Sermon 26

SERMO 26

SERMON GIVEN IN THE THEODOSIAN BASILICA
ON THE VERSE OF PSALM 94
AND OF THE WORDS OF THE APOSTLE:
"For if there had been a law given which could give life"
"In every way by the law there would be justice."
AND ABOUT FREE WILL

He made us, and not we ourselves.

The psalm we have sung to God, and we have mutually exhorted each other to worship Him and to prostrate ourselves before Him and weep before the Lord who made us, admonishes us to seek a little more diligently what it means when it says: "Who made us." For no one doubts that man was created by God except one who is ungrateful. For we know, because we have read and we have believed, that God made man among many things that He made, in His own image. This is the first condition of man; this is the first human creation. However, I do not think that the Holy Spirit wanted to remind us of this greatly in this psalm when it says: "Let us weep before the Lord, who made us." For in another place, it says: "He made us, and not we ourselves." Hence indeed, as I said, no Christian doubts. Because not only did God create the first man from whom all men came, but God today also creates individual men, the One who said to a certain saint of His: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." Therefore, God first created man without man, now He creates man from man. However, whether He created man without man or man from man, He made us, and not we ourselves. To this first and easy meaning of these words, which is still true, let us then worship Him, Brothers, and prostrate ourselves before Him, and weep before the Lord who made us. For He did not make and then abandon. He did not take care to create and then not care to preserve. Let us weep before the Lord, who made us, because we did not weep when He made us, and yet He made us. Therefore, if He made us before we asked, will He abandon us when we ask? As if man would doubt whether he would be heard when praying, Scripture admonished him when it says: "Let us weep before the Lord, who made us." Surely He hears those whom He made; surely He cannot neglect those whom He made.

On the false doctrine of the Pelagians.

Nevertheless, with a deeper understanding, and as I think, a more useful perspective, the Holy Spirit saw some saying or about to say that God made them humans, but they made themselves just; foreseeing them, He admonished them and called them back from this arrogance, saying: "He made us, and not we ourselves." For why did He add: "And not we ourselves," when it would have been sufficient to say: "He made us"? Unless He wished to admonish about the work where men say: "We made ourselves," that is, "to be just, we made ourselves just by free will." When we were created, we received free will. Therefore, to be just, we act out of this free will. Why do we still call upon God to make us just, when we have it in our power to make ourselves just? Listen, listen: "And He made us just, and not we ourselves." The first man was created in a state without guilt, in a nature without flaw. He was created upright; he did not make himself upright. However, what he made himself is known: falling from the hand of the potter, he was shattered. For He who made him was governing him. He wanted to forsake Him by whom he was made. God permitted it, as if saying, "Let him forsake Me and find himself, and let his misery prove that he can do nothing without Me."

Man, once good, became evil through free will.

In this way, therefore, God wished to show man what free will can do without God. O evil free will without God! We have experienced what it can do without God. Therefore, we have become miserable, because we have experienced what it is worth without God. Having therefore at last experienced, let us know, and come let us adore Him, and prostrate ourselves before Him. Come let us adore, and prostrate ourselves before Him, and weep before the Lord who made us. That He may restore us, ruined through ourselves, who made us. Behold, man was made good, and through free will, man was made evil. When will an evil man, abandoning God through free will, make himself good? A good man could not keep himself good, and will an evil man make himself good? When he was good, he did not keep himself good, and now that he is evil he says: "I make myself good"! What do you do, evil one, who perished as good, unless He who remains good restores you?

Man made in the image of the Creator.

He himself made us, and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Behold, he made us, men, his people who made us. For having been created as men, we were not already his people. See, my brothers, and from the very words of the psalm, consider why he said, "He himself made us, and not we ourselves." Hence he said, "He made us, and not we ourselves, that we should be his people and the sheep of his pasture." He himself made us. For both pagans are born and all the impious, all the adversaries of his Church. He made them that they might be born. For no other god created them. Those who are born of pagans were made by him, were created by him. And they are not his people nor the sheep of his pasture. Nature is common to all, not grace. Nature is not to be considered grace, but if it is, because it too is granted freely. For no man who did not exist earned that he should be. If he earned it, he already was; but he was not yet. Therefore, he who would deserve it did not exist, and yet he was made. Nor was he made as cattle, nor as a tree, nor as a stone. But he was made in the image of the Creator. Who gave this benefit? God who was and was from eternity. To whom did he give it? To a man who did not yet exist. He who was, gave it, he who was not, received it. But who else could do this but he who calls those things which are not as though they were? About whom the Apostle says: Who chose us before the foundation of the world. He chose before the foundation of the world: we were made in this world, and the world was not when we were chosen. Unspeakable wonders, my brothers. Who could be sufficient to explain this? Who could at least think what to explain? Those who do not exist are chosen. Nor does he who chooses err, nor does he choose in vain. Yet he chooses, and he has elect ones, those he will create to be chosen. He has them with himself, not in his nature, but in his foreknowledge.

God made us His people.

Therefore, do not be proud. We are humans. He made us. We are faithful—if indeed we are when we dispute these things against grace—but behold, we are faithful. Even faithful, even just, because the just shall live by faith, He made us, and not we ourselves. I ask what He made us? You will say: "Humans." The psalm did not speak of that. We know that, it is known, it is obvious. Nor do we need great learning to know this, because He made us humans. But see what it was speaking of: He made us, and not we ourselves. What did He make us, except what we are? But what are we? We, behold what we are. What? His people, and the sheep of His pasture. He made us His people, He made us the sheep of His pasture. He who sent the innocent lamb to be slain made sheep out of wolves. This is grace. Apart from that common grace of nature by which we were made humans who did not exist nor were worthy because we did not exist; apart from that grace, this is the greater grace by which we were made His people and the sheep of His pasture, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

But someone will say: "Through Jesus Christ, were we made so that we should also be human?" Indeed, through Jesus Christ even pagans were made. Not pagans, not so that they should be pagans, but so that they should be humans, through Jesus Christ they were made. For who is Jesus Christ, if not in the beginning the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word? This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. Therefore, pagans also owe it to him that they were created as humans, and they are all the more to be punished, because they abandoned the one by whom they were made and worshipped what they themselves made.

One Mediator of God and men.

Therefore, except for that grace by which human nature was created—for this is common to both Christians and pagans—this is the greater grace: not that we were created by the Word as humans, but that we were made faithful by the Word made flesh. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, in the beginning was the Word. Christ Jesus, the man, was not yet, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The world itself did not exist when God was the Word. All things were made through Him, and the world was made through Him. Therefore, then, when He made us to be humans, He was not yet a man. The Apostle more especially commends this grace to Christians where he says: For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men. He does not say: “Christ Jesus,” lest you might think it was said concerning the Word, but he added: man—The mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. What is a mediator? Through whom we might be joined together, through whom we might be reconciled, because we lay separated by our own sins, we were in death, we were utterly lost. Christ was not man when man was created. So that man might not perish, He became man.

The Pelagians deceitfully argue against the grace of God.

These things I say to you against the new heresy, which attempts to arise, that we may often be compelled to dispute, because we want you to be firm in good, and untouched by evil. For this is their argument, when they first began to arise and dispute against grace, attributing much not to the liberty of man, but to infirmity, and extolling the miserable, fallen man for the reason that he might not be able to rise with the hand extended from above. Therefore, disputing against grace for free will, they made an offense to pious and Catholic ears. They began to be abhorred, began to be avoided as certain perdition. It began to be said of them that they were disputing against grace. And they found such an invention to relieve this envy: "No," he says, "I do not dispute against grace." How do you prove it? "For this very reason," he says, "I do not dispute against the grace of God, because I defend free will." See the subtlety, but glass-like. It almost shines with vanity but is broken by truth. Notice how subtly it is concocted what they wanted to say. "For this very reason," he says, "because I defend the free will of man, and say that free will is sufficient for me to be just, I do not speak without the grace of God." The ears of the pious are alert. Now whoever hears this begins to rejoice: "Thanks be to God! He defends free will not without the grace of God. For there is free will, but it is worthless without the grace of God. If therefore they defend free will not without the grace of God, what harm do they say?" So, explain to us, o teacher, what grace you speak of. "When I say," he says, "the free will of man, see that I say it of man." What then? "Who created man? God. Who gave him free will? God. If therefore God created man, and God gave free will to man, whatever man can do by free will, to whose grace is it owed, if not to Him who created him with free will?" And this is said as if subtly by them.

Weak nature is not healed by the law.

However, see, my brothers, how they preach that general grace by which man was created, by which we are men. And indeed, we are men even together with the impious, but we are not Christians together with the impious. Therefore, this grace by which we are Christians, this we want them to preach, this we want them to recognize, this we want, concerning which the Apostle says: I do not nullify the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain. See whence the Apostle said this. He said of the law: If righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain. Since, therefore, righteousness was not through the law, hence Christ died, so that he who is not justified by the law may be justified by faith. For if, he says, there had been a law given which could give life, righteousness would indeed have been by the law, which we also mentioned yesterday, but Scripture concluded all under sin, that the promise—a promise, not a prediction; he who promised is the very same one who fulfills it—that the promise, I say, might be given by the faith of Jesus Christ to those who believe. Behold to what condition the grace of the Savior finds us, whom even the law could not heal. But why was the law given, if nature sufficed? Why was the law given if nature sufficed? And yet neither could the law suffice, so weak was nature itself. The law was given, but not one that could give life. Why then was it given? The Apostle says, the law was given because of transgression. It was given because of transgression, to make you a transgressor. "Why, to make me a transgressor?". Because God knew your pride. He knew that you were saying, "Oh if only there were one to teach me, oh if only there were one to show me!". See, the law says to you: You shall not covet. You learned the law saying: You shall not covet. Desire arose which you did not know. It was there, but it was not known. You began to try to conquer what was there, and what was hidden appeared. Proud one, through the law you became a transgressor. Acknowledge grace and be a praiser.

The law, by itself good and holy, was given by God.

"But you ask, who gave the law?". There are vain and impious men who say the law was given by another but grace through our Lord Jesus Christ; as if the law were bad and perverse but grace were right. And they wish to distinguish the two Testaments in such a way that they say the Old Testament is from some prince of darkness, but the New Testament from the Lord God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to Paul himself. If you think that for this reason the law was given by another, not by God, because through it you became a transgressor, listen to the same Apostle, a praiser of the law. "So," he says, "the law is holy, and the commandment holy." Add: "and just." Add further: "and good." "What then is good," he says, "has become death to me? Far from it! But sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin." For it was sin, but sin was hiding. When was sin hiding? When it did not yet make you suffer as an adversary. You began to strive, and the one who held you appeared. When you followed, you did not feel the chain. You sought refuge and the bond appeared. You wished to flee, and you began to be dragged. Therefore, since you began to be dragged, let him who is not bound help you. Who is not bound, but the one who said: "If you find sin in me, say so"? Who is not bound, but the one who said: "Behold, the prince of this world comes, and in me he will find nothing"? Why should he kill me, he will find nothing, because death is justly due to sin. Why then do you die? "So that all may know," he says, "that I do the will of my Father." He himself loosens, who is not bound. He himself frees from the dead, who is free among the dead.

Elisha, a type of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But he himself sent the law. Through his servant, the law; through himself, grace. Consider Elisha in a great and high mystery, acting as a prophet, not only speaking as one. The son of his hostess was dead. What did the dead boy signify, if not Adam? It was reported to the holy Prophet, bearing in prophecy the type of Lord Jesus Christ. He sent his servant with his staff and said to him: Go, go, place it on the dead boy. He went, like an obedient servant. The Prophet knew what he had done. He placed the staff on the dead boy, and he did not rise. For if there had been a law given that could give life, righteousness would indeed have been by the law. Therefore the law could not give life. The great one came to the small, the savior to the saved, the living to the dead. He himself came. And what did he do? He contracted his youthful limbs, as if emptying himself to take the form of a servant. Thus, he contracted his youthful limbs, he fitted himself to the small one, so that he might make the body of our humility conform to the body of his glory. Therefore, in this type of Christ prophetically expressed, the dead was raised, as the impious was justified.

We have been created and re-created by the grace of God.

Let this grace be proclaimed. This is the grace of Christians through the Mediator, through the one who suffered and rose again, who ascended into heaven and led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. This, I say, let grace be proclaimed. Against this grace let not the ungrateful dispute. A prophetic staff was not sufficient for the dead. Could a dead nature be sufficient? And let us acknowledge that by which we have been created, although we have not read it called by this name in any way, yet because it was given freely, let us acknowledge it as grace. But let us show you that the grace by which we are Christians is greater. Pay attention. Before we were created, we deserved no good, and therefore grace, by which we were created, when we deserved nothing good. If therefore grace is great when we deserved no good, how much greater is grace when we deserved so much evil? He who was not yet did not deserve any good; a sinner deserved evil. He who was not yet, was not yet, but he had not offended. He who was not yet was made; he offended and was saved. He who was not yet hoped for nothing, was made. But having fallen, he expected damnation and was liberated. This is grace through Jesus Christ our Lord. He made us, and before we were at all He made us, and having been made and fallen, He made us righteous, and not we ourselves. Therefore, if any new creature is in Christ, the old has passed away, the new has come.

On the power which the potter has over the clay.

There was one mass of perdition from Adam to which only punishment was owed. Vessels were made from that same mass in honor. For the potter has power, from the same mass. Which mass? Certainly it had already perished, certainly that mass was already owed just condemnation. Rejoice because you have escaped. Indeed, you have escaped the death owed, and found the life not owed. The potter has power from the same mass to make one vessel for honor, another for dishonor. But you say: "Why did he make me for honor, and another for dishonor?" What shall I answer? You are going to hear Augustine, since you do not listen to the Apostle who says: O man, who are you to answer God? Two little ones were born. If you seek what is owed, the mass of perdition holds both. But why does the mother carry one to grace, and suffocate the other while sleeping? Will you tell me what merit he had who was carried to grace, what merit he had whom the mother suffocates while sleeping? Neither deserved any good. But the potter has power from the same mass to make one vessel for honor, another for dishonor. Do you wish to argue with me? Rather, marvel with me, and exclaim with me: O depth of riches! Both let us tremble, both let us cry out: O depth of riches! Let us both agree in fear, lest we perish in error. O depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Search the unsearchable, do the impossible, corrupt the incorruptible, see the invisible.

We have received everything from God.

His judgments are unsearchable. You have heard, let it suffice for you. And his ways are inscrutable. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given him anything first, and it will be repaid to him? Who has given first, when everything was received freely? Who gave him first, and it will be repaid to him? If the Lord wished to repay, he would repay nothing but due punishment. They gave nothing, so that it would be repaid to them. For nothing you will save them. Who gave him first, as if by the merit of their deeds? Who gave him first, who preceded the grace that is given freely? If any merit precedes grace, it is no longer given freely, but is rendered as a debt. But if it is not given freely, why is it called grace? Who then gave him first, and it will be repaid to him? For from him, and through him, and in him are all things. Certainly, unless all the good things we have received from him, and we have received them to be good? For every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change. For you have changed for the worse. With whom there is no change, he has come to help. With whom there is not even a shadow of turning, for you lie in the darkness of your night. Therefore, all things are from him. No one gave him anything first, no one demands a debt. By grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.

Recognize the benefits of the Shepherd and do not follow the wolves of error.

"But it moves me, you say, that he perishes, he is baptized. It moves me, it moves me like a man." If you wish to hear the truth, it moves me too because I am a man. But if you are a man, and I am a man, let us both listen to the one who says: O man! Certainly, if we are moved because we are men, the Apostle speaks to the very weak and infirm human nature saying: O man, who are you to answer back to God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it: Why did you make me thus? If an animal could speak and said to God: "Why did you make this man, and me an animal?"; wouldn't you rightly be angry and say: "O animal, who are you to answer back to God?" And you are a man, but to God you are like an animal. And would that you be his animal and the sheep of his pasture. Recognize the benefits of the shepherd, and do not follow the wolves of error. We were wolves. We too were by nature children of wrath like the others. But the sheep died, and made us sheep. Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin, not of this one or that one, but of the world. Therefore, nothing of what we are, Brothers, because we are something, if indeed we are something, in his faith, let us ascribe nothing to ourselves, so that we do not lose what we have received. But in what we have received, let us give him glory, let us honor him, let him shower down his own seeds. What would our land have, unless he had sown it? But he also gives rain. He does not abandon what he has sown. The Lord will give sweetness, and our land will give its fruit. Turned to the Lord, etc.