Moralia in Job 1461 part 3/11

For He tells that they were called not to a dinner but to a supper, because assuredly the banquet at the end of the day is a supper. Those, therefore, who at the end of this present life's time come to the refreshment of the supernal contemplation, are called not to the Lamb's dinner but to His supper. This supper is indeed expressed by this last banquet, at which seven disciples are recorded to be present, because, as we have said, the inward refreshment then restores those who now, full of the sevenfold grace, pant in the love of the Spirit. This, then, brethren, do among yourselves; desire to be filled with the presence of this Spirit. Weigh well what may follow you in the future from the present. Consider whether you are full of this Spirit, and you will know whether you are able to attain to that banquet.

For whoever he is whom this Spirit does not now restore, he assuredly fasts from that refreshment of the eternal banquet. Remember what Paul says concerning this same Spirit: 'If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His' (Rom. 8:9). This Spirit of love is, as it were, a certain title-deed of divine possession. Does he then have the Spirit of Christ whose mind hatreds tear apart, pride puffs up, anger exasperates even to the sundering of the mind, avarice torments, luxury enervates? Weigh well what the Spirit of Christ is. Assuredly it is He who causes both friends and enemies to be loved, earthly things to be despised, a burning for heavenly things, the flesh to be worn down for the sake of vices, the mind to be reined in from covetous desires.

If, therefore, you wish to know the right of God's possession, weigh well the person of your Possessor. For behold, what we have said Paul cries out with a truthful voice: 'If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His' (Rom. 8:9). As if he plainly said: He who is not now ruled by God dwelling within will not afterward rejoice in the vision of the divine brightness. Yet since we are still weak toward these things that have been said, and do not yet attain the summit of perfection, let us daily set the steps of holy desire in the way of God. The Truth consoles us who says through the Psalmist: 'Thine eyes did see my imperfect being, and in Thy book shall all be written' (Ps. 139:16).

Our imperfection will not be at all harmful to us if, being established on the road of God, we both do not look back at things past and hasten to pass on to those that remain. For He who graciously kindles the desires of the imperfect one day strengthens these unto perfection—through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with Him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen. [A homily] delivered to the people in the basilica of Saint John which is called the Constantinian, on the Thursday of Easter. At that time, Mary stood at the tomb outside weeping. While therefore she wept, she stooped down and looked into the tomb;

and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid. They say to her: 'Woman, why weepest thou?' She says to them: 'Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.' When she had said this, she turned back and saw Jesus standing, and she knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus says to her: 'Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?' She, supposing that He was the gardener, says to Him: 'Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.' Jesus says to her: 'Mary.' She, turning, says to Him: 'Rabboni,' which is to say, Master. Jesus says to her: 'Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say to them:'

'I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples: 'I have seen the Lord, and He said these things to me.' Mary Magdalene, who had been a sinner in the city, by loving the Truth washed away with her tears the stains of her crime; and the word of the Truth is fulfilled, wherein it is said: 'Her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much' (Luke 7:47). For she who had before remained cold in sinning, afterward burned strongly in loving. For after she came to the tomb and did not find the Lord's body there, she believed it had been taken away and announced it to the disciples. They, coming, saw, and believed that it was as the woman had said. And of them it is straightway written:

'The disciples therefore went away again to their own home.' And then it is added: 'But Mary stood at the tomb outside weeping' (John 20:10-11). In this matter it must be weighed how great a force of love had kindled this woman's mind, who did not withdraw from the Lord's tomb even when the disciples withdrew. She sought Him whom she had not found, she wept as she sought, and, set aflame by the fire of her love, she burned with desire for Him whom she believed to have been taken away. Hence it came about that she alone then saw Him, she who remained in order to seek—because assuredly the virtue of a good work is perseverance, and by the voice of the Truth it is said: 'He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved' (Matt. 10:22; 24:13). And by the precept of the Law the tail of the victim is commanded to be offered in sacrifice (Lev.

3:9). For in the tail is the end of the body; and he offers well who carries the sacrifice of a good work through to the end of the due action. Hence Joseph is described as having had, among the rest of his brethren, an ankle-length tunic (Gen. 37:3). For a tunic reaching to the ankle is a good work carried through to its consummation. 2. But Mary, as she wept, stooped down and looked into the tomb. Certainly she had already seen the tomb empty, she had already announced that the Lord had been taken away; what is it, then, that she stoops down again, that she desires again to see? But to one who loves, to have looked once does not suffice, because the force of love multiplies the intensity of the search. She sought therefore first, and found nothing at all;

she persevered in seeking, whence it also came about that she found, and it was brought to pass that her deferred desires grew, and, growing, they took hold of what they had found. For hence it is that the Church says of this same Bridegroom in the Song of Songs: 'By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth; I sought Him, and found Him not. I will rise now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth' (Song 3:1-2). And she redoubles the failure of finding also, saying: 'I sought Him, but found Him not' (ibid.). But because finding does not withdraw itself for long, if the search does not desist, she adds: 'The watchmen that keep the city found me. Have ye seen Him whom my soul loveth?'

'It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found Him whom my soul loveth' (ibid. 3:3-4). For we seek the Beloved on our bed when in some little repose of the present life we sigh with desire for our Redeemer. We seek Him by night, because although the mind already keeps watch in Him, yet the eye is still dim. But he who does not find his Beloved—it remains for him to rise and go about the city, that is, to run through the holy Church of the elect with mind and inquiry; to seek Him through the streets and broad ways, that is, to look upon those who walk through the narrow and the wide, so that, if he can find any traces of Him in them, he may search them out—for there are some, even of the secular life, who have something worthy of imitation in the exercise of virtue.

But as we seek, the watchmen who keep the city find us, because the holy Fathers, who guard the state of the Church, meet our good endeavours, so as to teach us either by their word or by their writing. And when we have passed them a little, we find Him whom we love, because our Redeemer, though in His humility He was a man among men, yet in His divinity He was above men. When, therefore, the watchmen are passed, the Beloved is found, because when we behold the prophets and apostles to be beneath Him, we consider Him who is God by nature to be above men. First, then, He is sought while not yet to be found, so that afterward, once found, He may be held more firmly. For holy desires, as we said before, grow by delay.

But if they fail through delay, they were not desires. With this love has burned whoever could attain to the Truth. For hence David says: 'My soul hath thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?' (Ps. 42:2). Hence he admonishes us, saying: 'Seek His face evermore' (Ps. 105:4). Hence the prophet says: 'My soul hath desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me in the morning early I will watch unto Thee' (Isa. 26:9). Hence again the Church says in the Song of Songs: 'I am wounded with charity' (Song 4:9). For it is just that she should attain to health from the sight of the Physician, who through the ardour of her desire for Him bears the wound of love in her breast. Hence again she says:

'My soul melted when the Beloved spoke' (ibid. 5:6). For the mind of a man that does not seek the form of its Creator is evilly hard, because it remains cold in itself. But if it has already begun to burn with desire to follow Him whom it loves, melted, it runs through the fire of love. It becomes anxious with desire, all things that used to please grow worthless in the world, there is nothing that delights outside the Creator, and the things that formerly delighted the soul afterward become exceedingly burdensome. Nothing consoles its sorrow so long as He who is desired is not yet seen. The mind mourns, it is a weariness to itself;

and by such a fire the rust of guilt is boiled away in the mind, and the kindled soul, as in the manner of gold—because through use it had lost its splendour—grows bright through the burning. 3. So then, this woman who thus loves, who stoops down again to the tomb which she had already examined, let us see with what fruit the force of love redoubles in her the work of the search. It follows: 'She saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid.' What is it that in the place of the Lord's body two angels are seen, one sitting at the head and the other at the feet, unless it be that in the Latin tongue 'angel' means 'messenger,' and He was to be proclaimed through His passion, He who both is God before the ages and man at the end of the ages?

The angel sits as it were at the head when it is proclaimed through the apostle John that 'in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1). And the angel sits as it were at the feet when he says: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (ibid. 14). We can also understand by the two angels the two Testaments, one earlier and the other following. These angels are joined to each other by the place of the Lord's body, because assuredly both Testaments, since with equal sense they proclaim the Lord to have been incarnate and to have died and risen, are, as it were, the earlier Testament sitting at the head and the later Testament sitting at the feet.

Whence also the two cherubim that cover the mercy seat look toward each other with faces turned upon the mercy seat (Exod. 25:20). For 'cherubim' is said to mean 'fulness of knowledge.' And what is signified by the two cherubim, unless both Testaments? And what is figured by the mercy seat, unless the incarnate Lord? Of whom John says: 'For He is the propitiation for our sins' (1 John 2:2). And when the Old Testament announces this as to be done which the New Testament proclaims as done concerning the Lord, both cherubim, as it were, look toward each other while they turn their faces upon the mercy seat, because while they behold the incarnate Lord placed between them, they do not differ from His countenance—they who harmoniously narrate the mystery of His dispensation. 4.

The angels question Mary, saying: 'Woman, why weepest thou?' And she says to them: 'Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.' For the sacred words themselves, which stir up in us the tears of love, also console those same tears, when they promise us the sight of our Redeemer. But it must be noted, according to the history, that the woman does not say: 'They have taken away the body of my Lord,' but 'They have taken away my Lord.' For it is the custom of sacred Scripture that sometimes it signifies the whole from a part, and sometimes the part from the whole. For it signifies the whole from a part, as is written of Jacob's sons: 'Because Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy souls' (Gen. 46:27). For not into Egypt did the souls descend without their bodies;

but by the soul alone the whole man is signified, because the whole is expressed from a part. And only the Lord's body had lain in the tomb, and Mary sought not the body of the Lord, but the Lord taken away—plainly designating the part from the whole. When she had said this, turning back, she saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. It must be noted that Mary, who still doubted concerning the Lord's resurrection, turned back to see Jesus, because plainly through that same doubt of hers she had, as it were, cast her back upon the face of the Lord, whom she in no way believed to have risen. But because she loved and doubted, she saw and did not recognize, and both love was showing Him to her and doubt was hiding Him.

Her ignorance is still expressed when it is added: 'And she knew not that it was Jesus. Who said to her: Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?' The cause of her grief is asked, so that her desire may be increased, in order that, when she named whom she sought, she might burn more ardently in love for Him. 'She, supposing that He was the gardener, says to Him: Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.' Perhaps this woman did not err even in erring, who believed Jesus to be the gardener. Was He not spiritually her gardener, who by the seeds of His love was planting the flourishing plants of virtues in her breast? 5. But what is it that, having seen Him whom she believed to be the gardener, to whom she had not yet said whom she was seeking, she says: 'Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence'?

For as though she had already said out of desire for whom she mourned, she speaks of Him whom she had not named. But the force of love is wont to do this in the mind, that whom it always thinks of, it believes no other to be ignorant of. Rightly does this woman both not name whom she seeks, and yet says: 'If thou hast borne Him hence,' because she thinks Him unknown to no other, for whom she herself thus mourns continually with desire. Jesus says to her: 'Mary.' After He had addressed her by the common term according to sex, and was not recognized, He calls her by name. As if He plainly said to her: Recognize Him by whom thou art recognized. To a perfect man too it is said: 'I know thee by name' (Exod.

33:12), because 'man' is the common term of us all, but 'Moses' is proper, to whom it is rightly said that he is known by name, as if the Lord plainly said to him: I know thee not generally as the rest, but specially. Mary therefore, because she is called by name, recognizes her Maker, and straightway calls Him 'Rabboni,' that is, Master—because He was both the one who was sought outwardly and the one who inwardly taught her to seek. But now it is not added by the evangelist what the woman did, but from what she heard it is intimated. To whom it is said: 'Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.' For in these words it is shown that Mary wished to embrace the feet of Him whom she had recognized. But the Master says to her: 'Touch me not.'

Not that after the resurrection the Lord refused the touch of women, since it is written of two coming to His sepulchre: 'They came near and held His feet' (Matt. 28:9). 6. But why He ought not to be touched, the reason too is added when it is subjoined: 'For I have not yet ascended to my Father.' For in our heart Jesus then ascends to the Father when He is believed equal to the Father. For whoever does not believe Him equal to the Father, in that man's breast the Lord has not yet ascended to the Father. He, therefore, truly touches Jesus who believes the Son co-eternal with the Father. For in the heart of Paul Jesus had already ascended to the Father, when the same Paul said: 'Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God' (Phil.

2:6). Whence John too touched our Redeemer with the hand of faith, who says: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him' (John 1:1-3). He therefore touches the Lord who believes Him equal to the Father in the eternity of His substance. But perhaps someone is struck by a silent question, how the Son can be equal to the Father. In this matter, what human nature cannot comprehend by wondering, it remains for it to know is credible from another wonder. For it has that whereby it may answer itself briefly concerning these things. For it is agreed that He Himself created the mother in whose virgin womb He was to be created according to His humanity.

What wonder, then, if He is equal to the Father, who is prior to His mother? By Paul's testimony too we have learned that Christ is 'the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Cor. 1:24). He, therefore, who thinks the Son less, specially disparages the Father, whose wisdom he confesses to be unequal to Him. For what powerful man would bear with equanimity if someone said to him: 'Great indeed art thou, but yet thy wisdom is less than thou'? The Lord Himself too says: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30). And again He says: 'The Father is greater than I' (ibid. 14:28). Of whom it is also written that He was subject to His parents (Luke 2:51). What wonder, then, if from His self-emptying He asserts Himself less than the Father in heaven, from which He was subject even to His parents on earth?

From which humanity it is now said to Mary: 'Go to my brethren, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' Since He says 'my' and 'your,' why does He not say in common 'our'? But speaking distinctly He indicates that He has the same Father and God in a different way than we. 'I ascend to my Father'—namely, by nature; 'and your Father'—by grace. 'To my God'—because I descended; 'and your God'—because you shall ascend. For since I too am man, God is to me; because you are freed from error, God is to you. Distinctly, then, He is my Father and God, because Him whom before the ages He begot as God, He created together with me as man at the end of the ages. Mary Magdalene came,

announcing to the disciples: 'I have seen the Lord, and He said these things to me.' Behold, the guilt of the human race is cut off there whence it proceeded. For because in paradise the woman handed death to the man (Gen. 3:6), from the sepulchre a woman announces life to men; and she who had reported the words of the death-bearing serpent, now narrates the sayings of her Life-giver. As if the Lord were saying to the human race, not in words but in deeds: From the hand by which the drink of death was brought upon you, from that same hand receive the cup of life. 7. These things concerning the exposition of the Gospel reading we have briefly run through; now, by the help of the same Lord of whom we speak, let us consider both the glory of His resurrection and the tender mercies of His compassion.

For He willed to rise from death the sooner, lest our soul should long remain in the death of unbelief. Whence it is also well said through the Psalmist: 'He shall drink of the brook in the way; therefore shall He lift up the head' (Ps. 110:7). In the human race, from the very beginning of the world, a brook of death had flowed out; but of this brook the Lord drank in the way, because He tasted death in passing. And therefore He lifted up the head, because this which by dying He laid in the sepulchre, by rising He raised above the angels; and thence He struck the ancient enemy for ever, whence He permitted the hand of persecutors temporarily to rage against Himself. This the Lord plainly indicates to blessed Job, saying: 'Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook?' (Job 40:20). 8.

For by Leviathan, which is said to mean 'their addition,' is designated that whale, the devourer of the human race. He who, while he promised to add divinity to man, took away immortality. He who also multiplies the guilt of transgression which he handed to the first man, while by most wicked persuasion he multiplies himself in those who follow, and heaps up punishments upon them without ceasing. But in the hook the bait is shown, the barb is hidden. This one, therefore, the omnipotent Father caught with a hook, because for his death He sent the incarnate only-begotten Son, in whom both the flesh could be seen passible, and the divinity could not be seen impassible. And when in Him this serpent, through the hands of persecutors, bit the bait of the body, the barb of the divinity pierced him through.

For before, he had known Him to be God in His miracles, but he fell from his knowledge into doubt when he saw Him passible. As a hook, therefore, held the jaws of the devourer, while in Him the bait of the flesh lay open, which the devourer might desire; and the divinity, which might slay, lay hidden at the time of the passion. In the hook of His incarnation he was caught, because while he seeks in Him the bait of the body, he is transfixed by the barb of the divinity. For there was there the humanity, which might draw the devourer to itself; there the divinity, which might pierce; there the open infirmity, which might provoke; there the hidden power, which might transfix the throat of the ravener. In the hook, therefore, he was caught, because from thence he perished whence he bit.

And those mortals whom he held by right he lost, because he presumed to seek by death the Immortal, over whom he had no right. 9. Hence it is also that this very Mary of whom we speak lives, because He who owed nothing to death died for the human race. Hence it is that we daily return to life after our faults, because for our punishment the Creator descended without fault. Behold, now the ancient enemy has lost those spoils which he had taken from the human race, he has lost the victory of his supplanting. Daily sinners return to life, daily they are snatched from his jaws by the hand of the Redeemer. Whence it is also well said again to blessed Job by the divine voice: 'Or wilt thou pierce his jaw with a bracelet?' (Job 40:21).

A bracelet, where it is placed, constrains by encircling. What, then, is designated by the bracelet, unless the divine mercy encompassing us? Which pierces the jaw of this Leviathan, while it shows us, after we have committed what it forbade, still the remedy of penance. With a bracelet the Lord pierces the jaw of Leviathan, because He Himself, by the ineffable power of His mercy, so opposes the malice of the ancient enemy that sometimes He loses even those whom he had already begun to take. And they fall, as it were, from his mouth, who after committed faults return to innocence. For who, once snatched into his mouth, would escape his jaw, if it were not pierced? Did he not hold Peter in his mouth, when he denied (Matt. 26:70ff.)?

Did he not hold David in his mouth, when he plunged himself into so great a gulf of lust (2 Sam. 12:4)? But since each returned to life through penance, this Leviathan in some way lost them, as it were, through the opening of his jaw. Through the opening of the jaw, therefore, were withdrawn from his mouth those who, after the perpetration of such wickedness, returned by repenting. But what man may escape the mouth of this Leviathan, so as to commit nothing unlawful? Yet from this we recognize how great debtors we are to the Redeemer of the human race, who not only forbade us to go into the mouth of Leviathan, but also granted us to return even from his mouth.

He who did not take away hope from the sinner, because He pierced his jaw, so as to grant a way of escape, that at least after the bite he might flee who, incautious before, was unwilling to beware lest he be bitten. Everywhere, therefore, the supernal medicine meets us, because He both gave man precepts, that he might not sin, and yet gave the sinner remedies, that he might not despair. Whence it must be guarded against most earnestly, lest anyone be snatched by the delight of sin into the mouth of this Leviathan; and yet if he be snatched, let him not despair, because if he perfectly bewail his sin, he still finds an opening in his jaw through which to escape. 10. There is present a witness of the divine mercy, this very Mary of whom we speak, of whom the Pharisee, while he wished to obstruct the fountain of piety, said:

'This man, if He were a prophet, would surely know who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him, for she is a sinner' (Luke 7:39). But she washed with her tears the stains of heart and body, and touched the feet of her Redeemer, which her own crooked paths had forsaken. She sat at the feet of Jesus, and heard the word from His mouth. She had clung to Him living, she sought Him dead. She found Him living, whom she sought dead. And she found so great a laver of grace with Him, that she herself announced Him even to the apostles themselves, that is, to His messengers. What, therefore, brethren, what in this matter ought we to behold, save the immense mercy of our Creator, who set before us, as it were in a sign, for an example of penance, those whom He made to live after their fall through penance?

For I ponder Peter, I consider the thief, I look upon Zacchaeus, I gaze upon Mary, and I see nothing else in these than examples of hope and penance set before our eyes. Perhaps someone has lapsed in faith; let him look upon Peter, who wept bitterly for what he had timidly denied (Matt. 26:75). Another burned against his neighbour in the malice of cruelty; let him look upon the thief, who even at the very point of death arrived by repenting at the rewards of life (Luke 23:43). Another, panting with the heats of avarice, plundered what belonged to others; let him look upon Zacchaeus, who, if he had taken anything from anyone, restored it fourfold (Luke 19:8). Another, kindled by the fire of lust, lost the purity of his flesh;

let him look upon Mary, who boiled away in herself the love of the flesh by the fire of divine love. Behold, the omnipotent God everywhere sets before our eyes those whom we ought to imitate, everywhere He opposes examples of His mercy. Let evils, then, now displease us, even those already experienced. Willingly does the omnipotent God forget that we have been guilty; He is ready to reckon our penance to us unto innocence. Defiled after the waters of salvation, let us be born again from our tears. And so, according to the voice of the first Shepherd: 'As newborn infants, desire the milk' (1 Pet. 2:2). Return, little sons, to the bosom of your mother, the eternal Wisdom; suck the abundant breasts of God's tenderness; bewail things past, avoid things imminent.