Sermon 283 augm
SERMON 283 enlarged.
Sermon of Saint Augustine
on the birthday of the holy Maxulitan martyrs
The courage of the holy martyrs in suffering is a gift of the grace of God.
Let us so admire the courage of the holy martyrs in their suffering, that we may proclaim the grace of God. For they do not wish to be praised for themselves, but in Him to whom it is said: "My soul shall boast in the Lord." Those who understand this are not proud. They ask with trembling, they receive with joy; they persevere, they do not lose. For because they are not proud, they are meek. And therefore, when he said: "My soul shall boast in the Lord," he added: "Let the meek hear and be glad." What is weak flesh, what is it but worms and decay? Or whatever there was, except that which we have sung is true: "My soul will be subject to God, for from Him is my patience." For indeed, so that the martyrs might endure everything for the faith, their strength is named patience. There are two things which either allure or drive men into sins: pleasure and pain. Pleasure allures, pain drives. Against pleasures, continence is necessary; against pain, patience. For it is thus suggested to the human mind to sin. Sometimes it is said: "Do this, and you will have that"; sometimes however: "Do this so that you do not suffer that." A promise precedes pleasure, a threat pain. Therefore, so that men may have pleasures, or not suffer pain, they sin. And therefore God, against these two things, one of which is in the enticing promise, the other in the terrible threat, has deigned both to promise and to threaten: to promise the kingdom of heaven, to threaten the punishments of hell. Sweet is pleasure, but sweeter is God. Bad is temporal pain, but worse is eternal fire. You have that which you may love in exchange for the loves of the world, rather for the unclean loves; you have that which you may fear instead of the terrors of the world.
"Because sin is prohibited, it is known."
But it is little to be warned, unless you obtain help, which belongs to the warning. Against all pleasures the law cries out to you: You shall not covet. You have heard: it is a divine oracle, God has spoken. That he has commanded well and truly warned, none of the faithful have doubted. But see what the apostle says: The law came, and sin revived. For before it was said to you: You shall not covet, you thought you could sin lawfully, nor was it considered sin when it was not forbidden. Because sin is forbidden, it is known. Therefore, if you were seeking the help of the law, it should be avoided. You have heard. What more do you desire from the law? You shall not covet. The letter of the law clings to your mind, you have with whom to struggle, but you will be conquered if you do not have help. Whence help? From grace. For love is poured into our hearts, not by ourselves, but by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Take away that grace, remove this help: the letter kills. The world first had you as a sinner; with the letter coming without help, it will also have you as a transgressor. Therefore, the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, because the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The law frightens to compel us to ask for help. The law, as the apostle himself says, is like a pedagogue. The pedagogue does not instruct, but leads to the teacher. Instructed and fortified by the teacher, he will no longer be under the pedagogue. For the letter will no longer frighten you, whom grace helps.
You shall not covet, is a general commandment.
We have said this because of what is written: You shall not covet. For it seems that this commandment is set forth against those sins that occur through the allure of pleasure, and the apostle has posed this command almost as if it were the sole voice of the law: You shall not covet. Does this commandment avail against the fears of pain? Perhaps it does. For what? He does not wish to be in pain: he covets health. He who fears to die, covets life. Against such perverse coveting of bodily health, where it is not needed, nor of bodily death, which will come whether you will or not, extend the commandment: You shall not covet, and say with the prophet: And I have not coveted the day of man: you know. This was the voice of the martyrs: they did not covet the day of man, so that they might not fail to reach the day of God. They did not covet a day with a short end, so that they might reach a day without end. What did they despise and what did they gain? For indeed temporal losses are in no way comparable to the gains with them. One hour of labor, and eternity is acquired.
On the reward of the soldier of Christ.
Consider, brothers, the day of the martyr; it is good that we engage in the exhortation of his patience. Consider the labors of soldiers, those who carry weapons, what dangers they undergo, how hard and arduous they endure, in cold, in heat, hunger, thirst, wounds, deaths. Daily they are involved in dangers, not setting before their eyes the soldier's labor, but the veteran's leisure. "Behold," they say, "the labor ends, after a few years leisure will follow, it will be well with us, expenses will not be lacking, immunity will be present, we will not be called to any civic duties, no one will impose his burden on us after military service." With this reward proposed, labor is undertaken uncertainly. For he who says while serving: "The labor ends," how does he know he will not be finished before the labor is completed? Perhaps even after the labor is finished, having already obtained leisure, he dies immediately. And he who was to labor somewhat longer for the proposed leisure, is not allowed to enjoy the leisure he reached by labor for a long time. In these uncertainties, labor is performed, and a certain labor is undertaken for uncertain leisure. Wake up, Christian hearts; serve God with whom labor cannot be in vain, with whom danger cannot be fruitless. For the soldier of the world loses his reward in battle by death, the soldier of Christ finds his reward in death. Finally, after the labor of a short time, not a rest of long time is obtained, but of no time. For there we rest, not where there will be long time, but where there will be no time at all. For our age will be eternity, where neither growing nor aging occurs, nor will the day pass because the day will not withdraw. If therefore you were told: "Labor twenty years to rest forty," who would not want double rest for single labor? Yet scarcely any veteran encounters it, even if he grows old, to enjoy leisure as long as he has labored. But what is said of us? And our emperor is going to give us an eternal reward, not a daily stipend, how does he exhort us through the apostle? For the temporal light affliction of ours, he says, works for us an exceedingly excellent eternal weight of glory.
Of the eternal glory prepared for the faithful.
What words, brothers! How he has minimized what we suffer, how he has commended what we hope for! "What is," he says, "the light and momentary affliction of our troubles, in an incredible way..." For an incredible way eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him. Therefore, he says to the faithful: "In an incredible way an eternal weight of glory works for us;" he calls the affliction light and momentary for the faithful. "In an incredible way:" what is incredible is commanded to be believed. Faithful soldier, believe the incredible, because with God nothing is impossible. But he said "weight" so that you may be made heavy, lest you be light. "In the people," he says, "I will praise you with a heavy weight." He said "weight" to confirm you with the gravity of love, not to be carried away by the wind of temptation. Consider the threshing floor and love gravity, fear lightness. There is chaff, there is wheat: both are beaten by the winnowing-fan, but not both are carried away by the wind. One remains because of its weight, the other flies away because of its lightness.
True patience is far removed from hardness of heart.
Therefore, this will happen in us when for faith and justice we endure all adversities; not indeed for any rest whatsoever. Blessed, he said - as we have heard -, are those who have suffered persecution for the sake of justice. With this addition, he distinguished us from adulterers, robbers, murderers, parricides, sacrilegious, sorcerers, heretics. For they also suffer persecution, but not for justice. If you want to avoid temptation, see the distinction. Choose the cause, lest you fear the punishment. Choose the cause, lest you suffer the punishment in vain. And when you have chosen the cause, also commend it to God and say to Him: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from an ungodly nation. Your cause is distinguished by Him, by whom your patience is. For He grants true patience. For enduring for an evil cause is hardness, not patience. Whatever hardens the body, losing feeling, is healed with more difficulty. For all praiseworthy virtues have neighboring vices by which the incautious are deceived; they also have contraries. It is easy for a man to notice, lest he rush into the contrary. But to avoid what is neighboring is difficult. For the vicinity of vices has a certain appearance and shadow of virtues. What I say, with certain examples proposed, I leave the rest to be understood through recollection.
How far harshness differs from patience is illustrated by examples.
Behold, we speak of patience itself: impatience is contrary to this virtue. Patience is the endurance of evils for the sake of justice, impatience is the intolerance of evils for any cause. This endurance is contrary to intolerance. Endurance in vice is hardness. For hardness imitates patience, but it is not patience. Therefore, see lest perhaps you be deceived by the proximity, lest perhaps you be hard and you seem patient to yourself. For just as he who is not driven to evil by evil is better than the rest, so he who is not recalled from evil by evil is worse than the rest. Evil is pain, evil is iniquity. A reward is promised that you might do iniquity, you do not consent: you have overcome the desire for rewards. You were being attacked from another side. Pains will be set forth, overcome also the bite of pains, you who have overcome the pleasure of rewards. He who promises you a reward to lead you to iniquity, lures you to evil as if by a good. He who threatens you with evil to compel you to iniquity, urges you to evil by evil, but by a small evil to a great evil. You will not, however, be great if you disdain the one promising; you will be greater if you disdain the one threatening, if you overcome the raging. Therefore I said: Just as he who is not compelled to evil by evil is better than the rest, so he who is not recalled from evils by evil is worse than the rest. You warned a man not to be an adulterer, he scorned your warnings, he is not recalled from evil by good. But if you begin to threaten pains, to inflict beatings, to impose certain discomforts, if he still does not restrain himself from evil, how much worse he is who could not be recalled from evil by evil. Behold to what calamity hardness, neighboring patience, is subjected. For hardness is in the hearts of the impious, that they may not be recalled from evil deeds, neither by the proposition nor by the infliction of punishments. Hence you boasted yourself, you are worse. "I endured," you will say, "I conquered, I did not succumb, I was not bent." I would praise this if I recognized patience. But now I detest hardness. Do not interrogate my voice, but my cause. Let the cause itself answer you. A thief: he endures punishments for his theft. He is tormented, and what he knows to be true in his conscience, he does not confess. What shall we say: "great patience"? Rather let us say: "detestable hardness." But if he does this for a crime, what do you for the faith? In him, it seems admirable not to confess, to you it is glorious to confess. For he suffers for a crime that must be denied, you for Christ who must be confessed. But sometimes hardness is so great that he both confesses the evil and suffers evils for the confession of his iniquity, lest he fall or depart from evils. He is ready to be tortured for Donatus, nor does he cover this by denying, but he confesses, nor is he ashamed: he boasts of his iniquity. Would that he concealed himself, while it is evident what appears. A wound which you do not wish to be healed, you dare also to expose. This is not health with sense, but hardness without sense.
"Let us love patience, let us hold onto patience."
Let us love patience, let us hold onto patience, and if we do not yet have it, let us ask for it. For patience is from Him, just as self-control is. From Him is our self-control against pleasures, and from Him is patience against pains. But the present psalm that we have sung has taught us that our patience, indeed against pains, is from Him. Hence, where do we find that our self-control, which is necessary against pleasures, is also from Him? We have the most evident testimony: "And when I knew," he said, "that no one can be self-controlled unless God grants it; and this itself was wisdom, to know whose gift it was." Therefore, if you have something from God and do not know from whom you have it, you will not be rewarded because you remain ungrateful. If you do not know from whom you have it, you do not give thanks; by not giving thanks, you will lose what you have. For whoever has, to him more will be given. What does it mean to have fully? To know from where you have. But whoever does not have, that is, does not know from where he has, even what he has will be taken from him. Finally, as he said: "This itself was wisdom, to know whose gift it was," so also the apostle Paul, when he commended to us the grace of God in the Holy Spirit, said: "We have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God." And as if it were asked of him, "From where do you discern this?" he followed by saying: "That we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God." Therefore, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of charity; the spirit of this world is the spirit of pride. Those who have the spirit of this world are proud, they are ungrateful to God. They have many of His gifts, but they do not honor Him from whom they have them: therefore they are unhappy. Sometimes one person has greater gifts, another has lesser: for example, understanding, memory. These are gifts of God. You will sometimes find a person with the sharpest wit, with memory to an incredible extent; but you will find another with little intellect, with a memory that is not retentive, but endowed with both little; however, that one proud, this one humble; this one giving thanks to God for small things, that one attributing greater things to himself. Incomparably better is the one who gives thanks to God for small things than the one who exalts himself for great things. For the one who gives thanks for small things sometimes is admitted to great things: but the one who does not give thanks for great things, even what he has will lose. For whoever
-Our patience is from God.
(To him who has, it shall be given; but to him who does not have, even what he has shall be taken away. How does he not have, if he has? He who does not have possesses, who does not know from where he has. For his own thing is taken from him by God, and his iniquity remains with him. Therefore, no one is self-restraining unless God gives it. You have a gift against pleasures: For this very thing, he says, was of wisdom, to know whose gift it was: no one is self-restraining unless God gives it. You have a gift against pains: For from him, he says, is my patience. Therefore, hope in him, all the counsel of the people. Hope in him, do not trust in your own strengths. Confess your evils to him, hope for your goods from him. Without his help, you will be nothing, however proud you may be. Therefore, that you may be humble, pour out your hearts before him. And lest you remain poorly in yourselves, say what follows: God is our helper.)
With God helping, the martyrs conquered.
(9. This helper, so that he might be victorious, the blessed martyr had, whom we marvel at, whose feast we celebrate today. Without him, he would not be victorious. And if he conquered the pains, he would not conquer the devil. For sometimes those conquered by the devil conquer pains: not having patience, but hardness. Therefore, that helper was present, to give him true faith, to make him a good cause, and for a good cause to grant patience. For patience exists only when a good cause precedes. Not even faith itself is given by anyone other than God. The apostle briefly commended both, the cause for which we suffer and the patience with which we bear evils, to be from God. For when exhorting the martyrs he says: Because it was granted to you for Christ. Behold a good cause, because for Christ! For sacrilege, against Christ; for heresy and schism, against Christ! For Christ said: He who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore: It was granted to you, he says, for Christ, not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him. This is true patience. Therefore, let us love this patience, let us hold on to this; and if we do not yet have it, let us ask for it. And rightly we sing: My soul will be subjected to God, for from him is my patience.