Sermons & Tracts 6 part 10/11

If therefore it be asked how we are, according to the words of the same Apostle, co-heirs of Christ, and sons and heirs of God; since even an inheritance is held firm by the death of the one who bequeaths it, nor can an inheritance be understood in any other way: the answer is that indeed, He having died, we were made heirs, since we are also called His sons. The sons of the bridegroom, He says, do not fast so long as the bridegroom is with them. Heirs of Him, therefore, we are called, because He left us the possession of ecclesiastical peace, through the faith of a temporal dispensation, which we possess in this life; which He, as He departed, bequeathed, saying: My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave with you.

But we shall be made co-heirs of Him, when at the end of the world death shall be swallowed up in victory. For then shall we be like Him, when we shall see Him as He is. Which inheritance we do not obtain by the death of His Father, who cannot die; since He Himself becomes our inheritance, according to that which is written: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance:

but because, since we were called while yet little ones, and less fit for contemplating spiritual things, the divine compassion stretched itself down even to our most lowly thoughts, so that in whatever way we might strive to discern that which we did not discern evidently and clearly, that very thing dies which we discerned in an enigma, when we shall have begun to gaze face to face. Fittingly, then, is that said to be about to die which shall be taken away: But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part is taken away. Thus in a manner the Father dies to us in the enigma, and the same becomes our inheritance, when He is seen face to face; not because He Himself dies, but because our imperfect vision of Him is destroyed by the perfect vision:

and yet, unless that former vision nourished us, we should not be made fit for the other, most full and most evident. But if this is admitted by a pious understanding even concerning the Lord Jesus Christ — not according to the Word in the beginning, God with God, but according to that gain whereby He advanced in age and wisdom — that proper assumption being preserved, which is not common to Him with other men, by whose death, as it were, we possess the inheritance, it is manifest. For we cannot be co-heirs of Him, unless He too be an heir. But if piety does not admit this, that the Dominical man should first see in part, and then wholly, although He is said to advance in wisdom;

let the heir be understood in His body, that is, the Church, of which we are co-heirs: just as we are called sons of His mother, although she is constituted from us. But again it can be asked, by whose death we too were made an inheritance of God, according to that: I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance: unless perhaps by the death of this world, by which we were formerly held as though by a master. But afterwards, when we say, The world is crucified to me, and I to the world; Christ possesses us, that one being dead who possessed us: when we renounce him, we die to him, and he to us. LXXVI. On that which the apostle James says: But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is idle?

Since Paul the apostle, preaching that a man is justified by faith without works, was not rightly understood by those who so took the saying as to think that, when once they had believed in Christ, even if they should work evil and live wickedly and shamefully, they could be saved through faith: this passage of this Epistle explains how that same meaning of the apostle Paul is to be understood. And therefore it rather uses the example of Abraham, to show that faith is empty if it does not work well; since the apostle Paul also used the example of Abraham, to prove that a man is justified by faith without the works of the Law. For when he mentions certain other good things of Abraham, by which his faith was accompanied,

he sufficiently shows that the apostle Paul does not so teach through Abraham that a man is justified by faith without works, as if, should anyone have believed, it should not pertain to him to work well; but rather to this end, that no one should reckon that he has come to the gift of justification, which is in faith, by the merits of prior works. For in this the Jews wished to prefer themselves to the Gentiles who believed in Christ, in that they said that they had come to evangelical grace by the merits of the good works which are in the Law: and therefore many who had believed from among them were scandalized, that the grace of Christ was handed over to the uncircumcised Gentiles. Hence the apostle Paul says that a man can be justified by faith without works — but preceding works.

For how can a man be justified by faith, unless he thereafter work justly, although, having previously worked nothing justly, he has come to the justification of faith not by the merit of good works, but by the grace of God, which in him now cannot be void, since now through love he works well? But if, when he has believed, he soon departs from this life, the justification of faith remains with him, neither by preceding good works, because he came to it not by merit but by grace; nor by consequent ones, because he is not permitted to be in this life. Whence it is manifest that what the apostle Paul said, For we reckon that a man is justified by faith without works,

is not to be so understood as that, faith being received, if a man live, we should call him just, even if he live wickedly. Therefore the apostle Paul also uses the example of Abraham, because he was justified by faith without the works of the Law, which he had not received; and James, because he demonstrates that good works followed the faith of that same Abraham, showing how that is to be understood which the apostle Paul preached. For those who think that this sentence of the apostle James is contrary to that sentence of the apostle Paul, can reckon that Paul himself too is contrary to himself, because he says in another place: For not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law shall be justified. And in another place:

But faith which works through love. And again: For if ye live according to the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live. But what the deeds of the flesh are, which must be mortified by spiritual works, he shows in another place, saying: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, wantonness, the service of idols, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkennesses, revellings, and the like; of which I tell you, as I have foretold, that they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God. And to the Corinthians he says: Be not deceived;

neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor rapacious, shall possess the kingdom of God. And such indeed were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. By which sentences he most manifestly teaches that they did not come to the justification of faith by a past good work; nor was that grace given by their merits, when he says, And such indeed were some of you: but when he says, They who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God, he sufficiently shows that, from the time they believed, they ought to work well.

Which James also says, and the same apostle Paul in very many places sufficiently and openly preaches, that all who have believed in Christ ought to live rightly, lest they come to punishments. Which the Lord Himself also mentions, saying: Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. And elsewhere: Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Then: Every one that heareth these my words and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon a rock, etc.

And, He that heareth these my words and doeth them not, I will liken him to a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand, etc. Wherefore the sentences of the two apostles, Paul and James, are not contrary to one another, when the one says that a man is justified by faith without works, and the other says that faith without works is idle: because the one speaks of the works which precede faith, the other of those which follow faith; as Paul himself also shows in many places. LXXVII. On fear, whether it be sin. Every disturbance is a passion; every desire is a disturbance: therefore every desire is a passion. But every passion, when it is in us, by that very passion we suffer; and in so far as it is a passion, we suffer:

therefore every desire, when it is in us, by that very desire we suffer; and in so far as it is a desire, we suffer. But every passion, in so far as by that very passion we suffer, is not sin: so too, if we suffer fear, it is not sin. As if it were said: If it is two-footed, it is not a beast. If, therefore, this is not a valid consequence, because many beasts are two-footed; for the same reason that other is not a valid consequence, because there are many sins which we suffer. For it is argued to the contrary that it is not a valid consequence that, if we suffer fear, therefore it is not sin. But you say that it is a valid consequence that, if we suffer fear, it is not sin; while nevertheless you grant that there are certain sins which we suffer. LXXVIII. On the beauty of images.

That supreme art of Almighty God, through which all things were made out of nothing, and which is also called His wisdom, is the very thing that works also through craftsmen, so that they may make things beautiful and well-proportioned; although they work not out of nothing, but out of some material, such as wood, or marble, or ivory, or whatever other kind of material is subjected to the hands of the craftsman. But these men cannot fashion anything out of nothing precisely because they work through the body; and yet the numbers and the harmony of the lines, which through the body they impress upon a body, they receive in their mind from that supreme Wisdom, which has impressed those same numbers and that same harmony, in a far more skilful fashion, upon the whole frame of the world, a frame that was fashioned out of nothing.

In this frame are also the bodies of animals, which are indeed fashioned out of something, that is, out of the elements of the world; but far more powerfully and excellently than when human craftsmen imitate those same shapes and forms of bodies in their works. For the numerical order of the human body is not found lesser in a statue; yet whatever is found there is transmitted by that Wisdom through the craftsman's hand, the very Wisdom which naturally fashions the human body itself. Nor for all that are those to be greatly esteemed who fashion or delight in such works; because the soul, intent upon lesser things which it makes bodily through the body, cleaves less closely to that very Wisdom from which it has these powers, which it uses ill while it exercises them outwardly.

For the soul, loving those things in which it exercises these powers, neglects their inner and loveable form, and is rendered emptier and weaker. But how far those who have even worshipped such works have strayed from the truth can be understood from this: that if they were to worship the very bodies of animals, which are fashioned far more excellently, and of which those works are but imitations, what more wretched thing could we call them? LXXIX. Why did the magicians of Pharaoh work certain miracles as did Moses the servant of God (Exod. VII, VIII)? 1. Every soul partly wields a power that is, as it were, its own private right, and is partly restrained and governed by the laws of the universe as though by public laws.

Since therefore each visible thing in this world has an angelic power set over it, as the divine Scripture in several places testifies, concerning the thing over which it is set it acts in one way by, as it were, private right, and in another way is compelled to act as it were publicly. For the universe is more powerful than the part; since what a power there does privately, it is permitted to do only so far as the law of the universe allows. But each soul is the purer in piety the less it is delighted with what is its own private good, and the more it looks to the law of the universe, and devoutly and gladly obeys it. For the law of the universe is the divine Wisdom.

But the more a soul rejoices in its own private good, and, neglecting God who profitably and wholesomely presides over all souls, wishes to be, in itself or in others whom it can, in the place of God—loving rather its own power over itself or others than His power over all—the more sordid it is, and the more penally is it compelled to serve the divine laws as though they were public laws. Therefore the more even a human soul, forsaking God, is delighted with its own honours or its own power, the more is it made subject to such powers as rejoice in their own private good and desire to be honoured by men as gods:

To these it is often granted by the divine law that, over those whom they have subjected to themselves according to their deserts, they may by that private right perform even some miracle, in those matters for the exhibiting of which they are set over the lowest, yet most orderly, rank of powers. But where the divine, as it were public, law commands, it altogether overcomes the private licence; although even that private licence would be nothing except by the permission of the universal divine power. And so it comes about that the holy servants of God, when it is useful for them to have this gift, according to the public and in a manner imperial law—that is, by the power of the Most High God—command the lowest powers to work certain visible miracles:

For in those miracles God Himself commands, whose temple they are, and whom, despising their own private power, they most ardently love. But in magical incantations, for the enticement of deception, so that they may subject to themselves those to whom they grant such things, they yield the effect to the prayers and services of those men, bestowing by that private right what it is permitted them to bestow upon men subject to them and serving them, and keeping with them certain covenants in their sacred rites. And when the magicians seem to command, by the names of higher beings they terrify the lower ones; and they exhibit to those who wonder certain visible things which, because of the weakness of the flesh, seem great to men who are unable to contemplate eternal things—things which the true God bestows through Himself upon those who love Him.

But God, justly moderating all things, permits this, so that according to men's desires and choices He may apportion their servitudes and their liberties. And if ever, by invoking the Most High God, they obtain something for their evil desires, that is vengeance, not grace. For not in vain does the Apostle say: God gave them up to the desires of their heart (Rom. I, 24). For the very facility of committing certain sins is a punishment for those that went before. 2. But as to what the Lord says, Satan cannot cast out Satan (Mark III, 23): lest perchance anyone, when by the names of certain lower powers he has cast out a demon, should think this saying of the Lord to be false;

Let him understand that it was said to this effect, that in this manner Satan, even if he spares the body or the bodily senses, does so in order that, by the error of impiety, he may with a greater triumph dominate the very will of the man. But in this manner Satan does not go out, but rather enters into the inmost parts, so that he may work in the man in the way the Apostle says: According to the prince of the power of this air, who now works in the children of unbelief (Eph. II, 2). For it was not their carnal sense that he was tearing and tormenting, or dashing their bodies together, but he was reigning in their will, or rather in their cupidity. 3. But as to what He says, that false prophets will work many signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if it were possible, even the elect (Matth. XXIV, 24);

He surely admonishes us to understand that certain miracles are worked even by wicked men, such as the saints cannot work: nor are they therefore to be judged to hold a higher place with God. For the magicians of the Egyptians were no more acceptable to God than the people of Israel, because that people could not do what those did: although Moses, in the power of God, could do greater things (Exod. VII–XII). But these gifts are not granted to all the saints for this reason, lest the weak be deceived by a most pernicious error, supposing that in such deeds there are greater gifts than in the works of righteousness, by which eternal life is obtained. Therefore the Lord forbids His disciples to rejoice in this, when He says: Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you;

But rejoice in this, that your names are written in heaven (Luke X, 20). 4. When therefore the magicians do such things as the saints sometimes do, these things appear visibly to be indeed the same, yet they are done both with a different end and by a different right. For the former do them seeking their own glory, the latter seeking the glory of God: and the former do them through certain things granted to the powers in their own order, as by private dealings or sorceries; but the latter by public administration, at the command of Him to whom the whole creation is subject. For a possessor is compelled to give a horse to a soldier in one way, and delivers it to a buyer, or gives or lends it to anyone, in another way.

And just as very many bad soldiers, whom the imperial discipline condemns, terrify some property-owners by the standards of their emperor, and extort from them something which is not publicly commanded: so sometimes bad Christians, or schismatics, or heretics, by the name of Christ or by Christian words or sacraments, exact something from the powers who have been enjoined to yield to the honour of Christ. But when they yield to those who command wickedly, they by their own will render men fit to be seduced, in whose error they take delight. Wherefore in one way the magicians work miracles, in another way the good Christians, in another way the bad Christians: the magicians by private contracts, the good Christians by public righteousness, the bad Christians by the signs of public righteousness.

Nor is it any wonder that these signs are effective when applied by them; since even when they are usurped by outsiders, who have in no way given their name to this warfare, yet on account of the honour of the most excellent Emperor they are effective. Of these was that man concerning whom the Lord's disciples reported that in His name he was casting out demons, although he did not follow with them (Luke IX, 49). But when powers of this kind do not yield to these signs, God Himself forbids them in hidden ways, when He judges this to be just and useful. For in no way do any spirits dare to despise these signs: for they tremble at them, wherever they behold them.

But to men who do not know it, something else is enjoined by God: whether for the confounding of the wicked, when it behoves them to be confounded—as we read of the sons of Sceva in the Acts of the Apostles, to whom the unclean spirit said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know: but who are you? (Acts XIX, 15)—or for the admonishing of the good, that they may advance in faith, and may be able to do these things not boastfully but usefully; or for the distinguishing of the gifts of the members of the Church, as the Apostle says, Are all workers of miracles? do all have the gifts of healing? (1 Cor. XII, 30). For these causes, then, for the most part, as has been said, it is enjoined by God to men who do not know it—that is, that when these signs are applied, powers of this kind should not obey the will of men. 5.

But that the wicked may often temporally harm the good, they receive power over them for the greater benefit of the good, for the exercise of patience. Therefore let the Christian soul ever be watchful, amid its tribulations, to follow the will of its Lord, lest by resisting the ordinance of God it acquire for itself a heavier judgment. For what the Lord Himself, acting as man, said to Pontius Pilate, this He could also have said to the devil concerning Job: You would have no power over me, unless it had been given you from above (John XIX, 11). Therefore it is not the will of him whose malice's power is given over the good, but the will of Him by whom this power is given, that ought to be most dear to us.

Since tribulation works patience, and patience trial, and trial hope, and hope does not confound; because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom. V, 3-5). LXXX. Against the Apollinarians. 1. When certain heretics, who are said to be called Apollinarians from one Apollinaris, their author, asserted that our Lord Jesus Christ, in so far as He deigned to become man, did not have a human mind, some men, cleaving to them and eagerly hearing them, were indeed delighted with that perversity by which he diminished the manhood in God, saying that He had not a mind—that is, a rational soul, by which man differs from the beasts according to the mind.

But when they considered within themselves that it must be granted, if it is so, that the only-begotten Son of God, the Wisdom and Word of the Father, through whom all things were made, is to be believed to have taken up a certain beast with the figure of a human body, they were displeased with themselves—yet not unto correction, so as to return to the way of truth and confess that the whole man had been assumed by the Wisdom of God, with no diminution of nature: but using a bolder audacity, alienating from Him even the animating principle and the whole soul of the man, they said that He had assumed only the human flesh, adducing also a testimony from the Gospel; nay rather, that opinion...

Not understanding it, in their perversity they dare to contend against the Catholic truth, saying that it is written, The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John I, 14). For under these words they wish the Word to be so coupled and compounded with flesh, that there is present there no mind—nay, not even a human soul. 2. To these it must first be answered that this was so placed in the Gospel because that assumption of human nature by the Lord was made even down to the visible flesh, and in that whole unity of the assumption the Word is principal, but the flesh is the outermost and last.

Wishing therefore to commend to us the abasement of the humility of God, who humbled Himself, and expressing to what extent He humbled Himself, the Evangelist named the Word and the flesh, passing over the nature of the soul, which is inferior to the Word yet more excellent than the flesh. For it commends the humility more that it is said, The Word was made flesh, than if it were said, The Word was made man. For if these words are regarded too narrowly, another man, no less perverse, can from these words so calumniate our faith as to say that the Word itself was converted and changed into flesh, and ceased to be the Word; because it is written, The Word was made flesh:

Just as human flesh, when it becomes ash, is not flesh and ash, but from flesh becomes ash. And according to the more common manner and custom of speaking, whatever comes to be that was not before, ceases to be what it was. Yet we do not understand these words thus; but even they themselves understand them with us in such a way that, the Word remaining what it is, it is said, The Word was made flesh, from that which He took up—the form of a servant—not from that which was converted by some change into that form. Then, if wherever flesh is named and the soul is passed over in silence, it is to be so understood that the soul is believed not to be there, neither will those have a soul concerning whom it is said, And all flesh shall see the salvation of God (Isa. XL, 5; Luke III, 6); and that in the Psalm, Hear my prayers;

To you all flesh shall come (Ps. LXV, 3); and that in the Gospel, As you have given him power over all flesh, that whatever you have given him may not perish, but may have eternal life (John XVII, 2). Whence it is understood that men are wont to be signified by the naming of the flesh alone, so that according to this manner of speaking that also can be understood; namely, that what is said, The Word was made flesh, is nothing else said but, The Word was made man. For just as, the whole being named from a part, by the soul alone man is understood—as is that, So many souls went down into Egypt (Gen. XLVI, 27)—so again, the whole being named from a part, man is understood even by the flesh alone being named; such as are those instances which we have set down.

Accordingly, just as we thus reply to this objection of theirs which they propose from the Gospel, so that no man may be so foolish as to think that we are compelled by these words to believe and confess that the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. II, 5), did not have a human soul; so I ask how they themselves may answer objections of ours so manifest, by which we show, through innumerable passages of the evangelical Scripture, that it is narrated concerning Him by the Evangelists that He was in those affections which cannot exist without a soul. For I do not bring forward those things which the Lord Himself so often recalls: My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matth. XXVI, 38);

And, I have power to lay down my soul, and again to take it up (John X, 18); and, No one has greater love than this, that a man lay down his soul for his friends (John XV, 13). These things a stubborn contradictor can say were spoken figuratively by the Lord; just as it is manifest that He spoke many things in parables. For even if these things are not so, yet there is no need to contend pugnaciously, where we have the narratives of the Evangelists, through which we have come to know both that He was born of the Virgin Mary, and that He was seized by the Jews, and scourged, and crucified and slain, and buried in a tomb; all of which things no one can understand to have been done without a body.