Sermons 169–173

[On the parable of the lost drachma.] That mystical meanings lie hidden through all the Gospel readings, and that the secrets of heavenly understanding remain in them, only those know who have received the grace of the divine Spirit. See, after the Shepherd above had sought the lost sheep of the flock of a hundred, found it, and brought it back to the heavenly fold with all the angels' gladness, the woman of the Gospel is brought forward as a figure: who, having lit a lamp, so seeks the one lost drachma out of ten that, having found it, from her gain and her joy she brings forth a cause of heavenly joys. For he says this: “Or what woman having ten drachmas, if she loses one drachma, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying: Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma that I had lost. So, I tell you, there will be joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15). Do you think this woman is an ordinary one? or that her having had ten drachmas is to be thought of with human understanding? or that she is believed to have lost one by worldly chance? or that it simply happens that she seeks it at night? or that she lights a lamp in our ordinary way? or that it is usual that she lost it and found it within the house? or that it is a domestic custom that she calls her friends and neighbors to gladness, when she is not read to have called them to grief when she lost it? A new kind of loss, which shows the drachma not stolen but slipped away; and which says it was hidden in the darkness of the house, not buried by the tricks of outsiders. You see how unique the whole is, how it passes and goes beyond human custom, how it breathes and smells of divine meaning, how it lifts the understanding of the mind to heaven, how it sets it among things above, how it compels us to light the lamp of a heavenly heart and, like the woman of the Gospel, to seek through the obscurities of the Lord's reading the drachma of saving knowledge. Before Christ came to the straying sheep, worn out by its pitiable wanderings, and lifted it on his merciful shoulders to heaven, and, laden with the holy beast, came to the folds that wolves cannot reach, the woman having ten drachmas endured long darkness; and not only did she bewail one lost drachma, but she could not see even the nine drachmas left to her. For her there was continual night, deep and lasting gloom; for her the lamp did not shine for the comfort of the night without the divine fire. But after the fire above, the fire of the Holy Spirit, poured itself in a flaming shower upon the apostles and kindled with all the heat of its fire the hearts of mortals, no less cold than dark, the woman, that is, the Church, lights her lamp, that is, that inner gaze of her heart, that is, as the Apostle says, “the eyes of your heart enlightened” (Eph 1). She lights her lamp, then, and after the apostles' labor she sweeps out that Jewish house, blind with the darkness of ignorance, until out of the ten drachmas, that is, the Decalogue of the law, she found the lost drachma in Christ. Christ is the full coin of the Godhead; Christ is the drachma of our redemption and price; Christ is he who was both in the Decalogue of the law and lay hidden there; Christ is he whom the Synagogue had and, with darkness fighting against her, did not see. We have said that the ten drachmas are the ten words of the law, out of which the Synagogue had lost one Word. Which one? The one that John, because he was a burning lamp, first found in the Church, as the Lord says: “He was a burning lamp” (John 5), and as the evangelist says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1). Let it now be shown that this was in the Decalogue. “Hear, O Israel,” it says, “the Lord your God is one God” (Deut 4; Mark 12). While the Synagogue does not see this in the Son, she loses it in the Father; while she does not believe in Christ, she crucifies Christ to her death; to whom it is fittingly said next in the Decalogue: “You shall not kill” (Exod 20). For while the Jew beheads the very series of the commandments, he became a murderer of Christ before he became a murderer of the law; hence he turned the whole body of the Decalogue against Christ. “You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery”: the Synagogue was condemned, who, joined to the gods of the gentiles, rejected Christ, who, setting aside the power of a ruler, came down to her with the affection of a husband. “You shall not steal.” She stole the Lord's resurrection, she who gave money to the soldiers to bury and hide the truth of the resurrection (Matt 28). “You shall not bear false witness.” She is the one who sought false witnesses (Matt 26), to fulfil that word: “Unjust witnesses rose up; they asked me things I did not know” (Ps 35:11 [LXX 34:11]). And indeed she could not betray the Author of truth otherwise, because only falsehood ever attacks the truth. So he rushes down, so he falls step by step, who slips and tumbles from the ladder of the commandments. For if she had believed the Lord God to be one, she would not have come to this abyss of ruins. But let us now follow the lamp of mother Church, and walking in the light of the Lord's countenance, come to Christ's drachma; and let us call together the friends and neighbors, that is, the churches of the gentiles, so that they may not be ignorant that our mother has found her drachma; and let us say with the prophet: “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ” (Ps 132:17 [LXX 131:17]). And let us hear what the lamp has profited: “Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of the forest. We will enter into his tabernacle; we will worship in the place where his feet stood” (ibid.). See, what we sought through wide fields and spreading groves, let us find this in the Lord, at the lamp of our mother. At this let heaven too rejoice, because in one sinner who repents the fullness of the whole Christian people has shone out, and the whole form of Christ's Godhead has shone in our drachma.

[On Christ taking various forms for us, calling the apostles, sending them to cure diseases, and commanding poverty.] Blessed Mark today, in relating that the Lord went round the villages of Galilee, has disclosed his unspeakable kindness toward us. “And Jesus went round the villages in the area,” he says, “teaching” (Mark 6). You have heard how he goes round, how his tireless kindness seeks you everywhere and for your sake. And he who himself holds all things, and is held by no creature, enters and is confined in your body, contracts himself in your dwellings; he, whose majesty the daily voice of the faithful testifies when it cries, “Heaven and earth are full of your glory” (from the end of the Preface of the Mass), for your sake goes round, appears, is seen and is held in your places. Where does the immovable fullness move to? Where does he go to, or from where does he withdraw, by whom all things are full? And yet he goes, returns, descends, ascends; and God made man suffers all of you and for your sake, because he loves you exceedingly, he loves you too much. He takes on appearances, varies forms, changes offices: now he shines for you as fire in the bush (Exod 3), so that he may kindle you, cold from faithlessness, with the warmth of faith; now he shines out flaming in the heavenly pillar (Exod 13), so that, the darkness of your ignorance removed, you may run the way of saving knowledge through the deserts of this world; now the same is turned into a pillar of cloud for you, to temper the burning heats of your souls; now he protects you like an eagle with the wings of wisdom and calls you to heavenly flight, as Moses says: “As an eagle protects its nest and confides in its young, spreading its wings it took them and received them on its shoulders. The Lord alone led them, and there was no foreign god with them” (Deut 32, following the LXX). Now like a hen he brings out, leads, calls, gathers, protects, carries, warms, encircles, embraces (Matt 23), and, forgetful of his flight, for a time unmindful of his freedom, he moves about in your inner rooms, in your dust, so as to feed, train and instruct you with homely, familiar, household nourishment; now as the good shepherd he alone seeks the straying one in the highest mountains, alone finds it, alone lays it on his shoulders, and, lest you be further ravaged by the bites of wolves in earthly pastures, he lifts and leads you to the heavenly folds (Luke 15). So, as we said, he takes on appearances, varies forms, and to change you for the better he so often changes and exchanges his own offices. And since the enemy had long gone round to tear and devour, now Christ necessarily goes round to vindicate you, to snatch you away, as Scripture says: “Your adversary goes round like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5). “And he called together the twelve,” it says. After long ages of foul night, Christ, our eternal day, shone again into light with the longed-for splendor of his dawn, fitting his twelve hours significantly to his twelve apostles. Blessed David saw this day in the prophetic spirit when he sang: “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it” (Ps 118:24 [LXX 117:24]). Hence the Apostle too calls believers children of light and faith: “You are children of light and of the day” (1 Thess 5). “And he called together the twelve.” This number twelve, through four, shows and forms for us a three-part four-horse chariot, by which the whole Trinity is carried and borne through the whole world on apostolic journeys, so that the meek warrior may overcome the devil, the gentle victor bow the pride of the world, the peaceful fighter take away the discords of the nations, and, hell being destroyed, that is, the pit of sin, the long prison of souls, he may lead the captivity of the human race, now free, to the glory of his triumph. Blessed David saw this chariot of the Trinity in the prophetic spirit when he said: “You ascended on high, you led captivity captive, you received gifts among men” (Ps 68:18 [LXX 67:19]). The Lord was preparing this chariot for himself, his Father and the Holy Spirit when he said: “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matt 11). The bearer of mercy, the carrier of kindness, does not know how to grow weary. The twelve patriarchs, twelve separate tribes (Gen 49), the twelve springs of the desert (Exod 15), the twelve stones of the Jordan raised from its bed (Josh 4), drawn up as a figure and form of the apostolic number, we leave to the searcher of the law to prove more deeply, because the course of the reading before us tries to open to us why he sent his disciples two by two to preach. “And he began to send them two by two.” He sent them two by two so that solitariness, left alone, might not either deny, like Peter, or flee, like John (Mark 14). Human frailty falls quickly, which, proudly trusting in itself, despises companions and does not want to have a colleague, as Scripture says: “And woe to one alone when he falls, and there is no second to raise him up” (Eccl 4). How much one is strengthened by another's help the same Scripture testifies when it says: “A brother helped by a brother is like a fortified city” (Prov 18). “And he began to send them two by two.” And no wonder, brothers, if the Trinity, which from the number twelve mounts a three-part four-horse chariot, now mounts a two-horse chariot also, so that by two messengers the calling of two peoples might be shown and made clear, as the Apostle says: “Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the gentiles? Yes, of the gentiles also” (Rom 3); and so that the prophecy of Isaiah might be fulfilled, who testifies that he saw one mounted on a two-horse chariot, when he hears it said to him, “What do you see?” and answers, “I see one riding a two-horse chariot” (Isa 21); whereupon at once he cries that Babylon has fallen, and all its carved images. Who doubts, brothers, that Christ has ridden his saving courses by these two-horse chariots, when he sees that by the apostles' preaching temples have collapsed, idols perished, the lowing of the cattle and the victims ceased, and the very altars vanished through the ages like the smoke of incense? Habakkuk had seen these chariots when he cried: “You who ride upon your horses, and your riding is salvation” (Hab 3). “And he gave them power,” it says, “over unclean spirits.” This is the mark of divine power, this is the trophy of a singular triumph: that the devil, the robber, is handed over to his own plunder, a captive to his own captives, bound to those he once bound, so as to be subjected to the command of those whose servitude once made him great. Rightly he grieves, rightly he groans, rightly he gnashes his teeth, who sees himself struck down by the sentence of men, by the power of men, he who for a long time had falsely persuaded men that he was God. “And he commanded them to take nothing for the journey except a staff only; no bag, no bread, no money in their belts.” A man, when he invites workmen to work, provides not only the necessities of food but also pours out a feast with lavish preparation, so that the banquet of generous humanity may outweigh the weight and labor of the work. How inhuman does he think God, who, invited to his work, comes along laden and anxious with bag, bread and money, so that the faithless workman comes to the work either tired or late, or perhaps cannot come at all! He promises abundant rewards; with so many bonds, so many witnesses, he pledges a generous wage; and do you, with impious spirit, think he will not supply bread or clothing? When you were not, he gave you being; and whatever you have, O man, he gave it; and when you were living for yourself and your pleasures, he did not deny you the necessities of food; do you think he will not provide bread and clothing to one serving his virtues and his works? This very thing you carry in your bag and belt, who gave it to you? Why do you come to meet him ready to insult him with what is his own? He knows that you are rich. Give up your wealth, O man: poverty is wealth enough for you; lay down the bundles of your riches; one who is laden cannot come by the narrow way to the work of the Lord's harvest. Come unencumbered, come free to the work, before, naked and despoiled, a workman faithless to all, you are snatched away to punishment; for, as it is written, “Riches do not follow the dying” (Ps 49:17 [LXX 48:18]). Let your conscience be your bag, let your life be your bread, so that Christ may be the true bread in your life, he who said, “I am the bread” (John 6). Let your wage be your reward, for he securely demands his reward from Christ who, to follow Christ, despised and faithfully cast away, naked, what he had.

[On the disciples eating with unwashed hands.] As lightning, when it shatters rocks, mountains, trees and the very roofs of houses with terrible crashes, seizes men's senses and minds, so the Lord, whenever he thunders against the Pharisees, corrects and amends his own with a saving fear, as the Gospel word has taught today: that the Pharisees and scribes found fault with some of the Lord's disciples because they ate with unwashed hands. Let no one who hears this suppose that the Lord's disciples, by way of contempt, ate with uncared-for and muddy hands, and did not keep and observe the decencies of the Lord's table or of a common meal: since neither nature permits this nor does the affection of hospitality admit it. Who would not offer water for the hands at once in service to one arriving, who would at once refuse to cause offense? Especially since the Lord himself, invited to table, reproaches Simon: “You gave no water for my feet” (Luke 7). So he wants done what he is shown to require in this way. But the Pharisees were looking in the Lord's disciples not for care of the body but for the baptisms of their superstition, not knowing the one baptism which the Lord had found not only for washing but for renewing souls and bodies; which would wash not the body for the refinement of life but the conscience for salvation. This the prophet prayed for when he said: “Wash me yet more from my injustice” (Ps 51:2 [LXX 50:4]); that is: how long will you wash me by the law, and not wash me? Wash me once by grace, whom the countless washings of the law have not washed. But let the Gospel word that follows open this to us: “The Pharisees,” it says, “and all the Jews do not eat unless they often wash their hands, holding the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market they do not eat unless they have been baptized, keeping the baptism of cups and pitchers and bronze vessels and couches” (Mark 7). Pharisee, who believe yourself clean, when all your things are polluted by your banquet? In the market you argued over innocent blood, you inquired how to seize the property of the poor, you searched out how to hand over freedom to servitude; and when your inner parts are filled with such great crime, how can outward water suffice to wash and cleanse you? This water will be able to cleanse our hearts and bodies when it has itself been purified by commerce with the Holy Spirit, so that by a visible ministry it may accomplish the invisible mystery of our purification. But you, Jew, baptize cups, pitchers and bronze vessels, which, lacking motion and sense by nature, as they know no guilt, so feel none; you honor these, and you do not cleanse yourself, through whom all things are contaminated; you purify these things enslaved to your uses and services, and you do not purify yourself, enslaved to divine offices, to divine ministries. But let us, brothers, hear not what the Lord answered the Jews but what he answered his disciples: “He said that what comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, from the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, murders, thefts, covetings, wickednesses, deceit, licentiousness, an evil eye, blasphemies, pride, foolishness: all these evils proceed from within and defile a man.” What spaces of lands, what greatness of cities, what breadth of regions can bear so many enemies, hold so many foes, endure so many nations, as the vices, offenses and crimes that seize human senses and that men's hearts suffer? You have seen, brothers, how whole kinds of beasts, all the savagery of wild animals, approach a single sheep, raging the more because they cannot fill themselves, plunderers with greedy tooth who cannot be satisfied by the capture of one, burning and pining the more because they cannot seize and devour it; how so many kites, so many eagles, so many greedy vultures, such a heap of foul birds run at a single dove. The prophet had felt this great number, this multitude, when he sang: “Evils without number have surrounded me; my iniquities have taken hold of me, and I could not see” (Ps 40:12 [LXX 39:13]). “From within, from the hearts of men they proceed.” An enemy is bearable when he batters the walls from outside, when, placed outside, he sometimes gives way in the conflict; but he who has an enemy within, whose adversary already rages in his very inner rooms, understands and feels himself oppressed, sees and laments himself a captive; he cannot be his own conqueror, cannot be his own liberator; he seeks another's help, he looks for another defender. “From within, from the heart, they come out.” This is a new order of warfare: nations go out from man to make war against man, not content to conquer in secret and lay low in hiding, as if they sought fame from a man's ruin. Let the Jews, who are outside, wash themselves and their things outwardly; let us, brothers, be cleansed inwardly from these filths of vices: let us conquer these nations of wickedness in our minds with Christ fighting for us; let us put to flight these beasts of offenses from our hearts by the terror of the Lord's name; let us drive off bravely from our senses these rabid crimes and most greedy birds with the spear of the cross; so that the splendor of our city, the holiness of our temple, the whole and singular adornment of our house may call and invite our Maker to dwell always in us. Vices cannot return where Christ stays with his virtues.

[On envy and hypocrisy.] You have heard today, brothers, how the envious doorkeeper, while he shut others out, shut himself out. “Woe to you lawyers,” he says, “because you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering” (Luke 11). You have heard, then, how the envious doorkeeper, while he shut others out, shut himself out. The Pharisee had received the keys not to shut but to open to those who wished to enter; but so that another might not enter, he preferred out of spite to remain outside himself. All vices indeed always tend and leap to the hurt of their own; but envy always consumes its own more: envy has always been the executioner of its own; it stretches the senses, tortures souls, racks minds, corrupts hearts. What more? Whoever receives it suffers his own tortures without end, because he loves always to have a household torturer within himself. What end of evils is there where another's good is one's punishment, where another's happiness is one's torment? It is a manifold evil: as many as are the prosperities of men, so many are the torments of the envious. The Christian soul can fight with other vices; whoever does not flee envy before he feels it does not escape it. It persuaded the lawyers not to open the law but to close it; not to lend the teaching of the saving precept but to deny it; to bar the spring of knowledge and of the life-giving stream, and to block its riches in the secret place of its source. This disease must be fled swiftly, because it does not allow those it has touched to be healed any longer. Envy tried heaven; for there it made a devil out of an angel; it burned the earth, for it shut us out from the delights of paradise with a flaming guard. It drives kings, for it so compelled Herod to rage against Christ's age-mates that milk was poured from their tender limbs before blood (Matt 2). It violates love, for it made Cain a fratricide and drenched the still innocent earth with the gore of new blood (Gen 4). It lays waste peoples, for it made the Jews, if it is right to say it, if speech can hold it, deicides: we said deicides, not in what it achieved but in what this crime aimed at. For in Christ the Jews tried to crush not a man only but God, the Son of God, to kill the powers, when they said: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and his inheritance will be ours” (Mark 12). But what can the devil do against God? What can envy do against the Lord's love? The devil envied us the earth, but God gave us heaven; the lawyer took away the keys of knowledge, but Christ granted the keys of the heavenly kingdom through Peter (Matt 16:19). And so envy was stripped of its gains, and man was enriched by the very necessity of his losses. Rightly, then, the Lord added in what follows: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Luke 12). Because in leaven there is a mass not of greatness but of swelling; and dough of this kind is puffed up, not enriched: the more hotly it ferments, the more the mass of meal swells and takes on the whole form of lightness and swelling. Fittingly, then, the Lord said: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” What is hypocrisy, if not an appearance artfully composed, which does one thing in reality and promises another in the face? Among the Pharisees it swelled through knowledge, as the Apostle says: “Knowledge puffs up” (1 Cor 8). For knowledge puffed them up to pride, it did not instruct them for life; it corrupted them to malice, it did not advance them to prudence. In their face was hypocrisy, in their mind the dropsy of envy, in their breast a thirsty spring, a burning wave that was inflamed more and more by its own streams, so that it did not quench the drinker's thirst but rather increased the fire. So, so, with hypocrisy serving, envy always pours drink for its own. From this disease the Apostle draws us away when he urges us to celebrate the holy Passover of the Lord “not in the old leaven, nor in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor 5). Truth knows no swelling; simplicity is utterly ignorant of hypocrisy. “In the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” These are the unleavened loaves of the heart, made with heavenly sweetness, seasoned with the richness of grace, baked with the fire of the Holy Spirit; eating these, we solemnly sacrifice for our Passover the Lamb of God, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, by whom Christ was born to all gladness and changed to all glory.

[On St John the Baptist and Herod.] A good shepherd spends sleepless nights and anxious days, lest the cunning robber or the crafty savagery of wolves contrive anything ruinous, anything harmful against his dear flock. A good shepherd, as the Lord said, “lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10). But good sheep also listen with attentive ears to their shepherd's voice, always follow their shepherd's judgment, do the whole will of their shepherd. They climb hills, seek steep places, often change regions; and so they reach places fit for pasture, watered by streams, shady, suitable, secret places of rest; they find pleasant spots and enjoy delights. And you, little children, the abundant portion of the Lord's flock, already clothed with a snowy and divine fleece, very fruitful with soft offspring and heavenly progeny: if through hearing our voice you have often come to saving places and saving pastures; if through the streams of our sermon you have tempered the heat of your souls and the burning of your thirst; if under the shelter of our teaching you have rested in some comfort, attend to what we order, listen to what we say, approve what we do; and take the reason for our preaching not according to your own will but according to our arrangement: and whether we speak from this step or treat from the bishop's chair, as the season requires, come together, run together, like good sheep, like dear flocks, beloved children, without disdain and without sloth, with the whole course of faith. And let not the change of places so near, and spaces so close, make you either sluggish or murmuring: because neither does the sheep reach the fold if it wanders at its own pleasure; nor can a disciple obtain knowledge if he insists on being taught according to his own will; nor can a sick man ever recover health if he has been treated according to his own judgment. But since today our sermon is against a raging wolf, let us take up the shepherd's staff and pass to the Gospel reading. “King Herod heard,” it says, “(for the name of Jesus had become known), and he said: John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and therefore powers are at work in him” (Mark 6). The fool believes devoutly about the dead man whom he savagely persecuted when alive. “John has risen,” he says; and yet unknowingly he confesses that the slain man rises in Christ, for Christ. Herod, what did your sword achieve? What did your cruelty profit? How far did your impiety get, if, as you yourself say, he has returned to powers, has risen to divine works, who was thought extinguished by your fury? John has risen, as you yourself confess: here not the person but the weakness perished; here not John but death rather succumbed by such a death: the punishment has been mocked, the executioner is held a laughingstock, the very sentence of the wretched judge has been cheated, which did not destroy the slain man but promoted him. “John has risen from the dead, and therefore powers are at work in him.” Though an enemy of the law, he had nevertheless learned through the law the promised resurrection of the dead. And if he knew that John would rise, why did he madly kill him? If he knew that by such a death he would be raised to the summit of all divine power, to every mark of authority, why did he make himself the author of so great a death? Impiety is always feverish; cruelty is always held by frenzy; fury does not know how to be without madness; for it rages against itself whenever it aims at another; it punishes itself while it strikes the innocent; it is wholly deadly to itself when it is cruel toward the just. See, John, as you yourself say, already lives in Christ: he returns for your punishment, who came for the heavenly gift of medicine for all. “But others said: It is Elijah; and others said: It is a prophet, or as one of the prophets. Hearing this, Herod said: It is John, whom I beheaded; he has risen from the dead.” With a malevolent but truthful sense he himself is witness of his crime, proof of his wickedness, accuser of his deed. “It is John whom I beheaded; he has risen from the dead.” He speaks the truth: for as his own rise in Christ, so Christ himself suffers in his own; and as the honor of the head extends to the members, so the punishment of the members overflows to the pain of the head, to the injury of the head. “It is John whom I beheaded.” This wise king, this excellent judge, censor of morals, guardian of discipline, avenger of innocence, punisher of crimes, says that he beheaded John, and is silent about why he beheaded him, lest the shamefulness of so great a deed confound the royal power: but the evangelist reveals it, so as to bring the slayer's disgrace to the glory of the slain. “For Herod himself,” it says, “had sent and seized John and bound him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John said to Herod: It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.” Herodias, who out of love of wickedness strove to be the wife of two brothers, so as to violate affection by affection, and so that Herodias might be joined to Herod, lest those be unlike even in name who were alike in crime, character and life, and so that they might be joined by name whom the shamefulness of crimes had joined: this Herodias, then, was lying in wait for John. Herod did not overcome the adulteress's will, yet he put off the adulteress's crime. She, so that there might be no one to rebuke her, aimed at the death of the one rebuking; he, to please the incestuous woman, himself a captive, held the just man only and bound him shut in, because, guilty as he was, he could not easily pronounce sentence against an innocent man. “When an opportune day came,” it says, “Herod gave a dinner on his birthday for the princes, the tribunes and the leading men of Galilee; and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, and pleased Herod and those reclining with him, the king said to the girl: Ask of me what you will, and I will give it to you. And he swore to her: Whatever you ask, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” An ungrateful, inhuman king, who for so great a virtue, so glorious a labor, so memorable a deed, gave not his whole kingdom but half! And why did he keep even part for himself, who after such great glory of his house, after such holiness of his household, after such an example of chastity, ought not to be, to be seen, to live? So that daughter of crime, not of nature, ran at once not so much to her mother as to the very cesspool of her wickedness; so that she, all fluid, all loosened, might fly back savage and fierce and, to speak in their own terms, sing an unspeakable tragedy, she who had most shamefully performed a comedy. “And she went out and said to her mother: What shall I ask? And she said: The head of John the Baptist. And going in at once with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I want you to give me at once on a dish the head of John the Baptist. And the king was saddened; because of the oath and those reclining with him he did not want to grieve her; and at once the king sent an executioner and ordered his head to be brought. And he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on a dish and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.” So judges a mind weighed down with gluttony, loosened with wine, and in a way sunk in the whole shipwreck of drunkenness. “I want you to give me at once on a dish the head of John.” The serpent's offspring seeks the head of a man, to whom the sentence of the beginning had known its own head was condemned, as God says: “He will watch for your head, and you will watch for his heel” (Gen 3). The length of the reading draws us out long, and the immense depth of the passage itself carries us far enough into the deep. Let us put off for today what follows, lest the sermon, while hastening to its end, pass over what must be said at length. This we commend at the close of our discourse, that it did not run its course without cause: for our John, by being slain, killed all the offspring of the ancient serpent and extinguished it by the shedding of his blood.