Nestorii Tractatus Contra Haeresim Pelagii Seu Coelestii

II. NESTORIUS'S TREATISE AGAINST THE HERESY OF PELAGIUS OR COELESTIUS. PREFACE BY MARIUS MERCATOR. Although Nestorius thought and taught correctly against the wicked and impious definition of Pelagius and Coelestius, nevertheless he judged that Julian, the former bishop of Eclanum, together with his associates, the standard-bearer and foremost champion of this heresy, long ago deprived of office and deposed by ecclesiastical [Baluz. formerly by apostolic] sentence, should be received into friendship in the meantime, promising him hope of absolution; he also consoled Coelestius himself with his letters, copies of which we have appended. Whether he did this out of malice or folly cannot easily be known: that against whose distorted opinions, besides his own impiety which led him all the way to condemnation, he thought and taught most correctly, yet he held them as friends and thought they should be fostered and cajoled with the hope of an empty promise; and they, together with their aforementioned patron, were condemned again and again in the Council of Ephesus by two hundred seventy-four bishops.

Now therefore, here against them, with the same Julianus and his accomplices established in the city of Constantinople, and with him publicly discoursing in the Church and being heard, his first sermon was delivered, translated by us from Greek into Latin, word for word. SERMON ONE. A Treatise on Adam delivered publicly in the church. It was delivered by Nestorius, in the second year of his see, in the great church, at the beginning of Lent, after the departure of the Catholics, in a large gathering of his own followers, with the Pelagians listening, concerning the penalties inflicted by God upon the human race on account of Adam's sin and the remedies provided by the Incarnation. Almost nothing more eloquent is found among the Greeks. It is conveniently divided into twelve parts. Having been flooded by many and frequent rains of anguish, and turning this over in my own mind, I breathe again in your beloved audience. For, having cast aside the anxiety of sorrows, I receive that joy which comes to me from you, by which I see you, stretched out in divine matters, grasping this will which does not grow sluggish in the circuit of so many festivals, the origin of all of which is the coming of the Lord's goodness.

Before this, the whole human race was established in sorrow and groaning, under the curse of that sentence crying out against the origin: "I will multiply, multiply your sorrows and your groans" (Gen. 3:16). For this reason, that first herald of the Lord's coming and of such great goods, and of joy, is: "Hail, full of grace" (which word was spoken to the Virgin): "The Lord is with you" (Luke 1:28), because from you the Son of God will be called (Ibid., 35). "With you," he says, "and from you"; with you, namely, by the coming of the divinity; from you, however, through the assumed form of humanity from her. Therefore, when you hear, O pagan, of an infant placed in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes, do not take offense at the flesh which is seen, but consider the dignity of that infant, the mother who gave birth to him, procreating by the Deity, formed in her humanly and having formed her divinely; wrapped according to the flesh in swaddling clothes, but by the providence of the Deity containing all things; suckled according to the nature of the body, but by the divinity abundantly supplying the nourishment of milk to all who are born.

Perhaps it was for this reason that Gabriel exclaimed to the Virgin: "Hail, full of grace." For as soon as the Lord Christ, the ruler of all, was born into this life, he dissolved the entire chapter of sorrows, and, transforming the accursed offspring of nature, he absolved that birth once condemned in bodies; he also erased the decree of that sentence which is born together with nature, namely: "I will multiply, multiply your sorrows and your groans. In sorrows you will bear children" (Gen. 3:16). But that which was said, "You will bear children," was a blessing of fertility: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen. 1:28); for providence is the mother of increase. But "in sorrows you will bear children" reveals the fruit of sin. For just as eating is a life-giving gift bestowed on the race by the Creator—for before sin, the divine ordinance to the first-formed man spoke about food: "You will eat from every tree that is in paradise for food" (Gen. 3:16)—so "in sorrows you will eat" had its origin from the curse. For God did not say to Adam: "Because you listened to the voice of your wife, and because you ate, therefore I condemn you"; but: "Because you ate from the tree of which alone I had commanded you not to eat, therefore you will eat your bread in sweat" (Gen. 3:17). For those first delights of the first-formed man were without pain, and the labors of agriculture were entirely free.

Likewise, concerning the procreation of children, God did not say absolutely to Eve after the sin, "You will bear children," but, "In sorrows you will bear children." For marriage is a divine gift of goodness, an abundance of nature, a mechanism resisting all-consuming death; a bridle of chastity against lust, a power of blameless pleasure: but the manifold groans in the parturition of women are the penalty of sin. And to give birth is not a curse; for a blessing would not be turned into a curse. But to give birth in sadness—this burden is drawn from that curse after the sin. For to give birth, with nature stung by the pains of labor, to waste away with anguish, to endure the fear of a difficult birth, sometimes to expel immature fetuses, at other times for pregnant women to exceed the established times for birth and to carry the burden of the womb longer, often to waste away with the fetuses themselves, and sometimes even after the birth to be anxious lest what is born, by the nourishment of milk, from some lack, should perish, to take care that it suffers no adverse desire, that it does not desire some fruitless teaching, that it is not vexed by the incursion of demons, that it is not wasted by some disease of this kind which admits health with difficulty, that it is not at some time snatched away under someone's bitter yoke of poverty: of all these sad things, nature's brief teaching is: "In sadness you will bear children.

Wretched is this unhappiness: what had been desired and wished for later becomes something to be fled. Those who have a desire for begetting children become disheartened, and they bear them in sorrows. They long for offspring, and yet they cry out against the passing of the months during which these are sustained. They wish for and rejoice in becoming mothers, and, provoked by the burial of those who have been born, they complain that that day of their own delivery was the cause of their present grief; with lamentations, that is, confirming, "In sorrows you will bear children" (Gen. 3:17). A companion to this sentence is both what is born and what gives birth: one of them giving birth in sorrows, the other being born in sorrows. But the merciful Lord did not despise those condemned offspring of nature; rather, coming into the womb of a woman, He changed in that mother the custom of giving birth, and altered in her the laws of parturition (for He had prepared the deliveries of the holy Virgin to be free from sorrows), and He gave to human nature an unwedded mother, neither spurning nor despising the offspring of marriages. And in this way Christ, having been born, deigned to transfer earthly life into a heavenly mode of living.

For indeed a most bitter sentence constrained nature. For what is more bitter than this sentence? "I will multiply, I will multiply your sorrows and your groans; in grief you will bear children" (Gen. 3:16); and again: "Cursed is the earth in your works; in grief you will eat bread all the days of your life" (ibid., 17); and again: "It will cast forth thorns and thistles for you" (ibid., 18). Each of these obtained a remedy in no other way than that a contrary remedy was brought to each wound, which was nearest and most familiar. And behold the resolution, granted by Christ, of all these sad sentences. "I will multiply, I will multiply your sorrows and your groans"; this is resolved where it is said: "Hail, full of grace" (Luke 1:28). "In grief you will bear children"; it is resolved by that which is written: "Blessed is the fruit of your womb" (ibid.). "Cursed is the earth in your works"; it is resolved by that: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace" (Luke 2:14). "The earth will cast forth thorns and thistles for you"; it is resolved by the crown of thorns placed on the head (John 19:5) (for they were worthy of eradication, because they had approached so great a head). "In the sweat of your face you will eat bread"; it is resolved by that which he says: "The bread which I will give you is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John 6:51).

He resolves what was said against us to the serpent: "You will lie in wait for his heel" (Gen. 3:15), by means of what was said: "I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions" (Luke 10:19). He resolves that nakedness, which came about after the sin, through the incorruptible garment of the glory of the resurrection: Of all these things, a catechumen has no part in any of them. And since the time of baptism is approaching, it is good briefly to remind these men, so that they not deprive themselves of such gifts, overtaken by death; or rather, so that they not be submerged in the very same and so many evils with which Adam was bound. For each one will carry away with him the penal sentences pronounced against nature: for he has not been made a partaker of his body and blood, who through baptism resolves these sentences, and having been made a companion of the figures, not of the true exemplars, he will not be filled with the full enjoyment.

And the rest, which pertains little to the present matter. SERMON II Another treatise of the same author to the people, on Adam. Why this sermon is placed second, when it is the fourth in the manuscript codex, will be explained in the following sermon. It seems to have been delivered in the same year and the same place, and on a Sunday, while the preceding one was given on the previous Saturday; but the same Pelagians had heard him discoursing on the sin of Adam binding his entire race, and on the coming of Christ restoring all. The sermon is eloquent, though toward the end it is lighter and more juvenile. It lacks a heading. It is divided into twelve parts. The desire of my hearers, who await [Baluz. "who seek from me"] teaching, moves me, and my weakness drives me more toward silence; yet the force of illness is overcome by the duty of the priestly office. For soon, with the preceding command, as if showing from this the progress of human nature in wisdom, he brings before Adam's eyes the animals, who, according to the nature of each, imposed names upon them individually from time to time, and poured forth, as it were, the sources of names. And indeed God was calling things that were not as if they were (Rom. 4:17). But Adam was calling things that are not called as if they were already called.

Oh, of how many gifts did you not render thanks, Adam, to my God! You were fashioned from dust, you dwelt in paradise, you lived in an abundance of delights, you enjoyed pleasure free from sorrows, riches flowed to you without any care, you were also a disciple of God. And after a little there: you became the first recorder of names, the wild nature of beasts stood by you more obedient than rational beings, you imposed law in the naming of animals, you conversed mutually with the Creator. And after some things in the same place. The angels, offended by the corruption of sinners, feeling that our punishment was delayed, were not a little disturbed, and approaching God they cried out: Shall we go and root out the tares? The demons, nevertheless, were hoping either for a Sodom-like conflagration of the whole world, or a flood, which they more vehemently expected, as in the time of Noah. But the devil brought forth, which is against nature, that bond which is written: You are earth, and to earth you shall go. And he insisted on this, consuming the generations of men by death.

In such great difficulty of affairs, when we were deprived of better hopes, the greatest abundance of reconciliations of nature occurs. For the Mediator of the world and of God is born, not like Jeremiah, or any other of the prophets, who were despised, but one who has the Deity, the giver of those things which he wills, joined to himself; not the mediator of one nation, like Moses of the Jews; but, as Paul says: One God, and Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. A man in person, by which he is seen and appears; but God by the joined nature of Deity; a mediator undertaking the cause for our nature against the devil. That one brought forth sin from Adam as a bond; and on the other side Christ, from flesh without sin, relied on the cancellation of this debt; that one recited the condemnation which through Eve had proceeded against the whole nature; Christ, however, referred to the mortification which through blessed Mary had come to the race; that one alleged in paradise the incontinence of food; Christ, on the contrary, showed that human nature, watered with vinegar in itself, was guilty of no sin.

He resolves all that the devil alleged against us, and proclaimed the victory of this case, saying: "Now is the judgment of this world" (John 12:31). "In me," he says, "this world is judged; by my Incarnation it is overcome. Now," he says, "is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world will be cast out" (Ibid.), as a dishonest calumniator in a trial, producing a cancelled bond and violently attacking those who are not debtors. But this benefit the necessary sacrament of the saving bath confers upon all: for he who is washed by baptism becomes a member of that household, and a fellow-citizen, and a familiar of the one who cancelled that bond, and becomes an inhabitant of the heavens with him: for "where I am," he says, "there also is my servant" (John 12:26). The catechumen, however, remains a debtor, as one alien to him who voided the bond; and when his soul has departed from the flesh, the devil interposes himself among the angelic guides of souls. "This soul of mine," he says, "which is still outstanding, why do you snatch it away? My right, my possession you are invading, my debtors you are invading; and if it even seems, as it does among men, that this prayer for catechumens will prevail," the devil adding, "They close the doors of the churches to them on earth; but you rush from the heavens to receive them. I am trying to do violence to my right, O angels.

For what do you have in common with the catechumens? They have not been reborn from water and spirit, so that they might be led by you to the kingdoms of heaven. They have not renounced the inheritance which is subject to me. Not possessing the royal conveyance, how will they complete the journey on the royal road? But these allegations of the devil against nature have now fallen silent, to which that baptized nature confidently cries out: He raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavens in Christ (Ephesians 2:6), to whom is glory forever. SERMON III. Likewise, from the same treatise delivered publicly in church, whose beginning is "The sun indeed," etc. It seemed fitting that this sermon, as well as the following one, should be transcribed first as it is found in the excerpts of Marius; then in its entirety, as it appears in volume VII of the Works of Chrysostom edited by Savile: for there is no small difference between them; which will later give occasion for a not improbable conjecture.

The sun, indeed, having become higher above the lands, and running from the East as far as to us, changes night into day, shakes off sleep, and restores us to our works; but the light of the knowledge of God rouses the mind from the sleep of idleness, illuminates thoughts, and raises them up to the virtues. That this light should shine upon us will always be desirable; and indeed, if someone does not see this visible sun, he lives, since even a blind man lives, having knowledge of the sun only by hearing; but souls, if they are ignorant of God, are utterly dead without the sun, even if someone suspects them to be alive, concerning whom even the Lord says: Let the dead bury their dead (Matt. viii, 22). But he who struggled with the parent of mortality redeemed life from both mortality and death. For a twofold mortality was raging against us: one indeed accidental to the nature made mortal from sin; the other, which occurs from the rejection of knowledge. For to be ignorant of God bears a likeness to the insensibility which comes from death. Therefore, from both sides the devil became the maker of death, whom Christ, crushing, raised our life from both by mortification: namely, raising the soul with life-giving precepts, and by resurrection renewing and restoring that which is mortal. For when the impeller has collapsed, that which was impelled by him is lifted up.

An image of this struggle of life has been left for us. Where? Look in the desert. There the divine nature raised this man, terrifying the tyrant with the image of a tyrant-slayer by traversing the deserts. Likewise, after some passages in the same place: God indeed gave men sustenance through foods, and stability to the body through nourishment; but divine Scripture taught me that God surpasses the limits of nature. For I remember the divine voice crying out that men should not fear hunger and deserts, but even there they ought to respond thus: Let God bring aid, and let bread perish, because God is the giver of life even without food; the flesh will also live without nourishment, if God commands it to live; thus he says; it is written (Matthew 4:4), and thus I believe, bearing confidence from the divine utterances, and I do not await the life that comes from food alone. Likewise, after some passages in the same place: By what Adam offended, by that Christ reconciles. Since he had fallen from infidelity and food, not believing God, and fell when he had eaten; Christ, coming, begins from faith and continence: whence nature had collapsed, from there restoring it.

SERMON IV. The same author, on the passage which is written (Matthew 4:9): "All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me," whose beginning is this, "In another sermon," etc. In another sermon, with my tongue pressing on, the master who preceded me, mindful of my promises, reminded me that I owed you the Dominical struggle, and compels me to the repayment of this debt. [Baluze: Among other things and below:] I have gratitude for those who remind me, and I carry great confidence in the discharge of the debt. For he who paid the bond of sins for us will also pay, on my behalf before you, my debt contracted concerning the same struggle. Likewise, after some things in the same place: When the devil perceives the heat of faith in the heart, then the harmful praiser approaches and devises nocturnal visions; he will address the sense of the sleeper, wearied by slumber, as if an angel of light. When he had already set chariots before the eyes of the one awake, and had also sent forth a clearer voice through the air, saying, "Right, O man, is the judgment of God, to receive treasures.

Likewise, after some points in the same place: With the same craft he suspected that he could also provoke the Lord. Moreover, all those things which were then being done were prefigurations of all future things and the defenses of the Church to be built. For just as in Adam the nature of man, receiving a foundation, collapsed by the ruin of that same foundation and came under the hand and power of the devil, who cast Adam down; so the faith of the Church, having the Lord Christ as a foundation, remains immovable in the strength of that same foundation, and secure, and unshaken by the firmness of its own head, which cannot be torn away. Likewise, of the same author, in the same place, among other things and further on: "All these," he says to the Lord, "I will give you, if you fall down and worship me" (Matthew 4:9). From half unwilling, you foretell, devil; for you will give back the world to the Lord, which you had unjustly consigned to servitude for yourself, but beaten, not adored. Do not think that you are having a conversation with Adam; for he enticed Adam with a promise and persuaded him that he would be a god, and by this persuasion he cast him down. Now also he was promising omnipotence to Christ, thinking that he would cast him down by the hope of high station; but he received a worthy repulse in the response: "Go back, Satan, you will adore your Lord God, and serve him alone" (Ibid. 10).

Likewise, after some points in the same place: And behold, he says, the angels approached and ministered to him (Ibid. 11). And we therefore, together with the angels, let us render service to the Lord: let us leap into heaven, fulfilling angelic ministry on earth, let us lift up the soul with unwearied wings [Baluz. let us subject]; let us love with all our strength him who raised up our fallen nature; let us adore him who cast down and laid low our inexorable enemy. ANOTHER VERSION OF SERMONS III AND IV IN ONE REDACTION. On these words: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. Matt. iv. Likewise on these: The devil took him up onto a very high mountain, etc. Ibid. Just as the sun, rising above the lands and driving its chariot from the East toward us, puts night to flight, awakens the sleeping, and restores them to their works, so the radiance of divine knowledge commands the mind to awaken, pours light upon thoughts, and rouses us to virtues. And this light, indeed, which shines upon us, is more desirable than the solar light: for you can, even if you lack the sight of the sun, live (as in fact the blind live, who know the sun only by hearing), whereas souls not illumined by the sun of divine knowledge are dead, although they may seem to live: concerning whom there is also that word of the Lord: Let the dead bury their own dead (Matt. viii, 22).

But He made us free from both these deaths, He who wrestled with the author of death and its parent. For a twofold death falls upon us: one, which the condition of mortal nature brings with itself; the other, which the loss of the knowledge of divine things inflicts, which renders us destitute of all perception of heavenly things, and thus most like the dead. The devil is the artificer of each of these deaths; and when Christ broke and crushed him, He drove away both these deaths from nature: the soul indeed being raised up by salutary teachings; the mortal body being restored by the help of the resurrection. Thus, with him prostrated by whom we lay oppressed, we, who before were tottering and struck down, will henceforth stand and be raised up. A monument and image of this struggle, which Christ entered into with the devil, has been left for the human race, so that, gazing upon it, it may raise up its strength and spirit. But where is that image? Look at the desert; for there grace has, as it were, hung it up, and displays the tyrant cut down, and terrified by Himself in the wilderness, as if on a panel. Therefore we see the arena, the desert; the wrestler, the devil, provoking Christ's hunger; and finally, the three encounters of Christ with the enemy, the three responses, from the law of the fight, which teaches that wrestlers should join hands three times.

But now, consider the threefold struggle. "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread." The devil made this the beginning of his battle with the Lord. To him Christ replied: "Man does not live by bread alone"; thus He kept Himself safe and unharmed from the enemy. "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down": behold the second assault of the devil. "You shall not tempt your Lord God"; those words eluded the force and the demand of the adversary. "I will give you all this if you fall down and worship me"; this struggle began to be entered upon thirdly, in which the Lord, like a skilled athlete, drove the troublesome and ill-fighting adversary, the devil, from the arena and field of combat: "Get behind me, Satan; it is written, you shall worship your Lord God, and serve Him alone." Contemplate this struggle in such a way that you yourself may also learn to wrestle, and become a disciple from being a spectator. The first combat of Christ with the demon teaches you to fight against pleasures; for hunger gave origin and occasion to the contests—hunger, I say, that harsh, insatiable desire, like a tyrant without power; hunger, the cause and head of the pursuit of pleasures. For the appetite for food is not patient of restraint, when the belly sees a pleasure of that kind set before it which cannot be refused to itself. Because many could not moderate and restrain this, they were driven to the point of denying that providence exists, just as if God did not care for the hungry. Against this rock the devil drives Christ, led by the hope that, like a man goaded by hunger, He would easily be dashed against it.

Indeed, he did not know that God was united to a man; nor would he have approached God as one who hungers: for how could he, who knew that his own nature was unacquainted with hunger, have petitioned for food from one whom he knew to be God? Therefore, seeing him as a man, he addresses the same as a man: "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread." The curious investigator of divine adoption in Christ, the provider of food worse than hunger itself, had once cast into men the false hope of attaining divinity through the fruit of the forbidden tree; now the same one provokes Christ's hunger, pointing out the desert where there was nothing but stones: so that the very place, by increasing the despair of finding food, might inject the disturbance of distrust into his soul, and remove the son's affection toward his parent God. But come, let us consider the tempter and examine the snares he sets with these very words. "If you are the Son of God," he says, "say that these stones become loaves of bread." "Son of God," he says, "you have recently been called, when you were baptized. I heard the proclaiming voice: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matthew 3); which address I mocked as full of flattery and magnificent jest, and as a rather trivial reward and honor. Meanwhile, you rejoiced in your bosom, and already persuaded yourself that you are that beloved one, and, overconfident, you exult, as if you were in heaven itself, and accepted by God above others and in delights.

Who then is to be considered that father, who takes no care for his hungry son? What kind of patron and guardian is he, who does not feed his clients? But you have now gone forty days without food, with your father in the meantime unconcerned about your hunger, and idly watching your starvation over many days without any feeling of compassion. A fine loving parent of a son, who does not even give bread to his starving offspring! An excellent son, whom not even his father feeds in extreme hunger! Let him show his love for you, and offer bread, and nourish his starving child in the desert. He can turn stones into bread: only ask this of him, now that you are nearly dead of hunger. If you obtain this favor from him, I do not refuse that you be the Son of God, and rightly boast of that name; but before you obtain it, do not arrogate such a title to yourself. O honor devoid of true honor, and most inhuman humanity! He takes pity, in order to kill; he feigns care, and contrives destruction, and with a most sweet cup of praise administers poison; the old fox goads Christ to distrust, provokes him to ask for food, not to relieve the hungry man, but to lure him and, once incited to ask, then, as if he were distrustful, to drive him to sin in some way against God; so that he who once falsely said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased," might be proven wrong.

What does the Lord Christ say to this? He does not immediately betray the God hidden within him, lest he scare off the prey, but, like someone from the common crowd, he replies: For it is written, he says, that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The lack of food, he says, disturbs me not at all; it is neither strange nor unexpected to me that I should be hungry here in the desert; nor do I pray that bread might appear from stones. There are many ways by which God provides for us; nor are the means by which he attends to our needs of only one kind. He gave foods for men to eat, that is, dishes suitable for the flesh and the body; but sacred scripture has taught me that he is not circumscribed by the limits and boundaries of nature; nor has that divine voice escaped my memory, which warns men not to be anxious about hunger, since God abundantly cares for it. Therefore, do not trouble yourself with concern for the hungry, or show me the desert to drive me to despair; God will certainly provide, even if no breads themselves are at hand. Indeed, he can sustain our life without food, and the flesh will live without carnal sustenance, when God has commanded it to live. Thus it is written, he says, thus I believe, relying on divine words; nor do I think that my life is fitted and dependent solely on food.

Thus Christ, in order to reconcile us to the grace of God, employed the very same things by which Adam sinned against God. For since the latter fell into crime through faithlessness and the eating of the forbidden food (for he collapsed because of incredulity and gluttony), Christ, who had come to restore nature, begins from faith and temperance. Therefore, having laid aside his mask, as it were, the demon meditates waging open war against him with his usual arts. “Before this man was brought forth into the light,” he says to himself, “I contrived snares for his birth through suspicion of adultery; frustrated in that hope, I attempted to circumvent and crush him, now born, through the agency of Herod; in this part also the prey has slipped away from me. I have been defeated as long as I fought with another’s hand; now I will wage war through myself.” O blind lust for fighting! He whom he was defeated by when scarcely born, he now attacks when he has become a man. Come now, demon, join battle with the man; try again, and make trial of his strength once more.

Now indeed he was subdued and broken in the first encounter, when he approached the hungry man (you have heard how he was overcome); but now, eager to repair the defeat he had suffered, he doubles his strength and boldness. And because he used a first stratagem that was vain and ineffective, and could not deceive the famished man, he employs another device. "Nothing has been achieved," he says, "by that first deceit of mine, which nevertheless overthrew Adam; I will set this aside, and I will stop trying to lure him with the desire for food. For he seems to be master of his pleasures, since, when the delight of eating was set before him, he could not even be induced to ask for bread by breaking the fast of many days, ignorant of how to be conquered by these fleshly weapons. I have found a more cunning way of fighting; I have at hand a sweeter hook: glory, than which nothing is more pleasant for mortals to pursue; in which there is not only much enticement to ensnare them, but it also yields a double reward, in that it has joined to its vanity both madness and rashness, since almost always he who is inflamed by the desire for glory is headlong into pride and elation. Moreover, there is reason why this man should seem to be more eager for glory: it is likely that he who has already remained fasting for so many days thinks somewhat more boastfully of himself. I will tickle the man; I will approach him as if to some just man, and I will supply the handle of vainglory, by means of some verse of the Psalms, which I will pretend was uttered long ago for his sake; thus I will lure him with a crafty question.

For the purpose of making an interrogation, a certain precipitous place will be chosen; I will seize him and drag him to the pinnacle of the temple, and when he has taken his seat at the very summit, then I will opportunely suggest this: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written that He commanded His angels concerning you, and they will lift you in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone." One of two things will certainly happen: either he will believe my words, or he will reject them. If he takes my speech in good part and flatters himself as if he were righteous, it will be easy for him, as I have proposed, to throw himself headlong: thus he will hurl his body from the highest peak, and if he dies from the fall, I will mock him dead; but if even afterward he survives, he will at least have this, that he has received from me the wound of vainglory, having been induced by my speech to cast himself down recklessly. But if I see him refusing and declining, I will call him into envy and hatred before God, as once with Job, disparaging the dignity and benefit of divine adoption violated by him in this manner: "I recited to him the sentence written by you, I spoke those words by which you promised him certain salvation, and yet he hesitated to throw himself into the abyss below. It is evident that he does not trust your promises. By what means, then, did you call him son, who has so little faith in your words?

What the adversary was planning, Christ was not unaware. He allows himself to be dragged by him, and follows no differently than one man follows another; but when the summit was reached, then the demon began to utter his premeditated words: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down." Let us reply to the speaking devil: If you believe that it is the property of that man, who rejoices in God the Father, that in that very danger and fall he remains untouched by any loss or peril, you have grounds for that to be made clear which you seek: for by this very fact it appears that he is the Son of God, because you do not, however, cast down or drive headlong that man who is at your side and within your blow and hand, though you have long been eager to cast him down; but you can do nothing else, of course, than urge and advise a fall; you cannot push him. "What is this," he says, "do you not give yourself over to the precipice of your own accord? Come now, throw yourself without hesitation, cast yourself down: for it is written that your angels have commanded concerning you, lest you should chance to strike your foot against a stone." While the enemy was saying these things, he showed that he did not know that the one he was addressing was God; for if he knew him to be God, he would not have incited him to fall from the highest summit. He knew that God is neither made lower by any height, nor more accessible by any level ground; but that he, just as he rises up with and equals the highest things, so he is equally extended with level and flat things, and is thus free from any danger of stumbling; and that it is the foot of a man, not God himself, that can strike against a stone.

These, therefore, are the devil's words as evidence, not that he acted with Christ as with God. Now let us hear the meaning and intent of the words. "You were just saying," he says, "It is written: Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Nor did I myself fail to praise your faith in God; but, since there is another voice of God which testifies that He commanded His angels concerning you, lest you chance to strike your foot against a stone; show that you add faith to the word of God, and let yourself go, secure from all harm and danger. Behold, a convenient precipice which asserts that you are the Son of God; behold, a fall which proves God's care for you: for if, hurling yourself from here, you then rise up safe and unharmed, that voice which proclaimed you the Son of God will undoubtedly be true; since God previously promised you this, that He would entrust your care to angels, to guard you in all your ways." From a stinking little vessel you produce ointment, O devil, and you renew an old story. A certain lion, killed by Samson, was carrying a honeycomb in its mouth. Although it lay dead and stinking; you, like that lion, drip honey taken from the Scriptures from your mouth, and you lie prostrate, struck down by the Lord's response: For it is written, he says: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God.

Christ did not refuse to throw himself down, nor did he agree: for if he had denied and refused to hurl himself down, he would have given the devil an occasion to accuse him, as one who distrusted the words of God; but if he had agreed, he would have seemed more arrogant and prone to ostentation. Therefore, he gave such a response that he would appear neither to assent nor to refuse: "You shall not tempt," he says, "your Lord God." He did not at all say, "You shall not tempt me, your Lord": for if the devil had heard this, he would not have later assailed the same man with these promises: "I will give you all these things, if you fall down and worship me." What then did he respond? "I embrace," he says, "the words of the Psalms, as being true, and I have complete hope in God, who promises that he will not fail in his aid. I know that the care of men is entrusted to angels; but not so if men throw themselves headlong, not if they lay violent hands upon themselves, not if they rashly tempt God." Behold, then, the devil defeated and routed a second time: he rises up for a third temptation. The following discourse ought to explain to you the sequence of this third temptation as well, which, if I complete it, I will have presented the entire debt, which I confirmed by my promise as if by a bond. The discharge of this debt, while it is very pleasant for me and for you, is so bitter and hateful to the devil alone: for whom the price of his own rashness has been paid out by his own ruin.

I myself certainly see that there are now two solutions of the promised discourse completed: the third remains to be weighed, heavier and more difficult, I think, than the others; concerning the third device of the devil, which is third in order, but first in cunning and gravity; last in number, yet such that among the others it easily bears the palm for craftiness. In the earlier temptations his malice was to be endured. He was not soliciting an open defection from God; but, only abusing the divine records and Scriptures, and thrusting these words at Christ, "If you are the Son of God," he fought impiously against God, yet dissembled his art through the appearance and pretext of piety. In this third temptation he lays bare his naked rage and malice, and displays his wickedness without any coverings; he demands to be worshipped by him who is worshipped by all, and from what he has already heard from Christ, he came into such hope that he thought he could extort worship from him. For when he saw the Lord speaking everything from the oracles of the faith, and denying that God is to be tempted, he thought him prone to yield, and not very laborious in examining and anxiously testing the things that were being proposed to him. Therefore, having composed the appearance of things in the most beautiful form, he proceeds, as if about to dazzle his mind and eyes with the novelty of the spectacle. The devil assumes him, says the sacred page, onto a very high mountain, and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

He fashions a feigned image and those things which, as if from bronze, are imitations of pictures of things and forms. He constructs the unformed mass of the world and the adornments of a shadowy kingdom, thinking, no doubt, that by the empty splendor of this image he might lead Christ into the error of believing with ease. Yet he does not even understand that he fights against himself, while he urges Christ to this adoration. He might rather promise him all the wealth of the world, lest he fall and worship you. Yet he continues: "I will give you all these things, if you fall down and worship me." He who does not believe Paul asserting that a worshiper of idols is avaricious, let him hear the parent of idols testifying that Paul's words are true: "Whoever worships me," he says, "to him I will give the possessions of others." Is not, therefore, he who possesses the possessions of others a client and follower of the devil? For he himself promises to give the possessions of others: thus giving to others so as to harm others, and bestowing only his own thefts. But this liberality of his toward Christ aims at this: to gently lead him to prostrate himself before him by the promise of such great gifts. "This one cannot be led by the pleasure of foods," he says, "or be titillated by the sweetness of vainglory. The two most certain weapons I have for fighting, he has broken; I must seek another, more powerful weapon. The lust for domination is in all men: no one refuses to make a profit and gain, if opportunity offers; avarice is a certain wound fixed, as it were, in the minds of all. This arrow I will draw from the quiver. Where, then, shall I fix the man? What place will help my plan?

Would that I had met him on some lofty mountain! A higher vantage point offers an easy view in every direction: from there, with no trouble, I would have set before his eyes the abundance of the fields; I would have presented the treasures of kings for his inspection; I would have placed the whole pomp and splendor of life under a single gaze, showing some things as they truly are, and fashioning others through artifice. Since human nature is so easily ensnared by gifts and gain, if it sees what is splendid and illustrious in the world, it will immediately leap to possess them; it will greedily seize the displayed riches, and be carried away with the most vehement desire to have them: it will take a shadow for truth, and the mere sight of things will create belief in a man who is otherwise easily swayed in every direction to believe. "Ask for bread," I said; he refused, not doubting that he would be fed by God even without bread. "Throw your body down," I urged; he dismissed these words, denying that God was to be tempted. I will now approach him with this empty appearance of things and this pomp: I will utterly deceive him, and persuade him to fall at my knees, as if he were being tempted by God himself: he will believe, I say, a man who is by no means evil or stubborn in believing. Soon, when I have mocked him in his deception, I will let him go.

Christ, aware of this excellent plan, proceeded with him up the high mountain. The devil begins to unfold his premeditated deceptions: he presents a false image of various things to the eyes. Christ neither refutes nor rebuts this artful cunning, but gazes as if unaware of the fraud. The devil, thinking he has prevailed by trickery and the deceit of the spectacle, and suspecting that his adversary is caught by the offered appearance, and as if making a sure conjecture about the rest of the victory, with exaggerated words, such as would befit the ruler and arbiter of the world, he babbles magnificent lies. "I will give you all this, if you fall down and worship me. Do you not see, O man, the vastness of the world? Do you not perceive how many and how great these possessions are? Do you not shudder at the sight of nearly infinite kingdoms? I am the lord of these: these palaces are divided among men at my will and granted for habitation; I easily set you above the rest, and judge you worthy to rule the whole world alone: from me receive the power and strength to be equal to ruling the world: this one thing you in turn repay me for such great gifts: worship me. I will give you all this, if you fall down and worship me.

From the prophets, albeit unwillingly, O devil: you will indeed give back the world, which you have oppressed with unworthy servitude; but you will not likewise take away the worship of adoration, but rather the penalty of the scourges. For do not think that you are having a conversation with Adam; for you enticed Adam with the hope of divinity, and you ruined him, having persuaded him wickedly: now you offer to Christ equally the command and primacy of all things, hoping that he, like Adam, will be persuaded and fall by the magnitude of the promise. He received the answer he deserved: "Get behind me, Satan; for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone. Withdraw, Satan." Here he rightly calls that one Satan by name, as a master who, calling a slave who is hiding by name, thereby indicates that he is not hidden. Begone! This is a gentle and mild voice, yet of a threatening, as can be seen, and as it were of an indignant Lord, just as if he were saying: You have labored in vain in concealing your fraud, your mask has been torn off, you have despaired of victory; now you wish to soothe me and coax me with gifts, now you are stirring up my sale, now you are usurping the words of a traitor. You have begun an untimely plan to buy me, wait for your accomplice, and the administrator of the pact, Judas; withdraw now, while I undergo the cross which awaits me; withdraw, I say, for you will not buy me now. Begone! Keep your gifts for the traitor; this one thing you will have from me now: you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.

Do not let human homage be shared with God, and claim it for yourself; they are debtors to Him alone. Then, it says, the devil departed from him. This was indeed a great and notable victory of Christ in this final struggle. For just as a noble and strong wrestler lifts up a lofty adversary, and then immediately hurls him down from a height and dashes him to pieces, so Christ the Lord, having led the devil up onto the mountain and raised him with vain hope, cast him down and dashed him to pieces from that same lofty hope. The wonder of this victory roused the astonished angels, and gathered the victor to be attended by a heavenly retinue. For behold, it says, the angels approached and ministered to him. Let us, imitating the angels, offer to Christ the same worship and service as they do; let us prove our zeal in heaven, and perform the ministries of blessed minds on earth; let us place our soul in those hands that know not defeat; let us love the restorer of fallen nature; let us embrace him who cut the strength and sinews of our common enemy, and with constant memory pursue the victory that avenges our glory; let us insult the prostrate devil, and, tearing at his shameless head, cry out with one voice and from all our hearts: You shall worship your Lord God, and serve him alone. Glory and power to him for ever and ever.