Sermon on the Life of Honoratus 1–22

You recognize, dearest brothers, the day consecrated by the public grief of the faithful, which, as long as the Lord grants me these fleeting days of this life, will always come to me heavy with bitterness, yet full of dignity. For today that bishop of holy memory of this church, Honoratus in virtue, in priesthood, and in name, put off the body. Whatever I add to round off my speech could be judged absurd. If I say, 'He has gone to the stars,' even while he lingered on earth he was counted among those most brilliant stars of God. Shall I add, 'He stands before Christ'? But when in his life did he not stand before him? His whole life had that word of Elijah: 'The Lord lives, before whom I stand today.' Shall I say, 'He has left earthly things,' he whose way of life, as the Apostle says, was always in heaven? So likewise, as far as my mind can grasp, whatever comes to be said of such a man lacks a fitting conclusion by its very greatness. Joys fight with griefs. It is sweet to remember such a man; it is torment to be without him.

So a twofold matter calls me. On the one side the grace of his praises draws me to speak; on the other the common loss draws me back to sobbing. Forgive me, then, if, with these two affections tearing my mind apart, my mouth refuses its proper service, as though to two masters. Whatever memory suggests by way of praise, grief claims entirely for itself, counting it among the losses. And yet, even if I had serenity of mind and my tongue served my mind fittingly, could his praise be set forth by my words more abundantly than it remains in your minds? There is no one, I think, to whom the grace of that man does not appear greater than the richest eloquence of anyone could express. Since, then, as Scripture says, 'the memory of the righteous is ever with praise,' and no one can remember men of illustrious merits without praise, I shall set forth, as ability is given, some of the things which the hearts of your Love ponder about him. Your minds will surely help my efforts, and whatever my speech finds hard to express, your hearts will tell themselves in their own thoughts.

It is written: 'Wisdom is sung at the end'; that is to say, the way of life of the wise man is praised at the end of his way of life. Hence in another place too: 'Do not praise a man in his lifetime.' And again: 'Praise no one before death'; as if to say: praise after death. For in praising the living, the one praised is offered occasion for vain exultation, and the one who praises is branded with the mark of flattery. But praising the dead is useful in many ways: first, because while the one whom we might gratify by praise is absent, all the praise must be referred to the giver of grace; then, because only admiration of virtue remains where suspicion of flattery is removed. So the praise of the dead, offered in the holy assembly of the faithful, is full of edification and empty of boasting. The merits of the one praised also grow in this, that many profit by his praise. Nor do I fear that I may be thought to speak too favourably of my own, since, apart from the fact that nothing can be said that is not below his virtues, there is no one who does not count him as his own, feel him to be his own, and believe him his own. Yet I do not put my hand to the life of so great a man trusting in my wit or relying on my eloquence; if some master of ancient eloquence were to touch it, not only would he fail to adorn it with his eloquence, but he would sink beneath the weight of the material. Your love calls me; your affection supplies the confidence to say something about him. My speech, though from a lukewarm wit, will be animated, as we believe, by his own merits; what lies low in the words will be raised by the facts; and the love poured out on him will be stored up in the dwelling of your hearts.

It is known to all trained in the discipline of oratory to proclaim first the homeland and origin of those whose life they have undertaken to praise, so that what is lacking in their own virtues may seem to have gone before in the glory of their fathers. But we are all one in Christ, and the summit of nobility is to be counted among the sons of God; nor can the honour of an earthly origin add anything to our dignity, except by being despised. No one is more glorious in heaven than one who, rejecting his fathers' pedigree, has chosen to be reckoned by the fatherhood of Christ alone. So I pass over mentioning the ancestral distinctions of worldly goods in his family, and the nobility of his house, advanced as far as the consulship (which the world holds desirable and almost supreme), disdained by a greater nobility of heart. Nor was he pleased with the superfluous honours of his family, who through love of the truth no longer desired honours of his own.

My speech hastens rather to this: with what faith, in the years of his adolescence, he desired baptism of his own choice; with what mature counsel, while still in health, he feared death; how he foresaw that before baptism he would be without life; with what thirst he desired his life to be renewed; how sweet his infancy was, how modest his boyhood, how grave his adolescence; how he always surpassed every stage of age with grace and virtue and was always found greater than himself, so that you would think him brought up by some divine tutor. He is taught without any urging from his family. With God's help he keeps his baptism without any human care; and, what is greater than these, he turns to the religious life without anyone to admonish him, while the brightness of the font is still fresh and unspoiled. Without anyone to admonish him, I said; and what of the fact that his homeland stood in the way, that his father struggled against it, that all his kin resisted? For he had entered the hearts of all by his charm; and while Christ was taking him for himself, the world held him fast, vying for him in all his family. Some his sweetness had bound; others the allurements of companionship had tied; others admiration for his worldly abilities in the various exercises of the young held fast. As many graces as his former life had, by so many bonds was he drawn back from conversion. All feared that the common ornament of the family would be snatched away. And truly, who ever met him and did not take him as his own? What clothing did he ever wear that he did not adorn? So his homeland, his friends, and his parents all thought that a most splendid gem and the common ornament of all was being snatched from them; for they did not believe that all these things would be changed and reformed for the better, as we have seen, but that they would, as it were, die. Hence it was that his father, since he saw him do vigorously whatever he undertook, kept him from baptism as long as he could, fearing that he would be wholly carried off by love of religion, as indeed happened. Yet desire and love for Christ prevailed, and his faithful boyhood, brushing aside his father's delays, seized baptism. For even as a catechumen he had so formed himself among the first rudiments of the faith, rejecting wantonness out of reverence for the baptism he would one day receive, honouring the clergy as fathers, and sometimes helping a poor man out of his boyish allowance. Whatever that age could have, and love all the more for the novelty of having, he offered, lavish in compassion, already then rehearsing in small things the contempt of all things and the giving away of all he had.

By these and such exercises, then, the strong faith of the catechumen hurried him on to baptism. Thereupon his father, now on his guard and anxious with the suspicion of earthly affection, set about provoking him with various delights, enticing him with the pursuits of youth, entangling him in the different vanities of the world, growing young again, as it were, in the company of his adolescent son; occupying him with hunting and a variety of games, and arming himself with all the sweetness of this world to subdue that age. Not without reason did the worldly father fear that he would be snatched away, whom he embraced as unique among the other most accomplished young men.

But amid all these things his greater care was to keep his baptism. The young man disdained what his aged father delighted in, always urging himself with such exhortation: This life delights, but it deceives. Other precepts are read out in the churches; other commands have sounded in my ears. There modesty, self-control, quiet, and chastity are taught; here unbridled luxury is nourished. There piety flourishes; here bodily exercise. There Christ invites to the eternal kingdom; here the devil solicits to the temporal. All that is in the world is vanity and the lust of the eyes; and the world passes away and its lust, but he who does the will of God remains forever, as he too remains forever. Let us hasten, then, to be rescued from these snares while we are less entangled. What has long been bound is hard to loose. It is easier to pluck up what is tender than to cut down what is strong. 'Save your soul on the mountain,' lest evil thoughts seize you. The poison of pleasure creeps in quickly; the freedom received through Christ's grace must be kept for him. Let others admire gold and silver; let metals, as I see, be masters of those who master them. Let others possess estates and slaves, not without the captivity of their own minds. Let others rejoice in honours and crush the honour of the divine image in themselves. For me it is enough not to be the slave of vices; for me salvation is joy, wisdom is my bride, pleasure is in the virtues; for me let Christ be my treasure, who will repay me fleeting joys with better ones and will grant me in this life too to be delighted and adorned by the pursuits of discipline, and among them to become worthy of the heavenly kingdom.

Nor did such meditation bring long delays; at once the spark, nourished by such kindling, burst out into the flame of conversion. Taking up the yoke of the Lord's service with bowed neck, he shook off the yoke of freedom, understanding that the licence of youth is the worst kind of captivity. His luxuriant locks are cut to short hair. The splendour of his clothing is transferred to the brightness of his mind. The beauty of his milk-white neck is covered with stiff cloaks. Gaiety passes into serenity; the vigour of the limbs is exchanged for vigour of mind. Bodily strength passes into strength of spirit. The handsome face grows pale with fasting, and, once full of vigour, becomes full of gravity. In short, he is so suddenly shown to be wholly another man that his father lamented him as a father bereaved of his son. And truly it was a full mortification of the body; but his spirit was alive. Hence the whole persecution of his parents is stirred up. Then alone and for the first time he was defiant to his father, when he strove to be a son of God the Father, with love already set in order in him, as Solomon commanded. For the prophet mentioned declares in the voice of God: 'Set love in order in me.' He plainly set it in order, and, by the ordering of love, saw that God is to be loved first, and then neighbour. So his father's old age believed itself condemned by the conversion of that young age. He confronts him, resists, threatens; yet by none of these is the boy, trusting in God, shaken.

The Lord, the comforter, stands by his recruit, and does not fail to raise up one of his brothers as his companion, who, called to conversion by his example, the elder following the younger, accompanied him in virtue as in fellowship during the short time he lived. Hence there were pleasant contests between them in their way of life: whose mind was softer toward piety, whose food harder, whose speech gentler, whose clothing rougher; who spoke more rarely, who prayed more often; whom the bed held less, and reading more; whom injury moved less, and mercy more; who gave more readily what he had taken from himself; who more gladly offered a guest the bed of haircloth and that pillow of his familiar stone; who more readily cherished the stranger with tears before giving him alms, and fed Christ with affection before feeding the stranger at table; in whose mouth the world was rarer and Christ more frequent; who in that height of virtues seemed less in his own eyes, and the more he rose in merit, the more he humbled himself in compunction. A kind of private episcopate was exercised in their way of life. I lie if many bishops did not learn from them, while they were received by them, how to receive; for any who did not shrink from the rigour of that way of life carried away more humanity in their minds than refreshment in their bodies. So they adorned their whole homeland, and, as many still remember, some had their bodies cared for by them and others their spirits; according to each one's need, they were clothed, fed, or instructed with clothing, money, or teaching. No one exhausted by the labour of travel came there who did not feel he had arrived at his homeland and the fields of his own patrimony; no one going on from there to further parts did not seem to leave his own home again, and to leave his fellow citizens and kin a second time.

Meanwhile everyone's love for them grew, multiplied, and spread, and their fame was carried to all further parts, and the whole homeland vied in services, love, and honour toward them. They could not attain obscurity and poverty: the more their life was hidden, the more their fame shone out; each would set the other forward for praise, expose him to glory, and refer their common virtue to the one. But while each wanted to be obscured under the shadow of the other, the brightness, as though reflected, shone on both. What gravity was theirs, what elderly maturity, how rare their visiting of women, even relatives, what flight from all vanity amid so many virtues; how gentle their consolation, how anxious their care for the salvation of those who had given themselves to their teaching! They led an angelic life on earth, 'in much patience, in vigils, in fasts, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God.' Meanwhile they dreaded their glory; and although they referred to God's praise the fragrance of their good life spread far and wide, they grieved that it brought them the danger of vanity. They thought that they had received their reward in their lifetime, and, disdaining human society and favour, they burned with love for the desert.

Having taken counsel, then, and having, as it were, suffered persecution from their own honour, they set out for foreign lands. Again the homeland rises up, again the relatives resist. They fear to be robbed of their light, but now more reasonably. What a contest of faith and love there was then, good Jesus! What canvassing with counsels, prayers, and tears! Who did not claim for himself there the office of a kinsman, or whose tears did not vie with the father's? For the whole homeland felt it was losing fathers in those young men. And truly they had an old age white not with years but with graces, not decayed in limb but lovely in character. O how great, Lord, the dispensation of your providence, who do not let your lamps, shining with the fire of faith, stand fixed in one place, but carry them before you to light different places, inspiring the will to migrate and to flee glory, which in any case was to be multiplied by the very increase of virtue gained through the journey undertaken! Their substance, long since veiled by various works of mercy but still ample, is broken up, and kinsman and stranger alike are admitted as bidders for the patrimony. So there is no regard for relatives, at least where gain is concerned, as though they were selling what was not their own. The property, which had served the poor from the time they possessed it, is now sold to be distributed to the poor. The homeland receives the mercy poured out and repays it with tears poured out.

They go out from their land, from their house, and from their kindred, and by a like example they are shown to be true sons of Abraham. Yet lest anything be thought to have been begun rashly by them with youthful daring, they take with them an old man of perfect and mature gravity, whom they always called their father in Christ, holy Caprasius, then living an angelic life in the islands; although your Love has not known his name until now and still does not know his life, Christ counts him among his friends. Him they take as the director and guardian of their youth in the Lord, they whom many young men had already chosen as their own guardians. They seek a hiding place for their pilgrimage and flee the fame of their virtue; but wherever they go, another fame is born there, whether they will or not. Happy lands and blessed harbours, which the pilgrim thirsting for the heavenly homeland makes famous! Others go to the shores of the East and to whatever other places are full of saints, in order to receive example; these, wherever they go, rouse others by their good example. Their substance is scattered everywhere, and at their every arrival the good fragrance of Christ is breathed out.

This very man, whose memory nourishes us today, the church of Marseilles almost snatched away from this city even then, its bishop urging him and rejoicing in such a colleague. But what would that fervour not win by its contest of tears and the canvassing of its blandishments? So, warned by the new danger, they cross the seas the more eagerly and seek shores to which the Roman eloquence that was so abundant in them would be barbarous. It would take long to run through the profit each place drew from them, what health they brought to the churches without any exercise of clerical office, to how many teachers they were teachers in silence.

Let it suffice to mention that out of desire for Christ they fearlessly endured the swell of the sea and sought out the squalor and barrenness of the Achaean shore, and that men brought up so delicately, so softly, contended against such great changes of waters and winds. How heavy, how unbearable this was to that tenderness, the death there of his brother Venantius, a most blessed man in Christ, and the illnesses of Honoratus and his companions bore witness. What Methone thought it had carried out or received in that funeral it showed by its many companies of psalm-singers. Here the Hebrew, here the Greek, here the Latin exults; the Jew himself, though rejecting Christ, admires the faithful servant of Christ. The fervent choirs strike the very stars, and, as we believe, angelic choirs sing with the human voices; Christ comes to meet his faithful servant. 'Well done, Venantius, good and faithful servant'; and while you hear, 'Enter into the joy of your Lord,' remember us, whom the joys of the world still assail. The struggles of flesh and soul receive their end; eternal life and glory take their beginning.

From there Christ now brings your Honoratus back to you and, with a hidden hand, tempers his health for the return. For whatever he touches as he passes, he lights up. Italy rejoices to be blessed by his coming. Venerable Tuscany embraces him and weaves most gentle delays through its bishops. But God's providence, looking out for us, broke all these off, and him whom the desire for the desert had called from his homeland, Christ invites to a desert near this city. So he seeks an island, empty because of its excessive squalor and unapproachable for fear of venomous creatures, lying under the Alpine ridge not far away. Besides the advantage of seclusion, he was delighted by the neighbourhood of the holy and most blessed man in Christ, Bishop Leontius, and bound by his love, although very many tried to hold him back from this new daring. For the people living round about spoke of that terrible wilderness and vied, with ambitious faith, to keep him within their own borders. But he, impatient of human society and longing to be cut off from the world, if only by the barrier of a strait, carried in his heart and on his lips, bringing it out now to himself, now to his companions, the word: 'You will walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and you will trample the lion and the dragon'; and in the Gospels the promise made by Christ to his disciples: 'Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions.' So he enters fearless, and dispels his companions' fear by his own confidence. The horror of solitude flees; the crowd of serpents yields. But what darkness did not flee from that light? What poisons did not yield to that medicine? I think it truly unheard of, and plainly to be counted among his miracles and merits, that the encounters with serpents, so frequent in those dry places, as we have seen, and stirred up especially by the summer heat, were never a danger to anyone, nor even a fear.

Why linger further? With Christ working with him, so to speak, and every adversity that had first deterred him overcome, your Honoratus sets up there a kind of camp of God; and the place which had long repelled men from dwelling in it is made bright with angelic services. The hiding place is lit up while the light is hidden. The obscurity of a formerly unknown exile yields to the brightness of the voluntary exile. What then did that arrival, what did that improvement bring? Wherever Honoratus comes, there honour must needs be. Here he is first bound by the office of the clergy, long avoided; here the priestly fillet binds its runaway; and he who had refused to go to dignity found dignity coming to him. There appeared a presbyter worthy not only of double but of manifold honour, in whose presence the episcopate recognized no distance of priesthood and no privilege of title. No bishop ever presumed so much of himself as to count himself that presbyter's equal. But he kept the humility of a monk as whole in the priesthood as fully as, while a monk, he had possessed the merits of the priesthood.

By his industry a church sufficient for God's chosen ones is built there; buildings fit for the monks' dwellings rise; waters denied for ages flow abundantly, showing in their one spring two miracles of the Old Testament: for while they burst from the rock, they flowed sweet in the midst of the bitterness of the sea. Every region now vied in sending there those who sought God. Whoever desired Christ sought Honoratus, and whoever sought Honoratus plainly found Christ. For there Christ flourished wholly; he had settled in his breast as in a lofty citadel and a most splendid temple. There chastity, which is holiness, faith, wisdom, and virtue dwelt; there justice and truth shone. So, as with arms flung wide open to embrace, he invited all into his embrace, that is, into the love of Christ, and from everywhere they flocked eagerly to him. For what land, what nation, does not now have its own citizens in his monastery? What barbarism did he not tame? How often did he make, as it were, gentle doves out of savage beasts? What bitter characters he sprinkled with the sweetness of Christ! Those whose depravity had first been a punishment to themselves became afterwards by grace a delight to all; having tasted the sweetness of the good, they could not but hate more and more what they had been. For, as if led into a new light, they detested the old prison of the errors that had long beset them. Various plagues of the soul were driven out by his exhortation. Bitterness, harshness, and rage gave place to the freedom which Christ had offered, and rest delighted them after the long and heavy slavery of Pharaoh. A stupendous and admirable transformation: not the cup of Circe, as they say, making beasts out of men, but the word of Christ, like a most sweet cup, ministered by Honoratus, making men out of beasts. For what would that urgency, joined with eagerness, not hammer out? Or what stones would not be turned into sons of Abraham, where there was such a workshop of virtues for polishing minds, so that if he moved a man less toward his salvation by living exhortation, he would prevail upon God by prayer? He believed the sufferings of all to be his own and wept over them as his own; he counted the progress and labours of all as his own; knowing how to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, he transferred the vices and virtues of all alike into the sum of his merits. For as virtue rouses virtue, so compassion spent on the wretched bears fruit. He reaps more from each than each reaps for himself; the salvation of each builds up one glory for him. Untiring, quick, indefatigable, he persevered, according as he perceived each one's nature and character. One he approaches in private, another openly; with one he is severe, with another gentle; and to change the manner of his correction he often changes the very face of his correction. Hence it was that we have seen no one so much loved or so much feared; for he so planted these two affections toward himself in each of his own that love of him brought in fear of offending, and fear of discipline brought in love.

It is incredible how much care he took that sadness should not afflict anyone, that worldly thought should not press on anyone; how easily he perceived what troubled each, as though he carried the minds of all in his own; with what dispensation of piety, besides, he provided that excessive labour should not weigh anyone down, nor too much rest make anyone sluggish. He weighed even the very sleep, if one may say so, of each brother with fatherly affection. Always shaking idleness from those strong in body, he compelled those fervent in spirit to rest. He knew the strength, the minds, the stomachs of all, by the prompting, I believe, of God, made truly the servant of all for the sake of Jesus Christ. It is marvellous how one man fulfilled so many offices at once, troubled as he was by such varied infirmity. Though unequal in strength, he kept pace by an equal rule in fasts and vigils with all the strongest, and with those still very vigorous in their new way of life. Weaker himself, he visited the weak; he provided at once refreshment for souls and for bodies; and lest anything less be given to anyone, his mind always went back over it: this one is cold, this one is brooding; to that one the labour is heavy; to this one this food is not suited; that one has been hurt by another; what this one inflicted is serious, and no less serious what that one felt. Great urgency is needed so that the offence may obtain forgiveness, so that this one may count the insults done to him light or nothing, and that one may sigh that he did the gravest. This was his constant work, his constant intention: to lighten the yoke of Christ for all, to turn away whatever the devil had cast in, to scatter the cloud of faults and recall the clear sky of grace, to implant by loving the love of Christ and of neighbour, and to cultivate the minds of all as his own breast; to renew joys, and to burn always with desire for Christ as on the first day of conversion.

Hence it was that that whole congregation, eager for divine service, gathered at his name from different parts of the world, differing in customs as in languages, was united in love for him. All called him lord, all called him father, reckoning that in him homeland, kin, and all things at once had been restored to them. All had learned, as he suffered with them, to count his pains as their own, so that the excellent and most blessed man in Christ, Salvian the presbyter, one of his dear ones, said with good reason in his writings that, as the sun changes the face of the sky by its darkness or its brightness, so that congregation, thirsting for heaven and given over to heavenly pursuits, received from him, as from its own sun in Christ, cloud or serenity of mind, and was afflicted when he was afflicted and revived when he recovered. Hence came, and by his prayers still remains, the grace of the Holy Spirit poured out in his monastery, strengthened by the example and admonition of so great a teacher, in various gifts of the charisms, in humility and meekness, in love unfeigned, and in one glory of the head amid the diversity of the members.

Great, among these things, was his care for strangers and guests. For who ever passed him by? Who, despising his own convenience, did not at once break off any prosperous voyage, any pleasant winds, out of longing for so great a man? Or, if he was not allowed to land on the island, who did not count the forced compliance of a favourable voyage as the bitterest storm? No one came there without haste; no one there felt his delay; no one sailed from there who was not most secure, his love, his provisions, and his prayers following them, as he sent away those he had just come to know as though they had long been his own. In the squalor of the desert he furnished delights by his very presence, receiving all with such joy and love as though he had been expecting them; and he had, besides, resources equal to his generous spirit, dispensed with equal faith. For since he had gladly heard, 'Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me,' each one most gladly put into his hands for distribution whatever he had vowed in his heart to mercy, safely entrusting all his goods to him whose example he had followed in leaving all. Hence the frequent concourse to him from regions near and far. And truly he was not one who, as a sparing or timid steward, would give a little out of regard for the congregation entrusted to him and growing daily, and keep back more. For what would he not do daily with another's property, who had once done this with his own? That is, he kept nothing for himself, nothing for his own, beyond food and clothing for the present days.

At times the substance for distribution was exhausted, faith never. For once, when he had kept back one gold coin out of many thousands from the chest that flowed freely for generosity, he gave this very coin most steadfastly to a poor man passing by, though many things were lacking, and said in my presence and that of others: 'It is certain that someone is already approaching to bring us something, if our generosity has nothing to give.' Scarcely three or four hours of the day had passed when someone appeared at once to confirm his words. O happy generosity, which faith served! O happy faith, for which generosity never caused delay! And truly, as much as his faith supplied, he did not dispense it all by his own hand. He had many most approved men in many places, by whose hands he always spent what was brought to him. So by the grace of one steward he had many stewards, and his faith, like a common spring, flowed out for very many, both givers and receivers. No one's straits came to him that went beyond him or did not find their end in him.

Hence letters were brought to him eagerly from all sides, though he was hidden, as he thought, or at least as he wished; and with what ever new affection he answered them, how grave, how gentle, how sweet! Hence the most beautiful saying of the blessed Eucherius, splendid to the world and more splendid to Christ, the rival of his virtue: when, living on the island next to his, he received a letter from him from the desert on tablets smeared with wax, as is usual, he said, 'You have given the wax back its honey.' Who then did not think himself blessed, his house blessed, his book-chests blessed, when enriched with a great blessing by a small gift from his mouth? And indeed there was so much salt, so much sweetness in his writings that they deserved to be stored not in book-boxes or cupboards but in the chest of the heart. Hence it is that very many carry them written in their minds and most gladly bring them out as a testimony of his love. In short, who ever bound to himself by services in person as many friends as he had who, though they did not know him, loved him and longed for him most eagerly?