Works (CSEL) 15 part 23/31

who was dead and revived, so that, summoned by a threefold remedy, we may heal our wounds; for a triple cord shall not be broken. Who are these — the father, the shepherd, the woman? Are they not God the Father, Christ, the Church? Christ carries you on his own body, who took your sins upon himself; the Church seeks, the Father receives. As a shepherd he carries back, as a mother he searches, as a father he clothes. The first is mercy, the second intercession, the third reconciliation. Each fits each: the Redeemer comes to aid, the Church intercedes, the Author is reconciled. The mercy of the divine work is the same, but the grace is diverse according to our merits.

The sheep, weary, is called back by the shepherd; the drachma which had perished is found; to the father the son returns by his own footsteps, and comes back with a full penitence for his condemned error. Whence it is well written: You shall save men and beasts, O Lord. What are these beasts? The prophet said: the seed of Israel into the seed of men, and of Judah into the seed of animals. And so, as a man Israel is preserved, as a sheep Judah is gathered. I prefer, then, to be a son rather than a sheep; for the sheep is found by the shepherd, but the son is honored by the father. 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 found rest. That sheep is one in kind, not in species;

for we all are one body but many members, and therefore it is written: But you are the body of Christ, and members from his members. And so the Son of Man came to save that which had perished — namely all, since just as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. The shepherd, then, is rich, of whom we all are the hundredth portion. He has angels, he has archangels, dominions, powers, thrones, and countless other flocks, which he left behind on the mountains. And since these are rational, not without reason do they rejoice at the redemption of men.

Although this too may avail as an incentive to uprightness, if each one believes that his own conversion will be pleasing to the assemblies of angels, whose patronage he ought either to seek or whose displeasure he ought to fear. And you too, therefore, be a cause of gladness to the angels; let them rejoice over your return. Nor is it idle that the woman rejoices over the drachma found. This is no ordinary drachma, in which is the figure of the Prince. And therefore the image of the King is the wealth of the Church. We are sheep; let us pray that he may deign to set us beside the water of refreshment. We are sheep, I say; let us seek pastures. We are drachmas; let us possess our value. We are sons; let us hasten to the Father. Nor let us fear because we have squandered on earthly pleasures the spiritual patrimony of dignity which we received.

As to that treasure which the father bestowed in the son whom he had, the wealth of faith is never emptied out: though he has given all, he has all who does not lose what he has bestowed. Nor be afraid that he will not receive you; for God does not delight in the destruction of the living. Already, running to meet you as you come, he will fall upon your neck — for the Lord raises up those who are cast down — he will give a kiss, which is the pledge of piety and love, he will bid the robe, the ring, the shoes to be brought forth. You still fear injury; he restores your dignity. You dread punishment; he offers 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.

You see that the divine patrimony is given to those who ask, and do not think it the father's fault that he gave to the younger. No age is feeble in the kingdom of God, nor is faith weighed down by years. He at least judged himself fit, who asked. And would that he had not withdrawn from the father, he would not have known the hindrance of his age. But after he set out abroad — rightly, then, did he squander his patrimony, who withdrew from the Church — after, it says, forsaking home and fatherland, he set out abroad into a far country. For what is more far off than to withdraw from oneself, and to be separated not by regions but by morals, to be sundered by pursuits and not by lands, and, as it were with the surge of worldly luxury flowing between, to keep divorcements of deeds?

For indeed he who separates himself from Christ is an exile from his fatherland, a citizen of the world. But we are not strangers and foreigners, but are citizens of the saints and of the household of God; for we who were far off have been made near in the blood of Christ. Let us not envy those returning from a far country, since we too were in a far country, as Isaiah teaches. Thus you have it: They who sat in the region of the shadow of death, a light has risen upon them. The far country, then, is the shadow of death; but we, to whom the spirit before our face is Christ the Lord, live in the shadow of Christ. And therefore the Church says: In his shadow I desired and sat down. That man, then, by living luxuriously, consumed all the ornaments of nature.

Whence you, who have received the image of God, who have his likeness, do not consume it with irrational foulness. You are the work of God; do not say to wood: You are my father, lest you receive the likeness of wood, since it is written: Let those who make them become like them. There came a famine throughout that region: a famine not of banquets, but of good works and virtues. What fasts are more miserable? For indeed he who withdraws from the word of God goes hungry, since man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. He who withdraws from the fountain thirsts; he who withdraws from the treasure is in want; he who withdraws from wisdom is dulled; he who withdraws from virtue is dissolved.

Rightly, then, did this man begin to be in want, who forsook the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God and the height of heavenly riches. Therefore he began to be in want and to suffer hunger, because nothing is enough for prodigal pleasure. He who knows not how to be filled with perpetual nourishment forever suffers hunger of himself. And so he went and clung to one of the citizens; for he who clings is in a snare. And this citizen seems to be the prince of this world. Finally he is sent to his farm, which he who excuses himself from the kingdom had bought; and he feeds swine — those, surely, into which the devil seeks to enter, whom he hurls into the sea of this world, living in filth and stench. And he desired, it says, to fill his belly with husks.

For the luxurious have no other care than to fill their belly, whose god is the belly. And what food is fitter for men of this sort than that which, like the husk, is empty within and soft without, whereby the body is not restored but distended, so that it is more a burden than a use? There are those who take the swine for flocks of demons, and the husks for the meager virtue of empty men and the boasting of words — men who can profit nothing, displaying, by a certain empty seduction of philosophy and a certain applause of sounding eloquence, pomp rather than any usefulness. But these cannot be lasting delights, and therefore no one gave to him; for he was in the region of him who has no one, since he does not have those who truly are.

For all the nations are reckoned as nothing, but God alone is, who quickens the dead and calls those things which are not as though they were. But, having returned to himself, he said: With how many loaves do the hired servants of my father abound! Well does he return to himself, who had withdrawn from himself. For indeed he who returns to the Lord restores himself to himself, and he who withdraws from Christ disowns himself to himself. And who are the hired servants but those who serve for wages, who are of Israel, not pursuing what is good out of zeal for uprightness, nor incited by the grace of virtue, but by zeal for advantage? But indeed the son, who has the pledge of the Holy Spirit in his heart, does not seek the petty gain of worldly wages. He keeps the right of an heir. There are also hired servants who are hired to the vineyard.

Good hired servants are Peter, John, James, to whom it is said: Come, I will make you fishers of men. These abound not in husks but in loaves. Finally they gathered twelve baskets of fragments. O Lord Jesus, if you take away from us the husks and grant us loaves — for you are the steward in the house of the father — O if you would deign to hire us too as hired servants, though we come late! For you hire even at the eleventh hour, and 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.

This I thought ought not to be passed over, because I know that some say they reserve for themselves the grace of baptism or of penance for death. First, how do you know whether on the very next night your soul will be required of you? Then, why do you think that, while idle, all things can be conferred upon you? Grant that there is one grace, one wage; yet diverse is the prize of victory, toward which Paul stretched himself not in vain, who, after the wage of grace, nevertheless pursued the prize that he might lay hold of it, since he knew that although the wage of grace was equal, yet the palm belonged to few. And since we have come into the Lord's vineyard, let us not withdraw empty; for it is delightful to gather the fruit, to see his hired servants.

For what does it mean that on one day at diverse hours the laborers are hired, except that a thousand years in the eyes of the Lord are as yesterday which is past, and as an hour in the night? What is the night except that which went before, that the day might draw near? And well is it an hour in the night, since a thousand years are as one day. He knew the force of this day who said: Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, the same, and forever. He too knew the day to be manifold who wrote: This is the day of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made; in the day that God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field.

For when above he had described seven days, afterward in one day he embraced all things that were made, showing the whole time of the world in the sight of the Lord as though one day, in that, out of things unformed and dark, the form of this world proceeded by the brightness of the divine work. Therefore, if a day is the whole time of the world, it surely has even in the ages its own hours, or the ages themselves are hours. But the hours of the day are twelve. Whence well, in a mystery, Christ is the day, whose apostles are twelve, who shone in themselves with the heavenly light by alternating turns of grace. The householder came, then, and at the first hour hired laborers — 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 to comprehend the times of Noah and the rest after the flood, who are appointed into the vineyard as good laborers. Therefore Noah was, as it were, made drunk at the midday meal. The sixth and the remaining hours the merits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the patriarchs distinguish. At the ninth hour, the age now declining and the light as it were growing pale, the Law and the Prophets marked the discolored morals of men. The eleventh hour and what remains of the day the sacred Advent brings forth. Whence he himself says in the Gospel: Walk while you have the light. But now let us return to the father.

Although I do not fear that, by the example of this man bearing his penitence, we may seem to have been away for a long time — for we who dwelt in the vineyard were never away, in which, if this man too had remained, he would not have withdrawn from the father — yet care must be taken 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 entreaty the father is to be approached. Father, he says. How merciful, how loving, who, even when offended, does not disdain to hear the name of father! Father, he says, I have sinned against heaven and before you. This is the first confession before the Author of nature, the Director of mercy, the Arbiter of guilt. But although God knows all things, yet he awaits the voice of your confession.

For with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, since whoever burdens himself lightens the weight of his error, and whoever forestalls the accuser by confessing excludes the odium of accusation; for the just man is, at the beginning of his speech, his own accuser. But in vain would you wish to hide him whom you can in no way deceive, 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, let the people weep. Nor fear that you may not obtain. The advocate promises pardon, the patron promises grace, the asserter pledges to you the reconciliation of the Father's piety. Believe, since it is truth; acquiesce, since it is power.

He has a cause to intercede on your behalf, lest he should have died for you in vain. The Father also has a cause for pardoning, because what the Son wills the Father wills. 'I have sinned against heaven and before you.' It is not, to be sure, the physical element that is meant; rather, by the soul's sin the heavenly gifts of the Spirit are signified as diminished, or else because one ought not to have strayed away from the bosom of that mother Jerusalem which is in heaven. 'I am no longer worthy to be called your son'; for one who is cast down ought not to exalt himself, that he may deservedly be lifted up by reason of his own humility. 'Make me as one of your hired servants.' He knows that there is a difference among sons, friends, hired servants, and slaves: a son through the laver of baptism, a friend through virtue, a hired servant through labor, a slave through fear.

But even out of slaves and hired servants there come to be friends, according to what is written: 'You are my friends, if you do what I command you; I no longer call you slaves.' These things he ponders within himself, but it is not enough to say them unless you come to the Father. Where shall you seek him, where shall you find him? First rise up — that is, you who were sleeping while seated before. And therefore the Apostle says: 'Rise, you who sleep, and rise up from the dead.' 'Iniquity in a leaden talent.' But to Moses also it is said: 'But you, stand here.' Christ chose those who stand. Rise up, 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 pondering within the secret places of your mind. And while you are yet far off, he sees you and runs to you.

He sees into your heart, he runs lest anyone hinder you, and he even embraces you. In running to meet you there is foreknowledge; in the embrace, mercy and as it were a certain affection of fatherly love. He falls upon your neck, to raise up one who lies prostrate and to turn back to heaven one weighed down with sins and bent toward earthly things, that in heaven he may seek his Maker. Christ falls upon your neck, to strip your neck of the yoke of slavery and to hang his own sweet yoke upon your neck. Does it not seem to you that he fell upon the neck of John, when John was reclining with bent neck upon the bosom of Jesus? And therefore he saw the Word with God, because he was lifted up to 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 commands the robe, the ring, and the sandals to be brought forth. The robe is the garment of wisdom, with which the apostles cover the nakedness of the body, in that each one wraps himself in it. And therefore they receive the robe, that they may clothe the weakness of the body with the virtue of spiritual wisdom. For of wisdom it is said: 'He shall wash his robe in wine.' Therefore the robe is a spiritual garment and a wedding raiment. What else is the ring but the seal of sincere faith and the impress of truth? And the sandal is the preaching of the Gospel.

And therefore he received the first wisdom — for there is also another, which knows not the mystery — he received the seal of his words and deeds and a certain safeguard of good intention and of his course, lest somewhere he dash his foot against a stone and, tripped up by the devil, abandon the office of the Lord's preaching. This is the preparation of the Gospel, directing those who are prepared to the heavenly course, that we may walk not in the flesh but in the spirit. The fatted calf is also slain, that, restored through the grace of the sacrament and the fellowship of the mysteries, he may feast on the Lord's flesh, rich in spiritual virtue.

For no one ought to partake of the heavenly sacraments unless he has feared God — which is the beginning of wisdom — unless he has either kept or received the spiritual seal, unless he has confessed the Lord. But whoever has the ring has both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, because God has sealed us — whose image is Christ — and has given the Spirit as a pledge in our hearts, that we may know that the seal of this ring which is given into the hand is the seal whereby the inner things of the heart and the workings of our deeds are sealed. Therefore we have been sealed, as we also read: 'Having believed,' he says, 'you were sealed with the Holy Spirit.'

Well, too, does the Son introduce the Father as feasting upon the flesh of the calf — because it is a priestly victim, which was offered for sins — that he might show that our salvation is the Father's food, and that the Father's joy is the redemption of our sins. And here indeed, if you refer it to the Father — because the Son is the sacrifice for sins — the Father delights in the return of the sinner: above, the Son delights in the sheep that was found, so that you may know that there is one delight of Father and Son, one working in the foundation of the Church. The Father rejoices, moreover, because the son had perished and is found, had been dead and is alive again. He perishes who once was; for he who never was cannot perish. And so the Gentiles are not, but the Christian is.

He exists, according to what is said above, that 'God chose the things that are not, in order to destroy the things that are.' Yet here too the figure may be taken as referring to one individual representing the human race. There was Adam, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished. Man, therefore, is restored in that man who had perished, and that man, made after the likeness and image of God, is repaired by the divine patience and magnanimity. What then is meant by 'God chose the things that are not, in order to destroy the things that are'? That is: he chose the people of the Gentiles, which was not, in order to destroy the people of the Jews. It may also seem to be said of one doing penance, because none dies save one who at some time lived. And therefore the Gentiles do not die, but were dead;

for indeed whoever has not believed in Christ is forever dead. And the Gentiles, when they have believed, are made alive through grace; but whoever has fallen comes to life again through penance. There follows the passage. We ought to favor the remission of sins after penance, lest, while we begrudge another's pardon, we ourselves fail to merit it from the Lord. For who are you, that you should contradict the Lord, so that he should not release the fault of whomever he wills, when you forgive whomever you wish? He wishes to be asked, he wishes to be entreated. If the righteousness is of all men, where is the grace of God? Who are you, that you should envy God? And therefore the brother is here marked out, even to the point that he is said to come from the field — that is, occupied with earthly works, ignorant of the things which are of the Spirit of God — so that, in the end, he never even complains that a kid was slain for himself;

for the lamb was sacrificed not for envy, but for the pardon of the world. The envious man seeks a kid; the innocent man desires that a lamb be sacrificed for himself. He is also called 'elder,' because someone quickly grows old through envy. He also stands outside, because the malevolence of an envious spirit shuts him out. He cannot hear the chorus and the symphony — that is, not those theatrical incitements to wantonness nor the harmonies of courtly sounds, but the concord of a people singing together, which from a sinner saved resounds the sweet sweetness of joy. Set before me anyone of those who seem righteous to themselves, who do not see the beam in their own eye and cannot bear the speck of another's fault.

How indignant he is, when pardon is granted to one who confesses his sin and long bewails it in hope of indulgence! How his ears cannot bear the spiritual symphony of the people! For this is the symphony, when in the Church there sings together, like an undivided concord of varied strings, a psalm of differing ages and virtues: it is responded to, the 'Amen' is said. This is the symphony which Paul also knew. And therefore he says: 'I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind.' These things we have thought ought to be treated from the present parable. Nor do we object if anyone wishes to refer these two brothers to two peoples, so that the younger people from among the Gentiles is, as it were, an Israel, against whom the elder brother begrudged the benefit of the Father's blessing.

This is what the Jews did, when they complained that Christ feasted with the Gentiles, and therefore they sought a kid, a sacrifice of evil odor. The Jew seeks a kid, the Christian a lamb; and therefore for them Barabbas is released, for us the Lamb is sacrificed. Hence among them there is the stench of crimes, among us the remission of sins, sweet in hope, pleasant in fruit. He who seeks a kid awaits Antichrist; for Christ is a victim of good odor. He also seems to complain in the matter of the kid, because the Jews have lost the rite of the ancient sacrifice, or because no one's blood profited them as the blood of Christ 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 an arrogant prayer, who supposed that he had never transgressed God's commandment because he kept the law in its letter — impious, who accused his brother of having squandered the paternal substance with harlots, when he ought to have observed that it was said to himself: 'Harlots and tax collectors go before you into the kingdom of heaven.' He stands outside and is not shut out, yet does not enter, ignorant of the will of God concerning the calling of the Gentiles, having now become a slave from a son; for a slave does not know what his master is doing. When he came to know it, he envies and is tormented at the goods of the Church, and stands outside.

For outside Israel hears the chorus and the symphony and is angry, because here there sings together the grace of the people and the harmonious jubilation of the multitude. But the good Father desired to save even this one, saying: 'You have always been with me' — whether as a Jew in the law or as a righteous man in communion; and also, if you cease to envy: 'all that is mine is yours' — whether you are a Jew possessing the sacraments of the Old Testament, or one baptized possessing also those of the New. 'No servant can serve two masters' — not because there are two, but because there is one Lord. For although there are those who serve mammon, yet mammon knows no rights of dominion, but they impose upon themselves the yoke of slavery; for it is not just power but an unjust servitude. And therefore he says:

'Make for yourselves friends out of the mammon of iniquity,' so that by giving liberally to the poor we may obtain for ourselves the favor of the angels and of the other saints. Nor is the steward blamed, in whom we learn that we ourselves are not masters but rather stewards of another's resources. And therefore, although he sinned, yet because he sought for himself help for the future out of his master's indulgence, he is commended. Beautifully, moreover, did he call it the mammon of iniquity, because avarice tempts our affections with the varied allurements of riches, so that we may be willing to serve wealth. Hence he says: 'If you have not been faithful in what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?' Riches are another's to us, because they are beside nature and 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 what is yours, because you did not believe it to be yours, you did not receive what is yours. The Jews, then, seem to be convicted both of fraud and of avarice; and therefore, since they were not faithful in possessions which they knew to be another's — for the enjoyment of the fruits of the earth was given by the Lord God to all for common use — they ought certainly to have shared with the poor, and they did not deserve to receive Christ, whom Zacchaeus, in order to gain, offered the half of his goods. Therefore let us not serve another's things, because we ought to know no master but Christ; for there is one God the Father, from whom are all things and we in him, and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things. What then?

Is the Father not Lord, or the Son not God? But the Father too is Lord, because 'by the word of the Lord the heavens were established'; and the Son is God, who is 'over all, God blessed forever.' How then can no one serve two masters? Because there is one Lord, since there is one God. Finally: 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.' Whence it is clear that the dominion of the Father and the Son is one. And it is one, if it is not divided, but is wholly in the Father, wholly in the Son. And so, because we affirm a Trinity of one Godhead and dominion, we confess one God and one Lord. But those who speak of one power of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Spirit, by the fault of heathen error introduce into the Church many gods and many lords. BOOK EIGHT.

The Law and the Prophets were until John — not because the Law failed, but because the preaching of the Gospel begins; for lesser things seem to be brought to fulfillment when greater things succeed them. And therefore let us do violence to the kingdom of heaven; for everyone who does violence hastens with vehement zeal, and does not grow slack with a sluggish disposition. There is, then, a religious violence of faith, and a criminal sloth. The Law conceded much according to nature, that, being more indulgent to natural desires, it might call us to the pursuit of righteousness; Christ cuts into nature, because he prunes away even natural pleasures. And therefore let us do violence to nature, that it may not sink us to earthly things, but raise itself to the things above. 'Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one dismissed by her husband commits adultery.'

I think we should first speak of the law of marriage, that afterward we may dispute concerning the prohibition of divorce. For some suppose that every marriage is from God, especially because it is written: 'What God has joined together, let no man separate.' Therefore, if every marriage is from God, no marriage is lawful to be dissolved. And how did the Apostle say: 'But if the unbeliever depart, let him depart'? In this he wonderfully both refused that the cause of divorce should reside among Christians, and showed that not every marriage is from God; for Christian women are not joined to heathens by the judgment of God, since the law forbids it. But there occurs that which Solomon says: 'House and substance fathers apportion to their sons; but by God a wife is prepared for a man.' He who reads this in the Greek does not think it to be contradictory.