Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection)

I believe I said quite enough last Sunday about how we ought to receive the birthday of the Lord, adorned and shining, and, when his feast arrives, hold on to it with eagerness. Hold on to it, I say, so that even if the day of the feast passes, the blessedness of its sanctification remains with us. For this is the grace of the birthday of the Lord and Saviour: that it passes on into the future to those predestined, and remains in the past for the devout. We ought, then, to be pure in holiness, clean in chastity, shining in honesty, so that the nearer we see the feast approaching, the more carefully we walk. For if little women, when they are about to keep some holiday, are accustomed to wash the stains of their clothes with water, why should we not rather, when we are about to receive the Lord's birthday, wash away the stains of our souls? And if their clothes are so dyed and darkened with dirt that water does not cleanse the stains, they add the softness of oil and also the sharpness of soap. We too, if we have a sin so grave that it is in no way washed away by tears alone, let us add the oil of mercy and the sharpness of fasting. For no offence is so grave that it is not cleansed by abstinence and extinguished by almsgiving; for the holy prophet says: “As water extinguishes fire, so almsgiving extinguishes sin.” Great, then, is almsgiving, which cools the burning masses of crimes with the spring of its kindness, and with a kind of irrigation of generosity overwhelms the fires of offences; so that God, however offended, however provoked by crimes, is compelled by almsgiving to set free the one he had determined to punish for his sins. For he is in a manner compelled by us, when he is driven to change his sentence in response to our actions, and toward one and the same man to be moved now by the severity of a judge, now to be gentle with the tenderness of a father. For God is our Father when we act well; he is our judge when we sin. The Lord, then, is compelled by our works to bestow his mercy on us; and that is why he himself says in the holy Gospel: “From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven is compelled.” Let us see what meaning this saying has. The kingdom of heaven is nothing other than Christ the Lord, who reigns in heaven. The word “compel” (cogi) is used when something rather thin is thickened by continuous working. From the time, then, when John the Baptist announced the coming of the Saviour, the kingdom of heaven, which lay loose and slack among the Jews, began to be thickened by the persistence of believing peoples, and all that thinness of the kingdom to be made solid by frequent preaching. For the kingdom was so thin among the Jews that it passed over to the Gentiles; so loose that it remained for the peoples. But now it is compelled by so great a density of believers that it remains solid without end, as Scripture says: “And of his kingdom there will be no end.” For we compel the kingdom of heaven and in a manner do it violence, as the reading from the Gospel says: “And those who do violence plunder it.” We do violence to the Lord, I say, not by compelling but by weeping; not by provoking him with injuries but by entreating him with tears; not by blaspheming through pride but by mourning through humility. O blessed violence, which is not struck down in indignation but pardoned in mercy! Blessed, I say, is the violence that draws out goodness from the one who suffers it and brings benefit to the one who inflicts it. An evil thing is committed, and no one complains of the injury; violence is committed, and religion is spread. For whoever is more violent toward Christ will be held more religious by Christ. Let us, then, attack the Lord on the road, since he himself is the way, and like robbers let us strive to strip him of his garments. We desire to take from him his kingdom, his treasures, and his life; but he is so rich and generous that he does not refuse, does not resist; and when he has given all things, he nonetheless still possesses all things himself. We attack him, I say, not with iron, not with a club, not with a stone, but with gentleness, good works, chastity. These indeed are the weapons of our faith, with which we fight in the encounter. But so that we may use these weapons in doing violence, let us first in a manner do violence to our own bodies, and overcome the vices of our members, so that we may attain the rewards of the virtues; for we must first reign in ourselves, so that we may be able to plunder the kingdom of the Saviour. The Gospel says, then: “And those who do violence plunder it.” We are robbers, then; and robbers plunder only what belongs to others. I recognize that the saying is true: for the Church snatched Christ from the synagogue, and by doing violence took possession of the kingdom of another nation. For the Saviour, sent under the law, born in the law, brought up according to the law, while he is neglected by the Jews is seized by the Gentiles; and while he is lost by the priests he is found by sinners, as he himself says: “Tax collectors and sinners will go before you into the kingdom of heaven.” We are robbers, then. It is no wonder, since we are descended from such an ancestor. For it is written of our patriarch Benjamin: “A ravening wolf”; for he seizes what is not his own. So we too, like sons of a ravening wolf, snatch away with our zeal the shepherd of other men's sheep, as he himself says: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Christ, then, is seized when he is sent away by the Jews and preached by others. Christ is seized when he is killed by the Jews and buried by us. Christ is seized by watchful disciples and lost by sleeping Pharisees, as they themselves confessed in their lie when they had set guards at the tomb, saying after the Lord's resurrection: “His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.” From this we understand spiritually that all who sleep lose Christ, and those who keep watch find him; and that is why the Apostle says: “Rise, you who sleep, and Christ will give you light.” You see, then, that the one who sleeps so that he does not guard the Saviour is dead; and so those Pharisees, as dead men, could not keep the living one. Therefore, brothers, let us not sleep, but let us keep watch around our Lord and Saviour himself, so that, with guards continually posted, no one may take him from the tomb of our heart—“They came and stole him while we were asleep.” For we have enemies who strive to take Christ from our hearts if we fall asleep. Let us, then, with wakeful care keep him in the tomb of our souls; there let him rest, there let him sleep, there, when he wills, let him also rise. Therefore, brothers, as we are about to receive the Lord's birthday, let us cleanse our consciences from all dregs; let us adorn ourselves not with silk garments but with precious works. For shining clothes can cover the limbs; they cannot adorn the conscience—except that it is the greater shame to walk out with shining limbs and polluted thoughts. Let us first, then, adorn the disposition of the inner man, so that the clothing of the outer man may also be an adornment; let us wash away spiritual stains, so that our bodily garments may shine on us. For where the conscience is dark, the whole body is darkened. But we have the means to wash away the stains of conscience, as it is written: “Give alms, and all things are clean for you.” Good is the commandment of almsgiving, by which we work with our hands and are cleansed in heart; by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

Who are the two in one bed on that night, and the two women grinding together, and the two in the field, of whom in each pair one will be taken and one left? Three kinds of people seem to be signified here. One is of those who love leisure and quiet and are occupied neither with worldly business nor with church business; their quiet is signified by the word “bed.” Another is of those placed among the people, who are governed by teachers while they do the things of this world; he signified them also by the word “women,” because, as I said, it is good for them to be governed by the counsels of the experienced. And he said “grinding” because of the round and cycle of temporal business. Yet he said they grind “together,” inasmuch as from those very affairs and dealings of theirs they supply the needs of the Church. The third is of those who work in the ministry of the Church, as in the field of God, of which husbandry the Apostle speaks. In these three occupations, then, there are again two kinds of people in each, and they are distinguished by the strength of their powers. For though all seem to belong to the members of the Church, yet when the trial of tribulation comes, both of those who are at leisure, and of those who are in the business of the world, and of those who minister to God, some remain in the Church and some fall. Those who remain are taken; those who fall are left. So “one will be taken and one left” is not said as of two individual persons, but of two kinds of disposition within each of the three kinds. “On that night,” then, he said: that is, in that tribulation. To these three kinds that are taken I think the three names of holy men also belong, whom alone the prophet Ezekiel declares will be delivered: Noah, Daniel, and Job. For Noah seems to belong to those by whom the Church is governed, just as through him the ark, which bore the figure of the Church, was steered on the waters. Daniel, because he chose the celibate life, that is, he despised earthly marriage, so that, as the Apostle says, he might live without anxiety, thinking of the things of God, signifies the kind of those who are at leisure, yet are very strong in storms, so that they may be taken. Job, because he had a wife and sons and abundant earthly possessions, belongs to that kind to which the mill is assigned, yet only so that they are very strong in storms, as he was. Otherwise they cannot be taken. Nor do I think there are other kinds of people of which the Church consists than these three, each having its two differences because of being taken and being left; although within each many differences of pursuits and wishes may be found, all running together into harmony and unity.

True is what Saint John the Baptist says about the Lord and Saviour: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This is proved first of all even by the seasons themselves. For see: at the birth of Christ the day grows, and at the birth of John it shrinks. When the one rises, the light advances; when the other is born, it lessens. For the very seasons in a manner serve their parts: when they make loss, the servant is born; but when the Lord is born, they gain increase. The days plainly make progress when the Saviour of the world rises; they suffer loss when the last prophet is begotten. For it is written: “The law and the prophets were until John.” And so it was necessary that the observance of the law should be darkened when the grace of the Gospel shone out, and that the prophecy of the Old Testament should cease when the glory of the New Testament succeeded. So at the birth of the Lord the day advances. No wonder if the day advances on which the new Sun of righteousness flashes out. No wonder if the day advances which the most brilliant light of truth illumines. For the evangelist says of Christ the Lord: “He was the true light, which enlightens every man.” If, then, he was the true light which enlightens every man, why would he not enlighten the world? And so the day which bore the light for the human race first itself shone with the brightness of that light, and by the splendour of the Lord's light scattered its own spaces, already shut in by the darkness of the nights. For the length of the nights would have taken over the whole day, had not the coming of him shone out in the very shortness of the day who by his rising scatters the darkness of the sins of the human race; so also he cut away the gloom of darkness from the day of his birth, and by one and the same rising brought light both to men and to days. It is no wonder, then, if the day grows that is clothed with a twofold splendour of brightness. But let us see further how the Lord and Saviour increases and John the Baptist decreases. We said earlier that John bore the figure of the law and the prophets; it was necessary, then, that the law should fail as the Gospel shone, and that the Jewish people should be diminished as the Christian people rose. For who doubts that since the birth of the Lord the assemblies of the synagogue have been emptied and the peoples of the Church multiplied, and that in a wonderful way Christ grows daily through his Christians and John is diminished through the Jews; that we shine with the splendour of the Lord's day, while they labour in the darkness of the nights? For a greater night in a manner lay upon the Jews from the time they said of the Saviour's death: “His blood be on us and on our children.” They have plainly been darkened by greater darkness of night since they tried to kill the day of truth. But so that we can prove what we say more truly, let us briefly set out the birth of each. See: when Christ is born, angels rejoice, shepherds keep watch, magi arrive, a star goes before, and all that is most beautiful in heaven and on earth is brought to the Lord himself. For glory is brought to him by the angels, brightness by the star, worship by the magi, simplicity by the [shepherds]; and because all these things were to be found in him alone, therefore all things serve him at his birth. But when John is conceived, Zechariah is struck dumb, the priest at the solemn rite falls silent, Elizabeth his mother is hidden; signifying after his rise the silence of the law, the loss of the priesthood, the hiding of the synagogue. There is no doubt that John at his birth took away from the Pharisees the righteousness of the law, just as at his conception he took from his father the service of his voice. The Lord, then, always increases; John the Baptist is diminished. He is not diminished because anything is taken from his merits, but because the Saviour's glories are heaped up daily, his glory seems to become less. John, after all, is called a lamp, as the Lord says: “He was a burning lamp.” The light of a lamp is darkened when the ray of the sun shines out; and it suffers a kind of failing of its flame when it is surpassed by the splendour of a brighter light. For what wise man looks for a lamp in sunlight? It is not extinguished, but it is not held necessary; that is, who would come to John's baptism of repentance when he can be saved by the baptism of the Saviour? That is not blamed; but this seems more useful and necessary, because in it the forgiveness of sins is granted.

In a way the common people rightly call this holy day of the Lord's birth “the new sun,” and they confirm it with such authority of their own that even Jews and pagans agree in this expression. We should gladly embrace this, because when the Saviour rises not only the salvation of the human race but also the brightness of the sun itself is renewed, as the Apostle says: “That through him he might restore all things, whether in heaven or on earth.” For if the sun is darkened when Christ suffers, it must shine more brightly than usual when he is born. And if it poured out darkness when the Jews were bringing about his death, why would it not show its brightness when Mary was bringing forth life? Or do we not believe that at Christ's birth the sun came more brightly to do him service, when a brighter star went before the magi to point him out? And if a star performed the task of a day at a time not its own, why should we not believe that the sun too, by an earlier coming, took away something of the night hours? From this, I think, it came about that the night decreased, while the sun, hastening to serve at the Lord's birth, brought light to the world before the night had completed the course of its time. Indeed, I would rather say that it was not night at all, nor did it have any darkness, that night in which shepherds keep watch, angels rejoice, stars serve. Nor should we wonder that at Christ's birth all things were made new, since this very thing was new, that a virgin gave birth. If, then, the birth was beyond the usual, and the services offered were beyond the usual, then as the Lord rises the shepherds keep watch, the angels rejoice, the sun serves, the star waits upon him. And indeed the angels and shepherds express their joy with voice or words; but these elements, because they could not with a voice, declare their joy by their service. The sun, then, contrary to custom, shone early on this feast; and no wonder: for if at the prayer of Jesus son of Nun it stood fixed in the day, why would it not at the birth of Jesus Christ hasten forward into the night? The common people, then, call this day “the new sun,” and when they say “new” they certainly show that there is an old one too. The old sun I would call the sun of this world, which suffers eclipse, which is shut out by walls, which is darkened by clouds. I would call that sun old which is subject to vanity, which fears correction, which dreads judgment. For it is written: “The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood.” Old, I say, I would call the sun which is present at the crimes of men, which does not shrink from adulteries, does not turn away from murder, and, though the whole race of men would not have a witness when any crime is committed, it alone stands present at all misdeeds. Since, then, it is plain that this sun is old, whom do we find to be the new one but Christ the Lord, of whom it is written: “The sun of righteousness will rise for you”; of whom also the prophet says, in the person of sinners: “The sun has not risen for us, and the light of righteousness has not shone for us.” For this sun, when the whole world was oppressed by the darkness of the devil, and a gloom filled with crimes possessed the world, deigned in the last time, that is, when night was already settling, to pour out the rising of his birth. First, before the light, that is, before the Sun of righteousness gave light, he sent as a kind of dawn the oracle of the prophets: “I sent my prophets before the light”; afterwards he himself shone out with his rays, that is, with the brilliance of the apostles, and scattered so great a gloom of the world with the light of truth that no one stumbled into the darkness of the devil. This, then, is the new sun, which penetrates locked places, opens the underworld, searches hearts. This is the new sun, which by its spirit gives life to the dead, repairs the corrupt, raises those already departed; or which by its heat purges what is filthy, burns up what is fluid, boils down what is faulty. He it is, I say, who in all our actions sees all our works, and does not so much condemn crimes as correct them. This plainly is the just and wise sun, which does not, without distinction, like the sun of this world, go round upon the good and the bad alike, but shines by the holy judgment of truth and sets for the sinner. This is the difference between the two suns: that one is the servant of corruption, this one is the Lord of eternity; that one is around the earth, this one is its Creator. Yet before the sun of this world rises, while it is still before dawn, a lamp is accustomed to go before it for the necessary uses of men. Christ the sun also has his lamp, which went before his coming, as the prophet says: “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ.” What this lamp is the Lord shows us, saying of John the Baptist: “He was a burning lamp.” John himself, as the small light of the lamp going before, says: “See, one comes after me the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire.” At the same time, understanding that his light was to be dimmed by the rays of the sun, he foretells him: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” For as the brightness of a lamp is put out by the coming of the sun, so too John's baptism of repentance was made void when the grace of Christ came. Let us see, then, from what source our new sun is born. As is true, he rises with God as his author. He is, then, the Son of the Godhead—of a Godhead, I say, incorrupt, whole, unblemished. I plainly understand the mystery: the birth through the immaculate Mary was fruitful because the former birth through the Godhead had been unblemished; he whose former birth was glorious could not have a second that was shameful. That is, as the virgin Godhead had brought him forth, so the virgin Mary bore him. It is also written that among men he had a father, as we read in the Gospel when the Pharisees say: “Is not this the son of Joseph the carpenter, and his mother Mary?” In this too notice the mystery. Christ's father is called a craftsman. And plainly God the Father is a craftsman, who fashioned the works of the whole world; he is plainly the craftsman who arranged for Noah to build the ark in the flood. He is the craftsman, I say, who ordained the tabernacle for Moses, appointed the ark of the covenant, raised Solomon's temple; I would call him the craftsman who smooths rigid minds, cuts down proud thoughts, raises lowly deeds on high. This craftsman also uses a curved iron tool on trees, as we read in the Gospel, where John says: “Already the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire”; so that in the future he may build the useful trees into the heavenly structure, but the fruitless ones, torn up by the roots, he may consume in the burning of flames. The end.

With what thanksgiving or what praises we should proclaim this day of the Lord's birth I simply do not know. For in so great a feast human speech is not enough to magnify God. For if, when Christ was being born, he was praised by the voice of angels, with what human voice is he now to be praised, when he reigns? Our solemnity surpasses the festivity of that time; for then they marvelled only at the Lord being born, while we receive him born, risen, and reigning together. So much more abundant, then, should the praise of this time be, as the miracles are greater. But since human frailty cannot offer a worthy proclamation, let us join ourselves to the heralding of the angels. And since we cannot equal them in merit, let us accompany them in devotion; that is, on this feast let us exult with the same joy as they, and with the same words, saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” A plainly worthy and just saying, which at the birth of Christ both renders honour to God in heaven and presents peace to men on earth. For before the rising of the Saviour, neither did the heavenly things receive reverence nor did the earthly possess rest. But see what the saying itself says: “Peace to men of good will.” Not among any men whatever, but among men of good will; so that you may understand that the peace of Christ is not owed but merited; for it is not one's condition that merits it but one's will. The shepherds, who on the night when the Lord was born were keeping watch over their flock, heard this first of all. They first, before all men, learned of the Saviour's birth, as the angels made it known. For the angels announced the redemption of the world first not to kings, not to judges, but to country folk. No wonder if innocence knew the grace of Christ before power did, and simple country life recognized the truth before proud renown. For what the shepherds knew, the rulers could not know; and so the blessed Apostle says: “Whom none of the rulers of this age knew,” and so on. So at the Lord's birth the angels rejoiced together with the shepherds, proclaiming lofty glory to God. For in choirs in a manner neighbouring and joined they proclaimed the glory of God. And so I believe that the same angels, on the feast of the same Lord, rejoice with us in a like neighbourliness of joy. For those who were accustomed to address shepherds because of Christ's birth cannot fail to seek out priests because of the joy of the same Christ. Indeed, what they then said to those keeping watch over their flock in the dead of night signified the mystery of this time. For by that event this was certainly shown: that the flock is the people, the night the world, the shepherds the priests, who, keeping watch over the people with constant care for Christ's sake, are never deserted by the angels. On this day, then, the Lord was born according to the flesh, so secretly, so silently, that the world did not know of his birth at all. The world did not know, because he was both conceived outside the knowledge of a father and born outside the order of nature. For Joseph received as a son one conceived whom he did not beget; Mary brought forth a child whom she did not make by the custom of her sex. So, then, the Lord was born, that no one suspected his birth would happen, no one believed it, no one perceived it. How would they believe that this would happen, when, after it has happened, they scarcely believe it has happened? For that the Saviour would descend into the Virgin so hiddenly and secretly David the prophet testified long before, saying: “He will come down like rain upon a fleece.” For what happens so silently and without noise as when rain is poured onto a fleece of wool? It strikes no one's ears with sound; it sprinkles no one's body with the moisture of splashing; but without disturbing anyone, it draws into itself through its whole body the whole shower, poured out through many parts, knowing no splitting of a single passage, offering many passages in a solid softness; and what seems closed by its density is open by its fineness. Rightly, then, is Mary compared to a fleece, who so conceived the Lord that she drew him in with her whole body, yet suffered no splitting of her body; but was soft for obedience, solid for holiness. Rightly, I say, is Mary compared to a fleece, from whose fruit saving garments are woven for the peoples. Mary is plainly a fleece, since from her soft bosom came forth the Lamb, who himself, bearing his mother's wool, that is, flesh, covers with his soft fleece the wounds of all sins. For every wound of sin is bathed with the wool of Christ, warmed with the blood of Christ, and, to receive healing, clothed with the garment of Christ.

I have no small complaint, brothers, against many of you. I speak of those who, after celebrating the Lord's birthday with us, gave themselves over to the holidays of the pagans, and after that heavenly banquet prepared for themselves a feast of superstition; so that those who had earlier been gladdened by holiness were afterwards made drunk with vanity, not knowing that whoever wishes to reign with Christ cannot rejoice with the world, and whoever wishes to find righteousness must turn away from luxury. For the reckoning of eternal life is one thing, the despair of temporal wantonness another: to the one we climb by virtue, to the other we go down by ruin. And so whoever wishes to share in divine things ought not to be a companion of idols. For it is the portion of an idol to make the mind drunk with wine, to stretch the belly with food, to twist the limbs in dances, and to be so occupied with depraved acts that you are compelled not to know what God is. That is why the holy Apostle, foreseeing these things, says: “What portion has righteousness with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” If, then, we are the temple of God, why is the feast of idols kept in the temple of God? Why, where Christ dwells, who is abstinence, temperance, and chastity, are revelry, drunkenness, and wantonness brought in? The Saviour says: “No one can serve two masters,” that is, God and mammon. How, then, can you religiously keep the Lord's Epiphany, you who, as far as lies in you, most devoutly celebrate the kalends of Janus? For Janus was a man, the founder of a city called the Janiculum, in whose honour the pagans named the kalends of January; hence whoever keeps the kalends of January sins, because he gives the homage due to divinity to a dead man. That is why the Apostle says: “You observe days and months and seasons and years; I fear I may have laboured over you in vain.” For he observed the day and the month who on these days either did not fast or did not come to church. He observed the day who yesterday did not come to church but went to the field. Therefore, brothers, let us with all zeal turn away from the festivity and holidays of the pagans, so that when they feast and make merry, we may then be sober and fasting, so that they may understand that their merriment is condemned by our abstinence. But we ought to avoid the company not only of pagans but also of Jews, with whom even conversation is a great pollution. For they insinuate themselves among people by a certain art, they get into houses, they enter the governors' halls, they disturb the ears of judges and of the public; and so they prevail the more, the more shameless they are. This is no new evil in them but an old and original one. For long ago they persecuted the Lord and Saviour within the governor's hall and had him condemned by the governor's judgment. In the governor's hall, then, innocence is crushed by the Jews, the secret betrayed, religion condemned. For when Christ is killed, all truth and righteousness is condemned in him, since he himself is innocence, religion, holiness, and mystery. Amen. The end.

Today the true sun has risen on the world; today light has gone forth into the darkness of the world. God has become man, so that man might become God; the Lord took the form of a servant, so that the servant might be turned into a lord. The dweller in and maker of the heavens has dwelt on earth, so that man, the tiller of the earth, might move to the heavens. O day brighter than any sun! O time longed for by all the ages! What the angels awaited, what the cherubim and seraphim and the mysteries of the heavens did not know, has been revealed in our time. What they saw through a mirror and in an image, we behold in truth. He who spoke to the people of Israel through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets now speaks to us through the Son. See the difference between the Old Testament and the New. In that one he spoke through a cloud; to us he speaks in clear sky. There God was seen in a bush; here God is born of a virgin. There was a fire consuming the people's sins; here is a man forgiving the people's sins—indeed God, pardoning his servants. For no one can forgive sins but God alone. Whether the Lord Jesus was born today or baptized today—for differing opinion is reported in the world, and our view varies with the variety of traditions—this much is perfectly clear: whether today he was born of the Virgin or reborn in baptism, his birth both of flesh and of spirit profits us. Both mysteries are mine; both benefits are mine. The Son of God had no need to be born or to be baptized, for he had committed no sin that might be forgiven him in baptism; but his lowliness is our exaltation. His cross is our victory; his gibbet is our triumph. Rejoicing, let us lift this sign on our shoulders; let us carry the banners of victories; let us carry the immortal washing on our foreheads. When the devil sees this sign on the doorposts he will tremble; and those who do not fear gilded Capitols fear the cross; those who despise royal sceptres and the purple and banquets of the Caesars dread the squalor and fasts of Christ. Indeed, in the prophet Ezekiel, when the angel who had been sent had slain all, and the slaughter had begun from the holy place, only those were kept safe whom the letter Tau, that is, the picture of the cross, had marked. Let us therefore rejoice, dearest brothers, and lift holy hands to heaven in the likeness of the cross. When the demons see us armed in this way, they will be crushed. When Moses held up his hands, Amalek was defeated; if they sank a little, Amalek grew strong. The yards of ships and the horns of sails fly in the figure of our cross. The birds too, when they are borne higher and hang in the air with outstretched wings, imitate the cross. And trophies and victorious triumphs are adorned with the cross, which we ought to have not only on our foreheads but also in our souls, so that, thus armed, we may tread upon the asp and the basilisk in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ages of ages. Amen.

The Gospel Scripture relates, as we heard read just now, that the Lord came to the Jordan to be baptized, and willed to be consecrated in that river with heavenly mysteries. We ought not to wonder why the Lord and Master did this act of baptism, for he himself says: “Whoever does and teaches will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” He willed, then, first to do what he commanded all to do, so that as a good master he might not so much instil his teaching by words as practise it by deeds, and to that end confirm us equally by action and by meaning. That all this was done on this very day is clear; and that this is true we can gather by reason itself. For reason requires that after the day of the Lord's birth, though with years in between, yet at the same season, this feast should follow, which I think should itself be called a birthday feast. For then he was born to men; today he was reborn in the sacraments. Then he was brought forth through a virgin; today he was begotten through a mystery. For the Lord so arranged that men's rejoicings should not be far apart from each other, so that at one season they might rejoice that he was sanctified in heaven whom they had celebrated as born on earth; so that those who, at the announcement of angels, held the Virgin's child might, at the testimony of the heavens, hold him as the Son of God; and men might be certain that the one the Virgin had borne was himself the Son of God, whom the Godhead acknowledged. For a new birth deserves new honours. There, when he is born according to the man, his mother Mary warms him in her bosom. Here, when he is begotten according to the mystery, God the Father embraces him with his voice. For he says: “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The mother, then, caresses her child in her soft lap; the Father serves his Son with loving testimony. The mother, I say, presents him to be adored; the Father shows him to the nations to be worshipped. He is held in his mother's bosom when he is born, but the Father continually supplies him with the warmth of his own bosom. For we read that he rests without ceasing in the Father's lap, as the evangelist says: “No one has ever seen God except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.” The Lord, then, gladly rests in the bosom of the saints; and so he gladly chose the bosom of John the evangelist to recline on. The bosom in which Christ rests is not prepared in a bodily lap, nor arranged with showy garments, but gathered from heavenly virtues. For Christ's bosom was in John the evangelist faith, in God the Father divinity, in Mary his mother virginity. There is Christ's bosom where there is a dwelling of virtues. There he lays his head where he finds a home of heavenly commandments. That is why he says to sinners and unbelievers: “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” The Lord Jesus, then, today came to baptism and willed his holy body to be washed in water. Perhaps someone will say: Why did he who is holy wish to be baptized? Listen, then. Christ is baptized not to be sanctified by the waters but to sanctify the waters himself, and by his own purity to purify the streams he touches. For the consecration of Christ is the greater consecration of the element. For when the Saviour is washed, already then all water is cleansed for our baptism, and the spring is purified, so that the grace of the washing may be ministered to the peoples who would follow afterwards. Christ, then, goes before through baptism, so that the Christian peoples may follow after him with confidence. Understand, then, the mystery. For so too the pillar of fire went before through the Red Sea, so that the children of Israel might follow on a fearless path; and it itself first went through the waters, to prepare a path for those coming after it. This event, as the Apostle says, was the mystery of baptism, in which the cloud covered the people and the wave carried them. But all these things Christ the Lord worked, the same then as now: as then he went before the children of Israel through the sea in a pillar of fire, so now he goes before the Christian peoples through baptism in the pillar of his body. This, I say, is the pillar that then gave light to the eyes of those following, and now supplies light to the hearts of believers. Then he made a firm path in the streaming waves; now in the washing he strengthens the footsteps of faith. Through that faith, whoever walks fearlessly, like the children of Israel, will not fear the persecutor Egypt.

We should rejoice, dearest brothers, that festivals follow festivals and joys are heaped on joys. For see, our hearts are still exulting at the solemnity of the Lord's birthday, and already we glory in the feast of holy Epiphany. We ought, then, to give thanks to the Lord, who visits us often, gladdens us often, and seeks us more abundantly so as to bless us more abundantly. Although the pagan rejoices, vainly, in a numerous round of festivals because of the variety of his masters, yet the visitation of one day affords us more feasts than the superstitious presumption of many demons affords them. For as we conquer them by the truth of religion, so we surpass them by the number of festivals. Today, then, we keep the joys of the Epiphany. Someone may ask what this word means: namely, that what is Epiphania in Greek is called in Latin apparitio, “appearing.” Because the Saviour then first appeared in the world, the day itself was given the same name, Epiphany. But let us ask how he appeared: not that he was not in the world before, since the world was made through him, but that then for the first time God the Christ shone into the hearts of believers by signs and miracles, and the splendour of faith came into the darkened consciences of men. Since, then, God is everywhere and possesses all things, he is said to have appeared as though not seen before. He appeared, however, not so much to men's eyes as to their salvation. For even if earlier, born of the Virgin, he was seen by fleshly eyes, yet he did not appear, since the eye of faith did not yet know his power. That is why it is said to the Jews through the prophet: “Seeing you will see, and will not see”; that is, the Saviour whom they saw with bodily eyes they would not see with spiritual light. For after he declared his humanity by wonders, appearing to human minds as something new and unexpected, he poured into them certain eyes of the heart, so that the understanding might know him whom sight had not known. So it comes about that we contemplate by faith Christ the Lord, whom we have never seen, while the Jews, who looked on him with their eyes and touched him with their hands, even today do not see him. Let us ask, then, what sign he worked to declare his divinity to the peoples. He is said to have worked this first miracle: changing water into wine. A great sign indeed, and enough for believing the majesty of God. For who would not marvel that elements were changed into something other than they were? For no one can change nature except him who is the Lord of nature. From this we must now believe that mortal man can be changed into immortality, since a cheap substance was changed into a precious substance. For I do not want you, hearer, to look only at the names of wine and water; if you wish to prove his power, look at the force of the things. For something, I know not what, much higher is shown here. For when the Lord turns water into wine, he does not do this only so that drink may not fail the guests, but so that eternity may abound for believers. For Christ came into the world not to see to the cellars of banqueters but to provide for the salvation of men; not to fill water jars with a fragrant substance but to water souls with the grace of the Holy Spirit. So, when the guest was to taste the flavour of the best wine from that cheap water, he wished rather that believers should taste, from this cheap flesh, the wisdom of the heavenly resurrection. For this sign certainly contains the whole mystery of the resurrection. Cheap water, pale and cold, turned into wine, which is precious, red and fiery, signifies that the substance of man, cheap in its condition, pale in weakness, cold in death, is to be changed into the glory of the resurrection, which is precious in eternity, coloured with grace, and fiery with the spirit of immortality. It is right, then, to believe that the Lord willed to work this, so that through this earthly sign the heavenly mystery to come might already then be seen by the wise. For if it is wonderful to have supplied the wine that had run out at a banquet, how much more wonderful to have restored to men the life that was exhausted? And if it is glorious to change water into wine, how much more glorious to change sins into righteousness, and to temper morals rather than cups? I dare say that those jars supply that precious substance not only to that banquet but to the whole world—except that they serve it to us better. For it is clear that from those very vessels they drew drunkenness, we draw righteousness; they received a cup of wine, we receive the cup of salvation; and, if it may be said, with them what they drank passed through, but with us what we have received remains.

The day of the Epiphanies is so called by a Greek name. For what we call an appearing or showing, the Greeks call Epiphania. We announce this because today our Lord and Saviour appeared according to the flesh on earth. For though he had long before been born of Mary and had completed thirty years of age, yet he was unknown to the world. He became known at the time when he came to John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan, and the voice of the Father thundering from heaven was heard: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Him whom the Father had pointed out from heaven by his voice, the Holy Spirit, coming as in a dove and settling on his head, willed to point out by touch, so that no one else from the people might be thought the Son of God. What is loftier than this lowliness? What is nobler than this lowliness? He is baptized by a servant, and called Son by God. He comes to the washing among tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, and he is holier than the one who baptizes him. He is baptized by John in the flesh, but he himself washes John in the spirit. The waters, which were accustomed to cleanse other things, were cleansed when our Lord washed. The river Jordan, which had been dried up at the time when Jesus son of Nun led the people of Israel and brought them into the land of promise, now wished, if it could, to gather itself with all its waves, so as to touch the body of the Lord. “The Jordan,” it says, “turned back.” See, brothers, how what was read in the Gospel had been foretold in the twenty-eighth psalm: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.” For the Son of God spoke to John: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” It continues: “The Lord of majesty thundered”: when the Father bore witness to the Son, saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” “The voice of the Lord breaking the cedars.” For Christ was baptized, and the demons, formerly erect and lofty, fell. The Lord cut them down like the cedars of Lebanon, and broke them in pieces like calves, tossing the fragments of the trees and scattering the stumps in every direction with his heels. What, on the other hand, is said of the Saviour? “And my beloved is like the son of unicorns.” The beloved is our Lord and Saviour, the Son of God, of the unicorns, the son of the cross, of whom it is said in the song of Habakkuk: “Horns are in his hands; there he hid his strength.” After this beloved one was crucified, then, that which follows in the psalm was also fulfilled: “The voice of the Lord cutting off the flame of fire.” For when he was baptized, and the whole world was cleansed as Christ washed, the fire of Gehenna was put out. “The voice of the Lord shaking the desert.” The Church was a desert, which before had no children. At the preaching of Christ this desert was shaken, and was in labour, and a whole nation was born in one day. At the same time she who was earlier called the desert of Kadesh, that is, a desert, since she had had no holiness, began to bring forth deer and to send out flocks of her saints, who kill serpents on the earth, who despise poisons; and as they run about and preach the Gospel of Christ in the whole world, in his temple all will say: Glory to God. It continues: “The Lord makes the flood to dwell.” Let us consider the whole world, look at the barbarian nations, survey the Roman empire too: everywhere they are baptized into our Lord; and so it happens that there is not one water but in a manner a flood of baptisms. Therefore, dearest brothers, since the tabernacle has been completed (for this is set at the head of this psalm in its title), and since the Church has been built of living stones, let us bring to the Lord sons of God, let us bring sons of rams, of the apostles and saints; and let us imitate our Saviour, who himself is called both Shepherd and Lamb, who is sacrificed for us in Egypt, who in place of Isaac is held by the horns in the thorns; and let us say: “The Lord feeds me, and I shall lack nothing. In a place of pasture there he has set me; by the water of refreshment he has brought me up.” To him be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

Many recall that on this holy day of the Epiphany wonders were done by the Lord: that, invited to a wedding, he changed the substance of water into the appearance of wine, and by his blessing transferred the liquid of springs to a better use; that the servants drew water from the wells and found wine in the jars, and by a more profitable loss lost what was lacking; and that then for the first time, by this wonderful sign, he declared the power of his divinity. Some, however, testify that on this holy day he was baptized by John in the Jordan, and that at the grace of his washing God the Father was present, speaking, and the Holy Spirit also descended. No wonder if at the Lord's washing the mystery of the Trinity was not lacking, since it is the Trinity that completes the sacrament of our washing. For the Lord could not but first show in his own case what he was afterwards to command the human race; since he did everything not for his own sake but for the sake of our salvation. Or did he wish to be baptized for his own sake, when he had no sin, as the prophet says: “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth”? Surely it was for our sake, who, liable for the sins of many crimes, needed to be cleansed in Christ's baptism. And so the Lord came to the washing not to be purified himself by the waters but to purify for us the streams of the waters. For from the moment he plunged himself into the waters he blotted out the sins of all believers. And he who took up the sins of all must have blotted out the sins of all, as the evangelist says: “This is the Lamb of God, this is he who takes away the sin of the world.” In a wonderful way, then, one is plunged in, and the salvation of all is restored. God the Father, then, is present when the Lord is baptized; the Holy Spirit is present. See the kindness of the Saviour: in the passion he alone submitted himself to insults; in the washing he did not seek grace alone; he wills others to share the glory. The Father, then, as I said, is present, and the Holy Spirit is present; and because God cannot be seen, the Spirit descends in a dove, the Father in a voice, and—what alone was necessary to build up faith—shows forth the Saviour. For since our faith rests only on hearing and sight, the Spirit submits himself to the eyes in a dove, the Father offers himself to the ears in a voice. For unless these things had to be done because of our belief, the Father and the Spirit, as invisible God, could have descended to the Word, the Son, by an invisible movement. So for our faith's sake, when heaven was opened, the Spirit came down to Christ, the Father to the Son, the voice to the Word. For Christ is the Word, of whom it is written: “In the beginning was the Word.” Rightly, I say, is the Father called the voice and the Son the Word, because a word proceeds only from a voice. So voice and word agree together and provide for the salvation of men by the fellowship of the mystery. But let us see for what reason the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ in the form of a dove: whether there is some likeness between the dove and the Lord, as there is between voice and word. There plainly is. For I would call the Lord himself a dove, because he is quick, gentle, and simple. He is a dove, because he commands his saints to be like doves, saying: “Be simple as doves.” And that Christ is a dove the prophet says in his person, describing his return to heaven after the passion: “Who will give me wings, and I will fly and be at rest?” When, then, Christ the Lord was inaugurating the sacraments of the Church, a dove came down from heaven. I understand the mystery; I recognize also the sacrament. For it is the same dove that now comes to the Church of Christ in baptism which once hastened to Noah's ark in the flood: then announcing safety to him with an olive branch, now conferring eternity on this one by the token of the Godhead; then bringing a sign of peace in its mouth, now pouring out over us Peace himself, Christ, by its own substance. The Lord, then, was baptized in the Jordan. Scripture records that many wonders were often done in this river; among others: “And the Jordan turned back.” I think what was done when the Lord Jesus Christ stood there is more wonderful. For before, the waters were turned back; now sins have been turned back. And as then the rush of the river lost the bed of its course, so now the rush of sins has lost the dominion of its error. I think this was already done at that time in the prophet Elijah. For as Elijah made a division of the waters, so the Spirit of the Lord in the same Jordan worked a separation of sins; and as under Elijah the waves sought the beginnings of the springs from which they had come out, so under Christ the Lord men returned to the infancy of their origin from which they had sprung.

Your holiness remembers, brothers, what we said on the most festive day of the Epiphany: that the Lord was baptized in the Jordan; and we went on to say that he willed to be consecrated by this mystery for our sake rather than his own. Plainly he accomplished all this for our sake. For to what advantage was consecration needful to him who is himself the sacrament? Of what use the solemnity of a mystery in him in whom is the fullness of the mystery? For in him is the fullness, as the Apostle says: “For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” And again the evangelist: “From his fullness we have all received.” He, then, in whom was the fullness of the Godhead had no need to be filled with the mysteries of the sacraments. But he willed to fulfil the mystery, not to gain advantage himself, but so that the fullness of the mystery might profit us. Indeed, when John the Baptist resisted and said, “I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” the Lord said to him: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” “To fulfil,” he says, “all righteousness.” Why, then, is the Lord baptized? Righteousness does not justify Christ, but righteousness itself is sanctified by Christ, and a half-full virtue is filled by him in whom is the fullness of the virtues. John says, then: “I ought to be baptized by you”; he testifies, then, that the Lord was not baptized for his own sake, since before he was baptized by him John was asking rather to be baptized by him. For by saying this he shows that there is greater grace in the Lord's mystery than in the master of the mystery. For what consecration could he give to the one from whom he himself desired to receive sanctification? The master was lower in merits than the disciple in holiness. For in comparison with Christ, the master is unskilled, the righteousness half-full, and the water muddy. But when the Lord is baptized, by his blessing the master advances, righteousness is filled up, and the water is cleansed. For the water was cleansed, which, though cheap and cold, was enriched by the warmth of the Lord's blessing; so that what before could scarcely wash away the worldly stains of things now purifies the spiritual stains of souls. And do not wonder that we say water, that is, a bodily substance, reaches to the purifying of the soul. It plainly reaches it; it penetrates all the hiding places of the conscience. For though it is itself fine and thin, yet, made finer by Christ's blessing, it passes through hidden channels to the crimes of the soul with the dew of the Spirit. For the flow of blessings is finer than the passage of waters. That is why we also said that at the Saviour's baptism the blessing, which flowed down like a special river, permeated the courses of all streams and the veins of all springs. It is wonderful, I say, that while Christ stood in the Jordan the rivers of water were indeed washed; but streams of blessings were also running. From there the turbid flood of the river bed was carried along; from here the most pure spring of the Saviour was cleansing; and with a kind of astonishment the consecration of baptism went up toward the source of the Jordan, and against the river of waters a river of blessings was carried. That is why I think holy David said: “The Jordan turned back.” For in the baptism of Christ the Jordan was turned back not in its waters but in its sacraments, and returned to its source by blessing rather than by substance. For while the grace of consecration is carried round through it to all springs, it seems to have recalled its own course to the beginning of its veins. The end.

Since it is clear, as we said before, that Jesus Christ was baptized not for his own sake but for ours, we ought, dearly beloved brothers—I am speaking to you catechumens—to receive the grace of his baptism with all haste, and to draw the blessing of consecration from the spring of the Jordan which he blessed, and to have our sins plunged into the flood into which his holiness plunged itself; that is, so that the same water which surrounded the Lord may also cleanse his little servants all round, so that from Christ's venerable washing the holy water may profit us, and by the same footsteps and mysteries by which it borrowed blessing from the Saviour may purify us with a more blessed warmth, and pour back on Christians the grace it received from Christ. Therefore, brothers, we ought to be dipped in the same spring as Christ, so that we may be what Christ is. For—and I say this without prejudice to the faith—although both baptisms are the Lord's, I think this baptism in which we are washed is so much the more gracious than that in which the Saviour is baptized. For this is celebrated by Christ; that was celebrated by John. In that one the master excuses himself; in this the Saviour invites us. In that one righteousness is half-full; in this the Trinity is complete. To that one a holy man came, and a holy man went out; to this a sinner comes and a holy man goes away. In that one blessing is conferred on the mysteries; in this, by the mysteries, offences are forgiven. We ought, then, brothers, to be baptized in the same flood as the Saviour; but to be plunged in the same spring we need not seek the region of the East, nor the river of the land of Judea. For where Christ is now, there also is the Jordan. The same consecration that blessed the rivers of the East sanctifies the streams of the West. So, even if the river perhaps has another name in the world, still the mystery of the Jordan is in it. Indeed, the business is carried out with the same sacraments with which it was done then, except that with fuller grace. For then we saw the Trinity with fleshly eyes; now we contemplate the same Trinity with the eyes of faith. Then a human face could scarcely behold Christ; now the human mind embraces him. Then the Holy Spirit, as in the form of a dove, poured himself around a man; now by the very power of the Godhead he pours himself into a man's inner parts. Then the Father came for the Son's sake, by a voice heard from afar; but now the Father himself comes down to us with the Son. The grace, then, is fuller where God comes down to men, not in an assumed form, but deigns to come down to his sons in his own substance. For there, as with unbelievers, he wishes to persuade them to faith by bodily signs; here, as with believers, to confer grace by spiritual power. It belongs, then, to fuller grace to see God as God is than to see him in such a way that you still seek him. Here is the Trinity complete; there the Godhead was still to be searched out. Fuller, then, is the grace of knowing God by his own power than of surmising him in an assumed form. Let us, then, do for ourselves what we see God did for us; let us do in our own case what John desired to be done in his. If he, who was a prophet, a master, and a holy man, longed for the Saviour's baptism, how much more ought we sinners, lowly and ignorant, to seek this grace! See the mercy of the Saviour: this is freely offered to us which the prophet, though asking, does not obtain. But we ought to consider why John asked for Christ's baptism and we received it. For the Lord said to him when he asked: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” We know, however, that John the Baptist bore the type of the law; it was right, then, that he should baptize the Lord, so that, just as according to the flesh the Saviour was begotten of the Jews, so according to the spirit the Gospel might be born of the law; so that from the source from which it drew the succession of its origin it might also receive the handing on of consecration. This, then, is what he says: “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” For it was right that he should himself fulfil the commandments of the law which he himself had established, as he says elsewhere: “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it.”

It has often been pressed upon your ears, both from the divine Scriptures and from our preaching, that the first fault of sinning in Adam was the enticement of the mind, and that the cause of the transgression was the craving for food. For while among so many precious delicacies of paradise he would not keep the fast of abstaining from one, he lost the enjoyment of all delights, and forfeited what was allowed while he craved what was forbidden. Had he endured abstinence from one food, he would certainly not have been left fasting from so many good things. Therefore, brothers, recognizing in our forefather the cause of the offence, let us cut off from ourselves the occasion of stumbling. And the craving that he stretched beyond the line of the command, let us keep within the boundary of the precept, and let us not, because of fasts commanded for a very short time, allow ourselves to lose the sweetness of our whole life. If he sinned by tasting, why should I not please by fasting? If food was death to him, why should not abstinence profit me for salvation? He is plainly foolish who is neither instructed by precepts nor taught by examples. See, then, whether such a precept is not given to us when we are reborn as was laid on Adam when he was created. For it is said to us, as to those set in a paradise of delights and resting in pleasantness by the springs of the Lord, that we may take food from the fruits of all the virtues, but may not taste of the one little tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Who would not be content with such a law—to abstain from one thing so as to have delight in very many? We are commanded, I say, to abstain from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; we ought to understand what that tree is. For if the saints are fattened on the fruits of the disciplines, what is the tree forbidden to the righteous man but worldly indiscipline? Whoever after receiving grace tastes worldly wantonness receives the discernment of good and evil. For he begins to know both what holiness he has lost and what perdition he has fallen into. Not that the taste of the tree gives a man that knowledge, but that the conscience was innocent; after it has been polluted, it both weeps for the good things lost and groans over the evils committed. An unstained life, however, is not held by such knowledge; for, being always holy or simple, it thinks that only what is pure exists in man. But wantonness makes a man wickedly expert in very much through the experience of sins. It is good, then, for a Christian to have a holy rusticity rather than a criminal knowledge. The tree in which good and evil are to be known—I do not want such expertise. For what profit is it to know what it does not profit to know, what one would repent of knowing? For the Lord has laid down for man in the tabernacle of the Church the same kind of law as he commanded in the possession of paradise. For the Church is a paradise sheltered by the pleasantness of various virtues, or trees, from whose bosom Christ goes forth as a most shining spring, and, after the likeness of paradise, the streams are drawn off as into the rivers of the four evangelists. For the blessed apostles and evangelists are to be compared with rivers, because by the spirit of their teaching the face of the whole people is watered. There is no Christian soul that does not draw from the holy spring of the evangelists. Plainly the Gospel is like a river, of which holy David also says: “The rush of the river gladdens the city of God.” For the city of Christ is gladdened when in it a purified people is carried in by the course of Gospel teaching, and by a certain rush of preaching its court is filled with the commerce of holiness. The rush of the Gospel word, I say, gladdens the city of God; it carries some things into it, and purifies others. It brings in the pearls of righteousness; it washes away the filth of wickedness. Therefore, brothers, set as it were in the paradise of the Church, we have received the commandment to keep the law of fasting. And let us not violate the consecrated number of forty days even by a slight taste, because the Lord is not harmed by our being full but is offended by the transgression of the law. Indeed, Adam, as soon as he tasted against the prohibition, fell from the grace of immortality.

Your love should remember that I preached last Sunday and gave the reason why the Lord fasted forty days, and why he spent those fasts in the desert. For we said that he observed all this not for his own justification, who was a virgin in all things, but for our salvation, so that those whose race had sinned through intemperance might be healed through abstinence. Let us see, then, what was done at that time and in that solitude. For the evangelist says that the devil was there and the Saviour was tempted by his cunning. For the sacred reading says that the Lord was hungry, and the devil said to him: “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” See the Lord's art, by which he outwits the adversary's art. After long fasts he pretends to be hungry, so that by being hungry he may provoke again the devil whom he had already conquered by fasting. For he in a manner gives him hope of engaging him because of the weakness of hunger, so that while the devil engages him as a weakling he may be the more gloriously overcome. For this is true victory: that since the devil had overthrown Adam immortal, glorious, and feasting, he should now be conquered by a man mortal, lowly, and hungry. For the devil, seeing the Lord hungry, thinks him a man, doubts that he is the Saviour, and so says: “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” O wretched and desperate encounter of Satan! The devil in the desert of temptation finds no solid weapons; he lacks the pleasant trees of paradise, he lacks Eve his counsellor, he lacks the attractive deceit of fruits; and because he finds no food to offer the hungry one, he asks for stones to be changed into food. Shut out on every side, cheated on every side, he turns to the very ground. He shows plainly enough that the barrenness of the desert has resisted him, when he thinks that for lack of things even the elements can be changed. He asks, then, for stones to be changed into bread. Cunning and crafty, he knows what he asks; he knows that what he says has been done. For he remembers that in the Old Testament water flowed from a rock for the thirsty; here too he wants to supply food from a stone for the hungry. He remembers also the hardness of the rock dissolved into flowing springs; here too he desires the roughness of stone to be transformed into the sweetness of bread. For he suspected that it was Christ who is accustomed to do such things with the nature of rocks, as the apostle Paul says: “They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” He suspected, I say, that he was the Christ, when he asked him to make bread from a stone; but he thought him only a man when he saw him hungry. The Saviour, however, condemns his cunning with a wonderful answer. He does not do what the devil says, so as not to seem to display the glory of his power at the adversary's bidding. Yet he did not answer that it could not be done, since he could not deny what he had often already done. So he neither yields to the one who asks nor refuses the one who probes; and by this he both keeps the power of his might at his own discretion and refutes the cunning of the adversary by divine speech. He answered him, then: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”; that is, not by earthly bread, not by material food, by which you deceived Adam, the first man, but by the word of God, in which is the nourishment of heavenly life. The Word of God is Christ the Lord, as the evangelist says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” Whoever, then, is fed on the word of Christ does not look for earthly fodder. For he cannot long for the bread of the world who is refreshed by the bread of the Saviour. For the Lord has his own bread—indeed the Saviour himself is bread, as he taught, saying: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Of this bread the prophet says: “And bread strengthens the heart of man.” What use to me, then, is the bread the devil offers, when I have the bread that Christ imparts? What use to me is the food by which I remember the first-formed man was cast down? I have seen Esau cheated of his birthright, Judas Iscariot branded with the crime of betrayal. For Adam lost paradise through food, Esau lost the honour of the firstborn through a lentil, Judas laid aside the high office of the apostolate through a morsel; for from the moment he took the morsel he began to be no longer an apostle but a traitor. For you have it written, as the Lord says: “The one to whom I give the dipped bread will betray me. And immediately after the morsel Satan entered into him.” Not good is the food after which the Lord is denied, after which the enemy enters; not good the food after which Christ is spat out and Antichrist devoured. Not good the food that lacks blessing and is filled with cursing. We need, then, that food which gives life, which feeds the soul, after which Christ follows and the enemy is shut out. We ought to receive that food which the Saviour, not the devil, follows; which by its reception makes a confessor, not a traitor. How well, in the time of fasting, he said that it is the word of God that refreshes, to show that our fasts ought not to be taken up with worldly business but exercised in the sacred Scriptures! For he neglects the body's hunger who attends to the fodder of reading; nor can he care for his belly who gains the nourishment of the heavenly word. That is the refreshment that fattens the soul, that enriches the inner parts, when from the divine Scriptures we gain the food of everlasting speech. That is the food that gives eternal life and shuts out from us the snares of the devil's temptation. And that the reading of the sacred Scriptures is life the Lord testifies, saying: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

We ought not to be so very saddened, brothers, that in these days of Lent the trial of tribulation has come upon us, since we see that our Saviour too was tempted because of Lent itself. We little servants, then, ought to grieve less, since we have the Lord's example. For where there is a devotion like Christ's, there is also a temptation like Christ's. The condition of fasting imposes on us the condition of enduring. But we believe that, as our Saviour overcame the devil when he was tempted, so we too can conquer our enemies when we are afflicted. For Christ's fasts can be tempted; they cannot be overcome. They have hardships in their observance, but they bestow prosperity and safety. Let us see, then, among the other temptations, by what art the Lord wearies him. For when the Saviour stood on the pinnacle of the temple, the devil said: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,” and so on. Truly the craft of the devil's fraud relies on its customary argument. For he always tries to throw the religious down from higher things to lower, and hastens to draw them away from holy and venerable acts to earthly and muddy ones, so that one who stands by purity of mind on the summit of the temple may throw himself into the depth of hell by the contagion of sin. For when he strives to throw the Lord down from the pinnacle of the temple, he is certainly trying to remove him from the perfect worship of religion; for the pinnacle of the holy place is the perfection of the heavenly sacrament. Rightly is the Lord said to stand on the pinnacle (pinna) of the temple, because of him it is written: “Who walks on the wings (pennas) of the winds.” For the Lord in a manner walks on the wings of the winds when he moves in flight upon the eager conduct of our morals; for good morals are our wings, which lift us up from the lowly things of earth to the heights of heaven, and by a kind of flight of the mind lead us out of dark Tartarus and bring us to the pleasant places of paradise. Desiring to have the wings of these morals, the prophet says: “Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?” On this pinnacle of the temple, then, the Saviour is said to stand; that is, to dwell as it were in a kind of temple of our faith. That is why the Apostle says: “You are the temple of the living God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Standing, then, in this temple, and not withdrawing, the Lord rebukes the devil, saying: “It is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God”; that is, you shall not tempt him whom you think, as a man, can be pushed down to lower things, but rather know that he is to be adored as God and Lord. In these days of fasting, then, we are tempted after the likeness of the Saviour; likewise our enemies try to throw us into confusion from the pinnacle of the temple, that is, from the observance of Lent. For while they bring terrors, while they prepare snares, they desire to draw us away from the citadel of religion. But it is said to them by the Lord: You shall not tempt holy men and servants of God; for those you think can be trampled as lowly you will find must be honoured as valiant. For there are, as I said, many brothers whom our enemies draw away from the perfection of religion, who, while they fear the present evil, think God unmindful of our salvation, not knowing that God is unmindful of no one; but we make him unmindful of us when we sin. For when we do evil he turns away his face; when we speak abominations he stops his ear; and so God does not so much withdraw his goodness himself as our offences drive him back. For the same Lord says through the prophet to those who were placed in tribulations: “Is my hand not strong enough to rescue you?” and so on. You see, then, that sins separate God and man. Take sins out of the way, then, and you have made God near to you. For how, brothers, can God forget us, who says in the Gospel that even the hairs of our head are numbered with him? If he remembers our hairs, much more does he remember our souls. For by the numbering we recognize his care and concern for us; for no one numbers anything but what he wishes to guard more carefully; no one numbers but one who fears he may suffer loss without numbering. A shepherd counts his flock often to keep it safe; indeed the Lord, who is the good shepherd, when one little sheep out of a hundred had strayed, going back to the count, carried it back to the flock on his own shoulders. He who is held in the number is so far kept under protection that, when he strays, he is carried back on the shepherd's own shoulders, lest anything be lacking from the number. Do not think, then, brothers, that he forgets even the least. For God remembers all, recalls all, provided only that forgetfulness is not brought upon him by our sins coming between.

Your holiness remembers that some days ago we explained that through this observance of holy Lent a kind of restoration of the human race is carried out, so that through this most sacred season the frailty of our condition [is restored], since the grace of immortality which Adam lost by sinning Christ restores by pardoning, and what he who sinned by eating against the prohibition [lost], this one justifies by fasting according to the precept. For this is the whole purpose of Christianity and of faith: that what had perished may be saved, what had strayed may be called back, what had already died may be reborn. For the offence of the first generation certainly became the occasion of the second birth, and from the transgression of that one arose the grace of this justification. For there would have been no need for man to be born again if what he had been had not perished. But someone says: God could have pardoned man the sins contracted through Adam in such a way that it was not necessary for him to be born again. Listen, then, and understand the reason. God, as we know, is truthful and just and can never lie. When, then, he had formed Adam and had laid down for him in paradise a law of this kind, that he should not taste at all of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that on the day he tasted it he would surely die, then man, though bound by such a command, passed over the command, ran into the law, and by his transgression brought on himself the death that God had foretold. Therefore, as we said, because it is impossible for the decrees of the Godhead to be overturned, and man had run into the snare of the law, it was not fitting for him to be pardoned without a second birth, because the order of the precepts could not be undone; but he willed man to be reborn and in a manner to become another; and because the sentence of the law could not be changed, the person bound over to the law would be changed; that is, in one and the same man the condition would bind the one, grace would free the other; the old would satisfy severity, the new would grow into goodness; so that the precept would keep its force in man, and another enrolment would rescue the man. For whoever is reborn has fulfilled the condition of the first generation and takes up the origin of the second birth; whoever, I say, is reborn has ceased to be what he was and begins to be what he was not; he has died to the old things and has been renewed already for the things to come. How good, then, is our Lord! He so laid down the law as not to neglect mercy; he so has mercy as not to violate the decrees of the law. As a just one he carried out the sentence; as a merciful one he granted pardon. For that we die is decreed by the former sentence; that we rise again is the gift of the later bounty. Therefore, brothers—I am speaking to you catechumens—hasten to the grace of the second birth, so that Adam may end in you and Christ begin; that death may be made void and life succeed; that the sentence of severity may be abolished and the grace of renewal follow. For the severity of the judge is abolished when, renewal intervening, the sentence does not recognize its own. But unless our old man has been changed, and the penalty of the precept pursues the new person, he will not be able to escape the condition of death who has not fled for refuge to the author of that condition. For Christ the Lord says: “Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.” So let us believe in Christ, and so let us faithfully put on grace, that what he says is true: “Unless one is born again of water,” and so on. Let us, then, put on the Lord, both by grace and by his precepts; for death will not hold those in whom it sees not Adam but that they are with Christ, who is life. Above all, let us keep his precepts, and especially those about the fasts of Lent. For there are many who, when this most sacred number of fasting is proclaimed, violate the divinely appointed time by eating on the weeks between, not understanding that by tasting against the prohibition they are guilty of no less a transgression than that Adam who ate against the prohibition. But the passion of Christ redeemed his transgressions; who will redeem these, who are transgressors after the Lord's passion?

We ought to think of the whole time of our life as a kind of racecourse of virtues, and to strive with our whole mind toward the heavenly prize. But this must be done especially in the days of Lent, which, dedicated to abstinence and fasting, confer on us as much toward virtue of soul as they drive out pleasure from the body. That number of fasting is a lawful one, and one celebrated in the examples of the saints. Moses, when he was to receive the law from God, spent forty days and nights without food or drink, and was prepared by fasting to receive the Lord's will. Elijah, after a fast of forty days, was carried from this world in a fiery chariot to the heights of heaven. Our Lord and Saviour himself also, fasting forty days, triumphed over the devil's temptations, so as to come to the preaching of the Gospel already a victor. Rightly, then, we too ought to keep with fasting this number of days, which we read was consecrated by such examples. Let us, then, celebrate these days with all eagerness of mind and joy, and prefer them to all feasts and bodily delights. For in these days especially let us be kindled to fulfil the Lord's will, when the pleasure of the flesh is most of all extinguished by abstinence. For then the mind hastens more purely to the Lord and to his future promises, when it is made gross by no drunkenness, no fullness of food and drink. That is why the Saviour said in the Gospel: “Take heed to yourselves, then, lest your bodies be weighed down with drunkenness and intoxication and worldly thoughts, and that day come upon you suddenly; for like a snare it will come upon the whole world, and no one will escape.” There is also this great benefit in the days of Lent: that while we abstain even from things permitted, we are reminded more and more to avoid things forbidden. For we who abstain from meat, which it is permitted to use on other days; we who abstain from wine, which it is permitted to use in moderation; we, then, who avoid these things that are sometimes permitted, let us above all flee sins, which are never permitted at all. So if we wish to fast from food, let us above all fast from vices. For what profit is it to be pale with fasting if you are livid with hatred and envy? What profit is it not to drink wine and to be drunk with the poison of anger? What profit is it to abstain from meat, created to be eaten, and to tear the limbs of our brothers with malicious slander? What profit is it if we abstain from things that are sometimes permitted and do those that are never permitted? For God honours and loves those who flee what is forbidden. Let us, then, as I said, so fast from food that much more we fast from vices, so that we may be filled with the abundance of holy morals, and may deserve in the future to be satisfied with the reward of those very works, as we read in the Gospel: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” For we ought rather to choose this compensation: that the food from which we abstain we give to the poor and the sick, according to what is written: “Blessed are those who are content to go hungry so that others may be refreshed.” A gift is quite acceptable to God when the needy is filled, when the naked is clothed, when anger is not carried out and no time is kept for wrath, when evil is not repaid with evil. Then our fasts are pleasing to God, if those who fast from necessity are refreshed by us. For then we shall deserve to hear that saying of the Lord: “Truly I tell you, as long as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” O most kind Lord, to tame the avarice of men, who says that what is given to even the least poor man is given to him! May the mercy of the Lord grant you, brothers, to serve him with fasts and alms and good works, so that he may lead you to true and eternal life, he who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

If your love remembers well, dearest brothers, last Sunday we preached that the Lord himself consecrated holy Lent by abstaining, and, taking no food at all through the course of so many days and nights, made one solid body of fasting, which it is sacrilege not to keep in full and sin to violate in part. He did this for the sake of our salvation, so as to teach a useful thing not only by words but to instruct us by examples too; so that by the same steps by which we run to faith we might walk to abstinence. But let us see what reason the Saviour had for proclaiming fasts and, as a good physician of the human race, fasting first himself. For a good physician tastes first the cup he is about to give the sick man, so as to show the skill of his art in himself first, and so that the sick man, receiving the proof, may be confident about the cup and more confident about his recovery. Then [let us see] in what place he spent this very time of fasting. For the evangelist says that the Lord abstained forty days and nights in the desert. I think, then, this is the reason for the fast: that, because the first Adam, placed in paradise, had lost the glory of immortality through the intemperance of his gullet, Christ the second Adam might restore that same immortality through abstinence. And because Adam, tasting of the forbidden tree against God's command, had fallen into the sin of death, now Christ, fasting according to the Lord's command, might merit the righteousness of life. For the Saviour did this so that offences might be cleansed by the same steps by which they had been committed; that is, because man had transgressed by eating, he might correct it by abstaining; or because by feasting he had known woman, now by fasting he might despise her. For Adam knew Eve only when intemperance had brought it about. As long as unstained frugality remained in them, unpolluted virginity also remained; and as long as they fasted from the forbidden food, so long they also fasted from shameful sins. For hunger is the friend of virginity and the enemy of wantonness, while fullness squanders chastity and nourishes allurement. So, as I said, the Lord does this so that man might be freed by the same precedents by which he had been made liable to sin. For this reason, in all things according to the likeness of Adam, he would undo all the sins of men. For Adam was born of virgin earth, and Christ was brought forth from the Virgin Mary. Adam's maternal soil had not yet been split by hoes; Christ's maternal secret place was never violated by desire. Adam is formed from clay by the hands of God; Christ is formed in the womb by the Spirit of God. Both, then, arise from God the Father; both are born of a virgin mother; both, as the evangelist says, are sons of God; but Adam is God's creature, Christ his substance. The Lord, then, does this as the second Adam: that what the former man had lost by eating, the other might recover by fasting, and might keep in the desert the law of abstinence given in paradise. For he knew that God's precept is a law not of one place but of the world. For it makes no difference to the command of the Godhead whether you keep it at home or in the field, since he who commanded is everywhere. In the desert, then, the Saviour fulfils God's command, so as to save for himself the wandering Adam there where he had been cast out from the possession of paradise. For Adam, driven out of paradise, endured the deserts of an untilled world. In the desert, then, salvation is first poured back on man, where there are no feasts, where delights are lacking, where—what is the cause of all evils—woman too is lacking. For Adam could have stood unshaken among those delights of paradise had Eve not been there with the devil's allurements. The desert, then, is suited to salvation, where there is no Eve to persuade, no woman to flatter. See a wonderful thing: in paradise the devil contends with Adam; in the desert the devil fights with Christ; everywhere he lies in wait for man, everywhere he engages him. But where he finds a woman he conquers; where he does not find a woman, he goes away conquered. God, then, gave us a pattern in this deed: that in the time of fasting, as though dwelling in the desert, we should abstain from feasts, from pleasure, from woman, so that Eve may not be joined to us, and may not overturn us from chaste observance by enticing persuasion. For he seems in a manner to dwell in the desert who in the time of Lent is fasting and chaste. The very body of a Christian is plainly a kind of desert when it is not filled with food, not watered with drink, but neglected in the squalor of parching hunger. Our body, I say, is a desert when its heat withers with abstinence, pallor spreads over it from thirst, and the whole person's appearance, uncared for, grows shabby through contempt of things. Then Christ the Lord dwells in the desert of our breast, when he finds our earth squalid and dry with thirst, as the prophet David says: “As in a land desert, pathless, and waterless, so in the sanctuary I have appeared to you.” For we cannot otherwise appear to him as in the sanctuary unless the land of our body is desert of worldly delights, pathless to devilish desires, and waterless to lustful allurements. Then the Saviour, dwelling in this desert of our body, overcomes there all the factions of the devil, and makes his dwelling secluded and secure from the thoughts of the world, so that from then on, set within ourselves as in a solitude, we may look only to heaven and earth; that is, we may think of no other than the Lord of the heavenly kingdom and the author of the resurrection of the earth.

We ought, dearest brothers, to receive these days of holy Lent with all reverence and not to be weary of the rather long number of this season; because the more days of fasting, the greater the means of remedy; the longer the course of abstinence, the more abundant the redemption of salvation; the more severe the treatment of wounds, the more healthful the medicine for sins. For God, who is the physician of our souls, appointed a fitting time, which is enough for the righteous to pray and suffices for sinners to plead, the former asking for rest, the latter begging for pardon. For Lent is a fitting time: neither short for entreating nor long for meriting. For by forty days of fasting any iniquity of a sinner can be prayed away, and any severity of the judge softened. The time may perhaps be long and wearisome to one who neither prays about his fault nor hopes for pardon. For despair knows neither how to confess its crime nor how to hope for indulgence from the judge. Holy, then, and saving is the observance of Lent, by which the judge is led to mercy, the sinner to repentance, the righteous to rest. For in these days, more than usual, the Godhead has mercy, the offender pleads, and righteousness merits. For all things lie open: the heavens to pardon, the sinner to confess, the tongue to ask. Saving, I say, and mystical is the number forty. For at first, when the iniquity of men possessed the face of the world, through the course of so many days God poured rains from heaven and flooded the whole earth with the deluge. You see, then, that already at that time the mystery was arranged in a figure. For as then, so now, he has mercy for forty days to purify man. Indeed, the flood of that time should also be called mercy, by which iniquity was crushed and righteousness preserved. For it was done out of mercy that the righteous escaped and the unrighteous sinned no more. Plainly we see that that flood was a mercy by which, as by a kind of baptism, the face of the whole world was renewed: so that what was filthy with the crime of lost men might flourish to grace by the dwelling of blessed Noah, and what was then a brothel of iniquity might now become a home of holiness. That flood, I say, was a likeness of this baptism of ours. For what is done now was done then: that is, with the springs of waters overflowing, vices were endangered and righteousness alone reigned; sins were plunged into the deep, and holiness was carried up near heaven. For then, as I said, was done what is now done in the Church of Christ. For as Noah was borne on the water while all vices were drowned, so the Church is carried near heaven by the font of baptism, and, all the superstitions of idols cast down, faith reigns on the earth, which goes out from the ark of the Saviour. Holy and sacred, then, is the season of Lent, which from the very beginning began to distinguish between the righteous and the unrighteous, and to separate the good from the bad by a kind of judgment. We see the same done also in this observance of Lent of ours. For through these forty days the bad are separated from the good, that is, the luxurious from the chaste, the intemperate from the one who fasts, the pagan from the Christian; the bad, I say, is separated from the good, that is, the sinner from the righteous, the devil from the saint, the heretic from the faithful. For when all these are left behind, as in the likeness of the flood, in the shipwreck of the world, the Church alone, like that ark, is lifted on high with her virtues. For we too, though sinners, in imitation of holy Noah, announce to you that the destruction of the world is coming; and we say that only those will escape the danger whom the threefold ark has enclosed within itself in the bosom of religion. For the Church is a threefold ark, because it contains the sacrament of the Trinity. For when Scripture says that it had two storeys and three storeys, it certainly shows that it is distinguished by the threefold grace of the Godhead. We announce, then, like Noah, that the shipwreck of the world is coming, and we urge all men to flee for refuge to this house. And as Noah received his sons in the ark, so we too desire to receive our sons in this ark. For whoever wishes to dwell with us in this house is our son. But someone says that the voice of holy Noah's preaching is nowhere recorded in the Scriptures. Listen, then: Noah, though silent in voice, spoke by his work; his tongue was still, his building cried aloud. For when he was making a new work, never known before, he was warning all that new shelters must be prepared for new dangers. He spoke, then, by his work, and said that saying of the Lord in the Gospel: “If you do not believe me, believe the works,” and by believing you can escape the danger; by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.

The venerable and healing season of Lent is upon us, dearly beloved, in which by fasting we ought to treat the wounds of our sins. Let us discuss, then, with examples added, how great a good fasting is. Moses first, when he had fasted forty days and nights, was found worthy to receive the law of the Lord: for the fasts of one man obtained what the fullness of the whole people had despaired of. Let us notice, then, how great a distance there is between fasting and fullness. Moses, who fasted, saw the Lord. The people, who ate and drank, fashioned idols. But why should I speak of Moses and the multitude of Israel? Adam, that first of the human race, as long as he fasted, kept the Lord's command and was in paradise. But when he ate, he was cast out of paradise; and he who had been a virgin in God's paradise, cast out of paradise, knew his wife. For lust is always joined to fullness. Food, then, cast us out of paradise; let hunger lead us back, let fasting lead us back. We have said what holy Moses merited by fasting; let us now look at all the others. Even the elements served holy Elijah as he fasted. He, indeed, shut heaven for three years and six months. At his voice fire also came down from above. And when Queen Jezebel wished to kill him and he lay weary under a leafy tree in the solitude, an angel was sent to him and said to him: “Take a little bread and water.” See, dearly beloved, how great is God's kindness toward those who fast. It was not enough that the Lord had sent an angel to the fasting man to bid him take food; he also commanded him to flee farther from his persecutor. He said, then: “Take a little bread and water.” For he was to go on with a fast of forty days through the desert as far as Mount Sinai. Could not the Lord, who made heaven and earth, to whom every creature belongs, have sent a meal into the wilderness by an angel, as he sent one to Daniel in the lions' den by Habakkuk? But God knew that his prophet could not otherwise overcome the devil who was tempting him, unless, schooled by fasting, he repelled the temptations of the enemy lying in wait. Daniel too, that man who knew the future, who was aware of the Lord's coming, and who most clearly foretold the overthrow of Jerusalem, was called a man of desires because he did not eat the bread of desire and did not drink the drink of craving, since he desired Christ more than feasts. John too, the Lord's forerunner, is nourished in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey; he is not fed on the flesh of animals nor on the dainties of birds. Placed by the Jordan, he could certainly have provided himself with the delicacies of fish; but since he was to preach repentance, he had to show the rigour of fasting by his own example and deeds rather than by voice. In the Gospel too, when a man full of a demon was brought to the Lord, whom the apostles had not been able to cure, they asked and heard from the Lord that this kind could not be cast out except by prayer and fasting. See, then, brothers, how great is the power of fasting, that fasts can do what the apostles could not. I pass over the rest; but let each consider how great is the difference between fasting and fullness, between an empty belly and a stuffed one, between a red face and pale features, between a fasting mouth and lips loosened by drunkenness, between one weighed down by feasts and one kept watchful by the thinness of hunger. I do not speak of weeks, nor of doubled or multiplied fasts; but let us at least pass single days without excess of food. Let baths, wine, and meat cease—not that we judge God's creation to be condemned; but having lived for ourselves the whole year, let us live at least a few days for the Lord. But so that our fasts may be full and well supplied, let them be fattened with the richness of mercy. Let us give our bread to the hungry. Nor let us think that fasts alone suffice to heal the wounds of sins unless they are revived by the medicine of almsgiving. Let your fast chasten you, then, but gladden another; and so your straits will be fruitful if they give another breadth. Fast in such a way that you rejoice that you have dined in another who eats; for “God loves a cheerful giver.” For when the poor man eats of your goods, Christ dines, who testifies that he hungers in the poor. The end.

Although, brothers, we ought to strive toward the heavenly homeland through the whole time of our life, yet especially in these holy days of Lent we must exert ourselves as much as we can … For this number of forty days, as we have several times made known to your holiness, is mystical and consecrated in the sacred Scriptures. For you know, as we have often said, that holy Moses, in order to be found worthy to receive from him the tablets written by the finger of God, abstained from all food and drink for the number of forty days and nights. We added also that blessed Elijah, after a fast continued for forty days, was carried up to heaven in a fiery chariot. And not by these only but by other examples of the old law too we have shown it. Indeed, we added the example of our Lord and Saviour himself, who, to prepare himself for the preaching of his Gospel, abstained from all food and drink for the number of forty days and nights; and so from the devil's temptations … [Two leaves are missing in the original; then the following fragment follows.]

But what profit is it to a man if his body fasts from food but his mind does not fast? What if you abstain from food and do what is forbidden? If you persecute the orphan, if the widow … Then your fasts will be pleasing and acceptable to God, if you give back what belongs to another that you are holding; if you forgive a brother who has troubled you; if you abstain from another man's wife; if you give alms to the poor from what is yours … [Fifteen lines are missing in the original.] May the divine mercy, then, grant you this, that by fasts, alms, and holy works you may be found worthy to attain eternal life. The end.

How our Lord and Redeemer consecrated the days of holy Lent, whose beginning we keep today, and how also Moses and Elijah sanctified them under the Old Testament, we have already told you several times, brothers. And indeed we have already explained to your holiness on other occasions that in those forty days in which Moses and Elijah kept holy fasts under the old law they in a manner fasted a Lent, and so prefigured as a type the holy fast which we begin today. … For if Moses, the leader and saviour of the people of Israel, who spent his life so spotlessly that he was found worthy to speak several times with the Lord face to face, as a friend usually speaks with his friend, [fasted], why shall we, who are pressed down by the weight of countless offences and distressed, not keep the holy fasts? If he who was righteous and holy fasted, why are we, who are unjust and sinners, unwilling to do it? If he who was humble, meek, and chaste … why do we, proud, angry, and incontinent, neglect to do it? If, finally, he who [loved] God in all things and above all things with the whole affection of his mind … why do we, who always savour earthly things, [cling] to them with the whole affection of the mind … think always of these things, but never of God in these days of holy Lent by fasting … But … why Moses kept the holy fasts of forty days: so that, says the divine word, he might be found worthy to receive the law of God. [Three leaves are missing here in the original; the end is as follows.]

By believing, then, and by clinging steadfastly to good works, we shall be able to overcome the danger we see; by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ. The end.

Since, brothers, on this day we keep the most sacred beginning of Lent, [let us speak] with your holiness about the fast of Lent … [These words are entirely lost in the original; a whole leaf is also missing, and nothing remains but the following fragment.] … therefore let the mind fast above all from evil things. For whoever devoutly lays holy fasts upon his body first renounces the vices to which he formerly clung in his misery, suppresses the tinder of depraved desire, breaks the onslaughts of Satan on the mind, conquers blind lust, puts out the torches of avarice, extends more widely the force of love in good works, and gives the revenues of his own estate for the feeding of the poor. And then he will surely be able to obtain what he ardently desires, if he walks in the care of holy observance with a chaste body and a devoted mind. These, brothers, are the things by which a man, even when refreshed with food, often obtains what he longs for, and by fasting attains greater rewards of holiness. Such a fast delights Christ: one which no empty desire of gaining temporal glory or of heaping up great wealth inflames, but which a sincere disposition of religion always drives, and a devoted … ; and when duties of full piety have accompanied it, as much as he is able, so much will he profit; and by acting so he will always have the Lord present and favourable at once. Fulfil, then, the duties of holy mercy, and you have sanctified your fasts. Clothe the naked; strive to receive the stranger with hospitality. [Ten lines are wanting here.] The end.

We said last Sunday that this is the first work of our faith: to fast most devoutly through the course of these forty days, and that this is the cause of our salvation, if we give ourselves to abstinence at this time. And so, dearly beloved brothers, we ought to look at the form of this fast, so that we may consider how great its usefulness is. For a fast is sometimes useless and empty, which, though it drains the belly and all the inner parts of the juice of fullness, is not acceptable to God, because it does not at all empty the mind and the inmost senses of the bond of iniquity. For what profit is it to fast in the bowels and to run riot in hunting; to abstain from food and stray in sins; to chastise the body with hunger, perhaps not to drink wine, and to walk about drunk with thoughts of malice? Except that the case of a man who is full or tipsy is easier than that of one who is at once wicked and fasting. For the former sometimes stops sinning, since when drunk he sometimes falls asleep; but the latter, practised in evil, does not cease erring, since through his fasts he is always awake. Useless and empty, therefore, is such a fast, which weakens the middle members and does not free the soul from perdition; of which fast the holy prophet says in the person of the Lord: “Do you fast for me? I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord.” Or do you think, brothers, that he is fasting who at first dawn does not keep vigil at church, does not seek out the holy places of the blessed martyrs, but on rising gathers his servants, sets out nets, brings out the dogs, and scours the glades and woods? He drags his servants with him, I say, who perhaps would rather come to church, and heaps others' sins onto his own pleasures, not knowing that he will be guilty both of his own offence and of the perdition of his servants. He spends the whole day in hunting, now letting out an immoderate shout, now secretly commanding silence; glad if he has caught something, angry if he has lost what he did not have; and he carries it on with such zeal, as though the fast had been proclaimed so that he might hunt. In these luxuries, then, brothers, tell me, what worship of God is there, what devotion of mind can there be in one who fasts not so as to be free for God and for prayers, but so as to indulge his own pleasures all day, idle and free? Although, then, you who are such, brother, return home in the evening, although you eat when the sun is already going down, you may seem to have eaten late, but not to have fasted to the Lord. For you cannot seem to have done the Lord's will while indulging your own pleasure. For this is the Lord's will: that we fast from food and from sins alike. We lay abstinence upon the body so that we may the more be able to keep the soul from vices. For an exhausted body is a kind of bridle on a luxurious soul. Whoever fasts and sins seems to have made a profit on food, not on salvation; and by sparing his provisions to have filled his storeroom, not to have fattened his mind with virtues. Some, forgetful of the precepts, exercise the power of mastery over their slaves and subordinates in such a way that in these days they do not hesitate to beat them with whips, afflict them with punishments, and hobble them with fetters; and if perhaps, when they come to eat, the servant is a little late, they at once tear him with blows, and glut themselves on the servant's blood before the pleasure of the meal. Such is the fast of these men, a fast kept not to call down the mercy of the Godhead but to pour out the cries of a groaning household. But whoever desires to merit mercy from God must himself first be merciful. For it is written: “With the measure with which you have measured, it will be measured back.” And, what is more to be lamented, a Christian master does not spare a Christian slave in these days, not considering at all that if he is a slave by condition, he is nonetheless a brother by grace. For in like manner he puts on Christ, he shares in the same sacraments; he has the same God as Father as you do; why should he not have you as a brother? For there are many who, returning from hunting, take more care of their dogs than of their slaves, and make the dogs lie or sleep beside them, serving them their daily food with their own hands, while they do not know whether their slaves are dying of hunger; and, what is worse, unless things have been diligently prepared for the dogs, the slave is punished on the dog's account. For you see in some houses sleek and fat dogs running about, but men walking about faint and staggering. Will these men ever take pity on the poor, who do not take pity on their own servants at home? We ought to know, then, brothers, that the fast acceptable to God is this: if we not only chastise our bodies with abstinence but also clothe our souls with humility. Let us be gentle to our servants, kind to strangers, merciful to the poor; rising at first dawn let us hasten to church, give thanks to God, ask pardon for our sins, begging forgiveness for past offences and watchfulness for future ones; let there be constant prayer or reading for us all day. Let one who does not know letters seek out a holy man and be fed by his conversation. Let no business of the world hinder the business of the Godhead; let no game at the board call the mind away, no pleasure in dogs cloud the senses, no profit of trade pervert the soul with greed. For whatever you do apart from God's commandment, though you abstain, you do not fast. For this is the saving fast: that as the body abstains from feasts, so the soul is reined in from vices. This too, brothers, must not be passed over for the perfection of the fast: that we who abstain and do not dine at this time should pay out our meals to our brothers and the poor. For this is true righteousness: if while you are hungry the poor man is filled with your food, and you, fasting, pray to the Lord for your offences, and he, filled, entreats for you. Both will profit you: your hunger and the fullness of the beggars. But whoever abstains so as to give nothing of his meals to the poor seems to have made his fast a profit for himself and to have carried on a trade by saving. For he abstained, not to please God, but so as not to spend more. And so, [without] good almsgiving, fasting is a kind of trade: to live so sparingly as to surpass monks and clerics in abstinence—except for this difference, that they do it for the sake of gain, we for salvation; they wear down their souls for the profit of money, we chastise our bodies for the gain of souls. The end.

Some Christians, brothers, thinking that they keep the precepts of the Godhead more religiously, pass over the devotion of Lent, whose beginning we keep today, and falsely claim to keep a Fifty Days, though this is neither commanded in the divine Scriptures nor handed down by the authority of our elders. They do this, then, only from the presumption of their own mind, and while they think they act more devoutly they behave more superstitiously. He says he keeps the Fifty Days who perhaps can hardly fulfil the Forty. It is good, indeed, to fast at all times, but better to fast the Forty Days with Christ. For the Lord consecrated this Lent for us by his fast. I said “fast,” not “fasts”; for the Lord's fast was one, since for forty continuous days and nights he took no food at all. Whatever Christian, then, does not fulfil the consecrated Lent by fasting will be held guilty of transgression and contumacy, because by dining he himself cancels a law divinely given for his salvation. For you cancel the law if you do not keep the example of the Lord's fast. What kind of Christian are you, when the Lord fasts and you dine? What kind of Christian are you, when Christ hungers and you refresh yourself? He endures hunger for your salvation; are you afraid to fast for your sins? Tell me, I ask you who dine in Lent: are you not guilty in your consciences that, while the whole people abstains, you alone devour against the Lord's precept? Do you not blush when you go out in public, lest someone who is fasting meet you? Or do you not consider, when you come to church, how you will offer the peace to the bishop, lest perhaps he reprove you by the very breath of your kiss? If perhaps you do not consider these things, perhaps you are greatly mistaken; for you ought to know that when in the days of Lent a man who has dined meets one who is fasting, the one who fasts does not judge well of him. I say this because I hear that many—which is graver—of the faithful abstain on alternate weeks in Lent and violate that consecrated number of days by the intemperance of the gullet: that is, they dine through the course of seven days and fast for the space of seven days. To them I say: why do they also cheat themselves by fasting through those seven days, since such a fast does not profit them? For though someone abstains on certain days, though he does not take the sweeter nourishment of foods, still the Lenten fast is not credited to one who does not fast for forty days. I am ashamed to say it: old men and little old women keep Lent; young men and young women do not. Let us, then, celebrate this most sacred season with all care; let no day pass us without fasting, let not one week go by us without vigils. For he keeps Lent who by fasting and keeping vigil goes up to Easter. For as in the rest of the year fasting earns a reward, so in Lent not fasting is a sin; for those fasts are voluntary, these necessary; those come from free choice, these from the law; to those we are invited, to these we are compelled. But let us see where this most sacred number of forty days had its beginning. We read first in the Old Testament, in the times of Noah, when criminal iniquity had taken hold of the whole race of men, that for that number of days, with the floodgates of heaven opened, rains of water poured down, and, by a certain mystery of Lent, when the flood was brought upon the world, what took place was not so much a deluge as a baptism. It plainly was a baptism, by which iniquity was taken away in the sinners and righteousness preserved in Noah. So now too the Lord has given us Lent after the pattern of that time: so that, the number of days being appointed and the heavens opened, the rain of heavenly mercy may bedew us, and, a flood being made through baptism, the shower of the saving washing may enlighten us; and as was done then by the waves of waters, so now the iniquity of offences may be quenched in us and the righteousness of the virtues preserved. For the same principle as under Noah now also applies; for baptism is a deluge to the sinner and a consecration to the faithful. For by the Lord's washing righteousness is saved and unrighteousness killed, as we see done in one and the same man, the apostle Paul, who, before he was washed by spiritual precepts, was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and Saul. But when the rain of the heavenly washing poured upon him, the blasphemer is killed, the persecutor is killed, Saul too is killed; the apostle is brought to life, the righteous man is brought to life, Paul too is brought to life. So completely did he lose the old man with his deeds that with his morals he changed his name too. Whoever, then, keeps the Lord's commands in this devotion of Lent, the devilish impiety in him will be killed and the apostolic grace preserved; and, succeeding himself in a manner, he dies in the part in which he is a sinner and is brought to life in the part in which he is righteous. Let us see also whether we can find this mystical number forty elsewhere in the Scriptures. We read that holy Moses fed the children of Israel in the wilderness with heavenly manna through the course of forty years. A good number, then, which always opens heaven; a good number, I say, by which Noah's righteousness is saved and the children of Israel are fed. So let us too keep this number, and let the heavens be opened to us, so that the rain of heavenly grace may bedew us and the manna of the spiritual sacraments refresh us; for, like our fathers, by this observance of Lent we are both justified and fed: justified by the washing, fed by the sacraments. But someone will say that the children of Israel did not fast in the wilderness when they were filled with manna. But I say that they then gave themselves only to abstinence, and that is why they merited the grace of heavenly nourishment. First, because the desert is all fasting, since the anxiety of solitude drives away the desire for food; then, in the wilderness, where would choice feasts come from? Where precious wines? Where any substance at all for the space of forty years? We understand, then, that the children of Israel fasted, because we know that they lacked plenty of food and took food when it pleased the Lord who gave it. He fasts long enough who refreshes himself according to Christ's will. So much did the abstinence of the children of Israel in the wilderness please the Saviour that the intemperance of some among them was even marked; so that whoever, more greedy, had gathered for himself a double portion of food in the morning was struck with this injury, that he was found to have kept for himself not so much food as worms: so that, because he had desired beyond a moderate meal, he was goaded, as it were, like worms, by certain stings of conscience. Let us too, then, brothers, keeping the daily and moderate fasts of Lent, and as though placed in the wilderness, think nothing of worldly delights; let no sweetness of bodily desires tempt us. Let us be sober, let us be chaste; while we have our dealings in the cities, let us possess the desert in our mind. If we act so with abstinence, we shall be refreshed with the nourishment of heavenly manna, and pricked by no stings of worms.

By God's favour, see, we have now almost completed the appointed fasts of Lent, and have fulfilled the precepts of Christ the Lord with the devotion of abstinence. It remains now that, just as his servants Moses and Elijah merited grace by keeping this most sacred number, so we too may merit it by keeping this same season, and that the reward in receiving the prize may be alike for those whose labour in keeping the fast is alike. For Elijah, when heaven was shut by human iniquities and no abundance of rain dripped from above on the things of the world, and all things were languishing in the squalor of a long drought, and there was a great famine for the whole human race—because heaven gave no rain and the earth did not sprout pasture—holy Elijah unlocked heaven by his fasts and made the earth fruitful by his prayers. He turned the drought of the one into rain and loosed the barrenness of the other into birth; for so great an abundance of showers watered the world at his prayers that dry things grew green again, dead things rose, languishing things were healed. And a kind of flow of springs was so poured into all things that, a purification being made by the rain, the faults of all creatures were washed away, and by the benefit of that flood the appearance of the whole world rose up renewed. Let us too, then, keeping the same fasts as Elijah, and adding prayers, unlock the heaven that is shut to our candidates for baptism, so that the shower of the saving washing may enlighten them. For heaven is shut to them as long as the Holy Spirit, coming from heaven, does not yet give life to their hearts; they suffer a kind of drought, because they are not yet watered by the grace of baptism. They also labour under a great famine, since as hungry men they long for the heavenly sacraments. Let us, then, unlock heaven for them, so that, as spiritual rain comes from above, their earth may be filled with the watering of the washing, and, putting away the barrenness of offences, they may begin to bring forth the fruits of the virtues. For the heavenly shower washes away the faults of sins, opens out the growth of righteousness, shakes off the dry dust of desire, gladdens the useful purity of chastity, overwhelms the sordid dregs of avarice, nourishes the everlasting generosity of mercy. For as at the coming of Elijah's rain the earth brought forth every pasture, so at the coming of Christ's washing the soul has brought forth all righteousness. And as there the springs of rain watered the world, so that the seeds of plants, already dead, might be brought to life, so the font of baptism waters the human race, so as to bring to life the dead hearts of souls. This is the merit of those who keep these fasts: that by their prayers either the world is renewed or brothers are born again. Heaven, then, must be unlocked for our candidates, since it is still shut for them; heaven is shut for them, because they do not yet see the mystery of the Trinity. With heaven shut to them, they do not know what is done above heaven, nor can they know what is the substance of the Son and the Father, unless they first pass beyond the elements of the world. For then can someone look upon the divine mysteries of the Trinity when he has the heavens opened by his own virtue, as the blessed martyr Stephen unlocked the heavens for himself by his martyrdom and saw the Saviour standing at the right hand, as he himself says: “See, I see the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” For the one, then, to whom the heavens are shut, action must be taken that they may be opened to him, so that he may see Christ above the heavens; for as long as they are shut to a man, he cannot see Christ reigning. But we must ask how the shut heavens are to be opened. I think they cannot be opened otherwise unless we take the keys of the apostle Peter, which he received by the Lord's gift, as the Lord himself said: “To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Rather, let us ask Peter himself, as a good doorkeeper of the heavenly palace, to open for us. But let us inquire more carefully what this key is. The key of Peter I would call the faith of Peter, by which he opened the heavens, went securely into the underworld, and trod the seas fearlessly. For so great is the power of the apostolic faith that all the elements lie open to it: that is, the angelic gates are not shut to it, the gates of Tartarus do not prevail, the streams of waters do not sink beneath it. But let us see how this key, which we call faith, is made, and how it has been made solid. I think it was forged by the work of twelve craftsmen; for the holy faith was drawn up in the Creed by the twelve apostles, who, like skilled craftsmen coming together into one, forged the key by their counsel. For I would call the Creed itself a kind of key, by which the darkness of the devil is unlocked so that the light of Christ may come; the shut-up sins of the conscience are opened, so that the works of righteousness may shine openly. This key, then, must be shown to our brothers, so that they too, as disciples of Peter, may become accustomed to unlock the underworld for themselves and to open the heavens.

The holy Apostle bears witness about the prophets, saying: “At an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you”; and he himself continues: “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation.” So I too testify to you that these are the days of redemption, this is the time in a manner of heavenly medicine, in which we shall be able to heal the stain of all our vices and all the wounds of our sins, if we faithfully entreat the physician of our souls and, as fit patients who have been taken into his care, in no way despise his precepts. For the sick man finds the cure of his illness if he keeps the physician's orders with all care; but if he does one thing when another is ordered, and the disease grows, it is not the physician but the transgressor who is at fault. Our physician is our Lord Jesus Christ, who says: “I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike and I will heal.” For in a manner the Lord kills before he makes alive. For first he kills in us murders, adulteries, crimes, thefts, through baptism, and so makes us alive as new men with the immortality of eternity. We die, then, to sins, namely through the washing; and we are regenerated to life through the Spirit, as the Apostle says: “For you have died to your offences, and your life is hidden with Christ”; “For you have been buried with him through baptism into death.” For we are in a manner killed when we cease to be what we were. For by a new kind of kindness death and life work in one and the same man. For we die to the desire of sins, and the order of virtues is brought to life: in one and the same man the impious man and the adulterer is killed, so that a merciful and chaste man may be reborn. Idolatry is destroyed, so that religion may spread. The fornicator and the drunkard is put out, so that a continent and sober man may be brought forth. So, then, the Lord puts to death so as to make alive; so he kills so as to profit; so he strikes so as to correct. This, then, is all his severity toward his own people: that in them sins are punished and the soul preserved; detestable vices are taken away and the best virtues nourished. And we see that by this loving killing of the Lord many have been so converted, have so advanced for the better, and have so become the best from the worst, that when you see them you would believe they were changed men, though you do not see that their persons have been changed. For what we were before is so destroyed, taken away, and put out in us, that we believe that what we are afterwards has been born anew; and so this second birth signifies that the force of the former has already come to an end. As to his saying, “I will strike and I will heal,” the Lord plainly strikes sinners with his precepts so as to heal them; he beats them with his commands so as to correct them; he prescribes fasts, enjoins continence, threatens judgment, and, shaking out the grim fear of Gehenna, applies medicine, so that while we dread the future we may correct the present. For so by striking he made the apostle Paul whole. For when he was an impious persecutor and blasphemer, and was hurrying to Damascus to lay waste the churches, he suddenly struck him with the terror of a heavenly flash, so as to flood him with the light of the Gospel's brightness; and he changed the loss of his fleshly eyes so as to enlighten the sight of his spiritual eyes. He terrified him by bodily weakness so as to save him by devotion of faith. Rising from the ground, then, Paul with his outward eyes did not see men or the air, but with the eyes of his mind he saw Christ from heaven. Indeed this striking of the Lord so profited him that from a Jew he became a Christian, from a blasphemer an apostle, from Saul Paul; and he so changed the old man with his ways that he changed his name too. Having, then, a physician of this kind, who heals by striking and makes alive by putting to death, let us submit to him with all patience for treatment, so that whatever he sees in us that is shameful, whatever is filthy with offences, whatever is foul with ulcers, he may cut, amputate, and cut out, so that, all the devil's wounds being healed, he may make only what is God's remain in us. His first precept is this: that in these forty days we give ourselves to fasts, prayers, and vigils. For by fasts the wantonness of the body is chastened, by prayers the devout soul is fattened, by vigils the snares of the devil are driven off. Then, when this season has been fulfilled with these observances of the commands, the soul, purged and wearied by so many observances, coming to baptism, is refreshed by the flood of the Holy Spirit; and whatever the heat of various sicknesses had dried up in it is bathed with the dew of heavenly grace; so that, laying aside the corruption of the old man, it may acquire the nature of new youth. And in a wonderful way, in one and the same man, holiness succeeds offences, righteousness iniquity, infancy old age; and by a new kind of birth he who is reborn is another, though he is the same who sinned. So too Elijah, by a fast continued for the course of forty days and nights, merited to quench with the dew of showers the long and excessive drought of the whole world and to bathe the parched thirst of the lands with abundant heavenly rain. We recognize that this was done as a figure of us, so that we too through the circuit of these forty days may merit the spiritual rain of baptism, so that a heavenly shower from above may pour upon the long-parched earth of the whole world in our brothers, and the flood of the saving washing may bedew the long drought of the pagans. For whoever is not watered by the grace of baptism suffers the drought and heat of his soul. By a fast of these days and nights holy Moses also merited to speak with God, to stand and remain with him, and to receive from his hand the precepts of the law. For though his human condition withdrew him from God's gaze, the grace of fasting made him near to fellowship with the Godhead. For this portion of the virtues in us is God's: that we fast often, since God himself always fasts. In whomever, then, he sees more of his own works, to him he is the more familiar, intimate friend, as Scripture said: “And Moses spoke with God face to face, as one speaks with his friend.” That is why the Lord Jesus Christ, too, about to receive the glory of the resurrection, dedicated his powers by a fast of forty days and nights, to show that the life of men is not bread but the precepts. By these forty days of fasting, then, God is reconciled, the heavens are opened, the underworld is unlocked. Let us too, then, dearly beloved brothers, fast continually and devoutly through this space of time, so that the Lord may be gracious to us, the heavens may lie open to us, and the underworld may have no power against us. The end.

We should exult, brothers, with continued joy on this day which the Lord has made, and rejoice in his feast with lasting glory. The night that came between has not cut short our joys at the solemnity; nor, because night marked off the evening hours, has the light of the resurrection abandoned our eternal prayers. For to us yesterday and today are one day, the very same day, because, as the blessed Apostle says of the Saviour: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today.” If, then, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, he is always one and the same day for us, because in him we live, in him we move, in him we do not die: we do not die, I say, because just as no darkness of sin came upon the light of Christ, so no age of time consumes those who live. Let us rejoice, then, on the day of Christ's resurrection; for it is the common joy of all, and it is our joy. Common plainly, because when he rose we all rose. For he came to life again for the salvation of all who was handed over to the passion for the sins of all. The Saviour, then, has risen from the dead. A new thing and a wonderful one, but this assertion has truth. For to say nothing of the oracles of the prophets, the ministry of the angels, the opened inner chamber of the tomb, the Lord himself after the resurrection speaking with the disciples, living among them, eating, and Thomas handling even with his finger the wounds of the nails—to pass over all these, the very impiety of the Jews confirms our faith. For their over-cautious belief suffices for our belief. For the more diligently they guarded the tomb, the more clearly it is established that he rose; the more guards they set, the more witnesses they left behind. For divine providence arranged this: that not only angels, not only disciples, but—what is more—enemies should bear witness to the resurrection. We accept it the more gladly, then, because they watched him the more diligently; for we believe that under so many guards he could more readily come out than perish, and go forth from the tomb by the Lord's right than be stolen away by a trick of the disciples. For impiety closed the tomb with such care that human hands could not have broken it unless only the power of the resurrection had opened it. Indeed, the holy evangelist says that when the angel came down the earth was shaken by a great earthquake, and the foundations of the tomb were moved, and the guards, struck with fear, who had come to guard a dead man, became like dead men. Like dead men, I say: a plainly fitting judgment, if when the righteous man rises the sinner dies; when the innocent comes back to life, his enemy is killed. For that is why they could not even see the Lord going forth, because terror had overwhelmed their criminal minds, since they could not bear the brilliance of the glowing resurrection. With greater care, then, the Pharisees guarded the Lord dead than they had persecuted him living; for a greater reason pressed them: they understood that it had been easier to despise him among the living than to be able to scorn him returning from the dead; and that whereas then, when he was preaching, he could easily be killed, now, having risen, he could no longer be killed, as the Apostle says: “But having risen he no longer dies; death will no longer have dominion over him.” They guarded him carefully in the tomb, then, especially because he had said he would rise on the third day; they guarded him carefully in the tomb, because they had now to fear him not as teacher but as judge: judge, I say, not only of themselves but of their cruel sentence, by which they bound their sons and descendants to their crimes, saying: “His blood be on us and on our children.” Cruel is the sentence of the Jews, which by their crime not only condemns their present children but also kills those not yet born. For how many do they summon by this cry to a consciousness of the crime, whom no knowledge of the crime held! Cruel, I say, is the impiety that summons descendants into guilt before it brings them into the light, so that the future would happen to sin before they happened to live. Plainly bloody parents, who became parricides before they became parents, and took as partners in their crimes those whom they did not know whether they could have as sharers of their blood. It is no wonder, then, that they were so cruel to the Saviour who were so cruel to their own descendants. Not without reason does holy David command that on this day we are to exult and rejoice without exception, the day on which the joys of the whole world are celebrated. For all should rejoice, because it profits all; all should exult, because it is saving for all; and so no flattering or painted joy should be shown. For whoever rejoices in Christ's resurrection, let him rather rejoice because he himself rose in Christ: for in him our portion, our condition, both endured death and came to life again. And though the dissolution of our little body still awaits us, we then began to live eternal life already in Christ; so that, though the occasion of an untimely death may hasten our frailty, yet in the Saviour we have learned to rise before we perish: for man who was to be rose in Christ before he obtained life in the world. For the Lord did not give the grace of the resurrection only to that generation in whose time he rose, but also provided this for the peoples who would follow: that we should be secure about the resurrection before we were anxious about death, and should live with God in heaven before we lived with men on earth. For in the Saviour we all rose, we all came to life again, we all passed over to heavenly things; for in that man of Christ there is a portion of the flesh and blood of each one of us. Where, then, my portion reigns, I believe that I reign; where my blood rules, I feel that I rule; where my flesh is glorified, I know that I am glorious. For though a sinner, let him not despair of this fellowship of grace; because even if sins hold us back, our substance seeks us; even if our own offences shut us out, the fellowship of nature does not repel us. For, because of the goodness of the Godhead, the Saviour owes us a special affection: since as our God is in him, so our blood is in him. The Godhead, then, must show me mercy; kinship must show close relationship; for the Lord is not so harsh as to forget man and not remember him whom he himself bears; so that he who took him up for my sake would not seek me for the sake of the one he took up; not so harsh, I say, is the Lord as not to love his own flesh, his own members, his own inner parts. The holy Apostle says: “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church.” Let us, then, brothers, not despair at all of pardon, not fear hatred at all. We have the privilege of our blood; for in Christ our flesh loves us, for we are his members and flesh, as the same blessed Apostle says: “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and the Church.” Let us exult, then, brothers, as Scripture says; let us plainly exult on this day of the Lord, because when we rejoice with the Lord's festival we care the more for our own. For what does the prophet say? “This is the day which the Lord has made.” A good day indeed, which brought light to all—not the light of this world, but of the eternal resurrection; for this light did not remove the darkness of night but cut away the darkness of death. A good day, I say, and better than that one on which the world first shone: for that one was created for men's labour, this was made for rest; that one deserved death, this escaped the fear of death; that one is common to good and bad, this belongs to the righteous; the light of that day is buried in darkness, the splendour of this day lights up even tombs; finally, the dead do not see the light of that day, the light of this day has shone even on the departed, as the prophet says: “Those who sat in the region of the shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” Let us rejoice, then, on this day, which shines around the living, brings the dead to life, and enlightens those who are to come, as the blessed evangelist says: “He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world.”

How the lamb of the law, by whose sacrifice the ancient people of the Hebrews threw off the yoke of slavery in Egypt, contains in its figure, by manifold sacraments, the truer victim of the holy Church, was proved most of all by the very truth of the facts when Christ our Passover was sacrificed, who “was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer without voice, so he did not open his mouth.” This is the lamb who, offered for us on the altar of the cross as a living victim to God the Father for a sweet fragrance, opened for us the passage from the region of the shadow of death to the land of promise. This one, I say, who is at once victim and priest, revealing in a clear voice the whole shadow of the old priesthood and sacrifice, put an end to figures and riddles, and inaugurated for the new people of the Church a new priesthood and a new sacrifice, so that new wine might be put into new wineskins. And if the grain of wheat, falling into the earth and dying, so wonderfully renewed all things, how much more, rising again in itself, come back to life with multiplied fruit, has it made all things fruitful, and given at this season a richer yield not only to the rational earth in spiritual growths but even to the earthly seeds themselves! Hence now the whole face of the earth, breaking into shoots, more cheerful with the adornment of various fruits, raises up together with its rising Lord the whole of nature, which until now was as though dead; where the pleasing beauty of trees and plants, with different gifts of shoots but with equal gesture of joy, hastens to meet this singular solemnity. What shall I say of the face of the sky, until now in a way sad but at last joyful, which for some time, covered with a thick darkness of clouds, troubled the whole space of this air? And see, suddenly, as though righteousness were looking down from heaven to earth, a wonderful calm smiles on the world, and the wishes of heaven and earth run together into one joy, so as to welcome with common exultation Christ, God and man, who had come to bring the common peace of both, and, breaking down the dividing wall, made both one. Hence the splendour of the sun, the kindling of all the stars, now at last cleans its much-wrinkled face, and, like a king conspicuous in the diadem of his head on the day of his espousals and on the day of the gladness of his heart, bestows more generous gifts of his light on the other stars as his companions. For the moon, which from the day of its rising is always placed in some loss of itself, prepares itself with full light for the paschal joys. And, to touch on everything briefly, as everything that exists in the world serves man's rule by divine dispensation, so one exultation over man's salvation rests on all things. Since, then, every creature shows its joys for man by such great signs, it follows that such testimonies of gladness should not be lacking from men themselves. Christ's resurrection was prefigured in the first-formed Adam, because, as he, rising from sleep, recognized Eve formed from his side, so Christ, rising from death, built the Church from the wound in his side. Noah too, a farmer, when he had planted a vineyard and, drunk with wine, had fallen asleep and lay uncovered in his tent, and, awakened from sleep, laid the curse of perpetual slavery on the son who did not hide his shame, signified Christ: who made the Church a vineyard, and, drunk with the cup of the passion for love of her, and stripped of the covering of the flesh he had taken, rose from the dead, as he says in the Song: “I have put off my tunic; how shall I put it on?” And how Jonah too expressed in himself the death and resurrection of the Lord the Gospel word plainly declares. Since, then, brothers, every creature by a certain office of love rejoices together in our salvation, it is ours to draw from this something for the conduct of our life, so that the common joy of all may not lose its right in us, toward whom the sum of the whole matter looks as its head. And first, as sheep of the Lord's pasture, roasted with the fire of love on the altar of the heart, let us offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God; and having our members that are on earth now put to death by the unleavened bread of continence, that is, sexual immorality, impurity, and the other workhouses of vices, let us turn away from them, and fit a seat for ourselves in the station of the virtues; renouncing dead works, let us offer the best fruit as good earth, and, following the example of the good tree, let us bear fruit in all goodness and righteousness. And so that the brightness of the sun may not be lacking to our way of life, let our light shine before men, so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. If, then, the last day finds us acting so, the resurrection of our bodies will at length be our reward, when Christ our life appears, and then we too shall appear with him in glory; who lives and reigns as God through all ages of ages. Amen. The end.

Let us exult in the Lord, brothers, in this present solemnity which the Lord has made, on which, rich with the spoils of hell and triumphant over death, our Lord Jesus Christ was given back to the world from the darkness of the tomb which Jewish impiety had sealed. For while he pursued death all the way to the underworld, he deigned to call back to the everlasting joys of paradise the man whom he created and redeemed. He pursued death all the way to the underworld, and there in its own kingdom made it more gloriously a captive and triumphed over it. Then those dark inner chambers of the underworld were opened. The eternal night marvelled at the heavenly light it had never seen. So the prophet could say: “O death, I will be your death; I will be your sting, O hell!” For it was forced to release the one it thought dead, and found him to be the liberator of those it was already holding. And on this most sacred feast of the resurrection, as the Lord raised himself, many bodies of the saints were raised and came to life and entered the holy city. For when the Saviour rose on this day he raised his own victims; and whenever the feast of the resurrection is celebrated, we believe that the saints too rise again. Our Saviour, then, rose in mortal flesh, which he had taken from his virgin Mother, and which hung on the tree for our salvation. He called back to new life from the tomb that body which had been laid in the tomb. The same body entered to his disciples through closed doors. You have nothing more, then, pagan, in seeing that Christ was crucified; nothing more to object that he was afraid to die. See, the one you say was afraid to die, whom you see was crucified, came forth alive by his own power from that tomb which impiety had wished to be guarded. See, he has the same flesh, the same bones. Hear him saying to his disciples: “Touch and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” He showed his flesh and bones, so that no one might doubt any more that he who died nailed on the tree came forth alive from the tomb. “Touch,” he said, “and see.” That is: touch my body with your hand, and see me and my wounds. Touch with the hand and see with faith that there is in me both the reality of that body which hung on the cross and was laid dead in the tomb, and the property of the Godhead, by which I raised myself, dead and laid in the tomb. And indeed Thomas, when he examined the wounds of the Lord's body and touched his flesh, recognized a real body in Christ himself. The most blessed apostle, then, saw and touched; what he then did profited all. For when he exercised his anxious care on Christ's body, he confirmed the faith of all. And the same body which was nailed on the tree for all now reigns in heaven at the right hand of his Father. And indeed it was fitting that that true substance of body and soul, which, trampling on these earthly hindrances, had served him alone on earth, should exult with Christ for ever in heaven. The end.

We said last Sunday that blessed Thomas, so as to strengthen the faith of all believers by his own example, handled the members of the Lord's body after the resurrection, and, so as to drive away the uncertainty of all about the resurrection of Christ the Lord, wished to examine the scars of his wounds. The blessed apostle did this not for his own sake only; what he then did more inquisitively profited all. For when he exercised his anxious care in examining the whole body of Christ, he confirmed the faith of all. For who would still doubt that the Saviour returned from the underworld, whom Thomas not only saw but whose members he handled, examining each of the wounds? However small, then, his faith, however weak in mind a Christian may be, he could never compare his own anxiety with Thomas's inquiry; and indeed, after recognition and conversion, no one would have dared to ask, no one to seek, to search out Christ in Christ himself even by touch, and in the very man whom he saw to inquire still more curiously for a human body, and to prove his resurrection, which he had borne for us, by the injury [of his wounds]. Blessed Thomas, then, being holy, faithful, and righteous, anxiously sought out all these things, not because he doubted his resurrection, but to turn away all suspicion from all. For to confirm his own faith it would have been enough for him to have seen that body which he had known before. But he acted for us, so as to touch what he saw; so that if perhaps some unbeliever should say that his eyes had then been deceived in seeing Christ, he could not say that his hands had then been deceived in touching him. For in the manifestation of the resurrection one can indeed doubt sight, but one cannot doubt touch. For by the testimony of touch, of the truth itself, it is established that the Saviour returned from the underworld. If, then, Christ our hope has risen, who, brothers, would not believe that he too will rise? If we believe that he returned from the dead, why shall we doubt that we too shall rise? For the blessed Apostle says: “For if the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen.” Since, then, Christ has risen, the dead too will be raised; because the Lord has risen, his little servants too will come to life again. For he himself, as the same Apostle has it, is the firstborn from the dead. Firstborn from the dead indeed, because he himself first rose from the underworld; and we trust that with him we too shall one day rise. For we ought to place our whole faith in the glory of the resurrection that is to come, and to hope in the Lord rather for the future life. Rightly, then, did the blessed Apostle say: “Hope that is seen is not hope.” Let us hope, then, in eternal life … [A leaf is missing here.]

Your holiness remembers, brothers, the earlier treatise, in which we wrote that the holy apostle Thomas, to confirm the faith of all, handled the members of the Lord's body after the resurrection, and, to drive away the uncertainty of all, wished to examine the scars of his wounds. For the blessed apostle did this not for his own sake only; what he did for himself profited all. For when he exercised his anxious care, he confirmed the faith of all. For who, from this, would doubt that the Saviour returned from the dead, whose presence after the underworld the eye recognizes, the hand handles, the finger examines? However small, then, a man's faith, however weak in mind a Christian, he could never have matched his anxiety with Thomas's inquiry. For never, after recognition, living together, and conversation, would he have dared to ask to search out Christ in Christ even by touch, and in the very man whom he saw to seek a man's body, and to prove his resurrection not so much by believing the glory of the wonders as by the injury of the passion. Thomas, then, being holy, faithful, and righteous, anxiously sought out all these things, not because he himself doubted anything, but to shut out all suspicion of unbelief. For to his own faith it would have been enough to have seen the one he knew; but he acted for us, so as to touch the one he saw; so that if perhaps we should say his eyes were deceived, we could not say that his hands had been mistaken. For in the manifestation of the resurrection, sight can be doubted; touch cannot be doubted. For it is established by the testimony of the truth itself that the Saviour returned from the underworld. Who would not place his hope in Christ? Who would not put his faith in the Lord, so that, as Christ [rose] from the underworld, he himself may rise from the dead? The blessed Apostle says: “For if the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen.” Since, then, Christ has risen, the dead too will be raised; since the Lord has risen, his little servants too will come to life again. For he is, as the Apostle says, the firstborn from the dead. For as among those above he is the firstborn among many brothers, so from the underworld he is the firstborn from the dead. Someone is called firstborn because he is begotten first of others who are to follow; [he is firstborn because] he has brought forth a birth out of the darkness of hell into the light of the resurrection. For it is to be called a birth when, by a kind of exchange, the soul dies to the laws of Tartarus so as to be reborn to the revived use of the body. For the birth of the resurrection among those above is a kind of death of those below. So death itself in a manner suffers death, while the multitude of the dead is withdrawn from it into life. For as the blessed Apostle says: “The last enemy, death, will be destroyed.” And again: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” When, then, death is consumed in victory, it is destroyed by a kind of slaughter of its own failing. And it suffers failure when its power is emptied by the rising of all. But let us see what it means when he says that death has been consumed in victory. Death was plainly consumed in its own victory, when, subjecting Christ to the laws of hell, it overwhelmed itself when it conquered him. For in the very act in which it possessed him whom it believed it had overcome, it was conquered by him when he rose. We ought, then, to place our whole faith in the glory of the resurrection and to hope in the Lord rather for the future life. For so the blessed Apostle says: “But hope that is seen is not hope.” Let us hope in the Lord, then, for the future life, which is solid and everlasting, so that we may be not more miserable than all men but better; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

Today's paschal solemnity, consecrated by so great a mystery of our God, shows the power of the Lord's resurrection through the angels, makes it plain through the apostles, and multiplies everlasting goods through the hearts of all believers. This, then, is the day which the Lord has made, as you have heard, higher than all, brighter than all, on which our Lord, having conquered death, rose from the underworld; on which, as you see, he has won for himself a new people by the holy Spirit of regeneration; on which he floods the mind of each with joy and exultation. This day of Christ's resurrection, then, gives eternal life to the dead, longed-for pardon to sinners, and unfading glory to the saints. For by the working of his power he raises us from the earthly things to which we cling, sets us always in the heights toward which we should strive, builds up the righteous in his kindness, strengthens the doubtful in the way of salvation, but condemns all unbelievers. For Christ the Lord rose from the dead today for this purpose: [to show] the image of the future resurrection; and so on this day the faithful people, after the likeness of the future resurrection, gladden the Church by the life-giving washing with the whiteness of their snowy splendour. We ought, then, to give thanks to our Lord, that while we keep the most glorious solemnity of holy Easter we already see the likeness of the resurrection that is to come. For whereas at the future consummation of this age the whole human race must rise, now already it rises in baptism from sins to life. God's people will then be raised after sleep; it is raised now after unbelief; then it will be freed from the mortal condition, now it is taken out of the blindness of ignorance by which it was held; then it will be reborn to eternity, now it is born to salvation. Let us rejoice, then, brothers, and exult on this day, on which our Lord, rising, brought peace to all and bestowed on all the longed-for salvation. Let us rejoice because we see that he who had died for all has now risen. Let us exult, because we believe that he now sits at the right hand of the Father. Let us exult, then, and rejoice, as the Lord rises, so that we may rejoice with him as he reigns. This he in his mercy will grant, if not only true faith guards our life, but our life too does not disagree with his faith. Let us strive, then, to show all an example of our good conduct. The end.

That outstanding and greatest sacrament of the Lord's resurrection, brothers, which divine providence willed to be foreshadowed even in the venerable books of the Jews, by various figures of things and by the divine oracles of the holy prophets, we celebrate today with devoted hearts. Why God willed it to be prefigured from the very beginning of the newborn world, and many times elsewhere in the old law, was for no other reason than to show that through every age of the passing world the hope of all the saints tended continually toward him alone who is the expectation of all nations. Although we have made this known to your holiness at other times from the books of the Hebrews themselves, it pleases us to set it out for you again now. At the very beginning of the newborn world, when Eve, that mother of all the living, was brought forth from the rib of the sleeping Adam, it is shown that the Church, the mother of all believers, would be born from the side of Christ dying on the cross. In the act of Adam awakening, the resurrection of our Lord from death was figured. In Noah, who in the work of the ark, and also by his very name, signifies rest in the saints, in that he was a farmer and had planted a vineyard, and, drunk with a cup of wine, was uncovered in his dwelling, the figure of the same Redeemer of ours is represented, who was so drunk with the blood of his lamentable passion that for a time he was uncovered even of the very garment of his body; but, awaking in his resurrection, he blessed those who, like [Shem], venerate his passion in mystery, and gave a curse to those who mocked him. That rod of Moses too, which, thrown on the ground, was turned into a serpent, but when held by the tail turned back again into a rod, signified the power of the divine majesty descending from heaven, which willed to be mortal for us; but when the dispensation of the flesh he had taken was completed, it returned into a rod and withdrew to the right hand of the Father's majesty. Of Jonah, finally, whom the fish swallowed and spat out unharmed, we have the clear saying of the Lord himself: that as he was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so the Son of Man would be in the heart of the earth. These, brothers, are the most holy paschal joys of this day; these the longed-for and proclaimed solemnities, which we ought always to venerate with our whole soul and to imitate, as that most blessed apostle John says: “Whoever says he abides in Christ ought himself to walk as he walked.” Christ indeed was crucified for us for a time; we must take up the cross daily and follow him. He tasted death for an hour; we ought always to put to death our members that are on earth. He rose from the dead; we ought to rise from vices, as the Apostle says: “Rise, you who sleep, and Christ will give you light.” Let us, then, become like him in all things, so that when Christ our life appears, we too may appear with him in glory, etc. The end.

Divine providence willed, dearly beloved, that the sacrament of the Lord's resurrection should be foreshadowed several times by various figures of things and by oracles of the prophets, so that through all the ages of the passing world the whole hope of the saints might tend toward him alone who is the expectation of all nations. Hence the fact that at the very beginning of the newborn world Eve, the mother of all the living, was brought forth from the rib of the sleeping man shows that the Church, the mother of believers, arose from the side of Christ dying on the cross; just as in the act of Adam awakening there is a figure of the Lord rising from death. That is why the Apostle says: “The first man became a living soul, the second man a life-giving spirit.” Noah, who in the work of the ark and by his very name signifies the rest of God in the saints, represents the figure of our Redeemer most of all in this: that, being a farmer, he planted a vineyard, and, made drunk with a cup of wine, was uncovered in his tent. This refers properly to him who was so made drunk with the cup of the passion that he was stripped for a time of the very covering of his body, and at once, awaking in the resurrection, gave a blessing to those who venerate his passion in mystery, and a fitting curse to those who mocked him. Of this cup the Psalmist says: “My cup that inebriates, how splendid it is!” and the Lord in the Gospel: “The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?” The rod of Moses too, thrown on the ground and turned into a serpent, when held by the tail returned again into a rod; because that power of the divine majesty, descending from heaven to earth, willed to be mortal for us; but after the dispensation of the flesh he had taken was completed, he withdrew to the seat at the Father's right hand. Of Jonah, whom the fish swallowed and spat out unharmed onto dry land, we have the clear saying of the Lord himself, that as he was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so the Son of Man would be in the heart of the earth. There are very many other holy proclamations of this solemnity of solemnities, and the very reckoning of the seasons agrees with all of them, which assigned the paschal date to the spring equinox, the following full moon of the first month being awaited; so that, as the sun, advancing from the lower regions to the height, now first equals the nights in length, and the moon too by its daily increase appears at its fullest, so the Sun of righteousness, rising from the underworld, might illuminate with his light the Church, until then set in darkness. These are the most holy paschal joys of this day; these the solemnities longed for and proclaimed in all ages, which it is right for us always to venerate in mind and always to imitate in deed as far as we can, as the apostle John says: “Whoever says he abides in Christ ought himself to walk as he walked.” And he indeed was crucified for us for a time; we must take up the cross daily and follow him. He tasted death for an hour; we ought always to put to death our members that are on earth, sexual immorality, impurity, and so on. He rose from the dead; we are commanded to rise from vices, as the Apostle says: “Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” And if now we crucify our flesh with its vices and desires, and are planted together in the likeness of his death by the mortifying of vices, when Christ our life appears, we too shall appear with him in glory; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

So, brothers, no small price for our redemption has been paid by the Lord our God. So he who for the salvation of the mortal men he had created hung nailed on the tree, who bore death, and who rested in the tomb, has risen alive again from the underworld. Rejoice, then, and be glad, O Zion, in this most holy celebration of so great a day; for when Christ our Lord returned from the underworld to the world above, he made us pass from death to life. For we who by the original guilt of our origin had been condemned to death have now by his death been called back to our former innocence. We who by our sins had deserved the punishments of hell have been called back by his most precious death to the joys of eternal blessedness. We who were vessels of wrath through Adam's transgression have now, because of his resurrection, become citizens with the saints. Wonderful indeed is the love of our Saviour, which, to raise up the weak and call the fallen back to life, chose death for them. Who, then, does not exult in so great a joy of this day? Who does not rejoice with continued gladness on this day which the Lord has made? Heaven rejoices, the whole earth is glad, as it beholds its Creator and Redeemer returning from the underworld with death conquered. The whole multitude of angels rejoices, because by the death of their eternal King all the malice of the devil's fraud has been overcome. The sun itself rejoices, and that mournful darkness with which it covered the whole world when its Lord and Creator died it today turns into gleaming with more joyful rays. Let us too, then, brothers, rejoice and be glad on this day which the Lord has made, we who, when we were far off, have been made near, and who in his resurrection hope for the future resurrection of our flesh too. Rightly, then, shall we rejoice, brothers … [A leaf is missing; then the conclusion runs thus:] Since, then, brothers, with no preceding merits we have been freed from the fire of Tartarus and the punishments of eternal death, let us so order our life that we may be able to reach that eternal homeland which our Saviour opened to us today, with his help, etc.

We ought to rejoice no less now, brothers, than we rejoiced yesterday: for though the dark night of the past has come between our joys, still it is the same day of holiness; though the evening darkness has divided the times, the Lord's blessedness still shines with unending light. For Christ, who enlightened us yesterday, also cherishes us today. For as the blessed Apostle says: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today.” For he has become a day for us. He has been begotten for us today, as David says in the person of God the Father: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” “Today,” he says, “I have begotten you”: that is, not that on a day he begot the Son, but that he begot the Son himself as day and light. When, then, Christ the only-begotten is begotten today, it is understood that in the Saviour's birth there was born not so much a man as a light, to shine for all and give light to all. And it is called “today” because, as a present and unfailing light, he holds all the ages in unending light, and by that very perpetuity of brightness it seems to be one day. That is why the holy prophet says: “A thousand years before your eyes are as one day.” Christ plainly is one day, because in him is the one eternity of the Godhead. And it is called “today” because with him past things do not slip away into old antiquity, nor do future things pass by in ignorance; but as a most powerful light he holds all, knows all, and possesses all as though having them in the present; because with him past things do not glide away nor are future things hidden. But at what time it was said to the Son, “Today I have begotten you,” we ought to know: not at the time when he was born of the Virgin Mary according to the flesh, nor at the time when according to the Godhead he proceeded from the mouth of God the Father, but at the time when he rose from the dead; for as the apostle Paul says: “Raising up the Lord Jesus Christ, as it is written in the psalm: You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” Rightly, then, is it called “today” when he flashed out from the black night of the underworld to the world above like a brilliant light. Rightly is he called day, whom the dark action of the Jews could not darken. Nor could he plainly receive the light better than “today,” he who gives both day and salvation to all the dead; who by the presence of today's life raised men dissolved by death in their old age. Let us rejoice, then, and exult on this day, on which the Lord brought us light, brought salvation, brought peace. Peace, I say, Christ brought us when he rose, because even when he was about to suffer he did not deny peace to the traitor disciple—how then will he embrace those who confess him, who so kissed the one who denied him? I would not have you think that the kiss of Judas Iscariot was given by the Lord except out of love, though he knew beforehand that he would be the traitor. He plainly knew it as a pledge of love; and so he did not refuse it; for it is a kind of kindness not to refuse last kisses to those who are about to perish, and to pay the final comfort to those we have loved. At the same time he wished to correct him by that very duty of love, so that, admonished by kindness, he might not desert the one who loved him, might not betray the one who kissed him; and so that kiss was given as though for the judgment of Judas: that if he amended, it would be a bond of peace for the disciple; if he betrayed, it would be a testimony of crime against the traitor. The Lord says, then: “Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” Where is the subtlety of the plots, where the hidden tricks? See, every secret of wickedness is caught out, and the betrayer is betrayed before he betrays. “With a kiss,” he says, “do you betray the Son of Man?”—that is, do you inflict a wound with a pledge of love, shed blood with a duty of affection, bring death with a sign of peace? I ask, what love is this? You offer a kiss, and threaten. These are not kisses but poisons, by which the servant betrays the master, the disciple the teacher, the chosen one the author [of his choosing].

Let us rejoice, then, and exult on this day, dearly beloved, which we venerate with yearly devotion. As it promises us life and glory in the future, so also in the past the causes and occasions of our salvation are born from it; and so he who is worshipped in order that he may have mercy has already had mercy. Made and restored by him, then, let us now exult the more eagerly in his benefits, because those days on which we are set free are better than those on which by being born we are brought into the dangers of this life. And so we read: “Your mercy is better than lives.” Better, then, are the days on which we are reborn to eternal life than those on which we are begotten into this temporal one. For the gifts of grace are greater than those of nature. In this twofold work of our God, there it is a matter of power, here of bounty; there power, here mercy is contained. By the first birth we enter earthly things; by the second we are prepared for heavenly ones. As the feasts of the present season remind us, so he who joined battle for the salvation of the world, as we read of the mighty Samson, killed more of his enemies in death than he had slain in life. A tradition of secular literature too relates that a certain man in the practice of wrestling had this kind of strength and power: that whenever, at his opponent's thrust, he touched the earth, the friend and nurse of his strength, he rose from the ground and prevailed more and more over his opponent; and so the throwing down of the one laid low became the occasion of his triumph. For weakness in a manner gave him strength, his fall the palm, his ruin victory. I think all this can be applied more justly to that heavenly athlete who is read to have wrestled against Jacob; I judge it suits his person more truly. For when in time he fought with the public enemy in the arena of the world, he acted so as to rise more gloriously; he fell so as to lift all up; poured out, he overwhelmed the adversary; laid low, he crushed him; cast down, he raised up man who lay fallen; and while he succumbed he dealt death its blow, and while he rose he raised up the dead. This is that angel who wrestled with Jacob by night, as we have it in Genesis: “And see, a man wrestled with him until morning; and when Jacob had prevailed, the angel said to him: Let me go, for the dawn is already rising. Jacob answered: I will not let you go unless you bless me. So the angel blessed him and said to him: If you have been strong against God, how much more will you prevail against men. And the angel touched the broad part of his thigh, and he limped on his foot.” What is this? The one who is conquered blesses; and he who believed he had conquered limps. In Jacob, then, the people of the Jews is recognized, in the angel Christ; and so that we may know that the Lord was in that angel, blessed Jacob himself says: “I have seen the Lord face to face, and my soul has been saved.” Jacob, then, prevailed as the angel gave way. The Jews too prevailed for a time in Christ's passion, fleeing in that night of the day, and striking him with all impiety; they prevailed when they crucified him; they prevailed when they killed him. Yet when Jacob had conquered, he recognized that he could be blessed by the conqueror, saying: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” What a mystery in the contest! He is thought the weaker, and is found fit to bestow a blessing. Christ plainly blessed his adversaries when he prayed even for those who killed him, saying: “Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they do.” The conquered one blessed, he who frees by suffering; the accused interceded, and the condemned absolved; because if his adversaries come to their senses, the slain one grants them redemption. What is it, too, that after that wrestling Jacob received a blessing and walks lame? For it says: “And the angel touched the broad part of his thigh, and he limped on his foot.” The broad part of the thigh is the multitude of the Jewish race. What is it, I say, that he limped on one foot? This: that of Jacob, that is, the nation of the Jews, when Christ rose, part believed and part remained in unbelief and limped from the paths of righteousness and life. And what the angel himself says, “Let me go, for the dawn is already rising,” indicated that he could be conquered by death but could not be held. But after that night put to flight by the light of the passion, he promises that the dawn of the resurrection will at once be given back. Who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

The venerable passion of our Saviour, and his wonderful return from the underworld, testify that he had a divine and a human substance. For who would doubt that he is, ineffably, Son of God and son of man, who could both suffer death and, having conquered death, raise himself from the tomb? For when he had taken flesh from the Virgin, so that we might suffer no cloud in the faith of our confession, through the whole time of his preaching he revealed himself as true God and showed himself as perfect man. He wept, indeed, as one grieving with our sorrow; but as one mighty in his own power, pitying the darkness of the blind, to one he made eyes not yet formed, to another he restored eyes that were lost. Sailing with his disciples, he slept the sleep of a man in the stern; but by the command of his conscious majesty he at once calmed the mass of the rising waves and the threatening winds with serene tranquillity. As a man of temporal life he very often testified that he would die; but as eternal God, the life-giving spirit flowing back into their bodies, he commanded the dead to return to the light. As to the son of man, the insults of blasphemers were heaped upon him; but so that ignorant mortality might learn the truth of believing that had not been shown it, the Father addressed him from heaven as his only Son. If, then, O man, you believe the indignities that Christ endured, why do you not rather believe the wonders that he performed? So, incomprehensibly, the flesh is in God and God in the flesh, that neither did the passion separate God from the man, nor through the man was God subjected to human passions. As to the announcement that the Son of God was born of a virgin: in so great a miracle human frailty must not waver, because we confess God, to whom every work is possible, as the author of this astonishing novelty. For blessed David, the Holy Spirit revealing it, sings of God's omnipotence, saying: “Whatever the Lord willed, he did in heaven and on earth.” He, then, who did what he willed, made a virgin conceive; he who did all things he willed did what would help us. “All things,” it says, “that God willed, he did.” Did he will to form the world from nothing? The accomplishment of so great a work was in his Word. Did he will to shape man from dust? Power was not lacking to so great a will. Did he will, at the very beginnings of heaven and earth, to bring forth woman from a man's body? At once from Adam's side came forth Eve, the mother of the human race. Did he will that human beings of both sexes be born from man and woman? By the law of his will, fruitfulness at his command filled the world. Did he will, as was said, that a virgin should give birth? And by the overshadowing of his majesty, with no loss to her virginal modesty, Christ came forth from Mary. And that is why the philosophers of the nations and the wise of the world, who want everything to be settled by their own disputation, while they discuss divine things with an earthly mind, become foolish in their wisdom and do not reach the fullness of truth. They labour, then, to hold this doctrine: that what they themselves cannot grasp, swelling with a proud spirit, they contend God either does not rightly will or cannot do. They are those who, as the Apostle says, “claiming to be wise, became fools”; and again, “they became futile in their thoughts.” For who is so mad as to seek human seed in that virginal conception, where a heavenly mystery is at work? With what folly is the common lot of mortals made a pretext in that kind of birth, when by the work of the Almighty a saving birth blossomed for the life of the perishing! But perhaps the faithless man comes forward and says: No one was ever born like that. No one indeed, because no one's flesh but this has been united with God. Why do you doubt in vain? He who alone granted men to be born through spouses alone willed to come forth from a virgin. Christ was born wonderfully, and in faithless obstinacy you do not believe him God? What would you do if he had been conceived by the common law? Empty and foolish, then, is the complaint that no one was so born, since the sacrament of the fruitful virgin, which is the unique work of God, could neither have an example before it nor leave one after it. So you too, brother, if you search wisely into things beyond comprehension, believe that what you see to be unique is divine. Indeed, when the Saviour asked his disciples who men believed him to be, most blessed Peter then answered with a sacred voice, saying: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” See, brothers, a man's tongue speaks what a man's heart did not know. The apostle speaks what he did not learn by meditation but knew by revelation. For how would an earthly and mortal man know the secret of the incomprehensible generation, had not the Father himself, whose true Son he was, revealed it from heaven? As the Lord says to him: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” For in that the chief of the apostles calls the Redeemer of all the Son of the living God, he confesses in him the substance of the Father's Godhead; in that he declares him the Christ, he asserts that the reality of his mother's body is in him. So indeed most blessed Peter embraced both natures in Christ under one name, so that, touching the sacrament of an ineffable mystery in the briefest word, he neither divided what was twofold nor confused what was united. And so that we might more fully grasp that in the Saviour neither is the man to be separated from God nor God from the man, the most glorious teacher of the faith, the apostle Paul, says: “God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” The Son of God was certainly not made so that he might be sent; but for that to which he was sent he was made son of man. For, the property of the divine nature being kept intact, he took human nature into himself, with no confusion made, but a perfect union. “He sent his Son,” it says: he sent him, not subject to the condition of a creature, but in natural love of one accord with him. For the Lord himself says: “I and the Father are one.” Those, then, who are one cannot differ from each other in unequal power. The Father sent his own Son, not departing from himself, but coming to us for our salvation. And the Son of God came, not only to carry out the command of the Father who sent him, but to accomplish their common will. The Son of God came, not as one who passes from place to place, but fulfilling the task of his purpose in whatever place he wished. And indeed, though God is always everywhere and encloses all things in the bosom of his majesty, he is believed to go or come there where he deigns to reveal himself. Unless you follow these things by faith, brother, you will grasp them by no reasoning of worldly sense. For the understanding of mortal wit is as far from the works of God as mortality can be distant from eternity. But the best reasoning for a man is that in things he cannot embrace with the mind he yields to the author of the mind. We ought to know, then, dearly beloved, that it was not his condition but his will that gave us the Lord's birth and passion. Doubtless the cause of our business required that Christ the Lord not avoid the shame of a woman's womb, should endure an infancy soiled in swaddling clothes, wait through delays for a growing boyhood, pass a youth strengthening with time, and bear with all patience the injuries and blows of Jewish fury. Nor was it a superfluous or empty will that the Son of God, who lived in the heavenly kingdom in his Father's Godhead, should die on earth in the matter of humanity through the disgraces of such great sufferings, had not the necessity of our remedy demanded that he be born. What has God to do with flesh? The spotless with a cross? The eternal with death? Indeed the words and wounds and all the reproaches of the passion inflicted on the Son of God would be counted against him, had not the resurrection soon followed and healed all that he suffered. Who, then, is so foolish as to presume, by reconsidering it, to discredit the fact that Christ was crucified, who by so many powers and such great miracles was made more wonderful by his passion? Who would dare to reproach him with a three-day burial, whose eternity, abiding with the everlasting Father, is proclaimed? Rather, who would not marvel with all astonishment that he deigned to go to the underworld, who by his own power could both return to life after death and did not hesitate to ascend to heaven after the underworld? And so, brothers, this one thing is saving for us: that, measuring ourselves and chastening the narrowness of our breast, which offers itself beyond measure, we follow in all things the will of the true God, whose power we acknowledge; who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

On the paschal feast, dearest brothers, on which we exult that our Lord has returned from the underworld, our joy is shared with heaven. For the angels rejoice that the enemy of their Lord, the tyrant of the heavenly empire, has been destroyed by the power of the lawful and eternal King. We too, mortal and weak men, glory in the gift of the Lord's passion, that we have at last put off slavery to the devil and been called back into the freedom of living and into the right of the Father's love. This is surely what blessed David says: “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult.” One and the same joy has plainly been made for heavenly and earthly beings, because one and the same is the Lord who conquered on earth and who reigns in heaven. And again the same: “This,” he says, “is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it.” He says, “This is the day which the Lord has made,” as though there were some day God had not made? The Lord has given every day, but this one he made specially, which, shining with perpetual light, admits no alternation of darkness. This is the day which, scattering the cloud of crimes, beams the light of perpetuity on the darkened eyes of mortals. This is the day on which the Lord of life terrified the underworld—raging death, terrible with the horror of eternal night—with the new and unexpected brightness of his majesty. “Let us exult,” says the prophetic word, “and rejoice in it”; as if it were not enough to have said “let us exult” without adding “and rejoice.” But prophetic foreknowledge doubles for us the words of spiritual joys for this reason: so that, all the grief of most sorrowful death wiped away, it might proclaim the gladness both of the present life and of the future. Let us exult now, then, as redeemed, so that afterwards we may rejoice as saved. Let us exult as the Lord rises, so that we may rejoice as the same Lord reigns. And we shall rightly rejoice, brothers, if the gifts of true faith, the redemption already given, and the resurrection promised gladden us. But why, dearly beloved, should we doubt the benefits of the Almighty? Was it without reason that he was made man of a woman, who was born God of God incomprehensibly? Was it in vain that he willed to cry in the cradle, who makes earth and heaven tremble with the terrifying voices of his thunders? Was it to no purpose that he wept, who enriched a man blind from birth with new eyes by the power of his spittle? Was it idly that he was given vinegar to drink and fed with gall, who could provide streams from the rock in the vast wilderness for the thirsty and manna from heaven for the hungry? Is his passion empty, who in the unsearchable secret of his will came down from heavenly things to the cross? And so we, who by the grossness of our carnal mind cannot grasp the mysteries of his passion, let us hold by the belief of right faith what he has bestowed. And we shall hold and take the gifts of his glory if faith guards our life and our life does not disagree with faith. And as he willed to please us by dying, so let us be eager not to displease him by living; by the gift of him who with the Father, etc.

Most justly, brothers, the world exults today with a universal joy, since, with Christ returning from the dead, the hope of rising has dawned for all mortals everywhere. And it must be that, as the Lord of creatures triumphs, the creation enlightened by him should rejoice. So heaven rejoices, because it sees the earth, long filthy with sins, cleansed by its Lord's blood; the multitude of the heavenly host rejoices, because by the conflict of its King all the army of the enemy prince has been defeated. The sun too rejoices, because it puts down with brighter rays and lasting gladness that mournful darkness which it endured when the Lord was dying. Among these, dearly beloved, it is fitting that we especially should exult, for whose sake the Only-begotten of God, himself God, put on human flesh, so that through man's flesh he might come to the cross, through the cross undergo death, through death plunder the underworld. Should we not rejoice, from whom by the sacrament of a new mystery sins are taken away, heaven is given, paradise restored? Indeed, to the thief then hanging on the cross, when neither his own punishment nor Christ's disturbed his faith, the Lord himself said: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”; for the thief was saying: “Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom.” How wonderful is this faith, brothers, that a thief who did not deserve to keep the present life should, amid his punishments, take up the hope of eternity, and believe that it could be granted him by one crucified! And how justly did the faithful thief receive the gift of so great a promise, who confessed Christ's kingdom at the moment when even the apostles were troubled! And so the merit of one confession absolved all the thief's former crimes, and whatever he had sinned through a long life he blotted out with a very short word. Nor did the blood of his brigandage condemn him before God, because he believed Christ's blood to be a kingdom, not a punishment. There is no doubt, dearly beloved, that this deed has profited the whole human race. For who would despair of God's grace when a thief has been absolved, if only the thief's belief accompanies the prayers of those who pray? We have also another magnificent example of the Lord's kindness, by which, putting off all fear of deadly despair, we may trust in the ineffable indulgence of our Redeemer. For when Christ, condemned by the impious, hung on the cross, and Jewish fury mocked the crucified, he, as a kind advocate, amid his very wounds prayed to the almighty Father for his killers, saying: “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they do”; and though the judgment of the living and the dead was in his hand, he still begged pardon for those who were perishing; but for this reason, I think: to show beyond doubt both that he himself forgave so wicked an offence, and that those whom he spared would not be condemned by his Father, provided that, repudiating their faithlessness, they came over to the name of Christ. For who would hesitate indeed about the outcome of the petition, where the Good asks a remedy for the wretched from the Good? “They do not know,” he says, “what they do.” The Jews knew indeed that they were shedding innocent blood, but they did not know that the sins of all were blotted out by that blood. They knew that they were punishing Christ with the bitterest torment of the cross, but they did not know that the Son of God was triumphing through the cross. They knew that he would die, but they did not know that he would return from the dead. Hence it was excellently said by the Lord: “They do not know what they do.” The Jews certainly did not know of how great a kindness their impiety was the instrument. But the Lord, conscious of his own power, pitying human errors, and knowing most fully what and how great joys would follow those torments, kindly absolved the crime of those who crucified him even amid his torments, and willed his death to be the life of his killers, and the condemnation [of death] to be the killing of it. Returning from the underworld, he so sought out his apostles as to show that he had both the power of Godhead and the reality of flesh. And so, dearest brothers, let us rejoice as Christ rises from the dead, and let us believe that he called back his own flesh from the underworld, so that we may merit both the apostolic grace and the longed-for fellowship of the Lord's resurrection.

The feast of the Lord's resurrection returns to us yearly, dearest brothers; but where there is truth of religion, the sacrament is always new to the faithful, as most blessed Paul says: “The old things have passed away; all things have become new.” And rightly the Son of God must always be believed new, who feels no aging of passing times. He is new, brothers, in whom there is no change of age, nor has he ever known to be other than he was born. For God proceeding from God, as he has no time of birth, so he cannot have an end of living, as the most glorious patriarch David says to him: “But you are always the same, and your years will not fail.” And not only is the man Christ himself, who has been made one with God, always new; but he is always seen to renew the declining old age of the human race by the warmth of spiritual waters and the nourishment of heavenly faith, as blessed David says: “Send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” The face of the earth, man, is surely renewed when, putting off the old captivity of the devil, he puts on the new freedom of the new King. For it is the saying of the Lord himself: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” And rightly, dearly beloved, the Son of God alone frees sinners, because he alone is free from sin, as he deigned to testify of himself through the prophet, saying: “I have become as a man without help, free among the dead.” He seemed indeed to have become without help when Jewish fury received the power to rage against him. But he stood free among the dead, because among all mortals he alone had no causes of dying. Therefore death, conquered by him, could not hold him as he rose. See, dearly beloved, how great a mystery is in Christ's humility: that, though he is eternal from the eternal and Lord of the universe, he accomplishes the freedom of his servants. He rejoices in injuries, exults in reproaches, and his whole triumph is on the cross; and by a wonderful kind of remedy he overcomes the devil by suffering and gives life to man by dying. All these things the Only-begotten undertook for us out of kindness, endured by power, accomplished by humility. Of this humility the prophet Isaiah says: “As a lamb before its shearer is without voice, so he did not open his mouth in his humility.” How fine this comparison is, brothers, and how suited to the truth! For as a lamb, when it is sheared, does not know how to cry out against the shearer, so Christ, when he was crucified, did not resist the one who wounded him. The lamb is stripped and is silent; Christ is killed and keeps quiet. The silence of the lamb, its woolly fleece shorn, clothes man; the silence of Christ weaves garments of eternal salvation for all believers. “He did not open his mouth,” it says, “in his humility”: that is, that Christ was silent amid reproaches and curses was not a matter of wretchedness but of power. For with this purpose the Son of God came to redeem the world: to triumph over the proud by humility, over the obstinate by modesty, over the cursing by silence. So indeed we read: “When he was cursed, he did not curse.” There is no doubt about this, brothers, for he knew how to answer cursing with true blessing; nor could he be moved by earthly curses who had come to bestow blessings from heaven. And rightly Christ, the Wisdom of God, returned no curses to those who cursed, because every curse, beaten back by patience, returns upon its author. So Christ humbled himself, as the Apostle says, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. He humbles himself even to death on a cross, so that the heavenly victim might not succumb to some cheap and ordinary death, but that, as mediator of God and men, he might accomplish the sacrament of the death he had undertaken midway between heaven and earth. So the Author of life died by our condition, so that we might live by his privilege. The Son of God was crucified, then, not so that the cross might defile Christ, but so that by the sacrament of Christ the cross might become the badge of our victory. Indeed, all of us who rejoice in confessing Christ glory in the sign of the cross. Nor can anyone be counted in the Christian army unless he has raised the standard of the Crucified with a faithful hand. Because of this death of the cross, as we read, the Almighty exalted his Christ and gave him a name above every name. He gave him a name above every name when he handed over heavenly things to his rule and power and subjected the world and the underworld to him, as the Saviour himself says: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father in heaven and on earth.” Does he not seem to hold dominion over all things, to have the principate, whom, as we read, every creature, bending the knee, trembles before and looks up to as ruler? Indeed, some nations now, though they differ among themselves in way of life and variety of languages, still agree with one mouth in confessing Christ; and though some of them, by a very bad persuasion, differ from us about his Godhead, yet they confess with us both that he suffered and that he returned from the dead. And so, dearly beloved, believing the resurrection and kingdom of Christ, let us rejoice with chaste minds and holy devotion, so that by faith and works we may prove that we do not disbelieve what the whole world believes.

The foremost of the prophets, most blessed Isaiah, who thundered forth the mysteries of the Lord's birth and resurrection, says among other things: “Rejoice, O heaven, and let the earth exult; let the mountains break forth into gladness and the hills into righteousness, because God has had mercy on his people and has comforted the lowly of his people.” This proclamation, brothers, belongs most of all to these days and foretells the paschal feast, as we notice from the sequence of the reading itself and learn from what follows. Rightly, then, are the heavenly beings now called to all joy, when the Only-begotten of the Most High, having broken the gates of hell and cast down the devil, brought the joys of blessed eternity to most sorrowful mortals. How could heaven not rejoice, when it saw its Lord, the battle for our salvation finished, sitting as victor at the seat of his majesty and at the right hand of the Father? Heaven rejoices that its Lord, having fulfilled the purpose of the Father's will, has by the merit of his triumph received the kingdom of the universe. “Rejoice,” it says, “O heaven, and let the earth exult.” The earth of the human race surely exults, which, sprinkled with the blood of the heavenly Lamb, is not only restored to paradise but called to heaven to reign with the Lord. Let our flesh exult too, which truly is earth, since, glorified through Christ, it has merited fellowship with the Godhead. “Let the mountains,” it says, “break forth into gladness, and the hills into righteousness.” These mountains and hills that are roused to joy we may not unfittingly take to mean the patriarchs, as we read also in holy David: “You shine wonderfully from the everlasting mountains”; and elsewhere: “The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like lambs of the flock.” And rightly are all the righteous called mountains and hills, who, leaving the lowly things of earthly conduct, have raised the summit of their faith to the heights of heavenly life. Most justly, then, are the venerable patriarchs urged by the prophetic word to take up gladness, whose offspring, that is, Christ the Lord, by the mystery of his death and resurrection poured back lost life even on the fathers of the past age. The patriarchs rejoice in every way, from whose stock the Son of God was born, who wiped clean with the new blood of his spotless body the whole face of the world, long soiled by devilish impieties. And so, brothers, since we know that heaven rejoices, the earth exults, mountains and hills are glad, let us too bring religious joys to our God; let us celebrate the Lord's Passover, as the Apostle says: “Not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and chastity.” You will celebrate the Passover, brother, with the unleavened bread of sincerity and chastity, if your senses, fragrant with the Lord's bread, are joined together with no leaven of vices and no sprinkling of the devil. You will celebrate the Passover and shine with the splendour of its brightness if in your heart no darkness of adulterous thought obscures the light of so great a sacrament. You will celebrate the Passover with the unleavened bread of truth if you come to God's Church chaste, sober, just, peaceable, full of brotherly love. For no one can, with an unamended life and an unrepentant heart, both have fellowship in crimes with the devil and celebrate the mystery of holiness with Christ. Let us, then, put away all the leaven of iniquity, so that we may truly be partakers of this joy, to which, by the Holy Spirit, through the prophetic voice, the mountains and hills are called together, to which also heaven and earth are invited. For who is so stupefied in dull sense? Who, his eyes sunk in the earth, is so blinded in a darkened mind that he does not celebrate with all exultation these prayers of the whole world, in which forgiveness of sins, the grace of regeneration, the mystery of redemption, the glory of resurrection, and the hope of eternity smile upon us?

The mystery of our redemption, dearest brothers, which, coming from heaven, works our salvation on earth, carries itself with such majesty and such condescension that its power and truth are hidden from the faithless and plain to believers. For as what is holy becomes known to the faithful, so faithlessness cannot see the matter of faith. For in examining heavenly things all human wisdom is made foolish, and every mortal heart grows numb, as the most glorious teacher, the apostle Paul, says: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” Our Lord and Saviour himself also, rejecting the wisdom of this world, said: “I thank you, Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones.” Learn, then, from this, brothers, that the sacraments of our life are not to be attained by philosophical doctrines but to be believed with the simplicity of little ones, because by that deep and great judgment of our God what is hidden from the wise is revealed to the little one. For he is called a little one, not whose age is immature, but who does not know how to oppose the divine mysteries. And rightly is he named a little one who prepares not arguments against the will of his God, but faith. It is hidden, then, from the wise man, so that he does not see what is plain, because, proudly and imprudently puffed up, he contends that he knows more than God can do. And so, rejecting the questions of worldly wisdom, let us hold the faith that is revealed to little ones, believing without hesitation that a virgin conceived by heavenly working and, having borne a son, remained a virgin after the birth. Nor let us doubt that he was born of a virgin, whom only virginity could worthily bring forth. And this, dearly beloved, is where we differ from the wise of this world: that they, in their immoderate disputations, despise in Christ the lowliness of a woman's childbearing, while we, enlightened by faith, look up to the sacrament of the virginal womb. For Christ, our God and Lord, so bound together in himself, in an ineffable union, what he had from the Father and what he took from his mother, that the simplicity of little ones might look into the depth of his incarnation, while the prudence of the wise was driven far off. Then, to come to what follows, the pagans laugh that Christ was crucified, not attending to the fact that through his cross the world trembled, the day was shut, and—what had happened in no ages before—the underworld saw the Lord of heaven. They add, saying: How is your Christ worshipped by you as God, who was afraid to die? If, then, you know that Christ was afraid to die, why do you not know that his fearing was a matter not of cowardice but of mystery? Christ was indeed afraid, but that he might either wish or be able to fear, he took it from the weakness of our body. For he was afraid by that by which he also hungered, by which he was sad, by which he slept, by which he grieved, by which he wept. What is this? You see Christ fearing to die, and do not see him with triumphant hand stripping the spoils of captive death? You see that he feared death, and refuse to see that he raised the dead? That he, having passed through the underworld, gave life back to himself after the tomb? Do not despise him dead, then, who glorifies his burial by his resurrection. For from his mother he drew that by which he underwent death; from the Father he brought that by which he raised the dead. Rising from the underworld, to show that the reality of his raised body was in him, he said to his disciples: “Touch and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” He showed his bones and flesh, so that no one might doubt that the one who had been pierced with nails on the tree had himself returned from the tomb. “Touch,” he says, “and see”: that is, touch with the hand, see with faith, that there is in me both the reality of my body and the property of the Godhead. “A spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have”: that is, it is not of nature that a spirit can have bones or flesh; but by my mystery, by my power and my Father's, it has come about that my flesh in the spirit and the spirit in the flesh always stand inseparable in me. See, then, see, that it is I myself, who, pierced with nails and lance, feared death and did not fear it; who healed my wounds not by the skill of medical art but by dying; who kept the marks of the nails in my body not for myself but for your faith. For I willed not to blot out in myself the memory of that saving passion, so that the truth of my resurrection might remain in your hearts. And so, brothers, let us honour the mystery of the dying Lord, so that we may receive the glory of the rising one. Let us venerate the crucified, so that we may merit to see him reigning. For he chose to die, not so that the underworld might claim him for itself, but so that he might free the dead from the dead.

The depths of the heavenly will and disposition, dearest brothers, unless we follow them by faith, throw human understanding into confusion; and in the greatness of the divine works, unless we were held in awe by the will of almighty God, the reasoning of mortal wit gives way as though weak. And so the things God does are not to be probed with words but believed with devotion. For in Christ our Lord the sacraments of God and man so come together that, under a kind of twofold working, both lowliness shines in his majesty and majesty reigns in his lowliness. For Christ himself, under the unity of a diverse substance, through the mysteries of our redemption, was a mighty man and a lowly God; but according to the purpose of his glory, the lowliness of God is man, and the might of the man is God. God is indeed called lowly where, bending the prerogative of his own Godhead, he allowed his body to be fixed to the cross while the world itself mourned; and the man is mighty in his God when at the command of his word infirmities depart, health returns to the sick, unclean spirits flee, and angels obey. Since, then, this new man has such power, we ought to notice that all that lowliness of God is the kindness of condescension, not the destruction of power. Through this most sacred mystery of the incarnation, flesh and the Word so came together into one Lord and one person that God is thought to have been born of a woman and man is believed to have come from heaven, as the Saviour says: “No one has ascended into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.” I ask now: how did Christ, before his passion, when he had not yet been glorified and hastened to the Father, say that he was in heaven, and had ascended and descended from heaven? How, brothers, unless because the son of man was the Son of God? Nor can we confess either the man apart without God or God apart without the man. Does not the man seem to have passed beyond heaven when in the Virgin's womb he was united to the Word of God? And to have come down from heaven when, claiming nothing for himself of his native majesty, he handed over his man to the penal passion? And so Christ was in heaven when by heavenly power he did wonderful things; he was nonetheless also on earth when, meek and lowly, he suffered earthly injuries through the impious. Hence it was too that, when among the disputing Jews differing opinion about the Lord boiled among the people …, one despised him as a man, another marvelled at him as God. Hence it was that some crucified him, others worshipped him; as also the thieves crucified with him: one, faithless, reviled him as a partner in punishment; the other, perceiving him as God, prayed to him. And so, brothers, because there was then at once in Christ both the dominion of one who reigns and the service of one who serves … For though he was in the form of God, as the apostle Paul teaches, he put on the form of a slave. Christ was indeed in the form of God when, by turning water into wine, he revealed himself as Lord of creatures. He was in the form of God when at his command demons were driven, protesting, from the bodies they had possessed and from their old seats. He was in the form of God when in the midst of the waves the water, made solid, served his venerable footsteps—though not without fear. But he was in the form of a slave when, wearied by the fatigue of the journey, he sat as though resting on the mouth of the well. He acted the form of a slave when the impious, insulting him, spat on him the spittle of their filthiest mouths. He had taken the form of a slave when he did not turn away his face, which believers trembled to look upon, from the slaps and blows of those who mocked him; and—what was most shameful for those who truly are slaves to endure—he even bent his shoulders, with which he had come to carry our sins, to the hands of those who scourged him. He was surely as a slave when a crown of thorns, woven by the hands of his enemies, disfigured his saving head. So, brothers, since one and the same Son of God did wonders and endured what is to be wept for, one and the same was both slave and Lord. For he could do all as Lord and suffered all as slave. But now let us see by what powers and by what steps especially he who was a slave confirmed to his disciples that he was God. First of all, the indispensable servant of the most faithful centurion, when he was pressed by a deadly illness, he, asked by his master, cured, absent the absent, sending health as truly God; and that sick man, lying bodily rather far off and whom he did not see, he visited with the eye of his Godhead. Then the only son of a pitiable widow, when he was being carried on the bier to the tomb for burial, he raised by the command of his life-giving authority and restored at once to life and to his mother in the midst of the crowds, with death itself as witness. After this, when the ruler of the priests begged for the life of his daughter, he who had given life to her at birth brought back the dead girl's soul into her own body. And so that no suspicion of collusion might remain among the impious concerning the miracles of these more recent deaths, and it be thought that those so quickly raised had not been dead, he goes to the tomb of blessed Lazarus, who, four days dead and stinking, and bound besides with bands, as is the custom, leapt out at the command of Christ calling him and at once became his Lord's partner in conversation and a guest in the fellowship of his table. All these things were done, dearly beloved, so that no one at all should dispute the return from the underworld of him who was proved to have raised the dead with such glory. And so let us believe the Lord our God, who does such astonishing wonders. Let us love him who confers such great benefits on us, raising the dead. Let us venerate him rising from the underworld; let us worship and adore him also seated at the Father's right hand, and with all devotion serve him who will come as judge of the living and the dead; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, etc.

With very religious joys and devout gladness, dearest brothers, we must celebrate the feast of today's mystery, because Christ our Lord—to whom at the beginning of his combat the tempter said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread”—today, entering heaven, strengthens every believer with the defence of the living stone and gives life with the refreshment of the heavenly bread. And as the contriver of all deceit probed him, saying, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,” he not only did not fall down, but, taking the wings of eternal glory, flew as victor over his rival to heaven. For he ascended, as it is written, upon the cherubim, and flew; he flew upon the wings of the winds. And he to whom the devil then promised the kingdoms and powers of the world if he would worship him, despising the vanity of the tempter, received dominion over the world and the everlasting rule of heaven, as he himself says: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father in heaven and on earth.” And not undeservedly was he rewarded with a most blessed kingdom, who, bearing the mind of a lawful king, despised the promises of a tyrant. So, with great and incomprehensible miracles proved, the mysteries and powers of Christ grow for us. For he whom a mother's womb brought forth by human increments for the use of the present life, united to the unbegotten Father, has sat down at his right hand as everlasting ruler; and he whom the impious voice of persecutors on earth blasphemed, the unwearied praise of obedient angels now celebrates, as it is written: “His praise endures for ever and ever.” Let us rejoice, then, brothers, and exult in the Lord, because today Christ, passing beyond the heights of heaven, ascended to the unthinkable majesty of the Father's throne, and set in the angelic homeland man, whom the envy of the malicious enemy had driven from that first dwelling of paradise and, cast down into this ruin of the world, had made a stranger; and he made the exile from paradise a citizen of heaven. For this reason, dearly beloved, we must rejoice with immense gratitude, because those whom the tempter dashed down, the Saviour raised up; and those whom the devil's sin had bound, the grace of Christ set free; as most blessed Paul the apostle says: “Where sin abounded, grace abounded still more.” Truly superabounding grace, which transferred ruined man from death to life and turned punishment into reward. For what greater reward can there really be for a sinner than that for his sake the Only-begotten of God put on flesh, bore the cross, deigned to be buried, did not shrink from the underworld, and, condemning the very author of the offence, carried the man he had taken up into heaven? Consider, then, dearly beloved, that the fault profited man more than it harmed him; for he who, humbled by the law of transgression, had as a captive put his neck under the devil's yoke, escaped all the chains of tyrannical captivity by being captured by the Son of God. As venerable David says of the Lord our Redeemer himself: “Ascending on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men.” What profit, then, is it to us if the Lord led our captivity captive on high, and would not allow what had been captured by the devil to be captive? It profits us in every way, dearly beloved, and profits us inestimably, because in the devil's capture slavery is hard, and in Christ's captivity freedom is blessed. Nor is there doubt that everyone captured by the devil, handed over to the darkness of hell, is always in mourning, while Christ's captive exults in the light of the heavenly kingdom. Blessed David says, then: “He led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men.” See and notice how good it is for us to be Christ's captives, who not only grants his captives eternal freedom but also bestows the ineffable gifts of heavenly rewards. That is why in another place the patriarch sings: “Turn, O Lord, our captivity, like a torrent in the south.” “Turn,” he says, not “turn away”: that is, grant, O Lord, that we who have long been captured by the devil may at last merit to be your captives. For we know that to be subject to the devil is a most bitter and insatiable condition, but to serve you, O Lord, is delight. Nor is this doubtful, brothers, for the Lord himself says: “My yoke is sweet and my burden light.” Therefore, bursting the chains of unbelief and throwing the devil's yoke from our necks, let us with all devotion submit our necks to the Lord's rule, because the yoke of the Gospel and captivity to Christ bring great sweetness to believers. Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, etc.

The mystery of the Lord's Ascension, dearest brothers, has established for us the feast of this day, so that we may rejoice that the Only-begotten of God, whom we are glad came to earth for the redemption of all, has entered heaven for our eternity; for this is the truth of saving faith, that we do not deny the glory of him whose passion we believe. Nor is it a matter of great wonder that he who came from heaven returns to heaven, but that he carried to the Father the man whom he took from the earth. Most blessed David says: “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult”; there is no doubt that he sang this of the sacrament of Christ: for the earth exults, which sees its Redeemer reigning in the heavens; heaven is glad, because it has not lost its God whom it had, and has received the man whom it did not have. The earth rejoices that the Son of God came down from heaven; but heaven exults no less that the Son of Man has ascended from earth. “He sat,” it says, “at the right hand of the Father.” How necessary it was, dearly beloved, that man's flesh, which had long been captive under the dominion of sin, should receive the freedom of living there where guilt cannot pass! The Saviour, then, ascended to the Father, both that he himself might take possession of the rule that was his due and that the hope of the promised eternity might remain whole for us. Nor should we doubt, brothers, this ascent of the Lord whom we preach. For if Elijah, once God's servant, for the merits of his chastity and faith was lifted up to heaven in a fiery chariot with horses of fire, why should we not believe with all devotion that our Christ could pass beyond the heavens, who is both the Word and the will of the everlasting Father? Of him indeed it was said by the Holy Spirit: “Kingdoms of the earth, sing psalms to the Lord, who ascended above the heaven of heavens toward the east”; and again: “The Lord has prepared his throne in heaven, and his kingdom will rule over all”; and elsewhere: “The Lord ascended above the heavens and thunders.” Or how could he not be received into heaven who was calling the human race to heaven? Let us exult, then, dearly beloved, and rejoice, because we know that our Redeemer is there whence he can both watch over and govern all things, and because he has placed man, snatched from the underworld, there where no tree of the knowledge of good and evil holds out deadly fruit, but the fullness of saving and simple goodness dwells.

How great and how unsearchable in his works the almighty Only-begotten of God is, the greatness of his ineffable mysteries declares: he who, having taken up the battle against the prince of the world, by fighting in man and conquering through man, made the inhabitant of heaven lord of the earth. He also exposed that body of our lowliness, which he took, fragile, from a woman, to the various injuries of persecutors, and even allowed it to be fixed to the cross; and today, the eternal gates being lifted, he carried it with him to the Father. Indeed, through the teaching of blessed David we have learned that these things were foretold to mortals as the powers of heaven conversed among themselves. For he says: “Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall come in.” Rightly, dearly beloved, were the everlasting gates lifted, because a wonderful entrance to the heights was being prepared for the most glorious King and Lord of eternity. It is announced, then, through the patriarch who was also a prophet, that the everlasting gates were lifted, so that we may notice that, with Christ going before, heaven now lies open to mortals. Those gates will lie open, dearly beloved, to the faithful, and will always lie open, which the Saviour, going ahead to the Father after conquering death and triumphing over the devil, opened. And to those who marvel and ask who this King of glory is, the answer is given at once: “The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” Mighty, then, because strong. And so indeed is that power to be proclaimed which rests not on others' strength but stands in all things by its own might; which our Lord and Redeemer did not usurp by ambition, did not buy by trading in gifts, did not seek by any flattery, but possessed by perfect and simple virtue. For because he was obedient to the Father unto the death of the cross, as the Apostle says, “he gave him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.” For when it says here, “The Lord strong and mighty,” it is not a second power of Christ from the Father that is praised, but the unconquered strength of the new man. For it was no great thing for him to be called strong through whom all things were created and who proceeded almighty from the Almighty. “Strong,” then, “and mighty in battle” is the Lord. Strong, not because he mightily killed his enemies, but because he was patiently killed for us. Mighty, because amid the reproaches and torments of his sufferings, conscious of so great power in himself, he would not display his might, so that he might fulfil the ministry of redemption. For “though he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” So he is strong, mighty, and glorious. Strong, while he is not conquered by the devil in the encounter. Mighty, while, about to subdue death, he broke the bars of the underworld. Glorious, while, having blotted out by his spotless blood the bond of our captivity drawn from the law, he ascended to the seat of the Father's glory, to be adored by all the powers of heaven. What, then, is the depth of this sacrament, how unsearchable the secret of the divine working, that he who came forth from the Father before the ages and he who came forth from a woman at the end of the times became one God? And this for this reason: that, since the Only-begotten was undivided from the Father, man might have in the Only-begotten of God a sharing in the Father's immortality. Therefore, brothers, let us so confess that the Lord ascended into heaven as not to believe that we have been left without him, because at the moment of his ascension he said to the apostles: “See, I am with you all days until the consummation of the age.” For he who so descended from the Father as to remain inseparable with the Father has surely so ascended from earth to heaven as not to leave the world. For such is the omnipotence of our God, such and so unlimited his power, that every creature everywhere has him present because of his immensity. To him be honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, about to depart from this region of the shadow of death, so as to console his apostles, whom he had earlier taught as most beloved in faith, for his necessary absence, [promised] the Holy Spirit, who has one and the same will with him and the Father … [Fifteen lines are missing in the original, the letters having worn away.] Tartarus with its prince grieves over its plundering, while the whole heavenly host rejoices over the restoration of its loss. Today the flesh which he had taken on earth from the Virgin Mother by the working power of the Holy Spirit has been placed at the Father's right hand, and the natures of all the heavenly spirits are bowed to it. Today that new way of which the Apostle once spoke has been opened for us, because through that most blessed flesh of Christ the eternal entrance to heaven, through which no flesh had passed before, has been unlocked for us. Today that book which no one but the Lamb could open has been unsealed, since in his death the sacraments of that book were revealed; and the things found written of him in the law and the prophets have been fulfilled today, the dispensation of his majesty being completed. Christ came down first so as to become a sharer in our nature; he ascends now so as to make us sharers in his glory. Coming down, visible in a wonderful way of life, he gladdened the infants with miracles. Ascending, he gave gifts to men, so that, taught in faith and brought up to manly strength, they might no longer seek his temporal sight, but might strive with all the effort of their souls to follow him whither he had gone before them. Since, then, we have been bereaved of his temporal presence, let us hasten with all our intention to the eternal sight of him, and say to him with the Psalmist: “To you my heart has said: I have sought your face; your face, O Lord, I will seek; do not turn your face away from me.” For the whole most holy dispensation of Christ's humanity aims at and requires nothing else but to direct us to things above, so that, when the time of our mortality is completed, he may lead us to the open sight of himself and satisfy us with the eternal glory of his face; as the Apostle testifies: “We shall see him then as he is”; and, as the Psalmist says: “I shall be satisfied when your glory appears”; and we shall enjoy for ever those good things “which eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him.” These good things holy David contemplated with wonder, as far as he could in a riddle, when he said: “What have I in heaven, and what have I wished from you on earth?” For he could neither unfold the greatness of heavenly glory by speaking nor comprehend it by thinking. Let us not only hunger for these things but also thirst for them, since for this the high priest, our forerunner, ascended for us into the holy of holies and sits at the right hand of his Father, so as to confirm our hope by the example of his members: that the lowliness of the whole flock will one day come where it believes its shepherd has gone before. For so the Lord himself promised his apostles, saying: “Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered.” For he calls eagles the saints who long to be dissolved and to be with Christ. For the nature of eagles is said to be such that when they scent carcasses across the waves of the sea, they betake themselves there in swift flight to satisfy their hunger. This hunger of eagles signifies the desire of holy souls, by which, perceiving with the nostrils of faith their Head, already set in highest rest beyond the whirlwinds of the world, they would by the flight of sweetest hope stand in the presence of their Creator and rejoice in being filled with his face. … Let us believe that he reigns at the right hand of his Father, and let us always strive toward him as with the twin wings of the virtues, love and hope. But so that we too may reign with him in eternal life, we … [Five lines are missing in the original.] so that, cleansed from all vices, we may merit to be made a dwelling of God, who may always remain in us. The end.

How great is the care of almighty God for the salvation of mortals the very frequent sacraments of our solemnities declare. For first of all, so that human nature might pass into heavenly glory, the divine substance took up the body of mortal man; and so as to prepare us for this great blessedness by the grace of the mystical washing, the Lord consecrated by his baptism the streams of the whole world, and the blessing of his sacred body gave to all waters everywhere the power of regenerating. Then, so that the just Lord might triumph in a just contest over the devil himself, the enemy of our salvation and of his will, he allowed himself to be crucified by him, by his own will and his Father's, so that the passion of the spotless one might become the condemnation of his persecutors. By dying, too, Christ made himself equal to mortals, so that, having overcome death, he might restore the life of mortals. He also climbed the heights of heaven, so as to confirm by the example sent ahead of his wonderful ascension the hope of believers, which he had nourished by gentle promise. But since all these gifts seemed in a manner to have been brought to us specially through the Only-begotten of God, the Holy Spirit too, whose saving coming we celebrate today, so as to show himself of the same will and Godhead as the Son of God, filled by the power of his majesty those redeemed by the blood of Christ; so that he who in the womb of blessed Mary had formed the body of the new man, her virginity preserved, might also strengthen the hearts of his apostles with heavenly vigour and enrich their tongues with new eloquence; so that the same Spirit who had wonderfully brought forth Christ from a woman's womb for the redemption of all might, by granting a variety of tongues, preach him to all nations through the apostles. Who would not notice, dearly beloved, that the Only-begotten of God and the Holy Spirit have a will in agreement in all things, since those whom Christ chose on earth the Spirit visited from heaven? And so, of those whose one grace we see in the apostles, we must believe one power also in the Godhead. So indeed the Paraclete filled the breasts of the apostles that Christ's presence was not lacking either; for those whose gifts are undivided certainly have an inseparable Godhead. That the Spirit enters those in whom Christ dwells does not add an increase to the Godhead but advances faith in the unity. The Son of God, who had created the use of speech, could certainly have given his disciples a diversity of tongues; but the power was reserved by which the Spirit too would be proved to be true God. For this, as we believe, is the dispensation of the incomprehensible Trinity: that while the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit work all things together inseparably by the effect of the same Godhead, certain things are nonetheless attributed specially to each. For as a remedy for our life the Father bestowed on us the Son; the Son granted the grace of regeneration; the Spirit supplied power; as the teaching of the psalm-singing patriarch announces when he says: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power.” And how necessary it was that the Spirit gave the apostles to know the languages of the nations, so that all the Gentile world could hear through them the truth of saving faith! But what the Spirit grants, the Father also grants, [the Son,] who has all with the Father, [and the Spirit,] who always proceeds wholly from the Father. And what the Spirit grants with the Father, the Son also grants, since the Son is born of the same Father from whom the Spirit too proceeds. For Christ says: “All that the Father has is mine.” If all that the Father has is the Son's, then what the Spirit has is common with the Father and the Son. And so, of those in whose name there is no division, one will and power must be believed in every work. So, then, the Trinity accomplishes the heavenly sacraments in its faithful, that though the working seems distinguished, the command is proved undivided. One Godhead, then, belongs to the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father; by which, as none but God could be born of God, so there is no doubt that he is God who proceeds from God. But how from one and the same Father both the Son, who was, was born, and the Spirit, who was not born, proceeds, is known to the Godhead alone, which, as it is unique, knows itself. For no one, as we have read, knows the Father except the Son. What the Son knows, then, the Spirit also knows, who has one name and one Godhead with the Son and the Father. He, as the apostle Paul says, “searches the depths of God.” The Spirit is said to search the depths of God, not as though he seemed to probe things hidden and concealed from himself in another, but so that you may notice that the things of God are unsearchable to you. Understand, then, brother, that no one can know the depths of the Father except the Son, who is from him, and the Spirit, who is from him. And do not try to strain toward what no one is permitted to see. For it is right to believe of him that he is; it is not permitted to investigate how that which he is, is. The apostles, then, received a diversity of tongues through the Holy Spirit; but one is the God whom they speak. And for this they took up a variety of tongues: so that the diversity of the nations might learn the unity of the faith in manifold speech. Indeed, as we have read, when most blessed Peter preached, three thousand men believed. Nor let this be incredible to us, because the same Spirit both taught the apostles' tongues to speak what was to be believed and prepared the hearts of the hearers so that the apostles might be believed as they preached. He who gave sense to the speakers granted understanding to the hearers, so that there is no doubt that the power in the mouth of the speakers and in the heart of the believers is one. In these things, dearly beloved, the work is visible but the worker invisible; the effect of the power is plain, but the majesty of the doer hidden. Most rightly, then, does the Spirit announce the victory and faith of Christ, who had promised his coming through the prophets, who was present in the virgin womb, who was present as a dove at his baptism with the testimony of the Father's voice. Believing, then, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are always of one will and work, and united also by the bond of Christian peace, let us direct the paths of our life according to the divine commands, so that we may merit the fullness of God's grace and the visitation of the Holy Spirit by soundness of faith and by the conduct of our actions, etc.

After the feast of the Lord's Ascension, dearest brothers, today we celebrate the holy mysteries of Pentecost, so that, as we rejoiced that a man ascended to heaven for us, so now we may exult that for our sake the Holy Spirit came down from heaven. Christ went to the Father; the Paraclete came from the Father; so that we may not doubt that all the gifts of eternal salvation are conferred on us by the disposition and will of the almighty Father, from whom the Spirit comes and to whom the Son goes. The new man, then, ascended into heaven, so that by his grace the Spirit might deign to come to earth. The Holy Spirit came from heaven to announce to mortals that Christ reigns with the Father. For who else could open the divine secret to those who dwell on earth, had not one who shares the Godhead come from heaven? So it was read, as you heard: “And when the days of Pentecost were being fulfilled, they were all of one mind together in the same place.” And a little after it says: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak.” The apostles, then, were of one mind, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. He comes to those of one mind, visits those in harmony, rewards the peaceable; and gladly did he fill the hearts of the venerable apostles, whose breasts Christ, their author and master, already inhabited. “And the Holy Spirit,” as we heard, “sat upon each one of them.” Notice, dearly beloved, that the breast of the peaceable is the seat of God, as blessed David says: “And his place has been made in peace.” Nor should we doubt that the apostles kept the grace of unanimity toward one another, to whom Christ, about to pass to the Father, had said: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And again: “My peace I give you; my peace I leave you.” It is no wonder, then, if in the breasts of the apostles mutual love and the peace of Christ delighted the Holy Spirit. We read also in the Gospel that the Saviour said to his disciples: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete.” And again he says: “For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go away, I will send him to you.” Who, then, can with impunity refuse to believe either that the Holy Spirit is God, who came as foretold by the Son of God, or that Christ is Lord, whose saving promise the everlasting Father fulfilled? Great, brothers, and incomprehensible is this sacrament: that a man goes from earth to heaven to send God to us on earth from heaven. And this indeed is the peace and harmony of the Godhead: that both Christ was born as the Spirit announced, and the Spirit came down as Christ promised. They speak of each other, they send each other, they obey each other, because there is in them no difference of will or power, and with the Father they always work one mystery for the eternity of mortals. “It is expedient for you,” he says, “that I go.” How wonderful is this gift of our salvation! That as it was expedient for you that Christ should come from heaven, so it was expedient that he should also return. It was expedient that he come, to give his blood for us; it was no less expedient that he return, to bestow on us his Spirit. They were filled, then, as was read, with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak. This variety of tongues announces the unity of the Godhead. A diverse and manifold speech came forth from each, but one spoke in all. The Hebrew sounds a language he did not learn before, so that the Gentile may hear the faith he did not know. Nor is it any wonder, dearly beloved, if Christ gave his apostles knowledge of languages through the Holy Spirit, he who could restore walking to the lame, eyes to the blind, speech to the dumb. And so, brothers, let us not doubt these things, but believe with all devotion, because all things are possible to God, and it was necessary that new miracles of speech should confirm the new faith.

It is plain, brothers, and clear to all, how great is the care of almighty God the Father for all mortals, for whom it was too little to have handed over his only Son to death for us, unless he had also poured out the fullness of his gifts in the hearts of his faithful, as was said by the Lord through the prophet: “In the last days I will pour out of my Spirit upon my servants and my handmaids, and I will give wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood.” The Lord indeed gives wonders in heaven, when at Christ's birth a new star shines before the eyes of the Chaldeans, and at his passion the noonday sun sets, darkened by sudden gloom. He gives signs on earth, when the earth itself trembles with unwonted heavings, when rocks split and leap apart, when even tombs give back to the light the bodies of the dead. “The sun,” it says, “will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood.” What else, dearly beloved, if we contemplate spiritual things, is the sun's being turned into darkness, but when Christ passes into death; or the moon's being turned into blood, but when the holy Church is bloodied by various sufferings for the confession of her Christ? Christ is handed over to death, not to remain in the corruption of the tomb, but to shine more brightly after the darkness of the underworld. The Church is harassed by the hands of bloody men, not to fail amid torments and punishments, but to be adorned to all beauty through manifold titles of victories by the blood of triumphant martyrs. All these things are done and accomplished by one and the same grace of Christ and the Spirit in agreement: Christ, who kindles the hearts of his servants to every desire of suffering by the hope of eternal reward; the Spirit, no less, who by the vigour of divine power strengthens the hearts of believers to despise death. And so, after the Lord returned as victor to the Father and took himself back into his kingdom, by the Father's grace bestowing it with him, he gave his apostles the Paraclete whom he had promised, so that the Spirit, coming from above, might guard the faith which he himself had planted in them. The Spirit, then, came down on the apostles as Christ had promised, so that it might appear that their will is one and indissoluble in all things. How fittingly the Godhead inserts itself into human senses by mutual testimony, when Christ foretells that the Spirit will come from heaven, and the Spirit testifies that Christ reigns in heaven! Who would doubt that the voice of him who goes to heaven and of him who comes from heaven is most true? So today the apostles, as was read, were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak. The Spirit surely filled those whose hearts Christ's blood and teaching had purified for his coming. And this was the first benefit of the Spirit's coming: that these men, who had been appointed for the salvation of all nations, should speak the speech of all. And the grace of the Paraclete so filled both the tongue and the heart of the apostles that power was not lacking to their words nor words to their power. Nor is there anything else in divine and human affairs that makes a man so glorious as the perfection of holy speech and the fullness of heavenly strength. The apostles, then, spoke through one Spirit in various tongues, so that the variety of nations might come together into the one faith of Christ. Hence there is no doubt that this Holy Spirit must be confessed God with the Father and the Son: for who else but God would bring it about that a Roman, a Parthian too, and a Mede, and a Phrygian, and every barbarian, a stranger in Judea, should hear his own language, and a Galilean should speak the secrets of heaven not only in the elegance of Greek and Roman speech but even in harsh murmur and groaning effort to barbarian ears? For once, when human presumption, striving to go to heaven, was building itself a tower, and its stubborn effort did not succeed, the fellowship of one speech was divided by a variety of tongues suddenly sent upon it, so that while one did not understand another speaking, that whole fabric of impiety was at once dissolved. But now, where God prepares for man the ascent to heaven, skill in all languages is given to the heralds of so great a grace, so that so great a promise of God might be hidden from the people of no nation, as was said many ages before by the prophetic word: “There are no speeches nor languages in which their voices are not heard.” Hence it is plain, dearly beloved, that the Son of almighty God, who willed the mystery of eternal salvation to be preached in the truth of all languages, came as the redeemer not of the one Jewish people only but of all men. And so, brothers, since the goodness of Christ wills that no mortal perish, let us cleanse ourselves from all impurity and iniquity, so that the most kind Spirit of God may also deign to enlighten our hearts in aid of our life, etc.

How great is the care of almighty God for the salvation of mortals, dearest brothers, and with what affection of condescension, pitying human dangers, he has made void the devil's power, we can judge most fully and beyond doubt from this: that he both drew us to the faith of truth by the blood of his Son and strengthened the hearts of believers by granting the visitation of the Holy Spirit. For Christ redeemed us to life; [the Spirit] raises us to virtue; so that the grace we received when the Son handed it over we may keep as the Spirit guards it. We see indeed, dearly beloved, that the benefits of the Only-begotten of God and of the Holy Spirit are distinct under the dispensation of the mystery, but we notice in both the same will and one sacrament of kindness. For Christ is born of a woman for our salvation, but the Spirit works together to form the man himself in the Virgin, as was said to blessed Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The Son of God is also baptized for us in the Jordan, but to glorify his baptism the Holy Spirit is present from heaven in a dove. So far indeed is their purpose one and their counsel one, that both Christ promises the Spirit to men and the Spirit announces Christ, as the Lord says: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from my Father, he will bear witness about me.” They proclaim each other by mutual testimonies, who know that they reign in undivided majesty. Indeed, so that we may know more plainly that they are separated by no division at all, the Paraclete visits and enlightens those very men whom the Saviour chose as fit for his mysteries. The Lord Jesus hung on the cross for the whole human race, but his Gospel would not have shone on all, had not the Lord's passion come to the knowledge of all nations by the gift of the Holy Spirit, when he gave the apostles the knowledge of various tongues. For Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the other nations, as we have read, hear in Judea in their own tongues the mighty works of God and the remedies of their life being preached. Who, then, could have accomplished this but truly almighty God: that wild minds should learn religious holiness and barbarian speech receive heavenly doctrine? Let us, then, brothers, venerate with divine worship this Spirit, to whom belongs the full power of regenerating and the authority to forgive sins, as the Lord instructs his disciples, saying: “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; and elsewhere: “Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, and whose you retain, they are retained.” Who, then, is so mad as to doubt that he is God, who with the Father and the Son has inseparable glory and an undivided name, who by common dominion both punishes the pride of the sinner and absolves the humility of the one who confesses, etc.

From the beginning of the ages, dearest brothers, the Holy Spirit promised us through patriarchs and prophets that the Son of God would come for the redemption of the world: for he prophesied many thousands of years before that he would be born of the Virgin, taking the flesh of the new man, would suffer injuries, insults and the cross from the impious, and also his resurrection from the underworld. When this had been fulfilled through our Lord Jesus Christ, and the mystery accomplished, he illuminated the hearts of his apostles by the wonderful coming of his majesty, so that he might now proclaim the eternal glory of the kingdom of him whose lowliness and passion he had earlier sung, the devil having been triumphed over and death conquered. This Paraclete our Redeemer himself announced to his disciples not many days before, saying that he would come from heaven and be sent from the Father. And so it comes about that, while the Spirit prophesies Christ, the only-begotten of God the Father, and Christ promises that the Spirit will come from the Father, and they foretell each other by mutual attestation, they are believed to be one, to will one thing, and always to have one power. This, dearly beloved, is the Holy Spirit who by the working of a more secret mystery enriched the Virgin's womb with heavenly fruitfulness. This is the Spirit who visited the baptism of Christ our Lord, seen indeed by John in the form of a dove, but in silence; nor did he think his own voice necessary, at the time when the Father himself was speaking from heaven, saying: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” We are taught these things by the testimonies of the holy Scriptures so that the undivided majesty but distinct property of the persons may be revealed to us. For as regards the unity of the Godhead, in the Word of the Father is the consent of the Spirit, and in the speech of the Spirit is the will of the Father. For who, unless perhaps an impious heretic or a faithless Jew, would doubt that the Holy Spirit is God, without whom neither is the sacrament of baptism accomplished nor forgiveness of sins granted? Who is so mad as to deny that he is God, against whom it is so impious and deadly to have blasphemed that no pardon follows the blasphemer's sin, as our Saviour pronounces, saying: “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the one to come.” This Holy Spirit, I say, proceeding from the Father, promised by the Son, deigned to pour the gifts of his glory into the apostles of Christ, so that they spoke of his passions and kingdom in the speech of all nations—by this condescension, that since the whole human race was being called to life, the whole world everywhere might hear the dispensation of God's mysteries. How great a miracle was it, brothers, that a Hebrew, suddenly breaking out into words not his own, instructed the Greek about the mighty works of God, taught the Roman, addressed the Egyptian, and formed all barbarian nations for faith in their own tongues! And so, dearly beloved, let us implore the mercies of almighty God, that we may be able to announce worthy things of God, and you may be able to hear and understand what is said with due reverence, etc.

Of inestimable goodness is the grace, dearest brothers, which the Almighty either mightily bestowed on us by creating or mercifully granted by regenerating. For by creating he brought it about that, dust being given life in man by a wonderful working, all of us who were not came to be; by regenerating he conferred that a second birth should give what our first nature had not given us: which second birth, through the sacraments of baptism, begets servants into sons and promises heaven to the faithful. Noble indeed was that first creation of men; but this following one is not only nobler by the purity of the mysteries but heavenly by the consecration of the blessed Spirit. The former birth takes on sins; this one lays them down. There by being born we die; here we live by dying. Indeed, so that Christ might bestow this nobility on the human race, he took upon himself for us the indignities of a servile birth: though unlike in conception, yet like in the manner of being born. In that conception, though the eternal Father was present, still neither was the law of giving birth changed for the Mother nor was the crying of infancy lacking to the child being born. The Father surely held in his Son the power of a twofold substance, so that by the majesty of his power the venerable Mother might both conceive one and the same Christ as God and bear him as man. Does not the Son of God appear to have been conceived, where, with no fleshly seed, both a man is believed formed in a virgin womb and he who was born is not doubted to be God? Wonderful is the childbearing of an untouched Mother; but much more wonderful that virginity remained to her after giving birth. For—wonderful to say—flesh born of flesh kept inviolate the barriers of natural modesty. These things so holy and so magnificent that God did to whom all the works of heaven and earth answer according to the will of his power, for whom to do incomprehensible things consists not in labour or work but in command. To give a virgin a new childbearing, he acted by the power by which he made all things from nothing; for that it was a divine work that virginal fruitfulness shone upon this world the angel Gabriel, sent to Mary, revealed, saying to her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and therefore the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God.” And blessed Mary, keeping the seals of her undefiled womb intact for that venerable Joseph, by heavenly dispensation always a betrothed, never a husband, brought forth not a son but the Lord. To this Joseph it was said by the angel: “What Mary has in her womb is from the Holy Spirit.” And so the voice of angelic testimony thundered this into the patriarch's ears, lest perhaps the stain of a sinister suspicion should wound the mind of the young man astonished at so great a miracle, and he should think there was a woman's fault where a saving mystery was being born for us. Nor could that innocent and anxious betrothed, brothers, otherwise believe so great a novelty of a fruitful womb, had not an advocate sent from on high proclaimed the virginal chastity of the betrothed who was to give birth. The Holy Spirit, then, as we read, united man's flesh to the Only-begotten of the Father in the Virgin's womb; united it, not by the skill of a craftsman shaping, but by the majesty of one forming; and the power and truth of the new work testify that this Spirit is truly God. For how, in that workshop of our salvation, in the conception of Christ, where the Father was not absent, where the Son was present, where our flesh was being joined to divine fellowship, is the same Spirit declared as author, unless he had the same power in nature and the same fellowship in will with the Father and the Son? You see, then, brothers, that the co-worker of God could not be anything but God. For the Holy Spirit was, as he is, both undivided from the Father and inseparable from the Son, between whom, as the faithful word of the sacred reading teaches us, there is no distance in power but distinction in working. For Christ says of him to his disciples: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from my Father, he will bear witness about me.” Again the Saviour says of himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “I am,” he says, “the truth.” If, then, the Son, who is the truth, declares that he is the Spirit of truth, who could deny that he is God, except one who does not believe the truth about the truth? So the Spirit is true God, whom Christ testifies with equal profession both proceeds from the Father and is to be sent by himself. And the Son of God sends the Spirit of his Father; he sends him, not as one obeying a command, but as one in harmony with the mystery. And for this reason the Spirit himself, proceeding from the Father, is read to be sent by the Son, so that he might not be believed either to be anything other than the Father is, or to will anything different from what the Son wills. Therefore, brothers, it shines out without hesitation that the will of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, since both the Son sends what is the Father's and the Father imparts what is his own so that it may be directed by the Son. This Spirit, then, accomplishing with the Father and the Son one sacrament of redemption, announces in the languages of all nations the majesty of Christ who sends him, not as one paying a service to a superior, but as one making known the rule of one who reigns with him. He gave the apostles a variety of languages for this reason: so that through them the teaching of saving faith might reach the hearing of all peoples. The Paraclete himself was indeed manifold in speech, almighty in power, diverse in tongues, and one in all. Every hearer marvels that the mouth of a foreign nation utters speech not foreign to him. The speaker himself is amazed that words not his own come from his mouth. And so it came about that, while varied speech spoke one faith through many, discordant nations came together into the fellowship of one faith. And so, brothers, turning away from the vanities of the world and trampling the delights of this very short life, let us always savour him and always speak of him who has granted mortals to savour heavenly things and to speak divine things on earth. To him be honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen.

You all know, brothers, how venerable is the solemnity of this day and with what joys so great a feast is to be celebrated by all. For today that promise of our Saviour has been fulfilled by which he had said that, when he ascended into heaven, he would send the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. For he had promised: “When I ascend to the Father, I will send you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, and he will teach you all things.” For we believe that the Son has truly reached the Father when we see that the Paraclete has come down upon the holy apostles. We do not doubt that he reigns in heaven when we see him giving the most sacred gifts of the Holy Spirit on earth. Surely he already sits as victor at the Father's right hand, since he bestows gifts as a victor does. So the Saviour, victor over the devil, after his triumph enriched with the blessing of the Holy Spirit the disciples whom he had freed from the devil's captivity. He freed us when through himself he shut Tartarus to us for our rising; he enriched us when through the Paraclete he unlocked heavenly things to us for reigning. For then we learned to return from death to life; now we are taught to ascend from earth to heaven, as it is written: “He will teach you all things.” What, then, does that Holy Spirit teach? Surely he knows how to teach only what is holy. What does the Paraclete make known to us? Surely what the Saviour says: “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When that Spirit of truth comes, he will teach you all things.” A good teacher, then, is the Paraclete, because he teaches what Christ reserved to be said. For the Holy Spirit teaches what the Lord says he had to teach. A most excellent teacher plainly, who is the executor of the Saviour's precepts. It must be, then, that he has a nature of one substance with Christ, whom we see to be of one teaching with Christ. And so, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the flesh, so that we too may merit to receive the Holy Spirit. If now we let go of the world with its pleasures and desires, we too shall have a like Paraclete, as the apostles did, namely the Spirit of truth, whom the Father will send us, since there is no respect of persons with God. So if we strive to fulfil the law of the Lord, which is spotless and converts souls; if we strive to carry out the commands sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, we shall reach that eternal homeland which God himself has prepared for us; which may he deign to grant. The end.

Today, brothers, we celebrate that most festive solemnity on which our Lord Jesus Christ, when he had returned more gloriously to the Father, death having been conquered, granted to his apostles—the Father's grace bestowing it with him—the Holy Spirit whom he had promised them before, so that he might make solid and fortify the faith which he had preached earlier while he lived on earth. Today, then, that divine Paraclete came down upon the apostles, when, as was read before, the days of Pentecost were being fulfilled, and all were of one mind together in the same place. The apostles were together, then, when the Holy Spirit came down upon each one of them. That divine Spirit came, then, upon those of one mind; he came down upon those in harmony; and, as was read, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak. That Spirit who filled the hearts and minds of the disciples cleansed them wholly from earthly enticements. That heavenly fire consumed all the depravities of the old desire. The tongues in which the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke signified the Church to come among the nations. “And they began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak.” The apostles, then, spoke in various tongues, as the Holy Spirit himself gave them to speak, so that the whole of all nations might be united into one and the same faith. For Parthians, Medes and Elamites, and the other nations, as was read, hear the apostles speaking in their own languages the mighty works of God. [Fifteen lines are missing in the original, the writing entirely effaced.]

For even if they too gather together on this most holy day; even if they too hear what we say, they hear it for judgment unless they come to their senses. For what will it profit them to hear with pricked-up ears what they reject in heart, and to celebrate with us the day of the same Holy Spirit whose light they turn away from? But you, brothers, members of the body of Christ, living shoots of sincere unity, celebrate this day always. For this is fulfilled in you even now which was foreshadowed in those days when the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles. For as then whoever received that Spirit descending on him spoke, even if a single man, in the tongues of all, so now through all nations the truth itself speaks in the tongues of all. The end.

Since in all the world the virginal flower of Mary weaves unfading crowns and keeps the sceptred court of modesty with spotless affection, integrity has persevered so far toward the palm that it has seized the trophy of holiness among girls and, by the footsteps of the virgin Mother, has come to the heavenly bridal chamber. Hence it is that Agnes declares herself betrothed with the ring of faith and cries out that she is bound by love. O virgin, how worthy of imitation by virgins, to whom you have handed down an example of love! O how holy an answer you gave to virgin hearts, by despising the riches of the world, cursing the desires of the flesh, and loving the beauty of Christ alone! Come to the girl, girls, and learn in the years of childhood what flames of love for Christ she kindled in her breast. She says she keeps faith with her lover and desires the body of him alone who did not refuse the destruction of death for love of all. Learn, virgins of Christ, the love burning in a girl, refusing all the riches of the world as dung. For the examples of the saints are handed down in writing for this reason: so that each, according to the nature of their sex and their age, may keep the measure of their own resolve; and as virgins through a virgin, so also spouses through a spouse may strive to overcome the world for the love of Christ, and, by resistance of mind refusing the sweet things of the world and not refusing its harsh things, may attain to perpetual delights and eternal joys. In saying this we do not find fault with the chaste union of spouses, but we adorn the perseverance of virgins; for virginity is not to be set above bad things but preferred to the best. For what is purer than the pure and holier than the holy does not need to be praised by disparaging bad things. So let wives, established in religion and formed by the divine Scriptures, follow the holy marriages of the patriarchs, and imitate Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Anna, Susanna, Zipporah; but let the virgins of Christ follow only the Virgin, Mother of the virginal light. Her follower, most blessed Agnes, raised up a great example of chastity in herself, when she preferred virginity to life, and, driving out all earthly love by heavenly love, seized the trophy of Christ's cross; and against lusts as well as against all tortures, armed with faith rather than iron, she fought bravely and conquered. She looks at the flatterer, and refuses; at the one who threatens, and despises him; she attends to the fire, and laughs. She does not know how to love anything that passes away; and while she loves virginity greatly, she fears neither mockery nor flames nor tortures nor executioners; at last she was not even terrified of the sword of a raging persecutor. The virgin is pressed to take adornments of the body, but refuses, since she had already taken adornments of the mind; and because she was not eager to please by the elegance of the human body, because she feared to displease the Lord by the foulness of the soul, she gave within, through faith, the whiteness of her mind and the beauty of her soul, which she cultivated; and as much as she knew what would make her soul beautiful, so much did she blush that she was beautiful in her flesh; and she was as eager to displease carnal men in the appearance of her flesh as she pressed on to please Christ and his angels. The young man, despised by the girl, is troubled, and, thinking he can please her with gifts, heaps up gold and gems, and brings garments and precious estates. But because the love of Christ has no price in money, the most sacred virgin remained at her post even to the shedding of blood, since Christ had betrothed her with his own blood. The wealth goes back to the one who desired her, and the unshaken virginity, once offered to Christ, endures. Learn, virgins of Christ, the examples of a girl's rule, and with all your intention reject men's little gifts offered under the appearance of kindness, and refuse them with all joy as the bite of a mad dog. From the one from whom you receive nothing to fear in God, do not take what you would love of the world: take, take, O virgin, but what profits eternal love. Whenever you obtain wealth from a man, so take it that you recognize yourself as Christ's bride. He sees within, in your mind, what you do, and notices how eagerly you accompany his virgins. See, then, how Agnes follows Mary, through reproaches. She could fear no torture at all, for whom even the brothel, a place of shame, was made a place of prayer; and where the devil had prepared for her the disgrace of corruption, there the Lord made her receive the crown and palm of her virginity. This is to conquer enemies in their own seats: the virgin led captive into the inner chambers of the king of lusts, and the king himself bound by the virgin whom he had taken captive, and conquered, going out in the virgin's triumph. For he who had held was held; he who had dragged was dragged; he who thought he was killing was killed. Indeed, to prove that the devil was then conquered by the virgin, let us recall the deed of that young man whom the enemy had so armed against the girlhood of Agnes that he had her dragged naked through the crowd to the brothel, under the voice of a herald, as leader, inviting the people to lust. That this leader was the devil's, there is no one who doubts; and that when the leader was conquered the people were overcome is known to all; and when the peoples were overcome with their leader, it is plain to all that the tyrant was held captive. It is clear that the devil was overcome whenever he took up arms against the virgin. For the stripped virgin is covered with her hair; and, made naked by evil men, she was clothed by good angels; and, condemned in a house of shame, she appeared in the bosom of chastity. The place that had been for lost souls is made an oratory of angels; and where chastity had always been shipwrecked, there virginity was crowned. Indeed, the peoples whom the herald had invited to lust the virgin won for chastity; and those whom the devil brought in to her defiled she sent out from her clean; for all went in one by one, and each waited for the other's entry, and, when he went out, since he did not believe he had come out clean, he showed himself unclean; but he who went in for lust was held by the virgin's merits to worship the Lord; and he came out from there a servant of God who had gone in a servant of the devil; and as many became worshippers of Christ as the devil had thought he had found corrupters of the virgin. There remained, then, the young man who had been the author of this shameful plan: he who thought he would overcome the virgin's defender, while he provoked [her] to lust, lost the life he seemed to have and found the death he was seeking. Tears follow laughter, and laments put an end to the insults. The virgin notices the judge mourning, and the one she had despised when he threatened she now hears when he pleads. At once, as she began to pray for the dead man, she raises up from the dead safe and sound the one who had been assigned to death, and calls to joy the one who had been plunged into grief. For he who had died unchaste rises chaste; and he who had been a persecutor of chastity becomes a preacher of purity. At this the sacrilegious are thrown into confusion in their temples, and, not fearing Christ who did these miracles, they stir up a riot of the base mob, so that reason, which urged an end to the riots, driven away by shouting, could find no place in men's minds. The father of the son who had been raised went away sad and, as we read, left her, wronged, to the raging crowds. So flames are prepared, crackling, for the virginal body; but the body that had overcome the fires of lusts found refreshment in the midst of the flames; and she who had entered the fire to burn began to feel cold through holy virginity, so that virginity might learn that flames and fires can have no mastery over it at all. Nor should you think those perished whom fire consumed for the name of Christ. For when you read that Elijah was carried off by fire and the three boys were in no way consumed in the midst of the fire; or when you recall that Lawrence was consumed on a gridiron, and know that Agnes, like Thecla, escaped the masses of flame, do not suspect any difference of faith in these then; for one faith exercised God's saints in their passion and, by a different kind of glory, made them victors on both sides. For the martyr who was consumed exults, and the victor who escaped exults; and God made Isaiah, sawn apart, a martyr, and showed Daniel, despising the rage and bites of lions, a most approved confessor: by which he showed that both were victors over the devil; for one dies and triumphs, the other escapes and reigns. Come now, virgin, to the bridal chamber you sought, and for the love of the bridegroom receive the executioner's sword, so that unstained virginity may prove you the bride of Christ, and proven confession may seal you a martyr. Happy the band of virgins whose zeal it is to follow the footsteps of your confession; for they will have the crown with you in heaven who with you have overcome the enemy in the world. For as a share in eternal reward appeared to you as you followed the footsteps of Mary, so we believe eternal joys will not be denied to those who imitate you.

The reason of our religion and devotion requires, brothers, that today we rejoice in the birth of blessed John the Baptist, who, predestined by God, came to proclaim the gladness of the human race and the joy of heaven. This is he from whose mouth the world heard with a new voice that our Redeemer was present, that the Lamb of God was present; who, as witness, when his parents despaired of offspring, is sent through an angel as one to be born, so as to be the undoubted messenger of so great a mystery. Who would not wisely believe that he announced divine mysteries in whose begetting he perceived heavenly care to have been at work? Who, when he was not yet a son and was carried still unformed in the womb, yet by the privilege of the grace granted him filled his mother's inner parts with eternal joy; and the blessed mother recognized, before she gave birth, the happiness of a womb long barren. For, as was read, Elizabeth says to Mary: “See, as the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy. And why is this granted me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” No wonder, dearly beloved, if this old woman was enriched with the gift of foreknowledge, who was to bear the herald of the most high God. She became more glorious by her barrenness, for while her fruitfulness was delayed, she obtained by the gift of one birth the honour of a whole posterity. She, while as though fruitless she groaned with her husband into extreme old age, suddenly brought forth not a son for herself only, but a herald of eternal salvation for the whole world; and such a herald that, before he came forth from the womb, by the privilege of his future ministry he gave a prophetic spirit to his mother's tongue, and by the power of his name, foretold through the angel, unlocked the mouth of his father Zechariah, which unbelief had closed. For Zechariah had fallen silent, not to remain dumb, but so that, the use of speech being divinely restored to him, he might bear prophetic witness to the heavenly infant. And the priest who spoke to the whole people was struck dumb for this reason: that, because the priest's silence was public, the mystery of the sacred birth might come to the knowledge of the whole people, and no one would dare not to believe it. Because the father had doubted the one who was to be born, he incurred the punishment of silence. For the evangelist says of him: “He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light, so that all might believe through him.” He was not the light indeed, but he was wholly in the light, who merited to bear witness to the true light. And so, brothers, in honour of most blessed John, let us celebrate this day of his birth with all exultation, who, to drive away the darkness of the world, both recognized before all and was the first to show the everlasting light of heaven.

By many great powers, dearest brothers, our God and Lord strengthens the minds and faith of the peoples who run to him, who made not only the life of his elect praiseworthy but their birth too wonderful, as we have learned from the reading of the Gospel about blessed John the Baptist, to whom so great a privilege of birth was granted that he was foretold by prophetic and evangelic voices before he was born. Or how should he not be consecrated by all mysteries who was coming, for the redemption of a failing world, to reveal the Lord of the sacraments? A barren woman, very old, conceived him, as you heard, by a most righteous man, so that out of manifold despair both the glory of the child being born and the power of God at work might appear more magnificent. This is he of whom we read it was foretold by the prophet: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness.” And so the priest Zechariah fell dumb under the sentence of the rebuking angel, because, troubled by the greatness of the promise, he did not believe that he would be the father of the announced voice. We see that this was done by a great dispensation of God, so that the whole people of the Jews, while they asked the cause of so great a silence, might learn the truth of the child to be born, and the silence of the high priest might publish the secret of the holy conception. Silence, then, is imposed on the father, lest the herald of the heavenly Word should be born through silence; though the secrets of a higher mystery are opened in this. For in that silence of the priest, the grace of Christ certainly approaching, both the severity of the old law fell silent and the whole rite of carnal sacrifices became quiet. But yet, so that nothing in blessed John might not be wonderful, the father's tongue, which he bound when he was to be conceived, he loosed when he was born, so that the most blessed old man, who had lost the use of speech among the duties of the old traditions, might, his voice renewed through his son, proclaim new mysteries. Nor is it any wonder if such astonishing miracles came about through the merits of one whom so great a grace of God accompanied that, going beyond the measure of human conception, he rejoiced at the coming of Christ while still within his mother's inner parts. For, as we heard, Elizabeth says to Mary: “See, as the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.” For so great a power was already driving him even as he was being formed that, as a proof of the heavenly mystery which he sensed he would preach to the human race, he anticipated his birth with prophetic signs. Why, then, do we wonder that John without any hesitation recognized Christ coming to his baptism, if, before he himself had come into the light, he sensed his presence in the virginal womb? What joy had stirred him within his mother's belly he later testified with a most clear voice, saying: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” For the sake of this voice, dearly beloved, all those sacraments you heard of in John were sent ahead; for this his glorious conception and praiseworthy life were prepared: that the world might hear from so holy a mouth the voice of its absolution. How beautifully he called Christ our Lord by the name of lamb, by whose blood alone God was to be appeased and all mortality redeemed! It is fitting, then, brothers, that in honour of so great a man we always exult with most devoted festivals, who by one and the same testimony both revealed the presence of the Lord and prophesied the remedies he was about to bring.

The venerable feast of blessed John the Baptist, dearest brothers, is celebrated today by the faithful throughout the whole world. By his prophetic dignity he merited that the posterity of the faithful should not be silent in his praises, whose very birth is dedicated by God. So singular a choice shone in him that, born of most righteous parents, he merited to announce that the Lord, the Saviour of this world, was coming before he had the beginning of birth. Indeed, holy Elizabeth, an old woman, when, despairing of a son because of barrenness, she conceived by her already aged husband, as the angel had foretold, and was visited by the most chaste Virgin Mary, who had also conceived the Saviour in her womb by the Holy Spirit as the angel told her, said at the very meeting of their greeting: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb: for see, as the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.” O how worthy and happy a meeting of holy women! O how holy a greeting, where the Mother of the Lord and Saviour visits the mother of the Forerunner! O how most blessed the mothers, most holy the nurses of most blessed little ones! O glorious office of the herald, who, still shut within his mother's inner parts, revealed the Saviour of the world to come—not yet by speech, which he could not, but by prophetic spirit; for mortal nature could not keep its order under the old law when, by the new grace of the Godhead, a new mystery was being prepared for the salvation of men. For this is the John who was called by the prophet Isaiah “the voice of one crying in the wilderness”; who is rightly called a voice, because, as his proclamation thundered, mortality, long deaf to every good hearing, began to hear the sacraments of human redemption. Let us, then, dearly beloved, hear what the messenger of the Saviour preached for the profit of us all: “Prepare,” he says, “the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.” Truly worthy was blessed John to direct the crookedness of evil livers into straight paths. For what is it to prepare the way of the Lord, but, with the breast cleansed of vices by confession and repentance, to prepare for the Lord, the Judge coming from heaven, a dwelling of a simple heart? What is it to make straight the paths of our God, but to build for ourselves such ways of action that the gracious Lord, coming to us, is pleased to walk on them? He prepares a way for his Lord who, rejecting the desires of his wanton flesh and clinging only to the Lord's precepts with the effort of his mind, girds himself with the vigour of chastity and continence. He prepares the best way for God who, resisting evil thoughts, always strives to walk before God with a clean heart and a chaste body. We, then, brothers, as long as we cling to the desires of the flesh and to earthly cupidities, do not prepare the way for the Lord according to the prophetic warnings. Therefore, turning back to the precepts of John's baptism, let us prepare in ourselves a way for the Lord by worthy repentance and most truthful confession of the evils we have done, and by alms and anxious care of the poor and the other works of righteousness and kindness; so that the Lord, seeing in us the roads of good will, may deign to carry his little sheep, already wearied by many labours and tribulations, from the troubled life of this age with him to eternal joys; so that, as we rejoice today in the birth of the Lord's Forerunner, so we may rejoice in our reconciliation with God our Father, by the working and gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the co-eternal Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through all ages of ages. Amen.

The birth of the holy forerunner of the Lord, John the Baptist, which the holy universal Church celebrates today, dearest brothers, the Lord's holy prophets had foretold in many ways before. We should understand that this was done by the providence of divine kindness, so that he who was to be greater than the other prophets should also be honoured beyond the others with a greater spirit of prophecy; because the office of a prophet is to tell things to come, not also to point them out; John was greater than the other prophets precisely because he both announced that the Lord and Saviour would come and showed that he was present. For this reason too, as with the coming of the Lord himself, so with the birth of his forerunner it was prophesied beforehand, so that he who had come to announce new things and to preach repentance—a preaching such as was unheard of for ages—no one could reject by his own faithlessness, but that the office of his preaching might be more credible to all who heard. For it was fitting that he who had come not only to announce but also to point out the King of all kings and Lord of lords should also be born by a procreation unlike the others. For no one doubts that in old people the desire of the flesh was already growing cold; and beyond the sixtieth year of age, to old people already free of all wantonness of the flesh, he was born, as the sacred text of the Gospel proves: “There was,” it says, “in the days of Herod, king of Judea”—that is, when the time of Christ's birth was approaching—“a certain priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah.” But now we must first speak of Abijah, and afterwards follow the order begun. For David, when he was dealing with and arranging the building of the temple and its service, divided the whole progeny of the sons of Aaron into twenty-four parts, and from each part chose one high priest, who would minister in turn, in order, in the sanctuary of the temple; on this condition, however, that if any of the high priests departed this life, the best in that part would be chosen as successor to the priesthood. In this division this Abijah, of whose division and lineage Zechariah came, was found placed in the eighth place; “and the wife of Zechariah was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly; and they had no son, because Elizabeth was barren and both were advanced in their days. And it happened that Zechariah, in the order of his division, entered the sanctuary to offer incense; and suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared to him, saying: Do not fear, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.” Zechariah, hearing this, trembled; and because he was already old and his wife ninety years old, he did not believe that what the angel had promised in truth could happen, because of old age; and because he did not believe, he remained dumb until the eighth day after John's birth. Here it is plainly to be understood that a father's entreaty, not even a mother's pleasure, created John: against the impossibility of the body, against the barrenness of the womb, by Zechariah's prayers Elizabeth's womb swells, and she conceived not by nature but by grace. In the seventh month, at the autumn equinox, was the conception of Saint John in his mother's womb; in the first month of the next year, at the spring equinox, the conception of the Lord Saviour in the womb of the Virgin Mother. O herald of the Lord Saviour, how wonderfully born, and of what righteous parents sprung! And what the members of the body could not offer, the grace of the Saviour had granted. He who made his barren mother fruitful also loosed the tongue of his dumb father, and at once burst forth in proclamation of the Saviour. For, a righteous man born of righteous parents, he also showed in himself the work of righteousness; and he who had come to prepare the way for the Lord in the hearts of the faithful rightly preached also the doing of repentance for sins, and showed in his own way of life the austerity of life which he preached in others: “And his clothing was of camel's hair, and a leather belt around his waist; his food was locusts and wild honey; wine and strong drink he did not drink, and he ate nothing unclean all the days of his life.” In the thirtieth year from his birth he began to baptize those who came to him and to preach to the people the baptism of repentance, so that through repentance and confession of sins they might be found worthy to receive the forgiveness of sins; which, because he could not give it by his own baptism, he nonetheless preached that Christ the Lord and Saviour would soon come to us, from whom both John himself and all who believed in him and were baptized in his name would receive not only forgiveness of sins but also eternal life. But why did John baptize, when he could not give forgiveness, except to keep his order as forerunner: that, as he went before the Lord and Saviour both in birth and in the office of preaching, so he might also go before the baptism of Christ with his own baptism? For by his preaching many were converted to the Lord, repenting of their sins, and believed that when the Christ whom John preached would come they would receive forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. And so many came to John's baptism to hear the word of salvation; many, to be healed of their sicknesses, since John did many signs; many believed him to be the Christ; to whom he himself said: I am not the Christ, but I am the forerunner of Christ. Likewise in the thirtieth year of Christ's birth both came to the Jordan, Christ and John, and Christ was baptized by John, not because he himself needed to be baptized for any sin, but so that John might baptize him, and he by his baptism might sanctify the water for us and give all an example of baptism, without which no one can be saved; and so that no one should be so rich or powerful as to disdain being baptized by a servant, having heard that Christ was baptized by his servant John. When Jesus had been baptized, as soon as he came up from the water, the heavens were opened to him, and the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove and remained on him, and the voice of the Father was heard from heaven, saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When Saint John saw and heard this, he at once pointed out the Lord with his finger to the crowd that was present, saying: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” Behold him whom all the prophets foretold would come; behold him whom I promised you, through whom you will receive not only forgiveness of sins but also eternal life and immortality, and with them joy and eternal blessedness, if you believe in him. While blessed John was shining in such deeds, King Herod, mentioned above, took the wife of his brother Philip and joined her to himself in marriage. When blessed John rebuked him for this, he happily completed his martyrdom with his head cut off. Therefore, dearly beloved, if we wish to celebrate worthily the solemnities of so holy a forerunner of the Lord, we ought to adorn ourselves with the holy merits of good works: in fasting and chastity, in continence, in humility of life, in gentleness and sobriety, in vigils and prayers, in generous almsgiving, in patience and confession of crimes, in all perseverance in good works, to put to death the desires of the flesh, and to merit to save our souls in eternal life; with blessed John helping us by his holy prayers, and our Lord Jesus Christ aiding us to every good endeavour, who with the co-eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

Today's festival, dearly beloved, conspicuous throughout the whole world, irradiates our minds with the splendour of a new light all the more brightly, as it invites us to recall both the beginning of our redemption and the rising of the true light. For to whom, meditating on the birth of John, does the birth of Christ not at once occur? Especially since there was no other reason for John to be born of an old father and a barren mother than that he, wonderfully born, should go before the one who was to be born uniquely: the friend before the Bridegroom, the servant before the Lord, the voice before the Word, the lamp before the Sun, the herald before the Judge, the saved before the Saviour. John himself testifies that this was the reason for his coming: not simply to come, but to go before the Lord as a sign of his manifestation. “After me,” he says, “comes a man who was made before me, because he was before me; and I did not know him; but so that he might be made manifest in Israel, for this I came baptizing in water.” He went before him by being born, by preaching, by baptizing, by dying, and finally by descending to the underworld. So he went before the Lord, and he went before himself too. For before he was conceived in the womb, unbelief closed his father's mouth, which he himself, before he could speak, wonderfully opened by the expression of his name. Indeed, when he could not yet utter words to men, he could by leaping announce to his mother's inner parts the King of heaven hidden in the Virgin's womb. For the Holy Spirit, who gave him life before he drew the breath of life, also filled the very lodging of his mother's modesty in which he dwelt. Hence Elizabeth says: “See, as the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.” Here we must ask how it could be that the Holy Spirit poured out his gifts on him, since, according to the rite of the human condition, he was still conceived in iniquities and had not yet loosed the bond of original sin by receiving the circumcision of the legal observance; since the divine voice says through Moses: “The male whose foreskin has not been circumcised, that soul shall perish from his people, because he has made my covenant void.” But it must be noted that the grace of the Holy Spirit is not bound by law nor held by the bond of necessity; but as he breathes where he wills, so he dispenses his gifts freely to whom he wills. For he also inspired Cornelius the centurion before he received the washing of baptism, and on certain men still Gentiles, while Peter was speaking, he not only fell, as Scripture testifies, but also taught them to speak in tongues. What wonder, then, if the Holy Spirit filled blessed John before any remedy of the legal command, whom divine providence set as a kind of boundary—and, so to speak, an impassable limit—of the law itself and the prophets and the whole Old Testament? For “the law and the prophets,” as the Truth says, “were until John.” For this John received circumcision in his flesh, like the Lord, but in receiving it brought it to an end. And so he who shone as herald of the new grace and magnificent announcer did not need circumcision to escape original sin; but divine election carried him above the law, above the order of the human condition. To him also was granted the glory of so great an honour that the very Mother of God was present at his birth, and the Maker of the world, hidden in the womb, dedicated his beginning by his presence. Luke the evangelist testifies to this when he says: “And Mary stayed with her”—namely Elizabeth—“about three months, and returned to her home.” For from the conception of the Lord to the birth of blessed John there are three months. Mary, then, would not depart until she had paid the service of attentiveness to the aged mother in childbirth, and until she, who carried the King in the court of her body, might see the herald go before. Happy birth, which that light received which enlightens every man coming into this world. But while we say these things, a question suddenly arises for us which seems, not without reason, to bring doubt. For the Lord testifies that among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist. So he excluded a greater; he did not deny an equal. Hence it is that the angel said to Zechariah: “He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah.” John, then, seems equal to Elijah, in whose spirit and power he is declared to be coming. Especially since elsewhere the Truth itself says: “Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished”; and, “If you wish to know, John is Elijah.” But see, on the other side this occurs: that Elisha received a double spirit of Elijah according to the manner of his request: “I beg that your spirit may be double in me.” And if Elisha surpasses Elijah twofold, how does he not surpass John, who is equal to Elijah, than whom no one greater has arisen among those born of women? Nonetheless, so that the question may be solved, the sense must be weighed, so that what sounds harsh in the outward words the discernment of one who thinks soberly may understand to proceed from a pious intention. It is harsh indeed that Elisha asked for a double spirit of his master, since the disciple is not above the master. But this petition came from a pure mind, because he asked not for anything earthly but for spiritual grace. Hence Elijah too, as though somewhat indignant, rebuked the incautious words of his disciple when he said: “You have asked a hard thing.” But, looking at the simplicity of his pious intention, he at once adds: “Yet if you see me when I am taken from you, what you have asked will be.” Not, that is, the doubling which the incautious speech poured out, but the gift of the spirit which his mind sought with humble and sincere intention. In this way, then, Elisha by no means surpasses John, just as he is not greater than Elijah. Yet if we look carefully at the course of the sacred history, we find Elisha more abundant or more brilliant than Elijah in the powers of miracles. The one, living, restored a dead boy to life; the other, dead, raised a dead man. At the one's prophecy the jar of flour and the flask of oil did not fail; the other, for a besieged and afflicted city, by the next day brought down the incredible forces of the enemy camp. And to sum up briefly, Elijah shone with twelve, Elisha, as the truth of Scripture relates, with twenty-four signs of miracles, which, to avoid tedium, we put off enumerating here. How, then, shall I free myself from the knot of this question, so that the sentence of the Truth spoken about John's greatness may not waver, in which it is said that among those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist? For if Elisha is greater than Elijah, then he is greater than John too?—which cannot be. But it must be noted that it is one thing to do something great in signs of miracles, another to be great in excellence of merits. For if it is a question of miracles, John is found in the pages of Scripture to have done no miracle. But will he therefore be the lowest of all the saints, because he is not recorded to have done any signs of power? Elisha, then, is greater than Elijah in the showing of signs, yet he by no means surpasses him in the sum of merits. So John too is equal to Elijah, because as the latter will be the herald of the Judge, so this one was made the forerunner of the Redeemer; but greater than Elijah, because the one he pointed out he also baptized. Indeed, in that sacrament of baptism the water of the Jordan was washed rather than washed; and from it, moreover, all water everywhere on earth conceived the force of sanctification. There blessed John heard the voice of the Father, saw the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and dipped in the waters with his own hands, bowed down, the Son of God, dreaded by the angels. For that showed in fact the foundation and origin of baptism which the Truth afterwards taught the disciples to carry out in words full of power: “Go,” he says, “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” There the thing was manifest and not words; here words, and the thing true but hidden. John, then, is the boundary of human merits. For however much the authority of the apostolic senate excels, however much the faith of the patriarchs advances in the knowledge of God, or the oracles of the prophets grow strong to unlock hidden mysteries; however much the glory of triumphant martyrs is heaped up, however much the springtime modesty of virgins flowers, or the tongue of teachers exercises itself in words of life, all are held within John's goal; nothing of human virtue, nothing of religion, nothing of perfection goes beyond it. The course of his incomparable life no historian wove after his death; but that chief archangel, before he was conceived in the womb, told his wonderful works as he did the Lord's. His praise we have learned not from the assertion of some truthful man but from the mouth of the supreme Truth itself; and he is the asserter and praiser of John who is praised and blessed by all creatures of heaven and earth. Indeed, the praises of John were drawn out by that Word by which the dry land was founded, the stars are moved, the elements were made. How great a magnificence it is to merit the glory of praise from him with whom it is the highest happiness to be approved in any way! For he says: “What did you go out to see? A prophet? I tell you, and more than a prophet.” But since a prophet is outstanding and distinguished among other men, it remains that one who has no equal in the common race of men and is set even above a prophet should no longer be called a man but an angel. Hence he adds: “For this is he of whom it is written: See, I send my angel, who will prepare your way before your face.” But in his being placed below, blessed John is shown better, how much he is preferred to other men, of whom the Lord says: “But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he”; because our Redeemer, who is less than John on earth by the access of a later age, is greater in heaven by the privilege of eternal majesty. O happy this lowering, when a man is placed below God, a creature preceded by the Creator, the small surpassed by the glory of immensity! Christ is said to be greater than John in heaven, where he is adored by all the powers of angelic dignity, before whom cherubim and seraphim fall humbly, whose rule principalities and powers tremble at, whose face indeed the angels desire to look upon: he declares that he is over John in heavenly dignity, in whose sight all nations are like a drop from a bucket and, according to the prophet's oracle, are counted as nothing and empty; he does not disdain to set himself before the blessed man in comparison, so that a man is found to have, as it were, a place of comparison with God for the excellence of his merits. He who is the author of loftiness himself became the teacher of humility. To him be glory and dominion, now and henceforth, for ages of ages. Amen.

The conception and birth of the venerable John the Baptist, which has now been read through in the Gospel reading, testifies that the Lord's birth, whose secret the human mind does not conceive, is credible, and the fruit of an old woman's womb teaches that the fruitfulness of a virginal womb is not to be denied. For who would really refuse to believe the birth of Christ when a despaired-of offspring comes forth from aged parents? There a prophetic child is brought forth from the old; here the Lord of the prophets is born of a virgin. There the wonder concerns the old age of two; here the miracle concerns the virginity of one girl. Nor is it any wonder that the one conceived barren and the other a virgin, because there the messenger of the saving mystery was being born, here the very mystery of our life. There a temporal lamp shone; here the sun of perpetuity dawned. On the one side John is read to have been born, a prophet and more than a prophet; on the other came Christ, a new man and more than a man, the salvation of all. John is indeed more than a prophet, who both enters the light of this world prophesied by others and prophesies Christ the Lord from his mother's womb; and, when Christ's baptism was celebrated, not only proclaims him with his mouth but, for the fullness of testimony, marks him out to the surrounding peoples as though pointing with his finger, saying: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” And Christ is more than a man, because he, the Word and the flesh, is one Lord, and one and the same is eternal and new: eternal from God, new from a woman. There incomprehensibly begotten of the unbegotten; here wonderfully born of a virgin. There brought forth by the Father's majesty; here formed by the Spirit's working. There a simple nature in the Begetter; here a twofold substance in the Redeemer. There, from his Father, he is wholly impassible God; here he came forth from his mother in such a way that he could also suffer. For he could suffer, as the flesh born of flesh did suffer, and he could not suffer as God born in the flesh. For through the Virgin's womb God brought forth flesh for us, and the flesh God. Nor must we doubt, brothers, whether God could be what he willed, who made all things he willed. Nor must we hesitate whether the Son of God could unite to himself a passible man, whom he could crown with the glory of impassibility by the triumph of the passion. If it was new that God was born on earth, much newer is it that a man reigns in heaven. Looking at these things, we confirm the perfect blessedness of the most glorious John the Baptist, whom heavenly condescension raised to such sublimity that he merited, both before he was born, to prophesy the mystery of our salvation, wonderful to earth and heaven, and, once born, to point it out. For John was then, by divine dispensation, unripe for birth but ripe for grace; for he who did not yet seem fit for his own birth was made a fit preacher of the Lord's rising; and while by natural law his mother's womb still enclosed the whole man, the glad tongue of the mother was already betraying the spirit of the son to be born. For Elizabeth, as was read, said to blessed Mary: “As soon as the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.” Consider, brothers, what great gifts were conferred on those blessed mothers, and with what miracles the women about to give birth are adorned. “The infant,” she says, “leapt in his mother's womb”; he leapt, so as to reveal both his own merit and the glory of the virginal womb. For by God's inspiration that aged womb sensed that the Lord's womb had arrived, and by a new joy announces to mortals how great a gladness Christ, about to be born, would bring to the world. Who would not be astonished, brothers, that amid the mysteries of human redemption, while the mothers marvel, an infancy not yet born rejoices? Meanwhile John is born and precedes Christ in birth, so as to show the service of a servant to his Lord, whom he was celebrating with joy within his mother's inner parts. This, then, is John, of whom it was said by the prophet: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord.” He cried out in the solitude, so as to cultivate with the richness of prophetic speech the hearts of mortals, deserted in the squalor of unbelief. This is the angel sent before the face of Christ, who as a careful teacher prepared for the Saviour's coming the hearts of the peoples, instructed with the counsels of a holier life. This is that Baptist who merited to baptize his Lord for this purpose: that he might feel himself the more washed by the power of the one he baptized. This is the herald of the eternal kingdom, who cried out that the Lamb of God was present on earth and took away the sin of the world—with his own tongue indeed, but God speaking. This is the one who, as the Lord pronounced, is greater among those born of women; and truly greater, because as prophet he foretold, as forerunner went before, as Baptist received, as witness pointed out the Son of God. And after all, this is the one whom no softness of delightful clothing pleased, but a rougher tunic woven of camel's hair clothed him; nor did any sweeter pleasure of feasts or temptations of a greedy gullet capture him; but, as truly the censor of his own throat and master of a fasting belly, walking through the deserts he was fed by the dry locust. He is read also to have eaten wild honey, so that we may notice that he lived not on food prepared by human care but on simple fare and unlaboured substance. And this, I think, brothers, so that neither a finer garment might draw the champion of righteousness away from proclaiming the truth, nor delight in food corrupt him. From this greatness of soul came the fact that, while he boldly accused King Herod of union with his brother's wife, he feared neither to undergo a glorious death nor to despise the light of the world. Nor did he leave this life sad, because, always keeping prophetic rigour, he had never at all been softened by the sweetness of the deceitful world. Therefore with utmost patience, by the command of an unjust king, he is beheaded in prison, knowing that by the reward of a most brave death, with the King of the heavenly empire rewarding him, he would receive back both his head and salvation.

Celebrating today, dearest brothers, the birthday of Saint John the Baptist, let us exult and rejoice in the Lord that under the old law a man was born renowned in lineage, wonderful in birth, and most glorious in life and death. For this is that forerunner John, who greeted the Saviour of the world by leaping, though he was still hidden in his mother's womb and John himself was shut in his mother's bosom, and by his leaps announced him present. Once born, hiding in the darkness of the desert, he gloriously proclaims him, securely preaches him to the peoples who come to him, confidently points him out. This is that most illustrious Baptist of Christ, who rebuked the crowds of people coming to him with such eagerness that he did not spare the pride of the Pharisees, nor the ignorance of the scribes in the law of the Lord, nor all the vices which that faithless nation refuses to declare. Neither the threats of impious kings, nor the many comforts of a luxurious court, nor the pride of priestly lineage could keep him from speaking the truth. Truly, then, did Christ the Lord say he was more than a prophet. Born beyond the common birth of men, it was holy entreaty, not pleasure, that created him. For when the aged inner parts of his mother's womb had grown cold, and the tired members of the body promised no more grace of fruitfulness, against the impossibility of the old body and the barrenness of the womb, by Zechariah's prayers Elizabeth's belly swelled. John is conceived in a very old womb; offspring is granted to a father, such as he had never had. Elizabeth's womb is emptied, and she marvels, glad, that she is a mother. Zechariah exults with joy; and when there was dispute among the relatives about the boy's name, while the father fixes his stylus to the tablets to write down the name according to the will of the child born, which he could not explain in speech, he suddenly loosed his tongue into voice, outran the letters with speech, and, whom he wished to write John with the stylus, he testifies to by speaking. What wonder, then, if Christ proclaims him more than a prophet? For which of the prophets by being born restored voice, and a priest to the people? No wonder, then, if he afterwards said of himself: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness”: that is, not only a voice that can penetrate the ears of hearers, but of one crying out, which surely strikes the hearts of hearers and leads them into the way of salvation. That voice even now cries out to all. And to you too, brothers, it always announces through our lowliness what is to be done and what to be shunned: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” We are commanded, then, to prepare the way for the Lord: by the purity of our faith, by which we not only oppose the vain and superstitious figments of idols but also detest and correct them in our brothers; by the chastity of the mind itself, by which we also show mercy to our brothers, restoring to all what is theirs, opposing none, correcting those who err, and, finally, doing good to each as far as we can. Let us, then, always live according to the counsels of the venerable Baptist, always praying God to grant us to keep a happy perseverance in good works. The end.

Today, brothers, we celebrate with most devout festivities the birthday of most blessed John the Baptist, whose life was not only praiseworthy but whose birth too was wonderful. For he was born of a barren woman, coming forth from an aged womb; he is the Baptist of Christ, John, of whom it is written: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” John cried out indeed in the wilderness, to rouse to repentance the hardest hearts of an unbelieving people. He cried out, so that [he might call] them from their most wicked unbelief … he cried out and said: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.” [A leaf is missing.] Let us, then, dwell with him for a time in this world, so that we may be with him for ever. The end.

After that most holy day of the Lord's birth we read that the birth of no man is celebrated except that of Christ's Baptist, John alone. In the other saints and elect of God the day is honoured on which this present life, after the completion of so many labours and the conquest of the world, brings them forth into perpetual eternities. In the others, then, the completed merits of their last day are celebrated. But in Christ's most holy Baptist John the first day too, and the very beginnings of the man, are celebrated; because through him the Lord willed his coming to be attested, lest men should fail to recognize him coming suddenly and unexpected. John was a figure of the Old Testament and bore in himself the form of the law; and so John foretold the Saviour, as the law ran before grace. That, not yet born, he prophesied from the secret of his mother's womb, and, still without light, was already a witness of the truth, meant this: that, hidden under the veil of the letter, he preached in spirit the Redeemer who had already come, and proclaimed our Lord to us as from a kind of womb of the law. So, because the Jews erred from the womb—that is, from the law, which was pregnant with Christ—“they erred from the womb, they spoke falsehoods.” This is why he came as a witness, to bear witness to the light. And that John, set in a penal prison, sends his disciples to Christ means that the law sends the world over to the Gospel: that law which, after the type of John, lay shut in the prison, as it were, of ignorance, in darkness and concealment, and was held enclosed within the letter by Jewish blindness of sense. Hence the blessed evangelist also says of him: “He was a burning and shining lamp”—kindled, that is, by the fire of the Holy Spirit, so as to show the light of salvation to a world held in the night of ignorance, and, as among the thickest darkness of offences, to point out by the ray of his light the most splendid Sun of righteousness. For he said of himself: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” John cried out indeed in the wilderness, that is, among a pagan and unteachable people. For breasts empty of the fear of God and lacking the Holy Spirit are compared to the desert of a squalid wilderness. For this world was deserted of all cultivation of faith and of the fear of God, and, overgrown with the thorns of sins, lay squalid like an untilled field, bringing no pleasantness of good works at all, having received no light of spiritual grace. John, then, is sent, to break up, fertilize and cultivate the rough field by prophetic and apostolic preaching, announcing repentance, and to prepare it for ripe fruit, that is, for the grace of regeneration. And how great a glory is it that to Zechariah the aged priest and to barren Elizabeth a son is promised by Gabriel—by that same angel by whom the birth of the Lord is announced to most blessed Mary! And as though a son somewhat like the Lord is sent ahead, the barren woman's son before the Virgin's Son, it declares some greater miracle in that very birth. Barrenness is rewarded with unhoped-for offspring, because virginity was to be enriched with a new birth. John is promised before Christ, because the Old Testament is before the New, as “day pours forth speech to day.” The lamp is sent before the sun; the servant before the Lord; the friend before the bridegroom; the herald before the judge; the voice before the Word. And so blessed John says of himself: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” He says he is a voice because he was the announcer and preacher of the Word. For while still in his mother's womb he was filled with the Holy Spirit and anticipated his own birth by prophesying. He was sanctified after the likeness of the Lord before he was born, leaping within his mother's inner parts and declaring the Saviour's coming by his mother's mouth. Truly he was a burning lamp, in whom so singular a grace of divine condescension shone that he told by the voice of his holy mother that the Redeemer was even now at hand, and through her, not yet brought into the light, as a kind [of witness] of truth, showed Christ present; a fitting mediator indeed of the Old and New Testaments, and a worthy pointer-out of the glorious Lamb, who merited at one time both to announce his Lord and to see him. So, brothers, celebrating the solemnities of so great a day … [Fifteen obliterated lines are missing] … by weeping for our sins and redeeming them by fasts and abundant alms. The end.

It is necessary, dearest brothers, that we rejoice with a yearly feast in the passions of the venerable apostles and the death of our fathers, because with the confidence of Christian faith we believe that by their torments they obtained glory and sought the perpetuity of living a life without end. For who would doubt that they reign with their Lord, who, following his footsteps, conquered death by dying? Or how is it not plain that with that King victory lies in torments, whose triumph is on the cross? So the princes of the churches chose to fall patiently for the honour of the faith, whom the Author of life, by sending ahead the example of his own death, taught not to fear death. Let us rejoice, then, and exult that our most glorious fathers died for Christ, because whoever first [dies] for the Eternal merits eternal life for himself by the price of his own blood. For a market of eternity is held where not a quantity of money but faithful blood is the price, where death so takes away life that immortal life follows the death inflicted. And so, brothers, he to whom the world is hateful for love of Christ loses the world not unwillingly, as most blessed Paul said: “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” How beautifully he says, “and to die is gain”! Since whoever lives for Christ, if he dies for Christ's honour, acquires for himself the kingdom of heaven at the loss of present light. For to die for Christ is to reign with Christ. He who reckons a religious death as gain shows that by his death he advances, not perishes. For our Lord and Saviour also says: “Whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it.” What is this, dearly beloved? By what reason can a soul once lost be found by a man? He can, brothers, he can—not by reason, but by faith. He can without doubt, because by the benefit of the resurrection the preserved soul will be restored to the restored body. For what is possible for God it is not impossible for man to think, as Paul the apostle, aware of things to come, says: “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.” By saying, then, “Whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it,” the Lord showed the glory of his coming, in which every man will receive back the state and life of his substance, the fellowship of our soul and body being [re]formed; for man consists of soul and body. One without the other is a nature disjoined and scattered. If the body is removed, [man] is lost. When it is said, then, “Whoever loses his soul will find it,” it is revealed to us that when, according to the faithful promise of our God, the world will be renewed, the soul will be given back to the body and the body to the soul. So also the Saviour said: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather fear him who can destroy soul and body in Gehenna.” So the power of destroying the soul shows in Christ the power of restoring man. Nor should we wonder, dearly beloved, if Paul by the sword and Peter by the cross condemned the faithlessness of a raging world, whose Lord terrified the prince of the world by wonders, refuted him by rebukes, triumphed over him by sufferings. The devil found in them what he could kill, but did not find what he could hold captive. And what wonder if the servant of the slain is put to death by the sword? What wonder if the disciple of the Crucified is lifted on a cross? Those who followed the example of the sufferer have obtained the rule of the one who reigns. Christ, then, took Peter and Paul, one fishing, the other persecuting. And to Peter he gave the keys of his kingdom, to Paul the wisdom of the word. Nor is this incredible, since he who brought water from the rock founded the Church on Peter. He who compelled the magus to worship taught the persecutor to preach. In these two, dearly beloved, as far as it is permitted to small minds to perceive, the twofold form of the Church and the diversity of the human race are figured. For simplicity commends Peter, learning exalts Paul; so that we may notice that in God's Church both knowledge is necessary and simplicity is loved. By simplicity I mean, not that which grows numb in the stupor of sloth, but that which, burning watchfully, knows how to profit others and cannot itself do harm; so that in one and the same man there may be cautious simplicity and kindly prudence, according to what was said: “Be therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” For Peter's simplicity was both armed by the vigour of a most lively mind and fortified by the foresight of spiritual counsels. Peter was certainly of a simple and prudent heart when he confessed the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation not by inquiring but by believing, saying: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” By this confession, dearly beloved, he both profited all as a simple man and repelled the opinions of those who do not believe rightly as a wise one. So Paul enters heaven by the grace of learning; Peter receives the power of opening heaven by the merit of simplicity. These things are for us, dearly beloved, so that we may understand that neither are the learned driven away from the faith of our God nor the simple rejected. And as far as the truth of faith holds, it is plain to all that Paul had Peter's simplicity, and that Paul's prudence was not lacking to Peter himself. For the same Spirit taught both. For this reason, dearly beloved, both Paul is a rock of Christ and Peter a vessel of election. For each, like a heavenly stone, gives strength to the weak; each, as a chosen vessel, pours out from the eternal spring the streams of the life-giving cup to those who thirst for the faith of Christ. And so, since they have one faith, one glory, one day of victorious passion, the devotion of all peoples venerates both with one full confession.

Let us exult, brothers, and glory in the Lord our God, because the birthday of the apostles is the nourishment of the Church; for as every little child is nourished with the milk of its mother's breast, so then the infancy of the rising Church grew strong by the richness of the fathers' blood. For from the time the barren earth received the blessing of fruitful blood, a countless multitude of believers sprang up throughout the whole world. Who is so mad as to deny that truth is in the Christian faith, which sorrows do not weary, tortures do not disturb, and no terror of bodily death bends; to which even the torments of persecutors profit for everlasting joy; whose kingdom, by an eternal and unconquered power, rules over worldly empires! But so that we may notice more fully how great is the distance between the heavenly kingdom and the earthly, let us take lessons from present examples. See, the kings of this passing age keep the devotion of their soldiers toward them only in this life by honours and gifts, having nothing at all that they could give to their men or themselves after death. But Christ, the King of all ages, allows his elect to be afflicted with labour, nakedness, hunger, tortures, and even death, because he has power to raise the dead, to clothe one stripped of present life with the light of his kingdom, and, removing the law of death, to give perpetuity to a mortal. That royal rewards are sometimes refused by faithful men, that all the dignities of the world are abhorrent to them, that they reject as vain whatever this world offers them as precious, is wholly the work of that hope, because faith kept presumes that better things will one day be given them through the grace of their Christ. Who is not astonished that in the will of Christ there is so wonderful a sacrament: that he so promises his saints their rewards as to send torments ahead of them; so preaches the love of the future life as to teach that the present is not to be loved? Here is the truth of religion: where sadness begets joy, where needy nakedness weaves the garments of incorruption, where to be disgraced is glory, to be burned is refreshment, to be killed is triumph. This is the death, dearly beloved—if only the authority of the Holy Spirit raise and strengthen our faith—which children do not refuse, young men do not avoid, the mature choose, the old seek, women have not feared. For in the passion of martyrdom, where firmer faith reigns in a person, as has often happened already, neither age withdraws nor sex excuses. There, brothers, there weakness of body is pleaded where faith has no firmness. So the most glorious Peter, firmer than any rock by the steadfastness of his faith, while he preached Christ's cross, conquered his own; nor did he fear to be crucified, because he feared and loved the Crucified. Peter suffered, then, as the best servant for his Lord, as a faithful disciple for his master, and as a chosen shepherd for the sheep entrusted to him, following to death the footsteps of the one whose path he was following to life; and because he underwent a passion like his King's, having received the key of the heavenly kingdom, he took on the likeness of the one who reigns. Or how would he fear the end of his own life who had proved that his Christ reigned after death? How would he flee the cross who had recognized the signs of the blessed cross in the body of his Lord returning from the dead? How would he refuse the wounds of crucifiers who knew that the Redeemer of the world had carried the marks of the nails with him to the Father? Would he dread death for his Lord, to whom the very Author of life had foretold by the mouth of his foreknowledge both his death and the kind of his death, saying: “When you were younger you girded yourself and went where you wished; but when you are old, another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish”? That is to say: When you were younger, Peter, girding yourself with the service of your own hand, you followed your own will in all things; but when you are old, a stranger's hand will gird you and lead you where you do not wish, and you will change the freedom of your youth into the servitude of old age. “He will lead you,” he says, “where you do not wish.” Peter never did not wish to suffer for his Lord, to whom he had already said before: “I will lay down my life for you.” He wished indeed, as a devout man, to die; but because he was thrusting himself forward to death as though of his own accord, he seemed to have a kind of presumptuous boldness; for one who as weak does not wish to die, and yet as strengthened by God does not flee the passion, shows in himself both the feeling of trembling flesh and fulfils the duty of a faithful soul. So when the apostle offered himself to death of his own accord, then he feared to die; and when he was led unwilling to the cross, he did not fear to be crucified; because there human weakness was wearied, here the strength of the heavenly Spirit conquered. For all our devotion, if it trusts as it were in its own strength, at once grows tired as weak. But if anyone with suppliant prayer commends the accomplishment of his good resolve to divine grace, no adversities of this age will compel him to waver. We must beware, then, brothers, of claiming for our own virtue and prudence any of the things we do rightly, as the Lord teaches his apostles, saying: “For without me you can do nothing.” By this sentence we are forewarned that all things are to be hoped for from him. Everything too that comes out well is to be reckoned to his gifts, without whom, as he says, we can have no success at all in our wishes. Indeed, as soon as Peter presumed to say to the Lord, “I lay down my life for you,” not long after, troubled by the questioning of a girl, he answered that he did not know the man. For this he wept most bitterly; and where Christ said that Peter was to be led where he did not wish, there he obtained the victory of a triumphant passion. The apostle is not to be blamed, then, if he more boldly wished even to die for Christ's honour, because that presumption which comes from the fervour of faith, even if it does not seem praiseworthy, still has great confidence before the Lord from the very devotion of its conscience. But for the caution of his faithful and as a refuge for our weakness, the Saviour said to his disciples: “If they persecute you in this city, flee to another.” That is to say: Avoid the passion indeed, lest perhaps you be conquered by torments; yet when you are taken, do not yield to the persecutor; for I want my servants neither to wait for death nor to fear it, so that the foolish persecutor may recognize that wisdom is in you and faith is not lacking; for not to avoid death when you can is the vice of rashness, but not to yield to the one who kills is the courage of a believer. This is the reason and power of our faith: that in confessing the Christian name we neither desire death nor fear to be killed. So that vessel of election, the most glorious Paul, so as not to be stained with rods by the Gentiles, cried out that he was a Roman citizen, and removed injury from his body by the prescription of secular laws, and rejoiced with written exultation that he had been rescued from dangers and deaths. And if, curious, you ask why the Apostle protected himself by the privilege of the Gentiles, know that this was an apostolic counsel: to confound by their own laws, terrifying them, those who had no reverence for our God; nor did he wish to exercise vengeance by the power given him by the Lord on those whose salvation, he knew, he had been sent to seek, though they persecuted him. For what the apostle's power could do the magician who was blinded felt, and the Python-spirit cast out of the divining woman proved. But when, by the Lord's dispensation, the time of his passion came, he confidently submitted his faithful neck to the Gentile sword; and he who had formerly refused rods did not flee the sword. For this is the holy and perfect measure of believing, this the soundness of blameless devotion in the contest of faith: both not to wish to die and to fall patiently, because our God does not require our death but that mind which death cannot overcome.

Celebrating today the birthday of the most blessed apostles Peter and Paul, dearest brothers, we ought to refresh ourselves with various dishes and celebrate so great a feast with great gladness. For who would not celebrate the solemnity of such men with great gladness? Who, on the solemnity of such men, would not lay on great preparations for himself, so that the more he spends, the more he may confirm that he loves the apostles? Yet there is no need of our own expense for our refreshment. For on his birthday Saint Peter himself refreshes us; for his vessel is filled with all plenty, which was brought down to him from heaven when he was hungry. Whoever hungers as Peter did, then, is refreshed with Peter. Why, then, should we prepare our own meal, when we are fattened on the apostolic dish? Why should we look for earthly feasts when we have heavenly plenty? For Saint Luke says in the Acts of the Apostles that to Peter, hungry after prayer about the sixth hour, heaven was opened and a certain shining vessel like a linen sheet was let down, in which were all the four-footed beasts of the earth and the birds of heaven; and that the Lord said to him: “Peter, rise, kill and eat.” See: Peter, who says elsewhere, “Gold and silver I have none,” now has a little vessel for his banquet more shining than silver, so that he who had refused the beauty of silver for Christ's sake might be enriched through Christ with the brightness of silver. So for Peter about to dine the preparations of cooks are lacking, the services of attendants are lacking; but—what is better—divine ministries are not lacking, and by a more useful exchange what is lacking to the holy man on earth abounds in heaven; for, so that Peter may refresh himself, no storeroom is anxiously unlocked, but heaven itself is at once opened. We read in the Scriptures that holy Elijah in the desert was fed by ravens serving him; how much better Peter, to whom no earthly bird holds out a little food, but a multitude of angels serves a whole banquet! After prayer, then, Peter is hungry. It is to be wondered why hunger follows a holy man after prayer, since hunger is usually driven away by prayer, and a hungry soul is fattened only by observances. But I think that after prayer Peter hungered not for food but for the salvation of men; and that he was not troubled by want of food for the body but laboured under a lack of believers. For when the faithless and ungrateful Jewish people did not believe in Christ as he preached, Peter in a manner suffered hunger in his office. For he suffers hunger who does not attain the fruit of his labour. He went up eagerly, then, to the upper room to pray. It says well that Peter went up to the upper room to pray, because every saint, when he prays, leaving lowly or earthly things, is lifted on high in mind, and, suspended aloft, is caught up and by holy thought made near to heaven. And there, to him hungry—that is, thinking in the higher place of his heart about the salvation of the Jewish people—a vessel full of animals of various kinds is offered, as though the Godhead were saying to him: You hunger only for the Jews; see, nevertheless, I fill your faith with the diversity of all the nations. For the various animals gathered in one little vessel show the congregation of various nations gathered in one Church: which Church, in that shining vessel, having no spot or wrinkle, gleams with the whiteness of linen. In it first, from the Gentiles, the centurion Cornelius is offered as a soul to God. From this vessel of his, then, Peter refreshes us today; for when we see crowds of pagans running to the faith of Christianity, we rejoice together with the apostles. For those whose birthday we keep today are not dead, but reborn, they plainly live, because they have been made sharers of Christ, who is the life of all. For though their bodies were slain in the passion, the order of living is not broken off; for they both give thanks to God and render praises to the Saviour; except that, the burden of their members dissolved, they cling more to Christ, as the apostle Paul says: “To be dissolved and to be with Christ is far better!” That is not to be called death, then, by which, when it intervenes, we are rid of the persecutor and joined to Christ. That is plainly not to be called death which, uniting the dead to Christ, makes gain for the one dying, as the blessed Apostle says: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” But that is true death which binds even a living man in the death of sins; because though he seems to live, he is seen to be given over to death by his crimes, as the Apostle says of that pleasure-loving widow: “She who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.”

It is known to you all, brothers, and best known to the whole world, that today is the birthday of the most blessed Peter and Paul, and no part of the world can be unaware of so great a devotion: since David the prophet says of them, “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world”; into all the earth the wonderful power of Peter has been spread, and to the ends of the world the words of Paul's epistles have penetrated. For who has not heard that blessed Peter the apostle first restored firmness of feet to the lame man sitting at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, who had long been crippled from his mother's womb, so that what nature had given too little apostolic grace might repair? For when that lame man, begging alms, believed he would receive some money from the apostles, the apostle Peter said to him: “Silver and gold I have none; but what I have I give you: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk.” Blessed indeed the generosity which gave the asker not silver but health! Blessed the generosity which brought out from its treasures not gold but medicine! Blessed is that lame man, who, while seeking alms of money, received the riches of soundness. For he merited to receive as a gift from the apostles what he could not have bought from physicians with any treasures. Peter, then, did the first sign of his wonders by restoring footsteps to the feet of a lame man. We have often said that Peter himself was named rock by the Lord, as he says: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” If, then, Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, rightly does he heal feet first, so that, as he holds the foundation of faith in the Church, so he may strengthen in man the foundations of the members; rightly, I say, does he first cure the feet in a Christian, so that he may now stand on the rock of the Church not trembling nor weak, but walk sturdy and strong. And where are Paul's words not read? What place does not write them in letters, keep them in heart, guard them in conduct? This Paul was named by the Lord a vessel of election. A good vessel, in which the precious precepts of Christ's commands are stored; a good vessel, from whose fullness the substance of life is always paid out to the peoples, and yet it is full. Excellent names of the apostles, rock and vessel, necessary to the Saviour's house. For a house is built by the strength of rocks and furnished by the usefulness of vessels. The rock, for firmness, holds up the peoples so that they do not slip; the vessel, for safekeeping, covers Christians so that they are not tempted. How blessed their departure from this world was, there is no one who does not know. For this is the first blessedness in them: that both are known to have suffered on one day, so that those whom one faith had bound in service one day might crown with martyrdom. Then the passion itself, though it was different in each, yet how full it is of the holiness of grace! For Peter underwent the death of the cross, like the Saviour, and by the likeness of devotion to the Lord was not separated from him even in death; so that he whom he imitated in faith he might imitate also in passion. From Paul's neck, when the persecutor had struck it with the sword, a stream of milk rather than of blood is said to have flowed; and in a wonderful way the holy Apostle, by the grace of baptism, stood in the very slaughter shining rather than bloody. This is not astonishing in Saint Paul. For what wonder if the nurse of the Church abounds in milk, as he himself says to the Corinthians: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food.” This is that land full of promise which God promised our fathers, saying: “I will give you a land flowing with milk and honey.” For he did not speak of this land, which with running waters rolls up mire and mixes mud, but of that land of Paul, and of those like Paul, which continually distils what is pure and sweet. For what epistle of Paul is not sweeter than honey, whiter than milk? Which epistles, like breasts, nourish the peoples of the churches for salvation? From the Apostle's neck, then, milk flowed instead of blood. We read in his epistle that flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God. Paul, then, now possesses the kingdom, since he lacks blood, which is said to hinder those who would reign. So Paul, while still set on earth, is already transformed into the substance of the heavenly kingdom. Therefore, dearest brothers, whenever we celebrate the memorials of the martyrs, leaving aside all the business of the world, we ought without any delay to run together to the house of God, to render honour to those who by the shedding of their blood brought forth salvation for us, who offered themselves to the Lord as so sacred a victim for our propitiation; especially since almighty God says to his saints: “Whoever honours you honours me, and whoever despises you despises me.” Whoever, then, honours the martyrs honours Christ too; and whoever despises the saints despises our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, etc.

I believe you know the passion of the most blessed martyr Lawrence, whose birthday we celebrate today; and I do not doubt that your love can know how much he endured in the persecution. For so great was the glory of his martyrdom that by his passion he illuminated the whole world. Lawrence plainly illuminated the world with the light with which he himself was set on fire, and with the flames he endured he warmed the hearts of all Christians. For who, by this example, would not wish to burn for Christ with Lawrence, so as to be crowned by Christ with Lawrence? Who would not wish to bear for an hour the fire of Lawrence so as not to suffer the eternal burning of Gehenna? By blessed Lawrence's example, then, we are challenged to martyrdom, kindled to faith, warmed to devotion. Even if the persecutor's flame is lacking to us, the flame of faith is not lacking. We do not burn in body for Christ, but we burn in affection. The persecutor does not put fire under me, but the desire of the Saviour supplies me with fire. We read in the Gospel that there is a fire of the Saviour, as the same Lord says: “Do you not know that I came to cast fire on the earth; and what do I want but that it be kindled?” Set on fire by this fire, Cleopas and his companion said: “Was not our heart burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scripture to us?” Kindled by this fire too, blessed Lawrence does not feel the burning of the flames; and while he burns with desire for Christ, he does not burn with the persecutor's punishment. For as much as the ardour of faith boils in him, so much does the flame of torture grow cold. Blessed Lawrence laboured under a bodily burning. On one side he is kindled by love of Christ, on the other tortured by the persecutor's flame; but the divine ardour of the Saviour puts out the material ardour of the tyrant. For though his members are dissolved into ashes, the strength of his faith is not dissolved; the body suffers loss but acquires the gain of salvation. For blessed Lawrence, brothers, is not destroyed by a quick or simple passion. For one who is struck by the sword dies once; one who is plunged into a furnace of flames is freed by one onset; but this man is tortured by a long and manifold punishment, and death is not lacking to him for torment, yet is lacking for an end. For that most savage persecutor is said to have imposed on him this continuous punishment: that, exposed to a mass of burning coals and stretched besides on an iron grid, a slow flame should consume him, so as not so much to kill the man quickly by burning as to torture him long by scorching; so that, when the persecutor saw one side burned, he turned the other side to the fires to be burned. We read that Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael, the most blessed boys, shut by the king in the furnace of fire, walked about in the flames of their punishment and trampled the fiery masses with their feet. Hence blessed Lawrence too is to be set forward with no less glory; since they walk in the flames of their punishment, he lies down even in the fire of his torture; they trampled the fires with their footsteps, he puts them out with the spreading of his sides. They, I say, standing in their punishment, prayed to the Lord with raised hands; he, lying prostrate in his punishment, entreated the Lord with his whole body. Again blessed Lawrence is turned on his back, and his loins are burned with fire, so that the prophecy of the psalm might be fulfilled which says in the person of Lawrence: “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my loins and my heart.” He asks to be burned with a twofold fire. For if he were speaking of the one and only fire of the world, it would have been enough to offer only his loins to be burned by the fires. But the heart is burned only by the flame of Christ; and so, to compare his devotion, he asks for a twofold fire for himself, so that, the struggle having been held, he might show that the love of Christ can do more than the tyrant's punishment. Let us honour, then, brothers, blessed Lawrence, who, while by his faith he overcame the persecutor's flames, showed us that through the fire of faith we overcome the fires of Gehenna and by love of Christ do not fear the day of judgment. But we, dearly beloved brothers, if we wish to come to the fellowship of the holy martyrs, let us think about imitating the martyrs. For they ought to recognize in us something of their virtues, so that they may deign to pray to the Lord for us. For if we cannot bear the torments the holy martyrs endured, let us fight, by their intercession, against evil desires. And since daily sins are not lacking, daily remedies are not lacking either. Let no one believe that he possesses any happiness or any true joy in this world. He can prepare blessedness here; he cannot possess it. Two times succeed each other in their order: a time to weep and a time to laugh. Let no one deceive himself, brothers: there is no time for laughing in this world. For we know that every man desires to rejoice; but not all seek joy where it ought to be sought. True joy in this world has not been, is not, and cannot be. For the Lord himself in the Gospel warns his disciples, saying: “In the world you will have tribulation.” And again: “The world will rejoice, but you will be sorrowful; but your sorrow will be turned into your joy.” So, then, in this life, with labour and pain, let us do what is good with the Lord's help, so that in the age to come we may gather the fruits of good things with joy and exultation; by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

Although, dearest brothers, the whole world is amazed with us at the passion which on this present day triumphed over the faithlessness of the age, yet the Roman Church marvels with special joy at the courage of her foster-son. For she ought to rejoice above the others, who, ennobled by such blood, possesses in a manner the special dignity of a native martyr. He, then, while he was performing the office of archdeacon in the apostolic see, and the greedy persecutor was pressing him to hand over the vessels dedicated to the heavenly mysteries, gathered a multitude of the needy, and that most faithful man mercifully distributed what the sacrilegious man was seeking to turn into plunder; and the singular man preferred to undergo the movements and onslaughts of imperial power rather than that the venerable vessels of the ministry should be betrayed through him to impious eyes. At this most religious deed of his, pagan fury at once blazed with unmeasured cruelty, and, seizing him, at once had him placed on a gridiron over fires, to test the vigour of his devoted mind by the burning of his body. For a most faithful breast, which the fervour of the Spirit had already kindled to all the strength of the age, does not know how to yield to a mortal fire. Why, perhaps, pagan, do you rage? Why do you meditate vain things? Your fire is not a punishment to Lawrence but a light; your flame, by which you think he is tortured, is the testing of truth, not the pitiable lot of a Christian. For that the divine power permits his little servants to suffer such things, brothers, belongs to the eternal majesty and its secret counsel, so that all unbelief may recognize that our faith rests on all truth. Whose possession is so secure that it laughs at the raging world and glories in the very tortures of its body. Lawrence is burned for confessing the true God; and while he endures the flames of the world, he puts out for himself the perpetual burning of Gehenna. O torment desirable to all the faithful, by which all that punishment of the dreadful judgment is undone! O longed-for fire, by which everlasting refreshment is obtained for devout minds! Lawrence's flesh is discoloured by the fires, but the martyr's soul is adorned; the body is ruined, but the spirit grows strong; and the corruption of the members sends the rejoicing soul to God, so that it might more gloriously re-form, by the privilege of the victorious soul, the body that did not yield to tortures for the truth. But let us see now with what patience of faith Saint Lawrence endured the torments of the flames. While, then, with the fire multiplied, he is broken by the scorching of red-hot iron, and while, driven by the dreadful torture, he is thought already to be failing, he suddenly burst out in the voice of one indignant and laughing: “Turn me over,” he said; “king, eat; it is cooked.” With what shame, I ask, was the most cruel torturer confounded, when he was not only honoured by no prayer from a man set amid tortures, but was rebuked by the reproof of one mocking him! And how great a laughing-stock Lawrence made of him, that, when he had taken away from him the food of a rich meal, he offered him the food of his own roasted body! These, then, brothers, are the merits of Lawrence, this the glory of his martyrdom. He enriched the poor, did not lose the sacred vessels, mocked the fires, and, leaving the world a victor, condemned the persecutor's madness with a triumphant voice.

Since, dearly beloved, the sum of all virtues and the fullness of all righteousness are born of that love by which God and neighbour are loved, in no one indeed is this love found to excel more loftily and shine more brightly than in the most blessed martyrs, who closely imitated the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for all men, both in the ardour of love and in the work of suffering. For though no one's kindness can equal that love by which the Lord redeemed us—because it is one thing for a man to die for a righteous man, being destined to die by his own necessity; another to fall for the ungodly, being free of the debt of death—yet the martyrs too have conferred much on all men, whose courage the Lord, the giver of it, so used that he willed the penalty of death and the cruelty of the cross to be terrible to none and made them imitable for many. If, then, no good man is good for himself alone, and wisdom is not a friend to any wise man only for himself; and this is the nature of true virtues, that whoever is bright with their light leads many away from dark error; there is no more useful pattern for instructing God's people than the unconquered patience of the martyrs. Reasoning is easy for entreating and effective for persuading; but examples are stronger than words, and it is more to teach by deed than by voice. In this most excellent kind of teaching, with what glorious dignity blessed Lawrence the martyr, by whose passion this day is famous, is strong, even his persecutors could perceive. With what wonderful fortitude of soul he was endowed, conceived principally from love of Christ, which not only did not itself yield but strengthened others by the example of his endurance! For when pagan fury was raging against all the choicest members of Christ, and especially attacking those of the priestly order, the impious persecutor boiled over against the deacon Lawrence, who was pre-eminent not only in the ministry of the sacraments but also in the stewardship of the Church's property. He sets before himself a double prey in one man: if he could, he would make him a betrayer of the sacred money and also an outcast from the true religion. So the man greedy for money and enemy of truth is armed with a twin torch: with avarice, to seize the gold; with impiety, to take away Christ. He demands of the spotless sacred minister the Church's wealth, which he was gaping most greedily to have brought to him. That most chaste deacon, showing where he kept them stored, presented countless flocks of holy poor, in whose food and clothing he had laid up resources that could not be lost. These were the more wholly safe, the more holily they were proved to have been spent. The robber, cheated, rages, and, burning with hatred of the religion that had established such a use of riches, sets about plundering a more precious treasure; with him in whom he had found no wealth of coins, he would take away that deposit with which he was rich: he orders Lawrence to renounce, and prepares to press that most solid fortitude of the deacon's soul with dreadful tortures; and when the first do not prevail, harsher ones follow: he ordered the torn limbs, cut by many strokes of the scourge, to be roasted over a fire beneath, so that on an iron grid, which from continuous heating already had in itself the power to burn, by the alternate turning of the members the torture might become fiercer and the punishment longer. You gain nothing, you achieve nothing, savage cruelty; while Lawrence is lifted up into heaven, you fail with your flames. The flame of Christ's love could not be overcome, and the fire that burned outside was weaker than the one that kindled within. You raged against the martyr, persecutor, and increased his palm while you heaped up his punishment. For what did your ingenuity not find for the victor's glory, when even the instruments of torture passed into the honour of his triumph? Let us rejoice, then, dearly beloved, with spiritual joy at the most happy end of the renowned man. Let us glory in the Lord, who is wonderful in his saints, in whom he has set us a defence and an example. And so he has glorified his glory throughout the whole world that from the rising of the sun to its setting the lights of the deacons' lamps flash out, and as Jerusalem was made glorious by Stephen, so Rome was made illustrious by Lawrence. By his prayer and patronage we trust that we shall be helped without ceasing, so that, since all, as the Apostle says, who wish to live godly in Christ suffer persecution, we may be strengthened by the spirit of love and fortified by the constancy of steadfast faith to overcome all temptations. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and with the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.

When pagan impiety, dearest brothers, had often been conquered by the virtues of innumerable martyrs, and, having exhausted every kind of punishment, saw that the people of God not only could not be overcome but was made stronger by its tortures, it was kindled by the torches of its fury and set about tormenting most blessed Lawrence with flames. But the most cruel persecutor found in him a fire which a mortal flame could not conquer. For he had kindled the breast of the most faithful martyr, of whom the Lord said: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I want but that it be kindled?” The bravest of men so patiently endured those flames and so bravely overcame them that, while the executioner raged and his members were wholly burned, he neither denied Christ nor betrayed the vessels consecrated to the heavenly mysteries. In this, who could estimate the confidence of his mind, the vigour of his soul? He, in so great a bitterness of torture, neither made public the secret of the holy Church to impious eyes nor was forced to deny the name of his Redeemer. But notice into what execrable ferocity of cruel spirit the persecutor blazed, who, as if flame alone could not suffice for burning a human body—flame which, blazing up from the fires beneath, would torture the minister of God more fiercely—under the appearance of one torment, by a kind of doubled torture, tormented the most blessed martyr with both fire and iron. But earthly burning wastes away completely where the heavenly soul grows warm with the fervour of the Holy Spirit. Nor is he conquered by red-hot iron who calls upon the Creator of iron to help him in his contest. And so it came about that from unheard-of torments a new victory was born for the Christian soldier. Nor should it trouble us, brothers, that so much is permitted to the pagans against God's saints; this power is allowed them for this reason: that the more cruelly they rage, the more gloriously they are triumphed over in the martyrs.

Not undeservedly, dearest brothers, with a special celebration and a very crowded gathering, do you show particular honour to the most blessed martyr Cyprian, whom the excellence of his earlier life raised to the summit of the highest priesthood, and whose faithful ministry as bishop lifted him to the palm of martyrdom. It is truly pleasing and fitting that the Church, which glories no less in his teaching than in his blood, should honour the memory of his confession with more devout honour to Christ. For what among churchmen is holier than a martyr? Brighter than a teacher? Loftier than a priest? “Precious,” says blessed David, “in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” With how great veneration, then, brothers, is he to be honoured here by the faithful, whose death was not only precious in the sight of the Lord, but whose life, in the abundance of faith, was rich and whose speech was most wealthy? Rightly, I think, is his life called rich, whose holy conduct rejoiced in a wealth of good morals and in a treasury of various virtues. Nor is his speech unfittingly called most wealthy and splendid, whose eloquence shone with such light that amid the threats of the wicked and the terrors of persecutors he raised up the faithful, strengthened the doubtful, refuted the unbelieving. For he could be called away by no fear from teaching that faith for which, secure in Christ's promise, he did not dread to be killed. And what confidence of faith he had, and what courage! What constancy! He not only armed himself against the onslaught of the world with the vigour of a noble mind, but, by building up the hope of future blessedness, taught many of the faithful not to fear death. Hence it appears, dearly beloved, with how great brightness he now shines among the angelic choirs, who is both wonderful by his own passion and glorious by the confessions of others. For so great were the ornaments of his spiritual words, and so forceful the severity of his heavenly sentences, that his exhortation moved the minds of believers more than the sword of the raging enemy. And what shall I say of blessed Cornelius? For whom this suffices for every praise: that he adorned the apostolic see, which he deservedly obtained, with the gift of his venerable blood.

Of what merit, dearest brothers, blessed Cyprian is, and of what glory, both his venerable martyrdom and his teaching, known to all, testify. For he needs no outside praises, whom the magnificence of his own speech makes illustrious among all men. Indeed, so that so great a man might reach our age too, the monuments of his admirable eloquence have brought it about; for while, as their usual teacher, he instructed the peoples entrusted to him in the observance of the heavenly commands, he transmitted his life and faith to posterity. That this is so every studious person recognizes with me, since in his books one notices how great a purity of chastity, holiness of goodness, and greatness of faith were in him. For while he chastises the vices of sinners with severe rebuke and follows the merits of the saints with fitting praise, he reveals the heavenly discipline present in his heart. Hence without doubt he is one of those brothers of whom it was said through the prophet: “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” The sound of most blessed Cyprian went out into all the earth, since under the whole heaven both the glory of his passion has become known and the trumpet of his most brilliant tongue has sounded. And truly the blast of the trumpet of his speech rang out when he kindled with the sound of heavenly eloquence the Church of God, fighting a spiritual battle against the threats and terrors of the pagans; and, lest he should seem to arm God's people for contempt of the present life more eloquently than bravely, he trampled on death, which he had taught by preaching was not to be feared, by undergoing the passion for Christ's name; and so it came about that he challenged every believer to undergo torments for religion not only by the exhortation of holy words but by the bravest example of his own blood. Truly is he to be venerated by all and by the whole world, who with all the perfection of divine virtue both proclaimed and fulfilled the work.

[Editor's note: We add here a fragment of another sermon of Saint Maximus on Saint Cyprian, which is found published by Muratori after the sermon on Saint Lawrence, Anecdota, vol. 4, p. 65.] … he kept; he urged peace in words, preserved peace in heart, rejected all vices with his holy mouth and condemned them with a holier mind; so he cut back the sprouting thorns of various crimes with the sharpest blade of his tongue that he cut them off still more by the integrity of a blameless life. He was also, as a truly spiritual master, bitter to vices and gentle to virtues, and he seasoned the tranquillity of the sinner in his care with the medicine of a sharper remedy, so that those whom the mildness of his goodness did not restrain the severity of his rebuking tongue might terrify. So he softened his sharpness with the sweetness of mingled gentleness, as boiling water is often tempered by a trickle of cold water. Some, indeed, harder in mind, he wounded with the saving darts of his armed mouth, so that spiritual wounds might help those whom gentle care could not profit. And this in the manner of a most skilled physician, who, when he has found deadly ulcers deeply settled in a man's body, though he is good and kindly, takes on as it were cruelty and attacks with the knife to cut away the harmful rottenness of dead flesh; and he does not spare the highest art of healing, so that he may spare; he is angry so as to help, and for the need of his patient puts on severity so as to heal; for the most wise Solomon also says: “The wounds of a friend are sweeter than the willing kisses of an enemy.” This life, this spirit both advanced most blessed Cyprian to the priesthood and consecrated him to martyrdom. This perfection of mind and speech made him famous to the world and glorious to heaven. “Precious,” it says, “in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Rightly, brothers, did venerable Cyprian's death become precious, which he purchased from the Lord his God at the manifold price of his virtues. Truly precious was his death, by whose trade he bought for himself the inheritance of heaven and an eternal kingdom. And so, dearly beloved, let us celebrate this magnificent martyrdom of his with all devotion and reverence, because a rich life, a most wealthy tongue and a precious death raise him to all that glory in Christ our Lord, who, etc.

How great is the greatness of Christian faith, and what its confidence, we must learn especially from this: that among the wonderful gifts of the heavenly promises a festive joy arises for us from the death of the saints. For it is the reckoning not of our nature but of religion that the death of a man, where God is the cause of dying, saddens the minds of unbelievers and gladdens Christian hearts. That is why the deaths of slain martyrs are kept in the Church of God as their true birthday, because by a new order of birth they are born to a new life of heaven with death in labour. For in a death of this kind, which comes for the truth of saving faith, because the living and true God is believed, by the hope of a better age carnal affection is driven far away: the father has no mourning, the mother does not wail, the son consoles his sighs, the brother repels grief, the husband forswears sadness, and the wife tramples on her affection for her beloved spouse. For the heat of earthly love yields, it yields, where the flame of divine love has kindled the Christian's mind. Kindled indeed by this fire, most ardent Cyprian despised his priesthood and his life in the passion, so that the passion might now make him a more glorious priest of Christ. What is more magnificent than this man, whose death is no less to be admired than his life? For he had faithful confession in speech and wonderful martyrdom in confession. There was in him a simple agreement and an undivided fellowship of heart and tongue; for whatever the Spirit of his heart brought to his mouth, his holy tongue dictated to all who heard, as the Saviour says: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things.” And who can have a good treasure in a mortal heart but one whose breast Christ inhabits, as the most glorious Paul taught, saying: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the excellence of the power may be of God and not from us.” This, brothers, is the treasure of a good heart, which makes the mouth of God's servants good and the tongue rich. This is the treasure at whose price every believer buys for himself a blessed seat in paradise and an eternal kingdom. With this treasure venerable Cyprian enriched every believer by the flowing generosity of his tongue, yet he himself, while he is read by all, feels no poverty of his riches. For so great is the abundance of this treasure that the receiver obtains the whole and the giver loses nothing, in the manner of a burning lamp, which gives its flame to lamps brought near it and yet itself remains without loss of the light passed on. It is a thing, brothers, of a new miracle: to give what you have and not lose it by giving; to pour out the whole and feel no lack. Therefore most blessed Cyprian is to be celebrated by the devotion of all the faithful, who, by giving to the peoples what he had and keeping what he gave, both exalted his praiseworthy life with most brilliant speech and consecrated it with most precious blood, so that the courage of the sufferer might show the whole world the faith of the follower. Most rightly is that saying of David spoken of him: “His mouth will meditate wisdom, and his tongue will speak judgment, and the law of his God is in his heart.” In the perfection of his priesthood his heart was surely holy, his mouth wise; Cyprian's tongue was indeed terrible, which pressed upon sinners both the integrity of his breast and those fearful judgments of almighty God; he so poured himself wholly into holy speech that he left nothing at all in the secret of his breast to lie hidden. For every learned man lies hidden, hidden within himself, unless a tongue skilled in speaking reveals the wisdom of his heart. What was not outstanding, what not wonderful in that man in whose mouth was wisdom, in whose tongue judgment, in whose heart remained the law of God, which is the mother of righteousness? Nor idly, dearly beloved, did the following order of the same psalm add: “And his steps will not be supplanted.” Cyprian's footsteps were truly not supplanted, because the law of God flourishes in his heart. He who meditates heavenly wisdom and divine judgment in his mouth and tongue, his steps cannot feel a fall. Or what time of sin, what moment could the devil's stealth ever find in one whose mouth and tongue, through every space of night and day, savours and speaks the will of God, according to what was said by the prophet: “And on his law he will meditate day and night”? Believe, brothers, that his feet will never be moved among the adversities of this world whose breast does not turn aside from the path of true faith. And since most blessed Cyprian possessed every kind of virtue, as priest, as just man, as wise man, standing with unshaken foot he could not be moved in his passion. And hence it is that from one and the same man we hold both an unstumbling rule of right living and a most brave example of martyrdom. For he taught us to live for God and die for God not only by word but confirmed it by deed.

Some days ago, when we were celebrating the birthday of the most blessed martyr Cyprian, we were most sweetly gladdened at his feast; because, since he suffered at this time of the grape harvest, we too, as from a vintage, gathered sweet and various fruits from his passion. For he fattened and refreshed us with the new wine of his martyrdom. For it is new wine that refreshes and inebriates the Christian, but that drunkenness makes him rather more sober: for whoever is inebriated with heavenly grace is sobered from the burden of sins. Filled with this new wine, the holy apostles, as Scripture says, spoke the mighty works of God in foreign tongues. In this event they seemed at once drunk and sober: they were thought drunk because speech beyond nature sounded loudly in them; they were sober because, according to the custom of their mind, they praised God with devotion. That the holy men spoke in a foreign tongue did not come about from any pride or shamelessness, but was done by the providence of the Godhead; so that, because one language is not enough to magnify God, the devotion of the mind might be poured out through many tongues. We were gladdened, then, because we received the fruit of refreshment from the vineyard of the Lord of hosts. For “the vineyard of the Lord of hosts,” as the prophet says, “is the house of Israel”; and that house is we. For according to faith we are Israelites; hence the Apostle says: “Those who are of faith, these are sons of Abraham.” Since, then, we are Israel, we are the Lord's vineyard: let us see carefully that from the branch of our work there is not born a grape of gall rather than of sweetness; lest it be said to us what was said to the Jews: “I waited for it to make grapes, but it made thorns; not righteousness, but an outcry.” How hard a condition, that the property which ought to have brought its Lord the fruit of sweetness pricked him with the roughness of thorns—that is, they crowned him with the suffering of thorns. That crown, as far as the Jews were concerned, was a crown of [mockery; but in truth of] virtues. Hence holy Scripture says: “They looked on him whom they pierced.” See, then, brothers, that it is not said to you too: “I waited for it to make grapes, but it made thorns”; and that the thorns which the Jews put on the Lord with bloody hands we do not put on him with wicked thoughts, piercing him not with the roughness of briars but with the depravity of works. For there are thorns of the heart, which are accustomed to wound even the word of God, of which the Saviour makes mention in the Gospel, saying that the sower's seed fell among thorns, and they grew up and choked what was sown. What these thorns are he himself goes on to say: namely, worldly cares, which, when they grow in a man's heart, choke the commands of the Saviour in him. For who that was ever anxious about the world could be anxious about Christ? Who, while he provides for the profits of his house, could provide for the benefit of the Church? Hence the Apostle says: “He who is without a wife is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please God; but he who is with a wife is anxious about the things of the world, how to please his wife.” See, then, brothers, that your vineyard does not make thorns instead of grapes, that your vintage does not bring vinegar instead of wine. For whoever gathers his vintage and does not give to the poor gathers vinegar, not wine. Whoever stores his harvests and does not minister to the needy has laid up not the fruits of nourishment but has gathered the thistles of avarice; for that is why Scripture says of our earth: “Thorns and thistles it will bring forth for you.”

Whenever, brothers, we celebrate the martyrdoms of the saints, so often do we speak the praises of the Saviour; and as often as we declare their passion, so often do we proclaim the glory of Christ. For we do not look up to what they suffered, but marvel at him for whose sake they suffered. Not the punishment, then, is in the praise, but the faith in the honour. We magnify the martyrs, then, not because they underwent heavy tortures, but because they bore those same tortures for righteousness' sake. For we have seen very many criminals suffer worse punishments, but these profit them nothing, because the cause justifies the martyrs, while their own conscience condemns the criminals. The blessed martyrs, then, are to be held in the highest and foremost place because of their faith. And see what place they merit among men, who have merited a place under the altar before God. For holy Scripture says: “I saw under the altar of God the souls of those slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held, and they cried out,” and so on. “Under the altar of God,” it says, “the souls of the slain.” What can be said more reverent, what more honourable, than to rest under that altar on which sacrifice is celebrated to God, on which victims are offered, on which the Lord is priest, as it is written: “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Rightly, then, are the martyrs placed under the altar, because Christ is laid upon the altar. Rightly do the souls of the righteous rest under the altar, because the Lord's body is offered upon the altar. Nor is it undeserved that vengeance for blood is asked there for the righteous, where Christ's blood is also poured out for sinners. Fittingly, then, and as by a kind of fellowship, burial has been appointed for the martyrs there where the Lord's death is celebrated daily, as he himself says: “As often as you do these things, you will proclaim my death until I come.” That is, those who died because of his death rest in the mystery of his sacrament. Not undeservedly, I say, as by a kind of fellowship, is the tomb of the slain set there where the members of the Lord's slaying are laid, so that those whom the cause of one passion had bound with Christ the reverence of one place might also join. We read that many of the righteous are cherished in Abraham's bosom, some rejoice in the pleasantness of paradise; yet none merited better than the martyrs, namely to rest where Christ is both victim and priest; so that they may obtain both propitiation from the offering of the victim and receive the blessing and service of the priest. Among the other martyrs, then, whom we proclaim stand under the altar of God, blessed Cyprian too stands by, so as to pursue the vengeance of all with more abundant eloquence. For we must not doubt that in martyrdom he prays for more things than the others, who as a priest wrote more things than the others. And though he has received with all the robe of splendid reward, yet perhaps he ceases speaking less, the more he understands he merits. To them, then, as they ask for vengeance, it is said, after the gift has been given, that they should rest and wait until the number of their fellow servants is fulfilled, and so on. You see, then, that the martyrs' vengeance is deferred because of us. For while we delay, their blood is unavenged. But this happens through our sloth, who do not live religiously as is fitting, who do not act piously as is proper. For if the righteousness of our good works went ahead to God, the number of fellow servants that is awaited would already be fulfilled. There is no doubt that the martyrs will receive their vengeance after the judgment, who even after the judgment are honoured with heavenly rewards.

What shall I first undertake to proclaim, dearly beloved, about the Maccabean brothers, whose birthday is today? Where shall I turn my speech in their praises, whose outstanding merits it is neither possible for me to unfold nor likely for me to follow? For as one faith shone in all, so a manifold courage shone in each. Truly venerable brothers, to be celebrated by the mouth of all, in whom confession is in words and triumph in courage. These, then, while they are compelled by fear of the king and the bitterness of tortures to eat what was unlawful and to share in what was forbidden, all succeed one another with one will to die, because all had one hope of living after death. With what fine judgment and praiseworthy constancy they shudder to touch pork, which was then held unclean by heavenly prohibition, they whose devotion was preparing itself for the coming of the spotless Lamb! The bravest young men, then, are seized, and are driven by various tortures of their limbs toward what was wicked and forbidden. Yet they stand firm manfully and do not yield to the tyrant's fury; so that, by a wonderful dispensation of almighty God, those whom the generation of the flesh had brought forth as temporal and mortal brothers punishment made eternal brothers. Who would not truly receive with all admiration that, for the authority of the divine law, boys display wisdom, adolescents do not fear torments, young men despise both the king's gifts and the blandishments of life itself? The artful persecutor begins, then, with the eldest, so as to bend the minds of those following to his commands by the punishment of the elder. But what the impious man contrives for fear profits the brothers as an example. Each of them understands that he can and ought to overcome what had been trampled by the vigour of a brother's mind and by fraternal religion. But what especially shall the mediocrity of our speech say of their venerable mother, to whom festive joys are born from such numerous griefs of bereavement, who exulted in as many torments of deaths as she rejoiced in children? Blessed Felicity likewise played in a manner a twofold mother; for those whom by bodily law she had given to the present life she brought forth by strength of spirit for everlasting ages. What mortal would not marvel, brothers, whose feeling would not tremble, that the mother trembled in all her inner parts lest any of her sons should either fear in so magnificent a conflict or not merit to be killed? And amid those deaths of her slain little ones there was in the mother's breast not only no groan of sadness, but, beyond the feeling of womanly tenderness, the wonderful mother exulted in the victory of those whom she knew she had nourished no less with faith than with milk. The order of birth, then, passes into the order of passion, so that by a most just rule of martyrdom they might be sent to heaven by the path by which the world had received them. O new feeling of tenderness! The sons are tortured, and the mother exults; and so she believed she would be approved as a true mother in the sight of the Lord if she stood by among such deadly tortures of her numerous offspring with unbent breast and dry eyes. Indeed, she rejoices with herself that she recognizes the eagerness of her own mind in her children, and that it fell to her to send her sons ahead by such a death that the underworld could claim nothing of them for itself. But after all these astonishing things, the woman, dying with the same confession as her sons, follows securely those whom she had so devoutly sent ahead. And it was most just in the sight of the Lord that the mother of so many martyrs should not pass from this world without the consecration of martyrdom. Nor need we ask, brothers, by what punishment especially she closed her most glorious day; since all the tortures of her sons we have heard of tormented the mother's inner parts, and she alone felt more sharply whatever each one endured.

That the spirit of the New and Old Testaments is one, the greatness of soul and the faith of the Maccabees also declare, who, secure of the glory of eternity by God's promise, overcame by a holy death the savagery of a bloody king. For our Lord Jesus Christ, whom almost all the Gentile world believes, on the testimony of the Gospel, to have come from heaven, the whole of Judea had long been learning through the law and the prophets would be born on earth of a virgin. And hence it is, dearly beloved, that the Maccabean brothers submitted themselves to sufferings for reverence of their fathers' law before the Lord of the law suffered. Hence that they despised death before the underworld was conquered through Christ. Hence that they gave their own blood for the honour of the Redeemer before the Redeemer shed his blood for them. Who would doubt that they could neither have approached nor endured so countless evils of the present world unless they had believed with the fullest faith in the good things of the age to come? No one, brothers, no one despises a tyrant except one who is raised up by hope of a lawful emperor; no one prefers death to life except one who believes there is life after death; no one willingly endures torments except one who hopes for rewards after torments. When, then, Antiochus was raging with unbridled madness against the servants of God, he orders the most religious band of seven brothers to be brought to his tribunal with their mother, so that either she would be conquered, tortured by the punishments of so numerous an offspring, or, if perhaps his own death did not terrify one of the boys, his brothers' death would disturb him. But the madman erred, not knowing the power of religion, in which this above all is piety: to have preferred God to brothers, God to sons, God to parents. He commanded them, then, to eat pork against the heavenly decrees; on those who refuse he uses various kinds of punishments. But the hearts of the faithful do not know how to yield to the wills of the faithless. So he deals with them by iron, flames, and various tortures. This one's head is stripped of its skin, this one's tongue is cut out; that one is fried, his hands and feet cut off. But amid such deadly hands of torturers neither does the feeling of the mother standing by bend the sons, nor does the crowd of dying children break the mother. And so in the boy brothers and in the very old woman there was the same wish to die for the law of God, so that she seems to have borne her sons by the spirit rather than by the flesh, and they are thought to have sucked from their mother the substance not so much of milk as of faith. Who, of the faithless and the faithful, would not marvel that the very old woman does not groan at the death of so many sweet children? Who would not be astonished that the glad mother mocks the raging king over such cruel tortures of her sons, and the persecutor is rather tortured by her greatness of soul, whom by impious design he thought either to pollute by transgression or to condemn by bereavement? For what is beyond all wonder, the mother says to her youngest son, whom she had received from the king to be persuaded: “I beg you, son, become worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in that mercy of God I may receive you back with your brothers.” Truly incomparable faith of a most glorious woman! She stands in the sight of the king, secure about the dead, anxious about the living. For she knew that she would lose this son alone if he alone had feared to be killed. But the young man, not unworthy, who had watched his brothers' contests patiently, gladly heeded his mother, and not only did not fear the torturing king, but rebuked the wild beast with a fitting reproof. And well, dearly beloved, did the wonderful woman, certain of her sons' triumph, certain of the heavenly reward, mock the king and exult in the Lord, since she believed she was then giving birth more blessedly when she saw her sons going before her to God by a glorious death. And Antiochus multiplied the tortures; but the faithful old woman, in place of that multitude of temporal punishments, counted the eternal rewards of her triumphant little ones; after whose death she herself lay down among their most sweet bodies by a longed-for death and a desirable end. Nor was she terrified by any tortures, who had already conquered every kind of torment in the inner parts of her sons. Nor did she tremble to be killed, who was hastening to that life to which she knew she had sent her children ahead.

Though we marvel with fitting honour at all the blessed martyrs whom antiquity hands down to us, yet we ought to receive with all veneration especially Saints Alexander, Martyrius and Sisinnius, who suffered in our times. For I do not know how it is that we have a greater affection toward those whom our own knowledge has known than toward those whom history teaches. For we know that the former were martyrs by reading, these by the seeing of our eyes. We learn the former's passions by the report of fame; these men's tortures we hold by the testimony of our sight. I owe greater affection, then, where conviction encourages my belief. I owe greater affection, I say, there where through what I have seen I am compelled to believe more devoutly even what I have not seen. For when some things I heard seemed impossible to me, I began to believe they could have happened when I saw similar things done. And so the passion of our time has given us this: that it both conferred present grace and confirmed past faith. We ought, then, to receive the above-named blessed men with all veneration: first, because they deigned to illuminate the days of our life with their precious blood; second, because they conferred on us no small privilege before God, showing what faith there was among Christians in our age, from whose fellowship martyrs merited to come forth; third, because they were of such holy life that they found the crown of martyrdom in a time of peace. For when no persecuting king pressed, no sacrilegious tyrant was urgent, it was not public persecution but Christian devotion that made them confessors. For when, in the region of Anaunia, having built a church at their own expense, they presided over its holy altar—since one of them performed the office of deacon, the two others the office of cleric—and the men of that region, among whom the Christian name had not been known before, wished by their customary sacrilege, which they call the lustrum, to pollute all the places, and the holy men rebuked them and plainly refuted their errors with reasonable reproof, then they, drunk more with fury than with wine, seized them and wounded them with most cruel slaughter, so that one of them, after many tortures, half-alive, awaited and saw the end of his death; for, having pulled down the structure of the church, they built a pyre of its beams and handed the blessed bodies over to the flames. Truly blessed bodies, which no deadly fire of an idol took up for punishment, but a holy flame of the Lord's house received for rest. A holy flame indeed, which received the martyrs not to consume them with harmful heat but to keep sacrilegious hands from them. By such a burning the inner parts of the blessed were consecrated, not cremated. What the Apostle says fits this passion: “But he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” For these were saved while they were burned in the fire of a venerable confession. This, then, brothers, is the whole cause of the passion, for which the holy men, handed over to death, urged others to be like them in their course; for their exhortation advanced so far that, as they departed from the world, their faith pervaded all the places of that region. So Christ, where he then suffered persecution in three martyrs, now exults there in very many peoples of Christians.

Some days ago, when we were keeping most festively the birthday of Saints Alexander, Martyrius and Sisinnius, we especially praised this in their passion: that by resisting the sacrilegious they merited to be martyrs, and by contradicting their superstitions obtained the palm of righteousness. For they were not handed over to death on the ground that they were Christians; rather they were seized for punishment because they rebuked the sacrilegious for not being Christians and devout. In a time of peace, then, when no persecuting king presses, it was not public persecution but religious devotion that made them holy martyrs. For they did not fear to undergo danger to their own safety while they desired to provide for the safety of many. For when they saw the pagan men in their region polluting all the places, by their customary sacrilege which they call the lustrum, with deadly processions, and staining all the innocent, even those absent, if not by complicity then by connivance—for connivance stains the one who, when he could have prevented it from happening by contradicting, allowed it to happen as though by pretending not to see—when, then, the blessed men saw these things, they rebuked them steadfastly, reproved them faithfully, and achieved this: that they became martyrs there and made their persecutors Christians. Therefore, brothers, since we have an example, let us imitate the holy men, if not in the martyrdom of suffering, at least in the duty of Christianity. And since we have heard that the lustrum is customarily sent round by some sacrilegious people, following the example of the saints let us reprove the impious and chastise those who err; for it is a share of martyrdom to have done what the martyrs did. But if, seeing this, we are silent and suffer it in silence, we make ourselves guilty, if not by doing the crime, at least by the assent of pretending not to see. For as opposing sacrileges justifies the one who contradicts, so pretending not to see what you have seen stains the one who keeps silent. For many wretched people are accustomed to say: I do not know; I did not order it; it is not my affair; it does not touch me. But these words, as I said, are spoken by someone wretched or fearful; for he denies that he ordered it to be done, who would not order that it not be done. For an evil that comes from custom, when it is not restrained, is admitted. “It is not my affair,” he says. You are mistaken and ignorant: you do not know that God's affair is the affair of all, and what one sins is avenged on many. For as many are sanctified by the holiness of one, so very many are polluted by the sacrilege of one. And so an evil which, though committed by another, is committed with your knowledge, touches you, since it is held enclosed in your conscience. I do not know, brothers, what it is that we carry out God's precepts so evasively, when all anxiously obey what the princes of the world have commanded, all vigilantly keep their orders. God commands, and at his precepts we sleep. How often has the same God commanded that the sacrileges of idols be destroyed, and we have never been willing to be anxious on this score? We have always pretended not to see, always despised it. Afterwards an imperial command admonished us. See what a disparagement of the Godhead is this addition of human power! Or what is judged of us, who are compelled to live religiously not by devotion but by terror? The princes, being such good Christians, promulgate laws for religion, but the executors do not enforce them competently. And so, the prince being free of fault, the executor remains in guilt; who, if he exercises the severity of the law, is both himself absolved of sin and will be rewarded with eternal reward for the salvation of many.

The devotion of a twofold festival invites us, dearest brothers, to run together with all eagerness to the celebration of the present day, which we plainly have from the triumph of the Maccabees and the victory of a confessor. For over the Maccabees we have a general joy with the others, and through blessed Eusebius a proper and special gladness of domestic rejoicing; and though they fought at different times and in a different contest, yet one spirit fought in them. For who would doubt that there was one sense, one mind, one spirit in them, since the former suffered for the Lord's law, and this one underwent passion for the Lord himself? Let us now consider more carefully, dearly beloved, what was specially the cause of contest for the Maccabees and what for blessed Eusebius. When, then, in ancient ages the pagan world burned, kindled by the torches of the devil's envy against the servants of God, and impious madness filled especially the most ferocious breast of Antiochus, he orders the Maccabean brothers and their most religious mother to be seized and brought to his deadly tribunal, so as to persuade them by fear of death, terror of punishments and offers of gifts to pass over into his error. But neither the threats of the world call back the most devout youths from their God, nor do royal blandishments seduce them. So the first of them, by the disposition of divine justice, enters the arena of the heavenly contest, so that he who went first in age might go first in passion, and the order of birth might hold among the brothers the order of triumph. This eldest of the brothers, then, is ordered by the king to be fried in a heated pan, but is cooled by God; he is cut off in hands and feet, but is quite secure of his own restoration, because he knew he was suffering these things for the law of him with whom alone, he believed, lay the power of forming and repairing the body; for this reason, surely, the bravest youth is cut up in his whole body and limbs, so that he might notice that by God's gift he had as many martyrdoms as members. Another is deprived of his tongue, another is stripped of the skin of his head, so that the diversity of punishments might beget a variety of rewards. Cruelty, exasperated by the virtues of the saints, gnashes its teeth to every savagery. The hands of the butchers grow weary, the bloody eyes waste away, and impiety itself now blushes; the order of the trial reversed, the torturer groans, and the tortured mocks his torturer. When six brothers had thus been cut down and laid low, the seventh, who was also the youngest, is brought forward to be examined; him the tyrant king, having spent so many such tortures in vain, strives to soften with most gentle speech. He promises wealth, offers honours, and pledges his friendship besides, if he can obtain faithlessness from the boy. But the most steadfast youth, despising the king and the king's gifts, walking about paradise in thought and running through heaven in mind, judged tortures more advantageous to him than gifts, and chose to die for God rather than to live with the tyrant; nor indeed could the king's promises bend him whom his brothers' torments had not bent. Indeed, as the outcome showed, the most faithful boy seemed to be tortured more in this respect, that he was tortured later. Meanwhile the outstanding mother, divinely inspired, rejoiced at the tortures of her sons, certain that she would be adorned with as many crowns as the deaths she had borne in her sons. Who, hearing this, would not marvel? For God's honour natural affection grows cool in the mother's breast, nature is overcome by faith, and the woman, stronger than her sex, teaches her sons to love tortures. Having sent her children ahead to God, she herself also, despising the world, falls in a most glorious death. And it was truly fitting that the mother of martyrs should end her life by martyrdom.

After this, dearly beloved, let us now review as best we can what our most blessed father Eusebius endured for the defence of the faith, so that we may notice how great a labour and what merits brought him to this great glory of confession. He, then, as the account of our fathers instructs us, was seized from this city of ours and taken to Scythopolis, and there handed over to the Arians to be done to death. It is not unknown, brothers, how much wickedness the freedom to rage, once permitted to an enemy, can exercise. For to run through the sequence of his sufferings: after that dragging along the stairs, as of a prophet, such a torture is said to have been appointed for him by the Arians that they prepared for him in the upper part of a house a very narrow cell, so short, so low and so cramped that it did not so much hold a man as torture him, and the Arian hospitality was more a punishment than a rest. For they say it was so narrow that the martyr could not stretch out his foot lying down, nor raise his head standing, but was always contracted, bent and lowly, bearing nothing free except the spirit of faith. His feet, fixed in one place, grew numb, but he walked in paradise with the steps of faith; his head lay bowed in it, but Christ raised his head in him. These things, then, the blessed martyr suffered in the hospitality of the heretics—not that they were owed to a martyr, but because such is Arian hospitality that its dwelling is the punishment of a prison, not the lodging of humanity. And although, from the sweetness of his deeds, we have no surfeit of speaking and hearing with one another, yet the victory of the most blessed Maccabees must not be passed over in silence, since this same day, snatched from the world, sent them too with great triumph to heaven. And though that bravest band passed to their God amid torments, Eusebius is not unequal, who, faithlessness having been refuted, departed after torments to the same God, conquered in body. And so that we may notice more plainly that Eusebius' victory was not inferior: they fought for the old law, he campaigned for the new Gospel. They underwent tortures for God's precepts, but Eusebius fought for the truth of the Godhead itself. They resisted King Antiochus so as not to eat flesh then forbidden; he withstood the devil, so that he might not stain the Lord's bread for us with the leaven of heretical speech. Let us exult, then, brothers, giving thanks to our God, because under the devotion of this present day we rejoice in a twofold festival, welcoming the triumph of Eusebius and marvelling at the torments of the victorious Maccabees. Are not the Maccabees wonderful, whom, by the fellowship of their birth and passion, we see to have been brothers in the world and to be brothers in [Christ]; who sucked from the richest breast of their outstanding mother both the substance of living and the power of conquering? For they grew up to such perfection by their mother's milk and speech that there was inseparably both wisdom in their hearts and strength in their bodies. Indeed Antiochus could neither terrify with the sharpest tortures nor call away with great promises the choicest young men, steadfast in their own faith and their mother's exhortation, so as to turn them from reverence for their fathers' law. For such was the vigour in their limbs, such the spirit in their breast, such the learning in their answers, that by despising punishments and refuting faithlessness they conquered both the terror and the fury of the impious king. And the venerable mother, dying by an equal confession and a like death, departed from this world more gladly to her children. No wonder if she bore the king's savagery against herself with greatness of soul, who could bear it so bravely in her sons. Truly blessed woman, and one to be followed with the praises of all, whom no fleshly affection broke for the faith of her God even in the deaths of her sons, and from the torments of her own body neither her sex nor her old age could call back. These, then, dearly beloved, are the festive joys of the faithful on this day. Let us always show these honours to blessed Eusebius and the most glorious Maccabees, whom a different time indeed, but the same faith and one day, brought to the eternal kingdom.

Today is the birthday of the most blessed Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla. How well and pleasantly the three martyrs are called by almost one name! No wonder if those who are alike in passion are alike in name, if they have one appellation among men who have one calling before God. For they were called together by the Lord, not suffering one way and another with time between, but all endured martyrdom alike by the same stroke. This was granted them by Christ out of a kind of family affection: that those who agreed in names should agree in merits; that those who were brothers by blood should become brothers also by holiness; and that those whose members the substance of one body quickened the confession of the same faith should crown in their souls. The history of the blessed ones mentioned above relates that at the time of the passion, when the persecutor was searching for them, they wished to withdraw, having mounted a carriage with mules yoked; and when they were travelling not far from the walls of the city, one of the yoked animals suddenly fell, and so they were seized by the persecutors and held for punishment. How glorious this event was, and arranged by the Godhead, we ought to notice. For as Elijah, when a chariot was brought, ascended as it were to heaven, so these too, when a carriage was brought, came to martyrdom; and as the four-horse chariot carried him to rest, so it carried these to glory. And though that was a fiery chariot, this one is not to be held inferior, because that carried one prophet, this bore three martyrs. But someone will say: it is more glorious to be carried by a fiery chariot than an earthly one. This was plainly not lacking to the holy men: for as a fiery chariot carried Elijah, so a fiery faith was already carrying the martyrs. Christ, I say, was carrying them, who is light, who is fire, of whom it is written: “Our Lord is a consuming fire.” When, then, the persecutor pressed the blessed ones of whom we speak, they mounted a carriage. For what reason? To flee? Far from it. Not to flee, but to come more quickly to martyrdom; not to hide, but to show themselves more plainly as Christians to all who passed by. Otherwise they could have hidden more secretly among many in the city, could more safely each have trusted to the protection of flight in different directions. But when someone, having gathered a company, with carriages spread and equipment arranged, goes out along the public highway, that is not to be called flight but a setting out. For the holy men by this deed, placed as it were in a triumphal chariot, were declaring: See, persecutor, see, we are setting out, see, we are going ahead; why do you sit? Why do you delay? Follow our footsteps; for we do not wish to seem to be led unwillingly to punishment, who profess that we are going ahead to glory.

Yesterday we had the birthday of the Lord Saviour. Today, with the highest devotion, we venerate the passion of the holy martyr Stephen. Yesterday, by which we are redeemed for the reward; today, by which we are challenged to an example. Well, then, is the festival of yesterday's solemnity joined to today's, so that the one might carry believers to life, the other lead confessors to the crown. Blessed Stephen, then, has been given to the whole Church for its advancement. While still a layman he merited election to the diaconate, and as a deacon he merited the primacy of martyrdom. He was still placed among the people, but so outstanding was he in virtues; he was in a lowly place, but lofty in faith; he was a disciple in rank, but became a master by example. It is written of him in the Acts of the Apostles that he was appointed by the apostles to the service of widows. In that he was put in charge of this ministry, he received a testimony of most holy chastity. Blessed, then, dearest brothers, will he be who has followed and imitated him: he will attain both the palm of chastity and the crown of martyrdom. Of him the reading of the Acts of the Apostles which was read to us today, etc.

It is worthy and fitting, brothers, that after the gladness of blessed Easter, which we have celebrated in the church, we share our joys with the martyrs, and announce the glory of the Lord's resurrection to those who are sharers of the Lord's passion. For those who are companions in insult ought also to be partakers in gladness; for so the blessed Apostle says: “As you are companions in sufferings, so also will you be in resurrection”; “If we endure,” he says, “we shall also reign with him.” Those, then, who endured evils for Christ's sake ought also to have glory with Christ. Let us announce, I say, to the holy martyrs the grace of the Lord's Easter: so that, as we proclaim the unlocked barriers of his tomb, their tombs too may be unlocked; as we say that his dead body suddenly revived with warming veins, their members too, already cold, may be warmed with the heat of immortality; the same reasoning raises the martyrs that raised the Lord. For as they experienced the way of his passion, so they experience also the way of his life; for it is written in the psalm: “You have made known to me the ways of life”; this is surely said in the person of the Saviour at the resurrection, who, while he returns after death from the underworld to the world above, begins to have known the way of life, which before was held unknown. For before Christ the way of life was unknown, because it had not yet been trodden by the footstep of anyone rising; but when the Lord rose, it was made known, the ground worn by many, of whom the holy evangelist says: “Many bodies of the saints rose with him and entered the holy city.” Hence, since the Lord at his resurrection said, “You have made known to me the ways of life,” we too can now say to the Lord: You have made known to us the ways of life. For he himself made known to us the ways of life, who showed us the path to life: for he made known to me the ways of life when he taught me faith, mercy, righteousness, chastity; for by these roads one comes to salvation. And though the shadow of death surrounds us at the dissolution of the body, yet life does not desert its steps, but amid the very laws of the underworld we walk without hesitation by the powers of Christ. Hence the holy prophet says: “For even if I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” Which the Lord says more plainly of the believer: “But whoever believes in me will not die; and though he die, he will live.” So, brothers, let us share with the holy martyrs the glory of the Lord's Easter. Let us share it, I say, and though they know all better, still let us proclaim to them how he rose from the bosom of the tomb to the world above. Let them reveal to us how he came back from the depth of the underworld to the tomb. Let them make known to us, I say, how warmth insinuated itself into the body, already lifeless and cold, how spirit was brought in, blood poured in, and the pulse of former vigour stirred the veins frozen with moisture. Let them make known to us, I say, how the loosened frame fitted the scattered organ of the body back into the former state of its sinews, and how the life-giving spirit turned the now silent harmony of the inner parts back to its old concord. Let the priests, then, proclaim the wonders the Saviour did after the resurrection in the world above. Let the martyrs reveal how great refreshments he worked, in death itself, among the dead.

The festival of the servants always follows the festival of the Lord; and the gladness of the faithful accompanies the joy of the householder; so that those who followed him in the likeness of the passion may also accompany him in the glory of the resurrection. And they do accompany him in the glory of the resurrection, as the Apostle says: “But if you are companions in sufferings, you will also be in the resurrection.” Do the holy martyrs, then, have fellowship with Christ in his resurrection? They plainly do; because, even if they have not yet risen in body, they have certainly already risen in merit; if they have not yet taken up their members, they have already taken up grace; if they are not yet freed from the underworld, they are freed from sins: for this is the first resurrection, to have escaped the darkness of sins and to possess the light of righteousness. Yet perhaps even many of these blessed martyrs either obtain, or have obtained, bodily resurrection with the Lord. For if we read that at the festival of the first resurrection, as the Lord raised himself, many bodies of the saints were raised and came to life and entered the holy city, why should we not believe that whenever the festival of his resurrection is celebrated, so often the saints too rise? For where there is a continual solemnity of prayers, there is also a continual grace of gifts. But perhaps someone says: the tombs are closed, the monuments built; how could they have come out from there? To say nothing of the fact that all things are possible to God, and that he can bring out a spiritual body though the inner chambers of the tomb are closed—to pass over all this—we have the example of John the apostle, whom the tomb, having received him, could shut in but could not keep; for it lost the body deposited, it did not take it up. For he, the doors of the tomb being closed, was taken away by the grace of resurrection, so that the burial was established, yet the buried man was not found. Indeed, when the priests sought his body in order to honour it, the entrance being opened, the tomb could not give back the one it had received. So the Saviour raises his victims with him when he rises.

If the weakness of my body could carry through as much as I must say and you ought to hear, we would all surely be excused: I by commending the precept, you by carrying out the command. But since we are struck with weakness so that we cannot say as much as we ought, the devotion of the mind excuses us, whom the speech of preaching does not excuse: that is, if we cease from the praises of the Lord with the tongue, let us prove his wonders by the works of faith. If we do not speak his glory in words, let us carry out his grace in deeds, since deeds come before words. For the Lord says thus in the Gospel: “Whoever does and teaches, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” You see, then, that the deed goes before, teaching follows: since doing good is the first teaching. For when words cease, the best work itself teaches a man while it is seen. Even if it does not rouse the ears with the voice, it pricks the hearts with its power. For who, seeing a good deed, would not gladly imitate it and, using it as a silent master, be taught by its example? Deeds, then, come before words; indeed, without deeds words are of no use. For this is why the Lord too willed [the good] to be done and so taught, lest without good work there be a useless and superstitious boasting of words. We are better taught, then, by deed than by voice. Indeed the holy martyrs, even if they are silent in voice, teach us by the power of their deeds; even if they are silent in tongue, they persuade by the passion of martyrdom. Hence, although an eloquent orator teaches me by his eloquence, yet what is useful to me I learn better by the example of the saints than by the assertion of words. My eyes persuade me more quickly of what they see than the ear can instil what passes by: for forgetfulness quickly steals what is heard, but the history of the eyes is always looked upon. For who does not see at every hour and moment how the blessed martyrs then underwent various tortures for the name of Christ, and in a manner triumphed over the punishments themselves? For the more they suffered, the more they believed themselves to be most virtuous. For the judgment of the persecutor is the martyr's victory, as it is written: “That you may conquer when you are judged.” For when the martyr is judged and condemned, then he conquers and lays low. By such a judgment he is not sentenced to death but absolved to rest. And by this it is most plainly reasoned that he has conquered, not perished. It is clear, then, that the holy martyrs teach more by their passion than by voice, although the passion itself is not without voice. For we read that their souls cry out from under the altar of God and say: “How long, holy and true one, do you not avenge our blood?” For the Lord also says of Abel's blood to Cain: “The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me.” The blood that is shed innocent is said to cry out, then, not so much by voice as by its cause. So too the souls of the holy martyrs cry out, while by their very passion they commend their faith and innocence to our senses. The end.

Rightly and as a duty do the churches celebrate the distinctions of the blessed martyrs, who, enlightening countless peoples by the power of their faith, alone felt the death inflicted on them, but did not alone possess the benefits of their death. For the immense kindness of our God, manifold in goodness and skilful toward salvation, setting forth the arduous palm of the virtues, finds few seekers of it, but provides for the advantage of very many in the precious triumphs of a few. For he wills their merits to be our helps, and at the same time, while he commends true faith to us by the hard contest of martyrdom, he makes the affliction of those who went before the instruction of those who come after. How great is our God's care for us! He tests them so as to instruct us; he crushes them so as to win us; and he has made their torments our advancements. Rightly, then, do we honour those who fight in our dangers and campaign for our benefits; who by their contempt of light and life teach us how great an affection we owe our God. Let us know, then, that it is not without great peril that we dispute about the truth of the religion which we see confirmed by the blood of so many. It is a matter of great danger if, after the oracles of the prophets, after the testimonies of the apostles, after the wounds of the martyrs, you presume to discuss the old faith as though it were new, and remain in error after such manifest leaders, and contend in idle disputation after the sweat of the dying. Let us, then, venerate our faith in the glory of the holy martyrs; let us congratulate ourselves, dearly beloved brothers, on our great faith, through which, while you receive exiles with abundant love, you may merit to have them as intercessors too. For this is the glory of the holy martyrs: that, though their portion is sown in ashes throughout the whole world, their fullness remains whole in powers. Let us, then, venerate our faith among such great soldiers of Christ. For the Catholic faith is the mother of martyrdom, to which that illustrious athlete subscribed with his blood and swore by his death. The mother of martyrdom, I say, is faith. Let us, then, venerate our faith in the glory of the holy martyrs. How our faith? Because by them, while death is accepted with undoubting endurance, the hope of immortality is plainly asserted. For they would never have spent this life steadfastly unless they had perceived with perfect certainty that there is another incomparably more blessed. In the holy praises of truth, then, there is both greatness of soul in the passion and authority of reason; for they perish readily, to be restored for the better, for whom through the straits of tribulations an exit is opened to this fullness of joys. The bloody sentences from an impious mouth they reject, repudiate with their hearing, flee from in act. So they provoke the onset of the passion by greatness of soul and avoid it by humility. With the fury of persecution pressing, while still catechumens they prepare their soul for heaven; they are regenerated by death, released by condemnation, consecrated by the sword. Hence let us understand how much the Redeemer's passion availed to take away the sin of the world. See, a man's death is proved to confer innocence and life; hence let us understand how much the sacred death of the Son of God has profited all. See, human blood washes away personal and original sin, and, what is more, no one now takes away what that blood conferred by its baptism. We, after the brightness of baptism, after the whiteness of holy regeneration conferred on us, after acquiring the angelic dignity of the wedding garment, falling back into the mire of sins, rolling in the wallow of crimes, soil the snowy garment with the black contagions of iniquities and lusts, and stain with spots of deadly corruption the silk robe on which we had received the impressed seal of the divine image; and after the singular indulgence of our Lord we defile what was renewed, tear what was whole, violate what was expiated, repeating works to be purged no longer by waters but by flames. Happy this baptism, by which every offence so went out of the catechumen that it can no longer return; by which he so paid off his offences that he would no longer fear a creditor; by which he paid off the sins of his enemies in himself by faith and condemned them by his end; by which baptism he sought innocence by devotion, found it by perseverance, kept it by death. This being so, dearly beloved, although every such great witness of Christ is precious by his confession, he is more precious by his blood, more beautiful by his cruel wound, whiter by his dyed garment; although in each case he is thought to belong to someone by the privilege of his tomb, he is ours and everyone's by the fellowship of his help. For the abundant love and the grasping faith of that city mentioned above did not take so much from him, while it claims him for itself, as to believe that the benefits of that patron are shut up only within its walls. He is not shut in by places who is spread abroad by merits. You have called on the martyr everywhere; everywhere he hears, who is prayed to in the martyr. So, as he who weighs your prayers and dispenses his gifts governs, the near presence of an effective advocate will be granted as much as the devoted faith of the one received has been. For prayer which is helped by works of chastity, righteousness and almsgiving goes beyond the world, penetrates paradise, and flies up even to the very sight of the highest majesty, an angel offering it; as the voice of an angel testifies in a certain place: “And when you prayed,” it says, “I offered your prayer in the sight of the glory of God.” Blessed is the soul, dearly beloved, whose prayer, whose incense of compunction, whose holocaust of supplication—clouded by no unbelief, polluted by no stench of fleshly allurement, bloodied by no savagery, stained by no grudge of hatred, but fiery with faith, shining with conscience, fragrant with sincerity of heart, perfected by harmony and love—is carried by the service of heavenly messengers even to the face of God. This being so, let us honour the holy martyrs, princes of faith, intercessors of the world, heralds of the kingdom, co-heirs of God. But if you say to me: Why do you honour flesh already dissolved and consumed, for which God has no more care? Then where is that, dearly beloved, which he himself says through the prophet: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints”; and again: “But to me your friends are greatly honoured, O God.” We ought to honour the servants of God; how much more the friends of God, of whom it is said in another place: “The Lord guards all their bones; not one of them will be broken.” I honour, then, in the flesh of the martyr the scars received for the name of Christ. I honour the ashes consecrated by confessing the Lord. I honour in the ashes the seeds of eternity. I honour the body which showed me how to love my God, which taught me not to fear death for God. And why should I not honour that body, faithful ones, which even the demons reverence, which they afflicted in torture but glorify in the tomb? I honour, then, the body which honoured Christ under the sword, which reigns with Christ in heaven.

When it is the day of the holy martyrs, what should rather delight us than their glory? May the Lord of the martyrs help us, for he is our Lord. We heard the voice of the martyrs a little while ago, when the blessed Apostle was preaching and saying: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” That is the voice of the martyrs. “Tribulation? Distress? Persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome through him who loved us.” This is the voice of the martyrs: to overcome all things and to presume nothing of themselves; to love him who glories in his own, so that he who glories may glory in the Lord. They knew too what we sang a little while ago: “Rejoice in the Lord and exult, you righteous.” “Rejoice in the Lord and exult.” If the righteous rejoice in the Lord, the unrighteous know how to rejoice only in the world. But these are the first ranks to be defeated: first delights must be conquered, and afterwards pains. How can he overcome the world when it rages who cannot put it to flight when it flatters? This world flatters by promising honours, riches, pleasures. This world threatens by holding out pains, poverty, humiliations. Whoever does not despise what it promises, how can he overcome what it threatens? Riches have their delight, who does not know? But righteousness has more to delight. Let riches delight along with righteousness, [until] such a moment of temptation occurs that two things come into temptation, riches and righteousness, so that you cannot have both equally. If you put your hand to righteousness, let riches perish. If you put your hand to riches, you must lose righteousness. Now choose, now fight. Now let us see whether you sang not without reason: “Rejoice in the Lord and exult, you righteous.” Now let us see whether you sang not without reason: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” And indeed he passed over all the things by which the world flatters. Why? Because he was proclaiming the contests of the martyrs: those contests in which they overcame persecutions, hunger, thirst, poverty, disgrace, and finally the fear of death, the last enemy. But see, brothers, ... the Apostle warns us to prefer the love of Christ to the world. What distresses those suffer who wish to seize others' property! “Persecution?” he says. That too does not break the avaricious man; [is he frightened?] The avaricious man seizes and fears punishment, and yet burns in his robbery: for many suffer hunger while they acquire and make profits; when we command them to fast, they excuse themselves on account of their stomach. Let them have leisure all day to count their gold coins, and let them sleep fasting. “Or nakedness?” What shall I say about nakedness? Every day merchants escape naked from shipwreck, and sail again into danger. Why are men in danger every day, except to acquire riches? Nor does the sword deter them. Forgery is a capital crime; and yet inheritances are forged. If, then, temporal greed deserves this, why should not Christ's inheritance deserve it? The avaricious man would say in his heart, though perhaps he would not say it with his tongue: “Who will separate us from greed for you? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution?” The avaricious can also say to gold: “For your sake we are killed all day long.” Very well, then, do the holy martyrs say in the psalm: “Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from an unholy nation, from an unjust man.” “Distinguish,” it says, my tribulation; the avaricious too suffer tribulation. Distinguish my distresses; the avaricious too suffer distresses. Distinguish my persecutions; the avaricious too suffer them. Distinguish my hunger; to acquire gold the avaricious too go hungry. Distinguish my death; for gold the avaricious too die. What is “distinguish my cause”? “For your sake we are put to death all day long”; they not for your sake. The punishment is similar, but the cause is distinct. Where, then, the cause is distinct, there surely is victory. If, then, dearly beloved, we love the festival of the martyrs, let us love in them not their sufferings but the causes of their sufferings. For if we loved sufferings, we would find many who suffer worse things in bad causes. But let us attend to causes. Look at the cross of Christ: there was Christ, there also the robbers. A similar punishment, but a dissimilar cause. One robber believed, the other blasphemed. The Lord, as from a tribunal, judged between both: the one who blasphemed he set in Tartarus, the other with himself in paradise. Why this? Because, though the punishment was equal, the cause was unequal. Choose, then, the cause of the martyrs, if you wish to attain the palm of the martyrs. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ages of ages. Amen.

We ought to rejoice and exult, brothers, because a great festival has been added to our festival, and our prayers have been heaped with prayers. For it is a great joy when, as the birthday of the martyrs comes upon us, a priest has come upon us as well. I think this happened by divine providence: because the victims of the Saviour were to be honoured, the high priest of the Saviour arrived; namely, so that, since one would not be enough to unfold the glory of their preaching, the other might complete it; so that he might both adorn the martyrs with his service and also instruct your holiness with his discourses and soothe you with his blessings. We must give thanks, then, and rejoice that Christ wished his victims to be praised by the twofold mouth of priests; so that as much as their glory is set forth before God, so much their merit might be praised among the people; so that, since they are honoured the more readily in heaven, they might be magnified the more abundantly on earth. Truly the martyrs are to be called victims, who appeased God for us by their passion and, like accepted libations, brought us the Lord's favour by their death. There is plainly a victim in the martyrs, not that by which a dumb animal is consecrated, but that by which faithful simplicity is consecrated. That is not, I say, the victim which is sunk into the earth with sorrowful feeling, but that which is raised into heaven with eager feeling. It is plainly a victim, but not in him who offers in order to profane the altar, but in him who, knowing it, offers himself in order to be approved. Hence the prophet says: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise." Martyrdom is truly a sacrifice of praise. And what the angels praise, the peoples praise, and he too praises who suffers. For he understands its glory; for unless he understood its praise, glory and power, he would never pour himself out as an offering while others were afraid. And so it is said as if to the martyr himself: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise"; that is, as if he said: offer in yourself, you yourself, sacrifice yourself; be yourself both priest and victim to yourself, and by the devotion of your mind offer the soul of your body in the function of a high priest; let the faith of a Christian lead you to God's altar. For though the members of a Christian are laid low on the earth, yet his spirit is consecrated in heaven by that very death, and life is granted where destruction is applied. Hence the holy prophet says: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Precious plainly is the death which is honoured with a kind of gain of immortality; of which blessed Paul also says: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," counting it gain that through the death of martyrdom eternity succeeds frailty in him, life comes to slaughter, and temptations are ended by justice. "Precious," it says, "in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Precious is the death of the saints; their life certainly is more precious. If the death of the saints is precious, the life of sinners is cheap; and those whose life is cheap, their death too is without doubt shameful. Hence those too who counted the Lord among sinners said: "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death." Ignorant of justice and enemies of truth, they tried to condemn the light with the darkness. They killed the Lord, the founder of heaven and earth, by a most shameful death, because they hanged him on the gibbet with criminals, since that death seemed both shameful and a punishment more dreadful than other punishments. The blessed martyrs imitated his example and freely followed his footsteps. But the death of the Lord became glorious, and in his sight the death of all the saints precious; and today, together with the arriving high priest, we celebrate their devout annual feast. O happy celebration of today, which has earned to have the service of a high priest! Today a twofold joy of solemnity has shone for us: from the patronage of the saints and from the arrival of this high priest. Therefore, brothers, let them rejoice in the Lord, who in the immense clemency of his kindness has deigned to bestow such great benefits on us, that we may be illumined by the examples of those in whose triumphs we rejoice, and supported by the protection of those in whose merits we delight. May the immense Godhead grant us that with a clean heart and chaste body we may be able both to keep the kindly festival of this day and to receive with an unblemished mouth the sacred mysteries from the hand of the high priests; by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

The crown of all the martyrs shines, and especially of those whose birthday of victorious glory is celebrated, who entered the contest of suffering with robust faith, knowing for certain that Christ suffers in all, and that they are carried over at once with exultation of body to the kingdom of heaven; and while the Gentiles shudder at death in sickness, in death itself they obtain an everlasting inheritance, and they believe that through their sufferings there is a passing over rather than an end. This is the hidden wisdom which in your elect, Lord, is not gathered by persuasion but is drawn by your martyrs from the divine spring of virtue; because "to live well is Christ, and to die is gain," triumphing in Christ and gaining the loss of their sins. Although one who suffers in him does not die at all; for confession is not death but the inheritance of life. Martyrdom, then, is the pardon of crimes, the head of the virtues, the occasion of justice, the imitation of the Lord's passion. O most happy martyrs, renouncing the world! They preferred to be better at the last than at the first; whose consummation, in the end, makes a just beginning. By your divine will, almighty God, the most glorious martyrs earned to be witnesses of Christ; and meditating on victory, they confessed Christ in scourgings, in prisons, in workhouses, in solitude; for confession ought always to be the companion of the just. O illustrious souls of the blessed martyrs, and glorious victory! Among them even most devout women conquered at once the world and their sex, and, fighting with the devil, proved stronger than the men who tortured them, giving thanks to the raging executioner. For almighty God looks for faith from all rather than death. But the devil, who hates those who confess, bestows crowns unwillingly. He who kills them makes martyrs, and while he strives to conquer the servants of God, he himself is despised in his raging. Your generosity, then, Lord God, has thus far set martyrdoms before us, so that the adversary might be crushed ... For you willed not only to rescue man from the devil's power through faith, but to slay his oppressor through virtue; so that we who rejoice, having been freed more easily by the blood of Christ, ... may afterward triumph crowned in Christ. Through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

We joyfully sing praises to the Lord our God as we celebrate the feasts of the holy martyrs, whom we have heard were strengthened by the help of divine grace and unconquered in torments. For he gave them strength and consolation who first deigned to undergo suffering both for them and for us, and he gave them abundant exultation by promising them a reward in heaven. And now, when the reading of the Gospel was read, you heard the consolation, the Lord saying to them: "But when you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be afraid; for these things must happen, but the end is not yet." Our Lord and Saviour, then, forewarned his disciples, and through them taught us secondly, to despise bravely the terrors and persecutions and various tribulations inflicted by persecutors, and to be cherished by the consolation of eternal life. And because these things often happen to us as our sins demand, we ought always to change our ways and conduct for the better, to forsake vices and grow in holy virtues from day to day, and to bear most patiently the insults and torments of this world; so that what is sung in the psalm may be said of us: "The saints will go from strength to strength." This example Christ left us, who shed his blood for us. Let every Christian, then, consider by what name he is called, so that he may imitate Christ in all things as far as he can by his gracious gift; so that as he shares in his name, so he may be an imitator of his work. Let him count the honours and dignities of the world as nothing for love of the heavenly kingdom; and if earthly means fail him, let them in no way be acquired in the world by plunder and fraud. And if they are possessed, let them not be loved in the world through avarice, but be kept to endure in heaven through generous almsgiving. Be kindled, then, Christian, with a like ardour of love as the holy martyrs; and if at this time there is not so great a necessity of fighting against fleshly persecutors, let there be constancy in fighting against spiritual enemies and against the flesh. For even if now torments are not inflicted by a pagan for you to endure, temptations are offered by the devil which you must overcome. For the pagan, raging with bloody hand, slaughtered Christ's martyrs; but the devil, deceiving with crafty temptations, torments Christ's faithful the more dangerously the more secretly. Then the pagan, raging with a lion's ferocity, drove them to idolatry; now the devil, persuading with a serpent's tooth, has poured in the poison of unbelief. The pagan by killing the martyrs sent them to the kingdom; the devil by seducing leads men with him to eternal fire. They, then, conquered by bearing the punishments of the pagan torturer; you conquer by despising the countless temptations of the devil the seducer. They bravely resisted the raging pagan; you watchfully resist the seducing devil, relying on Christ's help. Fight bravely to the end for the truth of the catholic faith, and await the reward secure. Confess the triune Lord, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, of one substance, if you wish to possess the kingdom of heaven with all the saints. Do not be seduced from this saving confession, enticed by temporal rewards, lest you be unhappily separated from Christ and tormented by the fires of Gehenna. For if you have learned to hold the prosperities and adversities of the world in contempt, even if torments are inflicted on you for the name of Christ, you will in no way fear. Only never trust in your own strength, if you desire to be a victor. Let Christ be your sure hope, who is unconquered strength, lest the mind of a Christian be broken from the hope of reward. For as in the contest devout and steadfast virtue is rewarded, so in peace a faithful conscience is crowned. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

It sticks in your minds, brothers, how we described the blessed confessors as made friends of the Saviour because they kept the precepts of his will and did all the works of his commandments, as the Lord himself says: "You are my friends if you do what I command you." We set out that the Lord himself is a friend, who said to his disciples: "No longer will I call you servants, but my friends; for the servant," he says, "does not know what his master is doing." It is plainly a great grace, because the friend enters the inner part of the bedroom, the servant waits outside at the door; the one searches the secrets of his heart, the other waits for him to come out. Hence in the Song of Songs too the Church says with exultation: "The King has brought me into his chamber." That is, because after the ignorance of Gentile error she earned to know the mysteries of the Saviour; and she who before lay outside as sacrilegious is afterward taken inside as a bride. "I will not call you servants," I say, "but friends." See how much the Saviour bestowed on his saints, whom by calling them friends he made his equals; for friendship knows no rank. For even if in many the condition is lower, yet the affection is equal; even if one goes before in honours, he does not feed on services; for rich and poor friends defer to each other equally. And though one may be more powerful and the other humbler, yet the love of friendship ... makes equal those whom rank separated. How, then, do we think these blessed saints became friends of the Saviour, except because they kept the precepts of his will? As he himself says: "You are my friends if you do what I command you." For friendship itself is made firm by willing and not willing the same things. These, then, we can call friends of God, who willed justice as the Lord did and hated iniquity as the Lord did; therefore they are bound by the love of friendship. From this chapter we understand how we come to Christ's friendship. For the Lord does not love anyone by chance; for he bestows freely without respect of persons. Do you wish to be Christ's friend? Keep the things that are Christ's. Do you wish to earn the Saviour's favour? Guard the Saviour's precepts. He bestows the affection of his love on one whom he sees to have love of his commandments. It is in our power, then, for God to become our friend; for as we show ourselves to the Lord, so the Lord too will be found by us. If we open our secrets to him, he too lays open the secrets of his breast. If we make known to him the consciousness of our sins, he too purifies us by making known his knowledge; and the readier we are to imitate him by good deeds, the nearer we are to him in grace. For the friendships of the world consist in some advantage, that is, either gain or honours; but the friendships of the Saviour consist in virtue, not profit. For a holy thing can be acquired by discipline; it cannot be bought with a price; indeed, they are not sought by deceitful flattery but are drawn out by a simple life. We proclaim these men blessed and praiseworthy, then, who earned to be his friends and of one mind with him. We too, then, brothers, ought to hasten to the Saviour's friendship and, by the example of the saints, do his will in all things. But what shall we say of those, by what name shall we call them before God, who on the Lord's day scorn the heavenly lunch for the sake of a worldly banquet, and desert Christ's table while they delight in man's table? For this is the first offence against Christ's friendship: that, when he has called all to refreshment on the Lord's day, each one refreshes himself with the pleasure of his own wantonness and does not rather come where he is led by a certain debt of religion. For it is a debt for a Christian to come to church on the Lord's day. For on that day the laws are silent and the courts are still, so that the salvation of men might receive a place of devotion: so that one might not so much rest from public business as rest from the misdeeds of sins. But, what is worse, each wretch assigns to wantonness what was given for health; and not only does he not come to church because of his sins, but, devoted to vanities, he heaps up graver sins for himself. From these may almighty God free you, amended; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

How great are the wonders of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the worker we can understand from this gospel reading, which describes such great benefits conferred through him on the people that the crowds of men, stirred up to hear him, rushed upon him rather than asked, and hoped for the medicine of salvation not through the grace of humility but through the injury of importunity; so that, as the Gospel says, neither the desert separated the crowds rushing on the Lord Jesus, nor the synagogue repelled them, nor reverence for the Godhead held them off. For this is the custom of the sick: while they hope for medicine for their illnesses, they are not kept from importunate asking by place, by time, or by shame; but the more he who heals cures, the more importunate is he who suffers. So when the Lord Jesus, pressed by the crowds rushing on him, could not stay on land, seeing two boats on the sea, he got into one, Peter's boat, with all haste, so that the nature of the waters might ward off the injury of importunity which reverence for the teacher did not restrain; and from there he began to pour out the words of his teaching to men from Peter's boat. See the mercy of the Saviour: he is separated from men in body, yet joined to them by the usefulness of his teaching. Everywhere he has mercy, everywhere he helps. Set on land, he heals the infirmities of bodies by touch; placed on the sea, he cures the wounds of souls by teaching. But let us see what this boat of Simon Peter is which the Lord judged the more fitting of the two for teaching, which both kept the Saviour safe from injury and gave men the words of belief. For we find that the Lord had already sailed in another ship and been provoked with grave injuries. For he sailed with Moses in the Red Sea when he carried the people of Israel across through the streams of the waves; but he was treated with grave injuries, as he himself says in the Gospel to the Jews: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me also." And the injury to the Saviour is the unbelief of the synagogue. So he chose Peter's ship and deserts Moses'; that is, he spurns the faithless synagogue and takes up the faithful Church. For two boats, as it were, have been appointed by God, to fish for men's salvation in this world as in a sea, as the Lord says to the apostles: "Come, I will make you fishers of men." Of these two boats, then, one is left by the land empty and void, the other is brought out into the deep loaded and full; for the empty synagogue is left on the shore, because it lost Christ together with the oracles of the prophets; but the loaded Church is taken into the deep, because it received the Lord together with the teaching of the apostles. The synagogue, I say, remains by the land, as clinging to earthly works; but the Church is called into the depth, as discussing the deep mysteries of heaven; that is, into that depth of which the Apostle says: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Therefore it is said to Peter: "Put out into the deep," that is, into the depth of the discussions of the divine generation. For what is so deep as what Peter said to the Lord: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"? What so earthly as what the Jews said of the Lord: "Is not this the son of Joseph the carpenter?" For the one by a higher counsel acknowledged the birth of Christ as divine; the others with a viper's mind reckoned his heavenly generation in a fleshly way. Hence the Saviour says to Peter: "For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." But to the Pharisees he says: "How can you speak good things when you are evil?" The Lord, then, boards only this ship of the Church, in which Peter is set as master, as the Lord says: "On this rock I will build my Church." This ship so sails on the deep of this world that, when the world perishes, it keeps unharmed all whom it receives. We already see its figure in the Old Testament; for as Noah's ark, when the world was shipwrecked, kept safe all whom it had received, so Peter's Church, when the world is burned up, will present unharmed all whom it embraces; and as then, when the flood was over, the dove brought the sign of peace to Noah's ark, so when the judgment is over Christ brings the joy of peace to Peter's Church; because he himself is the dove and the peace, as he promised, saying: "But I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice." But since we read in Matthew that this same boat of Peter, from which the Lord now brings forth the mysteries of his heavenly teaching, was troubled when the winds rose while the Lord slept in it, so that all the apostles feared the danger of death, let us see what the reason is that one and the same boat here in calm gives teaching to the peoples, and there in storm brings the fear of death on the disciples; especially since there too Simon Peter was with the other apostles. This is the cause of the danger: Simon Peter was there, but so was the traitor Judas. For though the faith of the one founded the boat, the faithlessness of the other troubled it. There is calm where Peter alone sails, a storm where Judas is added. Though Peter was firm in his merits, he was troubled by the crimes of the traitor. While the disciples were afraid, then, and Peter anxious, the Lord slept. Perhaps it seems wonderful that the Lord slept while Peter was anxious: he slept to Peter so as not to keep watch for Judas; so by the fault of one the merits of all are shaken. Christ falls asleep, and the blasts of the winds are roused; for whoever commits sin at once makes the Lord sleep for himself and stirs up for himself a squall of worldly spirits; and it must be that the devil's storm rises when the Lord's calm rests. If, then, by the sin of one Judas all the apostles were in danger, by this example let us beware of the faithless, beware of the traitor, lest through one many of us be tossed by the waves. Rather, let us cast such men out of the boat, so that the Lord may not fall asleep but keep watch in us, and while he keeps watch no squall of spiritual wickedness may shake us. For where faith is entire, there the Saviour teaches, keeps watch and exults; there is rest, there is calm, there is the healing of all; but where faithlessness is mixed with faith, there Christ is sluggish, sleeps and is idle; there is fear, there is storm, there is danger for all: for according to our deeds the Lord sleeps or keeps watch for us.

The time reminds us, brothers, to discuss the chapter of the Gospel that was read lately, in which the Lord, still sitting in his boat, says to Peter: "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." From this closing phrase we can understand the mystery of the whole reading. For what reason was there why, when the disciples marvelled at the boats filled with the catch of fish, the Saviour did not promise Peter what he was learning, but pledged what he did not know at all? That is, in that very boat in which he was, instead of the leaping fish he would give an abundance of men to be brought to life; though certainly in a boat men are not usually brought to life but carried; not cherished by sailing but trembling in their steps. See, then, whether that boat is not a boat which is given to Peter to sink, but the Church, which is entrusted to Christ to steer. For it is the ship which is accustomed not to kill but to bring to life those raised from the whirlwinds of the world as from the waves. For as the sewn skiff wounds and holds the little fish lifted from the flood, so the ship of the Church gives life to men freed from the whirlwind when it takes them; the Church, I say, gives life within herself, and brings them to life as though half-dead. For this is what the word 'bring to life' means: nothing is brought to life but what a little before was without life. Peter, then, is said to be about to give life to men as though wounded by the whirlwinds of the world and choked by the waves of the age, so that he who marvelled at the boat filled with a number of leaping fish might marvel more at the Church loaded with a multitude of living men. The whole course of the reading, then, contains a mystical meaning. For in the earlier place too, where the Lord, sitting in the boat, says to Peter, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch," he certainly does not so much teach him to cast the instruments of fishing into the depth as to let down the words of preaching into the deep. That depth Paul too pierced with the javelin of his mouth, saying: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" and so on. He does not teach him, I say, to enclose little fish with a line, but to gather men by faith. For faith does on earth what the net does in the waves. For as the net does not let those it holds wander, so faith does not let those it gathers go astray; and as the net brings those caught to the ship in a kind of fold, so faith leads those gathered to rest in a kind of lap. And so that you may understand that the Lord was speaking of spiritual fishing, Peter says: "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing, but at your word I will let down the net"; as if he said: since our fishing does not profit us who kept watch in vain all night, I will fish now not with an instrument but with grace, not with the industry of skill but with the earnestness of devotion. "At your word," he says, "I will let down the net." We read that the Lord Saviour is the Word, as the evangelist says: "In the beginning was the Word," and so on. So when Peter lets down the nets at the word, he certainly lets down speeches in Christ; and when he unfolds the line woven and arranged at the master's saying, he rather spreads out words distinct and fitting in the name of the Saviour, by which he may save not animals but souls. "We have toiled all night and caught nothing." Peter had truly toiled through the night, who, suffering darkness before, could not see without Christ what to catch. But when the light of the Saviour shone on him, the darkness dispelled, he began to discern in the deep by faith what he did not see with his eyes. Peter plainly suffered night until the day, who is Christ, stood by him. Hence the apostle Paul says: "The night is far gone, the day is at hand": Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

We read in the book of Genesis that when three men arrived, Abraham ran to meet them in haste and, prostrate on his face, begged them to turn aside to his tent, so that by giving hospitality to holy men he might receive the reward of a blessing. For he knew that this was the commandment of the Lord who says: "Whoever receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever receives a just man in the name of a just man will receive a just man's reward," and so on. Abraham hastened, then, to receive the holy men so that by sharing his lodging he might earn a share in holiness, and while he shares the service of kindness he might receive a share in justification. For this is the law of hospitality: that such as the one received is, such he makes the one who receives him; which John the evangelist most clearly indicated of those who received the Son of God, saying: "But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God." You see, then, how great the grace of hospitality is, that he even becomes a son of God who receives the Son of God in the hospitality of his heart. If, then, he who receives the Son of God becomes a son of God, how much more does he who receives a just man earn the grace of a just man. For this, as I said, is the kindness of hospitality: that a holy man arriving, by the fellowship of lodging, makes his host to be what he himself is. And who would not, on such a condition, receive a holy man with the kindness of his tent, so that sharing his dwelling with him he may share his holiness, and, though he may have been a sinner up to that hour, by receiving a just man he may himself be just; as the prophet David says: "With the holy you will be holy, and with the innocent man you will be innocent." If, then, brothers, our father Abraham, knowing this grace of hospitality, ran in haste to meet three men who arrived, of whom one was the Lord, and, prostrate on his face, begged him to come under the roof of his tent, how much more ought we to run to meet the holy priests who arrive, and receive them into our dwellings with every entreaty, so that, according to David, we may be holy with holy guests. Let no one now be afraid because of the consciousness of his sins, let no one despair of pardon: whoever receives a bishop as a guest has already been made just; though a little before he committed crimes, though he was guilty, when he receives an innocent man he is reformed by the merits of the innocent, as the prophet says: "With the innocent man you will be innocent." Therefore, brothers, since we are sons of Abraham, let us do the works of Abraham. He went out to meet three holy men; let us too run to meet many priests. He, though he was just, received the blessed ones as guests, so that he who was just might become more just; let us who are sinners receive the bishops, so that, our sins washed away, we may be just. Let us receive the saints, I say, so that gifts may be given us against the nature of sin. For to just Abraham, because he had no sins, the son Isaac was given through hospitality against nature; given so much against nature that both cold old age despaired that he could be born and his mother Sarah laughed. Sarah laughed, I say, because she was receiving a son not by nature but by grace; and so blessed was the offspring whose birth was preceded not by pain but by joys. She ought plainly to laugh who conceived with God as author. Such, then, is blessed hospitality, that it always leaves joy to its hosts. Sarah laughs because she is rid of barrenness; I laugh because I lay down my sins. She was freed from a fault of the body; I have been washed of my crimes. She rejoices that she received her son Isaac through hospitality; I am glad that I have obtained pardon together with justice. But someone will perhaps say: in those men who came to Abraham the Lord too was coming; which indeed is true, for so Scripture reports. But I say that now too Christ comes to us in his priests. Let us imitate, then, brothers, Abraham; but why do I say Abraham? Let us imitate God our Father. For if God willed men of different nations to dwell in the one lodging of heaven, why should we, who are brothers, not dwell together in one lodging? If he chose to contain our differences in the same house of the world, why should our unanimity not be held in the holy building of our tents?

The other day we explained that the necessity lies on us not to be silent, and, lest others be endangered by danger, we observed that we must rise up with a loud voice to preach. For we must cry out in the Church, lest we cry out in punishment. For so the Lord says through the prophet: "Cry out loudly, do not spare; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their sins." We are ordered, then, to cry out, and to cry out loudly, and not to spare the voice, lest we perish to salvation. "Do not spare," he says; that is, do not pass over the sinner's iniquity by keeping silent, lest while you consult his modesty you do not consult his health. For his wounds, which you ought to have cut away by crying out, you have nourished for the worse by keeping silent. We are ordered, then, to cry out; and lest anyone say he did not hear, or the voice escape anyone, priests are commanded to cry out loudly; and lest this perhaps not be enough, he added, saying: "Lift up your voice like a trumpet." We know that a trumpet sounds not so much for hearing as for terror, and brings not so much delight as fear. For a trumpet is necessary for sinners, which not only pierces their ears but shakes their hearts; which does not delight with song but chastises with hearing; and also urges the active on to justice and frightens the idle from sins. For as in battle it casts down the mind of the fearful soldier and kindles the spirit of the brave man, so the priestly trumpet humbles the mind of the sinner and strengthens the soul of the holy man, and with one and the same sound proclaims to the one an exhortation to be stronger for unity, and strikes into the other fear to be more timid toward sin. For this is the nature of the trumpet: to destroy the works of offenders and confirm the deeds of the others. Accordingly the walls of Jericho fell at the priestly trumpets, because they held within them a sinful people. No battering ram struck them, no engine stormed them; but, what is wonderful, the priestly fear of the sound overthrew them. Walls which had stood impregnable against iron collapsed at the sacred voice of the trumpets. For who would not be astonished that in that deed stones were burst, foundations shaken by a blast, and all so collapsed that, though the victors' hands harmed nothing, yet nothing remained standing for the adversary? But though no one touched those walls, they were stormed: outwardly by the sound of the just, outwardly the dwellings of sinners gave way for that reason. Would those walls, then, withstand these men? Would they protect those in anything? They opened the way to the just and denied defence to the faithless. If, then, brothers, the sound of the priestly voice could do so much in that time, when in a true confusion of state it sounded I know not what, how much do we believe the living priestly voice itself can do now, which, while it speaks Christ by the word, achieves something magnificent in the place of the Lord Saviour's command! If the elements yielded to the sound of brass, how could feeling things resist, when even unfeeling things could not bear the sacred terror? For we believe that hearts can be softened more easily by the words of priests than stones, and sins loosed more quickly than mortar was loosened. For the voice of the spirit of one who rebukes destroys the stain of sin more easily than it loosens the material rampart of stone.

Last Sunday we explained that the walls of Jericho were stormed by the priestly trumpets, and that, against order and nature, an unfeeling thing yielded to the sacred voices through a kind of terror of threat; and that all things collapsed at the sound of rebuke in such a way that both the strongest defences fell and the people were left bare to their sins: the walls, so that they should resist no longer; the people, so that they might be taken more easily. But we said beforehand that all these things were done even then in figure. For what else do we believe the priestly trumpets of that time to be but the preaching of the priests of this time, by which we do not cease to announce something stern to sinners with a terrible sound, to foretell something sad, and to strike the ears of offenders with a kind of din of threat? Indeed no one will be able to resist the sacred voices, no one to contradict them. For how should feeling things not tremble at the word of God, at which even unfeeling things trembled then? Or how will the stubbornness of men be able to resist that before which not even a sound engine could stand? For as the crash of the trumpets, the mortared walls being destroyed, reached the inner parts of the people, so now the preaching of the priests, depraved thoughts being destroyed, passes through to the bare parts of the soul. For the soul is found bare before the word of God when every working of its iniquity is scattered. That the soul is bare before God the Apostle says: "But all things are bare and open to his eyes"; before whom, before the soul knows God and receives the faith of truth, it veils itself as with certain works of superstitions and fences itself round as with a wall of wickedness, so that it seems to itself able to stand impregnable within the defences of its iniquities. But when the sacred voice has thundered, at once its despair is undermined, its thought scattered, and so all the defences of superstitions are dissolved and it remains bare; as it is written: "The word of God passes through to the dividing of spirit and marrow." As then the sound of the sacred voice destroyed, took captive and avenged in wrath a stubborn people, so now the priestly preaching subdues, takes captive and avenges a sinful people; for so the blessed Apostle says: "The arms of our warfare are not fleshly but mighty for God for the destruction of fortifications, destroying thoughts and taking captive every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, ready," he says, "to avenge all disobedience." See, then, whether there are not in the tongue of priests, according to the Apostle's saying, certain arms of words by which vain thought is destroyed, swollen pride taken captive, and stubbornness avenged in speech. For what was done then around the city of Jericho, as we said, was done in figure. Indeed now this very thing has happened in truth. For we read that at that time priests went round the aforesaid city continually for seven days, and that, when the hand of armed men could not storm it, it was overthrown by the sound of trumpets on every side; trumpets, I say, not those with which the bristling soldier resounded, but those with which the high priest in sackcloth rebuked. For who would fear his trumpet whose sword he did not fear? In these days, then, the walls surrounded by the priestly trumpets fell; in these days we read that the works of this world were completed. You see, then, that by this number seven not so much one city is destroyed by the priests as the iniquity of the whole world is scattered. For as the condition of the whole world is figured by the name of a single city, so by the course of seven days the spaces of seven thousand years are marked out, through which the trumpets of the preaching priests announce destruction to the world itself and threaten judgment; as it is written: "For the world will pass away and all things that are in the world; but he who does the will of the Lord abides for ever."

I had often wished, dearly beloved brothers, to preach the parable of this gospel chapter and to run through the grace of rich Zacchaeus in a speech of plainer eloquence; and also to be more abundant in his praise, since he showed himself generous toward his own salvation. For who would not praise a man who was able to give his riches to himself, and by his lordship over a temporal fortune to acquire everlasting lordship for himself? To give his riches, I say, to himself: for what we have is another's if we do not use it fittingly for salvation; for even what seems yours will not be yours if, when I depart from the world, it is kept in the world without profit to me. I had wished, then, to preach the riches and grace of Zacchaeus, a rich man indeed, and always rich, because he earned to be richer to Christ than to the world, and was wealthier in the substance of faith than in temporal treasure. Zacchaeus, then, is praiseworthy, because the rich are shut out from the glory of the heavenly kingdom, as the Lord says: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." This man hastened to enter the kingdom through his very riches, and to pass with the crooked mass of his limbs along that narrow way and through the eye of the needle; and what was set as an obstacle to ruin for others profited him for salvation. And let it not be thought strange that I have described the misshapen limbs of a camel in a man; for the deformity of the camel in a man is not in foulness of body but of mind, not in sluggishness of bearing but in cowardice of heart. For as the camel is faulty by the unevenness of its limbs, so man is deformed by the roughness of his sins. This is what the Lord means by saying, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven"; that is, it is hard for the sinner to pass along that steep and narrow way of heavenly life unless he is stripped and slimmed of the depravity of his sins. For there will be great need to chasten one's ways and bring them to loftiness, for one who wishes to pass over from a faulty and sluggish mass to the heavenly substance of that purity; and unless he does so, the animal, so loaded and so small, will stick at the narrow gate of heaven. Zacchaeus is to be praised, then, whom his riches could not keep from the royal threshold. Rather, he is to be praised because his riches brought him to the threshold of the kingdom. From this we understand that for obtaining Christ's glory riches are not a hindrance but a help, provided that he who possesses them does not pour them out on wantonness but spends them for salvation. For the crime is not in one's means; for to the foolish riches are the pattern of wickedness, to the wise the aids of virtue; to the latter an occasion of salvation is given, the former will acquire a stumbling block of perdition.

I believe that after last Sunday's discourse all the rich are glad and give thanks, because Zacchaeus opened to them the heavenly door that had been closed because of their inheritance. For he opened the heavenly door when he taught them to reach the kingdom by the very thing by which they were kept from the kingdom; namely, so that the substance which was reproached to them for their ruin might profit them for salvation. Zacchaeus, then, bestowed much on the rich, in making them possess their riches for ever, so that those who were never poor here might not be beggars in the future, but by a profitable exchange receive great things for small, heavenly for earthly, everlasting for temporal. It is plainly a profitable exchange not to wish to have what you possess, so that you may obtain what you do not have; and to accept a kind of loss in leaving money so as to take the gain of grace to be possessed for ever. Zacchaeus, then, since he was a tax collector and had sought great riches by lending money through the fraud of usury, on suddenly seeing Christ was so converted that he sought spiritual grace with greater desire than he had sought worldly money: so converted, I say, that looking back on his past deeds he himself condemned his frauds, and in cleansing his desire he first cleansed his conscience as well. For he says: "Behold, half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone, I restore it fourfold." Someone will perhaps say: why did the holy man, seeing the Saviour present, give not the whole to the poor but half, since it is written: "If you wish to be perfect, sell all you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me"? But if you attend carefully, he did follow, because he gave not half but the whole. For take away what belonged to others, and nothing remains to Zacchaeus. Indeed, the just man, so that his generosity might be acceptable, knew how to arrange it justly, namely by restoring what belonged to others. For this is the alms pleasing to the Lord which is given from one's own native substance, not that which is bestowed from fraudulent plunder. For in generosity to the poor, not spoils but gifts are sought. Otherwise, what sort of gift is it which one receives with joy and another loses with tears, over which the one rejoices and the other sighs? From it I do not know how much the gratitude of those who receive helps you, but the complaint of those who groan weighs heavily on you. For though you give the whole, you give a better alms if you give back what is another's. For holy Zacchaeus, foreseeing this, gave back what he had taken, so that what he gave might be acceptable. For he says: "If I have taken anything from anyone, I restore it fourfold." See how far he amended what he had once sinned! For the good money-lender, knowing what divine profit he would have, restored with manifold interest the money which he had received with interest: to be imitated by all of us, and to be imitated by the money-lenders of this time. But what is worse, there are many who do not imitate his grace but imitate his usury: they know how to plunder, they are wholly ignorant of how to restore. And whereas he of his own accord restored fourfold what he had taken, these, even when compelled, do not restore even once what they seized; they prefer to lose their own by going to law rather than to restore what is another's by settlement.

Some days ago I had admonished your love, brothers, that as devout and holy people you should remove all pollution of idols from your estates and root out all the error of the Gentiles from your fields. For it is not right that you who have Christ in your hearts should have Antichrist in your dwellings; that while you worship God in the church, your people should venerate the devil in shrines. And let no one think himself excused by saying, 'I did not order it to be done, I did not command it.' For whoever knows that sacrileges are practised on his property and does not forbid them to be done in a way commands them himself; for by keeping silent and not reproving he has given consent to the one who sacrifices. For the blessed Apostle says that not only those who do such things are guilty, but also those who consent to those who do them. You, then, brother, when you see your peasant sacrificing and do not forbid him to offer, sin; if not by providing the means, yet by permitting the licence; if your command is not in the crime, yet your will is at fault. For while you keep silent, what your peasant did pleases you; which, if he did not do it, would perhaps displease you. For the dependant does not sin only for himself when he sacrifices, but also for the landlord who does not forbid him; for if he forbade him, he certainly would not sin. Idolatry, then, is a great evil: it pollutes those who practise it, pollutes those who live there, pollutes those who look on; it reaches to the servants, reaches to those who know, reaches to those who keep silent. For when the peasant sacrifices, the landlord is defiled. He cannot fail to be polluted when he takes food which the sacrilegious cultivator produced, the bloody earth brought forth, the foul granary kept: for everything there is defiled, everything abominable, where the devil dwells in the buildings, in the fields, in the peasants. Nothing there is free from wickedness where everything is engaged in wickedness. When you go into the storeroom, you will find in it withered turfs and dead coals, a sacrifice worthy of a demon, since a dead deity is entreated with dead things. And if you go out to the field, you see wooden altars and stone images, a fitting service, where insensible gods are served on rotting altars. When you wake rather early and see the peasant wounded with wine, you ought to know that, as they say, he is either a devotee of Diana or a soothsayer; for a mad deity usually has a crazed priest. For such a priest prepares himself with wine for the wounds of his goddess, so that while he is drunk he may not himself feel his pain. They do this not only out of intemperance but also by art, so that they may feel their wounds less while they are tossed by drunkenness. A vain prophet he is plainly, who thinks to build piety on cruelty. How merciful toward others is the god who is so bloody toward his own priests! For to describe a little the appearance of this prophet: his head is shaggy with false locks, his chest bare, his legs half girded with a cloak, and like a gladiator ready for the fight he carries iron in his hands; except that he is worse than a gladiator, because the latter is compelled to fight against another, the former is forced to fight against himself; the latter seeks another's vitals, the former tears his own limbs; and, if it can be said, the trainer urges the one to cruelty, the deity the other. Clothed in this attire, bloody with this slaughter, judge whether he is a gladiator or a priest. So, as the public crime of gladiators has been removed by the devout piety of the emperors, so let these mad gladiators be removed from your own homes by Christian observance.

We believe that you profited not a little from last Sunday's discourse, since by our preaching we cleansed your hearts from all defilement of idols. For our hearts are cleansed when our conscience is not held polluted by the filth of the devil. And he does not have a polluted conscience who does not allow sacrileges to be practised on his property. But whoever knows that sacrifices are offered to idols on his land and does not forbid it, though he himself lives far away in the city, the pollution will nevertheless touch him. And though it is the peasant who stands at the altars, the accursed contamination returns to the landlord. For he becomes his partner, if not by conscience, certainly by knowledge. We believe, then, that we have profited, when you forbid the worship of sacrilege on your estates; for we say that the property of a Christian man, that is, of a clean man, should be clean. For Solomon says: "A clean man is a precious possession." If, then, a pure man is compared to a most precious possession, how much greater the value of this possession if it is sincere and pure and not cheapened by any contagion of the devil! And we ought to know why a clean man is called a clean possession: namely, because what makes him precious is not the frailty of the body but the sincerity of honesty, and because for that very purity of mind the Lord deigns to possess him, as the prophet says in the person of the saints ...

Sometimes, brothers, when we preach, our sermon seems rather harsh to many, and the things we set out according to the rule are taken by some as though they proceeded from the austerity of our severity. For they say, 'How hard and bitter the bishop's preaching was!', not knowing that for priests necessity is greater than will. Necessity, I say, is greater for speaking; not that the will to set out the truth is lacking, but that the silence of keeping quiet is ruled out by an appointed penalty. We suffer necessity because we fear, and through this we are compelled to be able more than we wish, and we press fearful things on others because we ourselves are afraid for our own salvation. For this is the condition of the preacher: that he should not keep silent about another's sins if he wishes to avoid his own sins, and should amend his brother by rebuking him so that he may not lose the priest in himself. But if he wishes to pretend, to be silent, to conceal, he both fails to correct the other by keeping silent and despises himself by not preaching. It is better, then, to amend sin by rebuking than by silence to take on the faults of the sinner. For we are so placed that if we do not tell offenders their crimes, the guilt of those very crimes involves us too. For so the Lord says through the prophet: "And you, son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, and you will hear the word from my mouth. When I say to the sinner, You shall surely die, and you do not speak so that the wicked man may beware of his way, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand," and so on. A clear and manifest sentence indeed, which pollutes the watchman with the blood of the criminal because he kept silent; and it is not content that his own iniquity condemns the wicked man, unless it also makes him guilty who would not rebuke that iniquity. See, then, how great an evil belongs to the offender: the offender himself sins, and the priest is accused. He cuts his own throat by his sins, and the blood is required from the bishop's hand. We must speak, then, and cry out, lest on the day of judgment that same sinner excuse himself by our silence, and charge as an accomplice in his error the one who pretends to be a partaker of holiness. "And you," he says, "son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel." What is a watchman? He is called a watchman who, standing as it were on some high citadel, looks out for the people nearby, lest some enemy creep up on them suddenly; but, taking anxious care of them, the people may enjoy the sweetness of peace; and if he suddenly sees something hostile, he points it out at once and announces it steadily, so that the citizen may be ready to guard against the danger and the enemy, detected, may flee. But if, when the adversary presses, the watchman pretends, keeps silent, neglects, then it happens that the people are surprised unawares and the enemy, coming upon them, runs riot; and so all the blame is ascribed to him who would not speak to save many but preferred to keep silent so as to perish himself with many. These watchmen appointed by the Lord, then, whom do we say they are but the most blessed priests, who, placed as on a high citadel of wisdom for the protection of the peoples, see from afar the evils coming, and contemplate future punishments while they are still far off, not with the gaze of the fleshly eye but with the sight of spiritual prudence? And so they cannot keep silent but are forced to cry out, lest through silence the devil, the enemy, invade the flock of Christ. For see, we foresee the day of judgment coming, and we already establish the punishments of sinners in thought itself. And so we announce to each one that he turn from the way of his impiety: to the drunkard, that he pursue sobriety, since hostile luxury is the companion of drunkenness; to the avaricious man, that he spend his money, lest by guarding it he seem to have riches not for using but for worshipping; for whoever loves something worships it, guards it, and in a way venerates it. See, then, avaricious man, lest the vessels of your table become an idol to you, while you do not use them as a master but guard them hidden away as a slave.

I had often resolved within myself, brothers, to withdraw from you the words of the Lord's preaching and not to bestow the mysteries of heavenly sermons on you so often. For indeed it profits nothing to offer food to one who refuses it and to hold out drink to one who is not thirsty, since he does not drink gladly what you offer but returns it with disgust as if it were muddy; and so it happens that the purity of the cup is spoiled, and the disgusted drinker finds causes for offence. So too to press the preaching of the Lord's cup on your love is perhaps superfluous, since your soul, with closed inward parts, does not drink it thirstily but pours it out with indifference. For he pours out the Lord's commandment who receives it with his ear but does not retain it in his heart. For carrying it on a kind of surface of the body and not passing it to the inward parts, he pours out the course of the preaching he heard while he forgets it, and so goes back home empty who had gone out of the church loaded. For tell me, which of you, when he returns to his lodging, says: 'Today we heard the bishop discussing almsgiving; he preached a useful thing; we ought to have mercy on the poor. He also spoke of the accursed worship of idols; let us find out whether without our knowledge there is an idol on our property. He also warned that a catechumen ought to hasten to the grace of God; let us offer it to our little household, so that whoever is a believer may receive the faith, lest perhaps the account of their salvation be required of us, since their life depends on our decision.' No one thinks of the things of God, no one speaks of the day of judgment, as though we were either to live through all things or to die through all things. Believe me: we so live in this world as to die in the body; we so die as to live to render account. Man dies meanwhile, but the case of his deeds does not die; and while the case lives, the person of the case must not be lacking, as the prophet says: "Behold the man and his works." I had wished, then, to withdraw from you the words of the Lord's preaching, not that I did this in anger, but so as to keep the gospel saying. For the Lord says: "To him who has, it will be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." He ordered, then, that it be given to him who has, and that from him who has not, not only should nothing be given, but even what he has should be taken away. This saying perhaps seems superfluous to you; but I say that the Lord commanded rightly and wisely. It is ordered, then, to be given to him who has. He plainly deserves to receive who has so laboured as to acquire spiritual riches for his soul by his own care: for instance, if someone with a brave resolve of continence has begun to guard the virtue of chastity, he deserves to hear what the reward of chastity will be, so that, adding the glory of the reward to the observance of virtue, he may more easily wear down the fight he has begun. Another, ready for mercy, ought to hear that God will have mercy on him; and he who has paid for this earthly substance with heavenly riches must, on hearing the returns of heavenly rewards, follow the Lord's work more readily and gladly, and add the increase of generosity to the good of mercy he has. That is why the Lord says, "To him who has it will be given"; that is, whoever is rich in good works, let him be the more enriched by the gospel preaching. But if you preach to a fornicator and say that he ought to remain a virgin, and to the avaricious man that he ought to sell all his goods and give them away, it is foolishness to him. He thinks this preaching ridiculous, as the Apostle says: "But the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit"; for it is foolishness to him. For to preach to such people what is perfect is as if you wished to clothe a beggar covered in rags with silk, or to delight a hungry peasant with a cake: each will necessarily refuse the offer. For silk displeases the one who rather desires clothes needed against the cold; the cake is bitter to the other, while he seeks rather food that fills. From these persons, then, rather their own things must be taken away, as the Gospel says: "Even what he has will be taken away from him"; that is, the fornicator must be compelled to throw away the rags of his corruption, the avaricious man must be compelled to lay out the bread of his greed. But I fear, brothers, that this gospel reading fits many of you, which says: "We piped to you, and you did not dance; we lamented, and you did not weep." We announce to you the joy of the heavenly kingdom, and your hearts do not leap with any movement of eagerness. We preached the sad judgment, and your minds do not break out into tears of repentance. For it is a kind of unbelief in divine things neither to rejoice at good news nor to weep at bad. The Lord, then, requires dancing of you, not the twisting of a sinuous body but the holiness of faith lifting itself up. For as he who dances bodily is now suspended in the air, now thrown higher, now covers different places with alternating leaps; so he who dances spiritually, with faith intervening, is now raised to the height of the air, now lifted to the heights of the stars, now covers paradise and heaven with various leaps of thought. And as he who dances bodily, exercising himself by the nimbleness of his limbs, makes for himself the circle of the dance, so he who dances spiritually, moving himself with the eagerness of faith, takes for himself the circle of the whole world. Men dance, as is the custom, at their celebrations, that is, especially at weddings they dance and sing; and so we too have a wedding to celebrate, at which we ought to dance and sing. For our celebrations are held when the Church is joined to Christ, as John says: "He who has the bride is the bridegroom." For this wedding, then, it is fitting for us to dance. Indeed David, king and prophet alike, though he sang many things, is also said to have danced before the ark of the covenant. For carried away with joy he broke out into dancing. For he foresaw in the spirit that Mary of his stock was to be joined to the bridal chamber of Christ. Hence he says: "And he, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber." That is why he sang more than the other authors of the prophets, because, more joyful than all, he was joining his descendants in marriage through these joys, and, inviting them to his own celebrations more sweetly than usual, he taught us what we ought to do at the wedding itself, since he danced before the ark with such exultation before the wedding. The prophet David, then, danced before the ark. And what shall we say the ark is but holy Mary? For the ark carried within it the tablets of the covenant, while Mary bore the heir of the covenant itself. The one held the law within itself, the other the Gospel. The one had the voice of God, the other the true Word. The ark shone inside and out with the brightness of gold; and holy Mary too shone inside and out with the splendour of virginity. The one was adorned with earthly gold, the other with heavenly ...

God, the most merciful Saviour of the human race, the most abundant distributor of incorruptible gifts, so that he may find more people on whom to bestow his gifts, promises his faithful a heavenly reward even for a cup of cold water, saying: "Whoever gives one of the least a cup of cold water to drink, only in my name, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward." Notice, brothers, that our Lord loves and commends his least ones with special care. For he pledges that he will give a reward for water alone which a devout hand has offered to his servants, who certainly are reckoned least in this world. Water becomes more acceptable to God when it has been brought to those who believe in Christ for the honour of his name. He says, then: "Whoever gives a cup of cold water to drink, only in my name." We see many, brothers, bestowing very great wealth and magnificent gifts on their own people, either friends or patrons, not so much with a view to heavenly grace as from the use and necessity of human intercourse. It is plain that these will slip away with this world, because they are given not to God who abides for ever but to mortals who will soon depart from here. For whatever is spent for the ambitions of the world must slip away with the world. But our Lord, the comforter of his poor and lowly, does not seek alluring necklaces of shining gems, nor silken and costly garments, but promises a recompense even for cold water. He asks for cold water, so that all poverty may abound in devout mercy toward the needy. "Whoever," he says, "gives a cup of cold water to drink will not lose his reward." This saying, dearest ones, both invites the poor and spurs the rich to the obedience of the heavenly commands. For which of the poor can lack water to give to the thirsty? Or which of the faithful, at least of the rich, would not be eager to give better things, when he sees that with the most munificent God even small things are rewarded with great prizes? For in this fellowship it is not the price of the gift that is sought but the devotion of the giver. So that needy and most devout woman who put two small coins into the treasury was preferred by the Lord's sentence to all the rich. And rightly, brothers, because the most wise Judge was looking not so much for the abundance of the work as for the affection of the worker. Nor did he consider how much the rich man brought out from his fullest stores for God's gifts, but how much remained with the woman, who had left herself nothing. For those rich men offered gifts to the great God in such a way that they did not cease to be rich. But the poor woman with such magnanimity of faith preferred God to herself that, despising her own need, she offered all she had. She put in more than all, then, because she kept less for herself than all. "Whoever gives," he says, "a cup of cold water will not lose his reward." What poverty, then, can be without reward under such great generosity of the most kind Judge, with whom even water offered has earned a reward? Water indeed is abundant, and by its very abundance most cheap; but when it is offered for the sake of religion, the confession of Christ makes it precious. From this, most beloved, it is now for you to weigh what and how great rewards of heavenly riches are to be returned to one who gives food or clothing or money, when it will be of advantage to have offered a cup of water. The rich should indeed beware lest this kindness of Christ make them slower in giving; because the offering of water earns a reward especially for those who have nothing else they can offer the poor. For what religion, what devotion is it, to overflow with much substance and to wish to buy heaven with a slight and very small work? After this, dearest ones, if we turn our minds to the spiritual understanding, we shall find another water too, which with very delightful grace can refresh the hearts of the just. Whoever, then, receive with believing ear the word of holy men preaching God will strengthen by their simplicity the inward parts of those who hear, which thirst for life. So the Lord Jesus himself, when, weary and thirsty, he had sat down by the well, he who truly thirsted for the salvation of mortals, was given drink most richly by the belief of the Samaritan woman and of the crowds coming out of the city. For though the Lord watered the dryness of their minds with a saving word, yet the nature of spiritual words is such that, if the effect follows, it refreshes both the hearer and the speaker by a kind of mutual gift. And so it comes about that when the champion of truth sows the gospel seed, if the one who receives it pours on it the moisture of faith, a most abundant crop of heavenly fruits is nourished. Hence, brothers, both understandings profit our salvation: that we should show mercy most readily, and give obedience to those who teach holy things, so that we may hope for a full and perfect reward from the Lord who repays.

After the festive solemnity of holidays, what remains is usually sweeter, and the leftovers of a great banquet usually taste more pleasant. Hence we too, celebrating the Lord's Nativity, ought the more gladly to take up the things that have been most amply reserved for us from the feast. For we cannot fear disgust at leftovers, because the Saviour's dishes are always whole, always untouched, and are not diminished by any contamination. But when you have taken anything from them, they are renewed again in their grace with heavenly vigour. A great food, then, where you take as much as you wish and all you have taken remains whole. For divine Scripture is of such vigour that when you have said very much about it, still more remains to be said; so that as far as the preacher's discussion extends into the depth, so far does the holy mind find a height for discussing. Hence the Apostle says: "O the depth of the riches and knowledge and wisdom of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out!" We ought not to fear, then, that after so great a banquet we shall suffer disgust and hunger. We spent everything for devotion, but everything remained for grace; and let it not seem strange that I said that, all being spent, all remained. Remember the gospel scripture which was lately read, and you will find that more is taken away from the Lord's table than is brought to it. For five loaves were brought, and twelve baskets of fragments were carried away. Those who gather the leftovers, then, find more than he brought who served the food for the banquet. Indeed, when five thousand men had been filled, twelve apostles could scarcely carry twelve baskets of what one boy had brought in his hand before anything was spent. So the bread in the Lord's hand is multiplied while it is broken, grows while it is diminished, increases while it is given out; and by a more useful expense the creature of food feeds the peoples and grows; it increases in the mouth of those who eat, what was thought to be less in the hands of the servers. Indeed holy Andrew says: "There is a boy here who has five loaves and two fish," and so on. In a marvellous way, then, by the blessing of Christ the Lord the solid nature of bread flows, abounds, overflows, and with a kind of irrigation of vigour becomes for those who eat no longer a spring of waters but of foods. We read in the prophets that the same Lord brought forth drink for the thirsty from the hard rock. See, now he has produced for the hungry a stream of fullness from dry bread. There he dissolved a rock into waves, here he multiplied food into abundance. All these things, then, as I said, are to be compared figuratively with the gospel Scriptures, which with a few verses refresh the Christian peoples and never fail; which by their blessing feed hungry souls, and when they have filled them abound the more. For who, when he has been refreshed by the gospel commands, would not, as though enlarged by these commands, give thanks, having a treasure by which he himself may always be filled and may fill the mouth of another who is hungry?

Our Lord Jesus Christ has shown the height of his divinity and the mercy of his humanity in many and various ways in the holy Scriptures, as he is accustomed to do in mysteries and sacraments, so that those who ask may receive, those who seek may find, and to those who knock it may be opened. For all the miracles which he showed in this world under our frailty profit us. The Lord certainly did not do them without cause, or as though in vain and to no purpose. Christ is the Word of God, who speaks to men not only by words alone but also by deeds. For this too which has been read today from the holy Gospel seeks an interpreter; and when it has been understood, it brings spiritual joy. And in this reading we must consider at once, in one and the same Redeemer of ours, the distinct working of the divinity and of the humanity, and we must utterly detest the error of Eutyches, who presumes to teach that there is only one working in Christ. For on either side, whoever says that he was only a man will deny the glory of the Creator; whoever says only God will deny the mercy of the Redeemer. Certainly, when the Lord has compassion on the crowd lest it faint either from hunger or from the toil of a longer journey, let us recognize the feeling and compassion of human frailty; but that he filled four thousand men with seven loaves and a few fish, we believe to be the work of divine power. Let your holiness attend, then, because this is what we have proposed to treat with your love: what the great mystery of this event means, that holy Scripture testifies that he showed himself God to his disciples in the way the Gospel tells. For the evangelist says in today's reading: "When there was a great crowd with Jesus and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples and said to them: I have compassion on this crowd." But let us inquire into what it says above: "In those days, when there was a great crowd." For above, the Jews came to the Saviour, accusing his disciples because they ate with unwashed hands. The Lord refuted them, saying that the evils that come from the heart rather defile a man. And leaving them, he came into the borders of the Gentiles, where the Canaanite woman, who is the mother of the Gentiles, entreats the Lord for her daughter, that is, the Church; who asked so long that she received what she sought. After this he again cured the dumb and deaf man. So in those days, when a multitude of people had run together and they had nothing to eat, because the Gentiles did not have the law, that is, the five books of Moses and the prophets, nor the preaching of holy John, because the Gentiles came to the Redeemer not through the law but through faith; therefore they persevere for three days, that is, in the birth, the passion and the resurrection of the Lord, or in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For to persevere is to remain in the confession, as the Lord himself says: "But he who perseveres to the end will be saved." So the Lord says, "They have nothing to eat," because they do not have the law; "and I do not wish to send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way"; so that those who believed through faith in Christ might be saved through faith in Christ. "And some of them came from far away." For the Gentiles were far from God, wandering among idols; and now everyone who sins is far from God. His disciples say: "From where could anyone satisfy these with bread in the desert?" Unbelief still held the apostles until the mysteries were revealed, and they did not remember what he had done with the five loaves and two fish. "And Jesus asked them how many loaves they had. They said, Seven. And he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. And taking the bread, he gave thanks and gave it to his disciples to set before them. And he blessed the fish likewise and set them before them. And they ate and were filled, and they took up seven baskets full. And those who ate were about four thousand, besides women and children." We believe that the mighty works of the Lord were most manifestly done in the present; but let us inquire, by his grace, what lies hidden in the mystery.

In the earlier reading he fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fish; here he filled four thousand men with seven loaves. There the disciples suggest to the Lord, saying: "The place is deserted and the hour is past; send the crowds away, so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Here the disciples are wholly silent, but the Lord himself is concerned for them. Let us see why they are silent. Because they had not yet been sent to preach to the Gentiles, but rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The former parable, then, belongs to the Jews, this one to the Gentiles. There were five loaves, that is, the five books of Moses; here seven loaves, which are the gifts of the sevenfold Spirit, as the holy prophet Isaiah says: "The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and he will fill him with the Spirit of the fear of the Lord." There, twelve baskets full of the Holy Spirit; here, seven churches, or seven golden lampstands. There, two fish, which are the two Testaments, or the one book of all the prophets, or the preaching of holy John; here an indefinite number is given, which are the gifts of graces, as the Apostle says: "To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another prophecy, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of words: all these one and the same Spirit works." There they recline on grass, here on the ground. In both there is one conduct, one grace, one power, one Godhead. There they sit down on the grass, that is, the works of the flesh mortified, because "all flesh is grass," says the prophet; here they sit down on the ground, that is, they trample on earthly works. There five thousand were refreshed, a number that belongs to the Jews, for after the Lord's ascension, when Peter spoke, five thousand were baptized; here four thousand, that is, all nations from the whole earth, from the four quarters of heaven, filled with the grace of the sevenfold Spirit unto eternal life. And so, most beloved, we who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ not through the law but through faith, who have been redeemed not by works but by grace itself, who have been filled not from five loaves, that is, from the five books of Moses, but from the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, as blessed Isaiah had prophesied, saying, "The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and he will fill him with the Spirit of the fear of the Lord": let us remain, then, in this grace of the sevenfold Spirit in which we have been called, filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

These cities to which the Lord came signify this world, into which the Lord came for our salvation, to free us from the power of the devil. And this woman signifies holy Church gathered from the Gentiles. This woman is called a Canaanite because she was born of the stock of Canaan, who was the son of Noah, who was cursed by his father. Let us hear what this woman cries after the Lord: "Have mercy on me, son of David; my daughter is badly troubled by a demon." This woman had such great faith that she did not bring her daughter with her to the Lord, nor did she invite him to come to her, but she firmly believed that if God willed it he could give health to her daughter. By this woman's daughter we ought to understand every sinful soul, which is daily troubled by the devil and is subject to vices and all evil works. For those who are teachers of the Church ought always to admonish and rebuke those who do the works of the devil, and pray for them, as this woman prayed for her daughter. But the Lord did not answer her a word. The Lord did not wish to answer the woman for these reasons. First, to test her constancy, that she might persevere in prayer. Second, to take away an occasion from the Jews, lest they say: 'Christ was promised to us, and this man teaches the Gentiles and cures them; therefore we will not believe in him.' Third, to test the minds of the disciples and stir them to mercy. "And the disciples came and asked him, saying: Send her away, for she cries after us." As if they said: Forgive her sins and grant her virtues. After the woman heard the holy apostles asking for her, at once with great confidence she came to the Lord and worshipped him, saying: "Lord, help me." He answered and said: "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs"; he means: it is not good that the teaching of God should be taken from the Jews, who have always worshipped the Lord, to be given to you, who are Gentiles and pagans and have always served the devil. Yet the woman, wisely understanding what the Lord said, answered thus with humility: "Yes, Lord." That is to say: I truly know, Lord, and I believe that it is as you say. Certainly we are not worthy to receive the children's bread, who have always worshipped idols. But I say this because you deigned to come into the world to show your grace upon us Gentiles. "For even the little dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." She had faith, because, though she was a Gentile, she believed that the Lord could give health to her daughter. She had patience when the Lord rejected her: she persevered in prayer until she received what she sought. She had humility, because when the Lord compared her to dogs, she herself made herself equal to little dogs. After our Redeemer saw the faith of this woman, so great, he said to her: "Woman, great is your faith; let it be done for you as you wish." We ought to take an example, dearest brothers, from this woman: that as she remained firm in prayer, so we may persevere daily in all good works; and as she prayed to the Lord, so let us pray to God that he may deign to free our minds from the snares of the devil.

Most blessed Paul, dearest brothers, the ruler of all the churches, whom the heavenly choice appointed master to all the nations because of the conscience of his blameless breast and the perfection of his holy teaching, now with the vigour of an apostle, now with the authority of a teacher, with the affection of fatherly kindness rebukes, instructs and amends the Lord's people. That most glorious man has this purpose indeed: neither to make his disciples too slack perhaps with flatteries, nor again to disturb them with harsher rebuke. But he handles his speech with such weight and moderation that by an inoffensive art of teaching he wholesomely calls back, chastises and cherishes everyone who strays from the right path. For the most prudent teacher wished, like a truly spiritual bee, according to the variety of sinners both to shoot stings and to offer honey. But we, brothers, whom strength fails and manifold sins accompany, set before your hearing, as offenders ourselves, the stings of the apostolic authority's sharper rebuke with a coaxing affection. For the wounds of human bodies too are better healed with sweetness than with bitterness. Among other things, then, the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says in the same exchange: "I speak as to children: be enlarged yourselves too, and do not bear a yoke with unbelievers." "I speak," he says, "as to children." See, the Apostle calls even sinners children, so that no one, frightened by the shame of a sinful conscience, should hesitate about the love of so great a father. For what Paul rebukes, he does not exercise the hatred of an angry man but bestows the gift of one who loves. For the rebuke that comes from a friend's mouth brings desirable health in the wound. As that most wise Solomon says: "Better are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy." And what other wounds of friends can there be but the words with which sinners are struck? "Be enlarged," he says; that is, see that the thorns and briars of unbelief and crimes do not perhaps close up your road by which you strive toward the heavenly kingdom. But act so that that royal road, which the pleasure of this world and the hindrances of sins narrow, may be widened for you by the exercise of faith and virtues. "Do not," he says, "bear a yoke with unbelievers." For everyone bears a yoke with unbelievers who conspires to the ruin and death of a man. Whoever associates himself with the dishonest and base bears a yoke with unbelievers; who, having confessed the name of Christ and received the faith, is called back to sacrilegious pleasures by devilish superstition. And after all, brothers, he drags a very dangerous yoke who, scorning integrity of life and breaking the bonds of the fear of God, sunk wholly into the earth, wretchedly submits his captive neck to a savage way of life; as we read of the impious, who scorned to look at heaven and heavenly things, as the prophet says: "They set their eyes to bow down to the earth." Attend still to the order in which the apostolic teaching continues; for he says: "What participation has justice with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? And what agreement has Christ with Belial? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what consent has the temple of God with idols?" "What participation," he says, "has justice with iniquity?" Iniquity and equity cannot, brothers, dwell together in the same heart and in the lodging of one breast. A continual war is certainly waged between the two, and one must be driven out by the other. In vain does an unjust man sometimes display the image of integrity in himself: for in a mind which iniquity frequents, justice is feigned. For many sometimes seem just not for the sake of justice itself, but so as to cast a shadow of holiness over their iniquities they put forward the veils of a counterfeit equity. But those will truly be just into whom iniquity, wholly hateful to God, has never crept; of whom the venerable patriarch David says: "Blessed are those who keep judgment and do justice at all times." Then follows: "What fellowship has light with darkness?" Let every hearer notice that one and the same man cannot be bright and dark; that is, the same man cannot be at once deceitful and simple, proud and humble, cruel and gentle, lustful and chaste, faithless and faithful, envious and friendly. For as there is no fellowship of light and darkness, so there is no communion of virtues and vices. You have next: "What agreement has Christ with Belial?" That is, Christ and the devil cannot meet in one place and in the same mind; as that most faithful Elijah says to Israel when it transgressed: "How long will you limp on two sides? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him." If, then, the prophet so vehemently condemns a people wavering between error and truth, how do we think, brothers, that we can, limping with uncertain steps, at once follow vices and love virtues? How can we, sealed with one Spirit, both serve Christ and do the devil's will? Or is it not of the devil's will to lie in wait for the innocent, set up factions, slander friends, envy the better, violate faith, attack justice? As on the contrary it is Christ's portion to fear God, love goodness, help the wretched, pursue peace, keep patience, hold love unharmed in all things. You have after this: "What part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what consent has the temple of God with idols?" What partnership indeed, brothers, of the believer and the unbeliever, when one treads the left road and the other walks the right; one tends to life, the other goes to death; this one follows Christ, that one accompanies the devil? What could things so different ever have in common? And who would doubt that there can be no consent of the temple of God with idols? Hence the Apostle says to the faithful men whom he forbids to share in idols: "You are the temple of the living God." So if we are the temple of God, let us not become a tomb of the devil and a receptacle of vices. If we truly receive Christ in our heart, let us drive the enemy of Christ from us with all the strength of faith. These things, most beloved, we have set out from the apostolic reading for our common progress, so that, turning aside with every effort and every zeal from wicked and faithless things, we may always pursue what is pleasing and acceptable to our God.

How great and how necessary is the profit we can have from the holy Scriptures, dearest brothers, most blessed Paul teaches us, saying: "All Scripture inspired by God is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for instructing." How splendid and how wonderful a saying the teacher of the churches has proclaimed about the divine words, which direct and shape the hearts of mortals to the fullest perfection of living! The heavenly word is indeed useful for teaching, for rebuking, for instructing. For teaching, when it sets in order the perverse ways of the undisciplined with the soundness of holy instruction; for rebuking, when it refutes the errors of heresy from the Church of God by the pure and unmixed truth of its assertions. For each of the faithful learns by the admonition of the divine law, lest he incur fault unknowing and ignorant; and we are frightened by its severity, lest by damnable presumption we dare to commit what is not lawful. By its teaching too we perceive that God will be the judge of our good and evil deeds, and confess him as avenger. Hence in the holy Scriptures there is both the teaching of honesty, the rebuke of sins and the instruction of truth. It is fitting, then, that we should say something to your love about the observance of modesty and the guarding of chastity. For chastity ought to be preached by us before the other virtues, which Christ chose before all with a certain special grace in being born of a virgin. And so we must take up the teaching of the holy Gospel, which none of the faithful is unaware is divinely inspired. For there I find it written, there we all read: "If anyone looks at a woman to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart." See, most beloved, how our most mighty Lord, the corrector of all baseness, reins in the wantonness of human looks, and with what headlong vigour he forestalls the incitements of slippery flesh, lest the worst fruit follow an evil seed! How far he wishes lust to be from man's heart, who represses and chastises wanton glances with such caution! "If anyone," he says, "looks at a woman to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And, as I think, for this reason the Lord so anxiously forestalls the devil's temptations: so that a devout man, if perhaps he has let his eyes loose at the sight of a beautiful woman, may catch himself sinning before he sins, and understand that by the service of his own eyes he has incurred guilt before he has committed the sin. And this, dearest ones, not so that the wretched man may incur a prejudgment of condemnation, but so that, driven by the compunction of a sighing breast, he may not neglect to avoid the fault he foresees. O truly saving physician of human infirmity! Who, lest he find in man something to cure only after the man is harmed, sends the medicine before the wound. And because he wishes none of his believers to burn with the deadly fevers of sins, the remedy of fatherly kindness heals before the infirmity creeps in, as the blessed prophet David says: "My God, his mercy will go before me." For the Salvation of the human race knows best how to cut off the harmful beginnings of a savage conception, he who shuts out the devil as he creeps in, at the very door of sinning, when he is about to enter. For one and the same Son of God is the Lord of our nature and the master of chastity. And why do I say master of chastity, since he himself is uncorrupted modesty, he himself inviolate chastity? For he in whose mouth no deceit was found, whose heart and flesh exulted in the living God, could not have the trace of sin even in his eyes. Therefore, brothers, because manifold sins corrupt our frailty, and that dreadful judgment is being prepared for our life, let us look more carefully, think more holily, lest the undisciplined gaze of our eyes as they wander about creep into our idle heart. For we have received eyes to give light to the body, not to bring blindness on the soul. And after all, the ministers of light ought not to be lighter than those of darkness; for the Lord says to each of us: "If the light that is in you is darkness, how great will the darkness itself be!" And so, dearest ones, the holy Scripture is to be gone over by us often, through which we may be taught honesty, restrained from avarice, and instructed in the saving rules of true faith; as the Apostle says: "Be enlarged yourselves too, and do not bear a yoke with unbelievers."

It is fitting and necessary for us, brothers, for our common instruction and correction, to go over the apostolic admonitions and to search out saving commands in simple words, as it is written: "Blessed are those who search his testimonies; they seek him with their whole heart." The most glorious Paul, then, says: "Let no evil word come out of your mouth." How beautifully and how magnificently the most splendid teacher of heavenly disciplines corrects, almost by the rigour of a single sentence, the unbridledness of evil speaking and the stubbornness of a wanton tongue! For this reason see, dearest brothers, how the master of the Gentiles and excellent pruner of the Lord's vineyard cuts down with the sickle of his precept the branches of all the vices that are to be burned. For by saying, "Let no evil word come out of your mouth," he wipes away at once all the harmful refuse of our heart and mouth. For he acts so that if malice perhaps knocks at anyone's heart, at the devil's prompting, it may not find in it the effect of an operating word. For all the poisons of hidden thoughts, if they are not brought out in words, as though deprived of strength, soon vanish. For so the prophetic word testifies of a certain wicked man, to express the purpose of a malignant heart, saying: "He conceived pain and brought forth iniquity"; that is, the impious and unjust man brought forth with his lips the malice he had conceived in his heart. Take away the birth of malignity by speech, and whatever grief has been conceived in a man's heart, like a kind of miscarriage, will have no power of being born, and will soon die within its own womb. "Let no evil word," then, "come out of your mouth," because without doubt in evil speech there is blasphemy. Remove, then, the whispering of wicked words, and envy will have no incitement to its malignity. Remove the base mystery of soft lips, and no snare of flatterers will be laid for simple men. Take away the workshop of the crafty tongue, and malice will remain empty of crimes, and avarice too; for the mad hunger of a greedy heart is not fed unless malignant speech goes out for prey. "Let no evil word come out of your mouth." How far it befits us to be from evil works, to whom it is not permitted to offend even in speech! For the most blessed Paul says in what follows: "Let fornication and uncleanness not even be named among you, nor base talk, nor buffoonery, which is not fitting." For this reason certainly the Apostle forbids all these things to be named among the faithful, lest either the habit of evil speaking plunge them into the worst deeds, or the tongue of the saints, dedicated to the praises of God, be soiled by the obscenity of base words. For who would bear that from one and the same mouth should come now divine words, now the words of demons? Who would bear that one and the same tongue should sing psalms to God and sing to the devil? And so that we may recognize more fully what and how great the incitements of malignant speech are, let us go over at least a few examples of the holy Scriptures. For an evil word came out of the mouth of Simon the magician when, offering a price to the apostles, he asked that the grace of God be sold to him. An evil word came out of the mouth of the Egyptian woman, who was inflaming chaste Joseph to her bed with base address. An evil word came out of the mouth of the most avaricious king Ahaz, who, kindled with the flame of mad greed, demanded another's vineyard with shameless tongue, and, the evil speech of his wife Jezebel serving him, possessed a thing not owed to him by the death of a murdered poor man. An evil word came out of the mouth of the traitor Judas when in impious conversation he was selling the Lord's blood to the chief priests of the Jews. Hear further, dearest ones, how great a discipline not only of the mouth but also of the eyes is formed in man through the divine words. For the Apostle says, as has been said: "Let no evil word come out of your mouth." And the Lord says: "Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery in his heart." You see, brothers, with what care and with what anxiety we are forbidden either to speak or to look at base things; with what agreement of precepts the good Lord and his faithful servant destroy the instruments of our sins. For the one restrains the eyes, the other the tongue, because lust creeps into man's heart through the eyes, and the desire of the heart is fulfilled through the service of slippery speech. By these commands, then, both Christ cleanses the soiled gaze, lest it accomplish sin through the eyes into the inward parts of our breast, and the Apostle amends our tongue, lest baser speech accomplish base desire. Therefore, most beloved, let us beware with all vigilance lest an evil or base word come out of our mouth, so that a chaste tongue may send to God our prayers, which we pray may be received in heaven.

We read in the holy Gospel that when a certain centurion's servant, who was very dear to him, was suffering from the grave sickness of paralysis, and that centurion asked the Saviour through the elders of the Jews to heal his pains (for he was, as Scripture says, about to die), among other things, to commend him the more, the Jews said to the Lord: "He is worthy that you should do this for him; for he loves our nation, and he himself built the synagogue for us." If, then, he who built a synagogue is commended to the Lord, how much more commended is he who built a church? And if he earns favour who provided a receptacle of impiety, how much greater favour does he earn who prepared a home for religion? And if he is visited by heavenly mercy who constructed a place where Christ is always denied, how much more is he to be visited who had a tabernacle built where Christ is preached daily? For in the centurion the Lord approved not what work he had done but with what mind he had worked. For he who at that time, when there were not yet Christians, carefully built a synagogue, would, it is understood, have built a church much more carefully if there had been Christians. And yet, though he builds a synagogue, he preaches Christ; for in the very work he admonishes the Pharisees that they ought to receive the Saviour, and shows that he added a larger tabernacle for this reason, that they might speak there the Lord's glory in many ways. For if the founder of the synagogue believes in Christ, much more ought the inhabitant of the synagogue to believe. If, then, the centurion was justified because of a frail and earthly work, plainly our most illustrious and most provident count is to be justified because of a work so lasting and heavenly; this count, as he is above a centurion in rank, so ought he to be more devout in faith. A wise and devout man is the count, who, as much as he serves the Saviour in war for the emperor, and as much as he hastens to rescue captives from the hands of enemies, so much the more hastens to free himself from the sacrilege of the devil. There he kills the enemies of the earthly king, here he pursues the adversaries of the heavenly Lord; there he conquers barbarians, here demons. Wise, I say, who, as he is a count of the emperor, so desires also to be a companion of Christ. For by acting well and devoutly he desires his rank to be everlasting, according to what is written in the prophet: "And you, good kings, make your ways and your doings good, and hear the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will repent of the evil which he has spoken against you." So when the centurion asked the Lord to rescue the sick man from death, and the Lord wished to go to the centurion's house, in which the servant lay, the centurion said: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof." The centurion excuses himself, then, and calls himself unworthy for the Lord to enter under his roof. See, our count is worthy, under whose roof the Saviour enters today. Let us see what grace the centurion's excuse itself has; for he says: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed." O Christian faith, which is accustomed to obtain everything with humility! See, the devout centurion becomes more worthy to receive salvation while he professes himself unworthy; and while he thinks his house an insult, he made it the more honourable and pleasing. For he was a man of great and perfect faith, who understood that Christ was the Lord of the heavens, since he feared that the narrow quarters of his lodging would not receive him. So, the centurion objecting, the Lord does not go to the house. The Lord does not go, but the Lord's medicine goes; the Saviour does not visit the sick man, but the Saviour's healing visits him. And what shall I say of our brothers, the holy men Vitalianus and Maianus? I know that they do not seek glory from men but from God alone; yet even if I am silent, their very works speak; for whatever we praised in others a little before belongs to their praise. For though many built this tabernacle, yet these worked at the expense with one consent. And with what expense, since in the world they are of modest and slender means? Namely with that of which the Apostle speaks, the abundance of faith and the riches of simplicity. For to holy men poverty itself is always rich. Hence I believe that these blessed men built this church no less with prayers than with expenses; for so it was fitting that the work of Christ should grow more by prayers than by stones and mortar. For they both spent their whole substance on the building of this work, and certainly they themselves lack nothing. That, as we said, is plainly the rich and wealthy poverty which spends everything and possesses everything. But this is blessed by God, like that widow of whom the Lord says in the Gospel: "This poor widow has put in more than all; for all these put in from their abundance for God's gifts, but she put in all the living she had."

When the Only-begotten of almighty God wished to show men who and how great he was, and had resolved to open to mortals the spring of his goodness, he spoke thus: "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son wills to reveal him." This eternal knowledge of Father and Son, dearest ones, without doubt shows that their substance is one and undivided. Attend more carefully now, brothers, to what and how great is the power of the divine nature in our Lord and Redeemer, the wisdom of heavenly teaching, and the incomprehensible kindness of his most merciful breast. For after he declared, as the gospel word testifies, that all things had been handed over to him by God his Father, "nor," and so on ... from deceitful men simple, from angry men gentle, humble from proud. Christ, then, refreshes us, or rather remakes us, when either by stricter admonitions he forestalls crimes about to be committed, or by the gift of his indulgence forgives those committed. "Take," he says, "my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart." Christ is truly gentle, because he came down from heaven for this, that through his reproaches and injuries he might bestow forgiveness on mortals, who always sin. And he is truly humble, who, so that he might die for the dead, deigned to join fleshly nature to himself. "I am gentle," he says, "and humble of heart." The Lord declares himself humble of heart, because that humility is truly holy which proceeds from the purity of a devout mind, not that which comes down from a vicious breast with a trembling conscience. "Learn," he says, "from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart." How well such a master teaches, who sets before his disciples in himself examples of holy teaching to be imitated! But you, dearest ones, look not to human frailty but always to him who spoke what he did and did what he spoke. "Take," he says, "my yoke upon you, for my yoke is sweet and my burden light." The yoke of Christ, brothers, loosens all the bonds of the devil's yoke. The yoke of Christ does not chafe the neck but adorns it. The yoke of Christ does not press down our heads but holds them. The yoke of Christ, with the ploughshare of faith furrowing, cuts down all the grasses and briars of vices. The yoke of Christ joins God and men in everlasting fellowship with harmonious bonds of love. And what shall I say of the Lord's burden, which is such that it turns from our necks the weight of all sins? For the burden of Christ is modesty, the burden of Christ is humility, the burden of Christ is patience, the burden of Christ is contempt of the world and the blessed torments of martyrdom for the confession of his name. These most wholesome burdens of life, brothers, the Saviour lays on us, lest we be overwhelmed by the deadly weights of this world. And so let us submit our heads to the gospel yoke with more devout zeal, and put our shoulders under the delightful burdens of a holy way of life, so that our almighty God, as truly good and truly gentle, may deign to rescue and free us from the most hard yoke of the devil's captivity and from the burden of wretched slavery.

The disciples, still not knowing how great is the glory of humility, were contending about the precedence of their merit or honour, saying to the Lord: "Who do you think is greater in the kingdom of heaven?" The disciples had a dispute about who was greater in the kingdom of heaven, though without doubt he is held greater with God who is humbler, as he himself says: "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Hence, not without reason, to cut off this unnecessary dispute of his disciples, "Jesus called a child," it says, "and set him in their midst and said: Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Having set a child in the midst, the Lord exhorts the disciples by his example, showing that unless each one becomes like a child he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. But the Lord did not bring forward the example of children, or command us to become like children, so that we should imitate children in age, since an age already older cannot return to infancy; but so that we should imitate the infancy and innocence of children. The blessed Apostle knew how we are commanded by the Lord to be children, when he says: "Do not become children in understanding, but in malice be little ones, so that in understanding you may be mature." For a child or little one does not know the malice of the world, does not know how to sin, does no evil to his neighbour, does not keep anger, hates no one, does not seek riches, does not admire the glory of this world, always follows his father, does not leave his mother. For this reason, then, the Lord wishes us to become like children, so that by a like example we may live in the present world without malice and without guile; let us flee sin, let us do no evil to our neighbour; let us not keep anger, let us not seek riches nor the glory of the world. Let us always follow our Father, that is, God, whose sons by adoption we have already begun to be; let us not leave our mother, that is, the Church, through whom we have been born spiritually to God. In the lap of this mother let us rest, like little ones set in their father's bosom. Let us be nourished daily by her wholesome teaching, so that we may grow in faith and in the grace of baptism; according to what Peter testified in his Epistle, saying: "As infants, love the milk, so that by it you may grow." And holy John too shows us in his Epistle how we ought to be children, when he says: "I write to you, children, because you have known the Father." In this, then, we are commanded to be children: that we acknowledge the Father; that we live in this world innocent and simple as doves. The Lord, then, wishing such a likeness of children to be in us, not without reason says in the present place: "Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever, then, humbles himself like this child, he is greater in the kingdom of heaven." The Lord clearly declares, then, that he will be greater in the kingdom of heaven whoever imitates the humility and innocence of a child. Indeed the Lord himself, so that he might show us perfectly from himself an example of humility, even himself, having taken flesh, deigned to become a child, according to what we read written of him: "For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, whose rule is upon his shoulders." Hence too the holy patriarchs and apostles are called children by the Lord, according to what we read written of them: "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me," because like children they remained without guile, without malice. Let us imitate, then, the example of such children, that is, of all the saints, so that we may earn to enter the kingdom of heaven with them. Let us imitate the humility of the Lord himself, who for our salvation deigned to be a child, so that we may be able to reign with him. And rightly he added: "But whoever receives one such child in my name receives me"; showing that whoever receives a servant who believes faithfully in Christ and lives according to a child's innocence receives himself. The Lord said that he is received in the receiving of such a one so that we should not hold in contempt any such servant of God who lives humbly. Therefore he added, saying: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it is better for him that a donkey's millstone be hung around his neck and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea." It was necessary that after the reward of devout faith, condemnation should follow unbelief. For as punishment is owed to men who cause the faithful to stumble, we know from this very thing how grave a sin it is to cause stumbling, since the Lord says that it is better for such a man to have a donkey's millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea than to cause one of the little ones who believe in Christ to stumble; so that, the sin of such stumbling being forestalled by this sentence, we may, if it can be, prefer to live in the present life without causing stumbling rather than to incur with stumbling the eternal punishment of that death. If, then, the Lord says this of one who causes one of the little ones to stumble, what punishment do we think heretics will have, who by depraved and faithless teaching cause stumbling not to one but to the whole Church? And though this saying of the Lord about the donkey's millstone can be understood simply, yet according to the mystical sense something more can be understood in the meaning of the donkey's millstone. The animals that are usually yoked to the mill usually have their eyes closed. Hence by the meaning of the mill the toil of the present life is shown. In the donkey, then, the Gentile man is shown, who lives without knowledge of God and the light of faith, like a blind animal, in the toil of the world. The depth of the sea is the deep error of the world. And so he rightly said that it is better for one who causes stumbling to have a donkey's millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea. In this he seems especially to signify the Jew, who is known to take offence at the cross of Christ and at the preaching of his name. It would be better for such a one if he were plunged in the blindness of Gentile error as in the depth of the sea, than that, under the preaching of the law, through which the Jew thinks he knows the light of truth, he should take offence at Christ or his apostles, whom he calls little ones; because it is easier for a Gentile without the law not to believe in Christ than for a Jew living under the law to deny the Lord of the law himself. We can also recognize the two Testaments signified in the donkey's millstone, by which everyone who causes stumbling, bound by a just sentence, is plunged into the destruction of death. We recognize this sentence of the donkey's millstone fulfilled especially in the Jewish people, who, since they often stirred up stumbling against the Lord and his apostles, by hearing those same two Testaments as if for a remedy of salvation, having lost their own kingdom, were plunged into the depth of the sea, that is, scattered into the gathering of different nations; who dwell in the error of this world as in the depth of the sea, not knowing the Creator of heaven, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be salvation and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Whoever, sighing after God's saving precepts, has been eager to bend the pride of his swollen mind, hateful to all; to restrain avarice, the root of all evils; to rein in luxury, the enemy of good virtues; to calm envy, the foe of holy chastity; not to love the ruinous profits of usury; not to burden justice, the guardian of peace, with bribes; to shudder at the harmful schemes of factions; to turn aside from the inglorious and sometimes bloody canvassing for undeserved honour; to restrain the incitements of discord and the curses of an insulting tongue; also to drive from a Christian mouth lies, which stain life, wound the soul and scatter friendships; and to flee, for love of the true God, from all superstitions of demons and sacrileges of idols, by which especially the kindness of the Almighty is offended: such a man, with the Lord's support, has been able to conquer the devil.

For whoever abounds in his own goods does not seek the treasures of the world. For one's own goods are honesty, sobriety, mercy, chastity; these goods are more precious than all gold, so that you may know that metals themselves are cheaper than these. Talents of gold can be dug up, vessels of silver can be bought; honesty alone cannot be dug up; for honesty is not dug up but acquired, because it does not consist in price but in virtue. You, then, who possess gold, if you please, let us compare our goods with each other. When you set out abroad, your treasures remain at home; while they are placed far from you, you are always trembling and always uncertain whether, when you return home, you will not have what you had. So while you always fear their loss, you are naked and poor in your conscience. But wherever I go, my riches follow me, and my goods cannot be separated from me, because they are kept not in an earthly cave but in the treasury of the breast. When you depart from the world, by leaving your riches you have lost them; but when it befalls me to move from this world, I carry my riches to paradise. After death, as in the example of that rich man clothed in purple, fire and darkness follow your riches; my riches, as in the example of Lazarus, Abraham's bosom and blessedness will receive.