Sermones Dubii. De Cataclysmo Sermo Ad Catechumenos

Concerning the Flood: A Sermon to the Catechumens. Chapter One. – i. For the baptized, labor and war against vices remain. Since the day of your redemption is near, receive, dearest ones, those things which instruct you, and nourish, raise up, and strengthen your hearts for the fear of God: let that fervor of such great love not grow sluggish in your hearts. Nor should anyone think it is enough to be a Christian, to be reborn from water and spirit when imbued with these mysteries, and afterwards to abandon himself to various pleasures; and, made secure because he has fortified his soul with the sacrament of Baptism, not to guard it against the wiles of the enemy. Rather, he himself, as much as he can, should guard it, and should ask that it be guarded, lest it perish in the storms and gales of this world. Someone is baptized: the ship is refitted, undergirded, rigged with sails, launched into the sea; it needs a helm until it reaches the desired harbor. This sea, that is, the world, is dangerous not only with storms and reefs, but also abounds with beasts of the passions lying in wait. With all solicitude, all care, all diligence, the sailors must now be roused: frequently also Christ the helmsman must be invoked, so that he may guide the ship, snatched from such great perils, to the harbor of safety. You are baptized, you are marked with the royal character, you have begun to receive the allowance from the table of your King.

Do not be a deserter, nor, like a pampered soldier, flow away dissolutely through pleasures, and let the enemy, the devil, find you unarmed and dissolving; but as a strong soldier, do whatever you can in this war, so that your virtue, Christ, may not only protect you, but also that others may profit for salvation. Ask for spiritual arms from your King. War, He says, is declared against you, in which you are to shine by fighting, so that you may arrive at full peace through triumph. You will not fight against one; many adversaries will come out against you: for you will fight against vices, and, as the blessed martyr Cyprian says, if you suppress avarice, lust will arise; and if you overcome lust, ambition will succeed; and if ambition has been conquered by you, anger, jealousy, rivalry, envy, pride, drunkenness with its other pestilential companions will set up camp against you as a single fighting force (Cyprian, in the book On Mortality). Chapter Two. — 2. On the aids of the Christian soldier. But do not be disheartened, you have something to do. Call upon the Lord of Hosts, let him clothe you from on high with strength, so that you may utter that voice: If camps stand against me, my heart will not fear; and if battle rises up in me, in him I will hope (Psalm 26:3). In him, in whom, if not in the Lord of Hosts, who so expects his soldier fighting, that he helps the one laboring? You have been baptized, cleansed, anointed with oil, your body has been restored to the former state of that first man before sin; do not afterwards be falsely secure.

You are led out to the contest; you will fight against the devil, the prince of vices, in the arena of this world. Both sides, that is, of Christ and of the devil, an infinite multitude of people watches you as you struggle; and see how the whole crowd hangs with excessive suspense, to see who will win. Let not the party of the devil triumph over you. If you wish to conquer, do not presume upon yourself; but assign the glory of victory to Him who grants you to bear the palm of victory. Do you wish to conquer? First crush the head of the enemy by shutting out the devil’s suggestions from your heart. Do you wish to conquer? Let your hands be found strong in good work. Do you wish to conquer? Fix your feet; let your steps not waver by frequenting spectacles and deserting the church. But so that you may also be able to achieve this victory in so great a contest and so mighty a struggle, may the Lord send you help from the holy place, and from Zion protect you (Ps. 19:3). CHAPTER II. — 5. The power of water in Baptism. The effect of Baptism adumbrated where Christ walked upon the waters. Another figure of Baptism in the liberation of the people through the Red Sea. Behold, most beloved, you are about to come to the font of water; do not say in your hearts: Is this all that we so greatly desired? This visible font is a likeness of the eternal font. You will be reborn from water and Spirit. That water not only cleanses the filth of the body, but frees the soul from sins. You ought, however, to know why the power of that water benefits both soul and body.

Not every water cleanses: this water is sanctified through the consecration of the word. Take away the word, and what is water but water? The word comes to the element, and it becomes a Sacrament. The power of the Word has cleansed us through water, because He walked upon the waters. But that He might free you from the storm of this world, see the power of the Word of God, how it rules over all its creation. What I am about to say you know. It is read in the Gospel: When the Lord Jesus came to his disciples in the fourth watch of the night, walking upon the waters of the sea, and found them fishing—whom He had already made fishers of men—the terrified disciples thought they were seeing a phantom. But Jesus approached and said to them: Do not be afraid, it is I. Then one of them, Peter—that presumptuous one and later denier, but afterwards confessor and lover—said: If it is you, Lord, bid me come to you upon the waters. And the Lord said: Come. Peter descended and began to walk upon the sea, full of confidence. While he walked, his weakness faltered, but divinity immediately came to his aid. He began to sink, and cried out: Lord, I perish. The Lord reached out His hand, raised the sinking man, strengthened the doubter, and said to him: O you of little faith, why did you doubt (Matthew 14:31)? You see, dearly beloved, how much faith helps, and how much unfaithfulness weighs down. For if anyone coming to the waters of Baptism is full of faith, he is lifted up; if anyone is unfaithful, he sinks.

But let the Lord stretch forth His hand even to the unbelievers who are drowning, and let full faith be wrought in their hearts. Hear further what the Sacrament of water will work in you. I shall set forth a figure, so that from it the truth may shine forth for you. When the Egyptians were oppressing the Hebrew people with hard labors, a cry of the people arose in the ears of God; and they prayed that He might free them from the dominion of a most wicked race. Moses was sent, who would lead them out of Egyptian servitude. Before Pharaoh, the prince of the Egyptians, the most faithful servant of God pleads the command of his Emperor, and insinuates into the ears of the most hardened king what the King of all nations had commanded. Pharaoh hardens his heart, and says he does not know God; and, rejecting His ministers, he afflicts the people with heavier punishments. From the greater distress of the people, a greater cry arises. The servant of God, Moses, takes up the contest, engages with Pharaoh, with no weapon, no sword: he is clad in no visible arms, but is fortified with divine power. Ten plagues are inflicted upon Egypt, and avenging wrath rises against the contumacious people, so that from the tiniest creatures—worms, frogs, and locusts—the neck of the proud might fall; among which plagues, the final death of all the firstborn of the Egyptians occurred, so that they might justly lose their own, who unjustly detained others. Pharaoh dismisses the people, not by his own will, but constrained by excessive necessity. The freed people proceed in haste to the Red Sea, so that they might be saved through the waters, who were being liberated from a most wicked enemy.

The Egyptians follow, pressing upon the fleeing people. Above them the Israelites see the enemy, and await the sword of their foes. Death is before their eyes, fear and trembling in the hands of each one, lest they fall into the throats of the pursuers. Moses arises, the servant of God, bearing the rod which he had received from the Lord, and by which he had already performed many signs: he struck the sea, and it was divided. Where is that power, not of gods, but of demons? Where is the vain superstition of the pagans? Was Neptune, whom they wish to be king of the sea, invoked that the sea might be divided—they who refuse to acknowledge the true God as their king? With hand outstretched, Moses strikes the waters with the rod, and immediately the wave is forced into a heap, and the swell, checked within itself, is curved: the liquid receives solidity, and the dry ground of the sea-bed dries into dust. Some entered to be saved, others to be damned. One element of waters, at the command of the author of all creation, judged both: it separated the pious from the impious; it washed those, overwhelmed these; it cleansed those, killed these (Exod. 14). Moses bore the figure of the Lord Christ, since he was the leader of the people. In the rod, recognize the cross. Recognize the Red Sea as baptism, purpled by the blood of Christ: the king of the Egyptians and his people, recognize the author of sins, the devil, with all his ministers. The devil rages when he sees us being freed from his oppression through the water of Baptism.

Cry out to your Lord Christ, who is Moses, and let the rod of the cross strike the sea of Baptism; let the water turn back and cover the Egyptians, so that just as none of the Egyptians remained, nothing of your old sins may remain. Let him who made all things cleanse all things; let him who created all things whole restore what was lost; let him extinguish Pharaoh the devil, the author of death, and free his people through the saving water. Chapter IV. — 5. On the mysteries of the Paschal Lamb. You hear, dearly beloved, how those figures have passed over to the form of truth; it remains that you know how the people, freed from Egypt and baptized, as the Apostle says, in the cloud and in the Red Sea, celebrated the Passover. They received a command from the Lord through Moses, that they should celebrate the Passover by the slaying of a lamb, with whose blood each one was to smear the doorposts of his house, and they would not fear the destroying angel, because they would have the sign of the blood of the slain lamb on the front of their house. "You shall not break any bone of it," he says, "nor shall you leave any of it until morning. You shall eat the lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread" (Exod. 12). The children of Israel did what was commanded. Show also, you spiritual Israel, son of Abraham according to faith, not according to the flesh, show also how you celebrate the Passover: you have the slain lamb, show it. Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Smear the doorposts of your house with his blood; show and say, Behold the cross of Christ's blood on the front of our modesty.

With Paul, I say: "Far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). "You shall not break any bone of his" was said; this was fulfilled in the Lord's own passion, in the immolation of the holy Lamb Himself, when He was crucified between two thieves, hanging in the middle, and Justice itself freed one who confessed and punished the other who blasphemed (Luke 23:39-43). Thus three crosses became three causes. One thief insulted Christ; the other, confessing his own merits, commended himself to Christ's mercy. The cross of Christ in the middle was not a punishment, but a tribunal. As soon as He had accomplished all that was written about Him, having received gall and vinegar—because of what was foretold: "They gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (Psalm 68:22)—He bowed His head and gave up the spirit. Soldiers came and broke the legs of the thieves hanging on the crosses; but when they came to Jesus, they did not break His legs, so that, as the Evangelist says, what was written might be fulfilled: "You shall not break any bone of his" (John 19:28, 36). But one of the soldiers opened His side, and immediately blood and water flowed out, which are the twin sacraments of Mother Church. The persecutor struck the side with a lance, and the Redeemer poured forth the price. This blood inebriates the mind, so that it may forget the love of the world. This water cleanses the soul, so that the body may be free from the filth of the devil. And you shall leave nothing of him until morning.

Now this is what is happening: the lamb is eaten through the night of this age, so that when that morning which will have no evening comes, the sacrifice of the image of the lamb is no longer offered, but we find there the Lamb Himself, whom we daily eat and whose blood we drink, as the perfect priest, the one who here was slain for our salvation. What are these lettuces, these bitter herbs, which the spiritual Israel eats, if not that bitter cry of the holy martyrs for a time, uttered through holy David, saying, "You will feed us with the bread of tears, and give us drink in tears, in measure" (Psalm 79:6), and through the apostle Paul, "In all things we suffer tribulation, but we are not distressed" (2 Corinthians 4:8)? Show us also the unleavened bread, holy Paul, you who have been transformed from a carnal into a spiritual Israelite. For you celebrated Passover with the old people, and you taught and showed how the new people would turn the figures into truth. Therefore, show the unleavened bread of the new mixture. "Not in the old leaven," he says, "nor in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:8).

CHAPTER V — 6. The rod of Moses devouring the serpents of the magicians is a figure of the cross of Christ, by whose power heresies are crushed. The Donatists are overcome, the Maximianists, Manichaeans, Pelagians, Arians are refuted. O slain lamb, O holy Christ crucified for us, who hung on the cross to restore the fallen: that is the rod of your kingdom, the cross itself, I say, by which strength is perfected in weakness; that same rod, the cross, that same rod which flowered from the root of Jesse; that same rod which Moses carried, which turned into a serpent swallowed the serpents of the great magicians: the teaching of Christ spread through all nations, overcoming demented heretics. For in that people, brothers, in which Moses performed many miracles through the rod, the magicians of Pharaoh arose, themselves working prodigies against the servant of God Moses. But they were permitted to perform certain wonders for this purpose, that they might be more wonderfully conquered. What else did the magicians of Pharaoh signify but all heretics, ministers of the devil, who under the name of Christ desire to devour the people of Christ? Heresies now swarm upon this earth, like the serpents of the magicians, which that serpent raised up on the wood devoured and devours. But since it is not the time to go through many, let us crush the heads of each one: as they arise, so let them be devoured. There was here, as you know, most beloved, the viperous doctrine of the Donatists: it was crushed, it was consumed. Soon the serpentine fraud of the Maximianists sprouted: it was crushed, it was consumed.

The poison of the Manichaeans, which had crept in like an asp, has been crushed, has been consumed; the new dogma of the Pelagians, stirred up by the ministers of the devil as by the magicians of Pharaoh, declared war on that serpent of ours: it is crushed, it is consumed. When the Catholic doctrine has crushed, scattered, consumed so many serpents, behold, one Arian serpent, long dead, insults us: it raises its head, it tries to show itself as if alive, though it is known to have been slain long ago. Return, our Moses; return, rod; return, holy serpent Christ, having equal power with the Father: return, crush the heads of the dragons upon the waters; break the head of the great dragon, which proclaims itself alive, but we possess the true life. And you, what are you, since he teaches something other than what you are? Speak, speak, let us hear how we may convict heretics. Hear what he says: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). According to his humanity, the way; according to his divinity, the truth and the life. But you, Arian heretic, who wish the life and truth to be lesser in divinity, it follows that you do not come to the Father through him. But still, Lord Jesus, crush the head of the dragon, say what you are with the Father: we hear you teaching, not the heretic blaspheming; say what you are with the Father. I, he says, and the Father are one (John 10:30). Say further, I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. Say further, He who has seen me has seen the Father as well (John 14:10, 9). Do you now believe, heretic, such great authority?

Do you not accept his own testimony about himself, but require other witnesses concerning him? Behold, they are brought forward, they speak against you, you are convicted, you are refuted, and you are entangled in the snares of the law. Speak, Paul, witness of God, who approached this testimony even to the shedding of blood, and who laid down your life rather than succumb to false doctrine. Speak: let him hear who fears to be convicted; let him be convicted who, even when convicted, does not change. "Each one of you," he says, "feel this in yourselves which is also in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God" (Philippians 2:5-6). You hear "equal," you hear "form of God": and do you dare to say that the Son of God is lesser? Let another witness come, so that the equity of truth may be confirmed by two or three. Speak also, holy Peter, what the heavenly Father, not flesh and blood, revealed to you. "You are," he says, "Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16-17). And in his second Epistle to the Gentiles: "We make known to you," he says, "the power, foreknowledge, and greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ." You hear "power," you hear "greatness," you hear "foreknowledge." In what respect, heretic, do you say that Christ is lesser? But hear further what this witness says against you concerning both the Son and the Holy Spirit. "Prophecy was not brought forth by human will," he says, "but men of God, impelled by the Holy Spirit, have spoken.

There were indeed false prophets among the people, just as there will be lying teachers among you, who introduce sects of perdition, and who deny the Lord who bought them (2 Peter 1:16, 21; 2:1). You see that you are both demonstrated and convicted by strong testimonies. "Denying," he says, "that the Lord is the one who bought them." Whom do you deny as Lord, except the Son, whom you claim is lesser? And who is it that bought us, if not the one who redeemed us with his blood? But let a third witness enter, so that three may speak one true testimony to the one Trinity and the triune divinity. Speak, holy John, who reclined upon the Savior's breast and beheld the supercelestial wonders of the Word of the Lord: speak, I say, what you know of the Son of God. "In the beginning," he says, "was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1); and in his epistle: "We know," he says, "that the Son of God came and gave us understanding, so that we might know what is true, and be in his true Son: for this is true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20). But you, by calling the Son, who is true God, lesser, do not have eternal life. But to refute the stubborn contumacy of heresy, to swallow you up, serpent made by magic, not received by truth, let the Father himself bear witness concerning the Son: so that you may seek nothing more, believe nothing more. Through the prophet: "With you," he says, "is the beginning in the day of your power.

The Father is a beginning, the Son is a beginning: therefore the Father and the Son are a beginning without any beginning. With you is the beginning in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints from the womb I have begotten you (Psalm 101:3, LXX): as though you were a god, so that the saints might be illuminated, you proceeded from me. And there was, most beloved, no other reason why even the names themselves of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit seemed separated, except that holy men might be instructed. For the rest, what was said to Moses by the very substance of the Trinity: I am who I am; and, Thus you shall say, He who is has sent me (Exodus 3:14). Therefore from the womb in the splendors of the saints the Son was begotten. But lest you take this generation as having been made carnally or temporally, hear how He begot him. My heart, he says, has belched forth the Word (Psalm 44:2). John the witness says: In the beginning was the Word. Father David says: My heart has belched forth the Word. Habakkuk says: The Word walked (Habakkuk 3:5, according to the LXX). You hear that the Word is God, and that this is in the beginning with God, and that the Word is God. The voice of the testimonies, and the unity of the Trinity itself throughout the whole world cries out against you: and you, like a rabid dog, bark against the whole world. But hear still, from which you may be more fully convinced that the Trinity is one God. The Father's voice is through the Prophet to the Son: In the splendors of the saints from the womb I have begotten you. The Father's voice is to the prophet Isaiah concerning the Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit, he says, will go forth from me.

And the Son’s voice is in the Gospel, showing that the Father is in him, and he in the Father, where he says: “The Father, abiding in me, himself does the works” (John 14:10). The Son’s voice is about the Holy Spirit, showing that just as he proceeds from the Father, so also from himself, where he says to his disciples after the resurrection: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And the Evangelist says, he breathed on them, giving them the Holy Spirit, and saying: “If you remit sins to anyone, they will be remitted to him” (John 20:22-23). Whence also is that of the Apostle Paul: “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his” (Romans 8:9). Therefore, if the Son is in the Father and from the Father, the Holy Spirit is at the same time in both the Son and the Father; the Trinity is not separated, where there is perfect unity. Let the Arian depart, a confounded guilty one, because the Trinity is one God. CHAPTER VI. — 8. He pursues the mysteries of the rod and the cross of Christ. Examples of the saints set before every kind of man. But when, perverse heresy, do my words profit you, since you are a deaf asp, stopping up your ears so that you do not hear the voice of the charmers? Know, nevertheless, that you are to be devoured by the serpent, while the sheep which you hold captive, that shepherd will have led to his own fold, so that there may be one flock and one shepherd. That shepherd of ours, most beloved, who with an iron rod feeds and rules, breaks and restores, he himself is the shepherd, he himself the ruler, he himself the maker, he himself our architect.

I see you as a great shepherd, Lord Jesus, feeding the sheep, seeking the wandering, carrying the found back to your flock on your shoulders with joy: I see you as a great architect, bearing a rod, hanging from the rod, and working many miracles from that rod. I am greatly awed by the exposition of this rod, dearest ones, as I consider the places of the divine Scriptures. The rod is holy Mary, the rod is Christ himself, the rod is the cross. And from this rod, how great and wondrous things this architect has done! He made both the tree of the cross, where he himself, the cornerstone, hung, and the ladder of heaven, by which he raised fallen man to the Father. What a miracle, brothers, of this architect, that from his rod he should make a ladder, and such a one whose head he placed in heaven, and by which he himself both ascended and descended, and for confirmation he leaned upon it! Ascend securely, you who desire heaven: let neither its narrowness, nor its length, nor its height terrify you; fear nothing, its steps do not waver, which that architect so confirmed that he wished his hands to be fastened with nails to its wood. See this ladder of this architect, the disciple the apostle Paul, both showing it and almost counting the steps and ascending, and inviting very many: I bend my knees, he says, to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he may grant you to comprehend with all the saints what is the height and breadth, length and depth (Ephesians 3:18). He placed four steps of the cross.

Now therefore these ladders are not laborious: they have four steps, and lead to heaven. At the height of the cross is placed the head of the crucified: let the Christian have his heart upward toward the Lord, which he answers daily when questioned; and he ascends one step. At the breadth of the cross the hands of the crucified are affixed: let the hands of the Christian persevere in good works; and he ascends the second step. At the length of the cross the body of the crucified hung: let one chastise his body with observances, suspend it with fasts, that he may subject it to the service of his soul; and he ascends the third step. In the depth of the cross is hidden what you do not see, whence arises this whole which you see: let Christian faith be present, what it cannot comprehend, let it believe with the heart, not seek things higher than itself, let it nourish hope; and then it ascends the fourth step. Through these steps all the saints have ascended, continent and faithful married persons: they have escaped the ruins of the world, they have migrated to the safest places, where they no longer fear barbarians, nor shrink from fragile human accidents, nor dread corruptions, nor suffer illnesses, nor are afflicted by tribulations, nor do they even fear death itself, but live with God from God. This life, most beloved, let us love, seek, desire: toward which everyone who runs does not walk by the way of feet, but by the way of morals. Therefore good morals are required, let them be found in all. Each sex and every age has in this an example of imitation of holy men.

Let the old imitate the ways of Tobias, who, though blind in body, showed the way to his son with his heart. He led his son by the hand on earth, and by his counsel the father led him to heaven. Let the young imitate the holy Joseph, beautiful in body, more beautiful in mind: whom chastity had so possessed that the threatening advances of the shameless woman could not violate him, either in mind or in body, whose mind God had already possessed. Let holy virgins imitate the holy mother of their Lord, Mary. Let widows imitate the religious widow Anna: let married women imitate the chaste Susanna. The virgin mother fulfilled what she vowed: Anna the widow persevered in prayers and fasts to the end: chaste Susanna for conjugal modesty went as far as the danger of death. Attend, married women, what imitation of this woman is set before you by Holy Scripture. For it does not praise her because she was outwardly adorned with gold, necklaces, or costly clothing, when she was inwardly adorned with the modesty of chastity. He gave life to all who established good morals. For this reason indeed He Himself deigned to be born of a woman, because from Him both sexes were freed. We have said much, you have listened most attentively, you have most gladly feasted on the Lord’s banquet: repay your minister in turn, so that if not by word, at least by your prayers I may be nourished.