How advantageous, how profitable it is to loose the knots of debts and to slacken the bonds of bonds, the example of the steward in the parable teaches and instructs us: for while with prudent consent he moderated the heaps of the debtors' bonds, he not only escaped the tightest straits of the reckoning, but also won for himself the examiner's praise, a praise that would endure through the ages. And we too, brethren, temper with most reverent hearing what the promise I made concerning the present reading has bound me to owe you, lest a severe reckoning burden me and you together—whom understanding, kindly received, can graciously relieve. So let us now follow up what remains of the reading, and hear what counsel the steward found. 'He said,' it reports, 'within himself:'
'What shall I do, since my master takes the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig; to beg I am ashamed. I know what I shall do...' And so, summoning each of his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first: 'How much do you owe my master?' And he said: 'A hundred measures of oil.' And he said to him: 'Take your bond; and sit down quickly, write fifty.' Then he said to another: 'And you, how much do you owe?' Who said: 'A hundred measures of wheat.' And he said to him: 'Take your document, and write eighty.' And the master praised the steward of iniquity, because he had acted prudently (Luke 16).
Even now it is clear that in the readings of the Gospel very many questions are contained, obscured by divine mysteries and veiled by heavenly meanings, and that what is uttered from the mouth of Christ concerning the celestial secrets does not easily lie open to human understanding. 'And the master praised,' it says, 'the steward of iniquity, because he had acted prudently.' I ask: what in this passage does the worldly mind grasp? What does the common ear take in and receive—where between a steward and the master's debtors an invention of crafty fraud is praised, where the debtor's honesty is taken away, his shame removed, his innocence violated, his modesty wholly buried; where the steward, at the time of rendering his account, burns more fiercely in fraud than he panted after luxury in the time of his stewardship;
at the very moment of the reckoning he rages more to his master's loss than in the days of his tenure he poured out and squandered; and he who before had emptied the substance by dissipating it, by emptying the bond of what remained overturns still more; now he does not take care how he might mend what was lacking, but he contrives how he might diminish what remained. He kept saying to the debtor: 'How much do you owe my master?' He did not say: 'How much do you owe me?' By speaking thus he was searching the conscience, testing the debtor's mind. And what is it that, with no regard for the master, the steward was provoking the debtor to so great a fraud? 'How much do you owe my master?' That one says: 'A hundred measures of oil.' 'Take your bond, and write fifty.' To so great a fraud the steward was conspiring and driving—
so as to destroy the debtor's whole good faith while he plotted the bond. 'How much do you owe my master?' Both of them knew that the heavenly creditor was present everywhere and always, and could not be forestalled by fraud; nor does he who has once begun to steal cease even under the master's eyes. Yet grant it be human folly that the debtor should seek fraudulent shortcuts, and that the steward should look to his own interest by stealing thus: why does the master in turn approve the son's fraud and even commend it together with him? Why does he proclaim falsehood? What is wickedness he calls prudence, and he judges to be dutiful what furnishes to many a most evil example of falsehood. Let it be understood so by carnal senses; but by spiritual ones let there now shine forth what is of the divine light. The parable that had earlier been foretasted, told of the younger son, is repeated through the steward.
The steward of iniquity and the unjust mammon is called the people of the Gentiles. 'Make for yourselves,' he says, 'friends of the mammon of iniquity'—that people which, having forsaken its Creator, had wholly handed itself over to the servitude of mammon. Whoever is free from the captivity of this mammon, and is no longer weighed down by the cruel burden of money, let him stand upon the heavenly watchtower, and from there look down upon mammon lording it over the world and over worldly men with tyrannical fury.
It commands the nations, gives orders to kingdoms, decrees wars, procures combatants, sells blood, works deaths, betrays fatherlands, destroys cities, subjugates peoples, presses hard upon citadels, harasses citizens, presides over the marketplace, abolishes right, confounds the lawful and the unlawful, and, pressing on even to murder, tempts faith, violates truth, savages reputation, dissipates honesty, dissolves affections, does away with innocence, buries piety, tears asunder kinship, undermines friendship. And what more? This is mammon, the lord of iniquity, who unjustly lords it over both human bodies and minds.
Therefore the steward of this mammon—that is, the Gentile people—guilty before the Lord of a substance thus squandered, is summoned through the Gospel to render an account of his stewardship, that is, of the natural good. To whom it is then said: 'You shall no longer be able to be steward.' This is when the end of the age is also announced. He believes at last, according to the Apostle, that the fashion of this world passes away (1 Cor. 7), that the times of human stewardship pass on; and within himself, returned into himself, he asks what he ought to do. 'He said within himself: What shall I do?'
The heart groaned, the mind grieved, faith answered, and belief gave a saving counsel: that the steward should now return to the true Master, and by begging off mammon, that savage lord, should as victor subject it to his own servitude, so that what had stood as the instrument of perdition might become the occasion of salvation. So the Gentile steward, once a heathen and now a Christian, goes to the first debtor of his master. Who? The Jewish debtor, whom he asks what and how much he owes to his master—as if he did not know the amount of the debt. The bearer of the bond already knew it through the Gospel, but by asking he was in this way requiring a confession; and so the debtor confesses both the quality and the quantity of the debt, saying: 'A hundred measures of oil.'
Why not a weight of silver or gold? Why not a hundred and ten, or ninety, but a hundred? So that from both the debt and the number a heavenly mystery might shine forth. The Jew owed oil, which by the bond of the Law he had received as a figure of the Christian chrism, for anointing kings, prophets, and priests, until he should come to that very Prince of kings, prophets, and priests, to whom the whole hundredfold fullness of the chrism was to be rendered and poured out. But because the debtor, against the good faith of his bond, so as not to pay the debt, impiously slew the creditor, the legal bond itself—that is, the Law—passed over to the Gentiles: so that the Jew, convicted through the Gentile because he turned the debt into a crime, might pay the interest of repentance.
You see, therefore, that the steward urges not fraud but repentance: he solicits toward the winning of mercy, he does not drive toward falsehood, when he says: 'Take your bond, sit down quickly, and write fifty.' That the number fifty pertains to mercy David makes plain, when he sings the fiftieth psalm, crying out: 'Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy' (Ps. 50). The number fifty disclosed mercy, since the Law prescribes that the fiftieth year, which is the jubilee, is to blot out and loose the bonds of all debts and all contracts (Lev. 25). This steward, then, acts so that through the mercy of Christ the Jew might be made fit—the Jew who through the bond of the Law was held bound by debts that could not be dissolved.
The Jew owes oil, he who, according to the Apostle (Rom. 11), had by the barrenness of unbelief dried up in himself the richness of the fruitful olive tree. Whence also, by the warmth of the Gospel's faith, he now returns wholly into Christian branches, and wholly comes back to life unto grace. Then he said to another: 'And you, how much do you owe?' Who said: 'A hundred measures of wheat.' After the grain of wheat, which is Christ, was sown in the earth of our flesh, and was made fruitful unto heavenly abundance through the Lord's burial, it came about that man now owes the hundredfold fruit to his own Author. 'Unless,' he says, 'the grain of wheat falling into the earth dies, it remains alone by itself' (John 12).
The steward, then, seeing well, makes good provision when he says: 'Take your bond, and write eighty.' For just as fifty confers mercy, so eighty prefigures the whole of faith and grace. This is the number in which the reader—well versed in the Law and diligent in the Gospel—understands there to be the Decalogue of the Law and the ogdoad of grace. And so the steward, when he says 'Write eighty,' does this: that through grace he might pay what he could not render through nature. Well, therefore, did this steward earn the praise of his master, who in the bonds contrived not fraud but salvation. But as for what he said:
'The children of this world are wiser in their own generation than the children of light,' this is to be understood thus: that those who were once children of this world, that is, the Gentiles, are now the elect of God; and those who were children of God, that is, the Jews, are now left among the children of this world. 'In their own generation.' The generation in which they were reborn, not that in which they were born. 'Let these things be written,' he says, 'in another generation' (Ps. 101). This is that other generation of those who seek the Lord (Ps. 23). And may the God of knowledge and enlightenment enlighten your hearts, and pour the whole fullness of his knowledge into the secret depths of your mind.
Today, brethren, while the virtue of John and the ferocity of Herod are recounted to us, our inmost parts were shaken, our hearts trembled, our sight grew dark, our understanding was dulled, our hearing fled away. Or what can stand firm in human senses, when the greatness of crimes has destroyed the greatness of virtues? 'Herod,' it says, 'seized John and bound him, and put him in prison' (Matt. 14). John, the school of virtues, the teaching of life, the pattern of holiness, the standard of justice, the mirror of virginity, the title of purity, the example of chastity, the way of repentance, the pardon of sinners, the discipline of faith; John, greater than man, equal to the angels, the sum of the Law, the sanction of the Gospel, the voice of the apostles, the silence of the prophets, the lamp of the world, the herald of the Judge.
the forerunner of Christ, the harbinger of the Lord, the witness of God, the very midpoint of the whole Trinity—he is given over to the incestuous woman, handed over to the adulteress, delivered up to the dancing-girl. Rightly, then, were our inmost parts shaken, our hearts trembled. But Herod is the very one who profaned the temple, took away the priesthood, threw the sacred order into confusion, defiled the kingdom, corrupted whatever belonged to religion; whatever was of life, of law, of morals, of faith, of discipline, he ruined and confounded.
Herod, an assassin against citizens, a robber against nobles, a plunderer against allies, a bandit against his own household, a slayer of the common folk, a killer of his own sons, a murderer against strangers, a parricide against his own kin—he went on making the earth drunk with gore, remaining in a thirst for blood. Hence it is that he swallowed down the holy blood of John in an enormous cup of cruelty; but let the reading itself now speak. 'Herod,' it says, 'seized John, and bound him.' He who had loosed the chains of sinners is bound with the chains of a sinner, so that pardon itself, being bound, might leave no room for pardon. 'He bound him and put him in prison.' Herod, do you commit adultery, and shall John go into prison? Do you so judge, you who sit in the judge's seat a guilty man, you who in the avenger's place are the persecutor of innocence? I ask, where will you turn your face?
Where is reputation? Where is shame? Where is the esteem due to a public magistrate? Surely, where is God? Where is man? Where is what is lawful? Where is law? Where are the very rights of nature? All at once are confounded, Herod, by your acting, your judging, your commanding. 'He seized,' it says, 'John, and bound him, and put him in prison.' Herod, your case indicts you; the chains accuse you; the prison arraigns you; the wrong done to John, brought out into public, exposes you: the case demands an inquirer, and in you it finds what to punish, and in John what to grieve over. John, known to the whole world, renowned for the fame of his virtue, most celebrated for holiness, while he draws to himself the investigators of the wrong done to him, makes your incest known to all; he brings it about that public confusion holds fast the man whom secret correction could not correct.
John assailed Herod with admonitions, not with accusation; he wished to correct, not to destroy: but Herod, burning with the torches of lust, chose rather to perish than to return, and to possess his brother's wife unlawfully. To those held captive by their crimes, to the enemies of innocence, liberty is always hateful; virtue is contrary to the vicious, holiness detestable to the sacrilegious, chastity hostile to the unchaste, integrity a punishment to the corrupt, frugality adverse to the luxurious, mercy to the cruel, piety to the impious, justice unbearable to the unjust. The evangelist proves this when he says: 'For John kept saying to him, It is not lawful for you to have the wife of your brother Philip.' Behold whence John gives offense, behold whence Herod rages: he who warns the wicked gives offense; he who reproves the criminal incurs hatred.
John spoke what belonged to the Law, to justice, to salvation: surely what belonged not to hatred but to love: behold what reward he obtained from the impious man in return for his piety. 'Wishing,' it says, 'to kill him, he feared the crowd.' Easily does he deviate from justice who, in his causes, fears not God but men. This fear can defer the opportunity of sinning, but it cannot take away the will: whence even those whom it has held back from crime it renders more eager for crime, and the mind seethes until it accomplishes the evil it plots. It is the fear of God alone that corrects minds, puts crimes to flight, preserves innocence, and grants perpetual opportunity. But let us hear the very passion of the most blessed John.
On Herod's birthday the daughter of Herodias danced in the midst of the banqueting hall, and she pleased Herod: whence with an oath he promised to give her whatever she might ask of him. But she, forewarned by her mother, said: 'Give me here, on a platter, the head of John the Baptist.' This is the ancient malice of woman, which cast Adam out of the delights of paradise (Gen. 3); this made heavenly men to be earthly; this sent the human race into hell; this took life away from the world for the sake of the fruit of one tree. This evil, which leads men to death, this evil Elijah the prophet fled (1 Kings 19); and he whose tongue was made a key of heaven fled, like a guilty man, from the face of a woman;
this woman found true toil and distress, who now slays John the Baptist, casts down boyhood, ruins youth, and lures on a dead old age into unrest. Forewarned by her mother, she says: 'Give me on a platter the head of John the Baptist.' From her mother's breast the new beast, giving forth a roar, scorning the prey of the body, rushes to sever the head itself. 'And the king was saddened; yet because of his oath and because of those reclining at table, he ordered it to be given, and sent to behead John, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.' You have heard, brethren, how great is the cruelty born of pleasure, the impiety born of lust. 'And his head was brought on a platter.' The house is turned into an arena, the table migrates into a beast's den;
the diners become spectators, the banquet is changed by frenzy: the food becomes slaughter, the wine passes into blood, a funeral is set before a birthday-feast; at a birth a death is displayed, the banquet is turned into homicide, the instruments strike up a worldly tragedy; a beast enters, not a girl; she seeks to cut off, not to dance; a wild animal runs about, not a woman; she spreads a mane over her neck, not hair; she stretches her limbs in windings, grows with increases of savagery, is made great by cruelty, not by body; and like a lone beast, until she seize her prey, she roars, she gnashes with her teeth; she does not take up the sword, but produces it.
But lest anyone suppose that we wish merely to declaim about such things, we do not wish to declaim but to cry aloud: that the joys of your festivities may be prudent, that the solemnity of your birthday-feasts may keep measure in rejoicing, that Christ may be present at our meals, that the feasting be done in the sight of the Author; that by the honesty of the banquet nature itself, which brought you forth, may be honored; that the gladness of your table may reach as far as the poor, that your household may leap for joy in the discipline of innocence; that excess be kept away, extravagance put to flight; that the plague of dancing-girls, the enticements of singers, the fuel of pleasures, the burdens of the belly, the shipwrecks of minds be cut off along with the banquets of Herodias; so that your present joy may arrive at everlasting gladness.
Today, brethren, we have brought a sermon not against Herod only, but also against Herodias; for the hearer well understands how great is the felicity of the martyr, when he hears the wretchedness of the persecutor: yet it is fitting for us to know that John too was born from his death, and Herod died from his own birthday. Blessed Apollinaris, first in priesthood, alone adorned this Church of Ravenna with the native and illustrious honor of martyrdom. Rightly Apollinaris, because according to the command of his God he here lost his soul, that he might find it unto life everlasting. Blessed is he who so finished his course and kept the faith, that he might truly be found first in his place among the believers.
Let no one believe him to be less, under the name of confessor, than a martyr, whom by the will of God you behold returning daily and manifoldly to the contest. Hear Paul saying: 'I die daily' (1 Cor. 15). To die once is a small thing for him who can often bring back to his King a glorious victory over the enemies. It is not so much death as faith and devotion that makes a martyr; and just as it is a mark of virtue to fall in the battle-line, in the conflict, out of love for one's king, so it is a mark of perfect virtue to wage and to complete the contests over a long time. The persecutor did not persecute the martyr for this reason, that he did not at once inflict death; but he proved the martyr, in that he did not draw out his faith; he hurled the darts he could, and the cunning enemy plied every kind of his weapons:
yet he could not move the mind of that most valiant commander, nor defile his constancy. It is a supreme thing, brethren, for the Lord's sake to despise the present life, if it be necessary; but it is glorious even, while life remains, to despise the world and to trample it underfoot together with its prince. Christ was hastening toward the martyr, the martyr was hastening toward his King. Rightly did we say 'was hastening,' according to that word of the prophet: 'Arise to meet me, and see' (Ps. 59). But that holy Church might retain her champion for herself, she ran vehemently to meet Christ, that she might reserve the crown for conquering justice, and might grant to herself, in time of war, the presence of her warrior. Often did the confessor pour out his blood, and by his wounds, by the faith of his mind, he bore witness to his Author.
Gazing up to heaven, he despised the flesh and the earth. Yet the Church, in her infancy still tender, prevailed, held him fast, and obtained that the martyr be held back from his own desire. Infancy I say, brethren—that which always obtains everything, which contends more by tears than by any reckoning of strength. For the countenance and the sweat of the strong cannot do as much as the tears of little ones can, because there bodies, here hearts are broken; there the mind's judgments are scarcely moved, here all piety, bowed down, descends. And what more, brethren? She wrought it, holy mother Church wrought it, that she might nowhere be separated from her bishop. Behold, he lives; behold, like a good shepherd he stands in the midst of his flock; nor is that spirit ever separated which in body went before for a time;
he went before, I say, in outward state; but she herself rests among us by the dwelling of his body. The devil is extinguished, the persecutor has fallen: behold, he reigns and lives who for his King desired to be slain—he who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, through all ages of ages. Since today we have assembled unto God on the birthday of the holy martyr Cyprian, on which by a wondrous struggle he triumphed over the devil, and because he left us a glorious example of his virtues, therefore it is fitting for us to exult and rejoice.
When therefore you hear of the birthday of the saints, dearly beloved, do not think it is called that on which they are born into the earth from the flesh, but from the earth into heaven, from labor to rest, from temptations to quiet, from torments to delights—not fleeting delights, but strong and stable and eternal ones—from the world's laughter to the crown and glory. Such birthdays of the martyrs are worthily celebrated. When therefore a festival of this kind is held, do not suppose, most dear one, that the birthdays of the martyrs are celebrated in mere feasts and more lavish banquets: but there is set before you for imitation what you celebrate in memory of the martyr. Look, then, most dear one, at the eagerness of the people standing around.
For on this day once a throng of the impious stood by, when holy Cyprian was struck down at the tyrant's order; there were crowds of the wicked, choruses of onlookers awaiting it; now a multitude of the faithful, devout, has flowed together to rejoice with him: then a throng of the raging, now of the exulting; then of the despairing, now of the hoping. For this reason, therefore, the birthdays of the martyrs are celebrated with yearly gladness, so that what was once done may remain through every age in the memory of the devout. The deed was done, most dear one, lest you should say you were ignorant of it; it is celebrated yearly, lest you should say, 'I have forgotten.' To the imitation of these things, therefore, rouse yourselves, dearly beloved; covet this grace of magnanimity; ask that this be given to you, which he deserved to attain.
For all who desire heavenly things cannot be ensnared in the snares of earthly goods, because they have set their manner of life in the heavens: as the holy Apostle says, 'But our conversation is in heaven' (Phil. 3). Let the desire of our heart therefore be directed to the heavenly dwelling, where, when your treasure has been dispersed to the poor, there also will be your heart. And the treasure of all good things is Christ, who with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit may deign to heap upon you and fill you with heavenly gifts, both now and in eternity. Just as the long awaiting of a great promise kindles the soul and wearies the mind, so the longed-for effect of the promise rouses all the senses and the very inward parts of the depths.
Hence it is that today, as Isaiah said (Isa. 52), holy mother Church, festive, wholly rejoicing and adorned, has come forth; she has clothed herself in the tunic of her gladness; and like a bride she has set a mitre upon herself, and has composed and decked herself with varied ornament, so that as the sky glitters with the lights of stars and the earth is green with its flowers, and as a garden puts forth its shoots, so she has put forth her gladness in the sight of all her children. For according to the promise of David: 'Today a son is born to her in place of a father' (Ps. 44)—one who may not weigh her down by his heaviness, nor terrify her by authority, nor disturb her by commotion, nor throw her into confusion by harshness, but sustain her by faithful obedience;
with unsleeping care let him guard her from persecution, with anxious toil provide what is needful, arrange the household with gentle instruction, meet guests, serve his parents, obey kings, cooperate with the powers, give reverence to the old, favor to the young, right conduct to the brethren, bestow affection on little ones, and through Christ offer to all a free servitude. David said: 'Hear, O daughter, and see' (Ps. 44). I shall say: Hear, O mother, and see: in place of your fathers, sons are born to you. Let them be elders in prudence, fathers in gravity, sons in charity, young men in strength, offspring in sweetness, infants in innocence, little children in malice—knowing nothing that is of the world: possessing the whole presence of the kingdom of God, the Lord bearing witness when he says:
'Let the little ones come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven' (Matt. 19). Such the bond of perpetual virginity begets, such the union of heavenly life begets—a union knowing no sex, conscious of conception, aware of birth, ignorant of corruption, whole in modesty, closed in integrity, chaste in her pledges, spread abroad in fruitfulness. This so pious a mother, while today she celebrates the birthday festival of one shoot of her own, opens her bosom, extends her embrace, sends forth her voice, sings in divine canticles, that she may summon all, receive all, enclose all in the bosom of charity to rejoice together with her.
Present too is that very mother of the perennial and faithful Christian empire, who, while by faith, by the work of mercy, by holiness she follows and imitates the blessed Church in honor of the Trinity, deserved to bring forth, to embrace, to possess the august Trinity. Thus does the Trinity reward those fervent in its love and ardor; she deserved that it should give honor to herself, and that she should rejoice that God's grace made for her a religion like her own. She deserved that the dignity of the mother should, through the mother, overflow to her descendants. Pray, brethren, that the Christian princes—since with pious devotion they deign to attend our joys and to be present at our solemnities—may themselves also, with like grace, be commended for a long time by the devout supplication of all the priests.
We have often said that God is not seen with bodily eyes, that the divinity is not enclosed by a carnal mind, that human reason does not grasp the Maker of things, but that faith alone reaches God, that whole belief perceives him, and that the sight of man, however great it is, beholds not how great he is, but that he is. Finally Moses, who is promoted from servant to friend, from man toward God, seeks the face of God, but does not find it; he asks, but does not receive; and he is admonished that he may see only the hinder parts of God (Exod. 33): to the end that man should seek to follow God, not to precede him; nor should he presume to inquire what things exist before God, but should as a worshipper acknowledge that all things exist through God.
Frequently God shows to men the form of a man, and gathers up his own greatness, so great, into the brief figure of our making, that our weak eye may be able to behold the divine of things present, and our narrow gaze may be able to receive it. Thus God came to Abraham in the form of a man, took the place of a guest under a figure, and as a wearied traveler received water for his feet from Abraham's own hands (Gen. 18); moreover, invited to table, he is satisfied by the setting out of a calf and of bread: and so wholly does he entrust and commit himself to human service, that by the very touch and sight he may seem to fulfill the role of a true man—and this at that very time when, as true God, he comes to bestow, upon the extreme and despaired-of barrenness of an old man, offspring in birth, the inward parts being opened.
Thus did a fellow-traveller meet Jacob as he journeyed (Gen. 32), and God so offered Himself as a companion in human fellowship that, when man challenged Him, God whole and entire was drawn into the wrestling; and He seemed then to be overcome by sinews and arms, at the very moment when, as victor, He bestows heavenly gifts and gives divine rewards. Thus did Isaiah behold God seated in royal attire (Isa. 6), that he might recognize that, unless kings are ruled by God the King, they, being themselves but men, could rule nothing as rulers. Thus does Daniel behold God the Father, with snowy hair, venerable in old age, terrible in His antiquity, surrounded by angels, upon a fiery throne, seated to render judgment (Dan. 7).
Thus he beholds the very Son of God coming as a Son of Man with the clouds of heaven, that he might know that Christ, unknown before to so many faithless ones, has ever been known to the faithful. If God is so often seen by men in the figure of a man, what is it that, when the Jew now sees Christ as a man, he is so enraged, unless perhaps the figure, the honour, the truth is reckoned an injury? The Evangelist has told us today that Christ said: 'If anyone keeps My word, he shall never see death forever' (John 8). To which word the Jews answered: 'Now we know that You have a demon: Abraham our father is dead, and the prophets; and You say: If anyone keeps My word, he shall not taste death forever.'
'Are You greater than our father Abraham? Whom do You make Yourself?' O how faithlessness received it all! O how envy shuts its eyes! How greatly does a wickedness prejudged confound the testimony of the heart! O how harshly does obstinacy cut off reason! The perverted human mind cannot bear to hear what it has once resolved to hate: goodness is odious to the wicked, justice is an enemy to the unjust. Hence it is that lying men cannot recognize the truth, and a mind set up as judge cannot find what is true among the messengers of falsehood. He who has determined to err always hears what he wishes, not what is. Christ had said: 'If anyone keeps My word, he shall not see death forever.' The Jew does not weigh what he has heard, nor seek to interpret for himself what has been said:
he demands that the one who promises should prove what he himself deems impossible; but presently, from the conception of his mind, he gives birth to blasphemy, sows insults, spreads abroad curses, and strives so to empty the authority of the Speaker with his revilings, that He who seems thus to lie subject to human things is not even believed able to give eternal things to mortals. 'Now we know that You have a demon.' The demon, author of evil, promises evils, not goods; he is wont to kill, not to give life; nor does he wish men to be eternal, whom he does not even permit to be temporal. Therefore Christ is no demon, but God, who gives back the life He had given, and by His word makes eternal those men whom the devil by his persuasion had made temporal. 'Abraham,' he says, 'is dead, and the prophets, and You say:'
'If anyone keeps My word, he shall not see death forever.' Let the faithful hear, that by faith's revealing he may know what the unfaithful cannot hear, what he cannot see who has plunged himself into the darkness of unbelief. Christ said: 'He shall not see death.' Your obstinacy, O Jew, deservedly seeks to speak falsehood. Abraham and the prophets, hearing the word, kept it steadfastly, yet they died; but not forever. Therefore when He says: 'He shall not see death,' and adds 'forever,' He promises resurrection; He does not deny that they are to die in time. O Jew, us whom death was making not-to-be in the present age, the resurrection restores as everlasting for the age to come. Hear Him say this more plainly:
'Everyone who believes shall not die forever, but shall pass from death to life' (John 5 and 11). How does he not die? Because he passes from death to life. He dies, then; everyone dies who is born of a mortal condition; but he lives, and lives forever, everyone who is born again of a life-giving generation. But I ask: He who could take away death, why did He will that man should pass through death? For the physician seems more welcome who forestalls diseases than he who applies to the diseases a late and painful medicine. O Jew, Christ the physician would have done even this, had not the sick man been ungrateful to the physician. He both gave life, and foretold to man that death would come; but that man, who had not felt adversity, knew not how to keep prosperity.
How good good things are, we cannot know except by the knowledge of evils. Therefore Christ shall be magnified, who both before gave the life not yet lived, and now restores the life that was lost; and man, made more knowing by comparison, will be more cautious for himself, and more grateful to his Author. 'Are You,' he says, 'greater than our father Abraham?' Plainly greater, and by as much greater as the master is above the servant, as God above man, as the maker above what is made, as He who gives life above what was dead, as He who raises above what is raised. Jesus answered: 'Abraham rejoiced that he might see My day; he saw it, and was glad.' In order to show that Abraham lives, He said that he saw His day, that is, the day on which Christ was born to the world. The Founder of days is not bound by a day; the Author of time knows no times;
but Christ, born a man for man's sake, took upon Himself both a day and a time. 'Abraham rejoiced that he might see My day.' If Moses and Elijah meet Him upon the mountain, that they might behold Christ the promised one, how would not Abraham also, most patient of watchers, be intent upon the birth from the Virgin, that he might behold the promised blessing in the nations, that is, in his own seed? 'Amen, amen, I say to you,' He says, 'that before Abraham was, I am.' If all things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made (John 1), and this is He to whom the Father said: 'Let Us make man to Our image and likeness' (Gen. 1), how did Abraham not see Him? 'Let Us make man to Our image and likeness.' As angel and God differ in substance, so do they in image.
Therefore the Father speaks to none but the Son, when He says: 'Let Us make man to Our image and likeness,' for whom the image is the same and the substance the same. 'They took up stones to cast at Him.' And building a tower that they might fall the higher, they themselves provided stones for themselves; and these stones the wretched ones brought, not that they might kill God, but wherewith they might kill themselves. 'Jesus hid Himself.' Not through fear, but through forgiveness: when God flees the sinner, He spares him; God, when He turns aside, does not wish to destroy the rebel.