Sermons 284 part 3/4

For 'woe to the rich, for they have received their reward' (cf. Luke 6); but to those rich to whom it must be said: 'I was hungry, and ye gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me not to drink' (Matt. 25). To those rich, assuredly, who had refused to make friends of the unjust mammon; who meditated in their thoughts, when the fruit overflowed by which they refreshed no one, to build new storehouses for immense harvests — who knew not where they should eat on the morrow. Their soul was demanded of them at that time, occupied within a single night by vain solicitude, since they ceased not to lay up treasure, nor omitted to keep watch over buried wealth. Hence Lazarus the poor man, with that patriarch who lived as a stranger in the world, rejoices in his resting place.

But the rich man, on the contrary, burns in eternal fires, and, stripped of all dignity and substance, implores the divine aid of the poor man he once despised, and longs to be touched by even the smallest little finger of him whose destitution he sustained not, amid his rich banquets and abundant feasts, with so much as the crumbs falling from the table. Since, therefore, the prescribed judgment is to be celebrated through us — that is, through the saints — vengeance upon the nations and upon the peoples has been granted to us. When this is pondered, what mind is in us, what ardor of soul, what desire of things to come, what contempt of present things, can more easily be felt than told. Or who is there who, hastening to these things, would not desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Phil. 1)?

Or what great thing is it, if for goods so many and so excellent death is held in contempt, goods for which even this present life ought to be held in contempt? For 'whoever loses his soul for their sake shall save it.' But, on the contrary, 'whoever here shall save his soul shall lose it.' For whereas very many in this world are so inflamed in spirit by ambition, as if by furious flames, that they spare neither their hoarded riches nor their patrimonies, nor even their own sons—whom, when they are accused of avarice, they are wont to put forward as an excuse—while they purchase prefectships and consulships, offices which death takes away and a successor shuts out:

what madness is it not rather to procure, at the cost of all one's expenses and at the loss of life itself, those things which make the advanced either secure concerning life eternal, or glorious concerning the perpetual dignity of the judgment? CHAP. IX.—The time admonishes us, the very place suggests it, nor does the subject-matter seem foreign, since we have begun to treat of the merits of the saints, that we may wash away the blasphemies of a most wretched wretchedness which seem to belong to this same theme.

For there have arisen men who, when eminent and heavenly virtues were being wrought through the relics of the saints even in almost our own times, chose rather to gnaw at them with detraction than to receive them with veneration, vomiting forth against the servants of God that ancient poison of Jewish unbelief which those men once poured out against the Lord Himself with viperous tongues and deadly hissings, saying: 'By what power do you do this? and who gave you this power?' (Matt. 21). For they were reciting to us, who stood near, the things which foolish unbelief was uttering against the divine and most blessed Gervasius and Protasius; and while they contrive to pluck something away from Pope Ambrose, they did not fear to violate them with sacrilegious words, seeking in this manner a rationale for the miracles.

'What is this,' they say, 'that from the fact that they are martyrs, they should have merited the gifts of miracles? Why is that exercised so late which was granted to them long ago? Or if in that storm when they suffered they did not display these powers, how have they now wrought them? What is this that they now seem to display? Or did Ambrose make them greater by revelation than the dignity of martyrdom made them?' Do you recognize—though in other words, yet just as falsely—what we have shown was cast against the Lord, now heaped upon the martyrs: 'By what power do you do this? and who gave you this power?' (Matt. 21). A lukewarm consolation, I think, and one begotten of envy: to inquire whether that be divine which you see to be divine, and to demand a rationale when it is necessary to believe. And whereas the Apostle says:

'Charity believes all things' (1 Cor. 13): who doubts that those are without the charity of God who have not applied faith to such great miracles? But he denies the faith who, like a tempter, inquires: 'Whence this power?'—as though it were not manifest that the holy martyrs now work miracles in the Spirit by that same power in which they formerly conquered their adversaries in the flesh and in their passion. Let us set foot against these (if it is right so to say) sons of the Jews, and, as lately we overwhelmed by the gift of the Godhead their parent, that is, the Jew, who thought himself exceedingly clever in his sacrifice, so let us also destroy this offspring of blasphemies under the Christian name, through Him who said: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject' (1 Cor. 1):

that both we may glory in a twofold triumph through the Lord, and they may acknowledge that the understanding of divine things is established in the catholic faith, not in the wisdom of the world, the Lord admonishing: 'Unless you believe, you shall not understand' (Isa. 7): so that it may stand more manifest both that the obscure things of unbelief lie open to the faithful, and that even the plain things of the faith are not discerned by the unbelieving. Perhaps, out of your solicitude and vigilance and vital diligence, you may ask what that question was in which the Lord granted us a trophy over the false Israelite. I will relate it and not keep silence, since you love to have the page for you extended with these matters.

For although it may seem unsuitable to interweave other matters before the earlier ones are yet concluded, nevertheless for your sake I prefer to say some things even out of their proper order rather than to pass over what has now been granted to me by your prayers. A certain one of the enemies of the cross of Christ—among the intimates of God and indeed among teachers—concerning that scandal of his nation which they took up against our Lord, striking at the Lord with a spirit of blasphemy, brought forth examples from the Law. And as once his father, a murderer, tempting the Lord upon the pinnacle of the temple, the impious one alleged what had been promised concerning Him in the Law: so this man, lest he seem either too unlearned in his perfidy, or lest his falsehood lie bare without greater authority, said: 'Our prophet Elisha works more miracles than your Lord Christ.'

'For whereas you relate as a great thing that Lazarus was called back into the light (John 11), what more will you be able to say than that a dead man was raised by one living? I bring forward what by your own confession also is reckoned to be true. For our Elisha (2 Kings 13), when already dead, restored to life a dead man laid beside his bones—a man whom the throng, fleeing the coming of pirates and abandoning the duty of the last office, had cast down beside his body; and, though himself lifeless, he gave life, and from cold bones and a bloodless body he poured vital warmth into a corpse that was not his own; nor did he give what he had, but he bestowed upon another what he himself then did not have.'

'This, I believe, may seem to you greater than the other miracles: that a dead man was sent back into the airs of life through a dead man, and at the very time when he himself was bound by the natural law, he loosed the law of nature. If this excels all other works, why should not he be held the greater whom nevertheless we confess to be a prophet and a lord? Or if you know anything even similar to this, declare it, that he too may excel in honour who has been more excellent in the merit of miracle.' At these words our chief men were astounded, and, returning no answer, nor bringing forth any weapon with which to strike back, they well-nigh collapsed beneath the empty engine and useless battering-ram of the adversary:

so much so that that man, who—as they say—ought to have been the fugitive of all, carried off even the victor's glory without a contest. When this was reported to me, I groaned that so great a negligence was in us, that we could not even establish the truth, while others were able to press home a falsehood in the place of truth; and, having besought the Lord, since nothing is our own, that He would furnish arms to His own, whereby the reproach of their cowardice might be taken away. 'Yield me,' I said, 'that boaster who says: Our lips are our own; who is Lord over us? (Ps. 12).' I will surely bring forth, through Him who destroys the boastful tongue, that they may understand that a servant is not to be equalled with his Lord—although the Jews themselves know that the ancient prophets performed no miracles by their own powers.

In fine, Elisha himself (2 Kings 2), when he had inherited a twofold portion of his master's spirit and had come, as it were more insolent, at the recompense of gifts, nevertheless could not part the waters except under the invocation of God. But I confess that this very miracle which has been set forth was for the meanwhile his own, so that there may be the greater glory of our faith, if we crush the temptation even while we believe. What do you say, blasphemer of the Lord? 'Elisha,' he says, 'himself dead, raised another dead man by the contact of his body.' In this passage—that in all things the prophet's power may rise up toward his Lord—that same power was present in the Lord Jesus Christ, when your unbelief was fortifying His sepulchre with stones, and soldiers were besieging the stone, in order, I believe, that His resurrection might not lack suitable witnesses.

For you knew, if you had been willing to believe, that He would rise again; for suddenly He, when the hinges of the nether world had been shaken, amid the stupefaction of the soldiers and the falling of the rocks, raised not some other man, but Himself, into the light. Had these been Elisha's own proper gifts, he would have preferred to give them to himself; nor could he bestow upon another that which he lacked for himself. In fine, that this is the greater, your own elders too declared, while they mocked the Lord upon the cross, saying: 'He saved others, let Him save Himself; let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe Him' (Matt. 27). By your own verdict, therefore, we conquer. Your own men promised that they would believe if He should bestow upon Himself what He had been accustomed to bestow upon others. Why do you not believe what you do not deny to be more excellent?

Certainly no one else had this power. In fine, the Lord too says of His own soul: 'I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again' (John 10). Review the proud images of your forefathers, and unfold again the mighty deeds of the patriarchs, and you will find who had such a power. Why should I not believe that He is able to deliver my soul, who was able to deliver His own also? As I was about to say more, the recollection suggested that the volume was growing, and that therefore the course of this question ought to be recalled, since that former question still stands at the doors, to which likewise its own space is owed—though with tighter reins, yet still untouched. And indeed there was no need for many things to be said in this part, lest that one too should grow:

supposing, that is, that he thought he had brought forward something great, so as to seek victory by a prolix disputation—one whose wisdom (which was none in him) but whose pride (which abounds) we break. CHAP. X.—But this Israelite being rejected—lest he boast that he had made a fight of it (seeing that the things we have said we brought forward for the instruction of our own people rather than for a contest and conflict with those who will not believe even when they are conquered)—lest we be judged either to have shamelessly given what is holy to the dogs, or to have scattered pearls before swine (Matt. 7), we must return thither whence, by paths of sense almost cut off, I have wandered to this place; and the sheep of the house of Israel must be more diligently gone round:

since, if the charity of God is in us, 'who is weak, and I am not weak? who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?' (2 Cor. 11). And they are rather to be taught, lest they proceed even to blasphemies, if perchance they either do not hold, or do not understand, the things prophesied. They ask whether that be a divine power which has now begun to appear in the martyrs. Men of what law require this? Surely of the Christian, which is so instructed with prophecies that nothing so new, so unexpected, can befall in our times, but that the more choice faith admires it, or the weaker blasphemes it. All things, up to the Lord, the ancient prophets foretold. All things after the Lord which were lacking, the apostles prophesied:

blessed Paul, through the liberty of the Holy Spirit, not keeping silence, who says: 'We know in part, and we prophesy in part' (1 Cor. 13): not that he casts out all things, or does not prophesy all things—he in whom especially Christ speaks—but he prophesies of the whole in part, and knows of the whole in part. He prophesies to us that which he knows to belong to that time which was to come. But that which he prophesies, he assuredly prophesies to the age that is to come. Yet he prophesies the whole, even though he prophesies in part. For these things he prophesies, of whose disclosure that portion of the time which remains until the end had need. In part, therefore, he prophesies, since in part it had already been prophesied: and therefore the prophet knew the things to come which he was prophesying.

The particles of which prophecy the fullness of time, as he himself said, has abolished, in this manner: 'When that which is perfect shall have come, that which is in part shall be destroyed' (ibid.): namely, when, at the conclusion of the world, neither greater knowledge nor prophecy is any longer to be sought. In fine, that he might more openly demonstrate the power of that understanding, he added: 'We see now through a glass in an enigma; but then face to face' (ibid.).

For the meanwhile all things are through a figure, and overshadowed by certain outlines of images, so that the weakness of our flesh and our earthly substance might the more stretch itself toward the truth of spiritual things; so that the desire of its own beauty, even faintly encountered as through a glass, might do this for it, and might teach us how great that beauty is in its own substance, when it appears so admirable even in its reflected enigmas by its own light: and therefore we behold the things promised not through the glass, yet we do not possess them by the merits of our virtues; and while the light is still obscure we marvel, we do not hold them as delivered to us. But then indeed prophecy and knowledge shall cease, when there shall have been an entering into the very power of all the promises which was being promised.

Hence too prophecy is always obscure, because it is chanted at one time and discerned at another. That which is spoken while it is not yet seen is, as if it had not been foretold, not believed. In fine, Isaiah, when so long beforehand he had merited to recognize our redemption in the Virgin's womb, and was showing it to the people as if already present, saying: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel' (Isa. 7); he troubled both the present and the future age of the unbelieving Israelites. For those men of old slew their own prophet, because they did not see the things which he pointed out; and these men slew Him who was prophesied to them, because they did not receive the prophecy.

And that this may not befall us also is to be guarded against, if our age should blaspheme those whom a former age persecuted. And since, as we have said, that which had been foretold has come, there is nothing to come which was not foretold beforehand, the Lord Himself so saying: 'Behold, I have foretold you all things' (Mark 13). Let us rather see whether these things, which now are feigned before our eyes as though fulfilled, were at some time proved to be poured into the ears of our forefathers. Let us see whether one and the same Spirit works all these things (1 Cor. 12). Let us see, in fine, whether even an angel from heaven should evangelize otherwise than what has been evangelized to us: although the very powers of the Lord which now are, are attested through the torments of demons, since 'Satan does not cast out Satan':

because the uniformity of wickedness, welded together by a fellowship naturally undivided, does not fear detriment to itself by the accession of likeness, but takes increase. For the spirit of wickedness had massed together many into the form of one legion, and the confederacy of viperous iniquity; nor did the multitude harm it, which, just as it acquired a wretched strength by an allied infirmity, so it dreaded to incur, when divided by permission, the emptiness of an empty substance. CHAP. XI.—But this part of the argumentation being for the meanwhile sent forth, let us, as we proposed, prove that those things which we admire in the churches of the Lord and in the cemeteries of the saints ought to be believed to be done divinely, if they have been prophesied.

And in this matter, so hard and difficult, and not before handled by anyone, we ought to consult the Lord, if only, when merit fails, we did not fear to be rejected on account of our audacity: since the things which are His, no one apart from Him will be able to explain. For it is a marvel whence there is such confidence for the wretched, whence there is a familiarity so friendly in appealing to the Lord, that we should dare to break forth into this utterance: 'Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth' (Cant. 1). Who has conceived so great a longing? Who, so negligent an estimator of his own so great vows, has sighed that he may desire to touch His mouth close at hand; and would that He might deem us worthy at least of the kiss of those whom He Himself has deigned to kiss:

that we, standing in the second and last and third places, may merit to draw some knowledge in part from their lips, who learned the whole fullness of wisdom from the mouth of the Lord Himself. And yet, even if we were upheld by the privileges of great merits, examples had been set before us, like certain deep-repeated foundations of modesty: lest presumption should dare anything unseemly and of disordered levity. What more choice than blessed Peter? What more uplifted unto hope? What more free in faith, to whom the Lord promised that He would kiss him with the kiss of His mouth, saying: 'To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven'; and that other word: 'Upon this rock I will build my Church' (Matt. 16)?

Yet here, bowing himself down by a certain weight of modesty, the confidence which more loftily he had from merit he more modestly submits for the asking of questions, when at the Supper of the Lord he inquires not by himself who was to betray the Lord, and humbly, out of bashfulness, seeks the kiss of the Lord through another's mouth: which, although he had confidence with the Lord, so that thereupon he would even presume unshaken toward the man—as there, when he dares to ask that, as the Lord walks through the seas, the solidified backs of the waters may likewise sustain himself upon their footing—being somewhat more diffident for himself, but more provident for us, to whom by his own act he was setting forth imitable forms as if in a mirror. If through a delegate he cautiously explores the foreknowledge of the Lord, what is more worthy than this instruction?

What is more subtle than this art of consulting—which we ought to do, we for whom, since there is confidence of no merit, there ought at least to be the modesty of the example, imitating even in this part blessed Peter, who showed not only by what humility, but also through what means we may be able to arrive at the things desired? From him let us seek the resolution of this question, whom he himself was not ashamed to interrogate. From him, I say, who reclining upon the very breast of the Lord, as upon the ark of the New and the Old Testament, approached not only to the vestibule of certain divine oracles as a diligent inquirer, but entered the very inner sanctuary of the secret disposition as a familiar priest;

and therefore he alone saw in the beginning the Word, when to him, as it were, is committed the interior altar to be measured, just as the exterior altar of the most holy temple. May he lead us concerning that book which, closed with seven seals, he wept over and rejoiced to see unsealed, not through any false type, but through open doors, into his own breast of truth. CHAP. XII.—And moreover, lest we linger while he is being consulted, he anticipates the inquirers even by a compendium of foreknowledge: what he discerned would at some time be fearful to our minds, he illumines. He renders also, as if questioned, responses from Patmos. From that place, surely, where he, not as a stranger, entered the secrets of the heavens closed to Caesar, and, driven from the converse of men, came to know the mysteries of the angels. For he says:

'I saw under the altar of God the souls of the martyrs slain for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus, which they held; and to them were given single robes; and they cried with a great voice, saying: How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And to them were given single white robes, and it was said to them, that they should rest yet a little time, until the number should be completed of their fellow-servants and of their brethren who are to be slain hereafter as they were' (Rev. 6). O Apocalypse truly divine, laid open by so great an apostle in the time of confession by merit, that they might the more be hardened unto endurance, when the merits of those who had suffered were shown to them!

One must not, therefore, go astray through the leaves of the sibyls, whose pages struggled with the uncertain evil spirits of the world, and whose places were troubled by the winds of this air. Behold, most evidently the apostle sets forth in detail what he possessed, and brings light to the most obscure question. He had perceived that these things would need to be said at some time, which now a more sinister tongue, as if with oil, with words softened by art, hurls forth unto the destruction of his hearers and of himself. And therefore, 'I saw,' he says, 'under the altar of God the souls of the martyrs slain.' Concerning the faith of the witness, no one is in doubt: let the testimony be sifted, let the understanding of the response waver, not the authority of the one who speaks. CHAP. XIII.—And first this is to be noted, that the apostle testifies that he saw the souls of the martyrs slain:

lest anyone, when we shall have begun to dispute concerning the gifts, should say that they are to be bestowed upon the martyrs after the resurrection, which are shown to have been granted to the souls even now; especially since this stipulates in our favour, that they complain of the delay of the judgment—a judgment which surely one about to rise again accuses, not one who has already risen: since it is one thing to ask that you may hold, another to hold already. But the robes of the martyrs are given to the host, and, as though ungrateful for such great liberty, envy strikes at Melum with great envy concerning the tardiness of vengeance: one who, with no light weight of speech, reproaches by saying: 'How long, O Lord?' that is to say: how long do you not avenge those whom you ought straightway to have avenged? 'How long, O Lord?' that is to say: do you defer us beyond the end of the ages?

For already it has been arrived at the very end, and of our vengeance you do not speak. For what they say wonderfully, they add: 'You do not avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?' Therefore it is not 'how long,' if those mortals are still lingering on the earth who persecuted the servants of the Lord with cudgel, stone, claw, scourge, lead, iron, beasts, fire. For 'how long' is the imputation of a more prolonged age—as to whether 'how long' is to be without end. But either the persecutors still tarry in the flesh, or they have departed from life, even if they dwell on the earth, provided 'how long' does not deceive. But nothing false is put forth by the witnesses of truth; and therefore an interpretation, not the faith, is rather to be sought, which by an obscure phrasing is not excluded, but veiled.

When, therefore, they say: 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth,' they do not desire the mortal blood and deaths of those who once either raged against them in popular sedition, or, propped up by tribunals, promulgated capital sentences—since these still dwell on the earth, and it is not right that the dead be accused, who, while they lived, were defended by these words: 'Lay not this sin to their charge; for they know not what they do' (Acts 7). But if amid the torments of their passions and the bitter labours of death anyone so piously supplicated for the unjust, for the impious, for the bloodthirsty, for the blaspheming;

if, finally, at that very time when the very sense of anguish could rouse those in extremity of suffering to a curse, a prayer was poured out for man—who does not understand that not the minds of the martyrs, but the persons of the persecutors were marked out, and that those are being sought whom it must be believed still dwell on the earth at that time, whom indeed ignorance does not defend, not those who through the condition of their natural substance have already ceased to dwell on the earth, and were long since excused by the martyrs themselves under ignorance? Who these are, we are not ignorant. Undoubtedly the spiritual wickednesses and the power of darkness, who both still dwell on the earth, and have not sinned against the servants of God with ignorance. For when they have said to the Lord Himself:

'What have you come to torment us before the time?' (Matt. 8)—how did they not know His servants, whom they would not have persecuted if they had been ignorant of His servants? Therefore, when they persecuted them, they knew whom by torments they were trying to drag away from their Lord. And hence, when the blessed martyrs intercede for men, and defend them by the excuse of ignorance, it follows that those are held guilty who knowingly acted, and who poured out those very shadows of ignorance upon men, whose fury excuses even human impieties: whom we shall be able to call none other than those who are not friends even to their own, while they do not permit them to be that which is good: they are enemies even of the servants of God, while they persecute them because they do not know what is good. CHAP.

XIV.—After the complaint of these holy souls, let us see what follows: 'And to them were given single white robes.' What is this, that they are clothed again? For before, as it is written, they obtained garments from God; and now they are gifted with clothing by a twofold liberty. Which garments, since they are spiritual, we cannot fear that those which were first given should appear outwardly cast off; nor indeed has any complaint arisen. Therefore, since the diversity of these garments and their signification is not without mystery, we ought to understand the varieties of gifts and the riches of operations: since one and the same Spirit ministers them. They receive garments, then, first, where by confession they laid down their bodies: I believe, that they might be found clothed, not naked.

Again they receive other garments after their appeal, nay, after the change of so long a patience and endurance. Which when they receive, who does not understand that, just as with a new robe, so with a virtue they are suffused, whereby now they shine forth and appear? But if they had asked for one thing and received another, so that they should spurn the gifts, or, mocked, should seek more. But since it is not God's to mock those to whom He has promised great things, and since these, after the second munificence, do not complain, do we doubt that to the consolation of their complaints there belongs that appearance which was given to those who were demanding vengeance? But if unto consolation, what greater consolation can be found than this power, which persecutes the demons, that is, their own enemies?