Sermon 16
SERMO 16
TRACTATE OF SAINT AUGUSTINE THE BISHOP
ON THAT WHICH IT IS WRITTEN:
"Who is the man who desires life"
"And desires to see good days?"
This life is wished to be at least long because it cannot be eternal.
The Spirit of God, calling the human race, by commanding what we ought to do and promising what we should hope for, first enflames our mind towards the reward, so that we may do what is commanded by loving good more than by fearing evil. Who is the man, he says, who desires life and loves to see good days? Thus he is asked who this may be, as if it could be found that it is not so. For who does not desire life? Who does not love to see good days? Therefore hear what follows, whoever you are who desire and love this, hear therefore what follows every man: Restrain, he says, your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Among all these, the former are in the command, the latter in the reward. For so that we restrain our tongue from evil and our lips from speaking deceit, turn from evil and do good, and seek peace, it is commanded to us. But it is promised to us that we may follow it. What peace is this, but the one which the world does not have? What is this peace, but the one that this life does not have, which in comparison to this life is not even life? For he would not have said about this life: Who is the man who desires life? And who would encourage by the subsequent commands to keep or prolong this, as if no one would desire even this. For this (worldly life) is at least wished to be long, because it cannot be everlasting; and through this a man can reach that life if he desired it to be not only long, but also good. However long this life may be, which will someday end? And what was long will be nothing, because even when it existed it did not remain, when it was prolonged it was not increased, nor did it grow by adding, because it was passing while coming.
Life is to be wished for more for its goodness than for its length.
Whoever you are, therefore, a lover of long life, be instead a lover of a good life. For if you wish to live wickedly, a long life will not truly be good, but will be a long evil. But see how absurd and twisted you are when you confess that you love life more than a villa, yet you wish to have a good villa rather than a good life. For by craving and scheming to obtain a good villa through deceit, you make your life wicked. Nevertheless, if you were asked, if you were questioned, whether you would rather lack a good villa by losing it or a bad life by dying, you would answer that, if you could not keep both, you would be more prepared for the villa to be taken from you. Why, then, is life not loved in such a way that it be good, which you prefer above all your goods, even if it is bad? Surely you wish it to be long, even if it is bad. Rather make it good, and do not fear that it will be short. For if it is spent anxiously, it will soon end; if it is spent well, it will be completed at leisure. For after this life, eternal life succeeds, blessed without fear, endlessly long. Indeed, it is about this that the one who says, "Who is the man who desires life and loves to see good days?" In this life, however, the Apostle commands us to redeem the time, for the days are evil. And what is redeeming the time, except when it is necessary that, even at the cost of temporal comforts, we gain time for seeking and pursuing eternal things? Hence the Lord also commands, saying: "If anyone wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic, give him your cloak as well." That you may indeed expend time lost in some temporal matter for the sake of peace, rather than the time you would have expended in a lawsuit.
It is not about the life of this time in the psalm.
Therefore, because the Spirit of God is not speaking of life and days of this time when it says: Who is the man who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? the following context teaches us. For He adds such precepts by obeying which we may have life and see good days, so that this current life we now live and these days often have to be put aside to fulfill the same precepts. Therefore, if we understand this life which we are now in by what was said: Who is the man who desires life? and if we act according to the precepts connected for obtaining this life, what are we to do if someone powerful in malice threatens us with death unless we tell a false testimony? Indeed, if we do what is commanded here: Keep your tongue from evil, so that for the sake of this commandment we refuse the falsehood of testimony, we will seem to be deceived. Because we accepted to observe the commandment for the desire of keeping life, and by observing it we rather lost it. But if we understand life as eternally blessed, which God will give to those obeying Him after this life, about which the Lord said to someone: If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments, then truly to the one asking: Who is the man who desires life? we will answer that we desire life if we even under the very strike of the attacker preserve truth in testimony, scorn death in the world, and obtain life in heaven.
Similarly, good days are not of this age.
Let us understand this about the good days. For if, for the sake of the days of this present age which are called good and are not, in the burial of the heart through the mounds of feasts, in the gulfs of luxury and drunkenness, in the most shameful delights of gluttony, if therefore for the sake of these days, as if for good days, we have received the precept that our lips should not speak deceit, often such days compel their lovers to speak deceit, and such days are denied to those who do not speak deceit. For what else is "speaking deceit" than to utter one thing with the lips while another is concealed in the chest? To this, above all, the business of flatterers has arisen, because almost always, lest they be kept away from rich tables and prepared feasts, by flattering they do not stay silent about falsehood, and they are kept away from these, if by loving God they speak the truth. Therefore, for the sake of those days which they think are good, to obtain them, they speak deceit, and they are denied them, if they do not speak deceit. There are other good days, therefore, about which we are admonished that if we desire to see them, we restrain our tongue from evil and do not speak deceit. Those days are not of this age; they are not possessed by the heaven that will pass away but by the one that will remain; they are not known by the land of the dying, but by the land of the living. Whoever understands and loves these days, let him restrain his tongue from evil; and if the terror of death compels him to evil, let his lips not speak deceit; and if he is invited to evil by days falsely called good, let him turn away from evil even among good, let him do good even among evil; let him seek peace which is not on earth and follow it in Him who made the heaven and the earth.
We must beware not to refuse the work whose reward is eternal life.
Therefore, Brothers, desire life and love to see good days where there will be no night, a life in which an evil day is not feared, good days in which life will never end. But if you love this reward, beware lest you reject the work whose reward it is. Seek that peace by following after it. Seek with your hands by night before God, and you will not be deceived. For what is with your hands, except in good work? What is by night, except in tribulation? What is before God, except in purity of conscience? By living thus and loving this, you will have God in contemplation, and in Him life without failing, good days without darkening, peace without dissension.