Isaac of Stella, Sermons

to the angels of God, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

SERMON XII. ON THE SAME THIRD SUNDAY

When Jesus had come down from the mountain, and so on (Matt. 8:1). You ought to remember, brethren, from this passage, that other one where the Lord Jesus, seeing the crowds, went up into the mountain; so that, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, you may always ascend in the spirit: as the blessed Apostle exhorts: If you live in the spirit, walk also in the spirit (Gal. 5:25). For order demands this, reason requires it, and we are almost nowhere silent about it: that he who wishes to be truly spiritual should first be so in life, in conduct, in virtues, so that he may at some time be so in meditation, in understanding, in teaching; he should be so in affection before he is so in reason. Therefore he says: If you live in the spirit, walk also in the spirit. Into the mountain, then, the disciples follow, eager, ready, fervent in spirit; and when He comes down from it, the heavy crowd too waits for Him. My Lord Jesus, the Saviour of all, so becomes all things to all, that He is found everywhere humbler than the humble, higher than the exalted; so stooping as to set free the soul taken in adultery and accused by demons, writing with His finger on the ground, He Himself formed by the finger of God, earth from earth, for the sake of earth (John 8:6); so raising Himself as to ascend even above the Cherubim, and to fly twice upon the wings of the winds, passing beyond, that is, the virtues of all the just and the contemplations of the angels. For who in the clouds shall be equal to the Lord, shall be like to God among the sons of God? Him, then, I understand both as the valley into which He descends and the plain over which He walks with the crowd, and as the mountain into which He ascends, sometimes with all the disciples, sometimes with a few, sometimes alone, to pray to the Father. He, in short, being wholly what God is, and remaining wholly what man is, cannot ascend above Himself, lest He exceed God, nor ought He to descend below Himself, lest He become a beast.

He, then, is the holy and sublime ladder which the sleeping pilgrim saw (for one who dwelt there, and was awake, would perhaps not have seen it at all), set up from earth to God, or reaching down from God to earth: when He wills, He ascends by Himself into Himself, where now a few, now more, now none of men can follow with Him; but when He wills, He holds Himself back to the common crowd, so as to speak what it can take in. Sometimes He eats with publicans and sinners, so that He is called a glutton and a wine-drinker (Matt. 11:19). Sometimes too He touches the sick, that He may heal them, and not only say: I will: be made clean. Blessed, dearest brethren, is the soul which can follow the Lord Jesus in all things, running after the odour of His ointments wherever He goes: ascending upwards by the leisure of contemplation, being still and seeing that He is God; descending downwards by the office of charity, following Him to the subjection of service, to the love of poverty, to the endurance of hunger and thirst, of weariness, of toil, of weeping, of prayer, of compassion, and lastly of passion: Who came to obey even unto death, and to minister, not to be ministered to; and to give, not gold, not

silver, but counsel and help to many, and his soul for many. O blessed soul of Paul! to whom, as he followed Jesus in all things, it was given to say: Whether we are beside ourselves, it is for God; whether we are sober, it is for you (2 Cor. 5:13): for whom to be with Christ was much better by far (for it is good to be there), yet out of the charity of brotherhood he did not refuse to remain in the prison of the flesh.

Let this, then, be the form of your life, brethren; this is the true discipline of a holy way of life: in thought and longing to dwell with Christ in that eternal homeland; in this toilsome pilgrimage to refuse no office of charity for Christ; following the Lord Christ upward to the Father, to be refined, simplified and made one in the leisure of meditation; following Christ downward to the brother, to be stretched out in action, divided in many ways, made all things to all; to hold nothing cheap of which Christ is the cause, to hold nothing dear that is not for Christ; to thirst for one thing, to be free for one (where Christ is one), to wish to serve all (where Christ is manifold). Hear how rightly he divided himself who rightly offered himself whole: My soul has thirsted for Thee. How manifoldly my flesh for Thee (Ps. 62:2). The soul, he says, uniformly, the flesh manifoldly; the soul uniformly towards the one, the flesh manifoldly, the one. That is, many things for the sake of one. The soul upward, the flesh downward, so that the whole man may follow the whole Christ, and with the whole may serve the whole. For the whole Christ is God and man; the whole man is rational soul and flesh. Let the soul by the contemplation of truth visit its own kind above itself; let the flesh by the office of charity visit its own kind beside itself; and neither will sin in itself. Visiting, says Scripture, your own kind, you will not sin (Job 5:24).

If, then, the flesh sees its own kind also below itself through infirmity, let it not shrink back, let it not flee from service; and let it not recoil from the touch of compassion. For the soul will never better deserve to see its own kind above itself through truth than if the flesh bends itself through charity to its own kind below itself. Therefore the divine Wisdom, at once medicine and teaching, chose to cure the leper by touch, which He could have done by a word alone, so that you may bestow a benefit not in the easiest way you can but in the most effective; that you may fulfil the work of compassion, shrink from nothing, and always look to Him for whose sake you do it. For He is always beautiful, always clean, always honourable, always worthy in every person, place and work. I will, He says, be made clean. What shall we say, brethren, of those who are more able than willing to do good, when every day we hear your complaints and groans and sighs, that neither upward nor downward, neither towards the father nor towards the brother, neither towards the one nor towards the many, can you do as much as you wish? If you will, he says, you can make me clean. Truly, dearly beloved, the Almighty can do all things. He to whom power is subject, when He wills; but to will when He is able is not always together with it. For He can do many things that He does not will; yet He can do nothing unwillingly. Therefore no one who confesses leprosy doubts His power: but because He does not will all that He can, he who can do all things, whatever he wills, entreats the will and adores the power. To God, then, apart

the reckoning of will and of power is separate. Yet as for us: while He wills to heal the leper because He is able, saying I will, He whom the leper confesses to be able — behold, Be made clean — instructs us, that we may never grow sluggish in the good that we can do: but, as the Apostle says, while we have time, let us do good to all, not failing, for in its own time we shall reap (Gal. 6:9–10). For there is a time for sowing and a time for reaping. Do good, therefore, brother, while you can, what you can, to whomever you can. For the night will come when you will be able neither for yourself nor for another, even if you wish. If here, while it is day for us, when you are able — it is very wretched not to be able when you wish, but it is malicious not to wish when you are able. And therefore, and deservedly, power will be taken from the one when he does not will, so that at some time he may neither be able nor will, or may will in vain when he is not able: and it will be given to the other, so that power may be at hand when he wills: when God will bring to completion in us full power in return for good will, He who now has worked the willing according to His own will: who first gives by grace alone what afterwards He justly rewards. So He who could easily have done it by a word alone, in curing by touch, taught affection — the Wisdom and Power of God, doing and teaching, driving out leprosy and ignorance, Jesus Christ: who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God. Amen

SERMON XIII. ON THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY I.

When Jesus went up into the boat, His disciples followed Him (Matt. 8:23). Now we read, brethren, of the Lord Jesus going up, and now of Him coming down; and attending to the whole of Him, we wonder where He can go up, who is God most high, or where He can go down, the humblest of men. Above God He cannot go, below man He ought not: for the one is impossible, the other unworthy. And if this is understood materially, only and wholly of goods, it is a wonder where this man goes or whence He returns, who is always everywhere, and from whom nothing is ever absent. Where, then, He goes, He already is; and whence He returns, He is by no means lacking. But these things belong to majesty and to the divine nature: let us rather seek what belongs to humanity and grace. The boat, then, signifies the Church, which still sails this great and wide sea of the world with its hands. But how is it that He did not rather go down into it than go up? For He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7): in which, or through which, He entered into the Church, and came down into it, or upon it, as the head upon the body. Yet there are two things by which the administration and office of every congregation and household, and of a private house too, is ordered: namely subjection and prelacy. But it is by no means fitting that anyone should be over others who has not learned to be under, or command who has not obeyed. So that sublime Majesty, whose nature it is to be before all things, whose property it is to command all things, from whom is all order and all power, bending Himself down to take the nature of man and to bear his office, paid a debt not owed by Himself; what He did not seize, He paid back: thus in all things He complied with order, so that in the works which He did as wonders, nothing more wonderful for a miracle, nothing

clearer for instruction, than His own holy way of life, by which He lived as a man among men. Hence it is that to the venerable Baptist, who was afraid and cried out: I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? He answered: Let it be so now (Matt. 3:14–15), that is, wait still, do not disturb the order: for thus, that is, following order and beginning from humility, it becomes us to fulfil all justice.

For in these degrees which we spoke of above, the justice of every office is held, exercised and fulfilled: that is, in subjection and in prelacy. He goes first in order and obeys in subjection, and never comes to prelacy by his own presumption, but by the ordered calling of another. For the blessed Apostle says: No one takes the honour to himself, but he who is called by God, as Aaron was (Heb. 5:4). Hence the Lord Jesus too, subject with the people in the first degree of office, came among the people to baptism, and did not will to go up to the second, that is the office of prelacy, by taking it upon Himself, but [came to it] chosen and appointed by God: as the blessed Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, affirms, the Father bearing witness to Him, and advancing Him, and saying: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:17), at the time and in the office of subjection. Hear Him from now on, who has learned to obey. Let Him who until now has kept silence speak from now on. For it becomes him to speak who knows how to keep silence. Let Him be heard as Teacher who has heard what He is to teach. He is worthy to be over others who did not disdain to be under. Let Him at last hear, Friend, go up higher (Luke 14:10), who for thirty years reclined in the lowest place. This for the words that Jesus is said to have gone up into the boat. There follows:

His disciples followed Him. Which of the disciples did not follow this pattern of the master? who took the honour to himself? who made himself an apostle, who an evangelist? Who preached, unless he was sent? He gave some, it says, as apostles, others as evangelists, etc. (Eph. 4:11.) Hence it is that they hear: You do not know what you are asking (Matt. 20:22). The disciples follow, brethren, even today, reclining below until they are called higher: for those who thrust themselves forward and take the honour to themselves are not His disciples, nor do they follow Him; nor are they sent by Him, but come before Him, who, driven by ambition, forestall their own calling, and for that reason they have been named by Him thieves and robbers. What, I ask, is more senseless for a man to seek, or presume, or strive after, than that one should be set over all, a single man over many? What else did the foolish angel say, saying in his heart: I will ascend above the height of the clouds, and above the stars of heaven, that is, the angels his equals, I will set my throne? (Isa. 14:13–14.) The mind that strives after this, then, is surely either proud or mad. For if in his own eyes he judges himself wiser and worthier than the rest, he is proud, and has blinded himself by himself. For how will he not be blind who carries himself swollen and puffed up in his own eyes? For pride always blinds the mind where it is born, as a speck blinds the eye. Hence, then, it is that no proud man believes himself proud, nor can he recognize himself, since to see

himself he is wholly unable. But if, believing himself less than fit, he nonetheless strives after it, is he not plainly mad? There follows:

And there arose a great storm in the sea. The contrary wind is the north wind, a burning wind, from which all evil is spread abroad: rebuking which, she who had foreseen its fury says: Arise, north wind, come. South wind, and blow through my garden, that its spices may flow (Song 4:16). The contrary wind, therefore, is the devil, and Satan who troubles the depth of the sea, that is, stirs up the children of this world and with repeated thrusts of disturbance threatens the Church with shipwreck, so that in his strength he troubles even the mountains, because of the tribulations which have come upon them exceedingly. But where, I ask, is that strength which they followed into the ship, of which they said in their confidence: We will not fear while the earth is troubled, and the mountains are carried into the heart of the sea? (Ps. 45:3.) See, now their waters have roared and been troubled, that is, the waters of the mountains of the sea. And certainly the mountains of the Church, the mountains of the boat, have been troubled in the strength and rage of the storm. Why are they troubled? why do they fear? Surely because their strength and security sleeps. How would fear not reign where fortitude sleeps? So let the wind be awake while Christ sleeps. Let the rage of the sea be awake while faith in Christ sleeps. Let fear, finally, be awake while the power of Christ sleeps, so that at last the timid, and those of small and drowsy faith, may take refuge with Him in whom they ought to have kept their strength, so as not to fear, and may say: God is our refuge and strength, a helper in the tribulations which have come upon us exceedingly (ibid. 45:2). Save us, You who are awake, by whose sleeping we perish. The first diligence of the disciples would have been not to have let the master fall asleep; the second, at least to wake Him when asleep. The one is strength, this a refuge; the one belongs to fervour, the other to fear. Zeal keeps Him awake; necessity wakes Him when asleep. Yet happy the necessity that drives to virtue! For the first virtue is fortitude, so that one does not fear: the second is to seek counsel and help, so that one does not perish.

So, brethren, whenever persecution rages against us, let us take refuge in Christ after the example of the holy apostles. Let us awaken the faith of Christ in ourselves, and the memory of His passion, as of His sleep: for perhaps this sleep, not unfittingly, signifies that too. We who are weak and timid in ourselves, or wrongly bold: in Him we find an example of patience, from Him we shall receive the strength of endurance, we shall learn the pattern of constancy, without whom we shall never be able to do anything, and in whom we shall be able to do all things, as the blessed Apostle says: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13). His eyelids question us; He closes His eyes, the sea rages, all things are savage and hard. That we may not be broken, He opens His eyes, all things are calm, the voyage prosperous; that we may not be lifted up, all things are secure, peace everywhere; that we may not grow slothful, in adversity let us hope for prosperity, in prosperity let us dread adversity. For all things are changed and have their turn. It belongs to the wise man, therefore, in