Tractates 8

After the end of that treatise on the book of Exodus, where the law for celebrating the Passover is described, which we presented to your love up to yesterday, let us now, with the Lord's help, discuss something of the Gospel reading that was gone through a little while ago, so that we may prove, with the facts themselves bearing witness, that the same God is the author both of the Old Instrument and of the New. For we have heard that Jesus, the Saviour of the human race, went, being invited, to a wedding, and there turned water into the taste and nature of wine. The story itself plainly has the order of truth. For he who had instituted marriage from the beginning blessed it; and the creature he had made he turned by his power into what he willed. As to the power of almighty God, no doubt about the deed can creep into a faithful soul; yet that he went to the festivity of a wedding, that is, into a house of feasting, some of us will wonder at, not without reason.

For indeed, beloved, almost the whole text of the Gospels suggests that the Lord Christ, while living among men, brought help in desperate situations and was present above all at sorrows: when he rebukes the blaspheming Jews; when he convicts the scribes and Pharisees as guilty of deceit, guile, avarice and vanity; when he reproaches and threatens the unbelieving cities; when he torments unclean spirits, so as to come to the aid of his captive image and, the demons driven out, to restore possessed minds to health; when he cleanses the lepers who beg him; when he re-forms rather than cures paralytics, who lived only by the service of the tongue with which they prayed; when, walking on the waters himself, he comes to calm those endangered by the storm at sea; when he either restores the gift of lost light to blinded eyes or pours new light into those blind from birth; when, skilled in healing, he stands among the sad crowds of the sick; when he takes away the various griefs of entreating parents, restoring their dying loved ones to health or the dead to life. For this purpose the Son of God, God without beginning, at the end of the age took the beginning of flesh from the Virgin and deigned to live among men: to help this perishing world; since, as he himself says, "those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." For a physician is accustomed to enter a house of sorrow rather than of joy. He is needed by those afflicted with the pain of wounds, or labouring under the disease of sickness, or wasted by a slow decay of the inward parts; for prosperity does not require the physician's service. Why, then, does this Gospel reading recited today declare that the Lord was present, being invited, at a wedding festivity, unless because the wine there, that is, the power of spiritual joy, had failed, and the mouths of the thirsty guests were languishing for want of gladdening wine; since "wine gladdens the heart of man," as the prophet says?

But before we reveal the spiritual knowledge, let us set out the reason for the deed historically. Christ does not scorn the celebration of a wedding so that he may testify that he is the same God who from the beginning formed man and woman from the slime of the earth and granted them conjugal freedom, saying: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth." This ordinance so displeases the lost Manichees; and I think that what displeases them, because of their uncleanness, is certainly not marriage as such but the law which joins not many women to one man, nor one woman to many men, but one woman to one man. For the accursed Manichees themselves do not wish to live according to the teaching of the apostle Paul, that "each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband." Christ, then, blessed lawful marriage, which he had established from the beginning, when he did not refuse to go to a wedding when invited; and yet he taught that virginity is better, since he deigned rather to be born through it. God approved the holy Virgin as his dwelling, so that by entering he might keep for you the perpetual crown of chastity, being born without loss of his mother's integrity, conceived without corruption.

Therefore the Apostle, the vessel of election, invited others to this good which he had obtained, saying to the unmarried: "It is good for them if they remain so, as I do." He exhorts by the example of happiness; he does not compel by the force of law, saying of virgins: "I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be faithful; because it is expedient for a man to be so." And after a long admonition, in which he set the blessedness of chastity above the condition of marriage, he concluded with a final sentence: "So then he who gives his virgin in marriage does well, and he who does not give her does better." I think this was said by the blessed Apostle not to the parents of virgins, who, it is clear, cannot rule over the free choice of another's will; but that the same holy man set before each person, man as well as woman, the option either to preserve his virgin (that is, his own flesh, born a virgin) for integrity, choosing the better and the free part, or, recognizing his condition, to give it in marriage if he does not contain himself. But I do not wish parents, or any relatives of virgins, whether boys or girls, to flatter themselves on account of the freedom of choice spoken of above, because we have argued that they cannot rule over the minds of others. They cannot indeed command perpetual continence, because it is known to be a matter of the will; but they can nourish the will toward the better, and they are under obligation to admonish, to exhort, to encourage, so that they may be eager to bind their children to God rather than to the world; so that from the offspring of their seed they may present either, in the order of the clergy, ministers worthy of the divine altar, or bring up girls dedicated to chastity in the number of the holy women; so that, adorning the church of God with such nurslings, they may obtain the blessedness owed them. For it is written: "Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and household in Jerusalem." There is also in this splendid prophetic saying a more sublime meaning, to be opened in its place in a full discussion.

But since, while explaining the reason with which the Saviour went to the wedding, we have been drawn into this treatise by a wholesome zeal for chastity, let us meanwhile briefly suggest a saving counsel to our newly baptized, intending to show in what follows the spiritual knowledge of this reading, to be explained figuratively. You can see that you have been regenerated and reborn through baptism by the very name by which you are called "infants." If any of you, then, who are bound in marriage, wish to keep their virgins rather than give them in marriage, let them have wives as though not having them; and they will have a great reward from God our Lord for having kept their flesh such as it was reborn in the sacrament of baptism. I say this for your benefit, not to cast a snare upon you; for even if you serve a lawful marriage after the washing, you have not sinned. Only beware that you do not otherwise abandon the faith, and that, now that you have become one of the faithful, you flee from acts of sexual immorality. You will be able to keep this only if you avoid drunkenness and shameful banquets, where the snaky movements of shameless women stir unlawful desire; where the lyre sounds and the flute; where, in short, every kind of musician clashes among the cymbals of dancers. Unhappy are those houses, I beg you, which differ in nothing from theatres. Let all these things, I beg you, be taken out of the way. Let the house of a Christian and baptized man be free from the devil's chorus; let it be truly humane, let it be hospitable; let it be sanctified by constant prayers; let it be filled with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs; let the word of God and the sign of Christ be in the heart, in the mouth, on the forehead, at meals, at drinking, in conversation, in the baths, in bed, in coming in, in going out, in joy, in sorrow; so that, according to the teaching of the most blessed Paul, "whether you eat or drink, or do anything," you may do "all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ," who has called you to grace. For he both grants pardon for past sins and promises the rewards of an amended life.

But, having set out these things morally for the common edification, I come now to the promised allegories of the Gospel reading itself. And although I do not think myself fit to explain the mysteries of Christ, since I am not yet worthy to presume upon the authority of the most blessed Paul, who says, "we speak not in the learned words of human wisdom but in the teaching of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual," yet I desire to reveal to you from this reading of the divine Gospel a heavenly and secret understanding, as far as the Lord deigns to grant. For a little while ago, while discussing the beginning of the proposed sermon and showing the reason why the Saviour went to the wedding when invited, I passed over to a treatise on the praiseworthy preservation of virginity, and seem to have lingered there a little. Now I shall go back over the narrative of the blessed evangelist itself, so that we may more fittingly seek the spiritual understanding in the words. "And on the third day," he says, "there was a wedding at Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus too was invited to the wedding, with his disciples. And they had no wine, because the wine of the wedding was used up." Knowing, as was right, the true history of what was done, let us now expound spiritually what this third day is on which the wedding is recorded to have taken place.

Day is light, dearest brothers; and therefore it is most fittingly compared to the precepts of the Lord, who is the true light, as the prophet testifies: "The precept of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes." And elsewhere again: "Your commandments," he says, "are like light upon the earth." Hence the Lord and Saviour rightly warned that we must walk in the light, saying: "If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world." For truly, if anyone walks in the light of God's precepts, he can by no means stumble. The first day, then, was under the commandment, from Adam to Moses; the second day was under the Law of Moses; the third day is under the grace of the Saviour. On this day the heavenly Bridegroom himself, the lover of believing souls, the Lord Jesus, joined to himself a bride from the Gentiles, the church, to whom he would give the ring of his seal and the precious earrings of faith (for "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God," that is, the Son; because "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"); to whom, his bride, the same Son of God, God the Word, would also give golden bracelets, of approved works, that is, and right-handed deeds, and would also bestow one by one the other precious necklaces, which are the ornaments of the spiritual virtues.

And so that you may recognize that on this third day this spiritual wedding is celebrated by Christ among the people of the Gentiles, it does not take place in Judea but at Cana of Galilee; which, besides the testimony of holy Isaiah, who spoke of "Galilee of the Gentiles," will be shown more clearly from the interpretation of the names themselves. For Cana means "possession"; and Galilee, interpreted from the Hebrew tongue, is called either "rolling" or "wheel." It is clear that the people of the Gentiles, out of the error of idolatry into which it had once rolled down, now hastens to the worship of Christian truth with the speed of a running wheel. Hence the prophet David too sang figuratively, speaking to God: "The voice of your thunder in the wheel." For God thundered from heaven and the Most High gave his voice, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him." The voice of this thunder clings in the hearts of this people, which, like a running wheel, has hastened swiftly from Gentile superstition to the faith of the Lord Jesus. For this reason too we rightly think that the blessed apostles were named by Christ "sons of thunder," Boanerges. For we read in another place of the Gospel that some of the Gentiles, wishing to approach Christ, sought access through Philip, who was from Bethsaida, a city of Galilee, trusting, I think, in their acquaintance: "Sir," they say, "we wish to see Jesus." "Philip comes and tells Andrew; Andrew and Philip go and tell Jesus." With this agree the things which, as your love remembers, I discussed in detail in their place, where the Lord at once joyfully embraced the envoys of the Gentiles and, foreseeing in the few believers the faith of innumerable peoples, said to the apostles: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." And shortly after, turning his voice to the Father, he says: "Father, glorify your name." And at once a voice coming from heaven says: "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again." The crowd of Jews standing round, hearing this voice of God the Father resounding from the lofty seats of heaven, thinks it thunder, because it does not grasp the words; for the people, according to the prophecy of holy Isaiah, "hearing with the ear and not hearing," had heard only the sound of the divine voice, without understanding the words. And therefore the Lord, both in the Gospel to all and in the Apocalypse after the heavenly teaching, cries out: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." For he knew that all have ears, but not all ears to hear; for he will not be counted as having heard who, blunted by dullness of heart, does not know what he heard. But the apostles, and those who through the apostles run to the faith of Christ, who had ears to hear, were counted worthy to understand the divine oracles, which for their greatness are compared to thunder, as we read in the Apocalypse; since they were held worthy to be taught from heaven, by the Father's testimony, unto the saving knowledge of the Word.

Cana is a small city in Galilee of the Gentiles, in which part of Galilee lies also the city of Capernaum, where the blessed evangelist Matthew testifies that Christ lived, saying: "When Jesus heard that John had been handed over, he withdrew into Galilee; and leaving the city of Nazareth" (of the other Galilee, that is), "he came," he says, "and lived at Capernaum, a town by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and to those who sat in the region and shadow of death a light has arisen." The most blessed evangelist John also records that the Lord Jesus left the land of Judea and went away again into Galilee. "He had to pass," he says, "through Samaria"; and, describing how he lingered there for a while on this very passage because of the Samaritan woman, he added accordingly: "After two days he went out from there and went away into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified," he says, "that a prophet has no honour in his own country. And when he came into Galilee," he says, "the Galileans received him, having seen all the signs that he did at Jerusalem at the feast; for they too had come to the feast. So he came again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain official whose son was ill at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was beginning to die." When he had healed the absent boy at once by the power of his word, as a heavenly physician, the holy evangelist concluded thus: "This again was the second sign that Jesus did, when he had come from Judea into Galilee."

To return, then, to the interpretation of the names and the figurative meaning: at Cana of Galilee, that is, in the possession of the Gentiles, a spiritual wedding is celebrated in the presence of Christ. The prophet, speaking in his person to the church in the Song of Songs, says: "Come from Lebanon, bride; come from Lebanon": that is, from that Gentile offering of incense. For we interpret Lebanon from the Greek as "incense," which those magi coming from the Gentiles believed should rather be offered to Christ. Lebanon, moreover, is seen to be a steep mountain among the Phoenicians, likened to the proud dominion of the Gentiles; from which above all the bride, the church, is called out, hearing the voice of Christ saying: "Come from Lebanon, bride; come from Lebanon": that is, "you will come and pass over from the beginning of faith, from the head of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards": so that, forsaking the forests of a horrid idolatry and leaving the lairs of savage beasts, that is, the dens of demons, she may hasten to the worship of almighty God and embrace the faith of him who deigns, by the grace of divine love, to call her his bride.

But someone may say: "If God, according to the Apostle's teaching, wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, why is this saving wedding celebrated chiefly among the Gentiles at the consummation of the age, and why were the peoples of the earlier age not joined in divine marriage?" I will show you, dearly beloved, that even the first-formed Adam was joined to divine intimacy, having received from the Bridegroom himself the insignia of the divine image, the ornaments of wisdom and understanding and of perpetual life. But after the faith of the commandment was adulterated through the devil's procuring, immortality was taken away together with the freedom of the divine love. Yet until the flood, and until the Law itself, there was a revived love of certain just men toward God, and a renewed union of God with a few saints. But since, apart from a rare few saints, as I said, the whole earth was committing fornication away from the Lord, and the human race, with mad lust, had joined to itself innumerable gods of idols, God at once chose the stock of the just seed of Abraham; and he confirmed between himself and that people, through his minister Moses, the lawful tablets of the union, written beforehand with his own finger. From then on that people, conceiving the divine precepts and fruitful with an offspring of saints, began to be most dear to God, whose union it had been counted worthy of. But in the course of time, presuming too much on God's love, it declined through delights into luxury, and through luxury it broke out into contempt and rebellion; and so it was beaten, often and in various ways, because it had succumbed to adulteries with idols. For it was often handed over to the sword, often to captivity; but, as it is written, it would not receive discipline. For this reason God speaks to it through the prophet: "You shall no longer be called soft and delicate; but sit," he says, "on the ground, and take the mill, and grind." And what after all this? "Your shame," he says, "will appear." And again the Lord complains of her in the prophet: "Have you seen," he says, "what the dwelling of the house of Israel has done to me? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every leafy tree, and has committed fornication there with idols; and she committed adultery," he says, "with wood and stone. And I said, after she had committed all these fornications: Return to me; and she did not turn. And I sent her away and gave her a bill of divorce." Let us flee from idols, I beg you, lest, being likewise divorced, we deserve to hear the same.

Let us hear, however, what bill of divorce the Jewish people received: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often I wished to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house will be left to you desolate." After the Lord's passion too a fuller bill of divorce is given by the apostles to the synagogue of the Jews, when it is said: "It was necessary that the word of God should be announced to you first; but since you have rejected it and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles, as we have been commanded." The people of the Jews, then, being deserted and divorced, our people from the Gentiles is taken in marriage: "For I will call not my people, my people, and her who was not beloved, beloved." The Lord had foretold this through the prophet, indeed, since on the first day under the commandment, and on the second under the Law, weddings had been celebrated, as I have explained. That is why the holy evangelist does not say simply, "On the third day there was a wedding," but speaks with a conjunction placed first: "And on the third day there was a wedding at Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there." Where? Among the Gentiles, of course; for it is clear that blessed Mary drew her origin through a mother from the nation of the Moabites. For Boaz begot Obed of Ruth, that Moabite woman; Obed begot Jesse; Jesse begot King David; and from his seed is born Joseph, to whom was betrothed the virgin Mary (of the same tribe, that is, since otherwise it was not lawful), who bore Jesus, who is called Christ.

There, then, was the mother of Jesus; "and Jesus too was invited to the wedding, with his disciples." A great mystery of godliness! He who is the Bridegroom is himself invited; and he is invited by the voices of the prophets, who pray thus: "Lord, bow your heavens and come down." And again: "Stir up your might and come to save us." And there are many prayers like these of the prophets humbly inviting him. The holy disciples too are invited together with Christ, as faithful friends of the same heavenly Bridegroom, when it is said through the prophet: "There are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard." For, filled with the Holy Spirit, they were to speak in the tongues of various nations. Hence the prophetic Spirit, pronouncing what was undoubtedly to come as though already done, added: "Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." And to show more clearly who these were and whose heralds they had become, he added: "In the sun he has set his tabernacle, and he himself is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber." Then follows the evangelist's narrative: "And they had no wine." He plainly expressed that the Gentiles did not have the wine of the Holy Spirit. And when he says "because the wine of the wedding was used up," that is, had failed, he did not say it simply, so that you might believe that it had perhaps failed for those to whom it had not yet been given. For he did not say, "the wine of the wedding had failed them," but only that "the wine of the wedding" had failed, as if he said "the nuptial wine." [Therefore the wine is understood to have failed, not of this wedding, but of the preceding weddings; for the nuptial wine of the Holy Spirit had failed when the prophets ceased who had ministered among the people of the Jews. For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John; nor was there anyone able to give the thirsty Gentiles spiritual wine to drink; but the Lord Jesus was awaited, who would fill new wineskins with new wine through baptism. "For the old things," he says, "have passed away; behold, all things have become new."]

Yet all things have become new in such a way that their origin remains from the old, since the wine is produced not from nothing but from the ancient element of water. Nor should you think the Law of the letter to be despised, from which the Holy Spirit, through Jesus's working, is drawn by faithful ministers; and that is why in the ancient flood men perished, and now in baptism they are reborn: because "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." The letter alone kills; tempered by the Holy Spirit, it regenerates. It is clear that in that flood all the men of that time perished except those who were found worthy to be inside the ark, which bore the type of the church. For likewise even now those who are strangers to the apostolic faith and to the catholic church will not be able to be saved at all. Let each of you, then, labour with all zeal to remain in the house of the Lord, practising works fitting the grace you have received. For those who have been reborn into the new man must now beware of their former sins. Keep, I beg you, the new wineskins, you newly baptized, lest, returning to the old life, you burst and lose the new wine; "for the new wine will burst the old wineskins, and the wine will be spilled and the wineskins will perish." Guard, then, the whole newness of the regenerated man, and keep the heavenly wine in your wineskins, so that the faith you have guarded may itself preserve you, through the Saviour of the human race, Christ Jesus, our Lord God, who reigns with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, before all ages, and now, and always, and for all ages. Amen.