Sermon 360B
SERMON 360/B
Sermon of Saint Augustine
when the pagans were entering
The word of God promises and threatens.
The word of God does not cease to exhort us and console us with faithful promises and salutary threats. For it is not beneficial for us neither not to love nor not to fear. Just as God, the promiser, is to be loved, so also the intimidator is to be feared. In neither does He deceive the listener, in neither does He trick the believer. Let no one say in his heart: "He promises true things, but threatens false things." Both are true. Love and fear. Without any doubt, the one who has already come will come. He came to teach you patience, he will come to crown patience. He will surely crown what he taught when he came. And what he threatened when he came, he will inflict when he comes. These, however, are two: the promise of God, eternal life; the threat of God, eternal punishment. If you do not yet know how to love what He promises, begin to fear what He threatens. For it is also written: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But the apostle John says: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Therefore, when we heard: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, let us begin to fear. But because fear has torment in the heart, you will not be long in torment if charity has increased and been perfected in you. Yet it cannot even begin in you unless you have offered your heart with fear to plant it. And as charity grows, fear diminishes. And if it diminishes as charity grows, it is consumed when charity is perfected.
What God promises surpasses human thoughts.
For what God promises, beloved, exceeds not only our words but also the thoughts of all men. For it is thus also commended: What 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. If there were some color like the light known to bodily eyes, it would not be said: Eye has not seen; if there were some sweet sound with which human ears are accustomed to be delighted, like organs and some kinds of musical instruments, it would not be said: Ear has not heard. And because men cannot conceive of good things with their minds except those they have perceived with their bodily senses, it is added: Nor has entered into the heart of man. For you, man, cannot think of good, except such as you have been accustomed to see or hear or touch with some such sense. Whatever has not entered through the sense of your body cannot be conceived by your mind.
To behold the inaccessible light, an eye of the soul is needed.
Therefore, when it is said to us that we will be in paradise, we imagine a pleasant garden. And if we conceive of it as larger than what we are used to seeing, we nonetheless amplify that same kind of things. If, for example, we are accustomed to seeing small trees, we imagine them large; and if we are used to certain fruits or other produce, we think of larger ones. If we are used to seeing meadows of a certain expanse, we imagine them as endlessly immense: yet we still amplify what we know by sight. Again, when we hear: God dwells in unapproachable light, we measure that light by the light we know with our physical eyes and amplify it immensely, yet in doing so we augment what we know, even though that light is of a completely different kind; for that light is not of the eyes but of the mind. And just as the eye of the flesh must be cleansed to bear the physical light which either shines from the sky above or glitters from nocturnal lights, and if the eyes are sore or afflicted by some internal or external influence, they will find painful the same light by which they are accustomed to be nurtured, and will be tortured by what they were accustomed to enjoy, so too the eye of the heart must be cleansed to see that intelligible and immortal light, not the eye of the flesh. For just as the eye of the flesh is disturbed by a discharge which causes inflammation, so the eye of the heart is disturbed by iniquity. It too has its weakness and impurity, not coming from dust, but from sin. Therefore, just as the eye of the body must be cleansed to see its physical light, so must the interior eye be cleansed to see that light which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man.
A man perceiving carnally cannot grasp the light of God.
Why does it not ascend into the heart of man? For it is perceived by the heart, when it is perceived. But why does it not ascend into the heart of man? Because it pertains to man. What does this mean, because it pertains to man? Those who know the Scriptures understand and anticipate what I am going to say. Our Scripture sometimes calls those who still think carnally "men" with a certain specific meaning. For they are men, that is, they are Adam. But you know that Adam sinned, and hence anyone who is born mortally draws the origin of carnal desire from there. Thus, he bears with him a wound of the eye, and as long as he is a man, as long as there is that which is wounded and disturbed by the first sin. Wherefore someone cries out in the Psalms and says, sighing and groaning to God, "The light of my eyes is not with me." As long as a man is thus feeling carnally, he cannot conceive nor comprehend with the mind that light, and therefore it is said, "What the eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man." What is it of man? Of one feeling carnally. What is it of man? Still bearing Adam. Wherefore, what would He have those do who were men, for whom it was a reproach that they were men? For He says to them: "For when one of you says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, and another, I am of Cephas." For they had divided among themselves the ministers of God and made factions for themselves in the Church of Christ, with the beginning of the evil of schisms, which were later confirmed by the error of men. These things were said by those feeling carnally and not placing their hope in God, but in man, not singing with their heart what we sang a little before: "In You our fathers have hoped."
As the present life flees, let us strive to grasp the future.
Therefore, the Apostle, reproaching those who speak thus, says: "Are you not men, and walk according to human ways?" Again, in the psalm, it is said in the person of God speaking: "I said: You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men and fall like one of the princes." As you know, it speaks of the devil as one of the ancient princes. For although he was an angel, he fell due to pride and became the devil. Thus, he who fell then envied the one standing, and now he envies the one returning. Men have become mortal for this reason: that they might be taught humility through the greater affliction of punishment, and being as it were scourged by their mortality and thinking that they cannot live here long, and even if they could live longer, they would still not live forever, and this life would eventually come to an end, they might humble themselves to God and strive to grasp the future as the present flees. For that which flees or slips away cannot be held. Or can any of us now, whether we stand and speak or you stand and listen, hold onto our ages, so that children do not grow or the young do not age? You see that since the time we have been speaking, time has passed. And since the time we have been speaking, with the length of time, we tend towards old age; already during the time we have spoken, we have aged somewhat. These changes of ours can be understood by reason, but they cannot be seen with the eyes. For neither can your hair be seen as it grows, yet if it did not grow continuously, you would not seek a barber after a few days: for what the barber will cut tomorrow does not grow under a single night. Just as hair grows even now but cannot be seen, so too does our age grow old even now, but it cannot be grasped by the eyes.
Short life, certain death: therefore, let us humble ourselves before God.
Therefore, people love the present life, which they cannot hold as it flees, and it slips away as these thrive and those diminish. How much better it is to hold something firm, where these finite things will come to an end. Moreover, since human life is short, it is also uncertain. For if old age were certain for every person, one had to think that life is short, even if it were allowed for all to reach its limits. For what is long that ends? Therefore, it follows that mortality is accompanied by death, and, as it were, walks with you on the path, when it will overtake you, you certainly do not know. Therefore, when life itself is short, and death uncertain for every age, people ought to humble themselves before God, supplicate the Creator, confess, groan in their sins, disclose their illness to the doctor, so that they might be healed from within and change that eye, by which that light can be seen, which is not seen for as long as the inner eye of man belongs to man. Therefore, let them awaken when they hear from God: "I said: You are gods and all of you are sons of the Most High." What is "I said"? I call you to this, I want to make this happen. Hear the Gospel: "He gave them the power to become children of God." Therefore, when I say: You are gods and all of you are sons of the Most High, but you will die like men, and not even mortality itself helps you to correct yourselves, but as if you were immortal, you fall like one of the princes, that is, you are as proud as the angel who dared to be proud. But if pride cast down the angel, what will it do to man? Therefore, you will be gods. And if you do not worship false gods, you will be gods. And how will you be gods? By Him making it who made both men. For He who made us men, wishes to make gods, not to be worshipped instead of Him, but in whom He Himself is worshipped.
When the heart is cleansed by faith, we are deemed worthy to see God.
Therefore, as I began to say, beloved, there is an inner eye which sins, carnal desires and earthly longings wound and disturb, such that the very man sinning has heard: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return." If therefore the proud and unjust deserve to hear, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return," why should not the humble and pious hear: "You are heaven, and to heaven you shall go"? For it is by humility and piety that one becomes the seat of God. Now, once one has become the seat of God, is it not heaven? It is said in the Scriptures: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." Therefore, if heaven is the seat of God, be heaven so that you may bear God. When you begin to bear God, you will be heaven. In order to fully bear Him, He Himself will cleanse you when He begins to dwell in you, until He leads that eye of the heart to such purity that it can see His face, in whom having not seen, you believed. Therefore, believe before you see, so that with your heart cleansed by faith you may also merit to see what you believed. For light is promised to you, which no eye has seen, because it is not a color, nor has ear heard, because it is not a sound, nor has it entered into the heart of man, because man who is properly called man, carnal, weak, and animalistic, cannot conceive anything except what he has received through the senses of the body. That light is not such. Let the soul not dare to form any image of God, as if in a fantasy: he who wishes to find Him must first learn not to find Him.
The work of God cannot be God.
What is it that I said: first learn not to find? So that when by chance you think of God and what you see begins to occur to you, the beauty of the earth occurs, you reject it from your mind; the appearance of waters occurs, the tranquility of the serene air occurs, you reject also this thought; say to yourself: "This is not my God, it is the work of my God." This, I say, is not my God, it is the work of my God: you are considering what was made. O my soul, seek Him who made it. But when your thought comes even to the heavenly bodies, let not the heavenly light allure you, not even the highest one. For the highest heavenly light is in the sun. The chief brightness of the heavenly bodies is found in the sun, which suffices for the day. Nor should you think of your God as anything like this, nor should you amplify this brightness into something greater and wander off into the spaces of your imagination; nor is God what in your mind is thus figured as what usually shines to the eyes of the body. This is not God.
In the mind of man is the image of God.
Come to the soul itself, for it too is not seen. The soul is not seen, and it is a great force of incorporeal nature. The soul is not a body; it is something invisible and something great: it cannot be seen, but marvel at its works which you do not see. What delights you in human affairs? Look around at the order of things, the beauty of cultivated fields, of cleared forests, of planted fruit trees, and those things we see and love in the fields—the order itself of the republic, the grandeur of buildings, the variety of arts, the abundance of languages, the depth of memory, the fertility of eloquence. All these are works of the soul. How many works of the soul do you see, yet do not see the soul itself! When such a nature begins to occur to you, is this your God whom you were seeking? It is not seen, it is already something incorporeal, something spiritual, something great, which enlivens even mortal limbs, which somehow restrains and holds together the flowing decays of the body. But this also can be done by the soul of a beast. Indeed, the soul of a beast is also something great, it too is something invisible. But transcend to the soul of man: consider where man was made in the image of God. Indeed, man was not made in the image of God in his body, but in his mind, in that aspect by which he governs all these things, in that aspect by which he surpasses the beasts. For how many beasts surpass us in the firmness of body and sharpness of carnal senses! In speed and strength, in many physical endowments, we are surpassed by beasts. How are we better than beasts, except that we understand, except that we have reason by which we can also tame a wild animal? By a wild animal, we cannot be tamed. Just as man is suitable to tame a beast, so no one is suitable to tame a man but God. When something of this kind occurs, so that you consider the human mind freed from corporeal bonds, do not dare to think such a thing is God. Indeed, it already seems to you in proximity, but by a long interval. In proximity, so that nothing earthly is closer to God, but still between your mind and God who created your mind, there is a great difference. Not some nature or place intervenes, but it is far away by dissimilarity, since this was made, and He made it, and no way can what is made be compared to the maker. However, some image of your God is in your mind.
"Consider what God is not, so that you may find what He is."
Transcend, if you can, even your own mind, if, however, through understanding you have reached your mind. Observe, brethren, what I am saying. For perhaps even when you think about your mind, you think of something corporeal due to the habit of carnal senses, so that your mind appears to you as either air or fire or this light which you see. You think something similar when you think about your mind. Do not think of something like that. As soon as that which you understand occurs to you, say to yourself, "What is it that I understand?" Indeed, unless there were some light there, you would not understand. For you perceive a certain light inwardly, just as you perceive a certain light outwardly. For the light of your body is your eye. But in the absence of light, what good is it that your eye is open? You indeed have intact light, but you are aided by another light in order to see. Thus, also when you understand,
"It is better to have ignorance that does not err, than knowledge which is so called and is not."
This is what I said a little earlier: Learn to not know God, so that you may deserve to find Him. For you learn to not know Him with a better ignorance than with false knowledge. For better is ignorance that does not err, than knowledge that is called and is not. For you will have said to me: "I know God." I ask what God is. You begin to want to explain, and first by that very thing you do not know what you think you can explain which you cannot conceive. Therefore, you will tell me your thoughts, those thoughts you will tell which have risen in your heart. But see, because you are a man, and what you will tell me has risen in the heart of a man. But He who promises Himself for the delight of His lovers does not at all promise what eye has seen nor what ear has heard nor what has ascended in the heart of man. But how do they love whom they do not see, except because they believe before they see? Therefore, what does He promise to His lovers? What eye has not seen nor ear heard. Perhaps it can be conceived? Do not deceive yourself: it has not ascended in the heart of man.
Since it is changeable, the mind of man is not God.
What then? How do you prepare yourself? Speak. "I want to see my God." Tell him: "I want to see," tell him who said: Ask and you shall receive, knock and it shall be opened to you. Knock at the door placed before you, knock vehemently. He who shuts does not expel: he wants to exercise the knocker. Therefore knock, knock, not with a bodily hand, but with the affection of the heart. Tell the Lord your God what you sing in the psalms: My heart said to you: I sought your face, your face I will seek. Also say what is said in another psalm: One thing I asked from the Lord, this I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may contemplate the delight of the Lord. Desire to contemplate and tell him: "I want to see you." But how will I see? If with fleshly eyes, then you are a bodily light. Now my heart already renounces to me, for you are not, my God, a bodily light. What then are you? I have transcended all these things; I have now reached my mind, but it itself is not my God. And yet the nature of the mind transcends all bodily things whether earthly or heavenly, but it is not yet my God. For my mind is mutable: but my God is immutable. I seek something immutable when I seek my God. But how do I recognize the mind as mutable? Now it remembers, now it forgets, now it is wise, now it is foolish, now it wills, now it does not will, now it gets angry, now it is tranquil. I seek something immutable when I seek my God. Thus my God has spoken to me in the Scriptures, so that I may somehow think what I believe, not yet have what I see. I seek something that always remains immutable.
The inner eye must be cleansed so that it can see God.
But how will I see? The Gospel will answer you: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Therefore, if the pure in heart are blessed because they shall see God, and we carry impure hearts burdened by sin, what shall we do? How shall we cleanse our inner eye, that we may see the face of our God? How shall we cleanse it? You also have this in Scripture: Purifying their hearts by faith. Let us then hold these two testimonies: one from the Gospel, the other from the Acts of the Apostles. What is from the Gospel? Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. You looked at yourself, you found some impurity of your heart; desiring to see God and hearing that He is not seen except by pure hearts, inflamed with the desire of seeing, you surely seek to purify your heart. How then will you cleanse it? Consider what is said in the Acts: Purifying their hearts by faith. Hold these two: one in promise, the other in action. What in promise? Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. What in action? Purifying their hearts by faith. Therefore, believe before you see, that you may rejoice when you see.
We are sick: let us allow ourselves to be treated by the doctor.
Do not let a vain thought ascend to your heart: "What is it that Christians say: Believe, believe?". A doctor says this, who knows what is happening in your eye. Now also resist the doctor's hands and say: "I do not believe unless you show me." The doctor will respond to you: "There is nothing to show you; I want to heal in you that by which you may be able to see what you now wish me to show." Imagine a man blinded by some darkness, and perhaps from the beginning of his life, so that he already does not know what those who see even see, the doctor to say: "There is something I am to show you; behold you know with a certain sense that you are blind, but others see: because you need a guide which they do not need, certainly there is a difference between them and you. Therefore, they see something that you do not see; if you were to see, you would greatly rejoice." He arouses in him a desire to see what he does not know, wanting to heal him to be able to see what he does not see. But if he is so absurd and averted from all reason of truth that he says to the doctor: "You will not heal me unless you show me what I will see," what do you think the doctor will respond? "It is necessary that you be healed to see, not to see to be healed. You are perverse, you are preposterous. First let that be done which you do not want, so that you may be able to reach what you want. If you had eyes with which I could show you what I say, there would be no need for you to be healed." Perhaps he will respond: "And what am I to do? Heal as you wish." And the doctor: "I will apply certain sharper ointments, which will cleanse away the darkness, from which acrimony you will feel some pain. But it is necessary that you bear the salutary pain patiently and not anxiously and impatiently drive away my hands. For I know what I am doing with your eyes, that they may be eyes which now are not even to be called eyes. I know what I am doing, and therefore I tell you beforehand that you will suffer some discomfort with the fruit of illumination." Perhaps frightened lest he be bitten by those medicines which the doctor is about to apply, he returns again to that worn out and excluded notion: "Am I to endure such great pains which you are about to apply to me? Unless I first see what you are to show, I will not bear it." On the contrary, he: "You cannot. This is what I seek; I ask you: heal. You will see, the darkness will be expelled, that light will shine upon you which you hear those seeing name and do not see. For you hear: light, color, brightness; you hear these names. These names are of certain things, the things themselves you do not see. Those who see are happier than you. Therefore bear some pain with the compensation of great joys." If he consents, he will be healed and will see. If he does not consent, wishing to see first before being healed so that there may be a means by which he may see, most absurd and an enemy of his health, he will abandon the doctor.
To see God, a clean heart is needed.
Pay attention now, the healing physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, has come to us. He found the blindness of our heart and promised the light which no eye has seen nor ear heard nor has entered into the heart of man. This the angels see, they rejoice in it. For just as healthy men see what the blind man does not see, so the angels see what man does not see. Why does man not see? Because he still wants to be a man. Therefore, let the man himself begin to be healed, so that from being a man he may become one among the sons of God, because He gave them the power to become sons of God. This means: He gave them the power to be healed, so that the darkness of the heart may be wiped away, because blessed are the pure in heart because they shall see God. And hear, for it is also in the Gospel, what is said elsewhere: purifying their hearts by faith. When the Lord said: He gave them the power to become sons of God, He immediately added: to those who believe in His name. Therefore, if He gave the power to those who believe to become sons of God — the sons of God will be able to see what has not entered into the heart of man — He purifies their hearts by faith so they can be pure in heart, because they shall see God.
Under the hands of the heavenly physician, one must persist.
Blessed are you, therefore, brothers, who believe; pray for the unbelievers, that they also may be deemed worthy to see. Blessed are you who believe: you do not see, but you believe; you are not yet healed, but are still being cured. Your salvation is in hope, not yet in reality. Persevere under the hands of the doctor, endure his prescriptions as though they were bitter medicines, abstain from the pernicious pleasures of the world: do not let illicit desires of the gentiles lead you, nor theatrical trifles, nor the luxury of drunkenness, nor the poison of illicit curiosity. Abstain from all these things. But you are accustomed to rejoice in these things, and when you begin to abstain from them, the longing for broken habits will grieve you. But these are the bitter medicines by which the eyes are healed. Accept the prescriptions of the doctor. Whatever he imposes on you to bear, he himself first endured. In him, indeed, there was nothing to be cured, for nothing was sick, but in the duty of healing, he endured what he imposed on the sick. He gave a certain bitter cup to the one swollen and puffed up with pride; he, coming with humility, suffered all humiliations from prideful men.
"The humility of Christ is the remedy for pride."
The humility of Christ is the remedy for your pride. Do not ridicule what cures you. Be willing to be humble, for the sake of Him who became humble for you. For He who knows well from where you ail and how you are to be healed has judged that you should be healed by this medicine. Good doctors investigate in all parts of the body the cause of enduring all that is most difficult to bear. And so many unskilled, treating incidental causes and not treating the original cause, seem to provide a temporary cure; but, with the source of the diseases remaining, what persists in the origin again flows into the streams of calamity. Therefore, listen to why man is ailing, why he has not only sick eyes but no healthy limbs. Hear from where he is ailing, take from the Scriptures where the art of the physician is written. For the one who reads a disease to you from Hippocrates is not more certain than the one who shows you from divine Scripture from where you suffer inwardly. Therefore, listen to what Scripture says: The beginning of all sin is pride; and you still rush for your bodily health, you are lazy for your soul. If a speck falls into your eye, it is not put off to remove it. The iniquity presses on the eye of your heart, you do not run to the physician. Yet, when you could not run to the physician, the physician came to you, and, which is more serious, you scoff at the fact that He came to you, you hold His mercy in contempt. He came, wants to help, knows what to administer. Therefore God came humble, lest He not be imitated by man. For how could you imitate the lofty? Without imitating Him, how would you be healed? Therefore He came humble, because He knew what cup to give you. Indeed somewhat bitter, but healing. But you still mock the one who brings the cup and say to yourself: "What kind of God will I have? One who is born, suffers, smeared with spit, crowned with thorns, suspended on the cross?" O wretched soul! You see the humility of the physician, you do not see the swelling of your pride. From this, the humble one displeases you, what displeases you is from your pride, what comes displeases your disease, the medicine given to you by the physician.
"Christ made remedies from his very death."
If you still mock, you are insane. The insane often attack their doctors, and the compassionate not only do not become angry with those attacking them but also seek the well-being of the attackers. They sometimes prevail to the extent that they can kill the doctor. But the doctor vehemently avoids being killed by the insane because he cannot rise again and heal the insane. However, our doctor neither feared being killed by the insane, and from his very death he prepared remedies for the insane. For he died and rose again. And see that the true doctor does not become angry with the insane assaulting him, but rather pities them and wishes to heal the raging ones from what he suffers. Listen to the doctor hanging on the cross; surrounded by a crowd of raging madmen, he says: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. And his voice was not in vain. For after he rose again and was glorified in the eyes of his disciples, so much so that he showed them the scars of the same resurrected flesh, not only presenting himself to be seen but also to be touched, he ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit: miracles began to occur in the name of the one killed, in the name of the crucified, and those who killed him were more deeply pierced than when they saw him hanging on the cross. For they thought that such things happened in the name of the one who was believed to have been killed by their hands. They felt the living one, whom they had mocked as he was dying. They were pierced in heart, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles; many of the Jews who crucified the Lord sought counsel from the apostles; they also received counsel, because that hanging one did not say in vain: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. The apostle said to them: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins will be forgiven you. It happened: they were baptized and believed in the one whom they crucified. This is what I said, brothers, for he made remedies even from his very death for the insane.
Believing in Christ, we become His body.
From there, they went to the nations. The apostles were sent to the nations: they found the entire world given to idols. The disciples of the physician himself, in whom the physician himself presided, because they had become heaven and carried God, began to preach Him who was crucified and died for our sins and rose for our justification. With such signs and miracles testifying, the world began to be filled. And at first, so that it might be filled, the disciples of the physician were killed, just as the physician himself had been killed. But why would they fear to be killed, when they saw even his flesh rise in their head? What would souls, never to die, fear, considering they had already risen in the body in the Lord? However, He made all believers a body as the head, so that He would be their head, and all who believe in Him would be joined as members. From the beginning of the world to the end, it has been believed and will be believed in Christ, because even before He was born of the Virgin Mary, many believed He would come, just as now they believe in Him who has already come. And through that same faith, all are healed, nor is there any other salve for that darkness of spiritual sight, except, as it is written: “Cleansing their hearts by faith”. Therefore, He made all the saints His body, of which He is the head. Nor would He be the head of this body unless He had taken something from that body. From where did He assume flesh, which could die in Him? For if the soul of man cannot die, how could the divinity of the Word die? Therefore, thousands of martyrs were killed, and as if their blood were sown, the crop of the Church arose throughout the world.
The things which the prophets announced have been displayed in our age.
Therefore, brothers, these things were foretold thousands of years ago and, as they were foretold, thus they seem to be expressed and revealed. Few things are left that we read and believe, for we have already read and seen many. From these things we read and see, it is not a great thing to believe the few things that remain. It was a great thing to believe for those who saw none of these things that we see. Now it is no longer praiseworthy to believe, but condemnable not to believe. Let those who still refused to be healed finally awaken and be healed. Let them believe: they will see. Let them not be so perverse as to say to us: "Let me see first and then I will believe." What is "let me see and then I will believe?" For he who sees, does he by any chance believe? He believes who does not see. To believe is one thing, to see is another. Believe because you do not see, so that by believing what you do not see you may deserve to see what you believe. The merit of vision is faith. The reward of faith is vision. Why do you seek the reward before the work? Therefore, believe and walk in faith: your salvation is in hope. Indeed, the greatest physician has begun to heal you, for whom no disease is incurable. Do not fear your past crimes, however immense, however unbelievable, that you might have committed: the diseases are great, but the physician is greater. Therefore, do not worry about the past: in one moment of sacrament, they will be forgiven, and absolutely all will be forgiven. Nothing of the past will remain to trouble your care. You will be secure not in your own strength, but in the hand of the physician. Therefore, be secure under him, for he will also heal what remains: that same infirmity of our mortality, from which indeed smaller sins creep in while we live here. He will heal everything, he will cleanse everything. All obscurity will be taken away, but such an eye of the heart will be given that you may be blessed when you see, because believing you heard: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Let those who have not yet believed look, my brothers, let them look at how much God has revealed. All that is seen to be done throughout the whole world in the name of Christ was foreseen, foretold, prescribed. In our hands are the books, in our eyes the deeds.
More difficult is what God has already done than what He has promised to do.
And if we think truly, brothers, he has done something more difficult than what he will do. What is it that he has done something more difficult? He has justified the ungodly, made a believer from an idolater, a sober person from a drunkard, a temperate person from a lustful one, a generous person from a miser, not giving to hunters applauded by the devil but giving to the poor crowned by Christ, and acquiring for himself that which cannot pass away. It was more difficult what he did. For he who made a pious person from an impious one, will he not give the reward to the pious one? Notice, my brothers. What is more unbelievable? To make a pious person from an impious one, or to make an angel from a pious one? Impious and pious are opposites. Pious and angel are not opposites. Will he not fulfill from being close by, who has changed you from being opposite? For now when you have begun to be pious, you begin to imitate the life of an angel. But when you were impious, you were far removed from the chorus of angels. However, faith came and justified you. You are humbled before God, who used to blaspheme God. And you who were turned towards creation, now desire the Creator. See what he has done for you: he has shown his Church to the world; as he promised, he has shown it. It was foretold that idolatry would once be destroyed and removed: our ancestors read these things and did not see them, but we read them and see them. Heresies were foretold, schisms foretold: they also exist. Therefore, Christians are not disturbed when they see heresies and schisms. For they more certainly hope for the things promised, when the things foretold happen.
Happiness and unhappiness are now intermixed.
Therefore, flee from the wickedness of all heresies and schisms, flee from the sacrileges of the pagans, the curiosities of demons, the adoration of idols, the sacrilege of remedies, the consultations of astrologers. Flee from these, brothers. You have no reason to hope in them. They have never promised eternal life; and as for the present life, if they make any promises, they lie to you. Let someone come forward and say: “For me, I know, the astrologer spoke the truth, and for me, I know the diviner spoke the truth, and I had that remedy, and it worked.” Have only this known, beloved, which can be easily seen. The happiness and unhappiness of the present time, which is neither true happiness nor complete unhappiness, is interspersed among all people. If only those who do these things were happy according to time, you, brothers who have believed, would have to despise the present for the sake of future happiness. But when you see the healthy and those who do and those who do not do these things interspersed, the dying interspersed with those who do and those who do not do these things, the rich and poor interspersed with those who do and those who do not do these things, the honored and the dishonorable interspersed with those who do and those who do not do these things, when, therefore, you see temporal happiness or unhappiness interspersed within the human race, why do you not avoid eternal unhappiness, when it will be said: “Depart into the eternal fire,” and compare true happiness when it will be said: “Receive the kingdom”?
Whoever consents to the devil will be damned with him.
"Juno, he says, aids mothers in childbirth, and Mercury aids hunters or scholars, and Neptune aids sailors." These things are false. For if they are true, then women who blaspheme Juno should not give birth well. What great thing is it, my brothers, to open eyes to see these things? Did the prophets foretell these things as well? Ask yourselves: let the human race respond. Do all those who do not worship Neptune suffer shipwreck? Do all merchants who mock Mercury suffer loss? But if these things are false, they never promised you future life, and they are of no benefit to this present life. Why, then, are they worshipped, except to bind the feet of those walking the Lord's path, so they do not seek immortality and some rest after the labors and difficulties of this life? For that devil opposes with his angels, and makes himself seem necessary to reduce you into servitude. Rather, use your freedom; greater is he who redeemed you than he who opposes. Whoever consents to this will be condemned with him; whoever believes in Christ will condemn with him. These things will happen, but from those that have already come, surmise what remains.
"The cross of Christ is on the foreheads of kings."
Future persecutions for Christians by the kings of the world were foretold: they occurred, a massacre of martyrs happened, and those who did this thought that by killing they could end Christians. The Church grew through its own blood, persecutors were defeated, those who endured persecution triumphed. This too was foretold. We also find in the Holy Scriptures that these very kings would submit their necks to the yoke of Christ, from whom persecution of the Church first appeared to be something to be avoided. And this has happened, brothers: now the cross of Christ is on the foreheads of kings, kings worship what the Jews mocked. And because it was said thus: God chose the weak things of this world to confound the strong, and ignoble things of this world, and things which are not as though they are, so that the things which are may be brought to nothing, our Lord Jesus Christ came for the salvation not only of the poor but also of the rich, not only of commoners but also of kings. However, He did not want to choose kings for discipleship, nor did He want the rich, the noble, or the learned, but chose the poor, the unlearned, the ignoble, fishermen, so that His grace would shine forth even more. For He came to give the cup of humility and heal pride. And if He had first called a king, the king would say that his dignity was chosen; if He had called the learned first, he would say that his learning was chosen. Those who were called to humility had to be called through the humble. Therefore, Christ did not gain a fisherman from an emperor, but an emperor from a fisherman.
Humanity gathers to Christ.
Kings are now coming to Rome. A great matter, brothers, how it has been fulfilled. When it was said, when it was written, none of these things existed. It is wonderful: attend and see, rejoice. Let those who do not want to attend to it be curious; we want them to be curious about these matters: let them leave the crimes and trifles of vain curiosities, let them sometimes be curious about the divine Scriptures, let them find that those things which they now see were foretold so long ago. For they marvel at the whole human race, from kings to those clothed in rags, coming together and flocking in the name of the crucified one. No age is left out, no sect, no doctrine. For it is not that the unlearned believed and the learned did not believe, or that the ignoble believed and the noble did not believe, or that women believed and men did not believe, or that children believed and the old did not believe, or that slaves believed and the free did not believe. Every age has been called to salvation, every age has now come, all dignity, all abundance and human capability. Everything is already within. Few remain outside and still dispute; let them wake up occasionally even to the commotion of the world: the whole world shouts.
The emperor goes to the tomb of the fisherman.
The kings come to Rome, as I began to say. There are the temples of the emperors who, with their pride, demanded divine honors for themselves from men and, because they could - for they were kings and rulers - they extorted rather than deserved them. Who could extort such a thing from a fisherman? There is the tomb of a fisherman, there is the temple of an emperor. Peter is in the tomb there, Hadrian is in the temple there. The Temple of Hadrian, the memorial of Peter. The emperor comes. Let us see where he runs, where he wishes to kneel: in the temple of the emperor, or at the memorial of the fisherman? Setting aside his diadem, he strikes his breast where the body of the fisherman lies, thinking of his merits, believing in his crown, through whom he desires to reach God, by whose prayers he feels aided and finds help. Behold what that crucified and mocked one on the cross has done, behold how he subdued nations, not by raging sword, but by the mocked wood. Therefore, let the proud drink the cup of humility, with Christ humbled. Let them deign to be humble, let them now recognize their remedy, let them come and believe.
"Let there be in you the groaning of one who confesses."
Encourage them, brothers, not only with words but also with your conduct, and we exhort that they no longer delay. For some might think and say, "Tomorrow I will be a Christian." If tomorrow is good, today is also good. Indeed, to become a Christian, one does not need to consult a mathematician regarding the day. God made every day. That day is good for you when you perform something good. If, therefore, it is good to believe in Christ, so that the heart may be cleansed by faith and the eye that will see such a great light may be healed, why delay, why does the raven's voice remain in people? "Tomorrow, tomorrow," says the raven, which, sent out from the ark, did not return; the dove returned. The raven cries "tomorrow," the dove mourns daily. Let there not be a voice of procrastination in you, but the moaning of confession. Whoever is weary of hearing, let them pardon the diligent. Whoever still wishes to hear, let them pardon the weary, for we are also pressed by time to finish the sermon. For we see such eagerness in you in Christ that you could hear more, but we cannot hold the time. Whoever here has not believed, here we are, here is the Church: if they will, let them believe. If they think it must be delayed, which I believe they should no longer think, let them make way for those who are to perform the divine mysteries.
And after the pagans went out:
The word of God is shown in morals.
Now, brothers, we spoke to you yesterday and now we speak and always ask you, that by living well you may win over those who have not yet believed, so that you might not have believed in vain. We ask you that, just as the word of God pleases you, so it may also please you in your behavior, not just in the ear alone, but also in the heart, not in the heart alone, but also in life, so that you may be the family of God fit and pleasing in His eyes for every good work. Indeed, brothers, we do not doubt that, if you live worthy of God, soon none of those who have not yet believed will remain in unbelief.