For he took up my sadness, that he might bestow on me his own gladness, and in our footsteps he descended even to the affliction of death, that by his footsteps he might recall us to life. Confidently, then, I name his sadness, because I proclaim the cross; for he did not take up the mere appearance of incarnation, but its truth. He ought, therefore, also to take up grief, that he might conquer sadness, not exclude it. For they have no praise of fortitude who have borne rather the numbness of wounds than the pain; 'for a man,' he says, 'in stripes and knowing how to bear infirmities.' He willed to instruct us, that, just as in Joseph we had learned not to fear prison, we might learn in Christ to conquer death, and what is more, how we might conquer the sadness of death to come.
For how should we imitate you, Lord Jesus, unless we followed you as man, unless we believed you to have died, unless we had seen your wounds? How should the disciples believe that you were going to die, unless they had perceived the sadness of one about to die? Thus they still sleep and do not know how to grieve, for whom Christ was grieving; for thus we read that he bears our sins and grieves for us. You grieve, then, Lord, not over your own wounds, but over mine; not over your own death, but over our weakness: 'and we esteemed you to be in pains,' while you grieved not for yourself but for me;
for you were made weak, but on account of our sins, not because that weakness was assumed for you from the Father, but taken up for me, because it profited me that the chastisement of our peace should be upon you, and that by your bruise you might heal our wounds. But what wonder if he grieved for all who wept for one? What wonder if he who was about to die for all should be weary, who weeps when about to raise Lazarus? But there too he is moved by the tears of the devout sister, because they touched the human mind; and here he works with deep affection, that, since in his own flesh he was destroying our sins, the grief of his own soul might also abolish the sorrow of our soul. And perhaps he is sad for this reason, that after Adam's fall we had to depart from this world by such a passage that to die was necessary:
for God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living, and therefore he loathes what he himself did not make. Then he says: 'Let this cup pass from me' — as man refusing death, as God preserving his own decree; for we must die to the world, that we may rise again to God, so that, according to the divine sentence, the law of the curse may be loosed when nature's end is dissolved into the clay of the earth. But in that he says, 'Not my will, but yours be done,' he referred his own to the man, the Father's to the divinity; for the will of man is temporal, the will of the divinity eternal. The Father's will is not one and the Son's another; for there is one will where there is one divinity. Yet learn to be subject to God, that you may choose not what you yourself will, but what you know will be pleasing to God.
Next let us consider the propriety of the very words: 'My soul is sad,' and elsewhere: 'Now my soul is exceedingly troubled' — therefore not that which assumed, but that which was assumed is troubled; for the soul is liable to passions, the divinity is free — then: 'the spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak.' But it is not he himself who is sad, but the soul. Wisdom is not sad, the divine substance is not sad, but the soul; for he took up my soul, he took up my body. He did not deceive me, so that one thing should exist and another seem: he seemed sad and was sad, not for his own passion, but for our scattering. Then he says: 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.' He was sad, because he was leaving us as little ones.
For the rest, how steadfastly he offered himself to death, the Scripture declares, since he went to meet those who sought him, strengthened the troubled, challenged the fearful, and received the traitor with the dignity of a kiss. Nor is this far from the truth, that he was sad for his persecutors, whom he knew would pay the penalties of their sacrilege amid evils. And therefore he said: 'Let this cup pass from me,' not because the Son of God feared death, but because he was unwilling that even the wicked should perish. Then he says: 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,' that his passion might be salutary for all. 'Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?' A great signification of divine power, a great discipline of virtue. Both the design of betrayal is disclosed, and yet patience is not denied.
You showed, Lord, whom he would betray, while you make manifest hidden things. You also showed whom he would hand over, when you say 'the Son of Man,' because it is the flesh, not the divinity, that is seized — the divinity cannot be grasped. Yet this all the more confounds the ingrate, that he betrayed him who, though he was the Son of God, yet for our sake had willed to be the Son of Man — as if he were to say: 'For your sake, ingrate, I took up what you betray.' Behold the hypocrisy! Therefore I think it should be pronounced as a question, as though with a lover's affection he rebukes the traitor: 'Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?' That is: with a pledge of love do you inflict a wound, and with the office of charity do you shed blood, and with the instrument of peace do you bring about death? Do you, a servant, betray your Lord; a disciple, your master; one chosen, your author? This is that:
'Better are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy.' This to the traitor; but to the peacemaker what is said? 'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.' And he kissed him, not to teach us to feign, but that he might neither seem to shun the betrayal and might the more affect the traitor, to whom he did not deny the offices of love; for it is written: 'With those who hated peace I was peaceable.' 'And at the sign given,' he says, he is seized by those who had come with clubs. But the mysteries of the Lord of all things, not weapons, held them. Then he spoke, and they fell backward. What need have I of legions of angels, what need of a heavenly army? The voice of the Lord alone terrifies more. This he who reclined on the breast of Christ chose to demonstrate the proof of divine majesty.
Upon him, then, willing it, the crowd lays hands; bonds are knotted. O senseless, O faithless ones! Not thus is wisdom seized, not thus is righteousness held. Nor were the disciples' efforts lacking. Then Peter, learned in the law, ready in affection, who knew that it had been reckoned to Phinehas for righteousness that he had slain the sacrilegious, struck the servant of the high priest. But the Lord turned aside the bloody wounds, applied divine mysteries, so that the servant of the prince of the world — that is, not by the condition of nature but as a slave by fault to worldly powers — should receive the wound of his ear, because he had not heard the words of wisdom. 'Everyone, then, who commits sin is the slave of sin.' 'You have been sold,' he says, 'for your sins.'
There was a selling on account of our sins, but on account of the goodness of God a redemption of sins. Or if Peter, willing it, struck the ear, he taught that they ought not in appearance to have an ear which they did not have in mystery. But the good Lord restored hearing even to him, demonstrating according to the prophetic sayings that even those who were wounded in the Lord's passion can be healed if they are converted, because every sin is washed away by the mysteries of faith. Peter, then, takes off the ear. Why Peter? Because he it is who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven; for he condemns who also absolves, since he obtained the same power of binding and loosing. He takes off the ear of one hearing ill, and he takes off with the spiritual sword the inner ear of one understanding ill.
Let us beware lest anyone's little ear be cut off. The Lord's passion is read: if we refer the weakness of bodily suffering to his divinity, the little ear is cut off, and it is cut off by Peter, who did not allow Christ to be esteemed a prophet, but taught that the Son of God should be marked by a faithful confession. Therefore, when we read that Jesus is held, let us beware lest we hear from anyone, and suppose that he is held according to his divinity, held unwillingly, held as though weak. He is held indeed and, as John said, bound according to the truth of the body; but woe to those who bind the Word! For they bind who think Christ merely a man. They bind who do not think him foreknowing. They bind who do not confess him almighty.
Evil are the bonds of the Jews, by which they bind not Christ but bind themselves. And he is bound in the house not of some pious and righteous man, but in the house of Caiaphas — that is, in an impious house, where also it is prophesied that he is to die for all. How senseless, then, are those who confess benefits and persecute the author of benefits! Therefore they lose their ear, because they lost the profit of hearing. Many do not have who believe they have. In the Church all have; outside the Church they do not have. Or perhaps for this reason he took off the ear, lest hearing they should sin further, who could not keep what they had heard. So too the Lord once confounded the tongues of those building the tower, lest they should hear one another and increase the work of their impiety.
Understand, if you can, how at the touch of the saving right hand pain flees, and the wounds, not sprinkled with medicine but covered by a touch, are healed. The clay recognizes its maker, and the flesh follows the Lord's hand as its fashioner; for the Creator restores his own work just as he wills. So too elsewhere, to that blind man sight is reformed when clay is smeared over his eyes, as if he had returned to his nature. He could have commanded, but he chose rather to work, that we might recognize him to be the very one who from the clay of the earth fashioned the members of our body, fitted for their various offices, and animated them by infusing the vigor of the mind.
They came, then, and seized him, soon to perish by the fruit of their own pursuit; nor did the unhappy ones understand the mystery, nor did they reverence so merciful an affection of piety, that he did not allow even his enemies to be wounded. They were inflicting death on the righteous one; he was healing the wounds of his persecutors. But Peter followed from afar. And rightly he followed from afar, being now near to one about to deny; for he could not have denied, had he clung close to Christ. But perhaps in this too he should be reverenced by us with the greatest admiration, that he did not abandon the Lord even when he feared. Fear belongs to nature, care to piety. What he fears is alien, what he does not flee is his own. That he follows is of devotion, that he denies is of stealthy surprise. That he slips is common, that he repents is of faith.
Already in the house of the prince of the priests the fire was burning; Peter approached to warm himself, because, the Lord being shut up, the warmth of his mind had grown cold even within him. What does it mean that a maidservant first betrays him, when men surely could rather have recognized him, unless that this sex too might be seen to have sinned unto the death of the Lord, and that this sex too might be redeemed through the Lord's passion? And therefore a woman received first the mystery of the resurrection and keeps the commands, that she might abolish the old error of transgression. Peter, then, betrayed, denies — for let us grant that Peter denied, since the Lord said, 'You will deny me three times,' and I prefer that Peter denied than that the Lord was mistaken — what did he deny? What he had rashly promised.
He considered his devotion, he did not regard his condition, being punished because he said he would lay down his life, which is not of human weakness but of divine power. Since he paid so heavy a penalty for an imprudent word, how great is the punishment of treachery! Yet where does Peter deny? Not on the mountain, not in the temple, not in his own house, but in the praetorium of the Jews, in the house of the prince of priests. There he denies, where truth is not; there he denies, where Christ is captured, where Jesus is bound. Why should he not err, whom the doorkeeper admitted and the doorkeeper of the Jews questioned? Evilly did Eve lead in Adam, evilly did a woman bring Peter in; but the one slips in paradise, where guilt is not pardonable, the other in the praetorium of the Jews, where innocence is difficult.
To the one the fall was forbidden, to the other the error foretold. The one committed, prejudged the other; this one absolved that one. Let us consider also in what state he denies. There was cold — cold there where Jesus was not acknowledged, where there was none to see the light, where the consuming fire was denied. It was therefore a cold of the mind, not of the body. Then Peter stood at the coals, because he was chilled in his affection. Evil is the Jewish flame: it burns, it does not warm. Evil is the hearth, which sprinkles a certain soot of error even on the minds of the saints, near which even Peter's inner eyes grew dim — those eyes not of flesh and blood, but the eyes of the mind, with which he saw Christ. Someone says: 'Do you condemn even the elements of the Jews?'
I do not condemn the elements, because they are not the Jews'; but it is another thing that I condemn — the flame of treachery. This flame of the Jews I condemn, following the divine oracles; for the Lord says: 'Your silver is rejected as reprobate.' If the silver of the Jews is reprobate, the hearth too of the Jews is reprobate. Then with the hearth and the gold of the Jews the head of a calf was fashioned — that is, the chief of sacrilege. But let us see the tenor of the denial, which I see to be different among the evangelists. So novel a thing was it that Peter was able to sin, that his sin could not even be grasped by the evangelists. And so, when the maidservant betrayed Peter as being one of those who were with Jesus the Galilean, Matthew set down that he answered with his first utterance: 'I do not know what you say.'
This too Mark, who followed Peter and could learn it more truly from him himself. The first utterance of the denying Peter is one by which, however, he seems not to deny the Lord, but to have separated himself from the betrayal by the woman. Yet consider what he denied. That he was, surely, of those who were with Jesus the Galilean — or, as Mark put it, with Jesus the Nazarene. Did he deny that he had been with the Son of God? This is to say: 'I do not know the Galilean, I do not know the Nazarene, whom I knew as the Son of God.' Let men have the names of places; the Son of God a homeland cannot name, whose majesty no place encloses. And that you may know this to be true, it is also proved by example; for elsewhere, when the Lord asked the disciples: 'Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?'
Some said Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the prophets, but Peter said: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Did he there too, by embracing this, deny, in that he chose to confess Christ not the Son of man but of God? Surely what here do we think ambiguous, which Christ even approved? And take yet another thing. For when Peter was asked: 'Are you too of those who were with Jesus the Galilean?' he shrank from the word of eternity — for they were not who began to be — that is to say: 'He alone was who was in the beginning.' Then he says: 'I am not'; for being belongs to him who always is. Whence also Moses says: 'He who is has sent me.'
Again, when he was pressed that he was one of them, according to Mark he denied — that you may know the evangelist gave more to the truth than to favor — but yet he denied that he was one of them, he did not deny Christ. He may have denied the fellowship of men, not the grace of God. He may have denied that he was one of those who were with the Galilean, he did not deny that he was with the Son of God. Then according to Matthew, accused of having been with Jesus the Nazarene, he says: 'I do not know the man.' This same thing, in the third utterance, both evangelists whom we have proposed set down that he answered with an oath that he did not know the man. And rightly he denied the man, whom he knew to be God. Then where there is an oath, the answer is cautious.
For even though Peter denied, yet he did not perjure himself, because the Lord had not recorded that he would perjure himself. But if in Peter it is doubtful, how perilous is an oath! John, however, set it down thus: that Peter, when asked by the maidservant whether he was of the disciples of that man, with his first utterance answered: 'I am not'; for he was not the apostle of a man, who was Christ's. Then Paul too denied that he was the apostle of a man, saying: 'Paul, an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.' But lest he should seem to bring in something ambiguous concerning the incarnation, he added: 'who raised him from the dead,' that you might also believe him man, since you had first believed him God. This he also keeps elsewhere in the same tenor, where he says:
'For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.' He named him mediator of God before of men; for it is not enough to believe both, unless the order of faith is kept. The answer therefore agrees everywhere; for he who said 'I do not know the man,' it was fitting that, when asked whether he was of the disciples of the man, he should say 'I am not.' And so he did not deny that he was Christ's disciple, but denied that he was the disciple of a man. And so both Peter and Paul denied the man whom they confessed to be the Son of God. What Peter felt, Paul expressed; hence the latter too profited. Peter's error is the teaching of the righteous, and Peter's stumbling is the rock of all.
Then he totters upon the waves, but stretches out his right hand to Christ; he falls on the mountain, but is lifted up by Christ; the same Peter tottered in the sea, but walked. Peter's tottering is firmer than our firmness. There he falls where no one ascends, there he wavers where no one walks. And yet, amid the waves, though he totters, he does not slip; he wavers, he does not fall; he floats, he is not cast down. And if he fell, yet he fell on the mountain; but he fell more happily than others stood, he fell more happily, whom Christ lifted up. Again, when asked that he was of his disciples, John wrote that he denied. And rightly he denied, because he was said to be of the disciples of him whom in the foregoing they had spoken of as a man.
For in the third place too, that he was seen with him, he denied; and this is derived from the foregoing: 'With him whom you call a man I was not. But from the Son of God I did not depart.' Luke too wrote that Peter, asked whether he was of them, answered with his first utterance: 'I do not know him.' And rightly he said it. For it was rash to say that he knew him whom the human mind cannot grasp; 'for no one knows the Son but the Father.' Again, with his second utterance, according to Luke the same Peter says: 'I am not'; he preferred, evidently, to deny himself than Christ. Or because he seemed to deny fellowship with Christ, surely he denied himself. Certainly, when he denies concerning the man, he sinned against the Son of Man, so that it might be remitted to him, not against the Holy Spirit.
In the third place too, when asked, he says: 'I do not know what you say' — that is: 'I do not know your sacrileges.' But we excuse him; he himself did not excuse himself. For a wrapped-up answer of one confessing Jesus is not enough, but an open confession. What does it profit to wrap up words, if you wish to be seen to have denied? And therefore Peter is represented as having answered thus not of set purpose, because afterward he remembered, and nevertheless he wept. For he preferred himself to accuse his own sin, that he might be justified by confessing rather than burdened by denying — for the righteous man is at the beginning his own accuser — and therefore he wept. Why did he weep? Because guilt crept upon him. I am wont to weep. If guilt be lacking to me — that is, if I do not avenge myself, if I do not obtain what I wickedly desire;
Peter grieved and wept, because he erred as a man. I do not find what he said, I find what he wept. I read his tears, I do not read his satisfaction; but what cannot be washed away can be — let tears wash away the offense. What it is shame to confess with the voice, tears both consult for pardon and for modesty. Tears speak the guilt without horror, tears confess the crime without offense to modesty, tears do not ask pardon and yet deserve it. I have found why Peter was silent, lest a too-quick petition for pardon should offend the more; first one must weep, then pray. Good are the tears that wash away guilt. Then those whom Jesus looks upon weep. Peter denied the first time and did not weep, because the Lord had not looked upon him; he denied the second time:
he did not weep, because the Lord had not yet looked upon him. He denied also a third time: Jesus looked upon him, and he wept most bitterly. Look upon us, Lord Jesus, that we may know how to bewail our sin. Whence even the fall of the saints is useful. It did me no harm that Peter denied, it profited me that he amended. I have learned to beware the addresses of the faithless. Peter denied among the Jews, Solomon, deceived by the fellowship of the Gentiles, erred. Peter wept, then, and most bitterly, he wept that he might be able by his tears to wash away his own offense. And you too, if you wish to deserve pardon, wash away your guilt with your tears; in the same moment, at the same time, Christ looks upon you. If perchance you slip in anything, since he stands as witness of your secrets, he looks upon you that you may remember and confess your error.
Imitate Peter saying elsewhere a third time: 'Lord, you know that I love you.' For because he had denied three times, three times he confesses; but he denied in the night, he confesses in the day. And these things were written for this reason, that we may know no one ought to boast himself; for if Peter fell, because he said: 'Though others be offended, I shall not be offended,' what other may rightly presume of himself? Then David too, because he had said: 'I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved forever,' professes that this boasting harmed him, saying: 'You turned away your face from me, and I became troubled.' From where shall I call you forth, Peter, that you may teach me what you thought as you wept? From where, I say, shall I call you forth?
From heaven, where you are now joined to the choir of angels, or rather from the tomb, since you do not think it an outrage to be there also, whence the Lord rose again? Teach us what your tears profited you. But you taught us at once; for you fell before you wept. After you had wept, you were chosen to rule others, you who before had not ruled your own self.
Peter therefore had tears, which he shed from a devout affection; the betrayer had no weeping with which to wash away his guilt, but only the torments of conscience by which he confessed his sacrilege, so that while he is condemned by his own judgment, the deed expiated by a voluntary punishment, both the mercy of the Lord—who was unwilling to avenge himself—and his divinity might be proved, who questioned the conscience of the mind by an invisible power. 'I have sinned,' he said, 'in that I have betrayed innocent blood.' Although the repentance of the betrayer is void, because he sinned against the Holy Spirit, yet there is some shame in his crime in acknowledging his guilt. And although he is not absolved, nevertheless the shamelessness of the Jews is refuted.
Although the confession of the seller convicts them, yet the wicked men claim for themselves the rights of a contract and believe themselves free of guilt, when they say: 'What is that to us? See thou to it.' Plainly they are mad, who suppose that they are rather released by the crime of its author than held bound by it. In monetary cases the obligation is dissolved when the price is repaid: these men receive back the price, yet pursue the sacrilege, and with stubborn zeal claim for themselves the deadly purchase of blood, even though the seller was repaying the wages of his sacrilege.
Evidently, therefore, while the price of blood is set apart from the treasuries of the Jews, and the potter's field is bought with that money for which Christ is sold, while that place is dedicated to the burial of the remains of strangers, both the oracle of prophecy is fulfilled and the mystery of the rising Church is revealed. For according to the divine teaching this field is the whole world; and that potter is he who formed us out of clay—of whom you have in the Old Testament that 'God fashioned man from the clay of the earth'—having power according to his own will both to form by nature and to reform by grace. For even if we fall through our own vices, yet through his mercy, the spirit of the mind being taken up again, we are reformed according to the oracles of Jeremiah.
The price of blood is also the price of the Lord's passion. Therefore the world is purchased by Christ with the price of his blood; for he came that the world might be saved through him, in whom there is both the work of the Maker and his right. He came, then, to preserve for the grace of eternity those who are buried together and dead together with Christ through baptism. But there is not a place for burial for all everywhere; for although the world contains all, it does not preserve all. Although the dwelling is common, yet lawful burial belongs to those, namely, who are now by faith of the household of God, but who once were strangers under the Law. Who are these but those of whom it is said: 'Remember that you were once Gentiles, who were in the flesh alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the promise of the covenants'?
But these are now no longer strangers and foreigners, since they have deserved by the right of faith to be fellow-citizens of the saints. There follows an admirable passage, by which the patience of bearing wrong with equanimity is poured into human breasts. The Lord is accused and is silent. And rightly is he silent who has no need of a defense: let those strive to be defended who fear to be overcome. He does not, then, confirm the accusation by being silent, but he despises it by not refuting it. For what should he fear who did not seek his own safety? The salvation of all betrays his own, that he may gain that of all. But why do I speak of God? Susanna was silent and prevailed; for the better cause is that which is not defended and yet is proved. And here Pilate absolves him, but he absolves him by judgment, he crucified him by mystery.
But this was peculiar to Christ, that human aspect, that before unjust judges he should rather seem to have been unwilling to be defended than unable. But why the Lord was silent he himself foretold, saying: 'If I tell you, you will not believe me; if I question you, you will not answer me.' Yet this is most excellent, that he chose rather to prove himself king than to say it, so that those who confess the very thing they bring against him might have no ground for condemning. And when Herod desired to see some wonders of his, he was silent and did nothing, because neither did that man's cruelty deserve to see divine things, and the Lord shunned ostentation.
And perhaps typologically all the impious are signified in Herod, who, if they have not believed the Law and the prophets, can neither see the wondrous works of Christ in the Gospel. He is sent to Herod, he is sent back to Pilate. Although neither pronounces the accused guilty, yet they comply with the zeal of another's cruelty. Pilate indeed washed his hands, but he did not wash away the deeds; for a judge ought neither to yield to envy nor to fear, so as to condemn innocent blood. His wife warned him, grace shone in the night, the divinity stood out: yet not even thus did he restrain himself from a sacrilegious sentence. Similarly I think that in this man is set forth a type of all judges who would condemn those whom they esteemed innocent.