For he who receives an imitator of Christ receives Christ, and he who shall have received the image of God receives God. But because we could not see the image of God, his presence was made to us through the incarnation of the Word, that the divinity which is above us might be reconciled to us. But as for the fact that John, loving much and therefore loved again much, thought, with a rather inclined zeal of charity, that he ought to be excluded from the benefit who would not use the service, he is rightly not reproved, but is taught; he is not reproved, because he acted out of love, he is taught, that he might know there is a difference between the weak and the strong. And therefore the Lord, although he rewards the stronger, yet does not exclude the weak. 'Forbid them not, and do not prohibit; for he who is not against you is for you.'
Well, Lord; for both Joseph and Nicodemus, secret disciples through fear, nevertheless in their time did not deny you their office. But yet, since elsewhere you said: 'He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathers not with me scatters,' open to us, lest it seem to be contrary. And I think that if anyone consider the searcher of minds, he ought not to doubt that each one's deed is discerned by his mind. At length to one he says: 'Follow me,' to another: 'The foxes have holes.' The one is compelled, the other is removed, that you may know that the devout is admitted, the undevout excluded. But as for the fact that he rebuked the disciples because they desired fire to descend upon those who had not received Christ, it is shown to us that vengeance is not always to be taken upon those who have sinned.
Because sometimes clemency profits you more toward patience, and the fallen one toward correction. At length the Samaritans believed the sooner, from whom in this place fire is kept off. At the same time learn that he was unwilling to be received by those whom he knew to be converted not with a simple mind; for if he had wished, he would have made the devout out of the undevout. But why they did not receive him, the Evangelist himself recorded, saying: 'Because his face was as of one going into Jerusalem.' The disciples, however, desired him to be received within Samaria; but God calls those whom he deigns, and makes religious whom he wills. Nor do the disciples sin who follow the Law;
for they knew that Phinehas was reckoned unto righteousness because he had slain the sacrilegious, and that at the prayers of Elijah fire descended from heaven, that the prophet's injury might be avenged. But let him avenge who fears. He does not seek vengeance who does not fear. At the same time it is shown to us that in the apostles there were the merits of the prophets, since they presume by right to obtain the same power which the great prophet earned. And they well presume that fire should descend from heaven at their word, since they are sons of thunder. But the Lord wondrously does all things.
He neither receives the one rashly offering himself, nor is moved with his own wrath against those who undevoutly refuse the Lord, that he might show that perfect virtue has no zeal for vengeance, nor is there any wrath where there is the fullness of charity, and that weakness is not to be excluded but helped. Far from the religious be indignation, far from the magnanimous the desire of vengeance, far also from the prudent inconsiderate association and incautious simplicity. Whence also it is said to that man: 'The foxes have holes,' and his service is not admitted whose office is not approved. For the hospitality of faith ought to be circumspect, lest, while we unbar the interior of our house to the faithless, we slip by improvident credulity into the snares of another's perfidy.
But lest we seem to have alleged that without foresight, why here he denies that those who can command unclean spirits by the laying on of hands in the name of Jesus are to be forbidden, but according to Matthew says to these: 'I never knew you; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity'—we ought to observe that there is no difference of sense nor discord of judgments, but this is to be reckoned by the fact that not only the offices in a cleric, but also the works of virtue are required; and that the name of Christ is so great that it aids even the slightly holy toward protection, even if it does not aid toward grace. Whence no one ought to boast of himself nor claim for himself the grace of a purified man, in whom the power of the eternal name, not any capability of human frailty, has worked;
for the devil is conquered not by your merit, but by hatred of himself. What a man can do, let him exhibit a sincere faith and keep the observance of the commandments with a religious mind, lest it be said to him: 'The foxes have holes.' For the fox is a deceitful animal and ever intent upon ambushes, practising the plunder of fraud. It suffers nothing to be safe, nothing to be at rest, nothing to be secure, seeking its prey even amid the very lodgings of men. And to foxes he compares heretics. At length, when he calls the Gentiles, he excludes the heretics; for the fox is an animal full of fraud, preparing a hole and ever desiring to lurk in the hole. Such are the heretics, who know not how to prepare a house for themselves, but strive to deceive others by their circumventions.
Jacob dwells in a house, the heretic is in a hole, so that, like a fraudulent fox, he ever directs his guile against that evangelical hen, concerning which it is written: 'How often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not? Behold, your house shall be left to you desolate.' Rightly therefore do they have holes, because they lost the house which they had had. This animal is never tamed, whence the Apostle also says: 'A heretic, after one admonition, avoid'; nor is it of any use or fit for food; for Christ does not say of this: 'My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven.' Nay rather, he banishes these from his fruits, saying:
'Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards,' that is, those who destroy the lesser vineyard, not the greater. And therefore Samson tied torches to their tails and let them loose into the harvests of the aliens, because the heretics try to set fire to the fruits of others, being more sonorous with barkings than polished with utterances—for he who denies the Word has not even a voice—for the present free of mouth, but in the future, their end being now bound, signifying by the torches of their tails the burning of their own end. The birds of heaven also, which are frequently applied to the likeness of spiritual wickedness, build certain nests, as it were, in the breasts of the wicked; and therefore the Son of Man, because iniquity has abounded, has nowhere to lay his head.
For when craftiness dominates, since there is no place for simplicity, there can be no possession of the divinity in the affections of individuals. For the head of Christ is God, who, where he has proved a mind harmless, reclines as it were above it the force of his own majesty, which seems to be a sign that a certain more abundant grace is implanted in the breasts of the good. And so, that you may observe that God is not one who spurns worship but fraud, he who had repudiated the fraudulent chooses the innocent, saying: 'Follow me.' But he says this to him whose father he already knew to be dead—that father, surely, of whom it was said to him: 'Forget the house of your father.'
See therefore that the Lord calls even the imprudent whom he pities, and to one who begged pardon for his father's burial answered: 'Let the dead bury their dead; but go you and announce the kingdom of God.' And so, since we have received the religious office of burying, how is it that here even the burial of a father's funeral is forbidden, except that you may understand that human things are to be set after divine? A good zeal—but a greater hindrance; for he who divides his zeal diverts his affection, he who divides his care defers his progress. Therefore those things which are greatest are to be attended to first.
For the apostles too, lest they should be consumed by the pursuit of disputation, ordained ministers for the poor; and when they themselves were being sent by the Lord, it was laid down that they should greet no one on the way—not because the office of kindness gave offence, but because the resolve to carry out their devoted service was more pleasing. But how can the dead bury the dead, unless here you understand a twofold death, one of nature, the other of guilt? There is also a third death, in which we die to sin and live to God, as Christ did, who died to sin; for in that he died, he died to sin once for all, but in that he lives, he lives to God. There is therefore one death, by which the bond of body and soul is severed, a death not to be dreaded, not to be feared, since it seems to be a kind of departure from ourselves.
It is no punishment, nor to be feared by the brave; it is to be desired by the wise, to be longed for by the wretched; of which it is said: «Men shall seek death and shall not find it.» There is also another death, which brings about the destruction of worldly pleasures, in which not nature but sins die. This death we undergo, being buried together in baptism and dead with Christ to the elements of this world, when we suffer forgetfulness of our former deeds. This death Balaam wished to die, when he prophesied, that he might live to God; and therefore he said: «Let my soul die among the souls of the righteous, and let my seed be as their seed.» There is also a third death, when Christ, who is our life, is not known;
But to know Christ is eternal life, which is now present to the righteous in shadow, but in the future shall be face to face; for «Christ the Lord is the spirit before our face», of whom it is said: «In his shadow we shall live among the nations.» In the shadow of his wings David hoped; in his shadow the Church desired and sat down. If, Lord Jesus, your shadow confers so much, how much shall the truth itself bring? How shall we live, when we are no longer in shadow, but in life itself? For now «our life is hidden with Christ in God; but when Christ, our life, shall appear, then», he says, «we also shall appear with him in glory.» Sweet is that life which has no death;
for this life of the body has death by the lot of nature, which is even oftentimes desired. The soul itself too oftentimes has death through the defilement of sin—«for the soul that sins, the same shall die»—but when, strengthened by the firmness of blessedness, it has begun to be no longer liable to sin, it will no longer be mortal, but will partake of life eternal. To this life, brethren, let us hasten, sorrowful in the world, because we are pilgrims away from the Lord; for he who is not a pilgrim away from the body is a pilgrim away from the Lord.
But it is far better to be dissolved from the body and to cleave to God, that we too may be one in the presence of almighty God, and may see the only-begotten Son of God, taken up through the glory of resurrection into the brightness of his nature, and, by the inviolable concord of our souls, having imitated through an everlasting covenant the unity of lasting peace, so that what the Son of God promised the Father, praying for us, may be fulfilled: «That they also may be one, even as we are one.» Therefore the burial of a father's funeral is not forbidden, but the devotion of divine religion is set before the bond of kinship; the former is left to companions, the latter is enjoined upon the elect.
Or because «the throat of the impious is an open sepulchre», it is ordained that the memory of those should be abolished whose merit dies together with the body; nor is the son recalled from the office of his father, but the faithful is separated from communion with the faithless. For there is a certain proper burial of the righteous, such as that of which it was said: «For she, in pouring this ointment upon my body, has done it to bury me.» And therefore he who in good faith buries Christ within himself, that he may rise again with him, ought not to bury the faithlessness of the devil within himself. There is also that prophetic burial, that we should set certain offerings upon the tombs of our forefathers—which you, the reader, recognize, but the unfaithful ought not to understand—not as if food or drink were commanded, but that the venerable communion of the sacred oblation might be revealed.
Therefore it is not the duty that is forbidden, but the mystery of religion which declares that there shall be for us no communion with the heathen dead; for since the sacraments belong to the living, those are not seen to be dead who have life. «Behold, I send you as lambs among wolves.» He says this to the seventy disciples, whom he appointed and sent two by two before his face. For what reason did he send them two by two? Because the animals were sent two by two into the ark, that is, male with female—unclean by their number, yet cleansed by the sacrament of the Church. This was fulfilled by the oracle which holy Peter received, the Holy Spirit saying to him: «What God has cleansed, call not common.» And he perceived that it was said concerning the Gentiles, who followed rather the succession of bodily generation than of spiritual grace.
These the Lord cleansed and made heirs of his passion. Therefore, sending his disciples into his harvest—which, though sown by the word of God, yet required the labour of cultivation and the careful task of working it, lest the birds of heaven should scatter the sown seeds—he said: «Behold, I send you as lambs among wolves.» These animals are contrary to one another, so that the one is devoured by the other. But the good shepherd has not learned to fear wolves for his flock, and therefore these disciples are directed not to be prey, but to grace; for the care of the good shepherd brings it about that the wolves can dare nothing against the lambs. He sends therefore lambs among wolves, that this might be fulfilled: «Then shall wolves and lambs feed together.»
And since recently the treatise concerning the fox proved not unwelcome to us, if I have found your judgement faithful in the figure of a smaller creature, I presume that, by the support of your zeal, I may be able to open up the profound mysteries which are veiled under the likeness of wolves. That heretics are signified under the figure of foxes we have expressed above—men who promise in name that they will follow Christ, but in their zeal for deceit forswear him. These the Lord does not receive, but keeps off from his nest and forbids. We ought to consider what wolves may seem to signify.
Wolves, indeed, are beasts which lie in wait for the sheepfolds, prowl about the shepherds' huts, dare not enter the dwellings of houses, spy out the sleep of the dogs and the absence or sloth of the shepherd, and fall upon the throat of the sheep, that they may quickly strangle them. They are wild and rapacious, and likewise by the nature of their body stiffer, so that they cannot easily bend themselves, but are borne along by a certain impetus of their own, and therefore are often outwitted. Then moreover, if they have first seen any man, they are said by a certain force of nature to snatch away his voice; but if a man has first seen them, he is reported to drive them off. And therefore I must take care, lest, if in today's discourse the grace of spiritual mysteries should not be able to shine forth, the wolves should be believed to have seen me first and to have wrested away my customary support of voice.
Are not heretics to be compared to those wolves, who lie in wait for the sheepfolds of Christ, and growl about the folds more by night than by day? For to the faithless it is always night, who endeavour to cover over the light of Christ with the mists of perverse interpretation, and, as much as in them lies, to darken it. They prowl therefore about the folds, yet dare not enter the stalls of Christ, and therefore they are not healed, because Christ is unwilling to lead them into his own stable, in which he was tended who, going down from Jerusalem, fell among robbers—whom that Samaritan, binding up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, set upon his own beast and led to the stable, and left to be healed by the innkeeper. They do not receive medicine, therefore, who do not seek the physician;
for if they sought him, they would not disparage him. They spy out the absence of the shepherd, and therefore they strive either to kill the shepherds of the churches or to drive them into exile, because, while the shepherds are present, they cannot assault the sheep of Christ. Therefore these ravishers try to despoil the Lord's flock—men who, with a certain bodily fixedness of mind, hard and stiff, are by no means wont to turn aside from their error. And therefore the apostle says: «A heretical man, after one admonition, avoid, knowing that such a one is subverted.» These Christ, the true interpreter of the Scriptures, mocks, so that they pour out their empty assaults in vain and cannot do harm. Yet if they have forestalled anyone by the crafty circumvention of their disputation, they make him fall silent;
for he is dumb who does not confess the Word of God with the same glory that he is. Take care, therefore, lest a heretic take away your voice, if you have not yourself first detected him. For his faithlessness creeps on while it lies hidden; but if you have recognized the fabrications of his impiety, you will not be able to fear the loss of pious speech. Beware therefore the poisons of crafty disputation; they seek the soul, they fall upon the throat, they fasten upon the vitals. Grievous are the bites of heretics, who, more grievous and more rapacious than the beasts themselves, have known no end of their avarice and impiety. Nor let it move you that they seem to present a human form; even if outwardly a man is discerned, within a beast growls. And therefore there is no doubt that they are wolves, according to the divine sentence of the Lord Jesus, who says:
«Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them.» If anyone, then, is moved by appearance, let him inquire after the fruit. You hear someone called a priest; you recognize his robberies: he has the clothing of a sheep, the deeds of a brigand; sheared is the sheep, within is a wolf who has no measure to his rapacity, who, as in the night, his limbs hardened by Scythian frost, blood-stained about the mouth, flies round seeking whom he may devour. Does he not seem to you a wolf, who, insatiable in the savagery of human slaughter, has desired to glut his rage with the death of faithful peoples?
That man howls, he does not discourse, who denies the Author of speech and with sacrilegious utterance interjects a bestial murmur—he who does not confess the Lord Jesus, the Prince of eternal life. We have heard his howlings, when the sword was being sent throughout the world. He bared sharp teeth and a swollen mouth, and supposed that he had taken away the voice from all—which he alone had lost. And therefore, that we may be able to escape these wolves, the Lord teaches what we should follow, saying: «Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor sandals.» What it is for the purse not to be carried he expressed plainly elsewhere; for Matthew wrote that the Lord said to the disciples: «Possess neither gold nor silver.» If we are forbidden to possess gold, how much more to snatch it away, to carry it off?
If you are commanded to give away what you have, how do you heap up what you do not have? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you commit sacrilege? You who glory in the law, by transgression of the law do you dishonour God? For «the name of God is blasphemed through you.» Not so the apostle Peter, who, the first executor of the Lord's sentence, that he might show the Lord's commands were not poured out in vain, when he was asked by a poor man to bestow upon him some money, said: «Silver and gold I have none.» He glories that he has no silver and gold; is it a shame to you to have still less than you covet? There is therefore even a glorious poverty, because there is also a blessed poverty, as it is written:
«Blessed are the poor in spirit.» Yet Peter does not so much glory that he has no silver and gold, as that he keeps the Lord's command, who enjoined: «Possess no gold»—that is to say: «You see that I am a disciple of Christ, and do you require gold of me?» He gave us something far more precious than gold, that we should work in his name. Therefore «I have not» what he did not give; but what he gave, I have: «In the name of the Lord Jesus, rise and walk.» As, therefore, he who wishes to build barns for the heaping up of grain is reproved by the authority of the Lord's sentence, so he who wishes to procure a purse for the storing up of gold incurs the blemish of reproof. «Neither scrip nor sandals.» Both are wont to be made from the hide of a dead animal;
but the Lord Jesus wills that there be nothing mortal in us. Finally, he says to Moses: «Loose the sandal from your feet; for the place on which you stand is holy ground.» He is therefore commanded to loose the mortal and earthly sandal, when he was being sent to deliver the people; for the minister of this office ought to fear nothing, nor to be held back from the office he has undertaken by the peril of death. For he himself, when he had voluntarily undertaken the defence of his brethren, that is, of the Jews, was recalled from his undertaking by the terror of calumny and fled out of Egypt. And therefore, when the Lord had proved his disposition, but had seen his condition weak, he judged that the trace of his mind and spirit must be stripped of mortal bonds.
But if it moves anyone, for what reason in Egypt they are commanded to eat the lamb shod, while the apostles are directed to preach the Gospel without sandals, he ought to consider that one placed in Egypt ought still to beware the bite of the serpent—for there are many poisons in Egypt—and that he who celebrates the Passover in figure can lie open to a wound, whereas he who is a minister of the truth blunts the poisons and does not tremble. Finally, a viper bit Paul on the island of Malta; and the inhabitants of that place, seeing the viper hanging from his hand, supposed he would die; but when they saw him stand unharmed, they said he was a god, to whom the poison could do no harm. And that you may know this to be true, the Lord himself says:
«Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the might of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.» The apostles are not commanded to take up rods in their hands; for so Matthew thought it should be written. What is the rod but the sign of power to be borne before one, and the instrument of avenging pain? Therefore the humble Lord—for «in his humility his judgement was taken away»—the humble Lord's precept, I say, his disciples carry out with the duties of humility;
for he sent them to sow the faith, men who should not compel but teach, nor exert the force of power, but uphold the doctrine of humility. In which place he thought that patience too should be joined to humility, because he himself also, according to the testimony of Peter, «when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he was struck, struck not back.» This therefore is to say: «Be imitators of me; lay aside the pursuit of vengeance; scourge the insolences of those who beat you, not by the requital of injury, but by the magnanimity of patience.» No one ought himself to imitate what he reproves in another; gentleness inflicts more grievous wounds upon the obstinate. With this fist the Lord struck back at the one who beat him, by saying: «To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer also the other.»
For it comes about that by his own judgement a man condemns himself, and his feeling is pricked by a certain goad of his own, when he perceives that diligent kindness has been returned to him in place of the injury he did. Yet he has those whom he has also sent as apostles with a rod, as Paul testifies, saying: «What will you? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and in the spirit of gentleness?» This rod the apostle gave also to Timothy, saying: «Reprove, beseech, rebuke.» Or perhaps before the Lord's passion, which strengthened the wavering hearts of the peoples, gentleness alone was necessary; after the passion, correction. Surely let the Lord soothe, let Paul rebuke; let him persuade who can soften even hard hearts, let him reprove who cannot persuade all. Paul therefore had taken up the rod from the teaching of the law.
For he had read: «He who spares the rod hates his son.» He had also read that those eating the lamb were commanded by the prophetic precept to have a staff in their hands. And therefore the Lord says in the Old Testament: «I will visit their iniquities with a rod»; but in the New he offered up himself, that he might pardon all, saying: «If you seek me, let these go their way.» And elsewhere you have that, when the apostles wished to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans, who would not receive the Lord Jesus within their city, he turned and rebuked them and said: «You know not of what spirit you are; for the Son of Man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save them.» The more perfect, therefore, are sent without a rod; the weaker eat with a staff.
But Paul too indeed threatens with a rod, yet visits the offenders in the spirit of gentleness. Finally, that you may know him to be a gentle teacher, he consults the will of those very ones whom he rebukes. «What will you?» he says; «shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and in the spirit of gentleness?» Once he named the rod, twice he subjoined the milder things, adding gentleness to love. Yet he first threatened, but displayed gentleness; for in the second epistle, writing to the same Corinthians, he says: «I call God to witness upon my soul, that to spare you I came not to Corinth.» Hear for what reason he supposed sparing was due: «Lest again,» he says, «I should come to you in sorrow.» He cast away the rod and took up the affection of love. «And greet no one on the way.»
Perhaps to some this may seem hard and proud, and not in keeping with the precept of the gentle and humble Lord—that he who commanded that even the place at table should be yielded should here command the disciples: «Greet no one on the way», since this is the common usage of grace. Thus the lower are accustomed to win for themselves the favour of their superiors; the Gentiles too have with Christians such interchanges of courtesies. How does the Lord pluck away this usage of human kindness? But consider that it is not only this—«Greet no one»—but that there is added, not without purpose, «on the way.» Finally, Elisha too, when he sent his servant to lay his staff upon the body of the deceased boy, commanded him to greet no one on the way;
for he bade him hasten, that he might carry out the office of celebrating the resurrection, lest by conversation with any chance comer he should be turned aside from his charge. Therefore here too it is not the diligence of greeting that is taken away, but the obstacle of hindered devotion that is abolished, so that, when divine things are enjoined, human things should for a little be set aside. A greeting is beautiful, but more beautiful is the swifter execution of divine matters, which by delay has often incurred offence. And therefore even honourable things are forbidden, lest the customary courtesy creep in and hinder the ministry of the office—whose delay would be a fault.
Now that other is another virtue: that one should not migrate from house to house with roving fickleness, so that we may preserve constancy even in hospitable love, nor easily dissolve the bond of friendship once formed; that we should set forth the message of peace, so that the very first entrance should be celebrated with the blessing of peace; that we ought to be content with the food and drink offered; that the standards of faith are not to be lowered, and the Gospel of the heavenly kingdom is to be preached; that the dust is to be shaken off from our feet, if anyone has not thought we should be received into the hospitality of his city. He teaches also that those will be liable to a heavier punishment who have judged that the Gospel is not to be followed than those who judged the law was to be dissolved, because Tyre and Sidon, if they had seen such miracles of heavenly works, would not have despised the remedy of repentance.