Sermons to the People 150.1–150.10

Your Charity noticed with us, when the book of the Acts of the Apostles was read, that Paul spoke to the Athenians, and was called a sower of words by those who mocked the preaching of the truth. It was said by mockers, indeed, but it should not be rejected by believers. For he really was a sower of words, but a reaper of conduct. And we too, though so slight and in no way to be compared with his excellence, sow the words of God in God’s field, which is your heart, and look for a rich harvest from your conduct. However, since we are prompted to speak to your Charity about what that reading contains, we urge you to attend more closely, in case, with the help of the Lord our God, we say something which cannot easily be understood by all unless it is said, and which, once understood, ought not to be despised by anyone.

The Athenians were very famous among other peoples for all literature and learning. It was the homeland of great philosophers. From there varied and manifold learning had spread through the rest of Greece and other lands of the world. There the apostle spoke, there he proclaimed Christ crucified, “to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness; but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” How dangerous it was to proclaim this among the proud and the learned is for you to consider. Finally, when his sermon was finished and they had heard from him of the resurrection of the dead, which is the chief article of Christian faith, some mocked; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” Nor were there lacking those who believed, and among them is named a certain Dionysius the Areopagite, that is, a leading man among the Athenians (for the Areopagus was the name of the Athenians’ council), and a certain noble woman, and others. So, when the apostle spoke, the crowd was divided into three, arranged in remarkable distinction by degrees: those who mocked, those who doubted, those who believed. For some, as we heard was written, mocked; some said, “We will hear you again about this”: these were the doubters; some believed. Between the mockers and the believers, the doubters are in the middle. He who mocks falls; he who believes stands; he who doubts wavers. “We will hear you again about this,” they say: it was uncertain whether they would fall with the mockers or stand with the believers. Yet did that sower of words labor in vain? If he had dreaded the mockers, he would not have reached the believers: just as that sower in the Gospel whom the Lord speaks of (and surely Paul was this), if he had been afraid to throw the seed lest some fall on the path, some among thorns, some on rocky places, could never have had the seed reach the good ground either. Let us too sow, let us scatter: prepare your hearts, yield fruit.

This too, if your Charity remembers, we heard when it was read: that some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with the apostle. Who the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers are or were, that is, what they held, what they thought true, what they pursued in their philosophy, doubtless many of you do not know: but since we are speaking in Carthage, many know. Let them help us, then, as we are about to tell you. For what I think must be said bears very much on the matter. Let both those who do not know and those who know hear us: let those who do not know be instructed, those who know be reminded; let the one group learn, the other recall.

First hear in general the common pursuit of all the philosophers, within which common pursuit they had five divisions and differences of their own opinions. All philosophers in common, by studying, seeking, debating, living, desired to lay hold of the happy life. This was the one cause of philosophizing: but I think the philosophers have this in common with us too. For if I ask you why you have believed in Christ, why you have become Christians, every man truthfully answers me: “For the sake of the happy life.” So the desire for the happy life is common to philosophers and Christians. But where so universally agreed a thing can be found, there the question arises, and then the parting of ways. For to desire the happy life, to want the happy life, to long for, desire, pursue the happy life, belongs, I think, to all men. So I see that I said too little in calling this desire for the happy life common to philosophers and Christians: I should have said, of all men, absolutely all, good and bad. For the good man is good in order to be happy; and the bad man would not be bad unless he hoped that he could be happy by it. About the good the question is easy: they seek the happy life, and that is why they are good. About the bad, perhaps some doubt whether they too seek the happy life. But if I could question the bad, separated and set apart from the good, and say, “Do you want to be happy?”, no one would say, “I do not.” For example, take a thief: I ask him, “Why do you steal?” “So that I may have,” he says, “what I did not have.” “Why do you want to have what you did not have?” “Because it is wretched not to have.” If, then, it is wretched not to have, he thinks it happy to have. But in this he is shameless and errs, that he wants to become happy by evil. For it is good for all to be happy. Why, then, is he perverse? Because he seeks good and does evil. What, then, does he seek? Why does the desire of the bad aspire to the reward of the good? The happy life is the reward of the good: goodness is the work, happiness the reward. God commands the work and sets forth the reward: he says, “Do this, and you will receive this.” But that bad man answers us: “Unless I do evil, I will not be happy.” As if someone said: “I do not reach good unless I am bad.” Do you not see that good and evil are opposites? You seek good, and you do evil? You run in the opposite direction; when will you arrive?

Let us leave these, then; perhaps it will be fitting to return to them when we have finished what we began about the philosophers. For I think it was not without reason, but that something great was done through people who did not know it, by the arrangement of divine providence itself, that, though there were very many sects of philosophers in the city of Athens, none but the Stoics and Epicureans debated with the apostle Paul. For when you have heard what they hold in their schools, you will see how it was not for nothing that of all the philosophers they alone debated with Paul. For he could not choose for himself which disputants to answer; but the divine wisdom, governing all things, put before him those in whom almost the whole cause of the philosophers’ disagreement lay. So I say briefly: let the unlearned believe us; let the learned judge us. I think I do not dare to lie to the unlearned with the learned as judges; especially since I am saying something about which learned and unlearned alike can judge truly. This, then, I say first: that man consists of soul and body. Here I do not ask you to believe; I ask you too to judge. For I do not fear that anyone who knows himself will judge me badly in this statement. So man, as no one doubts, consists of soul and body. This substance, this thing, this person that is called man, seeks the happy life: and this you know; I do not press you to believe it, but remind you to recognize it. Man, I say, that is, this not insignificant thing, which excels all cattle, all birds, all fish, and whatever bears flesh and is not man: man, then, consisting of soul and body; but not of any soul at all, for a beast too consists of soul and body: man, then, consisting of a rational soul and mortal flesh, seeks the happy life. When a man has learned what makes the happy life, unless he holds it, follows it, claims it for himself, takes it if he can, asks for it if it is hard, he cannot be happy. So the whole question is what makes the happy life. Set before your eyes now the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the apostle; which I could also put this way: the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Christians. Let us first ask the Epicureans what makes the happy life. They answer: pleasure of the body. Here I ask you to believe, because I have judges. For whether the Epicureans say this, think this, you do not know, because you have not read those writings; but there are people here who have read them. Let us return to our questioning. What do you say, Epicureans: what makes the happy life? They answer: pleasure of the body. What do you say, Stoics: what makes the happy life? They answer: virtue of the mind. Let your Charity attend with me: we are Christians, arbitrating among philosophers. See why only those two schools were brought forward to debate with the apostle. There is nothing in man that belongs to his substance and nature but body and soul. Of these two, in one, the body, the Epicureans placed the happy life; in the other, the soul, the Stoics placed it. As far as man is concerned, if the happy life comes to him from himself, nothing remains but body and soul. Either the body is the cause of the happy life, or the soul is: if you look for more, you go outside man. So those who placed man’s happy life in man could not place it anywhere at all but either in the body or in the soul. Of those who placed it in the body, the Epicureans held first place; of those who placed it in the soul, the Stoics held first place.

See, there they are, debating with the apostle. Does the apostle have something more, or must he necessarily agree with one of these two schools, so that he too would place the cause of the happy life either in the body or in the soul? Paul would never place it in the body: that would be no great thing to establish, since those who think better of the body place the cause of happiness in the body least of all. For the Epicureans hold the same thing about both body and soul, that both are mortal. And what is worse and more detestable, they say that after death the soul is dissolved before the body. “While,” they say, “after the breath has been breathed out, the corpse remains and the features of the limbs last whole for some time, the soul, as soon as it has gone out, is dissolved like smoke scattered by the wind.” Let us not wonder, then, that they placed the highest good, that is, the cause of happiness, in the body, which they felt to be the better thing they had than the soul. Would the apostle do this? Far be it that he should place the highest good in the body. For the highest good is the cause of happiness. Rather, the apostle grieved that some among the number of Christians had chosen the opinion of the Epicureans, an opinion not of men but of swine. For of this number were those who corrupted good morals by evil talk and said: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Epicureans debated with Paul the apostle: there are also Epicurean Christians. For what else are they who say daily, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”? To this belongs the saying: “There will be nothing after death, for our life is the passing of a shadow.” For they said, reasoning wrongly among themselves, among other things: “Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither: let there be no meadow that our wantonness does not pass through; everywhere let us leave signs of our gladness, for this is our portion, and this our lot.”

If we rebuke this more sharply, if we resist these desires more vehemently, they will also say what follows: “Let us oppress the poor righteous man.” And yet, even placed as we are in this position, we are not afraid to say: Do not be Epicureans. Think, indeed, of what was said by those who spoke wrongly, “For tomorrow we die”: but we shall not die in every way; for what follows death remains after death. Either life or punishment will be the companion of the dying. Let no one say: “Who has come back from there?” That rich man dressed in purple wanted to come back, too late, and could not be allowed. Thirsting, he asked for a drop, he who had disdained the hungry poor man. Let no one, then, say, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” If you want to say, “For tomorrow we die,” I do not forbid it; but say something else before it. For the Epicureans, as if they were not to live after death, as if they had nothing but what delights the flesh, say, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” But let Christians, who will live after death, and live more happily after death, not say, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”: hold to what is said, “For tomorrow we die,” and say, “Let us fast and pray, for tomorrow we die.” I plainly add something else, I add a third thing, nor do I pass over what must chiefly be observed: that the hunger of the poor man be satisfied from your fasting; or if you cannot fast, feed him all the more, so that through his being filled pardon may be granted to you. Let Christians say, then, “Let us fast and pray and give, for tomorrow we die.” Or if they want to say two things, I choose that they say, “Let us give and pray,” rather than, “Let us fast and not give.” Far be it, then, that the apostle should place man’s highest good, that is, the cause of happiness, in the body.

But with the Stoics, perhaps, the struggle is not unseemly. For see: when they are asked where they place what produces the happy life, that is, what makes the happy life in man, they answer: not pleasure of the body, but virtue of the mind. What of the apostle? Does he nod assent? If he assents, let us assent. But he does not assent: for Scripture rebukes those who trust in their own strength. So the Epicurean, placing man’s highest good in the body, places his hope in himself. And the Stoic, placing man’s highest good in the mind, has indeed placed it in the better part of man; but he too has placed his hope in himself. Yet both the Epicurean and the Stoic are men. So “cursed is everyone who places his hope in man.” What then? Now that we have set three before our eyes, the Epicurean, the Stoic, the Christian, let us question each. Tell us, Epicurean, what makes a man happy. He answers: pleasure of the body. Tell us, Stoic. Virtue of the mind. Tell us, Christian. The gift of God.

So, brothers, as if before our eyes, the Epicureans and Stoics debated with the apostle, and by their debate taught us what we ought to reject and what to choose. Virtue of the mind is a praiseworthy thing: prudence discerning good and evil, justice giving each his own, temperance restraining lusts, fortitude bearing troubles with equanimity. A great thing, a praiseworthy thing: praise it, Stoic, as much as you can; but tell me, where do you have it from? It is not the virtue of your mind that makes you happy, but he who gave you virtue, who inspired you to will and granted you to be able. I know that perhaps you will mock me, and will be among those of whom it is written that they mocked Paul. If you are the path, I am sowing; for I am a sower of words in my small measure. What was your insult is my office. I sow: what I sow falls on you as on hard ground. I am not lazy; and I find good ground. What am I to do with you? You have been rebuked, and rebuked by a divine oracle. You are among those who trust in their own strength; you are among those who put their hope in man. Virtue delights you; a good thing delights you: I know, you thirst; but you cannot make virtue flow for yourself. You are dry; if I show you the fountain of life, perhaps you will laugh. For you say to yourself: “Am I to drink from that rock?” The rod came near, and water flowed. “For the Jews ask for signs”; but you, Stoic, are not a Jew: I know, you are a Greek; “and the Greeks seek wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified.” The Jew stumbles, the Greek sneers: “to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness; but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks” (that is, to Paul himself, once Saul, and to Dionysius the Areopagite, and to such as the one and such as the other), “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Now you no longer mock the rock: recognize the rod, the cross; Christ, the fountain; and if you thirst, drink virtue. Be filled at the fountain, and perhaps you will belch forth thanksgivings: what you have from him you will no longer give yourself, but in belching forth you will cry out, “I will love you, O Lord, my strength.” You will no longer say: “The virtue of my mind makes me happy.” You will not be among those who, “knowing God, did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened: for professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” For what is “professing themselves to be wise,” but having it from themselves, being sufficient to themselves? “They became fools”: rightly fools. True folly is false wisdom. But you will be among those of whom it is said: “Lord, in the light of your face they will walk, and in your name they will rejoice all day long, and in your righteousness they will be exalted; for you are the glory of their strength.” You were seeking virtue: say, “O Lord, my strength.” You were seeking the happy life: say, “Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord.” For blessed is the people whose blessedness is not pleasure of the flesh, not its own virtue, but “blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.” This is the homeland of happiness, which all want; but not all seek it rightly. But let us not devise for ourselves, as it were from our own hearts, a way to such a homeland, nor build wandering paths: from there the way too has come.

For what does the happy man want, what does he want, but not to be deceived, not to die, not to suffer pain? And what does he seek? To be hungrier, and to eat more? What if it is better not to be hungry? No one is happy except one who lives forever without any fear, without any deception. For the soul hates to be deceived. How much the soul naturally hates being deceived can be understood from this: those who laugh with deranged minds are wept over by the sane; and a man certainly chooses laughing over weeping. If these two are put to him, “Do you want to laugh or to weep?”, who would answer anything but, “To laugh”? Again, if these two are put, “Do you want to be deceived or to hold the truth?”, every man answers, “To hold the truth.” He chooses both to laugh and to hold the truth: of those two, laughter and weeping, to laugh; of these two, deception and truth, to hold the truth. But most unconquerable truth is so strong that a man would choose to weep with a sound mind rather than laugh with a deranged mind. There, then, in that homeland, there will be truth, and deception and error nowhere. And there will be truth, and there will be no weeping. For there will be true laughter, and joy in the truth, because there will be life. For if there is pain, there will not be life; for everlasting and undying torment is not to be called life. Therefore the Lord did not call it life which the ungodly will have, although they will live in the fire (they do not end their life, so that they may not end their punishment: “for their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched”); yet he would not call it life, but called that life which is happy and eternal. Hence, when that rich man asked the Lord, “What good shall I do to obtain eternal life?”, the Lord named as eternal life only the happy life. For the ungodly will have an eternal life, but not a happy one, because it is full of torments. So he said, “Lord, what good shall I do to obtain eternal life?” The Lord answered him about the commandments. He said, “All these I have done.” But when the Lord answered about the commandments, what did he say? “If you want to come to life.” He did not say to him “happy,” because a wretched life is not even to be called life. He did not say “eternal,” because where there is fear of death, it is not even to be called life. So the life that is worthy of the name of life is only the happy life; and it is not happy unless it is eternal. This all want; this we all want, truth and life: but by what way does one go to so great a possession, to so great a happiness? The philosophers built for themselves ways of error: some said, “This way”; others, “Not this way, but that.” The way was hidden from them, because God resists the proud. It would be hidden from us too, had it not come to us. Therefore the Lord says: “I am the way.” Lazy traveler, you would not come to the way; the way has come to you. You were asking by what way to go: “I am the way.” You were asking where to go: “I am the truth and the life.” You will not go astray when you go to him through him. This is the teaching of Christians, not to be compared at all, but to be preferred beyond comparison, to the teachings of the philosophers, the uncleanness of the Epicureans, the pride of the Stoics.