Sermons to the People 90.1–90.10

The Lord’s banquet is twofold: one here, of the faithful; the other in heaven, of the blessed. All the faithful know of the marriage of the king’s son and of his banquet, and the furnishing of the Lord’s table is set before all who will. But it matters how each one approaches, since no one is forbidden to approach. For the holy Scriptures teach us that there are two banquets of the Lord: one to which good and bad come, the other to which the bad do not come. So the Lord’s banquet, of which we heard just now when the Gospel was read, certainly has good and bad. All who excused themselves from this banquet are bad; but not all who came in are good. I speak, then, to you who recline as good guests at this banquet, all of you who attend to what is said: “Whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself.” All of you who are such, I speak to you: do not look for the good outside, but bear with the bad inside.

I do not doubt that your Charity wants to hear who these are whom I addressed in my discourse, telling them not to look for the good outside but to bear with the bad inside. If all inside are bad, whom have I addressed? But if all inside are good, whom have I warned to bear with the bad? First, then, with the Lord’s help, let us get out of this question as best we can. If good is weighed perfectly and purely, “no one is good but God alone.” You have the Lord saying most plainly, “Why do you ask me about the good? No one is good but God alone.” How then does that wedding have good and bad, if no one is good but God alone? First you should know that in a certain way we are all bad. Quite simply, in a certain way we are all bad; but in a certain way we are not all good. Can we compare ourselves with the apostles? To them the Lord himself said, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children.” If we consider the Scriptures, there was one bad man there among the twelve apostles, on whose account the Lord says in a certain place, “And you are clean, but not all.” Yet addressing them all together he said, “If you, though you are evil.” Peter heard this, John heard it, Andrew heard it, all the other eleven apostles heard it. What did they hear? “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” Hearing that they were evil, they despaired; hearing that God in heaven was their Father, they breathed again. “Though you are evil,” he says: what then is owed to the evil but punishment? “How much more,” he says, “your Father who is in heaven”: what is owed to sons but a reward? In the name of the evil, the fear of punishment; in the name of sons, the hope of heirs.

In some respect, then, those same men were evil who in some respect were good. For to those to whom it was said, “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,” there was added at once, “How much more your Father who is in heaven.” The Father, then, of the evil, but not of those to be abandoned; for he is the physician of those to be healed. In a certain way, then, they were evil. And yet those guests of the householder at the king’s wedding, I think, were not of the number of whom it was said, “They invited good and bad,” in such a way that they would be reckoned among the bad, whom we heard were shut out in that one man who was found not to have a wedding garment. In what respect, I say, were the good evil, and in what respect were the evil good? Hear John say in what respect they were evil: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” See in what respect they were evil: because they had sin. In what respect were they good? “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If, then, according to this explanation, which you have heard me bring forth, as I think, from the holy Scriptures, we say that the same people are good in a certain way and evil in a certain way; if we wish to take in this sense what was said, “They invited good and bad,” that is, the very same people both good and bad: if we wish to take it so, we are not allowed, because of the man who was found without a wedding garment, and was thrown out not in just any manner, so as only to be deprived of that banquet, but so as to be condemned to the eternal punishment of darkness.

But someone says: “Why make much of one man? What is surprising, what is great, if in the crowd one man without a wedding garment slipped past the householder’s servants? Surely it could not be said on his account, ‘They invited good and bad’?” Pay attention, then, and understand, my brothers. That one man stood for a kind; for they were many. Here a careful hearer may answer me and say, “Do not tell me your suspicions; I want it proved to me that that one man was many.” The Lord will be present; I will prove it plainly, and I will not look far to be able to prove it. In his own words God will help me, and through me he will supply what may be clear to you. See, the householder came in to look at the guests. Notice, my brothers, that it was the servants’ part only to invite and bring in good and bad; notice that it is not said, “The servants looked over the guests, and found there a man who had no wedding garment, and said to him.” That is not written. The householder looked, the householder found, the householder distinguished, the householder separated. This was not to be passed over. But what we undertook to prove is something else: how that one man was many. The householder, then, came in to look at the guests, and found a man who had no wedding garment, and said to him, “Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?” And he was silent. For the one who questioned him was such that he could feign nothing before him. That garment was looked for in the heart, not on the body; if it had been put on outwardly, it would not have been hidden even from the servants. Learn where the wedding garment is to be put on, where it says, “Let your priests be clothed with righteousness.” Of that garment the apostle says, “If indeed, being clothed, we shall not be found naked.” So he was found by the Lord, who was hidden from the servants. Questioned, he falls silent; he is bound, thrown out, condemned: one out of many. Lord, I had said that you prompt me to warn everyone. Recall with me the words you have heard, and you will now find, and now judge, that that one man was many. Certainly the Lord had questioned one; to one he had said, “Friend, how did you come in here?” One had fallen silent; and of that one it had been said, “Bind his hands and feet, and throw him into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Why this? “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Who can gainsay this plain showing of the truth? “Throw him,” he says, “into the outer darkness”: certainly that one, of whom the Lord says, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” So the few are not thrown out. Certainly he was one, the man who had no wedding garment. “Throw him out.” Why is he thrown out? “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Leave the few; throw out the many. Certainly he was one. This one man, all told: they were not only many, but by their multitude they exceeded the number of the good. For the good too are many; but in comparison with the bad the good are few. Many grains of wheat have sprung up: compare them with the chaff, and the grains are few. The same people are many in themselves, few in comparison with the bad. How do we prove that they are many in themselves? “Many will come from the east and from the west.” Where will they come? To that banquet which good and bad enter. Speaking of the other banquet he added, “And they will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” That is the banquet to which the bad will not come. Let this one that now is be received worthily, so that we may arrive at that one. The same, then, are many who are few: many in themselves, few in comparison with the bad. So what does the Lord say? He found one, and says, “Let the many be thrown out, let the few remain.” For to say, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” is nothing other than to show openly who in this banquet are held to be such that they will be brought to the other banquet, to which none of the bad will come.

What then? All of you who approach the Lord’s table, which is here, I do not want you to be with the many who are to be separated, but with the few who are to be kept. How will you manage this? Take the wedding garment. “Explain the wedding garment to us,” you will say. Beyond doubt it is that garment which only the good have, those to be left at the banquet, kept for the banquet to which no bad person comes, and brought there by the Lord’s grace: they have the wedding garment. Let us look, then, my brothers, among the faithful, for who those are who have something the bad do not have, and that will be the wedding garment. If we say the sacraments, you see how they are common to the bad and the good. Is it baptism? Without baptism, indeed, no one comes to God; but not everyone who has baptism comes to God. So I cannot understand baptism, that is, the sacrament itself, to be the wedding garment, for I see this garment on the good and on the bad. Perhaps it is the altar, or what is received from the altar. We see that many eat, and eat and drink judgment to themselves. What then is it? Fasting? The bad fast too. Running to church? The bad run there too. Finally, miracles happen? Not only do the good work them, and the bad as well, but sometimes the good do not work them. See, among the ancient people Pharaoh’s magicians worked miracles; the Israelites did not. Among the Israelites only Moses and Aaron worked them; the rest did not, but they saw, they feared, they believed. Were Pharaoh’s magicians, who worked miracles, better than the people of Israel, who could not work miracles and yet belonged to God as his people? In the church itself, hear the apostle: “Are all prophets? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues?”

What, then, is that wedding garment? This is the wedding garment: “The aim of the commandment,” the apostle says, “is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.” This is the wedding garment. Not just any love: for often even people who share a bad conscience seem to love one another. Those who commit robberies together, who practice sorcery together, who are fond of actors together, who shout together for charioteers and beast-fighters, often love one another; but in them there is no love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. Such love is the wedding garment. “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,” he says, “but have not love, I have become like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” Tongues alone have come, and it is said to them, “Why did you come in here without a wedding garment?” “If I have prophecy,” he says, “and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and have faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” See, there are those miracles of people who often have no wedding garment. “If I have all these,” he says, “and have not Christ, I am nothing.” “I am nothing,” he says. Is prophecy then nothing? Is the knowledge of mysteries then nothing? Those things are not nothing; but I, if I have them and have not love, am nothing. How many good things are of no profit without the one good thing! If I have not love, though I give alms to the poor, though I go to the confession of Christ’s name even to blood, even to the flames: these things can be done even from love of glory, and then they are empty. Because, then, they can be done from an empty love of glory and not from love rich with godliness, he mentions these too; hear them as well: “If I give all my goods to feed the poor, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” This is the wedding garment. Question yourselves: if you have it, you are secure at the Lord’s banquet. There are two things in one person, love and desire. Let love be born in you, if it is not yet born; and if it is born, let it be fed, nourished, made to grow. As for desire, even if it cannot be wholly put out in this life (for “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” and so far as desire is in us, so far we are not without sin), let love grow and desire decrease, so that one day the one, that is love, may be made perfect, and desire consumed. Put on the wedding garment: I speak to you who do not yet have it. You are already inside, you already come to the banquet, and you do not yet have the garment in honor of the bridegroom: you still seek your own things, not those of Jesus Christ. For the wedding garment is taken in honor of the union, that is, of the bridegroom and the bride. You know the bridegroom: it is Christ. You know the bride: it is the church. Give honor to her who is married, give honor to him who marries. If you honor them well, you will be their children. So make progress in this. Love the Lord, and there learn to love yourselves; so that when by loving the Lord you have loved yourselves, you may safely love your neighbors as yourselves. For when I do not find someone who loves himself, how shall I entrust to him a neighbor to love as himself? “And who is there,” someone says, “who does not love himself?” See who: “He who loves iniquity hates his own soul.” Does he love himself who loves his flesh and hates his soul, to his own harm, to the harm of his soul and his flesh? Who, then, loves his own soul? He who loves God with all his heart and with all his mind. To such a one I now entrust his neighbor. Love your neighbors as yourselves.

“Who,” someone says, “is my neighbor?” Every human being is your neighbor. Did we not all have two parents? Animals of each kind are neighbors to one another, dove to dove, leopard to leopard, asp to asp, sheep to sheep; and is a human being not neighbor to a human being? Recall how creation was established. God spoke; the waters brought forth swimming things, great sea monsters, fish, birds, and the like they brought forth. Did all birds come from one bird? All vultures from one vulture? All doves from one dove? All snakes from one snake? All gilt-heads from one gilt-head? All sheep from one sheep? Surely the earth brought forth all the kinds together. When it came to man, the earth did not bring forth man. One father was made for us: not even two, father and mother. One father, I say, was made for us, not even two, father and mother; but from the one father one mother. He from no one, but made by God; and she from him. Consider our race: we flowed from one spring; and because that one was turned to bitterness, we all became wild olives from an olive. Grace came too. One begot unto sin and death, yet one race, yet all neighbors to one another; yet not only alike, but also kin. One came against one: against one who scattered, one who gathers. So against one who killed, one who gives life. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” But just as everyone born of him dies, so in Christ everyone who believes is made alive: but only if he has the wedding garment, if he is invited to be kept, not to be separated.

So have love, my brothers. I have explained to you the wedding garment, I have explained the garment to you. Faith is praised; it is agreed, it is praised: but which faith, the apostle distinguishes. For the apostle James rebukes some who boasted of faith and did not have good conduct, and says: “You believe that God is one; you do well. The demons also believe, and tremble.” Recall with me why Peter was praised, why he was called blessed. Because he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”? He who pronounced him blessed looked not to the sound of the words but to the affection of the heart. Do you want to know that Peter’s blessedness did not lie in those words? The demons said them too: “We know who you are; you are the Son of God.” Peter confessed the Son of God; the demons confessed the Son of God. “Distinguish, sir, distinguish.” I distinguish plainly. Peter spoke from love, the demons from fear. Then he says, “I am with you even to death.” They say, “What have we to do with you?” So you who have come to the banquet, do not boast of faith alone. Distinguish faith itself too, and then the wedding garment is recognized in you. Let the apostle distinguish and teach us: “Neither circumcision,” he says, “counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith.” Say which faith: do not the demons too believe and tremble? “I tell you,” he says, “listen, I distinguish, now I distinguish: but faith working through love.” Which faith, then? What kind of faith? That which works through love. “If I have all knowledge,” he says, “and all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Have faith with love; for you cannot have love without faith. This I urge, this I exhort, this in the name of the Lord I teach your Charity: that you have faith with love; for you can have faith without love. So I do not exhort you to have faith, but love. For you cannot have love without faith; I mean love of God and neighbor: how can that be without faith? How does he love God who does not believe in God? How does the fool love God, who says in his heart, “There is no God”? It can happen that you believe Christ has come and do not love Christ. But it cannot happen that you love Christ and do not say that Christ has come.

So have faith with love. That is the wedding garment. Love one another, you who love Christ: love your friends, love your enemies. Do not let this be hard for you. What do you lose, where you gain so much? Why do you ask God, as if it were a great thing, that your enemy should die? That is not the wedding garment. Look at the bridegroom himself hanging on the cross for you and asking the Father for his enemies: “Father,” he says, “forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” You have seen the bridegroom saying this; see also the friend of the bridegroom, invited with the wedding garment. Look at blessed Stephen, how he rebukes the Jews, as though fierce, as though angry: “Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you have resisted the Holy Spirit. Which of the prophets did your fathers not kill?” You have heard how his tongue raged. You are still ready to say this against anyone you like; and would that you said it against one who has offended God, not one who has offended you! He offends God, and you do not rebuke; he offends you, and you shout: where is that wedding garment? You have heard, then, how Stephen raged; hear how he loved. He offended those whom he rebuked, and was stoned by them. And while on every side he was pressed and beaten by the hands of the raging men and the blows of the stones, first he said: “Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit.” Then, after he had prayed standing for himself, for those who were stoning him he knelt and said: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”: let me die in the flesh, not they in the heart. And having said this he fell asleep. After these words he added nothing: he spoke and departed; his last prayer was for his enemies. Learn to have the wedding garment. So you too, bend your knees, strike your forehead on the ground, and as you are about to approach the Lord’s table, the banquet of the holy Scriptures, do not say, “If only my enemy would die,” or “Lord, if I have deserved anything from you, kill my enemy.” If perhaps you do say it, are you not afraid he may answer you: “If I wanted to kill your enemy, would I not have killed you first? Or do you boast because you have now come at my invitation? Think a little what you were before. Did you not blaspheme me? Did you not mock me? Did you not want to wipe my name from the earth? But you applaud yourself because you came when invited. If I had killed you when you were an enemy, whom would I have made a friend? Why do you, by praying wrongly, teach me what I did not do to you? Rather,” God says to you, “let me teach you to imitate me. Hanging on the cross I said, ‘Forgive them, for they do not know what they do.’ I taught this to my soldier. Be my recruit against the devil. You will in no way fight unconquered unless you pray for your enemies.” Say it outright, say even this, say that you pursue your enemy; but say it knowingly; distinguish what you say. See, your enemy is a human being: answer me, what in him is hostile to you? Is it that he is a human being that is hostile to you? No. Then what? That he is bad. “That he is a human being, which I made, is not hostile to you. He says to you: I made a human being, not a bad one; he became bad through disobedience, obeying the devil rather than God. What he himself made, that is hostile to you: he is your enemy from what makes him bad, not from what makes him human.” For I hear “a human being” and “bad”: one is the name of a nature, the other of a fault: I heal the fault and keep the nature. This your God says to you: “And see, I avenge you, I kill your enemy: I take from him that he is bad, I keep that he is human. If I make him a good human being, have I not killed your enemy and made him your friend?” So ask what you ask in such a way that people do not perish, but enmities themselves perish. But if you pray that a person should die, you are bad praying against the bad; and when you say, “Kill the bad one,” he answers you, “Which of you?”

Extend your love, then, not only as far as your wives and children. That love is found even in cattle and sparrows. You know how sparrows and swallows love their mates, warm the eggs together, feed the young together, by a certain kindly and natural goodness, with no thought of reward. For the sparrow does not say, “I will feed my young so that when I grow old they may feed me.” It thinks nothing of the kind: it loves freely, feeds freely; it shows a parent’s affection and seeks no return. And you too, I know, I am sure, love your children so. For children ought not to lay up treasure for their parents, but parents for their children. Hence many of you even stir up your greed, because you are acquiring for your children and saving for them. But extend your love, let this love grow: to love children and wives is not yet that wedding garment. Have faith toward God. First love God. Reach out to God, and whomever you can, carry off to God. Is he an enemy? Let him be carried off to God. Is it a son, a wife, a slave? Let him be carried off to God. Is he a stranger? Let him be carried off to God. Is he an enemy? Let him be carried off to God. Carry off, carry off your enemy: by being carried off he will no longer be an enemy. So let progress be made, so let love be nourished, so that once nourished it may be made perfect; so let the wedding garment be put on; so let the image of God, after which we were created, be re-engraved by progress. For by sinning it had been worn away, rubbed down. How rubbed down? How worn away? When it is rubbed against the earth. What does it mean to be rubbed against the earth? It is worn by earthly desires. “For though man walks in the image, yet he is disquieted in vain.” Truth is sought in God’s image, not vanity. By loving the truth, let that image after which we were created be re-engraved, and let his own coin be rendered to our Caesar. For so you heard from the Lord’s reply, when the Jews were testing him and the Lord said, “Why do you test me, hypocrites? Show me the coin of the tax,” that is, the impress of the image and the inscription. “Show me what you pay, what you prepare, what is demanded of you; show me.” They showed him a denarius, and he asked whose image and inscription it bore. They answered, “Caesar’s.” Caesar too looks for his image. Caesar does not want what he ordered to be lost to him, and God does not want what he made to be lost. Caesar, my brothers, did not make the coin: the mint workers make it; craftsmen are ordered; he commanded his servants. The image was stamped on the coin: on the coin is Caesar’s image. And yet what others stamped is sought back: he stores it up, he does not want it refused him. Christ’s coin is the human being. There is Christ’s image, there Christ’s name, Christ’s gift, and Christ’s duties.