Isaac of Stella, Sermons

groaned and wept. So, by the spirit of fortitude, He loved justice, so that for its sake, even unto death, He spared no one by keeping silent, as He often repeats: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, etc. (Matt. 23). So, by the spirit of counsel, He was merciful, so that He did not spare even Himself, but, than which there is no greater charity, gave His life as a redemption for many. So, by the spirit of understanding, He was clean of heart, so that with His holy soul He beheld God, to Whom it was united, more excellently than any creature. By the spirit of wisdom He was so peaceable that in Himself He made all at peace with God; and though He was by nature the only-begotten Son, by this union of adherence He became the firstborn among many brethren. Here, then, here, my brethren, let Christ be your one master; here too is the book written for you within and without: read Him in this, learn Him from Himself; from Himself as exemplar transcribe Him as a pattern into your hearts within and your bodies without: how He lived, offer to others to be read in your own life. For which reason it is said: Glorify and bear God in your body (1 Cor. 6). May He deign to grant this to us all. Amen.

SERMON IX. ON THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE OCTAVE OF THE EPIPHANY, I.

A wedding took place in Cana of Galilee, etc. (John 2:1). As I think about this wedding, brethren, I confess that the inner mystery delights me more than the outer miracle, great as it is. For the one builds up faith, the other builds upon it. The one is a sign for unbelievers, the other a sacrament for believers. Yet both are useful, both great, both divine. The book of Wisdom is written within and without, so that those going in and going out may find pasture. Without is the history, within the tropology. The first book of Wisdom is written wholly within; blessed in it are those to whom it is given to see and read, where the Father wrote all things at once and once for all from eternity, whence all things are as it were transcribed which can be read in the second book, that is, in the rational mind. The first book, then, is the very Word of God, Wisdom itself; the second is the created mind, and it too is written wholly within. There are all things together, here the likeness of all things; for in this is the image of that. And just as in every body the form of every body lies hidden, and if there is one who knows how to reveal it, he easily finds it: so in the rational mind, made to the image of the whole of wisdom, the form of all wisdom is contained, so that it would have no need to learn from without, were it not darkened within. Content with these two books, the holy angels, who have not grown old so that their eyes grow dim, complete their day in the contemplation of themselves and of God, as it were evening and morning. There follows, however, a third book, namely the bodily and visible creation, it too written within and without; so that through the things that are made, being understood, the things that Wisdom made may be beheld: an obscure book, which does not dazzle darkened eyes with excessive brightness, as when they look at the sun, and they need a lamp. Nevertheless, since, as that old sinner, blind within, laments, his iniquities have laid hold of him, so that he could not see God within with the eyes of understanding, nor with the eye of the intellect his own

but his own mind; and the eye of reason was troubled by the fury of concupiscence, so that, just as he could discern nothing within, so he could discern little without: a fourth book was written by Wisdom through mercy, that is, by the finger of God, for the ear. Hence it was said to the blind man by the Seer: Who is blind, but my servant Israel? (Isa. 42:19) You who cannot see, except to covet: at least hear from another, without, what you ought to have seen within. The Lord your God is one God (Exod. 20). And further, since the blind man grew deaf even to this trumpet, so that, despising the one true God, he went whoring after many false demons, following blind and deaf like an ox to the sacrifice; and, as Wisdom herself reproaches, Moses gave you the law, and none of you keeps the law (John 7:19): a fifth book was written for him, to be handled by the hand, and Wisdom herself was made palpable, so that in all things Wisdom might be justified by her children, and might overcome when she is judged. For the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. That which we have heard, says the Apostle, and have seen, and our hands have handled, of the word of life, etc. (1 John 1:1). What more ought He to have done, and did not do? The very true Word made flesh, my brethren, the Lord Jesus Himself, Christ Himself our one master, becomes also a book for us. He bore manhood itself so that He might teach how it was to be borne. That holy Word itself, which the blessed eyes of the apostles saw in the flesh and their hands handled, is with us today, visible in the letter, tangible in the sacrament. For though He has withdrawn in the flesh, yet the letter has remained. For so that what the Seer foretold might be fulfilled: Your eyes shall see your teacher, and I will not let your teacher fly away from you any more (Isa. 30:20), He kindly granted us a sixth book, that is, the holy Gospel, so that the text of the holy Gospel might be as it were the present body of the visible Word.

Let us see, then, what in this reading of the sixth book the Word of God has spoken to us outwardly through this outward work of miracles; for the very work of the Word is a word. Let us see Him in His work, as in His body; for the work itself is a kind of veil. There are, then, as occurs to me at present, three distinct kinds of marriage. The first outer, the second inner, the third higher. The first without, the second within, the third innermost. The first between human beings, the second in human beings, the third above human beings. The first between flesh and flesh, the second between flesh and spirit, the third between spirit and God. The first makes one out of diverse things, so that they are now not two, He says, but one flesh (Matt. 19:6). The second makes one, more so, out of contraries; for the rational soul and the flesh are of contrary natures, yet one person. The third makes one, most of all, out of things incomparable; for he who cleaves to God is one spirit. In the first, flesh cleaving to flesh is made one flesh; in the second, flesh cleaving to spirit, or spirit to flesh, is made neither one flesh nor one spirit, but one man; in the third, the spirit cleaving to God is made one with Him, and what is

He Himself is. Hence the Son speaks thus to the Father for His brethren: I will, Father, that, as I and Thou are one, so these also may be one with us (John 17). O One before all things, One above all things, One after all things, One from Which are all things, One for the sake of Which are all things! Truly one, where two in one flesh are no longer two, but one flesh; more one, where two in one man are no longer two, but one person; most of all one, where the spirit cleaving to Him in God is no longer two, but one. The first one, then, begets unto being, the second specifies in being, the third perpetuates and glorifies that very being. In the first a man is begun, in the second he is formed, in the third he is consummated. For in the first he comes to be, in the second he subsists, towards the third he tends by nature; for the sake of which he comes to be in the first, and subsists in the second. From human beings man comes to be for God. But so that he might at some time arrive through grace where he always tends by nature, a certain mystical marriage was made between the second and the third: far removed from the first, namely that of the Word and the flesh, of Christ and the Church. God was far from the soul, yet without God it could not be well with it, nor could it be lawfully made fruitful. Our sins, says the prophet, have kept good, that is God, from us, and have divided between us and God, as between a wife and her husband (Jer. 5:25). Hence the adulterer and oppressor also crept in, from whom she conceived sorrow and brought forth iniquity. There was found, therefore, not by us but by God for us, one who might lay his hand upon both; joining both in Himself, shutting out the third, narrowing the bed, so that the adulterer falls out; and shortening the cloak, so that it cannot cover two. He therefore took away the middle wall of sin, through which the adulterer had crept in, and made both one; reconciling in Himself the wife to the husband, man to God: and taking the old enmities out of the way, He fastened them to the cross.

This, dearly beloved, is the sacrament of the Mediator, Who, so that He might fittingly intercede, subsists of both; so that He might reconcile sufficiently, that is, the whole to the whole, He brought the whole of what is God's; He assumed the whole of what is man's, so that He might fulfil faithfully, He mixed in nothing of a third. For there is nothing but God and man, but this whole. Through Him alone, then, the wife who, sent away by her husband, has played the harlot with many lovers, has access, and leave beyond the law, by grace, to return to her husband. As was declared beforehand long ago through the prophet: But you, He says, have played the harlot with many lovers; and yet return to Me, says the Lord (Jer. 3:1). This is the marriage we have called mystical, to be concluded after the second and the third, and now to be placed between the second and the third, so that the first is of flesh and flesh, the second of spirit and flesh, the third of the Word and man, the fourth of God and the mind. The first historical, the second moral, the third allegorical, the fourth anagogical. Through the first Jesus neither came nor passed over, since He was neither begotten through it nor begetting through it; but, being invited, He came to it, consecrating it by His presence.

and defending it by a wondrous power against the slanderers of marriage: above all He signified mystically the marriages in which He was, and for whose sake He had come: for He was already in the second and the third, in flesh and soul and Word, three substances, two natures, one person, God and man. For the fourth He had come: and this He already had in Himself more excellently than all men. For no soul obeyed God more humbly than that holy soul, submitted itself more fully, cleaved more firmly. Man in his duality was divided, and without God; God in His Trinity was threefold, and without man; since there, there was nothing but duality, there was none to settle the duel; since here there was the Trinity alone, there was none to trouble the peace. There, in the Trinity, a fourth is not admitted, lest the peace be troubled; here, in our duality, a third is not found, so that the duel might be settled. There none is sent away from the Trinity, lest through duality a duel be begun; here, unless a third intercedes, the duel will not be ended. There was need, my brethren, as you see, of great counsel, whereby heaven should not lose the glory of its peace, and wretched earth should at last find peace. So there was sent, yet not sent away, the angel of great counsel and of strong help, of the three the third in the Trinity, the Son, at Whose saving birth heavenly things were not troubled, but earthly things were called to peace: a multitude of thousands of angels sings hymns, saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace (Luke 2:14). O great and admirable counsel, that in God the eternal Trinity is not diminished, and in man a new trinity arises, through which one ascends from a natural and intestine war to an untried and imperturbable peace! O great and truly divine counsel, which so tempered all things that God, coming into man, made a necessary trinity, and man, passing into God, did not make a superfluous quaternity! It is so, assuredly, as we have said, because the Son of God and son of man subsists as one person in three substances and two natures: in the eternal divine Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God. In the new trinity of man, flesh, soul, Word, one man. There three persons, one substance: here three substances, one person. There a natural unity, a personal diversity. There the three whole persons are coeternal and coequal; here the three whole substances are diverse and unequal. There, in sum, nothing greater and less: here, ascending and descending by degrees, one thing greater and less than another; so that you also may ascend by degrees always from the lesser to the greater, from the flesh to the Spirit, from the spirit to God; from the second marriage, into which you came through the first, through the mediating third, and as by stairs between, you may ascend to the fourth. From Adam, who was begotten carnally through concupiscence, to Christ, Who regenerates spiritually through grace; and through Him to the Father, Who happily makes the regenerate His heir as a son; from oldness through newness to eternity. From vanity through truth to virtue, from straying through the Way to Life. You must remember, dearly beloved, that this marriage, to which you have been invited, takes place in the zeal of passing over