On approaching and drinking of the living fountain, Christ Jesus. I. With the misery of human life gathered from the reasonings of daily experience, and being at the same time terrified by the divine oracles, we have already, though rashly, long shown the smallness of our slender wit in the foregoing; and although perhaps this our talkativeness may seem to others superfluous, yet by us this discourse is reckoned to have arisen opportunely for ourselves: for we are striving to rouse not so much another's sloth as our own; and besides, although this wisdom devised in part may satisfy the less perfect among the wise, yet to beginners, and to those lukewarm of our own measure, it will seem necessary and fitting enough. For what it harms to be hidden, what it harms to be passed over in silence, it is not expedient to cover, nor expedient to keep silent;
for thence it seemed better to us to speak, however unpolished, than to keep silent: for indeed we have judged it safer to discourse of these things than either of other frivolous matters or of idle ones. And so still, most dear brethren, lend your ears to our words, as though about to hear something necessary, and refresh the thirst of your spirit with the waters of the divine fountain of which we now desire to speak, but do not quench it; drink, but be not sated, for now the living Fountain, the Fountain of life, calls us to himself, and says: Let him that thirsts come to me, and drink (John 7:37). Understand what you are to drink. Let Isaias (read: Jeremias) tell you, let the Fountain himself tell you: But they have forsaken me, the Fountain of living water, says the Lord (Jer. 2:13).
The Lord himself, therefore, our God Jesus Christ, is the Fountain of life, and so he invites us to himself, the Fountain, that we may drink him. He drinks him who loves; he drinks who is satisfied with the word of God, who loves enough, who desires enough; he drinks who burns with the love of wisdom. Eagerly therefore let us Gentiles drink what the Jews forsook. For of us, with the Gentiles, perhaps it was said: He has cut off in the stupor of the mind, the heads of the mighty shall be moved, nor do they open their jaws, like a poor man eating in secret; and as if of us also, with all the perfect of whom this was written, it might be said.
Let us open (by eating, as it were, that bread which came down from heaven) the jaws of our inner man, that we may eat greedily and, in a manner, swiftly, lest anyone see us, eating as it were in secret. That we may eat the bread, then, that we may drink the fountain, even our same Lord Jesus Christ, who calls himself the living bread, as it were to be taken by us, which gives life to this world (John 6:33); and likewise showing himself the fountain he says: Let him that thirsts come to me, and drink (John 7:37). Of which fountain the Prophet also says: For with you is the fountain of life (Ps. 35:10 [Vulg.]). II. See whence this fountain flows: from there indeed whence the bread also came down;
for the same is both Bread and Fountain, the only-begotten Son, our God Christ the Lord, for whom we ought ever to hunger; though we eat him by loving, though we devour him by desiring, let us still desire him as though hungering. In like manner, as a fountain, let us ever drink him with an excess of love; let us ever drink him with fulness of desire, and be delighted with a certain sweetness of his pleasantness: for sweet and pleasant is the Lord; though we eat and drink him, yet let us ever hunger and thirst, because our food and drink can never wholly be consumed and drunk up; for though he is taken, he is not consumed, though he is drunk, he is not diminished, for our bread is eternal, and our fountain is perennial, our fountain is sweet; whence the Prophet says:
You that thirst, go to the Fountain (Isa. 55:1); for this is a Fountain of the thirsty, not of the sated; and therefore he calls to himself the hungry, whom elsewhere he blessed; for whom it can never suffice to drink, but the more they have drawn, the more they will thirst. Rightly, brethren, is the Fountain of wisdom, the Word of God on high (Sir. 1:5), to be desired by us, sought, ever loved, in whom, according to the Apostle's saying, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3), which he who thirsts is called to draw. If you thirst, drink the Fountain of life; if you hunger, eat the Bread of life. Blessed are they who hunger for this Bread and thirst for this Fountain; for ever eating and drinking, they still desire to eat and drink.
For exceedingly sweet is that which is ever eaten and drunk, and ever hungered and thirsted for, ever tasted and ever desired; whence the royal prophet says: Taste and see how sweet, how pleasant is the Lord (Ps. 33:9 [Vulg.]). Therefore, brethren, let us follow this calling, whereby we are called to the Fountain of life by Life, who is the Fountain not only of living water, but also the Fountain of eternal life, the Fountain of light, the same also the Fountain of illumination: for from him are all these things, wisdom, life, eternal light. The author of life is the Fountain of life; the creator of light is the Fountain of illumination;
and therefore, despising those things which are seen, having crossed into the higher places of the heavens, let us, like rational and most sagacious fishes, seek the Fountain of light, the Fountain of life, the Fountain of living water, that we may drink the living water springing up into eternal life (John 4:14). III. Would that you might deign to receive me thither, to that Fountain, O merciful God, loving Lord, that there I too, with those who thirst for you, might drink the living wave of the living Fountain of living water, by whose exceeding sweetness delighted I might ever cleave to him on high and say: How sweet is the Fountain of living water, whose water springing up into eternal life does not fail (ibid.)! O Lord, you yourself are that Fountain ever and ever to be desired, [perhaps add:
to be drunk] ever though ever to be drawn from. Give us ever, Lord Christ, this water (ibid. 15), that it may be in us also a Fountain of water living and springing up into eternal life. I ask great things indeed, who knows it not? But you, King of glory, know how to give great things and have promised great things: nothing is greater than you, and you have given us yourself, you have given yourself for us. Whence we ask you, that we may know what we love, since we ask nothing to be given us besides you: for you are our all, our life, our light, our salvation, our food, our drink, our God. Breathe upon our hearts, I beg, our Jesus, with that breath of your Spirit, and wound our souls with your charity, that the soul of each one of us may be able truly to say:
Show me him whom my soul has loved (Cant. 1:6 [Vulg.]), for I am wounded with charity. I long, Lord, that those wounds be in me. Blessed is such a soul, which is thus wounded with charity: such a one seeks the Fountain, such a one drinks, yet ever thirsts in drinking, ever draws in desiring, drinking him whom it ever thirsts for; thus it ever seeks in loving, which is healed by being wounded; with which saving wound may God and our Lord Jesus Christ, that loving and saving physician, deign to wound the inward parts of our souls, who with the Father and with the Holy Spirit is one unto the ages of ages. Amen.