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On this present day the Gospel of Mark was read, as you heard when it was recited. What, then, did we hear Mark saying? That the Lord appeared on the road to two — just as Luke also said, whose Gospel we heard yesterday: 'He appeared,' he says, 'to two on the road in another form' (Mark 16:12). But Luke said this same thing in other words, yet did not depart from the same meaning. What did Luke say? 'Their eyes were held, that they should not recognize him' (Luke 24:16). And what did Mark say? 'He appeared in another form.' What the one said, 'Their eyes were held, that they should not recognize him,' this the other said, 'in another form.' For another form was seen with their eyes held, not opened.
What then, brothers — since Luke said [it], which I believe you most freshly remember from yesterday's reading. Since, then, Luke says that when he broke the blessed bread, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. What do we suppose — if then their eyes were opened, then with eyes closed were they accompanying him on the road, and could they know where they were setting their steps, if they had their eyes closed? Their eyes were opened, therefore, unto recognition, not unto seeing. And so our Lord Jesus Christ, before the breaking of bread, speaks unknown with men; in the breaking of bread he is recognized, because there eternal life is received. He is received in hospitality who prepares a home in heaven. For he says, in the holy evangelist John:
'There are many dwelling-places with my Father. Otherwise I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, and prepare it, I will come again and take you to myself' (John 14:2-3). The Lord of heaven willed to be a guest on earth, a stranger in the world through whom the world was made. He deigned to be a guest, that you, by receiving him, might have the blessing — not because he was in need when he entered as a guest. In the time of famine the Lord ever fed Elijah by a raven (1 Kings 17:6): and the birds served him whom men were persecuting. The raven brought bread to the servant of God in the morning, and flesh in the evening. He, then, was not in need whom the Lord fed by the ministering birds.
And yet, although Elijah was not in need, he is sent to the widow of Zarephath — one not needy, to one who was needy — not that he might be sustained, but that she might be satisfied. But she who did not hesitate to receive him, offering him refreshment, merited a blessing. Let no one be proud because he gives to the poor: Christ was poor here. Let no one be proud because he received him as a guest: Christ was a guest here. Better is the one received than the one receiving; richer the one accepting than the one giving. He who accepted possessed all things; he who gave had received from that very one to whom he gave what he gave. Let no one, then, be proud, my brothers, when he gives to the poor. Let him not say in his soul: 'I give, he accepts; I take him in, he needs shelter.'
Perhaps in that which you need there is more; perhaps he whom you receive is just. He needs bread, you truth. He needs shelter, you heaven. He needs money, you righteousness. That poor man, then, was received in hospitality as a poor man. It was the graciousness of the receiver, not the misery of the needy. Perhaps you say to yourself: 'O blessed those who merited to receive Christ! O if I too were there then! O if I had been one of the two whom he found on the road!' Be yourself the road, and Christ the guest will not be lacking. For do you think it is no longer permitted you to receive Christ? 'How is it permitted?' you ask. 'Having risen, he was already made manifest to his disciples.
He ascended into heaven, there he is at the right hand of the Father, and he is not to come except at the last age, to judge the living and the dead. And he will come in glory, not in weakness. He is to give a kingdom, not to seek hospitality, when he shall give the kingdom.' Do you say this? It has slipped your mind what he is to say: 'As you did it to one of the least of these mine, you did it to me' (Matt. 25:40). That rich one is in need, even to the end of the age, and he is wholly in need — not in his Head, but in his members. Where is he in need? In those for whom he grieved when he said: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' (Acts 9:4). Let us therefore serve Christ, and he is with us in his own, he is with us in ourselves. Nor did he say in vain: 'Behold, I am with you until the consummation of the age.'
By doing these things we recognize Christ in good works — not by the body, but by the heart; not with the eyes of the flesh, but with the eyes of faith: 'Because you have seen, you have believed,' he said to a certain unbelieving disciple of his, who had said, 'I do not believe, unless I shall have touched.' And the Lord: 'Come, touch, and do not be unbelieving, but believing' (John 20:27). He touched, and cried out: 'My Lord and my God!' (ibid. 28). And the Lord: 'Because you have seen, you have believed' (ibid. 29). Is this the whole of your faith, that you have believed what you see? I praise those who do not see and yet believe, because when they shall see they will rejoice. SERMON XXXVIII. Again, from the same source. How beautiful the shore appears, when it is filled with merchandise and bustles with merchants!
The bales of diverse garments are unloaded from the ships; countless people rejoice in the merriment of the singing sailors, and the rich curve of the sands dances for joy. What is that? and how much it delights to behold the shore of the Lord's resurrection, and the harbor of the rising Lord to gleam with precious wares! Who are the porters? The angels and archangels, who lead down the bales of souls loosed from the chains of hell — with palms of gladness — to the harbor; and on bearing shoulders they conduct them to the shore of the land of the living. So, as the Lord rose, the bank shone, while the shipwreck of Gehenna mourned.
Into that keel of the body of Christ, returning from the lower regions, are loaded the wares lately seized by piratical usurpation — the souls of all who groaned as captives among the dead; when the groans of those in the lower regions were loosed, they rejoice on Peter's bank. Let that Mary also rejoice, who carries the aromatic spices needful from her ointments, and carries back from the sepulchre precious joys, and living merchandise of the dead from the shore. The angels were the porters, and the delightful bearers, who led down most mightily the Lord descending to Gehenna, and most gladly went before him as he returned.
One was upon the stone of the tomb, that he might set forth the wares of death and of life together, which he might display to the women and make known to the shepherds, while in the dawn of paradise the Lord Jesus Christ himself shines forth at morning (John 20:12). Other angels — one at the head, another at the feet — preside over that new tomb, that they might not sell the wares of Christ's linen cloths, but offer them. They say to the buying women, in exchange for the price of their tears: 'Why,' he says, 'do you weep? You seek Jesus; he is not here, he has risen from the dead, as he said to you.' The merchant has ascended from the lower regions with the bales of mercy. You do not believe of the merchant rising? See the wares gleaming in the sepulchre. Behold the linens of burial, which it would delight to possess without price.
Behold the napkin from the head. Behold the merchant's bale. Go, announce to the disciples, that the bale of mercy may lie open to all merchants: he rose in linen, who by the linen of Lazarus' burial broke the chains, and made a burial of the linen of sinners, that he might restore the life of angels. On the bank there was made a pleasant garden, because the swelling waves ceased. The meadows began to flower, and the wave ceased to bark. The uproar in hell fell silent, and Christ is recognized in the garden. And Mary says: 'Lord, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid my Lord' (ibid. 15). The despoiler of hell is reckoned the thief of his own body — that he might carry off his own members, who raised up his own buried members, and opened tombs without number.
But this merchant was rich, from the wares of the rising dead. Unless he give the sweet response of his voice, no one can handle his commerce, or possess his business, or purchase his mystery, or obtain his joy — when he settles the shipwreck and returns to the harbor. Let him answer willingly, and say to Mary: 'Mary.' The merchant speaks tenderly. No one doubts to buy the wares of the resurrection freely. Perhaps [she takes him for] a merchant. Let us say to him with Mary: 'Rabboni' — which is interpreted, 'Lord, where is your merchandise? How far do your dealings extend? At what price are your goods prepared?' 'There has been given to me,' he says, 'all power in heaven and on earth' (Matt. 28:18).
Let us buy from him freely on earth peace, that we may possess in heaven saving gladness. We believe the Lord to rise again and to come — not that he may set forth wares, but that he may examine them; not that he may sell, but that he may demand. Let us make ready for him our merchandise. What? Not gold, not silver, not the gleaming threads of gems, but faith, hope, love, [his] nativity, passion, resurrection and ascension. These are our merchandise. Will he then come empty in the cloud? Behold, the Lord will come and his reward with him; as it is said: 'Say to the daughter of Zion: Behold, your Savior will come, having his reward, and his work before his face' (Isa.
62:11) — over whom hell had no dominion, and whose body ascended in the clouds; and let one song resound from the dead and the living: 'For this is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it' (Ps. 118:24). For behold, the dead dance from hell, and the angels rejoice in heaven: that we too may rejoice in this temple. SERMON XXXIX. On the fourth day of Easter. Today also the Resurrection of the Lord was recited from the holy Gospel. And the Gospel according to John was read. We heard things which in the other books of the Gospel we had not heard.
The preaching of the truth is indeed common to all, and all drank from one fountain; yet in the preaching of the Gospel (as I have often warned your charity) some things all set down, some things three, some things two, and some things individual evangelists alone. Now then, what we have heard according to John, that Mary comes to the Lord, and the Lord said to her: 'Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father' (John 20:17), John the evangelist alone records. From this, therefore, we must speak to your holiness. When they had seen the linen cloths in the tomb, they had not yet believed that he had risen, but that his body had been taken away from the sepulchre. For John himself also (he speaks of himself, the one whom Jesus loved [John 20:2]),
when he had heard the women announcing and saying, 'They have taken away my Lord from the sepulchre,' ran with Peter, and looking into the tomb saw only the linen cloths, and believed. What did he believe? Not that he had risen, but that he had perished from the sepulchre. The following words attest this: for so it is written, as we have just heard: 'He looked, he saw, and he believed. For as yet he did not know the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead' (John 20:9). It is therefore evident what he believed: he believed that which did not belong to faith. He believed, but he believed something false. Afterwards the Lord appeared to him: he drove away the false, and grafted in the true.
Yet that saying which was wont to move the reader, and the hearer who is neither careless nor negligent, namely, how it was said, 'Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father'—let us now see, with the Lord's own help, what must be said of it. For this warns us what this means: 'Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.' When indeed did he ascend to the Father? As the Acts of the Apostles indicate, on the fortieth day after his resurrection, which day we shall celebrate in the name of the Lord forty days after Easter. For then the disciples who had touched him with their hands followed him with their eyes. Then sounded the angelic voice: 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into heaven?'
'This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven shall so come as you have seen him going into heaven' (Acts 1:11). If then he ascended to the Father at that time, what do we say, my brethren? Could Mary not touch him while he stood on earth, yet touch him while he sat in heaven? But if she could not here, how much less could she there? What then means, 'Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father'? For the words sound as though he were saying: 'Then touch me when I shall have ascended; before I ascend, do not touch me.' O Lord, are you here, and shall I not touch you? When you have ascended shall I touch you? Moreover, if before he ascended to the Father he shrank from human touch, how did he offer himself to the disciples not only to be seen but even to be handled,
when he said: 'See my hands and my feet. Behold, touch and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones' (Luke 24:39)? That unbelieving disciple Thomas touched the pierced side, and cried out, 'My Lord and my God' (John 20:28). When he had touched, Jesus had not yet ascended to the Father. Or shall some foolish person perhaps say that before he ascended to the Father men were able to touch him, but women could not, except when he had ascended to the Father? Absurd is this notion and perverse this opinion. In short, what Mary heard, let the Church hear. Let all hear this, let all understand, let all do it. What then means, 'Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father' (John 20:17)? Because you see me, you think me merely a man:
you do not yet know that I am equal to the Father. 'Do not touch me'—do not believe me to be such a one, merely a man, but understand that I am the Word equal to my begetter. What is, 'Do not touch me'? Do not believe that I am only this which you see. I shall ascend to the Father, and then touch me: I ascend for you, when you shall have understood me to be equal. For when you think me lesser, I have not yet ascended for you. But to touch I take to be to believe: which we can easily understand from that woman who touched the hem of Christ's garment, and was made whole. Recall the Gospel. When the Lord Jesus Christ was going to visit the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, and the woman who suffered from an issue of blood touched him, and when the Lord had said, 'Who touched me?' the disciples answered:
'The crowds press upon you, and you say, Who touched me?' Yet he said, 'Someone touched me. For I know that power has gone out from me' (Luke 8:45-46). And they said, 'So great crowds press upon you, and did you feel one?' 'Someone touched me.' What is, 'touched me'? They press, she touched. The Jews afflict, the Church believed. According to this understanding, by which we saw the woman touch in order to be healed—which is to have believed—according to this it was said to Mary, 'Do not touch me. I shall ascend, and then touch.' For then touch, when you shall have known: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1). But because you see only a man, because the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), you do not see the Word alone.
I do not wish you to believe in the flesh and forsake the Word. Let the whole Christ appear to you. 'Do not,' he says, 'touch me now, because you do not yet see who I am.' Let the Church therefore (whose figure Mary bore) hear what Mary heard. Let us all touch, if we believe. He has now ascended to the Father, he sits at the right hand of the Father; this the whole Church confesses today. Let those who are baptized hear this; let them hear it before they are baptized. When therefore they believe, Mary touches Christ. The meaning is obscure, yet sound, opened to the faith that knocks. Therefore our very Lord Jesus Christ is both there and with us, both with the Father and in us; and he does not depart from him, nor forsake us, and he teaches us to pray, and as master and with the Father he hears us, as Son.
SERMON XL. On the fifth day of Easter. We saw yesterday that the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the truth of the four evangelists, was completed. For on the first day the Resurrection was read according to Matthew, on the second according to Luke, on the third according to Mark, on the fourth—that is, yesterday—according to John. But since Luke and John wrote more concerning the resurrection itself and the things that happened after the resurrection, which cannot be recited in one reading, yesterday we heard something according to John, and today still other readings remain. What then have we heard today?
That on the very day on which he rose, that is, on the Lord's day, when it had grown late, and the disciples were in one place, and the doors were shut for fear of the Jews, the Lord appeared in their midst (John 20:19). On that very day, therefore, as John the evangelist testifies, he appeared twice to the disciples, in the morning and in the evening. From the fact that he appeared in the morning, that reading has already been recited. But that on the same day in the evening he appeared again, we heard just now as it was being recited. It was not needful that these things should be recalled by me, but that they should be marked by you, on account of the lesser understanding or the greater negligence of certain persons: that you may know not only what you have heard, but also from what Scripture that which you have heard is read to you.
Let us therefore see what today's reading sets before us to speak of. For this very reading admonishes us, and in a manner speaks to us, that we should say something as to how the Lord—who rose again in that solidity of body, so that he was not only seen by the disciples but also touched—could appear to them with the doors shut. For some are so disturbed by this matter that they almost fall into peril, bringing against divine miracles the prejudices of their own reasonings. For they argue thus: If it was a body, if there was flesh and bones, if that which hung on the wood rose again from the sepulchre, how could it enter through closed doors? If it could not, they say, then it did not happen. If it could, how could it?
If you comprehend the manner, it is no miracle. And if it does not seem a miracle to you, you draw near to denying that he even rose from the sepulchre. Look back from the beginning at the miracles of your Lord, and render me an account of each. A man did not approach, and a virgin conceived. Render an account of how without a male a virgin conceived. Where reason fails, there is the building up of faith. Behold, you have one miracle in the Lord's conception; hear also of the birth. A virgin bore, and remained a virgin. Even then, before he rose again, the Lord was born through closed doors. You ask of me and say: If he entered through closed doors, where is the measure of the body? And I answer: If he walked upon the sea, where is the weight of the body?
But the Lord did that as the Lord. Did he then, because he rose again, cease to be the Lord, who also made Peter to walk upon the sea? What divinity accomplished in the one, faith fulfilled in the other. But Christ, because he was able; Peter, because Christ helped him. If therefore you begin to discuss with human sense the reason of miracles, I fear you may lose your faith. Do you not know that nothing is impossible to God? Whoever therefore shall say to you, 'If he entered through closed doors, it was not a body,' answer him on the contrary, 'Nay, if he was touched, it was a body; if he ate, it was a body'; and he did the one by miracle, the other by nature. Is not the daily course of things to be wondered at?
The very natures are full of all miracles, but through their constancy they have grown cheap. Render me an account; I ask something about things customary and usual. Render me an account: why is the seed of so great a tree, the fig, so tiny that it can scarcely be seen; and the lowly gourd bears so large a seed? Yet in that little grain of seed, scarcely visible—if you consider with the mind, not the eye—in that smallness, in those narrow bounds, both the root lies hidden, and the strength is undetermined, and the leaves that are to be are concealed, and the fruit that shall appear on the tree is already sent forth beforehand in the seed. There is no need to run through many examples. Of daily things no one will render an account; and do you demand of me an account of miracles?
Read the Gospel therefore, and believe the deeds which are wondrous. Greater is that which God did, and you do not wonder at that which surpasses all works. There was nothing, and there is a world. But the mass of the body, you say, could not enter through closed doors. How great was that mass of the body? Was it perhaps like that of a camel? And yet the Lord, wishing to show the difficulty of the rich man entering into the kingdom of heaven, and the disciples, considering that this could not happen, were saddened that no rich man could be saved; the Lord answered: 'The things which are impossible with men are easy with God' (Luke 18:27). God can both pass a camel through the eye of a needle, and bring a rich man into the kingdom of heaven. Why do you cavil to me about closed doors?
The closed doors had at least a crack. Compare the crack of the doors to the eye of a needle, compare the mass of human flesh to the size of camels, and do not cavil at the divinity of the miracles. SERMON XLI. On the sixth day of Easter. Today also a reading was recited concerning those things which were done after the Lord's resurrection, according to the evangelist John. Your charity heard with us that the Lord Jesus Christ showed himself to his disciples at the sea of Tiberias, and that he who had already made them fishers of men found them still fishers of fish. But through the whole night they had caught nothing (John 21:1-3). And when the Lord had been seen, and at his command they cast the nets, they caught the number that you heard. Never would the Lord have commanded this, unless he wished something to be signified.
What great matter, then, could it be to Jesus Christ whether fish were caught or not caught? But that fishing was our signification. Let us therefore weigh those two fishings of the disciples at the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, one before the Passion, the other after the resurrection. In these two fishings, then, the whole Church is signified, both such as she is now, and such as she shall be in the resurrection of the dead. For now she has many without number, both good and bad. But after the resurrection she shall have a fixed number, the good alone. Recall then the first fishing; there let us behold the Church, such as she is in this present time.
The Lord Jesus found his disciples fishing when he first called them to follow him. Then the whole night they had caught nothing. But when he had been seen they heard from him, 'Cast the nets.' 'Lord,' they said, 'through the whole night we have caught nothing; but behold, at your word we cast the net' (Luke 5:5). They cast it at the command of the Almighty. What else could happen, save what he had willed? Yet by that very deed he deigned (as I have said) to signify something. The nets were cast, and they caught so great a multitude of fish that two boats were filled, and were breaking under the multitude. Then he said to them: 'Come, and I will make you fishers of men' (Matthew 4:19).
They received from him the nets of the word of God, they cast them into the world as into a deep sea, they caught so great a multitude of Christians as we behold and marvel at. But those two boats signified two peoples, of the Jews and of the Gentiles, of the Synagogue and of the Church, of the circumcision and of the uncircumcision. For of those two boats, as of two walls coming from different directions, Christ is the corner-stone. But what did we hear there? The boats were being pressed down by the multitude. So it is now. Many Christians live wickedly, and press down the Church. It is a small thing that they press her down; they even break the nets.
For if the nets were not torn, schisms would not have been committed. Let us therefore pass from this fishing which we endure, and come to that which we ardently desire. Behold, the Lord died, but he rose again. He appeared at the sea to his disciples, he commands them to cast the nets. He does not say, cast them just anyhow. For in the first fishing he did not say to them, 'Cast the nets to the right or to the left.' Because if he had so spoken, 'to the left,' the wicked alone would have been signified; if he had said, 'to the right,' the good alone would have been figured. Therefore he did not say, 'to the right or to the left,' because good are caught mingled with the bad. But now after the resurrection, hear, discern, rejoice, hope, lay hold, of what sort the Church shall be.
'Cast,' he says, 'the nets to the right side.' Now those on the right are caught. You know that he said he would separate the sheep from the goats; he would set the sheep at the right, the goats at the left; to those on the left he would say, 'Go into eternal fire' (Matthew 25:41); to those on the right he would say, 'Receive the kingdom' (Matthew 25:34). Behold whence, 'Cast the nets to the right side.' They cast, they caught, the number is fixed, no one there is superfluous. But now how many superfluous ones come to the altar, who are seen among the people of God, yet are not written in the book of heaven? There, then, the number is fixed. Strive that you too be of those fish—not merely by hearing and praising, but by living well. The nets, then, are cast, and great fish are caught.
For who there shall then be small, when they shall be equal to the angels of God (Luke 20:36)? There are caught, then, one hundred and fifty-three. Let someone say to me: And shall the saints be but so many? Far be it from us to suppose so small a number of saints in the kingdom of heaven. The number signifies thousands of thousands (Revelation 14:1) of saints and faithful. But why the Lord deigned to signify by this number the thousands who shall be in the kingdom of heaven, hear. You know that the law was given through Moses to the people of God, and that in that law there is especially commemorated the Decalogue, that is, the ten precepts of the law; of which one precept is concerning the worship of one God; the second precept, that you take not the name of your God in vain;
the third precept, the observance of the Sabbath, which Christians observe spiritually, the Jews violate carnally. These are the three precepts pertaining to the Lord. The remaining seven pertain to human conversation, on account of those two principal ones: 'You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two precepts hang the whole law and the prophets' (Matthew 22:37-40). Because, then, there are two precepts, so in that Decalogue there are three pertaining to the love of God, seven to the love of neighbor.