Sermon 24

SERMO 24

ABOUT THE VERSE OF PSALM 82:
"God, who is like you?"

Thanks be to our Lord God.

Thanks to the Lord our God, and an abundance of praise to that God, who deserves a hymn in Zion. Thanks to him, whom we have sung to with the devotion of the heart and mouth: God, who is like you? Because we feel his holy love ingrained in your hearts, because you fear him as Lord, you love him as Father. Thanks to him, who is desired before he is seen, is felt when present, and is hoped for in the future. Thanks to him, whose fear is not driven away by love, and whose love is not hindered by fear. We bless him, we honor him, both for you and in you. For the temple of God is holy, which you are. Now see how much he lives, or how he lives, when the stones of his temple live like this. Consider, Brothers, what you say and to whom you say it: God, who is like you? Temples say to their God: God, who is like you? Living stones say to their inhabitant: God, who is like you? Let the whole creation come to your hearts: the earth and whatever is in the earth, the sea and whatever is in the sea, the air and whatever is in the air, the sky and whatever is in the sky. He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created. Therefore, God, who is like you? Let every faithful heart say, let every obedient tongue say, let every devoted conscience say securely: God, who is like you? For they say to him, of whom they are not ashamed. This is fitting, this befits living stones.

Who are the dead stones and the living stones.

For may the dead stones feel within them the mercy of the living stones! I say dead, not those by which these buildings rise, nor in which the iron of craftsmen works, nor what man has sculpted to be gods, in truth sculpted by man to be called gods, but they are not; I do not speak of those dead stones, but I call dead stones the men to whom the gods are similar. The living stones are those to whom the apostle Peter speaks and says: And you, brothers, as living stones are being built up into a holy temple of God. Therefore, my Brothers, may the dead stones feel the mercy of the living stones within them! For what do we strive? What do we give birth to with either the narrowness or breadth of our hearts? What do we care for, what do we study, except to free the stone from the stone? For the living stones have eyes and see, they have ears and hear, they have hands and work, they have feet and walk. Indeed, they know their maker and worship their craftsman and praise their sculptor. But the dead stones, the servants of stones, behold their gods and are not beheld, worship and are not acknowledged, bring sacrifices, and themselves become a sacrifice to the devil. And they themselves, Brothers, if they had eyes to see and ears to hear, how great it would be to see the prophecies of Christ fulfilled? How great it would be to heed the truthful books and not the deceptive oracles? But why do they not see? Why do they not hear? Because prophecy also said this: Let those who make them and all who trust in them be like them. Therefore, are they to be despaired of or to be despaired of? May it not be so. And what is to be hoped for from dead stones? What do you think, except what we already hold written: For God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham?

A part of the sense feels in itself one who does not feel himself senselessly worshiping.

Therefore, Beloved, since you know to which God we have said: God, who is like you? Of whom we are not ashamed, whose title we do not read on a stone but carry in our heart, whose name is both known to all and lives in believers, dwells in the submissive, subdues the proud, since we know to whom we have said: God, who is like you? Let us not be moved to hate men whom God has made, but let us be moved to hate whatever in man made well by God man himself has done ill. Man is one name, and it is the name of a creature. I seek the maker of this creature. It is God. Is God the creator of man alone? Is He not also the creator of cattle, and fish, and birds, and angels, and heaven, and earth, and stars, and sun, and moon, and all things above and below, created and governed, the lowest and the highest, bound by the bond of unity? Is God not the maker of all these? But man He made in His own image and likeness. Some likeness of God is called man. And how much to how much? What to whom? Man to God. What is man, except that you are mindful of him? Therefore, let us also say to our God concerning men made in His image and likeness: God, who is like you? If man made in the image and likeness of God rightly says, truthfully says: God, who is like you? - for it is added: Remember that we are dust - if man made in the likeness of God is far from the likeness of God, if that likeness is so far that it is indecent to compare it, yet the heart of man, the heart of a Christian who cannot say "To a man, a god," gladly reads "To Hercules, a god," reads upward, considering downward, questioning the title which says: "To Hercules, a god" - The title does not speak, but it reads: "To Hercules, a god" - let him who said it tell what he said. Both are mute, both are insensible. Above, a lie; below, a fiction. The inscription accuses the writer, confounds the worshiper. The title does not commend a stone as a god; but indicates a foolish man. The title imposes God's name on fiction, and erases the worshiper's name from the book of the living. What part of sense feels within itself, that it does not feel itself to be insensible worshiping?

The divine words have peace among themselves.

And yet God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Let one consider there what God Himself did in man, to whom we said: God, who is like you? Let one consider in that man what God did, let him erase what was done by that man against Him who made man. Let Him strike and heal, kill and make alive. For to whom did we say: Lord, who is like you? To Him we consequently added: Do not be silent, nor be mild, O God. What then? In this song, my Brothers, have we provoked God to anger, to whom we said: Do not be silent, nor be mild, O God? Surely either to Him who sent or to Him Himself who came and said: Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart? Meek and humble of heart is the Son of God, Christ. What then? He says: Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart. And we said to Him: Do not be silent nor be mild, O God. If He answered us: "O man, is it not enough that you do not learn from me to be meek, and you want to teach me not to be mild?" See, Brothers, consider, assist us with pious intention, with chaste prayer, help us to come out in His name from these straits. Divine words seem to quarrel. They are thought to sound contrary, unless there is understanding, and we receive from Him Himself to whom we said: God, who is like you? Which He also said: I will give you understanding, let us receive. Let us know this: My peace I give to you, says Christ, that Christians may have peace among themselves. How will they imitate? How will they hear, if the very divine words cannot have peace among themselves? Consider, see as if it were the sound of opposites. Come to me, and: Learn from me. What? First, who calls? Whom does he call? To what does he call? Hear who calls: I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to little ones. Thus, Father, because such was your good pleasure. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. Behold who calls: All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and: No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Great magnitude, and ineffable height. All things have been handed over to me, he says, by my Father. I alone know, and I am known by the One alone. What? Have we been left out? Do we not know? And where is: To whom the Son wills to reveal?

Let the members of Christ fulfill their duties.

Your spirit and zeal for faith, and the fervor of charity, and the abundance of holy zeal for the house of God appeared in your voices, which you yourselves have had as clear witnesses of your heart. Allow the zeal of the few faithful of God, through whom you are governed, to also appear regarding this will of yours. For you, Brothers, are the people of God, as He Himself said, and the sheep of His pasture. You have pastors in the name of God, the servants of the shepherd and the members of the shepherd. The mind and will of the multitude for doing anything can appear from these voices. But the care of the few for you must be shown not in voices, but in deeds. Therefore, Brothers, since what pertained to you has been fulfilled by shouting, allow it to be proven to you whether we fulfill what pertains to us by acting. We have tested you. Test us, if after these voices, witnesses of your heart and zeal, we have been negligent in doing what should be done. May it not be that you are found upright and we are reprobate. But since the will to act on those things about which you have shouted is one and the same for us and for you - however, the manner of acting cannot be the same - we think, Beloved, that it is necessary for the will to be received from you, but the plan for fulfilling your will should be awaited from us. Let the members of Christ not be discordant, let all the parts in His body fulfill their duties. Let the eye placed in a high position do what pertains to the eye, the ear what pertains to the ear, the hand what pertains to the hand, the feet what pertains to the feet, so that there may be no divisions in the body, but that the members have the same care for one another. We rejoice and congratulate your Charity because you have obeyed your holy lord and our colleague, your bishop, in what he spoke to you in the morning. Follow this, do not depart from this path, lest you fall. For God greatly assists what you want, if you do what He commands. For what is man? As I began to say, what is any man? Or what is the life of humans, which, as it is written, appears like a vapor for a little while? Consider, therefore, Brothers, our fragility, our humility, the condition of flesh, the fleeting transitions of this age, and see that it will be well for us if all our hope is in Him in whom alone it can be firmly placed. But how will our hope be there unless we obey His commandments?

The Roman gods have deserted Rome, why have they remained here?

Do we say: "Do not do what you want"? On the contrary, we should even give thanks that you want what God wants. For in order that every superstition of the pagans and gentiles might be destroyed, God wills it, God has ordered it, God has foretold it, God has begun to fulfill it, and in many regions of the earth has even largely completed it. If your will had begun from this city, to seek the abolition of the superstitions of demons here first, perhaps it would have been a difficult task, but not one to despair of. But now, if these things were done effectively where they began to be done, where no examples had preceded, how much more effectively do we believe that this too can be accomplished in the name of the Lord, with the help of His right hand, when preceding examples are already being proclaimed? Surely you have shouted this: "As Rome, so also Carthage." If it has happened in the head of the nations, will the members not follow? Consider, Brothers, pay attention to the books of the gentiles themselves, hear from them, in whom remnants of that misfortune have remained, and either by hearing or reading, learn their letters, and see that those very gods are called Roman gods. Therefore, these gods are called Roman. And when Christians were compelled, by the raging force of the pagans, to worship them, and those refusing endured their cruelty even to the point of shedding blood. The entire fault of the martyrs, whose blood was shed, appeared to be this alone: that they did not want to worship the Roman gods, that they rejected Roman ceremonies, that they did not supplicate to the Roman gods. And the whole force, the entire envy, did not weep, except over the name of the Roman gods. If therefore the Roman gods have failed in Rome, why have they remained here? Therefore, Brothers, attend to this, I have said this, prevent this. Roman gods, Roman gods if therefore, I say, the Roman gods have failed in Rome, why have they remained here? If they could walk, they would say that they fled here from there. But they did not flee. Did they remain there, in Rome? He who was once called the god Hercules is no longer in Rome. But here, he even wished to have his beard adorned with gold. When it is no longer there for you, he wished to have his beard adorned with gold here. I was clearly wrong because I said, he wished. For what does a senseless stone wish? Indeed, it wished nothing, it could do nothing. But those who wanted it gilded were ashamed of the shaved. Some unknown suggestion crept in with a new judge. What did it achieve? It certainly did not achieve that a Christian would honor the stone, but that a Christian would be angered by the superstition to shave it. It did not incline to obedience, but moved to vindication. Brothers, I think it was more shameful for Hercules to have his beard shaved than to have his head cut off. Therefore, what was placed with their error was removed with their disgrace. Hercules is often called the god of strength. His entire virtue is in his beard. He shone to his own harm. What did not shine with the light of the Lord, shone not from light, but from mourning.

God is angry and merciful.

Let them be silent, therefore, and now let them see to which God the faithful pray and say: O God, who is like you? Be not silent, nor be still, O God. This I had taken how, be not still, not by overturning men but errors. He is not still, therefore He is angry. But He is God, therefore He also has mercy. He is angry and has mercy. He is angry to strike down, has mercy to heal. He is angry to kill, has mercy to make live. He does this in one man. Not as if he kills some and gives life to others, but in the same persons He both is angry and is gentle. He is angry at sins, gentle at corrected manners. I will strike and I will heal; I will kill and I will make live. One Saul, later Paul, both he struck down and raised up. He struck down the unbeliever, raised up the believer. He struck down the persecutor, raised up the preacher. If He is not angry, how then was the beard of Hercules cut? For He did this through His faithful ones, through His Christians, through the powers ordained by Him and now subjected to the yoke of Christ. Therefore, brothers, receive these words with a willing mind, and in the help of the Lord already hope for future prosperity. Amen.