On the Prodigal Son 629

sweetness; and the things in the world that are sweet and desirable have many labors but little enjoyment. Our whole life is yoked more to toil than to gladness: “The days of our years are seventy years, and most of them are toil and trouble.” As for the rest: want trained him, and affliction turned him back; for “your apostasy will discipline you, and your wickedness will reprove you.” “But coming to himself.” “To himself” is well said. For when we sin we are outside ourselves, we are out of our minds, we are carried outside our own reasonings; but when we advance in righteousness we return to ourselves. “Coming to himself,” he said. Pay careful attention here to how the word spoken before is true: that physicians supply foreign and alien medicines, but the medicines of our life we have from ourselves. “Coming to himself.” He used no alien medicine but his own; the advantages that come from nature, these he used for salvation, and he says: “How many hired servants of my father have bread to spare!” … the divine Scripture calls … those who are wholly devoted to righteousness and godliness; and “hired servants” those who do not have an undivided disposition toward him, nor in the practice of their way of life think wholly the things of God, but who understand the good and approve the word without devoting their whole mind to him. And to those who have an undivided longing and give themselves wholly to godliness, … God gives the reward in proportion to their intention. Fittingly, then, that son says: “How many hired servants of my father have bread to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will return to my father”—I will return, according to the one who says, “Return, my soul, to your rest.” “And I will say, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired servants.” The words of the one who repents are one thing, and the gifts of the one who receives repentance another. The one who comes from sins to repentance does not imagine the kingdom of heaven, does not judge himself worthy of eternal life, but has only one prayer, to be delivered from Gehenna. He then expects little, but God ungrudgingly bestows on him the wealth of his benefaction. But O the wonder! He only thought of repentance, and the father at once anticipated it with love for humankind; he did not wait to receive the words of confession, but anticipated the request, as it is said: “Before you call upon me, I will say, Behold, I am here.” He saw the son coming from afar, and went to meet him. Do you see how love for humankind anticipates repentance? That is why David too, having washed off the disease of sin with the medicine of repentance, and knowing that, being a lover of humankind, he goes out to meet those who approach, entreats God, saying: “Rise up to meet me, and see,” that I am coming to you genuinely, that I am showing repentance in truth. The father received the boy; and he said to the father: “I have sinned; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired servants.” Here the father makes no reply to him; he does not answer him, but says to the servants: “Bring out the first robe for him.” What does the saying mean? The one who repents asks much, and does not receive an answer by words, but … the love for humankind by deed. Here we are taught that our repentance is through words, but God’s love for humankind through deeds. … of the transgression. “Give him sandals too.” Why? Since the serpent is let loose against sinners, as it is said: “He shall watch your head, and you shall watch his heel.” So that the deadly serpent may not approach him barefoot, so that he may not again … the poison of sin, he puts the sandals on him for safety. For unless he takes the sandals he cannot tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy. That is why Paul, guarding against the bites of the serpent, proclaimed just now: “I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is toward Christ.” But here there emerges something like a new drama, that much-discussed question; for many find fault with the creation. “And why,” he says, “was the serpent in paradise? Why did the tree bring such an occasion of evils? Why did the Maker plant such a plant? How is it not absurd that a human gardener should take pains to drive out contrary seeds and alien weeds from his own seeds and keep his land clean of contrary things, while God, who founded so great and so fine a paradise, constructed a plant from which the occasion of evils was to spring?” The divine Paul leads us to this sequence, saying: “I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is toward Christ.” What then, brothers? Let us leave the many superfluous points of detailed examination and come to the short answer. God made all things good, and not simply good but “very good”; for the addition shows the height of beauty of all that came to be. So God gives Adam abundance, enjoyment, authority: to enjoy paradise and to rule the things that are seen. “For let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of heaven, and the wild beasts and the cattle, and all the earth.” Here he gave authority over paradise, gave delight and enjoyment. He was, then, an appointed king, with both authority over the things seen and the enjoyment of paradise. So it was necessary that a commandment be given to Adam, training his soul in obedience. But many say: “Did God not know that Adam would transgress? Why then did he give a law to one who was going to transgress?” I beg your love to contend alongside me in a sermon full of toil; for we are making a defense on behalf of the creation, on behalf of the divine workmanship. He made man; he gave him abundance of all things; he commands him to eat of all. If the commandment had been narrow, permitting him to touch few things and to abstain from more, the transgression would have had a fair excuse in the narrowness of the … But if the abundance was great and what was forbidden small, for what reason did he not honor his benefactor by obedience? But one may say that he gave abundance of the many, but he did not see such beauty in any other tree; for this one was “beautiful to the sight and good to the taste.” So, to take away this plausible excuse too, God bestowed on all the others the beauty that he gave to that tree. For Moses says: “And God made to spring up also every tree beautiful to the sight and good for food.” Why, then, was the commandment given? So that he might learn that he is under law and under a master. And why did he give this one and not another? There was no other training ground of obedience. For what should God have said to Adam? “You shall not steal”? Whose things? What law should God have laid down? “You shall not murder”? Whom? “You shall not commit adultery”? With whose wife? “You shall not covet”? The things belonging to whom? The commandment had no material; the world was not as it is, nor the confusion that is now present in the world. But he should, by all means, have said, “You shall not bear false witness”? Or who were the accused? He gives him a commandment from the enjoyment at hand: to have abundance of all things, but to abstain from this alone, so that, having enjoyment of all things, he might have set before him the lordship that forbade the tree; not because the tree itself was evil, but because the transgression was wicked. For just as the law of nature wishes a virgin to be given away as a bride in lawful marriage, but if a virgin, anticipating her father’s appointed time or the season of marriage, gives herself up to licentiousness, she incurs an inexorable penalty under the laws—not as having suffered anything strange compared with other virgins, but as having given herself up to sin contrary to the law that pleases her father, and she is punished not because of the nature of the act but because of the manner of the transgression—so too Adam becomes liable to punishment, not as having touched something forbidden by nature, but as having appropriated what was forbidden by the commandment. Read the records. Why do you quarrel about what you do not know? When you want to trace out the history of ancient matters or a lawsuit, do you not … the ancient records, and learn what the words of the accused were, what those of the advocates and of those making the defense, what those of the judge, and the verdict, by the memory of the record? Read, then, the records of the ancient history. When the judge of truth sat—or rather when the physician of our failings came to the condemned man … —what did he say to him? “Adam, where are you?” And what did Adam say? “I heard your voice, and I hid, because I am naked.” What then did he who knows all things do? He feigns ignorance and says: “And who told you that you are naked, unless you have eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat, this alone?” He shows that he had received abundance of, so to speak, all things, and that it was not the narrowness of the enjoyment that led him to the transgression. What then does the accused say to this? “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave it to me.” Adam ascribes the sin to the woman, and you to the tree? You circumscribe the accusation … The accused could not lie in anything, finds no other escape outside the truth, did not ascribe the blame to the Maker but accused the woman; and do you accuse things whose power you do not know? And what does God say to Eve? “What is this that you have done?” And she answers the question with the cause: “The serpent deceived me.” Did she touch the creation? Did she slander the one who formed her? Did she say, “Why did you make us? Why did you forbid us the tree?” She who was subject to the charges found nothing to lie about. For it is dear to the accused to invent even things that do not exist in order to escape the … ; yet she who was subject to the charges found no other escape; and do you bring forward, to accuse God, what the condemned did not bring forward? But I will lead the sermon back again to what is before us. “Adam, where are you?” Since he saw that the mouths of sinners are stopped and the sinner has no boldness, in the form of a question he opens to him a road of defense: “Having transgressed I hid; hearing your love for humankind, … I came forward to make my defense.” And see the righteous judge. He does not examine first the woman who sinned, but the man who was deceived; and rightly, for the court would have been harsher if he had begun with the more liable. But he begins with the one who could find at least a small defense, that he received deception from another person. From the man, then, he passes to the woman and says: “What is this that you have done?” And she says to the Master: “The serpent deceived me.” The serpent deceived? The deception would have had … if the commandment had not shut out the error beforehand; if I had not said beforehand, “In the day you eat from the tree, you shall surely die,” the deception would have had room. Why was the word of God not followed, but the word of deception received? So the Maker was blameless, and the transgressor liable. But let us return to what is before us. The examination of the offenses went from the deceived man to the deceived woman, but the sentence went to the cause of the evils. First the divine justice brings its verdict against him. For it is not passed against the man, nor at once against the woman, but against the serpent. And see the long-suffering of the justice. God does not call the serpent to examination; for he does not want the blame referred to another, nor another escape found. What then does he say to it? “Cursed are you above all the wild beasts of the earth.” The serpent was the visible instrument, but the devil was the one deceiving invisibly through the serpent. For what reason is the punishment against the instrument and not against the author of the … ? The divine justice proceeds both against the sin and against the instrument of sin. You know that God appoints death as the penalty for a bull, which has no reason, if it gores; though it has no reason, he punishes the impulse itself altogether. So here too he pronounces against the serpent, showing that if the instrument of sin is punished thus, much more does he punish the one who worked through it. That is why blessed Isaiah, taking this threat against the serpent well, says: “And it shall be in the last days, God will bring the holy and great and strong sword upon the dragon, the fleeing serpent, upon the dragon, the crooked serpent, and he will slay the dragon on that day.” He calls the devil a dragon, and the ruler of the demons himself a crooked serpent. So too the Savior says: “Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions”; and so that you would not take it of visible things, he added: “and upon all the power of the enemy.” But when the Manichaeans hear … For there was no root of evil, nor a nature of wickedness, but an inclination to lawlessness. “Do you see,” he says, “how Scripture called him a serpent and a dragon, as though introducing some foreign nature of wickedness?” But these words of the ungodly are empty and vain and have no reason. For when the Lord says to human beings, “Serpents, brood of vipers,” he does not slander their nature, but fights against their choice. So one must not be persuaded by the wording, but be taught by the sense. But they object again and seek another question: “Why,” he says, “did he call the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, unless the divine writing wished to indicate some such nature of the plant?” Do not simply slander the truth, man. For the tree of good and evil did not beget a nature, but brought … , and was called by such a name, not because it had … by nature … the transgression. For what did the taste teach Adam? That it is good to obey God, and evil to disobey God. And this is the knowledge of good and evil, and nothing else at all. Otherwise, what knowledge of good things did he find when he looked up at once? What other good did he see? Almsgiving? For who were the poor there? But what did he see? That love for humankind is good? For what occasion of love for humankind did he find? What then did he find? That it is good to obey and evil to disobey the benefactor. Who confirms this? Scripture says: “Has it been told you, O man, what is good, or what the Lord requires of you, but” to fear the Lord your God? Do you see that the fear of God is good, but disobeying God is evil? “Heaven shuddered,” he says, “and the earth was astonished; for my people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water,” and the rest. Why then did he say, “Do not touch the tree, from which, if you eat, you will come to know good and evil through the transgression”? Why? I will make it clear to you and give a short account. It is always dear to the divine Scripture to give things such names as their occasions bring. As, for example: Isaac dug a well; the Philistines came and fought over the well, and … into troubles. What then did Isaac do? He called the name of the pit “Enmity.” The pit did not cause the enmity, but the occasion concerning it made enmity, and for this reason it became a well of enmity. He made another well, and this too was taken, and he called it “Well of Injustice”; not that the well was of injustice, but because the injustice had its material in the well. Likewise the servants of … and of Abner, by the pool, as those who know the Scriptures know, clashing with one another, … and the place was called “Portion of the …” Here again the place did not cause the plot, but the occasion gave the place its name. So it was too with Adam. Since from the event he was thereafter to gain experience that it is good to obey and evil to disobey, the tree received its name from the occasion. But so much for this. May it be granted us to flee from that tree and to run to the tree of life, the plant of the cross, which bore fruits of righteousness, which sprouted virginity and poured forth holiness as a spring, and fruits of various … ; which in this visible fixing of wood … that greatest and strange salvation—not the one that the Savior arranged in a mystery, but the one that that thief openly carried off by plunder—the cross that presided over it for us. For since Adam was banished from paradise through a tree … “You are righteous, O Lord, and your judgments are upright”: for one sin Adam is banished, and for one faithful confession the thief is brought into paradise. You are crucified with the lawless, and you save the lawless. The thief says to him: “Lord, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” And this thief did not cease thieving until along with everything else he stole the kingdom itself. But the other thief reproaches the Lord: “If you are the Son of God, save yourself and us.” The thief’s words are sisters of the Jews’ words; for they too said: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross, and we will believe you.” Do you see how the children of the devil have a harmonious lesson of ungodliness? “Save yourself,” he says, “and us.” What then does the blessed thief do? He speaks in the Lord’s defense; the condemned man takes the place of a judge and begins to judge in truth: “Do you not even fear God, since we are under the same sentence? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of what we did; but what has this man done?” Tell me, thief, why did you not confess at once before Pilate? Why, after countless tortures, did you not then say what you had done? “A human judge was one thing, God as judge another. From that one, who did not know what was in the heart, I tried to hide; from this one, who enters into hearts, I do not hide.” Why did you not confess at once before Pilate? Because there punishment followed confession, but here salvation follows confession. For “first tell your iniquities, that you may be justified.” One could see the Savior between the thieves as a balance of righteousness; one could see him weighing faith and unbelief, righteousness and unrighteousness. He drew the standard of righteousness through the middle, and the one, weighed down by unbelief, … , while the other, lifted up by faith, was raised up. “We indeed,” he says, “are receiving the due reward of what we did; but what has this man done? And now I see a strange injustice: a righteous man crucified with the unrighteous, and good order punished with the penalties of lawlessness. We are receiving the due reward of what we did; but what has this man done? We committed murders and made the living dead; he made the dead alive and undid the violence of death. We plundered what belonged to others; he commands us to give even our own. We killed those who had done no wrong; he taught us to love even our enemies. The sentence is unjust. Are his works worthy of punishment, and ours worthy of pardon? Judge the truth. Let wickedness be banished, let righteousness be honored.” But these things happened through the wickedness of the Jews, and the prophetic mystery was fulfilled: “The righteous one was reckoned …” So the blessed thief reasoned thus, and taught those present by the words with which he reproached the other. But when he saw that the hearing of those present was dead, he turns at last to the one who knows what is in the heart, and says to the Lord: “Lord, remember me in your kingdom.” You see him crucified, and you confess him Lord? You see the guise of a condemned man, and you proclaim the dignity of a king? And why do we wonder, brothers, if Paul, after so great an initiation, after such experience of miracles, says, “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”? Paul proclaims this after so great an initiation, after the miracles, after the signs, after countless works of power, after the resurrection, after the ascension. But the thief, while the visible … was at its height, says to him: “Lord, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” What have you done worthy of remembrance? What have you not done worthy of punishment? Are you, defiled with … , asking the fountain of righteousness to remember your unrighteousness? “Yes, Lord, you are righteous, and your judgments are upright. Repay me according to your righteousness. I saw your visible outrage, and the cross, and the reproach of the lawless; and I do not look at the visible outrage, but at the hidden kingdom. What I see, I overlook; do you not overlook my visible failings and accept the faith of my mind? Remember me, Lord.” O righteous judgment! “Remember me in your kingdom. It is not just, Lord, that the devil should make one of the disciples a traitor, and that you should not change one of the devil’s disciples into an evangelist. Injustice has snatched away the disciple of truth; will truth not change the disciple of injustice? Are you not, Master, the one who changes darkness into light, … and the thief into an evangelist? Conquer the glory … by goodness, by your love for humankind”; to which belong glory and worship to the ages of ages. Amen.