Sermons to the People 279.1–281.3

We have heard the words of the Apostle, or rather, through the Apostle, the words of Christ speaking in him, whom he made a preacher from a persecutor, striking and healing, killing and making alive; the lamb slain by wolves, and making lambs out of wolves. It had been foretold in a splendid prophecy, when the holy patriarch Jacob blessed his sons, touching those present, foreseeing things to come; what happened in Paul had been foretold. For Paul was, as he himself testifies, of the tribe of Benjamin. And when Jacob, blessing his sons, came to bless Benjamin, he said of him: “Benjamin is a ravening wolf.” What then? If a ravening wolf, always ravening? Far from it. But what? “In the morning he will seize, in the evening he will divide food.” This was fulfilled in the apostle Paul, because it had been foretold of him. Now, if you please, let us look at him seizing in the morning, dividing food in the evening. Morning and evening are put as if it were said, “before and after.” Let us take it, then: “Before he will seize, after he will divide food.” Look at the seizer. Saul, it says, as the Acts of the Apostles testify, having received letters from the chief priests to drag in and bring whomever he found following the way of God, certainly to be punished, was going, breathing and panting slaughter. Here is the one seizing in the morning. For when Stephen too, the first martyr, was stoned for the name of Christ, Saul was there quite plainly. And he was so present to those stoning that it was not enough for him to stone with his own hands only. For so that he might be in the hands of all who stoned, he himself kept the garments of all, raging more by helping all than by stoning with his own hands. We have heard, “In the morning he will seize”; let us see, “in the evening he will divide food.” He was struck down by the voice of Christ from heaven, and receiving the prohibition of his raging, he fell on his face; first to be struck down, then to be raised up; first to be struck, afterward to be healed. For Christ would not afterward live in him unless he were killed in that in which he had lived badly before. What then did he hear, struck down? “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad.” And he: “Who are you, Lord?” And the voice from above: “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.” The head in heaven was crying out for the members still on earth, and did not say, “Why are you persecuting my servants?” but, “Why are you persecuting me?” And he: “What do you want me to do?” Now he prepares himself to obey, who before raged to persecute. Now from a persecutor a preacher is formed, from a wolf a sheep, from an enemy a soldier. He heard what he must do. He was indeed made blind: so that his heart might shine with inner light, the outer was taken away for a time; it was withdrawn from the persecutor so that it might be given back to the preacher. And yet at that time, when he did not see other things, he saw Jesus. So even in his blindness the mystery of believers was being shaped; for whoever believes in Christ ought to gaze on him and count other things as not even born, so that the creature may grow cheap and the Creator grow sweet in the heart.

Let us see, then. He was brought to Ananias, and Ananias is interpreted “sheep.” See, the ravening wolf is brought to the sheep, to follow it, not to seize it. But lest the sheep be terrified of the wolf suddenly, the shepherd himself from heaven, who was doing all these things, announced to the sheep that the wolf would come, but would not rage. And yet so savage a reputation had gone before that wolf that the sheep could not but be disturbed on hearing his name. For when the Lord Jesus announced to that same Ananias that Paul had now come to believe, and that Ananias ought to go to him, Ananias said: “Lord, I have heard about this man, that he has done many evils to your saints; and now he has received letters from the chief priests to drag off whomever he finds following your name.” But the Lord to him: “Let it be, and I will show him what he must suffer for my name.” A wonderful and great thing is done. Raging is forbidden to the wolf; the wolf is brought captive to the sheep. So great a reputation of the ravening wolf had gone before that, hearing his name, the sheep was afraid even under the shepherd’s hand. He is strengthened, so that he no longer thinks him raging, no longer fears him swollen. By the lamb who died for the sheep, the sheep is made safe from the wolf.

Next, he to whom we sang in the previous Lord’s-day sermon, “O Lord, who is like you? Do not be silent, nor be gentle, O God”; who nevertheless says, “Come to me and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart”: let us see how he shows both and displays in himself that his sayings agree. He is gentle and humble of heart, because “like a sheep he was led to slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer, without a voice, so he did not open his mouth.” Hung on the wood, he bore the unjust flames of hatred; he endured the tongues that served the worst of hearts, with which tongues they struck the spotless one and crucified the just one. Of their tongues it had been said: “Sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.” And what did the tongue do? What did the sharp sword do? It killed. What did it kill? Death killed life, so that death might be killed by life. What then, what did their tongue, a sharp sword, do? Hear what it did: see what follows. “Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth.” See what the sharp sword did. We know the Lord exalted above the heavens, not by seeing, but by believing; his glory above all the earth, by reading, by believing, by seeing. See, then, him gentle and humble of heart, so that he might bring the trophy of the mortified flesh to this glory. See him gentle. Hanging, he said: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”; and, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.” Let us learn from you, for you are gentle and humble of heart. Where could it, or where should it, appear more fittingly than on the cross itself? When the members hung on the wood, when the hands and feet were fixed with nails, when they still raged with their tongues, when they were not sated with the blood shed, when the sick did not recognize the physician: “Father,” he said, “forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” As if he said: I came to cure the sick; that they do not recognize me, the savagery of the fever does it. Gentle, then, and humble of heart he says, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

What then is “Do not be silent, nor be gentle, O God”? Let him fulfill this too. See, he was not silent: he cried out from heaven, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He did “Do not be silent”; let him show “and do not be gentle.” First, because he did not spare his error, because he did not spare his raging, because by a voice he struck down the one panting slaughter, took the light from the raging one, brought him captive to Ananias, whom he was seeking as persecutor. See, not gentle; see, raging, not against the man but against the error. That is too little: let him still not be silent nor be gentle. To Ananias, fearing and trembling on hearing the name of that notorious wolf, he says, “I will show him.” I will show him. See him threatening, see him still raging: “I will show him.” “Do not be silent, nor be gentle, O God.” Show the persecutor not only your goodness but also your severity. Show him: let him suffer what he did, let him learn to suffer what he was doing, let him feel himself what he was inflicting on others. “I will show him,” he says, “what he must suffer.” But he says it as one raging, and fulfills what was said, “Do not be silent, nor be gentle, O God.” Let him not depart from “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.” “I will show him what he must suffer for my name.” You have shown terror; help, lest he suffer and perish whom you have made, whom you have found. He is threatening, he is not silent, he is not gentle, he threatens: “I will show him what he must suffer for my name.” Where there is terror, there is salvation. He who acted against the name, let him suffer for the name. O merciful cruelty! You see him preparing the knife: he is going to cut, not to destroy; to cure, not to kill. Christ said, “I will show him what he must suffer for my name.” But to what end? Hear the one who suffered. “The sufferings of this time are not worthy.” He himself says it who suffered, and knew for what name he suffered and with what fruit he suffered. “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that will be revealed in us.” Let the world rage, let the world roar, let it scold with tongues, flash with weapons, do whatever it can: what will it do compared with what we are to receive? I weigh what I suffer against what I hope for. This I feel, that I believe. And yet what I believe is worth more than what I feel. Whatever rages against the name of Christ, if it can be lived through, is bearable; if it cannot be lived through, it makes one depart from here. It does not extinguish, but hastens. What does it hasten? The reward itself, the sweetness itself, which when it has come will be without end. The work has an end, the reward is without end.

This man, then, brothers, this vessel of election, was first Saul, from Saul. For remember, you who know the Scriptures of God, who Saul was: a very wicked king, persecutor of the holy servant of God David; and he himself, if you remember, of the tribe of Benjamin. Hence this Saul, drawing with him the path of raging, but not to remain in raging. Afterward, if Saul is from Saul, where is Paul from? Saul from the savage king, when he was proud, when raging, when panting slaughter; but Paul from where? Paul, because small. Paul is a name of humility. Paul, after he was brought to the Teacher, who says, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.” Hence Paul. Notice the usage of Latin speech: for paulum is said for “a little.” “I shall see you paulo post”; “wait here paulum”: that is, “I shall see you after a little,” “wait here a little.” Hear Paul, then: “I,” he says, “am the least of the apostles.” Indeed, “I am the least of the apostles”; and in another place, “I am the last of the apostles.”

Both least and last, like the fringe of the Lord’s garment. What is so slight, what so last, as a fringe? Yet when it was touched, a woman was healed of a flow of blood. In this small man the great one was; in the least the great one dwelt; and the less he was, the less he shut the great one out from himself. Why do we marvel that the great one dwells in a narrow place? He dwells more in the least. Hear him saying: “On whom will my spirit rest? On the humble and quiet and the one who trembles at my words.” That is why the high one dwells in the humble, to exalt the humble. “For the Lord is high, and looks on the lowly; but the lofty he knows from afar.” Humble yourself, and he will draw near you; exalt yourself, and he will withdraw from you.

What, then, does this least one say? What we heard today: “With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Many believe with the heart and are ashamed to confess with the mouth. You should know, brothers, that there is now hardly any pagan who does not marvel within himself and perceive that the prophecies about Christ exalted above the heavens are being fulfilled, since they see his glory over all the earth. But since they fear one another and are ashamed before one another, they put salvation far from themselves, because “with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” What does it profit to have believed with the heart unto righteousness, if the mouth hesitates to bring out what was conceived in the heart? God sees faith within; but that is too little. You do not confess the humble one because you fear the proud; and you put the proud before the one who for your sake displeased the proud. You fear to confess the humble Son of God. You are not ashamed to confess the great Word of God, the power of God, the wisdom of God; you are ashamed to confess him born, crucified, dead. The high one, the lofty one, equal to the Father, through whom all things were made, through whom you too were made, has been made what you are; he was made man for you, born for you, died for you. Sick man, how will you be healed, you who are ashamed of your medicine? Choose your time. Now is the time: afterward the one despised will come to be marveled at, the one judged will come to judge, the one killed will come to raise, the one dishonored will come to honor. Now, and afterward: now the thing is in faith, afterward it will be in manifestation. Choose at this time which part you will hold in the future. Are you ashamed of the name of Christ? From your being ashamed now before men, you will have to be ashamed when he comes in his glory to repay what he promised the good, what he threatened the bad. Where will you be? What will you do if that high one looks at you and says to you, “You were ashamed of my humility; you will not be in my glory”? Let bad shame depart, then; let a healthy shamelessness come, if shamelessness it should be called: yet, brothers, I have forced myself to say this and not to fear at all.

For I do not want us to be ashamed of the name of Christ. Let it be impressed on us that we believe in one crucified, in one killed. Plainly in one killed; but if blood had not flowed from him, the bond of our sins would still remain. Indeed I have believed in one killed: but what was killed in him is what he took from me, not that by which he made me. Indeed I believe in one killed; but in whom killed? Someone who came, and took something. Who came? He who, “though he was in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God.” See who came: what did he take? “But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men.” The maker made, the creator created. But in what made and created? In the form of a servant, by taking the form of a servant, not by losing the form of God. In this form of a servant, then, in what he took from us for us, he was both born and suffered, rose, and ascended into heaven. I have named four things. He was born, he died, he rose, and he ascended into heaven. Two first, two last: the two first, he was born, he died; the two last, he rose, he ascended into heaven. In the two first he showed you your condition; in the two last he gave an example of the reward. To be born and to die you knew: the region of mortals is full of these two. What abounds here in all flesh except being born and dying? This man has in common with cattle: so we lead this life in common with cattle. We have been born; we are going to die. This you did not yet know: rising, and ascending into heaven. Two you knew, two you did not know: he took on what you knew, he showed what you did not know: bear what he took on, hope for what he showed.

For what, if you do not want to die, are you not going to die? Why do you fear what you cannot avoid? You fear what will be even if you do not want it; and you do not fear what, if you do not want it, will not be. What is it I have said? God has appointed death for all men who are born, by which they emigrate from this world. You will be exempted from death if you are exempted from the human race. What are you doing? Is it now said to you, “Choose whether you want to be a man”? You are a man already; you have come. Think how you are to leave here: you have been born; you are going to die. Flee, beware, repel, buy it off: you can postpone death, not remove it. It will come even if you do not want it; it will come when you do not know. Why then do you fear what will be even if you do not want it? Fear rather what, if you do not want it, will not be. What is this? To the ungodly, the unbelieving, blasphemers, perjurers, the unjust, and all the wicked, God has threatened the fires of burning Gehenna and eternal flames. First compare these two: death for a moment, and punishments for eternity. You fear death for a moment, which will come even if you do not want it: fear the punishments for eternity, which will not come if you do not want them. Much greater is what you ought to fear and have it in your power that it should not come to you; it is greater, far greater, incomparably greater, what you ought to fear and have it in your power that it should not come to you. For whether you live well or live badly, you are going to die: you will not escape dying, whether by living well or by living badly. But if you choose here to live well, you will not be sent into eternal punishments. Since you cannot choose here not to die, choose while you live not to die forever. This is the faith; this Christ showed by dying and rising. By dying he showed what you will suffer whether you want it or not; by rising he showed what you will receive if you live well. Here “with the heart one believes unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” But you fear to confess, lest men mock you; not those who have not believed, for they too believe within; but lest those mock you who are ashamed to confess. Hear what follows: “For Scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” Meditate on these things, be in these things: this is to be not of the belly but of the mind. He who seized in the morning was dividing that very food in the evening. Turning to the Lord, etc.

Today’s day, coming round again each year, recalls to our memory and in a certain way makes present again the day on which the holy handmaids of God, Perpetua and Felicity, adorned with the crowns of martyrdom, flowered in perpetual felicity, holding fast the name of Christ in battle and at the same time finding their own name in the reward. We heard their exhortations in the divine revelations and the triumphs of their sufferings when they were read; and all these things, watered and lit up by the words, we took in with the ear, beheld with the mind, honored with devotion, praised with love. Yet a solemn sermon is owed by us too to so devout a celebration; and if what I offer is unequal to their merits, I still show an eager affection in the joy of so great a festival. For what is more glorious than these women, whom men admire more easily than they imitate? But this is above all the praise of him in whom they believed and in whose name they ran together with faithful zeal, so that according to the inner man they are found neither male nor female; so that even in those who are women in body, the strength of the mind hides the sex of the flesh, and one is loath to think about in their limbs what could not appear in their deeds. So the dragon was trodden under by a chaste foot and a conquering step, when a ladder was shown set up, by which blessed Perpetua was to go to God. Thus the head of the ancient serpent, which had been a fall headlong for the woman who fell, was made a step for the woman who ascended.

What is sweeter than this spectacle? What braver than this contest? What more glorious than this victory? Then, when the holy bodies were thrown to the beasts, throughout the whole amphitheater “the nations raged, and the peoples meditated vain things. But he who dwells in the heavens laughed at them, and the Lord mocked them.” Now, however, the descendants of those whose voices raged impiously against the flesh of the martyrs praise the merits of the martyrs with pious voices. Nor was the theater of cruelty then filled with so great a crowd of people to kill them as the church of piety is now filled to honor them. Every year love looks on with devotion at what impiety committed with sacrilege on one day. They too looked on, but with a far different will. They by shouting did what the beasts by biting did not accomplish. We, however, both pity what the impious did and venerate what the pious suffered. They saw with the eyes of the flesh what they might pour back into the savagery of their hearts; we behold with the eyes of the heart what was snatched from them, so that they did not see it. They rejoiced at the dead bodies of the martyrs; we grieve at their dead minds. They, without the light of faith, thought the martyrs extinguished; we, with the most faithful gaze, see them crowned. In short, their insult has become our exultation; and this exultation is religious and everlasting, while that insult was then impious and is now plainly nothing.

The rewards of the martyrs, dearly beloved, we believe to be very great, and we believe it most rightly. But if we consider their contests carefully, we shall not at all wonder that they are so great. For this life, however laborious and temporal, is of such value that, although people cannot bring it about that they do not die, they still strive with many and great efforts not to die soon. Nothing can be done to take death away, and whatever can be done is done to put it off. Toil is certainly irksome to every soul; and yet even by those from whom nothing either good or bad is hoped for after this life, every toil is undertaken so that all toil may not be ended by death. What of those who, either in error suspect that false and carnal delights will come after death, or with right faith hope for an inexpressibly tranquil and most blessed rest: do not they too take pains, and act with great cares, not to die soon? For what else do so many labors for necessary food mean, so much service, whether of medicine or of other attentions, which the sick either demand or have shown them, except that one may not come quickly to the end of death? How much, then, is the absence of any infliction of death in the future life to be valued, when in this life mere postponement of it is so precious? So great indeed is the I know not what sweetness even of this troubled life, and so great in the nature of all living things the horror of death, that not even those wish to die who through death pass over to the life in which they cannot die.

This great pleasure of living and fear of dying, then, the martyrs of Christ despise with outstanding strength, by sincere love, sure hope, and unfeigned faith. Leaving behind them the world that promises and threatens in these things, they stretch forward to what lies ahead. Treading on the head of the serpent that hisses in different ways, they ascend. For he is the conqueror of all desires who subdues, as a tyrant, the love of this life, whose attendants all desires are. Nor is there any bond at all by which he can be held in this life who is not held by love of that life itself. With the fear of death, bodily pains are commonly compared in some way. For sometimes the one, sometimes the other prevails in a person. A man lies under torture so as not to die; and a man about to die lies so as not to be tortured. Another tells the truth, unable to bear the torments, lest by lying for himself he be tortured. But let either of these prevail in any minds whatever: the martyrs of Christ, for the name and justice of Christ, conquered both: they feared neither to die nor to suffer pain. He conquered in them who lived in them, so that those who lived not for themselves but for him, even when dead, should not die. He himself provided them with spiritual delights, so that they might not feel bodily afflictions, as far as was enough not for failure but for exercise. For where was that woman when she did not feel that she was fighting against a most savage cow, and when she asked when there would happen what had already happened? Where was she? What was she seeing, that she had not seen this? What was she enjoying, that she had not felt this? By what love was she carried out of herself, by what spectacle drawn away, by what cup made drunk? And she was still held by the bonds of the flesh, still bore dying limbs, still was weighed down by a corruptible body. What then, when the souls of the martyrs, freed from these bonds after the labors of a dangerous contest, have been received and refreshed by angelic triumphs, where it is not said to them, “Fulfill what I commanded,” but, “Receive what I promised”? With what delight do they now feast spiritually? How secure in the Lord, and with what sublime honor do they glory? Who could teach this by an earthly example?

And this life which the blessed martyrs now have, although it cannot be compared with any of the happinesses or pleasures of this age, is only a small portion of the promise; rather, a consolation for the delay. But the day of recompense will come, when, the bodies having been restored, the whole person will receive what he deserves; when the limbs of that rich man, once decked with temporal purple, will be burned in eternal fire, and the flesh of the poor man covered with sores will shine, changed, among the angels; although even now the one thirsts in the underworld for a drop from the poor man’s finger, and the other rests delightfully in the bosom of the just man. For as there is a great difference between the joys or miseries of those who dream and those who are awake, so there is a great difference between the torments or joys of the dead and of those who rise again: not that the spirits of the departed must necessarily be deceived like those of the sleeping, but that the rest of souls without any bodies is one thing, and the brightness and happiness of the angels, with heavenly bodies, is another; to which the multitude of the faithful who rise again will be made equal. Among them the most glorious martyrs will shine with the special light of their honor, and the very bodies in which they suffered unworthy torments will be turned into worthy ornaments for them.

So let us celebrate their solemnities, as we do, most devoutly: with sober cheerfulness, chaste assembly, faithful thought, and confident proclamation. It is no small part of imitation to rejoice in the virtues of better people. They are great, we are small; but “the Lord has blessed the small with the great.” They went before; they excelled. If we cannot follow them in deed, let us follow them in affection; if not in glory, at least in gladness; if not in merits, in desires; if not in suffering, in fellow-suffering; if not in excellence, in connection. Let it not seem little to us that we are members of the same body as they, whom we cannot equal. For “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; so when one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it.” Glory to the head, by which both the upper hands and the lowest feet are cared for. As that One laid down his life for us, so the martyrs imitated him and laid down their lives for the brothers; and so that this most abundant fruitfulness of peoples, like a crop, might spring up, they watered the earth with their blood. We too, then, are the fruit of their labor. We admire them; they pity us. We congratulate them; they pray for us. They spread their bodies like garments when the colt carrying the Lord was led into Jerusalem; let us at least, as if cutting branches from the trees, pluck hymns and praises from the holy Scriptures to bring forth for the common joy. Yet we all obey the same Lord, follow the same teacher, accompany the same prince, are joined to the same head, make for the same Jerusalem, pursue the same love, and embrace the same unity.

Among their companions in martyrdom, the merit and the name of Perpetua and Felicity, holy handmaids of God, shine out and stand first. For there the crown is more glorious where the sex is weaker. Because surely a manly spirit did something greater in women when feminine frailty did not give way under so great a weight. They had done well to cleave to the one husband to whom the Church is presented as a single chaste virgin. They had done well, I say, to cleave to that husband from whom they drew the strength by which to resist the devil, so that women should lay low the enemy who through a woman had laid low a man. He appeared unconquered in them who for them was made weak. He who, to sow them, emptied himself, filled them with strength so as to reap them. He led them to these honors and praises who for them heard insults and accusations. He made women die manfully and faithfully who for them deigned mercifully to be born of a woman.

It delights a pious mind to behold such a spectacle as blessed Perpetua reported had been revealed to her about herself: that she had been made a man and had fought with the devil. In that contest she too was running toward the perfect man, toward the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ. Fittingly that old and crafty enemy, so as to leave no snare untried, who through a woman had deceived a man, when he felt a woman dealing manfully with him, tried to overcome her through a man. He did not put forward her husband, lest she, who already dwelt in heaven in her thoughts on things above, should remain stronger through blushing at the suspicion of a desire of the flesh; but he instructed her father with words of deception, so that a devout spirit which would not be softened by the urge of pleasure might be broken by the impulse of filial affection. There holy Perpetua answered her father with such moderation that she neither violated the command by which honor is owed to parents nor yielded to the tricks by which the enemy was working at a deeper level. He, defeated on every side, had that same father of hers beaten with a rod, so that she who had despised his words might at least grieve at his blows. There indeed she grieved at the injury to her aged parent; and to the one to whom she gave no consent she kept her affection. For in him she hated his folly, not his nature; his unbelief, not her own origin. With greater glory, then, she bravely rejected so beloved a father giving evil counsel, whom she could not see beaten without sorrow. And so that grief took nothing away from the strength of her fortitude, and added something to the praises of her suffering. “For all things work together for good for those who love God.”

Felicity, moreover, was pregnant even in prison. In giving birth she bore witness to the condition of a woman with a woman’s cry. The penalty of Eve was not absent, but the grace of Mary was present. What a woman owed was exacted; he whom a virgin had borne came to help. In the end the child was delivered, mature in a mature month. For it was brought about by God that the burden of the womb should be laid down not at its own time, so that the honor of martyrdom should not be put off from its own time. It was brought about, I say, by God, that the child should be born on a day not owed, provided that Felicity was rendered as owed to so great a company; lest, if she had been missing, not only a companion of the martyrs but the very reward of the martyrs should seem to be missing. For this was the name of the two women which is the gift of all. For why do martyrs endure all things, except to glory in perpetual felicity? So they were called by the name of that to which all are called. And therefore, although there was a very large company in that contest, by the names of these two the everlastingness of all was signified and the solemnity of all was marked.