文集 第 4 章 第 2/9 段

If we forgive, it shall be forgiven us; if we do not forgive, it shall not be forgiven us. Let us therefore love, most beloved brethren, not only friends but also enemies, that we may come to the tribunal of the eternal Judge with a secure conscience, saying: 'Give, Lord, because we have given; forgive, because we have forgiven. We have done what You commanded; do You fulfill what You promised'—which He Himself will grant, who with the Father lives and reigns with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen. V. A SERMON ON THE BIRTHDAY OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS. Today, dearest brethren, we celebrate the birthday of those infants whom the text of the Gospel declares to have been slain by King Herod. Therefore let our land rejoice with the highest exultation, the fruitful parent of heavenly soldiers and of so many virtues.

Behold, the profane enemy could never have profited the blessed little ones by service as much as he profited them by hatred. For just as the most sacred festivals of the present day make manifest how much iniquity abounded against the blessed little ones, so much did the grace of blessing shine forth in them. For thus we heard a little while ago that, when King Herod persecuted Christ, thousands of happy boys were slain, the prophet saying: 'Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not.' O blessed parent of triumphant ones, homeland of illustrious warriors, rich in so many pledges! For a moment she seemed to be bereaved in the eyes of onlookers, yet she never needs to be comforted, nor does she weep for the children whom, while she was losing them (to be restrained from mournings), she gained.

Blessed are you, O Bethlehem, land of Judah, who endured the savagery of King Herod in the slaughter of the boys, who at one and the same time were counted worthy to offer to God a white-robed people of unwarlike infancy. Yet worthily do we celebrate the birthday of those whom the world brought forth more blessed unto eternal life than those whom the birth of maternal wombs poured out; if indeed they attained the dignity of perpetual life before they received the use of the present one. Precious indeed of others...

The death of the martyrs earned praise in confession; the death of these was well-pleasing in their consummation, because at the very first beginnings of dawning life their very setting gave the beginning of glory to those for whom He set the term of the present life; whom Herod's impiety tore, still sucking, from their mothers' breasts; who are rightly called the flowers of the martyrs, whom, sprung up amid the frost of unbelief, as the first bursting gems of the Church, a certain hoarfrost of persecution ripened. And therefore it is fitting to expend upon the infants slain for Christ the ceremonies of honor, not of grief; to offer to the mysteries vows, not tears; because He Himself who was the cause of their punishment was also the cause of their crown, He the cause of hatred who was also the cause of reward.

But while Herod was preparing death for the little ones, Joseph is warned through an angel to carry Christ the Lord into Egypt. Egypt was full of idols; already after the persecution of the Jews and the consent of the profane people to the slaying of Christ, Christ deigns to pass over to the nations given over to idols, and, leaving Judea, is brought to be worshiped to a world that knew Him not. And because in the divine Scriptures we recognize that good and just men have always endured the persecution of the wicked, if we consider diligently, we find that those who do it endure greater punishments than those who seem to endure. For every man who persecutes another in the body is recognized first to endure persecution in his own heart.

For even if he takes something of his substance from the one whom he persecutes, he does himself the greater loss, because no one has unjust gain without just damage. Where gain is, there is damage: gain in the chest, damage in the heart. He took a garment, he loses faith; he acquires money, he loses justice. But men do this for this reason: because they are unwilling to attend to the last day. For if they were willing to think continually on the day of their death, they would restrain their mind from all covetousness and malice. But what they now are unwilling to think of wholesomely, they must afterward endure without any remedy.

For the last day will come upon them; the Day of Judgment will come, when they will be permitted neither to increase their money nor to be able to redeem themselves from eternal death by good works; because the sinner is smitten even by this chastisement, that dying he forgets himself, who while he lived forgot God. The Day of Judgment will come, when the foundations of the mountains shall be shaken and the earth shall burn down to the depths below; when the burning heavens shall be dissolved; when the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven; when sinners and the impious shall be cast into the furnace of fire, and the smoke of their torments shall ascend unto the ages of ages. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Whence there will come a time, dearest brethren, when it shall be ill with no good man and well with no evil man. There will come, I say, the last day, when the godly shall be separated from the ungodly, the just from the unjust, the praisers of God from the blasphemers of God; when they shall be separated so that, as it has been said, it shall be ill with no good man, well with no evil man. Why then is it now perhaps not thus, and now thus, but what is now hidden shall then be made manifest? Read the divine Scripture; enter with me, if you can, into the sanctuary of God. Perhaps there, if I am able, I will teach you—nay, learn with me from Him who taught me—that even now it is not well with the evil, and it is better for the good than for the evil, although the full felicity of the good has not yet come, nor has the last punishment of the evil yet come.

If you diligently attend to the law of God, perhaps you will understand with me that it is not well with the evil. For I ask you and inquire of you: why is it ill with you? You will answer me: poverty grips me, hardship presses me, pain perhaps of my limbs, fear from an enemy. Is it ill with you, then, because you suffer evils, and well with him who suffers his own self as an evil? There is a great difference between suffering evil and being evil; but you—what you suffer, you are not. For you suffer evil and are not evil. He, however, does not suffer evil and is evil. Do not, then, be deceived. It cannot be that it should be ill with you, who suffer evil, and well with him, who is evil. For while he is evil—do you think that he does not also suffer evil, when he suffers his own self?

Is it ill with you because you suffer another's evil in your body, while it goes well with him who suffers his own evil in his body? Is it ill with you who perhaps lead an evil life, and well with him who has an evil soul? Be good, you who have good things. Riches are good, gold is good, silver too is good, households are good, possessions are good. All these things are good, but only insofar as you use them well. Have those good things which make you good, not those which make you evil. What are these, you ask? Do judgment and justice. The things you have are good; be you also good amid your good things. Be modest with your goods; do not be evil among them, lest you perish along with them.

Thus therefore the Creator of all and God the administrator has distributed gold and silver to men, so that of itself, in its own nature and kind, it is good, yet its abundance does not exalt the good nor does poverty crush them. But the wicked, when it is offered them, it blinds; and when it is taken away, it torments them; for both when moneys are gained they bestow a false gladness, and when they are lost they leave behind a true sorrow. Let us therefore learn to love the true riches, that is, chastity and justice and peace and mercy. These riches are called just, because they are granted for good and just deserts; those are called true riches, because whoever possesses them shall not be in want, since, according to the Apostle, having food and clothing, he is content therewith.

These earthly riches, then, it is unjust to think riches at all, since they do not take away want. For each man will burn the more with want, the greater the riches he in his avarice has loved and held. How then are they riches, when as they grow, poverty grows too, and which, the greater they are, bring no satisfaction to their lovers, but only inflame desire? Do you count that man rich who would be in less need if he had less? Whence one has well said: 'The love of money grows as much as the money itself grows.' For with the increase of wealth the madness of desire is augmented. Indeed all the greedy or covetous seem to be sick, as it were, with the disease of dropsy.

For just as the man with dropsy, the more he drinks, the more he thirsts, so too the avaricious or covetous man endangers himself in acquiring and is not satisfied in seeking. But we, brethren, considering that we are pilgrims and strangers in this world, let us keep in reserve for ourselves, upon the journey of this life, only so much as is needful for food and clothing; and, as far as we can, let us direct our goods toward eternal blessedness through almsgiving to the poor, so that, when on the day of judgment the covetous and avaricious shall have deserved to hear, for the barrenness of their good works, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire,' we for our good works may be able to hear:

'Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was naked and you clothed me.' To this blessedness may the Lord lead us under His protection, to whom is glory unto ages of ages. Amen. VI. A SERMON ON THE NATIVITY OF THE APOSTLES JAMES AND JOHN. I beg you, dearest brethren, that you take it not amiss nor judge us superfluous, that we exhort you rather frequently to the love of enemies.

We do this for the reason that we have found no stronger medicine for healing the wounds of all sins; nor let it seem to you unfitting that sometimes even on the solemnities of the martyrs we call you forth to the love of enemies. We wish this to be done because we have learned that all the martyrs attained to the crown of martyrdom through that most perfect charity, which we rejoice with immense admiration was fulfilled also in blessed Stephen. Attend diligently, I beg you, brethren, and understand, that in all evil men we ought rather to hold their vices in hatred, not the men; to love the man, to hate the vice. Do not for the man's sake love the vice, nor for the vice's sake hate the man.

The man is your neighbor; the vice is the enemy of your neighbor. You then love your friend if you hate the vice which harms your friend. If you believe, you do well, for the just man lives by faith. What abounds in human affairs, this I say. Sometimes some man is an enemy to your dearest friend, who was the friend of both. Of three friends, two begin to be enemies to each other. What is the man in the middle to do, who has remained? One of those who hold each other in hatred wishes that you too should hate along with him the one whom he hates, and says these words to you: 'You are not my friend, because you are the friend of my enemy.' And what this one says to you about that one, that one says to you about this one. For you were three; two began to be at variance, and you alone have remained.

If you join yourself to this one, you will hate that one as an enemy; if to that one, then this one; if to both, both will murmur. Behold a temptation. You are perhaps waiting to hear from me what you should do. Remain the friend of both. Let those who are at variance with each other be reconciled through you. If you have heard from the one any evil things about the other, do not betray them to the other, lest perhaps afterward those be friends who now are enemies, and betray to each other those who betrayed them. But this I have said for the sake of men, not for the eyes of God. Behold, no one betrays you to God. It is God who sees you, who judges you. You have heard a word from an angry man, from one grieving and inflamed: let it die within you. Why is it betrayed, why is it published abroad? For if it stays within you, it will not burst you asunder.

Rather, speak to the friend who wishes to make you the enemy of your friend; address him, and treat him, as a sick soul, with the gentleness of medicine. Say to him: 'Why do you wish that I should be that man's enemy?' He will answer: 'Because he is my enemy.' 'Do you then wish that I should be the enemy of your enemy? I ought to be the enemy of your sin. This man, to whom you wish to make me an enemy, is a man; there is another enemy of yours, to whom I ought to be an enemy, if I am your friend.' He will answer: 'Who is this other enemy of mine?' 'Your vice.' He will answer: 'What is my vice?' 'The hatred with which you hate your friend.' Be therefore like a physician. The physician does not love the sick man if he does not hate the sickness. That he may free the sick man, he pursues the fever.

Do not love the vices of your friends, if you love your friends. But to whom, do you suppose, do I say this? Do I not do it myself? What I say, my brethren, I do, if I do it within myself. And first I do it within myself, if I receive from the Lord that I hate my own vices, if I offer my heart to the Physician to be healed, if I pursue my sins as far as I can, if I groan over them, if I confess that they are in me, and I accuse myself. You who used to reprove me, correct yourself. This is justice, lest it be said to us: 'You see the mote in your brother's eye, and the beam in your own eye you do not see. Hypocrite, first cast out the beam from your own eye.' Anger is a splinter, hatred a beam; but you have nourished the splinter, and it becomes a beam. Anger grown old becomes hatred; the splinter, nourished, becomes a beam.

That the splinter therefore may not become a beam, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Do you see and feel yourself livid with hatred, and yet reprove the one who is angry? Take away hatred from yourself, and you rightly reprove anger. There is a splinter in his eye, in yours a beam. And how can an eye with a beam in it see a splinter? I know not with what face he reproves to his face the angry man, who keeps hatred in his heart. He who is angry to another's face and quickly grows angry and quickly is appeased incurs indeed a splinter, but at once removes it through repentance. But he who has held hatred in his heart for a very long time, by nourishing the splinter has turned it into a beam. There is a beam in your eye, because you were unwilling at once to remove the splinter born there.

With it you have slept, with it you have risen; you have cultivated it within your very self, watered it with false suspicions, nourished it by believing the words of flatterers and of those who bring you evil reports about your friend; you did not pluck out the splinter by your diligence, and you have made it into a beam. Take away the beam from your eye; do not hate. Are you afraid of your brother or are you not afraid? I tell you, do not hate, and you are safe. You answer and say to me: 'What is it to hate, and what evil is there in a man's hating his enemy?' You hate your brother, but you despise the hatred. Hear the divine Scripture: 'He who hates his brother is a murderer.'

Therefore, if he is a murderer, though you have prepared no poison, though you have not gone forth with a sword to strike your enemy, though you have not made ready an accomplice in the crime, nor place, nor time, though at the last you have not done the deed itself—you have only hated, and you have slain yourself before you slew him. Learn therefore justice, so that you hate nothing except the vices of a man. If you hold to this, and do this justice, so that you choose rather to heal men, even the vicious ones, than to condemn them, you shall come happily before the tribunal of the eternal Judge, not to be condemned for hatred, but to be crowned for charity and peace, by the granting of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and with the Holy Spirit unto ages of ages. Amen. VII. ON THE EPIPHANY.

Lately, dearest brethren, we celebrated the sacrament of that day of our redemption, on which God clothed Himself with man together with his infirmities. But today we honor that on which God declared Himself in man by His mighty works, in that on this day either He offered from heaven a star as the herald of His birth, or in Cana of Galilee at the wedding banquet He turned water into wine, or in the waves of the Jordan He consecrated the waters by His baptism for the restoration of the human race, or from five loaves He satisfied five thousand men. In any one of these are contained the mysteries and joys of our salvation. For He was born for us of a Virgin, which the star made manifest.

By the miracle of His work and the changing of the waters He signified that we are to be changed for the better; He provided remedies for us from baptism, which He furnished in the channel of the Jordan, and thereby summoned us. And therefore, dearest brethren, in our every act let us carry before us the star of faith, and for the keeping of purity let us celebrate the baptism of Christ, for this regeneration of Christ is the confirmation of your faith. For He instilled in you the benefit of His gift through the example of a second birth, and what He willed you to do, He first did. We read that the Jews had various baptisms under the Law, but none of these could confer a general remedy against the evil of transgression.

And therefore, for the absolution of the whole world, the waters of regeneration needed to be sanctified from heaven; and because throughout the whole world the sacrament of baptism was needful for the human race, He gave His blessing to all waters when, with unique and singular tenderness, He descended into the channel of the Jordan. For then the wave did not so much wash Christ the Lord as it was itself washed. For it was for you that Christ came in being born, for you He waged war in living, for you He fought in dying. Him whom you see dead for you, understand to have been baptized for you. And so Christ the Lord was altogether such before baptism as He was after baptism. And therefore His precursor and baptist, when Christ came to him to be baptized, addressed Him thus: 'I, Lord, ought to be baptized by you, and you come to me?'

What could be more evident concerning the purity of Christ, not yet baptized, what more forceful? 'I ought to be baptized by you'—that is, You who are the fountain of innocence and the fullness of justice, who, needing nothing, know how to give and know not how to receive—'I,' he says, 'ought to be baptized by you, because You bring with You and possess in Yourself the gifts of purity and the sacraments of baptism, and what I shall give by Your bounty through grace, You obtain by nature.' Meanwhile there is made an advancement for the creature. At the Creator's touch the members are dipped, and the streams are enriched. By life-giving grace the body is not changed by the river, but the river is changed by the body.

The happy wave marvels that its own fountain should descend into it, conceiving in a single moment eternal remedies, and bringing forth by fecundity a generation to be renewed—giving back what it had received, and receiving what it did not have. Amid these things it would be a wonder that the Lord subjected Himself to the blessing of a servant, had He not subjected Himself also to the cross and to death. And indeed He taught, by the dignity of the price itself, that man is precious to Him. But from this also we understand how great our Lord esteems the causes of human crimes in His sight, on account of which He sent to earth not an angel, not an archangel, but God. How grievous is the condition of sin, how hard, the greatness of the remedy betrays.

How great the sifting of evils shall be, by which they shall be condemned, the solicitude by which they are redeemed makes plain. With all vigilance therefore and diligence let us beware, lest the devil wound what God has healed, lest through the consent of the heart, through the disgrace of the body, we render to the enemy that servitude which we ought rather to show to the Lord. And indeed, if some violent and overbearing man had snatched away something of our substance and property, would we not deem it worthy of the utmost hatred? would we not deservedly detest him as an enemy? And with what mind, pray, do we consent through sin to the devil, who wishes to take from us not our substance but our life, not to defraud us of earth but of heaven, not to narrow the bounds of our possession but the infinite spaces of eternity?

Amid these things, O man, if you are willing to estimate the dignity of your making, the tenderness of your Lord toward you, from the price paid, you will be able not to doubt concerning the kingdom. That, dearest brethren, which we heard just now when the Gospel was read—that on the third day a wedding was held in Cana of Galilee, and that water was turned into wine—let us see what that wedding is. Here our acquisition, or restoration, is shown forth by nuptial vows and feasts, just as in another place the return of the younger son is received with dancing and music.

Now the six waterpots are the six ages of this world: the first from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to David, from David to the transmigration of Babylon, from the transmigration of Babylon to John the Baptist. In these times prophecy concerning Christ was not lacking, through which the just prefigured the figure and type of the Lord. And they hold two or three measures apiece, because they contain within themselves the faith of the Trinity. But let us see what the divine discourse says. Let us handle the very sacred oracles of the Gospel. In Cana of Galilee He turned water into wine, and by the power of His works uncovered the Lord hidden beneath the man. 'And on the third day,' it says, 'a wedding was held.' But what is this wedding but the joys of human salvation?

Why on the third day? Either because He showed us the mystery of the Trinity, or because on the third day He rose again. And so, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, He descended to the earth, to be joined, through the incarnation He assumed, to the Church which was to be gathered from the nations. To this Church, which surely is ourselves, He gave both the pledge and the dowry. He gave the pledge when He was promised to us by the Law; He gave the dowry when He was offered up for us. And in another way this can be taken: that by the pledge we understand present grace, by the dowry eternal life. Let us see what He does in Cana of Galilee. Here now let the stupendous miracles reveal God to us. The waterpots are set up, holding two or three measures apiece. The waterpots are filled.

Suddenly the waters are changed—waters that are afterward to change men—and while they are changed for the better, they proclaim, as it were, the power of baptism. In them, in a certain manner, the likeness of regeneration is expressed; and while they become one thing out of another, while the lower creature is transferred into a more pleasing appearance, the mystery of the second birth is disclosed. Nothing of their quantity is diminished in the waters themselves, and while they remained in themselves, by a wholly noble transmutation they degenerate from themselves. They perish as to their own substance, and acquire another's. A stronger savor is added to the thin matter, and a hidden power is poured into the light streams, and the nature of the waters is made drunk, and thus in a new manner they confess the power of their Creator. Who can transform these things but He who was able also to create them?

When therefore the wine was failing, His mother says to Him: 'They have no wine.' In the first place let us inquire what that wine was which is said to have failed, and what is that other wine which is miraculously prepared, which the steward of the feast pronounces to be better, saying: 'Every man first sets forth the good wine, and when they have become drunk, that which is worse; but you have kept the good wine until now.' By wine we understand in many places the divine precepts and the holy Scriptures, containing the most unmixed vigor of heavenly wisdom, by which the senses grow warm to the love of the Lord and the affections are made drunk—according to that which is said of Wisdom: 'She has prepared her table, she has mingled her wine in the bowl.'

The power of the divine Scriptures, then, whenever it has filled anyone's inmost parts, will be able to say with the prophet: 'You have made us drink the wine of compunction,' and: 'How excellent is your cup that inebriates.' When Christ therefore was at work in Cana of Galilee, the wine failed and He made wine—that is, the shadow is removed and the truth is presented, the Law recedes, grace succeeds, carnal things are exchanged for spiritual, the old observance is poured over into the new testament, as the blessed Apostle says: 'The old things have passed away, and behold, in Christ all things are made new.' But just as those waterpots, filled with water, lose nothing of what they were, and yet begin to be what they were not, so the Law did not perish, made void by the coming of Christ, but rather made progress.

When therefore the wine was failing, another wine is provided. The Old Testament is indeed good, but without spiritual understanding it vanishes into the letter; the New, however, has given back the fragrance of life in grace. Since these things are so, let us see the steward himself, the one set over the bridegroom's house, whom we may perceive. And whom else ought we to understand but blessed Paul, who, after the reception of the Law, filled and made drunk with the most delightful fragrance and taste of the mysteries of the New Testament and with the sweet savor of spiritual senses, cries out and gives praise: 'You have kept the good wine until now'? Let us see, however, in what manner he praises that wine: 'Neither eye,' he says, 'has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him.'

Behold the true, behold the miracles worthy to be proclaimed, which are wrought in us, when out of the worst He has made good men, out of the proud humble ones, out of the shameless chaste ones, out of followers of the world friends of God. What greater miracles can He work than when He deigns to promote man, a worm and rottenness, into the angelic state, to place him from earthly things among the heavenly, and to take him up into the grace of His adoption?—which may He Himself deign to grant, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives unto all ages of ages. VIII. ON THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD, AT MASS OR ON THE BIRTHDAY OF LUCIAN THE MARTYR. The solemnity which is of the nativity of our Lord, dearest brethren, we celebrated with that faith by which God was born of this man.

Let us therefore venerate it with that observance by which God was declared in man. There He is hidden in infirmities, here He is revealed in mighty works. For today the star, about to point out Christ to those seeking Him, led the Magi coming from the east all the way to the place of the newborn Savior. Let the sacred nativity be beheld beneath a lowly hut. He is adored in swaddling clothes who shines forth in the stars. He is adored in swaddling clothes—that is, beneath the abjection of human corruption an inviolate majesty. There is revealed, by the intimation of the mystery, the greatness of the divine mercy, in that first the Ethiopians, that is the Gentiles, come to Christ.

The firstfruits of the Gentiles are consecrated unto the acknowledgment of the truth; the Church of the Gentiles precedes the synagogue of the Jews, stripped of the blackness of sin and to be clothed with the whiteness of faith. And so it seeks our salvation in the manger. What is this, that it seeks our salvation in the manger? That is, the once-wild multitude of unbelieving peoples, received into the stable of the Church, grows tame. The Jews indeed boast that divine worship is with them, but the first envoys of the Gentiles see Christ. Why the first? Because the healthy eye of the Christian follows the light, but the corrupted gaze of the Jews is dimmed by the very light, and the sick vision, when light is brought in, grows all the more dark.