Sermons 120–122

[On avoiding the form of this world and taking up the form of the Saviour. On the words of the same: “Do not be conformed to this world,” etc.] Today Christ has disclosed that the apostles are salt, saying: “You are the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13). So let no one be impatient if we grind the words of blessed Paul like grains of divine salt, so that, having made them finer, we may season the understanding of our minds. For grains of salt leap out while they are whole, but finely ground they go down into the marrow; so the Apostle's word, read in common, offers a simple sense, but it provides deep knowledge when it is gone over again by careful reading, as we have done before. Today the blessed Apostle says: “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2). Do you think that blessed Paul the apostle, by saying this, is forbidding us to be conformed to the figures of the elements? or forbidding us to be like the kings of the Persians, who, now with a sphere placed under their feet so as to be believed to tread on the heavens, falsely play the part of God; now, with a radiate crown on their heads, as though they were not men, sit in the figure of the sun; now, putting on horns as though grieved to be men, turn effeminate into the moon; now take on various shapes as of the stars, so as to lose the figure of man without gaining anything of the brightness above? But though these things come from the vanity of the world, and are as much to be laughed at by the wise as fled from, yet the Apostle, when he says, “Do not be conformed to this world,” corrects the life of the world, refutes its conduct, judges its way of life, chastises its desires, condemns its luxury, and drives out, puts to flight and shuts out from Christian minds the whole pomp of worldly vanities. But here he briefly reminds us of what he set out more fully at the beginning of this Epistle, where he portrays the form of the world in its vices thus: “Filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, proud, inventors of evils, disobedient to parents, foolish, disorderly, without affection, without mercy; who, though they knew the righteousness of God, did not understand that those who do such things are worthy of death; not only those who do them but also those who consent to those who do them” (Rom 1:29–32). Brothers, you have heard the form of the world, you have learned its appearance, you have seen its figure: if indeed it is a form and not a formless monster, where the whole face of things is blotted out by the confusion of crimes, where the whole figure of the world is dissolved by the union of sins, where the very image of the Creator is taken away by the diseases of offences, where man is buried in vices, where the crimes of a corrupted body swarm, where man is the tomb of man, where in a man one sees not a man but a corpse. So the Apostle forbids us to be conformed to this form, forbids us to be configured to this figure, does not allow us to be like this likeness, but re-forms us to the form of God, calls us back to the likeness of Christ and leads us wholly back to the image of the Creator, saying: “But be re-formed in the newness of your mind” (Rom 12:2). That is: be renewed in your minds through Christ, having cast off the figure of this world; and, having thrown away the whole deformity of the aged image, bring your form back to the form of your Saviour, so that the newness of your minds may shine out in your actions and the heavenly man may now walk on earth in heavenly bearing. But let it now be shown how he composes the form of the new man. “For as in one body we have many members, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us” (Rom 12:4–6). He works, he works so that the body which he sets in heavenly activity, in the life above and in the conduct of holiness, may stand firm by the agreement and joining of its members; so that the foot may not, through perverse pride, confuse the ministry of the eye, nor the eye the office of the foot, but the members of holiness may be content with the gifts of the giver and believe that what he has made one member is the possession of all the members, because no single member knows diminishment when the whole is honoured in the body. That is why the Apostle assigns actions to members and members to actions thus: “He who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, in simplicity; he who presides, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Charity without pretence; hating evil, clinging to good; outdoing one another in honour, kind to one another; not slothful in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, persevering in prayer, sharing in the memorials of the saints, pursuing hospitality. Bless, and do not curse; rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep; providing good things not only before God but also before men. Do not be wise in your own estimation; repay no one evil for evil; if possible, so far as it depends on you, have peace with all men; do not avenge yourselves, but give place to wrath. If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good” (Rom 12:7–21). Above, brothers, the Apostle disclosed the members of the vices; now he has revealed to us the members of the virtues, so that the heavenly body, made firm by such members and strengthened by such sinews, may easily lay low the wars of the world and overcome the attacks of the devil. And does not one who lives as the Apostle taught lay low the world? trample on the flesh? conquer the devil? equal the angels? Is he not greater than heaven? Plainly greater than heaven, because heaven does not move of its own accord, does not act by will, does nothing by judgment, but always serves by necessity alone, because it was once commanded to serve; it keeps itself unpolluted not by strength or labour; hence, while it is not liable to punishment, neither does it stand to gain a reward. But man, formed from earthly vileness, when he conquers the earthly stain, breaks the goads of blood and rises above the passions of the flesh, passes beyond heaven and flies to the very seat of the Godhead; and so he becomes greater than heaven and surpasses the angels in merits, not in nature. The apostle Paul proves this, who, having fully conquered the earth, both entered heaven and passed to another, and was worthy to reach even the third (2 Cor 12:2). And justly; for he ought to climb the heavens first who taught men by word and example to penetrate the heavens. He will be, he will be greater than heaven who lives as Paul taught; he will be brighter than the sun who so shines over the whole world with the rays of the virtues that he lets himself be darkened by no night of vices. He will be, he will be brighter than the moon, who does not temper this darkness with a diminished light, but drives away the whole night of the world with the full brightness of his merits; nor does he, like the moon, feel daily losses of light, but he remains in the brightness of the light above by the continual lamp of his deeds; nor will he, like her, be interrupted by a monthly darkness, but will remain in the continual charity of God. And if she is great because she softens the night, how much greater is he whose life admits nothing of night? Of the stars I say nothing, because as many as are the stars in the sky, so many are the virtues with which the saints shine, as the Lord says: “You are the light of the world”; “shine as lights in the world” (Matt 5:14; Phil 2:15). In sum, heaven, sun, moon and stars will pass away, as God says (Matt 24:35), but the righteous man will remain in God's continual brightness. I would like, brothers, to bring forth a separate discourse on each word of the Apostle; but since a reading dwelt on too often produces distaste in the hearer, and we cannot be silent any longer about the gospel mighty works, may it please you, beloved, that we have closed the present reading with a short sermon. May our God himself deign to instil into your holy minds both what we have said and what we have left unsaid.

[On the rich man and Lazarus.] Today, brothers, you have heard both the end of poverty and learned what the outcome of riches is, as the Lord says: “There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who lay at his gate, longing to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one gave to him; but even the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. But the rich man died and was buried in hell” (Luke 16). See, brothers, what a lamentable reversal of things: angels carry the poor man, hell swallows the rich. See, brothers, the death of the poor man has overcome the whole life of the rich, and the mere lifting up of the poor man has surpassed all the rich man's pomp and glory. Why does burial so deceive the eyes? Why does the pomp of a funeral so lie? The whole city turns out to escort the rich man when his body is carried forth; the poor man goes alone. The pity of two bearers carries the poor man, not four as for the dead, but two under one pole, as if unwilling porters had been hired to throw away a load. Rightly, then, angelic services, rightly divine attendance is at once assigned to him who was so cruelly denied even the last offices of humanity. A mourning crowd of slaves goes before the rich man's bier; a multitude of angels singing psalms goes before the poor man's litter. The rich man's body lies shut in a marble tomb in carefully prepared clothing; the poor man's flesh rests in the natural earth, and in its earthy resting place it does not know the bite of worms, since it has already passed through rottenness and stench. But let us ask, brothers, what was the rich man's fault, what crime, what wickedness handed him over to the torments of hell, and, before the judgment of his condemnation, caused his indictment to be sung for so many ages, with the Judge himself reporting it, as the Lord says: “There was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at the rich man's gate, and longed to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.” Are riches in themselves so criminal? Or are clothes alone and of themselves to be condemned before God? And are banquets in themselves so punishable that they not only lack the reward of the good but also deserve and bear the ruin of every evil? Or is beggary of itself so approved and sanctified, are sores so sacred, that they are snatched by the hands of angels into the lap of holy Abraham? And it is a marvel, brothers, that Abraham, once rich, now spurns a rich man, as Scripture says: “Abraham was very rich” (Gen 13), and that the man he once resembled in present goods he now rejects and suffers to be punished, especially since the divine word has disclosed neither the good deeds of this poor man nor the evil deeds of this rich one. Why then does Abraham now embrace the poor man, and shun and reject the rich one? Or how did riches keep that rich man, Abraham, innocent, and make this one guilty; promote the one to the rest of all the blessed, and consign the other to the pit of all evils? But so that the sermon we have set before you may not long weary your minds and keep your hearing in suspense, we must hasten the answer to this question. Abraham, brothers, was rich not for himself but for the poor, and he was eager not to hold his wealth but to pay it out: he was more and more anxious to store his means in the bosom of the poor than in barns, as the whole course of his life teaches. For he himself labored continually as a stranger, and so, lest a stranger should feel himself a stranger (Gen 18), living in a tent himself, he did not allow a newcomer to stay without a roof; himself a guest, he always received a guest; an exile from his homeland, knowing no home, he was himself both lord and homeland to all, knowing that he had been set not as a hoarder but as a steward of the divine bounty. To defend the oppressed, to free captives (Gen 14), to rescue those on the point of death, he, a new kind of warrior, handed himself over to death, a man to whom kindness toward another was dearer than his own life. Abraham stood by the guest he had received; he did not sit down; he was not the guest's fellow diner but his servant. When Abraham saw a stranger he forgot that he was a master; he himself brought the meal, and he set his wife anxiously to the kitchen to make it fine enough; and he who entrusts and commits himself and all he has to his household hardly dares to entrust a guest to anyone but his tried and trusted wife. What more, brothers? His humanity was so holy, so always made ready with holy hands, that it invited God himself to his house and constrained him to be his guest. He came to Abraham, he came to the rest of the poor, he came to the shelter of guests, who will declare in the future that he himself was received in the guest and the poor, when he will say: “I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in” (Matt 25). “And it came to pass that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.” Not without reason, brothers, does he receive all the saints into his rest, and in heavenly blessedness itself he performs the office of a steward: because while here he always received strangers and the poor, he deserved to receive God himself with angels, to see as a guest under his tent him whom he always had as giver. And truly, brothers, he thought himself too little blessed if, even in the glory above, he ceased from the holy office of hospitality and enjoyed only the divine gifts, he who here thought himself cruel if he refused human goods to anyone. Abraham, brothers, always ran to meet those who came from afar, called even passers-by with entreaty, compelled the unwilling to his table with great pleading, always set before his guests the first and fattened animals of his flocks, always offered loaves made hot by his own and his wife's hands, which his constant humanity would never let be cold or yesterday's. But this rich man, or rather the captive of riches, the slave of wealth, chained by his very fortune, a base tomb of so much pomp in which all sight and hearing of kindness had utterly failed, despised not a person, not a poor man, but mercy itself, while Lazarus lay so at his gate. With purple, fine linen, delicate clothes and tempting dishes he fed the iron entrails of a cruel soul. God, the eager seeker of human salvation, wishing to soften him, threw at his gate not so much Lazarus as a very furnace of kindness for him: I said “furnace” because of his iron entrails. So the beggar Lazarus is thrust before his wicked eyes, brought near, and so that the rich man might be able to give, the rich man's fortune is heaped higher and higher; but the rich man, harder than adamant, either poured out shamefully or hoarded cruelly whatever God added to his fortune for the poor man's nourishment. Again God, so that the poor man might not be silent, so that he might cry out, so that he might warn the rich man, so that the fasting poor man might show that he sought only bread, so that he might drive the soul of the man in abundance to give at least the smallest things, increases the poor man's hunger: “He longed,” it says, “to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.” But the rich man, gorged with various dishes, belched his indigestion up to heaven so as not to hear the voice of the poor man lying so low. Again God, since the voice of one mouth crying was nothing to ears so hardened, opens the poor man's whole body with wounds to open the rich man's heart, so that in warning the rich man the poor man should have as many mouths as wounds. His flesh dissolves, sores spread, the gaping of the wounds widens, pus pours out, and the poor man's whole flesh is set up as a stage for mercy, so that the man whom the voice of the hungry had not moved might be moved by sighs, pains, groans, and the whole heap of miseries; but the rich man, with proud eye and insatiable heart, scorns to hear, see, or feel all this. God still seeks how the rich man may be freed from his obstinacy. He loosens the poor man's hands from his limbs, so that he could not drive off the rich man's dogs, which he was to feed with his wounds; and in a new way, brothers, the order of humanity is reversed: human beggary comes about so that inhuman greed may be exposed. The rich man does not feed the poor man even with the crumbs falling from his table, and Lazarus the poor man, since he had nothing else, showed himself humane to the dogs even with his own flesh. Wretched rich man, if you did not give bread, why did you not at least drive off the dogs? But your dogs are gentler than you, or rather you are more savage than your dogs: for while you rage they spare him; they put out not their teeth to bite but their tongues to serve, so that like a sponge they do not irritate the wounds but cleanse them. Rich man, in your dogs kindness conquered hunger; in you, being full did not win out over kindness. That dogs take care to do this, common experience, always before our eyes, proves: for dogs always heal their own wounds by licking. Dogs care for the poor man by the teaching of nature, and man neglects man while nature itself gravely accuses him. It is true, it is true, that the rich man cannot give even crumbs, since the miser is always in want. The sermon must be put off, brothers, because we have used up the time for speaking, and the parts of the reading that we most need to treat still follow.

[On the same.] Our sermon today, brothers, ought to recount as far as it can the virtues of holy Andrew; but since we said we would pay back what remains about that rich man and Lazarus, the poor man of the Gospel, and since the prerogative of blessed Andrew's apostleship and martyrdom suffices and abounds for his glory, let us, if you please, pay what we promised and what we owe, the Lord himself repaying it through us. For knowing that weariness always breeds distaste in both speaker and hearer, in the previous sermon we put off the greater part of the reading set before us, so that with the strength of our minds restored we might take in the rest of the saving word with full vigor and the attention it deserves. After what we said, this follows: “And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (Luke 16). “And lifting up his eyes.” Too late the rich man lifts up his eyes, which he always kept turned down to the earth. Rich man, the eyes you lift up are your accusers; the eyes you lift up do not appease the judge but inflame him; they bring back not pardon but guilt, and they demand a heap of punishments, not comfort. Where are you lifting your eyes? Why do you still cry out, rich man? Where are you looking, rich man? There is Lazarus, there is the betrayer of your impiety, the witness of your crime, the one who proves your cruelty. “And he cried out,” it says, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me.” Now you recognize a father, and now you do not know that he is no father to you, whom you so scorned as father in Lazarus. Now the just man meets you, who then, so as to be kind to you, let Lazarus be tormented for a long time. Unhappy man, whom his very origin so convicts, whom the very author of his light so condemns! Unhappy man, for whom at the judgment, because of the greatness of his crime, the parent could not have mercy, the father could not forgive, affection could not help! Why do you still cry out, rich man? Still rich, but in crime, not in fortune; not in substance, but in guilt. Why do you cry out? What do you ask? Here it is no longer a petition that is pleaded, but a lawsuit, where the very one who suffered stands on the opposite side; but the parties are in different places: one pleads from near at hand, the other from afar; one prompts from the bosom, the other cries from Tartarus; one pleads from rest, the other complains from punishment. But the rich man says: “Father Abraham, have mercy on me.” You would speak well if Lazarus were not resting in the bosom, holding the very breast of the judge; you would speak well if Lazarus did not possess all the secrets of the most just examiner. In vain he begs the judge whom the innocent witness so accuses; and in vain he thinks the judge can help him, when the one who suffered so much pronounces from the judge's own mouth. “Have mercy on me, and send Lazarus.” Are you still so cruel to Lazarus? “Send Lazarus.” Where? From the bosom to hell, from a lofty throne to the deepest chaos, from holy quiet, from the deep silence of the blessed, to the gnashing of torments. “And send Lazarus.” As I see it, what the rich man does comes not from new pain but from old envy, and he is more inflamed by heaven than by Gehenna. It is a grievous evil to such people, a fire not to be borne, to see happy those whom they once held in contempt. Malice still does not leave the rich man whom punishment already holds: he does not ask to be brought to Lazarus; he wants Lazarus brought down to him. Pious Abraham cannot send to the bed of your torment, rich man, Lazarus, whom you did not deign to admit to your table. Now your lots are reversed: you see the glory of the one whose suffering you so despised; he sees your torments, who then marveled at you in your glory. But let us see, brothers, why he laments so to have Lazarus sent. “Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” You are mistaken, rich man: this flame is not so much of the tongue as of the mind, not so much of the tongue as of the heart; and this is still the heat of conscience, not that final fire which awaits and expects you. For if the whole fire of the last judgment already surrounded you, and the sentence of that hopeless condemnation already held you, you would never lift your eyes, never speak with the father, never ask for yourself, never presume to intercede for your brothers. Surely, if the whole fire of hell already possesses you, if the flame of Gehenna embraces you, why do you want relief only for the burning of your tongue? Only because, while your breast pants with the flame of its crime and guilt, the tongue burns, blazes and boils the more, the tongue that insulted the poor man, that denied mercy. It goes first to judgment, it first tastes and suffers torment, it is the first of the whole body to feel the burning, because when it was first here to taste the various dishes of delights and fragrant cups, it would not order kindness, did not command that mercy be done, but even disparaged it when others did it. This is the one “who was clothed in purple and fine linen.” What is this, rich man? Does fine linen not protect from the heat? Does purple not withstand hell? Those things stayed behind; those things deserted you, and now you yourself sweat and burn naked, who once mocked the heat, clothed in artful luxury. “And send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” What is this, rich man? Where are the torrents of your winepresses? Where are the barns, widened against the poor man's hunger no less by greed than by stores? Where are the wines kept against the poor man's need through long years and the very forgetting of time? Where are the outpourings, the spills, the streams of your servants? All these perished for you, not your crimes, since you thirst for a drop from the tip of a finger, which, had you given even that alone to the poor man, you would not thirst for. A drop and a crumb made you merciless and inhuman, and in them consists the poor man's whole living and life. I would like to know, rich man, whether, placed in punishment, you even forgive yourself, since you would not have come to these evils if you had then given a crumb from such great barns, a drop from such great winepresses. Little is what the flesh needs, what nature demands, what suffices for life; avarice is the reason a man stores up great and many things, not for himself but for others, and plainly for his own torment, present or to come. But you say, rich man: “Even if I refused wine, I ask for water, which the author of all things and nature have provided common to all living creatures.” I think, rich man, that you refused the poor man even water, setting very many dogs against him so that he might not come in at your gate, might not reach your well. But what is it you say? “Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water,” and not to bring water? So the water is close by; and if it is close by, why do you not take it from near at hand? Why? Because your hands are rightly bound, rich man, since you scorned to help when Lazarus's hands had been loosened by weakness. A man ought, he ought, to share his own limbs with the weak; Job, not giving this but repaying it, said: “I was eye to the blind and foot to the lame; I was father of the weak” (Job 29, following the LXX). Man, if you have no coin, give the poor man your hand, for he does a greater mercy who leads a weak poor man to his table by the hand. He has given himself to the poor man who has fitted himself to the service of the poor, fitted himself to the poor man's servitude. Again, brothers, let us put off the full treatment of the present word, so that at a third hearing we may set out what sentence the rich man received from most blessed Abraham.