Hab 3:16). Lifted up by the power of God, he felt his own strength sink beneath him. It would take long to pursue this mystery of fear and to enumerate the examples of the saints; time does not allow me to linger long in this fear; the onrush of the heavenly birth cannot hold back those who are being born. So I speak, and I address you, still in the womb, with a penetrating voice; I forewarn you with provident exhortation, that before you see your mother you should call on your Father; that before your mother's caresses you should strive and hasten toward your Father's kingdom; that you should reach your Father's bread before you hang at your mother's breasts. Let neither a mother's claims nor the stages of age claim anything in you for themselves; but let everything in you answer to and run to meet the divine Father, the heavenly maker. “Our Father who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). This is what I was afraid to say, this is what I trembled to utter, this is what the condition of their own servitude allowed none of the heavenly or earthly beings to suspect: that so great an exchange could suddenly take place between heaven and earth, between flesh and God, that God should be turned into man and man into God, the Lord into a servant and the servant into a son, and that there should come about, in an ineffable way, one everlasting kinship of divinity and humanity. And indeed the condescension of the deity toward us is so great that creation cannot know what it ought to marvel at most: that God lowered himself to our servitude, or that he carried us off to the dignity of his divinity. That is why, O man, he who is now inflamed with such great love for you exhorts you from heaven: that while you are still in the womb God adopts you as a son by your own voice; that he wants you not only to become free but to be born free; that for your sake he sets nature itself free, so that birth may impose no blemish, no stain of the old servitude. O blessed are you, to whom it is given to rule before being born, to reign before living, to reach the glory of God the Father before recognizing the stock of your own lowliness. Happy mother church, who looks on you as such! We marvel that she, while remaining a virgin, has borne you so, as such and so great. Of old this birth was signified by examples that went before. That is why Jacob wrestles with his brother in his mother's womb (Gen 25:22) and snatches the triumph beforehand. That is why in Tamar's womb the twins fight over the honour of the firstborn, delay the birth, and want to conquer before they see the light (Gen 38:27–30). That is why John leaps for joy and goes to meet his maker before he comes out of his mother's womb (Luke 1:41). And if human offspring thus serve as soldiers of God before they are born to their parents, before they live in the world, what wonder if the divine shoots of the church, God's own offspring, still in the womb, already confess that they are of heavenly stock? “Our Father who are in heaven.” Amazement rises: Christ, from the bosom of God the Father, calls on a mother and confesses her on earth; and man, from his mother's womb, calls on a Father and confesses him in heaven. “Our Father who are in heaven.” To what height, O man, has grace suddenly carried you? Where has the heavenly nature swept you, that, though still placed in flesh and on earth, you already disown flesh and earth by saying, “Our Father who are in heaven”? So let him who confesses and believes himself a son of so great a Father answer to his lineage by his life and to his Father by his conduct, and assert in mind and action what he has obtained as heavenly by nature. “Hallowed be your name.” We are reckoned by the name of him whose lineage we have begun to be; and so we ask that the hallowing of that name may continue in us, the honour and privilege of the name which the loftiness of so great a parent has so exalted. “Your kingdom come.” We do not ask it for him who has never lacked the kingdom, who rather is himself the kingdom and holds in himself the whole power of the kingdom; but he who wants us to come to the promised glory of the kingdom urges us to seek it with all our prayers; he wants us to long for it with our whole minds. For as rash as one who disputes about his lineage is, so slothful is one who does not rejoice, burn and pant as he reaches out and stretches toward the promised kingdom. “Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth.” As in heaven, so also on earth: then everything is heaven, then the one mind of God moves all, then all are in Christ and Christ is in all, when all savour and do the will of God alone; then all are one, or rather all are one man, when the one Spirit of God lives in all. “Give us today our daily bread.” As in the psalm, “Blessed be the Lord day by day” (Ps 68:19), so here: “Give us today our daily bread.” By daily we mean continual; that bread is continual which came down from heaven: “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41). This bread, then, belongs to perfect blessedness; today, that is, in the present, we already begin to live on the food of that bread, on whose perpetuity, which is what “daily” means, we shall feast in the future. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” From the breast of the one who prays the spring of pardon flows out and flows back as pardon: whatever love overflows and pours out on another, when one pardons oneself as much as one has pardoned another. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” A merciful man is strong enough, who contends with God in love, when he desires to be given as much as he has given and to be forgiven as much as he has forgiven. O man, let pardon always be in your breast, if you wish not to fear your crimes. “And lead us not into temptation.” These words need interpretation, because temptation goes before the devil and is his bitter servant; as long as we are held in this fragile body, we must pray that no entry be open to temptation in us and no access granted to the devil. “But deliver us from evil.” May the Lord our God himself deliver us from evil and lead us to every good, who lives and reigns as God now and always, and through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

[On the paschal feast.] Today's festival, dearest brothers, does not join old things to us, nor does it keep the flesh of the lamb until the morning; but while it shares the past with the present in solemn devotion and joins our Pasch to the returning Pasch, it weans the infancy of the new regeneration, because, according to the Apostle, “the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor 5:17). The Lord's year is completed in its seasons but does not grow old; it runs round again in its circle for as long as it takes to bring us to the day of retribution. Today's paschal solemnity now takes from milk those whom it bore earlier, so that by feeding on more solid food they may be strengthened into the perfect man of Christ. We know from the account of sacred history that Abraham made a great feast and roused his whole household to joy when Isaac was weaned (Gen 21:8). If the offspring of old age, the only son of a barren woman, with dancing choirs, lyre and drum, and the whole harmony of the psaltery resounding, drew and moved the hearts of the whole household to joy, how much more fitting is it for us today to exult in spiritual hymns and songs, when the whole fruitfulness born of the Virgin is weaned? If Hannah, Sarah's fellow in barrenness, who moistened the dryness of her body and nature with the tears of her prayers for as long as offspring had been denied her through a long time, gave back Samuel, received as a divine gift, as a gift to God as soon as he was weaned, and heaped up her joy with sacrificial victims to the full measure of her deliverance (1 Sam 1), much more ought we to offer a sacrifice of praise, pay our vows, burn the incense of sweetness, and sacrifice victims to God the Father with all the fatness of burnt offerings, when the Virgin mother, having nourished and weaned as many children as there are stars in the sky, presents them to the Father throughout the whole world, so that the prophet's word may be fulfilled: “You will bless the crown of the year of your goodness, and your fields will be filled with abundance” (Ps 65:11). So let no one think that this saving mystery of our festival is idle, or suppose that we sew a new patch onto an old garment, when we join nothing of Jewish oldness to Christian newness, knowing, as the Apostle says, that a whole new creation has arisen for us in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). Rather, we raise divine knowledge to the advance of heavenly power, so that, while the newly born are taught at the same time what they owe, and those born earlier are instructed how much thanks they owe to God for their perfection, those who have just been born may be hung on the neck and be wholly occupied, with all love, beneath the breasts of mother church, may draw the food of innocence with tender throats, may practise stretching out their arms in holy work, may strive to steady their trembling steps on the course of faith. Are those already nourished to be left in such a way that they are not ruled by the father's care, the father's hand, the father's judgment, and so protected by the mother's counsel and the mother's faith that they may perceive and seize what brings salvation not only by human but also by divine prudence? So Jacob, very timid on his own but bold enough through his mother's counsel, went in to snatch his father's blessing, more as a mystery than as a deceiver (Gen 27). For he did not lie in claiming to be the firstborn, because the firstborn is the one whom heavenly grace begets, not mortal nature. He prefigured us under the goatskins: we who, that we may die to sin, at the urging of mother church put on the garment of the mortified body, and are fragrant with the continual fruits of confession and the abundance of the field's work, until, mocking Israel's blindness in a saving way, we seize the paternal blessing in the whole secret of faith, as the Apostle says: “Blindness has come upon Israel in part, until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in” (Rom 11:25).

[On the resurrection of Christ.] The toil of the vigils, dearest brothers, made us keep silent for a little while, and the weariness of fasting compelled it; and so today we render our sermon on the Lord's resurrection. If it is divine that Christ is born of a Virgin, how much more divine is it that Christ rises from the dead? What is divine, then, let it not be received with human hearing. “At the evening of the sabbath,” it says, “which was dawning toward the first day of the week” (Matt 28:1). An evening of the sabbath that dawns: the days of this world do not know this; the world's usage does not have it. Evening ends the day, it does not begin it; evening grows dark, it does not grow light; it does not turn into dawn, because it does not know the rising of the light. Evening, the mother of night, gives birth to the day; it changes its order when it recognizes its author; the mystery shines with newness; it longs to serve the Creator, not time. “At the evening of the sabbath which was dawning toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.” Late does the woman run to pardon, who ran early to guilt. In the evening she seeks Christ, she who knew that in the morning she had lost Adam. “Mary and the other Mary came to see the tomb.” She who had taken faithlessness from paradise hurries to take faith from the tomb; she strives to snatch life from death, who had snatched death from life. “Mary came.” This is the name of Christ's mother; so the mother came in name; the woman came, so that she might become the mother of the living who had become the mother of the dying, and that what is written might be fulfilled: “This is the mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20). “Mary and the other Mary came.” He did not say “they came” but “she came”: under one name two came, by a mystery, not by chance. “Mary and the other Mary came.” The same woman came, yet another; another, yet the same; so that the woman might be changed in life, not in name, in virtue, not in sex; and that she might become the messenger of the resurrection who had been the go-between of the fall and of ruin. “Mary came to see the tomb”: so that she whom the sight of the tree had deceived the sight of the tomb might restore, and she whom an enticing sight had laid low a saving sight might raise up. “Behold,” it says, “there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven.” The earth trembled, not because an angel came down from heaven, but because the Lord ascended from the underworld. “Behold, there was a great earthquake.” Chaos is moved, the depths of the earth leap apart, the earth trembles, the weights of the mountains tremble, the foundations of the world are shaken, Tartarus is seized, the underworld is brought to a halt; death is condemned, which, reaching for the guilty, ran into the judge; having ruled over servants, it blazed out against the Lord; raging against men, it leapt upon God. Rightly, then, the law of Tartarus perishes, the rights of the underworld are removed, the power of death is taken away; and, as the penalty for its rashness, the injury done to the judge has raised the dead. At last bodies are given back, man is made whole again, life is restored, and everything now rests on pardon, because the sentence soon passed over onto the author of life. “Behold, there was a great earthquake.” Now a great earthquake! Oh, if only then even a light whirlwind had thrown down the deadly tree! Oh, if only the smoke of a cloud had darkened that woman's sight! Oh, if only a black cloud had dimmed the look of the deadly fruit! Oh, if only the hand that touched what was forbidden had trembled! Oh, if only an unseasonable night had darkened the day of sin and taken away the laments of the world, the increase of death and the injury to the Creator! But allurements always serve vices, sweet things pander to sins, while harsh and strong things are friends to virtues. “For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven.” With Christ rising and death perishing, heavenly fellowship is restored to earthly beings; and the woman who had held deadly counsel with the devil now has life-giving converse with an angel. “For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled back the stone.” He did not say “rolled” but “rolled back” the stone, which, rolled against the tomb, proved the death, and, rolled back, became the witness of the resurrection. Blessed the stone that was found worthy both to reveal and to veil Christ! Blessed, for it opens hearts no less than the tomb! Blessed, for it gives faith in the resurrection and a resurrection of faith, and testifies that the divine flesh has risen! Here the order of things is changed: here the tomb devours death, not the dead man; the house of death becomes a dwelling of life; a new kind of womb conceives a dead man and gives birth to a living one. “For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, approaching, rolled back the stone and sat upon it.” And what reason to sit had an angel, in whom there was no weariness? But he sat as a teacher of faith, as a master of the resurrection; he sat on the rock, so that the solidity of the seat might give firmness to believers. The angel was laying on the rock the foundations of the faith on which Christ was to found his church, who said: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Matt 16:18). “His appearance,” it says, “was like lightning, and his clothing like snow” (Matt 28:3). For an angel's glory lightning is not enough; and what did clothing do for a heavenly nature? But by such splendour he represented the appearance and form of our resurrection, because those who rise through Christ are changed into the glory of Christ. “For fear of him the guards were terrified and became like dead men.” Wretched men, whom the fear of death strikes at the moment when the security of life is restored! But how could ministers of cruelty, executors of another's faithlessness, take confidence from heavenly things? They were besieging the tomb, blocking the doors against the resurrection, and keeping watch so that no life could enter and death could not perish: rightly the angel's coming struck and laid them low. Wretched mortality, always its own enemy, grieves to die and fights against being able to rise again. It would have been fitting to open the tomb and offer every facility for the rising, so that there might be a miracle from the deed, hope from the example, the reality from the one who returned, belief from his living. It is great madness for a man to refuse to believe what he desires to happen to himself. Let it be enough to have said this today about these guards; what our faith holds we shall say later, so that today may not run long, by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father, God for ages of ages. Amen.

[On the same.] As far as I have been away from you, so far has speech been away from me; but pray, brothers, that as God has given me back to you, so he may deign to give back and restore speech to me. You heard the evangelist say (Matt 28): “At the evening of the sabbath,” he says, “which dawns toward the first day of the week.” What does human understanding grasp here? What does human wisdom make of this? “Evening that dawns.” Evening ends the day, it does not begin it; it gives birth not to light but to darkness. But here the author of the elements changes the courses of the elements, so that in the Lord's resurrection you may perceive everything divine, nothing human. In short, as Christ rises, evening grows light for the faithful and day grows dark for the unfaithful; for the disciples night is changed into day, for the Jews day is turned and changed into night. “From the sixth hour,” it says, “darkness came over the whole earth until the ninth hour” (Luke 23:44), so that even the brightness of full noon was darkened and what is written was fulfilled: “The sun will set for him at noon” (Amos 8:9). It will set for them, that is, for the Jews; but for ours: “Night will be lit up like the day” (Ps 139:12). Evening, which always sinks into deep gloom, then stretched out and rose wholly into the light of Christ, and with all its splendour filled the hearts of all mortals as Christ rose from the underworld. “At the evening of the sabbath”: because the sabbath is illuminated through Christ, not abolished. “For he came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it” (Matt 5:17). It is lit up so that it may shine on the Lord's day, and that what was darkened in the synagogue by the Jews' obscuring of it may grow bright in the church. “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.” Women go before the apostles to this ministry, women who follow men in sex and the disciples in rank; but they do not thereby make the apostles seem slower, for they bring to the Lord's tomb not the forms of women but the type of the churches: Mary and Mary, another in such a way as to be the same, the same in such a way as to be another; O other Mary who is the same, Mary the mother of Christ. One name is doubled into two women, because here the church, coming from two peoples, is figured as one made of two peoples, that is, of Gentiles and Jews, because “the first will be last and the last first” (Matt 20:16). Mary came to the tomb, came to the womb of the resurrection, came to the birth of life, so that Christ, who had been begotten from the womb for the flesh, might be born again from the tomb for faith; and that the closed tomb might give back to everlasting life him whom closed virginity had brought forth into the present life. It is a mark of divinity to have left the virgin closed after giving birth; it is a mark of divinity to have come out with a body from a closed tomb. Mary and Mary came to see the tomb. You see that they came not to see the Lord but the tomb; nor were they seeking the living among the dead, for they believed that the Lord had already risen. “For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, approaching, rolled back the stone.” He rolled back the stone not to give the Lord a way out as he left, but to show the world that the Lord had already risen; to give his fellow servants faith to believe, not to give the Lord help to rise. “He rolled back the stone.” It is rolled back toward faith, which had been rolled against the tomb toward faithlessness. “He rolled back the stone,” so that the very stone which had received the guard who kept death might become the inscription of life. Pray, brothers, that the angel may now come down and roll away all the hardness of our heart, open the closed places of our senses, and testify from our minds too that Christ has risen; because, as the heart in which Christ lives and reigns is heaven, so the breast in which Christ is still held dead and buried is a tomb. Let it be believed that Christ's death, real as it was, has passed away: Christ as man suffered, died and was buried; as God he is, lives, reigns, remains and abides. Hear the Apostle saying: “Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer” (2 Cor 5:16). And: “The death he died to sin, he died once; but the life he lives, he lives to God” (Rom 6:10); that is, he lives as God. “And approaching, he rolled back the stone and sat upon it.” He sat to teach the resurrection, not to relieve weariness. The heavenly nature knows no weariness, knows no labour; but the stone became the vessel of the angel's seat, the chair of heavenly teaching, the school of life, since for the Jews it had been set at the door of death, for the service of ashes, for sad silence. “His appearance,” it says, “was like lightning, and his clothing like snow.” The brightness of the face is distinguished from the whiteness of the clothes, and the angel's face is compared to lightning and his clothing to snow, because lightning is from heaven, snow from the earth. Hear the prophet saying: “Praise the Lord from the earth, fire, hail, snow” (Ps 148:7–8). In the angel's face, then, the brightness of the heavenly nature is kept; in his clothing the grace of fellowship with humanity is figured; and the appearance of the angel who speaks is tempered, so that fleshly eyes might bear the gentle brightness of the clothes, and from the brightness of the face might tremble at the messenger and revere the one who sent him. “For fear of him the guards were terrified.” Why terrified? Because they were guarding out of zeal for cruelty, not out of loving service. One whom conscience abandons and guilt drives on is overthrown and cannot stand. That is why the angel strikes down the wicked and speaks to and consoles the devout. “Do not be afraid, you.” That is: let those others fear; let those who seek not fear; let the persecutors fear. “Do not be afraid, you; for I know that you are seeking Jesus who was crucified; he is not here.” That is: I came to instruct you, not to bring him out, who is both the maker of things and the one who raises himself. “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.” You see that the angel came so that the servant might confirm by deeds what the Lord had foretold in words, and teach that the power of dying and of living lay with him who before his death had foretold his resurrection; for surely he who could foreknow it could also have avoided it; but because he could conquer, he disdained to avoid it, since the glory of the one rising buried the injury of the one dying. Of what follows, brothers, we shall treat in the next sermon, because the weariness of a journey still recent has kept us from prolonging and extending the sermon.

[On the same, and on Christ's second appearance, made to the women returning from the tomb.] In the previous sermon we said that Mary and the other Mary bore the figure of the church coming from two peoples; today we wish to prove this from what follows, if only you will lend us a kindly hearing. “The angel answered,” it says, “and said: Do not be afraid, you; for I know that you are seeking Jesus who was crucified; he is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord was laid” (Matt 28:5–6). The angel proclaims the name, speaks of the cross, tells of the passion, confesses the death, but at once, at once confesses the resurrection and the Lord. And if an angel, after such great sufferings, after the tomb, recognizes the Lord, speaks of his own servitude, and perceives that the whole injury of the passion has passed into the glory of the resurrection, why does man either judge God to have been diminished in the flesh, or think that his power failed in the passion, or believe that his lordship was consumed by servitude? Fittingly, then, he says “crucified” and shows the place where the Lord was laid, lest it be believed that another, and not the same one, had risen from the dead. And if the Lord returns in the same flesh, brings back his wounds, takes up again the very holes of the nails, and makes the very insults of his passion into testimonies of his body and signs of his resurrection, why does man think that he will return in another flesh, or not in his own? Or does the servant perhaps disdain his own flesh, when the Lord did not change ours? Accept, O man, that you will be yourself in your own flesh, lest you should not be yourself if you rise in another's flesh. The angel added, saying: “And go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen, and he goes before you into Galilee; there you will see him.” Here the angel sends not women but the church in two women; he sends one, so that by sending her he may spread her far and wide. Here the angel sends the bride to the bridegroom; and then, as they go, the Lord meets them and greets them, saying: “Hail.” He meets them, and does not terrify them with power but anticipates them with the ardour of charity; he does not disturb them with authority but greets them by the law of the bridegroom; he does not burden them with a master's right but honours them with the love of a spouse. He greets them: “Hail.” He himself had said to his disciples: “Greet no one on the road” (Luke 10:4); why then does he come running on the road as so festive a greeter? He does not wait to be recognized, does not seek to be understood, does not allow himself to be questioned, but goes wholly into greeting, goes fervently, and by a greeting himself releases his own command? He did it, he did it, because the force of love conquers and overcomes everything; and also because in the church Christ greets himself, for he has made her his own and has thus received her as his own heart, his own body, as the Apostle says: “He is the head of the body, the church” (Col 1:18). The matter itself shows clearly that in these women the full figure of the church begins, since Christ rebukes his disciples when they waver about the resurrection, strengthens them when they tremble, and scarcely calls them back to faith by showing his side and the holes of the nails and by taking food (Luke 24). So he rightly calls them children, little ones in faith, saying: “Children, have you any fish?” (John 21:5); and elsewhere he calls Mary herself, weeping as for a dead man, “woman,” and denies her leave to touch him (John 20). But these women he finds so perfect, so believing, so untroubled because of their sex, so running for the mystery, so seeking the Lord with the whole ardour of faith, that he gives himself to them to be held with such a greeting, saying, “Hail.” The angel had said, “For I know that you are seeking Jesus who was crucified,” and to those who sought him Christ answered, “Hail.” Elsewhere Mary is not even given leave to touch (John 20:17); here not only touching but full freedom to hold him is granted. “And they,” it says, “came up and took hold of his feet.” They hold Christ's feet who in the church hold the type of the gospel preaching and earn it by running; and so by faith they touch the footsteps of their Saviour that they reach the glory and come to the honour of the whole Godhead. But that woman rightly hears, “Do not touch me” (John 20:17), who weeps for the Lord on earth and seeks him dead in the tomb in such a way that she does not know that he reigns in heaven with the Father. “Do not touch me”: that is, do not serve with the touch of the flesh him whom you ought to reach with the touch of faith; do not presume to touch on earth as merely a man him whom you do not yet know how to adore as God in heaven. Let a woman's care cease, let a woman's anxiety stop; let a man's belief climb into your mind; let the breadth of your heart take in my ascension, so that in heaven you may enjoy the eternal blessedness of touching me, according to the prophet's word: “Blessed is the man whose help is from you, Lord; he has set ascents in his heart” (Ps 84:5). He does not touch Christ on earth who does not climb up to Christ in heaven by faith. That the same Mary, now placed on the summit of faith and exalted on the height of the church, touches Christ and holds him with all the affection of holiness, and now, cast down by the weakness of the flesh and the frailty of a woman, doubts and does not merit the touch of her maker, raises no difficulty: the one belongs to the figure, the other to the sex; the one is of divine grace, the other of human nature. For when we know divine things, it is God's gift; when we savour human things, we are blinded by ourselves. So blessed Peter, when he confesses Christ as the Son of God, knows him by the Father's revelation; when he denies Christ, he feels and suffers the blindness of the flesh (Matt 26). Meanwhile the Jews either buy their own crimes badly or sell others' worse, putting a price on sins, weighing and paying off offences with money, and pouring out in their crimes what they gathered with every crime. So they buy Judas, the betrayer of his Lord, and weigh out at a price the blood of the world's Redeemer; so they shut up in a purse the evidence of the opened tomb, to purchase with the money of crimes the crime of denying the resurrection. “They gave,” it says, “a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying: Say that his disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep; and if the governor hears of this, we will persuade him and keep you safe. And they took the money and did as they had been taught; and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.” Among the Jews; surely not among the Christians? Jew, what you obscured with gold in Judea has shone and gleamed with faith in the whole world: the disciples received Christ, they did not steal him; you bought faithlessness, but you did not steal the truth. Jew, Christ has risen; you have lost your money. “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matt 27:25). Jew, Christ lives; you have killed both yourself and your descendants.

[On the resurrection of Christ.] It is a full and perfect sign of devotion that in the time of the passion the whole creation suffers with its creator. What flesh did not tremble when the earth trembled, what mind did not grow numb, what intelligence did not fail when the sun set before its time and the light fled? So, brothers, our hearts too lay down then; our understanding died with him; our speech was buried with its author, so that it might now be raised with him to his whole glory. This was the cause of my silence; this was the devout delay of my debt. Nor is it surprising, brothers, if my speech, with foresight and with all the service of affection, followed its giver even to the underworld, because without him I had nothing to pay you, such great creditors. But if some greedy and eager collector complains of the lateness of the payment, let him stop bringing the charge of delay against us, because my rich Lord increases and repays the interest itself many times over. So let the generous kindness of the Gospel reading now release us, whom the necessity of office has led into and bound to so great a debt. “At the evening of the sabbath,” it says, “which dawns toward the first day of the week.” In the Lord's rising not only was the law of human nature overturned, but the very order of creation was remarkably changed. “At the evening of the sabbath which dawns.” See, with the Lord rising, the evening does not grow dark but grows light, and what used to be the beginning of night becomes the beginning of light. “At the evening of the sabbath which dawns toward the first day of the week” (Matt 28:1). As mortality is carried over into immortality, corruption into incorruption, flesh into God, so darkness is carried over into light; so that night itself may rejoice that it has not perished but been changed, since it failed in its darkness rather than in its time and more happily lost the intervals and turns of its servitude, so that it might flow forth and break out into the freedom of everlasting light, as the prophet says: “And night is my illumination in my delights” (Ps 139:11). “Evening which dawns toward the first day of the week.” The sabbath rejoices that it has been made second, it which by the command of the law lay sluggish in idleness; losing its primacy to the Lord's day, it is wonderfully roused to the works of divine power, it which the inertia of Jewish observance had made a stranger to saving power, as the Lord says: “Is it not lawful on the sabbath to give care to the sick, help to the afflicted, sight to the blind, life to the dead?” (Luke 6:9). By interpreting it in this way they had wretchedly bound the day of the sabbath, which God had assigned to the study of the holy law, to the servitude of the belly alone. “At the evening of the sabbath which dawns toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came and the other Mary.” One came by name, who is now read as another in a different person. “Mary came and the other Mary”: so that the unity of the name might figure one woman in two, and the difference of persons might show the woman changed. For it says “came,” not “they came,” and while saying “the other” it designates the same woman in both by a mystical utterance, to show that one came before faith and another would return after faith. The woman comes, but Mary returns; she comes who brought death, she returns who gave birth to life; she comes who led Adam down to the underworld, she returns who received Christ back from the underworld. “Mary came and the other Mary.” Why? To see the tomb, not to seek Christ; only to see the tomb, as the inscription of her guilt, as the sad record of her crime, the deadly bargain of her presumption with the devil and of her gain, so that she might recover faith from the very place where she bore the perpetual reproach of her transgression. “And behold, there was a great earthquake.” If the earth trembled so when the Lord rose for the pardon of his own, how will it tremble when he rises for the punishment of the guilty, as the prophet says: “The earth trembled and was still, when God arose to judgment” (Ps 76:8–9)? And the earth that could not bear the presence of a fellow servant, that is, an angel, how will it bear God as judge? See, human salvation is restored along the same lines along which it had perished. The woman, first to faithlessness, is first brought to faith; she runs first to the slayer of death who first ran to the author of death; she first hears from an angel who first talked with the devil. “An angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, approaching, rolled back the stone and sat upon it.” Not to bring about the resurrection by such an act, but to reveal it, as the Lord says: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18). For us he opens what was closed, for us he unbars what was hidden; he does not bring out to the light his author, who was no longer in the tomb, but he leads to faith in the resurrection his fellow servants, who were placed in the darkness of doubt, as he himself attests when he says: “He is not here; he has risen.” “He rolled back the stone and sat upon it.” Why not “rolled” but “rolled back”? So that the angel might roll back toward faith and salvation the stone which the faithlessness of the Pharisees had rolled toward offence and stumbling, as the prophet says: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence” (Isa 8:14; 28:16; Rom 9:33). So the stone is rolled back to roll away death, the stone which, rolled against the tomb, had shut in life, as Scripture says: “You will see your life hanging before your eyes, and you will not believe” (Deut 28:66). “And he sat upon it,” not refreshing weariness but showing in this way that he was the guardian of the sacred and life-giving tomb; and by this sign of his sitting the minister of the heavenly office declared that death was destroyed, and that he who suffered is God, God who was received within the narrow bounds of our body, God whom, seated in heavenly garb, he attested as his witness. And what more, brothers? He sits, because an angel never leaves that so venerable tomb. “For fear of him the guards were terrified and became like dead men.” The terror that lays low the guilty soon returns upon those conscious of guilt. So, so, when the innocent rise, terror and death will take possession of the unjust and the wicked. “His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing like snow.” What does clothing do where there is no nakedness? What use is a garment where there is no need of covering? But the angel, brothers, thus prefigures our garb, our form, our likeness in the resurrection, where man is restored with the very brightness of his body, as the Lord says: “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt 13:43). “The angel answered and said to the women: Do not be afraid, you; for I know that you are seeking Jesus who was crucified.” They were still seeking one crucified and dead, those whose faith the fierce storm of the passion had disturbed, and whom the weight of temptation had so bowed down that they were still seeking the Lord of heaven in the tomb. “He is not here”: with respect to his having been in a place; but he is here, inasmuch as he is everywhere and is not enclosed by the capacity of any place. “Come, see the place where the Lord was laid.” The angel calls the women to see, so that the place of the sacred body might cleanse the eyes which the sight of the forbidden tree had stained when the devil beguiled them. They enter the tomb, so that, buried with the Lord, they might rise to the full salvation of faith: “If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom 6:5). “Go, tell his disciples.” Return to the man, woman, now healed, and persuade him to faith, you who persuaded him to faithlessness; bring to the man the sign of the Lord's resurrection, you to whom he earlier owed the counsel of temptation and ruin.

[On the seventh appearance of Christ, made to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias.] After that storm of the Lord's passion, unknown on earth, dreadful to the heavens, unheard of through the ages, unbearable to the underworld, the Lord came to the sea and found his disciples tossing in the darkness of night. For when the sun fled, what could remain of the moon's splendour, or of the stars, to comfort the night? There was one darkness over the earth, a confused gloom, which blinded not only the sight of the body but the very gaze of the mind, and did not allow those who were sailing to seek or regain the shore of faith, the harbour of salvation. “When morning had come,” says the evangelist, “Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). The whole creation had fled from the injury done to its Creator; the world strove to avoid the death of its Lord, knowing that vengeance reaches the whole house in which the master has been killed by the crime of his servants. That is why the earth trembled as its foundations deserted it; the sun fled so as not to see; the day withdrew so as not to be present; the rocks, because by nature they could not depart, were split by a new wound, accusing so great a crime by sound, since they could not by voice; the underworld, when it saw the judge himself penetrate to it, was conquered and, wailing, lost those it held. That is why souls restored to their bodies announced to the living that the dead, whom the world had thought perished, would rise. So when the whole fabric of the world was tossing thus in confused order and believed itself rolled back by its author's death into the primordial darkness and ancient chaos, suddenly by the light of his resurrection the Lord brings back the day and re-forms the whole world into its former body, so that the world he had seen suffering with him in this way he might raise with him to his glory, as the evangelist says: “When morning had come”: that is, when the night of the Lord's passion was past, “Jesus stood on the shore”: to call all things back to their ancient boundary, make firm what was wavering, restrain what was tossed, settle what was disturbed, and by his standing establish the very foundations of the world, which had been so shaken, so that the world, which had fled from the injury done to its author, might soon run back to its author's service. “When morning had come, Jesus stood on the shore”: above all to bring the church, in which the disciples were then being tossed by the waves of the sea, back to the safe anchorage of its faith. In short, because he had found them destitute of the strength of faith and quite cast down from manly vigour, he rebukes them by calling them children, when he says: “Children, have you any fish?” For Peter was there, who had denied (Matt 26); Thomas, who had doubted (John 20); John, who had fled (Mark 14). So he addresses them not as the bravest soldiers but as timid children; and those whom he had not yet found fit for battle he invites, as tender ones, to table, saying: “Children, have you anything to eat?” so that kindness might call them back to grace, bread to confidence, food to faith; for they would not believe that the body had risen unless they saw him eat in the whole manner of a man. That is why the very fullness of all things asks for food; the bread himself eats, because he hungers not for food but always for the love of his own. “Children, have you anything to eat? They answered him: No.” And what did they have, who did not have Christ, though he was already set beside them, who did not yet see with their eyes the Lord standing before them? “For the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. He said to them: Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find.” He calls back to the right those whom the whirlwind of the passion had driven and pushed back to the left. “They cast it,” it says, “and could not haul it in for the number of fish.” They had cast on the right, they had cast on the manly side, but like children they were not yet able to haul it in; yet they perceived from the very weight, they perceived that the fish had come at the command of the one who ordered it and had not fallen into the catch of human skill. “And that disciple whom Jesus loved said: It is the Lord.” The one who is loved sees first, because the eye of love always looks more sharply, and the one who loves always perceives more keenly. “When Peter heard.” What had so slowed Peter's mind that he heard of the Lord from another, he who used to announce it to the rest? Where is that singular confession of his, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16)? Where is it? It had fled in the house of Caiaphas, the chief of the Jews; he who readily heard the voice of a whispering maidservant was slower to see his Lord (Matt 26). “When he heard,” it says, “that it was the Lord, he girded his tunic about him, for he was naked” (John 21:7). A wonder, brothers! When the Lord was seized, John threw away his linen cloth, and Peter was found naked: for flight covered John, while denial stripped Peter in this way. A wonder, brothers, a true wonder: he who was stripped in the boat plunges clothed into the sea; because innocence is never naked, and guilt always flees to a covering. Indeed, like Adam (Gen 3), so now Peter after his fault is eager to cover his nakedness, both of whom before their fault had surely been clothed in holy nakedness. “He girded his tunic about him and threw himself into the sea”: so that the sea might wash away what the denial had so soiled. “He threw himself into the sea”: so that he who had received the primacy in rank might be first in returning. “And he girded his tunic about him,” he who was to be girded by the passion of martyrdom, as the Lord says: “Another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish” (John 21:18). “But the other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from land, but about two hundred cubits, dragging the net of fish.” The others arrive by boat and drag the catch of fish, so that by faithful labour they may bring with them to the Lord the church tossed by the storms of the world, and those whom they snatch with the gospel net to the light above and lift from the deep. “They were not far,” it says, “from land.” They were not far from the land of the living, those whom the end of present things had already brought near to things to come. “But about two hundred cubits.” He who joins the life and salvation of two peoples doubles the number one hundred, from Jews and Gentiles. The remaining part of the reading we shall treat in the next sermon, with the Lord's help.

[On the resurrection of Christ.] Since we have already run through the readings of Matthew and Mark on the Lord's resurrection, let us now inquire what most blessed Luke has thundered on it. “On the first day of the week,” it says, “very early in the morning, the women came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared” (Luke 24:1). We have often said that what was done around Christ's resurrection was done as a pattern of our resurrection; that is why the evangelists set out the course of Christ's deeds in language more mystical than new. “On the one day of the week,” it says. Well said, “one,” because the day of resurrection knows no second; mother of eternal light, it does not know the time of night; the perpetual day shines perpetually; the light of those who rise cannot die; the light that destroys night does not know how to be extinguished. “They came,” it says, “to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared; and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and going in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” Why is it that those who had earlier fled from the tomb now boldly return to the sepulchre, return fearless to the fearful corpse, confidently enter the gloom of the tomb, and, not finding the Lord, seek him steadfastly and linger more steadfastly still, without dreading the night added to the tomb, which by producing darkness adds fear? Brothers, woman was the cause of evil, the author of sin, the way of death, the inscription of the tomb, the door of hell, the whole necessity of lament; for this reason women are born to tears, are bound over to grief, are handed over to groans, and are as strong in lamenting as they are found weak in strength; and as unprepared as they are for labours, so prepared are they for tears. That is why they conquer arms with tears, bend kingdoms with weeping, and break all the strength of men with laments. It is no wonder, then, if for tears, for the funeral, for the tomb, for service to the Lord's body, women here appear more ardent than the apostles; where the woman runs first to tears who ran first to the fall, goes ahead to the tomb who went ahead to death, becomes the messenger of the resurrection who was the interpreter of death; and she who had handed the man the message of so great a destruction herself hands men the news of great salvation, to make up by the message of faith for what she took away by the message of faithlessness. This is not a reversed order but a mystical one; the apostles are not placed after the women but are kept for greater things. The women undertake the service of Christ, the apostles undertake the sufferings of Christ; they carry spices, these scourges; they enter the tomb, these prison; they hurry to service, these fly to chains; they pour oil, these pour out blood; they are stunned at death, these undergo deaths. And what more? They stay at home, these go to the battle lines, so that as devoted soldiers they may prove faith in adversity, virtue in labours, patience in injuries, death in dangers, endurance in wounds, devotion in punishments, constancy in the tearing of their flesh. So women bring tears for Christ; the apostles, with the devil overcome and the enemies defeated, bring Christ both victory and triumph. But let no one condemn severely the report that the apostles either did not believe the women who announced that the Lord had risen or judged it nonsense (Luke 24:11). He doubts deeply who believes more deeply; he cannot be deceived who is not quick to listen; very sluggish is he who after an example is found incautious; a raw soldier rushes to the battle line who does not know the cause of the war and is ignorant of the warrior's strength; it is skill, not sloth, when the veteran soldier advances slowly. So the new-made Adam fell quickly when he believed quickly, and by readily giving ear to the woman's message he bound himself and his descendants to the worst enemy; but the veteran Peter does not readily listen to a woman, believes the women's message slowly, and deliberates like a veteran so as not to rush in like a boy. Then, when two of the disciples, who after the resurrection were found worthy to have Christ as their companion on the road, returned and announced that they had seen the Lord, the apostles judge what they hear to be not nonsense but manly; they give ear, fix their gaze, open their eyes, lay open their hearts, and so commit to their minds what is said that after the heat of hesitation they thirstily drink the hearing of faith from the river which their colleagues' tongue poured out. As cold drinks quench and cool the heat of thirst, so the mind's hearing becomes happier after grief. Brothers, who can grasp the reasons for the Lord's birth? Who is worthy to assess the business of the Lord's resurrection? No one will be able to think, grasp or estimate these things unless he has received it from God himself: that the Creator of things is created by a woman's childbearing; that the Lord of the world is seen in human servitude; that the shepherd of all needs feeding; that he who acquits everyone is handed over to the guilty; that the life of the world is punished; that the raiser of the dead dies; that he who encloses all things is enclosed in a tomb; that the Lord of those above is found in the underworld. Whoever can grasp these things, judging deeply, does not wonder at the apostles' hesitations, tremblings, fears, flights and hidings. So, brothers, let us, who have not believed even until now, not wonder that the apostles doubt and receive such great things so slowly and with such hesitation of belief; but let us pray that we may be worthy to perceive as much of these things as he grants, who gives man to perceive divine things. What remains of the course of the reading we shall examine, with God's help, in the next sermon.

[On the resurrection of Christ and his second appearance, made to the women returning from the tomb.] Since in the last sermon we touched on the first part of the reading, today let us hear what follows. “The angel,” it says, “answered and said to the women: Do not be afraid, you; for I know that you are seeking Jesus who was crucified; he is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord was laid” (Matt 28:5–6). Do you think that the absence of Peter, of John, of all the disciples is being reproached and their sloth rebuked, because the women first, alone, wakeful, meet the rising Christ so ardently; that even the male portion is censured, since womanly weakness runs ahead to the glory of the resurrection? Far from it, brothers. This is design, not chance; mystery, not happenstance; order, not fault: for here woman follows man, she does not precede him, since man rises in Christ. So understand that Peter yielded not to women but to Christ; not to a maidservant but to the Lord; to the sacrament, not to sleep; to order, not to fear. Indeed, the man was already in Christ when the angel came to the women, so that as much as the Lord surpasses the angel, so much might the man precede the woman in honour. “Do not be afraid, you.” Because love possesses the good, dread the wicked; fear terrifies the impious, affection consoles the devout. “Do not be afraid, you.” That is to say: let the Jew who handed him over fear, and Pilate who sentenced him, the soldier who mocked him, the impiety that crucified him, the cruelty that offered him bitter cups, the savagery that besieged the buried, the faithlessness that bought a lie and sold faith, the inhumanity that grieves that its Lord has risen but does not grieve that it killed him. But you ought to rejoice, not to fear, because he whom you sought dead has risen; he whom you mourned as slain lives. “For I know that you are seeking Jesus who was crucified.” That is: Why do you seek the living with the dead? Why do you seek life in the tomb? Rather go to meet the living one, and no longer run to the service of one who died. “I know that you are seeking Jesus who was crucified; he is not here.” The angel said this because he opened the tomb not so that Christ might come out of it, for he was no longer there, but to show that Christ was no longer there. “He has risen, as he said.” A twofold power: both to return from the dead and to foreknow the future. “Come, see the place where the Lord was laid.” Come, women, come, see where you laid Adam, where you buried man, where by your counsel you thrust the man down, by which you caused the Lord to lie in this way for his very servants; and understand that the greatness of pardon toward you is as great as the greatness of the injury done to the Lord. “Come, see the place where the Lord was laid.” Angelic power confesses that the one who was crucified is Lord; and does human weakness debate whether the one who rises is Lord? Christ took on human sufferings in such a way as not to lose anything that belongs to divinity. “And go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen; and behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there you will see him.” Nor are the apostles placed after the women; but the woman is absolved of guilt while she carries the news of life, the news of the resurrection, she who had carried the news of death and ruin. “And they went out quickly,” it says, “from the tomb with fear and great joy.” The women enter the tomb to become sharers in the burial and partners in the passion; they go out of the tomb so that they might rise by faith before they rose in the flesh. “Going out with fear and great joy.” And where is “Do not be afraid”? Fear was not taken away but changed; fear had departed as regards guilt but remained as regards service; the fear of guilt is bad, the fear of reverence is good. Having lost Adam once he was given, they feared to lose him once restored. “With fear and great joy.” It is written: “Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice in him with trembling” (Ps 2:11). “With fear and great joy.” Because “the fear of the Lord is holy, enduring for ever and ever” (Ps 19:9). He remains in holiness, then, who remains in the fear of God. “They were running to tell his disciples; and behold, Jesus met them, saying: Hail.” Christ meets those who run faithfully, so that they might recognize by sight what they had believed by faith, and so that his presence might strengthen those whom hearing still left trembling. “Jesus met them, saying: Hail.” He meets them as Lord, greets them as a parent; he encourages them with affection and keeps them in fear; he greets them so that they may serve out of love, not flee out of fear. “And they came up and took hold of his feet.” He who allowed himself to be seized willed to be held. “They came up and took hold of his feet”: so that they might know that the man is in the head of Christ and they are in the feet of Christ, and that through Christ it is given them to follow the man, not to go before him. “He said to them: Do not be afraid.” What the angel had said the Lord says too, so that those whom the angel had strengthened Christ might make stronger. “But go, tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Rising from the dead, Christ took up the man again; he did not abandon him. So he calls brothers those whom he made kin of his own body; he calls brothers those whom he adopted as sons of his Father; he calls brothers those whom, as a kindly heir, he made co-heirs with himself. But hear how impiety rises when Christ rises: “Behold, some of the guards came into the city and told the chief priests all that had happened. And they assembled with the elders, took counsel, and gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying: Say that his disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.” Those who give money buy things not to lose them but to keep them; the Jews, when Judas sold, bought so as to destroy Christ; now they poured out a large sum of money so as to lose themselves, the law, the temple and their homeland. Men of blood and deceit set a price on falsehood, draw up the deed of faithlessness, and in cruel commerce traffic in fraud against faith and robbery of the truth; they corrupt the soldiers so that they may call theft what was the secret of the resurrection: “His disciples came by night and stole him.” Not content with having killed the master, they plot how they can destroy the disciples; they turn the master's power into the disciples' crime. “His disciples came by night and stole him.” Plainly the soldiers lost him and the Jews destroyed him; but the disciples took up their master not by theft but by faith, by virtue, not fraud, by holiness, not crime, living, not dead. That is why they are sent to Galilee to be able to see him, because God is not seen in the place of faithlessness. And as for his saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18), he declares that he gave it to himself in himself, as the Apostle proves when he says: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19). The Son of God conferred on the son of the Virgin, God on the man, the divinity on the flesh, what he always possessed with the Father and the Spirit. And so he says: “Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” so that one and the same power might re-create for salvation all the nations which it had created for life. “And behold,” he says, “I am with you all days until the end of the age.” He is always with us who is always with the Father, and he will come to us through what he took from us. And what more, brothers? That he is born, that he suffers, that he rises, that he receives: this is not, it is not, from any necessity of his own; it is for our salvation.

[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.

[On the announcement and conception of blessed John the Baptist.] Worldly speech, since it comes from human understanding, serves and complies with human talents; but divine speech is in the power of the one who gives it, not of the one who speaks. You have heard how that Zacharias, the splendour of the high priesthood, was struck dumb while he was praying; the father of the voice fell silent (“I am,” says John, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” John 1:23); the begetter of the cry was struck dumb, and he who had gone in to bring back answers came out bringing back silence. You see, then, that my silence, which saddened you earlier, comes from ancient priestly precedent, not from the inroad of novelty. When he felt that the bonds of his tongue had shut the door of his speech, he gave orders by a nod that no one should inquire into the reasons for his silence, because he who had learned to know the heavenly mystery had not learned to speak it. But this was for a time, because the priest's speech is postponed, not taken away; stored up, not denied; suspended by a mystery, not driven out. Indeed, that Zacharias is silent is not a punishment but a sign; not an earthly infirmity but a heavenly secret. God who gives speech causes silence, and he who implants the word commands silence. The divine word rules; it does not serve, because God is the Word; and so it speaks not when ordered but when it orders; not when it is demanded but when it gives; not when compelled but when it comes. So, brothers, when it comes, listen; when it does not come, be patient; when it gives itself, receive it; when it withholds itself, pray; for the teacher receives what the hearer deserves. So the sermon was suspended last time for you as much as for me, so that our modesty might conceal the woman's flow, the cause of her shameful wound, and her shame, and what she kept silent might also be enclosed by our silence (Matt 9:20–22). But let us return to the word we began. The pool at Jerusalem overflows when the angel stirs it (John 5:4), not when the hearer is thirsty; so the priest's speech abounds when God gives it, not when the priest pleads. That is why Zacharias, who used to speak prophecies to the peoples, is silent to himself, so that we might not be ungrateful to God if he once willed silence for us, to whom he has always granted unhindered speech. He did not disdain to receive back speech from his son, to whom he had given light; and you, my sons, pray for a voice for me, so that you may hear a sermon. Restore my joy, so that you may possess your accustomed gladness and fulfil the Apostle's word: “Who is there to make me glad but the one whom I grieved?” (2 Cor 2:2). So let blessed Zacharias come, let him come into our midst, who though silent consoles us by his loving example and by his silence does not let us be sad over our own silence. Let him come, let the forerunner of the Word come, the mirror of the priesthood, the example of holiness, the first of the evangelists, the last of the prophets. “There was,” it says, “in the days of Herod, king of Judea, a priest named Zacharias” (Luke 1:5). When it is said under which king someone was priest, the evils are tempered: there is always comfort in grief, and one whom a persecutor threatens does not lack a consoler. “There was in the days of Herod, king of Judea, a priest named Zacharias.” Until Herod, priestly holiness, the gravity of elders and the piety of the fathers presided over the Jewish nation; divine law was its right; ambition counted for nothing there, rashness for nothing, presumption for nothing, because everything was done by divine order, not human. But Herod, coming from a foreign nation, invaded the kingdom, violated the priesthood, confounded order, changed customs, despised the elders, killed the young, mixed the tribes, destroyed the genealogies, corrupted the stock, and utterly removed whatever there was of divine and human discipline. But what is this to holy Zacharias? So that nothing of the kind might be believed to have touched Zacharias himself, the evangelist is compelled to report thus: “There was in the days of Herod, king of Judea, a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah”: because down to him the priestly stock, handed down from great-grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers, remained, and the time of the law and the whole discipline of sacrifice were preserved, since the merit and life of the priest held in check the king's impiety, the iniquity of the time, the madness of ambition and the fury of rashness. But let us hear what follows. “It happened that he entered the temple of the Lord to offer incense, and the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.” At the hour of incense, brothers, the sun was already setting in the Jewish temple, so that it might rise in the morning in the church; the evening of Jewish teaching was at hand, because the dawn of the gospel was approaching; the day of the law was growing dark so that it might shine out wholly in grace. That is why Zacharias, at the hour of incense, that is, at the last time of the ceremonies of the law, offers incense by the prophetic Spirit: he offers prayers, brings desires, commends vows, presses the time, repeats the promises, demands Christ. “And the whole multitude was praying outside.” So he prays that the people standing outside may be brought in, because those whom the law leads to the door grace brings into the temple. “And an angel of the Lord appeared,” it says, “standing at the right of the altar of incense; and when Zacharias saw him he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.” So it is no wonder if the priest is troubled, the teacher stunned, the high priest afraid; if the least is silent when he sees the greatest, if he abandons words when he beholds signs. And lest Zacharias alone seem to have been afraid, hear another prophet saying: “Lord, I have heard your report and was afraid; I considered your works and was terrified” (Hab 3:2). He who speaks with God is terrified; he does not know from where the angel speaks; and what do we gather? Let us now say why the priest is silent. “And the angel answered him and said: I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news; and behold, you will be silent and unable to speak.” What fault is there in the one who is silent, if the power of the one who commands imposes silence? So consider that our silence too, small as we are, came not from forgetfulness but from the time; it was divine business, not human calculation. So let us not be sad, because, if God grants it, the silence of a moment will be made up by continuous speech, and the little of our sadness will be turned into great joy. I thank my God, who has turned the loss of speech into a gain of love for me: for how great your charity toward me is your pallor betrayed, your cries attested, your tears showed and your outpoured prayer made plain.

[On the same.] When eyes have been darkened by excessive pain and long illness, light becomes hostile to them unless it is let back in gradually, although light was made for the eyes alone and is a friend to the eyes alone, since through them it is given to the rest of the body or denied it. So too, when minds have been darkened by a long disease of faithlessness, unless the brightness of faith is restored little by little, the gloom of faithlessness grows thicker at the very suddenness of faith's splendour; for nature is always either drawn out or dulled by long habit. That is why the Lord, when hearts had already been blinded by the black cloud of unbelief, sent ahead the conception of a hopeless and aged barrenness, in order to shed light on the mystery of the virgin birth; so that one who saw dry limbs come to life again after long old age, and, after the course of an aged life was finished, blossom again into first youth, and nature itself roused in its declining age to the marks of a servant's birth, might believe that the flower of modesty, the inscription of chastity, the mark of purity and the bars of virginity could remain after childbirth and be preserved when the Author himself came forth from the womb. And so that the very authority of which we are speaking may be present and support our preface and the comparison we took from eyes worn out by long illness, and may prove that the eyes of men, badly accustomed to night and darkened, were gradually called back to the light: the Lord kindled in John the lamp of his light and sent it ahead, so that, having tasted the light, they might then bear the very radiance of the divine Sun in himself and take in the very brightness of the deity; according to what was said of John: “He was a burning and shining lamp” (John 5:35); so that John might open the thick darkness of night with a gentle light, and the Lord himself might give back to those already longing for it a day that knows no night, for everlasting light. That is why a faintly twinkling star accustoms the magi, still dwellers in night and dazzled in all their eyes, to the light, and draws them step by step to the very spring of light and of days (Matt 2). And truly, brothers, it is fitting, because the four-horse chariot runs round the whole year's turning-posts of the seasons, and recalls for us the birthday feast of our Lord, and now brings back its joys. Let us speak now of John's birth, of the barren woman's childbearing, so that by this shortcut to belief we may come, amid wintry lights uncertain with clouds and mists, with the lamp going before and the star leading, to that birth which is a birth without the usual birth, where the very author of the one who begets is created, where the very origin of the one who generates is born. “There was,” says the evangelist, “a priest named Zacharias, and his wife Elizabeth; and they had no son, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in their days” (Luke 1:5–7). Barrenness is heightened by extreme old age, and everything of body and nature is withdrawn from the hope of generating; and so that not even a thought of offspring might remain, it had come to such a time and age that, with vital warmth gone, mortal cold already possessed the barren womb, so that the father himself recognized that a man could no longer be born through a man from a place where human things had departed. So, so, brothers, belief is established in the hard hearts of men and faith is implanted; and then everything is believed divine, when there is nothing human. “It fell to Zacharias by lot to offer incense, entering into the temple of the Lord.” He rightly said “entering into the temple,” not “entering the temple,” because he himself was God's more intimate temple, carrying in the purity of his breast all the secrets of the law and offering the incense not so much of frankincense as of pure supplication. For God rests more gladly in his own work than in man's, and does not so willingly smell a drop from the Arabian tree as the holiness of a sincere heart and breast. “An angel of the Lord appeared to him,” it says, “standing at the right of the altar of incense.” It would have been enough to say, “An angel appeared”; why such stress on “at the right of the altar”? So that the hearer may understand that in the holy angels there is nothing on the left, as Scripture says: “The ways that are on the right the Lord knows” (Prov 4:27 LXX). “An angel appeared to him,” when the whole man had already failed, so that John, of whom it was said, “Behold, I send my angel” (Matt 11:10), might be born of a barren woman before Christ was born of the Virgin. Happy nature, which failed thus in the old so that it might grow toward God; happy, which exchanged the losses of barrenness for virginal fruitfulness; happy, which in one birth conceived what it lamented being confounded throughout the whole world; happy, which became the mother of living offspring, it which was before the pitiable origin of mortals, bearing to sorrows with sorrow, giving birth to groans with groaning, bringing forth man to dangers at the danger of the one who bears, and in the very rising announcing the setting with laments and tears, always devouring its offspring, knowing that it bears with such great griefs those who will die. So nature fed rather on barrenness, lest it rage more heavily through fruitfulness, likely to produce weeping rather than children; nature which with tears, grief and groans had for so long sought and appealed to its author, understanding that this had befallen it through guilt and had not been established by its most loving author when it was created. That is why the Lord, the very founder of nature, passes along the way of virginal conception and virginal birth with an invisible footprint and by an unknown path, and walks the road of human birth with a divine step, not a human one, so that by being born he might first free nature itself from the servitude of death to which it had been so bound, and, having cleansed the spring, give back heavenly purity to its streams. Rightly does John leap in the womb, who was found worthy to know the freedom of his origin before he existed, to feel before he lived. At the hour of incense, through an angel, barrenness is opened, conception is ordered, birth is promised, and a sacred birth is arranged among the holy places. That is why, while John was still in the womb, with the frame of his limbs barely conceived, prophecy in him speaks by God's nod before it arrives at the office of the voice. But lest, while I wish to close the deep and wonderful things of a very broad reading in a short sermon, I pass over what most needs to be said, next time, if it pleases God, we shall discuss what follows.

[On the same.] It is always anxious, brothers, to be in debt, always sad to be bound by the chains of interest; but in my case, whom my promise often makes your debtor, the very nature and obligation of such a debt is pleasant enough, because the one who promises gives and does not receive; and he who owes by giving makes the creditor more indebted to himself; and where the one who lent owes, and the one who owes has lent, the contract is shown to be one of affection, not of necessity, and in such a loan the very sweet interest is one of soul, not of burden, of honour, not of load. After the gospel word had described how an angel of the Lord appeared to Zacharias the priest, it added: “And Zacharias was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him” (Luke 1:12). If one who is anxious about a judge's power is always troubled and trembles at the arrival of an official, and assesses and measures the weight of the summons by the person who comes, and, though of good conscience, is afraid until he knows the reasons for the arrival and understands what kind it is: what will the weak nature of man do, with what fear will it tremble, when it senses heavenly power, when man looks upon an angel and sees a minister of the divine throne? The flesh is never secure about its own conscience, as Zacharias himself, of whom we now speak, proved: he gave offence at the very time of propitiation; while he believes, he doubts, as the angel says, “Because you did not believe my words”; while he obtains what he asked, he incurs a penalty; he is condemned when he receives the very gifts; he loses his voice at the moment he receives the Voice. That is why the angel, before disclosing the commands, handing over the gifts and reporting what was obtained, dispels dread, drives out fear and strengthens minds troubled by uncertain thought, so that the mind which had gone out of itself through an excess of fear, having returned to itself, might feel and grasp the great generosity of the benefits, saying: “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer has been heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.” Do you think that so great a priest was so forgetful of the people, so forgetful of all, as to pray for the conception of his aged wife and the childbearing of a hopelessly barren woman; that as envoy of all he was present then for himself alone; that as advocate of all he prayed only for himself; that he narrowed so great an office of the high priesthood within domestic cares, shut it in and occupied it within family straits; that the aged high priest devoted the incense of the whole people to the one desire for a child of his own, and with such a desire, very old and already mindful of the time, burned for an untimely birth? Far be it, brothers, far be it that a faithful soul should suspect this of holy Zacharias. And yet the angel reports that the effect of the whole supplication lay in this, saying: “Your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.” If the angel answered what was asked, the priest prayed only for a child; if the priest's supplication acted for all, why did the angel report as obtained only the child? What do we gather, and why do we keep the minds of our hearers in suspense so long? That this venerable high priest stood not for himself alone but for all; that the angel answered for all; that God provided for all in this one offspring of the priest, whom he had chosen for his parents and for nature itself precisely so that he might give him to the whole world, bestow him on the ages and grant him to the peoples; so that he might be a son of the sacrament, brought in among the holy places and granted among the sacred rites; that he might be a high priest begotten of a venerable high priest; that he might be an angel conceived in the womb by the mouth of an angel; that he might be the voice of Christ, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (John 1:23); that he might be the voice of Christ kept for Christ until his own time; that he might be the herald who would cry out the presence of the Judge; that he might call the peoples of Christ to pardon by repentance. How this priest, already unaware of himself, already dead to himself, a stranger to his wife, already denied offspring, acted for all and obtained for all, let us learn at once from the angel's report: “And many,” it says, “will rejoice at his birth.” He is no only son who was created for the joy of all. “For he will be great before the Lord.” Who will prove how great among men is one who is great before God? “And he will drink no wine or strong drink.” He who was born from the holy body of a priest, and in extreme old age, purged of all vices and free from the fires of youth, does not know wine and is ignorant of strong drink, which produce the excesses and vices of drunkenness and scatter all the beauties of conduct and the ornaments of the virtues. “And he will drink no wine or strong drink, but will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb,” according to the Apostle's word: “Brothers, do not get drunk with wine, in which is debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Eph 5:18). “And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother's womb.” Blessed is John, who was found worthy to thunder with God's Spirit before he wailed with human weeping; blessed, who was found worthy to possess divine things before he obtained human ones; blessed, who was found worthy to know heaven before earth; blessed, who before he saw present things was found worthy to announce future ones; blessed, who could contain God before he was contained by his own body; blessed, singularly blessed, who gained merit before he knew how to seek it; blessed, who did not come to grace through labour, but came down to labours by the condescension of grace itself. “And he will turn many of the sons,” it says. To whom? Let the angel say it, so that the heretic, because he blasphemes and denies, may be struck dumb; let the angel say it, so that the faithful may hear and rejoice, and the heretic may believe and come running back. “He will turn.” To whom? “To the Lord their God,” it says. Who is this God? The one of whom the prophet says: “This is our God, and there is no other besides him, who found every way of discipline and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved” (Bar 3:36–37). When did he give it? Surely when he wrote on the tables of the law the whole rule of life and the whole norm of discipline. Be attentive, hearer, so that you may know who this our God is, besides whom there is no other. Who is he? “After this he was seen on earth and lived among men” (Bar 3:38). Who else was seen on earth but Christ, who lived in our flesh? And who else lived among men but he who dwelt with men in a human body? And if this is our God, and there is no other besides him, heretic, if you do not have him, whom will you have? “There is no other,” it says, “besides him”; and now do you not say, “Then where is the Father?” The prophet says, “There is no other besides him”; and where is the Father? In the Son, surely, because apart from the Son the Father is not: “I am in the Father,” he says, “and the Father is in me” (John 14:10). Hence the prophet did not say, “There is no other,” but “There is no other besides him”: that is to say, the Father is, but he is in him. But you say: “If he is in him, how is he another?” Heretic, he is another in person in such a way as to be the same in substance; he is the same in substance in such a way that there is no confusion in the Trinity; the unity of the Trinity is such that there is no distance in the Godhead; the whole Trinity is in itself, and not without itself, in such a way that in Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is defined personhood, not separated divinity. “And he will go before him.” Before whom? Before Christ, who is their God, our God, the God of all, the God besides whom there is no other: “in the power of Elijah.” Let no one who hears this impute metempsychosis: here he means the spirit which John earned through divine grace, not the one which he received for the life of the flesh; and he means the power which he had from above, not the one he acquired from the strength of the body. So John comes in the spirit of Elijah and walks in his power, since in food, clothing, honour, chastity, abstinence and all virtues he represents Elijah, and Christ. “To make ready for the Lord a perfect people.” May our God and Lord deign to make it ready and confirm it in you, to the glory of his name.

[On the same.] All things created by God are good for us, and very good, as Scripture says: “And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). So all things created by God are good and very good; but they are so placed in the middle between vices and virtues that from them the learned take matter for teaching and the unlearned find cause for error. For the wise know the Creator by contemplating creation; but the foolish, while they think creatures themselves to be gods, cannot know the Creator. That is why the pagans made gods for themselves of the sun, moon, stars, gold, stones and wood, which Christians know to be bound to service. Nor is it surprising that creation stands thus in the middle, when Christ himself, the creator of all, is for salvation to the faithful and for ruin to the unfaithful, as the evangelist says: “He is set for the fall and rising of many” (Luke 2:34). The apostles too are held by some as unto death and by others as unto life, as Paul proves when he says: “To some we are a fragrance from death to death, to others a fragrance from life to life” (2 Cor 2:16). So too the gospel readings become for the good the matter of saving understanding, but for the wicked an occasion of error. Earlier, when the most blessed evangelist reported that John the Baptist was bound in Herod's chains, put to death through Herodias's adulteries and beheaded as the prize of a dancer, we perceived that some were disturbed: why did God hand over a saint to a sacrilegious woman, a virgin to an adulteress, an angel to a dancing girl? Brothers, we shall treat John's virtues and Herod's crimes fully in another sermon; now let us declare the reason for the chains, the necessity of the prison and the usefulness of death in John's case. John could not die by the common lot, who was born by a singular privilege: when Christ, God, was being born in the flesh, John was begotten as an angel on earth, so that earthly offices might mingle with heavenly ones just as divine things were mingling with human, and on earth the service of an angel to God, of the heavenly order to the Lord, might not be lacking. But let us hear the order of John's birth, so that we may be able to find the causes of his death. “There was,” it says, “in the days of Herod, king of Judea, a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:5–6). Great orators of excellent talent, whenever they prepare to narrate the virtues of famous men, mention their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, so that the dignity of the ancients may add to the honour of the present, and the praise of the fathers may overflow to the glory of the sons. Glory inborn is greater than glory sought; what comes from origin goes before what follows from labour; it is more blessed to have glory than to seek it. That is why the evangelist, to extol John's glory, tells the lineage of Zacharias the father and Elizabeth the mother, mentions their ancestors, records their merits, speaks of their titles, sets out their ranks, discloses their life, enlarges on their distinctions and proclaims their holiness. “There was,” it says, “in the days of Herod, king of Judea.” He mentions the time of a wicked king who violated the sacred honour of the priesthood, confounded order, dissolved what was established and took away what was instituted. And this adds to Zacharias's merit: though Herod extended the daring of his rashness against almost everyone, he dared nothing against him; he was overcome by this man's virtues, so that the priest's spotless succession might be kept for the glory of his offspring. “And his wife was of the daughters of Aaron.” Aaron, the first high priest under the law, was the origin of the priesthood; so, rightly passing over all others, she is called the daughter of the one whose holiness she displayed in her memory of him, and which, as the loving guardian of so great a lineage, she most gloriously passed on to her son. But the evangelist describes this mother's praises: “They were both,” it says, “righteous before God.” It is a new happiness and a singular marriage when one mind remains in two, one holiness in two: what differed in sex agreed in mind; in conduct they were one, though appearance made them two; and virtues made equal those whom nature had made unequal. “They were both,” it says, “righteous before God.” To please human judgments, to be righteous before men, belongs to human virtue and is of the greatest labour; to be righteous before God, who searches hearts, examines thoughts and sees the movements of minds, is not of human labour but of divine gift. If he is great who does not sin in the flesh, how great is he who does not sin in heart? So John, born above the flesh, was born of these who sinned before God neither in heart nor in body. The evangelist added, saying: “Walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” “Walking”: he walks who does not stand in the crossroads of sinners, who feels himself a stranger in this world, who fearlessly enters the rough stations of the virtues, who as an untiring traveller climbs the mountains of ordinances and the hills of commandments, so that he may enjoy the presence of God his parent and the blessedness of the heavenly homeland. “Walking in all the commandments and ordinances.” These in all, in which no one, or few, walk. “In all the commandments and ordinances.” Who passes through the fires of desires without knowing their smoke? Who escapes the slippery path of life without ever falling? Who walks undefiled through the whirlpools of the vices? Who carries out the affairs of the flesh, the business of life and the griefs of the world, and is not in complaint, when being born itself is full of tears and complaints? For the woman in labour complains from pain, and the one born complains in tears by nature. But in Zacharias and Elizabeth guilt died, complaint perished, every accusation was cut off, because in them was being prepared that from which all holiness would be born. But let this now shine out from the reading itself. “And they had no son,” it says, “because Elizabeth was barren.” This barrenness was not accursed but mystical; in it childbearing was not taken away but deferred; it was closed not to a child but to a time; it was cultivated by time, sown by virtue, ripened by age, grew in old age, so that the whole fruitfulness might be paid out in a singular son, when in one man was born a heaped-up multitude of virtues. Blessed barrenness, which was kept for one birth and waited for John, so that, since all firsts were owed to him, the dignity of the firstborn might not perish. “And both were advanced in their days.” Advanced, not departed: age lived on in the saints; it did not fail but advanced. Or who fails, to whom increases of virtue always come? So in Zacharias and Elizabeth sex is stunned, the flesh grows cold, the limbs are put to sleep, time passes, age goes by, everything that belongs to the human order and to married life fades away, so that an angel might be born from human beings by divine gift, not by ordinary childbearing. We had promised to set out from John's birth the causes of his death; but because the sermon has drawn us out too long today, and what follows is quite necessary for proving the matter, let what has now been said of his birth be counted to his glory; and let us not be ungrateful to you, we who postpone the debt but do not deny it: for with debtors delay grows into the creditor's favour. So await what the debtor promises, and await it securely, because promises cannot be denied when what was denied is so generously paid to a barren woman.

[On the same.] The hesitation of Zacharias the priest has taught us today that we are raised up by the falls of the saints and made firm by the trembling of the saints; for when he does not believe God's promises but examines them, and does not perceive divine works by faith but searches them out by human reason, he pays the penalty of unbelief by a long sentence of silence. He had heard from the angel: “Your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.” He then answered: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days” (Luke 1:18). As much as long old age had made him lose hope of posterity, had not his long experience of life taught him just as much that nothing is impossible for God? A priest of so many years had read it; the veteran high priest knew that nature, not the author of nature, can be bound by law, and that time can set limits for man but not for its maker. He knew how, from the bodies of Abraham and Sarah, dead with extreme old age and kept by a most famous barrenness from the names of father and mother, Isaac had burst forth to the whole fruitfulness of the stock of Israel (Gen 21); the failure of nature harmed him less than it profited him to be born by the kindness of the author, not of nature. He had learned that to Rebecca (Gen 25) and to Hannah (1 Sam 1), long exhausted and long deprived of nature's support, God had given what barrenness had denied. Taught by so many examples, then, why does he say: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days”? Brothers, human nature is timid enough before God and weak enough before divine powers; it does not find itself in the event such as it reckons itself before the event, and it knows itself poorly enough before it proves itself in deeds and tests itself by examples. It seeks heaven, seeks the heights, searches out the things above, moves heaven, knocks at heaven; but when it has moved heaven, it cannot bear heaven's weight. It aspires to climb the summit of faith, it burns to penetrate heaven by its own strength; but when it begins to walk with human steps in the ways of the sky and looks down at its own nature, it trusts less in what is past than it trembles at a fall. So blessed Peter, when he imitates divine walking over the waters and, a new traveller, treads a soft path with hard steps, begs for help against falling before he rejoices in what was given (Matt 14). So now Zacharias. He had long wept that the devil had power, that death reigned through the guilt of one man, that human beings were born to labours, groans and dangers, that one could wish for children, troubled and mortal as they would be, and yet not obtain them; that one stood amid the battle lines of crimes, was besieged by hosts of vices, was always shaken and battered by the onset of infirmities; that one saw from afar the banners of the virtues, the hope of the law, the freedom of grace, and yet no one could reach there by his own strength; that one willed good and did not do it, hated crimes and did not conquer them; that God ought now to have mercy and ought now to come in this way to the help of captives. So when this high priest was knocking at God's ears with such continual complaint and such lamentation, God, for one asking such loving and just things, took and established from the offspring of his own answer a wonderful proof, by which he might believe that God could give life to the dead and restore salvation to the despairing, if he had given offspring to dead old age and a son to hopeless barrenness, as the gospel word discloses when it says: “Your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son”: the messenger of this redemption, the forerunner of this salvation, who will not hear God by voice, as you do, or bend him by groans; who will not, as you do, seek our support to obtain his request, but, placed in our order and upheld by angelic honour, will hold in his hand God, long desired by all, never known to him, unseen even by the angels, will embrace him in his bosom, will hand him over, now visible to the world, with happy arms, and point him out with most blessed hands, to be seen by human eyes; he will make God known to all, lead the Lord into the fellowship of his little servants, mingle the Judge with the guilty, testify that the censor has taken upon himself the person of the guilty, and so prove that the sentence of human condemnation will cease, when he himself is put on trial, he himself runs to pardon, he who was to hand over the guilty to punishment. That this mystery of immense love may shine out, Zacharias, your son plunges his Lord into the baptism of repentance, washes him for the remission of sins: by which the spring willed to be washed, the examiner to receive pardon, the Judge himself to undergo his own sentence, so as not to condemn the guilty or bring vengeance on the offenders. He ascends the cross, tastes death, suffers burial, enters the underworld, he who willed to be punished so as not to punish, who willed to be loved rather than feared. When Zacharias, brothers, heard that by his prayers he had merited so great a mystery, terrified by the very consideration of the matter and troubled by the weight of the mystery itself, he did not believe that he deserved so much, and he doubted that God would come down to such great things. That is why he says: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days.” That is to say: as human reason does not allow me to have a son, so everlasting majesty does not allow God to be born and to die. So the angel, pardonably, gave the one who did not believe the penalty only of a sign, not of faithlessness: for it is caution to be slow to believe lowly things of God, slower still to think insulting things of God. The angel added, saying: “I am Gabriel,” so that from so great a name and the merit of so great a minister the high priest might weigh faith in the promise and believe what kind of promise it was. “I am Gabriel, who stand before God, and I have been sent to speak to you.” In saying his name he indicates his merit; when he says that he stands there, he says that he was sent; he confesses servitude, lest the privilege of the name hide the service owed. “I am,” he says, “Gabriel, who stand before God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to announce these things to you.” Truly “great is the Lord, and of his wisdom there is no number” (Ps 147:5). He heals the sick man by a wound, he strengthens the wavering by punishment, from the penalty he makes a proof of faith, saying: “And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak”: so that from yourself and in yourself you may obtain the rule of believing, and by an example at home believe that God can do what he promises. For when he wills, he closes the organ of your voice; and when he wills, he can surely open the office of your mouth; and when he wills to make a fruitful woman of a barren one, or a barren one of a fruitful one, he can, when he promises it; when he wills to grant the office of childbearing, and when he wills to deny the services of nature, he prevails. So the angel acted so that the high priest, taught by such a proof, might no longer say, “How shall I know this?”, he who could prove from the evidence of the whole creation that God can do all things, and who, having read that heaven, earth, sea and all that is in them came to be out of nothing, ought to have believed that God could make what he wills out of something and give back to the hopeless what he promises; for he who made everything from what was not does not labour to make whatever he wills from what is. “And the people were waiting for Zacharias and wondered that he delayed in the temple. But Zacharias came out and could not speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained dumb.” The high priest comes out bearing in his mouth the sign of barrenness, carrying in his breast the figure of conception, so that when the mother bore a son, the son might give the voice, and then the father of the word might utter the mystery, and the one born might give his father pardon before he washed away the ancient crimes of the peoples. And since he who did not believe was silent, rightly does the prophet, because he believed, glory, saying: “I believed, therefore I spoke” (Ps 116:10). Brothers, faith gives the word; unbelief denies the word. So, brothers, if, as I said, the falls of the saints raise us up and the trembling of the blessed makes us firm, let us judge that nothing is ever impossible for God, and let us not inquire how he will do what he promises, for whom to have willed is to have done, and to have promised is to have given.

[On the same.] Those who know how to gather gold from the earth spend all their art and labour where they have found a rich vein; and we, since we know that a heavenly treasure lies hidden in holy Zacharias, let us spend on him all that belongs to our speaking and to your hearing, so that what is sought by common labour may become common gain. “There was,” it says, “in the days of Herod, king of Judea, a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah”; this we have already discussed; “and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron” (Luke 1:5). The evangelist began in this way to show that the nobility of the priestly line had been preserved in the priest's wife. “They were both,” it says, “righteous before God.” Both righteous, because in both there was one righteousness. Both righteous, because their marriage rested not on fondness but on holiness. Both righteous, because, unequal in sex, they were held equal in merits. Both righteous, because, as there was one flesh in the two, so there was one spirit in the two. Let married couples imitate them, so that virtue may join those whom affection joins. “They were,” it says, “both righteous before God.” Both righteous before God. And where is that saying: “No living being will be justified in your sight” (Ps 143:2)? Before men someone may perhaps be thought righteous, because men, as they know the faults of bodies, so they do not know the vices of the mind; but before God, to whom the bars of the breast lie open and from whom the secrets of thoughts are not hidden, who is held innocent and righteous? Is there a man who does not sin in heart, does not offend in thought, does not stumble by doubt, does not fall into the lapse of trembling? Moses doubts (Num 20), Aaron goes astray (Exod 32), Peter denies (Matt 26): and who is righteous? And how were both righteous before God? Before God, but through God. “Both righteous before God”: not by labour but by grace. Hear the Apostle: “Justified freely by his grace” (Rom 3:24). And again: “It is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:8–9). And again: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Cor 4:7). So the evangelist reports not what they had of their own but what they received; not what was sought but what was given. “They were,” it says, “both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless.” He said “walking” to show that they ran in the virtues and did not stand still; that they walked in the way of righteousness and did not sit down; that they did not stop on the journey of the commandments but reached the fullness of the commandments. “Walking in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless.” Blessed, brothers, are those whom guilt does not strike and crime does not wound; but more blessed are these, whom not even blame touched. “Blameless.” If their childhood, adolescence and youth were blameless, ages in which there is nothing but cause for blame, what was their old age like? If such was the beginning, what was the end? To have climbed the summits of the ordinances and the hills of the commandments without stumbling in anything is the mark of singular grace and unique happiness. “And they had no son,” it says, “because Elizabeth was barren.” He did not say, “They had no sons,” but “They had no son,” because the one who was to be born of such parents would be singular. Hear the Lord saying: “Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matt 11:11). “Because Elizabeth was barren.” Barren in body but fruitful in virtues; slow to offspring but not slow to God; closed not to a child but to a time; not denied a child but kept for a mystery. “And both,” it says, “were advanced in their days.” “Advanced”: thus is described the mystery of an old age that has not yet fallen in merits, does not fail with age but advances, and does not feel the losses of the body because it takes on the increases of virtue. Brothers, holy Elizabeth's childbearing was not taken away but deferred, until there had passed the time of the flesh, the passion of the body, the necessity of marriage, the occasion of pleasure, the sense of desire and all that confuses what is human and weighs down and burdens the conscience. For over a long time there was being cleansed the house of the sacrifice, the lodging of holiness, the quarters of Christ's forerunner, the dwelling of an angel, the hall of the Holy Spirit, the temple of God. “Do you not know,” says the Apostle, “that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). Then, when every cause of blame in the body had been stilled and they had become wholly blameless, at once barrenness flees, old age revives, faith conceives, chastity gives birth, and there is born one greater than man, equal to the angels, the trumpet of heaven, the herald of Christ, the Father's secret, the Son's messenger, the standard-bearer of the King on high, the pardon of sins, the correction of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, and, to speak properly, the clasp of law and grace, which joined the high priest's double cloak on his holy father's breast. So the evangelist describes the virtues of father and mother, so that the dignity of the offspring might be known from the great merits of the parents, and he might be shown to be greater than man who in his birth exceeded the law of human birth. But if he is to come forth, let John be born now, because the birth of Christ is at hand; let the new morning star rise, because the radiance of the true Sun is already breaking out; let the herald give voice, because the judge is present; let the trumpet sound, because the King is coming; and since God is about to come forth, let the angel now go before. But because a man is not able to tell what is above men, the angel was already telling the virtues of the angel to be born. “The angel said to Zacharias: Do not be afraid, Zacharias; your prayer has been heard; behold, Elizabeth your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John; and he will be your joy and exultation, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great before the Lord; and he will drink no wine or strong drink; and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb; and he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God; and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, and the unbelieving to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a perfect people.” Human speech has nothing to do, the preaching of the expositor falls silent, when John's glory is proclaimed by an angel's announcement; virtue resounds, praise is itself praised; and there is nothing a man can add to him on whom God has conferred everything. “He will be filled,” it says, “with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.” You see how John reached heaven before he touched earth, received the divine Spirit before he had a human one, took on divine gifts before bodily limbs, began to live for God before he lived for himself; rather, he lived for God before God lived in him, according to the Apostle's word: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). In the sixth month he leaps in his mother's womb and announces that Christ has come into the Virgin's womb. Fervent messenger, who longed to announce before he lived; impatient leader, who reached the King before he reached his body; he seized his arms before his limbs; he sought the battle line before the light; and to conquer the world he lived before nature; without a body of his own he rouses his mother's womb; and since the body was slow, he fulfils the office of evangelist by the spirit alone. What shall I say? John went before himself before he went before Christ. One and the same Holy Spirit fills the hearts of father, mother and son, so that the song of the Lord's birth might resound on one instrument of holiness. Nor is this surprising, brothers: festivity always honours royal births, and sweet harmony gladdens them. And let us too, brothers, glorify the birth of Christ with songs and honour it with gifts, because a Christian is false to the faith if he does not do what a magus did (Matt 2).

[On the same.] The gospel word gradually moves us to higher things and lifts us to the things above. Nor is it surprising, brothers, if a heavenly chariot carried Elijah up to heaven (2 Kgs 2), when every day this four-horse chariot of the Gospels carries and conveys the human race to the kingdom of heaven. See, brothers, it has already brought us near from the childbearing of a barren woman to the childbearing of the Virgin, and from the birth of John to the birth of our Saviour. But let us listen patiently to what still remains about Zacharias the high priest, so that we may reach the cradle of our King by a royal road; for this is why we have climbed into the safe seat of the heavenly chariot, to avoid the anxious and arduous paths of shortcuts. Now it was read: “And it happened that when the days of his service were completed, he went to his house” (Luke 1:23). So a whole tribe served one temple; thousands of priests were in attendance, and for this reason the observance of the priestly office was divided among many, apportioned over periods and distributed by turns, lest either a confused multitude disturb the order of the priesthood, or one man, by serving continually, deny the altar the service due to it. “After this his wife Elizabeth conceived.” They had the right of marriage; leave to beget had been granted to them, in whose time the law was still in its youth and religion still in its infancy. The law, brothers, forbade what was unlawful and did not deny what was lawful; it held within the limits of a gift, it could confer nothing beyond the gift; it ruled nature, it did not raise man above nature. The law, the door of faith, the messenger of grace, the forerunner of the Gospel, the tutor of religion in its infancy, allowed the chastity of marriage in the legal priesthood, so that it might announce the glory of perpetual virtue to come in the high priesthood of grace. So under this indulgence Elizabeth, already dead with years, revives into a holy childbearing; her dry limbs, furrowed with wrinkles, grow green again with vital marrow into a fruitful womb; the very time at which she had ceased is called back into her body; the house of the womb, collapsed through extreme age, is suddenly restored to a new appearance; order is stunned, custom fails, nature itself marvels, and from the preparation of the dwelling the merit and dignity of the guest is made known. Indeed John marvelled enough at being a stranger in the common dwelling, since he learned that, though shut out by time and disowned by nature, he had been received into it by the kindness of the Creator, not of a parent. “And she hid herself five months, saying: Thus the Lord has done to me.” She confesses that the Lord has done all of it, since she saw nothing conferred on her through man. “And she hid herself five months,” because although what she had was a divine gift, it did not belong to her time of life. “She hid herself five months.” An old woman with child blushes, an aged woman is ashamed of a first birth, extreme old age hides a woman about to give birth, lest the laughter at a fruitful old age increase the reproach of barrenness. That an aged and elderly conception is open to laughter Sarah proves, who was very like her in barrenness and age (Gen 18): when at the Lord's promise she learned that childbearing was being restored to her and a son given, when life had almost left her, she herself laughed at her own childbearing; and that a pregnant woman burdened with grey hair could be a laughing-stock to all, she testifies by the very name of her offspring, as Scripture says: “And she called the name of her son Isaac” (Gen 21:3), which, she taught, means laughter, adding: “The Lord has made laughter for me” (Gen 21:6). That is why Elizabeth wishes to hide the sacred mystery, saying: “Thus the Lord has done to me”; so that shame at the conception might now trouble her for as long as the hardship of denied childbearing had afflicted her. The father is silent from punishment, the mother hides from shame. Oh, how great a voice is born of silence! Oh, in what silence is a trumpet begotten that will cry out to the ages! Oh, what a herald the secret of the divine Judge gives! “Thus the Lord has done to me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among men.” The honour of marriage, the dignity of matrimony, is the procreation of sweet children; for it is heavy and sad enough to lack the reward of virginity and not have the comfort of children; to bear the burdens of matrimony and not come to the fruit of matrimony. That is why she rejoices that the reproach of barrenness has been taken away, saying: “Thus the Lord has done to me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among men.” For among men this is reckoned wretched, but before God there is no guilt where there is no fault of the parent, but the judgment of the one who withholds. Certainly, if some bodily infirmity brings this about, the cause is necessity, not will. But now let every sluggish understanding of the flesh be removed, let all the weakness of bodily sense be cast away, let every effort of human ingenuity be shut out; let the eyes of faith lie open, the ears of the heart be unbarred, the step of the mind run and press on, so that we may reach the mystery of the virgin conception and penetrate the sacrament of the virgin birth, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, born of her, now lives in the heavenly kingdom with God the Father and the Holy Spirit through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

[On the conversion of Magdalene.] A careful hearer perhaps wonders that Christ came to a meal, and to a Pharisee's meal at that. Christ entered the Pharisee's house not to receive Jewish food but to bestow divine mercy; nor did he recline to take cups flavoured with honey and perfumed with flowers, but to drink a penitent's tears from the very springs of her eyes: God hungers for the groans of sinners and thirsts for the tears of the guilty. “A certain Pharisee,” it says, “asked the Lord to eat with him; and entering the Pharisee's house he reclined at table. And behold, a woman who was a sinner in the city, when she learned that the Lord was reclining in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind at his feet, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment” (Luke 7:36–38). You see that Christ came to the Pharisee's table not to be filled with fleshly food but to show heavenly business in the flesh; not to approve what was set before him by human hands, but what was done behind him by divine power. For we always recognize that Christ exercised divine powers through human acts, since everything he did, even bodily, is shown to be new and beyond the usage of mortals. The Pharisee invites Christ to eat; what does an uninvited woman seek there? A stranger does not burst through the barriers of a house; one not invited does not presume to enter the privacy of a banquet; a dissolute onlooker does not dare to disturb food prepared to relax minds after labour. How is it, then, that this woman, unknown, or rather badly known, laden with grief, full of tears, loud with lament, without the doorkeeper's knowledge, with no one aware of it, the host himself unaware, runs through all the entrances of the house, passes through the whole crowd of servants, flies to the very privacy of the banquet, and turns a house of gladness into a house of lamentation and mourning? Brothers, she came not asked but commanded; she entered as one brought in, not presuming: he himself caused her to be presented to him, he who by heavenly sentence ordered her to be absolved. Then, while the Pharisee, splendid in dress, first on the crescent couch, swelling before the very eyes of Christ, festive, pours himself into feasting to please a man, not God, the woman comes, and comes behind, because a guilty mind stands behind the back to seek pardon, knowing that through guilt it has lost the confidence to face him; she came to make satisfaction to God, not to please a man; she came to offer a banquet of devotion, not of pleasure. So she sets a table of repentance, serves dishes of compunction, brings in the bread of sorrow, tempers the drink with tears in measure, and for the delights of the deity she strikes up the whole symphony of her heart and body: she gives the cry of lament as an organ, plays the lyre with long sighs, fits groans to the pipe; and while she often strikes her breast, accusing her very conscience, she makes cymbals pleasing to God resound; and while she brings such food to the divine eyes, she carries back all the abundance of mercy. “Behold, a woman who was a sinner in the city.” The evangelist heightens the woman's crime to pile up the indulgence of the giver. “A sinner in the city.” She had sinned against the city, because her reputation had touched the reputation of the whole city; and so she had become not only a sinner but the very sin of the city. She knew that the city's sin could be taken away only by him who alone had come to abolish the sin of the world. “And when she learned that the Lord was reclining in the Pharisee's house.” The sinful woman does not dare to come to him standing or sitting: God, when he stands, rebukes; when he sits, judges; when he reclines, he lies down with the prostrate. “When she learned that the Lord was reclining in the Pharisee's house.” She learned that the majesty on high bends down to have mercy; and so she believed that he who had come so readily to the Pharisee's table would be ready to pardon her. “She brought an alabaster flask of ointment.” She brings oil, because she was seeking from the heavenly physician medicine for a deadly wound. “Standing behind at his feet.” One who seeks quick pardon always makes for the feet. And rightly “standing,” because one who has been found worthy to reach Christ's feet can no longer fall. “Standing behind at his feet”: so that, leaning on Christ's footsteps, she might run through the way of life, she who had run along the way of death. “She wet his feet with her tears.” Here the order of things is changed: heaven always gives rain to the earth; see, now the earth waters heaven, or rather the shower of human tears leaps above the heavens and up to the Lord himself, so that, according to the Psalmist, this may be sung also of the waters of weeping: “And let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord” (Ps 148:4–5). “She wet his feet with her tears.” Oh, how great is the power in the tears of sinners! They water heaven, wash the earth, extinguish Gehenna, blot out the sentence passed by divine decree against every crime. “And she wiped them with the hair of her head.” She washes the Lord's feet with tears and wipes them with her hair. Poverty has no excuse, and inhumanity will have no pardon, because nature suffices wholly for the service of the Creator. “And she wiped them with the hair of her head.” The wave flowed back onto the sinner's head to cleanse her crimes, so that the woman, from her own spring, might wash away the filth of her sins in a new baptism. “And she wiped them with the hair of her head”: so that, according to the Psalmist, she might turn to holiness by such service the crown of hair (Ps 68:21) in which she had walked in her offences. “And she kissed his feet.” The tears had gone before as intercessors so that devout kisses might follow, because tears are the proof of satisfaction, kisses the signs of reconciliation. “And she anointed them with ointment.” We know from another evangelist that a woman poured oil on the Lord's head (Matt 26:7); so what this woman does is not a soft and fleshly service but a sacrament of the full humanity; because in Christ's head is God, in his feet are those who preach peace. Pray, brothers, that we too may be found worthy to be counted in some measure in the Lord's anointing, and to be anointed with the ointment poured on the Saviour's feet; because, as it is an offering when the ointment is offered, so it is a perfect chrism when it overflows from the Lord's footsteps. Whose type this woman bears, or how great a secret she prefigures, we shall say, God granting, when what follows is explained.

[On the same, and on the Pharisee's grumbling and Christ's answer.] In the last sermon we went through the first part of today's reading, and together we wondered with what fervour, what faith, what daring and what novelty of service the sinful woman touched the very footsteps of the Saviour; now let us hear what the Pharisee said in silence, and what Christ, to whom silent things speak, answered. “When the Pharisee who had invited him saw it,” it says, “he said within himself: If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him” (Luke 7:39). Pharisee, what you see is not ignorance but power; it belongs to divine judgment, not to human error. Pharisee, you are wrong: had he been a prophet, he could have known less, because prophecy is not a matter of human choice but of divine gift; so a prophet knows not as much as he wishes, but as much as he who grants prophecy has given. “If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him.” The touch of a bad woman burns one with a bad conscience, defiles one like her, brands one already suspected, disgraces a man of bad will; but the sinful woman becomes good, becomes holy, becomes innocent, when she has touched the giver of pardon. Dung touches the sun but does not defile it. When wounds touch the physician, the pus does not pollute him. Though a guilty man touches the judge, he cannot stain him when he supplicates. So when a sinner touches the Lord, he does not soil the Lord; rather he himself is freed of all sin and suddenly seizes holiness. The woman with the flow of blood proves this: when she touched the Lord's fringe, she did not defile the fringe, but was herself at once freed from the defilement of her long affliction (Matt 9:20–22). “If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him.” The Pharisee would believe Christ a prophet if he saw that he knew things exposed to the eyes and known to the people. What do you think he will believe when he presently learns that Christ is the arbiter of his mind, the judge of his heart, the witness of his conscience, the examiner of his thoughts? Do you think he will even then confess him as God, when now, after so many mighty works, he does not judge him even a teacher? “If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him.” The woman had a wound; she knew it, and so she sought out the physician of so great a wound in this way; the Pharisee, wounded with the disease of faithlessness and feverish with the flame of pride, in his frenzy did not know that he was mad. That is why Christ turned his care first to the place where an unrecognized infirmity was raging, so that the heavenly physician might heal two patients with one medicine. “When the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said within himself.” Because the Pharisee had thought within himself, Christ answered him aloud; and by laying open the secret of the Pharisee's heart he shows that he himself was the author of all prophecy. “Jesus answered,” it says, “and said: Simon, I have something to say to you.” To you, who need medicine and do not know how to seek medicine; to you, who call God teacher and abandon God's teaching. Do you not know that he does great injury to a teacher who professes himself the disciple of one whose instruction he does not follow? For as a disciple's uprightness is the praise of the teacher, so a disciple who does not know the teaching is a reproach to the teacher. “Simon, I have something to say to you. He answered: Teacher, say it.” Again “Teacher, say it,” and not “God, say it.” Even now, now he senses God, whom he calls teacher. “A certain creditor,” he says, “had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they had nothing with which to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them, then, will love him more? Simon answered: I suppose the one to whom he forgave more. And the Lord: You have judged rightly.” You have heard how the heavenly creditor offsets the whole debt with love, and for the increase on the whole loan demands and requires the interest of love alone. Deserving punishment is the debtor who neglects to redeem his bond by love alone. Do you want to know, O man, what you owe God? That you were made is God's loan; that you are capable of reason is God's interest; that you possess the discernment of evil and good, you have received; and that you have received the rule of living by the bond of the law, you cannot deny that you pledged to God who stipulated it. But while you plunge yourself through the vices of the flesh into the mud like a pig, and, living like a four-footed beast, deprive yourself of the reason with which you were endowed, and, having lost the discernment of good and evil, confuse them in the whirlpool of crimes, and squander the substance of the divine law, captive to worldly pleasure, you have become the mournful debtor of a glorious loan, and as the profits of the virtues fail, the interest of crimes is multiplied against you. But though you have fallen in this matter, though you have rolled down into this, see that you do not despair: O man, there remains to you the means of satisfying your most loving creditor. Do you want to be acquitted? Love. “Charity will cover a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8). What is worse than the crime of denial? And yet Peter was able to blot it out by love alone, as the Lord proves when he says: “Peter, do you love me?” (John 21:15). Among all God's precepts love holds the first place: “You shall love,” he says, “the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). So love God, O man, and love him wholly, so that you may overcome everything and blot out your sins without labour. It belongs to a tender warfare and a gentle combat to win the victory over all crimes by love alone, as becomes clear from what follows. “Turning,” it says, “to the woman, he said to Simon.” Why does Christ, turned toward the woman, speak to Simon? Because while he looks at the penitent he rebukes the one who barks. “He said to Simon: Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much; but the one to whom less is forgiven loves less.” It is proved that love blots out and washes away all sins. But what does he mean when he says, “The one to whom less is forgiven loves less”? Is it enough, then, to sin so that greater charity may be obtained? Far from it. Charity helps with past sins; it does not free us for future ones. Charity does not know how to sin while it loves; charity is not charity if it offends; the charity of God is the guardian of holiness. Brothers, if we know that we are sinners and do not wish to be sinners, let us give tears to Christ's feet, spread out our hair, press kisses, pour out the oil of devotion with all our heart, so that it may be said to us: “Your many sins are forgiven you, because you have loved much.” Let us imitate this woman, whom we see not only to have been freed from her sins but to have reached the very summit of holiness. But who this woman is, since today's sermon on charity has delayed us, we shall disclose in what follows, as we have already promised, God being our guide.

[On the same, where it treats of Magdalene's conversion allegorically.] All the things reported as done bodily by Christ are so firmly grounded in historical truth that they are always shown to be full of heavenly mysteries. And since we have already touched in two sermons on what lay on the surface of the reading, pray that, as we promised, we may disclose its inner meaning, with the Holy Spirit revealing it. That speech is unworthy which sets out God's deeds by human exposition alone. “A certain Pharisee,” it says, “asked the Lord to eat with him” (Luke 7:36). The Pharisee, brothers, is called the catholic of the Jews; for he believes in the resurrection and disagrees with the Sadducee who denies the resurrection. That is why he asks Christ, that is, the author of the resurrection, to eat with him: because he who lives with Christ does not know how to die, but surely lives for ever. “He asked the Lord to eat with him.” You ask, Pharisee, to eat with him: believe, become a Christian, so that you may eat of him. “I am,” he says, “the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41). God always grants more than he is asked; for he gave himself to be eaten, he who was asked to grant the confidence of eating with him; and yet he gave this in such a way as not to deny what he was asked. Does he not also promise this of his own accord to his disciples? “You who have stayed with me will eat and drink at my table in my kingdom” (Luke 22:28–30). Christian, he who gave himself here to be eaten by you, what of his own can he deny you in the future? And he who prepared such provision for your journey as your food, what has he not prepared for you in that everlasting dwelling? “You will eat at my table in my kingdom.” You have heard of God's banquet; do not be anxious about the quality of the banquet. He who deserves to come to the king's table will eat whatever the lordship and power of the kingdom possesses; so he who comes to the Creator's banquet will have among his delights whatever is contained in creation. But let us return to our subject. “And entering the Pharisee's house.” What house? He entered the synagogue, surely, and reclined. In the synagogue, brothers, Christ reclined when he lay down in death; but he passed his body on to the church's table, so that the heavenly flesh might be for the salvation of the nations who would eat it. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you” (John 6:53). How the flesh of Christ is eaten and his blood drunk, those there know who have been instructed in the heavenly sacraments. “Behold,” it says, “a woman who was a sinner in the city.” What woman? The church, without doubt. “A sinner in the city.” What city? The one of which the prophet had said: “How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot?” (Isa 1:21). And elsewhere: “I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city; iniquity and toil are in its midst, and injustice; and usury and deceit have not departed from its streets” (Ps 55:9–11). So in the city of faithlessness, enclosed by walls, fortified with the towers of pride, laid out in streets of iniquities, barred with gates of contradictions, painted with the cosmetics of deceit, hardened with the flints of usury, weighed down with the sorrows of business, disgraced by brothels, that is, by temples of idols, this woman, that is, the church, was carrying the heaviest guilt from so great a filth of earlier sins. But she heard that Christ had come to the Pharisee's house, that is, to the synagogue; that there, that is, at the Jewish Passover, he had handed over the mysteries of his passion, opened the sacrament of his body and blood, and made manifest the secret of our redemption, despising the scribes as the worst of doorkeepers: “Woe to you lawyers, who have taken away the key of knowledge” (Luke 11:52). So she broke through the doors of contradictions, despised the very leadership of the Pharisaic band, and, burning, panting, seething, reached the innermost room of the banquet of the law; and there she found Christ, betrayed amid the feast of love and the sweet cups, laid low by Jewish fraud, according to the prophet's word: “For if an enemy had reproached me, I would have borne it; and if he who hated me had spoken evil against me, I would have hidden myself from him; but you, a man of one mind with me, my guide and my familiar friend, who took sweet food with me; in the house of the Lord we walked in harmony” (Ps 55:12–14). “When she learned that the Lord was reclining in the Pharisee's house,” that is, that in the synagogue he had been handed over by every deceit and every fraud, had suffered, was crucified and buried, still she is not held back from the fervour of faith by so great an injury, but brings ointment, brings the oil of Christian chrism; and because she was not found worthy to see Christ's bodily face, she stands behind, not in place but in time; she clings to his footsteps so as to follow; and she now pours out tears more of desire than of conscience, so that she may be found worthy to see returning him whom she was not worthy to see departing. So she pours out tears at the Lord's feet with flowing love: while she holds with the hands of good works the feet of those who preach his kingdom, she washes them with tears of charity, kisses them with the lips of confession, and pours out the whole ointment of mercy, until, turned toward her (what is “turned”? that is, returned), he says to Simon, says to the Pharisees, says to those who deny, says to the Jewish people: “I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet.” And when will he say this? When he comes in the majesty of his Father and separates the righteous from the unrighteous as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and says: “I was hungry, and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me” (Matt 25:31–43). That is to say: You gave me no water for my feet; but she, while she washes the feet of my own, anoints their feet and kisses their feet, has done for the servants what you did not do for the Lord, has done for the feet what you refused the head, has spent on the least what you denied your author. Then he will say to the church: “Your many sins are forgiven you, because you have loved much.” For then there will be forgiveness of sins, when all matter for sinning is taken away, when corruption puts on incorruption, when mortality attains immortality, when the flesh of sin becomes the flesh of complete holiness, when earthly servitude is changed into heavenly lordship, when human warfare is promoted to the divine kingdom. Pray, brothers, that we too, placed within the church, may be found worthy to come to the things we have listed, with Christ himself as our guide, to whom be honour and glory with the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.

[On the parable of the weeds.] If the words or deeds of Christ were everywhere subject to the senses of the flesh, my mind would grow torpid, my wit would be idle and fall asleep, my heart would waste away, and all that is of human vigour and warmth would be extinguished. “He put before them a parable,” it says (Matt 13:24). As fire is cold in a stone and lies hidden in iron, yet fire is kindled by striking iron and stone together, so an obscure word shines out when word is struck against meaning. Certainly, if there were no mysteries, no distinction would remain between faithful and unfaithful, between impious and pious, and the devout would be like the stubborn, the idle like the one who toils, the wakeful like the one asleep; but now, when the soul asks, the mind knocks, understanding seeks, piety hopes, faith demands, effort merits, there appear both the fruit of the one who sweats and the punishment of the lazy, and at the same time the justice of the giver; because what is received is more relished than what is owned, and what is found delights more than what is set before us. That is why Christ veils his teaching in parables, covers it with figures, wraps it in sacraments and makes it obscure with mysteries. “He put before them a parable.” Before them: that is, not his own but outsiders, enemies surely, not friends; those watching to slander, not listening for salvation. “That is why,” he says, “I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor understand” (Matt 13:13). Why? Because he who slanders the past does not deserve to see the present, nor is he worthy to recognize grace who hid the law so that it might not be known. “Woe to you lawyers,” he says, “because you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering” (Luke 11:52). “He put before them a parable, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a man.” And whom does Christ offend if he was made in the likeness of men to help the perishing human race? Does the Lord give scandal if, to set servants free, he is found in the form of a servant, when whatever belongs to the majesty to come, to the coming and the kingdom, is here compared to a man? “The kingdom of heaven,” he says, “is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds over it among the wheat, and went away.” You have heard how the sower of the world sowed good beginnings of things, and no evil came from the author of the origin; evil was sown over it by the enemy; evil was not produced by the parent of things. “And God saw,” it says, “all that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Good, and very good: for what God in making called the world, the clean thing, the enemy by staining made unclean; the man whom God placed in the paradise of delights for life, the enemy dragged down into this life of toil for death; and the affection that God implanted in the flesh by nature, the enemy turned through envy into the murder of kin. Cain proves this, who first dyed the earth with a brother's blood and proved himself the dedicator of death by his brother's end (Gen 4). So death, born of discord, always splits and separates human charity. And since it would take long to go through every point, we are compelled to disclose at least in a few words how the enemy has always sown, for our ruin, evils over goods, vices over virtues, deadly things over living ones. Did not God fill the whole earth from one man, and the loving sower multiply the whole human race from one seed into so great a harvest? But the enemy soon drove all men into one evil, and by sowing evils over it caused what had been well sown to be drowned by the flood, not watered. So he coloured the law, sown with divine and true precepts, with human and lying inventions, so that from priest came a persecutor, from teacher a corrupter, from defender of the law an enemy. So, that God might not be known, he lyingly made gods of the creatures made for the knowledge of the Creator. So he made the wise of the world fools, taught the observers of the world to see nothing, made the professors of knowledge have no knowledge, and left the inquirers into all things ignorant. So the enemy confused the gospel crop, sown with heavenly seed, by sowing heretical weeds over it, to make the sheaves of faith into bundles for Gehenna, lest it become wheat for the heavenly barns. And what more? After he himself was turned from an angel into a demon, he strove by art, tricks, contrivances and fraud that no creature should remain in its own state. But now let us open the words of the present parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like a man.” To whom? Surely to Christ. “Who sowed good seed”: because in the very seed of things the Creator's ordering knows no evil. “In his field”: that is, in the world, as the Lord himself says: “The field is the world” (Matt 13:38). “But while men were sleeping”: that is, the holy fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, sleeping for a time in the slumber of death, because the death of the saints is sleep; but the death of sinners is death, because sinners live on in the punishment of hell and perish to life. “His enemy came”: that is, the devil. “He sowed weeds over it.” “Sowed over,” not “sowed.” The good things of the Creator come first, the evils of the devil follow after, so that the evil which is from the devil may be an accident, not a nature. “He sowed weeds over it among the wheat”: because the devil is accustomed to sow, for no gain, heresies among the faithful, sin among the saints, quarrels among the peaceable, tricks among the simple, wickedness among the innocent; not to gain weeds but to destroy wheat; not to capture the guilty but to carry off the innocent. An enemy seeks the general more than the soldier; he does not besiege the dead but attacks the living; so the devil does not seek to capture sinners, whom he holds subjugated, but labours to capture the righteous. “He sowed weeds over it among the wheat, and went away”: because the devil drives men with force to ruin, but once he has laid them low, he abandons them; the devil does not seek man, he seeks man's destruction. Brothers, he rejoices in our evils, swells at our ruins, grows strong on our wounds, thirsts for our blood, is sated with our flesh, lives from our deaths. The devil does not want to have man but to destroy him. Why? Because he does not want, does not bear, does not endure that man should come to the heaven from which he fell. And since the sermon draws us out too long today, let us put off the rest, both to relieve our common labour and to carry out more fully what is to be said. May our God deign to give me the grace of speaking and you the desire of hearing.

[On the same.] Since the earlier sermon, hurried so as to lighten our common labour, could not reach the whole secret of the parable as it passed by, let us now disclose the rest, with the Lord revealing it. “He put before them a parable, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds over it among the wheat, and went away.” “But while men were sleeping” (Matt 13:25). The ambusher lurks by night, flees the wakeful by day, and goes after those who sleep; the strong man seeks combat, issues his challenge openly with everyone looking on, and wants to win before the people. It is a sign of the greatest weakness to have attacked men asleep. “But while men were sleeping, his enemy came.” The wicked one is never anything but foolish. What did this enemy accomplish? Granted that the servants slept, was the Lord sleeping too? Granted that sleep had closed the servants' eyes after their labour, had any weariness overcome the master's eyes? Enemy, fugitive from the light, you kept watch, you laboured, but you were not hidden: for while the servants slept, the Lord himself sees you; deserter of heaven, you anticipated them and you acted, but you did not profit. What God himself guards cannot perish for God. Author of fraud, your offence is not against the Lord but against the servants, since you cause what belongs to your fraud to be ascribed to their negligence. He, he sees you, who is witness of all fraud and of all labour. So the fruits of his labour await the one who does well, and the punishments of his wickedness await the defrauder: they will carry the wheat to the heavenly barn; you will carry the bundles of your weeds to Gehenna for yourself. “But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds over it.” For what purpose? That the Lord's harvest might perish. And what did this have to do with the enemy's gain, except that the spirit of envy counts the loss of men its own gain, and reckons that it has acquired whatever men have lost? But the devil, as we said, contrived this under cover of darkness, so that the harm of the adulterated harvest might fall back on the servants, and they might receive punishment from where they had hoped for the palm. Then the servants, wakeful with fear, are terrified as to why this has happened, fearing that the shoots of the weeds might come back as an offence against them, whose conscience held nothing but the sowing of good seed. That is why they forestalled their master's hearing of it, lest, secure in their innocence, they should bear guilt from their silence: for when an innocent man is called to account, in his eagerness to be cleared he presses and spurs the examiner. “But when the blade had sprung up and borne fruit, then,” it says, “the weeds appeared also.” What lies hidden in the blade is revealed in the ear; what is concealed in the shoot is opened in the fruit. So those whom we think equal as believers we find unequal in faith; so the harvest of judgment reveals what the shoot of the church hides, according to the Lord's word: “By their fruits you will know them” (Matt 7:16). Many blossoms promise a multitude of fruits, but, tested by the blasts of the winds, very few persevere to the fruit; so many believers in Christ are seen in the church in time of peace, but when the storm of persecution has blown, few are found in the fruit of martyrdom. But holy Euphemia paid out more in fruit than she promised in flower: with the flower of her virginity remaining, she came to the abundant fruit of martyrdom. “The servants of the householder came,” it says, “and said to him.” They came, brothers, in mind, not in body; not in place but in faith; they spoke not with the cry of the voice but with the silent grief of the heart: “Lord, did you not sow good seed in your field?” “You sowed,” not “we sowed”: what we do perfectly we always assign to you, our author, and in the things you command us to do you yourself stand by as the worker. So if by your condescension you make us partners in your work, do not ascribe to us alone that weeds are springing up. Lord, either innocence protects us together with you, or guilt touches you together with us; we could not envy our own work, we could not purchase offence with great sweat; you have what you will, from where you will, when you will; we have nothing apart from your grace, through which we stand, live, move and are (Acts 17:28), and without which we lie down, fail and perish. Did we then labour at these things so that they might perish? But who did this, you saw, who alone do not sleep, while we slept; and if you saw, just Judge (who knows the deed? he who keeps watch, not he who sleeps), then expose him, so that you may make us secure, whom you see so anxious. “The master said: An enemy has done this.” “An enemy has done this”; and why, Lord, when you saw it, did you allow it? Why? Because he cannot fear frauds who can lose nothing; because it is more to separate what is mixed than to prevent the mixing, and it is greater to restore what was lost than to keep what is unharmed; and at the same time because “there must be weeds, so that those who are approved may become manifest” (1 Cor 11:19). “The servants said to him: Do you want us to go and gather the weeds?” So devoted servants promise tireless labour and cannot bear to see the ugliness of the Lord's harvest even for a time; but the Lord, whom times do not weary and who can abolish the injury to his harvest when he wishes, forbids it, saying: “No.” And why he forbade it he at once reveals: “Lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.” Were the cultivators so unskilled, so ignorant of the work, so lacking in the knowledge of discernment, that in pulling up weeds they would root up the wheat? Where are the prophets who prophesy by God's Spirit? Where is Peter, to whom the Father reveals (Matt 16:17)? Where is Paul, in whom Christ works (Gal 2:8) and speaks (2 Cor 13:3)? Where are all the saints, truly saints, but servants, knowing only as much as the giver of knowledge has granted each? But you say: This was nothing hidden. Yet there was something hidden there, when one thing was seen in appearance and another held in the flower, and what was weeds today was turned tomorrow into wheat: so today one is held a heretic who tomorrow becomes faithful, and one who is now seen as a sinner will stand righteous in the future. That is why the author referred both to the harvest, that is, to the judgment, the time of divine patience and of our repentance, so that whoever changes himself from evil to good may be counted as the Lord's wheat, to be gathered into the heavenly barns, and whoever makes himself unfaithful from faithful may be assigned to the fire of Gehenna. And what more? If God's patience did not come to the help of the weeds, the church would possess neither Matthew the evangelist from a tax collector nor Paul the apostle from a persecutor. Indeed Ananias was then seeking to root up the wheat, when, sent to Saul, he complained in this way about Paul: “Lord, how much evil he has done to your saints” (Acts 9:13): that is, root up the weeds; why send a sheep to a wolf? a devout man to a stubborn one? such a preacher to a persecutor? But when Ananias saw Saul, the Lord then saw Paul; when Ananias spoke of a persecutor, the Lord then knew a preacher; and when Ananias judged him weeds for hell, Christ was already placing him as a chosen vessel, wheat in the heavenly barn. “Go,” he says, “for he is a chosen vessel to me.”

[On the parable of the mustard seed.] You have heard today, brothers, how the whole greatness of the heavenly kingdom has been compared to a grain of mustard seed. And why does so small, so tiny a likeness, indeed the tiniest of the tiny, contain so great a power? For the Lord speaks thus: “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it?” (Luke 13:18). When he says, “What is it like?”, he displays and puts forward the feeling of one who is searching. Does he, the Word alone, the spring of knowledge, the river of speech, who waters the hearts of all, opens the senses and enlarges the mind, now labour to find a comparison? But let us hear what he found. “The kingdom of heaven,” he says, “is like a grain of mustard seed.” Searching in heaven and on earth, he found nothing but a grain of mustard seed in which to enclose the whole power of the heavenly lordship; and does he narrow and shut that kingdom, mighty in its uniqueness, happy in its eternity, shining with divinity, spread through all heaven and extended over all the earth, within the narrow limits of a grain of mustard seed? “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed.” Is this the whole hope of believers? Is this the highest expectation of the faithful? Is this the happiness of virgins, won by long labours of continence? Is this the glory of martyrs, gained by the shedding of all their blood? Is this what “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man” (1 Cor 2:9)? Is this what the Apostle, by an ineffable mystery, promises has been prepared for those who love God? Brothers, let us not be easily troubled by the Lord's sayings; for if “the weakness of God is stronger than men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men” (1 Cor 1:25), this least thing of God is found more magnificent than the whole greatness of the world; if only we so sow this grain of mustard seed in our minds that it grows for us into a great tree of understanding, and our perception is lifted with all its height to heaven and spreads into all the branches of knowledge; and so it kindles our burning mouths with the lively savour of its fruit, and so blazes in us with all the fire of its seed and flames in our breast, and by its taste takes from us all the distaste of our ignorance. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and put in his garden, and it grew and became a great tree, and the birds of the sky rested in its branches.” The kingdom of God, as he says, is like a grain of mustard seed: it is brought from above by the word, received by hearing, sown by faith, rooted by belief; it grows by hope, spreads by confession, extends by virtue, and is widened into branches, to which it calls the birds of the sky, that is, spiritual minds, and receives them in them in a quiet dwelling. Let the heretic come, let him come, because entry always lies open to those who return to the church; let him come, let him hear, and let him now stop barking against the Lord's loving condescension. If the whole majesty of the heavenly kingdom comes to the likeness of a grain of mustard seed, why is it questioned that God came down to man and the Lord to the form of a servant? For he came in this way, heretic, so that everything might grow for you through faith, for whom everything had already failed by nature. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed.” But let us return to the mustard seed; for in this way the whole sum of the kingdom remains and stands in the kingdom of heaven. Christ is the kingdom of heaven, who, like a grain of mustard seed, was put into the garden of a virgin's body, grew on the cross into a tree over the whole world, and, when crushed in his passion, gave such savour of his fruit that he seasoned and flavoured by his touch whatever has life. For as in a whole grain of mustard its strength lies hidden, but its strength appears most vehemently if it is crushed, so Christ, who did not want his power to be hidden, willed to be crushed in his body. And let us too, brothers, crush this grain of mustard, so that we may feel its force in this comparison. Christ is king, because he himself is the whole origin of reigning; Christ is the kingdom, because in him is the whole majesty of his kingdom; Christ is man, because the whole man is restored in Christ; Christ is the grain of mustard seed, in which the whole greatness of God is lessened to the whole smallness of man. And what more? He became all things in order to restore all in himself. Christ the man received the grain of mustard seed: that is, Christ the man received the kingdom of God which Christ as God always had; he put it into his garden, that is, into the church, his bride. He often mentions this garden in the Song of Songs, saying: “A garden enclosed” (Song 4:12). The church is a garden spread over the whole world by the ploughshare of the Gospel, enclosed by the goads of discipline, cleared of every evil weed by apostolic labour, pleasant with the young plants of the faithful, the lilies of virgins, the roses of martyrs, the greenery of confessors, fragrant with everlasting flowers. So Christ put this grain of mustard seed into his garden, that is, by the promise of his kingdom; it took root in the patriarchs, was born in the prophets, grew in the apostles, became a great tree in the church, and put forth manifold branches in gifts, which the Apostle enumerates, saying: “To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another the care of healings, to another the working of mighty works, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues” (1 Cor 12:8–10). You have heard, brothers, into what a tree this grain of mustard seed has burst forth; you have heard what roots it has laid down; you have heard into what kind of branches, and how great, it has now spread and sown itself, in which the birds of heaven, not of the air, rest in the security of faith, flying on the wings of wisdom and prudence. And you, listen, if you do not want to fear earthly beasts, if you want to avoid birds of prey and greedy vultures, that is, the birds of the air, which are all the spiritual forces of wickedness: rise from the earth, leave earthly things behind; take the silvered wings of the prophetic dove (Ps 68:13), take feathers radiant with the brightness of the divine Sun, fly out in the likeness of gold, so that you may rest always on such great branches, assailed by no snares, strong from such a flight and secure in such a dwelling. Of the next comparison we shall speak in the next sermon, the Lord teaching us.

[On the parable of the leaven.] The course of today's reading has run well, so that the gospel woman, our mother, has received leaven from the Lord, by which this temple of such holiness has today been raised up for us and has risen into a mass. For the Lord began thus: “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened” (Luke 13:20–21). The good Lord, Christ the lover of his own, repeats likenesses of his kingdom and varies his comparisons, which he does not take from hidden things or seek from heavenly ones, but brings out of daily use and sets before us from common life, so that what is to profit all may reach every kind of person, according to the prophet's word: “Hear this, all nations; give ear, all who inhabit the world, both the earth-born and the sons of men, rich and poor together” (Ps 49:1–2). If he brought into the open anything from the hidden things of divinity, anything from royal secrets, anything from the inner rooms of the rich, the poor would not know it, ordinary people would not grasp it, the simple would not have it made known to them; but now he speaks of things known to the rich, familiar to the poor, homely to all by the very necessity of life, because in God's call it is the human being who is sought, and in his calling no distinction is made of persons. But let us go over the comparison that was read. “To what,” he says, “shall I compare the kingdom of God?” Speaking thus, he holds the minds of his hearers in suspense and makes them wholly astonished as to what could be compared to the kingdom of God, to the divine empire; and while their minds wander through many great things, the Lord of heaven finds and forms the example of his kingdom in a poor man's lodging, in the hand of a woman baking bread, saying: “It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened.” Before, he compared his kingdom to a grain of mustard seed; now he makes it like leaven. Before, he mentions that a man received the grain of mustard seed; now he declares that a woman received the leaven. Before, he says that a man sowed a tiny seed for the growth of a great tree; now he shows that a woman hid a little leaven for the rising of the whole mass. Truly, as the apostle Paul said: “In the Lord neither is man without woman, nor woman without man” (1 Cor 11:11). A varied comparison leads the different sexes to one kingdom, and the Christian calling does not separate man from woman, whom God joins, nature unites, makes alike in a wonderful likeness and fits together in condition and form; and God brings it about that in one human being there are two, in two there is one, and the other is the man himself in the bond of marriage, so that there is neither destitute singleness nor confused union. But why does the Lord set out these likenesses of his kingdom through a man and a woman? Why does he form so great a majesty from such lowly and unequal examples? Brothers, a precious mystery lies hidden in this lowliness, as the Apostle says: “This mystery is great; but I speak of Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32). By these comparisons the principal business of the human race is conducted; through man and woman the case of the world, argued through the ages, is concluded. Adam the first man and Eve the first woman are led from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 3) to the heat of the gospel mustard, so that the eyes which the enticing tree closed by opening them, the mustard tree might open by closing them with the eye-salve and the very sharpness of its grain; that the mouths which the taste of the poisonous tree had infected, the saving tree might heal with the fiery savour of its taste; and that this tree with its fiery food might kindle with all the heat of a good life the conscience which that tree had made cold with complete numbness. Nakedness here no longer acts or feels shame, where pardon covers the whole man and the clothing of faith makes him warm: but this is conferred on the woman through the grain of mustard seed which the man received. What is conferred on the man through the leaven which the woman received, let us examine more carefully. “The kingdom of God,” he says, “is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour.” The matter is drawn from ordinary life: the man sows the mustard tree in the field; at home the woman sees to the leaven and prepares the loaves for food, because labour awaits the man outside, while domestic care binds the woman within. That is why Sarah, barren and old, from this preparation of leaven and from three measures, offers and sets three hearth-cakes before the Lord whom she hosted, in a mystical service (Gen 18:6), so that the barrenness of the world, shut up in complete old age, might place the leaven of faith in three measures, that is, in the equality of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and set three loaves before her Lord in confession of the Trinity; and for this gift she was made fruitful for the whole offspring of the Christian stock. But let us return to our subject. The woman received from God the leaven of faith, she who had received from the devil the leaven of faithlessness; she hid it in three measures, that is, in the three periods of mankind, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Moses, from Moses to Christ; so that the woman who had corrupted the whole mass of the human race with the leaven of death in Adam might restore the whole mass of our flesh with the leaven of resurrection in Christ; so that the woman who had made the bread of groaning and sweat might bake the bread of life and salvation; and that she who in Adam was the mother of all the dead might through Christ be the true mother of all the living. For this is why Christ willed to be born, so that as death came to all through Eve, so life might return to all through Mary. Mary fulfils the type of this leaven, bears its likeness and seals its figure, when she receives from above the leaven of the Word, and in the Virgin's womb, yes, in the Virgin's womb, she mixes human flesh into a wholly heavenly mass. But now let us set out what allegorical sense remains in this likeness. The woman who received the leaven is the church; the leaven she received is the mystery of heavenly teaching; the three measures in which she is said to have hidden the leaven are the Law, the Prophets and the Gospels, where the divine sense is hidden and concealed in a mystical word, so that it may not be hidden from the faithful but may be hidden from the unbelieving. And what he said, “until the whole was leavened,” is what the Apostle says: “We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, what is in part will cease” (1 Cor 13:9–10). Divine knowledge is now in the mixing; it sprinkles the senses, raises hearts, enlarges minds, and in the manner of teaching it expands, rouses and spreads the growth of heavenly wisdom; the whole is leavened. When? When Christ comes.

[On the Syrophoenician, or Canaanite, woman.] Today blessed Mark, while he commends the prudence of the Syrophoenician woman, reports her faith and extols the ardour of her belief, raises no small question for attentive hearers, when he says: “And rising from there the Lord went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon; and entering a house, he wanted no one to know, and he could not be hidden” (Mark 7:24). He wanted, and he could not: to want and not to be able does not belong to divine majesty but to human weakness; for it is written: “Whatever the Lord willed he has done, in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in all the deeps” (Ps 135:6). And the Apostle: “Who resists his will?” (Rom 9:19). A will that is not free and unrestrained succumbs to necessity. The leper says to the Lord: “If you will, you can make me clean” (Matt 8:2); and the evangelist says: “He wanted, and he could not.” What does blessed Mark mean? Is the woman's faith to be so exalted that the Lord's power and will are made to bend? Or is the shrewdness of faith so great that it can search out the divine secret against God's will? This seems to me to be like the time when the Lord wished to bring to light the faith of the woman with the flow of blood as a proof of his power, and to prove it by asking: “Who touched me?” And the disciples say to him: “The crowds are pressing upon you, and you say, Who touched me?” (Mark 5:30–31). It seemed to the disciples that all were touching the Lord, pressing on him with the body alone, and that all were joined to him alike by such bodily jostling; but he, who had perceived otherwise and was asking otherwise, knew that this woman had reached his majesty and penetrated to his power by mind, not by body, not by common touch but by faith. That is why not man but God, not flesh but spirit, cries out: “Who touched me?”, so that the power of the deed might reveal him whom his humanity was then hiding. But let us inquire more clearly what “he wanted” and what “he could not” mean. Christ, mindful of his promise, had come first for the salvation of the people of Israel, so that he might faithfully pay in full what he had promised to Abraham (Gen 22) and to his offspring David (Ps 132) and to his descendants; but because they made themselves unworthy by their faithlessness, the faith of the Gentiles obtained, seized and carried off what the unbelief of the Jews despised and lost. Hear him saying: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 15:24). But sheep already rabid from contact with wolves, and fiercer in their savagery than the beasts themselves, always wanted to tear and violate their shepherd; and so Christ could not fulfil his will, not from any inability of his own, but because of the wickedness of the lost; and he was compelled to confer on some what he had brought for others, as he himself says: “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize it” (Matt 11:12). The faith of the Gentiles did violence, so as to seize the Father's inheritance and carry off the whole inheritance of the sons, as is shown more clearly in the present reading. “For the woman, as soon as she heard of him, whose daughter had an unclean spirit, came in and fell at his feet. The woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her: Let the children first be fed; for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” He did not say, “It is not good to throw it to the dogs,” but, “It is not good to take it from the children and throw it to the dogs”: because giving bread to dogs, even if it is not an act of kindness, is still a matter of human good sense. A dog, at night while its masters sleep, as guard and ever watchful, exposes the stranger, disturbs the thief and confronts the robber, to relieve the care and anxiety of the servants. But how did he take the bread from the children, to whom he had offered, given and pressed it so often and in such ways? But they tried to trample what was offered to the point of crime, not to take it for life; and yet, when it had been broken and trampled by the children, the dog hastened to lick it up with all faith and all desire. That is why she answered thus: “Yes, Lord; for even the little dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” Rightly is she who confessed herself a dog changed into a human being, and rightly are those who did not want to be sons turned into dogs; rightly is she adopted as a daughter, raised up and honoured at the table, who cast herself down under the table in praiseworthy and provident humility; justly does she now feast wholly on the crumbs of the bread, who understood and confessed that by her own merits she scarcely deserved it. And what more? That is why, because of his justice, the Lord could neither give to the Jews nor deny to the Gentiles.

[On death, which the faithful should despise, and why God permitted it; on the saying of Luke: “Do not fear those who kill the body,” etc.] You have heard, brothers, how Christ addresses his soldiers with a royal exhortation, that they should not dread those who kill the body when they see death. Indeed, he enrolls among his friends those who, out of zeal for the triumph and love of freedom, shed their blood with joy and without trembling; for he says thus: “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will show you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into Gehenna” (Luke 12:4–5). “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid”: because courage proves freedom and fear shows servitude; the free man is born for glory, the slave for fear. Rightly, then, is he raised to God's friendship who for God's sake despises human deaths and knows no fear. If imitation of conduct makes friends and likeness of conduct joins them, Christ fittingly calls friends those whom he perceives and foresees will, by imitating him, trample on the darts of the world and the very dread of death. “But I tell you”: that is, not everyone, but my friends. “I tell you”: whom this death releases, not ends. “I tell you”: whom the dissolution of the body promotes to something better, not transfers to punishment. “I tell you”: for whom life begins with death, and does not end. “I tell you”: whose death becomes precious not by its manner but by its cause, since it finds the gains of life rather than losing the use of life. But let us hear what he says to his friends. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body.” Let those hear who have worn out the old volumes of the ancients on the good of death and yet could take nothing of strength from them or find any consolation. For although with all the forces of eloquence they armed minds to endure death, dried tears, removed sighs, forbade groans and shut in griefs, they gained nothing for their readers concerning sure hope, everlasting life or true salvation. Who would say to a man, to a man, to a wise man: “Dying is natural; one must perish. The ancients lived for us, we live for those to come, no one for himself. To will what cannot be taken away is virtue; take up willingly what you are driven to unwillingly. Death does not exist before it comes; when it has come, it is not known to have come. So do not grieve at losing what you will not grieve for once you have lost it”? But when they have said such things, they say it all out of opinion, not out of life. For they did not know whence, when, how and through whom death came to you; but to us the author of life has disclosed the author of death; for God made life, and the devil plotted against life, as the divine word discloses: “God did not make death” (Wis 1:13), “but through the devil's envy death entered the world” (Wis 2:24). But you say: Why did God allow his own work to perish by the work of the devil? O man, if you wanted to know what you ask, you would give yourself a little leisure, give your mind, open your ears, so that you, so curious a judge, might recognize the principal matter. But you, always busy with other things and never with yourself, idle and lazy, make accusations because you do not know the causes of things, the whole business of the ages, the depth of the judgments and their impenetrable secret. Did you not, to learn the strokes of letters and the alphabet, bound to a teacher and fixed in school, wholly patient of labour and punishment, forget your home and your parents? How useful it is to you that a teacher is bound to you and a school pressed on you, and that the teacher, with his own labour, begs you under penalty to be willing to know these things and to deign to hear such great things. The apostles prove this, and above all Paul, who taught by being beaten, not by beating, so that, as an outstanding teacher, he bore and endured as many sufferings as there are characters among men. And we learn in a moment of time the beginnings of things and the causes of the world, because we are commanded to teach them; and how are we commanded? And you do not listen as you ought; such servitude, such necessity excuses us; such great freedom, such a will accuses you beyond doubt: what we say belongs to our office; what we leave unsaid belongs to your distaste. You ask, O man, why God did not at once extinguish death together with its author, and did not then by his providence forestall the deadly poison, so that it might not bring destruction on the whole world, and especially on his own image? The sky which you see, O man, made firm by the whole air, carries many waters and is itself carried by nothing, because a command alone suspends it, the force of a precept alone sustains it, as the divine word discloses: “Who stretches out the sky like a skin, who covers its upper parts with waters” (Ps 104:2–3). The earth, trodden by so great a weight and made firm by the burden and mass of the mountains, floats on liquid from its foundation, as the prophet says: “Who founded the earth on the waters” (Ps 136:6), so that its standing may be from command, not from nature. “He spoke,” it says, “and they were made; he commanded, and they were created” (Ps 148:5), so that their standing may be from divine work, not human reason. The sea, which is borne along with such a whirl of commotion and raised to the clouds, is bridled by thin sands, so that we may see that so great a power yields not to dust but to a command. All things in them move and live, made by command alone; the prophet confirms that they are to be dissolved again by command alone, when he says: “In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands; they will perish, but you will remain; they will all grow old like a garment, and like a covering you will change them, and they will be changed” (Ps 102:25–26). How? So that the creature may perish to time through age, not to the Creator. But now you, whoever you are who ask, say that we have wandered off: because, when you ask why God allowed death to remain for the destruction of his handiwork, we have described at length heaven, earth and sea, made from nothing and to be dissolved again into nothing, and have procured for you more and more matter for inquiry. You say: I asked why man perishes; you have confirmed that the very elements will perish, so as to provide mortal minds with consolation from the universality of perishing, not with rest from reason; as though it were not a grief that heaven perishes, the earth is dissolved, and the whole face of things is abolished by the law of mortality. You say: I ask, what is more beautiful than the sky? What more splendid than the sun? What more pleasing than the moon? What more adorned than the stars? What more wholesome than the earth? What more useful than the sea? Or what old age is there in these, which persevere as they were born and made? Surely it would be more pleasing for these to stand than to perish. O man, perhaps it would be more pleasant, but not more useful: for while they stood, you wavered; while they shone, you were blinded so that you did not see; the brightness of the sky stupefied your senses, the sun blinded your eyes with its splendour; for, deceived by their beauty, you denied their maker; these you confessed to be the rulers of the world, these to be gods, which the true God had made subject to your service. So it is necessary that all things be dissolved and all renewed, so that you may at least then believe them made, when you see them restored. Do not think that we have wandered off, when you see that we have run through the whole creation as an argument for your understanding. O man, when your author made you from dust, you did not see it; for if you had seen yourself made, you would never have lamented in this way that you would die. You saw yourself completed, you saw yourself living, you saw yourself comely, you already saw yourself like your author; you who had seen neither your birth nor your death did not know from what you came or what you were. That is why you gave everything to nature, yourself to yourself, and nothing to God; therefore God brought you back through nature and allowed you to be recalled from what you were into dust, so that you might see in this way what you had been, and, about to rise again, might give thanks, you who, when made and created, proved most ungrateful. So let us not fear, brothers, as the Lord said, those who kill the body, because they do not destroy this life but dismantle it, while they make it everlasting from temporal. What more, brothers? He who could raise allowed death then; he who is able to give life allowed killing; to whom be honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen.

[On the centurion.] When Christ, while abiding in our body, did not raise all the dead or heal all the sick, let us believe that this was not for lack of power but because of the time. Had he done so, he would then have lit up the whole world with the full brightness of his power, taken away the time of faith, and kept nothing for the glory of his second coming. But he so tempered the signs of his mighty works as to show the mark of his divinity, to grant the fullest proof for believing, and to take away the excuse of crafty unbelief, as the centurion whom the evangelist Luke mentions showed today by his faith and foresight. “A certain centurion's servant,” it says, “who was precious to him, was sick and at the point of death” (Luke 7:2). This centurion was a Roman; but he was a Christian beyond the hundredfold fruit. He served God more than the world; strong in human war, stronger in divine, he remained a guardian of peace. “Whose servant, who was precious to him, was sick and dying.” He was a servant valued at a price. Let us ask, then, who is this servant who was precious to him. If the soul rules, the body serves; and to a man nothing is more precious than the body. This precious servant of the centurion is sick unto death; so the centurion was asking that Christ alone help the mortal body by granting it everlasting life. “When he heard of Jesus,” it says, “he sent elders of the Jews to him.” A Gentile sends Jews to Christ; and he who was without the law shows those placed under the law the author of the law. So let no one wonder if a Gentile, that is, a Christian, calls, leads or brings people to Christ. “He sent elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and save his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they begged him earnestly, saying: He is worthy that you should grant him this, for he loves our nation, and he himself built the synagogue for us.” Jews ask on behalf of a Gentile who do not ask for themselves, and they work hard for the safety of another's servant who do nothing for the salvation of their own sons. They say: “He is worthy that you should grant him this.” If he is worthy who hears, believes and sends to Christ, how unworthy is he shown to be who comes to Christ, sees and does not believe? “For he loves our nation.” He loves your nation, which he makes a suppliant to Christ in this way; but you hate it, since you make it defiant toward Christ. Or how does a Christian not love your nation, when, confessing that Christ comes from your nation, he raises and exalts to heavenly glory whatever belongs to your nation? “For he loves our nation and himself built the synagogue for us.” You have heard that the synagogue is always in ruins, lies continually in rubble, and does not rise into a heavenly building unless a Christian builder raises it into the summit of the church. “Jesus went with them,” it says. But they did not go with Jesus, with whom they did not go in mind; nor were they with him who, separated in heart, seemed joined to him in body. “And when he was now not far off.” Not far from whom? From the Gentile. As much as the Jews separated themselves from Christ, so much was Christ joined to the Gentiles. “And when he was not far off, the centurion sent friends to him.” He who had first sent Jews now sends friends, to show by saying this that the Jews were enemies, as the Apostle proves when he says: “Enemies for your sake” (Rom 11:28). The Jews, by envying the Gentiles' faith, lost all that belonged both to the law and to grace. “He sent friends to him.” Hear the Lord saying to the apostles: “I will no longer call you servants, but friends” (John 15:15). As faith promotes servants into friends, so faithlessness reduces sons to penal servitude. “He sent friends to him, saying: Lord, do not trouble yourself.” Why? “For I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” You see that Christ was leading the Jews rather than being led by them, so that they might hear that reverence for the Godhead was with the centurion, the worship of the law with the Gentile, the wages of grace with the soldier, the teaching of faith with the Roman, Christian warmth amid pagan coldness, a heavenly secret in an earthly breast, and the whole knowledge of the lordship on high amid the whole servitude of the world. “Lord, do not trouble yourself.” That is to say: God, why do you trouble yourself in a human body? Why do you wear yourself out with earthly labour and tire yourself with the length of the road? Why do you travel from place to place, you who are wholly everywhere and hold and possess the whole creation within yourself? “Lord, do not trouble yourself; I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” Brothers, what is the roof that makes a man worthy or unworthy, so that it invites or repels divine access? Brothers, this roof is the body, which covers the soul, hides the perception of the spirit, veils the dwelling of the heart and shuts off the freedom of the mind from the heavenly vision. Under this roof, then, the centurion thinks it unworthy that Christ should enter, that is, that the divine majesty should come into a human body. “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” But God, who when he wills makes what is human divine, and when he deigns changes what belongs to our flesh into his spirit, does not disdain to dwell in flesh or to enter under the roof of our body. “Therefore,” he says, “I did not think myself worthy to come to you.” Both belong to a devout man: he thinks it unfitting for God to come to him, and knows that he is not worthy to approach him. Who enters before a judge uncalled? Who goes in to a king unbidden? How much more does no one come to God uncalled. “Those whom he called,” it says, “he also justified” (Rom 8:30). So the centurion does not shrink from the Lord's coming or refuse Christ's presence, but acts so that it may be the grace of the one who calls, not the rashness of one who presumes. For he suggests and shows by a human example what God can do, saying: “For I too am a man set under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it.” That is: if I, who am set under authority, make those subject to me obey by the command of a word alone, how can you, who are subject to no one and to whose power all things are subject, not heal by a word of command, send health and order mighty works? Or can you not restore by a word what you made by a word? “He spoke,” it says, “and they were made; he commanded, and they were created” (Ps 148:5). Or are you not able to repair something from something, you who prepared all things from nothing? “So say the word, and my servant will be healed.” He fulfilled what the prophet sang of God: “He sent his word and healed them, and rescued them from their corruption” (Ps 107:20). Brothers, this centurion, by saying, “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof,” bears the figure of the Christian people, which judges itself unworthy of Christ's bodily presence, but by the word alone, by the message, by the hearing of faith alone, hears, believes and beholds in its own healing all the Lord's mighty works. For when he says, “I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it,” he shows in this way the rejection of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles and the obedience of the Christian people. “I say to this one,” that is, to the Jew who did not believe, “Go, and he goes; and to another,” that is, to the Gentile, because he believed, “Come, and he comes; and to my servant,” that is, to the Christian, “Do this, and he does it.” Let us pray, brothers, that we may be found worthy to be Christians not in name only but in faith, and not only to hear what is commanded but to do what we hear; for as it belongs to a devoted servant to have done what was commanded, so it belongs to a defiant one not to have done it. “Say the word, and my servant will be healed. When Jesus heard this,” it says, “he marvelled.” The creator of marvels marvels; the maker of ears is astonished at what he hears, as though he did not know things before he heard them; but while he marvels that a Gentile has believed in this way, he rebukes the unbelief of the Jews. Then “he says to the crowds following him,” thus rebuking the Jews who remained in death: “Truly I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” It is true, brothers: faith alone lives and will live among the Gentiles; signs and mighty works grow weary and profit nothing among the Jews.

[On the widow's son raised from the dead, and on the resurrection of bodies.] Today the blessed evangelist has announced that the only son of a widowed mother, already bound with the bands of burial, already laid on a mournful bier, already being carried to the tomb with crowds following, was restored to life through Christ (Luke 7:11–17); and he has shaken the hearts of all, moved their minds and astonished their hearing. But let the pagans wonder at this, let the Jews be stunned, let the world tremble: but we, who believe that all the dead of all the ages are to be raised from their tombs at the one voice of Christ, why do we wonder? “The dead will rise,” says Isaiah, “and those in the tombs will rise again” (Isa 26:19 LXX). The Lord: “The hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25). To this the Apostle adds: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible” (1 Cor 15:52). What is this trumpet which brings war on the underworld, breaks up the masses of the tombs, thunders life to the dead, and gives triumph to those rising into everlasting light? What is it? The one the Lord spoke of above: “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God” (John 5:25). Not a trumpet that gives a mournful bellow to warriors by breath forced through a hollow horn of wood or bronze, but one that from the heart of the Father, by the mouth of the Son, gives a life-giving cry to those below and those above alike. “And at the last trumpet” (1 Cor 15:52): the trumpet which in the beginning called the world out of nothing will itself at the last call the world back from ruin; and the trumpet which at the beginning raised man from mud will at the end raise man again from dust. Brothers, we believe this because the trumpet of the divine voice divided chaos, gathered the globe, cleansed the elements, set the world in order, hung the sky, founded the earth, bound the sea, sank the underworld, gave the alternations of order, and commanded the continuous service of things; and lest the world bristle empty, it fitted out inhabitants and distinguished their dwellings: in heaven it placed angels, who live by spirit alone; on earth it established the various lives of earthly beings; in the air it gave winged souls to fly about; in the waters it made small and great, so that a multitude of living creatures might live; and in a wonderful way it joined the structure of the world out of separate parts, so that mixture would not confuse what was distinct, nor distinction split unity. Hence the pairing of day and night is so divided that labour rests on rest, and rest on labour. Hence sun and moon go round the bounds of the world in turn, so that the sun with doubled light may enlarge the brightness of day, and the moon with nearly equal light may not leave the times of night wholly blind. Hence the stars by their course change their various risings, both to mark the seasons by night and to guide travellers. Hence times come by going; they begin to be while they cease. Hence seeds are born, grow, mature, become young, grow old, fall, die, and, buried again in life-giving furrows and dissolved by rot, return from a saving death to their own way and are raised from corruption into lasting form. And if, brothers, the voice of God, the trumpet of Christ, through days, months, seasons and years calls, recalls, leads, leads back, commands to be and makes not to be, gives to death and returns to life, why can it not do once in us what it always does in all things? Or does divine power grow weary in us alone, for whose sake alone God's majesty wrought all that has been said? O man, if all your things revive for you from death, why should you not revive for God from death? Or does God's creature perish in you alone, for whose sake the whole creation subsists, is moved, changes and is renewed daily? Brothers, I say these things not wishing to empty the power of Christ's signs; I urge that by the example of one man rising we may be roused to faith in the resurrection of all, and believe that the cross of our body is the plough, faith the seed, the tomb the furrow, dissolution the sprouting, expectation the season; so that, when the spring of the Lord's coming smiles, the ripe greenness of our bodies may rise into a living harvest, never more to know an end, never to know grey hair, not to suffer binding into sheaves or feel the flails; for, the chaff of the old having been laid aside in death, it rises into the new fruit of a glorious body. If at the temporal tears of one widow Christ was so moved as to meet her on the road, to dry the streams of grief dripping from her eyes, to shake off death, bring back the man, raise the body, restore life, turn lament into joy, change mournful funeral rites into a birthday festival, and give back her son alive from death to the mother, from the bier, what will he do now, when he blazes with all his strength at the long tears of his church, at the bloody sweat of his bride? For through the church in supplication he sheds continual tears, through the martyrs he sweats sacred blood, until Christ, meeting her, gives back her only one, that is, the Christian people, whom so many ages carry to death, from the mortal bier to everlasting life, into the everlasting joy of the mother above. But since the time of Christ's birth has come, and virginity about to give birth already shines as a heavenly miracle, and the birth of the divine King is now announced to us not by a star but by the very rising of the sun, let us all run to meet him to adore him, and confess with sacred gifts that God and King has come forth from a virginal temple. Let us offer gifts, because a public offering is always prepared for a newborn king; let us offer gifts, because an empty-handed worshipper is undevout enough. The magus proves this, who, laden with gold, burning with incense, consecrated with myrrh, bows down at Christ's cradle (Matt 2). What sort of thing is it if a Christian does not do what a magus did? What sort of thing is it if, at the joy of Christ's birth, the poor man weeps, the captive groans, the guest laments, the stranger wails? The Jew always honoured the heavenly feasts with tithes; what does the Christian think of himself if he does not honour them even with a hundredth? Brothers, let no one think that I say this from a zeal for declaiming, not from the feeling of one who grieves. I grieve, I truly grieve, when I read that the magi drenched Christ's cradle with gold, and see that Christians have left the altar of Christ's body empty, and especially at this time, when the vast hunger of the poor and a lamentable crowd of captives pour themselves out upon us. Let no one say, “I do not have,” since God asks from what you have, not from what you do not have, since he graciously credits the widow's two coins (Mark 12:42–44). Let us be devoted to the Creator, so that creation may be devoted to us. Let us sustain the needs of our neighbours, so that we may be freed from our own needs. Let us fill God's altar, so that the fullness of fruits may fill our barns. Certainly, if we do not give, let us not complain that we do not receive. May our God himself grant you good things both present and to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be all honour and everlasting glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and through all ages of ages. Amen.

[On the rich man whose land was fruitful.] Whenever this rich man comes into our midst, whom the cry of the divine voice accuses through so many ages, over the whole world, every day, so often is the deceptive allure of riches put to flight, so often is the raging flame of desires quenched, so often is the mad frenzy of avarice calmed. For the Lord Jesus began thus today: “The land of a certain rich man brought forth plentiful crops; and he thought to himself, saying: What shall I do, since I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said: I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my goods that have grown for me; and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; rest, eat, drink, feast. But God said to him: Fool, this night they demand your soul from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:16–20). Wretched man, whom fertility made barren, abundance anxious, plenty inhuman, riches a beggar! A generous field bore an ungenerous master; and what the earth poured out generously he shut up and gathered narrowly, so as to be the keeper of what belonged to others, he who refused to be the dispenser of his own: ungrateful to God, wicked to himself, an enemy of the poor, a disgrace to the rich, a prison of nature. “The land of a certain rich man brought forth plentiful crops, and he thought within himself.” As if anyone could think outside himself! But this man thought within himself, who, having received into his heart the counsel of impiety, left himself nothing of piety and nothing of mercy. “He thought within himself, saying.” He used a counsellor worthy of himself, who could have no comforter for his bad mind and no colleague. “And he thought within himself, saying.” An impious mind was contending with piety, and he who had lost the peace and quiet of mercy was suffering war within. “And he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do?” It is the voice of one asking; and whom do you think he was asking? There was another in him, because the devil had already settled as owner in his inner rooms; and he who had entered the heart of Judas was holding the secret of his mind. “What shall I do, since I do not have?” Have you heard how the rich man does not have? See, he cries: “I do not have.” It is true, because he who always seeks always does not have; and he does not have where to gather who seeks in order to gather. But let us hear what his inner counsellor answered him. “I will pull down my barns.” It plainly appeared who was lurking, because the enemy always begins with destruction. He works, he works so that you destroy what you have and do not build up what you have desired. Wretched rich man, ignorant about the present, you argue most foolishly about the future; how much better had you transferred your present goods to where the seat of the soul is! But now the bars of your barns have tightened the throats of the poor, bound the necks of strangers, crushed the bowels of the hungry; hence the groans of the poor go before you and follow you, the pale faces of strangers accuse you, the wailing crowd of beggars assails you; so that, sentenced by the Judge above, you may take your fill of punishments, you who, by denying others, have shut yourself in with the bolts of your barns. To the rich man thinking within himself he rightly answered thus who “knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain” (Ps 94:11): “Fool, this night they demand your soul from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Rightly “fool,” because everything there had been of the flesh, nothing of the heart. Rightly “fool,” because for a soul soon to depart he was preparing stores that would last a long time. “This night they demand your soul from you.” Fittingly “this night,” for one who, fleeing the light of mercy, had enslaved himself to the darkness of avarice, saying: “Eat, drink, feast.” That drinkers are sons of night, not of day, the Apostle declares thus: “And those who get drunk are drunk at night” (1 Thess 5:7). He is carried through dark places and taken away through darkness, who entrusted and stored the support of his life in the bars of his barns. “They demand your soul from you.” Why did he not say, “He who gave it demands it back,” but “they demand”? Because God demands back and leads home the souls of the saints, while the ministers of Tartarus demand and drag away the souls of the impious. “And he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do, since I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said: I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my goods that have grown for me; and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; eat, drink, feast. But God said to him: Fool, this night they demand your soul; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So this rich man was overtaken in such a way that he lost his thoughts rather than his preparations; and the prophet's word was fulfilled: “His spirit will go forth, and he will return to his earth; on that day all their thoughts will perish” (Ps 146:4). He thought about what he would leave behind him, not about what he would send on ahead of him; hence, according to the Apostle: “They became futile in their thinking, and their senseless heart was darkened; claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:21–22). “Fool” is said to him, and, roused from the sleep of the present life, he finds nothing in his hands in that eternity, as the Psalmist said: “They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands” (Ps 76:5). So, rich man, keep awake for good work and sleep to evil, so that your hand may not be empty for the poor and may always be full for you. For a rich man overflows in goods as generously as he pours them out generously. So be rich in mercy, if you always want to be rich; and then your barns will be greater, then they will be full, if they have been emptied by generosity, not shut up by greed. [Sermon 105. On the woman who had a spirit of infirmity.] Today Christ's healing has given a wonderful proof of divine power, laid bare the cunning of diabolical fraud, and released a woman wounded by a long and hidden wound, as the Evangelist says: “Jesus was teaching in the synagogue on the sabbath, and there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, and she was bent over and could not look up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her: Woman, you are freed from your infirmity. And he laid his hands on her, and at once she was made straight and glorified God” (Luke 13:10–13). She had a spirit of infirmity and was bent over: the wound was plain, but the author of the wound was not plain; everyone saw the illness, but they did not see the cause of the illness. The punishment was in the open, but the executioner lay hidden, shut up in the punishment itself; a bent body was seen, but the weight on the bent body was not seen; in the midst of her fellow citizens the woman carried her enemy, but the citizens did not see the enemy so as to drive him off. The art of the most wicked spirit was believed to be a bodily ailment, so that the crafty robber might hold captive by deceit one whom he could not hold by strength. The devil would be nothing if men were more careful and more cautious. Or what has he ever achieved in man by strength, and not by art, lying, ambush, fraud, deceit, wickedness, the service of vices and the frenzy of crimes? He always explores men's wills; he flees from good wills but complies with bad ones, so as to be the minister of wickedness, the pander of crimes, the very parasite of the vices. And since he cannot rule by power, he lords it over the basest minds by the basest servitude. So he deceived Eve by a lie (Gen 3), so he snared Judas by greed (Mark 14), so he blinded the Jews by envy (Mark 15), so he darkened the nations with the error of idols, so he confuses peoples with the pomp of things, so he has preoccupied little ones with vanity so that they may not think sound thoughts. Now let us hear what he contrived against the present woman. “And behold,” it says, “a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, and she was bent over and could not look up at all.” You see that this woman was sighing, pressed down by the weight of the most wicked spirit, who always presses men down with the burdens of sins and bends them to the earth, so that they may not see heaven, not savour the things above, not look on God, not return to their freedom through their author, but with bowed head, eyes cast down and face to the ground, may always be held under the captive yoke of the ancient enemy. So that tax collector was pressed down, who could not lift his eyes to heaven but struck his breast, conscious of sin; and since there was no room for denial, he sought room for mercy, saying: “God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Bearing this, the most blessed prophet sang thus: “My iniquities have gone over my head, and like a heavy burden they have weighed upon me” (Ps 38:4). And to disclose the author of this work, he declares elsewhere: “the hairy crown of those who walk about in their offences” (Ps 68:21); because the devil rides on and runs over the head of those who do not resist their offences but walk about in them, so that those who go to evil of their own accord may be led to worse by the devil's impulse, as the Apostle says: “You were led as you went” (1 Cor 12:2). But let us search out what spiritual understanding remains in this history. “And behold a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, and she was bent over and could not look up at all.” Who is this woman, whose very years of infirmity are recorded? Who is she, whom a crafty ailment strove not to lift from the earth but to bend toward it? Who is she? She who is now the holy mother of saints, the holy church of sons, whom, as the Apostle says, the spirit of this air, the spirit of disobedience, the spirit of error (Eph 2:2; 6:12) was harassing with a spiritual affliction, bending her down with various weights and laying her on the earth, so that she was never lifted up to look at heaven. But why is she who bears the type of the church found thus bent over in the synagogue? Why? Because while she flees the sacrileges of the nations and avoids the burdens of idols, she runs into heavier ones and carries the weights of the synagogue, as the Lord proves when he says: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, who bind heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but you yourselves will not move them even with your least finger” (Luke 11:46; Matt 23:4). Hence blessed Peter too says: “Why then do you now tempt God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear?” (Acts 15:10). That is why Christ, desiring to relieve men of these burdens, cries out: “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you; take my yoke upon you, because it is sweet” (Matt 11:28–30). When he says “all,” he surely calls both Jews and Gentiles. But why is this woman's sickness drawn out through eighteen years? Because unless the decalogue of the law had come to the grace of the eighth day, the holy church, this woman, would never have come to the fullness of time, to the day of salvation, to the acceptable time, to the presence of her Saviour. That this woman bore the figure of the church the very manner of her healing shows. “He called her to himself,” it says, “and laid his hands on her.” Whoever has been found worthy to become a Christian, and sees Christians being made every day, knows well that this is how the church is always healed. For, so that a Gentile bent by sins may be raised up to heaven, first the wicked spirit is driven out of the Gentile by the laying on of hands. He who had put demons to flight by a word alone and had healed all infirmities by command alone, why does he lay his hands on this woman? Why does he change the order of healing in her case, unless because he then heals all in one; or rather, because he does not receive the church until he has purified her from the devil by the laying on of his hands and made her Christian; and further, by the sacrament of the present healing he forms and establishes the care of making Christians. But the ruler of the synagogue is indignant that Christ heals on the sabbath; and today the Jew is tormented with the fury of zeal at the church's healing, while he turns heavenly meanings over with earthly understanding, and thinks the sabbath consecrated to beasts of burden, not to men, he who hurries on the sabbath to an ox or an ass in danger, but grants nothing of piety, nothing of mercy, to a dying man on the sabbath. And the senseless man does this so that he violates the sabbath in his heart and violates holiness itself in a man; and so he lays down rules for God by God's law, and, by observing the sabbath, pays back to God the sabbath which God mercifully granted the Jew as rest from earthly labour and work of the flesh. “And they were turned into a crooked bow” (Ps 78:57), they who in this way twist the most upright precepts of the law against the Lord of the law. Jew, he who freed you from human labour so that at least on one day, the sabbath, you might rest in caring for your own welfare … And you, Christian, keep the Lord's day for the Lord, if you want to see that day of the Lord, if you want to possess through the Lord whatever belongs to the Lord.

[On the fig tree that bore no fruit.] As a skilled teacher stirs the minds of his pupils, who are untrained in listening and slow to understand, by various kinds of teaching, and rouses and kindles their wits, so the Lord by various likenesses and diverse comparisons calls and invites the lazy and slow minds of the peoples to hear the gospel; for today he began thus: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser: See, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and have found none. Cut it down; why should it even use up the ground? But he answered him: Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure; and if it bears fruit, well; but if not, you will cut it down in future” (Luke 13:6–9). “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard.” I ask, what is so plain, so clear, so common, so homely to country people and yet so proper to the learned as the form of the comparison set before us? Drawn from general experience, it instructs all by its word and converts them by its example. A fruitless tree chokes the turf, wastes space, exhausts the strength of the soil, brings loss on the cultivator and wearies the owner; and so to cut it down is gain, and not to have it is profit. So a man who by sterile and empty actions overturns, takes up and sinks the gift of nature, the endowment of the soul, the benefit of reason, the excellence of sense, the judgment of the mind, the industry of skill and the good of cultivation, and denies fruit to his author and gratitude to his cultivator, deserves to be cut off from life as the tree from the earth. And as a barren tree in a vineyard, while it pours deadly shade on the plants beneath, becomes an enemy not only to itself but also to the fruitful vine-branches, so a sluggish, lazy man, if he presides over peoples, becomes harmful not to himself alone but to many, since he corrupts and ruins those who follow him by his example. But let us hear why the Lord spoke this comparison. The fig tree, when winter has passed, brings out its early unripe figs in blossom and feigns its fruit with its flowers, and so deceives the incautious and mocks the ignorant. For soon it casts off the unripe figs, advances slowly and breaks out into new shoots; and the tree that seemed to have gone ahead of the others becomes later than the others in fruit. Rightly, then, the Lord compares the synagogue to a fig tree, which, warmed by the season of the law, blossomed for a time in a figure of the church's fruit. For, made firm by the root of the patriarchs, raised high by the priestly summit, spread wide by the prophetic branches, filled with the unripe figs of Jewish observance, it was blossoming, then to give fruit through Christ in hope alone, or rather to give Christ himself after the fruit, as the Psalmist says: “Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne” (Ps 132:11). Hence the saints, knowing this, took hope of fruit from the blossom and consoled the present with the future, seeing now, now eternal things succeeding mortal ones, perpetual things perishable ones, grace the law, the church the synagogue, heavenly things earthly ones, divine things human ones, Christ all; and since they awaited his coming with long patience, they rejoiced with faithful joy that he had come. Among these was that Simeon to whom it had been promised that he would not see death until he saw the Lord's Christ, and who, holding him in his arms, burst out with this cry: “Now, Lord, you let your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:29–30). But the ignorant, while they placed their whole confidence in the law, were neither eager in expectation of Christ nor found worthy to receive or recognize Christ; and they were deceived by the little flowers of the law just as the fig tree deceives the ignorant with its unripe figs. That is why the Lord sends those who wish to know the times of his coming to the fig tree, saying: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; when they already put forth fruit, you know that summer is near; so you too, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near” (Luke 21:29–31). You see that the fig tree does not signify present things but indicates future ones in this way. But now let us follow out the example set before us in order. “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard.” The fig tree is the synagogue; the owner of the tree is Christ; the vineyard in which this tree is said to be planted is the people of Israel, as the prophet Isaiah says: “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel” (Isa 5:7). “He came,” it says, “seeking fruit on it and found none.” Christ came and found no fruit of faith in the synagogue, because it was wholly overshadowed by the deceits of faithlessness. Christ came to the fig tree to which Adam is read to have fled naked after his fault, as the book of Genesis says: “And they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons” (Gen 3:7). So Christ came to the fig tree to find Adam, to cover the naked man with the loving garment of his body, Adam whose shame the fig tree did not veil but provoked, and whose shameful part of the body this fig tree, that is, the synagogue, laid bare by its circumcisions instead of covering it. “He came,” it says, “seeking fruit and found none. And he said to the vinedresser: See, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and have found none; cut it down.” The vinedresser who is ordered to cut down the fruitless fig tree is the angel who presides over the synagogue, who, since he cannot excuse its barrenness, obtains a delay by entreaty. But we must not pass over his saying, “See, for three years.” The three years are three times in which Christ came to seek fruit from the synagogue: through the law, through the prophets, through his own bodily presence; so that the fruitless fig tree, which was already denying fruits to the Godhead as though they were not needed, might not deny necessary food to the man, the hungry man, Christ who was about to eat. But now let us hear what the vinedresser answered. “Lord, let it alone this year also.” The vinedresser prays that the year of the gospel time be still granted, of which Isaiah says: “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of retribution” (Isa 61:2). For what purpose? “Until I dig around it.” He wants to dig it through with the apostolic ploughshare, because it could not feel the cultivation of the pruning knife of the law. “And put on manure.” So much is needed at the root of a tree which, warmed by such richness of holy soil and by the rain from heaven, did not deserve to be fruitful. The barren fig tree, the wretched synagogue, is manured by the mercy shown to the Gentiles, so that, helped by the most worthless fertilizers, it may return to fruit, it which fell away from fruit amid such great and precious richness; and if after this it remains in the same barrenness, it will be cut down as hopeless and useless, no longer by the cultivator's pruning hook but by the axe of the master himself. And so he did not say, “In future I will cut it down,” but, “You will cut it down,” according to John's word: “Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees; every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 3:10). For after the cultivation of the gospel time the axe of judgment will cut down the fruitless trees, and the last fire will take them and burn them.

[On blessed Peter, bishop of Ravenna.] Although the barrenness of my speech seems to impose silence on me, yet the urgency and the holiness of the one who commands compel me to speak. It is better to put forth unskilled eloquence than to refuse a sermon that duty requires. Who, then, would refuse the exhortation of so great a man, on whom there has fallen from heaven both the name of the apostle and the privilege of the highest priesthood? For it must not be believed to have been without divine judgment that in the first untutored infancy of his life he obtained the dignity of so great a name. Who do we think was present then, if not God himself, when his parents, unaware of it, were judging of his future merits? For in others to be called Peter is the bearing of a name; in him it is the privilege of virtue. Truly blessed Peter, the immovable foundation of salvation, shows himself in the priesthood such as those who covet the priesthood wish to appear. How, then, does he, steeped in monastic disciplines, practise the rule of holiness? His face is pale with fasting, leanness wastes his body, almsgiving pleads for offences, tears baptize sins. But lest the crowd of devout people should perhaps wonder at this: Peter is accustomed to weep when Christ looks on him (Matt 26:75). Let no one find fault with the shower of watering grief in an apostle. Pleasant are the tears which have bought the joy of immortality. He, then, is the guardian of faith, the rock of the church and the doorkeeper of heaven. He is the chosen apostolic fisherman, who draws to himself with the hook of holiness the crowds sunk in the waves of errors, and encloses for faith in the net of his teaching a great multitude of people (Luke 5). He is also the most blessed and apostolic fowler, who reaches with the reed of the divine word the souls of the young flying through the air. Rightly, then, God's venerable priest, who once obtained the name of the apostle and has now gained his merit as well, sows the precepts of righteousness among the peoples and with clear light unlocks the mystical questions of the sacred books; and so great is his mastery in the heavenly disciplines that whoever is converted owes his absolution to him, and whoever is not corrected owes his guilt to himself. From every side, from various parts of the regions, a whole crowd runs together to him, eager to see him. Those who were living in trackless solitudes or the hidden retreats of the desert come to see the wonderful Peter rather than the world. It has been given them at last to learn, more difficult indeed but more glorious, to struggle with the world present, and to draw up a battle line of holiness against the arrayed crowds of offenders. For how great a palm awaits after the combat those who are placed in the world, if crowns are owed to those placed in solitude without a struggle? Therefore, brothers, since most blessed Peter instructs you by the preaching of his teaching and equally teaches you by his example in all things that belong to divine virtue, let us pray the Lord our God that he may gladden you for a very long age with the discourse of heavenly teaching.

[On man, that he may be a victim and a priest to God; on the words of the Apostle: “I beseech you by the mercy of God,” etc.] Wonderful love, which begs in order to give! For today the blessed Apostle, seeking not human things but conferring divine ones, prays thus: “I beseech you by the mercy of God” (Rom 12:1). When a physician persuades the sick to take harsh remedies, he acts by entreaties, not by the compulsion of command, knowing that it comes from infirmity, not from will, that the sick man rejects what is healthful whenever he refuses what will benefit him. And a father draws his son to the rigour of discipline not by power but by love, knowing how harsh discipline is to immature minds. And if bodily infirmity is moved to accept treatment by entreaties in this way, and if a boy's mind is scarcely led to prudence by coaxing, what wonder if the Apostle, who is always both physician and father, prays thus to lift human minds wounded by fleshly diseases to divine remedies: “I beseech you by the mercy of God.” He introduces a new kind of entreaty. Why not by the power, why not by the majesty, not by the glory of God, but by the mercy of God? Because through it alone Paul both escaped the crime of a persecutor and obtained the dignity of so great an apostleship, as he himself confesses, saying: “I who was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and insolent, but I obtained the mercy of God” (1 Tim 1:13). And again: “The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first; but I obtained mercy, as an example for all who would believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim 1:15–16). “I beseech you,” he says, “by the mercy of God.” Paul begs; rather, God begs through Paul, because he wishes to be loved more than feared. God begs, because he wishes not so much to be Lord as Father. God begs by mercy so as not to punish by rigour. Hear the Lord begging: “All day long,” he says, “I have stretched out my hands” (Isa 65:2). Does not one who stretches out his hands beg by that very posture? “I have stretched out my hands.” To whom? To a people. And to what people? One that not only did not believe but contradicted. “I have stretched out my hands.” He stretches his limbs, opens wide his heart, holds out his breast, offers his bosom, spreads his lap, so as to show himself a father by the feeling of so great an entreaty. Hear God begging in another way too: “My people, what have I done to you, or how have I grieved you?” (Mic 6:3). Does he not say: If the Godhead is unknown, at least let the flesh be known? See, see in me your body, your limbs, your heart, your bones, your blood. And if you fear what is God's, why do you not at least love what is yours? If you flee from the Lord, why do you not run back to your parent? But perhaps the greatness of my passion, which you inflicted, confounds you. Do not fear. This cross is not my sting but the sting of death. These nails do not fix pain in me but fix your love more deeply in me. These wounds do not draw out my groans but rather draw you into my heart. The stretching out of my body opens a lap for you; it does not increase my punishment. My blood is not lost to me but is paid out as your price. Come, then, return, and so at least prove me your father, whom you see returning good for evil, love for injuries, such great charity for such great wounds. But now let us hear what the Apostle beseeches: “I beseech you,” he says, “to present your bodies.” By begging thus the Apostle has raised all people to the summit of the priesthood. “To present your bodies as a living victim.” O unheard-of office of the Christian priesthood, when a man is himself both victim and priest for himself; when a man does not seek outside himself what he is to sacrifice to God; when a man brings with himself and in himself and for himself what he will sacrifice to God; when the same victim remains and the same priest abides; when the victim is slain and lives, and the priest who will offer does not know how to kill. A wonderful sacrifice, where a body is offered without a body and blood without blood! “I beseech you,” he says, “by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living victim.” Brothers, this sacrifice comes down from the pattern of Christ, who sacrificed his body for the life of the world in a living way; and truly he made his body a living victim, because, though slain, he lives. In such a victim, then, death is paid out, the victim remains, the victim lives, and death is punished. Hence martyrs are born by death, begin by their end, live by being killed, and shine in heaven who were thought extinguished on earth. “I beseech you, brothers,” he says, “by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living, holy victim.” This is what the prophet sang: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me” (Ps 40:6). Be, O man, be both God's sacrifice and his priest; do not lose what divine authority has given and granted you; put on the robe of holiness, gird on the belt of chastity; let Christ be the covering of your head; let the cross remain as the defence of your forehead; place on your breast the sacrament of divine knowledge; always kindle the incense of prayer as a sweet odour; take up the sword of the Spirit; set up your heart as an altar; and so, without fear, bring your body to God as a victim. God seeks faith, not death; he thirsts for a vow, not for blood; he is appeased by the will, not by slaughter. God proved this when he asked for holy Abraham's son as a victim (Gen 22). For what else did Abraham sacrifice in his son but his own body? What else did God seek in the father but faith, he who, as he commanded the son to be offered, so did not allow him to be killed? Strengthened by such an example, then, O man, offer your body, and not only slay it but also cut it up into all the members of the virtues. For as often do the arts of the vices die in you as you sacrifice the inward parts of the virtues to God. Offer faith, so that faithlessness may be punished; sacrifice fasting, so that gluttony may cease; sacrifice chastity, so that lust may die; lay on piety, so that impiety may be laid aside; bring in mercy, so that avarice may be destroyed; and so that folly may be consumed, it is fitting always to sacrifice holiness. So your body will become your victim, if it has been wounded by no dart of sin. Your body lives, O man, it lives as often as the life of the virtues is sacrificed by you to God through the deaths of the vices. He cannot die who is worthy to be slain by a life-giving sword. May our God himself, who is the way, the truth and the life, free us from death and lead us to life.

[On the sacrifice of body and soul to be offered to God reasonably; on the same words of the Apostle.] Since the previous sermon touched only on the beginning of the apostolic reading, let us now hear what the Lord inspires about what follows; for he began thus: “I beseech you,” he says, “by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living victim” (Rom 12:1). Does the Apostle, by saying this, approve only bodies as worthy of divine sacrifices, and pass over souls in silence, or omit them or leave them aside as rejected? Is not the soul from heaven and the body from earth? This is ruled, that rules; that is master, this serves; this lives, that gives life; that remains, this fails; this passes through the ages of life, that does not know them; and finally death, which rules so greatly over the body, does not touch it while the soul is present. Why, then, is the soul passed over in silence and the body alone called to be God's victim? Brothers, here the Apostle honours the body; he does not lessen the soul. For the body, which sins seize, offences bind, crimes press down, vices corrupt and passions cast down, the Apostle wishes to release, strives to free, labours to lift up, contends to cleanse, so that the body may climb up to the origin of the soul, and the soul not descend to the nature of the body; so that the body may accompany the soul to heaven, and the soul not follow the body to earth. Hear Scripture telling with what great torments of the body the soul is weighed down: “The body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, and earthly thought presses down the mind that thinks many things” (Wis 9:15). So the Apostle does not want the soul set down but the body raised up; he wants both soul and body, that is, the whole man, to come to be a holy victim, a sacrifice pleasing to God. That the soul too is God's sacrifice the Psalmist declares, saying: “A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit” (Ps 51:17). “To present your bodies as a living victim, holy, pleasing to God.” For a man pleases not because he lives but because he lives well; and a man becomes a victim not if he offers himself to God, but if he offers himself to God in holiness. For as much as an unblemished victim appeases God, so much does a blemished victim provoke God. Hear God saying: “Do not offer me one that is lame, or one-eyed, or polluted by the thought of death, but full-grown and without blemish” (Lev 22:22). That is why the Apostle asks for a living victim for God. So, brothers, if we … the incense of propitiation itself … Cain proves this, who, as an ungrateful priest, so divided a little with God, from whom he had received everything, that he burned on the altar what was worst and kept for himself what was best, to his own offence; and so, while he wrongly divides his goods with his author, he cut himself and his descendants off from life and from the human race (Gen 4). So let us follow Abel to the reward, not accompany Cain to punishment. Abel, carrying a lamb for God's sacrifice, is himself taken up like a lamb; Cain, carrying stubble for himself, found fuel by which he would be burned. “To present your bodies as a living victim, holy, pleasing to God, your reasonable service.” As much as service supported by reason appeases, so much does service without reason provoke. Reasonable service is that which is not disturbed by presumption, not confused by rashness, not violated by unlawful things, not painted over by pretence. A military post trembles in the service of a king; human lordship demands anxious servitude; the fear of the one who obeys keeps watch on the will of the one who commands; careful devotion gains the reward of just recompense, and presumptuous service does not escape the penalty of rashness. Who rushes uncalled into service at the royal court? Who without a title has dared to profess himself a soldier? Who without the insignia of rank seizes the name of rank? And if these things are anxious and careful among men, if they stand by reason, grow strong by order and are kept by trembling, how much more careful must devotion be with God, more fearful the servitude, more anxious the worship, so that it may render divine service with reason? “Your reasonable service,” he says. Service warm with reason is fervour; what is not bridled by reason is fury. Hence the Jewish people, while they sought for themselves a god contrary to reason, lost God, who was served with reason (Exod 32). Hence the sons of Aaron, while they forgot reason and presumed to bring earthly fire to the divine fires, changed the flame of the saving sacrifice into a penal burning for themselves (Lev 10). Hence Saul, swelling with royal height, while he thought that something of the priesthood was permitted him, lost the kingdom he had received, as a violator of the altar (1 Sam 15). Hence the Jew, while he cultivates the law without the reason of the law, has killed the author of the law. Hence the Gentile, while, ignorant of reason, he obeys the crowds of gods and the monsters of gods, has not deserved to come to the service of God, who is one and true. Hence Arius thinks he serves the Father by blaspheming the Son; and while he gives the Son a beginning, the wretch imposes an end on the Father. Hence Photinus, while he denies that the Son is co-eternal with the Father, labours to show that the Father was not always Father. Hence all heresies, while they are carried along to insult the Godhead and falsify the Trinity in their words, serve with blasphemies. But we, brothers, let us fit our bodies to be a living victim for God, let us take care that our service is reasonable, so that there may be true faith, a pure conscience, a sober mind, firm hope, a clean heart, chaste flesh, holy perception, a devout spirit, safe reason, chaste charity, generous mercy, a holy life, modest bearing, and that humility may always accompany our steps in every service of Christ. [Sermon 110. On salvation laid up in faith, on justification from God through Christ, and on undergoing death for Christ. On the words of the same: “But it was not written for Abraham's sake only,” etc.] The blessed Apostle always raises for salvation, for the first and for the last, that is, for Jews and Greeks, the one and only standard of faith: whoever does not deserve to have and to hold it will not be able to possess the glory of the heavenly triumphs. It alone, brothers, directs the battle line of those fighting against faithlessness, points out the king, joins the allies and terrifies the impious enemy by the mere sight of it. For today he began thus: “But it was not written for Abraham's sake only that it was reckoned to him as righteousness, but also for ours, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom 4:23–24). You see, brothers, that while those before believe future things and those after believe past things, both reach salvation by the one road of faith: they confessed that Christ would come, we that he has come; they marvelled and believed that he would go down to death in the manner of a man, we glory that he has died and risen. And what more, brothers? This salvation was denied to the eyes both of those who went before and of those who came after, so that it might be wholly in faith. As for his saying, “who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,” let no one believe that he was raised by another: he himself is the maker and the raiser of his own body, who said: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18); for the resurrection could not be raised by another, nor life be made alive by another, nor could he deny himself what he was to confer on all. For the spring does not thirst, nor the bread hunger, nor the sun lack light, nor rest itself grow weary. “Who was handed over,” he says, “for our offences, and rose for our justification” (Rom 4:25). Handed over for offences, not so that life, which could not die, might be punished, but so that the offences alone, which had exiled us from life, might be destroyed. “And rose for our justification.” While the condemnation remains, the condemned cannot be justified; so Christ, the heavenly and true parent, having dissolved the condemnation of death through his own death, justifies through his resurrection us, whom the guilt of the first parent had so bound over that death held us liable to itself by right; so that not the guilty man but the guilt perishes, and the penalty itself, that is, death, which had been ordered to strike down the guilty, rightly fails and loses the insignia of its power. Why did it dare, cruel and impious, to touch the innocent, the judge himself? And so he added: “Therefore, being justified by faith, let us have peace with God” (Rom 5:1). That is to say: let it cease, let it cease, contention, the mother of dissensions, the enemy of quiet, the foe of peace; let not the Jew be exalted by the law, let not the Gentile be proud by nature, let the philosopher subside from his foamy and empty opinions; let no one boast of merits, no one of works; because the life which the first transgression had taken away, and furious contention had removed far from us, divine peace has restored and given back. “Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Let earth not rebel against heaven, let flesh not rise against spirit; but let it, in humility, be joined to the perpetual glory of the peace on high. “Through whom we have access”: because he himself has become our way, “by faith into this grace.” Faith, brothers, is the leader of this life. “In which we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God.” We stand, certainly, by faith, not by the body; and we glory in hope, not in a reality already received. “And not only so, but we glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces patience, and patience proof, and proof hope; and hope does not put to shame” (Rom 5:2–5). See through what ages the righteous man is strengthened into the perfect man: in tribulation, patience, proof, hope. Tribulation, brothers, shakes and disturbs, as it were, the infancy of the righteous man; but when it has found him patient, it then trains him, now a youth of good character, for greater things. “Tribulation produces patience.” It is patience, brothers, which proves Christ's young man fit for the virtues. “And hope does not put to shame.” It is hope that perfects the man and brings him, unwearied, to the measure of the fullness of Christ. It belongs to perfect virtue to possess by the strength of hope what you do not hold in reality. “Because the charity of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” And to show the quality of the divine charity poured into us, he added: “For why did Christ, while we were still weak, at the appointed time die for the ungodly? For one will scarcely die for a righteous man; for a good man perhaps someone might dare to die. But God commends his charity toward us, because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:6–8). If Christ so loved the human race as to give his death for the ungodly and for sinners, what else do we believe that he will bestow on the righteous but his life, his kingdom, his glory? From you he took the death which he would spend for the ungodly on earth; he keeps for you what he possesses always in himself and through himself, and possesses in heaven. So let us say with the prophet: “What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? I will take the cup of salvation” (Ps 116:12–13). That is: I too will die for him. And what likeness is there? He died freely for the ungodly and the sinner; I scarcely for the righteous and the good; scarcely, because not so much will as necessity leads me to death. Hear him saying to Peter: “But when you are old, another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish” (John 21:18). In adversity, brothers, necessity cannot be compared with will; to acquiesce is necessity, to will is virtue. Death itself is subject to the one who wills, as death has always ruled over the unwilling. And yet, brothers, since man can give back nothing like the divine charity, let him give what he can, because he is accepted according to what he has. Let him fail unto glory, die unto life, perish unto salvation. Let us glory, brothers, in the new terms of this exchange: because death, which among men was the whole repayment of love, has through Christ become the commendation of divine charity.

[On original sin. On the words of the same: “Therefore, as through one man sin entered this world,” etc.] The present reading of the Apostle, brothers, when it says that the whole world received sentence through one man (Rom 5:12), compels us not to make speeches but to weep with a renewed and inward grief. For if the outstanding prophets long lamented the peril of a single people, of one city, and sometimes of one man alone, what mind would not be darkened with total darkness, what senses would not be confounded with total dullness, what eyes would not be turned into springs and streams of tears, when the fall of one became the ruin of all, and the guilt of one flowed down to the punishment of all, and the fault of the parent prepared deadly destruction for the whole race, as the Apostle says: “Therefore, as through one man sin entered this world, and through sin death” (Rom 5:12). Wretched me! He who had been the cause of all good things became here the door of evils. “Sin entered this world.” Into this world: do you wonder that he harmed his descendants, who by his crime condemned the world? But you say: How did it enter? Through whom did it enter? How? Through guilt. Through whom? Through man. And what then? Is sin a nature or a substance? It is neither nature nor substance, but an accident; and it is a hostile power, which is seen in the deed, felt in the punishment, attacks the soul, wounds the mind itself, and violates and confounds nature. And what more, brothers? Sin is to nature what smoke is to the eyes, what fever is to the body, what bitter saltiness is to the sweetest springs. For the eye is pure and clear by nature, but it is disturbed and darkened by the injury of smoke. And the body is firm in the parts of its members and in its senses, because it was made by God; but when the force and storm of fever begin to rule, the whole is made weak: then comes bitterness of mouth, then dimness of eyes, then tottering steps, then the air is hostile, then dear ones are burdensome, then even kind services seem hateful. And springs, as pleasing as they are by their sweetness and nature, become just as unpleasing when they have taken on some flaw from outside. But let us return to our subject. “As through one man sin entered this world, and through sin death.” See, brothers, the door: through man came sin, and through sin we see that we have entered into death. Sin, O cruel beast, not content to rage against the human race with one head! We have seen it devouring with a threefold mouth all the precious shoots of the human stock: with a threefold mouth, brothers: sin seizes, death devours, hell swallows. And with what a spring of tears, as we said, must we weep for such a parent, who left us the heirs of such great miseries, who not only lost the good things conferred on him but left all his descendants liable to such fierce creditors? O hard and cruel inheritance! O wretched heirs that we are, who had no wish to take it up and were not permitted to renounce it! Hear what follows: “And so death passed into all men.” But lest it perhaps seem unjust that it passed through one into all, it is because all were in one: you detest that you were condemned through him through whom you glory that you were brought into the light. But you say: If I owe it to my race that I was born, do I owe it also to a crime, so that nature makes me guilty before guilt does? The Apostle's next words at once answer this question of yours, saying: “in whom all sinned.” If all sinned in him, rightly did all receive punishment through him. “As through one man sin entered this world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all men, in whom all sinned.” Whether in the man or in the sin, all sinned through him and in him. Sin, then, was not turned into nature; but while sin brings in death, it exacts through nature the penalty owed to it. God had made nature so as to create men for life; yet when nature unwillingly gives birth for death, it confesses itself liable to the sin whose penalty it serves in life. For who, brothers, would think that nature wishes its offspring extinguished and its shoots, so dear to it, killed? But while it groans and grieves, it sighs for the freedom it lost and longs to take it up again. But through whom it has received it, John first pointedly shows, who on seeing Christ cries out and proclaims: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The sin of the world, brothers, is what the Apostle testifies entered through one man. Rejoice, then, brothers, because the sin which pressed us down with heavy weight to Tartarus has been taken away by Christ and already sunk in Tartarus; and us, whom the guilt of the first parent had bound over to death, the grace of the second and divine parent has called back from punishment to life. So man could not be saved without Christ, because the sin of the whole world remained until his coming. But you embrace being justified through Christ, and you reject being condemned through Adam; and you complain that another's punishment has harmed you, you who see that another's righteousness has come to your help. Is not the whole tree in the seed? So the flaw of the seed is the flaw of the whole tree. If nature could have helped itself by itself, its author would never have taken it on himself to repair it. Do you believe it was created for life, you who still doubt that it has been repaired through its author? “For until the law,” he says, “sin was in the world.” When you hear “until the law,” understand until the end of the law, that is, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. “But sin was not imputed,” he says, “when there was no law.” And when was there no law, since it began with man himself? If there had been no law, Adam would surely not have been a transgressor, as the same Apostle discloses when he says: “But death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Both had received a law; but Adam transgressed as soon as he received it, while Moses promulgated the law he had received to transgressors, as the Apostle says: “The law was set down because of transgressions” (Gal 3:19). So death reigned through the law, because transgressors are more grievous offenders than sinners; and it savagely devoured those who had fallen not only by the parent's fault but now by their own crime. “But death reigned,” he says, “from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression” (Rom 5:13–14). For it devoured not only the great but also the little ones; it laid waste not only the guilty but also the innocent: innocent, I mean, of their own guilt, not of the parent's. And hence the condition was the more grievously to be lamented, because the little infant paid the penalty of the parent whose life he had scarcely tasted, and atoned for the sin of the world, he who had not known the world. Let us accept, then, brothers, that through one, and by the offence of one, death reigned, if we desire that all be absolved through one and live through Christ: for whoever lives owes it to Christ, not to himself; and his dying he will owe to Adam.

[On death, had through a man, and life and grace, had through Christ, and on the abounding of offence because of the law. On the words of the same: “For if by the offence of one, death reigned through one.”] If someone holds out a cup of cold water to a thirsty traveller, he refreshes somewhat the spirit of the man burning with heat and plainly comes to the help of humanity, yet he does not wholly quench his thirst; so too our sermon does not suffice for those who long to know the great secret of divine knowledge, since for the present it is at the service of haste and of the time. For if the whole of a man's short life is not enough to learn human things thoroughly, what time do we believe can suffice for understanding divine ones? So forgive me, brothers, if within a point of time, scarcely the moment of one hour, I cannot light up what is dark, unlock what is closed, confirm what is doubtful, reach what is deep, open in every way the ineffable mystery of so many ages and put it into words, if we cannot speak cautiously to rivals, securely to sons, confidently to believers, steadfastly to unbelievers. But since today the apostolic word has poured itself wholly with clear light into the minds of the hearers and has left nothing ambiguous to catholic minds, when it says, “For if by the offence of one death reigned through one” (Rom 5:17), we shall set aside the zeal for declaiming and rest in all simplicity on the apostolic words themselves, so that our sermon may create no obscurity for those who wish to know the truth. “For if by the offence of one,” as he says, “death reigned through one,” why does the authority of the gospel labour to suggest and prove that death was acquired for posterity from one man, the first? And although that sentence suffices which says, “God did not make death” (Wis 1:13), why some would have death, so grim, so cruel, so merciless, made by God, I cannot understand. No one, without sacrilege, thinks that so loving and so good a God could have created death, whose author the whole world accuses and detests with continual grief, groans and tears. If even among men death is the penalty for crimes, with what audacity is it believed that death was created together with man and implanted in him, as a penalty, by an innocent God before life? But let us hear the Apostle: “For if by the offence of one death reigned through one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace, of the gift and of righteousness reign in life through the one, Christ our Lord” (Rom 5:17). See, one and one: Adam and Christ. Through the one sin reigned unto death; through the other grace reigned unto life. Then the Apostle's next words open and declare these two principles of life and death, of acquittal and punishment, of longed-for freedom and extreme condemnation: “Therefore, as through the offence of one unto all men to condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one unto all men to justification of life” (Rom 5:18). Through one and through one, either death reigns or life is granted. What, then, could the interpreter's speech add here? If you add silence to these words, every effort of the rivals collapses. “Through the offence of one unto all men to condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one unto all men to justification of life.” As the river serves its spring and fruit its seed, so posterity serves its origin, either bound over or rescued, as is more fully proved by what the Apostle added: “For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:19). Let man be the sinner, so that God may be just; for the guilt redounds on the judge if his punishment strikes the innocent. And so he said, “As through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners,” so that they might know that they had been sharers in the guilt of him whose punishment they feel they share. But now let the lovers of the law hear, on the Apostle's testimony, what the law accomplished. “But the law came in,” he says, “so that offence might abound” (Rom 5:20). See, as the Apostle says, the law produced not a lessening of offences but an abundance; not of itself, brothers, but through the one who through weakness could not bear the law. It is not the greatness of the light, which God made for the eyes alone, that dulls the eyes; rather, the infirmity of the eyes cannot bear the whole light and endure its brightness. So too the law, brothers, which was in itself just enough and holy enough, by demanding strict discipline from frail man, burdened and exposed the offender more and more. And why this, brothers? So that through the grace and pardon of the Creator he might return to life, he who through pride and ignorance, while he wrongly boasted of his innocence, was being led into the debt and punishment of his parent. So the disease lay hidden, through which the secret places of the marrow and the channels of the veins in everyone tended to the destruction of the vital organs themselves, and it was producing a kind of morbid mass in all the inner parts. The law came, to expose the wound and at last to announce that a heavenly physician was coming for the long-standing sickness. The law came, to draw out to the skin by the poultices of the commandments what was raging lethally deep within. The law came, to open with the knife of the precepts, as it were, an abscess of long standing, so that a saving discharge might then dry up the pus long gathered. Yet by itself, brothers, it could neither close the wound nor give the sick man perfect health. When the sick man saw this and at last, wretched as he was, recognized his state, he began to hurry to the physician, so that what had been exposed through the law and long enlarged by it might be healed by the skill and grace of so great a physician. We say that the wound was enlarged, brothers, because after the incision rot, stench, horror and distress are produced in the wound itself by the cutting, and through the treatment the very appearance of the wretched illness becomes worse than the danger had been to the man who did not know of it while it lay hidden. So the physician came; and to one already worn out with treatments and utterly exhausted by the harassments of cures he brings help by the authority of a word alone, as that centurion confesses when he says: “Say the word, and my servant will be healed” (Matt 8:8); and so the prophetic word was fulfilled: “He sent his word and healed them” (Ps 107:20). And so there follows: “Where sin abounded, grace abounded still more” (Rom 5:20); as if he were saying: Where the wound was widened, health was poured out still more. So let no one be ungrateful to the law, which raised up and nursed the one it had found sick and lying down and, to hand him over to salvation, led him with healthy exultation all the way to the physician, so that, as the Apostle said: “As sin reigned unto death, so grace might reign unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 5:21). Grace reigns unto life, sin unto death. Right faith ascribes to God the author not death, not the destruction of man, but salvation. Let death be man's, let it be sin's, so that life, created and restored, may be believed to come through Christ alone. [Sermon 113. On not remaining in sin so that grace may abound, and on serving the virtues. On the words of the same: “What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin so that grace may abound?” etc.] When the blessed Apostle asks about things known and inquires into things manifest, he is plainly rebuking and reproving those who corrupt the divine words by their interpretation and take from them support for crimes, whence they ought to have taken lessons in virtues. For today he began thus: “What then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin so that grace may abound?” (Rom 6:1). Above he had said, brothers, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded still more”; and so he begins in this way, and with his divine and singular teaching he joins the unskilled as one asking, so as to answer with full learning what belongs to heavenly wisdom. “If where sin abounded, grace abounded still more, what then shall we say? Shall we remain in sin so that grace may abound?” If love is inclined toward offenders, if grace is abundant to sinners, if divine generosity is a friend to the unjust, surely if future goods are gained by present evils, why for us the steep road of the virtues, why the hard labour of attaining righteousness, why the continual torment of keeping innocence among the wicked? Let human crimes be increased so that heavenly goodness may overflow; let us do evil, as he said, so that good may come (Rom 3:8); let us remain in sin so that grace may abound. To this, brothers, the same Apostle who asks the question answers: “Far from it. For how shall we who have died to sin still live in it?” (Rom 6:2). When he says, “Far from it,” he curses such an understanding and mind of the foolish; for the physician works for the cure and for health, not for the wound; he rejoices not in rot or diseases but in health alone. So too God, who applied to the greatness of the wound the greatness and strength of medicine, granted grace not to sin but to man; he poured out the shower of his love not to multiply offences but to destroy them. Let no one, no one so rejoice in sickness as to want to remain in the wound. He is ungrateful to the physician and an enemy of the cure who always burns to be treated and never desires to be healed here; and so he wants God's grace to overflow on his sins that he wants sins heaped up for himself. Wretched is he who by such a wish strives to be guilty through pardon. This madness, brothers, must be fled, must be fled, which even after treatment is held captive by love of diseases; for a relapse of sickness is more often deadly. As for his saying, “we who have died to sin,” here he speaks of a figure of the present time; for he said that we have died to sin, he did not say that sin has already wholly died for us; because, although in the saints and the faithful sin has died as to the doing of the deed, it still lives and still rages for our death. But sin itself will die in us when “this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality, and the saying that is written comes to pass: Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O underworld, is your victory? The sting of death is sin” (1 Cor 15:54–56). He lives to sin who, as he says in what follows, serves its desires; and he wretchedly serves its goads who complies with vices, who succumbs to crimes in unhappy and continual captivity, who thinks that what belongs to offence belongs to nature, and uses the disease, which is an accident, as if it were the work and gift of the Creator. And so, to refute the ignorance of such people, he added, saying: “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? For we were buried with him through baptism into death” (Rom 6:3–4). Let the faithful hear and understand how the Lord's three-day burial is figured in baptism by the triple immersion, so that they may rejoice that they have risen with Christ, if not yet in body, already in newness of life; and that the whole man may be the dwelling of the virtues who had before been the receptacle of the vices. “So that, as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). Christ refers whatever belongs to his virtues to the glory of the Father; and man, who has nothing of his own, labours to claim for himself that he has risen through Christ. His saying, “let us walk in newness of life,” confirms what we said above: that, though not yet in this body, he may yet go about wholly changed in his life; let him understand himself and rule over the elements, who till now served the elements through ignorance; let him who before shamefully stole what belonged to others give away his own for glory; let him who practised the unlawful things of the flesh despise even what the body is allowed; and let him who till now impiously strove to extinguish innocence himself die more gloriously for innocence. And what more? If from the old man he has now been made new, let him change the whirlpool of the vices into the spring of the virtues. Right to the end of the reading the blessed Apostle presses this and shows it: that he can live with Christ and reign with Christ who follows the innocence of the risen Christ, imitates his life and strives to fulfil his holiness. As for his saying, “so that the body of sin may be destroyed” (Rom 6:6): destroyed, brothers, in act, not in substance; in deed, not in form; because he wants man to perish to sin, not to God, he who says: “Consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God” (Rom 6:11). And he strives with all love, brothers, to restore man to heavenly freedom, he who says: “Let not sin reign in your mortal body” (Rom 6:12); and again: “Sin shall not have dominion over you” (Rom 6:14). He did not say, “Let it not come to you”; he did not say, “Let it not provoke you or tickle you”; but, “Let it not reign, let it not have dominion”: let it fight for the glory of the victor, let it struggle and fall for the conqueror's triumph; and at last let the impious dominion of sin grieve to be trampled in complete security by those who were once its servants; let the cruel tyrant groan to find himself under the feet of his own captives; and let the veteran enemy lament that he has come to grace the triumph of those over whom he had long triumphed.

[On the servants of law and of grace. On the words of the same: “Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?” etc.] As to a traveller the return home is always sweet and dear, and the porches of his own house are welcome after a time away, so to me, after intervals in preaching, the return to the course of the apostolic readings is sweeter. For religious necessity often compels us to depart from the set order of speaking and the continuous path of discourse, because the order of teaching must be so governed that one thing is not hindered by another. So let us hear what the blessed Apostle has said today. What does he say? “Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Far from it” (Rom 6:15). This question, brothers, refutes the ignorance of those who, held captive by the custom of the law, do not know how to feel the power of the gift of grace; and those whom the series of the law's precepts showed to be defiant, the mere advantages of gifts and the pomp of festivals have made obstinate in vain observances. And when time has shut out the law, what will the worshipper of the law do, disowned by the law? Jew, what do you have that you have not lost? And if you have lost it, why do you boast as if you had not lost it? Where is the temple, where the priest, where the sacrifice, where the incense, where your purifications, where the devotion of your solemnities that must not be omitted? But, so that you may be a Jew indeed, rightly are you circumcised, because you have been cut off from all the good things just mentioned. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not abide in all the things written in the book of the law” (Deut 27:26; Gal 3:10). If he is cursed who offends in one point, how often will he be cursed who will be shown to have done nothing of them all? “Shall we sin,” he says, “because we are not under the law but under grace?” As if he were saying, brothers: Shall we sin because, now healed, we have not remained under treatment? Shall we sin because, now cured, we have left behind fire, iron and medicines? Unhappy is the sick man who after the cure cares nothing for the torment. And what more, brothers? Does anyone heal who seeks and waits for the sick man's choice? For since fire is always kindled in the body from a cold humour, and excessive chill, while it troubles and shakes the limbs, itself produces and begets a sharper burning, so the sick man, to increase the flame that always seethes and pants in his veins, impatiently waits for cold water to be given him, not knowing that then heat is quenched by heat and burning is fed by cold. So the law, since it always waits upon and bears with man's will, and yet man, hindered by the burden of sins, is not able to obey the commands of the law, does not release its worshipper from the bond of sin but binds him with the crime of transgression. And so he added, saying: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are servants of the one whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto life?” (Rom 6:16). Why is it, brothers, that while we were speaking of the law, he disclosed that man had been a servant of sin? “Whether of sin,” he says, “unto death, or of obedience unto life.” Because he had said above: “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace” (Rom 6:14). So those who are under the law of sin are pressed down and bowed by its rule, and the wretched will not be able to be freed from the basest servitude of sin unless grace sets them free. “But thanks be to God,” he said, “that you were servants of sin” (Rom 6:17). Does he give thanks as one who rejoices that man was a servant of sin? Far from it. He gives thanks not because we were once servants of so cruel a master, but because we are no longer subjugated, as he shows more expressly in what follows, saying: “But you obeyed from the heart that form of teaching into which you were delivered; and, freed from sin, you have become servants of righteousness” (Rom 6:17–18). We obeyed, brothers, by the kindness of the one who called, not by our own choice, since we were held captive in this way. “But you obeyed from the heart that form of teaching.” Which? That of the Gospel, surely, where by a new kind of freedom servitude was not abolished but changed, because devoted service is better than vain and presumptuous freedom. “You have become servants of righteousness.” This servitude, brothers, does not bind but releases; it does not burden but honours; it wipes off the stain of servitude, it does not stamp it on. What here, I ask, is not divine, where servitude is driven out by servitude, condition put to flight by condition, death dies by death, perdition is healed by perdition, and, to say it properly and briefly, where all adversity is laid low by the sword of adversity itself? As for his saying, “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh: for as you presented your members to serve impurity and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification” (Rom 6:19), he shows the greatness of his love by lowering the gospel teaching to such humble and almost shameful examples, so as to lay on holiness as much as on impurity, on righteousness as much as on iniquity, and to command servitude. The comparison, brothers, seems absurd and unseemly, which wants man to be as subject to glory as to shame; but would that it were even as much! When does human frailty serve God as much as the world, heaven as much as earth, virtue as much as the vices? The whole wretched man is so given over to the flesh, so taken up with present things, that he leaves nothing in himself to serve the future life and divine goods. The blessed Apostle fittingly fitted and fittingly expressed in one sentence the force of temporal allurement for human consciences: that human members should serve righteousness, chastity and purity with as much will as the vehemence and madness with which they gave themselves to shame and the vices. He asks little, or perhaps nothing, who is willing to yield his rightful claim; and he takes away every excuse who commands you to pay back for the greatest things what is possible and customary for you. So give God, O man, as much as you gave the flesh and the vices. And why should you owe yourself to the vices rather than to God, when God seeks from you only as much as that, and out of his love? There follows: “For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness; but now, freed from sin, you have become servants of righteousness” (Rom 6:20, 22). Before, servants of sin; now, servants of righteousness. See, through the Apostle, servitude succeeds servitude; you who were defiant, show now the time of your freedom. Sin before falsely called you free, whom it held wretchedly captive; now grace calls you servant, whom, to make you truly free, it has adopted as a son of God himself. So Christ's saying is fulfilled in which he says: “Whoever wishes to be lord, let him be servant” (Matt 20:27). Blessed is this servitude, which begets everlasting lordship. For that freedom brought us the fruit of punishment and unbearable confusion, as he says: “For what fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For their end is death” (Rom 6:21). See how the devil frees, see with what reward he honours that servitude: death at once ends life and begins punishment. But those who serve Christ, brothers, with death mocked, are carried over with the wages of holiness to everlasting life; for the end in Christ admits no end, because that end does not destroy man but perfects him.

[On the law abrogated through grace. On the words of the same: “Do you not know, brothers, for I speak to those who know the law,” etc.] After we had soothed your minds and hearts by touching David's lyre with the plectrum and melody of spiritual understanding, and had offered the awesome opening of the thundering Gospel to rouse your senses, we thought that we should soon return to the apostolic teaching, so that the threefold order of the sermon might hold and offer the saving discipline of the church's teaching. For the psalm relaxes minds from continuous labour, the authority of the Gospel restores minds and rouses them to labour, and apostolic vigour does not let our senses be moved from the right path or wander. Today we find that the reading of the blessed Apostle follows in order. “Do you not know, brothers,” he says, “for I speak to those who know the law, that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?” (Rom 7:1). And he adds a comparison: “For the woman who is under a husband is bound by the law while the husband lives; but if her husband has died, she is released from the law of the husband. Therefore, while the husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she is with another man; but if her husband has died, she is released from the law of the husband” (Rom 7:2–3). You see, brothers, the great proof of the blessed Apostle's heavenly teaching: how he asserts by legal testimonies that the times of the law have passed, and empties its whole prerogative by the wonderful example of marriage. And rightly is the law compared to a marriage of the flesh, since it did not achieve a spiritual partnership with the synagogue. For when it had taken her for the observance of discipline, for the fruitfulness of holy offspring, for the increase of modesty, for the guarding of chastity, for the sacred and revered secret of the heavenly bridal chamber, for the mystical unity of the heavenly bed, it found in her the filth of every kind of harlotry. For she met so great a husband, that is, the law, not adorned with good conduct, not decked with the necklaces of the virtues, not grave in her gait, not covered with the flame-coloured veil of virginal modesty, but wanton in her eyes, loose in her steps, given over to enticements, and wholly painted over with tricks and pretences. When so great a husband, having seen her, justly despised her with indignation, drove her far from his company and condemned her with all the judgment of his gravity, she neither blushed at being despised nor corrected herself at being scorned, nor came to her senses, but, rejected, flew headlong to the brothels of the idols, and preferred to undergo the infamy of fornication and incur the crime of adultery rather than shudder at the shamefulness of a wrongly pleasing way of life. Hence the blessed prophet rightly laments her, saying: “How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot?” (Isa 1:21). Her adulteries holy Ezekiel too records through almost his whole book. That is why, brothers, when in the Gospel this adulteress was accused before the Lord by the scribes and teachers of the law, the Lord turned his face away and bent down to the ground, so as not to see the crime he would have to punish; and he preferred, brothers, to write pardon in the dust rather than pass sentence on the flesh (John 8:3–11). The Apostle strives to call this adulteress back to fellowship with Christ, and does not let her be held back by fear of her former fall: she who, while her husband lived, rightly was an adulteress because she was with another man, now does not desert the law when she runs back to the author of the law; but she dies to the law, bound over to its legal sentences, so that she may live to grace and rise again through pardon, she who had been slain and put to death by the law. Then, while he asserts that she is released from the husband's right when the husband has died, he testifies in what follows that it is she rather than the husband who has died: because the law does not die to man, but man dies to the law; the commandment does not pass away, but he who falls from the commandment fails before the commandment. Hear what follows: “Likewise, my brothers, you too have been put to death to the law” (Rom 7:4). Does he say, “The law has died to you”? No: “You too have been put to death to the law.” And he rightly added, “through the body of Christ.” Because the law binds the guilty, constrains the liable, punishes and kills the criminal. So whoever has been freed and rescued from every crime through the body of Christ happily dies to the law, so that he may live to innocence and to grace. “So that you may belong to another,” he says, “who rose from the dead.” “Another”: he himself became another when he changed our corruption into incorruption and carried our mortality over into the glory of immortality. “So that we may bear fruit,” he says, “for God.” Made sharers through Christ in the heavenly nature, not the earthly, he declares that fruit is borne for God, not for the flesh; for life, not for death. “For when we were in the flesh,” he says, “the passions of sins, which were through the law, were at work in our members, so that we bore fruit for death” (Rom 7:5). When he says “when we were,” he indicates past time, when, placed, or rather exposed, in the flesh alone, we were compelled to savour, do and will only what belongs to the flesh, according to another word of the Apostle: “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:8). “For when we were in the flesh,” he says, “the passions of sins, which were through the law.” I will say as the Lord said: “If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt 6:23). If through the law the passions of sins rule over human members, what will the passions do by themselves, which attend a man unhappily and as a penalty as soon as he is born? He is born so, begotten so; anguish presses him down, dangers urge him on, punishments afflict him. These are the passions, brothers, through which infancy is weakened, childhood dragged along, adolescence goes mad, youth and old age are heaped with many griefs; they accompany a man's whole life to his fall, with the enemy stirring them up; and the law, while it forbade them, called them to mind; while it examined them, enlarged them; while it accused them, made them dearer; and what lay hidden through ignorance it made better known through knowledge. And as thorns grow more when they are cut back with a sickle, so the passions sprout when they are cut back by the law, because they are fixed and made solid within, as in the root of the flesh. The law has within it a cultivation of faith that is just enough, but it does not succeed; hence by stirring them up it brings the very turf of human flesh to a crop of death. “The passions of sins,” he says, “which were through the law, were at work in our members, so that we bore fruit for death.” The instrument that was for life, the passions claim for themselves in us for a crop of death. So, wounded in this way, we are released from the law of death through Christ's grace, and we receive within us the Holy Spirit as the conqueror and victor over the vices; so that the passions, shut out, may knock from outside, tempt and provoke, but fall to the glory of our triumphs. For us, for us he desires to conquer, who, though he ruled over us, deigned to serve as a soldier, as he said. “So let us serve in the newness of the Spirit” (Rom 7:6), now freed from the servitude of the flesh, because true lordship is the service of the Lord's holiness; for both the old man and the old letter corrupted and ruined all discipline.

[On the knowledge of sin through the law. On the words of the same: “What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Far from it,” etc.] As often as a mystical song echoes back in different modes but with a harmonious voice, it feeds and delights the hearing with wonderful sweetness; so too, when divine and heavenly teaching is set forth in various ways but by one Spirit and with one and the same meaning, it lays open and discloses the mystery of gospel knowledge more gladly and with the greatest sweetness. And so, after the prophetic melody and the astonishing miracles of Christ's mighty works, let us return to the order of the apostolic readings. This, then, was the content of today's reading: “What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Far from it. But I did not know sin except through the law; for I would not have known desire unless the law had said, You shall not desire. But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, worked in me every kind of desire” (Rom 7:7–8). You have heard, brothers, with what disease the human condition laboured without Christ, how captive human frailty was without grace: it was not restrained by the law and the commandments but armed for crimes; it heard and knew for this purpose, not to conquer sins but to commit them. “I did not know sin except through the law.” Not to know vices is happiness; to know them is danger; to have conquered them is virtue. A noble and brave king goes far out to meet his enemies and so forestalls the tricks of the invaders that the soldiers' loyalty cannot be shaken nor the citizens' constancy disturbed: so now a generous mind, through the grace of Christ, goes beyond the wretched narrow bounds of its body and so wholly forestalls offences, tramples vices and lays crimes low in total slaughter, that they cannot deceive it with the lure of gain, deprave its wits with tricks, dissolve wretched and weak hearts with tumults, kindle smouldering occasions with heat and blood, or harass naturally weak members with various kinds of passions. What fire is to a dry crop, that vices are to the human body; they are more safely conquered by separation alone; they are killed by ignorance, and, unknown, happily vanish. For if they reach the mind and the senses, if they touch the soul, if once they penetrate the members, an inextinguishable fire is kindled and raised up; and unless heavenly water waters the heart, pours into the mind and soaks the limbs, all human strength is subdued and reduced to ashes. “Is the law,” he says, “sin? Far from it. But I did not know sin except through the law.” As if he were saying: Gold is not avarice, but I did not know avarice except through gold. Wine is not drunkenness, but I did not know drunkenness except through wine. Bodily beauty is not desire, but the comeliness of a form seized me for desire and led me to a fall. So things created by God for usefulness, for health, for grace are not evil in themselves, but through them occasion is given for offending. So the greedy man accuses gold, the drunkard wine, the lustful or the charming man would have it be the form that brought about his ruin. So too the law, which had been given by God for salvation and was in itself heavenly and holy, became through man the ruin of wretched man, as the Apostle proves from what follows, saying: “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (Rom 7:12). What was good, then, did not bring death; it was sin that had brought death in the first place and had made frail, weak, human nature prone to falls and vices. What lay hidden and raged like an enemy in the human body, the law rebuked and the law exposed, while it reminds man of innocence, holiness, righteousness, virtue and faith, and reproves vices, offences and crimes. But man began indeed to hear of the virtues and began to will them, but did not attain them; he began to detest vices, yet followed them; to hate offences, yet committed them; to shudder at crimes, yet carried them out. Hence late in the day he felt himself a captive slave bound over to the evil of madness, and he began to cry out: “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” And the answer is given him: “The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:24–25). When he heard this, he began to seek freedom through his author, salvation through pardon, and to hope for life through grace alone. For he had long not known why innocence was difficult, righteousness laborious, holiness anxious, virtue arduous, faith full of all dangers; why offences had such great forces, why crimes grow while they are cut down and virtues fail while they are cultivated. The law disclosed, the law taught, the law showed in full light that crimes rule in human senses and in the human mind through sin, and virtues through God; and that offences cannot be overcome before the author of offences has been destroyed, that is, sin, which Christ took away, as John testifies when he says: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). “For without the law,” he says, “sin was dead. I was once alive without the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment that was for life was found to be for death to me. For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me” (Rom 7:8–11). Sin was dead, not because it did not exist, but because it was unknown; and it is properly said that “sin revived,” because it was buried in our ignorance. It was not the commandment that revived through sin, but sin through the commandment, since it makes a transgressor of one who before was a sinner, makes the guilty man defiant as well, and rouses a deserter and a rebel. Hence man rightly cries out that he is already dead, once he has recognized whence, why and through whom he would die. Brothers, we now see what a cruel tyrant sin is. “Through the commandment it deceived me, and through it killed me”: because it stretched the proof of salvation into a snare, made the cure into a sickness, changed the instrument of health into a deadly wound, and turned life itself into a lethal sword. “Through the commandment it deceived me, and through it killed me.” But how could one already dead provide for himself, since he had been killed? Who could help the slain except Christ, who, being slain, restored life? He repaid death in kind through death; he killed death and exposed it as defiant, since, though ordered to keep watch over the punishment of the guilty, it dared to attack the judge himself and presumed to invade the very author of innocence. Hence rightly death has died, and in me it is not I who live, but Christ lives, acts, reigns and commands.

[On the first and the last Adam. On the words of the same: “The first man Adam became a living soul,” etc.] Today the blessed Apostle has told us that two men gave the human race its beginning, namely Adam and Christ: two men equal in body but unequal in merit, entirely alike in the true structure of their limbs, but entirely unlike in truth in their very beginning. “The first man Adam,” he says, “became a living soul; the last Adam a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45). The first was made by the last, from whom he obtained the soul by which to live; the last was formed by himself as his own author, so that he would not wait for life from another but would himself alone grant life to all. The first is moulded from the most worthless mud; the last comes forth from the precious womb of the Virgin; in the first earth is changed into flesh, in the last flesh is promoted into God. And what more? This is the Adam who, when he was forming the other, placed his own image in him. Hence he took on both his person and his name, so that what he had made to his own image might not perish. The first Adam, the last Adam: the first has a beginning, the last has no end. For the last is truly himself the first, as he himself says: “I am the first, and I am the last” (Isa 48:12). “I am the first,” that is, without beginning; “I am the last,” surely without end. “But it is not the spiritual that is first,” he says, “but the natural, then the spiritual” (1 Cor 15:46). Certainly the earth comes before the fruit; but the earth is not so precious as the fruit; the earth demands groans and labours, the fruit gives sustenance and life. Rightly does the prophet glory in such fruit, saying: “Our earth has given its fruit” (Ps 85:12). What fruit? Surely the one of which he says elsewhere: “Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne” (Ps 132:11). “The first man,” he says, “was from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly” (1 Cor 15:47). Where are those who think that the Virgin's conception and the Virgin's childbearing are to be put on a level with the childbearing of women, when that is from earth and this from heaven; this belongs to divine power, that to human weakness; that is wholly in the suffering of the body, this wholly in the tranquillity of the divine Spirit and in the rest of the human body? The blood was silent, the flesh was stunned, the limbs were put to sleep, and the whole hall of the Virgin was held suspended in a heavenly sojourn, until the author of flesh took on the garment of flesh and became a heavenly man, to give man back not only earth but heaven as well. A Virgin conceives, a Virgin gives birth, a Virgin remains. So the flesh is conscious of power, not of pain; by giving birth it rather receives increases of integrity and knows no loss of modesty; she rather stands as witness to her childbearing who suffered none of the pains of childbearing; and the new mother marvels that she has been present at heavenly mysteries, since she understands that the manner of the birth had nothing of human custom. If the magus confesses by his gift that God was born in this way, confesses it as he adores, consider what a Christian ought to understand and believe. But let us hear what follows. “As was the earthly man, such are the earthly; and as is the heavenly man, such are the heavenly” (1 Cor 15:48). How can those who were not born in that way be found such, except by remaining not what they were born but what they were reborn? That is why, brothers, the heavenly Spirit makes fruitful the womb of the virginal font by the secret mingling of his light, so that it may bring forth as heavenly those whom the muddy origin of their stock had poured out as earthly under a wretched condition, and lead them to the likeness of their author. So, now reborn and now re-formed to the image of our Creator, let us fulfil what the Apostle commands: “So, as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor 15:49). It was a necessity that, formed from earth, we could not breathe heavenly things; that, born from desire, we could not avoid desire; that, acquired under the rule of enticements, we were compelled to bear the shamefulness of enticements; that, received into the dwelling of this world, we were held captive by evils. But now, reborn in the likeness of our Lord, as we said, we whom a virgin conceived, the Spirit gave life, modesty carried, integrity bore, innocence nourished, holiness taught, virtue trained, and God adopted as sons, let us bear the whole image of our author in full likeness: not in the majesty in which he alone is, but in the innocence, simplicity, gentleness, patience, humility, mercy and concord in which he deigned to become one of us and to share our lot. Let the pestilent itch of the vices cease, let the deadly allurements of offences be conquered; let the accursed fury, the origin of crimes, be suppressed; let the whole fog of worldly pomp be shaken off from our senses; let the illusion of worldly desire be cast out of our minds; let the poverty of Christ be sought, which possesses everlasting riches in heaven; let all holiness of soul and body be guarded, so that the image of our Creator may be borne and may shine in us not in greatness but in action. The Apostle confirms what we have said when he says: “But this I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 15:50). See how the resurrection of the flesh is preached, because there the flesh will be possessed by the spirit, not the spirit by the flesh, as becomes clear from what follows: “nor will corruption possess incorruption.” You see that it is not the flesh that perishes but corruption; not the man but the guilt; not the person but the crime; so that man, living in God and before God, may rejoice that he has at last reached the end of his offences. Of the resurrection, brothers, a sermon of its own must be given, because it is not fitting to speak in passing, at the very end of a sermon, of that which carries us across to the eternal ages and to everlasting life.

[On the death and resurrection of the flesh.] Since the whole hope of Christian faith rests on the resurrection of the dead, so that no one may dare to doubt it, we have had read to you today the very long reading of blessed Paul, who affirms it by authority, by facts and by examples, and our sermon has been unable to find anything to add to it. But since your charity always demands the service of our office, we long to repeat these same things and press them home more vehemently, out of ardour for the resurrection itself. Brothers, it is always a pleasure to speak of the resurrection, always a delight to hear of the resurrection, because dying is never pleasing and living always delights. So let the resurrection always resound in our mouth, let the resurrection always be carried to the hearing of our mind, so that death, which always besieges our senses with its terror and its laments, may be put to flight from our senses. For so the farmer sings of rich fruits and full feasts, so as not to feel the huge labour and sweat of the plough. So the sailor sings of harbours and gains, so as not to fear the crashing of the waves and the perils of the sea. So the soldier, so as not to fear wounds or dread swords, sings of plunder and triumphs. So let the Christian look upon, sing and think of the resurrection with mind, mouth and eyes, so that he may despise and trample on all the dread of death. Death, brothers, is the mistress of despair, the mother of unbelief, the sister of corruption, the parent of hell, the wife of the devil, the queen of all evils, who attacks the whole human race insatiably in this order. First she sends ahead her whisperer, despair, urging such things: “O man, why do you waste your time? See, your mistress death is coming, reducing your soul to nothing, consuming your flesh with rot and your bones with age, so as to make you, who did not exist before you were born, not exist after death. So pay your debts before death, since you will soon die: pay them to yourself and to your ages: give your infancy to games, your adolescence to delights, your youth to pleasures, and your old age to me, so that you may not spend it in vain, despairing.” After her she sends her daughter unbelief, who threatens thus: “Do you so arrange your life as though you were not going to die, as though you would escape death? O man, faith deceives you; you trust a faith which, to take away present things, promises future ones, and to take away what is before death promises I know not what invisible things after death. Who has come from there? Or what wise man believes promises made for so many ages and never paid? Oh, if only you would eat and drink! Eat and drink, for tomorrow you will die” (Isa 22:13). The third sister of her wickedness, corruption, she sends with such fury that it invades, draws and occupies the sight of men: pointing through the tombs to her uttermost prisons, she shows her own lying there motionless in chains; and to disturb men's senses with total horror and total dread, she pours out rot, belches out pus, scatters stench, and proclaims that she has given countless executioners, worms, to one human body. Why should Christians not believe despair, why not unbelief? These are the wars of death; with these leaders, these counsels, in such a conflict she captures, lays waste and kills all whom nature has brought to the present life. She leads kings, drags off peoples, drives nations; she could never be bought off by riches, bent by prayers, softened by tears or overcome by strength. They erred, brothers, who tried to write on the good of death. And what wonder? The wise men of the world think themselves great and illustrious when they have persuaded the simple that what is the highest evil is the highest good. Rightly Scripture says of them: “Woe to those who call good evil and evil good; woe to those who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isa 5:20). And truly, whom would they not deceive, whom could they not blind, who brought the incautious to believe that to live is evil and to die is good? But these things, brothers, truth removes, light puts to flight, faith attacks, the Apostle brands and Christ destroys, who, while he restores the good of life, exposes, condemns and shuts out the evil of death. For the Apostle began thus: “Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, through which you are also saved, in what terms I preached it to you; you must hold it fast, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, and that he was buried, and that he rose on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:1–4). God's generosity enriches one who will live, not one who will die. Or what good does he receive, if he who receives will not himself exist? “In which you also stand.” Surely he stands who always lives, because a dead man always lies down. “Through which you are also saved.” If anyone dies, he perishes; but he is saved who lives for ever. “In what terms I preached it to you; you must hold it fast, unless you believed in vain.” Not only did he believe in vain, brothers, but he also lived in vain who believed that he was born only to perish. O man, what rises for you that does not set? What of yours that has set does not rise again? The day rises in the morning, is buried in the night at evening, and rises again in the morning. The sun is born daily, dies daily, and itself rises again daily; the seasons perish while they pass and revive while they return. So, O man, if you do not believe God, if you do not accept the law, if you do not assent to what you hear, at least believe your eyes, at least accept the elements that continually preach your resurrection to you. Surely, if these far inferior things, which are in your hands and are raised from death by your work, teach you that you can be raised by God's work. Go to the seed, as the Apostle teaches you: take a dry grain of wheat, without sense or motion; draw a furrow, dig the earth, make a tomb, bury the wheat; see how it perishes in death, swells with moisture and is corrupted by rot; and when it has come to all that despair, unbelief and corruption suggested to you above, then it quickly revives in the shoot, grows into a blade, becomes young in the stalk, ripens in the grain, and rises again to the whole appearance and form which you lamented as lost; so that the wheat, O man, may teach you not so much to eat as to understand, and may compel you not so much to labour as to believe. Let us be silent about the rest, because whence, when, how and through whom death came, the blessed Apostle declares in plain, clear and divine language. O man, receive faith, because it is given free; believe the resurrection, because he who promises it asks no price.

[On the true race for the crown of glory. On the words of the same: “Do you not know that those who run in the stadium,” etc.] The blessed apostle Paul urges us on to the crown of heavenly glory not only through the teaching of the law but by an example from this world. For among other things he says this, as you, beloved, have heard: “Do you not know that those who run in the stadium all run, but one receives the prize?” And he added: “So run that you may obtain it” (1 Cor 9:24). In the earthly example, many indeed run in the stadium, as the Apostle says, but one receives the crown, that is, the one who runs best; so too in the stadium of the present life many run, but one receives the crown. The Jews run through the law, the philosophers run through empty wisdom, the heretics run through false preaching, the catholics run through the true preaching of faith; but of all these one receives the crown, that is, the catholic people, who, having taken up the course of faith, strive toward Christ so as to reach the palm and the crown of immortality. So the Jews, the philosophers and the heretics run in vain, since they do not go along the straight path of faith. For what does it profit the Jews to run through the observance of the law, when they do not know Christ, the Lord of the law? The philosophers too run through the empty wisdom of the world, but their running is superfluous and empty, since they do not know the true wisdom of Christ. For the true wisdom of God is Christ, which is not adorned with words or brilliant oratory but is recognized by the faith of the heart. The heretics too run through the poisoned assertion of their faith; they run through fasting, they run through almsgiving, but they cannot reach the crown, because they do not run with faithful running; for their false faith does not deserve to receive the grace of true faith. The Apostle shows this in another place when he says: “And if I distribute all my substance to the poor and if I hand over my body to the fire to burn, but have not charity, it profits me nothing” (1 Cor 13:3). For he does not have the charity of Christ who does not believe faithfully in Christ. And so the Apostle rightly added: “So run that you may obtain it.” We must run, then, with faithful running, in the faith of Christ, in the commandments of God, in works of righteousness, so that we may reach the crown of eternal life. Then the same Apostle shows next how we must run, saying: “Everyone who competes in the contest exercises self-control in all things; they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one” (1 Cor 9:25). See by what examples the Apostle invites us to the crown of promised immortality. In this earthly contest those who want to win abstain from certain foods and from too much drink, and abstain from all impurity, with such great chastity that they do not even seek their own wives; nor do they hope to be able to win unless they keep their body chaste and pure. And after so much labour what do they receive but a small, corruptible and indeed worthless crown? If, then, some undertake so much labour for a corruptible crown, how much more ought we to bear every labour, to whom a heavenly reward and the crown of eternal glory are promised? We must, then, contend in no light contest; for we struggle against the spiritual forces of wickedness, against the devil and his angels; we struggle against injustice, against impiety, against malice, against unchastity, against the various allurements of sins. And if we conquer in the struggle, we receive as many crowns as the vices over which we have been victorious. Great, then, is this contest, in which we offer a spectacle to the Lord: for we are watched as we struggle by the Lord, we are watched by his angels; we conquer on earth, but we receive the reward of virtue in heaven. Indeed the holy martyrs, placed in the contest of the struggle, conquered not only the vices of sins but death itself, and received the rewards of immortality. In this contest our Lord and Saviour first both struggled and conquered, to show us an example of the struggle and the victory. So, in treating these things with you, we cast the seed of the good struggle into your hearts, finding your breasts furrowed, as it were, by the plough of righteousness. Cultivate, then, the word which we have scattered in you, so that what has been sown may sprout. And may God by his visitation pour the dew of his love on you and give increase to our seeds, so that with your sheaves of merits gathered you may come to the hundredfold fruit.

[On avoiding the form of this world and taking up the form of the Saviour. On the words of the same: “Do not be conformed to this world,” etc.] Today Christ has disclosed that the apostles are salt, saying: “You are the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13). So let no one be impatient if we grind the words of blessed Paul like grains of divine salt, so that, having made them finer, we may season the understanding of our minds. For grains of salt leap out while they are whole, but finely ground they go down into the marrow; so the Apostle's word, read in common, offers a simple sense, but it provides deep knowledge when it is gone over again by careful reading, as we have done before. Today the blessed Apostle says: “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2). Do you think that blessed Paul the apostle, by saying this, is forbidding us to be conformed to the figures of the elements? or forbidding us to be like the kings of the Persians, who, now with a sphere placed under their feet so as to be believed to tread on the heavens, falsely play the part of God; now, with a radiate crown on their heads, as though they were not men, sit in the figure of the sun; now, putting on horns as though grieved to be men, turn effeminate into the moon; now take on various shapes as of the stars, so as to lose the figure of man without gaining anything of the brightness above? But though these things come from the vanity of the world, and are as much to be laughed at by the wise as fled from, yet the Apostle, when he says, “Do not be conformed to this world,” corrects the life of the world, refutes its conduct, judges its way of life, chastises its desires, condemns its luxury, and drives out, puts to flight and shuts out from Christian minds the whole pomp of worldly vanities. But here he briefly reminds us of what he set out more fully at the beginning of this Epistle, where he portrays the form of the world in its vices thus: “Filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, proud, inventors of evils, disobedient to parents, foolish, disorderly, without affection, without mercy; who, though they knew the righteousness of God, did not understand that those who do such things are worthy of death; not only those who do them but also those who consent to those who do them” (Rom 1:29–32). Brothers, you have heard the form of the world, you have learned its appearance, you have seen its figure: if indeed it is a form and not a formless monster, where the whole face of things is blotted out by the confusion of crimes, where the whole figure of the world is dissolved by the union of sins, where the very image of the Creator is taken away by the diseases of offences, where man is buried in vices, where the crimes of a corrupted body swarm, where man is the tomb of man, where in a man one sees not a man but a corpse. So the Apostle forbids us to be conformed to this form, forbids us to be configured to this figure, does not allow us to be like this likeness, but re-forms us to the form of God, calls us back to the likeness of Christ and leads us wholly back to the image of the Creator, saying: “But be re-formed in the newness of your mind” (Rom 12:2). That is: be renewed in your minds through Christ, having cast off the figure of this world; and, having thrown away the whole deformity of the aged image, bring your form back to the form of your Saviour, so that the newness of your minds may shine out in your actions and the heavenly man may now walk on earth in heavenly bearing. But let it now be shown how he composes the form of the new man. “For as in one body we have many members, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us” (Rom 12:4–6). He works, he works so that the body which he sets in heavenly activity, in the life above and in the conduct of holiness, may stand firm by the agreement and joining of its members; so that the foot may not, through perverse pride, confuse the ministry of the eye, nor the eye the office of the foot, but the members of holiness may be content with the gifts of the giver and believe that what he has made one member is the possession of all the members, because no single member knows diminishment when the whole is honoured in the body. That is why the Apostle assigns actions to members and members to actions thus: “He who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, in simplicity; he who presides, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Charity without pretence; hating evil, clinging to good; outdoing one another in honour, kind to one another; not slothful in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, persevering in prayer, sharing in the memorials of the saints, pursuing hospitality. Bless, and do not curse; rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep; providing good things not only before God but also before men. Do not be wise in your own estimation; repay no one evil for evil; if possible, so far as it depends on you, have peace with all men; do not avenge yourselves, but give place to wrath. If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good” (Rom 12:7–21). Above, brothers, the Apostle disclosed the members of the vices; now he has revealed to us the members of the virtues, so that the heavenly body, made firm by such members and strengthened by such sinews, may easily lay low the wars of the world and overcome the attacks of the devil. And does not one who lives as the Apostle taught lay low the world? trample on the flesh? conquer the devil? equal the angels? Is he not greater than heaven? Plainly greater than heaven, because heaven does not move of its own accord, does not act by will, does nothing by judgment, but always serves by necessity alone, because it was once commanded to serve; it keeps itself unpolluted not by strength or labour; hence, while it is not liable to punishment, neither does it stand to gain a reward. But man, formed from earthly vileness, when he conquers the earthly stain, breaks the goads of blood and rises above the passions of the flesh, passes beyond heaven and flies to the very seat of the Godhead; and so he becomes greater than heaven and surpasses the angels in merits, not in nature. The apostle Paul proves this, who, having fully conquered the earth, both entered heaven and passed to another, and was worthy to reach even the third (2 Cor 12:2). And justly; for he ought to climb the heavens first who taught men by word and example to penetrate the heavens. He will be, he will be greater than heaven who lives as Paul taught; he will be brighter than the sun who so shines over the whole world with the rays of the virtues that he lets himself be darkened by no night of vices. He will be, he will be brighter than the moon, who does not temper this darkness with a diminished light, but drives away the whole night of the world with the full brightness of his merits; nor does he, like the moon, feel daily losses of light, but he remains in the brightness of the light above by the continual lamp of his deeds; nor will he, like her, be interrupted by a monthly darkness, but will remain in the continual charity of God. And if she is great because she softens the night, how much greater is he whose life admits nothing of night? Of the stars I say nothing, because as many as are the stars in the sky, so many are the virtues with which the saints shine, as the Lord says: “You are the light of the world”; “shine as lights in the world” (Matt 5:14; Phil 2:15). In sum, heaven, sun, moon and stars will pass away, as God says (Matt 24:35), but the righteous man will remain in God's continual brightness. I would like, brothers, to bring forth a separate discourse on each word of the Apostle; but since a reading dwelt on too often produces distaste in the hearer, and we cannot be silent any longer about the gospel mighty works, may it please you, beloved, that we have closed the present reading with a short sermon. May our God himself deign to instil into your holy minds both what we have said and what we have left unsaid.

[On the rich man and Lazarus.] Today, brothers, you have heard both the end of poverty and learned what the outcome of riches is, as the Lord says: “There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who lay at his gate, longing to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one gave to him; but even the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. But the rich man died and was buried in hell” (Luke 16). See, brothers, what a lamentable reversal of things: angels carry the poor man, hell swallows the rich. See, brothers, the death of the poor man has overcome the whole life of the rich, and the mere lifting up of the poor man has surpassed all the rich man's pomp and glory. Why does burial so deceive the eyes? Why does the pomp of a funeral so lie? The whole city turns out to escort the rich man when his body is carried forth; the poor man goes alone. The pity of two bearers carries the poor man, not four as for the dead, but two under one pole, as if unwilling porters had been hired to throw away a load. Rightly, then, angelic services, rightly divine attendance is at once assigned to him who was so cruelly denied even the last offices of humanity. A mourning crowd of slaves goes before the rich man's bier; a multitude of angels singing psalms goes before the poor man's litter. The rich man's body lies shut in a marble tomb in carefully prepared clothing; the poor man's flesh rests in the natural earth, and in its earthy resting place it does not know the bite of worms, since it has already passed through rottenness and stench. But let us ask, brothers, what was the rich man's fault, what crime, what wickedness handed him over to the torments of hell, and, before the judgment of his condemnation, caused his indictment to be sung for so many ages, with the Judge himself reporting it, as the Lord says: “There was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at the rich man's gate, and longed to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.” Are riches in themselves so criminal? Or are clothes alone and of themselves to be condemned before God? And are banquets in themselves so punishable that they not only lack the reward of the good but also deserve and bear the ruin of every evil? Or is beggary of itself so approved and sanctified, are sores so sacred, that they are snatched by the hands of angels into the lap of holy Abraham? And it is a marvel, brothers, that Abraham, once rich, now spurns a rich man, as Scripture says: “Abraham was very rich” (Gen 13), and that the man he once resembled in present goods he now rejects and suffers to be punished, especially since the divine word has disclosed neither the good deeds of this poor man nor the evil deeds of this rich one. Why then does Abraham now embrace the poor man, and shun and reject the rich one? Or how did riches keep that rich man, Abraham, innocent, and make this one guilty; promote the one to the rest of all the blessed, and consign the other to the pit of all evils? But so that the sermon we have set before you may not long weary your minds and keep your hearing in suspense, we must hasten the answer to this question. Abraham, brothers, was rich not for himself but for the poor, and he was eager not to hold his wealth but to pay it out: he was more and more anxious to store his means in the bosom of the poor than in barns, as the whole course of his life teaches. For he himself labored continually as a stranger, and so, lest a stranger should feel himself a stranger (Gen 18), living in a tent himself, he did not allow a newcomer to stay without a roof; himself a guest, he always received a guest; an exile from his homeland, knowing no home, he was himself both lord and homeland to all, knowing that he had been set not as a hoarder but as a steward of the divine bounty. To defend the oppressed, to free captives (Gen 14), to rescue those on the point of death, he, a new kind of warrior, handed himself over to death, a man to whom kindness toward another was dearer than his own life. Abraham stood by the guest he had received; he did not sit down; he was not the guest's fellow diner but his servant. When Abraham saw a stranger he forgot that he was a master; he himself brought the meal, and he set his wife anxiously to the kitchen to make it fine enough; and he who entrusts and commits himself and all he has to his household hardly dares to entrust a guest to anyone but his tried and trusted wife. What more, brothers? His humanity was so holy, so always made ready with holy hands, that it invited God himself to his house and constrained him to be his guest. He came to Abraham, he came to the rest of the poor, he came to the shelter of guests, who will declare in the future that he himself was received in the guest and the poor, when he will say: “I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in” (Matt 25). “And it came to pass that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.” Not without reason, brothers, does he receive all the saints into his rest, and in heavenly blessedness itself he performs the office of a steward: because while here he always received strangers and the poor, he deserved to receive God himself with angels, to see as a guest under his tent him whom he always had as giver. And truly, brothers, he thought himself too little blessed if, even in the glory above, he ceased from the holy office of hospitality and enjoyed only the divine gifts, he who here thought himself cruel if he refused human goods to anyone. Abraham, brothers, always ran to meet those who came from afar, called even passers-by with entreaty, compelled the unwilling to his table with great pleading, always set before his guests the first and fattened animals of his flocks, always offered loaves made hot by his own and his wife's hands, which his constant humanity would never let be cold or yesterday's. But this rich man, or rather the captive of riches, the slave of wealth, chained by his very fortune, a base tomb of so much pomp in which all sight and hearing of kindness had utterly failed, despised not a person, not a poor man, but mercy itself, while Lazarus lay so at his gate. With purple, fine linen, delicate clothes and tempting dishes he fed the iron entrails of a cruel soul. God, the eager seeker of human salvation, wishing to soften him, threw at his gate not so much Lazarus as a very furnace of kindness for him: I said “furnace” because of his iron entrails. So the beggar Lazarus is thrust before his wicked eyes, brought near, and so that the rich man might be able to give, the rich man's fortune is heaped higher and higher; but the rich man, harder than adamant, either poured out shamefully or hoarded cruelly whatever God added to his fortune for the poor man's nourishment. Again God, so that the poor man might not be silent, so that he might cry out, so that he might warn the rich man, so that the fasting poor man might show that he sought only bread, so that he might drive the soul of the man in abundance to give at least the smallest things, increases the poor man's hunger: “He longed,” it says, “to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.” But the rich man, gorged with various dishes, belched his indigestion up to heaven so as not to hear the voice of the poor man lying so low. Again God, since the voice of one mouth crying was nothing to ears so hardened, opens the poor man's whole body with wounds to open the rich man's heart, so that in warning the rich man the poor man should have as many mouths as wounds. His flesh dissolves, sores spread, the gaping of the wounds widens, pus pours out, and the poor man's whole flesh is set up as a stage for mercy, so that the man whom the voice of the hungry had not moved might be moved by sighs, pains, groans, and the whole heap of miseries; but the rich man, with proud eye and insatiable heart, scorns to hear, see, or feel all this. God still seeks how the rich man may be freed from his obstinacy. He loosens the poor man's hands from his limbs, so that he could not drive off the rich man's dogs, which he was to feed with his wounds; and in a new way, brothers, the order of humanity is reversed: human beggary comes about so that inhuman greed may be exposed. The rich man does not feed the poor man even with the crumbs falling from his table, and Lazarus the poor man, since he had nothing else, showed himself humane to the dogs even with his own flesh. Wretched rich man, if you did not give bread, why did you not at least drive off the dogs? But your dogs are gentler than you, or rather you are more savage than your dogs: for while you rage they spare him; they put out not their teeth to bite but their tongues to serve, so that like a sponge they do not irritate the wounds but cleanse them. Rich man, in your dogs kindness conquered hunger; in you, being full did not win out over kindness. That dogs take care to do this, common experience, always before our eyes, proves: for dogs always heal their own wounds by licking. Dogs care for the poor man by the teaching of nature, and man neglects man while nature itself gravely accuses him. It is true, it is true, that the rich man cannot give even crumbs, since the miser is always in want. The sermon must be put off, brothers, because we have used up the time for speaking, and the parts of the reading that we most need to treat still follow.

[On the same.] Our sermon today, brothers, ought to recount as far as it can the virtues of holy Andrew; but since we said we would pay back what remains about that rich man and Lazarus, the poor man of the Gospel, and since the prerogative of blessed Andrew's apostleship and martyrdom suffices and abounds for his glory, let us, if you please, pay what we promised and what we owe, the Lord himself repaying it through us. For knowing that weariness always breeds distaste in both speaker and hearer, in the previous sermon we put off the greater part of the reading set before us, so that with the strength of our minds restored we might take in the rest of the saving word with full vigor and the attention it deserves. After what we said, this follows: “And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (Luke 16). “And lifting up his eyes.” Too late the rich man lifts up his eyes, which he always kept turned down to the earth. Rich man, the eyes you lift up are your accusers; the eyes you lift up do not appease the judge but inflame him; they bring back not pardon but guilt, and they demand a heap of punishments, not comfort. Where are you lifting your eyes? Why do you still cry out, rich man? Where are you looking, rich man? There is Lazarus, there is the betrayer of your impiety, the witness of your crime, the one who proves your cruelty. “And he cried out,” it says, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me.” Now you recognize a father, and now you do not know that he is no father to you, whom you so scorned as father in Lazarus. Now the just man meets you, who then, so as to be kind to you, let Lazarus be tormented for a long time. Unhappy man, whom his very origin so convicts, whom the very author of his light so condemns! Unhappy man, for whom at the judgment, because of the greatness of his crime, the parent could not have mercy, the father could not forgive, affection could not help! Why do you still cry out, rich man? Still rich, but in crime, not in fortune; not in substance, but in guilt. Why do you cry out? What do you ask? Here it is no longer a petition that is pleaded, but a lawsuit, where the very one who suffered stands on the opposite side; but the parties are in different places: one pleads from near at hand, the other from afar; one prompts from the bosom, the other cries from Tartarus; one pleads from rest, the other complains from punishment. But the rich man says: “Father Abraham, have mercy on me.” You would speak well if Lazarus were not resting in the bosom, holding the very breast of the judge; you would speak well if Lazarus did not possess all the secrets of the most just examiner. In vain he begs the judge whom the innocent witness so accuses; and in vain he thinks the judge can help him, when the one who suffered so much pronounces from the judge's own mouth. “Have mercy on me, and send Lazarus.” Are you still so cruel to Lazarus? “Send Lazarus.” Where? From the bosom to hell, from a lofty throne to the deepest chaos, from holy quiet, from the deep silence of the blessed, to the gnashing of torments. “And send Lazarus.” As I see it, what the rich man does comes not from new pain but from old envy, and he is more inflamed by heaven than by Gehenna. It is a grievous evil to such people, a fire not to be borne, to see happy those whom they once held in contempt. Malice still does not leave the rich man whom punishment already holds: he does not ask to be brought to Lazarus; he wants Lazarus brought down to him. Pious Abraham cannot send to the bed of your torment, rich man, Lazarus, whom you did not deign to admit to your table. Now your lots are reversed: you see the glory of the one whose suffering you so despised; he sees your torments, who then marveled at you in your glory. But let us see, brothers, why he laments so to have Lazarus sent. “Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” You are mistaken, rich man: this flame is not so much of the tongue as of the mind, not so much of the tongue as of the heart; and this is still the heat of conscience, not that final fire which awaits and expects you. For if the whole fire of the last judgment already surrounded you, and the sentence of that hopeless condemnation already held you, you would never lift your eyes, never speak with the father, never ask for yourself, never presume to intercede for your brothers. Surely, if the whole fire of hell already possesses you, if the flame of Gehenna embraces you, why do you want relief only for the burning of your tongue? Only because, while your breast pants with the flame of its crime and guilt, the tongue burns, blazes and boils the more, the tongue that insulted the poor man, that denied mercy. It goes first to judgment, it first tastes and suffers torment, it is the first of the whole body to feel the burning, because when it was first here to taste the various dishes of delights and fragrant cups, it would not order kindness, did not command that mercy be done, but even disparaged it when others did it. This is the one “who was clothed in purple and fine linen.” What is this, rich man? Does fine linen not protect from the heat? Does purple not withstand hell? Those things stayed behind; those things deserted you, and now you yourself sweat and burn naked, who once mocked the heat, clothed in artful luxury. “And send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” What is this, rich man? Where are the torrents of your winepresses? Where are the barns, widened against the poor man's hunger no less by greed than by stores? Where are the wines kept against the poor man's need through long years and the very forgetting of time? Where are the outpourings, the spills, the streams of your servants? All these perished for you, not your crimes, since you thirst for a drop from the tip of a finger, which, had you given even that alone to the poor man, you would not thirst for. A drop and a crumb made you merciless and inhuman, and in them consists the poor man's whole living and life. I would like to know, rich man, whether, placed in punishment, you even forgive yourself, since you would not have come to these evils if you had then given a crumb from such great barns, a drop from such great winepresses. Little is what the flesh needs, what nature demands, what suffices for life; avarice is the reason a man stores up great and many things, not for himself but for others, and plainly for his own torment, present or to come. But you say, rich man: “Even if I refused wine, I ask for water, which the author of all things and nature have provided common to all living creatures.” I think, rich man, that you refused the poor man even water, setting very many dogs against him so that he might not come in at your gate, might not reach your well. But what is it you say? “Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water,” and not to bring water? So the water is close by; and if it is close by, why do you not take it from near at hand? Why? Because your hands are rightly bound, rich man, since you scorned to help when Lazarus's hands had been loosened by weakness. A man ought, he ought, to share his own limbs with the weak; Job, not giving this but repaying it, said: “I was eye to the blind and foot to the lame; I was father of the weak” (Job 29, following the LXX). Man, if you have no coin, give the poor man your hand, for he does a greater mercy who leads a weak poor man to his table by the hand. He has given himself to the poor man who has fitted himself to the service of the poor, fitted himself to the poor man's servitude. Again, brothers, let us put off the full treatment of the present word, so that at a third hearing we may set out what sentence the rich man received from most blessed Abraham.

[On the same.] It is the mark of a shameless debtor either to put off what was lent or to deny what was promised; of an honest one, to pay both without delay and at once. We promised to pay back all that remains about that rich man, who, though he seemed harsh toward Lazarus, was more savage and cruel toward himself. Up to this point both the holy evangelist and our sermon, as far as it could, have set out what the rich man said to Abraham. It was said: “And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham far off, and crying out he said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” Abraham now answers him: “Son, you received good things in your life” (Luke 16). O wonderful kindness! He still calls him son whom he sees has so degenerated by his own cruelty. O singular goodness! He still calls him son whom he saw as hell's homeborn slave, the offspring of punishments, already the lowest chattel of Gehenna. But he calls him son so that the son's impiety may be exposed all the more, when the kindness of fatherly speech continues even toward such a one. “You call me father; I call you son, so that you may grieve bitterly at having lost what you were born to. I still call you son, so that you may grieve more bitterly at having lost what grace and nature had given you; for not to have had something is not so great a grief as to have lost what one had. I call you son, so that you may understand that what you suffer is from judgment, not from rage; I call you son, so that my patience may remain in me, and your punishment in you.” But this man understands, brothers, that he is no son, who admits and weighs that it is by his own desert that he lost by nature so kind a father. He would then certainly have answered to his lineage if he had been kind, hospitable, merciful, humane toward the poor man. Whoever does not do his parent's works denies his lineage, as the Lord teaches: “If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham” (John 8). He proves the faithfulness of his lineage who stands as defender of his father's work. But what does Abraham say? “Son, you received good things in your life.” If this rich man's crime is so great because he received good things, how guilty is he who seizes what is not owed? If he is so criminal who shuts up his own goods, who does not give what he has received, how deserving of punishment is he who broods over his own and invades the goods of others? Brothers, let us give what is ours, if indeed it is ours; let us at any rate give what we think is ours; let us avoid what belongs to others, let us turn away from what is not ours; certainly, if we have taken anything from anyone, let us return it with all speed, lest, leaving everything here, poor in wealth and rich in crime, we be brought there to this rich man. Let the rich man learn, however, that he received good things back, not that he received them as a gift. You see, brothers, that by the word of holy Abraham this rich man's mind is exposed, his thinking convicted, his understanding punished, since he believed that whatever he possessed by the Lord's bounty was not given to him but paid back to him. Understand with what thought he walked, with what heart he went about, who believed God to be his debtor, and in his evil wealth made his Lord liable to his own interest, not knowing that the Lord, though he walked poor on earth, ascended rich into heaven. And he gave, he did not receive on loan, who gave five talents to one, two to another, one to another; and so he promises to exact interest, not to pay it, when he says to the servant: “Wicked and slothful servant, you should have given my money to the bankers, and when I came I would have demanded it with interest” (Matt 25). For this reason this rich man is the more impious, because he was not kind to another: even though he received good things, he unworthily received good things not for good but for evil. But let us pass on to Lazarus and ask what is meant when he says: “And Lazarus likewise received evil things.” And let it suffice for merit and abound for glory, if he did not do good things but received evil things. Truly blessed, brothers, is the one who believes faithfully that he receives good things from God as a gift and receives evil things back as due. Blessed is he who always pays God what he owes; certainly, if he cannot, let him with all humility at least ask that his whole debt be forgiven, as the Lord himself teaches: “Say: Forgive us our debts” (Matt 6). Blessed is he who pays God what he owes even when he does not understand that he contracted the debt, as the prophet teaches more deeply when he says: “What I did not steal I then paid back” (Ps 69:4 [LXX 68:5]). Blessed is he who always accuses himself before God in order to excuse himself, as Scripture admonishes: “The just man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech” (Prov 18:17, following the LXX). And if he is just, why does the just man accuse himself? Because “no one living will be justified in your sight” (Ps 143:2 [LXX 142:2]). A man may perhaps boast before a man of his righteousness, his innocence, his merit; before God, the one who vaunts his innocence and glories in his righteousness is not a man. Hence that Pharisee, when he does not pray but counts up his righteous deeds, credits them to himself and belches them out, goes away unjust and worse than the tax collector (Luke 18). But let us come to the rest. “But now,” he says, “he is comforted here, and you are tormented.” See, brothers, understand, brothers, from what has been said, that though the just and the unjust were distinguished by place, one region of the underworld still held them; and though a great chasm already separated them, the heavenly dwelling did not yet separate them; and though a grim gulf divided them, the heights above appointed for the angels were not yet assigned to them. A flaming sword (as the lawgiver reports) turned at the gate of paradise so that no access lay open to man (Gen 3); the gates of the underworld were shut, barred with bronze doors and iron bolts, so that no way out lay open to the souls that had been cast down there from above. For the bond of the ancestral debt, which made each one liable to death, was held written with the pen of guilt and the very ink of the offence, and its interest ran on for many ages to the harm of the offspring. Nor was anyone fit to enter paradise, to quench the flame divinely set there, to open the barred gates of hell, or to cancel the bond that was kept shut up in the chest of the law by God's command. Hence the Lord himself, who had exiled the first man, that is, the rebellious servant, came; the Lord himself, who had barred paradise and shut hell, came down to earth and to the underworld with all power, to quench what was kindled, to open at once what was shut, to blot out the crime of the first-formed man. Hence he carries the battering ram of his cross as he goes to attack hell, to crush and shatter the very gates of Tartarus fortified with bronze and iron. From his side he pours out water to ease the way to paradise, to quench the fire of hell on the side of the saints, to wash away the whole bond of the debt and cancel the old one, and by suffering to remit what he himself had imposed by inflicting it. Recognize, brothers, rejoice, brothers, that after Christ's triumph the custody of the saints was dissolved, and that nothing more is owed to hell by the saints, since Christ penetrated even to the underworld to set free the just, not the unjust. Let us understand, brothers, how much Christ has profited us; indeed, that without Christ there was no salvation at all, since, besides this dissolution of bodies, the souls of the saints too were held bound in the underworld. Blessed therefore is Lazarus, who owed everything to God so as to owe nothing to crime. Blessed, because he received so many evils here that there he might possess all good things. “And Abraham added, saying: No one can cross from here to you, nor pass over from there to here.” It frightens, brothers, the hearing of this word frightens us exceedingly, for it shows that after death those once assigned to the custody of punishment in the underworld cannot be transferred to the rest of the saints, unless, already redeemed by the grace of Christ, they are freed from this hopelessness by the intercession of the holy Church; so that what the sentence denies, the Church may obtain and grace may grant. Here, however, the rich man still asks and says: “Father Abraham.” He still calls him father, who by his deserts has so lost both father and homeland. “Father Abraham.” Here the wretch lies even in punishment. “Father Abraham, send him to my father's house.” If he truly calls this man father, whose father's house is he then seeking? Unless perhaps he thinks he has as father in absence the one he sees he has so lost in presence, and so believes that the house of that father is kept for him for the sake of the one whose bosom he sees denied to him there, whose rest he sees refused. “Father Abraham, send him.” Whom? Lazarus, of course. Where? “To my father's house.” Now, and too late, the rich man invites Lazarus to his father's house, not merciful but to be pitied, whom all the time of his wealth he did not take in when he lay at his gate begging for compassion; and under a show of kindness he wants Lazarus to go back to his old wounds and his past groans, when by his first petition he could not call him down to his own torments. Before, he said, “Send him to me”; now he says, “Send him to my brothers.” The unhappy man grieves and acts lest he see happy the one he once thought unhappy. “Send him to my brothers.” Where? “To my father's house.” Why? “For I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torments.” Kind to whom, he who is so unkind to himself? Shamelessly he presumes to obtain repentance for others, who so cruelly made no provision for pardon for himself. “Send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers.” And do you think Lazarus will be enough for your five brothers, who for so long, with so many wounds, crying out with his whole body, did you no good? Rightly Abraham answered him: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” Let Lazarus rest after such great labors, and you bewail your punishments, which you bear by your own desert. God, however, provided long ago for the salvation of your brothers and of all, not by your counsel but by his own gift: he gave the law through Moses, he granted prophecy through Elijah; let them hear them, therefore, so that they may not feel your torments. The rich man answered: “No, father Abraham, but if someone rises from the dead, they will believe him.” Abraham answered him: “If they do not believe Moses and Elijah, neither will they believe if someone rises from the dead.” Nothing is so true, brothers: whoever would not believe him who spoke from heaven through the law, nor Christ who came from heaven, will not now deserve to believe one returning from the underworld. Christ himself, brothers, our God and Lord, spoke to Moses from heaven; he himself spoke on earth in an earthly body; he himself returned from the underworld with an earthly body; and yet, when he told what good things are in heaven and what evils are in the underworld, the brothers of that rich man, who are understood to be among the Jewish peoples, refused with all obstinacy to believe. But, brothers, since time does not allow us now to say who the rich man is, or who Lazarus the poor man is, and who the rich man's five brothers are, nor permits us to open what spiritual meaning lies hidden in this story, being taught by Christ what awaits the just with him and what awaits the unjust in the underworld, let us act, let us run, in word, in deed, in mercy, so that we may lay hold of the good things above and, terrified, avoid and turn away from the evils.

[On the same.] As often as God sets before us the rich man in purple, as often as the wounded poor man is presented to us, so often is the arena of mercy opened to us, so often is the stadium of kindness laid open, so that from a heavenly spectacle we may observe how quickly the poor man came to the palm and the rich man to ruin. “There was,” it says, “a rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, longing to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table” (Luke 16). The rich man was clothed in purple, the poor man in bruises; the rich man in fine linen, the poor man in filth; the rich man in gold, the poor man in stench; the rich man reclined on a feather-cushioned couch, the poor man lay on the hardest ground; the rich man belched out banquets, the poor man gasped out pus; the rich man poured out wines, the poor man tears; the rich man, sated, threw away loaves, the poor man, starving, did not have crumbs; the rich man fed with his dishes the dogs that barked at the poor man, the poor man filled the rich man's dogs with his wounds. In short, we read that all good things came to the rich man and all evil things to the poor; yet adversity did not break the poor man, nor did all prosperity profit the rich. Rather, poverty advanced the poor man to wisdom, pain to virtue, contempt to patience, necessity to free will, hunger to fasting, thirst to endurance, death to life, punishment to reward, earth to heaven, want to the kingdom; and so purple raised the rich man to pride, fine linen to luxury, plenty to inhumanity, abundance to impiety, perfumes to languor, splendor to blindness, loftiness to ruin. Therefore neither does prosperity raise up the slothful nor adversity lay low the strong: for neither riches nor poverty, but the mind either leads the grateful to reward or leads the ungrateful down to punishment. The poor man, full of sores, is set at the rich man's gate; and this happens not by human chance but by divine judgment, so that the contest of rich and poor might be on earth, and the spectacle remain in heaven. The rich man stood fully clad in the armor of riches; against him the poor man lay clothed only in his flesh, unless perhaps the one wound of his whole body was his breastplate. The rich man lingered among choirs of slaves; the poor man, stripped of his skin, was driven by the goads of pain. The rich man hurled the darts of impiety; Lazarus set against them the shield of compassion. The rich man aimed his cruelty at the poor man's wound; the poor man's strength frustrated the rich man's guilty soul, because, as his body failed him, his whole strength passed into his soul, and, trampling his flesh, the whole warrior rose up into the spirit, so that the rich man's cruelty might find nowhere to strike. For God had arranged this, that the rich man should always be before the poor man's eyes and the poor man before the rich man's, so that each in turn might care for the other's different sickness. The poor man was sick in body, the rich man in mind. Hence the poor man's cure was put off, so that the rich man might take medicine from the wound, compunction from the groaning, repentance from the tears, an example from the patience, mercy from the hunger, feeling from the thirst, and, in sum, a share in heaven from compassion on earth: certainly, so that the rich man, supported by such great goods, might be pleasing to God, when the poor man, in all his evils, remained pleasing to God before the rich man's eyes. Rightly then he who lay prostrate was carried by angels; he who mourned was comforted in Abraham's lap; and he who did not know how to live for himself in the world lives for God forever. “It came to pass,” it says, “that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died, and was buried in hell.” The wretch received the burial of his soul before that of his body, and was handed over to the tomb of punishment before his body was laid to rest, so that he who once died to life might live forever for punishment. “And he was buried in hell; and he saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom.” What a reversal of things! Where the rich man went down, where the poor man went up! There he looks up to the one he looked down on here; and from hell he sees in Abraham's bosom the one he did not see lying before him from his proud couch. “Father Abraham, have mercy on me.” Foolishly he asks mercy from the father which he had denied to his brother. “Have mercy on me.” What has mercy to do with him, for whom everything has now turned to punishment? Or what supplication to the father can help him, whose accuser rests in the father's bosom? Lazarus holds the father's breast and knocks at all the fairness of that holy heart, so that he may keep himself father of the good son and judge of the bad. “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” “Send Lazarus”: so that he who is the cause of my torment, now a minister of refreshment, may himself hold out to me the comfort of the tip of his finger, to whom, as he lay there, I then refused all the comfort of my hand. “And send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” So he thirsts for a drop who poured out vats of wine while the poor man thirsted; and he thinks a drop from the tip of a finger can quench the flames of Gehenna, who by measures all day long did not quench the fires of drunkenness. But he asks this drop to be given him for refreshment, which he had refused for the poor man's burning. That drop, rich man, is what makes you cruel; that drop it is which, refused by you, dried up the mouth of Lazarus, for a drop is enough to refresh the body, and a crumb. “Longing,” it says, “to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the table.” Bread was scattered, wine was poured out, and what was refused to the poor man for the last of his life all went to waste for the rich man's pomp. “And send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” The tongue is in the head, the head of evil; it disparages the needy, insults the poor, barks at kindness, carps at mercy; and rightly it is first in Gehenna, foremost in torment, leader of punishments, because it forbade mercy, which had been given the power to command it. And although the order of the reading compels me to say, and invites you to hear, who the rich man in purple is, who Lazarus the poor man is, who the five brothers of the rich man are, and how the rich man feels the torments of Gehenna before the day of judgment, yet grief calls me back to say: “The rich man died and was buried in hell.” And if there is a prison under the earth, if there is a burning furnace, if there is an underworld tormenting without end, if there is a grim officer to snatch us to these things after the labors of this age, why are we stupefied? Where are we? What is this sleep that mocks us? What is this deadly forgetfulness that holds us? Why is it not our only care, despising all things, to escape such evils, so that, living for the world and running after other things, we may not suddenly be snatched away to such great, such terrible, such cruel punishments? And if there is a possibility of ascending to the things above, if there is a means of living in heaven, if Abraham's bosom is prepared as a rest for all the good, if Lazarus is in the bosom of so great a father, indeed, since there is no doubt where places, persons and names are described, why do we not exchange earth for heaven? Why do we not buy eternal things with perishable ones? Why do we not purchase lasting things with things that will perish? So that we may both avoid the punishments of hell and see broadly, have and hold, what we now long to hear of in narrow terms.

[On the unjust steward.] Salt is indeed a wholesome seasoning for all foods, if measure is not lacking; otherwise, without measure, it is itself lost and ruins what it has salted, for excess makes bitter what measure could have seasoned. So the understanding that is in us, if it keeps measure, gives savor, brings forth insight, begets prudence, enlarges the heart, increases the mind, ripens what is to be said, orders what is to be heard, and becomes sweet to itself and the whole fullness of sweetness to those who taste it; and plainly that understanding will be honeyed which brings forth nothing bitter from the mouth. We have said this first so that in the meanings of the Gospel we may keep the measure of our understanding restrained, so that it may not spoil the life-giving food, the divine pasture, the heavenly savor, but guard it for us with the most careful sobriety, according to the Apostle's word: “Not to be wise beyond what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety” (Rom 12). But now let us hear what the Lord said: “There was a certain rich man” (Luke 16). And who was this man if not Christ? Who was rich, if not he who in our poverty possessed all the riches of creation? “There was a certain rich man.” He often pressed this on the Jews, so that they might understand that a wealthy Godhead was in him whose lot was human poverty. “He was rich.” He was rich in his majesty, who in the eyes of the Jews was poor. And how was he not rich, whom angels served, whom powers obeyed, whom the elements served, and at whose command things that were not came to be, and when called came? “There was a certain rich man, and he had a steward.” Whom, if not man, to whom the whole estate had been committed to cultivate the world? “There was a certain rich man, and he had a steward, and this man was accused to him.” As if he did not know beforehand, as if he did not foresee, he to whom hidden things are known, before whose eyes even what is covered is naked! “And this man was accused to him.” Did he then believe a report? Did he learn it from rumor? Far from it. But the things he knew, which he veiled in kindness, he began to examine when the earth accused: “The voice of your brother's blood cries out from the earth” (Gen 4); the earth cried out, heaven cried out, the angels grieved, when the whole report of the world was already speaking. “And this man was accused to him of having squandered his property.” Before, we read that the younger son of this man squandered his substance; now the steward is said to have squandered his goods. As Christ is the same God and man, the same householder and father, so it is clear that this same one is both steward and son: here there is a difference of cases, a change of names, not a variety of persons. “And he was accused to him of having squandered his goods, and he called him.” He called him through the Gospel. “And he said to him.” And what does he not do through the Gospel, by which he rebukes conduct, lays bare what is hidden, opens the conscience, chastises what has been committed, counts up evils, and threatens punishment to one who persists in them, though he promises pardon to one who is converted? “And he called him, and said to him: What is this I hear about you?” He charges what he knew as though he had only heard it, because he does not wish to hasten sentence against the guilty man; and the one already convicted before him he summons as though merely accused, he who longs that pardon should so go before judgment. “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” Why does he join such severe words to such kind ones? Why does he remove him from the stewardship before he examines the account? “Give an account, for you can no longer be steward.” Now he asks an account like a man, now like God he announces what is at hand and to come. “Give an account, for you can no longer be steward.” He asks for an account not to exact it but to relax it; he asks so that he may be asked; he asks here so that he may not ask of you there; he asks in this age so that he may not ask at the judgment; he asks soon, so that the time of punishments may not shut out the time of satisfaction. “Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” Why? Because the end of life, the time of death, has come? Already the summons from above binds you, already judgment calls. Hurry, then, so as not to lose the time of satisfaction, you who have lost the time of work. “Give an account.” That is to say: settle the account, settle your affairs, so that you may not have to pay mine; and you will settle them if you now stop squandering. “I took on your former debts when I took you on; I paid them when I absolved you; I, the judge, stood for you to be heard before the judge; I, the judge, entered judgment; I became the defendant of my own defendant; I took on punishments from the punishable; I did not flee the sentence from the condemned; I, the destroyer of death, received death; I, the destroyer of hell, penetrated hell, so that by these things I might not only remove you from your punishment but also make you a sharer in my dignity. Act, therefore, so that you, whom the time of your stewardship has shut out, may not be shut in by an everlasting condemnation of mine.” But let us now examine what the steward answered. “He said within himself: What shall I do?” “What shall I do now?” A man always wants to do good when death has taken away the time for doing it. “He said within himself.” He seeks counsel within himself, who had nowhere outside from which to help himself now. “He said within himself.” He pricks his heart, goads his mind, and troubles all within, so as to wring from himself the repentance he can offer for himself. “I am not able to dig.” Not his strength, but his time for labor had failed. “I am not able to dig, I am ashamed to beg.” He fears the shame of the future judgment, in which there is no longer a time for repentance but for punishments, and where the guilty man blushes more at his conscience than at the fire of Gehenna. “I am ashamed to beg.” And who is not ashamed to beg in heaven? Wretched is he whom time held rich: eternity will possess him as a beggar; and Tartarus will hold him naked whom heaven could have received and kept wealthy. The present figure points to the people; but it is good for us, very good, if each of us applies these things to himself, if we refer them to ourselves, who ought to know that on earth we are stewards and not think ourselves owners; that we have received a ministry of temporary dispensing, not found a right of possessing forever; and take care that the report of a ruined estate may not go before us to the householder, according to the Apostle's word: “The sins of some are manifest, going before them to judgment; but in some they follow after” (1 Tim 5). He does not reach the appointed end of his life who loses the time of his stewardship, whom the report has accused of squandering what was entrusted to him. Hence, hence comes an untimely departure, hence death before its day, hence a bitter summons, hence a return more painful than death itself, as the prophet laments, crying: “Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their days” (Ps 55:23 [LXX 54:24]). But would that, when sickness warns us of our summons, when fever harshly shuts us out of our stewardship, when the force of pain compels us to hasten to render it, we would follow the deed and the mind of this steward, and turn to the counsel of the soul, to compunction of heart, to repentance of mind, to the support of mercy, to the patronage of kindness, to the advocacy of confession! Surely we would ask for the bonds of the Lord's debtors; and if not all, at least half, like this steward, we would cancel for our own pardon, so that we who, by squandering the goods entrusted to us, are called stewards of iniquity, may at the last by a holy fraud obtain the praise of the judge himself. “And he praised,” it says, “the steward of iniquity.” And since the deed of the Gospel steward raises no small question, for a man guilty of many things is read to have pleased by one fraud, why he pleased so, and who he is, we shall set out more fully, God willing, in the next sermon.

[On the same.] How advantageous, how profitable it is to loosen the knots of debtors and relax the chains of bonds, the example of the present steward teaches and instructs us: by prudently reducing the heaps of bonds with his consent, he not only escaped the narrowest straits of examination but also won the praise of his examiner, which will endure for ages. And you, brothers, temper with most kindly hearing what the promise I made about the present reading has made me owe you, so that a severe examination may not burden me and you together, whom understanding can kindly relieve. So let us now follow what remains of the reading and hear what plan the steward found. “He said,” it says, “within himself: What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship from me? I am not able to dig, I am ashamed to beg. I know what I will do… So, calling each of his master's debtors, he said to the first: How much do you owe my master? And he said: A hundred jars of oil. And he said to him: Take your bond, and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then he said to another: And how much do you owe? He said: A hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him: Take your bill and write eighty. And the master praised the steward of iniquity, because he had acted prudently” (Luke 16). Now at least it is clear that in the Gospel readings very many questions are contained, obscured by divine mysteries and veiled in heavenly meanings, and that what is brought forth by the mouth of Christ from heavenly secrets does not easily lie open to human understanding. “And the master,” it says, “praised the steward of iniquity, because he had acted prudently.” I ask, what does a worldly mind grasp in this place? What does ordinary hearing grasp and receive here, where the invention of a cunning fraud between the steward and the master's debtors is praised, where the honesty of the debtor is taken away, shame removed, innocence violated, all modesty buried; where the steward, at the time of rendering account, burns more with fraud than he panted for luxury in the time of his stewardship; where at the moment of examination he rages more to his master's loss than he poured out and squandered in the days of his management; and he who before had emptied the estate by squandering overthrew more of what remained by emptying the bonds; he does not care how he might make up what was lacking, but devises how he might reduce what remained. He said to the debtor: “How much do you owe my master?” He did not say, “How much do you owe me?” By speaking so he appealed to the conscience and called the debtor's mind to witness. And why was it that the steward, without regard for his master, provoked the debtor to so great a fraud? “How much do you owe my master?” He says: “A hundred jars of oil.” “Take your bond and write fifty.” The steward conspired and acted to so great a fraud that he lost all good faith while he contrived the bond. “How much do you owe my master?” Both knew that the creditor above was present everywhere and always and could not be forestalled by fraud; but neither does he who has once begun to steal stop even before his master's eyes. Granted, however, that it is human nature for a debtor to seek fraudulent gains and for a steward to look after himself by stealing like this: why then does the master approve the fraud, praise it, commend falsehood? Does he call wickedness prudence, and judge kindly what offers many the worst example of falsehood? Let it seem so to carnal understanding; to the spiritual, which belongs to the divine light, let it now shine. The parable that was first sketched through the younger son is repeated through the steward. The gentile people is called the steward of iniquity and of the mammon of iniquity: “Make friends for yourselves,” he says, “of the mammon of iniquity”; for, having abandoned the Creator, it had given itself wholly to the service of mammon. Whoever is free from captivity to this mammon and is no longer weighed down by the cruel weight of money, let him stand on the heavenly watchtower and from there look down on mammon ruling the world and worldly people with tyrannical fury. It commands nations, gives orders to kingdoms, orders wars, hires soldiers, sells blood, brings about deaths, betrays homelands, destroys cities, subjects peoples, besieges citadels, harasses citizens, presides over the forum, destroys law, confounds right and wrong, and, going even as far as death, tempts faith, violates truth, carps at reputation, squanders honor, dissolves affection, takes away innocence, buries kindness, tears apart kinship, undermines friendship. What more? This is mammon, the lord of iniquity, who rules iniquitously over human bodies and minds. The steward of this mammon, then, that is, the gentile people, guilty of having so squandered the estate, is summoned by the Lord through the Gospel to give an account of his stewardship, that is, of natural good. To him it is then said: “You can no longer be steward,” when the end of the age is also announced. He believes, in short, according to the Apostle, that “the form of the world is passing away” (1 Cor 7), that the times of human stewardship are passing; and within himself, coming back to himself, he asks what he ought to do. “He said within himself: What shall I do?” His heart groaned, his mind grieved, faith answered and gave him saving counsel: that the steward should now return to the true master, and that, as victor, by questioning mammon, he should subject that savage master to his own service, so that what had been the instrument of perdition might become the occasion of salvation. So the steward, once a gentile and now a Christian, goes to his master's first debtor. Whom? The Jewish debtor, whom he asks what and how much he owes his master, as if he did not know the amount of the debt. The bearer of the bond already knew it through the Gospel, but by asking he sought a confession in this way; and so the debtor confesses both the kind and the amount of the debt, saying: “A hundred jars of oil.” Why not a weight of silver or gold? Why not a hundred and ten, or ninety, but a hundred? So that a heavenly mystery may shine both from the debt and from the number. The Jew owed oil, which by the bond of the law he had received for anointing kings, prophets and priests, as a figure of the Christian chrism, until it should come to the very prince of kings, prophets and priests, to whom the whole hundredfold fullness of chrism was to be rendered and poured out. But because the debtor, against the good faith of the bond, impiously killed his creditor so as not to pay the debt, the legal bond itself, that is, the law, came to the gentiles, so that the Jew, convicted by the gentile because he turned his debt into a crime, might pay the interest of repentance. You see, then, that the steward urges not fraud but repentance; he invites to obtaining mercy, he does not drive to falsehood, when he says: “Take your bond, sit down quickly, and write fifty.” That the number fifty belongs to mercy David shows when he sings the fiftieth psalm, crying: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy” (Ps 51:1 [LXX 50:3]). The number fifty revealed mercy when the law prescribes that the fiftieth year, which is the jubilee, should blot out all debts and loose the bonds of all contracts (Lev 25). This steward therefore acts so that through the mercy of Christ the Jew may be made able to pay, who by the bond of the law was held confounded by unpayable debts. The Jew owes oil, who, according to the Apostle (Rom 11), had dried up in himself the richness of the fruitful olive tree by the barrenness of unbelief. Hence by the warmth of the Gospel faith it now returns wholly into the Christian branches and revives wholly into grace. “Then he said to another: And how much do you owe? He said: A hundred measures of wheat.” After the grain of wheat, which is Christ, was sown in the earth of our flesh and was made fruitful for heavenly abundance by the Lord's burial, it came about that man now owes his Maker fruit a hundredfold. “Unless,” he says, “a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone” (John 12). The steward, seeing this, provides well when he says: “Take your bond and write eighty.” For as fifty confers mercy, so eighty prefigures all faith and grace. This is the number in which a reader well versed in the law and devoted to the Gospel understands the Decalogue of the law and the eight of grace. So the steward, when he says “Write eighty,” acts so that the debtor may pay through grace what he could not pay through nature. Rightly, therefore, did this steward earn his master's praise, since in the bonds he contrived not fraud but salvation. And his saying, “They are more prudent than the children of light in their generation,” is to be understood thus: those who were once children of the world, that is, the gentiles, are now God's elect; and those who were children of God, that is, the Jews, are now left among the children of the world. “In their generation”: the one by which they were reborn, not the one by which they were born. “Let these things be written,” it says, “for another generation” (Ps 102:18 [LXX 101:19]). This other generation is “the generation of those who seek the Lord” (Ps 24:6 [LXX 23:6]). May the God of knowledge and illumination illumine your hearts and pour the whole fullness of his knowledge into the secret place of your minds.

[On the beheading of St John the Baptist.] Today, as the virtue of John and the savagery of Herod were read to us, our inmost parts were shaken, our hearts trembled, our sight grew dark, our understanding was dulled, our hearing fled. Or what holds firm in human senses when the greatness of crimes has destroyed the greatness of virtues? “Herod,” it says, “seized John and bound him and put him in prison” (Matt 14). John, the school of virtues, the teaching of life, the pattern of holiness, the rule of justice, the mirror of virginity, the title of modesty, the example of chastity, the way of repentance, the pardon of sinners, the discipline of faith; John, greater than a man, equal to the angels, the summit of the law, the sanction of the Gospel, the voice of the apostles, the silence of the prophets, the lamp of the world, the herald of the judge, the forerunner of Christ, the messenger of the Lord, the witness of God, the go-between of the whole Trinity, is given over to incest, handed over to an adulteress, delivered to a dancing girl. Rightly then were our inmost parts shaken and our hearts trembled. But Herod is the one who profaned the temple, took away the priesthood, confounded order, violated the kingdom, corrupted whatever there was of religion; whatever there was of life, of law, of morals, of faith, of discipline, he destroyed and confounded. Herod, assassin of citizens, robber of nobles, ravager of allies, plunderer of his household, slayer of the people, killer of his sons, murderer of strangers, parricide of his own, making the earth drunk with gore, remained thirsty for blood. Hence it was that he drank down the holy blood of John in a huge cup of cruelty. But let the reading itself now speak. “Herod,” it says, “seized John and bound him.” He who had loosed the bonds of sins is bound with the bonds of a sinner, so that pardon, once bound, might leave no room for pardon. “He bound him and put him in prison.” Herod, you commit adultery, and John goes to prison? Do you, the guilty, sitting in the judge's place, judge like this; in the avenger's place do you persecute innocence? I ask, where is the face of things? Where is reputation? Where is shame? Where is the regard due to a public judge? Indeed, where is God? Where is man? Where is right? Where is law? Where are the rights of nature itself? All things are confounded together, Herod, by your acting, your judging, your commanding. “He seized John,” it says, “and bound him and put him in prison.” Herod, the case is against you, the chains convict you, the prison accuses you, the wrong done to John, brought out in public, makes you known: the case that inquires into the cause of the custody finds in you what to punish and in John what to grieve over. John, known to the world, renowned for his virtue, most famous for his holiness, by drawing to himself people inquiring about his wrong, makes your incest known to all; he brings it about that public shame holds you, whom private correction could not correct. John struck at Herod with warnings, not with accusation; he wanted to correct him, not to destroy him; but Herod, burning with the torches of lust, preferred to perish rather than return, and to possess his brother's wife unlawfully. To captives of crime, to enemies of innocence, freedom is always hateful; virtue is opposed to the vicious, holiness is detested by the sacrilegious, chastity is the enemy of the unchaste, integrity is a punishment to the corrupt, frugality is adverse to the luxurious, mercy to the cruel, kindness to the impious, justice is unbearable to the unjust. The evangelist proves this when he says: “For John said to him: It is not lawful for you to have the wife of Philip your brother.” See how John gave offense, see why Herod rages: whoever warns the wicked offends; whoever rebukes criminals incurs hatred. John said what belonged to the law, to justice, to salvation; certainly what belonged not to hatred but to love: see what reward he received from the impious man for his kindness. “Wishing,” it says, “to kill him, he feared the people.” He easily strays from justice who in his affairs fears not God but men. This fear can put off the opportunity to sin; it cannot take away the will; so it makes those it holds back from crime more eager for crime, and the mind seethes until it accomplishes the evil it plans. Only the fear of God corrects minds, puts crimes to flight, keeps innocence, and grants lasting power. But let us hear the passion itself of most blessed John. “On Herod's birthday the daughter of Herodias danced in the middle of the dining room and pleased Herod; so he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked of him. But she, prompted by her mother, said: Give me here on a dish the head of John the Baptist.” This is the ancient malice of woman, which cast Adam out of the delights of paradise (Gen 3); this made heavenly men earthly, this sent the human race to hell, this took life from the world for the fruit of one tree. This evil that leads men to death, this evil Elijah the prophet fled (1 Kgs 19 [3 Kgdms 19]); and he whose tongue had been made the key of heaven fled like a guilty man from the face of a woman. This found true labor and distress; this now kills John the Baptist, casts down boyhood, destroys youth, and unlawfully and restlessly kills old age. “Prompted by her mother, she said: Give me on a dish the head of John the Baptist.” A new beast, giving out a roar from her mother's breast, scorns the body as prey and goes for the very head, to cut it off. “And the king was saddened, yet because of the oath and those reclining at table he ordered it to be given, and he sent and had John beheaded, and his head was brought on a dish and given to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.” You have heard, brothers, how great a cruelty is born of pleasure, how great an impiety of lust. “And his head was brought on a dish.” The house is turned into an arena, the table moves into the cage, the diners become spectators, the banquet is changed by fury: slaughter becomes food, wine passes into blood, a funeral is served up at a birthday, a setting is displayed at a rising, the banquet is changed into homicide, the instruments sound a worldly tragedy; a beast comes in, not a girl; she seeks to cut, not to dance; a wild animal, not a woman, runs about; she tosses a mane, not hair, over her neck; she stretches her limbs in contortions, grows with the increase of her savagery, becomes great in cruelty, not in body; and, a singular beast, until she seizes her prey she roars and gnashes her teeth; she does not receive the sword but brings it out. But lest anyone think that we wish to declaim about such things, we wish not to declaim but to cry out, so that the joys of your festivals may be cautious, and the celebration of your birthdays may keep measure in its rejoicing; that Christ may be present at our feasts, that we may dine in the presence of the Maker; that nature itself, which brought you forth, may be honored by the decency of the banquet; that the gladness of your table may reach the poor; that your household may rejoice in the discipline of innocence; that luxury may stay away and extravagance be put to flight; that the plague of dancing girls, the seductions of singers, the kindlings of pleasures, the burdens of the belly, the shipwrecks of minds may be cut off along with the banquets of Herodias; so that your present joy may come to everlasting gladness. Today, brothers, we have spoken not only against Herod but also against Herodias; for the hearer understands well enough how great the happiness of the martyr is when he hears the misery of the persecutor. Yet it is fitting for us to know that John was born from his death, and Herod died from his birthday.

[On St Apollinaris, bishop and martyr.] Blessed Apollinaris, first in the priesthood, alone adorned this Church of Ravenna with the native and renowned honor of martyrdom. Rightly Apollinaris, because, according to the command of his God, he lost his life here so as to find it unto eternal life. Blessed is he who so finished his course and kept the faith that he was truly found first by the believers in his place. And let no one think him, under the name of confessor, less than a martyr, whom you see, by God's will, returning daily and many times to the contest. Hear Paul saying: “I die daily” (1 Cor 15). To die once is too little for one who can often bring back to his king a glorious victory over the enemy. Not death so much as faith and devotion make a martyr; and as it is a mark of virtue to fall in the battle line, in the conflict, for love of the king, so it is a mark of perfect virtue to wage and finish contests for a long time. So the enemy did not persecute him into martyrdom, since he did not at once inflict death; but he proved him a martyr, because he did not wrest away his faith. The cunning enemy hurled what darts he could and spent every kind of his weapons; yet he could not move the mind of the bravest of leaders or violate his constancy. It is the highest thing, brothers, to despise the present life for the Lord, if necessary; but it is glorious also, while living, to despise the world and trample it with its prince. Christ hastened to the martyr, the martyr hastened to his king. We said “hastened” well, according to the prophet's word: “Rise up to meet me, and see” (Ps 59:4 [LXX 58:5]). But that holy Church might keep its champion, it ran hard to meet Christ, so that it might keep the crown for the victor's justice, and grant itself, in time of war, the presence of its warrior. The confessor often shed his blood, and by his wounds, by the faith of his mind, bore witness to his Maker. Looking up to heaven, he looked down on the flesh and the earth. Yet the still tender infancy of the Church prevailed, held him, and obtained that the martyr be held back from his desire. I say infancy, brothers, which always obtains everything, which contends more with tears than by strength. For the face and sweat of the strong cannot do as much as the tears of little ones, because there bodies are broken, here hearts; there the judgments of the mind are scarcely moved, here all kindness bends and comes down. What more, brothers? Holy mother Church acted, acted so that she should never be separated from her bishop. See, he lives; see, like a good shepherd he stands in the midst of his flock, and his spirit is never separated, though in body he went before for a time; I say went before in outward form, for he rests among us in the very dwelling of his body. The devil is extinguished, the persecutor has fallen; see, he reigns and lives who desired to be killed for his king, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for all ages of ages.

[On St Cyprian, martyr.] Since today we have gathered before God on the birthday of the holy martyr Cyprian, on which he triumphed over the devil in a wonderful contest, and since he left us a glorious example of his virtues, it is therefore fitting for us to exult and rejoice. So when you hear of the birthday of the saints, dearly beloved, do not think that the day is meant on which they are born from the flesh into the world, but the day on which they are born from earth into heaven, from labor to rest, from temptations to quiet, from torments to delights, not fleeting but strong, stable and eternal, from worldly laughter to a crown and glory. Such birthdays of the martyrs are worthily celebrated. When, then, a festival of this kind is kept, do not suppose, dearly beloved, that the birthdays of the martyrs are celebrated only with meals and more lavish banquets; rather, what you celebrate in the martyr's memory is set before you to imitate. Look, then, dearly beloved, at the eagerness of the people standing around. For on this day once a crowd of the impious stood by when holy Cyprian was struck down by order of the tyrant; there were crowds of the wicked, throngs of onlookers; now a multitude of the faithful has devoutly flocked together to rejoice together: then a crowd of the raging, now of the rejoicing; then of the hopeless, now of the hopeful. For this reason the birthdays of the martyrs are celebrated with yearly gladness, so that what was done once may remain through every age in the memory of the devout. The event took place, dearly beloved, so that you could not say you did not know it; it is celebrated yearly so that you could not say, “I have forgotten.” Rouse yourselves, then, dearly beloved, to imitate these things; desire this grace of greatness of soul; ask that what he deserved to obtain may be given to you. For all who desire heavenly things cannot be entangled in the snares of earthly goods, because they have set their way of life in heaven, as the holy Apostle says: “But our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3). Let the desire of our heart, then, be directed to the heavenly dwelling, where, when your treasure has been distributed to the poor, your heart will be also. And the treasure of all good things is Christ, who with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit may deign to heap and fill you with heavenly gifts, both now and forever.

[On the consecration of a bishop.] As the long awaiting of a great promise kindles the soul and wearies the mind, so the longed-for fulfilment of the promise rouses all the senses and the very inmost parts. Hence today, as Isaiah said (Isa 52), holy mother Church has come forth festive, all rejoicing and adorned; she has put on the tunic of her gladness, and like a bride she has set a headdress on herself and arrayed and adorned herself with varied ornament; as the sky shines with the lights of the stars and the earth blooms with its flowers, and as a garden brings forth its shoots, so she has brought forth gladness in the sight of all her sons. For, according to David's promise, “Today in place of the father a son is born to her” (Ps 45:16 [LXX 44:17]), who will not bow her down with weight, not frighten her with authority, not disturb her with agitation, not trouble her with harshness, but will support her with faithful service; who with watchful care will make her complete, with anxious labor provide what she needs, order the household with gentle instruction, go out to meet guests, serve parents, obey kings, work together with the authorities, give reverence to the old, kindness to children, love to brothers, affection to little ones, and show to all a free service through Christ. David said: “Hear, O daughter, and see” (Ps 45:10 [LXX 44:11]). I will say: Hear, O mother, and see: in place of your fathers sons are born to you. Let them be old men in prudence, fathers in gravity, sons in love, young men in strength, offspring in sweetness, infants in innocence, little ones in malice, as those who do not know the world, possessing the whole presence of the kingdom of God, as the Lord attests when he says: “Let the little ones come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19). Such sons are begotten by the union of perpetual virginity, such by the joining of heavenly life, which knows no sex, is conscious of conception, acquainted with childbirth, ignorant of corruption, whole in modesty, closed in integrity, chaste in her offspring, spread wide in fruitfulness. This so devoted mother, while she celebrates today the birthday feast of one of her offspring, opens her bosom, stretches out her embrace, lifts her voice, sings divine songs, so as to call all, take in all, enclose all in the lap of love to rejoice with her. Present too is the very mother of the everlasting and faithful Christian empire, who, while by faith, by works of mercy, by holiness in honor of the Trinity she follows and imitates the blessed Church, has deserved to bring forth, embrace and possess an august Trinity. So the Trinity rewards those who burn with love and ardor for it: she deserved to give it honor, and to rejoice that God's grace has made for her a religion like her own. She deserved that the dignity of a mother should overflow through the mother to her descendants. Pray, brothers, that the Christian princes, since with holy devotion they deign to come to meet our joys and take part in our solemnities, may likewise be commended by the devout prayer of all the bishops for a long time with equal grace.

[On God, how he is seen; on the envy and obstinacy of the Jews; and on the death of man.] We have often said that God is not seen with bodily eyes, that the Godhead is not enclosed by a carnal mind, that human reason does not grasp the Creator of things, but that faith alone reaches God, belief alone perceives him, and that man's gaze, however great it is, beholds not how great he is but that he is. In short, Moses, who is promoted from servant to friend, from man to god, seeks God's face but does not find it; he asks, but does not receive; and he is told to see only God's back (Exod 33), so that man may seek to follow God, not to go before him, and may not presume to ask what was before God, but as a worshiper may acknowledge that all things exist through God. Often God shows men the form of a man, and gathers his great greatness into the small figure of our making, so that our weak eye can behold the divine things present and our narrow sight can receive them. So God came to Abraham in the form of a man, came in the figure of a guest, and like a traveler weary to death received water on his feet (Gen 18); and invited to table, he is filled with the serving of a calf and bread; and he so entrusts and commits himself entirely to human service that by touch and sight he seems to fulfil the part of a true man, and this at the time when, being true God, he came to open the womb of the hopeless old woman's extreme barrenness and to grant offspring for birth. So he met Jacob as a fellow traveler on the road (Gen 32), and so offered himself as a companion in human fellowship that God entered wholly into the wrestling when man challenged him; and he seemed to be conquered by sinews and arms just when, as victor, he gave heavenly gifts, gave divine rewards. So Isaiah saw God seated in royal attire (Isa 6), so that he might recognize that unless kings are ruled by God the King, rulers, being men, can rule nothing. So Daniel sees God the Father, with snowy hair, in venerable old age, awesome in antiquity, surrounded by angels, seated on a fiery throne for judgment (Dan 7). So he beholds the Son of God himself coming in a son of man with the clouds of heaven, so that one might know that Christ, unknown before to so many faithless people, was always known to the faithful. If God is so often seen by men in the form of a man, why is it that the Jew, now seeing Christ as a man, is so exasperated, unless perhaps the form, the honor, the truth is thought an injury? The evangelist related today that Christ said: “If anyone keeps my word, he will not see death forever” (John 8). To this word the Jews answered: “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham our father died, and the prophets; and you say: If anyone keeps my word, he will not taste death forever. Are you greater than our father Abraham? Whom do you make yourself?” O how faithlessness received it! O how envy shuts the eyes! How much does prejudiced wickedness confound the judgment of the heart! O how harshly obstinacy cuts off reason! The perverted human mind cannot hear what it has once decided to hate; goodness is hateful to the wicked, justice an enemy to the unjust. Hence lying men cannot recognize the truth; the mind as judge cannot find what is true among the messages of falsehoods. Whoever has resolved to err always hears what he wants, not what is. Christ had said: “If anyone keeps my word, he will not see death forever.” The Jew does not examine what he heard, does not seek to interpret the words to himself, does not require that he who promises should prove what he himself thinks impossible; but at once, from what his mind has conceived, he gives birth to blasphemy, sows insults, pours out curses, and tries to empty the speaker's authority by abuse, so that he who seems so subject to human things may not be believed able to give eternal things to mortals. “Now we know that you have a demon.” A demon, the author of evil, promises evil things, not good; he is accustomed to kill, not to give life; he does not want men to be eternal whom he does not allow even to be temporal. Therefore Christ is not a demon but God, who gives back the life he had given and by his word makes men eternal whom the devil by his persuasion had made temporal. “Abraham,” they say, “died, and the prophets; and you say: If anyone keeps my word, he will not see death forever.” Let the believer hear, so that by the revelation of faith he may know what the unbeliever cannot hear, what one who has sunk himself in the darkness of unbelief cannot see. Christ said: “He will not see death.” Your obstinacy, Jew, rightly seeks to call it a falsehood. Abraham and the prophets, hearing the word, kept it firmly, and yet they died, but not forever. So when he says, “He will not see death,” and adds “forever,” he promises resurrection; he does not deny that they will die in time. Jew, those whom death made not to be in the present age, resurrection restores to everlasting being in the future. Hear him say this more openly: “Everyone who believes will not die forever, but will pass from death to life” (John 5 and 11). How does he not die? Because he passes from death to life. Everyone who is born of the mortal condition dies, then, he dies; but everyone who is reborn of the life-giving generation lives, and lives forever. But I ask: he who could take away death, why did he want man to pass through death? For the physician who anticipates diseases seems more welcome than the one who applies a late and not painless remedy to diseases. Jew, Christ the physician would have done this too, if the sick man had not been ungrateful to the physician. He both gave life and foretold to man that death would come; but he who had not experienced adversity did not know how to keep prosperity. We cannot know how good good things are except by the knowledge of evils. Therefore Christ will be magnified, who both gave life before it was lived in and now gives back the life that was lost; and man, more aware of life, will be more careful of himself and more grateful to his Maker. “Are you greater,” they say, “than our father Abraham?” Plainly greater, and as much greater as the master than the servant, God than man, the maker than the thing made, the one who gives life than the dead, the one who raises than the one raised. “Jesus answered: Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” To show that Abraham lives, he said that he saw his day, that is, the day on which Christ was born to the world. The Maker of days is not held by a day, the Author of time does not know times; but Christ, born a man for man's sake, took on both a day and time. “Abraham rejoiced to see my day.” If Moses and Elijah come on the mountain to see the promised Christ, how would Abraham not come to the Virgin's childbirth, so that, most patient in his waiting, he might look upon the blessing promised among the nations, that is, in his offspring? “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” If “all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made” (John 1), and this is he to whom the Father said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness” (Gen 1), how did Abraham not see him? “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” As the substance of an angel and of God is different, so is the image. Therefore the Father speaks only to the Son when he says, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” since they have the same image and the same substance. “They took up stones to throw at him.” Like those building the tower so as to fall from a greater height, they provided stones for themselves; and these wretches brought stones not to kill God but with which to kill themselves. “Jesus hid himself.” Not fearing, but forgiving: when God flees the sinner he spares him; when God turns aside he does not want to destroy the rebel.

[On the unity of the faithful.] If nature brought forth and produced all things perfect, sturdy, and needing nothing, kindness would surely be abolished, ingenuity would fail, skill would perish, gold would stay dark in the earth, the gem hidden in the stone: yet the craftsman's training finds both, cleans them, separates them, polishes them; and the same skill brings them to the beauty and grace of a precious necklace. And what the earth produces from nature's ample spring either grows rough with briars or turns into forest under the rule of wild luxuriance, unless the farmer's skilled industry calls it back to cultivation. And not to wander further, let us bring forward one homely example of what we are striving for. A man newly born in the cradle is already a man in the man, but hidden; there is a body, and there is not; limbs are seen, and they are not; things live that have no strength of sense; kindness bends down, industry sweats, skill labors; and to say it more fully, as many limbs as a man has, so many trainings work to bring the man to perfection. What more? All that nature begets or produces, kindness nourishes, industry cultivates, skill adorns. And what wonder, brothers, if God, who willed to suffer for man, willed nature too to be weak in present things so as to honor human industry? Hence the meaning lies hidden in the letter, the divine mystery is concealed in human speech, so that things to come, already open to believers, may be obscured to the faithless and unbelieving, and so the punishment of the unbelievers may overflow into the glory of the faithful. For it is no small torment not to perceive what one sees, not to understand what one hears, to shun saving things as harmful, to beware of virtues as if they were vices, as the Lord himself says: “I speak in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear” (Mark 4; Luke 8); and to the faithful: “But to you it has been given to know the mystery of God” (Matt 13). Let no one, then, brothers, regard the word of the Gospel as common or cheap because of its simplicity, especially since the very trumpet of the Gospel reading, sounding forth, has foretold that nothing is to be denied to those who ask well and desire devoutly, saying: “If two of you agree on earth about anything whatever that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father” (Matt 18). You have heard how much the agreement of a holy petition can do and prevail: he did not say this or that, but promises that he will grant whatever the unity of petition desires, when he says: “About anything whatever that they ask, it will be done for them.” Yet with this caution and reverence kept, that things worthy of God are asked of God; for whoever asks evil things of God judges and thinks God the author of evil; and because he prays for cheap and unworthy things, the degenerate petitioner does not know the power and might of the giver. Not impious things, then, but holy; not earthly, but heavenly; not things fitting for allurements, but for virtue; not things worthy of hatred, but suited to concord, are always to be begged from such a giver. Where are those who presume that the assembly of the Church can be despised, and claim that solitary prayers are to be preferred to the venerable congregation, if he promises that he will be in the midst of two or three gathered together, and will grant all that he is asked (Matt 18)? He who denies nothing to so few, what will he deny to those who ask in the councils and congregation of the saints? So believing, the prophet boasts of having obtained this when he says: “I will confess to you, Lord, with my whole heart, in the council of the just and the congregation” (Ps 111:1 [LXX 110:1]). He confesses with his whole heart who hears that all he has asked will be granted him in the council of the saints. But some, under a show of faith, try to excuse the sloth of their contempt; neglecting their ardor for the venerable gathering and congregation, they pretend that they have set aside for prayer the time they have given and spent on household cares; and while they are enslaved to their own desires they despise and look down on divine ordinances. These are the ones who scatter the body of Christ and disperse its members, and do not let the form of the Lord's appearance come to its beauty, which the prophet, when he saw it in the Spirit, sang thus: “Beautiful in form above the sons of men” (Ps 45:2 [LXX 44:3]). Each member has indeed its own proper office; yet they can fulfil it only if, joined and fitted together, they come to the beauty of a perfect body. This, then, is the difference between the glorious fullness of the congregation and the vanity of separation presumed out of ignorance or negligence: in the health and honor of a whole body the unity of the members is beautiful, and in the separation of the organs there is foul, deadly and horrible ruin. Man, what else did your own body teach you, by a joining so divided or a division so joined, except that you should live as one out of many, and one in many? The eye is precious in the saving exchange of the members, but only if it stays in the body; otherwise, where it is lacking to the body, it will not be present to itself: all the members owe it the service of their light; but the eye itself feels that it owes to the body the fact that it is light; for though it provides the service of the members to all the members, torn from the body it does not even see. Whoever thinks himself to be something, taught by such an example, let him remain in the Church so that he may be something; otherwise, where the Church is lacking to him, he at once ceases to be anything to himself. Whoever wants to know this more fully, let him read through the Apostle's teaching when he speaks of the body of Christ (1 Cor 12), since the brevity that befits a sermon does not allow us to run through it. The law was given not to one but to all; Christ came not for one nor to one, but to all and for all, so as to restore all into one; the prophet, foreknowing the future, so proclaims this one good, this one delight: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity” (Ps 133:1 [LXX 132:1]). For it is not singularity that is acceptable to God, but unity. The Holy Spirit pours down with the whole abundance of his spring upon the apostles gathered together (Acts 2), and the disciples had been admonished by the Lord's command to await his coming together. Brothers, he loses the divine gifts, forfeits the bounty of grace, is cheated of the goods of love, and the blessing of unity will not remain with him who, harmful to himself and foolishly self-sufficient out of his own deficiency, seeks life outside the Church, which the prophet testifies is only in it, saying: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity” (Ps 133:1 [LXX 132:1]), “for there the Lord commanded blessing and life forever.”

[On St Andrew the apostle.] Blessed Andrew is rightly believed to have been born today, since he is known to have been begotten, not when he was poured out of his mother's womb into the present life, but by the conception of faith and the childbirth of martyrdom, for heavenly glory; since today no mother's cradle received him wailing, but the secret places above received him triumphant; since today he does not draw the weak nourishment of milk from his mother's breast, but, a most devoted soldier, he shed the blood of virtue for his king. He lives, because the warrior of the heavenly army has slain death. Here by dying he follows his Lord, burning and panting, and with the whole step of his virtue he strives to cling to the Lord's footsteps, so that his course may not make him unequal to his brother, whom nature had made like him, the call a companion, and grace itself an equal. At the one word of the Lord, like him, he left father, homeland and property; in labors, reproaches, journeys, insults, watchings, by Christ's gift, he gave himself tirelessly to fellowship with his brother: it is only that at the time of the Lord's passion he fled; but not even in this was he unequal, because he fled. If denying is thought a fault, fleeing is not graver than denying. But other things must be passed over: pardon made equal, brothers, those whom fault had so separated. And the fervor of martyrdom that followed fully proved devoted those whom the earlier fear had found wanting. For the cross they had fled they afterward ardently seized with joined strength, so that from the place where they had taken on guilt they might ascend to heaven, and from there receive the reward and the crown. For Peter mounted a cross, Andrew a tree, so that those who longed to suffer with Christ might express in themselves the figure and form of his passion, and, redeemed by the wood, might be brought to the palm. So our Andrew, though he yields in order, does not yield in reward and labor.

[On St Felicity, martyr.] Since time does not allow us to count up the various and manifold triumphs of the martyrs, which the cruelty of the persecutor, so often mocked, has heaped up, the whole speech of our sermon takes refuge in her who deserved to have as many sons as the days the world received. Truly a mother of lights, a spring of days, who shines throughout the world with the sevenfold brightness of her offspring. Blessed is she who not only suffered for the law, but deserved, as a holy mother, to bring forth the very seven-branched lamp of the law: a seven-branched lamp, brothers, that would not light up the secret place of a single, temporary tabernacle but would illumine the everlasting Church with sacred fire. Happy is she who deserved to carry as many pledges of virtue as the volumes of the commandments that the ark carried (Exod 25), so that as the ark taught by word, she might teach by example. Even then, brothers, she bore them as martyrs, when she consecrated her childbearing by the mystical number seven. Let holy Paul come here, here, who is still in labor until Christ is formed in man (Gal 4). See, a woman is in labor again and again until weakness is changed into strength, flesh passes over into spirit, earth is carried over into heaven. She burned, she panted to bring forth in one day as holy martyrs those whom she had hardly brought forth as little ones over the course of years. See the woman, see the mother, whom the life of her sons made anxious, their death secure. Blessed is she, beside whom in the future glory stand as many lampstands as she had offspring; blessed is she who sent so many ahead to the kingdom; more blessed, who lost nothing of her own in this world. She ran about more gladly among the pierced bodies than among her sons' dear cradles, because with inward eyes she saw as many prizes as wounds; as many torments, so many rewards; as many victims, so many crowns. What more, brothers? She is not, she is not a true mother who does not know how to love her sons like this.

[On St Lawrence.] Today is made illustrious by the crown of the baptism of the martyr Lawrence, whose merits as an outstanding martyr no part of the Roman world is unaware of. He suffered in the very capital of the nations, that is, in the city of Rome itself. There he served as deacon, and in the very flower of his youth he made the beauty of his youth purple with his blood. His passion is famous and very wonderful; with the Lord's help I will tell it briefly. Blessed Sixtus was bishop when he was archdeacon, and Sixtus's triumph in martyrdom was three days before. When holy Lawrence, then, was following his bishop Sixtus on his way to martyrdom, strong in faith but sad in affection, not because Sixtus was suffering but because he himself was being left behind by him, the venerable old man looked back at the venerable young man and said to him: “Do not be sad, son; after three days you will follow me.” Then Lawrence drank in the prophecy; already most ready in heart, drunk with the Spirit, he hoped for as certain the future that one who knew had foretold. Then he was seized and brought in; and since he was archdeacon, the wealth of the Church was believed to be with him, which the persecutor desired, not so much from greed as from fury. He hated the man he was killing, but he loved in him what the man despised. Holy Lawrence was poor in riches, rich in character: he did not deny that he had the Church's riches, but to show them he asked for a delay of three days, and then had crowds of the poor gathered. Then, on the very day of his crown, brought before the court as if to show what the persecutor sought, he showed what he had. Then the persecutor said: “Where are the Church's goods?” And he, stretching out his hand toward the poor, said: “These are the Church's goods.” He spoke the truth, but a bitter truth. What wonder if truth increased hatred? The cruel tyrant and greedy enemy, smarting at being mocked, who had perhaps thought of a milder punishment, of killing the venerable young man with the sword, ordered flames to be prepared; he burned more than he was burned: Lawrence was burned in the flesh, the persecutor burned in his heart. His punishment was the heavier the more inward it was. Then was brought that noble gridiron of Lawrence, for roasting, or to speak more truly, for cooking him to martyrdom: he was bound to the iron, but he thought the gridiron of punishment a bed of rest; I said “punishment” according to the mind of the one punishing, not according to the conscience of the one suffering. For there is no punishment for the condemned where there is no penalty of sin. So the most blessed martyr, showing how quietly he lay on that fiery iron, said to those standing around: “Turn me over now, and if one side is done, eat.” Let us marvel at the patience; let us marvel at the gift of God. There faith not only did not burn, but even comforted the one burning. Why did faith comfort the one burning? Because it held the faithful one who promises. That faith might not fail, that hope might not be turned aside, that love might be more inflamed amid the fiery bodily punishments: these were God's gifts. My brothers, let no one claim for his own power what only God gives. Rightly the Apostle, speaking to martyrs, as you heard when his Epistle was read today, says: “To you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him” (Phil 1). Therefore let us praise the merits of the martyrs as gifts of God; let us love them, pray, and submit our will. For the will follows; it does not go before. Yet love is not lacking if the will is not lacking; for the ardent will itself is called love. Who is there that fears when he wills? Who is there that loves when he does not will? Let prayer be fervent, and let the martyr's feast be celebrated: but so that he who celebrates may not be empty, let him imitate.

[On Adelphus the bishop.] The holy mind and condescension, full of kindness, of the bishop Adelphus has this about it: that a rich man enters a poor man's lodging, sits down at a poor man's table, and makes himself one with the lowly, he whom riches, power and honor have made and rendered singular. For this willingness must be counted among the greatest virtues, which, scorning the pride of its retinue, despising the regard due to a magnificent house, trampling even the height of its own power, and casting off the inner awareness of its wealth, from which the greatest swelling always rules in human minds, has bent down to the meanest straits of poverty in order to raise up a poor man by its company. Plainly blessed is this mind, far from every disease of arrogance, which entered a poor man's lodging so that it might first be a debtor of humanity before being its giver. Clearly it was eager to imitate God, who first received human services in his body before granting divine benefits to man. This we see Adelphus, the bishop of God most high, here present, has done: though he is rich in word, abundant in knowledge, great in talent, first in rank, he has desired to hear our poor thought and middling eloquence, like that prophet who hungered for the widow's last food and pressed her little ones' straits with his own hunger, putting off a new ministry by his request, so that by asking he might give, by hungering he might fill, and by draining it he might heap up the barn of the needy with divine bounty (1 Kgs 17 [3 Kgdms 17]). And we, little children, do not regret having given what we had: for though the deed disturbed us for a time, the example lifts us up and consoles us. Quickly, at the word of this man of God, the smallness of our talent, like that widow's food, will advance with heavenly increase; and from now on, from the store of our heart, the substance of life will not fail, but poverty itself and want will be abolished. Happy the vein that is enriched by its own watering and draws in and acquires the whole abundance of its own well. See, he has come, and a heavenly rain has poured into your lofty minds, and with the whole rush of the river from above has watered by its flowing the city of God which is in you, so that our earth, soaked with divine dew, may be made fruitful even to a hundredfold. Open your senses, enlarge your hearts, and stretch out the lap of your minds, so that whatever he pours out generously to you from heavenly treasures you may possess for eternal glory and as a lasting wealth.

[On the preaching of St John the Baptist.] After the fertility of the Jewish soil had been exhausted by the plowshare of the law and continual cultivation, blessed John, flying to the desert of the nations, burning up the thorns of crimes with the fire of the Spirit, cutting down unfruitful trees with the axe of vengeance, leveling the rough hills of pride, raising the valleys of humility to an even level, and fitting the whole plain of the earth (its wild growth destroyed), bringing in the nourishing waters of the Jordan, so prepares broad new fields for the Gospel seed and makes them fruitful. “The word of the Lord came,” it says, “upon John the son of Zechariah in the desert” (Luke 3). “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1). “Upon John”? Why not “to John,” but “upon John”? Because “he who is from above is above all.” “The word of the Lord came upon John.” Because John is the voice, God the Word. “The word of the Lord came upon John”: God upon John, the Lord upon the servant, the word upon the voice. But you say to me: “What of the fact that the voice goes before the word?” It goes before, but it does not excel; it goes ahead to serve the one who follows, not to show its own power. The voice is not itself the judge, but the messenger of the one who judges: the word judges, the voice thunders beforehand; power belongs to the one who commands, not to the one who cries out. But let the voice itself, the herald himself, who cries out, confess, testify and assert this: “He who comes after me,” he says, “is mightier than I” (Matt 3). Why? Because in me is terror, in him the sentence. “He came into all the region of the Jordan.” He came to the Jordan, because a water jar could no longer wash the Jewish filth, but a river could, as it is written: “There were stone water jars for the purification of the Jews” (John 2). He came to the Jordan, so that water, not wine, might carry the penitent. “He came into all the region of the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” With John there was pardon, but not without repentance; there was remission, but bought with mourning; there was care of the wound, but with pain; there was a baptism that took away fault but did not wipe out conscience. What more? By John's baptism a man was purified for repentance; he was not advanced to grace. But Christ's baptism so regenerates, so changes, so makes a man new from old that he knows nothing of the past and does not remember former things, since from being earthly he now possesses heavenly and divine things. Hence the father gives back to the son returning after his debauchery the first robe of immortality, puts on him the ring of freedom, kills the fatted calf, and turns the waters of repentance into the wine of grace, so that the banquet of grace might now satisfy with unmixed cups (Luke 15): so that the sober drunkenness of the Lord's cup might blot out the pains of conscience, the groans of repentance, the laments of sins, as the prophet says: “And your cup that inebriates, how splendid it is!” (Ps 23:5 [LXX 22:5]). For as much as earthly drunkenness is ugly, so much is heavenly drunkenness splendid and becoming. “He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him: Brood of vipers, who showed you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say: We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. For even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” “Brood of vipers.” He rebukes by example, marks by comparison, exposes by figure, so that he may now change not only the conduct but the very nature of the poisonous offspring. “Brood of vipers.” Because those whom God had created men and made children of Abraham, malice had given birth to and turned into vipers; and those whom the heavenly Creator had filled with the sweetness of kindness, bitter impiety had made pour out deadly vomit and serpent's venom, and, with an unspeakable omen of cruelty, be conceived from the death of a father and born from the death of a mother. “Brood of vipers”: offspring ungrateful to nature, whose rising is the destruction of the begetter, whose life is the death of the parent. “Brood of vipers.” The viper, it is said, at the time of conception bites off the head of her mate when it has been received into her mouth, so that through bloody kisses she conceives not offspring but a crime, as if she bore sons to be executioners of her own wickedness, by the order of vengeance, not of nature. For the brood of the father, conceived from slaughter, demand the nourishment of blood before that of milk, and seek vengeance; for the young vipers are said to tear open their mother's womb, and to break, while their bodies are still unripe, with ripe fury, the wicked dwelling of their conception, so that for them to live means not to see their mother, the mother who bore them such. We have been compelled to describe more broadly the type and figure of the comparison that holy John made, so that it may be seen to be a matter of truth, not of abuse, that the Jews are so named by him. “Brood of vipers.” He shows, brothers, that the synagogue and her sons were such, to whom Christ came with the affection of a husband, as John says: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom” (John 3): amid the embraces and bloody kisses of Judas, the head of Christ was sought, and demanded by mouth, when it was said: “Crucify, crucify” (John 19). Hence the offspring conceived in blood are soon armed for their mother's destruction, so that, the synagogue's womb burst open, they ran together at John's voice and were reborn as God's offspring. “Brood of vipers, who showed you to flee from the wrath to come?” What is this wrath to come? That which has no end, which does not release a man by death but binds him; which no longer allows hope of pardon to one it has once assigned to the punishment of Tartarus. So warned, they recognize both their kind and their crime, and so they answered, saying: “What shall we do to be saved?” He answered and said to them… What he is about to say, brothers, I am afraid to say, lest he make as many people stubborn as I see despisers among my hearers today. What shall I do? I am afraid to speak; I cannot be silent: kindness forbids me one thing, usefulness drives me to the other: kindness, lest the hearer incur guilt by despising it; usefulness, lest one who would do it should not hear it, and the teacher give offense by that. I say it, brothers, so that the naked may clothe himself, and I strip myself. “Whoever has two tunics,” he says, “let him give to one who has none; and whoever has food, let him do likewise.” Do you think he asks enough who asks for one tunic out of two? He does not ask enough, because he does not ask for a gem but a tunic, not gold but bread. And if someone who does not give one tunic out of two is guilty, what is he who refuses one out of many, who imprisons his clothes and locks up his bread so that the poor man perishes of hunger and is consumed by cold? He buries his clothes, he does not store them; he entrusts them not to care but to tombs; what he denies the poor he gives to moths; and he himself in his clothes is a devourer of a body, as the Lord says: “Their worm shall not die” (Isa 66), because the poor man's hunger struck Christ; the pain of a man of God leapt to his inmost parts; the captive's groan penetrated Christ's heart; contempt for the needy overflowed into an injury to his Creator, as he himself declares when he says: “I was hungry and you did not give me to eat; I was naked and you did not clothe me” (Matt 25). “Tax collectors also came, saying: What shall we do?” Let the tax collectors hear: “Ask for nothing more than what is appointed you.” He has shown what makes a tax collector guilty: “Ask for no more.” He who asks for more is a collector of fraud, not of tax: let them consider how guilty before God is the one who strips the exhausted and oppressed, oppresses and wears him down more and more by his fraud, and on one scarcely able to pay what is due imposes and increases what is not due. “Soldiers also came, saying.” Let soldiers too hear what this teacher answered soldiers when they asked: “And what shall we do? And he said to them: Do not extort from anyone, nor accuse falsely; be content with your wages.” He is a true soldier who does not extort but defends; who does not bring false accusation but repels it; who runs to the king's pay, not who runs to plunder. Blessed John taught divine things in such a way as not to disturb human things: he set the state in order, he did not overturn it; he proved that what he taught was ordained by God, and that one can do and keep justice. As for the difference between John's baptism and Christ's baptism, since it must be explained more broadly, we are silent now.

[On peace.] It would have been better, dearest brothers, if our common father and teacher had let our lack of skill stay hidden, and had not made public the poverty which till now has been covered in us by the veil of our own modesty. It would have been better if he who abounds so richly in the spiritual riches of doctrine had not demanded the toll of a slender word from a poor man's little boat. For what could a needy man confer on the rich, a stranger on citizens, a rustic and unlearned man on scholars? Yet since we are compelled to obey his orders, the same reason of humility that seems to excuse us compels us to speak, compels us to obey. What is it, then, O devout people of the Lord, that we, however poor and however unlearned, yet fittingly offer you? Peace, without doubt, which our Lord Jesus Christ bids us offer to every house as we enter (Luke 10); hence we too, at the beginning of our greeting, prayed from the Lord for it for you; it is always to be had and always to be prayed for: not that faithless and unstable peace of this world, which is either sought for advantage or kept out of fear, but the peace of Christ, which, according to the saying of the apostle Paul, surpasses all understanding and guards the hearts of believers (Phil 4); a peace that is nourished at the fruitful breasts of love; a peace that is the nursling of faith, the pillar of justice; a peace that is a fit pledge of future hope; a peace that unites those present and invites the absent; a peace that reconciles earthly things with heavenly and human with divine; for so the Apostle says: that our Lord Jesus Christ has made peace through his blood, not only for the things on earth but also for those in heaven (Col 1). These things, then, dearest ones, a traveling stranger has set out for you according to the means of his poor provisions, expecting rather to be fed together with you at the table of a powerful teacher with abundant and plentiful dishes. May the God of peace, who joined earthly things to heavenly, grant us to think the same things toward one another and to rejoice in full unanimity, through Christ our Lord, through whom be glory to God the Father almighty for ages of ages. Amen.

[On forgiving a brother's offense.] As gold lies hidden in the earth, so divine meaning is concealed in human words; and so, as often as the Lord's sayings are opened to us, let the mind be awake and the soul attentive, so that understanding may enter the secret of heavenly knowledge. Let us hear why the Lord began as he did today. “Take heed to yourselves,” he says (Luke 17). What does this new way of speaking mean? Where does this unusual warning tend? “Take heed to yourselves,” he says. He takes heed to himself who does not, importunate, shameless and curious, turn his attention to others' actions. “Take heed to yourselves,” he says. The roving eye, the lustful look, the shameless glance does not look at its own ruin, but runs and runs down to others' falls; blind to its own crimes, it sees clearly the errors of others; ignorant of its own evils, it is accuser and witness of others'; lukewarm toward its own guilt, it flames and blazes in examining another, even an innocent one. In short, as the Lord said: the eye that does not see the beam in itself sees the speck in another (Matt 7). Is not the eye the author of transgression? “And the woman saw,” it says, “that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eyes to look at” (Gen 3). The door of death, the torch of envy, the furnace of spite runs through others' affairs with the whole blaze of desire more swiftly than fire runs through dry and earthy grass. It is God's doing that the eye, opened so wide toward the world, is narrowed into a tiny pupil, so that it may see what it sees with moderation, not envy; foresee, not snatch; look forward, not look down; let the eye be the window of the soul, the mirror of the mind, the light of the body, the guide of the members, not the entrance of vices. But let us return to what was said first. “Take heed to yourselves,” he says. He said “yourselves,” not “yourself,” because whatever a man notes in another he notes for himself; and as much as he sees in another, another will see in him, as is clear from what follows: “If your brother sins against you,” he says, “rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.” Come, man, at God's command forgive, forgive sins: be merciful to offenses, be the remitter of sins committed against you; only do not lose in yourself the insignia of divine power; whatever you do not remit in another, you will deny to yourself in another. “If your brother sins against you,” he says, “rebuke him.” Rebuke as judge, forgive as brother, for love joined to freedom of speech and freedom mixed with love both checks terror and raises up the brother. A brother is in a fever when he wounds; he is in a frenzy against his neighbor when he offends; he is not himself, he is a stranger to humanity. Whoever does not help such a one by compassion, does not cure him by patience, does not heal him by pardon, is not healthy; he is sick, infirm, he has no heart, and he shows himself a stranger to human feeling. Your brother rages: ascribe it to sickness, help him as a brother; ascribe what is done to fever, and you will not be able to charge the offense to your brother; you will wisely lay the fault on the illness and give the brother pardon, so that his health may come back to your glory, his pardon overflow to your reward. “If your brother sins against you,” he says, “rebuke him; if he repents, forgive him.” Let no one, hearing this, take the role of censor to himself while excusing himself, and with empty presumption put on a character against the offending brother, and so think it hard to forgive offenses. Let a man consider that he is a sinner, that he will sin: and then he begins to love pardon, not to love vengeance. You hear that you ought to forgive, and you do not hear that you ought to be forgiven? You will sin against him tomorrow who sinned against you today; and he will be your judge who was before your offender, and he will give you pardon if you gave it; if you did not, he will either deny pardon or, if he gives it, he will reproach you more than he grants. Forgive the sinner, forgive the penitent, so that when you have sinned pardon may be repaid you, not merely given. Pardon is always good, but sweetest when it is owed. He has conquered punishment, forestalled the judge, escaped judgment, who by forgiving has provided pardon for himself before he offends. “And if he sins against you seven times in a day,” he says, “and turns back to you seven times in a day, saying, I repent, you shall forgive him.” Why does he bind pardon by law, narrow it by number, enclose it with a limit, when he so urges it through mercy and relaxes it through grace? If seven times, what if eight? Does number conquer grace? Does a calculation stand against goodness? Does one fault hand over to punishment one whom seven offenses have already given pardon? Far from it. For as happy is the one who forgave seven times, so happier is the one who forgave seventy times seven. Peter, not remembering this command, asks the Lord, saying: “If my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Seven times?” (Matt 18). The Lord answered: “Not only seven times, but seventy times seven.” The prescribed number, then, does not narrow pardon but widens it; and what it limits by precept it leaves without limit to free choice, so that if you forgive as much as he commanded, it counts as obedience, as reward. But the number seven, which seems a small number, is found most ample in mystery: for the number seven, going through the days, makes the sabbath, which the Lord blessed and appointed for rest both from his work and from human labor. The number seven running through weeks of days so multiplies weeks by seven that it brings to completion for us Pentecost, fulfilled in the solemnity of its mystery, and then pours out with a heavenly sound the whole shower of the Holy Spirit on the Church's harvest. The number seven, when it hastens through months, consecrates for us the feasts of the seventh month with the whole holiness of fasting (Lev 23). The number seven, when it goes through years, makes weeks of years, makes the year that gives rest to the land and looses all the bonds of a brother's obligation (Deut 15). The number seven, when it goes round weeks of years, brings the fiftieth year, which is called the jubilee, to the whole fullness of pardon and remission (Lev 25), so that slavery may be taken away and freedom return; so that the records and memorials of bonds may be torn up; the debtor may rise again and the debt be buried; the poor man's field may return and the whole contract made by the rich man's greed may perish. And if the number seven, multiplied by seven through days, months and years, brought all this remission and pardon, let the Christian hearer consider and notice what the number seven, multiplied seventy times seven, can bring. Then truly will the contract of loan and debt cease, then truly will the whole condition of slavery be abolished, then that, that freedom without end will come, then the eternal field will return to live forever. True remission will come, it will come, when even the very necessity of sinning is abolished, when, impurity perishing, the world will truly be called clean, when, life returning, there will be no death, when, Christ reigning, the devil will perish. Pray, brothers, that the Lord may increase our faith, so that we may be able to believe, see and hold these good things.

[On the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.] Let the gaze of our eyes now be pure enough to look upon the brightness of the divine birth: for if the full health and clarity of our eyes can scarcely bear the radiance of the rising sun, how great a purity of inner sight must be prepared to bear the splendor of its Author as he rises and shines? “In the sixth month,” it says, “the angel Gabriel was sent to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph” (Luke 1). The holy evangelist marks the place, the time, the person, so that the truth of the account may be proved by clear evidence of the facts themselves. “The angel was sent,” it says, “to a virgin betrothed.” God sends a winged bearer to the Virgin: for he who brings grace gives the pledge and receives the dowry; he who soon releases the pledge of the Virgin's consent carries back her troth and hands over the gifts of virtue. The swift messenger flies to the bride, to keep and hold back from God's bride the affection of a human betrothal, not to take the Virgin from Joseph but to give her back to Christ, to whom she was pledged in the womb when she was being formed. So Christ receives his own bride; he does not snatch another's; nor does he make a separation when he joins to himself his whole creature in one body. But let us hear what the angel did. “Coming in to her, he says: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” In this word there is an offering, the offering of a gift, not the simple courtesy of a greeting. “Hail”: that is, receive grace. Do not tremble, do not be anxious about nature. “Full of grace”: because in others there is grace, but in you the whole fullness of grace will come together. “The Lord is with you.” Why is the Lord with you? Because he comes to you not with the purpose of visiting you, but enters into you by a new mystery of being born. He fittingly added: “Blessed are you among women.” Because in that same womb where cursed Eve was punished, blessed Mary now rejoices, is honored, is looked up to. And she who by nature had become the mother of the dying has now become truly by grace the mother of the living. “When she heard this, she was troubled at his word.” Why is it that she sees the person and is troubled at the word? Because the angel had come gentle in appearance, strong in war, mild in bearing, terrible in speech, uttering human things, promising divine. Hence the hearing greatly troubled the Virgin whom the sight had slightly stirred; and the authority of the one who sent him shook her with its whole weight, whom the presence of the one sent had moved little. What more? At once she felt that the Judge above was being received within her, where she had first seen and contemplated the heavenly one who prepares his lodging. For although God by a gentle movement and holy affection was turning the Virgin into his mother, the Lord turning the handmaid into his parent, yet her inmost parts were troubled, her mind shrank back, her very condition trembled, when God, whom all creation cannot hold, received and placed himself wholly within a human breast. “And the Virgin,” it says, “was considering what this greeting might be.” Let your charity notice, as we said, that the Virgin assented to a greeting not of words but of realities, and that the voice was not one of common courtesy but was the whole force of power from above. So the Virgin considers, because to answer quickly belongs to human levity, but to consider belongs to the greatest weight and most mature judgment. He knows too little how great God is who is not amazed at this Virgin's mind and does not marvel at her soul: heaven trembles, angels quake, creation cannot bear it, nature does not suffice, and one girl so takes God into her breast, receives him, delights him with hospitality, that as rent for the house itself and as payment for her very womb she obtains peace for the earth, glory for heaven, salvation for the lost, life for the dead, kinship of earthly with heavenly beings, the commerce of God himself with flesh, and fulfils the prophet's word: “Behold, the inheritance of the Lord is sons, the reward the fruit of the womb” (Ps 127:3 [LXX 126:3]). But let the sermon now close, so that, God granting and time allowing, we may speak more pleasingly of the Virgin's childbirth. [Sermon 141. On the Incarnation of Christ.] How secret is the king's chamber, with what reverence and trembling is the place regarded where the ruler's very power rests; how access to it is open and permitted to no stranger, to no unclean person, to no faithless one; how clean, how chaste, how faithful are the services that wait there: this is taught by the manifest insignia of the imperial court. What base person, what unworthy person comes near the very doors of the palace? Certainly no one is admitted to the bridegroom's bedchamber unless he is very near, very intimate, of good conscience, of praiseworthy reputation, of approved life. But within the bedchamber itself God takes the Virgin alone; untouched virginity alone is received. Hence, O man, warned by these examples, weigh who you are, how great you are, what sort you are, and only then consider whether you can penetrate the secret of the Lord's birth, whether you deserve to come to the chamber of that breast where the whole majesty of the King above, of the Godhead, rests; whether you ought, as a rash examiner, to look into the Virgin's conception with human eyes and bodily senses; whether you can, as a bold and curious arbiter, look on the very hands of God working within the mother's womb the holy temple of his body, lay bare to your gaze the mystery hidden for ages, reveal to yourself the mystery invisible to the angels themselves; and so preside over the heavenly building as to grasp clearly how God entered the inner chamber of closed flesh, how in that venerable womb he painted the features of the holy body without the Virgin's knowledge, how without the awareness of the one conceiving he made firm bones that would last for ages; how, beyond the order of man, he produced the true form of a man; how, beyond the concern of the flesh, he assumed the whole reality of flesh; by what reason, beyond the nature of our flesh, he took up its whole quality? And if free access to these things is not open to you, could God not now take from flesh what in the beginning he took from mud? Rather, since everything is possible to God, and it is not possible for you to attain even the least of God's works, do not examine the Virgin's conception, but believe it; think reverently that God willed to be born, for you do an injury if you inquire; receive by faith the great mystery of the Lord's birth, for without faith you will not be able to attain even the least of God's works, as Scripture says: “All his works are in faith” (Ps 33:4 [LXX 32:4]). But here you want everything to rest on reason, where everything rests on faith; which nevertheless does not stand without reason, but by God's reason, not yours, O man. What is so reasonable as that God can do whatever he wills? He who cannot do what he wills is not God. So what God commands, the angel carries out, the Spirit fulfils, power accomplishes, the Virgin believes, nature receives, the heavens tell, the firmament announces, the stars show, the magi proclaim, the shepherds worship, the beasts recognize, as the prophet attests: “The ox knows its owner, and the ass its Lord's manger” (Isa 1). You, man, if you do not recognize him at once with the angels, recognize him at least very late with the beasts, lest while you delay you be placed after the very beasts to which you were once compared. See, the beasts fawn with their tails, wag their ears, lick with their tongues, and with what movement they can confess that their Maker has come, against nature, into your nature; and you, with the Jews, examine and carp, they who shut out from their lodgings their Lord whom the beasts received in their mangers. So if at last you will give a devout hearing at least to angels, accept, if not happily then at least worthily, what is to be said by the angel: which a sermon necessary enough for you compels us, holy brothers, to put off today and relate in the next sermon.

[On the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.] You have heard today, dearest brothers, an angel dealing with a woman about the restoration of man. You have heard it arranged that man should return to life by the same courses by which he had slipped into death. The angel deals, he deals with Mary about salvation, because an angel had dealt with Eve about ruin. You have heard an angel building with unspeakable art, out of the clay of our flesh, a temple for the divine majesty. You have heard God placed on earth and man in heaven by an incomprehensible mystery. You have heard God and man mingled in one body in an unheard-of way. You have heard the frail nature of our flesh strengthened by the angel's encouragement to bear the whole glory of the Godhead. Finally, so that the fine sand of our body might not give way under so great a weight of the heavenly building in Mary, and the slender rod in the Virgin that was to bear the fruit of the whole human race might not break, the angel's voice at once went before to put fear to flight, saying: “Do not fear, Mary” (Luke 1). Before the cause, the Virgin's dignity is announced by her name: for Mary in the Hebrew language is called in Latin “lady”; the angel therefore calls her lady, so that the trembling of servitude may leave the mother of the Lord, whom the very authority of her offspring caused and obtained to be born and to be called lady. “Do not fear, Mary, for you have found grace.” It is true: whoever has found grace does not know how to fear. “You have found grace.” With whom? With God. Blessed is she who alone among men deserved to hear this above all. “You have found grace.” How much? As much as he had said above: full. And truly full, since it was to pour on and into the whole creation in a plentiful shower. “For you have found grace with God.” When he says this, the angel himself marvels either that a woman alone, or that all men through a woman, have deserved life: the angel is astonished that the whole God comes within the narrow limits of a virgin's womb, God to whom the whole creation together is narrow. Hence the angel lingers, hence he calls the Virgin by her merit, addresses her by grace, scarcely reveals the cause to her as she listens, so as to bring her understanding forward, and settles her only after long trembling. Consider, brothers, with what reverence, with what trembling it befits and suits us to take part in so great a mystery, when the angel himself dispels the hearer's fear not without fear. “Behold, you will conceive in the womb.” Well may you conceive what the flesh does not know, what our condition does not have, what nature does not admit. “Behold, you will conceive in the womb.” Who comes to the fruit before feeling the labor and sweat of the earth? Who picks fruit before giving and spending his work on the plants? Who comes to the last lodging without the road? Who receives the growth of his nature beyond nature? Blessed, then, and truly blessed is Mary, who, without the cares of begetting, without the burdens of a mother's pain, came to such great glory of offspring. Blessed is she whom the divine pledge so received and kept in its breast that the whole outward body knew nothing of it. Blessed is she who so entrusted and confided to her mind alone what she had received from above at the angel's word. Within the Virgin's house the heavenly business is so carried on that, its bars remaining, the enclosed house itself does not feel it. “You will conceive and bear a son.” He who comes in and goes out and leaves no trace of his entrance or exit is a divine dweller, not a human one; and he who keeps the virgin a virgin in his conception and leaves her a virgin at his birth is not an earthly man but a heavenly one. So let the order of our flesh withdraw; let our nature claim nothing for itself here, where the heavenly order establishes a divine nature for a divine offspring. Let the word “conception” and “childbirth” not weary the hearer's mind nor lightly disturb a Christian's understanding, where the divine insignia of God's power are carried out for a heavenly offspring. “You will conceive and bear a son.” He did not say “for you”; he said “your.” Why? Because “the holy one will be called the Son of God.” Virgin, grace made you a mother, not nature; kindness willed you to be called a parent, which integrity did not allow; in your conception, in your childbirth, modesty grew, chastity increased, integrity was strengthened, virginity was made firm, all the virtues remained. Virgin, if all things are safe for you, what have you given? If a virgin, how a mother? If a bride, how a parent? He by whom all things were increased for you has diminished nothing, O Virgin. Virgin, your Maker is conceived from you, your origin rises from you, your begetter is in your offspring, your God is in your flesh; and he who gave light to the world received the light of the world through you. Warned, then, by the angel, O Virgin, do not presume to call him your son, but as soon as you have given birth, call on him as Savior: for virginity does not bear a son for itself, but bears the pledge of its Maker; and integrity carries its Lord, not its nursling, as the angel says: “And you shall call his name Jesus,” which in the Latin word is called Savior. “And Mary said to the angel: How will this be?” See, Mary asks a question: and if one who asks doubts, why does Zechariah alone incur punishment as a querulous questioner? Because the knower of hearts saw not the words but the hearts; he judged not what they said but what they thought; for the cause of the two questioners was unlike and their manner quite different. She believed against nature; he doubts on account of nature; she asks the order of a thing she believes complete, he writes down that what God commands cannot happen; he, though examples urged him on, does not come to faith; she, without an example, runs to faith; she marvels at a virgin's childbirth, he disputes about a married conception. Rightly, then, she speaks; she recognizes and confesses God in her body; he is silent until, convicted, he gave back from his own body John, whom he was denying. “How will this be?” Why? “Because I do not know a man.” Woman, what man do you seek? The one you lost in paradise? Give back the man, woman, give back God's deposit, give back from yourself the one you lost through yourself: pass over the order of nature, recognize the order of the Creator. He will take a man from you and make him, who in the beginning made you, taking you from a man; do not seek a man, let the work of man cease, for divine art suffices for the restoration of man. Hence God himself comes to you, because you repented of having come to a man. No longer flesh to flesh, but “the Holy Spirit will come upon you.” Because “what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3). He who is born of the Spirit, then, is beyond dispute God, because the Spirit is God. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The power of God overshadows, lest human frailty give way as it is about to bear God. “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” She whom the shade of divine power protects does not know the heat of our body; nor does she seek the secrecy of a worldly dwelling, who sees herself enclosed by the veil of heavenly splendor. “Therefore the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God.” Let no one here take “holy” in a common sense, but in that singularity in which it is proclaimed in heaven: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts” (Isa 6). Mary is sent to Elizabeth, a virgin to a barren woman, a young girl to an old woman, so that in a holy contest both might take and receive alike, the one faith from the novelty, the other strength from the necessity. Having heard this, Mary answered: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” She who is called lady by the angel recognizes and confesses herself a handmaid. For a devout mind grows toward service by the insignia of benefits: it increases toward gratitude; it does not leap up to arrogance nor swell to pride. “Let it be done to me according to your word.” She who believes the word rightly conceives the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1); and she came to the whole reality who consented to the secret of faith by hearing. How greatly the heretic sins, who does not believe after the event, when he sees that she believed so much before the event!

[On the same.] A Christmas sermon is indeed owed to you, but it is more fitting to believe than to relate the unspeakable mystery of the Lord's Nativity. A virgin has given birth. What nature does not have, experience does not know, reason is ignorant of, the mind does not grasp, heaven fears, earth is astonished at, creation marvels at, how will human speech tell it? So the evangelist, as he opens the Virgin's conception and the Virgin's childbirth in human speech, closes it in divine secrecy; and he does this so that man may not presume to examine what he has been commanded to believe. Who reaches the secret of God, the Virgin's childbirth, the causes of things, the business of the ages, the commerce of Godhead and flesh, man and God one God? The evangelist says this: “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, and the virgin's name was Mary” (Luke 1). “The angel was sent from God”: where an angel is the mediator, let human opinion cease; where the messenger is from heaven, let earthly interpretation be driven out. Let human curiosity grow numb where there is an interpreter from above. “The angel was sent from God.” Whoever hears attentively that he was sent from God shrinks from searching into the secret of the Godhead. What God commands through an angel, he deserves to know who fears to know. Hear the Lord saying: “On whom shall I look but on the humble and meek and the one who trembles at my words?” (Isa 66, following the LXX). Humble and meek: as meek as he is who obeys commands, so unmeek is he who examines commands. “The angel was sent to a virgin.” Because virginity is always akin to the angels. To live in the flesh beyond the flesh is not an earthly life but a heavenly one. And if you want to know, to acquire angelic glory is greater than to have it; to be an angel belongs to good fortune, to be a virgin to virtue; for virginity obtains by strength what the angel has by nature. The angel and the virgin, then, perform a divine office, not a human one. “The angel,” it says, “came in to her and said: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women.” “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you”: you see with what gifts the virgin was pledged. “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” “Hail,” that is, receive. What? The powers of gifts, not of shame. “Hail, full of grace.” This is the grace that gave glory to the heavens, God to the earth, faith to the nations, an end to vices, order to life, discipline to morals. This grace the angel brought; the Virgin received it, to give back salvation to the ages. “Hail, full of grace.” Because to each one grace has given itself in parts, but to Mary the fullness of grace gave itself whole at once. “We have all,” says the evangelist, “received from his fullness” (John 1). Hence David too says: “He will come down like rain upon the fleece” (Ps 72:6 [LXX 71:6]). The fleece, though it comes from a body, does not know the passions of the body; so virginity, though it is in the flesh, does not know the vices of the flesh. The heavenly shower, then, poured itself with a gentle fall into the virginal fleece, and the whole flood of the Godhead hid itself in the absorbing fleece of our flesh, until, wrung out through the gibbet of the cross, it poured forth on all lands as a rain of salvation. “And like drops falling on the earth” (ibid.): so that, divided into life-giving drops, it might water the seeds of faith in their seasons, not kill them. “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” The angel was sent from God, and what does he say? “The Lord is with you.” So he who had sent to the Virgin was with the Virgin. God went before his messenger, but did not depart from God: he cannot be held by places who is found in all places; and he is whole everywhere, without whom the whole is nothing. “Blessed are you among women.” Truly blessed is the virgin, who both possesses the honor of virginity and has borne the dignity of a mother. Truly blessed, who both deserved the grace of a heavenly conception and carried off the crown of integrity. Truly blessed, who both received the glory of divine offspring and became queen of all chastity. Truly blessed, who was greater than heaven, stronger than the earth, wider than the world; for she alone held God, whom the world does not hold. She carried him who carries the world, gave birth to her begetter, nourished the nourisher of all living things. But let us see what the evangelist says: “Mary,” it says, “when she heard the angel, was troubled at his word.” The flesh was troubled, the inmost parts shaken, the mind trembled, the whole depth of the heart was astonished: because at the angel's entrance the virgin felt the entrance of the Godhead. The temple of the human body was troubled, and the narrow limits of the fleshly dwelling were moved, when the whole greatness of God hid itself in the virginal breast. But, if you please, before we enter the secret of Christian faith, let us speak to those who regard the Virgin's childbirth, the great mystery of godliness, the restoration of human salvation, as an injury to the Godhead. God comes to a virgin, that is, the craftsman to his work, the Creator to his creature. When does the restoration of a work not redound to the honor of the craftsman? When is it not counted as glory if the maker repairs what he made? So as not to lose his work, does a man not recall it when it grows old, raise it when it falls, and reshape it for the better when it is destroyed? Therefore what is done in the Virgin's childbirth is not an injury to the Creator but the salvation of the creature. If God made man, who blames him for remaking him? And if it is worthily believed that he formed him from mud, why is it judged unworthy that he reformed him from flesh? Which is more precious, flesh or mud? So the more precious the material of our restoration, the greater the glory. Or when is God not the fashioner of man in the womb? Hear Job: “Your hands made me and fashioned me.” And afterward: “You curdled me like cheese; you knit me together with bones and sinews; you gave me life and mercy” (Job 10). And David: “You formed me, and laid your hand upon me” (Ps 139:5 [LXX 138:5]). And God to Jeremiah: “Before you were in the womb I knew you, and in the womb I sanctified you” (Jer 1). If, then, he drew Job's features in his parent's belly, if he joined David's limbs in his mother's womb, if he sanctified Jeremiah in his mother's womb, if he filled John with the Holy Spirit in the womb of a barren woman, what wonder now if he dwelt in a virgin's womb, who took woman from the side of man? He who formed the virgin from the body of a man took man back from the womb of a woman; and so, O man, what seem new to you are old to God. But you say: “What need of being born had God, to whom the power of making was enough?” What need? That by being born he might remake the very nature he had made by working: for nature, which had been made to beget for life, was begetting for death. Through the sin of the first man nature received a deadly wound and began to be the origin of death, which had been the beginning of life. This, then, was the business of the nativity that compelled Christ to be born: that the Maker's nativity might give nature its cure, and the cure of nature might be the giving of life to its children.

[On the same.] The height of the subject causes and the greatness of the mystery compels us to adjourn our sermon on the nativity of Christ. A virgin has given birth: who will speak of it? The Word became flesh: who will tell it? If the Word of God gives the cry of infancy, how will imperfect man cry out in a word? As great a light as the star gave the magi seeking by night, so great a clarity does the teacher's word give hearers about the Lord's rising: so that they may rejoice that they have found Christ, may not presume to run through the matter in argument, may honor his infancy with gifts and not belittle it. But pray, brothers, that he who grew little by little in our body may deign to grow little by little in our word. The evangelist today related that the angel spoke thus: “Do not fear, Mary, for you have found grace with God” (Luke 1). “Do not fear, Mary.” Why? “Because you have found grace.” The one who fears is not the one who finds but the one who loses. She found, she found the grace of conceiving the heavenly offspring, who in giving birth did not lose the insignia of virginity. “Do not fear, Mary.” What should she fear, who conceives the security of all things and brings forth the joys of the ages? There is no fear where the business is divine, not human; where there is consciousness of virtue, not of shame. What should she fear who has received him whom all fearful things fear? What should she fear, whose cause has the judge as its advocate and integrity as witness of her innocence? “Do not fear, Mary, for you have found grace with God.” The Virgin found within herself the Word, God, which was in the beginning with God; and she who was a small lodging of humanity became a great temple of the Godhead; and him whom the smallness of the human body did not hold, the greatness of the virginal womb took in. “Behold,” it says, “you will conceive in the womb.” For reverence's sake it would have been enough to have said “you will conceive”; what is the meaning of the emphasis “in the womb”? That the conception might be reality, not figure; that the childbirth might be genuine, not an image; that as true God was born of true God, so from a true conception the reality of a human body might be born. In the rising of Christ, brothers, the injury of the human body was taken away, not its nature; the creature was not destroyed but the fault condemned. It is a heresy, then, that falsely says that Christ took an airy body, that pretends that he did not have flesh but simulated a man. “You will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” What is Jesus in Hebrew, Sōtēr in Greek, is called Salvator in Latin. Rightly, then, all things are kept safe for the Virgin who bore the Savior of all. “And you shall call his name Jesus,” because in this name the whole majesty of the Godhead is adored: all who dwell in heaven, all who inhabit the earth, all who are held in the depth of hell bow down to this name and adore it. Hear the Apostle saying: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil 2:10). This is the name that gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, running to the lame, speech to the mute, life to the dead; and the power of this name put to flight the whole power of the devil from possessed bodies. And if the name is so great, how great is the power? But who is he who is called by this name? Let the angel now say: “And he will be called the Son of the Most High.” You see that what the Virgin conceives is not an earthly offspring but a heavenly one. A virgin gave birth, but God took up the Son. So whoever disputes about this birth in a human way goes on to the whole injury of so great a Father. “And the Lord,” it says, “will give him the throne of David his father.” From this the heretic breeds the fogs of his faithlessness, from this he fashions material for his error. “See,” he says, “it is not I who say it, but the angel: the Lord God will give him. Is not the one who gives greater than the one who receives? And he who receives did not have it before he received.” But let us hear these things, brothers, not as the faithless but as the faithful; and let what is for them an occasion of error be for us a proof of faith. “The Lord God will give him.” Who gives, or to whom does he give? Certainly God gives to man, the Godhead to the flesh. “The Lord God will give him.” Which God? Certainly the Word, who was in the beginning, always God. To whom does he give? To what was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1). Hear the Apostle saying: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5). To himself, certainly, not to another. This God, then, who was in Christ, was giving the kingdom to himself in Christ, and conferring on the body he had taken up what he had always possessed in his Godhead, as is proved from the angel's own words: “The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father.” You see that when he receives he is called the son of David; when he gives, he is called the Son of God. He himself said: “All that the Father has is mine” (John 16). And what need of receiving is there where there is power of having? He said: “All that the Father has is mine.” Who receives what is his own? Or does it belong to the giver's grace if what is given belongs to the receiver? We confess that he received; but it was he who was born, who took flesh, who took on infancy, who endured the cradle, who took on ages of life, who bore labor, who felt hunger, who suffered thirst, who did not shrink from so many kinds of injuries, who mounted the cross, who underwent death, who entered the tomb: heretic, ascribe to him what is added. Do you think that he who received such great injuries from men disdains to receive honor from God? Or do you suppose that he who received punishments and death from his enemies scorns to have the kingdom conferred on him by the Father? Heretic, if you understand that whatever belongs to injury, to infancy, to age, to time, to what is given, to what is received, to lessening, to death, belongs not to the Godhead but to the body, you will inflict no injury on the Son, you will make no distance within the Trinity. But let us return to ourselves and now speak of what is ours. “The Lord God,” it says, “will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign in the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” He who always sat with the Father in heaven now received the throne of David on earth; he who will always reign for himself has now obtained an eternal kingdom for us in the house of Jacob. Let us rejoice, brothers, because he who reigned for himself is going to reign for us; let us rejoice, because he has come to reign on earth so that we may be able to reign with him in heaven. Hear the Apostle: “If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim 2). He was born for us; he has come to give the kingdom to us, as he himself promises when he says: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25). He said “for you,” not “for me.” He came to be with us always, to be always before our eyes, who now is held only in our hearts. He will come, so that those for whom the kingdom is glory may not be ignorant of his familiar friendship. “And of his kingdom there will be no end.” You who believe in his coming, rejoice, because he has promised a kingdom without end, where service has no successor, where dignities are everlasting. But why is it that those who canvass for passing things do not canvass for lasting ones? Why is it, why, that they buy perishable honors with gold, and will not receive everlasting ones for nothing? Brothers, here offices are prepared, here places are decreed, here honors are assigned; here whoever has not received his letters of appointment from the faith of the Gospel will not have the insignia of eternal dignities there. So if service delights us, if we want to serve forever, let us take up the arms of Christ, keep watch, be sober, conquer the devil, lay low the vices, so that we may receive rewards and crowns alike from our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who reigns with God the Father now and always, and for all ages of ages. Amen.

[On the generation of Christ, and on Joseph wishing to put Mary away.] You are going to hear today, brothers, how the blessed evangelist has related to us the mystery of the generation of Christ. “The generation of Christ,” he says, “was thus: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; but Joseph her husband, since he was just and did not wish to expose her, wanted to put her away secretly” (Matt 1). And how was he just, who thought he should not examine his bride's conception? Does he not inquire into the cause of a suspected chastity, does he not vindicate the reputation of his marriage? “He wanted to put her away secretly.” This seems more fitting for a kind man than for a just one; but by human judgment, not divine. With God there is neither kindness without justice nor justice without kindness; in heaven's understanding, fairness without goodness and goodness without fairness are not found. Virtues, if they are separated, fall apart; fairness without goodness is savagery, and justice without kindness is cruelty. Joseph, then, was rightly just, because kind; and kind, because just. In short, while he considered kindness he was free of cruelty; while he moderated the case he kept to judgment; while he put off vengeance he escaped crime; while he shrank from being an accuser he fled from the sentence. The holy mind seethed, struck by the novelty of the matter: there stood a bride pregnant, but a virgin; there she stood full with a pledge, but not empty of modesty; there she stood anxious about the conception, but secure about her integrity; there she stood clothed with a mother's gift, but not shut out from the honor of virginity. What should the bridegroom do in these circumstances? Accuse her of a crime? But he himself was the witness of her innocence. Speak of fault? But he himself was the guardian of her modesty. Press a charge of adultery? But he himself was the defender of her virginity. What should he do in these circumstances? He thinks of putting her away, because he could neither betray outside, nor contain within, what had happened. He thinks of putting her away, and he tells everything to God, because he had nothing he could tell a man. And we too, brothers, whenever a matter troubles us, appearance deceives, and the color of the case keeps us from knowing what is within, let us decline judgment, withhold vengeance, flee from sentence, and tell everything to God, lest while we perhaps easily drive the innocent to punishment we pronounce a harmful sentence on ourselves, as the Lord says: “With the judgment you judge, you will be judged” (Matt 7). Certainly, if we are silent, God will cry out, the angel will answer, who so forestalled Joseph, lest he abandon innocence: “Joseph,” he says, “son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife; for what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins.” “Joseph, son of David.” You see, brothers, that the lineage is called in the person; you see the whole ancestry named in one; you see the line of David's family tree now summoned in Joseph. “Joseph, son of David.” Born in the twenty-eighth generation, how is he called son of David, unless because the secret of the lineage is opened, the faith of the promise fulfilled, and the heavenly conception and birth from above sealed in virginal flesh? “Joseph, son of David.” With such a word the promise of God the Father had been given to David: “The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not disappoint him: Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne” (Ps 132:11 [LXX 131:11]). That this was done he boasts in this song: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand” (Ps 110:1 [LXX 109:1]). “Of the fruit of your womb”: well “the fruit of your womb,” well “from the womb,” because the heavenly guest, the dweller from above, so came down into the lodging of the womb as not to know the bars of the body, and so went out of the dwelling of the womb that the virginal door did not open, and what is sung in the Song of Songs was fulfilled: “A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed” (Song 4). “Joseph, son of David, do not fear.” The bridegroom is warned not to fear the bride's case; and truly, a kind mind is more afraid while it suffers with another. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear”: lest, though secure in conscience, you give way at learning the mystery. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear.” What you see is virtue, not crime; this is not a human fall but a divine descent; here is reward, not guilt; here is an increase of heaven, not a loss of the body; this is not the exposure of a person but the secret of the judge; here is the palm of the one who knows, not the penalty of punishment; this is not a man's theft, it is God's treasure; here is not a cause of death but of life. And so “do not fear,” because she who is in labor with life does not deserve to be killed. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife.” That a betrothed woman should be called wife belongs to divine law: as, then, she is a mother while her virginity remains, so she is called wife while her modesty remains. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife; for what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Let them come and hear, those who ask who it is that Mary bore: “What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Let them come and hear, those who with a Greek whirlwind have tried to cloud Latin purity, saying anthrōpotokos, Christotokos, so as to take away Theotokos, blaspheming. “What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” And “what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” because “God is spirit” (John 3 and 4). Why then do you ask who it is that is born of the Holy Spirit, when God himself answers you that he is God? When John rebukes you, who says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and the Word, God, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory” (John 1)? John saw glory; the unbeliever looks at the injury. “What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” “And we saw his glory.” Whose? His who was born of the Holy Spirit, his who, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us. “What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” The Virgin conceived, but of the Spirit; the virgin gave birth, but to the one whom Isaiah foretold: “Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted God with us” (Isa 7; Matt 1). God with us, man with them. And “cursed is the man who puts his hope in man” (Jer 17). Let them hear, those who ask who it is that was born of Mary. “You shall bear a son,” says the angel, “and you shall call his name Jesus.” Why Jesus? The Apostle says: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil 2); and are you, a deceitful examiner, still asking who Jesus is? Every tongue now confesses that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father; and are you still asking who Jesus is? “You will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus; for he will save his people.” He will not save another's people. From what? “From their sins.” If you do not believe Christians that he who forgives sins is God, then, most faithless one, believe at least the Jews, who say: “Though you are a man, you make yourself God” (John 10). “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2). They denied that he was God who did not believe that he forgave sins; you believe that sins are forgiven by him, and do you hesitate to confess him God? The Word became flesh so that man's flesh might be advanced into the glory of God, not so that God might be turned into the injury of the flesh, as the Apostle says: “He who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor 6). And how, when God joins himself to man, is he not one God? Human laws put an end to all disputed questions within thirty years; and does Christ, about five hundred years after his nativity, have to answer suits about it, endure litigation over his birth, sustain questions about his status? Heretic, stop judging your judge, and adore in heaven as God him whom the magus adored as God on earth (Matt 2).

[On the same, and on Joseph the betrothed, and the betrothed who was a mother.] Whenever, after the bounds of the year have run their course, the day of the Lord's Nativity arrives, and the brightness of the virginal birth is spread through the whole world with fiery radiance, our silence comes from choice, not from fear. What mind would presume to put itself in the way at the very rising of the divine King? When the sun's rays burst forth, human sight is dulled; when God shines forth, how is the whole gaze of souls not wounded? So, with our senses restored after the stupor of the new light, it is time that, having seen the generation of Christ in the flesh, we should contemplate also the secrets of his Godhead. “The generation of Christ,” says the evangelist, “was thus” (Matt 1). Brothers, if we want to understand what is said, let us not weigh divine words by human measures; human understanding must be set aside where all that is said is divine. So the fact that Christ is born is not custom but sign; not nature but power; not order but might; it is a heavenly miracle, not a human reckoning. What will worldly knowledge grasp here? What will the understanding of the flesh seek here? “The generation of Christ,” he says, “was thus.” He did not say “came about thus” but “was thus,” because the generation of Christ was with the Father when he was being begotten of his mother. What was, always was; what was made, this was being added: he was God, he was being added as man; he who had fashioned us from clay took us up from the womb. “When his mother Mary had been betrothed.” It would have been enough to say, “when Mary had been betrothed.” What is the meaning of a betrothed mother? If a mother, not betrothed; if betrothed, not yet a mother. “When Mary his mother had been betrothed”: betrothed in virginity, mother in fruitfulness; a mother who knew no man, conscious of childbirth. Or how was she not a mother before conception, who after childbirth was a virgin mother? Or when was she not a parent, who bore the Author of the ages and gave a beginning to things? By nature virginity is always a mother, as corruption is always a stepmother. It belongs therefore to the virginal gift that a virgin should regenerate through God what a virgin generated through God: God and integrity are a heavenly partnership; virginity joined to Christ is the union of perfect virtue. That the Virgin conceives is the honor of the Spirit, not the burden of the flesh; that the Virgin gives birth is the secret of God, not the ministry of marriage; that Christ is born belongs to the divine majesty, not to human weakness: it is wholly the glory of the Godhead, where no injury of the flesh is felt. “When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” Why is the secret of heavenly innocence destined for a betrothed woman, and not for one who is free? Why is the bride's danger thus prepared by the bridegroom's jealousy? Why is so great a virtue thought a crime, certain salvation a crisis? Why is it that among the innocent modesty so labors, shame gives way, chastity is wearied, good faith wounded, an accusation arises, the case presses, and every means of excuse is taken away? Who excuses the bride whom her conception accuses? Or what will an outside defender profit when an inside witness of the fact stands by? What do we hold, brothers? In the Gospel no strokes, no letters, no syllables, no word, no names, no persons are empty of divine figures. A bride is sought, so that even then the Church might be signified as the bride of Christ, according to the word of the prophet Hosea: “I will betroth you to myself in justice and judgment, in mercy and compassion, and I will betroth you to myself in faith” (Hos 2). Hence John says: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom” (John 3). And blessed Paul: “I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor 11). Truly a bride, who by virginal childbirth brings forth again the new infancy of Christ. Joseph the betrothed is a steward, so that this Joseph might fulfil the figure of Christ's passion in that other Joseph. Joseph incurred jealousy through prophetic dreams; Christ received envy through prophetic visions. Joseph, sent into the pit of death, comes up alive from the pit; Christ, given to the tomb of death, returns alive from the tomb. Joseph was sold; Christ was valued at a price. Joseph is taken across into Egypt; Christ is driven in flight to Egypt. Joseph supplies bread abundantly to hungry peoples; Christ fills the nations of the whole world, who abide, with the bread of heaven. So it is clear why this Joseph bore before him the type of the heavenly bridegroom, carried his image, walked in his figure. Mary is called mother; and when is Mary not mother? “The gathering of the waters,” it says, “he called Maria” (Gen 1). Did she not conceive in one womb the people going out of Egypt, so that a heavenly offspring, reborn into a new creature, might emerge, according to the Apostle: “Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor 10)? And so that Mary might always go before human salvation, she rightly went before in song the people whom the life-bearing wave brought forth into the light: “Mary,” it says, “the sister of Aaron, taking a tambourine in her hand, said: Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously honored” (Exod 15). This name is akin to prophecy, saving for those reborn, a mark of virginity, an ornament of modesty, a sign of chastity, a sacrifice to God, the virtue of hospitality, a college of holiness; rightly, then, this motherly name is the name of Christ's mother. We have said why the mother was betrothed, why Joseph was the betrothed, why Mary has a motherly name, to show that everything about the birth of Christ was mystical: now let us set out from other causes why a betrothed woman was sought for the birth of Christ. Isaiah had foretold that a virgin would bear God of heaven (Isa 7), King of the earth, Lord of the world, Restorer of the universe, slayer of death, giver back of life, author of everlasting being: how sad this was for worldly men, how terrible for kings, how fearful for the Jews, the outcome of the Lord's nativity itself proved. For as soon as Judea heard from the magi's report that Christ was born, and Herod learned it, the Jews at once schemed to destroy Christ and Herod to kill him (Matt 2); and while they fear a successor for themselves, they tried to destroy the Savior of all. In the end, since they could not find him, they wipe out his homeland, mix milk with blood, dash his age-mates together in parricidal fury, tear apart his innocent companions, because they could not find accomplices of guilt to punish. If they do these things when Christ is already born, what would such savagery have done when Christ was conceived? Hence a bridegroom is provided, the appearance of a husband is provided, to hide the miracle, to cover the sign, to veil the Virgin's childbirth, to give no room to the charge of crime, and so to elude the snares of the raging one. Christ, though given over to death, if he had been killed in the womb, a headlong death would have taken away what had come for our salvation. And since this passage could give us much if it were expounded, let it suffice, brothers, to have tasted the Lord's mystery today.

[On the mystery of the Incarnation.] What made Christ the Lord, brothers, enter into commerce with an earthly body, enter the narrow confines of human flesh, dwell in the lodging of a virginal womb: since we began to hear this earlier, let us hear it more fully today. You are my life, you are my salvation, you are my glory: and so I do not allow you to be ignorant of what God has given me to know. The evangelist knew God when he said: “No one has ever seen God” (John 1). So the creature knew, recognized and felt the God whom it could not see; it was carried along in hard servitude, it showed a sad obedience to an invisible majesty; dread had besieged all things; fear had undone the universe; terror had shaken everything; in heaven the divine splendor had laid the angels low; on earth thunder and lightning shook the hearts of mortals. So dread shut out love of the ruler; it drove the angels down to earth; it drew men to idols; it filled the world with vain errors; it made all flee the Creator and worship creatures. One who fears too much cannot love: hence the world preferred to perish rather than to fear; death itself was lighter than dread. In short, when Cain began to be troubled by the terror of his brother's murder, he sought death and believed he would have rest if he died (Gen 4). And why speak of Cain? Elijah, when he felt himself drenched with utter fear, sought again the death he had fled, thinking it better to give way to death than to fear (1 Kgs 19 [3 Kgdms 19]). Peter too, troubled by fear of the Lord's power, begged Christ to depart from him: “Depart from me,” he says, “for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5). He said this because the weight of dread had extinguished whatever there was of love and faith; so fear, unless tempered by love, makes even devoted service stubborn. God, then, seeing the world tottering with fear, at once acts to call it back with love, invite it with grace, hold it with charity, and bind it with affection. Hence he washed the earth, grown old in evils, with an avenging flood, and calls Noah the father of a new age, addresses him with gentle speech, gives him familiar confidence, kindly instructs him about the present, consoles him by grace about the future; and, no longer by commands but by shared labor, he shuts up in one ark the offspring of the whole world, so that the love of partnership might take away the fear of servitude, and what had been saved by common labor might be preserved by common love (Gen 7). Hence he calls Abraham from among the nations, increases his name, makes him the father of faith, accompanies him on the way, guards him among foreigners, enriches him with goods, honors him with triumphs, pledges himself by promises, rescues him from wrongs, delights him with hospitality, makes him wonderful by an offspring despaired of; so that, filled with so many goods, drawn by such great sweetness of divine love, he might learn to love God, not to fear him; to worship him by loving, not by dreading (Gen 12). Hence he consoles Jacob in dreams as he flees, challenges him to a contest as he returns, binds him in a wrestler's embrace, so that he might love the father of the contest, not fear him (Gen 28; 32). Hence he calls Moses with a father's voice, addresses him with a father's love, invites him to be the liberator of his people (Exod 3). What more? He makes him a god, he gave him as a god to Pharaoh; he makes him a god, fortifies him with signs, arms him with powers, wins wars at his orders, grants a soldier to conquer by his very word, allows him to triumph by commands; and through all the crowns of the virtues he advances him to his friendship, grants him to be a sharer in the heavenly kingdom, and allows him to be a lawgiver; yet he received everything so that he might love; in short, he was so set on fire by love of God that he loved ardently himself, and so urged others to love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut 6). Whatever there is of the heart, whatever of the mind, whatever of human strength, he willed to be so possessed by love of God that the world's allurement would have nothing in man to violate. But through these things we have mentioned, when the flame of divine love kindled human hearts and the whole intoxication of God's love poured itself into human senses, with wounded mind they began to want to see God with fleshly eyes. How could narrow human sight hold God, whom the world does not hold? The law of love does not consider what will be, what it ought, what it can. Love does not know judgment, lacks reason, knows no measure. Love takes no consolation from impossibility, receives no remedy from difficulty. Love, unless it reaches what it desires, kills the lover; and so it goes where it is led, not where it ought. Love gives birth to desire, grows with ardor, and ardor reaches out to what is not granted. What more? Love cannot not see what it loves: hence all the saints counted everything they had deserved as little if they did not see the Lord. And truly, brothers, how will one render service for benefits if he does not see the giver of the benefits? Or how does one believe he is loved by God, whose sight he does not deserve? Hence love, which longs to see God, even if it lacks judgment, has the zeal of devotion. Hence Moses dares to say: “If I have found grace in your sight, show me your face” (Exod 33). Hence another says: “Show your face” (Ps 80:3 [LXX 79:4]). Indeed even the gentiles fashioned idols for this reason, so that in their very errors they might see with their eyes what they worshiped. God, then, knowing that mortals were tormented and wearied by the desire to see him, chose as the means of making himself visible something that would be great for earthly beings and not least for those above. For what God had made on earth like himself could not but be held in honor in heaven. “Let us make man,” he says, “in our image and likeness” (Gen 1). Perfect devotion owes to the image what it owes to the king. If he had taken an angel from heaven, he would still have been held invisible; if from the earth something less than man, it would both have been an injury to the Godhead and would have cast man down, not raised him up. Let no one, then, dearest ones, think it an injury to God if God came to men through a man, and took from us so as to be seen by us, he who lives and reigns as God now and for all ages of ages. Amen.

[On the same.] Today, brothers, we ought to pay back yesterday's sermon; today we ought to repeat the joy of the Lord's nativity: when a virgin conceives, a virgin gives birth, a virgin remains, it is not custom but sign; not reason but power; it is the Author, not nature; not common but unique; divine, not human. So let the labor of empty philosophy cease: that Christ was born was not necessity but power; it was honor, it was not injury; it was a mystery of godliness, it was not a loss to the Godhead; it was the restoration of human salvation, it was not a diminishing of the divine substance. He who without being born made man from untouched clay, by being born made himself man from an untouched body; the hand that deigned to take up clay for our fashioning deigned also to take up flesh for our restoration. So that the Creator is found in his creature, that God is found in flesh, is an honor to the creature, not an injury to the Creator. But he thinks it an outrage who thinks clay more precious than flesh. Perhaps he regrets that, from the injury of clay, he has been changed into the honor of flesh, into the glory of man? Man, why are you so cheap to yourself, who are so precious to God? Why, so honored by God, do you so dishonor yourself? Why do you ask what you were made from and not ask for what you were made? Was not this whole house of the world that you see made for you? For you the light poured in drives away the surrounding darkness; for you the night was tempered, for you the day was measured; for you the sky was made radiant with the varied brightness of sun, moon and stars; for you the earth was painted with flowers, groves and fruits; for you a wonderful multitude of living creatures, beautiful in the air, the fields and the water, was created, so that sad solitude might not spoil the joy of the new world. Hence he made you of earth, so that you might be lord of earthly things and share in common with them in the community of their substance; yet he did not so equal you, earthly as you are, with the earthly creatures as not also to make you, animated from heaven, equal to the heavenly ones; and so that you might have reason in common with God and a body in common with the beasts, he gave you a soul from heaven, he gave you a body from earth, so that in you the joined concord of heaven and earth might be kept. Still your Creator considers what to add to your honor: he places his image in you (Gen 1), so that a visible image might make the invisible Maker present on earth; and he gave you his place among earthly things, so that so vast a possession of the world might not be without the Lord's deputy. And if this is so, why is it now thought an injury when God has mercifully taken into himself what he made through himself in you, and has willed to be truly seen in man, in whom before he willed to be seen as an image; and has granted that he himself should be the reality, who before had received man as a likeness? A virgin conceived, a virgin gave birth: let not the conception disturb you, nor the hearing of the childbirth confound you, since virginity excuses whatever belongs to human shame. Or what harm to modesty is there where the Godhead enters into partnership with an integrity always friendly to it; where an angel is the go-between, faith the bridesmaid, chastity the betrothal, virtue the gift, conscience the judge, God the cause, integrity the conception, virginity the childbirth, a virgin the mother? Let no one, then, judge in a human way what is done by a divine mystery; let no one examine a heavenly mystery by earthly reason; let no one treat the secret of a new thing from custom; let no one measure what is unique by example; let no one make an outrage out of kindness; let no one run into danger from salvation. Certainly, whoever wants to know higher things, let him run back to the law, seek the knowledge of the law through the law, and learn the Author's deed by the Author's authority. The law relates (Gen 2) that God created man for his own life; that he commanded the earth to bring forth fruits for man in willing service; that he commanded wild beasts, cattle and herds to be subject to human power, not to human skill, so that man, knowing no labor and ignorant of pain, might possess delights in blessedness. But that man might not have all this, an angel who was counted among the first envied him, and preferred to be changed into the devil rather than see man so full of glory. Burning with this envy, he attacks the woman with deceits and leads the virgin to taste the forbidden fruit: the virgin, led astray, soon leads astray her husband, a virgin, and casts down the state of life, while she serves the food of death, the fodder of sin; and she who had been made as a unique comfort becomes herself the material of the whole ruin. Hence the first sin, hence the origin of death, hence labor, hence pain, hence groaning, hence the condition of our bitter servitude was propagated. For man, before the lord of all, was cast down into slavery to all, and he who was feared by all fears all; and he who reigned by power is scarcely strong by skill. Hence, brothers, hence it is that the order of Christ's birth is such: the devil had come to a virgin; an angel comes to Mary, so that what the evil angel had cast down a good angel might raise up. He urged faithlessness, this one faith; she believed the tempter, this one believes the Author. Christ is born, so that by being born he might restore a corrupted nature; he took on infancy, he submits to nursing, he runs through the ages of life, so as to restore the one perfect, abiding age that he himself had made: he carries man, so that man can no longer fall; he whom he had made earthly he made heavenly; man, animated by a human spirit, he quickens into a divine spirit; and so he lifts him wholly into God that he leaves nothing in him of sin, of death, of labor, of pain, of earth, by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, now and always and through the immortal ages of ages. Amen.

[On the Nativity of Christ and the peace of Christians.] At the coming of our Lord and Savior, and in the presence of his body, the angels, leading heavenly choirs, brought good news to the shepherds, saying: “I announce to you great joy, which will be for all the people” (Luke 2). Borrowing the voice from those holy angels, we too announce to you great joy. For today the Church is at peace, and the heretics in anger; today the ship of the Church is in port, and the fury of the heretics is tossed on the waves; today, brothers, the shepherds of the Church are secure, and the heretics in turmoil; today the Lord's sheep are safe, and the wolves rage; today the Lord's vineyard is in abundance, and the workers of iniquity in want; today the people of Christ, dearest ones, is exalted, and the enemies of truth are humbled; today, beloved, Christ is in gladness and the devil in mourning; today the angels are in exultation and the demons in confusion. What more is there to say? Today Christ, who is the King of peace, coming forth with his peace, has put to flight all dissension, driven out disputes, thrown discord into confusion; and as the splendor of the sun lights the sky, so he lights the Church with the brightness of peace. “For to you is born today,” he says, “the Savior of the world.” O how desirable is the name of peace, how firm a foundation of the Christian religion, and the heavenly ornament of the Lord's altar! And what can we say worthily of peace? Peace is the name of Christ himself, as the Apostle says: “For Christ is our peace, who has made both one” (Eph 2): both, which were at odds not in judgments nor in faith but through the devil's envy. Indeed, as when a king comes forth the streets are cleaned and the whole city is crowned with various flowers and decorations, so that nothing may appear unworthy of the king's countenance, so now, as Christ the King of peace comes forth, let all that is sad be taken away from our midst; and as truth dawns, let falsehood be put to flight, let discord flee, let concord shine. And as we often see happen when pictures of kings or brothers are painted, that to declare the marks of their unanimity between the two the skilled painter places Concord in a woman's dress behind the back of each, embracing both with her arms to show that those who appear separated in body agree in judgment and will; so now the peace of the Lord stands in the middle and, joining each of us in her caressing lap, teaches separate bodies to come together into one mind with linking arms; and in them without doubt the prophetic word is fulfilled which says: “And there will be a counsel of peace between them both” (Zech 6). And yesterday our common father opened with a Gospel sermon on peace, and today we bring out a word of peace; he received us yesterday with upturned hands in a word of peace, and today we run to meet him with open breast and outstretched arms, with gifts of peace. Now wars are destroyed. The beauty of peace has taken hold of all things; now the devil is in mourning and the whole troop of demons in lamentation; now there is gladness in heaven and exultation among the angels, to whom peace is especially familiar: for even the heavenly powers marvel at it, among whom its perennial spring is found, from which earthly beings too are sprinkled by certain drops falling from it. And so even if peace is praised on earth by the saints, the splendor of its praise overflows into heaven: the heavenly angels praise it, and say: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” You see, brothers, how all heavenly and earthly beings send each other gifts of peace: the heavenly angels announce peace to the earth; the saints on earth praise Christ, who is our peace, placed in heaven, and cry out in mystic choirs: “Hosanna in the highest.” Let us too, then, say with the angels: Glory to God in the highest, who has humbled the devil and exalted his Christ; glory to God in the highest, who has put discord to flight and established peace. See, brothers, the angelic voice exulting: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.” I tell you the devil's art, whose cunning you too are not ignorant of. Satan saw the firmness and stability of faith; he saw it fenced by the piety of its doctrines; he saw it abounding in the fruits of good works; and so he went mad against them all and burned with rabid fury, to tear apart concord, to uproot love, to break peace; but may peace always be with us.

[On the flight of Christ into Egypt.] If speech does not open the Virgin's conception and the Virgin's childbirth, if the understanding does not receive it and the human mind does not grasp it, who will speak of God having fled like a man? “An angel of the Lord,” it says, “appeared to Joseph in sleep, saying: Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt” (Matt 2). If we have said that it belonged to kindness that Christ was born, what shall we say of the fact that Christ is read to have fled? Perhaps, as we said he was born to restore nature, let us say that he fled to call back the fugitives. And indeed, if, to call back the straying sheep, he himself wanders in the mountains, how would he not flee after the fleeing peoples so as to bring them back? “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” Why is a heavenly cause so handled that human understanding is confounded, the soul wearied, the intelligence labors, the hearing is dulled, faith wavers, hope totters, and belief itself gives way? “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” When man persecutes, God flees; when the earth rages, heaven trembles; and as the dust flies, the angels are troubled with dread, and the Father's dread is shown in the Son's flight. “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” When Saul persecuted David, he took refuge in Judea, and the neighborhood received him (1 Sam 21–22 [1 Kgdms 21–22]); the house of one widow was enough to hide Elijah (1 Kgs 17 [3 Kgdms 17]). When Christ flees, a place is lacking, a province fails, his homeland does not help. As he moves, neither neighboring nations nor bordering regions suffice: he seeks the grim place of Egypt, an exile foreign in dress, barbarous in language and customs. “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” If the refuge of all things flees, the help of all lies hidden; if the strength of all is afraid, if the defense of all does not defend itself, why is human flight condemned, trembling blamed, fear accused? Why is Peter charged with a crime because he denies, John because he is terrified and flees, all the disciples because they desert out of fear (Matt 26; Mark 14)? And granted, brothers, that these things happened, why are they committed to writing, why related in books, why recited through the ages, why made known in daily readings, why spread among all the nations? So that every language, place, age and time may know God's fear? For as the reading of virtues lifts minds to progress, so the recital of weaknesses casts them down. What, then, does the evangelist mean by writing these things for everlasting memory? It belongs to a devoted soldier to keep silent about his king's flight, to report his constancy, to speak of his deeds of valor, to be silent about his fears, to disclose brave deeds, to say nothing of weaknesses, to blot out reverses, to proclaim victories, so that he may both break the boldness of the enemy and rouse the courage of his comrades. So the evangelist, by relating such things, seems to have stirred up the barking of heretics and taken away a defense from the faithful. “Take,” he says, “the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” Flight is commanded, not a journey; necessity is imposed, not choice: the angel cuts out a hidden journey abroad, not a free passage, so that the road, troublesome in itself, might always be more troublesome because of fear. Now it is time to ask for what reason these things were written for us. “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” When a warrior flees in war, it is a matter of skill, not of fear; when God flees from man, it is a matter of mystery, not of dread: when the mighty withdraws from the weak, he does not fear the pursuer but draws him out into the open; for he who wishes to bring back a public victory over the enemy wants to conquer in the open; he does not allow himself to engage in a hidden conflict who wishes to hand down his triumph to the ages. A secret victory and a hidden valor leave no example to posterity. Hence Christ flees, to yield to the time, not to Herod: for he did not flee death, who had come to bring back victory over the enemy; nor did he fear human snares, who had come to lay open all the wiles of the devil's fraud; nor did he fear then, when as an infant he did not know how to fear according to his manhood and could be without fear according to his Godhead. Brothers, if Christ had then been slaughtered in that flock of sucklings, death would have been an accident to him, not his will; it would have been weakness, not virtue; necessity, not power; and it would have been the reward of innocence, not the glory of majesty. Certainly, where then would be what God said: “You shall not cook a lamb in its mother's milk” (Exod 23; 34)? “For it will come about,” he says, “that Herod will seek the child.” Herod was seeking, but the devil was seeking through Herod, who saw that the magi, whom he held as chiefs in his errors, had escaped him. If Christ, bound in swaddling clothes, occupied at his mother's breasts, with a silent tongue, hidden in his works, with no walking yet, had changed the devil's standard-bearers, that is, the magi, into most faithful leaders, the devil now saw what Christ at full age could do: and so he stirred up the Jews and incited Herod to forestall the infancy of Christ, which he suspected, to anticipate the future insignia of his power, so that the cunning schemer might take away the standard of the cross, deadly to him and most victorious for us. The devil felt, he felt that Christ would soon restore life by his teachings and powers, and would take hold of the whole world, he who while still wailing took hold of what was the summit of the world, according to the prophet: “Before the child knows how to call father or mother, he will take the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria” (Isa 8). And, as the Jews themselves prove when they say, “You see that we gain nothing; look, the whole world goes after him” (John 12), Christ had promised through the law and the prophets that he would come in the flesh, rise through the stages of life, announce the glory of the heavenly kingdom, preach the teaching of faith, put demons to flight by the sole command of his word, give sight to the blind, running to the lame, speech to the mute, hearing to the deaf, remission to sinners, life to the dead. Hence Christ, who was to fulfil these things as a man, as an infant put off death; he did not flee it. In short, the evangelist asserts that his flight came not from fear of danger but from the mystery of prophecy, saying: “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” And afterward: “So that what was said by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 11). Christ fled, therefore, so that the truth of the law, the faithfulness of prophecy, and the testimony of the Psalmist might stand, as the Lord himself says: “It was necessary that all things be fulfilled that are written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning me” (Luke 24). Christ fled for us, not for himself; Christ fled to keep the mysteries to be dispensed in their times. Christ fled to assist future virtues, to take away from the faithless the material for excuse, and to give believers confidence in faith, because in persecution it is better to flee than to deny. In short, Peter, because he would not flee, denied (Mark 14); John, so as not to deny, fled.

[On the same.] Today's reading has moved hearts, shaken our inmost parts, astonished our hearing. “Behold,” it says, “an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in sleep, saying: Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt” (Matt 2). He at whose birth virginity offered no resistance, reason did not stand in the way, nature did not contradict: what power, what force, what danger prevails so that he is compelled to flee? “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” It would have been more reverent to say, “Go into Egypt,” so that it would be a journey, not a flight; a choice, not a necessity; a judgment, not fear; human at least, if not divine. But as it is, flight is commanded, commanded from heaven, commanded through an angel, so that heaven seems to have feared more than the earth. “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” Flee into Egypt, from your own people to strangers, from the holy to the sacrilegious; from your temple to the shrines of demons, from the region of the saints to the homeland of idols. So the breadth of Judea is not enough; so the widespread possession of the world is narrowed; the secret place of the temple does not hold him. The crowd of priests does not receive him; the untraceable number of kinsmen does not hide him; so that profane Egypt is hired as the hiding place of the Godhead. So the matter presses, if there is no time to consider the virgin's modesty, the mother's labor, the shame of her sex, the danger to Joseph, the weariness of the distance, the ruin of the whole household, and, harder than these, that Jews were to live as strangers among gentiles, with whom they had no fellowship; indeed it was a deep shipwreck of the law by transgression. O how hard it is to live abroad even among fellow citizens and brothers! He knows what his own home is who feels another's. And where is that word, “Lord, you have become our refuge” (Ps 90:1 [LXX 89:1])? And, “Our God is refuge and strength” (Ps 46:1 [LXX 45:2])? If the refuge flees, if strength fears, if the garrison moves away, what life, what hope, what security, what defense is there? One widow was enough for Elijah against the snares of a free king (1 Kgs 17 [3 Kgdms 17]); for Christ the whole of Judea is not enough against the threats of a captive Herod. Elijah consumes with fire from heaven those sent against him (2 Kgs 1 [4 Kgdms 1]); Christ is saved only by flight. Let it be enough so far to have heaped up complaints over Christ's flight. Brothers, that Christ fled was a matter of mystery, not of fear; it was the liberation of the Creator, not his danger; it belonged to divine power, not to human frailty; he did not flee for the death of the Author, but fled for the life of the world. For why should he who had come to die flee death? Christ would have killed the whole cause of our salvation if he had allowed himself to be killed as a little child. Christ had come to confirm by examples those whom he had taught by precepts, and himself to do what he had commanded to be done, and to prove by sight that things were possible which seemed impossible to the hearing. He had come to pour into the world the knowledge of his Godhead and to take away the ignorance of the human race. He had come to rouse the sluggish hearts of mortals to faith by his powers. He had come to overcome the devil in public combat, so that he might be conquered by the divine command before all and laid low by human example. He had come to fulfil the promises of his presence, so that those to whom he had given knowledge of himself he might allow to see him. He had come so that the Jew might come back from contempt of the law. He had come to bring the gentiles to faith. He had come to choose apostles as teachers of the world, and fill them with heavenly teachings, fortify them with powers, arm them with signs, so that by signs they might tame the wild, by powers heal the sick, by teachings instruct the teachable; and, in sum, he had come to destroy death by dying, to dissolve hell by entering it, to unlock the tombs by rising, to give earthly beings to heaven by ascending. All these things would certainly have perished for us if Christ, when he was in the cradle, had not fled. But, hearer, you may say: since he could have done otherwise, why did he submit himself to such great, such outrages? Why? First, because man could not be saved without man, nor could human outrages be cut off without human outrages: he who wishes to protect another makes the other's cause his own; one who does not suffer with another cannot cut away his sufferings. Christ took us into himself so as to give himself to us; he bore our sufferings so as to take away our sufferings. Hence Christ fled, to temper our flights in persecutions. A martyr who has been seized ought to keep constancy; one not seized ought to flee the persecutor, so as to grant the persecutor time to come to his senses and not take away from himself the time for prayer, as the Lord says: “If they persecute you in this city, flee to another” (Matt 10). He who provokes a persecutor makes one; he who avoids him corrects him. We ought, then, to flee and not to provoke, if we want our persecutors to be saved, for whom we are commanded to pray: “Pray,” he says, “for those who persecute you” (Matt 5). We must pray, we must flee, so that he who rages through ignorance may be healed, and he who suffers may receive the palm of patience, not undergo the danger of rashness. Brothers, if the martyrs had not fled from Saul, they would not have made Paul both apostle and martyr. Christ taught that this should be done, he left us this example, so that, since the Lord fled, the servant may not think flight unworthy. And there is another reason why Christ fled, why as an infant he put off the time of his passion, why he mounted the cross after the thirtieth year of his bodily life: so that, having made man perfect for life, he might restore him perfect into life, and give back to heaven such a man as he had given to the earth. And that he fled into Egypt has another cause. He fled to Egypt so as to rebuke the faithlessness of the Jews by the faith of the gentiles: for Egypt obediently received her Lord whom Judea had driven out, so that by this figure he might show that the gentiles were to be preferred in faith to the Jews, as the Church to the Synagogue.

[On the slaughter of the infants.] Where zeal tends, how far envy leaps, where jealousy is carried, Herod's monstrousness has made plain today: in his rivalry for the narrow bounds of a temporal kingdom he tries to extinguish the rising of the eternal King, as the evangelist says: “Then Herod, seeing that he had been mocked by the magi, was very angry; and he sent and killed all the boys who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts” (Matt 2). “Seeing that he had been mocked by the magi.” Impiety grieves that it has been mocked, cruelty rages that it has been put off, deceit gnashes its teeth that it has been deceived, and fraud turned back on itself is dashed against itself. Herod shrieks, falling himself into the snare he set; hence he unsheathes the iniquity he had concealed; from the faith of faithlessness he takes arms; with earthly fury he seeks him whom he does not believe born from heaven; he drives the camp of soldiers to the bosoms of mothers, he besieges the citadel of kindness among the breasts, he hardens the sword against tender breasts, he pours out milk before blood, he makes them feel death before life, he thrusts darkness on those entering the light. So acts the master of evil, the minister of guile, the craftsman of wrath, the inventor of crime, the author of impiety, the robber of kindness, the enemy of innocence, the foe of nature, evil to all, worse to his own, worst to himself, whom Christ fled not to escape him but so as not to see him. Reaching on high, he falls from on high; knocking at heaven, he enters the depths; he goes against himself who goes against God; he kills himself who tries to kill Life, because salvation cannot be taken by destruction, life by killing, eternity by an end. O ambition, how always blind! O presumption, how always most evil! O how he loses what is granted who grasps at what is not granted! Herod, besieging an earthly kingdom, attacks the heavenly; gaping after earthly things, he rushes against divine things, and pursues kindness itself with all impiety. He had heard that a king was born; he had asked where, when, from where, and for what; but how he ought to act he did not ask, because with him there was love of sinning, and love of innocence did not abide. Destined for wickedness, ready for sacrilege, prepared for crime, he does not seek the causes of innocence; he abrogates law, confounds right and wrong; he is the companion of his own wickedness; to him fairness is hateful, iniquity always a friend; he lives by slaughter, defends himself with blood, follows credulity; with him everything stands on fear, nothing on love. Herod, then blind, so seeks Christ with swords, tracks him with gore, searches for him with cruelty; fearing a successor, he advances against the Author; he slays the innocent, wishing innocence to perish. The ruler of the people, the guardian of morals, the censor of discipline, the investigator of justice, the defender of fairness, the preserver of innocence, the enlarger of the people, makes the cause of the Innocent the crime of the innocents, turns the gift of the prophets into punishment, orders the rising of the Author to be the setting of those just risen, commands the business of the Savior to be the peril of those to be saved. A judge calls those who hear, questions those who speak, convicts those who deny, presses the guilty, strikes the culpable, rebukes accomplices, adds partners, hands over the exposed to sentence. What of the infants? Their tongue was silent, their eyes saw nothing, their ears heard nothing, their hands did nothing; and since there is no act of theirs, where is the fault? They took on death who did not know how to live; time did not help them, age did not excuse them, silence did not defend them; with Herod their only crime was that they were born. And truly, how should they not give back to nature what was lent, from whom the case of the Author was being exacted? Unhappy man, who prepared everything for his accusation, left no room for excuse, but prepared everything for punishment! Who will excuse him whom innocence strikes, infancy attacks, milk like blood accuses? So much against Herod. But Christ, foreknowing the future, aware of secrets, judge of thoughts, searcher of minds, why did he abandon those whom he knew would be sought because of him, and knew would be killed because of him? Born a king, and a heavenly king, why did he neglect the soldiers of his innocence, why did he disregard an army of his own age, why did he so leave the guard assigned to his cradle that the enemy, about to seek the king alone, ravaged the whole army? Brothers, Christ did not despise his soldiers but promoted them; he gave them to triumph before they lived; he made them win victory without a contest; he presented them with crowns before limbs; he willed them to pass over vices by virtues, to possess heaven before earth, and to be grafted into divine things before human ones. Christ, then, sent his soldiers ahead; he did not lose them; he received his battle lines; he did not abandon them. Blessed are they whom we have seen born to martyrdom, not to the world. Blessed are they who have exchanged labors for rest, pains for refreshment, sorrows for joy. They live, they live, who truly live, who deserve to be killed for Christ. Blessed the wombs that bore such ones, blessed the breasts that poured themselves into such ones, blessed the tears shed for such ones, which conferred on those weeping the grace of baptism. For in different ways, with one gift, the mothers are baptized in their tears and the sons in their blood. The mothers suffered in the martyrdom of their sons; for the sword passing through the sons' limbs reached the mothers' hearts, and it must be that they share the reward who were partners in the passion. The little one smiled at his slayer, the infant played with the sword, the suckling gazed at the horror of the striker as if at his nurse; an age that did not know the light rejoiced as it was about to die; the infant son looked on every man not as an enemy but as a parent. The mothers bore whatever there was of anguish and pain, and so they will not lack the joy of martyrdom, they who shed the tears of martyrdom. At this point let the hearer pay attention, pay attention, so as to understand that martyrdom does not stand by merit but comes by grace. In little ones what will, what choice was there, where nature itself was captive? For martyrdom, then, we owe everything to God, nothing to ourselves. To conquer the devil, hand over the body, despise one's inmost parts, endure torments, weary the torturer, win glory from injuries and life from death, is not of human virtue but of divine gift. Whoever runs to martyrdom by his own strength does not reach the crown through Christ: but may he lead us to the heavenly pasture who deigned to lie in our stable, Jesus Christ of Nazareth our Lord, who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

[On the same.] Brothers, it does not belong to human understanding to open the mystery of the virginal childbirth: what nature does not have belongs to the Author, not to nature; it is the work of the Spirit above, which flesh cannot perceive; where there is no sign of humanity, there is a sign of Godhead, as the prophet says: “The Lord God himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb” (Isa 7). Where there is nothing of earthly custom, there everything is of heavenly order; what is not of the world cannot be subject to worldly understanding. A conception that keeps the virgin, a childbirth that leaves her a virgin: what begets is divine, not human; God walks where no trace of human passage is found; custom fails when miracles are done; signs do not regard customs; uniqueness admits no example, as today's reading shows, which tells of the divine battles of little ones. Rising together, the King's cohort longs all to die before him rather than to die with him: the soldiers dedicated to Christ began to serve before they lived, to fight before they played, to shed blood before they longed for the breasts' milk: their burning souls could not bear the delays of the body; flying from the lap to the raging wedges of the enemy, they exchange caresses for virtues, kisses for wounds, ointments for the sword, so that they might inhabit heaven before the earth, carry the rewards of the spirit before those of the flesh, and bring back triumphs to God before receiving the nourishment of men. Truly, truly, brothers, these are martyrs of grace: they confess though silent, they fight without knowing, they conquer unaware, they die unconscious, they take palms in ignorance, they seize crowns not knowing it. So as virginity, knowing no corruption, conferred honor on the mother, so infancy, knowing nothing of suffering, seized the palms and crowns of martyrdom. But what shall we say of the fact that the King himself, who ought to have stood, alone fled, and fled at the Father's warning? This flight belongs to inmost love, not to cowardly fear. If Christ had stood, the synagogue would have had them as sons; the Church would not have had them as martyrs.

[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.

[On the same.] Although in the very mystery of the Lord's incarnation clear insignia of the Godhead were always present, today's solemnity opens and reveals in many ways that God has come into a human body, so that mortality, always wrapped in darkness, might not lose through ignorance what it has deserved to hold and possess through grace. For he who willed to be born for us did not will to be unknown by us: and so he reveals himself, so that the great mystery of godliness might not become the occasion of great error. Today the magus finds wailing in a cradle him whom he sought shining in the stars. Today the magus marvels at him clear in swaddling clothes whom he long endured as obscure among the stars. Today the magus turns over in deep astonishment what he sees, and where: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, man in God, God in man, and him whom the whole universe cannot hold enclosed in a tiny body. Hence the magus, who cannot grasp it by searching, at once worships; for he sees that stars, moon and sun do not shine in heaven as he beholds flesh shining on earth; he sees that in one and the same body the commerce of Godhead and humanity has come together. While he believes him God, he perceives him king, understands that he will die for love of the human race, and with fearful thought turns over how God can die, how the restorer of life can be killed. And so the magus stops seeking by art what he cannot find by art; and since he sees that he has long wandered in the heavens with the wandering stars, he rejoices that on earth he has come to God under the guidance of a single star; and the magus discovers that all things seen in heaven, clear to human eyes, are darkened by deep mysteries. And now, seeing that he must believe and not examine, he confesses with mystical gifts: with frankincense that he is God, with gold that he is king, with myrrh that he will die. With frankincense God, with gold king, so as to appease with rich service him whom he had attacked and offended by a curious and troublesome practice; and he fulfils what many suppose to be said of the wise man from Ethiopia: “Ethiopia will stretch out her hands first to God” (Ps 68:31 [LXX 67:32]). The magus sees Christ, anticipating the Jew with his hands, because when the Jew was wickedly betraying Christ to Herod, then the magus was confessing Christ as God with gifts. Hence the gentile, who was last, has become first: because then by the faith of the magi the belief of the gentiles was dedicated, and the cruelty of the Jews was marked. Today Christ entered the bed of the Jordan to wash away the sin of the world: John himself testifies that he came for this: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1). Today the servant holds the Lord, man holds God, John holds Christ; he holds him to receive pardon, not to give it. Today, as the prophet says: “The voice of the Lord is over the waters” (Ps 29:3 [LXX 28:3]). What voice? “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3). Today the voice of God is over the waters, because God himself, to prove the truth of the generation, stands by as witness and defender of his own Son. “This is my beloved Son,” because he had no other to bear witness: the Father's secret has no arbiter; the divine generation knows no witness; the Godhead admits no outside knowledge, as the Son himself says: “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son” (Matt 11). Today the Holy Spirit floats over the waters in the form of a dove, so that as that dove announced to Noah that the flood had left the world (Gen 8), so by this sign it might be known that the world's perpetual shipwreck had ceased; nor does it carry, like that one, a sprig of the old olive, but pours the whole richness of the new chrism on the head of the Parent, to fulfil what the prophet foretold: “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions” (Ps 45:7 [LXX 44:8]). Today the Lord is over the waters. Rightly over the waters and not under the waters, because Christ does not serve his baptism but commands the sacraments. Today the God of majesty thundered; and if the Father thunders from heaven, if the Son stands in the streams of the Jordan, if the Holy Spirit appears bodily from above, why is it that the Jordan, which fled at the presence of the ark of the law (Josh 3), does not flee at the presence of the whole Trinity? Why? Because whoever submits to kindness begins to be free of fear. Here the Trinity exercises all its grace, speaks with itself all its love; there it broke the elements so as to train its servant to fear. Yet amid such and so great things John stands unafraid, because he cannot fear who, born wholly for the love of God, is approved by the angel's testimony. Today Christ gives the beginning of heavenly signs, when he turns water into wine (John 2), so that he whom the Father had already proved to be his Son by his voice might prove himself God by his powers, since he who changes the elements is their Author; and he who made nature does not labor to act against nature: he changes water into wine so that the dullness of our nature may advance in the vigor of the Godhead. For he who stretched and enlarged five loaves, by a flowing and secret increase of the fragments, into food for five thousand men (Matt 14), could have increased and prolonged the measures of wine for the wedding feast by growing increases. But the water was to be changed into the mystery of blood, so that Christ might pour unmixed cups from the vessel of his body for those who drink, to fulfil the prophet's word: “And my cup that inebriates, how splendid it is!” (Ps 23:5 [LXX 22:5]). In three ways, then, Christ's Godhead was proved today: by the gift of the magi, the Father's testimony, and the change of water into wine; because the authority of Scripture has established that every word stands by three, saying: “In the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word stand” (Matt 18). But since the feast itself now bids us come to the Lord's table and the gladness of that cup, it is enough to have enclosed great matters in a short sermon, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns now and always and for all ages of ages. Amen.

[On the parable of the servant returning from the field, and on man's gratitude toward God.] You have heard, brothers, how the Lord demands divine service by the example of human servitude, saying: “Which of you, having a servant plowing or pasturing, will say to him when he has returned from the field: Come at once and recline; and will not rather say to him: Prepare something for me to dine on, and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink, and afterward you shall eat and drink? Does he thank that servant because he did what he commanded him? I think not. So you too, when you have done all that you have been commanded, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought to do” (Luke 17). “So you too.” What likeness is there? Rather a great unlikeness. Does man owe God as much as man owes man? Far from it. For the order is different, the cause different, the bond of faith unlike. God made man to be, commanded him to be born, gave him to live, granted him to know, gave him times, distributed his ages, granted him for glory, opened him to honor, set him over living creatures, and appointed him lord of the whole earth by a set law and age; and when these first benefits of God to man, so many and so great, had perished, he restored second ones, as much greater as they are divine, as much more excellent as they are heavenly. For he afterward gave him as a dweller in heaven whom he had first given as an inhabitant of earthly things, so that no adversity, no attack, no serpent lurking among earthly goods might any longer be able to creep up on man; and so that a now sure condition might keep him whom an uncertain freedom had lost; and so that man might be free of all things, by the servitude of the Lord alone, to whom he owes the condition in which he was made, owes his origin; and because he was redeemed, because he was bought, he certainly owes servitude, as the Apostle says: “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men” (1 Cor 7). And the prophet, to confess his condition and origin: “Your servant,” he says, “and the son of your handmaid” (Ps 116:16 [LXX 115:7]). Man owes these things to God; what such thing does man owe to man? And yet God asks for at least that much, because man wants to render nothing to God, to whom he owes everything. But let us take up the reading again and set the likeness itself before our eyes, and what we have said will then be clear: that we pay no servitude to God and all of it to man. “Which of you, having a servant plowing or pasturing, will say to him when he has returned from the field: Come at once and recline; and will not say to him: Prepare something for me to dine on, and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink, and afterward you shall eat and drink?” How familiar, how homely, how drawn from daily use, how common this teaching is! If the hearer is a master, he recognizes that he demands such things of his servant; if a servant, he knows that he renders them to his master. For the servant, after watches before dawn, after the various hard labors of the whole day, after anxious and fearful running about, both prepares his master's dinner and, girded, serves what he has prepared: he is not proud because he has done it, but trembles as he does each thing with devotion, and sets before his master many dishes seasoned with every art of flavor, while he himself will taste a half-cooked and perhaps unsalted little supper; offering frequent cups, he varies the goblets, changes the wines; at the longer stories of a very long banquet he stands fixed, he stands not knowing how to move, he stands, whose servitude may not grow weary. And when the master is already spending part of the night in sleep, passing it in rest, the servant gathers up, takes care, sees to, puts down, puts in order, puts away, and so lingers over necessary things that he keeps little or nothing of the night for food and sleep. After all this, unless he keeps watch for the morrow and is up before his master wakes, tired yet untiring, he will be early to the whip; nothing of yesterday's labor helps him against present punishment, because whatever the master does to the servant, unduly, angrily, willingly, unwillingly, forgetfully, deliberately, knowingly, unknowingly, is judgment, justice, law; the anger of the one commanding is law to the subject, and the condition of servitude has no voice against the master's pleasure. If, then, the servant feels what he owes to man by serving like this, and the master by his mastery is taught and understands, himself teaching it, what servitude he owes to the Lord of lords. Paul fulfilled this, who so wrote the titles of his servitude: “To this very hour we hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are beaten with blows” (1 Cor 4). And elsewhere: “I bruise my body and bring it into servitude” (1 Cor 9, following the LXX). The good servant inflicted punishment, he who, so acting, beat himself continually to the point of bruising; nor did he loosen the reins of his body, lest the flesh, loosened by indulgence, should fall into another's servitude. But, man, what you demand of your servant, pay to him who made you a master. You who always sleep and demand tireless watches of your servant, keep watch at least sometimes for your Lord, who watches unceasingly for you; stand by your Lord at least for a single moment as he fasts, you whose servant always stands by you as you eat; forgive an innocent servant, you to whom, though you sin, your Lord is gentle; meanwhile give pardon, you whom your Lord always forgives. Certainly, if you have done any good, believe that you have paid a debt to the Lord, not done him a favor. “When you have done,” he says, “all that you have been commanded, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought to do.” When is man of himself profitable for divine things, who is so unprofitable to himself for human things? Let man consider the evils of the heart, the vices of the flesh, the waves of pleasures, the storms of desires, the rocks of anger, the shipwrecks of crimes; and then he will give to God whatever in him is profitable, and assign to himself whatever is unprofitable. But let us return to our subject, so that it may now be clear why the Lord admonished his disciples. Christ, in order to send his apostles to peoples sick with various pains, gave them the power of the Spirit, gave them power from above, gave them the grace of healings; so that, going about, they gave back sight to the blind, running to the lame, hearing to the deaf, and, not to keep you on each one, gave health to all who were ill; so that, returning, they boasted, saying: “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” The Lord restrains them, saying: “Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10). So that they might not lose through pride what they had gained through labor, and claim for themselves what they had obtained divinely, he calls them back to humility, the mother of doctrine, by this example: “Which of you, having a servant plowing or pasturing, will say to him when he has returned from the field, Come at once and recline; and will not say to him: Prepare something for me to dine on, and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink, and afterward you shall eat and drink?” After the labors they had completed and the many great proofs of their powers, the apostles seemed to themselves profitable enough; but living in the mud of the flesh and the clay of this body, they did not know that they were unprofitable; but they are found out when Judas betrays, Peter denies (Matt 26), John flees, all abandon (Mark 14), so that he alone might appear in whom and from whom was all profit. And his saying, “And afterward you shall eat,” warns the disciples to be eager, after his ascension, to be joined at once to the Lord in that blessedness above. For in short he approves them as those who will leave everything here, girds them for the endurance of suffering, and perfects them for the labor of his ministry. For the apostles served him as he reclined for as long a time as, amid the kitchens of sinners and the hearths of the gentiles, they prepared the Lord's supper on the tables of the Church as a perpetual memorial. What this supper is, the faithful man knows; let him who does not know and wants to know become one of the faithful. [Sermon 162. On the man who wanted to divide an inheritance.] You have heard today, brothers, what an heir of worldly goods asked of the Lord. “Teacher,” he says, “tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12). Headlong and heedless greed thought the very Judge of the world an arbiter of a worldly suit, and wanted him to become the author of a division who had come to restore the unity of the human race. “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Here it was not the teacher he sought but gain. “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” When he says “tell my brother,” he put first what would urge love, appeal to nature, knock at affection. “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” He cannot say to a brother “Divide,” who taught through the prophet: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity” (Ps 133:1 [LXX 132:1]). “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” What greater inheritance, what better inheritance is there than the bond of divine love? For an inheritance sometimes perishes, love never, as the Apostle says: “Love never fails” (1 Cor 13). But someone says: “Does love then never perish, never suffer violation?” Plainly never, because love, if it exists, remains; if it does not remain, it does not exist. As a barren tree, when in springtime it is all white with blossom, does not give fruit but deceives, so is the love that is thought to exist and does not: shaken by the waves of circumstances it vanishes, and so it hurts the careful and deceives the unwary. But let us return to what we began. “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” A worldly inheritance brings quarrels to descendants before it brings wealth; before it divides the property it splits the heirs; before it hands each his due portion it cuts up the successors themselves and sends them into factions. Therefore this is not an inheritance but a battle; and it is a stepmother of sons, not a resource. He enriches his sons who leaves his sons the fullest love. But you, whoever you are who press the Lord with such a petition, you provoke the Lord, you bring the Lord into a lawsuit, the Lord with whom the Apostle teaches and shows that you have a common inheritance: “We are heirs of God,” he says, “and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom 8). He is so your heir, he is so your brother, who willed to be found like you in everything, by the lot of birth, the condition of growth, the order of life, the end of death. For though he was the sole heir of God and the only Son by nature, he willed and made you, who were wretched and subject to the lowest servitude, to be his partner and fellow heir by grace. So you will have, and will be able happily to possess, what has been conferred, if you remain in the Father's house, if you share in the divine inheritance. Divine portions can be given; they cannot be divided, because heavenly things neither does the giver lose nor does the receiver store away for himself alone. So, man, why do you call him to a division? Why, pitiable one, do you invite him to an inquiry? Why do you ask a part from him who sought and conferred the whole on you? Stop, at least now that you have experienced it, and repent now of having asked such things. For you received a part of the principal estate, and once you had received it you lost it as a stranger, a wanderer, a profligate, a glutton with the profligate (Luke 15). Hence you are an exile from paradise, hence without a share in the inheritance, hence banished from life. Man, Christ says to you: “What you have obtained from me and through me you will not be able to possess without me, for you have already seen what you were without me; knowing this, I so asked the Father for you, ungrateful as you are: ‘Father, those whom you have given me, I will that where I am they may also be with me’ (John 17). And since not even this could suffice for your protection, for when you were with me in paradise you perished outside me, I added, saying: ‘Father, as you are in me and I in you, so may they also be one in us.’ I, in order to have the Father's goods, came forth from the Father, and did not depart from the Father at all; and so I want you to have yourself in us as much as we ourselves are and remain in ourselves. Stop, then, either dividing heavenly things or quarreling over earthly things in my hearing, lest the kind giver whom you hold and have today you should afterward feel as a most severe examiner.” But let us now hear what the Lord answered: “Man,” he says, “who made me a judge or divider over you?” “Who made me a judge?” And where is what you said, Lord: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5)? “Or a divider over you?” And who will divide the just from the unjust, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Matt 25)? If the judgment of man is owed to you, and the division of the whole world is to be carried out by you, how do you say, “Who made me a judge or divider over you?” All judgment is indeed with Christ, it was, and it will be; but then he had not come to judge but to be judged, not to condemn the guilty but, innocent, to be condemned by the guilty. In the man he was acting as God, in the servant as Lord, so as to be a slave of time, he who was both maker and judge of the ages. Rightly, then, he answered: “Who made me a judge or divider over you?” And who would make him a judge, who made and restored all things? Christ could not be an arbiter at the will of a litigant, he who is the sum and power of all judgment. But why did he not object to that quarreler: “How, uninvited by your brother, have you made such a request? Do you not know that he is not a just mediator who is chosen by one party only?” Indeed he did not say this; but the man stood there as one hateful, so that it would be lawful for him, though not for his brother, to draw back from the judge's sentence. And since Christ had come to correct the guilty, not to condemn him, he removes by a precept the tinder of quarrels, saying: “See, beware of avarice.” That is to say: let avarice be cast off, and there will be no contention over an inheritance. Avarice, brothers, denies parents, divides brothers, separates companions, dissolves friendship, shuts out affection: whoever has it within him will belong to no one, and will not belong to himself. Avarice, brothers, as the Apostle said, “is the root of all evils” (1 Tim 6): when it begins to take root in the heart, it so scatters the ornaments of character as a harmful tree, entwined with deadly roots, loosens and scatters the monuments of ancestors.

[On despising care for earthly things.] Blessed are those whose hearts the hearing of the Lord's word today has pierced. Blessed are those whose minds so great and such a promise of the Savior has advanced to faith. Blessed are those who by the severity of the heavenly commands have been released from the hard cares of the present. For with such a word the Lord today addresses his disciples, or rather all his hearers: “Do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat, nor for your body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing” (Luke 12). Who is so envious of his own goods, who so hostile to his own delights, as to despise what is freely given and prepared from heaven, and to covet what is gained by worldly labors and pains? It is a very degenerate soul, a wholly servile mind, that seeks out dainties reeking of the cooks' breath, the grime of the kitchen, and yesterday's horror, when a royal provision continually waits on it and lies at hand. Do not, then, O man, groan in providing empty things; do not labor in preparing perishable things, because God always and everywhere stands by as the provider of your meal. What king does not provide the due rations for devoted soldiers? What master does not supply these foods to faithful servants? What father does not give bread to his sons? If, then, God is to us King and Lord and Father, what will he deny? A soldier who serves at his own expense disparages his king; a servant living at his own cost accuses his master; a son anxious for himself blames his living father. Do not, then, O man, expose God by thinking so on your own behalf, who by the justice of a ruler, the zeal of a master, and the affection of a parent has taken into himself all your anxiety and poured out his care, saying: “Do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat.” But perhaps the honeyed rain and the single food deter you by the example of Jewish disgust, and you do not believe that flesh, compounded of various humors, can be satisfied by manna alone at its own will; you say: “God, as he willed the body to consist of different members, so he willed and commanded it to be nourished with various dishes.” That fear which troubles you is superfluous, O man: for the whole creation runs and flies together to the Creator's meal. So if the singleness and sparseness of the food of the law frightens you, let the abundance of the heavenly banquet of the Gospel invite and challenge you, which in one dish sets before Peter, about to eat, all the kinds of the whole creation (Acts 10). For whatever Noah, the conveyor of a new world, preserved for the seed of the world, whatever flies and is carried in the air, whatever is born and lives on earth, whatever is and moves in the waters, all this is slaughtered from heaven for Peter alone and set out for his supper. If then, O man, you want to receive and eat all things, scorn to provide cheap storerooms for yourself. We indeed strive to prove to you by great examples that, if you think on things above, the things of the flesh will not be lacking: but God, in keeping with the marks of his majesty, sends one who doubts his promises back to low and lowly examples, so as to convict by such a test one whom so great an example did not draw to imitation. “Consider,” he says, “the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap, they have no storeroom nor barn, and God feeds them; how much more are you of more value than they?” He rightly sends the doubting unbeliever to a bird that is the friend of war, the companion of fury, insatiable for blood, and raging even against the dead more grievously than the sword. For when the sword stops, that most shameless executioner falls on the lifeless body, tears it, scatters it, strews it about, so that no merciful burial may find anything of the corpse to commit to rest. So the Lord by such an example exaggerates the madness of the doubter, who thinks that God will deny to devout sons what he supplies to impious birds; and they suppose that he who allowed them to grow at birth, and fixed the growth of the body, will not give the means of livelihood to those who leave homeland, home, parents, children and wives for his sake. O wretched man, most worthy of all unhappiness, who, when a kingdom is given him, sighs for bread; when perpetuity is granted him, weeps for drink; when he is clothed with the glory of immortality, laments the body's clothing! Conscious of an inborn unhappiness, he does not believe that he will be made happy; and nourished in the dust of the earth, he doubts that he will be an inhabitant of heaven. Fittingly, then, the Lord added what follows: “Which of you by thinking can add one cubit to his stature?” The inward searcher sets out the thoughts of human minds; for every man, while he longs for the beauty of his body, wishes to be tall: but this man can think, this man cannot obtain by himself; he reaches it by believing, he cannot reach it by thinking. Hence the Lord, aware of human desire, stretched man to the form of Christ, so that he who in his shortness was ill-formed, to his own shame, might be adorned with the whole beauty of the measure of Christ; so he well added: “If then you cannot do even the least thing, why are you anxious about the rest?” That is: why, O man, do you presume greater things by thought, who despair of lesser things through faith? What is less than clothing, what greater than the growth of the body? Believe, then, that clothing for the body can be given you by God, from whom faith promises you the growth of the body. But since God so loves the human race that those whom he rebukes by right of a master he soon consoles and soothes with a father's tenderness, he leads those whom he seemed to have provoked by comparison with a most foul bird back to the example of a fragrant and exceedingly beautiful flower. “Consider,” he says, “the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these.” O how much the kindness from above lowers itself for love of man! For he who could have established his precepts by his authority alone hints and builds his case with all the labor of a teacher; and he who could have set the end of his promise in faith alone leads his hearers to faith in the promise by persuasive example; he confirms the doubtful by comparison with the lily, he exalts the lily by the example of Solomon: because, on the Lord's own testimony, among all the kings of the world Solomon shone splendid with singular glory and unique adornment, and the lily surpasses and excels all the flowers of the earth in grace; and it is as far above every flower as a king is known to excel all in beauty and glory. Nor need we describe at greater length the beauty of the lily, whose preeminence the Lord's testimony renders unique: but we must certainly repeat what the Lord commended by a double example for the strengthening of our faith: that the Christian, certain of life, of the kingdom, of immortality, ought not to be troubled by the need for food and clothing, when he sees that God has conferred such glory of clothing on a plant born today and to perish tomorrow. But as that plant is assigned to dryness and to the oven's fire, so those are destined for the fires of death and Gehenna who doubt that present things will be supplied them by God, when they already feel that future things have been granted them. “And do not seek what you will eat or what you will drink, and do not be lifted up on high; for all the nations of the world seek these things. But your Father knows that you need them. Rather, seek the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.” When he calls himself our Father, he proves that his kind care for us is not lacking; when he commands us to seek the heavenly kingdom, he shows that all things will be subjected; he indicates that whatever heavenly provision demands will be at hand for us.

[On the heavenly fire, on the division made by Christ, and on the division of the Church and the Synagogue. On the text of Luke: “I came to cast fire on the earth,” etc.] As healthful food is always bitter to the feverish, so the Lord's word is often disagreeable to the unskilled: yet to each it happens differently, from weakness either of body or of mind. Today the Lord seems to have grated on the hearing of some by saying: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled?” And below: “Do you think that I came to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but division” (Luke 12). And where is that word, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1)? Where that, “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb dumb before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth” (Isa 53)? And also that, “Tell the daughter of Zion: Behold, your king comes to you, meek” (Matt 21)? And why does this Lamb strike so hard in his preaching? Why does he butt like a ram in his word, who in his passion is silent with such patience and in death gives way with all humility? And truly, brothers, Christ entered his world gentle and meek in everything: when he is born sweet in our offspring, when, sweeter himself, he is gently cherished in the cradle, when as a little one he pours himself out and relaxes in a human lap, when he is held tight on his parent's neck and holds tight with the whole embrace of love. And to nourish with all affection while he is nourished, he runs little by little through all the ages of life and grows up: he lives always poor, he always goes about alone, because the poor man is always common to all; the solitary is always open to all. And why is it that he scatters so much fire by his words, that he kindles and spreads such and so great conflagrations, saying, “I came to cast fire on the earth”? Why? Whenever a field turns into forest from long neglect and grows foul with all the bristling of wild luxuriance, it is always opened up and cleansed by fire by a very skilled cultivator; and the cultivator applies fire with kindly zeal, so that, the briars burned off, the first face of the field may be revealed, may be given free to the farmer, a way may be made easy for the plowshare, the long-barren land may be fruitful of seed and repay its long and gloomy rest with a most joyful harvest. So when the Jewish soil, exhausted to poverty by the continual plow of the law and constant cultivation, did not answer to seed or labor, but returned darnel for wheat and brought forth thorns for its strength, Christ turned the industry of divine cultivation to the sowings of the gentiles; and wishing to cleanse the fallow lands of the nations, long choked with thickets, the great Teacher first casts fire on the earth, and whatever natural luxuriance had befouled, whatever winter's stiffness had dried up, he cleanses and consumes by a skillful burning; so that the soils, exhausted by long fasting, might grow fat, enriched by their own ash, and after long hardness might be made tender and soft; and so might be made fit and suitable for the seed of the Gospel cultivation, and with a happy furrow give back fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold. But this cultivation is not new to the old and heavenly farmer, for in setting down the law and sowing grace he has always been accustomed to use the work of fire. When he was about to give the law, he sent fire first in the bush; but the bush carried the divine fire, it did not catch fire (Exod 3), prefiguring even then a people full of the thorns of malice and ungrateful for the cultivation of the law. And now, when he was sending the apostles to the fields of the gentiles, he so drenched them with a fiery shower, and fire sat upon them, that they could dry the wet, soak the dry, cook the raw, warm the cold, kindle the extinguished, burn up the harmful, and, by one and the same fire in different works, cultivate the whole desert of the lands for heavenly plenty, as the prophet says: “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world” (Ps 19:4 [LXX 18:5]). But let us now pass to what follows. “I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!” Water presses on fire: such a joining, so divided, must be pondered. The wave presses the flame, the flame multiplies the wave. What is this so harmonious discord? Here, as we said, the figure of the divine farmer is acted out: for all things sprout by heat and are nourished by moisture. Hence God, the parent of things, makes us sprout and nourishes us by the commerce of fire and water, he who burns, glows, seethes, and pants for us with such great affection. “I have a baptism to be baptized with.” Christ is baptized in his own blood, so that whatever he took from our flesh may be washed, renewed, and brought back to the whole form of his divine majesty. Christ is baptized with the baptism of his passion, he who washed the sin of the whole world, which could not be abolished except by him who had made the world. “Do you think,” he says, “that I came to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but division.” Why? Because heavenly union lies in this earthly division. No one can be bound to earth and joined to heaven. Let this earthly division, then, be welcome and dear, which so separates us from earthly things as to graft us into divine things. “From now on,” he says, “there will be five in one house divided, three against two and two against three: father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” Though he said five are to be divided from one house, he names six: father, son, mother, daughter, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law; but since the mother-in-law is the same as the mother, it is certain that only five persons are found in these names. Three are divided against two, when the bride is joined to the bridegroom and the mother-in-law, who is the third, will remain divided in the house. So, in this union in which the Church is joined to Christ, the Synagogue, who is mother and mother-in-law, remains wholly divided from her husband. Two, then, are divided against three, while from this partnership of Christ and the Church the other heir, the Synagogue, is cut off and divided, so that Christ and the Church, divided from the heretics, may remain and be joined in one Spirit. And father is divided against son and son against father, when the Jewish people, which through Christ's fleshly generation obtained the name of father, is separated by envy from Christ the Son; the envious father turns affection into hatred, to whom the son's glory is a constant punishment, a continual torment, as the Apostle says: “Whose are the fathers, from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever” (Rom 9). And mother is divided against daughter: for the Synagogue is the mother from whom, through Peter and the other apostles, the Church is born as daughter, who, when she deserved to have the partnership of Christ the divine King, endured her mother as both rival and stepmother. And what sort of mother to her daughter is such a one, what sort of mother-in-law to her daughter-in-law? For this Synagogue, the mother, when she saw the Church come from the gentiles as a bride, wickedly killed her son so as not to see the partnership of the daughter-in-law: she killed Christ, to see whether even so, in her fury, she could extinguish his love for the daughter-in-law. But from death Christ rose wholly into marriage with the Church, to prove that love is not separated by death but grows. But the Lord rebukes those who study with excessive curiosity to search out the face of the sky, the risings of clouds, the courses of the stars, the regions of the world, and strive by no studies, no signs, to recognize the time of their salvation. “Hypocrites,” he says, “you know how to test the face of the sky and the earth; and how is it that you do not test this time?” An eye spread out loses its light, because a man's whole sight is contained within the pupil. So do not strive to see many things, so that you may see yourself; do not presume to gaze at lofty things, nor try to look at distant ones, because the narrow eye does not take in many things, does not penetrate lofty things, does not see through distant things; and so he sees nothing who thinks he sees everything. Recognize, then, the day of salvation, the acceptable time, through Christ Jesus our Lord, if you will, by yourself…

[On the consecration of St Projectus, bishop of Forum Cornelii.] I confess that I owe veneration and most faithful service to all the churches; but I am compelled to serve the Church of Cornelius more particularly by love of its very name. For Cornelius, of most blessed memory, famous in life, shining everywhere with every title of virtue, known to all for the greatness of his works, was a father to me; he begot me through the Gospel, he devoutly nourished me most devoutly, he, a holy man, trained me in holy service, he, a bishop, offered and consecrated me to the sacred altars; and so the name of Cornelius is famous, to be honored, and wonderful to me. Love of the namesake, then, compels me to meet eagerly the desires of the Church of Cornelius, and the more lovingly to consecrate Projectus, a venerable man, as bishop. I said Projectus, cast forth, but not cast off, according to that word: “On you I was cast from the womb; from my mother's belly you are my God” (Ps 22:10 [LXX 21:11]). And truly this Projectus, cast forth from the womb of a human mother, remained continually in the womb of the divine mother; not knowing his own house, he persisted as a dweller in the house of God. But how, brothers, he climbed from the cradle itself through the ranks and offices of the Church's service, since it would be long for me to tell, as the Lord says, “he is of age, let him speak for himself” (John 9), through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.

[On the Lenten fast.] Simplicity indeed has the grace of its innocence, it has the fruit of its faith; it cannot have the reward of knowledge, it cannot have the palm of virtues. It is one thing to live for one's own leisure and security, another to bear watches and labors for all. Simplicity makes a good citizen, it does not make a brave soldier: hence the one pays tax, the other receives pay and honors. The citizen either yields or gives way to adversity; the soldier withstands adversity and drives it back; the one has not learned to fight, the other not to fear; the one always takes care, the other conquers. We have said this to show the difference between one who simply receives and follows the mystery of the Christian faith, and one who is eager both to grasp knowingly and to know the mystery of that faith. See, the Lenten fast, which the universal Church takes up tomorrow with solemn devotion: many think that it was handed down to us, or carried out by the Lord on our behalf, only out of zeal for abstinence, and that it contains no mystery of higher understanding, but was provided only for chastising bodies, cutting off vices, and moderating minds. But this number forty is found to have been so sacred and so mystical from the ages that it is set down by inviolable law as always used in accomplishing divine things and in carrying out God's greatest business. To make this shine clearly, let us run through very abundant examples. When the world at the beginning of the human race grew foul with the lamentable, unspeakable filth of vices, and stank with all the horror of crimes, and almost strove to darken the great brightness of heaven with the very smoke of its iniquity, a heavenly rain was poured out for forty days and nights to cleanse the earth (Gen 7): so that the world, which ought by then to perish for itself, since it had been made, might rejoice to be reborn by such a baptism, and know that what it is it now owes not to nature but to the grace of its Author; and so that the earth, the origin of our body, might foreshadow the very form of our baptism; so that the earth which before brought forth men born for death might now bring them forth reborn for life. Notice, brothers, how great this number forty is, which then opened heaven to wash the earth, and now opens the font of baptism to the whole world for renewing the nations. Rightly we run through forty days by fasting, so as to come to the font of baptism and salvation. For forty years a bread-making rain fed the Jewish people in the desert (Exod 16): the earth did not by its usual service produce the increase of seed, but the rain itself rather poured grain on the earth; and he took away all the labor of human servitude who with a gentle dew supplied and carried down heavenly rations to the hungry. For forty days the reconnaissance sent by God went round the land of promise (Num 13), so that this sacred number might call the people of Israel to the promised lands, the number that calls us by the forty-day courses of fasting and leads us to heaven. For now too a heavenly inspection explores and goes round the land of our body for forty days, so that, the nations of vices being conquered and driven out, the host of virtues may possess the region of our heart. And since nothing must be omitted, Moses himself by a fast of forty days was so purged and emptied of the human body (Exod 24) that he was changed wholly into the glory of the Godhead; and while still in the darkness of our body he shone with the whole light of deity, so that mortal sight could not look on him, who, fed long by the substance of God, had wholly forgotten the help of mortal food: hence he learned that those who dwell before God and with God do not lack the supports of life. And truly, brothers, he cannot grow weary or die, whose bread, whose life, is God. Rightly such a man deserved to establish the law, who had laid aside everything in man that the law could press upon. Perhaps a continual fast had given this to Moses; but it would not yet have made him such if this sacred number forty had been lacking. Fasting raised Elijah to heaven (2 Kgs 2 [4 Kgdms 2]), and assigned the service of fiery chariots to a body so purified, to show how Gehenna, which burns the guilty, serves the innocent: but for Elijah to come to this, the mystical way of the number forty ran before (1 Kgs 19 [3 Kgdms 19]). Ezekiel, the most excellent of the prophets, lying forty days on one side (I speak to those who know the law), while he prefigures a future captivity, releases it (Ezek 4): this sacred number takes on iniquities so as to blot them out; it enters captivities so as to release them; it suffers chains so as to loosen them. Hence the Lord, the Author of the mystery hidden in this number from the ages, entered within this very number of forty days of fasting (Matt 4), so that the Truth itself, by itself, might now complete what had been done and begun in his servants, strengthen what was tender, supply what was begun, and confirm by example what he had established by precepts; for it would not have been enough to have commanded the mystery of so great a number in words if he had not also commended it by deed. And yet, brothers, we have attempted to open the mystery of this sacrament from the time of the flood, not daring to touch earlier things, search out higher things, speak of things kept silent, or bring forth things laid away for so long: especially since I see that it would be rash for me and not necessary for you to search into such and so great origins of causes. It belongs to true devotion, to most faithful service, to ask what the ruler wants done, not why he wants it. If, then, a simple, pure, equal fast of forty days is shown to have been handed down to us by the Lord with so many testimonies, under the mystery of so great a number, whence this variety, whence this novelty, whence weeks now relaxed, now rigid, now too indulgent, now severe? Whence this practice of immoderate fasting, which either afflicts without relief or slackens into debauchery? That is, to assign hot things separately, cold things separately, salt separately, the remedies of food separately to their uses, and to neglect the whole Maker of life? Surely those who season the foods of the body should wisely learn to temper the food of the soul, lest too much salt or none at all produce a deadly disgust for saving food. Let the fast be equal; and, as it was handed down to us (Matt 4), let it be kept for the discipline of body and soul. Certainly whoever cannot fast should not presume to introduce novelty, but confess that what he relaxes belongs to his own frailty, and redeem with almsgiving what he cannot make up by fasting; for the Lord does not require the groaning of one who has thus redeemed himself by the groans of the poor.

[On St John the Baptist preaching, and on doing repentance.] Most blessed John comes to us at the right moment, in the time of fasting, as a teacher of repentance; a teacher in word and deed, a true master, who shows by example what he asserts by word. Teaching stands on knowledge, but the authority of teaching is established by life; one who does what is to be taught makes his hearer obedient. To teach by deeds is the only rule of doctrine: doctrine in words is knowledge, in deeds virtue. That knowledge, then, is true which has been mixed with virtue; that, that knowledge is divine, not human, as the evangelist proves when he says: “What Jesus began to do and to teach” (Acts 1). When a teacher does what is to be taught, he both instructs by hearing and shapes by example. “In those days,” it says, “came John the Baptist, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near” (Matt 3). “Repent”: why not rather “Rejoice”? Rejoice rather, because divine things succeed human ones, heavenly things earthly, eternal things temporal, good things evil, secure things anxious, blessed things troubles, lasting things perishing. “Repent.” Let him repent, plainly, let him repent who has preferred human things to divine, who has wished to serve the world and not to have the Lord of the world as lord of the world. Let him repent who has preferred to perish with the devil rather than reign with Christ. Let him repent who, fleeing the freedom of the virtues, has wished to be a captive of the vices. Let him repent, and repent enough, who, so as not to hold on to life, has surrendered to death. “For the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.” The kingdom of heaven is the reward of the just, the judgment of sinners, the punishment of the impious. Blessed, then, is John, who wished judgment to be forestalled by repentance; he wished sinners to have not judgment but reward, he wished the impious to enter the kingdom, not punishment. And John sang of the kingdom of heaven as near then, when the world, still a boy, was gaining increases in its state. Now we know how very near the kingdom of heaven is, when the world, wearied by extreme old age, is emptied of strength, lays down its limbs, loses its senses, is pressed by pains, rejects care, dies to life, lives to diseases, cries out its failing, testifies to its end. We, then, are harder than the Jews, we who follow a world that is fleeing, who forget the times to come and gape after the present, who, placed in the very judgment, do not fear, who do not go out to meet the Lord who is already coming, who want death to remain and do not want the resurrection of the dead, who want to serve and do not want to reign, so that we put off so great a kingdom for our Lord. Where is that word: “When you pray, say: Your kingdom come” (Luke 11)? We need a greater repentance, then, and the measure of the medicine must be applied according to the measure of the wound. Let us repent, brothers, let us repent quickly, because space of time is already denied us, the very hour is already closing on us, the presence of judgment already shuts us out from the place of satisfaction. Let repentance run, lest the sentence run ahead: for that the Lord has not yet come, that he still waits, that he delays, means that he desires us to return to him, not to perish, he who has always addressed us with such kindness: “I do not will the death of the sinner, but that the impious turn from his way and live” (Ezek 33). Let us return, then, brothers, repenting, and not be afraid of the shortness of time, because the Author of time does not know how to be cramped: the thief of the Gospel proves this, who on the cross and in the hour of death seized pardon, invaded life, broke into paradise, penetrated to the kingdom (Luke 23). And we, brothers, who have not sought merit from free will, let us acquire virtue at least from necessity; lest we be judged, let us be our own judges; we owe ourselves repentance so that we can take the sentence away from ourselves. The first happiness is to rejoice in the perpetual security of innocence, to keep the holiness of mind and body inviolate, to feel no unclean defilements of the world, to have no consciousness of guilt, not to know the wounds of sin, always to possess the grace of the virtues, always to live in hope of heavenly rewards. But if perhaps our mind has been pierced by the dart of sin, if the flesh swells from crime, if human frailty is corrupted by the pus of vices, then let the medicine of repentance, which is for the sick, not the healthy, come to our aid; then let the knife of compunction approach, then let the cautery of pain be applied, then let the poultices of sighs be laid on, let the inflammation of a swollen conscience evaporate; then let the ulcers of guilt be washed away with tears, then let sackcloth wipe off the uncleanness of the body. Let him bear, let him bear the bitter cure of repentance who would not keep the health he owed. To one whose life is dear to him, no cure is hard: let him not be ungrateful to the physician who calls him back to health through pain. He who keeps what was entrusted to innocence does not pay the interest of repentance. The Lord reveals this when he says: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are ill.” And he showed who were ill, saying again: “I did not come to call the just, but sinners” (Matt 9). John calls back through repentance, Christ calls through grace: hence John goes about wholly shaped by repentance in dress, food and place. “John the Baptist came,” it says, “preaching in the desert of Judea and saying: Repent.” John cries repentance through the deserts of Judea, which by its barrenness was losing the cultivation of the law, the labor of the prophets, the fruitfulness of the fathers, the harvest of God: so it is the deserts of disciplines, not of men or places, that are rightly called to repentance: the cry calls where no hearer stands by. “John himself had a garment of camel's hair.” He could have had one of goat's hair, but there was no need of sackcloth; he took the hair of a most crooked animal, which has nothing straight, nothing graceful, nothing beautiful, which nature gave to hard labor, assigned to great burden, handed over to extreme servitude. The teacher of repentance had to be clothed in such a garment, so that those who had twisted away from the discipline of uprightness and had made themselves wholly deformed by the forms of sins might be put more under the burdens of repentance, be added to the hard anguish of satisfaction, carry the laborious sighs of compunction, so that, straightened and thinned like a needle, they might enter through the narrow eye of repentance into the broad spaces of remission, and the Lord's saying might be fulfilled: that a camel can pass through the eye of a needle (Matt 19). “His food was locusts and wild honey.” The locust, assigned to chastise sinners, is rightly figured as the food of repentance, so that, leaping out of the place of sin into the place of repentance, one may fly to heaven on the wings of pardon. The prophet had perceived this, when he said: “Like a shadow when it declines I am taken away, and I am shaken off like locusts; my knees are weakened by fasting, and my flesh is changed for mercy's sake” (Ps 109:23–24 [LXX 108:23–24]). You hear how he was shaken off from sin into repentance like a locust, and bent his knees so as to carry the weights of repentance; and the food of honey is added, so that sweet mercy might temper the bitterness of repentance.

[On the parable of the hundred sheep.] As a skilled traveler has found how to enter the depths of the sea and cross the pathless ways of the liquid road, so the divine law has granted and taught us to hear something of God's sayings and to penetrate to the secret of the divine meaning. Hence, loosing the boat of our mind from the shore of the flesh, we enter the open sea of the Gospel word, believing that by the breath of the Holy Spirit we shall come to the harbor of heavenly understanding. Our Lord today has advanced the hope of sinners toward pardon and has checked the murmuring of the proud by a most kindly example. “The tax collectors and sinners,” it says, “were drawing near to the Lord to hear him; and the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying: This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15). No less envious than proud, they took malice from the Lord's goodness: from God's kindness they were made impious, from Christ's compassion they became cruel, from the heavenly cure they took sickness, and they turned the pardon of penitents into the guilt of the judge. “He receives sinners and eats with them.” So the envious man sees, so the proud man thinks; so the greedy man tastes it, so the malicious man understands. “He receives sinners.” They do not say “takes up.” What had he lost, who receives back? Whoever finds what he has lost forgives faults, turns anger into joy, changes pain into grace. “He receives sinners.” God receives sinners, but God does not allow those he receives to remain sinners; the sinner does not violate God by drawing near; God sanctifies the sinner when he draws near. Pharisee, Christ does not receive sins when he receives the sinner, because God is the receiver not of crime but of man. So the Pharisee ought to have seen the sinners not as they came but as they went back. Certainly they soon saw Paul, whom they had sent as a persecutor, come back a preacher. But let us now hear by what comparison, by what likeness God suggests his joy at the return of a sinner. “And he told them a parable: Which man of you who has a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the one that was lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing; and coming home he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them: Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. So, I tell you, there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine just who need no repentance.” Always indeed, when we find what was lost, we gain a new heap of joys, and it is more pleasant for us to have found what was lost than not to have lost what was kept. But this parable speaks of divine kindness more than of human custom, and expresses the truth. To leave great things and love smaller ones belongs to God's power, not to human greed: because God makes even things that are not to be; and he so follows what is lost as to keep what he has left; and he so finds what was lost as not to lose what was kept. So this is not an earthly shepherd but a heavenly one, and this whole parable is not modeled on human labors but overshadowed by divine mysteries, as at once becomes clear from the number itself when he says: “Which man of you who has a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them?” Why not fifty, why not two hundred, but a hundred? Why not four, why not five, but one? To show that the pain came more from the number than from the loss. For the loss of one had broken up the whole number one hundred, and had brought it all back from the right hand to the left, so that by the loss of one the left hand enclosed all, and the right had nothing. The number ninety-nine lies hidden, enclosed, stuck fast, held pressed in the left hand: but when it receives and feels the increase of one, it passes at once to the palm of the right hand, it comes at once to the crown of the number one hundred; and if it is a grief not to have had the number one hundred, what a grief is it to have lost it? You see that through the loss of one sheep this shepherd had grieved that the whole flock had fallen from the right hand and fallen back into the left; and so, leaving the ninety-nine, he follows the one, seeks the one, so as to find all in the one and restore all in the one. But now let us open the secret of the heavenly parable. The man having a hundred sheep is Christ. The good shepherd, the kind shepherd, who in one sheep, that is, in Adam, had placed the whole flock of the human race, set it among the delights of paradise, in the region of the life-giving pasture; but it forgot the shepherd's voice while it believed the howling of wolves, and lost the saving folds, and was wholly wounded with deadly wounds. Christ, then, coming into the world to seek it, found it in the womb of the virginal region. He came in the flesh of his nativity, and, raising it onto the cross, he laid it on the shoulders of his passion; and, rejoicing with the whole joy of the resurrection, by his ascension he carried it and brought it through to the heavenly mansion. “And he called together his friends and neighbors,” that is, the angels, “saying to them: Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” The angels rejoice and are glad with Christ at the return of the Lord's sheep, and they do not resent its presiding over them on the very throne of majesty, because envy had already been put to flight from heaven with the devil; nor could the sin of envy any longer penetrate the regions above through the Lamb who had taken away the sin of the world. Brothers, he sought us on earth; let us seek him in heaven; he carried us to the glory of his Godhead; let us carry him with all holiness in our body: “Glorify,” says the Apostle, “and carry God in your body” (1 Cor 6). He carries God in his body who carries no sin in the working of his flesh.

[On the parable of the lost drachma.] That mystical meanings lie hidden through all the Gospel readings, and that the secrets of heavenly understanding remain in them, only those know who have received the grace of the divine Spirit. See, after the Shepherd above had sought the lost sheep of the flock of a hundred, found it, and brought it back to the heavenly fold with all the angels' gladness, the woman of the Gospel is brought forward as a figure: who, having lit a lamp, so seeks the one lost drachma out of ten that, having found it, from her gain and her joy she brings forth a cause of heavenly joys. For he says this: “Or what woman having ten drachmas, if she loses one drachma, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying: Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma that I had lost. So, I tell you, there will be joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15). Do you think this woman is an ordinary one? or that her having had ten drachmas is to be thought of with human understanding? or that she is believed to have lost one by worldly chance? or that it simply happens that she seeks it at night? or that she lights a lamp in our ordinary way? or that it is usual that she lost it and found it within the house? or that it is a domestic custom that she calls her friends and neighbors to gladness, when she is not read to have called them to grief when she lost it? A new kind of loss, which shows the drachma not stolen but slipped away; and which says it was hidden in the darkness of the house, not buried by the tricks of outsiders. You see how unique the whole is, how it passes and goes beyond human custom, how it breathes and smells of divine meaning, how it lifts the understanding of the mind to heaven, how it sets it among things above, how it compels us to light the lamp of a heavenly heart and, like the woman of the Gospel, to seek through the obscurities of the Lord's reading the drachma of saving knowledge. Before Christ came to the straying sheep, worn out by its pitiable wanderings, and lifted it on his merciful shoulders to heaven, and, laden with the holy beast, came to the folds that wolves cannot reach, the woman having ten drachmas endured long darkness; and not only did she bewail one lost drachma, but she could not see even the nine drachmas left to her. For her there was continual night, deep and lasting gloom; for her the lamp did not shine for the comfort of the night without the divine fire. But after the fire above, the fire of the Holy Spirit, poured itself in a flaming shower upon the apostles and kindled with all the heat of its fire the hearts of mortals, no less cold than dark, the woman, that is, the Church, lights her lamp, that is, that inner gaze of her heart, that is, as the Apostle says, “the eyes of your heart enlightened” (Eph 1). She lights her lamp, then, and after the apostles' labor she sweeps out that Jewish house, blind with the darkness of ignorance, until out of the ten drachmas, that is, the Decalogue of the law, she found the lost drachma in Christ. Christ is the full coin of the Godhead; Christ is the drachma of our redemption and price; Christ is he who was both in the Decalogue of the law and lay hidden there; Christ is he whom the Synagogue had and, with darkness fighting against her, did not see. We have said that the ten drachmas are the ten words of the law, out of which the Synagogue had lost one Word. Which one? The one that John, because he was a burning lamp, first found in the Church, as the Lord says: “He was a burning lamp” (John 5), and as the evangelist says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1). Let it now be shown that this was in the Decalogue. “Hear, O Israel,” it says, “the Lord your God is one God” (Deut 4; Mark 12). While the Synagogue does not see this in the Son, she loses it in the Father; while she does not believe in Christ, she crucifies Christ to her death; to whom it is fittingly said next in the Decalogue: “You shall not kill” (Exod 20). For while the Jew beheads the very series of the commandments, he became a murderer of Christ before he became a murderer of the law; hence he turned the whole body of the Decalogue against Christ. “You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery”: the Synagogue was condemned, who, joined to the gods of the gentiles, rejected Christ, who, setting aside the power of a ruler, came down to her with the affection of a husband. “You shall not steal.” She stole the Lord's resurrection, she who gave money to the soldiers to bury and hide the truth of the resurrection (Matt 28). “You shall not bear false witness.” She is the one who sought false witnesses (Matt 26), to fulfil that word: “Unjust witnesses rose up; they asked me things I did not know” (Ps 35:11 [LXX 34:11]). And indeed she could not betray the Author of truth otherwise, because only falsehood ever attacks the truth. So he rushes down, so he falls step by step, who slips and tumbles from the ladder of the commandments. For if she had believed the Lord God to be one, she would not have come to this abyss of ruins. But let us now follow the lamp of mother Church, and walking in the light of the Lord's countenance, come to Christ's drachma; and let us call together the friends and neighbors, that is, the churches of the gentiles, so that they may not be ignorant that our mother has found her drachma; and let us say with the prophet: “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ” (Ps 132:17 [LXX 131:17]). And let us hear what the lamp has profited: “Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of the forest. We will enter into his tabernacle; we will worship in the place where his feet stood” (ibid.). See, what we sought through wide fields and spreading groves, let us find this in the Lord, at the lamp of our mother. At this let heaven too rejoice, because in one sinner who repents the fullness of the whole Christian people has shone out, and the whole form of Christ's Godhead has shone in our drachma.

[On Christ taking various forms for us, calling the apostles, sending them to cure diseases, and commanding poverty.] Blessed Mark today, in relating that the Lord went round the villages of Galilee, has disclosed his unspeakable kindness toward us. “And Jesus went round the villages in the area,” he says, “teaching” (Mark 6). You have heard how he goes round, how his tireless kindness seeks you everywhere and for your sake. And he who himself holds all things, and is held by no creature, enters and is confined in your body, contracts himself in your dwellings; he, whose majesty the daily voice of the faithful testifies when it cries, “Heaven and earth are full of your glory” (from the end of the Preface of the Mass), for your sake goes round, appears, is seen and is held in your places. Where does the immovable fullness move to? Where does he go to, or from where does he withdraw, by whom all things are full? And yet he goes, returns, descends, ascends; and God made man suffers all of you and for your sake, because he loves you exceedingly, he loves you too much. He takes on appearances, varies forms, changes offices: now he shines for you as fire in the bush (Exod 3), so that he may kindle you, cold from faithlessness, with the warmth of faith; now he shines out flaming in the heavenly pillar (Exod 13), so that, the darkness of your ignorance removed, you may run the way of saving knowledge through the deserts of this world; now the same is turned into a pillar of cloud for you, to temper the burning heats of your souls; now he protects you like an eagle with the wings of wisdom and calls you to heavenly flight, as Moses says: “As an eagle protects its nest and confides in its young, spreading its wings it took them and received them on its shoulders. The Lord alone led them, and there was no foreign god with them” (Deut 32, following the LXX). Now like a hen he brings out, leads, calls, gathers, protects, carries, warms, encircles, embraces (Matt 23), and, forgetful of his flight, for a time unmindful of his freedom, he moves about in your inner rooms, in your dust, so as to feed, train and instruct you with homely, familiar, household nourishment; now as the good shepherd he alone seeks the straying one in the highest mountains, alone finds it, alone lays it on his shoulders, and, lest you be further ravaged by the bites of wolves in earthly pastures, he lifts and leads you to the heavenly folds (Luke 15). So, as we said, he takes on appearances, varies forms, and to change you for the better he so often changes and exchanges his own offices. And since the enemy had long gone round to tear and devour, now Christ necessarily goes round to vindicate you, to snatch you away, as Scripture says: “Your adversary goes round like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5). “And he called together the twelve,” it says. After long ages of foul night, Christ, our eternal day, shone again into light with the longed-for splendor of his dawn, fitting his twelve hours significantly to his twelve apostles. Blessed David saw this day in the prophetic spirit when he sang: “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it” (Ps 118:24 [LXX 117:24]). Hence the Apostle too calls believers children of light and faith: “You are children of light and of the day” (1 Thess 5). “And he called together the twelve.” This number twelve, through four, shows and forms for us a three-part four-horse chariot, by which the whole Trinity is carried and borne through the whole world on apostolic journeys, so that the meek warrior may overcome the devil, the gentle victor bow the pride of the world, the peaceful fighter take away the discords of the nations, and, hell being destroyed, that is, the pit of sin, the long prison of souls, he may lead the captivity of the human race, now free, to the glory of his triumph. Blessed David saw this chariot of the Trinity in the prophetic spirit when he said: “You ascended on high, you led captivity captive, you received gifts among men” (Ps 68:18 [LXX 67:19]). The Lord was preparing this chariot for himself, his Father and the Holy Spirit when he said: “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matt 11). The bearer of mercy, the carrier of kindness, does not know how to grow weary. The twelve patriarchs, twelve separate tribes (Gen 49), the twelve springs of the desert (Exod 15), the twelve stones of the Jordan raised from its bed (Josh 4), drawn up as a figure and form of the apostolic number, we leave to the searcher of the law to prove more deeply, because the course of the reading before us tries to open to us why he sent his disciples two by two to preach. “And he began to send them two by two.” He sent them two by two so that solitariness, left alone, might not either deny, like Peter, or flee, like John (Mark 14). Human frailty falls quickly, which, proudly trusting in itself, despises companions and does not want to have a colleague, as Scripture says: “And woe to one alone when he falls, and there is no second to raise him up” (Eccl 4). How much one is strengthened by another's help the same Scripture testifies when it says: “A brother helped by a brother is like a fortified city” (Prov 18). “And he began to send them two by two.” And no wonder, brothers, if the Trinity, which from the number twelve mounts a three-part four-horse chariot, now mounts a two-horse chariot also, so that by two messengers the calling of two peoples might be shown and made clear, as the Apostle says: “Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the gentiles? Yes, of the gentiles also” (Rom 3); and so that the prophecy of Isaiah might be fulfilled, who testifies that he saw one mounted on a two-horse chariot, when he hears it said to him, “What do you see?” and answers, “I see one riding a two-horse chariot” (Isa 21); whereupon at once he cries that Babylon has fallen, and all its carved images. Who doubts, brothers, that Christ has ridden his saving courses by these two-horse chariots, when he sees that by the apostles' preaching temples have collapsed, idols perished, the lowing of the cattle and the victims ceased, and the very altars vanished through the ages like the smoke of incense? Habakkuk had seen these chariots when he cried: “You who ride upon your horses, and your riding is salvation” (Hab 3). “And he gave them power,” it says, “over unclean spirits.” This is the mark of divine power, this is the trophy of a singular triumph: that the devil, the robber, is handed over to his own plunder, a captive to his own captives, bound to those he once bound, so as to be subjected to the command of those whose servitude once made him great. Rightly he grieves, rightly he groans, rightly he gnashes his teeth, who sees himself struck down by the sentence of men, by the power of men, he who for a long time had falsely persuaded men that he was God. “And he commanded them to take nothing for the journey except a staff only; no bag, no bread, no money in their belts.” A man, when he invites workmen to work, provides not only the necessities of food but also pours out a feast with lavish preparation, so that the banquet of generous humanity may outweigh the weight and labor of the work. How inhuman does he think God, who, invited to his work, comes along laden and anxious with bag, bread and money, so that the faithless workman comes to the work either tired or late, or perhaps cannot come at all! He promises abundant rewards; with so many bonds, so many witnesses, he pledges a generous wage; and do you, with impious spirit, think he will not supply bread or clothing? When you were not, he gave you being; and whatever you have, O man, he gave it; and when you were living for yourself and your pleasures, he did not deny you the necessities of food; do you think he will not provide bread and clothing to one serving his virtues and his works? This very thing you carry in your bag and belt, who gave it to you? Why do you come to meet him ready to insult him with what is his own? He knows that you are rich. Give up your wealth, O man: poverty is wealth enough for you; lay down the bundles of your riches; one who is laden cannot come by the narrow way to the work of the Lord's harvest. Come unencumbered, come free to the work, before, naked and despoiled, a workman faithless to all, you are snatched away to punishment; for, as it is written, “Riches do not follow the dying” (Ps 49:17 [LXX 48:18]). Let your conscience be your bag, let your life be your bread, so that Christ may be the true bread in your life, he who said, “I am the bread” (John 6). Let your wage be your reward, for he securely demands his reward from Christ who, to follow Christ, despised and faithfully cast away, naked, what he had.

[On the disciples eating with unwashed hands.] As lightning, when it shatters rocks, mountains, trees and the very roofs of houses with terrible crashes, seizes men's senses and minds, so the Lord, whenever he thunders against the Pharisees, corrects and amends his own with a saving fear, as the Gospel word has taught today: that the Pharisees and scribes found fault with some of the Lord's disciples because they ate with unwashed hands. Let no one who hears this suppose that the Lord's disciples, by way of contempt, ate with uncared-for and muddy hands, and did not keep and observe the decencies of the Lord's table or of a common meal: since neither nature permits this nor does the affection of hospitality admit it. Who would not offer water for the hands at once in service to one arriving, who would at once refuse to cause offense? Especially since the Lord himself, invited to table, reproaches Simon: “You gave no water for my feet” (Luke 7). So he wants done what he is shown to require in this way. But the Pharisees were looking in the Lord's disciples not for care of the body but for the baptisms of their superstition, not knowing the one baptism which the Lord had found not only for washing but for renewing souls and bodies; which would wash not the body for the refinement of life but the conscience for salvation. This the prophet prayed for when he said: “Wash me yet more from my injustice” (Ps 51:2 [LXX 50:4]); that is: how long will you wash me by the law, and not wash me? Wash me once by grace, whom the countless washings of the law have not washed. But let the Gospel word that follows open this to us: “The Pharisees,” it says, “and all the Jews do not eat unless they often wash their hands, holding the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market they do not eat unless they have been baptized, keeping the baptism of cups and pitchers and bronze vessels and couches” (Mark 7). Pharisee, who believe yourself clean, when all your things are polluted by your banquet? In the market you argued over innocent blood, you inquired how to seize the property of the poor, you searched out how to hand over freedom to servitude; and when your inner parts are filled with such great crime, how can outward water suffice to wash and cleanse you? This water will be able to cleanse our hearts and bodies when it has itself been purified by commerce with the Holy Spirit, so that by a visible ministry it may accomplish the invisible mystery of our purification. But you, Jew, baptize cups, pitchers and bronze vessels, which, lacking motion and sense by nature, as they know no guilt, so feel none; you honor these, and you do not cleanse yourself, through whom all things are contaminated; you purify these things enslaved to your uses and services, and you do not purify yourself, enslaved to divine offices, to divine ministries. But let us, brothers, hear not what the Lord answered the Jews but what he answered his disciples: “He said that what comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, from the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, murders, thefts, covetings, wickednesses, deceit, licentiousness, an evil eye, blasphemies, pride, foolishness: all these evils proceed from within and defile a man.” What spaces of lands, what greatness of cities, what breadth of regions can bear so many enemies, hold so many foes, endure so many nations, as the vices, offenses and crimes that seize human senses and that men's hearts suffer? You have seen, brothers, how whole kinds of beasts, all the savagery of wild animals, approach a single sheep, raging the more because they cannot fill themselves, plunderers with greedy tooth who cannot be satisfied by the capture of one, burning and pining the more because they cannot seize and devour it; how so many kites, so many eagles, so many greedy vultures, such a heap of foul birds run at a single dove. The prophet had felt this great number, this multitude, when he sang: “Evils without number have surrounded me; my iniquities have taken hold of me, and I could not see” (Ps 40:12 [LXX 39:13]). “From within, from the hearts of men they proceed.” An enemy is bearable when he batters the walls from outside, when, placed outside, he sometimes gives way in the conflict; but he who has an enemy within, whose adversary already rages in his very inner rooms, understands and feels himself oppressed, sees and laments himself a captive; he cannot be his own conqueror, cannot be his own liberator; he seeks another's help, he looks for another defender. “From within, from the heart, they come out.” This is a new order of warfare: nations go out from man to make war against man, not content to conquer in secret and lay low in hiding, as if they sought fame from a man's ruin. Let the Jews, who are outside, wash themselves and their things outwardly; let us, brothers, be cleansed inwardly from these filths of vices: let us conquer these nations of wickedness in our minds with Christ fighting for us; let us put to flight these beasts of offenses from our hearts by the terror of the Lord's name; let us drive off bravely from our senses these rabid crimes and most greedy birds with the spear of the cross; so that the splendor of our city, the holiness of our temple, the whole and singular adornment of our house may call and invite our Maker to dwell always in us. Vices cannot return where Christ stays with his virtues.

[On envy and hypocrisy.] You have heard today, brothers, how the envious doorkeeper, while he shut others out, shut himself out. “Woe to you lawyers,” he says, “because you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering” (Luke 11). You have heard, then, how the envious doorkeeper, while he shut others out, shut himself out. The Pharisee had received the keys not to shut but to open to those who wished to enter; but so that another might not enter, he preferred out of spite to remain outside himself. All vices indeed always tend and leap to the hurt of their own; but envy always consumes its own more: envy has always been the executioner of its own; it stretches the senses, tortures souls, racks minds, corrupts hearts. What more? Whoever receives it suffers his own tortures without end, because he loves always to have a household torturer within himself. What end of evils is there where another's good is one's punishment, where another's happiness is one's torment? It is a manifold evil: as many as are the prosperities of men, so many are the torments of the envious. The Christian soul can fight with other vices; whoever does not flee envy before he feels it does not escape it. It persuaded the lawyers not to open the law but to close it; not to lend the teaching of the saving precept but to deny it; to bar the spring of knowledge and of the life-giving stream, and to block its riches in the secret place of its source. This disease must be fled swiftly, because it does not allow those it has touched to be healed any longer. Envy tried heaven; for there it made a devil out of an angel; it burned the earth, for it shut us out from the delights of paradise with a flaming guard. It drives kings, for it so compelled Herod to rage against Christ's age-mates that milk was poured from their tender limbs before blood (Matt 2). It violates love, for it made Cain a fratricide and drenched the still innocent earth with the gore of new blood (Gen 4). It lays waste peoples, for it made the Jews, if it is right to say it, if speech can hold it, deicides: we said deicides, not in what it achieved but in what this crime aimed at. For in Christ the Jews tried to crush not a man only but God, the Son of God, to kill the powers, when they said: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and his inheritance will be ours” (Mark 12). But what can the devil do against God? What can envy do against the Lord's love? The devil envied us the earth, but God gave us heaven; the lawyer took away the keys of knowledge, but Christ granted the keys of the heavenly kingdom through Peter (Matt 16:19). And so envy was stripped of its gains, and man was enriched by the very necessity of his losses. Rightly, then, the Lord added in what follows: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Luke 12). Because in leaven there is a mass not of greatness but of swelling; and dough of this kind is puffed up, not enriched: the more hotly it ferments, the more the mass of meal swells and takes on the whole form of lightness and swelling. Fittingly, then, the Lord said: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” What is hypocrisy, if not an appearance artfully composed, which does one thing in reality and promises another in the face? Among the Pharisees it swelled through knowledge, as the Apostle says: “Knowledge puffs up” (1 Cor 8). For knowledge puffed them up to pride, it did not instruct them for life; it corrupted them to malice, it did not advance them to prudence. In their face was hypocrisy, in their mind the dropsy of envy, in their breast a thirsty spring, a burning wave that was inflamed more and more by its own streams, so that it did not quench the drinker's thirst but rather increased the fire. So, so, with hypocrisy serving, envy always pours drink for its own. From this disease the Apostle draws us away when he urges us to celebrate the holy Passover of the Lord “not in the old leaven, nor in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor 5). Truth knows no swelling; simplicity is utterly ignorant of hypocrisy. “In the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” These are the unleavened loaves of the heart, made with heavenly sweetness, seasoned with the richness of grace, baked with the fire of the Holy Spirit; eating these, we solemnly sacrifice for our Passover the Lamb of God, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, by whom Christ was born to all gladness and changed to all glory.

[On St John the Baptist and Herod.] A good shepherd spends sleepless nights and anxious days, lest the cunning robber or the crafty savagery of wolves contrive anything ruinous, anything harmful against his dear flock. A good shepherd, as the Lord said, “lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10). But good sheep also listen with attentive ears to their shepherd's voice, always follow their shepherd's judgment, do the whole will of their shepherd. They climb hills, seek steep places, often change regions; and so they reach places fit for pasture, watered by streams, shady, suitable, secret places of rest; they find pleasant spots and enjoy delights. And you, little children, the abundant portion of the Lord's flock, already clothed with a snowy and divine fleece, very fruitful with soft offspring and heavenly progeny: if through hearing our voice you have often come to saving places and saving pastures; if through the streams of our sermon you have tempered the heat of your souls and the burning of your thirst; if under the shelter of our teaching you have rested in some comfort, attend to what we order, listen to what we say, approve what we do; and take the reason for our preaching not according to your own will but according to our arrangement: and whether we speak from this step or treat from the bishop's chair, as the season requires, come together, run together, like good sheep, like dear flocks, beloved children, without disdain and without sloth, with the whole course of faith. And let not the change of places so near, and spaces so close, make you either sluggish or murmuring: because neither does the sheep reach the fold if it wanders at its own pleasure; nor can a disciple obtain knowledge if he insists on being taught according to his own will; nor can a sick man ever recover health if he has been treated according to his own judgment. But since today our sermon is against a raging wolf, let us take up the shepherd's staff and pass to the Gospel reading. “King Herod heard,” it says, “(for the name of Jesus had become known), and he said: John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and therefore powers are at work in him” (Mark 6). The fool believes devoutly about the dead man whom he savagely persecuted when alive. “John has risen,” he says; and yet unknowingly he confesses that the slain man rises in Christ, for Christ. Herod, what did your sword achieve? What did your cruelty profit? How far did your impiety get, if, as you yourself say, he has returned to powers, has risen to divine works, who was thought extinguished by your fury? John has risen, as you yourself confess: here not the person but the weakness perished; here not John but death rather succumbed by such a death: the punishment has been mocked, the executioner is held a laughingstock, the very sentence of the wretched judge has been cheated, which did not destroy the slain man but promoted him. “John has risen from the dead, and therefore powers are at work in him.” Though an enemy of the law, he had nevertheless learned through the law the promised resurrection of the dead. And if he knew that John would rise, why did he madly kill him? If he knew that by such a death he would be raised to the summit of all divine power, to every mark of authority, why did he make himself the author of so great a death? Impiety is always feverish; cruelty is always held by frenzy; fury does not know how to be without madness; for it rages against itself whenever it aims at another; it punishes itself while it strikes the innocent; it is wholly deadly to itself when it is cruel toward the just. See, John, as you yourself say, already lives in Christ: he returns for your punishment, who came for the heavenly gift of medicine for all. “But others said: It is Elijah; and others said: It is a prophet, or as one of the prophets. Hearing this, Herod said: It is John, whom I beheaded; he has risen from the dead.” With a malevolent but truthful sense he himself is witness of his crime, proof of his wickedness, accuser of his deed. “It is John whom I beheaded; he has risen from the dead.” He speaks the truth: for as his own rise in Christ, so Christ himself suffers in his own; and as the honor of the head extends to the members, so the punishment of the members overflows to the pain of the head, to the injury of the head. “It is John whom I beheaded.” This wise king, this excellent judge, censor of morals, guardian of discipline, avenger of innocence, punisher of crimes, says that he beheaded John, and is silent about why he beheaded him, lest the shamefulness of so great a deed confound the royal power: but the evangelist reveals it, so as to bring the slayer's disgrace to the glory of the slain. “For Herod himself,” it says, “had sent and seized John and bound him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John said to Herod: It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” Herodias, who out of love of wickedness strove to be the wife of two brothers, so as to violate affection by affection, and so that Herodias might be joined to Herod, lest those be unlike even in name who were alike in crime, character and life, and so that they might be joined by name whom the shamefulness of crimes had joined: this Herodias, then, was lying in wait for John. Herod did not overcome the adulteress's will, yet he put off the adulteress's crime. She, so that there might be no one to rebuke her, aimed at the death of the one rebuking; he, to please the incestuous woman, himself a captive, held the just man only and bound him shut in, because, guilty as he was, he could not easily pronounce sentence against an innocent man. “When an opportune day came,” it says, “Herod gave a dinner on his birthday for the princes, the tribunes and the leading men of Galilee; and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, and pleased Herod and those reclining with him, the king said to the girl: Ask of me what you will, and I will give it to you. And he swore to her: Whatever you ask, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” An ungrateful, inhuman king, who for so great a virtue, so glorious a labor, so memorable a deed, gave not his whole kingdom but half! And why did he keep even part for himself, who after such great glory of his house, after such holiness of his household, after such an example of chastity, ought not to be, to be seen, to live? So that daughter of crime, not of nature, ran at once not so much to her mother as to the very cesspool of her wickedness; so that she, all fluid, all loosened, might fly back savage and fierce and, to speak in their own terms, sing an unspeakable tragedy, she who had most shamefully performed a comedy. “And she went out and said to her mother: What shall I ask? And she said: The head of John the Baptist. And going in at once with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I want you to give me at once on a dish the head of John the Baptist. And the king was saddened; because of the oath and those reclining with him he did not want to grieve her; and at once the king sent an executioner and ordered his head to be brought. And he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on a dish and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.” So judges a mind weighed down with gluttony, loosened with wine, and in a way sunk in the whole shipwreck of drunkenness. “I want you to give me at once on a dish the head of John.” The serpent's offspring seeks the head of a man, to whom the sentence of the beginning had known its own head was condemned, as God says: “He will watch for your head, and you will watch for his heel” (Gen 3). The length of the reading draws us out long, and the immense depth of the passage itself carries us far enough into the deep. Let us put off for today what follows, lest the sermon, while hastening to its end, pass over what must be said at length. This we commend at the close of our discourse, that it did not run its course without cause: for our John, by being slain, killed all the offspring of the ancient serpent and extinguished it by the shedding of his blood.

[On the beheading of St John the Baptist.] The bloody dishes of Herod's supper, so savage a banquet, at which earth then shuddered and heaven too, have today made your hearing shudder and tremble along with me. “Herod,” it says, “gave a supper on his birthday” (Mark 6). Well “supper,” because this birthday was devoted not to light but to darkness, on which a son of the night, not of the day, was born. “On his birthday,” it says, “he gave a supper for the princes, the tribunes and the leading men of Galilee” (Mark 6). What did heedless and always blind impiety do? It calls out all the authorities, so as to take to itself not so much many companions of its banquet as countless witnesses of its crime, and to have as many judges of its deed as it had presiding officers of discipline. “And when the daughter of Herodias herself had come in and danced,” it says, “and pleased Herod.” The shameful girl answered to her stock, while she pleased a more shameful father; for from adultery only a shameful child should have been born: she, with broken steps, a loosened body, the frame of her limbs disjointed, her inner parts flowing by art, became the more beautiful to her father by her whole deformity. And truly Herod then believed her his own when he saw her such; for he would have thought her another's if he had seen her even a little modest. The serpent then lay hidden in the woman, who, crawling with winding steps, poured out deadly venom with her whole body, so that fury wounded the minds of those reclining and poison their bodies, men were turned into beasts, and such men now drank not wine but blood, and, rabid, fed not on bread but on human flesh. She certainly made them such, to whom she then brought in John's head with its blood still smoking, so that the Psalmist's song might be proved: “They gave the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth; they poured out their blood like water” (Ps 79:2–3 [LXX 78:2–3]). See what banquets prolonged through whole nights bring forth; see what wine bought by measure and drunk without measure begets. See where the flesh is hurled headlong when it is inflamed by the fires of pleasure to the crime of luxury. I ask, why is it pressed by such great wedges? Unhappy flesh is enough by itself for its own ruin through its own falls, as the prophet attests when he said: “How long will you rush upon a man? You all kill, as at a leaning wall and a tottering fence” (Ps 62:3 [LXX 61:4]). In Herod the flesh lay weighed down by gluttony, captive to drunkenness, which, as luxury tickled and lust not so much played as made sport, promised to give whatever shamefulness asked. “Ask of me what you will,” he says, “and I will give it to you; and he swore to her.” The wretch swears while he forswears all that belongs to honor and virtue. “Ask of me what you will.” What would luxury ask, but the destruction of chastity, the slaying of modesty, the death of holiness, always its opposite? “I want you to give me on a dish the head of John.” If “the head of man,” according to the Apostle (1 Cor 11), “is Christ,” already then with a new mouth the most ancient serpent was aiming at the death of Christ the Lord. “I want you to give me on a dish the head of John.” Already then the greedy dragon, thirsting, was tasting the Lord's passion in the servant's head. “I want you to give me on a dish.” Why on a dish? Why do you carry precious what you kill cheaply, unless because “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Ps 116:15 [LXX 115:6])? This very thing you want you do not do as you want, because a reason from above drives you otherwise than you want. In that savage den, not a king's hall, wild rage then thought it had its fodder when it saw the martyr's head; it felt it had its drink when it gazed thirsting at the liquid of the sacred blood; it strives and tries to swallow the dish of its cruelty with its whole mouth and whole throat. But John comes, set on high like a lamp on a lampstand, to put darkness to flight, as the Lord says: “He was a burning and shining lamp” (John 5). John comes, shining like a judge on the tribunal, so that he who rebuked adultery might expose and condemn the murderer; and he who, while living devoutly, had called incest to repentance and kept it for pardon, might, when slain, condemn murder as well. By what, I ask, does he deserve pardon, who in John's death so credulously killed repentance itself? You ran in vain, Herod and Herodias, names joined not by affection but by crime, who most foolishly believed that a voice could be intercepted. A voice cannot be killed, but cries out the more when freed from the confines of the body (John 1). So the voice of Abel, once poured out in his blood, sounds the more, penetrates the more, reaches the more to heaven (Gen 4). So now John cries out through the whole world, reports your crime to all through all ages, and displays it among the nations. See, John glories in Christ as his head, who was thought condemned in his head. See, on the day on which you ended yours, he won for himself the birthday of heaven: because when your rising sank into its end, then his end sank into a birthday. For the just man begins to live when he deserves to be killed for Christ; by this death the martyr's life is transferred, not taken away; he became more famous by death who died for this, to live forever. See, you lie in death; John, slain, lives. You have lost the purple dyed with the murex; John glories, clothed forever in a purple shining with his own blood. Your banquet companions are now made sharers in punishments; John feeds at the heavenly table with the choirs of angels. He hears the heavenly symphony continually; you hear always the groaning and gnashing of hell. He, handed over as the price of your harlot, your dancer, is now honored with a kingdom, with heavenly rewards; you, with your daughter, have received the wages of your sentence in Tartarus. Joseph, fleeing the adulteress, left his garment behind (Gen 39); John, so as not to see an adulteress, cast off his very body. Joseph, so as not to commit adultery, willingly accepted prison; John, to rebuke adultery, exchanged the desert for a prison. Joseph, by revealing dreams, escaped death; John, to reveal the Son of God, accepted death. Joseph, while he prepared temporal bread, earned a necklace of gold and honor; John, to show the heavenly bread to believers (Matt 11), earned the necklace of martyrdom from his blood. Rightly is this John greater than all born of women, who not only rebuked adulteresses but also, for love of virginity, trampled on lawful companionship with women. And if John, so great, such a man, separated from women by so great a desert, did not escape the dangers of women, who is there, living among women, who trusts that he has escaped without the greatest labor and the greatest caution, unless he who is nourished by the Holy Spirit? Who with the Father and the Son orders all ages through all the spaces of time.

[On Marcellinus, bishop of Vicohabentia, and on the childbirth of the Virgin Mary.] The beginnings of all things are hard, but harder than all are the beginnings of one giving birth. The holy Church of Ravenna, so as to give birth for the first time, made a journey, endured anguish, felt pains. And she did this, brothers, so as to keep the order of the divine childbirth along the whole path of truth: for the Virgin mother, in order to bear the firstborn of all creation, ran the road through her whole homeland; so the virginal childbirth, so the nativity of the firstborn, was dedicated. And necessarily, brothers, the Way is born on the way. “I am,” he says, “the Way” (John 14), so that every entrance of error might be shut out, and the traveler, who had long endured in vain the sweat and labors of the earthly road, might at last seek heaven. “And it came to pass in those days,” says the evangelist, “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. And it came to pass in those days, the days were fulfilled for her to give birth, and she bore her firstborn son” (Luke 2). Here I would like to say something about my pain. Does the Lord of all hasten to obey the decree of Caesar, a pagan, and does some servant still irreverently resist the decree of blessed Peter, the decree of a Christian prince? But since neither are prosperous things to be mixed with adverse nor sad things with joys, let us leave these things and speak of the gladness of today's offspring. Let the one born now, who is the first born, have the reverence of the firstborn and hold his honor: Marcellinus today has seized and won all the affection due to a homeborn child. His sons stand around, his relatives are present, the whole kindred runs together, the whole household exults, and the very inner rooms of the house leap and rejoice, because they have deserved today to see with their eyes and receive in their hands the first childbirth and offspring of the holy mother. The mother herself too, bride, mother and virgin, marvels with new rejoicing that she has given birth in the very chamber of her union. But let it disturb no one, move no one, that the bride is seen to have given birth in the bridal chamber itself: such a conception is not of crime but of virginity, since in such offspring the birth is heavenly, not human; nor is there any room here for sinister suspicion, where the bridegroom himself is held as witness and guardian of his bride. Whoever is anxious about the fact, be quite secure from the greatest example, and let the trembling of the one who went before serve for your caution and defense. That Joseph, a husband in name alone, a bridegroom in conscience, looks wavering and anxious on his pregnant bride, because he could neither accuse an innocent woman nor excuse a pregnant one; to keep silent was not safe, to speak was dangerous. He who accuses the innocent commits crimes, he does not expose them. He himself was the testimony of her chastity, he was the guardian of her modesty: he knew one thing, he saw another; the sight confounded him whom the Virgin's faith did not confound: his action and life were at a crossroads; a just mind and holy soul is tormented by divided thoughts; he perceives, but he cannot penetrate so great a mystery, because he could neither accuse her nor defend her before men. Rightly the angel soon meets him, rightly the divine answer soon comes to his help, in whom, when human counsel failed, justice did not fail. And what does he say? “Joseph, son of David, do not fear.” Why did he fear, who had done nothing? He feared because, even if there was no guilt in the deed, there was the greatest dread in the case. A holy soul is afraid of whatever it does not understand. Beware, then, O man, of disputing like this about the childbirth of our mother, since it is enough that the angel answered: “Do not fear to take Mary your wife; for what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Happily she gives birth, who by giving birth has won more and more the crown and glory of virginity. But this one who has been born to us today has always cast nets into the sea. Let no one wonder, then, if Peter was glad to have a fisherman as colleague. Pray, then, brothers, that he who until now has labored to catch fish for the life of men may deserve to fish for men.

[On the blind man.] As often as God cures the desperate sufferings of human bodies, so often he reveals the power of his Godhead; but when, in one and the same infirmity, he changes the order of his cure, he makes us search more deeply into the reasons for which he does it. For to the blind man sitting by the road he restored sight by command alone; to another blind man, born not to light but to darkness, whom nature had begrudged sight, and whose eyes nature itself, which prepares and opens eyes, had closed and denied, Christ applies clay, and with a material salve shapes, makes and provides eyes, rather than restoring them (John 9), so that with a creating, not a healing, hand he might supply light to the man from that from which he had made the whole man. But this blind man, whose cure the evangelist Mark has related to us, is healed in a new way, so as to compel all to ask why stubborn blindness so presumes to delay the Author, at whose nod, sight and command infirmities perish, health returns, life arises, death ends, all things stand, and all things fall away. “Jesus came,” it says, “to Bethsaida, and they brought him a blind man and begged him to touch him; and taking the blind man's hand, he led him out outside the village” (Mark 8). As if he could not cure him in that place, or needed the help of a place, he who gave sight to all! This is the Bethsaida whose faithlessness the Lord reproaches, saying: “Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida: for if the powers done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes” (Matt 11). So, taking his hand, he leads him out of the house of unbelief, lifts him from the seat of faithlessness, so as to give faith before eyes, to restore health to the mind before the body, to offer the service of a human guide before working the mark of divine power. They begged him at least to touch him; but Christ, who does not know how to shrink from the poor, knows how to love the poor, gave the poor man his whole hand; and God offered public service to weakness, so that man might not shrink from man, and the seeing might see the unseeing, and by a guiding hand make the blind man not know the bereavement of light: lest a man say, “My hand has nothing to give a poor man,” let him give the poor man his hand itself; and it will be more to have given the poor man a hand than a coin, to have shown the poor man the way than to have given the poor man a crust of bread. “And he led him out outside the village, and spat on his eyes.” With the Lord's spittle he fills the empty hollows of the eyes; from the divine mouth he gives light-bearing saliva, so that a drop of holy dew might baptize the sinner's eyes, so that pardon might open what guilt had closed. Let no one, then, doubt that mortal limbs, wholly dried up, can come to life again by a divine shower, when he sees eyes dry with blindness so suddenly raised to light by a little drop of the Lord's spittle: “The dead will rise,” says Isaiah, “and those in the tombs will rise again, and those on the earth will rejoice.” How? “For the dew that is from you is health to them”: what rain is to seed, the Lord's shower is to those who will rise. “And he laid his hands on him.” In making, restoring, and putting man together, the Lord's healing hands are always present to men: “Your hands,” it says, “made me and fashioned me.” “And he asked him whether he saw anything.” He asks as man, he works as God. Does he who sees the hidden places of the earth, who beholds the secrets of the heart, to whom all things are naked that are covered to all, seek to see in his own work, in his own eyes, labor to know, learn from another's report? Far from it. But he asks so that those present might know, and those to come learn, that the cure of this blindness was not simple but mystical. Accordingly, the man being cured, at the Lord's question, answered that he had been given not light but a kind of dawn and a breaking forth of light: “I see,” he says, “men like trees walking.” To imperfect eyes forms grow large, shapes are confused, things themselves deceive, for such eyes do not yet receive vision but still endure the shadow of vision. And yet why “like trees,” not like columns or something else, and not standing but walking? Because after Christ's cure he had seen that men pass through this world like trees and do not remain; one whom Christ has cured soon sees that the planting of the human seed in this life is temporary. So Christ's cure must be repeated, so that perfect eyes may see future things that are certain, abiding and eternal. “Again,” it says, “he put his hands on his eyes, and he began to see; and he was restored, so that he saw all things clearly; and he sent him to his house, saying: Go to your house, and if you enter the village, tell no one.” Let spiritual understanding now be opened, so that we may know who this blind man is, and why he does not come of his own accord but is brought by others, and is led by Christ's hand, and is led out outside the village, and receives sight elsewhere, who had long endured his long bereavement among his own; and why he spat on his eyes, and the laying on of the divine hand is repeated; and why he who is given to see outside his house is not granted to tell his own what he saw, how he saw, through whom he saw. Brothers, this blind man is the Jew, who in the Synagogue, that is, in the house of faithlessness, and in the village, that is, in the assembly of the wicked, was held by the blindness of ignorance and sat oppressed. Hence he did not come to Christ, but Christ came to him and took his hand, so that he might glory in having been cured by the gift of the one calling, not by the benefit of the law nor by his own free will. He leads him outside, so that in the Church he might see the light of faith through the freedom of grace, who under the veil of the law saw nothing. He first lays his hand on him, so that he may see the shadow of the law passing; so that he may see priests, scribes, Pharisees, and the whole figure of Jewish observance pass by like trees, which, as they are in time, so with time grow old, are born, grow green, flower, bear fruit, perish and vanish. Again he lays his hand on him, so that, rising, he may no longer see perishable things but eternal ones, and see whatever there is of divine light, honor and glory: like that great one among them, Paul, who outside the village and on the road fell as a Jew so as to rise a Christian; and was blinded in the law (Acts 9), so as to see in grace, as he himself declares: “Now we see in a mirror and in a riddle; but then we shall see face to face” (1 Cor 13). Then, when what is buried in death will rise in life, and whatever is sown in dishonor will rise in glory.