If the sayings or deeds of Christ were everywhere subjected to carnal senses, my mind would grow torpid, my wit would be idle and sleep, my heart would waste away, and whatever there is of human vigor and warmth would be extinguished. 'He set before them,' it says, 'a parable' (Matt. 13). Just as in a stone fire is cold, in iron fire lies hidden, yet that same fire is kindled into flame by the striking together of iron and stone; so an obscure word gleams forth by the bringing together of word and sense. Certainly, if there were no mystical things, between the faithful and the faithful, between the impious and the pious no distinction would remain, and the devout would be as the obstinate, the sluggish as one who labors, the watchful as one who sleeps.
but now, when the soul seeks, the mind knocks, the sense searches, piety hopes, faith demands, intention merits, there appears both the fruit of one who sweats and the punishment of one who is slothful, and at the same time the justice of the bestower, because things received are more savory than things possessed, and things found delight more than things placed in our lap. Hence it is that Christ veils his teaching with parables, covers it with figures, wraps it in mysteries, renders it obscure by sacraments. 'He set before them,' it says, 'a parable.' Before them—that is, not before his own, but before strangers, before enemies indeed, not friends; before those watching for slander, not listening for salvation. 'Therefore in parables,' he says, 'I speak to them, because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.'
Why? Because he who slanders things past does not deserve to see things present; nor is he worthy to recognize grace, who hid the law lest it should be known. 'Woe to you,' he says, 'lawyers, because you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves have not entered in, and those who were entering you have hindered' (Luke 11). 'He set before them,' it says, 'a parable, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like to a man.' And what offense does Christ give, if he was made in the likeness of men, that he might succor the perishing human race? Does the Lord scandalize, if, in order to set servants free, he is found in the habit of servitude? For whatever pertains to future majesty, whatever pertains to advent and kingdom—behold, it is compared to a man. 'It is like,' he says, 'the kingdom of heaven to a man who sowed good seed in his field.'
'but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle in the midst of the wheat, and went away.' You have heard how the sower of the world sowed the good beginnings of things, and no evil proceeded from the author of the origin; the evil was over-sown by the enemy; the evil was not procreated by the parent of things. 'And God saw,' it says, 'all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good' (Gen. 1). Good, and very good: for him whom God in making called the world (mundum), the enemy by infecting rendered unclean (immundum); and the man whom God placed in the paradise of delights unto life, the enemy dragged down to death in this life of toil; and the affection which God implanted in the flesh by nature, the enemy through envy changed into parricide.
Cain proves this, who first stained the earth with a brother's blood, and to a brother's destruction stood forth as a worthy inaugurator of death (Gen. 4). Thus death, born of discord, ever cleaves and separates human charity. And because it is a long thing to go through each instance, we are compelled to disclose it in few words: the enemy has ever over-sown evils upon our goods, vices upon virtues, deadly things upon vital things, unto our ruin. Did not God fill the whole earth from one man, and from one seed did not the pious sower multiply the whole race of men unto so great a harvest? But the enemy soon reduced all men into one; and by over-sowing evils upon what had been well sown, he destroyed it by a flood, he did not water it. So the law, sown with divine and truthful precepts, he counterfeited with human and lying inventions:
so that from a priest there became a persecutor, from a teacher there stood forth a corrupter, from a defender of the law there was rendered an enemy. Thus the creatures made unto the recognition of the Creator, so that God should not be known, he falsely declared to be gods. Hence he made the wise of the world fools, taught the observers of the world to see nothing, made the professors of knowledge to have no knowledge, dismissed the investigators of all things as ignorant. So the enemy confounded the evangelical crop, sown with heavenly seed, by over-sowing heretical cockle, that he might make of the sheaves of faith bundles for Gehenna, lest they should become wheat for the heavenly barns. And what more? After he himself was turned from an angel into a demon, lest any creature should stand fast in its own state, he strove by art, by wiles, by machinations, by fraud.
But let us now unfold the words of the present parable. 'The kingdom of heaven is like to a man.' To whom? Assuredly to Christ. 'Who sowed good seed.' Because in the very seed of things the condition of the Creator knows no evil. 'In his field.' That is, in the world, the Lord himself saying, 'This field is the world' (Matt. 13:38). 'But while men were sleeping'—that is, the holy Fathers, the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs, sleeping for a time in the slumber of death, because the death of the saints is a sleep; but the death of sinners is death, because in hell they live for punishments, they perish for life, the sinners. 'His enemy came'—that is, the devil. 'He over-sowed cockle.' He over-sowed, he did not sow. The good things of the Creator precede, the evils of the devil follow after;
so that the evil which is from the devil is an accident, not a nature. 'He over-sowed cockle in the midst of the wheat.' Because the devil is accustomed to sow gratuitously heresies among the faithful, sin among the saints, quarrels among the peaceable, guiles among the simple, wickedness among the innocent: not that he may acquire cockle, but that he may destroy the wheat; not that he may seize the guilty, but that he may carry off the innocent. The enemy seeks the leader more than the soldier; nor does he besiege the dead, but assails the living: so the devil does not seek to capture sinners, whom he possesses as subjugated, but he labors to capture the just.
'He over-sowed cockle in the midst of the wheat, and went away.' Because the devil indeed impels toward ruin by his forces, but after he has laid low, he abandons; the devil does not seek the man, but seeks the destruction of the man. Brethren, he rejoices in our evils, he swells at our ruins, he grows strong from our wounds, he thirsts for our blood, he is sated from our flesh, he lives from our deaths. The devil does not wish to have the man, but to destroy him. Why? Because he does not wish, does not bear, does not suffer, that man should arrive at heaven, whence he himself fell. And because the discourse draws us out longer today, let us defer the rest, that we may both relieve the common labor and pursue more fully the things that are to be said.