Sermon 13

SERMO 13

Sermon Delivered at the Table of Saint Cyprian
Sixth day before the Kalends of June.
FROM THE PSALM WHERE IT SAYS:
"Be instructed, all you who judge the earth"

To judge what the earth is.

Be instructed, all you who judge the earth. To judge the earth is to subdue the body. Let us listen to the Apostle judging the earth: I do not fight, he says, as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. Therefore, hear the one judging the earth and judge the earth so that you may not be earth. For if you judge the earth, you will be heaven, and you will declare the glory of the Lord made in you. For the heavens declare the glory of God. But if you do not judge the earth, you will be earth. And if you are earth, you will belong to him to whom it was said: You shall eat the dust (earth). Therefore let the judges of the earth listen. Discipline the body, restrain desires, love wisdom, conquer lust. And to do this, let them be instructed.

Rejoice in the Lord, not in oneself.

This, however, is the essence of learning: Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, rejoice in Him, not in yourself: in Him from whom is what you are, and that you are a human, and that you are righteous, if indeed you are now righteous. But if you think that you are human indeed from Him, but righteous by yourself, you do not serve the Lord with fear, nor do you rejoice with trembling, but with presumption in yourself. And what will happen to you, if not what follows? Lest the Lord be angry and you perish, he says, from the just way. For he did not say: "Lest the Lord be angry, and you do not enter the just way," but: you perish from the just way. For you already seem righteous to yourself, by not seizing what belongs to others, not committing adultery, not committing murder, not giving false testimony against your neighbor, honoring your father and mother, worshipping one God, not serving idols and demons. You will perish from this way, if you presume these for yourself, if you think these are from yourself. For the unbelievers do not enter the just way; the proud perish from the just way. For what does it say? Be instructed, you judges of the earth. And lest you attribute the strength and power by which you judge the earth to yourselves, believe it is from yourselves, do not do so: Serve the Lord with fear; rejoice, not in presumption of yourselves, but with fear in Him, lest the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way, when His wrath is quickly kindled. Therefore, what must be done so that we do not perish from the just way? Blessed are all who trust in Him. If blessed are they who trust in Him, miserable are those who trust in themselves. For cursed is every man who puts his hope in man, therefore not even in yourself, because you are a man too. For if you put your hope in another man, you will be irregularly humble. But if you put your hope in yourself, you will be dangerously proud. What is the difference? Both are pernicious, neither should be chosen. The irregularly humble is not exalted, the dangerously proud falls precipitously.

Thus God works in us so that we also work.

Finally, let Your Holiness know, that these words are said to rebuke and destroy that sense by which each person trusts in themselves: Serve the Lord with fear and exult with trembling. Listen to the Apostle saying these very words and explaining why they were said. Here are the words of the Apostle: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. "Why then do I work out my salvation with fear and trembling, when it is in my power to work out my own salvation?" Do you want to hear why with fear and trembling? For it is God who works in you. Therefore, with fear and trembling. Because what the humble obtain, the proud lose. If therefore it is God who works in us, why was it said: Work out your own salvation? Because he works in us in such a way that we also work. Be my helper. He names himself also as a worker, who calls upon a helper. "But," he says, "my will is good." I admit, yours. But from whom is it given, from whom aroused? Do not listen to me, ask the Apostle: For it is God, he says, who works in you both to will - who works in you both to will - and to work for His good pleasure. What then is that which you arrogated to yourself? What is it that you, proud, went forth and perished? Return to your heart, find yourself to be evil, and to be good invoke the good. For nothing in you pleases God except what you have from God; but what you have from yourself displeases God. If you consider your good things, what do you have that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? He alone knows only how to give. He does not have a giver, who does not have one better. Since you are inferior to him, indeed because you are inferior, rejoice that you were made in his image, so that you might be found in him in whom you perished. For you could not in yourself do anything but lose yourself; you do not know how to find yourself unless he who made you seeks you.

The earth judging the earth ought to fear the One who is in heaven.

Let us speak also to those who judge the earth according to this visible and common understanding. For kings, leaders, princes, and judges judge the earth. Each one judges the earth according to the office he has received. But what is meant by "judges the earth," if not that he judges the people who are on the earth? For if you do not take the earth to mean only that which you tread upon, then it is said to farmers: You who judge the earth. But furthermore, if kings judge the earth, and all who receive power from kings under them, let them also be educated, because the earth judges the earth and should fear Him who is in heaven judging the earth. For he judges his equal, man judges man, mortal judges mortal, sinner judges sinner. For if that divine sentence proceeds in the midst: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, does not every judge of the earth suffer an earthquake? Let us recall the Gospel episode. The Pharisees, testing the Lord, brought before Him a woman caught in adultery, for which sin a punishment had been definitively prescribed by the law, that is, the law given by Moses, the servant of God. Thus, with this cunning and fraudulent conjunction, the Pharisees approached the Lord to see if He would command the defamed woman to be stoned to destroy His gentleness. But if He forbade what the law commanded, He would be held guilty of violating the law. Just as when they questioned Him about paying tribute to Caesar, He caught them by their own words, asking in turn whose image and inscription was on the coin. They who had asked responded that the coin bore Caesar’s image, He answered them according to their own words: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s, to remind them thus that the image of God should be rendered to God in man, as Caesar’s image is rendered to Caesar on the coin. And so, He questioned the questioners regarding this adulteress, and thus judged the judges; “I do not forbid,” He said, “the stoning of her whom the law commanded to be stoned, but I ask by whom. For I do not resist, but I require a minister of the law.” Finally, hear this: “You wish to stone according to the law? Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at her.”

The Lord's mercy towards the sinner.

When he heard these things, he wrote with his finger on the ground, to instruct the earth. When he said this to the Pharisees, he lifted up his eyes and looked at the earth and made it tremble. So when he had said this, he again began to write on the ground. But they, being convicted and trembling, went out one by one. Oh, the movement of the earth, where the ground was moved so much that it even changed its place! Therefore, with them leaving, the sinner remained with the Savior. The sick remained with the doctor. The miserable remained with mercy. And looking at the woman, he said: Has no one condemned you? And she said: No one, Lord. But still she was anxious. For sinners dared not condemn, they dared not stone the sinner who, looking at themselves, found themselves alike. But the woman was still in great danger, because even he who was without sin remained as her judge. No one, he said, has condemned you? And she replied: No one, Lord; if not even you, I am secure. To which silent anxiety the Lord responded with a voice: Neither do I condemn you. Neither I, though I am without sin, will I condemn you. Their conscience restrained them from vengeance, my mercy inclines me to help.

Doing good, and even if not from authority, nevertheless, you will have praise from it.

Attend to these things, and be taught all you who judge the earth. All indeed, for thus it is to be understood of whom the Apostle says: Every soul should be subject to higher authorities. For there is no authority except from God. The authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists what God has appointed. For princes are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will receive approval from it. And if not from it, yet from God. For if you act justly, a just authority will praise you; or if you act justly, even if an unjust authority condemns you, the just God will crown you. Therefore, hold to justice and live rightly; and whether you are condemned or absolved, you will receive praise from Him. Blessed is he whose blood was shed, did he not find praise from that very authority, even from which he was seen to be judged? He promised confession, remained steadfast in faith, did not fear death, shed his blood, and conquered the devil.

First judge within.

Therefore, that you may not be of unjust power, whoever desires to have power over men, be taught not to judge perversely, and do not perish in spirit before you destroy anyone in the flesh. You wish to be a judge, you cannot by merit, or money. I do not yet reproach. Perhaps, indeed, you wish to benefit human affairs, and you buy to benefit. To serve justice, you do not spare money. First, be a judge in yourself for yourself. First, judge yourself, so that you may proceed to another with a secure conscience. Return to yourself, attend to yourself, examine yourself, listen to yourself. There I want you to prove yourself an upright judge, where you do not seek a witness. You wish to proceed with power so that another may tell you about another which you do not know. First judge within. Has your conscience said nothing to you about yourself? If you do not wish to deny, surely it has said. I do not wish to hear what it has said, you who have listened should judge. It has told you what you have done, what you have received, what you have sinned. I would like to know what kind of sentence you have pronounced. If you have listened well, if you have listened rightly, if you have been just in hearing yourself, if you have ascended the tribunal of your mind, if you have suspended yourself before yourself in the rack of the heart, if you have applied the harsh torturers of fear, you have listened well if you have listened thus, and undoubtedly you have punished the sin by repenting. Behold, you have examined, and have listened, and have punished. And yet you have spared yourself. Thus, listen to your neighbor, if you are instructed as the psalm admonished: Be instructed, you who judge the earth.

Love to terrify, but cherish.

If you listen to your neighbor in the same way you listen to yourself, you pursue sins, not the sinner. And if someone is perhaps obstinate in correcting sins, turning away from the fear of God, you pursue in him this very thing, you try to correct this very thing, you work to destroy and remove this, so that the man is saved from being condemned by sin. For there are two names, man and sinner. God made man, but man made himself a sinner. Let what man made perish, let what God made be freed. Do not therefore pursue until death, lest in pursuing sin, you lose the man. Do not pursue until death, that there may be someone who repents, do not kill the man so that there may be someone who repents; do not kill the man so that there may be someone who amends. Retaining this love for mankind in your heart, be a judge of the earth. And love to frighten, but with affection. If you are proud, be proud for sins, not for the man. Rage against what displeases you also in yourself, not against him who was made like you. You came from the same workshop, you had one craftsman, you have the same clay as your material. What do you lose by not loving whom you judge? For you lose justice by not loving whom you judge. But let punishments be applied. I do not object, I do not forbid, but with a loving mind, with an affectionate mind, with a corrective mind.

He who does not give discipline is cruel.

For you do not fail to educate your son. And you first seek that, if it is possible, he may be educated by shame and courtesy, that he might blush to offend his father, rather than fear him as a severe judge. You rejoice in such a son. But if he happens to disregard these things, you apply also the rod, inflict punishment, cause pain, but you seek his salvation. Many have been corrected by love, many by fear, but through the trembling of fear they reached love. Be instructed, you who judge the earth. Love and judge. Innocence is not so sought that discipline perishes. It is written: "He who rejects discipline is unhappy." To this sentence well could be added: just as he who rejects discipline is unhappy, so he who denies discipline is cruel. I have dared to say something, my brothers, which I am compelled to explain to you in somewhat greater detail due to the obscurity of the matter. I repeat what I said: he who rejects discipline is unhappy. This is evident. He who does not give discipline is cruel. I hold firmly, I hold and show that striking lovingly is righteous, sparing is cruel. I place an example before you. Where do I find the righteousness in striking? I do not go to others; I consider the father and the son. A father loves even when he strikes. And a child does not wish to be beaten. He disregards the will, considers the benefit. Why? Because he is a father, because he prepares an inheritance, because he nurtures a successor. Behold, the father is righteous in striking, merciful in striking. Give me a man who is cruel in sparing. I do not depart from the persons, I place them before your eyes. But if an inexperienced and undisciplined boy lives in such a way that he perishes, and the father pretends not to see, spares, and fears to offend his wayward son's discipline with severity, is he not cruel in sparing? Therefore be instructed, you who judge the earth, and in judging well, expect the reward not from the earth but from Him who made heaven and earth.