Works (CSEL) 14 part 26/28

Rightly therefore he sets others free who owes nothing for himself. I add more. Not only does Christ owe no price of his own redemption or propitiation for sin, but even if you take it of any man whatever, it may be understood that individuals do not owe their own propitiation, because Christ is the propitiation of all and he himself is the redemption of all. For whose man's blood is now sufficient for his own redemption, when Christ poured out his own blood for the redemption of all? Is there then anyone's blood that could be compared to the blood of Christ?

Or what man is so powerful that he could give his own propitiation for himself above that propitiation which Christ offered in himself, who alone reconciled the world to God through his own blood? What greater victim, what more excellent sacrifice, what better advocate, than he who was made the supplication for the sins of all and gave his own soul as a redemption for us? No propitiation or redemption of individuals, therefore, is sought, because the price of all is the blood of Christ, with which the Lord Jesus redeemed us, who alone reconciled the Father and laboured even unto the end, because he himself took upon himself our labour, saying: 'Come to me, all you who labour, and I will refresh you.' See him labouring:

'I am weary with crying, my jaws have become hoarse,' and elsewhere: 'Issachar desired that which is good, resting between the lots,' and below: 'He put his shoulder to labour and became a husbandman.' Therefore a man shall no longer give his own propitiation or redemption, because he has once been washed from sin through the blood of Christ; yet he shall labour, that he may keep the precepts of living and not depart from the heavenly commandments. While he lives, let him be in labour and persevere in it, that he may live unto the end, lest he too die the death, though he is already redeemed from death. But whoever has kept the commandments of life shall not see destruction, when he sees those die who seemed to themselves wisest and most prudent in this age.

This pertains especially to the scribes and Pharisees, who claim for themselves the chairs in the synagogues as if the chief place of wisdom. They truly labour in vain, when they think that they are set free by the didrachma, since by a certain empty interpretation of the Law they have despised the spiritual price of their own soul and that singular sacrifice of the Lord's body, fleeing the sacrament of baptism. For the blood of goats and bulls redeems no one, but the one blood of Christ frees all, of which in Leviticus there is a figure, not the truth. For we are freed not by the didrachma, but by the price of that blood alone.

Let us therefore be teachable of God, that none of us may see destruction in that day, when the wise of this world or the princes of the Jews shall be condemned to perpetual death, when together 'the unwise and the foolish shall perish.' The two are not the same: the foolish is he who has no wisdom and understands foolish things, the unwise is he who is wrongly wise: 'The unwise has said that there is no God'; just as the unjust man is so called not because he is ignorant of equity, but because by the wickedness of his heart he commits unjust deeds; the wicked man too is so called because by his malice he wishes to destroy uprightness, not because he is ignorant of uprightness. These same, then, the unwise and the foolish, when they perish, leave their riches to strangers;

for they cannot find their own legitimate heir of folly and wickedness. For the legitimate say: 'Because we are sons of God. And if sons, then heirs also: heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.' The unwise therefore do not have riches, because neither do they have the inheritance. The faithless do not have riches, do not have possession; for to the faithful the whole world is a possession. They do not have the inheritance, because the inheritance is for those alone who believe in the Lord. But they have their own riches, and therefore the covetous man says: 'I have nowhere to gather my fruits'; for money is not the true fruit, but the fruit of the covetous. And the Lord says to the covetous: 'Go, sell your goods and come, follow me';

for a patrimony is not the perfect good, but these are the goods of the covetous, which are placed in some gain. 'Sell,' he says, 'the things you think to be yours, when they are not yours, because they pass to others like a river, and follow me, that you may know the immortal good.' The wise therefore are led to destruction, from whom God hides the things he has revealed to little ones. They shall perish together and shall be in one and the same place, the unwise and the foolish, and shall leave their riches to strangers, because wickedness finds no legitimate successor. 'And their sepulchres shall be their houses for ever, their tabernacles from generation to generation; they have called their names upon their lands.'

Everywhere Scripture reckons sepulchres for things vile, to which the degenerate and those greedy of this life are compared: 'Their throat is an open sepulchre.' To these, therefore, who live from day to day, sepulchres are as houses. For the house of the righteous is not on the earth, but in heaven, as the apostle taught, saying: 'But our conversation is in heaven.' That is our house which is the house of Christ, whence Scripture says: 'And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be said; but Christ as a son in his own house.' To the devout, therefore, the Church is a house; to the devout, heaven is their fatherland; and therefore the righteous man says: 'I am a stranger with you on the earth and a pilgrim, as all my fathers were.'

To the luxurious the sepulchre is a house; in short, they live as if in a sepulchre who can say: 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die,' having no resurrection before their eyes. And therefore, fixed to their tombs and entombed, they cling to them, because they did not believe they could be raised again. Their dwelling, then, is in their own grave, and their tabernacle is earthly, from generation to generation, who leave the worms of their own body as heirs, so that their memory may be only here and cannot pass into eternity. Finally, 'their names are upon their lands,' because their works are corruptible and earthly, and therefore their names are written there where they chose to live. But to those who have lifted up their works it is said:

'Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.' From this, then, let us understand that the Lord did not idly rebuke those who built sepulchres for themselves or tombs of the prophets and adorned them. For the Jews are condemned who offered the prophets whom they had slain earthly consolations, not eternal rewards. And therefore he forbids that his disciple should bury his father, because he ought to be intent without ceasing upon the eternal Father. And in the book of Isaiah it is written: 'Why,' he says, 'have you built and hewn out for yourself a sepulchre?' And Mary is rebuked, who sought Christ in the tomb.

Leave the sepulchres, which those left who, having heard the voice of the Lord in his passion, rose from the tombs; do not dwell among the dead, you who live. Hear the voice of Jesus raising you up: 'Awake, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, that the eternal light of Christ may be poured upon you.' His light is the Holy Spirit, who shone upon the holy apostles like fire at the dispersion of tongues. There follows: 'Man, when he was in honour, did not understand; he is compared to the beasts that are without sense, and is made like to them. This way of theirs is a stumbling-block to them, and afterward they will take pleasure in their own mouth.'

For because man did not understand when he was in honor — and the honor is this, that he was made in the image of God and made capable of reason — he has been compared to the beasts that have no understanding; but he who has understood is likened to the angels. And therefore the one is made glorious by the splendor of good works, while the other is reckoned 'like a neighing horse' through the filthiness of his way of life, which brings a stumbling-block in the path for those who live in baseness and obscenity; for the folly of a man defiles his ways. And men of this sort live according to their own appetite, which creates a stumbling-block, and after the stumbling-block 'they shall be well-pleasing in their own mouth,' but not in their heart; for they are not the good of whom it is said: 'with their mouth they blessed and in their heart they cursed.'

By this an answer is also given to those who have it thus written in their manuscripts: 'and afterward in their mouth they shall bless.' For 'thy word is near and in thy mouth and in thy heart.' 'Like sheep they shall be led down into hell, death shall feed upon them; and the just shall have dominion over them in the morning, and their help shall grow old in hell, away from their glory.' Those who refused to let Christ feed them, death shall feed upon. Who therefore would forsake the good shepherd, who lays down his soul for his sheep, since the care of his flock belongs to him? Or who would choose the death of a hireling, which is repaid with the wage worthy of the worst works? Know at once, O man, that Christ is the true shepherd, who feeds his own unto life.

Death crept in stealthily, which leads strangers to destruction and devours those over whom it can prevail because of their shameful deeds. Although in this life they had zeal for power and riches, that they might lord it over others, yet in the resurrection there will be servitude, when the morning splendor shall shine upon the just, of whom this is a figure, that the master Jacob is set before his brother. Wretched therefore is the servitude, that at the very time when others are called into the glory of splendor and light, the glory of these men should grow old and be consumed in the darkness of the lower regions; and rightly it is said of them: 'from their honor and from their glory they were cast out,' because this glory is temporal. 'Nevertheless,' he says, 'God will deliver my soul from the hand of hell, when he shall receive it.'

Well does he say this who knew that his soul was not to be left in hell. For he descended that he might loose the captives from the jaws of the lower regions, not that he might remain captive among them. Therefore, since these things which are in this world cannot pass over with us, for that reason it is said to you: 'Fear not when a man is made rich and when the glory of his house is multiplied; for when he dies he shall take nothing away, nor shall the glory of his house descend together with him.' Do not, he says, be terrified at the riches and power of the rich man and at worldly glory, since these are fleeting and depart more quickly than they came. This treasure is a dream;

you awake and it is gone, since whoever has been able to sleep off the drunkenness of this world and to take on the sobriety of virtue, despises these things and counts money as nothing. Nor should you fear when you hear of the multiplied glory of some powerful man's house. Look carefully, and that house is empty which has nothing of the fullness of faith. And why do I speak of a house? This whole world was empty before Christ filled it with the number of believers, and therefore it is written: 'He shall judge among the nations, he shall fill up the ruins.' For what else was there before in this world but the ruin of unbelief? What is the ruin? Hear him who says: 'Where the ruin is, there also are the eagles,' that is: where the ruin is, there also is the resurrection. The ruin is empty of firmness, the resurrection is the fullness of living.

And therefore the ruin of that Adam emptied us, but the grace of Christ refilled us. For this reason he emptied himself, that he might fill us, and that the fullness of virtue might dwell in the flesh of man. Learn what the ruin is. While a man lives, he is filled with the spirit; once he is dead, he is altogether empty of this vital spirit. Much more does the loss of spiritual grace make a man empty, whom grace was wont to fill, so that we may say: 'For of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.' Of another it is said: 'I have labored in vain'; but the just man is 'like the smell of a full field.' But what is not empty that is secular and worldly, since he rightly said who despised this world with sober virtue: 'Naked was I born, and naked shall I die'?

Can anyone carry away with himself the things he possesses? Here he leaves all behind, he enters the tomb alone, and the sepulchre of that rich man is empty — the rich man whom not even the earth itself could contain. Whence it is said: 'Will you alone dwell upon the earth?' Did the glory of his house or his abundance descend into that sepulchre? See the force of Scripture. The glory of the world will not descend with the sinner, but the glory of virtue will ascend with the innocent; and, to say it more concisely, the glory of a man will ascend with him who ascends, but with him who descends it will not descend. What belongs to grace and virtue will ascend. One ascends into paradise, one descends into hell. 'Let them descend,' he says, 'alive into hell'; and therefore Lazarus the poor man was raised up by the angels into Abraham's bosom.

The luxurious rich man, lifting up his eyes in hell, begs Abraham to send the poor man and to touch his tongue with his finger, that, set in the greatest burning, he might be able to obtain some rest. See that poor man abounding in all good things, whom the blessed rest of the holy patriarchs surrounded; see this empty man, who in this world seemed to himself to abound in all things, whose soul was blessed in his own lifetime, but now lies inert, tormented by death. Whence it beautifully follows: 'For his soul shall be blessed in his lifetime; he will praise thee when thou shalt do well to him.' Foolish men, he says, will bless him with an earthly blessing — men who consider present things, not things to come — his followers and his parasites will bless him.

He himself too thinks himself blessed if he has seized upon some field which he desired. He confesses to God then, when prosperous things succeed for him in this world; but when adverse things befall, he curses with an impious mouth. This therefore is what he says, that the worldly man does not give thanks when placed in poverty and adversities; but the just man, in his straits, all the more blesses the Lord with a grateful affection. Finally the devil says to God: 'What wonder is it if Job blesses thee? All things abound for him. But put forth,' he says, 'thy hand and touch the things he possesses; let us see if he blesses thee to thy face.' And the Lord gave him power to take away the things of this world and to drench his flesh with the cruelty of ulcers. Yet Job kept blessing, saying:

'The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' 'He shall enter in even unto the generation of his fathers; even unto eternity he shall not see light. Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he has been compared to the beasts that have no understanding, and is made like to them.' Therefore, he says, this man shall enter in unto the generation of his fathers. Who is the father of the impious, the Lord declared, saying: 'You are of your father the devil.' There are also those fathers of whom it is said: 'Let the dead bury their own dead.' For this reason also the Moabites were forbidden to enter into the Lord's church even unto the third and fourth generation, so that their sons should enter into the generation of those whose deeds and manners they imitated, because of the sins of their fathers.

Whence also it is written: 'The sons of adulterers shall be brought to nothing.' Therefore he who follows not that Father who is in heaven, but that one who lives in earthly filthiness, enters into the generation of an earthly father. For as is the earthly, such also are the earthly ones, so that his life is earthly, with no rest after death, and forever he shall not see the light, since he sought what is temporal. But that man who has followed the glory of Christ, who has desired that light which enlightens every man coming into this world, shall find and shall see the eternal light, because Christ has redeemed him from death.

Then therefore he shall consider within himself that, when he was in honor he did not understand, and therefore he shall be like the beasts — he who ought to have been like the angels, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be honor, glory, and perpetuity from all ages, both now and always and unto all ages of ages. Amen. EXPLANATION OF PSALM 61. (Title: Unto the end, for Idithun; a psalm of David himself.) It is the undoubted custom of us all that we hasten to the end, and of those things which we read or have seen and heard, we wish to know the sum. Whence the very title does not allow us to be idle, nor to pass by with unheeding ears the token of a common desire.

For above the rest — although it shines forth in the rest also — yet in a psalm of this kind the divine oracle gleams the more brightly. Whence let us consider more carefully what 'the end' is; for 'the end' is called telos and the sum of that matter which we wish to expound. The end is said to be Christ, because he himself is the end of the law, as it is written: 'For Christ is the end of the law unto justice to everyone that believes.' He is also called the end because he is himself the beginning and the end. Therefore those psalms which are entitled 'unto the end' are either about Christ or are Christ's own: about Christ, when he is announced; Christ's own, when he announces himself and promises that he will come into the lands and deigns to reveal to us the future passion of his own body.

And therefore they are inscribed 'of David himself' in the title, as if indeed the ministries of the prophetic mouth were assigned to David, that is, to the Lord himself, through whom by the office of a human voice the heavenly power resounded and the divine sentence rang out. And rightly 'for Idithun,' who was a prophet and sang psalms with his six sons, there is as it were a kind of preface, in that there was granted to these men the grace of prophesying, who, established in the ministry of singing psalms, uttered the divine oracles with a human voice. And because, for the abolishing of the error of the whole world, the passion of the Lord's body was to be undertaken, under this man's name, whose diligence was approved, he expressed the more recommended instruction of the people. So then let us hear him speaking: 'Shall not my soul be subject to God?'

Our Lord Jesus, about to take on the flesh of man that he himself might cleanse it in himself, what ought he first to abolish before the contagion of the old sin? For because through disobedience guilt had crept in, while the divine commands were violated, he ought above all things to restore obedience, that he might shut out the seed-bed of error. For the fiber of sin had flowed from there, and therefore, like a good physician, he ought first to cut away the roots of the ulcer, so that the wholesome remedy of the medicines might reach the lips of the wound. For in vain will you heal the scar if the inward contagions creep on; rather the wound is embittered if it is closed on the outside while within the venom boils over. For what would it profit to have forgiven the sin, if the disposition to sin remained?

This was not to heal the scar, but to close it. He willed therefore to cleanse the wound, that he might heal the disposition, so that no lot of disobedience might remain. He himself took on obedience, that he might pour it over into us. For thus it was fitting that, since through the disobedience of one man many had been constituted sinners, so again through the obedience of one many should be constituted just. Whence the matter shows that they greatly err who say that the flesh of man was taken on by Christ but deny that he took on its disposition, and who go against the very counsel of the Lord Jesus, taking the man out of the man, since a man cannot exist without the disposition of a man; for flesh without disposition is exempt both from reward and from guilt.

That therefore he ought to take on and to heal, from which guilt had flowed, that he might close the origin of error and certain bursting doors of transgression. Whence today should I recognize the Lord Jesus as man, whose flesh I do not see but whose disposition I read? Whence, I say, should I recognize him as man, unless he had hungered, unless he had thirsted, unless he had wept, unless he had said: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death'? Finally it is written: 'And he is man, and who shall know him?' But the man is recognized through these things, who through divine works is esteemed above men. And so he himself willed to be believed a man up to this point, though he was God, so that he called himself man, saying:

'Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you?' And not only did he say 'man,' but also 'Son of man,' as he says: 'Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?' Whence that man was declared to hold the sum of faith who acknowledged him as the Son of God and did not deny him as man. He himself therefore is both, one, inseparable in number and to be recognized by the distinction of work, not by a variety of person. For it is not one from the Father and another from Mary, but he who was from the Father took flesh from the Virgin, took on the disposition from his mother, that he himself might take on our infirmities. Whence the prophet says that he grieves also for us. How would he grieve with my grief, if he did not bear my disposition?

'A man,' he says, 'in stripes and knowing how to bear infirmity.' And so as a man he was made infirm, as a man he grieved, and we esteemed him as a man to be in sorrows; but as a conqueror of infirmities, not conquered by infirmities, he grieved for us, not for himself, and he was made infirm not because of his own sins but because of ours, that by his bruise he might heal us. What indeed is 'a man in stripes and knowing how to bear infirmity,' except that he had compassion for the stripe? Or how did he know how to bear infirmity, if he had shut out the feeling of infirmity? For what we carry, this we sustain as a burden. He took on therefore our sins, that he might carry them; he took them on also, that he might purge them. Finally it is written: 'And he himself purged their sins.'

Therefore he himself shall possess many by inheritance and shall divide the spoils of the strong. For there the triumph is greater, where the inward mind is cleansed. What therefore he carries pertains to remission, what he purges to correction. He took on therefore our compassion, he took on also our subjection; for what he subjected to himself, all things, is his own; what he was made subject is ours. And therefore he says: 'Shall not my soul be subject to God?' My soul, he says, subject, not my divinity; my soul subjected, not the power of God; for the power of God is not subject to authority, but to unity, and it makes use of the fellowship of that power. That is subjected which is for the most part changed by the frailty of the human condition, not that which cannot be changed.

The soul has compassion for the flesh and the flesh for the soul, which are coupled to themselves by a kind of companionship. That is subjected which is sorrowful, because it is written: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death'; that is subjected which is taken on, not born of God the Father. Although this very subjection is not indeed in the appearance of infirmity, but in the operation of virtue — the arbiter of a more temporary dispensation rather than handed over to perpetual servitude. Whence also he says: 'Shall not my soul be subject to God?' Why did he say 'shall be,' if the subjection is everlasting? But because the Son of God who was speaking is eternal, while he took on the soul in time, therefore he speaks of the future subjection of his soul.

Through it therefore comes obedience, through it humility, which nevertheless were taken on not for the weakening of his power, but for the teaching of discipline. For the Lord Jesus himself, when he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men; and found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, as the Apostle says — wishing to declare not a continual and perpetual subjection, but a temporal one, of what kind it is, taken on with the flesh and laid aside with the servitude of his own body. So also to the Hebrews it is written. For when he had set forth the example, saying:

'Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech,' the same Paul added: 'who in the days of his flesh offered prayers and supplications with a loud cry and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and was heard for his reverence; and although he was a Son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered, and being made perfect, he became to those who obey him the cause of eternal salvation, called by God a priest according to the order of Melchisedech.' Did not the Apostle therefore evidently cry out, saying that that obedience and humility were not of the divinity but of the flesh? For what is learned is temporal.

As a man therefore he learned obedience from the things which he suffered, that he might be made perfect in the flesh and, through the succession of obedience poured over into us, might become to us the cause of eternal salvation — to us to whom formerly, through the inheritance of disobedience, that first Adam became the cause of death. Subjection therefore is the teaching of human virtue, not the diminishing of divine power. For if they call him a lesser Son and unequal to the Father, because he was subject to God the Father, is he then also less than his mother because he was subject to his mother? For it is read of Joseph and Mary: 'And he was subject to them.'

But piety is for us all not a loss but an increase, through which the Lord Jesus poured into us all faith and grace, that he might make us, subject in a faithful spirit, subject to God the Father. And therefore by a new and profound counsel the Apostle says that he himself will be subject to the Father in us, when there shall be in all the fullness of faith and a certain unity of devotion. For now, as long as we differ in opinions, we in a manner diminish the kingdom of Christ, because not yet are all things subject to him whose kingdom is unity; but when all things shall have been subjected to him, then he himself also shall be subject to him who subjected all things to himself, that God may be all in all, as it is written. For now he is in power above all, but it is needful that he be in all by will;

and he will will it, when he shall have known all things in us to be full of himself and empty of transgressions. Not yet therefore is he subject to the Father, because not yet is Christ all and in all; but when Christ shall be all and in all, then God shall be all and in all. Whence it is gathered that the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and also of the Holy Spirit is one, because he who has received the Son receives also the Father, receives also the Holy Spirit, because the power is one, the grace is one, the operation of the Trinity is one. And rightly the Lord added: 'For from him is my salvation,' as if he were saying: 'Be not troubled, because I have said that my soul will be subject to God: the soul will be subject which is your portion, but my salvation is from him, that is, because from the Father and in the Father I always am.'