Latin original · 37 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 1459:39–1459:75 (87 verses in all)
But we are the authors of death to the perishing people, we who ought to have been guides to life. For from our sin the multitude of the people is laid low, because, through our negligence, it has not been instructed unto life. And what shall we call the souls of men except the food of the Lord, which are created for this, that they may be transferred into his body, that is, that they may tend toward the increase of the eternal Church? But we ought to have been the seasoning of this food. For as we said a little above, to the preachers who are sent it is said: You are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13). If therefore the people is the food of God, priests ought to have been the seasoning of the food.
But because, while we cease from the practice of prayer and holy learning, the salt has become insipid, it cannot season the foods of God, and therefore it is not taken by the Author, because, our foolishness demanding it, it does not season at all. Let us therefore weigh who was ever converted through our tongue, who, being reproved by our rebuke for his perverse work, did penance; who forsook lust through our teaching, who avarice, who declined from pride? Let us weigh what gain we have made for God, we who, having received the talent, were sent by him to business. For he says: Trade until I come (Luke 19:13). Behold, now he comes, behold, he requires the gain from our business. What gain of souls from our trading shall we show to him?
How many sheaves of souls, gathered from the harvest of our preaching, shall we bring into his sight? Let us set before our eyes that day of such strict reckoning, on which the Judge will come and settle accounts with his servants, to whom he entrusted talents. Behold, he shall be seen in terrible majesty, amid the choirs of angels and archangels. In that great examination the multitude of all the elect and the reprobate shall be led forth, and each one shall be shown what he has wrought. There Peter shall appear with Judea converted, which he drew after himself. There Paul, leading, so to speak, a converted world. There Andrew shall lead Achaia after him, there John Asia, Thomas India, all converted into the sight of their King.
There all the rams of the Lord's flock shall appear with their gains of souls, who by their holy preaching draw after them a flock made subject to God. When therefore so many shepherds shall have come with their flocks before the eyes of the eternal Shepherd, what shall we wretched ones say, who return to our Lord empty after our trafficking, who have had the name of shepherds but have not the sheep which we ought to show forth from our nurture? Here we are called shepherds, and there we lead no flock. But if we are negligent, does almighty God forsake his sheep? By no means; for he himself, as he promised through the prophet, feeds them by his own self (Ezekiel).
(Ezekiel 34), and all whom he has foreordained to life he instructs by the goads of scourges and the spirit of compunction. And through us indeed the faithful come to holy baptism, are blessed by our prayers, and through the imposition of our hands receive the Holy Spirit from God, and they themselves attain to the kingdom of heaven; and behold, we through our negligence tend downward. The elect, purified by the hands of priests, enter the heavenly homeland; while the priests themselves, through a reprobate life, hasten to the torments of hell. To what thing, then, shall I say wicked priests are like, if not to the water of baptism, which, washing away the sins of the baptized, sends them to the heavenly kingdom, and afterward itself descends into the sewers?
Let us fear these things, brethren, and let our very ministry be in harmony with our conduct. Let us daily reflect on the remission of our sins, lest our life remain bound in sin—the life through which almighty God daily looses others. Let us consider without ceasing what we are, let us weigh our office, let us weigh the burden we have taken up. Let us daily make with ourselves the reckonings which we have with our Judge. And we ought so to exercise care of ourselves that we do not neglect the care of our neighbor, so that whoever is joined to us may be seasoned by the salt of our tongue. When we see someone unattached and prone to lapse, he must be admonished to strive to bridle his iniquity by marriage, so that through what is lawful he may learn to overcome what is unlawful.
When we see a married man, he must be admonished so to occupy himself with the care of the world that he does not set aside the love of God; so to please the will of his spouse that he does not displease his Creator. When we see a cleric, he must be admonished so to live that he may offer an example of life to the laity, lest, if anything in him be justly reprehended, the very esteem of our religion be burdened by his fault. When we see a monk, he must be admonished always to have regard for the reverence of his habit in his action, in his speech, in his thought, so that he may perfectly forsake the things that are of the world, and what he displays to human eyes by his habit, this he may set forth before God's eyes by his conduct. And he who is already holy, let him be admonished to grow;
but he who is still wicked, let him be admonished to correct himself, so that whoever joins himself to a priest may depart seasoned by the salt of his discourse. These things, brethren, ponder carefully with yourselves; expend these things also upon your neighbors; prepare yourselves to render to almighty God the fruit of the office which you have received. But these things which we speak we shall obtain better among you by praying than by talking. O God, who hast willed to call us shepherds among thy people, grant, we beseech thee, that what we are called by human mouth we may have power to be in thine eyes. Through our Lord, etc. Delivered to the people in the basilica of Saint Peter the Apostle, on Passion Sunday. At that time, Jesus said to the crowds of the Jews, and to the chief priests: Who
of you shall convict me of sin? If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God. The Jews therefore answered and said to him: Do we not say well that you are a Samaritan, and have a devil? Jesus answered: I have not a devil, but I honor my Father; and you have dishonored me. But I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks and judges. Amen, amen I say to you, if any man keep my word, he shall not see death forever. The Jews therefore said: Now we know that you have a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and you say: If any man keep my word, he shall not taste death forever.
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? and the prophets are dead. Whom do you make yourself? Jesus answered: If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God; and you have not known him. But I know him. And if I should say that I know him not, I should be like you, a liar; but I know him, and I keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day; he saw it, and was glad. The Jews therefore said to him: You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am. They took up stones therefore to cast at him.
But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple. Consider, dearest brethren, the meekness of God. He had come to remit sins, and he said: Which of you shall convict me of sin? He does not disdain to show by reasoning that he is not a sinner, who by the power of his divinity was able to justify sinners. But very terrible is what follows: He who is of God hears the words of God; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God. For if he who is of God hears the words of God, and whoever is not of him cannot hear his words, let each one ask himself whether he perceives the words of God in the ear of his heart, and he shall understand whence he is.
Truth commands us to desire the heavenly homeland, to crush the desires of the flesh, to turn away from the glory of the world, not to covet what belongs to others, and to bestow freely what is our own. Let each of you therefore weigh within himself whether this voice of God has prevailed in the ear of his heart, and thereby he recognizes that he is now of God. For there are some who do not deign to receive the precepts of God even with the ear of the body. And there are some who do indeed receive them with the ear of the body, but embrace them with no desire of the mind. And there are some who gladly receive the words of God, so that they are even moved to compunction with tears, but after the time of tears they return to iniquity. These assuredly do not hear the words of God, who scorn to carry them out in deed.
Recall then your life, dearest brethren, before the eyes of your mind, and with deep consideration dread this which sounds from the mouth of Truth: Therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God. But this which Truth speaks concerning the reprobate, the reprobate themselves show concerning themselves by their works. For it follows: The Jews therefore answered and said to him: Do we not say well that you are a Samaritan, and have a devil? Now, when so great an insult had been received, let us hear what the Lord answers: I have not a devil, but I honor my Father, and you have dishonored me. For because Samaritan is interpreted as guardian, and he himself is truly the guardian of whom the Psalmist says:
Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain do they watch who guard it (Psalm 126); and to whom it is said through Isaiah: Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? (Isaiah 21:11)—the Lord did not wish to answer: I am not a Samaritan; but rather, I have not a devil. For two things had been brought against him: one he denied, the other by his silence he acknowledged. For he had come as the guardian of the human race; and if he had said that he was not a Samaritan, he would have denied that he was the guardian. But he kept silent about what he recognized, and patiently repelled what he had heard falsely spoken, saying: I have not a devil. In which words what else is confounded but our pride? which, if it be provoked even slightly, returns more atrocious injuries than it had received:
it does the evil it can, and threatens even what it cannot do. Behold, the Lord, receiving injury, is not angered, does not answer with insulting words. And if he had wished to answer those who said these things: You have a devil, he would assuredly have spoken the truth, for unless they had been filled with a devil, they could not have spoken things so perverse concerning God. But having received the injury, Truth did not wish to say even what was true, lest he should seem not to have spoken the truth, but, being provoked, to have returned insult for insult. From which thing what is intimated to us, but that at the time when we receive insults falsely from our neighbors, we should keep silent even about their true evils, lest we turn the ministry of just correction into the weapons of fury?
But because whoever exercises zeal for God is dishonored by wicked men, the Lord in his own self has offered us an example of patience, who says: But I honor my Father, and you have dishonored me. But as to what we should do in these matters, he still admonishes us by example, when he adds: But I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks and judges. We know assuredly what is written, that the Father has given all judgment to the Son, and yet behold, the same Son, receiving injuries, does not seek his own glory. He reserves the insults offered him to the Father's judgment, so as to impress upon us how patient we ought to be, when even he who judges does not yet wish to avenge himself.
But when the perversity of the wicked increases, not only ought preaching not to be broken off, but rather to be increased. This the Lord admonishes us by his own example, who, after he was said to have a devil, bestowed more abundantly the benefits of his preaching, saying: Amen, amen I say to you, if any man keep my word, he shall not see death forever. But just as it is necessary for the good to become even better through insults, so the reprobate always grow worse from a benefit. For, having received the preaching, they say again: Now we know that you have a devil. For because they had cleaved to eternal death, and did not see that same death to which they cleaved, while they regarded only the death of the flesh, they were darkened at the word of Truth, saying:
Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead, and you say: If any man keep my word, he shall not taste death forever? Whence they even prefer to Truth itself this same Abraham and the prophets, as though venerating them. But it is shown to us by open reasoning that those who do not know God venerate even the servants of God falsely. And it is to be noted that the Lord saw them resisting him in open assault, and yet he does not cease to preach to them again with repeated voice, saying: Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day; he saw it, and was glad (Genesis 18:1 and following).
For then Abraham saw the day of the Lord, when in a figure of the supreme Trinity he received three angels into his hospitality: to whom, having received them, he spoke thus, to three as though to one, because although in the persons there is the number of the Trinity, in nature there is the unity of the divinity. But the carnal minds of the hearers do not lift the eyes from the flesh, while they weigh in him only the age of the flesh, saying: You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Whom our Redeemer kindly removes from the contemplation of his flesh, and draws to the contemplation of the divinity, saying: Amen, amen I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am. For 'was' belongs to past time, 'I am' to the present.
And because the Divinity has neither past nor future time, but always has being, he does not say: Before Abraham I was, but Before Abraham I am. Whence also it is said to Moses: I am who am. And, You shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you (Exodus 3:14). Before, then, and after, Abraham had, who was able both to come by the showing of his presence, and to depart by the course of life. But Truth always has being, because for it nothing is begun at a prior time, nor terminated at a subsequent one. But the minds of the unbelievers, not able to bear these words of eternity, run to stones, and sought to overwhelm him whom they could not understand.
But what the Lord did against the fury of those who stoned him is shown when it is immediately added: But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple. It is very wonderful, dearest brethren, why the Lord declined his persecutors by hiding himself, who, if he had wished to exercise the power of his divinity, would have bound them in their very blows by the silent nod of his mind, or overwhelmed them in the punishment of sudden death. But because he had come to suffer, he did not wish to exercise judgment. Certainly at the very time of his passion he showed both what he could do, and yet endured that for which he had come. For when he said to his persecutors who sought him: I am (John 18:6), by this voice alone he struck down their pride, and laid them all upon the ground.
He, then, who was able even in this place to escape the hands of those who stoned him without hiding himself, why did he hide himself, unless because our Redeemer, made man among men, speaks some things to us by word, and others by example? But what does he speak to us by this example, unless that, even when we are able to resist, we should humbly decline the wrath of the proud? Whence also it is said through Paul: Give place to wrath (Romans 12:19). Let a man consider with how great humility he ought to flee the wrath of his neighbor, if God, by hiding himself, declined the furies of the angry. Let no one therefore raise himself against the insults he receives, let no one return reviling for reviling. For in imitation of God, it is more glorious to flee injury by keeping silent than to overcome it by answering. But against this pride says in the heart:
It is shameful that, having received an injury, you keep silent. Whoever sees that you receive an insult and keep silent thinks not that you show patience, but that you acknowledge your crimes. But whence does this voice arise in our heart against patience, unless because we have fixed our thoughts in the depths, and while we seek glory on the earth, we care not to please him who beholds us from heaven? Having received an insult, then, let us meditate in deed upon the voice of God: I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks and judges. But this which is written of the Lord, He hid himself, can be understood also in another way. For he had preached many things to the Jews, but they derided the words of his preaching. They also became worse from the preaching, who went so far as to cast stones.
And what does the Lord signify by hiding himself, unless that Truth itself is hidden from those who scorn to follow his words? For Truth flees the mind which it does not find humble. And how many there are today who detest the hardness of the Jews, because they were unwilling to hear the preaching of the Lord, and yet, just as they charge those to have been toward faith, such they themselves are toward action. They hear the precepts of the Lord, they recognize his miracles, but they refuse to be converted from their depravities. Behold, he calls, and we are unwilling to return. Behold, he bears with us, and we make light of his patience.
While there is time, then, brethren, let each one forsake his own depravity, let him dread the patience of God, lest the one whom he now despises as tranquil he may afterward, when angered, be by no means able to escape. Delivered to the people in the basilica of blessed Lawrence the martyr, on Septuagesima Sunday. At that time, Jesus spoke to his disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And having made an agreement with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them: Go you also into my vineyard, and what shall be just I will give you.
And they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing, and he says to them: Why do you stand here all the day idle? They say to him: Because no one has hired us. He says to them: Go you also into my vineyard. But when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard says to his steward: Call the laborers, and pay them their wages, beginning from the last even to the first. When therefore those who had come about the eleventh hour came, they received each a denarius. But when the first also came, they thought that they should receive more. And they also received each a denarius. And receiving it, they murmured against the householder, saying:
These last have worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the heat? But he, answering one of them, said: Friend, I do you no injury. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours, and go. But I will also give to this last even as to you. Or is it not lawful for me to do what I will? Is your eye evil because I am good? So shall the last be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen. In its explanation this reading of the holy Gospel demands much to be spoken, which I wish, if I can, to touch upon briefly, lest both the extended procession and the prolix exposition seem to burden you.
The kingdom of heaven is said to be like a householder who hires laborers to cultivate his vineyard. But who more rightly holds the likeness of the householder than our Creator, who governs those whom he created, and so possesses his elect in this world, as a lord possesses his subjects in his house? He who has a vineyard, namely the universal Church, which, from just Abel even to the last elect who shall be born at the end of the world, has brought forth as many saints as it were so many branches it has put forth. This householder, therefore, hires laborers to cultivate his vineyard at morning, at the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh, because from the beginning of this world even to its end he has not ceased to gather preachers to instruct the people of the faithful.
For morning was the world's age from Adam even to Noah; the third hour indeed from Noah to Abraham; the sixth also from Abraham even to Moses; the ninth moreover from Moses even to the coming of the Lord; but the eleventh from the coming of the Lord even to the end of the world. In this last the holy apostles were sent as preachers, who received the full wages though coming late. To instruct his people, then, as if to cultivate his vineyard, the Lord ceased at no time to send laborers, because both first through the patriarchs, and afterward through the doctors of the law and the prophets, and at the last indeed through the apostles, while he cultivated the character of his people, he labored as it were through laborers in the tilling of the vineyard.
Yet, in whatever measure or degree, whoever with right faith stood forth in good action was a laborer of this vineyard. By the laborer at morning, the third hour, the sixth, and the ninth, then, is designated that ancient Hebrew people, which in its elect from the very beginning of the world, while it strove with right faith to worship God, did not cease as it were to labor in the tilling of the vineyard. But at the eleventh hour the Gentiles are called, to whom it is also said: Why do you stand here all the day idle? For those who, so long a time of the world having passed, had neglected to labor for their life, stood as it were idle all the day. But consider, brethren, what they answer when questioned: For they say: Because no one has hired us. For no patriarch, no prophet had come to them.
And what is it to say: No one hired us for the labor, unless: No one preached to us the ways of life? What, then, shall we, ceasing from good work, say in our excuse, we who came to the faith almost from our mother's womb, we who heard the words of life from our very cradles, we who from the breasts of holy Church drank the draught of heavenly preaching together with the milk of the flesh? We can also distinguish these same diversities of the hours even for each individual man through the stages of the ages. For morning indeed is the childhood of our understanding. But the third hour can be understood as adolescence, because the sun, as it were, now advances on high, while the heat of the age increases.
The sixth indeed is youth, because the sun is fixed as it were in the center, while in it the fullness of strength is made firm. But the ninth is understood as old age, in which the sun as it were descends from the high axis, because that age falls away from the heat of youth. The eleventh hour indeed is that age which is called decrepit or aged. Whence the Greeks call those very advanced in years not 'senes' but by another word, to intimate that those whom they call more advanced are more than old men. Because, then, one man is led to the good way in childhood, another in adolescence, another in youth, another in old age, another in decrepit age, laborers are as it were called to the vineyard at different hours. Look, then, dearest brethren, upon your ways, and see whether you are already God's laborers.
Let each one weigh what he does, and consider whether he labors in the Lord's vineyard. For he who in this life seeks the things that are his own has not yet come to the Lord's vineyard. For those labor for the Lord who think not of their own gains, but of the Lord's, who serve with the zeal of charity, with the study of piety, who watch to win souls, and hasten to lead others with them to life. For he who lives for himself, who feeds on the pleasures of his own flesh, is rightly convicted as idle, because he does not pursue the fruit of the divine work. But he who has neglected to live for God even to the last age has as it were stood idle even to the eleventh hour. Whence it is rightly said to those sluggish even to the eleventh hour: Why do you stand here all the day idle? As if it were openly said:
Even if you were unwilling to live for God in childhood and youth, at least in your last age come to your senses, and come to the ways of life, even late, when you are now not going to labor much. And such the householder also calls, and often they are rewarded first, because they go forth from the body to the kingdom sooner than those who seemed already called from childhood. Did not the thief come at the eleventh hour, who, though he did not have it through age, yet had it late through punishment, who confessed God on the cross, and almost with the voice of his sentence breathed out the spirit of life? But the householder began to render the denarius from the last, who led the thief to the rest of paradise sooner than Peter.
How many fathers there were before the law, how many under the law, and yet those who were called at the coming of the Lord attained to the kingdom of heaven without any delay. The same denarius, then, is received by those who labored at the eleventh hour, which those who labored at the first awaited with all their desire, because those who came to the Lord at the end of the world have obtained a reward of eternal life equal to those who had been called from the beginning of the world. Whence also those who had gone before in labor say, murmuring: These last have worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the heat?
For those bore the burden of the day and the heat whom, from the beginning of the world—because it there befell to live long—it was necessary also to endure the longer temptations of the flesh. For to bear the burden of the day and the heat is, for each one, to be wearied by the heat of his own flesh through the times of a longer life. But it can be asked how those are said to have murmured who at least are called late to the kingdom. For no one murmuring receives the kingdom of heaven, no one who receives it can murmur.
But because the ancient fathers, until the coming of the Lord, however justly they lived, were not led to the kingdom, unless he descended who by the interposition of his own death would open the bars of paradise to men—this very thing was their murmuring: that they both lived rightly for the receiving of the kingdom, and yet were long deferred for the receiving of the kingdom. For those whom, after justice fulfilled, the places of hell received—though tranquil ones—for them assuredly it was both to have labored in the vineyard, and to have murmured. Those, then, receive the denarius after murmuring, who after long times of hell attained to the joys of the kingdom.