Homiliae Quaedam

CERTAIN HOMILIES OF SAINT EUCHERIUS, BISHOP OF LUGDUNUM.

HOMILY I.

To the monks.

The divine word exhorts us to run while we have the light, before the darkness overtakes us. We have the light if we run, if we advance the step of faith; we remain in darkness if we cease to advance. Let our final necessity find us ready—that necessity which often comes upon the unready. Let our uncertain condition impose upon us a certain anxiety; let the fear of that danger be daily, whose onset is unknown. How late will the wretched soul repent of its evils, when, as the last day comes upon it, it sees itself separated from its body; when, as it closes its eyes at the end, eternal night begins to grow black and dreadful before it; when it sees lying before it, empty of salvation and light, its unhappy comrade-in-arms, at once its instigator and its deceiver, with whom, conquered through its own shameful conduct, it departed from the arena of this world. When, now torn away from him, it begins to raise monstrous and empty laments over him, and to say: Where are your passions and desires, for which until now you burned impatiently, and which, still to burn, you gathered together? Behold, all those things have passed away like a shadow, the delights are gone, and only reproaches and crimes have remained forever. Woe is me, O soul! To so ruined a vessel I shall return, willing or unwilling, and for the sake of fleeting pleasures I must be burned together with him in vapors never to be escaped.

What then, when the importunate exactor of the deposit begins to drag it forth to the sentence already determined and fixed by immutable law, and the dread faces of infernal ministers leap upon it from every side and press hard upon it? What will it be, when it begins to be separated by the attendants of death through this vast air, and led away through the paths of darkness beyond the day, and to travel a road of no return through those borders where the light itself fails—when that soul, a stranger everywhere, accompanied by the sad host of its own evils, sees itself falling through the farthest reaches of the world into that empty and void place away from the world, and to enter that great chaos which divides the region of life and death, and, exiled from its own nature, to lose the vital breezes? When, bidding a final farewell to human affairs, with death before it and leaving life behind, it is dragged into that dreadful deep, scarcely reachable by the eyes, bound in the chains of diverse crimes of greed and malice, about to receive as much punishment as it has lost in worth?

When therefore it has come to those places of cruel custody, where already the dread of the future judgment of punishments will rage by its very expectation—not to mention anything else—grief alone will torture the soul stripped of all consolations, thought alone will torment it in its despair, fear alone will try it in its astonishment; and because there will then be no anxiety about procuring food or clothing, no occupation of laboring, soldiering, or transacting business, no ambition for wealth or honor, the intolerable terror of rendering account alone will fill the mind emptied of all other cares, and the whole weight of judgment alone will press upon the captive senses. But what then, when it is commanded to return to the prison of its body and, through the resurrection, to receive it into the company of the wicked? What will it do when it must present the foul marks of its wounds to the chaste gaze of the angels, and before the King of ages render account for each single deed? These marks, if they were now cast in our midst, it could not without doubt endure its own guilt within itself, overwhelmed by the shame of great confusion. What state of mind will it then have, when it sees others there, as the Lord dispenses, receive the prize of faith unharmed and whole, the treasure of pure chastity, the fruits of mercy, the talents of righteousness? When it sees that by an undeserved lot for itself the last have become first, and the first last; the poor glorified above the rich, servants above masters?

and that each one, according to his merits, is advanced from among men to the status of angels, bathed in the light of immortality, and, with the earthly body he once had, is set above the heights of the heavenly kingdom, and is enriched among the sons of majesty with the wealthy inheritance of God the Father; but that she herself, left amid these things with her sins, from the spectacle of another's felicity carries back the vices of her griefs? What then? When she has seen herself, in her wretched condition, stripped of all consolation, cast out into the outer darkness, and shut out from that Church of the blessed by perpetual excommunication, cut off from the very root of life? But how can a trembling and ill-conscious tongue explain that—when the flesh that cannot be atoned for and the marrow infected with sins begin to be pierced by the savage heats of hell, and, after the manner of seething and boiling metals, the whole substance of a man is poured out within by an inextinguishable burning, and the devouring flames partly consume bodies and souls and partly feed them, so that amid the very globes of fire the condemned nature both receives its food and takes increase? If perhaps that vice long since sprinkled into consciences, and the adulterous mixture of bronze and lead, is at some time burned away amid the seething pools of the panting gulf, it passes over.

For those on their way through the fiery shallows, the greatness of the punishment will be the delay of their torment; sins will supply fuel to the flames, and the command of both the Author and the Judge will stand: that the entrails, exposed to pains and consecrated to torments alone, consumed by the arbiter fire, it does not devour, but perishes for this end—that it may always destroy; so that the work and fashioning of our body, dead in its ancient crimes and revived only for torments, may find no end at the very boundary of destruction, but its exhausted and now enduring virtue may so perish as to rise again. For that burning is not accidental but rational and penal, because it is commanded to search out the fault, it does not know how to consume the substance. And because, like a light scorching that runs over linen, that purging is itself, that flame does not so much pursue the guilty one as the guilt; and if there is a measure of sins, there will also be a measure of torments. But if it has occupied the whole open wound equally and has enveloped the excesses of capital crimes, because the cause admits no remedy, the punishment will lack an end. So, with punishment dying and the sentence giving life, a reparable substance will stand for ages, and it will never reach the limit of evils with its end fleeing away; and while it can promise itself no hope even after immense ages, even now in the present the torments of the ages to follow are felt; and thus the immortality of the consciousness imposed will increase the pain of death. Woe to those who reckon these things, to be mourned hereafter, as things to be laughed at then!

Woe to those for whom these things must be experienced before they are believed. And therefore, dearest ones, all these things which cannot be ended there can be redeemed here through the amendment of one's former life, through almsgiving, through tears, through humility of heart, through chastity of body, through the exercises of justice and mercy. Since these things are so, we hasten to death through so many errors, who have received so many ways to salvation. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

HOMILY II.

To the monks.

We ought to know, dearest ones, what benefit holy occupations confer even in the present. The sacred reading has handed down that the clean animals are those that chew the cud. But what it is to chew the cud, the divine word teaches openly, saying: In the law of the Lord is his will, and in his law he will meditate day and night (Ps. 1:2); and again: The meditation of my heart is always in your sight (Ps. 48:4); so we too, while we spiritually chew the cud of the food of salvation, shut out wicked thoughts with our senses closed; then we are delighted by the praises of God, and we feel that our inner self becomes a clean animal through holy exercises; and while we fortify our inner parts against wicked desires, we satisfy our souls with heavenly foods, so that even of us that prophetic saying may be spoken: He gave them the bread of heaven, man ate the bread of angels. The bread of angels is Christ, of whose food we too are partakers, when we occupy the mind in his praises.

Behold the true food, which restores and does not fail, but profits by its use and grows at its own expense. By this bread we are restored by hungering, and fed by fasting, bringing a certain force to bear upon our vices and desires, so that it may be said of us: The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force (Matthew 11:12). We ought to know who these violent ones are. We know that the human mind, softened by the various allurements and lusts of the world, flees labor and seeks pleasure, and is scarcely brought to cast off from itself the habit of its former life; but when it has begun to think on the necessity of the final day, stirred and goaded by the weight of the future judgment, whether by hope of reward or fear of punishment, it declares voluntary war upon its passions, does violence to its former pursuits, and strives violently to conquer itself by the change to a better life. For it cannot happen without violence that one pass from abundance and riches to hunger and thirst, to abstinence and the cross; that the flesh, once a friend to sleep and leisure, he wear down with contrition and vigils; it cannot, I say, happen without violence that each person exchange anger for patience, pride for humility, overcome affluence by love of poverty and sufficiency, commend drunkenness by sobriety and luxury by chastity, and that a man be suddenly transformed into another man, and in a certain manner be rendered another from another; and so by such men the heavenly kingdom is taken by force.

But there are two kinds of abstinence and of the cross: one bodily, the other spiritual. The one is to refrain from drink and from feasts, to restrain the appetite of the gullet from pleasures and the most delicate sweetnesses; to recall the senses manfully, and to draw them violently away, from those things which deceive through touch, smell, and sight. The other kind of abstinence and of the cross is precious and sublime: to govern the motions of the soul, and to check its perturbations by the tranquility of moderation, and to bridle the impulses of pride as though a wild beast, to strive, to rebuke oneself daily against one's own base desires with a certain censorious austerity of virtue, and in a manner to join battle with the inner man. He does these things who, having broken through the wall of the passions, ascends violently to the kingdom of heaven. To which may he deign to lead you, who live in his fear, who reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

HOMILY III.

To the monks.

The divine word instructs and exhorts us how we ought to gird ourselves to seek his promises and to obtain those good things which can neither be grasped by sight, nor perceived by hearing, nor comprehended by thought. Ask, he says, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you (Luke 11:9); that is, that we ask by praying, seek by laboring; that we knock by desiring, knock by advancing, knock by persevering; and that we be stirred to the hope of heavenly promises with such zeal, and burn with such affection, that the greatness of our desires may accord with the dignity of the rewards.

Our God does not wish his good things to become cheap through too great an ease of finding them; a precious and desirable reward requires an eager lover and a greedy merchant.

Therefore that promiser of such great gifts does not want a lukewarm man in his work; he despises the disdainful, rejects the compelled, spurns the undevoted. For to seek the grace of a divine gift sluggishly and with little gratitude is the greatest injury to the rewarder. Therefore, though we toil with all the labors of both soul and body, though we exert ourselves with all the strength of obedience, we shall still be able to compensate and offer nothing worthy of the merit of heavenly goods. The services of the present life cannot be balanced against the joys of eternal life. Though our limbs grow weary with vigils, though our faces grow pale with fastings, still the sufferings of this time will not be worthy of the future glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18). Let us therefore knock, dearly beloved, as much as we can, because we cannot as much as we ought. Future blessedness can be acquired, but it cannot be appraised. For unless we do God's works with eagerness, unless with good will, unless with joy, we must know that we perish before God. Do we think, dearly beloved, that that soul seeks worthily and knocks in such a way that it is opened to it, which presumes to answer its elder's light command and say: Am I not your servant? I have already done my part, and let him do his—how does she say this, to whom it is commanded, Seek not the things that are your own? And again: Each one considering not the things that are his own (Phil.

From him it is not only sought that he fulfill his own reward, but that he invade, seize beforehand, and snatch away the rewards of others. Do we think, I say, that he asks in such a way as to receive, seeks in such a way as to find, knocks in such a way as for it to be opened to him—he who, corrected for some negligence and chastised according to the order of discipline, does not apply himself to amendment, does not apply himself to satisfaction, but rather to that shamelessness, so as to say: I depart and withdraw, I do not suffer this, I am a freeborn man. First of all, he who boasts before the prelate or abbot that he is freeborn, I think does not yet know that he was bought. He who, a purchased slave of the Christian warfare, presumes to say that he is freeborn, is almost denying that he was bought by the blood of Christ. What else is "I am free" than to cry out to the Lord himself, "I owe nothing"? Of such men the Apostle was speaking: For when you were slaves of disobedience, you were free as regards justice (Rom. 6:20). He is not well approved as freeborn who is weighed down by the servitude of vices. But he cries out in contempt of discipline, in the sin of his own soul: I prefer to depart than to amend, than to make satisfaction, than to fulfill what you command. What else is this than to shake off the yoke of Christ from himself with a rebellious neck? Such men as these do not know what they know; they have forgotten why they came here. Such men as these do not ask well, but are badly desired by their vices. They do not knock in faith, but are knocked upon by faithlessness.

What does it profit you to depart, you who are bound on every side by the chains of the passions, whom your own vices besiege on this side and that? What, I say, does it profit you to depart, you who carry yourself with you wherever you go? You would rightly depart if you could flee anywhere from yourself. Someone has worthily departed if he could go to that place where the devil cannot find him. Let no one deceive himself: let him not flee the adversary from place to place, but from vice to virtue, from passion to amendment. For if you flee him in that manner, he will follow you. Amend yourself, and he will flee from you, as the Apostle says: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). But to disobey and yet wish to depart is to do the devil's will twice over; that is, to bring damnation upon oneself even in the present, of one's own accord. For those who offend more grievously among us, we can find no sentence more sorrowful, none more bitter, than that, cut off from the body of the congregation, they depart without peace. And is it not a kind of madness that someone should seek as a remedy that which even a superior could not inflict except for the gravest crime? Let us understand, therefore, dearly beloved, that these resentments and contradictions arise from the enemy's working and arranging. For since he cannot utterly shake anyone from the place of salvation, he first sends in occasions and causes, he sends in the passion of disobedience, which a companioning faithlessness always accompanies.

When this has taken the mind captive and entangled it, it immediately makes even those things which are small and light become intolerable and impossible. And indeed there is no doubt that strength is divinely withdrawn from the disobedient, just as even from that man who did not have in himself the necessary devotion of faith, even what he had was taken away from him; so disobedience hardens the mind that it has once seized, so that it is bent to receive the commandments neither by authority nor by reason. But what is worst, it believes only itself, and follows its own intentions in place of all reason, and thinks that alone right which it has conceived with a hardened heart, made like to him of whom the divine word declares: The ways of fools are straight in their own eyes (Prov. 16:25); and again: There are ways which seem to be right to men, but their last ends come into the depth of hell (Prov. 14:12). Finally, what happened to the house that was built upon the sand (Matt. 7:26) will happen to souls of this kind. For this parable looks especially to the disobedient.

For thus we read: Everyone who hears these words and does not do them will be likened to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand: the floods came, and the rest; that is, when the trickling drops of the passions have flowed in, when the floods of the torrent and the onsets of tribulations have come, from the multitude of negligences, when the winds have blown—those winds, surely, which fly about in this air, ready to winnow the threshing floor of Christ, if anywhere they find chaff to snatch away and scatter for their own mockery—then they will rush into that house which was built without the foundation of obedience, and its ruin will be great. But perhaps someone may say: Is it immediately to be called a ruin if one departs from this place? I say, beloved, it is not a great hope if one is in a ship set amid the waves: although the ship itself does not perish, yet it suffers the greatest loss of its cargo and its goods, and itself arrives at port empty and bare. So too it is not a great joy if someone, returning to the waves of the world, is seen to keep the name and habit of his profession, while his soul wastes away and drains off through negligences; and what is more grievous than that you should suddenly, like a shipwreck, be uprooted from the place to which your Lord had called you, in which he had first enlightened you, into which, after the evils of the world, he had led you as into a port out of a heavy storm?

To forget suddenly the brotherhood, the fellowship, and the consolation; to forget that place in which you first put off your former habit and your secular name? The very birds love their nests, the wild beasts love the places in which they were reared, they love their lairs and pastures; and although by their natural freedom they are carried away by harmful and perverse impulses, yet more often they return, by a certain longing for food, to the places dear to them; and you, endowed with understanding, fortified by reason, are sometimes so made estranged in mind that you set aside your wills or intentions for the benefits of God, and follow your own thoughts, which, however much they drag you to harsh labors, however much to the shipwrecks of salvation and the losses of the soul, yet you do not perceive all this because of the excessive indignity of your heart. This the divine word says: For in the time of departure the enemy promises many things; he persuades himself that there he will find greater progress toward where he is going, abundant grace and an abundance of all things, and that he will be received as an angel. And after these things, when he is filled with anxiety and stripped of peace, mindful of how he abandoned the zeal of his progress and the sacred sheepfold, then he notices, and as if the storm of his time were calmed, then he sees what evil he has done to himself, then he recognizes what danger he has incurred, when from the place to which he had come with joy he departed without peace and with scandal. Then with late repentance he repents over his ruins and weeps.

Just as certain birds are said to weep from grief over those they have killed; and all these losses of the soul come from the evil of disobedience. But obedient and humble souls cast down and bring to nothing many tribulations and all labors. For it must be known that the more humble and obedient we are, the more lightly and sweetly we shall feel the yoke of the Lord upon us; and the more obedient we are to our superiors and fathers, the more God will incline to our prayers. Let us consider how acceptable to the Lord are the works and fasts of those who obey their own wills rather than those of their elders. They cry out: Why have we fasted, and you did not know? We have humbled our souls, and you did not look? And he answers: Because in the days of your fasting your own wills are found (Isa. 58:3). We see that through the disobedience of souls, works are not regarded, fasts are not heard, vows are not received. Therefore let us follow more fully the commandments of him who descended from heaven to us for this purpose, not only to redeem us by the price of death, but also to build us up by the example of life; and let us say with him: I have not come to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me (John 6:38). But to follow one's own wills is so pernicious that the Lord, already angered thereafter, inflicts this as the condemnation of sin, saying: And I let them go according to the desires of their heart (Ps. 80:15).

For this reason, whoever wishes his works to be safe or upright in the sight of God should prefer nothing to obedience, should set nothing at all before it, whether he is older or younger. Indeed, the older he is, the more he ought to strive for edification and perfection. Let him set no end to his progress, and establish no limit to his acquiring, since he hears it said to him: Prepare your works at the going out; and again: Do not be afraid to be justified even unto death (Eccl. 18:22). And again: Wisdom is sung at the going out (Prov. 1:20). Therefore, the more we progress, the more we should be humbled, because the more humble we have been, the more we will progress. Let no elder appear there so learned as to think that obedience does not become him—obedience which became God. For humility and obedience are still a necessity in the younger, but in the older they are a dignity; for that one progresses well, that one brings things to completion well, who each day acts as though he were always beginning. For this reason, the increase of merits ought to be incentives to progress. But Scripture, speaking of those who, while they neglect their first negligences, always fall into one thing after another, says thus: The sinner will add to his sinning (Eccl. 3:29). But of progress it is said: And let the holy be sanctified still further (Rev. 22:11). Let us first see what this is: the sinner will add to his sinning?

For example, the passion of some evil or detraction began to assail me; if remorse for this life did not immediately bite me, tomorrow such ease in this vice will come to me, and a certain sweetness (so to speak), that I cannot be recalled from it and restrained. For so it happens that one who in the first time was unwilling to amend begins in the following time neither to will nor to be able. For example, I began to yield to pride, I violated the rule, I injured an elder, I destroyed a younger. If I was not immediately repentant that I had been so gravely forestalled, so from day to day the very violence of habit and the impulse of passion will most willingly carry me away, that now I neither understand that I am sinning nor feel that I sin. For the burden of sin and the assiduity of sinning obscure and overwhelm the intellect, and indeed the heart is so hardened by negligences that, unless it humbles itself, unless it makes satisfaction for its purpose, it believes it harms itself, and moreover it insults and says: How constantly I resisted him, how well I did not yield, with how much authority I answered? He thought that I ought always to humble myself to him. Whoever does this, it is evident that he has handed himself over as a captive to the devil, who rejoices over the vices and passions and perdition of men, and to such a soul that sentence will come: The sinner will add to sinning (Eccl. 3:29). Fleeing this, dearest ones, let us rather hold to that which says: And let the holy still be sanctified (Rev.

Let us daily add to our merits, and presume nothing of ourselves, because all that we can do is God's. So let us, brothers, be unfailing in the work of God, for the sake of eternal recompense, and let us daily tend toward better things. For that very eagerness to lay hold, that very habit of advancing, will always spur us on to greater things; and where God sees the devotion of the soul more ardent, he will instill affection; and as much as we add to our zeal, so much will he add to his help; as much as we add to our diligence, so much will he add to our glory. To him who has, it shall be given, and he shall abound (Matthew 13:12), and in another place it says: I have placed help upon the mighty (Psalm 88:20). Grace, therefore, is born from grace, and advances serve advances; gains make gain for gains, and merits for merits; so that the more anyone has begun to acquire, the more he may strive and delight to seek, so that the gain of acquisition may nourish the appetite for acquiring. And the more eagerly anyone has drawn from the goods of wisdom, the more he may desire to draw, as Wisdom herself says of herself: He who eats me shall still hunger. Let us therefore press on, most beloved, in our course, that our life may grow at the last. Let us seek even unto On, whence we may deserve to rejoice without end. But granted that we cannot practice bodily labors, let us apply ourselves to the desire for spiritual goods, to the increase of compunction and charity.

If we daily set ascents in our hearts, we cannot grow weary from any weakness or any toil, so that by these, as it were, spiritual steps we may deserve to ascend to the promises of the Lord Jesus Christ.

HOMILY IV.

To the monks.

Just as the Lord demands from us the duty of speaking because of the necessity of the office we have undertaken, so from you, dearest brothers, he requires the affection of obedience. So, I say, it is expedient for your charity to obey these things which we say for your salvation, just as it is incumbent upon us not to be silent. For if we fear offense from silence, how much more ought you to dread the same from contempt? If, I say, it is a great danger for us not to reprove the faults of others, how much more dangerous is it not to correct one's own? The blessed Apostle says in a certain place: See your calling, brothers (1 Cor 1:26); wherefore, most beloved, let us also see our calling. For it does not sufficiently profit us that we have sought this place, if here we are such as we could have been in the world. For if we look closely, not only does this solitude constrain us to the necessity of perfection, but the very multitude of the congregation also constrains us. For just as it is precious and excellent to act well in the midst of many, and to stir up very many to progress by the example of good work, so it is dangerous and pernicious, by acting more negligently and tepidly, to break the faith of many and to corrupt the souls of many.

As I say, it is fruitful to have lived in a praiseworthy manner when placed in the midst of so many; just so it is dangerous to have done anything destructive. But why do I say this? Because (what is worse) we more easily find those who pursue what is worse than what is better; for human frailty is prone to the imitation of evil. Therefore let us not believe that it is enough for us that we see ourselves gathered into this school, unless the perfection we have professed condemns our negligences more vehemently in us than the perfection we have not undertaken. For according to the faith of Scripture, those who promise much must necessarily have much required of them. How much will the opportunity of this place profit, and how much will it harm, and the occasion of a fitting dwelling! For it is not to have lived in this place, but to have acted well in this place, that is to be praised. For what does the seclusion of this dwelling profit the good, when malice reigns in us with tyrannical dominion, when anger rides over us, when the human eye sees in us a greater fear than the divine eye; when we, praiseworthy hermits, believing ourselves to be sons outside the world, hold the world enclosed within us through the vices of various passions, so that we who thought that by our prayers we could ourselves succor the world, are almost seen to need rather the intercessions of the world?

There is no doubt, surely, that that old-womanish possession which is brought about through the desire for worldly pleasures, of worldly conduct, cannot become the kingdom of the Godhead. And therefore, brothers, see your calling. To come to the desert is indeed the highest perfection; but to live in the desert not perfectly is the highest condemnation. What does it profit if the place is kept quiet only in body, and uncleanness is stirred in the heart? What, I say, does it profit if there is silence in the dwelling, and in the dwellers a tumult of vices and a struggle of passions? If serenity holds our outward parts, and a tempest our inward? For we have not come together to this place for this reason, that the world should serve us, that, abounding in all things, we should enjoy all quiet; surely we have not come here for rest, not for security, but for battle; we have advanced to the contest; we have hastened to wage war against vices: that we may blunt the swords of the tongue, not only not inflicting injuries on one another, but not even feeling those inflicted. But this pertains more especially to our profession: to require nothing of consolation in this life, nothing of quiet.

Nor to wish to receive goods in one's life, but to flee honors, to rejoice in subjection and abjection, to seek poverty with zeal, and to root out from the heart not only resources but even desires themselves—for to have nothing is sometimes a matter of necessity, but to desire nothing is a matter of virtue. And therefore the religious man ought to impose a limit upon himself specifically in this: that he have only as much as necessity demands, not as much as desire covets. For the love of having, unless it is cut away entirely, is more ardent in small things, and men are more tormented in the least: and unless you are poor from the heart and affection, poverty itself is to be judged not a virtue but a misery. Let us know, therefore, brothers, that it profits nothing if we afflict our flesh with fastings and vigils and do not amend our mind, or do not care for the things that are within. For what does bodily affliction profit, if we defile the tongue with wickednesses and slanders? Are not all our labors reduced to nothing? Does not our work vanish like smoke and a shadow, and like stubble easily reduced to nothing? How great and how long-lasting labors perish suddenly! How many goods, frequently already acquired and stored up, are snatched from the hand, while we neglect to guard what we strive to acquire!

Therefore we flatter ourselves in vain about the cross and the affliction of the body, if our outer man is exercised by holy labors but the inner man is not healed of its passions. It is as if someone were to make a statue golden on the outside and clay on the inside; or as if a house built with magnificent skill were seen to be painted on the outside with the most beautiful colors, yet within were full of serpents and scorpions. What does it profit you that you afflict your body, when your heart gains nothing? It is a very hard and greatly to be lamented condition: to expend the effort of labor with all intent, and not to receive the fruit after the labor; to fast and keep vigil, and not to correct one's conduct. It is as if someone were to root out and cultivate outside the vineyard or around the vineyard, and leave the vineyard itself deserted and uncultivated, so that it brings forth thorns and briars, when, with the cultivator attending to it, it could have produced from itself the most delightful fruits. Recognize therefore, most beloved, that for obtaining eternal salvation bodily abstinence alone is not sufficient, unless the fasting of the soul too has been satisfied through abstinence from vices. For what does it profit if someone is chaste in body but polluted in mind? Whom malice depraves, whom the fury of anger drives with its torches, whom pride strips of every grace of God, whom the tongue defiles with lies or curses—does he not deceive himself, does he not mock and beguile himself, if he believes he is to be sanctified by fasts and vigils alone?

And therefore, most beloved, let us so exercise the body with fastings that we may purify the mind from vices. Let us think unceasingly on the coming of that Judge, who would that he might find us as prepared as no one can doubt that he will come. But if you ask how he will come? Surely in that body which for our salvation was taken up, for our crimes condemned, for our absolution damned, and for the healing of our wounds pierced with spear and nails. For the first intolerable sentence upon the guilty will be the presence of his revered scars. What then shall we do at that time, when against the bruises of the crucified Lord our sins' marks and the stains of our lusts are brought forth? Or with what countenance, do you think, will our redemption look upon our perdition? Human offenses will be all the more grievous, the greater the divine benefits have shown themselves. But it is to be feared lest he, proclaiming the precious traces of the cross by that voice of his resurrection, even in his judgment, bring it forth against the vessels of iniquity and say: Put your finger here, and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and acknowledge what I, human impiety, have suffered for you and from you.

Those marks of the nails, surely, are healing for the good and terrifying for the evil; since they are not felt until the day of judgment, they are without doubt kept to be set before us. And what follows after these things, except that fearful chaos placed between the living and the dead, and the vast separation, the outer darkness shut out from the nature of the living, the harsh separation from the sweet sight of the saints and from the fellowship of the faithful; and on the other hand, amid the tearful groans and lamentations of the grieving, the sad company of the wretched, and from the blessed fatherland the eternal exile of the most hideous night? How mournful it will be for a man to see God and to lose him, and to perish before the sight of his own ransom. And therefore, most beloved, thinking on these things while there is time, let us labor with unwearying zeal, so that what the One who was judged conferred on us, the One who is to judge may find intact in us.

HOMILY V.

To the monks.

For that spiritual warfare to which we have bound ourselves, it is certain that a great reward is laid up for the future. But if we look well at this very work that we do, in some manner even in the present we possess a part of the prize; and plainly it is a great fruit of life to have been able to despise the world and to have begun to serve God; to have escaped the most unhappy dominion of vices, and to have fled the most foul slavery of gluttony and luxury. What then?

Is it not already a great part of the reward to have nothing in common with the world, not to be tormented by the desires of vain things, not to be entangled in crimes, to spend the day in innocence, to devote oneself to blessed chastity, and to possess the sufficiency of glorious poverty with the fear of the Lord? Of this Wisdom speaks: Better is a little portion with the fear of the Lord than great treasures without fear. Let us therefore understand how much the Lord has conferred upon us by his loving calling; let us count, if we can, from that time when we seem to have been preserved here, how much we have gained; from how many frauds, from how many adulteries, robberies, perjuries, sacrileges we have been freed; and then we shall see how much we also owe to the Lord for present benefits. If we were now in the world, what else would we do but wallow in our evils, and violate our souls with daily stains, be pierced with daily wounds, and so much so that we would not even feel them. For unhappy habit in sinning has this effect, that the more anyone has sinned, the less he understands his own sins, and the more he is delighted to sin: so that there comes to pass that which the prophet cries out to sinners: God is not in his sight, his judgments are taken away from before his face; for when the delight of sinning creeps in, at once forgetfulness hides the day of future judgment.

But on the contrary, the more anxious each person has been about himself, the more he fears; as Scripture says, "A wise man by fearing departs from evil" (Eccl. 1:16). The wise man, therefore, is always in compunction and always in fear: and just as he sighs over past evils, so he trembles with watchful anxiety over future dangers. He who is anxious about the past thinks over and turns over with himself, lest perhaps he has wept too little for the past; lest perhaps he has not yet made satisfaction for his countless debts; lest perhaps he has heaped new wounds upon his old iniquities; lest he has impressed still fresh crimes upon the old stains of his conscience, and has taken up the name of a religious life for this purpose, that under a sacred profession he might sin more grievously. Some of us think it is enough for us that we have climbed to this seclusion, that we have changed our place and manner of life, that we have lived here for a little time, placing all our hope in the number of years. And so, deceiving ourselves by a pernicious persuasion, we think that we have settled all our debts, we think that our evils have vanished by the span of time; and because we have forgotten them, we believe that they have slipped from the memory of divine severity. But it is not so. All things are gathered before him, all things are stored up and sealed before him.

Let us hear what that man says who fought hand to hand with the devil himself in single combat, the blessed Job: You have sealed my sins as though in a bag (Job 14:17); and again the Lord himself says: Are not these things gathered together and sealed up in my treasuries (Deut. 32:34)? Let us not think that crimes once branded in and impressed upon the very vitals of the soul by a deep wound can be so easily remitted. Much weeping is needed, much sighing, much grief of heart to heal the sorrows of the heart itself. We must apply ourselves with the full contrition of the spirit, so that the old evils may be fought down out of the conscience like so many arrows. It is not enough to say with the lips' surface: I have sinned, spare, forgive. Saul too said, I have sinned (1 Sam. 26:21); but he did not obtain that pardon which David earned by a single voice of penitence. And why is this? Because bare words rather than true groans expressed that confession. Because the joyful humiliation of the suppliant did not match the greatness of his crime. We must not act with light contrition, so that those debts may be redeemed to which eternal death is owed; nor is a passing satisfaction enough for those evils on account of which eternal fire is prepared. If we wish to understand how grave our Judge makes the sins of men in his own sight, let us look to the punishments. For as patient as our God now is in bearing with our offenses, so severe will he be in examining them; and just as he has prepared inestimable glory for the just, so has he prepared inestimable punishment for the wicked.

Therefore let us gather the bitterness of the punishments, on the other hand, from the magnitude of the sins themselves. For he who knows how to reward merits knows how to punish offenses. Therefore the remembrance of the future judgment, and the recollection, or rather the lamentation, of past sins is most wholesome and greatly necessary. But if there is anyone who flatters himself concerning the past merits of an unharmed life, and still thinks that he has passed over into the Lord's service innocent, and therefore believed that he ought to be secure, such a man should consider how uncertain and how slippery are the exits of life, of which it is said: Do not praise a man in his life (Sirach 11:30); and when he has seen this, even if he thinks he has nothing from the past to mourn, he will find he has something from the future to fear. Let no one, therefore, be secure concerning the past. So many snares have been cast before the feet of our soul, so many and countless enemies watch and guard our path, so many pits and so many precipices, so many difficulties of things lie between us and our end; the way itself, which is steep and arduous in itself, is beset by so many ambushes of spiritual robbers, we must pass through and see so many rocks and so many waves before we let down the anchor on the desired shore—and yet we think that we ought to be secure concerning the past, and to spend our day without daily care, without daily fear and trembling!

Who, crossing over someone’s deep place, humble through the narrowest straits of a very narrow bridge, even if he has passed over the greater part with unfaltering foot, should already believe that he has escaped the danger, when on the span of the last part of the bridge, if he has stumbled a little, he incurs the fall that he feared in the middle of the span? So we too, even if the great part of this life seems to have been passed prosperously, should not for that reason presume confidence, since the last part still threatens danger. Who, placed in the battle line, before the end of the contest or before the security of victory, lays down his arms? Let no one therefore judge that he ought to be secure before he comes to the end with a happy consummation. Nor should we think that this suffices for us for full salvation, that we are reckoned among the servants of God either by dwelling or by name: that we seem to live on an island and to flourish among monks. For our God cries out to us: Not all who say to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 7:21). Why this? Because the hearers of the law are not just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified (James 1:22; Rom. 2:13). Hence even if we have lived well, we ought to commend our course by stability and perseverance, persisting and making progress in the place of our calling. Truly I say, even if we had spent twenty or thirty years here for the Lord, to whom we know that we owe everything that we live, and that we should spend even one year in the world, it would be beyond estimation how much we would defraud ourselves of the joys of eternal life.

Because all our hopes rest in completion and in the end. What does it profit me if the green fields show me the hope of harvest in the grass, and then in that very season deceive me by a sudden change of weather or by flooding rains? What will it profit me if the vineyard promises all its hope in the blossom, and then either the incursion of wild beasts or the devastation of hail withdraws all hope before its completion? And therefore all prosperity, and all labor, rests in the end. But since those are to be mourned who from here, after many wages of labors, after some progress of years, are drawn away by certain desires, what will it be for those who here believe four or five years to be a very long time, and consume the whole stretch of the rest of their life in the vanity of the world? Since even the year of the world can thus consume our labors acquired for eternity, as if the great sea should receive within itself a very small stream and absorb it, and leave it not even a name. I do not know at what profits we wish to live in that world. For since here a great loss is reckoned if something is not acquired daily, there a great gain must be thought to be, even not to lose what has been acquired: where, I say, it is believed to be a grave detriment not to profit daily, there truly the highest virtue is not to perish. And therefore if we are still slight and poor, let us labor to obtain something here. But if we have obtained something, let us take care to keep it here.

This alone was for us a gain and a joy, that we lived here for the Lord. And therefore, as long as we stand here, it is in our power to turn aside to the world whenever you wish. But when you have turned aside, it will then be difficult and almost impossible to look back even in thought at this place. But if anyone thinks himself secure for this reason, that he can someday depart from this place, because he has run well here, because he has labored much here, such a person acts like someone who releases a ship loaded with goods from the harbor and hands it over to the storms and drives it onto the rocks and stones. Therefore, the more we labor, the more cautious we ought to be. For the enemy lies in wait for those who are making progress, and where he sees some hope, some favor, there like a roaring lion prowling around he throws himself wholly into devouring the prey; and therefore, because he cannot prevail to harm those placed here, he wishes to lead some, less cautious, through thoughts and through various temptations, as it were, out from this place, as if beyond the camp, and as if to bring them down from a most fortified citadel, and when he has brought them down, to fight as it were from a higher position: so that even if he cannot sink the ship, at least from the losses and damages that abound in the world he may carry off a most delightful prey. He will first send in various intentions, indignations, animosities: so that while a man strives to fulfill what he has once determined and in his fury has inclined toward, he may not think of his own loss, may not look to his ruin; and when him [

...has set aside, then repentance will follow to no purpose. Here we are, and yet we are not wholly here. For either we are stirred by the various and wicked and shameful thoughts of the heart, or we are wounded by the poisoned swords of the tongue, taking scandal over the smallest and most trifling matters, sometimes even—which does not befit a monk—breaking out into quarrels and brawls, sometimes violating our profession by transgressing the rule, not fearing to commit theft against our superiors—indeed, against our own souls—under God's eyes: what we are ashamed to do in the presence of our superiors, we do not fear to commit under God's eyes; we are not content with necessities, but again through the lukewarmness of the heart we desire the abundance that we left behind in the world. Whence it does not greatly profit us that we have shut out from ourselves whatever worldly means, when the desires themselves have settled within us. Hence it is that we are sometimes stirred up over the smallest matters, and for the appetite of worthless things we stir up the most worthless intentions. Why is this? Because although we have left behind external goods in things, we still retain interior evils in our hearts; and amid these things, how does our adversary exult when he sees us, who have despised the greatest things, being more shamefully conquered in the least? And therefore it profits nothing to have cast away those things that were placed outside, unless those things also that have clung within to the very vitals of the soul are torn out by the roots.

And the Apostle did not say, gold or silver is the root of all evils, but rather the desire for riches (1 Tim. 6:10); and not only the rich, but even those who wish to become rich, fall into the snare and temptation (1 Tim. 6:9). Therefore the Apostle pursues not only those who have, but the very will to have. And for this reason a man gains nothing by abandoning what is outside himself, if he keeps vices within himself. And so, as I said, brothers, here we are, and yet we are not wholly here; and we who, placed within the walls, scarcely resist—what shall we do when exposed to the world? How will they be able to stand in the wave, and in the very onset of clashing storms, who are in such grave peril even in the harbor? Therefore, as much as we can, let us be steadfast; in this most tranquil bay, however negligent, however lukewarm, he has not run in vain who has reached the palm of consummation by persevering.

Homily VI

To the monks.

It is for this purpose, brothers, that we have come together to this place, so that we may be free for our Lord, and not for those things in which our enemy takes delight. It is certain that when we speak of the things that pertain to the world, or bite one another with excessive murmurings and detractions, he rejoices that our hours are stolen from God and acquired for himself. What does it profit us that we wear ourselves out with precious vigils and labors, and do not have the things that our God most desires? That is, that the mind be clean and free from these petty negligences; whoever does not guard against them gradually slips away and will be led on to greater things. Let us therefore strive above all to have that which our Lord expects in us, that is, a gentle and kindly disposition, a mind free from every curse and from all malice, and, avoiding those things by which the Holy Spirit is offended, giving our attention to humility, quiet, and charity: these are the chief sacrifices, these the rich burnt offerings that ascend in the sight of the Lord as a sweet odor. Let us also strive especially that the things we do in honor of our Lord we do with a clear mind, with the joy of faith, and with the good and devout affection of the will. But whatever we do unwillingly and under compulsion, let us know that from it we not only have no fruit, but incur the greatest loss: let us do something [AI.

to render service to some powerful man, which is precisely what persons of higher rank are accustomed to expect from their clients: if that man sees us performing the duty owed to him with a reluctant and extorted spirit, even with a certain disgust, would he not judge that an injury has rather been done to him, and declare that he is being dishonored rather than honored, and believe that from such a negligent and undevoted person offense is rather to be returned than thanks? If, therefore, the honoring and honor of a man requires devotion, faith, and cheerfulness, then surely sometimes the one by whom the honor itself is shown is better than the one who is honored, where that very officiousness obtains no fruit, but this alone is the fruit, that he who is received deserves to be called [honored]. How much more ought we to observe this in the honor of our God, lest we come to his service undevoted and compelled, lest sad, lest ungrateful and unwilling, and God does not look upon the gifts that are offered with a negligent and worthless mind? For our faith has promised that it will serve not a man, but rather him to whom to serve even unto death, or to expend one's very soul, ought to seem a small thing; to whose services and benefits even the angels themselves confess they are unequal. To whom, finally, when everything is owed, nevertheless nothing is paid to him freely, but he returns a recompense as though he himself in turn had become a debtor, and for the discharge of debts, and for small things, he will restore immense things.

For in return for this wretched life, full of labors and sorrows, in which both the enjoyment is brief and that very brevity uncertain—a life which, even if the devotion of our will should dissemble and not offer it to its Author, the law of custom will immediately exact from us, and what is not given from vow is paid from debt—for this life, then, the pious man will give that life which can neither be seen by the eye nor reached by the silent thought of the mind. To attain it is surely easier than to describe it; its course will be without end, its enjoyment without weariness, its refreshment without need of aid, its rest without the idleness of night, its age without old age, unfailing brightness beneath the face of God, and beneath ancient and everlasting joys ever new delight, secure happiness without any peril of losing it. Let us therefore endeavor even now, while still in this body, to taste beforehand daily from those future ages the sweetness of this life, and, having shut out from our senses the bitterness of worldly conversations or desires, let us draw in to ourselves with our whole hearts a certain fragrance of that blessedness; and having shaken off all torpor, all sloth—whose mother is unbelief—let us serve the Lord our God with that gladness, that eagerness, and that joy with which we come to His gifts at His own invitation.

HOMILY VII.

To the monks.

Those who have resolved to live their life among many are either of great profit or of great peril, and are either diligent or negligent; hence that soul is blessed which, while it conducts itself well in the congregation, is the joy of many, and by whom very many are either edified or enlightened. For its good, while many share in it, is increased. To this also the sentence of that Wise One looks: Son, if thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself and for thy neighbors (Prov. 9:12). Therefore if, placed in the congregation, he has kept obedience, if he has shown himself humble and patient, as many as he has edified, to so many has he lent; and whatever good he has bestowed upon his neighbors out of himself, so much has he turned to his own gain. But if on the contrary, through disobedience or his own pride, he has driven others to a stain (which is wont to happen more easily), as many as he has destroyed, from so many has he incurred the danger of damnation; from as many as he has been a loss, from so many has he contracted losses; and the sin which once went forth from him has flowed back upon him manifold. Wherefore, just as that man is greatly to be admired and praised whose course is the progress of many, so he is rightly to be mourned whose life is the ruin of many.

Therefore, most beloved, let us who are placed in the midst of others strive to do those things that pertain to edification, lest our vices harm the virtues of others, lest our lukewarmness weaken the fervor of others, lest our anger violate the patience of others, lest our pride corrupt the humility of others, lest our sickness spoil the health of others, lest our foulness contaminate the beauty of others, lest we extinguish the burning lamps of others if we cannot light our own. And indeed those foolish virgins, however foolish they were, nevertheless did not wish to extinguish the lamps of others, but to light their own. Therefore, in likeness to these, if anyone lacks the richest grace, if the fire of kindness, if the fire of faith, if the flame of fervor, if the oil of charity, if the light of discernment, let him come to those whom he perceives to abound more, and let him pour grace into himself not by taking it from his neighbor but by imitating him, and let him invade the goods of another's possession without loss—indeed, with the profit of possession. For whatever benefits another from you will never fail you. For a fire kindled for many has never felt the loss of its own light, nor does the multitude of those looking diminish the light of the sun. But however many have gazed upon it, it lends its gifts to them richly, and itself always remains whole.

That blessed old woman, blessed in God, whose humility confounds another's pride, whose patience extinguishes a neighbor's anger, whose obedience silently rebukes another's sloth, whose fervor stirs up the sluggishness of another's lukewarmness—she enlightens the heart and the eye of her neighbor, troubled by anger, with the grace of consolation and edification. Better is this woman than that man who, when his brother has been saddened a little by someone, not only does not lift him up with an outstretched hand, but rather, as he staggers like a leaning wall, aids him toward ruin by the impulse of evil words; and when he has been corrected according to the rule of discipline, he incites him through sinister counsels so as to dash him down, arms him so as to destroy him. Therefore, brothers, let him whose own evils are not enough act in such a way that he incurs the judgment of another's perdition as well. It is certain, most beloved, that unless we daily cut back and circumcise our passions, we become much worse than we were while we lived in the world, so that even our last state becomes worse than the former.

HOMILY VI

To the monks.

Whenever a farmer and cultivator of the fields prepares his field with seed, he does not think it enough for himself to have cut through the rough plain with the plowshare, and to have subdued the hard clods with the ceaseless plow, and to have broken them up with frequent furrows; but beyond this he strives to cleanse that field of unfruitful growths, to clear it of the harmful debris of thorns, to tear out the nurseries of shoots by the root torn away, knowing that his land, without the purging of evil growth, cannot be fruitful of good; thinking that saying to be addressed to him which pertains to the spiritual farmer: Break up your fallow ground for yourselves, and do not sow upon thorns. So let us also, who have been made the agriculture of God, who do not entrust the hope of our fruits to the earth but to heaven where it is laid up, not think it enough for ourselves to subdue the earth of our body by the exercises of vigils, or to wear it down by the labor of fasts, but let us strive first of all to cleanse the mind by the uprooting of vices, to circumcise our habits, to cut away our passions, to root out pride, to plant humility, to dig out anger, to lay the foundation of patience, to amputate envy, to sow good will, and to make fruitful the field of the heart with virtues of this kind, as with certain seeds of good fruit. Otherwise, if the flesh is worn down and the soul does not bear fruit, it is just as if the field never ceases to be plowed and yet no harvest ever appears. Wherefore, if we are not cleansed within and are afflicted without, as far as I can see, we take up hostilities against both.

We impose such great labor on ourselves for the sake of the soul, and we expend no effort at all upon the soul itself. We have forbidden ourselves the various pleasures of the world, the various savors of delights, in which there was something of pleasantness and sweetness; and now we cannot abstain from pride, from anger, from the venomous passions of envy, in which there is nothing but whatever is of bitterness and rancor. For the love of our Lord, we were very strong to abandon sweet affections and dear children; we fled from the most pleasant faces of our most loving parents as if we hated them. In a way we declared war upon piety itself, and now, when it comes to avoiding negligences and conquering the lightest vices, we are weak and slothful. In renouncing the pleasantness of the world we have made such great advances, and now to curse, to slander, to be stirred up against trivial things, and moreover even to be angry at a person and to take scandal—these we think it impossible to overcome and beyond human virtue. But what we now yield in lesser matters, we do not accuse ourselves of through our own vices. For we teach that whatever we now do is not a matter of impossibility but of lukewarmness. And therefore, brothers, let us look back to that faith and fervor with which we began, and for adorning the practice of our way of life let us take an example at least from our own beginnings: if it is dangerous not to have added something daily, how much more dangerous is it even to have receded from our beginnings?

Therefore it is necessary that spiritual fruit, that is, the amendment of one's conduct, follow upon bodily labor. The vices that assail the whole man must be conquered and fought off by each person's labor. Contrition of the flesh profits little if there is no solicitude of the heart and intentness of mind. But if only the body labors and our spirit resists, what does it profit that the passions are attacked by the handmaid, which are found to have peace with the mistress? For it is a lighter matter if at times the flesh alone is vexed by any assaults whatever—for example, if it is disturbed by the desire of gluttony and the goads of luxury. For it can happen that one does not come into every danger, if the mind rejects the pleasure. But if the desire of sin holds the citadel of the mind, what does it profit me if the outer man does not yet appear defiled, when the better part of him has been corrupted? For if the inner man has been conquered, then both are already captive. What does it profit if we wage war outside the city and suffer destruction within? And therefore if the passion of disobedience receives me as I return from my vigils, if the spirit of envy, if the habit of detraction, if the furtive presumption of transgression of the rule solicits me, and if I have mixed tares with the wheat, what I seemed to have gathered I have scattered, and I have given the hope of the harvest to the birds and wild beasts. And so in one moment I have poured out the labor of the whole night, and—what is worse—I did not even perceive that I had poured it out.

For such is the nature of spiritual goods that, although they are acquired with the greatest labor, they perish so easily that it can scarcely be understood; and hence it is that we sometimes think ourselves holy, because we reckon the gains from our labors, and cannot perceive the losses that follow. How often do we incur the evil of judgment, the disease of vanity and boasting, while we do not perceive it! How often are we burned by the spirit of envy, or confounded in our very being by dishonorable and obscene thoughts, and no sense of pain follows the perception of the wound, no contrition of compunction! But why do I speak of these hidden things, which, penetrating even to the soul itself by a certain serpentine glide, strike the unwitting and ignorant with their venomous tooth? Sometimes we are dashed against open wars of scandal by our own selves, we are pierced by the detractions and evil speakings of our own tongue as if by our own sword, when we are violated by vices sometimes even brought against those set over us, and in their injuries we in some manner strike Christ the Lord himself, who said: He who despises you despises me (Luke 10:16); and no scruple of conscience follows, no medicine of compunction. But why do I seek the medicine of penitence in us? Would that sometimes, after the forgiveness we have hoped for, we did not repent! Would that it did not repent us to be humbled, whom it does not repent to be forestalled!

Let that soul answer me—the soul that was so ashamed to acknowledge its sin before its brethren, blushing with deadly confusion—how it ought to have avoided it; what will it do when it has been brought before the tribunal of God, when it has been presented before the assembly of the heavenly host? When it begins to be pressed on this side and that by witnesses, as it were, most vehement, surrounded by old evils which it refused to cure through the remedy of humility and compunction while it was permitted, and which, by withdrawing and concealing them from those set over it, it reserved whole for the eternal examination and the eternal Judge. And therefore, whoever exposes and lays bare before God in the present guilt his faults and negligences, even those reckoned small, let him know that he has passed over from eternal punishment by a brief shortcut. So then, if we desire that the most anxious vanity of the flesh not deceive and beguile us at all, nor the obscenity of secret and shameful thought, the silent pleasure of the mind, the impiety of a careless heart, let us first hasten to cut off from our habits those things that are manifest—that is, the appetites of gluttony, the motions of anger, the impulses of pride, swelling contradictions, wicked detractions. For how will we be able to foresee the enemy in secret, if here we have not been able to avoid him fighting in open combat?

Therefore, dearly beloved, our warfare demands this of us: that we strive daily not against others but against ourselves, and persistently pursuing all our enemies within ourselves, we may obtain from the Lord the palm of spiritual triumph. And indeed, as long as we belonged to the world, serving those deeds and pursuits in which we now blush with shame, the adversary did not oppose us then—indeed he even consented—because in our wretched and ruined life he found nothing on which to exercise his envy. Our works delighted him; our crimes were enough for him by themselves. For who would take up war against his own soldier? Who would wish to attack his own subject? That man's life was beyond all misery, to whom the enemy did not deign to do harm. But now, after we have renounced those pleasures, he sees his worshippers have returned to the service of their former Maker, he sees in us, as it were, his idols transformed into temples of God; gnashing his teeth and like a roaring lion, the ever-watchful plotter explores every approach for doing harm (1 Peter 5), directs against us the sharp and piercing gaze of his visions, bringing with him seven spirits more wicked than himself, in case he finds our house swept and garnished, and with his crowds can occupy it; so that, with vices sent ahead as it were as his forerunners, he may prepare a dwelling for himself. And therefore, dearly beloved, he devises a thousand schemes of harming us.

He attacks the younger and the foolish, either with the shameful allurements of the belly or with the stings of unsubdued flesh, if he can pollute their senses or their honorable thoughts and carry off a base triumph from the wounding of chastity. But the better and the older, through the evil of elation and boasting, he tries to storm by their very progress and their own merits: while he brings forward their times and their merits, through the most unclean vanity he may cut off humility of heart; and—what is dangerous—he persuades a man to please himself in the sight of God. But indeed that is a common and familiar evil, that he arms against us the swords of our own tongue, that he inflames the goads of anger. And so he inebriates the mind with diverse passions, so that when we are angry, or slander, or curse, we believe we are harming others. But it is not so, dearly beloved; for the evil of each vice overflows upon its own author. If the slanderer defiles his tongue, the detractor ulcerates his own heart, the angry man blinds the light of his own mind, the envious man sprinkles his own soul with the poison of envy. In this that saying of Solomon also is fulfilled: Son, if thou be evil, thou alone shalt bear the evils. Hence it comes about, therefore, most beloved, as I have said, that we sometimes feel ourselves to be worse than we were in the world, because in the struggle we are inciters to evil, because to the enemy whom we have procured by our very manner of life...

we have provoked [him], we give up in the middle of the contest. Nor do we persevere in the fervor with which we began, but as tepidity conquers us we succumb. And therefore with great strength must the name of our great profession be defended. It is much that by coming to the desert we have promised to God, however many be the things we hope for from God. And therefore let us shake off all sloth, all weariness of mind, and let us conduct our precious warfare with a precious affection. Let us not expect to be compelled to the service of our Lord in the manner of hirelings and slaves, nor let us be content that another should demand of us whatever we know pertains to our salvation and glory. Before all things let us beware that what we must do, we do not do unwillingly. Nor let us contradict before the work, nor murmur in the work, nor take pleasure in ourselves over a completed work, with boastfulness flattering us badly. Before all things, brothers, with the anxious eye of the heart let us daily examine our negligences, and having dispelled the cloud of tepidity, let us keep them before our eyes, saying that: My sin I acknowledge, and my offense is against me always (Ps. 50). It is a crime that sometimes habit itself of sinning makes our sins seem light and worthless to us, when it is certain that just as we ought to be increased by the smallest goods, so we ought to be pricked with compunction by the smallest negligences. For it is not a small thing to neglect the smallest vices in the life of men.

I do not know what delights those should be secure in—even those who are to be judged for sins of ignorance, and who will give an account for idle words and for thoughts. I do not know what offenses they should overlook, concerning which the Lord himself declares with a kind of definition: Amen I say to you, if anyone says to his brother, Fool, he will be liable to the fire (Matthew 5:22). Who among these could hope for any indulgence, except that as man is prone to sin, so the mercy of our Lord is rich in forgiving? Let us therefore consider, brothers, our calling; let us walk in humility, in all patience, in all meekness. Let us set a guard upon our mouth; let the fear of the future judgment soften anger; let the thought of the last day break pride. Let us consider what mourning there will be for the negligent soul departing from this body, what anguish, what gloom, what darkness, when from that number of adversaries the conscience, surrounded by various crimes, begins to meet it first. For with all proofs removed, the conscience itself must be brought before our eyes, so that the proof may convict us and the acknowledgment may confound us. No one will be permitted either to conceal anything or to deny it, where the accuser and witness is to come forth not from far elsewhere, but from within.

Wherefore, that from the present confusion which is wont to occur among men we may conjecture that future confusion, let us consider: if any one of us had his sins and hidden faults laid bare before us, just as they are known inwardly to the heart, truly I say, he could not bear the faces of all; and what will the unhappy soul do when it is presented before the gaze of angels with its reproaches and its shameful deeds? But that soul which has directed its course well, which has obeyed Christ in its elders, which has kept its profession in all things, will not fear the necessity of that final hour; but departing from this dwelling-place of sluggishness, it will seem to itself as if after the long darkness of a prison it is brought forth into the light, as if from some most obscure cave it is led into a royal hall, as if drawn from the mire of misery and the dregs of filth it is clothed in comely and splendid garments, and is set amid the sweetness of flowers and spices, to be refreshed with wondrous odors. Let us remember how pleasant is rest, how delightful is repose, after the burden of some most grievous load has been laid down. How sweet it is, after the chains of a long captivity, to have returned to a dear homeland with liberty recovered. How precious it is, after the perils of a great voyage, to have arrived at the longed-for land and the desirable harbor.

And from these things let us gather and recognize how pleasant it will be, with a good conscience as our companion, to pass to true and solid joys, and to the fellowships of the angels, and to ascend to that life where there will be no labors, no sorrows, no losses, no inconveniences, and—what is above every good—no sins; but eternal innocence, inviolate justice, unshaken security, and everlasting felicity.

HOMILY IX.

To the monks.

See your calling, most beloved brothers (1 Cor. 1:26). To come to the desert is the highest perfection; not to live perfectly in the desert is the highest condemnation. What does it profit if one is held in place by the location, yet restlessness turns about in the heart? If there is silence in the dwelling, but in the dwellers a tumult of vices and a struggle of passions? If serenity holds our exterior, but a tempest holds our interior? We are accustomed to count our years, and the spans of time in which you now live. Let not the number of days deceive you, whoever you are, which you have spent here bodily in the light of this world. Count that day alone as having lived, in which you denied your own wills, in which you resisted evil desires. Whatever day you have led without any transgression of the rule, count that day as having lived; the day which malice did not stain, nor envy, nor pride; which the guilt of lying did not sprinkle, nor of perjury; which did not yield to sin, which fought back against the devil.

Count that day as having been lived for you which had the light of holy purity of meditation, which dark conduct did not change into night. Apply to your life, I say, that day whose use has reached your soul. We are also accustomed to flatter ourselves about the assiduity of bodily fasts and visible vigils, we who after vigils, and perhaps from the very vigils, go forth to the evil of detraction, of talkativeness, of murmuring. For he who withdraws himself from the choir of those singing psalms to shameful feasting and secret drinking, not only by a damnable transgression but even by an abominable vileness, it would be much lighter for him if he slept sober in the Lord. He who fasting carries around a heart burdened and weighed down with the swelling of anger and indignation; who abstains from wine and is disturbed in his senses by the bitter drunkenness of discord; who, I say, afflicts himself in the outward salutary sparing of drinks, and inwardly his heart, with infected entrails, belches forth the deadly poison of hatreds—does he not understand that the prophetic voices are directed at him, already foredamned even in the present life: I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord; or that: For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their vines of Gomorrah. Their grape is a grape of gall, and their cluster of bitterness in them?

But sometimes the devil, having noticed a soul empty of faith and stripped of the fear of God, so inebriates the mind with various passions that when we curse, or grow angry, or slander, when we do these things, we believe we are harming others. But it is not so. For the evil of each vice recoils upon its own author, as the divine word says: Son, if you are evil, you alone will bear the evils (Prov. 9:12). The evil speaker stains his own tongue, the slanderer ulcerates his own heart, the angry man blinds the light of his own mind, the envious man corrupts his own soul with pestilent envy as with a kind of rust; and just as vipers are born from ulcerated parents, as, I say, the brood of vipers is said to be born when the mothers' wombs are burst open, so human hearts are first torn apart by the very passions they have conceived. Those hearts, I say, from which the serpentine generation of vices is brought forth, are themselves first violated by the monstrous fertility of their offspring. Of such a birth the divine word says: Behold, he travails with injustice, he has conceived sorrow, and brought forth iniquity. His sorrow will be turned back upon his own head, and his iniquity will descend upon his own crown (Ps. 7). Having heard these things, therefore, our spirit, which burns with love toward you as it ought, was tormented with long grief over the negligences of certain persons.

But, having first given vent to our feeling and unburdened our breast with these ardors, we instruct, admonish, and even beseech you for your own sake (if only you do not disdain to hear the affection of one who instructs), that for the rest we correct our ways, amend our negligences, lest hereafter we come not with the rod of tongue and speech, but with those words which hardened hearts demand. Strive henceforth that among you there be a praiseworthy contention and a better rivalry. Let each one of you be more prompt in the work of God, more fervent in prayer, more diligent in reading, purer in chastity, more sparing in sobriety, more lavish in the abundance of tears, more honorable in body, more sincere in heart; gentler in anger, more restrained in meekness, rarer in laughter, more fervent in compunction, more deeply grounded in gravity, more pleasant in charity. And therefore let us chastise ourselves, let us daily render an account to ourselves of our daily conduct. Let each soul speak to itself in the secrets of its heart and say: Let us see whether I have passed this day without sin, without envy, without detraction and murmuring. Let us see whether today I have wrought anything that pertained to my own progress, to the edification of others.

I think that today I destroyed the one who was beginning; today I was disobedient to my elder, I lied, I perjured myself, I was overcome by anger or gluttony; today I laughed more; I indulged in food and drink, in leisure and sleep more than was fitting; I read less, I prayed less than I ought. Who will give me back this day, which I have wasted on vain tales? And so, brothers, let us be pricked with compunction for all our negligences in our beds (Ps. 4), that is, in our hearts: if you have acted thus, we indeed will rejoice in your progress, but you will rejoice in the salvation you have gained, and we will devote ourselves to you for the gaining of your salvation. But may his loving-kindness grant that you may so profit from our sermon that you in turn may help us by your merits, and be for us an ornament in the present [life] and a protection in the future.

HOMILY X.

To the monks.

The divine word says in a certain place: In the days of your solemnities afflict your souls (Lev. 16:29; 23:27). Why did it say this? Because fastings and vigils and holy afflictions humble the heart, macerate the body, but purify the defiled heart. They take away strength from the members, but add brightness to the consciences; nonetheless, the wanton pleasures are redeemed by contrition. Through the hard exercises of the cross, the joys of the flesh, once deceived, are punished.

And so by present mortification the sentence of future death is forestalled; and while the fighter is humbled by his fault, the fault is consumed; and while the outer man is subjected to voluntary severity, the offense of the dread judgment is appeased; and a slight labor pays off immense debts, which eternal fire would scarcely have consumed. Therefore, treating the cause of our salvation, let us do within ourselves what physicians are accustomed to do around us. If some injury or complaint is felt in the outermost skin of the body, a gentler application of medicine is applied. But if a wound is hidden in the bones, or sunk deep in the inner organs, the hidden force demands a harsher and more violent remedy, so that the magnitude of the sore is overcome by cautery, and pain is driven out by pain. A similar principle must be applied in the sickness of the inner man: if perhaps the sins are light—for example, if a man has sinned in speech, or in some reprehensible desire, if he has sinned with the eye or the heart—the stains of words and thoughts are to be cured by daily prayer, and, privately interrogating his own conscience within, if he has committed some capital crime, or if he has assailed and betrayed his faith by false testimony, and has violated the sacred name of truth by the rashness of perjury, if he has torn the veil of baptism or the tunic, then also

then he has defiled the beautiful virginity of his holoseric garment with the callus of polluted shame, if within himself he has slain the new man by the killing of a man, if through augurs and diviners and enchanters he has handed himself captive to the devil; these and suchlike offenses cannot be atoned for thoroughly by common and ordinary, or secret, satisfaction, but grave causes require graver and sharper, and public, remedies. So that he who destroyed himself with the destruction of many may in like manner redeem himself with the edification of many. For a man deceives himself if, when he feels the disease raging in his very marrow, he applies a soft ointment over the surface of the body. These principal evils, therefore, need a mighty roar, groaning, and a fountain of tears, and after weeping he must say with the prophet: I roared from the groaning of my heart; I will wash my bed every night (Ps. 6). And again: But I ate ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping (Ps. 101). Let no one despise this humility. He was a supreme king who said these things; he was a supreme king who did these things. It is fitting, therefore, just as mourning was made over a dead man, so to utter great lamentations over an extinguished soul: and as a bereaved mother is wont to lament with broken breast over the loss of her only child, so it is fitting to be afflicted over your only one, but with hope of restoration. Of this only one the prophetic word says: Deliver my soul from the sword, and my only one from the hand of the dog (Ps. 21:21).

Why did he say "only"? Either because she is to be loved as an only one, or because she herself alone and single will have to render an account before the heavenly tribunal, with all consolations set aside; and so it is necessary that upon this only one, pierced by the sword-point of sins, the whole weight of grief be poured out, if perhaps, revived by the fountains of tears, she might be raised up by the warmth of faith. Compunction must be kindled, prayers must be strengthened by the recollection of the coming judgment, and they must be aided by works of mercy. The prophet's sentence must be heard—but heard with the ear of obedience—when he says: "Take, O king, my counsel, and redeem your sins with alms" (Dan 4:24). The example of that Gospel man is also to be heard as though it were truly written for our redemption: "Behold, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor" (Luke 19:8). Concerning these things we have heard the Lord in the Gospel, with ineffable condescension and love, saying: "What you did to one of the least of these, you did to me" (Matt 25). These truths commend to us the effects of alms with heavenly authority. But perhaps when we speak of alms, the poverty of the august is terrified. No, dearly beloved, let him rather remember that the widow's small coin was preferred to the treasures of the rich, for the benevolence of the giver is what feeds.

But I think, dearest brothers, that our Lord permitted the poor to exist in this world so that in the poor he might test the faith of the rich; or so that through mercy toward the poor he might show mercy to the rich, so that for those abounding in good works this occasion of their redemption might not be lacking—so that a wealthy man might be enriched even by another's want, and each more prosperous person might receive immense profit from the needy; and by a wondrous commerce, while temporary mercy is bestowed on the destitute, an eternal treasure is repaid to the giver. Let us direct our actions, and whatever we can, whatever we are able, let us confer upon the exercise of good will, upon the pursuits of justice and mercy. Let us take care while we have the light, before darkness overtakes us, because in that other world it will no longer be permitted to provide for a better redemption. As the divine word says: For there is no one in death who remembers you. Therefore, just as there no loss of merits will be feared, so no remission of sins will be granted. No license to exercise good works will be conceded there. Can anyone feed the hungry there, where there will be no need of eating and drinking, where neither the wicked amid the flames of hell nor the righteous amid the delights of paradise will need food and drink? Can anyone clothe the freezing there, where all care of covering the body will cease, where under that cold—

of whom the prophet says: Who can endure the face of his frost?; where he will be naked forever who here has lost the wedding garment; where the evil man will be clothed in the darkness of a stained conscience, but the good man in the robe of immortality and blessedness; where garments will be merits, as the Lord says: Then the just shall shine; and again: Let thy priests be clothed with justice (Ps. 121); or that: The queen stood at thy right hand in gilded clothing (Ps. 44). Where, then, in place of the tunics of holy bodies, eternal light will shine, there the clothing that is never to be put off through any ages will be turned into a body, there the garment will pass into a reward, there that angelic stole will no longer be a cloak, no longer a habit, but a nature. Can the avaricious or grasping man there do good to another out of his abundance, where not even for himself will his will find a single drop in the midst of the burning pool? For he will carry nothing with him of those things which he believed he possessed as his own, as the prophet said: For when he dies, he shall not take all, neither shall his glory descend with him (Ps. 48:18), destined to hear among the wearying torments: I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink (Matt. 25). Let us understand what a condemnation it will be to have despoiled the poor man, whom it is the greatest crime not to have fed.

Whoever therefore now oppresses the poor and needy man without any consideration of the future judgment—to him, I say (as someone has said), the time will come when he will wish that the poor man had been left untouched by him, and that the one he hated had not been despoiled; and how unbearable will the pain be, if anyone incurs the causes of death from that very source from which he had refused to cultivate the joys of life? Do not, then, despise the needy man, who, though he is poor himself, can make you rich. Let us therefore snatch from the present world, with fervent devotion, what we can. Our days pass quickly—would that they pass well! Let us therefore snatch what we can from this world, giving thanks to him who so ordered both lives that the times of labors and struggles should be quickly ended, but the joys of honors and rewards should endure without end.

HOMILY.

Concerning Saint Blandina of Lyon.

Even if we were to render the pious vows owed to the martyrs of a foreign region, and were proven to consult our own interests and advantages, faith would make them ours, and however distant the lands, the patronage we hope for would come to our aid. For the suffrages of this kind belong to affections, not to places; and so you obtain for yourself as much of intercession among the household of God as you have bestowed of veneration. It is fitting, therefore, that religious devotion should rather win over to us those who are strangers, than that the negligence of irreligious lukewarmness should perhaps alienate from us our own.

Let us recognize, dearest brethren, the more abundant generosity of divine gifts toward our Church. The peoples of individual cities exult, as if they were being fortified by the relics of even a single martyr; behold, we possess peoples of martyrs. Let our land rejoice, the nurse of heavenly soldiers, and fruitful in opening itself to such great virtues. Behold, the profane enemy could never have benefited it as much by his compliance as he benefited it by the sword. For just as the festivities of this most sacred present day make manifest, as much as iniquity abounded against it, so much does grace and blessing now overflow in it. We read that in Bethlehem, while Herod was persecuting Christ, thousands of blessed infants were slain, as the prophet says: Rachel weeping for her sons, and she refused to be consoled because they are not (Jer. 31:15; Matt. 2:18). Thus this blessed mother, and illustrious homeland of triumphant warriors, rich in the merits of so many children, even if she seemed to the eyes of onlookers to be bereaved at the tomb, nevertheless by no means needs to be consoled, nor does she weep for her sons: because in seeing her griefs, while she was losing, she gained.

Confidently, in these matters, O Bethlehem, land of Judah (you who endured the savagery of Herod through the slaughter of the children; you who in a single moment merited to offer to God a people made white, of unwarlike infancy)—worthily, I say, would our Lugdunum contend with you, O Bethlehem, and over the divine benefits bestowed upon both, as if in a comparison of speech, strive with you, saying thus: Bethlehem, in the records of our martyrs you may perhaps take precedence in number; I was not, as you deserved, the slaying of your own; in mine was the struggle of passion, in yours was only the opportunity and occasion of blessedness; the outcome enriched you with blessing, but me with virtue; you in blood.

you could see the little ones perishing, you could not wait for those who would strive; the innocence of the dying crowned you, the glory of the triumphant crowned me; yours reached the reward of the kingdom without any awareness of martyrdom, but mine, afflicted with torments, tested by punishments, boiled down like a sacrifice in fierce fires—as many pains as they endured in the body, so many crowns did they receive in the spirit, and thus through the blows of torments and the delays of the torturers, before they were slain, you offered little ones in years, I offered even those made perfect in merits: I offered those who would conquer through their torments, when they could have been in danger in the faith; you offered those who could have the fruit of dying, who could not fear the danger of denying; you offered a weak people, lest a sacrilegious man find Christ: I offered a strong number, by whose removal Christ would also gain sacrilegious men among the persecutors' ministers who were to be saved. Finally, by that blessed death in which Herod, while he sought the one child, sacrificed so many children; one sex earned your triumph, both sexes earned mine: my battle won the palm from the prince of the world even among women. My chorus could have your innocents among the boys, your chorus could not have my Blandina. Among these things divine providence provided that in such great sacrifices of the fatherland even a bishop should not be lacking.

Our blessed father Focinus, a man advanced in years and full of days, the overseer of this church, is seized for an impious interrogation, and, as we believe, by the merit of his learning he is joined to his flock; and after the sacrifice of the Lord's body, he is brought into profane tribunals, about to offer himself to Christ as a new victim. The infirmity of old age, through the injuries and afflictions of the raging attendants, obtains so swift an end that you would understand he had been reserved for that time by martyrdom alone. Happy is he who, placed at the very threshold of life, attained that his end was owed not so much to nature as to glory. Here pious minds are strengthened by the example of so great a father, and they do not so much receive the punishments prepared for them as rush upon them. The vast and manifold devices of cruelty, and new tortures, are spent upon the invincible hearts of the saints, and they overcome the unbearable weight of evils by despising them, and by feeling them they obtain that they cannot feel them; fires are applied, but they are known to avail only for this, that they may consecrate; beasts are provoked, but their ravenous fierceness marvels at its own prey. Limbs torn by a vain kind of torments are made holy by the flames while they do not know how to feed, and honored by the beasts while they do not know how to rage. Where are those who say that veneration is not to be given to the sacred bodies of the martyrs?

Behold, the savagery of bloody ferocity, which does not receive the understanding of religion, pays the homage of veneration; and though, ignorant, it does not receive the discernment of reason, yet for the condemnation of the wicked it acknowledges what honor is owed to the saints; and thus, in a wondrous way, the ministry or instrument of punishment is made a testimony of merits; and while it shows reverence to piety, it brings forth a silent verdict concerning impiety. Since, then, dearly beloved, our Church is adorned with so many trophies of faith, the law of iniquity was striving to surpass itself by the novelty of its crimes. Depriving the sacred bodies of the honor of burial, they gave them over to the fires, and after men's death they fought against humanity itself. And when the cause of their fury had already perished, they did not put an end to their cruelty; but nevertheless, whether they wished it or not, they were witnesses of their blessedness, those whom they envied even in death. How is malice always joined with folly? They reduced the venerable bones to ashes, as if the flames could consume their merits, and their virtues be burned together with their ashes. What confused madness! The heaven they were gaining for them, they denied them on earth. You have accomplished nothing, then, O unheard-of savagery: in vain you believed you were extinguishing the memory of those whose glory you have spread abroad. You scatter the dust of the saints into the rushing Rhone, lest they rise again, but the resurrection is not consumed by the waters, which is celebrated even by the gift of waters through the grace of regeneration.

You hand over the relics to be venerated to the Rhone: what the force of the river does in the dissolving of the body, time does. Whatever therefore a bird has snatched from human substance, a beast has devoured, a wave has swallowed, even if it is not enclosed in a tomb, it is contained within the bosom of the world. For the restoration of a human being consists not in the reason of the earth, but in the nature of the law and in the power of the Restorer. For he himself testified with truthful mouth: I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), who lives forever and ever. Amen.

HOMILY.

On the holy martyrs Epipodius and Alexander.

It is indeed a great thing to give vows to public and common solemnities, but a certain more excellent festivity is to be judged to exult in the virtues of one's own. And therefore the cult and honor of the native martyrs, as of special patrons, inasmuch as it gives a peculiar joy, so it requires a proper affection.

For if we ought to pursue foreign and outlandish victories and crowns and overseas triumphs with such zeal that we make what belongs to other places our own by our services, and that which is not enclosed in tombs should be common to our intercessions, how much more fittingly ought we to burn with zeal for the celebration of these men, to keep watch in service, to whom religion owes manifold devotion, the Church honor, and fatherly love affection? So that just as we are related to them by right of birth through the womb of one parent, so we may claim for ourselves the privilege of piety and grace toward them, and may first draw near to them in devotion of faith, so that we who rejoice that we are citizens with them on earth may be found worthy to have our citizenship with them in heaven. Thus the faith of our Church celebrates the twofold trophies of Epipodius and Alexander, with a distinction of two or three days interposed, a festival not from adventitious relics but from the undefiled monuments of the ancestral bosom.

But most of the churches of the peoples are content even with that sanctification which they have obtained by touching the sacred garments or the bindings of haircloth from the angelic members; so that what was an instrument of punishment becomes a testimony of glory, and the matter of pains passes over into a mark of merits. We, however, possess the illustrious gift of the blessed ones whole and entire; and what could suffice for the whole world, we hold specially enclosed within the bosom of this city, and we raise to the City twin palms, rivals of the apostolic triumph, and having also our own Peter and Paul, two advocates, we contend with that lofty see. And indeed the blessed martyrs, whose precious dust is scattered everywhere throughout diverse regions for the salvation of the peoples, receive full honor in whatever place by the reverence paid to them, and the more celebrated they are with a richer faith, the more acceptable will the grace of that celebration be to them. But without doubt it is far more pleasing, far more joyful to them, if the fervor of piety honors them as most renowned there where the fury of passion fell upon them; if the sacrifices of supplication are offered to them there where they fell prostrate as a sacrifice to God; if there the posterity that is to be proclaimed pours out vows to them where the deadly savagery shed their innocent blood; if finally the enemy of the Christian name sees them consecrated there where he believed them slain.

More sweetly, I say, is obedience approved in them, if there the blessing may hallow their fat, where the greatness of tribulations has failed over them; if from there they may be invoked for aid, whence by the first sign of resurrection they will be called forth to reward. Since these things are so, dearest ones, for holding the faith, for cultivating religion, we are not to await any proofs from afar; we are instructed by paternal teachings, and we are admonished by domestic examples. Does the living voice of our kindred blood cry out to our heart by a nod? Learn, it says, from us to acquire faith by seeking, to cultivate it by living, to preserve it by dying; learn to fear sin more than the sword, learn for the sake of life to love justice more than the road, and faith and the fear of God. Him whom we have preserved in the midst of the tribulation of war, see that you do not lose in peace or in the security of peace. Take care lest the anchor of hope and religion which we have kept in the wave, you lose in the harbor. Take care lest you judge a good life miserable, if at any time you see it subjected to afflictions. Take care lest in the arena of the world, into which we have been sent to undergo contests, you think any happiness is to be expected. Blessedness can be prepared here, it cannot be acquired. Do not seek here what here no one of the saints perfected by labor, no confessor obtained; do not seek here what here not even Christ found. If the world had peace, the martyrs would not have glory; if examination did not precede, the occasion of tribulation would perish.

These, then, dearest brothers, are they who have passed through great tribulations, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7:14). These are the fellow soldiers of those who, according to the Apostle, were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, died by the slaughter of the sword; destitute, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy (Heb 11:37). But amid these things, perhaps, dearest ones, when the good and holy suffer such evils here, someone may think within himself and say: It is certain that the Lord of all things does not regard what is ours, that he neglects human affairs, that he does not care for earthly things. Whoever you are, how is it that you regard the labors of the saints, and do not regard their rewards? Behold, throughout the whole world, in the holy apostles and martyrs, adversity made a way for felicity, destruction served salvation, and while it closed the door of life, it opened wide the door of glory; and for those who place their trust in God, while it begrudged them the earth, it prepared heaven. This, then, divine providence set before the human race as an example of patience. Since these things are so, he is falsely thought miserable who is not harmed in his virtue. Let no one, therefore, in a Christian and a believer, call poverty and the affliction of toil and the injustices of tribulation unhappiness and misery. And when these things happen to the good, let us know that they are not the inconveniences of hardships, but the exercises of virtues.

When God's servant is permitted to labor under adversities, he is not abandoned but tested; and therefore the divine word says: Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him (Jas 1). In this world, then, with malice prevailing and iniquity ruling, the poor man is afflicted and the rich man is multiplied. Do you call him powerful who is strong only for his own death, whose deceitful shadow of present things gathers for the future and for eternal things the causes of evils? Who would call blessed a right hand that is strong against its own throat? Who would praiseworthily praise one swift to rush headlong into steep precipices? Who would marvel at his ascent, when from the very summit he sees that he is about to fall? It is the same as if you marveled at someone working impious and iniquitous deeds through wealth and riches, as if you saw someone mixing poison for himself in a cup of gold and gems. Do you call him happy who, faithless, foul, greedy, and bloodstained, because he spurns the ways of the Lord, is permitted to go his own way—offended by the narrowness of the right hand and delighted by the breadth of the left, wrapped up in shameful deeds, stained with crimes, defiled with plunder—and amid all this thinks himself most blessed, and is for this reason all the more wretched because he does not understand that he is wretched? What can the medicine of the heavenly commandments do for such people, since it heals only those who are willing? Sluggish, then, toward the care of salvation, eager for the warfare of death and captivity, as it is written, they exult in the worst of things (Prov.

and they rejoice in their own destruction, like those who perhaps take deadly juices of plants and are said to perish with laughter. But amid these things someone reflects within himself and says: God of power, God dwelling in the citadel of justice, either if he does not condemn sins, he is ignorant, or he favors sins if he refrains from condemning. First, it is not to be doubted that he knows all things, who enters and fills and exceeds all things, in whose eyes all things are exposed and naked, of whom it is said: Since much is the wisdom of God, and strong is his power, seeing all things without interruption. Therefore that he knows all things, and is near, is not in doubt, who commanded you to enter the chamber of conscience to pray; who hears in thought, and hears in the heart. But that he condemns offenses and crimes, the warnings of the prophets, the teachings of the apostles, and the oracles of the evangelists testify clearly. Amid these things, while he sets forth grievous punishment, while he threatens eternal fire, here he gives sentence, but there he reserves for punishment. Here he brandishes the sword, there he will bring in destruction. Why, one says, does he not immediately punish the guilty sinner? Who could bear this error of mind? He complains of God's patience, who does not deserve indulgence; the justice of the one condemning would not be perfect unless the mercy of the one reproving came first. God shows himself kind to us through all the patience of the Scriptures; and what the Lord proclaims in the servant, how does the servant reprove it in the Lord?

Do we not sometimes see even administrators of human laws—praiseworthy no less for their moderation than for their severity—forestall judgments already deposited, after many prejudgments and edicts have been examined? The guilt is already proven, and yet it is still deferred. Thus they display in severity a motion, so that they do not neglect in dissimulation a counsel. So too our Lord does not negligently ignore these things that are done on earth, but patiently awaits them. He examines the works and wills of men beforehand, and so judges, weighs, and in their conduct or conversion measures the merit, and tempers judgment by delay. Gradually he orders human affairs through the marks of the times, the dispenser of eternities. Here he threatens a blow, there he is about to complete destruction. But if God did not know human affairs, who would be the helper to the blessed martyrs by his instant administration? Or how would the death of the saints be precious in the sight of God (Ps 115:13)? Or whence would the salvation of the just be from the Lord, unless they received protection in the time of tribulation? All these things, as they fight the wars for religion and the justice of faith, he shows to those who await and trust in the presence of the Lord and his protection. Therefore let us also confidently entreat that helper and protector of the martyrs, that he may strengthen our hands also for the spiritual contest against that enemy, who, if he is dreaded, must be repelled; if he is unknown, he will enter in. But much strength is added to the soldier if he becomes manifest to consciences—he who conquers by his snares alone.

Our fathers fought against the harshest pains; let us fight, by contrast, against the softest pleasures. They conquered the torments of flames; let us conquer the fiery darts of vices. They, having trodden the devil underfoot, brought back spoils from death; let us beware lest we despoil Christ in the poor. They, through the virtue of faith, were poured out as a sacrifice to God; let us take care that none of us, through the wound of sin, be made the victim of the enemy. They died in punishment in their outer members, and we have that which we may put to death within ourselves. And so, with the fist of those illustrious warriors, let us train ourselves in private combat with our passions. For since we know that there is war without a persecutor, God can grant martyrdom even without blood.

FRAGMENT OF A HOMILY

Cited by Mamertus Claudianus, book on the State of the Soul, chapter 9.

Some are accustomed to ask how in Christ man and God could be mingled. They also seek the reason of this mystery which was accomplished once, when they themselves can by no means give the reason of that thing which happens always: how the soul is joined to the body, so that a man is made. Therefore, just as a corporeal thing and an incorporeal thing are conjoined, and the soul is mingled with the body so that a man is made: so man has been conjoined to God, and has been made Christ; and yet, in order that Christ might be made, those two incorporeal things, that is, the soul and God, could more easily be joined and mingled than that one incorporeal and the other corporeal thing, that is, the soul and the body, are mingled, so that the person of a man exists.