Sermons to the People 99.1–100.4

Since we are prompted by the Lord’s words in the divine readings, and believe from this that God wants us to speak, we bring before your Charity, with his help, a sermon on the forgiveness of sins. For when the Gospel was read you listened most attentively, and the event was told and turned over before the eyes of your heart. For you saw, not with the flesh but with the mind, the Lord Jesus Christ reclining in the house of a Pharisee, not disdaining him who invited him. You saw also a woman notorious in the city, of evil repute certainly, who was a sinner, burst uninvited into the banquet where her physician was reclining, and seek health with godly shamelessness. Bursting in as if unwelcome at the banquet, but welcome for the benefit (for she knew how great a disease she was suffering from, and knew that the one she had come to was able to heal it), she came, not to the Lord’s head but to his feet; and she who had long walked badly was seeking right steps. First she poured out tears, the blood of the heart, and washed the Lord’s feet in the service of confession. She wiped them with her hair, kissed them, anointed them: silent, she spoke; she uttered no word, but showed devotion.

Because, then, she touched the Lord, wetting, kissing, wiping, and anointing his feet, the Pharisee who had invited the Lord Jesus Christ, being of that kind of proud men of whom the prophet Isaiah says, “Who say, Keep far from me, do not touch me, for I am clean,” thought the Lord did not know the woman. He was thinking this to himself and saying in his heart: “If this man were a prophet, he would know what woman has come to his feet.” He believed he did not know her because he did not repel her, because he did not stop her approaching, because he let himself be touched by a sinner. How did he know that he did not know? For what if he did know, Pharisee, you who invite the Lord and mock him? You feed the Lord, and do not understand by whom you are to be fed. How do you know that the Lord did not know what that woman had been, except that she was allowed to approach, except that with his permission she kissed his feet, except that she wiped them, except that she anointed them? Ought an unclean woman not to have been allowed to do these things to clean feet? So if such a woman had approached that Pharisee’s feet, he would have said what Isaiah says of such people: “Keep away from me, do not touch me, for I am clean.” But she approached the Lord unclean, so as to go back clean; she approached sick, so as to go back healthy; she approached confessing, so as to go back professing.

For the Lord heard the Pharisee thinking. From this the Pharisee should understand that he who could hear him thinking could see her sinning. So he put to the man a likeness about two who owed one moneylender. For he wanted to heal him too, so as not to eat bread at his house for nothing: he hungered for the man who was feeding him; he wanted to correct him, to slay him, to eat him, to pass him into his own body: as he also said to that Samaritan woman, “I thirst.” What does “I thirst” mean? I long for your faith. So the Lord’s words in this likeness are spoken, and two things are achieved: that the man who invited him may be healed with his fellow guests, who alike saw the Lord Jesus Christ and alike did not know him; and that the woman may have confidence in her confession and no longer be pricked by the goads of her conscience. “One,” he says, “owed fifty denarii, the other five hundred; he forgave them both: which of them loved him more?” He to whom the likeness was put answered what reason of course compelled him to answer: “I think, Lord, the one to whom he forgave more.” And turning to the woman, he said to Simon: “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet; she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss; she, since she came in, has not ceased kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil; but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I say: her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much. But he to whom little is forgiven loves little.”

A question certainly arises that must be answered, which calls for the attention of your Charity, lest perhaps our words not be enough to remove and clear up all its obscurity because of the shortness of time; especially since this flesh, worn out by the heat, now wants to be refreshed, and, demanding its due and hindering the eagerness of the soul, shows the truth of what was said: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” It is to be feared, very much feared, that in these words of the Lord, when not understood well, by those who indulge their fleshly lusts and are slow to be led out of them into freedom, that saying may creep in which arose in the tongues of slanderers even when the apostles were preaching, as the apostle Paul says: “And as some claim that we say, Let us do evil that good may come.” For someone says: “If he to whom little is forgiven loves little, and he to whom more is forgiven loves more, it is better to love more than to love less; we ought to sin much and owe much that we want forgiven us, so that we may love the more the one who forgives great debts. For that sinful woman, the more she owed, the more she loved the one who forgave her debts, as the Lord himself said, ‘Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much.’ And why did she love much, unless because she owed much? Then he added and joined to it, ‘But he to whom little is forgiven loves little.’ Is it not better,” he says, “that much be forgiven me than less, so that I may love my Lord more?” You certainly see the depth of the question; I know you see it. You see the shortness of the time; this too you see and feel.

So receive a few words. If I do not do justice to the greatness of the question, store away the present sermon for now, and hold me a debtor for the future. Take now two men, so that you may think through what I have proposed by clearer examples. One of them is full of sins, has lived very badly for a long time; the other has sinned little: both come to grace, both are baptized; they enter debtors, they come out free: more was given to one, less to the other. I ask how much each loves. If I find that the one to whom more sins were forgiven loves more, then it was more useful to have sinned much; much iniquity was more useful, lest love be lukewarm. I ask the other how much he loves; I find less. For if I find that this one too loves as much as the one to whom much was forgiven, how shall I answer the Lord’s words? How will what the Truth said be true, “He to whom little is forgiven loves little”? See, someone says: “Little was forgiven me, I did not sin much; and I love as much as this man to whom much was forgiven.” Are you speaking the truth, or Christ? Was your lie forgiven you so that you might charge the forgiver of lies with a crime? If little was forgiven you, you love little. For if little was forgiven you and you love very much, you contradict him who said, “He to whom little is forgiven loves little.” So I believe him more, who knows you better. You think little was forgiven you: then you love little indeed. “What, then,” he says, “ought I to have done? Commit many evils, so that there might be many things he could forgive me, so that I might love more?” It hems us in; but may the Lord, who set out these true things, free me from the straits.

This was said because of that Pharisee, who thought he had no sins or few. For he would not have invited the Lord unless he loved him somewhat. But how little was it? He gave no kiss, not even water for the feet, let alone tears: he did not attend him with the service with which that woman did, who knew what was being healed in her and by whom. O Pharisee, you love little because you suppose little is forgiven you: not because little is forgiven, but because you think little of what is forgiven. “What then?” he says. “I who have not committed murder, am I to be reckoned a murderer? I who have not committed adultery, am I to be punished for adultery? Or are these things to be forgiven me which I did not commit?” See, again set up two men, and let us speak to them. One comes, a suppliant sinner, covered with spines like a hedgehog and very timid like a hare. But “the rock is a refuge for hedgehogs” and for hares. So he comes to the rock, finds refuge, receives help. The other did not commit much: what shall we do for him so that he may love much? What shall we persuade him? Shall we go against the Lord’s words, “He to whom little is forgiven loves little”? Quite so, he to whom little is forgiven. But you who say you have not committed much: why? Under whose guidance? Thanks be to God, for by your stirring and your voices you have shown that you have understood. Now, as I see, the question is solved. This one committed much and became a debtor for much; that one, God governing him, committed little. To whom the one ascribes what he forgave, to him the other also ascribes what he did not commit. You were not an adulterer in that past life of yours, full of ignorance, not yet enlightened, not yet discerning good and evil, not yet believing in him who was guiding you when you did not know it. This is what your God says to you: “I was guiding you for myself, I was keeping you for myself. That you did not commit adultery, there was no one to tempt you: that there should be no one to tempt you, I did it. Place and time were lacking; and that these should be lacking, I did it. A tempter was there, place was not lacking, time was not lacking: that you might not consent, I frightened you.” So acknowledge the grace of him to whom you owe also what you did not commit. “This man owes me what was done, and you saw it forgiven; you too owe me what you did not do.” For there is no sin that a man has done which another man could not also do, if the ruler by whom man was made were absent.

Now, since we have solved a deep question as well as we could in so very short a time (or, if we have not yet solved it, let us be held debtors, as I said), let us rather look briefly at the forgiveness of sins. Christ was thought to be a man, both by the one who invited him and by those reclining with him. That sinful woman had seen something more in the Lord. For why did she do all that, if not to have her sins forgiven? So she knew that he could forgive sins; and they knew that a man cannot forgive. And we must believe that all of them, that is, both those reclining and the woman approaching the Lord’s feet, all knew that a man cannot forgive sins. Since, then, all knew this, she who believed he could forgive sins understood that he was more than a man. Then, when he had said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven you,” at once they said, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Who is this, whom a sinful woman already knew? You recline as if healthy, and do not know the physician, because perhaps in a greater fever you have even lost your mind. For a delirious man laughing is wept over by the healthy. Yet this you know well, you hold it well: hold it, that a man cannot forgive sins. She who believed her sins were forgiven her by Christ believed Christ to be not only man but also God. “Who is this,” they say, “who even forgives sins?” And the Lord, when they said “Who is this?”, did not say, “The Son of God, the Word of God”: he did not say this, but, leaving them for a while in what they thought, he resolved the question that stirred them. For he who saw them reclining heard them thinking; turning to the woman, he said, “Your faith has saved you.” Let these who say, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”, who think me a man, think me a man. “Your faith has saved you.”

The good physician not only healed the sick who were present but also foresaw those to come. There would be men who would say: “I forgive sins, I justify, I sanctify, I heal whomever I baptize.” Of that very number are these too who say, “Do not touch me.” So much are they of that number that recently in our conference (as you can also read in the Proceedings themselves), when the judge offered them seats so that they might sit with us, they thought they should answer, “It is written for us not to sit with such people”: that is, lest through contact with the benches our contagion, as it were, should reach them. See whether this is not, “Do not touch me, for I am clean.” On another day, when it was more to the point, as the subject was the church, and that the wicked in it do not defile the good, we reminded them of this most wretched vanity of theirs. We answered them, since they had refused to sit with us and said they had been warned by Scripture, because it is written, “I have not sat in the council of vanity”: we said, “If you refused to sit with us because it is written, ‘I have not sat in the council of vanity,’ why did you come in with us, when it is written next, ‘And I will not go in with those who do iniquity’?” So in saying, “Do not touch me, for I am clean,” they are like that Pharisee who had invited the Lord and thought he did not know the woman because he had not kept her from touching his feet. But in another respect the Pharisee was better, because, though he thought Christ a man, he did not believe that sins could be forgiven by a man. So the Jews showed better understanding than the heretics. What did the Jews say? “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Does a man dare claim this for himself? What, on the other hand, does the heretic say? “I forgive, I cleanse, I sanctify.” Let not I but Christ answer him: “O man, when I was thought a man by the Jews, I gave the forgiveness of sins to faith.” Not I: Christ answers you. “O heretic, you, though you are a man, say: ‘Come, woman, I make you whole.’ I, when I was thought a man, said: ‘Go, woman, your faith has made you whole.’”

They answer, not knowing, as the apostle says, “either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions”: they answer and say, “If men do not forgive sins, then what Christ said is false: ‘Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven also.’” You do not know why this was said, or how it was said. The Lord was going to give men the Holy Spirit, and he wanted it understood that sins are forgiven to his faithful by the Holy Spirit himself, not by the merits of men. For what are you, man, but a sick man to be healed? Do you want to be my physician? Look for the physician with me. For, to show more plainly that sins are forgiven by the Holy Spirit whom he gave to his faithful, not by the merits of men, the Lord, rising from the dead, says in a certain place, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; and having said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he went on at once, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven him”: that is, the Spirit forgives, not you. But the Spirit is God. So God forgives, not you. But what are you in relation to the Spirit? “Do you not know that you are God’s temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” And again: “Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” So God dwells in his holy temple, that is, in his holy faithful, in his church: through them he forgives sins, because they are living temples.

But he who forgives through a man can also forgive apart from a man. For he who can give through another is no less able to give by himself. Through John he gave to some; to John himself, through whom did he give? Rightly, God wishing to show this and bear witness to this truth: when some in Samaria had been evangelized and baptized, baptized by Philip the evangelist, one of the seven deacons first chosen, they did not receive the Holy Spirit, though they had been baptized. It was reported to the disciples who were in Jerusalem, and they came to Samaria, so that those who had been baptized might receive the Holy Spirit through the laying on of their hands. And so it was done: they came and laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. For at that time the Holy Spirit was so given that it was also evident he had been given. For those who received him spoke in the tongues of all nations, to signify that the church among the nations would speak in the tongues of all. So they received the Holy Spirit, and it appeared plainly in them. When Simon saw this, thinking it was something of men, he wanted it to be his too. What he thought belonged to men he wanted to buy from men. “How much money,” he says, “do you want to take from me, so that through the laying on of my hands the Holy Spirit may be given?” Then Peter, detesting him, said: “You have no part or lot in this faith. Did you think the gift of God could be bought with money? May your money perish with you,” and the other things he fittingly said there.

But why I wanted to mention this, let your Charity attend. It was fitting that God should first show that he works through men, but afterward by himself, lest people should think, as Simon thought, that this was something of men, not of God. Yet the disciples themselves already knew this. For a hundred and twenty people were gathered when the Holy Spirit came upon them through the laying on of no one’s hands. For who had then laid hands on them? And yet he came, and filled the first ones. After that scandal of Simon, what did God do? See a teacher, not by words but by deeds. That same Philip, who had baptized people on whom the Holy Spirit did not come until the apostles had come and laid hands on them, baptized a eunuch, that is, a certain court official of Queen Candace, who had worshipped in Jerusalem, and returning from there was reading the prophet Isaiah in his chariot and did not understand. Prompted, Philip went up to the chariot, explained the reading, instructed his faith, preached Christ to him. The eunuch believed in Christ, and when they came to some water, he said: “See, water: who forbids me to be baptized?” Philip said to him: “If you believe in Jesus Christ?” He answered: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” At once he went down with him into the water. When the mystery and sacrament of baptism had been completed, lest the gift of the Holy Spirit be thought to be from men, there was no waiting, as before, for the apostles to come; but at once the Holy Spirit came. Simon’s notion was refuted, so that it should not have imitators in such a notion. Then another, more wonderful example. Peter came to Cornelius the centurion, an uncircumcised man, a Gentile; he began to preach Christ Jesus both to him and to those who were with him. While Peter was still speaking (I do not say: not yet laying on his hand, but not yet even baptizing), and while those with Peter were in doubt whether the uncircumcised were to be baptized (for a scandal had arisen between the Jews who had believed and those who had become faithful from the Gentiles, that is, between Jews and Christians who were baptized uncircumcised), so that God might remove this question, while Peter is speaking the Holy Spirit came, filled Cornelius, filled those who were with him. And by this very testimony of a great thing, it was as if it were cried out to Peter: “Why are you in doubt about the water? I am already here.” So let any soul at all, to be freed from much wickedness by the Lord’s grace, as if to be cleansed of an unclean harlotry in the church, be secure: let her believe, approach the Lord’s feet, seek the Lord’s footsteps, confess with flowing tears, wipe them with her hair. The Lord’s feet are the preachers of the Gospel. The woman’s hair is superfluous possessions. Let her wipe them with her hair, let her wipe them indeed, let her practice mercy; and when she has wiped them, let her kiss them; let her receive peace, so as to have love. Did she approach such a one, was she baptized by such a one as the apostle Paul was? Let her hear from him, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” But was she baptized by someone else, who seeks his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ? Let her hear from the Lord, “Do what they say; but what they do, do not do.” Let her be secure in him too, whether she happens on a good evangelist or on one who does not do what he says. For she hears securely from the Lord, “Go, woman; your faith has made you whole.”

Hear about the passage of the Gospel, as the Lord has granted. For it was read that the Lord Jesus dealt differently with three: one offered himself to follow him and was rejected; another did not dare and was roused; a third put it off and was blamed. For when he said, “Lord, I will follow you wherever you go,” what is so prompt, what so eager, what so ready, and what so fitting for so great a good, as to follow the Lord wherever he goes? You wonder at this, saying: “What is this, that the good Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, inviting disciples to give them the kingdom of heaven, was displeased with one so ready?” But because he was the kind of master who foresaw the future, we understand, brothers, that this man, if he followed Christ, would have sought his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. For he himself said: “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.” And this man was one of them; and he did not know himself as the physician was examining him. For if he already saw himself as false, if he already knew himself as deceitful and treacherous, he did not know to whom he was speaking. For he is the one of whom the evangelist says: “He had no need that anyone should bear witness about man; for he himself knew what was in man.” What, then, did he answer? “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” But where does he have nowhere? In your faith. For foxes have holes in your heart: you are deceitful. The birds of the sky have nests in your heart: you are lifted up. Deceitful and lifted up, you will not follow me. How does the deceitful follow simplicity?

And to another, who was silent at once and saying nothing, promising nothing, he says, “Follow me.” As much evil as he saw in the one, so much good he saw in this one. “Follow me,” you say to one who is unwilling. See, you have a man who is ready: “I will follow you wherever you go”; and you say to the unwilling, “Follow me”? “That one,” he says, “I turn away, because I see holes there, I see nests.” Why, then, do you trouble this one, whom you call and who excuses himself? See, you even press him, and he does not come; you urge him, and he does not follow. For what does he say? “I will go first to bury my father.” The faith of his heart showed itself to the Lord; but filial devotion delayed him. But Christ the Lord, when he prepares men for the Gospel, wants no excuse of this fleshly and temporal devotion to be put in the way. God’s law, indeed, contains this, and the Lord himself rebuked the Jews because they were destroying God’s very commandment. And the apostle Paul put it in his letter and said: “This is the first commandment with a promise.” Which? “Honor your father and your mother.” God certainly said it. So this young man wanted to obey God and bury his father; but there is a place, and a time, and a task, which must give way to this task, this time, this place. A father is to be honored, but God is to be obeyed. The begetter is to be loved, but the Creator is to be preferred. “I am calling you,” he says, “to the Gospel; I need you for another work: this is greater than what you want to do. Let the dead bury their dead. Your father is dead: there are other dead to bury the dead.” Who are the dead burying the dead? Can a dead man be buried by the dead? How do they wrap him if they are dead? How do they carry him if they are dead? How do they mourn him if they are dead? They both wrap and carry and mourn, and they are dead: because they are unbelievers. He taught us what is written in the Song of Songs, where the church says, “Set love in order in me.” What does “set love in order in me” mean? Make degrees, and give each what is due. Do not put the first under the later. Love your parents, but put God before your parents. Look at the mother of the Maccabees: “Sons,” she says, “I do not know how you appeared in my womb. I could conceive you, I could bear you; I could not form you: so listen to him, put him before me; do not consider that I shall be left without you.” She commanded, and they followed. What the mother taught her sons, this the Lord Jesus Christ was teaching the man to whom he said, “Follow me.”

Now another disciple put himself forward, to whom no one had said anything: “I will follow you, Lord,” he says; “but I am going first to say farewell to those at home.” I believe this is the sense: “Let me tell my people, lest perhaps, as usually happens, they look for me.” And the Lord: “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of heaven.” The East calls you, and you look to the West. In this passage we learn that the Lord chose whom he wished. And he chose, as the apostle says, according to his grace, and according to their righteousness. For such are the apostle’s words: “Note,” he says, “what Elijah says: Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have overthrown your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what does the divine answer say to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee before Baal.” You think you alone are a servant laboring well: there are others who fear me, and not a few. For I have seven thousand there. And he added: “So, then, at this present time too.” For some Jews believed, and many were rejected, like the one who carried the foxes’ holes in his mind. “So, then,” he says, “at this present time too a remnant has been saved by the election of grace”: that is, it is the same Christ then and now, who said then to Elijah, “I have kept for myself.” What does “I have kept for myself” mean? “I chose them, because I saw their minds trusting in me, not in themselves, nor in Baal. They were not changed; they are as they were made by me. And you who speak, if you did not trust in me, where would you be? If you were not full of my grace, would you not yourself bend the knee before Baal? But you are full of my grace, because you have trusted nothing of your own strength, but everything of my grace. So do not boast of this, thinking that in your service you have no fellow servants: there are those whom I chose, as I chose you, trusting, of course, in me.” As the apostle says: “And now a remnant has been saved by the election of grace.”

Beware, Christian, beware of pride. For though you are an imitator of the saints, always ascribe everything to grace: for that there should be any remnant, God’s grace in you, not your merit, brought about. Indeed of this very remnant the prophet Isaiah had spoken, recalling: “Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we would have become like Sodom, and been made like Gomorrah.” “So, then,” he says, “at this present time too a remnant has been saved by the election of grace. But if by grace,” he says, “then no longer by works”: that is, do not now be puffed up about your merit; “otherwise grace is no longer grace.” For if you trust in your own work, then a wage is paid you, not grace granted. But if it is grace, it is given freely. Now I ask: Do you believe in Christ, sinner? You say, “I believe.” What do you believe? That all your sins can be forgiven you freely through him? You have what you believed. O grace freely given! And you, righteous man, what do you believe? That without God you cannot keep righteousness? Then ascribe entirely to his goodness that you are righteous; but that you are a sinner, put down to your own iniquity. Be your own accuser, and he will be your pardoner. For every crime, misdeed, or sin is of our negligence; and every virtue and holiness is of God’s indulgence. Turning to the Lord…