Exposition of the Gospel of Luke

For there are three things which the philosophers of this world have thought most excellent, namely that wisdom is threefold, being either natural, or moral, or rational. These three we have already been able to observe also in the Old Testament. For what else do those three wells signify, of which one is called Vision, another Abundance, the third Oath, than that this threefold virtue existed in the Patriarchs? The rational well is Vision; because reason sharpens the sight of the mind, and purifies the gaze of the soul. The ethical well is Abundance; because when the Philistines withdrew, by whose figure the vices of the body are represented, the servants of Isaac found the water of a living mind. For good morals flow pure, and goodness itself, generous toward others, is more restrained toward itself. The third well is Oath, that is, of natural wisdom, which comprehends those things which are above nature, or which belong to nature.

For what is affirmed, and sworn as it were with God as witness, embraces also divine things; since the Lord of nature is called as witness to faith. What too do the three books of Solomon show—one on Proverbs, another Ecclesiastes, the third the Song of Songs—but that holy Solomon was skilled in this threefold wisdom? He wrote of rational and ethical matters in Proverbs, of natural matters in Ecclesiastes; because "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity", those things which are established in this world, for "the creature is subject to vanity": but of moral and rational matters in the Song of Songs; because when the love of the heavenly Word is poured into our soul, and the holy mind is joined by a certain rational fellowship, wondrous mysteries are revealed.

Do you think the Evangelists too lacked wisdom; of whom, though some are filled with various kinds, yet each excels in a different kind?

For truly there is natural wisdom in the book of the evangelist John. For no one, I dare say, has seen the majesty of God with such sublimity of wisdom, and preserved it for us in his own words. He transcends the clouds, he transcends the Virtues of the heavens, he transcends the Angels, and finds the Word in the beginning and sees the Word with God. But who has more morally, according to man, followed each particular than holy Matthew, who gave us precepts for living? What is more rational than that admirable coupling which holy Mark thought should be placed right at the beginning?

"Behold," he says, "I send my angel": and, "The voice of one crying in the desert"; that it might both move admiration, and teach that man ought to please God by humility and abstinence and faith, just as that holy John the Baptist ascended by these steps to immortality—clothing, food, message?

But holy Luke kept, as it were, a certain historical order, and revealed to us more of the miracles of the Lord's deeds: yet in such a way that the history of this Gospel embraced the virtues of all wisdom. For what is more excellent for natural wisdom than that he disclosed the Holy Spirit to have been the creator even of the Lord's incarnation? He teaches, then, natural things, if the spirit creates. Whence David too, teaching natural wisdom, says: "Send forth thy Spirit and they shall be created". He teaches moral things in the same book, when in those beatitudes he teaches me morals: how I ought to love an enemy: how not to strike back, and not to return blows to one who strikes: how to do good, to lend without hope of recovery, or of remuneration and reward. For reward more easily follows one who does not expect it. He also taught rational things, when I read that "He who is faithful in the least, is faithful also in the greater" (Luke:).

What further shall I say of natural things, in that he taught that the powers of the heavens would be moved, that the Lord alone is the only-begotten Son of God, in whose passion darkness came over the day, the earth was darkened, the sun fled?

Therefore all the primacy which worldly prudence falsely claims for itself, spiritual wisdom truly possesses: especially since, to venture something more boldly, our very faith, the very mystery of the Trinity, cannot exist without this threefold wisdom; unless we believe both that the Father is naturally Father, who begot for us the Redeemer: and that the Son is ethical, who obedient to the Father even unto death according to man, redeemed us: and that the Spirit is rational, who has poured into human hearts the reason of worshiping the divinity, and of governing life. Nor let anyone think that we have made a distinction of power or virtue, since this calumny could attack even Paul. For he made no distinction, when he said, "There are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit: and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord: and there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all". For the Son too works all things, and in all, as you have elsewhere, that "Christ is all, and in all".

The Holy Spirit too works, because "one and the same Spirit worketh all these things, dividing to each as he will".

There is therefore no distance of operations, no distinction, where in either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, no fullness of virtue is second to another.

When therefore we read these things, let us consider them carefully, that they may be able to shine forth better for us in their proper places. For "he who seeks, finds: and to him who knocks it shall be opened". Diligence opens for itself the door of truth, and therefore let us obey the heavenly precepts. For it was not said idly to man, what was not said to any of the other living creatures: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread". For to those animals which are irrational by nature, the earth has been commanded by God's order to furnish food: but to man alone, that he might exercise the rational faculty he has received, the course of life is prescribed in labor.

For he who is not content with the food of the other animals, for whom the fruit-bearing tree given in common to all for food is not enough: but seeks for himself the delights of various feasts, fetches for himself delicacies from lands across the sea, requires his sustenance by labor—let him undergo, if it be but a brief labor, for the sake of eternal life. And so if anyone, coming to these contests of sacred disputations, strips himself of the anxiety of this life exposed to error, and, naked of malice, an athlete of piety, anointed as it were in the limbs of his soul with spiritual oil, undertakes the contests of truth, he will doubtless merit the everlasting rewards of the sacred crowns. For of good labors the fruit is noble: and the more the contests, the more excellent the crown of virtues.

But let us return to our purpose.

For we said that this book of the Gospel was composed in a historical style. Indeed, we see a fuller effort applied, by comparison with the others, to the description of events rather than the expression of precepts. And the Evangelist himself, in the historical manner, took his beginning from narration: "There was," he says, "in the days of Herod king of Judaea a certain priest named Zacharias", and he follows out that history with full arrangement. Whence also those who thought the four forms of animals which are revealed in the Apocalypse should be understood as the four books of the Gospel, wish this book to be figured under the likeness of the calf; for the calf is the sacrificial victim. And well does this book of the Gospel fit the calf, because it began with priests, and ended in the calf, who, taking up the sins of all, was offered for the life of the whole world; for that calf is priestly.

Indeed the same is both calf and priest: priest, because he is our propitiator; for we have him as advocate with the Father: calf, because by his own blood he has washed and redeemed us. And it fits well that, since we said the book of the Gospel according to Matthew is moral, this opinion should not be passed over; for morals are properly called human.

Many, however, think that our Lord himself is figured in the four books of the Gospel by the four forms of animals, since he is proven to be at once man, lion, calf, and eagle. Man, because he was born of Mary: lion, because he is strong: calf, because he is a sacrificial victim: eagle, because he is resurrection. And thus in each of the books the form of an animal is figured, so that the sequence of subjects in each book may seem to agree with the nature, or virtue, or grace, or miracle of the animal proposed. Which, though all are present in all, yet there is a certain fullness of the several virtues in each. One (Matthew) described the birth of the man more fully, and also instructed the morals of man with fuller precepts. Another began with an expression of the divine power, in that from a King he is King, from the strong he is strong, true from the true, and by living virtue despised death.

The third put forward the priestly sacrifice, and spread out the very immolation of the calf with a somewhat fuller style.

The fourth expressed more abundantly than the others the divine miracles of the resurrection. There is therefore one in all, and one is in all, as it is read: not dissimilar in each, but true in all. But now let us take up the very text of the Gospel.

. "Forasmuch," he says, "as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things."

Most of our affairs, like those of the ancient Jews, are formed by like kinds and causes, and agree by a like use and outcome of similar examples, and correspond in the beginning and end of things: for just as many in that divine people prophesied, filled with the Spirit: but others promised themselves that they would prophesy, and betrayed their profession with a lie, for they were false prophets rather than prophets, such as Ananias son of Azor; and it was the grace of the people to discern spirits, that they might know whom they ought to reckon among the number of the prophets; and whom, as a good money-changer would, they should reject, in whom corrupted matter rather showed sordidly, than the splendor of true light shone forth: so also now in the New Testament many have attempted to write Gospels, which good money-changers did not approve. But they judged that only one, arranged into four books, was to be understood out of all.

And indeed another Gospel is circulated, which the twelve are said to have written.

Basilides too dared to write a Gospel, which is called according to Basilides. Another Gospel is also circulated, which is written according to Thomas. I know of another written according to Matthias. We read some things (Dist. 37, chap. "We read some things"), not that they may be read: we read, lest we be ignorant: we read, not that we may hold to them, but that we may repudiate them, and that we may know of what sort are the things in which those grandiose men exalt their heart. But the Church, since it has four books of the Gospel, overflows with Evangelists throughout the whole world: the heresies, though they have many, have not one. For many have attempted, but by God's grace have been left destitute. Many also, out of the four books of the Gospel, have crammed together into one those things which they thought agreed with their poisonous assertions.

Thus the Church, which has one Gospel, teaches one God: but they, who assert one God of the Old Testament and another of the New, out of many Gospels have made not one God, but several.

"Forasmuch as many," he says, "have taken in hand." Those indeed have taken in hand, who were not able to accomplish it.

Therefore that many began, but did not accomplish, holy Luke also attests with more ample testimony, saying that very many have attempted it. For he who attempted to set in order, attempted by his own labor, and did not accomplish it. For the gifts and grace of God are without effort; which, wherever it has poured itself, is accustomed to water; so that the writer's talent may not be in need, but overflow. Matthew did not attempt, Mark did not attempt, John did not attempt, Luke did not attempt: but with the divine Spirit ministering an abundance of words and of all things, they completed without any exertion what they began. And therefore he says: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things which have been accomplished among us," or which overflow among us.

For what overflows fails no one: and of what is accomplished no one doubts, since the effect builds up faith, the outcome makes it manifest. And so the Gospel is accomplished, and overflows for all the faithful throughout the whole world, and waters the minds of all, and confirms the soul. Therefore he who is founded on the rock, and who has taken up the whole fullness of faith and the firmness of constancy, rightly says: "Which have been accomplished among us"; since it is not by signs and portents, but by word, that those who describe the saving deeds of the Lord, or who direct the mind to his wonders, distinguish true from false. For what is so reasonable as that you should believe, when you read of things beyond man that were done, that they are of a mightier nature; but indeed when you read the things that are moral, you should believe them to be the passions of the assumed body? Thus our faith is founded by word and reason, not by signs.

"Even as they delivered them unto us," he says, "who from the beginning were eyewitnesses themselves, and ministers of the Word."

This manner of speaking does not fit, that we should rather believe the ministry of the word to have been seen than heard. But because it is not the uttered word but the substantial Word that is signified, that Word which was made flesh and dwelt among us: let us understand not a common word, but that heavenly one to which the Apostles ministered. And yet it is read in Exodus that the people saw the voice of the Lord: and yet a voice is not seen, but heard. For what is a voice, but a sound which is not perceived by the eyes, but received by the ear? But Moses wished with the loftiest understanding to declare that the voice of God is seen; for it is seen by the gaze of the inner mind; but in the Gospel it is not a voice, but that which is more excellent than a voice, the Word, that is seen.

Whence also the holy Evangelist John says: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, and which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life: and the life appeared, and we have seen, and we bear witness, and we announce to you concerning the life which was with the Father, and appeared to us. You see, therefore, that the Word of God was both seen and heard by the apostles. For they saw the Lord not only according to the body, but also according to the Word; for they saw the Word, those who with Moses and Elijah saw the glory of the Word. For those saw Jesus who saw him in his own glory; others did not see, who were able to see only the body; for Jesus is seen not with bodily, but with spiritual eyes.

Finally, the Jews did not see him; because they did not see in spirit.

For Abraham saw; because it is written: Abraham saw my day, and rejoiced. Abraham therefore saw him, who certainly did not see the Lord in the body: but he who saw in spirit, saw in the body; but he who saw in the body, and did not see in spirit, did not even see in the body itself what he was seeing. Isaiah saw him; and because he saw in spirit, he saw also in body. For he says: He had no form of his own nor comeliness. The Jews did not see him; for their foolish heart was blinded. He himself also testifies that he could not be seen by the Jews, saying: Blind guides, straining out a gnat, but swallowing a camel. Pilate did not see him: those did not see him who cried out: Crucify, crucify him; for if they had seen, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty.

He therefore who saw God, saw Emmanuel, that is, saw God with us; but he who did not see God with us, could not see him whom the virgin bore. Finally, those who did not believe him to be the Son of God did not believe him to be the Son of the virgin either.

What then is it to see God?

I do not wish you to ask me; ask the Gospel, ask the Lord himself, indeed hear him teaching: Philip, he who sees me, sees also the Father who sent me. How do you say: Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? Certainly a body is not seen in a body, nor is a spirit seen in a spirit: but only that Father is seen in the Son, or that Son is seen in the Father. For unlike things are not seen in unlike things: but where there is unity of operation and power, both the Son is seen in the Father, and the Father is seen in the Son. The works, he says, which I do, he also does. In the works of the Father, Jesus is seen; in the works of the Son, the Father also is perceived.

He saw Jesus who saw that Galilean mystery, that is, who saw wine made from water; which no one could do, unless he were the Lord of the world converting the elements. I see Jesus, when I read that he anointed the eyes of a blind man with clay, and restored his sight. For I recognize him who formed man out of clay, and breathed into him the spirit of life, and the light of seeing. I see Jesus, when he forgives sins; for no one can forgive sins, except God alone. I see Jesus, when he raises Lazarus: and those who saw did not see. I see Jesus, I see also the Father, when I raise my eyes to heaven, turn them to the seas, turn them back to the earth: For his invisible things are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made.

As they delivered to us, who from the beginning saw, and were ministers of the Word.

There is a twofold virtue in the perfect man, that there be both intention and action. Both virtues, therefore, the holy Evangelist attributes to the apostles; for not only did they see, but he says they were also ministers of the Word. Intention is of vision; ministry is of action: but the end of intention is action; the beginning of action is intention. And to use the apostles' own example: it is intention, that Peter and Andrew, on hearing the Lord's voice saying: I will make you become fishers of men, left the oar without any delay and followed the Word. But action is not immediately present in intention: nor indeed is there yet action, but intention only, where Peter says: Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.

For there was intention of suffering, but not yet action; although in fasting there was already action, in vigils there was action, in contempt of bodily pleasures there was action; for this is the action of a Christian. For it is not in all things that intention and action are together: but while there is action in one respect, there is still only intention in another. For Peter himself, though he had already accomplished many things with apostolic courage in enduring, yet afterward, when the Lord said to him: Follow me, took up his cross and followed the Word, and underwent the action of suffering. But there had been in Peter, Andrew, John, and the other apostles an equality both of intention and of action.

But sometimes there is more in intention than in action, or more in action than in intention; as we perceive in the Gospel that there was a difference between holy Mary and Martha.

For the one was listening to the Word: the other was hastening about her service, and stood, and said: Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her, therefore, to help me. And the Lord said to her: Martha, Martha; Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her. Therefore in the one there abounded zeal of intention, in the other the ministry of action: yet in each there was present a zeal for both virtues. For indeed Martha, unless she had heard the Word, would not have undertaken the ministry, whose action is a sign of intention: and Mary brought back so much grace from the perfection of both virtues, that she anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped them with her hair, and filled the whole house with the fragrance of her faith.

There is also sometimes the greatest intention, but useless action; as if someone should apply his mind to medicine, and though he has learned all the precepts of healing, does not carry out the offices thereof: and so it happens that, because the action is useless, the intention also becomes useless. There is also, in some, sometimes a richer action, a poorer intention; as if someone should receive the sacraments of saving baptism, and be unwilling to apply his mind to learning the precepts of the various virtues, it usually happens that, through neglect of intention, he loses the fruit of action. Therefore the fullness of both virtues is to be sought, which the apostles were able to attain, of whom he says: Who from the beginning saw, and were ministers of the Word; so that by that which they saw, the intention of divine knowledge may be understood: by that which they were ministers, their action may be declared. It seemed good, he says, to me also.

It can also be that what seemed good to him was not seen by him alone. For it seemed good not only by human will: but as pleased him who, he says, speaks Christ in me; who, so that what is good may also seem good to us, works; for he shows mercy on whom he wills, and calls. And therefore he who follows Christ, when asked why he wished to be a Christian, can answer: It seemed good to me. When he says this, he does not deny that it seemed good to God also; for the will of men is prepared by God. For that God be honored by a saint is the grace of God. Finally, very many wished to write a Gospel: but only four, who deserved the divine grace, were received. It seemed good, he says, to me also, having followed all things diligently from the beginning, in order.

No one will doubt that this book of the Gospel is more prolix than the others.

Not for this reason, however, does it claim for itself things that are false, but things that are true. Finally, it also merited the testimony of diligence from the holy Apostle Paul. For thus he praises Luke: Whose praise, he says, is in the Gospel throughout all the Churches. And truly he is praiseworthy, who merited to be praised by so great a teacher of the Gentiles. He says, therefore, that he followed not a few things, but all things: and having followed all things, it seemed good to him to write not all things, but from all things. For he did not write all things, but he followed all things; because, he says, if all the things which Jesus did were written, I do not think the world itself could contain them.

You notice, indeed, that he deliberately passed over those things which had been written by others, so that a varied grace might shine forth in the Gospel, and each book might excel by its own particular miracles of mysteries and deeds. For the soldiers of Christ divided among themselves the garments of the Lord, which will be more fully explained in its proper place.

Now the Gospel was written to Theophilus, that is, to him whom God loves.

If you love God, it was written to you: if it was written to you, receive the gift of the Evangelist: keep the friend's pledge carefully in the inner chambers of your soul. Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us: examine it frequently, discuss it more often. Fidelity is first owed to a pledge: diligence follows fidelity; lest moth or rust consume the pledges committed to you. For that which is committed to you can be consumed: the Gospel cannot be consumed. The Gospel is a good pledge: but see lest either moth or rust consume it in your soul. Moth consumes it, if what you have well read, you wrongly believe.

The moth is the heretic; the moth is Photinus; your moth is Arius.

He tears the garment, who separates the Word from God. Photinus tears the garment, when he reads: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was. For the garment is whole, if you read: And the Word was God. He tears the garment who separates Christ from God. He tears the garment who reads: Now this is eternal life; that they may know you the only true God; unless he also knows Christ. For it is not only to know the Father as true God that is eternal life: but also to know Christ as true God, true from true, God from God, is life everlasting. It is a moth to know Christ without faith in his divinity, or without the sacrament of the body. Arius is a moth, Sabellius is a moth. The spirit of the wavering suffers these moths: the spirit that does not believe that the Father and the Son are one in divinity suffers these moths.

He tears what is written: I and the Father are one, who divides the one through separate substances. The spirit suffers this moth, which does not believe that Jesus Christ came in the flesh: and he himself is a moth: he is indeed antichrist. But those who are of God hold the faith; and therefore they cannot suffer the moth, which divides the garment. For everything that is divided against itself, like the kingdom of satan, cannot endure.

There is also a rust of the soul, when the keenness of religious intention is overspread by the desires of worldly hearts, or the purity of faith is discolored by the cloud of faithlessness. The rust of the mind is desire for household wealth: the rust of the mind is negligence: the rust of the mind is ambition for honors, if in these the whole hope of the present life is placed. And therefore, turned toward things divine, let us sharpen our understanding, let us exercise our affection; so that we may be able to keep that sword, which the Lord bids us buy by selling our garment, always ready and bright, as it were kept in the sheath of the mind. For spiritual and mighty weapons for God, for the destruction of strongholds, ought always to be at hand for the soldiers of Christ; lest, when the leader of the heavenly army comes, offended by the rust of our weapons, he cut us off from the fellowship of his legions. .

There was, he says, in the days of Herod king of Judæa, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame.

Divine Scripture teaches us that not only should the character of those who are to be praised be commended, but also their parents; so that, as it were, an inheritance of immaculate purity, handed down, may shine forth in those whom we wish to praise. For what other intent has the holy Evangelist in this passage, except that holy John the Baptist should be ennobled by parents, miracles, character, office, and passion? So too holy Samuel's mother Anna is praised: so Isaac received nobility of piety from his parents, which he left to his descendants. Zacharias, then, was a priest, and not only a priest, but also of the course of Abia, that is, noble among the higher families.

And his wife, he says, was of the daughters of Aaron.

Not only, then, from parents, but also from ancestors, is the nobility of holy John propagated; a nobility sublime not by worldly power, but venerable by the succession of religion. For such ancestors ought the herald of Christ to have; so that the faith of the Lord's coming might be seen to be proclaimed not as suddenly conceived, but as received from ancestors, and infused into him by the very right of nature.

They were, he says, both righteous, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame.

What have those to say to this who, preferring consolations for their own sins, think that man cannot be without frequent sins, and use this little

since it is written in Job: No one is clean from filth, not even if his life be but one day upon the earth, and the number of his months be from that same day? To whom it must be answered, first, that they should define what it is to be without sin: whether never to have sinned at all, or to have ceased to sin? For if they think this is to be without sin, namely, to have ceased sinning, then I too agree with them; for all have sinned, and lack the glory of God.

But if they deny that one who has corrected his former error, and has so transformed himself into that quality of life as to refrain from sin, can abstain from wrongdoing, I cannot agree with their opinion; since we read: Because the Lord so loved the Church that He might present her to Himself glorious, and not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. For since the Church is gathered from the Gentiles, that is, from sinners, how can she be without blemish out of those who are blemished, unless first, by God's grace, she has been washed from sin; and then, through a quality of not sinning, abstains from wrongdoing? Thus she is not immaculate from the beginning—for this is impossible to human nature—but by God's grace, and by her own quality, because she now sins no more, she is made to appear immaculate.

Nor was it without purpose that he called them righteous before God, walking in the commandments and justifications of the Lord: in which he comprehends both the Almighty Father and the Son. That it is the Son who gave the Law, who prescribed the commandments, holy Luke the Evangelist also declares. And rightly, righteous before God; for not everyone who is righteous before men is righteous before God. Men see one way, God another; men in the face, God in the heart. And so it can happen that someone, by an affected popular goodness, may seem righteous to me; but may not be righteous before God, if righteousness is not formed from simplicity of mind, but is feigned by flattery; for man will not be able to detect what is hidden in it. Perfect praise, therefore, is to be righteous before God. Whence also the Apostle says: Whose praise is not of men, but of God. Blessed indeed is he who is righteous in the sight of God.

Blessed is he of whom the Lord deigns to say: Behold indeed an Israelite, in whom is no guile; for he is a true Israelite who sees God, and knows himself to be seen by God, and shows to Him the secrets of his heart. For he alone is more perfect who is approved by Him who cannot be deceived: for the judgments of the Lord are true; but the judgments of men are often deceived, so that they frequently attribute the grace of righteousness to the unrighteous, and either persecute the righteous with hatred, or defame him with lies. But the Lord knows the ways of the blameless; He does not count the sinner praiseworthy, nor the praiseworthy a sinner, but judges each according to the reckoning of fitting merits; for He is the same judge of mind and of deed. For divine judgments measure the merit of the righteous by the disposition of the mind, not by any outcome of deeds.

For often either a good mind is disfigured by the reprehensible outcome of a deed, or a wicked thought is veiled by the fair appearance of some deed. But even what you have done well, if you have thought it ill, cannot be approved by divine judgment. For it is written: That which is just, you shall pursue justly. For unless it were possible to do what is just unjustly, it would never have been said: That which is just, you shall pursue justly. And certainly the Savior Himself taught us that a just thing can be done unjustly, saying: When you do alms, do not sound a trumpet before you. And, When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites. Mercy is good, prayer is good; but it can be done unjustly, if someone gives to the poor for the sake of boasting, that he may be seen by men.

Whence the holy Evangelist says not only that they were righteous before God, and walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord, but also that they walked without blame. Which wonderfully agrees with the prophetic saying which holy Solomon used in Proverbs, saying: Provide good things always in the sight of God and men. There is no blame, then, where the goodness of mind and of deed agree together. And very often a more rigorous righteousness stirs up the complaint of men.

But observe carefully how fittingly the very distinction of the words agrees, and how the order suits.

Walking, he says, in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord. For the commandment is first, the justification second. Thus, when we obey the heavenly commandments, we walk in the Lord's commandments; when we judge, and judge rightly, we seem to hold to the Lord's justifications.

Full praise, therefore, is that which comprehends lineage, character, office, deed, and judgment.

Lineage in the ancestors, character in equity, office in the priesthood, deed in the commandment, judgment in the justification. And it came to pass, that while Zacharias executed the priest's office in the order of his course before the Lord God, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot was to burn incense, going into the temple of the Lord: and the whole multitude of the people was praying without at the hour of incense.

Here holy Zacharias seems to be designated as the high priest; because, as we read of the former tabernacle, into which the priests entered continually, accomplishing the ministries, not at one time of the year only did they enter into the temple: but into the second, only once a year, the single high priest entered, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins of the people. This is that high priest who is even yet sought by lot; because the true one is not yet known: for whoever is chosen by lot is not comprehended by human judgment. That one, then, was being sought, and another was being prefigured. That true and eternal priest was being sought, to whom it is said: Thou art a priest for ever: who should reconcile God the Father to the human race, not by the blood of victims, but by His own blood.

But then blood was shed in figure, and in figure the priest was ordained: now, since the truth has come, let us leave the figure, let us follow the truth. And then indeed there were courses, but now there is perpetuity. There was, then, one whose courses were indeed being borne.

By lot, then, was the priest chosen to enter into the temple.

If, then, in the type no witness could be produced, what else was signified, but that the priest who was to come would be one whose sacrifice would not be common with the rest: who indeed would not sacrifice for us in temples made with hands, but would empty out our sins in the temple of his own body. By lot, then, was the priest sought. Perhaps for this reason also the soldiers cast lots for the Lord's garments, so that, since the Lord was preparing to offer, in His own temple, sacrifice for us, the casting of lots concerning Him also should fulfill the precept of the Law. For which reason He says: I came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it. Certainly, that He might be the one who both was awaited in the Old Testament, and seemed to be chosen by the command of God.

Finally, upon the apostle Matthias also the lot fell, lest the election of the apostle should seem to differ from the command of the old law. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

Not without reason does an angel appear in the temple

because the coming of the true Priest was now being announced, and the heavenly sacrifice was being prepared, in which angels minister. And it is rightly said to have appeared to him, who suddenly beheld it. And this divine Scripture is accustomed to hold particularly either of angels or of God; that what cannot be foreseen is said to appear; for thus you have it: God appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mambre. For he who is not perceived beforehand, but is seen by a sudden view, is said to have appeared. For sensible things are not seen in the same way as He in whose will it lies to be seen, and whose nature it is not to be seen except by His will to be seen. For if He does not will it, He is not seen; if He wills it, He is seen. For God appeared to Abraham, because He willed it: to another, because He willed it not, He did not appear.

It was seen also by Stephen, when he was being stoned by the people, that heaven was opened: Jesus also was seen standing at the right hand of God; and He was not seen by the people. Isaiah saw the Lord of Sabaoth, but another could not see Him; because He appeared to whom it pleased Him.

And why do we speak of men, when even of the heavenly virtues and powers themselves we have read that no one has ever seen God? And he added, what is beyond the heavenly powers: The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

Either, then, it must be admitted, if no one has ever seen God the Father, that the Son was seen in the Old Testament—and let the heretics cease to give Him a beginning from the Virgin, since He was seen before He was born of the Virgin: or else it cannot be denied that either the Father, or the Son, or indeed the Holy Spirit—if indeed there is a vision of the Holy Spirit (Aug. Loc. Cit.)—is seen in that form which the will has chosen, not which nature has shaped; since we have also received that the Spirit was seen in the form of a dove. And therefore no one has ever seen God; because no one has beheld that fulness of divinity which dwells in God, no one has comprehended it with mind or with eyes. For "has seen" must be referred to both.

Finally, when it is added: The only-begotten Son Himself has declared Him, a vision of minds rather than of eyes is declared; for form is seen, but power is declared: the one is comprehended by the eyes, the other by the mind.

But what shall I say of the Trinity?

The Seraphim, when he willed, appeared, and his voice Isaiah alone heard. An angel appeared, and now he is present, but is not seen; nor is it in our power to see, but in his power to appear. Yet, even if the power of seeing is not ours, there is the grace of meriting that we may be able to see. And therefore he who had the grace, merited the fulness: we do not merit the fulness, because we do not have the grace of seeing God.

And what wonder is it if in this present age the Lord is not seen, except when he wills?

Even in the resurrection itself it is not easy to see God, except for those who are clean of heart. And therefore he says: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. How many blessed ones had he already numbered, and yet he had not promised them the faculty of seeing God! If then those who are clean of heart shall see God, certainly others shall not see him. For neither shall the unworthy see God, nor can he who has not wished to see God, see God. Nor is God seen in a place, but by a heart that is clean: nor is God sought with bodily eyes, nor circumscribed by sight, nor held by touch, nor heard by speech, nor perceived by approach. And when he is thought absent, he is seen: and when he is present, he is not seen.

Finally, not even all the apostles saw Christ; and therefore he says: For so long a time I have been with you, and yet you have not known me!

For he who has known what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and the surpassing knowledge of the charity of Christ, has seen Christ, has seen also the Father. For we now know Christ no longer according to the flesh, but according to the spirit; for Christ the Lord is the spirit before our face, who may deign by his mercy to fill us with all the fullness of God, that he may be able to be seen by us. Therefore the angel appeared to Zacharias on the right side of the altar of incense, because he appeared when he willed, and did not appear as long as he did not will.

Now he appeared on the right side of the altar of incense

because he was bringing a token of divine mercy: for the Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved. And elsewhere: The Lord is your protection upon your right hand. And would that when we too are burning altars, offering sacrifice, an angel might stand by, nay might present himself to be seen. For do not doubt that an angel stands by, when Christ stands by, when Christ is immolated. For indeed Christ our passover is sacrificed. And do not fear that your heart be troubled at the sight of an angel (for we are troubled, and estranged from our own feeling, when we are dazzled by the encounter of some higher power), for the same angel who has met us will be able to strengthen us, just as he before strengthened the troubled soul of Zacharias, saying:

Fear not, Zacharias, for behold, your prayer has been heard: and your wife Elizabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John: and he shall be a joy to you: and many shall rejoice at his birth.

The divine benefits are always full, and overflowing: not restricted to a small number, but heaped up in a rich accumulation of good things; so that here first is the fruit of prayer, then the sterile wife's childbearing, then the joy of many, and the greatness of virtue. The prophet of the Most High also is promised: nay more, lest there be any doubt, even the name of the one to come is designated. Since therefore such things flow beyond what was hoped for, not undeservedly is silence the penalty for distrust: which we shall explain further on. Now the joy at the birth and generation of saints is a solemn one; for a saint is not only a grace to his parents, but also the salvation of many. Whence we are admonished in this passage to rejoice at the generation of saints.

Parents also are admonished to give thanks no less for the birth than for the merits of their children; for it is no small gift of God to give children as propagators of one's line, heirs of succession. Read that Jacob rejoiced in the generation of twelve sons. To Abraham a son is given. Zacharias is heard. Therefore fecundity is a divine gift of a parent. Let fathers then give thanks, because they have begotten: children, because they have been begotten: mothers, because they are honored with the rewards of marriage; for children are the pay of their military service. Let the earth flourish in praise of God, because it is cultivated: the world, because it is known: the Church, because it is increased by the number of a devoted people. Nor is it without purpose that at the very beginning Genesis immediately, by God's command, joins marriage together, except so that heresy might be destroyed.

For thus did God approve marriage, that he might join it: thus did he reward it, that to whom sterility had denied children, divine piety might grant them.

he shall be great before the Lord.

Here he declared the greatness not of the body, but of the soul. There is a greatness of soul before the Lord, a greatness of virtue: there is also a smallness of soul, and a childhood of virtue. For we reckon the ages of soul and body not according to the measure of time, but according to the quality of virtue; so that he is called a perfect man who is free of the error of childhood, and does not feel the slipperiness of youth by reason of maturity of mind: but he is called small, who seems as yet to have made no progress in virtue. Whence that saying in Jeremiah, when the Lord had pity on Ephraim weeping and confessing his own sins: From my youth, he says, has my beloved son Ephraim been dear to me, a child in delights. For if he had not been a child in delights, he would never have sinned.

And rightly did he say both, "in delights" and "child"; for he is a child who does not sin: Behold my child, whom I have chosen. Through delights, therefore, he sinned, who had been so formed by the Lord that he was ignorant of error. Therefore even if he had not been a child in delights, and had he advanced by age into a perfect man of virtue, he would never have fallen; so that it would not have been necessary for him to ask pardon for his sins, when rather he ought to have hoped for the rewards of merits. What also does our Lord seem to express in the Gospel, when he says: Do not despise one of these little ones. But let more be reserved for its proper place. Therefore the small is contrary to the great. And if, according to the Apostle, the little one is under the elements: For when we were little ones, we were under the elements of this world: therefore the great one is above the elements of the world.

John therefore shall be great not by strength of body, but by greatness of soul.

Finally, he did not extend the borders of any empire, he did not prefer any triumphs of martial contest with the crowns of victory: but, what is more, preaching in the desert, he suppressed with great strength of soul the delights of men and the wantonness of the body. A little one therefore in the world, great in spirit. Finally, as one who is great, and not caught by the allurements of life, he did not change the constancy of his judgment for the desire of living.

with the Holy Spirit, he says, he shall be filled even from his mother's womb.

There is no doubt that this is a true promise of the angel; since indeed holy John, before he was born, while still placed in his mother's womb, showed the grace of the Spirit he had received. For since neither his father nor his mother had before wrought any wonders, leaping in the womb of his parent, he announced to his parent the coming of the Lord; for thus you have it, that when the mother of the Lord had come to Elizabeth, she said: Behold, as soon as the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the infant leaped in my womb (below). For as yet he had not the spirit of life, but the spirit of grace. Finally, elsewhere too we have been able to notice that the grace of sanctifying precedes the substance of living, when the Lord says: Before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you, and I appointed you a prophet among the nations.

For one thing is the spirit of this life, another is that of grace: the former takes its beginning by being born, its failing by dying: the latter is not restricted by times, not by ages, is not extinguished by death, is not shut out by the mother's womb. Finally, holy Mary too, full of the Holy Spirit, prophesied (below): and Elisha, though dead, raised a dead man's corpse by the touch of his own body: and Samuel after death, according to the testimony of Scripture, did not keep silent about things to come.

And with the Holy Spirit, he says, he shall be filled.

For to him whom the Spirit of grace assists, nothing is lacking. And to him upon whom the Holy Spirit is poured, there is a fullness of great virtues. Finally

Many, he says, of the children of Israel he shall turn to the Lord their God.

We do not need testimony that holy John converted the hearts of many, in which both the prophetic and evangelical Scriptures support us.

For the voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths: and the baptisms frequented by the peoples declare that no small advances of conversion were made among the people; because in believing John, one believes Christ. For the herald of Christ preached not of himself, but of the Lord. And therefore

He shall go before in the sight of the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah.

Well are these joined together; for never is there virtue without spirit, nor spirit without virtue.

And therefore perhaps "in the spirit and power of Elijah"; because holy Elijah had both great virtue and grace: virtue, that he might turn back the minds of the peoples from faithlessness to faith: the virtue of abstinence and of patience, and the spirit of prophesying.

Elijah was in the desert, John was in the desert: the one was fed by ravens, this one by brambles; and, having trampled every allurement of pleasure, he preferred frugality, and despised luxury: the one did not seek the favor of King Ahab, this one spurned that of Herod: the one divided the Jordan, this one turned it to the saving washing: this one dwells with the Lord on earth, that one appears with the Lord in glory: this one is the forerunner of the former, that one of the latter coming of the Lord: the one after three years watered with rains the drying earth, and this one after three years poured over the ground of our body the rain of faith. Do you ask what that three years is? Behold, he says, it is three years since I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I do not find it; for a mystical number was owed, so that salvation might be restored to the peoples.

One year in the Patriarchs: finally, of men there was then such an abundance of years as there was not afterward upon the earth.

Another in Moses and the rest of the prophets. A third in the coming of the Lord Savior: Behold, he says, the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of retribution. And that householder who planted the vineyard sent collectors of the fruits not once, but many times: first he sent little servants, second other little servants, third he sent his own Son.

John therefore came in the spirit and power of Elijah; for the one cannot exist without the other, as is also found in what follows, when it is said: The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you (below). But perhaps this example may seem above us, and above the apostles. For indeed under Elijah too, the stream dividing, the returning flow of the river's waves into the source of the river, as Scripture says: The Jordan was turned back signifies the future mysteries of the saving washing, through which those who have been baptized as little children are reformed from malice back into the beginnings of their nature. What of the fact that the Lord himself also promised that the power of the Spirit was to be given to his apostles, saying: You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Then in what follows: There came, he says, suddenly a sound from heaven, as if the Spirit were borne along with great force.

Rightly "with great force," because by the Spirit of his mouth is all their strength.

And that is the power which the apostles received from the Holy Spirit.

Well also does holy John go before the face of the Lord, who was born a herald, and died a herald.

And perhaps this mystery is celebrated even today in this life of ours. For a certain power of John runs before our soul, when we prepare to believe in Christ; that it may prepare the ways of our soul for faith, and from the crooked path of this life may make straight the paths of our journey, lest we slip in the winding of error; so that every valley of our soul may be able to be filled with the fruits of virtue, and every height of worldly merits may prostrate itself before the Lord in more humble fear, knowing that nothing can be lofty which is fragile.

Zacharias said to the angel: How shall I know this?

For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days.

And the angel answered him, saying: I am Gabriel, who stand before God, and I have been sent to announce these things to you.

And behold, you shall be silent, and unable to speak until the day when these things come to pass; because you have not believed my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time.

The unbelief of the priest is condemned by silence, and the faith of the prophets is approved by oracle.

Cry out, he says. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass. You see the command of the one bidding, the compliance of the one obeying, the affection of the one asking, the oracle of the one complying. For he believed, who asked what he should cry: and because he believed, he prophesied. But Zacharias, who did not believe, could not speak: but

He kept making signs to them, and remained mute.

It is not the mystery of one man, nor the silence of one man. The priest is silent, the prophet is silent. Unless I am mistaken, in one man the voice of the whole people fell mute: because in one man, through Moses, the whole people used to speak to the Lord. The cessation of the sacred rites, and the silence of the prophets, is the muteness of the prophet, and the muteness of the priest. I will take away, he says, the mighty power, the prophet, and the counsellor. And truly he took away the prophets, from whom he took away the word which he was accustomed to speak in the prophets. And truly he took away power from these, from whom the power of God withdrew. He took away from these the counsellor, whom he declared the Angel of great counsel. He took away the voice; for the voice belongs to the Word, not the Word to the voice. For unless that Word works in us, there is no sound of voice at all.

John is a voice; for he is the voice of one crying in the desert: Christ is the Word, this Word works; and therefore when it ceased to work, suddenly mute, deprived of spirit, as it were a certain tongue of the soul, it fell silent. For the Word of God passed over to us, and in us it does not keep silent. Finally, now the Jew cannot say what the Christian can say: because you seek proof of him who speaks in me, Christ.

And he was making signs to them.

Zacharias therefore remained mute, and he was making signs to them. What is a nod, but a certain bodily act without a word, striving to indicate, yet not expressing the will: a certain, with a supreme death, voice suppressed, mute speech of the dying? Does it not seem to you that the people of the Jews are similar to this, so devoid of reason that they cannot render a reason for their own acts: who, set at the last passing of their vital hope, have lost the voice they had; who desire, by the act of a faltering body, to unfold a sign of the word, not the word itself? The people therefore are mute, without reason, without word. For why should he seem to you more mute who does not know the sound than he who does not know the mystery? And there is indeed a voice of works, and a cry of faith, as it is read: The blood of your brother cries out to me.

And he cries out, who cries out in his heart throughout the day.

He therefore who has lost the cry of the heart, has lost also that of the tongue. For he who does not hold the distinction of faith, how can he hold that of words? And indeed before, Moses had said that he could not speak: but after he spoke, he received the word, and gave forth the splendor of good works. Therefore just as Moses was a type of the people, and a type of the Law, so also Zacharias was silent.

So it must be considered how each thing comes together.

The Word is in the womb. The Law is in silence, John is named, and Zacharias speaks. The Word is brought forth, the Law is completed, but the completion of the Law is the unfolding of the Word: And therefore he who has spoken the word, speaks, even if before he had not spoken. By an angel Zacharias is ordered to be silent, by an angel the voice of the Jews is suppressed. For this is not the command of human, but of divine power; that he should not speak to God, who has not believed Christ. And therefore let us believe, that we may speak. Let the Jew believe, that he may be able to speak. Let us speak the mysteries in spirit, let us understand the reason of the ancient sacrifices, the enigmas of the prophets. Mute is he who does not understand the Law, mute is he who does not understand the sequence of the divine Scriptures.

For our voice is faith; and therefore I would rather speak five words in the Church with my mind, that I may instruct others, than ten thousand in a tongue; for tongues are for a sign not to believers, but to unbelievers: but prophecy is not for unbelievers, but for believers. But after these days Elizabeth his wife conceived, and hid herself for five months, saying: Thus has the Lord done to me in the days when he looked upon me to take away my reproach among men.

Great is the care of the saints for modesty, so that most often shame is present even in their vows; as we notice in this passage concerning holy Elizabeth, who indeed desired to have children, hiding herself for five months. What was the cause of her hiding, if not modesty? For there is an age prescribed for each function: and what is fitting at one time, is not fitting at another; and the change of age often changes the nature of each deed.

There are also certain times prescribed for marriage itself, when it is fitting to attend to children: while the years are vigorous, while there is hope of undertaking children; while the practice of generation exists as an example, the practice of union too is a matter of zeal: but truly when the ripe old age of life has come on, and the age is more suited to raising children than to creating them, it is shameful to bear the marks of lawful intercourse, even though lawful, and to be burdened with the weight of an age not one's own, and to swell the womb not with the fruit of one's proper time. For old people are restrained by their very age itself, and are called back by a just shame of intemperance from performing the works of marriage. Young people themselves, for the most part, put forward the desire for children as a pretext, and think that the heat of their age is to be excused by the affection of generation.

How much more shameful is it for old people to do what young people are ashamed to confess?

Indeed even young people themselves, who temper sober hearts with divine fear, having for the most part received offspring, renounce the works of youth.

And what wonder is it concerning men, if even beasts speak, by a certain mute work, that it is the zeal for generating

that is theirs, not the desire of coupling? Since, when they have once felt their womb heavy and the seed received in the field of generation, they no longer indulge in coupling, nor take up the wantonness of a lover, but the care of a parent. But truly men spare neither those conceived, nor God: they defile the former, they exasperate the latter. Before I formed you, he says, in the womb, I knew you: and in your mother's womb I sanctified you. To restrain your wantonness, you perceive certain hands of your Maker forming a man in the womb. He works, and do you defile with lust the secret of the sacred womb? Either imitate the beast, or fear God. And why do I speak of beasts?

The earth itself often rests from the work of generation: and if it is occupied by the impatient zeal of men, seeds being frequently cast, it punishes the shamelessness of the farmer, and exchanges fecundity for sterility. Thus it is a shame of nature that certain elements themselves, and beasts, do not cease from the practice of generating.

Rightly, therefore, even holy Elizabeth blushed at the grace, though she did not acknowledge guilt.

For although she had conceived of her husband (for it is not right to believe otherwise concerning the origin of a human being), yet she blushed at the age of her offspring. And again she rejoiced that she was without reproach; for it is a shame for women not to have the rewards of marriage, for whom this alone is the cause of marrying. This reproach, therefore, she consoles herself, taken away by her own modesty, by that modesty, as I have said, by which she was ashamed on account of her age (32, q. 2, c. Pudor). Whence it can be understood that they no longer came together in conjugal intercourse; for she who would not have blushed at intercourse in old age would not have blushed at childbirth; and yet she blushes at the burden of parenthood, so long as she does not know the mystery of the religion.

She who was hiding herself, because she had conceived a son, began to boast because she was bearing a prophet. And she who blushed before, blesses: and she who doubted before, is confirmed. For behold, she says, as the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the infant leapt for joy in my womb (below). And so she cried out with a great voice, when she felt the coming of the Lord; because she believed the childbearing to be a religious one. For there was no cause of shame, where the birth of a prophet, given rather than sought, claimed for itself the credit of a generation.

so that she might be both betrothed and a virgin: a virgin, so that she might appear free of intercourse with a man: betrothed, lest the infamy of a violated virginity should be kindled, since a heavy womb might seem to bear the mark of corruption. But the Lord preferred that some should be in doubt about his own origin rather than about his mother's modesty; for he knew the tender modesty of a virgin, and how slippery is the reputation of chastity: nor did he think that the credit of his own origin should be built up at the cost of injuries to his mother. Thus the virginity of holy Mary is preserved as it is intact in modesty, so also inviolable in reputation; for it is fitting that the saints should have testimony also from those who are outside; nor was it fitting that, for virgins living under a sinister opinion, a veil of excuse should be left, in that even the mother of the Lord might seem to have been defamed.

But what could be ascribed to the Jews, what to Herod, if they seemed to have persecuted one born of adultery?

How, moreover, could he himself say: I have not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it, if he seemed to have begun with an injury to the Law, since the childbirth of an unwed woman is condemned by the Law? Moreover, a richer witness of modesty is provided in the husband, who could both grieve at the injury, and avenge the reproach, if he had not recognized the sacrament. What of the fact also that Mary's own words are received with greater credibility, and any occasion of falsehood is removed? For an unwed woman who was pregnant might seem to have wished to cover a fault with a lie. But she who was not betrothed had reason to lie, she who was betrothed did not; since the offspring of women is the reward of marriage and the grace of a wedding.

Nor is it a slight reason that Mary's virginity should deceive the prince of this world: who, when he saw her betrothed to a husband, could not have the childbirth in suspicion. That it was the design to deceive the prince of the world, the very words of the Lord declare, when the apostles are ordered to be silent about Christ, when those healed are forbidden to boast of the remedy, when demons are commanded to be silent about the Son of God. That it was, as I have said, the design to deceive the prince of the world, the Apostle also declared, saying: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, hidden, which none of the princes of this age has known. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty, that is, they would never have brought it about that I be redeemed by the death of the Lord.

He deceived, therefore, for us, he deceived that he might conquer, he deceived the devil when he was tempted, when he was questioned, when he was called the Son of God, so that he might nowhere confess his own divinity. But yet he more deceived the prince of the age; for the devil, although at one time he doubted, when he said: If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down; yet at last he knew, and departed from him. Even the demons knew, who said: We know who you are, Jesus, Son of God. Why have you come before the time to torment us? And so they knew that he had come, because they had foreknown that he was to come. But that the princes of the age did not know, by what greater document can we prove than by that Apostolic sentence: For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty?

For the malice of demons easily perceives even hidden things: but truly those who are occupied by worldly vanities cannot know divine things.

Well have the Evangelists divided the matter between themselves, so that holy Matthew introduces Joseph being warned by an angel to take Mary as his wife: Luke, that Evangelist there, bears testimony that they had not come together: here Mary herself confesses this, when she says to the angel: How shall this be, since I have not known a man? And holy Luke himself declared her a virgin, saying: And the name of the Virgin was Mary. And the prophet taught, who said: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb. And Joseph indicated it, who, since he saw her pregnant whom he had not known, wished to send her away. And the Lord himself, set upon the cross, made it manifest, when he said to his mother: Woman, behold your son. Then to the disciple: Behold your mother. Both bore witness, the disciple and the mother, because from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Surely, if they had come together, she would never have left her own husband, nor would her just husband have suffered her to depart from him. How, moreover, could the Lord have prescribed divorce, since it is his own sentence, that no one ought to put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication?

Beautifully, moreover (27, quaest.

2, c. Quod autem, Item si conjuges), holy Matthew taught what the just man ought to do who has detected the shame of his spouse, so that he ought to keep himself unstained by murder, chaste from adultery: For he who is joined to a harlot is one body. Therefore everywhere in Joseph the grace and the person of the just man is preserved, so that he might be adorned as a witness; for the mouth of the just man knows no lie, and his tongue speaks judgment, his judgment speaks truth. Nor let it move you that Scripture frequently calls her spouse; for it is not the taking away of virginity, but the testimony of marriage, the celebration of a wedding that is declared. Finally, no one puts away her whom he has not received; and therefore he who wished to put her away, was confessing that he had received her.

At the same time, that which the Evangelist says should not disturb us: He knew her not, until she brought forth her son; for this is a peculiarity of Scripture, as you have elsewhere: And until you grow old, I am he. Did God then cease to be after their old age? And in the Psalm: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool. Will he not sit afterward? Or rather, since he who pleads a case thinks it enough to state what belongs to the case, he does not seek what is superfluous; for it suffices for him to establish the case he has undertaken, and to defer what is incidental. And therefore he who had undertaken to prove the uncorrupted mystery of the Incarnation did not think it needful to pursue more fully the testimony of Mary's virginity, lest he should be thought rather a defender of the Virgin than an asserter of the mystery.

Certainly, when he instructed Joseph, a just man, he sufficiently declared that the temple of the Holy Spirit, the womb of the mystery, the mother of the Lord, could not be violated.

We have learned the sequence of truth, we have learned the plan: let us also learn the mystery.

Well is she betrothed, yet a virgin; because she is the type of the Church, which is immaculate, yet married. A virgin conceives us of the Spirit, a virgin brings us forth without groaning. And therefore perhaps holy Mary was married to one, and filled by another; because the individual churches too are indeed filled with the Spirit and grace, yet are joined for the sake of the temporal form to a priest.

the angel, coming in to her, said: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women.

But she, when she saw him, was troubled at his coming in.

Learn a virgin from her manners, learn a virgin from her modesty, learn a virgin from the oracle, learn from the mystery.

It belongs to virgins to tremble, and to fear at every entrance of a man, to be in awe at every address of a man. Let women learn to imitate the disposition of modesty. Alone within her chamber, whom no man might see, only an angel found her: alone without companion, alone without witness; lest she be corrupted by some unworthy address, she is greeted by an angel. Learn, O virgin, to avoid wantonness of words: even Mary was in awe at the angel's greeting.

Yet, it says, she was pondering what manner of greeting this might be.

And therefore with modesty; because she was afraid: with prudence; because she marveled at the new formula of blessing, which was nowhere read, nowhere before found. This greeting was reserved for Mary alone. Well indeed is she alone called full of grace, who alone obtained the grace which no other had merited, that she should be filled with the author of grace. Mary blushed, therefore, and Elizabeth also blushed; and so let us recognize the difference between the modesty of a woman and that of a virgin. The one blushed for a cause, the other out of modesty: in a woman the measure of modesty is applied, in a virgin the grace of modesty is increased.

the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for you have found grace with God, and behold, you shall conceive in your womb, and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great.

It was indeed said also of John by the angel that he would be great: but he as a great man, this one however as a great God; for great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and of his greatness there is no end. And truly he is great; for among those born of women no prophet is greater than John the Baptist. Yet he has one who is greater; for he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. John indeed is great; but great before the Lord. And John drank neither wine nor strong drink, but this one eats and drinks with publicans and sinners. Let the one gather merit by abstinence, to whom no power over nature was granted: but Christ, to whom it was naturally given to forgive sins, why should he shun those whom he could make better than the abstinent?

At the same time, in a mystical sense, he does not disdain the banquet of those to whom he is about to give the sacrament.

This one eats, therefore, that one fasts: the type of both peoples is here—one fasts, the other is fed. But Christ also fasted, lest you should decline the precept: he ate with sinners, that you might discern grace, that you might recognize power. Great, therefore, is John also; but his greatness has a beginning, has an end: but the Lord Jesus is himself both end and beginning, himself the first and the last. Nothing before the first, nothing beyond the last.

Nor let the custom of human generation draw you into error, so that you think he is not first, because he is a son.

Follow the Scriptures, that you may not be able to err. The Son is called first. It has also been read that the Father alone, who alone has immortality, and dwells in unapproachable light; as you have read: To the immortal, invisible, only God: but he is neither first before the Father, nor alone without the Son. If you deny the one, you affirm the other; follow both, and you confirm both. He did not say: I am prior, and I am posterior, but: I am the first, and I am the last. The Son is first, and therefore co-eternal; for he has the Father, with whom he is eternal. I dare to say it. The Son is first, but he is not alone: and I say this well, and I say it religiously. Why do you prick up your ears to impiety, O heretics? You have fallen into the snares which you set.

The Son is first, and he is not alone: first

because he is always with the Father: he is not alone, because he is never without the Father. I do not say this, but he himself said it: And I am not alone, because the Father is with me. The Father alone, because one God: the Father alone, because the divinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one alone: and what is one is alone. The Father alone, the Only-begotten alone, the Holy Spirit also alone; for he who is the Son is not the Father: nor he who is the Father, the Son: nor he who is the Holy Spirit, the Son. Other is the Father, other the Son, other the Holy Spirit; for we read: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete. The Father alone, because one God, from whom are all things: the Son alone, because one Lord, through whom are all things.

The divinity alone makes this so; generation testifies both to the Father and to the Son; so that nowhere does the Son appear without the Father, nor does the Father seem to be without the Son. Therefore he is not alone, because he is not alone immortal: nor does he alone dwell in unapproachable light; because no one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, who sits at the right hand of the Father. And hence some dare to say that the unapproachable light is that which the Father inhabits. Is the light then better than the Father? But what light is unapproachable to him, to whom the Father is not unapproachable? And he himself is the true light, and the begetter of the eternal light, of whom it is said: That was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world. See that that unapproachable light which the Father inhabits, the Son also inhabits; because the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father.

Well, then, is he great; for widely is the power of God poured out, widely is the greatness of the heavenly substance extended.

The Trinity has nothing prescribed, nothing circumscribed, nothing measured, nothing bounded. It is not enclosed by place, not comprehended by opinion, not concluded by estimation, not varied by age. The Lord Jesus indeed gave to men greatness: Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world; yet not unto the ends of the world, not unto the ends of heaven, not beyond the heavens. But in the Lord Jesus all things are established, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible; and he himself is before all things, and all things hold together in him. Behold the heaven, Jesus is there: look at the earth, Jesus is present: ascend in thought to heaven, descend in thought to hell, Jesus is present. For indeed if you ascend into heaven, Jesus is there: if you descend into hell, he is present.

Today, while I speak, he is with me, within this very point, within this very moment.

And if a Christian speaks now in Armenia, Jesus is present: for no one calls Jesus Lord except in the Holy Spirit. If you should penetrate the depths in thought, there too you will see Jesus at work; for it is written: Say not in your heart: Who shall ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down: or who shall descend into the abyss? That is, to bring Christ back from the dead. Where, then, is he not, who has filled the heavenly, the infernal, and the earthly regions? Well, then, is he great, whose power has filled the world, who is everywhere, and shall be forever; because of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Mary said to the angel: How shall this be, since I do not know a man?

Mary seems here not to have believed, unless you attend carefully; for it is not fitting that she who was chosen to bear the only-begotten Son of God should appear unbelieving. But how could it be (though saving the mother's prerogative, to whom indeed more was surely to be granted: but as her prerogative was greater, so a greater faith too ought to have been reserved for her)—how, then, could it be that Zechariah, who had not believed, was condemned by silence, while Mary, if she had not believed, should be exalted by the infusion of the Holy Spirit? But Mary ought neither to disbelieve nor so rashly to presume: to disbelieve the angel, to presume upon divine things. For it was not easy to know a mystery hidden from the ages in God, which even the higher Powers could not know. And yet she neither refused faith nor rejected the office: but she offered her affection, she pledged obedience. For indeed when she says: How shall this be?

She did not doubt the effect, but inquired the manner of that effect.

How much more measured is this response than the words of the priest!

She says: How shall this be? He answered: Whereby shall I know this (above, v. 18)? She already deals with the matter itself: he still doubts the messenger. He denies that he believes, who denies that he knows; and as it were still seeks another author for his faith: she professes that she herself will do it, and does not doubt that it must be done, only inquiring how it can be done; for thus you have it: How shall this be, since I do not know a man? An incredible and unheard-of generation ought first to be heard, that it might be believed. That a virgin should bring forth is the sign of a divine mystery, not a human one. Finally, it says: Take to yourself a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son.

Mary had read this, and so she believed it would come to pass: but how it would come to pass she had not read before; for not even to so great a prophet had it been revealed in what manner it would happen. For the mystery of so great a command was not to be uttered by the mouth of a man, but of an angel. Today it is heard for the first time: The Holy Spirit shall come upon you. And it is both heard and believed. Finally:

Behold, she says, the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word.

Behold her humility, behold her devotion.

She calls herself the handmaid of the Lord, she who is chosen as mother: nor was she exalted by the sudden promise. At the same time, by calling herself a handmaid, she claimed for herself no prerogative of so great a grace, but was ready to do what was commanded. For she who was to bring forth one meek and humble ought also herself to show forth humility. Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word. You have obedience, you see the vow. For "behold the handmaid of the Lord" is the readiness of duty: "be it done to me according to your word" is the conception of the vow.

How quickly, then, did Mary believe even concerning an unequal conception!

For what is so unequal as the Holy Spirit and a body? What so unheard of, as a virgin pregnant against law, against custom, against modesty, of which a virgin's care is dearest? But Zechariah did not fail to believe because of an unequal condition, but because of old age; for the condition was fitting. From man and woman childbirth is customary: nor ought it to seem incredible where nature is in accord. For since age belongs to nature, not nature to age, it happens often that age hinders nature; yet it is not unreasonable that the lesser cause should yield to the greater, and that the superior prerogative of nature should exclude the operation of a lesser age. To this may be added that Abraham and Sarah received a son in old age, and Joseph is the son of old age. But if, because Sarah laughed, she is reproved: more justly is he condemned who believed neither the oracle nor the example.

But Mary, when she says: How shall this be, since I do not know a man (above, v.

34)? Does not seem to have doubted the fact, but to have asked about the manner of the fact. For it is clear that she had believed it must be done, she who asked how it would be done. And hence she deserved to hear: Blessed are you who have believed (below, v. 45). And truly blessed, who was more excellent than the priest; since when the priest had disbelieved, the virgin corrected the error. Nor is it strange if the Lord, about to redeem the world, began his work with Mary; so that she through whom salvation was being prepared for all might herself be the first to draw the fruit of salvation from the pledge.

And rightly did she ask how it should come to pass; for she had read that a virgin would bring forth, but she had not read in what manner she would bring forth. She had read, as I have said: Behold a virgin shall conceive in the womb: but how she would conceive, in the Gospel the angel first declared.

Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda, and entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth.

It is fitting for all, that those who require faith should also build up faith. And therefore the angel, when announcing hidden things, in order that faith might be built up by an example, announced to the virgin Mary the conception of the elder and barren woman; that he might affirm that everything is possible to God which it has pleased Him to do. When Mary heard this, not as one incredulous of the oracle, nor as uncertain of the messenger, nor as doubting of the example: but as one glad for the fulfillment of her desire, dutiful in her office, hastening for joy, she went into the hill country. For whither, being now full of God, should she hasten but to the higher places? The grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow undertakings.

Learn also, you holy women, the diligence you owe to pregnant kinswomen.

Mary, who before dwelt alone in the innermost recesses of her home, was not held back by modesty from public view, nor by the roughness of the mountains from the undertaking, nor by the length of the journey from the duty. Into the hill country the virgin went with haste, a virgin mindful of her office, unmindful of injury, moved by affection, not by weakness of sex, she set out, leaving her house behind.

Learn, virgins, not to run about through other people's houses, not to linger in the streets, not to mingle in public conversations.

Mary was serious at home, hastening in public; she remained with her kinswoman three months. For she who had come for the sake of duty, kept close to her duty. She remained, then, three months, not because another's house delighted her, but because to be seen too often in public was displeasing to her.

You have learned, virgins, the modesty of Mary: learn also her humility.

A kinswoman came to a kinswoman, the younger to the elder: and not only did she come, but she also saluted first; for it is fitting that the more chaste a virgin is, the more humble she should be. Let her know how to render honor to her elders. Let her be a teacher of humility, in whom is the profession of chastity. There is also a reason of piety here, and likewise a rule of doctrine. For it is to be observed that the superior comes to the inferior, that the inferior might be helped: Mary to Elizabeth, Christ to John. Finally afterward also, that He might sanctify the baptism of John, the Lord came to baptism. So quickly, too, are the benefits of Mary's coming and of the Lord's presence made manifest.

For as soon as Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leapt in her womb. And she was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Observe the distinction, and the propriety of each word.

Elizabeth heard the voice first, but John first felt the grace: she heard by the order of nature, he leapt by reason of the mystery; she perceived the coming of Mary, he the coming of the Lord: the woman of the woman, and the pledge of the pledge. These speak of grace, those work within, and by their mothers' progress they undertake the mystery of piety; and by a twofold miracle the mothers prophesy through the spirit of their little ones. The infant leapt, the mother was filled. The mother was not filled before the son: but when the son had been filled with the Holy Spirit, he filled the mother also. John leapt, and the spirit of Mary also leapt. At John's leaping, Elizabeth is filled: but we know that Mary was not filled with the Spirit, but that her spirit leapt; for the Incomprehensible was working incomprehensibly in the mother. And the one is filled after conception, the other before conception.

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

The Holy Spirit knows His own word, and never forgets it.

And prophecy is fulfilled not only by the miracles of events, but also by the propriety of words. Who is this fruit of the womb, but He of whom it is said: Behold, children are the inheritance of the Lord, the fruit of the womb his reward? That is, the children who are the inheritance of the Lord are the reward, being the fruit of Him who proceeded from the womb of Mary. He Himself is the fruit of the womb, the flower of the root, of whom Isaiah well prophesied, saying: A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from his root; for the root is the family of the Jews, the rod is Mary, the flower of Mary is Christ: who, as the fruit of a good tree, according to the growth of our virtue now flowers, now bears fruit in us, now is restored by the renewed resurrection of the body.

And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

She does not speak as one ignorant; for she knows it to be the grace and working of the Holy Spirit, that the mother of the Prophet should be saluted by the mother of the Lord for the advancement of her own offspring: but as one who recognizes that this is not a gift of human merit, but of divine grace, so she says: Whence is this to me? That is, what great good has befallen me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? I do not recognize my own worth. Whence is this to me, by what justice, by what deeds, for what merits? These are not the ordinary courtesies of women: That the mother of my Lord should come to me. I perceive a miracle, I recognize a mystery: the mother of the Lord, made fruitful by the Word, is full of God.

(Vv. 44, 45.) For behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation came to my ears, the infant leapt for joy in my womb: and blessed art thou who hast believed.

You see that Mary did not doubt, but believed; and therefore obtained the fruit of faith.

Blessed, she says, art thou who hast believed. But you too are blessed, who have heard and have believed; for whatever soul has believed both conceives and brings forth the Word of God, and recognizes His works. Let the soul of Mary be in each one, that it may magnify the Lord; let the spirit of Mary be in each one, that it may rejoice in God. If according to the flesh there is one mother of Christ, yet according to faith Christ is the fruit of all. For every soul receives the Word of God, provided it be immaculate and free from vice, and keep chastity with unblemished modesty.

Whatever soul, therefore, is able to be such, magnifies the Lord, just as the soul of Mary magnified the Lord, and her spirit rejoiced in God her Saviour.

For the Lord is magnified, as you also read elsewhere: Magnify the Lord with me; not that anything can be added to the Lord by human voice, but because He is magnified in us. For Christ is the image of God; and therefore if the soul does anything just or devout, it magnifies that image of God, after whose likeness it was created. And therefore, while it magnifies Him, it becomes more exalted by a certain participation in His greatness; so that it may be seen to express in itself that image with the splendid color of good deeds, and by a certain emulation of virtue.

Now the soul of Mary magnifies the Lord, and her spirit rejoices in God

because, devoted to the Father and the Son both in soul and in spirit, she venerates with pious affection the one God from whom are all things, and the one Lord through whom are all things.

There follows Mary's prophecy, which, the more excellent the person, the fuller it is.

Nor does it seem without purpose that Elizabeth prophesies before John, and Mary before the Lord's generation; for already the beginnings of human salvation are creeping in. For as sin began from women, so also good things begin from women; that women too, laying aside womanly works, may renounce weakness: and that the soul which has no sex, like Mary who knew no error, may with religious zeal imitate chastity.

Mary abode with her about three months: and she returned to her own house.

Holy Mary is rightly represented both as having performed her duty, and as having observed a mystical number.

For it was not merely the cause of family closeness that she remained so long, but also the progress of so great a prophet. For if at the very first coming so great a growth occurred, that at Mary's salutation the infant leapt in the womb, and the mother of the infant was filled with the Holy Spirit: how much do we suppose the presence of holy Mary added by so long a use of time? And Mary abode with her about three months. Thus the prophet was being anointed, and, as it were, like a good athlete, was being exercised in his mother's womb; for his virtue was being prepared for a very great contest. Finally, Mary remained just as long as it took Elizabeth to complete the time of her delivery. And if you consider carefully, you will find this stated nowhere except in the birth of the just.

Finally, the days were fulfilled, that Mary should bring forth: the time was fulfilled, that Elizabeth should bring forth; the time of life is fulfilled, when holy men depart from this course of life. The life of the just has fullness, but the days of the impious are empty.

Elizabeth therefore brought forth a son, and her neighbors rejoiced with her: There follows Mary's prophecy, which, as we have in the text.

Her neighbors rejoiced with her. The birth of holy men brings forth the gladness of many, because good is common; for righteousness is a common virtue. And therefore at the rising of a righteous man, a token of future life is sent before, and the grace of coming virtue is signified, prefigured by the rejoicing of the neighbors. And fittingly the time during which the Prophet was in the womb is described; lest the presence of Mary should be passed over in silence: but the time of his infancy is passed over in silence, because the presence of the Lord strengthened him while still in his mother's womb, so that he knew none of the hindrances of infancy. And therefore in the Gospel we read nothing further about him, except his birth, and the oracle, the leaping in the womb, and the voice in the desert.

For he felt no age of infancy at all, he who, above nature, above age, while placed in his mother's womb, began from the measure of the fullness of the perfect age of Christ.

his mother answered, and said: Not so, but he shall be called John.

And they said to her: There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. So they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying: John is his name. And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened, and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God.

Wonderfully has the holy Evangelist thought it necessary to mention beforehand that most of them thought the infant should be named after his father Zachary; that you might observe that it was not the name of some ignoble person that displeased the mother, but that what had been infused by the Holy Spirit was that which had before been foretold by the angel to Zachary. And indeed he, being mute, could not tell his wife the name of the son: but Elizabeth learned by prophecy what she had not learned from her husband: John, she says, is his name, that is, we are not the ones imposing a name upon him, who has already received a name from God. He has his own name, which we have recognized, not which we have chosen. This is the merit of the saints, that they receive a name from God. So Jacob is called Israel, because he saw God. So our Lord Jesus was named before He was born: to whom not an angel, but the Father gave the name.

For it shall be revealed, He says, my son Jesus, with those who shall rejoice with him, who are left among the four hundred years. And it shall be after these years, and my son Christ Jesus shall die; and the world shall be turned back. You see that the angels announce what they have heard, not what they have appropriated of their own accord. Nor should you wonder that a woman asserted a name she had not heard, since the Holy Spirit, who had commanded the angel, revealed it to her. Nor could she who had prophesied Christ be ignorant of the forerunner of the Lord.

And it is rightly added that no one of his kindred was called by this name; that you might understand that the name belongs not to the family, but to the prophet. Zachary too is questioned by a nod, but since unbelief had taken from him both speech and hearing, what he could not say with his voice, he spoke with his hand and in writing; for he wrote, saying: John is his name. And this name is not imposed, but affirmed: and rightly immediately his tongue was loosed; because faith loosed what unbelief had bound. Let us too, then, believe, that we may speak, that our tongue, which is bound by the chains of unbelief, may be loosed by the voice of reason. Let us write the mysteries in the spirit, if we wish to speak: let us write the forerunner of Christ not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart. For he who speaks of John prophesies Christ.

Let us speak of John, let us speak also of Christ, that our mouth too may be opened, which in so great a priest the irrational bit, as it were of a nodding beast, of wavering faith was holding shut.

Zachary his father was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying.

See how good God is, and how ready to forgive sins: He not only restores what was taken away, but even grants what was unhoped for. He who was long mute prophesies; for this is the greatest grace of God, that those who had denied confess. Let no one therefore despair, let no one conscious of old offenses despair of divine rewards. The Lord knows how to change His sentence, if you know how to amend your fault.

thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest.

Beautifully, when he was prophesying about the Lord, he turns his words to the prophet; that he might show this too to be a benefit of the Lord; lest, when he was publicly enumerating his own benefits, he might seem, as it were ungrateful, to have been silent about the benefits he had received, which he recognized in his son. But perhaps some may think it an irrational excess of mind that he addresses an infant of eight days. But if we hold fast, we understand indeed that he who, before he was born, heard the greeting of Mary, could, once born, hear the voice of his father. The prophet knew that the ears of a prophet are other ears, which are opened by the Spirit of God, not by bodily age. He had the sense of understanding who had the affection of exulting.

At the same time observe how briefly Elizabeth prophesies, and how at length Zacharias; and yet each spoke filled with the Holy Spirit: but discipline is preserved, that the woman should strive rather to learn the things that are divine than to teach. Nor do we readily find that any woman prophesied more abundantly than the mother of the Lord. The prophetess Miriam herself, sister of Aaron, how quickly did she conclude the words of her song! And the same woman, when she spoke more at length with her brother, by no means escaped the penalty of her speech. Now it came to pass in those days, that there went out an edict from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled.

About to speak of the birth of the Saviour, we do not think it foreign to inquire at what time he was born.

For what would the enrollment of secular affairs pertain to the generation of the Lord, unless that we might observe that this too is a divine mystery; because while the secular enrollment is put forward, a spiritual one is being fulfilled, one to be reckoned not to the king of the earth, but to the king of heaven? This enrollment is of faith, a census of souls; for with the old census of the Synagogue abolished, a new census of the Church was being prepared, which would exact no torments, but take them away: and spiritually, in a figure, the people were now giving in their names to Christ.

Here it is not the spaces of lands that are counted, but of minds and souls; nor are boundaries described, but they are extended; nor is any age distinguished, but every age is enrolled; for no one is exempt from this census, because every age is generous toward Christ, whom crying infants confess by martyrdom, whom those still placed in the womb attest by exultation. Fear nothing terrible in this census, nothing harsh, nothing sad; faith alone marks each one. Do you wish to hear of the census-takers of Christ? They are commanded to take the census without rods; to seek out the people not by terror, but by grace; to sheathe the sword, not to possess gold. By such census-takers was the world acquired.

Finally, that you may know the census to be not Augustus's, but Christ's, the whole world is bidden to be enrolled.

When Christ is born, all are enrolled; when the world is closed up, all are endangered. Who then could exact the enrollment of the whole world, except he who had dominion over the whole world? For the earth and its fullness, the world and all who dwell in it, are not Augustus's, but the Lord's. Augustus did not command the Goths, did not command the Armenians: Christ commanded. They surely received the census-taker of Christ, who produced the martyrs of Christ. And perhaps therefore they surpass us, as present things teach, because whom they confessed by the offering of their blood, to him the Arians brought a question about his origin. This, he says, was the first enrollment made.

And yet histories relate that many parts of the earth had already often been enrolled.

This, then, is the first enrollment, but of minds; in which all are enrolled, because no one is excepted, not at the summons of a herald, but of a seer who long before foretold: All ye nations, clap your hands; shout unto God with the voice of exultation, for the Lord most high is terrible, a great king over all the earth. Finally, that you may know the census to be one of righteousness, there come to it Joseph and Mary, that is, the just man and the virgin: he, that he might keep the Word; she, that she might bear it. Where do the just man and the virgin enroll themselves, if not where Christ is born? For every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. But where, according to the higher reckoning, is Christ born, if not in your heart, and in your breast? For the Word is near, in your mouth and in your heart.

Beautifully also does he add the name of the governor, that he might mark the order of the times.

He says, When Cyrinus was governor of Syria, this first enrollment was made. So that the Evangelist seems to have inscribed a kind of consul, as it were, to this book, for the sake of a sign. For if consuls are inscribed on the tablets of a purchase, how much more ought the time to have been inscribed for the redemption of all? You have, therefore, all things that are wont to be in contracts: the name of him who holds supreme power there, the day, the place, the cause. Witnesses too are wont to be employed: these also Christ employed at his birth and generation according to the flesh, who might set their seal upon the Gospel, saying: You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem. And it came to pass, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger

because there was no room for them in the inn.

Briefly has holy Luke set forth both how, and at what time, and in what place Christ was born according to the flesh.

But if you ask concerning his heavenly generation, read the Gospel of holy John, who, beginning from heavenly things, descends to earthly ones. There you will find both when he was, and how he was, and what he was, what he had done, what he was doing, and where he was, and whither he came, and how he came, at what time he came, for what cause he came. In the beginning, he says, was the Word; you have when he was: And the Word was with God; you have how he was. You have also what he was: And the Word, he says, was God. What he had done: All things were made through him. What he was doing: He was the true light which lights every man coming into this world. And where he was: He was in this world. Whither he came: He came unto his own.

How he came: The Word was made flesh.

When he came, John bears witness of him, saying: This is he of whom I said, He who comes after me, is made before me; for he was before me. For what cause he came, John himself testifies: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. If therefore we have come to know both generations, and observe that the office of each is one, and the cause for which he came; that, taking up the sins of the perishing world, he might abolish in himself, who could not be conquered, the stain of sin, and the death of all: it follows that now too holy Luke the evangelist should teach us, and show forth the ways of the Lord growing according to the flesh.

Nor should anyone be troubled that we have said that, by a deeper design, the infancy of John was passed over, while we assert that the infancy of Christ has been described; for it is not for every one to say: I am become as one weak to the weak, that I might gain the weak; I have become all things to all men: nor can it be said of any other, that He was wounded for our iniquity, and was made weak for our sins. That one, therefore, was a little child, that one was an infant; that you might be able to be a perfect man: that one was wrapped in swaddling clothes; that you might be loosed from the snares of death: that one was in a manger; that you might be at the altars: that one was on earth; that you might be in the heavens: that one had no other place in that inn; that you might have many mansions in the heavenly seats.

Who, though he was rich, for your sakes became poor; that by his poverty you might be enriched.

That poverty, therefore, is my inheritance; and the weakness of the Lord is my strength. He chose rather to be in need himself, that he might abound to all. Me do the tears of that wailing infancy wash; those tears of his have washed away my sins. I owe more, therefore, O Lord Jesus, to your injuries, that I have been redeemed, than to your works, that I have been created. It would not have profited to be born, unless to redeem had profited.

But let no one enclose the whole form of divinity within the use of the body.

The nature of the flesh is one thing, the glory of divinity another. For your sake, weakness; in itself, power: for your sake, want; in itself, wealth. Do not judge by what you see, but recognize instead that you are redeemed. Because he is in swaddling clothes, you see; because he is in the heavens, you do not see: you hear the wailings of the infant, you do not hear the lowings of the ox recognizing its Lord: For the ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib; or rather I should say "crib," as he who translated it wrote; for nothing in the word differs, to my mind, that does not differ in the sense.

For if their orator (Demosthenes, Speech for Ctesiphon), those who follow the ornaments of speeches, denies that the fortunes of Greece are placed in this—whether he used this word or that—but thinks the matter itself is to be looked to: if their very philosophers, who spend whole days in disputation, used words less Latin and received, in order that they might use words of their own; how much more ought we to neglect words, and look to the mysteries, in which the cheapness of speech is overcome, since the miracles of divine works, adorned by no elegances of speech, have shone forth by the light of their own truth? Finally, that irrational ass was fed by the holy manger not with the paint of delicacies, but with the sap of natural nourishment.

This is the Lord, this the manger, by which the divine mystery has been revealed to us: the irrational nations, living after the manner of cattle within their stalls, to be fed with the abundance of sacred nourishment. The ass, therefore—that is, the likeness and form of the nations—recognized the manger of its Lord. And therefore it says: The Lord feeds me, and I shall want nothing. Is God proved by mediocre signs, in that angels minister, in that Magi adore, in that martyrs confess? He is poured forth from the womb, but he flashes from heaven: he lies in an earthly inn, but he flourishes with heavenly light. A married woman bore him, but a virgin conceived: a married woman conceived, but a virgin brought forth. For holy Matthew has taught us this no small mystery, which holy Luke, since it had already been fully set forth, thought should be passed over in silence, believing that he would be rich enough if he had claimed for himself, out of all things, the manger of the Lord.

This little one, then, whom you, being faithless, judge as it were of no worth, the Magi, coming from the East, follow over so long a distance, and falling down they adore him, and call him king, and confess that he will rise again, offering from their treasures gold, frankincense, and myrrh. What are these but the gifts of true faith? Gold for a king, frankincense for God, myrrh for one who has died; for one thing is the insignia of a king, another the sacrifice of divine power, another the honor of burial, which does not corrupt the body of the dead, but preserves it. Let us also, who hear and read these things, bring forth such gifts from our own treasures, brethren: for we have a treasure in earthen vessels. If, therefore, concerning yourself, what you are, you ought not to judge from yourself, but from Christ: how much more, in Christ, ought you to judge not what is yours, but what is Christ's.

The Magi, then, offer gifts from their own treasures.

Do you wish to know what good merit they have? The star is seen by them: and where Herod is, it is not seen: where Christ is, it is seen again, and shows the way. This star, therefore, is the way, and Christ is the way; because, according to the mystery of the Incarnation, Christ is the star: For a star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall arise out of Israel. Finally, where Christ is, there too is the star; for he himself is the bright and morning star. He himself, therefore, marks himself out by his own light.

Receive another instruction.

The Magi came by one way, they return by another; for they who had seen Christ, had understood Christ, and return better, surely, than they had come. For there are two ways: one which leads to destruction, the other which leads to the kingdom: that is the way of sinners, which leads to Herod: this way is Christ, by which one returns to the fatherland; for this present dwelling is temporal, as it is written: My soul has long been a sojourner. Let us, then, beware of Herod, the ruler for a time of worldly power; that we may attain the eternal dwelling place of the heavenly fatherland.

These rewards have been set forth not only for the elect, but for all; since Christ is all, and in all.

For you see that it was not without purpose that Abraham believed God, whether from among the Chaldeans, who are held to be more skilled in numbers; or that the Magi, though by magical arts, when they bent their zeal to reconciling divinity to themselves, believed that the birth of the Lord was on earth: not, I say, without purpose, but that from among the adversary nations testimony to holy religion might be taken, and an example of divine fear.

But yet who are these Magi, but those who, as a certain history teaches, trace their lineage from Balaam, by whom it was prophesied: A star shall rise out of Jacob? These, then, are heirs no less of faith than of succession. He saw the star in spirit, these saw it with their eyes, and believed. They saw a new star, which had not been seen from the creation of the world. They saw a new creature, and sought the grace of the new man not only on earth, but also in heaven, according to what Moses set forth prophetically, that A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall arise out of Israel. And they recognized that this was the star which signifies man and God. They worshipped the little child: surely they would not have worshipped him, if they had believed him to be only a little child. The Magus, then, understands that his arts have ceased; do you not understand that your gifts have come? He confesses another's, do you not acknowledge the promise?

He believes against himself, do you think it not necessary to believe for your own sake?

The Magi, then, announce that a king has been born: Herod is troubled, he gathers together the scribes and chief priests, and asks where Christ should be born. The Magi announce only a king: Herod seeks Christ. He confesses, therefore, the very king about whom he inquires. Then, when it is sought where he was to be born, he is shown indeed to have been foretold; for he could not be sought who had not been announced. O senseless Jews, you do not believe him to have come whom you see: you do not believe him to have come whom you say is yet to come! Bring word to me, he says, that I too may come and worship the child. Herod indeed lays a trap, but he does not deny God, whom he mentions ought to be worshipped. Then he orders the infants to be slain. To whom else but God was such a victim owed? Though infancy is void of sense, yet it confesses the God for whom it is slain.

These few things we have gathered from Matthew, that it might be clear that the seasons of infancy were not empty of the works of divinity. For if the age of the flesh was inactive in works, surely he was God who as to the true knowledge of numbers, which the holy Doctor just before attributes to the Chaldeans, this must be understood of astrological numbers, from which soothsayers thought they could predict the future for themselves: whence that saying of Flaccus, Book I, Ode: Nor shalt thou try Babylonian numbers. This science they write was brought to the Egyptians from Abraham: yet we do not think that superstitious art was handed down by the Patriarch, but only the right and honest discipline of the stars, which afterward the restless curiosity of men twisted and turned aside into wicked arts exercised in works of divinity even the age of the flesh: who also caused shepherds to keep watch in that region, keeping the watches of the night over their flock.

Behold the beginning of the rising Church: Christ is born, and shepherds begin to keep watch, who might gather into the fold of the Lord the flocks of the Gentiles, previously living like beasts, lest they suffer the assaults of spiritual beasts through the darkness of night spread over them. And well do the shepherds keep watch, whom the Good Shepherd instructs. The flock, therefore, is the people, the night is the world, the shepherds are the priests. Or perhaps he too is a shepherd to whom it is said: Be watchful, and strengthen; because the Lord ordained not only bishops for the protection of the flock, but also appointed angels.

behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them.

See how divine care builds up faith: an angel instructs Mary, an angel instructs Joseph, an angel instructs the shepherds.

It is not enough to be sent once; for by two or three witnesses every word stands firm.

there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.

Well is it called a host of angels, who were following the Leader of the army.

To whom, then, would the angels give praise, if not to their own Lord, according to what is written: Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights. Praise him, all his angels? The prophecy, then, is fulfilled. The Lord is praised from the heavens, and is seen on earth. Of whom holy Mark says, that He was with the beasts, and the angels ministered to him; that in the one you might recognize the mark of mercy, in the other the token of divine power. It is yours that he suffers among beasts, it is his own that he is proclaimed by angels. And they say:

Let us go over as far as Bethlehem, and let us see this Word that has come to pass, as the Lord has shown us. And they came with haste.

You see the shepherds hastening; for no one seeks Christ with sluggishness.

You see the shepherds believing the angel: and do you believe the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the angels, the prophets, and the apostles. See how markedly Scripture weighs the moments of each word: They hasten, it says, to see the Word. For indeed when the flesh of the Lord is seen, the Word is seen, which is the Son. Let not this example of faith seem to you a slight one, nor the person of the shepherds a mean one. Indeed, the humbler in worldly prudence, the more precious for faith. Not the schools crowded with choirs of the wise, but a simple people did the Lord seek out, who knew not how to adorn or embellish what they heard. Simplicity, indeed, is sought, ambition is not desired.

Nor should you think the words of the shepherds to be despised as worthless: from shepherds too Mary gathers faith: from shepherds the people are gathered to reverence for God; for they wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.

Let us learn the chastity of the holy Virgin in all things, who, no less modest in speech than in body, gathered the proofs of faith in her heart. If Mary learns from shepherds, why do you decline to learn from priests? If Mary keeps silence before the apostolic precepts, why do you desire more, after the apostolic precepts, to teach than to learn? Learn that it is a fault of the person, not of the sex; for the sex is holy. In short, Mary received no precept, she gave an example.

The boy is therefore circumcised.

Who is that boy, but he of whom it is said: A child is born to us, a Son is given to us? For he was made under the Law, that he might gain those who were under the Law.

He is presented, moreover, in Jerusalem. (What it is to be presented to the Lord in Jerusalem, I would say, had I not already said it in my commentary on Isaiah. For circumcised from vices, he was judged worthy of the Lord's regard; for The eyes of the Lord are upon the just. You see that the whole sequence of the old Law was a type of what was to come; for circumcision also signifies the purging of sins. But since by a certain prone desire for sinning the fragility of human flesh and mind is entangled in inextricable vices, therefore the future purging of all guilt was prefigured by the eighth day of circumcision, at the age of the resurrection; for this is that saying: Because every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord; for by the words of the Law the birth of the Virgin was promised. And truly holy, because immaculate.

Finally, that it is he who is signified by the Law, the words repeated by the Angel declare in the same manner: For that which shall be born, he says, shall be called holy, the Son of God. For no virile union unlocked the secrets of the virginal womb: but the Holy Spirit poured the immaculate seed into the inviolable womb; for alone through all those born of woman is the Lord Jesus holy, who felt not the contagion of earthly corruption by the novelty of an immaculate birth, and drove it away by heavenly majesty.

For if we follow the letter, how is every male holy, since it is not hidden that many were most wicked? Was Ahab holy? Were the false prophets holy, whom, at Elijah's prayers, the fire, the avenger of heavenly injury, consumed? But he is holy, through whom the pious precepts of the divine law signified the figure of the future mystery; because he alone opened the genital secret of the immaculate fruitfulness of the holy virgin Church for the begetting of the peoples of God. This one, therefore, alone opened his mother's womb for himself. Nor is it strange; for he who had said to the prophet: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; and in your mother's womb I sanctified you. He, then, who sanctified another's womb, that a prophet might be born, is he who opened his own mother's womb, that he might come forth immaculate.

behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon: and this man was just, and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel.

Not only from angels and prophets, from shepherds and parents, but also from the aged and the just does the birth of the Lord receive testimony. Every age, and both sexes, and the miracles of events build up faith. A virgin brings forth, a barren woman bears, a mute man speaks, Elizabeth prophesies, a Magus adores, one enclosed in the womb leaps for joy, a widow confesses, a just man awaits.

And well is he called just, who sought not his own grace, but that of the people: himself desiring to be released from the bonds of bodily fragility, yet awaiting to see the promised one; for he knew that blessed were the eyes which should see him.

Now, he says, dismiss your servant.

See the just man, as if enclosed in the prison of bodily mass, wishing to be dissolved, that he might begin to be with Christ; for to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, is much better. But whoever wishes to be released, let him come into the temple, let him come into Jerusalem, let him await the Christ of the Lord, let him receive the Word of God into his hands, let him embrace him with the arms, as it were, of his own faith. Then shall he be released, that he may not see death, having seen life.

You see the abundant grace of the Lord poured out upon all through his birth, and that prophecy is denied to the unbelieving, not to the just. Behold, Simeon too prophesies that the Lord Jesus Christ has come for the fall and the rising again of many; that he might discern the merits of the just and the unjust, and, according to the quality of our deeds, as the true and just judge, might decree either punishments or rewards.

your own soul, he says, a sword shall pierce.

Neither the letter nor history teaches that Mary departed from this life by the suffering of a bodily death; for it is not the soul, but the body

that is pierced by a material sword. And so it shows the prudence of Mary, by no means ignorant of the heavenly mystery. For the living word of God is both powerful and sharp, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and discerns the thoughts of the heart, and the secrets of minds; because all things are naked and open to the Son of God, whom the secrets of conscience do not deceive.

Simeon, then, prophesied; the Virgin had prophesied; she who was joined in marriage had prophesied; a widow too was owed her part; lest either any state of life or sex should be lacking. And so Anna is introduced, such both in the merits of widowhood and in character, that she may rightly be believed worthy to have announced that the Redeemer of all had come. Whose merits, since we have described elsewhere, when we exhorted widows, we do not think need be repeated here, since we hasten on to other things. Not without purpose, however, did he express the eighty-four years of her widowhood; because both seven dozens, and two forties, seem to denote a sacred number.

when he was twelve years old.

From the twelfth year, as we read, the beginning of the Lord's disputation is taken; for this number was owed to those who were to preach the faith as evangelists. Nor without purpose, unmindful of his parents according to the flesh—he who, according to the flesh, was surely filled with the wisdom and grace of God—is he found in the temple after three days; that it might be a sign that after three days he would offer himself, risen again, to our faith in the heavenly seat, in that triumphal passion, and in divine honor, he who was believed to be dead.

Why is it that you sought me?

Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?

There are two generations in Christ: one paternal, the other maternal: the paternal one more divine, the maternal indeed one which condescended to our labor and use.

And therefore, whatever things are done above nature, above age, above custom, are not to be assigned to human virtues, but are to be referred to divine powers. Elsewhere his mother urges him toward a mystery: here the mother is rebuked; because she still demanded what belongs to human things. But since here he is described as twelve years old, and there is shown to have disciples, you see the mother has learned about her Son, so that she demanded a mystery from him now stronger, who had marveled at a miracle when he was younger.

he came to Nazareth, and was subject to them.

For what would the Master of virtue do, but fulfill the duty of piety? And do we wonder if he who is subject to his mother defers to the Father? This subjection is surely not one of weakness, but of piety; though the serpent of perfidy, sent forth from its savage lurking places, lift up its head, and vomit forth poisons from its serpentine breast. When he says that the Son was sent, the heretic calls the Father greater; that he may call the Son imperfect, who can have one greater than himself; that he may assert, by another's help, him who by such expressions as these, concerning which you may see Fr. Sanchez's Minerva, on the comparison of constructions. To be in need: did he also need human aid, that he might serve his mother's command? He deferred to a man, he deferred to a handmaid (for she herself says: Behold the handmaid of the Lord), he deferred to a supposed father: and do you marvel if he deferred to God?

Or is it piety to defer to a man, and weakness to defer to God?

Or weigh divine things from human ones, and recognize what is owed to a father in love. The Father honors the Son; do you not wish the Son to honor the Father? The Father, by a heavenly voice, professes that he is well pleased in the Son; do you not wish the Son, clothed in the garment of human flesh, with human voice, to speak with human affection, and say that the Father is greater? For if the Lord is great, and exceedingly praiseworthy, and of his greatness there is no end: surely a greatness that has no end has no increase either. But why should I not accept with religious ears the Son obeying the Father in the assumption of a body, when I religiously accept the Father deferring to the Son?

Learn rather the precepts of your own advantage, and recognize the examples of piety.

Learn what you owe to your parents, when you read that the Son does not differ from the Father in will, in work, or in time: though they are two in person, they are one in power. And yet that heavenly Father experienced no labor of childbearing: you owe to your mother the injury to her modesty, the loss of virginity, the peril of childbirth, to your mother long weariness, to your mother long dangers, for whom, poor woman, there is greater peril in the very fruits of her longing: and when she has brought forth what she desired, she is freed from labor, not from fear. Why should I speak of fathers anxious for their children's advancement, and of fortunes multiplied for the use of others, and of seeds cast by the farmer that will profit future generations? Ought not at least some obedience to be repaid for these things?

Why does the life of a father seem too long to an impious son, and the sharing of the patrimony too narrow, when Christ does not refuse co-heirs? The word of the Lord came upon John the son of Zacharias in the desert.

The Son of God, about to gather the Church, works beforehand in his little servant.

And therefore holy Luke rightly set it down that the word of the Lord came upon John the son of Zacharias in the desert; so that the Church might not begin from man, but from the Word. For she herself is the desert, because the children of the desolate one are more numerous than of her who has a husband. Finally it is said to her: Rejoice, O barren one, and Exult, O desert; because she was not yet cultivated by any works of the incoming people, nor did those trees, which could not yet bear fruit, display any crown of their merits. He had not yet come who would say: But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of the Lord. Nor had it yet appeared to be his intention that he should indicate the Mother of God to have sinned: which is farthest from the blessed man's meaning, as it has already been possible more than once to notice.

Understand therefore that it is argued, set down in a broad sense for "is taught," or some other similar word: which is not out of keeping with common usage. That heavenly fruit was ministering to its own branches by a certain transmission of its words. The word came to pass, therefore, that the earth which before was desert might bring forth fruit for us. The word came to pass; the voice followed; for the word first works within, the office of the voice follows. Whence David also says: I believed, therefore have I spoken. He first believed, that he might be able to speak.

Now the word came to pass, that holy John the Baptist might preach repentance.

And therefore many assign to holy John the type of the Law; because the Law was able to denounce sin, but not able to forgive it. For the Law recalls from error, restrains from crime, everyone who was following the way of the Gentiles: it persuades to repentance, that grace may be attained. Now the Law and the Prophets were until John: but John was the forerunner of Christ. Thus the Law is both the forerunner of the Church, and repentance is the forerunner of grace. Rightly therefore holy Luke used a summary, so as to declare John a prophet, saying that the word of the Lord came upon him; he added nothing else; for no one needs a sign of himself who abounds in the word of God. He said one thing, therefore, and declared everything.

But indeed holy Matthew and Mark chose to declare the Prophet by his clothing, and girdle, and food

because he had clothing of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins: but he ate locusts and wild honey. For the forerunner of Christ did not suffer the spoils of unclean beasts to perish: by that very clothing also signifying by a sign that Christ was to come, who, taking up the beastly and defiled things woven together for the deformity of our merits, the unclean sins of the Gentiles, in that trophy of the cross, would strip himself, as it were by a certain garment, of our flesh.

But what does the girding of the leather girdle mean, except that this flesh, which had formerly been accustomed to weigh down the mind, after the coming of the Lord began to be not a hindrance but a girdle? As it were according to David: On the willows we hung up our instruments; and according to the Apostle we have no confidence in the flesh, and we have confidence in the body: we have it not in pleasures, we have it in sufferings; because in the spirit our fervent affection may thrive vigorously, and we may be girded for every obedience to heavenly precepts, intent in devotion of mind, and unencumbered in the equipment of the body.

The prophetic food also is an index of his office, and a herald of the mystery.

For what is so idle a task for a man as to seek locusts: and what is so full of the mystery of a prophet? For the more that locusts, useless for fruit, sluggish for the labor of use, fleeting to the touch, wandering in leaps, shrill of mouth, are unfit—the more fittingly to these is fitted the figure of the Gentile people, who by no labor's use, by no fruit of their own work, without gravity, without voice, gave forth a sound of complaint, and were ignorant of the word of life. This people, then, is the food of the prophets; for the greater the number of people gathered together, the more abundant becomes the use of the prophetic mouth.

The grace of the Church also is prefigured in the wild honey, found not within the hive of the law of the Jewish people's offspring, but scattered in the fields and leaves of the forest by the error of the Gentiles, according to what is written: We found it in the fields of the wood.

And indeed he ate wild honey, announcing that the peoples were to be satisfied from the honey of the rock, as it is written: And he satisfied them with honey out of the rock. Thus also the ravens fed Elijah, in the deserts, with imported food and a profitable drink; that it might be a sign that the peoples of the nations, foul with the loathsome color of their merits, who before sought food in fetid carcasses, would now provide imported nourishment for the prophets from themselves. For the food of the prophets is the accomplishment of the divine will, as the Lord himself declared, saying: My food is to do the will of him who sent me. The voice of one crying in the desert.

Rightly is John called a voice, the forerunner of the Word.

For John himself, when asked: What sayest thou of thyself? Said: I am the voice of one crying in the desert. And therefore he says: He who comes after me was made before me; because the voice, being lesser, goes before, and the word, which excels, follows. Therefore he wished also to be baptized by John; because among men the word is consecrated by the voice of the teacher. Perhaps for this reason Zacharias received his voice, because he had spoken with a voice. O generation of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance. And do not begin to say: We have Abraham for our father. For I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

The malice of the Jews indeed seems to be reproved, in that with the various venom of a harmful mind, serpentine slidings and earthly lairs, they work no mystery of divine understanding: but yet when it is said: Who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? There is shown in them a prudence infused by the mercy of God; that they should bear the repentance of their own sins, fearing the terror of the coming judgment with provident devotion. The comparison of vipers, therefore, must be referred to their generation, not to their succession. Or perhaps, according to what is written: Be prudent as serpents, they are shown to have a natural prudence, who see what will benefit them and of their own accord ask for it, but still do not abandon what is harmful.

And therefore they are admonished to claim for themselves rather the glory of their work than the nobility of their birth; because there is no prerogative in succession, unless the inheritance of faith be joined to it, which he revealed by prophetic speech was to be transferred, by God's will, to the peoples of the Gentiles, saying: God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. For although God can convert and change diverse natures; yet since the mystery profits me more than the miracle, in the forerunner of Christ I ought to recognize nothing more than the building up of the rising Church; which, built not of rocky stones but of living stones, has risen for a dwelling of God and the summit of a temple through the conversion of our minds. For God was preparing to soften the hardness of our minds, and to raise up worshippers of religion from the stones of offense. For what else than stones were they held to be, who served stones, resembling indeed those who made them?

It is prophesied, therefore, that faith is to be poured into the stony breasts of the Gentiles, and the oracles promise that they will become children of Abraham through faith, in whom, through hardness of mind, a certain stony, insensible, and irrational habit of nature had grown. For if the apostolic sentence compared men strengthened by the robustness of faith to living stones, according to what is written: And you also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, unto a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices (I Peter ii, 5): much more deeply here men seem, by the prophetic voice, to be compared to stones, who had so lost the sense of the human mind, that while they think there is some divine reason in stones, they themselves were turned into the nature of stones, not in the use of the body, but in the habit of the mind.

Finally, those flowing from Abraham's succession according to the flesh are also called princes of Sodom, and whitewashed walls: thus a likeness of morals claims for itself the prerogative of race more than the order of ancestors. Moreover, that you may know that men are compared to stones, the Prophet also compared men to trees, adding:

For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.

Now the change of example was made for this reason: that by that progress of comparison a certain milder advancement of man might be understood.

For those who before were unshapely for use, bare of adornment, barren of fruit, irrational for advancement, are now figured in the likeness of trees, which, by a certain rational gift of nature, comely for use, lovely to the sight, rich for fruit, rise up in their crowns, spread out in their branches, are filled with fruits, are clothed with leaves. And would that we could imitate the use of fruitful trees, and, with merits increasing, founded on the root of a long-enduring humility, might raise up, lofty from the ground, comely in appearance, the grown-up crowns of fruitful works; lest the evangelical axe of the husbandman cut down the root of the wild trunk. For woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel. But this is the apostolic voice.

Woe is unto me, if I have not wept for my sins; woe is unto me, if I have not risen at midnight to confess to thee; woe is unto me, if I have practiced deceit on my neighbor; woe, if I have not spoken the truth. The axe is laid to the root; let him bring forth fruit who is able by grace, who ought by repentance. The Lord is present who requires fruit, who gives life to the fruitful, who reproves the barren. It is three years since he came, and he could not find fruit among the Jews: would that he may find it in us. He is about to command the unfruitful to be cut down, lest they occupy the ground. But he who as yet has no fruit, let him strive to bring it forth in the future.

That good husbandman of the field will intercede for us who are unfruitful, for us who bear no fruit; that a space may be given, that patience may be extended; lest perhaps we too be unable to bear any fruit for God.

To each class of men also holy John the Baptist gave a fitting answer, but one thing to all: thus to the publicans, that they should not exact beyond what was prescribed; to the soldiers, that they should not practice extortion, that they should not seek plunder; teaching for that reason that pay was appointed for military service; lest, while sustenance is sought, robbery run riot. But these and other precepts of duty are proper to each: mercy is a common practice, and therefore a common precept; necessary for all duties, for all ages, and to be shown by all. Neither the publican, nor the soldier is excepted, nor the farmer or the city-dweller, rich and poor, all are admonished in common, to bestow upon him who has not. For mercy is the fullness of the virtues. And therefore the perfect form of virtue is set before all; that they should not spare their own clothing and food.

Yet a measure of mercy itself is kept according to the possibility of the human condition; that each one should not seize the whole for himself, but share what he has with the poor man.

And as the people were in expectation, and all were thinking

debating in their hearts concerning John, whether perchance he himself were the Christ; he answered, saying: I indeed baptize you in water, unto repentance.

John therefore saw the hidden things of the heart.

But let us consider whose gift this was. Paul shows how the hidden things of the heart are made manifest to the prophets, saying: The secrets of his heart also will be made manifest: and falling on his face he will worship God, declaring that God is truly among you. It is therefore a gift of God who reveals, not a virtue of man, who is aided by divine benefit rather than perceives by natural office. But to what end does this thought of the Jews tend, except that it may be proved that Christ came according to the Scriptures? For there was one who was expected; and he indeed who was expected came, not one who was not expected. But what is more absurd than that he who is esteemed in another should not be believed to be so in himself? Him whom they thought would come through a woman, they do not believe came through a virgin.

What generation according to the flesh was more worthy of God, than that the immaculate Son of God should preserve, even in the assuming of a body, the purity of an immaculate generation? And surely the sign of the divine advent was established in the childbearing of a virgin, not of a woman.

I, he says, baptize you with water.

He quickly proved that he was not the Christ, who performs a visible office. For since man consists of two natures, that is, of soul and body, the visible is consecrated through visible things, the invisible through the invisible mystery. For the body is washed with water, but the sins of the soul are cleansed by the spirit. We do one thing, we invoke another; although even in the font itself the sanctification of divinity breathes. For not every washing is with water, but these cannot be divided from one another, and therefore the baptism of repentance was one thing, the baptism of grace is another. This is of both, that of one only; for since the sins are common to mind and body, the purification also ought to be common. And rightly, holy John, signifying that he had understood what they were thinking in their hearts, and as though he had not understood, avoiding the envy of majesty, declared not by word but by deed that he was not the Christ.

For it is the work of man to perform repentance for sins; it is the gift of God to fulfill the grace of the mystery.

But there comes one mightier than I.

He did not make a comparison, as though he had said Christ was mightier merely than himself (for there could be no comparison between the Son of God and a man), but because there are many mighty ones; for even the devil is mighty: For no one can plunder the vessels of a strong man, unless he first bind the strong man. Many therefore are mighty, but none is mightier except Christ. Indeed he did not stop at making a comparison, but he added: Whose sandals I am not worthy to carry, showing that the grace of evangelical preaching was conferred upon the apostles, who are shod for the gospel.

It seems, however, that he says this because John often took upon himself the person of the Jewish people. Whence they refer to this what he says: He must increase, but I must decrease, meaning that the people of the Jews must decrease, while the Christian people must increase in Christ. Finally, Moses too took upon himself the person of the people; but he carried a sandal not of the Lord, but of his own feet. And these apostles are shod perhaps not with the sandal of their own feet; but Moses is bidden to loose the sandal of his own feet; that the steps of his soul and mind, freed from the bonds of bodily attachment, might walk the spiritual path. The apostles, however, laid aside bodily footwear, when they were sent without sandal, without staff, without scrip, without girdle; but they did not immediately carry the Lord's sandals. Perhaps after the resurrection they began to carry them; for before that they were warned to tell no one the deeds of the Lord.

Finally afterward it is said to them: Go into the whole world, and preach the gospel; that, bearing forth the footprint of evangelical preaching, they might carry the whole series of the Lord's deeds throughout the whole world. The nuptial sandal, therefore, is evangelical preaching. But we shall explain something more fitting on this elsewhere.

He himself will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire: having his winnowing fan in his hand, and he will purge his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Having his winnowing fan in his hand.

By the token of the winnowing fan, the Lord is declared to have the right of discerning merits; since, while the grain is winnowed on the threshing floor, the full is separated from the empty, the fruitful from the fruitless, as it were by a certain testing of the breathing breeze. By this comparison, therefore, it is shown that the Lord on the day of judgment will discern the merits and fruits of solid virtue from the emptiness of vain boasting, and the fruitless levity of exiled deeds; he will place men of more perfect merit in a heavenly dwelling. For he himself is the more perfect fruit, who has deserved to be conformed to him who, like a grain of wheat, fell that he might bring forth much fruit in us, unseen by the chaff, no friend to empty merits. And therefore before him a fire will burn, not harmful by its own nature; inasmuch as it burns up the evils of wickedness, and heaps up the splendor of uprightness.

Now it came to pass, when all the people were baptized, and Jesus being baptized and praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form as a dove upon him; and a voice came from heaven: Thou art my Son, in thee I am well pleased.

The Lord therefore was baptized, not wishing to be cleansed, but to cleanse the waters; so that, washed by the flesh of Christ, which knew no sin, they might have the right of baptism.

And therefore whoever comes to the washing of Christ lays down his sins. Beautifully, however, of those things which were told by the others, holy Luke the evangelist took a summary, and left it rather to be understood that the Lord was baptized by John, than expressed. But what was the reason for the Lord's baptism, the Lord himself declares, saying: Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness.

Since therefore God has granted so great a favor for the building up of his Church, that after the patriarchs, the prophets, the angels, the only-begotten Son of God should descend, and come to the washing; have we not truly and divinely learned it said of the Church: Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it? Nor is it strange if man cannot build, who cannot guard: Unless the Lord guard the city, they watch in vain who guard it. This is from a certain psalm. Yet I dare also to say myself, that man cannot set out upon the way, unless he has the Lord going before him. Whence it is written: Thou shalt walk after the Lord thy God; and, By the Lord are the steps of a man directed. Finally, he was the more perfect who understood that he could not walk without the Lord: Teach me, he says, thy ways.

And to come to the history (for we ought not merely to draw the simple sequence of the event, but also to refer our own deeds to the emulation of the Scriptures)—the people went out of Egypt, not knowing the way that led to the holy land. God sent by night a pillar of fire, that through the pillar the people might learn the way. He sent also by day a pillar of cloud, that they might turn neither to the left nor to the right. But you, O man, are not such as to deserve a pillar of fire also: you do not have Moses, you do not receive a sign; for now, after the coming of the Lord, faith is required, signs are laid aside. Fear God, and rely upon the Lord: For the angel of the Lord will encamp round about them that fear him, and will deliver them.

You see, then, that everywhere the power of the Lord cooperates with human endeavors; so that no one can build without the Lord, no one can guard without the Lord, no one can begin anything without the Lord. And therefore, according to the Apostle: Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever else you do, do all to the glory of God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For in two epistles: in one place he bids you do it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; in another, to the glory of God; that you may know that the glory of the Father and of the Son is the same, and the power the same: nor do the Father and the Son differ in anything concerning their divinity, who do not differ concerning our safeguard. David therefore taught me that no one without the Lord builds a house, or guards a city.

Moses also taught me that no one but God made the world: In the beginning God made heaven and earth.

He taught also that God made man by his own work; nor did he say idly: God formed man from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life; that you might perceive a certain act of God concerning the making of man, by a kind of use of bodily operation. He taught also that God made woman too: For God sent a deep sleep upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one rib from his side, and filled up his flesh; and the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman. Not without purpose, as I said, does Moses represent God as working with, as it were, bodily hands around Adam and Eve.

God commanded the world to be made, and it was made, and in one word Scripture indicates the work of the world accomplished: when it comes to man, the Prophet strove to show you, in a certain manner, the very hands of God laboring.

I know not what more I am compelled to understand in these things than I read, by the works of God so elaborately wrought.

The Apostle comes to my aid as I burn with the question, and what I did not understand—what it meant: Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; and, She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her man—he revealed to me by the divine spirit, saying: This is a great mystery. What mystery? That the two shall be in one flesh; and, That a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and, For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Who is this man for whose sake the woman leaves her parents? The Church leaves her parents, she who has been gathered from the gentile peoples, to whom it is prophetically said: Forget your people, and your father's house.

For whose sake, unless perhaps for him of whom John says: After me comes a man who was made before me? From whose side, as he slept, God took a rib; for he it is who slept, and rested, and rose again; because the Lord received him. What is this rib of his, but power? Because then, when the soldier opened his side, immediately water and blood came out, which was poured out for the life of the world. This life of the world is the rib of Christ: this rib is that of the second Adam. For the first Adam became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit: the last Adam is Christ, and the rib of Christ is the life of the Church. We therefore are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. And perhaps this is the rib of which he said: I perceive that power has gone out from me.

This is the rib which went out from Christ, and yet did not diminish his body; for it is not a bodily rib, but a spiritual one; and the Spirit itself is not divided, but it distributes to each as it wills. This is Eve, the mother of all the living. For if you understand the living one being sought among the dead, you understand that those are dead who are without Christ, who are not partakers of life; for this is not to be a partaker of Christ, because Christ is life. The mother of the living, therefore, is the Church, which God built upon that very chief cornerstone, Christ Jesus, in whom the whole structure, being fitly joined together, grows into a temple of God.

Let God, then, come, and build the woman, that one indeed the helper of Adam, but this one the helper of Christ.

Not that Christ requires help, but because we seek and desire to attain to the grace of Christ through the Church. And now she is being built, and now she is being formed, and now the woman is being fashioned, and now she is being created. And therefore Scripture uses a new word; because we are being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And now a spiritual house rises into a holy priesthood. Come, Lord God, build this woman, build the city; and let your child come also: for I believe you when you say: He himself shall build my city.

Behold the mother of all, behold the spiritual house, behold the city which shall live forever, because it knows not how to die.

For she herself is the city of Jerusalem, which now is seen on earth, but shall be caught up above Elijah; for Elijah was but one man. She shall be carried across above Enoch, whose death is not found recorded. For he was caught up, lest wickedness should change his heart: but she is loved by Christ as a glorious spouse, holy, immaculate, without wrinkle. And how much better is it that the whole body should be taken up, than that one man was taken up? For she is the hope of the Church. She shall surely be caught up, taken up, carried across to heaven. Behold, Elijah was caught up in a fiery chariot: the Church too shall be caught up. Do you not believe me?

Believe at least Paul, in whom Christ spoke: We shall be caught up, he says, in the clouds, to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall be ever with the Lord.

For the building of this city, then, many indeed are sent: patriarchs are sent, prophets are sent, the archangel Gabriel is sent, countless angels are directed, and the multitude of the heavenly host praises God; because the building of this city draws near. Many are sent to her, but Christ alone builds her; yet He is not alone, for the Father is present. And even if He alone builds, still He does not claim alone the grace of so great a building. It is written of the temple which Solomon built, which was a type of the Church, that there were seventy thousand who bore burdens on their shoulders, and eighty thousand hewers of stone, and three thousand six hundred overseers of the works (2 Chron. 2:2). Let those angels come, let the hewers of stone come, let the superfluous parts of our stones be cut away, let the rough places be made smooth. Let those also come who carry on their shoulders; for it is written: They shall be borne upon shoulders.

He came, then, to John, since you have learned the rest. He came to John's baptism: but John's baptism had repentance of sins. And therefore John forbids him, saying: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me? Why comest thou to me, who hast no sin? For he ought to be baptized by me who has sin: but he who has done no sin, why should he seek the washing of repentance? Suffer it, He says, for now: that is, while the Church is being built, it becomes us to fulfil all justice. What is justice, but mercy? For he has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor: his justice remains forever. He has given to me the poor, he has given to me the needy the grace which I did not have before. Therefore his justice remains forever. What is justice, but that whatever you wish another to do, you yourself should begin first, and by your own example exhort others?

What is justice, but that he who took on flesh, not as God excluding the sense or ministry of the flesh, but as man conquering the flesh, that he might teach me to conquer?

For he taught me by what means I might bury the filth of the flesh bound up with earthly vices in crimes, and renew it in virtues.

O truly divine foresight in the very humility of the Lord!

For the more abject the humility, the more divine the providence. By the bitterness of his own injuries God is disclosed: and by the use of remedies, he who needed no remedies, is proved to be God. For what is so divine for summoning the peoples, as that no one should flee from the washing of grace, when Christ did not flee from the washing of repentance? Let no one say himself exempt from sin, when Christ came for the remedy of sins. If Christ washed for us, nay rather washed us in his body, how much more ought we to wash away our own sins?

By what work, then, by what mystery is God (though God in all things) proved more than by this: when throughout the whole world, wherever the condition of the human race is spread abroad, through the divisions and tracts of separated regions, in one moment, in one body, God abolished the fraud of the ancient error, and poured forth the grace of the heavenly kingdom? For one was plunged, but he raised up all: one descended, that we all might ascend; one took upon himself the sins of all, that in him the sins of all might die. Purify yourselves, therefore, as the apostle says, because he purified himself for us who needed no purification. This concerning us.

Now let us consider the mystery of the Trinity.

We say one God, but we confess the Father, and we confess the Son as God. For whereas it is written: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve, the Son denied that he was alone, saying: But I am not alone, for the Father is with me. Nor is he now alone; for the Father testifies that he is present. The Holy Spirit also is present; for the Trinity can never be separated from itself. Finally, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form, as a dove. How then do the heretics say that he who is not alone on earth is alone in heaven? Let us note the mystery: why as a dove? For grace requires the simplicity of the washing, that we may be simple as doves. Grace requires the peace of the washing, of which in the old type the dove once brought a token to that ark which alone was free from the flood.

He has taught me of whom that dove was a type, he who now has deigned to descend in the form of a dove. He taught, in that branch, in that ark, that there was a type of the peace of the Church, in that amid the very floods of the world the Holy Spirit brings to his Church fruitful peace. David also taught this, who, discerning by prophetic spirit the sacrament of baptism, said: Who will give me wings like a dove?

The Holy Spirit came, then, but observe the mystery.

He came to Christ. For all things were made through him, and in him they consist. But see the benevolent Lord, who alone subjected himself to injuries, alone did not seek grace. And where did he build the Church? I will ask, he says, the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom this world cannot receive, because it does not see him, nor know him. Rightly, therefore, he showed himself in a body; since the substance of divinity is not seen.

We have seen the Spirit, but in bodily form: let us see the Father also.

But because we cannot see him, let us hear. For the benevolent God is present, he will not abandon his temple. He wishes every soul to be built up: he wishes to form it unto salvation: he wishes living stones to be carried from earth to heaven. He loves his temple: let us also love him. If we love God, let us keep his commandments. If we love him, let us know him.

For he who says that he knows him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar. For how can he love God, who does not love truth, since God is truth? Let us hear, then, the Father; for the Father is invisible: but the Son too is invisible according to his divinity; for no one has ever seen God. Since, then, the Son is God, he is not seen in that which he is God the Son; but he wished to show himself in a body: and because the Father did not bear a body, therefore the Father wished to prove to us that he was present in the Son, saying: Thou art my Son, in thee I am well pleased. If you wish to learn that the Son is always present with the Father, read the voice of the Son saying: If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art present.

If you seek the testimony of the Father, you have heard it from John.

Believe him, then, to whom Christ entrusted himself to be baptized, to whom the Father committed the Son with a heavenly voice, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Where are the Arians, who are displeased with the Son, in whom the Father was well pleased?

I do not say this, nor has any man spoken it; for it was neither through man that God spoke, nor through angels, nor through archangels: but a voice sent from heaven by the Father himself set the seal upon it. Then elsewhere the same Father repeats, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear him, saying, indeed, hear him say: I and the Father are one. He, therefore, who does not believe the Son, does not believe the Father. He is witness concerning the Son: if the Son is doubted, the Father's testimony is not believed. Then when he says: In whom I am well pleased; he praises in the Son not things alien to himself, but his own.

For what does it mean to say: In whom I am well pleased, except that all things which the Son has, the Father also has: just as the things which are the Father's, are the Son's? The Son said: All things which the Father has are mine; for the power of divinity does not indifferently separate between Father and Son, but shares one power between Father and Son. Let us believe the Father, whose voice the elements sounded forth: let us believe the Father, to whose voice the elements offered obedience. The world believed in the elements, let it believe in men: it believed in lifeless things, let it believe in the living: it believed in the dumb, let it believe in those who speak: it believed in things which have no sense, let it believe in those who have attained sense, that they might know God.

And Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph.

Since we are about to speak of the generations, of which we see some discrepancy in the Gospel according to Matthew, or in this one whose interpretation we have in hand; since it is not credible that holy men could have said things contrary to one another, especially concerning the deeds of the Lord the Saviour, let us show, with as much diligence as we can, that they did not say discrepant things.

And first of all, no one ought to be troubled that it is written thus: Who was supposed to be the son of Joseph.

For rightly was he supposed, because by nature he was not; but he was supposed to be so because Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph her husband, had borne him: for so you have it: Is not this the carpenter's son? We have said above by what reason he was born of a virgin: we have said also by what reason he was born of a betrothed woman, and why the Lord the Saviour willed to be born at the time of the census: it seems not out of place also to declare for what reason he had a carpenter for a father. For by this type he shows that he had for his father him who, as fashioner of all things, founded the world; according to what is written: In the beginning God made heaven and earth.

For although human things are not to be compared to divine, yet the type is whole and complete, in that the Father of Christ works by fire and Spirit, and, like a good craftsman of the soul, planes away our vices, quickly bringing the axe to unfruitful trees, taught to cut away small things, to preserve the lofty in their heights, to soften with the fire of the Spirit the rigid hardness of minds, and to shape the whole human race, for various uses, by the diverse quality of its ministries.

But why the genealogy of Joseph is set down rather than that of Mary, since Mary bore Christ of the Holy Spirit, and Joseph seems foreign to the generation of the Lord, we might well doubt, did not the custom of the Scriptures instruct us, which always seeks the origin from the man. For so you have it: Phares was the son of Judas, prince of the tribe: he begot Esron, and Esron begot Aram, and Aram begot Aminadab, and Aminadab begot Naasson, and Naasson begot Salmon, and Salmon begot Booz, and Booz begot Obed, and Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David. For the person of the man is sought, who also, in the senate and in the other councils of the cities, asserts the dignity of his lineage. How unseemly it would be, however, if, the man's origin being set aside, the origin of the woman were sought, so that he who was to be proclaimed to the peoples of the whole world should seem to have had no father!

But let us also show elsewhere that the generation has been traced through a different order; lest here too the Evangelists should seem to disagree, who followed the ancient order. For thus you have it: There was a man of Arathaim, and his name was Elcana, son of Jeremiel, son of Heli, son of Ozi, of mount Ephraim. You see the description of origin woven in the old manner both from fathers to sons, and from sons to fathers. You see that everywhere the family line has been traced through the generations of men. Do not marvel that Matthew traces the order of generations from Abraham down to Joseph, and Luke from Joseph up to Adam, and to God. Do not marvel that the origin was described through Joseph. For being born according to the flesh, he had to follow the custom of the flesh, and he who came into the world had to be described according to the manner of the world; especially since in the origin of Joseph is also contained the origin of Mary.

For since Joseph was a just man, he took a wife assuredly from his own tribe and from his own kindred; nor could a just man act against what was prescribed by the Law. For thus you have it: that each of the children of Israel shall cleave to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers, and shall not pass from tribe to tribe: and every daughter who has an inheritance among the tribes of the children of Israel shall be a wife to one of the people, and of the tribe of her father. Therefore also, at the time of the census, Joseph went up from the house and lineage of David, that he might be enrolled with Mary his wife. She, by making her declaration from the same house and the same lineage, certainly shows herself to be of the same tribe and the same kindred.

Elizabeth also is introduced as a kinswoman of Mary: first

because all Jews are kinsmen, just as the Apostle taught you, saying, For I could wish that I myself were accursed for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites. They were kinswomen, then, because both were Israelites: and at the same time kinswomen, because both were of the tribe of Judah. You have learned that Mary was of the tribe of Judah; learn the same of Elizabeth. For, Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste, into a city, he says, of Judah, and entered into the house of Zachary. For since Moses prescribed that each should dwell within his own tribes, certainly since she remained in a city of Judah, she was also of the tribe of Judah; especially since from the family of Elizabeth came priests, of whom God is the portion.

At the same time, how fitting it is that, since the one bore the forerunner of Christ, and the other bore Christ himself, and the one conceived of the Holy Spirit, and the other, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied; that according to the flesh too they should be seen to be kinswomen, who according to God did not lack the fellowship of a spiritual kinship? For if the head of every woman is the man, according to the holy Apostle, and the two are one flesh according to the divine law: certainly how could it come to pass that those who were one flesh and one spirit should seem to have their homeland and tribe divided? To this is added what the angel Gabriel also foretold concerning the Lord, that God will give him the throne of David his father. It is certain, therefore, that Mary too descended from the lineage of David.

At the same time we also learn that it makes no difference in what order the series of generation is expressed, since the way is open from one side and the other.

It seems that we ought to explain why holy Matthew began to enumerate the generation of Christ from Abraham, while holy Luke carried it from Christ up to God. But first, why holy Matthew, though he began the order of generation from Abraham, did not put it thus: The book of the generation of Abraham, but rather, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And why he named these two above all others, I think should by no means be passed over. For the most faithful authors of the lineage are not chosen without purpose; that we may understand that in the very generation of the flesh, a spiritual succession is rather required. For these are the two men into whom the divine promises flowed.

First, Abraham, who, before the law of Moses and before the people of the Jews, leaving behind his own things and knowing God, merited the testimony of faith

because He believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness: who also received from God the oracle, God saying to him: Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, and go into the land which I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name, and you shall be blessed, and I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed. You see, then, that the gatherings of the nations, and the most holy assembly of the Church, were first promised to this man by divine oracle. And therefore he had to be designated as the author of the lineage, who first merited the pledge of the Church that was to be established.

David also is rightly declared to be himself an author of the lineage; since he received by an oath the answer that Christ according to the flesh would come from him; for thus it is written: The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not repent of it: Of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne. And elsewhere: Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie unto David; his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. And in Paralipomenon: And it shall come to pass, when your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me a house, and I will set up his throne forever.

I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son, and I will not take away my mercy from him, as I took it away from those who were before you (1 Chron. 17:11-13). Through Isaiah also the same Lord God revealed the generation of the Lord, saying: There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. And below: And there shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise up to rule the nations; in him shall the nations hope. And elsewhere: Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, whose government is upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called, the angel of great counsel.

For I will bring peace upon the princes, and salvation: and great is his power, and of his peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom. In which, according to the interpretation of Aquila also, we have seen that the promise appeared to be made not, as it were, concerning a man, but concerning one who would be beyond man. For he interpreted thus: A child is born to us, a son is given to us, and the measure of him is upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called, wonderful counsellor, mighty God, powerful, father of the age, prince of peace. His discipline is fulfilled, and of his peace there is no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom.

All things are marked as agreeing with Christ by evident oracles, nor can the fruit of divine power be diverted to the favour of Solomon, who was the son of David, whose end is known beyond doubt. For the end came to the kingdom of Solomon, and to his peace, as is shown in the readings of Kings. Christ alone is the one whose kingdom has no end. Then, Solomon ruled over no nations, but Christ gathered the Church from all nations. Finally, Solomon was born while David was still living, and obtained the kingdom. But this one who is promised is shown to be destined to arise after the death of David, as you have it: For when your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up of your seed him who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me a house, and I will set up his throne forever (1 Chron. 17:11-12). Did Solomon reign forever, who reigned for only forty years?

I will be, he says, a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

Who is this proper Son of God, if not he to whom it was said: You are my son, this day have I begotten you? And, I will not take away my mercy from him; and I will keep him faithful in my house, and in his kingdom forever (1 Chron. 17:13-14)? But indeed some, perhaps, apply this to Solomon, in Paralipomenon, from the Greek ἐν Παραλειπομένοις. We have learned from the sequence of divine readings that he erred so gravely for this reason, lest men should err, and it should be believed that the promise had flowed to him. For he built a temple to the idol Astarte for love of a woman, and the Lord was angered against Solomon.

If therefore, while David was still living, he began to reign (for thus you have it, that when it was announced to David that Solomon reigned, King David worshipped upon his bed, and said: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who has this day given one of my seed to sit upon my throne, and my eyes see it), if he erred, if he gave offense, you see that the sequence of the promise pledged Christ.

And therefore the evangelist chose these two as authors of the lineage: one, who received the promise concerning the gathering of the peoples: the other, who obtained the oracle concerning the generation of Christ. And therefore, although he is later in the order of succession, he is nevertheless described first, before Abraham, in the generation of the Lord; because it is a greater thing to have received the promise concerning Christ than concerning the Church; since the Church itself exists through Christ. Therefore one is the prince of the lineage according to the flesh, the other the prince of the lineage according to the spirit: the one according to the grace of the seed, the other according to the faith of the peoples; for he who saves is greater than he who is saved. And therefore he is called the son of David: The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David.

For he ought to be named first, to whom it was promised that a son would be given; although the Apostle also says that Christ was promised to Abraham: For to Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He does not say: And to seeds, as of many, but as of one: And to your seed, which is Christ; so that to the one is granted the property of the generation, to the other the primacy. To that one it was granted that Jesus should be called his son: to this one, as it were the prince, is preserved the prerogative of family and of nations; so that from Abraham the beginning of the Lord's generation should flow. For he who is the author of faith, him also the Scripture had to assert as the author of the divine generation.

Whence also Luke thought that his origin should be referred to God

because the true begetter of Christ is God, either according to the true generation as father, or according to the regeneration of the font as the author of the mystical gift. And therefore he did not begin to describe his generation from the first; but afterward he set forth his baptism, wishing to show God as the author of all things through baptism, and asserted that Christ also flowed from God in the order of succession: weaving all things together, that he might show him to be the Son of God according to nature, and according to grace, and according to the flesh. But what clearer indication of the divine generation is there than that, about to speak of the generation, he set the Father himself speaking first: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (above)?

Here too some are accustomed to raise questions, that Matthew enumerated forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ, but Luke fifty; and that Matthew described the lineage as passing through certain persons, Luke through others: in which you can already prove what we said, that although Matthew wove together some greater figures of the Lord's lineage, and Luke others, in the order of generation; yet from Abraham and David onward both indicated the remaining authors of the lineage in common.

But as to the fact that Matthew thought the generation should be derived through Solomon, while Luke derived it through Nathan: the one seems to show the royal, the other the priestly family of Christ. This we ought not to take as meaning that the one is truer than the other, but that the one agrees with the other in equal faith and truth. For he was truly, and according to the flesh, of a royal and a priestly family: a king from kings, a priest from priests, although the oracle is expressed not concerning carnal things but concerning heavenly things; since he is both a king who rejoices in the power of God, to whom judgment is committed by the Father who is king, and a priest forever, according to what is written: You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech.

Rightly, then, did each hold to the faith; so that Matthew might prove the origin traced through kings, and Luke, by deriving the sequence of the lineage into Christ through priests transmitted from God, might declare that very origin to be the more sacred. At the same time, in this too is signified the figure of the calf, in that everywhere he thinks the priestly mystery ought to be preserved.

Nor should you wonder if, according to Luke, there are more successions from Abraham down to Christ, and fewer according to Matthew, since you must acknowledge that the generation was carried through by other persons: for it can happen that some passed a long-lived life, while men of another generation departed at an immature age; since we see many old men living together with their grandchildren, while others die immediately after begetting sons.

We also note this, that holy Matthew recorded Jacob, who was the father of Joseph, as the son of Mathan; but Luke described Joseph, to whom Mary was betrothed, as the son of Heli, and Heli as the son of Melchi. How can there be two fathers of one man, that is, Heli and Jacob? How also two paternal grandfathers, Mathan and Melchi? But if you truly inquire, you will find that, according to the prescription of the old law, two brothers by different fathers could beget children of the womb from one wife. For it is related that Mathan, who traced his lineage from Solomon, begat a son Jacob, and died while his wife survived, whom Melchi afterward took to wife, and from her was begotten Heli; and again, when Heli died without children, his brother was joined to his wife, and begat a son Joseph, who according to the Law is called the son of Jacob; since the brother, according to the order of the old law, raised up seed for his deceased brother.

Thus he was called the son of two men, though not begotten by both; but

because he was made the son of the one according to generation, and of the other according to the Law. In this prescription of the Law you may perceive what pertains according to Christ. The future perpetuity of the seed of the deceased that was promised to us—this the people of the Jews did not understand; but taking it according to the letter, they corrupted the grace of the oracle. For it was a different brother who was to raise up the seed of the deceased brothers—not a brother according to the kinship of the flesh, but according to the purity of grace. And therefore perhaps it is said: A brother does not redeem; a man shall redeem; because it was not that own brother, but the Lord and mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who propagated the grace of resurrection. Although there is another interpretation of this

which we shall give in its proper place (Enarr. In).

It does not seem absurd that holy Matthew thought the generations should be divided, doubling the mystic number, into fourteen groups: from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian transmigration, from the Babylonian transmigration to Christ; in which he likewise designated the successive changes. For from Abraham to David the people of the Jews was a time without kings; for the lawful kingdom began with David; then the whole race of the Jews was governed through kings, and the kingdoms remained unimpaired until their transmigration. But after the transmigration, the nobility of the degenerating people was cut off toward its decline. As to the fifty successions which Luke thought should be woven together from Abraham, the grace of the mystic number, once preserved, is sufficiently clear. For both the tenth and the seventeenth number are mystic, and each, repeated a third time, signifies a mystery. And Pentecost, whose grace Luke followed, and the Forty Days, whose grace Matthew followed, have made known the mystic number abundantly and more than sufficiently.

Many also wonder why Matthew thought fit to weave into the Lord's genealogy the mention of Thamar, a woman of ill repute, as it seems to them. Why also Ruth; why also mention of that woman who was the wife of Uriah, and, after her husband was slain, passed into marriage with David—when especially he made no mention anywhere of Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, holy women. For thus you have it: Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah and his brothers; and Judah begat Phares and Zara of Thamar. Not without purpose, then, did the evangelist insert the name of this woman, concerning whom it seems fitting meanwhile to treat separately.

For first, if you turn your mind to the truth, this woman was not so much notorious as just; for she did not seek the enjoyment of temporal lust, but desired the grace of succession. For it was a disgrace not to have children, a thing also mulcted by the authority of the civil laws. Judah had promised her to his son, and had long deferred the covenants of the marriage bond. Through the delay of the promise the betrothed died. Not yet did the grace of virginity, not yet that of widowhood, flourish before the coming of Christ. Grieving that she remained without children, she contrived a stratagem out of her zeal for offspring, and outstripped Judah by her plan, that she might offer herself to him adorned, after she learned that his wife had died.

You see indeed that the woman's life is approved, in that she did not snatch at a marriage-bed not her own, was not adorned as a harlot out of harlot's zeal; for she did not court wandering lust, but, long defrauded of her father-in-law's promises, turned her stratagem toward that family which she had chosen, wishing to obtain the fruit of succession. Who then was more chaste—she who waited so long for the promise, or he who could not bear the love that was offered? She who did not shrink from her betrothed's family, or he who thought her a harlot? She who did not yield the hour of her body to willing men for union, or he who, what he began through the zeal of error, consummated by the woman's chastity for the sake of the grace of succession?

She who had no children, and feared that the time of conception might be excluded by delay of marriage—she who chose the gravity of a more mature man, or he who loved the age of a younger woman? Indeed he himself confessed, saying: Thamar has been more justified than I; because I did not give her to Selom my son. So she wished to test the very exactor of her own chastity. Indeed, she never afterward knew a man; she took up the garb of widowhood after that union: he, impatient of one hour, who had exacted years of chastity from the girl, cast off mourning, changed his garment, cut his hair, left the funeral pyre, mounted the marriage bed as a lover.

But I do not defend her in such a way as to accuse him; rather let us excuse both—not we ourselves, but the mystery which the fruit of that union expressed; for the woman bore Phares and Zara, sons, she bore twins. Whence not without purpose did Matthew mark both, though Phares alone would have sufficed for the mention required by the succession: for Phares begat Esron, Esron begat Aram; and then each in order. But why, when Isaac begat two sons, and Jacob many, did the order of Scripture make mention only of those individuals whom the cause of the Lord's succession demanded, while of these two it recorded both, unless because in both there is a mystery?

We have treated the moral point

because she did not practice the works of a harlot but chose the gifts of fecundity; let us treat the historical, and examine the mystical. For it cannot be without mystery that she received a ring, a necklace, and a staff. Not a lowly person is she who merits to receive an ornament, a seal, a power: the seal of deeds, the ornament of the breast, the emblem of royal freedom. Therefore, to begin the narrative: when Thamar was giving birth, you have read that one child put forth a hand from the womb, which the midwife, seizing it, bound with scarlet thread, saying: This one shall come forth first. But as the boy drew back his hand into his mother's womb, immediately his brother came forth. And the midwife said: Why has the hedge been broken through because of you? And she called his name Phares. And afterward his brother came forth, on whose hand was the scarlet thread, and she called his name Zara.

Do you see how great enigmas betray a mystery?

The hand put forth, the scarlet bound, the hand drawn back, the twofold voice of the midwife, the fact that one came forth first, that the other broke through the hedge.

But why did one put forth a hand from the womb, while the other preceded in birth by natural emergence, unless

because through the mystery of the twins a twofold life of peoples is described: the one according to the Law, the other according to faith; the one according to the letter, the other according to grace? Grace is prior to the Law; faith is prior to the letter. And therefore the type of grace put forth its hand first, because the act of grace preceded, which was in Job, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who lived by faith without the Law: For Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him for righteousness. Melchizedek too, preceding the grace of the holy one, showed forth the figure of sacrifice; for the holy patriarchs, going before the Law, freed from the bonds of the prescriptions, shone forth with a free grace of the Gospel similar to ours.

The younger of these brothers is the second order of piety; for the first is in the patriarchs, the second in the kings and priests.

Both are a life according to God; for those also who, under the Law of Moses, waged a religious and pious warfare, are not without grace and honor: but the fruit of piety is first in the originators, rather than in the heirs. For Zara is first, whose name by interpretation signifies "rising" oriens; for the light of piety is the true splendor of the East, of him certainly who said: My name is the Orient; whose ray of light first shone forth in the patriarchs. For they were the first to send forth the act of their life in this world, in whose hand our own actions too, as it were of a fuller body—we who were still held in a kind of womb of generating nature—went before as a figure.

But the observance of the Law is interposed like a hedge between, and in a certain way the life of the elders seems to be cut off, of which, in the type, that midwife—perhaps justice, which received us as we were sent forth from the womb of mother nature—is said to have spoken: This one shall come forth first. And truly wondrous was that order of piety, impressed not by Moses, nor by any man, nor through man, but by a certain gift of wisdom pouring itself in of its own accord.

The first discipline of piety, then, is according to the Gospel; for through the cross and blood we believe in Christ, whose day Abraham saw and rejoiced; whose grace, figured in the type of the Church, Noah foresaw by spiritual knowledge; whose place in sacrifice Isaac did not refuse; whom Jacob, when he overcame him, adored; whose ruddiness of garments Isaiah saw (for the life of the prophets too is according to the Gospel); in whose blood, amid the destructions of the world, Rahab, that harlot in type, indicated in mystery the future public sign of salvation—the Church, which does not refuse the union of many strangers, and the more joined she is to many, the more chaste she is: immaculate virgin, without wrinkle, of unblemished modesty, plebeian in love, chaste harlot, sterile widow, fruitful virgin. A harlot, because she is frequented by many lovers with the allurement of love, and without the pollution of guilt: For he who cleaves to a harlot is one body.

A sterile widow, who knows not how to bear in the absence of her husband: the husband comes, and begets this people and populace.

A fruitful virgin, who bore this multitude with the fruit of love, without the exercise of lust.

But to return to the narrative: what do the midwife's words mean when she says, This one shall come forth first, unless

because he bore the type of him who, later in bodily birth, but first in power and truth, claimed for himself the primacy over all? Hence also John: After me comes a man who was made before me. What does it mean that she bound scarlet thread on his hand, unless because he was the type of him who, by the sign of his cross and the shedding of his blood, illumined the deeds of mankind? And so, after he drew back his hand, as though the hedge had been cut through, his brother came forth—whom the Apostle named as it were a middle wall of the hedge or enclosure—and he himself took his name from the cutting through; for Phares means division: whence also the Pharisees were so named, because they separated themselves from the unions of many.

But it would have been more blessed, and far better, had the hedge not been cut through, but remained one and the same and undivided.

This could have come to pass, if the life that first put forth its hand—that is, showed forth its own act—had been followed by a consistent service of that life which came after. For it would have been far better if the circumcised people had wished to imitate the life of their elders; for then there would have been one hedge, one enclosure, one building of those before and those after. But since the infirmity of the later people could not fulfill that first act of life, the hedge or enclosure, which had been built according to God, was cut through without doubt, and set as a middle wall between; so that that hedge, that is, the perpetual and continuous building up of good morals, might be broken. For a hedge is that by which a fruitful field is enclosed, the inroad of the thief is warded off, which encloses what is cultivated, and separates what is deserted. An enclosure also shuts in a house: if this remains, the house is safe.

Hence it is said: I will take away its enclosure, and it shall be for a spoil.

Let us desire that this enclosure of our house be whole—the spiritual house

that is within us; for it cannot be built by man, but by the living God, who says: And I set an enclosure around it. Those, therefore, have lost salvation who have lost the enclosure. Let the enclosure remain, then; let this hedge remain. Do you wish to know how useful a hedge is? Hedge your ears with thorns and briars, and do not listen to a wicked tongue. For this hedge defends you from guilt.

Therefore the Lord Jesus, who afterward according to the flesh came into the light, restoring the fortification of that ancient hedge, reformed us into the conduct of our forefathers and the ancient simplicity of faith. Whence the prophecy says of him: "You shall be called the builder of the hedge". For he removed that barrier which divided the unity of mind and body, and the sequence of a simple life; and he himself was made our peace, who made both one, and dissolved the middle wall of the hedge. This wall the Apostle explains to be the enmities in the flesh. These enmities, therefore, the Lord took away, and poured back peace, and emptied the law of commandments contained in decrees; that he might create the two into one new man: in which he signifies not only the outer and the inner, but also the Jew and the Greek, that Christ might be all and in all.

For the Lord of the sabbath took away the superstition of the bodily sabbath, and dissolved as it were the middle wall of the Law: which was hindering us, by the difficulty of its decrees, from that piety which is according to God, since according to the law of Moses it was not easy or possible for the Gentiles to serve as soldiers of God, seeing that the empty superstition of the Jews called back the pure affection of the Gentiles from undertaking observance. What then? Is the Law useless? Far from it: but it is useful to unbelievers, necessary for the weak, that by the austerity of a saving precept it might restrain those who are slippery and erring, and enclose them by the strictness of observances. But the Law is good, because it is spiritual. It is therefore not good for him who does not think it spiritual: who, being made small and lowly in mind, could not see that majesty which is above the Law, namely, of Christ.

This majesty, indeed, as though looking beyond that wall, the lofty-minded Isaiah saw—the glory of God, which is seen on the mountains, not on the hills.

The Church has thus taught us in the Song of Songs that this wall could not stand in the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, nor of him who followed Christ, saying: "The voice of my brother: behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, and skipping over the hills; my brother is like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel. Behold, he stands behind our wall, looking forth through the windows, looking through the lattice. My brother answered and said to me: Arise, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove; for lo, the winter has passed, the rain has gone and departed, the flowers have appeared in the land, the time of pruning has come, the voice of the turtledove has been heard". The flowers are the apostles: the time of harvest is the fruit of Christ: the voice of the turtledove is the voice of the Church.

Rightly, therefore, the Son of God, after he had seen earthly men not walking toward heavenly things, and hemmed in by bodily constraints (for there was not one who did good, not even one), deigned himself to come down to the earth; that he might take away that wall of the Law, that is, a certain mass and superstition of bodily understanding, which as it were pressed down and darkened the hearts of the peoples. Better therefore is an unmortared wall than a mortared one. Indeed, it is not good, a "whitewashed wall." Which was not said idly to the high priest, since he was keeping the impediments of the middle wall, which the Lord Jesus removed as though it were a harsh servitude, so that he might pour in a clearer observance of religion; so that no longer only one race, the Jews, enclosed as it were by a certain bodily prescription of the Law, but all nations might be called to the worship of God through the Gospel.

There are, then, two twin lives, two twin military services; such that the former is better than the one that follows.

And therefore that which is better has been restored. Who indeed would deny that the Gospel excels the Law? Yet the Law is good, if you raise the mind above the letter: for the letter kills. What indeed would this history have of grace, unless we should see the light of so great a mystery? For the holy Apostle has taught us to seek, in the simplicity of history, the secret of truth, and to refer the sense to certain disputations not intelligible according to the letter, writing: "Tell me, you who read the Law, have you not heard the Law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a bondwoman, and one by a free woman: but he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; he who was of the free woman, through promise. Which things," he says, "are spoken by allegory. For these are the two Testaments".

And below: "But Jerusalem which is above is free".

Let us therefore strive, with sublimity of mind, toward that Jerusalem which the middle wall could not cut off and divide.

For according to bodily understanding that wall of the old Testament has been dissolved: the bondwoman has been cast out, the free woman is kept. From the free woman we are free; for the Church is free, the Synagogue has been cast out. For the people of the Jews were in servitude; the yoke of servitude has been removed, which pressed down as it were certain necks of our soul, that we might not be able to look beyond the wall of the former life. We have a yoke that is good and light, which raises up rather than presses down those bound with the reins of peace and the bonds of grace, more than it weighs them down.

This is the Lord, whose type went before in Zara; because it was from the tribe and from the seed of that Zara that the Lord Jesus, according to the flesh, was born not only of a woman, but also under the Law; that he might redeem, at the price of his blood, those who were under the Law. Whose figure therefore went before in the hand of that Zara; that it might promise us that he was to come who would recall the use of the old life, and would restore, in the last Adam, the liberty which he had bestowed on the first Adam; that the human race might now be without the law of servitude.

If, then, we have recognized that Thamar was recorded among the Lord's generations on account of a mystery: Ruth too, without doubt, by the same reasoning, we ought to consider was not passed over lightly: concerning whom the holy Apostle seems to have had this in mind, when he foresaw in spirit that the calling of the foreign nations was to be celebrated through the Gospel, saying that the Law was not laid down for the just, but for the unjust. For how did Ruth, though a foreigner, marry a Jew? And for what reason did the evangelist think that the mention of her union should be made in the generation of Christ, when it was forbidden by the order of the Law? Did the Savior not then flow from a lawful generation? It seems unseemly, unless you return to the apostolic sentence, that the Law was not laid down for the just, but for the unjust.

For since she was a foreigner and a Moabite (especially since the law of Moses forbade such marriages, and excluded the Moabites from the assembly; for thus it is written: "The Moabites shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord unto the third and fourth generation, and forever") how did she enter into the Church, unless because she was made holy and immaculate in character above the Law? For if the Law was laid down for the impious and sinners, then indeed Ruth, who exceeded the definition of the Law, and entered into the Church, and became an Israelite, and merited to be counted among the ancestors of the Lord's lineage, chosen for kinship of mind, not of body, is a great example to us, because in her a figure went before of all of us who have been gathered from the Gentiles, entering into the Church of the Lord.

Let us, then, emulate her; that as she, by her character, merited this privilege of being received into fellowship, as the history teaches: we too, by the choice of character, may be joined by the support of merits to the Church of the Lord.

For indeed, when in the earlier days of the Judges a famine pressed upon the Israelites, a man went from the city of Bethlehem in Judea, in which Christ was born, to sojourn in the country of Moab with his wife and two sons; the man's name was Elimelech, the woman's Noemi. His sons took to themselves Moabite wives, the name of one Orpha, and the name of the second Ruth: and they dwelt there about ten years, and died. But the woman, left destitute of her two sons and her own husband, having learned that God had visited Israel, preparing to return home, began to urge that the wives of her sons should go back to their own homes. One consented: but Ruth remained with her mother-in-law.

When her mother-in-law said to her: "Behold, your sister-in-law has already returned to her people, and to her gods: you too return together with your sister-in-law," Ruth answered: "Let it not happen to me to leave you and return to my gods; for wherever you go, I will go with you, and where you dwell, I will dwell. Your people, my people: your God, my God. And where you die, I will die: and where you are buried, I will be buried". And so the two came to Bethlehem. These, then, being the character and this holiness toward her mother-in-law, this dutifulness toward the deceased, this religion toward God, when Boaz, the great-grandfather of David, came to know of them, according to the law of Moses, so as to raise up seed for his deceased kinsman, he chose her for his wife.

It is worth noting, moreover, that also, found in the field full of the harvest, gathering sheaves, as it is written, and keeping the fruits for her mother-in-law, she did not go after a young man, but followed a mature man, whence also she merited to hear: "For you are a woman of virtue"; or, "because you have done well, your last kindness more than the first". For the last kindness, of the Church gathered together, surpasses the former. This we say more briefly here, because we have treated it more fully in the books which I wrote on the Faith. Now he who was far off drew near; because he who was near withdrew himself, and by taking off the kinsman's shoe, obtained the woman.

For it was the custom that whoever was the nearer kinsman, if he did not wish to take his kinswoman in marriage, should loose his shoe, and yield to another: in which there is no small mystery, since he who took the foreigner as a type, received the capacity of preaching the Gospel.

Finally, that this marriage was in type is attested by the blessing of the elders, saying: "May the Lord make the woman who enters into your house like Rachel and like Leah, who built up the house of Israel, and may you do valiantly in Ephrata: and may your name be famous in Bethlehem: and may your house become like the house of Phares, whom Thamar bore to Judah. Of your seed may the Lord give you from this young woman." And Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and bore Obed, the father of Jesse, grandfather of David.

Rightly, therefore, the holy Matthew, about to call the Gentiles to the Church through the Gospel, recorded that the very author of the Lord's calling of the Gentiles assumed, according to the flesh, a generation from a foreign lineage; that it might even then be a sign that that generation would bring forth the one who calls the Gentiles, whom we all, gathered from among the Gentiles, might follow, leaving our fathers' ways, and saying to him who calls us to the worship of God—say, to Paul, or to any bishop: "Your people, my people: and your God, my God". Therefore Ruth, like Leah and Rachel, forgetting her people and her father's house, loosing the bond of the Law, entered into the Church.

He, then, looses the shoe, who has not received the Church. And to Moses it is said: "Loose the shoe of your feet"; lest he himself be believed to be the bridegroom of the Church. He alone did not loose it, who is the true bridegroom. And therefore John says: "Of whom I am not worthy to loose the strap of his sandal." Therefore this too is a type, and she built up the house of Israel.

How truly her commemoration was to be inserted into the Lord's lineage is declared by the expression of a deeper mystery, whereby it was prophesied that from her stock, in Ephrata, Christ was to be born, when it is said: "May the Lord grant that you do valiantly in Ephrata, and that your name be famous in Bethlehem". For what is this valor, but that which through Christ gathered together the peoples of the Gentiles? And what name, but that by which Bethlehem was made the native place of the Lord, born according to the flesh? Whence it was said through the prophet: "And you, Bethlehem of Judea, are not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of you shall come forth a ruler who shall rule my people Israel" (Micah, 2). We see, then, that the mention of these women fits together with history, character, and mystery.

Nor yet do I refuse, when I defend Thamar and Ruth, to admit that sinners also were reckoned among the ancestors of the Lord's lineage: whose commemoration holy Luke, wishing to avoid, kept a certain other order of succession, and thought neither Achab nor Jechonias nor, finally, the wife of Urias ought to be named, so that he might set forth an unblemished series of priestly lineage. But just as his reasoning for his plan stands, so also the plan of holy Matthew does not depart from the justice of reason. For since he was proclaiming that the Lord had been begotten according to the flesh, he who was to take up the sins of all, subject to injuries, subject to suffering, thought that he too should not be declared exempt from this piety, so that he might not refuse even the reproach of a stained origin; and at the same time, that the Church might not be ashamed to be gathered from sinners, since the Lord was born of sinners.

Finally, that he might begin the benefit of redemption even from His own ancestors; lest anyone should think that a blemish of origin could be an impediment to virtue: nor should he insolently boast of the nobility of his lineage, nor should he, more bashfully, blush at the crimes of his parents, to whom the power of overshadowing his origin was given by the flower of virtue.

But is not holy David, although many things concerning him are figured in mystery, all the more excellent in this, that he recognized himself to be a man, and thought that the sin committed in the matter of the ravished wife of Urias should be washed away by tears of penitence, showing us that no one ought to trust in his own virtue? For we have a great adversary, who cannot be overcome by us without the favor of God. And you will find that for the most part grave sins have occurred in illustrious and blessed men; so that you may know that they, as men, lay open to temptation, lest by reason of their outstanding virtues they should be believed to be more than men.

For if David, because, elated by presumption of virtue, he had said: "If I have repaid those who repay me evil"; and elsewhere: "But I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved forever"; immediately recorded that he had undergone the penalty of this insolence, saying: "Thou didst turn away thy face from me, and I was troubled": if he himself, the author of the Lord's lineage, incurred the offense of insolence; how much more ought we, the rest of sinners, for whom no prerogative of merits pleads, fear the rock of insolence, on which is the shipwreck of good men; especially since so great a man is for us both an author of instruction and of example, who thought that a kind of palinode ought to be sung in his later years to propitiate the Lord again, saying: "Lord, my heart is not exalted, neither are my eyes lifted up on high": and "The Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved"; for he knew, when he trusted in himself, that he had fallen.

Finally, he showed that there is nothing else in man, except that he knows God.

For thus you have it: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him: or the son of man, that thou visitest him?" If, then, David condemns insolence, and puts on humility, rightly in the story of the wife of Urias this teaching of affecting humility is claimed.

And yet, if from her that peaceful Solomon was born, let us see whether it be perhaps a mystery, that when he had been taken from the midst who before, by his marriage, claimed for himself the people of the nations, she married another man of the Church, the true David. For Christ is called David, being called by the name of his parent, according to what is written: "I have found David my servant"; to whom the Church was married, who, full of the seed of the Word and of the Spirit of God, brought forth the body of Christ, namely the Christian people. There is, therefore, a woman who, while her husband lived, was bound by the law: and therefore her husband died, that she might not be an adulteress, if she were with another man. Mystery, therefore, in the figure, sin in the history: guilt through the man, sacraments through the Word. Concerning which history, since we have spoken more fully elsewhere, here it seems to be passed over briefly.

And deservedly did holy David write concerning this history the mystical fiftieth Psalm, on account of his marriage with Bersabee, saying: "Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin". If the friend of God acknowledges his iniquity, and that his sin stands in the way of his merits: if, finally, he confesses that he has sinned against God; why should you blush at the confession of a crime, since it is the pretense of a crime, not confession, that brings shame?

Since, therefore, David did not omit the history of Bersabee in his Psalms; that he might teach us in it either the mystery, or the act of perfect penitence, we rightly see that it also was not omitted in the Lord's generations; because David himself, who took her as his wife, is asserted to be the forerunner of the Lord's generation according to the flesh. Whose special merit, as we have said, was that he might see in this mystery the rising of the Church, and receive the oracle that Christ would be born of his lineage. For one thing pertains to the Church, which he said: "Behold, we have heard of it in Ephrata: we have found it in the fields of the wood". Another pertains specially to the promise of the Lord's body, which is revealed by a most manifest oracle, when it is said: "Of the fruit of thy body I will set upon thy seat". Do not, however, be negligent of so great a promise; for it was not given without a condition.

But if thou shalt keep the covenant, and shalt observe the testimonies of the Lord, which He promises in the Gospel that He will speak, to you also the abundance of an eternal seat will lie open. These things concerning the wife of Urias.

Concerning Achab, however, whose wife was Jezabel

it is clear enough: and concerning Jechonias, of whom Jeremias is a sufficiently reliable authority, that he was guilty of the greatest crime: from whom even the name he had was snatched away. And therefore he who is called Joachim in the books of Kings was named Jechonias by Jeremias, who says: "Jechonias is cast away as a vessel, of no use is he; wherefore he himself is cast out, and his seed. O earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord, write this man childless; because there shall not rise up of his seed one sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Juda". For in his reign the Babylonians laid waste Judaea, nor afterward could anyone of his seed ever obtain a kingdom in Judaea. For afterward the people, released from captivity, were under priests and tetrarchs. Whence even up to the generation of Christ tetrarchs remained, not even they, as far as history teaches, preserving the dignity of the royal lineage.

For it is reported by those who have handed down to us the account, whether arguing, or simply teaching, or truly asserting, that Idumaean robbers, having entered Ascalon, a city of Palestine, carried off from the temple of Apollo, which was near the walls, among other captives Antipater, the son of a certain Herod who was a temple-servant, whom his father was unable to redeem on account of poverty. He, therefore, being instructed in the disciplines and mysteries of the Jews, was joined in friendship to Hyrcanus, king of Judea, whom Hyrcanus sent as ambassador on his own behalf to Pompey: and because he obtained the fruit of that embassy, through that favor he aspired to a share in the kingdom. But when Antipater had been slain on account of envy of his good fortune, his son Herod was afterward, by a decree of the senate under Antony, appointed to reign over the Jews. Of this Herod was born a son, Herod, and the other tetrarchs.

This we have thought good to transfer from the histories of the Greeks, that it might be clear that Herod, unrelated by any lineage to the Jews, sought the kingdom by adulterous fraud. Finally, conscious of his own ignoble birth, lest any question should be raised about his descendants from the old records, he burned their scriptures, thinking that if he removed the evidence from the public record, it could not be made clear by any other testimonies that he did not descend from the lineage of the patriarchs or of the ancient proselytes. But, as is the case with most matters of human contrivance, this could not prejudice the knowledge and investigation of the truth.

Let us see, however, lest this could prejudice us, we who say that Christ is of a true and royal lineage, and that the Lord's lineage was carried on through true and noble kings. But where an adulterous progeny aspired to kingship, the order of generation, not of power, preserved the succession of nobility. Yet we do not receive Christ as king according to the honor of this world. How then, "Of the fruit of thy body I will set upon thy seat"? How also does the angel say of Him, that "The Lord God shall give unto him the seat of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob"? How is He promised to reign, and it is not shown? Or how is it said by the prophet that none of the seed of Jechonias shall reign? For if Christ reigned, and Christ is of the seed of Jechonias, the prophet has lied, and the oracles have lied.

But there it is not denied that descendants would come from the seed of Jechonias; and therefore Christ is of his seed: and that Christ reigned is not contrary to the prophecy; for He did not reign with worldly honor, nor did He sit in the seat of Jechonias, but He reigned in the seat of David.

But since Jechonias himself sat upon the seat of David, how is it resolved, what was said, that the descendants of Jechonias would not sit upon the seat of David, since the same seat seems to have belonged to both? And so we too cannot deny that it was the seat of David; yet Christ did not sit upon the same seat of King David that Jechonias sat upon; nay, nor could anyone else of the lineage of David sit upon his seat, except Christ; because his seed is not eternal in any other, but in Christ, as God Himself swore, saying: "Once have I sworn by my holiness, if I lie unto David, his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me". Whom then does He mean here? Not Solomon, surely, not Roboam, not Nathan, but him alone of whom He can say: "I will set his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers.

He shall call upon me, Thou art my Father"; and "I will set his seed forever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven". Surely Solomon did not sit upon this throne, not Roboam, nor Jechonias. Would you know who sat upon it? This is he of whom the angel says to Mary: "Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High: and the Lord God shall give unto him the seat of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end". If you do not believe the angel, believe at least the Lord Himself, saying: "Thou sayest that I am a king". Did He too, then, lie, in that He said He should reign, He who did not reign on earth? How is the Scripture resolved, which says that He reigns, and does not establish that He reigns?

We have come to the precipice of the discussion, we are stuck in shallows, and we toss about in a certain shipwreck of the truth.

Let us therefore rouse Christ, let us ask Him, let Him Himself answer. Let us question the Scriptures. We find that the kingdom of the Lord is not of this world; for He Himself said: "My kingdom is not of this world". He who says that His kingdom is not of this world shows that it is above the world. Thus His kingdom both was and was not: it was not in this age, it was above this age. There was, then, another kingdom of the true David, which Christ alone received: and there was another seed of David, which remains forever, of which Christ alone was begotten, who alone is the true son of David, whose name alone He also received, according to what is written: "I have found David my servant, I have anointed him with my holy oil".

Which surely is shown by what precedes to be said not of the prophet David, but of the Lord; for it is written: "I have laid help upon one

that is mighty, and have exalted one chosen out of my people". For Christ alone is mighty, alone is chosen. For the seed of the saints is greater in faith than in generation. And therefore the Apostle says: "For if they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham".

This too we think should not be passed over, that from the times of David down to Jechonias, that is, down to the captivity, though there were seventeen kings of Judaea, the holy Matthew has set down fourteen generations: and again from Jechonias down to Joseph, though the generations reckoned man by man come to twelve, he has recorded that fourteen generations were nevertheless described. For thus you have it: All the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations: and from David to the carrying away into Babylon, fourteen generations: and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ, fourteen generations. And first it must be understood, as we have already said, that there can be more successions and fewer generations. For some may live longer and beget later, or indeed be altogether without offspring. Thus the times of the kings are not the same as the times of the generations. Whence Matthew also passed over those whom he did not consider to pertain to the generation.

For if it had been his purpose to describe successions, we would reasonably be moved to ask why, though it agrees with the Books of Kings and of Chronicles that after Joram, Ochozias reigned, and Joas, and Amasias; and that Ozias succeeded Amasias; holy Matthew passed over those three kings, Ochozias, Joas, and Amasias, and placed Josaphat immediately after Joram (Chron. 22, and following). But he set him down not in the succession of kings, but in the generation. In fact he recorded that he was a relater of generations: it could indeed have happened that Joram begot later, and that Josaphat received the kingdom later still; and so Joram succeeded his own father, to whose power he did not succeed, in generation.

But as to the fact that after Jechonias the Evangelist seems to have enumerated only twelve generations, if you attend carefully, here too you will be able to find the reckoning of fourteen generations. For twelve are numbered down to Joseph, not down to Christ. The thirteenth is Christ. But it matters nothing whether the falsehood, if any, lies in two generations or in one. Yet not even here will you find any hidden reef, or any shipwreck of truth. History shows that there were two Joachims, that is, two Jechonias: one begotten before the deportation, the other in the very deportation itself, that is, father and son. Therefore the father is reckoned among the earlier generations, he who succeeded Josias: the son among the later, he who succeeded his father, that is, the grandson of Josias. That there were two, the Books of Kings show.

For thus it is written: And Pharao reigned over Israel, Joachim the son of Josias reigning in Judaea in place of Josias his father; and he changed the name of Joachim in his reigning, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. To which is added: And the rest of the acts of Joachim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words, and in the days of them that reigned in Judaea? And Joachim slept with his fathers; and Joachim his son reigned in his stead; Joachim was eighteen years old, and when he reigned, he reigned three months in Jerusalem: his mother's name was Nohesta; and all that he did was in the sight of the Lord, as his father had done, and he did it: and in his days Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem. You see, then, that one was the son of Josias, another the grandson: the son was he to whom Jeremias gave a name, the grandson he who was called by his father's name.

And rightly did holy Matthew choose not to disagree with the Prophet, so as to name him not Joachim but Jechonias.

At the same time, as we have said above, he set forth the greater fruit of the Lord's mercy, in that the Lord did not seek nobility of lineage in all things, but willed to be born fittingly of captives and sinners, he who came to proclaim remission to captives. The Evangelist, therefore, did not suppress either one, but marked both, since each was called Jechonias. Thus with the younger Jechonias added, fourteen generations are reckoned. So much then for Matthew.

Beautifully, however, Luke, since he could not include all the many sons of Jacob, lest he seem to wander outside the generations in a superfluous list—though in other cases

that is, in the far more remote ancestors, he thought the names of the patriarchs by no means should be omitted—chose above the rest Joseph, Judah, Simeon, and Levi. For we recognize that there were four kinds of virtues in those of whom these are the descendants. In Judah, that is, in that elder one, the mystery of the Lord's passion was foretold in figure: in Joseph the example of chastity had gone before: in Simeon, the vengeance for injured modesty: in Levi, the office of the priesthood. Through Nathan too we perceive the dignity of prophecy expressed; so that, since Christ Jesus alone is all things, in each of the ancestors also different kinds of virtue might go before.

The mention of Noah, the just man, also ought not to have been omitted among the Lord's generations; so that, since the builder of the Church was being born, he might seem to have sent before him as the author of his line the one who had, in figure, already founded it. And what shall I say of Mathusala, whose years are numbered beyond the flood; so that, since Christ alone is he whose life felt no age, in his ancestors too he might seem not to have felt the floods? And is not Enoch clearly a token both of the Lord's mercy and of his divinity, in that the Lord neither felt death, nor returned to heaven, whose lineage's author was caught up to heaven? Whence it is clear that Christ too was able not to die, but was unwilling to escape it, that death might profit us.

And Enoch indeed was caught up, lest malice should change his heart: but the Lord, whom the malice of the world could not change, returned by the majesty of his own nature to the place whence he had come. There is, indeed, silence concerning the fratricide; nor was it reasonable that he who had struck down his brother should be numbered among the ancestors of the Lord; since the Lord preserved his servants, to grant them the honor of a brother's name—but the other did not preserve, nor did he spare his brother. Nor is it without purpose that Seth was not passed over, whom, in a later generation, Adam received; so that, since there are two generations of the human race, it might be signified in a figure that the Lord Jesus Christ was to be reckoned rather in the later generation than in the earlier.

Now as to Adam himself, who according to the Apostle received the figure of Christ, what could more beautifully have agreed than that the sacrosanct generation should begin from the Son of God, and be led down again to the Son of God: and that the one created should go before in figure, so that the one born might follow in truth: that the one made after the image should precede, for whose sake the image of God should descend? And if we examine the mystery of the first error, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with the devil deceiving and Eve persuading, he tasted; so that this One might choose the good for us before knowing evil, and might in the end, with the Church persuading, void the snares of the serpent, according as it is written: For before the child shall know good or evil, he will not consent to malice, that he may choose that which is good.

And, before he shall know how to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria.

For there is the child in whose cradle the Magi heaped up the spoils of the East; because the nation, unbelieving before Christ, with its faith now changed, offered to the Lord triumphal spoils taken from the trappings of idols.

These things, brother, concerning the generation of Christ I thought should not be unknown to you, but pursued at some length; lest anyone, reading them over in the Gospel with a mind less attentive, should waver in some measure: things which the holy evangelists, hastening on to greater miracles and more divine deeds of the Lord, thought should be touched on more briefly rather than spread out more copiously. Following their custom, then, who think it enough to point out to those ignorant of the roads certain marks, as it were, and paths of the journey, gathering together the paths of the spiritual way, I shall see whether by a truthful outcome, or at least by a devout guidance of faith, we press on into the secrets of the mysteries: fearing lest anyone, reading these things, should—as the proverb has it—like a boy handling a sword, not know through his inexperience how to wield mighty weapons, and feel a wound from imprudence rather than health from the reading.

For weapons wound the weak, nor can he use arms well who has not learned to bear them. And therefore in matters of faith a perfect man is required, in whom infancy does not crawl upon the ground of knowledge, nor does some feeble age, lacking the senses of mystical understanding, totter—an age which, having lost the strength of youth, does not seek the crown of the glorious contest, and, like an aging eagle which once was wont to seize the hare or the goose with its talons, now, worn out with age, seeks the unfledged young of lesser birds, being unable to bring back more solid food.

Not absurdly, I think, have we completed a work on the generation of the Lord: certainly it has not been unfruitful to dwell longer upon the Lord's forebears. For if those who prepare to cross the great sea by a coastal voyage, avoiding, out of weakness of confidence, the shortcut of a deeper course, just as we do, often visit fields and cities set along the shore, captivated by the beauty of the places: how much more ought we, athirst in so great a depth not of elements but of heavenly deeds, to prefer the nearer harbors, and love the frequent excursions! Lest anyone, wearied with the tedium of a long voyage, be unable to restrain the sickness of disgust. Certainly, if anyone perceives the treacherous flaws of an unsafe vessel, though a harbor of frequent books lies open before him, he may, so to speak, lower the sails of his ears, and cast the anchor of reading. He does not seem to have abandoned the voyage, but to have completed the course, who comes down into harbor.

And in very many places perhaps the very pleasantness of the places invites one passing by to linger.

For if that Ulysses, as the fables tell (though the Prophet too has said: The daughters of the Sirens shall dwell therein; and even had the prophet not said it, no one could rightly find fault, since Scripture also comprises giants, and the valley of the Titans)—if then that Ulysses, after the ten years of exile in which war was waged at Ilium, and ten years of wandering, hastening toward his homeland, could be held back by the sweetness of the berries of the Lotus-eaters: if the gardens of Alcinous delayed him; if finally the Sirens, with the enticement of their voice's song, nearly led him into that famous shipwreck of pleasure, unless—with a harbor set before him—he had, upon perceiving the treacherous flaws hidden in the deceitful song against the enticing sounds of that melody, lowered the sails of his ears.—had he not stopped the ears of his companions with wax: how much more shall it befall religious men to be soothed by the admiration of heavenly deeds!

And here now it is not the sweetness of berries

that is to be drawn in, but that bread which came down from heaven: not the vegetables of Alcinous that are to be gazed upon, but the sacraments of Christ. For let him who is weak eat vegetables. The ears, then, are not to be closed, but opened; that the voice of Christ may be heard, which whoever has perceived will not fear shipwreck. One's soul is not to be bound to the mast with bodily chains, as Ulysses was, but is to be bound to the wood of the cross with spiritual bonds; lest it be moved by the enticements of wantonness, and turn the course of nature aside into the peril of pleasure.

For the fable is colored with poetic fictions; so that certain maidens are said to have dwelt on a rocky shore of the sea: who, if by the sweetness of their voice for the pleasure of the ears they had drawn ships out of their course, would consume, with the lot of a wretched shipwreck, those led into hidden shoals and deceived by a treacherous anchorage. This is composed with a certain outward show, and colored by an ambitious comparison; so that a sea, a voice, women, shoaling shores, are feigned. But what sea is more precipitous than the world, so faithless, so restless, so deep, so stormy with the blasts of unclean spirits? What does the figure of the maidens signify, but the enticement of unmanned pleasure, which unmans the constancy of a captured mind? And what are those shoals, but the reefs of our salvation? For nothing is so blind as the peril of worldly sweetness; which, while it soothes the soul, overwhelms life, and dashes the sense of the mind upon certain reefs of the body.

Rightly, therefore, does our Lord Jesus Christ, by his fasting and by the desert, form us against the enticements of pleasures, and the Lord of all suffers himself to be tempted by the devil; that in him we might all learn to conquer. Let us note, then, that the Evangelist has described three things not idly ordained chiefly by the Lord. For there are three things which serve toward the profit of human salvation: the sacrament, the desert, the fast: for no one is crowned unless he has striven lawfully: but no one is admitted to the contest of virtue, unless first, washed of all the stains of sin, he is consecrated by the gift of heavenly grace.

The Lord, therefore, came to the laver; that the grace of the mystery might be shown to us both by sight and by sense.

And since the Law was promulgated with heaven and earth as witnesses; that you might believe the mystery of divinity, hidden from the ages, to be in God more than the Law: heaven is no longer called to bear witness, but performs the office of witness, when the voice of God is brought down from heaven. At the same time, lest you should offend the mystery of faith with a doubtful mind, invisible things are declared to you to be at work visibly.

The Lord came to the washing; for he was made all things for you.

To those who are under the Law, as though he were under the Law, though he himself was not under the Law, he was circumcised; that he might gain those who are under the Law: to those who were without the Law, he associated himself by the fellowship of a banquet; that he might gain those who lived without the Law. He was made weak to the weak through the suffering of the body; that he might gain the weak. Finally, to all he was made all things: poor to the poor, rich to the rich, weeping with those who weep, hungering with the hungry, thirsting with the thirsty, overflowing with those who abound. He is in prison with the poor man, he weeps with Mary, he feasts with the apostles, he thirsts with the Samaritan woman: in the desert he hungers; that the food of the first man, which he had tasted through transgression, might be undone by the fasting of the Lord.

At our peril Adam undid the hunger for the knowledge of good and evil; for our profit this one took hunger upon himself.

Then Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, that he might be tempted by the devil.

It is fitting to recall how the first Adam was cast out from paradise into the desert; that you may observe how the second Adam returned from the desert into paradise. For see how the former prejudices are undone by their own knots, and how the divine benefits are restored by their own footsteps. Adam was from virgin earth, Christ from a virgin: the former was made to the image of God, the latter is the image of God: the former was set before all irrational animals, the latter is set before all living things. Through woman came folly, through the Virgin came wisdom. Death through a tree, life through the cross. The former, naked of spiritual things, covered himself with the spoils of a tree: the latter, naked of worldly things, did not desire the spoils of the body. In the desert was Adam, in the desert was Christ; for he knew where he might find the condemned man, whom, error being undone, he might recall to paradise.

But since, clothed in worldly spoils, he could not return, nor can one be an inhabitant of paradise unless naked of fault; he put off the old man, he put on the new; that, since divine decrees cannot be undone, the person rather than the sentence might be changed.

But he who in paradise, without a guide, lost the way he had received, how could he, without a guide, seek again the lost way from the desert, where there are very many temptations, where the striving toward virtue is difficult, the fall into error easy: since the nature of virtue is the same as that of groves; so that if they are still small, raising themselves from earthly things toward the heights, while their age grows up in tender leaves, exposed to the poison of a savage tooth, they may easily either be cut down or burned: but if they have fixed themselves with a deep root, and lifted themselves with the loftiness of their branches, then in vain is the sturdy tree tempted either by the bites of wild beasts, or by the claws of woodland creatures, or by the storms of various winds.

Whom, then, would he set as guide against so many allurements of the world, against so many wiles of the devil; since he knew that our struggle is first against flesh and blood, and then indeed against the same in reversed terms, but the voice of God is used in the office of witness, when it is brought down from heaven, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual forces of wickedness that are in the heavenly places? Would he set an angel? But even an angel fell, and legions of angels have scarcely availed for single men. Would he send a Seraph? But even one such being came down to earth, into the midst of a people of unclean lips, and cleansed the lips of only one prophet, by the touch of a coal placed upon them. Another guide had to be sought, whom all of us might follow. Who could be so great a guide, one who would profit all, unless he who is above all?

Who would set me above the world, unless he who is greater than the world?

Who could be so great a guide, one able to rule with one guidance the male and the female, the Jew and the Greek, the Barbarian and the Scythian, the slave and the free; unless he alone who is all things and in all things—Christ?

For many are the snares wherever we go forward. Snares are set in the body, snares in the Law, snares on the pinnacles of temples, on the ledges of walls, by the devil. Snares among the philosophers, snares in desires; for the eye of the harlot is a snare to the sinner: a snare in money, a snare in religion, a snare in the pursuit of chastity. For by the smallest moments the human mind is inclined, and is frequently driven this way and that by the wiles of one persuading. The devil sees some religious man, reverently deferring to God, and esteeming that which is sacrosanct, thinking it capable of no injury: in that very religion he trips him up, so as to make him not believe that the Son of God truly took upon himself this flesh of ours, this body of ours, this frailty of our members; whereas indeed the passion was of the body, but the divinity remained exempt from injury.

Thus from religion comes a fault; for everyone who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.

He sees a man of unbroken and unstained chastity; he persuades him to condemn marriage; that he may be cast out of the Church, and by the pursuit of chastity be separated from a chaste body. Another has heard that there is One God; from whom are all things, and adores and venerates him. The devil lies in wait for him, closes his ears so that he does not hear that there is one God through whom are all things: thus by excessive piety he compels him to be impious; so that while he separates the Father from the Son, he confuses the Father and the Son, and thinks there to be one person, not one power. And so, while he does not know the measure of faith, he falls into the misery of unbelief.

How, then, shall we avoid these snares; so that we too may be able to say: Our soul as a sparrow has been snatched out of the snare of the hunters: the snare is broken, and we are set free? He does not say: I have broken the snare: David did not dare to say this; but: Our help is in the name of the Lord; that he might show whence the snare would be loosed; that he might prophesy that he would come into this life who would break the snare prepared by the guile of the devil.

But the snare could not be better broken, unless some prey had been shown to the devil; so that while he hastened toward the prey, he would be bound by his own snares, and I might be able to say: They prepared snares for my feet, and they themselves have fallen into them. What could the prey be, but the body? It was therefore necessary that this deceit be worked upon the devil, that the Lord Jesus should take up a body, and this corruptible body, a weak body; that he might be crucified out of weakness. For if the body had been spiritual, he would not have said: The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Hear, then, both voices—both of the willing spirit and of the weak flesh: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: this is the voice of the flesh. But not what I will, but what you will: here is the devotion and vigor of the spirit. Why do you reject the condescension of the Lord?

It is condescension that he took up my body, condescension that he took up my injuries, took up my infirmities, which indeed the nature of God could not feel, since even human nature has learned to despise or to sustain and endure them. And therefore let us follow Christ, according to what is written: You shall walk after the Lord your God, and to him alone you shall cleave. To whom shall I cleave, but to Christ, as Paul said: He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit? Let us therefore follow his footsteps, that we may be able to return from the desert to paradise.

And see by what paths we are led back.

Now Christ is in the desert; he acts as man, instructs, forms, exercises, anoints with spiritual oil: where he sees one grown stronger, he leads him through sown and fruitful fields, at the time when the Jews complained that his disciples plucked ears of grain on the sabbath (for already he had placed his apostles in a cultivated and fruitful field of work); afterward, at the time of the passion, he set them in a garden; for thus you have it: When Jesus had said these things, he went forth with his disciples across the brook Cedron, where there was a garden, into which he himself entered with his disciples. For the Prophet teaches that a garden is better than a fruitful field, saying in the Song of Songs: A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, your emissions are a paradise.

For that is the pure and unstained virginity of the soul, which is led astray by no terror of punishments, by no allurements of worldly pleasure against faith, by no love of life. Finally, the Evangelist here, beyond the others, testifies that man was recalled by the virtue of the Lord, he alone introducing the Lord saying to the thief: Amen I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.

Full, therefore, of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was led into the desert: by counsel, that he might provoke the devil; for unless that one had fought, this one would not have conquered for me: by mystery, that he might free that Adam from exile: by example, that he might show us that the devil envies those who strive toward better things; and that then especially caution must be taken, lest weakness of mind abandon the grace of the mystery.

forty days.

You recognize a mystical number.

For you remember that for that many days the waters of the abyss were poured out, and that after that many days of fasting the prophet was sanctified, the clemency of a more serene heaven was poured back. By that many days of fasting holy Moses earned the reception of the Law. For that many years the fathers, established in the wilderness, obtained the bread of angels and the grace of heavenly nourishment: nor before that mystical number of time was fulfilled did they merit to enter the land of promise. By that many days of fasting the entrance of the Lord into the Gospel is disclosed to us. Whence if anyone desires to obtain the glory of the Gospel and the fruit of the resurrection, he ought not to be a transgressor of the mystical fast; which fast Christ, by the authority of both Testaments, prescribed as a faithful contest of virtue, both in the Law of Moses and in his own Gospel.

But what does it mean that the Evangelist signified that the Lord hungered, when we see nothing of the sort expressed concerning the fast of Moses and Elijah? Is human patience then stronger than God? But he who could not hunger for forty days shows that he hungered not for the food of the body, but for salvation: at the same time that he might provoke the adversary who already feared, having been wounded by a fast of forty days. And therefore the hunger of the Lord is a pious deceit; so that the devil, already wary while fearing greater things, might be enticed by the appearance of hunger to tempt him as a man, lest the triumph be hindered. At the same time learn this mystery, that this was the work and judgment of the Holy Spirit, the divine judgment; that Christ might offer himself to be tempted by the devil.

the devil said to him: If you are the Son of God, command this stone that it become bread.

We are taught that there are chiefly three weapons of the devil, with which he is accustomed to be armed for wounding the mind of man: one of gluttony, another of vainglory, a third of ambition. And he began from that point whence already he had conquered. And therefore I begin to conquer in Christ from that point whence I was conquered in Adam; if indeed Christ is to me the image of the Father, the pattern of virtue. Let us learn, then, to beware of gluttony, to beware of luxury, because it is a weapon of the devil. A snare is set when the table of a royal banquet is prepared, which often bends the constancy of the mind. For not only when we hear the words of the devil, but also when we see his provisions, ought we to avoid the snare. You have learned, then, the weapon of the devil; take up the shield of faith, the breastplate of abstinence.

But what does such a beginning of speech mean: If you are the Son of God; unless

because he had known that the Son of God was to come? But he did not think he had come through this weakness of the body. It is one thing to test, another to tempt; and he professes to believe in God, and attempts to mock the man.

But see the weapons of Christ, by which he conquered for you, not for himself.

For he who by his majesty showed that stones could be turned into bread by the transfusion of another nature, teaches that nothing is to be done by you at the devil's bidding, nor for the sake of displaying power. At the same time, in this very temptation learn the crafty artifice of the devil. He tempts thus, that he may test: he tests thus, that he may tempt. Against this the Lord deceives thus, that he may conquer: he conquers thus even now, that he may deceive. For if he had changed nature, he would have betrayed the Creator. Therefore he answered in a middle way, saying:

It is written that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Do you see what kind of weapons he uses, with what he defends man against the assault of spiritual wickedness, fenced sevenfold against the incitements of gluttony?

For he does not use power as God (for what would that have profited me), but as man he calls to his aid a resource common to all; so that, intent upon the food of divine reading, he might disregard the hunger of the body, and acquire the nourishment of the heavenly word. Intent upon this, Moses did not desire bread; intent upon this, Elijah did not feel the hunger of a rather long fast. For he who follows the word cannot desire earthly bread, since he receives the substance of heavenly bread; for it is not doubtful that divine things are set before human ones, and spiritual before bodily. And therefore he who desires true life should seek that bread which, through an insensible substance, strengthens human hearts.

At the same time, when he says: Man does not live by bread alone, he shows that it is man who was tempted

that is, our humanity assumed by him, not his own divinity.

There follows the dart of vainglory, by which one easily falls into fault

because while men desire to boast of the glory of their own virtue, they depart from the place and standing of their own merits. And he led him, it says, into Jerusalem, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple.

For vainglory is such that while each one thinks himself to be climbing to higher things, by the usurpation of lofty deeds he is thrust down to lower ones.

And he said to him: If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down.

Truly a diabolical voice, which strives to cast down the mind of man from the higher step of merits.

For what is so proper to the devil as to persuade each one that he should cast himself down?

Learn, therefore, you too, to conquer the devil.

The Spirit drives you, follow the Spirit: let not the enticement of the flesh call you back; filled with the Spirit, learn to despise pleasures. Fast, if you wish to conquer. It follows that the devil thinks you must be tempted through man: Christ, as the stronger one, is tempted face to face; you, through man. And that is the devil's word, when a man says: You are strong, eat and drink, and remain as you are. Do not trust yourself; do not blush to need the aids which Christ did not need; and yet he did not neglect them, in order to lead you, saying: Take heed lest your heart be weighed down with wine and surfeiting. Paul did not blush, who says: So I run, not as one beating the air. The Apostle indeed did not beat the air, but he struck the power of the air.

But I chastise, he says, my body, and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should be found reprobate.

At the same time the devil betrays both his weakness and his malice; because the devil can harm no one unless one throws oneself down.

For he who, having abandoned heavenly things, chooses earthly ones, rushes into a certain voluntary precipice of a slipping life. At the same time, since the devil saw his weapon blunted—he who had subjected all men to his own power—he began to judge Christ to be more than man. But the Lord again did not think that even those things which had been prophesied of himself were to be done at the devil's discretion; but, preserving the authority of his own divinity, he met his cunning; so that, since he had put forward the example of the Scriptures, he might be overcome by examples from the Scriptures. For it is God's power to conquer, who conquers for me.

Learn here too that Satan transfigures himself as an angel of light, and often prepares a snare for the faithful from the divine Scriptures themselves.

Thus he makes heretics, thus he disembowels faith, thus he attacks the rights of piety. Therefore let no heretic capture you, because he can bring forward some examples from the Scriptures; nor let him arrogate to himself the appearance of being learned. The devil too uses the testimonies of the Scriptures, not in order to teach, but in order to circumvent and deceive. He knew some man attentive to religion, distinguished in virtues, powerful in signs and works: he stretches out the snare of vainglory, that he might inflate such a man with pride; so that he would trust not in piety but in vainglory, and would attribute nothing to God but arrogate it to himself. And therefore the apostles commanded demons not in their own name, but in the name of Christ; lest they should seem to arrogate anything to themselves.

Thus Peter heals the paralytic, saying: In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise and walk.

Learn also from Paul to flee vainglory. I know, he says, a man, whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knows, who was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a one I will glory, but of myself I will not glory, except in my infirmities.

Therefore here too the devil, since he perceived him to be strong, put forward vainglory, which deceives even the strong: but the Lord answered him: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. In which you recognize both the Lord and God to be Christ, and the Father and the Son to be of one power, according to what is written: I and the Father are one. And therefore if the devil objects "One," meet him with the fact that it is written: I and the Father are one. And distinguish "one," lest you distinguish power; distinguish "one," lest you separate Father and Son. And the devil led him again onto a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

Fittingly worldly and earthly things are shown in a moment of time.

For it is not so much the speed of the sight that is indicated, as the fragility of transient power that is expressed; for in a moment all those things pass away, and often the honor of the world departs before it has come. For what can be lasting in the world, since the ages themselves are not lasting? We are taught here to despise the gusts of empty ambition, because every worldly dignity lies subject to diabolical power: fragile for use, and empty for fruit.

But how does the devil give power here, when elsewhere it is read: All power is from God?

Can anyone serve two masters, or receive power from two? Is there then a contradiction? By no means. But observe that all things are from God; for the world is not without God, since The world also was made through him: but although it was made by God, nevertheless its works are evil, because the world is set in the evil one; and the ordering of the world is from God, the works of the world are from the evil one. So too the ordering of powers is from God: the ambition for power is from the evil one. Finally: There is, he says, no power except from God: and those that are, are ordained by God—not given, but ordained; and, He who resists power, resists, he says, the ordinance of God. Here too, although the devil says he gives power, he does not deny that all those things were permitted to him only for a time.

Therefore he who permitted, ordained: nor is power evil, but he who uses power evilly. Finally: Do you wish not to fear power? Do good, and you will have praise from it. Therefore power is not evil, but ambition is. Finally, the ordination of power is so far from God that he who uses power well is a minister of God: he is, he says, God's minister to you for good. Therefore there is no fault in the office itself, but in the minister; nor can God's ordinance displease, but the action of the one administering it. For, to draw an example from heavenly things down to earthly ones, an emperor confers an honor, and has praise for it. But if someone makes evil use of that honor, the fault is not the emperor's, but the judge's. Crimes have their own guilty party, not because power entangles each one, but his own malice does.

What then?

Is it good to use power, to seek honor? It is good if it is conferred, not seized. Yet distinguish this very good. For one good is in the world, another is the use of perfect virtue; for it is good that the zeal for knowing divinity should be hindered by no occupations. For although there are many goods, yet there is one eternal life: Now this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. And therefore the greatest fruit is eternal life, and God alone is the rewarder of eternal life. Let us worship God and our Lord alone, and let us serve him alone; so that he alone may reward us with the fullest fruit. Let us flee all things that lie subject to diabolical power; lest, like an evil tyrant, he use the cruelty of the power he has received upon those whom he finds within his kingdom.

Power, therefore, is not from the devil, yet it is subject to the snares of the devil.

Nor is the ordination of powers therefore evil, because powers are subject to evil. For it is good to seek God, but a certain wandering and error creeps into the very seeking. For if the seeker turns to sacrilege through cruel interpretation, the offense of the one seeking turns out worse than if he had not sought at all; and yet the fault is not the seeking's, but the seeker's; nor is the seeking subject to evil, but the disposition of the one seeking. But if he who seeks God, on account of the frailty of the flesh and the straits of the mind, is often tempted, how much more is he subject to it who seeks the world! And ambition is the more pernicious for this very reason, that it is a certain flattering little procuress of dignities; and often it makes criminals of those whom no vices delight, whom no luxury could move, no avarice overthrow.

For it has public favor, private crime: and in order to lord it over others, it first serves. It bends in submission, that it may be granted honor; and while it wishes to be more exalted through pretended humility, it becomes viler, and becomes more slack; since in that very power, what excels is not one's own; for it commands the laws, but serves itself.

Someone will perhaps say that only he who has done evil fears; yet he who sails the sea fears more.

And on the contrary, one standing on the unmoving station of the lands does not usually fear shipwreck: but if he mounts a mobile element, he becomes subject to more frequent dangers. Flee, therefore, the sea of the world, and you will not fear shipwreck. And even if the blowing gusts of winds often lash the tops of trees, yet with their roots firmly fixed, there is no fall; but on the sea, when the winds rage, even if not all are shipwrecked, yet all are in danger. So, indeed, with the adverse blasts of spiritual wickedness, no one is safe either on the sand or on the open sea, and the ships of Tarshish are often broken by a vehement spirit. These things morally.

But as for what pertains to the mystical order, you perceive that the chains of the ancient error were loosed by their own footsteps; so that first the snare of gluttony, second of ease, third of ambition, might be loosed. For Adam was enticed by food: and, in the place of the forbidden tree, having transgressed by the ease of a decision, he incurred also the crime of rash ambition, while he aspired to the likeness of divinity. And therefore the Lord first loosed the ancient bond of injury; that we, the yoke of captivity being shaken off, might learn to conquer sins by the help of the Scriptures.

But if the Lord Jesus did not desire what was his own, why should you seek what belongs to another?

If the creator of all, by the virtue of undergoing poverty, despised the glory of the world, why should you disdain what you were born to, and seek after what is not owed to you? Why do you demand as lasting for punishment those things which cannot be lasting for you in use? Beware of snares, beware of frauds. And precisely because the crafty devil, in order to undermine man altogether, shakes the whole world with fraud, and fights with the enticements of the whole age, his flattery is the more to be guarded against by you. It was not food that had bent Eve, nor forgetfulness of the commandments that had abandoned her: but the enticing ambition for promised honor deceived her. If she had wished to worship the Lord alone, she would not have sought what was not owed to her.

And therefore a remedy is given by which you may blunt the dart of ambition, that we may serve the Lord alone; for religious devotion is free of ambition.

And when every temptation was completed, the devil departed from him for a time.

Nearly all the sources of sins are shown to be these three kinds of vices.

For Scripture would not have said every temptation was completed, unless in these three lay the material of all offenses, whose seeds must be guarded against in their very origin. The end of temptations, therefore, is the end of desires; because the causes of temptations are the causes of desires. Now the causes of desires are the delight of the flesh, the appearance of glory, the greed for power. How pious it seems that you should not refuse the company of a Christian woman! But from this comes frequent temptation. If the devil sees people attentive to God, he suggests something in order to deceive; but you, although you may presume upon your resolve, beware of temptation, knowing your nature. These three, if you recall, Paul also prescribes as things to be avoided, designating three kinds of sins, from which he who is free awaits the crown of righteousness.

For neither, he says, were we in a word of flattery, nor in an occasion of covetousness, God is witness, nor seeking glory from men; and therefore he conquered the devil, he sought the crown.

You see, then, that the devil himself is not persistent in his zeal, but is accustomed to yield to true virtue.

And though he does not cease to envy, yet he fears to press on; because he more often flees, unwilling to be triumphed over. So, upon hearing the name of God, He departed, it says, for a time; for afterward he came, not to tempt, but to fight openly.

The divine Scripture teaches you, then, that your struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual snares.

You see the magnificence of the Christian man, who contends with the rulers of the world: and though he be established on earth, he decides by strength of soul against the spiritual wickedness that is in the heavenly places. For we do not contend for earthly things, that we should fight upon earth: but with spiritual prizes set before us, concerning the kingdom of God and the inheritance of Christ, it is necessary that spiritual hindrances first be overcome. A crown is set before us; contests must be undergone. No one can be crowned unless he has conquered: no one can conquer unless he has first contended. The fruit of the crown itself, too, is greater where the labor is greater: For strait and narrow is the way that leads to life; but wide and spacious is that which leads to death.

And therefore we ought in no way to fear temptation; for it is the cause of victory, the material of triumphs.

That rich man, who felt no temptation in the world, is in torments among the dead: that poor Lazarus, who was so afflicted and worn by poverty and disease that his sores were licked by dogs, wretched in the toil of this life, sought the crown of eternal glory. For many are the tribulations, not of just anyone, but of the righteous. Indeed, whom the Lord loves, He often chastises. Peter was tempted, that he might deny; he denied, that he might weep. And what shall I say of the rest? Surely Job was tried by God: but although he was tried, yet he was not yet victor. His devotion was tested; yet he did not have the reward of virtue. And therefore he is presented to be tempted, that he might be rendered more glorious.

It matters also that you observe the degree of that contest. The devil does not have one weapon; he multiplies his darts, so that he may conquer either by reward or by weariness. First he wounds by desire, second by affection, third by health; for he fights with sores of the mind and equally of the body. The kinds of temptations, too, differ according to the diversity of those contending. The rich man is pressed by loss of avarice, the father by the loss of his children, man by pains, the body by sores. How many are these weapons! Wherefore the Lord did not wish to have what He might lose; and therefore He came here poor, lest the devil should have what he might take away. Do you wish to know how true this is? Hear the Lord Himself saying: The prince of this world came, and found nothing in me. He also did not wish to be father of a few, that He might be father of all.

In vain, moreover, would He be tempted by sores of the body, who despised all the passions of the body: at the same time, that He might show us that the immaculate victory, the enemy of the body being driven off, was owed to Himself. But that one, Job, as a man is tempted by his own troubles, this one, Christ, by public ones: from him a patrimony is taken away, to this one the kingdom of the world is offered. Nor is the devil entirely without fraud, since he feared to provoke the Son of God: he tempts the one with injuries, the other with rewards. The one, as a little servant, says: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: this one, conscious of His own nature and disposition, laughs at His own things being offered to Him. And to return to that point, messenger presses upon messenger, wounds are doubled: yet the strong athlete is not disturbed in mind.

A woman is employed as the allurement of the first deceit: this one, born through a virgin, was not liable to error.

Friends are brought in to oppress him who resists with wicked counsels. But in all that happened to him, Job never sinned with his lips in the sight of God.

For as to his cursing the day, saying: Let that day perish in which I was born; and below: And let him curse it who cursed that day, who is able to overcome the great whale, this pertains to prophecy; because our Lord Jesus Christ overcame the devil as the whale of this stormy age: and he desired the day of his carnal generation to perish, that his day might be numbered in regeneration. Let the secular day perish, he says, that the spiritual day may arise. Therefore in temptation holy Job was speaking mysteries; for he who was overcoming the world was seeing Christ.

Let us, therefore, not fear temptations, but rather glory in temptations, saying: When we are weak, then we are strong; for then the crown of righteousness is woven. But those words are perhaps suited to Paul; we, however, since there are several crowns, ought to hope for whichever one. In the world laurel is a crown, the shield is a crown. But for you a crown of delights has been set forth: For a crown of delights shall overshadow you. And elsewhere: With the shield of His good will He will surround you. Also with glory and honor He has crowned him whom the Lord loved. Therefore He who wishes to give the crown suggests temptations. And if ever you are tempted, know that a crown is being prepared. Take away the contests of the martyrs, and you have taken away their crowns: take away the torments, and you have taken away the beatitudes.

Was not Joseph's temptation the consecration of virtue?

Was not the injury of prison the crown of chastity? How could he have obtained partnership in the kingdom in Egypt, unless he had been sold by his brothers? That this was done by God's decree, so that the just man might be proved, he himself showed, saying: How it might come to pass this day, that a great people should be fed? We ought not, therefore, to fear the temptations of the world as evils, by which good rewards are procured: but rather to ask, in contemplation of the human condition, that we may undergo those temptations which we are able to bear.

Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.

Here is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, saying: The land of Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim, and the rest who dwell along the coast, and those beyond the sea, and beyond Jordan of Galilee of the Gentiles, the people that sat in the shadow of death, have seen a great light. For who is the great light, but Christ, who enlightens every man that comes into this world?

Then He took the book, to show that He Himself is the one who spoke in the Prophets: and to remove the sacrileges of the faithless, who say that the God of the Old Testament is one, and of the New another: or who say that Christ's beginning is from the virgin: for how could He begin from the virgin, who was speaking before the virgin?

You see the co-eternal and perfect Trinity.

Scripture itself speaks of Jesus as God and man, perfect in both: it speaks of God and the Father, and the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is shown as co-worker, when in bodily form, as a dove, He descended upon Christ; when the Son of God was baptized in the river, the Father spoke from heaven. What greater testimony, then, do we seek, than that He signified by His own voice that He was the one who spoke in the Prophets? He is anointed with spiritual oil, and with heavenly power; that He might water the poverty of the human condition with the eternal treasure of resurrection, might turn away the captivity of the mind, might enlighten the blindness of souls, might proclaim the year of the Lord diffused through perpetual times, which knows not how to return into the circle of labor, and grants to men a continuation of fruit and of rest.

And He so bent Himself to every service, that He did not even disdain the office of reader: while we, impious ones, denied that the faith of His divinity was to be gathered from the miracles of His works, through contemplation of the body.

Amen I say to you, that no prophet is accepted in his own country.

Not slightly is envy betrayed here, which, forgetful of civic affection, turns the causes of love into bitter hatreds.

At the same time, by this example and equally by this oracle, it is declared that in vain you would expect the help of heavenly mercy, if you envy the fruits of another's virtue; for the Lord is a despiser of the envious, and from those who persecute divine benefits in others, He turns away the miracles of His power. For the act of the Lord's flesh is an example of divinity: and His invisible things are shown to us through the things that are visible.

Not idly, then, does the Savior excuse Himself that He worked no miracles of power in His own country; lest perhaps someone should think that we ought to hold a cheaper affection for our country. For He could not fail to love His fellow-citizens, who loved all; but they themselves, by envying, cut themselves off from the love of their country; for Charity envies not; is not puffed up. Nor yet is the country without a share of divine benefits. For what greater miracle is there, than that Christ was born in it? See, then, what evil envy brings. Because of envy the country is judged unworthy that a citizen should work in it, which was worthy that the Son of God should be born in it.

In truth I say to you: Many widows were in the days of Elias.

Not because they were the days of Elias, but in which Elias worked: or

because he made day for those who saw in his works the light of spiritual grace, and were converted to the Lord. And therefore heaven was opened to those seeing the eternal and divine mysteries: it was closed when there was famine; because there was no abundance of knowing divinity. But of this we have written more fully, when we wrote concerning Widows.

many lepers were in Judea in the days of Eliseus the prophet: and none of them was cleansed, but Naaman the Syrian.

Clearly this saying of the Lord and Savior instructs us, and exhorts us to zeal for revering divinity, in that no one is shown to be healed, and freed of the disfiguring disease of the body, except him who was zealous for health by religious duty. For divine benefits are not conferred upon those who sleep, but upon those who watch. And by a fittingly apt example of comparison the arrogance of envious citizens is checked, and it is taught that the Lord's deed agrees with the ancient Scriptures, since we read also in the books of Kings that a Gentile man, Naaman, was freed by prophetic oracle from the stains of leprosy, while leprosy of body and equally of mind consumed very many of the Jews. For indeed those four who, compelled by famine, first stretched toward the camp of the king of Syria, history relates were lepers.

Why, then, did he not cure his brothers, why did he not cure his fellow-citizens, why did the prophet not heal his companions; when he healed strangers, he healed those who did not have observance of the Law, nor fellowship of religion: unless because it is a medicine of the will, not of the race; and the divine gift is chosen by vows, not conferred by right of nature? Learn, O Christian, to ask what you desire to obtain: fastidious men are not followed by the progress of heavenly gifts.

But although a simple exposition may inform a moral disposition; yet the grace of the mystery is not hidden.

For since later things are derived from earlier ones, so also earlier things are confirmed by later ones. For we said in another book that in that widow to whom Elias was sent, the type of the Church was foreshadowed. The people fittingly follow the Church. That people gathered from foreigners, that people formerly leprous, that people formerly disfigured before it was baptized in the mystical river, the same people afterward, washed of the stains of body and mind by the sacraments of baptism, no longer leprosy, but has begun to be an immaculate virgin without wrinkle.

Rightly, therefore, is the great Naaman described as being in the sight of his lord, and admirable in appearance; since in his type the future salvation of the Gentiles is declared, who, at the counsel of a girl set free, who, the strength of her citizens broken, had come as a captive into hostile power, was warned by the prophet to hope for salvation, and is healed not by the command of an earthly king, but by the liberality of divine mercy.

Why is he ordered to be immersed a mystical number of times?

Why is the river Jordan chosen? Are not, he says, Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than the Jordan? But in anger he preferred these, while faith, meditating, chose the Jordan; for anger does not know the mystery, faith knows it. Learn the grace of saving baptism: he who had entered a leper, emerged a believer. Learn that spiritual sacraments are signified: a remedy of the body is sought, one of the mind is acquired. The flesh is washed, the disposition is washed. For I see that not more the leprosy of the body than of the mind was cleansed, when after baptism, the filth of the old error wiped away, he refuses to offer to strange gods the sacrifices which he had promised to the Lord.

Learn also the precepts of fitting virtue: he proved his faith who refused the rewards.

Learn by the double teaching of both words and deeds what you ought to follow. You have the Lord's precept, the prophet's example, to receive freely, to give freely: and not to sell the ministry, but to offer it. For the grace of God is not assessed by a price, nor in the sacraments is gain sought, but the service of the priest.

Yet it is not enough if you yourself do not seek gain: the hands of your household too must be restrained; nor do we demand this only, that you keep yourself alone chaste and unstained.

For the Apostle did not say, you alone; but, Keep thyself chaste. Therefore not only your own chastity is required from such traffic, but also that of your household: For a bishop must be blameless; one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all chastity. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Instruct, therefore, your household, exhort it, guard it; and if some little servant should deceive you (for I do not exempt human weakness), let him be cast off, following the prophetic example, once caught. Quickly leprosy follows a shameful reward, and money wickedly gained defiles both body and mind.

Thou hast received, he says, money, and thou shalt possess with it fields, and vineyards, and oliveyards, and flocks: and the leprosy of Naaman shall cleave to thee, and to thy seed for ever. You see that by the deed of the author, the succession of the heir is condemned. For the guilt of a sold mystery is inexpiable, and the vengeance for grace once heavenly passes on to posterity. Finally, the Moabites and the rest shall not enter into the church of God even to the third and fourth generation: that is, so long (to interpret it more simply) as the succession of many generations should abolish the guilt of the authors.

But since those who sinned against God through the error of idolatry seem to be punished only unto the fourth generation, surely that sentence seems harsher, whereby the seed of Giezi is condemned forever, by prophetic authority, for the desire of having; especially since our Lord Jesus Christ through the washing of regeneration has given remission of sins to all—unless you understand the seed to be that of vices rather than of lineage. For just as those who are children of promise are reckoned as good seed, so too those who are children of error are reckoned as evil seed. For the Jews too are of their father the devil, not indeed by succession of flesh, but of crime. Therefore all the covetous, all the avaricious, possess the leprosy of Giezi together with their riches; and by wickedly gained reward they gather, not so much a patrimony of wealth as a treasury of crimes, unto eternal punishment and brief fruit.

For though riches are fleeting, the punishment is perpetual; because neither the covetous, nor the drunkard, nor the idolater shall possess the kingdom of God. And all in the synagogue, hearing these things, were filled with wrath; and they rose up, and thrust him out of the city.

The Lord teaches in the Gospel that the sacrileges of the Jews, which He had long before foretold through the prophet, and had declared in a

of the psalm what things He was to suffer once constituted in the body, saying, They rendered unto me evils for good, have been fulfilled.

For while He Himself was pouring out benefits upon the peoples, they were inflicting injuries. Nor is it a wonder if they lost salvation, who cast the Saviour out of their borders: for the Lord is accommodating; and He who by His own example had taught His apostles to become all things to all men, neither rejects the willing, nor binds the unwilling, nor resists those who cast Him out, nor is wanting to those who ask. Thus elsewhere He left the Gerasenes, when they could not bear His powers, as it were weak and ungrateful.

At the same time understand that the suffering of the body was not from necessity, but voluntary; and that He was not seized by the Jews, but offered Himself of His own accord. For when He wills, He is seized; when He wills, He slips away; when He wills, He is hung up; when He wills, He is not held. And here He had gone up to the brow of the mountain to be cast down; and behold, through the midst of them, the mind of the raging crowd being suddenly changed or stupefied, He went down; for the hour of His passion had not yet come. Indeed He still preferred to heal the Jews rather than destroy them, that by the ineffectual outcome of their fury they might cease to will what they could not accomplish. You see, then, both here that it was of His divinity that He effected this, and there that it was of His will that He was seized. For how could He who is not held by the people be held by a few?

But He would not have it be the sacrilege of many; that He might turn back the odium of the cross's guilt upon its authors, and be afflicted indeed by a few, but die for the whole world. And in the synagogue there was a man having an unclean spirit. And below: And rising up out of the synagogue, he entered into the house of Simon and Andrew. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever.

See the clemency of the Lord and Saviour: neither moved by indignation, nor offended by the crime, nor violated by injury does He forsake Judea; indeed, unmindful of the injury, mindful of clemency, now teaching, now freeing, now healing, He soothes the hearts of the faithless people. And well does St. Luke put first a man freed from the spirit of wickedness, and set thereafter the healing of a woman. For the Lord had come to cure both sexes; and he ought first to be healed who was first created; nor should she be passed over who had sinned more from fickleness of mind than from depravity. He signifies that the works of the Lord's healing were begun on the sabbath; so that from there the new creation should begin, where the old had before ceased; that He might show the Son of God to be not under the Law, but above the Law from the very beginning, and that the Law was not dissolved but fulfilled.

For the world was made not through the Law, but by the Word, as we read: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established. The Law, therefore, is not dissolved, but fulfilled; that there might be a renewal of man now falling. Whence the Apostle also says: Putting off the old man, put ye on the new, who is created according to Christ. And He rightly began on the sabbath, that He might show Himself to be the Creator, who wove works into works, and continued the work which He Himself had already begun: just as if a builder should intend to renovate a house, he begins to dismantle the old, not from the foundations, but from the rooftops. So he first sets his hand where he had before left off.

Then He begins with lesser things, that He may come to greater.

To free men from a demon, even men are able, but by the word of God; to command resurrection to the dead belongs to divine power alone. Nor should anyone be moved that the name of Jesus of Nazareth is represented in this book as first spoken by the devil. For Christ did not receive His name from him, but from that which the angel brought down from heaven to the Virgin. For it is the way of his impudence to usurp something first among men, and bring it to men as if new, whereby he might strike terror of his own power. Finally, in Genesis too he was first to name God to man; for so you have it: And the serpent said to the woman: Why hath God said that you should not eat of every tree? Both, then, were deceived by the devil, and healed by Christ.

Follow what remains, and learn the mysteries of the Gospel reading, and in the healing of two persons recognize the sacrament of public salvation.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Who is that one who in the synagogue had the unclean spirit of a demon, but the people of the Jews, who, bound as it were by serpentine coils and knotted in the snares of the devil, defiled a feigned cleanliness of body with the filth of an inner mind? And rightly: In the synagogue there was a man who had an unclean spirit; because he had lost the Holy Spirit. For the devil had entered where Christ had gone forth. At the same time it is shown that the nature of the devil is not wicked, but his works are iniquitous. For him whom, by his higher nature, he confesses to be the Lord, he denies by his deed.

And in this appears his wickedness, and the wickedness of the Jews; that he so poured the blindness of a maddened mind upon the people, that the people deny Him whom the demons confess. O worse inheritance of disciples than of their teacher! He tempts the Lord by word, these by deed: he says, Cast thyself down (above): these assail, that they may cast Him down.

If we weigh these things with a deeper consideration, we ought to understand both the healing of the soul and of the body; so that first the soul, which labored under the snares of the serpent, might be set free. For the soul would never be conquered by the body, unless it were first tempted by the devil. For since the soul acts upon, quickens, and governs the body, how could it be seized captive into its enticements, unless it too were bound by the chains of some superior power? Finally, Eve did not hunger before the serpent's cunning tempted her; and therefore the medicine of salvation ought first to have worked against the very author of sin.

Perhaps also, in the type of that woman, the mother-in-law of Simon and Andrew, our flesh languished with the various fevers of sins, and burned with the immoderate enticements of diverse desires. Nor would I say that the fever of love is less than that of heat. Thus the one inflames the mind, the other the body, as a fever. For our fever is avarice, our fever is lust; because desires are inflamed. Whence the Apostle also says: If they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn. Our fever is luxury, our fever is ambition, our fever is anger. Which, though they are vices of the body, yet implicate fire in the bones, and probe the mind, the soul, and the senses. This is first solicited by the devil's art. For indeed a good field, a garment, a necklace, is the persuasion of the serpent.

The favor of honors, the loftiness of powers, the sweetness of banquets, the beauty of a harlot, is the snare of the devil, and as it were a certain enticing address of spiritual wickedness, which through the enticement of the flesh—which is quickly softened by a certain feminine levity—casts down the mind also from its standing. For the mind does not desire the beauty of a woman before the eye of the body does. Finally, what you have not seen, you will not love; but where the flesh has desired, the constancy of the compassionate mind also grows weary, and the mind is bent by fellowship in love (for two are in one flesh), and thus death creeps in by the effect of crime, the devil tempting, the flesh persuading.

Yet the fever of the mind is more vehement than that of the body; and therefore, for the pleasure of the mind, the health of the body is very often despised, and men do not abstain from dangers. Whence it does not seem out of place to relate again how Theotimus, when he labored under a grave affliction of the eyes, and loved his wife, being forbidden by the physician the power of intercourse, impatient of desire and carried away by the impulse of lust, could not restrain himself. For knowing and being fully aware that he was to lose his eyes, before he went in to his wife, in the very heat of burning desire and the trappings of habit, he said: Farewell, dear light. So is lust more inflamed than fever, and casts down and inflames more grievously.

But when someone has come to his senses from madness, then the sight of interior conscience is opened, and repentance follows the deed, and each man blushes with the shameful conscience of his own crime. Then God is feared, and the sinner wishes to hide himself, but cannot: then the flesh is accused, the devil is blamed; the one as it were the procuress of vices, the other as it were the author of error. The deformity becomes manifest; for every secret is naked before God, nor are the secrets of sins veiled by his fig leaves, that is, by the covering of the body, or by worldly boasting. And each one, his mind conscious of sin, dreads the divine judgment, saying: What mountains will fall upon me: in the clefts of what rocks shall I hide myself, when he comes to break the earth?

Then the flesh generates for the mind thorns and thistles

that is, the bites of cares and the anxieties, and the burnings which the mind itself has wrapped around itself through the concupiscence of the flesh. For the soul is fastened, as it were with certain nails, to bodily pleasures; and once it has clung, submerged in earthly desires, it can with difficulty fly back again, without the favor of God, to the height from which it descended. For it is now bound by the snares of its own deeds, and held fast, subject to the enticements of worldly delights.

This Adam, then, this Eve, the Lord came to set free: of whom the one, made to the image of God, the other receiving the strength of her husband, so long as she was subject to the stronger, bore one will pleasing to God in one spirit; and, placed in the paradise of God, they wrought the nourishment of the heavenly life. But after the flesh began to persuade otherwise, and ceased to hold to its own law, they were made exiles from paradise, and fell by the merit of sin into this lower and submerged place. And let no one think it incongruous, if Adam and Eve are reckoned as a type of the soul and the body; since they are also reckoned as a type of the Church and of Christ. For when the Apostle said that two are in one flesh, he added: This is a great sacrament, he says: but I speak in Christ and in the Church.

In that which pertains to the supernal God, then, in that all the more can there be a mystery of our own soul.

But he sticks fast, is fixed, is captured, and inflamed with bodily fevers, he sickens through the flesh's compassion.

A physician must be sought. But who is he, so great, who might mediate the wounds of the wounded mind? Who is so great a man that he could come to the aid of others, when he could not come to his own aid? Who could restore life to others, when he himself could not escape death? For all died in Adam; because Through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death: and so it passed through unto all men, in whom all sinned. Therefore his fault is the death of all. In short, saints were sent, prophets too were sent, who should speak the divine oracles; and they could accomplish nothing. Let us then seek some physician from among the angels or archangels. But how could they bring me aid, that I might not sin, when the archangel himself could not abstain from sin?

How could an angel recall me to paradise, when Satan himself and his angels cannot keep the seat which they had received?

And going up into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land.

Where the Lord bestowed on many various kinds of healings, neither by time nor by place did he begin to be restrained from his zeal for healing by the crowd. Evening had fallen, they followed; the lake lay before them, they pressed on. And therefore he went up into Peter's boat. This is that boat which, according to Matthew, still tosses in the waves, but according to Luke is filled with fishes; that you may recognize both the beginnings of the Church tossing in waves, and its later abundance; for fish are those who sail through this life. There Christ still sleeps among the trembling disciples, here he commands. For he sleeps to the fearful, he keeps watch for the perfect. But how Christ sleeps, you have heard him say in the Prophet: I sleep, and my heart watches.

And holy Matthew rightly thought that the sign of eternal power should not be passed over, where he commands the winds.

For it is not human teaching, as you have heard the Jews say, that with a word commands spirits: but the mark of heavenly majesty. That the troubled sea is stilled, and the elements obey the command of the divine voice, and insensible things receive the sense of obedience; the mystery of divine grace is revealed. That the waves of the age grow calm, and by a word the unclean spirit is quieted; the one is not refuted by the other, but both are celebrated. You have a miracle in the elements, you have a lesson in the mysteries.

Therefore because holy Matthew had already touched on those things, holy Luke chose for himself that boat in which Peter was fishing. That boat which holds Peter is not troubled; that one which holds Judas is troubled. Even though many merits of disciples were sailing in that other boat, still the perfidy of the betrayer still stirred it up. In both, Peter is present: but he who is firm by his own merits is troubled by those of others. Let us therefore beware of the faithless one, let us beware of the betrayer; lest through one many of us be tossed in the waves. Therefore this boat is not troubled in which prudence sails, in which perfidy is absent, in which faith breathes. For how could it be troubled, over which he presided in whom is the firmness of the Church? There therefore is trouble, where faith is small: here is security, where love is perfect.

Finally, though it is commanded to others that they let down their nets, yet to Peter alone it is said: Launch out into the deep

that is, into the depth of discussions. For what is so deep as to see the depth of riches, to know the Son of God, and to take up the profession of the divine generation? Which, although the human mind cannot comprehend by a full investigation of reason; yet the fullness of faith embraces it. For though it is not permitted me to know how he was born, yet it is not permitted me to be ignorant that he was born. I do not know the order of the generation, but I acknowledge the authority of the generation. We were not present when the Son of God was born of the Father: but we were present when the Son of God was declared by the Father. If we do not believe God, whom do we believe?

For all things which we believe, we believe either by sight or by hearing: sight is often deceived, hearing is a matter of faith. Or is the person of the one asserting to be examined? If good men were asserting it, we would think it wicked not to believe: God asserts it, the Son proves it, the fleeing sun confesses it, the trembling earth bears witness. Into this deep of discussion the Church is led by Peter; that she may see on the one hand the Son of God rising, on the other the Holy Spirit flowing forth.

But what are the nets of the apostles which are commanded to be let down, but the interweavings of words, and, as it were, certain folds of speech, and recesses of disputations, which do not let go those whom they have caught? And well are the apostolic instruments of fishing called nets, which do not destroy those they have caught, but preserve them, and draw them up from the depth to the light: they lead those tossing on the waves from the lowest to the highest.

There is also another kind of apostolic fishing, in which kind the Lord bids Peter alone to fish, saying: Cast a hook, and take that fish which shall come up first. It is indeed a great and spiritual lesson, that Christian men are taught to be subject to higher powers; lest anyone think that the constitution of an earthly king is to be dissolved. For if the Son of God paid the tax, who are you, so great, that you should think it not to be paid? And he paid the tax who possessed nothing: but you who pursue the gain of the age, why do you not acknowledge the obedience due to the age? Why do you bear yourself above the age with a certain arrogance of mind, when you are subject to the age by wretched cupidity?

The didrachma, then, is paid, which was the price of our redemption and of the body, promised in the Law, paid in the Gospel, not found idly in the mouth of the fish: For by your mouth you shall be justified. For indeed the price of immortality for us is our confession; because, as it is written: Confession is made with the mouth unto salvation.

And perhaps this first fish is the first martyr, having in his mouth the didrachma, that is, the price of the tax.

Our didrachma is Christ. The first martyr, then, namely Stephen, had a treasure in his mouth, when in his passion he spoke of Christ. But let us return to the passage proposed, and learn apostolic humility. Master, he says, we have labored all night, and have taken nothing: but at your word I will let down the nets.

And I too, Lord, know that it is night for me, when you do not command.

No one yet has given his name, I still have night. I have cast the net of my voice through the epiphany, and I have caught nothing yet. I have cast it through the day, I wait for you to command: at your word I will let down the nets. O empty presumption, O fruitful humility! Those who had caught nothing before enclose, at the word of the Lord, a great multitude of fish. This is not the work of human eloquence, but the gift of a heavenly calling. The disputations of men yield: the people believe by their faith. The nets are broken, and yet no fish slips away. Companions who were in the other boat are called to help. What is that other boat, but perhaps Judaea, from which John and James are chosen? For Judaea was made his sanctification.

These, then, from the Synagogue came together to Peter's boat, that is, to the Church, that they might fill both little boats.

For all bend the knee in the name of Jesus, whether Jew or Greek: Christ is all and in all. But that heap is suspect to me, lest by its own fullness the boats be nearly sunk; for it is necessary that there be heresies also, that the good may be tested.

We can, however, understand it also as another Church, the boat of another; for from one many Churches are derived.

Behold another anxiety of Peter, to whom already his own catch is suspect. But the perfect man knows how he can keep safe those he has stored away, since he knows how he can catch those who are scattered. Those whom he catches in the word, he believes in the Word: he disowns his own catch, he disowns his own gift. Depart from me, he said, Lord; for I am a sinful man.

For he was in awe of the divine gifts; and the more he had merited, the less he presumed. Say you too: Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man; so that the Lord may answer you: Do not be afraid. Confess sin to an indulgent Lord. Do not be afraid even to bring to the Lord what is yours; because what is his he has granted to us. He knows not how to envy, knows not how to snatch away, knows not how to take away. See how good the Lord is, who has granted so much to men, that they should have the power to give life.

And it came to pass, when he was in one of the cities, behold a man full of leprosy, falling on his face, besought him, saying: Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And stretching out his hand, he touched him, saying: I will, be clean.

Well is it that, where the leper is cleansed, no certain place is expressed; that it might be shown that not one people of some particular city, but the peoples of all were healed. And well too, according to Luke, is this man healed at the fourth sign since the Lord came to Capernaum; for if the sun illuminated the fourth day, and made it brighter than the other days, when the elements of the world were beginning to shine forth, we ought to judge this work too as brighter. And according to Matthew, this man is brought forward as the first one healed by the Lord after the beatitudes; so that, since the Lord had said: I came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it; he who was excluded by the Law, presuming to be cleansed by the Lord's power, might judge that grace, which could wash away the stain of the leper, was not from the Law, but above the Law.

But as in the Lord the authority of power is declared, so in him the constancy of faith is declared.

He fell upon his face, which belongs to humility and shame; that everyone might blush at the stains of his own life: but shame did not suppress his confession. He showed his wound, he asked for a remedy: and this itself is a confession full of religion and faith. If you will, he says, you can make me clean. In the will of the Lord he places the power: but concerning the will of the Lord he did not doubt as one unbelieving of his mercy, but did not presume, as one conscious of his own defilement. To whom the Lord answered with a certain moral holiness: I will, be clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.

For there is nothing in between the work of God and his command; because the work is in the command. Finally, he spoke, and they were made. You see therefore that it cannot be doubted, that the will of God is power. If therefore his will is power, then those who assert one will of the Trinity, assert also one power. And so at once the leprosy departed; that you may understand the affection of the healer, who added truth to the work.

Finally, according to Mark, the Lord had compassion on him: which is beautifully placed.

And the evangelists placed many such things, wishing to found us in both, describing the signs of power for faith, expressing the works of power for imitation. Whence also he touched, not disdaining, and commanded, not distrusting; for this is the mark of power, that as one having power of healing, and authority of commanding, he did not shun the testimony of working. I will, therefore he says, even though Marcellus of Ancyra, given over to the Arian party, taught differently: and this itself is a confession full of religion and faith. If you will, he says, you can make me clean. In the will of the Lord he places the power: but concerning the will of the Lord he did not doubt as one unbelieving of his mercy, but did not presume, as one conscious of his own defilement. To whom the Lord answered with a certain moral holiness: I will, be clean.

Because of Photinus, he commands because of Arius, he touches because of Manichaeus.

Nor is the leprosy of one only cured, but of all to whom it is said: Now you are clean

because of the word which I have spoken to you. If, then, the medicine of leprosy is the word: the contempt of the word is indeed the leprosy of the mind. But lest the leprosy be able to pass over onto the physician, let each one, by the example of the Lord's humility, avoid boastfulness. For why is it commanded to tell no one, unless to teach that our benefits are not to be published abroad, but suppressed; that we may abstain not only from the reward of money, but also of favor? Or perhaps this too is the reason for the imposed silence, that he judged those better who believed by faith more spontaneous, than those who believed on account of hoped-for benefits.

He is commanded, moreover, according to the Law, to offer himself to the priest, not that he should present another, but that he should offer himself to God as a spiritual sacrifice; that, the stain of past conduct being wiped away, through the knowledge of faith and the discipline of wisdom, a victim pleasing to God might be consecrated: For every victim shall be salted with salt. Whence Paul also says: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, acceptable, pleasing to God.

It is also wonderful that he healed in the very manner in which he had been entreated. If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. I will, he says, be thou made clean. Thou hast the will, and thou hast also the effect of pity. And stretching forth his hand, he touched him. The Law forbids lepers to be touched: but he who is Lord of the Law does not obey the Law, but makes the Law. He did not therefore touch him because he could not cleanse him without a touch; but that he might prove that he was not subject to the Law, nor did he fear contagion as men do; but because he who was freeing others could not be contaminated; and at the same time, on the contrary, leprosy fled at the touch of the Lord, which was accustomed to contaminate the one who touched.

He is bidden, however, to show himself to the priest, and to offer for his cleansing; that while he offers himself to the priest, the priest might understand that he had been healed not by the order of the Law, but by the grace of God, above the Law: and while he bids him who is cleansed to offer sacrifice according to the precept of Moses, the Lord might show that he did not dissolve the Law, but fulfilled it; who, walking according to the Law, seemed above the Law to heal those whom the remedies of the Law had not healed. And he rightly added: As Moses commanded; for the Law is spiritual; and therefore he seems to have enjoined a spiritual sacrifice.

Finally he added: That this may be for a testimony to you

that is, if you believe God, if the leprosy of impiety departs, if the priest is the knower of hidden things, if the affection is a witness of purity: whence he can rather be seen as priest whom hidden things do not escape, to whom it is said: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech. And behold, men carrying on a bed a man who had been paralytic, and seeking to bring him in and to lay him before him; and not finding by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went up upon the roof, and let him down through the tiles with his bed, into the midst, before Jesus.

The healing of this paralytic is neither idle nor narrow, since the Lord is said to have prayed beforehand, not indeed for the sake of aid, but for the sake of example; for he gave a pattern to be imitated, he did not seek the ambition of obtaining. And there gathered from all Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem, doctors of the Law; among the other remedies of the weak, the healing of this paralytic is described. First of all, as we said before, every sick person ought to employ intercessors to seek salvation, through whom the framework of our life, dissolved, and the lame steps of our actions, may be reformed by the remedy of the heavenly word. Let there be, then, certain monitors of the mind, who may raise up the soul of man toward higher things, though it be torpid with the weakness of the outward body. By whose supports, again, one who is ready both to raise himself up and to humble himself may be placed before Jesus, worthy to be seen by the Lord's gaze.

For the Lord regards humility: Because he has regarded the humility of his handmaid. Whose faith, he says, when he saw.

Great is the Lord, who forgives to some by the merit of others, and while he approves some, remits to others their faults.

Why should a man who is your colleague not avail among you, when a servant has, with the Lord, both the merit of interceding and the right of obtaining? Learn, you who judge, to forgive: learn, you who are sick, to obtain. If you distrust pardon for grave sins, employ intercessors, employ the Church, which prays for you, at whose intercession the Lord may pardon what he could refuse to you. And although we ought not to omit belief in the history, so that we truly believe the body of this paralytic to have been healed: yet recognize also the health of the inner man, to whom sins are forgiven, which, since the Jews assert can be granted by the Lord alone, they thereby confess him to be God, and by their own judgment betray their own perfidy; so that they establish the deed but deny the person.

And so the Son of God receives testimony even from them concerning his own work, and does not require the support of their voice; for perfidy can confess, namely, when it denied the divinity of Christ to Christ, by the very same works it stripped him of the authority of commanding. He touches, on account of the Manichean; for that man took away from Christ the very power of touching, when he denied that true and natural flesh had been assumed by him. He cannot believe. And so testimony is not lacking to divinity, but faith is lacking to salvation. For that which they confess unwillingly is more forceful toward faith: and more pernicious toward guilt is that which they deny, they who are refuted by their own assertions. Great, then, is the madness of the unfaithful people; that though it has confessed that it belongs to God alone to forgive sins, it does not believe God when he forgives sins.

But the Lord, wishing to make sinners safe, both shows himself to be God by his knowledge of hidden things, and by the wonder of his deeds, adding: Which is easier, to say: Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say: Arise, and walk?

In this place he shows the full image of the resurrection, who, the wounds of both mind and body being healed, forgives the sins of souls, and removes the weakness of the flesh; for this is for the whole man to be healed. Although, therefore, it is a great thing for men to forgive sins (for who can forgive sins but God alone, who also forgives through those to whom he has granted the power of forgiving); yet it is much more divine to grant resurrection to bodies; since the Lord himself is the resurrection. The bed there, which is bidden to be taken up, what else is it but that the human body is bidden to be raised up? He it is who is washed every night by David, as we read: I will wash my bed every night: I will water my couch with my tears. This is the bed of sorrow, in which our soul lay sick with the grievous torment of conscience.

But if anyone has conducted himself according to the precepts of Christ, it is no longer a bed of sorrow, but of rest.

For by the mercy of the Lord that which was death began to be rest; who turned for us the sleep of death into the grace of delight. Nor is he only judged to take up his bed, but also to seek again his own house, that is, to return to paradise; for that is the true house which first received man: lost not by right, but by fraud. Rightly, therefore, is the house restored, since he had come who would abolish the bond of fraud, and restore the right. Nor did any delay intervene in the healing: the moment of the words and of the remedies was one. The unbelievers gaze upon him rising, they marvel at him departing: and they prefer to fear rather than to believe the miracles of the divine work. For if they had believed, they surely would not have feared, but would have loved; for perfect love casts out fear.

And therefore these men, because they did not love, made calumnies. But to those making calumnies he says: Why do you think evil in your hearts? Who says this? The great priest. He saw leprosy in the hearts of the Jews; he showed them to be worse than the leper. That man was bidden, once purged, to offer himself to the priest: these the priest repudiates, lest their leprosy contaminate others too. There follows the mystical calling of the Publican, whom he bids to follow not with the step of the body, but with the affection of the mind. And so he, formerly turning to greedy gains from tax-farming, harsh with the labors and dangers of sailors, being called by a word, forsook his own possessions, he who had been seizing the possessions of others; and abandoning that vile seat, he walks with the whole track of his mind after the Lord. He also displays the preparation of a great banquet; for he who receives Christ into the inward dwelling is fed with the greatest delights of overflowing pleasures.

And so the Lord willingly enters, and reclines in the affection of him who has believed.

But again the envy of the faithless is kindled, and the image of future punishment is prefigured.

For while the faithful feast, and recline in that kingdom of the heavens, faithlessness will be tormented, fasting. At the same time it is shown how great a difference there is between the rivals of the Law and of grace, in that those who follow the Law suffer an eternal hunger of a fasting mind: but those who have received the word within the inner parts of the soul, refreshed by the abundance of heavenly food and of the fountain, cannot hunger or thirst. And therefore those who fasted in mind murmured, saying: Why does he eat and drink with Publicans and sinners?

This is a serpent's voice. For indeed this was the first voice the serpent uttered, saying to Eve: Why has God indeed said: Eat not of every tree? Therefore they spread the poisons of their father, who say: Why indeed does he eat and drink with Publicans and sinners? Whence the Lord, by eating with sinners, does not forbid us to enter into a banquet even with Gentiles, saying: They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

A new master has brought a new medicine.

This did not spring up from the earth; for every creature is ignorant of this compounding. Come, all you who have fallen into the various passions of sins, make use of this foreign medicine, by which the poison of the serpent is expelled: which has not only removed the scar of the passions, but also cut off the cause of the dire wound. This medicine does not induce hunger, but supplies food to the soul: For the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, He has a devil; and therefore our mind is not fasting: those fast to whom Christ is absent, and who lack the abundance of good merits. But he to whom the virtue of his own will suffices, who receives Christ into his own house, displays a great banquet, that is, the spiritual banquet of good works, of which the rich people are in need, and the poor feast.

And therefore, he says, the children of the bridegroom cannot fast, as long as the bridegroom is with them. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them.

What are those days in which Christ is taken away from us, especially since he himself said: I am with you even to the end of the world: he himself said: I will not leave you orphans? For it is certain that if he should leave us, we could not be safe. No one can take Christ from you, unless you take yourself away from him. Let not your boasting take you away, let not arrogance take you away, and do not presume upon the Law for yourself; for he came to call not the just, but sinners.

How then has the Lord loved righteousness, and David never saw the just man forsaken?

Or what kind of equity of God is it, if the just man is forsaken, and the sinner adopted; unless you understand that he calls those just who presume upon the Law, and do not seek the grace of the Gospel? But no one is justified from the Law, but is redeemed from grace. There is, therefore, righteousness in the Law, but there is not righteousness through the Law; for the Apostle himself says: A Hebrew of Hebrews, according to the Law a Pharisee, according to the righteousness which is in the Law, living without reproach, who glories from the Law: What things, he says, were gain to me, these I counted loss for Christ, that is, I cast away the righteousness and glory of the Law; for the righteousness of the Law without Christ is empty, since Christ is the fullness of the Law.

And therefore, although there is righteousness in the Law, there is not, however, righteousness through the Law: For if righteousness be by the Law, then Christ died in vain; for Christ died, that he might fulfill righteousness. Finally, when John said: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me? He answered: Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness. Therefore he did not die in vain: but Christ died for us; that the just might shine as the sun in the kingdom of his Father. But the Jews are not just, to whom it is said: When you shall see the just entering into the kingdom of heaven. These are the just who do not strike back at one who strikes them, who love their enemy. If we do not take it thus, the contrary is found: I came not to call the just.

But he does not call those who say that they themselves are just: For being ignorant of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they are not subject to the righteousness of God.

Therefore those who usurp righteousness are not called to grace; for if grace comes from repentance, then whoever disdains repentance certainly renounces grace. Those who sanctify themselves have thirsted, though wounded; from them the bridegroom will be taken away: but from us it is not Caiaphas, not Pilate that took away Christ, nor can we fast; because we have Christ, and we feast on the flesh and blood of Christ. For how can he seem to fast, who does not hunger? How can he seem to fast, who does not thirst? And how can he thirst, who drinks Christ; since he himself said: He that shall drink of the water that I shall give him, shall not thirst forever? Finally, that this was said of the fast of the mind, the following words also declare.

For he spoke a parable to them: That no man putteth a piece from a new garment upon an old garment.

He had said that the sons of the bridegroom, that is, the sons of the Word, who through the regeneration of the laver have been assumed into the right of divine generation, cannot fast so long as the bridegroom is with them. Certainly this is not to be understood of that fast by which the flesh is subdued and bodily luxury is chastised; for this fast is one that commends us. For how could he here forbid the disciples to fast, when the Lord himself fasted; when finally he said that the most wicked spirits are wont to be overcome only by fastings and prayers? Indeed, in this very passage he called fasting an old garment, which the Apostle judged should be put off, saying: Put off from you the old man with his deeds; and put on him who is renewed by the sanctification of baptism.

Into this same pattern, then, the order of precepts agrees, that we should not mix the acts of the old and the new man; since the outer, bodily man performs the works of the flesh, while the inner man, who is reborn, ought not to have a variegated appearance made up of old and new deeds, but, being of one color with Christ, should by zeal of mind imitate him to whom he has been reborn in the laver. Let there be absent, then, the discolored veils of the mind, which displease the bridegroom; for he displeases him who has not the wedding garment. But what can please the bridegroom, except peace of soul, purity of heart, charity of mind?

The good bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, here initiated nature with a new birth.

She who is betrothed to him is released from the corruptions of the flesh; he does not seek mortal children, he does not delight in the pains of Eve, he does not seek a husband liable to guilt, nor the inheritance of a condemned father. For he saw the wounds of the flesh which she had formerly desired; he perceived that true beauty is not that which has the deformity of vices. And therefore, woman, what have you to do with such a bridegroom? Search diligently, and in the whole body you will find a scar. Know another, greater bridegroom, who is surrounded with light, whose beauty cannot perish. Take him up into your soul, consecrate him in your temple, take him up in your body, as it is written: Glorify the Lord in your body.

Enter his new bridal chambers, behold his surpassing beauty, put him on, see him at the right hand of the Father, and rejoice that you have such a bridegroom: he will clothe you with blessing, so that no tear of sin may do you harm.

Let us therefore keep the garment with which the Lord clothed us as we emerged from the sacred font.

Quickly is a garment torn, if deeds do not match it; quickly it is worn away by the moths of the flesh, and stained by the error of the old man. Here, then, we are forbidden to join new things to old; but in the Apostle we are also forbidden to overlay old things upon new, but rather to put off the old, to take up the new; so that being unclothed, we may be found not naked. For we are unclothed in order to receive better things; but we are made naked when a garment is stripped from us by another's fraud, not laid aside by our own will. And no man puts new wine into old wineskins.

The fragility of the human condition is disclosed, when our bodies are compared to the hides of dead animals.

And would that we might be able to fulfill the use of good wineskins; that we might preserve the sacrament we have received! Diligence lightens the injury, if new wines are entrusted to renewed skins. And therefore we ought always to keep these skins full; for empty ones are quickly consumed by moth and rust, but grace preserves those that are filled.

Fittingly, moreover, such precepts suit this work: for this is the sixth work, by which Levi is figured under a certain new form.

Now on the sixth day man was made: so by the sixth work of Christ is reformed now not the old, but a new creature, and a certain foreign form. And therefore, as a new creature, he provides a banquet for Christ; both that Christ might delight in him, and that he himself might deserve to have a share of delight with Christ. For the forming of this man, therefore, the Lord gives precepts; for now he followed joyful, eager, and exultant, saying: Now I no longer bear the publican, now I no longer carry Levi. I am exiled from Levi, since I have put on Christ. I hate my own race, I flee my former life; I follow you alone, Lord Jesus, who heal my wounds. For who shall separate me from the charity of God, which is in you? Tribulation, or distress, or famine?

I am bound with certain nails of faith, and entwined with the good fetters of charity.

Every commandment of yours I will keep impressed like a cautery. And though the cautery of the commandment burns, yet it burns away the putrefied flesh, lest the contagion creep to what is living: and though the medicine bites, yet it removes the vice of the ulcer. Take away, then, Lord Jesus, with your powerful sword the rottenness of my sins: while you hold me bound with the chains of charity, cut away whatever is diseased. Come quickly, cutting away hidden and lurking, and various passions: open the wound, lest the harmful humor creep on. Cleanse everything that is foul with a strange washing. Hear me, earthly men, who bear drunken thoughts because of your sins. I too, Levi, was wounded by such passions. I found the physician who dwells in heaven, and scatters medicines on earth.

He alone can heal my wounds, who knows none of his own: he alone can take away the sorrow of the heart, and the paleness of the soul, who knows hidden things.

And it came to pass on the second-first sabbath, that as he went through the cornfields, his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.

Not only by the comprehension of words, but also by the very act, and by the appearance of the deeds themselves, the Lord Jesus begins to strip man of the observance of the old Law, and to clothe him with the new garment of grace. Thus he now leads him through the cornfields on the sabbath, that is, he moves him toward things fruitful. What the sabbath signifies, what the crop, what the ears of corn signify, is no small mystery. For the field is this whole world; the crop of the field in the sowing of the human race is the abundant fruitfulness of the saints; the ears of the field's fruit are the fruit of the Church, which the apostles, threshing out with their own works, fed upon, nourishing themselves on our profit.

There stood, then, a crop already fruitful in virtues, with sprouting ears, to which the fruits of our merit are compared; for these too either wither by rain, or are scorched by the sun, or are moistened by showers, or are struck down by storms, or are gathered by the reapers into the happy shelter of the barns. The earth had therefore already received the word of God, and the kindly field, sown with the heavenly seed, had poured forth rich growths. The disciples hungered for the salvation of men, and as though from the husks of bodies, they drew forth the fruit of minds to the light of faith by the outstanding miracles of their works. But the Jews thought this was not lawful on the sabbath, while Christ, by the gift of new grace, was marking the rest of the Law, and the work of grace.

Nor do I think it without mystery that this was set down by the Evangelist purely as "sabbaths," according to Matthew and Mark, since sabbaths are the perpetual feast days of the eternal resurrection. So either in this age, being at rest and free from the superstitions of the Jews, or in the age to come, celebrating perpetual feasts with the solemnity of an everlasting feast day, we shall eat the good things of the earth, according as it is written: They shall eat, but you shall hunger.

Wonderfully, however, according to Luke, he called it the second-first sabbath, not the first-second; for δευτερόπρωτον is what is written.

For that which excels ought to be given precedence. It is called second, because the first preceded it out of the Law, in which also a punishment was prescribed if anyone should work; but it is called first, because that sabbath was loosed from the Law, which was the first; and this became the first, which was established as the second.

For although it is now lawful to work on the sabbath, and there is no punishment for one who works, that force of the sabbath which comes from the Law is indeed loosed, nor did its name remain attached; yet that former one was first in order, this one first in privilege; nor is this one any the less for being second; for Adam too was first, yet not to be compared with the second Adam: for the first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit; and the first man was of the earth, earthy, the second man from heaven, heavenly. The second, surely, is preferred to the first; for the one is the cause of death, the other of life. So too the sabbath is called second-first: second according to number, first according to the grace of its operation; for better is the sabbath on which impunity is granted than that on which punishment is prescribed. First is the Law, second the Gospel; yet fear is inferior to grace.

Or perhaps it is called first here in the predestination of counsel, and second in the sanctioning of the decree.

The Lord fittingly shows in this passage also a type from the Law of what was to come, and convicts the defenders of the Law of not knowing the things of the Law, bringing forward the example that David, when he himself and his companions were hungry, entered into the house of God, and took the loaves of proposition, and ate, and gave to those who were with him. A great and truly prophetic example, by which is disclosed to us that we ought to follow, first, not the empty things of the Law, but its solid usefulness. Then, because David, fleeing with his companions from the face of King Saul, is here prefigured in the Law as Christ, who together with the apostles was hidden from the prince of this world.

But how could that observer and defender of the Law both eat the loaves himself, and give them to those who were with him, which it was not lawful to eat except only for the priests, unless it was that through that figure he might show that priestly food would come to the use of the peoples? Either because we all ought to imitate the priestly life; or because all the children of the Church are priests; for we are anointed unto a holy priesthood, offering ourselves to God as spiritual sacrifices.

The teaching of Christ, then, already overflows the Law, nor does he loose the Law, but fulfills it, since he does not loose the sabbath either. For if the sabbath was made for man: and the usefulness of man required that a hungry man, who had long been debarred from the fruits of the earth, should avoid the fastings of ancient hunger; the Law is surely not loosed, but fulfilled. How then is it laid to the Lord's charge as a crime, what in the servant is not held to be a crime?

And what is more evident than this figure, which runs through the whole history?

David entered into the house of Achimelech the priest: but though danger of death was set before him, he does not refuse the guest, nor does the pious soul of the holy priest turn away the exile. Such is the grace of hospitality, that we willingly transfer to ourselves the dangers of another.

But this is moral in the history, and prophetic in the mystery: that the religious priests, without presuming upon the future outcome of death, did not shut out that true David from the hospitality of their minds. Christ is taught to find hospitality not only in the house of each prophet: but also, by way of figure, to take spoils and arms from spiritual wickedness; for whoever receives Christ in hospitality despoils that intelligible Goliath of his own weapons.

What is more evident, indeed, than that David asked for five loaves in the house of Achimelech, and received one: the type showing that now food would be prepared for the faithful not by five books, but by the body of Christ; that Christ might take up a body, lest any of the faithful should hunger? Nor is Doeg without figure, who was the keeper of the mules; since no one else but the keeper of an unfruitful flock could fulfill the type of Judas the betrayer.

Now that

because of the reception of David, Saul persecuted the whole house of Achimelech except Abiathar, who was then the chief of the priests, prophecy shows us that no one can harm the true prince of priests, who is Christ alone. From here the Lord Jesus proceeds to other things. For he who had determined to save the whole man went through each member; that he might truly say: Are you angry with me, who made a whole man well on the sabbath? Thus in this place he irrigated with the saving juices of good deeds that hand which Adam stretched out, and plucked the fruits of the forbidden tree, so that what had withered by crime might be healed by good works. In this Christ rebukes the Jews, who by evil interpretations violated the precepts of the Law, thinking that even good works should cease on the sabbath, though the Law prefigured in present things the form of things to come: in which surely the rest is for evil things to come, not for good ones.

For although worldly works cease, yet the act of a good work is not idle when it rests in the praise of God. You have heard, then, the words of the Lord saying: Stretch forth your hand. This is a common and general medicine. And you who think you have a sound hand, beware lest it be contracted by avarice, beware lest by sacrilege. Stretch it out often; stretch it out to that poor man who begs you: stretch it out that you may help your neighbor, that you may bring aid to a widow, that you may rescue from injury one whom you see subject to unjust insult: stretch it out to God for your sins. Thus the hand is stretched out, thus it is healed. Thus Jeroboam contracted his hand when he sacrificed to idols; and again, when he entreated God, he stretched it out. And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.

Not everyone who prays ascends the mountain (for there is a prayer which produces sin), but he who prays well, advancing from earthly things to higher things, ascends the summit of the exalted council-chamber. But he does not ascend the mountain who is anxious about the wealth or honor of the world: he does not ascend the mountain who covets the right to another’s estate. He ascends who seeks God, he ascends who begs the aid of the Lord for his own course. All the great, all the exalted ascend the mountain; for it is not to just anyone that the prophet says: Ascend the high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Sion: lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem. It is not by many bodily steps but by more sublime deeds that you may ascend this mountain. Follow Christ, that you yourself may be able to be a mountain: for mountains are round about him.

Search in the Gospel, and you will find that only the disciples ascended the mountain with the Lord.

The Lord prays, therefore, not that he may entreat for himself, but that he may obtain for me; for although the Father has placed all things in the power of the Son, yet the Son, in order to fulfill the form of man, thinks it fitting to entreat the Father on our behalf; because he is our advocate. Do not open treacherous ears, so as to think that the Son, as though weak, asks to obtain what he, the author of power, cannot fulfill. The master of obedience forms us to the precepts of virtue by his own example. We have an advocate, he says, with the Father. If he is an advocate, he ought to intervene for my sins. He entreats, therefore, not as one weak, but as one dutiful. Do you wish to know that he can do all things that he wills? He is both advocate and judge. In the one is the office of dutifulness, in the other the mark of power.

And he was, it says, spending the night in prayer to God.

A model is given to you, a form is prescribed which you ought to emulate. For what ought you to do for your own salvation, when Christ spends the night in prayer for you? What is it fitting for you to do, when you wish to undertake some office of duty; when Christ, about to send forth the apostles, prayed first, and prayed alone? Nor is he found, if I am not mistaken, ever elsewhere to have prayed with the apostles: everywhere he entreats alone. For human wishes do not grasp the counsel of God, nor can anyone be a partaker of Christ’s inward things. Do you wish to know that he prayed for me, not for himself? He called, it says, his disciples, and chose twelve from among them: 44. Whom he destined as sowers of faith throughout the world, for the propagation of the aid of human salvation.

At the same time note the heavenly counsel: he chose, not any wise men, not the rich, not the noble, but fishermen and publicans, whom he sent forth; lest he should seem to have drawn some to his grace by prudence, or to have purchased them by riches, or to have attracted them by the authority of power and nobility; so that the reason of truth, not the favor of argument, might prevail. Judas too is chosen, not through imprudence, but through providence. How great is the truth, which not even an adversary minister weakens! How great the moderation of the Lord, who preferred that his own judgment rather than his affection be endangered among us! For he had taken on the frailty of man; and therefore he did not refuse even these parts of human weakness. He willed to be forsaken, he willed to be betrayed, he willed to be handed over by his own apostle; that you, forsaken by a companion, betrayed by a companion, might bear with moderation that your judgment erred, that your kindness was lost.

And he came down, it says, with them, and stood in a level place.

Note all things diligently, how he both ascends with the apostles and descends to the crowds.

For how could the crowd see Christ except in a lowly place? It does not follow to the heights, it does not ascend to the sublime. Accordingly, where he descends, he finds the sick; for in the heights the sick cannot be. So too Matthew teaches, that the weak were healed in the lower places; for each one was first healed, so that, virtues gradually advancing, he might be able to ascend the mountain. And therefore he heals each one in the lower places, that is, he calls him back from lust, he averts the wrong of blindness. He descends to our wounds, that by a certain use and abundance of himself he may make us partakers of the heavenly nature. And he healed these indeed, but left them in the lower places.

But seeing the crowds, as you have read, he ascended the mountain.

And when he had sat down, his disciples came up to him. For, about to preach the gospel, and about to draw forth the blessing of oracles from the treasury of divinity, he begins to be more exalted. But here, although he stood in a lowly place, yet he lifted his eyes on high. For so also, when he raised Lazarus, he groaned in spirit: so too he lifted up his head, when he forgave the sins of the woman taken in adultery. For what is it to lift up the eyes, but to open the inner light?

Accordingly holy Matthew says: He opened, it says, his mouth, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge of God

that is, the inner shrines of his temple having been unlocked. He opened his mouth: therefore you too open your mouth, but first beg that it may be opened. For if Paul, in the opening of his mouth, begs for aid, much more does it befit you to beg. He also shows you the key of knowledge, by which you ought to open your mouth, the Prophet saying: Open your mouth to the word of God. The word of God is the key of your mouth: the key of knowledge is the key of your mouth, by which, the chains of silence being loosed, the bars of ignorance are unlocked. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are they who now hunger and thirst, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are they who now weep, for they shall laugh. Blessed shall you be, when men shall hate you.

Holy Luke set down only four of the Lord’s beatitudes, but holy Matthew eight: but in these eight those four are contained, and in those four these eight. For here he embraced, as it were, four cardinal virtues: there in those eight he reserved a mystical number. For many psalms are inscribed “for the eighth”, and you receive the command to give a portion to those eight, perhaps for blessings; for as the eighth is the perfection of our hope, so the eighth is the sum of the virtues.

But first let us see which are the fuller ones.

Blessed, he says, are the poor; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Both evangelists set this first blessing in the first place. For it is first in order, and a certain parent and begetter of the virtues: because he who has despised worldly things will himself merit eternal things: nor can anyone attain the merit of the heavenly kingdom, who, possessed by desire for the world, has no capacity of emerging from it.

The second blessing: Blessed, he says, are the meek.

The third, Blessed are they who mourn. The fourth, Blessed are they who hunger. The fifth, Blessed are the merciful. The sixth, Blessed are the pure in heart. The seventh, Blessed are the peacemakers. And rightly the seventh; since on that day God rested from all the works of the world; for it is a day of rest and of peace. The eighth, Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake.

Come, Lord Jesus, teach us the order of your beatitudes; for not without order did you say, first blessed are the poor in spirit, second blessed are the meek, and third those who mourn. For although I know something, yet I know in part. For if Paul knew in part, how much can I know? I am as much inferior to Paul in word as I am in life; for life demands and acquires the word: but speech without life is not the word of God. How much wiser than me is Paul! He glories in dangers, I in successes: he glories that he is not exalted by revelations: I, if any revelations happened to me, would glory. But yet God is able to raise up men from stones, and to bring forth a word from things shut up, to elicit a voice from the mute. For if he opened the eyes of the ass, that it might see the angel; he is able also to open our eyes, that we may be able to see the mystery of God.

Blessed, he says, are the poor.

Not all the poor are blessed; for poverty is a middle thing: both the good and the wicked can be poor. Unless perhaps that poor man is to be understood as blessed whom the Prophet described, saying: Because a righteous poor man is better than a lying rich man. Blessed is the poor man who cried out, and the Lord heard him: poor from crime, poor from vices, poor in whom the prince of this world found nothing: poor, the rival of that Poor One, who, though he was rich, became poor for our sake. Whence Matthew fully opened it, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit; for he who is poor in spirit is not puffed up, is not exalted by the mind of his flesh.

This, then, is the first blessing; when I have laid down every sin, and stripped off all malice, and am content with simplicity, destitute of evils, it remains that I also temper my character. For what does it profit me to be free from worldly things, unless I am meek and gentle? For he who follows the right way follows surely him who says: Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. Lay aside, therefore, whatever is base, be needy of vices according to good poverty, mitigate your feeling; that you may not become angry, or at least, being angry, may not sin, according to what is written: Be angry, and do not sin. For it is a splendid thing to temper emotion by counsel; nor is it reckoned of lesser virtue to restrain anger and to check indignation, than not to be angry at all; since the one is often judged the slower, the other the stronger.

When you have done this, remember that you are a sinner; mourn your sins, mourn your offenses.

And rightly is the third blessing that of one who weeps for sins; because it is the Trinity that forgives sins. Wash yourself, therefore, with your tears, and cleanse yourself with weeping. If you yourself weep for yourself, another will not weep for you; for if Saul had wept for his sins, Samuel would not have wept for him. Everyone has his own dead to weep for. We are dead, when we sin, when we are filled with the bones of the dead. A wicked word is dead, which comes out of the mouth; for it comes out of an evil sepulchre: For their throat is an open sepulchre. Therefore the Apostle says: Be imitators of me. He wishes us to remember our offenses. Paul had nothing to weep for, from the time he believed in Christ, and yet he wept for his former deeds, saying: For I am not worthy to be called an apostle; because I persecuted the Church of God.

He, then, was a sinner before faith, but we still sin even after faith. Let him who is a sinner weep for himself, and accuse himself, that he may become righteous: For the righteous man is his own accuser.

Let us follow the order, therefore, since it is written: Set charity in order in me.

I have laid down sin, I have tempered my character, I have wept for my offenses: I begin to hunger and thirst for righteousness. For a sick man, when he is in a severe illness, does not hunger; because the pain of sickness excludes hunger. But what is this hunger for righteousness? What are these loaves which the righteous man hungers for? Perhaps not those loaves of which it is said: I was young, and have grown old, and I have not seen the righteous man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread. He who hungers surely seeks an increase of strength. But what greater increase of virtue is there than the rule of righteousness?

After these: Blessed, he says, are the merciful; for mercy follows righteousness.

Whence it is said: He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor, his righteousness remains forever. But even he who bestows mercy loses the reward, unless he shows mercy with a pure heart; for if he seeks display, there is no fruit. Cleanse, therefore, the inner parts of your mind; and if you have diligently cleansed the secrets of your breast, have compassion on those who are assailed; and understand how many men, how many of your brothers, seek your help.

But unless you have first emptied your inner self of every stain of sin, lest dissensions and contentions proceed from your own feeling, you cannot bring healing to others. Begin peace, then, from yourself; that when you yourself have become peaceable, you may bring peace to others. For how can you cleanse the hearts of others, unless you have first cleansed your own?

You have profited others, then, you have brought help to many; hasten, strive toward the end.

Though there were many outcomes of life possible, one alone befitted the Lord; for what was born according to the flesh had, according to the flesh, to die. He chose the passion, that he might die for us; and you, say concerning all that the Lord has repaid to you: I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord, that is, the passion. Whence also to those who desired to sit at his right hand or his left, he says: Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink? He leads you even to the end, he accompanies you even to martyrdom, and he establishes the palm of the beatitudes.

See therefore the order.

It is fitting that you become poor in spirit; for humility of spirit is the wealth of virtues. Unless you have been poor, you cannot be meek. He who is meek can grieve over present things; he who grieves over the lower things can desire better things; he who seeks the higher things avoids the lower; so that he himself may be aided by the higher things; he who has mercy cleanses his heart. For what is it to cleanse the soul, but to abolish the filth of death? For almsgiving delivers from death: but patience is the perfection of charity. Now he who suffers persecution, being set in the final contest, is proved by adversities; so that when he has fought lawfully, he may be crowned. Some wish these to be the steps of the virtues, by which we may be able to ascend from the lowest to the highest.

Finally, just as there are increases of the virtues, so also are there increases of the rewards; for it is more to be a Son of God than to possess the earth, and to merit consolation. But since both the first reward is the kingdom of heaven, and the last reward is the kingdom of heaven: is the reward then equal for beginners and for the perfect? Perhaps we are mystically taught that there is a first kingdom of heaven, that apostolic one: To be dissolved and to be with Christ. You have the first kingdom, when the saints are caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air; for many of the sleeping will rise; these unto eternal life, those unto reproach. The first kingdom of heaven, then, is set before the saints in the release of the body; the second kingdom of heaven is, after the resurrection, to be with Christ.

When you shall be in the kingdom of heaven, then there is a progression of dwelling-places; though it is one kingdom, yet there are diverse merits within the kingdom of heaven.

After the resurrection you will begin to possess your land, released from death. For he to whom it is said: You are earth, and unto earth you shall go, does not possess his land; for he cannot be a possessor who does not receive the fruit. Therefore, released by the Lord’s cross (if indeed you shall be found under the Lord’s yoke), you will find consolation in that very possession: consolation is followed by delight, delight by divine mercy. But whoever the Lord has mercy on, He also calls; and he who is called sees the One calling; and he who has seen God is taken up into the right of divine begetting: and then at last, as it were a Son of God, he is delighted by the riches of the heavenly kingdom. That one, then, begins; this one is filled.

For even within this age many are in the Roman empire; but those who are nearer to the emperor obtain greater favor of the empire.

Now let us say how holy Luke has embraced eight beatitudes within four blessings.

And indeed we know that the cardinal virtues are four: temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude. He who is poor in spirit is not covetous. He who weeps is not proud; but is meek and peaceable. He who mourns is humbled. He who is just does not deny that which he knows to have been given to all in common for use. He who has mercy gives generously of his own. He who gives what is his does not seek what is another’s, nor lay a snare for his neighbor.

The virtues are thus bound and chained together; so that whoever has one seems to have many: and to the saints one virtue is suited, but whichever has been the more abundant, its reward is the more abundant. How great was the hospitality in Abraham! How great his humility! How great his holiness, that he saved his brother’s son from the enemy! And how great his abstinence, that he sought nothing of the spoil! But because he excelled in faith, he merited the primacy of faith above the rest. Therefore to each are given more rewards, because there are more incentives of virtues; but whatever is more abundant in some merit, this also overflows more abundantly in reward.

Blessed then are the poor in spirit.

You have temperance, which abstains from sin, tramples the world, does not seek enticing things.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst; for he who hungers has compassion on the one who hungers, and by having compassion he gives generously, and by giving generously he becomes just

because His justice remains for ever. Whence in Matthew we understand thirst and hunger spiritually, by which the food or drink of justice is desired; because virtue is, as it were, a certain matter of the virtues, so that the just man shows himself equal to those beneath him, excludes deceit, seeks truth.

Blessed are you who now weep, for you shall laugh.

You have prudence, whose office it is to weep over passing things, and to seek the things that are eternal; to mourn over worldly things, which struggle against themselves: to seek the God of peace, who has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and who destroys the things that are not, so that he may be able to obtain the things that are.

Blessed shall you be when men hate you.

You have fortitude, but that which does not earn hatred through crime; but suffers persecution for the sake of faith; for thus one arrives at the crown of the passion, if you neglect the favor of men, and follow the favor of God. Finally, that you may know that suffering is the consummation of fortitude: According to these things, He says, did their fathers to the prophets; because the Jews persecuted the prophets even unto bodily death.

It is also a mark of fortitude to overcome anger, and to restrain indignation; and by this fortitude strengthens the soul as well as the body, and does not allow it to be disturbed by any fear or grief; by which, as by depraved interpreters, we are most often overthrown.

Therefore temperance has cleanness of heart and soul, justice has mercy, prudence has peace, fortitude has meekness.

Woe to you rich, who have your consolation!

Although in monetary abundance there are many allurements to sin; yet many things are also incentives to virtue.

Although virtue does not require resources, and the offering of a poor man is more commendable than the generosity of a rich man; nevertheless it is not those who possess riches, but those who do not know how to use them, that the authority of the heavenly sentence condemns. For as that poor man is more praiseworthy who gives generously with ready affection, and is not held back by the barriers of the want that threatens him, and does not think himself needy who has what is enough for nature; so this rich man is more guilty, who ought either to have returned thanks to God for what he received, or ought not to have hidden away, without use, the wealth given for common use, and brooded over treasures buried in the earth. It is not wealth, then, but disposition that is at fault.

And although throughout his whole life the miserable, anxious, covetous mind keeps watch of a wretched guard—than which no punishment is more grievous—striving with anxious fear to preserve gains that will profit his successors; yet since the pursuits of avarice and the desires of accumulating are fed by a certain empty pleasure: those who have had the consolation of the present life have lost the everlasting reward.

We may nevertheless here understand by “the rich man” the people of the Jews, or heretics, or certainly the philosophers of the world, who, delighted by an abundance of words and by a certain patrimony of ambitious eloquence, having gone beyond the simplicity of true faith, have stored up useless treasures. Does not some heretic seem to you, when you hear him disputing about the generation of the Lord according to the fashion of the age, rich in words, poor in strength? He thinks that in this present time he has wealthy riches: but in the future he will recognize the poverty of his faith; and the food of unbelief, which he belched forth in the present age, having been consumed by an eternal fast of faith, he will know to be the cause of so great a punishment. And there will come a time when those who now laugh at our sayings will mourn their laughter. To whom it will rightly be said:

Woe, when all men shall speak well of you!

Does it not seem to you that this is said of those who, of late, at the council of Rimini, the authors of a faithless treachery, while they pursued the favor of the emperor, lost the favor of God? Who, while they seek eagerly to please the powerful, have subjected themselves to perpetual curse.

Therefore holy Matthew called the peoples to virtue and faith by rewards: this one also deterred them from crimes and sins by the announcement of future punishments—he who, not idly having proceeded through the enumeration of most heavenly deeds, came later to the place of the blessings; so that he might teach the peoples, strengthened by divine miracles, to advance beyond the path of the Law in the footsteps of the virtues. There it was necessary to be cautious, where the hearts of a still weak people wavered: here virtue had to be roused by the blast of the trumpet. This is taught by the discourse of this book, which is disclosed both in its introductions and in the progress of its speech.

There, those who are weak are still given, as it were, the milk of the Law, and are therefore led through the path of the Law toward grace: they hear the things of the Law, so that beyond the Law, by following the Law, they may advance: here, the more founded Church is not steeped in milk, but feeds on solid food; for the stronger food is charity. Finally, among the three greatest—faith, hope, charity—the greater is charity.

Charity, then, is ordered, when it is said: Love your enemies; so that that saying of the Church, already spoken before, may be fulfilled: Order charity in me; for charity is ordered, when the precepts of charity are formed. See from how much higher a point He began, and how He set the Law behind the back of the Evangelic blessing. The Law commands reciprocity of vengeance; the Gospel bestows charity in place of enmities, kindness in place of hatreds, blessings in place of curses, aid for persecutors, patience for those who hunger, and the grace of reward.

How much more perfect is that athlete who does not feel the injury!

lest the Lord seem to dissolve the Law, He preserves reciprocity in benefits, which He disregards in injuries.

Yet in saying: As you wish that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise, the reciprocity itself is the more abundant, when the deed is made equal to the wish. For virtue knows no measure of grace: nor is it content to return what it has received, but wishes to heap up beyond what it has taken; lest it be inferior to the kindness, though it be equal in duty. For benefits are weighed not only by their sum, but by order and time; since in an equal benefit he is prior who began first; for he is the benefactor who first showed favor, the debtor who repaid it.

Thus the priority of the benefit is itself another benefit; for if one who has returned money has not thereby discharged the debt of gratitude, and remains a debtor of gratitude, even though no longer of money: why do we think that by returning gratitude it can be emptied, when its return is rather a testimony of the gratitude received than a discharge of it?

The Christian, then, is imbued with a good example; so that, not content with the law of nature, he seeks its grace.

For if it is common to all, even to sinners, to love in return: how much more should one whose profession is more exalted also have a more abundant zeal for virtue, so as to love even those who do not love him. For although no merits exclude the ordinary practice of love, they do not exclude that of virtue.

For just as with one who loves you, you are ashamed not to return the favor; and through the love owed in return, love for him whom you did not love before grows into you: so also with one who does not love you, you ought to love virtue; so that while you love virtue, you may begin to love him whom you do not love: since the reward of the lover is rare and perishable, but that of virtue is everlasting.

But what is so wonderful as to offer the other cheek to one striking your cheek?

Is not every impetus of the indignant broken, is not anger appeased? Does it not come about through patience, that by his own repentance you more fully strike back at the one who struck? Thus it will be that you both repel the injury and seek grace. And often the greatest occasions of love arise, when grace is returned for the injury of insolence borne with patience. Indeed, as I recall having heard, we consider that supercilious pride of philosophy (Diog. Laert. Life of Plato) to be weighed down by this alone; because it seems to have divided justice for itself into three parts: one toward God, which is called piety; another toward parents, or the rest of humankind; a third toward the dead, that the due rites of burial be paid them. But truly the Lord Jesus, surpassing the oracle of the Law and the summit of philosophy, extended the office of piety even to those who have done injury.

For if an enemy who has fought against you with war and arms, having laid down his arms, obtains mercy for his safety, and this is granted most often either out of regard for nature or by the very law of war, so that life is granted to those subdued: how much more ought it to be granted out of the better regard of religion! For if concern for the safety sought does not move the warrior, what ought to move the soldier of peace?

Thus we see that apostolic saying, that Charity is patient, is kind, does not envy, is not puffed up, brought to fulfillment in these precepts.

If it is patient, it ought to show patience to the one who strikes: if it is kind, it ought not to answer curses: if it does not seek what is its own, it ought not to resist the one who plunders: if it does not envy, it ought not to hate its enemy. And yet the precepts of divine piety go beyond the apostolic ones; for it is more to give than to yield: it is more to love enemies than not to envy. All of which the Lord both said and did. Who, when He was cursed, did not curse in return: when He was struck, did not strike back: when He was despoiled, did not resist: when He was crucified, asked forgiveness even for His persecutors, saying: Father, forgive them their sin, for they know not what they do. He excused His accusers from their crime.

They were preparing the cross, He was repaying salvation and grace.

yet, since the very pursuits of the virtues grow sluggish without reward, He has both brought us an example, and promised a reward from heaven, pledging that they shall be sons of God who shall have been His imitators. For he who hastens to the reward ought not to disdain the example; because the more excellent the reward, the more intense should be the duty. But how great is the reward of mercy, which is taken up into the right of divine adoption! Follow, then, mercy, that you may merit grace. Wide indeed extends the goodness of God: he rains upon the ungrateful, and the earth, fertile though it be, does not deny its produce even to the wicked. The same sun of the world illumines the sacrilegious and the religious alike.

Or, that we may weigh these things mystically, the Lord watered the Jewish people with prophetic rains, and shone upon them with the rays of the eternal sun, even though they were undeserving; but

because they grew wet with worldly dew, the Church of God is taken up to the heavenly light; yet in such a way that the prerogative of mercy is preserved even for them, if they believe.

He added that judgment must not be rashly given, lest, being yourself conscious of a fault, you be compelled to pass sentence upon another. It is also a great discipline that you should not seek fruit from unfruitful things, nor expect the yield of fruitfulness from what is uncultivated. For to each thing its own cultivation gives fruit. Among the thorns of this world that fig tree cannot be found which, because it is better than fecund fruits, has fittingly applied to it the appearance of the resurrection: or because, as you have read, "The fig trees put forth their green figs"; which unripe, and useless, and falling fruit went before in the Synagogue: or because our life in the body is unripe, and ripe in the resurrection.

And therefore we ought to cast far from us worldly anxieties, which bite the soul and scorch the mind; that we may be able to attain the ripe fruits of diligent cultivation—which we cannot find among the uncultivated things of this world: for "they do not gather figs from thorns, nor grapes from brambles." The one refers to the world and the resurrection, the other to the soul and the body: or because no one acquires for his soul the fruit of sins, which, like the grape, is corrupted nearest the earth, and ripens in the higher parts: or because no one can escape the condemnation of the flesh, except him whom Christ has redeemed, who, like a grape, hung upon the wood. Far, therefore, from that flesh, which was commanded to bring forth thorns to condemned man, let us lift up our spiritual eyes, let us stretch forth our hands, that we may be able to gather the vintage of Christ.

He teaches that the foundation of all virtues is obedience to the heavenly precepts, through which this house of ours can be moved neither by the flood of pleasures, nor by the assault of spiritual wickedness, nor by worldly rain, nor by the cloudy disputations of heretics. Beautifully, moreover, when he had completed the precepts, he teaches how to carry out the pattern of his own precepts; for immediately the servant of a Gentile centurion is offered to the Lord to be healed, in whom is expressed the people of the nations, who, held by the bonds of worldly servitude, lay sick with deadly sufferings, to be healed by the Lord's kindness. And as to what he said would die, the Evangelist did not mislead in this; for he would indeed have died, had he not been healed by Christ. He therefore fulfilled the precept with heavenly charity, he who so loved his enemies that he snatched them from death, and brought them to the hope of everlasting salvation.

How great a mark of divine humility, that the Lord of heaven should not disdain to visit the little servant of a centurion!

Faith shines forth in works, but kindness works more in feelings. This indeed he did not do because he could not heal from a distance, but that he might give you a pattern of humility to imitate, by which he might teach that deference should likewise be shown to the lowlier as to the higher. Finally, elsewhere he says to the ruler: "Go, your son lives"; that you may know both the power of divinity and the grace of humility. There he was unwilling to go, lest he should seem to have shown more deference to riches in the ruler's son; here he himself went, lest he should seem to have despised the servile condition in the centurion's servant; for all of us, slave and free, are one in Christ.

But see that faith is the prerogative of healing.

Notice too that in the Gentile people itself there is perspicacity of the mystery. The Lord proceeds; the centurion excuses himself, and, laying aside the swelling of the soldier, assumes reverence, being both ready for faith and prompt in showing honor. And well does Luke say that friends too were sent by the centurion to meet him, lest by his own presence he should seem to burden the Lord's modesty, and to have provoked office with office. These things morally.

Mystically, however, the people of the nations desired that he whom the Jewish people crucified should remain untouched by injury; and as to what pertains to faith, it believed the word

that is, conjecturing that health is given to men by Christ not by human but by divine power; but as regards what pertains to the mystery, it saw that Christ had not yet penetrated into the hearts of the Gentiles. And therefore, because it had not yet washed away the stains of past thought, it thought itself more burdened than helped by the Lord's condescension. So that widow of Sarepta judged herself unworthy of the prophet's hospitality. And therefore the Lord, in this one man, preferred the faith of the Gentiles. And indeed if you read it thus: "In no one have I found so great faith in Israel," the meaning is simple and easy.

But if, according to the Greeks: "Not even in Israel have I found so great faith," then this man's faith is preferred even to the more elect, and to those who see God. But observe the arrangement: the master's faith is tested, and the servant's health is strengthened. The merit of the master, then, can avail even for his servants, not only by the merit of faith, but also by zeal for discipline. Observe also another arrangement of the Lord's humility: he does not promise, he works; for although he had not yet commanded the healing, yet the servants who had been sent found the little servant healthy. Now as he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother: and she was a widow: and a great crowd of the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, moved with mercy, he said to her: Do not weep. And he came near, and touched the bier.

This passage too redounds to a twofold grace, that we should believe both that divine mercy is quickly bent by the lamentation of a widowed mother, especially of one who is broken by the toil or death of her only son; whom, nevertheless, the crowd of mourners commends by the merit of her gravity; and also this widow woman, who by her tears deserved to obtain the resurrection of her only young son; because holy Church calls back the younger people from the pomp of a funeral, and from the last rites of burial, to life, by the contemplation of tears—tears which she is forbidden to shed, since resurrection is owed to her.

He who indeed lay dead on the bier was carried to the tomb by the four material elements; but he had hope of rising again, because he was borne upon wood. And though this did not profit us before, yet after Jesus touched it, it began to be of profit unto life; so that it might be a sign that salvation would be poured out upon the people through the gibbet of the cross. Hearing therefore the word of God, the bearers of that bitter funeral stood still, who were pressing the human body with the deadly flux of material nature. For what else are we, lying lifeless as it were on a certain bier, that is, the instrument of the final funeral, when either the fire of immoderate desire blazes up, or cold moisture overflows, or the vigor of our minds is dulled by a certain sluggish habit of the body, or our spirit, congealed by defilement, nourishes the mind void of pure light? These are the bearers of our funeral.

But although the extremity of death has destroyed all hope of life, and bodies of the dead lie close to the tomb, yet by the word of God the corpses, already about to perish, rise again; a voice restores them, the son is restored to his mother, he is called back from the tomb, he is snatched from the sepulcher. What is this tomb of yours, but evil habits? Your tomb is unbelief, your sepulcher is the throat: "For their throat is an open sepulcher", whence dead words are brought forth. From this sepulcher Christ frees you, from this tomb you shall rise again, if you hear the word of God.

And if it is so grave a sin that you cannot wash it yourself with the tears of your penitence, let mother Church weep for you, who, as a widowed mother, intercedes for each one as if for an only son; for she suffers with a certain spiritual grief of nature, when she perceives her own children being driven to death by deadly vices. We are flesh of her flesh; for there are also spiritual bowels, which Paul has in mind when he says: "Yes, brother, let me have joy of you in the Lord." So that bodies, whether already dead or already about to die, may be said by the word of God to rise again—unless he preferred to call those already dying corpses "sinners," because he had not yet Lord, refresh my bowels in Christ. We, then, are the bowels of the Church; since we are members of her body, of her flesh, and of her bones.

Let the pious mother grieve, then; let the crowd stand by too: not only a crowd, but let many suffer with the good parent.

Soon you shall rise from your funeral, soon you shall be freed from the sepulcher: those ministers of your funeral will stand still, you will begin to speak vital words, all will fear; for by the example of one, many will be corrected. They will also praise God, who has granted us such great remedies for avoiding death. And John called two of his disciples together, and sent them to him, saying: Are you he who is to come, or do we look for another?

There is not a simple meaning in these simple words; otherwise the earlier things would contradict the present ones.

For how does John, who knew him in the earlier passages, God the Father revealing him, here not know him? How is it that there he recognized one whom he did not know before, and here he does not know one whom he already knew before? "I knew him not," he says, "but he who sent me to baptize, he said to me: Upon whomever you shall see the Holy Spirit descending". And he believed the word, and recognized the one shown to him, and adored him when baptized, and prophesied him as coming. Finally, "I," he says, "have seen, and have borne witness that this is the elect of God". What, then, could have happened that so great a prophet should so err, that he of whom he had said, "Behold, he who takes away the sins of the world", should not yet believe him to be the Son of God?

For either it is arrogance to attribute divine things to one whom you do not know, or it is unbelief to have doubted concerning the Son of God. Such a suspicion of so great an error, then, does not fall upon such a Prophet.

Therefore, if the simple meaning resists the plain form, let us seek the spiritual figure. And because we have already said above that in John there is a type of the Law, which was the forerunner of Christ: rightly the Law, which was bodily held enclosed in the hearts of the unbelieving, as though in prisons emptied of eternal light, which the fruitful entrails of punishments and the doors of madness confined, cannot bring forth the full outcome of the testimony of the Lord's dispensation without the confirmation of the Gospel. The Law indeed prophesied in Exodus the grace of baptism through the cloud and the sea: it foretold the spiritual food in the lamb: it designated the everlasting fountain in the rock: it revealed the remission of sins in Leviticus: it announced the kingdom of heaven in the psalms: it most clearly declared the land of promise in Joshua the son of Nun.

All these things also agree with the testimony of John: but nevertheless, held enclosed by the tyrannical powers of this world, he is restrained from pouring forth the light of the Lord's resurrection. John therefore sends his disciples to Christ, that they may obtain the supplement of knowledge; because Christ is the fullness of the Law: so that, since words without deeds generally waver, and fuller faith is shown by the testimonies of deeds than by the promises of words, that which then wavered in the hearts of the Jews, as though shut up by the Law, might be laid open by the very spectacle of the Lord's cross, and by the full testimony of the resurrection.

And perhaps these two disciples are the two peoples, of whom one believed from among the Jews, the other from among the Gentiles, who believed

because he heard. These, then, wished to see on account of that saying: "But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear". But we too have seen in John: with our eyes we have beheld in the apostles: and with our hands we have handled in the fingers of Thomas. "For that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, and which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life, and the life appeared". When did it appear? When we saw it. It did not so appear before it was seen. Thanks, then, be to the Lord, who was crucified for our faith, was crucified for our desires. My mind has been crucified in him.

And so even now those who peruse the Old Testament, before they know the Gospel, and read as it were certain footprints of the Lord's body, think him yet to come, and inquire whether he himself is the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come. And when they read of the time when he spoke with Abraham, or when he showed himself as the leader of the heavenly host (Joshua V, 14), they surely say: Are you he who is to come, or do we look for another? But when they come to the Gospel, and learn that the blind were given sight, the lame walked, the deaf heard, lepers were cleansed, the dead rose again, then they say: We have seen him, and beheld him with our eyes, and have thrust our fingers into the print of his nails.

For we seem to ourselves to have seen him whom we have read of, to have beheld him hanging, and to have handled his wounds, the spirit of the Church searching them out; for if devils are cast out by the finger of God, faith too is found by the finger of the Church. Or perhaps in a certain operative part of our body we all seem to have investigated the sequence of the Lord's passion; for faith comes through the few to the many. The Law, then, announces that Christ is to come: the Scripture of the Gospel confirms that he has come.

Some also understand this of John himself, that he was indeed so great a prophet as to recognize Christ, and to announce the future remission of sins: but nevertheless not as one doubting, but as a devout seer, who had believed that he would come, yet had not believed that he would die. He doubted, therefore, not in faith, but in devotion. Peter too doubted, saying: Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. He, the prince of faith (to whom Christ had not yet declared himself to be the Son of God, and yet he had believed it), directed his mind to keep watch concerning death, than which no punishment is heavier, in order to preserve, with anxious fear, for the profit of his successors; yet since the pursuits of avarice, and the desires of amassing, are fed by a certain empty pleasure: they who have had the consolation of the present life have lost the everlasting reward.

Yet here we may understand the rich man to be the Jewish people, or heretics, or certainly the philosophers of the world, who, delighted by an abundance of words, and by a certain patrimony of ambitious eloquence, having gone beyond the simplicity of true faith, have stored up useless treasures. Does not some heretic seem to you, when you hear him disputing about the generation of the Lord after the manner of the world, rich in words, poor in strength? He who thinks that he possesses abundant riches in this present time, will recognize in the future the poverty of his faith; and the food of unbelief which he has belched forth in the present age, being wasted away by the eternal fast of faith, he shall know to be the cause of so great a punishment. And there shall come a time when they shall mourn their laughter, who now laugh at our words. To whom it shall rightly be said:

Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you!

Does he not seem to you to say this to those who, formerly at the Council of Ariminum, being authors of faithless prevarication, while they pursued the emperor's favor, lost the favor of God? Who, while they hunt to please the powerful, have subjected themselves to perpetual malediction.

Thus holy Matthew called the peoples to virtue and faith by means of rewards: here too he deters from crimes and sins by the announcement of future punishments—he who, not idly proceeding through the enumeration of very many heavenly deeds, came later to the place of the blessings; so that, having strengthened the peoples by divine miracles, he might teach them to advance beyond the path of the Law by the footsteps of virtues. Caution was needed there, where the hearts of a people still weak were wavering: here virtue had to be roused by the blast of the trumpet. This the discourse of this book teaches, both what is disclosed in its introductions and what in the course of the discourse.

There, those who are weak are still given a kind of milk of the Law to drink, and are therefore led by the path of the Law to grace: they hear what belongs to the Law, that beyond the Law, by following the Law, they may proceed: here the Church, more established, is not steeped in milk, but feeds on solid food; for the stronger food is charity. In fine, among the three greatest things, faith, hope, charity, the greatest is charity.

Charity, then, is set in order, when it is said: Love your enemies; that there may be fulfilled that saying of the Church, already spoken before: Order charity in me; for charity is set in order when the precepts of charity are formed. See from what higher things it begins, and how it has cast the Law behind the back of the Evangelical blessing. The Law commands the reciprocation of vengeance; the Gospel bestows charity for enmities, benevolence for hatreds, prayers for curses, aid for persecutors, patience for the hungry, and the grace of reward.

How much more perfect the athlete who does not feel the injury!

lest the Lord seem to dissolve the Law, he preserves reciprocity in benefits, which he sets aside in injuries.

But yet, by saying: As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise, the reciprocity itself is the more abundant, when the act is made equal to the wish. For virtue knows no measure of grace: nor, content to return what it has received, is it satisfied, but wishes to heap up what it has taken; lest it be inferior to the benefit, though it be equalled in service. For benefits are weighed not only by their amount, but by order and time; since in an equal benefit, he is first who began first; for he is beneficent who has begun the favor, he is a debtor who has returned it.

The precedence of a benefit is itself another benefit; for if one has returned the money, he has not paid the favor, and remains a debtor of grace, even though he is no longer a debtor of money: why then do we think that, by returning a favor, it can be emptied, when the return of a thing received is rather a testimony than a discharge of it?

Thus the Christian is imbued with a good example; so that, not content with the right of nature, he seeks after its grace.

For if it is common to all, even to sinners, to love in return: to whom the loftier the profession, the more abundant also ought to be the zeal for virtue, that he may love even those who do not love him. For although no merits may exclude the exercise of love, they nevertheless do not exclude the exercise of virtue.

For just as in one who loves you, you are ashamed not to return the favor; and by the love of returning the favor, love grows in you for him whom you did not love before: so also in one who does not love you, you ought to love virtue; that while you love virtue, you may begin to love him whom you do not love: since rare and fleeting is the reward of one who loves, but everlasting that of virtue.

But what is so wonderful as to offer the other cheek to one who strikes you on the cheek?

Is not every impulse of the indignant broken, and anger stilled? Is it not brought about by patience, that you strike back the striker even more, by his own repentance? Thus it will come to pass that you both repel the injury and seek grace. And often the greatest occasions of love arise, when patience is returned for insolence, and favor for injury. Indeed, as I remember hearing, we consider this the sole ground of the arrogance of philosophy (D. Laert. In Life of Plato); that it seemed to itself to have divided justice into three parts: one toward God, which is called piety; another toward parents, or the rest of the human race; a third toward the dead, that the due rites of burial be paid to them. But truly the Lord Jesus, surpassing both the oracle of the Law and the summit of philosophy, extended the office of piety even to those who have injured us.

For if an enemy who has fought against you with war and arms, on laying down his arms, obtains mercy for his safety, and this is granted commonly either out of regard for nature, or by the very right of war, so that life is given to the subdued: how much more ought it to be granted out of the better regard of religion! For if the cause of preserving safety does not move the warrior, what ought to move the soldier of peace?

And so that Apostolic saying, that Charity is patient, is kind, is not envious, is not puffed up, we see fulfilled in these precepts.

If it is patient, it must show patience to one who strikes: if it is kind, it must not answer curses with curses: if it seeks not its own, it must not resist one who plunders: if it is not envious, it must not hate an enemy. And yet the precepts of divine piety go beyond the Apostolic; for it is more to give than to yield: it is more to love enemies than not to envy. All of which the Lord both said and did. He, when cursed, did not curse back: when struck, did not strike back: when despoiled, did not resist: when crucified, asked pardon for his very persecutors, saying: Father, forgive them their sin, for they know not what they do. He excused his accusers from their crime. They were preparing a cross, he was rendering salvation and grace.

And yet, since the very pursuits of the virtues grow sluggish without reward, he both brought us an example and promised a reward from heaven, pledging that they would become sons of God who should be his imitators. For he who hastens to the prize ought not to disdain the example; because the more excellent the prize, the more earnest ought the duty to be. But how great is the reward of mercy, which is admitted into the right of divine adoption! Follow, then, mercy, that you may deserve grace.

The kindness of God extends widely: he rains upon the ungrateful, the earth, fruitful even for the wicked, does not deny its produce.

The same sun of the world illumines both the sacrilegious and the religious alike.

Or, to weigh these things mystically, the Lord watered the Jewish people with prophetic rains, and shone upon them with the rays of the eternal sun, even though they were not deserving: But since they were steeped in worldly dew, the Church of God is admitted to heavenly light; yet in such a way that for them too, if they believe, the prerogative of mercy is preserved.

He added that one ought not to judge rashly, lest, being yourself conscious of your own fault, you be forced to pass sentence on another.

There is also great instruction here, that you should not seek fruitful things from unfruitful ones, nor expect the produce of fruitfulness from untilled fields.

For its own cultivation gives fruit to each thing. Among the thorns of this world that fig cannot be found which, because it is better than fruitful fruits, is well fitted with the appearance of the resurrection: or because, as you have read: The fig trees have put forth their green figs; which unripe, and useless, and perishable fruit preceded in the Synagogue before: or because our life in the body is unripe, ripe in the resurrection.

And therefore we ought to cast far from us worldly cares, which gnaw at the mind and scorch the soul; that we may be able to obtain the ripe fruits of diligent cultivation: which we cannot find in the untilled things of this world: For they do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they harvest grapes from brambles. The one refers to the world and the resurrection, the other to the soul and the body: or because no one gains fruit for his soul by sins, which, like a grape close to the earth, is corrupted, but is ripened in the higher regions: or because no one can escape the condemnation of the flesh, except him whom Christ has redeemed, who, like a grape, hung upon the wood. Far, then, from that flesh, which was commanded to bring forth thorns for condemned man, let us raise our spiritual eyes, let us stretch forth our hands; that we may be able to harvest Christ.

He teaches that the foundation of all virtues is obedience to heavenly precepts, through which this house of ours cannot be shaken, neither by the flood of pleasures, nor by the assault of spiritual wickedness, nor by worldly rain, nor by the cloudy disputations of heretics. (Ch. VII.—v. 1.) Beautifully, when he had completed the precepts, he teaches the pattern of his precepts to be carried out; for immediately the servant of a Gentile centurion is presented to the Lord for healing, in whom is represented the people of the nations, who, held by the bonds of worldly servitude, was sick with deadly sufferings, to be healed by the Lord's kindness. And in that he said he was about to die, the Evangelist did not deceive us; for he would have died, unless he had been healed by Christ. He fulfilled, then, the precept with heavenly charity, who so loved his enemies that he snatched him from death, and admitted him to the hope of everlasting salvation.

What a great mark of divine humility, that the Lord of heaven should by no means disdain to visit the little servant of a centurion! Faith shines forth in his works, but kindness works still more in his affections. This he did, indeed, not because he was unable to heal from a distance: but that he might give you a pattern of humility to be imitated, whereby he might teach that deference is due alike to the humble and to the exalted. Elsewhere, indeed, he says to the ruler: Go, thy son liveth; that you may know both the power of the Godhead and the grace of humility. There he was unwilling to go, lest he seem to have deferred more to riches in the ruler's son; here he himself went, lest he seem to have despised servile condition in the centurion's servant; for all, slave and free, are one in Christ.

But see that faith is the prerogative of healing.

Notice also that in this Gentile people itself there is a sharp perception of the mystery. The Lord goes forward: the centurion excuses himself, and, laying aside the swelling pride of the soldier, assumes reverence, both ready for faith and prompt in honor. And Luke fittingly says that friends were sent by the centurion to meet him also; lest his own presence should seem to burden the Lord's modesty, and to provoke duty by duty. These things morally.

Mystically, however, he whom the Jewish people crucified, the people of the nations desired to remain untouched by injury: and as far as pertains to faith, he believed the word

that is, judging that health was given to men by Christ, not by man's power, but by God's: but as far as concerns the mystery, he saw that Christ was not yet penetrable into the hearts of the Gentiles. And therefore, because he had not yet washed away the stains of past thought, he thought himself burdened rather than aided by the Lord's condescension. So too that widow of Sarepta judged herself unworthy of the prophet's hospitality. And therefore the Lord in this one man preferred the faith of the Gentiles.

indeed if you read it thus: I have not found so great faith in Israel, the meaning is simple and easy.

But if, according to the Greeks: Nor even in Israel have I found so great faith, the faith of this man is preferred even to the more chosen, and to those who see God.

Observe the dispensation: the faith of the master is proved, and the health of the servant is strengthened.

The merit of the master, therefore, can avail even for his servants, not only by the merit of faith, but also by the zeal of discipline. Observe also another dispensation of the Lord's humility: he does not promise, he works; for although he had not yet commanded the healing, yet the servants who had been sent found the little servant already healed.

when he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother: and she was a widow: and a great multitude of the city was with her. Whom when the Lord saw, moved with mercy, he said to her: Weep not.

And he came near, and touched the bier.

And this passage tends to both graces, so that we believe both that the divine mercy is quickly moved by the lamentation of a widowed mother, especially of one broken by the labor or death of her only son; to which widow, however, the crowd of mourners lends the merit of a certain dignity: and that this widow, surrounded by a crowd of people, seems to be more than a woman, who by her tears merited to obtain the resurrection of her only son, a young man; because holy Church recalls the younger people from the pomp of a funeral and from the last rites of the tomb of their own, to life, by the contemplation of tears; she who is forbidden to weep, since a resurrection is owed to her.

He indeed, dead, was being carried to the tomb in a bier, upon the four material elements: but he had hope of rising again, because he was being carried upon wood. Although this did not profit us before, yet after Jesus touched it, it began to be of use unto life; so that it might be a sign that salvation was to be poured back upon the people through the gibbet of the cross. Therefore, when the word of God was heard, the bearers of that bitter funeral stood still, who were pressing the human body with the deadly flux of material nature. For what else, but as it were lying lifeless upon a certain bier, that is, the instrument of the last funeral, do we lie, when either the fire of immoderate desire boils up, or cold moisture overflows, or the vigor of our minds is dulled by a certain sluggish disposition of the body, or our spirit, congealed by defilement, void of pure light, nourishes the mind? These are the bearers of our funeral.

But although the last extremities of death have taken away all hope of life, and the bodies of the dead lie close to the tomb, yet at the word of God, corpses already about to die rise again, the voice returns, the son is restored to the mother, he is called back from the tomb, he is snatched from the sepulcher. What is this tomb of yours, but evil morals? Your tomb is perfidy, your sepulcher is the throat: For their throat is an open sepulcher, from which dead words are uttered. From this sepulcher Christ frees you, from this tomb you shall rise, if you hear the word of God.

And if the sin is so grave that you yourself cannot wash it away with the tears of your penitence, let mother Church weep for you, who as a widowed mother intercedes for each one as for an only son; for she suffers with a certain spiritual grief of nature, when she sees her children being driven toward death by deadly vices. We are the flesh of her flesh; for there are also spiritual inward parts, which Paul speaks of, saying: Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord. So that bodies, whether dead or already about to die, are said to rise again at the word of God: unless you should prefer to call sinners corpses already about to die, because they are not yet in fact so. Refresh my bowels in Christ. We, then, are the bowels of the Church; since we are members of her body, of her flesh, and of her bones.

Let the pious mother, then, grieve, and let the crowd also stand by: not only the crowd, but let many good ones also share in the parent's compassion. Now you shall rise from the funeral, now you shall be freed from the sepulcher: those bearers of your funeral will stand still, you will begin to speak living words, all will fear; for by the example of one, many will be corrected. They will also praise God, who has granted us such great remedies for avoiding death.

And John called two of his disciples, and sent to him, saying: Art thou he

that is to come, or look we for another?

There is not a simple meaning in simple words; otherwise what precedes conflicts with what is present.

For how does John, who in the earlier passage recognized him, with God the Father pointing him out, here not know him? How is it that there he recognized him whom before he did not know, and here he is ignorant of him whom he already knew before? "I knew him not," he says, "but he who sent me to baptize, he said to me: Upon whom thou shalt see the Holy Spirit descending". And he believed the word, and recognized the one pointed out, and worshipped him when baptized, and prophesied him as coming. Finally, he says, "I saw, and gave testimony, that this is the elect of God". What, then, could have happened, that so great a prophet should so err, that concerning him of whom he had said, "Behold, he who takes away the sins of the world", he should still not believe him to be the Son of God?

For it is either presumption to attribute divine things to one whom you do not know, or it is perfidy to have doubted concerning the Son of God. Therefore the suspicion of so great an error does not fall upon such a Prophet.

Therefore, if the simple form of understanding conflicts, let us seek a spiritual figure. And because we have already said above that in John there is a type of the Law, which was a foretelling of Christ: rightly does the Law—by which the hearts of unbelievers were, as it were, corporeally shut up in prisons void of eternal light, held enclosed, whom fruitful wombs of punishments and doors of madness confined—fail to bear a full outcome of testimony to the Lord's dispensation without the confirmation of the Gospel. The Law indeed prophesied in Exodus the grace of baptism through the cloud and the sea: it foretold the spiritual food in the lamb: it designated the perennial fountain in the rock: it revealed the remission of sins in Leviticus: it announced the kingdom of heaven in the psalms: it declared most clearly the land of promise in Joshua the son of Nun.

All these things agree also with the testimony of John: but nevertheless, by the tyrannical powers of this world, he is enclosed and restrained from pouring forth the light of the Lord's resurrection. John, therefore, sends his disciples to Christ, that they might obtain the fullness of knowledge; because the fulfillment of the Law is Christ: so that, since words without deeds often waver, and fuller faith is shown by the testimonies of deeds than by the promises of words—that faith which then wavered in the hearts of the Jews as if the Law were bolted shut—might be laid open by the very spectacle of the Lord's cross and the full testimony of the resurrection.

And perhaps these disciples are the two peoples, of whom one believed from among the Jews, the other from among the Gentiles, who believed

because they heard. These, then, wished to see because of that saying: "But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear". But we also saw in John: we beheld with our eyes in the apostles: and we examined with our hands in the fingers of Thomas. For that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, and which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, and life appeared. When did it appear? When we saw it. Did it not exist before it was seen? Thanks, then, be to the Lord, who was crucified for our faith, was crucified for our desires. My mind was crucified in him.

And so even now those who study the Old Testament, before they know the Gospel, and read, as it were, certain traces of the Lord's body, think him yet to come, and ask whether he himself is the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come.

And when they read of when he spoke with Abraham, or when he showed himself as the leader of the heavenly host, they surely say: "Art thou he

that is to come, or do we look for another?" But when they come to the Gospel, and learn that the blind were given light, the lame walked, the deaf heard, the lepers were cleansed, the dead rose again, then they say: "We have seen him, and beheld him with our eyes, and put our fingers into the print of the nails." For we seem to ourselves to have seen him whom we read of, to have beheld him hanging, and, with the spirit of the Church searching, to have tested his wounds; for if by the finger of God demons are cast out, faith too is found by the finger of the Church. Or perhaps, in some working part of our body, we all seem to have investigated the course of the Lord's passion; for faith passes from a few to the many.

The Law, then, announces that Christ is to come: the writing of the Gospel confirms that he has come.

Some also understand it thus concerning John himself: that he was indeed so great a prophet that he recognized Christ, announced that the remission of sins was to come: but yet, not as one doubting, but as a pious seer, he who had believed him to come had not believed that he would die. He doubted, then, not out of unbelief, but out of piety. Peter also doubted, saying: "Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee". That prince of faith—to whom Christ had not yet declared himself the Son of God, and yet he had believed—did not, concerning the death of Christ, believe Christ. It was a lapse of the feeling of piety, not of devotion. Finally, elsewhere he refuses to have his feet washed, where he does not recognize the mystery, being burdened by the Lord's condescension.

Therefore not even the saints believed that Christ would die: For "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him". Thus, in the devout, a lapse of love does not impede faith.

Finally, the Lord, knowing that no one could believe fully without the Gospel

because, just as faith begins from the Old Testament, so it is fulfilled in the New: when asked about himself, he signified himself not by any word, but by deeds. Go, he says, tell John what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the dead rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

100. A full testimony indeed, by which the Prophet might recognize the Lord; for it had been prophesied concerning him, not concerning another: because the Lord gives food to the hungry, the Lord lifts up those who are cast down, the Lord looses those who are bound, the Lord gives light to the blind, the Lord loves the just, the Lord keeps the strangers, he will relieve the orphan and the widow, and the way of sinners he will destroy. He who will do these things, he says: "The Lord shall reign for ever".

Therefore these are not signs of human, but of divine power: to open for the blind the darkness of perpetual night, and to heal the wounds of buried eyes with poured-in light, to instill hearing into the ears of the deaf, to reform limbs loosened from their bonds by restored joints, and to call back to light the dead, with the vigor of living poured back into them.

101. These things before the Gospel were either rare or nonexistent. Tobias received his sight, a single example; and yet that was the medicine of an angel, not of a man. Elijah raised a dead man; yet he asked and wept: this one commanded. Elisha caused a leper to be cleansed; yet there the authority of a command did not prevail, but the figure of a mystery. He did not fail to provide food for a starving widow, multiplying flour for himself by prophetic commands; yet that flour preserved one widow only, or rather that same prefigured type of the sacrament preserved her.

But still these are small examples so far of the Lord's testimony: the fullness of faith is the Lord's cross, death, burial.

And therefore, when he had said those former things, he added: Blessed, he says, is he who shall not be scandalized in me.

102. For the cross could bring scandal even to the elect: but nothing is a greater testimony to the divine person than this: nothing seems to be more beyond human capacity, than to have offered oneself wholly, alone, for the world; by this alone the Lord is fully declared. Finally, thus was he designated by John: "Behold the Lamb of God: behold him who takes away the sins of the world". But this is answered not to those two men, the disciples of John, but to us all; that we may thus believe in Christ, if the deeds agree. For one will come who will usurp this name for himself, whom, although you cannot distinguish by the appellation of man, yet you may discern by consideration of his deeds.

What went ye out into the desert to see?

A reed shaken with the wind?

103. When he had forewarned the disciples of John that they must believe in the Lord's cross, and they had returned, he, turning to the crowds, began to call the poor to virtue; lest, exalted in heart, unstable in mind, weak in counsel, they should prefer the showy to the useful, the fleeting to the eternal: but rather, in humble spirit, take up the cross, than exalt the trappings of this world; and as blessed poor, who had nothing of the world to lose, gladly exchange the life of the body for immortal glory. Not idly, then, is the person of holy John here praised, who, having set aside the love of life, did not change the form of justice even at the terror of death.

104. What, he says, went ye out into the desert to see?

This world seems to be compared to a desert, still uncultivated, still sterile, still unfruitful, into which the Lord denies that we should go forth in such a way that we should think men puffed up in mind of the flesh, and void of inner virtue, boasting themselves in the fragile sublimity of worldly glory, are to be imitated by us as a kind of exemplar and image: whom, subject to the storms of this world, an unstable life disquiets—rightly to be compared to a reed: in whom there is no fruit of solid justice: who, adorned with the trappings of the forum, entangled in knots, resonant with the empty noise of the mouth, with no benefit of their own, and frequent even in offense, pursue things empty within, showy without. We are reeds, founded on no root of sturdier nature. And if a light breeze of more prosperous success should blow, we lash our neighbors with a wavering motion: powerless to help, quick to harm.

Reeds love rivers, and we are delighted by the things of the world that slip away and are fleeting.

105. Yet if anyone should pluck this reed from the earth with its roots, and strip it of its superfluities, stripping off from himself the old man with his deeds, and should moderate it with the hand of a scribe writing swiftly, it begins to be not a reed, but a pen, which imprints the precepts of the heavenly Scriptures in the inner chambers of the mind, and inscribes them on the tablets of the heart. Of this pen you have it said: My tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly: which some wish to refer to Christ. In one and the same passage, then, are read both the word, and the pen, and the scribe. The word, because it proceeded from the begetting mystery of the Father: My heart has belched forth a good word.

The pen

because the flesh of Christ expressed the order of the Father's will, and fulfilled the commands of the divine tongue by the shedding of sacred blood. The scribe, because with his own pen, by a certain undivided distinction, of the New and the Old Testament, or of divinity and flesh, he revealed to us the mysteries of the Father's dispensation.

106. Imitate this pen by the tempering of your flesh. And dip your pen, that is, your flesh, not in ink, but in the Spirit of the living God; so that what you write may be eternal. With such a pen Paul wrote that epistle of which he says: You are our epistle; written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. Dip your flesh in the blood of Christ, as it is written: That your foot may be dipped in blood. You too, then, dip the footstep of your soul and the walk of your mind in the undoubting confession of the Lord's cross.

You dip your flesh in the blood of Christ, if you wash away vices, wipe off sins, carry about the death of Christ in your flesh, as the Apostle says: Carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus Christ. Do not be bent toward earthly things, lest you break your reed. And therefore it was prophesied of Christ, because he was not to be bent toward earthly things: A bruised reed he shall not break; because he made firm by the power of resurrection the flesh which sins had bruised. Good reed is the flesh of Christ, which fastened to the gibbet of the cross the head of the serpent devil, and the enticements of worldly desire.

But what did you go out into the desert to see?

A reed shaken by the wind? What did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments?

107. Here the Lord's word is not about garments; although a garment of too soft a care effeminates very many, who, as if unable to bear the burden of wool, sweep the ground with their trailing footsteps in silken robes, and by use make it so that clothing becomes a burden. But nevertheless it seems here to signify other garments, and, unless I am mistaken, the human bodies with which our soul is clothed. Accordingly Joseph's tunic too was stained with blood, in the likeness of the Lord's body. And the Apostle says: Stripping off the flesh, he led away all principalities and powers. What else does this show, but that the body was in the place of clothing, of which the Lord stripped himself in the passion, so that his divinity might remain free and untouched by injury?

This whole passage, then, exhorts us by a prophetic example to the virtue of undergoing the passion. Accordingly he added:

Behold, those who are in costly clothing are in the houses of.

Soft garments are also luxurious deeds and morals: for which reason the Apostle exhorts us, that stripping off the old man with his deeds we should put on the new, in which there is no sweet enticement, no game of wantonness, but the practice of labor and its fruit; because the heavenly hall by no means receives those softened by tender care of the body, and by luxury, and by desire of wantonness, to which one ascends by the hard steps of laborious virtue. But those whose limbs are dissolved, flowing with delights, exiles from the heavenly kingdom, grow old within the dwellings of this world, and there is no doubt that they are rulers of this world and dwellers of darkness. These (for they are kings, because they rule by a certain worldly power) have received rivals of their own works.

But what did you go out to see?

A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet is this one. 109. How then did they desire to see John in the desert, who was shut up in prison? Whom the Lord proposes to us to be imitated, who prepared the way for the Lord not only by the order of his birth according to the flesh and the announcement of faith, but also by a certain foreshadowing of his glorious passion. Truly he is a greater prophet, in whom is the end of the prophets. A greater prophet, because many desired to see him whom this man prophesied, whom this man beheld, whom this man baptized. 110. But yet is he greater even than him of whom Moses said, "our Lord will raise up a Prophet for you"? And of whom he said: "And every soul that will not hear that prophet shall be exterminated from the people"? If then Christ is a prophet, how is this one greater than all?

Do we deny that Christ is a prophet?

Nay, we confess him even the Lord of the prophets: but I assert John a prophet, and I say that he is greater than all, but among those born of woman, not of a virgin. For he was greater than those to whom he could be equal by the lot of birth. That nature is different, and not to be compared with human generations. There can be no comparison of man with God; for each is preferred among his own kind. Accordingly, there could be no comparison whatsoever of John with the Son of God; so much so that he is reckoned even beneath the angels.

For he who is least, he says, in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 111. For since he had called him an angel, he was rightly preferred to men; and since he had declared him more excellent among those born of women

, he therefore added: "For he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he"; that you might know one must yield to the angels.

Rightly, however, is John preferred to his equals, from whose days the kingdom of heaven is taken by force. This expression seems rather obscure, and therefore we thought it should be drawn from another book of the Gospel. For if we follow the letter, indeed the lesser is taken by force by the more excellent: but the kingdom of heaven excels human things. But since there are some things which by being compressed are said to grow dense, it is not absurd that the kingdom is "forced," when it is frequented by more people. 112. And they that use violence take it by force.

If we recall that saying of the Lord which is written, the Son of God saying: The kingdom of God is within you; we perceive that the heavenly kingdom is made firm within us, when Christ, having driven out the reign of the prince of this world, and having put worldly delights to flight, reigns within the secret places of our souls. Violence, then, is brought to bear upon the human mind, which, charmed by various enticements, flees labor and seeks pleasure; when, either checked by fear of punishment, or provoked by reward, it strives to conquer itself; and, as it were, having exhausted its labors, it strives to snatch away the palm which, with many opposing it, was being withdrawn from it. For we snatch from this world the palm of salvation, and, as it were, beset by watching serpents, we pluck the fruits by watchful labor; yet so that it is not a furtive taking away, but a triumphant seizing. There is also another kind of seizing, when we snatch away what has been taken from others.

Who those raptors are, then, we do not labor to understand, since we know that we flow from the race of Benjamin, the ravening wolf.

John had gone before, that he might justify the people of the Jews: the Lord himself had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: he had appointed apostles, that they might found the faith of the Jewish people either by disputation, or by signs and miracles: but when they fled from the gifts offered to them, publicans and sinners began to believe in God, to come together in faith. In these, then, the kingdom of heaven is taken by force through apostolic preaching, and is made firm by the aspiration of the faithful people. 113. That woman seizes the kingdom by force who labored with a flow of blood; for when the Lord was making his way toward the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, she tasted beforehand the remedy of health by a certain furtive touch.

That Canaanite woman seizes the kingdom by force, who, having gone out from her own borders, cried out saying: Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed by a demon. Truly this woman took the kingdom by force, persistent in prayers, wise in her answers, faithful in her words. She recalls him as he passes by, entreats him though silent, adores him as he excuses himself, bends him as he refuses. Does it not seem to you that she snatches away, when she elicits what is refused, seizes beforehand what is reserved for others? For the Lord had said that it was not fitting that the bread of the children be given to dogs: but she agreed, and by agreeing seized it by force, saying: Yes, Lord; for even the little dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters. 114. You have learned how the heavenly kingdom is seized by force. Let us also, then, use force, let us seize it; for no one eats the passover except one hastening.

But what is this that seizes the kingdom?

Not shamelessness, not wantonness, not pleasure: but that of which it is said: Great is your faith; let it be done for you as you wish. Behold, she has seized it, she who obtained what she wished: what she asked, she wrested away. That widow too seized it by force, who by praying frequently, if not on account of innocence, at least on account of importunity, wrests being heard. 115. The Church, then, has seized the kingdom by force from the Synagogue. My kingdom is Christ: I seize him, who was sent to the Jews under the Law, born under the Law, nourished according to the Law: that he might save me who was without the Law. Christ is seized, when he is promised to some, predestined for others: Christ is seized, when he is born to some, and pledged to others: Christ is seized, when he is killed by some, buried by us: he is seized while they lie in ambush, seized while they sleep.

You have where they themselves confessed that we had seized him, that they had slept, saying: Say that his disciples came by night, and stole him, while we slept. Rise, then, you who sleep; lest you too, while you sleep, lose Christ. Rise, you who sleep, and rise from the dead. Do you see that those who sleep are dead? And therefore we do not envy others, but provide for ourselves; for the dead could not keep the living one safe. 116. Let those who have slept rise even late, even those who have lost Christ. Christ is not so lost that he does not return, provided he is sought: but to the watchful he returns, and to those who rise he is at hand; nay, he is present to all, who is everywhere always, because he fills all things. For he fails no one; we fail. He fails no one, I say, he abounds beyond all; for sin abounded, that grace might abound the more.

Christ is grace, Christ is life, Christ is the resurrection: whoever rises, then, finds him present.

117. The kingdom of heaven, then, is seized by force, when Christ is denied by his own household, adored by the Gentiles: seized when he is repudiated by them, worshiped by us: seized when he is not acknowledged by inheritance, but is acquired by adoption.

all the people hearing, and the publicans, justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John: but the Pharisees and the lawyers despised the counsel of God for themselves, not having been baptized.

Saint Luke has opened up, by adding particular details, what Saint Matthew had left rather obscure by generalities, as it were; for he says: And wisdom is justified by her children. First, we see here expressed what that wisdom is; for he says: They justified God. God, then, is wisdom: because the Son is the Wisdom of God: wisdom by nature, not by advancement. One thing is the Wisdom that is the power of God the Father, another the power of wisdom that belongs to the soul: the former is begotten, the latter created. One thing is wisdom the author of works, another the work itself; for the Church is called a work, whereas he is said to be not only begotten, but indeed born of the Father. To be wise prudently in mind, to perceive keenly. These are gifts of nature: but the worker is not a creature, but the Creator, that is, not a gift of nature, but the giver of gifts to nature.

God himself, then, is justified through baptism, while men justify themselves by confessing their own sins, as it is written: Declare your iniquities, that you may be justified.

He is justified in this, because he is not refused through obstinacy, but the gift of God is acknowledged through justice: For the Lord is just, and has loved justice. In this, then, is the justification of God, if his gifts are seen to have been bestowed not upon the unworthy and the guilty, but upon the innocent and just made so by washing. Let us, then, justify the Lord, that we may be justified by the Lord.

Let us inquire more earnestly what it is to justify God.

The Apostle says: But let God be true, and every man a liar, as it is written: That you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged. David also says: Against you only have I sinned, and done evil before you; that you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged. Therefore he who sins, and confesses his sin to God, justifies God by yielding to him as victor, and hoping for grace from him. In baptism, then, God is justified, in which there is confession, and forgiveness of sins.

Let us not, therefore, like the Pharisees, despise the counsel of God.

The counsel of God is in the baptism of John: who then would doubt that the counsel of God is in the washing of Christ? This is the counsel which the Angel of great counsel discovered, which no one knew: For who has known the mind of the Lord? No one despises the counsel of a man; who would reject the counsel of God? Let us then, as children, justify our mother, let us follow our mother. We know that a mother offers herself to danger for her children. Let us obey the counsel of a mother's wisdom, let us obey the command of a mother. We have sung to you, and you have not danced: we have mourned, and you have not wept.

Although these things may not seem incongruous as belonging to the persons of children, who through the thoughtlessness of an age not yet mature exercise a light movement of the body, nevertheless I presume that they can be referred to a deeper sense, in that the Jews seem to have believed neither the psalms at first, nor afterward the prophetic laments: called forth to rewards by the psalms, called back from error by the laments. David sang, that we might hang our instruments upon our willows. He himself sang, and danced before the ark of the Lord, not out of wantonness, but out of religion. Therefore not the theatrical movements of a body writhing in leaps, but the untiring activity of the mind and the religious agility of the body are designated.

But neither in the triumphs, nor in the destructions of the Jews did correction follow, who, called forth by the gifts of divine indulgence, ought to have raised the mind, lifted up the body, forsaken earthly things, sought heavenly things, and, worn down by the injuries of captivity, to have wept for the sin of which guilt was the author of the injury. Wisdom therefore is justified by all her children. Well by all, because justice is preserved toward all, so that there is a receiving of the faithful, and a rejection of the faithless. Whence very many of the Greek copies have it thus: Wisdom is justified by all her works; because it is the work of justice to preserve the measure with regard to each one's merit.

Well then does he say: We have sung to you, and you have not danced.

For Moses sang when in the Red Sea, for the crossing of the Jews, the wave stiffened, the water stood round about, and, poured back, submerged the horses of the Egyptians and their riders. Isaiah sang the song of his beloved vineyard, signifying that the people, who before were fruitful with abundant virtues, would become harsh with wickedness. The Hebrews sang, when their footsteps were moistened by the touch of the dewy flame, and all things burned within and without; yet the harmless fire only licked them, and did not burn them. Habakkuk too, taught to soothe public grief with a song, prophesied that the Lord's passion would be sweet to the faithful. The prophets therefore sang, resounding with spiritual measures the public oracles of salvation. The prophets wept, soothing the hard hearts of the Jews with tearful laments.

Scripture has taught us to sing gravely, to make music spiritually.

It has also taught us to dance wisely, the Lord saying to Ezekiel: Clap with the hand, and stamp with the foot; for God, the censor of morals, would not require theatrical movements of a dissolute body, nor command unseemly clapping for men, and applause fit for women, so as to bring so great a prophet down to the mockeries of stage-players and the softness of women. The revealed mysteries of the resurrection do not accord with the disgraces exacted of dancing. There is indeed a certain proper applause of good actions and deeds, whose sound goes out into the world, and the glory of good deeds resounds. And there is an honorable dancing, by which the soul leaps for joy, and the body is lifted up by good works, when we hang our instruments upon the willows.

The prophet is therefore bidden to clap with the hand, and to stamp with the foot: he is bidden to make music

because he already saw the wedding of the bridegroom, in which the Church is betrothed, Christ is beloved. And good is the marriage, when the soul is wedded to the Word, the flesh to the spirit. In this marriage the prophet David wished us to play, to this he invited us, because he was uniting his own descendants; and therefore, more joyful than the rest, as if placed in the very act of the marriage, he exhorts us to the celebration of the wedding feast, saying: Rejoice in God our helper, shout with joy to the God of Jacob. Take up a psalm, and give the timbrel, the pleasant psaltery with the harp. Do you not perceive a certain act of the prophet dancing? Again elsewhere: I will sing to thee on the harp, O Holy One of Israel. My lips shall rejoice when I sing to thee, and my soul which thou hast redeemed.

Do you hear the voices of the harpers, do you hear the steps of the dancers?

Believe it to be a wedding.

Take you too the harp, so that the string of your inner veins, struck by the plectrum of the spirit, may render the sound of good work. Take the psaltery, so that the harmony of your words and deeds may sound together. Take the timbrel, so that the inner spirit may play the instrument of your body, and by your operative deeds the sweet gentleness of your character may be expressed. Thus the prophet made music, when he said: Come here from Lebanon, my spouse, come here from Lebanon.

This song the children sang, and were not heard. What children? Of whom he says: Behold, I and the children whom thou hast given me. But this song was not sung in the forum, not in the streets, but in Jerusalem; for she is the Lord's forum, in which the laws of the heavenly precepts are established. And behold, a woman who was a sinner in the city.

At this point very many seem to suffer a scruple, and to sow questions, whether the two Evangelists seem to have disagreed in the account, or whether they wished to signify some diversity of mystery in the diversity of the words? For you have it in the Gospel according to Matthew that when Jesus had come into Bethany, into the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him having an alabaster box of precious ointment, and as he reclined, poured it upon his head. Then here: the Pharisee says within himself, that if he were a prophet, he would know the sinful woman, and ought to avoid her ointment. There, when the ointment is poured out, the disciples complain. Both, therefore, must be explained, but let that which comes first in the order of the writings first receive its order of interpretation.

The Lord Jesus therefore came into the house of Simon the leper.

The dispensation appears, in that he did not shrink from the leper, did not avoid the unclean, that he might be able to abolish the blemishes of the human body. Now the house was Bethany, which by interpretation is called the house of obedience. Every place therefore is Bethany, but a portion of the whole place is the house of Simon. Does it not seem to you that Bethany is this world, in which we owe the service of obedient duty, and that the house of Simon the leper is the earth, which is a portion of the world? Now the prince of this age is a certain leper, Simon. The Lord Jesus Christ therefore came from those higher places into this world, and descended to the earth. He was not in this world, but by obedient devotion was sent into this world. He himself says: As thou hast sent me into this world.

This woman, then, heard that Christ had come, and entered into the house of Simon; for this woman could not have been healed unless Christ had come to earth. And perhaps she also enters the house of Simon for this reason, that she may bear a certain likeness of a higher soul, that is, of the Church, which descends to the earth, that by a good odor she may gather a people to herself. Saint Matthew, then, introduces this woman pouring ointment upon the head of Christ: and therefore perhaps he did not wish to call her a sinner, for the sinner, according to Luke, poured ointment upon the feet of Christ. She can therefore not be the same woman, lest the Evangelists seem to have contradicted one another. The question can also be resolved by the diversity of merit and of time, so that the one is still a sinner, the other already more perfect. For although the Church, or the soul, does not change its person, yet it changes its progress.

And so, if you suppose a soul faithfully drawing near to God, not through base and obscene sins, but piously serving the Word of God, having the confidence of unspotted chastity, you perceive that it ascends even to the head of Christ (now the head of Christ is God), and scatters the fragrance of its own merits: for we are the good odor of Christ unto God. Indeed the life of the just, breathing forth a good fragrance, honors God.

If you understand this, you will see that this woman is called most blessed wherever this Gospel shall be preached, and that her memory never fades away

because she poured out over the head of Christ the fragrance of good morals and of just deeds as ointments. He who comes near to the head does not know how to be puffed up; unlike him who was vainly puffed up by the mind of his own flesh, and did not hold the head. But let him who does not hold the head of Christ hold at least the feet; because the whole body, joined together and supplied, grows with the increase of God.

There is another, whether in person or in progress, who is near to us.

For we have not yet renounced our sins. Where are our tears, where the groaning, where the weeping? Come, let us worship, and fall down before God, and weep before the Lord our maker; that at least we may be able to come to the feet of Jesus. For we cannot yet come to the head, because the sinner comes to the feet, the just to the head.

Yet even she who has sinned has ointment.

Bring to me also, after your sins, penitence. Into whatever house you shall hear that the just man has come, whether the house of the unworthy, or the house of the Pharisee, strive: snatch the favor from your host, snatch the kingdom of heaven: For from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. Wherever you shall hear the name of Christ, run to it: whomever's inner house you shall know Jesus to have entered, hasten there yourself too. When you find wisdom, when you find justice reclining in someone's inner chamber, hasten to the feet, that is, seek the outermost part of wisdom. Do not disdain the feet: that woman touched the hem, and was healed. Confess your sins with tears, and let that heavenly justice say of you too: With her tears she watered my feet, and with her hair wiped them.

And perhaps Christ did not wash his own feet for this reason, that we might wash them with tears.

Good are the tears which can not only wash away our sin, but also water the footstep of the heavenly Word; that his steps may abound in us. Good are the tears in which there is not only redemption of sinners, but also the refreshment of the just, for it is the voice of the just man: My tears have been my bread day and night.

And if you cannot approach the head of Christ, let Christ touch your head with his own feet.

Both the hem cures, and the feet cure. Spread out your hair, lay before him all the honors of your body. No small things are the hairs, which can wipe the feet of Christ. He bears witness to this who, as long as he had his hair, could not be conquered (Judges XVI, 5 et seq. Again, it is not fitting for a shorn woman to pray. Let her indeed have hair, with which she may wind about the footprints of Christ, with which by the little locks of her beauty and the comeliness of wisdom she may wipe his feet; that they may be moistened at least by the outermost dew of divine power, that she may fix her kisses on the feet of justice. This is no small merit, of which Wisdom can say: From the time I entered, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

So that she knows how to speak nothing but wisdom, knows how to love nothing but justice, knows how to taste nothing but chastity, knows how to kiss nothing but modesty. For a kiss is a token of mutual love: a kiss is the pledge of charity. Blessed is he who is also able to anoint the feet of Christ with oil: for indeed Simon had not yet anointed him. But more blessed is she who anointed him with ointment; for the grace of many flowers, gathered into one, scatters the varied sweetnesses of odors. And perhaps no one but the Church alone can bring this ointment, which has countless flowers of diverse fragrance: which rightly receives the appearance of a sinner, because Christ too received the form of a sinner. And therefore no one can love as much as she who loves in many things. Not even Peter himself, who said: Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Not even Peter himself, who grieved because he was asked: Lovest thou me?

For that which was manifest, he did not wish to be sought out as if unknown. Therefore not even Peter himself, because it was the Church that loved in Peter. Not even Paul himself, because Paul too is a portion of her. Do you also love very much, that much may be forgiven you too. Paul sinned much, who was even a persecutor: but he loved much, who persevered even unto martyrdom. Many sins were forgiven him; because he too loved much, who did not spare his own blood for the name of God.

See the dispensation: in the house of the Pharisee the sinful woman is glorified; in the house of the Law and the prophet, not the Pharisee, but the Church is justified; for the Pharisee did not believe, but she believed. Indeed he was saying: If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what sort of woman this is who touches him.

Now the house of the Law is Judaea, which is written not on stones, but on the tablets of the heart.

In this house the Church, now greater than the Law, is justified; for the Law knows no remission of sins; the Law has no mystery by which hidden things are cleansed; and therefore what is lacking in the Law is brought to fulfillment in the Gospel.

Two debtors, he says, there were of a certain moneylender: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.

Who are these two debtors, but the two peoples: one from the Jews, the other from the Gentiles, both bound to that moneylender of the heavenly treasury? One, he says, owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. Not slight is this denarius, in which the image of the king is formed, which bears the emperor's stamp expressed upon it. It is not material money that we owe to this moneylender, but the weighing of merits, the coin of virtues: whose merit is assessed by the weight of gravity, the appearance of justice, the sound of confession. Woe to me if I do not have what I received: or since it is difficult for anyone to be able to pay this moneylender his debt in full, woe to me if I do not ask: Forgive me my debt!

For the Lord would not have taught us to pray thus, that we should ask that our debts be forgiven us, unless he knew that some would with difficulty be adequate debtors.

But who is this people that owes more, but we, to whom more has been entrusted?

To them were entrusted the oracles of God, to us is entrusted the childbearing of the Virgin. You have the talent of the Virgin's offspring: you have the hundredfold fruit of faith. Emmanuel, God with us, was entrusted to us, the Lord's cross, death, resurrection were entrusted. And if Christ suffered for all, yet he suffered for us in a special way; because he suffered for the Church. Thus there is no doubt that he owes more who has received more. And according to men, perhaps he offends more who has owed more: but through the mercy of the Lord the case is changed, so that he who owed more loves more: if only he obtains grace. For he who repays also has grace: and he who has it, in the very fact that he has it, pays it; for by repaying it is held, and by holding it is repaid.

And therefore since there is nothing that we can worthily render to God, (for what shall we render for the injury of the flesh assumed? What for the blows? What for the cross, the death, the burial?) woe to me if I do not love! I dare to say: Peter did not repay, and therefore he loved more. Did Paul not repay? He did indeed repay death for death, but he did not repay the rest; for he owed much. Hear him himself saying that he did not repay: Who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him? Though we repay cross for cross, death for death, do we repay what we have from him, and through him, and in him—all things? Let us then repay love for debt, charity for gift, grace for the price of blood; for he loves more to whom more is given.

But let us return to that earlier passage, whose counsel not even the apostles yet understand, which was hidden from the ages in God: For who has known the mind of the Lord? The disciples then were complaining because the woman poured out ointment upon his head, and were saying: Why was this waste made? For it could have been sold for a price, and given to the poor. What indeed displeased Christ in their words, you will not be able to grasp, unless you understand the mystery; for it is the mark of a luxurious man, or rather of no man at all, to smell of ointment. Certainly those who smell of it are wont to anoint themselves, not to be drenched. What then displeased him in the saying: This could have been sold for a price, and given to the poor? Surely he himself had said above: Whatever you have done to one of the least of these, you have done also to me. But he was offering his own death for the poor.

It is not, then, a simple figure; and so the Word of God answered them: Why do you trouble this woman? The poor you have always with you, but me you have not always. You have the poor always with you, and therefore do good. Should you then postpone the poor man, because he is always with you, when the Prophet says to you: Say not to the poor man: Tomorrow I will give? But that prophet spoke only of mercy: this one, however, has set the faith of mercy before it, which then has merit, if it is bestowed with faith going before. For in pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it for my burial. It was not, then, the ointment that the Lord loved, but the charity, the faith he accepted, the humility he approved.

And you, if you desire grace, increase charity: pour upon the body of Jesus the faith of the resurrection, the fragrance of the Church, the ointment of common charity; and thus proceeding you will give to the poor man. That money will profit you more, if you do not bestow it as something overflowing, but grant it in the name of Christ as something that will profit; if you confer it upon the poor man in such a way that you bring it to Christ. Do not, then, take only according to the letter the ointment poured on the head; for the letter kills; but according to the spirit, because the spirit is life.

What then is the ointment of this woman?

Who can hear this? Who has such ears, that when Jesus speaks the word he received from the Father—nay, he who is himself the Word—one could grasp so great a depth of mystery? And the disciples understand in part, even if they do not understand the whole. Whence some think the disciples said that faith of the Gentiles, which was owed only at the price of the Lord's blood, ought to have been bought with the price of the ointment; which seems plausible. Indeed John the Evangelist introduces, in the speech of Judas Iscariot, that ointment valued at three hundred denarii, as you have it: For this could have been sold for three hundred denarii, and given to the poor. Now the three hundred declares the sign of the altar of the cross: but the Lord does not seek a superficial foreknowledge of the mystery, but rather prefers that the faith of believers be buried together with him.

This, however, we understand from the voices of the other apostles: but Judas is condemned for avarice, who preferred money to the Lord's burial, who, even if he had some sense of the passion, erred in so costly an appraisal: Christ wills to be valued cheaply, that he may be bought by all, lest any poor man be deterred. Freely, he says, you have received, freely give. It is not money that the loftiness of riches seeks, but grace. He himself redeemed us with his precious blood, he did not sell us. Of which we would speak more fully, were we not mindful that we have treated of it elsewhere ourselves.

Therefore according to the sayings of the Lord, In whom are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, which no one could foresee, it behooves me to labor toward his burial; that his flesh may be believed to have rested, not to have seen corruption: and that the death of his body may so fill our house with its fragrance, that we may believe that he commended his spirit into the hands of the Father, and that his divinity, sequestered from death, did not undergo fellowship with bodily sufferings.

Understand how the body of the Son smells of ointment.

That body is the one which was put off, not the one which was lost. His body is the traditions of the Scriptures. His body is the Church. We are the fragrance of his body; and therefore it is fitting that we adorn the death of his body. Even though that death does not require our adornments, yet the poor require them. I will adorn his body, if I become a preacher of his words, and can open to the Gentiles the mystery of the cross. He adorned it who said: For we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness: but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. The cross is adorned, when that which through inexperience is thought foolish, is through the Gospel esteemed wiser; so that we can teach how the opposing power is destroyed through the cross of the Lord.

I have put ointment on the Lord's body; it begins to breathe, that which was thought dead.

Therefore let each one set about to buy, by his own labor and the striving of the virtues, the alabaster jar of ointment—not something cheap and common, but the precious ointment of alabaster, the ointment of spikenard. For if anyone gathers the flowers of faith, and preaches Jesus Christ crucified: into the whole Church, which is the body of Christ, dead to the world, resting in God, he pours forth the ointment of his faith. The whole house of the Lord begins to smell of the passion: it begins to smell of death: it begins to smell of resurrection; so that each one from this number of the sacred people may say: But far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The fragrance breathes, the ointment is redolent in the body, if anyone can (and would that I could) say with confidence: But to me the world is crucified.

Not to one who loves riches, not to one who loves the honors of the world, not to one who loves what is his own, but what is Jesus Christ's: not to one who loves what is seen, but what is not seen: not to one desirous of life, but to him who hastens to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, is the world crucified. For this is to take up the cross and follow Christ; that we too may die together and be buried together with him; that we may be able to smell the ointment which this woman poured for his burial. Not slight is this ointment, by which the name of Christ is spread far and wide. Whence also it was said prophetically: Your name is ointment poured out (Song I, 2). Poured out, that faith might be more fragrant with a greater odor.

From this woman, then, we understand what that saying of the Apostle means: Sin abounded, that grace might abound the more.

For if in this woman sin had not abounded, grace would not have abounded; for she recognized her sin, and she brought grace. And therefore the Law is necessary; for through the Law I recognized sin. If the Law had not existed, sin would lie hidden. By recognizing sin, I ask for pardon. Through the Law, then, I recognize the kinds of sins, I recognize also the crime of transgression, I run to repentance, I obtain grace. The Law, then, is the author of good, which sends us to grace.

My mother and my brothers are these, who hear the word of God, and do it.

A moral teacher who furnishes an example for others by himself is both instructor and also the executor of his own precepts.

For about to prescribe to others that whoever has not left his father and his mother is not worthy of the Son of God, he first subjects himself to this sentence: not that he refuses the duties of maternal piety (for it is his own precept, He who has not honored father or mother, let him die the death), but because he recognizes that he owes more to the paternal mysteries than to maternal affections. Nor, however, are parents refused with injury, but rather the bonds of minds are taught to be more religious than the bonds of bodies.

Therefore they ought not to have stood outside, who sought to see Christ: For the word is near, in your mouth and in your heart. The word is within, then, the light is within. Whence he too says: Draw near to the Lord, and be enlightened. For if standing outside, even the parents themselves are not recognized, and perhaps they are not recognized on account of our example: how shall we be recognized, if we stand outside?

Nor let anyone think it an offense against piety, where the commandment of the Law is fulfilled: for if a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh, rightly is this sacrament kept in Christ and the Church. And therefore he could not set parents before his own body. Therefore here (as certain heretics lay snares for it) the mother is not denied—she who is also recognized from the cross—but the form of heavenly precepts is preferred to bodily kinship. Nor is it foreign to understand also this, that by the figure of parents he shows to the Jews, from whom Christ is according to the flesh, that the Church which has believed is to be preferred.

Thus he who understood that he had come into the lands for a divine mystery, and for the gathering of the Church, boarded the ship having left his parents. For no one could sail across this world without Christ, since even those with whom the Lord is present are often disturbed by the storm of worldly temptations. And the dispensation is kept in the apostles, that you may observe that no one can depart from this course of life without temptation, since the exercise of faith is temptation.

We are, then, subject to the storms of the spiritual malice: but let us, like vigilant sailors, rouse the helmsman.

Yet even helmsmen themselves are wont to be endangered. What helmsman, then, should we seek? Surely that one who does not serve, but commands the winds, of whom it is written:

But he, arising, rebuked the wind.

What is "arising"?

For he was at rest: but he rested with the sleep of the body, while he attended to the mystery of his divinity; for where wisdom is, where the Word is, nothing is done without the Word, nothing without prudence.

Above you have it, that he spent the night in prayer: how then did he sleep here in the storm? But the security of his power is expressed, in that while all were afraid, he alone rested undismayed. Therefore he who is not a sharer in danger is not a sharer in nature. And though the body sleeps, the divinity works, faith works. Finally he says: O ye of little faith, why did ye doubt? And they are rightly rebuked who feared while Christ was present, since surely he who clings to him cannot perish.

Therefore he confirmed their faith, he poured back tranquility. He commanded the wind to cease, not the north wind, not the south wind: but that very wind to which it was said by the angel Michael in the epistle of Jude: The Lord rebuke thee. Whence also holy Matthew: He rebuked, it says, the wind and the sea. And would that he might deign to restrain in us the harsh blasts of it; so that tranquility poured back upon our wavering life may take away the fear of shipwreck! And though he no longer sleeps with the sleep of his own body, let us nevertheless beware lest he sleep and rest in us with the sleep of our body.

And since it is enough to have touched lightly upon what we surveyed in the previous place: now

because in the book according to Matthew we have learned that two men afflicted by demons in the region of the Gerasenes met Christ, whereas here holy Luke brings forward one, and that one naked (for naked is whoever has lost the covering of his nature and of virtue), I judge that the reason why the evangelists seem to disagree in number is not to be passed over idly, but ought to be inquired into. And indeed, although the number differs, yet the mystery agrees; for that man who had the demon is a figure of the gentile people, covered with vices, naked of error, open to crime. Those two also likewise receive the figure of the gentile people; since, whereas Noah had begotten three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, only the family of Shem was taken into possession by God.

From those two peoples of different nations sprang forth, of whom the one was cursed

because he had not covered his naked father; the other was blessed, because though turned away, lest he should drink in the shame of his naked parent, yet led by piety he had covered his father, and had washed away the curse of his brother's seed. Who for a long time, it says, was driven.

As one who from the flood even to the coming of the Lord was harassed, bursting the bonds of nature in mad frenzy.

Nor without cause did holy Matthew also signify that they dwelt among the tombs, since indeed the souls of such men seem to dwell in certain sepulchral mounds. For what else are the bodies of the unfaithful, but certain tombs of the dead, in which the words of God do not dwell? He was driven, then, into desert places, that is, places barren of spiritual virtues; a fugitive from the Law, cut off from the prophets, removed from grace. For he was afflicted not by one demon, but by the assault of a whole legion; which, when it had seen the Lord, and knew beforehand that at the time of the Lord's coming it was to be thrust down into the abysses, began to pray that it might receive leave to enter into the swine.

And first we must note the clemency of the Lord, in that he himself condemns no one beforehand, but each one is the author of his own punishment. The demons are not sent into the swine, but they themselves ask; because they could not bear the brightness of the heavenly light; just as those whose eyes ache cannot bear the ray of the sun, but choose the dark and forsake the shining places. Let the demons therefore flee the splendor of the eternal light, and dread beforehand the torments due to them, not foreseeing what is to come, but remembering what has been foretold; for Zechariah said: And it shall be in that day, the Lord will destroy the names of the idols out of the land, and there shall be no more remembrance of them; and I will take away the unclean spirit out of the land. We are taught, then, that they will not remain forever; lest their malice among men should be able to be perpetual.

Now therefore, fearing that punishment, they say: Art thou come to destroy us?

But because they still desire to exist, now departing from men, on whose account they know that punishment is to be undergone by them, they ask to be sent into the swine.

Who are these swine, unless perhaps those of whom it is said: Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine; lest perhaps they trample them under their feet? Those, namely, who by the practice of unclean animals, being without voice and reason, have defiled with the muddy acts of their life the adornments of the natural virtues. They are borne headlong by impulse; since they are recalled by the contemplation of no merit: but as if thrust down from higher things to lower through the downward slope of wickedness, they are suffocated in the waters, and among the fluctuating waves of this world, perishing in the manner of the strangled, they die with their breath cut off; for indeed in those who are carried hither and thither, uncertain, by the fluid tide of pleasures, there can be no vital exchange of any breath.

We see, therefore, that man himself is the author of his own affliction.

For unless someone had lived in the manner of a swine, the devil would never have received power over him; or if he had received it, it would not be to destroy him, but to prove him. Or perhaps because after the Lord's coming he could no longer corrupt the good, he now seeks the destruction not of all men, but of the light and unstable; just as a robber does not lie in wait for the armed, but for the unarmed; and assails with injuries the weak man, who understands that he would either be crushed by the strong, or condemned by the powerful.

But someone says: why is this permitted by God to the devil?

But I say, that the good may be proved, the wicked punished; for this is the penalty of sin. Finally, read that the Lord sends fever, and trembling, and evil spirits, and blindness, and all scourges, according to the merits of sins But let us return to the reading. They saw, it says, this, they that kept the herd, and fled.

For neither can any professors of philosophy, nor the rulers of the Synagogue, bring healing to the perishing peoples. Christ alone is he who takes away the sins of the peoples; if only they do not refuse the patience of being healed. But he does not deign to cure the unwilling, and swiftly leaves the sick, whose presence he sees to be a burden to them, as with the peoples of the Gerasenes, who, going out of the city in which the appearance of the Synagogue seems to exist, besought that he would depart: Because they were held by great fear;

For a weak mind does not receive the word of God, nor can it sustain the weight of wisdom; it grows faint, and is dissolved.

And therefore he was not troublesome any longer: but He went up, and returned: he went up indeed from the lower things to the higher, that is, from the Synagogue to the Church. He returned across the lake, as this evangelist says: or as Matthew, across the strait; for between us and them there is a great strait. And so no one passes from the Church to the Synagogue without peril of salvation. But also he who desires to pass from the Synagogue to the Church, let him take up his cross, that he may escape the danger.

But why is the man who is freed not received, but is judged to return home; unless that both the cause of boasting be avoided, and it be an example for unbelievers, since that house is the natural lodging-place? And therefore he who had obtained the remedy of health is bidden to return from the tombs and the sepulchers into that spiritual house; that it may become the temple of God, wherein there had been the sepulcher of the mind. And behold, there came a man whose name was Jairus, and he himself was a ruler of the synagogue; and he fell down at Jesus' feet, beseeching him that he would come into his house; for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.

Christ had left the Synagogue among the Gerasenes, as we have said; and him whom his own had not received, we, the strangers, received; we received him whom we were awaiting. Nor therefore was he long absent from us, by whom he was awaited; nor does he disdain to return to them, if he be asked. For this man, a ruler of the Synagogue, whose only daughter he had, was praying for the remedy of the perishing Synagogue, which was being pressed to death; because it was being forsaken by Christ. Whom do we think to be the ruler of the Synagogue, if not the Law, out of regard for which the Lord did not utterly forsake the Synagogue, but reserved the medicine of salvation for those who would believe? While the Word of God hastens then to this ruler's daughter, that he might save the sons of Israel, the holy Church gathered from the Gentiles, which was perishing by the fall of lesser sins, snatched by faith the healing prepared for others.

We have thought it sufficient to set forth this passage in its moral sense; and therefore we do not go back over what has been said, but have wished to touch briefly upon the mystical meaning. Was it not so brought about, that when the Word of God had come to the Jews, he was taken up by the Gentiles, and was believed with grace sooner by those who had not believed in the Law? For just as that woman had spent upon physicians all her substance, so also the congregation of the Gentiles had lost all the gifts of nature, and had squandered its vital patrimony, being holy, modest, religious, more ready in faith, more hesitant in shame; for this indeed is the mark of shame and of faith, to acknowledge one's infirmity, not to despair of pardon. Modestly, then, she touched the hem; faithfully she approached; religiously she believed; wisely she recognized that she had been healed.

So the holy people of the Gentiles, who believed God, blushed at sin, that they might forsake it: brought faith, that they might believe; showed devotion, that they might ask; put on wisdom, that they too might perceive their own healing; took confidence, that they might confess what they had snatched away as another's. She came behind.

But why is Christ touched from behind?

Is it because it is written: Thou shalt walk after the Lord thy God? What also does it mean that the ruler's daughter, twelve years of age, was dying, and we handle in a second treatment, not indeed, do we sing a recantation.

For the Lord would not so have taught us to pray, that we should ask that our debts be forgiven us, unless he knew that some would with difficulty be fit debtors.

But who is that people that owes more, if not we, to whom more has been entrusted?

To them were entrusted the oracles of God, to us is entrusted the offspring of the Virgin. You have the talent of the Virgin's offspring: you have the hundredfold fruit of faith. Entrusted to us is Emmanuel, God with us; entrusted is the Lord's cross, death, resurrection. And if Christ suffered for all, yet he suffered specially for us; because he suffered for the Church. And so there is no doubt that he owes more who has received more. And according to men, perhaps he offends more who owed more: but through the mercy of the Lord the case is altered, so that he may love more who owed more: if only he attain to grace. For he who repays has grace also: and he who has it, in the very fact that he has it, pays it; for both by repaying it is possessed, and by possessing it is repaid.

And therefore, since there is nothing that we can worthily render back to God, (for what shall we render for the injury of the flesh he took upon him? What for the stripes? What for the cross, the death, the burial?) woe is me if I shall not have loved! I dare to say: Peter did not repay, and therefore he loved more. Did Paul not repay? He did indeed repay death for death, but he did not repay other things; because he owed many. Hear him himself saying that he did not repay: Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him? Though we repay cross for cross, funeral for funeral, do we repay what we have from him, and through him, and in him—all things? Let us repay, then, love for debt, charity for gift, thanks for the price of the blood; for he loves more to whom more is given.

But let us return to that former passage, whose counsel even the apostles do not yet understand, which was hidden from the ages in God: For who hath known the mind of the Lord? The disciples, then, murmured because the woman poured out the ointment upon his head, and complained, saying: Why was this waste made? For it might have been sold for a price, and given to the poor. What indeed displeased Christ in their words you will not be able to discern, unless you understand the mystery; for it belongs to a luxurious man, or rather to no man at all, to smell of ointment. Certainly even those who smell of it are accustomed to anoint themselves, not to be poured over. What then displeased him, in that it was said: This might have been sold for a price, and given to the poor? Certainly he himself had said above: Whatsoever ye have done to one of the least of these, ye have done it to me also. But he himself was offering his death for the poor.

It is not therefore a simple figure; and so the Word of God answered them: Why do you trouble this woman? You always have the poor with you, but me you do not always have. You always, then, have the poor with you, and therefore do good to them. Should you then delay the poor man, since he is always with you, when the Prophet says to you: Say not to the poor man, Tomorrow I will give? But he spoke only of mercy: this one, however, has set faith before mercy, which then has merit, if it is conferred with faith going before. For pouring this ointment upon my body, she did it for my burial. Therefore the Lord did not love the ointment, but loved charity, accepted faith, approved humility.

And you, if you desire grace, increase charity: pour upon the body of Jesus the faith of the resurrection, the fragrance of the Church, the ointment of common charity; and thus advancing you will give to the poor man. That money will profit you more, if you do not bestow it as something overflowing, but grant it in the name of Christ as something that will benefit you: if you confer it upon the poor man in such a way that you bring it to Christ. Do not, then, receive according to the letter alone the ointment poured upon the head: for the letter kills; but according to the spirit, because the spirit is life.

What then is the ointment of this woman?

Who can hear this? Who has such ears, that when Jesus speaks the word which he received from the Father, or rather he who is himself the Word, he could grasp so great a depth of mystery? And the disciples understand in part, even if they do not understand the whole. Whence some think the disciples said that the faith of the Gentiles ought to have been bought with the price of the ointment, which was owed only at the price of the Lord's blood; which seems plausible. Finally John the Evangelist, in the speech of Judas Iscariot, brings in that ointment valued at three hundred denarii, as you have: For it could have been sold for three hundred denarii, and given to the poor. Now three hundred coins of bronze declare the sign of the cross: but the Lord does not seek a perfunctory foreknowledge of the mystery, but prefers that the faith of believers be buried together with himself.

This, however, we understand from the words of the rest of the apostles: but Judas is condemned for avarice, who preferred money to the Lord's burial, who, even if he perceived something of the passion, erred in so dear a valuation: Christ wishes himself to be valued cheaply, that he may be bought by all, lest any poor man be deterred. Freely, he says, you have received, freely give. It is not money that the height of riches seeks, but grace. He himself redeemed us with precious blood, he did not sell us. Of which we would speak more fully, did we not recall that we have treated it elsewhere ourselves.

Therefore, according to the sayings of the Lord, In whom are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, which no one could foresee, it behooves me to work toward his burial; so that his flesh may be believed to have rested, not to have seen corruption: and the death of his body so fills our house with its fragrance, that we believe he commended his spirit into the hands of the Father, and his divinity, being sequestered from death, did not undergo fellowship with bodily sufferings.

Understand how the body of the Son smells of ointment.

That body is one that was stripped off, not one that was lost. His body is the traditions of the Scriptures. His body is the Church. We are the fragrance of his body; and therefore it is fitting that we should adorn the death of his body. Even though it does not require our adornments, but the poor do require them. I shall adorn his body, if I become a preacher of his words, and am able to open to the nations the mystery of the cross. He adorned it who said: For we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, but to the Gentiles foolishness: but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. The cross is adorned, when that which through ignorance is thought foolish, is judged wiser through the Gospel; so that we may be able to teach how the hostile power is destroyed through the cross of the Lord.

Unless ointment is poured upon the Lord's body, that which was thought dead begins to breathe.

Therefore let each one set about buying, by his own labor and the striving of the virtues, an alabaster box of ointment, not some cheap and common thing, but precious ointment of alabaster, and pistic ointment. For if anyone gathers the flowers of faith, and preaches Jesus Christ crucified: he pours forth the ointment of his faith upon the whole Church, which is the body of Christ, dead to the world, resting in God. The whole house of the Lord begins to smell of the passion: it begins to smell of death: it begins to smell of the resurrection; so that each one from this number of the sacred people may say: But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The fragrance breathes forth, the ointment is redolent in the body, if anyone can (and would that I myself could) say with confidence: But the world is crucified to me.

Not to one who loves riches, not to one who loves the honors of the age, not to one who loves the things that are his own, but the things of Jesus Christ: not to one who loves the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen: not to one desirous of life, but to him who hastens to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, is the world crucified. For this is to take up the cross, and to follow Christ; that we too may die together and be buried together with him; that we may be able to give off the fragrance of the ointment which this woman poured out for his burial. This ointment is no small thing, by which the name of Christ is spread far and wide. Whence also it was said prophetically: Your name is as ointment poured out. Poured out for this reason, that it might be more fragrant with the greater odor of faith.

From this woman, therefore, we understand what that saying of the Apostle means: Sin abounded, that grace might abound more.

For if sin had not abounded in this woman, grace would not have abounded; for she recognized her sin, and brought grace. And therefore the Law is necessary; for through the Law I recognize sin. If there had been no Law, sin would lie hidden. By recognizing sin, I seek pardon. Through the Law, therefore, I recognize the kinds of sins, and also the crime of transgression, I run to penitence, I obtain grace. The Law, therefore, is the author of good, which sends one to grace. My mother and my brethren are these, who hear the word of God, and do it.

A moral teacher who offers to others an example of himself is both the teacher and also himself the executor of his own precepts.

For, about to prescribe to others that whoever has not left his father and mother is not worthy of the Son of God, he first subjects himself to this sentence: not because he refuses the duties of maternal piety (for it is his own precept, Whoever does not honor father or mother shall die the death), but because he recognizes that he owes more to the paternal mysteries than to maternal affections. Nor yet are parents refused injuriously, but the bonds of minds are taught to be more religious than those of bodies.

Therefore they ought not to have stood outside, who sought to see Christ: For the word is near, in your mouth, and in your heart. Within, therefore, is the word, within is the light. Whence also that man says: Draw near to the Lord, and be enlightened. For if, standing outside, not even his own parents are recognized, and perhaps are not recognized because of our example: how shall we be recognized, if we stand outside?

Nor let anyone think it an offense to piety, where the commandment of the Law is fulfilled: for if a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh, rightly is this sacrament kept in Christ and the Church. And therefore he could not prefer his parents to his own body. Therefore here (as certain heretics set traps in ambush) the mother is not denied, who is also acknowledged from the cross, but the form of heavenly precepts is preferred to bodily kinship. Nor is it repugnant to understand this too, that through the figure of the parents he shows to the Jews, from whom Christ is according to the flesh, that the Church which has believed is to be preferred.

Thus he who understood himself to have come into the world for the sake of the divine mystery, and for the gathering of the Church, having left his parents, boards the ship. For no one could sail across this world without Christ, since even those with whom the Lord is present, the temptation of worldly storms often disturbs. And the economy is preserved in the apostles, that you may notice that no one can pass out of this course of life without temptation, because temptation is the exercise of faith.

We are subject, therefore, to the storms of the spiritual wickedness: but let us, like watchful sailors, arouse the pilot.

But even pilots themselves are wont to be endangered. What pilot then should we seek? That one certainly who does not serve, but commands, the winds, of whom it is written: But he rising, rebuked the wind.

What is meant by rising?

For he was resting: but he was resting in the sleep of the body, while attending to the mystery of his divinity; for where wisdom is, where the Word is, nothing is done without the Word, nothing without prudence.

Above you have it, that he spent the night in prayer: how then could he sleep here in the storm? But the security of his power is being expressed, in that while all were afraid, he alone rested undisturbed. He is not, then, a partaker of the nature, who is not a partaker of the danger. And though the body sleeps, divinity works, faith works. Finally he says: O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And rightly are they reproved who feared when Christ was present, since surely he who clings to him cannot perish.

He therefore confirmed their faith, poured back tranquility. He ordered the wind to cease, not the north wind, not the southwest wind: but that wind certainly, to which it was said by the angel Michael in the epistle of Jude: The Lord rebuke thee. Whence also holy Matthew says: He rebuked, he says, the wind and the sea. And would that he might deign to restrain his rough blasts in us; so that, with tranquility restored to our wavering life, he might take away the fear of shipwreck! And even if he no longer sleeps the sleep of his own body, let us nevertheless take care lest he sleep and rest in us with the sleep of our own body.

And since it is enough to have touched briefly upon what we have already handled above: now, since in the book according to Matthew we have learned that two men afflicted by a demon met Christ in the region of the Gerasenes, whereas holy Luke here brings in one, and that one naked (for whoever has lost the covering of his nature and virtue is naked), by what reasoning the evangelists seem to disagree in number, I think should not be idly passed over, but should be inquired into. And indeed, although the number may disagree, nevertheless the mystery agrees; for this man who had the demon is a figure of the gentile people, covered with vices, naked of error, exposed to crime. Those two likewise similarly receive the figure of the gentile people; since although Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, only the family of Shem was taken into the possession of God.

From those two the peoples of the different nations sprang forth, of whom the one was cursed

because he had not covered his naked father; the other blessed, because, although he turned away, lest he should drink in the shame of his naked parent, yet with piety as his guide he covered his father, and washed away the curse of his brother's seed. Who, he says, for a long time had been driven.

As one who was troubled from the flood until the coming of the Lord, breaking the bonds of nature in a mad frenzy.

Nor without reason did holy Matthew also signify that they dwelt among the tombs, since indeed the souls of such men seem to dwell in a certain manner in the mounds of the sepulchres? For what else are the bodies of the unfaithful, but a kind of sepulchre of the dead, in which the words of God do not dwell? He was driven therefore into desert places, that is, places unfruitful of spiritual virtues; a fugitive from the Law, cut off from the prophets, removed from grace. For he was suffering the assault not of one demon, but of a whole legion; which, when it had seen the Lord, and had foreknown, being aware beforehand, that at the time of the Lord's coming it was to be thrust down into the abysses, began to beg that it might be granted the power to enter into the swine.

And first we must note the clemency of the Lord, that he himself condemns no one beforehand, but each one is the author of his own punishment. The demons are not sent into the swine, but they themselves ask; because they could not endure the brightness of the heavenly light; just as those who suffer in the eyes cannot bear the ray of the sun; but choose dark things, and abandon shining ones. Let the demons, then, flee the splendor of eternal light, and dread before the time the torments owed to them, not foreknowing the things that are to come, but recalling the things that have been prophesied; for Zechariah said: And it shall come to pass in that day, the Lord shall destroy the names of idols out of the land, and there shall be no more remembrance of them; and I will take away the unclean spirit out of the land. We are taught, therefore, that they will not remain forever; lest their malice among men should be able to be perpetual.

Now therefore, fearing that punishment, they say: You have come to destroy us.

But because they still desire to exist, now withdrawing from the men on whose account they know that punishment must be undergone by them, they ask to be sent into the swine.

Who are these swine, unless perhaps those of whom it is said: Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet? Those, namely, who by the practice of unclean animals, being deprived of voice and reason, have defiled with the mire of their deeds the ornaments of their natural virtues. They are borne headlong by their own impulse; because they are recalled by the contemplation of no merit: but as though thrust down from higher to lower things by the downward slope of wickedness, they are suffocated in the waters, and perish among the fluctuating waves of this world in the manner of those strangled, the passage of breath being cut off; for in those who are borne uncertainly hither and thither by the fluid tide of pleasures, there can be no vital exchange of any spirit.

We see, then, that man is himself the author of his own trouble.

For unless someone had lived after the manner of swine, the devil would never have received power over him; or if he had received it, it would not have been to destroy him, but to test him. Or perhaps, because after the Lord's coming he could no longer corrupt the good, he now seeks the destruction not of all men, but of the fickle; just as a robber does not lie in wait for the armed, but for the unarmed; and he assails with injuries the weak man, who understands that he would either be crushed by the strong, or condemned by the powerful.

But someone will say: why is this permitted by God to the devil?

But I say, that the good may be tested, and the wicked punished; for this is the penalty of sin. Read, moreover, that the Lord sends fever, and trembling, and evil spirits, and blindness, and every scourge, according to the merits of sins. But let us return to the reading.

The keepers of the herds, it says, seeing this, fled.

For neither the professors of philosophy, nor the rulers of the Synagogue, can bring healing to perishing peoples. Christ alone it is who takes away the sins of the peoples; if only they do not refuse the patience of being healed. But he does not deign to cure the unwilling, and he quickly leaves those who are ill, whose burden his presence seems to be, as with the peoples of the Gerasenes, who, going out from the city in which the appearance of the Synagogue seems to exist, begged that he would depart:

For they were held by a great fear;

For the weak mind does not receive the word of God, nor can it bear the weight of wisdom; it grows weary and is undone.

And therefore he was not troublesome for long: but He went up, and returned: he went up, that is, from lower things to higher, namely from the Synagogue to the Church. He returned across the lake, as it is said here; or, as Matthew says, across the strait; for between us and them there is a great strait. Thus no one crosses from the Church to the Synagogue without peril to salvation. But he too who desires to cross from the Synagogue to the Church, let him take up his cross, that he may escape the danger.

But why is the freed man not received among them, but instead thought fit to return home; unless it be so that the occasion for boasting might be avoided, and that he might be an example to the unfaithful, since that house is naturally a dwelling-place? And so he who had obtained the remedy of health is bidden to return from the tombs and sepulchres to that spiritual house; that he might become the temple of God, in which there had been the sepulchre of the mind.

behold there came a man whose name was Jairus, and he was a ruler of the Synagogue; and he fell down before the feet of Jesus, beseeching him that he would come into his house

because he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.

Christ, as we have said, had left the Synagogue among the Gerasenes; and him whom his own had not received, we, being strangers, received; we received him whom we had been awaiting. Nor, therefore, did he long stay away from us, by whom he was awaited; nor does he disdain to return to them, if he is asked. For this man, a ruler of the Synagogue, whose daughter was an only child, was praying for the remedy of the perishing Synagogue, which was being driven toward death, because it was being abandoned by Christ. Whom should we think to be the ruler of the Synagogue, unless the Law, out of respect for which the Lord did not utterly abandon the Synagogue, but reserved the medicine of salvation for those who believe? While the Word of God was hastening, then, to this ruler's daughter, to save the sons of Israel, holy Church, gathered from the Gentiles, which was perishing through the fall of lesser sins, snatched by faith the healing prepared for others.

We have thought it sufficient to have expounded this passage morally; and therefore we do not go back over what has been said, but wish to touch briefly on the mystical sense. Was it not so accomplished, that the Word of God, when he had come to the Jews, was taken up by the Gentiles, and was believed in grace first by those who had not believed in the Law?

For just as that woman had spent all her substance on physicians, so too the congregation of the Gentiles had lost all the gifts of nature, and had squandered her vital patrimony, being holy, modest, religious, more ready in faith, more hesitant in shame; for it is a mark both of shame and of faith to acknowledge one's own weakness, yet not to despair of pardon. So, being modest, she touched the hem; being faithful, she approached; being religious, she believed; being wise, she knew that she had been healed.

Thus the holy people of the Gentiles, who believed in God, blushed at sin, so as to forsake it; brought forth faith, so as to believe; showed devotion, so as to beseech; put on wisdom, so as itself to perceive its own healing; assumed confidence, so as to confess that it had snatched what belonged to another.

She came up behind him.

But why is Christ touched from behind?

Is it because it is written: You shall walk after the Lord your God? What too is meant by this, that the ruler's daughter, twelve years old, was dying, and—this we treat now as a second concern, not indeed as a recantation. This woman had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years; unless it be understood that as long as the Synagogue flourished, the Church labored? Her failing is this one's virtue; because through their transgression salvation came to the Gentiles; and her consummation is this one's beginning—not the beginning of nature, but of salvation: For blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in. The Synagogue, then, is older than the Church not in time, but in the appearance of health; because as long as the former believed, the latter had not yet believed, and through various afflictions of body and soul lay sick with an incurable disease.

She heard that the people of the Jews was ailing, and began to hope for the remedy of her own salvation: she recognized that the time had come when the physician would be present from heaven, she rose to meet the Word, she saw that he was being pressed upon by the crowds; for those who press upon him do not believe, but those who touch him believe. By faith Christ is touched, by faith Christ is seen: he is not touched with the body, he is not grasped with the eyes; for he does not see, who sees without seeing; nor does he hear, who does not understand what he hears; nor does he touch, who does not touch faithfully. Therefore, to express the faith of the one touching him, he says:

Someone has touched me; for I know that virtue has gone out from me.

Which is evidence of a clear sign, that the wisdom, though enclosed within the bounds of the human condition and within the barrier of the body, had not confined the divinity thereby: it is not contained within bodily limits, it is not held fast, but eternal power overflows beyond the bounds of our smallness. For the people of the Gentiles is not freed by human help: but the gathering of the nations is the gift of God, which even by brief faith inclines the eternal mercy. Now if we consider how great our faith is, and understand how great the Son of God is, we see that in comparison with him we touch only the hem, but cannot reach the upper parts of his garment. If, then, we too wish to be healed, let us touch the hem of Christ by faith.

It does not escape him whoever has touched the hem, even one who has touched him from behind; for God does not need eyes in order to see, nor does he perceive bodily, but he has within himself the knowledge of all things. Blessed, therefore, is he who has touched even the least part of the Word; for who can grasp the whole? But let us return to her who is still sick; lest through our delay, while we long linger over Christ's entrance, she be believed to be dead:

There came, it says, servants saying to the ruler: Do not trouble him, your daughter is dead.

And let us first consider this: that, about to raise up the dead girl, he first, to establish faith, healed the woman with the flow of blood. And so that you may know, for the sake of example, that the flow of blood had stopped: while she is being asked for, the other is healed. So too the temporal resurrection is celebrated in the Lord's passion, so that that perpetual one may also be believed. So too Mary's coming delivery is indicated by the sterile woman; so that the virgin's coming conception might be believed. Accordingly she heard that Elizabeth would bear a child, and did not doubt her own conceiving.

There came, it says, servants saying to the ruler: Do not trouble him.

Even these are still unbelieving as to the resurrection, which Jesus foretold in the Law, and fulfilled in the Gospel. And so, when he had come into the house, he admitted only a few as witnesses of the coming resurrection; for the resurrection was not immediately believed by many. Accordingly, the Lord saying:

The girl is not dead, but sleeps.

They laughed him to scorn, it says.

For whoever does not believe, laughs to scorn. Let those, therefore, weep for their dead, who think them dead: where there is faith in the resurrection, it is not the appearance of death, but of rest. Nor does that saying of Matthew disagree, that there were flute-players in the ruler's house, and a tumultuous crowd: either because, according to old custom, flute-players seemed to be employed to kindle and stir up mourning; or because, through the chant of the Law and the letter, the Synagogue was not able to grasp spiritual exultation.

Jesus, therefore, taking the girl's hand, healed her, and bade that she be given something to eat.

Which is a testimony of life; so that it might be believed not a phantasm, but the truth. Blessed is he whose hand wisdom holds.

Would that it might also hold my own actions, that justice might hold my hand, that the Word of God might hold it, might lead me into its inner chambers, might turn away the spirit of error, might turn me to salvation, might bid that I be given something to eat! For the bread of heaven is the Word of God. Whence too that Wisdom which filled the sacrosanct altars of the divine body and blood with sustenance says: Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mixed for you.

What, however, is the cause of so great a difference?

Above, the widow's son is raised in public; here several witnesses are dismissed. But I think that in this too the Lord's compassion is declared; because the widowed mother of an only son could not bear delay, and so, that she might not be afflicted further, the ripeness of relief was added at once. There is also here a figure of wisdom: in the widow's son, that the Church would soon believe; in the ruler of the synagogue's daughter, that the Jews would indeed believe, but few out of many. And whoever will not receive you, going out from that city, shake off even the dust from your feet, for a testimony against them.

What manner of man he ought to be who preaches the kingdom of God is set forth by the evangelical precepts; that he go without staff, without wallet, without shoes, without bread, without money

, that is, requiring no aid of worldly support, and being devoted to faith, and the less he seeks temporal things, the more he may hope that they can be supplied to him.

Those who wish may extend this treatment further; so that this passage seems to shape a purely spiritual disposition, as one who seems to have put off a certain garment of the body, not only rejecting power and despising riches, but also renouncing the very allurements of the flesh.

To whom, first of all, is given a general command of peace and constancy

that they bring peace, keep constancy, observe the laws of hospitable relations; establishing that it is foreign to a preacher of the heavenly kingdom to run about from house to house, and to violate the rights of an inviolable hospitality. But just as the grace of hospitality is to be shown, so also, if they are not received, it is commanded that the dust be shaken off, and that they depart from the city. By which no small reward of the good of hospitality is taught, that we should not only bestow peace on our hosts: but also, if any faults of earthly levity overshadow them, that these be taken away once the footsteps of apostolic preaching have been received. Nor is it without purpose that, according to Matthew, the house which the apostles are to enter is to be chosen; so that there be no occasion for changing lodging and violating the relationship.

Yet the same caution is not enjoined upon the one who receives the guest of hospitality; lest, while the guest is being chosen, hospitality itself be diminished.

But just as this is, according to the letter, a venerable form of precept concerning the observance of hospitality: so also the heavenly meaning smiles upon us as to its mystery. For when a house is chosen, a worthy host is sought. Let us see, then, whether perhaps the Church is designated as the one to be preferred, and Christ. For what house is worthier of the entrance of apostolic preaching than holy Church? Or who seems more to be preferred above all than Christ, who was accustomed to wash the feet of his guests, and does not allow whomever he has received into his house to dwell with defiled footsteps: but, though stained by their former life, deigns nonetheless to cleanse their subsequent course? He, then, is the only one whom no one ought to forsake, no one to exchange for another. To whom it is well said: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we believe.

You see the executor of the heavenly precepts: who

because he did not change his lodging, merited the fellowship of heavenly consecration.

Faith, then, is first bidden to be sought in the Church, in which, if Christ be the indweller, it is doubtless to be gathered.

But if a faithless people, or a heretical teacher, disfigure the dwelling-place, then the communion of heretics is to be shunned, the synagogue is judged to be fled. The dust of the feet is to be shaken off, lest, in the fainting drought of barren faithlessness, the print of thy mind, as it were of the dry and sandy ground, be defiled. For as the preacher of the Gospel ought to take upon himself the bodily infirmities of the faithful people, and, as though they were his own, wipe away and abolish with his own footsteps their vain deeds, to be likened unto dust—according as it is written: Who is weak, and I am not weak?—so also, if there be any church which rejects the faith, nor holds the foundations of apostolic preaching, lest it should be able to sprinkle any stain of faithlessness upon thee, it must be forsaken.

This the Apostle also plainly declared, saying: A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid. But he said to them: Give ye them to eat. And they said: We have no more than five loaves. What is the reason that, whereas the passion of John is described in the later chapters, here already, by the words of Herod, he is shown to be dead? Is it not perhaps because, after the failing of the Law, the food of the Gospel begins to feed the fasting hearts of the peoples? Then, after she who received the type of the Church was healed of the flow of blood, after the apostles were destined to preach the kingdom of God, the food of heavenly grace is bestowed. But mark upon whom it is bestowed.

Not upon the idle, not upon those abiding in the city as in the synagogue, or in worldly dignity, but upon those seeking Christ amid the deserts; for they who do not disdain are received by Christ, and with them the Word of God speaks, not of worldly things, but of the kingdom of God. And if any bear the wounds of bodily suffering, to these he willingly grants his healing.

It followed, therefore, that those whom he had healed of the pain of their wounds, he should also free from fasting by spiritual food. And so no one receives the food of Christ, unless he has first been healed. And they who are called to the supper are healed first by the calling itself. If one was lame, he received the power of walking, that he might come. If he was deprived of the light of his eyes, he could not enter the house of the Lord unless the light had first been poured back into him.

Everywhere, then, the order of the mystery is kept: that first, through the remission of sins, medicine is given to the wounds, afterward the food of the heavenly table overflows; although this crowd is not yet refreshed with stronger food, nor are the fasting hearts of firmer faith fed with the body and blood of Christ. I have fed you, he says, with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able, but neither indeed are ye yet able. After the manner of milk are the five loaves. But the stronger food is the body of Christ, the more potent drink is the blood of the Lord. We do not at once from the beginning feast on all things, nor drink all things. This first, he says, drink. There is, then, a first, and there is also a second thing to drink. There is also a first thing to eat, there is also a second, there is a third. The first are the five loaves, the second the seven, the third is the very body of Christ.

Let us therefore in no wise forsake such a Lord, who deigns to bestow food upon us according to each one's strength; lest either stronger food oppress the weak, or slight food fail to satisfy the strong: for he who is weak, let him eat herbs. And let him who now seems to be escaping the snares of weakness eat of these five loaves and two fishes. Certainly, if he fears to ask for stronger food, let him himself, leaving all his own, hasten to the word of God. As soon as he begins to hear, he begins to hunger. The apostles begin to see him hungering. And if they do not yet understand what he hungers for, Christ understood. He knows that he hungers not for worldly food, but for the food of Christ. Let him say: I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way. The good Lord requires our zeal, and supplies the strength.

Would that thou, Lord Jesus, wouldst not send these fasting ones away with me, but wouldst refresh them with feasts bestowed by thee; that, made stronger by thy nourishment, they might not fear the weakness of fasting. Would that thou wouldst also say of us: I will not send them away fasting! And tell me the reason why thou wilt not send them away fasting: nay, thou hast already told it, that if thou send anyone away fasting, he faints in the way—that is, he faints either in the course of this life, or before he reaches the head of the way, before he comes to the Father, and understands that Christ is of the Father, understands that Christ is from heaven, and understands that Christ who descended is the very one who also ascended; lest, perchance, when he has learned that he was born of a Virgin, he begin to reckon it not the power of God, but of man. Therefore lest they faint, he says.

Give ye them to eat.

And they said: We have no more than five loaves and two fishes, unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.

The apostles had not yet understood that the food of the believing people is not for sale.

Christ knew, he himself knew that it was rather we who were to be redeemed: but his own feasts he gives freely. The disciples, then, did not yet have the food that could redeem us. Yet they already had the food that could satisfy us: they had the food that could strengthen us: for bread strengthens the heart of man. The Lord, therefore, has compassion, lest anyone faint in the way. If, then, anyone should faint, it is not through the Lord Jesus, but through himself that he faints: nor hast thou anything thou canst impute to the Lord, who conquers even when he is judged; for what canst thou say to him who has conferred upon thee all the supports of virtue? Did not he himself beget thee, did not he himself feed thee? His food is virtue, his food is strength.

But if thou, through thy own negligence, hast lost the virtue thou hadst received, it is not the heavenly nourishments, but the defenses of thy own mind, that were lacking to thee. Finally, the Lord, just as he rains upon the just and the unjust, so also feeds both the unjust and the just.

Was it not by the power of food that, when holy Elijah was already fainting in the way, he walked forty days, and an angel gave him that food? But if Jesus has fed thee, and thou hast kept the food received, thou shalt walk not forty days and forty nights, but (I dare to say it, relying on the examples of Scripture) forty years: and thou shalt go forth from the borders of Egypt, until thou come into a great land, into a land flowing with milk and honey, which the Lord swore that he would give to our fathers. The virtue of this land is what thou must seek, which the meek possess. I speak not of that land which is dry, but of that which is strengthened by the food of Christ, which, established under the empire of the eternal King, is peopled by the dwellings of the saints.

The Lord Jesus, then, divides the food.

And he indeed wills to give to all, denies it to none, for he is the dispenser of all things: but though he break the loaves and give to the disciples, if thou dost not stretch forth thy hands to receive the food for thyself, thou shalt faint in the way; nor canst thou lay thy fault upon him who has compassion, and who distributes: but he distributes to those who remain with him even in the desert, who do not withdraw on the first, and second, and third day. For thus thou hast it elsewhere: I have compassion on this multitude, because they have now continued with me three days. How great is his condescension, how great the kindness he inspires in men! He does not wish to send them away fasting, he does not wish it; lest they faint in the way.

Do not, then, fail under the discipline of the Lord, nor be wearied when thou art reproved by him.

Be not wearied now, lest thou be wearied afterward. For what wilt thou answer him, or how wilt thou excuse thyself, if thou have lost the power of the food which he ministers? Thou canst not say that he did not give food, since he gives to all. Thou canst not say that he was unwilling for thee to do good, before whom he has set both good and evil, so that thy good might not be of necessity, but voluntary. For it makes a great difference between one who does something unwillingly out of necessity, and one who chooses out of will what is good: For if I do this unwillingly, a dispensation has been entrusted to me: if willingly, I have a reward. Let us consider, then, that we shall stand before the tribunal of Christ, and if our work be burned, we shall have nothing wherewith to excuse ourselves.

For he will say what he has already spoken by the prophet: My people, what have I done to thee, or in what have I wearied thee? Answer me (Micah 6:3). And he will say too to him who has fainted in the way: For what reason didst thou faint in the way? Did I not break the loaves? Did I not bless them? Did I not command them to be given? But why wouldst thou not receive them?

How many even of those present will faint in the way, and after these discourses, which, though they are ours, yet—since no one says "the Lord Jesus" but in the Holy Spirit—are to be reckoned as loaves: how many, I say, will faint, and will go off into the ways of the Gentiles by crooked paths, playing the harlot! And would that it were one, and not many! But Jesus is not the author of the failing, even if someone should fail; for he distributes to all who follow, whether they be five thousand, or four thousand.

The number is not without meaning, the order is not without meaning, the remains of those who ate are not without meaning.

For why are the more numerous, that is, the five thousand, satisfied with five loaves, that is, with the smaller number: while the fewer, who are four thousand, are fed with seven loaves, that is, with the greater number? For if we merely follow the wonder of the deed, it seems more divine that from a smaller amount there was abundance for more. Why, then, was the lesser given, as it were, in preference to that which is greater? For first we read that five thousand were satisfied with five loaves: but afterward that four thousand were satisfied with seven loaves. Let us seek, then, the mystery, which surpasses the miracle.

And so those five thousand seem, like the five senses of the body, to have received from Christ food still close to bodily things: but the four thousand, even though they are still in the body, and in this world which consists of four elements, are not without meaning said to have received the food of mystical rest; for they are already made equal to the world, being about to be above the world. For although they are in this world, yet they are not within the world, they to whom the food of mystical rest is bestowed; for in six days the world was made, on the seventh day there was rest, and the Lord sanctified it. Beyond the world, therefore, is rest; beyond the world also is the fruit of rest. Hence: Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called children of God. For since God is above the world, no one at all can see God, unless he first transcend the world with spiritual gaze.

So the seventh blessing is of the peacemakers: and to those four thousand also seven baskets of fragments remain over.

This is no ordinary bread, the bread of Sabbaths, the sanctified bread, the bread of rest. And perhaps if thou hast first eaten sensibly the five loaves, I shall dare to say it too, after the five loaves and the seven, in a third stage thou shalt no longer eat bread on earth: but above the earth thou shalt eat eight loaves, as do those who are in the heavens. For as the seven loaves are the loaves of rest, so the eight loaves are the loaves of resurrection. Those, then, who are fed with the seven loaves persevered three days, and perhaps attained the full faith and steadfastness of the resurrection to come. Hence the voice of the saints: We will go three days' journey, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. But that belongs to its own place.

Concerning the five loaves, then, holy John taught that his own discourses also, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, are loaves.

He taught me what I did not know, what holy Matthew had not taught, what holy Luke had not taught (for to each a different grace was imparted); he taught me, I say, that these five loaves were barley loaves; and therefore not without reason have we said that this food is suited to those still bodily. For why barley first? Because he who comes to the faith must first be nourished with milk, then with food; for we were not yet able, and perhaps most of us are not yet able even now. For since there are among us contentions and dissensions, are we not carnal, and do we not walk according to man? Foods are fitted, each to its own virtues; and hence barley is given us first for nourishment, then wheat: but to the stronger, as to Elijah, the bread of fine flour, made from the inner part of the wheat, is ministered, which sinners cannot feed upon.

Nor is it only in bread and in number, but also in the manner of reclining that there is a difference: for the former recline upon hay, the latter recline upon the ground: upon hay the five thousand, upon the ground the four thousand. It is more to press the earth than to lie upon hay; for those who still have bodily senses take delight in softer things, and therefore recline upon hay: for “All flesh is hay”: but these, upon the ground which brings forth wheat and wine and oil, obtain the food of grace. Those recline in one posture, these in another; for there is a certain greater rest in the one who reclines. There, two fish; here, without number; whence many have thought that the grace of the sevenfold Spirit is signified in the loaves, and in the fish also the figure of the twofold Testament is to be understood.

It is not tiresome, therefore, to consider that the four thousand, gathered from the four parts of the world, in whom the Church is figured, receive food of greater grace, according to what is written: “For they shall come from the East and the West and the North and the South, and shall recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven”. Whence here thanks are given to the Father by Christ; for not without reason is there there only a blessing, but here also a giving of thanks. For it is the Lord's custom to give thanks to the Father on behalf of His Church; because what He hid from the wise, He revealed to little ones. The blessing, therefore, is upon us, who are the lesser; the giving of thanks is upon those who have triumphed over the weaknesses of their bodies by consecrated sufferings.

We have already touched upon this above, that although fifty at a time were ordered to recline, a sacred number though it was appointed; yet here appears the people of a more firmly founded Church, which reclines without any fixed number.

It is also mystical that the eating people are satisfied, and the apostles minister; for in the satiety is designated the sign of a hunger forever driven away; because he who has received the food of Christ shall not hunger: and in the ministry of the apostles is foreshadowed the future distribution of the Lord's body and blood. There is also this divine matter, how the five loaves overflowed to five thousand of the people; for it is clear that the people were satisfied not by scanty, but by multiplied food.

You would have seen, by some incomprehensible flowing forth, the fragments multiplying between the hands of those distributing them, who had not broken them, and untouched morsels stealing of their own accord under the fingers of those breaking the bread. He who reads these things, how may he marvel at the continual courses of waters, and be astonished that from clear springs there flow uninterrupted successions—when even bread overflows, and the flowing forth of a more solid nature abounds? These things, therefore, were done, that we might also see those things which we do not see. By these things He clearly showed also that He is the author of those things, and that the material creator of all nature exists, which nature is not (as the philosophers would have it) something merely found, but something made, which supplies to all things that are to be generated flowing successions.

This indeed is marvelous, that whatever you draw from rivers is not marked by any sign of loss: whatever you take away from springs is restored by a kind of usurious channel. But even in rivers, though nothing seems to depart, nothing either seems to be added: and in springs, just as accumulated streams are seen, so also while the streams are diminished, they are shown forth. But indeed this bread which Jesus breaks is mystically the Word of God, and the discourse concerning Christ, which while it is divided, is increased; for from a few words, He supplied overflowing nourishment to all peoples. He gave us words as loaves, which, while they are savored in our mouth, are doubled. Visibly too this bread, by an incredible reasoning, while it is broken, while it is divided, while it is eaten, is increased without any perceptible loss.

Do not doubt either that it grows in the hands of those ministering, or in the mouth of those eating; since everywhere the testimony of our work is admitted to the strengthening of belief. So at the wedding, wines are colored from the springs, the servants working, and those who had filled the water-jars with water drew off wine which they had not poured in. Grasp, if you can, such great miracles of things. Here, for the people eating, the fragments grow by their own diminishing, and from five loaves greater remnants than the original sum are gathered: there the elements are turned into another kind, and nature suffers no defects of her own, nor recognizes her own origins, yet by her own use she recognizes them. Indeed, the nature of the changed wine is better than that of the wine that was born naturally; because it is in the power of the Creator both to assign uses to natures as He wills, and to impart to natures to be generated whatever natures He wills.

See with how many works He builds up one work: while the servant pours in water, the transferred fragrance intoxicates, the changed color gives form, and the tasted flavor increases belief also.

Let the pagans compare, if they please, with the benefits of Christ, the not-facts but fictions of their gods.

Their fables tell indeed of a certain king who turned to gold whatever he touched. But even his own banquets were funereal; for even the very napkins, seized by his fingers, stiffened: and the food crackled in his mouth, bringing not nourishment but wounds: and the drink stuck in his throat, neither easily going down nor coming back up. Worthy benefits for such vows, worthy gifts for so great a suppliant, worthy generosity from the giver! Such are the benefits of idols, that when they seem to profit, they harm the more: but indeed the gifts of Christ seem small, and are greatest. Finally, they were conferred not on one, but on peoples; for the food of those eating grew in their mouth, and seemed to be bodily nourishment, but was in fact taken in as eternal salvation.

But why does more remain over for the five thousand men, and less for the four thousand?

Because those four thousand had been with Christ for three days; and therefore they received more of the heavenly food.

Nor is it without purpose that the leftovers of the crowd are gathered by the disciples

because things that are divine you can more easily find among the elect than among the peoples. Would that it might befall me to hear: “Gather up what remains!” If I hear it and do it, I shall have much that the crowds, I shall have much that children and women could not eat. Blessed is he who is able to gather up what remains even for the learned.

Let us see how he gathers.

The Law said: “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. Christ broke this bread, divided this word, adding nothing from elsewhere, but dividing from His own: “Whoever,” He says, “looks upon a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her”. There you have a fragment from His own. He added: “If thy right eye scandalizes thee, pluck it out”. There you have another. And, “If thy right hand scandalizes thee, cut it off”; and, “He who marries a woman put away by her husband commits adultery”. See from one thing how many fragments. Moses says that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman, and one by the free woman. Paul said: “These are the two Testaments”. He divided this word, and found a mystery. Blessed, therefore, is he who gathers what Christ divides.

For what reason did Christ fill twelve baskets, unless to dissolve that saying concerning the Jewish people: “His hands served in the basket”: that is, the people who formerly gathered mud in baskets now, through the cross of Christ, works out the nourishment of heavenly life; and gathers there the food of faith, where before there was the mire of gentile faithlessness. Nor is this gift for the few, but for all. For through the twelve baskets, as it were, the strengthening of faith for each of the tribes overflows: for “Bread strengthens the heart of man”. He said to them: But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, The Christ of God.

Nor indeed is the opinion of the crowd without purpose

because some thought Elijah, whom they believed was to come; others John, whom they knew had been beheaded, or one of the earlier prophets risen again. But to inquire into this is beyond us: it belongs to another kind of knowledge, another kind of prudence. For if it is enough for the apostle Paul to know nothing except Christ Jesus, and Him crucified, what more should I desire to know than Christ? For in this one name there is the expression both of divinity and of incarnation, and the faith of the passion. And therefore, although the other apostles knew it, Peter answered ahead of the rest: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God”. He embraced, therefore, all things, who expressed both the nature and the name, in which is the sum of the virtues.

Do we also insert questions concerning the generation of God, when Paul judged that he knew nothing except Christ Jesus, and Him crucified: while Peter thought nothing more needed to be confessed than that He is the Son of God? We probe, by the contemplation of human weakness, when and how He was born, and how great He is. Paul knew that in these matters there was more occasion for the stumbling-block of questioning than for the progress of edification; and therefore he judged that he knew nothing except Christ Jesus. Peter knew that in the Son of God all things are: for “All things the Father has given to the Son”. If He has given all things, He has transfused into Him the eternity which He has, and His majesty. But why do I go on further? The end of my faith is Christ, the end of my faith is the Son of God.

It is not permitted to me to know the order of the generation; yet it is not permitted to me to be ignorant of the faith of the generation.

Believe, therefore, just as Peter believed; that you too may be blessed, that you too may deserve to hear: “Because flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven”. For flesh and blood can reveal nothing except what is earthly: but he who speaks mysteries by the Spirit is founded not on the teaching of flesh and blood, but on divine inspiration. Do not, therefore, rest upon flesh and blood; lest you drink in the precepts of flesh and blood, and become yourself blood and flesh: for he who clings to flesh is flesh: “But he who clings to God is one spirit”. “My spirit,” He says, “shall not remain in these men forever, because they are flesh”.

But would that those who hear were not flesh and blood, but, removed from the desires of flesh and blood, could each say: “I will not fear what flesh can do to me”!

For he who has conquered the flesh is the foundation of the Church: if he cannot equal Peter, he can imitate him; for great are the gifts of God, who has not only restored to us what had been our own, but has even granted to us what is properly His own.

It matters, however, what it means that the crowds thought Him to be none other than either Elijah, or Jeremiah, or John the Baptist. And Elijah perhaps; because he was caught up into heaven. But Christ is not Elijah: the one is caught up, the other returns: the one, I say, is caught up, the other did not think it robbery to be equal with God: the one is avenged by fires sought for, this one preferred to heal his persecutors rather than destroy them. But why did they think Jeremiah? Perhaps because he was sanctified in the womb. But this is not Jeremiah: the one is sanctified, the other sanctifies: the sanctification of the one began from the body, this one is holy from the Holy One. Why also did the people think John? Unless perhaps because, placed in his mother's womb, he perceived the presence of the Lord.

But this is not John: the one worshipped in the womb, this one was worshipped: the one baptized in water, Christ in spirit: the one urged repentance, this one forgave sins.

And therefore Peter did not wait for the opinion of the people, but brought forth his own, saying: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God”. He who both always is, and did not begin in order to be, and does not fail to be. Great, moreover, is the grace of Christ, who bestowed almost all His own titles upon His disciples. “I am,” He says, “the light of the world”: and yet that very thing in which He Himself glories, He granted as a name to His disciples, saying: “You are the light of the world.” “I am the living bread”; and, “We, being many, are one bread”. “I am the true vine”. And to you He says: “I planted thee a fruitful vine, wholly a true seed”.

Christ is the rock: “For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ”: even to His disciple He did not deny the grace of this title; that he too might be Peter, that from the rock he might have the solidity of constancy, the firmness of faith.

Strive, therefore, that you too may be a rock.

And so seek the rock not outside yourself, but within yourself. Your rock is your action, your rock is your mind. Upon this rock your house is built; so that it cannot be beaten down by any storms of spiritual wickedness. Your rock is faith, the foundation of the Church is faith. If you have been a rock, you will be in the Church; because the Church is upon the rock. If you have been in the Church, the gates of hell will not prevail against you. The gates of hell are the gates of death: but the gates of death cannot be the gates of the Church.

But what are the gates of death, that is, the gates of hell, except each and every sin?

If you have committed fornication, you have entered the gates of death. If you have injured the faith, you have penetrated the gates of hell. If you have committed a mortal sin, you have entered the gates of death: but God is powerful, who may lift you up from the gates of death; that you may announce all his praises in the gates of the daughter of Sion. But the gates of the Church are the gates of chastity, the gates of justice, which the just man is accustomed to enter, saying: Open to me the gates of justice, and entering into them I will confess to the Lord. But as there is a gate of death, a gate of hell: so also the gate of justice is the gate of God. For this is the gate of the Lord, the just shall enter through it.

And therefore flee the stubbornness of offences, lest the gates of hell should be able to prevail against you; for if sin has had dominion over you, the gate of death will prevail. Flee therefore contentions, dissensions, uproars, and the tumults of discord; lest, having entered, you should fall upon the gates of death. For the Lord Jesus Christ did not wish to be proclaimed at first, lest any uproar should arise. He rebukes his disciples, that they should tell this to no one, that The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the chief priests, and the elders, and the scribes, and be killed, and the third day rise again.

100. And perhaps the Lord added this for the reason that he knew it would be difficult even for the disciples to believe in his passion and resurrection. And therefore he preferred to be himself the witness of his own passion and resurrection; so that faith might arise from the deed, not discord from mere hearing.

Therefore Christ did not wish to be glorified, but preferred to appear of no repute, that he might undergo the passion: and do you, who were born without repute, glory in yourself? You must walk the same path by which Christ walked. This is the acknowledgment of him, this is the imitation of him, through lack of repute and through good repute; so that you may glory in the cross of the Lord, just as he himself gloried. So Paul walked, and therefore he glories, saying: But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

101. But let us see why according to Matthew we find the disciples warned not to tell anyone that he is the Christ: whereas here it is written that they were rebuked, that they should tell no one that he was going to suffer many things and rise again. You see that all things are contained in the one name of Christ.

For he is the Christ who was born of the Virgin, he is the one who did wonders among the people, he is the one who died for our sins, and rose from the dead. If you take away any one of these, you have taken away your salvation. For even heretics seem to hold Christ for themselves; for no one denies the name of Christ: but he denies Christ who does not confess all the things that are Christ's. Therefore for many reasons he commands the disciples to be silent; that he might deceive the prince of the world, that he might avoid boastfulness, that he might teach humility; and at the same time lest the disciples, still untrained and imperfect, should be overwhelmed by the vast weight of the greatest preaching.

102. Now let us consider for what reason he also commands the unclean spirits to be silent. But Scripture has also revealed this to us, because God said to the sinner: Why do you declare my justices?

Lest anyone, while hearing him preach, should follow one who errs; for the devil is a wicked teacher, who often mixes false things with true; so that under the appearance of truth he may cloak a testimony of fraud.

103. Let us also consider this, whether he first gave this command to the disciples here, that they should tell no one that he was the Christ: or whether he had commanded it even before, when he sent forth the twelve apostles, declaring to them: Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and enter not into the cities of the Samaritans: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; heal the sick; cleanse the lepers, cast out devils; and into whatsoever city you shall enter, learn who in it is worthy, and there abide. And so here too it does not appear to have been commanded that they should preach Christ the Son of God.

104. The order of the discussion, then, is the order of the treatment; and therefore we also, when some from among the Gentiles are called to the Church, ought so to shape the sequence of our teachings, that first we teach that there is one God, the author of the world and of all things, in whom we live, and move, and have our being, whose offspring also we are; so that not only for the gifts of light and life, but also on account of a certain kinship of race, he ought to be loved by us. Then let us destroy that opinion which concerns idols; so that the material of gold and silver or wood cannot have divine power in itself.

When you have persuaded them that there is one God, then you shall establish by his judgment that salvation has been given us through Christ; beginning from those things which he did in the body, and describing those things as divine, so that he may seem to have been more than a man, death having been conquered by the power of one man, and the dead man raised up from the underworld; for faith grows little by little, so that when he seems to have been above men, he may be believed to be God. For unless you have proved that he could not have done those things without divine power, how can you prove that there was divine power in him?

105. But perhaps too little authority and credibility will be granted to us: read the speech of the Apostle delivered among the Athenians, who, if he had wished from the very start to destroy the ceremonies of idols, the ears of the Gentiles would have rejected his speech.

He begins therefore from the one God, the maker of the world, saying: God who made the world, and all things that are in it. It could not be denied that there is one maker of the world, one God, one creator of all things. He added to this that the Lord of heaven and earth does not deign to dwell in things made by hand. Then, that it is by no means likely that within the hollow material of gold and silver, fashioned by the craft of man, the power of divinity is enclosed: teaching that the remedy for error is the pursuit of repentance. Then he comes to Christ, and yet preferred to call him man rather than God, saying: In a man whom he has appointed, he has given faith to all, raising him from the dead. For he who is teaching ought to consider the persons of his hearers; lest he be mocked before he is heard.

For how could the Athenians believe that the Word was made flesh, and that the Virgin conceived of the Holy Spirit, when they mocked because they had heard of the resurrection of the dead? Yet Dionysius the Areopagite believed, and others believed in the man; so that they might believe in God. What does it matter in what order each one comes to believe? Perfect things are not sought at the beginnings: but from beginnings one arrives at the things that are perfect. Therefore he instructed the Athenians by such a precept: such is the order that must be observed by us among the Gentiles.

106. But indeed, when the apostles spoke to the Jews, they said that he himself was the Christ who had been promised to us by the prophetic oracles: whom they did not at once by their own authority name the Son of God: but a man approved, a just man, a man raised from the dead, that man of whom it is said in the prophets: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee (xiii, 33, from). So, then, do you also, for those things which are difficult to be believed, take up the authority of the divine word, and mark out his promised coming by the voice of the prophets: also teach the resurrection, long before discovered, by the testimonies of the Scriptures, not as something usual and common with the rest; so that in the very assertion of the raised body you may acquire testimony of eternal divinity.

For when you have proved that the bodies of others underwent corruption after death, this man surely, of whom it is said: Thou shalt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption, you prove to be exempt from human frailty, you prove to have surpassed the merits of the human condition, to be reckoned with God rather than with men.

107. But if a catechumen, tending toward the sacraments of the faithful, is to be instructed, it must be said that there is one God from whom are all things, and one Jesus Christ through whom are all things: that two lords are not to be spoken of: that the Father is indeed perfect, and the Son also is perfect; but that the Father and the Son are of one substance: the eternal Word of the eternal God, not what is uttered, but what operates; begotten of the Father, not brought forth by a voice. The apostles, therefore, are forbidden to preach him as the Son of God, so that afterward they might preach him crucified.

This is the glory of faith, if you truly understand the cross of Christ. Other crosses profit me nothing, only the cross of Christ is useful to me, and truly useful, By which the world is crucified to me, and I to the world. If the world has been crucified to me, I know that it is dead, I do not love it; I know that it passes away, I do not desire it; I know that decay consumes this world, I avoid it as a foul thing, I shun it as a plague, I abandon it as something that will do harm.

108. But not immediately can some believe, through the cross, that salvation has been poured back upon the world. Establish, then, through the histories of the Greeks that this was possible, just as the Apostle sometimes even persuades unbelievers: nor does he shrink from poetic

so as to overturn the fables of the poets.

For if it be recalled to memory that the histories of the Greeks assert that legions, and often great peoples, were freed by the offering of the deaths of certain persons: if one recalls that the emperor's daughter was summoned for sacrifice on account of the Greek armies needing to be transported: if we consider that thing of ours, that The blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled, sanctifies the defiled unto the cleansing of the flesh, as it is written to the Hebrews: if a pestilence contracted by certain peoples of a region on account of sins is asserted to have been dissolved by the death of some one person; whatever has prevailed by reasoning, or grown strong by arrangement, whereby it might more easily be believed regarding the cross of the Lord: it will be an easy matter that those who cannot deny their own things, should confirm ours.

109. But since no man could be so great as to take away the sins of the whole world, neither Enoch, nor Abraham, nor Isaac, who, although he offered himself to death, was nevertheless spared

because he could not abolish all sins (for what man is so great, in whom the sins of all could die?) therefore not one from the common people, not one from the crowd, but the Son of God was chosen by God the Father, who, since he was above all, could offer himself for all: who had to die, so that, being stronger than death, he might free others, Made free among the dead without help, that is, without the assistance of man, or of any creature, free from death. And rightly free, he who repelled the servitude of desires, and knew not the chains of death.

. But I say to you, truly there are some standing here who shall not taste death, till they see the kingdom of God.

The Lord always, just as he lifts men up toward the future rewards of the virtues, and teaches that contempt of worldly things is useful, so also sustains the weakness of the human mind with the recompense of things present. For indeed it is arduous to take up the cross, and to expose the soul to dangers, the body to death: to deny what you are, since you wish to be what you are not; and rarely, however lofty the virtue, does it exchange things present for things future. For it seems difficult to men to buy hope with dangers: and to purchase, at the loss of present things, the gain of a future age. Therefore, being a good and moral teacher, lest anyone be broken by despair or weariness, since the sweet enticement of life also soothes even the constant affection, he promises to the faithful continuous successes in living: for consolations grow cold under the fear of death, and the great love of life scarcely compensates, with the blandishments of hope, for the terror of the desired salvation.

You have, therefore, nothing to complain of, nothing to excuse: the arbiter of all things has given both a reward to virtue, and a remedy to weakness; so that weakness may be sustained by present things, virtue by future things. If you are strong, despise death: if you are weak, flee. But no one can flee death, unless he follows life. Your life is Christ, he himself is the life which knows not how to die.

And so, if we wish not to fear death, let us stand where Christ is; so that of us also it may be said: Truly there are some standing here who shall not taste death. It is not enough to stand, unless one stands where Christ is; for only those cannot taste death who are able to stand with Christ. In this it is permitted, from the very quality of the word itself, to consider that not even a slight sense of death will belong to those who seem to have deserved the fellowship of Christ. Certainly, let the death of the body be tasted only by a light touch, but let the life of the soul be held in possession.

But what is it to taste death?

Lest perhaps, just as bread is life, so also bread may be death; for there are those who eat the bread of sorrow: there are also peoples of the Ethiopians who took a dragon for their food. Far be it from us to devour the venom of the dragon; for we have the true bread, that bread which came down from heaven. He eats that bread who keeps the things that are written. There are, then, those who do not taste death, until they see the kingdom of God. There are also those who do not see death, as it is written: What man is he that shall live, and not see death?

But who is the man that does not die, since there can be no resurrection unless one has died?

Although we have received no report of bodily death for Enoch and Elijah, and although the Lord said of John the Evangelist: "So I will him to remain till I come"; yet since we do not think this was expressed of John alone, but is a general precept concerning many, here death is denied not to the body, but to the soul. For there are those who, though dead, live; since there are those who, though living, are dead, as that widow who, living, is dead, as it is written: "Let death come upon them, and let them go down into hell alive".

If then someone living descends into hell (for one dead through sin descends into the dwelling-place of hell), there are surely some for whom, even in the death of the body, the order of living has not been interrupted, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom we find to be living by the authority of the divine sentence; since, since He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Therefore he speaks not of one, but of several; for Peter did not die, against whom, according to the Lord's saying, the gates of hell could not prevail. Nor did James and John, the sons of thunder, die, for whom, taken up for the enjoyment of heavenly glory, earthly things do not prevail, but lie subject. Be you then also, Peter, devout, faithful, peaceable, that you may open the gates of the Church, and escape the gates of death. Be a son of thunder. You say: How can I be a son of thunder? You can be, if you recline not on the earth, but on the breast of Christ. You can be a son of thunder if earthly things do not move you, but rather you yourself shake those things which are earthly by the strength of your mind. Let the earth tremble at you, not seize you; let the flesh fear the power of your soul, and, shaken, submit to it.

You will be a son of thunder, if you shall have been a son of the Church.

Let Christ say to you also from the gibbet of the cross: "Behold your mother". Let Him say also to the Church: "Behold your son"; for then you begin to be a son of the Church, when you have seen Christ victor on the cross. For he who thinks the cross a stumbling-block is a Jew, not a son of the Church; he who thinks the cross foolishness is a Greek. But he is a son of the Church who thinks the cross a triumph, who recognizes the cross of Christ triumphing. Therefore, that you may know that Peter, James, and John did not taste death, they merited to see the glory of the resurrection; for these three alone, after these words, about eight days later, He took and led into the mountain. What does he mean by saying: "About eight days after these words"?

Perhaps because he who hears the words of Christ and believes will see the glory of Christ at the time of resurrection; for the resurrection took place on the eighth day; whence also many psalms are inscribed "for the eighth". Or perhaps to show us that he meant to say that which above, in book VI, no. 99, he had called mortal sin. Because he had said that he who for the sake of the word of God shall have lost his soul, shall save it; since He restores His promises in the resurrection.

But Matthew and Mark have recorded that these were taken up after six days.

Concerning which we might say, after six thousand years; for a thousand years in the sight of God are as one day: but more than six thousand years are reckoned; and we prefer to understand the six days symbolically, because in six days the works of the world were created; that through the time we may understand the works, through the works the world. And therefore, when the times of the world are fulfilled, the future resurrection is shown: or because he who has ascended above the world, and has transcended the moments of this age, as though placed on high, will await the eternal fruit of the future resurrection.

Let us then transcend the works of the world, that we may be able to see God face to face.

"Ascend into the mountain, you who bring good tidings to Sion". If he ascends into the mountain who brings good tidings to Sion, how much more he who preaches Christ, and Christ rising into glory? For perhaps many saw Him in the body; for we have known Christ according to the flesh, many of us: but now we know Him so no longer.

Many of us have known Him, because many of us have seen Him.

"We saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness". But three alone, three chosen, are led into the mountain. I would think the race of men was mystically comprehended in the three; since from the three sons of Noah the whole human race flowed forth, were it not that I discern them to be chosen. Or perhaps because only those of all men shall merit to attain the grace of the resurrection who shall have confessed Christ; since the impious do not rise unto judgment, but are punished as though judgment had already been held. Three, then, are chosen to ascend the mountain; since two also are chosen who are seen with the Lord. On both sides a consecrated number. And this perhaps for the reason that no one can see the glory of the resurrection except one who shall have kept the whole mystery of the Trinity with the uncorrupted sincerity of faith.

Peter ascends, who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven: John also, to whom the Lord's mother is committed: James also, who was first to ascend the priestly throne. Then appear Moses and Elijah, that is, the Law and prophecy with the Word; for the Law cannot be without the Word, nor can there be a prophet, except one who has prophesied concerning the Son of God. And those sons of thunder indeed beheld with bodily glory Moses also and Elijah; but we too see Moses daily with the Son of God; for we see the Law in the Gospel when we read: "You shall love the Lord your God". We see Elijah with the Word of God, when we read: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb". Whence Luke rightly added, that: They spoke of His decease which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem.

For the mysteries teach you concerning His decease. And today Moses teaches, and today Elijah speaks, and today we can see Moses in greater glory. For why can he not, when even the people of the Jews could see him—indeed did see him? For they saw the glory in the face of Moses: but they received a veil, but did not ascend the mountain. And therefore they erred, because they saw Moses alone, and could not see the Word of God at the same time.

Let us then unveil our face; that with unveiled face beholding the glory of God, we may be transformed into the same image.

Let us ascend the mountain, let us entreat the Word of God; that He may appear to us in His form and beauty, and be strengthened, and go forward prosperously, and reign.

For these too are mysteries, and are related in a higher sense; for according to your capacity the Word is either diminished for you, or increases, and unless you ascend the summit of a higher understanding, wisdom does not appear to you, the knowledge of the mysteries does not appear to you, it does not appear to you how great is the glory, how great the beauty in the Word of God: but the Word of God appears as it were something in a body, having no form of His own, nor comeliness, and He appears as it were a man in affliction, who could bear our infirmities: He appears to you as though a word born of man, covered with the wrappings of letters, not shining forth with the power of the Spirit. But if, while you consider the man, you believe Him to have been begotten of the Virgin, and gradually faith breathes forth that He was born of the Spirit of God, you begin to ascend the mountain.

If you see Him placed on the cross, triumphing over death, not destroyed: if you see that the earth trembled, the sun fled away, darkness was poured over the eyes of the faithless, tombs were opened, the dead arose; so that it might be a sign that the gentile people, who had been dead to God, as though the tombs of their body had been unlocked, rose again by the infused light of the cross: if you see this mystery, you have ascended into the high mountain, you behold another glory of the Word.

His garments are some below, some above.

And perhaps the garments of the Word are the words of the Scriptures, and certain garments of divine understanding; because, just as He Himself appeared to Peter, John, and James in another form, and His raiment shone white

so also to the eyes of your mind the sense of the divine readings now grows white.

Thus divine words become as snow, the garments of the Word exceedingly white, such as no fuller upon earth can make.

Let us seek this fuller, let us seek this snow.

We read that Isaiah went up to the fuller's field. Who is this fuller, unless perhaps He who is accustomed to wash our sins? For He Himself said: "If your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow". Who is this fuller, but He who washes the garments of our understanding, and clothes us with the garments of virtues, and, the bodily stains being washed away, is accustomed to offer us to the divine Sun?

I have heard also (that we may take an example against them from contrary things) that the eloquence of two wise men has been compared to snow and to bees. I have found too that David said: "How sweet are Your words to my throat, above honey and the honeycomb to my mouth"! And below: "Your word is a lamp to my feet, O Lord, and a light to my paths". The word of God is light, the word of God is snow. The word of God is also above honey and the honeycomb, since from the divine mouth a discourse flowed sweeter than honey, and, clear as snow, its words fall with milder sentences. Truly this alone is the discourse to be compared to snows, which, sent from heaven to earth, made fruitful the parched fields of our breasts.

That this is not presumptuously assumed, but derived from the sequence of the reading, God Himself testifies, saying: "Let my speech be awaited as the rain, and let my words descend as the dew, as a shower upon the grass, and as snow upon the hay".

Would that, Lord Jesus, my mind might grow green with the moisture of Your rain: would that You would sprinkle my earth with the whiteness of this snow; lest, with the too hasty heat of a flourishing body, the fields grow wanton, but rather that, under the warmth of the snow, the seeds of the heavenly word, being pressed down, might be made fruitful! When the snow falls, the birds of the air have nowhere to dwell, and the harvest of wheat abounds more plentifully than usual. Peter saw this grace, and those who were with him saw it too, though they had been weighed down with sleep; for the incomprehensible splendor of divinity oppresses the senses of our body. For if the bodily sight cannot bear the ray of the sun, coming directly before the eyes of those who gaze on it; how would the corruption of human members bear the glory of God? And therefore, purer and more subtle, once the concretion of vices is exhausted, the condition of the body is formed in the resurrection.

And perhaps they were weighed down with sleep for this reason, that they might see the form of the resurrection after rest.

Thus, waking, they saw His majesty; for no one but one who is awake sees the glory of Christ. Peter was delighted, and he whom the allurements of this age could not capture, the grace of the resurrection enticed. "It is good," he says, "for us to be here" (hence also holy Paul says: "for to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, is much better"), and not content with having praised, being more excellent not only in affection but also in the devotion of deeds, as a diligent workman he promises the ministry of common service for building three tabernacles. And although he did not know what he was saying, still he was promising a service: whereby it was not rash impetuousness, but premature devotion, that heaped up the fruits of piety. For that which he did not know was of his condition; that which he promised was of his devotion.

But human condition does not admit, in this corruptible, in this mortal body, of making a tabernacle for God.

Whether in the soul, or in the body, or in some other place, refrain from seeking what is not permitted to know. If Peter did not know, how can you know? If he did not know—he who made the promise, and whose greatness of soul did not know the boundaries of the body—how can we know, shut in, by a certain sluggishness of mind, within the enclosure of the flesh? At last, so great a devotion pleased God. And while he spoke these things, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them.

This overshadowing is of the divine Spirit, which does not darken the affections of men, but reveals hidden things. This was also found in another place, the angel saying: "And the power of the Most High shall overshadow you". Its effect is shown, the voice of God being heard, saying: "This is My beloved Son, hear Him."

That is, not Elijah the son, not Moses the son: but this is the Son, whom alone you see; for they had withdrawn when the Lord began to be pointed out. You see that this faith is not only that of the foolish, but even of the perfect, indeed even of the heavenly beings, to be perfect—namely, to know that he is the Son of God. But since we have already spoken of this above, understand that this cloud is not one condensed from the misty moisture of smoking mountains, nor the pitch-black darkness of compressed air, which overspreads the sky with dread of shadows; but a bright cloud, which does not wet us with rain-waters and the flood of a moist shower; but from which, when the voice of Almighty God was sent forth, the dew of faith watered the minds of men. And while the voice was being uttered, Jesus was found alone.

Thus, whereas there had been three, one was made.

Three appear in the beginning, one at the end; for in their perfection at the end they are one. Finally, the Lord also asks this of the Father, that we all may be one. Nor are Moses and Elijah alone made one in Christ, but we too are one body of Christ. Therefore they too are, as it were, received into the body of Christ; because we too shall be one in Christ Jesus. Or perhaps because the Law and the prophet come from the Word: and what began from the Word ends in the Word: for Christ is the end of the Law, unto righteousness for everyone who believes. Foxes have dens, and the birds of the air have nests, where they may rest: but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

It does not seem consistent with reason that we should judge this man to be simple and faithful, since he is rejected by the Lord's judgment, though he had promised the service of unwearied attendance: but the Lord seeks not the appearance of service, but purity of affection. Finally, above he says: Whoever receives this child in my name.

In this place the Lord teaches that simplicity must be without arrogance, charity without envy, devotion without wrath: for the mind of the child is urged to be received with the affection of one more mature; because while the child claims nothing for himself, he follows the pattern of virtue: and even if he does not know reason, he is ignorant of fault. Yet because to many simplicity without reason seems not virtue but weakness, you are admonished so to receive true simplicity, that is, that you diligently carry out the gift of nature. And therefore he says: Whoever receives this child in my name, receives me. And whoever receives me, receives him who sent me.

For whoever receives an imitator of Christ receives Christ: and whoever receives the image of God, receives God. But because we could not see the image of God, his presence was made to us through the incarnation of the Word; that the divinity which is above us might be reconciled to us.

As for the fact that John, loving very greatly with the more eager zeal of charity, and therefore greatly loved in return, thinks that one who does not make use of his service should be excluded from the benefit, he is rightly not rebuked, but instructed: he is not rebuked, because he was acting from love, but he is instructed; that he might know the difference between the weak and the strong. And therefore the Lord, even though he rewards the stronger, does not exclude the weak. Let them alone, and do not forbid them; for he who is not against you is for you.

Well said, Lord, for even Joseph and Nicodemus, secret disciples through fear, nevertheless in due time did not deny you their service.

But yet, because elsewhere you said: He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters; open this to us, lest it seem to be contrary. And I think that if anyone considers you the searcher of minds, he ought not to doubt that the deed of each one is discerned by its intention. Finally, to one he says, follow me: to another, foxes have dens. The one is compelled, the other is turned away; that you may know that the devoted is admitted, the undevoted excluded. As for his rebuking the disciples because they were eager for fire to come down upon those who had not received Christ: it is shown to us that vengeance need not always be taken upon those who have sinned; because sometimes clemency profits more for your own patience, and for the correction of the fallen (23, q. 4, cap. Quod Christus).

Finally, the Samaritans believed more readily, from whom in this passage fire is withheld.

Learn at the same time that he was unwilling to be received by those whom he knew had not been converted with simple mind; for if he had wished, he would have made the undevoted devoted. But why they did not receive him, the evangelist himself has recorded, saying: Because his face was set toward Jerusalem. The disciples, however, were eager to be received within Samaria: but God calls whom he deigns to call, and makes religious whom he wills. Nor do the disciples sin who follow the Law; for they knew both that Phinehas was reckoned unto righteousness, because he had slain the sacrilegious, and that at the prayers of Elijah fire had come down from heaven, that the wrong done to the prophet might be avenged: but let him be avenged who fears; he who does not fear seeks no vengeance.

At the same time it is shown to us that the merits of the prophets were present in the apostles; since they presume by right to obtain for themselves the same power which the great prophet had merited. And they rightly presume that fire would descend from heaven at their word; since they are sons of thunder.

But the Lord wonderfully manages everything: he neither received the one who rashly offered himself, nor is he moved against those who devoutly refused the Lord for themselves; that he might show that perfect virtue has no zeal for vengeance: nor is there any wrath where there is fullness of charity: nor should weakness be excluded, but helped. Far from the religious be indignation: far from the great-souled be desire for vengeance: far also from the prudent be inconsiderate association, and unwary simplicity. Whence to that man also it is said: Foxes have dens: nor is the service of one admitted whose office is not proved. For the hospitality of faith ought to be circumspect; lest, while we open the inner chambers of our house to the unfaithful, we fall by improvident credulity into the snares of another's treachery.

But lest we seem to have passed over this incautiously, why here he denies that those who can, by the laying on of hands, command unclean spirits in the name of Jesus, should be forbidden: while according to Matthew he says to these: I never knew you: depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. We ought to observe that there is no discrepancy of sense, nor disagreement of meaning: but this is to be judged from the fact that not only the work of office is required in clerics, but also the work of virtue; and that the name of Christ is of such power that it aids even those of little sanctity as a defense; even though it does not aid them unto grace. Whence no one ought to boast, nor claim for himself the grace of a purified man, in whom the power of the eternal name, not any capability of human frailty, has worked; for the devil is not conquered by your merit, but by hatred of himself.

Let man show forth sincere faith, so far as he can, and let him guard the observance of the commandments with a religious mind; lest it be said to him: Foxes have dens. For that deceitful animal, always intent on ambush, practices the plunder of fraud. It suffers nothing to be safe, nothing at rest, nothing to be secure, seeking its prey even among the very dwellings of men.

He compares heretics to foxes. Finally, while he calls the Gentiles, he excludes heretics. For the fox is an animal full of deceit, preparing a den, and always desiring to lurk in the den: so are heretics, who know not how to prepare a house for themselves, but strive by their trickery to deceive others. Jacob dwells in a house: the heretic is in a den, like the deceitful fox always plotting treachery against that evangelical hen, of whom it is written: How often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not? Behold, your house is left to you desolate. Rightly then do they have dens, because they have lost the house they once had. This animal is never tamed; whence the Apostle also says: Avoid a heretic after one admonition: nor is it of any use, or fit for food; for Christ does not speak of this when he says: My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Indeed he even banishes them from among fruit-bearers: Take us the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, that is, that lay waste the lesser vineyard, not the greater. And therefore Samson tied torches to their tails, and let them loose into the harvests of the foreigners (Judges 15:4); because heretics strive to burn up the fruits of others, barking louder than they speak with a polished voice (for he who denies the Word has no voice), for the present with free mouth, but in the future with the tail already bound for the end, signifying by the torches the burning of their own end.

The birds of the air also, which are frequently applied by way of likeness to spiritual wickedness, build, as it were, certain nests in the hearts of the wicked; and therefore the Son of man

because iniquity has abounded, has nowhere to lay his head. For indeed, when cunning holds sway, since there is no place for simplicity, there can be no possession of divinity in the affections of individuals: for the head of Christ is God, who, when he has found a mind proved guiltless, rests upon it, so to speak, the power of his majesty: which seems to be shown by the fact that a certain more abundant grace is instilled into the hearts of the good. So that you may understand that God spurns not worship, but fraud: he who had rejected the deceitful chose the innocent, saying: Follow me. But he said this to one whose father he already knew to be dead—that same father of whom it was said to him: Forget your father's house.

See therefore that the Lord calls even the imprudent, those whom he pities, and to one asking leave for his father's burial he answered: Let the dead bury their dead: but go you, and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Since we have received the duty of burial as a religious office, why is even the burial of one's own father's funeral forbidden here, unless that you should understand that human things are to be set below divine things? A good pursuit, but a greater hindrance; for he who divides his zeal, diverts his affection: and he who divides his care, delays his progress. Therefore what is greatest must be attended to first; for the apostles also, lest they occupy their zeal with distribution, ordained ministers for the poor: and to them, when they were sent by the Lord, it was prescribed to greet no one on the way: not because the office of benevolence was displeasing, but because the intention of pursuing devotion was more pleasing.

But how can the dead bury the dead, unless when the corpse is buried by the unfaithful, whose heart has so lost its soul, as their souls have lost God? Or is it

because a twofold death is here to be understood, one of nature, the other of guilt? There is also a third death, in which we die to sin, and live to God, as Christ, who died to sin: For in that he died, he died to sin once; but in that he lives, he lives to God.

There is therefore one death, by which the union of body and soul is separated, not to be dreaded, not to be feared; since it seems to be a certain departure from ourselves, not a punishment: not to be feared by the brave, to be desired by the wise, to be sought by the wretched, of which it is said: Men shall seek death, and shall not find it.

There is also another death, which brings the destruction of worldly pleasures: in which it is not nature but sins that die.

We undergo this death when we attain it by baptism, and are dead with Christ to the elements of this world, when we suffer forgetfulness of our former conduct. Balaam desired this death when he prophesied, that he might live to God, and therefore said: Let my soul die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like theirs.

There is also a third death, when Christ, who is our life, is not known: but to know Christ is life everlasting, which is now present to the just as in a shadow, but in the future will be face to face; for the Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord, of whom it is said: In his shadow we live among the nations. In the shadow of his wings David hoped, in his shadow the Church desired, and sat down.

If your shadow, Lord Jesus, confers so much, how much more, surely, will the truth bring?

How shall we live, when we shall no longer be in the shadow, but in life itself? For now our life is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ, it says, shall appear, who is our life, then we also shall appear with him in glory. Sweet is that life which has no death: but this life of the body has a death from the transgression of nature, which is often even desired. The soul too often has a death from the stain of sin: For the soul that sins, it shall die. But when, strengthened by the firmness of blessedness, it begins to be no longer subject to sin, it will no longer be mortal, but will lay hold on eternal life.

Let us hasten to this life, brethren, mournful in the world

because we are on pilgrimage away from the Lord; for he who is not a pilgrim away from the body, is a pilgrim away from the Lord. But it is much better to be dissolved from the body, and to cleave to God; that we too may be one with almighty God, and may see the only-begotten Son of God, taken up through the glory of the resurrection into the brightness of nature, and having imitated, by the everlasting bond of inviolable concord of souls, the unity of lasting peace; that what the Son of God promised to the Father concerning us in prayer may be fulfilled: That they also may be one, as we also are one.

The burial of a father's funeral, then, is not forbidden, but the devotion of divine religion is set before the bond of kinship: the former is left to those who share the same condition, the latter is enjoined upon the elect. Or, because the open sepulchre is the throat of the impious, the remembrance of those is prescribed to be abolished whose merit dies together with the body; nor is the son recalled from his duty to his father, but the faithful one is separated from communion with the faithless one.

For there is a certain proper burial of the just, such as that of which it is said: For she, in pouring this ointment upon my body, has done it to bury me; and therefore he who in good faith buries Christ within himself, that he may rise with him, ought not to bury the perfidy of the devil within himself.

There is also that prophetic saying, that we should set certain things over the graves of our elders, which you, reader, recognize, but which the unfaithful ought not to understand: not that food or drink is commanded, but that the venerable communion of the sacred offering is revealed. Therefore it is not the mystery of a gift but of religion that is forbidden, namely that we shall not have communion with the dead among the Gentiles. For since the sacraments are of the living, the dead—who have life—are not seen to be excluded. Behold, I send you as lambs among wolves.

He speaks to the seventy disciples, those whom he designated, and sent two by two before his face. And for what reason did he send them two by two? Because the animals were sent into the ark two by two, that is, male with female: unclean by number, but cleansed by the sacrament of the Church. This was fulfilled by the oracle which holy Peter received, the Holy Spirit saying to him: What God has cleansed, do not call common. And he noted that this was said concerning the Gentiles, who followed the succession of bodily generation more than the grace of the spirit. These the Lord cleansed, and made heirs of his passion.

Sending, therefore, the disciples into his harvest, which, although sown with the word of God, still required the labor of cultivation and the anxious duty of work; lest the birds of the sky scatter the seeds sown, thus: Behold, I send you as lambs among wolves.

These are animals contrary to one another, such that some are devoured by others.

But the good shepherd has not learned to fear wolves for his flock: and so these disciples are directed not to prey, but to grace; for the vigilance of the good shepherd brings it about that wolves can dare nothing against the lambs. He sends, therefore, lambs among wolves, that this may be fulfilled: Then the wolves and the lambs shall feed together.

And since a treatment concerning the fox has lately turned out not unpleasing for us, if I have found your judgment faithful in the figure of a rather small creature, I presume that I may be able, with the support of your zeal, to open up the deep mysteries which are veiled under the appearance of wolves. We have shown above that heretics are signified under the appearance of foxes, who promise in name that they follow Christ, but in their zeal for deceit abjure him. These the Lord does not receive, but keeps away and forbids from his nest. What the wolves seem to signify we must consider.

They are indeed beasts which lie in wait for the sheepfolds, hover about the shepherds' huts, do not dare to enter the dwellings of the houses, watch for the sleep of the dogs, the absence or negligence of the shepherd, seize the throat of the sheep so as to strangle them quickly: they are fierce, rapacious, and by nature more rigid of body; so that they cannot easily bend themselves, they are carried along by a certain impetus of their own, and so are often deceived. Then, moreover, if they see a man first, they are said, by a certain force of nature, to snatch away his voice: but if the man sees them first, they are said to be put to flight. And therefore I must take care lest, if in today's discourse the grace of spiritual mysteries should fail to shine forth, the wolves be believed to have seen me first, and to have wrenched away the customary support of my voice.

Are not heretics to be compared to these wolves, who lie in wait for the sheepfolds of Christ, and howl around the pens more at night than by day? For it is always night for the faithless, who strive to cover over the light of Christ with the clouds of a savage interpretation, and to darken it as far as lies in them. They hover, then, about the pens; yet they do not dare to enter the stables of Christ. And therefore they are not healed, because Christ does not wish to bring them into his stable, in which that man was cured who, going down from Jerusalem, fell among robbers: whom, having bound his wounds and poured on oil and wine, that Samaritan set upon his own beast and led into the stable, and left to be healed by the innkeeper They do not receive medicine, therefore, who do not seek the physician; for if they sought him, they would not disparage him.

They watch for the absence of the shepherd, and therefore strive either to kill the shepherds of the Churches, or to drive them into exile

because while the shepherds are present, they cannot attack the sheep of Christ. Robbers, therefore, try to plunder the flock of the Lord, who, being hard and rigid with a certain corporeal intent of mind, are by no means accustomed to be turned from their error. And therefore the Apostle says: A man that is a heretic, after one admonition, avoid, knowing that he who is such is subverted. These the true interpreter of Scripture, Christ, mocks; so that they pour out their empty assaults in vain, and cannot do harm.

These, if they have gotten ahead of anyone by the crafty circumvention of their disputation, make him mute; for he is mute who does not confess the Word of God with the glory

that is his due. Take care, therefore, that a heretic not take away your voice, if he is not detected by you before he detects you; for his perfidy creeps while it lies hidden: but if you have recognized the fabrications of his impiety, you need not fear the loss of your devout voice. Beware, then, of the poisons of crafty disputation: they aim at the soul, they seize the throat, they inflict a wound on the vital parts. Grave are the bites of heretics, who, more grievous and more rapacious than the very beasts themselves, know no limit of greed or impiety.

Nor let it move you that they seem to put forward human form: even if outwardly a man is seen, within a beast growls.

And so there is no doubt that they are wolves, according to the divine sentence of the Lord Jesus, who says: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing: but inwardly they are ravening wolves; by their fruits you shall know them. If anyone, then, is moved by appearance, let him ask about the fruit. You hear someone called a priest; you recognize his rapine. He has the clothing of a sheep, the deeds of a robber. Outwardly a sheep, within he is a wolf: who has no measure of his plunderings, who, as though hardened in the Scythian night by frost, with bloody mouth, flies around seeking whom he may devour. Does he not seem to you a wolf, who desires to satisfy his rabid fury with the death of faithful peoples, by an insatiable cruelty for human slaughter?

He howls, he does not discourse, who denies the author of the voice, and with sacrilegious speech mingles a bestial murmur, who does not confess the Lord Jesus to be the ruler of eternal life. We have heard his howlings, when the sword was sent throughout the world. He showed rough teeth, a swollen mouth, and thought that he had taken away the voice of all, which he alone had lost. And so, that we may be able to flee these wolves, the Lord teaches what we should follow, saying:

Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes.

What it means, that the purse is not to be carried, he has expressed clearly elsewhere; for Matthew wrote that the Lord said to the disciples: Do not possess gold, nor silver. If we are forbidden to possess gold, why should we snatch, why take away? If you are commanded to give away what you have, how do you heap up what you did not have? You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal? You who say one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you commit sacrilege? You who glory in the Law, do you dishonor God through transgression of the Law? For the name of God is blasphemed through you.

Not so the apostle Peter, who, the first executor of the Lord's sentence, that he might show that the Lord's commandments had not been given in vain; when he was asked by a poor man to bestow some money upon him, said: Silver and gold I have not. He glories that he has no silver nor gold: is it a shame to you to have even less than you desire? There is, then, a poverty that is glorious; for it is also blessed, as it is written: Blessed are the poor in spirit. Yet Peter does not so much glory in this, that he has no silver and gold, as in this, that he keeps the commandment of the Lord, who commanded: Do not possess gold; that is to say: Do you see that I am a disciple of Christ, and do you require gold of me? He has given us something far more precious than gold, that we may work in his name.

And so I do not have what he did not give, but I have what he did give: In the name of the Lord Jesus, rise, and walk.

As, then, he who wishes to build barns for the heaping up of grain is reproved by the authority of the Lord's sentence: so he who wishes to prepare a purse for storing gold incurs the stain of reproof.

Nor scrip, nor shoes.

Both are usually made from the hide of a dead animal: but the Lord Jesus wishes nothing mortal to be in us. Finally, he says to Moses: Loose the shoe from off your feet; for the place on which you stand is holy ground. Mortal and earthly footwear, then, is bidden to be loosed, when he was being sent to free the people; for the minister of this office ought to fear nothing, nor be held back from the office he has undertaken by the danger of death. For he himself, when he had voluntarily taken up the defense of his brethren, that is, of the Jews, was turned back from his undertaking by the terror of a false accusation, and fled out of Egypt. And so when the Lord had approved his disposition, but had seen his condition to be weak, he judged that the vestige of mortal bonds ought to be stripped from his mind and spirit.

But if anyone is troubled as to why, in Egypt, they are commanded to eat the lamb shod, while the apostles, on the other hand, are sent to preach the Gospel without shoes, he ought to consider that one placed in Egypt must still beware of the serpent's bite; for there are many poisons in Egypt, and he who celebrates the passover in its type can be exposed to wounding: but he who is a minister of the truth blunts the poisons, he does not tremble. Finally, a viper bit Paul on the island of Melita, and the inhabitants of that place, seeing the viper hanging from his hand, thought that he would die: but when they saw him stand unharmed, they said he was a god, since the poison could do him no harm And that you may know this to be true, the Lord himself says: Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.

The apostles are not bidden to take rods in hand; for Matthew thought it should be so written.

But what is a rod, except a mark of power set forward, and an instrument of the pain of vengeance? Therefore, in the humility of the Lord (for in humility his judgment was taken away), the humble, I say, precept of the Lord his disciples fulfill through the offices of humility; for he sent them to sow the faith, men who should not compel, but teach: who should not exert powers, but raise up the teaching of humility. In this passage he thought that patience also should be joined to humility; because he himself too, according to the testimony of Peter, when he was reviled, did not revile again: when he was struck, did not strike back (I Peter II, 23). This, then, is what it means to say: Be imitators of me, lay aside zeal for revenge, scourge the insolence of those who strike you, not by the retort of injury, but by the magnanimity of patience.

No one ought to imitate what he himself reproves in another: gentleness inflicts graver wounds upon obstinacy.

With this fist did the Lord strike back the one who struck him, saying: Whoever strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also. For it comes about that a man condemns himself by his own judgment, and is pricked by a certain sting of his own feeling, when he perceives that the diligence rendered to him is a response to the injury which he himself did.

Yet he has some to whom he even sent apostles with a rod, as Paul testifies, saying: What will you, that I come to you with a rod, or in charity and the spirit of meekness? This rod the Apostle also gave to Timothy, saying: Reprove, beseech, rebuke. Or perhaps before the Lord's passion, which confirmed the wavering hearts of the peoples, gentleness alone was necessary; after the passion, correction. Certainly let the Lord soothe, let Paul rebuke: let him who can, persuade even hard breasts to soften; let him who cannot persuade all things, reprove. Paul therefore had taken up the rod from the teaching of the Law. For he had read: He who spares the rod hates his son. He had also read that those eating the lamb were commanded by prophetic precept to have a staff in their hands. And therefore the Lord in the Old Testament says: I will visit their iniquities with a rod.

But in the New Testament he offered himself, that he might forgive all, saying: If you seek me, let these go their way.

And elsewhere you have it that when the apostles wished to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans, who would not receive the Lord Jesus into their city: Turning, he rebuked them, and said: You know not of what spirit you are; for the Son of man came not to destroy men's souls, but to save them.

The perfect, then, are governed without a rod; the weaker eat with a staff.

But Paul too indeed threatens the rod: yet he visits offenders in the spirit of meekness. Finally, that you may know the teacher to be gentle, he consults the will of those very ones whom he rebukes: What will you, he says, that I come to you with a rod, or in charity and the spirit of meekness? Once he named the rod, twice he added the gentler things, adding meekness to charity. Yet first he threatened the rod, but he showed gentleness; for in the second epistle written to the same Corinthians he says: I call God to witness upon my soul, that to spare you I came not again to Corinth. Hear for what reason he thought sparing was needed: Lest, he says, I should come again in sorrow to you. He cast aside the rod, and took up the affection of charity. And salute no man by the way.

Perhaps to some this may seem harsh and proud, and not befitting the precept of the gentle and humble Lord, that he who commanded even that place at table should be yielded, here bids his disciples: Salute no man by the way; since this is a common courtesy of grace. Thus inferiors are accustomed to win the favor of their superiors for themselves. The Gentiles too have such exchanges of courtesies with Christians. How then does the Lord tear away this custom of humanity?

But consider that it is not only this: Salute no man: but it is not added in vain, By the way.

For indeed Elisha too, when he sent his servant to lay his staff upon the body of the dead boy, charged him to salute no one by the way; for he bade him hasten on, that he might carry out the office of accomplishing the resurrection, lest by conversation with someone met on the way he be turned back from his task by delay. So here too it is not the diligence of greeting that is taken away: but the obstacle that would hinder devotion is abolished; so that when divine things are commanded, human things be set aside for a little while. Fair is a greeting, but fairer is the timely execution of divine things, which delay has often turned into offense. And so even honorable things are forbidden, lest the solemn grace of courtesy steal in and hinder the ministry, whose delay is a fault.

Now this too is a lofty virtue, that one should not wander from house to house with roving ease; that we should keep constancy even in hospitable love, nor easily dissolve the bond of friendship once formed; that we should carry before us the message of peace, that upon entering, peace itself should first be celebrated by its blessing: that being offered food and drink we ought to be content, the standards of faith not to be pressed further, and the Gospel of the heavenly kingdom to be preached, the dust to be shaken off from the feet, if anyone should think them not worthy to be received in the hospitality of a city. He also teaches that those who fail to follow the Gospel will be liable to a heavier punishment than those who judge the Law is to be dissolved; because Tyre and Sidon, if they had seen so great heavenly works of miracles, would not have despised the remedy of repentance.

This too—whether affluence or worldly insolence—is neither to be compared to the heavenly gift, nor again to be left without remedy, since each one has the recourse of repentance. Finally he opens the heavenly mystery, that it pleased God to reveal his grace to little children rather than to the wise of this world. Which the apostle Paul set forth in a fuller style, saying: Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God this world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.

Let us then take up the little child, who knows not how to exalt himself and boast in ornate speech of the art of his own prudence, which most philosophers do. A little child was he who said: Lord, my heart is not exalted, nor are my eyes lifted up, neither have I walked in great matters, nor in things too wonderful for me. And that you might know this little child was not so by age, not by sense, but by his humility and a certain avoidance of vainglory, he added: But I have lifted up my soul. Do you see how exalted this little child was, to how sublime a peak of virtues? Such little children does the Apostle wish us to be, when he says: If any man among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may be wise; for the wisdom of this age is foolishness with God.

A most beautiful passage on faith is joined here, when he says all things have been delivered to him by his Father.

When you read "all things," you acknowledge the Almighty, one not of a lesser or degenerate nature than the Father: when you read "delivered," you confess the Son, to whom by nature all things of one substance rightly belong as his own, not bestowed as a gift through grace. He added:

No one knows who the Son is, but the Father: and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him.

This passage, I recall, was not passed over in the little books I wrote On the Faith. And that you may know that just as the Son reveals the Father to whom he wills, so too the Father reveals the Son to whom he wills, hear the Lord Jesus himself speaking, when he praised Peter for confessing him to be the Son of God: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. There follows a reading in which those who seem to themselves learned in the Law are set forth, who hold the words of the Law but do not know its force: and from the very first chapter of the Law he shows them to be ignorant of the Law, proving that from the very beginning the Law had proclaimed both the Father and the Son, and had also announced the mystery of the Lord's incarnation, saying: You shall love the Lord your God; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Whence the Lord says to the lawyer: This do, and you shall live.

But he, not knowing who his neighbor was, because he did not believe in Christ, answered: Who is my neighbor? And so he who does not know Christ does not know the Law either. For how can he know the Law, when he is ignorant of the truth, since the Law proclaims the truth? A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers.

That we may more clearly resolve the passage set before us, let us recall the old history of the city of Jericho.

We recall then that Jericho, as we read in the book which is inscribed the Book of Joshua, was a great city, enclosed with walls that could not be penetrated by iron, nor made passable by the battering ram: in it Rahab the harlot dwelt, who received into hospitality the spies whom Joshua sent, instructed them with counsel, answered the citizens who inquired that they had departed, hid them in her roof: and that she might rescue herself and hers from the city's destruction, she tied a scarlet thread in the window: and the impregnable walls of that same city fell at the sound of seven priestly trumpets and the harmonious shout of the jubilant people.

See how each one keeps his own office: the spies keep watch, the harlot keeps the mystery, the victor keeps faith, the priest keeps religion.

These do not fear peril for the sake of praise: she does not betray those she has received, even amid dangers: he is more careful to keep faith than to conquer, and mandates the harlot's safety before the city's destruction: and the priest's arms are the emblems of religion. Now who would not think this full of wonder, that out of the whole city no one was saved, save whom the harlot freed?

This is the truth of the plain history: which, if considered more deeply, signifies wondrous mysteries. For Jericho is a figure of this world, into which Adam, cast out from paradise—that is, from that heavenly Jerusalem—descended through the fall of his transgression, that is, migrating from vital things to weak ones: for whom it was not a change of place but a change of morals that made an exile of his nature. For far changed was he from that Adam who enjoyed unoffended blessedness, when he flowed down into worldly sins, he fell among robbers: into whom he would not have fallen, had he not made himself liable to them by straying from the heavenly command. Who are these robbers, but the angels of night and darkness, who sometimes transform themselves into angels of light, but cannot persevere so? These first strip off the garments of spiritual grace which we have received, and thus are accustomed to inflict wounds; for if we keep unspoiled the garments we have received, we cannot feel the blows of the robbers.

Beware, therefore, lest you be stripped bare, as Adam was stripped bare before, deprived of the guardianship of the heavenly command, and divested of the garment of faith, and so received a deadly wound: in which the whole human race would have perished, had not that Samaritan come down and healed his bitter wounds.

No mean Samaritan is this, who did not despise him whom the priest and the Levite had despised.

And do not despise him for the name of his sect, whom you will marvel at when you interpret the word; for by the word Samaritan is signified "guardian." This is what the interpretation holds: And who is the guardian, but he of whom it is said: The Lord guards little ones? So, just as one Jew is such in the letter, another in the spirit: so too one Samaritan is such outwardly, another in what is hidden. Who then is this Samaritan who comes down? Surely: He who came down from heaven, and who ascends into heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven? Seeing him half dead, whom no one had been able to heal before, like that woman who, flowing with an issue of blood, had spent all her substance on physicians: He came near him, that is, he became near by taking on our compassion, and a neighbor by the bestowal of mercy.

And bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine.

Many medicines has this physician, with which he is accustomed to heal.

His word is the medicine. One of his words binds up wounds, another soothes with oil, another pours in wine. He binds up wounds with a sterner precept, he soothes with the remission of sin, as with wine he stings by the denunciation of judgment.

And he set him, it says, upon his own beast.

Hear how he sets you upon it: He bears our sins, and grieves for us: and the shepherd set the weary sheep upon his own shoulders. For man was made like unto beasts of burden; and therefore he set us upon his own beast, lest we be as the horse and the mule; that by the assumption of our body he might abolish the infirmities of our flesh.

Finally, he led us, who were beasts of burden, into the inn.

Now the inn is that where the weary from a long journey are accustomed to turn aside. So the Lord led into the inn Him Who raises up the needy from the earth, and lifts the poor out of the dunghill.

And he took care; lest the sick man, by no means, should fail to keep the precepts he had received.

But it was not permitted this Samaritan to dwell long on earth: he had to return whence he had come down. And so: On the next day.

What is this next day, but perhaps that of the Lord's resurrection, of which it is said: This is the day which the Lord has made?

He brought forth two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper, and said: Take care of him.

What are these two denarii, but perhaps the two Testaments, which have in themselves the impression of the eternal King stamped upon them, by whose price our wounds are healed? For we have been redeemed with a precious price of blood; that we might escape the sores of the final death.

These two denarii, then (though it would not be absurd to understand in them also the four forms of these books), the innkeeper receives.

Who? Perhaps he who says: I count them as dung, that I may gain Christ; that he might have care of the wounded man. That innkeeper, then, is he who said: Christ sent me to preach the gospel. Innkeepers are those to whom it is said: Go into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature: and he who believes and is baptized shall be saved, saved indeed from death, saved from the wound which was inflicted by the robbers. Blessed is that innkeeper who is able to heal the wounds of another. Blessed is he to whom Jesus says: Whatever more you shall have spent, I, when I return, will repay you.

A good steward is he who even spends beyond what is required.

Paul is a good steward, whose discourses and epistles, as it were, overflow beyond that reckoning which he had received. He carried out the Lord's moderate command with an almost immoderate labor of mind and body; so that he might relieve many from a grievous sickness by the dispensation of spiritual discourse. Good, then, is the innkeeper of that inn in which he recognized the ass's manger of his Lord, and in which the flock of lambs is enclosed; lest, with the ravening wolves roaring about the folds, there be easy access into the sheepfolds.

He promises, then, that he will repay the reward.

When will you return, Lord, except on the day of judgment?

For although you are everywhere always, and standing in the midst of us, you are not perceived by us, yet there will be a time when all flesh shall behold you returning. You will repay, then, what you owe. Blessed are they to whom you are a debtor! Would that we might be fit debtors! Would that we could pay back what we have received; and let neither the office of priesthood nor of ministry puff us up! How will you repay, Lord Jesus? You have indeed promised that in heaven there is abundant reward for the good. Yet you will repay also when you say: Well done, good servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things: enter into the joy of your Lord.

Therefore, since no one is more a neighbor than he who healed our wounds, let us love him as a lord, let us love him as a neighbor, for nothing is so near as the head is to the members: let us also love him who is an imitator of Christ: let us love him who, by the unity of the body, has compassion on the need of another body. For it is not kinship that makes a neighbor, but mercy: because mercy is according to nature; for nothing is so according to nature as to help a partaker of the same nature. It has been spoken, then, of mercy, but the form of virtue is not one only. It is set forth by the example of Martha and Mary: in the one, active devotion in works; in the other, the religious intention of the mind upon the word of God, which, if it agrees with faith,—for even the seeds themselves of the heavenly word may be taken away, if they have been sown beside the way.

Let the desire of wisdom possess you as it did Mary; for this is the greater, this the more perfect work: nor let care of ministry turn you away from the knowledge of the heavenly word, nor accuse and judge as idle those whom you see devoting themselves to wisdom; for that peaceable Solomon took her to himself as a companion to dwell with him.

Nor yet is Martha blamed in her good ministry: but Mary is preferred

because she has chosen for herself the better part; for Jesus abounds in many things, and bestows many things: and therefore she is judged wiser, because she chose what she perceived to be principal. Indeed the apostles did not think it best to leave the word of God, and to minister at tables. But each office is of wisdom; for Stephen too, full of wisdom, was chosen as a minister. And therefore let him who ministers show deference to the teacher: and let the teacher invite and encourage him who ministers; for the body of the Church is one, though its members are diverse: the one has need of the other. The eye cannot say to the hand: I do not need your works: nor again the head to the feet, nor can the ear deny that it is of the body; for although some parts are principal, yet others are necessary.

Wisdom is in the head, action in the hands: For the eyes of the wise man are in his head

because he truly is wise whose mind is in Christ, and whose inner eye is raised to things above. And therefore: The eyes of the wise are in his head: but the fool's are in his heel. Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and say to him: Friend, lend me three loaves.

Another point of precept is this, that prayer should be offered at every moment, not only in the days but also in the nights.

For you see that this man who went at midnight, asking three loaves from his friend, and persisting in the very intent of asking, is not disappointed of his prayers. Who are these three loaves, but the nourishment of the heavenly mystery? For if you love the Lord your God, you will be able to obtain merit not only for yourself, but also for others. But who is a greater friend to us than he who gave his body for us? From him David sought the loaves at midnight, and received them; for he sought when he said: At midnight I arose to confess to you; therefore he merited these loaves which he has set before us to eat. He sought when he says: Every night I will wash my bed; for he did not fear lest he should awaken one asleep, whom he knows to be always watching.

And therefore, mindful of the Scriptures, pressing on in prayer by nights and days, let us ask pardon for our sins. For if that man, so holy, and occupied with the necessities of a kingdom, gave praise to the Lord seven times a day, always intent on morning and evening sacrifices: what ought we to do, who ought to ask the more abundantly, the more frequently we sin through the frailty of flesh and mind; so that, for those wearied on the way, and grievously fatigued by the course of this age and the winding path of this life, the bread of refreshment may not be lacking, which strengthens the heart of man?

Nor does the Lord teach that we must watch only at midnight, but at almost every moment; for he comes both in the evening watch, and in the second, and in the third watch, and is wont to knock: Blessed, therefore, are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, shall find watching. If, therefore, you desire that the power of God should gird itself and minister to you, you must watch always: for there are many snares for the good, and heavy is the sleep of the body; because if the mind begins to sleep, it loses the vigor of its own strength. Rouse, then, your sleep, that you may knock at the door of Christ: which door Paul also asks to be opened to him, beseeching to be helped not only by his own prayers, but also by those of the people, that a door might be opened to him to speak the mystery of Christ.

And perhaps

that is the door which John saw opened; for he saw, and said: After this I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven; and the first voice which I heard was as of a trumpet speaking with me, and saying: Come up here, and I will show you the things which must come to pass. The door, then, was opened to John, the door was opened to Paul; that they might receive for us the loaves which we should eat. The door continued to be knocked at in season and out of season; that it might refresh with the abundance of heavenly nourishment the nations wearied by the labor of the worldly path.

Therefore the point of precept concerning frequent prayer, the hope of obtaining, the ground of persuasion, is first set down as precept, afterward as example. For he who promises something ought to bring hope of the promise; that obedience may be shown to the admonitions, and faith to the promises, which by contemplation of human piety acquires a greater hope of eternal piety; provided, however, that just things are asked, lest the prayer be turned into sin. Nor did he blush to ask something repeatedly, lest he seem either to distrust the Lord's mercy, or to grieve arrogantly, because he had not obtained something at the first prayer. For this cause, he says, I besought the Lord three times: and he shows that God often does not grant what is asked, because he judges as unprofitable what we believe will be beneficial. Every kingdom divided against itself shall be laid waste, and house shall fall upon house.

91. The reason of this saying is this, that he was said to cast out demons in Beelzebub, the prince of demons; that he might show that his own kingdom is undivided and everlasting. And rightly also he answered Pilate: My kingdom is not of this world. And therefore those who place their hope not in Christ, but suppose that demons are cast out in the prince of demons, he denies to be of an everlasting kingdom: which pertains to the people of the Jews, who by such sufferings summon the aid of a demon in order to cast out a demon. For how can a kingdom remain undivided, when faith is rent asunder? For since the people of the Jews are under the Law, and Christ too according to the flesh was born of the Law: how can the kingdom of the Jews, which is of the Law, be everlasting, when the people itself divides the Law, since Christ, who is owed by the Law, is denied by the people of the Law?

Thus the faith of the Jewish people fights against itself in part, and by fighting is divided, and by being divided is dissolved.

And therefore the kingdom of the Church shall remain forever; because undivided faith is one body: For there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all.

How great here is the madness of sacrilegious fury; that when the Son of God took on flesh to crush unclean spirits, and to carry off the spoils of the prince of this world, and gave to men also the power of destroying spiritual wickedness, dividing his spoils, which is the mark of one triumphing, some should take to themselves the help and support of the devil's power, when it is in the finger of God, or certainly, according to Matthew, in the Spirit of God that demons are cast out! Whence it is understood that there is a certain undivided body, as it were, that is not of the Law; he had established it by his own authority, under the Law are veiled under the appearance of foxes, I may be able to disclose by the support of your studies. We have above explained that heretics are signified under the appearance of foxes, who promise in name that they follow Christ, but by the pursuit of fraud they forswear it.

These the Lord does not receive, but keeps them off and forbids them from his own nest.

We ought to consider what wolves seem to signify.

They are indeed beasts that lie in wait for the sheepfolds, prowl about the shepherds' huts, dare not enter the dwellings of the houses, watch for the sleep of the dogs, the absence or negligence of the shepherd, and seize the throat of the sheep, that they may quickly strangle them: fierce, rapacious, and also of a more rigid bodily nature; so that they cannot easily bend themselves, they are carried along by a certain impulse of their own, and therefore are often deceived. Moreover, if they first see a man, they are said by a certain nature to be able to snatch away his voice: but if the man first sees them, they are recorded to be put to flight. And therefore I must take heed lest, if in today's discourse the grace of spiritual mysteries fail to shine forth, the wolves be believed to have seen me first, and to have wrested away the accustomed favor of my voice.

Are not heretics to be compared to these wolves, who lie in wait for the sheepfolds of Christ, and roar about the pens more at night than by day? For to the perfidious it is always night, since they strive to overspread the light of Christ with the savage clouds of their interpretation, and to darken it as far as in them lies. They prowl, then, about the pens; yet they dare not enter the stables of Christ. And therefore they are not healed, because Christ does not wish to bring them into his stable, in which that man was healed who, descending from Jerusalem, fell among robbers: whom, having bound up his wounds, and poured in oil and wine, that Samaritan, setting him upon his own beast, brought to the inn, and left to be healed by the innkeeper. They receive, then, no medicine, who do not seek the physician; for if they sought him, they would not disparage him.

They watch for the absence of the shepherd, and therefore strive either to kill the shepherds of the churches, or to drive them into exile

because while the shepherds are present, they cannot rush in upon the sheep of Christ. Ravishers, then, try to plunder the flock of the Lord, who, by a certain bodily fixity of mind, hard and rigid, are hardly ever wont to turn aside from their error. And therefore the Apostle says: A man that is a heretic, after one admonition, avoid, knowing that he who is such is subverted. These Christ, the true interpreter of Scripture, mocks; so that they may pour out their vain assaults in vain, and be unable to harm.

These, if by the crafty circumvention of their disputation they forestall someone, make him mute; for mute is he who does not confess the Word of God with the same glory

that is his. Beware, then, lest the heretic snatch away your voice, if he catches you unaware before you have caught him; for his perfidy creeps while it lies hidden: but if you recognize the fictions of his impiety, you need not fear the loss of a pious voice. Beware, therefore, of the poisons of crafty disputation: they aim at the soul, they seize the throat, they inflict a wound on the vitals. Grievous are the bites of heretics, who, more grievous and more rapacious than the beasts themselves, know no limit either of avarice or of impiety.

Nor let it move you that they seem to display a human form: for even if a man is seen outwardly, within the beast howls.

And therefore there is no doubt that they are wolves, according to the divine sentence of the Lord Jesus, who says: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves; by their fruits you shall know them. If anyone, then, is moved by appearance, let him inquire about the fruit. You hear someone called a priest, you recognize his acts of plunder. He has the clothing of a sheep, the deeds of a robber. Outwardly a sheep, within a wolf: one who has no measure of plunder, who, as if hardened of limb by Scythian frost in the night, with bloodied mouth, prowls about seeking whom he may devour. Does he not seem to you a wolf, who with insatiable cruelty for the death of a man desires to satisfy his rage through the death of the faithful peoples.

He howls, he does not discourse, who denies the author of the voice, and with sacrilegious speech interposes a bestial murmur, who does not confess the Lord Jesus as the ruler of eternal life. We have heard his howlings, when the sword was sent into the world. He showed rough teeth, a swollen mouth, and thought that he had taken away from all others the voice which he alone had lost. And therefore, that we may be able to escape these wolves, the Lord teaches what we should follow, saying:

Carry no purse, nor scrip, nor sandals.

What it means that a purse should not be carried, he has expressed clearly elsewhere; for Matthew wrote that the Lord said to the disciples: Do not possess gold, nor silver. If we are forbidden to possess gold, how much more to seize, how much more to take away? If you have commanded that what you have be given away, how do you gather what you did not have? You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal? You who say one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you commit sacrilege? You who glory in the Law, do you dishonor God through transgression of the Law? For the name of God is blasphemed through you.

Not so the apostle Peter, who was the first executor of the Lord's sentence, so that he might show that the Lord's commands were not given in vain; when he was asked by a poor man to bestow some money on him, he said: Silver and gold I have not. He glories that he has neither silver nor gold: is it a shame to you to have even less than you desire? There is, then, a glorious poverty; for it is also blessed, as it is written: Blessed are the poor in spirit. Yet Peter does not glory so much in this, that he has no silver and gold, as in this, that he keeps the command of the Lord, who commanded: Do not possess gold; that is to say: Do you see that I am a disciple of Christ, and do you seek gold from me? He has given us something far more precious than gold, that we should work in his name.

Therefore I do not have what he did not give, but I have what he did give: In the name of the Lord Jesus, rise, and walk.

Therefore, just as he who wishes to build barns for storing up grain is rebuked by the authority of the Lord's sentence: so he who wishes to prepare a purse for hoarding gold incurs the blemish of reproach.

Nor scrip, nor sandals.

Both are usually made from the hide of a dead animal: but the Lord Jesus wants nothing mortal to be in us. Finally, he says to Moses: Loose the sandal from your feet; for the place on which you stand is holy ground. He is therefore commanded to loose the mortal and earthly sandal, when he was being sent to free the people; for the minister of this duty ought to fear nothing, nor be held back from the office he has undertaken by fear of death. For he himself, when he had willingly undertaken the defense of his brothers, that is, the Jews, was turned back from his undertaking by the fear of an accusation, and fled from Egypt. And therefore when the Lord had approved his affection, but seen his condition to be weak, he judged that the trace of his spirit and mind should be stripped of mortal bonds.

But if anyone is troubled by the reasoning of how, in Egypt, they are commanded to eat the lamb shod: while the apostles are sent to preach the Gospel without sandals, he ought to consider that one placed in Egypt must still beware the bite of the serpent; for there are many poisons in Egypt, and he who celebrates the passover in type can be exposed to a wound: but he who is a minister of the truth blunts the poisons, and does not tremble. Finally, a viper bit Paul on the island of Melita, and the inhabitants of that place, seeing the viper hanging from his hand, thought he would die: but when they saw him standing unharmed, they said he was a god, since the poison could not harm him And that you may know this is true, the Lord himself says: Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall harm you.

The apostles are not commanded to take rods in their hand; for so Matthew thought it should be written.

But what is a rod, except an emblem of power to be displayed, and an instrument for avenging pain by punishment? Therefore the disciples of the humble Lord (for in humility his judgment was exalted), the disciples, I say, of the humble Lord, carry out his precept through offices of humility; for he sent them to sow the faith, men who would not compel, but teach; who would not exercise powers, but exalt the teaching of humility. In this passage he thought that patience also should be joined to humility; because he himself too, according to the testimony of Peter, when he was reviled, did not revile in return; when he was struck, did not strike back. This, then, is to say: Be imitators of me, lay aside the pursuits of vengeance, beat down the insolence of those who strike not by the recounting of the injury, but by the greatness of soul of patience.

No one ought to imitate in himself what he reproves in another: gentleness inflicts graver wounds on the stubborn.

With this fist the Lord struck back at the one who struck him, saying: Whoever strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also. For it comes about that by his own judgment he condemns himself, and is pierced by a certain sting of his own feeling, when he perceives the diligence returned to him instead of the injury which he committed.

Yet he has some apostles whom he sent even with a rod, as Paul testifies, saying: What do you wish?

Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness? This rod he gave also to Timothy, saying: Reprove, entreat, rebuke. Or perhaps before the Lord's passion, which strengthened the hearts of the wavering peoples, gentleness alone was necessary; after the passion, correction. Certainly let the Lord soothe, let Paul rebuke: let him who can, persuade even hard breasts to soften: let him rebuke who cannot persuade all. Paul, therefore, had taken up the rod from the teaching of the Law. For he had read: He who spares the rod hates his son. He had also read that those eating the lamb were commanded by prophetic precept to hold a staff in their hands. And therefore the Lord in the Old Testament says: I will visit their iniquities with a rod. But in the New he offered himself, that he might forgive all, saying: If you seek me, let these go their way.

And elsewhere you have it that when the apostles wished to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans, who were unwilling to receive the Lord Jesus into their city: Turning, he rebuked them, and said: You know not of what spirit you are; for the Son of man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save them.

The perfect, then, are directed without the rod, the weaker eat with the staff.

But Paul also indeed threatens the rod: yet he visits offenders in a spirit of gentleness. Finally, that you may know him a gentle teacher, he consults the will of those very ones he rebukes: What do you wish, he says, shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness? Once he spoke of the rod, twice he added the gentler things, adding gentleness to love. Yet earlier he had threatened the rod, but he displayed gentleness; for in the second epistle written to the same Corinthians he says: I call God as witness upon my soul, that in sparing you I did not come again to Corinth. Hear for what reason he thought sparing was necessary: Lest, he says, I should come again to you in sorrow. He cast away the rod, and took up the affection of love. And salute no man by the way.

Perhaps to some this may seem harsh and proud, and not fitting with the precept of the meek and humble Lord, that he who commanded even that place at table be yielded should here command the disciples: Salute no man by the way; since this is a common practice of courtesy. Thus inferiors are accustomed to win favor for themselves from their superiors. Gentiles also have such exchanges of courtesies with Christians. How does the Lord tear away this custom of humanity?

But consider that it is not this alone: Salute no man: but not in vain was it added, By the way.

Finally, Elisha also, when he sent his servant to lay his staff upon the body of the dead boy, commanded him not to salute anyone by the way; for he bade him, hastening, go on, so that he might carry out the duty of the resurrection to be performed, lest he be turned aside from the errand by conversation with someone he met. Therefore here too the diligence of salutation is not taken away: but the obstacle to impeding devotion is abolished; so that when divine matters are commanded, human matters be set aside for a little while. Salutation is beautiful, but more beautiful is the timely execution of divine things, which delay has often turned into offense. And therefore even honorable things are forbidden, lest the grace of solemn courtesy steal in, and impede a ministry whose delay would be a fault.

There is yet another virtue in this, that one should not wander with roving readiness from house to house; that we may preserve constancy also in hospitable love, and not easily dissolve a friendship once formed; that we may prefer the message of peace, that the very first entrance be celebrated with the blessing of peace: that we ought to be content with the food and drink offered, that the banners of faith not be pressed forward for gain, and the Gospel of the heavenly kingdom be preached, and the dust be shaken off the feet, if anyone should judge that they are not to be received into the hospitality of the city. He also teaches that those who will not follow the Gospel will be liable to a graver punishment, than those who judged that the Law was to be dissolved; because if Tyre and Sidon had seen such miracles of heavenly works, they would not have despised the remedy of repentance.

That this affluence or worldly insolence is neither to be compared to the heavenly gift, nor again to be left without remedy, since there is a remedy of repentance available to each. Finally he opens the heavenly mystery, that it pleased God to reveal his grace rather to little ones than to the wise of this world. This the apostle Paul set forth more fully in style, saying: Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since the world did not know God through wisdom in the wisdom of God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.

Let us therefore accept the little one, who does not know how to exalt himself, and to boast the art of his prudence in adorned speech, which most philosophers do.

He was a little one who said: Lord, my heart is not exalted, nor are my eyes lifted up, nor have I walked in great things, nor in things too wonderful for me. And that you might know this little one was so not by age, not by sense, but by his humility, and a certain avoidance of boasting, he added: But I have exalted my soul. Do you see how lofty this little one was, from how sublime a peak of virtues? Such little ones the Apostle wishes us to be, when he says: If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may be wise; for the wisdom of this age is foolishness with God. A most beautiful passage on faith is joined here, when he says that all things have been delivered to him by his Father.

When you read "all things," you acknowledge one who is omnipotent, not discolored, not degenerate from the Father: when you read "delivered," you confess the Son, to whom by nature all things belong properly by right of one substance, not bestowed as a gift through grace. He added: No one knows who the Son is, but the Father: and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.

I recall that this passage was not passed over in those little books I wrote on the Faith.

But that you may know that just as the Son reveals the Father to whom he wills, so too the Father reveals the Son to whom he wills, hear the Lord Jesus himself saying, when he praised Peter, because he had confessed him to be the Son of God: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

There is connected to this a reading, by which those who seem to themselves learned in the Law are exposed, who hold the words of the Law but are ignorant of the force of the Law: and from the very first chapter of the Law he teaches that they are ignorant of the Law, proving that at the very beginning the Law at once proclaimed both the Father and the Son, and also announced the mystery of the Lord's incarnation, saying: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Whence the Lord said to the lawyer: This do, and thou shalt live. But he, not knowing who his neighbor was, because he did not believe in Christ, answered: Who is my neighbor? And so he who does not know Christ does not know the Law either. For how can he know the Law, when he is ignorant of the truth, since the Law proclaims the truth? A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers.

That we may be able to expound more clearly the passage set before us, let us recall the ancient history of the city of Jericho.

We recall then that Jericho, as we read in the book which is entitled Joshua the son of Nun, was a great city, hedged about with wall-like ramparts, which could be penetrated neither by iron nor breached by the battering-ram: in it dwelt Rahab the harlot, who received into hospitality the spies whom Joshua had sent, instructed them with counsel, answered the citizens who demanded them that they had departed, hid them upon the roof, and, that she might rescue herself and hers from the destruction of the city, bound a scarlet cord in the window: and that the impregnable walls of that city fell at the sound of seven priestly trumpets and the concordant shout of the jubilant people.

See how each one keeps his own office: the spies keep watch, the harlot keeps the mystery, the victor keeps faith, the priest keeps religion.

These do not fear peril for the sake of praise: she does not betray those she has received, even in dangers: he, more concerned to keep faith than to conquer, commands the safety of the harlot before the destruction of the city: and the insignia of religion are the arms of the priest. Now who would not think it full of a miracle, that out of the whole city no one was saved except the one whom the harlot delivered?

This is the simple history of the truth: which, if considered more deeply, signifies admirable mysteries. For Jericho is a figure of this world, into which, cast out from paradise, that is, from that heavenly Jerusalem, Adam descended by the fall of his transgression, that is, migrating from things vital to things weak: for whom it was not a change of place, but a change of character, that made the exile from his own nature. For greatly changed from that Adam who enjoyed unoffending blessedness, when he flowed down into worldly sins, he fell among robbers: into whose hands he would not have fallen, unless, straying from the heavenly command, he had made himself liable to them. Who are these robbers, but the angels of night and darkness, who sometimes transform themselves into angels of light, but cannot persevere? These first strip off the garments of spiritual grace which we have received; and thus they are accustomed to inflict wounds; for if we keep unimpaired the garments we have received, we cannot feel the blows of robbers.

Beware, therefore, lest you be stripped bare beforehand, as Adam was stripped bare beforehand, deprived of the guarding of the heavenly command; and, stripped of the garment of faith, thus received a deadly wound: in which the whole human race would have perished, had not that Samaritan, coming down, healed his bitter wounds.

No ordinary Samaritan is this, who did not himself despise the one whom the priest, whom the Levite, had despised.

Nor should you despise, on account of the name of the sect, one whom you will marvel at through the interpretation of the word; for by the word Samaritan is signified "keeper" or "guardian." This is the meaning of the interpretation: And who is the guardian, but he of whom it is said: The Lord shall keep the little ones? So then, just as one Jew is such in the letter, another in the spirit: so also one Samaritan is such outwardly, another in secret. Who then is this Samaritan who comes down? Namely: He who came down from heaven, and who ascends into heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven?

Seeing him half-alive, whom no one had before been able to heal, like her who, flowing with an issue of blood, had spent all her substance upon physicians: He came near him

that is, he was made, by the assuming of compassion for us, a neighbor, and by the bestowal of mercy, near. And he bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine.

This physician has many remedies, with which he is accustomed to heal. His word is a remedy. One kind of his speech binds up wounds, another soothes with oil, another pours in wine. He binds up wounds with a sterner precept, soothes with the remission of sin, and, as it were with wine, stings by the denunciation of judgment.

And he set him, it says, upon his own beast.

So that assuredly the weak, or infirmities, may be set against baseness.

Hear how he sets you upon it: He bears our sins, and grieves for us: and the shepherd set the weary sheep upon his shoulders.

For man became like a beast; and therefore he set us upon his own beast, lest we should be like the horse and the mule; that through the assumption of our body he might abolish the infirmities of our flesh.

Finally he led us, who were beasts, into the stable.

Now the stable is the place where those wearied by a long journey are wont to take refuge. So the Lord led us into the stable, He who raises the poor from the earth, and lifts up the needy from the dunghill.

And he took care of him; lest the sick man should by no means keep the precepts he had received.

But it was not for this Samaritan to remain long dwelling upon the earth: he had to return whence he had come down. And so: On the next day.

What is this "next day," but perhaps that of the Lord's resurrection, of which it is said: This is the day which the Lord has made? He brought forth two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper, and said: Take care of him.

What are these two denarii, but perhaps the two Testaments, which bear in themselves the image of the eternal King imprinted, by whose price our wounds are healed? For we were redeemed by a precious blood; that we might avoid the sores of the final death.

These two denarii, then (though it is not absurd to understand also in these the four forms of these books), are received by the innkeeper.

Who is he? Perhaps he who says: I count them as dung, that I may gain Christ; that he might take care of the wounded man. The innkeeper, then, is he who said: Christ sent me to preach the Gospel. Innkeepers are those to whom it is said: Go into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature: and he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, saved certainly from death, saved from the wound which was inflicted by the robbers. Blessed is that innkeeper who is able to heal the wounds of another. Blessed is he to whom Jesus says: Whatsoever thou shalt spend more, when I return, I will repay thee.

A good steward, who also spends beyond what is due.

A good steward is Paul, whose sermons and epistles overflow, as it were, beyond that reckoning which he had received. He fulfilled the moderate command of the Lord with a labor of mind and body that was almost immoderate; that he might relieve many from grave sickness by the dispensation of heavenly discourse. A good innkeeper, then, of that inn in which the ass recognized the manger of its Lord, and in which the flock of lambs is enclosed; lest, with ravening wolves roaring at the folds, an easy inroad be made into the sheepfolds.

He promises therefore that he will repay the reward.

When wilt thou return, O Lord, if not on the day of judgment?

For although thou art everywhere always, and standest in the midst of us, thou art not seen by us; yet there will be a time when all flesh shall see thee returning. Thou wilt then repay what thou owest. Blessed are they to whom thou art debtor! Would that we might be worthy debtors! Would that we might be able to repay what we have received; and that neither the office of priesthood nor of ministry might puff us up! How wilt thou repay, Lord Jesus? Thou hast indeed promised that in heaven there is abundant reward for the good. Yet thou wilt repay also when thou sayest: Well done, good servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

Therefore, since no one is more a neighbor than he who has healed our wounds, let us love him as Lord, let us love him as neighbor, for nothing is so near as the head to the members: let us love also him who is the imitator of Christ: let us love him who, by the unity of another's body, has compassion on its want. For it is not kinship that makes a neighbor, but mercy: because mercy is according to nature; for nothing is so according to nature, as to help a partaker of the same nature. It has been spoken, then, of mercy, but the form of virtue is not one alone. It is set forth by the example of Martha and Mary: in the one, active devotion in works; in the other, the religious attentiveness of the mind to the word of God, which, if it agrees with faith, is preferred even to works themselves, according to what is written: Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.

Let us strive, then, we too, to have what no one can take away from us, so that not a perfunctory but a diligent hearing be paid; for even the seeds of the heavenly word are wont to be taken away, if they are sown along the wayside. Let the desire of wisdom act in you as in Mary; for this is the greater, this the more perfect work: nor let the care of ministry turn you away from the knowledge of the heavenly word, nor accuse or judge as idle those whom you see devoted to wisdom; for that peaceful Solomon took wisdom to himself as a companion to dwell with him.

Yet Martha is not rebuked for her good ministry: but Mary is preferred

because she chose the better part for herself; for Jesus abounds in many things, and bestows many things: and therefore she is judged the wiser, because she chose that which is principal. Finally, the apostles did not think it best to leave the word of God, and to serve at tables. But each office is of wisdom; for Stephen too, full of wisdom, was chosen a minister. And therefore let him who ministers give deference to the teacher: and let the teacher invite and encourage the one who ministers; for the body of the Church is one, even though the members are diverse: the one has need of the other. The eye cannot say to the hand: I do not need thy works: nor again can the head say to the feet, or the ear deny that it is of the body; for although some members are principal, yet others are necessary.

Wisdom is in the head, action in the hands: The eyes of the wise man are in his head; for he truly is wise, whose soul is in Christ, and whose inner eye is raised toward the things above. And therefore: The eyes of the wise man are in his head: but the fool's are in his heel. Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and say to him: Friend, lend me three loaves.

There is another point of precept, that at all moments, not only in the days but also in the nights, prayer should be offered.

For you see that this man who went at midnight, asking three loaves from his friend, and persisting in the very intention of asking, is not cheated of what he asks. What are these three loaves, but the nourishment of the heavenly mystery? For if you love the Lord thy God, you will be able to gain merit not only for yourself, but also for others. But who is more a friend to us than he who gave up his body for us? From him, at midnight, David sought loaves, and received them; for he sought when he said: At midnight I arose to confess to thee; therefore he merited these loaves which he has set before us to eat. He sought when he says: I will wash my bed every night; nor did he fear lest he should wake one sleeping, whom he knew to be always watching.

And therefore, mindful of what is written, being instant in prayer by night and by day, let us ask pardon for our sins. For if that man, so holy, and occupied with the necessities of a kingdom, gave praise to the Lord seven times a day, ever intent upon morning and evening sacrifices: what ought we to do, who ought to ask the more, the more frequently we sin through the frailty of flesh and mind; that to those wearied on the road, and grievously fatigued by the course of this age and the winding path of this life, the bread of refreshment may not be lacking, which strengthens the hearts of men?

Nor does the Lord teach that one must watch only at midnight, but at nearly every moment; for he comes in the evening watch, and the second, and the third, and is accustomed to knock: Blessed, therefore, are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, shall find watching. If, then, you desire that the power of God should gird itself, and minister to you, one must watch always: for many are the snares for the good, and heavy is the sleep of the body; because if the mind begins to sleep, it loses the vigor of its strength. Rouse, therefore, your sleep, that you may knock at the door of Christ: which door even Paul begged to be opened to him, entreating that he be aided not only by his own prayers, but also by those of the people, that a door might be opened to him to speak the mystery of Christ.

And perhaps

that is the door which John saw opened; for he saw, and said: After these things I saw, and behold a door opened in heaven; and the first voice which I heard, as of a trumpet speaking with me, saying: Come up here, and I will show you the things that must come to pass. The door, then, was opened to John, opened to Paul; that they might receive the loaves for us to eat. He persisted knocking at the door, in season, out of season; that he might refresh with the abundance of heavenly nourishment the nations wearied with the toil of the worldly path.

Therefore the precept-laying passage concerning frequent prayer, the hope of obtaining, and the reasoning for persuasion, is set first in precept, afterwards in example. For he who promises something ought to bring hope of the promise; that obedience may be given to the warnings, and faith to the promises, which faith, by contemplation of human devotion, acquires a greater hope of eternal devotion; provided, however, that fair things be asked, lest prayer be turned into sin. Nor did he blush to ask something more than once, lest he should seem either to distrust the Lord's mercy, or arrogantly to grieve that he had not obtained something at the first asking. For this reason, he says, I besought the Lord thrice: and he shows that God frequently does not grant when asked, because he judges useless what we believe will be profitable.

Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation, and house shall fall upon house.

The reason for this saying is that he was said to cast out devils in Beelzebub, the prince of devils; so that he might show his own kingdom to be undivided and everlasting.

Rightly also he answered Pilate: My kingdom is not of this world. And therefore those who bear their hope not in Christ, but suppose that devils are cast out in the prince of devils, he denies to be of an everlasting kingdom: which pertains to the people of the Jews, who by such passions summon the aid of a devil for casting out a devil. For how, when faith is torn asunder, can a kingdom remain undivided? For since the people of the Jews are in the Law, and Christ too, according to the flesh, was born of the Law: how can the kingdom of the Jews, which is from the Law, be everlasting, when the people itself divides the Law, since Christ, who is owed by the Law, is denied by the people of the Law?

Thus the faith of the Jewish people fights against itself in part, and by fighting is divided, and by dividing is dissolved.

And therefore the kingdom of the Church shall remain forever; because undivided faith is one body: For there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all.

How great here is the madness of sacrilegious frenzy; that when the Son of God, in order to crush the unclean spirits and to carry off the spoils of the prince of the world, took on flesh, and gave to men also the power of destroying spiritual wickedness, dividing his spoils, which is the mark of one triumphing—yet some should take to themselves as help and support the diabolical power, when it is by the finger of God, or, indeed, according to Matthew, in the Spirit of God, that devils are cast out! Whence it is understood that there is, as it were, a certain undivided body of divinity and kingdom; since Christ is the right hand of God. But the Spirit, under the appearance of the finger, seems to express, as it were, the sequence of one body according to divinity. Does not the kingdom seem to be undivided, since it is, as it were, one undivided body? For, as you have read, the fullness of divinity dwells bodily in Christ.

This you certainly cannot deny of the Father, and ought not deny of the Spirit. Nor should you think that some portion of power is to be made by comparison with our own members; for of an undivided thing there can be no division: and therefore the naming of "finger" is to be referred to the form of unity, not to a distinction of power; since the right hand of God itself says: I and the Father are one. But although the divinity is undivided, the person is distinct.

Yet when the Spirit is called "finger," the operative power is signified

because the Holy Spirit, like the Father and the Son, is a worker of divine works. For David says: For I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers. And in the thirty-second psalm: And by the breath of his mouth all their power. And Paul says: But all these things does one and the same Spirit work, dividing to each as he wills. And when he says this:

But if I cast out devils in the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

At the same time he shows that there is a certain imperial power of the Holy Spirit, in whom is the kingdom of God.

We too, in whom the Spirit dwells, have a royal house. Whence also afterwards he says: The kingdom of God is within you. And therefore we ought to reckon the Holy Spirit a sharer of divinity, of dominion, and of imperial majesty; because the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finding none.

This cannot be doubted to have been said concerning the people of the Jews, whom the Lord above separated from his kingdom. Whence understand that all heretics and schismatics likewise are given over to this kingdom, and separated from the Church. And therefore it is clearly evident that all the assemblies of schismatics and heretics belong not to God, but to the unclean spirit. Thus in one man there is a comparison to the whole Jewish people, from whom, through the Law, the unclean spirit had gone out. But because among the nations and peoples, through the faith of Christ, he could not find rest (for to the unclean spirits Christ is a fire, who checked the fiery darts of the adversary in the hearts of the gentiles, which before were dry, and afterward, through baptism, were moistened by the dew of the Holy Spirit), therefore he returned to the people of the Jews, who, adorned with an outward and superficial appearance, remain more polluted in their inner mind.

For neither did they wash away nor quench their ardor by the flowing of the sacred fount: and rightly the unclean spirit returned to them, bringing with him seven spirits more wicked than himself; since in the week of the Law and the mystery of the eighth day they committed a sacrilegious act with a wicked mind. Thus as for us the sevenfold grace of the Spirit is multiplied, so for them the whole weight of the injury of unclean spirits is heaped up; for the totality is sometimes comprehended by this number, on account of which, on the seventh day, the works of the world being concluded, God rested. Therefore also the barren woman bore seven, and she that was fruitful in children was made weak. Finally, that you may know the people of the Synagogue to be disfigured, where the blessedness of the Church is praised, he added:

(V. 29, 30.) This generation is a wicked generation: it seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given to it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also shall the Son of man be.

In this condemnation also of the Jewish people, the mystery of the Church is clearly expressed, which is gathered from the ends of the whole world, in the Ninevites through repentance, and in the queen of the South through zeal for gaining wisdom; that she might know the words of the peaceable Solomon. A queen indeed, whose kingdom is undivided, rising up into one body from diverse and distant peoples. So this is a great sacrament: concerning Christ and the Church: but yet this is greater; because that went before as a figure: but now the mystery is full in truth; for there it was the type of Solomon, but here it is Christ in his own body. From these two things, then, the Church consists, that you either not know how to sin, or cease to sin; for repentance removes the fault, wisdom guards against it. This as to the mystery.

Furthermore, the sign of Jonah, as it is a type of the Lord's passion, is also a testimony to the grave sins which the Jews had committed. At the same time one may notice both an oracle of majesty and a token of mercy; for by the example of the Ninevites both punishment is denounced and a remedy is shown. Whence the Jews too ought not to despair of indulgence, if they will do penance.

No man lights a lamp and puts it in a hidden place, nor under a bushel, but upon a candlestick.

Therefore, because in what precedes he preferred the Church to the Synagogue, he urges us rather to transfer our faith to the Church; for the lamp is faith, according to what is written: Your word, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet; for the word of God is our faith, the word of God is light, faith is the lamp. He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world. But a lamp cannot shine unless it has received light from elsewhere. This is the lamp which is lit, namely the power of our mind and sense, so that that coin which had perished might be found. Let no one, then, place his faith under the Law; for the Law is within measure, grace beyond measure: the Law overshadows, grace makes clear.

And therefore let no one enclose his faith within the measure of the Law; but bring it to the Church, in which the grace of the sevenfold Spirit shines, which that Prince of priests illuminates with the splendor of supernal divinity, lest the shadow of the Law extinguish it.

Finally, that lamp which, according to the old rite of the Jews, the prince of priests used to light at morning and evening times, has vanished as if placed under a bushel of the Law: and that city Jerusalem which is on earth, which killed the prophets, lies hidden as if placed in a valley of weeping: but that Jerusalem which is in heaven, in which our faith serves as a soldier, set upon that highest of all mountains, that is, in Christ, the Church cannot be hidden by the darkness and ruins of this world: but shining with the brightness of the eternal sun, it enlightens us with the light of spiritual grace.

Now you, Pharisees, first cleanse that which is outside of the cup and the dish.

100. You see that our bodies are signified by the expression of earthly and fragile things, which, cast down by a brief fall, are broken: and that easily those things which the mind has willed inwardly are betrayed through the senses and the acts of the body, just as those things which the cup contains within shine forth outside. Whence also afterward there is no doubt that by the word "cup" the passion of the body is declared, when the Lord says: The cup which my Father has given me, will you not that I drink it? For he drinks his own cup who absorbs the fragility of the body with spiritual affection, and pours it over, as it were, into mind and soul; so that the weakness of outward things may be drunk up by inward things. You see, then, that it is not the outward things of this cup or dish, but the inward things, that defile us. And therefore, like a good teacher, he taught how we ought to cleanse the contagion of our body, saying:

Give alms, and behold, all things are clean to you.

101. Do you see how great the remedies? Mercy cleanses us, the word of God cleanses us, according to what is written: Now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Nor here alone, but elsewhere too you have expressed how great is this grace: For alms deliver from death: and, Shut up alms in the heart of the poor man, and it shall pray for you on the day of evil.

102. This whole most beautiful passage, then, is directed to this end, that since it invites us to zeal for simplicity, it condemns the superfluous and earthly things of the Jews, who, by understanding the things of the Law according to the body, are not unfittingly compared to glass and dish because of their fragility; and they observe those things of which there is no use for us: but they neglect those things in which the fruit of our hope consists; and therefore they commit a grave sin, while they despise the better things: and yet to them the abolition of sin is promised, if mercy follows.

But briefly he touches on their many faults, who devote all their zeal to paying the tithes of the meaner fruits; and have neither fear of the coming judgment, nor any love of God, since works without faith are vain; for they pass over judgment and the love of God: judgment, because they do not refer all they do to judgment: love, because they do not love God from affection.

104. But lest he make us again zealous for faith while neglectful of works, he concludes in a brief statement the perfection of the faithful man, that he might be approved both by faith and by works, saying: These things it was necessary to do, and not to omit those.

He also rebukes the arrogance and boastfulness of the Jews, in that they seek the first places of reclining at feasts. Against the experts of the Law themselves also a sentence of condemnation is pronounced: who, like tombs which do not appear, deceive by outward show, and beguile by sight; so that while outwardly they promise things of beauty, within they enclose bones full of stench. This is what many teachers do, who demand of others what they themselves cannot rival. And therefore they themselves are tombs, just as it is said elsewhere: Their throat is an open sepulchre.

A good passage also against the utterly vain superstition of the Jews, who, by building the tombs of the prophets, condemned the deeds of their own fathers; but by rivaling their fathers' crimes, they turned the sentence back upon themselves. For by the building of the prophetic tombs they accused those who had killed them of crime; and by rivaling similar deeds, they showed themselves also to be heirs of paternal iniquity. Therefore it is not the building, but the rivaling, that is reckoned in place of the crime. For they cannot be absolved of hereditary iniquity, who by crucifying the Son of God—which is more grave—added a heap to their fathers' crimes. And therefore he rightly added elsewhere: Fill up the measure of your fathers; because there is nothing more grave that they could sin beyond the injury done to God.

Therefore Wisdom sends to them apostles and prophets. Who is Wisdom but Christ? Finally, in Matthew you have: Behold, I send to you prophets and wise men.

They are still charged under the name of Jews, and are declared liable to a future punishment

because although they usurp for themselves the teaching of divine knowledge, and hinder others, they themselves do not recognize what they profess. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is in oblivion before the Lord? But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, you are worth more than many sparrows. 109. The Savior has woven in a most beautiful passage for maintaining simplicity and rivaling faith, lest, after the manner of Jewish perfidy, we feel one thing in our affections and pretend another with our voice; since in the last time the hidden things of thoughts, whether accusing or even defending, will have the secret of our mind laid open, so that they may be seen. For what greater enticement to simplicity is there than that each one should recognize that a hiding-place for deceit cannot exist?

110. But since the cause of perfidy is twofold, arising either from unaccustomed malice or from an accidental fear; lest anyone, terrified by fear of power, should attempt to deny the God whom he knows in his heart, he beautifully added that only to the soul is the punishment to be feared, while the punishment of the body is not to be feared; for death is the end of nature, not a punishment; and therefore death is the cessation of bodily punishment, but the punishment of the soul is perpetual; and hence God alone is to be feared, whose power nature does not prescribe, but to which the very same nature is subject; but death is not terrible, since immortality will redeem it with a richer interest. 111. The Lord had inspired the affection of simplicity, had raised up the strength of the mind, and faith alone was wavering; well did he strengthen it from lesser things; for if God has no forgetfulness of sparrows, how can he have it of men?

But if the majesty of God is so great and so eternal that not one of the sparrows, nor the number of our hairs, is beyond the knowledge of God, how unworthy it is to suppose that the Lord either does not know or despises the hearts of the faithful, he who knows even lesser things! 112. Perhaps someone will say: How did the Apostle say: Is there any care for oxen with God? Since surely an ox is more valuable than a sparrow. But care is one thing, knowledge another. For the number of hairs is taken not in the act of counting, but in the ease of knowing; for God does not extend a careful watch of a counting concern; but to him to whom all things are known, all things are as if numbered. Yet they are rightly said to be numbered; because we number those things which we wish to preserve.

113. We can, however, here discuss some secret of spiritual understanding; especially since this seems absurd, that men should not rather be compared to men than to sparrows. For these five sparrows seem to be the five senses of the body—touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing—which, if after the manner of sparrows they search out the filth of earthly uncleanness, and seek food from uncultivated and fetid places, being occupied by the snares of their own sins, cannot fly back to the fruits of the higher works, on which souls feast. For there is a certain snare of alluring pleasure, which binds certain fetters upon the footsteps of our souls; so that if the fiery vigor and purity of nature has been dulled by the senses of earthly matter, it makes one bound over, at a certain auction of vices, to worldly luxury as its price. 114. There are also certain marketplaces of our sins. And so, captured by the allurements of various pleasures, we are either sold under sin, or redeemed from sin.

Christ redeems us, the adversary sells us; he auctions to death, this one redeems to salvation.

Whence Matthew rightly set down two sparrows (Matth.), signifying body and soul; since the flesh too, if consenting to the law of God, and stripping off from itself the law of sin, shall have passed by the purity of the senses into the nature of the soul, is raised on spiritual wings to heaven. Thus we are taught that nature gave us the grace of flying, which pleasure took away, weighing down the soul with the food of evils, and inclining it toward the nature of the bodily mass. 115. And rightly he set it down that none of them falls without the will of God; for that which falls inclines toward the earth, and that which flies is borne up to the height of immortality.

But lest anyone be in doubt as to what Matthew said, Luke resolves it clearly, that the will of man is known to God; for it is not that whoever falls, falls by the will of God; but that whoever shall fall by the weight of his own sins cannot be hidden from God; for even Job is tempted by the will of God. He gave you an adversary, but he set forth a reward. Do not excuse your frailty, you who have the image, you have received a defense; whence this too profits toward salvation, that you should know the devil cannot harm without the permission of God; lest you fear the power of the devil more than the offense of divinity. 116. Now this is not in doubt, that the soul is compared to a sparrow, when you have read: Our soul is escaped like a sparrow out of the snare of the hunters. And elsewhere: How do you say to my soul, Flee to the mountain like a sparrow?

Man himself too we read is compared to a sparrow; for it is written: But I am like a sparrow alone upon the housetop; namely, out of two sparrows made into one sparrow, that is, the subtlety of spiritual substance, formed by the joining of both wings in agreement. Therefore a good sparrow is one to whom the nature of flying is supplied. There is also an evil sparrow, one who has abolished the use of flying through the fault of earthly downfall: such are these sparrows, which are sold for two farthings. 117. Elsewhere they are sold for a farthing, elsewhere for two farthings. How great is the cheapness of sins! For death is cheap, but virtue is precious. For indeed the adversary consigns them, like captive slaves, at the price of a cheaper valuation; but the Lord, as a fitting appraiser of his own work, redeemed us at a great price, like precious servants which he made in his own image and likeness, just as the holy Apostle said: For you are bought with a great price.

And rightly a great price

because it is not reckoned in coin, but in blood; because Christ died for us, who freed us by his precious blood, just as also holy Peter recalls in his Epistle, writing to us: For you were redeemed, he says, not with corruptible things, silver or gold, from your vain conversation of your fathers' tradition; but with the precious blood of Christ Jesus, as of a lamb unblemished and undefiled. And rightly precious, because it is the blood of an unblemished body, because it is the blood of the Son of God; who redeemed us not only from the curse of the law, but also from the perpetual death of impiety. 118. In sum, then, this is the sense: if the Lord has had regard for lowly birds and for unfaithful men, whether in the rising of the sun or in earthly fecundity; if he imparts the gift of his mercy to all, there is no reason to doubt that the regard of the merits of the faithful will avail with him.

And splendidly, while sharpening faith, he has also laid the foundations of the virtues beneath faith itself; for as faith is the incentive of fortitude, so fortitude is the foundation of faith.

But he who shall deny me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God.

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he who shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him. 119. We understand, of course, the Son of man to be Christ, who was generated of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin, since his parent on earth alone was a Virgin. Is the Holy Spirit, then, greater than Christ; so that those sinning against Christ obtain pardon, while those transgressing against the Holy Spirit do not deserve to attain forgiveness? But where there is unity of power, there is no question of comparison, nor controversy of greatness, since the Lord is great, and there can be no end to his greatness.

If, then, as we believe, there is unity of the Trinity, there is certainly undivided greatness, just as there is undivided operation; which is shown in what follows; for whereas it was said elsewhere: The Father gives you what you shall speak, here he added: For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that hour what you ought to say. Therefore, if the operation is one, the insult is one. 120. But let us return to what was proposed. Here it seems to some that we should understand the Son of man and the Holy Spirit to be the same Christ, the distinction of persons being preserved, and the unity of substance; because Christ, one and the same, is both God and man, the same is Spirit, just as it is written: The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord (Thren.

Iv, 20); the same is holy; because just as the Father is God, and the Son is God, the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord; so also the Father is holy, and the Son is holy, and the Spirit is holy. Finally the Cherubim and Seraphim cry out with unwearied voices: Holy, holy, holy; that the Trinity might be signified by the threefold repeated appellation. If, then, both are Christ, what is the difference, except that we should know that it is not permitted us to deny the divinity of Christ? For finally, in persecution, what is sought except that Christ as God be denied? And so whoever does not confess God in Christ, and Christ from God and in God, does not deserve pardon. But also whoever does not confess that Christ came in the flesh, is not of God; for he who denied the man, denied God; because God is in man, and man in God, is Christ.

121. Many, however, hold this, that they say that blasphemy is not pardonable, if anyone should say that Christ casts out demons in Beelzebub, and not by divine power.

one of the crowd said: Master, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

But he said to him: Man, who has appointed me judge or divider over you? 122. This whole passage is instructed toward undergoing suffering for the confession of the Lord, whether by contempt of death, or by hope of reward, or by the denunciation of a punishment that will remain, to which pardon is never granted. And since avarice is wont for the most part to test virtue, a precept and example for abolishing this thing is also subjoined, the Lord saying: Who made me a judge or divider over you? He rightly declines earthly things, who had come down for divine things; nor does he deign to be a judge of lawsuits and an arbiter of estates, he who holds the judgment of the living and the dead, and the arbitration of merits.

Therefore one must consider not what you ask, but from whom you demand it; nor should you think, with a mind intent on greater things, that you ought to be clamoring about lesser ones. Whence this brother is not undeservedly rebuffed, who was eager to occupy the dispenser of heavenly things with corruptible matters; since between brothers, the patrimony ought to be divided not by a judge as intermediary, but by piety as arbiter—although it is the patrimony of immortality, not of money, that men should seek; for he gathers wealth in vain who does not know he will use it: like that man who, when his barns, filled with new harvests, were bursting, was preparing receptacles for his overflowing fruits, not knowing for whom he was gathering them

following). For all things that belong to the world remain in the world, and whatever is gathered passes from us to heirs; for those things are not ours which we cannot take away with us.

Only virtue is the companion of the dead, only mercy follows us, which, as guide leading the way to heavenly dwellings, acquires eternal tabernacles for the dead by the vile usury of money, as the Lord's precepts testify, saying to us: Make for yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, who may receive you into their eternal tabernacles. Good therefore and salutary is the precept, and fit even to encourage the avaricious, that they might strive to exchange corruptible things for everlasting ones, earthly things for divine. But since devotion of faith is for the most part called back by weakness, and those ready to bestow their patrimony are drawn back by consideration of their own sustenance; the Lord therefore added, saying: Be not anxious for your soul, what you shall eat: nor for your body, what you shall put on. The soul is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

123. For nothing is more moral for producing faith that all things can be bestowed by God on believers, than that that airy spirit perpetuates, without our labor, the vital fellowship of the soul joined in comradeship with the body, nor does the beneficial use of food fail, except when the last day of dying shall come. Since, then, the soul is clothed with the garment of the body, and the body is animated by the vigor of the soul, it is absurd for us to think that a supply of food will be lacking to us, who obtain the continual substance of living itself. 124. Consider, he says, the birds of the sky. A great and fitting example indeed for us to follow by faith. For if to the birds of the sky, which have no exercise of cultivation, no yield from the fruitfulness of harvests, divine providence nevertheless grants unfailing nourishment, it is true that the cause of our want seems to be avarice.

For indeed the use of unlabored food abounds for them for this reason, that they do not know how to claim under a certain special dominion the fruits given to them for common food; we have lost what is common, while we claim what is our own; for nothing is truly one's own, where nothing is perpetual; nor is there certain abundance, where the outcome is uncertain. For why should you esteem your riches, when God has willed that even sustenance be common to you along with the other living creatures? The birds of the sky claim nothing as their own private possession, and therefore they do not know want of food, because they do not know how to envy others. Consider the lilies, how they grow. And below: But if the grass that is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God so clothes: how much more you, of little faith!

125. A good saying indeed, and a moral one, in that the Lord's word has stirred us, by the comparison of flower and grass, toward faith in the divine mercy to be bestowed upon us—either according to the letter, because it pertains to the stature of our body , or spiritually, because beyond the measure of our stature we can add nothing without God's favor. For what is so moral for persuasion, as when you see that even things which are irrational are so clothed by God's foresight that they lack no use either for grace or for adornment; much more should you believe that the rational man, if he places all his use in God, and does not, by eagerness for change, violate his faith, can never be in want, since he has justly presumed upon the divine favor?

126. But nevertheless, that we may weigh these things even more deeply; since it seems not without purpose that the flower is either conferred upon man, or certainly is preferred above men in Solomon, who deserved so much that he either founded, in outward form, a temple to God, or, in mystery, figured the Church of Christ; it does not seem foreign to suppose that through the brightness of the color we are to understand the glory of the heavenly angels expressed, who are truly the flowers of this world; since by their brightness the world is adorned, and they breathe forth the good odor of sanctification. Supported by whose aid we can say: We are the good odor of Christ unto God in those who are being saved; who, hindered by no anxiety, exercised by no labor, preserve within themselves the grace of divine liberality and the gifts of heavenly nature.

Whence it is well shown that here Solomon is clothed with his own glory, and elsewhere is shown covered

because he clothed the weakness of bodily nature, as though covered by a certain virtue of mind, with the glory of works. But the angels, whose more divine nature remains free of bodily injury, are rightly preferred, though he was a very great man, in consideration of our injury nonetheless. Therefore, since through the resurrection men will be like the angels in heaven, the Lord commands us also, by the example of the angels, to hope for an increase of heavenly glory—he who granted it also to them—until this mortal thing be swallowed up by life: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

127. Many also think this comparison more fitting according to the nature of the flower and the use of the intended growth

because lilies require no yearly cultivation of tending, nor does the labor of farmers revolve anxiously around the year for the generation of this flower as it does for the yield of other fruits. For in whatever droughts of the field, all that is nourished into the flower is animated by a certain generative power from itself and within itself of ever-remaining sap; so that when you see the stalk of the tender leaves has withered, yet the nature of the flower still grows green; for the greenness is hidden, not lost. But when it has been called forth by the flatteries of spring, it resumes the garment of its bud, the hair of the flower, the adornment of the lily. Which point, since we recall it has been treated more fully elsewhere, it is now enough to have touched upon briefly, lest there be a return to the same matter.

128. This too must be noted, that lilies are not generated in the roughness of mountains, or the wildness of forests, but in the pleasantness of gardens. For there are certain gardens fruitful in various virtues, according to what is written: A garden enclosed, my sister, my spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed; because where there is integrity, where chastity, where religion, where faithful silences of secrets, where the brightness of angels, there are the violets of confessors, the lilies of virgins, the roses of martyrs. Nor should anyone think it incongruous that the angels are compared to lilies, since Christ himself recalled being a lily, saying: I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. And rightly is Christ a lily; because where the blood of the martyrs is, there is Christ, who is the sublime flower, immaculate, innocent; in whom no roughness of thorns offends, but a grace poured around shines forth. For roses have thorns, because torments are of the martyrs. Unassailable divinity, which felt no torments, has no thorns.

129. Therefore if the lilies, or the angels, are clothed above the glory of men, we ought not to despair of the mercy of God even in ourselves, to whom the Lord, through the grace of the resurrection, promises a form like that of the angels. At this point he also seems to touch upon that question which the Apostle too did not omit; that the peoples of this world ask, how the dead rise, and with what body they come. For when he says: Seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you; he shows that this grace will not be lacking to the faithful, either now or in the future—provided that those who desire divine things do not seek earthly ones. For it is unbecoming for men who are soldiers of the kingdom to be anxious about food. The king knows how to feed, nourish, and clothe his household; and therefore he said: Cast your care upon God, and he will nourish you.

I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I desire, but that it be already kindled?

I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened, until it be accomplished? 131. In the foregoing he wished us to watch, awaiting through every moment the coming of the Lord and Savior; lest, while someone relaxes and neglects, putting off his works from day to day, he be overtaken either by the day of future judgment or by his own death, and lose the merit of his commendation. And that indeed is the general form of the precept for all: but the series of the following example seems to be set forth for stewards, that is, for priests; that they may know a heavy punishment must be undergone by them in the future, if, intent on worldly delights, they have neglected to govern the household and the people of the Lord entrusted to them.

132. But

because it is a small advance, and a small grace of merit, to be called back from error by fear of punishment, and a greater prerogative belongs to charity and love, the Lord sharpens our zeal to earn his grace, and inflames us with desire of acquiring divinity, saying: I came to cast fire upon the earth. Not, surely, that fire which consumes good things, but the author of good will, who improves the golden vessels of the Lord's house, but consumes hay and straw, and burns all worldly things bound up in the world's pleasure, and the work of perishable flesh—that divine fire, which was flaming in the bones of the prophets, as holy Jeremiah says: For it has become as a burning fire, flaming in my bones. For it is the fire of the Lord, of whom it is said: Fire shall burn before him. And the Lord himself is that same fire, as he himself said: I am a burning fire, and one that does not consume.

For the fire of the Lord is eternal light. By this fire those lamps are kindled, of which he said above: Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning. And therefore, because the night is the day of this life, a lamp is necessary. This fire, sent by the Lord, even Cleophas and his companion on the way to Emmaus testify was in themselves, saying: Was not our heart burning within us on the way, while he opened to us the Scriptures? Thus they clearly taught what the operation of this fire is, which illuminates the secrets of the heart. Perhaps therefore the Lord will come in fire; so that at the time of the resurrection he may consume all vices, fulfill in his sight the desires of each, and kindle the light of merits and mysteries.

133. So great, then, is the condescension of the Lord, that he testifies that within himself is the zeal for pouring devotion into us, and for perfecting perfection in us, and for hastening for us the suffering of the passion; who, though he had in himself nothing that could grieve, was nonetheless straitened by our afflictions, and under the time of death displayed sadness, which he had taken on not from fear of his own death, but from the delay of our redemption, according to what is written: And how am I straitened until it be accomplished? Surely he who is straitened until perfection is secure about the perfection. And he says elsewhere: My soul, he says, is sorrowful even unto death. Not on account of death, but even unto death, is the Lord sorrowful; because the condition of bodily feeling, not the dread of death, affects him.

For he who took on a body was bound to undergo all things that belong to a body; that he might hunger, thirst, be straitened, be made sorrowful: but the divinity does not know how to be changed through these affections. At the same time he shows that in the struggle of the passion, the death of the body is the release of anxiety, not the heaping up of grief. Do you think that I have come to give peace upon earth? I say to you, No, but separation. For from now on there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three shall be divided. The father against the son, and the son against the father shall be divided: the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother: the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

134. Although in almost all the Gospel passages a spiritual understanding operates, yet in the present passage most of all—lest anyone be offended by the harshness of a bare exposition—the sequence must be tempered by the spiritual height of meaning: especially since most sacred religion, by moral disciplines and gentle examples of piety, gently invites even those exiled from faith to reverence toward itself; so that the preceding discipline of faith may dissolve, by its own gentleness, the harshness of superstitions, and compel minds subject to errors to believe even by faith, whom it was able to soothe by piety. For since the depths of faith are not grasped by weak hearts, through those things which are prescribed, the things which are to be venerated are estimated; so that just things testify concerning what is just, holy things concerning what is holy, the good of their own good author.

135. Shall we then think that that Lord, who embraced together the reverence of divinity and the grace of piety, saying: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; and thou shalt love thy neighbour; has now so changed that we should believe he commanded the abolishing of the names of kinship, the shattering of the affections of piety, the discords of dearest pledges? And how is he himself our peace, who made both one? How does he himself say: My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave unto you, if he comes to separate parents from children, children from parents by the discord of kinship? How is he cursed who does not honor his father, and religious who abandons him? 136. But if we observe that the first cause is that of religion, the second that of piety, we shall find this question too resolved without a knot; for it is fitting that you should set human things below divine ones.

For if a duty is to be shown to parents, how much more to the author of parents, to whom you owe thanks even for your parents! Or if they do not acknowledge a parent at all, how could you acknowledge one? He does not therefore say that pledges are to be renounced, but that God is to be preferred above all. Indeed you have in another book: He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. You are not forbidden to love your parents, but to prefer them to God; for the pledges of nature are the benefits of the Lord: nor ought anyone to love more the benefit he has received than God from whom the benefit is kept as received. Therefore even according to the letter, for those who understand piously, a religious exposition is not lacking; yet there remains something whereby we should think this sense to be referred more deeply, because he added:

There shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three shall be divided.

137. For who are the five, when the subjection of six persons seems to be made—father and son, mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law?

Although the same mother who is a mother-in-law can be understood as one, for she who is the mother of the son is the mother-in-law of his wife; so that even according to the letter the reckoning of the number is not absurd, and it is clearly evident that faith is not bound by the bonds of nature, whereby, though they are bound by duty of piety, yet by faith they are free. 138. It also seems not incongruous if we unravel this sense by a mystical interpretation. One house is one man. For each man is a house either of God or of the devil. Thus the spiritual house is the spiritual man, as we have in the epistle of Peter: And you also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house unto a holy priesthood.

In this house, then, two are divided against three, three against two.

We often read of two as the soul and the body. For if two shall have agreed on earth, they make both one. And elsewhere: I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection. One thing is that which serves, another is that to which it is subjected. 139. If we have recognized two, let us also recognize three: which is easy to understand from those two. For there are three affections of the soul in the body: one rational, another concupiscible, the third irascible—that is, λογιστικόν, ὀρεκτικόν, ὀργιστικόν. Therefore it is not two against two, but two against three, and three against two shall be divided; for through the coming of Christ the man who was irrational was made rational. Before, we were like beasts which know no reason, we were carnal, we were earthly according to that sentence: Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt go. The Son of God came, sent his Spirit into our hearts; we were made spiritual sons.

140. We can say that in this house there are also five others

that is, smell, touch, taste, sight, hearing. Therefore if, according to those things which we hear or read, sight and hearing being separated from the rest of sense, we exclude the superfluous pleasures of the body which are born of taste, touch, and smell, we divide two against three, in that the disposition of the mind is not captured by the allurements of vices, but by zeal for virtue withdraws itself from the enticements of pleasure; and lest there be one consent of all, which would hurl into error, but the desires of the heart and the offices of virtue separate themselves by dividing. Or if we take the five bodily senses, the vices and sins of the body already separate themselves.

And perhaps these are the five whom that luxurious rich man in the Gospel calls his brothers, who is described as being tormented in the underworld, to whom he asks that it be commanded that they should know in this age that delights must be renounced, so that they may have rest after this age, through zeal for virtue.

141. It is also possible to see the flesh and the soul separated from the smell, touch, and taste of luxury, dividing themselves in one house against the vices assailing them, flesh and soul subjecting themselves to the law of God, and removing themselves from the law of sin: whose discord, though through the transgression of the first man it turned into nature, so that they would in no way come together with equal zeal for virtue; yet through the cross of the Lord the Savior, both enmities and even the law of the commandments being emptied, they came into the harmony of fellowship, after Christ, descending from heaven as our peace, made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, abolishing the enmities in his flesh by the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create the two in one new man, making peace, and might reconcile both in one body to God. Who are these two, but the one interior, the other exterior?

The one looks to the vigor of the soul, the other refers to the sense of the body; although in themselves the separable affections agree in conspiracy, when the flesh, subjected to the better part, obeys wholesome commands: not that it migrates, transfused by the subtlety of matter into the nature of the soul, but because, delights being renounced, purged of all the stain of vices, it walks the path of heavenly conversation with the affection of obedience: no longer, as before, warring against the law of the mind, but through the law of the mind and the spirit of life, freed from the law of sin; so that the flesh becomes an appendage to the soul, no longer a procuress of vices, but a certain rival and, as it were, a handmaid of virtue.

142. And again, when the soul does not connive at the enticements of the body, nor is conquered by the delight of carnal pleasures, but the mind, pure and stripped of the servitude of this world, allures and draws the senses of the body into its own pleasures; so that by the use of hearing and reading it may feast on the increases of virtue, and, unmindful of the interior sap, may satisfy its hunger with spiritual food. For prayer is the food of the mind, and a splendid nourishment of sweetness, which does not burden the members, nor turns itself to the shameful parts of nature, but to its ornaments; when the wallowing place of lusts is changed into the temple of God, and the lodging of vices begins to be the shrine of virtues.

This indeed it does when the flesh, returning into nature, recognizes the nurse of its vigor, and, laying down the daring of contumacy, is joined to the will of the moderating soul: such as it was when it received the secret dwelling places of paradise to inhabit, before, infected by the poison of the pestiferous serpent, it knew sacrilegious hunger, and passed over, through zeal for gluttony, the memory of the divine precepts clinging to the senses of the soul. 143. From this sin is shown to have flowed forth, as it were, from parents both of body and soul, while the nature of the body is tempted, the ill-disposed soul suffers along with it. If it had restrained the appetite of the body, the origin of sin would have been extinguished in its very rising, which, infused as it were with a virile motion of the body, the soul, moistened, its own vigor also corrupted, brought forth heavy with the works of another.

For that more violent and stronger sex is carried along, as it were, a virile affection by a certain strong impulse: this one strives to hold a gentler rather than a more vehement course. From these, then, the movement of diverse desires grew up. 144. But when the soul returns into itself, convicted by shame at its deformed offspring, it disowns its degenerate heirs, renouncing the movements, hating sin. The flesh too, degenerated by the lot of heavy labors, and wearied by the usury of miserable injury, when it grieves that it is pierced, as it were by the thorns of the world, by its own desires which it itself begot, hastens to put off the old man; that it may take itself away from itself, lest a perishing succession abandon its improvident parent.

Again the irrational motion of desires, as it were with a certain colored beauty of form, alluring by the enticements of pleasure, adopted it to itself for the use of fellowship: thus pleasure, as it were a certain daughter-in-law of body and soul, marries the movement of depraved desire. 145. Therefore as long as it remained in one house, with the vices conspiring, an individual and inseparable agreement, there seemed to be no division.

But when Christ sent upon the earth the fire by which he might burn out the sins of the flesh, or the sword which signifies the edge of unsheathed power, by which the secrets of the spirit and of the marrow are pierced; then the flesh and soul, renewed by the mysteries of regeneration, forgetful of what they were, begin to be what they were not: and thus they separate the fellowship of the old vice, though formerly beloved to themselves, and eliminate the union, as it were, of a prodigal posterity; so that parents are divided from children, while the intemperate motion is renounced by the temperance of the body, and the soul declines the company of guilt, nor does any place remain for that pleasure, foreign and taken up from without. 146. Children too are divided from parents, when the old vices decline the aged censure of the renewed man, and the more youthful pleasure flees, as it were, the discipline of a serious house, from the norm of piety.

It is not incongruous also to think that these divide themselves for this reason, that they may become better than their parents; especially since in what follows he said: If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own soul also, he cannot be my disciple. And therefore, according to the simple form of understanding, the son who follows Christ is preferred before his heathen parents; for religion excels the duties of piety. 147. There is also that according to a deeper interpretation, that sin is born of the flesh, and works as it were in the womb of the flesh, of which the Apostle says: Now if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

When the Lord's blood, poured out for the life of this world, has abolished vices, it is turned from offense into grace: For sin abounded, that grace might more abound; and it happens that repentance, born of sin, drives one to a change of purpose and to a desire for spiritual grace. Thus what was to me unto death, this will be unto salvation. Therefore sin, washed away by the irrigating fountain, is separated from the flesh whence it was generated: and while each one desires to redeem his offense, out of the succession of guilt arises zeal for discipline. 148. Concupiscence too of evil things, and a certain more fervid movement of desire, by the word of God is transfused into an appetite for divine charity and love, and in the same nature there arises a varied discipline, and that appetite of body and soul acquires for itself a pleasure much better than before, that of heavenly mysteries.

For the mind is nourished by the knowledge of things, and, made loftier by the ascertained promise of things to come, disdains the old works of the soul: For the natural man perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness unto him: but the spiritual man judgeth all things; yet he himself is judged of no man.

While thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, in the way give diligence to be delivered from him; lest he drag thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the exactor, and the exactor cast thee into prison. I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite. 149. Matthew also set this down: but he did so specifically, this one generally: for he thought it was said concerning reconciling the peace of disagreeing brothers: this one concerning repentance, and the amendment of every fault. Let us discuss, therefore, who the adversary is, who the magistrate, who the judge, or who we should think the exactor to be, or what we should think the mite to be, which unless one shall have paid, he is cast into prison.

150. And according to Matthew indeed the adversary is he with whom you seem least to have agreed in this life, who before the future judge of the living and the dead pursues you with the charge of an abiding quarrel: but according to Luke our adversary is especially that one who sows the enticements of sins; that he may have partners in punishment, whom he had as companions in error: and therefore he seeks companions in fault; that he may betray those made liable to punishment. Against whom the apostle Peter warns us to be on guard, saying: Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour (I Peter, 8). 151. There is also our adversary, according to Matthew, in every practice of virtue, and the apostolic and prophetic word, which constrains us to harsher precepts, and to the lessons of a more austere life: with whom it behooves us to agree, that we may emulate him in works; lest by some contumacy of ours we be shown to have deserted from him.

But according to Luke, no one is more an adversary to us than our own fall, which accuses us by the evidences of our life: not that it seeks the office of a judge of any accusation to come, but that before the discerner of all things our own act accuses us, when it is found estranged from the practice of virtue and the apostolic precepts. 152. And so every practice of vices is our adversary, lust is our adversary, avarice is our adversary, every wickedness is our adversary, every unjust thought is our adversary: finally, an evil conscience is that which afflicts us both here and will accuse and betray us in the future, as the Apostle testifies, saying: Their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts accusing one another, or even defending them. But if conscience betrays each one, how much more is the work of our deeds ready before God, which will be reckoned in our body expressed at the last time, and the secret of thought written in our hearts will be read!

Let us therefore take pains, that while we are set in this course of life, we may be freed from wicked deeds as from an evil adversary; lest, while we go with the adversary to the magistrate, he condemn our error on the way. 153. Therefore Matthew also says: Be well-disposed to your adversary while you are with him on the way: but the Greek said εὐνοέων, that is, being benevolent; for if while we are in this life, we free ourselves from the bonds of the devil, neither will he be condemned on our account, and we shall be free from his bonds. Whence also the seventy-fifth psalm is inscribed for the Assyrian. You take good counsel for your adversary, then, and you do good for that Assyrian, that is, the vain one, if, having stripped off his snares, you show this benevolence; so that he too may escape the punishment of your fall and death.

But if you cling to his bonds, he will hand you over as a defendant to the magistrate, being at once accuser and betrayer.

154. Who is the magistrate, but he in whose hand is all power, and who claims for himself the lofty dignity of the full and perfect time? To whom, relying on the conscience of good works and not fearing the adversary, the holy Prophet hastens, saying: My soul thirsted for the living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God? For this magistrate will hand the defendant over to the judge, namely to him to whom he has granted power over the living and the dead: and he granted it by nature, not by grace; for he did not receive what he did not have, but assumed what he took from the substance of the Father when he was begotten.

He shows you this magistrate and judge who showed the accuser, and shows when he is to be revealed: In the day, he says, when God will judge the hidden things of men according to my Gospel through Jesus Christ our Lord. This, then, is the judge Jesus Christ, through whom hidden things are refuted, and the penalty of wicked work is imposed. 155. Do you wish to know that Christ is the judge who hands over to the tax-collector, and sends into prison? Ask him, or rather read him in the Gospel saying: Take him and cast him into outer darkness. He also showed his own tax-collectors elsewhere, where he says: So it shall be at the end of the age, the angels will go forth and separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 156. It remains now for us to understand what the figure of the farthing means.

And there seems to be a spiritual secret understanding expressed under the name of a common thing.

For just as those who pay money, render the debt, and the name of the loan is not cancelled until the whole quantity of the entire principal, down to the last coin, is paid by whatever manner of payment: so by the compensation of charity and of remaining deeds, or by whatever satisfaction, the penalty of sin is dissolved. 157. Nor is it without purpose that he put not a mite (as elsewhere)—not two—, not an as, not a denarius, but a farthing in this passage; for the exchange of a farthing is, as it were, a kind of compensation, when one thing is given back, and another is signified as paid: so here too either the injury is redeemed by the price of charity, or the penalty is remitted by the estimation of the injury.

158. We recall that a farthing is customarily given at the baths, by the offering of which, just as there each person receives the means of washing, so here he receives the means of cleansing

because each one's sin is washed away in the manner of condition described above; since the guilty is exercised so long by punishments, that he may pay the penalties of the error committed. Concerning those Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, there seems to be a certain figure touching those who, under diabolical compulsion, do not offer sacrifice purely: whose prayer becomes sin, as it is written of Judas the betrayer, who, set among the sacrifices, was contemplating the betrayal of the Lord's blood.

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard.

160. What does it mean that the Lord frequently introduces the parable of the fig tree in his Gospel? For you have elsewhere that, at the Lord's command, all the greenness of this leafing tree withered: from which you understand the creator of all things, who can command natures either to wither suddenly or to grow green. Elsewhere he recalls that from the tenderness of this tree and its leaves the approach of summer is usually inferred, signifying by both that the vain glory which the Jewish people put forward fell away like a flower at the Lord's coming, because it remained unfruitful in works; and that the day of judgment, like the coming of summer, in which the ripened fruits of all the lands are gathered in, is to be measured from the fullness of the Church, into which the Jews too are to believe. 161. Let us here then seek also some deeper secret of meaning.

The fig tree is in the vineyard: but the vineyard was of the Lord of Hosts, which he gave over to the plunder of the nations. And so he who caused his vineyard to be plundered, he also ordered this fig tree to be cut down. Now the comparison of this tree to the synagogue is apt; because just as this tree, abounding in flowing leaves, disappoints the hope of its owner with the empty expectation of hoped-for produce: so too in the Synagogue, while its teachers glory in fruitless works, in words only, like abounding leaves, the vain shadow of the Law overflows, but the hope of expected produce, being false, mocks the vows of the believing people. 162. There is also in the nature of the tree that which makes you more ready to believe that the likeness of the Synagogue is expressed by comparison with it; for if you inquire carefully, you will find a habit distinct from the use of other trees in the nature of this one.

For other trees bear the flower before the fruit, and foretell the coming fruits by their flower; this alone from the beginning buds forth fruits instead of flowers: in others the flower is shaken off, and fruits are born; in this one the fruits fall, so that fruits may succeed them. Therefore those first ones, empty of fruit, emerge in place of a flower: thus, unripe by a certain manner of birth, not knowing the order of nature, they cannot keep the benefit of nature. For where the bud is accustomed to push itself forth from the midst of the bark, there the smallest fruits of this kind burst forth. Concerning which we read in the Song of Songs: The fig tree puts forth its green figs. And so, while other shrubs first grow white in early spring, only the fig does not know how to grow hoary with its own flower; perhaps because there is no fruit-bearing habit more mature than these.

For as others succeed, these, as though degenerating, are rejected, and, their weak root drying up, are burned away, that a more useful sap may be renewed for others. Yet some very rare ones remain, and do not fall, upon which this growth has smiled; so that from the midst of two twigs a small tendril bursts forth briefly, and, protected on both sides as if in the bosom of parent nature, grows in the warmth of a fuller sap. These, called forth by the mildness of a gentler air, and grown riper over longer times, when they have put off the wild character of their earlier sap, are preferred to the others in appearance and in the grace of ripeness. 163. Consider now the customs and the minds of the Jews, who, like the first fruits of a poorly fruitful Synagogue, fell like falling green figs; so that fruits destined to last beyond our age might succeed.

For indeed the first people of the Synagogue, weak as it were in the withering root of works, could not draw the abundance of natural wisdom. And therefore it fell like a useless fruit; so that, as it were from the same buds of the fruitful tree, out of the richness of the ancient religion, a new people of the Church might emerge. Therefore that one which existed ceased to exist, so that the one which did not exist might begin to exist. Yet the first ones from Israel, whom a branch of stronger nature had raised up, colored by twofold sap in the bosom of both, under the shadow of the Law and of the cross, after the manner of the ripening green fig, excelled the rest in the grace of the most beautiful fruits, to whom it is said: You shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

164. Nor is it alien to this that Adam and Eve, those first parents of our race as of our error, who wove for themselves the leaves of this tree, deserved to be exiles from paradise: since, conscious of their transgression, they shunned the presence of the Lord walking there; so as to signify what would come to pass, that in the last times the people of the Jews, under the coming of the Lord Savior, who came to call them, recognizing themselves stripped of virtues through the temptations of the devil, and fearing the uncovered disgraces of conscience, straying from religion, confounded by prevarication, would withdraw from the Lord, covering the shameful things of their deeds with the veilings, as it were, of flowing words like leaves. 165. Therefore those who plucked leaves from the fig tree, not fruits, were banished from the kingdom of God; for they were in a living soul. The second Adam came, and now sought not leaves but fruits; for he was in a life-giving spirit.

But in the spirit the fruit of virtue is acquired, the Lord is adored.

Now the Lord sought, not because he did not know that the fig tree lacked fruit, but that he might show figuratively that the Synagogue ought already to have fruit. Finally, from what follows he teaches that he did not come before the time, he who came over the course of three years; for it reads thus:

Behold, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none.

Cut it down, therefore; why does it also occupy the ground?

166. He came to Abraham, he came to Moses, he came to Mary

that is, he came in the seal, he came in the Law, he came in the body. We recognize his coming from its benefits. Elsewhere there is purification, elsewhere sanctification, elsewhere justification: circumcision purified, the Law sanctified, grace justified. One in all, and all in one. For no one can be cleansed, except he who fears the Lord: no one deserves to receive the Law, unless purified from guilt: no one comes to grace, unless he has known the Law. Therefore the people of the Jews could neither be purified; because they had circumcision not of the mind but of the body, nor sanctified; because they were ignorant of the virtue of the Law, following the carnal rather than the spiritual (but the Law is spiritual), nor justified; because they bore no repentance for their sins, and therefore did not know grace. 167. Rightly, then, no fruit was found in the Synagogue: and therefore it is ordered to be cut down.

But the good cultivator, and perhaps he in whom is the foundation of the Church, foreknowing that the other was to be sent to the Gentiles, while he himself was to be sent to those who are of the circumcision; religiously intervened lest it be cut down, relying on his own calling that the people of the Jews too could be saved through the Church. And so he says:

Let it alone this year also, until I dig around it, and throw in a basket of dung.

168. How quickly he recognized the hardness and pride of the Jews to be the causes of barrenness! And so he who knows how to detect vices knows how to cultivate. He promises that their hard hearts must be dug by apostolic mattocks; so that the two-edged word may overturn the long-uncultivated grime covering their mind, and, the heart being ploughed up, may rouse the sense already vigorous with airy breath; lest a heap of earth should bury and hide the root of wisdom. He also says that a basket of dung is to be thrown in. Great indeed is the power of dung, which is so great that it makes fruitful things out of unfruitful, green things out of withered, and fruitful things out of barren. In this Job sat when he was tempted, and could not be overcome. And Paul counts as dung, so that he might gain Christ. Finally, when Job had lost very much before, after he sat in dung, he had nothing left that the devil could take from him.

Good, then, is the earth that is dug, good the dung that is cast in.

Finally, the Lord raises up the needy from the earth, and lifts the poor out of the dung. 169. And so, through the exercise of spiritual understanding and the disposition of humility, that good cultivator reckons that the Jews too will become fruitful for the Gospel of Christ.

For he remembered that the Lord spoke through Haggai, that on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day when the temple of the Lord almighty was founded, the vine, he says, and the fig trees, and the pomegranates, and the trees of the olive, which have not borne fruit, from this day I will bless: whereby it is revealed that, toward the very setting of the declining year, that is, at the sunset of the world now growing old, the holy temple of God, which is the Church, is to be founded, by whose grace, through the sanctification of the washing, the people of the Jews and of the nations may be able to have the fruit of their own merits. 170. Therefore through the nature of the tree, the appearance of the Synagogue is indicated, fruitful in the second growth; for we come from the seed of the fathers. And the Jews are rightly compared to unripe figs falling, because with hardened heart and stiff neck they cannot arrive at their own perpetuity.

But if they should die, and as it were fall from this world, so that they might be reborn into the inner man through the grace of the font, they would indeed be fruitful. But the perfidy of stubborn men has made the Synagogue useless; and therefore, as if barren, it is ordered to be cut down. 171. What has been said of the Jews, I think must be guarded against by all, and especially by us; lest we occupy the fruitful place of the Church empty of merits: we who, like blessed pomegranates, ought to bear inner fruits, fruits of modesty, fruits of union, fruits of mutual charity and love, enclosed under the one womb of Mother Church; lest the wind harm us, lest hail beat us down, lest the heat of desire burn us up, lest the downpour of moisture crush us.

172. Some, however, think that this fig, by allegory, is a figure not of the Synagogue but of malice and wickedness; these however differ in nothing, except that they choose the genus in place of the species. But they say they avoid this because the Lord said to the fig tree: "Let no fruit ever grow from you forever"; whereas we know that very many of the Jews have believed, and will believe. But whoever believes is no longer fruit of the Synagogue, but of the Church: nor is he born of the Synagogue who is reborn in the Church: For just as there are those who went out from us, but were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us: so of those who believe from among the Jews, we say that if they had been of the Synagogue, they would have remained in the Synagogue: but they went out of the Synagogue for this reason, that they might be believed not to have been of the Synagogue.

Then someone might intervene on behalf of malice, and say that it should be cultivated so that it might bear fruit; whereas the Lord came for this very reason, to abolish the seeds of wickedness.

Now he was teaching in their synagogue on the sabbaths.

And behold, a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, and was bent over.

173. How quickly he indicated what he would say concerning the Synagogue!

He shows that he had come to that very tree, he who was preaching in it. Then in the infirm woman there follows, as it were, a figure of the Church, which, when it has fulfilled the measure of the Law and of the resurrection, raised up in that perpetual rest to a lofty summit, will not be able to feel the bending down of our infirmity. Nor could this woman have been cured otherwise than because she had fulfilled the Law and grace: the Law in the commandments, grace in the font, through which, having died to the world, we rise again with Christ; for in the ten words is the perfection of the Law: in the number eight is the fullness of the resurrection. The work of the sabbath is therefore a sign of what is to come, that each one, having fulfilled the Law and grace, through the mercy of Christ will be stripped of the troubles of bodily fragility.

And therefore, as a sign, sanctification was sent beforehand through Moses; that it might be an exercise for future sanctification, and of spiritual observance, by abstaining from worldly works. Then also God rested from the works of the world, but not from the works of which he has an everlasting and continual operation; as the Son says: "My Father works even until now, and I work"; so that, in likeness to God, our worldly works, not our religious ones, might cease. But not understanding this, the ruler of the synagogue forbade anyone to be healed on the sabbath, though the sabbath is a type of future feast-days. And therefore the feast-days are not of good work, but of evil; and it has therefore been prescribed that, bearing no burden of sins, nor of works empty of honor, we should celebrate the sabbaths that are to come after death.

Whence the Lord seems to answer spiritually, when he says: "Hypocrites, does not each of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass, and lead it away to water it?" 175. Why did he indicate no other animal, except to show that, though the rulers of the Synagogue oppose it, it will nevertheless come to pass that the Jewish and Gentile people will lay down the thirst of the body, and the heat of this world, through the abundance of the Lord's fountain? For "the ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib". Thus that people who before were fed on the fodder of vile hay, which withers before it is even plucked, received that bread which came down from heaven. And therefore, through the calling of the two peoples, he says the Church will be saved, which, after the time of the Law was fulfilled, and in the age of the Lord's resurrection, received the time of its own release.

How merciful then is the Lord, how pious in both cases, whether he shows mercy or exercises judgment!

In the type of the Synagogue he orders the tree to be cut down, in the type of the Church he saves the woman. How sweet the parable! How easy the solution! He compares bond to bond; so that by the Jews' own accusation their own act might be refuted. For since they themselves loose the bonds of animals on the sabbath, they reproach the Lord, who freed men from the bonds of sins. To what is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and cast into his garden: and it grew, and became a tree, and the birds of the air rested in its branches. 176. The present reading teaches us that the nature of comparisons must be considered, not the outward appearance.

Let us then see why the lofty kingdom of heaven is compared to a grain of mustard seed: for I recall that also in another place the grain of mustard is read, where it is compared to faith, the Lord saying: "If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: Be lifted up, and cast into the sea". Nor is this a small faith, but a great one, which can command a mountain to move itself; for the Lord does not require a mediocre faith from the apostles, who he knows must contend against the towering height of the spirit of wickedness that exalts itself. Do you wish to know that great faith is required? Read in the Apostle: "And if I have all faith, so as to move mountains". 177. Therefore, if the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, and faith is like a grain of mustard seed: then faith indeed is the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of heaven is faith.

Thus whoever has faith, has the kingdom of heaven.

And the kingdom of God is within us, and faith is within us; for we read: "The kingdom of God is within you". And elsewhere: "Have faith in yourselves" (f. Finally, holy Peter, who had all faith, received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so that he might unlock them for others also. 178. Now let us consider from the nature of mustard what the force of the comparison is. Its grain is certainly a cheap and simple thing: if it begins to be crushed, it pours forth its power. So too faith at first seems simple: but if it is crushed by adversities, it pours forth the grace of its power; so that it may fill with its fragrance also others who either hear or read of it. A grain of mustard are our martyrs Felix, Nabor, and Victor: they had the fragrance of faith, but it lay hidden.

Persecution came, they laid down their arms, they bent their necks, crushed by the sword they scattered the grace of their martyrdom through all the bounds of the world, so that it may rightly be said: "Their sound has gone out into all the earth". 179. But faith is crushed in one way, pressed in another, sown in another. The Lord himself is a grain of mustard seed. He was untouched by injury: but him, like a grain of mustard seed that had not been crushed, the people did not know. He chose to be crushed, so that we might say: "For we are the good fragrance of Christ to God". He chose to be pressed; whence Peter also said: "The crowds press upon you".

He chose to be sown, like a grain which, being taken, a man cast into his garden; for in a garden Christ was both taken and buried: in the garden he grew, where also he rose again, and became a tree, as it is written: "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my brother among the sons". 180. Therefore you too, sow Christ in your garden. A garden is indeed a place full of flowers and diverse fruits, in which the grace of your work may flourish, and a manifold fragrance of varied virtue may breathe forth. Let Christ be there, where there is fruit. Sow the Lord Jesus. He is a grain when he is seized, he is a tree when he rises again, a tree overshadowing the world. He is a grain when buried in the earth, he is a tree when raised up to heaven. 181. Press him too along with Christ, and sow faith. Faith is pressed when we believe that Christ was crucified.

Paul pressed the faith, when he said: "And I, coming to you, brothers, came not with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the mystery of God; for I judged not myself to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified". And because he taught to press faith, he also taught to raise it up, saying: "For now we no longer know Christ crucified". We sow faith, however, when from the Gospel and the apostolic and prophetic readings we believe in the Lord's passion. We sow faith, then, when we cover it, as it were, with the softened and worked soil of the Lord's flesh; so that as if by the warmth and pressing of the sacred body, faith may scatter itself. For whoever has believed that the Son of God became man believes that he died for us, believes that he rose for us, believes that he ascended for us. I sow faith, therefore, when I insert his burial. 182. Do you wish to know Christ as the grain, and Christ as sown?

"Unless a grain of wheat falling into the earth dies, it remains alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit".

Therefore we have not erred, because we said what he himself had already said. But he is also a grain of wheat; because it strengthens the heart of man: and a grain of mustard; because it kindles the heart of man. And though each applies to all things, still he seems to be a grain of wheat when his resurrection is treated: for he is "the bread of God, which came down from heaven"; because the Word of God, and the example of resurrection, nourishes minds, sharpens hope, strengthens affection: but he is a grain of mustard, because the discourse concerning the Lord's passion is more bitter and more sharp: more bitter for weeping, sharper for stirring emotion.

And so when we hear and read that the Lord fasted, that the Lord thirsted, that the Lord wept, that the Lord was beaten, and also that in the time of his passion he said: "Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation"; rebuked as it were by the sap of a more bitter discourse, we temper the sweetnesses of bodily pleasures, sweeter than is right. Therefore whoever sows the grain of mustard, sows the kingdom of heaven. 183. Do not despise this grain of mustard: "It is indeed the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it becomes greater than all herbs". If Christ is the grain of mustard, in what way is Christ either smallest, or grows? Truly not by nature, but by appearance he grows again. Do you wish to know the smallest? "We saw him, and he had no beauty nor comeliness". Learn the greatest: "Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men".

For indeed he who had no beauty nor comeliness has been made more excellent than the angels, beyond all the glory of the prophets, whom feeble Israel had eaten as herbs; for the bread by which hearts are strengthened, one had refused, the other had not received. 184. But the seed is Christ, because he is the seed of Abraham: "For to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He does not say: And to seeds, as if of many, but as of one: And to your seed, which is Christ". And Christ is not only a seed, but also the smallest of all seeds; because he came not in a kingdom, not in riches, not in the wisdom of this world. But suddenly, like a tree, he poured forth the lofty summit of his power, so that we might say: "Under his shadow I longed for, and sat". And often at the same time, I think, he seemed to be both grain and tree.

He is a grain when it is said: "Is not this the carpenter's son, Joseph's son?" But amid these words he grew suddenly, as the Jews testified, since they could not grasp, as it were, the branches of a wide tree, saying: "Whence has this man this wisdom?" 185. The grain, therefore, is the figure, the tree is wisdom: in whose leafy branches that night-raven has its dwelling, that solitary sparrow its building, that one caught up into paradise, destined to be caught up into the air and the clouds, now rests in a secure seat. There rest also the powers, both of the angelic hosts, and whoever by spiritual deeds have deserved to fly upward. Holy John rested, when he reclined upon the breast of Jesus; indeed he himself, by the sap of that tree, is extended like a branch. Peter is a branch, Paul is a branch, forgetting the things behind, and reaching for the things that are before.

186. Into whose bosom, and into certain retreats of disputations—we who were far off

that is, we gathered from among the nations, whom for a long time the storm of the empty world and the whirlwind of spiritual wickedness tossed about—we fly, having taken up the oars of the virtues; so that the shadow of the saints may defend us from the burning heat of this world, already flourishing in the security of a sure standing: because our soul, previously bowed down by heavy sins, like that woman, has, like a sparrow snatched from the snare of hunters, migrated to the Lord's branches and mountains. And so, having formerly been vain in superfluous observances, and flitting about with empty levity, now, freed by faith in Christ in hand, and liberated from the bonds of sabbaths, we attend to good works: and in these very feasts we have liberty, we exclude intemperance; lest, freed from the Law, we should become slaves to desires: for the Law bound itself, that it might set free from desires.

Grace, which took away the lesser servitude, has commanded far weightier things.

All things are lawful for us, but not all things are expedient; for it is grave to use power in such a way that you fall back under power. Cease to be under the Law, so that by virtue you may be above the Law. To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in flour until the whole was leavened. 187. This comparison, concerning the questions to be sought out, sheds so much ambiguity that it has held diverse opinions among many. Fittingly, therefore, we said above that Christ is the grain of wheat, since a spiritual leaven lay beneath it, and for this reason many think that Christ is the leaven, because he raises up the virtue that has been received. And because leaven excels flour, though not in kind, so also Christ, coming from the fathers, equal in body, but incomparable in divinity, excelled.

Therefore let holy Church, which is figured under the type of that woman of the Gospel, whose flour we are, hide the Lord Jesus within the inward parts of our mind, until the warmth of heavenly wisdom overspreads the hidden inward chambers of our soul. 188. And because we read in Matthew that the leaven was hidden in three measures, it seemed fitting that we should believe the Son of God to have been hidden in the Law, veiled in the Prophets, fulfilled in the preachings of the Gospel; that he might gain for us a perfect faith out of all these, and, formed in us who are his body by the collation of the Scriptures, might be all things and be fulfilled in all; for he himself was the Word of God, and the mystery which was hidden from the ages and from the generations: than which nothing can be said more expressive of the attestation of his eternity.

For he was indeed, as one hidden from the sacrilegious, made manifest in the saints, foreordained before the ages, kept for glory. But this is the glory, brethren, that we should be able to search out the mystery hidden from the ages in God. What is in God is surely also from God; for God cannot be capable of a nature alien to himself. 189. Nor am I in doubt of mind that some think this is said of this world, until it be leavened in the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel; so that every tongue may confess the Lord. Let us, therefore, examine all things, and search more diligently. No one finds unless he has first sought.

Let us build a tower, let us reckon the costs of the Scriptures, let us weigh the expenses; lest anyone even of our own number should say: This man wished to build, and was not able to finish. He who builds a house ought to lay a good foundation. A good foundation is faith, a good foundation of the apostles and the prophets; for by the two Testaments our faith rises up: nor does he do an injury who says that in each the measure of faith is equal and perfect, since the Lord himself says: If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for the Lord also spoke in Moses. Well, then, in each is a perfect measure, because he is perfect in each: and the faith of both is one; because it is of one power and meaning, both the oracle and the response.

190. Yet it delights me to follow what the Lord himself taught, that the leaven of the Church is the spiritual doctrine; for since it is written: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees; and since the Apostle said: Not in the leaven of malice and wickedness, it is shown that doctrine is leaven. But one thing is the leaven of the tares, another the leaven of the wheat. Whence we assent to good authorities, so as to say that the Church sanctifies with spiritual leaven the man who is reborn, who exists in body and soul and spirit. For the body and the soul are sanctified, and the spiritual grace itself receives an increase of sanctification; since, through a certain office of the Church as of one leavening, and through the doctrine of the Scriptures, which grows as it were by the collation and abundance of heavenly words, the usage, poured into and mingled with the whole man, has taken root, so that these very things become one leaven.

This indeed happens when these three agree together with a certain equal weight of desires, and an equal concord of pleasures breathes together. 191. This work of the Church, therefore, is not a tumultuous or chance thing, but one brought together by long meditation; that these three may be one, whole and untouched by the law of sin. Of which opinion we have the Apostle as the assertor, saying: May the Lord himself sanctify you in all things; that your whole spirit, and soul, and body may be kept blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Which indeed does not come about through worldly trials, unless that leaven to which the kingdom of heaven is compared, that woman of the Gospel hides in the three measures of flour, until the whole is leavened; for there are, as I have said, three measures, of flesh, of soul, and of spirit, but of spirit by which we all live, set as we are in this body: this is more truly so when the wantonness of the flesh does not overflow, and the soul is not bent down by bodily errors, and the measure of living is kept unoffending in the whole man. But because the equality of the measures without the help of the Church and of doctrine hardly perseveres; therefore that woman, who bears the figure of the Church, mixes in the virtue of spiritual doctrine so long, until that whole inner man of the heart, hidden within, is leavened, and rises up into the grace of the heavenly bread.

For well is the doctrine of Christ called leaven, because Christ is bread, and the Apostle says: Because there is one bread, we, being many, are one body. 192. One leaven, therefore, comes to be, when the flesh does not lust against the spirit, nor the spirit against the flesh: but we put to death the deeds of the flesh, and the soul, conscious that it has received the breath of life from the breath of God, avoids the earthly contagions of worldly attachment. Whence the Apostle also bids us walk not in the flesh, but in the spirit: that, sanctified through the laver of regeneration, putting off the old man with his desires, and putting on the new, who is created according to Christ, we may walk not in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit; so that even at the time of the resurrection there may remain for us the uncorrupted communion of body, soul, and spirit: and then we may obtain all that we ask.

Which many think the Lord also to have signified, when he says: If two of you shall agree on earth concerning anything whatever you shall ask, it shall be done for you by my Father who is in heaven. 193. And so some take the two as soul and body; others as soul and spirit; so that if, on earth, that is, in the body, the soul and the spirit agree with one another, and do not fight against each other with diverse desires, all that is prayed for may be seen able to be brought to effect. This comes about when the two shall have become one, if, enmities being removed or dissolved, the two are joined into one new man, that is, soul and spirit: that we may pray with the spirit, and pray also with the mind.

Though many take the two as the two peoples, from Israel and from the nations, to be gathered together into one at the time of the resurrection; that there may come to be a perfection destined to remain forever, and that which is in part be destroyed. Many, however, take it as husband and wife agreeing with one another in the zeal of charity. 194. And so if in this life the three measures shall remain in the same leaven until they are leavened and become one; so that there is no distance of inequalities, nor do we seem composed out of a diversity of three, there will be for those who love Christ, in the future, an uncorrupted communion: nor shall we remain composite; for we who are now composite shall be one, and shall be transformed into one substance.

For in the resurrection nothing shall be inferior to another, as now the frailty of the flesh is weak in us, and the bodily condition of our nature lies open either to wounds, or is subject to injuries, or, pressed down by the mass of its own burden, is unable to raise and lift its footstep higher above the earth: but we shall be shaped into the grace of a simple creature, when that shall be fulfilled which was said by John: Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be: but we know that when it shall be revealed, we shall be like him. And so, since the nature of God is simple (for God is spirit), we too shall be shaped into the same image; that as is the heavenly, such also may we be who are heavenly. Therefore, as we have borne the image of the earthly one, let us also bear the image of this heavenly one, which our soul ought to put on.

And therefore in the first place from here the man with dropsy is healed, in whom the overflowing flux of the flesh weighed down the duties of the soul, and extinguished the ardor of the spirit. Then humility is taught, when at that marriage feast the desire for the higher place is warded off; yet gently, so that the kindliness of persuasion might exclude the harshness of coercion, that reason might advance to the effect of persuasion, and correction might amend the disposition. To this, as by a neighboring boundary, is joined kindliness, which is thus distinguished by the definition of the Lord's saying, if it be bestowed upon the poor and the weak; for it is a mark of avarice for one to show kindness to those who are able to make return.

Last of all, as it were to a man of accomplished military service, is prescribed the payment of despicable possessions; that neither he who, intent on lower pursuits, buys for himself earthly possessions, can attain the kingdom of heaven, since the Lord says: Sell all that you have, and follow me; nor he who buys oxen, when Elisha killed his and divided them among the people whom he had: and let him who takes a wife consider the things that are of the world, not the things that are of God. Not that marriage is here reproached, but that integrity is called to a greater honor; since the unmarried woman and the widow think of the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit. For she who is married thinks of the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

197. But that we may, as above with the widows, so now also return to grace with the married, we do not shrink from the opinion which many follow, that we should reckon three kinds of men excluded from partaking of that great supper: the Gentiles, the Jews, the heretics. 198. And so the Apostle says that avarice is to be fled, lest, hindered in the manner of the Gentiles by iniquity, malice, impurity, avarice, we should be unable to arrive at the kingdom of Christ. For every unclean or covetous man, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 199. The Jews, however, by bodily observance impose upon themselves the yokes of the Law, and therefore, according to the Prophet: Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away from us their yoke; for we have received Christ, who has hung upon our necks the mild yoke of his own devotion.

Now the five yokes are the ten words, or the five books of the old law, of which in the Gospel he seems to speak to the Samaritan woman: For you have had five husbands. 200. But heresy, like Eve, with a womanly softening of rigor tries the affection of humanity. And slipping down with slick facility, courts the allurements of a false beauty, neglecting the untainted loveliness of truth. Therefore they excuse themselves on this ground, that the kingdom is closed to none except him whom the profession of his own voice has excluded: but the Lord graciously invites all, yet either our own sloth or error turns us away.

201. Therefore he too who has bought a farm is a stranger to the kingdom; for those buying and selling, as you have read, the flood overwhelmed in the time of Noah; and he too who has chosen rather the yoke of the law than the gift of grace: and he too who excuses himself on account of taking a wife; for it is written: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, he cannot be my disciple. For if, for your sake, the Lord renounces his own mother, saying: Who is my mother, or who are my brothers; why would you wish to prefer yourself to your Lord? But the Lord bids us neither to be ignorant of nature, nor to be slaves to nature: but so to indulge nature that you may venerate its Author, and not fall away from the love of God on account of parents.

And so after the disdainful haughtiness of the rich, he betook himself to the Gentiles, and bids both good and bad to enter, that he may increase the good, and change the disposition of the wicked into something better; that what was read today might be fulfilled: Then the wolves and lambs shall feed together. He invites the poor, the feeble, the blind: whereby it is shown to us that no bodily infirmity excludes anyone from the kingdom, and that he sins more rarely to whom the enticement of sinning is lacking: or that the infirmity of sinners may be remitted through the mercy of the Lord; so that not by works, but by faith, he is redeemed from guilt, so that he who glories may glory in the Lord. 203. He sends therefore to the exits of the ways; for prudence is sung of at the exit. He sends to the streets, because he sent to sinners; that from the broader ways they might come to the narrow way that leads to life.

He sends to the ways, and about the hedges, because clearly these are fit for the kingdom of heaven, who, not being occupied by any desires of present things, hasten to the things to come, set in a certain path of good will: and who, along the manner of a hedge which separates the cultivated from the uncultivated, and wards off the incursions of beasts, know how to distinguish good from evil, and to oppose the defense of faith against the temptations of spiritual wickedness. Hence the Lord, to show that his vineyard had been fortified, says: And I set a hedge about it, and dug around it. And the Apostle says that the middle wall of the hedge has been taken away, which had broken the continuity of the fortification. Faith therefore and reason are sought, and sought in the streets, that is, in the passages of the inner affection; because it is written: Let your waters be dispersed abroad in your streets.

204. Nor yet is this complete, that someone called should come, unless he has the wedding garment

that is, unless he has faith and charity. And therefore whoever has not brought peace and charity to the altars of Christ shall be taken away with feet and hands bound, and shall be cast into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. What is this outer darkness? Are there also some prisons and quarries to be entered there? By no means. But whosoever are outside the promises of the heavenly commandments are in outer darkness; because the commandments of God are light: and whoever is without Christ is in darkness; because Christ is the light in the darkness. 205. Therefore there is neither any bodily gnashing of teeth, nor any perpetual fire of bodily flames, nor is there any bodily worm.

But these things are set down for this reason: that just as from much undigested corruption both fevers and worms are born, so if anyone does not digest his sins, as it were by a certain intervening sobriety of abstinence, but mixing sins with sins, contracts as it were a certain indigestion of old and recent offenses, he will be burned by his own fire, and consumed by his own worms. Whence Isaiah also says: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame which you have kindled for yourselves. It is a fire which the sorrow of sins generates: it is a worm, in that the sins of the unreasoning soul prick the mind and the sense of the guilty one, and gnaw out certain inward parts of the conscience: which, like worms, are born from each one, as it were from the body of the sinner.

Hence also the Lord declared this through Isaiah, saying: And they shall see the limbs of the men who transgressed against me: and their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched. 206. The gnashing of teeth also betrays the disposition of one indignant; in that each one repents too late, groans too late, is angry with himself too late, that he sinned with such stubborn wickedness. What man of you, he says, having a hundred sheep, and if one of them has strayed, does he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which has strayed? 207. You had learned in the previous passages to banish negligence, to avoid arrogance, to take up devotion, not to be held by secular occupations, not to prefer perishable things to eternal ones: but because human frailty cannot keep a firm footing on so slippery a course of the world, the good Physician has shown you remedies even against error, and the merciful Judge has not denied hope of pardon.

And so not without purpose did holy Luke set forth, in order, three parables

following): the sheep that had perished and was found; the drachma that had perished and was found; the son who was dead and lived again; that, roused by a threefold remedy, we might heal our wounds; for a threefold cord shall not be broken. 208. Who are these, the father, the shepherd, the woman? Is not God the Father, Christ the Shepherd, the woman the Church? Christ carries you on his own body, he who took upon himself your sins; the Church seeks; the Father receives. As a shepherd, he carries back; as a mother, she seeks; as a father, he clothes. The first is mercy, the second is intercession, the third is reconciliation. Each fits its own: the Redeemer comes to aid, the Church intercedes, the Author is reconciled. The same mercy of the divine work, but a different grace according to our merits.

The sheep, wearied, is brought back by the shepherd: the drachma that had perished is found: the son returns to the Father by his own footsteps, and returns with full repentance for his condemned error. Whence it is well written: Men and beasts you will save, Lord. What are these beasts? The prophet said: The seed of Israel into the seed of men, and Judah into the seed of animals. And so Israel is saved as a man, Judah is gathered as a sheep. I would rather then be a son than a sheep; for the sheep is sought back by the shepherd, but the Son is honored by the Father. 209. Let us rejoice, therefore, since that sheep which had perished in Adam is lifted up in Christ. The shoulders of Christ are the arms of the cross. There I laid down my sins, on that noble neck of the gibbet I rested.

That sheep is one in kind, not in species: For we are all one body, but many members; and therefore it is written: But you are the body of Christ, and members from among his members. And so the Son of Man came to save what had perished; namely all: For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. 210. The shepherd, therefore, is rich, of whom we are all the hundredth portion. He has flocks of Angels, of Archangels, of Dominations, of Powers, of Thrones, and of others innumerable, which he left on the mountains. Since these are rational beings, they rejoice not without reason at the redemption of men. Although this too may serve as an incentive to uprightness, if each one believes that his own conversion will be pleasing to the companies of angels, whose patronage he ought either to seek or whose offense he ought to fear. Be, then, to the angels a cause of joy; let them rejoice at your return.

211. Nor is it without purpose that the woman rejoices at the finding of the drachma.

This is no ordinary drachma, in which is the figure of the prince. And therefore the image of the king is the census of the Church. We are sheep; let us pray that he may deign to place us beside the water of refreshment. We are sheep, I say; let us seek pastures: we are drachmas; let us have our price: we are sons; let us hasten to the Father. 212. Nor let us fear because we have squandered on earthly pleasures the spiritual patrimony of dignity we received, seeing that the Father bestowed on the sons the treasure which he had. The wealth of faith is never emptied out: though he has given all, he has all; because what he has given, he does not lose.

Nor fear that he will not receive you: For God does not delight in the destruction of the living: even running to meet you as you come, he will fall upon your neck: For the Lord raises up the fallen. He will give a kiss, which is the pledge of affection and love. He will bid the robe, the ring, the shoes to be brought forth. You still fear injury; he restores dignity: you dread punishment; he brings a kiss: you fear reproach; he prepares a banquet: But now let us examine the parable itself. A certain man had two sons, and the younger said to him: Give me the portion of the substance. 213. You see that the divine patrimony is given to those who ask. And do not think it a fault of the father, that he gave to the younger; no age is weak for the kingdom of God, nor is faith weighed down by years. Certainly he himself judged himself worthy, who asked.

And would that he had not departed from his father, he would not have known the hindrance of age: but after leaving his father's house he went abroad, and began to be in want. Deservedly, then, he who withdrew from the Church squandered his patrimony. After leaving, it says, his father's house,

he took his journey into a far country. 214. For what is farther off than to withdraw from oneself; to be separated not by regions, but by ways of life; to be set apart by pursuits, not by lands; and, as it were by an intervening flood of worldly luxury, to have a divorce of deeds? For indeed whoever separates himself from Christ is an exile from his own country, a citizen of the world. But we are not strangers and sojourners, but are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; for we who were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ.

Let us not envy those returning from a far country; for we too were in a far country, as Isaiah teaches, saying: They who sat in the region of the shadow of death, light has arisen for them. The far country, then, is the shadow of death: but we, for whom the Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord, live in the shadow of Christ. And therefore the Church says: I sat down under his shadow with great delight. He, then, by living luxuriously, consumed all the ornaments of nature. Wherefore you, who have received the image of God, who have his likeness, do not consume it with unreasoning foulness. You are the work of God; do not say to wood, You are my father; lest you take on the likeness of wood; for it is written: Let those who make them become like them. There arose a famine throughout that country. 215. A famine not of banquets, but of good works and virtues, which are more pitiable fastings.

For indeed whoever withdraws from the Word of God hungers: Because man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Whoever withdraws from the fountain thirsts: whoever withdraws from the treasure is in want: whoever withdraws from wisdom is dulled: whoever withdraws from virtue is dissolved. Deservedly, then, this man began to be in want, because he had abandoned the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and the depth of heavenly riches. He began to be in want, then, and to suffer famine, because nothing is ever enough for prodigal pleasure. He always suffers a famine of himself, who does not know how to be filled with perpetual sustenance. And so he went, and joined himself to one of the citizens. 216. For whoever clings, is in a snare. And this citizen appears to be the prince of this world. Accordingly, he is sent to his farm, which he buys, who excuses himself from the kingdom.

And he feeds swine: namely, those into whom the devil seeks to enter, whom he casts headlong into the sea of this world, living in filth and stench. And he desired, it says, to fill his belly with the husks. 217. For the luxurious have no other care than to fill their belly, whose god is the belly. And what food is more fitting for such men than that which, like the husk, is empty within and soft without: by which the body is not restored, but filled; so that it becomes more a burden than a use? 218. There are those who take the swine for the flocks of demons, the husks for the meager virtue of empty men, and the boastfulness of speeches, which can profit nothing, showing display rather than any utility, by a certain empty seduction of philosophy, and a certain resounding applause of eloquence. But these delights cannot be lasting; and therefore.

No one gave to him; for he was in the country of him who has no one; because those who exist, he does not have.

For all the nations are accounted as nothing: but God alone is he who gives life to the dead, And calls those things which are not, as though they were. But coming to himself he said: How many hired servants of my father's have abundance of bread! 220. Well does he return to himself who had departed from himself. For indeed he who returns to the Lord restores himself to himself; and he who departs from Christ renounces himself. But who are the hired servants, save those who serve for wages, those from Israel, pursuing what is good not out of zeal for uprightness nor for virtue's sake, but roused by regard for advantage? But the son, who has the pledge of the Holy Spirit in his heart, does not seek the small profits of worldly wages, that he might serve for them.

Even hired servants are heirs who are hired for the vineyard.

Peter, John, James are good hired servants, to whom it is said: Come, and I will make you fishers of men. These abound not in husks but in loaves. Indeed they gathered twelve baskets of fragments. O Lord Jesus, if only you would take from us the husks, and grant us the loaves! For you are the steward in the house of the Father. O that you would deign to hire us too as hired servants, though we come late! For you hire even at the eleventh hour, and you deign to pay an equal wage, an equal wage of life, not of glory; for the crown of righteousness is not laid up for all, but for him who can say: I have fought the good fight. 221. I thought this should not be passed over, because I know that some say that they reserve for themselves the grace of the font, or repentance, until death.

First of all, how do you know whether your soul will be demanded of you on the very next night?

Next, why do you suppose that everything can be granted to you while you sit idle? Suppose grace to be one, the wage to be one; yet the prize of victory is different, toward which Paul did not stretch himself in vain, who, after the wage of grace, nevertheless pursued the prize that he might attain it; because he knew that although the wage of grace was equal, yet the palm belonged to few. 222. And since we have come into the Lord's vineyard, let us not withdraw empty-handed: for it is pleasant to gather fruits, to see his hired servants. For what does it mean that on one day workers are hired at different hours, except that a thousand years in the eyes of the Lord are as yesterday which is past, and as a watch in the night? What is the night, except that which went before, so that the day might draw near?

And rightly a watch in the night, since a thousand years are as one day.

He knew the power of this day who said: Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, the same is forever. He too knew that the day is manifold, who wrote: This is the day of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made; on which day God made heaven and earth, and every green thing of the field. For when he had above described seven days, afterward he comprised all things made under one day, showing the whole span of time of the world in the Lord's sight as it were one day; because out of the disordered and shadowy state, the form of this world proceeded by the brightness of the divine work. Therefore if the day is the whole span of time of the world, it certainly has its hours even in the ages: or the ages themselves are hours.

Now the hours of the day are twelve; whence rightly, in mystery, Christ is the day, whose apostles are twelve, who shone forth with the heavenly light, distinguished among themselves by the alternations of grace. 223. The householder came, then, and at the first hour hired workers—perhaps those who, from the beginning of the world until the flood, deserved to be righteous, of whom he says: And I spoke to you before the light: and I sent to you my servants the prophets before the light. The third hour begins after the flood, comprising the times of Noah and the rest, who as good workers are sent into the vineyard; therefore Noah, as it were at the meal, became drunk. The sixth hour and the following distinguish the merits of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The ninth hour, as the age was already declining, and the light of virtue growing pale, as it were, the Law and the Prophets noted the fading morals of men.

The eleventh hour, and what remains to be said, the sacred coming brings forth.

Whence he himself says in the Gospel: Walk while you have the light. 224. But let us now return to the Father; though I do not fear that by the example of this one doing penance we may seem to have been long absent (for we were never absent, who dwelt in the vineyard, in which, if this one too had remained, he would not have departed from the Father), yet we must beware lest we make for him a delay of reconciliation, which the Father did not make. He is easily reconciled, when he is earnestly entreated. And therefore let us learn with what supplication the Father is to be approached. Father, he says. How merciful, how kind, who, even when offended, does not disdain to hear the paternal name! Father, he says, I have sinned against heaven, and before you. 225. This is the first confession before the author of nature, the president of mercy, the arbiter of guilt.

But although God knows all things, yet he awaits the voice of your confession.

For confession is made with the mouth unto salvation; because whoever burdens himself lifts the weight of his error; and he excludes the odium of accusation who forestalls the accuser by confessing: for the just man in the beginning of his speech is his own accuser. But in vain would you wish to conceal what escapes no one; and without danger you may disclose what you know to be already known. Confess rather, that Christ may intervene for you, whom we have as an advocate with the Father; let the Church entreat for you, and let the people weep. And do not fear that you will not obtain your suit. The advocate pledges pardon, the patron promises grace, the assertor of the Father's piety promises you reconciliation. Believe, because it is truth; acquiesce, because it is virtue. The Son has cause to intervene for you, lest he should have died for you in vain.

The Father has cause for pardoning, because what the Son wills, the Father also wills.

I have sinned against heaven, and before you. Certainly no element is meant here; but by the sin of the soul the heavenly gifts of the Spirit are signified as diminished; or because it was not fitting to stray from the bosom of that mother Jerusalem which is in heaven. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. 227. For he who has been cast down ought not to exalt himself; that he may deservedly be raised up by his humility.

Make me as one of your hired servants.

228. He knew there is a difference among sons, friends, hired servants, and slaves; son by the font, friend by virtue, hired servant by labor, slave by fear. But even from slaves and hired servants friends are made, according to what is written: You are my friends, if you do what I command you: now I do not call you servants. 229. This he said to himself; but it is not enough to say it, unless you come to the father. Where should you seek him, where find him? Rise first—that is, you who before were sleeping while sitting. And therefore the Apostle says: Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead. Iniquity sits upon the talent of lead. To Moses it is said: But you, stand here. Christ chose those who stand. Rise then, run to the Church; here is the Father, here is the Son, here is the Holy Spirit. He runs to meet you, who hears you dealing with yourself in the secret places of your mind.

And while you are yet a great way off, he sees, and runs to you.

He sees into your breast, he runs so that nothing may hinder him, he also embraces you: in the running to meet there is foreknowledge, in the embrace there is clemency, and as it were a certain affection of paternal love. He falls upon your neck, that he may raise you up as you lie prostrate, and bend back toward heaven the one weighed down with sins and bent toward earthly things, that he may there seek his own maker. Christ falls upon your neck, that he may free your neck from the yoke of servitude, and hang upon your neck his own sweet yoke. Does it not seem to you that he fell upon the neck of John, when John was in the bosom of Jesus, reclining with his neck bent back? And therefore he saw the Word who was with God; because he was raised up toward the things above.

He falls upon the neck, when he says: Come to me, you who labor; and I will refresh you: take my yoke upon you. He falls, then, in this way, if you turn back. And he orders the robe, the ring, and the shoes to be brought out. The robe is the garment of wisdom, with which the apostles cover the nakedness of the body, in that each one wraps himself; and therefore they receive the robe, that they may clothe the weakness of the body with the strength of spiritual wisdom. For of Wisdom it is said: He will wash his robe in wine. Therefore the robe is a spiritual garment, and a wedding garment. What else is the ring, but the seal of sincere faith, and the expression of truth? The shoes, moreover, are the preaching of the Gospel; and therefore he received wisdom first.

For there is another mystery too, which no one knows, save he who has received the seal of his own words and deeds, and a certain safeguard of good intention and of the course, lest anywhere he strike his foot against a stone, and, tripped by the devil, abandon the office of the Lord's preaching. This is the preparation of the Gospel, directing those thus equipped toward the race for heavenly things; so that we may walk not in the flesh, but in the spirit. The fattened calf is also killed, that he may feast, restored through the fellowship of the mysteries by grace to the flesh of the Lord, made rich with spiritual strength. For no one ought to take part in the heavenly sacraments unless he has feared God (which is the beginning of wisdom), unless he has kept or received the spiritual seal, unless he has preached the Lord.

But whoever has the ring has also the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; for God has sealed us, whose image is Christ: and he has given the Spirit as a pledge in our hearts; that we may know that this is the seal of that ring which is given into the hand, by which the inner things of the heart, and the services of our deeds, are marked. Therefore we have been sealed, as we also read: Believing, he says, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. And rightly the flesh of a calf, since it is a priestly victim, which used to be offered for sins. The son brings in the feasting father; that he might show that our salvation is the Father's food, and that the redemption of our sins is the Father's joy.

And here indeed, if you refer it to the Father, since the Son is the victim for sins, the Father delights in the sinner's return: above, the Son delighted in the sheep that was found; that you may know that the Father's and the Son's delight is one, one operation upon the foundation of the Church. Now the father rejoices; Because his son had perished, and is found: he had died, and has come to life again. 234. He perishes who existed; for he who did not exist cannot perish. Thus the Gentiles do not exist, the Christian exists, according to what was said above: Because God chose the things that are not; that he might destroy the things that are. Yet here too the whole species of the human race can be understood in one. Adam existed, and in him we all existed. Adam perished, and in him all perished.

Man, then, is reformed even in that man who had perished: and he who was made to the likeness and image of God is restored by divine patience and magnanimity. What, then, does this mean: God chose the things that are not, that he might destroy the things that are? That is, he chose the people of the Gentiles, which did not exist, that he might destroy the people of the Jews. 235. It can also seem to be said of one doing penance; because none dies, save one who once lived. And therefore the Gentiles do not die, but are dead; for indeed he who has not believed in Christ is always dead. And the Gentiles indeed, when they believe, are made alive through grace: but he who has fallen comes to life again through repentance. 236. There follows a passage from which we ought to favor sins forgiven after repentance; lest, while we envy another's pardon, we ourselves fail to deserve it from the Lord.

For who are you to contradict the Lord, that he should not, if he wills, forgive the guilt of anyone; when you yourself forgive whom you wish? He wishes to be entreated, he wishes to be besought. If all be justified by justice alone, where is God's grace? Who are you, to envy God? And therefore this brother is marked to such a degree that he is said to be coming from the field—that is, occupied with earthly works, ignorant of the things of the Spirit of God: so that in the end he never complains that even a kid was killed for him; for it was not for envy, but for pardon of the world, that the lamb was sacrificed. The envious man seeks a kid: the innocent one desires a lamb to be sacrificed for himself. He is also called the elder; because someone quickly grows old through envy. He also stands outside; because malevolence excludes him with an envious mind.

He is also unable to hear the chorus and the symphony—that is, not those theatrical incitements of luxury, nor the concert of sounds, but the concord of a people singing together, which resounds with the sweet delightfulness of joy over a sinner saved. 238. Set before me any one of those who seem just to themselves, who do not see the beam in their own eye, and cannot bear the mote of another's fault. How he is indignant, when to someone confessing his sin, and long bewailing it, pardon is granted! How his ears cannot bear the spiritual symphony of the people! For this is the symphony, when in the Church there sounds together the undivided harmony, as it were, of various strings, of diverse acts and virtues; the psalm is answered, Amen is said. This is the symphony which Paul too knew; and therefore he says: I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the understanding. These things we have thought should be treated concerning the present parable.

239. Nor do we grudge it if anyone should wish to refer these two brothers to two peoples; so that the younger people be, as it were, that from the Gentiles, and the elder brother Israel, who envied him the benefit of the paternal blessing. This the Jews did, when they complained that Christ was feasting with the Gentiles; and therefore they demanded the kid, a sacrifice of ill odor. The Jew asks for the kid, the Christian for the lamb; and therefore Barabbas is released to them, the lamb is sacrificed for us. Whence with them is the stench of crimes, with us the remission of sins, sweet in hope, pleasant in fruit. He who seeks the kid awaits Antichrist; for Christ is a victim of good odor. 240. There seems also to be a complaint in the matter of the kid, because the Jews have lost the rite of the old sacrifice: or because no one's blood profited them, as Christ's blood profited the Church; for the blood of the prophets could not redeem them.

But he is shameless, and like that Pharisee who justified himself with arrogant prayer, who thought that he had never transgressed a commandment of God

because he kept the Law in the letter. Impious, who accused his brother of having squandered his father's substance with harlots, when he ought to have considered that it was said to him: Harlots and publicans go before you into the kingdom of heaven. But he stands outside, and is not excluded; but he does not enter, ignorant of the will of God concerning the calling of the Gentiles, having become a servant now instead of a son; for the servant knows not what his lord does. Where he learned it, he envies, and is tormented at the good things of the Church, and stands outside. For Israel outside hears the choir and the symphony; but is angered because here there sounds together the grace of the people, and the harmonious jubilation of the people. But the good father wished to save even this one, saying: Son, you were always with me;.

Either as a Jew in the Law, or as one just in communion; and you are so, if you cease to envy.

And all that is mine is yours;.

Either the Jew possessing the sacraments of the old Testament, or the baptized possessing also those of the new. No servant can serve two masters;. Because there are not two, but one lord. For although there are those who serve mammon; yet that one knows no rights of lordship; but they themselves impose upon themselves the yoke of servitude; for it is not just power, but unjust servitude. And therefore he says. Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity;. That by giving to the poor, we may procure for ourselves the favor of the angels and the rest of the saints. Nor is the steward reproved, in whom we learn that we ourselves are not lords, but rather stewards of another's goods. And therefore although he sinned, yet because by the master's indulgence he sought for himself help for the future, he is praised.

But elegantly he called mammon "of iniquity"

because avarice was tempting our affections with the various enticements of riches, that we might wish to serve riches. Whence he says: If you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? 246. Riches are alien to us, because they are beyond nature; they are neither born with us, nor pass away with us: but Christ is ours, because he is life. Finally, He came unto his own, and his own received him not. Therefore no one will give you that which is your own; because you have not believed that which is yours, you have not received that which is yours. 247. The Jews therefore seem to be charged both with fraud and with avarice.

And therefore those who were not faithful in the goods which, though they knew them to be another's (for the fruit of the earth was given by the Lord God to all for common use), they ought at any rate to have shared with the poor: nor did they deserve to receive Christ, whom Zacchaeus, in order to acquire him, offered half of his goods. 248. Therefore let us not serve things alien, since we ought to know no lord except Christ: For there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him: and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things. What then, is the Father Lord, and is the Son not God? But the Father is also Lord, since by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established; and the Son is God, who is above all, God blessed forever. How then can no one serve two lords?

For there is one Lord, because there is one God: finally, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Whence it is clear that the lordship of Father and Son is one. But it is one, if it is not divided; but is wholly in the Father, wholly in the Son. And so, because we assert one deity and lordship of the Trinity, we confess one God and one Lord. But those who reckon one power of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Spirit, introduce many gods and many lords into the Church by the fault of a Gentile error.

The Law and the prophets until John.

Not because the Law failed, but

because the preaching of the Gospel begins; for the lesser things seem to be fulfilled, when the greater things succeed. And therefore let us do violence to the kingdom of heaven; for everyone who does violence hastens with vehement zeal, does not grow sluggish with a torpid disposition. There is therefore a religious violence of faith, a criminal sluggishness. The Law established many things according to nature, so that, being more indulgent to natural desires, it might call us to the pursuit of justice; Christ cuts into nature, because he cuts off natural pleasures too; and therefore let us do violence to nature, that it may not sink down to earthly things, but raise itself up to the things above. Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery: and he who marries her that is divorced from her husband commits adultery.

I think one should speak first of the law of marriage, so that afterward we may discuss the prohibition of divorce.

For some think that every marriage is from God, especially because it is written: What God has joined together, let not man put asunder (ted as in text). Therefore if every marriage is from God, it is not lawful for any marriage to be dissolved. And how did the Apostle say: But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart? In which he both wonderfully did not wish the cause of divorce to reside among Christians, and showed that not every marriage is from God; for Christian women are not joined to Gentiles by the judgment of God, since the Law forbids it.

But there occurs that which Solomon says: House and substance are divided by fathers to their sons: but a wife is prepared for a man by the Lord. He who reads this in the Greek does not think it contrary. For the Greek well said ἁρμόσεται (shall be harmonized); for harmony is called the fitting and apt connection of all things joined together. Harmony is when the pipes of the organ, joined in order, keep the grace of a lawful melody, and the apt order of the strings preserves concord. And so marriages do not have their own harmony, when a Gentile woman is unlawfully joined to a Christian man. Therefore where there is marriage, there is harmony; where there is harmony, God joins. Where there is no harmony, there is strife and dissension; which is not from God, because God is love.

Do not, then, divorce your wife, lest you deny God to be the author of your union.

For indeed if you ought to bear with and correct the manners of strangers, much more should you those of your wife. Hear what the Lord has said: He who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery. For indeed to her to whom it is not lawful, while her husband lives, to change her marriage, the lust of sinning may steal upon her. And so he who is the author of the error is also guilty of the fault. Whither is the mother, with her little ones, sent away? Whither is the aged woman, with tottering step, thrust down? Hard-hearted, if you exclude the parent, yet keep the children as pledges, so that to the injury of love you add also the wrong of piety; hard-hearted, if on account of the mother you drive out the children as well; when rather the children ought to redeem their parent's fault by their father.

How dangerous, if you expose the frail age of a young girl to error!

How impious, if you abandon her old age, whose youth you had deflowered! Shall then an emperor dismiss even a veteran soldier without honor of pay, ingloriously, and thrust him out from the possession of his rank; and shall a farmer drive from his field the rustic worn out with his labor? Or is that which is unlawful toward subjects lawful toward a spouse? (33 quaest. 2, c. An quod)

You divorce your wife, then, as though by right, without crime; and you think it is lawful for you

because human law does not forbid it; but divine law forbids it. You who obey men, fear God. Hear the law of the Lord, which even those who make laws obey: What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.

But not only is a heavenly precept violated here, but also a certain work of God is dissolved.

Will you suffer, I ask, your children, while you live, to be under a stepfather; or, while their mother is alive, to live under a stepmother? Suppose, if the repudiated woman does not remarry. And ought this also to have displeased you, her husband, to whom, though he be an adulterer, she keeps faith? Suppose, if she remarries. The crime of that necessity is yours; and the marriage which you think it to be, is adultery. For what does it matter, whether you commit adultery by open confession of the crime, or under the appearance of a husband; except that it is a graver thing to have made a law of the crime, than to have committed the theft?

But perhaps someone says: How did Moses command that a bill of divorce be given, and the wife dismissed?

He who says this is a Jew; he who says this is not a Christian. And therefore, since he raises this objection, which was raised against the Lord, let the Lord answer him: Because of the hardness of your heart, he says, Moses permitted you to give a bill of divorce, and to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. Moses permitted, he says, God did not command; but from the beginning is the law of God. What is the law of God? A man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. Therefore he who divorces his wife tears his own flesh, divides his own body.

Now this passage shows that the things written on account of human frailty were not written by God.

Whence also the Apostle: I command, he says, yet not I, but the Lord, that the wife depart not from her husband. And below: To the rest, he says, I speak, not the Lord: if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she leaves him. And so where there is unequal marriage, the law of God does not apply. And he added: But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. At the same time this same Apostle denied that it was of the divine law that any marriage whatsoever should be dissolved; nor did he himself command it, nor give authority to the one who deserts, but he removed the fault from the one who is deserted. This morally. Yet because above he proposed to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, and, having said that of the Law not one tittle could fall, he added: Everyone who divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery.

Rightly the Apostle admonishes, saying that this is a great mystery, concerning Christ and the Church.

You find, therefore, a marriage which no one doubts to be joined by God, since he himself says: No one comes to me, unless my Father who sent me shall draw him; for he alone could join this marriage. And therefore mystically Solomon said: A wife shall be prepared for a man by God (Prov.:). The husband is Christ, the wife is the Church; wife in love, virgin in integrity. Therefore whom God has drawn to the Son, let not persecution separate, let not luxury turn aside, let not Philosophy plunder, let not the Manichaean defile, let not the Arian turn away, let not the Sabellian corrupt. God has joined, let not the Jew separate. Adulterers are all who desire to adulterate the truth of faith and wisdom.

Where is, he says, this bill of your mother's divorce, by which I put her away?

You have heard of divorce; believe in marriage. You have heard what the husband himself says to the people of the Jews: Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your sins I put away your mother. Remain, then, you, in the house of the father, remain with the bridegroom, strive to please your husband. You, mind, who have believed in God, be a strong woman, such as she, either the ecclesiastical soul, or the Church, of whom Solomon says: A strong woman, who shall find? But she is more precious than precious stones, who is such that: her husband trusts in her. Let us see what such a one does for her husband, what her work is, what her obedience, why Christ trusts in her.

A good wife clothes her husband.

Let our faith clothe Jesus with its own body, let it clothe his flesh with the glory of his divinity: just as she made two garments for her husband; that both in the present and in the future age she might honor him. Not mediocre is this woman, whose weaving is such; whom her husband finds not plucking soft threads of wool, but handling the weighted tasks of precious virtue; who raises her hands in the nights, and directs the work to the scale, and examines the weight of her character, and knows also how to keep the measure of her deeds, weaving in the woof of glorious labor; anxious as to when her husband will return, worried and sighing, and already longing to be with her husband, saying: My husband delays his coming, I myself will hasten to him; I will meet him face to face, when he begins to come in his glory.

Come, Lord Jesus, that thou mayest find thy bride, not defiled, not adulterated, who has not violated thy house, nor neglected thy commandments.

Let her say to thee: I have found him whom my soul loves: let her bring thee into the house of wine (for wine gladdens the heart of man), let her be inebriated in spirit, let her recognize the mystery, let her speak the oracle. Now there was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple.

This seems more a narration than a parable, since even the name is expressed. Not without purpose did the Lord here signify a rich man who had enjoyed worldly delights as now placed in the affliction of perpetual hunger among the dead: to whom, not without reason, five brothers, that is, the five senses of the body, seem to have been joined by a certain natural kinship, who were boiling with immoderate and countless desires: but Lazarus he placed in the bosom of Abraham, as it were in a certain recess of rest and holiness; lest, enticed by the pleasure of present things, we remain in vices; or, overcome by weariness, flee the hardships of labor.

Whether then Lazarus was poor in the world, but rich toward God: or some apostolic man poor in speech, wealthy in faith (for not all poverty is holy, nor are riches criminal: but as luxury brands riches with infamy, so holiness commends poverty); whether, then, some apostolic man who holds the true faith, who does not seek fillets of words, the paint of arguments, the ambitious veilings of sentences: he receives a usurious reward, assailing the heretics Manichaeus, Marcion, Sabellius, Arius, and Photinus (for these are nothing other than brothers of the Jews, to whom they are bound by kinship of perfidy), restraining also the desires of the flesh, which are exhaled, as I said, by those five senses: a usurious reward, I say, he receives, for whom there is compensation of overflowing abundance, and the interest of perpetuity.

Nor do we think it foreign to suppose that this is a discourse also about faith, which Lazarus gathered, cast down from the rich man's table: whose sores, according to the letter, the fastidious rich man would shudder at, nor amid the precious feasts and perfumed guests could he bear the stench of sores licked by dogs, he to whom even the smell of the air was itself, by its very nature, a disgust: although the insolence and swelling pride of the rich are expressed by fitting signs, in that they are so forgetful of the human condition, as though set above nature, that they take incitements of their own pleasures from the miseries of the poor, mock the needy, insult the destitute, and take away from those on whom it were fitting to have mercy.

Let whoever wishes, then, gather both, as Lazarus did.

To whom I think similar is he who, often beaten by the Jews, for the patience of believers and the calling of the Gentiles, offered the sores of his own body to be licked by certain ones as if by dogs, because it is written: They shall turn at evening, and shall suffer hunger like dogs. This mystery that Canaanite woman recognized, to whom it is said: No man takes the bread of the children, and casts it to the dogs. She recognized that this bread is not the bread which is seen, but that which is understood; and therefore she answered: Yea, Lord, for even the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Those crumbs are of that bread. And since bread is the word, and faith is of the word, the crumbs are as it were certain doctrines of faith. Whence the Lord answered, to show that it was faithfully said: O woman, great is thy faith!

O happy sores, which shut out perpetual pain!

O abundant crumbs, which drive away everlasting fasting, which fill the poor man who gathers them with eternal nourishment! The ruler of the synagogue was casting you off from his table, when he rejected the inward mysteries of the prophetic Scriptures and the Law; for crumbs are the words of the Scriptures, of which it is said: And thou hast cast my words behind thee. The scribe was casting you off, but Paul was most diligently gathering, reading the people amid his own injuries. Those licked his sores who, having seen him unhurt after the bite of the serpent, once the serpent was shaken off, believed. That jailer licked, who washed Paul's wounds, and believed. Blessed are the dogs on whom the moisture of such sores drips; that it may fill their heart, and fatten their jaws: who become accustomed to guard the house, to keep the flock, to beware of wolves.

Set now before your sight the Arians intent upon worldly pursuits, who court the alliance of royal power, that they may assail the truth of the Church with military arms: do they not seem to you to lie in a kind of purple and fine linen upon raised couches, defending painted falsehoods as if true; abounding in rich speech, when they boast that the earth trembled beneath the Lord's body, that the sky was covered with darkness, that the seas were stirred up or calmed by his word: yet all the while denying the Son of God? Set also in place that poor man, who, knowing that the kingdom of God is not in speech but in power, expressed in a few words what he felt, saying: Thou art the Son of the living God: do not those riches seem to you to be in want, and this poverty to overflow? Rich heresy has composed many gospels: poor faith has held only this Gospel, which it received.

Rich Philosophy has made for itself many gods: poor Church knows one God.

Between this rich man, then, and the poor man there is a great chasm; because after death merits cannot be changed, and so the rich man is brought into hell, desiring to draw something of refreshing spirit from the poor man; for water is the refreshment of a soul set in sorrows, of which Isaiah says: And water shall leap forth with delight from the fountains of salvation. But why is he tormented before the judgment? Because for the luxurious to be deprived of delights is a punishment. For the Lord also says: There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; when you shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of heaven. But this rich man begins too late to be a teacher; when now he has no time either for learning or for teaching.

In this passage the Lord most clearly declares that the Old Testament is the foundation of faith, refuting the perfidy of the Jews, and excluding the wickednesses of the heretics, by whom the weaker mind is tripped up; for they themselves are small, who as yet know nothing of the increase of virtue.

One may note, however, that in the earlier comparison of that steward, and in the present comparison of this rich man, there is an incitement to mercy: and there perhaps to the saints whom he calls friends, and to whom he assigns tabernacles; but here he teaches that it must be bestowed upon the poor.

If thy brother shall sin against thee, rebuke him.

How well, after the rich man who is tormented in punishments, he has added the precept of granting pardon, indeed to those who turn themselves from error, lest despair should keep anyone back from correcting fault! And how moderate he is, that pardon should be neither difficult, nor indulgence remiss; lest a harsh reproof strike anyone down, or connivance invite to fault! So also elsewhere: If thy brother shall sin against thee, go and reprove him between thee and him alone. For a friendly reproof profits more than a turbulent accusation: the one instills shame, the other stirs indignation. Let that rather be preserved which he who is admonished fears to have divulged. For it is good that he who is reproved should believe you rather a friend than an enemy: for he more easily yields to counsels than succumbs to injury. Whence also the Apostle says: Rebuke him, he says, as a brother, that he may be ashamed, not as though you counted him an enemy.

For fear is a feeble keeper of duration: but a good sense of shame is a good teacher of duty; for he who fears is restrained, not corrected: but what a man is ashamed to do, he turns into nature.

Beautifully has he put it: If he shall sin against thee; for the condition of sinning against God and against man is not equal.

Finally the Apostle, who is the true interpreter of the divine oracle, says: A heretic, after one admonition, avoid; because perfidy is not, like fault, equally pardonable. And since error most often creeps in through inexperience, he commanded that he should be reproved; so that either his obstinacy might be avoided, or his lapse corrected. But what does this mean: If he shall be turned to thee seven times, forgive him?

Is a number of pardon fixed, or rather, since on the seventh day God rested from all his works, is a long rest promised to us after the week of this world; so that just as the evils of this world will cease as if on a holiday, so also the severity of vengeance may come to rest? Now the Sabbath is not only of days, but also of months; and therefore on the tenth day of the seventh month, the sabbath of sabbaths; nor only of months, but of years also; and not only of years, but also of generations, and finally of the world itself, of which the great sabbath is a type; just as in the Law there is a seventh week, after which the Year of Jubilee is celebrated. This mystery the Lord wished to reveal to us, when he says: Not only seven times, but even seventy times seven.

Because in the seventh generation, as you have according to Luke, Enoch was taken up, lest wickedness should change his heart; and in him the sting of pain came to rest. But in the seventieth and seventh generation the Lord, born of Mary, taking upon himself the sins of the human race, granted remission of all offenses.

Therefore, although according to the letter you learn to forgive frequently, and not to hold on to indignation (for there is nothing by which he can be offended, whose custom it is to forgive), yet recognize the mystery; for not without purpose did the Lord say to the woman on the Sabbath: Thou art loosed from thy infirmity, showing to his people, who like that woman, being called, would follow him, that by his coming he had remitted their sins. Seventy times and seven, then, Lamech is condemned; because he sins more gravely who, in punishing a crime, commits one. But every enormity of crime the sacraments of baptism remit. Learn, therefore, to forgive your own injuries; because Christ forgave his persecutors.

Nor is it without purpose that he suffered on the great Sabbath, signifying that there would be a Sabbath, on which death would be destroyed by Christ. But if the Jews celebrate the Sabbath in such a way that they have a whole month and a whole year as it were a Sabbath, how much more ought we to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord! And therefore our elders handed down to us that all fifty days of Pentecost should be celebrated as Easter; because the beginning of the eighth week makes Pentecost. Whence also the Apostle, as a disciple of Christ, knowing there to be a diversity of times, writing to the Corinthians, says: With you, perhaps, I shall remain; and shall winter. And below: But I will remain at Ephesus until Pentecost; for a great door is opened to me.

Thus among the Corinthians he passes the winter, being distressed by their errors

because their affection toward the worship of God was growing cold: but with the Ephesians he celebrates Pentecost, and delivers to them the mysteries, and relaxes his spirit; because he saw them fervent with the ardor of faith. Therefore through these fifty days the Church knows no fasting, just as on the Lord's Day on which the Lord rose again, and all these days are as if the Lord's Day.

There will also be another Lord's Day, on which the Lord's body shall rise again.

Paul knew this, who says: Now you are the body of Christ, and members of members. For this body of the Lord and bones of his bones shall cleave to the head: but Christ is the head of the Church. Then, therefore, fasting shall cease, since in perpetual gladness weariness, care, and fatigue shall cease. Then death shall be destroyed: For the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For even though it ceased in Enoch, and was not found in him, yet it was not destroyed: for he was taken up, that he might escape it: Christ was slain, that he might destroy it. And therefore he said well: O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? Therefore in this resurrection Christ shall rise again, as it were in his own body.

Blessed, then, is he who has a part in the first resurrection; for as Christ is the firstfruits of them that sleep, so then shall the Church and his saints be the firstfruits of those rising again.

This mystery Peter could not know. Perhaps he knew about Enoch: yet who could comprehend with a human mind a mystery hidden in God? Let the Lord, therefore, come into my soul, into my mind, and subject it to himself; so that when my mind has been made subject, I may say: I will not fear evils, because thou art with me.

If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mulberry tree: Be thou uprooted, and be thou cast into the sea, and it shall obey you.

Of the grain of mustard seed it has been said above; now the mulberry tree must be discussed.

I read of a tree, yet I do not believe it to be a tree. For what reason, what profit is there for us, that a tree which bears fruit for laboring farmers should be uprooted and cast into the sea? Although we may judge this possible through the power of faith, that insensible nature should obey sensible commands, yet what does the very appearance of the tree mean?

I have indeed read: I was a herdsman of goats, plucking mulberries, and I think the prophet signified to us that he himself, a sinner, was converted from the flock of sinners; although it is fitting that he who was to be a prophet to the nations should seem to have sought fruit among thorns, to have drawn food from thorns, but the discolored and fetid flocks of the nations, the peoples of the Gentiles, were to be placed in the pastures of his writings, that they might grow fat with spiritual refreshment; and he himself was to milk spiritual milk from the converted sinner.

But since in another book of the Gospel mention is made of a mountain, whose appearance—bare of growing things, void of olives, barren of harvests, fit for the lairs of beasts and restless with the coursings of wild creatures—seems to express the exalting height of spiritual wickedness, as it is written: Behold, I am against thee, O corrupt mountain, which corruptest all the earth; it is fitting that we should suppose the same thing said in this place also, namely that faith excludes the enemy spirit, especially since the nature of the tree agrees with this opinion. For its fruit first whitens in flower, then, once formed, reddens, and blackens at maturity. The devil too, from the whitening flower of angelic nature and reddening power, having been cast down by transgression, bristled with the foul odor of sin.

Behold him to whom is said, in the mulberry tree: Be thou uprooted, and be thou cast into the sea—when he cast the legion out of the man, he permitted it to pass into the swine, which, driven by the diabolical spirit, plunged themselves into the sea.

This passage, then, is exhortatory to faith, teaching morally that even things which have been made solid can be dissolved by faith. From faith, moreover, comes charity, from charity hope, and again they are poured back into themselves in a certain holy circuit.

It follows that no one should glory in his works, since by right we owe obedience to the Lord. For if you do not say to the servant who is ploughing, or feeding sheep: Pass on, sit down (where it is understood that no one sits down unless he has first passed by; indeed Moses too passed by first, that he might see the great sight)—if, then, you do not say to your servant: Sit down, but require of him another service, and do not give him thanks: so too the Lord does not allow you to be the recipient of but one work or labor; because as long as we live, we must always be working.

Therefore acknowledge that you are a servant indebted for very many services.

Do not prefer yourself

because you are called a son of God: the grace is to be acknowledged, but the nature is not to be ignored. Nor should you boast if you have served well, since that is what you ought to have done. The sun obeys, the moon complies, the angels serve. The vessel of election among the Gentiles, chosen by the Lord, says: I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. Then elsewhere, showing himself conscious of no fault, he adds: But I am not thereby justified. Let us, too, therefore, not demand praise for ourselves, nor snatch the judgment of God, nor forestall the sentence of the Judge: but let us reserve it for its own time, for its own Judge. After this the ungrateful are reproved: and thus finally we come to the treatment of the future judgment.

In that hour he who shall be upon the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away: and he who shall be in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife.

When the Lord was asked by the disciples when the kingdom of God would come, he said: The kingdom of God is within you—that is, through the freedom of grace. But as to the word "Pharisees," the holy Doctor may have been mistaken either in memory or in the copy which he used; besides which, in the following

mention is made of the disciples: the reading, however, is correct as it stands, as

certainly through the truth of grace, not through the servitude of guilt.

And so whoever wishes to be free, let him be a servant in the Lord; for in that part by which we participate in servitude, we also participate in the kingdom. He says, then: The kingdom of God is within you; but as to when it would come, he was unwilling to say, but said that the day of judgment was to come; so that he might strike terror into all at the imminence of judgment, and not bring any security of delay.

And lest he should seem to sadden the disciples by denying them anything, he says in another book: But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son. Well did he place the Son in the middle position, for the same one is the Son of man and the Son of God; so that we should reckon this said rather according to the Son of man, since he knows the end of times not through the nature of man, but through the nature of God. Nor yet is it alien to faith, if you take it of the Son of God. For what is it that the good Father should have concealed from the Son, to whom he gave all things? Or how did he not give knowledge of the time to him to whom he gave the very power of judgment?

But how can the Son not know what the Father knows, since the Son is in the Father, and the Spirit searches even the deep things of God; since the Son himself is the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God? But why he was unwilling to tell it, he shows in another place: It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power.

Do you see where he tends who denies the Trinity to be of one power, so that there should be something which the Son does not know? For why should the Father conceal it from his own Son? For either it is out of envy that we are unwilling to disclose to others what we know, or lest perhaps we be betrayed: but neither the suspicion of envy toward the Father, nor of a betrayer toward the Son, can fall. Therefore they are of one knowledge, because they are of one power. Furthermore, he who knows the signs of the coming judgment surely knows also the end.

For what is it that he does not know, who is like the lightning flashing, since the Son of God, being the light, illumines the inner mysteries of the heavenly secret? In that hour, he says. Therefore he knows the hour too: but he knows it for himself, he does not know it for me.

Well does he assert that the cause of the flood, and of the fire, and of the judgment has proceeded from our sins

because God did not create evil, but our own deserts have found it out for themselves.

For they were eating and drinking; marrying wives, and giving in marriage.

Not because marriages are condemned, nor that foods are condemned; since in the former are successions, in the latter the supports of nature; otherwise one would have to depart from this world: but in all things a measure is sought; whatever is more than that, is of evil. Let there be some agreement for a time, that we may be free for prayer; let there be, amid the anxieties of the world and the excesses of drunkenness, some sobriety of religion, and truce of chastity.

Therefore, because on account of the wicked it is necessary that the upright in this world suffer contrition of heart and soul, so that they may receive a richer reward in the future, they are furnished with remedies; so that those who are in Judea may flee to the mountains. What is this Judea? For I know also another Judea according to the spirit, not according to the letter: For God is known in Judea. But what sort of mountains are these, which can restrain the fear of the coming judgment, since it is written: But trembling shall seize the mountains? Heaven and earth shall pass away: how then shall a portion of the earth remain untouched, or be able to shelter me, since it does not even preserve itself? Where, then, shall I hide myself from his wrath, who stirs up the depth of the sea? If I ascend into heaven, he is there: if I descend into hell, he is present. He, therefore, who is everywhere, cannot be deceived, but he can be appeased.

The day of judgment, then, is at hand: if you wish not to be overtaken, fear daily, flee daily.

You ask how you may flee? Go up onto the mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion: that you may be able to stand out on the summit of lofty merits: for God is the God of mountains, and not the God of valleys. Ascend to where Christ sits at the right hand of God, whose foundations are in the holy mountains: and, Mountains are round about him. Your mountain is Paul, your mountain is Peter. Set the footstep of your mind upon their faith. For those established in the law of God and the inheritance of faith, the day of judgment finds not for punishment, but for glory.

If anyone also is stationed upon the housetop—that is, has already ascended to the upper parts of his own house, and to the summit of eminent virtues—let him not fall back to the earthly works of this world. For I know a housetop upon which Rahab, that harlot in type, joined by the mystery of the Church's fellowship of sacraments to the peoples of the Gentiles, hid the spies whom Joshua had sent: who, if they had gone down to the lower parts of the house, would have been slain by the spies who had been sent to seize them. The housetop, therefore, is the office of a lofty mind, and the summit of the soul, by which the bare infirmity of the body is covered.

Hence it seems to me that even that paralytic was healed for this reason, because he was let down from the housetop by four young men; because by the four supports of the virtues—prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice—he subjected himself, by a certain lofty reasoning, at the feet of Christ. For nothing is loftier than humility, which, as being superior, does not know how to be exalted, because no one aspires to that which he judges beneath himself.

But since we are dealing with the judgment, let us not stray from the housetop; lest, while we desire to carry off the vessels that are in the house, we ourselves be seized. For not in every house are there vessels of gold and silver, but in many there are vessels of wood: nor is every house full; for there are also empty ones, which the prophet knew who said: What has happened to you now, that you have gone up onto the empty houses? The city is filled with those crying out And he adds: All your princes have fled, whoever were wounded in you, and have lapsed from faith into faithlessness. Sabellius was wounded, Valentinus was wounded, Arius was wounded; for they were found in an empty house.

Do you wish to see a house full?

Follow Peter, when, being hungry, he went up to the upper parts of the house: there he came to know the mystery of the Church to be gathered together; so that he would not judge the Gentile people unclean, whom faith could cleanse from every contagion. But vessels are made of clay: therefore the body is a vessel. And so beware lest, through desire of the body, you abandon the excellent pursuits of the mind. If Peter did not receive the mystery while stationed in the lower parts, how will you receive it? He received it, because he went up, so that he might preach the Lord as good tidings, not fearing the passion of the body.

Therefore, he who is on the housetop, let him not go down: and he who is in the field, let him not return back. Whence shall I understand what the field is, unless Jesus himself teach me, saying: No man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven? The idle man sits in the villa, the laborious man sows in the field: the weak man by the hearth, the strong man at the plough. Sweet is the smell of the field; for the smell of Jacob is the smell of a full field. The field is full of flowers, full of diverse fruits. Plough, then, your field, if you wish to be directed to the kingdom of God. Let the fruitful crop of good merits flourish for you. Let the vine be abundant on the sides of your house, and the young olive trees round about your table.

Let your soul say to Christ, now conscious of its own fertility, sown with the word of God, and also ploughed with spiritual cultivation: Come, my brother, let us go forth into the field. Let him answer: I have come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh. For what is better than the vintage of faith, by which the fruit of the resurrection is stored up, by which the fountain of perpetual gladness is watered?

And so, when you are forbidden to look back, much more are you forbidden to return, and to take up your tunic; for you have learned that to him who asks you for your tunic you ought also to yield your cloak. Therefore, directed toward the kingdom of God, seek not wealth and patrimony. Scripture also knows another tunic, concerning which the Apostle exhorts us, saying: That putting off the old man with his deeds, you put on the new, let us not seek again the tunic of our former error. Whence also that woman says: In the night I put off my tunic, how shall I put it on again? Which means that you ought not only to renounce sins, but also to abolish all memory of your former conduct. Finally, Paul, forgetting the things that are behind, put off guilt, yet did not omit repentance.

And therefore the Lord says: Remember Lot’s wife; who, because she looked back, lost the gift of her nature; for behind is Satan, behind is Sodom. Wherefore flee intemperance, turn aside from luxury. And that you may know that not all can flee to the mountain, remember that he who did not turn back to his old pursuits (for he had formerly chosen Sodom) escaped for this reason, that he reached the mountain: while she, who was weaker, because she looked back to the things behind, and was not aided by her husband’s support, could not reach the mountain, but remained behind.

In that night there shall be two in one bed: the one shall be taken, and the other left.

He rightly said “night,” because Antichrist is the hour of darkness; because he pours darkness over the hearts of men, when he says that he himself is Christ, false prophets rising up who assert that Jesus now dwells in the deserts, so that they may mock men with the error of a wandering opinion; now that he dwells in secret chambers, so that those who hear may be constrained by the name of a lofty power. But Christ, like lightning flashing, scatters the globes of his light throughout the whole world. And therefore he neither wanders in deserts, nor is enclosed in any places, since I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord: but he shines with the light of his own brightness, that in that night we may be able to see the glory of the resurrection. What then does it mean that he says:

Two shall be in one bed; two grinding at the mill; two in the field: the one shall be taken, and the other left?

Is God then unjust, that among those equal in pursuits and in the fellowship of living together, and undistinguished by the quality of their deeds, he should make distinction by the reward of merits? It is not so, but the quality of the reward corresponds to the deeds of the man. Therefore the practice of companionship does not equalize the merits of men: for both father toward son, and son toward father, rise up in zeal of religion; because not all who undertake a thing accomplish it: But he who shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. Then again, the Lord examines not outward service, but inward affection; for if you offer justly, but do not divide justly, the sacrifice is not acceptable to God. Therefore from one bed (for it is the bed of human weakness, since it is written: You have turned his whole bed in his infirmity) one is left, the other is taken: he who is taken is caught up to meet Christ in the air; but he who is left is disapproved.

Two women grinding at the mill.

The sense indeed seems to be that these signify those who seek nourishment from hidden things, and bring it forth into the open from what is within. But nevertheless it must be asked what these two women grind. Unless perhaps what we read in Isaiah: If you bring fine flour, it is vain; that it may be fine flour which is offered by those grinding. Let us therefore examine who grinds, and what they grind, and what the mill is. And perhaps this world is the mill, in which I think it is more fittingly signified as referring to the form of the human body, in which our soul is enclosed as in a kind of bodily prison, destined to work out the heavenly bread, if it takes good counsel. In this mill, therefore, either the Synagogue, or a soul liable to sins, grinding wheat that has been moistened and corrupted by heavy dampness, cannot separate the inward from the outward; and therefore it is left, because its fine flour has displeased.

But the holy Church, or a soul stained by no contagion of sins, which grinds such wheat as has been dried by the heat of the eternal sun, which God has clothed as he willed, and which angels have cleansed from every stain of impurity, offering good fine flour from the inmost parts of men to God, commends the libations of its sacrifice.

Not only are there two grinding, but there will also be two working in one field, of whom one shall be taken.

The good sower is he who has not sown along the paths, but upon ploughed and cultivated ground; so that the earth may multiply fruit pressed down by humility, not scattered by boastfulness. But the sower of tares is left behind, from whom a rejected fine flour is made. Now we may discover who these differing husbandmen are, if we notice for what reason the Apostle said that there are two nous, mind, that is, two minds, in us; perhaps because one belongs to the outward man, who is corrupted, the other to the inward, who is renewed through the sacraments. And that man is perhaps the worse, who is puffed up in vain, exalted by the mind of his flesh, and not holding fast to the head; because he declines from the observance of the saving precepts of our Lord Jesus Christ; for he himself is the head of all, who is the author of all.

The other is that more excellent man, who loves humility, seeks wisdom, does not neglect mercy; namely, the good sower; He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor, his righteousness endures for ever. This one, then, is spiritual, the other carnal. For just as we understand from the words of the Apostle that the man who exalts himself with a puffed-up mind, the seducer, is inflated by the mind of the flesh; so also we show that the holy man is renewed in the spirit of his mind, the same Apostle saying: But be renewed in the spirit of your mind. He shows, therefore, that there are two minds; one, which becomes the mind of the flesh, bound by sin; the other, which, joined to the spirit, renounces the enticements of the flesh.

Not only are there two minds, but there are also two laws in us, both of which the Apostle explained to us, saying: For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. There is therefore a law of the inward man, and also of the outward; the one which forbids sin, the other which persuades to it; the one which condemns error, the other which suggests it; the one which instructs the mind, the other which tempts it. There are also two other, more forceful laws in us, one of God, the other of sin, according to the same Apostle, saying: Therefore I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

And it is shown that if you speak only of the mind, you show it opposed to the flesh; for when Paul says that he serves the law of God with the mind, he certainly shows that the mind, of itself, unless it is conquered by the flesh, is good, and by nature so created that it resists error. And so, when it is conquered, it is called the mind of the flesh, not having this from its own nature but from the flesh, by which it slips; and it passes, as it were, under the name and property of the victor when conquered; but its nature is opposed to the flesh. In short, with the mind we serve God, with the flesh, sin. But the mind will be better, if, cooperating with the Holy Spirit, it does not neglect its religious duty.

These, then, are the ones working in our field, one of whom gives good fruit by diligence, the other loses it through negligence, which the Lawgiver calls blood, saying: The soul of all flesh is its blood. To this many also refer that which is written: You shall not eat flesh with the blood; lest we should reckon the pleasures of the body, stained with the wounds of the soul, as a source of refreshment rather than as guilt of blood, when we ought rather to be refreshed by the word of God. There is, therefore, a food of refreshment, and there is a food of blood; for just as the flesh of the Lord is truly food, so his blood is truly our drink.

Let us therefore offer to the Lord good food from our works; lest when he comes again, and, as with that fig tree, finds no fruit, he turn away, hungry, his purpose of mercy

because of the barrenness of our merits, saying to that soul which he finds bare of fruits, and stained with blood: Let no fruit grow on you forever. Therefore the soul of all flesh is its blood. There is also a more excellent soul, of which God said: All souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine.

Nor should we pass over the interpretation of two peoples

that is, that in this world, which is very often compared to a field, there are two peoples, one of believers, the other of those who do not believe, each to render an account of the reward of their deeds; and therefore the one who is faithful is taken, the other who is unfaithful is left. But those two women grinding are two souls, or certainly the Church and the Synagogue; for it is not customary in the divine Scriptures for a single figure to have only one meaning, but many; so that one saying may embrace several meanings.

Thus the mind of the flesh, and the soul of the flesh, and the synagogue gather that wheat, and grind that fine flour which is offered in vain: but the mind

that is joined to the soul, and the soul that is the receiver of the saving word, or the Church of God, cultivate and grind the spiritual fine flour of the true law; from which also the loaves of the presence are made, which only the priests eat, to whom it is prescribed to eat the purer bread, namely that which came down from heaven. But we are all priests of righteousness, if our merits allow it, we who are consecrated by the anointing of gladness into a kingdom and priesthood.

Let us therefore so till and cultivate our field, set in the duty of this cultivation; that in that heavenly Jerusalem, where the true observance of the law is celebrated, we may have fine flour from our own sheaves, blessed are they who shall be able to gather them: That coming, they may come with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them. These, then, are the spiritual fruits, and the true and happy yields of labor, which are moistened by no useless rain: but the fruit of the flesh is subject to corruption; and therefore he who has sown carnal things shall also reap carnal things. But what shall I say of the field, since it is evident that in the work of the tiller there is either praise or blame?

answering they said: Where, Lord?

This the disciples spoke: but the Lord, having already forewarned where and whither one must flee, and where one must remain, and what must be avoided, gathered the sum of it into a general definition, saying:

Wheresoever the body shall be, there also shall the eagles be gathered together.

Let us therefore first conjecture what the eagles are, so that we may define what the body is.

For the souls of the just are compared to eagles, because they seek high things, forsake lowly things, and are said to lead a long life. Whence David also says to his soul: Your youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s. If then we have understood the eagles, we cannot now be in doubt about the body, especially if we remember that Joseph received the body from Pilate. Do they not seem to you like eagles, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of the Lord, and the gathering of the apostles around the burial of the Lord? Do they not seem to you like eagles around the body, when the Son of Man shall come with intelligible clouds: And every eye shall see him, and those who pierced him?

There is also a body of which it is said: My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink.

Around this body are eagles, which fly about it with spiritual wings. There are also eagles around the body who believe that Jesus has come in the flesh; for every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Where, then, there is faith, there is the sacrament, there is the lodging-place of holiness. There is also the body which is the Church, in which through the grace of baptism we are renewed in spirit, and the failing old age is restored into renewed youthfulness. Suffer the little children to come to me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God.

Yet this age is weak in strength, feeble in understanding, immature in counsel: therefore one age is not preferred to another, otherwise it would be a hindrance to grow older. What need is there of vows that the maturity of age should follow, if the coming of that maturity is going to take away my merit of the kingdom? Therefore God gave the advance of life for vices, not for the growth of virtue. And why did he himself choose apostles not of boyish, but of more advanced age? But why does he say that children are fit for the kingdom of heaven? Perhaps because they do not know malice, know not how to defraud, dare not strike back, know not how to search after wealth, do not seek honor or ambition. But not to know these things is not virtue, but to despise them is; nor is there praise of continence where there is the integrity of weakness: therefore not boyhood itself, but a goodness emulating the simplicity of boyhood is designated.

For it is not the mark of virtue not to be able to sin, but not to wish to, and thus to hold the perseverance of will, so that will may imitate infancy, and practice imitate nature. Finally the Savior himself expressed this, saying: Unless you be converted, and become as this child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Who then is the child to be imitated by the apostles of Christ, is it one of the little ones?

Is this then the virtue of the apostles? Who then is the child? Is it not perhaps that one of whom Isaiah says: A child is born to us, a son is given to us? For he himself, the child, said to you: Take up your cross and follow me. And that you may recognize the child: When he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he was struck, he struck not back; for this is perfect virtue. And so there is in boyhood a certain venerable old age of character, and in old age an innocent boyhood: For venerable old age is not that of long duration, nor counted by number of years, but the gray hairs are the understanding of a man, and the age of old age is a life unspotted. Whence also it is written: Praise the Lord, O children, praise the name of the Lord; because no one praises the Lord unless he is perfect.

For no one says the Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit.

This seems to have been prophesied of the people of the Church, which, as a younger people, went before the older people of the Jews in zeal for virtue. And therefore that word: Behold I and my children whom thou hast given me. These are the children who, following the Lord as he rode upon the colt of an ass with prophetic voices, said that the redemption of the nations had come: these are the children or infants who sucked those breasts of Christ with a fuller draught above wine. For out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise.

It may seem to some hard and unkind that the disciples forbade the little children to come to the Lord, unless you understand either the mystery or the affection; for they did not do this out of any envy or harshness of mind toward children, but were rendering to the Lord the deference of a diligent service, lest he be pressed by the crowds. For indeed elsewhere it is written: Master, the crowds press upon thee. Our own advantage is indeed to be rejected, where there is injury to divinity. Let us therefore flee pride, let us follow childlike simplicity; because truth is the adversary of pride, but simplicity, running together with truth, is sublime in humility itself. For God does not dwell in an abject heart, but as the prophets have handed down to us: The throne of strength is exalted; namely in him whose wisdom is raised to the height of truth. Nor, like Cain, let one hide the deceit of a striker under a brotherly appearance; but let one be a brother both without and within.

This concerning the affection. But as to the mystery, because they were eager that the people of the Jews, from whom they too had been born according to the flesh, should be saved first, and yet they also interceded for the Canaanite woman. They knew, then, the mystery, that the calling was owed to both peoples, but perhaps they did not yet know the order.

Now attend to the distinction of words.

Where he bids the infants come to him, that he might bless them either by preaching or by the laying on of hands, he calls them children pueros: where he commands that they not be scandalized, he calls them little ones pusillos; for they are not scandalized who are touched by Christ, they do not fall who draw near to Christ: but those fall whom not smallness of age but smallness of virtue has made little. At the same time he also teaches that the weak are not to be tempted; lest their sins be turned upon us, whose prayers reach the Lord, and even if they themselves be weak in the merits of virtues, are yet raised up by the patronage of angels. Let no one, therefore, deride the poor man, for he provokes him who made him: let no one tempt the weak, lest he injure the angels: let no one cast down the infirm, lest he undo the benefit of the Redeemer.

And therefore he said: Woe to this world because of scandals; because many have judged the cross of the Lord to be a scandal, whereas the humility of the Lord's passion is the sacrament of our salvation; so that we might strive after the office of virtue, and take up the example of humility. Woe therefore to him who has not believed in the cross of the Lord, by which the weak are scandalized: It were better for him that a millstone of an ass were hung about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

In the divine Scriptures we ought to weigh not the sequence of words but the weight of the matters; for a certain unheard-of and monstrous, beast-like pomp of punishment does more to restrain sins. Yet lest a scandal be generated in this too for some weak person, we do not think it was placed idly together: the millstone of an ass, the neck of a man, the depth of the sea. For since the gentile people has received the figure of the ass; does it not seem to you as though it turns, as it were, the millstone of an ass, as long as it is occupied in the error of its ignorance, bound indeed by the bonds of nature, so that it grinds out the word, seeks God: but suffused with the blindness of a covered mind; so that it knows not how to raise the face of the soul to God, and to open the eyes of the heart?

And therefore, without any eagerness of running, its footsteps often returning upon themselves, it toils unwillingly for another's use. Yet he who turns the millstone has at some time the hope of completing his work, and bears the hope of putting off his blindness; but he to whose neck the millstone is hung carries a stone who refused to carry the Lord's yoke. The ass, then, to the millstone, the blind man to the stone, the gentile to the rock, who worships him whom he does not see nor recognize: for God does not dwell in things made by hand, nor is he known in a stone, but in spirit.

Both peoples then, gentile and Jew, are set forth by a certain pomp of this saying, but a more vehement punishment is decreed against the Jews.

For the memory of the gentiles will be overwhelmed by the waves of this age, and blotted out by the mire of this world, who wished to be among those things which are not, and, alienated from the knowledge of God, are as though sunk into the depth of the sea; but the Jews, taken up through the patriarchs, marked by circumcision, instructed through the Law, will not perish as unknowing ones, but will be punished as sacrilegious ones. For to the Athenians God was unknown, in Judea he was known, but not received. And therefore he who is ignorant will be held ignorant; he who transgresses will be condemned; nor is he stripped of guilt who did not know his own author, nor is he stripped of pardon who did not receive the Lord. It is more tolerable, nevertheless, not to have offered faith to Christ, than to have laid hands upon him.

And a certain ruler asked him, saying: Good master, what shall I do to possess eternal life?

And Jesus said to him: Why callest thou me good? None is good but God alone.

A crafty question, and therefore an ingenious answer.

For this ruler, being a tempter, called him a good master, whom he ought to have called good God. For although in divinity there is goodness, and in goodness divinity (for no one is good but God alone, but every man is a liar, and whatever is a liar is certainly not good), yet by adding, Good master, he called him good in part, not in totality; for God is good totally, man in part. Therefore the Lord said: Why callest thou me good, whom thou deniest to be God? Why callest thou him good, when none is good but the one God? He does not, therefore, deny himself to be good, but points to God. For what is good, except one full of goodness?

But indeed, when it is written: There is none that doth good, no not one, he certainly spoke of men, not of God; for God is one, not one out of a number; so also the Son of God is taken, as it were, as unique, not as one out of many; he is only-begotten, not one out of the begotten. And therefore, None is good, does not prejudge Christ; because no one judges Christ. For "no one" is said as it were commonly of us, but Christ has nothing in common with us.

But if anyone is moved because None is good but one God, let him also be moved by this, that none is good but God.

But if the Son is not excepted from God, then certainly Christ is not excepted from the good. But since in God the Son is another person, one in power, For there is one God of whom are all things, and one Lord by whom are all things; and God and Lord are not two gods, but one God, because the Lord thy God is one Lord; certainly, since according to majesty God is one in both persons, the good is also one in both. For how is he not good who was born of the good? For a good tree makes good fruits. How is he not good, since the substance of goodness, assumed from the Father, has not degenerated in the Son, which did not degenerate in the Spirit? And therefore, Thy good Spirit shall lead me into the right way.

But if the Spirit who has received from the Son is good, then certainly he too is good who gave it.

And since the Father is good, then certainly he too is good who has all things which the Father has. Or if you deny that the Son has goodness, you deny the Father also.

Manifest reason needs no examples, yet follow at least the authority of the Scriptures; for it is written: The Lord is a good judge to the house of Israel. Does he speak of the Son, or of the Father? But the Father judges no one; because he has given all judgment to the Son. Therefore the good Lord is the Son. Take another: All confess the Trinity who come to baptism; because they are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, therefore they confess both to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. When therefore it is said: Confess to the Lord, for he is good, the Father is good, the Son is good, the Holy Spirit is good, but God is one; because the Lord is good to them that wait for him. Is he not good who bestows good things upon the soul that seeks him? Is he not good, Who satisfies thy soul with good things?

Is he not good, who says: I am the good shepherd?

But you think God is good for this reason; because he has no judgment in which there is the necessity of avenging.

Although it has already been stated that the judge is good to the house of Israel, yet elsewhere you have: How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart! Of whom then do you think this was said, of the Father, or of the Son? If of the Father, then he is not good to all. Why then do you disparage the Son? If of the Son, then you confess the Son too to be good God; for he himself is Blessed be the God of Israel, because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people. He himself is the king and God of Israel, to whom it is said: Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the king of Israel. Thus therefore he says here: Since thou, who temptest, canst not perceive me to be good, why callest thou me good?

Good indeed, but to the Right of heart, for whom it is fitting that goodness be from nature, not from craftiness.

The Son, then, is good, For he is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness. How then is he not good, who is the image of goodness? For just as the image of God is God, but one God, so also the divine image of goodness is good, but one goodness. To me at least it is useful to believe God good, whom I am going to have as judge of my sins. Let those see to it who do not wish to believe him good. And so, because this one who tempts is a lawyer, as is shown in another book, he said well: None is good but God; to admonish that it is written: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, but rather should confess to the Lord, For he is good.

Finally he frequently rebukes him; for to one glorying in the Law that he had kept all things from his youth, in order to expose his empty boasting, he shows him that something belonging to the Law is still lacking to him. And therefore he is brought sad to the precept of mercy, that in him a certain natural form of the sentence might be given.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Great force, great weight is in these words.

For with what other words could he more vehemently express that a rich man ought not to boast himself in his riches, than with such words as define it to be contrary to nature for a rich man to be merciful? Take away from me the blandishments and paint of words, which are wont to enervate the sense of sentences. This man ought not to be flattered, but broken, who was rejecting mercy.

Yet if there are some whom the ornaments of words please more than a manly and natural sense, and a certain habit and form: as good suitors do in taking a wife, that they examine character, not beauty; nor are they turned back by offense at appearance, when they are drawn on by virtue of soul: let these too seek in words the mystery, which is a certain mind and soul of the words; and let them not scrutinize the words in the mystery.

The camel therefore is taken as a type of the gentile people, which that lion seeking whom he may devour drives, laden with treasure, into the desert amid prophetic figures: for in tribulation and distress the lion and the lion's whelp, the asps and the offspring of flying asps, carried their riches upon asses and camels. And well was the camel figured for the gentile people; because, degenerating by the deformity of superstition, before the people of the nations believed, it displayed the appearance of beastly foulness, absurd tracks, shameful faces. More easily therefore did that sinner enter through the narrow way (which is the way of Christ, who by the passion of his own body, penetrating the way of death, as it were with a needle restored the torn garments of our nature) than the people of the Jews, rich in the Law, needy in faith, headlong in fury, disgraceful in crime.

It can also be understood morally of every sinner, and of the arrogant rich man. Does it not seem to you that that publican, burdened with the consciousness of his own sins, when he did not dare to lift his eyes to God, entered more easily, like a camel through a needle's eye, by the remedies of his confession, than that Pharisee into the kingdom of God—arrogant in prayer, boasting of innocence, presuming upon glory, reproaching mercy, preaching himself, accusing another—who came more to instruct the Lord than to entreat him? If then anyone shudders at a camel, let him shudder at one who is fouler in deeds than a camel.

Honor your father and mother.

Fittingly for me today is read the beginning of the Law, since this is the birthday of my priesthood; for every year the priesthood seems as it were to begin anew, when the age of the seasons is renewed. Good also is what is read: Honor your father and mother. For you are parents to me, who have conferred the priesthood: you, I say, are children, or parents: each one a child, all together parents; for I would gladly call you either my children or my parents, who hear and do the word of God: children, because it is written: Come, children, hear me: parents, because the Lord himself said: Who is my mother or my brothers? My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.

Well therefore does the Law, having first put forward: You shall love the Lord your God, and you shall love your neighbor, subjoin: Honor your father and your mother. For this is the first step of piety; for God willed these to be your authors. Honor them with dutiful services, that you may abstain from insults, because not even by countenance should the piety owed to parents be wounded. But it is too little not to injure them, since the Law took care that they should not suffer injury: For whoever curses his father or mother shall die the death: but you, honor them, that you may be good. One thing is the benefit of the Law, another the duty of piety. Honor your own, because the Son of God honored his own. For you have read: And he was subject to them: if God was subject to servants, how much more should you be to your parents? Christ therefore honored Joseph and Mary, not from the debt of nature, but from the duty of piety.

He honored also God his Father, as no one else could have honored, so as to be obedient even unto death: honor therefore you too your parents.

But honor is not only of honorific respect, but also of generosity: Honor widows who are truly widows.

For honor is to render according to merits. Feed your father, feed your mother. And even if you feed your mother, you have not yet repaid the pains, you have not repaid the anguish she suffered for you: you have not repaid the services by which she bore you: you have not repaid the nourishment which she gave with tender affection of piety, pressing her breasts to your lips: you have not repaid the hunger which she endured for you; lest she should eat anything that would harm you, lest she should drink anything that would injure the milk. For you she fasted, for you she ate, for you she did not take the food she wished, for you she took the food she did not wish, for you she kept vigil, for you she wept: and do you allow her to be in want? O son, how great a judgment you take upon yourself, if you do not feed your parent!

You owe to her what you have, to whom you owe what you are.

How great a judgment, if the Church should feed those whom you are unwilling to feed! If any believer, he says, man or woman, has widows, let him support them, that the Church not be burdened, that it may suffice for those who are truly widows. This concerning strangers: what of parents?

Not without purpose have we just spoken this, since a mother's complaint has pressed upon us: but we preferred to admonish such a one publicly, rather than reprove him privately at home. And if he is not exposed by our voice, yet he blushes at his own feeling. Do not allow, son, that others' hunger should feed your parents; do not allow, son, that the fastings of the poor should seek food for your parents. If not for grace and salvation, then for shame's sake, feed them—you, son, or you, daughter. Is it not shameful, when you enter the church, that your aged mother should stretch out her hands to strangers, and, her daughter passed over, beg alms from outsiders; while you pass by with lofty neck, and nods of the eyes, trailing your gown, wearing earrings, and bracelets, and rings, and the rest which Isaiah names?

What if she should turn her speech upon you, demanding back the debt of nature, the price of her nourishment, the service owed by your hand to her who bore you? What will you answer?

Will you give to others?

What if they object to you: Go, first feed your mother. For even if they are poor, still they do not seek an impious contribution. Have you not heard above that that rich man, reclining in fine linen and purple, from whose table Lazarus gathered the crumbs, is tormented with eternal punishments because he did not give food to the poor man? If it is grave not to give to strangers, how much graver to exclude one's parents? But you say that what you would have given to your parents, you prefer to give to the Church. God does not seek a gift at the price of parents' hunger. Whence, to the Jews who reproached the Lord's disciples for not washing their hands, Jesus answered: Whoever shall say: Whatever gift is from me will profit you, does not honor father or mother.

Wherefore we have not unadvisedly turned aside to the obscurity of the sense.

For the Jews, while following the tradition of men, neglect that of God: the disciples, preferring the tradition of God, neglected that of men, so as not to wash their hands when they ate bread; since, He who is washed all over has no need to wash his hands. Jesus had washed them; they sought no other washing; for by one baptism Christ dissolved all baptisms. Therefore whoever has been washed by the Church has no need to be washed again. Therefore the disciples were intent upon the mystery, seeking not the cleanness of their body, but of the soul. This the Jews reproached: but they are cleverly refuted by the Lord, for observing empty things, while despising things that would profit.

And therefore he says to them: Why do you say to father or mother, whom the Law commands to be honored: Whatever gift is from me will profit you; that is, when a father or mother in need asks something for sustenance from a son, since the Jew, fearing the Law, seeks an excuse for not giving, he is accustomed to say: The gift that is from me will profit you; so that the religious father might be afraid to accept money that has been dedicated to God by his children. But this tradition of men was not only one of exempting, but even had the right and authority of compelling excuses covering over their own avarice. But the tradition of God is, that you should first feed your parents (Dist. 86, cap. Caeterum). For if, according to the divine oracle, insult to a parent is atoned for by death, how much more hunger, which is graver than death!

In this place the Lord curbs insolent boasting.

For many, in order to be praised by men, give to the Church what they take away from their own; whereas mercy ought to proceed from the domestic duty of piety. Give therefore first to your parent, give also to the poor, give to that presbyter what earthly thing abounds to you, that from him you may receive the spiritual thing you lack; for he who honors will be honored. See then that he, when he receives, gives in return: and he receives not as one needy, but as one who will repay in greater measure. Give to the poor for his rest, that you also, sharing of your own with the needy, may obtain rest. But just as Scripture says parents are to be fed, so also they are to be left for God's sake, if they hinder the affection of a devoted mind.

it came to pass, as he drew near to Jericho, a certain blind man sat beside the way.

In the book according to Matthew two are brought in, here one: there as he was going out of Jericho, here as he was drawing near. But there is no discrepancy; for since in this one man is a type of the gentile people, who by the Lord's sacrament receives back the brightness of lost light, it makes no difference whether the healing is received in one or in two; since, deriving their origin from Cham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, in the two blind men they represented the two authors of their race.

This too Luke seems not to have omitted, when he adds Zacchaeus, who, small in stature—that is, exalted by no dignity of inborn nobility, scanty in merits, like the people of the nations—having heard of the coming of the Lord and Savior, whom his own had not received, desired to see him: but no one easily sees Jesus, no one placed upon earth can see Jesus. And because he had neither prophets nor a kingdom, as if seeking the grace of a natural form, he climbed up into a sycamore tree, treading down, that is, with his own step the vanity of the Jews, and correcting also the errors of the former age: and therefore he received Jesus into the hospitality of his inner house.

And well did he climb into the tree, that the good tree might bear good fruits, and, cut off from the natural wild olive and against nature grafted into the good olive, might be able to bring forth the fruit of the Law; for the root is holy, even though the branches be useless, whose fruitless glory the people of the gentiles, by faith in the resurrection, transcended as by a certain elevation of the body. (Chap. Xix. --Verse 2.) And behold a man named Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus was in the sycamore, the blind man in the road.

Of these the Lord waits to show pity to the one, and ennobles the other by the honor of dwelling in his house: one he questions in order to heal him, the other, though he was not going to be invited, he invites himself; for he knew that the reward of his host would be abundant: but yet even though the blind man had not yet heard the voice of one inviting, he had heard his feeling of love.

But lest we should seem to have too quickly left this blind man, as if disdaining the poor, and to have passed over to the rich man; let us wait for him, since the Lord also waited: let us question him, since Christ also questioned him. Let us question him, because we do not know: he questioned him, because he already knew: let us question him, that we may know whence this man was healed: he questioned him, that in the case of one we might learn from many whence we might deserve to see the Lord; for he questioned him, that we might believe that no one can be healed unless he confesses.

And immediately he saw, and followed him, glorifying the Lord; And he passed through Jericho (Chap. Xviii, vers. 43).

For otherwise he would not have seen, unless he followed Christ, unless he preached the Lord, unless he passed beyond the world. Let us also return to favor with the rich; for we do not wish to offend the rich, since we wish, if it can be done, to heal all; lest, pressed hard by the comparison of the camel, and abandoned too quickly, as it might seem, in the case of Zacchaeus, they should suffer the offense of a just resentment.

Let them learn that the fault lies not in resources, but in those who do not know how to use resources; for riches, as they are hindrances in the wicked, so in the good are aids to virtue. Zacchaeus was certainly rich, and yet chosen by Christ; but by giving half of his goods to the poor, and by restoring even fourfold what he had taken by fraud (for the one alone is not sufficient: nor does liberality have grace, if injury persists; because what is sought is not spoils, but gifts), he received a richer reward than what he was bestowing. And rightly is a chief of the publicans introduced. For who could despair of himself, when this man attained to it, whose wealth came from fraud? And he, it says, was rich. That you might know that not all the rich are avaricious. What does it mean that Scripture expressed the stature of no one else but this man, that He was small of stature?

See whether perhaps he was small in malice, or as yet small in faith; for he had not yet made his profession when he climbed up, he had not yet seen Christ, and rightly was he still small. Finally, John was great, because he both saw Christ, and the Spirit remaining upon Christ like a dove, as he himself says: I saw the Spirit descending like a dove, and remaining upon him.

But what is the crowd, if not the confusion of the ignorant multitude, which cannot see the summit of wisdom?

Therefore Zacchaeus, as long as he is in the crowd, does not see Christ: he climbs above the crowd, and sees him; that is, having passed beyond plebeian ignorance, he merited to look upon him whom he desired. And beautifully he added: Because the Lord was about to pass that way.

Either the sycamore was where it was, or it was where he was about to believe; so that he might both preserve the mystery, and sow grace: for thus he had come, that through the Jews he might pass over to the Gentiles.

He saw Zacchaeus, therefore, above; for now by the sublimity of his faith he stood out among the fruits of new works like a tree fruitful with lofty height. And since we have turned aside from the type to moral matters, amid so many wills of believers it pleases us, on the Lord's day, to relax the mind, and to mingle in some festivity. Zacchaeus in the sycamore, namely the new fruit of a new time, that in this too might be fulfilled that saying: The fig tree has put forth its green figs; for to this end Christ came, that from trees might be born not fruits, but men. We read elsewhere: When you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

Therefore Nathanael was not under the tree, that is, above the root, because he was just; for the root is holy: yet Nathanael was under the tree, because he was under the Law; Zacchaeus was above the tree, because he was above the Law: the one was a hidden defender of the Lord, the other a public preacher: the one still sought Christ from the Law, the other, now above the Law, left his own things behind, and followed the Lord. Behold, your mina has gained ten minas.

It was a good order, that he who was about to call the Gentiles, and to order the Jews to be slain, who did not wish Christ to reign over them, should send this comparison ahead, lest it be said: He had given nothing to the people of the Jews: whence could they have become better? Or what is demanded from him who received nothing? Not slight is this mina, which the woman of the Gospel above, because she had not found it, lit a lamp, sought it with light brought near, and rejoiced when it was found. Finally, from one mina, one man made ten minas, another five. Perhaps these have moral meanings, because there are five senses of the body: those ten are twofold, that is, the mystical things of the Law, and the moral things of uprightness.

Whence also Matthew set down five talents and two talents: in the five talents, so that they might be moral matters; in the two, both, the mystical and the moral. Thus that which is lower in number is richer in substance. And here we can understand the ten minas as the ten words, that is, the doctrine of the Law: the five minas, the teachings of discipline. But I wish the lawyer to be perfect in all things; for the kingdom of God is not in speech, but in power.

And rightly

because he speaks of the Jews, only two bring back the multiplied money; not indeed by usury of coin, but by the interest of disputation. For one thing is the money of interest, another the interest of heavenly doctrine. Finally, when the Lord says: Why did you not give my money to the bank? He seeks interest not on our money, but on his own.

One says he hid himself in the earth

because he overwhelmed with the pursuit of pleasure the reason which was given to us to the image and likeness of God, and hid it as it were in the pit of the flesh. Concerning the others, silence is kept, who, like prodigal debtors, lost what they had received. Among those two are the few, who through two occasions were sent to the cultivators of the vineyard: in the rest are all the Jews. This comparison Matthew also wished us to apply, that just as a rich man who does not share his money with the poor: so also he who does not divide the grace of his teaching to the ignorant, when he is able to teach, is guilty of no small fault. Concerning this, since we have spoken in the books written on the Faith, it will be better to pass over it.

But what can the ten cities be, unless perhaps souls over whom is rightly set as ruler he who has lent out at interest to the minds of men the Lord's money, and those chaste sayings tried like silver? For as Jerusalem is said to be built like a city, so are peaceful souls. And as angels preside, so also do those who have merited the life of angels.

And it came to pass, when he had drawn near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount which is called Olivet, he sent two disciples, saying: Go into the village

that is opposite, in which as you enter you will find a colt of an ass tied, on which no one has sat.

Beautifully, having left the Jews, about to dwell in the affections of the Gentiles, the Lord goes up to the temple; for this is the true temple, in which the Lord is worshiped not in the letter, but in the spirit: this is the temple of God, which the sequence of faith, not the structure of stones, has founded. Those, therefore, who hated him are forsaken; those who were to love him are chosen.

And therefore he came to the mount of Olivet, that he might plant new olive trees in sublime power, whose mother is that Jerusalem which is above. On this mountain is that heavenly farmer, so that all planted in the house of God may say severally: But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of the Lord. And perhaps the mountain itself is Christ. For who else could bear such fruits of olives, not by the abundance of curving berries, but by the fullness of the Spirit of fruitful nations? He himself is the one through whom we ascend, and to whom we ascend. He himself is the door, he himself is the way, who is opened, and who opens, who is knocked upon by those entering, and who is worshiped by those who have completed their service.

Therefore in the village it was, and the colt was tied along with the ass: it could not be loosed, except at the command of the Lord: an apostolic hand loosed it: such is the act, such the life, such the grace. Be such, that you too may be able to loose those who are bound.

Now let us consider who those were, who, their error having been detected, were cast out of paradise, and were tied up in the village.

And you see how those whom death had driven out, life recalled. And therefore according to Matthew we read of both the ass and the colt; so that, since in two human beings each sex had been expelled, in two animals each sex might be recalled. Therefore there, in the mother ass, he figured Eve, as it were, of error: but here, in the colt, he expressed the generality of the gentile people; and therefore he sits upon the colt of the ass.

And rightly: On which no one has sat; because no one, before Christ, called the peoples of the nations to the Church.

Finally, according to Mark you have it thus: On which no man has yet sat. But it was held bound in the chains of unbelief, given over to an unjust lord, enslaved by error: but it could not claim dominion for itself, which not nature but fault had made guilty. And therefore when "Lord" is spoken, one is acknowledged; for there are many gods, and many lords, but in a general sense: yet to us there is one God, and one Lord. And so, even if it is not expressed, "Lord" is defined not now by the addition of a person, but by the universality of nature.

But Mark brought in the bound animal before the door

because whoever is outside Christ is outside on the road: but he who is in Christ is not outside. In the crossing, he added, where there is no certain possession, no manger, no food, no stable. Wretched is that servitude for which the right is vague; for he has many masters, who has not one. Strangers bind, that they may possess: this one loosed, that he might hold; for he knew that gifts are more powerful than chains.

Nor is it without purpose that two disciples are sent, Peter to Cornelius, Paul to the rest.

And therefore he did not designate persons, but defined a number; yet if anyone requires the persons to be named, he can consider Philip, whom the Spirit sent into Gaza, when he baptized the eunuch of Queen Candace, and from Azotus sowed the word of the Lord through all the cities as far as Caesarea. Nor is it to be passed over that he immediately said they should be sent back; because those who would preach the Lord Jesus in the borders of the Gentiles had to be sent forth. Those, then, who were sent, when they loosed the colt, did they use their own words?

By no means: but they said as Jesus had told them; that you might recognize that not by their own speech, but by the word of God; not in their own name, but in the name of Christ, they poured faith into the Gentile peoples, and the adversary powers, which claimed for themselves the obedience of the nations, yielded to the divine command. Whence also the apostles spread their own garments beneath Christ, either that by this deed they might prefer the glory of evangelical preaching: for in the divine Scriptures garments often signify virtues, which might in some measure soften the hardness of the Gentiles by their own virtue too; that they might exhibit unoffending, dutiful services with attentive affections to the happy journey.

For it did not please the Lord of the world to be carried in outward show upon the back of an ass: but that, by a hidden mystery, he might spread the inner chambers of our mind, and, seated in the secret inward gathering of souls, might sit as the mystical rider, as if infused into a certain body of divinity, guiding the mind's footsteps, restraining the wantonness of the flesh; that by the guidance of piety he might tame the accustomed disposition of the gentile people. Happy are those who received such a rider in their inward parts! Happy indeed are those whose mouths, lest they be loosed by much speaking, the rein of the heavenly word restrained!

What is this rein, brothers?

Who will teach me how it either restrains or looses the mouths of men? He showed me the rein, who said: That speech may be given to me at the opening of my mouth (sic). Speech, therefore, is the rein, speech is the goad: and therefore it is hard for you to kick against the goad. He taught us, then, to open the heart, to endure the goad, to bear the yoke. Let another teach also the restraints of the tongue. For rarer is the virtue of silence than of speech. Let him plainly teach, who, as one mute, did not open his mouth against deceit, ready for scourges, and not refusing blows, that he might be a pious mount for God. Learn from the servant of God to carry Christ; since he first carried you, when as shepherd he brought back the straying sheep: learn to lay the diligent back of your mind beneath him, learn to be under Christ, that you may be able to be above the world.

Not everyone easily carries Christ, but he who can say: I am bowed down and humbled exceedingly: I roared with the groaning of my heart.

But if you desire not to be moved, fix your uplifted step upon those garments of the saints. For beware lest you walk with loose feet, beware lest with crosswise steps you abandon the paved paths of the prophetic ways laid out for you; for that the coming of the Gentiles might be safer, those who went before Jesus made the path secure with their own garments, all the way to the temple of God. That you might walk without stumbling, the disciples of the Lord, stripping themselves of the covering of their own body, amid the opposition of the crowds spread the way for you by their own martyrdom. If, however, anyone wishes to take it thus, we do not reject that this colt was now walking upon the garments of the Jews.

But what do the broken branches mean, which usually tend to entangle the steps of those walking?

I would truly hesitate, unless the good farmer of the whole world had taught me above, that now the axe has been laid to the roots of the trees, so that at the coming of the saving Lord it might cut down the barren one, and lay low on the ground the empty glory of the fruitless nations, to be trampled underfoot by the faithful; that the nations, renewed in the spirit of their mind, might, like the shoots of young trees, be able to sprout from old stumps.

Do not, then, despise this little ass; for just as there are ravening wolves in the clothing of sheep, so, on the contrary, there is a man hidden of heart under the form of a beast; because beneath the covering of the body, which we have in common with beasts, a mind full of God is stirred. That this pertains to the figure of men, Saint John more clearly declared, by adding that they took to themselves the pith of palms; for the just flourishes like the palm. And therefore, at the coming of Christ, the banners of justice and the insignia of triumphs were now raised above the shoulders of men. Why does the crowd wonder at the mystery being worked? Even if it does not know what it wonders at, it wonders nonetheless, because in that colt wisdom sits, power abides, justice clings.

Do not despise also that ass, which once saw the angel of God, whom man could not see.

And it saw, and carried, and spoke; that you might recognize that in later times, at the coming of the great angel of God, those Gentiles would speak before the asses. Fittingly, according to Luke, we read that the crowds praising God met him at the descent of the mountain; that they might signify that the worker of a spiritual mystery had come to them from heaven. The crowd, therefore, acknowledges God, calls him king, repeats the prophecy: Hosanna to the son of David, that is, it declares that the expected redeemer of the house of David had also come, according to the flesh, as the son of David: and this the crowd would do a short moment before it was to crucify him. Truly a memorable mark of the divine working; that a testimony be wrung from unwilling men against themselves, when they deny with their affections the God whom they confess with their voices.

Whence also that word of the Lord: If these should be silent, the stones will cry out.

Nor is it any wonder if, against their nature, rocks should answer the praises of the Lord, whom his killers proclaim harder than crags.

Or perhaps because, when the Jews fell silent after the Lord's passion, living stones, according to Peter, were about to cry out. Therefore, though their affections fought against it, the crowd still led God with praise to his temple.

But God wills his temple to be not a merchant's inn, but a dwelling place of holiness: nor does he shape the use of priestly ministry by a venal office of religion, but by free service. Consider, then, what the Lord's deeds prescribe to you as an example of living. 18. And he cast out all those selling and buying in the temple: and he overturned the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of those selling doves. In general, then, he taught above that secular contracts ought to be absent from the temple of God: but specifically he drove out the money-changers. Who are the money-changers, but those who seek profit from the Lord's money, and do not distinguish good from bad? For the Lord's money is the divine Scripture; for he both distributed denarii to his servants when about to go on a journey, and divided talents, and for the healing of the wounded man left two coins with the innkeeper; for by the two Testaments our wounds are healed.

But you, like a good money-changer, store up the sayings of the Lord, chaste sayings, silver tried by fire, purified by the sevenfold Spirit: nor should you accept, by an impious exchange, an adulterated image of the King (since Satan also transforms himself into an angel of light); nor mix into your treasury the diminished figure of your Prince through the fraud of Arian perfidy; nor tempt the ears of the faithful with the sound of money, so that the jingling of coin might shut out the hearing of the sacred Scriptures, or so that the desire of possessing might be inserted into devout affections. Not all money-changers, then, are to be excluded; for there are good ones too. Indeed, he says: My money you should have given to the money-changers, and I, coming, would have received it with interest. But if the coin is of the Scriptures, then the interest is also of the Scriptures.

But why he overturned the seats of those selling doves, I do not understand according to the letter; for sellers of birds could not claim for themselves the dignity of some honored seat in the marketplace. For what prerogative of dignity is there in doves? Yet the form of the Lord's baptism admonishes us, when the Holy Spirit descended in the shape of a dove, that, by the type of merchants of this sort cast out of the temple, those who traffic in the grace of the Holy Spirit can have no fellowship in the Church of God. For freely, he says, you have received, freely give. Indeed, to Simon, who thought that the gift of sanctifying could be conferred upon him for a price, Peter replied: Your money, he says, be with you unto perdition; because you think that you can obtain the grace of God with money: you have no part nor lot in this faith.

The sellers of sheep and oxen also I think are those who, from another's labor or simplicity, hunt after certain sordid market-gains as foul auctioneers: or

because sheep and oxen are cast out, and doves are ordered to be taken away, the Jewish people seems to be excluded; for Ephraim is like a dove, since the Lord hated both their successions and their labors. The coin is poured out, that grace may be gathered: the table of the money-changers is overturned, that the Lord's may be set up in its place: the altar is thrown down, that altars may be raised.

And he did this not girded with any hand or riches, but beat the crowds with a whip made of cords, and no one dared to resist. And now he uses a rod, now a whip (for the rod is straight, the rod of your kingdom): with the rod, that he might correct; with the whip, that he might persuade. There it is direct; here a moral precept, as it were bent, whereby the sinner's conscience is scourged as with a slow lash; for there are prophetic terrors of one kind, and apostolic persuasions of another: in each, it was declared to the nations that the coming of the redeemer of the house of David had taken place. Yet the discipline is of one and the same word. And therefore he made a whip of cords; because, he says, The lines have fallen unto me in goodly places: yea, my inheritance is fair to me; for lines are what surveyors call those by which they divide the boundaries of fields to be measured out.

And so, like a good surveyor, he was marking out the boundaries of the Synagogue and of the Church, ordering the sacrilegious to leave the temple; for the new surveyor of fruitful souls had come, who would measure the kinds of fields, not their extents.

Fittingly, however, no limit of possession is enclosed by stretched-out lines, nor are the boundaries of faith marked out as of some defined thing; but by a whip loosed into the immeasurable the boundaries of the Church are extended far and wide: the Jews are eliminated, not by any prescribed exile, but by a limitless one; so that nowhere in the world would a place for the Synagogue remain. A man planted a vineyard.

Many derive various meanings from the name of the vineyard: but Isaiah clearly recorded that the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth is the house of Israel. This vineyard who else but God established? This, then, is he who let it out, and went abroad: not because the Lord went from one place to another, he who is everywhere always; but because he is more present to those who love him, and absent from the negligent. He was absent, moreover, for many seasons; lest the demand should seem premature. For the more indulgent the liberality, the more inexcusable the obstinacy.

Whence you have well, according to Matthew, that And he set a hedge round about it

that is, he fortified it with the enclosure of divine guardianship; lest it lie easily open to the assaults of spiritual beasts. And he digged a winepress in it. How are we to understand what the winepress is, unless perhaps because psalms are inscribed "for the winepresses"; for the reason that in these the mysteries of the Lord's passion, like new wine seething with the holy Spirit of the prophets, overflowed more abundantly? Indeed, those into whom the Holy Spirit was poured were thought to be drunk. So here too he dug a winepress, into which the fruit of the reasonable grape, from within, might flow down by a spiritual infusion. He built a tower, raising up, that is, the summit of the Law: and thus, this vineyard, fortified, furnished, adorned, he let out to the Jews. And at the season of fruits he sent his servants.

He fittingly put "the season of fruits," not "the yield"; for no fruit of the Jews ever appeared, no yield of this vineyard, of which the Lord says: I waited that it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth thorns. And so the winepresses overflowed not with the wine of gladness, not with spiritual new wine, but with the bloody blood of the prophets. Indeed, Jeremiah was cast into a pit; for these already were the winepresses of the Jews, filled not with wine, but with mire. And although the prophets generally seem to be meant, the reading gives us reason to believe that the one who was stoned was Naboth: of whom, though we have received no prophetic word, we have received a prophetic deed; because he prophesied by his own blood that many would be martyrs for this vineyard in the future. But who is the one wounded in the head?

Doubtless Isaiah, whose bodily frame the saw divided more easily than it bent his faith, or wore down his constancy, or cut away the vigor of his mind. It came about, therefore, that when he had sent several others, whom the Jews dismissed dishonored and empty-handed, having been able to gain nothing from them: at last he even sent his only-begotten Son, whom the faithless, wishing as it were to remove the heir, killed by crucifying him, cast out by denying him.

Briefly, then, how great, how many things are here.

First, because it is a natural goodness which very often trusts the unworthy: then, because Christ came as the last remedy for evils: then, because he who denies the heir despairs of the author. But Christ is heir, and likewise both testator and heir; because he survives his own death, and obtains, as it were by hereditary right, in our advancement, the benefits of the Testaments which he himself established. Fittingly, then, he asks a question, that they might condemn themselves by their own verdict. He says the Lord of the vineyard will come, because in the Son the paternal majesty too is present, or because in the last times he draws nearer to human affections. They therefore pronounce sentence upon themselves, that the wicked may perish, and the vineyard be transferred to other tenants. Let us then consider who the tenants are, what the vineyard is.

The vineyard is our type

because the people of God, founded on the root of the eternal vine, rises above the earth, and, covering a common soil, now grows downy with a budding blossom, now is clothed with spreading greenness, now takes on the gentle yoke, when it has grown up with riper arms, like tendrils, into a second vine. For the almighty Father is the husbandman, and Christ is the vine: but we are the branches, who, unless we bear fruit in Christ, are cut off by the sickle of the eternal cultivator.

Rightly, then, is the people of Christ called a vineyard; either

because the sign of the cross is displayed on the brow, or because its fruit is gathered in the last season of the year, or because, as with all rows of vines, so among the poor and the rich, the humble and the powerful, servants and masters, there is equal measure, no distinction, in the Church of God: as the vine is married to trees, so the body is joined to the soul, and the soul also to the body: as the vine, when yoked, is lifted up, and, when pruned, is not diminished but increased; so the holy people, while bound, is set free: while humbled, is exalted: while cut back, is crowned.

And just as a tender shoot, cut off from an old tree, is grafted into the offshoot of another root, so this holy people, its scars from the old shoot smoothed away, grows, warmed as in the bosom of a loving parent, upon that wood of the cross: and the Holy Spirit, as it was sent down into other trenches of the earth, so, poured into this prisoning body, washes away by the watering of saving water whatever is foul, and raises the condition of our members up to heavenly discipline.

This vineyard the diligent husbandman is wont to dig, to yoke, to tend: and, having cleared away the mounds of earthly mass, is wont now to scorch with the sun, now to drench with rain, now to weed the field, the coverings of our body; lest the bud be harmed by thorns, lest it run riot in the shade of leaves, and the fruitless boasting of words, by overshadowing the virtues, hinder the maturing of natural talent. But far be it that we should fear anything adverse for this vineyard, which the ever-watchful guardian, the Lord our Salvation, has hedged about with the wall of eternal life against all the enticements of worldly wickedness, and has stretched out its branches even unto the sea: for the earth is the Lord's. Everywhere God the Father is worshipped, everywhere Christ the Lord is adored.

This is our vintage. Joyful, then, and secure, let one part load its bosom with the cords of ripening grapes, others let us pour forth heavenly offerings with the mouth, many of us, pressing out with the footsteps of good wills the fruit of the divine gift, let us dye our bare feet, our sandals stripped off, with the flowing new wine; for the place on which we stand is holy ground, and therefore the shoes must be loosed, that the spiritual footstep, ascending the tribunal of the sacred seat, may be freed from the bonds of bodily attachment; for it is fitting that here be the vintage of the whole world, where the vineyard is of the whole world.

Behold, an acceptable time, in which the year does not stiffen with the wintry frosts of a darkening faithlessness, nor does the shapeless crust of blasphemy congeal beneath deep clouds, with the frost enduring: but, freed from the storms of sacrilege, the earth is already bringing forth new fruits. Truly it brings forth; for the storm of all dissensions has abated, and all the heats of worldly desire, and all the burnings by which the people of Italy were once scorched through the fires of Jewish, and lately of Arian, savagery, are now tempered by a serene breath. The storm has been stilled, concord sails, faith breathes: eagerly the sailors seek again the ports of faith which they had left, and press sweet kisses upon their native shores, rejoicing that they have been freed from dangers, absolved from errors.

Hail, vineyard, worthy of so great a guardian: you not the blood of one Naboth alone, but of countless prophets, and (what is more) the precious blood of the Lord has consecrated. He indeed, though not terrified by royal threats into pressing down his constancy through fear, nor provoked by the richest rewards into selling his devout affection; but resisting the desire of the king, lest, the vine being cut down, the herb of mallows should be sown in his little gardens, when he could do nothing else, quenched with his own blood the fires prepared for the vines; yet he was defending a temporal vineyard: but you the death of many martyrs has planted for us forever: you the cross, rival of the apostles' emulation of the Lord's passion, has propagated even unto the ends of the whole world. Whose image and inscription does it have?

The Lord teaches in this passage that we ought to be circumspect in answering heretics or Jews.

Elsewhere he said: Be wise as serpents. Which passage many take to mean that, since the crucifixion of Christ was foretold by the raising up of the serpent, by which he would destroy the serpentine poison of spiritual wickedness, one ought to seem as cunning as Christ, as simple as the Spirit. Behold for you that serpent who always guards its head, who wards off the deadly wound. Asked by the Jews whether he had received power from heaven, he answered: The baptism of John, whence was it: from heaven, or from men? So that, while they did not dare deny that it was from heaven, he might confound them for their madness in denying that its author was from heaven. Asked for the didrachma, he inquires about the image; for one is the image of God, another the image of the world.

Whence that other also admonishes us: As we have borne the image of that earthly man, let us also bear the image of this heavenly one.

Christ does not have the image of Caesar, because he is the image of God.

Peter does not have the image of Caesar, because he said: We have left all things, and have followed thee. The image of Caesar is not found in James or John, because they are sons of thunder: but it is found in the sea, where those dragons, their heads crushed, upon the water, and that greater dragon itself, its head broken in pieces, is given as food to the peoples of the Ethiopians. If then he did not have the image of Caesar, why did he pay the tax? He did not give from his own, but rendered to the world what was the world's. And you, if you wish not to be subject to Caesar, do not have the things that are of the world: but if you have riches, you are subject to Caesar. If you wish to owe nothing to an earthly king, leave all your possessions, and follow Christ.

And rightly he decrees that the things which are Caesar's must first be rendered to Caesar: for no one can belong to the Lord unless he has first renounced the world. But we all renounce in words, though not all of us renounce in affection; for when we receive the sacraments, we renounce. How weighty are the bonds we promise, as in the text. Nor indeed wrongly, if that shapeless crust congealed in the high clouds signifies hail, which is always harmful to crops to vow to God, and not pay it! It is better, he says, not to vow, than to vow and not to pay. Greater is the contract of faith than of money. Pay your promise while you are in this body, before the exactor comes and casts you into prison. Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence, until thou pay the last farthing.

If any man's brother die.

The Sadducees

that is, the more detestable portion of the Jews, in this passage tempt the Lord: their folly is openly rebuked, but the meaning is mystically turned back upon them; because they have excluded from themselves the example of chastity, in that according to the letter a woman is compelled, even unwilling, to marry, so that the brother may raise up seed for the deceased. Therefore the letter kills, as it were a procuress of vices: but the spirit is the teacher of chastity.

Let us see, then, whether this woman is not the Synagogue, which had seven husbands, just as it is said of the Samaritan woman: For thou hast had five husbands

because the Samaritans follow only the five books of Moses: the Synagogue chiefly follows seven, and because of her perfidy in none of them we renounce the devil and his pomps, that is, the vanities of the world, on account of the hereditary succession of the elders. This custom moreover is more clearly explained in the treatise On the Beginning, chap. 2, and in Book of On the Sacraments, chap. 2 also she received seed.

And therefore she will not be able to have a part with her husbands in the resurrection, because she has inverted the spiritual precept according to the sense of the flesh; for it was not some carnal brother who was declared to raise up seed for his deceased brother: but he who would take to himself in marriage the wisdom of divine worship on behalf of the now-dead people of the Jews, and from her raise up seed in the apostles: who, like the remains of the dead, the Jews still shapeless left in the womb of the Synagogue, deserved by the admixture of new seed to be preserved according to the election of grace.

The Synagogue, moreover, frequently receives the stole, which is the mark of marriage, as though she were the author of the faithful: she is also frequently represented as repudiated

because she is the mother of the unfaithful: to her the bodily Law dies, so that the spiritual Law might rise again. Therefore the holy people of God, if they have loved the five books of the Law with a certain conjugal affection, and have obeyed as it were marital commands, will have in the resurrection heavenly fellowship, not confounded by the shame of bodily defilement, but enriched with the gifts of divine grace.

The Lord said to my Lord.

About to bring the precepts to completion, the Lord, even before his passion, concludes with the faith and mercy of his Testament at its end: faith, in this, that we believe Christ to be both our Lord and our God, and to sit at the right hand of God: not that he who is everywhere sits bodily. Finally, he himself is in the Father; because he is of one substance with God, because there is one power, one majesty. He himself, then, is in the Father, and the Father in him; because the Word is in God, God is in the Word: he himself is in the Father; because he himself, the Word, is at the right hand of the Father; because he is co-equal with the Father, second to none: he himself is sent by the Father; because he descended from heaven to fulfill the paternal will. Take away from this the questions of unbelief, and religion is full.

Nor is he preferred, because he sits at the right hand: nor does he suffer injury, because he is sent.

No degree of dignity is sought, where there is fullness of divinity.

This too must be considered, that he rebukes those who call Christ the son of David. And how did that blind man merit healing by confessing him the son? How did the children, saying, Hosanna to the son of David, render to God the glory of the most exalted proclamation? But they are not rebuked in this passage because they confess him the son of David, but because they do not believe him the Son of God. For it is not one or the other, but both together, that belongs to true faith: for although at the beginning we judged that we knew nothing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified: yet now, as it were by the judgment of what is near, we no longer know Christ as crucified, but we await him coming in the clouds.

The unbeliever beholds the wounds; the believer, caught up in the air, runs to meet Christ.

Let us believe, then, that Christ is both God and man: one in both, not one or the other; to whom the enemies are subjected by the Father not through weakness of his power, but through unity of nature; because in the one the other works. For the Son also subjects enemies to the Father, he who glorifies the Father upon earth. And the Father gave to the Son a Name which is above every name: but the Son also says to the Father: I have manifested thy Name to men, which thou hast given me. In giving, moreover, the Name which is above every name, he gave not more than he had: but he gave all that he had. And he gave this name, that every tongue should confess to God; because the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.

See, then, each point.

The Father subjects to the Son, the Son subjects to the Father: the Father raises up the Son, the Son raises up himself. Whence he says: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And the Father is Lord, and the Son is Lord: The Lord said to my Lord. And there are not two Lords, but one Lord; because the Father is God, and the Son is God: but one God; because the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. One God, because one deity: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness. Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee. But one God, in whom the teaching of both the New and the Old Testament agree. For in the Old Testament also it is written: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God: and, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

In the New: One God and Father of all.

So too the Father is Lord, and the Son is Lord: but one Lord. Finally it is written: You cannot serve two masters; this in the New: but in the Old it is written: Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord. Whence the Apostle marvelously, lest he should say two Gods, or name two Lords, or detract from either the Son or the Father, says: One God the Father, of whom are all things: and one Lord Jesus, by whom are all things. For he who is God is also Lord: and he who is Lord is God. Finally it is written: Know ye that the Lord he is God.

All things, then, which the Father has, the Son also has.

God the Father according to the account of generation: God the Son according to the unity of the image. The Son is Lord, because he subjected all things to reason, though he was able to do all things by power; the Father is Lord, because he is the root of the Son. Thus the Father is for us distinguished from the Son by the definition of persons, joined by unity of power. And so the one is in the other, and one is in the other reciprocally. For it is the glory of the Father, if he has not degenerated in the Son; and it is the grace of the Son, if the Father is seen in the Son. Therefore he is not degenerate, in whom is the supreme majesty of unity; nor a stranger, in whom the property of generation is the expression of truth. There shall not be left a stone upon a stone that shall not be thrown down.

The passage about the widow followed And following), which, since we have already treated in the book we wrote On Widows, we now set aside.

But it is truly said, according to what was proposed, concerning the temple which Solomon built, that it is to be overthrown at the time of judgment, for there is nothing made by work and hand that is not either consumed by age, or overthrown by violence, or burned by fire: yet there is also another temple built of beautiful stones and adorned with gifts, whose overthrow the Lord seems to signify, namely the Synagogue of the Jews, whose ancient structure is dissolved as the Church arises. There is also a temple in each one of us, which collapses when faith fails; and especially if anyone falsely puts forward the name of Christ, by which he assaults the inner disposition.

There can also be this explanation, which profits me more.

For what does it profit me to know the day of judgment? What does it profit me, conscious of so many sins, if the Lord comes, unless he come into my soul, unless he return into my mind, unless Christ live in me, unless Christ speak in me? Therefore Christ ought to come to me, his coming ought to happen for me. But the second coming of the Lord occurs in the failing of the world, when we can say: But the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.

But if such a failing of the world finds this man in the upper rooms of the house, so that his conversation is in heaven; then the bodily and visible temple will be destroyed, the bodily Law, the bodily passover, and the visible passover, the bodily unleavened bread, and the visible unleavened bread, I dare say, the temporal Christ, as he was to Paul, before he believed; because to him for whom the world has failed, Christ is eternal. To this man belongs the spiritual temple, the spiritual law, the spiritual passover also; since Christ is slain once. This man feasts on unleavened bread not from earthly grain, but from the grain of justice. To him, then, comes the presence of wisdom, the presence of virtue and justice, the presence of redemption; for Christ indeed died once for the sins of the people, but daily redeems the sins of the people.

when you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars.

The Lord, asked when the destruction of the temple would be, and what would be the sign of his coming, teaches concerning the signs, but does not think the time should be disclosed. But Matthew added a third question, so that both the times of the destruction of the temple, and the sign of his coming, and the consummation of the world were asked by the disciples: Luke thought it sufficient that the consummation of the world be understood, if it were spoken of concerning the coming of the Lord.

Of these heavenly words no one is more witness than we, upon whom the end of the world has come.

For how many wars have we heard of, and how many rumors of wars! The Huns rose up against the Alans, the Alans against the Goths, the Goths against the Taifali and the Sarmatians. We too, Book XXXI. But there will be another place for speaking of this nation and of the others here mentioned. But indeed that plague which so wretchedly ravaged not only men but the very cattle, Hermann, in Book II, chapter 12, of the Life of St. Ambrose, observes, following Baronius, was most easily driven off by the sign of the cross. The great cardinal relies moreover on the Eclogue of Severus Endelechius, the Christian poet, where among other things it is thus recorded:

BUCULUS: Tell me, come, Tityrus,
What god snatched you away from these disasters,
So that the plague of the flocks, which had ravaged

in Illyricum, exiles have made exiles of the Goths' native land, and there is not yet an end.

What famine of all things, what plague alike of oxen and of men, and of the rest of the cattle; so that even we who did not endure the war, nevertheless pestilence has made us equal to those who were defeated in war! Therefore, because we are at the setting of the age, certain sicknesses of the world go before. A sickness of the world is famine, a sickness of the world is pestilence, a sickness of the world is persecution.

But there are also other wars which the Christian man endures, battles too of various desires, and conflicts of zeals, and domestic enemies much more grievous than foreign ones. Now avarice goads, now lust inflames, now fear terrifies, now anger agitates, now ambition stirs, now the spiritual forces of wickedness which are in the heavenly places attempt to terrify. Thus, as it were beset by certain battles, and shaken by certain earthquakes, is the moveable affection of the wavering soul.

But the stronger one says: If camps should stand against me, my heart shall not fear; if war should arise against me, in this will I hope. He stands in battle line, bearing his breast against the enemy, even if some Goliath, savage and towering, should rise up; yet while the rest fear, the humble one shall rise up, as it were David, casting aside the king's earthly arms, taking up the lighter weapons of faith, and hurling the dart of pure confession, twisted with a triple cord, wounds the impudence of the persecutor—despiser of threats, heedless of powers, fit even that Christ should speak through him. In one place Christ speaks, in another the Father, in another the Spirit of the Father speaks. These do not disagree, but agree. What one speaks, three speak; because the voice of the Trinity is one.

To this victor, who has slain Goliath with his own sword, while he receives death for Christ, the Allophyli having been put to flight, the young women run to meet him, like eagles, saying: Saul struck down in thousands, David in ten thousands. Which is a sign that the victors of the world are preferred before princes. Finally, when kings have died, the martyrs succeed forever to the kingdom of heavenly grace with honor; and those become suppliants, these patrons.

There is also another sword of Goliath, another weapon of the devil, namely the speech of heretics, which the man who knows how to sing psalms seizes, that he may conquer the adversary, hearing these wars, not suffering them, nor restless, moved by every wind of doctrine, knowing no famine of the word, and satisfied with the abundance of heavenly Scripture, who does not fear to provoke the heretic sounding forth with vain words. Then let him who is weak wait; lest he cause prejudice to the rest by an unequal encounter. Let David come, whose mouth Christ opens to utter the mysteries: let that Nazarite come (Judges 16:17), whose hair does not fall, nor

To the neighbors, let there be none to you.

TITRUS. The sign which they declare to be of the cross of God, This sign placed in the midst of foreheads, Was the certain salvation of all cattle.

Moreover, what Ambrose recalled in the previous book concerning the end of dissensions and the relaxing of the mind, these things not obscurely prove that he here discourses concerning matters already past. Having nothing superfluous which could fall away, or nothing of the former virtues to lose, whole in sobriety, strong in peace, who guards all his senses and words even to the end.

Let the Gospel be preached, that the age may be destroyed.

For as the preaching of the Gospel has gone before over the whole earth, which even the Goths and Armenians have now believed, and therefore we see the end of the world: so too the Gospel is preached by the spiritual man, when he pursues every advance of wisdom and every virtue, singing psalms with mind and spirit, destroying death as the last enemy; for then is the end, when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to God the Father, and he himself shall have been made subject to him who subjected all things to himself, that God may be all in all. And the Gospel shall be preached through all the cities, that is, the cities of Judea: For God is known in Judea. For then are the cities of Judea built, when the foundations of virtues are laid. When you shall see Jerusalem surrounded by an army.

Truly Jerusalem was besieged by an army, and stormed by the Roman general.

Whence the Jews thought that the abomination of desolation was then accomplished, because the Romans, mocking the Jewish observance of ritual, threw the head of a pig into the temple. This I would not say even in madness. For the abomination of desolation is the execrable coming of Antichrist; because he contaminates the inner parts of minds with sacrilegious misfortunes: sitting, according to the historical sense, in the temple, that he may claim for himself the throne of divine power. But according to the spiritual interpretation, he is beautifully represented as standing, because he desires to establish in the affections of individuals a trace of his own perfidy, arguing from the Scriptures that he is Christ.

Then desolation shall draw near, because most, having fallen away from the true religion, shall depart in error.

Then shall be the day of the Lord, which even the Apostle clearly explained, saying, that we are not to fear as though the day of the Lord were at hand; lest anyone should seduce us in any way: because unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as though he were God.

Therefore he shall sit in the temple, and in the inner temple of the Jews, who will deny Christ: in a temple not inviolable, but liable to corruption, which either the ruin of perfidy shall involve, or the force of anger shall undermine, or the fire of desires shall burn up. And rightly then shall come the day of the Lord, and the days shall be shortened for the sake of the elect: because as the first coming of the Lord was for the redeeming of sins, so also the second is for the repressing of offenses, lest more should slip into the error of perfidy.

Then false prophets, then famine.

Recall to me the times of Elijah, and you will find then the prophets of confusion, then Jezebel, then famine, then the dryness of the land. For what reason? Because iniquity had abounded, charity had grown cold. Finally, the just man is in the desert, the wicked man is in the kingdom.

There is another Antichrist, the author of this, namely the devil, who strives to besiege my Jerusalem, my soul, indeed the soul of God, the peaceful soul, with the army of his own legion. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world, of this darkness. Then is there a departure, when the soul falls away from itself: and again, when it thinks upon the Lord, it trembles and is troubled. Then, when Antichrist holds the inner parts: until he is taken out of the midst, injustice exults, iniquity reigns. Then faith is rare, so that the Lord himself, as if doubting, said: When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth, whether in our own land, or in the whole world?

So too elsewhere: The Lord looked down upon the sons of men, to see if there were any that understood or sought God: not

because God doubts, but because faith will be so rare among men, that according to the opinion of men it might seem there was room for doubt.

Therefore when the devil is in the midst of the temple, it is the desolation of abomination, according to Daniel the prophet: but when the spiritual presence of Christ shall have shone upon each one laboring, the wicked one is taken from the midst, and justice begins to reign, which empties out all dominion from the minds of the faithful.

There is also a third Antichrist, either Arius or Sabellius; indeed all are Antichrists who seduce us by a wicked interpretation.

And therefore let him who reads understand: let him who understands not be seduced, so as to believe false things for true, in the manner indeed of the Jews, who denied the true Christ; whence it will follow that they will believe him to be true who is false: so also the Arians, what they deny to Christ, they will not deny to Antichrist. Woe to those who are with child, and who give suck in those days!

Therefore is conception criminal? Yet children are the rewards of marriage. And how did the Lord bless Sarah, and she bore a child? How did Anna pray, and bring forth? How did Rachel, blessed, receive her sons? Have the prophets erred, since the Lord could not err? But in the prophets too the Lord has spoken, and therefore they too could not err. Who then will be able to reconcile the discord of the letters?

But since there is war there, let us turn to the spirit of peace; for Peace said: A woman when she is in labor has sorrow

because her hour has come: but when she has brought forth, she no longer remembers the sorrow. You have again what he added: And you indeed now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; to show that it belongs to the perfect to rejoice, to the weak to waver, as those still fearing an uncertain outcome. But he also said above: They ate and drank; they married, and were given in marriage, binding themselves, that is, to this life, and entangling themselves with worldly cares. These, then, are the pregnant ones to whom woe is said, who stretch out the fat of their flesh, and whose inward steps of soul grow sluggish—barren of virtues, and fruitful of vices.

But neither are those pregnant women exempt from condemnation, who, being established in the effort of good deeds, have not yet given forth any progress of the work undertaken. For there are also those who conceive from the fear of God, who say: From fear of thee we have conceived and been in labor. But not all bring forth, not all are perfect, not all can say: We have brought forth the spirit of salvation upon the earth: not all are Marys, who conceive Christ of the Holy Spirit, and bring forth the Word. For there are those who expel the Word as an abortion, before they bring it forth: there are those who have Christ in the womb, but have not yet formed him, to whom it is said: My little children, of whom I am again in labor, until Christ be formed in you. Therefore those who are still in the womb are as it were in labor, imperfect: already those more perfect, to whom it is said: I have begotten you through the Gospel.

Many are the fathers through the Gospel, and many the mothers who bring forth Christ.

Who then will show me the parents of Christ? He himself showed it, saying: Who is my mother, or who are my brothers? Whoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. Do the will of the Father, that you may be the mother of Christ. Many have conceived Christ, and have not brought him forth. Therefore she who brings forth justice, brings forth Christ: she who brings forth wisdom, brings forth Christ: she who is in labor with the word, is in labor with Christ.

There is also one who has been in labor with injustice, and has brought forth iniquity.

Woe to these pregnant women, who, heavy with body, are too slow to escape danger! Woe to these, upon whom the future birth-pang, by which the whole body is shaken, brings pain. To these the signs of the future judgment are the beginnings of sorrows.

Moses also taught that there is a pregnant woman, whom, if two men fighting should trample, she quickly suffers a miscarriage.

And therefore let the good woman flee strife, and follow peace; that she may be able to complete her birth: nor let her await the space of nine months, for the birth of the word is not in time, but in the fullness of diligence. But the just man, made perfect in a short time, fulfilled long years. But on the contrary, the imperfect soul is quickly trampled, and loses the word which it has conceived. But woe to him who has scandalized one of these little ones! Woe to him who has trampled a pregnant woman! For if he has expelled the pledge still unformed, it is a loss of money: but if formed, he shall render soul for soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand.

But why eye or hand, since the aborted one, already formed, when expelled, has both hand and eye?

Whence it appears that each is to be condemned according to the manner in which he has done harm. For if someone, whether heretic or schismatic, shall have expelled a catechumen as from the womb either of the soul or of the Church in labor, he is punished more lightly: if a believer, more gravely. And therefore one must beware lest, by contending with such persons, you trample the Church; for avoid foolish fights, and questions without discipline, knowing that they beget strife, by which the Church, as it were in labor, is vexed by the trampling of the whole body.

Therefore quickly fill your belly, that you may more quickly be able to bring forth your birth. Hear how you should fill it, and with what you should fill it: From the fruit, he says, of his mouth a man fills his belly: and with the fruits of his lips he shall be satisfied.

Concerning nursing mothers also that lofty judgment of Solomon taught me, and that contention of the two women, that even if they have already been delivered of the pain of childbirth, they yet remain in suspense from fear for the entrusted pledges; because through the drunkenness of the nurse sleep steals over her, the mother smothers her little one, denies her own, and seeks another's: but even she who did not slay her own son is endangered as to her own; because the judgment hangs in uncertainty.

Therefore let us also, lest as parents of unfinished works either the day of judgment or of death find us, hasten to wean our little ones. Isaac, once weaned, was no longer subject to his mother's sleep; and therefore Abraham gave a great feast when he weaned his son. David, once weaned, hopes for the recompense of his soul; for he is not, like the Corinthian in the beginning of the faith, still too weak for solid food, given milk to drink: but already armed with solid bread he had grown up into the fulness of perfect age. Therefore the care of begetting is not enough, unless there also be forthcoming an effective power of nourishing.

And so let the word of God grow in you as in Mary, let it advance in wisdom and in age.

This comes to pass if you keep in your heart all the sayings of righteousness, and do not wait for the time of old age: but, betrothed in early age to another, a righteous husband, you quickly conceive wisdom without corruption of your body, quickly give birth to it, quickly nourish it. Behold for me Paul, yesterday persecuting, today believing, on the morrow preaching.

Pray that your flight be not in winter, or on the sabbath.

Since the Lord is to come on the day of judgment, before whom fire will burn; and the force of fire is either always the same, or burns more quickly in summer: how then does he say that we must pray that our flight not be in winter, unless perhaps because he who flees into the mountains ought to fear the cold and ice, the storms and hail of sins, and to wish for the serenity of summer light, lest his feeble footsteps slip on the slipperiness of the body?

Whence also that bride, now secure in her progress, now resting on firm roots, rejoices, saying: Winter is past, the time of cutting has come; for in winter the wind strips the trees of their honor, and the harshness of cold kills the tender leaves into the likeness of death: but in spring the seeds rise again, and, as it were, a new summer of greening nature grows up. It is truly Passover, when I have been saved: it is summer at Pentecost, when we celebrate the glory of the resurrection in the likeness of what is to come.

We must also pray that the Lord, coming, may not find you on the sabbath, that is, idle from works.

And so, according to the Law, work each day in its day, and be of fervent spirit, and of watchful labor. Nor is that idle, which is written: On the sabbath you shall humble your soul: and because for seventy years the people endured in captivity, at that time religion was violated, liberty was crushed, chastity was wounded. Therefore you must depart from this life at that time when the virtues are strong, and the vices are captive: not when the soul is captive, when the vigor and virtue of the body is idle, and sins hold dominion.

there shall be signs in the sun and moon and stars.

Both the true course of prophecy and the whole ground of the mystery is this: that the captive Jews, a second time led into Babylon and Assyria, will be captives throughout the whole world

because they denied Christ: and Jerusalem, which is seen, will be trampled by a hostile army, the Jews falling by the edge of the sword: and all Judea will be subjected by the nations who are to believe, by the edge of the spiritual sword, which is the word sharpened on both sides: and various signs will come to pass in the sun and moon and stars.

These signs are more clearly expressed according to Matthew: Then, he says, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall. For with very many falling away from religion, the clear faith will be darkened by the cloud of unbelief; because for me that heavenly sun is either diminished or increased by my faith. Just as, if very many gaze upon the rays of the world's sun, according to the capacity of the beholder the sun appears either paler or brighter: so according to the devotion of the believer spiritual light is poured into each. And just as the moon, in its monthly courses, when it comes to be opposite the sun, by the interposition of the earth, vanishes; so also the holy Church, when the vices of the flesh stand opposed to the heavenly light, cannot borrow the brightness of the divine light from the rays of Christ. For in persecutions it is often the love of this life alone that shuts out the light of God.

The stars shall fall—those, surely, who already shine with the glory of the resurrection, those men who, like lights in the world, hold fast the word of life, those men of whom it was said to Abraham, that as the heaven shines and the stars, so shall his seed be (f. 22:17). The patriarchs, then, shall fall away from men, the prophets shall fall away, if the bitterness of persecution grow strong: which must come to pass, until the fulness of the Church be heaped up in all its virtues, in each one; for thus the good are tested, thus the weak are exposed. Therefore the various tempests of souls will be so grievous, that for those conscious of evil, by the multitude of sins, through fear of the coming judgment, the dew of the sacred fountain in us dries up; for perfidy is dry, faith is dewy.

For the powers in heaven shall be shaken: and then they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds.

Perhaps, just as the coming of the Lord is awaited, so that his presence may take place either in the whole world of man or of the universe, which indeed comes to pass in individuals, when with all their affections they receive Christ: so also the powers of the heavens, at the coming and return of the Lord our Saviour—for he is the Lord of powers—must of necessity obtain an increase of grace, and be moved by the fulness of the Godhead pouring itself in more closely.

There are also powers of the heavens which declare the glory of God, which are moved by a fuller infusion of Christ, spiritual powers, which see Christ. David has taught us how these powers are moved, saying: Draw near to him, and be enlightened. Paul also has taught how you may see Christ; for when you shall have been turned to the Lord, the veil is taken away, and you see Christ.

You see him in the clouds.

I do not indeed think that Christ will come amid dark gloom and stormy horror; for clouds, when they are seen, cover the sky with a darkening dread. And how has he placed his tabernacle in the sun, if his coming shall be rainy?

But there are clouds which

because it must be so, veil the brightness of the heavenly mystery: there are clouds which are moistened with the dew of spiritual grace. Behold the cloud in the Old Testament: In a pillar, it says, of cloud he spoke to them. He was speaking through Moses indeed, through Joshua the son of Nun, who made the sun stand still; that it might receive the brightness of fuller light. Therefore Moses and Joshua are clouds. Behold that holy men are clouds, who fly like clouds, and like doves with their young. Above me are clouds, Isaiah, Ezekiel, who show me, through the Cherubim and Seraphim, the holiness of the divine Trinity. All the prophets are clouds: in these clouds Christ comes. He comes in a cloud in the Song of Songs, a serene cloud, and shining with the joy of the Bridegroom. He comes too, incarnate of the Virgin, in a light cloud; for the prophet saw the Lord coming as a cloud from the East.

And well did he call it a light cloud, one which earthly vices did not weigh down.

Behold the cloud, upon which the Holy Spirit came, and the power of the Most High overshadowed.

When therefore Christ shall have appeared in the clouds, the tribes of the earth shall smite themselves; for there is a certain order of crimes, and a series of sins, which is broken up by the coming of Christ.

Behold the fig tree and all the trees, when they now bring forth fruit of themselves, you know that summer is near.

In a different manner indeed, yet the sense of the Evangelists seems to converge into one; for Matthew spoke only of the fig tree, when its branch has become tender: this one, of all trees. But whether when fruit grows green in all trees, and the fruitful fig tree already blossoms, so that every tongue confesses to God, even the people of the Jews confessing; we ought to hope for the coming of the Lord, at which, as in summertime, the fruits of the resurrection shall be reaped: or whether when the man of iniquity, like the branch of the Synagogue, shall have put on a light and fragile boasting as of leaves, we ought to conjecture that judgment is drawing near: for the Lord hastens to reward faith, and to bring an end to sinning.

This fig tree, then, has a double figure, whether when hard things grow soft, or when sins run riot. For through the faith of believers what was withered before shall blossom: and through the grace shown toward sins sinners will glory: there the fruit is of faith, here the wantonness of unbelief. The Gospel husbandman's cultivation of the fig tree promises me fruit; we ought not despair, if sinners have covered themselves with the leaves of the fig tree as with a garment of deceit, so as to veil their conscience: therefore leaves are suspect without fruit. Such garments the exiles of paradise have. Behold, as you enter the city, there shall meet you a man carrying a pitcher of water.

It is good to consider where the Lord makes the passover. According to Matthew you have: Go into the city to a certain man. First observe the majesty of his divinity. He speaks to his disciples, and already knows what is to happen elsewhere. Then consider his condescension; for the person chosen is not one of a rich or powerful man: but a poor man is sought out, and the narrow lodging of the poor man is preferred before the spacious houses of nobles. Go, he says, to a certain man. You knew, Lord, his name, whose ministry you knew, whose ministry you knew, whose meeting you knew: but he is designated without a name, so that he might be reckoned lowly. There is nothing contrived here, where the person is not expressed, but the cause. But according to Mark, A man carrying a jar of water. Here then he is commanded to be followed by the apostles.

how—the householder?

So that you may recognize that it is the mark of holiness, not of wealth.

How, in the upper rooms, having a large upper room furnished?

So that you may notice his great merit, in whom the Lord, with his disciples, rested in the delight of his sublime virtues. Would that it might fall to me to carry a jar of water, to carry a pitcher of water, which the householder carries, who has in the upper part a great furnished room. For what is a pitcher, but a more perfect measure? Not mediocre are those who have the measure. In short the Lord says: A good measure, pressed down, and running over shall they give into your bosom.

For what shall I say of water? Over the water, before the very births of the world, the holy Spirit was borne, as we read. O water, which, sprinkled with human blood, so that it might precede as a figure of the present washings, washed the world! O water, which deserved to be the sacrament of Christ, which washes all things, and is not washed! You begin the first mysteries, you complete them perfect. From you is the beginning, in you the end: or rather, you make it so that we know no end. Through you the stench of decaying flesh is removed, and inward parts that were perishing from mold, sprinkled with salt, are preserved for a long age. Through you, for bodies parched with heat, a drink is poured, sweet unto grace, healthful unto life, pleasant unto delight. You gave a name to prophets and apostles, you gave a name to the Saviour: they are the clouds of heaven, they are the salt of the earth, he is the fountain of life.

You, pressed by mountains, are not enclosed; you, dashed against rocks, are not broken; you, poured into the earth, do not fail: but, gushing up from inmost veins, either, enclosed, you breathe out the vital spirit, or, poured out, you supply a fruitful sap, or, sprinkled abroad in irrigation, you minister for advantage; lest, drained dry of vital moisture, the earth deny its wonted increase. All the elements in their substance—heaven, air, sea, and earth—give you back. Struck by the prophetic touch, so that you might water the thirsting hearts of the peoples, the rock poured you forth: you, when you burst forth from the side of the Saviour, the executioners saw, and believed: and therefore of the three witnesses of our regeneration you are one; for there are three witnesses, water, blood, and spirit. Water for washing, blood for the price, spirit for the resurrection.

I appoint to you, as my Father has appointed to me, a kingdom.

The kingdom of God is not of this world.

Therefore there is not a rivalry of equality between man and God, but of likeness; for Christ alone is the full image of God, on account of the unity of the Father's brightness expressed in himself: but a righteous man is toward the image of God, if, for the sake of imitating the likeness of the divine manner of life, he despises this world through the knowledge of God, and spurns earthly pleasures through the perception of the word of God, on which we are nourished unto life; whence also we eat the body of Christ, that we may be able to be partakers of eternal life. For food and drink are not promised to us in the place of reward and honor, but a communion of heavenly grace and life: neither are the twelve thrones

As though certain bodily receptacles for sitting; but as Christ, according to the divine likeness, judges by the knowledge of hearts, not by inquiry into deeds, rewarding virtue, and condemning impiety: so also the apostles are formed for a spiritual judgment, by the recompense of faith, and the execration of unbelief, refuting error by virtue, pursuing sacrilegious men with hatred.

Let us therefore turn ourselves, and beware lest there be among us any contention concerning precedence unto our ruin; for if the apostles were contending, this is not put forward as an excuse, but set forth as a warning. If Peter is at some point converted, who followed at the Lord's first call, who can say that he was converted quickly? Beware then of boasting, beware of the world; for he is bidden to confirm his brethren who said: We have left all things, and followed thee.

Next it must be considered that humility is not defined by every zeal of honoring; for you may show deference to someone out of regard for worldly favor, fear of power, or consideration of advantage. What is sought is your own edification, not another's honor: and therefore one form of judgment is given to all, that there be no boasting concerning precedence, but rivalry concerning humility; and for this the Lord sets himself forth to be imitated. We had need of all things, he of none; and yet he offered himself as the author of humility, when he ministered to his disciples. Which surely he did not do out of zeal for utility, but out of the exercise of virtue.

But Peter, although prompt in spirit, yet still weak in bodily affection, is foretold as one who will deny the Lord; for he could not equal the constancy of the divine purpose.

The Passion of the Lord has rivals, but no equals. Thus I do not reprove that he denied, I praise that he wept.

One thing belongs to the common lot of our condition, another is peculiar to virtue.

And therefore he is instructed to beware, not compelled to deny.

He who now has a purse, he says, let him take it likewise, and a scrip: and he who has none, let him sell his coat, and buy himself a sword.

O Lord, why do you bid me buy a sword, who forbid me to strike?

Why do you command that it be had, which you forbid to be drawn? Unless perhaps that there be a defense prepared, though vengeance is not necessary; and that I may seem to have been able to be avenged, but unwilling. Yet the Law does not forbid striking back, and therefore perhaps to Peter offering two swords: It is enough

, you say, as though it had been lawful up to the time of the Gospel; that in the Law there be the instruction of equity, in the Gospel the perfection of goodness.

To many this seems unjust: but the Lord is not unjust, who, when he could have avenged himself, chose rather to be sacrificed.

For there is a spiritual sword, that you may sell your patrimony, and buy the word, by which the bare inner chambers of the mind are clothed.

There is also the sword of suffering, that you may put off the body, and by the spoils of flesh sacrificed the crown of sacred martyrdom may be bought for you: which you may gather from the Lord's beatitudes, who proclaimed the sum of all crowns, if anyone should suffer persecution for righteousness' sake. Finally, that you may know that he spoke of the Passion, lest he should trouble the minds of the disciples, he brought forth an example from himself, saying: For that which is written must be fulfilled in me, that he was reckoned also with the unjust.

Yet it still troubles one that the disciples brought forth two swords; whether perhaps one signifies the New, the other the Old Testament, by which we are armed against the wiles of the devil? Finally the Lord says: It is enough, as though nothing were lacking to him whom the teaching of both Testaments has fortified.

Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

Many hesitate at this passage, who prefer to attribute the sadness of the Savior to the proof of an innate weakness from the beginning, rather than one assumed for a time, and they wish to twist the meaning of the natural sense. But I think it should not only not be excused, but nowhere else do I marvel more at his piety and majesty; for he would have conferred less upon me, had he not taken up my affection. Therefore he grieved for me, who had for himself nothing that he could grieve over: and setting aside the delight of his eternal divinity, he is affected by the weariness of my weakness. For he took up my sadness, that he might grant me his own joy: and he descended in our footsteps even to the tribulation of death, that he might call us back to life by his own footsteps. I therefore confidently name sadness, because I proclaim the cross; for he did not assume the appearance of the Incarnation, but the reality.

He ought therefore also to have taken up sorrow, that he might conquer sadness, not exclude it. For those do not have the praise of fortitude who bore rather numbness of their wounds than pain: For he is a man in affliction, and knowing, he says, how to bear infirmities.

He wishes to instruct us, that since we had learned in Joseph not to fear prison, we might learn in Christ to conquer death: and, what is more, how we might conquer the sadness of coming death. For how should we imitate you, Lord Jesus, unless we followed you as a man, unless we believed you dead, unless we had seen your wounds? How would the disciples believe that he was to die, unless they had discovered the sadness of one about to die? But still they sleep, and know not how to grieve, for whom Christ was grieving; for thus we read: For he bears our sins, and grieves for us.

You grieve, then, Lord, not for your own wounds, but for mine: not for your own death, but for our infirmity: and we thought you to be in sorrows, when you were sorrowing not for yourself, but for me; for you were made weak, but for our sins: not because that weakness was in you assumed from the Father, but taken up for me; because it profited me that the instruction of our peace should be in you, and that by your bruise you might heal our wounds.

But what wonder if he grieved for all, who wept for one?

And what wonder if, about to die for all, he should feel weariness, who, about to raise Lazarus, wept? But there too he is moved by the tears of the devoted sister; because they touched the human mind: and here he works with a deep affection; so that, since in his own flesh he was destroying our sins, the sorrow of his soul might also abolish the sorrow of our soul. And perhaps he is sad for this reason, that after Adam's fall we must depart from this world by such a passage, that death is a necessity: For God made not death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living; and therefore he disdains what he himself did not make.

Finally he says: Let this cup pass from me, as a man refusing death, as God keeping his own decree; for we must die to the world. That we may rise again to God; that according to the divine decree the law of the curse might be dissolved, the end of nature being resolved into the dust of the earth. But as to what he says:

Not my will, but thine be done.

He referred his own will to the man; the Father's, to the divinity; for the will of man is temporal, the will of divinity eternal. There is not one will of the Father, another of the Son; for there is one will, where there is one divinity. Learn, however, to be subject to God; that you may not choose what you yourself wish, but know what will be pleasing to God.

Next let us consider the propriety of the words themselves: My soul, he says, is sorrowful.

And elsewhere: Now my soul is exceedingly troubled. Therefore it is not the one taking up, but the one taken up that is troubled; for the soul is subject to passions, the divinity is free. Finally, The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. But it is not he himself who is sorrowful, but the soul. Wisdom is not sorrowful, nor the divine substance, but the soul. He took up my body: he did not deceive me, so that one thing should be, another should seem. He seemed sorrowful, and was sorrowful, not for his own suffering, but for our dispersion. Finally he says: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. He was sorrowful, because he was leaving us as little ones. But how steadfastly he offered himself to death, Scripture declares; since he met those who sought him, strengthened the troubled, roused the trembling, received the betrayer with the honor of a kiss.

Nor is it far from the truth, if he was sorrowful for his persecutors, whom he knew were to pay the penalties of a monstrous sacrilege.

And therefore he said: Let this cup pass from me; not because the Son of God feared death, but because he did not wish even the wicked to perish. Finally he says: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, that his passion might be salutary to all.

Judas, do you betray the Son of man with a kiss?

Great is the sign of divine power, great the discipline of virtue.

Both is the plan of the betrayal disclosed, and yet patience is not denied. You showed, Lord, whom he was betraying, while you manifest hidden things. You showed also whom he was delivering up, while you say: The Son of man; because it is the flesh, not the divinity, that is seized. This too the more confutes the ingrate, that he betrayed him who, though he was the Son of God, yet for our sake chose to be the Son of man. As if he said: For your sake, ingrate, I took up what you now betray. Behold hypocrisy. I think therefore it must be pronounced as a question, as though he rebukes the betrayer with the affection of one who loves: Judas, do you betray the Son of man with a kiss? That is, do you inflict a wound with the pledge of love, and shed blood by the office of charity, and impose death by the instrument of peace?

Do you, a servant, betray your lord, a disciple your master, one chosen betray the author?

This is that saying: The wounds of a friend are more profitable than the willing kisses of an enemy. This to the betrayer: but to the peaceable what is said? Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.

And he kissed him, it says.

Not that he teaches us to feign, but that he might not seem to shrink from the betrayal, and might the more affect the betrayer, to whom he would not deny the offices of love; for it is written: With those who hated peace I was peaceable.

And with a sign given, it says, he is seized by those who had come with clubs: but it was mysteries, not arms, that held the Lord of all. Finally he spoke, and they fell backward. What need have I of legions of angels, what of the heavenly host? The voice of the Lord alone terrifies more. This sign, to demonstrate the token of divine majesty, he chose who was reclining on the breast of Christ. Upon him then willing, the crowd lays hands, bonds are woven. O madmen! O faithless ones! Not thus is wisdom seized, not thus is justice held.

Nor were the efforts of the disciples lacking.

Finally Peter, learned in the Law, prompt in affection, who knew that it was reckoned to Phinehas for righteousness that he had slain the sacrilegious, struck the servant of the prince.

But the Lord wiped away the bleeding wounds, he set forth divine mysteries; that the servant of the prince of this world

that is, not by condition of nature, but of guilt, a servant of worldly powers, should receive a wound in his ear; because he had not heard the words of wisdom: For everyone who commits sin, he says, is the servant of sin. For your sins, he says, you were sold. The selling was on account of our sins: but on account of the goodness of God, the redemption of sinners. Or if Peter struck the ear willingly, he taught that they ought not to have an ear in outward form, which they did not have in the mystery. But the good Lord restores hearing even to him, showing according to the prophetic sayings that even those, if they be converted, can be healed, who were wounded in the passion of the Lord; because every sin is washed away by the mysteries of faith.

Peter, then, cuts off the ear.

Why Peter? Because he it is who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven: for he condemns, who also absolves; since the same has obtained the power both of binding and of loosing. But he cuts off the ear of one who hears wickedly: he cuts off with a spiritual sword the inner ear of one who understands wickedly.

Let us beware lest an ear be cut off from anyone.

We read of the Passion of the Lord: if we refer the weakness of the bodily suffering to his divinity, the ear is cut off, and cut off by Peter, who did not suffer Christ to be esteemed a prophet; but taught that he should be marked with the confession of faith as the Son of God. Therefore when we read that Jesus is held, let us beware lest we hear from anyone, and suppose that he is held according to his divinity, held unwillingly, held as one weak. He is indeed held, and, as John said, is bound according to the truth of his body: but woe to those who bind the Word! For they bind who think Christ to be only a man: they bind who do not think him foreknowing, who do not confess him omnipotent. Evil are the bonds of the Jews, by which they do not bind Christ, but bind themselves.

But he is bound not in the house of some pious and just man, but in the house of Caiaphas

that is, in an impious house; where also it is prophesied that he will die for all. How mad, then, are those who confess divine benefits, and yet persecute the author of those benefits!

They lose their ear for this reason, because they have lost the profit of hearing.

Many do not have hearing, who believe that they have it. Within the Church all have it, outside the Church they do not have it. Or perhaps for this reason he took away the ear; lest those who heard should offend the more, being unable to keep what they heard. So too God once confounded the tongues of those building the tower, lest they should hear one another, and increase the work of their impiety.

Grasp, if you can, how pain flees at the touch of the saving right hand, and wounds are healed not by medicine sprinkled on them but by touch alone laid upon them. The clay recognizes its own maker, and the flesh follows the working hand of the Lord as its own operator; for the creator restores his work however he wishes. So also elsewhere that blind man's sight is reformed, with clay smeared over his eyes, as though he were being returned to his own nature. He could have commanded, but he preferred to work; that we might know it is he himself who fashioned the members of our body from the clay of the earth, fitted for various offices, and animated it by pouring in the vigor of the mind.

They came therefore and seized him, about to perish more grievously for the fruit of their zeal; nor did the wretched men understand the mystery, nor did they venerate so gentle an affection of piety, in that he did not allow even his enemies to be wounded. They were bringing death upon the just one; he was healing the wounds of his persecutors. But Peter followed from afar.

And rightly he followed from afar, about soon to deny; for he could not have denied, if he had clung close to Christ.

But perhaps in this too he should be revered by us with the greatest admiration, that he did not abandon the Lord, even when he was afraid. Fear belongs to nature, care to piety. What he fears is alien; what he does not flee is his own. That he follows belongs to devotion; that he denies, to being taken unawares. That he falls is common to all; that he repents belongs to faith. Already in the house of the high priest the fire was burning: Peter approached to warm himself, because, with the Lord shut away, the warmth of mind had grown cold even in him.

What does it mean that a serving-maid is the first to expose him, when men certainly could have recognized him more readily; unless it is that this sex might seem to have sinned in the killing of the Lord, so that this sex too might be redeemed through the Lord's passion? And therefore a woman is the first to receive the mystery of the resurrection, and keeps the commands; that she might abolish the ancient error of transgression. Peter, then, having been exposed, denies; for let us grant that Peter denied, since the Lord said: You will deny me three times? And I would rather that Peter denied than that the Lord had been mistaken. What did he deny? What he had promised incautiously. He considered his devotion, he did not weigh his condition. He was punished, because he said he would lay down his life: which belongs not to human weakness but to divine power. Since he paid so heavy a penalty for a rash word, how great is the punishment for treachery!

Yet where does Peter deny?

Not on a mountain, not in the temple, not in his own house; but in the praetorium of the Jews, in the house of the high priest. There he denies, where truth is not: there he denies, where Christ was seized, where Jesus was bound. What is it, unless he was in error, whom the doorkeeper let in, whom the doorkeeper questioned, and the doorkeeper of the Jews at that? Eve wrongly led Adam in; a woman wrongly led Peter in. But he fell in paradise, where the fault was not pardonable; this one in the praetorium of the Jews, where innocence was difficult. For the one, the fall was forbidden; for this one, the error was foretold. The one prejudged what was committed for this one; this one dissolved that one's guilt.

Let us also consider in what state he denies.

It was cold, it says. If we consider the season, it could not have been cold: but it was cold where Jesus was not acknowledged, where there was no one to see the light, where the consuming fire was being denied. It was, therefore, a cold of mind, not of body. Finally Peter was standing by the coals, because he was chilled in feeling. Evil is the flame of the Jews: it burns, it does not warm. An evil hearth, which sprinkles a certain soot of error even on the minds of the saints, by which even Peter's inner eyes grew dim. Those were not the eyes of flesh and blood, but the eyes of the mind, by which he saw Christ.

Someone will say: Do you condemn even the elements of the Jews?

I do not condemn the elements, because they are not the Jews', but Christ's: but there is another thing which I condemn, the flame of treachery. This flame of the Jews I condemn, following the divine oracles; for the Lord says: Your silver is reprobate. If the silver of the Jews is reprobate, the hearth of the Jews is reprobate too. Finally, by the hearth and gold of the Jews the head of the calf was fashioned, that is, the chief of sacrilege.

But let us look at the sequence of the denial, which I see to be different among the evangelists.

So novel a thing was it that Peter could have sinned, that his sin could not even be grasped in the same way by the evangelists. And so Matthew set down that Peter, when the maid exposed him as being one of those who were with Jesus of Galilee, responded at the first voice: I do not know what you say. Mark too has this, who followed Peter, and could have known more truly from him. The first voice of the one denying is Peter's; by which, however, he seems not to deny the Lord, but to have separated himself from the woman's accusation.

Yet consider what he denied.

That he was of those, certainly, who were with Jesus of Galilee, or, as Mark put it, with Jesus of Nazareth. Did he deny that he had been with the Son of God? This is to say: I do not know a Galilean, I do not know a Nazarene, whom I know as the Son of God. Let men have the names of places; the fatherland of the Son of God cannot be so named, whose majesty no place can contain. And that you may know this is true, it is also proved by example; for elsewhere, when the Lord asked the disciples: Whom do men say that the Son of man is? Some said Elijah, some Jeremiah, or one of the prophets: but Peter said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Did he there too deny, because he preferred to confess Christ not as the Son of man, but of God? Surely what we consider ambiguous here is what even Christ approved.

And take another point.

For when Peter was asked: And you are of those who were with Jesus of Galilee? He shunned the word of eternity; for those who began to be were not "were"—that is to say: He alone "was," who was in the beginning. Finally he says: I am not; for it is his to "be," who always is. Whence also Moses said: He who is, sent me.

Again, when pressed that he was of them, he denied, according to Mark; that you may know the evangelist gave more to truth than to favor: but yet he denied that he was of them, he did not deny Christ. He denied the fellowship of men, not the grace of God. He may have denied being of those who were with the Galilean, he did not deny being with the Son of God.

Finally, according to Matthew, when he was exposed as having been with Jesus of Nazareth, he says: I do not know the man.

This same thing both evangelists, of whom we have spoken, set down also for the third voice; for they related that he answered with an oath that he did not know the man. And rightly he denied the man, whom he knew to be God. Finally, where there is an oath, the response is cautious. For although Peter denied, he did not, however, perjure himself; because the Lord had not foretold that he would perjure himself. But if this is doubtful in Peter's case, how perilous is an oath!

But John set it down thus, that when Peter was asked by the maid whether he was of the disciples of that man, he answered at the first voice: I am not.

For he who was Christ's was not an apostle of a man. Finally Paul too denied being an apostle of a man, saying: Paul an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father. But lest he seem to introduce some ambiguity about the incarnation, he added: Who raised him from the dead; that you may believe him also to be man, once you have first believed him to be God. Which elsewhere too he preserves in the same manner, where he says: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. He named him first mediator of God rather than of men; for it is not enough to believe both, unless the order of faith is preserved.

The response agrees, therefore, throughout; for he who said: I do not know the man, it was fitting that, when asked whether he was of the disciples of the man, he should say: I am not. And so he did not deny being a disciple of Christ, but denied being a disciple of a man. So both Peter and Paul denied a man, whom they confessed to be the Son of God. What Peter felt, Paul expressed; hence too the latter made progress. The error of Peter is the teaching of the just; and Peter's stumbling is the rock of all. Finally he totters upon the waves, but he stretches out his right hand to Christ: on the mountain he falls, but is raised up by Christ. Peter indeed tottered on the sea, but he walked. Peter's tottering is firmer than our steadiness. There he falls, where no one ascends: there he wavers, where no one walks.

And yet among the waves, though he totter, he does not fall: he wavers, he does not fall: he floats, he is not plunged down.

And if he fell, yet he fell on a mountain: but he fell more happily than others stood: he fell more happily, whom Christ raised up.

Again, when he was asked whether he was of his disciples, John wrote that he denied.

And rightly he denied, because he was said to be of the disciples of him whom they had in the preceding words called a man. For also a third time, when it was said that he had been seen with him, he denied, and this too follows from what precedes: With him whom you call a man, I was not: but from the Son of God I did not withdraw.

Luke too wrote that Peter, when asked whether he was of them, answered at the first voice: I do not know him.

And he spoke rightly. For it would have been rash for him to say that he knew as Son the one whom human intelligence cannot grasp?

For no one knows the Son except the Father. Again, at the second voice, according to Luke, the same Peter says: I am not. He preferred, evidently, to deny himself rather than Christ. Or because he seemed to be denying fellowship with Christ, he denied only himself. Certainly, when he denies concerning a man, he sinned against the Son of Man, that it might be forgiven him, not against the Holy Spirit. When questioned a third time also, he said: I do not know what you say—that is, I do not know your sacrilege.

But we excuse him, he himself did not excuse himself; for a convoluted response confessing Jesus is not enough, but an open confession is needed.

What good is it to wrap up words, if you wish to seem to have denied? And so Peter is not represented as having answered thus deliberately; because afterward he remembered, and yet he wept. For he preferred himself to accuse his own sin, that he might be justified by confessing, rather than be burdened by denying: For the just man is his own accuser at the outset; and therefore he wept.

Why did he weep?

Because fault had crept upon him: I am accustomed to weep, if fault is lacking to me, that is, if I do not avenge myself, if I do not obtain what I improperly desire. Peter grieved and wept; because he erred as a man. I do not find what he said, I find that he wept: I read his tears, I do not read a satisfaction; but what cannot be defended, can be washed away. Let tears wash away the offense, which shame it is to confess with the voice. Both weeping considers pardon and modesty. Tears speak of guilt without horror: tears confess a crime without offense to modesty: tears do not ask for pardon, and yet deserve it. I have found why Peter was silent, lest so quick a request for pardon should give more offense. First one must weep, thus one must pray.

Good are the tears which wash away guilt.

Finally, those whom Jesus looks upon, weep. Peter denied the first time, and did not weep; because the Lord had not looked upon him. He denied a second time, he did not weep; because the Lord had not yet looked upon him. He denied also a third time, Jesus looked upon him, and he wept most bitterly. Look upon us, Lord Jesus, that we may know how to weep for our sin, to wash away our offense. Whence too the fall of the saints is useful: it did no harm to me that Peter denied, it profited me that he amended. I have learned to beware the discourse of the treacherous. Peter denied among the Jews, Solomon erred, deceived by pagan company.

Peter, therefore, wept, and most bitterly, wept that he might be able to wash away his offense with tears: and you, if you wish to merit pardon, wash away your fault with tears: at the same moment, at the same time, Christ looks upon you. If perhaps you slip in something; because the witness of your secrets stands by, he looks upon you, that you may remember and confess your error. Imitate Peter saying elsewhere a third time (Imitate Peter): Lord, you know that I love you. For indeed, because he had denied three times, he confesses three times: but he denied in the night, he confesses in the day.

Now these things were written for this reason, that we should know that no one ought to boast; for if Peter fell

because he said: Even if others shall be scandalized in thee, I will not be scandalized, who else could rightly presume of himself? Finally David too, because he had said: In my abundance I said, I shall never be moved, confesses that this boasting worked against him, saying: Thou didst turn away thy face from me, and I became troubled.

Whence shall I call thee forth, Peter, that thou mayest teach me what thou wast thinking as thou wept?

Whence, I ask, shall I call thee forth? From heaven, where thou art already joined to the choir of angels; or even from the tomb, since thou dost not think it an injury to be there too, whence the Lord rose again? Teach us what thy tears profited thee. But thou hast already taught us: for thou who didst fall before thou wept, after thou hadst wept wast chosen to rule others, thou who hadst not before ruled thyself.

Peter therefore had tears, which he poured out with pious affection; the betrayer had no weeping by which to wash away his guilt, but torments of conscience by which he confessed his sacrilege; so that while he is condemned by his own judgment, and the crime is expiated by voluntary punishment, the mercy of the Lord—who himself would not take vengeance—and his divinity might be proved, since he interrogated the conscience of the mind by invisible power.

I have sinned, he said, in that I have betrayed innocent blood.

Although the repentance of the betrayer is vain, because he sinned against the Holy Spirit, yet there is some shame in crime, to acknowledge one's guilt. And although he is not absolved, yet the shamelessness of the Jews is thereby refuted: whom, though the confession of the seller convicts them, yet criminally claim for themselves the rights of the contract, and believe themselves free of guilt, when they say: What is that to us? See thou to it. Utterly mad, who think that they are the more absolved by the crime of the author, rather than bound by it. In pecuniary cases, right is discharged when the price is repaid: these men receive back the price, and still pursue the sacrilege, and with stubborn zeal claim for themselves the deadly purchase of blood, though the seller was returning the wages of the sacrilege.

Clearly, then, while the price of blood is separated from the treasuries of the Jews, and the potter's field is bought with the money for which Christ was sold; while that place is dedicated for the burial of the remains of strangers, both the oracle of prophecy is fulfilled, and the mystery of the rising Church is revealed. For the field, according to the divine precepts, is this whole world: the potter, however, is he who formed us from clay, of whom thou hast it in the Old Testament: that God formed man from the clay of the earth, having power at his own will both to form by nature and to reform by grace. For even if we fall by our own faults, yet through his mercy, the spirit of the mind being taken up again, we are reformed according to the oracles of Jeremiah.

The price of blood is also the price of the Lord's passion.

Therefore the world is bought by Christ with the price of blood; for he came that the world might be saved through him: in which, according to the work of the author, there is also the right. He came, therefore, that he might reserve for the grace of perpetuity those buried together with him through baptism, and co-dead with Christ. But not for all indiscriminately is there a place for burial; for although the world encloses all, it does not reserve all: and although the dwelling is common, yet the legitimate burial belongs to those, namely, who now are by faith members of the household of God, but were in the law strangers. Who are these but those of whom it is said: Remember that at one time you Gentiles, who were in the flesh alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the promise of the covenants?

But these now are no longer foreigners and strangers; since they have deserved by the right of faith to be fellow-citizens of the saints.

There follows an admirable passage, by which patience under injuries to be borne with equanimity is instilled morally into human hearts.

The Lord is accused, and he is silent; and rightly is he silent, who has no need of defense. Let those seek to be defended who fear to be conquered. He does not, then, confirm the accusation by fearing it, but disdains it by not refuting it. For what would he fear, who did not seek his own salvation? The salvation of all betrayed his own, that he might gain the salvation of all. But why should I speak of God? Susanna was silent, and prevailed; for the better cause is that which is not defended, and yet is proved. And here Pilate acquits: but he acquits by judgment, he crucifies by mystery. But this is proper to Christ alone; that other is human, that among unjust judges he should seem rather to have been unwilling than unable to be defended.

But why the Lord was silent, he himself foretold, saying: If I shall tell you, you will not believe me: if I shall ask you, you will not answer me. Yet this is most excellent, that he preferred to prove himself king rather than to say it; that they might have no ground for condemning him, who confess what they object. But Herod desiring to see some miracle done by him, he himself was silent and did nothing; because neither did that man's cruelty deserve to see divine things, nor did the Lord seek self-display. And perhaps in Herod all the impious are typically signified: who, if they have not believed Moses and the prophets, cannot see the miraculous works of Christ in the Gospel either. He is sent to Herod, he is sent back to Pilate. And though both do not pronounce him guilty, yet they comply with the zeal of another's cruelty.

Pilate indeed washed his hands, but he did not wash away the deed; for the judge ought to have yielded neither to envy nor to fear, so as to hand over the blood of the innocent. His wife warned him: grace shone in the night: divinity was conspicuous; and even so he did not restrain himself from the sacrilegious sentence. 101. Likewise in this I think a type of all judges has been prefigured, who would condemn those whom they judged innocent. Yet the person of Pilate shows that the Gentiles are more tolerable than the Jews, and that they are more admonished to faith by divine works. But what shall be said of those who crucified the Lord of Majesty? Not undeservedly do murderers seek his acquittal, who were demanding the destruction of the innocent. Such laws does iniquity have, that it hates innocence, and loves crime.

In this, however, the interpretation of the name gives a semblance of the type; for Barabbas in Latin is said to mean "son of the father": to those, then, to whom it is said: You are of your father the devil, it is revealed that they will prefer, to the true Son of God, the son of their own father, Antichrist. And having clothed him with a white garment, he sent him back. 103. It is not without purpose that he is clothed by Herod in a white garment, bestowing tokens of the unblemished passion; because the Lamb of God, without spot, was to take up the sins of the world with glory.

In the type also of Herod and Pilate, who from enemies became friends through Jesus Christ, the figure is preserved of the people of Israel and of the Gentile people, that through the Lord's passion there would be a future concord of both; yet in such a way that the devout people of the nations should receive the Word of God, and by the devotion of their faith should transmit it to the people of the Jews; that they too might clothe with the glory of their own majesty the body of Christ, whom before they had despised. 104. He is also clothed by the soldiers in a scarlet cloak, and a purple tunic: in the one designating the palms of martyrs, in the other the insignia of royal power: because his flesh was to receive the blood poured out for us throughout the whole world, and his passion was to bring forth a kingdom from us.

105. The crown also woven of thorns and fastened to his head, what else does it show but the gift of a divine work, that from the sinners of the world, as it were from the thorns of the age, a triumphal glory should be sought for God. Nor are the scourges without purpose, since he himself was scourged, that we might not be scourged: for a man in affliction, and knowing how to bear infirmities, grieves for us, turning aside upon himself the scourges from us who before were fleeing from God: so patient was the Lord, that he offered his own hands to the chains of fugitives, and his own body to the scourges of fugitives. With a detestable disposition of mind, therefore, the Jews nevertheless betray an honored outcome; for even while mocking they crown him, while jeering they adore him: even though in heart they do not believe, they confess him whom they destroy.

In these there was lacking the disposition of a good work; yet God's own honor was not lacking to him: he is saluted as king, crowned as victor, adored as God and Lord. 106. A reed also, according to Matthew, is placed in his hand; that human frailty might no longer be moved like a reed by the wind, but might be strengthened and founded by the works of Christ, and that, the handwriting that was against us being fastened to the cross, the old sentence might cease: or according to Mark, they strike his head with it, that our condition, made firm by the touch of divinity, might not be able to be changed. But now let the Victor raise up his own trophy. The cross is placed upon the shoulders as a trophy, which whether Simon or he himself carried; both Christ carried it in the man, and the man carried it in Christ.

The accounts of the evangelists do not disagree, when the mystery agrees: and there is a good order in our progress; that he himself first should raise up the trophy of his own cross, and then hand it over to the martyrs to be raised. It is not a Jew who carries the cross, but a foreigner and a stranger; nor does he go before, but follows, according to what is written: Take up thy cross, and follow me. For Christ ascended not his own cross, but ours. Nor was that death a death of his divinity, but as it were of a man; whence he himself says: God, my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? 108. Fittingly, about to ascend the cross, he laid aside his royal garments; that thou mightest know that he suffered as it were as a man, not as it were as God the king: although Christ is both, yet as a man, not as God, he was fastened to the cross.

But the soldiers, not the Jews, know at what time, what garments befit Christ.

At the judgment he stands as it were a victor; to the passion he comes as it were guilty, humble. 109. Now since we have seen the trophy, let the triumphator ascend his chariot; and let him hang, not upon tree-trunks or four-yoked carts the spoils sought from a mortal enemy, but upon the triumphal gibbet the captive spoils from the world.

Here we do not see nations with arms bound behind their backs, nor images of overthrown cities, nor likenesses of captured towns, nor do we marvel at the bowed necks of captive kings, such as the images of human triumphs are wont to be; nor the limits of victory marked off by the boundary of a region: but rejoicing peoples of the nations, sought not for punishment but for reward, kings adoring with free affections, cities surrendered by voluntary zeal, and the images of towns reformed for the better, which no dye has painted, but the devotion of faith has colored: arms, and the rights of victory running through the whole world, the captive prince of the world, and the spiritual forces of wickedness which are in the heavenly places, dominions subjected to the obedience of a human voice's command, and the various kinds of virtues shining forth, not in silks, but in morals. Chastity shines, faith gleams, and devotion, clothed in the spoils of death, now rises again in fortitude.

One triumph of God has made nearly all men now triumph—the cross of the Lord.

110. It is worth considering, then, of what sort he ascends. I see him naked: let him, then, ascend thus who prepares to conquer the world; that he may not seek the world's aids. Adam was conquered, who sought garments: he conquered, who laid aside coverings. And such a one ascends as, with God as author, nature formed us: such was the first man's dwelling in paradise, such the second man entered into paradise. And that he might conquer not for himself alone, but for all, he stretched out his hands, that he might draw all things to himself; that, freed from the knot of death, suspended on the yoke of faith, he might join to heavenly things those which before were earthly. A title also is written: it is customary for a pomp to precede the victors; but before the triumphing chariot of the Lord went the good procession of the dead rising again.

It is also customary for a title to designate the number of subjugated nations. Let there be in those triumphs the miserable, arranged in some order, captivity, insulting to the conquered and perishing nations; here blooms the grace of the redeemed peoples: worthy companions of so great a triumph, that heaven, earth, seas, and the underworld might be changed from corruption to grace. 112. The title is written, and placed above the cross, not below the cross; because the beginning is upon his shoulders. But what is the beginning, if not his eternal power and divinity? Whence, being asked who he was, he answered: The Beginning, who also speak to you. Let us read this title: Jesus, it says, of Nazareth, King of the Jews. 113. Rightly is the title above the cross; because the kingdom which Christ has is not that of a human body, but of divine power. Rightly is the title above the cross; because although the Lord Jesus was on the cross, yet above the cross he shone with the majesty of a king.

A worm on the cross, a scarab on the cross: and a good worm, who clung to the wood; a good scarab, who cried out from the wood. What did he cry? Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. He cried out to the thief: Today thou shalt be with me in paradise. He cried out as it were a scarab: God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And a good scarab, who turned over with the tracks of his virtues the mud of our body, before shapeless and sluggish: a good scarab, who raises up the poor man from the dung. He raised up Paul, who was reckoned as dung; he raised up also Job, who sat in the dung. Not slight, then, is the title. 114. But the place of the cross was itself either in the middle, so as to be visible to all, or above the burial place of Adam, as the Hebrews argue.

For it was fitting that the first-fruits of our life should be set there, where the beginnings of death had been. 115. The garments are divided, one thing being allotted to one man, another to another by lot; for the Spirit of God is not comprehended by human opinion, but glides in unlooked-for, as it were by a certain chance event. And perhaps these soldiers bore the type of the four Evangelists, who wrote the title, which we all read. I read “King of the Jews” as title, when I read: My kingdom is not of this world. I read the charge against Christ written above his head, when I read: And the Word was God; for the head of Christ is God. 116. These men then guarded Jesus, and today they guard him still; lest he slip away from anyone, lest he come down from his passion, which the people of the Jews were demanding. For me, plainly, let Christ die in his passion, that after the passion he may rise again.

He was unwilling to come down for himself, that he might die for me. For us, then, Christ is now kept safe: for our sake his garments are divided. Individuals cannot each have everything, and therefore lots are cast over the tunic; because the division of the Holy Spirit does not happen according to man’s will. For there are divisions of graces, but the Spirit worked, dividing to each as he wills. 117. Consider now the divided garments of Christ. Where shall I seek them? Seek in Matthew, and you will find with him alone the scarlet cloak: with John the purple garment: with Mark only the purple: with Luke the white garment; for with this alone he was content, as his own portion. How many, then, did Christ clothe with his garment? I think, indeed, that he clothed not four soldiers only, but all, and there was abundance for all. But let us return to the evangelists. 118. Mystically, then, these four parts seem to me to be, not parts of the garments, but qualities of virtues.

For one wrote more sublimely of the kingdom: another more diffusely of the institution of man: Luke chose for himself the brightness of the priestly vestment: Mark, indeed, did not desire a texture of words: finally John, as it were, wove in certain sentences, with which he clothes our faith. Does it not seem to you woven together, that: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the same was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through him? But Mark, as though content with the mere gleam of purple, without any weaving of words, says: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 119. Therefore the garments of Christ were divided, whether his deeds or his grace; because the tunic could not be divided—namely, faith—since it belongs not to the portion of individuals, but by right to all in common; for that which is not divided remains whole to each.

120. And well is it said “woven from above”; for thus is the faith of Christ woven, that it descends from the divine to the human; from the fact that, born of God before the ages, he assumed at a later time the taking on of flesh. It is signified to us, therefore, that faith ought not to be rent, but to remain whole. Amen, amen I say to you: Today you shall be with me in paradise. 121. A most beautiful example of the conversion to be sought after, that pardon is granted so quickly to the thief, and grace is more abundant than the prayer; for the Lord always gives more than is asked. For he was asking that the Lord would remember him when he had come into his kingdom: but the Lord said to him: Amen, amen I say to you: Today you shall be with me in paradise. For to be with Christ is life; therefore where Christ is, there is life, there is the kingdom.

Quickly, then, the Lord forgives, because he is quickly converted.

Whence also this seems to be resolved, that the others bring in two thieves reviling, this one brings in one reviling and one entreating. Perhaps this man too first reviled, but was suddenly converted. Nor is it strange, if he forgave the fault of the one converted, seeing that he was releasing pardon to those who insulted him. He could also speak in the plural of one, as in that: The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes gathered together in one; for only Herod was king, and Pilate the governor, and yet in the Acts of the Apostles they are declared by Peter’s voice to have conspired together against Christ. So also in the Epistle to the Hebrews you have: they walked about in goatskins, they were sawn asunder, and they stopped the mouths of lions; whereas it is taught that Elijah alone had a mantle of skins, Isaiah alone was sawn asunder, Daniel alone remained untouched by the lions.

How execrable in deed was the iniquity of the Jews, that they should crucify, as though he were a robber, the redeemer of all!

Yet the thief in his mystery was good, who had lain in wait for the devil, that he might carry off his vessels. Mystically, moreover, the two thieves signify two peoples of sinners, who must be crucified with Christ through baptism: whose disagreement likewise signifies the diversity of believers. Furthermore, one was on the left, the other on the right. The reviling also reveals the future scandal of the cross, even among believers. 124. And the Jews offered vinegar. Well is it that, to consummate all things, the corruption of purity too is drawn up; that everything which had been vitiated might be fixed to the cross. So vinegar is drunk, while wine mingled with gall is not drunk; not because it is gall, but because the bitterness mixed with the wine is refused. For he took upon himself the bitternesses of our life, according indeed to the condition of the body.

Hence he himself says: They gave gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. But bitterness ought not to have been mingled with purity; that it might be shown that the immortality of those who rise again shall be without bitterness: which immortality, since it had turned sour in the human vessel, is set apart in Christ. Therefore vinegar is drunk, that is, the vice of immortality corrupted through Adam is abolished on the reed; that it might be absorbed from the human body. Let us also pour over into Christ our own vices, concreted through carelessness of mind and body: let us pour them over through baptism, that we may be crucified in Christ: let us pour them over through penance, that from him the uncorrupted purity of heavenly wine and blood may be poured back upon us.

125. Finally, when he had drunk the vinegar, he said, It is finished

because the whole mystery of the mortality he had assumed was fulfilled, and, all vices having been exhausted, only the joy of immortality remained. And therefore he says: Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. 126. And well is the spirit commended, which is being kept safe; for what is commended is by no means lost. A good pledge, then, is the spirit, a good deposit. Whence also elsewhere it is said: O Timothy, guard the good deposit. For the spirit is commended to the Father; and therefore he says: For you will not leave my soul in hell. But observe the great mystery. Now he commends his spirit into the hands of the Father, now he sits in the bosom of the Father; because no other place can contain the whole Christ. Finally: I, he says, am in the Father, and the Father in me. The spirit, then, is commended to the Father.

But since it is in the higher realms, it also illumines the lower, that all things might be redeemed; for Christ is all things, and in Christ are all things, though Christ works in each severally. The flesh dies, that it may rise again: the spirit is commended to the Father, that the heavenly regions too might be loosed from the bond of iniquity, and peace be made in heaven, which earthly things should follow.

And having said this, he gave up the spirit.

127. And well is it said “gave up,” for he did not send forth his spirit unwillingly. Hence Matthew says: He gave up the spirit; for what is given up is voluntary; what is lost is a matter of necessity. Therefore he added: With a loud voice. In which there is either a glorious profession that he descended even unto death for our sins (therefore let me not blush to confess what Christ did not blush to profess with a loud voice), or an evident manifestation of God attesting the separation of the divinity and the body. For thus you have it: Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: God, my God, look upon me: why have you forsaken me? The man cried out, about to die by the separation of the divinity. For since the divinity is free from death, death could by no means have occurred, unless life departed; because life is divinity.

Now what follows shows that, because of the impiety of men, the end of the age was to come.

And so it is signified through the passion of the Lord that present things were about to perish, that future things might arise. Darkness, then, was cast over the eyes of the faithless, that the light of faith might rise. The sun set upon the sacrilegious, or rather fled; that it might overshadow the spectacle of the deadly crime. The rocks were split, that it might be shown through the broken clefts of the rocks that the future was to come, since the power of the Word would penetrate the hardness of sinners; whereby more easily, out of the hollows of the rocks, those hunters whom Jeremiah foretold might hunt for the Lord.

And the opening of the tombs, what else does it signify but, the bars of death broken, the resurrection of the dead, in whose sight is faith, in whose going forth a type—since, by coming forth into the holy city, they declared by the appearance of things present the future everlasting lodging-place of those rising again in that Jerusalem which is in heaven? Also the veil is torn, by which is declared either the division of the two peoples, or the profanation of the mysteries of the synagogue. The old veil, then, is torn; that the new Church might hang up the veils of her faith. The veil of the synagogue is taken away; that we might see, with the gaze of the mind unveiled, the inner mysteries of religion. Finally, even the centurion confesses that he had crucified the Son of God. O hearts of the Jews harder than rocks! The rocks are split, but their hearts are hardened.

The judge accuses, the servant believes, the betrayer condemns his own crime by death, the elements flee, the earth is shaken, the tombs are opened: yet the immovable hardness of the Jews remains, though the world be shaken. But the women stood by, seeing these things: and the mother stood by too, since with pious zeal she set her own peril below her regard. But the Lord also, hanging on the cross, who despised his own dangers, was commending his mother with pious affection. Which John, not without purpose, pursued at greater length; for the others described the world shaken, the sky covered with darkness, the sun fleeing. Matthew and Marcus added, who pursued the human and moral aspects more fully: God, my God, look upon me: why have you forsaken me? That we might believe that the cross of Christ arrived at the taking on of the human condition. But Luke plainly asserted that pardon was fittingly granted to the thief by priestly intercession, and that indulgence was sought by the same office for the persecuting Jews.

130. John, therefore, who penetrated more fully into the divine mysteries, not without merit labored to declare that she who had brought forth God had remained a virgin. He alone, then, teaches me what the others did not teach, how, placed upon the cross, he addressed his mother, esteeming it of greater worth that, victor over torments and punishments, victor over the devil, he was dispensing offices of piety, than that he was granting the heavenly kingdom. For if it is a matter of religion that pardon is granted to the thief by the Lord, much more religious is it that the mother is honored by the Son. 131. Nor let it be judged out of order that I have written of the thief’s absolution before the address to the mother; for he who had come to save sinners, it is not absurd if in my writing he first fulfilled the office he had undertaken, of redeeming the salvation of the sinner. Finally, he himself says: Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?

Because he had come to call, not the just, but sinners. But there it was fitting to the occasion; here also on the cross, not unmindful of his mother, he addresses her, saying: Behold your son; and to John: Behold your mother. Christ was making his testament from the cross, and John was sealing his testament, a witness worthy of so great a testator. A good testament, not of money, but of life: which is not written with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God: My tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly. 132. But Mary too, in no less fitting manner than became the mother of Christ, while the apostles were fleeing, stood before the cross, and with pious eyes beheld the wounds of her Son; for she was awaiting not the death of her child, but the salvation of the world.

Or perhaps

because she had recognized that through the death of the Son the redemption of the world would come, she, of royal court, thought that by her own death too she might add something to that public gift. But Jesus did not need a helper for the redemption of all, who said: I am become as a man without help, free among the dead. He did, indeed, receive the affection of a mother, but he did not seek the help of man. We have, therefore, a teacher of piety: the reading teaches what maternal affection ought to imitate, what the reverence of children ought to follow; that mothers should offer themselves in the perils of their children, that for children maternal solicitude should weigh more heavily in grief than sorrow at their own death. 133. In this passage the most abundant testimony to Mary’s virginity is adduced.

For the wife is not thereby taken away from the husband, since it is written: What God has joined together, let not man put asunder; but she who had assumed the appearance of marriage for the sake of the mystery, once the mysteries were completed, no longer had need of marriage. Or if we follow the moral sense, chastity is enjoined in mourning. 134. Mystical, however, is that which is commended to John as the younger among the others: which we ought not receive with idle ears. For dangerous to women is the companionship of a youth, and the beauty of youth; lest perhaps some curious in imitation of the example, but incurious of the mystery, wishing to indulge herself in Christ, might put forward the appearance of Mary, not imitate her affection—just as the common crowd is now ill spoken of among women, who having left an older husband, follow a younger one.

Let her learn, then, that here is the mystery of the Church, which, previously joined to the older people in appearance, not in use, after she had borne the Word, and had sown it in the bodies and minds of men through faith in the cross and the burial of the Lord's body, by the command of God chose the fellowship of the younger people. 135. I also ask why we do not find him pierced before death, but find him pierced after death? Unless perhaps that his going forth might be shown to be voluntary rather than necessary, and that we might come to know the mystical order; because the sacraments of the altar are not before baptism, but baptism before—so also the cup. Then, that we might notice that although his body's nature was mortal, although its quality was similar, yet its grace was dissimilar. For indeed after death blood congeals in our bodies; but from that body, incorrupt indeed but lifeless, the life of all flowed forth.

For water and blood came out: the one to wash, the other to redeem. Let us then drink our price, that by drinking we may be redeemed. What too does it mean, that not the apostles, but Joseph and Nicodemus bury Christ? One just and steadfast, the other in whom there was no guile; for such is the burial of Christ, which should have neither fraud nor iniquity. The place for evasion is thus blocked up, and the Jews are refuted by their own domestic testimony; for if the apostles had buried him, they would certainly have said that he whom they claimed to have been stolen away was not buried. 137. Now the just man covers Christ's body with a linen cloth, the innocent man anoints it with ointment; for we find these things distinguished not without purpose: because justice clothes the Church, innocence supplies grace.

Clothe you too, then, the Lord's body with its own glory, that you yourself may be just; even if you believe him dead, cover him nonetheless with the fullness of his divinity. Anoint him with myrrh and aloes, that you may be the good odor of Christ. That good man Joseph sent a good linen cloth, and perhaps that same one which Peter saw let down to him from heaven, in which were kinds of four-footed beasts and wild animals and birds, figured after the likeness of the nations. With that mystical, choice ointment, then, the Church is buried together with him, she who has united the diversity of peoples in the fellowship of her faith. 138. Concerning this Joseph I find in John alone that he came secretly to Pilate for fear of the Jews. How did a just man seek a hiding place out of fear of danger? But I think that he sought secretly in order to obtain the body, not in order to avoid danger.

And yet what wonder if a just man hid himself, when even the apostles, the teachers of the just, were hiding themselves?

Come you too: whether late, or by night, or at whatever hour you come, you will find Jesus ready to receive you, nor paying out, in his loving generosity, a lesser reward to those who come later; for he who came at the sixth hour was not cheated of his reward, and he who came at the eleventh received the fullness of the reward. But Nicodemus too came by night. It was night, because the resurrection had not yet come. Finally Christ rose, and the just man says: The night is far spent, but the day is at hand. 139. This Joseph, Luke calls just, Matthew calls rich. And rightly is he called rich in this place, where he took up the body of Christ; for in receiving the rich one, he did not know the poverty of faith. He, then, who is just, is rich.

The just man, therefore, wraps him in a linen cloth: but the Israelite mingles also various fragrances of virtues, and adds about a hundred pounds of aloes

that is, the measure of perfect faith. And they bound the body of Jesus according to the custom of spiritual Jews, certainly not with the knots of unbelief, but with the bindings of faith. And they laid him in a garden, to which the Church is frequently compared, she who has fruits of diverse merits, and the flowers of virtues. 140. Nor is it without purpose that one says a new tomb, another says the tomb of Joseph. Christ, then, did not have a tomb of his own; for a tomb is prepared for those who are under the law of death: the victor over death has no tomb of his own. For what fellowship is there between a tomb and God? Finally, Ecclesiastes says of one who meditates on good things: And burial is not his.

The death of Christ, therefore, is special, beyond the common death of all; and so he is not buried with others, but is enclosed alone in the tomb; for the incarnation of the Lord had everything in the likeness of men, but the likeness was accompanied by difference. He was born of a Virgin, in likeness of generation, in unlikeness of conception. He healed the sick, but he commanded. John baptized with water, this one with the Spirit. So too the death of Christ is common according to the nature of the body, special according to its power. But who is this Joseph, in whose tomb he is placed? Certainly that just man. Well, then, is Christ entrusted to the tomb of a just man; that the Son of man might have somewhere to lay his head, and might rest in the dwelling of justice.

And rightly in a new tomb, according to the letter indeed, lest it be said that someone else, raised by the unbelieving, had been meant: but mystically what can we understand, unless perhaps

because we read: Their throat is an open sepulcher? Therefore the open sepulcher is the throat of man, in which deadly unbelief and dead words are stored up, which through age and some assault of beasts crumbles and is dissolved. There is, then, on the contrary, a tomb in the secret places of men, which the just man has hewn out for himself in the breasts of gentile hardness by the penetrating word, polished by the works of faith and doctrine, that the power of Christ might be displayed among the nations. 142. To which most beautifully a stone was applied, lest it lie open; for whoever has well buried Christ within himself, let him guard him diligently, lest he lose him, or give entrance to unbelief. For you see that Peter and John were the first to be allowed to enter.

Finally, John himself did not enter until he had believed.

143. And it is well said that it was hewn out in the rock, that is, in the firmness of faith, from which true Israelites have sucked the sweetness of honey and the spiritual oil. But the just man buried Christ, and he who saw God; for none bury Christ, save those who believe in God. Finally, not all can bury Christ: although the devout women stand at a distance; yet because they are devout, they carefully observe the place, so that they may bring ointments and pour them out. Yet, being anxious, they are the last to leave the tomb, and the first to return to the tomb; though constancy is lacking, diligence is not lacking. The sex wavers, devotion burns. 145. Finally, at the time of the resurrection they are at hand, and while the men flee, they alone are admonished by the angel not to fear. They call Peter forth, first in zeal, but the others in confidence.

Finally, he arrives without fear, and he who had come later boldly enters first, as one who had received the keys of the kingdom in order to open it for others. 146. The earthquake, moreover, is resurrection for the faithful, fear for the wicked: for these, because the sluggish body rouses itself from the sleep of death; for those, because, disturbed by the trembling of the body and the shaking of the earth, they fall away from the faith and belief in the resurrection.

Now on the sabbath, very early, they came to the tomb.

147. A great doubt arises for many at this point; for although the evangelists do not seem to have said contrary things, yet they said different things. For here: Very early in the morning; Mark: Very early; Matthew: In the evening of the sabbath; John: On the first day of the week, while it was yet dark—they have recorded that the women came to the tomb. Then here two men, Mark one young man sitting in white, Matthew one angel, John two angels sitting in white are recorded as having been seen. Finally, what seems scarcely resolvable, John wrote that it was said to Mary Magdalene: Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to my Father: Matthew wrote that the Lord met Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, and set forth in the plainest description that they came near, and held his feet, and worshipped him.

148. How then is this to be resolved, unless you suppose that the four evangelists spoke of four different times; so that you may conjecture also that the persons of the women, and the visions, were different? Finally, some women came with ointment on the first day of the week: others without ointment, in the evening of the sabbath. The names of the latter are given; the former are designated as those who followed the Lord from Galilee. 149. At this point, lest anyone be offended at the end by the harshness of a thorny interpretation, where perhaps sweet things were expected beforehand, consider that we are now lowering the sails of our discourse as it draws to completion, since we have come to the harbor: and a ship which has crossed the seas with swift course, when it begins to approach the shore, grazes the hidden rocks with a broken course.

Therefore, lest my discourse, like that of an idle helmsman, stick fast on the sands of the shore, I think the course should be slackened rather than rushed, as though in blind shallows, lest a leaky discourse open up on us. 150. First, then, this must be considered: that it is written, In the evening of the sabbath, which dawns into the first day of the week, that the Lord rose. For so you have it: that in the evening of the sabbath Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For not on the sabbath day (for they kept silence on the sabbath according to the commandment); but after the sabbath day, indeed by night, he rose. Finally, those who came in the morning, although very early, nevertheless already knew that the Lord had risen.

151. Thus, then, it must be tempered, so that the resurrection be believed to have taken place neither on the Lord's morning, which is the first after the sabbath, nor on the sabbath itself. For how would the three days be completed? He rose, therefore, not as the day was growing toward evening, but in the depth of night's evening. Finally, the Greek says ὀψέ, "late." Now "late" signifies both the hour at the day's setting, and denotes the lateness of anything; as if you should say: It was suggested to me late, that is, tardily. He came late, that is, he arrived after the appointed time: and although he came the following morning, it is still "late," when the time for acting has been spent. There is also a "late" that means the depth of night, as if you should say: He rose late to work by lamplight, that is, he rose not at the evening hour, but in the deep of night.

152. Whence also the women have the opportunity of approaching the tomb, the guards now indeed being asleep; and the guards themselves are the more terrified, as commonly happens to those roused from sleep. Finally, even the chief priests, gathered together with the elders, confirm that this happened by night, saying to the guards: Say that his disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. For from the time which they learned from the guards, they seize upon their argument of fraud. For John indicates that Mary Magdalene came to him and to Peter in the morning, while it was still dark, and yet represents her as unaware that the resurrection had taken place; for certainly if it had happened as the day was drawing to evening, it could have become known at once. 153. It is morning, and still Peter does not know, John does not know.

Did the Lord suffer his disciples to be tormented any longer by uncertainty about his death—he to whom, at once, the angel, at once the Lord himself, sent the women to announce what had happened? And that you may know it happened at night, some women do not know, others do know: those know who kept watch by nights and days, those do not know who had withdrawn. One Mary Magdalene does not know, according to John; the other Mary Magdalene knows, according to Matthew; for the same woman could not both know beforehand and afterward not know. Therefore if there are several Marys, perhaps there are also several Magdalenes, since the one name belongs to the person, the other to a place. 154. Finally, know that she is another. That one is permitted to hold the Lord's feet: this one is forbidden to touch the Lord. That one deserved to see the angel; this one, when she first came, saw no one.

That one announced to the disciples that the Lord had risen; this one signifies that he has been carried away.

That one rejoices, this one weeps. To that one Christ already appeared in his glory; this one still seeks him as dead. That one saw the Lord and believed; this one could not recognize him even while seeing him. That one worshipped with faithful spirit; this one was made sorrowful with doubtful feeling. 155. Deservedly, indeed, she is forbidden to touch the Lord; for we touch Christ not by bodily touch, but by faith: For not yet, he says, have I ascended to my Father; that is, I have not yet ascended for you, who seek the living among the dead: and therefore she is sent to the stronger ones, that by their example she might learn to believe, that they might preach the resurrection.

156. As in the beginning woman was the author of the fault, man the executor of the error: so now she who had first tasted death for the man, was first to see the resurrection, first in the order of the fault, and first in the remedy. And lest she should endure the reproach of perpetual guilt among men, she who had transmitted the fault to man, transmitted also grace, and compensates the misery of the ancient fall by the announcement of the resurrection. Through the mouth of a woman death had gone forth before; through the mouth of a woman life is restored. 157. But because constancy is necessary for preaching, and the weaker sex is more infirm for carrying it out, the office of evangelizing is entrusted to men.

For just as through Jesus the fault of women is not only dissolved but grace is even multiplied, so that she who had before deceived one man might now persuade many; so also the man, who had before rashly believed, ought to recover the entrusted gift with interest; that he who had been slippery to himself for believing might become fit for others in preaching. 158. But let us note the words of the command: Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers, and say to them: I ascend to my Father, and your Father: my God, and your God. How had you not ascended, Lord Jesus? How were you absent, you who had commended your spirit into the hands of the Father? Or when can you be absent, you who are always in the Father, always with the Father? Indeed you yourself said: If I descend into hell, you are there.

If I take my wings before the light, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me.

Or how do you ascend, you who are always everywhere? 159. You indeed descended as the Son of man, nor were you absent from the Father when you descended: but you descended for us; that we might see you with our eyes and minds, that we might believe in you. Therefore you also ascended for us; that we might follow you with our minds, whom we cannot see with our eyes.

You ascended for the apostles, to whom you said: He who sees me, sees also the Father.

Indeed John knew where to seek you. He sought you with the Father, and found you, and therefore said: And the Word was with God. You ascended also for Paul, who, not content to follow you alone, taught us also how we might follow you, and where we might find you, saying: If then you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And lest we should think this more the office of the eyes than of the mind, he added: Mind the things that are above, not the things that are on the earth. 160. Therefore we ought not to seek you above the earth, nor on the earth, nor according to the flesh, if we wish to find you; for now we no longer know Christ according to the flesh.

Indeed Stephen did not seek above the earth, who saw you standing at the right hand of God: but Mary, because she sought on the earth, could not touch you. Stephen touched, because he sought in heaven; Stephen among the Jews saw one who was absent: Mary among the angels did not see one who was present. But why she could not touch, the evangelist himself teaches us, saying that when she saw you, she did not know that it was you; for thus you have it: She turned back, and saw Jesus standing, and did not know that it was Jesus. Rightly she could not touch, who had not been able to see; for he who sees, touches. 161. Thus what distinguishes between that Mary and this one, Scripture makes clear. The one runs to meet, that she may see Jesus, this one turns back: the one is greeted, this one is rebuked. Indeed thus you have it: Jesus says to her: Woman.

She who does not believe is called woman, and is still marked by the designation of the bodily sex: for she who believes advances into a perfect man, into the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ, now lacking the name of the world, the sex of the body, the slipperiness of youth, the talkativeness of old age. Jesus therefore says: Woman, why are you weeping? As if to say: God does not require bare tears, but faith. Good are the tears, if you recognize Christ. Whom do you seek? He says. For the Lord condemns tardy contrivances. But he rightly added: Whom do you seek? Not that he doubted whom he was seeking, but because she did not know whom she was seeking; for she does not seek Christ, whom she thinks has been taken away. Christ is present, how is he sought? He is not known who is sought, when he is not recognized, though he is seen.

162. Indeed she was seeing Christ, and thought him the gardener; for thus you have it: She, thinking that it was the gardener, said to him: Lord, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Though her faith was uncertain, yet her speech was not slippery: though she thought him the gardener, yet she designated the Son of God: though she did not yet believe, yet she was striving to believe; for he who raised the body, took it away. Therefore the woman's error is pardonable, who, though she ought not to have doubted that Christ's body had been assumed through the glory of the resurrection, nevertheless is eager to be taught by Christ, devoutly promises him her faith; that she herself might now take him up from the earth, and seek him at the right hand of God.

163. Indeed after these words she is called not woman, but now Mary; for one thing is the common name of the crowd, another the special name of a person following Christ. And to the disciples, though not yet arbiter of full faith, yet she is appointed as messenger. But she is forbidden to touch, because the fullness of divinity had not yet dwelt bodily in her as it had in Christ, as Paul says; she had not yet emptied out the slipperiness of the world, the ambiguity of the flesh: she had not yet lived the life of Christ. Indeed she stands, she does not adore the Lord, nor hold his feet, as that other Mary did: in whom certainly not so much bodily homage as the affection of full faith is designated; that she believed Christ to be both man and God: for it is God who is adored, it is man who is held.

164. The Lord therefore does not disdain to be touched by a woman, whose feet Mary also anointed with ointment: nor does he scorn the touch, but he teaches advancement

because not all can touch the risen Christ, whom they touched in this life while he dwelt in the body. He who wishes to touch Christ must mortify his members, and put on, in likeness to him who is to rise, the bowels of mercy, and not hesitate to renounce earthly things. 165. What then is: Do not touch me? Do not lay hand on greater things: but go to my brothers, that is, to the more perfect. For whoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother. Because the resurrection cannot easily be grasped except by the more perfect, the prerogative is reserved for the founders of this faith: But I do not permit women to teach in the Church, let them ask their husbands at home.

She is sent therefore to those who are of the household: and she received the prescribed commands. 166. Nor does it escape me that some have thought at this point that Christ did not wish to be touched because he had not yet received back the type which he had commended to the Father, as if he ought not yet be touched. 167. I ascend to my Father, and your Father, my God, and your God. He rightly made the distinction, because he was speaking to a woman; for we do not have a common nature with Christ, except that of the human condition. To him the Father is Father by his own generation, to us by voluntary adoption: to him by nature, to us by grace: to him God by unity of mystery, to us by heavenly power. 168. Someone says: How then did Thomas, though not yet believing, nevertheless touch Christ?

But he seems to have doubted not concerning the Lord's resurrection, but concerning the quality of the resurrection; and by his touch he was meant to teach me, as Paul also taught: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality; that the unbeliever might believe, and the hesitant not be able to doubt: for we more easily believe what we see. But Thomas had reason for wonder, when he saw the body inserted though all doors were closed, through impassable barriers, with no offense to the structure; and therefore it is wondrous how bodily nature poured itself through an impenetrable body, by an invisible entrance, a visible appearance; easy to touch, difficult to conceive. Indeed the troubled disciples thought they were seeing a spirit; and so the Lord, to show us the appearance of the resurrection, says: Touch, and see, that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have.

Therefore not through an incorporeal nature, but through the quality of the bodily resurrection, impervious in ordinary use, did he pass through closed doors. For what is touched is body: what is felt is body: but we shall rise in body: For a natural body is sown, a spiritual body rises; but the one more subtle, this coarser, as being still bound by the quality of earthly failing. 170. For how is it not a body, in which remained the marks of wounds, the traces of scars, which the Lord offered to be touched? In which not only does he confirm faith, but he also sharpens devotion; because he preferred to bring into heaven the wounds received for us, unwilling to abolish them; that he might show God the Father the price of our liberty. Such a one the Father places at his right hand, embracing the trophies of our salvation: such martyrs will he there show us with the crown of his scar.

171. And since our discourse has proceeded this far, let us consider by what grace, according to John, the apostles believed, who rejoiced: according to Luke they are rebuked as if unbelieving: there they received the Holy Spirit, here they are bidden to sit in the city, until they be clothed with power from on high. And it seems to me that the one, as apostle, touched on greater and higher things, the other on what follows, and what is closer to human matters: the one using a historical circuit, the other a summary, because it cannot be doubted concerning him, who bears witness to those things at which he himself was present, and his testimony is true. From this one too, who deserved to be an evangelist, it is right that suspicion of either negligence or falsehood be repelled. And therefore we think both are true, distinguished neither by variety of opinion nor by diversity of persons.

For although in the first instance Luke says they did not believe, afterward he shows that they did believe: and if we consider the first, they are contrary: if what follows, it is certain they agree. Let us therefore consider the very words of Scripture. So John says: And the disciples rejoiced, having seen the Lord. He says to them again: Peace be to you, as the Father has sent me, I also send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. But Luke says: And how they recognized him in the breaking of bread. And while they were speaking these things, he himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them: Peace be to you, it, do not be afraid. But they were troubled and terrified, and thought they saw a spirit.

And there might seem here to have been more persons present: but

because also here, on the evening of the resurrection day (for as the day was growing dark, those who had entered to remain with the Lord, where he suddenly withdrew himself, are said to have returned to the disciples the same hour, when the Lord offered himself to be touched) and according to John, on the evening of that same day, the first of the week, he is introduced as having appeared to the disciples, and offered his wounds to be touched; lest any ambiguity should arise, we thought it should be examined more carefully. 173. For it seems that he showed himself separately to these eleven, just as he had already shown himself separately to those at Emmaus and to Cleopas in the evening: and just as those two, so also those eleven seem to have been able to come together to strengthen the rest.

Indeed they were also troubled, as you have it according to Luke; and therefore he opened their understanding, that they might comprehend what was written. That this one wrote more fully, and that one more briefly, there is no doubt. For how could they say he was seen by Cephas alone, if he had been seen by all? But just as among the women it was Mary, and among others Mary Magdalene; so among the men it was Peter, seen first in the morning. And Paul says thus: For I delivered to you first of all, that Christ died according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas. And therefore Mark specifically introduces the young man commanding that the women say to Peter and the disciples, that the Lord has risen. 174. Peter therefore alone saw the Lord; for his devotion, always ready and prompt, believed, and therefore he was eager to gather more frequent signs of faith.

Elsewhere with John, elsewhere alone, everywhere however he runs untiring, everywhere either alone, or first: not content to have seen what he had seen, he seeks again to gaze upon it, and, inflamed with love of seeking the Lord, is not satisfied by seeing.

She sees him alone, sees him with the eleven, sees him with the seventy, sees him also when Thomas believed, sees him when he was fishing: but not content with having seen, impatient of longing, careless of his catching, forgetful of danger, yet not forgetful of reverence; where he saw the Lord on the shore, he clothed himself, thinking it too slow if he should arrive with the rest by boat. Thus when the Lord was walking on the waves, forgetful of his own nature he ran to meet him upon the waves of the sea: thus when the Lord was seized by the Jews, he alone drew his sword against the crowds: thus also now when the Lord had stood on the perilous shore, he hastened by a shortcut his devoted service. 175. There is therefore no doubt that Peter believed, and believed because he loved, loved because he believed. Whence also he is grieved because he is asked a third time: Lovest thou me?

For he is questioned of whom there is doubt: but the Lord, who questions, does not doubt, questioning not that he might learn, but that he might teach him whom, when about to be lifted up into heaven, he was leaving behind as it were a vicar of his love. For thus you have it: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith to him: Feed my lambs. Rightly conscious of his own affection, not assumed for the occasion but long since known to God, Peter bears witness to it. For who else could easily profess this of himself? And therefore because he alone of all professes it, he is preferred before all; for charity is greater than all. 176. This also must be more carefully considered, why, when the Lord had said, Lovest thou me (diligis)? He answered: Thou knowest, Lord, that I love thee (amo).

In which it seems to me that "diligere" has the charity of the mind, "amor" a certain heat conceived by the ardor of body and mind together, and I think Peter is signifying a fervor not only of mind but also of his body concerning the worship of God. Finally, the third time the Lord asked not now, Diligis me? But, Amas me?: and now he is bidden to feed not lambs, as the first time, to be nourished with a certain milk, nor little sheep as the second time, but sheep, that as one more perfect he might govern the more perfect. 177. And therefore as to one now perfect in all things, whom the flesh could no longer recall from the glory of the passion, a crown is decreed: When thou wast younger, he says, thou didst gird thyself, and didst walk where thou wouldst: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not.

A good old age, not one weakened for use by length of life, but prepared by the maturity of virtue for martyrdom: one that represses the wantonness of bodily pleasures, and does not indulge desires, that declines all sweet things, does not seek after fair ones; for the flesh lusts against the spirit, and finds for itself crosswise paths of walking whither it will, of divers pleasures. But good is the old age of the mind, which chooses not what is pleasant to the body, but what it judges useful to the mind: not carried away by the voluptuous appetite of the body, but recalled as if unwilling by the restraint of resistance. 178. Therefore Peter also, though he was ready in mind to undergo martyrdom, yet when the danger came, he bent the constancy of his mind; for the sweetness of the heavenly gift's use takes hold of us. For who among us would not choose martyrdom, if he could die willingly? Therefore Peter also seems unwilling, but he is preparing to conquer.

And what wonder if Peter is unwilling, when the Lord says: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine be done? Finally, after the trial of his own presumption, Peter no longer dares to promise perseverance of will, but as if for his own comfort, seeks the companionship of another.

Led therefore by so many examples of virtue, we believe that Peter could not have doubted.

That John too believed is manifest, when he saw the Savior: he indeed believed then, after he saw the tomb empty of the body. Why then does Luke bring in that more were troubled? First of all, because the opinion of the few is included in the judgment of the greater part: then, because even though Peter had believed concerning the resurrection, he could nevertheless be troubled, when he saw that the Lord poured himself in, unforeseen, with his body into a place where the doors were shut and the walls built as an enclosure.

Luke therefore followed the individual events historically: the one looked to the end, the other to the sequence.

For certainly by saying: Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, he too professes that the disciples believed.

Now he breathed the Holy Spirit either upon those eleven as being more perfect, and promises that it is to be given to the rest afterward: or he breathed it on the same ones there, and promised it here. Nor does this seem to be contrary, since there are divisions of graces: For to one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the grace of healings in one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of speeches.

Therefore he breathed one operation there, promises another here; for there the grace of forgiving sins was given, which seems to be the narrower gift: and therefore it is breathed by Christ, that you may believe the Spirit to be Christ's, and believe the Spirit to be of God; for God alone forgives sins. But Luke describes the grace of tongues as poured out. Finally there you have: Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven (John, loc. cit.). But indeed in the Acts of the Apostles you have thus: And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with divers tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them to speak. 181. But the diversity of visions signifies the frequency of the ministering angels, according to what the Lord himself had promised, saying: And you shall see the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man. And would that our discourse too might close with the ending of the Gospel!

182. Why, according to Matthew and Mark, does he command the disciples: I will go before you into Galilee, there you shall see me: but according to Luke and John he also offered himself to be seen even within the closed room

? And indeed that he frequently offered himself to be seen, even to more than five hundred brethren, and to Peter, and to James, we have proved even by apostolic testimony.

And Luke in the Acts of the Apostles taught that he manifested to the disciples that he was alive after his passion, appearing to them in many proofs, and speaking of the kingdom of God. Therefore, because he appeared often and to different people, since Scripture has by no means designated a fixed and defined time for when he was seen in Galilee, whereas in Jerusalem it has expressed both the day and the hour when he presented himself; the more timid are revisited within closed rooms, the braver assembled at the mountain.

183. Finally, within the closed room, with the doors shut, John relates that the disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews: whom Luke wrote to have been not eleven, but more

but Matthew has not been silent that these eleven alone met in Galilee.

Finally thus you have it: And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus had appointed them, and seeing him they adored: but some doubted. To these he gave the power of teaching and baptizing. Mark also writes that he appeared at the end to the eleven disciples reclining at table, when likewise he commits to them the duty of preaching through the whole world. 184. Whence I judge this to be more fitting, that the Lord indeed commanded the disciples that they should see him in Galilee: but while they, out of fear, remained within the closed room, he first offered himself there, but afterward, their minds being confirmed, those eleven sought Galilee.

Or certainly (this too I find to have pleased careful writers) nothing prevents us from saying that fewer were within the room, and more numerous on the mountain.