Because the discourse before this, being hastened in order to temper the common labor, was unable to arrive at the whole secret of the passing parable, let us now, the Lord revealing it, unfold the rest. 'He set before them,' it says, 'a parable, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle in the midst of the wheat, and went away.' 'But while men were sleeping' (Matt. 13). The lier-in-wait lurks in the nights, he flees the watchful in the days, he seeks out the sleeping; the strong man seeks a contest, he provokes openly with all looking on, and wishes to have the victory before the peoples.
It is the sign of greatest weakness to have rushed upon those who are sleeping. 'But while men were sleeping, his enemy came.' The wicked is never not foolish. What did the enemy accomplish here? Granted that the servants slept, was the Lord also sleeping? Granted that slumber closed the eyes of the servants after labor; had any weariness conquered the eyes of the Ruler also? O enemy, fugitive from the light, you kept watch, you labored, but you did not lie hid: for, while the servants slept, the Lord himself sees you; deserter of heaven, you anticipated, you did the deed, but you did not profit. Nothing can perish for God which he himself guards: author of fraud, you commit nothing against the Lord, but against the servants, while you cause that what is of your fraud be ascribed to their negligence.
He, he sees you, who is the witness both of all fraud and of all labor. Therefore the fruits of his labor await the one who does well, and the punishments of his own wickedness await the one who defrauds; they shall carry the wheat to the heavenly barn, you shall carry to yourself the bundles of your own cockle unto Gehenna. 'But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle.' To what end? That the Lord's harvest might perish; and to what did this pertain, as to the enemy's gain, except that the spirit of envy reckons the loss of men as its own gain, and what has perished for men, this it esteems itself to have acquired? But the devil did this for the reason we have said: he contrived it while the darkness concealed him, that the harm of the adulterated harvest might redound to the servants, and that from thence they might take punishment, whence they had hoped for the palm.
Finally, the servants, keeping watch out of fear, are terrified as to why these things have come to pass: fearing this, lest the growths of cockle should return to the offense of those whose conscience had nothing beyond the sowing of the good seed. Hence it is that they anticipated the hearing of their lord, lest, secure in their innocence, they should sustain a charge from their silence: when the innocent is summoned to a charge, while he burns to be cleared, he urges and goads the examiner. 'But when the blade had grown and had made fruit, then,' it says, 'appeared also the cockle.' What lies hidden in the blade is made manifest in the ear; and what is concealed in the growth is opened in the fruit: so those whom we suppose equal as believers, we find unequal in faith; so the harvest of judgment betrays what the growth of the Church conceals.
According to that saying of the Lord: 'By their fruits you shall know them' (Matt. 7). Many flowers promise a multitude of fruits, but tested by the blasts of the winds, very few persevere unto fruit: so many believing in Christ seem to be of the Church in peace; but when the storm of persecution has blown through, few are found in the fruit of martyrdom. But holy Euphemia paid more in fruit than she had promised in flower; who, while the flower of virginity remained, arrived at the abundant fruit of martyrdom. 'There came,' it says, 'the servants of the head of the household, saying to him.' They came, brethren, in mind, not in body; not in place, but in faith; they spoke not with the clamor of the voice, but with the silent grief of the heart:
'Lord, did you not sow good seed in your field?' You sowed, we did not sow: what we do perfectly is always assigned to you, our author, and you yourself assist as the worker in those things which you command us to do. Therefore if by your condescension you make us to be partners of your works, do not ascribe to us alone that cockle is born. Lord, either innocence protects us together with you, or guilt touches you together with us; we could not begrudge our own work, we could not with great sweats procure the offense; you have what you will, whence you will, when you will; we have nothing beyond your grace, through which we stand, we live, we move and are (Acts 17), and without which we lie prostrate, we fail and perish.
Therefore did we so labor these things for ourselves, that they should perish? But who did this, you saw—you who alone do not sleep, while we slept; and if you saw, O just Judge—who knows the deed? He who watches, not he who sleeps (Ps. 126)—therefore you, bring him forth, that you may make us, whom you behold so anxious, to be thus secure. The lord said, 'An enemy man has done this.' An enemy man has done this; and you, why, when you saw this, O Lord, did you permit it? Why? Because he cannot fear frauds, for whom nothing can be lost; and because it is a greater thing to discern things mixed than to prevent the mixing, it is greater to repair things lost than to preserve things unharmed; and at the same time because it is fitting that there be cockle, that those who are approved may become manifest (1 Cor. 11).
But the servants said to him, 'Do you wish that we go and gather the cockle?' Thus the devoted servants promise unwearied labor, nor do they endure to see even temporarily the foulness of the Lord's harvest; but the Lord, whom the times do not weary, and who when he wills can abolish the injury of his harvest, forbids it, saying: 'No.' And why he forbade it, he presently reveals. 'Lest perhaps in gathering the cockle you root up together with it also the wheat.' Were the cultivators so unskilled, so ignorant of the work, so lacking the knowledge of discernment, that in plucking up the cockle they would root up also the wheat? Where are the prophets prophesying through the Spirit of God? Where is Peter, to whom the Father reveals (Matt. 16)? Where is Paul, in whom Christ works (Gal. 2) and speaks (2 Cor. 13)?
Where are all the saints, plainly holy, but servants, knowing only as much as the bestower of knowledges granted to each? But you say, 'This was nothing hidden.' There was nothing hidden there, when one thing appeared in outward form, another was held in the flower; and what today was cockle, tomorrow was turned into wheat: so today one is held a heretic, who tomorrow becomes faithful; and he who for the present is discerned a sinner, for the future stands forth as just. Hence it is also that the author referred both to the harvest—that is, up to the judgment—the time of divine patience for its own working and of our repentance, so that he who has changed himself from evil to good may be reckoned unto the Lord's wheat, to be gathered into the heavenly barns; he who from faithful has made himself unfaithful may be reckoned unto the fire of Gehenna.
And what more? If God's patience did not come to the aid of the cockle, the Church would possess neither Matthew as evangelist out of a publican, nor Paul as apostle out of a persecutor. Finally, Ananias then sought to root up the wheat, when, sent to Saul, he complained such things about Paul: 'Lord, how many evils he has done to your saints' (Acts 9)—that is, 'root up the cockle.' What has the sheep to do with the wolf? What has the devout man to do with the obstinate? What is such a preacher sent to the persecutor? But when Ananias saw Saul, the Lord then saw Paul; when Ananias called him a persecutor, then the Lord knew him a preacher; and when he judged him cockle of hell, Christ was already placing him as a vessel of election, as wheat in the heavenly barn.
81:11
Vade, inquit, quivaselectionisestmihic.
祂說：「去吧，因為他是我所揀選的器皿。」
'Go,' he says, 'for he is to me a vessel of election.'