He saw also another dream, that the sun and the moon and eleven stars worshipped him. To which his father answered: 'Shall I and thy mother and thy brothers worship thee upon the earth?' This could not be fulfilled in that Joseph, because his mother had already departed from this light. But in our Joseph, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, the sacraments of that dream were fulfilled. For the sun and the moon and eleven stars worshipped Him, when after the resurrection holy Mary as it were the moon, and blessed Joseph with the eleven stars, that is, the blessed apostles, worshipped Him, who were bowed down and prostrate before Him; and the prophecy was fulfilled which had said: 'Praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all ye stars and light.'
For how could it befit his brothers that they could worship him as stars, whom the night of envy had made dark and shadowed? For they had already lost the brightness of the stars, who had extinguished in themselves the light of charity. Deservedly, therefore, we believe this to have been more truly fulfilled in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whom, as I have also said before, we read that blessed Joseph and blessed Mary with the eleven apostles more frequently worshipped. For that the apostles had the light of stars, the Lord Himself said in the Gospel: 'You are the light of the world'; and again, concerning them and those like them: 'Then shall the just shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.' Joseph is interpreted 'increase' or 'enlargement.'
But in that Joseph, none had the enlargement save Egypt alone; in our Joseph, however, the whole world merited to have the increase. That Joseph dispensed wheat; ours deigned to dispense the word of God. 'For their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.' We therefore, dearest brethren, who by no preceding merits have obtained such great good things through the mercy of the true Joseph, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom came not the shadow of the Old Testament but the very truth—let us labor, as much as we can, with God's grace, so that what He conferred on us as the one judged, He may find whole in us as the one who will judge; who, as much as He has conferred on thee, so much will He require back.
And indeed He, when He shall come, will render back what He has promised, but He will require those whom He has redeemed, and what He gave at His first coming, He will exact at His second. Let no one render to Christ our Lord evil for good. For who is he that acts so impiously, save he who receives sweetness and renders back bitterness, who receives life and restores death? For he renders back death who slays himself by living wickedly.
For who renders evil for good, save he who, when he ought to apply himself to reading and to run to church, chose rather to play at dice, to frequent spectacles whether frenzied or bloody or shameful, and who, when he ought to consume his sins by praying, by reading, by giving alms, strives rather to increase and heap them up more abundantly? Who is he that renders evil for good? He who restores darkness for light, malice for kindness, drunkenness for sobriety, rapacity for almsgiving, iniquity for justice. Let him therefore who, with the help of our Lord, has not admitted these evils, guard within himself, as much as he can, the divine gifts.
But he who feels himself liable to these evils and understands himself entangled in them, let him quickly have recourse to the remedies of penance, and before that darkened soul departs from the body of its death, let him acquire for himself a remedy in the day of necessity by alms, fastings, and prayers. So therefore let us act, brethren, that before the tribunal of Christ both those who are good may obtain the crown, and those who are negligent may obtain pardon. XXI. CONCERNING SAINT JOSEPH, II. Concerning the blessed Jacob, dearest brethren, and in his holy son Joseph, whoever attends diligently recognizes that the Lord did a thing exceedingly wonderful.
First, I do not believe it was without cause that God, who had so often deigned to reveal Himself to the blessed Jacob, for so many years was unwilling to make known that his son Joseph was alive, but permitted him to be consumed by long grief. If anyone should believe this to have been done without a certain and evident reason, let him at least consider this: that not even his son Joseph, placed so near, was permitted to send to his father to announce to him that he not only was alive, but was even placed in great honor. For from that place where the blessed Jacob was, as far as Egypt, there were scarcely three hundred miles, whence very frequently many hastened from Egypt into those places where Jacob was.
From that place to Egypt countless multitudes continually flowed together. But perhaps someone may say that the blessed Joseph went out from his father as a little child and therefore could not remember him. It is not so, dearest brethren. For he was a boy, but of sixteen years, and by no reasoning could he forget his parents. For neither had he so far forgotten them that, as soon as he saw his brothers, he did not recognize them. But someone says that he had not the leave or the power of sending to his own country.
Even if this seemed as it were plausible, yet after he was led out of prison and made lord over all the land of Egypt, throughout those seven years of fertility and those two which passed in the time of scarcity, before his brothers came down to him—throughout these nine years, in three hundred miles, without any doubt he could have sent to his father. But by a hidden judgment the Lord did not permit this to be done, to such a degree that not even then did he manifest himself to his brothers, when they had come together to buy grain; but rather, speaking most harshly to them and holding their brother in chains, he bade them return to their father with great sorrow. Attend still to yet another greater miracle.
See how the blessed Joseph, who knew that his father was enduring intolerable bitterness on his account, as though what he had already suffered were too little, still caused even Benjamin to be taken away, by which deed he surely knew that his father would suffer manifold grief. For I do not believe that all these things were done without the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. For God, whose judgments are for the most part hidden yet never unjust, who was unwilling to make known to the blessed Jacob that his son was alive, He also did not permit holy Joseph to announce his glory to his father; but rather, by still holding Simeon in chains and taking away Benjamin, he heaped up the anguish of his own father.
For these things, dearest brethren, if we faithfully attend to them, let us recognize that the Lord did them with great mercy. For from the beginning of the world God has exercised in the saints that which He fulfilled with great tenderness in the blessed Jacob. But diligently attend to why this was done. For although the servants and friends of God avoided capital crimes and did many good works, yet we do not believe that they were without slight sins, because He does not lie who said: 'For not even the infant is immune from sin, whose life upon the earth is of one day.' And the blessed John the Evangelist, who surely was not inferior in merits to holy Job, cried out and says: 'If we say:'
'we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us'; and that which is written elsewhere: 'The just man falleth seven times a day and riseth up.' Since, therefore, as has already been said, Jacob could not be without these slight sins, God, willing to consume his small sins in this holy fire of tribulation, fulfills in him that which He Himself said through the Holy Spirit: 'The furnace proveth the vessels of the potter, and the trial of tribulation just men'; and that: 'God scourgeth every son whom He loveth'; and that: 'Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.'
So that our God might present holy Jacob, as it were gold purified, to the future judgment, He first wiped away from him all the stains of sins, so that in him that fire which shall be the arbiter might find nothing to burn away. If we attend diligently, dearest brethren, to what we believe God to have done toward the blessed Jacob, we recognize that Joseph too exercised this toward his brothers; who surely was so holy that he could not hold them in hatred. Whence it is to be believed that he wearied them with tribulations for this reason: that he might provoke them to the confession of their crime and to the remedies of penance. Indeed, with great sorrow they said that they suffered those things deservedly, because they had sinned against their brother, seeing his anguish.
And because the blessed Joseph knew that the crime of parricide could not be forgiven his brothers without great penance, once and a second and a third time he boiled them down with a healing tribulation as with a spiritual fire, not that he might avenge himself, but that he might correct them. In short, before they confessed their sin and consumed the crime which they had committed by mutual chastisement among themselves, he neither gave himself to be recognized by them nor granted them the kiss of peace. But when he saw them humbly afflicted for the sin which they had committed against him, he kissed each one and wept, and bathing the necks of the trembling ones with the loving dew of his eyes, he washed away the hatred of his brothers with the tears of charity.
What, therefore, God did in blessed Jacob, and what Joseph practised toward his brothers, this too we ought to fulfill in those who have sinned against us: that we strive to hate not the persons themselves but their sins, and that we be willing, according to what the fault deserves, to correct them with the sternest chastisement in such a way that we may strive to love them in truth. If we do this, dearest brothers, that is fulfilled in us which is written: 'Bear one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ.' And finally, to sum up all that I have said in a brief word: let us forgive those who have sinned against us in the same way that we wish God to forgive us as often as we sin against Him. If we do this, we may securely say:
'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.' It would still delight us to speak something more with your charity concerning blessed Joseph; but for the sake of the poor who hasten to their work, it is better that we reserve it for the coming day. And therefore, turning to the Lord, let us implore His mercy, that He may deign always both to increase and to preserve the desire of hearing the word of God, which He, being appeased, has bestowed upon us — He who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. XXII. ON SAINT JOSEPH III. Concerning blessed Joseph, that which we reserved for your charity from yesterday's sermon, now, according to your custom, receive attentively with silence and quiet.
Blessed Joseph, most beloved brothers, before he governed the kingdom of Egypt with admirable wisdom, first governed himself. Though he was comely and beautiful of face, he did not turn the beauty of his countenance to another's injury, but preserved it to his own grace, judging himself the more beautiful for this: if he were shown more comely not by the loss of chastity but by the cultivation of modesty; and that the true comeliness is that which does not captivate the eyes of others nor wound frail minds. For the crime was his mistress's, who looked with evil intent, not blessed Joseph's, who did not wish to be looked upon with evil. Nor is there guilt in the fact that he was seen. It was not in the power of a slave that he should not be seen by his mistress; the husband ought to have guarded his wife's eyes. Yet let men too learn to guard against the eyes of women:
He who did not wish to be loved is loved. In short, Joseph was passionately loved, who despised the one who loved him; and Scripture well excused him, saying: 'The wife of his lord cast her eyes upon Joseph' — that is, he did not display himself nor catch her off her guard, but she cast her own nets and was caught in her own snare; she spread her traps and was bound in her own bonds. And she said to him: 'Lie with me.' The first weapons of the adulteress are those of the eyes, the second of words. But he who is not caught by the eyes can resist the words. He is excused for having entered; he is praised for having escaped; and the chastity of his soul did no less than the garments of his body.
He left behind, as though not his own, the things the adulteress held in her hands, and judged as alien the things that could be seized by the touch of an immodest woman. A great man indeed, who, though sold into slavery, yet knew no servile disposition: passionately loved, he did not love in return; entreated, he did not consent; seized, he fled. When he was accosted by his lord's wife, he could be held by his garment, but he could not be captured in mind. And not enduring even her words for long, he judged them a contagion, lest, if he lingered longer, the incitements of the adulteress's lust should pass to him through her hands; and so he went out from his garment. For he shook off the crime, and leaving behind the garments by which he was held, he fled stripped indeed, but not naked — he who was more covered by the garment of modesty. For no one is naked except him whom guilt has stripped bare.
For in the preceding accounts we have that Adam, after he forsook God's command by transgression and contracted the more grievous burning of sin, was naked; whence he himself says: 'I heard Thy voice in paradise and I was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself.' For he perceived himself naked because he had lost the ornament of the divine protection, and therefore he hid himself — that is, because he no longer had the garment of faith, which by transgressing he had assuredly laid aside. You see a great matter. That man was naked who had not lost his tunic; this man was not naked who stripped himself of the garments which he left in the adulteress's hands. Of Adam Scripture asserts that he was naked; of this man it did not say that he was naked.
And therefore this man rather stripped himself of those garments than was stripped bare, for he preserved the incorrupt garments of the virtues, putting off the old man with his deeds, that he might put on the new man, who according to the image of his Creator is preserved unto the knowledge of things. But that other one remained naked, who could not clothe himself again. Stripped by a virtue of singular privilege, he thereafter received a tunic of skins, because a sinner could not have the spiritual one. Now when Joseph was accused, he was unwilling to say that she was culpable in all her doings, because a just man knows not how to accuse; and therefore the immodest woman did this with impunity. Her, then, I would call truly stripped, even while holding Joseph's human cloak — she who had lost all the ornaments of modesty and even of the soul's chastity.
That man I would call sufficiently adorned and sufficiently clothed, whose voice was not heard and whose innocence spoke. So Susanna afterward, while she was silent in the judgment, spoke better by an oracle, and therefore merited the prophet's defense — she who sought not the aid of her own voice. More blessed, then, I would call him, when he was cast into prison, who endured a martyrdom for the sake of chastity. For the gift of chastity is good even when it is guarded without danger; but where it is defended even at the peril of life, there it is more fully crowned. His cause unheard, as though guilty of a crime, Joseph is cast into prison; but the Lord did not forsake him even in prison. It is no disgrace to the innocent when they are assailed by false accusations, when justice is oppressed and they are handed over to prison.
The Lord visits His own even in prison, and therefore there is greater peril there. But what wonder if Christ should visit those placed in prison, He who recorded that He Himself was shut up in prison in His own people, as you have it written: 'I was in prison and you did not come to Me'? Whither does the divine mercy not penetrate? Joseph found grace of such a kind that he who had been shut up in prison should himself rather guard the bars of the prison. For in him was prefigured that which was afterward fulfilled in our Lord and Savior. For just as Joseph, through the plotting or accusation of his mistress, is cast into prison, so Christ, through the plotting or accusation of the synagogue, is crucified and deigned to descend, as it were into prison, to the lower regions. In short, behold the likeness.
Of Joseph it is written that he was free in the prison and had received into his power those who were held in the prison. But of our Lord and Savior what is written? 'They have laid me,' He says, 'in the lower pit, in dark places and in the shadow of death. I have become as a man without help, free among the dead.' For this was more truly fulfilled in Christ, who not only held the bound in prison under His power, but also mightily and happily called back from the very prison of hell the spoil which the devil had seized. 'Ascending on high, He led captivity captive' — that is, those whom the devil had taken for death, He received unto life.
Whence, dearest brothers, let us too, after the example of blessed Joseph, hasten with all our might, with God's help, to flee hostile and suspect familiarity, that we may be able to preserve the brightness of chastity, according to that which the Apostle says: 'Flee fornication.' Against other sins one must fight, but that chastity may be guarded, one must flee. Let us therefore imitate blessed Joseph in perfect love and in the keeping of chastity, that we may not wish to return evil for evil even to our enemies, and that we may so deserve to guard the ornaments of chastity in this world that we may be freed from eternal reproach, by the grant of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. B. Various Sermons. XXIII.
TO THE MONKS I. To this place, dearest ones, we have come together not for rest, not for security, but for battle, for combat; hither we have advanced for the contest; we have ascended to wage wars against the vices. For our vices are our enemies, concerning which Scripture pronounces, saying: 'Beware lest you ever make a covenant with them.' Necessary for us, brothers, is ever-watchful care, unwearied guard, because this conflict is without end, this foe is without peace. By this foe you can be conquered; you cannot be received into friendship. And therefore this battle which we have undertaken is hard enough and dangerous enough, because it is waged within the man and is not ended except together with the man himself.
For this reason, therefore, we have betaken ourselves to these tranquil retreats and spiritual camps, that daily we may contend against our passions in unwearied encounter; that daily we may subject our own wills, as handmaids, to our elders; that we may cut off the wickednesses of the heart and sheathe the sword of the tongue; that we may not only not inflict injuries on one another, but not even feel those inflicted by others. For these things especially pertain to our profession: to seek no consolation in this life, no honor, to shun the solaces of present things and to prepare the mind for the promised rewards of eternal recompense, to rejoice in subjection and self-abasement, and to seek poverty with zeal, and to root out of our hearts not only possessions but our very self-wills.
For to have nothing of one's own is at times demanded by necessity, but to covet nothing is a matter of virtue. This too we ought to know: that we who have resolved to lead our life among one another are either with great fruit or with great peril, whether we are diligent or even negligent. Hence happy is that soul which, while it conducts itself well in the community, is the joy of many, and by which very many are either edified or enlightened. For good things, while they are shared with many, are increased. To this also looks the saying of that wisest man, which says: 'My son, if thou be wise, thou shalt be so for thyself and for thy neighbors.'
And so, if anyone placed in the community offers humility or patience to those who follow him, as much good as he furnishes to his neighbors from himself, so much does he turn the gains of others to his own profit. But if, on the contrary, through disobedience or pride — which thing, and what is worse, is wont to be more easily found — he draws others to an example of evil or of iniquity, as many as he has destroyed, from so many does he incur the peril of damnation; to as many as he was a detriment, from so many does he contract loss; and the sin which once departed from him will flow back to him manifold. Wherefore, just as he is greatly to be admired and praised whose good course is the advancement of many, so that man is not undeservedly to be mourned whose life is the ruin of many.
Therefore, dearest brothers, let us strive, set in the midst, to do those things which pertain to edification, lest our life harm the virtues of others, and lest our lukewarmness weaken the fervor of others, and lest our anger violate the patience of others, lest our pride corrupt the humility of others, lest our foulness contaminate the beauty of others, lest we extinguish the burning lamps of others if we cannot kindle our own. And indeed those foolish virgins, however foolish they were, did not so much desire to extinguish the lamps of others as to kindle their own.
And therefore, after the likeness of these, if any of us lacks the most fruitful grace of humility, and if the fire of faith is lacking, and the flame of fervor, and the oil of charity, and the light of discretion, let him come to those whom he perceives to abound the more, and let him transfuse the grace into himself not by taking it from his neighbors but by imitating them, and let him seize upon the goods of another's possession not only without loss but even with profit to that possession. For a great fire once kindled never feels the loss of its light, nor does the multitude of those beholding it diminish the light of the sun. To as many as behold it, it lends its gifts, and yet itself always remains whole.
Blessed by God is that soul whose humility confounds another's pride, whose patience extinguishes a neighbor's wrath, whose obedience silently rebukes another's sloth, whose fervor rouses up the inertia of another's lukewarmness, who by the grace of consolation and edification enlightens the eye of a neighbor's heart when it is troubled through anger. Better is such a one than he who does not lift up with his solace, with hand extended, a brother somewhat saddened by another, but rather, as one leaning against a wall who totters, helps him toward ruin by the shove of evil words; and one who has been wholesomely corrected for the sake of discipline he so incites by sinister counsels that he dashes him down, so arms him that he destroys him.
And so, brothers, he for whom his own evils do not suffice acts in such a way as to incur even the judgment of another's perdition. Let us be certain, dearest ones, that unless we take heed, unless we daily cut back and prune our passions, we shall be made much worse than we were while we lived in this world, so that our last state becomes worse than the first. And indeed, dearest ones, so long as we were soldiering in those deeds and affairs which pertain to the world, in which we now blush, the adversary then did not oppose us; nay, he even consented, because about our wretched and lost life he found nothing in which to exercise his envy.
Our works delighted him; our crimes and sins were of themselves sufficient for him. For who would undertake war against his own soldier, and who would wish to assail his own subject? But beyond all misery was the life of that man whom the enemy disdained to harm. But now, after we have renounced his pleasures, he has seen his own worshipers return to the service of their former Maker; he has seen in us, in a manner, his idols changed into a temple of God; and gnashing his teeth and like a roaring lion, the ever-watchful ambusher explores every avenue of harm — concerning which lion the Apostle testifies: 'Be watchful, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour.'
Blessed are those whom this lion judges to be sought out and, indeed, tracked by the footprints of the virtues and the scent of their merits. For none are sought out by him except the good, since the evil offer themselves of their own accord. After those he runs violently; upon these he stumbles even carelessly. Blessed, therefore, are those whom this lion is compelled by envy to seek and is not permitted by malice to find. Terribly indeed it sounds in our ears when we have heard: 'as a roaring lion.' But because it is said 'his food is choice,' what he seeks is a matter of election; what he roars is a matter of desperation, as we read in another place: 'He gnashes with his teeth and pines away.' Thus the divine discourse speaks, so that consolation is joined to terror. It is the mark of a bloodthirsty one that he gnashes, but of a conquered one that he pines away.
And amid these things, how great are those things which have been prepared by God for man, the enemy's spite betrays. These things, therefore, dearest ones, considering, and sweating in this contest, let us remember that we are both disciples and sons of our glorious and illustrious father. Let each of us seize what he can of the goods of our parent who died intestate. Let this one take up from the inheritance the silken robe of faith, the precious variety of deeds; let this one seize the talent of meekness and simplicity; let that one claim for himself the ornament of the breast, the necklace of benevolence and wisdom; let this one seize the pearl of compunction and the treasure of chastity. For although that most wealthy friend of God carried away with him whole whatever he had, yet he left us all of it, if we are willing.
Let us therefore so act, following his good things, that he who is to be raised up unto eternal glory and rendered back at the end of the ages may now already rise again in the Church through merits revived in his sons. XXIV. TO THE MONKS II. That I deliver some sort of sermon, God supplying it and in a manner charitably commanding it, and your brotherhood also, I do this not out of any presumption, but out of true and undivided charity.
And although, God being propitious, you are so perfect that you have very little need of our admonition, yet, at the bidding of charity, which knows not how to fear, we presume — with true humility and perfect charity — to suggest and admonish even that which we know you fulfill most excellently; yet not without shame, since we know ourselves to be as yet unworthy disciples and seem to be stirring up masters to a holy work. Though we are lukewarm, we are compelled to admonish the fervent; though we are sinners, we reprove the just; though we are unskilled, we instruct the learned; though we are tossed by excessive waves in the sea of this world, we bring words of preaching to those who have already happily reached the harbor.