Tractates 1 part 11/14

It must not, then, be taken as it is reckoned by the imprudent. For the rest, with what weight, or for what reason the Lord's saying was uttered, the very propriety of the words explains: He who believes in me, He says, shall not be judged (John 3:18). Rightly so: for what need is there to judge one who believes? For judgment arises from ambiguous matters; once the ambiguity is removed, no examination of judgment is required. Whence neither is it necessary for the unbelieving to be judged, because they are already condemned by their own unbelief; for out of this life everyone carries with him either a crown or a punishment. This truth David expressed in the first psalm in these words: The wicked, he says, do not rise again in the judgment, nor sinners in the council of the righteous (Psalm 1:5).

Step by step, according to merits, as if with certain inscriptions, in very few words he designated the judgment of the whole human race: for as great as is the difference between the wicked man and the sinner, so great is the difference between the sinner and the righteous. In short, He does not even leave the wicked themselves to judgment, because they have already been prejudged by their own impiety; nor did He deem sinners, who are to be judged, worthy of the council of the righteous, who shall not be judged. II. Now we ought to know (since the righteous are destined to everlasting life, and the wicked to eternal punishment, and no further inquiry awaits them) who indeed are the just, for whom judgment is prepared:

and from whom ought we to know, save from the Lord Himself, who carries on His own saying, saying: Now this is the judgment, that light came into this world, and men loved darkness rather than light (John 3:19)? He surely designated those wavering and slippery Christians who are midway between the godly and the ungodly, holding fully to neither part, since they do not cease to hold to both. They are not faithful, because they have something of unfaithfulness mingled in. They are known as unbelievers, because they bear the appearance of faith, serving God by profession, the world by deeds. They wish to know the law, but are unwilling to keep its precepts. They venerate the saving sign, and yet do not withdraw from the mysteries of demons.

For the fear of God indeed holds many in the Church, but nonetheless worldly pleasure draws them to itself. They do not remain unholy, because among them the name of God is held in honor. They are not godly, because by their depraved morals they wound the Father who is to be venerated. They pray, because they fear; they sin, because they will it. Hence the guilt is not absolved, where, concerning the comparison of love between two parties contrary to each other, a judgment is demanded; for unless the ambiguity has been examined, by right it cannot deserve a sentence. And who are these, whom the ambiguity has reserved for judgment?

Surely those, as the Apostle also says, who, having known God, did not honor Him as Lord, nor gave Him thanks, but their thoughts were led away by vain persuasions, and their heart was covered with darkness (Romans 1:21), so that they loved darkness rather than light, the creature rather than the Creator. III. And so there must be three judgments. One of the righteous, who, as has been said, not only shall not be judged, but shall themselves judge this world, as the Apostle says: Do you not know that the saints shall judge this world (1 Corinthians 6:2)? Another of the wicked, who are not to be judged, because they are already judged, but are to perish, as Scripture says: The way of the wicked shall perish (Psalm 1:6).

A third of sinners, whose secret things, belonging to a crooked and doubtful life, must necessarily be examined, the Apostle treating of both, for: those who have sinned without the law, he says, shall perish without the law; but those who have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law (Romans 2:12). Do you see, brethren, how great is the difference between the condemned and him who is to be judged? This form of judgment even humanity itself, however unjust, preserves. For no head of a household judges his slave who offers him the honest gains of his fidelity, but honors him as a son.

But another, whom he has caught grinding poisons, in adultery, in murder, in forgery, in sorcery, he straightway assigns to the executioner—not to be heard, but to be tortured with fitting penalties. A third also, whom he has perceived to be fraudulent, excusing his thefts with specious reckonings, he reserves for examination, so that, the losses being weighed and the goods preserved, sentence may by right be brought forth against him, according as he has proved a debtor. Thus it will be that to the righteous a crown, to sinners either excused or amended pardon, but to the wicked eternal punishment, shall be granted. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed with the Holy Spirit unto the eternal ages of ages. TREATISE XXII. On Isaiah I. I.

Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they have spurned me (Isaiah 1:2). The opening of this book proclaims the great offense of the Jewish nation, and shows the wrath of the divine indignation, which exhorts other persons, that the word of God might rather be heard from them: for it is no small crime that, whereas the divine discourse was always set forth among them, it should now seem to be thrust upon others. Hence the rejection of the Jews is the election of other persons; because when it is said to others that they ought to hear the word of God, Israel is thus found reprobate; and while the prophet cries out, Hear, O heaven and earth, he signifies that they have scorned to hear. II.

Hear, He says, O heaven, and give ear, O earth. Is the prophet testified to have been from heaven and earth, as though he had complained about some matter? Or, when he says: Hear, O heaven and earth, as though heaven or earth had never heard, when both heaven obeys God's command, and earth, since heaven does not deny rains, nor earth its crops? But because this prophecy was to be fulfilled in the last times, at the coming of the Lord and Savior, who was not to be heard by the peoples of the Jews—because the Apostles, and men from the Gentiles, were to hear Him—therefore He says: Hear, O heaven and earth. And He affirms by the clear testimony of truth that the heavens are the Apostles, for thus He says: And I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers (Psalm 8:3).

Here surely he speaks not of these heavens, which he had always seen, but of the Apostles, whom he longed to see. And again: His power has covered the heavens (Habakkuk 3:3); inasmuch as the Holy Spirit overshadowed and covered the Apostles for the doing of marvels. And once more: The heavens, he says, declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). And here surely he does not say that those heavens speak, which no one has heard speaking, but he asserts the Apostles, by whose preaching the glory of the Lord has been announced through all the spaces of the earth. That men are to be understood as the earth, the frequent assertion of the prophets has shown: Make a joyful noise, he says, all the earth. And elsewhere: Hear, he says, O earth, from my mouth (Psalm 66:1; cf. Isaiah 1:2);

by which word he without doubt comprehended the Gentile men, in whom there were still earthly works. This, then, is what he says: Hear, O heaven and earth, namely, that, the Jews not hearing, Christ the Lord was to be heard by the Apostles and the Gentiles. III. I have begotten sons, He says, and exalted them. This is the voice of the Lord, because even then, through the prophet, He was rebuking the unbelieving Jews, and admonishing them of what things were to come, before they came to pass. For it is proper to God to know things past, and to know things future. I have begotten sons, He says, and exalted them. By their boundless unfaithfulness the Jews earned hatred before our Lord, because, as great as was the grace from His love, so great was the vengeance to come from their offense:

for it is certain that a son, after he has transgressed, is the more severely punished whom the father has loved with the greatest affection; and as great a tenderness as the beloved father showed to his beloved son, so great a vengeance, when wounded, he exacts; because, since the beloved son did not render his return to the father, being disowned he receives a fitting sentence: for of him whose impiety renders no equal grace to a father's affection, how great the crime is cannot be told—that he did not love God the Father, when it is a sin not to have loved a man. Hence unhappy and wretched are the Jews, who spurned God the Father, by whom they were begotten, unmindful of so great an honor, ignorant of so great a dignity.

For what is more blessed than that God should deign to regard men with a father's honor, and that so great a sublimity should hold human lowliness either dear or beloved? I have begotten sons, He says. How sweet that the Lord said this of men! How shameful to have wounded such a Father! I have begotten sons and exalted them. The Lord surely begot the sons of Israel, He who chose Abraham, from whom they should be born (Genesis 12; Exodus 1). These He begot in Egypt, where, a few men having entered, an innumerable multitude went forth, and the Lord led them to the wilderness with a mighty hand and outstretched arm (Psalm 136:12). Israel was exalted, when for three days darkness and gloom surrounded all Egypt (Exodus 10:22).

Israel was exalted, when alone he neither feared nor felt so many and so great torments of the Egyptians. What of this, that he led a dry-shod passage through the midst of the sea (Exodus 14)? What of the manna daily from heaven in the wilderness (Exodus 16), of the drink from the rock (Exodus 17), of the bitter water made sweet through the wood—even as, the bitterness of heathenism shut out through the wood of the cross, we were to drink (Exodus 15:17)? The sons of Israel were exalted, when he came safely to the Jordan from Horeb (Deuteronomy 1). What of the daily converse of God (Exodus 14)? But they spurned me; for they led me to the cross, by which cross they had escaped Pharaoh; yet again shall the daughter of Zion be forsaken (Isaiah 1:8).

Some things seem to be lacking. TREATISE XXIII. On Isaiah II. As the song of the most blessed Isaiah shows, God is angry with the Jewish people, and confutes them by public rebuke, lest perchance they should repent. To one who thinks as a man, to be made a public spectacle is worse than to be punished. In short, He calls them sons, that disowning may be feared; exalted, that their fall may bring terror; spurners, that they may know they bring upon themselves the punishment of their penalty. Flee this example, brethren, strongly: and at the same time rejoice, that by the blows of others you learn the discipline of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. TREATISE XXIV. On Isaiah III. It is a violent commotion, brethren, when he complains of his injury who can most easily avenge himself.

But because among the wise and honorable it is a graver thing to be confounded by some mark of disgrace than to die, God confutes the Jewish people, corrupted by an overflowing heat of wantonness, with public reproach: He summons heaven and earth as witnesses (Isaiah 1:2), that He may magnify the crime: He calls them sons, that disowning may be feared; exalted, that their ruin may be dreaded; spurners of Him, that He may show them to be impious. It is an unhappy fault, brethren, in which no excuse of any kind finds a place. Detestable surely is the son whom a loving father, whom an unwilling father, condemns. TREATISE XXV. On Isaiah IV. Human discourse fails before the impiety of the Jewish people, which overcame the patience of God by the impatience of its own obstinate heart;

for no light crime is his, when he complains of him who could soon both punish him. But because among the unbelieving death is thought to be a shortcut from the punishment of things to come, and is reckoned almost as nothing, what is not noised abroad; He resolved to brand them with heaven and earth as witnesses, so that they might lie subject to a fitting judgment for an inexcusable deed. In short, the matter was fulfilled in the Lord's Passion: heaven in the midst of the day lost the day, the earth by an exceeding trembling lost its firmness. From this it is permitted to estimate what is reserved for those in whose cause nature itself endured the punishment of a funereal mourning. TREATISE XXVI. On Isaiah V. That the whole Jewish people has cast away the safeguard of its own salvation, the text of the divine song shows.

In which, venerable brethren, it is not severity that condemns him before all, but love; for nothing can be merited well from anyone whom a most patient and most clement father has disowned, and that too convicted not by accusation, but by proof. In short, He summons heaven and earth as witnesses of His injury (Isaiah 1:2): the earth, in which all things are done; the heaven, under which they are done. He calls them sons, that He may magnify the crime; exalted, that He may show them ungrateful. He sets before them the ox and the ass, that they might be more grievously tormented, if they should recover their senses, by the comparison than by the penalty (Isaiah 1:3). TREATISE XXVII. On Isaiah VI. I.

That the prophet was pleading on behalf of the new vine, in place of the old vine which had been planted by the Lord in Egypt, the very heading of the title of the psalm read declares; for thus it stands: Unto the end, for those who shall be changed (Psalm 80:1). For the Jewish people, which was first called the Lord's vine, did indeed flourish, but unhappily, the blossom being scattered, it could bring forth no fruits (Isaiah 5:4, 6). In short, instead of fruits it produced thorns, instead of the grape the wild vine. Shrinking from its unhappiness, the Lord of the matter planted for Himself another vine, that is, of our people, according to His own will, into which all the prophetic fruit flowed down.

Here may you, most blessed husbandmen, pardon me, your rustic, if in giving an account of the vine my own unskillfulness has taken away anything from your diligence. II. Therefore, as you often most excellently recall, the measure being kept, the shoot is pruned to a single sprig, the branch is let down into a trench, that the life-giving moisture, there quickened, may be nourished by a substance that ever remains with it: a supporting wood is necessarily joined to it, by whose protection, defended, it may raise itself up. But when it has grown into a perfect vine, and has reached the trellis;

all its luxuriant tendrils are clipped with the pruning-hook, the pure material is set upon the trellis-boards, it is bound fast at the knots, lest, by some force, it be separated from the wood by which it is borne, or by whose support or guidance it is invited forth at length into abundant fruits. Then, solemnly weeping, it gently bedews with its own shower, and announces the streams of conceived must with happy tears. At once, the eyes being opened, the radiant leaves come forth, beneath which the following fruits, placing themselves and entrusting themselves, smile; these the heat of the sun, the rains, and the winds, by exercising them, carry forward and lead on to ripeness.

But when the time of vintage has come, the beauty being scattered, the grape is everywhere plucked off, and, placed in the winepress beneath the workers' feet, is trodden, is pressed by the beam, and is vehemently squeezed by two boards, until all the sweetness is forced out from the very marrow. And thus the precious liquor is both drunk by its own treaders, and is brought into the wine-cellars of the head of the household, that by growing old it may be rendered better. III. As far as our mediocrity can spiritually conjecture, the shoot, reckoned to the measure, is understood as the competent one, examined by lawful scrutiny of number. By the trench we ought to understand the sacred font, which by a true mystery receives men who are dead, and, breathed upon, soon makes them alive by the heavenly water.

The supporting wood, by which it is stretched or borne, is the sign of the Lord's cross, without which a Christian can in no way live and lay hold of immortality. That it is set upon the trellis-boards shows the height of the heavenly way and life. It is bound fast with bindings, when, renouncing the world, having made the pledge, he is spiritually bound by the interrogations of the sacred rite. The luxuriant tendrils are clipped with the pruning-hook, that is, all sins whatsoever are cut away by baptism and by the power of the Holy Spirit. The vine, the material being cleansed, happily weeps; from the man who has been washed there flow forth, more happily, the divine streams of heavenly doctrine, the eyes being burst open, that is, spiritually laid bare. With the leaves going before, the fruit commends itself as a sequel.

Likewise the Christian, by obeying the divine admonitions that go before, in which is the fruit of eternal life, is both alike defended and nourished. He reaches the trellis, when, having first bestowed all his substance on the poor, bearing his cross, all righteousness being consummated, he follows Christ more unencumbered. By the force of the tempest, the sun, and the rain he is driven to ripeness; and the righteous man, by frequent, great, and varied temptations, is led on to the crown. But when the time of vintage has come, that is, the day of persecution, the grapes are everywhere plundered, that is, a violent hand is rashly laid upon all the saints. They are carried together to the winepress, that is, they are led down to the place of punishment.

There they are trodden down by the workers, that is, with the utmost insult they are mocked and slaughtered by the persecutors. The juice is dried out by the final weight of the press and by the two boards. Likewise on the day of judgment the vengeance for the confessors' blood is exacted by Christ according to the tablets of the law, even to the last farthing. The treaders drink of the same must; and the persecutors, often coming to believe in Christ, taste—some even drink—the precious cup which a little before they had poured out by treading. The must is stored away in the cellar of the head of the household, that it may be rendered more precious by being decanted; and the martyr is taken up into the secret recesses of the Lord's habitation, that there, transfused from a man into an Angel, he may be glorified with the blessedness of eternal life.

TRACTATE XXVIII. On Isaiah VII. As the very sound of the reading shows, brethren, the Jewish people is indeed convicted of impiety, yet the Christian, lest he turn out to be such a one, is at the same time admonished (chapter v). In short, that the one may fear the more, the other is terrified; the one is scourged, that the other may make progress. It is a swift and economical kind of happiness to learn from another's peril what you yourself ought to avoid. Wherefore, brethren, in such a matter we must offer not eloquence but care, which I ask you to receive in few words. Whoever wishes to escape the wrath of God, who threatens it upon all alike, ought to serve Him blamelessly. The discourse upon the vineyard you remember, most beloved brethren, has limits spread far and wide, which the weight of the pressing mysteries does not allow me to traverse with a discourse of fitting length.

Nevertheless, that the solemnity may not wholly cease, devoutly taste the discourse in a few words. The vineyard of God was first the synagogue, made vile by the wild and tangled tresses of straying shoots; which, when it had spread its wanton foliage everywhere through pleasurable and profane places, brought forth thorns instead of fruits, the wild grape instead of the cluster. Moved by the unworthiness of this thing, the Lord, forsaking her, planted for Himself another according to His own will, that is, the Church our mother, whom, tending her with priestly offices and fertilizing her with holy watering, He taught to bring forth a most abundant vintage, she being hung upon the blessed wood. Hence it is that today, from your number, new vines led up to the trellis, seething with the sweet flowing of the gushing new wine,

have filled the Lord's wine-cellar with common rejoicing. And that this may befall you also, as your faith grows up, God the Father almighty will grant it through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed with the Holy Spirit unto ages of ages. TRACTATE XXIX. On Isaiah VIII, or On the coming of Christ into the world. Christ entered the world secretly, lest the devil should seem to himself wise. He who had deceived man by counsel is conquered by counsel, so that, just as man in paradise had not known the devil, so the devil in the world might not easily recognize Christ. The rest is lacking. ADMONITION CONCERNING THE FOLLOWING TRACTATES.

There remain certain short tractates which, although they are headed with various titles, all nevertheless pertain to the same paschal season, and almost all contain mention of baptism, which is to be conferred or has been conferred during this time; for which reason we have judged that they should all be presented together. But if some of the tractates described above seem to pertain to these same paschal offices, since in them some prayer is offered for the newly baptized, we have nevertheless not seen fit to transfer them here, since either they are much longer and mention baptism only in passing, or we have judged that they ought not to be separated from their own title, for example 'On Isaiah,' under which other, non-paschal, tractates are placed.

At the brevity of these which we now subjoin you will perhaps first marvel, Reader, and then also at the similarity of several of them: which two difficulties have so moved certain persons that, from this very thing, being ignorant of what they were and of what author they belonged to, they believed there should be doubt concerning all the Zenonian tractates with which these are intermingled. But that these in particular, if any others do, have Zeno as their certain author, we have clearly established from the most ancient Rheims codex in Dissertation I, chapter 3.

Yet they are for the most part so filled with many testimonies, both of profane antiquity and of sacred rites and of various doctrines, that they yield to none, or to few, of the longer tractates which are read also among other Fathers, as will become plain from the reading itself and from the appended annotations. Moreover, three observations will sufficiently account for their brevity. In the first place, the paschal offices, to which these tractates pertain, did not permit a longer discourse, as Zeno himself warned in tractate

28. 'The discourse upon the vineyard,' he says, 'most beloved brethren, has limits spread far and wide, which the weight of the pressing mysteries does not allow me to traverse with a discourse of fitting length. Nevertheless, that the solemnity may not wholly cease, taste its discourse in a few words.' And similarly in tractates 56 and 58: 'The time does not allow, brethren, to render to the image its wildness.'

Next, these are not properly to be held as tractates, but rather as certain ecclesiastical prefaces, or addresses delivered to those about to be baptized or to neophytes (some indeed are entitled in the very codices 'Prefaces' or 'Invitations'), and as certain solemn formulas, such as are today noted in the Pontifical or Ritual as to be employed by bishops amid the solemn rites. Hence from the Zenonian writings several have passed over into fixed formulas, which we have shown in the preface, from the Rheims manuscript, to have been used by our prelates on certain appointed days.

Finally, it was the custom of great orators to prepare for themselves several proems or exordia of speeches, which they would use according to the opportunity of the occasion, as Plato noted in the Menexenus. Cicero, in Letter 3 of Book XVI to Atticus, mentions a volume of proems, from which he was wont to choose whenever he undertook some treatise. See also Book IX of the Letters to Friends, Letter 8, to Paetus. Among the works of Demosthenes there survive several of these, more than sixty-five in number, which are very brief; and that this orator used them as occasion arose, Hieronymus Wolfius observed in his address To the Reader, page 130. Why should not something similar be believed to have been done by Saint

Zeno, most devoted to the study of rhetoric and the oratorical discipline, that he prepared for the paschal feasts several prefaces of this kind, which he would use according as the matter and occasion required? Perhaps it is with this in view that several tractates of this sort are called 'Prefaces' in the manuscripts; just as Saint Peter Chrysologus, in the very course of his discourse, calls Sermon XL on the Good Shepherd a 'preface,' and similarly so names Sermon LXXXVII, in such a sense that he seems to have used 'preface' for 'exordium.' That tractate 77, Book II, is indeed an exordium among the others of Zeno, we plainly showed in the same place, annotation 1. But concerning the brevity, which it is permitted to detect, not very differently, in several other tractates of other Fathers, for example of Peter Chrysologus, Saint Leo, etc.,

it is permitted to detect it in no very dissimilar way; thus far is enough. But as for the similarity which exists among several of them, so much so that two or three of the tractates among those to be subjoined reproduce the same sentences, indeed sometimes the very same number of words, if this should move anyone, it ought to be an argument that Saint Zeno wrote several formulas of one and the same tractate or address, either because the first, or even the second, did not satisfy him, or because, being about to discourse on the same subject in single years, with the same feast and readings recurring concerning Exodus, concerning Daniel, etc.

(from which, by the ecclesiastical discipline that had appointed those readings into the rite of baptism, etc., it was by no means permitted to depart), he was constrained to say or even write the same things extempore, with some things added or changed, so that the very same words should not be wholly repeated. We shall add also the observation of Sparaverius, from annotation 4 on tractate 26: 'So often does he repeat these things, that a man of such genius might seem to have labored under a poverty of arguments. But a man distinguished in learning and piety preferred that the esteem of himself should grow cheap, rather than that in the Church he should suppress the seed of his words.'

He did not bring forth these things daily, but either yearly, or at fixed seasons of the year, or perhaps at longer intervals, so that to those who heard, that repetition would not have been unwelcome, since they could not by then either know or remember things already spoken on other occasions; for which reason it is credible that he subtracted the time, which was to be spent on the more fruitful worship of God, from the invention of new arguments and from those refined seductions of words, of which, if there were need, he was not unworthy. Moreover, among Saint

Leo it is possible to find several letters which, with a few things added or changed, reproduce in like manner not so much the same sentences as also the very same words; and likewise some of the sermons, from which you will find many things transferred word for word into the letters, as you will recognize from the notations of the most recent edition appended in the margins of the sermons and letters. See certain other things disputed on this same matter in Dissertation I, chapter 2, section I.