Sermons to the People 297.1–298.5

The blood of the apostles has made this day a feast for us. The servants paid back what had been spent for them by the Lord’s blood. Blessed Peter, as we have just heard, is commanded to follow; and yet he was planning to go ahead when he said to the Lord, “I will lay down my life for you.” He carried presumption; he did not know his own fear. He wanted to go before the one he ought to follow. He longed for the gift, but he did not keep the order. How bitter death was he felt by a bitter fear, and he washed the sin of bitter fear with bitter tears. Fear was questioned by a maid, love by the Lord. And what did fear answer, but human trembling? What did love answer, but divine profession? For to love God is the gift of God. When the Lord questioned Peter about love, he was asking for what he had given.

Yet what did the Lord foretell to Peter, for which this day is a feast? “When you were younger,” he said, “you girded yourself and went where you wished; but when you have grown old, another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” Where is “I will be with you even to death”? Where is “I will lay down my life for you”? See, you will be afraid, see, you will deny, see, you will weep; and he for whom you feared to die will rise, and you will be strengthened. For what wonder that Peter was afraid before Christ rose? See, Christ has now risen. Now the reality of soul and flesh appears; now what is in the promise is confirmed by example. The Lord is seen alive after the cross, after death, after the tomb. It is little that he is seen: he is touched, handled, tested. He spent forty days with the disciples, going in and out, eating and drinking, not from need but from power; not by necessity but by love: eating and drinking, not by being hungry or thirsty, but by teaching and showing. Proved true and truthful, he ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit, filled those who believed and prayed, sent out preachers. And yet after all this, another girds Peter and carries him where he himself does not wish. What you wanted when the Lord was foretelling, you would want then when you ought to follow.

“Another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” The Lord consoles us about this, transferring our weakness into himself and saying: “My soul is sorrowful even to death.” Hence the martyrs are great, because they trampled on the sweetness of this world; hence the martyrs are great, because they endured the most bitter harshness of death. For if it is easy to bear death, what great thing did the martyrs bear for the Lord’s death? Why are they great, why exalted, why crowned much more splendidly than other people? Why, as the faithful know, are the martyrs named in their own place, distinct from the departed, and prayer is not made for them, but the Church is commended to their prayers? Why this, unless because the death which they chose to undergo for confessing the Lord, rather than deny Christ, is surely bitter? Surely nature shrinks from death. Look at every kind of animal: you will find none that does not want to live, none that does not fear to perish. The human race has this feeling. Death is hard: but not, I say, because death is hard is life to be denied. Peter even as an old man did not want to die. He did not want to die, indeed, but he preferred to follow Christ. He preferred to follow Christ rather than not to die. If there were a way by which he could follow Christ without death, who doubts that he would have seized it, chosen it? But there was no way by which to follow Christ where he wanted to go except by the way he did not want to suffer. Finally, through that harshness of death, with the rams passing over, the sheep followed. The rams of the sheep are the holy apostles. The way of death is harsh, full of thorns: but these thorns, with the Rock and with Peter passing over, were trodden down by rock-like feet.

We do not blame, we do not accuse, even if this life is loved. Yet let this life be loved in such a way that one does not sin in loving it. Let life be loved, but let life be chosen. Question the lovers of life, and I say: “Who is the man who wants life?” Even silently you all answer: “Who is the man who does not want life?” I add what the psalm added: “Who is the man who wants life and loves to see good days?” The answer is: “For who is the man who does not want life and does not love to see good days?” If, then, you want to come to life and to see good days, because this is the reward, attend to the work of this reward: “Keep your tongue from evil.” This follows in the psalm: “Who is the man who wants life and loves to see good days?” It adds: “Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit; turn away from evil, and do good.” Now say, “I will.” I was asking, Do you want life? You were answering, I will. I was asking, Do you want to see good days? You were answering, I will. “Restrain your tongue from evil.” Now say, “I will.” “Turn away from evil and do good.” Say, “I will.” But if you want this, seek the work, and you run to the reward.

Attend to the apostle Paul, since today is his feast too. Both led a life in harmony, both shed their blood as companions, both received a heavenly crown, both consecrated today. Attend, then, to the apostle Paul; recall the words we heard a little earlier when his letter was read. “I,” he says, “am already being sacrificed, and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. For the rest,” he says, “there remains for me the crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me on that day.” For he who gave what was not owed will not deny what is owed. The just judge will render the crown, he will render it: for he has one to render it to. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith”: for these merits he will render the crown; nor will he deny what is owed, as I said, who gave what was not owed. What is it that he gave that was not owed? “I who was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent.” What, then, did he give that was not owed? Let us hear him confessing and by his confession praising the giver of grace for his life. “Formerly,” he says, “I was a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent.” Was it owed to you, then, that you should be an apostle? What was owed to a blasphemer and persecutor and insolent man? What but eternal condemnation? And instead of eternal condemnation, what did he receive? “I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” This is the mercy which God gave, not owed. Hear another thing, from the same man in another place: “I am not worthy,” he says, “to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.” I see, then, apostle, that you were not worthy. From where do you have it that you should be worthy? Why, then, are you what you are not worthy to be? Hear: “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” My punishment was what I was; by the grace of God I am what I am. “By the grace of God,” he says, “I am what I am; and his grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more than all of them.” Did you, then, repay the grace of God? Did you receive, and give back? Attend to what you have said. “I attend,” he says. “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” So will the just God deny the crown that is owed to this laboring apostle, who fought the good fight, finished the course, kept the faith, when he gave him grace that was not owed?

“We conquer through him who loved us.” But to whom will he render the crown that is owed, O Paul, small and great, to whom will he render it? Surely to your merits. You fought the good fight, you finished the course, you kept the faith: he will render the crown owed to these merits of yours. But so that your crown may be rendered to you, your merits are gifts of God. See, you fought the good contest, you finished the course. For you saw another law in your members, fighting against the law of your mind and leading you captive in the law of sin which is in your members: from where did you have the power to conquer, if not from what follows? “Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” See from where you fought, see from where you labored, see from where you did not fail, see from where you conquered. See him fighting: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or distress? Or hunger? Or persecution? Or nakedness? Or the sword? As it is written, For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are reckoned as sheep for slaughter.” See weakness, labor, misery, dangers, temptations. From where comes the victory of those who contend? Hear what follows: “But in all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us.” You finished the course: with whom leading, whom guiding, whom helping? What do you say here? “I finished the course,” he says; but “it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.” You kept the faith: it is true. First, what faith? One you gave yourself? Is what you said false: “As God has apportioned to each the measure of faith”? Do you not address certain fellow contestants of yours, laboring and running with you in the stadium of this life, to whom you say, “For to you it has been given on behalf of Christ”? What has been given? “Not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.” See, both have been given: both to believe and to suffer for Christ.

But perhaps someone says: I received faith indeed, but I kept it. Perhaps you say this, whoever you are, foolish hearer: I received faith, but I kept it. Our Paul does not say this, “I kept it.” For he looks to this: “Unless the Lord guards the city, he who guards it has labored in vain.” Labor, guard; but it is good that you be guarded. For you are not able to guard yourself. If you are abandoned, you will drowse and sleep. But “he who guards Israel neither drowses nor sleeps.”

We love life, then, and we do not in any way doubt that we love life; nor shall we be able to deny at all that we love life. So let us choose life, if we love life. What do we choose? Life. First a good one here; after this, an eternal one. First a good one here, but not yet a happy one. Let a good one be lived now, for which a happy one is kept afterward. A good life is the work; a happy one is the reward. Live a good one, and you will receive a happy one. What is more just, what more orderly? Where are you, lover of life? Choose a good one. If you wanted a wife, you would want only a good one: you love life, and you choose a bad one? Tell me what bad thing you want. Whatever you want, whatever you love, you want it good. Absolutely you do not want a bad beast of burden, not a bad servant, not a bad garment, not a bad farm, not a bad house, not a bad wife, not bad children. You seek all things good: be good, you who seek. What have you done to yourself, that among all the things you want good, you alone want to be bad? Your farm is dear to you, your wife, your garment, and, to come to the last, your boot; and your soul has become cheap to you? Certainly this life is full of labors, troubles, temptations, miseries, pains, fears; this life is full of them: certainly it is clear that it is full of all these evils. And yet, full as it is of all evils, if someone gave it to us eternal just so, such as it is, how we would give thanks, that we might be wretched forever! Not such a life does he promise—not any man, but the true God. The true Truth promises life not only eternal but also happy, where there is no trouble, no labor, no fear, no pain. There is full and complete sure security. Life under God, life with God, life from God, life which is God himself. Such an eternal life is promised us: and is this temporal one, this one, that is, wretched and troubled, preferred to it? Is it preferred, I say, or not? It is preferred when you want to commit murder so as not to die. For you fear that your slave will kill you, and you kill your slave. You fear that your wife will kill you, about whom you perhaps suspect falsely; and having put away your wife, you desire an adulterous marriage with another. See, by loving life you have lost life: you have preferred the temporal to the eternal, the wretched to the happy. And what have you found? Perhaps while you preserve your life, you breathe your last unwillingly. When you go from here, you do not know. With what face do you go out to Christ? With what face do you refuse punishment? I do not say, with what face do you ask for a reward? You will be condemned in eternal death, you who choose temporal life, by whose choice you despise the everlasting.

But you do not listen to counsel. You seek life, you seek good days. What you seek is good, but it is not here. This precious stone has its own region; it does not come into being here. However much you labor digging, you will not find here what is not here. But do what is commanded, and what you love will be given back. For see, however long this life may be, will you find good days here? See what he added: “life and good days”; lest it be life and wretched because of bad days. Bad days abound here: but it is not that sun that makes bad days, running from east to west, coming and going forth the next day; but bad days, brothers, we make. If we all lived well, we would have good days here too. For from where does evil come to man, if not from man? Count how much people suffer from outside. The things that do not seem to be done by men are very few. Evils abound to man from man. Thefts from man; he has suffered adultery in his wife from man; his slave has been seduced by man; he has been hidden from by man, proscribed by man, attacked by man, led captive by man. “Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man.” Now you, whoever hear, think only of an enemy, whom you suffer as a bad neighbor, a powerful man, a partner, a fellow citizen. Perhaps you think of a robber when you hear, “Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man”; and so you pray, when you pray, that God may deliver you from the evil man, from this or that enemy of yours. Do not be evil to yourself. Hear me: may God deliver you from yourself. For when God by his grace and mercy makes you good from evil, from what does he make you good, from what does he deliver you, if not from yourself, the evil man? Altogether, my brothers, this is true, this is certain, this is fixed: if God has delivered you from yourself, the evil man, no other evil man, whoever he may be, will harm you.

I will set out an example of what we are dealing with, from the apostle Paul himself, the day of whose passion we are celebrating. He was a persecutor, a blasphemer, insolent. He was an evil man; he was his own punishment to himself. Then, while he panted for slaughter and thirsted for the blood of Christians—he who was to shed his own—having letters from the chief priests so that at Damascus he might bring bound for punishment whatever followers of the Christian way he found, taking the road of cruelty, not knowing that of piety, he heard a voice from above, of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, from heaven saying: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad.” Struck by this voice, the persecutor was laid low and the preacher raised up: he was blinded in the flesh so that he might see in the heart; he was enlightened in the flesh so that he might preach from the heart. What does it seem, brothers? Saul was delivered from the evil man: from whom, if not from Saul himself? Therefore, since he was delivered from the evil man, himself, what did another evil man do to him? The words of the apostle Peter are: “And who will harm you, if you are lovers of the good?” An evil man persecuted him, an evil man stoned him, an evil man beat him with rods; finally an evil man held him, bound him, dragged him, killed him. As many evils as he added, so many goods God prepared. Whatever he suffered was not the torment of punishment but the occasion of a crown. See what it is to be delivered from the evil man, that is, from oneself. “Who,” he says, “will harm you, if you are lovers of the good?”

But see, evil men do harm. They did so much to you, O Paul. Paul answers you: It was necessary that I be delivered from the evil man, that is, from myself. For the rest, what do these evil men do to me? “The sufferings of this time are not worthy of the future glory that will be revealed in us. For our light tribulation works for us, beyond all belief, an eternal weight of glory, while we look not to the things that are seen. For the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal.” Truly you were delivered from the evil man, that is, from yourself, so that the other evil men did not hinder you but rather profited you. So, dearly beloved, let us so celebrate the feast day of the saints who strove against sin to the point of blood and, with their Lord giving and helping, conquered, that we love them; so love them that we imitate them; so that, having imitated them, we may deserve to come to their rewards.

We ought indeed to have celebrated the day of such great martyrs, that is, of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, with a larger attendance. For if we celebrate most crowdedly the birthdays of the lambs, how much more ought we those of the rams? For of the faithful whom the apostles gained by their preaching it is written, “Bring to the Lord the young of rams.” Through the narrows of sufferings, through the way full of thorns, through the tribulations of persecutions, so that the faithful might afterward pass through, they had the apostles as leaders. Blessed Peter the first of the apostles, blessed Paul the last of the apostles; they rightly worshiped him who said, “I am the first and I am the last”; the first and the last met each other on one day of passion. Peter was the one who ordained holy Stephen. When the martyr Stephen was ordained deacon, the apostle Peter ordained him among the other apostles. Peter his ordainer, Paul his persecutor. But let us not look for Paul’s first things; let us rejoice in the last things of the last. For if we look for earlier things, not even Peter’s will please us well enough. We said that Paul was Stephen’s persecutor; let us look back at Peter as the denier of the Lord. Peter washed away his denial of the Lord with tears; Paul expiated his persecution of Stephen with blindness. Peter wept before the scourge; Paul suffered even the scourge. Both good, holy, most devoted: their letters are read to the peoples every day. And to what peoples? And to how many peoples? Attend to the psalm: “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” And we prove it, and these words have come to us and turned us from the madness of unbelief to the health of faith.

I say these things, dearly beloved, glad indeed today because of so great a festival, but somewhat sad because I do not see as large a people gathered as ought to have gathered on the birthday of the apostles’ passion. If it were hidden from us, it would not be charged to us; but if it is hidden from no one, what is this great sluggishness? Do you not love Peter and Paul? I speak in you to those who are not here. For I thank you, because you at least have come. And can the soul of any Christian not love Peter and Paul? If it is still cold, let it read and love; if it still does not love, let it receive the arrow of the word into its heart. For of the apostles themselves it was said, “Your arrows are sharp, most mighty.” By these arrows came about what follows: “Peoples will fall under you.” Such wounds are good. The wound of love is healthy. The bride of Christ sings in the Song of Songs, “I am wounded with love.” When is this wound healed? When our desire is satisfied with good things. It is called a wound as long as we desire and do not yet hold. For love is such that there is pain in it. When we arrive, then the pain passes, love does not fail.

You heard the words in the letter of Paul which he wrote to his disciple blessed Timothy: “For I am already being sacrificed.” He saw his passion imminent: he saw it, but did not fear. Why did he not fear? Because he had already said, “Having the desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.” “For I,” he says, “am already being sacrificed.” No one says with such exultation that he is going to dine and have a great feast as he says he is going to suffer. “For I am already being sacrificed.” What is “I am being sacrificed”? I shall be a sacrifice. A sacrifice of whom? Of God: because “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” “I,” he says, “am being sacrificed.” I am secure: I have a priest above, who will offer me to God. I have as priest him who first was a victim for me. “I am already being sacrificed, and the time of my dissolution is at hand.” He calls it dissolution from the body. For there is a certain sweet bond of the body, and a man is bound and does not want to be loosed. Yet he who said, “Having the desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ,” was glad that these bonds were at some time to be loosed. The bonds of the fleshly members to be loosed; the garments and ornaments of eternal virtues to be received. Securely he laid down the flesh, about to receive the crown. Happy change, holy migration. How blessed the dwelling, faith sees it, not yet the eye: because “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it gone up into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.” Where do we think these saints are? There, where it is well. What more do you seek? You do not know the place, but think of the merit. Wherever they are, they are with God. “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and torment will not touch them.” But through torments they passed to a place without torment; through narrows they came to a place of breadth. Let him not fear the laborious way, then, who desires such a homeland. “The time,” he says, “of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: for the rest there remains for me the crown of justice.” Rightly you hasten; rightly you rejoice that you are to be sacrificed: for the crown of justice remains for you. The bitterness of the passion is still imminent, but the thought of the one who is to suffer passes beyond it and thinks of what lies beyond; not by what way one goes, but to where one goes. And because to where one goes is thought of with great love, by what way one goes is trodden with great fortitude. But when he had said, “There remains for me the crown of justice,” he added, “which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me on that day.” The just one will render; before, he did not render. For if, O Paul, first Saul, when you were persecuting the saints of Christ, when you were keeping the garments of those stoning Stephen, the Lord had exercised just judgment upon you, where would you be? For so great a crime of yours what place would be found in the depth of Gehenna? But then he did not render to you, so that he might render now. For we read your words about your former deeds in your letter, and we know them through you. You said, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle.” Why? “Because I persecuted the Church of God.” If you persecuted the Church of God, how then an apostle? “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Before, grace; now, what is owed. Before, grace was given; now what is owed is rendered. “By the grace of God,” he says, “I am what I am.” I am nothing. Whatever I am, I am by the grace of God. Whatever I am—but now an apostle; for what I was, I was by myself: “By the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more than all of them.” What is this, apostle Paul? It seems you have exalted yourself; it seems said with a stiff little neck, “I labored more than all of them.” Acknowledge it, then. “I acknowledge it,” he says: “yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” He had not forgotten, but the last one was keeping for the end something for us to rejoice in. “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

Then it was not rendered; now what? “I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: for the rest there remains for me the crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me on that day.” You fought the good contest. But who made you conquer? I read you to yourself, and you say, “Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” What would it profit to have fought, if it did not profit to have conquered? So you have it that you fought indeed, but Christ gave the victory. Go on to another: “I have finished the course.” And who did this in you? Did you not say, “It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy”? Say what follows: “I have kept the faith.” And from where did you have this? Hear your own words: “I have obtained mercy,” he says, “to be faithful.” So you kept the faith from the mercy of God, not from your own strength. For the rest, then, there remains for you the crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to you on that day. For he will render to merits; therefore he is a just judge. But even here let your neck not be lifted up, because your merits are his gifts. What I said to him I learned from him, and you have surely learned it with me in this school. We preside in a higher place because of the office of herald, but in one school we have a common master in heaven.