Sermons & Tracts 1 part 30/37

'And this is the will of him who sent me, the Father, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.' To him is given the one who keeps humility, and he receives him: he who keeps not humility is far from the Master of humility. 'That of all he has given me I should lose nothing.' 'This is not the will in the sight of my Father, that one of these little ones should perish.' Of the puffed up some may perish; of the little ones nothing shall perish: because 'unless you be as these little ones, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven' (Matthew 18:3). 'All that the Father gives me I will lose nothing of it: but I will raise it up at the last day.' See how here too he defines that twofold resurrection.

He who comes to me now rises again, being made humble in my members: but I will raise him up at the last day; that is, according to the flesh. 'For this is the will of my Father who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.' Above he said, 'He who hears my word and believes him who sent me': but now, 'He who sees the Son and believes in him.' He did not say, 'Sees the Son and believes in the Father'; for this is to believe in the Son, which is also to believe in the Father: because as the Father has life in himself, so has he given to the Son also to have life in himself: that everyone who sees and believes in him should have eternal life;

by believing and passing over into life as by that first resurrection. And because it is not the only one, 'I will also raise him up,' he says, 'at the last day.' SERMON XCV. On the words of the Gospel of John, chapter XI, 1-44, 'Lazarus our friend sleeps: but I go, that I may awaken him from sleep,' etc. 1. The divinity of Christ is shown in the raising of Lazarus. The Apostles did not raise the dead by their own power. By many signs and wonders indeed did our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus declare the power of his divinity, but most of all in the death of Lazarus, as your Charity has heard in the present reading, showing himself to be the one of whom it was written, 'The Lord of hosts is with us, our helper is the God of Jacob' (Psalm 45:8).

Yet these mighty works our Lord and Saviour wrought in a twofold manner; both corporally and spiritually, that is, visibly and invisibly, so that by a visible work he might show forth an invisible power. Above, he illumined with the light of eyes a man blind from birth by a visible work (John 9:7), that by that invisible power he might illumine the blindness of the Jews with the light of the knowledge of himself: but in the present reading he gave life to the dead Lazarus, that he might raise up the unbelieving hearts of the Jews from the death of sin unto life. And indeed many of the Jews, on account of Lazarus, believed in Christ the Lord. For they recognized in the resurrection of Lazarus the manifest power of the Son of God:

because to command death by one's own power is not of the human condition, but of the divine nature. We read indeed that the Apostles too raised the dead (Acts 9:40; 20:9-12), but that they, in order to raise them, prayed to the Lord; and they raised them not by their own strength nor by their own power, but by invoking the name of Christ, who is Lord over death and life: but the Son of God raised Lazarus by his own power. In short, as the Lord said, 'Lazarus, come forth'; immediately he came out of the tomb: nor could death hold him whom Life was calling. In his nostrils was the moisture of the grave: Lazarus stood alive. Death did not wait to hear a repeated word of the Saviour, because it could not bear the power of Life:

but at the single voice of the Lord death let go the body of Lazarus from the tomb, and released his soul from hell; and the whole Lazarus came forth alive from the tomb, who had not been wholly there. One is more slowly awakened from sleep than Lazarus from death. The moisture of the body was still in the nostrils of the Jews; and Lazarus stood alive. But now let us look at the beginning of the reading itself. 2. Why Christ rejoices and weeps at the death of Lazarus. The power of Christ's tears. The Lord therefore said to his disciples, as your Charity has heard in the present reading: 'Our friend Lazarus,' he says, 'sleeps; but I go, that I may awaken him from sleep.' Well did the Lord say, 'Our friend Lazarus sleeps'; because in truth he was about to rise from death as from sleep.

But the disciples, not knowing why the Lord had said this, say to him: 'Lord, if he sleeps, he will be well.' Then answering, he said to them plainly: 'Lazarus is dead; but I rejoice for your sakes, that you may believe, because I was not there.' But if here the Lord says he rejoices on account of the disciples over the death of Lazarus, what is it that afterwards he is reported to have wept at the death of Lazarus? But let us mark the reason of the joy and of the tears. The Lord rejoiced on account of the disciples; he wept on account of the Jews. On account of the disciples he rejoiced; because through the resurrection of Lazarus their faith in Christ was to be confirmed: on account of the unbelief of the Jews he wept; because not even when Lazarus rose would they believe in Christ the Lord.

Or perhaps the Lord wept for this reason, that by his tears he might wash away the sins of the world. If Peter was able by the shedding of his tears to wipe away his own sins, why do we not believe that by the tears of the Lord the sins of the world were washed away? Indeed after the tears of the Lord many of the Jewish people believed. On his part the affection of the Lord's compassion overcame the unbelief of the Jews, and the first shedding of his tears softened their discordant minds. And therefore perhaps both are reported of the Lord in the present reading, that he both rejoiced and wept: because 'he who sows in tears,' as it is written, 'shall reap in joy' (Psalm 126:5). The tears of the Lord, then, are the joys of the world: because he shed tears for this reason, that we might merit joys.

But let us return to the order. 3. Christ absent and present at once at the death of Lazarus. He therefore said to his disciples: 'Our friend Lazarus,' he says, 'is dead: but I rejoice for your sakes, that you may know that I was not there.' Let us here too mark the mystery, how the Lord says that he was not there. For when he says plainly, 'Lazarus is dead,' he clearly shows himself to have been present there. For the Lord could not have said this, no one announcing it to him, unless he had been present. For how could the Lord not be present in the place where Lazarus died, he who by his divine power encompasses all places of the whole world? But here too our Lord and Saviour shows the sacrament of flesh and divinity in himself.

He was not there according to the flesh: he was here according to the divinity; because God is everywhere. 4. Why God asks about things he does not fail to know. By confession of his fault Adam is saved, by denial Cain is condemned. When therefore the Lord had come to Mary and Martha the sister of Lazarus, seeing the crowd of the Jews, he said: 'Where have you laid him?' Did the Lord not know where Lazarus had been laid — he who, being absent, had declared Lazarus dead, and who by the majesty of his divinity was everywhere? But the Lord did this from the ancient custom. For to Adam likewise he said: 'Where art thou, Adam?' (Genesis 3:9). Not because he did not know where Adam was:

but he asked for this reason, that the sinful Adam might confess with his own mouth, so that he might be able to merit pardon of his sin. He asks Cain also, 'Where is thy brother Abel?' And he said, 'I know not' (Genesis 4:9). Not because he did not know where Abel was did he question Cain: but so that, when Cain denied it, he might convict him of the fratricide which he had committed against his brother. In short, Adam, because he confessed to the questioning Lord the sin which he had committed, was restored to pardon: Cain, because he denied the fratricide which he had committed, was condemned to eternal punishment. So too when the Lord here says, 'Where have you laid him?' he does not ask for the reason that he did not know where Lazarus had been laid: but that the crowd of the Jews might follow to the tomb of Lazarus:

that seeing the divine power of Christ in the resurrection of Lazarus, they themselves might stand as witnesses against themselves, if they should not believe so great a power. For the Lord had said to them above: 'If you believe not me, at least believe the works, and know that the Father is in me, and I in him' (John 10:38). 5. What belongs to human power, God leaves for men. Then, when he had come to the tomb, he said to the surrounding Jews, 'Take away the stone from here.' What do we say? Could the Lord not have taken away the stone from the tomb by his command, he who removed the bars of hell by his own power? But what could be done by men, he commanded men to do: while what belonged to the divine power, he displayed by his own might.

For to roll back the stone from the tomb belongs to human power; but to recall a soul from hell belongs to the divine power alone. Yet easily, had he willed, could he have removed the stone from the tomb by the single command of his word — he who by his word created the world. 6. The power of Christ's voice. Another miracle: Lazarus walking with bound feet. When therefore they had removed the stone from the tomb, he said with a loud voice: 'Lazarus, come forth!' showing himself to be the one of whom it was written, 'The voice of the Lord in power, the voice of the Lord in magnificence' (Psalm 29:4); and again, 'Behold, he will give to his voice the voice of power' (Psalm 68:33). Truly a voice of power and magnificence is this, which at once recalled Lazarus from death to life.

And the soul was restored to the body before he had sent forth the sound of his voice. Although the body was in one place and the soul in another, yet this voice of the Lord at once both restored the soul to the body and presented the body to the soul. For there was no delay of time once the voice of such great power was heard. Nor is it any wonder indeed if at the single voice of the Lord Lazarus could rise; since he himself declared in the Gospel that all who are in the tombs shall rise at one single voice, saying, 'The hour comes when all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall rise again' (John 5:25). Whence without doubt he could then, once his voice was heard, have released all the dead from himself, had he not known Lazarus to have been called by name.

As the Lord therefore says, 'Lazarus, come forth'; immediately he came out with hands and feet bound, and his face was covered with a napkin. What shall we say here too? Could the Lord not have broken the bonds of the grave in Lazarus, he who had burst the bonds of death? But here our Lord and Saviour showed a twofold power of his working in Lazarus; that even thus he might pour the faith of belief into the unbelief of the Jews. For it is a thing of no less wonder that Lazarus, bound in his feet, could walk, than that he rose from the dead. SERMON XCVI. Again on the Gospel of John chapter XI, 1-44, on the raising of Lazarus. 1.

Although all the mighty works which the Son of God, being about to reveal his majesty, accomplished on earth, men can only marvel at, so that they cannot define them in words: yet what Christ did concerning Lazarus surpasses every miracle. To him he did not restore health when merely sick, nor by his word straightway give a remedy of strength to one worn with the languor of weakness; nor indeed did he give life anew to one still possessing the remnants of a soul; but to one already buried, already hidden in the tomb, already assigned by the lawful spaces of time as a lodger to the shades below, he commanded — from that very pallid abode, the law of Tartarus destroyed — the slave of death to return to the upper world;

and after the councils of the gnashing shades, after the deep darkness of eternal night, he made him lead life, recline at the banquet, enjoy the converse of those reclining, dine and rejoice: and, that the miracle of divine power might increase further, while the fellow-guests questioned him about the mournful places of punishments and the abodes ever dark in the deep night, Lazarus points them out in careful narration in order; and the shades below found at last the betrayer of what had long been sought and through long ages unknown. 1. Nor were the diverse works of power that had gone before, in many healings, trifling. For neither trivial nor sportive are the things which Christ accomplished besides Lazarus:

that the lame with restored steps ran, and having received the benefit of health rendered thanks to the Lord; that the maimed lifted up both hands to heaven with praises; that the barred gates of dumb tongues were loosed, and after the horrid bellowing of an inarticulate voice, the bond of the knotted tongue being burst, from the divided mouth intelligible words came forth; that the blind man received light, which a violent pain, darkening with the cloud of a thick humour, had snatched from the seat of the eye-sockets; and shaking off the night of the entombed brow, while he recovers full sight, the blind man merited a resurrection of the eyes. This man indeed recovered his eyes; another received them; and what nature had not given, the hand of Christ formed.

For he laid on the brow dust moistened with spittle, and at the touch of the sacred hand, the discipline of the work hastening, he set light-bearing gems into the prepared sockets; and what nature had not given, Christ the Artificer supplied. All these things were a wonder to all while they were being done. For who, however stony, is not compelled to marvel, when he sees all the losses of members restored not by the pigments of medicine, nor by any art, nor by remedies, but by the sole command of a word? Yet these seemed small things compared to the power of Christ, unless Lazarus the friend of Christ should die.

Whom therefore Christ restored to the nature of life, that he might change nature and reverse the order of life, that one man might learn to be born once and to die twice, that he might overturn the condition of death by the new law of resurrection. 3. There assails Lazarus, then, the hostile ruin of disease, and burning up his panting body in the furnace of fevers, the devouring conflagration daily consumed the strength of the pitiable man. He lay boiling with panting entrails, and his body shaken with frequent gasps promised the soul about to migrate from the house of the body. No friends, no counsels, no fomentations, no remedies provided by the mastery of art came to his aid: for all the things that had been given for his health were turned to the contrary.

For this languor was to be ended by no remedy, but by death alone: and death itself was to be conquered by the resurrection of Christ. But there were present two sisters to the sick man, and grieving the fall of the young man, they clung continually to the couch of the ailing one. And they cherished him as he lay with such frequent addresses: 'Patiently,' they say, 'endure, bravely bear these hardships, do not collapse in despair. For while you tolerate this languor with fortitude, while you endure, while you are cherished, Christ comes meanwhile, as we believe; and perhaps you will even be healed.' But why, O Mary and Martha, does so great a grief burn you for your brother? Why with unceasing sighs do you desire to die with your brother?

Rather change the vows of your heart to the contrary: pray for the increase of the languor, seek the augmenting of the fevers, and desire that the tempest of the raging disease may strike more quickly upon the utmost threshold of his life. For unless your brother Lazarus, whose languor you bewail with such great affection, shall have died, he will not recover health. 4. So then a ceaseless fever burned the sick man, a devouring flame dried him up with penetrating heat. A racking pain lay upon the body, the whole man is oppressed with the burdens of raging diseases; that the soul might be released from the bonds of the body. At length sickness overcame the vital fluid of the body, and the furnace of fevers, in a final divorce, compelled the soul to depart from its abode in the body.

Mary and Martha the sisters rent their garments, tore their cheeks with angry nails, scattered their plucked-out hair, beat the heavens with wailings: and yet, bending over the corpse and embracing the lifeless body, fixing empty kisses, they said this again and again: 'You could, poor one, neither have sickened nor died, if any reason had not made Christ absent. For among all those to whom by his healing word he granted their desires, if he had touched or seen you too as you languished; we should not see you overwhelmed by the torpor of a cold body, nor stripped of light: nay, with him present no fever would have come upon you, no pain would have assailed you, no sickness would have laid you waste. For so great is his omnipotence, that you would rise again even now dead, if he came.'

Meanwhile the funeral proceeds, and in a long procession, adorned with mournful obsequies, is borne to the sepulchre: it is hidden in the hollowed rock, and lamented with sorrowful voices. 5. Christ therefore came to Bethany, about to destroy the barriers of death by his divine power. The weeping sisters run to meet him, attesting the man's death, seeking the help of God (for there was implanted in him a love of Lazarus, and there was a certain affection of his sisters before the Lord), laying down within a pledge of their love's services, they seemed to hold the Lord in their inmost hearts. But God asks about their tears; and although he knew what had happened, yet he chooses to hear it from their own voice. 'Lazarus,' they say, 'whom you loved, is dead.' O envy! O faithless meeting!

While you were yet placed in the world, your friend Lazarus dies. If a friend dies, what shall an enemy suffer? It is a small thing if the powers above do not serve you alone: behold, the powers below have snatched away your beloved. 'Lazarus,' they say, 'whom you loved, dies.' It shut out the custom of humanity, and that voice of mortality says: the friend of God ought to have lived longer; yet he dies. 6. Our Lord Jesus Christ, gazing upon the tears of the women, who with unceasing sighs desired to die with their brother, hastens together with his disciples and the extensive crowds to the mausoleum of Lazarus.

For already he had lain four days within the hollowed rock as he was; already the most foul stench of the flowing-away members forbade approach; already in the sunken sockets the eyes had settled, withering with a putrid mould; already the softness of the nostrils was failing; already the gaping of the mouth bristled with bared teeth; already, the skin laid bare, the seat of the brain, slack at the temples, grew pale under a thinned covering, appearing with hairs ever more sparse; already Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, who had often seen Christ raise the dead, utterly did not believe that their own brother could be raised. There truly was Christ proved to be God, where he did as much as even faith itself dared not to hope. And moved in spirit he said: 'Where have you laid him?'

Yet it was not to be believed that He was ignorant of the place where the man was buried; rather, He wished to confirm the faith of the people. Christ therefore came to the tomb in which Lazarus was sleeping, and called him forth from the sepulchre at once — not as a dead man, but as one whole, as one alive, as one ready to hear. 'Lazarus,' He said, 'come forth.' He names him by name, lest all the dead should be compelled to come out. Yet He cries out at the tomb; the powers below are thrown into confusion, all the dead await their summons and seek to have their own names called: 'Will the Lord raise us also?' they say. Wherever Christ had stood, the regions below lay open. Suddenly one voice caught up all the rest: 'Lazarus, come forth.'

No delay holds back the one rising again, no tardiness of the returning soul, no bonds of burial hinder him. Wrapped in linen cloths and entangled in cords of flax, at Christ's voice he comes forth more swiftly still: he rises, walks, runs. And lest anyone should say that anything was lacking to him who rose again, in the presence of all he gives thanks to his Redeemer. SERMON XCVII. On the words of the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verse 27: 'My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave with you.' What peace is. What it accomplishes. What sort it is. How great the loss of it. The crime of obstinacy. Discord. It is the Lord's own voice, dearest brethren: 'My peace I give unto you, peace I leave with you.' Since we are to speak of peace, let us first consider what advantages belong to peace.

Peace is the serenity of the mind, the tranquillity of the soul, the simplicity of the heart, the bond of love, the fellowship of charity. It is this that takes away rivalries, quells wars, restrains anger, treads down the proud, loves the humble, calms the discordant, reconciles enemies, and is pleasing to all. It seeks not what belongs to another, counts nothing as its own; it teaches love, and knows not how to hate. It knows not how to be exalted, knows not how to be puffed up. Therefore let him who has received this peace hold fast to it; let him who has lost it seek it again; let him who has forfeited it search it out: for whoever is not found within it is disowned by the Father, disinherited by the Son, and no less made a stranger to the Holy Spirit. For he spurns the gift offered who despises the good of the law that has been given:

nor will he be able to attain to the inheritance of the Lord who has refused to keep His testament. He cannot have concord with Christ who has willed to be at variance with a Christian. It is therefore the crime of obstinacy to despise what is commanded, to refuse what is enjoined, to shun what is bidden. What have you in common with discord, O Christian? Why do you love rivalries, which could not please the Author of peace? Why do you carry on enmities, which not even he who first devised them could escape? For in the beginning, while the serpent stirred up enmities against the first-formed man, he was slain; while he envies man, he himself is laid low; while he desires to deceive Adam, he himself is the first to be cut down.

Therefore, O Christian, either embrace the charity of Christ, or acknowledge that in the likeness of your works you have made yourself equal to the author of discord. The same sermon in a fuller form, as it is found in the Royal Manuscript and also in the Colbertine, in which this title is prefixed: 'A sermon of St. Augustine on the Lord's Supper, concerning the peace commended to the disciples.' It is the Lord's own voice: 'My peace I give unto you, peace I leave with you.' Since we are to speak of peace, let us first hear what advantages belong to peace. For peace is the serenity of the mind, the tranquillity of the soul, the simplicity of the heart, the bond of love, the fellowship of charity. For it is this that takes away rivalries, quells wars, restrains wrath: it treads down the proud...

...it treads down the proud, loves the humble, calms discords, reconciles enemies, and is pleasing to all. It seeks not what belongs to another, counts nothing as its own. It teaches love, and knows not how to hate. It knows not how to be exalted, knows not how to be puffed up: it is humble toward all, gentle toward all. In it is rest itself, in it is tranquillity. The peace that is practised in the Christian is brought to perfection in Christ. Whoever loves this peace is an heir of God; whoever despises it is a rebel against Christ. For the Lord Christ, returning to the Father, left to His worshippers His inheritance-gift, that is, His own peace, saying: 'My peace I give unto you, peace I leave with you.' Let him who has received this peace hold fast to it; let him who has lost it seek it again; let him who has forfeited it search it out:

for whoever is not found within that peace is disowned by the Father, disinherited by the Son; and, stripped and bare, he will be found a stranger to that same Lord. He will spurn the gift offered who despises the good of the law that has been given: nor will he be able to attain to the inheritance of the Lord who has refused to serve His testament. O Christian, embrace the peace which Christ left behind; cling as a worshipper to the inheritance of God, and show forth the will of the Lord poured into you. 'Blessed,' He says, 'are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God' (Matthew 5:9). It is written for the discordant, it is written for the hostile: one cannot be a Son unless he is a peacemaker; He disowned enemies who made peacemakers His children.

For either, O Christian, keep the peace that has been given, or, if you have not loved peace, know that the glory of salvation is taken from you. He cannot receive the things promised by Christ who has refused to be reconciled with his brother: he cannot have concord with Christ who has willed to be at variance with a Christian. If a vicarious suffering were demanded of us by Christ, and if the blood of the Son of God, which was shed for us, were required to be repaid with our own blood, with what earnestness and devotion ought we to hasten, that you might both fulfil the commands of so great a Majesty, and rejoice to make repayment by a vicarious suffering, and to gain life in exchange for death, and to make requital by a suffering given in return!

But now how will you be able to lay down your life for Christ, you who have refused to keep the peace committed to you by Him? It is the crime of obstinacy to despise what is commanded, to refuse what is enjoined, to shun what is bidden. For the peace of Christ is a good; the discord of the devil is an evil: he answers to the author whose own he chooses of the two. What have you to do with discord, O Christian, which slew its own prince, the devil? Why do you love rivalry, which could not please its author? Why do you carry on enmities, which not even he who first devised them could escape? For while the serpent works enmities against the first-formed man, he is slain; while he envies man, he himself is laid low; while he deceives Adam, he is cut down.

But Christ, on the contrary, clung to man with such great charity, loved him with such singular kindness, that He commended him to the Father and joined him to Himself, when for his sake He came down and put on flesh. It is written: 'By the envy of the devil, death entered into the world. But they imitate him who are of his side' (Wisdom 2:24-25). Let not that fall upon a Christian which falls upon the devil: for it becomes a Christian to preserve what he is known to have learned from the Lord. Wherefore we ought to embrace the charity of Christ, that we may be able to live with Him in eternal blessedness. Amen. SERMON XCVIII. On the same words of the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verse 27. 1. Peace, the inheritance of Christ. The peacemaker, the Son of God.

We read in the Gospel, dearest brethren, that our Saviour and Lord, when He was drawing near to His Passion and was making known to His disciples His passage from this world to the Father, among the other words which He bestowed upon His beloved companions in memory of Himself, especially commended to them the good of peace and of unity as a kind of special gift, saying: 'My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave with you'; as if to say, 'In peace I have left you, in peace I shall find you.' Departing, He willed to give what He desired to find in all when He returned: this inheritance He gave to His own, and He promised all the gifts and rewards of His pledge in a manner of life of peace.