Sermons & Tracts 1 part 16/37

For that river where the axe fell signifies the pleasure that flows past and is fleeting and descends into the abyss, or the luxury of this world. For a river (fluvius) takes its name from flowing (fluendo). And because all sinners who cling to or gape after transitory pleasures are said to flow away; therefore that axe lay pressed down in the river and in the mire. 2. A figure of that restoration. A relapse to be guarded against. Elisha, then, coming, cast in a piece of wood, and the iron floated. What is it to cast in wood, and to bring the iron up into the light, but to ascend the gibbet of the cross, and to lift up the human race from the depth of hell, and to free it from the mire of all sins through the mystery of the cross?

But after the iron had floated, the Prophet put forth his hand, and received it, and it returned to the useful purposes of its master. So too has it been done concerning us, most beloved brethren, who had fallen from the hand of the Lord through pride: through the wood of the cross we have deserved to be brought back again to the hand or to the power of the Lord. And therefore, as far as we can, let us labour with His help, lest again through pride we fall from the hand of the Lord. And since with no preceding merits we have been brought out of darkness into light, recalled from death to life, led back from many errors into the way, let us run while we have the light, lest we neglect the passing seasons of salvation; nor let the wickedly sweet and exceedingly dangerous gladness of this world delight us;

lest again, falling as it were from the hand of the Lord away from holy works and from the way of righteousness, we run back to the luxurious river of this world, and are again sunk by a wretched ruin in the mire of all sins: but let us hear the Apostle saying, 'If you are risen with Christ, savour the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above' (Col. 3:1-2). Why does he say, 'If you are risen,' except because we had fallen? And elsewhere the same Apostle says, 'Rise, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee' (Eph. 5:14). Does he not seem to be crying out, as it were, to the axe lying in the mire? 'Rise,' he says, 'thou that sleepest in the deep whirlpool'; and through the mystery of the cross Christ shall enlighten thee.

3. He who sins destroys the temple of God. Now let us strive, most beloved brethren, so to conduct all these things through the sacrament of Baptism, God helping us, that the benefits of our Lord may not bring us judgment, but profit. And let us so hold the sweetness of charity, the purity of heart, and the chastity of body, that the sacraments of God may not suffer injury in us. For if it is true—nay, since it is true—what the Apostle says, that we are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in us (1 Cor. 3:16), then as often as we accomplish any sin, whether by thinking, or by speaking, or by doing, we destroy the temple of God, and inflict injuries upon Him who dwells in us.

And therefore, if anyone has defiled in himself the temple of God either by base thoughts, or has polluted it by lascivious speech, or has perhaps by any crimes already destroyed it down to the foundations; while there is time, let him with God's help strive to repair what is lost, to raise up what has fallen, and to build up again what has been destroyed: so that when the day of judgment comes, even if he does not merit to receive the crown, he may at least merit to attain the pardon of his sins. But what I have said, 'or the pardon of sins,' I seem to have suggested out of the humility which is very necessary for us. For that heavenly Physician is wont to recompense the contrite, the penitent, and those who give alms more liberally, not only with pardon, but even with a crown. 4. Conclusion.

Therefore, most beloved brethren, although negligent, yet being appointed by the Lord as some kind of herald of the truth—what it is both profitable for you to hear and fitting for me to say—if not as much as I ought, at least as much as I can, I suggest, I cry out, I admonish. He who despises the herald, let him fear the judge. None of you will be able to excuse himself before the tribunal of Christ, that he was not admonished to resist all vices and to give heed to virtues. And since it has frequently been shown to you what you ought to avoid or flee, and it has been demonstrated by constant preaching what you ought to do or seek, so act, with God's help, that our admonition may profit you rather unto reward than unto judgment before the tribunal of the eternal Judge.

May He Himself deign to grant this to you, to whom is honour and glory unto ages of ages. Amen. SERMON XLVI. On the famine of Samaria. 1. While the wicked nation departs from the worship of God, it is oppressed by a dreadful famine, and troubled by a just necessity. 'There came,' it says, 'the son of Ben-hadad, king of Syria, into Samaria, and besieged it: and there was a great famine, so that an ass's head was sold for fifty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver.' Why, O most wretched one, dost thou suffer famine? Why dost thou feel the most foul want? Why art thou torn by such great scarcity? Daily the penalty of famine grows; because daily the guilt also grows. The scourges persist; because among the people the sins also persist.

For on thy account the enemy has rushed in, the foe has besieged thee, the adversary has devoured thy provisions. Thou art hungry: and he grows fat. Thou sufferest a horrid famine; and he, from thy provisions, is free for his own feasts. Thou buyest with silver the carcasses of asses and the dung of doves. Henceforth condemn thy cunning life, thy sins, thy misdeeds; restrain thy transgressions, turn to God, forsake the idol, abhor the figment; then thou shalt be able, by divine aid, to conquer thy enemies, and to overcome them in the heavenly battle. Nor shall anyone be able to harm thee further, if, thy wickedness condemned, the divine worship shall sprout up in thee. Oh, the wickedness! A sinful people feeds on horrid carcasses and the dung of doves, yet seeks not the worship of God:

famine and necessity demand defiled flesh and horrid food, and still the hardness of men worships the figment: provisions are denied, and unlawful things are set forth by sinners: God is not sought by the sinful people, and the idol is adored. The worship of God is changed into a figment, religion is changed, and food too is changed: the holy worship of God is changed, the provisions of men are changed too, and forbidden things are eaten. For as that which is worshipped is alien, so alien is that which is hungered after contrary to the rule. For it is not difficult that a people should be able to feel famine, which by living wickedly is agreed to have hungered spiritually. 2. Meanwhile, along with vices, the increase of famine grows, and the sins of mothers crave the carcasses of their sons, and, by turns,

two women arrange to devour their own offspring. Oh, the grief! Piety is turned into food, the offspring conceived is changed into provender. Parricide is committed before they come to the deadly feast. The soul is drawn out of the limbs, and the mothers' own bowels are polluted. Innocent blood is poured out, that the rabid famine of the parents may be sated. For among them the whole thing is cruel; it is wicked, I say, to pour out the blood of the innocent, to cook the flesh of the guiltless, to swallow down the boiled limbs with greedy jaws; so that she should turn into food the child whom God had established for her comfort. But after they had come to the deadly feast, one woman exhorts the other:

'Receive,' she says, 'receive, thou pitiable mother, into thy womb the son lately begotten from thy womb. Be the sepulchre of thy child, be the lodging-place of his body: be his, so to speak, monument. Let the infant, eaten little by little, return within thee, who because of famine could no longer live. Let the maternal breasts, which had nourished the living within themselves and had brought forth the nursling into the light, recognize him restored to them piece by piece. Now let the womb receive him eaten, whom childbirth had brought forth alive. Let the dead one seek again the dwelling whence lately he came forth alive; since the fuel presses, necessity compels. For why should I die while my son survives, and not rather, I his mother, consume the son?'

3. Therefore, when this woman had already seen the boy eaten, she withdraws her own son from that slaughter. She refuses to do with her own what she had done with the mother in the case of the other's. 'It is enough for me,' she says, 'it is enough, woman, to have consented to thy crime; enough that I tasted the deadly feast, and polluted my own bowels with the flesh of the innocent. For I shared with thee a cruel counsel, that I might carry out a wicked parricide upon my own son: what I committed with thee I cannot expiate, the wicked crime I have no strength to refuse. Be at least relieved in mine, thou who art so weighed down in thine own: cease from my crime, desist from thy graver misdeed. Would that neither hadst thou done what thou hast done, nor had I committed the crime into which I have fallen;

that I should commit homicide, and perpetrate parricide. Learn from me what thou hast done: for I too through thee have deserved what I have lost. Wherefore this which thou urgest I will not do, what thou persuadest I flee, what thou pressest upon me I utterly shudder at.' 4. Then the one woman drags the other to the king, leads her to judgment, made public the cause of so great a crime, which the enormity of the outrage compelled her to make public. Then, I say, grief betrayed the wicked deed, then perfidious piety laid bare the monstrous crime. The insane woman burns, because she committed parricide; she burns, because she devoured her own son: but she burns still more, because in that slaughter the other did not sacrifice her son. 'Either I will die with this one,' she says, 'or surely, as she consumed mine, so will I seize upon her offspring.'

'Confirm our compact, O just king, by an impartial justice; for I would never have slain my own son once born, had she not by a bitter bargain pledged her son to be slain in turn. Therefore, my lord king, either let her restore mine, who has been eaten, or let her give up her own, who is hidden away. Surely, as is fitting, strike us both with an equal sentence, lest either I go on living after so great a crime, or she rejoice that she was not a parricide against her own son.' When the king heard this he rent his garments and his countenance was changed; and at once the prophet sent word to the king, 'Thus says the Lord: At this hour, tomorrow, a measure of fine flour shall be bought for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.'

The most holy prophet announces to the king from heaven a plenty which faith alone would believe, and which perfidy would deny could ever come to pass. He announces that in place of famine there shall be an abundance of fine flour; he announces that the famine shall cease and plenty succeed. He announces that suddenly the great works of God shall come to pass by the power of the Most High; and to man's own wickedness is added his perfidy. Then the man who had been sent by the king said, 'Not even if the floodgates of heaven were opened could the things you tell come to pass.' O the perfidy of man! He does not believe that the promised plenty will come, he who had felt the dreadful want. Nor does he consider that God has promised abundance, he who had inflicted scarcity upon the people. Most wicked man, why do you not believe in wonders? Why do you not accept the grain?

Why do you shudder at the Lord who promises? Believe, for it is given to those who believe; believe that it shall come to the people whose fellow you have already denied yourself to be. And because you are unworthy of such great goods, it is granted you to see these things, but the power to enjoy them is denied. Therefore, while these things were going on, the Lord caused a sound to be heard in the camp of the Syrians, so that he might grant the people the promised plenty: he chose to make resound in the ears of the enemy the din of chariots, the noise of wagons, and the tumult of armed men, that he might now set his own people free. Struck with terror by that din, the enemies flee, they turn their backs without a battle, they leave their equipment behind; and the Israelites, going out from the city, invade the camp of their foes and plunder it.

Therefore, as the people returned laden with spoil, that man who had not believed fell prostrate, and beholding the plenty among the people he fell, trampled down (2 Kings 6 and 7). SERMON 47. On the blessed Tobias. 1. The blessed Tobias, who had known how to break his bread to the hungry, prepares a swift reward for the labouring hireling. When we had patiently received the reading which was just now recited, we marvelled at the discourse of the father and the son, how the angel gives counsel, whom they esteemed to be an earthly hireling beneath a heavenly glory. For to this end he fell into the ruin of blindness, that he might receive the angel as his physician, who, kindled with divine torches, thus breathed forth: 'Prayer is good with fasting and almsgiving. The prayer of the just man is the key of heaven.'

The prayer ascends, and the mercy of God descends. Though the earth be deep and heaven be high, yet God hears the tongue of man, if he keeps a clean conscience. He speaks with the inward senses, if ours be the only groaning. The shower of the eyes suffices for his ears; he hears weeping sooner than words. The prayer of the envious is wont to be driven away from his ears. The soul of father and son was one, though the members were distinct; theirs was a singular brotherhood of spirits. 'Son,' he said, 'let us send this man away, adding to the agreed wage; for he has conferred many good things upon us by his labour.' And the son, having reported the discourse, addresses his father:

'Father, ought only the agreed wage to be weighed out to this so blessed a workman, whose good guidance cannot be reckoned? We shall render him but little honour if we set a measure upon his merits. Did he render only that which was agreed? This had been agreed, that he should show me the region and the man to whom you had entrusted the silver. First, making his way as though it were a heavenly journey, he prepared both for me and for you the needful salve from the fish; he led me, he received the silver, he betrothed Sara to me as wife. He alone is worthy of the agreed wage who stood by me as it were a heavenly bridesman;

and, what is more, good father, he took away the film from your eyes, removing the white cataract, and lit up our whole house with the lamps of your enlightened eyes. Now I see more clearly, for I behold you seeing. Is not this man, best of fathers, worthy of half the substance? This man, such a leader and provider, physician and guardian, let him receive, as I have said, a portion of the half of the substance which he himself brought back with me, he who by his guidance showed me such great kindness.' The good father is pleased with the reply of his wise son. He began to entreat the hireling to take the payment of his wage. 'Brother,' he said, 'take what is yours, and then go in safety. Receive your wage, for you have shown me and my son good mercy.'

'Take, as I have said, the half of the substance which you brought back with my son; for the gratitude we owe you cannot be weighed.' At once the angel rejoices over the reward they had thought of, he who had been sent to work kindness freely. 'Tobit,' he said, 'or Tobias, why do you think so much and so superfluously about my wage? Keep what that heavenly Father gave you. I am the minister of the healing, He is the author of health. You do not know by whose help as a hireling you have deserved to enjoy such benefit. You did not fear to bury the dead of the captivity, Tobit; your works have gone up, gone up to the Lord, for leaving your meal you rendered the dead man to burial.'

'I offered to the Lord marrow-rich sacrifices for that venerable burial; I was sent as a workman of the heavenly forum. You buried the dead, and did not fear the sting of death. He who was buried cried out for you with a silent voice. The blindness of your eyes was for a testing, whence your patience might more clearly deserve an ornament from the heavenly places. I am Raphael, one of the seven Angels who stand before the brightness of God. I have no need of the fruit of human wages: converse with majesty makes me rich. Rich is He who sent me, He bade the gift be spent freely, who Himself freely granted it. Nor should you count the very honour of thanks as due to me, for you have received nothing by my own powers.'

'Bless God, and confess to Him, and glorify Him, because He has done good things with you' (Tob. 12). 2. When the honour of the heavenly mystery was suddenly disclosed, astonished at the voice of the angel Raphael, Tobit and Tobias fell to the ground, and hid deep within their trembling voice, because they had heard a voice unwonted. What did you deserve, father Tobit and son Tobias? To have a heavenly hireling, and to hire as it were an earthly workman? The angel had concealed his name from you: 'I am Azarias,' he said, 'son of the great Ananias' (Tob. 5:18), and he did not say, 'I am Raphael the angel.' He concealed his dignity under a first name, lest he should strike terror into the one who hired him. For if he had said, 'I am an angel,' he would not have been Tobias' hireling. The dignity of the name was preserved;

so that at last the greatness of his dignity might shine forth. See, most dear ones, how great is the merit of almsgiving: it deserved to have an angel as its workman. You see how much it profits to bury the dead; that his offering, through the angel Raphael, might ascend to the heavenly majesty. You see that almsgiving frees from death, and itself cleanses sins. It works the cleansing of the eyes, it frees from the darkness of sins. Tobit is led on his way; Sara, saddened at so many husbands, is joined in marriage through the angel. SERMON 48. On Judith, I. 1. Mortal eloquence does not suffice to recount the surpassing prayers and triumphs of all the just, and the weighty virtues which almighty God gave to those

to whom He is wont to grant victory, He who suffered men and women to flourish, who both dispersed the flame of the furnace with a cooling relief, and stripped the treacherous armies by taking off their head. For when that Holofernes, enemy of the children of Israel—nay rather of his own head—claimed for himself the rights of foreign nations, and warred by siege, by arms, and by fire also, and moreover turned the fields of many nations, laden with the harvests of flesh, into ashes with a devouring flame; the most holy Judith, to whose prayers heaven lay open, by the art of prayer forged victorious arms, with which she might clash against her foes, and, a woman, avenge trembling men. The city lay squalid under the siege of barbarous savagery:

for all things were so languishing that they judged it more convenient to be handed over into the hands of the enemy than to be vexed by the ruinous devastation of famine. Behold Judith, after prayer and sackcloth, after ashes returns to maidenly adornment; the hope of all peoples comes forth; about to render the anxious peoples safe, she consoles them by her own wisdom; and promising a victory such as every nation would marvel at, she asks that the gate be opened to her a little, its bars set somewhat aside. She went forth secure, content with the company of a single maid, and hastened into the enemy's camp under their unguarded advances. Within the walls she had been anxious; secure she went while she came to what was to be feared.

At this woman of a treacherous novelty of beauty the hostile army was vehemently terrified, so that in submission to her they lost their strength, threw down their arms, and bent their necks. 2. The guile of Holofernes and the victory of the mourning city is led to the headquarters, the ranks bowing beneath. When Holofernes saw her, he was undone in his senses, about to lose his soul together with his head. For the disgrace of the young men lay captive at the sight of a woman's face; it was granted to a woman to disarm the young men, and to overwhelm the conquerors, to defend the beleaguered city, and to overturn the barbarous warrior. The sincere deceived the corrupt, the chaste beguiled the polluted, the modest destroyed the adulterer, the sober cut the throat of the drunkard.

For she had so confounded those barbarous minds by the deceit of her treacherous face, that by the craft of many tales she bound him, and rendered him vanquished amid his armies and captive amid his arms. A banquet is prepared for the ruler; Judith is bidden to be present. She consents, that she may conquer: she comes to the banquet, about to taste nothing of the enemy's food or drink, wishing to be content with her own provisions. Although that warrior of arms, sick of mind, fixed his gaze upon the countenance of so most chaste a woman, she nevertheless was thinking, for what purpose she had come, about his head; that once it was taken off she might succour the chosen citizens, and protect, defend, and avenge many heads. 3.

But when the surfeit of the banquet passed all bounds, and heavy sleep followed upon the cups, Judith, seeing the neck of her enemy's body bent down by drunkenness, rising up seized his gory neck, and grasped with her hand the hair of the barbarian's head. 'Lord,' she said, 'strengthen my arm.' And she struck him a third time upon his neck, and cut off his head. Going out of doors, she gave the head of Holofernes to her maid, and put it into her bag. And after a little while she went out of doors as though for prayer according to her custom. Behold chastity! By the favour of prayer chastity preserved its own modesty inviolate and untroubled, and deceived another's. The enclosed corpse lies within, and now the head is outside. With palm-bearing chastity Judith hastens anxiously to the citizens:

nor is she prevented in her return, to whom it had been granted to go forth beforehand as though for prayer. Now the astonished city receives the triumphal returns of so great a conqueress; now mournings are turned into joy; now the gates are thrown open in fullest security; now the head hangs for the victors who are to go forth. There was victory in the city, and in the enemy's camp there was trembling and flight (Judith 10-15); Judith in the city, safe with her axe. For where heaven is beaten upon by assiduous prayers, the insolence of arms is ever trodden underfoot. Behold, prayer preserved the chastity of the glorious woman; and the multitude could not preserve their host. One woman was able to avenge the mourning city; and a splendid army could not guard its king. SERMON 49. On Judith, II. 1.

As often as a rumour of war grows loud with terrible report, or with the horrid-sounding blare of trumpets, or with the harsh-toned clang of bronze the death-bearing murmur has rung out, a fearsome image of death confronts women and the weak: the breasts of brave men are wont to blaze with love of praise, and by the lot of war—where, when the combatants, thickened by a deadly rain, have covered the joined ranks with a death-dealing shade beneath the whirring course of missiles, now wandering to a lethal outcome—they draw near with headlong ardour to triumphal palms. A warrior's spirit possessed the breast of Judith, one alien to it. Casting off the fear of women, seeking victory amid perils, she neither feared death in the perils, nor dreaded the uncertainty.

When therefore Holofernes trod down the walls of Bethulia with a hostile siege, and, turning aside the courses of the waters, first declared drought as the opening contest; Judith, weeping over the covenants of her husband broken by a bitter separation, kept them with mournful lamentation. When she learned of the requested truce for the city about to be taken captive, straightway the common grief of the city was doubled upon her private grief. Being entreated, she rose up and washed her body with water; putting on her ornament, she hung her pendant golden riches, and drew onto her hands sparkling bejewelled bracelets, and gathered the flowing folds of her purple robe upon her jewelled breast, with chaste countenance about to fight rather than with the sword. The darts of her necklaces, ever hostile to modesty, learned to strike the foe.

The avenger of her nation took up the arms of ornaments, not about to enter upon a marriage from war; but a warrioress she goes forth from the city as a bride. Nor was the adornment a mere lightness which was fitted to the killing of so great a head. She proceeds, led by the divine Spirit, and content with the solace of a single handmaid. Beauty, which allures, keeps watch; and lest her chastity, though guarded, be violently harmed, she addresses Holofernes so that his empty desire might be conceived: 'I,' she said, 'am your handmaid; the Lord God has sent me to do a thing at which all who hear of it shall marvel; for your handmaid worships the God of heaven; and now I will go by night, and pray to the God of heaven:'

'and He will tell me when He will do these things, and I will lead you through the midst of Judea, and set your throne in the midst of the city, and no dog shall so much as move its tongue against you; for these things have been shown me by the Lord.' It does not befit a chaste woman to lie; she spoke to those who did not understand, but she fulfilled by deeds what she promised. 2. While she flatters the ruler with lofty speech in deceptive words, the warrior's spirit is dissolved by wantonness; in the love of arms the countless strength of the soldiers grows numb; with a kingly luxury the pomp of a wedding is set up with no one marrying; all are undone by drunkenness. It was no delicate matron that fought, but the sleep which prepared for you the wounds you were to receive. When the bridal chamber was built, he is roused toward the leader prone in love, conquered by sleep, the man laid low upon his couch;

she entangled the warrior's locks with the beauty of her fingers, and after the softness of the spindle she seeks the ebony hilt. The blade did not terrify the matron, but armed her, who thus fought. The flashing sword took off the head from the foe; the debt is paid; upon the ancestral walls the victory is hung (Judith 10-15). While the arms stand stupefied, the wedges of troops are packed together; in reversed order they triumph. War follows: poured out by wine, undone by sleep, they do not rise up to the contest even when the shout summons them; the mountains are covered with flashing arms. Why, foreigner, do you rage? Why do you set battles in array? Why do you make ready your battle-line, when you have the one you seek in the bedchamber? Restrain every shifting onset of your fury; we have left you only your leader, and we hold the part you must acknowledge hanging in the gate.

The soul received from God so great a bounty as its belief could claim for itself. SERMON 50. On blessed Job, I. 1. Your Holiness urges me to be readier to speak; and long since, drawing it forth from the Scriptures, you gave with all devotion the confidence to speak, to one whom God has shown you to hear with favour. So may your Holiness receive us as we speak of Job, so as to believe it hears, as it were, a rustic. Let it not think that speeches dyed with false colouring are spoken by one who, under his tutelage, professes to speak simply. Against Job the devil obtained leave for battle, whose sons ruin extinguished with its downfall;

after riches he became destitute, after households alone, after numerous offspring the father of none, shipwrecked of his patrimony, in his body he bore devouring punishments by the one strength of faith. Riches fell into poverty. Here he awakens to a new nakedness: there was no neighbour; for friendship is rare toward the wretched. The health of his body is changed into wounds, joy is turned into grief; there was no limb that was not harried by the scourges of diseases. Finally, illustrious justice lay beneath a dunghill, and while his wounded flesh was tried in its members, he kept his breast unharmed within. There was nothing from head to foot that punishment did not afflict. He stood while punishments walled him round on every side: