Sermon 48

We have heard the readings of the divine scriptures when they were recited. This is the subject matter proposed for us to speak. From there we must gain wisdom, from there sow what we understand, with the help of Him in whose hand, as it is written: "Both we and our words." Nor is it written in vain elsewhere: "In the Lord I will praise the word, in the Lord I will praise the saying." This is praised in the Lord which the Lord gives. Therefore, although we are weak, yet we are His vessels. We grasp as much as we can, we share without envy what we grasp. May He fill up in your hearts what we have less done, because even what we work in your ears, what is it unless He does everything in your hearts?

On right and perverse judgment.

The first prophetic reading reminds us of what it commended to us, as I recall. What worthy thing, he says, can I offer to the Lord? The man was seeking a sacrifice with which to appease God or to please God. Shall I bow my knee to the Most High God, he says, shall I appease Him with thousands of bulls or with ten thousands of fat goats, or shall I offer the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Shall I, he says, offer my firstborn to my God for the sin of my soul? It is answered to you, O man. O man, from whom else is it answered, if not from Him by whom man was made? Therefore, it is answered to you, O man, seeking what you should offer to God, and by what means you might please or be pleasing to God. It is answered to you what is good, or what else the Lord requires of you, but to do judgment and justice and to love mercy and to be ready to go with the Lord your God. You were seeking what you might offer for yourself. Offer yourself. For what does the Lord seek from you, if not you? Because among all earthly creatures, He made nothing better than you. He seeks you from yourself, because you had lost yourself. But if you do what He commanded, He finds in you judgment and justice: judgment first in yourself, justice towards your neighbor. How is there judgment in yourself? So that you dislike what you were and can become what you were not. Judgment, I say about yourself in yourself without acceptance of your own person, so that you do not spare your sins, nor do they please you because you do them, nor praise yourself in your good deeds, and accuse God in your bad deeds. For this is perverse judgment, and therefore not judgment at all. For to show that perverse judgment is not judgment, God did not say: What does the Lord seek from you, if not to make correct judgment, but He says to do judgment. For if it is correct, then it is judgment; but if it is perverse, it is not judgment, but a fault. Therefore, what were you doing when you lost yourself and were going after your own loss, going and not returning? What were you doing? I know what you were doing. You praised yourself in your good deeds, you blasphemed God in your bad deeds. This is perverse judgment, and therefore, as I have said, not judgment. Do you want to make correct judgment, that is judgment? Correct what you were doing; invert it, and it will be correct. What does that mean: Correct? Praise God in your good deeds, accuse yourself in your bad deeds. Therefore, when you dislike yourself perverse, and, with the help of Him who created you, have corrected yourself, being correct, you will hold to justice. For God will be pleasing to you if you are correct. You will not differ from the just unless you are crooked and perverse. The just, however, will agree with the just, and without a doubt, God will be pleasing to you. For whenever He was displeasing, it was your perversion that made Him displeasing.

Hear the holy psalm: How good is God to Israel, to those who are upright in heart! The one who says this in the psalm, was God displeasing to him? Far be it from me to criticize and not rather to believe the one confessing. Behold, listen with me, and consider what he said: How good, he says, is God to Israel! To whom? To the upright in heart. But I, he says, when I was not upright in heart, my feet almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. What is it: my feet almost stumbled, that is: my steps had nearly slipped. What is it: almost, that is: nearly. What then does he say: almost, my feet had nearly stumbled, my steps had slipped? He says, almost I fell, I nearly collapsed. From where did you come to such a danger? Because, he says, I was envious of the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners. He says, I was envious of the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners: that is, by seeing wicked men happy, I faltered before God, I almost fell away from God. Behold why God was displeasing to him: why do the wicked have good things?

The words of a certain wavering person are recited.

Finally, observe the words of the wavering one, which he spoke to himself: Behold, the sinners themselves—these are the words of the wavering one in the psalm itself—behold, the sinners themselves have obtained riches forever. And I said: How does God know? He himself speaks in the psalm, he himself speaks, to whom God had not yet become displeasing because the wicked prospered over the good. How, he says, does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High? See yet what he adds, see how by wavering he approaches a fall, and is close to destruction. See, I say, what he adds: Did I in vain purify my heart, and wash my hands in innocence? I lost, he says, all that I lived well for. I purified my heart, I washed my hands in innocence, to this end, that the wicked may be happy, and I troubled. And I was, he says, scourged all day. They rejoice, and I am scourged. They who blaspheme God rejoice, I who worship God am scourged. How does God know? From this he wavered, from this he almost fell, from this he thought that human affairs did not pertain to God.

When therefore he thought this, not with a right but a perverse heart, and was led by an apparently plausible reasoning to believe that the governance of human affairs did not pertain to God because of that inconvenience, it pleased him to preach thus, to assert this, to teach this. He was recalled by the authority and preaching of the saints. For behold his words: "If I said," he says, "if I said I will declare thus, I will preach thus, I will teach thus, I will say to men that the governance of human affairs does not pertain to God. If I said I will declare thus: behold, I have rejected the generation of your children." How then will I declare thus? Moses did not declare thus, nor did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob declare thus, nor did Jeremiah declare thus, nor did Isaiah, nor the other Prophets. But all these are your children. Therefore, if I declare thus, I will reject the generation of your children.

What then shall I do? I have undertaken to understand. I have undertaken, he says, to understand. But it is great to understand, it is difficult to understand. This, he says, after he said: I have undertaken to understand, this is a labor before me, how I may understand both that God is just, and that he knows human affairs, and that it goes well for the wicked, and sometimes badly for the righteous. How it is just I have undertaken to understand, and labor is before me.

It must be believed that God cannot be perverse.

How long must I labor? Until I enter the sanctuary of God and understand the end. Therefore, enter into the sanctuary of God, faithful soul, enter into the sanctuary of God, pious soul, to whom it does not displease that God is in your difficulties, and to whom it does not displease that God is in the good things of the wicked. And if you do not know by what reason it happens, believe that it is not unjust what God permits or does. You were led by human reason, recall divine authority, and believe there to be something hidden from you. For that God cannot be perverse and unjust must be believed with the utmost certainty of faith. Thus, entering by faith into the sanctuary of God, entering by believing, you learn by understanding. For thus he says: Until I enter the sanctuary of God, where faith enters. And after faith, what? And I will understand the end. The end will come, when it will not be bad for any good person, nor good for any bad person. The end will come, I say, when the pious will be separated from the impious, the just from the unjust, the praisers of God from the blasphemers of God. The end will come when they will be separated, so that, as it is said, it will not be bad for any good person, nor good for any bad person. Why, then, is it not so now? Perhaps it is already so even now. But what is now hidden will later be revealed.

Have good things which make you good.

Enter with me, if you can, into the sanctuary of God. Perhaps there, if I can, I will teach you. Rather, learn with me from Him who teaches me, that even now it is not well with the wicked, and it is better for the good than the wicked; although the full happiness of the good has not yet come, nor has the final punishment of the wicked yet come. Perhaps you understand with me, that it is not well with the wicked. For I ask you and inquire from you, why is it bad for you? You will answer: "Poverty oppresses, hardship weighs down, perhaps the pain of limbs, fear from the enemy." It is bad for you because you suffer evils; and is it well for him, who is himself wicked? There is a great difference between suffering evil and being evil. You are not what you suffer. You suffer evil, but you are not wicked. I say you suffer evil, but you are not wicked. But he does not suffer evil, and he is wicked. Do not be deceived, do not be deceived. It cannot be that it is bad for you who suffer evil, and well for him who is wicked. For when he is wicked, you think he does not suffer evil, when he suffers himself? It is bad for you because you suffer another's evil in your body. And is it well for him, who suffers wickedness himself in his heart? It is bad for you because you have a bad estate. And is it well for him, who has a bad soul? Be good, you who have good things. Wealth is good, gold is good, silver is good, good households, good possessions, all these are good, but from which you make good, not which make you good. Have good things which make you good. What are they, you ask? Do justice, do righteousness. Are the things you have good? Do justice, do righteousness. Be good among your good things. Be ashamed of your good things: be good dwelling among perishable goods. Be ashamed of your good things: do not be wicked with them, lest you perish with them. For everything else, my Brothers, how justice should be preserved, how mercy should be loved, and how each one should be ready to go with the Lord his God, we will discuss with you another time, with the Lord granting. Hold me as debtor, so that you do not have a wearisome teacher for a long time.