Sermons to the People 4.3–4.20

Remember, then, you who were here yesterday, the two sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob, how the younger is set before the elder: so that you may belong to Jacob and not love Esau. Esau will be the one who wants to live carnally, or to hope for carnal things in the world to come. Whether, then, someone lives carnally and delights in such things in this time, and hopes from God for such things as the wicked also have, and places his whole happiness in that in which the unrighteous also delight; or whether he despises this present happiness but hopes for the same kind in the future: he is carnal, having a carnal faith, a carnal hope, a carnal love. But spiritual faith is to believe that the Lord is your protector in time, so that you may come to what will not be temporal; and to hope that you will have the life of the angels, not in the corruptions of the flesh, not in pleasures and enticements, not in sexual immorality and drunkenness and the joy of carnal feasts, not in the pride of possessions and earthly power, but only as the angels live.

And the angels live in joy, not in the creature but in the Creator. For the joy of the creature is whatever is seen; the joy of the Creator is what is seen not with the eyes of the body but with the purified sight of the mind. "Blessed are the pure in heart." For what vision are they blessed? "For they shall see God." For do not think, brothers, that the angels rejoice because they see the earth or the heaven or whatever is in them. They do not rejoice because they see heaven and earth, but because they see him who made heaven and earth.

But he who made heaven and earth is neither heaven nor earth; you cannot think of anything earthly, nor anything heavenly, nor anything bodily or spiritual that you can conceive: that is not God. Do not make for yourself some great and beautiful man: God is not bounded by a human form; he is not contained in a place, not held by space. Do not make for yourself a sort of golden God: that is not God. For the gold from which you want to make yourself a God, God himself made; and it is weak, because it is on earth. Do not picture to yourself that God is anything such as you see in the sky, the moon or the sun or the stars or whatever gleams and shines in the sky: that is not God. But again, do not therefore think that God is not like the sun merely because the sun is like a kind of wheel and not an immense expanse of light, and say to yourself, "So God is of infinite and immeasurable light," as though you were stretching the sun itself and making it have no end, neither this way nor that, neither up nor down, and picturing God to yourself as an immeasurable light: that is not God either. God indeed "dwells in light unapproachable"; but such light is not known, and cannot be known, to the eyes of the flesh.

But if you can see what truth is, what wisdom is, what justice is, as it was said, "Come to him and be enlightened"; how that is the true light of which John says, "He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world"; how John the Baptist himself was not the true light. For John the evangelist says, "He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light." And not only was John the Baptist not the true light, but neither was Paul the true light, nor was Peter the true light, nor were any apostles the true light. For the true light is that which enlightens every man coming into this world. They were lights, because they were enlightened. For the eyes of our flesh too are called lights, and everyone swears, "By my lights." What are these lights? If the sun is lacking, if the moon or a lamp is lacking, surely they remain in darkness. Where there are lights, let them see what is before them, let them guide the feet, if they are lights: and yet they are lights. Why are they lights? Because they can receive light. For when light is brought in, your forehead does not perceive the light itself, nor your ear, nor your sense of smell, nor your hand, nor your foot: only the members in you that are called eyes perceive the light brought in. When the light is absent they are darkened; but when the light is brought in, they alone are illuminated, that is, because they alone perceive the light. Your other members too are illuminated, but so that they can be seen, not so that they can see. For the light that rises, or that is brought in, floods all the members: the eyes, that they may see; the rest, that they may be seen. So all the saints were enlightened, that they might see, and preach what they saw. That is why it was said to them, "You are the light of the world." But a light, not the true light. Why? Because there was the true light, which enlightens every man. He said "every man": if he were speaking of this sun, he would not say "every man," because this sun is not seen by men alone. Cattle see it, and the tiniest creatures, and flies see this sun; but that light which is God no one sees, except those of whom it was said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Try to think, brothers, of the light of truth, the light of wisdom, how it is present everywhere to all; try to think of the light of justice, for it is present to everyone who thinks. For what is it that he thinks? He who wants to live unjustly sins. He deserts justice: is it diminished? He turns to justice: what then? Is it increased? He deserts it and leaves it whole; he turns to it and finds it whole. What, then, is the light of justice? Does it rise in the east and go to the west? Or is there some other place from which it rises or to which it goes? Is it not present everywhere? Certainly a man who is in the west, if he wants to live justly, that is, according to justice, does he lack justice to look at and see, so as to live according to it? Again, someone placed in the east, if he wants to live justly, that is, according to the same justice, does he lack it? For justice is there: it is present to the one who lives justly. By its rule those others too see how they should live justly: as the just, by living well, see it, so the unjust, by living badly, do not see it. For the one lives justly when he sees it, and the other sees it in order to direct his actions by it; because unless he directs his actions by the rule of justice, he runs into the error of iniquity. Since, then, it could be present to this man too, standing there, it is in no place, and it is everywhere: so is justice, so wisdom, so truth, so chastity. Try, then, to see such a light: but you cannot; the eye of the mind trembles. Let it be purified, that it may see. And that it may be purified and see, let it believe, that it may be found worthy to be purified. So what you cannot see, put off, that you may be healed, and be able to see.

Yet do not think of anything in the world to come such as you see now: for if you think of something of that kind, you will also love something of that kind; you want to go out of the world with the world itself, you want to take the world with you. These things will not be there. There will be a certain light there, from which there trickles down this something-I-know-not-what which we now understand and rejoice in. But if we have the blessing from the dew of heaven, we have the abundance from the fertility of the earth: for so Jacob was blessed. Let us belong to him, and not live carnally. Because each one begins by living carnally, the elder was called Esau. Two Testaments are spoken of in the Law, one Old and the other New. The Old had temporal promises but spiritual meanings. Let your Charity pay attention. If the land of promise was promised to the Jews, the land of promise signifies something spiritually; if the city of peace, Jerusalem, was promised to the Jews, the name of the city of Jerusalem signifies something; if circumcision of the flesh was given to the Jews, it signifies some spiritual circumcision; if the Jews were ordered to keep one day of the seven as a sabbath, it signifies spiritual rest, which has no evening. For in those very seven days, in Genesis, it was said on all the days, "And there was evening": on the seventh day it is not said, "And there was evening." By the seventh day, which has no evening, everlasting rest is signified to us, where there is no setting. If carnal sacrifices were given to the Jews, through the victims of animals they all signify spiritual sacrifices. So those who understood it as though something were given them in the present as a great thing, and sought nothing future, and could not understand spiritually what was done carnally, belong to the elder son; they belong to the Old Testament.

For the Old Testament is the promise in figure; the New Testament is the promise understood spiritually. For while the Jerusalem that was on earth belongs to the Old Testament, it bears the image of the Jerusalem that is in heaven, and that belongs to the New Testament. Circumcision of the flesh belongs to the Old Testament; circumcision of the heart belongs to the New Testament. According to the Old Testament the people is set free from Egypt; according to the New Testament the people is set free from the devil. The Egyptians and Pharaoh pursue the Jews as they come out of Egypt as persecutors; their own sins and the devil, the prince of sins, pursue the Christian people. But just as the Egyptians pursue the Jews as far as the sea, so sins pursue Christians as far as baptism. Pay attention, brothers, and see: the Jews are set free through the sea, the Egyptians are overwhelmed in the sea; Christians are set free in the forgiveness of sins, sins are blotted out through baptism. After the Red Sea they come out and walk through the desert: so too Christians after baptism are not yet in the land of promise, but are in hope. This world is a desert; and truly, for a Christian after baptism, it is a desert, if he understands what he has received. If not only bodily signs are performed in him but there is also a spiritual effect in his heart, he understands that this world is a desert for him; he understands that he lives as a pilgrim, that he longs for his homeland. And as long as he longs, he is in hope. "For in hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." This patience in the desert makes one hope for something: if he thinks he is already in the homeland, he does not reach the homeland; if he thinks he is already in the homeland, he stays on the road. But that he may not stay on the road, let him hope for the homeland, long for the homeland, so as not to stray. For temptations come: so they come after baptism. For just as the Egyptians who pursued them from Egypt were not the Jews' only enemies (they were past enemies, as each person is pursued by his past life and his past sins, with their prince the devil), but others arose in the desert who wanted to block the way, and there was fighting with them, and they were beaten: so after baptism, when a Christian has begun to walk the way of his heart in the hope of God's promises, let him not stray. For temptations come suggesting something else, the delights of this world, some other life, to twist each one from the road and draw him away from his purpose. But if you overcome these suggestions by that longing, the enemies on the road are beaten, and the people is brought to the homeland.

Hear the Apostle, that these things were figures for us. "For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers," he says, "that all our fathers were under the cloud." If they were under the cloud, they were in darkness. What does "they were in darkness" mean? That they did not understand spiritually what was done with them bodily. "And all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses, and all ate the same spiritual food." For manna was given them in the desert, as the sweetness of the Scriptures is given to us, so that we may endure in this desert of human life. And Christians know what manna they receive, to whom the Psalm itself said, "Taste and see how sweet the Lord is." "And all," he says, "ate the same spiritual food." What does "the same" mean? Signifying the same thing. "And all drank the same spiritual drink." And notice how he explained one thing and kept silent about the rest: "For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ." "But these things were figures for us." They were displayed to them, but they were figures for us: because they were displayed to them bodily, but signified to us spiritually. So those who held them bodily belonged to the Old Testament.

Now see that Isaac had grown old. Whose person did Isaac represent when he wanted to bless his elder son? He had already grown old: where there is old age, there is oldness; by old age I understand oldness, and by oldness I understand the Old Testament. Because those who were under the cloud did not understand this Old Testament, Isaac's eyes are therefore said to have grown dim. The dimness of Isaac's bodily eyes signifies the dimness of the minds of the Jews; Isaac's old age signifies the oldness of the Old Testament. What then, brothers? He nevertheless wants to bless his elder son Esau. The mother loved the younger, and the father the elder, as the firstborn: for his justice was equal toward both, but his affection was greater toward the firstborn. He wants to bless the elder, because the Old Testament made its promises to the first people. It speaks its promises only to the Jews: to them it seems to promise, to them it seems to pledge everything. They are called out of Egypt, set free from their enemies, led through the sea, fed with manna; they receive the covenant, receive the Law, receive the promises, receive the very land of promise. No wonder he wanted to bless the first son: but under the figure of the elder the younger is blessed. For the mother bears the type of the Church. And understand the Church, brothers, not only in those who began to be saints after the Lord's coming and birth; but all who were ever saints belong to that same Church. For father Abraham does not fail to belong to us because he lived before Christ was born of the Virgin, and we became Christians so long after, that is, after Christ's passion; since the Apostle says that we are sons of Abraham by imitating Abraham's faith. Are we, then, admitted to the Church by imitating him, and shall we shut him out of the Church? This Church is signified in Rebecca, Isaac's wife; this Church was in the holy prophets too, who understood the Old Testament, that those carnal promises signified something spiritual. If spiritual, then the spiritual belong to the younger son: because the carnal comes first, and afterwards the spiritual.

We already put it to your Holiness yesterday that the elder son is called Esau because no one becomes spiritual except from being carnal: but if he persists in the prudence of the flesh, he will always be Esau; if, however, he becomes spiritual, he is the younger son; but this younger will be the greater: for the one comes first in time, the other in virtue. For when Jacob had cooked lentils, Esau wanted to have them before he came to that blessing; and Jacob said to him, "Give me your birthright, and I will give you the lentils I have cooked." He sold his birthright to the younger: the one carried off a temporal pleasure, the other carried off an everlasting dignity. So those in the Church who are slaves to temporal pleasures eat lentils. Jacob, indeed, cooked them, but Jacob did not eat them: for idols had flourished above all in Egypt. The lentil is the food of Egypt. By the lentil are signified all the errors of the Gentiles. Since, then, the Church that was to come from the Gentiles, more eminent and more manifest, was signified in the younger son, Jacob is said to have cooked the lentils and Esau to have eaten them. For the Gentiles abandoned the idols they worshipped; but the Jews served idols: for, turned back in heart to Egypt, they were being led through the desert; and when their enemies had been killed in the sea, and their foes overwhelmed by the waves, they desired to make an idol because they did not see Moses; and they did not understand that God was present with them, but, setting their hope on the presence of a man, they did not see the man with their eyes and began to think that God was not there, though he alone was doing such great things through Moses. They sought a man with the eyes of the flesh, because they did not have eyes of the heart with which to see God in Moses. So they lost their primacy, because, turned back in heart to Egypt, they ate the lentils. Take this to heart. It is the Christian people; but within the Christian people itself those hold the primacy who belong to Jacob, while those who live carnally, believe carnally, hope carnally, love carnally, still belong to the Old Testament, not yet to the New; they are still in Esau's lot, not yet in Jacob's blessing.

Let your Holiness pay attention. The old man Isaac, with dim eyes, wanted to bless his elder son, because the Old Testament was addressed to the Jews. Because the Old Testament was not understood by them, his eyes are therefore said to be dim. As I said, brothers, he speaks to the elder; the blessing comes to the younger. For this mother, who is understood in all the saints, that is, the Church, which understood the prophecy, herself gives counsel to the younger son and says to him: "I myself heard your father saying to your brother, 'Go and bring me game, that I may eat and my soul may bless you before I die.' Now, then, son, listen to me." And she counselled him to go and bring two kids from the flock nearby, and that his mother should prepare them as his father liked them, and that he should eat and bless his younger son in the absence of the elder. But he was afraid, and said, "My brother is hairy, but I am smooth; lest my father touch me and feel me, and know that I am Jacob, and I get not a blessing but a curse." But she said, "Go, son, listen to me: your curse be upon me." He went and brought two kids; they were prepared, and he set them before his father; and, as she had foretold, because Isaac did not recognize him by his voice, he touched him and found hair, because his mother had covered his arms with the skins of the kids: he believed he was the elder, and blessed him. In the blessing he had the elder in mind, and the blessing came to the younger. What does it mean, then, that the younger is blessed under the appearance of the elder, except that under the figures of the Old Testament promised to the Jewish people the spiritual blessing came to the Christian people? Pay attention, brothers: they hear of the land of promise, and we hear of it too: Scripture seems to speak of the land of promise as if to the Jews, and the understanding of the land of promise has come to us, who say to God, "You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living." But that we might say this, our mother taught us; that is, the Church herself in the holy prophets teaches us how we are to understand spiritually those very carnal promises.

But the blessing could not come to us unless, already cleansed from sins by the birth of regeneration, we bear the sins of others by forbearance. For the mother bore both sons. Pay attention, brothers: she bore one hairy, the other smooth. The hairs signify sins, the smoothness gentleness, that is, cleanness from sins. Two sons are blessed, because the Church blesses two kinds. As Rebecca bore two, two are begotten in the womb of the Church, one hairy, the other smooth; we have explained the difference between them. For there are people who even after baptism will not give up their sins, and want to do what they did before. For example, if they used to commit frauds, they want to defraud again; if they used to swear falsely, they still want to perjure themselves; if they used to cheat the innocent by tricks, they still want to cheat them; if they used to plot murders, they plot the same; if they used to commit sexual immorality, if they used to get drunk, they do the very same things all the same. There is Esau, born hairy. What does Jacob do? His mother says to him, "Go, let your father bless you." And he says, "I am afraid; I will not go near." For there are people in the Church who are afraid to mix with sinners, lest by a sort of partnership with sinners they be stained in the unity, and perish through heresies and schisms.

What, then, is said of this hairy Esau, who did not live well in the house? For this too is said of them: "He was a rough hunter, but Jacob lived without deceit in the house." And so his mother loved him, because she felt how gentle his way of life was. This is the Jacob who was afterwards called Israel, when he wrestled with the angel: and this in a great mystery. Blessed, he was called Israel: and that because he was without deceit. Pay attention, my brothers, and see how without deceit he was. When the Lord saw Nathanael, because he knew what he was, he said: "Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no deceit." If, then, this man is an Israelite because there is no deceit in him, there was certainly no deceit in Israel himself. What, then, does it mean when it is said, "Your brother came with deceit and took away the blessing"? Scripture commends him as living in the house without deceit; the Lord too bears witness that he was without deceit, when he says of Nathanael, "Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no deceit." What, then, does it mean when it is said, "He came with deceit and took away the blessing"?

Let us meanwhile consider what the deceit signifies, and see what Jacob ought to do. He carries the sins of others, and carries them with forbearance, though they are others': for this is what it is to have kids' skins: that is, he carries others' sins patiently and does not cling to his own. So all who for the sake of the Church's unity bear the sins of others imitate Jacob. For Jacob himself is in Christ, since Christ is in the seed of Abraham. For it was said, "In your seed all nations shall be blessed." So our Lord Jesus Christ, who committed no sin, carried the sins of others: and does he whose sins have been forgiven disdain to carry the sins of others? So Jacob passes over to Christ by way of others' sins, that is, the kids' skins. And what is the deceit?

For that one comes late and brings what his father ordered, and finds his brother blessed in his place: and he is not blessed with another blessing. For those two men were two peoples; one blessing signifies the unity of the Church. And the two peoples are the very ones that are also Jacob. But in another way the two peoples belonging to Jacob are figured. For our Lord Jesus Christ, who had come to Jews and Gentiles, was rejected by the Jews who belonged to the elder son; yet he chose some who belonged to the younger son, who had begun to desire and understand the Lord's promises spiritually, not desiring carnally that land they were receiving, but desiring that spiritual city where no one is born carnally; because no one is born there carnally, no one dies there spiritually.

So when they had begun to desire this city, those who believed in Christ began to belong to Jacob, and the Lord's flock was formed in Judea itself. But what does the Lord say of that flock? "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I go, I will bring them, and there will be one flock and one shepherd." What other sheep does the Lord Jesus Christ have, if not from the Gentiles? The sheep from the Gentiles were joined to the Jewish sheep. For the apostles were from the Jews. From there too were the five hundred brothers who saw the Lord after the resurrection. From there was Nathanael himself, to whom the Lord bore witness that there was no deceit in him. From there were the hundred and twenty upon whom, when they were in the house, the Holy Spirit came to pour himself over them, the Spirit whom he had promised to the disciples. From there were the many thousands of people whom we read of in the Acts of the Apostles as baptized in the name of Christ, from among those who had crucified Christ. So from there were sheep, and many sheep; but not they alone: the Lord had others from the Gentiles. These two peoples, coming as it were from different directions, are also signified by two walls. For the Church of the Jews came from the circumcision; the Church of the Gentiles came from the uncircumcision: coming from different directions they were joined in one house. That is why the Lord was called the cornerstone; for the Psalm says, "The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner"; and the Apostle says, "Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone." Where there is a corner, two walls are joined; at a corner two walls do not meet unless they come from different directions: for if they come from one side, they do not make a corner. So the two kids are the two peoples, they are the two folds, they are the two walls; they are the two blind men who sat by the road; they are the two boats into which the fish were hauled. In many places of the Scriptures two peoples are understood: but they are one in Jacob.

Why kids, someone will say? You know that kids are sinners: for the kids will be on the left, and the lambs on the right. But those who persist as kids will be on the left. For if they had not first been kids, the Lord would not say, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." For when the Lord kept company with sinners and ate with tax collectors, the Jews, as though lambs, that is, as though righteous, but through pride rather he-goats, made it a charge against the Lord, or rather said to his disciples, "Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?" How did the Lord defend himself in reply? "Those who are well," he said, "have no need of a doctor, but those who are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." So he calls kids, but so that they may not remain kids. For Jacob killed them and prepared a feast from them for his father; that is, for the spiritual understanding which was to be understood in that blessing, though it was figured in the elder son: for this the kids were killed and eaten and passed into one body. So sins are killed in sinners, and, slain, they pass into the one body of the Church; of which Church Peter bore the figure when it was said to him, "Kill and eat." So the one was rough, the other gentle at home; the one elder, the other younger: the blessings seemed to look to the one, they came to the other. They looked to the one, because carnal promises were made to the Jews; they came to the other, because they were to be understood and received spiritually by Christians. The blessing would not have come to him unless he carried the sins which he himself no longer committed.

So let your Holiness understand how sins are to be borne. For there are some who think they are bearing sins and keep silent toward sinners: that pretence is to be detested. Bear with the sinner, not so as to love the sin in him, but so as to pursue the sin for his sake. Love the sinner, not insofar as he is a sinner, but insofar as he is a human being. As when you love a sick man you go after the fever: for if you spare the fever, you do not love the sick man. So tell your brother what is true; do not keep silent. For what else are we doing but telling you what is true? Do not speak falsely; tell what is true with open truth: but until he is corrected, let him be borne with. The killing of the kids and the carrying of the skins could take place at different times; yet they signify something that can be done at one time. For at the same time the righteous man both rebukes sinners, which is killing the kids, and mercifully bears with their sins, which is carrying the skins. As far as it lay with him, he killed the kids, he killed the sinners; but he carried others' sins, and carried them with forbearance; he deserved to be blessed, because "love bears all things." This love was in the mother, and the mother bore the figure of that love: she, who was a figure of all the saints, bore the figure of love; for none are saints except those who have love. "For what will it profit, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love? I have become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I have all faith, so that I move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I know all mysteries and all prophecy, and give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing." What kind of thing, then, is love, which alone profits much, and without which the rest profit nothing? So love itself gives counsel, and the son of love obeys.