The Spirit, forbidding the lamp kindled by the radiant word to shine under a bushel, said: "Set apart Saul for the work in the regions"; whom soon that Peter consecrated as he went, by the laying on of his hand — to whom the Master's word had given power to do all things. Leaving Cyprus and Salamis, he proceeds to make for Paphos, which is said to have been once given over to loves, to have remained a cavern of sacrilegious lust, and to have cultivated the wandering winged ones with shameless zeal. Hence the summit of works proceeds, because greater grace comes to sins; that pardon can be granted to faults, Paul was already an example. How splendid a matter of praise was added to the man! He sows chaste beginnings in the region of luxury, and the wanton field multiplies its modest fruits.
For whom should the deed thereafter be unknown and difficult, since thus honesty seems to have begun from a base place? Lest any part should be left idle and fasting from merits, nevertheless the wicked Magus contrives to contend with eloquence; things contrary have ever made a way for virtue: the warrior of the Church, hurling back the darts cast at him, says: "Deceit shows by what begetter you, O salvation, perish; you shall suffer the confines of death in your own darkness, nor is time granted you even to behold the sun and to attend to the forms of things, of which you deny that there is a Maker." Then clouds bound his countenance with dark-blue marks, and the color of a black breast came upon his face: now, the road denied, he seeks by what guide he may go safe, on whose foot he may press his steps, who, pitying, may grant him help; and through the empty airs he groped the path of his wandering.
The proconsul Paul soon learned through these to embrace the faith — for whom the cause of seeing was another's night: these are no new things, O Paul; you well know that light rightly rises from darkness, that salvation's services are no novelty. All the proofs disclose a hidden figure, if one is pleased to strike at the lurking things with a watchful sense. Rightly teaching, Paul began to establish miracles from the eyes, whence the splendor of his own face flashes higher, the day growing as it is lost; so just now he was worthy to subdue the wicked one, and, with the darkness confessing the foe, to conquer — he who, blind, earned to see without end. Paul visited the city named from the name of Antiochus, and at once hastens to give words to the throngs which the Synagogue holds;
and with his right hand bidding silence, "You know," he says, "with what ferocity the land of Egypt set its yoke upon our fathers, whom God snatched through signs from the cruel fields, to whom, yielding all things, nature changed her courses, when the rod put to flight the back of the sea, and the wave, an exile from its own shores, stood still — yielding from the dusty road, and the power of the deep was made subject to the obedience of their feet, the deep returning to make shipwreck for the guilty; which nature, commanded to overturn her own laws through various modes, here strewed sands, here heaped up waters; a way for the just, a wave for the guilty."
When the struck flint foamed forth with opened veins, having labored to bring forth watery lakes, from its dry summit it lavished a river-stream and shallow; its former origin did not keep its own habit, nor furnish its old use, but bearing novel gifts which the eternal Law compelled to follow what was not inborn, it shows that, sundered from seed, a thing can be given — feasts from the dew, waters from the rock. For lest few miracles should flow for devout causes, the rocks vomit waters, and the clouds rain down loaves, and the airy liquid hardened into solid foods, and the throngs which had long held their jaws empty are sated with fruit-bearing waters; and the clouds, as husbandmen, give banquets, and they devour the rain, and the shower is eaten.
Thus the unconquered hand, thus the full grace of the Creator knows how to nourish querulous flocks, and to set the holy choirs in a better fatherland, that the fruit of the pleasant belly may blossom unto the seeds of eternal life. For sprung from the Davidic stock, with Mary as mother, Christ is present, whom all the oracles of the prophets sing as the God who would come under flesh, and who, the Creator, would enter a virgin's womb. Unroll whatever your Sabbaths cover — you discern the proofs of the typical figure shining in the mangers of the sacred Lamb, from whose fire the aged prophets drew their sayings, and He granted them to speak beforehand what He afterward began to be born as. John the Baptist, mighty in power, cried out: "I am not He; after me will come One whose sandal-straps I am not worthy to touch, nor to loose
the lowly strap by which it binds the lofty soles." How well the voice of Paul sang the precepts of the laver, mingling the ancient with the new! Nor does the Epistle cease, teaching, to repeat these things: "Our fathers in baptism shone forth in the Red Sea under the name of Moses through the Law, when the rock at once followed them as they went; for the rock was Christ." What more, O hard race, do you seek? Behold, it sounds in your books: do not be slow to believe. Reflect now on the mystic gifts which the salt waters whisper would come in the times of the cross, when with His blood Jesus dyed the waters, and from one wound of His side increased it, that He might give the three gifts of life: that redness of the sea was to be the cause to come; thus the Creator washed all; thus He redeemed.
Here the color of the price is in the gulf of the sea, and to the shallows appear the miracles owed to the wood. Burning often to pour rays into dark minds, Paul again recalled these things in order: "After Christ, clothed in the garment of flesh, everywhere gave the signs of God, making manifest that He Himself had come as salvation to the world, the impious crowd, raging, driven by the goads of fury, sought from the authority of Pilate that He be hanged and fixed to the cross — earthly offspring! Because they could not bring all things to Him who desired it, of His own accord the gifts of the saving Christ withdrew, who came to you from the stars as the price of liberty, restoring the lost and raising up what lay in the tombs; consider how liable you remain to your own king; lest you perish, He Himself wills to die."
After these mournful deeds, moreover, with a guard set, they willed to seal the tomb unto a double wickedness, and to condemn the way prepared for the Lord rising: O blind will, that supposes the Eternal to be held by mortal law, and that He cannot restore His limbs to Himself after death, who so often raises up another's! You remember it sounding from the mouth of the Davidic lyre: "You will forbid Your Holy One to know corruption." Could He bear delays in the dust of death, who abides as life? Whom the Author raises up, God suffering nothing of death. Death at last was conquered, having overstepped the measure of conquering, which, the Judge being touched, was bidden to leave the guilty; emptied of its old spoils it falls through its own wars; and coming to absolve the bound, He was not to be held back.
From the spring the final lot began — now to die with life present — and that which before subjected all things, then itself perishes; and the three days being completed, He enters the way of light which He made, by which all nature rises again in its own Lord. From the law you see that deaths cannot be loosened; seek Him by whose blood we, being cleansed, are made partners in the lordly kingdom, in whose part we already are, under the pledge of the flesh which God willed to bear. Then these doctrines give certain men to the Church; they forbade pious words to be uttered further. O ever empty! O barren Judaea, for you! who flee the seeds of life, lest you be able to bring forth fruit — to whom, the Master being on his lips, Paul says: "It indeed behooved you to know these things, but to others this light shall be — for the Scriptures confess:
"I have set you to be a light among the farthest nations." The Gentile throngs were astonished, and following the font they desire to take the honor of the promised newness, and, begotten by the mothering water, they earned to be reborn. I am compelled by the reasoning of the place, for so great a gift, to strike at the faith of the history which once disclosed it, when Rebecca bore two peoples and nations in her belly, and shut up the bands within narrow walls, and consulting, praying, the Thunderer the heart of her who prayed, she merited the answer of God: "The elder," He says, "among these remains the inferior and the shorter-lived, and the greater shall serve the lesser, and the youth shall obtain the honor of the palm." Whatever the fruitful mother did in this womb, the conceived Church holds, and the gathering of the Gentiles enacts a matching form, which grows in the belly, in which it shall be victor.
Which it is now necessary to remember, and to celebrate with good zeal, that we may serve Him from whose affection it befell us to be called before we were born — He who grants gifts before the times. And now, advancing on foot through the Lycaonian fields, Paul comes to Lystra. There was then in this city a lame man, sprung with punishment accompanying him, not knowing how to bear his steps from the womb: a part of his sick limbs had begun, at his very birth, to die. Having learned the doctrine of Paul, by whose admonition devout minds stretch toward the stars, soon he willed to follow the divine things: well, O lame one, were you lying down; you who shall first walk these ways; you seek the heavens with your sense, though you cannot yet move from the ground, and with feet denied you are able to go farther.
Paul, having discerned in his inmost breast what he desired, and that the faithful lame man's love now stood firm in the word of God, thus more clearly begins: "Rise quickly, and stand upright upon your own soles!" Salvation carries out the command, and the old person advances by a new road, and with frequent motion strikes the ground everywhere, and trying to run through all things, often fears the way he does not know, the old man newly sprung with his steps from his aged feebleness; which when the throngs perceive, they cry out and call them gods, and furnish garlands, that the victim of a wild bull might come forth to be sacrificed. Paul at this hastily rends his tunic, thus forbidding the men by open reason: "Why, I pray, do you give us these solemn rites? — us whom it is plain are pressed under earthly law with frail body;
once impious was the honor of religion, when craftsmen feared the deities poured out of metals, when they dedicated temples with gods cut from the rock; then perchance it was pleasing to sacrifice innocent flocks, and to consult their warm entrails, and to seek the voice of the dying beast in its inward parts; now let it be pleasing, with the vain altars ceasing, to obey the eternal God, who furnished the seeds of life, and stocked the fields with varied yields, by whose command the crop rises with full ears from the prompting grain, and the pruned vine-shoot more fruitfully calls forth the grapes conceived from its wound; by whose moderating of the sky the rains succeed the suns, seasons follow seasons, which, when fleeting they recur after their own backs, the constancy of the wandering year abides.
Learn now the truth, to celebrate on earth God born of the holy Virgin, and offer no vows ruinous to the wool-bearing flock, whom the one and only Lamb sets free, who by His blood purchases the cleansed world." By these words faith is instructed; but the use of the body proceeded into a double work, and one salvation sounds forth a twofold figure, because over the whole sea of the world there are two peoples of the Church through the words of the two, for whom the catch makes two keels to be full. For these things, conferred in turn upon the human race, the feet of the lame men taught, in whom an image stands, each bearing its own part, common to either people. Whom Peter granted to rise upon his ancient soles, he was near to the gate;
the circumcised nation came from that place — the Psalm, the Law, and the Prophets, for whom they sang the day of Christ; whom Paul raises from the fields had never sat at the temple's halls, lying in a far-off land, because the beginning was made for the Gentiles. He began from his devout mouth to bring forth into the rude crowds the footsteps of a sound mind, and to heal the people whom the ancient voice of God had escaped. Thus each lame man, when he hastens, lifts up every kind, and the journey of the person signified the salvation of the nation, which the glory of things conferred, that the order might bear Paul as second to Peter, who as architect abides in those foundations. Yet that we may recall to all things the praises of the Author, these two are blind, with the throngs hastening on every side, who said to the Lord together:
"O best Son of David, grant us to come out of the heavy darkness, grant us to behold the light, which we know not yet!" Then that hand, ever the friend of healing, brought in sudden radiance, and night abandoned their eyes, and exiled day illuminates their orbs, and their returning sight grew afraid at the unhoped-for twilight. These peoples are clearly two, whom the noxious nature of their own vein blinded; the clemency of Jesus, when He celebrated the journey, when He willed to have the times of the flesh, renews from the light and purges the figure which the faults had given, and soon the whole image shone forth, which merited to perceive God. The eyes are the greatest part joined to the brain — Christ creates these as a gift, who is the head and the splendor of things;
the lowest part of all are the feet at the end; these the care of the apostolic voice heals upon the highway, since they are called beautiful, the footsteps which bear peace to all lands. The light has risen for the darkness through the gifts of the Master; these set their steps firm, to whom the lot of the word is handed over, that the following medicine may flourish by the goodness of the former, and salvation little by little may pass into the whole world. Now Paul had overcome the raging wraths of men; with faith setting sail, they vomited sudden storms of guile from the Judaic cloud — that the lavers could not first be given to anyone before the circumcision of the flesh should come by the Law of God. Hard nation, why do you further summon to stones and iron? this was the shadow of the figure,
not a species destined to abide; leave behind the things feigned, which you now see as certain. From the mouth of Christ proceeded abiding Life, and He bids all who come to be reborn from the font: why do they cut the members and resolve a part, when they could save the whole? Do not seek to be pressed in the old manner of the help of newness, and that the lights be set turned backward, after the straighter way directs all, and lights up the world, the thorns being cut. Under an ambiguous dispute Paul stretches toward the places of the city for which the monuments of the cross shine, and revisits the holy chiefs of apostolic jurisdiction, to whom he reports all things present, whatever have been done. Peter, whose greatest care it is to increase the entrusted flocks, joyfully calling all to the pastures with himself as leader, unfolds these utterances from his mouth:
"You behold the eternal things, recorded by the ancient saints, which the prophets sang with prophetic mouth to a teachable people — that God fulfilled in us, who chose to be the purchaser and salvation for all, suffering to distinguish none in the price by which life returns: He bade me show this open way to the Gentiles. What does it profit to delay and to slow the vows? or why mingle these riddling shrines with the new light? Whom grace purges, that they may come, no Law forbids; the heavenly matter of love is hastening faith, this Christ adopts, this He makes to be His own, by which each shall merit to enjoy it. The circumcised is present, and is by right reborn in the waters."
They resolved to follow the Shepherd; it pleases therefore that the ministers go together, and absolve the nations by devout writings — that this yoke does not stand for them, yet that it must be guarded against that they worship idols, whose libations would ever be accursed; that they not eat things suffocated, defiled with blood; that lust, fiercer than a foe, not impurely oppress those whom the light cleanses with baptism. That the proofs of this figure may shine forth more clearly, and why the image, having gone forth before, now departs, it helps to remember the beginning: "Abraham," says God, "that you may now establish My everlasting covenant for yourself and for your offspring in the flesh, circumcise willingly the foreskins with iron, and knit the heavenly covenants."
Let us scrutinize the secret help, let us behold in that wound the covenants of God, which the Foreknowing One hides as testaments, that He might join to the lands the fellowships of Olympus — which the boy learned to swear, he who first found Rebecca running to the water of the Church at the font. That part of the body where Abram is circumcised holds wantonness, lascivious, and a minister of vice, lies under the law of nature, he the very father destined for the seed, whence salvation sprouts up to the life of the world; lust, cut off, empties out what fault burdens, and promises a virginal work; for this offspring conceived the divine journey;
hence holy Mary was generated for a new birth, who, devoid of a spouse, abides a mother, and the Son of God flashes forth from the Virgin's womb, and as mediator fulfills man in all things, hence lifting the earthly, there bestowing the heavenly. Therefore the old figure passes away, with Christ being born. This face renews all right, and, the knife being put to flight, the kindling Spirit circumcises the heart in the waters of those who are healed by the waters, lest they fix wounds upon the members. Meanwhile, knowing not to relax his cares into rest, Paul teaches in the world, and with the mattocks of the word cultivates all, and compels the harvest of faith to grow golden, the frost of errors fleeing — which the nourishing Spirit forbids to bring forth in Asia, nor could Mysia, rich in fields, then bear the seeds of this salvation, fasting on its fertile soil;
for indeed a Macedonian man, seen in dreams, said this: "Have mercy, we beseech! Deign to enter the Illyrian bosoms!" O how much does unforeseen grace prepare! Suddenly they are inflamed with love who already have their appointed time; thus, the night being put to flight, the learned speaker turned his journey, and Macedonia, hungering, feeds on the fruit of his speech, and through the gifts of sleep merited to grasp the saving tongue. A frequent question sounds, if, full of a generous gift, the Almighty proclaims: "I came not to destroy the world, but rather to save"; what cause might bring it that these things be denied to some and given to others, when the prodigal piety of Jesus would in common succor all? Abundant is the supply of examples, and the reading teaches us in this part a manifold figure, of which I shall sing a few, Luke narrating the account.
From the people a certain man asked to go as Christ's companion, whom He forbids to come forth with Him; whom then, being silent, He of His own accord calls; the Master, cleansing, knew the inward things, what hearts already bear the word, whom an unjust error yet obstructs within, so that then the doctrine ministers its office when it comes safely: "Lo, what is holy," He says, "let the dogs begin to violate, and the swine, laden with mire, turn their contagions upon the pearls." Another matter also remains, hard in the song; but for those to whom all things have lain open from the ancient font, it is easy to advert to the drops given by a slender mouth.
That book of Exodus recalls the vestments of the sacred high priest, by which indeed he might shine in splendor of robe and array the habit of his office in gleaming adornment, he who stands embroidered in the midst of the altars. Among these garments are reckoned, with like covering upon the thigh, the coverings by which, advancing to the temple, the priest sets in place the raiment of modesty and takes care, with loins girded, to approach the mysteries in chastity. This the ancient law rather established, and it commanded that those members then be covered which dark lust possesses, when one hastens to make offering to God.
Yet after the sacred rites he leaves the marriage bond relaxed, lest a too-sparing use should stand against the work of begetting offspring, and lest the love of wedlock grow cold in a barren husband, since the appointed lineage, bearing this solemn office, should never admit men of foreign stock from an external line, where by ancient name the honor endures from the sanctuary, and the offspring to be sanctified returns through the ages—a succession to be filled by turns of begetting. Now the kindly faith of the Church bids her pontiffs to be chaste without end, and cautiously seeks throughout every tribe those whom she may duly approve; nor shall the succession be of blood, but of merit.
Yet that figure, without which the old letter cannot stand, abides at last better in this newness, and as it recurs it varies the changes by an alternating principle: lest perchance the priest should wish to beget at a time when he does not yet perceive flocks present capable in mind; and when a noble ardor presses upon him, and a hunger for learning, that he may more openly unloose his lips, lest anyone go fasting—for Paul too often says that offspring can be given by the seed of the word, saying 'my little children.' It profits therefore to restrain the generative speech for a little while, and for the teacher to dispense his zeal, slackening for a time the powers of his mind, and bearing them restrained, lest what is poured out be trampled and worn away by the profane—keeping holy things in reserve for the cleansed. The divine law forbids complaint from this; let the punishment of his own vein charge this to Adam's faults.
For what could offspring rightly claim for itself from a guilty throat of parents? Unless that kindly Sower willed to grant it, whatever rash error and corrupted birth has brought. The only way of salvation will be the disposition of One who spares; mercy is ever free of all condition, bestowing things undue. To these the merciful Christ hastens, and the just One twice delays His gifts. In the lands of the Macedonians, when He celebrated the doctor's journey through the well-known walls of Philippi, a girl raving under the goad of the Python cried out: 'Know that Paul is the minister of the eternal God!' A true profession sounds from a lying witness, and the treacherous author holds a faithful voice—yet it is not granted to honor, because fear compels it to speak, nor does it cleave in mind: a bare fear without love.
Paul, pitying hearts pressed by the dark demon and unwilling that the divine ways should be opened to the profane, said: 'Flee, and beware to tempt these things further!' Delaying nothing of the command, the enemy departs, and the wicked possessor deserts the emptied house; and the woman, healed of her fleeing peril, fell silent concerning the man's praise. What she began, she carried through, teaching more by being silent that this was so. From the gift of the crowd, of those whom turbulent madness fills—the madness which she now lacks—her masters used to make their gain; and in the ear of the insolent people they rage in sedition, that sacred rites opposed to the Roman rites are being given, and that new rites are going forth through the world, and that the old gods have fallen.
Then the mobs swiftly assemble, the body of Paul battered with countless cudgels, where the prison was; in its lowest depths they shut him, with Silas accompanying, whose footsteps, sunk in the hollow wood, blessed chains held fast. O place happy in its disaster! for which bright lights shine instead of darkness, in which ancient night gave to be perpetual day—translated into the snow-white hall of the Church, now bearing to all the gifts of salvation. How well it was a prison! The whole city runs together: who first may seek the new dwelling, who may fix his kisses upon the doorposts, and be hallowed by touching the part of the cylinder. Now nocturnal rest had begun to creep over weary bodies;
the earth leaped up, threatening ruin, shaken in its own bowels, and, loosening the bars, the moved ground wanders, and the tempest, serving the soil, ministers to those singing the hymn. O how great a faith is laid open, to be surpassed by none! As the peril came, the punishment fled, and with twofold fear the perils increase, so that the torments may lose their place. The keeper, terror-struck, shaking his limbs from the couch, when free, beheld the caves of death; with the sword's point drawn, he wishes to bring his hand against his own throat, but it is not granted him to die—Paul being witness, by whose solace he found life, and earned to be loosed from his own prison; and descending to his house he ministers soothing remedies to the sacred wounds, and, restored, prepares for himself the flowing wave, about to obtain the heavenly water;
for Paul, loving to fix hearts upon salvation, washes them all at once in the flowing stream of heaven, to whom the grace of light, that cannot be destroyed, lay open before, and life grew thereafter to be reborn. Once Eve was captured by flattering speeches, about to deceive her husband; now the wicked demon, who then drove Eve's mouth, returning to crimes that sex from which it gained its prey, was the conceiver of sin by foretelling many things to come; but the Apostle, an Adam now better, lifting the heavenly sign in image—he who had been an earthly man—did not receive sure things, for what comes from the enemy deceives. Let us all fear to dare this wickedness, nor be corrupted by the bitter honey of guile, even if he sings true things who ministers false ones.
Paul enters Athens, renowned for its talents and tongues, and with a torrent of eloquence presses the city swollen with fierce disputes; the crowd, marveling that he spoke in learned-sounding measures, says: 'From what shores does this sower of words flow?' The people, not knowing Paul, call him a bearer of seeds, and they enjoy error as their master while he speaks truth; for here this eloquent traveler walks through the world and tills, whose labor is bent on all, that the divine field may grow, and the cleansed human mind may bear fruit, lest it be foul with weeds of darnel—the mind which it befits to carry crops. A rival hand compels this man to go at once to the chief men, to whom, standing before them, he declared:
'Sons of Cecrops, whom fame proclaims to flourish in eloquent speech in your own schools, where a lofty love of sacrilegious novelty presides—we behold that you have set up an altar to an unknown God, who founded the stars, who gave the sea and the lands, whom life has as parent, that we may move, from whose fire we draw breath, whose image we are, of whom the poets sang that the race of men consists from Him; whom I proclaim, He sanctioned all things from His own mouth. Why do you call these things divine, which you yourselves make, and think empty heavenly help to be a goal—help which the earth begets? The nature of metal lies hidden deep in the bowels of the soil, from which, dug out, it takes the aid of the fashioning craftsman, whether deities come thence to the temples, or vessels for the hearths; for itself a cause of fear, art has wrought gods.
No one can enclose the Lord, who is poured out over all things, nor confine Him in small figures; what is contained is less than the space of the container; in the gold there is matter, but the Maker of all things does not endure the use which they feign whom He Himself creates. What hard crimes shall you pay! how foolish shall your wisdom feel itself on the day of judgment, when Christ bids all bodies to rise, and the torments shall lack an end, and that He may torture the guilty He preserves those whom the fire shall devour. Thus the flesh, joined to God, expiates carnal deeds, and the avenger examines before it the things committed to it, in that body in which He willed to suffer by dying—the body which, free of death, willing to make alive, He restored to the stars after the underworld. These things call many to His gifts.
Dionysius himself, first in the citadel of the place, that new rewards might be joined to honor, and having embraced the faith, thus begins to be a sage: 'O ravening wolf, Paul! the blessing of Jacob granted you to have this name; what now shall remain in the world that you do not draw by your mouth, after Greek cunning has yielded, and you conquer unconquered Athens in doctrine? Why do the Epicurean or the Stoic alone stir up impious wars? It is needful to disclose by what name many flocks of sects have come together: both chose to follow the blessed life—the one cherishes it in the body, this other cultivates it by virtue of the soul; and Paul's teaching gives precepts for a holy life; thus, with the theme joined, these rather opened their mouths in alternating voices:'
Man, committed to the parts of body and soul, goes forth complete; but now, following diverse pursuits, both wish what neither has. The vessel full of light submits both to God: 'I see,' he cries, 'how hostile the flesh is to my mind,' and again healthfully he begins: 'that what grace bestows is not wrought from one's own part.' Let us celebrate this way, since Christ is life, and He calls Himself to be the Way, that through Himself we may walk to Himself. And lest the holy lamp be able to cease for the feet, the herald given to the faith supplies footsteps to the world. Paul, departing, had now left the Attic ranks, overcome by his pious eloquence, and seeking the joined walls of two-sea'd Corinth, he finds a populous city, which, though it touched the waves of an alternating sea, thirsted for perpetual waters;