Sermons & Letters 40

Chapter 1. Mindful of our promise, beloved, we render to your holiness what we owe, hoping for the grace of God to come, so that devotion may arise for us from the same source whence the promise was aroused. Christ the Lord, seized by the crowds which the chief priests and the doctors of the law had armed, restrained His power in order to fulfil the dispensation; and He commanded the blessed apostle Peter, moved with human animosity against the assailants, to withhold the sword (Matt. 26:52). For it was superfluous that He who was unwilling to be aided by the protection of angelic legions should wish to be defended by the resistance of a single disciple. Though the fierce crowd carried out what it willed, and exulted in the effect of its wickedness;

yet greater was the power of the One seized than of those who seized. For the blindness of the Jews obtained nothing except that by its own impiety it destroyed itself; but the patience of Christ accomplished this, that by His Passion He might save all. Chapter 2. Now when Jesus had been led to Caiaphas the chief of the priests, where the scribes and the whole sacerdotal order had assembled (Matt. 26:57), false testimonies were sought against the Lord; but amid the confused and discordant voices Jesus had marvellously chosen this—to be silent. Yet to Caiaphas saying: I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ the Son of God (ibid. 63):

He answered with such truthful and provident authority that by the same words He both blinded the consciences of the unbelieving and strengthened the hearts of believers, referring to his whole interrogation the words, Thou hast said; adding what follows: Nevertheless I say to you, henceforth you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven (ibid. 64). But Caiaphas, to aggravate the odium of the words he had heard, tore his garments: and, not knowing what this madness signified, he deprived himself of the priestly honour. Where is, O Caiaphas, the rational upon thy breast? Where the girdle of continence? Where the ephod of the virtues?

With that mystical and sacred vestment thou dost despoil thyself, and with thine own hands thou dost tear apart the pontifical garments, forgetful of that precept which thou hadst read concerning the chief of the priests: He shall not take the mitre from his head, nor rend his garments (Lev. 21:10). But thou, from whom this dignity was already being alienated, art thyself the executor of thy reproach; and to make manifest the end of the old institution, that same rending takes away the priestly ornament, which soon also tore the veil of the temple. Chapter 3. Hence now, beloved, amid the multiplied mockeries, when the night was over, they delivered Jesus bound to Pilate the governor.

For the chief priests and the elders of the people conducted the matter with this counsel, that they might seem immune from the perpetration of their crime, withdrawing the works of their hands and stretching forth the weapons of their tongues, unwilling to kill and yet crying out, Crucify, crucify. What is more unjust than this show of religion? What more cruel than this pretence of clemency? By what law, O Jews, is it lawful to will what it is not lawful for you to do? By what reasoning does that which pollutes bodies not injure hearts? You fear to be contaminated by the killing of Him whose blood you demanded to be shed upon you and upon your children (Matt. 27:25). If your impiety does not perpetrate so great a crime, permit the governor to judge what he thinks.

But you, being grievous and violent even against him, do not permit him to turn aside to that from which you yourselves lyingly abstain. Though Pilate sinned by doing what he did not wish, yet upon your conscience flows back whatever your fury extorted. Such also was your scrupulousness there, where you refused to have the price—which the seller of Christ brought back to you—cast into the treasury, taking care, forsooth, lest bloody money should pollute the sacred coffers. Of what heart is this pretence? The conscience of the priests takes up what the chest of the temple does not receive (Matt. 27:6). The valuation of that blood is refused, whose shedding is not feared.

With whatever shadows of deceit you thus wrap yourselves round, the traffic has been entered into with the betrayer, whereby the righteous blood, as it was not lawful to purchase, so it would not have been lawful to shed. Chapter 4. Pilate therefore yielding to the seditious clamours of the Jews, Christ is crucified in the place which is called Golgotha (John 19:17-18). Through wood is raised up what fell through wood, and by the taste of gall and vinegar the food of sin is washed away. Rightly, before He was betrayed, the Lord had said: When I shall be lifted up, I will draw all things to myself (John 12:32): that is, I will plead the whole cause of the human race, and I will recall to entirety the nature once lost. In me every infirmity shall be abolished, in me every wound shall be healed.

That the lifted-up Jesus drew all things to Himself was shown not only by the Passion of our substance, but also by the commotion of the whole world. For while the Creator hung upon the gibbet, the entire creation groaned together, and all the elements at once felt the nails of the Cross. Nothing was free from that punishment. This drew both earth and heaven into fellowship with itself, this split the rocks, opened the tombs, unbarred the lower regions, and hid the rays of the sun with the horror of dense darkness. For the world owed this testimony to its Author, that at the setting of its Founder all things should wish to be ended. But the patience of God preserves for things and times their own order.

and rather invites us to that affection, that we may seek the salvation of those whose crime we abhor. Chapter 5. Rescued therefore at so great a price and by so great a mystery from the power of darkness, and loosed from the bonds of the ancient captivity, take pains, beloved, that the devil corrupt by no art the integrity of your minds.

Whatever is thrust upon you against the Christian faith, whatever is urged against the commandments of God, comes from the deceptions of him who strives by innumerable wiles to turn you away from eternal life, seizing certain occasions of human weakness through which he may again lead incautious and negligent souls into the snares of his death. Let all therefore who are reborn through water and the Holy Spirit call to mind what they have renounced, and by what profession they have shaken from themselves the yoke of tyrannical domination: nor let anyone, in prosperity or in adversity, run to the deadly aid of the devil. For he is a liar from the beginning (John 8:44),

and he flourishes in the art of deceiving alone, that he may beguile human ignorance by the ostentation of a false knowledge, and be now the malignant instigator of those of whom he will hereafter be the wicked accuser. The years of our life and the qualities of temporal actions consist neither in the nature of the elements nor in the effects of the stars, but in the power of the supreme and true God, whose aid and mercy we ought to implore in all things which we rightly desire. For just as, if He (which be far from us) is offended, there is nothing besides Himself that can avail us; so, He being favourable, no adversity shall harm us.

For if God is for us, who is against us? He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how has He not also with Him freely given us all things (Rom. 8:31-32)? Who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. Chapter 1. I know indeed, beloved, that the paschal festival is of a mystery so sublime that it surpasses not only the very slender understanding of my lowliness, but even the capacity of great minds. But the greatness of the divine work is not so to be considered by me that I should either distrust the day, or blush at the servitude which I owe; since the mystery of human salvation may not be kept silent, even if it cannot be explained.

But with your prayers aiding, we believe that the grace of God will be present, which by the dew of its inspiration may sprinkle the barrenness of our heart, so that by the office of the pastoral tongue those things may be brought forth which are profitable to the ears of the holy flock. For since the Lord, the bestower of all good things, says: Open thy mouth, and I will fill it (Ps. 80:11), we dare to say to Him in the prophetic words: O Lord, thou shalt open my lips, and my mouth shall declare thy praise (Ps. 50:17).

Beginning therefore, beloved, to re-examine the Gospel history of the Lord's Passion, we understand that it was arranged by divine counsel that the sacrilegious princes of the Jews and the impious priests, who had often sought occasions of raging against Christ, should receive the power of exercising their fury only on the paschal solemnity. For it was fitting that those things which had long been promised in a figured mystery should be fulfilled with manifest effect: that the true Lamb should remove the symbolic lamb, and that by one sacrifice the difference of the various victims should be brought to completion. For all those things which had been divinely appointed through Moses concerning the immolation of the lamb had prophesied Christ, and had properly announced the slaying of Christ.

That therefore the shadows might yield to the body, and the images cease under the presence of the truth, the ancient observance is taken away by the new mystery, victim passes into victim, blood is done away by blood, and the legal festivity, while it is changed, is fulfilled. Chapter 2.

Wherefore, when they gathered together the scribes and the elders of the people to the impious council of the pontiffs, and the care of admitting the crime against Jesus had occupied the minds of all the priests, they themselves, the teachers of the law, deprived themselves of the law, and by a voluntary defection abolished for themselves their ancestral rites. For at the beginning of the paschal festival, those who ought to have adorned the temple, cleansed the vessels, provided the victims, and applied a holier diligence to the lawful purifications, having conceived the fury of a parricidal hatred, are summoned to one work, and conspire in one crime with like cruelty, achieving nothing by the punishment of innocence and the condemnation of justice except that they should both not lay hold of the new mysteries and violate the old. The princes therefore taking care lest a tumult should arise on the holy day, they were zealous not for the festivity but for the crime; nor did this care serve religion, but the offence.

For the careful pontiffs and the solicitous priests feared that seditions of the crowds would arise on the chief solemnity, not that the people should not sin, but lest Christ should escape. Chapter 3. But Jesus, certain of His own counsel and undaunted in the work of the Father's disposition, was consummating the Old Testament and founding the new Passover. For while the disciples reclined with Him to eat the mystical supper, when in the hall of Caiaphas it was being deliberated how Christ might be killed, He, ordaining the sacrament of His body and blood, taught what victim ought to be offered to God, not even the betrayer being removed from this mystery; that it might be shown that He was exasperated by no injury, who in voluntary impiety had been foreknown.

For he himself was to himself the matter of ruin and the cause of treachery, following the devil as leader, and unwilling to have Christ as governor. And so the Lord, saying: Amen I say to you, that one of you shall betray me (Matt. 26:21), showed that the conscience of His betrayer was known to Him: not confounding the impious one with harsh or open rebuke, but approaching him with a gentle and silent admonition; that repentance might more easily correct him whom no abjection had disgraced. Why, unhappy Judas, dost thou not use so great a kindness? Behold, the Lord spares thy attempts, and Christ points thee out to none but thyself:

neither thy name nor thy person is disclosed, but by the word of truth and mercy only the secrets of thy heart are touched. Neither the honour of the apostolic order nor the communion of the mysteries is denied thee. Return to entirety, and, laying aside thy fury, come to thyself again. Clemency invites, salvation knocks, life recalls thee to life. Behold, thy immaculate and innocent fellow-disciples grow terrified at the intimation of the crime, and all fear for themselves, though the author of the impiety has not been named. For they were saddened, not from the guilt of conscience, but from the uncertainty of human mutability, fearing lest what each knew concerning himself should be less true than what Truth itself foresaw.

But thou, in this trepidation of the saints, dost abuse the Lord's patience, and dost believe thyself hidden by thine own audacity. Thou addest impudence to crime, nor art thou terrified by the more evident sign. And while the others withheld themselves from the food in which the Lord had placed the token, thou dost not draw back thy hand from the dish, because thou dost not turn away thy mind from the crime. Chapter 1. It followed therefore, beloved, as John the Evangelist has narrated, that when the Lord had held out to His betrayer, by a more manifest designation, the bread dipped, the devil took possession of the whole of Judas (John 13:26);

and him whom he had bound with malignant thoughts he now possessed by the very work of impiety. For in body only he reclined with those supping, but in mind he was arming the envy of the priests, the falsehood of the witnesses, and the fury of the inexpert crowd. Finally, the Lord, seeing to what wickedness Judas was intent, said: What thou dost, do quickly (John 13:27). This voice is not of one commanding, but of one permitting; nor of one trembling, but of one prepared: who, holding the power over all times, showed both that He made no delay for the betrayer, and that He so carried out the Father's will for the redemption of the world that He neither urged on nor feared the crime which was being prepared by His persecutors.

After Judas therefore, persuaded by the devil, had departed from Christ, and, following the body, had cut himself off from apostolic unity, the Lord, disturbed by no fear but solicitous only for the salvation of those to be redeemed, expended all the interval of time which was free from the assault of His pursuers upon mystical discourses and sacred doctrine, as is declared in John's Gospel: lifting up His eyes to heaven, and beseeching the Father on behalf of the whole Church, that all whom the Father had given and would give to the Son might be one (John 17:11), and might remain undivided in the glory of the Redeemer; adding finally that prayer in which He says: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me (Matt.

26:39). Here it is not to be supposed that the Lord Jesus wished to avoid the Passion and death, the sacraments of which He had already delivered to His disciples; since He Himself forbids the blessed apostle Peter, fervent with devout faith and charity, to use the sword against the persecutors, saying: The cup which the Father has given me, wilt thou not that I drink it (John 18:11)? And it is certain also that, according to John's Gospel, the Lord says: For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16); and what the apostle Paul says concerning Him: Christ has loved us, and delivered Himself for us, a victim to God for an odour of sweetness (Eph. 5:2).

For in the saving of all through the cross of Christ, the will of the Father and of the Son was common, the counsel common; nor could that be disturbed by any reasoning which had been both mercifully arranged before the eternal ages and immutably foreordained. He therefore, beloved, who assumed the true and whole man, took on both the true senses of the body and the affections of the soul. Nor, because all things in Him were full of mysteries and full of miracles, did He therefore either weep with false tears, or take food with a lying hunger, or sleep with a feigned slumber. In our lowliness He was despised, in our sorrow He was saddened, in our grief He was crucified.

For His mercy underwent the sufferings of our mortality for this purpose, that it might heal; for this purpose His power received them, that it might conquer. Which Isaiah most openly prophesied, saying: He bears our sins, and grieves for us; and we thought Him to be in grief, and in the stroke, and in affliction. But He was wounded for our sins, and weakened for our crimes, and by His bruise we are healed (Isa. 53:4-5). Chapter 5. When therefore, beloved, the Son of God says: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me (Matt. 26:39), He uses the voice of our nature, and pleads the cause of human frailty and trepidation, so that in the things which must be endured both patience may be strengthened and dread dispelled.

Finally, ceasing to ask this very thing, having in some way excused the fear of our infirmity in which it is not expedient for us to remain, He passes into another affection, and says: Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt (ibid.); and again: If this cup cannot pass from me unless I drink it, thy will be done (ibid. 42). This voice of the Head is the salvation of the whole body; this voice has instructed all the faithful, kindled all the confessors, crowned all the martyrs. For who could overcome the hatreds of the world, who the whirlwinds of temptations, who the terrors of persecutors, unless Christ in all and for all said to the Father: Thy will be done? Let all the sons of the Church therefore learn this voice, redeemed at a great price, justified freely;

and when the adversity of some violent temptation presses upon them, let them use the safeguard of most powerful prayer: so that, the trembling of dread being overcome, they may receive endurance of the Passion. Hence now, beloved, the discourse must be directed to touching briefly upon the order of the Lord's Passion; which, lest we burden you with the load of prolixity, let us defer, the common labour being divided, to the fourth day of the week. The grace of God will be present to you as you pray, which may grant me the ability of discharging my debt. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, living and reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. Chapter 1.

Having gone through, dearly beloved, in the previous sermon those things which preceded the arrest of the Lord, it now remains that, with the aid of God's grace, we should discourse, as we promised, upon the very order of the Passion itself. For when the Lord had declared by the words of His sacred prayer that both a human and a divine nature were most truly and most fully present in Him, showing whence came that which He was unwilling to suffer, and whence that which He willed, He put away the trembling of weakness and, strengthened by the magnanimity of virtue, returned to the purpose of His eternal disposition; and to the raging devil, working through the ministries of the Jews, He set forth the form of a servant having nothing of sin, that through Him the cause of all might be pleaded, in whom alone the nature of all existed without fault.

The sons of darkness therefore rushed upon the true Light, and though they used torches and lanterns, they did not escape the night of their own unbelief, because they did not recognize the Author of light. They lay hold of Him who was ready to be seized, and drag away Him who willed to be dragged; who, had He willed to resist, their impious hands could have done nothing to His injury, but the redemption of the world would have been delayed, and He would have saved none unharmed who was to die for the salvation of all. Suffering therefore whatever the fury of the mob dared at the incitements of the priests to be brought upon Him, He is led to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, and then, by a transfer from Annas, brought to Caiaphas.

And after the insane accusations of the slanderers, after the fabricated falsehoods of suborned witnesses, He is transferred by the delegation of the chief priests to the audience of Pilate. They, having set aside divine law and crying out that they had no king but Caesar (John 19:15), as though devoted to Roman laws, had reserved all judgment to the power of the governor, and demanded rather an executioner of cruelty than an arbiter of the case. For they offered up Jesus, bound with harsh cords, beaten with frequent blows and slaps, defiled with spittle, condemned beforehand by their outcries, so that amid so many prejudgments, Pilate might not dare to acquit Him whom all wished to perish. In fine, the very inquiry shows that he neither found guilt in the accused, nor kept firmness in his own sentence.

In which trial he condemns the one whom he pronounces innocent, adjudging to the wicked people the blood of the just, from which he had perceived by his own understanding that he ought to abstain, and had learned to abstain by the dream of his wife. Washed hands do not cleanse a defiled soul, nor is that which is committed by a serving impious mind expiated by fingers sprinkled with water. The crime of the Jews indeed exceeded the guilt of Pilate, who, terrified by the name of Caesar and rebuked by hateful cries, drove him on to the accomplishment of their wickedness. Yet neither did he himself escape guilt, who, cooperating with the seditious, abandoned his own judgment and passed over into another's crime.

When Pilate therefore, dearly beloved, overcome by the madness of the implacable people, permitted Jesus to be dishonored with many mockeries and vexed with immoderate injuries, and when he displayed Him, scourged with lashes, crowned with thorns, and clothed in a robe of derision, to the gaze of the scribes and priests, he doubtless thought to soften the minds of His enemies, so that their envious hatreds being sated, they might no longer believe that one ought to be pursued whom they beheld afflicted in so many ways. But when the wrath of those crying out flared up, that he should release Barabbas by pardon and subject Jesus to the punishment of the cross, when it was said by the crowds with harmonious clamor: 'His blood be upon us and upon our children' (Matt. 27:25)—

the wicked obtained to their own condemnation that which they persistently demanded; whose teeth, as the prophet testified, were weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword (Ps. 56:5). For in vain did they hold back their own hands from crucifying the Lord of majesty, against whom they hurled the deadly darts of their voices and the venomous javelins of their words. Upon you, upon you, false Jews and sacrilegious rulers of the people, falls the whole weight of that crime; and although the enormity of the wickedness bound both the governor and the soldiers, yet the whole sum of the deed convicts you. And whatever, in the punishment of Christ, either Pilate's judgment or the soldiers' obedience sinned, this makes you the more deserving of the hatred of the human race:

because by the impulse of your fury even those were not permitted to be innocent to whom your iniquity was not pleasing. The Lord, therefore, having been handed over to the will of His raging foes, was ordered, in mockery of His royal dignity, to be the bearer of His own instrument of punishment, that there might be fulfilled what the prophet Isaiah had foreseen, saying: 'Behold, a child is born, and a son is given to us, whose government is upon His shoulders' (Isa. 9:6).

When therefore the Lord bore the wood of the cross, which He would turn into a scepter of His power—among the eyes of the impious it was a great mockery, but to the faithful there was manifested a great mystery: for the most glorious Conqueror of the devil and the most mighty Vanquisher of hostile powers bore in fair guise the trophy of His triumph, and upon the shoulders of His invincible patience brought in the sign of salvation, to be adored by all kingdoms; as though even then, by the very image of His work, He confirmed all His imitators and said: 'He who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me' (Matt. 10:38).

Now as the crowds went with Jesus to the place of punishment, a certain Simon of Cyrene was found, upon whom the wood of the cross was transferred by the Lord (Matt. 27:32), so that by such a deed also the faith of the Gentiles might be prefigured, to whom the cross of Christ would be no confusion in the future, but glory. It was therefore not by chance, but figurative and mystical, that, while the Jews raged against Christ, a stranger came to suffer with Him, according to the Apostle who says: 'If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him' (Rom. 8:17): so that to the most sacred reproach of the Savior no Hebrew nor Israelite, but a foreigner, should be subjected.

For through this transfer, from circumcision to uncircumcision, from carnal sons to spiritual sons, there passed over the propitiation of the immaculate Lamb and the fullness of all the sacraments. For 'our Passover,' as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 5:7), 'is Christ, who was sacrificed'; who, offering Himself to the Father as a new and true sacrifice of reconciliation, was crucified not in the temple, whose reverence was now ended, nor within the walls of the city that was to be destroyed for the desert of its crime, but outside and beyond the camp (cf. Heb. 13:11), so that, the mystery of the ancient victims ceasing, a new victim might be placed upon a new altar, and the cross of Christ might be the altar not of the temple, but of the world.

When Christ therefore, dearly beloved, was exalted upon the cross, let not that appearance alone present itself to the eye of the mind, which was in the eyes of the impious, to whom it was said through Moses: 'And your life shall be hanging before your eyes, and you shall fear day and night, and you shall not believe your own life' (Deut. 28:66). For these could think nothing in the crucified Lord beyond their own crime, having a fear not by which true faith is justified, but by which a guilty conscience is tormented. But let our understanding, which the Spirit of truth illumines, receive with a pure and free heart the glory of the Cross radiant in heaven and on earth, and with inner vision behold what it is, which the Lord, when He spoke of the imminence of His Passion, said:

'The hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified' (John 12:23); and further on: 'Now,' He says, 'is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Save me from this hour. But for this cause I came unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy Son' (John 12:27); and when the voice of the Father had come from heaven saying: 'I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again' (John 12:28): Jesus, answering those who stood around, said: 'This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of the world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself' (John 12:30-32). O admirable power of the Cross! O ineffable glory of the Passion! In which is both the tribunal of the Lord, and the judgment of the world, and the power of the Crucified.

For You have drawn all things to Yourself, O Lord, and when You had stretched out Your hands all day long to a people that did not believe and contradicted You, the whole world received the perception of Your majesty to be confessed (Isa. 65:2; Rom. 10:21). You have drawn all things to Yourself, O Lord, when all the elements uttered one sentence in execration of the Jewish crime, when the lights of heaven were darkened and the day was turned into night, and the earth also was shaken with unwonted tremblings, and the whole creation denied itself to the use of the impious. You have drawn all things to Yourself, O Lord, since, the veil of the temple being torn, the holy of holies withdrew from the unworthy priests:

so that the figure might be turned into truth, prophecy into manifestation, and law into Gospel. You have drawn all things to Yourself, O Lord, that what was performed in the one temple of Judea under shadowy signs, the devotion of all nations everywhere might celebrate with the full and open sacrament. For now both the order of the Levites is more illustrious, and the dignity of the elders greater, and the anointing of the priests more sacred: because Your cross is the fount of all blessings, the cause of all graces; through which there is given to believers strength out of weakness, glory out of shame, life out of death. Now also, the vanity of carnal sacrifices ceasing, the one oblation of Your body and blood fulfills all the differences of the victims:

since You are the true Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29); and so You perfect all mysteries in Yourself, that as there is one sacrifice for every victim, so from every nation there might be one kingdom. Let us therefore confess, dearly beloved, what the blessed teacher of the Gentiles, Paul the Apostle, confessed with glorious voice, saying: 'Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners' (1 Tim. 1:15). For hence the more wonderful is the mercy of God toward us, that Christ died not for the just, nor for the holy, but for the wicked and the impious (Rom. 5:6):

and since the nature of Deity could not receive the sting of death, yet by being born of us it took on that which it could offer for us. For of old the power of death threatened our death, saying through the prophet Hosea: 'O death, I will be thy death; I will be thy sting, O hell' (Hos. 13:14). For by dying He underwent the laws of hell, but by rising again He dissolved them; and so He cut short the perpetuity of death that He made it, from eternal, temporal. For as all die in Adam, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22). Let there be done, therefore, dearly beloved, what the Apostle Paul says: 'That they who live may now no longer live to themselves, but to Him who died for all and rose again' (2 Cor. 5:15);

and since the old things have passed away and all things are made new, let no one remain in the oldness of the carnal life, but let us all, advancing from day to day, be renewed through the increases of piety. For however much anyone has been justified, yet while he is in this life he has that whereby he can be more approved and better. But he who does not advance, falls back; and he who acquires nothing, loses something. We must therefore run with the steps of faith, with the works of mercy, with the love of justice, that celebrating the day of our redemption spiritually, we may not do so in the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 5:8),

that we may deserve to be partakers of the resurrection of Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. The sacrament, dearly beloved, of the Lord's Passion, ordained for the salvation of the human race before times eternal, and announced through many signs to all past ages, we do not still await as to be manifested, but now adore as already fulfilled. As therefore both new and ancient testimonies concur to our instruction, while what the prophetic trumpet sang, evangelic history unfolds, and as it is written: 'Deep calls unto deep at the voice of Thy waterfalls' (Ps. 42:7);

since to the setting forth of the glory of God's grace the height of both Testaments responds with voices equal to each other; and what was deep under the veil of figures becomes clear by the revealed light. If, however, among those miracles of the Savior which were performed under the gaze of the peoples, few perceived the presence of the Truth, and the disciples themselves, troubled by the voluntary Passion of the Lord, did not escape the scandal of the cross without the temptation of dread; whence would our faith derive understanding, whence would conscience receive strength, unless we read foretold the things which we recognize as having been done?

The triumph of the Savior therefore being accomplished, dearly beloved, and the dispensations being consummated which all the utterances of the Old Testament announced, let the carnal Jew mourn, but let the spiritual Christian rejoice: and let the festival, which for them was turned into night, shine for us into light; since the cross of Christ is at once both the glory of believers and the punishment of unbelievers. For although the fury of the persecutors wrought nothing else upon the Lord of majesty than atrocious cruelty and savage punishment, yet for the redeemed there is, by this Passion of the Lord, a truer and juster ground for rejoicing than for grieving.

The dread of the disciples might then have been excusable, nor did the apostolic grief incur the fault of distrust, when, the Jews and the rulers of the Jews rushing together to one crime, the proud swelling of fat bulls and the wanton insolence of calves raged; when, under the eyes of the sheep, the rabid fury of raging beasts sought the blood of the just Shepherd; when at last even He Himself, who had come to suffer, out of His fellowship with our nature said: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death' (Matt. 26:38). But now, after the power of virtue was glorified through the assumption of weakness, the paschal solemnity is to be darkened by no sadness of the faithful:

nor is the order of what was done to be recalled with sadness, since the Lord so made use of the malice of the Jews that, from the intention of the crime, the will of the Merciful One was fulfilled. But if, at the departure of Israel from Egypt, the blood of the lamb was the restoration of liberty, and a most sacred festival was made which by the victim of a beast turned away the wrath of the destroyer; how great the joys to be conceived by Christian peoples, for whom the omnipotent Father spared not His only-begotten Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32); so that in the slaying of Christ there might be the true Passover and the singular sacrifice, by which not one people is delivered from the dominion of Pharaoh, but the whole world from the captivity of the devil.

This therefore, dearly beloved, is that sacrament to which from the beginning all mysteries have been subservient. Now the blood of righteous Abel proclaims the death of the highest Shepherd, and in the parricide of the Jews the murderer Cain, the slayer of his brother, is recognized (Gen. 4:8). Now the flood and the ark of Noah (Gen. 7:17) make manifest what is renewal in baptism and what is salvation in the wood. Now Abraham, the father of nations, acquires the promised heirs; and in his seed, not the germ of the flesh, but the offspring of faith is blessed (Gen. 22:18; Rom. 4:1). Now for the feast foretold by all feasts shone forth the sacred month of the new fruits, so that in the same in which the world received its beginning, the Christian creation might have its origin.

Although therefore the raging Jews did to the Lord Jesus whatever they willed, and the divine power did not withdraw the truth of the assumed manhood from any of their assaults; yet the patience of the Lord fulfilled the office of His own counsel, and the obstinacy of sacrilegious cruelty advanced the work of the Savior: which neither the Scribes, nor the Pharisees, nor the chief priests understood; for 'if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty' (1 Cor. 2:8). Nor therefore did the devil himself understand that, by raging against Christ, he was destroying his own dominion, since he would not have lost the rights of his ancient fraud had he refrained from the blood of the Lord Jesus. But malice, greedy to harm, while it rushes on, falls; while it takes, it is taken;

while it persecutes the mortal, it falls upon the Savior. It indeed found in that reckless daring a worthy fellow-worker and a worthy associate, when impious Judas chose rather to be the minister of the devil than the apostle of Christ—Judas, whom he deserted not through the disturbance of fear, but sold off through the greed of money. See, dearly beloved, and prudently observe what seeds and what fruits are born from the stock of avarice, which the Apostle rightly defined to be the root of all evils (1 Tim. 6:10); because no sin is committed without covetousness, and every unlawful appetite is the disease of that greed. To the love of money every affection is base, and a soul greedy of gain does not fear to perish even for a trifle;

nor is there any vestige of justice in that heart in which avarice has made itself a dwelling. Judas, intoxicated with this treacherous poison, while he thirsts for gain, arrives at the noose: and he was so foolishly impious that for thirty pieces of silver he sold both the Lord and the Master. But when the Son of God had offered Himself to receive the judgment of iniquity, the blessed Apostle Peter, whose faith burned with such devotion that he was ready both to suffer with and die with the Lord, terrified by the slanderous accusation of the priest's maidservant, out of weakness incurred the peril of denial: for this reason, as it appears, he was permitted to waver, that in the chief of the Church the remedy of penitence might be established; and that no one should dare to trust in his own virtue, when not even blessed Peter could escape the peril of mutability.

But the Lord Jesus, who within the pontifical council was held only in body, saw with a divine gaze the trembling of His disciple outside; and as soon as He looked upon the mind of the fearful one, He raised it up and stirred it to tears of repentance. Blessed, O holy Apostle, are your tears, which for the washing away of the guilt of denial had the power of holy baptism. For the right hand of the Lord Jesus Christ was present, which caught you as you were slipping, before you should be cast down, and you received firmness of standing in the very peril of falling. The Lord saw in you not faith conquered, not love turned away, but constancy disturbed. Weeping abounded where affection did not fail, and the fountain of charity washed away the words of dread:

nor was the remedy of pardon delayed, where there was no judgment of the will. Quickly therefore the rock returned to its own solidity, receiving such strength that what it had then dreaded in Christ's Passion, it feared not afterward in its own punishment. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.