Works (CSEL) 15 part 16/31

Nor is it idly determined, according to Matthew, that the house which the apostles enter must be chosen, so that no occasion may arise for changing the host or violating the bond of fellowship. Yet the same caution is not enjoined upon the receiver of hospitality, lest, while the guest is being chosen, hospitality itself be diminished. But just as, according to the letter, this is a venerable form of precept concerning the religion of hospitality, so too, with regard to the mystery, the heavenly meaning smiles upon us. For indeed, when a house is chosen, a worthy guest is sought. Let us see whether perhaps the Church and Christ are designated as to be preferred. For what house is more worthy of the entrance of apostolic preaching than the holy Church?

Or who seems to be more preferable to all than Christ, who was accustomed to wash the feet of His guests, and whomever He has received into His house does not suffer to dwell with polluted footprints, but, though spotted with their former life, He yet deigns to cleanse their subsequent progress? This, therefore, is the only One whom no one ought to forsake, no one to exchange, to whom it is well said: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe.' You see the executor of the heavenly precepts, who, because he did not change his lodging, earned the fellowship of the heavenly consecration. Faith, therefore, is commanded to be sought first of all in the Church, in which, if Christ is to dwell, it is doubtless to be chosen.

But if a faithless people or a heretical teacher deforms the dwelling, then communion with heretics is to be shunned, and the synagogue is judged to be fled from. The dust of the feet is to be shaken off, lest, when men grow faint with the barren droughts of faithlessness, the footprint of your mind be defiled as upon dry and sandy ground. For just as the preacher of the Gospel ought to take upon himself the bodily infirmities of the faithful people, and, as if they were his own, to relieve and abolish their empty deeds—comparable to dust—with his footprints, according to what is written: 'Who is weak, and I am not weak?'—so, if there is any church which rejects the faith and does not possess the foundations of apostolic preaching, it is to be forsaken, lest it sprinkle upon you any stain of faithlessness.

This too the Apostle plainly asserted, saying: 'A heretical man, after one admonition, avoid.' 'And He said to them: Give them something to eat. But they said: We have no more than five loaves.' What is the reason that, although the Passion of John is described in the later passages, here he is already shown as dead by the words of Herod? Is it perhaps because, after the failing of the Law, the Gospel food begins to feed the fasting hearts of the peoples? Finally, after she who received the type of the Church was healed of the flow of blood, after the apostles were appointed to evangelize the kingdom of God, the nourishment of heavenly grace is bestowed. But mark to whom it is bestowed.

Not to the idle, not to those sitting in the city as in a synagogue or in worldly dignity, but to those seeking Christ amid the deserts; for those who do not disdain Him are themselves received by Christ, and with them the word of God speaks—not of worldly things, but of the kingdom of heaven. And if any bear the ulcers of bodily suffering, upon these He gladly bestows His healing. It was fitting, therefore, that those whom He had healed from the pain of their wounds He should free from fasting by spiritual nourishment. And so no one receives the food of Christ unless he has first been healed, and those who are called to the supper are first healed by being called.

If he was lame, he received the ability to walk so 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 were restored to him. Everywhere, therefore, the order of the mystery is preserved: that first, through the remission of sins, medicine may be granted to the wounds, and afterward the nourishment of the heavenly table may abound—although this multitude is not yet refreshed with the stronger foods, nor are the fasting hearts fed with the body and blood of Christ until they are of a more solid faith. 'I gave you milk to drink,' he says, 'not meat; for you were not yet able.' But not even now are you able. After the manner of milk are the five loaves; but the more solid food is the body of Christ, the stronger drink is the blood of the Lord. We do not at once feast upon all things from the very first, nor do we drink all things.

'Drink this first,' he says. There is, then, a first thing, and there is also a second thing for you to drink. There is a first thing for you to eat, there is also a second, there is a third. The first are the five loaves, the second are the seven, the third is the very Body of Christ. By no means, therefore, let us forsake such a Lord, who deigns to apportion nourishment to us according to the strength of each one, lest either food too strong should overwhelm the weak, or scanty nourishment should fail to satisfy the strong; for he who is weak, let him eat herbs. And he who already seems to be escaping the snares of weakness, let him eat of those five loaves and two fishes. Surely, if he is ashamed to ask for food, let him, leaving behind all that is his, hasten to the Word of God. As he begins to listen, he begins to hunger.

The apostles begin to see him hungering. Although they do not yet understand for what he hungers, Christ understands. He knows that it is not worldly food he hungers for, but that he is speaking of the food of Christ. 'I am unwilling to send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way': the good Lord demands zeal, and supplies strength. Would that, Lord Jesus, you might be willing, together with me, not to send these away fasting, but to refresh them with the banquets bestowed by you, so that, made stronger by your nourishment, they might not fear the weakness of fasting. Would that you might say even of us: I am unwilling to send them away fasting! And tell me the reason why you are unwilling to send them away fasting:

Indeed you have already said that if you send anyone away fasting, he faints on the way; that is, he faints either in the course of this present life, or before he reaches the head of the way, before he comes to the Father and understands that Christ is from the Father, understands that Christ is from heaven, and understands that the same Christ who descended is he who ascended — lest perhaps, when he has learned that he was born of a virgin, he should begin to reckon not the power of God, but that of a man. 'Therefore, lest they faint,' he says, 'give them yourselves to eat.' But they said: We have no more than five loaves and two fishes, unless we go and buy food for all this multitude. The apostles had not yet understood that the food of a believing people is not for sale.

Christ knew, he himself knew, that we rather were the ones to be redeemed, but that his banquets were free of charge. The disciples therefore 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 on the way. If anyone, then, has fainted, he faints not through the Lord Jesus, but through himself, and you have nothing to charge to the Lord, who conquers when he is judged. For what would you say to him who has bestowed upon you every support of strength? Did he not himself beget you, did he not himself feed you? His food is strength, his food is fortitude.

But if you, by your own negligence, have lost the strength you had received, it was not the heavenly nourishment that failed you, but the safeguards of your own mind. In short, just as the Lord rains upon the just and the unjust, so also he feeds the unjust and the just. Was it not by the strength of food that holy Elijah, when he was already fainting on the way, walked forty days, and an angel gave him that food? But if Jesus has fed you and you have preserved the food you received, you shall walk not forty days and forty nights, but — I dare to say it, relying on the examples of Scripture — forty years, going forth from the borders of the Egyptians, until you come into a broad land, a land flowing with honey and milk, which the Lord swore he would give to our fathers. The strength of this land you must seek. The meek possess it.

I do not speak of that land which is dry, but of that which is established by the nourishment of Christ, which, set under the dominion of the eternal King, is thronged with the dwellings of the saints. The Lord Jesus therefore distributes the food. And he indeed wills to give to all, denies it to no one; for he is the dispenser of all. But when he breaks the loaves and gives them to the disciples, if you do not stretch out your hands to receive the food for yourself, you will faint on the way, nor will you be able to lay your fault upon him who has mercy and distributes — but he distributes to those who remain with him even in the wilderness, who on the first and second and third day do not withdraw. For so you have elsewhere: I have compassion on this multitude, because it is now three days that they continue with me.

How great a condescension, how great a kindness is breathed upon men in him! He does not wish to send them away fasting, he does not wish it, lest they faint on the way. Do not, then, faint away from the discipline of God, nor grow weary when you are rebuked by him. Do not grow weary now, lest afterward you grow weary. For what will you answer him, or how will you excuse yourself, if you have lost the strength of food which he supplies? You cannot say that he did not give the food, for he gives to all. You cannot say that he was unwilling to make you good, he before whom he set good and evil, so that your good might not be of necessity, but voluntary. For there is a great difference between him who does something unwillingly out of necessity, and him who chooses what is good of his own will; for if I do this unwillingly, a stewardship has been entrusted to me;

if willingly, I have a reward. Let us consider, then, that we shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and, if our work shall be burned, we shall have nothing with which we can excuse ourselves. For he will say what he already spoke through the prophet: My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I troubled you? Answer me. He will say to him who has fainted on the way: For what reason did you faint on the way? Did I not make the loaves, did I not bless them, did I not command that they be given? But why were you unwilling to receive? How many even of those present will faint on the way! And after these discourses — which, though they are ours, yet, because no one says 'the Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit, are to be reckoned as loaves — how many, I say, will faint and will go off committing fornication along the byways of the nations by crooked paths!

And would that it were one and not very many! But Jesus is not the author of the failing, even if someone has fainted; for he distributes to all who follow, whether they be five thousand or four thousand. The number is not idle, the order is not idle, the leftovers of those who eat are not idle. For why are the more, that is, the five thousand, satisfied with five loaves, that is, with a smaller number, while the fewer, who are four thousand, are fed with seven loaves, that is, with a more abundant number? For if we follow only the miracle of the deed, it seems more divine that from a smaller amount he made a surplus for the more. Why then was the lesser added to that which is greater, as though it were the more excellent?

For we read that first five thousand were satisfied with five loaves, and afterward four thousand also with seven loaves. Let us seek, then, the mystery which the miracle sets forth. And so those five thousand seem, as it were, to have received from Christ nourishment still close to bodily things, like the five senses of the body; but the four thousand, although they are still in the body and in this world — which consists of four elements — yet are not without purpose said to have received mystically the food of rest; for now they are made equal to the world, being about to be above the world. For although they are in this world, they are nevertheless not within the world, those to whom the nourishment of mystical rest is imparted; for in six days the world was made, and on the seventh day there was rest. And the Lord sanctified it.

Beyond the world, then, is rest; beyond the world also is the fruit of rest. In short, blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the sons of God. For since God is above the world, no one assuredly can see God unless he first transcends the world with a spiritual gaze. The seventh, therefore, is the blessing of the peaceable; and seven baskets of fragments also remained over for those four thousand. This is no ordinary bread, the bread of the sabbaths, the sanctified bread, the bread of rest. And perhaps, if you have first eaten the five loaves in a sensible manner, I will dare to say: after the five loaves and the seven, on the third occasion you shall not eat bread on the earth, but above the earth you shall eat the eight loaves, like those who are in the heavens;

for just as the seven loaves are the loaves of rest, so the eight loaves are the loaves of resurrection. Therefore those who are fed with the seven loaves persevered for three days, and have perhaps attained the full faith and constancy of the future resurrection. In short, it is the voice of the saints: We will walk three days, that we may feast to the Lord our God. But that in its own place. Concerning the five loaves, however, holy John taught me what I did not know, what holy Matthew had not taught, what holy Luke had not taught — for to each was imparted a different grace — he taught me, I say, that these five loaves were of barley. And therefore we have not improperly said that this food was suited to bodily ones. For why barley first?

Because he who comes to the faith must be nourished first with milk, then with food: for we were not yet able, and perhaps very many of us are not yet able even now. For since there are among us strifes and dissensions, are we not carnal, and do we not walk according to man? Nourishments are each suited to their own strengths, and therefore barley is given to us first, then wheat for our sustenance; but to the stronger, as to Elijah, the bread of fine flour from the inner part of the wheat is supplied. But whom do sinners fail to defile, and yet feed? And it is not only the bread and the numbers, but also the reclining that differs; for those recline upon the hay, these recline upon the ground — upon the hay the five thousand, upon the ground the four thousand.

It is more to press the ground than to lie upon hay; for those who still have bodily senses delight in softer things, and therefore recline upon the hay — for all flesh is hay — but these recline upon the ground, which brings forth wheat and wine and the olive, the food of grace, which they obtain. The former lie down at table; these recline: for there is a certain greater rest in him who reclines. There were two fishes; here there are fishes without number, whence very many have thought that the grace of the sevenfold Spirit is defined in the loaves, and that in the fishes too the figure of the twofold Testament is to be understood. It is not, therefore, displeasing to reckon that the four thousand, gathered from the four parts of the world, in whom the Church is figured, take the food of a greater grace, according to what is written:

that they shall come from the east and the west and from 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 only a blessing there, but here also a giving of thanks. For on behalf of his Church the Lord was accustomed to give thanks to the Father, because the things he had hidden from the wise he revealed to the little ones. The blessing, therefore, is over us, who are the lower; the giving of thanks is over those who, from the weaknesses of their bodies, have triumphed through their hallowed sufferings.

We have already touched upon this above in the previous remarks: that although they are bidden to recline by fifties, a number consecrated and defined, yet here the people of the more firmly founded Church seems to be signified, who reclines without any defining of number. It is also mystical that both the eating people is satisfied and the apostles minister; for in the satiety repeated there is designated a sign of being forever free from hunger, because he who has received the food of Christ shall not hunger; and in the ministry of the apostles the future distribution of the Lord's body and blood is foreshadowed. And that too is divine, how the five loaves abounded for five thousand peoples; for it is clear that the people was satisfied not by a scanty, but by a multiplied food.

You might have seen, by a certain incomprehensible irrigation, the particles bearing fruit among the hands of those distributing — particles they had not broken — and the fragments, untouched by the fingers of those who broke them, slipping forth of their own accord. He who reads these things — how he would marvel at the perpetual currents of waters, and be amazed that from liquid springs continuous successions flow on, when even the bread overflows and the irrigation of a more solid nature abounds! These things, therefore, were done so that we might perceive even those things which we do not perceive. By these he plainly designated him to be the Author of those things also which we do not behold, and the material Creator of all nature — a nature which, not, as the philosophers will have it, discovered, but made, supplies flowing successions for the begetting of all things.

This indeed is a wonder, that whatever you draw from the rivers is not marked by any loss, and whatever you take from the springs is restored by a certain compensatory flow. But while nothing seems to diminish from the rivers, nothing nevertheless seems to be added to them; and as for the springs, just as their swelling waters are seen, so, while the waters are diminished, they are also brought forth. But this bread which Jesus breaks is mystically indeed the Word of God and the discourse concerning Christ, which, while it is divided, is increased; for out of few discourses he supplied an overflowing nourishment for all peoples. He gave us discourses like loaves, which, while they are tasted in our mouth, are multiplied. Visibly also this bread, by an incredible principle, while it is broken, while it is divided, while it is eaten, is heaped up without any perceptible loss.

And do not doubt that the food grows either in the hands of those ministering or in the mouth of those eating, since everywhere the testimony of our experience is taken up for the establishment of belief. So at the wedding the wine was colored from the springs while the servants worked, and they themselves who had filled the water-jars with water drew out wine which they had not brought in. Comprehend, if you can, such great miracles of things. Here, while the peoples eat, the fragments grow by their own diminishings, and from five loaves there are gathered up greater leftovers than the total was; there the elements are turned into another kind, and nature neither suffers its own failings nor recognizes its own origins, yet recognizes its own proper uses.

Indeed the nature of the changed wine is even better than of the born wine, because it is in the will of the Creator both to assign whatever uses he wills to natures, and to impart whatever natures he wills to the things to be begotten. See by how many works he builds up the work. While the servant pours in water, the transfused fragrance intoxicates, the changed color gives form, and the taste, when drawn, heaps up faith as well. Let the Gentiles compare, if they please, with the benefits of Christ the deeds — not deeds, but fictions — of their own gods. Their fables certainly relate that there was a certain king who, whatever he touched, it became gold. But even the very banquets were deadly; for the very napkins, when grasped by his fingers, grew stiff, and the food crackled in his mouth, bringing not nourishment but wounds, and the drink stuck in his throat, neither easy to pass through nor to return.

Benefits worthy of such prayers, gifts worthy of so great a petitioner, a generosity worthy of the bestower! Such are the benefits of idols, that when they seem to profit, they do the more harm. But the gifts of Christ seem small and are the greatest. In short, they were conferred not upon one, but upon peoples; for the food of those eating grew in their mouth, and it seemed to be of bodily nourishment, but it was taken up unto eternal salvation. But why does it overflow more for the five thousand men, less for the four thousand? Because those four thousand were with Christ for three days, and therefore received more of the heavenly pasture. Nor is it without purpose that what the multitudes leave over is gathered up by the disciples, because the things which are divine you can more easily find among the elect than among the crowds. Would that it might be my lot to hear:

Gather up what is left over! If I shall have heard and done it, I shall have many things which the crowds, I shall have many things which the boys and women could not eat. Blessed is he who can gather up what is left over even to the learned. Let us see how he gathers. The law said: You shall not commit adultery. Christ broke this bread, divided this word, adding nothing from elsewhere, but apportioning from his own. Whoever, he says, has looked upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her. You have a fragment from his own. He added: If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. You have another: And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; and: He who marries a woman put away from her husband commits adultery. You see from one how many fragments.

Moses says that Abraham had two sons, one of the bondwoman and one of the free woman. Paul said: These are the two testaments. He divided this word and found the mystery. Blessed therefore is he who gathers up what Christ divides. But for what reason did Christ fill twelve baskets, except that he might loose that bondage of the Jewish people, because their hands had served in the basket — that is, the people who before gathered clay in baskets, this people now through the cross of Christ works the nourishment of the heavenly life, and heaps up the food of faith in that place where before was the mire of Gentile unbelief. Nor is this gift of a few, but of all. For through the twelve baskets, as of the several tribes, the support of faith overflows; for bread strengthens the heart of man. And he said to them:

Whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered: The Christ of God. Even the opinion of the crowds was not idle, for some believed that Elijah, whom they thought was to come, others that John, whom they knew to have been beheaded, or one of the former prophets had risen again. But to inquire into this is above us: it belongs to another judgment, to another prudence. For if it is enough for the apostle Paul to know nothing except Christ Jesus, and him crucified, what more is to be desired by me 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 know, Peter nevertheless answered before the rest: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

He therefore embraced all things, who expressed both the nature and the name, in which is the sum of the virtues. Shall we even raise questions about the generation of God, when Paul judged that he knew nothing except Christ Jesus, and him crucified, and Peter thought that nothing else but the Son of God was to be confessed? We, by contemplating human weakness, probe both when and how he was born and how great he is. Paul knew that in these matters there would be more of a stumbling-block of question than of the profit of edification, and therefore he judged that he knew nothing except Christ Jesus. Peter knew that in the Son of God are all things: for the Father gave all things to the Son. If he gave all things, he transfused the eternity and the majesty which he has. But whither do I slip too far?

The end of my faith is Christ, the end of my faith is the Son of God. It is not permitted me to know the order of his generation, yet it is not permitted me to be ignorant of the faith of his 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 you, but my Father who is in heaven. For flesh and blood can reveal only the things that are earthly; but he who speaks the mysteries by the Spirit is grounded not by the teaching of flesh and blood, but by divine inspiration. Do not, then, give heed to flesh and blood, lest you imbibe the precepts of flesh and blood and yourself become flesh and blood. For he who clings to the flesh is flesh, and he who clings to God is one spirit.

My spirit, he says, shall not remain in these men forever, because they are carnal. But would that those who hear were not flesh and blood, but, removed from the lusts of flesh and blood, might each be able to say: I will not fear what the flesh may do to me! For he who has conquered the flesh is the foundation of the Church, and, if he cannot equal Peter, he can imitate him; for great are the gifts of God, who not only restored to us what had been ours, but even granted what are properly his own. It matters, nevertheless, what is meant by this — that the crowds supposed him to be no other than either Elijah or Jeremiah or John the Baptist. And Elijah, perhaps, because he was caught up to heaven. But Christ is not Elijah. The one is caught up, the other returns;

the one is caught up to one place, the other did not count it robbery to be equal with God; the one is avenged by the fire he asked for, the other chose rather to heal his persecutors than to destroy them. But why did they think him to be Jeremiah? Perhaps because he was sanctified in the womb. But this one is not Jeremiah. The one is sanctified, this one sanctifies; the sanctification of the one began from the body, this one is holy from the Holy One. Why also does the people think him to be John, unless perhaps because, placed in his mother's womb, he perceived the presence of the Lord? But this one is not John. The one adored in the womb, this one was adored; the one baptized in water, Christ in the Spirit; the one urged repentance, this one bestowed pardon of sins. And therefore Peter did not wait for the opinion of the people, but brought forth his own, saying:

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He who is, always is, and did not begin in order to be, and does not cease to be. But great is the grace of Christ, who granted to his disciples almost all his own titles. I am, he says, the light of the world; and yet the name in which he himself glories he granted to his disciples, saying: You are the light of the world. I am the living bread; and: We all are one bread. I am the true vine; and he says to you: I have planted you as a fruitful vine, every true one. Christ is the rock — for they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ — and he did not even deny to his disciple the grace of this name, that he too should be Peter, so that he might have from the rock the solidity of constancy, the firmness of faith. Strive, therefore, that you too may be a rock.

And so seek the rock not outside you, but within you. Your rock is your deed, your rock is your mind. Upon this rock your house is built, so that it can be beaten down by no storms of spiritual wickedness. Your rock is faith, and faith is the foundation of the Church. If you are a rock, you will be in the Church, because the Church is upon the rock. If you are in the Church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. The gates of hell are the gates of death, and 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 several sin? If you have committed fornication, you have entered the gates of death. If you have wounded the faith, you have penetrated the gates of hell. If you have committed a mortal sin, you have entered the gates of death.