Sermons to the People 294.3–294.16

This first error must be turned away from the ears and rooted out of minds. This is new in the Church, unheard of before: that there is eternal life apart from the kingdom of heaven, that there is eternal salvation apart from the kingdom of God. First see, brother, whether you ought not perhaps to agree with us here, that whoever does not belong to the kingdom of God without doubt belongs to condemnation. The Lord who is to come and judge the living and the dead, as the Gospel says, will make two parts, the right and the left. To those on the left he will say, “Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels”; to those on the right he will say, “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” On this side he names the kingdom, on that side condemnation with the devil. No middle place has been left where you could put infants. The living and the dead will be judged: some will be on the right, others on the left; I know of nothing else. You who bring in a middle, get out of the middle: let him who seeks the right not stumble over you. And I warn you yourself: get out of the middle, but do not go to the left. If, then, there will be a right and a left, and we know of no middle place in the Gospel: see, on the right is the kingdom of heaven: “Receive,” he says, “the kingdom.” Whoever is not there is on the left. What will be on the left? “Go into the eternal fire.” On the right to the kingdom, surely eternal; on the left into eternal fire. Whoever is not on the right is without doubt on the left: so whoever is not in the kingdom is without doubt in eternal fire. Can someone who is not baptized surely have eternal life? He will not be on the right, that is, he will not be in the kingdom. Do you reckon eternal fire as eternal life? And hear more expressly about eternal life itself, because the kingdom is nothing other than eternal life. He named the kingdom first, but for those on the right; eternal fire for those on the left. But in the final sentence, to teach what the kingdom is and what eternal fire is, “Then,” he says, “these will go into eternal burning; but the righteous into eternal life.” See, he has explained to you what the kingdom is and what eternal fire is; so that when you confess that the little one will not be in the kingdom, you confess that he will be in eternal fire. For the kingdom of heaven is eternal life.

Nor does the apostle Paul say otherwise when he frightened people—not little ones, not the unbaptized, but the wicked, criminals, the defiled, the lost: he did not frighten them by saying that they will be in eternal fire, where they will without doubt go if they are not corrected; but he frightened them only by saying that they will not be in the kingdom; so that when they saw they were losing the hope of the kingdom, they would see that nothing followed but the punishment of eternal fire. “Do not be deceived,” he says: “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor those who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God.” He did not say, “These and those, such and such will be tormented in eternal fire,” but, “will not possess the kingdom of God.” With the right taken away, only the left remained. And how do they escape from eternal fire? For no other reason than that they will be in the kingdom. It follows: “And such indeed you were.” And why are they not so now? “But you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “For there is no other name under heaven in which we must be saved”—we all, small with great. But if we must be saved in this name, without this name there will without doubt be no salvation either, the salvation that is promised to little ones without Christ. By their leave I will say: whoever promises anyone salvation without Christ, I do not know whether he himself can have salvation in Christ.

Next we ask them: What if someone were to say that little ones, by the merit of their innocence, as you say, and their freedom from all fault, will have not only salvation and eternal life but also the kingdom of God? From where is it defined and certain with you that little ones will not have the kingdom of God without baptism, so that you should apportion things to them at your own discretion—not as helpers of little ones but as oppressors of the wretched—so that you should apportion to them at your discretion and give them salvation and eternal life apart from the kingdom of heaven? Another, kinder to them than you and more merciful, and, as you think, more just, will give them everything, both eternal life and the kingdom of heaven. How will you overcome him? Since human reasoning sometimes delights you against the most evident authority, bring forward the very rule of your reasoning, and assert with all the strength you can by what this man is to be overcome, who wishes to give to little ones, because of the merits of innocence, because of no guilt, as you say, that is, no original sin, even when not baptized, not only eternal life but also the kingdom of heaven: overcome him. I take up his side for a little while without prejudice, and I shall say what I myself do not think; but I warn you, so that you may see a sharper adversary.

See, someone or other comes forward and says: A little one who has no sin at all, neither what he contracted by his own life nor what he drew from the life of the first parent, will have both eternal life and the kingdom of heaven. Answer, overcome the man who resists you, you who divide otherwise. For you say: This unbaptized one will indeed have eternal life, but he will not have the kingdom of heaven. He on the other hand: No, both life and the kingdom of heaven. For why do you snatch the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven from an innocent one? One by whom the kingdom of heaven is not gained is surely cheated of a great good. What is this justice? Tell me, why? What offense has an unbaptized little one committed, having no guilt, neither his own nor drawn from his parent? What offense has he committed, tell me, that he should not enter the kingdom of heaven, that he should be separated from the lot of the saints, that he should be an exile from the company of the angels? For you seem merciful to yourself because you do not take life away from him; yet you condemn him whom you separate from the kingdom of heaven. You condemn him: not by striking him, but by sending him into exile. For those who are in exile also live, if they are healthy: they are not in bodily pains, they are not tortured, they are not afflicted by the darkness of a prison; this alone is their punishment, not to be in their homeland. If the homeland is loved, it is a great punishment; but if the homeland is not loved, the punishment of the heart is worse. Is it a small evil in a man’s heart that he does not seek the company of the saints, that he does not desire the kingdom of heaven? If he does not desire it, the punishment is from perversity; but if he desires it, the punishment is from love cheated. But if, as you wish, the punishment is small, even that small one is great if there is no guilt. Here defend the justice of God. Why is even a small punishment inflicted on an innocent one, in whom no sin at all is found? Speak against this adversary, who wants to give unbaptized little ones, with greater mercy and justice than you, not only eternal life but also the kingdom of heaven: answer if you can, but bring a reason; for in this you delight to glory.

I feel that this question is deep, and I do not recognize my powers as fit to search its bottom. I am glad to cry out here too what Paul cried: “O the depth of the riches!” The unbaptized little one goes into condemnation: for the apostle’s words are, “From one to condemnation.” I do not find an adequate reason, because I do not find it, not because there is none. Where, then, I do not find it, as a deep within a deep, I ought to consider human weakness, not condemn divine authority. I cry out altogether, and I am not ashamed: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, that it should be repaid him? For from him and through him and in him are all things: to him be glory for ages of ages.” I fortify my weakness with these words, and, fenced about with this caution, I stand walled against the arrows of your reasonings. But you, warrior, that is, strong reasoner, answer this man who says to you: A little one entirely innocent and free from all sin, both his own and original, will have not only eternal life but also the kingdom of heaven. This is just. Why does one who has nothing bad not have something good? “But I know,” you say. How do you know? “Because the Lord said so.” At last you have come. So not because you reason, but because the Lord said so. I plainly praise this; it is sound: as a man you did not find a reason, you flee to authority. I approve, I approve entirely. You do well; you do not find what to answer, flee to authority: I do not pursue you there, I do not drive you out from there; rather I receive you as you flee and embrace you.

Bring forward the authority, then; let us stand on it together against the common enemy. For that an unbaptized little one does not enter the kingdom of heaven, both you and I say. So let us both resist that common adversary who says that an unbaptized little one will enter the kingdom of heaven, and let us hold up the shield of faith against his most treacherous darts. Let the conjectures of human reason give way for a while; let divine arms be taken up. “Take up,” says the apostle, “the armor of God.” See, let us say together to this man: Are you a Christian? “A Christian,” he says. Hear the Gospel, you who want to send unbaptized little ones into the kingdom of heaven; hear the Gospel: “Unless one is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of God.” It is the Lord’s statement: no one resists it but a non-Christian. He has been driven back; the contest remains between me and you: and perhaps by what you have conquered for his good, by that you will be conquered for your own good. For him whom you have conquered, if he is not hard, you have taught. Do not, then, be hard yourself either: let us hold together for the time being this statement, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of God.” “Therefore,” you say, “I cannot promise the kingdom of God to an unbaptized little one against the Lord’s plain statement. See why I say: They will not have the kingdom of God. See why I say: They are to be baptized for this reason, that they may have the kingdom of God.” You say so for this reason? “For this reason,” he says. Yet see, because of what we said above, whether you may not find eternal life apart from the kingdom of God. For the sayings about those two parts, right and left, are very open, where he gave no place in the middle to life without the kingdom. Does this correct you too little? Admonish you too little? Turn your attention a little with me to the very reading from which you brought forward this statement.

For you said that you are unwilling to promise the kingdom of heaven to unbaptized little ones because the Lord’s statement is plain: “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” You did not notice there, when Nicodemus asked how these things could happen, that is, how a man could be reborn, how he could be born again—since he surely cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born again—what he heard from the Lord, what he heard from the good master, what error heard from the truth. For among other things, showing how it happens, he also set out a likeness. But first he said: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” He was on earth, and he said he was in heaven; and what is greater, the Son of Man in heaven: so as to show one person in both natures, both in that he was the Son of God, equal to the Father, the Word of God in the beginning, God with God, and in that he was the son of man, taking a human soul and human flesh, and clothed with man, going out to men; because from these two there are not two Christs, nor two sons of God, but one person, one Christ, the Son of God, and the same one Christ, not another, the son of man; but Son of God according to divinity, son of man according to the flesh. But which of us who notice too little or understand too little would not rather distinguish thus: the Son of God in heaven, and the Son of Man on earth? But so that we should not divide thus, and by dividing bring in two persons, “No one,” he says, “has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” So the Son of Man descended from heaven. Was not the son of man made on earth? Was not the son of man made through Mary? But, O man, he says, do not separate the one I wish to join. It is little that the Son of Man descended (for Christ descended, and the same is the son of man who is the Son of God); he sits in heaven who walks on earth. He was in heaven, because Christ is everywhere, and the same Christ is both Son of God and son of man. Because of the unity of the person, the Son of God is on earth; because of the same unity of the person, we have proved that the son of man is in heaven, from these words of the Lord: “The Son of Man,” he says, “who is in heaven.” Because of the unity of the person, did not Peter say to him when he was standing visibly on earth, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”?

So let Nicodemus learn how that comes about which seemed to him, understanding too little, unbelievable and as it were impossible: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven.” But all who are reborn surely ascend into heaven; of the rest, absolutely no one. And all who are reborn ascend into heaven by the grace of God; and “no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” How so? Because all who are reborn become his members; and Christ alone, born of Mary, is one Christ, and the head with his body is one Christ. This, then, is what he wanted to say: No one ascends except he who descended. So no one ascends but Christ. If you want to ascend, be in the body of Christ; if you want to ascend, be a member of Christ. “For as in one body we have many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ”: because head and body are Christ. And how this comes about, let us still ask. The question is hidden; that depth is exalted.

Christ has no sin: he neither drew original sin nor added his own; he came apart from the pleasure of carnal lust; there was no marital embrace there; from the Virgin’s body he took no wound but a remedy; he did not take something to be healed, but something by which to heal—as far as sin is concerned, I mean. He alone, then, is without sin: how will those be his members of whom no one is without sin? How? Hear the likeness that follows: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” Why did it seem to you that sinful men could not become members of Christ, that is, of him who had no sin at all? You were moved by the serpent’s bite: therefore Christ is crucified, therefore Christ pours out his blood for the remission of sins; because of sin, that is, the serpent’s poison. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, by which those were healed who were bitten by serpents in that desert, and were commanded to look at the one lifted up, and whoever looked was healed; so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him—that is, who looks at the one lifted up, who is not ashamed of the crucified, who glories in the cross of Christ—may not perish but have eternal life. May not perish: how? By believing in him. How may he not perish? By looking at the one lifted up: otherwise he would have perished. For this is it: “Everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

You bring me a little one and order him to look at the one lifted up, while you deny that he has the serpent’s poison. On the contrary, if you favor him, if you are moved by the innocence in his own life, do not deny some guilt drawn from the first life—not his own, but his first parent’s. Do not deny it; confess the poison, so that you may ask for the remedy: otherwise he is not healed. Or why do you tell him to believe? For this is answered by the one carrying the little one. He is healed at another’s words because he was wounded by another’s deed. Does he believe in Jesus Christ? The question is put: it is answered, “He believes.” For one who does not speak, for one who is silent, for one who weeps and by weeping in a way prays to be helped, the answer is given, and it avails. Or does that serpent try to persuade even this, that it does not avail? Far be it from the hearts of Christians of any kind. So the answer is given, and it avails. By a kind of joint breathing the spirit is shared; he believes in another because he sinned in another. Or does the one whom weakness brought to birth find the life of this world, and the one whom love brought to birth not find the life of the world to come?

So, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so that everyone struck by a serpent might look at the one lifted up and be healed, so the Son of Man had to be lifted up, so that everyone poisoned by the serpent might look at the one lifted up and be healed. Adam was the first to receive the serpent’s bite with its poison. So one born in the flesh of sin is made safe in Christ through the likeness of the flesh of sin. “For God sent his Son,” not in the flesh of sin, but, as the writer goes on, “in the likeness of the flesh of sin”; because not from a marital embrace but from a virginal womb. He sent him in the likeness of the flesh of sin: for what purpose? “That from sin he might condemn sin in the flesh”: sin by sin, the serpent by the serpent. For who doubts that sin is called by the name of serpent? So sin by sin, the serpent by the serpent: but by a likeness, because in Christ there is no sin, but only the likeness of the flesh of sin. Therefore the serpent lifted up was of bronze; the likeness of the flesh of sin was lifted up, so that the origin of sin might be healed. “For God sent his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin.” Not in the likeness of flesh—for it is true flesh—but in the likeness of the flesh of sin, because it is mortal flesh without any sin at all. “That from sin,” because of the likeness, “he might condemn sin in the flesh,” because of the true iniquity. True iniquity was not in Christ, but mortality was in him. He did not take on sin, but he took on the punishment of sin. By taking on the punishment without the guilt, he healed both the punishment and the guilt. See how these things come about—what Nicodemus had said in wonder: “How can these things be?” For so we are healed, not because we deserve it. See how these things come about. Now where do you put the little ones for me? Now you say, “They have been wounded by no poison.” Take them away from the sight of the serpent lifted up. But if you do not take them away, you call them to be healed; you confess them poisoned.

Then, did you not hear what the Lord himself said in the same discourse to Nicodemus, when this same reading was read today? “Whoever believes in him is not judged; but whoever has not believed has already been judged.” And here you seek a middle, man, from the middle, and you dispute and are stretched, and do not attend: “Whoever believes in him is not judged; but whoever has not believed has already been judged.” What does “has already been judged” mean? He has been condemned. For you know that judgment is very often put for condemnation: the Scriptures are witnesses, above all that one most open testimony which no one contradicts. When the Lord was speaking of the resurrection, he said: “Those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.” Surely he put judgment for condemnation. And do you dare to argue or believe otherwise? “Whoever does not believe has already been judged.” In another place: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life”—which you were promising to unbaptized little ones. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” But, he says, the little one who does not believe also has it, though he does not have the kingdom of God. But see what follows: “But whoever does not believe the Son does not have life; but the wrath of God remains upon him.” Where do you put baptized little ones? Surely among the number of believers. For this is why, by the ancient, canonical, most firmly founded custom of the Church, baptized little ones are called faithful. And so we ask about them: Is this infant a Christian? The answer is: A Christian. A catechumen, or one of the faithful? One of the faithful; surely from faith, and faith from believing. So you will count baptized little ones among the believers; nor will you dare to judge otherwise in any way, if you do not want to be an open heretic. So they have eternal life for this reason: because whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Do not promise them eternal life without this faith and without the sacrament of this faith. “But whoever does not believe the Son,” and whoever does not believe in the Son, “does not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.” He did not say, “will come upon him,” but “remains upon him.” He looked to the origin when he said, “The wrath of God remains upon him.” Looking to this, the apostle too said, “We too were once by nature children of wrath.” We do not accuse nature. God is the author of nature. Nature was established good by God; but it was corrupted by the serpent through an evil will. Therefore what in Adam was fault, not nature, has now become nature in us his descendants. From this fault of nature with which man is born, none sets free except he who was born without fault. From this flesh of sin none sets free except he who was born without sin through the likeness of the flesh of sin. From this poison of the serpent none sets free except the lifting up of the serpent. What do you say to this? Is this enough?

Attend a little to one very sharp point they bring forward. When they begin to be pressed by the words of the apostle saying, “Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so it passed through to all men, in whom all sinned”—words I do not know who would not understand, words for which I do not know whether anyone needs an expositor—they try to answer and say that the apostle said this because Adam sinned first, and those who sinned afterward sinned by imitating him. What is this but trying to pour darkness over open light? “Sin entered through one man, and through sin death; and so it passed through to all men, in whom all sinned.” You say it is because of imitation, because Adam sinned first. I answer outright: Adam did not sin first. If you look for the first sinner, see the devil. But the apostle wanted to show the mass of the human race poisoned in its origin; therefore he set down him from whom we were born, not him whom we imitated. Indeed one whom you have imitated is also called your father: “My children,” he says, “whom I am again in labor with.” The same says: “Be imitators of me.” And because of that very imitation it is said to the impious: “You are of your father the devil.” For it is settled in the Catholic faith that the devil neither begot our nature nor created it: in him there is only the seduction of the one who went before and the imitation of those who follow. Finally, as it was said of Adam, “in whom all sinned,” let it be read to me anywhere, “All sinned in the devil.” It is one thing to sin with him going before and seducing, another to sin in him. Because according to the propagation of the flesh we were all in him before we were born, as in a parent, as in a root we were there: so this tree in which we were was poisoned. For because origin does not belong to the devil, that is, the prince of sin and truly the first sinner, but imitation, when Scripture spoke of him, it said, “By the envy of the devil death entered the world; and those who are of his side imitate him.” By imitating him they become of his side. Was it said, “They sinned in him”? But when it was said of Adam, because of origin, because of posterity, because of the propagation of the body, “in whom,” it says, “all sinned.” For if Adam was set down first because he sinned first, as being an example, not an origin, why is Christ sought so far away, after such long times, over against Adam? If all sinners belong to Adam because he was the first sinner, all the righteous ought to have belonged to Abel, because he was the first righteous man. Why is Christ sought? Wake up, brother. Why is Christ sought, except because in Adam generation was condemned, and in Christ regeneration is sought?

So let no one deceive us: Scripture is evident, the authority is most firmly founded, the faith is most Catholic. Everyone generated is condemned; no one is freed but the regenerated. Hence you, now instructed, dearly beloved, answer another trick of theirs, when they say, and trouble the simple, “If sinners are born of a sinner, why are the righteous not born of a baptized man, already one of the faithful, to whom all sins have been forgiven?” Answer quickly: a righteous man is not born of a baptized man because he does not beget him from that by which he was regenerated, but from that by which he was generated. Of Christ it was said, “Put to death in the flesh, made alive in the spirit”: so of a man it can be said, “Wasting in the flesh, justified in the spirit.” “What is born of the flesh is flesh.” You ask that a righteous man be born of a righteous man, when you see that one cannot be righteous at all except by being regenerated. Nor do you attend to the Lord’s statement which you yourself have in your mouth: “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit.” I do not think this happens in intercourse. You wonder why a sinner is born of the seed of a righteous man: does it not please you to wonder why a wild olive is born of the seed of an olive? Take another likeness. Set the baptized righteous man as a cleaned grain: do you not notice that from the cleaned grain wheat is born with chaff, without which it was sown? Then, since in the line of those born there is carnal generation, and in the line of the reborn spiritual generation, do you want a baptized man to be born of a baptized man, when you see that a circumcised man is not born of a circumcised man? Surely this generation is carnal, and circumcision is carnal, and yet a circumcised man is not born of a circumcised man: so a baptized man cannot be born of a baptized man, because no one is reborn before he is born.