Sermons to the People 19.1–20.5

In singing we asked the Lord to turn his face from our sins and blot out all our misdeeds. But you can notice, brothers, that in the same Psalm we heard, "For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is always before me." And elsewhere it is said to God, "Do not turn your face from me": to whom we said, "Turn your face from my sins." Since, then, man and sinner are one person, the man says, "Do not turn your face from me": the sinner says, "Turn your face from my sins." So this is what is said: Do not turn your face from what you made; turn your face from what I did. Let your eye, he says, distinguish the two, lest because of the fault the nature perish. You made something, and I too made something: what you made is called nature; what I made is called fault: let the fault be healed, so that the nature may be preserved.

"I acknowledge my misdeed," he says. If I acknowledge it, then you forgive. Let us live well, and, living well, let us by no means presume that we are without sin: let our life be praised in such a way that pardon is asked for. But hopeless people, the less attentive they are to their own sins, the more curious they are about others'. For they seek not what to correct but what to bite: and since they cannot excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others. Not so has this man shown us an example of praying and making satisfaction to God, saying: "For I acknowledge my misdeed, and my sin is always before me." This man was not intent on the sins of others: he summoned himself to himself; he did not stroke himself, but penetrated himself, and went down deeper into himself. He did not spare himself: and so he was not shameless in asking to be spared. For sin, brothers, cannot go unpunished: if sin remains unpunished, it is unjust: so without doubt it must be punished. This is what your God says to you: Sin must be punished either by you or by me. So sin is punished either by man repenting or by God judging. So it is punished either by you without you, or by God with you. For what is repentance but anger against oneself? He who repents is angry with himself. For if it is not done feignedly, why is there beating of the breast? Why do you strike, if you are not angry? So when you beat your breast, you are angry with your heart, so that you may make satisfaction to your Lord. For what is written can also be understood in this way: "Be angry, and do not sin." Be angry because you have sinned, and, punishing yourself, do not sin. Rouse your heart by repenting, and this will be a sacrifice to God.

Do you want God to be appeased? Know what you must do with yourself, so that God may be pleased with you. Notice in the same Psalm: for there we read, "For if you had wanted sacrifice, I would surely have given it; you will not delight in burnt offerings." Will you then be without sacrifice? Will you offer nothing, appease God with no offering? What did you say? "If you had wanted sacrifice, I would surely have given it; you will not delight in burnt offerings." Go on, and hear, and say: "The sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise." Having thrown away what you used to offer, you have found what to offer. For among the fathers you used to offer victims from the flocks, and they were called sacrifices. "If you had wanted sacrifice, I would surely have given it." Those you do not seek, then, and yet you seek a sacrifice. Your people says to you: "What shall I offer, since I do not offer what I used to offer?" For it is the same people, some passing away and others being born. The sacraments have been changed, not the faith. The signs by which something was signified have changed, not the thing that was signified. For Christ a ram, for Christ a lamb, for Christ a calf, for Christ a goat: everything is Christ. A ram, because he leads the flock: he is the one found in the thorn bushes when father Abraham was ordered to spare his son and yet not to depart from there without offering a sacrifice. Both Isaac was Christ and the ram was Christ. Isaac carried the wood for himself: Christ carried his own cross. A ram for Isaac; not, however, Christ for Christ. But in Isaac both the ram and Christ. The ram was held by its horns in a thorn bush: ask the Jews with what they then crowned the Lord. He is a lamb: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world." He is a bull: look at the horns of the cross. He is a goat, because of the likeness of sinful flesh. These things were veiled until the day should breathe and the shadows be removed. So in the same Lord Christ, not only as the Word but also as the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, the ancient fathers too believed, and passed on the same faith to us by preaching and prophesying. Hence the Apostle says, "Having the same spirit of faith, as it is written, I believed, therefore I spoke." Having the same spirit that those also had who wrote, "I believed, therefore I spoke." "Having, then, the same spirit of faith," he says, as it was written by the ancients, "I believed, therefore I spoke; we too believe, therefore we also speak." So when holy David said, "For if you had wanted sacrifice, I would surely have given it; you will not delight in burnt offerings," then those sacrifices were offered to God which are not offered now. So when he was singing, he was prophesying, both scorning present things and foreseeing future ones. "You will not delight," he says, "in burnt offerings." So when you do not delight in burnt offerings, will you be left without sacrifice? Far from it. "The sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you do not despise." You have something to offer. Do not look around at your flock, do not fit out ships and travel to the farthest provinces to bring back spices: seek in your heart what is pleasing to God. The heart must be crushed. Why are you afraid that being crushed it will perish? There you have, "Create a clean heart in me, O God." So that a clean heart may be created, let the unclean one be crushed.

Let us be displeased with ourselves when we sin, because sins displease God. And since we are not without sin, let us at least be like God in this, that what displeases him displeases us. In some part you are joined to God's will, because what he who made you hates in you displeases you too. He is your maker: but look at yourself, and destroy in yourself what is not from his workshop. For God, as it is written, made man upright. "How good is the God of Israel to the upright of heart!" If, then, you are upright of heart, God will not displease you, God will be good to you, you will praise God. Altogether, both in what he grants and in what he chastises, you will praise God. For he who said, "How good is the God of Israel to the upright of heart!" had looked at himself, who once was not upright of heart, and God displeased him; but afterwards he came to his senses, and saw that God was not perverse, but that he himself had not been upright: and recalling the time of his perversity and the present time of his correction, he said: "How good is the God of Israel!" But to whom? "To the upright of heart." For what about you? "But my feet," he says, "were almost moved; my steps had nearly slipped": that is, I almost fell. Why was this? "Because I was jealous of sinners, seeing the peace of sinners." So why his feet were moved and his steps nearly slipped, he did not keep silent; he warned us to beware. He was expecting from God, according to the Old Testament, not knowing that there were signs of things to come there; he was expecting, then, from God the happiness of the present life, and seeking on this earth what God was keeping for his own in heaven. He wanted to be happy here, though happiness is not here. For happiness is a good and great thing; but it has its own country. Christ came from the country of happiness, and he did not find it here either. He was mocked, reproached, seized, scourged, bound, struck with palms, subjected to the insult of spittle, crowned with thorns, hung on a tree: at the last, "the Lord's departure was death." In the Psalm it is written (those who recognized it acclaimed), "And the Lord's departure was death." Why then, servant, do you seek happiness here, where even the Lord's departure was death? So when that man of whom I had begun to speak was seeking happiness in a country not its own, and in order to obtain it in this life was devoting himself to God and serving him, and doing his commands as he could, he saw that this great thing, or what he held great, which he was seeking from God and for which he was serving God, was found among those who did not serve God but worshipped demons and blasphemed the true God. He saw, and was shaken, as if he had lost the fruit of his labor. This is what it means that he was jealous of sinners, seeing the peace of sinners. Finally you have there: "See, these sinners, abounding in the world, have obtained riches. Was it for nothing that I justified my heart and washed my hands among the innocent, and was scourged all day long?" I worship God, they blaspheme God: happiness for them, calamity for me; where is fairness? Hence his feet were moved, hence his steps nearly slipped, hence ruin was near. See what danger he came to: there he says, "And I said, How does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High?" See what danger he came to by seeking earthly happiness from God as a great reward. Learn, then, dearly beloved, to despise it if you have it, and not to say in your hearts, "Because I worship God, therefore it goes well with me." For you will see that it goes well, as you think it goes well for you, for those also who do not worship God; and your steps will be moved. For either you have it, worshipping God, and you will see that one who does not worship God has such things; and so you will think that you worship God in vain, because he too has happiness who does not worship God: or you do not have it, and you will accuse God all the more, who gives it to his blasphemers and refuses it to his worshippers. Learn, then, to despise earthly things, if you want to serve God with a faithful heart. Do you have happiness? Do not think that this makes you good; but make yourself good with it. Do you not have it? Do not think that this makes you bad; but beware of evil, where the good man does not go.

For this man, coming to his senses and rebuking himself because he had begun to think badly of God, panting after the sinner and seeing the peace of sinners; rebuking himself, then, he says: "For what is there for me in heaven, and what have I wanted from you on earth?" Now come to his senses, now with his heart corrected, he recognized how much the worship of God is worth: the worship of God which he had sold at the cheapest price when he sought earthly happiness for it. He recognized what is owed above to the worshippers of God, where we are commanded to have our hearts and answer that we have them there: and would that we did not lie, at least at that very hour, at least at that very moment, at least at that very point of time when we answer. So that man, looking back, and correcting his heart, rebuked himself for having once sought earthly happiness on earth as the wage of the worship of God. And rebuking himself he says: "For what is there for me in heaven?" What is there for me? Eternal life, incorruption, the kingdom with Christ, the fellowship of the angels; where there is no disturbance, no ignorance, no danger, no temptation; true, certain, fixed security. See what is there for me in heaven. "And what have I wanted from you on earth?" What have I wanted from you on earth? What have I wanted? Riches that flow away, fall, fly off. What have I wanted? Gold, the pallor of the earth; silver, the bruise of the earth; honor, the smoke of time. See what I wanted from you on earth. And because I saw this among sinners, my feet were moved, and my steps had nearly slipped. "O how good he is to the upright of heart!" What, then, are you seeking, faithful prophet? Gold, and silver, and earthly riches? Is the faith of a faithful matron worth as much, then, as what a harlot also has? Is the faith of a faithful man worth as much as what an actor, a charioteer, a beast-fighter, a robber also has? Far from it, my brothers, far be it that your faith should be worth so little. May God turn this away from your hearts. Do you want to know how much it is worth? Christ died for it. Why then do you seek an earthly wage, sold to gold and coins? You insult the faith for which Christ died. "And what is it," he says, "how much is it worth?" Look at the one who says: "For what is there for me in heaven?" He did not state what that will be. He says this: "And what have I wanted from you on earth?" Praising the one, rejecting the other, he still spoke of both. What is that? "What eye has not seen." What is this? What the faithful eye does not thirst for. What is that? What Lazarus, full of sores, found. What is this? What the puffed-up rich man had. What is that? What cannot perish. What is this? What cannot be held. What is that? Where there will be no toil. What is this? What fear does not leave. "For what is there for me in heaven?" What? He himself who made heaven; the price of your faith is your God; you will have him himself; he prepares himself as the reward for his worshippers. Consider, dearly beloved, the whole creation, heaven, earth, sea, what is in heaven, what is on earth, what is in the sea: how beautiful, how wonderful, how worthily and orderly arranged. Do these things move you? They certainly move you. Why? Because they are beautiful. What is he who made them? I think you would be dazzled if you saw the beauty of the angels. What, then, is the creator of the angels? He himself is the reward of your faith. You greedy, what will satisfy you, if God himself does not satisfy you?

Let us live well, then, and so that we may be able to do so, let us call on him who commanded it. And let us not demand from the Lord an earthly reward for our good life. Let us stretch our intention toward the things that are promised. Let us put our heart there, where it cannot rot with worldly cares. These things that occupy people pass away, they fly off; human life on earth is a vapor. There are added, too, the so great and so daily dangers of this fragile life itself. Great earthquakes are reported from the East; some great cities have suddenly collapsed. At Jerusalem the Jews, pagans and catechumens who were there were terrified, and all were baptized. Perhaps seven thousand people are said to have been baptized. The sign of Christ appeared on the clothes of the baptized Jews. These things are reported by the most consistent account of faithful brothers. The city of Sitifis too was shaken by a very severe earthquake, so that everyone stayed in the fields for some five days, and nearly two thousand people are said to have been baptized there. God terrifies on every side, because he does not want to find anyone to condemn. Something is being done in this press. The world is a press; its pressures abound: be oil, not dregs. Let each one turn to God and change his life. The oil has a hidden path; it makes for its own secret place. Another sneers, mocks, blasphemes, shouts through the streets: the dregs flow away. Yet the Lord of the press, through his workers, through his holy angels, does not stop working. He knows his oil, he knows what he receives, under what weight of pressure it is to be drawn out. For "the Lord knows those who are his." Be oil, flee the dregs; "let all who name the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." And do not conceive hatreds, or end them quickly. For those are not the things to be feared. Are you afraid of earthquakes? Afraid of the roaring of the sky? Afraid of wars? Fear a fever too: suddenly, while those great things are feared, they do not come, and from the side a little fever carries a man off. And if that Judge finds him such as he does not know, such as those to whom he will say, "I do not know you, depart from me," what will happen afterwards? Where will he go? Through whom will he canvass? With what will life be bought back to be restored? Who is allowed to live again, so as to amend what he did badly? It is finished. You have gathered in small numbers: but if you have heard well, you are abundant. Let not the deceiver deceive you: because he who does not deceive does not mislead you.

With one voice, with harmonious hearts, praying to the Lord for our very heart, we said: "Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." So we shall show you a few things that the Lord has given, to his grace. It is the Psalm of a penitent, longing to recover lost hope, lying in his fall, and pressing God with great entreaties, as one who was able to wound himself but is not able to heal himself. For just as we can strike and wound our own flesh when we want to, but to be healed we seek a doctor, and we are not saved by our own power as we are wounded by our own power: so for sinning the soul is sufficient to itself; for healing what sin has hurt, it implores the healing right hand of God. That is why it says in another Psalm: "I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you." He says "I said" so as to set before our eyes that the will and choice to sin arise from the soul, and that it is sufficient to itself to destroy itself; but that it belongs to God to seek and save what had wounded itself. "For the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost." Pouring out this prayer, then, we say: "Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Let the soul that has sinned say it, so that it may not perish more by despairing than it destroyed itself by transgressing.

Before everything, effort must be given not to sin, not to make a kind of familiarity and friendship with sin as with a serpent. For by its poisonous bite it kills the sinner, and it is not the kind of thing with which friendship should be made: but if perhaps it has overpowered someone weak, or crept up on someone unwary, or caught someone wandering, or deceived someone going into error, let the soul not be reluctant to confess, nor seek an excuse, but an accusation of itself. For on this account he prayed in a certain Psalm and said: "Set a guard, Lord, on my mouth, and a door of restraint around my lips: and do not turn my heart to evil words, to make excuses in sins." Let each one see his sin; let it be refused above all. But has it persuaded him? Let him not excuse it, but rather accuse it. For this man too who said, "Create a clean heart in me, O God," began thus: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy." A great sinner implores great mercy: a great wound desires a great medicine. There it is said, "Turn your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create a clean heart in me, O God." So God turns his face from the sins of one who confesses, and accuses himself, and begs God's help and mercy. For he turns his face from his sins, not by turning it from him. For to the one to whom it is said, "Turn your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities," it is said elsewhere, "Do not turn your face from me." He turns away when he does not turn toward; for if he turns toward, he overturns. That is why judges too, when they pronounce sentence on convicted defendants, are said to "turn their attention" to them. That God may not do this, that is, that he may not turn his attention to them, we say, "Turn your face from my sins." Let him not take note of them; let him not know them. For as we call "noble" the noble, but call the not-noble "ignoble," so we call the knowing "knowing," but the not-knowing "forgiving." Yet if you want him to forgive, you acknowledge. Sin cannot be unpunished. It is not fitting for it to be unpunished, it ought not to be, it is not just. So since sin must not be unpunished, let it be punished by you, lest you be punished for it. Let your sin have you as its judge, not its advocate. Mount the tribunal of your mind against yourself, and set yourself as defendant before yourself. Do not put yourself behind yourself, lest God put you before himself. That is why he says in the same Psalm, so that he may obtain pardon most easily: "For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is always before me." As though saying: Since it is before me, let it not be before you; and since I acknowledge it, you forgive. So sin is punished either by you or by God; but by you without you, by God with you. Let it have you, then, as its punisher, so that you may have God as your defender. Say: "I did it." "I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you." "I," he says, "said." I do not look, to excuse my sin, for who sinned in my regard, or who compelled me to sin. I do not say, "Fortune fell on me." I do not say, "Fate willed this." Finally I do not say, "The devil did it." For the devil himself has the power to persuade, and finally to terrify; and also, if he is permitted, to inflict grievous troubles: strength must be begged from the Lord, so that enticements may not capture us nor hardships break us. May he give us, against the enticements and threats of the enemy, two virtues, to restrain and to endure: to restrain our lusts, so that prosperity may not capture us; to endure terrors, so that adversity may not break us. "And since I knew," it says, "that no one can be continent unless God gives it." Hence, then, he said, "Create a clean heart in me, O God"; and, "Woe to those who have lost endurance." So seek to accuse no one, lest you find an accuser from whom you cannot defend yourself. For our enemy the devil himself rejoices when he is accused: and he altogether wants you to accuse him; he himself wants to bear from you whatever charge you like, so long as you lose confession. Against his cunning that man cries out, "I said, Lord." The enemy lies in wait for me in vain; I know his cunning: he is trying to catch my tongue; he wants me to say, "The devil did it." "I said, Lord." So by these tricks he seduces souls and turns them away from the medicine of confession: either persuading them to excuse themselves and look for someone to accuse; or persuading them, because they have already sinned, to despair now, and not to think they can come to pardon at all; or persuading them, because God quickly forgives everything, not to correct themselves.

See how many things there are against which the heart of a penitent must keep watch. So that it may not, by excusing itself, accuse another, let it remember, "I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you." So that it may not perish by despairing, thinking, because it has sinned and sinned gravely, that it can no longer be healed; and give itself up to lusts, to be dragged along by all desires. It does whatever it likes, though it is not lawful. And if it does not do it, it does not do it where it fears people. Altogether with a kind of gladiator's spirit, since it despairs of life, it does whatever it can to satisfy its desire and lust, like one devoted to death as a victim. Such people perish by despair. Against these, for their sake, that is, against such thoughts of theirs, Scripture, keeping watch, said: "On whatever day the wicked man turns and does righteousness, I will forget all his iniquities." Again, the soul, revived from the evil of despair if it has believed these words, may find another pit, so that, having been unable to perish by despair, it perishes by hope. And who perishes by hope? See the kind of man I propose, who says in his mind: "God has already promised pardon to all who turn away from their sins; at whatever hour they are converted, he will forget all their iniquities: so I will do whatever I want; when I want to, I will turn, and what I have done will be blotted out." What shall we say? That God does not care for the penitent when he turns? That God does not forgive all past sins? If we deny it, we contradict the divine indulgence: we oppose the prophetic words, we fight against the divine utterances. That is not the part of a faithful steward.

Someone comes back and says to me: "Will you, then, give rein to sins, so that people may do whatever they want, with pardon promised, impunity promised when they are converted?" They loosen the reins for sinning: they are carried along with great force, with no one calling them back, desperate through hope. Would Scripture, then, keep watch against those who despair and not keep watch against those who hope wrongly? Hear its watchfulness against bad and perverse hope: "Do not delay to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day: for his wrath will come suddenly, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy you." What then, malignant hoper? If you despair, you perish; if you hope, you perish. Where will there be a safe place for you, to rescue yourself from both pits and set yourself on the right road, serving God, having pity on your soul, pleasing God? You despaired wrongly; you heard, "On whatever day the wicked man turns, I will forget all his iniquities." You began to hope wrongly; you heard, "Do not delay to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day." The providence of God has surrounded you mercifully on every side. What do you say? "God has promised me pardon; when I turn he will give it." He will certainly give it when you turn; but why do you not turn? "Because when I turn, he will give it." Certainly, when you turn, he will give it; but that very "when," when is it? Why is it not today, why not while you are listening to me? Why not while you are shouting? Why not while you are praising? Let my shout be a helper for you: let your shout be a witness against you. Why not today? Why not now? "Tomorrow," he says; "God has promised me pardon." Do you promise yourself tomorrow? Or if perhaps you read me from the holy book that, as pardon has been promised to you when converted, so tomorrow has been promised to you, then put it off till tomorrow. Did he not put this first as a medicinal terror, did he not say this when rebuking you, "Do not put it off from day to day: for his wrath will come suddenly"? But, wise man that you are, of course you are afraid of having more than two days of good life. If there will be a tomorrow, let there be today too; and let it be two days. For if there will be no tomorrow, today will find you secure: but if there will be a tomorrow, it will be added to today. But you want to have a long life, and are not afraid of having a bad life. You want to live long, and live badly. You seek a long evil; why not rather a long good? What is there that you want to have not good? Only life will be what falls into evil in you. If I ask you what kind of garment you want, you answer, "A good one"; what kind of estate, "A good one"; what kind of wife, "A good one"; what kind of children, "Good ones"; what kind of house, "A good one"; only life a bad one. And you put life before all your goods, and among all your goods you want only your life to be bad. For all those things which you wanted good, garment, house, estate and the rest, you are ready to give for your life. If anyone says to you, "Either give me all your goods, or I take your life," you are ready to give all your goods and keep it, even bad. Why do you not want it to be good, when for it, even bad, you give all your goods? See, excuse has been taken away; let accusation be present, so that condemnation may not find you.

We exhort your Charity not to be reluctant to listen readily and attentively to the presbyters who minister the word of God. For the Lord our God is the truth itself, through whomever you hear it spoken; and no one is greater among you except the one who is lesser. So we had to speak first, according to custom; and you, hear out of love.