Works (CSEL) 15 part 15/31

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 assumed, what for the scourgings, what for the cross, death, burial?—woe is me if I shall not have loved! I dare to say, Peter did not repay, and therefore he loved more; Paul did not repay—he repaid indeed death for death, but other things he did not repay, because he owed much. Hear him saying that he did not repay: 'Who has first given to Him, and it shall be repaid to him?' Granted that we repay cross for cross, funeral for funeral, do we repay what we have wholly from Him and through Him and in Him? Let us, then, render love for the debt, charity for the gift, grace for the money; for he loves more to whom more is given.

But let us return to that higher woman, 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, complained that the woman poured out ointment over His head, and they complained, saying: 'Why is this thus wasted? For it might have been sold for a price and given to the poor.' What exactly displeased in their words you cannot grasp, unless you understand the mystery; for it belongs to a luxurious man, or rather to one who is not a man, to smell of ointment. Surely even those who like to smell of perfume are wont to anoint themselves, not to drench themselves. What displeases, since it was said: 'This might have been sold for a price and given to the poor?' Surely He Himself had said above:

'Whatsoever you did to one of these least, you did to me'; yet He Himself offered His death for the poor. It is not, then, a simple figure, and therefore the Word of God answered them: 'Why are you troublesome to the woman? You always have the poor with you, but me you have not always.' Always, then, you have the poor with you, and therefore do good. You ought not, then, to put off the poor, because he is always with you, since the prophet says to you: 'Say not to the poor: Tomorrow I will give.' But he spoke only of mercy, whereas this woman preferred the faith of mercy, which then has merit if it is conferred with faith going before; 'for in casting this ointment upon my body, she did it to bury me.' The Lord, then, did not love the ointment,

but He loved her charity, He received her faith, He approved her humility. And you also, if you desire grace, increase charity; cast upon the body of Jesus the faith of the resurrection, the fragrance of the Church, the ointment of common charity, and so, going forward, you will give to the poor. That money will profit you more, if you bestow it not as something overflowing, but lavish it as something that will profit in the name of Christ—if you so confer it on the poor that you offer it to Christ. Do not, then, take the ointment poured over the head merely according to the letter—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—nay rather, because He Himself is the Word—he is able to grasp so great a height of mystery? Even the disciples understand in part, though they do not understand the whole. Hence too some suppose that the disciples said that the faith of the Gentiles ought to have been bought at the price of the ointment, the faith which was owed only at the price of the Lord's blood—a view that seems plausible. Indeed John the Evangelist brings in the speech of Judas Iscariot, who valued that ointment at three hundred denarii, as you have it: 'For it might have been sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor.' But the figure of three hundred declares the sign of the cross.

But the Lord does not seek a perfunctory foreknowledge of the mystery; rather He prefers that the faith of believers be buried together in Himself. Yet we understand this from the voices of the other apostles, while Judas is condemned for avarice, who set money before the Lord's burial, and who, even if he had perceived something of the Passion, erred by so dear a sale. 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.' The loftiness of riches does not seek money, but grace. He Himself bought us with His precious blood; He did not sell us. Of this we would speak more fully, did we not recall that we have treated it elsewhere.

Therefore, according to the words of the Lord, in whom are hidden the treasures of wisdom which no one was able to foresee, it behooves me to labor at His burial, that His flesh may be believed to have rested and 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, set apart from death, did not undergo any fellowship in bodily sufferings. Understand how the body of the Son is fragrant with ointment. That body is what was stripped off, not what 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—although that death does not require our adornments, yet the poor require them. I shall adorn His body if I become a preacher of His words and am able to open the mystery of the cross to the Gentiles. 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 ignorance is thought foolish is, through the Gospel, esteemed wiser, so that we may be able to teach how the adversary's power is destroyed through the Lord's cross. I have put ointment upon the Lord's body, and that which was thought dead begins to breathe.

Therefore let each one set about to buy, by his own toil and by the striving of the virtues, an alabaster box of ointment—not some cheap and common one, but the precious ointment of the alabaster, the ointment of pure nard. For if anyone gathers the flowers of faith and preaches Jesus Christ crucified, then, resting in God, he pours out the ointment of his faith upon the whole Church, which is the body of Christ, dead to the world. The whole house of the Lord begins to be fragrant with the Passion, begins to be fragrant with death, begins to be fragrant with resurrection, so that each one in this number of the holy people may say to Him: 'But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.' The fragrance breathes forth, the ointment is fragrant upon the body, if anyone—and would that I might be able—can speak confidently:

'But the world is crucified to me.' To one who does not love riches, who does not love the honors of the age, who does not love the things that are his own but the things that are Jesus Christ's, who does not love the things that are seen but the things that are not seen, who is not greedy for life but who hastens to be dissolved and to be with Christ—to such a one the world is 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, so that we may be fragrant with the ointment which that woman put upon His burial. Not slight is this ointment, by which the name of Christ is spread far and wide. Hence too it is said prophetically: 'Thy name is ointment poured out'—poured out for this reason, that faith might be fragrant with a greater odor. From this woman, then, we understand what that apostolic saying is:

'Sin abounded, that grace might more exceedingly abound.' For if in this woman sin had not super-abounded, grace would not have super-abounded; for she acknowledged her sin and obtained grace. And therefore the Law is necessary, for through the Law I came to know sin. If there had been no Law, sin would lie hidden. By acknowledging sin I beg for pardon. Through the Law, therefore, I recognize the kinds of sins and also the guilt of transgression; I run to repentance; I obtain grace. The Law, then, is the author of good, which sends us on to grace. 'My mother and my brethren are these who hear the word of God and do it.' He is a moral teacher who offers himself as an example to the rest, and is himself both the instructor and the very executor of his own precepts.

For being about to prescribe to others that whoever does not leave his father and mother is not worthy of the Son of God, He first subjects Himself to this very sentence—not that He rejects the dutiful offices of filial piety toward a mother (for it is His own precept: 'He who does not honor father and mother shall die the death'), but because He acknowledges that He owes more to the Father's mysteries than to a mother's affections. Nor yet are parents rejected injuriously, but the bonds of minds are taught to be more sacred than those of bodies. Therefore they ought not to have stood outside who were seeking to see Christ; for the word is near, in your heart and in your mouth. Within, then, is the Word; within is the light. Hence too it is said: 'Come to Him and be enlightened.'

For if those who stand outside are themselves not even acknowledged as parents, and perhaps are not acknowledged on account of our example, how shall we be acknowledged 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 shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh, this sacrament is rightly preserved in Christ and in the Church. And therefore it was not fitting that parents be set before His own body. So here the mother is not denied—as certain heretics lay their snares to catch—she who is acknowledged even from the cross; but to bodily kinship the pattern of heavenly precepts is preferred.

It is not unfitting also to understand this: that under the figure of the parents He shows the Jews, from whom Christ is according to the flesh, and that the Church which believed is to be preferred. And so He who knew that He had come to earth for the sake of the divine mystery and for the assembly of the Church, left His parents and went up into the ship. 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 divine economy is preserved in the apostles, that you may observe that no one can depart from this course of life without temptation, because temptation is the exercise of faith. We are therefore subjected to the storms of spiritual wickedness, but like watchful sailors let us rouse the Pilot.

But even pilots themselves are wont to be endangered. Whom, then, shall I seek as pilot? Surely Him who does not serve the winds but commands them, of whom it is written: 'But He, rising up, rebuked the wind.' What does 'rising up' mean? For He was at rest—but He was resting with the sleep of the body, while He was intent upon 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 passed the night in prayer: how could He here be sleeping in the tempest? But the security of His power is expressed, in that, while all were afraid, He alone rested untroubled. He, then, is not a partaker of our nature who is not a partaker of our peril. Although the body sleeps, the divinity works, faith works. Finally He says: 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'

And rightly are they rebuked who feared while Christ was present, since surely one who cleaves to Him cannot perish. Therefore He confirmed their faith, restored tranquillity, commanded the wind to cease—not the north wind, not the south wind, but surely that wind to which it was said by the angel Michael in the epistle of Jude: 'The Lord rebuke thee.' Hence too holy Matthew says: 'He commanded the wind and the sea.' And would that He might deign to restrain its rough blasts in us, that, tranquillity being restored to our tossing life, He may take away the fear of shipwreck! Although He no longer sleeps with the sleep of His own body, let us nevertheless beware lest He sleep and rest upon us with the sleep of our body. And since what we touched upon in the previous passage we have sufficiently tasted,

now—since in the book according to Matthew we have learned that two men in the region of the Gerasenes, possessed by demons, ran to meet Christ, while here holy Luke brings in one and that one naked (for whoever has lost the covering of his nature and of virtue is naked)—on what ground the Evangelists may seem to disagree in number I judge not to be passed over idly, but to be investigated. 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 to error, exposed to crime.

Those two likewise receive the figure of the Gentile people, since, when Noah had begotten three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, only Shem's family was taken into the possession of God. From those two were sprung up the peoples of diverse nations, of whom the one was cursed because he had not covered his uncovered father, while the other was blessed because, although turned away lest he should drink in the confusion of his uncovered parent, he nevertheless, led by piety, covered his father and washed away the curse of his brother's seed. 'He was driven,' it says, 'for a long time'—inasmuch as from the flood until the coming of the Lord he was vexed, breaking the bonds of nature in raving madness.

And not without reason did holy Matthew also note that they dwelt among the tombs, since the souls of such persons seem to dwell in certain mounds of sepulchres. For what else are the bodies of the faithless but, as it were, the sepulchres of the dead, in which the words of God do not dwell? He was driven, then, into desert places—barren, namely, of spiritual virtues—a fugitive from the Law, separated from the prophets, removed from grace. For he labored under the assault not of one demon but of a whole legion, which, when it had seen the Lord and recognized, by foreknowledge, that it was to be thrust down into the abyss at the time of the Lord's coming, began to entreat that it might receive permission to enter into the swine.

And first we ought to observe the clemency of the Lord, in that He Himself condemns no one beforehand, but each 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 whose eyes ache cannot bear the ray of the sun, but choose the dark places and forsake the shining ones. Let the demons, then, flee the splendor of the eternal light, and before the time dread the torments due to them, not foreknowing what things are to come, but recalling what things were prophesied; for Zechariah said: 'And it shall come to pass in that day, the Lord shall destroy the names of the idols out of the land, and there shall be no more remembrance of them, and I will drive out the unclean spirit from the land.'

We are taught, therefore, by this that they will not remain forever, nor can their malice be perpetual. So now, fearing that punishment, they say: 'Thou art come to destroy us.' But because they still desire to exist, now departing from men—on whose account they know 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 the dogs, neither cast 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, by the filthy deeds of their life, defiled the ornaments of their natural virtues; who are borne headlong by impulse, since they are recalled by the consideration of no merit, but, as it were thrust down from higher to lower things by the steep slope of wickedness, are suffocated in the waters amid the things that float upon this world, perishing after the manner of the strangled, with the breath of their spirit cut off. For in those who are tossed hither and thither by the surging tide of pleasures, there can be no vital commerce of any spirit, uncertain as they are. We see, therefore, that man himself is the author of his own misery.

For unless a man had lived after the manner of a swine, the devil would never have received power over him; or, if he had received it, it would be not to destroy 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 frivolous—just as a robber lies in wait not for the armed but for the unarmed, and assails the weak with injuries, knowing himself to be either despised by the strong or condemned by the powerful. But someone says: Why is this permitted by God to the devil? And I answer: That the good may be tested and 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 deserts of sinners. But let us return to the reading.

'The keepers of the herd,' it says, 'saw this and 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. For the rest, He does not deign to cure the unwilling, and quickly forsakes the weak to whom He sees His presence to be a burden, as with the peoples of the Gerasenes, who, coming out of the city in which the appearance of a synagogue seems to exist, begged Him to depart, because they were gripped by great fear. For a weak mind does not receive the word of God, nor can it bear the weight of wisdom; it grows faint and dissolves. And therefore He was not troublesome any longer, but embarked and returned.

He ascended, surely, from lower things to higher, that is, from the synagogue to the Church, and returned across the lake, as it says here, or, as Matthew has it, 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 to his salvation; but even 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 was freed not received, but bidden to return home, unless both that an occasion of boasting may be avoided, and that it may be an example to the unbelieving how natural a lodging that house is?

And therefore he who had obtained the remedy of healing is commanded to return from the tombs and sepulchres into that spiritual house, that he may become the temple of God, in whom there had been a sepulchre of the mind. 'And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he himself was a ruler of the synagogue, and he fell down at the feet of Jesus, beseeching Him that He would enter into his house, because 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 we received Him whom we were awaiting, while His own people had not received Him. Therefore He was not long absent from us, by whom He was awaited, nor does He disdain, if He be asked, to return to them.

For this man, the ruler of the synagogue, who had an only daughter, was praying for the remedy of the perishing synagogue, which was being pressed toward death, because it was being forsaken by Christ. Whom do we think the ruler of the synagogue to be, unless the Law, out of regard for which the Lord did not utterly forsake the synagogue, but reserved the medicine of salvation for those who believe? While, therefore, the word of God hastens to this daughter of the ruler—in order to save the children of Israel, the holy Church gathered from the Gentiles, which was perishing through the fall of lesser sins, seized beforehand by faith the healing prepared for others. We have judged this passage sufficient to be set forth morally, and therefore we do not go back over the things that have been said, but we wish to touch briefly upon the mystical sense in a short discourse.

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 first believed in grace by those who had not believed in the Law? For just as that woman who had spent all her substance on physicians, so too the congregation of the Gentiles had lost all the gifts of nature and had squandered its vital patrimony—holy, modest, religious, readier in faith, more hesitant through shame; for this is the mark of shame and of faith: to acknowledge one's infirmity, not to despair of pardon. Modest, then, she touched the hem; faithful, she drew near; religious, she believed; wise, she knew that she was healed.

Thus the holy people of the Gentiles, who believed in God, blushed at sin so as to forsake it, brought faith so as to believe, showed devotion so as to entreat, put on wisdom so that she herself too might perceive her healing. She took up confidence so as to confess that she had seized beforehand what belonged to another. But why is Christ touched from behind? Is it because it is written: 'After the Lord your God you shall walk'? What too does it mean that the ruler's daughter of twelve years was dying, and this woman was suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years, unless it be understood that, as long as the synagogue flourished, the Church labored?

The failing of the one is the strength of the other, because by their fault salvation came to the Gentiles, and the consummation of the one is the beginning of the other—not the beginning of nature, but of salvation, because blindness in part happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in. Therefore the synagogue is older than the Church not in time, but in the appearance of healing, because as long as the former believed, the latter did not believe and languished, sick with an incurable remedy, through the various sufferings of body and soul. She heard that the people of the Jews were ailing, she began to hope for the remedy of her own salvation, she knew that the time had come in which the Physician was present from heaven, she rose to meet the Word, she saw that He was pressed by the crowds; for those who press do not believe, those who touch believe.

By faith Christ is touched, by faith Christ is seen; He is not touched with the body, He is not comprehended with the eyes; for neither does he see who, seeing, does not see, nor does he hear who does not understand the things he hears, nor does he touch who does not touch faithfully. Finally, to express the faith of her who touched, He said: 'Someone touched me; for I perceived virtue going out from me.' This is a clear indication that wisdom is not enclosed within the possibility of the human condition and within the enclosure of the body; the divinity is not constrained, it is not contained by bodily narrowness, it is not held, but the eternal power overflows beyond the bounds of our smallness.

For the people of the Gentiles is not set free by human aid, but the gathering of the nations is the gift of God, which even by a brief faith inclines the eternal mercy. Now if we consider how great is our faith and understand how great is the Son of God, we see that, in comparison with Him, we touch only the hem, but the upper part of His garment we cannot reach. If, therefore, we too wish to be healed, let us touch by faith the hem of Christ. He is not hidden from whoever has touched the hem—He who has touched the One turned away from him; 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 outermost part of the Word; for who can comprehend the whole?

But to return to her who is still sick, lest she be thought to have died through our delay rather than through her own—'There came,' it says, 'servants, saying to the ruler: Trouble Him not; thy daughter is dead.' And first let us consider this, that being about to raise the dead girl, He first healed the woman with the issue of blood, in order to produce faith. And, that you may know that the flow of blood stood still for the sake of an example, while the one is sought, the other is healed. So too a temporal resurrection is celebrated in the Lord's Passion, that the perpetual one also may be believed. So too the barren Mary is shown as about to bear, that the Virgin may be believed as about to conceive. Finally, she heard that Elizabeth was about to bear, nor did she doubt concerning her own childbearing. 'There came,' it says, 'servants, saying to the ruler: Trouble Him not.'

These too are still unbelieving toward the resurrection which Jesus foretold in the Law and fulfilled in the Gospel. And so, when He had come into the house, He took to Himself a few witnesses of the future resurrection; for the resurrection was not at once believed by many. Finally, when the Lord said, 'The girl is not dead, but sleeps,' 'they laughed Him to scorn,' it says. For whoever does not believe mocks. Let those, then, 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 of Matthew jar—that he says there were flute-players in the house of the ruler and a tumultuous crowd—either because by ancient custom flute-players were wont to be employed to kindle and stir up mourning, or because the synagogue could not, through the chant of the Law and the letter, receive spiritual exultation. Therefore, taking the hand of the girl, Jesus healed her and commanded that something be given her to eat. This is a testimony of life, that not a phantom but the truth might be believed. Blessed is he whose hand wisdom holds. Would that it might hold my acts also, that justice might hold my hand, that the word of God might hold it, lead me into its inner chambers, turn away the spirit of error, turn me to that of salvation, and command that something be given me to eat! For the heavenly bread is the word of God.

Hence too that Wisdom, which filled the most holy altars of the divine body and blood with nourishment, says: 'Come, eat my bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.' Yet what is the cause of so great a difference? Above, the son of the widow is publicly raised; here the several witnesses are removed. But I think that in this too the Lord's tender mercy is declared, because the widowed mother of an only son did not endure delay, and therefore, lest she be afflicted further, swiftness is added. There is also a figure of wisdom: in the widow's son, that the Church would quickly believe; in the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, that the Jews would indeed believe, but out of many the fewer.

'And whoever does not receive you, going out of that city, shake off even the dust from your feet for a testimony against them.' What manner of man he ought to be who proclaims the kingdom of God is set forth by the Gospel precepts: that without staff, without scrip, without shoe, without bread, without money—that is, not requiring the supports of worldly aid, and safe in faith—he should reckon that, the less he seeks such things, the more they can be supplied to him. These things those who wish can divert to that interpretation, so that this passage may seem to shape only a spiritual disposition, which seems to have stripped off, as it were, a certain garment of the body—not only by rejecting power and despising riches, but also by renouncing the very allurements of the flesh.

To these, first of all, is given a general command of peace and constancy: that they should bring peace, keep constancy, and observe the laws of hospitable fellowship—establishing that it is foreign to a preacher of the kingdom of heaven to run about through houses and to change the rights of inviolable hospitality. But just as the favor of hospitality is judged to be due, so too, if they are not received, the dust is to be shaken off and they are to depart from the city. By this no slight recompense of the good of hospitality is taught: that we should not only grant peace to our hosts, but also, if any sins of earthly levity cast their shadow over them, these may be taken away when the footprints of apostolic preaching have been received.