Sermons to the People 133.1–134.6

We have undertaken, with the Lord’s help, to discuss this chapter of the Gospel just read; and the question is no small one, lest truth be endangered and falsehood boast. But truth cannot perish, nor can falsehood prevail. Hear for a little what question this reading contains; and, made attentive by the question once it is set out, pray that we may be equal to its solution. The feast of the Jews was Scenopegia: these are, as it seems, the days which they observe even today, when they call them the Huts. For this solemnity of theirs concerns the making of tabernacles; since a tabernacle is called skēnē, scenopegia is the making of a tabernacle. These feast days were kept among the Jews; and it was called one feast day, not because it was kept on one day, but because it was carried through as one continuous festival; like the feast day of the Passover, like the feast day of unleavened bread; and yet, as is plain, that feast day is kept for several days. So this solemnity was in Judea; the Lord Jesus was in Galilee, where he was brought up, where he had kinsmen and relatives, whom Scripture calls brothers. So his brothers said to him, as we heard read: “Leave here and go into Judea, so that your disciples too may see the works you do. For no one does anything in secret and seeks himself to be in the open. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” Then the evangelist adds: “For not even his brothers believed in him.” If, then, they did not believe in him, they were adding spiteful words. Jesus answered them: “My time has not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but it hates me, because I bear witness about it that its works are evil. You go up to this feast. I am not going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled.” Then the evangelist goes on: “When he had said this, he remained in Galilee. But when his brothers had gone up, then he too went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.” This is as far as the question extends; the rest is clear.

What, then, is the question? What disturbs us? What is in danger? That the Lord, or to put it more plainly, that Truth itself may be believed to have lied. For if we are willing to have him thought to have lied, the weak will take it as authority for lying. We have heard it said that he lied. For those who think he lied say this: “He said he would not go up to the feast, and he went up.” First, then, as far as we can in the short time, let us see whether a man lies who says something and does not do it. For example, I said to a friend, “I will see you tomorrow”: a more pressing necessity came up and kept me back; I did not therefore say what was false. For when I promised, I meant what I said. But when something greater came up that prevented my keeping my promise, I did not mean to lie; I could not fulfil my promise. See, I think I have not had to labor to persuade you, but have only reminded your good sense that he does not lie who promises something and does not do it, if something else comes up to prevent him, something that hinders his promise, not something that proves him false.

But someone who is listening to me says: “Can you say this of Christ, that either he could not do what he wished, or he did not know the future?” You do well, you suggest well, you rightly remind me: but, O man, share my concern. Him whom we do not dare to call less powerful, do we dare to call a liar? For my part, as far as I reckon, as far as I can judge in my weakness, I would rather a man be mistaken in something than lie in something. For being mistaken belongs to weakness, lying to iniquity. “You hate, Lord,” it says, “all who work iniquity.” And at once: “You will destroy all who speak a lie.” Either iniquity and lying are worth the same, or “You will destroy” is more than “You hate.” For whoever is hated is not at once punished with destruction. But let that question stand, whether it is sometimes necessary to lie: I am not discussing it now. It is full of hiding places, it has many folds; there is no time to cut them all open and reach the quick. So let its treatment be put off to another time; perhaps it will be healed by divine help without our sermon. But attend and distinguish what I have put off and what I want to treat today. Whether one must sometimes lie: this I called a difficult and most hidden question, and this I put off. But whether Christ lied, whether the Truth said anything false: this we have taken up today, prompted by the Gospel reading.

What the difference is between being mistaken and lying, I say briefly. A man is mistaken who thinks what he says is true, and says it because he thinks it true. Now if what the mistaken man says were true, he would not be mistaken; if it were not only true but he also knew it to be true, he would not lie. So he is mistaken because it is false and he thinks it true; but he says it only because he thinks it true. The error is in human weakness, but not in the soundness of conscience. But whoever thinks a thing false and asserts it as true, he lies. See, my brothers; distinguish, you who have been brought up in the Church and instructed in the Lord’s Scriptures, you who are not uneducated, not rustic, not ignorant. For there are among you learned and educated men, well instructed in every kind of letters; and those of you who have not learned the letters called liberal have more, in that you have been nourished on the word of God. If I labor in explaining what I think, help me both by attention in hearing and by good sense in thinking. But you will not help unless you are helped. So let us pray for one another, and wait together for the help we all need. A man is mistaken who, when a thing is false, thinks what he says true; but he lies who thinks something false and says it as true, whether it is true or false. Notice what I have added: whether it is true or false, still he who thinks it false and asserts it as true lies: he means to deceive. For what does it profit him that it is true? He himself all the while thinks it false and says it as though it were true. What he says is true in itself; in itself it is true: with him it is false; his conscience does not hold what he speaks; within he thinks one thing true, outwardly he brings out another as the truth. The heart is double, not single: what it has there it does not bring out. The double heart was condemned of old: “Deceitful lips; in the heart and in the heart they have spoken evil.” It would have been enough to say, “in the heart they have spoken evil”: where are the deceitful lips? What is deceit? When one thing is done and another pretended. Deceitful lips are not a single heart; and because not a single heart, therefore “in the heart and in the heart”; therefore “heart” twice, because the heart is double.

What, then, do we think of the Lord Jesus Christ? That he lied? If it is less to be mistaken than to lie, do we dare to say that he lies, when we do not dare to say that he is mistaken? He is neither mistaken nor does he lie; but entirely, as it is written (for it is understood of him, it must be understood of him), “Nothing false is said to the king, and nothing false will go out of his mouth.” If the writer meant any human king, let us put Christ the king before a human king. But if, as is more truly understood, it is Christ of whom he spoke (for nothing false is said to him, because he is not mistaken; and nothing false comes out of his mouth, because he does not lie), let us seek how to understand the Gospel chapter, and not build a chasm of lying as if with heavenly authority. For it is quite absurd to seek to expound the truth and to prepare a place for a lie. What are you teaching me, I ask you, you who explain this chapter to me? What do you want to teach me? I do not know whether you would dare to say, “Falsehood.” For if you dare to say that, I turn away my ears and hedge them with thorns, so that if you try to force your way in, I will go away pricked, without the Gospel explained. Tell me what you want to teach me, and you have solved the question. Tell me, I beg you: here I am; my ears are open, my heart is ready: teach. But I ask: what? I am not going through many things. What will you teach? Whatever teaching you will bring forward, whatever strength you will put into the argument, say this only; I ask you one of two things: are you going to teach me truth or falsehood? What do we think he will answer, so that I do not go away, so that I do not at once leave him gaping and trying to force out words? What will he promise but truth? I listen, I stand, I wait, I wait most intently. See, the man who was promising to teach me truth insinuates falsehood about Christ. How then will he teach truth, if he is going to call Christ a liar? If Christ lies, am I to hope that you will tell me the truth?

Consider another point. What does he say? “Christ lied.” Where, I ask you? “Where he said, I am not going up to the feast, and he went up.” For my part, I want to search this place, in case Christ did not lie. Or rather, because I do not doubt that Christ did not lie, I will either search this place and understand it, or, not understanding it, put it off. But I will not say that Christ lied. Suppose I have not understood: I will go away not knowing. For it is better not to know with piety than to judge with madness. Still, we try to examine it, in case, with the help of him who is the Truth, we may find something, and something may be found in us, and that something will not be a lie in the truth. For if by seeking I find a lie, I find not something but nothing. So let us seek where you say Christ lied. “Because he said,” he says, “I am not going up to the feast, and he went up.” How do you know he said it? What if I were to say (or rather not I, but someone; far be it from me to say it), what if another were to say, “Christ did not say this”? How do you refute him, how will you prove it? You will open the book, find the reading, show it to the man, or rather, with great confidence of heart, thrust the book at him as he resists: “Here, attend, read: you are holding the Gospel.” What then, I ask you; why are you a little upset? Do not press; speak more plainly, more calmly. “See, I am holding the Gospel; and what follows from it?” He says: “The Gospel says that Christ said what you deny.” And do you believe that Christ said this because the Gospel says so? “Plainly that is why,” he says. I wonder greatly how you can say that Christ lies and the Gospel does not lie. But in case, when I say “Gospel,” you look at the book and think the Gospel is parchment and ink, see what the Greek name means: Gospel is good news, or a good announcement. So the messenger does not lie, and the one who sent him lies? This messenger, the evangelist (to name him too), this John who wrote this: did he lie about Christ, or did he tell the truth? Choose what you like; I am ready to hear you either way. If he lied, you have no means of proving that Christ said those things. If he told the truth, truth does not flow from a fountain of falsehood. Who is the fountain? Christ: let John be the stream. The stream comes to me, and you say to me, “Drink without fear”; and while you frighten me about the fountain itself, saying there is falsehood in the fountain, you say to me, “Drink without fear.” What am I drinking? What did John say? That Christ lied? Where did John come from? From Christ. Will he who came from him tell me true things, when he from whom he came was lying? I have certainly read in the Gospel that John reclined on the Lord’s breast; but I think he was drinking truth. What did he see as he reclined on the Lord’s breast? What did he drink? What but what he poured forth? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: he was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. What was made, in him is life; and the life was the light of men; and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Yet it shines; and if I perhaps have some darkness and cannot comprehend it perfectly, it shines. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John: he came to bear witness to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light”: of him the Lord says, “He was a burning and shining lamp.” But a lamp can be both lit and put out. What then? How do you distinguish them? Where do you look? He to whom the lamp bore witness “was the true light.” Where John added “true,” there you look for a lie. Hear further John the evangelist himself pouring forth what he had drunk: “And we saw,” he says, “his glory.” What did he see? What glory did he see? “Glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” See, then, see whether we ought not to restrain weak or rash disputes, and presume nothing false of the Truth, and give the Lord what is due: let us give glory to the fountain, so that we may be filled without fear. “But God is true, and every man a liar.” What is this? God is full: every man is empty: if he wants to be filled, let him come to the full one. “Come to him and be enlightened.” Further, if man is empty because he is a liar, and seeks to be filled, and runs to the fountain in haste and eagerness, he wants to be filled because he is empty. But you say, “Beware of the fountain, there is a lie in it.” What else are you saying but, “There is poison in it”?

“Now,” he says, “you have said everything; now you have restrained me, now you have rebuked me. Tell me how he did not lie who said, I am not going up, and went up.” I will tell you, if I can: let it not be a small thing to you that, even if I have not established you in the truth, I have at least kept you from rashness. Yet I will tell you what I think you yourself already recognize, if you remember the words I stressed. The words themselves solve the question. That feast day was kept for many days. “To this feast day,” he says, that is, to today’s; to this one, I mean, today, when they were hoping, he did not go up; but when he himself arranged it. Finally, attend to what follows: “When he had said this, he remained in Galilee.” So he did not go up to this feast day. For his brothers wanted him to go first; that is why they had said, “Leave here for Judea.” They had not said, “Let us go,” as if they were to be his companions; or, “Follow us into Judea,” as if they were to go first; but they spoke as if they would send him ahead. He wanted them to go ahead: he avoided this, displaying the weakness of man, hiding his divinity; he avoided it as when he fled into Egypt. For it was not from lack of power; but this too belonged to the truth, to give an example of caution, lest any servant of his say, “I will not flee, because it is shameful,” when perhaps it was expedient for him to flee. Being about to say to his own, “When they persecute you in this city, flee to another,” he himself gave this example. For when he willed he was seized; when he willed he was born. So, lest they should go ahead and announce that he was coming, and an ambush be prepared, “I am not going up,” he says, “to the feast.” He said, “I am not going up,” so as to be hidden: he added “this,” so as not to lie. He brought something in, he took something away, he put something off: yet he said nothing false, for nothing false comes from his mouth. Then, after he said this: “But when his brothers had gone up”: the Gospel is speaking; attend, read what you were holding out to me; see whether the reading itself does not solve the question; see whether I have taken what I said from elsewhere. This, then, the Lord was waiting for, that they should go up first, lest they announce beforehand that he was coming. After his brothers had gone up, then he too went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Why “as it were in secret”? There he acts “as it were in secret.” Why “as it were in secret”? Because even this was not in secret. For he who had it in his power when he would be seized was not truly trying to hide. But in that concealment, as I said, he was giving his weak disciples an example of guarding against the plots of enemies, since they did not have the power to avoid being seized when they did not wish it. For afterwards he went up openly as well, and taught them in the temple, and some said: “Look, this is he; look, he is teaching. Surely our rulers said they wanted to seize him: look, he speaks openly, and no one lays a hand on him.”

Now, if we consider ourselves, if we think of his body: for he is we too. For if he were not we too, it would not be true, “When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me.” If he were not we too, it would not be true, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” So he is we too, because we are his members, because we are his body, because he is our head, because the whole Christ is head and body. Perhaps, then, he foresaw us, that we were not going to keep the feast days of the Jews; and this is, “I am not going up to this feast day.” See, neither Christ nor the evangelist lied. And if one of the two had to be chosen, the evangelist would forgive me: I would by no means put the truthful man before Truth itself; I would not prefer the one sent to the one who sent him. But thanks be to God, as I think, what was obscure has been laid bare. Your piety will help before God. See, as best I could, I have solved the question, both for Christ and for the evangelist. Hold the truth with me, friend; embrace love without contention.

Your Charity knows that we all have one Teacher, and that under him we are fellow disciples. And we are not your teachers because we speak to you from a higher place: the teacher of all is he who dwells in all of us. He was speaking to us all just now in the Gospel, and saying to us what I too say to you: he says it of us, both to us and to you: “If you abide in my word”: not, of course, in mine, who am speaking now, but in his who was speaking just now from the Gospel. “If you abide in my word,” he says, “you are truly my disciples.” For a disciple it is not enough to come; he must abide. So he does not say, “If you hear my word,” or, “If you come to my word,” or, “If you praise my word”; but see what he said: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” What do we say, brothers? Is abiding in the word of God a labor, or not? If it is a labor, look at the great reward; if it is not a labor, you receive the reward for nothing. Let us abide, then, in him who abides in us. If we do not abide in him, we fall; but he, if he does not abide in us, does not therefore lose his home. For he knows how to abide in himself, he who never forsakes himself. But far be it from man to abide in himself, since he has lost himself. So we abide in him out of need; he abides in us out of mercy.

Now, then, since what we ought to do has been set before us, let us see what we are to receive. For he has assigned a work and promised a wage. What is the work? “If you abide in my word.” A brief work: brief in word, great in deed: “If you abide.” What is “If you abide”? If you build on the rock. O how great a thing this is, brothers, to build on the rock, how great! “The rivers came, the winds blew, the rain came down, and they beat upon that house, and it did not fall: for it was founded on the rock.” What then is abiding in the word of God but yielding to no temptations? What is the reward? “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Bear with me, for you notice that my voice is hoarse; help me by quietness. O reward! “You will know the truth.” Perhaps someone would say, “And what does it profit me to know the truth?” “And the truth will set you free.” If truth does not delight you, let freedom delight you. In the usage of the Latin language, “to be freed” (liberari) is said in two ways; and we are most accustomed to hear the word in the sense that whoever is freed is understood to escape danger, to be rid of troubles. But “to be freed” properly means to be made free: as to be saved is to be made safe, to be healed is to be made healthy, so to be freed is to be made free. That is why I said, if truth does not delight you, let freedom delight you. This sounds more plainly in the Greek language, and cannot be understood otherwise. And so that you may know that it cannot be understood otherwise: when the Lord spoke, the Jews answered, “We have never been slaves to anyone; how do you say, The truth will set you free?” That is, “The truth will make you free”: how do you say this to us, who have never been slaves to anyone? “Those whom you see,” they say, “under no constraint of slavery, how do you promise them freedom?”

They heard what they should have heard, but they did not do what they should have done. What did they hear? “Because I said, The truth will set you free, you looked to the fact that you are not slaves to any man, and you said, We have never been slaves to anyone.” Every one, Jew and Greek, rich and poor, official and private citizen, emperor and beggar: “everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.” “Everyone,” he says, “who commits sin is a slave of sin.” If people recognize their slavery, they will see where they may receive freedom. A freeborn man is taken captive by barbarians; from freeborn he is made a slave. A compassionate man hears of it, considers that he has money, becomes a redeemer, goes to the barbarians, pays the money, redeems the man. He has indeed restored his freedom, if he has taken away iniquity. But who has taken away iniquity? Man from man? He who was a slave among the barbarians has been redeemed by his redeemer; and there is a great difference between redeemer and redeemed; yet perhaps under the mistress Iniquity they are fellow slaves. I ask the redeemed: “Do you have sin?” “I do,” he says. I ask the redeemer: “Do you have sin?” “I do,” he says. So neither should you boast of being redeemed, nor you exalt yourself as redeemer; but flee, both of you, to the true deliverer. It is not enough that those who are under sin are called slaves; they are also called dead. What a man fears captivity may do to him, iniquity has already done to him. For because they seem to live, was he mistaken who said, “Let the dead bury their dead”? So all under sin are dead: dead slaves, dead by serving, slaves by dying.

Who, then, frees from death and from slavery but one who is free among the dead? Who is free among the dead but one who is without sin among sinners? “See, the prince of the world is coming,” says our Redeemer himself, our Deliverer: “See, the prince of the world is coming, and he will find nothing in me.” He holds those whom he deceived, whom he seduced, whom he persuaded to sin and death; “in me he will find nothing.” Come, Lord; come, Redeemer, come: let the captive recognize you, let the captor flee from you; be my deliverer. He found me lost, he in whom the devil found nothing that the flesh does. The prince of this world found flesh in him; he found it: and what kind of flesh? Mortal flesh, which he could hold, which he could crucify, which he could kill. You are wrong, deceiver; the Redeemer is not deceived: you are wrong. You see mortal flesh in the Lord; it is not flesh of sin: it is the likeness of the flesh of sin. “For God sent his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin.” True flesh, mortal flesh, but not flesh of sin. “For God sent his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, that by sin he might condemn sin in the flesh.” “For God sent his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin”: in flesh, yet not in flesh of sin, but in the likeness of the flesh of sin. Why? “That by sin” (of which there was certainly none in him) “he might condemn sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

If, then, it was the likeness of the flesh of sin, not the flesh of sin, how is it “that by sin he might condemn sin in the flesh”? A likeness usually takes the name of the thing of which it is a likeness. A real man is called a man; but if you show one painted on a wall and ask what it is, the answer is, “A man.” So the flesh that had the likeness of the flesh of sin was called sin, so that it might be a sacrifice for sin. The same apostle says in another place: “Him who knew no sin he made sin for us.” “Him who knew no sin”: who knew no sin but he who said, “See, the prince of the world is coming, and he will find nothing in me”? “Him who knew no sin he made sin for us”: that very Christ who knew no sin, God made sin for us. What is this, brothers? If it were said, “He made sin in him,” or, “He made him have sin,” it would seem intolerable: how do we tolerate what was said, “He made him sin,” so that Christ himself is sin? Those who know the Scriptures of the Old Testament recognize what I am saying. For not once but several times, indeed very often, sacrifices for sins are called sins. A goat, for example, a ram, any animal, was offered for sin: the very victim offered for sin was called sin. So the sacrifice for sin was called sin; so much so that the Law says in one place that the priests must lay their hands on the sin. So “Him who knew no sin he made sin for us”: that is, he was made a sacrifice for sin. Sin was offered, and sin was blotted out. The blood of the Redeemer was shed, and the debtor’s bond was blotted out. This is the blood that was shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Why then, my captor, did you foolishly exult because my Deliverer had mortal flesh? If he had sin, see whether you found anything of yours in him; hold on to it. “The Word was made flesh”: the Word is creator, the flesh is creature. What is there of yours, enemy? The Word is God; and the man’s soul is a creature, and the man’s flesh is a creature, and mortal flesh is God’s creature. Look for sin. But why look? The Truth speaks: “The prince of this world will come, and he will find nothing in me.” So it is not that he did not find flesh, but that he found nothing of his own, that is, no sin. You deceived the innocent, you made them guilty. You killed the innocent one; you slew one you had no right to: give back what you were holding. Why then did you exult for an hour because you found mortal flesh in Christ? It was your mousetrap: what you rejoiced at, by that you were caught. Where you exulted at finding something, there you now grieve that you have lost what you possessed. So, brothers, we who believe in Christ, let us abide in his word. For if we abide in his word, we are truly his disciples. For not only those twelve, but all of us who abide in his word, are truly his disciples. And we shall know the truth, and the truth will set us free: that is, Christ the Son of God, who said, “I am the truth.” He will make us free: that is, he will deliver us, not from barbarians but from the devil, not from captivity of the body but from the iniquity of the soul. He alone delivers so. Let no one call himself free, lest he remain a slave. Our soul will not remain in slavery, because our debts are forgiven daily.