Anti-Arian Works 16 part 3/16

O great sentence, which the Spirit was writing with His finger upon the earth! He read it out, and the Jew fell silent. None first, none last, none in the middle—every man guilty. They began to look inward at themselves, and to go out one after another. Vehemently you entered, silently you depart. Stand! Why do you withdraw, you who registered the woman for accusation? Satisfy the laws, if you are secure in your conduct. What did I say that was unjust? Do you stone her: if you are guilty, learn from Me meekness, for you too have need of the mercy of judgment. Where are they who wished to corrupt meekness, and to reproach justice out of justice? He both held to meekness and preserved justice. Had He said, 'Let her be stoned,' He would have seemed not meek. Had He said,

'Let her not be stoned,' He would have seemed not just. He answered in such a way that judgment remained for the tempters, and only shame remained for the slanderers. The woman stood before the Judge, and was left without an accuser. She is not dismissed to drift again in the waves, but is taught by a most merciful chastity. She is not set free in such a way as to be dismissed to her sin. 'Woman,' says the Lord, 'are they present who were accusing you? Has no one condemned you?' And she: 'No one, Lord' (Ibid., 10, 11). To this the just Judge replied: 'Your slanderers have fled from you; let your sin flee also. You fled the accusing Jews; fear the angels who will drag you to My judgment. Neither will I condemn you. For I came not to judge the world, but that through Me the world might be saved. Learn to live well, and now sin no more.'

Learn justice, for you have now been freed from a sentence. Woman, I shall not sit thus upon the throne of judgment as I now sit bowed down to the earth. That other terror shall be different; there will be no Jewish accusers. They accuse themselves who come thus to judgment, where the fire shall not be quenched and the worm shall not die (Mark IX, 44). There is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew VIII, 12). There the terrible trumpet, there the heavens shaken, angels hastening and sounding the great trumpet, the sun darkened, the moon confounded, the stars falling, the guilty trembling, a fiery judgment, a throne of fire, and in His sight a mighty tempest (Psalm XLIX, 4). I grant you mercy, I bestow a delay.

And therefore learn chastity, that I may merit for you everlasting joy in the future. SERMON X. On the Judgment of Solomon. While, at the bidding now of the holy father, we ascend the lofty throne of holy preaching, about to offer up to your understandings the sacrifice of the Lord's word, we first await the eloquence of God, who makes the speaker mute, so that when we mount the steps of the apse, He Himself may come down from the throne of heaven—He who bowed the heavens and came down (Psalm XVII, 10), because by himself man could not ascend, who fell so wretchedly. Nor can the preacher ascend alone, unless with him the Lord of angels deign to kindle the resplendent majesty of His present glory.

Therefore, brethren, let us hear the things that are said, that we may merit to receive the heavenly promises. For when Solomon had ascended the mountain, he was escorted by the gleaming service of soldiers, and was surrounded on the shining mountain by a heavenly watch. He rests upon his bed, and keeps watch with God, saying: 'I sleep, and my heart keeps watch' (Song of Songs V, 2). Or where he offered sacrifice and slew thousands of lambs, an army of angels was present. On the mountain the palace becomes bright as the Lord visits it. A throne is set up, and the servant is admonished that from the altars of his Lord, where he had offered sacrifice, he should there ask a special rescript to his prayers. 'Why,' He says, 'do you rest?'

'Here am I, the giver of gifts, and you sleep, a negligent petitioner. Solomon, ask something of Me, that I may do it for you. Expect from Me the throne of your father David, who deigned to bear great things in his inmost being, upon whom by My election I made you to sit as ruler. I gave you a kingdom; shall I not likewise grant a house? I placed the purple upon you; shall I not likewise give glory also? Ask of Me: this He requires who knows all things.' Was not the almighty Lord foreknowing of his secrets, so as to learn from him what He should bestow? But He wills that we become clearer orators of our own prayers and desires, and interpreters of the inward heart, so that our petition may be made known before God, in such a way that free will is preserved with grace going before:

so that what the tongue seeks, this the heavenly grace may grant, or indulgence bestow. Thus it is said also to this Solomon: 'Ask something of Me, that I may do it for you.' And he says: 'Lord, You have conferred royal dignity, and do You ask of me the desire of my longing? Blessed are You, Lord, who have set me upon the throne of my father David. You have given me great glory, but I hold only little wisdom. The splendor of gems surrounds me, but the judging of the peoples who make appeals oppresses me most grievously. This I ask, Lord, which You Yourself have come to bestow, because it was You who deigned to inspire me that I should ask it.'

'For Your people, whom You have given as the sand of the sea, oppress me with diverse appeals, and I know not my going in and my coming out, how I ought with justice to answer Your people. Give me, Lord, wisdom and understanding (3 Kings III, 9), that I may know how to divide between the just and the unjust with a discerning judgment, lest my sentence begin to displease You, and Your people begin to suffer under my examination, so small and so ill-instructed.' And the Lord: 'Since you have asked for wisdom, and not for riches, nor for the deaths of your enemies, these things also which you did not ask I will bestow upon you, and will add still more' (Ibid., 11).

'And I will give you wisdom beyond the wise men of Egypt, that you may know how to reveal the hidden secret of the one who appeals, and to descend into the inward parts of the whole deep question, so that the judgment of your throne may be pierced through with the splendor of penetrating knowledge, and no darkening interposition of shadows may fall upon you.' Behold, he is visited and instructed, he asks and receives: he ascends less-instructed, and equally unskilled, and he descends a disciple of the heavenly Master of law, made a judge for those who appeal, and an advocate for the peoples. Behold, suddenly, as he descended from the sanctuary of the mountain, two women came up close to him, and, as it pertains, harlots.

A great mystery turns upon this account, that after a chaste visitation he should endure the appeal of harlots. For our Lord too, the truly peace-making Solomon, coming down from the holy mountain of the heavens, wrought the salvation of sinners and the merciful judgment of harlots, while from the throne of indulgence He, the judge of mercy, cries out. 'Harlots,' He says, 'and publicans shall go before you into the kingdom of God' (Matthew XXI, 31). What then does one of these women say? 'My lord king, hear me' (3 Kings III, 17 and following). 'I and this woman, sharing the lodging of one dwelling, when we both were retiring into the sleeplessness of the night, this woman devised a strange theft against me, that she might alter by nature what her conscience would not admit.'

'The forgetful mother crushed her own son by the collapse of her slothful side, and her drowsy tenderness did not hear him crying beneath the maternal weight, until the infant's groaning failed into the faint wailing of death. This woman rose, wakeful for fraud, who had slept against tenderness: she found her son dead and pressed down by the collapse of her side. She rose, and beside me she wished to make a quarrelsome burial-place of her dead pledge, that she might transfer my little one onto her side. I kept watch, I offer my breasts, and he does not offer his lips. I felt he was dead, and I did not understand the exchange of fraud. The light stood by me as a witness, nature too stood by as corroborator, to proclaim that he was not my son. This one...'

'a domestic controversy sprang up between the three of us, while I do not acknowledge the dead child, and I claim back the living son: and she reckons the living one as hers, and says that mine is the dead. Nature is present, my lord, as a witness: deign to pronounce a just sentence between us.' Straightway that Lord who had made the visitation, who had promised wisdom, enters within the hidden depths of Solomon. He set His seat there, and began, as if from His own temple, with only the cloud of the body interposed, to judge concerning it, that He might be able to understand such a question of quarreling nature. 'What,' He says, 'do you say? Is the living son yours?' 'Mine, lord,' the one cried out. 'No, but mine is the living, and hers is the dead.' Thus alternating, the women rendered the darkness doubtful.

The light flashing from Solomon began to dispel that cloud, and burst forth into such a voice, thundering with royal power: 'Bring,' He says, 'a sword, and give me the living infant that it may be divided by the blade' (Ibid., 24). Lest any part of the limbs be separated by the women, he commands that they cut the living little one with the sword and divide it from nature. The affection of the true mother cries out; her inmost being was stirred, while the sword stood armed. 'Do not, do not, lord. I appealed for gain, not for my own loss. I set forth a complaint, that I might not make myself, a sinner, into a murderer of my child. Do not, lord, do not cut: while you divide the little one, I renounce, if you deem it right, the whole question. Let her possess the innocent one entire, let her take the whole infant. Let him live, and let him be hers.'

'If he belongs to us both, he will belong to neither. Do not defile my eyes with the innocent blood of my own pledge, lest this woman begin to rejoice over my bereavement. Surely, my lord, if she herself should possess the little one, I too shall have a share in her sight of him. I shall see him possessed under another mother. I shall watch him walking, growing, running; I, the true mother, shall sometimes hold him passing through the street with stolen embraces.' But she, whom nature did not admonish, whom even her inmost being did not move, said: 'Well have you commanded, king; let him be divided, let him be divided.' Surely you are the mother! Before you were saying, 'The living one is mine'; now you say, 'let him be divided.' Surely you are the mother! The true mother turned away with the tears of her eyes. Straightway the king:

'Spare him,' He says, 'spare him, do not cut the whole one, for I have perceived the whole affection of a mother. Grief is the witness, groaning proves it, that the mother who confessed accuses herself. This is the true mother, who proclaims that the innocent one must not be divided, but wishes to lose her portion whole and entire. Give the child to her. She is his mother.' She receives the boy with open arms, she begins to praise the heavenly judgment. She embraces the boy she has received, and pressing sweet kisses upon him, cried out and said: 'According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, Your consolations have gladdened my soul' (Psalm XCIII); 'because You have shown me Your bright justice, and I will always render You thanks;'

'because between me and that other mother Your sword divides, so that from that whereby other judges are wont to bring death, You defended the true mother by the sword. Well have you known, king, to draw out a sword from the sword—and not blood, but love; for Your blade, my lord, is to me not a wound, but rather a medicine.' SERMON XI. On the same subject. Solomon sat in the house of David his father, and two women appeared before him close at hand. While the Davidic offspring, imbued with heavenly doctrine, put forth its gem, and, about to reign justly, ascended the throne of the royal hall.

There was (if I am not mistaken) a lofty seat, a model of the temple, whose eminent roofs bore the riches conferred upon it, and the gold fastened to the beams, enclosed by the craftsman's hand—the mass built within the walls was more beautifully engraved, gleaming on either side with cut marbles and with strewn purple stones, so that the brightness of the royal house might shine forth: whatever was precious was trodden underfoot. Ebony, glowing with the adornment of its own appearance, fixed to the doorposts shone again, bringing the greatness of its support more than the beauty of the hall. They are clothed with ivory; the throne, adorned with signal gems, and the gilt leaf clattered upon coverings somewhat clad in purple.

Amid these things sat the most wise Solomon, raising his head resplendent with a gleaming diadem, and, suffused with a covering (so to speak) of quivering metal, he surpassed the true daylight by the light of his gems. Amid these things, therefore, he displayed the name and merit of a king, which, as they were great and clear, so also were they precious. More precious was the splendor of the wisdom conferred upon him, which, shining with a prophetic exhalation, taught things past, showed things present, and sang of things to come as well.

And so, while he was gaining possession of the paternal kingdom's rule, from the very first survey of his brow a harder care of two women is set before him, whom the birth of one and the same time had made mothers in equal measure, and who, held under the covering of a single dwelling, amid the deep silence in which a slumber like death is brought on, one of the two, weighed down by the oppression of her own body, wretchedly presses down her innocent son into death. But the other, having been given wakeful guardianship, preserved her son, destined to conquer by maternal tenderness; whereas that one, armed with the deceits of a lie, stole the living son away from the sleeping mother and joined it flatteringly to herself, though she would not possess the remedy she sought. While therefore the shadows of night were breaking into the light, and, with the day brought on, the darkness of the shadows had passed for a time out of the world with sleep.

the mother, anxious with love of her own, sees that the dead son is not her own, and marvels that her own living son is joined to another's side. Deceitful and at the same time truthful, they rise up; the strife of women begins to clamor, words and forearms are armed at once. But the devout mother, who had preserved him in her dear bosom, appeals to the royal mind with such a prayer: 'I know indeed that you are heir and likewise the light of your father's kingdom; by heavenly justice and wise balance granted to you, nothing is obscured to your senses. Now plead the cause of my wretched child, whom I seem to have brought forth into the light for this—that while by a lying woman he is pointed out, and she piles up deaths, he may complain by maternal sobs that, innocent, he was taken from a mother's breasts. I hold therefore to my resolve, and, you being judge, I will not let go:'

'I who preserved my living son will not accept another's corpse.' Amid these things Solomon the king's declared justice is troubled, and in choosing a sentence, the strife of the women. Rising, as it were, with equal grief, they gaze upon the dead one in the machinery of judgment: both say it is not theirs, and both defend the living one with their outcries. No witness-asserter is brought forward, the cause of the nocturnal silence is aired, and only the robbery of the accursed bed alone is displayed. When suddenly, by that nod of divine power in which truth is proved, he commands the infant to be cut into parts, so that between the preserving mother and the wicked murderess of her own offspring, the judging sword might separate them.

While therefore the true mother saw the wound about to be inflicted upon the wretched body of the infant, tortured in her inmost being she burst into a cry: 'O harsher necessity of nature! To what end do you think, or to what end do you compel children to be loved, or offspring to be brought forth! Behold, in the dividing of the infant's body the maternal breast is rent, and those who so deserved to bring forth a son are themselves torn in the son by a natural bond. Fulfill therefore, most merciful of kings, the cause of most just tenderness. If I may not deserve to have the son whom I bore, if falsehood thus brings bereavement, let her have the full body in the son, let her have entire the one she did not bring to birth.'

'While he is nourished, while he is reared, while he is advanced to greater things, if ever he should recognize in himself a mother's tenderness, perhaps his age will recognize his lawful mother.' But the other, gnashing with a just cruelty of grief, at once badly ruined by herself and struck through with envy, lest she should perceive that the good mother won the son for gain, indignant at such wiles cried out: 'Most just of kings, you have pronounced an excellent and worthy sentence, that you might not seem to favor one and to press down the other. Let the body be cut in the middle of the one contending for it, and let it profit neither me nor her—the one who was seen to remain, one of the two.' But on the contrary,

the most wise Solomon of royal justice, rebuking her, pronounced such a sentence: 'You savage one, more cruel, and more harsh than every kind of the infanticidal wicked—why do you wickedly compose a stepmother's hatred against a well-preserved son? Let her have the whole son, whom tenderness proved to be the true mother. And let this one too make use of her own corpse—she who bore not what she might rear, but found what she might have killed.' SERMON XII. On Joseph. All are illustrious who begat the mystery of God, but those most especially more illustrious who foretold the Christ who was to come.

But among all, Joseph is more magnificent, who demonstrates the image and passion of His love with full prefiguration; for in the figures and images of the saints we recognize the Lord Christ, whose passions, past or present, attest a like proof, as it is written: 'Touch not my anointed, and to my prophets do no harm' (1 Chronicles XVI, 22). For it is easy for each one to bear the burden of his own load, but another's with difficulty. Finally, all the just and holy in their passions endured each their several torments; but the Lord Christ, coming after, alone bore whatever all of them suffered, as the examples of some among many prove. Daniel (Chapter

XIV): after the interpretation of dreams, after marvelous glories, after the kings' gifts often despised, after the emptiness of idols demonstrated to kings, he is crushed by the fury of a persecuting people, and against the wish and almost the welfare of the king is handed over to the people. Him the king, proved before himself as faithful by the divine Spirit, dismissed to the raging people not without weeping and grief of soul. Did not Christ likewise suffer? Whom the Jews grievously persecuting, and up to the envy of Pilate the ruler (Matthew XXVII, 24), when with bitter and wicked voices they demanded that Christ be handed over to them, straightway the ruler, pondering within himself the wickedness of the people and the silence of the divine man, took water to wash his hands, and pronounced himself innocent of His blood.

Likewise Isaiah, beloved by a king, hated by the king's son, and likewise entrusted to the king's son, spoke thus to the king, saying: 'Your commendation, O king, avails nothing, yet is profitable. For now Belial rages in the heart of Manasseh.' Did not Christ Himself likewise endure such a deed, since, though He was held as the Son beloved by God the Father, He is betrayed by Judas? Finally, thus He spoke to His disciples, saying: 'Amen I say to you, that one of you will betray me' (Mark XIV, 18). Let us now come to the passion of holy Joseph, whose beginning displays what his signal chastity and his nobility out of servitude do not allow us to pass over.

For when he simply expounds to his brothers the repose of his vision, he incurs the kindling of their envy, in that he saw himself adored in a dream by the lights of heaven and by twelve stars, and his sheaf lifted up above the sheaves of his other brothers (Genesis XXXVII). At this, what did he sin who saw it? Or what profit was there in the wish for a brother's blood? Rather they should have taken counsel for his future dignity, than have known how to hate him. Finally, calamity fostered the just man from that very source whence the pernicious cruelty of his brothers harmed him. As it is written: 'Fear not, for I have called you by your name' (Isaiah XLV, 4). This blessed Joseph therefore went, went through unknown passages, went alone, and everywhere safe.

As a brother he came to his brothers, not knowing that they would be robbers. For to them he seemed to come not as a brother, whose minds a deadly design had possessed. Having therefore conceived a plan with a wicked mind, he is cast into a deep pit (Genesis XXXVII, 23), in which he might be held more safely than with his brothers. Thence, sold in Egypt, and there amid the hard services of slavery, the chaste man is solicited by a shameless woman (Genesis XXXIX), as though in all things he might set forth the example of the first man, who suffered shipwreck from a woman, as it is written: 'Lord, that woman whom You gave me, she deceived me' (Genesis III, 12).

And when Joseph, the father of chastity, avoiding the importunate passions of the woman, was fixed as a defendant of a feigned crime in the husband's conscience, he underwent prison for three years. He deserved prison who lived approvably. He deserved prison who repelled from himself what he disapproved. He deserved prison who kept her chaste without the husband knowing. But that loftier Guardian was not lacking to innocence, so that, when the just man was set in prison, He might send him the wisdom of dreams. With two eunuchs set with him in custody, foreknowing he opened their dreams, for the one unto life, and for the other unto death, and thus he came to the sight of the king (Genesis XL); and, the king's dream being more clearly disclosed, he foretold the famine to come. Made the steward of the stores, he deserved the key of the granaries.

and received as second to the king in the chariot, he was declared prince of all. For now the liberality of heaven had first opened, and, with the abundance of rains poured round about, the fecundity above had wedded the earth. The harvest was billowing, stretched out with a richer furrow. The seeds were heaped into unwilling granaries, to succor future necessities. Then follows an incurable famine, and with the rains held back by drought, the summer held an alien season. The grasses withered with dry roots, destined to deny seed in the following years, and among all men deformed by pallor, the people of Joseph alone, rich, exults. As it is written: 'I have been young, and now am old, and I have not seen the just man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread' (Psalm XXXVI, 25).

He ever provides, has mercy, and acquires, and to his brothers when they come he joyfully distributes grain. He preserved his own in their need, who could not be preserved by his own in abundance, and the mercy which he did not receive he bestows. Want returns upon its authors, and God's servant is honored. He loads them with grain, and heaps it up, and before he is recognized, he hastens to provide. Yet in providing he also contrives delays, that he may see his brothers longer. O slanderous tenderness! He places the cup of his own silver, that thus far he may be recognized by his brothers. He feigns terror in the false hearing; they behold in the granaries a king:

they adore the earth with downcast eyes, the whole brotherhood lies subject to punishment, and to those held guilty not of theft but of parricide he bestowed as great a pardon as they had deserved punishment. Nobility is wont easily to forget the miseries of kinsmen. But Joseph forgot nothing in his brothers, save only the injuries. In short, for hatred he presents mercy, for cruelty gladness, for the sword kisses; he makes lords out of enemies, illustrious out of the ignoble, stronger out of the famished, and gathers back into one the whole race of his own blood. We too, most beloved brothers, if we shall have imitated the same, shall be as it is written in the Gospel: 'If you do the things I command you, I will no longer call you servants, but friends' (John XV, 14). SERMON XIII. On Exodus.

Wickedly does headlong ruin fall, if obstinacy lifts up a proud head. So the mind leaps forth in the contumacious, that it neither sees itself about to fall, nor knows itself about to be overthrown. The Egyptian swelling raged with savage commands, and with inflaming spirits tormented the kindling of envy. Thus with cruel spirit it tore the divine people, thus it oppressed those bound to labors, so that it would grieve less to be recognized for its punishment, if it did not see innocents slain. Nowhere against a king's hatred is justice secure, for the innocent is not safe where a guilty man is recognized. A horrible power rises into madness, and the monstrous onset of fury swells with insane roarings. When it wounds, it is inflamed. When the spirit pants, the breast is puffed up. The inward parts are burned, the limbs grow white-hot.

Nor can the tyrant understand himself, whom a future damnation had made to dread. He commands destruction to be brought upon the males to be born, and to slaughter them with hidden wounds in the very lapse of nature hanging in the balance. He commands to be killed those he does not know; he commands to be slain those he is ignorant of. Alas for the race! Alas for the tears of piety! If the living could have been feared, what yet had those about to be born done? For thus the authority of Scripture has approved: 'And Pharaoh commanded all the people, saying: Every male that shall be born to the Hebrews, cast into the river, but the female save alive' (Exodus I, 22). O unspeakable flame of lust! O conflagration of an insane mind! Wrath keeps those it may strike, punishment seeks those it does not know. It wishes to have those it may torment, and knows not those it may kill.

Consider, natural piety, how impious he was, who commanded little ones to be sprinkled to the devouring waters, and to cast the newborn to the ravening waves. Consider, I say, what a living one could have suffered there, where one not yet born was commanded to be killed. What misfortunes did the maternal name then dread? What sorrows did that impious and deadly reception cause to parents, or the natural condition in the very wretched act of birth itself? Recognize by what perils they could be hemmed in, who were bringing forth what was doomed to murder. By the king's satellites the womb near to childbirth was besieged, so that every male born should be born not for life but for death, not for the joy of parents but for the savagery of the satellites. That was no birthday, but a destruction born of mourning.

Finally the birth is celebrated, and there is no son. The eyes of the pitiable mothers are wet, with dripping cheeks, and the mournful rite of duties withers upon the face made fruitful for birthdays. There rises up in the limbs a fasting squalor, a form filthy in mourning; from the raging tears stains have clung, and a nebulous sadness would knot the brow fixed into all the bones and interwoven with treading knots. What misfortunes would he now wish upon the wretched, who compelled himself to perish? Vengeance presses on, an avenger is born, and by the ravaging punishments piety is compelled to take vengeance. The Lord sends Moses, demanding His own people. But Pharaoh denies another's. O stubborn presumption and hard perniciousness! God demands, he despises. He despises the judge.

He disregards the One who commands. Consider what sort of ruin might overtake a man who, though first warned by the miracles, afterwards refused to obey even the plagues. The tyrannical cruelty, wearied by so many blows, rages on, and in its own assaults, dying, it grows sluggish. Yet at last, overcome by the deaths of his firstborn, he cast out those he had been unwilling to release, he expelled those he had been neglecting. Punishment made him devout, whom grace had not made so. He commands them to depart, he compels them to be sent out. Now he fears also for himself, seeing what has befallen others. But because a ready anger condemns its own accused, he draws back because he has lost them; he repents because he has let them go. 'What is this,' he says, 'that we have done, that we let the children of Israel go, so that they should no longer serve us?' (Exod. xiv, 5)