Sermons & Tracts 1

The first class contains sermons on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. The second, sermons on the seasons. The third, sermons on the saints. The fourth, sermons on various matters. Inserted into these classes are the sermons of Caesarius, bishop of Arles, except those which are inscribed 'to the Monks.' We have compared all those editions mentioned at the beginning of the Retractationes and the Confessions, in volume one. First Class. On the Old and New Testament. Sermon One. On the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). 1. Empty questions concerning the tree of paradise are resolved. We read in Genesis that the Lord said to Adam: Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is in the midst of paradise, you shall not eat;

but on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. We know, dearly beloved brethren, that many have raised empty questions about this tree, who say that Adam did not sin by his own will, because in that tree was the knowledge of good and evil: and while they strive to excuse the fault of man, they thus do injury to God the Creator. To these an account must be rendered, lest they longer raise empty questions, or lie hidden even now in error by thus thinking: but if they wish to know, let them be silent and hear; lest, by foolish speaking, they hurl reproach against God. There was one tree in the midst of paradise, testing the will of man: in it hung life, in it also lurked death through transgression: in it transgression appeared, in which the precept of the law had been established.

God said: Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat; but of that tree which is in the midst of paradise you shall not eat, lest you die. In this word a law had been laid down by God for man; in it was a reward appointed, when, in the determination of the sentence, God said: If you taste, you shall surely die; and the devil said: You shall not surely die; and man stood between God the Maker and the devil the deceiver. God threatens death if the fruit of the tree is touched; the devil promises that they will be as gods if that tree is violated: and the poisonous sweetness was desired, and the wholesomeness of perpetual life was despised. 2. Death was not made in the tree. But some slanderer says: Do you see that in that tree death was made?

Let us answer the empty question. It was not at all made in that tree, but discovered through man: this was a testing of man, not a deceiving by the Savior. For if He had not loved man, He would not have made him; nor would He have forewarned him beforehand, had He willed to put him to death. But if He had not forewarned beforehand, it would have been not mercy but impiety; not justice but injustice — that He should have made man mercifully, and caused him to fall unjustly. This impiety ought not to be even in man: how much less is it to be believed to have been in God, who is the fount of piety and goodness? Which of men, my brethren, would allow his own work to perish, or hand over his own building to ruin, or thrust into the pit of death the son whom he has begotten?

If this cruelty is not found in man, neither should you believe it was in God, who ordered His own workmanship well—that is, man—and propped up His creature against its impending ruin with the stay of a commandment, that it might not fall; yet it could not stand. Why? Because it refused to hear God. What blame, then, do we lay upon God if Adam fell—Adam who, that he might fall, despised the commandment of God? The tree was not evil. Things are evil not by nature but by evil use. Tell me, was the tree itself good or evil? You will say, Evil: evil surely, since by snatching its fruit man was punished with death. Was it then the tree that was evil, or the transgression of the commandment? Plainly the tree; for if it had not been evil, Adam would not have fallen. You say these things without attending to the power of the Scriptures.

For just as it is written that in that tree there was the knowledge of good and evil, so it is written, And God saw the things that He had made, and behold they were very good (Gen. 1:31). Do you believe that which would lead you into error, and do you not believe that which would bring you to salvation? Will you, who slander, come to know that that tree was not evil but good, and that death was not made in it by God, but that man created death for himself? Tell me, slanderer, is iron good or evil? Without doubt you will say, Evil. And why evil and not good, when all things that God made are very good? What kind of good do you call iron, by which men are slain? Hear, then: it is not the iron that is evil, but he who uses iron for a crime—he himself is evil.

For do you wish to know that iron is good? One man uses it to prune a vine, and another to commit murder; one man feeds himself by iron, another slays the innocent with the sword; one man tills the field with iron, another sheds blood by the iron at the throat; one man works with iron to sustain his own life, but another with iron snatches away another's life. For the judge too bears the sword, that he may punish the guilty and acquit the innocent. Still—if you have leisure—go on slandering. Do you say wine is good or evil? I think you would say it is good, not evil; and this by the judgment of fairness, not by the favor of charity. Therefore wine is good. Very good. Well then, since in the matter of wine you have confessed that God's creature is good, I too confess that it is good.

Why then does one man take it with sobriety, and another unto drunkenness? Is God's creature to be called evil merely because one man gets drunk on it and appears disgraceful? Another drinks soberly, and in that very sobriety blesses God; but he who is made drunk falls into a pit, and at times incurs death. The foods that the Lord has deigned to bestow on us for our use are not evil but good; and yet, if they are taken in excess, they are ruinous and harmful. Is God's creature therefore to be called evil because it harms, or is ruinous to some? No—rather it is because they take in excess unto the ruin of their own well-being, so that what God has bestowed on the human race becomes harmful to them. And the things I am about to say are well known to all.

We know that some have been choked to death by too much wine and food: was death then in the wine or in the food? Far from it! Rather, immoderation in food made them fall into death. So too iron is not to be called evil because a robber commits murder with it; rather the man who uses it to slay a human being is himself evil. Thus that tree also was not evil but good; but plainly evil was the fact that man transgressed the commandment of God; for whatever God has deigned to grant man for his use is good. Behold, from the New Testament I bring forth testimony that all things which God made are good.

In the Acts of the Apostles we read that Peter fell asleep and saw in a vision a certain white vessel like a linen sheet let down from heaven, in which were set the four-footed beasts, the birds, and the creeping things of the earth. And a voice came to him: Rise, Peter, kill and eat. And Peter said: Far be it, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common and unclean. To him it was said: What God has sanctified, do not call common (Acts 10:11-15). What now, slanderer? Behold, by the divine mouth we have proved that all things are not only good but even sanctified. The sin is to be imputed to Adam alone, not to the tree nor to God. This tree was not evil but good, nor could anything of evil be found in it.

but man became evil of his own accord, having used ill the good that God had made. In this the evil will of man is recognized: that he, to whom all paradise lay subject, by stretching out his hand to the forbidden tree incurred death. If the Godhead had bestowed on him but one tree, and all paradise had been forbidden, what God bestowed on him ought to have sufficed. But because he wished for more than the will of the Giver granted him, he lost even what he had, and none the less incurred death. To whom is Adam's sin to be imputed? To God who warned him, or to him who refused to hear?

To the physician who gave the wounded man a precept to be observed, or to the wounded man who, against the physician's precept, by tasting harmful fruits incurred the reed—that is, the occasion—of transgression? It is the art of physicians that, to those whom they see laboring under too grave an illness, they forbid the things that are ruinous to health or would bring on danger. But if the sick man, against the physician's precept, through intemperance taking the very things forbidden, falls into death, what does it matter to the physician who, foreseeing the cause, prescribed the regimen? So neither is it to be imputed to God, the physician of souls, that Adam fell—Adam who, though warned beforehand, wished to live forever. Many things remain concerning these questions that ought to be said;

but the hour has slipped by for saying each thing, lest the length of the discourse breed weariness in the hearers. I call myself a debtor, I ask for a deferral; but I fear lest here the debtor should appear and the creditor procure his own absence. I am concerned to pay the debt of a sermon, but I do not find my former creditors: some I see, some I seek. O sluggish creditor, when you have come to exact the debt, why do you procure your own absence? The debtor desires to satisfy the creditor, and the idle creditor absents himself. You see a strange thing. The debtor presses upon the creditor to receive the debt, and the other makes excuse. But what does it matter if the creditor was unwilling to come? Let the debtor render what he promised. Why did God, foreknowing that Adam would sin, not call him back from sin?

Still that old slanderer, though convicted by so many proofs, does not acquiesce, but says: Did God know that man could sin, or not? Let us answer him, lest he seem to himself to have said anything: He knew it plainly. If, then, He knew that man could sin, why did He not call him back from sin? Why? Because it was not fitting to crown one who was unwilling. Who ever, my brothers, gives a prize to one who does not fight? Or what crown to one who does not contend? Or what victory without a struggle? Hear the Apostle speaking by the divine mouth: No one is crowned unless he has striven lawfully (2 Tim. 2:5). Adam neither fought nor took up the contest with the devil; but at a single suggestion he lost the prize of immortality. He was conquered who did not fight;

he yielded to his will, not to necessity. O slanderer, who do not know how to mark yourself with the sign, and yet wish to slander God because Adam did not sin by his own will! Was not Job a man like him—how much did he suffer and endure? He fought bravely and conquered: he was given by God into the power of the devil, and he held out. And surely the one whom God knew could by no means be utterly overcome, He ought not to have handed over into that power; but God willed to test him in this way precisely to cut off from us all occasion of excuse and slander. Stripped of his riches and estate, he could not be conquered, because he did not will it. He lost his son, and blessed the Lord. This was too little: afterward, full of sores, he lay upon the dunghill;

and he could not speak anything evil against the Lord, though he was pressed by pains to speak; yet his words were not of reproach. To him his wife was now no longer a helper but a deceit—the helper indeed of the devil, but the deceit of her husband—suborned by the devil she urged such things, saying: How long will you endure this? Say a word against the Lord, that He may be angry with you and you may die (Job 2:9). O the affection of a wife! O the conjugal poultice! As if she had said, Confess to God, that He may be gracious to you and you may live: rather she says, Blaspheme God, that He may be angry with you and you may die. O the devices of the ancient serpent! Through his wife he thought to deceive Job, whose soul was full of wounds; yet not even so was he able to incite him to blasphemy. But what such thing did Adam endure?

What contest did he have with the devil? He endured nothing of the sort. Why then did he obey the devil rather than God? Death comes from the contempt of the divine command. With what reverence the Scriptures are to be received. But still, slanderer, you say: Why did God say, You shall die the death, unless because God Himself made death, since He did not avert it? You are answered in this too, most foolish slanderer: if you, being a man who has sons, admonish them all, give a precept to all, that they should follow you and lean upon you in all things—and if one of them proves a despiser, and through evil conduct incurs death—surely his death is not to be imputed to you, but rather to him who, by despising your admonition, incurred death?

So neither is Adam's death to be ascribed to God, who warned him beforehand, before the transgression, lest he fall into the snare. For it is manifest that the Lord warned him, and did not wish man to die, nor did He Himself make death. To this word most wise Solomon bears witness, saying: God did not make death, neither does He rejoice in the destruction of the living (Wisd. 1:13). Adam neglected God's command, and fell into death. Truly, brothers, no one contemns the imperial rescript without peril to his own blood; but all receive it with trembling and veneration, and adore the meanest little scrap of paper written with ink, and revere as it were divine characters. When the divine Scriptures are read, the words of God thunder, the Lord Himself in a certain manner present speaks to those present;

and He is not heeded. Either men listen with disdain, or—what is worse—sitting idle they give themselves to idle tales. The emperor, set far away, speaks from a scrap of paper; and we tremble, and he is adored in that paper as though present: yet when the Testament of the Lord is recited, it is even despised by some men. The prophets themselves cry out, the apostles preach, the Gospels speak, He converses with men through Himself, and He is not heeded. Hear the Lord present and speaking: Wherever, He says, two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them (Matt. 18:20). Ought God to have permitted sin? But surely, say the slanderous men, God ought not to have permitted man to sin. O fools!

Those who say this do not consider that God did not make a statue of stone or of wood, but fashioned a perfect man, to whom He also gave the power of free will, that he might consider what good to desire and what evil to spurn. He ought to have feared what God threatened, and to have despised what the devil urged; and with the prize of immortality set before him, he ought to have kept his heart prepared for this, and to have kept the command of his Creator, not dared the counsel of the destroyer. Do I not blame man rather than God? Should He who made man do him wrong? O foolish and empty question! Men say, God ought not to have permitted man to sin; and they do not say that man did evil in transgressing God's command that he might sin;

for indeed man himself ought to have shunned death and not approached the forbidden tree. If any man (I will speak of the emperor of this world) has contemned the herald of the judge, is he not haled off to punishment? Adam contemned the command of God, and is defended by some! Why do you blame God at your own peril, and not man without your peril? Why do you accuse the Craftsman, who fashioned well, and defend the man who was unwilling to attend to his own building, who was forgetful of the divine command, who ran into the wound of transgression? Adam is not evil merely because he begot a murderer. O you who defend Adam and do God wrong, answer me what I ask you. Was Adam good or evil?

You will say, Good, so that your defense may be complete. If, then, he was good, why did he beget one son good and the other a brigand? He ought to have created good sons; or if, as you say, he sinned by God's doing, he ought to have generated both evil. Why did he beget one innocent, and the other a shedder of innocent blood? The one consecrated martyrdom, the other initiated parricide. Therefore Cain, because he killed his brother, is not guilty, since his father took on the guilt, who created the son? Therefore Cain unwillingly fixed the sword in his brother's throat! Such is the justice that those hold who strive to slander the law: that the begotten should not be guilty, and their begetters should be held bound by the guilt.

Behold Adam who begot a brigand, behold Cain who killed his brother: which of these two is guilty? The father who begot, or the son who destroyed his brother by a cruel death? The slanderer has yielded, the slanderer has fallen silent—though he who slanders the truth never says anything truer. Where are you, slanderer? Answer me on behalf of your client, you who were so confident of yourself; defend the one whom until now you were defending. Why have you yielded? Why have you fallen silent? Behold, for the son's guilt Adam is held guilty, who begot the parricide. Why do you not say, He is not guilty? He who was silent has risen up: I do not keep silence, he says; I answer plainly, and I defend: Neither is the son guilty for the father, nor the father for the son;

for it is written: The soul of the father is mine, and the soul of the son is mine; the soul that has sinned, that alone shall be punished (Ezek. 18:4). That slanderer, who was sleeping, has as it were awakened, opened his mouth, begun to speak; but presently he will fall silent. Say then, neither is the father guilty for the son, nor the son for the father. Answer for your client, and I for my God. Defend the cause of Adam, and I the injury done to my God. You say it is not just that Adam should be guilty for his son: and I agree. If the son's guilt does not implicate the father in sin, and just as we are not to judge on behalf of Cain, so neither let us impute to God that Adam sinned; but let us so act that we may come to the mercy of God. SERMON II. On the calling of Abraham, 'Go forth from your land,' etc.

Genesis 12:1. What it means to go forth from one's own land. Just now, when the divine lesson was being read, we heard the Lord saying to blessed Abraham: Go forth from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house. All things, dearly beloved brothers, that were written in the Old Testament bore the type and image of the New Testament. For so Paul said: All these things happened to them in figure: and they were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Cor. 10:11). If, then, they were written for our sake, what we read was done bodily in Abraham of old, we see spiritually fulfilled in ourselves. Go forth, says the Lord to him, from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house.

All these things, brothers, we both believe and perceive to be fulfilled in us through the sacrament of Baptism. Our land is our flesh: well do we go forth from our land when, forsaking carnal habits, we cleave to the footsteps of Christ. Does it not seem to you that he happily goes forth from his own land—that is, from himself—who from proud is made humble, patient from wrathful, chaste from lustful, generous from covetous, kindly from envious, gentle from cruel? Truly, brothers, he happily goes forth from his own land who for the love of God is so transformed. And so even in private conversation we are accustomed to speak thus: if some evil man begins of his own accord to practice good works, we say of him, He has gone out of himself.

And truly he is rightly said to have gone forth well from himself who, having repudiated his vices, delights in virtues. Go forth, says the Lord, from your land. Our land—that is, our flesh—before Baptism was a land of the dying; through Baptism it has been made a land of the living. This is that land of which the Psalmist makes mention, saying: I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living (Ps. 27:13). The land of the living and not of the dying—that is, of virtues, not of vices, as I said—we have been made through Baptism: if, however, after receiving Baptism we do not return to the wallowing-place of vices, if, after we have been made a land of the living, we do not do works subject to death and lustful. And come, says the Lord, into the land which I shall show you.

For then do we come with joy to the land which the Lord shows, if first we drive away, with His own help, the vices and sins from our land—that is, from our flesh. To go forth from our kindred. Go forth, He says, also from your kindred. This kindred is understood to be the vices and sins which are born with us, as it were, from our very birth, and are added to us and nourished from infancy by evil deeds. From our kindred, then, we go forth when through the grace of Baptism we are emptied of all sins and vices; yet in such a way that afterward, with God's help, we labor as much as we can, so that, our vices being expelled, we may be filled with virtues.

For if, having been emptied of all evils through Baptism, we choose to be slothful and lazy, I fear lest that be fulfilled in us which is written in the Gospel: When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none. Afterward returning, if he finds the house empty, he brings with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and entering they dwell there: and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first (Matt. 12:43-45). So then let us go out from our kindred—that is, from our sins and vices—in such a way that we may never afterward wish to return to these evils, like a dog to its vomit. To go forth from his father's house. Go forth, He says, also from your father's house.

And this too, dearly beloved, we ought to receive spiritually. Our father, before the grace of Christ, was the devil. Of him the Lord in the Gospel reproves the Jews, saying: You are of your father the devil, and you wish to fulfill the desires of your father (John 8:44). He called the devil the father of men, not by their being born of him, but by their imitating his wickedness; not that they could be born of him, but that they willed to imitate him. For that the devil was formerly our father, the Psalmist makes mention in the person of God speaking to the Church, saying: Hear, O daughter, and see, and forget your people and your father's house (Ps. 45:10). Consider, brothers, what he said: Hear, he says, O daughter. He who said, Hear, O daughter, is surely a father.

And when He says, Forget your people and your father's house, He surely admonishes that the father is to be forsaken. We are therefore invited by God the Father to forsake, by a blessed and happy exchange, the devil our father. Well do we forsake the devil as father, if, with God's help, we always strive to shun or flee his cunning and wickedness. Recapitulation of the things said above. All these things, then, brothers—that is, that after the example of Abraham we may be able to go forth from our land, namely from our carnal manner of life, and to leave our kindred, namely our vices and sins, and to escape from the house of the devil our father—we have merited not by our own strength, but by the grant of Christ's grace.

And therefore, as much as we can, let us labor with His help, lest we return to fellowship or friendship with the devil, or to vices, or to carnal concupiscences; on account of that which is written: Now you have been made whole; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you (John 5:14): but rather by imitating the faith of Abraham, and by doing good works continually, we may be able to attain not only to pardon, but even to the fellowship or friendship of God. But that too, dearly beloved brothers, which the Lord spoke concerning this same matter to Moses, we ought to consider with great fear and dread. For thus He says:

When the Lord has delivered to you the land of the Canaanites, beware lest you ever join friendships with the inhabitants of that land, which forthwith would be to you unto ruin (Deut. 7:1-4). For since we believe that through the grace of Baptism all crimes or sins have been expelled from us, if afterward we make friendships with those very vices and sins, while we consent to them unto covetousness or luxury, without doubt this friendship turns to our ruin. And therefore, as much as we can, let us labor with His help for the well-being of the soul; and in the field of our heart, which sins or crimes had possessed, let us take care to introduce virtues, that there may be fulfilled in us what blessed Isaac, blessing his son as a type of Christ, said:

Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field, which the Lord has blessed (Gen. 27:27): which may He deign to grant, to whom be honor and dominion with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen. SERMON III. On blessed Abraham. Abraham justified by faith. Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him unto righteousness (Gen. 15:6). Behold, without works he is justified by faith, and whatever might have been conferred on him by legal observance, faith alone bestowed the whole. He had been a law to himself, who had not received the law; yet by nature he observed whatever was of the law (Rom. 2:14).

Abraham our father had the root of faith and of the Christian name; who, when he was commanded to go forth from his native inheritance unto uncertain and foreign places, fulfilled it with total devotion: in a thing so hard he had no hesitation, but received the sentence of God as one who might seem to be choosing it. Go forth, says the Lord, from your land and from your kindred, and come into the land which I shall show you (Gen. 12:1). A new kind of testing: to enjoin foreign exiles upon one who has his own possessions, to heap toil upon one at rest, to command penury upon one who possesses, and to impose upon the lord of such great resources the necessity of wandering abroad. Yet gladly did faith accept whatever seemed arduous to the unbelieving.

To whom is not his own hut sweeter than foreign palaces, and a cottage of one's own will than well-appointed praetoria? It is no light thing for anyone to leave his own and to follow after alien uncertainties; to leave what he knows, to seek what he does not know. For who has forsaken his own without grief, or abandoned it without tears?

To whom is it not hard to leave those walls that shared the secret of his birth, that sweet threshold and beloved hearth, which both the memory of his parents and the first rudiments of his own infancy commend to him—where those cradles of the new and soon-rising man served him, where carefree infancy played amid the first beginnings of light, or the childhood years happy in the simplicity of that very age, which native need, amid the frolics and the very sports of that age, displayed to him on his own home soil? Amid these things, then, so charming, so sweet, which had to be left with every difficulty, Go forth, He says, from your land. Who would gladly hear this without the strength of faith? It would be a lighter trial, if he even heard the name of the place to which he was to go.

He sets out, he journeys on, with belief as his companion, his wife as his fellow-traveler; he goes secure, he goes trusting, ready to exact by his labors the thing promised him, hoping more from the uncertain than he had been secure of in his own. He goes, then, through desert solitudes, through pathless dwelling-places, through the secret recesses of nature, where the still-untamed earth had not yet known the footprint of man: and amid all those things which at God's command he had abandoned, no hut, no cottage, but amid the very fearsome secret places of the silent plains, a guest only of heaven and earth, he found no refuge to which he might turn aside. Abraham receives three Angels into his hospitality. Yet a humane oak-tree took in Abraham the wanderer;

which refreshed Abraham as he came, scorched by the summer sun, with the shade of its pleasantness: whose leafy luxuriance of forest foliage, by the thickness of its branches, held off in the summer season the daylight and the vapor-bearing rays of the burning sun; so that whatever the harshness of the season inflicted, the density of both branches and leaves took it all away. Abraham therefore enters the grove of the tree, beneath which is constructed some kind of refuge; narrow indeed for a man, but sufficient for majesty. Yet a devout faith painted a palace worthy of God, in which the supernal Majesty might dine. When, therefore, placed there, he gazed at heaven with curious eyes, behold, suddenly in the person of three men the incorporeal Majesty descended.

He runs to meet them, he hastens, he stretches out suppliant hands, and kisses the knees of the passers-by: Lord, he says, if I have found grace before You, do not pass by Your servant (Gen. 18:3). You see, Abraham runs to meet three, and adores one. A Triune Unity, and one Trinity. Let water be taken, let your feet be washed, and refresh yourselves beneath this tree, and I will bring bread, and you shall eat; and afterward you shall pass on into your way. And they said to him, Do as you have said (Gen. 18:5). Perfect righteousness ever keeps its course in good things; he who has no roof offers hospitality to strangers; and though he was bereft of every dwelling, he displayed to the passers-by such a dwelling as necessity provided.

And although the things that were offered were lesser, faith gave greatness to the narrowness of the place—a faith which did not deserve to be despised by God. They turn aside to the hospitality of the tree, which Abraham had already made worthy of God. Meanwhile fine flour is sprinkled, cakes baked in the ashes are made, and a calf is slaughtered. Although the Divinity had no need of these, yet righteousness bestowed what it desired. Behold, heavenly sublimity reclined at a human table, food is taken, a meal is had, and in comradely conversation between man and God familiar words are exchanged. Hospitality is not without reward. And because with God hospitality could not be fruitless, at once he received the price of his reward:

a son is given to the old man, posterity is given to the despairing, old age received what youth was least able to have. At this time, He says, I will come, and Sarah shall have a son (Gen. 18:10). And when the aged years and Sarah's dead womb denied that this could be done, yet belief gave faith to the divine promise. I have made you, He says, the father of many nations (Gen. 17:5). He was filled with good things, because what He promised him, He fulfilled. Behold, on the very brink of old age, before laws were yet brought forth and recited, we assert that Abraham was religious; and he who had been more just in worship, proved more approved in belief. For behold, that aged husband, who as yet had not even one son, God nevertheless promised innumerable descendants in that one.

Behold, when his loins were exhausted, God said to Abraham: Look up to heaven, and number the stars: so shall your seed be. And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him unto righteousness (Gen. 15:5-6). It had ceased with Sarah after the manner of women, because her weary members had already failed. The whole body is furrowed with wrinkles, the brow becomes deeply plowed, and old age spent. As the blood fails in the veins, sad old age is worn out; but by the divine judgment the ardor of that age is kindled. The divine promise makes her a better mother than age had made her capable of bearing. The mother received an offspring which the barrenness of the season had taken from her. When her members were far spent, Isaac is conceived:

suddenly the empty and withering veins boiled again with revived blood, and the old man's dead loins, vaporized with warmed blood, were animated with indwelling heats even unto childbearing. Youthful vigor grew warm, and vaporized with blood made warm. The old woman becomes fruitful, the old man becomes pregnant with offspring; the womb grows day by day, and, as the birth gathers strength, the capacious hollow of the swelling belly is stretched out. It becomes a burden, and the longed-for affection out of weary loins, the too-great load of a desired posterity. Such a mother, who empty could scarcely walk, carried the heavy womb. But because the things she had received were of belief, a stronger faith gave life to her spent loins.

The withered breasts, which the loss of a sap drawn off into empty bags had slackened, are now stretched taut with the abundance of a milky spring. She becomes a mother at the breast, a mother in childbirth; a mother, I say, who by reason of her age had been a grandmother. Faith gave new fires to aged flesh. Thus Isaac is born of belief, that their faith might be told among their offspring unto the ages. Amen. SERMON IV. On the heifer, the ram and the goat of three years, and also the turtledove and the pigeon (Genesis 15:9-17). 1. The carnal and the spiritual signified in Abraham's sacrifice. We have heard, dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture saying: 'The Lord spoke to Abram, saying, Take me a heifer three years old, and a she-goat of three years, and a ram of three years, a turtledove also and a pigeon.'

'And he took all these and divided them in the midst, and laid each of the two parts one against the other on either side; but the birds he did not divide. And the fowls came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. And when the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and a great and dark horror seized him. And when the sun had gone down, there arose a dark mist, and there appeared a smoking furnace, and a lamp of fire passing between those divisions.' What, then, these things may signify, brethren, briefly, so far as the Lord shall grant, we desire to convey to the ears of your Charity. That Abraham was called by the Lord the father of many nations.

For all the nations which believe and shall believe in Christ are the sons of Abraham, by imitating his faith, not by being born through the flesh. For just as the Jews, made degenerate through unbelief, are in the Gospel called from sons of Abraham the sons of the devil and a brood of vipers; so on the contrary all the nations which faithfully believe in Christ have deserved to be made the sons of Abraham. The heifer of three years, therefore, and the ram of three years, and the goat of three years, and the turtledove and the pigeon, bore the figure of all the nations. And they are said to be of three years, because all the nations were to believe in the mystery of the Trinity. And because the whole Catholic Church has not only spiritual men, but also carnal ones:

although some say that they believe in the Trinity, yet they are carnal, because they neglect to shun crimes and sins; and because together with the carnal there are also the spiritual, therefore the turtledove and the pigeon are added. In the turtledove and the pigeon the spiritual can be signified, as in those three animals the carnal can be understood. 2. In the Catholic Church the carnal are set against one another, not the spiritual. Attend diligently, then, for those three animals Abraham is said to have divided into two parts and to have set against one another. The birds, says Scripture, he did not divide. Why is this, brethren? Because in the Catholic Church the carnal are divided; the spiritual are by no means divided, and, as Scripture says, they are prepared against one another.

Why are the carnal both divided and set against one another? Because all the lustful and lovers of the world do not cease to have divisions and scandals against one another. These, then, are divided, because they are adversaries to one another; but the birds, that is, the spiritual, are not divided. Why are the spiritual not divided? Because in them there is one heart and one soul toward God, in them there is one and the same willing and refusing. For they are like those birds we spoke of above, namely the turtledove and the pigeon. In the turtledove chastity is designated, in the pigeon simplicity.

For all in the Catholic Church who fear God are marked as chaste and simple, and can say with the Psalmist: 'Who will give me wings like a dove's, that I may fly away and be at rest?' (Psalm 55:6). And again: 'The turtledove has found herself a nest, where she may lay her young' (Psalm 84:3). And while the carnal, who can be divided, are pressed down in the world by the heavy fetters of vices, the spiritual are lifted on high by the wings of diverse virtues, and by two wings as it were, that is, by the two commandments, of loving God and neighbour, are raised up to heaven, and can say with the Apostle: 'But our citizenship is in heaven' (Philippians 3:20);

and as often as the priest says 'Lift up your hearts,' they answer securely and faithfully that they hold them toward God; which very few and rare in the Church can say with confidence and in truth. For this reason, then, Abraham did not divide the birds, because the spiritual, in whom, as I said, there is one heart and one soul, cannot be divided nor separated from the love of God or of neighbour; but with the Apostle they cry out: 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution?' And the rest that follows, up to what was said: 'Nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Romans 8:35-39). The spiritual, therefore, are not separated from Christ even by torments;

but the carnal are sometimes separated even by idle chatter. Those the cruel sword does not separate; these carnal affection does separate. The spiritual are not broken by hardships; the carnal are corrupted even by flatteries. Abraham, therefore, divided those animals into two parts; but the birds he did not divide. 3. A figure of the Last Judgment. And when the sun had gone down, a deep sleep, he says, fell upon Abraham, and a great and exceedingly dark horror; and there appeared a burning and smoking furnace, and a lamp of fire passing between those divisions. See, brethren, that this fire is said to pass between those divisions, but it is not read to have touched the turtledove and the pigeon. That evening signified the end of the world;

those animals, as we have already said, bore the type of all the nations believing in Christ. Yet these nations, as has already been said, because they have in themselves not only the carnal but also the spiritual, that is, not only the wicked but also the good; therefore those animals were divided, and the fire passed through them, according to that which the Apostle says: 'For the day of the Lord shall declare it; because it shall be revealed in fire' (1 Corinthians 3:13). That burning and smoking furnace and the lamp of fire figured the day of judgment. And therefore fear and a dark horror lay upon blessed Abraham. Whence we understand, that if in the day of judgment the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the impious appear? (1 Peter 4:18)

The burning and smoking furnace, therefore, signified the day of judgment: the day, I say, of judgment, in which there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, in which there shall be wailing and lamentation and too-late repentance; when the foundations of the mountains shall be moved, and the earth shall burn down to hell beneath; when, as blessed Peter says, 'The burning heavens shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the heat of fire' (2 Peter 3:12); when, as the Lord himself says in the Gospel, 'even the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; when the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven' (Matthew 24:29). Where then shall the impious see themselves? Where shall the adulterers, where the drunkards, where the slanderers recognize themselves?

Where shall the lovers of luxury, where the robbers, where the proud and the envious appear? What shall the wretches say in their own defence, whom, though so often admonished, yet unprepared, that day shall find? When at that trumpet of the Archangel, clearer than every clarion, the whole world at once shall begin to bellow; when, as the prophet says, the Lord shall come 'to make the earth desolate' (Isaiah 13:9), and to destroy the sinners out of it; when, as Scripture says, 'the sinners and the impious shall be cast into the pool of fire, and the smoke of their torments shall ascend for ever and ever' (Revelation 19:20; 14:11). What trembling then, what gloom, what darkness shall seize upon the guilty, the negligent, and the lukewarm?

Lest, therefore, we too come into that torment of soul, let us awake while there is time to be corrected, and let us seek the will of our Lord as good and useful servants: so that when that day of judgment, which that burning and smoking furnace signified, dreadful and greatly to be feared even by the good, shall have come, we may not be tormented in avenging flames in hell together with the mortals whom those animals figured, who can be divided by the various contentions of pleasures; but rather, bearing the simplicity of the pigeon

and the chastity of the turtledove, may be lifted up to heaven on the spiritual wings of the virtues, according to that which the Apostle says: 'We shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord' (1 Thessalonians 4:17). By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen. SERMON V. On the three men who appeared to blessed Abraham (Genesis 18). 1. In the reading of Scripture not only the letter is to be attended to.

I have frequently admonished your Charity, most beloved brethren, that in these readings which in these days are recited in the Church, we ought not only to attend to what we recognize as sounding from the letter, but, the veil of the letter being removed, we should faithfully seek the life-giving Spirit. For thus says the Apostle: 'The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life' (2 Corinthians 3:6). Indeed the unhappy Jews, and the more unhappy heretics, while they look only at the sound of the letter, like a body without a soul, so without the life-giving Spirit have remained dead. But let us hear the Apostle saying, that all these things happened to them in figure; and they were written for our sake (1 Corinthians 10:11).

Let us see, then, what it is that we have just heard, when the divine reading was read. 2. Lot far inferior to Abraham. 'God appeared,' it says, 'to Abraham, as he sat at the door of his tent by the oak of Mamre. Behold,' it says, 'three men stood over him, and he went out to meet them.' Attend, brethren, and see in what manner God appeared to Abraham, and in what manner he appeared to Lot. To Abraham three come, and they stand over him; to Lot two come, and they sit in the street (Genesis 19:1-2). See, brethren, whether things are not done according to merits by the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. For indeed Lot was far inferior to Abraham. For unless he had been inferior, he would not have deserved to be separated from blessed Abraham, nor would the dwelling of the Sodomites have pleased him.

So then three men come to Abraham at midday; two came to Lot, and they come in the evening: for Lot could not bear the greatness of the midday light; but Abraham was able to receive the full splendour of the light. 3. Commendation of hospitality. Now let us see in what manner Abraham, and in what manner Lot, received those who came. Abraham took the initiative, and ran to meet them. And when he had met them, he hastens to the tent, and says to his wife: 'Hasten,' he says, 'and knead three measures of fine flour, and make hearth-cakes' -- which in Greek is said, indicating, that is, hidden and concealed loaves. But Abraham himself ran to the herd, and took a calf. What kind of calf? Perhaps one that happened to be first to run up?

It is not so; but a good and tender calf. He took, therefore, the calf, and gave it to a servant: 'Boy,' he says, 'hasten to prepare it.' See, brethren, attend with what fervent spirit you ought to receive guests. Behold, Abraham himself runs, his wife hastens, the servant makes speed. There is no sluggard in the household of the wise man. Behold, the offices of hospitality of Abraham and of Sarah are equal. But Lot indeed received them, but only two, and not the whole Trinity, nor at midday, but at evening. And what did he set before them? 'He baked,' it says, 'unleavened bread, and they ate.' And because Abraham was much inferior in merits, he neither had a fatted calf, nor did he recognize the mystery of the Trinity in three measures of fine flour:

yet because he offered with a kindly spirit even that which he could, he merited to be delivered from the destruction of the Sodomites. Attend, brethren, that even Lot, while he did not turn away guests, deserved to receive angels. Behold, the angels enter the hospitable house; the houses closed to guests are burned up with sulphurous flames. 4. Abraham recognized the mystery of the Trinity. The washing of feet. Three men, therefore, came to Abraham, and stood over him. See what this itself is, that they come over him, not against him. He had subjected himself to the will of God; and therefore God is said to stand over him. 'They stood,' it says, 'over him'; not against him to repel, but over him to protect. He received three men, he sets loaves from three measures before them.

Why is this, brethren, unless because he understands the mystery of the Trinity? He also sets before them a calf, a calf which is not tough, but good and tender. And what is so tender, what is so good, as he who humbled himself for us even unto death? He himself is that fatted calf, which the father slays for the penitent son received back. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son (John 3:16). To three, therefore, Abraham ran forth, and one he adores. But in that he saw three, as has already been said, he understood the mystery of the Trinity; and in that he adored as it were one, he recognized that in three persons there is one God. To one he speaks, saying, 'Turn aside to your servant.'

He also adds, as though speaking to men: 'I will take,' he says, 'water, and let your feet be washed.' Learn, brethren, from blessed Abraham to receive guests gladly, to wash their feet with humility and piety. Wash, I say, the feet of the holy pilgrims, lest perchance there remain on them the dust which they might shake off from their feet unto your judgment. For thus he said in the Gospel: 'Whoever does not receive you, going forth shake off the dust from your feet. Amen I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of the Sodomites in the day of judgment than for that city' (Matthew 10:14-15). This, then, Abraham foresaw in the spirit;

and therefore he wished to anticipate and to wash their feet, lest perchance any dust should remain, which, being shaken off as a testimony of unbelief, might be reserved unto the day of judgment. Therefore wise Abraham says: 'I will take water, and let your feet be washed.' Hear these things diligently, brethren, you who do not wish to practise hospitality, who receive a guest as an enemy. Behold, blessed Abraham, while he fervently received men, deserved by his regard for hospitality to receive God himself. Christ also confirmed this in the Gospel, saying: 'I was a stranger, and you took me in' (Matthew 25:35). Do not, therefore, neglect strangers, lest perchance he whom you did not receive be Christ himself. 5. It continues on the same subject.

Where, however, was this done? By the oak of Mamre, which in the Latin tongue is interpreted 'vision,' or 'clear-sightedness.' You see what kind of place it is in which the Lord can have his banquet? For the vision and clear-sightedness of Abraham delighted him. For he was pure in heart, so that he could see God. In such a place, therefore, and in such a heart the Lord can have his banquet. Of this vision the Lord spoke in the Gospel to the Jews, saying: 'Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad' (John 8:56). 'My day,' he says, 'he saw'; because he recognized the mystery of the Trinity. He saw the Father a day, the Son a day, the Holy Spirit a day, and in these three one day:

just as the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and these three are one God. For each several person is singly full God, and all three together are one God. For also by those three measures of fine flour, on account of the unity of substance, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not incongruously understood. Yet this can also be taken in another way, so that we understand Sarah as the Church, and the three measures of fine flour as faith, hope, and charity. For in these three virtues are contained all the fruits of the Church. Whoever deserves to have these three in himself can securely receive the whole Trinity to the banquet of his heart. 6. How God's descending is to be understood. After these things the Lord said

to Abraham: 'The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has ascended to me; I have descended, therefore, to see whether the report which has come to me is fulfilled in deed; or whether it is not so, that I may know.' These are the words of Scripture; let us see what in them is worthy to be understood. 'I have descended,' he says, 'to see.' When responses are given to Abraham, God is not said to descend, but to stand over him; but now, because the cause of sinners is being dealt with, God is said to descend. See that you do not conceive of ascent and descent as local. It is unworthy to conceive this of the incorporeal substance, wholly present everywhere. But God is said to descend, when he deigns to have care of human frailty.

This we ought to understand more especially of our Lord and Saviour, who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7). 7. How God does not know sinners. But let us see what it is that he says: 'I have descended to see, whether the report that has come to me is fulfilled in deed; or whether it is not so, that I may know.' For the pagans are wont to attack us on this point, and most of all the most filthy Manichaeans, saying: 'Behold, the God of the Law did not know what was being done in Sodom.' But we with sound understanding answer and say, that God is said to know the just in one way, and to know sinners in another. For of the just, what is said? 'The Lord knows those who are his' (2 Timothy 2:19). Of sinners, what is said?

'Depart from me, all you who work iniquity, for I never knew you' (Matthew 7:23). And again the Apostle Paul: 'If any man be the Lord's, he will understand the things I say; but he who is ignorant shall be ignored' (1 Corinthians 14:37-38). What, then, is 'I know not'? 'I never knew you' -- I do not acknowledge you in my rule, I do not recognize in you my image. In you my justice has recognized what it may punish, and my mercy does not recognize what it may crown; as though those whose deeds are unworthy of God are said to be unworthy also of God's knowledge. 'I have descended, therefore, to see' -- not that I myself may know what they do, but that I may make them themselves worthy of my knowledge, if I find any of them just, if I find any penitent, if I find any such as I ought to know.

In short, because no one who repented, no one who was converted, was found except Lot, he alone is acknowledged, he alone is delivered from the fire. But let us, brethren, give our diligence, and let us labour with God's help to be such, that we may be held worthy of the knowledge of God; that he may deign both to acknowledge us and to know us, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, etc. SERMON VI. On the offering of Isaac, I. 1. Introduction. That reading, dearly beloved brethren, in which blessed Abraham is recorded to have offered his son Isaac as a burnt offering, is for this reason not recited in its own order during the days of Lent, because, as you yourselves know, it is reserved for the vigils of Easter on account of the sacrament of the Lord's Passion.

And because at that time there is no space to say anything about it, now, if it seems good, let us briefly convey to the ears of your Charity, so far as we can, its exposition according to what our fathers, by the inspiration of the Lord, have expounded. 2. The mystery of the Trinity. The Lord, then, said to Abraham: 'Take your son Isaac whom you love, and offer him to me as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I shall show you.' And he, rising, saddled his ass, and took with him two servants, and Isaac his son, and came to the place which the Lord had shown him, on the third day (Genesis 22:2ff.). For Abraham, when he offered his son Isaac, held the type of God the Father;

but Isaac the figure of the Lord and Saviour. And in that they came to the place of immolation on the third day, the mystery of the Trinity is shown. For that the third day ought to be taken in the sacrament or mystery of the Trinity is frequently found in the sacred volumes, as in Exodus: 'We will go,' it says, 'a journey of three days into the wilderness' (Exodus 5:3). And again, when they came to Mount Sinai, it was said to the people: 'Sanctify yourselves, and be ready on the third day' (Exodus 19:15). And Joshua, about to cross the Jordan, admonished that the people should be ready on the third day (Joshua 1:11). And our Lord rose again on the third day (Matthew 28).

This we have said, because blessed Abraham came on the third day to the place which the Lord had shown him. 3. The ram and Isaac a figure of Christ. The two servants whom he ordered to remain with the ass held the type of the Jewish people, who, because they were not to believe in Christ, therefore could not ascend or come to the place where he was to be immolated. That ass signified the Synagogue. But the ram which was held by its horns among the thorns, it too is seen to have held the type of the Lord. For Christ also, as it were, clung by his horns among the thorns, when he hung upon the horns of the cross, fastened by the fixing of the nails. And in that Isaac himself carried the wood for his own immolation, in this too he figured Christ, who carried his own cross to the place of the Passion.

Of which mystery it had long before been said through the prophet: 'And his government shall be,' it says, 'upon his shoulder' (Isaiah 9:6). For then Christ had the government upon his shoulders, when he carried his cross with wondrous humility. Not incongruously does the cross of Christ signify his government. For by it the devil is conquered, and the whole world is called back to the knowledge and grace of Christ. Indeed so too the Apostle said, when he was speaking of the Passion of the Lord: 'He became,' he says, 'obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; for which cause God also exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name' (Philippians 2:8-9).

This we say, brethren, that your Charity may recognize that the government of Christ, of which it is written, 'And the government shall be upon his shoulder,' is none other than his cross. And therefore that very reading is read at Easter, when the true Isaac, whose type the son of Abraham bore, is fastened for the human race upon the gibbet of the cross. 4. In the servants of Abraham is a figure of the Jews. It is read in that very lesson, that blessed Abraham, coming with his son, saw the place afar off, and said to his servants: 'Sit here with the ass; I and the boy will go on, and when we have worshipped, we will return to you.' Why is it said to the servants, who held the figure of the Jews, 'Sit here with the ass'? Could that ass sit, dearly beloved?

But it is said, 'Sit with the ass,' because the Jewish people, who were not to believe in Christ, could not stand, but like one feeble and like a languishing sinner, who had despised the staff of the cross, was about to fall to the ground. Blessed Abraham said, therefore, 'Sit here with the ass; I and the boy will go on, and when we have worshipped, we will return to you.' What is this you say, blessed Abraham? You go to immolate your son, and you say that you will return with your son? If you offer him as a burnt offering, surely he will not be able to return with you. Blessed Abraham could answer: 'I speak the truth, and I offer my son, and with my son I will return to you.'