Tractates 1 part 6/14

For Adam, when with this member he plucked the forbidden fruit, thus brought the right of death into the human race. Necessarily, then, God gave this sign to a lustful people: so that, when He marks the place of the primal fault, he might also recognize the other crimes to be fled. 'By your own mouth,' He says, 'O Christian, you have conquered yourself.' Hence it is that I too contend that I possess eternal life, because I recognize that the care of death was specially provided for me by God. Rightly would the Jew say this, brethren, if this care could have profited both sexes. For since a graver cause remains, he acknowledges that he is to perish unless he seeks the truth: for if it cures Adam, certainly it cannot cure Eve by this remedy, in whom is the sum of all transgression.

What of this, that I perceive it to profit not even the man himself in anything? Because the bounding of this mark lies subject to the power of the heart, which, unless it be purified by the spiritual sacrament of true circumcision, the man in question shall perish forever: for the flesh can suffer damage, but it cannot command the soul: for the soul itself, by the command of its royal power, compels the body subject to it to fulfill, in servile offices, the desires of its own will; and if it be vicious, as many members as each one has, it will be able to perpetrate so many crimes. VI. Finally, by this manner Scripture marks the Jews, beginning from the ears: 'I cried,' He says, 'to them, and they did not hear; they shall cry to me, and there shall be none to hear them.'

Likewise He says to them concerning the hands: 'For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquities. Your lips have spoken falsehood, and your tongue meditates injustice' (Isa. 59:3). And again concerning the other members: 'Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully, the venom of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes' (Ps. 13:23ff.). And concerning circumcision itself He says in symbols:

'They consulted, and announced in their staves; they were seduced by a spirit of fornication, and have committed fornication against their God' (Hos. 4:12). Acknowledge therefore, O Jew, even though late, the wretched and damnable distinction of your error, and tell us whether you observe circumcision or the law. If circumcision, the law is not necessary to you, because the just Abraham, who lived by faith, deserved God by his believing, not by the law. If the law, despise that circumcision of yours, which we see emptied by the law, Jeremiah thus saying: 'Thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and all who dwell in Jerusalem: Renew among yourselves the newness, and do not sow among thorns.'

'Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn, and there be none to quench it' (Jer. 4:3-4). You see therefore, brethren, that to such as are thus circumcised God not only does not promise salvation, but even, unless they be lawfully circumcised in heart, threatens the punishment of inextinguishable fire. But Moses himself too, whose disciples they assert themselves often to be, speaks by the same Spirit to Israel, saying: 'In the last days God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, to love the Lord your God' (Deut. 30:6). VII. Hence now I say to you again: Pharisee, answer, where do you have your heart placed? If in the region of the breast, why do you measure the lower parts with a deforming wound?

If—as indeed you rightly judge—in the lower regions: beyond doubt you outstrip all the sacrilegious, who, reproving the saying of Moses, presume that you can please God by this injurious offering of the body. 'Already,' He says, 'has been completed in me, through Jesus son of Nun, by the Lord's command, the second circumcision which Moses had announced; for it is written: And God said to Jesus: Make thee knives of stone, very sharp: and sit down, and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time' (Josh. 5:2). Let us now therefore see, dearest brethren, in what manner that second circumcision by Jesus son of Nun was celebrated with those stone knives:

did he circumcise the heart or the foreskin? For if, according to them, we too should understand it carnally, both prophets will be held in fault: so that either Moses is a deceiver, if circumcision is circumcised again to do this same thing, or to lose what it does not have; or else Jesus son of Nun is a parricide, if he cuts the hearts of men with knives. VIII. But far be it, brethren, that we should touch spiritual men with any error, especially since the prophecy has already arrived at the truth of its own saying: for Jesus son of Nun bore the image of Christ, who is recognized to be the true Savior of all, both by His deeds and by His name: for He—because He Himself is called also a rock (1 Cor. 10:4)—rightly...

...made knives of stone (whence not without reason He imposed on Simon also, upon whom He built the Church, the name Peter (Mark 3:16))—that is, He constituted the apostles, men formed by His own doctrine and sharpened by the file of the Holy Spirit, and all the disciples: by whose saving admonitions, with chanting tongues, as by certain spiritual knives, He cut, according to the saying of Moses (Deut. 30:6), not the foreskin of the flesh, to the harm of man, but the foreskin of the wicked heart, to the increase of man. IX. But perhaps someone may still say: why did He Himself too receive the seal of the flesh, if it was not necessary to Him? Receive, brethren, what is the reason of this proposition.

Therefore He who had come to give life to man, through man had necessarily to fulfill all the decrees of the law, lest He be thought a phantom: for He could have been neither the end of the law nor the true Christ, if He had passed over anything that could have been furnished by another for the salvation of men. To this is added that He was foretold in song as the one to be the son of David according to the flesh; and unless He answered to the paternal seal of His lineage, He would neither be the son of David, nor could Christ have come except as the son of David, who was therefore circumcised because He was promised to the Jews, and therefore was born with a foreskin because He was to profit the uncircumcised Gentiles forever. X. We have spoken of the first, carnal circumcision, which is that of the Jews:

now let us briefly declare the second, spiritual circumcision, which is ours, and which is of such great power and nature that it began from a woman—a thing impossible to the former. In short, from the woman, who had first sinned, the care of circumcision takes its beginning. And because the devil, creeping in by persuasion through the ear, had wounded and slain Eve; Christ, entering through the ear into Mary, cuts away all the vices of the heart: and while He is born of a virgin, He heals the woman's wound. Receive the sign of salvation. Integrity followed corruption, virginity followed childbirth. Adam likewise is circumcised by the Lord's cross, and because through the woman, who alone had touched the deadly tree, both sexes had received destruction;

on the contrary, through the man hung upon the tree the whole human race was given life. And lest the beginning seem not to have been wholly restored to its own estate, the former man is consummated upon the cross: and after he was happily put to sleep, likewise from his side, by the stroke of a lance, not a rib is torn away, but through water and blood—which is baptism and martyrdom—the spiritual body of a spiritual woman is poured forth, so that lawfully Adam might be renewed through Christ, and Eve through the Church. XI. By this sacrament, brethren, we are circumcised, both man and woman: by this we are marked, not with the seal of the Holy Spirit, but with His sign. By this circumcision we lose nothing, but find ourselves growing by heavenly increases:

we do not let blood flow in a barren solemnity, but we retain the blood of modesty, which we for the most part eagerly pour out when, in persecution, by dying for the name of the Lord we lay waste the devil. Lastly, we cut away that which we ought not to have had, which we recognize was superadded to men by the enemy, the Lord thus saying: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat' (Matt. 13:24-25). Which we necessarily tear away by the roots with circumcision, so that, purified from the contagion of the dire seed, we may remain whole in the abundance of the paternal seed.

This salvation, I say, which is to be granted to man, is not driven off by reason of day, nor night, nor hour, nor sex, nor age, nor condition, nor place, nor race, but is found ever glorious in all things. In short, the former circumcision cuts away the flesh, the second cuts away the vices of the soul: the one by iron, the other by the spirit; the one a portion, the other the whole man; the one the male alone, the other both sexes; the one the foreskin of a little skin, the other the foreskin of all worldly concupiscence. The one serves the eighth day, but the seasons, days, hours, and all moments serve this one. The one, before the eighth or after the eighth day, does not even aid the dying child;

From the very cradle of infancy to the final exit of any age, she imparts her saving office to both sexes. The one rejoices in blood, the other in grace; the one in the image, the other in the truth; the one in loss, the other in gain; the one acts as a captive under the Law, the other furnishes to all in Christ the liberty of good faith. Therefore you, who are circumcised with a circumcision not made by hand in the stripping off of the flesh, but with the circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ, labor that your integrity be not mutilated; lest, as in Adam and Eve, your spiritual foreskin, by the evil creeping in of besetting sins, be again condemned to nakedness; lest the new man be seen to have anything of the Jew or of the Gentile. For both of these are carnal, both without fruit.

Hence there is no doubt that neither the foreskin is anything, nor circumcision, but that for those who live faithfully the sole necessary thing is the keeping of the will of God. TRACTATE XIV. On the spiritual building of the house of God. I. I could wish, most beloved brethren, to use a kind of triumphal discourse, and to redouble with praises the sacred citadel of this new work. But although it is most excellent to praise the things that are of God, yet it is not the chief thing which can be held in common with the Gentiles or the Jews; for they too, if it were permitted, or if they wished, might perhaps build their synagogues more elegantly, and raise their capitols more elegantly; but in all these works, by true judgment, the builders can please more than the priests.

What of this, that throughout the whole Church of God there is no member of a place of prayer, or but a very rare one, which could in any degree until now be compared with those idolatrous edifices now sinking into utter ruin? For we have learned that the temple of Solomon too was constructed with splendid workmanship, and so elaborated that the beholder did not know what most to admire in it—the magnitude, the workmanship, the ornament, or the very material: for so had all things come together into one beauty, that the lawful house of God might be thought that perishable ambition. But if it were so, among the things mentioned it would always be found inferior in adornment. II.

But God declares that these worldly things, without a lawful and devout worshipper, are neither sufficient nor necessary for His honor, speaking thus far: Heaven is My throne, and the earth the footstool of My feet. What house will you build Me? or what is the place of My rest? For My hand has made all these things (Isa. 66:1, 2). In the Gospel also He says thus: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent to thee, how often would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? Behold, your house shall be left to you (Matt. 23:37, 38). And again: There shall not be left in the temple a stone upon a stone that shall not be thrown down (Matt. 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 21:6).

He therefore rejects so vast, so notable, so opulent a temple, because in it there was no true temple; for this contexture of walls is but a gathering-place of men, while the faithful people is the temple of God, as the Apostle says: You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you (2 Cor. 6:16). And it is true; for as temples like to themselves befit senseless idols, so to the living God living temples are necessary; for in these alone is the structure of the priests of God both proper and perennial—by which we surpass both the Jews and the Gentiles and the rest.

But incomparable, and truly worthy of God, is the glory, when with one consent, one faith, each commending the other, with like devotion both priest and temple are turned to God. Rejoice therefore, brethren, and recognize your own edification in this newly-built house, whose capacity you have made too narrow by your happy number: for from this very thing, that the place does not contain us, it is thereby understood that your faith contains God. Therefore, lest anyone perchance demand of me the manner of the work, I will indicate it in few words. III. In the foundations of the whole fabric there is not, as in the temple of Judea, a multitude of stones, but one great, illustrious, precious, and beautiful stone, which alone sustains the whole mass of the four-square tower (Eph. 2:20):

to which no countless and most powerful array of columns variously ministers, because for it seven alone suffice: no brazen sea adheres to it, because the living sea of its own perennial fount is within it—not such as makes shipwreck, but such as leads the shipwrecked to a sweet life: no gold, no silver; because in its martyrs it reckons all its treasure. It implores no light of windows; because the eternal Sun abides in it. There are in it three members of one inestimable fullness, one sanctuary, and twelve gates ever open, which it defends from hostile assault by the projecting wood in the shape of the letter Tau. O thing truly marvelous! Daily it is built and daily it is dedicated:

with perpetual flowers and diverse gems, stones, and pearls it is at every moment adorned: and because it is a living work, it has no roof but heaven. IV. I will say besides what daily wage is paid, what allowance is dispensed. To all alike one bread is given with wood, water with wine, salt, fire and oil, a coarse tunic and one denarius; and whoever shall have gladly received it, and not despised what he received, but endured in labor even to the end, when the tower is completed, dwelling in it he shall possess inestimable riches. V. It is also necessarily to be recorded by whom anything is done in the temple.

The priest calls, credulity opens the door, simplicity leads in, understanding invites, truth persuades, fear keeps watch, discipline restrains, continence curbs itself. In the august place stands faith, in the secret place chastity, in the foremost place innocence, equity in the midst, patience at the end. Peace gathers, charity binds, solicitude guards, justice distributes, piety ministers, purity supplicates, the spirit petitions, hope promises, wisdom the mistress of the house dispenses the gifts. Rejoice, elders, you are the foundations of this work. Rejoice, young men, you are better than stones of adamant. Rejoice, children, the sweet and priceless pearls of the sacred tower. Rejoice, happy marriages:

you carve gems better for adornment than you yourselves are. Rejoice, widows: by the squared structure of your virtue you cleave to the cornerstone in wedlock. Rejoice, virgins: with the honor of your blossom you adorn all this festal solemnity. Rejoice, rich ones, made truly rich by frequent and just bestowals: for to the advancement of your heavenly dignity is owed this perennial praise of the divine work. Rejoice, poor in spirit: through you and in you the house of God is the greater: for you are equal to all, and you surpass with the compass of your body all the measured plots. In short, holy rich men are few, but you are many. VI. These, most beloved brethren, are your spiritual gifts:

these are the virtues by which the spiritual Jerusalem is built, by which this new place of sacred prayer and a people are daily provided by the providence of Christ our God and Lord. This is our illustrious labor: this is the glory of all priests: this mystery is dear to God, this work dear, this living work is carried on in a carnal manner, but advanced in a spiritual manner. And God the almighty Father will grant that, just as in this earthly dwelling we give Him thanks, so in the heavenly kingdoms we may render fuller thanks together with all the saints. TRACTATE XV. On the threefold kind of sacrifices. I. In every matter, most beloved brethren, unless one first knows the person and the reason, he cannot know its truth;

for it is this very thing that has caused, and still causes, that the Jew, and the Christian who is worse than a Jew, do not believe the Son of God to be God: whom I could wish were present a little while, and would lend their ear to the present reading, that they might declare to us who this God may be who says: Hear, My people, and I will speak; Israel, and I will testify to thee: for I am God, thy God (Ps. 49). And below: Mine is the world and the fullness thereof. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy vows to the Most High. And call upon Me in the day of thy tribulation, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt magnify Me (Ps. 49:12 ff.). If the Father speaks, brethren, who is this to whom He defers so greatly?

Who is He whom He calls the Most High, when He Himself is the only one, than whom no other is higher? But if rather these are the words of the Son, deferring with all honor to the Father, you ought to recognize with how great chains of darkness the mind of unbelievers labors, bound fast. II. Offer, He says, to God the sacrifice of praise. First of all, learn anew, O Christian, that there are three kinds of sacrifices, lest you be led astray by any error. For one is detestable, another reprobate, the third clean. Detestable is that of the Gentiles, reprobate that of the Jews, clean that of the Christian people. Therefore the sacrifice of the Gentiles is as execrable as it is vain:

for vain men worship vain figments shaped into whatsoever forms, faces, sexes, ages, by the loss of gold and silver under the measured tooth of the mother file. What madness then is this? to procure a sacrifice for those who know nothing, to bring light to the blind, to burn incense to things that do not breathe, to allege prayers to the deaf: to seek protection from those whom a thief does not fear to carry off. At whom God is rightly angry, saying: Walk not after strange gods, to serve them; and adore them not: lest at any time you provoke Me in the works of your hands, and I destroy you (Jer. 25:6). But what these works of human hands may be, the Holy Spirit declares in the ninety-fifth psalm, saying: All the gods of the Gentiles are demons;

but the Lord made the heavens. And in Deuteronomy (32:17): They sacrificed to demons, and not to God. And lest anyone should suppose that sacrilege would pass with impunity for him, Scripture again says in the same place: He that sacrificeth to gods shall be rooted out, save only to the Lord (Exod. 22:20). This divine sentence awaits the Gentiles, unless they be converted: who acknowledge that they themselves possess neither a God nor a lawful sacrifice. III. Now learn also that the sacrifices of the Jews are repudiated by God, who says to them in the book of Isaiah: To what purpose do I take the multitude of your sacrifices? I am full; the holocausts of rams, and the fat of lambs. The blood of bulls and of goats I will not have:

for who has required these things at your hands (Isa. 1:11, 12)? Through another prophet likewise the Holy Spirit cries out and says: Gird yourselves, and lament, you priests; mourn, all you who serve the altar: for the sacrifice and the offering have been taken away from the house of your Lord (Joel 1:13). There are many things which might be said: but it is quite idle to dwell on those things which now no longer exist at all. IV. One example, however, we will necessarily bring forward, which is both odious to the Jews and approves the sacrifice of the Christians as pleasing to God. In the prophet Malachi: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord:

and I will not accept a sacrifice from your hands; for from the rising of the sun even to its setting My name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place odors of incense are offered to My name, and a clean sacrifice: for great is My name among the Gentiles, says the Lord (Mal. 1:10, 11). Offer to God the sacrifice of praise (Ps. 49:14). Offer, He says, to God, not to demons, the sacrifice of praise, not of reproach, and pay your vows to the Most High. He pours back the whole honor upon the Father, from whom are all things. And by saying, Call upon Me in thy tribulation, and I will deliver thee, He shows that through Himself He has accomplished all things. And thou shalt magnify Me:

which saying, brethren, you ought not so to understand as though He testified that the praise of His own work was due to Himself alone—He who says in the Gospel: If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not: but if you will not believe Me, believe the works; and know that the Father is in Me, and I in Him (John 10:37, 38)—a saying with one signification of majesty, and with an undivided affection of piety; because the praise of the Son is the Father's, and the praise of the Father is of both. V. Now it befits us to know the property of our sacrifice, which is easily known by contrast: for if to bodily gods a bodily sacrifice is fitting, surely to the spiritual God a spiritual sacrifice is necessary—one which is brought forth not from the purse, but from the heart;

which is procured not by stupid beasts, but by most gentle morals; which is offered not with bloody hands, but with clean senses; which is not slaughtered that it may perish, but, like Isaac, is offered that it may live—Paul the Apostle exhorting us, whose words are these: Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God (Rom. 12:1): for this is pleasing to the Lord, when a pure mind has offered itself to the Lord; but other things will profit nothing, if the mind of him who worships be not pure—Solomon crying out in Ecclesiasticus: The Most High approves not the gifts of the wicked (Sir. 34:23). VI.

Here inquire, O Christians, whether your sacrifice can be acceptable—you who know all the little clods, pebbles, and twigs of your neighbors' estates; yet in your own farms you do not know the lone shrines smoking on every side, which (if the truth must be told) you subtly preserve by dissimulation. The proof is not far off. You litigate daily, lest anyone snatch from you the right of these temples. Not only these who are such displease God, but also those who run about among the sepulchers; who sacrifice feasts to the foul cadavers of the dead; who, from love of luxury and drinking, in disreputable places, with flagons and cups, have suddenly begotten martyrs for themselves; who observe days;

who make Egyptian days out of fair days; who catch at auguries, and violently seek their own safety in the entrails of beasts torn open; who exasperate the conjugal yoke, and, affection being trodden underfoot, with substituted persons—so as to overshadow the thefts of most base advantage—plot to defend the family property, by love not of fidelity but of lust; who subject public women to themselves by force, and so betray that they are viler than those women are; who swell with wrath, who roar with quarrels, who give birth to slanders; who despoil the poor, the widows, the orphans; who, with profane tales, neglecting the sect of God, contaminate the divine sacraments by wrongly calling others away.

Now let each one see in what manner he either receives or offers the sacrifice: for just as it is sacrilegious to offer unworthily, so it is deadly to eat unworthily—Scripture saying in Leviticus: Everyone that is clean shall eat the flesh. But the soul that shall eat of the flesh of the saving sacrifice, which is the Lord's, and his uncleanness is upon him, that soul shall perish from his people (Lev. 7:20). These things, brethren, just as they are to be avoided by us, so the things that are good, pure, simple, pious, and holy are to be embraced—as you do—that men, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father who is in heaven.

And so, my sweetest flowers, procure such sacrifices as the Holy Spirit may gladly offer, the Father approve, and the Son, who is our Master, glory in as approved—through the same Son, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. TRACTATE XVI. On the Resurrection. I. Whosoever denies the resurrection condemns his own life by his very self: for why should he deserve to behold the felicity of the time to come, whom you see by sacrilegious unbelief detracting from the power of God? But they do this out of love of their crimes, so that they may think that the things they do in secret shall go unpunished: for if they perceived that the course of the day of judgment was already drawing near, without doubt they would both hate present things, and believe future things, and equally fear them:

for there is no one so fasting even from a taste of this world's wisdom that he would dare to say that souls perish with bodies, that heavenly things are consumed with earthly. Especially since that very wise man among them declares that this is death, when the soul is held shut up with the body as in a prison; and that that is the true life, when the same soul, freed from the custody of the prison, returns to that place whence it came. If then he perceived this, who did not know Christ, why should the Christian doubt, who both hears of the resurrection to come, and hopes for it, and presumes it laid up for himself from Christ? II.