Ad eos qui ipsum acciverant nec occurrerant

Third Discourse. To Those Who Had Summoned Him and Did Not Meet Him. 1. How slow you are to my discourse, O friends and brothers, though you were swift to tyrannize and to tear me away from my solitude, that citadel which I embraced above all else, and which I loved and set before my whole life as a coworker and mother of divine ascent and deification? How is it that what you longed to receive you despise when you have received it, and you have shown yourselves better at longing for me when absent than at enjoying me when present, as if you wished rather to possess my philosophy than to benefit from it? Or may I say this too: we became a surfeit to you before you had tasted or made trial of us—the most paradoxical thing. 2. And you did not gather us together as strangers, nor were you gathered with us, to speak more sympathetically, out of respect for this commandment, if for nothing else; nor did you lead us by the hand as beginners, nor encourage us as timid ones, nor console us as men under compulsion; but you have made the feast for us without a feast—I hesitate to say it, but let it be said nonetheless—and you have greeted us with ill-omened preludes, and you have mixed sorrow with the festival, which lacks the greatest element for pleasure: you, my victors, for it is not true to call you lovers. So contemptible is everything that is easily conquered; the lofty is courted, but what is humbled before God is dishonored. 3. What do you wish? Am I to be judged by you, or am I to be your judge? Am I to cast a vote, or to receive one? For I hope to conquer when judged, and to condemn justly when I pronounce sentence.

The charge is that you do not repay us with equal measures for your love, nor do you render the honor of obedience in return, nor do you guarantee the future by your present zeal—a thing that can barely be believed even with this, since every beginning is more fervent. And you each set something else as more honorable than both the old and the new shepherd, respecting neither the gray hair nor inviting the youth. 4. There is a splendid dinner in the Gospels, and a gracious host, and friends, and the banquet is most pleasant—for it is a son's wedding. And he summons, but they do not come; and he is indignant—and I pass over the middle parts because of their ill repute—but, to speak moderately, he fills the banquet through others. This, then, we deprecate; but you have become to me (how shall I say it gently?) so much more haughty or audacious than those, as the invited guests rise up against the dinner and insult the inviter; while you, not being outsiders, nor among those invited to the wedding, but having yourselves summoned us, and bound us to this sacred table, and shown us the splendor of the bridal chamber, then abandoned us—for this is your noblest deed: one to his own field, another to the newly purchased yoke of oxen, another to his newlywed wife, another to some other trivial thing, you scattered and darted away, caring little for the bridal chamber and the bridegroom.

For this reason I was filled with despondency and perplexity; for I will not conceal what I have suffered. I had almost held back the speech which I intended to offer as a gift to the marriage—the finest and most precious thing I possessed—and I had almost let it loose upon you, the objects of my longing, since I was once compelled to do so; especially when I had seized so splendid an occasion, and when affection was sharpening my tongue—which is most ardent and most resourceful for accusation, when zeal arises, having taken on unexpected grief from the slight. If any of you, stung by a gadfly, has been overlooked, he recognizes the passion and will forgive those who suffer this and come near to such madness. But for me, it is not even now lawful to attack any of you, nor may it ever be so. And perhaps I have attacked beyond due measure this sacred flock, these praiseworthy lambs of Christ, this divine inheritance through which you are rich, even if you are poor. And I consider those words fitting for you: "The ropes have fallen upon you in the best portions"; for your inheritance is the best for you. And I will not allow the cities that are counted nor the most extensive flocks to have any advantage over us, the few of the smallest tribe among the sons of Israel, the scanty among the thousands of Judah, the little Bethlehem among cities, in which Christ is born, now and from the beginning, well known and revered; among whom the Father is exalted, the Son is made equal, and the Holy Spirit is glorified together—of one soul, thinking the one thing, neither diminishing nor exalting nor separating any part of the Trinity.

like those bad arbiters and measurers of divinity, who, by exalting one thing more than is fitting, diminish and insult the whole. 7. But you, if you grant me any favor, my little farm, or my vine, my own vitals—or rather, the vitals of our common Father, whom this man has begotten in Christ through the Gospel—reverence us as well; for it is just, since we have preferred you above all. You are witnesses, and those who entrusted to us this either leadership or service. And if more is owed to the one who has loved more, how shall I measure the love by which I have made you debtors through my own? But reverence yourselves even more, and the image entrusted to you, and the one who entrusted it, and the sufferings of Christ, and the hopes that come from them, having the faith which you received and with which you were reared, with which you are saved and are believed to save others; for it is not of many, as you well know, that your boast consists. And consider piety to consist not in speaking often about God, but in being silent the more; for the tongue is a slippery thing for men not steered by reason. And always deeming hearing safer than speaking, so that it is more pleasant to learn than to teach about God, yielding the more precise examination of these matters to the stewards of the word.

They themselves, while professing piety in word but little, in deed more, and by the observance of the laws rather than by admiring the lawgiver, display their affection for him, fleeing vice, pursuing virtue, living by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit, drawing knowledge by it, building upon the foundation of faith, not wood, nor grass, nor straw, weak and easily consumed material, whenever our affairs are judged or purified by fire, but gold, silver, precious stones, things that endure and stand firm. 8. Do these things, and honor us by them, whether present or absent, whether claiming our words or holding something else more honorable; and become pure and blameless children of God, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; and let not the ropes of the impious who walk in circles entangle you, nor be constricted by the chains of your own sins, nor let your reason be stifled by the cares of life, and you become fruitless; but travel the royal road, turning neither to the right nor to the left, and being led by the Spirit through the narrow as though it were broad; and our condition will be well both now and at the examination from that place, in Christ Jesus our Lord; to whom is glory for the ages. Amen.