Isaac of Stella, Sermons

praiseworthy exceedingly in the city of our God (Ps. 47:2). For God is praiseworthy and lovable by reason of His goodness, as much as He is terrible by reason of His greatness and severity. He who considers severity without goodness despairs; he who considers goodness without severity sins, on the contrary, by presumption. Therefore, as the Apostle says, consider the goodness and the severity of God: severity towards those who perish, goodness towards you, if you remain in goodness, otherwise you too will be cut off (Rom. 11:22). To your exercise, brethren, who ought to gather more from little, and to draw out great things from what is touched on summarily or in passing, we leave it to compare the graces of the spirits with the number and order of the planets; so that, as one ascends by degrees from the moon to Saturn, so you, beginning from the spirit of fear, which has much likeness to the moon itself, which by nature is both weak and cold, presides over the night, rules the humours and borrows its light from another, may ascend by comparison right up to the spirit of wisdom, which is in old men and makes them mature, grave and next to heaven. He Himself will be present, the spirit of understanding, that you may not stray from the truth, and of counsel, that you may not be called back elsewhere by vanity, and of fortitude, that you may not be wearied by your own weakness; which may He deign to grant, Who with the Father and the Son, from the Father and the Son, in the Father and the Son, is the one living and true almighty God, for all ages of ages. Amen.

SERMON XLVI. ON THE NATIVITY OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST I.

Among those born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). That testimony of our Lord and Saviour, most beloved, concerning His baptist John, makes us so certain of the excellence of his glory that we do not doubt he is inferior to none, even if not, as some think, superior to all; to none, indeed, according to this attestation of the Truth, is he second in the kingdom of God; nor yet, as far as this authority goes, is he first of all. If he has no greater, who would dare to deny, though he would not presume to affirm either, that he has not even an equal? For as to some who, clinging to the word I quoted, Has risen, understand it only of the saints before him, that none had been greater, not of those to come; we believe this as frivolous as it is novel. For none of the saints so expounded it, nor has the Church of Christ heard it until now. Yet they fortify themselves with blessed Ambrose (in a hymn), who sang thus in his praise: «Greater than the prophets, and less than the angels.» O would that he had added, only! Yet he did not say than the apostles, but than the angels. But not than the apostles either, they say, but simply greater than the prophets, and simply less than the angels. The example, then, does nothing to settle the dispute over the letter. With very great praise, then, is he exalted who is placed beneath none among those born of women. For while he is passing his life in this corruptible body, which weighs down the soul already made light by heavenly longing and in a manner eager to fly away; where the earthly dwelling draws the mind from the one thing that is necessary to the many that trouble it, which

entice, and entice by the very means by which they trouble, it weighs down: even the greatest of mortals is now less than the least of the angels. Hence also it is said of this same John: He who is less in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. But when, from the bodily mass and the blind prison of the flesh, the soul, bright and free, shall escape to the airs above, we would hardly deny that very many of the saints fly past many thousands of angels. Yet blessed Ambrose, whom they set against us, expounds the saying, He who is less in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he, in our favour, thus: «He who is less, that is, in his own eyes, that is, humbler, in the kingdom of heaven, that is, in the present Church, is greater, in the same sense, than John.» But if John is the humblest of all, he is surely also the most exalted of all. For everyone who humbles himself shall be exalted: and as much as he humbles himself, so much will he be exalted. Least, then, of all, he is greatest of all; and by as much as anyone is greater among the least, by so much is he less than the greatest. Moreover this nativity is honoured more than the other birthdays of the saints because it is recognized to be sacramental and figurative. For as by preaching, and baptizing, and the conduct of his life, and the manner of his death and the miracle of his birth, the voice sang before the Word, the forerunner ran before the Lord, the prophet proclaimed Him Who was to come, more than a prophet he pointed Him out present, the angel designated Him Whom he had announced as good news, and not only to the living in the world, but also to the dead in the underworld.

Born, then, against nature, he prefigured Him Who was to be born above nature. The one against the custom of nature; the other above the due of nature; the one wonderfully, the other uniquely. Of the one there had been a rare example before, of the other none at all. The barrenness of Elizabeth figured the virginity of Mary. On one side barrenness with child; on the other virginity fruitful. An old woman brought forth one, for the sake of the One Whom a virgin bore. The father of John was aged beyond his years; the father of Christ, at any age, none. For as the silence of Scripture about the genealogy of Melchisedech foreshadows the ineffability of the generation of Christ (Gen. 14; Heb. 5), so also the old age of Zachary signifies the absence of a fatherly begetting in Christ. Here, then, an old man begot; there, no one. Here he begot by the gift of grace, by nature, not by grace, no one begot, where the Giver of grace, Who is the Exacter of nature, alone accomplished the whole. Thus it was surely fitting that less should be found everywhere in the figure, and more everywhere in the truth. For in the morning and the evening shadows are longer than their bodies, but at noon shorter. Morning is prophecy, evening memory, noon the presence of Christ. Therefore also, as Christ increased, John had to decrease, and Christ be exalted by death, and John diminished by the head; Christ be born as the day grows, John as it declines. Moreover the marriage of Zachary and Elizabeth, from which by nature none, by grace so great a man is begotten: which bears John indeed, and promises Christ, mystically signifies another, more hidden marriage within men. For as outwardly between

man and woman there is that known and customary marriage, between flesh and flesh, which begets nothing above the flesh: so inwardly in man and woman there exists another, between flesh and spirit, begetting in the flesh through the spirit. And yet more inwardly a third is found in the very rational soul of man and woman, wholly in the spirit, which is called free choice: where reason is Zachary, will Elisabeth. For what else is free choice but will, free, with reason? From reason it is choice, from will it is free.

Reason, therefore, ought not only to rule the affection of the heart, and every movement of body and soul, as a husband; but, as the Lord's priest, to penetrate into the holy of holies, and to gaze with unveiled face on what is not lawful for the people: and, while the crowds of the senses and imaginations wait outside, to be instructed within by revelation. The will of the mind, or the affection of the heart, ought to obey reason, and be subject to it as a wife to her husband; and without his consent to dare nothing among those subject to it, to presume nothing among strangers; to be made fruitful by the husband alone, and to shudder utterly at adulterous embraces. Your inner house is well ordered, indeed, if affection presumes nothing without consulting reason. Affection gives the work its name, so that according to it a work is called good or wicked; reason rightly rules affection, as a husband his wife, so that according to reason an affection is called bright or dark, lawful or unlawful. For those who are wise to do evil have a disordered conscience, where reason serves and affection is master; will goes before, reason follows; and the concupiscence of the heart uses reason against reason. Not so this Zachary and his wife Elisabeth. For they were both just, and had advanced in their days (Luke 1:6–7), but without offspring, but without fruit. And indeed the more without offspring because advanced in their days: the more barren because old. For newness, whether new or renewed, bears fruit. New newness brings forth Christ in the Virgin; renewed, it brings forth John in the barren woman. Yet they were just, because they were ordered and composed; but they could not be fruitful of themselves, because from the oldness of the old Adam they were still old. In the philosophers of old and the wise of this world, the house of the inner man could be composed and ordered; where neither did the household of domestic motions clamour in confusion, nor the irruption of strangers defile it, nor the wanton wife assail her husband or deceive him with flattery; but fruitful for eternity, and such as to bring forth the herald of salvation, it could by no means be. For free choice, without which no one is saved, avails very much in very many things; but for salvation, without the grace of God, it avails nothing in anyone. The Lord will give grace and glory, for Christ follows John. Grace is given to free choice, because it alone is saved; but it is given for this reason, that without grace it is not saved. Free choice receives grace; grace runs before salvation. Free choice receives grace neither when it wishes nor of what kind it wishes, nor does Zachary beget offspring when he wishes or of what kind he wishes.

Zachary and Elisabeth beget nothing of themselves, even with much striving, because reason and will in men, even with much striving, accomplish nothing without grace.

God, then, visits whom He wills, when He wills, and how He wills, by grace, that is, He gives grace gratis, which first promises salvation in the hope of a holy life, and afterwards shows it forth in the reality of the blessed vision. Therefore John too was shown forth to whom God willed, and when He willed, and how He willed, and by being born and by living he ran before Jesus and promised Him, and at last pointed Him out with his finger. From Zachary and Elisabeth, indeed, John is begotten, not through their nature but by the working of God: and good consent is brought forth only from the freedom of choice, yet not by its own efficacy but by the munificence of God. Elisabeth is at home, or perhaps waits outside with the people, while Zachary, having entered the holy of holies, sees the angel (ibid. Luke 1:9–11). And Sara waits at home, while Abraham in the heat of the day runs to meet the angels (Gen. 18:1–2). The whole people too waits below, while Moses alone goes up the mountain to the Lord (Exod. 19 and 24). But who is so fit for these things? Everywhere the husbands, everywhere the priests, everywhere the prelates, leaving wives and crowds behind, alone either enter, or run to meet, or ascend to the heavenly and sublime; but in the holy of holies only one angel is seen, and not without much fear: whereas in the heat of the day, in the freedom of the air and in the wide field, three are met with confidence and eagerness. On the mountain, indeed, Moses converses with God, as a man with his neighbour. I pass over that Jesus Himself too, leaving His disciples, went up the mountain alone to speak to the Father (Matt. 14:23). But if we should wish to pursue these things, neither shall we be equal to the sermon, nor, as you know, will the hour suffice for the one who preaches. Therefore, as concerns the present solemnity, let us discharge a few words about Zachary. For here we have laid, as it were, certain foundations for meditation, and have given occasion to the wise, that he may become wiser.

So Zachary sees the Angel, and fears; he hears him promising, and distrusts: therefore he is punished with silence until the time when the promise is fulfilled. For human reason, when it hears concerning heavenly sacraments and divine pledges things which it does not comprehend, marvels and hesitates; and it searches how it can come to be. But since eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him, even if it believes, it remains mute until the vision: and then, when what we shall be has appeared (for we are sons of God, but it has not yet appeared what we shall be [1 John 3:2]), it will exult with exultation in a manner beyond telling, saying: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: for He has visited and wrought the redemption of His people (Luke 1:68). Meanwhile, however, reason begets by faith what it cannot utter, will conceives by charity what it does not yet see with the eye; hope, with long-suffering, carries in the womb of the mind what it longs to see, the first-fruits of the Spirit. For the fruit of the spirit is charity (Gal. 5:22). Having it in her womb, Elisabeth groans,