Behold, most beloved brethren, God has set forth in the sight of the whole human race what we ought to atone for, what to avoid, what to desire, what to flee, what to fear, what to love with all our heart; and just as He Himself foretold through the prophet, 'Before man,' He says, 'is life and death; whichever shall please him shall be given him' (Sir. 15:18); and again, 'Behold, you have fire and water, death and life; choose life, that you may live' (Deut. 30:19). All this which we have said above, that is, good and evil, is contained in these two ways. For there are set before us in them hell and the kingdom, Christ and the devil, height and depth.
For by God's grace each one has in his own power what he loves, and to whatever pleases him he may stretch out his hand. 2. Christ presides over the narrow way, the devil over the broad. Each way is to be judged not by the eyes of the flesh but by the eyes of the heart. For over the strait and narrow way Christ presides; over the broad and spacious way the devil rules. Christ invites to the kingdom; the devil urges toward hell; the one raises on high; the other presses down into the depths. The devil displays false sweetnesses, that he may draw men to true bitterness; Christ invites to a brief harshness, that He may lead to a long blessedness. If only the eye of the body is opened, the broad and spacious way deceives us; but if we attend with the eyes of the heart, what is hard and rough makes us secure. 3.
Christ is both the way of pilgrims and the homeland of the Angels. Therefore, most dear ones, let us admonish one another, let us continually invite one another with true charity, that we should rather choose the brief and narrow way, through which we may deserve to arrive at the breadth of paradise. But that way which, after a brief breadth, is wont to plunge its lovers into the depths of hell, we ought, as far as we can, with God's help, to reject and despise. Let us therefore leave the left-hand way, whose end brings one into Gehenna; and let us follow the right-hand way, which leads to eternal life. We ought to come to Him who is the way, and the life, and the truth (John 14:6).
Nor is it any wonder if we faithfully come to Him through whom we faithfully walk. For because He Himself is the way, we run through Him; but because He Himself is the homeland, having completed the course we arrive at Him. For since according to His divinity He is the rest and homeland of the Angels, according to His humanity He was made the way of pilgrims. Because He is the rest and homeland of the Angels and of all the faithful: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'; because He is the way of pilgrims: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (John 1:1, 14). 4. The benefit of redemption. When, after the sin of the first man, we were cast out of paradise into this world, as into a valley of tears, and
we lost at once both the way and the homeland, we walked through difficult wildernesses; but the way of the Lord we did not know (Wis. 5:7). But the merciful and compassionate King of our homeland not only frequently took care to send His servants to us, but even deigned Himself to descend and to prepare the way by which we might return to our homeland. O man, if you were too slothful to seek the way, the way itself deigned to seek you; if you were too slothful to come to the way, the way itself came to you. Rise and walk; flee the broad and spacious way of the world, which delights you for a time and torments you for eternity; run along the way of Christ, on which you shall labor for a very short time, and afterward with the Angels you shall rejoice without end. 5.
The two feet for running on the way of Christ: a twofold charity. Perhaps you say: How ought I to run along the way of Christ? If you have both feet sound, you shall run happily. What are these two feet? If you love the Lord, and if you love your neighbor. On these two commandments, as the Apostle says, hang the whole Law and the Prophets (Matt. 22:37-40, and Gal. 5:14). If you love the Lord and do not love your neighbor, you have only one foot; you cannot run. If you love your neighbor and do not love the Lord, you have remained lame and useless. Run, therefore, along the way of Christ, for He Himself is the way. Along this way of love the Lord Himself, hanging on the cross, ran, when He prayed for His enemies, saying: 'Father, forgive them;'
for they know not what they do' (Luke 23:34). Along this way blessed Stephen also strove so manfully to run, that he deserved to behold heaven opened, and Christ standing, as it were, to meet him or to help him (Acts 7:55). 6. Let humility be the companion of charity. But because you ought to run humbly, if you wish to arrive quickly, see that you run into Him, and through Him, and to Him, who said: 'Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart' (Matt. 11:29). Whatever good work, whether in almsgiving, or in fastings, or in prayers, you may wish to offer to God, you lose it all, if with true charity you are unwilling to be meek and humble of heart.
And therefore, as I have already suggested, among the remaining good works strive especially to hold fast humility and charity: that with these two holy and spiritual feet you may be able faithfully to run, and happily to arrive at eternal blessedness; through Him who lives and reigns world without end. Amen. SERMON 68. On the same words of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 13, 14, 'Broad and spacious is the way,' etc. (This admonition contains how through the sin of the first man we were cast down from paradise into the hell of this world, so that we may not, by the weight of our sins, deserve to come to the lower hell, but by good works, as by certain steps, may strive with all our strength to ascend to the higher and principal homeland.) 1.
The two hells. Adam after his fall between paradise and the lower hell. I know, most dear brethren, that your holy Charity cannot be ignorant that Adam our father was placed amid the delights of paradise; but, at the persuasion of the devil, despising God's commandments, he was cast down into the miseries of this world, as from a higher place to a lower. The upper region, then, is paradise; the hell is this world. There is another hell, into which after death sinners and the impious are plunged. For that there are two hells, the prophet clearly shows, saying: 'O God, who hast delivered my soul from the lower hell' (Ps. 85:13). For he would not say the lower hell, unless he knew there was also a higher one.
But our God, compassionate and merciful, patient and abundant in mercy, when in Adam our father He set us down by His just judgment from the height of paradise into the hell of this world, out of His ineffable loving-kindness did not will us to come by our fall to the lower hell; but in a certain way placed us as it were in the midst, between paradise and the lower hell: so that if we should be willing to do penance, we might deserve to ascend to the height of the principal homeland; but if we should wish to remain continually in that tyranny of pride, by which, at the devil's persuasion, we fell, we should be pressed down by the weight of sin to the depths of the lower hell, whence there could no longer be any return. 2. The broad way leads to the lower hell, the strait way to paradise.
These things, therefore, most dear brethren, considering not in passing, but with great fear and trembling, let us understand that we are placed in this upper hell by God's mercy, so that we may rather desire to return, by the steps of good works, to Him who created us, than to descend, with him who deceived us, to the depths of the lower hell. And because we are placed as it were between water and fire, as between the highest good and the highest evil, as between the ruin of the lower hell and the height of paradise, let us hear the Lord crying out in the Scriptures with wondrous loving-kindness: 'I have set,' He says, 'before you death and life; choose life, that you may live' (Deut. 30:19).
Concerning these two ways the Lord admonished us in the Gospel, when He said: 'Broad and spacious is the way that leads to death, and many there are who enter by it; strait and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there are who find it.' And because through the strait and narrow way one returns to paradise, and through that broad way one descends into that lower hell; while it still lies in our power by God's help, as we have already suggested above, let us rather strive to ascend through the strait and narrow way to paradise, than to come through that broad and spacious way to the torments of hell. 3. Who go by the broad and who by the strait way. The way of each is brief, whether labor or gladness. But perhaps someone says:
I should like to know who they are who with perilous joy descend by the broad way; and who they are who with labor ascend by the strait and narrow way. For all lovers of the world—the proud, the greedy, the plunderers, the envious, the drunkards, and those who commit adultery, who keep deceitful scales and double measures, who harbor hatred in their heart, who render evil for evil, who love spectacles whether bloody and furious or shameful—are proved to descend by the broad and spacious way; but the chaste and sober, the merciful, those who hold to justice, who according to their means give alms with a ready and cheerful spirit, who keep no hatred in their heart against any man, ascend by the strait and narrow way to the heights.
And although they still seem to dwell in the body upon earth, yet according to the Apostle their conversation is in heaven (Phil. 3:20): so that when the priest says, 'Lift up your hearts,' they may securely answer that they have them lifted up to the Lord. Consider, I beg you, brethren; and not only with sorrow but also with fear, reprove those who are hurled headlong along the broad and spacious way, saying and testifying to them that after a brief joy they shall have punishment without end. But those who strive to ascend by the strait and narrow way, rejoice with them, and faithfully associate yourselves with them, and strive with them to arrive at the height and blessedness of eternal life. Do not fear because you shall have labor on the way:
but rejoice, because you shall find a great reward in the homeland. Wherefore again and again I beg you, most dear brethren, that we may consider both the eternal joy of the just after their little labor, and fear the endless punishment of sinners after their transitory gladness; considering that not even those who seem to ascend with labor by the strait and narrow way seem to labor for a long time. For just as those who with unhappy joy serve avarice or luxury, having completed the journey of the broad way, shall burn in hell with the devil: so, on the contrary, those who despise the false joys of the broad way or of a luxurious life, when they have scarcely completed the course of the narrow way, shall deserve to come to the fellowship of the Angels in heaven. 4.
The sick man desiring health should join himself to the physician, not to the disease. And because we have spoken of the higher paradise, the place where there is true blessedness, and of the two hells, and have briefly shown, according to the ability that God has given, what we ought to flee and what to desire; there are three other things pertaining to the same matter which we wish to make known to your Charity. For there are three things about which we both can and ought usefully and faithfully to think: and these three we frequently recognize taking place in human affairs even with our bodily eyes. For there is the physician, the sick man, and the disease. If the sick man joins himself with the physician, they are two, and the disease is overcome. If the sick man should wish to join himself rather to the disease than to the physician,
there too, because they are two, the physician is overcome: for if he consented to the physician, the disease perishing, the sick man would escape, since he could in no way overcome two fighting against him. Why I have set forth this similitude, attend diligently. The physician is God; the sick man is man; sin is the disease. If the sinner joins himself with God, who is the true physician, at once the disease perishes. But if the wretched sinner loves his own disease, so that he wishes rather to join himself to his sins, as to deadly diseases, than to cleave to the heavenly physician; he not only refuses to accuse his disease, that is, his sin, but even strives with a most shameless face to defend it:
while he wishes to join himself to his sins, he seems as it were to overcome the heavenly physician; but through this unhappy victory, as through the broad and spacious way, he descends into Gehenna. Whereas, if he had been willing to consent to the physician, the sin perishing, as a most cruel disease, he would have deserved to ascend by the strait and narrow way into heaven. 5. An exhortation to almsgiving, prayers, and fastings.
These things, therefore, most dear brethren, faithfully considering, while it still lies in our power by God's help, dreading the wounds of our sins as deadly poisons, being intent on almsgiving, prayers, and fastings, and especially on charity, which loves not only friends but even our very enemies, let us have recourse, as through spiritual medicines, for the recovery of the health of our souls, to the mercy of that heavenly physician. For He Himself said: 'I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live'; and again, 'When, being converted, you shall groan, you shall be saved' (Ezek. 33:11).
To which salvation may He, out of His loving-kindness, lead us, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns world without end. Amen. SERMON 69. On the same passage of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 13, 14: concerning the pilgrimage of Christians, and concerning the two ways, the one to heaven, the other to hell. 1. They are together in love who are absent in body. We have a discourse for you, most dear brethren, concerning that which you heard in the Gospel: 'Strait and narrow is the way that leads to life, and spacious is the way that leads to death'; or concerning the pilgrimage of Christians. If the necessity of time permitted, most dear brethren, we wished to visit you not only once in the year, but even a second and a third time:
so that we might satisfy both our own and your desires by the sight of you. But though the will longs for it, the necessity of time does not permit it: yet nothing hinders us or you that we see one another more tardily in body, when in love and charity we are always equally together. For in this pilgrimage of this world, even if we could be in one city, we could not be together. For there is another city, where good Christians are never separated from one another. 2. There are two cities, the world and heaven. Let him be a pilgrim in the world who wishes to be a citizen of heaven. The homeland, city, citizens, kinsmen, and king of Christians. There are two cities, most dear brethren: one is the city of the world; the other is the city of paradise.
In the city of the world the good Christian is always a pilgrim; in the city of paradise he is recognized to be a citizen. The one is a laborious city, the other a quiet one; the one wretched, the other blessed: in the one there is toil, in the other there is rejoicing and rest: he who lives ill in the one shall not be able to arrive at the other. We ought to be pilgrims in this world, that we may deserve to be citizens in heaven. He who loves the world, and wishes to be a citizen in the world, has no part in heaven. For in this we prove that we are pilgrims, if we desire the heavenly homeland. Let no one deceive himself, most beloved brethren: the homeland or city of Christians is not here; the true blessedness and eternal felicity of Christians is not here.
He who seeks felicity in the world shall not have it in heaven. Our homeland is paradise, our city is that heavenly Jerusalem; our fellow citizens are the Angels, our kinsmen are the Patriarchs and the Prophets, the Apostles and the martyrs; our king is Christ. Let us therefore so live in this pilgrimage, that we may be able, as long as we are here, to desire such a homeland. For he who wishes to live ill cannot desire that homeland. 3. The joy of the saints over our good life, their sadness over our evil life.
Already there has gone before us to that homeland a glorious army of many Patriarchs and Prophets, of the Apostles also and the martyrs, and many thousands of confessors and virgins, and no small number of faithful peoples: who all, now established in blessed rest, daily await us with the arms of charity outstretched, desiring together and praying, that from the arena of this world, in which it is necessary for us to fight against the devil, they may receive us as victors with triumph and exultation into that homeland of paradise. For if we do well, if we despise diabolical sins and deadly delights in this world, we generate joys for all of them in heaven; but if we despise God,
and love the world, and embrace crimes and sins; then indeed we sadden all those—as we have said above—the Angels, Apostles, and martyrs in heaven, and prepare for ourselves an eternal burning. 4. Christ watches and helps those who fight for Him. The differing promises of Christ and the devil. Behold, Christ awaits us in heaven with His Angels, to see how we war against the devil and his angels. Let us not fear, brethren, because Christ not only awaits us, but even helps us. Do not fear, do not despair: the devil indeed rages; but Christ will hold out consolation. He awaits you as you fight, He helps you as you labor, He crowns you as you conquer: do not despair, do not succumb.
You have such an Emperor over you, and do you fear? Consider what it is that the devil promises you, and what it is that Christ will give you. The devil promises false sweetness, Christ true blessedness: the devil offers the vain joys of the world, Christ the true blessedness of paradise. The devil, through adultery, provides the delight of one hour's lust, that he may slay the immortal soul: Christ commends to you the chastity of the few days in which you live in the world, that He may render you the likeness of the Angels in heaven. The devil, for the broad and spacious way of luxury, entices you to hell: Christ, for the strait and narrow way of chastity and mercy, invites you to heaven. 5.
The freedom of choosing the right-hand or the left-hand way. The sweetness of the broad way is brief and false, but its punishment long: of the narrow way the contrary. Behold, O man, you have water and fire, life and death; you have before you good and evil, you have hell and the kingdom, you have the false sweetness of the world, and the true blessedness of paradise. Power has been given you through the grace of Christ, to stretch out your hand to whichever you will: 'choose life, that you may live' (Deut. 30:19); leave the left-hand and spacious way, which draws to death, and hold to the right-hand and narrow way, which leads you happily to life. Let not the left-hand way hold you, let it not delight you. Its breadth is indeed ample and level, and adorned with diverse flowers:
but its flowers quickly wither, and among those very flowers venomous serpents frequently hide themselves; so that while you run to false joys, you may be struck by deadly poison. It is ample, but not long. You attend to the sort of way by which you go; and you do not attend to the sort of homeland to which you arrive. If you do not believe me, you withdraw yourself to death: nay, if you do not believe in Christ, you shall perish in hell. For thus the Lord Himself said in the Gospel: 'Broad and spacious is the way that leads to death, and many there are who enter by it.' It delights indeed; but it deceives. On the contrary, let not the right-hand way sadden or terrify you: it is indeed strait, but not long. Neither in that broad way is there long rejoicing, nor in this narrow way long laboring.
The former, after a brief breadth, draws to eternal straits; the latter, after brief straits, leads to eternal blessedness. 6. We must labor, that by good works we may obtain joy for ourselves in heaven. Let us therefore strive, brethren, to labor with God's help, and rejecting sins, let us adorn ourselves with good works: that our king Christ, our fellow citizens the Angels, our kinsmen the Patriarchs, the Prophets, Apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, who have already happily preceded us into our city, the heavenly Jerusalem, may receive us with joy and exultation. Let us therefore so act, brethren, that through our good works there may be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance;
just as the Lord Himself deigned beforehand to foretell (Luke 15:7). If, therefore, we make joy in heaven when we do penance; surely we generate sadness when we return to the pleasure of our sins. 7. Charity entire. Therefore, most dear brethren, that we may be able, by God's help, to escape all sins; let us strive to keep charity entire, and to love not only friends but even enemies, and to be willing to make supplication for all, to pray for all men. For if you do to all men that which you would wish for yourself; you close entirely the door of sins. For there will be no place by which it may enter to your soul, if you are willing to love with your whole heart not only friends but even enemies. 8.
An exhortation to almsgiving. I beg you, brethren, let us so live in this world as guests and pilgrims. Whatever we acquire from any labor, from any just business, from any just military service, let us store up in the eternal homeland through almsgiving, except our daily food and simple clothing. Nor let luxury consume us in this pilgrimage; but let mercy transmit us to our homeland. We are on a journey, brethren, we are heading toward our homeland: let us not be luxurious on the journey of this life, let us never be secure; but always solicitously and cautiously watching, let us not prepare delights for ourselves on the way:
so that we may indeed be able to carry better to the homeland. For if in this present homeland we consume for luxury, for gluttony, for drunkenness, whatever we are able to labor for, how shall we come to that eternal one? With what face shall we be able to enter among the Angels and Archangels, naked of good works, wrapped in the sordid rags of our sins, and wounded by our evil deeds? Whatever gluttony would destroy, let almsgiving store up; whatever avarice buries in the earth, let mercy transmit to heaven: so that when the soul goes forth from this body, it may be adorned with splendid garments, and with the pearls of chastity, of mercy and patience, of humility and concord; that we may deserve to hear from the Lord: 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' and the rest.
These things, brethren, we ought to desire, and to dread that other sentence, which the soul naked of good works and wrapped in the filth of vices is to hear. For thus the Lord speaks in the Gospel concerning such a soul, saying: 'Friend, how did you come in here not having a wedding garment?' and while he was struck dumb, He says to the servants: 'Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth' (Matt. 22:12, 13). May God turn away from us that sentence, which all those are going to hear who now, on account of no almsgiving, store up either nothing or little in heaven. Concerning such the Apostle says: 'The soul that is in delights, living is dead' (1 Tim. 5:6).
Such as these, when they go forth from their body, are not lifted up by the Angels into Abraham's bosom with Lazarus; but with the purple-clad rich man are plunged into the depths of hell. Considering these things, therefore, as far as we can, let us restrain our food and clothing while we are in this world: that after our death we may deserve to be adorned in heaven with the most precious and splendid garments of our almsgiving, and to hear that desirable voice: 'Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things; enter into the joy of your Lord' (Matt. 25:21);
to which joy may the Lord lead us under His protection, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God in Trinity, throughout all ages of ages. Amen. SERMON 70. On the words of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11, verses 25-30, 'I confess to Thee, Father,' etc. 1. When the holy Gospel was being read, brethren, we heard that the Lord Jesus exulted in the Spirit, and said: 'I confess to Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.' Thus far, for the present, the words of the Lord. If we consider them worthily, if diligently, if—which is first—piously, we find first of all, etc.
Postremoaperitcælestemysterium , quodsicplacueritDeo, utparvulismagisquamprudentibusistiusmundigratiamsuamrevelaret. QuodapostolusPaulusstiloplenioredigessit , dicens : NonnestultamfecitDeussapientiamhujusmundi ? NamquoniuminDAsapientianoncognovithitmunduspersapientiamDeum, placuitDeoperstultitiamprædicationissalvosfacerecredentes (ICor. I, 20 et 21). Aitergo, Ita , Pater, quoniamsicfuitplacitumantete. Cælestiumenimverborumarcanaatquevirtutessapientibusabsconduntur, etparvulisrevelantur : parvulismalitia, nonsensu; sapientibusverostultitiæpræsumptione, nonprudentiæcausis.
Finally, He opens the heavenly mystery, that it so pleased God to reveal His grace rather to little ones than to the prudent of this world. This the apostle Paul set forth with a fuller pen, saying: 'Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe' (1 Cor. 1:20 and 21). He says therefore: 'Yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing before Thee.' For the secrets and powers of the heavenly words are hidden from the wise, and revealed to little ones: to little ones in malice, not in understanding; but to the wise through the presumption of folly, not for reasons of prudence.
The Lord confirms the equity of this deed by the judgment of the Father's will: that those who disdain to become little ones before God should thereafter become fools in their own wisdom. You see how terrible the Lord is in his counsels. Learn the examples of true humility, and do not rashly scrutinize the counsels of the heavenly dispensation. For when he had set forth both things, namely that he had revealed the mysteries of his coming to some but had hidden them from others, he did not at once render a reason, but simply said that it had thus pleased God, showing plainly by this that what has pleased the Just One cannot be unjust. And lest anything in him should be reckoned as less than what is in God, he immediately added: 'All things have been delivered to me by my Father.'