Sermons to the People 306.1–308.5

As we heard, and answered in song: “Precious is the death of the Lord’s saints”—but in his sight, not in the sight of the foolish. “For in the eyes of the foolish they seemed to die, and their departure was reckoned malice.” Malice (malitia) in Latin speech does not usually have the meaning it has in the language in which Scripture spoke. For in Latin “malice” is usually said of that by which people are evil; but in that language “malice” is said also of the evil that people suffer. So in this place malice is understood as punishment. So he said this: “In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to die, and their departure was reckoned punishment: but they are in peace.” And if before men they suffered torments—this is the malice—“their hope,” he says, “is full of immortality; and having been troubled in a few things, they will be well rewarded in many.” “For the sufferings of this time are not worthy of the future glory that will be revealed in us.” But until it is revealed, it is hidden. And because it is hidden, therefore they seemed in the eyes of the foolish to die. But because it is hidden, is it hidden also from God, with whom it is precious? Therefore “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” To this hidden mystery, then, we owe the eyes of faith, so that we may believe what we do not see, and bravely bear the evils we suffer unjustly.

Let the cause be chosen by us, so that the punishment may not harm us. For a bad cause has no reward, but a just torment. It is not, then, in a man’s power by what end he finishes this life; but it is in a man’s power how he lives, so that he may finish his life securely. Nor would even this be in his power, had not the Lord given power to become children of God. But to whom? “To those who believe in his name.” This is the chief cause of the martyrs; this is the White Mass of martyrs. If the cause is white, the mass too is white. It was called “Mass” from the multitude of the number; “White” from the brightness of the cause. So many companions did not fear robbers. But even if they had walked one by one, they would have been protected against robbery, because the way itself had been their protection. “Beside the path,” it says, “they set stumbling blocks for me.” Therefore one who does not turn aside from the way does not fall into a stumbling block. And we have the highest and faithful promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

But every man, whatever he is like, wants to be happy. There is no one who does not want this, and wants it in such a way that he wants it before other things; indeed, whoever wants other things wants them for the sake of this one thing. People are carried away by different desires, and one desires this, another that: there are different kinds of living in the human race; and in the multitude of kinds of living one chooses and takes up one, another another; yet there is no one, whatever kind of life he has chosen, who does not desire the happy life. The happy life, then, is the common possession of all; but by what way one comes to it, how one heads for it, by what road one may reach it: about that there is controversy. And therefore, if we seek the happy life on earth, I do not know whether we can find it: not because what we seek is bad, but because we do not seek it in its place. One says: “Happy are those who serve as soldiers.” Another denies it and says: “Happy, but those who till the field.” Another denies this too and says: “Happy are those who move in the forum with popular renown, and defend cases, and govern people’s life and death with their tongue.” Another denies this and says: “Happy, but those who judge, who have the power of hearing and deciding.” Another denies this and says: “Happy are those who sail, learn many regions, gather many gains.” You see, dearly beloved, that in all this multitude of kinds of living not one pleases all; and yet the happy life pleases all. What is this, that while not any one life pleases all, the happy life pleases all?

So let us define, if we can, the happy life, of which all may answer, “This I want.” Since, then, there is no one who, asked whether he wants the happy life, says, “I do not,” but we are asking what the happy life itself is, we ought to define something of the kind to which the sense of all may agree, and of which no one may say, “I do not want it.” What then, my brothers, what is the happy life, which all want and not all have? Let us ask, then. If someone is asked, “Do you want to live?” does he hear it as if he were asked, “Do you want to be a soldier?” For to that question, “Do you want to be a soldier?” some would say to me, “I do,” and perhaps more, “I do not.” But if I say, “Do you want to live?” I think there is no one who says, “I do not.” For all have it implanted by nature to want to live and not to want to die. Again, if I say, “Do you want to be healthy?” I think there is no one who will say, “I do not”: for no one wants to be in pain. Health, which is precious even in a rich man, is surely the only thing in a poor man. But what does wealth profit the rich man if health is not there, which is the poor man’s inheritance? The rich man would gladly exchange his silver bed for the poor man’s goat-hair mat, if the sickness could move out with the bed. See, the sense of all has agreed with me on these two things, life and health. Has the sense of all agreed on soldiering? Has that of all agreed on farming? Has that of all agreed on sailing? That of all agrees on life and health. When, then, a man is alive and healthy, does he seek nothing more? If he is wise, perhaps he ought to seek nothing more. For where there is perfect life and perfect health, if more is sought, what will it be but faulty desire?

“For the hour will come,” as the Gospel says, “when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice: and those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life; but those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.” So the ones to reward, the others to torment; and both live, nor can any of them die. Those who live in reward embrace a most sweet life; but those who live in torment desire, if it were possible, to end such a life; and no one gives them destruction, so that no one may take away the torture. But see Scripture speaking and distinguishing: it has not deigned to call such a life life. In tortures, in torments, in everlasting fires, it would not call it life: so that the very name of life may be one of praise, not of grief; so that wherever you hear life, you may not think of torments. For to be always in torments is eternal death, not any life. The Scriptures call it the second death, after this first one, which we all owe to the human condition. And it is both called the second death and called death, and no one dies there. More fitly and better would I say, no one lives there. For to live in pains is not to live. And how do we prove that Scripture spoke so? See how: from this testimony which I have just mentioned: “For they will hear his voice,” it says, “and those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life.” He did not say, “of happy life,” but “to the resurrection of life.” The name of life alone draws with it happiness. For unless the name of life had happiness following it, it would not be said to God, “For with you is the fountain of life.” For it is not said there either, “For with you is the fountain of happy life.” He did not add “happy”; he said only “of life,” so that you may understand “happy.” Why? Because if wretched, then not even life.

We have now given two. For it was said, “Those who have done good, to the resurrection of life”; again it was said, “With you is the fountain of life.” Nowhere is “happy” added: but only that life is understood which is happy; and what is not happy is not even life. Take another, again from the Gospel. That rich man who did not want to let go of what he had, and was indignant at the loss of his possessions, which in dying he was forced to let go: I believe that, while he rejoiced in a most overflowing abundance of great but earthly things, he was interrupted by the fear of death, and his heart as it were said to him: “See, you rejoice in good things, and you do not know when your fever will come. You gather, you acquire, you buy, you keep, and you rejoice: your soul is being required of you; these things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Pricked often by this thought, as far as is understood, as if by certain goads of fear, he came to the Lord and said to him: “Good master, what shall I do to obtain eternal life?” He feared to die, and he was compelled to die. There was no way for him to go so as not to perish. Hemmed in by the necessity of dying and the desire of living, he came to the Lord and said: “Good master, what shall I do to obtain eternal life?” He heard among other things, to say rather what belongs to the present matter: “If you want to come to life, keep the commandments.” This is what I had said I would prove. Nor did he who asked say, “What shall I do to obtain happy life,” but he said only “eternal life.” Not wanting to die, he sought a life that has no end. And does not, as I said, even in the torments of the impious life have no end? But he did not call this life. What would be in pains and tortures he knew was not life; he knew it should rather be called death. So he sought eternal life: so that where life is heard, there may be no doubt about happiness. And the Lord did not say to him, “If you want to come to happy life, keep the commandments”; but he too named life alone and said: “If you want to come to life, keep the commandments.” So that life in torments is not life; and that life alone is life which is happy; nor can it be happy unless it is eternal. Therefore that rich man, knowing that he was interrupted daily by the fear of death, sought eternal life. For a happy life, as it seemed to him, he already had. For he was rich and healthy, and I believe he said to himself: “I want nothing more, if it could be perpetual.” For he had as it were lovable pleasures, which satisfied foolish desires. And so the Lord corrected him, if he understood, by the one name of life. He did not say, “If you want to come to eternal life,” which he was seeking as one who already had a happy one; nor did he say, “If you want to come to happy life,” knowing that if it is wretched it is not to be called life: but he said, “If you want to come to life”: there is the eternal, there the happy; “If you want to come to life, keep the commandments.” So life is that which is eternal and happy: because if not eternal, not happy; but if eternal in punishments, not life.

What is it, brothers? When I asked whether you wanted to live, you all answered that you wanted it; whether you wanted to be healthy, you all answered that you wanted it. But health and life, if one fears lest they end, are already not life. For it is not always living, but always fearing. If always fearing, always being tormented. If the torment is everlasting, where is eternal life? We hold surely that only eternal life is happy; or rather that only life is happy: which, if not eternal, and if not perpetual in fullness, is without doubt neither happy nor life. We have found it; all agree. We have plainly found it in thought, not yet in possession. This is the possession which all seek: there is no one who does not seek it. Whether he is bad or good, he seeks it: but the good confidently, the bad impudently. Why do you seek the good, bad man? Does not your very request answer you how wicked you are, when, being bad, you seek the good? Do you not seek something belonging to another? If, then, you seek the highest good, that is, life, be good, so that you may come to the good. “If you want to come to life, keep the commandments.” But when we have come to life, why should I add “eternal”? Why should I add “happy”? Once, “life,” because that is life which is both eternal and happy: when we have come to life, it will be certain to us that we shall be in it forever. For if we are there and are uncertain whether we shall be there forever, there will be fear even there. And if there is fear, there will be torment, not of the flesh, but, what is worse, of the heart. And where there is torment, what happiness? So it will be certain to us that we shall be in that life forever and shall not be able to end it: because we shall be in his kingdom, of which it was said, “And of his kingdom there will be no end.” And when Wisdom was showing the glory of God’s saints, whose death is precious in his sight, it said, as you heard at the end of the reading, “And their Lord will reign forever.” We shall be, then, in a great and everlasting kingdom; and great and everlasting for this reason, because just.

No one deceives there, no one is deceived: there is no room there for you to suspect evil of your brother. For many of the evils of the human race arise from nowhere but false suspicions. You believe of a man that he hates you, who perhaps loves you; and through a wrong suspicion you become a bitter enemy to a dear friend. What is he to do, whom you do not believe, and who cannot show you his heart? He speaks to you, saying, “I love you.” But because he could say this to you even lying (for the words of the liar are the same as those of the truthful), by not believing you still hate. Therefore he who said to you, “Love your enemies,” wanted to make you safe from that sin. Christian, love even your enemies, lest unawares you hate even your friends. So in this life we cannot see one another’s hearts, until the Lord comes and lights up what is hidden in darkness, and will make manifest the thoughts of the heart; and then each will have praise from God.

So if someone were now to say to us—someone we would without doubt believe, if a prophet said it, if God said it in whatever way he wished and through whomever he wished—“Live securely; all things will abound for you; none of you will die, none will be sick, none will suffer pain; I have taken death away from the human race; I do not want anyone to die”: if he said it, we would exult as though made secure, and seek nothing more. So it seems to us altogether. But if we heard this, we would at once want this too to be added to us: that we might see one another’s hearts, and not envy; that we might see not by human suspicion but by divine truth: that I might not be anxious about my friend, about my neighbor, lest he hate me, lest he wish me ill, and by that very anxiety I do evil before I suffer it. We would seek this without doubt; we would seek a sure life, and mutual knowledge of our hearts. For you now understand what life I mean; I will not, by commending it too often, dull rather than instruct you. So we would want truth added to life, so that we might know one another’s hearts, so as not to be deceived by our suspicions; so that we might be certain about that perpetual life itself, that we would not fall from it. Add truth to life, and you find the happy life. For no one wants to be deceived, as he does not want to die. Give me a man who wants to be deceived. How many are found who want to deceive; who wants to be deceived, no one. Come to terms with yourself. You do not want to be deceived: do not deceive; what you do not want to suffer, do not do. You want to come to the life where you will not be deceived: live now the life where you do not deceive. Do you want to come to the life where you will not be deceived? Who would not? The reward delights you; do not disdain the work whose reward it is. Live now the life where you do not deceive; and you will come to the life where you will not be deceived. To the truthful, truth will be rendered as reward; and to the one who lives well in time, eternity will be rendered as reward.

So we all want this, brothers: life and truth. But by what way do we come, by what way do we go? For where we are to come, though we do not yet hold it in possession, we already believe and see by thought and reason: we head for life and truth. It is Christ himself. By what way do you seek to go? “I am,” he says, “the way.” Where do you seek to go? “And the truth and the life.” See what the martyrs loved; therefore they despised present and passing things. Do not wonder at their fortitude: love conquered pain. So let us celebrate the solemnity of the White Mass with a white conscience; and, following the footsteps of the martyrs and looking to the head of the martyrs and ours, if we long to come to so great a good, let us not fear the hard road. He who promised is truthful, he who promised is faithful, he who promised cannot deceive. So let us say to him with a white conscience, “Because of the words of your lips I have kept hard ways.” Why do you fear the hard ways of sufferings and tribulations? He himself passed over them. You answer perhaps: “But he is he.” The apostles passed over them. You still answer: “But they were apostles.” I accept it. Answer: afterward many men also passed over them. Blush: women too passed over them. Have you come to suffering as an old man? Do not fear death, if only because you are near to death. Are you young? Young men too passed over, who still hoped for life for themselves; boys passed over, girls passed over. How is the way still rough, which so many by walking have made smooth? This, then, is our solemn and constant admonition to you, brothers: that we celebrate the solemnities of the martyrs not with an empty solemnity; but that those whom we love in their solemnities we may not be afraid to imitate with a similar faith.

When the holy Gospel was read, a cruel spectacle was set before our eyes: the head of Saint John on a dish, a deadly dish of cruelty, sent because of hatred of the truth. A girl dances, and a mother rages; and amid the delights and wantonness of the banqueters an oath is sworn rashly, and what is sworn is impiously fulfilled. What John himself had foretold was done to John. For of the Lord Jesus Christ he had said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This one was diminished by the head; that one increased on the cross. Truth gave birth to hatred. What the holy man of God was warning could not be borne with calm mind: he who surely sought the salvation of those whom he warned so. They returned him evil for good. For what would he say, except what he was full of? And what would they answer, except what they were full of? He sowed wheat, but found thorns. He said to the king, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” For lust was overcoming the king: he kept with him the forbidden wife of his brother. Yet he so liked John that he did not rage against him. He honored the one from whom he heard the truth. But the detestable woman was conceiving a hatred which she would bring to birth sometime, when the time was given. When she was in labor, she gave birth to a daughter, a dancing daughter. And that king, who held John as a holy man, who feared him for the Lord’s sake even though he did not obey him, after the head of John on a dish had been asked of him, was saddened. But because of the oath and because of those reclining with him, he sent an executioner and fulfilled what he had sworn.

This passage reminds us, dearly beloved, to discuss something with you about swearing, for the sake of your life and conduct. False swearing is no light sin: indeed, to swear falsely is so great a sin that because of the guilt of false swearing the Lord forbade all swearing. For he says: “It was said, You shall not swear falsely, but you shall render to the Lord your oath. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor any other oath whatever; nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let there be in your mouth, Yes, yes; No, no. Whatever is more than this is from evil.”

Yet we find in the holy Scriptures that the Lord swore, when Abraham obeyed him even to the sacrificing of his beloved son. An angel spoke to him from heaven, saying: “By myself I swear, says the Lord, because you have heeded my voice and have not spared your beloved son for my sake, I will surely bless you, and I will fill your seed like the stars of heaven and like the sand of the sea; and in your seed all nations shall be blessed.” That you see the whole world filled with Christians shows the truthful swearing of God. Again in the Psalms it was prophesied of the Lord Jesus Christ: “The Lord has sworn, and he will not repent: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Those who know the Scriptures know what Melchizedek, priest of God Most High, brought forth when he blessed Abraham. We need not mention it, because of the catechumens. The faithful, however, recognize how what we now see fulfilled was prophesied before. And why so? Because the Lord swore. “And the Lord has sworn, and he will not repent”: not as Herod repented because he had sworn.

Since, then, the Lord swore, why did the Lord Christ forbid his own to swear? I will tell you why. It is not a sin to swear truly. But because it is a great sin to swear falsely, he who does not swear at all is far from the sin of swearing falsely; he who swears even truly is near to false swearing. The Lord, then, who forbade swearing, did not want you to walk along the edge of the bank, lest your foot slip in the narrow place and you fall. “But the Lord swore,” someone says. He swears securely who does not know how to lie. Do not be moved because the Lord swore; for perhaps no one ought to swear but God. For when you swear, what do you do? You call God as witness. You call him; he calls himself. But you, a man, because you are deceived in many things, often call the truth as witness to your falsehood. Sometimes a man swears falsely even unwillingly, when he thinks what he swears is true. The sin is not as great as that of one who knows that it is false and yet swears. How much better, and wholly far from this grave sin, is he who has heard the Lord Christ and does not swear!

I know that it is hard for your habit; but it was hard for our habit too. By fearing God we took swearing out of our mouth. See, we live with you: who has ever heard us swearing? Had I not been accustomed to swear every day? But when I read and feared, I struggled against my habit; in that very struggle I called on the Lord as helper. The Lord gave me the help not to swear. Nothing is easier for me than not to swear. I have reminded Your Love of this so that you may not say, “Who can do it?” O if God were feared! O if perjurers were afraid! The tongue is bridled, truth is held, swearing is taken away.

Because of this passage which we heard today when the Gospel was read, I say to Your Love: you see that this wretched Herod loved John, a holy man and man of God; but since he swore rashly, drunk with joy and the delight of the dancer, he promised that he would give whatever that girl who had pleased him by dancing asked. But when she asked for a cruel and wicked thing, he was indeed saddened, for he saw so great a crime being done: but placed between his oath and the girl’s request, where he saw a bloody crime, there again he feared the guilt of perjury; so as not to offend God by perjury, he offended God by cruelty. Someone says to me: “What then ought Herod to have done?” If I say, “He ought not to have sworn,” who does not see that he ought not to have done this? But I am not being consulted about a man, whether he ought to swear, but what he ought to do who has sworn. That is the great deliberation. He swore rashly: who does not know it? Yet he slipped; he swore. See, the girl asked for the head of Saint John: what ought Herod to have done? Let us give him counsel. If we say, “Spare John; do not commit a crime,” we advise perjury. If we say, “Do not perjure yourself,” we provoke him to commit the crime. A bad situation. Before you come, then, to that two-headed noose, take rash oaths out of your mouths: before you come to this bad habit, I warn my brothers, I warn my children: what need is there for you to come to this point, where we cannot find counsel?

Yet, searching the Scriptures more carefully, one example occurs to me where I see a devout and holy man fall into a rash oath, and prefer not to do what he had sworn rather than fulfill his oath by shedding a man’s blood. Let me remind Your Love. When Saul ungratefully persecuted holy David, he went with his men wherever he could, so as not to be found by Saul and killed. And one day he asked a rich man called Nabal, who was shearing his sheep, for support of food for himself and those with him. The man refused to give it, and, what is worse, answered insultingly. Holy David swore that he would kill him. For he was armed. And what would have been easy, and seemed just to do with anger urging it, he poured out an oath incautiously; and he began to go to do what he had sworn. Abigail, Nabal’s wife, met him and brought him the necessities he had asked for. She begged him humbly, bent him, and called him back from her husband’s blood. He swore rashly, but did not fulfill the oath, out of greater piety. So, dearly beloved, I return again to warning you. See, holy David did not indeed in anger shed a man’s blood; but who can deny that he swore falsely? Of two sins he chose the lesser: but it was lesser in comparison with the greater. For weighed by itself, false swearing is a great evil. So you must first labor and fight against your habit, bad, bad, bad, and very bad, and take swearing out of your mouths.

But if someone challenges you to swear—perhaps he thinks he can be satisfied if you swear about the matter which he thinks you committed or did, and perhaps you did not do it—so that a bad suspicion may not remain in him, if you swear, you do not sin as he does who challenged you: because the Lord Jesus said, “Let there be in your mouth, Yes, yes; No, no. Whatever is more than this is from evil.” He was speaking of swearing, where he wanted us to understand that swearing itself is from evil. If you have been challenged by another, what you swear will be from his evil, not from yours. And this is almost from the common evil of the human race, since we cannot see one another’s hearts. For if we saw one another’s hearts, to whom would we swear? When would an oath be demanded of us, when the very thought would be seen by the neighbor’s eyes?

Write in your hearts what I say: but he who challenged a man to swear, and knows that he will swear falsely, surpasses a murderer. For a murderer kills a body, he a soul; or rather two souls, both that of the man he challenged to swear and his own. You know that what you say is true and that what he says is false, and you compel him to swear? See, he swears, see, he perjures himself, see, he perishes: what have you gained? Rather, you too have perished, you who wanted to satisfy yourself with his death.

I will tell something I have never told Your Love among this people, which happened in this church. There was here a certain man, simple, innocent, a good believer, known to many of you, that is, the people of Hippo, or rather to all, called Tutuslymeni. Which of you who are citizens did not know Tutuslymeni? I heard what I tell from him. Someone or other denied to him either what he had entrusted to him or what was owed to him; and he had trusted himself to the man’s good faith. Upset, he challenged him to an oath. That man swore; this one lost: but while this one lost, that one utterly perished. So this Tutuslymeni, a serious and faithful man, said that that very night he was brought before a judge, and with great violence and terror he came to a lofty and wonderful person presiding, whom an attendance of similarly lofty persons obeyed; that, terrified, he was ordered to be brought back, and was questioned in these words: “Why did you challenge a man to an oath whom you knew would swear falsely?” He answered: “He denied me what was mine.” It was answered him: “And would it not have been better for you to lose what was yours, which you were demanding, than to destroy that man’s soul by a false oath?” He was laid down and ordered to be beaten. He was beaten so severely that on his back, when he awoke, the marks of the blows appeared. But it was said to him, after he had been corrected: “Your innocence is spared; for the future, take care not to do it.” He indeed committed a grave sin, and was corrected: but a much graver sin will he commit who, after this sermon of mine and this admonition and exhortation, does anything of the kind. Beware of false swearing; beware of rash swearing. You will most securely beware of these two evils if you take away from yourselves the habit of swearing.