Works (CSEL) 15 part 30/31

Yet the person of Pilate, joined to them, shows that the Gentiles are more tolerable than the Jews, and that they can rather be moved to faith by divine works. But what manner of men were those who crucified the Lord of majesty! And not undeservedly do they ask absolution for a murderer, who clamored for the death of the innocent. Such laws does iniquity hold, that it hates innocence and loves crime. Yet in this the interpretation of the name gives an appearance to the figure; for Barabbas is said in Latin to mean 'son of the father.' Those, therefore, to whom it is said: 'You are of your father the devil,' are shown to be about to prefer to the true Son of God the Antichrist, the son of their own father. And he sent him back clothed in a white garment.

It was not idle that he is clothed by Herod with a white garment, bestowing the tokens of the spotless passion, in that the Lamb of God without blemish was to take upon himself with glory the sins of the world. In the type also of Herod and Pilate, who from enemies were made friends through Jesus Christ, the figure of the people of Israel and of the Gentile people is preserved, in that through the Lord's passion there would be a future concord of both—yet in such a way that first the people of the nations would receive the word of God and pass it on to the people of the Jews by the devotion of their own faith, so that they too might clothe with the glory of his majesty the body of Christ, whom before they had despised.

He is clothed by the soldiers with a scarlet cloak and a purple tunic, designating in the one the palms of the martyrs, in the other the insignia of royal power, in that his flesh was to receive the blood shed throughout the whole world for us, and his passion was to bring forth a kingdom out of us. The crown also of thorns fastened to his head—what else does it show but the gift of the divine work, in that out of the sinners of the world, as out of the thorns of the age, a triumphal glory was to be sought for God? Nor are the scourges meaningless, because he himself was scourged, that we might not be scourged;

for man, smitten and knowing how to bear infirmities, suffers pain for us, turning away the scourges from us who before fled from God; so patient a Lord, that he offered his own hands to the bonds of fugitives, his own body to the scourges of fugitives. With detestable affection of mind, yet the Jews betray the death that was honored; for both in piercing him they crown him, in mocking him they adore him. Although they do not believe with the heart, they confess him whom they slay. They lacked the affection of a good work, yet his own honor was not lacking to God, who is greeted as king, crowned as victor, adored as God and Lord.

A reed also, according to Matthew, is grasped in his hand, that human frailty might no longer be moved by the wind like a reed, but, strengthened by the works of Christ, might be made firm; and with the bond fixed to the cross, which was against us, the old sentence might cease; or, according to Mark, it strikes his head, so that our condition, made solid by the touch of the divinity, might not be able to totter. But now let the victor raise up his own trophy. The cross is laid upon his shoulders as a trophy, which—whether Simon or he himself bore it—both Christ bore in the man and the man bore in Christ.

Nor do the statements of the evangelists disagree, since the mystery agrees, and it is the good order of our advancement that he himself should first raise up the trophy of his cross, and then hand it over to the martyrs to be raised. It is not a Jew who carries the cross, but a foreigner and a stranger, and he does not go before but follows. According to what is written: 'Take up your cross and follow me.' For Christ ascended not his own cross, but ours. Nor was that death of the divinity, but as it were of the man. Whence he himself also says: 'God, my God, look upon me! Why have you forsaken me?'

Beautifully, about to ascend the cross, he laid aside his royal garments, that you may know that he suffered as man, not as God the king; although Christ is both, yet it was as man, not as God, that he was fixed to the cross. But the soldiers, not the Jews, know at what time and what kind of garments befit Christ. As victor he stands by the judgment; to the passion he comes as a humble accused. Now, since we have already seen the trophy, let the triumpher ascend his chariot, and let him hang up, not on the trunks of trees or on four-horse wagons the spoils sought from a mortal enemy, but on the triumphal gibbet the captive spoils won from the world.

Here we do not behold nations with their arms bound behind their backs, nor the images of demolished cities and the likenesses of captured towns, nor do we marvel at the bowed necks of captive kings, such as is wont to be the sight of human triumphs, nor the bounds of victory marked off by the limit of a region; but the rejoicing peoples of the nations, sought not for punishment but for reward, kings adoring with free affections, cities given over by voluntary zeal and reformed for the better, images of towns which no paint has expressed but the devotion of faith has colored, arms and the rights of victories running through the whole world, the captive prince of the world and the spiritual forces of wickedness which are in the heavenly places obedient to the command of a human voice, dominations made subject and the forms of various virtues, shining not with silks but with morals.

Chastity shines, faith gleams, and devotion, clothed in the spoils of death, now rises again in fortitude. The one triumph of God made nearly all men now to triumph—the cross of the Lord. It is fitting, therefore, to consider what manner of one ascends it. I see him naked: such, then, let him ascend who prepares to conquer the world, that he may not seek the world's helps. Adam, who sought garments, was conquered; he conquered who laid aside his coverings. And such he ascends as nature, with God for author, formed us. Such had the first man dwelt in paradise; such did the second man enter paradise. And that he might conquer not for himself alone, but for all, he stretched out his hands, that he might draw all things to himself, so that, having stripped off the knot of death and hung suspended by the yoke of faith, he might unite to heavenly things those that before were earthly.

A title also is written. A procession is wont to precede victors: but in truth the good procession of the rising dead went before the Lord's triumphal chariot. A title also is wont to designate the number of subjugated nations. Let there be in those triumphs, arranged in a certain order, the pitiable, insulting captivity of vanquished, perishing nations; here flourishes the grace of the redeemed nations. The yoked ones are worthy of so great a triumph, that heaven, earth, seas, and the lower regions are changed from corruption to grace. But the title is written and set above the cross, not below the cross, because the rule is upon his shoulders. And what is the rule but his eternal power and divinity? Whence he himself, when questioned, 'Who are you?' answered:

'The beginning, which also I am speaking to you.' Let us read this title: 'Jesus,' it says, 'of Nazareth, King of the Jews.' Rightly is the title above the cross, because the kingdom which Christ has is not of a human body but of divine power. Rightly is the title above the cross, because although the Lord Jesus was on the cross, yet above the cross he shone with the majesty of a king. A worm on the cross, a beetle on the cross. And a good worm, who clung to the wood; a good beetle, who cried out from the wood. What did he cry? 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' He cried to the thief: 'Today you shall be with me in paradise'; he cried as a beetle: 'God, my God, look upon me! Why have you forsaken me?'

And a good beetle, who turned over with the traces of virtues the clay of our body, before formless and sluggish; a good beetle, who raises up the poor from the dung. He raised up Paul, who was esteemed as dung; he raised up also Job, who sat in the dung. Therefore not a mean title. And the very place of the cross was either in the middle, that it might be conspicuous to all, or above the burial of Adam, as the Hebrews argue. For it was fitting that the first-fruits of our life should be placed there where had been the beginnings of death. The garments are divided, one thing is borne to one man, another to another by lot; for the Spirit of God is not comprehended by human opinion, but glides in as it were by some unexpected occurrence.

And perhaps these four soldiers have the type of the four evangelists, who wrote the title which we all read. I read the title of the King of the Jews, when I read: 'My kingdom is not of this world'; I read the cause of Christ written above his head, when I read: 'And the Word was God'; for the head of Christ is God. These, then, were keeping the laws, and they keep them today, lest perchance he should slip from anyone, lest he should come down from the passion for anyone, which the people of the Jews demanded. For me plainly let Christ die in the passion, that after the passion he may rise again. He was unwilling to come down for himself, that he might die for me. Therefore for us Christ is now kept; for our sake his garments are divided.

Individuals cannot have all things, and therefore lots are cast over the tunic, because the division of the Holy Spirit is not made according to man's will; for there are divisions of graces, but the Spirit works, dividing to each one as he wills. Behold now the divided garments of Christ. Where shall I seek those things? Seek in Matthew, you will find with him alone the scarlet cloak; with John the purple garment; with Mark only the purple; with Luke the white garment; for with this alone was he content as his own portion. With how many, then, did Christ clothe his garment! But I think that not only four, but all the soldiers he clothed, and to all he gave abundantly. But let us return to the evangelists.

These four portions, therefore, seem to me to be not portions of garments, but qualities of virtues. For one wrote more sublimely of the kingdom, another more fully of the institution of man. Luke chose for himself the splendor of the priestly garment; Mark did not desire a texture of words; finally John wove, as it were, certain sentences with which he might clothe our faith. Does not that seem to you to be woven: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him'? But Mark, as though content with the gleam of purple, without any interweaving of words, says: 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.'

Therefore the garments of Christ are divided, whether his deeds or his grace, because the tunic could not be divided, namely faith, since it is not according to the portion of individuals, but common to all by right; for that which is not divided remains whole to each. And well is it woven from above; for thus is the faith of Christ covered, so that it descends from divine things to human, in that, born of God before the ages, in later time he took on the assumption of flesh. It is signified to us, therefore, by this, that faith ought not to be torn, but to remain solid. 'Amen, amen, I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.' A most beautiful example of conversion to be striven for, in that pardon is so quickly relaxed to the thief and the grace is more abundant than the prayer;

for the Lord always grants more than is asked. For that man asked that the Lord would be mindful of him when he had come into his kingdom; but the Lord says: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise'; for life is to be with Christ, since where Christ is, there is the kingdom. Quickly therefore the Lord forgives, because quickly that man is converted. Whence also this is seen to be resolved, that others bring in two reviling thieves; this evangelist brings in one reviling, one praying. Perhaps this one too first reviled, but was suddenly converted. Nor is it a wonder if he forgave the guilt of one converted, who relaxed pardon to those insulting him. He could also speak in the plural of one, as is that saying: 'The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against';

for only King Herod and the ruler Pilate are betrayed in the Acts of the Apostles by Peter's voice as having conspired against Christ. So also you have in the Epistle to the Hebrews: 'They walked about in goatskins, they were sawn asunder, and they stopped the jaws of lions,' although only Elijah is taught to have had the sheepskin, Isaiah to have been sawn asunder, Daniel to have remained untouched by the lions. How execrable in deed is the iniquity of the Jews, that they should crucify as a robber the Redeemer of all! Yet good in mystery is the robber, who lay in wait for the devil, to carry off his vessels. Mystically, however, the two robbers signify the two sinful peoples to be crucified with Christ through baptism, whose disagreement signifies likewise the diversity of those believing.

Finally, one was on the left, the other on the right. The rebuke also reveals the future scandal of the cross even among believers. And the Jews offered vinegar. Well, for the consummation of all things, the corruption of sincerity also is drained, that all things which had been vitiated might be fixed to the cross. Vinegar therefore is drunk; wine with gall is not drunk, not because of the gall, but because the bitterness mixed with the wine is refused. For he assuredly took upon himself the bitternesses of our life on account of the condition of the body. Finally he himself says: 'They gave gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.'

But bitterness ought not to be mixed with sincerity, in order that it might be shown that the immortality of those who rise again will be without bitterness; and since this immortality had soured in the human vessel, it is restored in Christ. Therefore vinegar is drunk, that is, the defect of the immortality corrupted through Adam is abolished on the reed, that it might be absorbed out of the human body. Let us too transfuse into Christ our vices, congealed through the negligence of mind and body; let us transfuse them through baptism, that we may be crucified in Christ; let us transfuse them through penance, that from him the uncorrupted sincerity of the heavenly wine and blood may be poured back upon us.

Finally, when he had drunk the vinegar, 'It is finished,' he said, 'all things,' in that the whole mystery of the assumed mortality had been fulfilled and, all the vices being drained away, the joy of immortality alone remained. And therefore he says: 'Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.' And well is the spirit commended which is preserved; for what is commended is assuredly not lost. The spirit, then, is a good pledge, a good deposit. Whence also that man says: 'O Timothy, keep the good deposit.' For the spirit is commended to the Father, and therefore he says: 'Because you will not leave my soul in hell.' But behold a great mystery. Now he commends his spirit into the hands of the Father, now he sits in the Father's bosom, because no other being contains the whole Christ.

Finally he says: 'I am in the Father, and the Father in me.' The spirit, therefore, is commended to the Father. But although he is in the higher places, he illumines also the lower regions, that all things might be redeemed; for indeed Christ is all things and in Christ are all things, although in individuals Christ works. The flesh dies, that it may rise again; the spirit is commended to the Father, that the heavenly things too might be loosed from the bond of iniquity and peace be made in heaven, which earthly things might follow. And having said this, he gave up the spirit. And well did he give it up, who did not lose it unwillingly. Finally Matthew says: 'He sent forth the spirit'; for what is sent forth is voluntary, what is lost is necessary. Therefore he added: 'with a great voice.'

In which is either a glorious confession that he had descended even unto death for our sins—therefore let me too not blush to confess what Christ did not blush to confess with a great voice—or an evident manifestation attesting the succession of God, of divinity and of body. For so you have it: 'Jesus cried out with a great voice, saying: God, my God, look upon me! Why have you forsaken me?' The man cried out, about to die through the separation of the divinity. For since the divinity is free from death, death assuredly could not be unless life departed, because life is the divinity. Now the things that follow show that, on account of the impiety of men, the end of the age was to come. And so by the Lord's passion it is signified that present things would set, that future things might arise.

Darkness therefore was spread over the eyes of the faithless, that the light of faith might rise again. The sun set for the sacrilegious, or rather fled away, that it might shroud the spectacle of the deadly crime. The rocks were split, that through the broken cliffs of stones it might be shown that to come, since the force of the Word would penetrate hard breasts, so that more easily those hunters whom Jeremiah foretold might hunt for the Lord out of the holes of the rocks. And what else does the unsealing of the tombs signify, but, with the bars of death broken, the resurrection of the dead, in whose sight was faith, in whose going forth was a type, in that by coming forth into the holy city they declared, by the appearance of present things, the future eternal dwelling-place of the rising in that Jerusalem which is in heaven?

The veil also is rent, by which is declared either the division of the two peoples or the profanation of the mysteries of the synagogue. The old veil therefore is rent, that the new Church may suspend the veils of her own faith. The covering of the synagogue is taken away, that we may discern the inner mysteries of religion with the gaze of the mind revealed. Finally now even the centurion confesses the Son of God whom he had crucified. O hearts of the Jews harder than salt! The rocks are split, but their hearts are hardened. The judge accuses, the minister believes, the betrayer condemns his own crime by death, the elements flee, the earth is shaken, the tombs are unsealed, yet the immovable hardness of the Jews remains while the world is shaken. But the women stood beholding these things, and the mother stood, while with the zeal of piety she set her own dangers aside.

But the Lord too, suspended on the cross, who despised his own dangers, commended his mother with a devout affection. This John not idly pursued at greater length; for the others described the world shaken, heaven covered with darkness, the sun fled away. Matthew and Mark, who more fully pursued human and moral matters, added: 'God, my God, look upon me! Why have you forsaken me?' that we might believe that he had come to the assumption of the human condition at the cross of Christ. But Luke evidently asserted that it was fitting that pardon was granted to the thief by priestly intercession, and that for the persecuting Jews indulgence was sought by the same office.

John, therefore, who more fully penetrated the divine mysteries, labored not undeservedly to declare that she who had given birth to God remained a virgin. He alone, then, teaches me what the others did not teach, how, placed on the cross, he addressed his mother, esteeming it of more worth that, as victor over tortures and pains, victor over the devil, he divided the offices of piety, than that he bestowed the heavenly kingdom. For if it is a religious thing that pardon is granted to the thief by the Lord, much more religious is it that the mother is honored by the son. Nor let it be judged out of order that I have written of the absolution of the thief before the addressing of the mother; for he who had come to save sinners, it is not absurd if first in my writings the office undertaken in redeeming the salvation of a sinner

of the sinner be fulfilled first. Finally he himself says: 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' because he had come not to call the righteous, but sinners. But there, in keeping with the place; here, even on the cross, not unmindful of his mother, he addresses her, saying: 'Behold your son,' and to John: 'Behold your mother.' Christ bore witness from the cross, and John signed his testament, a witness worthy of so great a testator. A good testament, not of money but of life, which is written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. 'My tongue is the pen of a swiftly writing scribe.' But neither was Mary less than became the mother of Christ: when the apostles were fleeing, she stood before the cross, and with devout eyes beheld the wounds of her son, because she awaited not the death of her offspring, but the salvation of the world.

Or perhaps, because she had known through her son's death the redemption of the world, a royal court, she thought that she too by her own death would add something to the public service. But Jesus did not need a helper for the redemption of all, who said: 'I have become as a man without help, free among the dead.' He indeed took up the affection of a mother, but did not seek the help of a man. We have, therefore, a teacher of piety. The lesson teaches what maternal affection ought to imitate, what the reverence of children should follow, that mothers may offer themselves in the dangers of their children, that to them the loneliness of motherhood may be a greater grief than the sorrow of their own death. In which place a most abundant testimony is brought to the virginity of Mary. For neither is the wife taken away from the husband, since it is written:

'What God has joined together, let not man put asunder'; but she who on account of the mystery had screened the marriage as a pretext, now, the mysteries being fulfilled, no longer needed marriage. Or if we follow moral things, in grief chastity is enjoined. Yet it is mystical that she is commended to John, the younger among the rest, which we ought not to receive with idle ears. For the union of a young man and the appearance of youth is dangerous to women. Lest perchance some woman, curious of the example, not curious of the mystery, who, desiring to luxuriate in Christ, may put forward Mary as a pretext in appearance and not imitate her in affection, just as the multitude of women now is ill spoken of, leaving the older husband to follow the younger. Let her learn, therefore, that here is a mystery of the Church, which, joined before in appearance to the older people,

not in use, after she had brought forth the Word and had sown it in the bodies and minds of men through faith of the cross and the burial of the Lord's body, by the commandment of God chose the fellowship of the younger people. I ask also why we do not find him to have been pierced before death, but find it after death, unless perhaps that it might be taught that his departure was voluntary rather than necessary, and that we might know the mystical order, because not the sacraments of the altar before baptism, but baptism first, so the cup. Then that we may notice that, although the nature of his body was mortal, although the quality was similar, yet the grace was dissimilar.

For assuredly after death the blood in our bodies congeals, but from that incorrupt though deceased body the life of all flowed forth; for water and blood came out, the one to cleanse, the other to redeem. Let us therefore drink our price, that by drinking we may be redeemed. What also does it mean that not the apostles, but Joseph and Nicodemus bury Christ? The one just and steadfast, the other in whom there was no guile; for such is the burial of Christ, which has no fraud or iniquity. The place for evasion, therefore, is closed off, and the Jews are refuted by domestic testimony; for if the apostles had buried him, they would assuredly say that he was not buried whom they said was carried off. But the just man covers the body of Christ with a linen cloth.

The innocent man anoints with ointment; for we find that these things are not idly distinguished, since righteousness clothes the Church, and innocence supplies grace. Do you also, therefore, clothe the Lord's body with His own glory, that you yourself may be righteous, and that, although you believe Him dead, you may still cover the work of the Godhead with His own fullness. Anoint that body with myrrh and aloes, that you may be a sweet fragrance of Christ. That just man Joseph sent fine linen; and perhaps it was that linen which Peter saw let down to him from heaven, in which there were kinds of four-footed beasts and wild animals and birds, figured after the likeness of the nations. With that mystical and genuine ointment, then, the Church is buried together with Him—the Church which has joined the diversity of the peoples into the communion of her own faith.

Concerning this Joseph I find in John alone that he came secretly to Pilate for fear of the Jews. How did a just man, out of fear, seek a hiding place from danger? But I rather think that he made his request secretly in order to obtain the body, not in order to avoid danger. And yet, what wonder if the just man was concealed, when even the apostles, the teachers of the just, were in hiding? Come, then, you also. Whether late, or by night, or at whatever hour you come, you will find Jesus ready to receive you, and paying no smaller reward to those who come later; for he who came at the sixth hour was not defrauded of his wage, and he who came at the eleventh received the fullness of his reward. But Nicodemus too came by night. It was night, because there was not yet the resurrection.

At length Christ rose again, and the just man says: The night is far spent, the day is at hand. This Joseph Luke called just, Matthew called rich. And he is rightly called rich in this place, where he received the body of Christ; for in receiving the rich One he knew no poverty of faith. He, then, who is just is rich. He therefore wrapped Him in a linen cloth; but the Israelite both mingles diverse fragrances of the virtues and brings aloes about a hundred pounds—that is, the measure of perfect faith. And they bound the body of Jesus according to the custom of the spiritual Jews, not indeed with the knots of perfidy, but with the bindings of faith, and laid Him in a garden, to which the Church is frequently compared, since she possesses the fruits of diverse merits and the flowers of the virtues.

Not idly did one call it a new tomb, another the tomb of Joseph. Christ therefore did not have a tomb of His own. For a tomb is prepared for those who are subject to the law of death; the conqueror of death has no tomb of His own. For what fellowship has the tomb with God? At length Ecclesiastes says of him who meditates on good things: And there is no burial for him. Special, therefore, beyond the common death of all, is the death of Christ; and so He is not buried with others, but alone is enclosed in the tomb. For the Lord's incarnation had all things after the likeness of men, yet the likeness is with a difference of nature—from a Virgin, in likeness of begetting, in unlikeness of conception. He cured the sick, but He commanded them. John baptized with water, He with the Spirit.

Thus the death of Christ is common according to the nature of the body, but special according to His power. But who is this Joseph in whose tomb He is laid? Surely that just man. Rightly, then, is Christ entrusted to the monument of a just man, that the Son of Man may have where to lay His head and may rest in the dwelling place of righteousness. And rightly is it new according to the letter, lest another, raised up, should be said by the unbelieving to be the one risen; but mystically what can we understand, unless perhaps because we read: Their throat is an open sepulchre? The throat of man, then, is an open sepulchre, in which deadly perfidy and dead words are stored, which by age and by some inroad of beasts gapes open and is dissolved.

There is, on the contrary, a monument in the secret places of men, which the just man, by the penetrating Word, hews out for himself in breasts of Gentile hardness, polished by the works of faith and doctrine, that the power of Christ may stand forth among the nations. To this monument a stone is most beautifully set, lest it should lie open; for whoever has well buried Christ within himself, let him guard Him diligently, lest he lose Him or there be an entrance for perfidy. For you see that Peter and John deserved to enter first. Indeed, John himself did not enter before he believed. And rightly is it said to be hewn in the rock—that is, in the firm foundation of faith, from which the true Israelites have sucked the sweetness of honey and spiritual oil. For Christ was buried by the just man and by him who saw God;