Sermones Ad Populum. Classis V. Sermones Dubii

For God became humble to benefit man; man is humble so as not to harm himself.

The difference between his passion and his nativity. Christ increases, John decreases. Let us recognize these two things also in the very difference of their passions. We read that John suffered martyrdom for the truth: was it not for Christ? Not for Christ, if the truth is not Christ. Not altogether for his name, but yet for the truth itself. For John was not beheaded for this reason, that he confessed Christ. But he was admonishing temperance, he was admonishing justice: he was saying, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife (Mark 6:18). For the law that had commanded this had commanded it concerning those who died without children, that brothers should take the wives of their brothers and raise up seed for their brothers. Where that cause was not present, it was nothing but lust. This lust John was reproving, the chaste man reproving incest: because that also which he was prefiguring is such, He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30). For it had already been commanded that if anyone died without seed, the one who was nearer of kin should take his wife and raise up seed for his brother. For why had God commanded this, except that in that way it might be signified that the seed of a brother was to be raised up to the brother's name? For this had been commanded, that the one born from her should have the name of the deceased. Christ died; his wife, the Church, was taken by the Apostles. Those whom they begot from her they named not Paulians or Petrians, but Christians.

Let these two things speak, then—both passions: "He must increase, but I must decrease." He increased on the wood, this one was diminished on the iron. The passions have spoken this mystery; let the days speak it too. Christ is born, and increases; John is born, and decreases. Let the honor of man decrease, then, and the honor of God increase, so that the honor of man may be found in the honor of God.

SERMON 381.

On the Birthday of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

This day, as the faith of Rome attests, is the day on which the apostles Peter and Paul, the devil being conquered, merited their triumphant crown. To whom a solemn festival is shown, let a solemn sermon also be rendered. Let them hear our praises, let them pour out prayers for us. As the memory is retained, known from the tradition of the fathers, they did not suffer on one day as the spaces of heaven ran their course. Therefore Paul suffered on the birthday of Peter—not the birthday on which he was poured from his mother's womb into the number of men, but the one on which he was born from the bond of the flesh into the light of the angels; and by this means the days were so given individually to the two, that now one is celebrated for both. This seems to me a great sign of concord: the last came to his fellow-apostle before the first; he who was called arrived on the same day, and he who was crowned met it on the same day. The former was chosen before the Lord's passion, the latter after the ascension. Unequal in the order of time, equal in the eternity of blessedness: the one from a fisherman, the other from a persecutor. In the former, the weak things of the world were chosen, that the strong might be confounded (1 Cor.

In this one sin abounded, that grace might superabound (Rom 5:20). In both, the great grace of God and his glory shone forth—he who made their merits, not found them. For what else did he deign to demonstrate, who willed to call fishermen first to the kingdom, and afterward to call emperors, except that "he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord" (1 Cor 1:31)? For surely he did not despise the salvation of the noble, the learned, and the powerful, over whom he set the lowly, the unlearned, and the weak. But unless the worthlessness of the weak had first been chosen, the swelling of the proud would not have been healed. If the rich had been called by Christ first, they would have thought and said that nothing was in them but wealth, eloquence, the teaching of rhetoric, the splendor of knowledge, nobility, high birth, tranquility, and royal power; and so, puffed up by temporal and worldly felicities, as if they themselves had first conferred upon Christ what they were, so that he might seem to repay rather than to give what they would be by the grace of God—they would neither understand nor hold it fast. How much better, then, how much more orderly it is now, that he first lifted the needy from the earth and raised the poor from the dung heap, to set him with the mighty of his people (Ps 112:7-8), so that the gift of understanding and teaching might not only be from God, but also appear to be from God? With what great joy, then, and with what great glory of God do we behold the wealth of an emperor despised by the mind of a fisherman?

that the emperor's prayers should be poured out at the Memorial of a fisherman? So that neither the one should lie low because of what he did not have, nor the other grow proud because of what he had. Moreover, as for that which Christ accomplished in Paul, making him his own preacher out of his own persecutor—what power it has for the salvation of men, so that no one conscious of great iniquities should despair of God's mercy—let the apostle himself rather speak. This is a faithful saying, he says, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. But for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth all longsuffering, for an example to those who shall believe on him unto eternal life (1 Tim 1:15-16). For who, placed under the hand of the almighty physician, would despair of salvation, instructed by so great an example, considering that he who once laid waste the faith he now proclaims not only escaped the punishment of a persecutor but even merited the crown of a teacher, and that he who in his raging desired to shed the blood of Christ's members shed his own blood for his name by believing? Rome, then, the head of the nations, has two lights of the nations, kindled by him who enlightens every man coming into this world: one, in whom God exalted abject humility; the other, in whom he healed damnable iniquity. In the one let us learn not to be proud; in the other, not to despair.

How briefly great examples have been set before us, how wholesome—examples we should always call to mind, and in praising them magnify the true light. Let no one, then, exalt himself because of the loftiness of this world: Peter was a fisherman. Let no one, by thinking on his own iniquity, flee from the mercy of God: Paul was a persecutor. The one says, The Lord is become a refuge for the poor; the other says, I will teach the wicked thy ways, and the ungodly shall be converted unto thee.

SERMON CCCLXXXII.

On Saint Stephen.

CHAPTER ONE.—1. The commandment concerning the love of enemies. Jesus was fighting against the sons of Amalek in the wilderness, and Moses was praying; not that both were fighting and both praying, but one was fighting and the other was praying. Rightly did he who fought not grow faint, because the other was conquering by praying. So too I seem indeed to speak, but I speak while others pray, so that through their entreaties there may come to me what the Lord said: Open thy mouth, and I will fill it. If that man was helped by only one praying, and was not overcome, how much more I, for whom not one but many pray to God with me? In speaking, my heart shall now not fear, because my mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord. Our Lord Jesus Christ, brethren, commands us something and promises us something. What he commands is here; what he promises is elsewhere. What he commands is finite, because it is temporal; what he promises is not finite, because it is eternal. What he commands is work; what he promises is reward.

Let your Holiness note here how great is his mercy toward us, that he has placed the labor here with us, but the reward in heaven without end. And therefore we ought first to labor here, and afterward in heaven to receive the reward, rather than here to receive the reward and afterward to labor. For of certain ones it is said: Amen I say to you, they have received their reward (Matt. 6:2). But perhaps you are eager for the reward and sluggish for the labor. With what face do you demand what God has promised, if you do not do what God has commanded? First hear the warnings, and so claim the promises. First, I say, hear the one commanding, and then claim the one promising. For he commands us and says: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; and pray for those who persecute and slander you. You have heard the work; await the reward: That you may be, he says, sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise upon the good and the bad, and rains upon the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:44-45).

CHAPTER II. — 1. The example of Christ praying for his murderers. Christ prays for us, prays in us, and is prayed to by us. Consider the Lord himself who commanded this, who did it. Did he not, after the many things the wicked Jews committed against him, who returned evils for good, hanging on the cross say: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do? He prayed in the man, who as Father heard him. For even now he prays for us, prays in us, and is prayed to by us. As our priest he prays for us, as our head he prays in us, as our God he is prayed to by us. When therefore he prayed hanging on the cross, he saw and foresaw all his enemies; but he foresaw that many of them would become friends, and therefore he asked pardon for all. They raged, and he prayed. They said to Pilate, Crucify him; he cried out, Father, forgive. He hung on sharp nails, but he did not lose his gentleness. He was already asking pardon for those from whom he was receiving such great injury. They raged, they barked around him, they shook their head in mockery, because they had no sound head; for they did not have the head that is Christ, and as though around a great physician set in their midst, the madmen raged on every side; he hung there, and healed. Father, he says, forgive them. Attend, brothers. Great piety. He hung, and yet he asked. And he did not come down, because from his blood he was making medicine for the madmen.

Finally, after his resurrection he healed those whom, while hanging on the cross, he endured as utterly mad; and the blood which they shed in their rage, they drank when they believed; and those who had been persecutors became followers. Behold why Christ came: not to destroy what he found, but to seek and to save what had perished (Id. xix, 10); so that by loving his raging enemies, he might make them believing friends.

CHAPTER III. — 5. The example of Stephen praying for those who stoned him. But lest you say that the Lord your God is far from your imitation, who suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his footsteps (1 Pet. II, 21), consider Stephen, your fellow servant. He was a man, just as you are: created from the mass of sin, just as you are: redeemed at the same price as you. He was a deacon, he read the Gospel, which you also read or hear. There he found it written, Love your enemies (Matt. v, 44). He learned it by reading, he fulfilled it by doing. When he was struck by the Jews with a hail of stones, he not only did not threaten, but moreover begged forgiveness for those who stoned him. For he knelt down and prayed, saying: Lord, do not hold this sin against them (Acts VII, 59). They were stoning, and he was praying. They were pursuing him with fury; he, at peace, was following Christ. They were being stirred up by malice; he, with heaven opened, was being enlightened by the wisdom of the Son of God. They were hurling stones; he was sending prayers ahead of them: as if to say: Lord, if you now kill these enemies, whom will you afterward make friends?

CHAPTER IV. — 4. For Saul, grace and salvation were obtained by Stephen's prayer. Finally, brothers, so that you may know how much the prayer of the holy martyr Stephen availed, run back with us to that young man named Saul: who, when the holy Stephen was being stoned, was guarding the garments of all, and as it were was stoning with the hands of all (Acts 7). And afterward, as you know, he received letters from the chief priests, so that whatever Christians, men and women, he found, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem, to be tortured and punished. As he was going on the way, suddenly a light from heaven shone around him, and he fell to the ground, and heard a voice from heaven saying to him: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And he said: Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said to him: I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goad: because you will wound not the goad, but the feet with which you kick. What have I to do with you? Why do you persecute me? Why do you raise yourself against me to your own harm, and not rather humble yourself for your own good? But against so many evils which you commit against me, I once indeed ought to have destroyed you, but Stephen my servant prayed for you. The raging man was struck down, the believing man was raised up: the wolf was struck down, the lamb was raised up: the persecutor was struck down, the preacher was raised up. I will say it more plainly, I will say it more openly: the son of perdition was struck down, the vessel of election was raised up: Saul was struck down, Paul was raised up (Ibid. 9).

For if the martyr Stephen had not prayed thus, the Church would not have Paul today. But Paul was raised from the earth because Stephen, bowed down upon the earth, was heard.

CHAPTER V. — 5. It is as wicked to pray for evil against one's enemies as to do evil. Behold why the Lord says, Love your enemies: because by loving an enemy, you make him a friend. But against such great and such things as these, who are you who do not love? You bend your knee, you strike your forehead against the earth, and you say: If my enemy should die, O God, if I have deserved anything from you, kill my enemy. And surely you who pray that a man may die, being evil, pray against one who is evil, and you have become two evil men: he by doing evil, you by praying evil. You begin to be evil by praying when you say, O God, kill the evil man. He himself answers you: Which of you? You who are evil, or your enemy? Let your Holiness take note. A human judge does not kill the guilty man himself, but orders it, and the executioner kills. The judge says, Kill: and the torturer kills. And you, when you say, Kill my enemy, make yourself the judge, and seek God to be the torturer. God answers you: I will not at all be, I will not be a torturer for sinners, but a deliverer; because I do not will the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live (Ezek. XXXIII, 11). For if I had your will, I would have killed you first, before you came as one invited. Did you not blaspheme me? Did you not provoke me in your evil works? Did you not wish to blot out my name from the earth? Did you not despise me in my precepts or in my servants?

If I had then killed you as an enemy, whom would I now make a friend? What then do you teach me by praying wickedly, that I did not do in your case? Nay, says God to you, I will teach you to imitate me. Hanging on the cross I said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. I taught this to my soldiers, I taught this to my martyrs. First be you also my martyr, my recruit, against the devil: otherwise you will in no way fight invincibly, unless you pray for your own enemies. Which may he deign to grant us, etc.

SERMON CCCLXXXIII.

On the anniversary day of episcopal ordination.

CHAPTER ONE.—1. How he may bear the episcopal burden, he deems it a matter for inquiry with himself. Indeed, on every day, and at every hour, and with wholly unceasing care, most beloved, a bishop ought to consider what a burden of stewardship he bears, and what account of it he will render to his Lord. Yet when the anniversary day of our ordination comes round, then especially the burden of this office is regarded as though it were then for the first time imposed.

It matters that on the day when we first undertook this, we thought only of how it was to be carried out; but in the days that follow, and especially on that day when its solemnity is celebrated, we not only consult with cautious foresight about its future—how it ought thereafter to be conducted—but we also recall with anxious remembrance its past—how it was carried out—so that we may imitate ourselves in good deeds, and if any things deserving blame have passed by, we take care that they not be repeated, and we take care that they be forgiven; and the devil's accusation, where we can, we avoid by the diligence of right action; where we cannot, we overcome by the piety of confession. For just as future sins are committed by neglecting righteousness, so past sins are confirmed by defending unrighteousness. Therefore, just as charity looks ahead that they not be committed, so humility deletes those already committed: so that what cannot now be prevented from being admitted by right action may at least be dismissed by not being proud. For we have learned to say to our Father who is in heaven, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Mt 6:12). And that we may be able to say this truthfully, we must surely also love our enemies—whom, however, we ought not to have unless justice compels it. For if men are enemies to us on account of our own evils, we must not be concerned to forgive them their debts, but rather must fear lest we repay them. Since if they hate us by the merit of our iniquity, we are debtors to them, not they to us.

CHAPTER II — 2. He forgives his debtors. On this solemn day of my episcopate, therefore, I shall first address a few words to my debtors, who, without knowing it, plead for me before God, in that they pay the debts which I remit, so that I may deserve to have my own debts forgiven. To you, then, I speak, whether present or absent — you to whom I become an enemy by preaching the truth, to whom I seem burdensome by giving counsel, whose will I am forced to offend by seeking your good: Be not as the horse and the mule, which have no understanding. For these beasts also attack most with hoof and bite those by whom they are tended, so that their wounds may be tended and touched. You do not spare, I do not spare; you oppose, I oppose; you resist, I resist. The struggle joins us, but the cause separates us. You are an enemy to the physician, I to the disease; you to my diligence, I to your pestilence. They repaid, it says, evil for good; but I prayed. What did he pray, except, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do? When they have reviled you, it says, and spoken every evil against you for righteousness' sake, rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. Yet do you correct your perversity, acknowledge our charity; return love for love: we do not wish a greater reward at the cost of your perdition. These few words will now suffice for my debtors, to whom I forgive, that it may be forgiven me.

CHAPTER III — 5. He desires to be reconciled with those whom he has perhaps offended. Next I must address a few words also to those to whom I am a debtor. For as the Apostle says, I am a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish (Rom. 1:14). For such a debtor am I also, according to the smallness of my strength and the little portion of my stewardship—a debtor not to some, but to all. But now, as one weak, I speak of those debts which I desire to have forgiven me, not exacted from me. For I am not so lifted up by the swelling of vainglory as to dare to say that, since I began to bear the burden of this office, I have wrongfully injured no man. For any man, however occupied and stretched by so many and so troublesome activities, this is—not to say impossible—certainly difficult; how much more for me, who know the weakness of my own heart, which I offer with my own and with your prayers, day and night, to our Lord God to be healed?

Disturbed, then, by the surging tides and difficulties of various cares—if perhaps I have not heard someone as I ought, if I have looked at someone more harshly than was fitting, if I have let fall a word against someone more harshly than was proper, if I have troubled someone grieved in heart and in need of help with an incongruous reply, if when I was intent on something else I have either passed over someone poor who was pressing upon me importunately, or put him off, or even saddened him with a harsh nod; if I have been more bitterly angry than was just against someone who suspected something false about me, as one man suspecting another, if someone has not recognized in his own conscience what I had humanly suspected about him—you, to whom I confess I am a debtor for these and such offenses, believe at the same time that I am your loving friend. For the mother hen, too, often presses her chicks in tight places, but not with the full weight of her foot, nor does she therefore cease to be a mother. Forgive, that it may be forgiven you. Forgive one who loves you, you who owe even to enemies the debt of not holding on to cruelty. In sum, I beseech all of you: having commended my care for you to the Lord, commend your care for me to him; hence I justly ask in return your care for me, that whatever offenses of mine belong to the past he may mercifully forgive, not sternly acknowledge. And whatever time remains to me hereafter under this burden, may he guide me as I journey, and make me pleasing in his eyes and useful to you; so that the sight of him may find you to be not my dread and punishment, but my joy and crown.

SERMON CCCLXXXIV.

On the Trinity, or on the Old and New Scriptures, against the Arians.

FIRST CHAPTER. — 1. What God is. The holy and divine utterances, brothers, are read to us continually, indeed daily, for our health, so that our souls may be fed; but in the world to come they shall be fattened with eternal banquets, as the prophet says, I shall be satisfied when your glory shall be made manifest (Ps. xvi, 15). But what this future glory is like, and with what riches it flourishes, and with how great a splendor it shines forth, we can praise but we cannot explain. Why? Because we read, Neither has the eye seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor. ii, 9). If, then, such and so great are the eternal heavenly goods which the almighty Lord has prepared for his holy catholic and faithful peoples, what is God himself, who has prepared such and so great things? What is almighty God, I say? What is he, except inestimable, ineffable, incomprehensible, beyond all things, outside all things, above all things? For he exceeds all his creation, he surpasses every made thing, he excels over all things. For if you seek magnitude, he is greater; if beauty, more beautiful; if sweetness, sweeter; if splendor, more radiant; if justice, more just; if strength, stronger; if piety, more merciful.

For no reason allows either that the creature be equated with its maker, or that the work be compared to its craftsman: as it is read in the prophet, He who made the strong is stronger; and he who made the beautiful things is more beautiful than they (Wisdom 13:5).

CHAPTER II. — 1. The Trinity is one God. The error of the Arians. In the sun there are three inseparable things. In fire also there are three inseparable things. But we proclaim the exalted insignia of this unique deity in such a way that we do so not as Jews, but as Christians. Let us equally confess the mysteries of the divine Trinity. For just as the Father is almighty and ineffable, so the Son is almighty and incomprehensible; so also the Holy Spirit, inseparably joined in the Father and the Son, is ineffable and immeasurable. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one almighty God, one in trinity, one in power, unity, trinity, eternal majesty, one powerful through all things; and the trinity consists in unity, and the unity in trinity: but neither is the trinity divided, nor is the unity separated. Armed and instructed, therefore, with this catholic faith, dearest ones, let us briefly refute the abominable Arian heretics, who in this time impiously boast of themselves and, by seducing many of our Christians, corrupt and deceive them, in that they pray to the Lord while they rise up against the Lord.

They answer us, saying: We pray to the Lord indeed in the Trinity, but as we read, the Father is greater, the Son lesser, the Holy Spirit lower, because Christ himself says, The Father is greater than I (John 14:28).

CHAPTER III. — To them we respond: So, I say, do you pray to and worship God? So indeed; so we read, so we worship, so we pray. To these we say: If therefore you thus worship and pray to God, this is not to worship and invoke one great God, but to make three gods: and where is what is read in the divine law, Hear, Israel; the Lord your God, God is one? And again elsewhere he says, You shall adore the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve (Deut 6:4, 5, 13). For if the Father is one thing, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another; now it is not one Trinity, but a divided power. But how can a discrepant power stand, when, according to what we read in the Gospel, a house or kingdom divided against itself cannot stand (Matt 12:25)? How then is the Godhead distinguished from itself, when the splendor of light or the heat of the sun is in no way separated? For behold, just as we see, in the sun there are three things, and they cannot be separated at all. But let us see what these three things are: course, splendor, and heat. For we see the sun in heaven running, shining, warming. Divide, therefore, if you can, O Arian, the sun, and then at last divide the Trinity. But perhaps the reasoning about dividing the sun is difficult, because it is in heaven, and is placed far from us.

Behold, we set before you another element that is less, and is on earth with us: I mean fire, which is held in our hands, and yet is not divided. For fire also has three things, and cannot be divided: that is, motion, light, and heat. If therefore, wicked heretic, you cannot divide the created sun and fire, how can you divide God, the creator of all things?

CHAPTER IV. — 3. The testimonies of the Scriptures concerning the divine Trinity. A praise of the catholic faith. But hear and learn that this great and unique Trinity was shown from the beginning of the human race. Hear in the Law and the Prophets, in the Psalms and in the Gospel, hear in the Apostle that it is declared beyond doubt. Hear, I say, in Genesis: God made man in the image of God. That he might at the same time show the inseparable Trinity, he said in that book, And the Spirit of God was borne over the waters (Gen. 1:27, 2). Hear the prophet speaking in the person of Christ: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach the gospel to the poor (Isa. 61:1). Hear in the Psalms, By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their power (Ps. 32:6): and again, Give me the joy of your salvation, and confirm me with the principal spirit (Ps. 50:14). Hear this same thing confirmed in the Gospel: the Lord Christ says to the Apostles, All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth: going, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:18, 19).

Hear the Apostle: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him? For from him, and through him, and in him are all things: to him be glory forever and ever (Rom 11:33-36). If, therefore, both by the old and the new Scriptures it has been proved sufficiently and plainly that the divine unity is an inseparable Trinity, with heretics utterly spurned, according to the Apostle who says, Avoid a heretic after one admonition (Tit 3:10), let us now strengthen our faithful peoples concerning the catholic faith itself. For there are no greater riches, no treasures, no honors, no greater substance of this world than the catholic faith, which saves sinners, enlightens the blind, heals the weak, baptizes catechumens, justifies the faithful, restores the penitent, increases the just, crowns martyrs, preserves virgins, widows, and married persons in chaste modesty, ordains clerics, consecrates priests, prepares for the heavenly kingdoms, and shares in the eternal inheritance with the holy angels. As the Lord himself confirms by his promise: In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they shall be equal to the angels of God (Mt 22:30); through Christ our Lord.

SERMON 385.

On the love of man for man.

CHAPTER ONE.— 1. The love of man is one kind right, another perverse. Not only in the New, but also in the Old Testament, we are admonished, dearly beloved brethren, how we ought to hold perfect charity. For thus the Lord himself said in the Gospel: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Matt. 22:39). Let us therefore treat somewhat of the love of man for man, because there are perverse loves of men. He loves another perversely who also loves himself perversely; but he who loves himself rightly also loves another rightly. For example, there are shameful loves, detestable loves: the loves of adulterers, the loves of the corrupt, unclean loves. All human laws and divine laws detest evil loves. Remove therefore these illicit loves; let us seek those that are lawful.

The degrees of lawful love. Lawful love begins with marriage, but as yet it is carnal. You see that it is common with the beasts; and those sparrows that chirp have marriages, and make nests, together they warm the eggs, together they feed the chicks. This love is indeed lawful in men, but you see that it is carnal. The second love is that of children, but it too is carnal. For he who loves his children is not to be praised, but he who does not love them is to be detested. For would I praise as a great thing in a man what I see in a tiger? Serpents love their young, lions and wolves love their young. Do not therefore think it a great thing that you love your children. In this love you are still compared to serpents.

If you do not love, you are conquered by serpents. I now speak of honorable loves; for I have excluded the shameful ones. Another love is that of relatives; this indeed seems proper to men, if it is not [merely] of habit. For greater is the love that extends beyond relatives than that which is confined among relatives. He who loves his relatives still loves his own blood. Let him love others who are not relatives; let him receive the stranger; already this love has been enlarged. But it grows so much that it reaches from a spouse to children, from children to relatives, from relatives to strangers, from strangers to enemies. But in order to reach there, it has many steps.

CHAPTER TWO.— 3. Friendship is one kind of habit, another of reason. Concerning friendship, then, see what I say. There are friends—excepting that friendship which is not even to be called friendship, which an evil conscience makes. For there are men who commit evils together, and therefore seem to themselves joined, because they are bound by an evil conscience. Excepting, then, this nefarious friendship, there is a certain friendship still carnal, through the habit of living together, conversing, and associating together; so that a man is saddened when he is deserted by a friend with whom he is accustomed to converse and to have associations. Two men meet, they walk together for three days, and now they do not wish to part from each other.

And this is a certain sweetness of friendship: honorable indeed, but let us still examine it, because we are seeking the degrees of this love; and let us see how far we have come, even to such friendship as I have described. This friendship, then, is of habit, not of reason. Even beasts have it. Two horses feed together, they long for one another; if on another day one goes ahead, the other hurries, longing for him as for his friend; he is scarcely controlled by his rider, and for a long time urges on his own impulse until he arrives. When he has come to the one who went ahead, he is calmed; he was bearing him as a weight, he was pressed by the weight of love; he came as to his own place, and rested. Still even this friendship of habit is in beasts: let us rise still further, even from this. There is another, higher friendship, not of habit, but of reason, by which we love a man because of faith and mutual goodwill in this mortal life. Whatever we have already found above this is divine. Let man begin to love God, and he will love nothing in man except God.

CHAPTER III — 4. The gratuitous love of friendship. For let your Charity see first how the love of friendship ought to be gratuitous. For you ought not for this reason to have a friend, or to love him, so that he may provide you something. If you love him for this reason, that he may provide you money or some temporal advantage, you do not love him, but that which he provides. A friend is to be loved gratuitously, for his own sake, not for something else. If the rule of friendship urges you to love a man gratuitously, how gratuitously is God to be loved, who commands you to love a man? Nothing is more delightful than God. For in a man there are things that offend; yet through friendship you compel yourself to tolerate even those things in a man that offend, for the sake of friendship. If, therefore, you ought not to dissolve a man's friendship because of certain things that must be tolerated, by what things ought God's friendship to be compelled to be dissolved by you? You find nothing more delightful than God. God is not such that he offends you, if you do not offend him; nothing is more beautiful than he, nothing more sweet. But you will say to me: I do not see him; how shall I love one whom I do not see? Behold how you learn to love one whom you do not see: I now show you whence you may strive to see what you cannot see with these eyes. Behold, you love a friend; what do you love in him? You love him gratuitously. But perhaps this friend of yours, to pass over other things, is an old man; for it can happen that you have an old friend. What do you love in an old man? His bent body, his white head, the wrinkles on his brow, his shrunken jaw? If it is the body that you see,

nothing is more deformed than old age; and yet you love something, and you do not love the body you see, because it is deformed. From where do you see what you love? For if I should ask you, Why do you love? you will answer me, The man is faithful. Therefore you love faith. If you love faith, by those same eyes by which faith is seen, God is seen. Begin, then, to love God, and you will love man for the sake of God.

CHAPTER IV — 5. God is to be loved freely. Hear a great testimony. The devil is certainly the accuser of the saints; and because he does not plead before such a judge as he can deceive, he cannot bring false charges against us. He knows before whom he speaks. Since, therefore, he cannot speak false things against us, he seeks true things to say. So he tempts us that he may have something to say. This adversary of ours, then, who envies us the kingdom of heaven, who does not wish us to be there whence he himself was cast down, says: Does Job worship God for nothing? (Job 1:9). We are still provoked to this by the adversary, that we should worship God for nothing, since he, seeking something to object, thought he had found a great thing when he said, Does Job worship God for nothing? Not because he had seen his heart, but because he saw his riches. We must beware lest we love God for a reward. For what then? Will you love God for a reward? What reward is it that God will give you? Whatever else he has given you is less than himself. You worship not for nothing, so that you may receive something from him. Worship for nothing, and you will receive himself. For God keeps himself for you, that you may enjoy him.

And if you love the things he made, what is he like who made them? If the world is beautiful, what is the craftsman of the world like? Therefore tear your heart away from the love of the creature, so that you may cling to the Creator, and say what is written in the Psalm: But for me, to cling to God is good.

CHAPTER V. — 6. To love the creature with the Creator forsaken is to commit adultery. But if you forsake him who made you, and love those things which he made, having forsaken him who made you, you are an adulterer. So the Epistle of James cries out, calling them adulterers: Adulterers. And from what are they adulterers? You ask from what? Do you not know, it says, that friendship with this world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wishes to be a friend of this world is made an enemy of God (James IV and 5). He has expressed what he said: Adulterers. The soul, with the Creator forsaken, loving the creature, is an adulteress. For nothing is more chaste than love of him, nothing more delightful. With him forsaken, embracing this, you are made unclean. Soul, that you may be worthy of his embraces, dismiss these things, and cling to him freely. For this is why the Psalm said: But for me, to cling to God is good. In the preceding verse it said thus: You have destroyed all who fornicate from you (Ps. LXXII, 28, 27). And as if to show what fornication is, it added: But for me, to cling to God is good. I want nothing else, but him. To cling to him, this is my good, this is my free good. Therefore it is also called grace, because it costs nothing.

When, therefore, you have begun to love God freely, there is security: because you also love a friend freely, and you love him for this purpose, that he may love God with you. For consider that ordinary friendship itself, from which we began, through which we made our steps; consider it. A husband loves his wife, and a wife her husband: without doubt both he wishes her safe and she wishes him safe. She wishes to have him unharmed, she wishes to have him happy. She loves him for this reason, because she herself wishes to be unharmed and happy: what she wishes for herself, this she wishes for him. She loves her children: who does not wish to have his children safe? She loves a friend: who does not wish to have him unharmed? To such a degree that, if perhaps something happens to him, she trembles, grieves, is disturbed, runs, approaches; when she has approached, she weeps. What then does she wish? To have him safe. If, therefore, everyone who loves wishes to have safe what he loves; if he understands what true safety is, he begins to love it in himself, and is compelled to love the true safety also in a friend.

CHAPTER VI.—7. The health of this life, which is to be used. If you seek God with the eyes of the flesh, see the three youths delivered from the fire (Dan. 3). If you seek God by faith, see the Maccabees crowned in the fire (2 Macc. 7). That health, therefore, is to be loved; this one is to be used. For this is necessary for use, for it is going to pass away. For it is not true health, brothers, which the physicians speak of. We are sick in a certain manner, for sickness is perpetual in this frailty of the flesh. For do you think a man is sick only when he has a fever, and well when he is hungry? He is well, it is said. Do you wish to see how great an evil it is to be hungry? Leave him without remedy for seven days, and he is killed. But because you apply a remedy daily, he lives. Now the remedy for hunger is food; the remedy for thirst is drink; the remedy for weariness is sleep; the remedy for sitting is walking; the remedy for walking is sitting; the remedy for fatigue is sleeping; the remedy for sleeping is waking. And see how weak the human body is: this very aid that I have mentioned, whoever takes it up, if he persists in it, fails. By being hungry you sought the aid of food: behold, the aid of food is present; you chew, you are refreshed; if you do more, you fail the more. You sought drink as an aid for thirst: by drinking much you are choked, you who were pressed by thirsting. You grew tired by walking, you wish to sit: sit perpetually, and see whether you will not grow tired.

Whatever therefore it has taken up, in order to drive out something else, if it persists in that very thing, it fails.

CHAPTER VII.—8. True salvation is eternal life. A friend is to be loved for eternal salvation. Perfect charity. What kind of salvation is this, then, brothers—passing away, fragile, perishable, vain? Truly, as it has been said, For what is your life? It is a vapor, appearing for a little while (James 4:14). Whoever therefore loves his soul in this life will lose it. But whoever hates his soul in this world keeps it for the life to come (John 12:25). What is eternal life? True salvation. And if you see your friend, whom you loved in this world that he might be saved, since you now desire such a salvation as is eternal, you love your friend for that salvation itself; and whatever you wish to bestow on your friend, you wish to bestow it for this end, that he may hold that salvation with you. For you love righteousness, you wish him to be righteous; you love to be under God, you wish him also to be under God; you love eternal life, you wish him to reign with you there forever. You see your enemy persecuting you—it is iniquity that persecutes you. You ought to be angry at him with mercy; he is feverish in his soul.

How then does a friend of this world, loving his soul according to the world, wish to drive a fever out of his friend, whom he loves as himself, for the sake of present health? So do you love whomever you love for the sake of eternal life. When you find anger, indignation, hatred, iniquity, strive to drive out the disease of the soul just as a friend of the world drives out the disease of the body. For you love to this end, that you may do what you yourself are, and perfect love will be in you. If you find this, love your spouse to this end, love your son to this end, love your neighbor, your acquaintance, the unknown, your enemy, and perfect love will be in you. If it is in you, you will conquer the world, and the prince of the world is cast out. For you have heard what the Lord said: The prince of this world is cast out (John 12:31), because he himself was to suffer, and by his passion to make love in men. No one has greater love than this, that he lay down his soul for his friends (John 15:13). Therefore, so that he might be loved, he first loved; so that no one might fear to die in his name, he first died for all. To this end, then, that he might build love in the hearts of men, he sent the devil outside. Outside where? From the hearts of men. Cupidity sends him within; love sends him outside.

CHAPTER VIII. — 9. Conclusion. But we, brothers, considering with great diligence the degrees of charity written above, let us not return evil to the Lord for good. And because he, coming, bound the strong one, that is, the devil, and took us all, who were his vessels, out of his power, by his grace let us, emptied of all evils, strive to be filled with abundant good things, fearing that which the Lord himself said: When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and does not find it; after this, returning and finding the house from which he went out empty, he brought with him seven spirits more wicked than himself: and the last state of that man became worse than the first (Luke 11:21-26). Therefore, lest we too suffer something of this kind, let us labor as much as we can to bring virtues into the places of vices, so that we may be able to attain to the mercy of God.

SERMON 386.

On the love of enemies.

i. Charity must be extended even to enemies. Prayers handed down by Christ the Judge himself. We must forgive so that we may be forgiven. He is secure before God whose request for pardon is denied by his brother. We must pray even for one who does not ask for pardon. Give heed, my brothers, to charity, which divine Scripture praises so highly that it sets nothing equal to it. When God admonishes us to love one another, does he admonish this only, that you should love one who loves you? This is mutual affection; this is not enough for God, for he willed it to reach even to loving enemies, saying: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil, who sends rain on the just and the unjust. What do you say? Do you love your enemy? Perhaps you will answer: Through weakness I cannot. But promise, and act so that you may be able: especially since you are about to entreat a judge whom no one can deceive, who is going to plead your cause. Appeal, then, to this judge, where no courier disturbs, no official removes, no advocate is bought who can pour out prayers for you, or speak words you have not learned; but the only-begotten Son of God himself, equal to the Father, seated at the right hand of the Father, his assessor, your judge, has taught you a few words, which any unlettered person can hold and say, and in them he has established your case for you; he has taught you the heavenly law of how you should pray.

But perhaps you will answer: Through whom do I ask? Through myself, or through another? He who taught you to pray himself pleads the prayer for you, because you were the accused. Rejoice, because he will then be your judge, who now is your advocate. Therefore, since you are about to pray, you are about to plead your case in few words, about to come to those words: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt. 6:12). For God says to you: What do you give me, that I should forgive you your debts? What gift do you offer, what sacrifice of your conscience do you lay upon my altars? He has straightway taught you what to ask and what to offer. You ask, Forgive us our debts: and you offer what? As we also forgive our debtors. You are a debtor to him who cannot be deceived: you too have a debtor. God says to you: You are my debtor, that man is your debtor; I do for you, my debtor, what you have done for your debtor. Hence you offer me a gift from the very source from which you have spared your debtor. You ask me for mercy; do not be sluggish in showing mercy. Attend to what the Scripture says, I desire mercy rather than sacrifice (Hosea 6:6). Do not offer sacrifice without mercy; because your sins are not forgiven you, unless you offer with mercy. But perhaps you say: I have no sins. However cautious you may be, brother, still living in the flesh, in the body, you act amid pressures and straits, and you are engaged among innumerable temptations; you cannot be without sin.

Surely God says to you: Be secure concerning sin; do not let go, if you have nothing that I should forgive you, but rather demand, if you owe nothing; if however you are a debtor, rather rejoice that you have a debtor, in whom you may do what may be done in you. Hear me, and examine yourself, because even among the few upright who can truly pray the Lord's Prayer, they can truly say, Lord, forgive me, as I also forgive. Not deceitfully, not feignedly, do it from a true heart, so that it may be done truly in you. For if he who harmed you, who sinned against you, asks pardon of you, and you forgive; now you can securely say, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. For if you resist the one asking, you will be despised when you too have asked. You have closed against the one knocking; you will find it closed when you knock. For if you open the bowels of indulgence to the one asking you, God will also open to you when you have asked him. For now I address those who seek pardon from their Christian brothers, and do not receive it. Behold, if you grant it, you will pray securely. But he, if he has asked you, and if you have not granted it, how will you be secure? For whoever you are who have sinned, and have not merited pardon, do not fear, entreat God, his and yours; for they are debts: can a servant exact debts that the lord has forgiven? If perhaps he who sinned against you has not asked you, if he does not beg pardon; if he has sinned, and besides this is even still angry, what will you do? Do you forgive, or do you not forgive?

Behold, you have not forgiven. Why? Because he has not asked. If therefore you have not forgiven because he has not asked, do not waver in the Lord's Prayer; say it securely, do not strike your breast, because you have not forgiven one who did not ask. Therefore he who did not ask has remained; it is demanded, it is truly demanded of him; yet let charity be perfect in you: pray for the one who does not pray, because you pray for one in great peril.

The example of Christ praying for those who insulted and killed him. The example of Stephen. Here now attend to your Master and Lord, not sitting on a throne, but hanging on the wood, with the crowds of enemies looking on from every side, and saying: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23). See the Master, hear the imitator. Did the Lord Christ then pray for those who asked, and not rather for those who insulted and killed him? Did the physician abandon his duty because the madman was raging? For he says, Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. They kill the Savior, because they have not sought salvation. And on the other hand, perhaps you too will say: And when can I do what the Lord could? Why do you say this? Attend to where he does it; attend, because he did it on the cross, not in heaven. For God is always in heaven with the Father; but on the cross he is man for you, where he offered himself to be imitated by all. For he sent forth that very voice for you, so that it might be heard by all. For he could have prayed for them in silence, but you would not have had an example.

But if the Lord is too much for you, the servant is not too much for you. Can you not imitate your Lord, when he hung on the cross? Attend to Stephen, his servant, when he was being stoned. First he said, as a servant to his Lord, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; and after this, kneeling, he said, Lord, do not hold this sin against them (Acts 7:58-59); and when he had said this, he fell asleep in the rest of love. He found the richest peace, because he desired peace for his enemies. Did he not also pray for those who were asking, and not for those who were raging, for those who were stoning and killing? Here is an example; learn, see how he prayed standing for himself, and knelt for them. Do we think, brothers, that he loved them more than himself? Standing for himself as a righteous man, he was easily heard. For for the wicked he had to kneel. He therefore showed love even to enemies asking forgiveness. Therefore, brothers, for the security of the Lord's Prayer, forgive those who ask from the heart, and that the Lord may forgive you your sins in this mortal body and in the future, forever and ever, etc.

SERMON 387.

On reproving one's neighbor.

The duty of reproving is imposed on priests. The word of God is our adversary. Your Charity has frequently heard in the holy Scriptures, most beloved brethren, in what danger priests are placed if they are unwilling to fulfill what the Apostle charges: Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all patience and doctrine (2 Tim 4:2). And because so grave a burden hangs over our necks, to whom it is said, If you have not declared to the wicked man his wickedness, I will require his blood at your hand (Ezek 3:18), it is necessary for us to chastise whomever is negligent, whether secretly or publicly. But when we reprove, the one whom we reprove, if he is wicked, pays attention to him by whom he is reproved; and he more readily recognizes in his reprover than in himself what he should correct. And if he has found certain things that he himself may say against the one by whom he is reproved, he rejoices. When would he rejoice better over his own health, being corrected, than over another's sickness, being reproved? Consider, suppose what you say is true; you have found something in the man by whom you were rebuked: yet through him truth was speaking to you; through a wicked man, through an unjust man, truth was speaking to you. You seek what to reprove in the man: rather find what to reprove in the truth. Whether you will or not, she is your adversary, in whom you find nothing to accuse. Make her your friend, if you can.

Your adversary is the word of God. Let the sinner bring it forward, let the just man bring it forward; it is the word of God, it is blameless. It is your adversary: make peace with it while you are with it on the way. The way is this life. The word of God is the adversary of all the wicked. Is it a small thing to you that, while it was abiding in its own most blessed and most secret seat, it came to you, so as to be with you on the way, and wished to accompany you? So that while you walk, and it is in your power, you may settle your case, and say, When will you finish the way? And when you have finished the way, there will be no one with whom you can settle your case; and the adversary will hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and the officer to prison. You will not go out from there until you have paid the last farthing (Matthew 5:25). The word of God is with you, as an adversary on the way: you have it in your power; settle. What does this adversary seek from you, that you should be at peace with it? What, except your salvation? It walks with its adversaries, and tells them to be at peace with it. Let it be done: the way is not yet finished. What was not done yesterday, let it be done today. The way is not yet finished: why do you wait until it is finished? When it has been finished, there will be no other place where you may be at peace with the adversary. The judge remains, the officer, and the prison. For many this way has been short: when many were promising themselves years on it, it was suddenly finished. But suppose that your way will be long, and that your adversary will always walk with you: are you not ashamed, for so long a time, to be at enmity with such an adversary?

The word of God, as far as it lies in itself, is your friend: you make it an adversary to yourself. For it wishes you well, while you on the contrary wish yourself ill. It commands, Do not steal; you steal. It commands, Do not commit adultery; you commit adultery. It commands, Do not commit fraud; you commit it. It forbids you to swear; you swear falsely. You act against all that it says; you make the word of God your enemy. Nor is it strange, since you are an enemy to yourself. For he who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Ps. 10:6). If then by loving iniquity you hate your own soul, do you wonder that you hate the word of God, which wishes well to your soul?

Correction is not to be applied to a neighbor out of hatred. Shall we therefore be silent, and correct no one at all? Let us certainly correct, but first ourselves. You wish to correct your neighbor: nothing is nearer to you than yourself. Why do you go far? You have yourself before you. For what does the Lord say through Scripture? You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:39). If then you do not love yourself, how do you love your neighbor? You have received the rule of love for your neighbor from yourself. I love him, you will say. Therefore I say, first love yourself, and speak to yourself. But if you truly speak out of love, it is manifest that the word which proceeds has done something within. But it is to be feared lest you do not love yourself, and wish to correct another, and do this with hatred. For if you hate your brother, you reproach him for lighter things than you yourself do. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15). You have heard; today the Epistle of John was read.

Scripture says, let not men despise the things they have within in the heart, and accuse those things which are done through the body: already he who hates his brother, it says, is a murderer. Not yet is his hand armed, not yet has he beset the throat, not yet has he prepared snares, not yet has he sought poisons, and yet as guilty in the eyes of God he is already held by the hatred he has conceived. He whom he seeks to kill still lives, and he is already judged to have killed. If therefore you rebuke with hatred, do you dare to rebuke anyone as a murderer? Or is it because men do not seize you and drag you to the judge, that therefore in the eyes of the supreme God and judge you do not recognize your own crime? If you do not wish to recognize your crime, you will recognize your punishment. For he does not spare murderers. But, you say, I correct myself while I am on the way. Correct yourself, then, and then you will be able to correct your brother. You object to lighter things, you commit heavier things. You see the mote in your brother's eye, but you do not see the beam in your own eye. For the Lord said this on account of men who rebuke with hatred. Do you rebuke a man who is angry, and are you yourself wasting away with hatred? Weigh anger and hatred on the scale of consideration. What is anger? A certain fervor of the mind. For the present it displeases you. Now this anger has grown old in you, and so it has made hatred. Anger is the mote, which by growing will become the beam. For just as the mote grows into the beam, so anger grown old becomes hatred. You already hate, and you rebuke a man who is angry: already in him the mote displeases you, in you the beam still pleases you. Do you wish to know how great the difference is?

Often we find fathers angry with their sons; but you will hardly find a father hating his son. A father can be angry with a son whom he loves; "he is angry and loves" can be said; "he hates and loves" cannot be said. I have said this on account of men who punish smaller faults in others, but do not punish greater ones in themselves.

Conclusion. Therefore, most beloved brothers, thinking on these things in a wholesome way, let us make friends with our adversary while we are on the way with him; that is, let us consent to the word of God while we are still in this life, because afterward, when we have passed from this world, no settlement or satisfaction will remain. The judge remains, and the officer, and the prison. Therefore, so that we may be able, with the Lord's help, to fulfill all these things, let us love with our whole heart not only friends but also enemies, so that there may be fulfilled in us that which is written: Every law is fulfilled in one word in you: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Galatians 5:14); and that: Charity covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4). May he himself who is true charity grant us to accomplish this, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns as God forever, etc.

SERMON 388.

On Giving Alms, i.

i. Mention is made only of alms in the last judgment. This lesson, brothers, which we have just heard from the holy Gospel, exhorts us to give alms; and it exhorts us in such a way that in His judgment the Lord imputes these alone as done to those on His right hand, and these alone as not done to those on His left (Matthew 25:31-46). Not that the other deeds of men, whether good or evil, do not come into judgment; for it is written, all things will come to judgment (Ecclesiastes 12:14); and yet our Lord Jesus Christ, when foretelling to us His coming judgment, did not choose anything other than alms alone by which to admonish us. Would it not have to be said to those on the right: Because you lived chastely, because you did not seize the property of others, because you confessed My faith even to bloodshed? For all these good deeds must surely be honored in the judgment of Jesus Christ. Again, do you think it should not be said to those on the left: Because you were unchaste, because you committed fornication, because you seized the property of others, because by your pride and evil conduct you caused My name to be blasphemed, and whatever else He enumerates? And yet our Lord, when foretelling to us His judgment, is silent about all the other righteous deeds of the just, and has deigned to mention only alms. He passed over in silence all the evil deeds of the wicked, and judged that only the barrenness of alms should be rebuked—for no other purpose than to admonish us. Why this? Because all sins are redeemed by alms.

Therefore he praised that fruitfulness, and blamed and condemned that dryness.

Alms do not avail for graver sins unless one's conduct is changed. No one here is without sin. But what you have heard—that all evil deeds are redeemed by alms—do not understand it as certain perverse people understand it. For alms can profit you for the blotting out of past sins, if you have changed your conduct. But if you persevere in the same evils, you do not corrupt the judge by your alms. I say this on account of those crimes and offenses which all must now [acknowledge], who receive the body and blood of Christ. Otherwise it does not escape me that this mortal life, established in corruptible flesh, cannot be without sins; but those daily and light sins have also their own daily washing. This is what we strike our breast for, and say in prayer to the Lord our God, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. For we do not say this without cause, nor indeed would the heavenly Master himself have taught this prayer, unless he had foreseen that we are sinners. For he saw what we ought to guard against, and he saw what is difficult to guard against. But he judged it impossible to guard against all things—he who taught this daily prayer, not to any ordinary Christians, but to the very rams, the Apostles. But where the Apostles strike their breast and say, Forgive us our debts, that is, our sins, does some little sheep dare to boast of its righteousness?

See what kind of man John the apostle was: he reclined on the Lord's breast, he drank the secrets of wisdom from that deep fountain. For from there he drank what he poured forth in the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). And the Gospel repeatedly testifies that the Lord loved him especially (John 13 and 21:20). And yet he says, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). Nor, however, because these things are said, ought anyone to be a murderer and feel secure, if on account of his daily fornications and robberies he comes to say, Forgive us our debts. For what God has appointed to be said daily on account of light sins, that man thinks can help him against the grave sins from which he does not wish to depart, but in which he desires to remain forever. Let him beat his breast also over these, let him give alms also for these, but with his life changed: let him depart from there, and draw near to this. But if he has said in his heart, If I commit robberies daily, and if I defile myself with daily adulterous corruptions, and if I seek out sorcerers, sacrifice to idols, consult astrologers, and never at all depart from such a life, yet by giving daily alms I extinguish all sins—you do indeed extinguish them, but when you have been extinguished. For thus that evil change of yours will be, that there will not be lacking one to say of you, Yet a little while, and the sinner will not be; and you will seek his place, and you will not find it.

I saw the wicked exalted like the cedars of Lebanon: and I passed by, and behold, he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found (Ps 36:35-36). Your sins therefore perish, but with you. For you will not be permitted to sin in Gehenna, nor when the eternal fire has begun to torment you will you think about satisfying your lusts. Your sins therefore perish, but with you. If, however, you change your life, they perish, and you are found, and it will be said of you: He was dead, and has come to life; he was lost, and is found (Lk 15:24).

SERMON 389.

On Giving Alms, III.

i. The heavenly bread and the earthly bread. The counsel to give earthly bread, so that heavenly bread may be obtained. The Lord admonishes us from the Gospel reading; let us speak to you about obtaining the heavenly bread. For this earthly bread is necessary for the earth, because our flesh is earth. But it cannot be that our flesh should have its own bread and our soul not have its own bread. For our soul too, in a certain want in this world, needs its own bread, as the flesh needs its own. For he who does not need bread is God. Therefore bread alone does not need bread. For he is himself the bread of our soul, who does not need the other bread, but, sufficient for himself, he nourishes us too. And so that heavenly bread by which our soul is fed is manifest.

But how does one reach him, so as to be fattened from him, from whom we now scarcely gather crumbs, lest we perish in this famished desert? How, then, does one reach the fatness of this bread, of which the Lord says, He who eats this bread will not hunger; and whoever drinks the drink that I shall give will not thirst forever (Jn 6:54), promising a certain fatness and a fullness without disgust—how, then, do we reach this fullness of bread, placed far from that fullness in this hunger, unless we have a plan? And if we neglect that plan, we knock at that bread in vain. Indeed, this plan that I am about to give—or rather that I am about to recall; for I will not say from myself what I learned with you—this plan, then, that I am about to state, I do not say that whoever despises it knocks in vain; but whoever despises it does not knock at all. For to follow and carry out this plan is to knock. For what do you think, my brothers, that God truly has, as it were in bodily form, a certain hard door, which he shuts against men, and that he therefore said to us, Knock, so that we may come and beat upon the door, until by knocking it reaches the ears of the householder set in some secret place, and he orders it to be opened for us, saying, Who is it that knocks? Who is it that wearies my ears? Give him what he asks; let him go from here? It is not so. And yet there is something similar. Certainly, when you knock at someone's door, you act with your hands. There is something for you to do with your hands when you knock at the Lord's door.

By all means, act with your hands, knock with your hands. If you do not do this, I do not say you knock in vain; I say you do not knock. Therefore you will not deserve, therefore you will not receive, because you do not knock. How, someone says, do you want me to knock? Behold, I ask daily. You do well. For this too was said: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you (Matt. 7:7). All things have been spoken: Ask, seek, knock. You ask by praying, you seek by disputing, you knock by giving. Therefore let not the hand be at rest. The Apostle, when he was admonishing the people concerning alms, said: I give counsel in this matter: for this is profitable for you, who not only to know but also to will have begun from the year before (2 Cor. 8:10). And Daniel said thus to King Nebuchadnezzar: Accept my counsel, O king, and redeem your sins with alms (Dan. 4:24).

Let not the one who gives to the poor exalt himself. The poor man, by receiving, is more a benefit to the rich man than the rich man is to him by giving. If, therefore, it is counsel that we receive when we are commanded, or when we are admonished, to provide something from what we have to the needy, let us not be proud when we give. For if it is counsel that you have received, it profits you more than him to whom you gave. Therefore let us not exalt ourselves over our works, and as it were please ourselves because we bestow benefits on those to whom we give. He who wishes to receive counsel wishes to receive that which profits himself; and he who gives counsel gives counsel. If he gives counsel, it profits him to whom he gives counsel.

Each suppliant poor man receives from you; for if it is not fitting for you to give proudly, how much less fitting is it for him to receive proudly! He receives humbly, he receives giving thanks. Yet you should know and remember not only what you give, but also what you receive. For if that poor man receives the freedom to answer you, if perhaps he has perceived you acting proudly over him, and says to you: Why are you proud? Why are you puffed up because you have given to me? What have you given me? Bread. If you were to place this bread in your house and despise it, it would go into rust, from rust into rot, from rot into earth, and earth would return to earth. And you indeed, to my hand stretched out to receive, stretched out your hand to give. Remember whence your hand was made, and whence you set it before mine: earth, from earth, into earth. Then what do I do with your bread? I eat it, I curb the annoyance of hunger: I receive a benefit; I am not ungrateful. Nevertheless, consider what the Lord and Savior himself warned you: that everything which enters the mouth falls into the belly, and is sent out into the privy (Matt. 15:17). And again, what the apostle Paul said to you: Food for the belly, and the belly for foods; but God will destroy both this and these (1 Cor. 6:13). Bread, therefore, as I said, is earth, from earth, into earth; so that earth may be supported and earth refreshed. You think about what you have given, you do not think about what you are about to receive. See, then, that I do not bestow more on you by receiving than you do on me by giving.

For if there were no one to receive from you, you would not distribute the earth, and you would not receive heaven. I knock at your door, and you hear me; you command that there be handed to me what sustains my hunger, and that the trouble which it brings upon me be checked. You have done well. But do not hear me knocking, if you dare. If you are not going to ask, despise the one who asks. Despise me, if you ask nothing from him who made both me and you. But if you are going to ask for that which you give me, then because you have heard me, you are providing for yourself that you may be heard. Give thanks to him who makes you buy so precious a thing at so cheap a price. You give what perishes in time; you receive what remains for eternity. You give what, if you did not give it, you would after a little while throw away; you receive what you may enjoy forever. You give what sustains the hunger of men; you receive what makes you a companion of the angels. You give what keeps a man from hunger for a little while, though he will soon suffer hunger again; you receive what keeps you from ever suffering hunger and thirst. Since, then, you see what you give and what you receive, do not give, if you dare. Let us see who is struck by the greater loss: I, to whom you do not give the earth; or you, who will not come to him who made heaven and earth.

The counsel of Christ about distributing riches, lest they perish here. If therefore we receive the counsel, let us do it for our own sake; let no one say that it is better for the poor man. For he does more good to himself than to the poor man. If we think truly, my brothers, and are wise according to the words of our Lord; for if we are wise otherwise, we perish: if we do not live by our own counsel, but by his, then we truly live. If we have anything to give to the poor, and we do not give it, we leave it here; or perhaps while we live, we lose it here. For how many have suddenly lost all their goods, which they were most diligently storing away? In one hostile onslaught all the treasures of the rich perished. No one said to the enemy: I am keeping it for my sons. Surely you see that, if there is any faith in them. For we must speak of those who, being Christians, suffered this. For of those who do not know God there is no mention. For they lost in this life what they counted as great, and they hoped for no other life. Darkness outside, darkness within: poverty in the chest, greater want in the conscience. About these, then, as I said, we must not speak in any way; but rather about those in whom there is some Christian faith. Therefore I said some, not robust, not full; because if it were robust and full, they would not have spurned the counsel of the Lord. Yet certainly, dearest ones, when they saw their houses empty, or perhaps not even that emptiness...

they were permitted to see the ways of their own conduct, when they were led away captive from there, when flame followed upon their departure. When they therefore considered themselves in vain, how did they repent that they had not listened to the counsel of the Lord? For what did our Lord Jesus Christ, brothers, say to that rich man who was seeking counsel about obtaining eternal life? What did he say to him? Did he say to him, Lose what you have? Plainly, even if he were to say this, he would be saying, Lose temporal things, so that you may acquire eternal things. Yet he did not say to him, Lose what you have. For he saw that he was a lover of his own possessions. He did not say, Lose; but he said, Migrate to where you will not lose. Do you love your treasures? Do you love your money? Do you love your riches? Do you love your estates? Whatever you love, you have it on earth. There you have what you love, where you may lose and perish. I give counsel: migrate to heaven. If you have it here, you will lose what you have; you will perish together with what you lose. But if you have it there, you have not lost it, but you follow where you have sent it (Matthew 19:16-21). I give counsel, therefore, etc. Why then have we despised the Father when he warned, and experienced the enemy when he invaded? Therefore many repent. For a certain man—which is said truly to have happened—not a rich man, but nevertheless even of slender means, fat with the richness of charity, when he had sold a solidus, as is customary, ordered a hundred bags to be distributed to the poor from the price of the solidus. It was done.

There the ancient enemy, that is, the devil, so that he might repent of his good work, and destroy by murmuring what he had rightly done by obeying, sent in a thief and took away everything, from which a little had been given to the poor. The devil was waiting for the voice of one blaspheming; he found one praising. He was waiting for a wavering to occur; he found a strengthening. This indeed the enemy also wanted, that he might repent, and he did repent. But see what. "Wretched me," he says, "who did not give everything! For I have lost this, because I did not give it. For I did not place it there, where the thief does not come." Therefore if this is the counsel, etc.

SERMON 390.

On giving alms, III.

Alms are companions of fasting in holy men. The counsel of sending riches ahead to heaven. We wish, as far as the Lord grants, to exhort your Charity to give alms, which are accustomed to be companions of fasting in holy faithful men, so that what is taken away from the one who has may be added to the one who does not have; so that, when by your profit you defraud your soul, you may withdraw from the flesh what you establish in heaven. For you have your barn there, you have your guardian there. For where men may most safely place what they love on earth, they hire for themselves the most fortified places, and as much as they can they strive to preserve for themselves what thieves cannot approach. And with them willing this and preserving this, when can it happen on earth? Perhaps the guardian himself will be a thief.

Attending to this, the Lord Jesus Christ gave counsel concerning what men want and what they attempt when they keep their possessions on earth. Store them in heaven, entrust them to me. Therefore he who commanded you to give did not wish you to lose them, but to move them. Let your property go before you, since it will follow you. You do not know where you will not be for long, where after you someone may be able to possess what you have stored up. Lift therefore from here what you love, lest by loving here you cling, and by clinging you lose and perish. Your Lord himself is the guardian of you and of your possessions. If a close friend of yours should perhaps give you counsel about preserving grain, though you did not know it, that you should lift it from lower places to higher ones, where you might preserve it better, would you not accept his counsel? Therefore your Lord gives you that counsel: he does not wish you to be corrupted, nor your possessions. Place them here, if you do not wish to lose them. Do you wish to know what is being done? I know that no one can give better counsel about this structure than the one who made it. You say, Where shall I store them? He answers, In heaven; for thus he says, Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither thief digs through nor moth corrupts; for where your treasure will be, there will your heart also be (Matt. 6:20-21). Accept the counsel, since the choice of so great a granary has been offered to you, from which no notice has been posted against you, so that you might possess it forever.

i. Riches are lightened by disbursing them into heaven. Almsgiving is interest with God. Perhaps you ask how you may lighten your property thither? Do not be anxious, and by thinking seek for ladders or some such contrivances. But as is customarily done by citizens settled abroad, make a transfer. Many indeed do this, when they find suitable persons, they give without delay. Your Lord Christ did it, rich on high, poor here. He hungers here: he asks a transfer from you, he will repay fairly. Why then do you doubt, why do you put off giving? Or is he not able to repay? Give to the poor, you will not lose, do not fear: you give to him, when you give to one of his least. Hear the Gospel. When those set at his right hand were afraid, certain needs having been enumerated, saying, When did we see you in these? the Lord answered, When you did it to one of my least, you did it to me (Mt 25:37-40). I, I say, received, when the poor man received: in him I was hungry, in him I was fed. Give securely: the Lord receives, the Lord asks. You would not have what to give him, unless you had first received it from him. If you were to lend to men, you would be burdened: here there is no such one who is burdened by interest. If you wish to be a lender, be it with me, God says to you, give to me: I repay with interest. Now already lift yourself up; widen your avarice. For perhaps one solidus, not ten, not a hundred, not a thousand, not earth, but heaven you will receive. If you were to give a pound of silver and receive a pound of silver, or a pound of silver and receive a pound of gold, you would rejoice as a happy man.

What you give will truly be changed; not gold, not silver, but eternal life will be made yours. It will be changed, because you will be changed. He who gave will become an angel. What he gave will become an angelic seat. There is no remedy that frees from death except almsgiving. It is difficult for any man to lead this life without sins. Therefore give, my brothers, distribute your possessions: you will easily provide for yourselves sacks that do not grow old, a treasure that remains in heaven. Hear the Psalm: Though man walks in an image, yet he is vainly troubled; he stores up treasure, and does not know for whom he gathers it (Ps. 38:7). Give, and it will be given to you (Luke 6:38).

SERMON 391*.

To the young.

i. No age is free from temptation. Not even childhood. My sermon is addressed to you, O young men, the flower of age, the peril of the mind. Indeed every time and every age, while that corruptible flesh is borne, cannot be free from temptations. And each person, as long as he struggles as a good man in the contest lest he be overcome by the adversary, is in dangers as long as he contends with him, as it were in some sandy arena, so in this mortality.

For as soon as a man is born into the world, he enters upon a life full of misery, and, as though a prophet of his own future toil, he makes his entrance with the proclamation of a tearful voice; even if not yet in his own mind, yet in the mind of his parents, or of whatever men in whose hands the nursing of his weakness lies, he can already be tempted and snatched away by the wiles of the devil—either through bindings of accursed remedies, or through the sacrilegious rites of the Gentiles, or, if perhaps death presses, through neglect of the renunciation made in saving Baptism. And, to sum it up briefly, that age is tempted when it is loved by its own in the world and neglected in Christ. For it drags with it the offspring of death, and is rooted in that wound of sin which was inflicted on the first man, from whom we derive the origin of corruption, by the poisonous tooth of the serpent. Hence holy Job says that no one is clean—clean, that is, from the filth of sin—not even the infant whose life is but one day upon the earth. But why speak of one already born, when David cries out with mournful voice and says, In iniquities was I conceived, and in sins did my mother conceive me? For the baptisms of recent little ones might seem superfluous, unless all were dying in Adam, and original sin ran down through the parents' flesh, along the path of mortality, even to the fruit of offspring—since the almighty Lord forms the mortal creature by the law of his own order, and the best Father of mercies supplies immortality by the grace of renewal.

Nor is old age exempt. But if not even the infancy of mortal man is free from temptations, on account of the bond of corruption, what shall I say of the other ages? Or is old age perhaps the exception, and in flesh already near to a corpse has the blood and have the members grown cold toward unlawful concupiscence, and from a weary and all-but-dead body has the fuel of temptation withered away? Nay rather, so great is the flood of greed in wicked old men, and the insatiable gulf of the belly and the throat, that as much as good old men are made serene by prudence, so much are these buried in drunkenness: as if for this purpose their dry and juice-drained inward parts were bent, that to restore their former vigor they must be watered by an inundation of drunkenness. What of avarice, which is the root of all evils? Does it not burn all the more fervently in cold old men for acquiring, the sooner it is going to leave behind what it acquires? A truly marvelous madness. For it hastens to unburden itself with heavier expenses, when it has already arrived where it was tending.

Youth is more forcefully assailed. If, then, neither the age of childhood nor that of old age is free from temptations—of which the one, that is childhood, has scarcely yet entered, and the other is already departing this life; the one did not exist a little before, the other will not exist a little after—what is to be thought, what is to be said of the ardor of youthful age, which is set in the middle of both, and has already withdrawn from the weakness of childhood, and has not yet come to the torpor of old age? This age is shaken by more numerous and greater tempests of temptations; this age is overwhelmed by the more frequent surge of the waves of the overflowing world. It presumes on its strength, it boasts in the dignity of beauty, it either longs or rejoices to shine forth in the pomp of temporal things. And so, for youth, whatever truth has commanded is poison of evils, and whatever the devil has suggested is food: but the bitterness of justice is the medicine of the age's wound; whereas the sweetness of injustice is the snare of recklessness. To this pertains what is written, Sweeter are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy (Prov. 27:6); and that which David says, The just man shall correct me in mercy, and shall reprove me; but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head (Ps. 141:5). Let truth burn, and yet heal: for the oil of the sinner, the flattery of the flatterer, soothes but deceives. For there pride is softened; but life slips away.

For the Prophet speaks in the person of one who already seeks the physician, who supports the hand even of one who marvels amid the bitterness of pain, who desires his sickness to be healed rather than praised. But the wound of youth is dangerous, which burns with desires, swells with hope, wastes away with pleasures. But that hope is the hope of the desperate, the hope of things that will perish, which does not release miserable souls but inflates the affection, and makes it unable to bear the touch of truth; so that even despairing of its own immortality, it loves to say, and loves those who say such things, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die; but let it hate to say and to hear, Be sober, be just, and do not sin. Let it love the pernicious gentleness of the enemy, let it hate the wholesome harshness of the physician. This perversity, this madness, is especially to be feared in the age of youth.

The words of the wanton. Cruelty follows softness. Hence is born that speech of men flowing away into shameful acts, and thence growing cruel into crimes: For they said, thinking within themselves not rightly, The time of our life is short and tedious, and there is no refreshment at the end of a man, and there is no one who has been known to have returned from the underworld. And a little later: Come therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are, and let us use the creature as in youth quickly.

Let us fill ourselves with precious wine and ointments; and the rest of the words of exulting luxury that are appended in that same passage, the words of men despairing of eternal life and placing their hope, like a torrent's sand, in the temporal corruption of the flesh. But from this excess of lusts and of shameful deeds rotting with worms, see into what crimes and how monstrous a wickedness they leap forth. For, drained and overturned by the corruptions of their immoderate and base offenses, while they hate the severity of the truth that contradicts them, they say: Let us therefore oppress the poor man who is just, and let us not spare the widow, nor revere the aged of many days. But let our strength be the law of justice; for what is weak is found useless. Let us therefore ensnare the just man, since he is useless to us and contrary to our works. Such things the impiety of the Jews devised concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. This is found more clearly in the words that follow: for after a little they say, He promises that he has knowledge of God, and he names himself the Son of God. Then again a little later they say: Let us interrogate him with insult and torment, that we may know his reverence. Let us condemn him to a most shameful death; for there will be a regard for his words. But attend to what sentence the Holy Spirit passes upon them, when he immediately adds: These things they thought, and they erred; for their malice blinded them (Wisdom 2).

See, then, from what foulness all those dreadful crimes arise which are feared in wicked men. For what is softer than that luxury? What is harder than this cruelty? A little while ago they were saying, "Let us enjoy the good things that are, and let us use the creature as in youth quickly; and let not the flower of time pass us by, and let us leave signs of gladness everywhere." Now they say, "Let us oppress the poor man, let us not spare the widow, nor turn back for the old man. Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, let us interrogate him with insult and torment, let us condemn him to a most shameful death." Wine is followed by fury, ointments by torments, blood by roses, anger by gladness. By such men the Lord was bound, beaten, killed. Who would fear bloody bonds from flowering garlands? Who would foresee the most savage pains from sweet cups? Who would foreknow so dreadful a tree of the cross from soft meadows? And yet no age in that luxury, except youth, is compared to the flower of time. For so they said: "Let us use the creature as in youth quickly.

Let the young not be captivated by things of the senses. Let them turn themselves to the love of wisdom. You, then, O young men, we especially admonish and exhort, that you be captivated by the beauty of true virtue. Let no earthly appearance terrify you, no gleam of metals, no pleasantness of groves, no purples of flowers, no adornment of the flesh, whether natural or applied, no sound of any strings and pipes whatsoever, no pleasantness of odors, no sweetness of flavors, no embraces—let none of these be compared to the beauty, the inspiration, the sweetness, the encouragements of wisdom. For it is from the things that are shamefully loved, not from love itself, that we forbid you. Do you wish to love? Love wisdom, strive after it that you may attain to it. So that its countenance may not make you shudder, compose yourselves in the inner man. As wanton eyes seek the ornaments of the body, so does that wisdom seek the ornaments of the heart. Nor should you bring forth these ornaments from your riches, because it hates the proud and those who wish to boast as if of their own. But what do you have that you did not receive? Therefore she herself gives that by which you may please her. Only love her, and she will keep you; embrace her, and she will exalt you; honor her, and she will embrace you, that she may give to your head a crown of graces. Wisdom is bright and will never wither, and is easily found by those who love her. Resolve to join her to yourselves, sigh for her, burn for her, be utterly consumed with love for her. Deny yourself to yourself, lest you deny yourself to her while you please yourself.

His conversation has no bitterness (Id. VIII, 16). If you are lovers, love this; if you are handsome, please God; if you are young, conquer the devil. Daniel was called by the angel a man of desires (Dan. x, 11). What were those desires of his, except those by which he ardently yearned for the beauty of wisdom; because even in his youthful age he trampled on wantonness, and as a captive he pressed down the pride of kings, and shut the mouths of lions though himself shut in?

These words apply also to younger women. Let them not display themselves in the churches. Nor, young women, think that this sermon is foreign to you. For it is to you that I say these things, yet not to confound you, but as I admonish my dearest daughters: flee youthful desires. Let married women think of Susanna, widows of Anna, virgins of Mary. Nor for this reason go out into public, so that, desiring to show the flower of your hay to the eyes of men, you seek death in the house of life. For all flesh is hay, and the glory of man as the flowers of hay. What then will you do when the hay has dried up and the flower has fallen? But do you think that the word of the Lord, which remains forever (Isa. XL, 6-8), will not easily find your ashes, since now you despise it in the superfluous greenness of age? Behold, again I say and testify: flee youthful desires. If you hear this, if you obey, if you receive it as the word of God with honor and fear, you will be not only beautiful in the eyes of God, but also sound.

But if from this admonition of ours you even make perhaps amorous jests for yourselves, from those very iron tools of the physician you will inflict deadly wounds upon yourselves. Certainly the Jews who crucified the Lord—when we hear of it, we shudder and pursue them with immense execration—yet when they were thinking of their own luxury, they were meditating on the solitudes of delightful fields, saying: Let no meadow be that our luxury does not pass through (Wis. ii, 8). How then would he spare Christ, if he had found him on earth—he who chose not solitary meadows for provoking his lusts, but the most crowded churches of the one reigning in heaven? Behold, for the third time I testify and say: flee youthful desires; burn with the desires of Daniel. Sons, from your youth choose instruction, and even to gray hairs you will find wisdom (Eccli. vi, 18).

SERMON CCCXCII.

To the married.

CHAPTER ONE. — 1. The bent woman is a symbol of the human race. We have heard the Apostle saying to us, We are ambassadors for Christ, exhorting you to be reconciled to God (II Cor. v, 20). He would not exhort us to be reconciled unless we had been enemies. Therefore the whole world was an enemy to the Savior, a friend to the captivator: that is, an enemy to God, a friend to the devil. And the whole human race, like that woman, was bent down to the earth. Now one who understands these enemies cries out against them and says to God: They have bent down my soul (Ps. lvi, 7).

The devil and his angels have bent the souls of men down to the earth—that is, so that, prone toward the things that are temporal and earthly, they might not seek the things above. For surely this is what the Lord says about that woman whom Satan had bound, behold, for eighteen years: and now she ought to be loosed from her bond, and loosed on the sabbath day. But those who were being raised up were slandered by men who, unless they were crooked, (Luke 13:11-16)? Since even they who did not understand the things God had commanded were looking with an earthly heart. For they were celebrating the sacrament of Baptism carnally, not seeing it spiritually.

CHAPTER II. — 2. It is not lawful to have concubines; nor to marry women who are married; nor those repudiated by a husband. Hear, most beloved members of Christ and sons of the Catholic mother. What I say to the competentes, let the faithful hear; what I say to the faithful, let the competentes hear; what I say to the competentes and the faithful, let the penitents hear; what I say to the faithful and the competentes and the penitents, let the catechumens hear, let all hear: let all fear, let no one despise. Let your hearing be for my consolation, lest my grief be for you as a testimony. To the competentes I say: It is not lawful for you to commit fornication. Let wives suffice you, or let no wives suffice: it is not lawful for you to have concubines. Let God hear, if you are deaf; let his angels hear, if you despise. It is not lawful for you to have concubines.

And if you have no wives, it is not permitted for you to have concubines whom you later dismiss so that you may marry wives; how much greater will your condemnation be if you wish to have both concubines and wives? It is not permitted for you to have wives whose former husbands are alive; nor is it permitted for you, women, to have husbands whose former wives are alive. These are adulterous unions, not by the law of the marriage bed but by the law of heaven. Nor is it permitted for you to marry that woman who has departed from her husband by divorce while her husband is alive. Only for the cause of fornication is it permitted to dismiss an adulterous wife; but while she lives, it is not permitted to marry another. And for you, women, it is not granted to have as husbands those men from whom their wives have departed by divorce; it is not permitted: they are adulteries, not marriages. Augustine is despised; let Christ at least be feared. Do not imitate the crowd of the wicked and the faithless, my sons: do not follow the broad ways, whose end leads to destruction. Whoever has been baptized, let him either vow continence to God, or remain with his wife, or if he has none, let him take a wife.

CHAPTER III.—3. Penance is to be embraced by those who have fallen from the vow of chastity. The public penance of Theodosius's penance. Hear me, faithful ones, that is, the baptized. Why will you die, now that you have been reborn? When, having been baptized, you walk through crooked and slippery and unclean ways, do you not know that you are perishing? You are perishing, my sons; believe it. You do not want to believe? What am I to do with you? You who are faithful and hear me, if perhaps you have committed such things, do not add to them; and pray that God may forgive you. If you were unable, or unwilling, to keep conjugal chastity or continence, and you have strayed from the purpose either of the marriage bond or of devoted continence, let there be in you grief and the humility of penance. I say it more plainly: let no one say, I did not understand. You who after your wives have defiled yourselves with illicit concubinage, if besides your wives you have lain with any woman; do penance, such as is done in the Church, so that the Church may pray for you. Let no one say to himself, I do it secretly, I do it before God: God knows how to forgive me, because I do it in my heart. Is it then for nothing that it was said, Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 18:18)? Is it then for nothing that the keys were given to the Church of God? Do we make the Gospel void, do we make the words of Christ void? Do we promise you what he denies? Are we not deceiving you? Job says, If I blushed to confess my sins in the sight of the people (Job 31:33).

Such a righteous man, the pure gold of the divine treasures, tested in such a furnace, says these things; and the son of pestilence resists me, and does the proud neck blush to bend the knee beneath God's blessing, the twisted mind? Perhaps—indeed, it is not to be doubted—for this reason God willed that the emperor Theodosius should perform public penance in the sight of the people, especially because his sin could not be hidden; and does the senator blush at what the emperor did not blush at? Does the senator blush—no, not the senator, but only the curial—at what the emperor did not blush at? Does the commoner or the merchant blush at what the emperor did not blush at? What pride is this? Would this alone not suffice for hell, even if there were no adultery?

CHAPTER IV.—4. How Christian women ought to be zealous for their husbands. Finally, my brothers, the men hear this, the women hear me—why are you angry with me? Would that you did what is written: Be angry, and do not sin (Psalm 4:5). I must fear lest there befall me what befell the apostle Paul, which, if you were attentive, you heard just now when it was read: Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth (Galatians 4:16)? And if so it is, so be it. If it is necessary that I be an enemy to you, I would rather be so for your good than for your righteousness. I commend you to be guarded also by your wives. They are my daughters, just as you are my sons.

Let them hear me: let them be zealous for their husbands; let them not keep for themselves that vain glory in which married women are accustomed to be praised by their unchaste husbands, because they bear their husbands' unchastity with a calm mind. I do not wish Christian women to have such patience: by all means let them be zealous for their husbands; not for the sake of their own flesh, but for the sake of their souls. Altogether I advise, I instruct, I command: the bishop commands, Christ commands in me. He knows, in whose sight my heart burns. I, I say, command. Do not permit your husbands to commit fornication. Appeal against them to the Church. I do not say to public judges, not to the proconsul, not to the vicar, not to the count, not to the emperor; but to Christ. In all other things be handmaids of your husbands, subject in obedience. Let there be in you no forwardness, no pride, no insulting neck, no disobedience at all: by all means serve as handmaids. But when it comes to that matter, where the blessed Apostle made you equal, saying, Let the husband render the debt to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband; he added, The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband. Why dost thou exalt thyself? Hear what follows: Likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife (1 Cor. 7:3-4). When it comes to this, cry out for your cause. Thy husband sells thy gold for his own need: bear it, woman; bear it, handmaid; do not strive, do not contradict. The contempt of thy gold is the love of thy husband.

If she sells your estate because of her need—an estate that is also yours (for it cannot be hers if it is not yours, if there is love in you, which ought to be in a wife)—bear it patiently; and if she hesitates, you offer it. I despise all things for the love of your husband. But desire what is chaste; contend for chastity. Let your estate perish patiently, but do not let her soul perish through your patience.

CHAPTER V. — 5. The husband is the head of the wife. Let him lead here toward what is good, and let her follow. I do not say to husbands that in this matter they should be jealous of their wives. I know that they do it; I am acquainted with it. Who would endure an adulterous wife? And the woman is commanded to endure an adulterous husband! O justice! Why, I ask you? Why? Because I am a man. Are you a man? Let us prove it by your strength, that you are a man. Are you a man? Conquer lust. How are you a man, when your wife is stronger than you? You are the head of the wife, husband—it is true. If he is the head, let him lead, and let the wife follow. But where the household is rightly ordered, the husband is the head of the wife. If you are the head, lead; let her follow her head. But see where you go. Do not go where you do not want her to follow; do not go where you fear for your companion, lest you rush together into the pit of adultery; lest, when you do it, you teach what you do. It grieves you in your soul if both of you rush together into the pit of adultery; let it grieve you if you alone rush in. You are jealous, you do not want her to fall: take care, do not fall yourself. But do not, most chaste women, imitate your unchaste husbands. Far be it from you. Either let them live with you, or let them perish alone. A woman does not owe chastity to an unchaste husband, but she owes it to God; she owes it to Christ.

Let him not do it on account of the one who does not deserve it, but let him do it on account of Christ. Let him consider his own price, let him read his own documents. Finally, let whoever perhaps is indignant that I dispute such things think what he likes; for I know that those who are wise love me for this, because it is not without cause that it is written, Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you; rebuke a fool, and he will add to hating you (Prov. 9:8). It did not say, He will begin; but, He will add: because he already hated. Therefore I know that the wise love me in this. Let those refrain from communion who know that I know their sins, lest they be thrown out from the rails. But those whose sins I do not know, I summon these before God. Let them themselves also do penance, and from here on abstain from the uncleanness of their fornications.

CHAPTER VI. — 6. Let the penitents be changed. Let the catechumens imitate the good of the Church. I say to the penitents: what is it that you are doing? Know that you are doing nothing. What does it profit that you humble yourselves, if you are not changed? I say to the catechumens: be inflamed in will to receive grace. But choose for yourselves in the Church of God those whom you may imitate. If you have not found them: alas for me, my God! What is it that I say, If you have not found them? Therefore in the people of the faithful there is not one whom you may find? Through so many years, we have baptized so many people without cause, if there are not there those who keep what they have received, who guard what they have heard. Far be it from me that I believe this. Better would I not be your bishop, if this is so. But I hope it is so, I believe it is so.

Hence, then, is my wretched condition, because for the most part I am compelled to know adulterers, and I cannot know the chaste. What is in secret is the cause of my joy; what is in public is the cause of my torment. Therefore desire the grace of God, choose whom you may imitate, with whom you may live, and with whom you may hold the sweet conversations of charity. Do not admit evil whisperings. Evil conversations corrupt good morals (1 Cor 15:33). Live like fish among the weeds: bear the tribulations of this world like grain on the threshing floor. The winnower will come: let no one in this time be a separator everywhere.

SERMON 393.

On the penitents.

Penance is not true if one's life is not changed. Penance at the last hour is how uncertain. Penitents, penitents, penitents (if indeed you are penitents, and are not mockers), change your life, be reconciled to God. For you too feed with a chain. With what chain, you ask? Whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven (Mt 18:18). You hear of the binding, and do you think to play a trick on God? You do penance, you bend the knee, and you laugh and mock the patience of God? If you are penitent, let it grieve you; if it does not grieve you, you are not a penitent. If, then, it grieves you, why do you do what you did wickedly? If it grieves you to have done it, do not do it. If you are still doing it, you are certainly not a penitent. Indeed, dearest ones, people fall sick, they send to the church, or are carried to the church, and are baptized and renewed, and will be happy from there. But that is not the very cause of penance.

The one who has not yet received Baptism has not yet violated the Sacrament; but the one who has violated the Sacrament by living wickedly and ruinously, and is therefore kept away from the altar, lest he eat and drink judgment to himself, let him change his life, correct himself, and be reconciled while he lives, while he is healthy. Is he also to wait until he begins to die, and then be reconciled? We have known many who breathed their last while waiting to be reconciled. Then I also speak in the sight of God, to your fear, my fear. But the one who does not fear despises me who fears—but to his own harm. Hear therefore. I am certain that a baptized man, if he has led a life—I do not dare to say without sin, for who is without sin?—but a life without grave crime, and has had such sins as are forgiven daily in the prayer of one who says, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors, when he has ended the day, he does not end his life, but passes from life to life, from toilsome to restful, from wretched to blessed: whether he runs to Baptism by his own will, or is baptized when in danger and departs from this life, he goes to the Lord, he goes to rest. But the baptized deserter and violator of so great a Sacrament, if he does penance with his whole heart, if he does penance where God sees, who saw the heart of David when he was rebuked by the prophet, and, gravely rebuked, after the terrible threats of God cried out, saying, I have sinned; and at once heard, The Lord has taken away your sin.

Three syllables are worth so much. The three syllables are: I have sinned. But in these three syllables the flame of the heart's sacrifice ascends to heaven. Therefore, the one who has truly performed penance, and has been loosed from the bond by which he was constrained and separated from the body of Christ, and has lived well after penance, as he ought to have lived before penance—after reconciliation, whenever he dies, he goes to God, he goes to rest, he will not be deprived of the kingdom of God, he will be separated from the people of the devil. But if anyone, placed in the final necessity of his illness, wishes to receive penance, and receives it, and is presently reconciled and departs from here, I confess to you, we do not deny him what he asks, but we do not presume that he departs from here well. I do not presume; I do not deceive you; I do not presume. A faithful person living well departs from here secure. One baptized at the last hour departs from here secure. One doing penance and reconciled while he is healthy, and afterward living well, departs from here secure. One doing penance at the very end and reconciled—if he departs from here secure, I am not secure. Where I am secure, I am secure, and I give security; where I am not secure, I can give penance, but I cannot give security. But let someone say: Good priest, you say that you do not know and can give us no security, if that man is saved and merits to approach Christ, to whom penance is given as he dies, who while he lived, while he was healthy, was impenitent; instruct us, I ask, therefore, in what—

We ought to live well after penance. I say: abstain from drunkenness, from lust, from theft, and from evil speech, from immoderate laughter, from idle words, for which men will give an account on the day of judgment. See how light a thing I have said. Yet all these are grave and pestilential. And I say something else: not only after penance ought a man keep himself from these vices, but also before penance, while he is healthy; because if he has come to the last moment of life, he does not know whether he will be able to receive penance itself and confess his sins to God and to the priest. See, that is why I said that one must live well both before penance and better after penance. Attend to what I say: I ought to explain this more plainly, lest someone misunderstand me. Do I say, He will be damned? I do not say that. But neither do I say, He will be freed. And what do you say to me? I do not know; I do not presume, I do not promise; I do not know. Do you wish to free yourself from doubt? Do you wish to escape from uncertainty? Do penance while you are healthy. For if you do true penance while you are healthy, and the last day finds you, run to be reconciled; if you act thus, you are secure. Why are you secure? Because you did penance at the time when you were also able to sin. But if you wish to do penance itself then, when you are no longer able to sin, your sins have let you go, not you them. But how do you know, you say, that perhaps God will forgive me? You speak truly. How, I do not know. That I know, this I do not know. For that is why I give you penance, because I do not know.

For if I knew that it would profit you nothing, I would not give it to you. Likewise, if I knew that it would profit you, I would not admonish you, I would not terrify you. There are two things: either you are forgiven, or you are not forgiven. Which of these will befall you, I do not know. Therefore let go of what is uncertain, hold fast to what is certain.

SERMON 394.

On the Birthday of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas.

Two jewels shone forth today in the Church, and one brightness: because Perpetua and Felicitas are one solemnity; nor can there be any doubt concerning the felicity that possesses perpetual dignity. The prison's guard joined them, and grace joined them too: because there is no discord in them. Together they sing in prison, together they come to meet Christ in the air; together they fight against the cow, together they will enter into the eternal homeland; together they bore their martyrdom; the one was nursing, the other was giving birth. Perpetua said, when she handed over her infant and put away the suckling: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Felicitas gave groans from her childbirth, and after her companions she hastened on untrembling; and, delivered by her groaning, what did she say to Christ? You have broken my bonds; to you I will sacrifice a sacrifice of praise. And blessed David, to console her groaning, said: May the Lord grant you according to your heart, and confirm all your counsel. O frailty! The shadows were fleeing, and the human condition was not passing away. But he who conquered death both freed her from the peril of childbirth and lifted Perpetua from the burden of nursing.

For when they were climbing the steps of that ladder and treading upon the treacherous necks of the dragon, they came to the garden of heavenly meadows, and there they found the good shepherd laying down his life for his sheep, and seeking the juice of milk from his flocks. For he sat, it says, a shepherd young and old, green in age, white in head, who knew not old age. In him the countenance of a youth gleamed, because he is the same and his years shall not fail. He was white-headed, because the righteous Lord loved righteousness and acknowledged equity in the Martyrs. Around him the sheep lay bowed down; he milked them with his pastoral finger, in whom he found abundance of milk and a fruitful conscience of piety. He milked with his fingers and spoke with fatherly consolations, with heavenly promises prepared, saying: Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world. And he showed them the milk-pails foaming with pure milk through bright almsgiving, and says: I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink. Perpetua received new milk from the sweet shepherd before she poured out her precious blood. They answered, Amen, and began to seek piety. They prayed in prison, now secure concerning the shepherd. Lord, they say, let not our confession be dry, that we too may deserve to be joined to your precious flocks and not be separated from your martyrs.

A arena is set before them in a vision, a splendid arena in the amphitheater. There stands that Egyptian, who was in heaven the beautiful Lucifer: he who is about to fight is rolled in the dust, and Perpetua, who is about to triumph through the Lord Savior, joined her hands upon the cross, having before her the Lord's young man as her defender. She receives the triumph of victory, and obtains the branch from the contest. Let us also offer our gifts to them: others in their time offered them visits to the prison; let us offer them the vow of the festival, that we may merit the kingdom with all the saints.

SERMON 395

On the Ascension of the Lord, VI.

I. Today we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord into heaven: let us not hear "Lift up your heart" in vain, and let us ascend with him with an undivided heart, as the Apostle teaches and says, If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God; savor the things that are above, not the things that are on the earth (Col. 3:1-2). Let there be necessity of action on earth; let the will of ascension be in heaven. Hope here, the reality there. For the time will come when the reality is there. But when the reality is there, hope will be neither here nor there: not because hope is empty, but because it ends when the reality has come. Finally, hear what the Apostle said about hope. In hope, he says, we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man 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).

Consider human affairs themselves, and reflect: if someone hopes to marry a wife, then he does not yet have her. For if he had her, what would he hope for? He marries the wife he was hoping for, and then he will no longer hope. Hope is therefore brought to a happy end when the thing itself arrives. A traveler hopes that he will come to his homeland; as long as he is not there, he hopes; when he has come, he no longer hopes. For the reality has succeeded hope. Hope is brought to a happy end when what was hoped for is held. Now therefore, dearest ones, what you have heard—that we lift up our heart—is done by the heart itself, so that we think on that future life. Let us live well here, that we may live there.

For behold how great is the condescension of our Lord: he who made us descended to us, because we had fallen away from him. And so that he might come to us, he did not himself fall, but descended to us. If therefore he descended to us, he has lifted us up. Already in his own body he has lifted up our head: where he is, the members will also follow. For where the head has gone before, the members will follow. He is the head, we are the members. He is in heaven, we on earth. Is he, then, far from us? Far be it. If you ask about distances, he is far; ask about love, he is with us. For if he were not with us, he would not say in the Gospel: Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age (Matthew 28:20). If he is not with you, we lie when we say to you, The Lord be with you.

He did not cry out from heaven while Saul was persecuting—not himself, but his saints, his servants; and, to speak more intimately, his members: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Behold, I am here in heaven, you are on earth, and among the persecutors. Why me? Because they are my members; through those members I am there. For if the foot is trampled, does the tongue not cry out? Therefore he through whom heaven and earth were made, for the sake of the one he made from earth, descended to earth, and from here lifted earth up to heaven. What therefore went before in him, let us hope for at the end. He will give us back what he promised; we are secure—he has made a guarantee, he has written the Gospel; he will give us back. More is what he has already spent on us. Do we suppose that he will not give us back his life, who has already paid out his death for us? The lowliness of his passion, the insults, the abuse, all the indignities he endured on earth for us: will he not give us the kingdom, happiness, immortality, eternity? He bore our evils; will he not give us his good things? Toward this hope, because the promiser is truthful, let us walk securely; but let us so live that we may say to him with a confident face: We have done what you commanded; give back what you promised.

SERMON CCCXCVI.

On the assumption of a bishop.

You indeed, brothers, are seeking a consoler, but we too must be consoled; and our consolation is no man, but the one who makes man, since he who made man restores him, and he who created recreates. Through weakness we cannot but be saddened; but through hope we ought to be consoled. We all wish good men to live with us longer, and in this most bitter life we do not wish to be deserted by our companions; but those who have lived well and gone before us urge us by their example, that whether we live long here or depart from here quickly, we may so live as to come to them. For to live long here is nothing other than to endure troubles long. But to live with God and in the presence of God is to live without any trouble and without any fear that a happiness which has no end may perish. Nor ought we to think that your bishop, our brother, departed from here quickly and lived too little. For there one rightly lives not a little, where, though much is said, it is not ended. For even here, what is much, once it has ended, will be reckoned as nothing. Yet he did not live a little here, if we consider his works, not count his years. How many others perhaps did not accomplish in many years the half of what he fulfilled in a few years? Therefore it was nothing other than envy of his happiness for him to wish to keep him here.

For in this we have sorrow concerning a man, as men do. What then shall we do, that we may not be men? As men, then, we grieve in a human way over the departure of a man; but how have we heard the divine reading, that being made perfect in a short time he fulfilled long seasons? Therefore let us reckon the seasons there, as a day is reckoned. Whatever, then, he did with you by exhorting, by speaking, by setting himself forth to be imitated, to the praising and worshiping of God, hold fast; and you will be the most adorned memorial of him. For it is not a great thing for him to be laid away in marble tombs, but to be laid away in your hearts. Let him live buried in living tombs. For his burial is your memory of him. With God he lives, that he may be blessed; among you let him live, that you may be blessed. We could perhaps with many words exhort you to faithful prudence, were we not ourselves scarcely permitted to speak by human grief. Therefore, because God has granted us to be present at his death for a time; because he has granted us to escort his funeral: an escort which is owed to charity adds nothing to his happiness: he has also granted us to see your holiness, and to address you, that we might console you as we are able to console: whatever our grief has not permitted us to say, supply by thinking it over; for our mind, in remembering so great a man, even if it has human sorrow, does not have faithless despair.