Sermons to the People 12.1–12.12

We are confident, dearly beloved brothers, that it has already been sufficiently proved to your good sense that the Manichees lie in wait against the divine and sacred ancient books with most fraudulent deceit. Yet we offer still more of their tricks for the eyes of your heart to inspect: so that not only may you avoid them as far as you are concerned, but you may also teach others, who are weak and unskilled in the divine readings, to avoid and despise them, as each of you can. "In Job," they say, "it is written: Behold, the angels came into the sight of God, and the devil in their midst. And God said to the devil: Where do you come from? He answered and said: I have come here going around the whole world. Here," they say, "it is shown that the devil not only saw God but even spoke with him. But in the Gospel he says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; and again he says, I am the door; no one can come to the Father except through me." Then they add a piece of reasoning, saying: "If, then, only those who are pure in heart see God, how could the devil, with a most filthy and unclean heart, see God? Or how does he enter through the door, that is, through Christ? Again," they say, "the Apostle testifies and confirms, saying that neither Principalities, nor Powers, nor Virtues have known God." Their slander is set out in exactly these words up to this point, and it is indeed a question to be discussed by a prudent Christian. But it is the intention of those who put forward the slander that makes it slander, in that they likewise twist the unlearned away from the most wholesome authority of the Scriptures to believe them. But first I should like to ask these people where Adimantus read this in the Apostle; for he is the writer of such slanders: I should like him, then, to say where he read the Apostle testifying and confirming, as he says, that neither Principalities, nor Powers, nor Virtues have known God; since the Lord says that even the angels of people who believe in him see the face of the Father daily. Unless perhaps it is what the apostle Paul says: "We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, who are brought to nothing; but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which is hidden, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew. For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory"? If this is the passage he meant to write down, why did he add "Powers and Virtues," which is not said there, and take away "of this world," which is said? But would that he did this by error rather than malice. Yet even if the Apostle had spoken in that way, does it follow that the devil could not hear God's voice? For it is written that he came into the sight of God; it is not written that he himself saw God. For by "the princes of this world" are understood either proud men, puffed up with the empty pomp of boasting, or the devil himself and his angels. For the Lord most plainly calls him the prince or ruler of this world: because by the name of "this world" sinners are understood, whose only hope is in this world. For just as a house is called bad when its inhabitants are meant, so we call this world bad when we mean those who inhabit this world with their hearts, that is, whose way of life is not in heaven. "For our way of life," says the Apostle, "is in heaven." But all sins serve the devil, who by free choice wanted to be the prince of sin; that is why he is called the prince of this world. I urge you to fix this rule of understanding in your hearts: by it the Lord will help you to discuss and solve many things in the Scriptures out of which they weave the snares of their error.

Since, then, it is not written that the devil saw God, but only that he came with the angels into the sight of the Lord and heard his voice, why are these wretched people so eager to slander the Scriptures about the vision of God, and to pervert the unlearned? So this proposition of theirs is overcome by the briefest answer. However talkatively they inquire how the devil saw God, we answer: The devil did not see God. They will say: "How then did he speak with him?" Here the blindness of their heart is to be refuted not by us but by blind men. For those who are blind in their bodily eyes can daily speak with those they cannot see. "How then," they say, "did he come into his sight?" As a blind man comes into the sight of one who sees, whom he himself does not see. And these comparisons, dearly beloved brothers, are given so that the wickedness of carnal people may be refuted; so that, if possible, repulsed in this way, they may turn their impious hearts to the gentleness of learning. For is God contained in a place, he whom every angelic and human conscience has present, not only of the good but also of the wicked? But there is this difference, that he is present to good consciences as a father, to wicked ones as a judge: as it is written, "The Lord questions the righteous and the ungodly." Again it is written, "In the thoughts of the ungodly there will be questioning." Nor does God question more forcefully in the ears of the body than in the secret of thought, where he alone hears and alone is heard. Do not even wicked people, when they speak the truth and are not believed, swear and say, "God is my witness," and say it most truly? Where, I ask, is he witness? In the tongue, or in the heart? In the sound of the voice, or in the silence of the conscience? And why are they generally annoyed at not being believed, when they know they are telling the truth, except that they cannot open their heart to us, where God is witness?

There are many ways in which God speaks with us. He speaks sometimes through some instrument, as through the book of the divine Scriptures; he speaks through some element of the world, as he spoke to the Magi through a star. For what is speech but the signifying of the will? He speaks through the lot, as he spoke about Matthias being appointed in Judas's place; he speaks through a human soul, as through a prophet; he speaks through an angel, as we accept that he spoke to some of the patriarchs and prophets and apostles; he speaks through some vocal and sounding creature, as we read and hold that voices came from heaven when no one was seen with the eyes. Finally, to man himself God speaks not outwardly through his ears or eyes but inwardly in his mind, and not in one way only: either in sleep, as to Laban the Syrian, that he should not harm his servant Jacob in anything, and as it was shown to Pharaoh about the seven fruitful years and the same number of barren ones; or when the human spirit is caught up, which the Greeks call ecstasy, as when to Peter at prayer a vessel full of likenesses of the Gentiles who would believe appeared to be let down from heaven; or in the mind itself, when someone understands the majesty or the will of God, as Peter himself, from that very vision, came to know by thinking it over within himself what the Lord wanted him to do. For no one can recognize this unless within him there sounds a kind of silent cry of the truth. God also speaks in the conscience of the good and the wicked. For no one can rightly either approve what he does well or disapprove where he sins, unless the voice of truth either praises or cries out against those very things in the silence of the heart. And truth is God: and since it speaks to human beings, good and bad, in so many ways (although not all to whom it speaks in so many ways can also behold its substance and nature), which human being can gather, by guessing or thinking, in how many and what ways that same truth speaks to the angels: whether to the good, who enjoy in contemplation its ineffable form and beauty through wonderful love; or to the wicked, who, depraved by their own pride and set by the truth itself in lower places, can hear its voice in certain hidden ways, though they are not worthy to see its face?

So, dearly beloved brothers, faithful of God and truest sons of the Catholic mother, let no one deceive you with poisoned food, even if you still need to be fed with milk: walk now perseveringly by the faith of the truth, so that at a sure and fitting time you may come to the sight of that same truth. For, as the Apostle says, "while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight." And Christian faith leads to the sight of the vision of the Father. That is why the Lord says, "No one comes to the Father except through me." So it is pointless for these people to ask how the devil could come to God through Christ. For the devil cannot reach that blessedness of contemplation to which Christian faith leads those who are pure in heart. Yet the devil was not on that account unable to hear the voice of God speaking; just as many people who did not believe in Christ were able to hear the voice of God speaking from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again," when the Lord had said, "Father, glorify your Son."

And as for its being written that the devil came into God's sight: it was not written because anyone can ever escape God's sight, to whose eyes all things are subject and to whom the depth of every heart lies open; but because the things that Scripture narrated were done in the hidden part of creation, therefore it is written, "And behold, the angels came into the sight of God"; though they never withdraw from God's sight. For wherever they are sent, there too God's sight is present. But that is properly called God's sight which human sight cannot penetrate, such as the secrets of conscience. That is why, when we refute a liar, we do not say that he spoke in God's sight; because he did not say what God sees in his mind, where man cannot direct his sight. So, because these things were done so hiddenly that they could not be shown to human beings through the holy Scriptures except by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, they are narrated as having come into God's sight and having been done there.

As for the devil being in the midst of the angels: if you understand good angels, understand the devil in their midst as a defendant stands in the midst of the court officers to be heard by the judge. For Scripture does not declare what kind of angels they were. But if in the midst of wicked angels, what wonder is it that the prince and leader should be surrounded by a crowd of his servants? And if you take "into the sight of God" to mean that they come into God's sight who are not only seen by him but also see him, then the devil must be understood to have been in their midst in such a way that he did not see God, whom they saw; so that God even spoke to the devil through one of the holy angels. And yet the book says only, "God said." Just as in public business, although the judge says most things through a herald, still when the record is written down, the judge's name is entered, not the herald's too. And just as a man unworthy of prophetic vision can nevertheless stand in the midst of prophets, so as only to hear what the Lord says through them, without seeing what they see: so too the devil could be in the midst of the holy angels who see God, and through them hear the voice of God, whom he himself could not see.

And you see that the contrivances of the Manichees, as far as this question is concerned, have been undone in many ways, so that you will no longer think, dearest brothers, that the devil really spoke with God in such a way that he could even see the face of truth, which pure hearts behold; or that he came to that contemplation of blessedness to which no one is allowed to come except through the Lord Jesus Christ. But I am greatly amazed at the shamelessness of these people, who want to slander us about the vision of the divine substance, and tell lies about our Scriptures, saying what is not written, that the devil saw God; and try to stir up so much odium from this, that whoever is horrified, and judges it unfitting that the devil should have seen God, may be turned away entirely from the authority of the divine Scriptures, through a suspicious ignorance that does not understand what is written: whereas they themselves do not deny that our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and invent the story that he appeared to human beings without taking a human body.

So when the devil dared to tempt the Lord, when he saw him, what did he see? If he saw his body, then the Lord had a body, which the lost wretches will not confess. But if he did not have a body, then the divine substance itself lay open to the devil's eyes: which none see but the pure in heart, as they themselves remind us from the Gospel. O troublesome blindness of the heretics! Why do you falsely accuse our Scriptures of saying that the devil saw God, and by denying Christ's body are shown to want to display his divine substance to the devil's eyes? Or perhaps, as they are accustomed to say, he did not have a human body in such a way that he still showed himself as if he had one? Who then, you madmen, thinks more truly and rightly: he who believes that God spoke with the devil, or he who believes that God not only spoke with the devil but even lied to the devil? For Scripture records that certain angels appeared to human eyes; but certainly the Lord so subjected bodily creation to their power that they adapted it to their will. Hence they too, though not born of a woman, had a real body, which they could change from any form into any form according to the purpose of their ministry and duty; yet from a real form into a real form. For we cannot say that when the Lord himself turned water into wine, either the water or the wine was false.

So every body, whose nature and order are changeable at the nod of the most almighty Creator, into whatever forms it is changed, does not depart from truth in its own kind: since by whatever variation it is changed, it still does not cease to be a body and a real body. But since these people invent the idea that all bodily nature is not from God the almighty Creator but from some race of darkness or other, we ask them where our Lord Jesus Christ took his body from. For if they say he took no body at all, what was it that appeared to human and bodily eyes? Either it was the lie of a phantom, which is abominable to believe; or, if they contend that he showed his divine substance itself to human eyes without taking any body, then the devil also saw this; and where is what they proclaim with slanderous voice in this question, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"? But if perhaps they say that the Lord's divine and proper substance is not the same with the Father as he wished to show himself on earth without taking a body, what else have these wretches believed than that he is changeable by places and times? For they do not want to read, nor can they easily understand, what is said through the prophet, "You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail"; and what is written about Wisdom itself in the books of divine Wisdom: "Remaining in itself, it renews all things."

But according to their way of thinking, if someone says to them, "Why then are you surprised if God too changed the form of his divinity so that the devil, who is of a most filthy heart, could look on him, as you think of Christ, God?", I do not know what they will answer. For they have never dared to say that the Father and the Son are not of one substance: and if they said the Son was of another substance, it could be answered to them, "How then do you know whether that old Scripture records that the devil spoke with the Father or with the Son?" Next we ask: does the devil see this sun, or not? If he sees it, how then is the sun God, when the devil sees it? If he does not see it, still wicked people see it; how then is it God, when those who are not pure in heart see it? Or if, in order to be seen, it too was changed, and is not what is seen, what if you too show one thing and are another, so that you may also imitate the sun, not only worship it? And yet if you ask them whether the divine substance is changeable or unchangeable, they can only say unchangeable, led not by reason but confounded by shame. It remains, then, that they are forced to confess that our Lord Jesus Christ took a body from somewhere so as to appear to human eyes. And if they confess this, I ask where he took it from. If they say from this world, I ask where the body of the world itself comes from. At once they answer me: "From the race of darkness." O wonderful madness! Why then, wretches, in the body of the Saviour do you fear the womb of a virgin, and do not fear the race of demons?

We, for our part, profess that the whole nature of body is from God the almighty Creator: and so, from wherever our Lord took a body, he would certainly take it from his own creation: but he chose in humility to take it from a woman, he who had come to set free the lost creation, which fell through a woman. Hence, wishing to bring both sexes into the hope of renewal and restoration, he chose the male sex in which to be born, the female through which to be born. But you, who shudder at the chaste womb of the virgin, choose, I beg you, where the Lord should take a body from. You say that every body is the substance of the race of darkness. Choose, then, as I said, where the Son of God ought to take a body from. Or have you lost the light to answer, because darkness meets you wherever you turn your eyes? "But mortal flesh," they say, "seems more unclean." Read them the Apostle: "To the pure all things are pure"; and read against them the Apostle: "But to the unclean and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled." But if they do not say "more unclean" but "weaker," we fully agree: and that is why Christ is our strength, because our weakness did not change him. Here I recognize that saying of the prophet: "You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail." For not only did the weakness of the flesh not change him for the worse, but it was itself changed by him for the better. This bodily sun, which they think is not a body (so little do they understand what a body is, who boast falsely of spiritual discussions): this bodily sun, then, merely because it is a heavenly body, lights the earth and is not darkened by it; dries water and is not moistened by it; melts ice and is not chilled by it; hardens mud and is not softened by it. And our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of the Father, through whom all things were made, the power and wisdom of God, everywhere present, everywhere hidden, everywhere whole, nowhere enclosed, reaching from end to end mightily and ordering all things sweetly: do the unhappy people fear that he could not take up a man in such a way as to give life to mortal things and not be put to death by them; to sanctify the flesh and not be defiled by it; to dissolve death and not be bound by it; to change man into himself and not be changed into man? We have been compelled to argue one thing from another because of the wavering of some and their dangerous weakness of faith. But as for the question set before us, although that Scripture (which they preferred to lie in wait against rather than be enlightened by) does not prove that God was seen by the devil, let them see for themselves how the race of darkness could see the divine substance, when before the battle in which they say good and evil were mixed, the divine substance had not yet taken any body so as to be seen by its enemy. From this let them recognize that they want in vain to overturn the foundations of the Catholic faith, since they cannot prop up their tottering fables with any supports of answers.