They are also set down for praise. For you find a man reaching out alms to the poor with his hand, yet not thinking of God therein, but desiring to please men: he has the woollen garment, which can be seen; the inner linen he has not. You find another saying to you, 'My conscience suffices me, I worship God, I adore God; what need have I to go to church, or to mingle visibly with Christians?' — he wishes to have the linen without the tunic. This woman neither knows nor commends such works. This woman found wool and flax, and made it profitable. Many find; but they do not make it profitable with their hands. When you listen gladly, you find: when you live well, you make it. 3. What the distaff and spindle are. — 'She strengthened her arms upon the spindle.'
Of this spindle, as the Lord shall grant, I will speak: for these wool-workings are not alien to men. In the spindle the wool-working is signified, and in the wool-working a good work, as of a chaste and diligent woman and matron. Yet attentively note in the wool-working two instruments, the distaff and the spindle. On the distaff is the wool wound up, which by thread is to be drawn and pass over to the spindle. What is wound on the distaff is still in the left hand, and not yet on the spindle: what is gathered on the spindle is already past. Let your work therefore be on the spindle, not on the distaff. For on the distaff is what you are going to do; on the spindle, what you have done. See then whether you have anything on the spindle. For there your arms are strengthened, there will be your firm constancy, there secure you will say to God: 'Give, because I have given; forgive, because I have forgiven;'
do, because I have done.' What hangs on the distaff is to be transferred to the spindle: but what is gathered on the spindle is not to be recalled to the distaff. Therefore see what you are doing, that you may have something on the spindle, that you may strengthen your arms upon the spindle — something to console you, to confirm you, to give you confidence in praying and hoping. 4. Christ is to be praised both doubly and singly. There follows: 'She opened her hand to the poor.' Come now, brethren, practise the holy wool-working. If anyone has a full storeroom, a full barn, all these are on the distaff; let them pass over to the spindle. They are in the left hand, so long as you have not distributed to the poor: but when you begin to give alms, they are transferred to the right hand, and a work is made from which a garment can be made.
'All her household are clothed.' Will her husband, having such a wife, be anxious about the nakedness of his servants? Who is that husband, if not Christ? or who is the wife, if not the Church? They are clothed, as many as have been baptized in Christ. Both the good servants and the bad are clothed. That woman does not cease to clothe all: so that no one may complain and say, 'Therefore I have not worked well, because I am not well clothed.' 'She made double cloaks for her husband.' Cloaks are praises, faith and confessions. You praise God, you praise man. You praise doubly, and you praise singly: doubly, because He is both man and God; singly, that you be not feigning. Photinus,
from whom the Photinian heretics are named, made as it were a single cloak for her husband. For he believed Him to be a mere man, and refused to worship Christ as God. There arises another weaving for her husband a ragged cloak. For he says, 'Christ is God only, having nothing at all of man': this the Manichaeans say. The Photinians say, 'He is man only'; the Manichaeans say, 'He is God only.' Behold from what a Church what precious garments proceed! And therefore of her it is written that she 'had made double cloaks for her husband.' Double cloaks; for we confess God in man, and man in God. 'Of fine linen and purple she prepared spiritual garments.' Of fine linen the white confession, of purple the glorious passion.
By the fine linen, when we confess God, we acknowledge Him: the purple in the martyrs we jointly praise. 5. Let us who give alms hasten to draw from the distaff to the spindle, and transfer from the left hand to the right. We, brethren, on whom God has deigned to bestow so much of these things, that we should be born neither of the Jews nor of the heretics, but should grow up to be sons of the Catholic Church — let us, as far as we can, render thanks to God, who has deigned to inspire or instil into us the right faith and one pleasing to Himself: and with all our strength (because faith without works cannot save us) let us prepare our souls for that spiritual wool-working.
Therefore, continually giving alms, let us hasten to draw from the distaff to the spindle, and to transfer from the left hand to the right: that through the alms of the poor each one of us may prepare a robe for eternity, that, as the Apostle says, in the heavenly banquet we may be found clothed and not naked (2 Cor. 5:3); lest it be said to us, 'Friend, how didst thou come in hither, not having a wedding garment?' (Matt. 22:12); but rather, delivered from the evil hearing, may we deserve to hear that happy and desirable voice, 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world' (Matt. 25:34); which may He Himself vouchsafe to grant. SERMON 59. On the three young men sent into the furnace of fire. 1.
The tyrant's cruelty against the three young men. The tyrant orders the furnace to be kindled, and the more he himself burned with the fire of fury, the more he was making the holy young men holier still. Now the sky is covered with the density of the surging smoke, now all the Chaldeans are terrified by the horrific din; that the greatness of the divine severity might be shown forth through the torments. The violent enemy raged, about to seek torment for his own servants. He raged, not to slay the just, but to procure destruction for his own. He raged, not that the increases of punishment might grow, but that the divine power might be shown to all; so that, while the impious gloried in their torments, they might be devoured by the onset of the flames.
The wicked Chaldeans raged, doomed to perish by the very present torments, and, ministers ignorant of what was to come, hasten the orders, prepare the fires, heap up the flames. Cruelty possesses his mind, savagery alters his will. 2. The three young men unharmed in the furnace. The saints are cast into the furnace; the flames flee, the fires yield, the fires shrink back in fear. The fires fear to hurt those whom they had been bidden to keep unharmed. They show the merit of the just, while they despise the command of the tyrant. It is granted to the saints to sport with the fire, who were not permitted to dwell with men. It was granted them to venerate God in the furnace, whom among men they were not permitted to honour. It is granted them to earn the service of the flames, who had not deserved the torments of the Chaldeans.
It is granted them to be preserved unharmed by the fires, whom the tyrant had handed over to be burned. It is granted them to be secure in punishment, whom outside punishment it was not permitted to be untouched: so that where there was destruction, there was salvation; where torments, there refreshment was found. Take, O enemy, an example from the torments, you who have lost the counsel of humanity. The fires flee the just whom you unjustly condemned: the flames shrink back, and pronounce innocent those whom you reckon worthy of torment: and those that had been wont to rage saw the saints worthy in the furnace. The foes condemn, and the fires absolve. The Chaldeans add fuel, and the punishments defend. Men rage, and the torments venerate.
The tyrant supposed that the tortures could rage only as much as he, the sacrilegious one, reckoned himself to have power. The fires yield to the just, the burnings of the flames are turned into refreshment, and their voracious assaults forget their appointed nature; so that they feared the just, venerating them, and punished their pursuing foes. The fires receive the just into hospitality with all honour, and gladly render them service. The enemy rages with a changed manner, and is moved by no pity, nor softened by any humanity. He might conquer, if he commanded the fires. The just therefore are offered to the fires, covered by their clothing, bound with chains: the just are defended by the burnings, and those whom human power condemned, the fire absolves. He considers nothing, he fears nothing.
For thus the tyrannical cruelty, overcome, is laid low, while its own attendants are devoured. He beholds the punishment, and looks upon the glory of the servants of God. The fires render service to the just, and administer destruction to the unjust. While the flame takes vengeance, the impious are slain, and the just are saved. 3. The tyrant acknowledges the miracle. When the tyrant hastily approached the furnace, he is astounded at the praise, marvels at the deed, venerates God together with the three young men in the furnace. He beholds those, whom shortly before he had violently ordered to be extinguished, protected by a just and divine encircling. In them, in the furnace, he sees Him whom before he would have thought not to be in them. Terrified at that sight, he adds gentleness to his fury: he suddenly becomes a confessor, who shortly before had been a persecutor.
He proclaims Him whom a little before he was denying, he commands men to venerate Him whom he had condemned those that venerated. He asks the just to come forth from the furnace, he entreats the servants of God to leap forth from the fire. 'Come out,' he says, 'servants of the most high God. Now I profess myself a defender of God, whose enemy I am known to have been; that whose servants I in ignorance was persecuting, His enemies I as a defender may avenge.' Then the Hebrews come forth from the furnace unharmed, they rejoice unscathed, they triumph as victors, because they served God faithfully, and despised the fury of the tyrant (Dan. 3). SERMON 60. On Susanna. 1. The just, amid the snares of the world, are made victors by God who delivers them.
As often as in this perverse world manifold snares are stretched out against praiseworthy men, or diverse occasions of calumny arise — whatever a pestilent man may plot, whatever the devil may contrive — the just man will not fear, because Christ is with him. Let the man be chosen as a soldier stationed in battle, always to exercise the duties of the virtues. He therefore embraces one of two things: either, the snares being laid bare, his innocence shines forth among the people; or, forestalled by persecuting enemies, when he has passed beyond the condition of death, freed from worldly troubles, he will enter the harbour of security. The prophet Daniel, cast into the den of lions, was not terrified nor dismayed by fear;
but standing amid those maws of the beasts, he appeased the Lord with his whole mind, and unharmed escaped the tyrannical dispositions. Zachariah the high priest, for the worship of God, for the sacred laws, for discipline, rebuking the rebellious people in the priestly temple, steadfastly received death, and the detestable ranks of the Jews stained the pavement with his blood. Zachariah the martyr triumphs, and Daniel the confessor exults: the one dies and triumphs, the other escapes and reigns. But neither is the female sex defrauded of its examples, which wholesomely preserved the adornment of chastity. 2. The peril and deliverance of Susanna. The illustrious Susanna, the glory of chastity, overcame the shamelessness of the judges, and repressed the bold wantonness of the elders;
lest chastity should suffer wrong in her. Susanna stood in the judgment of the false, oppressed by the lying testimonies of the condemned: she stood, not as one guilty, but firmly resolved to die for chastity. Chaste, therefore, she went to punishment, not the body of adulterers, in whom extreme lust had blazed and the devil had inflamed. What virtue had protected and modesty adorned went unharmed to the exit of death. She bore aloft a noble head, whose countenance an untainted conscience raised up to heaven. For the sake of the loss of her honour, she repressed the vows of her safety; and she to whom the rewards of chastity were dear, lost not the joy of life. She despised one thing, and obtained the whole: and she who wished to die, escaped with the glory of chastity;
and her whom a perverse sentence had cast down, the integrity of an illustrious conscience raised up, together with the fear of God and undoubting faith in the impending sacred judgment. O love of honour and of the Law! Susanna judged the guilt of adultery graver than her punishment. When she was led away, she grieved not for the punishment; because she rejoiced over the false testimony. The innocent is accused by sentence; but at God's nod the punishment is suspended, that the falsehood of the accusers might be laid bare, and the innocent purged. The weak sex rises up braver against the men, chastity and honour vanquish lust, and by the impulse of luxury dreadful wickedness is laid low. Susanna preserved her own virtue of soul, and steadfastly endured the judgment of the peoples.
False crimes are forged against the innocent one. For he is defended who has had God as his defender. Then the prophet Daniel, admonished by the prompting of God, cried out, 'Return to judgment!' The people are astounded at the sudden judgment; she who had been condemned is recalled; dread invades the false witnesses. The devil groans, because his fabrications are laid bare: the Angels rejoice at the found integrity of modesty, because on earth wearied truth is defended. It was asked in what place Susanna committed the crime of which she was accused. This one says, 'Under a mastic tree'; that one, 'Under a holm oak.' When therefore their given answers disagreed, the contradictions of their statements were so laid bare that, the people being rebuked with vigour of mind, and the witnesses confounded, the truth was made manifest.
The people rejoice at the integrity of modesty: the husband triumphs, because he has found a faithful wife: the household is glad, because it has found nothing in her to be punished, because it has not found the deed of adultery, nor has the devil accomplished the murder which he was contriving (Dan. 13). SERMON 61. On Peace, upon that passage of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 9: 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' etc. 1. The fruit of peace. The concord of brethren. — 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.' The merit of Christian virtue is cheapened in all things, if it has not the unity of peace, nor does one attain to the name of son except through the name of peacemaker. Peace it is that strips a man of servitude, gives him the name of freeborn, changes his person along with his condition;
it makes a free man out of a servant, a son out of a slave; it calls God its patron, and changes the servant into a son; it makes a friend out of God, renders a father out of a Lord. Thus, thus does He act, who wills not that what He makes should perish. 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.' Lo, he begins to be a son of God, who has begun to be a peacemaker. He will not be called a son, who has been unwilling to be found a peacemaker: he denies God to himself as Father, who could not be an heir of peace. He shall find God severe, who has disdained Him as a clement and gentle Father. 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.' Let us rejoice in this name as sons and heirs of God, but co-heirs of Christ.
How great is the recompense of this peace: to possess an inheritance with Christ, to have the substance of the Father together with the Son, to share the heavenly kingdom with the Lord, and to be admitted into fellowship of perpetuity with the Lord? What perversity of morals is this, to envy the better and to cling to the baser, to lose the victory of the adopted, and thus forfeit the possession of the inheritance of the heavenly kingdoms? For he denies himself to be a son of God and a co-heir of Christ, who has refused to be governed by the Father's rule. Peace is the concord of brethren, as it is written: 'In three things my spirit is well pleased, which are approved before God and men: the concord of brethren, and the love of neighbours, and a husband and wife that agree together' (Sir.
25:1-2). The concord of brethren, therefore, is the will of God, the delight of Christ, the perfection of holiness, the rule of justice, the substance of doctrine, the guardian of morals, and in all things a praiseworthy discipline. Peace is the suffrage of prayers, the easy and obtainable way of supplications; because it is the fitting fullness of all desires, as it is written in the Apostle (Phil. 4:7). Peace, therefore, of an agreement, makes one lovable to God among the brethren, which shows the testimony of charity. Peace is the mother of love, the bond of concord, and the manifest token of a pure mind: because it exacts for itself from God whatsoever it wishes, whatever it has willed let it ask, and whatever it has willed let it take. 2. He spurns Christ who does not keep peace.
Peace must be kept by royal precepts, since the Lord Christ says, 'My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you' (John 14:27). He who is a disciple of Christ keeps the precepts of Christ: to keep the commandment is to guard peace in all things. For to divide unity is not to follow the Master, but to trample upon His commandment. For to follow Christ is to have peace: and not to follow what belongs to peace, this is to have this in the Master in part what you love, and in part what you condemn. This is to love the teacher: to keep the teacher's commandments in all things, who says, 'My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you.' It pleases me, brethren, to prolong my delay in peace; it delights me to have said this often, and again and again to proclaim, 'My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you.' In peace I dismiss you, in peace I have dismissed you, in peace I shall find you. Setting out, He wished to give what, returning, He desired to find in all. He wished counsel to be taken for him to whom He had given, He who commanded that what He had bestowed be kept until His return. What then will a man do, when God shall come, and shall not find, when sought, what He had given? What excuse will he use, who could not keep peace? 'My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you. In peace I have dismissed you, in peace I shall find you.' Keep the commandment of the rule: it is a divine voice. I shall find what I left. 3. Peace is the work of God; discord, of the devil.
It delights me to have said this often, and to proclaim it again and again: "Peace I give unto you, peace I leave unto you." In peace I dismiss you, in peace I have dismissed you, in peace I shall find you. Setting forth on His journey He willed to give what, on returning, He desired to find in all. He willed that provision be made for the one to whom He had given, commanding him to preserve until His own return that which He had bestowed. What then shall a man do when God comes and does not find what He gave? What excuse shall he use who could not keep the peace? "Peace I give unto you, peace I leave unto you." In peace I have dismissed you, in peace I shall find you. Keep the King's commandment: it is a divine word. May I find what I have left behind. 3. Peace is the work of God; discord, of the devil.
To plant peace by the roots is the work of God; to tear it up utterly is the work of the enemy. Love of one's brother is from God; hatred stands from the devil. For this reason hatreds are to be condemned; for it is written, 'Whoever hates his brother is a murderer' (1 John 3:15). Let us restrain anger; for it is written, 'Whoever is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment' (Matthew 5:22). Peace is to be loved, and concord to be cherished. These are the things that beget charity; and you know, according to the Apostle, that 'God is charity' (1 John 4:8). He is without God who does not have charity. [A father's affection cannot but love that which it teaches.] The peace of the people is the glory of the priest; and the perfect charity of children is the gladness of parents. It belongs to the priest to admonish what is fitting;
and it belongs to the people to hear what he counsels. Whatever is not lawful, it belongs to the shepherd to forbid lest it be done; it belongs to the flock to listen, that it may act accordingly. Let both agree together, and all things are kept safe: neither will God find in the people anything to punish, nor can the priest have anything to grieve over. Let us keep the commandments, which are the commandments of life; let the brotherhood hold itself bound together by the bonds of profound peace, and by the saving chain of charity let it draw itself close in mutual love; for love makes the soul magnanimous. [Love is sweet, it is not jealous, it does not envy. Love speaks no falsehood, is not puffed up, admits nothing dishonorable, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in injustice; but rejoices together with the truth.
It believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)]. Love, therefore, is to be embraced with every vow and every desire, for it can hold as many goods as it holds rewards. With all one's strength peace is to be guarded; for God is ever in peace. Let there be no place by which the enemy may creep in, lest he be able to sow tares among the wheat crop, and, the farmer now secure and cheated of the hope of his long labor, the awaited fruit be stolen away at the very ripening of the harvest; or lest the wine, made sweeter with age, suddenly turned into a sharper treachery, join itself in the mixing to an outpoured lees;
or lest amid sweet honey it pour in poisons more bitter than gall [or lest amid fields flourishing with flowers and meadows bejeweled with variety, by the intrusion of thistles it kill souls of pleasing fragrance]. Let contentions be sent far off, far off strifes and hatreds, far off curses; and since the tongue of the whisperer and the double-tongued is a snare of death, let each one spare his own soul, lest he bring upon himself the bonds of death unto his own punishment. Love peace, and all things are tranquil: that you may keep in store rewards for yourselves and joys for us, so that, being the Church of God founded in the unity of peace, you may hold perfect discipline, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom is glory unto the ages of ages, Amen. SERMON 62. On the words of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter
5:43-48 and 6:1-6, 'But I say to you, Love your enemies,' etc. 1. How the enemy is to be loved. Who is one's neighbor. That there is a certain degree in the righteousness of the Pharisees, which belongs to the Law, is understood from this: that many people hate even those by whom they are loved, as dissolute sons hate parents who restrain their dissolute living. He therefore climbs some step who loves his neighbor, although he still hates his enemy. But by the command of Him who came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it, he will perfect his benevolence and kindness when he has carried it all the way to love of an enemy. For that step, though it is something, is nevertheless so small that it can be shared even with the tax collectors.
Nor is what was said in the Law, 'You shall hate your enemy,' to be taken as the voice of One commanding the righteous, but of One permitting it to the weak. But the enemy is to be loved thus: not insofar as he is an enemy, but insofar as he is a man; so that you may wish this to come to him which you wish for yourself; that is, that being corrected and recalled he may come to the Kingdom. Now every man is one's neighbor. We are all neighbors by the condition of earthly birth and mortality, and also by the hope of a heavenly inheritance; for we do not know what any man will become, whether he be a Jew, or a heretic, or a Pagan; for perhaps through the mercy of God he will be converted to God, and will merit to hold the first place among the saints. As to the fact that in the Law the Lord commands not enemies, but the enemy, to be hated;
this was so that those who were spiritual under the Law should hate only the devil, whose hatred Christ came not to abolish, but to fulfill. 2. God's precepts are not impossible. No one can excuse himself from love. 'But I say to you, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.' [Many, measuring God's precepts by their own weakness, not by the strength of the saints, think that the things commanded are impossible; and they say that it suffices for the virtues not to hate one's enemies, but that to love them is enjoined beyond what human nature can bear. It must therefore be known that Christ commands not impossible things, but perfect things; which David did in the case of Saul and Absalom. Stephen the martyr also prayed for the enemies stoning him;
and Paul desired to be accursed for the sake of his persecutors. And these things Jesus both taught and did, saying: 'Father, forgive them'] (Luke 23:34). [In the remaining good works one can sometimes put forward some kind of excuse; but in showing love no one will be able to excuse himself. Someone can say to me, 'I cannot fast': can he say, 'I cannot love'? He can say, 'Because of the infirmity of my body I cannot abstain from wine and meat': can he say, 'I cannot love'? Someone can say that he cannot keep virginity; he can say that he cannot sell all his goods and distribute to the poor: can he say, 'I cannot love my enemies'?
For here the feet do not grow weary with running, nor the ears with hearing, nor the hands with working; so that we should try to free ourselves by that very excuse. We are not told, 'Go to the east and seek charity: sail to the west and you will find love.' It is within, in our heart, whither we are commanded to return, as the prophet says, 'Return, O transgressors, to the heart' (Isaiah 46:8). For that which is asked of us is not found in distant regions.] 'And pray for those who persecute and calumniate you.' What else is to be prayed for enemies except what the Apostle says, 'That God may grant them repentance, and that they may come to their senses out of the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive' (2 Timothy 2:25-26)? 3.
Nothing in the Scriptures is contrary to the precept about loving enemies. Who they are for whom we ought not to pray. Sin unto death. But here one is rightly moved as to how this precept of the Lord is not contradicted by the fact that in the Prophets also are found many imprecations against enemies, which are thought to be curses: such as this, 'Let their table become a snare before them' (Psalm 69:22), and the rest that are said there; and the apostle John says, 'He who knows his brother to be sinning a sin not unto death, let him ask, and life will be given to the one sinning not unto death. There is a sin unto death; I do not say that one should pray for that' (1 John 5:16).
Here first it must be seen that the Prophets, by way of imprecation, foretold what was to come, not by the wish of one desiring it, but by the spirit of one foreseeing: for they are especially wont to predict future things under the figure of one imprecating, just as under the figure of past time they often foretold things that were to come. Then, in the words of the Apostle, it must be understood that there are certain brethren for whom we are commanded not to pray, whereas the Lord bids us pray even for our persecutors. This question cannot be resolved unless we acknowledge that there are certain sins in brethren more grievous than the persecution of enemies. And that Christian brethren are signified can be proved by many testimonies of the divine Scriptures.
I therefore think a brother's sin unto death to be this: when, after the knowledge of God through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, someone assails the brotherhood, and is driven by the torches of envy against the very grace by which he was reconciled to God. But a sin is not unto death, if anyone has not alienated love from his brother, but through some weakness of soul has failed to render the duties owed to the brotherhood. Wherefore the Lord too said on the cross, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' For not yet made partakers of the grace of the Holy Spirit, they had entered the fellowship of the holy brotherhood. And blessed Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles prays for those by whom he is stoned (Acts 7:59);