Sermones. De Cantico Novo Et De Redditu Ad Coelestem Patriam

S. Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, On the New Song and on the Return to the Heavenly Fatherland and the Perils of the Way, a Sermon to the Catechumens. Chapter One. — 1. The passage from oldness to newness. Everyone who desires the baptism of Christ desires a new life. Let him therefore pass from oldness, that he may arrive at newness. For first there was the Old Testament, the old song, the old man: but now the New Testament, the new song, on account of the new man. Let us demonstrate what we say by testimonies of the holy Scriptures. The prophet Jeremiah says, "Behold," says the Lord, "the days come, and I will consummate a new covenant over the house of Judah" (Jer. 31:31). The prophet David also says, "God, I will sing a new song to you" (Ps. 143:9): and again, "Sing to the Lord a new song" (Ps. 95:1). The apostle Paul also says, "Stripping off the old man, put on the new" (Col. 3:10): and elsewhere, "Old things have passed away, behold, new things have been made" (2 Cor. 5:17). What old things have passed away? what new things have been made? If a spiritual hearer is present, he not only understands, but also sees what new things have been made. But if a carnal hearer is present, who perceives everything through the eyes of the flesh, nothing through the sight of the mind, he replies mockingly: I ask you, tell me what new things have been made? Do I behold a different sky than before, or stars shining with a new splendor? Does not the sun complete the day with the same courses, and the moon complete the night with the same circuits?

Has the sea transgressed its bounds and limits, or has the face of the earth changed, producing other unusual shoots? Does not the day, as from the beginning, run its course in twelve hours, and the season of summer pass with the same increases with which winter passes with its decreases? Likewise, the very offspring of mortals, with some departing and others succeeding, end their appointed days. Since, therefore, all things, as they were established from the beginning, proceed in this way, preserving their motions and limits, what is it that is preached to us: "The old have passed away; behold, new things have been made"? Answer, O Paul, to one who asks such things of us; and because I am less able to answer, I beseech you, answer for me. Behold, hear the Apostle: "Why do you seek, carnal hearer, to look back through the eyes of the flesh? Raise your feeble gaze, so that you may understand what is said: 'The old have passed away; behold, new things have been made.' What old things have passed away? What new things have been made?" "The first man," he says, "from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly" (1 Cor. 15:47). Adam, the old man made from clay, has passed away; Christ, God-man sent from heaven, has come. The oldness of minds has passed away; the newness of believers has arrived. Carnal life has passed away; spiritual life has succeeded. Is this newness small, so demonstrated through the God-man, that by dying he would take up your oldness, by rising he would show your newness, by ascending he would confirm your glory? "The old have passed away." What old things have passed away? That you were sons of Adam, carnal sons.

New things have come: what new things? That you are made sons of God, spiritual sons. The old have passed away; the earth has grown old: behold, new things have been made; you have almost become heavens. For the heavens declare the glory of God (Ps. 18:1). Let it not seem impossible to you, that while you are earthly, you become heavenly. Does not He who made the earth and the heaven out of nothing make the heaven from the earth? The old have passed away; you gather stones: new things have come; you worship the true God. The old have passed away; mortality has passed: new things have come; immortality is promised. The old have passed away; all flesh had perished through the woman together with the sinning man: new things have come; flesh has been restored, a virgin giving birth without a man. The old have passed away; the region of old age has passed: new things have come; Jerusalem, the heavenly city of newness, succeeds. You who have given your names to be enrolled desire to reach this new city.

Let us hasten to the fatherland. The outfitting of the ship. Come, my brothers, let us ardently desire our own fatherland; let us endure this pilgrimage, which still detains us from it, not love it; yet let us hasten. There is no reason to tarry here; nor do you find in this world anything you can now love. For love itself—of parents, spouses, children, possessions—has either inflicted great toil upon some or begets great fear: there is no reason to tarry here. For it is better, by hastening, to seek the eternal than to remain here and be overtaken by the ruin of the world. Let us prepare provisions, let us take hold and board the ship of faith, and the cross; let the anchor of our hope of salvation not be lacking; let us stretch out the ropes of the various virtues, let us gather the sails of charity, let us invoke the favorable wind of the word of God; let us bail out the bilge of sins, let the conscience be cleansed through alms. Let the course of this ship of ours not be hindered; let us work with our hands as we can. With his hands he bailed out the bilge who said: "With my hands before him by night, and I was not deceived" (Ps. 76:5). Let us not neglect our sins: they are small, but they are many. One strong wave crashing overwhelms the ship and threatens shipwreck; but moisture seeping through the cracks and coming into the bilge, unless it is dried out repeatedly, does the same thing. Therefore, let the bilge be bailed out, let mercy not be neglected; for almsgiving frees from death, and it itself purges sins (Tob. 4:11).

Let our protection be the grace of Christ, let us sweetly sing our chantey, Alleluia, so that we may enter our eternal and most blessed fatherland joyful and secure. Let the soul not fear this great sea, namely the present age, whose waves and storms we feel are the hostile powers of the age. Hoping in God, many saints have already scorned these billows, many have trampled them, many have walked upon its waters and arrived secure at the fatherland. But a strong wind and a great tempest arises, each one's own desire. Faith wavers on the sea; Peter cries out within you, "Lord, I am perishing": He who deigned to walk upon the waters for our sake (Matt. 14:25-32) gives a hand to the drowning one and does not let him perish. See the apostle Paul, not only pointing out this voyage, but also embarking upon it, and inviting very many. When he said, "Having food and covering, let us be content with these" (1 Tim. 6:8), what else was he showing than that a suitable provision was to be taken on board? When he said, "But far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14), he was boarding the ship. When he said, "Clothe yourselves as the elect of God: with kindness, humility, forbearance, gentleness" (Col. 3:12), what else was he doing than stretching out the ropes? When he said, "Faith, hope, charity abide; the greatest of these is charity" (1 Cor. 13:13), he was gathering the sails.

When he said, "Let the Word of God dwell abundantly in you" (Colossians 3:16), he was invoking a favorable wind. When he said, "Therefore, tireless, while we have time, let us work good for all" (Galatians 6:10), and "Working with your own hands" (1 Thessalonians 4:11), what else was he commanding than that the bilge water be bailed out? When he said, "You have been saved by grace" (Ephesians 2:8), he was imploring protection. When he said, "Singing in psalms and hymns to the Lord in your hearts" (Ephesians 5:19), he was teaching a sacred chant. When he said, "We have been saved by hope" (Romans 8:24), he was fixing the anchor in the hearts of believers. When he said, "Jerusalem, which is golden, is free, which is our mother" (Galatians 4:26), he was pointing out the fatherland itself. When he said, "Where is your contempt, O death? Thanks be to God, who gave us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55,57), he was no longer in danger on the sea, but was rejoicing in his own fatherland. O best pilot, O most beautiful teacher and doctor, you taught, you did; and therefore you arrived quickly, because you yourself first did what you taught.

CHAPTER III. — 3. On the earthly road to the fatherland, and on the suitable beast of burden. If someone, as often happens, shuns the ship and dreads the unfamiliar waves of the sea, and desires to travel by land, whereby, even if more slowly, he may be able to reach the fatherland, I will show the way—indeed, the way shows itself. Behold, in the Gospel the Savior cries out, "I am the way" (John 14:6). You have the way; walk, yet be mindful of your beast of burden, your flesh; for your soul sits upon it. Just as if on this mortal road you were riding a beast of burden that, by its prancing, wished to throw you headlong, would you not, in order to travel safely, withhold fodder from the wild one and tame by hunger what you could not with the bridle? Our flesh is our beast of burden; we are making a journey to Jerusalem; often the flesh seizes us and tries to shut us out from the way. Therefore, let us restrain such a beast of burden with fasts. See that other helmsman and likewise traveler, the apostle Paul; see him taming his beast of burden. "Hunger and thirst," he says, "often in fasts" (2 Corinthians 11:27), "I chastise my body and reduce it to servitude" (1 Corinthians 9:27). So also you, who desire to walk, tame your flesh and walk. For you walk if you love. For we run to God not with steps, but with affections.

CHAPTER IV. — 4. On the manifold kinds of walkers. Therefore this road of ours seeks those who walk. There are three kinds of men it hates: the one who remains behind, the one who goes back, the one who goes astray. From these three evil kinds, with the Lord’s help, let our step be defended and protected. Now indeed, when we are walking, one walks more slowly, another walks more quickly, yet they walk. Therefore those who remain behind are to be roused, those who go back are to be recalled, those who go astray are to be led back onto the path, the slow are to be urged on, the swift are to be imitated. He who does not advance has remained on the road: he who perhaps turns from a better purpose back to what he had worse left behind has gone back: he who abandons the faith has strayed from the road. We have to do with the slow and with the swifter, yet with those who walk. Who is it that does not advance? He who has thought himself wise; he who has said, ‘I am sufficient as I am’; he who has not heeded him who says, ‘Forgetting what is behind, stretched out toward what is before, I follow according to my intention toward the palm of the calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 3:13). He said he was running, he said he was following; he did not remain, he did not look back: far be it that he went astray, because he himself taught the way, who both held and showed it. And that we might imitate his swiftness, he says: ‘Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ’ (1 Cor. 11:1). Therefore we consider ourselves, most beloved, to be walking with you on the road: if we are slow, outstrip us; we do not begrudge it, we seek those whom we may follow.

If, however, you think we are advancing quickly, run with us: we all hasten to one and the same goal, both those who walk more slowly and those who walk more quickly. Who are those who go back? Those who return from continence to impurity, who turn aside from the holy and singularly good purpose of virginity into the foulness of lust, and with corrupted mind corrupt both soul and flesh together. The apostle Peter rebukes them, saying: It would have been better for them not to know the way of salvation than, knowing it, to look back (2 Pet. 2). Looking back to evil. For Lot’s wife, when freed from the Sodomites, looked back contrary to the command, and lost what she had escaped. And not undeservedly was she suddenly turned into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19), unless it was to season fools also by her example. Who are those who go astray? All heretics, who, having abandoned the path of truth, wander through the desert as brigands, and capture souls in sins, and hinder anyone from being able to reach the homeland: having become wolves in sheep’s clothing, while inwardly they are rapacious wolves, preaching Christ as the way, and leading those who follow them to death.

CHAPTER V. — 5. How false preaching can be discerned. Here, if someone says, "What am I to do? I cannot find it: behold, a man preaches Christ, preaches the way, says he is a disciple of Christ, declares he announces the truth, why should I not follow such a preacher?" I reply, "Because his tongue says one thing, his conscience another." "How do I know that?" you ask. "Can I examine consciences? I hear Christ from him: what I hear, I believe, I hold." Do not let the son of falsehood deceive you, if you are a son of truth. Learn now, Christian, who desires both to hear and see Christ. If someone preaches Christ to you, attend and consider what kind of Christ he preaches, where he preaches. For Christ is truth (John 14:6), and is preached through the Holy Scriptures; not in corners, not secretly, but openly, publicly. For he has placed his tabernacle in the sun (Psalm 18:15), that is, he has established his Church in the open. Now look here at that man who preaches Christ to you; let him say what kind of Christ he preaches.

CHAPTER VI. — 6. The error of the Manichaeans. Behold, the Manichaean heretic, who through his teaching promises to lead you into the truth, declares that Christ Himself was deceitful. He did not have a true body, he says; it was a phantom, it was a spirit. And the most wicked Manichaean denies that this was in Him. O most wicked Manichaean heretic, if you do not wish to believe the Truth speaking to His disciples, "Touch and see, because a spirit has no bones and flesh, as you see me having" (Luke 24:39). If you do not wish to believe, as I have said, the Truth, believe the Jew who crucified Him. For when you say, "Christ was God, not man," the Jew says, "He was not God, but man." The Catholic Church, refuting both, says, "I hold the truth, that Christ is both God and man." You, Manichaean, how do you prove that Christ was a spirit? Did a spirit receive slaps? Did a spirit wear a crown of thorns? Did a spirit carry a cross for Himself? If He was a spirit, whose garments did the soldiers divide? If He was a spirit, how, when He gave up the spirit, did His body hang lifeless on the cross for nearly half a day? If He was a spirit, how was His side pierced with a lance? How was He received by Joseph for burial, how was He placed in the tomb? All these things a spirit cannot suffer. Just as it was foretold before by the Prophets, so it was done. You err greatly, falsehood; in all things truth overcomes you.

Therefore, heretic, as you teach, did Truth lie, and do you proclaim what is true? And where do you proclaim this? In secret, in hiding. If your preaching is supported by truth, let your doctrine be public. Show me your Church. But we know what you do, both the deceived and the deceivers. The Apostle Paul exposed you, saying: "For what is done secretly by them, it is shameful even to mention" (Ephesians 5:12). It is shameful for us to mention, but you do not cease to act. Your disgrace is manifest, your shame is laid bare; from your own confession and your own writing, your shameful doctrine has been made known to all: so that your hearts may at last be corrected! CHAPTER VII. — 7. The error of the Arians. Other heretics, the Arians, deny that Christ Himself, the way by which one goes to the Father, is equal to the Father in divinity. And when He Himself says, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), they say, "If Christ was sent, He is lesser: the one who sends is certainly greater than the one who is sent." This is human argumentation, not divine authority. The operation of the Trinity is different, which you, heretic, do not grasp, who think in a carnal manner. For you do not have a pure heart, nor one turned toward God. For Christ, insofar as He took on humanity, is said to be sent: insofar as He is God, He is equal to the Father. For where would the Father send Him, where He Himself would not be with the Son?

Church. Or how would the Son have come where He was not already together with the Father, He who says, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me"; and, "Philip, he who has seen Me has also seen the Father" (John 14:10); and who says through the prophet, "I fill heaven and earth" (Jeremiah 23:24); and of whom Solomon says, "He reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly." He reaches everywhere because of His purity (Wisdom 1:1 and 7:1)? But you, heretic, say that the one who sends is greater, the one who is sent lesser, because you think in terms of temporal intervals. But you greatly err in assigning times to Him through whom times were made. If you confess the Father as God, the Son as God, and believe both Father and Son to be eternal, do not make the Son lesser in that which He made you, because He became lesser in order to redeem you. But, you say, He Himself said, "The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). Understand this according to the assumed man, and you will lay aside your error. It is according to this that He says, "The Father is greater than I," according to what the prophet says of Him, "You diminished Him a little less than the angels" (Psalm 8:?). But you, tell me, according to what do you assert Him to be lesser? If according to power: the Father does not judge anyone, but the Son does (John 5:22). If according to works: all things were made through the Son. If you believe this about your God according to time, because just as you are greater than your son, so He is greater than His Son—may God avert this from the ears of the faithful; such things are unworthy to be believed about God.

For if the Son according to His divinity is the Word of God, as the evangelist John relates, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1-3); was there any time when the Father was without the Word, or was there any beginning before the beginning itself, since the Son Himself said that He is the beginning? For when the Jews asked, "Who are you?" He replied, "The beginning" (John 8:25). Therefore also that which is written in Genesis, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth" (Gen. 1:1), is understood of the Son, who is the beginning. Thus God the Father is always, God the Son is always; because neither was the Father ever not Father, nor was the Son ever not Son. For when the Father begot the Son, He did not diminish Himself; but He begot from Himself another like Himself, so that He remained wholly in Himself. The Holy Spirit, moreover, does not precede that from which He proceeds, but whole from whole, neither diminishing Him by proceeding, nor increasing Him by cleaving. And these three are one God, of whom the prophet says: "You alone are the great God" (Ps. 85:10). But you, heretic, arrange degrees, separate the Trinity: make the Father greater, the Son lesser, the Holy Spirit following. But concerning the Son, that He is equal to the Father, we have already said something, and what occurred to us we have said: hear also concerning the Holy Spirit, whom you wish to be lesser than the Father and the Son. Surely the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God Himself. Hear also that He is simultaneously with the Father and the Son, and is everywhere wholly present.

God, says the Apostle John, is Spirit (John 4:24). And the Son Himself says through the prophet, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me" (Isaiah 61:1): He does not say "after me," as if to make Him a follower or a lesser one; but He says "upon me." Whence also the angel Gabriel to Mary: "The Holy Spirit," he says, "will come upon you" (Luke 1:35). The prophet David also: "Whither shall I go from Your Spirit, and from Your face whither shall I flee? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I descend into the abyss, You are present" (Psalm 138:7-8). Therefore if the Spirit of God is present both in heaven and on earth and in the underworld, with Him who says, "I fill heaven and earth" (Jeremiah 23:24); therefore the Trinity is one God. Hear yet further, heretic, how you may be convinced that the Trinity is one God. In the very beginning of the book of Genesis, which we have mentioned, it is written, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." Behold God the Father, and the beginning the Son, according to what He called Himself the beginning. But if you also seek the Holy Spirit: "The Spirit of God," it says, "was borne over the waters." Since, therefore, in the subsequent passages it is read, "God said, 'Let there be light'"; and, "God formed from the earth"; and, "God made": this demonstrates that the works of the Trinity are inseparable. This is shown more clearly in what follows. For when it came to the point that man was to be formed, the Scripture says: "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness.'

He did not say, "Let us make in our image and likeness," so that only the Father would be understood; nor did he say, "Let it be made," as if commanding the Son to make it, through whom all things were made; nor was it said, "They made," so that each would contribute his own work individually to it. But when it was said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," so that the Trinity would be understood as one God, it was immediately added, "And God made man, in his own image he made him" (Gen.). Behold, through the holy Scriptures the Trinity is proclaimed as one God; let the Arian, once convicted, be confounded. But listen further, heretic, to the Apostle Paul convicting you and teaching me; hear what he says about God the Son: "When," he says, "he was in the form of God, he did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God" (Phil. 2:6-7). He proclaims him equal; you assert him lesser. Who is to be believed, the Apostle or you? You, whom the whole world has rejected, or him, whom the whole world has received? Let your perverse slander yield, then, even if late, because evangelical and apostolic doctrine has now taken possession of the whole world.

CHAPTER VIII. — 8. The heresy of the Pelagians. Another den of thieves, not of good men, that of the Pelagian heretics, must both be pointed out and avoided: for this is their perverse teaching. Although Scripture says, "Cursed is the man who places his hope in man" (Jeremiah 17:5), and "He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31), these men, on the contrary, promise that this cursed man will not incur that curse if he presumes upon himself or boasts in himself. But why should we say much against these men? The devil, their father, promised this to the first man: "You will not die by death," he said, "you will be like gods." He despised God, believed the serpent, and lost what he had received. If that man was not cautious then, let man now be cautious, even from experience. God hates those who presume upon their own strength. For what unaided free will is worth was demonstrated in Adam himself. For evil, it is sufficient unto itself; for good, it is not, unless it is aided by God. For that first man received right free will, and God placed before him, as Scripture says, fire and water: "Stretch forth your hand to whichever you wish" (Sirach 15:17). He chose fire, he left water. Behold the just judge. What man freely chose, he received: he willed evil, that followed him. Behold again that just judge showing mercy.

When he saw that man had condemned his entire stock, by the evil use of free will, as if in the root; he himself, unasked, descended from heaven, and healed man perishing through pride by his own humility: he leads the erring to the way, he leads the pilgrims to the fatherland. Therefore let human nature not glory in itself, but let it glory in him who made it. CHAPTER IX. — 9. The heretics are confounded with one voice. Now indeed the other sects of heretics, who preach Christ as the way, but wander far from the way, are convicted and confounded by one voice of the true way itself, saying: Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name? And then I will say to them, I do not know you: depart from me, all you who have worked iniquity (Matt. 7 and 25). Therefore you have worked iniquity, because you have disturbed the unity of my Church.

CHAPTER X. — 10. He exhorts those to be baptized to strive straight for the homeland. But you, faithful offspring of holy mother the Catholic Church spread throughout the whole world, flee all heresies. If anyone evangelizes to you otherwise, let him be anathema (Galatians 1:9). Make straight courses with your feet: do not turn aside either to the right by presuming, nor to the left by despairing. Run quickly on the straight path: for it leads you to the homeland; to that homeland whose citizens are Angels, whose temple is God, whose splendor is the Son, whose love is the Holy Spirit; a holy city, a blessed city; a city where no friend perishes, where no enemy is admitted; where no one dies, because no one is born; no one falls ill, because it rejoices in incorrupt health. When we have arrived there, we will not hunger or thirst there: vision itself will be our satiety. We will not sleep there, because we will not labor there. No refreshment of any kind will be necessary, where there will be no deficiency. We will live, we will reign, we will rejoice. If it delights so much when we speak of it, what will it be to see it? To see God, to live with God, to live from God. For our life will be to praise God, and to love without defect. For the prophet says, Blessed are those who dwell in your house, O Lord; throughout the ages they will praise you (Psalm 83:5).

Dearest brothers, if we have labored with those who sail, and have provided guidance to travelers, if we have diligently pointed out the devious jaws of robbers, that is, of heretics, if you now behold with the eyes of your heart the heavenly homeland itself, declared and shown forth, render to us the reward of our labor. Render it, brothers, render it; we demand it of you. For such is our reward, which we demand from you, that it is not shameful for us to ask, nor burdensome for you to bestow. This which we demand, by bestowing it you will increase it more than you will suffer loss if you do not bestow it. What, then, is our reward? We do not seek your gold, nor your silver, nor your coin, nor anything of your possessions; but our reward is that, at that holy font, you assist us with your prayers.