Sermones Dubii. De Cultura Agri Dominici

The following sermons on the Fourth Day, on the Flood, and on the Time of the Barbarians are doubtful to us, and appear to be spurious. ON THE FOURTH DAY, OR ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE LORD’S FIELD, A SERMON. CHAPTER ONE. — 1. On the cultivation of the Lord’s field. What the five yokes of oxen signify. The field of the Church must be prepared for heavenly grace and spiritual rain, because the divine shower is at hand. Let us work, beloved, in that field which has been entrusted to us. For it has been given to us to plant, to water, to plow, to graft: it is for God to give increase. The Apostle Paul, teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth, by his own labor and exhortation taught us to carry out this Lord’s cultivation, saying: I planted, Apollo watered; but God gave the increase; and a little later, For we are God’s fellow workers, you are God’s farm, God’s building (1 Cor. 3:6, 9); and elsewhere, Be my fellow workers, brothers, and watch those who walk as you have our example (Phil. 3:17). In this Lord’s cultivation, therefore, brothers, in which the Lord has commanded us to work, let us work in such a way that we may deserve to receive the promised reward as a gift of grace. It is time; let us work, let us labor.

Those five yokes of oxen, which the man invited in the Gospel, when he was unwilling to come to dinner, said he wished to test, and on that account excused himself from dinner (Luke 14:19), because he procured them for himself, not for the cultivation of the Lord's field; let us ourselves yoke those same five yokes in the Lord's field, let us plow the very hard ground with spiritual furrows, scattering the seed of God's word, and whatever thorns of evil desires we find, let us pluck them out, root them up, set them on fire with divine fire; and, laboring in such a work, let us say confidently to our Lord God: Lord master of the household, since with your help we have done the work you commanded, pay the reward you promised. What are those five yokes of oxen? The five yokes of oxen are the five bodily senses: sight in the eyes, hearing in the ears, smell in the nostrils, taste in the throat, touch in the hands. And these are yokes: there are two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two hands; and in taste itself something twin is found, when the flavor itself is discerned by the throat and palate judging. Therefore these five yokes turn the earth, when, serving their offices, they prepare the mind and flesh either for abundant fruits, if the heavenly dew has poured in, or for barren thorns, if the earth has remained dry, and their work will follow thereafter.

CHAPTER II — 3. The sowing, plowing, and watering of the Lord’s field. But since our Lord and master of the household has commanded us to cast the seed of his word everywhere and without any distinction of any clod whatsoever (for he introduces in the Gospel the parable of this steward, and says: Behold, the sower went out to sow; and while he sows, some fell among thorns, some on the path, some on rocky ground, some on good soil. And when he showed what the thorny ground was—namely, men who choke the seed of the word of God with the thorns of their desires and do not yield the fruits of righteousness; and likewise concerning the other ground, the rocky and the trodden path, he would give the account of the parable he had set forth, and came to the good soil, and said: But what fell on good soil, these are those who, when they have received the word of God, keep it and do it [Matthew 13:3, 23]; because not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified [Romans 2:13]): therefore, dearly beloved, let neither the fear of thorns, nor the rocks of stone, nor the very hard road terrify us; as long as, sowing the word of God, we can at last at some time reach the good soil. Receive the word of God, every field, every person, whether barren or fertile: I will scatter, you see how you receive; I will distribute, you see what fruits you yield.

It is better, then, that you render an account for yourself concerning what you have received, than that it be justly said of us who do not disburse: "Worthless and lazy servant, you were to disburse; I, coming, would exact with interest" (Matt. 25:26-27). But if you feel yourself to be an unfruitful or thorny or dry land, run back to your Creator. For this is now being done, that you be renewed, that you be made fruitful, that you be irrigated by Him who placed a desert into pools of waters, and land without water into outflows of waters, and made the hungry dwell there; and they established a city of habitation, and sowed fields, and planted vineyards, and produced a fruit of wheat (Ps. 106:35-37). From what land? From that sterile, thorny, and waterless one. And you, each and every soul that approaches Christ, are a thorny and arid land. How do we prove that you are such? Recall that sentence which you received in your first parents, and you will find what you have drawn from there. "It will bring forth thorns and thistles for you," it says (Gen. 3:18). Or will you answer that you are not a thorny land? If you did not have thorns, you would not place a crown of thorns on the head of your Creator. Because, therefore, you too are such, you are weighed down by a multitude of thorns, that is, of sins: for that reason such cultivation is applied to you, for that reason you are furrowed by the wood of the cross, for that reason you are prepared for the celestial rain; so that, when you have been made fruitful, you do not boast about your own merits, which are none, but, yielding good fruits, you proclaim the grace of Christ.

Do you wish to know what kind of cultivation is applied to you, what kind of grace pours down upon you from above? Behold, recognize: you are plowed with the cross of Christ when you are marked with His sign on your forehead; you are watered with His blood when you are baptized in His death. For as many of us as have been baptized in Christ, says the Apostle, have been baptized in His death (Rom. 6:3). CHAPTER 111. — 4. That we are watered with the blood of Christ. What "Amen" means, which those who receive the blood of Christ respond. It is a great thing that has been said: you are watered with His blood. Let us see how we might prove this which we have said through some similitude. For faith is to be accommodated not to our own words, but to divine testimonies. Behold, pay attention, most beloved: that wicked and false disciple Judas, venal and a seller, a thief and a traitor, bought by the Jews so that he might be a slave of the devil with them, receiving a price for Him who has no price, the seller of the blood of Christ, from that very price, as Scripture narrates, bought for himself a potter's field: so that he who did not have the whole inheritance of Christ in heaven might wish to have some portion in this world. He did not even possess that, because, conscious of the deed of such great crime, he bound his own neck, and, prostrate on his face, was burst asunder in the middle. Yet that field which was bought by him was called the Field of Blood (Acts 1:16-19), because it was bought with the price of such great blood. The disciple sold the blood of the master, and from it bought a potter's field: what does this mean?

We think, dearly beloved, that this action is idle in that sale or purchase, or in the very mystical Passion of Christ? "He bought," says Scripture, "Judas bought the potter's field," and that field was called the Field of Blood. This land cries out by what quality or what price it was bought; indeed, the price itself cries out, the blood itself cries out, that just Abel, killed by his impious brother, cries out. For, dearly beloved, when this likeness of the Passion of Christ and the wickedness of Judea and the Jews was shown in those first two brothers, Cain and Abel; after the younger brother was killed by the elder, the innocent was slain by the envious, the pious was murdered by the criminal, God asks Cain, as if unknowing, as if ignorant, and says: "Where is your brother Abel?" This voice is not of one ignorant, but of one placing the sin before the eyes of the criminal; so that every man who, even when warned, does not wish to repent of evil is inexcusable. "Where is your brother Abel?" This was to say to him: Acknowledge, Cain, that you could not hide from me what you thought you could hide; acknowledge what you have done, do penance forthwith, so that you may receive forgiveness. But he, harder in sense, more stubborn in crime, with perverse morals struck in his soul, answers God saying, "Where is your brother?" and said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" What are you saying, Cain? To whom do you say, "I do not know"? You are speaking with Him who sees all things with His own eyes. What is it that you say, "Am I my brother's keeper?

By perpetrating such things, you have thrust away from yourself the fear of God in everything. And the Lord said to him: What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth. For if you had been your brother's keeper, you would not have been his killer. If you acknowledged brotherhood, you would not commit such savagery. If you feared my judgment, you would not commit fratricide against your brother. The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth. And now, says the Lord, you are cursed from the earth: not "cursed earth," but "cursed you from the earth," which received your brother's blood from your hand (Gen. 4:11). Acknowledge now, earth, that you have been watered with the blood of an innocent; convict the voice of the denier; receive the blood of the confessor. Let Judas and the Jews be interrogated now, indeed in Judas all Jews. Let the Lord interrogate Judas and say to him: Judas, where is Christ your brother? Or are you perhaps about to say, O evil brother, that Christ was not your brother? Let the Lord himself first convict you that he was your brother. Tell us, Lord Jesus Christ, whether Judas was your brother. He answers: And if he was, he was: for what he was is no more, and if he was, he was: for I said generally of all to my Father, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers" (Ps. 21:23). Behold, Judas, you are convicted that Christ was your brother. Where is your brother? Answer, speak, follow, say what that other one said: I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? For you were not a keeper either, who became both a betrayer and a seller.

Say, "Am I my brother's keeper?" so that it may be answered to you as well, "The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth." For what does every man of earth say? The first man was from earth, earthly; and, as the earthly man is, so are the earthly men (1 Cor. 15:47-48). What does every man of earth say when he receives the blood of Christ? He says "Amen." What is "Amen"? "It is true." What is true? That the blood of Christ was poured out. By whose doing? By the disciple Judas acting. By saying "Amen," by crying out the truth, every man of earth says this. Behold, Judas, the voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth. We have proved that you are watered by his blood. CHAPTER IV.—5. How the blood of Christ is to be received. Stephen, Cyprian, Laurence, Perpetua and Felicitas. See, earth, how you receive this blood: because he who receives it well receives a blessing, but he who receives it ill acquires judgment for himself by drinking. This was also prefigured in that field of Judas, of which it was said that it was the field of blood: for it followed that it was declared, "Let his villa be deserted" (Acts 1:20). For if you belong to Judas, if you imitate his deeds, if you receive the blood of Christ not with fear and trembling, you will be a deserted villa, cursed, reprobate, and thorny. But if you receive the blood of Christ with full reverence, you will know that through it your sins are forgiven you, because that field which Judas bought was called the potter's field: and the potter has power over the clay, from the same...

by sprinkling, to make one vessel for honor, another for insult (Rom. 9:21). Earth so drenched with blood, respond to such blood, not like Cain and Judas with words of excuse, but like the holy martyrs with words of confession. Respond as blessed Stephen responded, who in that Lord's field as a good farmer, laboring greatly, bent his knee, and from the rocky ground wounded, gathered stones from it into his body as into his bosom; and sweating in his work, watering the earth with holy blood, presented a hundredfold fruit from martyrdom to the Lord. Respond as Cyprian, Lawrence, and the rest of the holy boys and girls responded, every age and both sexes, who, receiving the blood of Christ, bearing witness and not denying the name of Christ, did not hesitate to pour out their own blood for the blood they drank, and together with Perpetua and Felicitas merited to reign forever. This, in the Apocalypse, with the angel revealing, John saw a great multitude which no one could count. Asking earnestly who they were, he received this answer: These are, it was said, who washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:9, 14).

CHAPTER V. — 6. The soul is whitened and adorned by the blood of Christ. Christ denied by Peter in the Passion. Now you recognize, Christian soul, how you too are made white from that blood, so that you ascend from the font, consecrated in blood, beautiful both in body and heart. For what flowed from that side of the crucified? Blood and water: from the blood, redness; from the water, splendor. In these two sacraments, individual souls are adorned, from which one beautiful bride, the Church, is made, to whom it is said in the Song of Songs: How beautiful you are, my sister, my beloved, how beautiful are your cheeks (Song 4:1, 3)! And when He Himself has made her such, and has given her that beauty Himself, seeing her thus, as if marveling, He exclaims, and questioning those around, says: Who is this who ascends whitened? And they: Equity has loved you (Song 8:). She is the queen who stood at your right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded by variety (Ps. 44:40), adorned with the variety of different languages of peoples. Hearing this voice of her spouse saying, Who is this who ascends whitened? she too is compelled to answer modestly, and says to her spouse: You ask me who I am who have ascended whitened. I am the one whom you found ugly, and made beautiful: I am the one whose prayers you heard, when you had me sing in the Psalm, You will wash me, and I will be whitened beyond snow (Ps. 50:).

Why then do you marvel at my beauty, when you know that this is your work? Why do you ask about what you yourself have made? See! I am whitened; you have washed me and made me white as snow. That I might see you ascending, I recognized you descending from heaven; I loved you hanging on the cross. Your humility became my exaltation, your ugliness became my beauty. For unless you had come down wounded from the cross, I would not ascend whitened from the font. Truly it is said that love is as strong as death (Song of Songs 8:6). How far has this bridegroom stooped, who by loving so greatly made the ugly beautiful, even to the point of death’s exit? And, he says, “the exit of death of the Lord” (Psalm 67). For we have seen him, says the prophet, and he had neither form nor comeliness (Isaiah 53:2). Why are you amazed? By loving, he became such. 7. Yet Peter feared this loss of comeliness, when, as the Lord foretold his passion, he said: “Far be it from you, Lord; I stand propitious to you, that this may not happen.” But the Lord rebuked him for thinking such things and called the Apostle a devil, saying: “Go back, Satan; for you do not understand what pertains to God, but what pertains to men” (Matthew 16:23).

For Peter thought that the washed beauty of divinity had been swallowed up in the form of a human body, and he did not know that this great mystery was being enacted, that for this reason that beauty in a certain way stripped itself, so that it might clothe the very same beauty with which it deigned to join itself to the Bride, the Church. For by giving, it did not lose what it increased by expending. He gave, she received; and she found what she did not have, and he, by giving what he gave, did not lose it, because he rose from the dead with that same beauty. Why do you take fright, Peter, as if Christ had lost that beautiful garment, when you saw him naked hanging on the cross? Do not take fright, do not fear, do not deny: Christ did not lose that tunic of divinity and immortality on the cross, because he consigned it to his bride as a dowry. You saw him, O Peter, without comeliness or grace, and immediately you denied him, whom you had loved, leaving all your own: so that not only once, but standing in the priest’s atrium, you were asked three times by a single maidservant, and you deny. But when, by the crowing of the cock, he convicted you, the presumptuous one, who had earlier foretold the denier; he looked upon you within your heart, and so that you might weep bitterly, that very divinity of his was in a certain way speaking to you within with milk, and was saying to you: Where is, Peter, “If you possess a friend, possess him in temptation”? Where is, “In”?

during that time of tribulation remain faithful to him, so that you may be a co-heir in his inheritance (1d. XXII)? Where is it, Peter, "I will lay down my life for you" (John 13:38)? and, "with you unto death" (Luke 22)? How quickly you denied him as if he were a dead man, whom you had previously confessed as the Son of the living God! While the Lord was discoursing thus with you in your heart, the divinity looked back, and the humanity wept: sweetness was recognized, and bitterness perished; charity was embraced, and iniquity was erased; love returned, and fear was put to flight. Behold, suddenly the one whom he had denied, because he had no beauty nor comeliness, he recognizes rising again, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, and he sees the bride joined to him, that tunic of immortality, which Peter had earlier feared would perish, now clothed, as it were: he recognizes that she is wrapped in such a garment, and Peter himself addresses that same bride, that she may preserve the dignity of this tunic, and he says to the human soul, "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you may follow in his footsteps" (1 Peter 2!). Follow, bride, follow the footsteps of your bridegroom: let no fear recall you from the companionship of your beloved. Love the one who loves, because he first loved one who did not love: seek the one who seeks, because he first sought one who did not seek. Seek, and say to your bridegroom, "Where do you pasture, where do you rest at midday? Lest I become like a covered one over the flocks of your companions" (Song of Songs 1:6).

You loved her so much, for whom you shed your blood, whose tabernacle you placed in the sun (Psalm 18[?]); I shall not become like a hidden thing over the flocks of your companions. CHAPTER VI. — 8. On avoiding heretics, especially the Arians. Behold, while I seek you where you graze, where you lie down at noon—noon is Africa, which is in the setting of the sun, and yet because from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is praised (Psalm 112[?]), and there are those who preach you not chastely, seeking what is their own, not what is yours—while I seek you at noon, that is, in Africa, the foul flocks of your companions, the worst schools of heretics, the fraud of the Manichaeans, the wickedness of the Pelagians, the proud gathering of the Arians, insult me as if I were a hidden thing, that is, as if unknown, and they say to me, "Whom do you seek? Do you seek Christ? Behold, he is here, behold, he is there." But you, because you warned me, saying, "But if they say, 'Behold, he is here, behold, he is there,' do not go after them" (Matthew 24:23); since I know you to be everywhere whole, not defending parts but loving unity, I have become unknown to them and like a hidden thing: and they mock me, because they do not know you. And what great thing is it that I endure such reproach from them, when even now you endure their insulting word?

who wish you to be one with the Father, but by dividing between Father and Son, between bride and bridegroom, they incur a great sacrilege, a great disease for their own souls; because they desire to have you neither as the one unique bridegroom, nor as a faithful and whole physician. But you, Christian soul, who are about to ascend from the most sacred font, suffused with blush and beauty, exceedingly fair and bright, preserve your beauty: recognize what you have been and what you will be, see that you do not abandon the table of your bridegroom. That you may remain beautiful, you will daily eat his flesh; that you may have eternal life, you will drink his blood: see that you do not abandon this table. Flee the many preparations of the heretics: and if many things are set forth there in their perverse disputations, they are either foul or half-eaten. For there is nothing whole there, where Father and Son and Holy Spirit are not one. The table of your bridegroom has whole bread and a holy chalice: which bread, even though we saw it broken and crumbled in the passion, nevertheless remained whole in its indivisible unity with the Father. Concerning this bread and this chalice, the Lord himself said, "The bread which I will give is my own for the life of the age; and the chalice which I will sanctify is my blood, which will be poured out for you for the remission of sins." For he had said earlier: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you.

Hearing this word, the disciples, not understanding it, said: This speech is harsh; who can hear it? And many, scandalized by this word, departed. But when Jesus saw this, he said to the rest: Do you also wish to leave? Then Peter, who bore the figure of the holy Church, replied for all: And to whom shall we go? You have the word of life, and we are to abandon you (John 6:52-69)? See, beloved, what it is to go out, what it is to remain. Those who went out, because they did not understand Christ’s word, remained no longer disciples but heretics; those who persisted held fast to the word of life. Recognize, heretics, your own departure, because you preach our Christ as lesser. And you have stood with him, because you did not understand that Christ is one with the Father; therefore you have gone outside, because you abandoned the word of life. He does not remain in you, who remains equal with the Father. Hear him himself, for he remains together with the Father. If anyone, he says, loves me, he will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and I and the Father will come to him, and we will make our abode with him (John 14:23). Tell me, I beseech you, Arian heretic, does this Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, dwell in your one soul? For the Holy Spirit also dwells in us: Do you not know, says the Apostle, that you are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you (1 Cor. 6:19)?

Do you prepare different dwellings in your heart for the Trinity, so that the Father the greater holds the greater part, the Son the lesser, the Holy Spirit the inferior? Then you no longer have one heart, but a double or triple one. Therefore the Trinity does not dwell there. Why? Because it is said, "Woe to the double heart" (Sirach 2:14)! Foolish, inept, stupid: the splendor and heat of fire dwell in one lamp simultaneously and inseparably, neither distinctly but equally; and can the one Trinity God not inhabit a human soul? If a dwelling worthy of the equal, undivided Trinity is not found with you, it will be answered to you, "Behold, your house will be left desolate" (Matthew 23:38). For you do not build a temple of living stones, whom you suffocate by rebaptizing, dishonor, reject, lay waste, condemn, exterminate. Nor do you follow the foundations of the Apostles, since they themselves are the pillars of the living God, upon which Wisdom built her house, so that that true temple might be constructed, in which there was a great sacrament of piety. Concerning which temple the Jew said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). Among your fathers you have no cornerstone, whom you do not believe equal to the Father according to divinity; nor do you show that you have with you, from the two wings of charity, the love of God and of neighbor; because you neither love God as he ought to be loved, nor your neighbor as yourself.

You shall love your Lord God, it is said, with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole strength (Matt. 22:37). Give your heart to the Father, your soul to the Son, your strength to the Holy Spirit. Behold, three things to the Trinity; you have offered three things from one man to one Trinity; you have conquered the Arian heresy; because our Lord God is not three gods, but one Lord. This is the holy building, this is the true hall, in which are the sheep of Christ, not the wolves of the devil. CHAPTER VII. — 9. He exhorts them to love the Church and to pray for the peace and liberation of the fatherland. Beware, most beloved, of the frauds of heretics; sheep of Christ, fear the snares of wolves: see that nothing has been subtracted from your benefit, insofar as the Lord Himself has granted from the announcement of the word of God. What Christ is and what the Church is, you have heard, you have approved, you have shouted: but why we suffer such great evils, or by what merits of sins we were handed over into the hands of those who afflict us, when we spoke a very few days ago, we acknowledged together, we wept together. Now also what you are about to receive, or what you will be, still resounds in your ears with the noise of our voice: we admonish you as brothers, we beseech you as fathers, we exhort you as sons. Do not lose such a great good.

Let the love of Christ in your hearts not grow cold; let the love of this mother for you not grow slack—she who gives you birth, who bears great care for the salvation of your soul, who directs your hope, who daily receives you returning to her maternal bosom, who prepares spiritual food for you, who desires to lead you to eternal fullness. She wishes to assign you as immaculate sons to the Father, you whom she deigns to nurture with such care and solicitude. Love her with your whole heart; loving her, love your fellow servants, your brothers, the ministers of God with pure affection; and for our reward, pray for us at that most sacred font. Pray for peace, pray for the liberation of this land; pray that he who justly is angered may show mercy. Newborn sons, while your father rejoices in your holy nativity, soften with your prayers and tears the wrath of him whom we have felt strongly avenging. In sum, using the words of the holy Apostles, we commend you to God in the word of his grace, who is powerful to preserve in you what he himself has given (Acts 20:32). Glory to him with the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.