Sermons to the People 105.1–106.4

We have heard our Lord, the heavenly teacher and most faithful counselor, urging us: the same one who urges us to ask and who gives when we ask. We heard him in the Gospel urging us to ask insistently, and to knock even to the point of seeming shameless. For he put before us, by way of example: If one of you had a friend from whom he asked three loaves at night, when a friend of his had come from a journey and he had nothing to set before him; and if that man answered that he was already resting, and his servants with him, and that he ought not to be disturbed by his requests; but the other pressed on knocking and persevered, and did not go away deterred by shame but, forced by need, kept on at him: he would get up, if not because of friendship, certainly because of the other’s shamelessness, and give him as many as he wanted. And how many did he want? He wanted no more than three. In this likeness, then, the Lord added an exhortation, and quite spurred us to ask, seek, knock, until we receive what we ask, what we seek, what we knock for, using an example from the opposite: as with that judge who neither feared God nor respected men, yet, when a certain widow pestered him daily, overcome by weariness he gave unwillingly what he could not give out of kindness. But our Lord Jesus Christ, who asks among us and gives with the Father, would certainly not urge us so much to ask unless he wished to give. Let human sloth blush: he wants to give more than we want to receive; he wants to have mercy more than we want to be freed from misery: and certainly if we are not freed, we shall remain miserable. For what he urges us to, he urges for our sake.

Let us wake up, and believe him who urges, obey him who promises, and rejoice in him who gives. For perhaps a friend has sometimes come to us too from a journey, and we did not find anything to set before him; and we suffered need, and received both for ourselves and for him. For it cannot but happen that someone has had a friend asking him something he could not answer; and then he finds he does not have it, when he is forced to give. A friend comes to you from a journey, that is, from the life of this world, in which all pass through as strangers, and no one remains as an owner; but it is said to every man: “You have been refreshed; pass on; go on your way; give place to the one who comes.” Or perhaps from a bad road, that is, from a bad life, some friend of yours, tired out, not finding the truth by hearing and grasping which he might become happy, but worn out in every desire and want of the world, comes to you as to a Christian and says: “Give me an account; make me a Christian.” And he asks what perhaps you, in the simplicity of your faith, did not know; and you have nothing with which to refresh the hungry man, and, prompted, you find yourself in need; and when you want to teach, you are forced to learn; and while you are ashamed before the one who asked, not finding in yourself what he was running for, you are driven to seek, so that you may deserve to find.

And where should you seek? Where, if not in the Lord’s books? Perhaps what he asked is set down in a book, but it is obscure. Perhaps the apostle said this in his letter. He said it so that you can read it, but cannot understand it: you are not allowed to pass it by. For the questioner presses; you are not allowed to ask Paul himself, or Peter, or some prophet. For that household is already resting with its Lord, and the ignorance of this world is strong, that is, it is midnight, and the hungry friend presses. Perhaps simple faith was enough for you; it is not enough for him. Must he be deserted? Must he be thrown out of the house? So to the Lord himself, to him with whom the household rests, knock by praying, ask, insist. Not as that friend set in the likeness, overcome by weariness, will he get up and give. He wants to give: you are knocking and have not yet received; knock, he wants to give. And what he wants to give he delays, so that you may desire it more when it is delayed, lest it grow cheap if given quickly. But when you have come to the three loaves, that is, to the food and understanding of the Trinity, you have both something to live on and something to feed others with. Do not dread the stranger coming from the journey, but by receiving him make him a fellow citizen of the household; and do not fear that you will run out. That bread will not come to an end, but it will end your need. It is bread, and it is bread, and it is bread: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Eternal the Father, coeternal the Son, coeternal the Holy Spirit. Unchangeable the Father, unchangeable the Son, unchangeable the Holy Spirit. Creator both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Shepherd and giver of life both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Food and eternal bread both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Learn, and teach; live, and feed. God who gives to you gives you nothing better than himself. Greedy man, what else were you seeking? Or if you ask for something else, what is enough for you, for whom God is not enough?

But you need to have love, to have faith, to have hope, so that what is given may be sweet to you. And these too are three: faith, hope, love. And these very things are gifts of God. For we have received faith from him: “As God,” he says, “has apportioned to each the measure of faith.” And we have received hope from him, to whom it is said: “In which you have given me hope.” And we have received love from him, of whom it is said: “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” But these three, likewise, are somewhat different; yet all are God’s gifts. “Now these three remain, faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love.” Among those loaves no one loaf was said to be greater than the others; but three loaves were simply asked for and given.

See three more: “Which of you, if his son asks him for bread, will hand him a stone? Or which of you, if he asks for a fish, will hand him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will he hand him a scorpion? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” Let us consider these three again, whether perhaps those three are there: faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love. Set down the three, then: bread, fish, egg: the greatest of these is bread. So in these three we rightly understand bread as love. That is why he set a stone against bread, because hardness is the opposite of love. By the fish we understand faith. A certain holy man said, and we are glad to say it: the good fish is godly faith. It lives among the waves and is not broken or dissolved by the waves. Godly faith lives among the temptations and storms of this world: the world rages, and it is unharmed. Only watch out for that serpent, the opposite of faith. For she to whom it is said in the Song of Songs was betrothed in faith: “Come from Lebanon, my bride, coming and passing over from the beginning of faith.” She is called betrothed, then, because faith is the beginning of betrothal. For something is promised by the bridegroom, and it is held by faith in the promise. But the Lord set the serpent against the fish, the devil against faith. That is why the apostle says to this betrothed: “I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ”; and, “I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds too may be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ,” that is, which is in faith in Christ. “That Christ may dwell,” he says, “through faith in your hearts.” So let the devil not corrupt faith; let him not devour the fish.

There remains hope, which, as far as it seems to me, is compared to an egg. For hope has not yet come to the reality; and the egg is something, but it is not yet a chick. Four-footed animals bear offspring, then, but birds the hope of offspring. Hope, then, urges us to despise the present and wait for the future, forgetting what lies behind, stretching out with the apostle toward what lies ahead. For so he says: “But one thing, forgetting what lies behind, stretched out toward what lies ahead, I press on in purpose toward the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus.” So nothing is so hostile to hope as looking back, that is, placing hope in the things that slip by and pass away; but rather in those not yet given, but to be given one day, which will never pass. But when the world teems with temptations, like the sulfurous rain on Sodom, the example of Lot’s wife is to be feared. For she looked back; and where she looked back, there she stayed. She was turned into salt, to season the prudent by her example. The apostle Paul speaks thus of this hope: “For in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” “For who hopes for what he sees?” It is an egg. It is an egg, and not yet a chick. And it is covered with a shell: it is not seen, because it is covered; let it be waited for with patience; let it be kept warm, so that it may come alive. Strain forward, stretch out to what lies ahead, forget what is past. “For the things that are seen are temporal.” “Not looking,” he says, “at the things that are seen, but at those that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal; but those that are not seen are eternal.” Stretch out your hope, then, toward the things that are not seen; wait, hold on. Do not look back. Fear the scorpion for your egg. See that it strikes with its tail, which it has behind it. So let not the scorpion kill your egg, let not this world kill your hope, so to speak, with that venom which is behind and opposite. How many things the world says to you, how much noise it makes behind your back, so that you may look back: that is, so that you may set your hope in present things (not even present: for things that never stand still are not to be called present), and turn your mind away from what Christ promised and has not yet given, but, because he is faithful, will give; and want to rest in a perishing world.

For God mixes bitterness with earthly happiness so that another happiness may be sought, whose sweetness is not deceptive; and by these very bitternesses the world tries to turn you away from what you are straining toward ahead, and to turn you back. Over these very bitternesses, these very tribulations, you grumble and say: “See, everything is perishing in Christian times.” Why do you make a noise? God did not promise me that these things would not perish; Christ did not promise me this. The Eternal promised eternal things: if I believe, from mortal I shall become eternal. Why do you make a noise, unclean world? Why do you make a noise? Why do you try to turn me away? You want to hold me while you are perishing: what would you do if you lasted? Whom would you not deceive when sweet, if when bitter you falsify your provisions? If I have hope, if I hold on to hope, my egg has not been struck by the scorpion. “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall always be in my mouth.” Let the world be happy, let the world be overturned: I will bless the Lord who made the world. I will bless him without fail. Whether it goes well according to the flesh, or badly according to the flesh: “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall always be in my mouth.” For if I bless when it goes well, and blaspheme when it goes badly, I have taken the scorpion’s sting; pricked, I have looked back; which God forbid for us. “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it was done: blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The city that begot us according to the flesh remains. Thanks be to God. Would that it might also be begotten spiritually, and pass over with us to eternity. If the city that begot us according to the flesh does not remain, the one that begot us spiritually remains. “The Lord builds up Jerusalem.” Did he lose his building by dozing, or let enemies in by not guarding it? “Unless the Lord guards the city, he who guards it keeps watch in vain.” And which city? “He who guards Israel will not sleep or slumber.” What is Israel, but the seed of Abraham? What is the seed of Abraham, but Christ? “And to your seed,” he says, “which is Christ.” And what about us? “But you are Christ’s: so you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.” “In your seed,” he says, “all the nations will be blessed.” The holy city, the faithful city, the city on pilgrimage on earth, is founded in heaven. O faithful one, do not corrupt hope, do not lose love; gird your loins, climb up, hold out your lamps, wait for the Lord, when he comes from the wedding. Why do you panic because earthly kingdoms are perishing? A heavenly one was promised you so that you might not perish with the earthly ones. For these were foretold to perish, foretold altogether. For we cannot deny what was foretold. Your Lord whom you await said to you: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Earthly kingdoms have their changes: he will come of whom it was said, “And of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Those who promised this to earthly kingdoms were not led by truth but lied out of flattery. A poet of theirs brought in Jupiter speaking, and says of the Romans: “For these I set no bounds of things, no times: I have given empire without end.” Truth certainly does not answer so. This kingdom which you have given without end, you who have given nothing, is it on earth or in heaven? On earth, of course. And even if it were in heaven, “heaven and earth will pass away.” The things God himself made will pass away; how much sooner what Romulus founded? Perhaps, if we wanted to harass Virgil on this point and mock him for saying it, he would take us aside and say to us: “I know it too; but what was I to do, I who sold words to the Romans, unless by this flattery I promised something that was false? And yet even in this I was careful: when I said, ‘I have given empire without end,’ I brought in their Jupiter to say it. I did not say a false thing in my own person, but put the mask of falsehood on Jupiter: as the god was false, so the poet was a liar. For do you want to know that I knew these things? In another place, when I did not bring in a stone Jupiter speaking but spoke in my own person, I said: ‘not the affairs of Rome and kingdoms doomed to perish.’ See that I said ‘kingdoms doomed to perish.’ I said kingdoms doomed to perish; I did not keep silent.” Doomed to perish: by truth he did not keep silent; always to remain: by flattery he promised.

So let us not lose heart, brothers: there will be an end to all earthly kingdoms. Whether the end is now, God sees. For perhaps it is not yet; and out of some weakness, or mercy, or misery, we wish that it may not yet be: but will it therefore not be? Fix your hope on God, desire eternal things, wait for eternal things. You are Christians, brothers; we are Christians. Christ did not come down into the flesh for pleasures: let us rather endure the present than love it. The harm of adversity is plain; the flattery of prosperity is false. Fear the sea even when it is calm. Let us by no means hear in vain, “Lift up your hearts.” Why do we set our heart on earth, when we see that the earth is being overturned? We can only exhort you, so that you may have something to say, and something to answer, for your hope, to the mockers and blasphemers of the Christian name. Let no one turn you by grumbling from waiting for the things to come. All who blaspheme our Christ because of these adversities are the scorpion’s tail. Let us put our egg under the wings of that hen of the Gospel, who cries out: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” (that false and lost one), “how often have I wanted to gather your children, as a hen her chicks, and you would not!” Let it not be said to us, “How often have I wanted, and you would not!” For that hen is the divine Wisdom; but she took on flesh to suit her chicks. See the hen, bristling with feathers, wings drooping, voice broken, hoarse, weary, and languid, adapting herself to her little ones. So let us put our egg, that is, our hope, under the wings of that hen.

You have noticed, perhaps, how a hen tears up a scorpion. Would that that hen might tear up and devour these blasphemers too, crawling on the ground, coming out of their holes, and stinging wickedly; might pass them into her body and turn them into an egg. Let them not be angry: we seem stirred up; but we do not return curses for curses. We are cursed and we bless; blasphemed, we entreat. But it is said of me: “Let him not speak about Rome! Oh, if only he would be silent about Rome!” as if I were a mocker, and not rather one who prays to the Lord and, such as I am, exhorts you. Far be it from me to mock. May God turn it away from my heart and from the pain of my conscience. Did we not have many brothers there? Do we not still have them? Does not a great part of the pilgrim city of Jerusalem live there? Did it not suffer temporal things there? But it did not lose the eternal. What, then, do I say, when I do not keep silent about it, except that what they say about our Christ is false, that he destroyed Rome, that stone and wooden gods protected Rome? Add to the price: bronze. Add more: silver and gold. “The idols of the nations are silver and gold.” He did not say stone; he did not say wood; he did not say earthenware: but what they hold great, silver and gold. Yet that very silver and gold “have eyes and do not see.” Gods of gold and gods of wood are unequal in price; in having eyes and not seeing they are equal. See to what guardians learned men entrusted Rome: to ones having eyes and not seeing. Or if they could preserve Rome, why did they themselves perish first? They say: “Rome perished at the same time.” Yet they perished. “No,” they say, “they themselves did not perish, but their images.” How, then, would they guard your roofs, who could not guard their own images? Alexandria lost such gods long ago. Constantinople, since it was built into a great city, because it was founded by a Christian emperor, long ago lost those false gods themselves; and yet it has grown, and grows, and remains. As long as God wills, it remains. For we do not promise eternity to that city either because we say this. Carthage remains in the name of Christ, and Caelestis was overthrown long ago, because she was not heavenly but earthly.

And what they say is not true either, that as soon as the gods were lost Rome was taken and afflicted. It is not true at all: the images themselves had been overthrown before, and yet the Goths were conquered with Radagaisus. Remember, brothers, remember: it is not long ago, it is a few years; recall it. When all the images in the city of Rome had been overthrown, Radagaisus king of the Goths came with a huge army, much more numerous than Alaric’s was. Radagaisus was a pagan: he sacrificed to Jupiter daily. It was reported everywhere that Radagaisus did not cease from sacrifices. Then all these people said: “See, we do not sacrifice; he sacrifices; we shall be conquered by one who sacrifices, we who are not allowed to sacrifice.” God, showing that this temporal safety, the earthly kingdoms themselves, does not lie in such sacrifices, Radagaisus was conquered, with the Lord’s help, in a wonderful way. Afterward came the Goths who did not sacrifice, who, though not Catholics in their Christian faith, were enemies of idols; they came opposing idols, and they took the city: they conquered those who trusted in idols and were still seeking the lost idols and still wanting to sacrifice to the lost ones. But ours were there too, and they were afflicted; but they knew how to say, “I will bless the Lord at all times.” They were afflicted in the earthly kingdom; but they did not lose the kingdom of heaven; rather, by the exercise of tribulations they were made better for taking it. And if they did not blaspheme in tribulations, they came out of the furnace like whole vessels, and were filled with the Lord’s blessing. But these blasphemers, pursuing earthly things, desiring earthly things, placing their hope in earthly things: when, willing or not, they have lost them, what will they hold? Where will they remain? Nothing outside, nothing inside: an empty chest, an emptier conscience. Where is rest? Where is safety? Where is hope? So let them come, let them stop blaspheming, let them learn to worship: let the stinging scorpions be eaten by the hen, turned into the body of the one who takes them in; let them be trained on earth, crowned in heaven.

You have heard the holy Gospel, how the Lord Jesus, in what he was saying to the Pharisees, was certainly warning his own disciples not to think that righteousness lies in cleansing the body. For every day the Pharisees, before they ate, washed themselves with water, as if a daily washing could be the cleansing of the heart. Then he showed what kind of people they were. He spoke who saw: for he discerned not only their faces but also their insides. And so that you may know this, that Pharisee to whom Christ replied thought within himself; he made no sound with his voice; and yet Christ heard. For he found fault with the Lord Christ within himself because he had come to his banquet unwashed in this way. He was thinking; Christ was hearing, and so he replied. What, then, did he reply? “Now you Pharisees wash the outside of the dish; but inside you are full of deceit and robbery.” What a way to come to lunch! How did he not spare the man by whom he had been invited? Rather by rebuking him he spared him, so as to spare him at the judgment once he was corrected. Then what does he show us? That baptism too, which is applied once, cleanses through faith. And faith is within, not without. Hence it is said and read in the Acts of the Apostles: “Cleansing their hearts by faith.” And the apostle Peter speaks thus in his letter: “So,” he says, “he gave you too a likeness in Noah’s ark, how eight souls were saved through water.” And he added: “So baptism will save you too in a similar form: not the removal of the dirt of the flesh, but the questioning of a good conscience.” This questioning of a good conscience the Pharisees despised, and they washed what was outside; inside they remained utterly filthy.

And what did he say to them afterward? “But give alms, and see, all things are clean for you.” Almsgiving has been praised: do it and prove it. But attend a little: it was said to Pharisees. Those Pharisees were Jews, the most distinguished of the Jews, as it were. For the more noble and learned were then called Pharisees. They had not been washed with Christ’s baptism; they had not yet believed in Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who was walking among them and was not recognized by them. How, then, does he say to them, “Give alms, and see, all things are clean for you”? If the Pharisees listened to him and gave alms, then according to his word all things would be clean for them; what need was there for them to believe in him? But if they could not be cleansed except by believing in him who cleanses the heart by faith, what does “Give alms, and see, all things are clean for you” mean? Let us attend, and perhaps he himself explains.

When he had said this, they no doubt thought that they did give alms. And how did they give? They tithed all they had; from all their crops they took a tenth part and gave it. Not easily does any Christian do this. See what the Jews did. Not wheat only, but wine and oil too; and not only this, but even trifling things, because of God’s commandment: cumin, rue, mint, and dill, they tithed everything; that is, they took off a tenth part and gave alms. I believe, then, that they turned it over in their minds and thought the Lord Christ was talking idly, as if to people who did not give alms, since they knew their own works, that they tithed even the smallest and most trifling of their crops and gave alms. They laughed at him within themselves for saying such things, as if to people who did not give alms. Knowing this, the Lord at once added: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, who tithe mint, cumin, and rue, and every herb.” That you may know: I know your alms. Certainly these are your alms; these are your tithes: you tithe even all the tiny and trifling things of your crops: “And you leave aside the weightier things of the law, judgment and love.” Attend. You have left aside judgment and love, and you tithe herbs. This is not giving alms. “These,” he says, “you ought to do, and not neglect those.” Do what? Judgment and love, justice and mercy; and not neglect those. Do those: but put these first.

If this is so, why did he say to them, “Give alms, and see, all things are clean for you”? What does “Give alms” mean? Show mercy. What does “Show mercy” mean? If you understand, begin with yourself. For how are you merciful to another if you are cruel to yourself? “Give alms, and all things are clean for you.” Give true alms. What is alms? Mercy. Hear Scripture: “Have mercy on your soul, pleasing God.” Give alms: have mercy on your soul, pleasing God. Your soul is begging before you; return to your conscience. Whoever of you lives badly, whoever lives faithlessly, return to your conscience; and there you find your soul begging, you find it needy, you find it poor, you find it in distress, you find it perhaps not even begging, but struck dumb by need. For if it begs, it hungers for righteousness. When you find your soul like this (these things are within, in your heart), first give alms; give it bread. What bread? If the Pharisee had asked, the Lord would have said to him: “Give alms to your own soul.” For this is what he said to him; but he did not understand, when he recounted to them the alms they were giving, and thought Christ did not know; and he said to them: “I know that you do it; you tithe mint and dill, cumin and rue; but I am speaking of other alms: you despise judgment and love.” In judgment and love give alms to your soul. What is “in judgment”? Look back, and find yourself; be displeased with yourself; pronounce sentence on yourself. And what is love? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind; love your neighbor as yourself”: and you have first shown mercy to your soul, in your conscience. But if you pass over this alms, give what you like, bestow as much as you like; take from your crops not tenths but halves; give nine parts and leave one for yourself: you do nothing when you do nothing with yourself, and are poor within yourself. Let your soul be fed, lest it perish of hunger. Give it bread. “What bread?” he says. He himself is speaking with you. If you listened and understood and believed the Lord, he himself would say to you: “I am the living bread, who came down from heaven.” Would you not give this bread first to your soul, and give alms to it? So if you believe, you ought to see that you feed your soul first. Believe in Christ; and the things within will be cleansed, and the things outside will be clean. Turning to the Lord, and so on.