Against the Jews, Pagans, and Arians (Sermon on the Creed) 13–22

You too, Moses the lawgiver, leader of the people of Israel, bear witness to Christ. “God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers. Every soul that will not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from his people.” That Christ is called a prophet, hear Christ himself in the Gospel: “A prophet is not without honor,” he says, “except in his own country.” Let holy David also come forward, a faithful witness, from whose seed came forth the one to whom the Law and the Prophets bear witness; let him too speak of Christ. “All the kings of the earth,” he says, “shall adore him; all nations shall serve him.” Whom shall they serve? Tell us, whom shall they serve? Do you want to hear whom? “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” And more expressly and by name: “Why,” he says, “have the nations raged, and the peoples devised vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.” Let another witness come forward: you too, prophet Habakkuk, bear witness to Christ. “Lord,” he says, “I have heard your report and was afraid; I considered your works, O God, and was terrified.” What works of God did he marvel at and fear? Did he marvel at and fear the fabric of the world? Far from it; but hear at what he was terrified. “In the midst of two living creatures,” he says, “you will be known.” Your works, O God: “the Word became flesh.” “In the midst of two living creatures you will be known.” Who are you, how far have you come down? You have made me tremble, because you, the Word through whom all things were made, lay in a manger. “The ox knew its owner, and the ass its master’s crib.” “In the midst of two living creatures you will be known.” What is “In the midst of two living creatures you will be known,” if not either in the midst of the two Testaments, or in the midst of the two thieves, or in the midst of Moses and Elijah talking with him on the mountain? “The Word walked,” he says, “and went out into the fields.” “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Jeremiah too says this: “After this he was seen on earth and lived among men.” See how the witnesses of truth agree with one another; see how they convict the sons of falsehood. Are these enough for you, O Jews, or shall we bring in still more witnesses from the Law and from your own race, to your confusion, so that they bear witness to him to whom you said insultingly, with lost minds, “You bear witness about yourself; your testimony is not true”? If I wished to collect everything said of Christ in the Law and the Prophets, time would fail me sooner than material.

Yet I will bring forward that old man born of your race, but not left in your error, holy Simeon, who was found worthy to be kept in this light in his extreme old age until he should see the true light. His age was already compelling him to go, but he was waiting to receive the one he knew was coming. Since this old man had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he saw the Christ of God, he recognized that he was born and went to the temple. And when he saw him carried in his mother’s hands, and devout old age recognized the divine infancy, he took the infant in his hands. He was carrying the infant Christ, but Christ was guiding the old man: he who was carried guided him, so that he would not be released from the body before the promise. Yet what he said, whom he confessed, take heed, you enemies not of Christ but of yourselves. Blessing God, that old man cried out and said: “Now you let your servant depart, Lord, according to your word, in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Let the parents of John also, Zechariah and Elizabeth, barren in youth, fruitful in old age, themselves bear witness to Christ. Let them say what they think of Christ, and let them rear a competent witness for Christ. For they say to their little newborn son, “You, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High; for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways.” And Elizabeth says to the mother and virgin herself: “Why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” For John, understanding that his Lord’s mother had come to his own mother, while still in the narrow confines of the womb, greeted by movement the one he could not greet by voice. What afterwards of John himself, the forerunner and friend, the humble and most faithful servant, made a competent witness, the greater among those born of women in that he was thought to be what he was not? For the Jews believed that he was the Christ; but he cried out that he was not, saying: “I am not the one you suppose me to be; but behold, one comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” O faithful witness and friend of the true bridegroom, how much you would have humbled yourself if you had said you were worthy to untie the strap of his sandal! But in saying you are not worthy even of this, you contradict the Jews, the false witnesses. And you said these things before you saw Christ. When he himself, the exalted one, came to you humbly, for the sake of fulfilling his dispensation, to be baptized by you, he who had no sin at all, let the enemies who do not want to hear it hear what you answered, whom you recognized, what testimony you gave: “Behold,” he says, “the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sin of the world.” And he added: “You come to me to be baptized; I ought to be baptized by you.” The servant recognized the Lord; he who was bound by the chains of original sin recognized the one free of every bond of sin; the herald recognized the judge, the creature the Creator, the groomsman the bridegroom. For this too is John’s voice: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him, and rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.”

Are these enough for you, O Jews? Are so many witnesses enough for you, testimonies from your Law, from your race? Or will you still, with shameless mind, dare to say that men of another race or nation ought to bear witness to Christ? If you say this, he indeed answers you, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But as Paul rebukes you in the Acts of the Apostles, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you; but since you have rejected it and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold,” he says, “we turn to the Gentiles”: let us too show that testimony to Christ was given from the Gentiles as well, since the truth did not keep silent, crying out even through the tongues of its enemies. When that most eloquent poet said among his poems, “Now a new offspring is sent down from high heaven,” was he not bearing witness to Christ? This may be called into doubt, unless I bring forward other competent witnesses from the Gentiles who say more. I will not pass over that king who tamed your pride by taking you captive, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Tell us, Nebuchadnezzar, what you saw in the furnace into which you had unjustly thrown three just men; tell, tell what was revealed to you. “Did we not,” he says, “throw three men bound into the furnace?” And they say to him: “Truly, O king.” “Behold,” he says, “I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no corruption in them, and the appearance of the fourth is like the Son of God.” O foreigner, how do you know this? Who announced the Son of God to you? What law, what prophet? He is not yet born to the world, and the likeness of the one to be born is recognized by you. How do you know this? Who announced it to you, unless the divine fire so enlightened you within that, while the Jews, his enemies, were held captive there with you, you bore such witness to the Son of God?

But since “at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word stands,” as the Lord himself, refuting your obstinacy, says, “In your Law it is written that the testimony of two men is true,” let a third witness be brought in from the Gentiles too, so that the testimony of truth may be strengthened on every side. Let us bring forward what the Sibyl, prophesying, cried out about Christ as well, so that with one stone the brows of both may be struck, the Jews’ and the pagans’, and with his own sword, like Goliath, all the enemies of Christ may be struck down. Hear what she said: “Sign of judgment: the earth will be drenched with sweat. From heaven will come the King who will reign through the ages, present, that is, in the flesh, to judge the world. Hence unbeliever and believer will see God exalted with the saints, at the very end of time. So souls will be present with their flesh, whom he himself judges, when the world lies untilled in thick thorn-brakes. Men will cast away their idols and all their treasure; fire will burn up the lands, and, searching sea and sky, will break the gates of grim Avernus. But free light will be given to all the flesh of the saints; the guilty the eternal flame will burn. Uncovering hidden deeds, then each will tell his secrets, and God will open hearts to the light. Then there will be mourning; all will gnash their teeth. The sun’s radiance is snatched away, and the dance of the stars dies. The sky will be rolled up; the moon’s splendor will perish. He will cast down the hills and raise the valleys from the depth. There will be nothing lofty or high in human affairs. Now the mountains are made level with the plains, and the blue of the sea, all things will cease; the earth will perish, broken up. So springs and rivers alike are scorched with fire. But then the trumpet will send a mournful sound from on high over the world, lamenting wretched crime and manifold toils, and the earth, gaping, will show the chaos of Tartarus. And here kings will be set before the Lord, all together. A river of fire and of sulphur will fall from the heavens.” These things were said of Christ’s birth, passion, and resurrection, and of his second coming, in such a way that if anyone will pick out in the Greek the first letters of these verses, he will find “Iēsous Christos Theou Huios Sōtēr,” that is, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” This appears also in the same verses translated into Latin, except that the property of the Greek letters could not be fully kept. Listen most attentively to other Sibylline verses which show Christ’s passion more openly: “Afterwards he will come into the wicked hands of unbelievers. They will give God blows with unclean hands, and with polluted mouth they will spit poisoned spittle. He will simply give his holy back to the scourges. And receiving the buffets he will be silent, so that no one may know what Word he is, or whence he comes, to speak to those below. And he will be crowned with a crown of thorns. For food they gave gall, and for his thirst vinegar: this table of inhospitality they will show. For you yourself, foolish one, did not understand your God, who played with the minds of mortals, but you crowned him with thorns and mixed bitter gall. The veil of the temple will be torn, and at midday there will be exceedingly dark night for three hours. And he will die in death, taking sleep for three days; and then, returning from the dead, he will come to the light. Called back first, he will show the beginning of the resurrection.”

I think that you, enemies, O Jews, are now so overwhelmed and refuted by so many witnesses that you ought to seek nothing further: you who, with excessive folly or rather madness, though you knew everything said and written of Christ, said to the Truth himself with shameless brow, “You bear witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” Yet, that the truth of the divine majesty may shine out, let the whole creation, beyond the illustrious voices of so many witnesses, proclaim that it has borne witness to its Creator. Did not heaven bear witness, when a new star at the new birth of a man showed to the nations, as with tongue and finger, as far as it could, God born as man? Did not the sea bear witness, when its liquid water, as though forgetting its nature, took on solidity and bore the imprinted footsteps of its Lord, so that the saying was fulfilled, “Your way is in the sea, and your paths in many waters”? That element would have swallowed in its slippery wave Christ’s servant Peter, who longed to walk upon it, to show how great a difference there is between the creature and the Creator, had not the Lord of all things stretched out his hand to Peter as he sank. Did not the earth bear witness, when, mixed with his spittle, he anointed from it the eyes of the man born blind and restored light to one who did not see; and he who had formerly formed the whole man from the earth repaired from the mud of the earth what the fabric lacked? Did not the underworld bear witness to Christ, when, its right lost, it kept whole for four days Lazarus, whom it had received to be dissolved, so as to give him back unharmed when it heard the voice of its Lord commanding? What of his passion itself: shall I not call the very light of day, as it were, as a witness against your shamelessness and fierce madness? As you thought, it was only a man whom you were killing in Christ: even if he had been only that, you ought to have spared yourselves, so as to keep your hands clean of innocent blood. What blindness was poured into your hearts, that not even that great darkness of the sun at midday, and the light cut off amid its bright rays, deterred you? Night was hidden in the day; or rather night usurped the day, and nature did not keep the course of its order; but the sky is darkened, the earth mourns, the veil of the temple is torn, the rocks are split, the underworld is opened, almost all creation trembles at the death of Christ. And yet amid all this the eyes of your heart were not opened. O Jews, the demons who possessed your hearts said, “We know who you are; why have you come before the time to destroy us?” and you said, “You bear witness about yourself; your testimony is not true!”

But without understanding your actions you pleaded our cause. In the end your malice served our salvation: for he who had come for this, to die for us, did not as man fear the mad voices of those who shouted, “Crucify, crucify,” because as God he had foreseen them. How hard you labored to corrupt the disciple Judas with money, and from a bad seller, as bad buyers, to purchase Christ, whom you were not to keep, holding a bad market for your soul when you were pouring out the price of our salvation! How hard you labored to overpower with false charges, by setting up Caesar’s name against him, the judge who washed his hands of your crime, so that he would carry out what you wanted done! How hard you labored that Christ should be killed and the robber released! How hard you labored that Christ should suffer insults, be crowned with thorns, be hung on the wood, be pierced with the lance! How much you shouted, how much you sweated, how much you labored! But all that labor of yours is our fruit. In the end Christ is killed by you, and rises for us: by you he is hung on the wood and held fast on the cross, pierced with nails; and by our leaders, his disciples, he is found in their midst behind closed doors. By bribing the soldiers with money you wanted to suppress Christ’s resurrection, and behold, his resurrection is now celebrated in the whole world, and what you gave, you lost entirely. You could not accomplish what you wanted: hear now what you do not want to hear. Rising from the dead on the third day, taken up into heaven, he sits at the right hand of the Father. He has scattered you through all lands, so that everywhere you carry the prophecies of his birth, passion, resurrection, and ascension, whatever was said, and serve the nations with the lamp of the Law, like wooden lampstands without sense. Know that this was done so that the nations would not say that all these things, as they are preached, had been invented by us. That this very dispersion of yours was foretold, the prophet David declares, saying: “Do not kill them, lest they ever forget your law, but scatter them by your power.” This dispersion of yours, then, bears witness to Christ, to whom you said, “You bear witness about yourself; your testimony is not true”: so that by your testimony as enemies other enemies may be confounded, who say that Christ did all the miracles he did by magic arts. For they even maintain that the worship of a dead man must be put down to magic power. Bring out the prophetic books, O Jews, enemies of Christ, so that by them the other enemies, the pagans, may be convicted. He sent before him prophets long before he was born, who foretold everything we have said above. From this judge now, you who think rightly: if by magic arts he brought it about that he is worshiped even though dead, was he a magician before he was born? Be confounded, be corrected, you who feel, or believe, or say such things of Christ. Be confounded, you Jews too, who hold the lamp of the Law in your hands and give light to others, but do not care to look into it yourselves; you too indeed await him who is to come. And he will come; but he will not come as you wish: that exalted one will come, who was killed by you though guilty of no crime; God will come manifest, and you will see as judge the one whom you despised as he worked miracles. What will your conscience be then, when he will show you no more patience, because he finds you dead in soul, he who is to come to judge the living and the dead? [19] We believe in the Holy Spirit, whom we believe to be God, equal to the Father and the Son, abiding in the Father and the Son, inseparable from the Father and the Son, reigning with the Father and the Son: one Trinity, and in the unity the third person, the Holy Spirit, who works all things in all. Him too the Arians blaspheme, wanting him to be less than the Father and the Son. That gospel warning does not call them back from their error, which says, “If anyone speaks a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him; but if anyone speaks a word against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither here nor in the age to come.” What then, Arian? Do you see how far your monstrousness has gone? You speak a word against the Son of man, because you assert that according to his divinity the Son of God is less. You speak a word against the Holy Spirit, saying that in that very undivided unity he is less even than the Son. By speaking such a word about the Word, such a word about the Holy Spirit, your sins are not forgiven, neither here nor in the age to come: and do you, by rebaptizing, promise to forgive the sins of others? We acknowledge that the gift of the Holy Spirit is the forgiveness of all sins, with the support of the Truth himself, who after his resurrection said to his disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven him.” But you, with sacrilegious daring, in those to whom Christ has already, by the gift of the Holy Spirit through baptism, wholly forgiven all sins, both original and their own, in those already baptized you blow out Christ, you spit out the Holy Spirit; and you strive not to wash but to soil the one reborn, not to free but to bind, not to give life but to kill. No wonder you build these ruins daily, who refused to have Christ, the whole rock, as your foundation. The Truth separates his sons from your error, cherishing them so as to nourish them, not, as you do, flattering them so as to kill.

You should know, dearly beloved, that only in the Catholic Church is there true faith, genuine peace, everlasting salvation. For it is not in a corner, but is whole everywhere. If anyone departs from it and gives himself over to the error of the heretics, he will be judged as a runaway slave, not as an adopted son; and he will not rise to eternal life but rather to damnation. For resurrection is promised to good and bad alike: “We shall all rise,” says the Apostle, “but we shall not all be changed.” And what does it profit, my brothers, to rise and not be changed? For whoever has not been changed in this life is found by the just judge to be condemned. And the condemned man does not attain eternal life, he who refused to take the palm of victory over the adversary the devil. For what does it profit, dearly beloved, that the devil does not hold someone in those chains in the worship of idols, if he holds and possesses him caught and held in the birdlime of the heretics? Whoever wishes to reach eternal life must keep watch bravely against all the devil’s snares. For that life will not be like this one. [21] Your Charity ought to know how far apart this life is from that. Here falsehood, there truth; here disturbance, there sure possession; here the worst bitterness, there everlasting sweetness; here dangerous elation, there secure exultation; here one fears that he who was a friend may suddenly become an enemy, there a friend always remains a friend, because no enemy is admitted there; here whatever is good one fears may perish, there whatever you receive will be kept by him who makes you not to fail and not to lose what you have received; here death, there life; here grief, there joy; here all the things God created, there he himself in place of all and in all things, ... and whatever things are called worthy, if anything can be said at all. For human tongue does not suffice to praise what the mind of mortals cannot comprehend. Let us come there, my brothers; and there we shall see what the eye here has not seen, there we shall hear what the ear here has not heard, there we shall understand what the human heart here could not comprehend; seeing and enjoying, we shall exult with unspeakable joy. And what joy will there be where there will be no fear? What joy will there be when you see yourself a companion of the angels, a sharer in the kingdom of heaven, reigning with the King, possessing all things while desiring nothing, rich without avarice, administering without money, judging without a successor, reigning without fear of the barbarians, living without death in eternal life?

But to come to these things, let us not leave the safest way that leads there. What is this way? Christ wholly, as head and as body. As head, the equal Son, abiding in him who abides; as body, less, running swiftly along this way like a giant. Head and body: Christ and the Church. Let us not be separated from him by believing something else of him, as the heretics do, nor from her by turning aside through our bad morals. She is the true mother, the devout and chaste mother, adorned within by the dignity of her husband, not shamefully painted on the outside with deceiving lies. Let no false, alien name lead you away from this mother; let no alien appearance of a church deceive you. She is not Christ’s bride who does not know her husband: she is shameful who strives to darken the beauty of so great a husband with her words; in vain does she give herself the name of Church. I see you indeed, O deceitful cave, deceiving because deceived; I see indeed that you fit your form under another’s appearance. Why do you make yourself up? Why do you adorn yourself so much? Why do you spread out your fringes? Why do you strive to make yourself equal to the true bride? The bridegroom does not receive you, because you are not the bride. But you say that you are beautiful, and you boast of gold and of many ornaments. The bridegroom answers you, he answers you who is fairer in form than the sons of men: “You have taken on the look of a harlot; you have become shameless in all things.” And if you say, “Why?” he answers: “Because you make yourself up in the appearance of the bride and lie that I am your bridegroom. You have taken on the look of a harlot; you have become shameless in all things. You have not called me Father,” for “I and the Father are one.” “You have not called me Father and the prince of your virginity.” These are Christ’s words through the prophet. For if I were the prince of your virginity, I would keep your integrity, as I kept my mother whole. Since, then, you do not acknowledge me as the prince of your virginity nor as equal to the Father, neither do I acknowledge you as a virgin. Do not boast any longer of being what you are not; acknowledge your disgrace: Arius took away your integrity. You are therefore not the bride, because you are not whole. In vain you call him bridegroom who is not yours: for Christ does not take a disgraced widow. Come back, come back, you who are divorced; come back, put to shame; come back, violated by serpent frauds; come back, not dressed in heavenly divinity but trapped by human assertions; come back: you can deceive yourself, you cannot deceive the bridegroom. For he knows whom he seeks; he recognizes whom he calls. The mother lives always: stepmother, why do you put yourself in her place? You cannot shut out the beautiful mistress, since you yourself are a disgraced handmaid. “You have taken on the look of a harlot.” For you have not kept faith with one husband, since you do not hold the Catholic unity. For that bridegroom seeks the true mother, who devoutly nourishes her sons; not the disgraced one, who treacherously kills others’ sons. See who this true mother is, who still bears with you as you smother her sons and heap insults on her husband. She bears with it, because she shows the patience of her bridegroom, and awaits the breezes of freedom, so that her humiliation may be vindicated by him, since she holds her husband’s love. For he it is who lives and reigns with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.