Sermons to the People 300.1–301.9

The glory of the Maccabees has made this a solemn day for us: whose wonderful sufferings, when they were read, we not only heard but also saw and beheld. These things were done long ago, before the incarnation, before the passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They arose in that first people in which the prophets arose, who foretold these present things. Nor let anyone think that before there was a Christian people there was no people of God. On the contrary, to speak so, as the truth stands, not the custom of names, that people too was then Christian. For Christ did not begin to have a people after his passion; but that people born of Abraham was his, to whom the Lord himself bore witness, saying, “Abraham longed to see my day; and he saw it and was glad.” So from Abraham was born that people which served in Egypt, and which, freed by Moses the servant of God with a mighty hand from the house of slavery, led through the Red Sea as the waves came down, trained in the wilderness, made subject to the law, is settled in a kingdom. From where, as I said, the prophets arose, there these martyrs flourished. Christ had not yet died; but Christ who was to die made them martyrs.

This, then, must first be commended to Your Love: that when you admire these martyrs, you not think they were not Christians. They were Christians; but they went ahead in deeds of the name of Christians, which was spread abroad later. But it seems as if there was no confession of Christ for them; they were not compelled by the impious king and persecutor to deny Christ, as the later martyrs, when compelled to do so, attained a similar glory by not doing it. For the later persecutors of the Christian people compelled those whom they persecuted to deny the name of Christ: they, standing most perseveringly in the name of Christ, suffered such things as we heard, when they were read, that those Maccabees endured. So to these more recent martyrs, with whose thousands the earth has been made purple, it was ordered and said by the persecutors, “Deny Christ.” Not doing it, they suffered such things as these also endured. But to these it was said, “Deny the law of Moses.” They did not do it: they suffered for the law of Moses. These for the name of Christ, those for the law of Moses.

Some Jew comes forward and says to us: “How do you count these, our martyrs, as yours? With what impudence do you celebrate their memory? Read their confessions: see whether they confessed Christ.” We answer him: Truly, since you are one of those who did not believe in Christ, and, broken off from the olive while the wild olive took their place, remained dry outside, what are you going to say, one of the faithless? They did not confess Christ openly, because the mystery of Christ was still veiled. For the Old Testament is the veiling of the New Testament, and the New Testament is the revealing of the Old Testament. See, then, concerning the unbelieving Jews, your fathers, but your brothers in evil, see what the apostle Paul says of such: “Until now, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. That same veil remains in the reading of the Old Testament, not being lifted, because it is done away in Christ. When you pass over,” he says, “to Christ, the veil will be taken away.” “The veil,” he says, “remains in the reading of the Old Testament, not being lifted, because it is done away in Christ”: not the reading of the Old Testament, but the veil that was put there. Indeed the reading of the Old Testament is not done away, but fulfilled by him who said, “I came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” So the veil is done away, so that what was obscure may be understood. This surely was shut, because the key of the cross had not yet come.

Look, then, at the Lord’s passion; set before your eyes him hanging on the wood, and, like a lion, lying down when he willed, and dying, so as to kill death, not by necessity but by power. Attend to this very thing: see how on the cross he said, “I thirst.” And when the Jews, not knowing what was being done through them, what was being fulfilled by the hands of those who did not know, tied a sponge with vinegar to a reed and gave it him to drink, he, having taken the vinegar, answered, “It is finished.” “And bowing his head he gave up the spirit.” Who sets out on a journey as he died? With how great truth, how great power, as he who had said, “I have power to lay down my life, and power to take it again. No one takes it from me; but I lay it down of myself, and I take it again.” He recognizes the kingdom of the living one who worthily considers the power of the dying one. For he had said this through the prophet to the Jews themselves: “I have slept.” As if to say: Why do you boast of my death? Why do you glory vainly as though you had conquered me? I have slept. I have slept because I willed, not because you raged. I have fulfilled what I willed; you have remained in crime. So, having received the vinegar and drunk it, he said, “It is finished.” What is finished? What was written of me. What was written of him? “They gave gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Looking around, then, at all that had been done in his passion—already they had shaken their heads before the cross, already given gall, already numbered the bones of the one hanging and stretched out, already the garments were divided, already they had cast lots over the undivided tunic—having looked around and as it were counted up all that the prophets had foretold of his passion, there remained something or other that was lacking: “And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” So that what little had remained might be added, he said, “I thirst.” Having received what was lacking, he answered, “It is finished.” And having said this, bowing his head, he gave up the spirit. Then the foundations of the earth were shaken, then, the rocks split, the secret places of the underworld lay open, then the tombs gave back the dead; and, to say that for the sake of which we have said all this, because it was now time that in the mystery of the cross all that was veiled in the Old Testament should be revealed, the veil of the temple was torn. From then on, Christ began to be preached most openly after the resurrection. What had been foretold of him by the prophets began to be fulfilled most manifestly; the martyrs began to confess him most steadfastly. The martyrs confessed openly him whom the Maccabees then confessed hiddenly: these died for Christ revealed in the Gospel; those died for the name of Christ veiled in the law. Christ has both; Christ helped both as they fought; Christ crowned both. Christ has both in his service, like a very powerful man advancing with a column of attendants, some going before, others following. Look rather at him presiding in the vehicle of the flesh: both those who go before serve him, and those who follow are devoted to him. For so that you may know, and know openly, that those who died for the law of Moses died for Christ, hear Christ himself, O Jew, hear; and let your heart at last be opened, let the veil be taken from your eyes. “If you believed Moses, you would believe me too.” Hear this, receive this, if you can. If the veil has been taken from me, see. “If you believed Moses,” he says, “you would believe me too: for he wrote of me.” If Moses wrote of Christ, he who truly died for the law of Moses laid down his life for Christ. “He wrote of me,” he says. The pen of those who wrote truly served him whom the tongues of those confessing served. How will you be able to understand the pen of Moses, you who tied vinegar to a reed? Would that you might at some time drink his wine, to whom you still, by blaspheming, offer vinegar. The Maccabees, then, are martyrs of Christ. Therefore not unfittingly, nor unseasonably, but most fittingly their day and their solemnity is celebrated rather by Christians. What such thing do the Jews know how to celebrate? A basilica of the holy Maccabees is reported to be at Antioch: in that city, namely, which is called by the name of the persecuting king himself. For they endured Antiochus, the impious persecuting king, and the memory of their martyrdom is celebrated at Antioch, so that the name of the persecutor and the memory of the one who crowned them sound together. This basilica is held by Christians, was built by Christians. Their memory, then, we have to celebrate; we hold it: among us their sufferings have been imitated by thousands of holy martyrs throughout the world. Let no one doubt, then, my brothers, to imitate the Maccabees; let him not think, when he imitates the Maccabees, that he is not imitating Christians. Let the desire of imitation burn in our hearts. Let men learn to die for the truth. Let women learn, from that mother’s great patience, an incomparable strength; she who knew how to keep her sons. She knew how to have those whom she did not fear to lose. They suffered each in himself by feeling; she suffered in all by seeing. Made mother of seven martyrs, seven times a martyr: not separated from her sons in watching, and added to her sons in dying. She saw all, she loved all. She bore in her eyes what all bore in the flesh; and not only was she not terrified, but she even exhorted them.

Antiochus the persecutor reckoned her as a mother like other mothers. “Persuade your son,” he said, “not to perish.” And she: I will indeed persuade my son to life, by exhorting him to death; you want to persuade him to death by sparing him. And what an address, how devout, how motherly, how poised in ambiguity between the spiritual and the carnal! “Son, have pity on me. Son,” she says, “have pity on me, who carried you nine months in my womb, who gave you milk for three years, and brought you up to this age: have pity on me.” All were waiting for the words that would follow: Consent to Antiochus; do not desert your mother. She on the contrary: Consent to God; do not desert your brothers. If you seem to desert me, then you do not desert me. There I shall have you where I shall no longer fear to lose you. There Christ will keep you for me, from where Antiochus will not take you. He did not fear; he heard his mother, answered the king, clung to his brothers, drew his mother after him.

A great spectacle has been set before the eyes of our faith. With the ear we heard, with the heart we saw, a mother wishing her sons to end this life before her: with wishes far contrary to human custom. For all people want to go before their children in departing from this life, not to follow them; but she wished to die later. For she was not losing her sons, but sending them ahead; nor was she looking at what life they were ending, but at what life they were beginning. For they were ceasing to live where they would at some time have died, and beginning to live where they would live without end. It is too little that she was a spectator; we have marveled rather at her as an exhorter: more fruitful in virtues than in offspring; seeing them contend, in all of whom she herself contended; and in all of them conquering, she herself conquered. One woman, one mother: how she set before our eyes one mother, holy Church, everywhere exhorting her sons to die for the name of him of whom she conceived and bore them! So, the world filled with the blood of martyrs, with the seeds cast before, the crop of the Church sprang up. From where did a human being have this, except that “the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord, and he is their protector in the time of tribulation”?

We have seen, we know, that the Lord was the protector in the time of tribulation of those three men, who walked among harmless fires and praised the Lord without any injury. Where man raged, the flame spared. We have seen, we know, how the salvation of those righteous men was from the Lord, so that they were sent into the fire, and converted by living that harsh king whom they had provoked by speaking. For he believed in their God and issued an edict that whoever blasphemed the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego should go to destruction and his house be plundered. How unlike the first command! What was the first command? Let him perish who does not worship the golden statue. What the second? Let him perish who blasphemes the true God. The faithful men, unchanged, changed the unfaithful man. They did not allow him to stand in faithlessness, because they themselves stood in faith. Their salvation, then, was plainly from the Lord. When they did not burn and were praising, the Lord was present. When these burned, confessed, and yet died, where was the Lord? Or perhaps those were righteous and these sinners? For we heard these a little before, when their passion was read, confessing their sins and saying that they suffered all these things because the Lord was angry with them, and for the deserts of their fathers. What of those? Read, and you will see that they too confess their own sins and say that they suffer deservedly. Equally righteous, equally confessors of sins; and righteous for this reason, because equally confessors of sins. Blameless for this reason, because not liars. “For if we say,” says John, “that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all iniquity.” Confession of sins, then, belongs to the righteous; defense of merits belongs to the proud. Equally righteous, then, confessing sins, equally giving glory to God, equally ready to die for his laws. Why are those freed from the fires, these consumed by the fires? Was God then present to those and had he abandoned these? Far from it! Rather, he was present to both: to those openly, to these hiddenly. Those he freed visibly; these he crowned invisibly. Those indeed were freed from death; but they remained in the temptation of this life: freed from the fire, reserved for dangers; one tyrant overcome, still to fight with the devil. My brothers, understand as Christians. The Maccabees were freed better and more safely. By those three men, with the rest remaining, that one temptation was overcome; by these this life, which is all temptation, was ended. Then by divine judgment, hidden without doubt, but still just, Nebuchadnezzar deserved to be converted, Antiochus deserved to be hardened. The one found mercy, the other increased his pride. But how much and how far did he increase his pride? “I saw the impious exalted above the cedars of Lebanon.” How far? How long? “I passed by, and behold, he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found.” Well: you sought and did not find, because you passed by. Do you want to see the impious not to be? Do you want to seek him and not find his place? Pass by. What do I mean, Pass by? Do not be frightened: I did not say, Die. For you thought I had said, Pass from this life: and so you were frightened, because you have not passed by. What is it that you have not passed by? You have not passed by, with uplifted heart, the allurements of temporal happiness; you have not passed by the flatteries of the flesh; you have not passed by the suggestions of the world that tickle the heart and send in fear of human miseries. So you think that happiness is in this world, and you do not think that calamity is in this world. The happiness of the kingdom of heaven has not touched your heart; no breeze of refreshment has been sprinkled from there upon your heats. When it is said to you, “The happiness of the world is false,” even if you do not dare to say so, I still see in your heart: surely you twist your mouth, you sneer, you mock, and you say to yourself: Oh, if only it may be well with me here! What will be afterward I do not know. And it is not a little that you at least say, “I do not know”: lest perhaps you say even this: “Short and tedious is the time of our life, and there is no return at a man’s end, and no one is known to have returned from the underworld.” At least say, “I do not know.” Confession of ignorance is a step toward knowledge. So I will address you as though you were saying to me: I do not know what will be after death; I am altogether ignorant whether the righteous will be happy and sinners wretched, or whether both alike will not exist. Yet, though you do not know this, you will not dare to say that after death sinners will be happy and the righteous wretched. You cannot say, even if you suspect that both alike will not exist, that the impious will be in a better state and the righteous in evils after death. Not even your ignorance can suggest this to you. So you can say: Whether it is well after death with the righteous and ill after death with the impious, or whether both alike will be without sensation, I do not know. Oh, if only it may be well with me here, while I live, while I feel! You see that you have not yet passed by. These, I say, these earthly, dusty, smoky, vaporous, carnal, mortal thoughts you have not yet passed by. That is why the impious seems to you exalted above the cedars of Lebanon: that is why you seek his place and find it, because you have not passed by.

You seek his place, and you find it; but here. He has his place in this world. For it is not in vain that he was created by a God who foreknew, or that he was nourished in vain, or that the sun rose over him in vain and the rain was poured, that he was spared in vain, wicked and living badly, by such great patience of God. This is not in vain: he has his place here. And even if we cannot find out all things, all things are known to God, who knows how to arrange all things. See, to say nothing of others, what place did that wretched Antiochus have here? Through him the people of God was scourged and tested; through him these holy young men were crowned. So he had his place here. He was evil; but he who cannot be evil used him well. For as evil people use good creatures badly, so the good Creator uses evil people well. He knows what to make of it, who created the whole human race. The goldsmith carries, the goldsmith weighs, the goldsmith balances. A painter knows where to put black color so that the picture may be beautiful; and does God not know where to put the sinner so that creation may be ordered? Unless God in earlier ages had spared sinners by his patience, from where would so many faithful be born today? Some evil people are kept so that good people may be born from them. Good by the grace of God: for that mass of sin was condemned. What is more wicked than the devil? And how many good things has God made from his wickedness? The blood of the Redeemer would not have been poured out for our salvation except through the wickedness of the deserter. Read the Gospel, and see what is written there: “The devil put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ.” The devil evil, Judas evil: such as the organist, such the organ. The devil, then, used his vessel badly; the Lord used both well. So they strove for our ruin; God deigned to turn this to our salvation.

Judas handed Christ over, and was condemned. Judas handed him over, and is condemned: the Father handed over the Son, and is glorified. Judas, I say, handed over his master, and is condemned: the Son handed himself over, and is praised. How Judas handed Christ over, we all know: you are perhaps waiting to hear how the Father handed over the Son. You know this too; but I will mention it, so that you may remember. Hear the apostle saying of God the Father: “Who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all.” Hear also of the Son: “Who loved me,” he says, “and handed himself over for me.” See now two handers-over: the Father, hander-over of the Son; the Son, hander-over of himself; but both savior, because both creator. What, then, did Judas do? For what good did he do? Good was made from him; he did not do good. For Judas did not say, I will hand Christ over so that the human race may be freed. In Judas avarice handed over; in God, mercy. Nothing was rendered to Judas but what he did, not what God made of him.

Why have we said these things? Because the impious have a place in this world; and the Lord certainly knows who are his; and he knows what to do for them by means of those who are not his. But you, if you pass by, if you trample on earthly things, if it is not in vain that you answer that you have your heart lifted up: by passing by you will seek the place of the impious and not find it. For in that future life what place has the impious? Shall we still need to be exercised by evils? Does the gold still need to be purified by straw? For the whole world is a goldsmith’s furnace. There the righteous are like gold; there the impious are like straw. There tribulation is like fire; there God is like the goldsmith. The devout praises God, the gold glows; the impious blasphemes God, the straw smokes. In the one tribulation, as in the one fire, the one is purified, the other is destroyed; but God the goldsmith is praised in both.

I will speak, dearly beloved, exhorting you and myself. Let us pass by carnal thoughts with the Lord’s help; let us have our heart lifted up; let us think of the future life: when your heart is there, you have passed by. Where is the impious? He will not be there. Here he was necessary; there you will seek him and not find his place. So when you see, brothers—you who live by faith, whose heart is upright, who hope for the future happiness, which is also true and everlasting—when you see people rejoicing and glad in that false and deceitful happiness, if you are devout, grieve; if you are sound, weep. For so he too, whose feet were shaken, rebuked himself, because he had begun to accuse God, and was already there; but it was nearly, it was by a little. He did not deny God knowledge; but he wavered, as it were, with shaken feet. What is to waver? To doubt. But when he rebuked himself because he had not had an upright heart, what did he say? “Why were my feet troubled? Because I was jealous of sinners, seeing the peace of sinners. Because I saw the wicked rich, I was jealous; and I said that I have lost justice, and in vain have I justified my heart and washed my hands among the innocent. And when I doubted, so I began to understand.” “So I began,” he says, “to understand: this is a labor before me.” A great labor, to solve this question. Truly it is a labor. It is well with him, and he is evil; it is ill with him, and he is good: and over both God is judge. So the just judge gives good things to the evil and evil things to the good. “It is a labor before me.” But how long is it a labor? “Until I enter into the sanctuary of God, and understand the last things.” So if you understand the last things, there will be the rest of finding; the labor of the question will pass away.

Understand the last things, where no evil man will be happy, no good man unhappy. For what does he say? “For what is there for me in heaven?” Afterward I came to know what there is for me in heaven, when I entered into the sanctuary of God and understood the last things. “For what is there for me in heaven?” Incorruption, eternity, immortality, no pain, no fear, no end of blessedness. “For what is there for me in heaven? What is kept for me in heaven? And from you what have I wished upon earth?” “For what is there for me in heaven?” What? Shall I say what? When shall I explain what? So he said this in wonder, not explaining: “For what is there for me?” he says. Why do you not say what? How shall I say what “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it gone up into the heart of man”? Trample the “what” below, because it is nothing; hope for the “what” above, because it cannot be explained. And having this faith, do not be jealous of sinners when you see them as though happy, falsely happy, truly unhappy. And you, rejoice in the Lord. And if perhaps you have riches according to the time, honors, powers, do not think yourselves happy because of them. To one who knows how to rejoice in the Lord and understands the last things, the happiness of the world is not an honor but a burden. The man happy according to the world is in danger, lest by that very happiness we be corrupted, not in body but in soul. For this happiness is false. Such people, even if they seem to be something in this world, are not … delighted except by the commands of the Lord. Then what God commands is put before the world, both flattering and threatening: everything visible is trampled on, passed by; passed by in thinking, not in walking. I did not say, everything visible; for it is easy to pass by what you trample: but everything changeable, I said, is passed by. For whatever is visible is changeable; but not whatever is changeable is visible: for the mind too is changeable, and yet invisible. Pass by everything that is seen; pass by also what is not seen and yet is changed, so that you may come to him who is neither seen nor changed. When you are held to him, you will come to God.

But now walk by faith; set your conduct in order. He is far on high: nourish your wings. Believe what you cannot yet see, so that you may deserve to see what you believe. Let us live as pilgrims; let us think that we are passing; and we shall sin less. Let us rather give thanks to the Lord our God, because he willed the last day of this life to be both short and uncertain. From earliest infancy to decrepit old age is a short span. What would it have profited Adam, who had lived so long, if he had died today? What is long, where there is an end? No one calls back yesterday; today is pressed by tomorrow to pass. In this very little span let us live well, and go there from where we shall not pass. And even now, as we speak, we are surely passing. Words run, they fly from the mouth: so our actions, so our honors, so our misery, so this happiness of ours. All passes: but let us not be frightened; “the word of the Lord abides forever.”