Isaac of Stella, Sermons

SERMON XLVIII. ON THE SAME FEAST III.

I have prepared a lamp for My Christ, etc. (Ps. 131:17). For some time now, dearly beloved, we have seen you more lukewarm than usual, and grown almost listless in listening: and so we too, I confess, have grown more lukewarm and feebler in speaking. For the attention of the disciple lends diligence to the teacher; and the more devoutly a man is heard, the more zealously he speaks. But you complain that we have changed our style, you know not for what reason; and that we, who used subtly either to find things altogether new or elegantly to renew old ones, now only tread the common round, and repeat worn things in the language of the crossroads. How, some of you say, has this man sunk so low? How has the gold of his understanding been dimmed, the finest colour of his eloquence changed? He who used to say wonderful things wonderfully, to think out things unheard of in a singular way, to define obscure things clearly, to divide tangled things distinctly, to make divided things plain by examples, how is it that he now confounds everything, mixes everything up, touches on everything everywhere, and brings nothing through to the expected end? How has his wine been mixed with water, his silver turned into dross? How is it that he now either keeps silent or talks? Look, we will be silent, but to you; we will speak, but not to you. You are all curious hearers: and so we have changed our manner of speaking, because you have set no measure to your curiosity. You snatch only at new things: but from where are we to be forever coining new things? Old things, and those that can be found in the Scriptures, you blow away with scorn. And why should we copy out books? If we say what has been said before us, or can be found written, it moves you to nausea or to bile, not because it is not true, good and fitting, but because it is not altogether new. If we say what Augustine said, or Ambrose, or what is read somewhere, at once there is a running to the books: what was said is shown in writing by one to another, and for this reason alone it is disdained by both. I therefore confess that I am in part the cause of this insolence of yours. For we so brought you up in such things, so accustomed you to such things, that you could hardly listen to anyone besides us; nor would you any longer care to listen to us on other matters.

Why then were we too either curious before, in pursuing such things, or have now become light-minded in abandoning the usual ones? The reason for both is ready to hand. There arose some time ago certain men, whose names I pass over in silence, men of remarkable talent and wonderful training, who, not indeed perverting the holy Scriptures as heretics do, but having their proper sense less ready to hand, accommodated them most elegantly to their own pursuits, and out of the authentic writings, not without the admiration of many and very great edification of morals, played most delightfully, if we may say so with the leave of all. Yet they drew out nothing against the faith and the truth, but everything for the profit and integrity of life and morals, with a wonderful novelty, as you know, and which you complain that we too have abandoned; and (a wonderful thing to say) through poverty of sense they became most full of sense

And so we followed them, because the world followed them; the whole world went off after them, and in the estimation of men never had men spoken so. Whoever did not speak so was mocked, despised, abandoned. So, lest we should be thought either to speak against them out of envy, or not to speak so through poverty of wit, we applied our mind: and, as you know, in this kind of thing we were not inferior to all; for my fibre is not of horn, says the poet. But now we say what we had conceived from the beginning, but, as we said, lest we should be marked either for envy or for ignorance, we have kept it back until now, biding our time. Perilous times, then, will press upon us, and subverters of the truth will come in, accommodating the sayings of the Scriptures to their own meanings, for whom this licentious liberty of ours could become a pernicious authority. Why should they not abandon the old expositions of the Fathers for the sake of their own novelty, if the Church grew used to this before them? How will it be put to them, So-and-so expounded Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory? Will they not say: If it was allowed to others so, why will it not be allowed to us? Will not they too say what we ourselves heard from these men? Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty: we are not bound to swear by the words of a master? Like this, and at almost the same time, there has arisen the new monster of a certain new knighthood, whose Order, as someone wittily says, is from the fifth Gospel: that it should force unbelievers to the faith with lances and cudgels; and freely despoil those who do not bear the name of Christ, and religiously slaughter them: and if any of them fall in the plundering of such men, they call them martyrs of Christ. Do not these men too nourish, for that son of perdition who is to come, an authority for his cruelty against Christians? How will the meekness of Christ, His patience and His form of preaching be put to him? Why will he not do willingly what he finds was done licentiously? How will he not say: Such things as the Church did, do such things to it? What then? Do we condemn these along with the others? We condemn neither, but in this we do not praise them; not because perhaps the things they do are wholly evil, but because they can become occasions of evil. For (which is pitiable) almost all evils have grown out of good things; and virtues nourish vices, and, worn out, are swallowed up by their nurslings once these are grown somewhat large.

Very great caution, then, dearly beloved, is needed, and circumspection. For all things to come, whether good or evil, have before them, as it were, certain mother causes, why they come, and certain modes that prepare them and are as heralds, how they come about, and certain signs of their coming, when they are to happen: You have prepared, it says, their food, for so is its preparation (Ps. 64:10). And what we set down: I have prepared a lamp for My Christ (Ps. 131:17). For nothing is in vain, nothing confused, nothing sudden: yet many things are hidden from mortals, others manifest. Hence the apostles, instructed concerning the cause and manner of the second coming, but anxious about its signs, say: Tell us when these things will be, and what is the sign of Your coming (Matt. 24:3). Thus of the coming of Christ in the flesh

the cause is human misery; the preparation, the wedded virginity of Mary; the sign, a star from heaven, and the flowing of oil from the earth. Of the coming of Christ to baptism, the cause is the joining of man to God; the preparation, the baptism of John. For a lamp was being prepared for the coming Light, so that many, brought up in darkness, might grow used from a little light to looking on a great one. It is said, then, when John is prophesied by the voice of the Father: There I will bring forth a horn for David (Ps. 131:17), that is, I will bring forth the glory of that people of which David was king, up to the lamp which I have prepared for My Christ. For as Christ Himself says: The law and prophecy, in which lay the glory of that people, were until John (Matt. 11:13): whom He Himself also calls a burning and shining lamp; upon Him, that is Christ, for Whom the lamp is prepared, shall my sanctification flourish (Ps. 131:18). For He alone is the flower and fruit of holiness, the holy of holies, Himself holy and sanctifying; born holy, begetting saints. His enemies, that is the lamp's, I, like too great a light, will clothe with confusion, because they neglected to grow used to the lamp, so as to be able to bear the light. For there are two things which confound the eye from seeing: no light, and a sudden great light. But let us hear from the Gospel itself how far the Father, through Christ, confounded the enemies of John, of Christ and of the Father. When the Pharisees, wondering, envious, indignant, had questioned Jesus about His authority, He answered: I also will ask you one word: if you tell it Me, I too will tell you by what authority I do these things (Mark 11:29). For if you receive the lamp, I show you the light. The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men? And they were confounded, they whom God despised because they despised His lamp: since they will not confess the truth, and dare not rashly lie about the lamp, they rightly lie against their own head, and iniquity lies to itself. For they say: We do not know. For if they had said (what was true): From heaven, it would have been put to them why they did not believe him when he bore witness to the Light. But if they had said: From men, they would have fallen into the hands of the crowd, which held him, as he truly was, for a prophet. Having spoken this little to you today of so great a solemnity (for we spent an hour on the apology above), we wish at the end that your charity be at once entreated and admonished that, as the prophet says, you ask about the ancient paths, which is the good way, worn by the feet of the saints, and walk in it. For curiosity is the mother of all vanity (Jer. 6:16). All truth is solid, and not only ancient but eternal. Besides, our discourse is with simple folk, above all on these solemn days, when a crowd of lay people gathers from every side. Perhaps there will not be lacking a more familiar conference, where we shall be able to search out with you something deeper and more subtle. But these solemn sermons are simple for the simple, and poured out in plain prose, for the sake of those who have not yet taken wings, but follow on foot Jesus as He walks, to Whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit

be glory and dominion for all ages of ages. Amen.

SERMON XLIX. ON THE BIRTHDAY OF THE APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL.

These are men of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not met with forgetfulness, etc. (Sir. 44:10). The birthday, dearly beloved, of the apostles Peter and Paul is being kept: and such a death is quite fittingly called a birthday, since it gives birth to life. Hence the nativity too, by which we are born to death, would more fittingly be called a death than a birthday. For we begin to die when we are born, and to live when we die. Hence, as this life is called mortal, so that death ought to be called vital. As long, then, as we live here, we are dying; and when we depart this life, we are at the same time deprived of death too. Hateful is the life that cannot be without death; desirable the death that ends the falsity of life and begins its truth. A wonderful thing: life confers death, death life. Life is the birthday of death, death of life. As a torch kindled with fire consumes the fire by which it is consumed, so this life, kindled by death from the beginning, at last, when ⟨already⟩ consumed by it, consumes it; or as the heat of fire once set to straw consumes itself in devouring it, so death, which is sown and conceived with life, in killing it, at the same time destroys itself too. For the present life is a vapour, and smoke that appears for a little while. But the life that comes afterwards is life alone, and life without the company of death: hence too it is vital for ever after. This one, then, is mortal, that one vital. Moreover, as concerns the present state, this life begets death, and death itself destroys life. According to this: The wise seemed in the eyes of the foolish to die, but they are in peace (Wis. 3:2–3); where, death being already dead here, life alone is lived without conflict with it. The souls of the just, it says, are in the hand of God; and the torment of malice shall not touch them (ibid. 3:1), the temptation of Satan: which here indeed, while there is conflict with death, touches everyone; but it does not break the saints. There, however, as it will not break them, so neither will it touch them; for they have been withdrawn from it more than a stone's throw: hence the catapult of malice will not send its stone as far as them. See where the saints come from this mortal life, through this vital death: namely to a vital life in the hand of the living Life. But why do they come there? Because they are merciful, to themselves first, and by this rule to their neighbour: Have mercy, it says, on your own soul, pleasing God (Sir. 30:24): and surely coming to the help of one's neighbour. For blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Matt. 5:7): but judgement without mercy to the unmerciful. For with what measure they have measured, it will be measured back to them.

Men of mercy, then, are manly in mercy. For there are three kinds of the merciful. The first help from their own goods, not so that there be distress for themselves and relief for others, but that from their abundance the want of others may be supplied, where the Truth measures, with the intention of the mind, from how much, rather than how much

is given. These are they who wipe the feet of Jesus with the hair of their head, accepted according to what they have, not according to what they have not, down to a cup of cold water, or only a good will: which alone is quite enough, if it finds nothing else. The second distribute all their goods; and for the rest, as they acquire in common, so they spend in common: where they call nothing their own, but all things are common to all according to reason and need, where he who had more did not abound, and he who had less did not lack. And here the Truth measures rather what they will not to have than what they have been able to leave. For they leave all things who will to have nothing; and as much as each does not desire, so much he leaves; he gives up altogether all things to all, who hinders no one in anything. These are they who will receive a hundredfold, and will possess eternal life. But the third not only spend all things, but are themselves spent besides, and give themselves up to the danger of prison, proscription and death, to call others back from the danger of their souls: lavish of themselves beyond measure, greedy for others. And these the Truth measures according to charity, than which no one has greater, that a man lay down his life for his friends. These then, manly in mercy, are men of mercy, and the highest in mercy. Such are these glorious princes of heaven and ministers of earth, whose most victorious deaths are celebrated today after long fastings in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, and after the hardest labours and perils. Of them it fittingly follows: Whose righteous deeds have not met with forgetfulness (Sir. 44:10). Their righteous deeds have not met with forgetfulness, because they did not forget mercy; and as far as they remained mindful of mercy, so far will their righteous deeds not meet with forgetfulness. For the iniquities of some come into forgetfulness, and the Lord remembers only their righteous deeds; and the righteous deeds of some come into forgetfulness, and the Lord remembers only their iniquities. But He remembers the righteousness of those who have not forgotten mercy; and He remembers the unrighteousness of those who have not remembered mercy. For only the merciful will find God merciful; and those whom mercy does not commend, justice will condemn. With their seed good things remain (ibid. 44:11). With men here neither good things nor evil remain, but they pour over good and bad by turns and as if by blind chances; but in the future, with the good only good things, with the evil only evil things will remain. Hence it is said: With their seed, rather than, with them; as also elsewhere: His soul shall dwell among good things (Ps. 24:13), and will no longer be changed by turns: And his seed, which will be gathered new from the old, shall inherit the land, that is, the immortal body, which henceforth it will not lose. It is sown, he says, an animal body, but it will rise a spiritual one (1 Cor. 15:44), from the old seed a new seed, from the mortal the immortal, from the corruptible the incorruptible; and with it, which will be able to remain, good things will remain: Their grandchildren are a holy inheritance (Sir. 44:12). The sons of sons are the fruit of works. The works will perish, the fruit