Sermons to the People 270.1–272.1

Since we are celebrating the holy solemnity of so holy a day, the day on which the Holy Spirit himself came, so festive and welcome a solemnity admonishes us to say something about the very gift of God, the grace of God, and the abundance of his mercy toward us, that is, about the Holy Spirit himself. In the Lord’s school we are speaking to fellow disciples. For we have had one teacher, in whom we are all one; who admonished us, lest we perhaps dare to be proud of being teachers, and said, “Do not be called Rabbi by men; for one is your teacher, Christ.” Under this teacher, then, whose chair is heaven, since we are to be instructed by his letters, attend to the few things I shall say, with him granting it who commands me to speak. You who know, recall; you who did not know, receive. It often troubles a devoutly curious mind, if indeed human frailty and weakness is permitted to search out such things. Indeed it is permitted. For what is kept hidden in the holy Scriptures is not closed in order to be denied, but rather so that it may be opened to one who knocks, as the Lord himself says: “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” So it often troubles the minds of the studious why the promised Holy Spirit was sent on the fiftieth day after the Lord’s passion and resurrection.

Here I first admonish Your Love not to be reluctant to consider a little why the Lord himself said, “He cannot come unless I go away.” As if something (to speak according to carnal sense), as if the Lord Christ were keeping something on high and, descending from there, had entrusted what he was keeping to the Holy Spirit, and so the Spirit could not come to us unless the one returned who would take back what was entrusted; or as if we were not strong enough to bear both, nor could endure the presence of both. As though one were separated from the other; or as though, when they come to us, they suffer cramping, and we are not rather enlarged. What then does it mean, “He cannot come unless I go away”? “For it is expedient for you,” he says, “that I go. For if I do not go, the Paraclete will not come to you.” What this is, then, as far as we either grasp, or think, or receive by his gift, or say what we believe, let Your Love briefly receive. It seems to me that the disciples had been occupied with the human form of the Lord Christ, and, being men, were held by human affection to the man. But he wanted them rather to have divine affection, and so to make them spiritual from carnal; which a man does not become except by the gift of the Holy Spirit. So he says this: “I send you a gift by which you may be made spiritual,” namely the gift of the Holy Spirit. But you will not be able to become spiritual unless you cease to be carnal. And you will cease to be carnal if the form of the flesh is taken from your eyes, so that the form of God may be planted in your hearts. For from this human form of the Lord, that is, the form of a servant (“he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant”), from this form of a servant, then, Peter’s affection too was held, when he feared that the one he greatly loved would die. For he loved the Lord Jesus Christ as a man a man, as a carnal man a carnal man, not as a spiritual man the majesty. How do we prove this? Because when the Lord himself asked his disciples who men said he was, and they, recounting the opinions of others, said that some said he was John, others Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets, he said to them: “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter, one for the rest, one for all: “You are the Christ,” he said, “the Son of the living God.” This was excellent, most true: rightly he deserved to receive such an answer: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to you,” because you have said to me; you have spoken, hear; you have given a confession, receive a blessing: so, “And I say to you, You are Peter”: because I am the rock, you are Peter; for the rock is not named from Peter, but Peter from the rock, as Christ is not named from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. “And on this rock I will build my Church”: not on Peter, which you are, but on the rock which you have confessed. “And I will build my Church”: I will build you, who in this answer bear the figure of the Church. This and the rest, because Peter had said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and had heard, as you remember, “Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you,” that is, the human mind, human weakness, human ignorance, “but my Father who is in heaven.” Then the Lord Jesus began to foretell his passion, and to show how much he would endure at the hands of the ungodly. Here Peter was terrified and feared that Christ, the Son of the living God, would perish by death. Surely Christ the Son of the living God, good from good, God from God, living from living, the fountain of life and true life, had come to destroy death, not to perish by death. Yet Peter as a man, terrified, whose affection, as I said, was human, centered on the flesh of Christ: “Be merciful to yourself, Lord,” he says; “far be it! let it not happen.” And the Lord refutes such words with a worthy and fitting answer. As he gave fitting praise to that confession, so too he gave fitting rebuke to this trembling: “Get back,” he says, “Satan.” Where is that “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona”? Distinguish the words of the one praising and of the one restraining; distinguish the causes of the confession and of the trembling. The cause of the confession: “Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” The cause of the trembling: “For you do not savor the things of God but the things of men.” Would we not want it said to such men, then: “For it is expedient for you that I go. Unless I go away, the Paraclete will not come to you. Unless the human form is withdrawn from your carnal sight, you will be quite unable to grasp, feel, or think anything divine”? Let this be enough. Hence it was necessary that after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ his promise about the Holy Spirit should be fulfilled. For so John the evangelist himself had said in his own person, when Jesus, signifying that same Holy Spirit, had cried out, saying: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink; and rivers of living water will flow from his belly.” For the evangelist went on to say: “This he said of the Spirit, whom those who would believe in him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, was glorified by resurrection and ascension, and he sent the Holy Spirit.

As we have learned from the holy Books, he spent forty days with his disciples after the resurrection, showing them the truth of the raised body, lest they think it something feigned, going in and out with them, eating and drinking. On the fortieth day, which we celebrated ten days ago, he ascended into heaven in their sight, promised to come in the way he went, that is, in the human form in which he was judged, in it to judge. He willed to send the Holy Spirit on a day other than that on which he ascended; not even after two or three days, but after ten days. This question has compelled us to search and inquire into some hidden recesses of numbers. Forty days contain ten four times. By this number, as it seems to me, a sacrament is commended. For we are men speaking to men; and we are rightly called expounders of the Scriptures, not asserters of our own opinions. This number forty, then, containing ten four times, signifies, as it seems to me, this age which we now pass and pass through; we are driven and driven through by the course of times, the instability of things, departure and succession, fleeting rapacity, and a kind of river of things that do not stand still. So this age is signified by this number because of the four seasons of the world, which fill the year; and also the four quarters of the world itself, known to all and often mentioned by holy Scripture: “From the East and the West, from the North and the South.” Through these four seasons, then, and through the fourfold world, the law of God is preached, as the number ten. Hence the Decalogue too is first commended. For the law is set in ten commandments, because there seems to be a certain perfection in this number ten. For up to this number the progress of one counting goes, and from there it returns, from one up to ten, again to one. So with hundreds, so with thousands; so further, with tens folding together, the forest of numbers grows without end. So the law is perfect in ten, and the law preached through the fourfold world: four tens make forty. And we are taught, while we are in the conduct of this age, to abstain from worldly desires: which the forty-day fast, known to all by the name of Lent, signifies. This the Law commanded you, this Prophecy, this the Gospel. Because the Law commanded it, Moses fasted forty days; because Prophecy, Elijah fasted forty days; because the Gospel, the Lord Christ fasted forty days. So when after the forty days another ten days were completed, the number ten once, the number ten simply, not fourfold, the Holy Spirit came, so that the law might be fulfilled by grace. For the law without grace is the letter that kills. “For if a law had been given,” he says, “that could give life, righteousness would indeed be from the law. But Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise from faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” Hence, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Not that you fulfill something other than what you are commanded through the Letter; but the letter alone makes guilty, grace both frees from sin and grants that the letter be fulfilled. Hence through grace comes the forgiveness of all sins, and the faith that works through love. Do not think, then, that the letter has been condemned because it was said, “The letter kills.” This is: the letter makes men guilty. A command is given, you are not helped by grace: at once you find yourself not only not a doer of the law but also guilty of transgression. “For where there is no law, there is no transgression.” So the law was not rebuked when it was said, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life,” as if he condemned the one and praised the other: but “the letter kills”: the letter alone, without grace. Take an example. In the same manner of speaking it was said: “Knowledge puffs up.” What is “knowledge puffs up”? Has knowledge been condemned? If it puffs up, we would do better to remain ignorant. But since he added, “But charity builds up”: as, where he added, “But the Spirit gives life,” he gave us to understand that the letter without the Spirit kills, but with the Spirit gives life and makes the letter fulfilled; so knowledge without charity puffs up, charity with knowledge builds up. So the Holy Spirit was sent that the law might be fulfilled, and that what the Lord himself had said might come about: “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.” This he gives to believers, this he gives to the faithful, this he gives to those to whom he gives the Holy Spirit. The more capacious anyone becomes for him, the easier he finds it to do the law.

For I tell Your Love something which you too will be able to consider and easily see: charity fulfills the law. Fear of punishments makes a man work, but still slavishly. For if you do good because you fear to suffer evil, or do not do evil because you fear to suffer evil, if someone promised you impunity, you would at once lay hold of iniquity. If it were said to you, “Be secure, you will suffer no evil, do it,” you would do it. For you were held back by fear of punishment, not by love of righteousness. For charity was not yet at work in you. See, then, how charity works. Let us so love him whom we fear that we fear him with a chaste love. For a chaste wife too fears her husband. But distinguish these fears. A chaste wife fears that she may be abandoned by her absent husband; an adulterous wife fears that she may be caught by her husband arriving. So charity fulfills the law, because “perfect charity casts out fear”: slavish fear, that is, which comes from sin. For “the chaste fear of the Lord endures for ever and ever.” If, then, charity fulfills the law, where does this charity come from? Recall, notice, and see that charity is the gift of the Holy Spirit. “For the charity of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Rightly, then, when ten days had been completed, by which number the perfection of the law too is commended, the Lord Jesus Christ sent the Holy Spirit: because grace gives us to fulfill the law, which he came not to abolish but to fulfill.

But the Holy Spirit is usually commended in the holy Scriptures by the number seven, not ten: the law by ten, the Holy Spirit by seven. That the law is by ten is known; that the Holy Spirit is by seven, we recall. First, in the very book, at the head of the book entitled Genesis, the works of God are listed. Light is made, heaven is made, which was called the firmament between water and water; dry land is laid bare, the sea is separated from the land, the fruitful conception of all plants is given to the earth; the lights are made, greater and lesser, sun and moon, and the other stars; the waters bring forth their offspring, the earth its own; man is made in the image of God; God completes all his works on the sixth day; in none of the works of God, so many listed and completed, did sanctification sound. God said, “Let there be light,” and light was made; and God saw the light, that it was good: he did not say, God sanctified the light. “Let there be a firmament,” and it was made; God saw that it was good: nor was it said that the firmament was sanctified. So with the rest, not to dwell on most obvious things: up to those things made on the sixth day, when man was created in the image of God, all are listed, nothing is said to be sanctified. They came to the seventh day, on which no work was done, but the rest of God is suggested, and God sanctified the seventh day. In the number of seven days sanctification first sounded, sought in all the places of Scripture and first found here. Where the rest of God is mentioned, our rest too is suggested. For God did not labor so as to need rest; nor did he, as if after labor rejoicing in a holiday, sanctify that day on which he was allowed to be at leisure. That is a carnal thought. A rest after all our good works is suggested to us, as God’s rest after all his good works is suggested. For God made all things, “and see, all things were very good. And God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made.” Do you want to rest too? First do works very good. So the keeping of the sabbath was given to the Jews carnally, like the other things, as sacraments that signify. For a certain leisure was commanded: what that leisure signifies, you do. For spiritual leisure is tranquillity of heart; and tranquillity of heart comes from the serenity of a good conscience. So he truly keeps the sabbath who does not sin. For so it is commanded to those commanded to keep the sabbath: “You shall do no servile work.” “Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.” So the number seven is dedicated to the Holy Spirit, as ten to the law. The prophet Isaiah too suggests this in the place where he says: “The Spirit of wisdom and understanding (count them), of counsel and strength, of knowledge and piety, the Spirit of the fear of God will fill him.” As if descending to us, spiritual grace begins from wisdom and ends at fear. But we, ascending, reaching from the lowest to the highest, must begin from fear and end at wisdom. For “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” It would be long, and beyond our strength, though not beyond your eagerness, to recall all the testimonies about the number seven as it concerns the Holy Spirit. So let these suffice.

Now attend to how, since the law is fulfilled by the grace of the Holy Spirit, both the number ten had to be recalled and commended, as we have already shown, and the number seven because of the very grace of the Holy Spirit. Christ commended by the number ten, sending the Holy Spirit after ten days, the very law which he commanded to be fulfilled. Where, then, shall we find here the commendation of the number seven, especially on account of the Holy Spirit himself? You have in the book of Tobit that this very feast, that is, Pentecost, consists of weeks. How? Multiply seven by itself, that is, seven by seven, as is learned in school: seven times seven make forty-nine. To this form of seven, by reckoning seven by seven (since the Holy Spirit himself gathers us and assembles us; hence he gave the first sign of his coming, that those who received him should each speak in all tongues: for the unity of the body of Christ is gathered from all tongues, that is, through all nations spread through the whole world; and that one man then spoke in all tongues testified to the unity that would be in all tongues. And the Apostle says: “Bearing with one another in love,” that is, charity, “eager to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” Since, then, the Holy Spirit gathers us from many into one; but he is received through humility and repelled by pride. For a humble heart is like water seeking a hollow place where it may settle; but it is repelled by the elation of pride, as by the swelling of a hill, and slides off: hence it was said, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” What is “gives grace”? He gives the Holy Spirit. He fills the humble, because he finds them capacious): since, then, these things are so, to the forty-nine, which come from seven by seven, so that Pentecost may come about, one is added, and unity is commended.

Since the eagerness of Your Love helps our weakness before the Lord our God, receive something which, as it seems to me, will be the sweeter when explained, the more obscure it would be if not explained. Before the resurrection the Lord commanded his disciples to let down the nets into the sea, when he chose them. They let them down, they caught an innumerable multitude of fish, so that the nets were breaking and the loaded boats were sinking. But he did not command on which side they should let down the nets, but only said, “Let down the nets.” For if he had commanded them to let them down on the right side, he would signify that only the good were caught; if on the left, only the bad. But because they were let down anywhere, neither on the right nor on the left, both good and bad. This is the signification of the Church of the present time, in this age. For those servants too, sent to the invited, went out, and brought in whomever they found, good and bad, and the wedding was filled with guests. So now both good and bad are gathered. And why do schisms come about, if not because they break the nets? Why is the Church often pressed by the scandals of carnal crowds rioting badly, if not because they weigh down the boats too? This, then, the Lord did before the resurrection. But after the resurrection he found his disciples fishing in like manner: he commanded the nets to be let down, not anyhow and anywhere, because it was now after the resurrection. For after the resurrection his body, which is the Church, will have no bad. “Let down the nets,” he says, “on the right side.” The nets were let down, at his command, on the right side, and fish of a fixed number were caught. For those without number, those by which the Church now passing was signified, as it were from that catch: “I announced and I spoke; they were multiplied beyond number.” So some are understood as beyond the number, in a way superfluous; yet they are gathered. But there, on the right, fish are caught, both counted and large. “For whoever does and teaches so,” he says, “will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” So large fish were caught, a hundred and fifty-three in number. Who would not be moved to think that this number is not mentioned in vain? For the Lord, signifying nothing, would not have said, “Let down the nets,” nor would it have concerned him that they be let down on the right side. This number of a hundred and fifty-three signifies something too; and it fell to the evangelist to say, as if he had looked back to that first catch, where the torn nets signified schisms (because in that Church of eternal life there will be no schisms, because no dissension; all large, because full of charity): as if, then, he had looked back to what was done first to signify schisms, it fell to him to say in this second catch, “And although they were so large, the nets were not torn.” What the right side signified, then, has been said: that all are good. What the size, has been said: that whoever does and teaches so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. What also that the nets were not torn, has been said: that then there are no schisms. What then are the hundred and fifty-three? This number will certainly not itself be the number of the saints. For the saints will not be a hundred and fifty-three, since those alone who have not defiled themselves with women are recorded as twelve times twelve thousand. But this number seems to grow up like a tree from a certain seed. And the seed of this great number is a certain smaller number, which is seventeen. Seventeen makes a hundred and fifty-three, if you count from one to seventeen and add all the numbers: for if from one to seventeen you do not add the numbers, those you name in all will be only seventeen; but if you count thus: one, two, three; as one and two and three make six, six, four, and five make fifteen; so you come up to seventeen, carrying on your fingers a hundred and fifty-three. Now recall what I mentioned and commended a little before, and see what seventeen signifies. Ten, the law; seven, the Holy Spirit. From which what do we understand, except that those will be in the Church of the eternal resurrection, where there will be no schisms, where death will not be feared because it will be after the resurrection, those, then, will be there and will live with the Lord forever, who have fulfilled the law by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the gift of God, whose feast we are celebrating?

A welcome day has dawned for us, brothers, on which the holy Church shines in the sight of the faithful and glows in their hearts. For we celebrate this day on which the Lord Jesus Christ, glorified by his ascension after the resurrection, sent the Holy Spirit. For so it is written in the Gospel, when he said: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink; whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from his belly.” The evangelist went on to explain, and said: “This he said of the Spirit, whom those who would believe in him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” It remained, then, that when Jesus had been glorified, when he had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, the Holy Spirit should now be given, sent by him by whom he was promised: as indeed happened. For the Lord, having lived with his disciples forty days after the resurrection, ascended into heaven, and on the fiftieth day, which we celebrate today, he sent the Holy Spirit, as it is written: that suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind rushing; and there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, which sat upon each one; and they began to speak in all tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak. That wind cleansed hearts of carnal chaff; that fire consumed the hay of old lust; those tongues in which they spoke, filled by the Holy Spirit, prefigured the Church to come in the tongues of all nations. For as after the flood the proud ungodliness of men built a lofty tower against the Lord, when the human race deserved to be divided by different tongues, so that each nation spoke its own tongue so as not to be understood by others: so the humble piety of the faithful brought the diversity of those tongues to the unity of the Church; so that what discord had scattered, charity might gather, and the scattered members of the human race, as of one body, might be brought back, joined together, to the one head, Christ, and be fused by the fire of love into the unity of the holy body. So those are wholly strangers to this gift of the Holy Spirit who hate the grace of peace, who do not keep the fellowship of unity. For although they too are solemnly assembled today, although they hear these readings in which the Holy Spirit was promised and sent, they hear for judgment, not for reward. For what does it profit them to take in with their ears what they spit out with their hearts, and to celebrate the day of him whose light they hate? But you, my brothers, members of the body of Christ, shoots of unity, sons of peace, keep this day gladly, celebrate it securely. For in you is fulfilled what was prefigured in those days when the Holy Spirit came. For as then whoever received the Holy Spirit, even one man, spoke in all tongues, so now unity itself speaks in all tongues through all nations; established in it you have the Holy Spirit, you who by no schism dissent from the Church of Christ speaking in all tongues.

What you see on the altar of God you saw last night too; but what it was, what it meant, of how great a thing it contained the sacrament, you have not yet heard. What you see, then, is bread and a cup; this your eyes too report to you. But what your faith asks to be instructed in: the bread is the body of Christ, the cup the blood of Christ. This has been said briefly, which perhaps suffices for faith; but faith desires instruction. For the prophet says: “Unless you believe, you will not understand.” For you can now say to me: “You have commanded us to believe; explain, so that we may understand.” For such a thought can arise in anyone’s mind: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, we know where he received flesh: from the Virgin Mary. As an infant he was suckled, he was nourished, he grew, he was brought to young manhood, he suffered persecution from the Jews, he was hung on the wood, he was killed on the wood, he was taken down from the wood, he was buried, on the third day he rose, on the day he willed he ascended into heaven; he lifted his body there; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead; there he is now, seated at the right hand of the Father: how is bread his body? And the cup, or what the cup holds, how is it his blood?” These things, brothers, are called sacraments for this reason: that in them one thing is seen, another understood. What is seen has bodily appearance; what is understood has spiritual fruit. If, then, you want to understand the body of Christ, hear the Apostle saying to the faithful: “But you are the body of Christ, and its members.” If, then, you are the body of Christ and its members, your mystery has been placed on the Lord’s table: you receive your mystery. To what you are, you answer “Amen,” and by answering you subscribe. For you hear, “The body of Christ,” and you answer, “Amen.” Be a member of the body of Christ, so that your Amen may be true. Why, then, in bread? Let us bring nothing of our own here; let us hear the same Apostle again, who, when he was speaking of this sacrament, said: “One bread, one body, we who are many.” Understand and rejoice: unity, truth, piety, charity. “One bread”: what is this one bread? “One body, we who are many.” Recall that bread is not made from one grain but from many. When you were exorcised, you were as it were ground. When you were baptized, you were as it were moistened. When you received the fire of the Holy Spirit, you were as it were baked. Be what you see, and receive what you are. This the Apostle said about the bread. Now what we should understand about the cup, even though not said, he has shown well enough. For as, so that the visible form of bread may exist, many grains are moistened into one, as though there came about what holy Scripture says of the faithful, “They had one soul and one heart toward God”: so also with the wine. Brothers, recall how wine is made. Many grapes hang on the cluster, but the juice of the grapes is poured together into unity. So too the Lord Christ signified us, willed us to belong to him, consecrated on his table the mystery of our peace and unity. Whoever receives the mystery of unity and does not hold the bond of peace receives not a mystery for himself but a testimony against himself. Turning to the Lord God, the Father almighty, with a pure heart let us give him, as far as our littleness can, very great and true thanks, praying with our whole mind his singular gentleness that he may deign in his good pleasure to hear our prayers; that by his power he may also drive the enemy from our actions and thoughts, multiply faith for us, govern our mind, grant us spiritual thoughts, and lead us to his blessedness: through Jesus Christ his Son. Amen.