Sermons to the People 317.1–322.1

The martyr Stephen, blessed and first, ordained a deacon by the apostles after the apostles, crowned before the apostles: by suffering he made those lands illustrious; dead, he has visited these. But dead he would not visit, unless even dead he were alive. A little dust has gathered so great a people: the ashes lie hidden, the benefits are plain to see. Think, dearly beloved, what God keeps for us in the land of the living, who grants such great things from the dust of the dead. The flesh of holy Stephen is spoken of in place after place: but the merit of his faith is what is commended. Let us so hope to obtain temporal benefits that by imitating him we may deserve to receive eternal ones. What the blessed martyr set before us to imitate in his passion: to attend to this, to believe this, to fulfill this, is truly to celebrate the martyr's feast. Among the great and saving, divine and most exalted commands that our Lord gave his disciples, this one seems heavy to people: that he commanded them to love their enemies. A heavy command, but a great reward. Indeed, when he gave this counsel, see what he said: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you.” You have heard the work; await the wage; and see what he adds: “So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the bad, and rains on the just and the unjust.” This we see; this we cannot deny. Was it said to the clouds, “Rain on the fields of my worshipers, and withdraw from the fields of my blasphemers”? Was it said to the sun, “Let those who worship me see you; let those who curse me not see you”? Benefits from heaven, benefits from the earth: springs gush, fields grow rich, trees are loaded with fruit. The good have these things, and so do the bad; the grateful have them, and so do the ungrateful. He who grants so much to the good and the bad, do we think he keeps nothing for the good? This he gives to the good and the bad, which he gave also to those who stoned Stephen: but this he keeps for the good, which he gave to Stephen.

Above all, then, brothers, by the example of this martyr let us learn to love our enemies. The example is set before us from God the Father, who makes his sun rise on the good and the bad. The Son of God said this too, after taking flesh, through the mouth of his flesh, which he took by loving his enemies. For he who came into the world as a lover of his enemies found absolutely all his enemies; he found no friend. For enemies he shed his blood: but by his blood he converted enemies. He blotted out the sins of his enemies with his blood: by blotting out sins, he made friends of enemies. Among these friends was Stephen too; no, he is and will be. Yet the Lord himself first showed on the cross what he had counseled. For while the Jews on every side raged, were angry, mocked, insulted and crucified, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” It is blindness that crucifies me. Blindness was crucifying; and the one crucified was making them an eye-salve from his blood.

But people slow to the command and greedy for the reward, who do not love their enemies but are bent on taking revenge on them, and do not consider the Lord, who, if he had wanted to take revenge on his enemies, would have left no one to praise him: when they hear that place of the Gospel where the Lord said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” they say to themselves, “He could do this, as Son of God, as the Only-begotten of the Father. For the flesh was hanging, but God lay hidden within. But what are we, to do such things?” Did he who commanded deceive? Far from it: he did not deceive. If you think it too much for you to imitate your Lord, consider Stephen, your fellow servant. The Lord Christ, only Son of God: was Stephen this? The Lord Christ, born of an inviolate virgin: was Stephen this? The Lord Christ came not in sinful flesh but in the likeness of sinful flesh: was Stephen this? He was born as you were; he was born from where you were born; he was reborn by him by whom you were; redeemed with the price with which you were; he is worth as much as you are worth. One instrument was made for us. The Gospel is the instrument by which we were all bought: where you are, there he is. Because we are servants, it is an instrument of sale; because we are sons, it is a testament. Consider him, consider your fellow servant.

Is it too much for you to gaze at the sun, because you have weak eyes? Look at the lamp. For the Lord said to his disciples, “No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, so that it may give light to all who are in the house.” The house is the world; the lampstand is the cross of Christ; the lamp shining on the lampstand is Christ hanging on the cross. On that same lampstand shone also the one who earlier kept the clothes of those who stoned: Paul from Saul, a lamb from a wolf, both small and great; a robber of lambs and a shepherd of lambs: he shone on that same lampstand when he said, “But far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.” “So let your light shine,” he says, “before men.” See, the light of Stephen shines, that lamp shines: let us look at it. Let no one say, “It is too much for me”: he was a man, you are a man. But he did not receive it from himself. Did he receive it and shut it off from you? The fountain is common: drink from where he drank. He received it by God's kindness: the one who gave is rich; you too ask, and receive.

The Lord rebuked the Jews bitterly, but with love: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” When he said this, who would not have said that he hated them? He came to the cross and said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” So too Stephen in his speech rebuked first: “Stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears.” These are the words of holy Stephen when he addressed the Jews: “Stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears; you always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did. Which of the prophets did your fathers not kill?” In saying this he seems to hate, he seems to rage. The tongue cries out, the heart loves. We have heard the tongue crying out; let us prove the spirit that loves. For when they had run to the stones, hard men to hard things, they hurled their like at him. He was stoned with rocks who was dying for the Rock, as the Apostle says, “And the Rock was Christ.” And when there was such firmness in teaching, see what patience he showed in death. They were battering his body with blows of stones, and he was praying for his enemies: the outer man was being crushed, and the inner man was making supplication. But the Lord who had girded him, who had tested him, who had set his mark on him, not on the hand but on the forehead, was watching his soldier from above, ready to help him as he fought and to crown him as he conquered. Then he showed himself to him. “Behold,” he says, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” He alone saw, because to him alone he appeared. And what did he say for himself? “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Asking for himself he stood; for them he bent the knee: for himself upright, for them bowed; for himself lofty, for them humble: he bent the knee and said, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” “And having said this, he fell asleep.” O sleep of peace! He who slept among the stones of his enemies, how shall he keep watch in his own ashes? He slept secure, at rest in peace, because he had commended his spirit to the Lord.

Your Holiness is waiting to know what has been placed in this spot today. They are relics of the first and most blessed martyr Stephen. You heard, when the reading of his passion was read from the canonical book of the Acts of the Apostles, how he was stoned by the Jews, how he commended his spirit to the Lord, how also at the very end, on his knees, he prayed for those who stoned him. His body lay hidden from that time until these times; but recently it appeared, as the bodies of the holy martyrs usually appear, by a revelation of God, when it pleased the Creator. So, some years ago, when we were young men living at Milan, the bodies of the holy martyrs Gervasius and Protasius appeared. You know that Gervasius and Protasius suffered long after the most blessed Stephen. Why then were theirs found first and his afterwards? Let no one dispute it: the will of God seeks faith, not questioning. But the truth was revealed to the one who pointed out the things themselves when they were found. For the place was indicated by preceding signs; and as it had been revealed, so it was found. Many received relics from there, because God willed it, and they have come here. So both the place and the day are commended to your Love: both to be celebrated in honor of God, whom Stephen confessed. For we have not made an altar to Stephen in this place, but from Stephen's relics an altar to God. Such altars are pleasing to God. Do you ask why? Because “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Those who shed their blood for the Redeemer were redeemed by blood. He shed his so that their salvation might be bought back; they shed theirs so that his Gospel might be spread abroad. They repaid in kind, but not from their own: for that they could do it, he gave; and that what could be done by them should be done, he gave. By showing his favor, he gave the opportunity. It was done: they suffered; they had trodden the world underfoot.

It was too little for them to despise the delights of the world; they overcame penalties, threats, torments. For to despise what delights, for the confession of God, is very great: but it is less to despise what delights than to overcome what hurts. Suppose someone is told, “Deny Christ, and I give you what you do not have”: he despised what delights, and did not deny. But that persecutor added: “You will not take what you do not have? I take away what you have.” Gain does not taste as sweet as loss hurts: because it is easier not to eat than to vomit. He did not acquire, he did not eat: what he had acquired he lost, what he had eaten he vomited. In not eating the gullet is cheated; in vomiting the stomach is turned over. So he is stronger in confessing Christ who did not fear losses than he who despised gains. But what kind of losses? Loss of money, loss of inheritance, loss of all the things he had. But the enemy has not yet come close. Things have perished which lay outside him. If they were not loved when they were possessed, they did not sadden when they were lost. And, to put it briefly, when they are lost, they leave as much grief as they could be loved when they were possessed. But for the persecutor of those times, when the saints were being killed, it was too little to say, “I take away what you have.” “I torture,” he says, “I bind, I kill.” Whoever did not fear this conquered the world. They brought the contest for the truth to its height, who fought even to these things. This is what it says in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “For you have not yet resisted against sin to the point of blood.” They are perfect who have fought against sin to the point of blood. What is “against sin”? Against a great sin: against the denial of Christ. You know how Susanna fought against sin to the point of blood. But so that women alone may not have consolation from this, and so that men may look for something among their own number such as appeared in Susanna, you know how Joseph fought against sin to the point of blood. The case is similar. She had as false witnesses the very men to whom she refused to consent, so as not to sin; and he had the very woman to whom he refused to consent. In both cases those who were not consented to in sin bore false witness; and those who heard believed: but they did not conquer God. She is freed, he too is freed. What if they had died? Would they not have been freed more fully, when they would have been crowned secure? Why did I say, crowned secure? Because no temptation would remain. For though Susanna was freed, she was still to be tempted; and Joseph himself was freed still to be tempted. Why still to be tempted? Because human life on earth is temptation. Until death, all is temptation: after death, only blessedness; but that of the saints, whose death is precious in the sight of God. So she against sin, that is, against adultery, and he against such a sin, fought to the point of blood. It is a greater sin to deny Christ than to commit adultery. Adultery of the flesh is to lie together unlawfully: adultery of the heart is to deny the truth. In faith, in the mind, there chastity must be. There first our mother Eve was corrupted. Do you want to know the magnitude of the iniquity in that corruption? Consider in us, who were born from it, the magnitude of the calamity. I will cite holy Scripture as witness to this word of mine: “From a woman,” it says, “was the beginning of sin, and because of her we all die.” What she received as a punishment, the martyrs despise for victory. God threatened them with death so that they should not sin: the enemy threatened the martyrs with death so that they should sin. They sinned, so as to die; the martyrs died so as not to sin. Whence the punishment was inflicted on them, thence glory was raised up for these.

So they contended, and they conquered. Those before us conquered: but they did not cut down the bridge by which they crossed over and bar our approach. It lies open to whoever is pleased to go: not that we should wish for a persecution such as they suffered; but the temptation of human life is daily. Sometimes a believer is sick, and there too is the tempter. An unlawful sacrifice is offered him for his health, a harmful and sacrilegious amulet, an abominable incantation, a magical consecration is offered, and he is told: “So-and-so and so-and-so were in worse danger than you, and so they were saved; do it, if you want to live; you will die if you do not do it.” See whether this is not “You will die if you do not deny Christ.” What the persecutor said openly to the martyr, the hidden tempter says to you indirectly. “Make this remedy for yourself, and you will live”: is this not “Sacrifice, and you will live”? “If you do not do it, you will die”: is this not “If you do not sacrifice, you will die”? You have found an equal fight; seek an equal palm. You are in bed, and you are in the stadium; you lie down, and you wrestle. Remain in the faith; and while you are worn out, you conquer. So, dearly beloved, you have no small consolation, a place of prayer. Let the martyr Stephen be honoured here: but in his honour let the one who crowned Stephen be adored.

May the Lord grant me to say a few things to good effect, who granted holy Stephen to say so many things boldly. He began to speak to his persecutors as if he feared them: “Men, brothers and fathers, listen.” What gentler? What milder? He was winning over the hearer in order to commend the Saviour. He began agreeably, so as to be heard for a long time. And because he had been accused of having spoken words against God and the law, he expounded that very law to them, so as to be a preacher of the law of which he was accused of being the destroyer. This both we have heard and you have heard: many words of ours are not needed, because you have heard much. I urge only this, for the building up of your Charity: that you know that holy Stephen sought the honour of Christ, that you know that the holy martyr was a witness of Christ, that you know that he then did such great miracles in the name of Christ. For this you know to your salvation: that holy Stephen did miracles in the name of Christ, but that the Lord Christ did no miracle in the name of Stephen; so that you may distinguish the servant from the Lord, the worshipper from God, the adorer from the one to be adored. For when you distinguish, then he loves you. For he did not shed his blood for himself, but shed it for Christ.

See to whom he commended his soul. “Behold,” he says, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” He saw Christ while confessing Christ, about to die for Christ, about to go to Christ; and at the last, when the blows of the stones came thick and hard wounds were hurled from hard hearts, he saw himself near, not to destruction, but to departure; he saw his soul now about to depart, and he commended it. To whom? To him whom he saw, to him whom he worshipped, to him whom he served, to him whose name he preached, to him for whose gospel he laid down his life: to him he commended that very soul. “Lord Jesus,” he says, “receive my spirit.” You made me victor; take me back in triumph. “Receive my spirit.” They persecute, you take up; they cast out, you bring in. Say to my spirit, “Enter into the joy of your Lord.” For this is what “Receive my spirit” means.

But where did Jesus receive his spirit? Into what dwelling? Into what heaven of heaven? Who can grasp it? Who can explain it? Do you want to hear it in brief? Hear Christ himself: “Father, I will that where I am, they also may be with me.” To be where Christ is: what thought can grasp it? What speech is sufficient to explain it? Let it be entrusted to faith, not awaited from the tongue. You heard, when the gospel was read, “Where I am, there also will my minister be.” Read the Greek manuscript, and you will find “deacon.” For what the Latin translated “minister,” the Greek has as “deacon”; because truly “deacon” in Greek is “minister” in Latin, just as “martyr” in Greek is “witness” in Latin, “apostle” in Greek is “one sent” in Latin. But we are now used to using the Greek names for the Latin ones. For many manuscripts of the Gospels have it thus: “Where I am, there also will my deacon be.” Take it as said, because this was said: “Where I am, there also will my deacon be.” So well did his deacon say, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. You promised in the gospel, I preached the gospel: ‘Where I am, there also will my deacon be.’ I have been your deacon, I ministered my blood to you, I laid down my life for you: give me what you promised.”

And for the Jews, for those who stoned him, for blood-stained hearts, for cruel minds, how did he pray? He knelt. The great humility of Stephen is the great guilt of that people. For himself he asked standing; for them he knelt. Did he put them before himself? Far from it: that is not to be believed. He loved his enemies; but of the neighbour it was said, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Why then did he kneel? Because he knew that he was praying for the wicked; and the more malicious they were, the harder it was for him to be heard. The Lord, hanging on the cross, said, “Father, forgive them”; Stephen, under the stones, on bended knee: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” He followed the footsteps of his shepherd like a good sheep: a good lamb followed the Lamb whose blood took away the sin of the world. He fulfilled what the apostle Peter said: “Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his footsteps.”

See a man following the footsteps of his Lord. Christ on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; Stephen under the stones: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Christ on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”; Stephen under the stones: “Lord Jesus, do not hold this sin against them.” How could he not be there where the one he followed was, where the one he imitated was?

His prayers obtain much, not everything. He triumphed, he was crowned. His body lay hidden for so long a time; it came forth when God willed, it lit up the lands, it did so many miracles; dead, he makes the dead live, because he is not dead. So I commend this to your Charity: that you know that his prayers obtain much, yet not everything. For we find, even in the accounts that are handed in, that he had difficulties in obtaining, and that the favour was nevertheless received afterwards, when the faith of the suppliant did not fail. There was no ceasing, there was praying, and God gave afterwards through Stephen. There are words of Stephen praying, and the answer given him: “The woman you pray for is not worthy; she did this and that.” And yet he persisted, asked, received. He gave us to understand that in whose name he worked before he put off the flesh, in his name his prayers now work so that favours are obtained, for those to whom he knows they ought to be given.

But he prays as a servant. A certain angel was speaking with John. Angels are such with God that, if we are good and have perfectly deserved well of him, we shall be made equal to the angels: “They will be,” he said, “equal to the angels of God.” An angel was showing many wonders to holy John the evangelist; troubled by the wonders, he worshipped him. A man worshipped an angel; and the angel said to the man: “Get up, what are you doing? Worship him: for I am your fellow servant and of your brothers.” If such humility appeared in an angel, how great do you think it ought to be in a martyr, such as he is? Let us not then believe Stephen to be proud, when we think that he does what he does by his own power. Let us receive favours through a fellow servant, and give honour and glory to the Lord. Why should I say more to you and talk at length? Read the four lines which we wrote in the chapel; read them, keep them, have them in your heart. For this is why we wished to write them there: so that whoever wishes may read, and read when he wishes. They are few so that all may hold them; they are written publicly so that all may read them. There is no need to look for a book: let that vault be your book. We came out somewhat earlier than usual: but because a long reading has been recited and the heat is great, let us put off until Sunday the account of God's favours through him which we were going to read today.

We usually hear accounts of God's miracles through the prayers of the most blessed martyr Stephen. This man's account is his appearance; instead of writing, knowledge of him; instead of paper, his face is shown. You who know what you were used to seeing in him with sorrow, read now with joy what you see before you: so that the Lord our God may be honoured the more abundantly, and what is written in the account may be written into your memory. Forgive me for not giving a long sermon: for you know my weariness. That I could do so much yesterday while fasting and not give out, and that today I may speak with you, the prayers of holy Stephen have obtained. Turning to the Lord, etc.

We said yesterday, as your Charity remembers: “This man's account is his appearance.” Nevertheless, because he has told us some things which you ought to know, for greater wonder and the glory of our Lord, concerning the shrines of his saints, of whom it was said, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” it is fitting also to give out the account, which contains everything we have learned from his mouth. But if the Lord wills, it will be prepared today and read to you tomorrow.

Yesterday we promised your Charity an account, in which you might also hear about that man who was healed the things you were not able to see. If then it pleases your Charity, or rather because what pleases me ought to please you, let both brother and sister stand in your sight, so that those who had not seen him may see in her what he used to suffer. Let both stand, then: one to whom grace has been granted, and the other for whom mercy must be asked. [The account:] “I ask, my most blessed lord, Pope Augustine, that you order this account of mine, which I have presented at your command, to be read to the holy people. While we were still living in our homeland, Caesarea of Cappadocia, our eldest brother inflicted grave and unbearable injuries on our common mother, so far that he did not even hesitate to lay hands on her. All of us her sons, gathered together, bore this patiently, so that we did not say even a word to our brother on our mother's behalf, asking why he did this. But she, driven by the goads of a woman's pain, resolved to punish her injurious son by cursing him. And when, after cockcrow, she was hurrying to the font of holy baptism to call down the wrath of God on that son, someone in the likeness of our uncle, a demon, as it is understood, met her and asked her first where she was going. She answered that she was going to curse her son for an unbearable insult. Then that enemy, since he could easily find a place in the raging heart of the woman, persuaded her to curse all of us. And she, inflamed by viperous counsels, threw herself down and seized the holy font, and with her hair loosed and her breasts bared she asked this above all from God: that, exiled from our homeland and wandering through foreign lands, we might frighten the whole human race by our example. Soon an effective punishment followed the mother's prayers, and at once that brother of ours, the elder in age and in guilt, was seized by a trembling of the limbs as great as your Holiness saw in me until three days ago. And keeping the order in which we were born, within one year the same punishment seized us all. Our mother, seeing that her curses had come to such effect, could no longer bear the awareness of her impiety and the reproach of men, but tightening a noose around her throat ended her mournful life with a still more dismal end. So all of us went away, not bearing our disgrace, and leaving our common homeland we were scattered here and there in different directions. Of all of us, ten brothers, the one who comes next after the first in order of birth obtained healing, as we have heard, at the shrine of the glorious martyr Lawrence that was recently established at Ravenna. I, who am the sixth of them in order of birth, with this sister of mine who follows me in age, would set out on the journey, with a great love of the health I longed for, wherever among the nations, wherever in the world I learned there were holy places in which God worked miracles. To say nothing of the other most famous places of the saints, in the course of those same wanderings I came also to Ancona, a city of Italy, where the Lord works many miracles through the most glorious martyr Stephen. But I could not be cured elsewhere because I was being kept for this place by divine predestination. Nor did I pass over Uzalis, a city of Africa, where the blessed martyr Stephen is proclaimed to work great things often. But three months ago, that is, on the day of the Kalends of January, both I and my sister who is here with me, still held by the same affliction, were warned by a clear vision. For a certain man, bright in appearance and venerable with white hair, told me that within the third month the health I longed for would come to me. And to my sister your Holiness appeared in a vision, in the very likeness in which we now see you present: by which it was signified to us that we ought to come to this place. For I too often saw your Beatitude afterwards, in other cities along the road by which we were coming, exactly as I see you now. So, warned by clear divine authority, we came to this city about fifteen days ago. Of my affliction either your eyes are witnesses or my wretched sister, who for the instruction of all presents an example of our common ill: so that those who see in her what I was may recognize in me how much the Lord has worked through his Holy Spirit. I prayed every day with many tears in the place where the shrine of the most glorious martyr Stephen is. And on Easter Sunday, as others who were present saw, while I was praying with great weeping and holding the railings, I suddenly fell. Out of my senses, I do not know where I was. After a little while I got up, and I did not find that trembling in my body. So, not ungrateful for so great a favour of God, I have presented this account, in which I have set out both what you did not know about our calamities and what you have come to know of my soundness and health: that you may deign both to pray for my sister and to give thanks to God for me.”