Sermons to the People 4.21–4.37

What counsel does she give? That he take the kids' skins and go to his father. The father looks for the elder and blesses the younger: the Old Testament looks to the Jews through the letter, and through its spiritual understanding Christians are blessed in it. Let your Holiness pay attention: a great mystery, a great sacred sign. Isaac says, "Your brother came with deceit," of a man without deceit. Without doubt Isaac, being in the prophetic spirit, knew what was being done, and was himself acting in figure; he sets everything in a great depth of mysteries: for if he had not known what he was doing, he would have been angry with the son who deceived him. The elder comes and says, "Here, father, eat: I have done as you ordered me." He says, "Who are you?" He answered, "I am your elder son Esau." "And who is he," he says, "of whose food I have already eaten; and I blessed him, and he shall be blessed?" He seemed to be angry; from Esau's own mouth he expected some curse on his brother: while the one expected a curse, the other confirms the blessing. Oh, what anger! Oh, what indignation! But he knew the mystery; and the dimness of his bodily eyes signified the dimness of the mind of the Jews, while the eyes of his heart saw the depth of the mysteries.

"Your brother came with deceit," he says, "and took away the blessing." We were saying: see what "with deceit" means: this deceit is not deceit. How is deceit not deceit? How is a rock not a rock? How is something called sea and not the sea? Because it signifies something else: so a rock is spoken of, and it is not a rock, because it signifies something else. A mountain is spoken of, and it is not a mountain; the Lord Jesus Christ is called the lion of the tribe of Judah, and he is not a lion; he is called a lamb, and he is not a lamb; he is called a beast of the flock, and he is not one; he is called a calf, and he is something else. So deceit is spoken of, and it is not deceit. Let us ask, then, why it is called deceit. Let us ask why all those things were said. Why was he called a lion? For his strength. Why was he called a rock? For his firmness. Why was he called a lamb? For his innocence. Why was he called a calf? Because he was a victim. Why was he called a mountain? For his greatness. Why manna? For his sweetness. Why, then, deceit? Let us first see what deceit is, and find out why it was called deceit. For we know what a rock is: yet a senseless, hard man is called a rock, and a strong, immovable man is called a rock; and you have taken firmness from it for praise and hardness for blame. We recognize firmness in the rock, and we have taken Christ as the rock: "And the rock was Christ." We know strength in the lion: and yet the devil too has been called a lion. What do we know in deceit, that we should take deceit in a figure, as a mountain is taken, as a lion is taken, as a lamb is taken, as a rock is taken, and the rest?

What, then, is deceit? Deceit is when one thing is done and another is feigned. So when there is one thing in the intention and another in the deeds, it is called deceit. Deceit, then, in its proper sense is blameworthy, as a rock is a rock in its proper sense. Whoever says that Christ is a rock in the proper sense blasphemes, just as whoever says that Christ is a calf in the proper sense blasphemes. In its proper sense a calf is a beast; in figure, a victim. In its proper sense a stone is hardened earth; in figure, firmness. Deceit in its proper sense is fraud; in figure, it is the figure itself. For every figurative and allegorical reading or expression seems to sound one thing carnally and to suggest another spiritually. So he called this figure by the name of deceit. What, then, does "He came with deceit and took away your blessing" mean? Because what was being done was figurative, it was therefore said, "He came with deceit." For Isaac would not have confirmed the blessing for a deceitful man, to whom a curse was justly due. So that deceit was not real; above all because he did not lie in saying, "I am your elder son Esau": for he had already made a bargain with his brother, and his brother had sold him his birthright. He told his father that he had what he had bought from his brother: what the one had lost had passed to the other. For the honor of the firstborn had not been shut out of Isaac's house: the honor of the firstborn was there; it was not in him who had sold it: where was it, if not in the younger? So Isaac, knowing this as a mystery, confirmed the blessing, and said to his son: "What shall I do for you?" And he: "Bless me too, father: for you have not only one blessing." But Isaac knew only one.

Why only one? The Holy Spirit will be present so that I may tell it and you understand. Let us look at the blessings themselves: what kind of blessing Jacob received, and what kind Esau received. Isaac himself says to Jacob, "Are you my son Esau?" Jacob answered, "I am." And he said, "Set it before me, and I will eat of your game, son, that my soul may bless you before I die; but come near and kiss me." Him, the other, he did not kiss: this one's blessing began with peace. Why did he confirm peace with a kiss? Because this one too bore others' sins for the sake of peace. And he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garment. For he had his brother's robe on, that is, the dignity of the firstborn, which the one had lost and the other had. In this one what the other had wickedly lost now smelled good. He smelled the smell of his garment, and blessed him, and said, "See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field, which the Lord has blessed." He received the smell of the garment, and spoke of the smell of a field. Understand Christ in the inner mystery, and understand the garment of Christ as the Church.

Let your Holiness understand. For one thing is signified in many ways: that is, the Church, which those two kids signify, this garment also signifies. For one thing is signified in many ways, being none of these by essence, and all of them by figure. A lamb cannot be a lion, a lion cannot be a lamb: but our Lord Jesus Christ could be both lion and lamb; because he is neither lion nor lamb by essence, he is both lion and lamb by figure. So kids cannot be a garment, and a garment cannot be kids: but the Church, because she is neither kids nor garment by essence, is both kids and garment by figure, and whatever else can be said.

"He smelled his garments, and said: See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field, which the Lord has blessed." This field is the Church. Let us prove that the Church is a field. Hear the Apostle saying to the faithful: "You are God's farm, you are God's building." Not only is the Church a field, but God is also the farmer. Hear the Lord himself: "I am the vine, you are the branches, and my Father is the farmer." Working in this field, then, and hoping for an everlasting wage, the Apostle himself claims nothing for himself except what befits a workman. "I planted," he says, "Apollos watered; but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth." How he kept humility, so as to belong to Jacob, to that field, that is, the Church, so as not to lose the robe whose smell was like the smell of a full field, and pass over to the pride of Esau, who understood carnally and was full of conceit! The field, then, smells of the son's garment: but that field is not anything of itself; so he added, "which the Lord has blessed." "And the Lord will give you of the dew of heaven from above, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine; and nations shall serve you, and you shall be lord of your brother, and the sons of your father shall bow down to you. Whoever curses you shall be cursed, and whoever blesses you shall be blessed." This is the blessing of Jacob: if Esau were not also blessed, there would be no question; he too is blessed, but not with this same blessing; and yet not with one wholly foreign to it.

Let us hear, then, how Esau is blessed, and see what difference there is between the spiritual and the carnal sons of the Church, between those who live spiritually and those who always delight in carnal joys. "And Isaac answered and said to Esau: Who then is it who hunted game for me and brought it to me? Let him be blessed. And it happened, when Esau heard the words of Isaac his father, that he cried out with a loud voice and said: Bless me too, father. And he said to him: Your brother came with deceit and received your blessing."

And Esau said: "Rightly was his name called Jacob." For Jacob means "supplanting." And this supplanting is not empty either, because it is taken in figure, like the deceit. For there was not yet so much malice in the brother that he wanted to supplant his brother. For he was called the supplanter when, at birth, he held his brother's foot with his hand: that was when he was called the supplanter. But the supplanting of the carnal is the life of the spiritual. For all the carnal, when in the Church they envy the spiritual, are tripped up and become worse. Hear the Apostle saying this very thing, especially since he mentioned there the smell that Isaac expressed here when he said, "See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field, which the Lord has blessed." The Apostle says, then, "We are the good fragrance of Christ in every place"; and he added, "to some a fragrance of life unto life, to others a fragrance of death unto death: and who is sufficient for these things?" That is, to understand how we are a fragrance of death unto the death of men through no fault of ours. For the spiritual walk their own ways, they know nothing but to live well; and those who envy people who live innocently commit grave sins for which God punishes them; and that fragrance becomes to them a fragrance unto death which to others is a fragrance unto life. For the Lord himself first became a good fragrance unto life to those who believed and an evil fragrance unto death to those who persecuted him. For because many had believed in him, the Jews envied him and committed so great a crime in killing the innocent one, the Holy of holies: had they not done this, the good fragrance of Christ would not have availed to their death. So Esau was supplanted in his father's blessing.

And Isaac answered and said to him: "I have made him your lord": for Esau could not take otherwise what was said, "And all his brothers shall serve him": "but for you, what shall I do, son?" And Esau said to his father: "Bless me too, nevertheless." When Isaac was pressed hard, that is, when he was constrained. A great thing, a great sacred sign; would that we may grasp it: he blesses under constraint, and yet he blesses; and what he blesses is true, but still he blesses under constraint. Pay attention to what this means. Let us look at the blessing itself and understand what blessing under constraint is. First, what is common to Jacob and Esau. Isaac answered (the father, indeed, did not kiss Esau), saying to him, "See, your dwelling shall be of the fertility of the earth and of the dew of heaven from above." He said this to the other too, "of the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven": this, then, is common to Jacob and Esau. What is proper to Jacob? "Nations shall serve you." What is proper to Jacob? "All your brothers shall serve you: and whoever blesses you shall be blessed, and whoever curses you shall be cursed." This one too has something proper to him, which was not said to Jacob: "And by the sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother." But so as not to take away free choice (we have already spoken of this, yesterday as well), he added, "But it shall be, when you lay down and loose the yoke from your neck." What does "But it shall be, when you lay down and loose the yoke from your neck" mean? You are free, if you will, to be converted: not as though you will be two, but one Jacob. For all who are converted from Esau belong to Jacob. Likeness makes one; unlikeness makes difference. What, then? "Of the dew of heaven and the fertility of the earth": both have this. "Nations shall serve you, and your brothers as sons of your father": Jacob alone has this. "By your sword you shall live": Esau alone. They have something in common, and some things each alone.

There are wicked people in the Church who belong to Esau: for they too are sons of Rebecca, sons of mother Church, born of her womb, and though hairy, persisting in carnal sins, still born of her womb. So they have of the dew of heaven and of the fertility of the earth: of the dew of heaven, all the Scriptures, all the divine word; of the fertility of the earth, all the visible sacraments; for a visible sacrament belongs to the earth. Good and bad in the Church have all these things in common. For they too have the sacraments and share in them: and the faithful know what this means, "of grain and wine." And they have of the dew of heaven, because the word of God comes down upon all from heaven. The word of God comes and waters: but notice whom it waters and what it waters. For it waters both these and those, good and bad; but the one sort turn the good rain into the root of thorns, while the others draw the rain to good fruit. For the Lord rains at the same time upon the crop and upon the thorns; but upon the crop he rains for the barn, upon the thorns for the fire: and yet the rain is one. So the Word of God rains upon all. Let each one see what kind of root he has; let each one see where he draws the good rain: if he draws it to produce thorns, is the rain of God to be blamed for that? Before it comes to the root, that rain is sweet; the word of God is sweet, until it comes to an evil heart, and the heart turns God's rain to its own fraud, turns it to hypocrisy, turns it to the roots of evil desires, to its own perversities and depravities. It begins indeed to produce thorns, but from good rain: for it has of the dew of heaven. And since not all the wicked are shut out from God's sacraments, it has also of the fatness of the earth, which those know who have already wished to share in the mysteries of the faithful.

Though these things belong to both, all the nations nevertheless belong only to the spiritual, because they belong to the Church, which has filled the whole world. Pay attention, brothers, and discern as far as you can, or as far as the Lord gives you. Every spiritual person sees that the Church throughout the whole world is one, true, catholic, and claims nothing for itself, and bears with the sins of people whom it cannot purge from the Lord's threshing floor before that last winnower comes, who cannot be deceived, to purge his threshing floor and put the grain in the barn, but give the chaff to be burned: because it is he who is to remove the chaff and separate it from the grain, and prepare the barn for the wheat and fire for the chaff. So, because the spiritual person knows this, he bears with sinners who are to be separated at the end. Throughout all the nations sinners and all the carnal are mixed with the spiritual and serve them; but the spiritual do not serve, because they profit from them while the others fall away. Pay attention, my brothers: I will say it, if I can, and not be afraid; I will not keep silent, for I am pressed to say it, even if some perhaps are angry with me; but let them pardon me, for I am afraid, as I said: let them pardon my fear. Christ feared no one: but we, fearing Christ, do not spare, lest, while we are unwilling to sadden such people, he does not spare us. Be pleased to hear what I mean, and attend most carefully. Both Jacob and Esau received of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth; both have what we have already said, what we know, what you know: but that the nations should serve him, only Jacob received; because throughout the whole world the carnal in the Church serve only the spiritual. Why? Because the spiritual profit from them. For that is why carnal people are called servants: even if they do what they do not want, the bad conduct of the carnal still benefits the spiritual; for they both profit from that very conduct and are crowned through forbearance.

Let your Holiness pay attention to what we are saying. The nations were not given to Esau: because all the carnal who are in the Church are either divided or easily brought to division. See, Donatus's party arose from there, it is from there, from those carnal people who think carnally. They were carnal: but because they sought their own honor, or lost their patience, they found an opening and were divided: they loved their own honor, gave it great weight, swelled with the conceit of pride, did not have forbearance, that is, did not have love. For it is written: "Love bears all things, endures all things; it is not jealous, is not puffed up, does not act wrongly." And so, whatever else they had, because they did not have that through which whatever one has is of use, they divided themselves. And all the heresies and cuttings-off and schisms that have arisen have arisen through these carnal people. For either they thought carnally and made for themselves images of their own fancies, and went astray, and the Catholic faith rebuked them, and when they were refuted they were driven outside by their own weight; or, finding quarrels and grudges with people, they divided themselves. Who, then, divided themselves, if not those to whom belongs that sword of which it was said, "By your sword you shall live"? Not that the sword is not taken in a good sense: for as was said of those things above, how a stone is taken both for firmness, on account of Christ, and for reproach, on account of the fool; how Christ was called a lion for one reason, and the devil was called a lion for another: so the sword is sometimes taken in a good sense, sometimes in a bad one. But here it was not without reason that the sword was not given to Jacob but given to Esau, except that some mystery is signified in the sword. Just as the servitude itself is not foreign to the mystery, that is, what was said, "You shall serve your brother"; for this too was said in a great mystery.

So, brothers, those who divide themselves have the sword of division, and they die by their own sword, as they live by their own sword. But because the Lord had spoken truly, "He who strikes with the sword shall die by the sword," look, my brothers, at those who have cut themselves off from unity, into how many pieces they have been cut. You know how many parts Donatus's party has made, and I think it is not hidden from your Holiness that he who strikes with the sword shall perish by the sword. It was said to him, "By your sword you shall live." So too those who have not left the Church and are such as they would be if they were outside. For those who love their own honors in the Church are altogether such; those who love their worldly advantages in the Church are chaff too; but the wind is lacking, so they do not fly off the threshing floor: that is, to put it briefly, temptation is lacking, or they would fly off the threshing floor. In fact, when the Church takes any action against them, how easily they cut themselves off! How easily they gather people outside, and will not give up their leadership! How they are willing to die for that leadership! How they want to keep congregations under themselves, and not release the congregations to the unity of Christ! How they want to make their own the sheep they did not buy with their own blood, and therefore hold cheap, because they did not buy them! What need is there to argue about this any longer? Look at such people throughout the whole Church; see them, both those who are inside and those who, having found an occasion, have flown off the threshing floor and want to drag grains with them; but the true and full grains bear with the chaff and remain on the threshing floor to the end, until the last winnower comes: just as Jacob with the kids' skins bore others' sins and was found worthy to receive his father's blessing.

But why did Isaac, pressed hard, bless him? For now under necessity, now constrained, his father said to him, "See, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven." And lest you think yourself good on that account: "By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother." But lest you despair of yourself, since you can correct yourself: "But it shall be, when you lay down and loose the yoke from your neck." See, he will receive of the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven; but Isaac, pressed hard, throws him the blessing rather than giving it. Does it not happen now in the Church with wicked people who want to throw the Church into turmoil, that they are tolerated out of the necessity of peace itself, that they are admitted, that they have the sacraments in common? And sometimes it is known that they are wicked, and perhaps they cannot be convicted so as to be corrected and degraded; they cannot be convicted so as to be excluded, so as to be excommunicated. If anyone were to insist, sometimes it leads to ruptures in the Church. The pilot of the Church is constrained, as it were, to say, "See, you shall have of the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven: use the sacraments; you eat judgment to yourself, you drink judgment to yourself." "For he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself." You know that you are admitted out of the necessity of the Church's peace; you have nothing in your heart but turmoil and divisions. So by your sword you shall live: for in what you receive of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, you will not live; for this does not delight you, nor is the Lord sweet to you. For if this delighted you, and the Lord were sweet to you, you would imitate the humility of the Lord, not the pride of the devil. Though you have this communion of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, you still live by your sword; you either delight in or are frightened by seditions and dissensions. Change yourself, then, and take the yoke from your neck.

These things, brothers, have been said to you: few, perhaps, for the greatness of the mysteries; but many for the time, and for our strength and yours. And if perhaps this question has not been discussed in finer detail, still there are great mysteries in part, which will be found if they are treated later. Pardon both the shortness of the time and our strength and your capacity. You want to take in more: grow. You want to grow: live well. For whoever does not want to live well does not want to grow. Such is the feast that the Lord our God has set before you through the birthday of his martyr Vincent. Vincent is a name of victory. Love, then, that you may conquer: for persecution is not lacking; the devil is a persecutor; the occasion of a crown is never lacking: only let the soldier of Christ understand the battle, and know whom he is conquering. Because no open enemy of the body presses you, does the hidden persecutor not press you with the enticements of the flesh? How many evils he suggests! How many through desire, how many through fear! With what enticements he persuades you to go to sorcerers, to astrologers, when your head aches! Those who abandon God and go to the devil's amulets have been conquered by the devil. On the other hand, suppose it is suggested to someone that the devil's remedies are perhaps effective for the body, since another man is said to have been healed by them, because the devil, having received his sacrifice from him, stops attacking the body, since he has won the heart: then whoever has had these wicked remedies suggested to him and says, "I would rather die than use such remedies; if God wills, he scourges and frees me; if he knows it is necessary, let him free me; but if he knows that I must depart from this life, whether I am saddened or gladdened, I will follow the Lord's will. For see, after a short time, with what face shall I go out to the Lord? For the devil's remedies do not give me what God gives, eternal life. Why then should I buy a few days for my body at the cost of my soul?" Whoever says this, and does not go, nor sets his heart on using evil remedies, certainly conquers. I have mentioned one thing by way of example; you surely see now how much the devil suggests. You see that man lying sick, you see him gasping in bed, you see him barely moving his limbs, barely moving his tongue: this exhausted man conquers the devil. Many were crowned in the amphitheatre fighting with the beasts; many are crowned in bed conquering the devil: they seem unable to move, and within, in the heart, they have such strength, they wage such a fight. But where the fight is hidden, the victory is hidden.

Why have we said these things, brothers? So that when you celebrate the birthdays of the martyrs, you may imitate the martyrs; and not think that occasions of a crown can be lacking to you because such persecutions are lacking now. For even now persecutions from the devil are not lacking daily, whether through suggestion or through some bodily afflictions. Only know that you have a Commander who has already gone ahead into heaven: he has given you the way to follow; keep close to him. When you have conquered, do not credit it to yourself through pride, as if you had wrestled by your own strength; but rely on him who gave you strength to conquer, because he himself has conquered the world: and you are always being crowned, and you will go out of here a martyr, if you overcome all the temptations of the devil.