Sermons to the People 91.1–92.2

The Jews were asked, as we heard just now from the Gospel when it was read, how our Lord Jesus Christ was the son of David when David himself called him his Lord, and they could not answer. For they knew in the Lord what they saw. The son of man appeared to them; but the Son of God was hidden. That is why they believed he could be overcome, and mocked him when he hung on the tree, saying, “If he is the Son of God, let him come down from the cross, and we will believe in him.” One thing they saw; another they did not recognize. For if they had recognized it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. Yet they knew that the Christ was the son of David. For even now they hope that he will come. It is hidden from them that he has come; but it is hidden from them because they will it so. For even if they did not recognize him hanging on the cross, they ought to have recognized him reigning. In whose name are all the nations called and blessed, if not in his whom they think was not the Christ? For the son of David, being of the seed of David according to the flesh, is certainly the son of Abraham. And if it was said to Abraham, “In your seed all the nations will be blessed,” and they now see all nations blessed in our Christ, why do they wait for what has already come, and not fear what is still to come? For our Lord Jesus Christ himself said he was a stone, using a prophetic testimony to assert it of himself; and a stone of such a kind that if anyone stumbles against it he will be shattered, but on whomever that stone comes, it will crush him. For when he is stumbled against, he lies low: lying low he shatters the one who stumbles; coming on high he crushes the proud. The Jews, then, have already been shattered by that stumbling; it remains that they will be crushed at his glorious coming as well, unless perhaps while they are alive they recognize him, so as not to die. For God is patient, and invites them daily to faith.

But the Jews could not answer the Lord when he put the question to them and asked whose son they said the Christ was. And when they answered, “David’s son,” he added and put to them: “How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? If David, then,” he says, “in the Spirit calls him Lord, how is he his son?” He did not say, “He is not his son,” but, “How is he his son?” When he says “how,” it is the word of one asking, not of one denying; as if he were saying to them, “You say rightly that the Christ is the son of David; but David himself calls him Lord: how is he the son of one who calls him Lord?” If the Jews had been instructed in the Christian faith that we hold; if they did not close their hearts against the Gospel; if they had wished to have spiritual life in themselves, they would have answered this question, instructed in the church’s faith, and said: “Since ‘in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’: see how he is David’s Lord. But since ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’: see how he is David’s son.” But not knowing, they fell silent; and they did not even, with closed mouths, open their ears, so as to learn by being taught what they could not answer when questioned.

But it is a great thing to know the mystery: how he is David’s Lord and David’s son; how one person is man and God; how in the form of man he is less than the Father, in the form of God equal to the Father; how he says again, “The Father is greater than I,” and, “I and the Father are one.” Because the mystery is great, conduct must be formed if it is to be grasped. It is shut to the unworthy, opened to the deserving. Not stones, nor bars, nor fists, nor heels are what we knock with at the Lord’s door. Life knocks, and to life it is opened. With the heart one asks, with the heart one seeks, with the heart one knocks; to the heart it is opened. But this heart, if it is to ask rightly, knock and seek rightly, must be godly: first, to love God freely, for that is godliness; and not to set for itself, apart from him, a reward to expect from him. For nothing is better than he. And what does he ask from God that he holds dear, to whom God himself is cheap? He gives earth, and you rejoice, lover of earth, you who have become earth. If you rejoice when he gives earth, how much more ought you to rejoice when he gives you himself, he who made heaven and earth? So God is to be loved freely. For the devil, not knowing what was going on inside holy Job, brought against him a great charge, saying, “Does Job worship God for nothing?”

So if the adversary brought this charge, we ought to fear that it may be brought against us. For we have to do with a great slanderer. If he tries to invent what is not, how much more will he charge us with what is? Yet let us rejoice, because our judge is such that he cannot be deceived by our accuser. For if we had a human judge, the enemy would invent whatever he liked before him. No one is more cunning at inventing than the devil. For even now he himself makes up all the false charges against the saints. Since his accusations can have no force before God, he spreads them among men. And what does this profit him, when the apostle says, “This is our glory, the testimony of our conscience”? Do you think, though, that there is no cunning in his inventing false charges? He knows what harm he does by it, unless the vigilance of faith resists him. For he spreads evil reports even about the good so that the weak may think no one is good, and may give themselves up to be carried off and squandered by lusts, saying within themselves, “Who is there that keeps God’s commandment? Or who is there that keeps chastity?” While he thinks that no one does, he himself becomes no one. This, then, is what the devil does. But Job was such a man that nothing could be invented about him: his life was known and exceedingly plain. But because he had great riches, the devil charged him with something which, even if it were so, could be in the heart but could not appear in his conduct. He worshipped God, he gave alms; and with what heart he did it, no one knew, not even the devil himself; but God knew. God bears witness to his servant; the devil slanders the servant of God. He is allowed to be tempted; Job is proved, the devil is put to shame. Job is found to worship God freely, to love him freely: not because God gave something, but because God did not take himself away. For he says, “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it was done; blessed be the name of the Lord.” The fire of temptation came; but it found gold, not straw: it removed the dross; it did not turn it to ash.

So, since the heart must be cleansed in order to understand God’s mystery, how Christ is both man and God; and it is cleansed by conduct, by life, by chastity, by holiness, by love, and by faith that works through love (and all that I am saying is like a tree that has its root in the heart: for deeds come only from the heart’s root; if you have planted desire there, thorns come up; if you have planted love, fruits come up): immediately after the Lord had put this question to the Jews, and they could not answer, he went on to speak about conduct, to show why they were unworthy to understand what he asked. For the wretched proud men, since they could not answer, certainly ought to have said, “We do not know; Master, tell us.” They fell silent at the question, and did not open their mouths to inquire. And at once the Lord spoke of their pride: “Beware,” he says, “of the scribes, who love to preside in the synagogues and love the first place at banquets.” Not because they accept them, but because they love them. Here he accused their heart; and he could not be the accuser of the heart if he were not the searcher of the heart. For it is right that a servant of God who holds some office in the church should be given the first place; because if it is not given him, it is bad for the one who does not give it; but it is not good for the one to whom it is given. So it is right that in the assembly of Christians those set over the people should sit higher, so that they are distinguished by their very seat and their office is plain enough; yet not so that they are puffed up by the seat, but so that they think of the burden for which they will give account. But who knows whether they love this or not? That is a matter of the heart; it can have no judge but God. The Lord himself warned his own not to fall into such leaven, as he says in another place: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” And when they thought he said this because they had brought no bread, he answered them: “Have you forgotten how many thousands were filled from five loaves?” “Then,” it says, “they understood that he meant their teaching by leaven.” For those men loved these temporal things; but they neither feared eternal evils nor loved eternal goods. With their hearts shut, they could not understand what the Lord asked.

What, then, should God’s church do so as to be able to understand what it first deserved to believe? Let it make the mind able to receive what will be given. So that this might happen, that is, so that the mind might be able to receive, the Lord our God has held his promises in suspense, not taken them away. He holds them in suspense so that we may stretch out; we stretch out so that we may grow; we grow so that we may reach them. See the apostle Paul stretched out toward things held in suspense: “Not that I have already received, or am already perfect. Brothers, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it; but one thing, forgetting what lies behind and stretched out toward what lies ahead, I press on in purpose toward the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus.” He was running on earth; the prize hung from heaven. So he ran on earth, but he was ascending in the Spirit. See him stretched out, see him reaching toward what hangs above: “I press on,” he says, “toward the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus.”

So one must walk; and no feet need anointing, no beasts of burden need finding, no ship need providing. Run by affection, walk by love, ascend by charity. Why look for the way? Cling to Christ, who by descending and ascending made himself the way. Do you want to ascend? Hold on to the one who ascends. For by yourself you cannot be lifted up. “For no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.” If no one ascends except he who descended, and he is the Son of Man, our Lord Jesus, do you too want to ascend? Be a member of him who alone ascends. For he, the head, with the other members is one man. And since no one can ascend except one who has been made a member of him in his body, it is fulfilled that “no one has ascended except he who descended.” For you cannot say, “See, then, why did Peter, for example, ascend, why did Paul ascend, why did the apostles ascend, if no one ascends except he who descended?” The answer to you is: Peter, Paul, the other apostles, and all the faithful, what do they hear from the apostle? “Now you are the body of Christ, and members in part.” If, then, the body of Christ and the members belong to one, do not make two. For he left father and mother and clung to his wife, so that the two should be in one flesh. He left his Father, because here he did not show himself equal to the Father, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. He left his mother too, the synagogue, from which he was born according to the flesh. He clung to his wife, that is, to his church. And when he himself recalled that testimony, he showed that marriage may not be dissolved: “Have you not read,” he says, “that God who made them from the beginning made them male and female? The two,” he says, “will be in one flesh. What God has joined, then, let man not separate.” And what does “two in one flesh” mean? He continues and says, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.” No one ascends except he who descended.

For so that you may know that bridegroom and bride are one man, according to Christ’s flesh, not according to his divinity (for according to his divinity we cannot be what he is, since he is the creator and we the creature, he the maker and we the made, he the founder and we the founded; but so that we might be one with him in him, he willed to be our head, taking flesh from us in which to die for us): so that you may know, then, that this whole is one Christ, he said through Isaiah: “As a bridegroom he has bound a turban on me, and as a bride he has clothed me with ornament.” He himself the bridegroom, he himself the bride: plainly the bridegroom in the head, the bride in the body. “For the two,” he says, “will be in one flesh; and now they are no longer two, but one flesh.”

So, belonging to his members, so that we may understand this mystery, as I said, brothers, let us live godly lives, let us love God freely. He who shows the form of a servant to those on pilgrimage keeps the form of God for those who arrive. By the form of a servant he paved the way; by the form of God he founded the homeland. Since, then, it is much for us to grasp this, but it is not much to believe it (“For unless you believe,” says Isaiah, “you will not understand”), let us walk by faith as long as we are on pilgrimage away from the Lord, until we come to sight, where we shall see face to face. Walking by faith, let us work well. In good works let our love of God be free, our love of neighbor beneficent. For we have nothing to give God; but because we have something to give our neighbor, by giving to one in need we shall earn the favor of the one who abounds. So let each give to another what he has; whatever he has in excess, let him bestow on the needy. One has money: let him feed the poor, clothe the naked, build a church, do with money whatever good he can. Another has counsel: let him guide his neighbor, drive away the darkness of doubt by the light of godliness. Another has learning: let him dispense from the Lord’s storeroom, serve food to his fellow servants, strengthen the faithful, call back the wandering, seek the lost, do what he can. There are things even the poor can give one another: one may lend his feet to the lame, another offer his eyes to the blind as guides; one may visit the sick, another bury the dead. These things are within everyone’s reach, so that one can hardly find anyone who has nothing to offer another. And there is that final and great thing the apostle says: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

The question put to the Jews Christians ought to answer. For the Lord Jesus Christ, who put it to the Jews, did not answer it himself for the Jews; but for us he has answered it. And I will remind your Charity, and you will find that he has answered it. First see the knot of the question. He asked the Jews what they thought of the Christ, whose son he was; for they too hope for the Christ. They read of him in the prophets, they awaited him as one to come, they killed him when he was present: for where they read that the Christ would come, there they read that they would kill the Christ. But they hoped for his coming in the future in the prophets; their own future crime they did not see. So he questioned them about the Christ, not as of someone unknown, or whose name they had never heard, or whose coming they had never hoped for. For it is because they still hope for him that they go astray. We too hope for him; but as the judge who is to come, not as one coming to be judged. The holy prophets prophesied both: that he would come first to be judged unjustly, and would come afterward to judge justly. “What do you think,” he says, “of the Christ? Whose son is he?” They answered, “David’s.” Quite right, from the Scriptures. But he said: “How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet’? If David, then, in the Spirit calls him Lord, how is he his son?”

Here we must beware lest it be thought that Christ denied that he was David’s son. He did not deny that he was David’s son; he asked about the manner. “You have said he is David’s son; I do not deny it. But David calls him Lord: tell me how he is son who is also Lord; tell me how.” They did not say; they kept silent. Let us say it, with Christ himself explaining. Where? Through his apostle. First, how do we prove that Christ himself explained it? The apostle says: “Or do you want proof of Christ, who speaks in me?” So in the apostle he deigned to answer this question. First, Christ speaking through the apostle, what did he say to Timothy? “Remember that Christ Jesus has risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel.” See, Christ is David’s son. How is he also David’s Lord? Say it, apostle: “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God.” Acknowledge David’s Lord. If you acknowledge David’s Lord, our Lord, the Lord of heaven and earth, the Lord of the angels, equal to God in the form of God: how is he David’s son? Mark what follows. The apostle shows you David’s Lord by saying, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God.” How David’s son? “But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant; made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also exalted him.” Christ rose of the seed of David, son of David, because he emptied himself. How did he empty himself? By taking what he was not, not by losing what he was. He emptied himself, he humbled himself. Though he was God, he appeared as man. He who made heaven was despised walking on earth. He was despised as a man, as one of no power. Not only despised, but killed as well. He was a stone lying on the ground; the Jews stumbled on it and were shattered. And what does he himself say? “Whoever stumbles on this stone will be shattered; but on whomever this stone comes, it will crush him.” First he lay, and they stumbled; he will come from above and crush the shattered. You have received both David’s son and David’s Lord: David’s Lord always, David’s son from a point in time; David’s Lord born of the substance of the Father, David’s son born of the Virgin Mary, conceived of the Holy Spirit. Let us hold both. One of these will be our eternal dwelling; the other is our deliverance from pilgrimage. For if our Lord Jesus Christ had not deigned to become man, man would have perished. He became what he made, so that what he made should not perish. True man, true God: God and man, the whole Christ. This is the Catholic faith. Whoever denies that Christ is God is a Photinian; whoever denies that Christ is man is a Manichee. Whoever confesses Christ as God equal to the Father and as true man, who truly suffered and shed true blood (for the truth would not free us if he gave a false price for us): whoever confesses both is a Catholic. He has the homeland, he has the way. He has the homeland: “In the beginning was the Word”; he has the homeland: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count it robbery to be equal with God.” He has the way: “The Word became flesh”; he has the way: “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” He himself is the homeland to which we go; he himself the way by which we go. Through him let us go to him, and we shall not go astray.