Isaac of Stella, Sermons

will remain unmoved, and they will be possessed by a holy inheritance, that is, a firm and eternal one. Say, he says, to the just man, whose righteous deeds have not met with forgetfulness because they did not forsake mercy, that it is well. And why well? Because he shall eat the fruit of his own devisings (Isa. 3:10). For he will eat the labours of his hands, and it will be well with him. But woe to the wicked unto evil; for the reward of his hands shall be done to him (ibid. 3:11). As he plundered, so will he be plundered. Woe to you who plunder; shall you not be plundered? (Isa. 33:1). And as he struck, so will he be struck; as he shut his hand to the beggar, so will it be shut to him when he begs. The inheritance of the miser, then, his grandchildren, will be malign to him. The inheritance of the miser will become to him a hyena's den. The inheritance of the miser, who cannot die, is fire unquenchable to him. But for the merciful the lines have fallen in goodly places: for their inheritance will be goodly to them: to which may the merciful and kind Jesus deign to lead us, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through all ages of ages. Amen.

SERMON L. ON THE SAME FEAST II.

We do not wish you, dearest brethren, to be wholly ignorant of the pattern of your way of life and of the authority for it. For many who are curious about another's life, and careless of their own death, weary the simpler folk they find with empty little questions, and with the serpent's voice taken up against our first mother. Why, they say, has it been commanded you to labour so, to abstain so, to obey men so, to keep silence from men so, to gather apart into little assemblies so, to spurn the common life of men so? O curiosity, either idle or malicious! Why, said the devil to Eve, has God commanded you not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? (Gen. 3:1). Cunning malice crept into the simple mind of the poor woman, pierced through by such a cavil; and since tender simplicity did not know how to give the reason for the divine command, it could not refute the pleading of crafty persuasion. Therefore, dearly beloved, as the blessed apostle Peter says, we desire you to be ready and taught to give a reason to everyone who asks you concerning the way of life and the obedience that is in you (1 Pet. 3:15). Once already, unless it has slipped from your mind, we spoke to you on this matter; but because on this Birthday of the apostles a number of brethren larger than usual has flowed in from every side, it will be no trouble to us to repeat what we believe necessary for you. So the fact that we work the earth, labouring with our hands, is the pattern of Adam our first parent, not indeed as he sinned in paradise, but as he did penance outside it. For in the leisure of paradise and the abundance of all things there arose the fault which provoked the Lord. Outside paradise was taken up the punishment which justly chastised the servant. Better therefore punishment in exile than fault in paradise. Therefore, then, because we are still sinners and sons of a sinner according to the flesh, we do not reject in the flesh the sentence of the condemned flesh: and in the sweat of our face we eat our bread. But lest the whole labour of man be

in his mouth, we labour the more busily with our hands, so that there may be something from which we may give to him who suffers need. Why with silence? Because in much speaking sin will not be escaped, because the Apostle warned of this, because before the Apostle the prophet said: I was dumb, and was humbled, and kept silence even from good things; and my sorrow was renewed (Ps. 38:3). Nothing pours a man's heart out of itself more than much speaking; nothing runs more quickly into vain speech, or foolish speech, or even foul speech, than much speaking. Therefore, to flee much speaking, we keep silence even from good things, lest occasion be given to evil ones.

. . . . . . A covered fire burns the more fiercely. (Ovid, Metamorphoses IV, 64.)

Hence the movement of the mind, if it is not poured outside in wordiness, turns round within with a ceaseless whirling, like the flame of a fire; and, ranging through all the inner conscience, it comes upon those things from which the sorrow of compunction is wholesomely renewed in it. The heart too, because it does not evaporate outside, growing hot within from the burning fire of compunction, creates a shining fire, which it directs upward in meditation. In my meditation, he says, a fire shall flame out (Ps. 38:4). So it comes about that he who has learned to keep silence to savage men begins to speak inwardly to God Himself. I spoke, he says, with my tongue: Lord, make known to me my end (Ps. 38:4–5).

Despising things present, and forgetting what lies behind, he asks about the end: see why with silence. But why in obedience? That "Why" the devil first invented. For the devil was the first to begin to pick apart the precept of obedience: Why, he says, has God commanded you not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? (Gen. 3:1.) Before this man had obeyed simply, not so much because of the reason of the precept as on account of the authority of the one commanding. For just as faith has no merit to which human reason supplies proof, so obedience is emptied of the virtue of humility when the reason of the precept backs it up. Yet do you want to hear why we either labour or rest at another's will and command? Because in this, surely, we are imitators of Christ, as most dear children; and we walk in the love with which He loved us, Who for us was made obedient in all things, not only for a remedy but for an example, so that as He was, so we also may be in this world. For in this, as blessed John says, is confidence. He was made obedient, then, in all things, not only to the Father unto death, but to Mary and Joseph until His preferment. For when, at the Father's call saying: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear Him (Matt. 17:5), He was called to preferment, then for the first time He began to be over others, Who had long learned to be under others; He began to command, Who had learned to obey. Moreover, it seems a just requital that he who in paradise disdained to reign as a lord under the Lord should now in exile serve as a servant under a fellow servant. For the condition of nature set man under the Lord; the transgression of obedience subjugated him to the enemy; but the reconciliation of grace

set him under a brother, a fellow servant. Nature subjected him to God, guilt to the devil, but reconciliation to a man, a friend. And why, you say, in abstinence from foods, which God created for the uses of men? Hear this too briefly. Because we have at times used unlawful things licentiously and lawful things unlawfully; now we never use unlawful things, and use lawful things more sparingly. Because

. . . without Ceres and Bacchus [Liber] Venus grows cold, (Terence, Eunuch, act IV, scene V, line 6.)

and sparingness in drink and food wears down the pride of the flesh, we hold back even from things allowed. All things indeed are lawful, but not all things are expedient. Paul chastises his body and brings it into subjection; and how do devourers of meat and drinkers of wine, in which is lust, flatter themselves about chastity? Certainly it is not found in the land of those who live delicately; and we, clothed in soft things and buried in feathers, snore the whole night through. Do you wish to hear the power of fasting? The most dreadful kind of demons is not cast out except by fasting and prayer. The Saviour too, fasting, does battle with the devil in the desert (Matt. 4:1–11). Hear also briefly the threefold fruit of a single abstinence: Who by bodily fasting dost curb vices, raise up the mind, bestow virtue and rewards (Preface of the Mass). Here is the reason for our abstinence. But you say: If there is such dryness and strictness in food and clothing, why is there so much exercise of the body in labours, so much trading in acquiring goods? Because he who labours much and acquires much so as to eat much serves only his belly, and trades for it alone; and therefore, so that there may be something from which to give to him who suffers need, so that others may enter into our labours, either with us or after us. Why apart from men? Because evil conversations corrupt good manners. And why several together? Because we are not yet equal to solitude, and so that, if anyone falls, he may have one to lift him up; again, a brother helping a brother shall be exalted like a strong and fortified city; finally, because it is good and pleasant for brethren to dwell in unity (Ps. 132:1). That we, then, working with our hands, eat our bread in the sweat of our face is the pattern of Adam doing penance; that besides this we have a household and cattle is the image of the Patriarchs. For our fathers, as someone says, were shepherds of sheep.

So to pass one's life by one's own labour and that of the household, and by the rearing of cattle, just as it does not stray from rectitude, so it is not without authority. Why then do certain men trade, and beg, crowding the markets, frequenting the courts? I answer briefly: Whatever is more than this is of evil (Matt. 5:37). Lately, however, a twofold kind of religious has sprung up; and what past ages did not know, these seething times of ours have brought forth. For just as there are two kinds of those who are called vagabonds (some go round and walk through the land, begging everywhere, false and deceiving in many and wondrous ways of pretence and concealment; others pitch their booths at the crossroads and at the entrances of churches, surpassing the former in every craft of pretence and guile),

so some religious, under cover of holiness, with feigned words, trade most busily with the world to which they are dead: penetrating everything, wandering through everything, they leave nothing untried; the world suffers violence from them, and the violent plunder it; so that, even if not because they are friends, men nevertheless get up on account of their importunity and give more than three loaves. These, just as they are always begging, so are always beggars, squandering easily what comes to them easily. Others, seeking out a wealthy neighbourhood, bury themselves in little groves near crowded cities and populous towns, ring themselves with ditches, and, guarding themselves with the greatest care from men, by a wondrous art sell themselves the dearer the more closely they hide themselves. They labour a little with their hands, rear nothing at all, always gaping at others' hands, refuse nothing. Birds of the Gospel, which neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and the heavenly Father feeds them. The Lord does indeed feed the birds, beloved, but they are a nuisance to men, on whose labours they prey.

Therefore let us attend the more to that noble saying of the Truth, in which it is said: It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), and let us labour with much sweat for what we may give with much charity. Let us also diligently rear what we may willingly give. Let us build a temple to God, and a fitting dwelling for His servants, from our own rather than from another's, always rejoicing and giving thanks more when we have given than when we have received, and when we have received others than when we have been received by others, as it is written: Give alms, and all things shall be clean to you (Luke 11:41). And elsewhere: Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the wanderers into your house (Isa. 58:7). So too our fathers, following the grace of hospitality, were found worthy to receive even angels as guests. But that, having professed chastity, without wives and children, and even without property, we live in common, all obeying one, and expecting everything from him, as each has need, is without doubt the pattern of the blessed apostles and of the primitive Church itself in Jerusalem; who, with the sharing of their goods, had also one heart and one soul; whose inestimable fervour, kindled from the furnace in Jerusalem by the Holy Spirit on the holy day of Pentecost, as it is written: Whose fire is in Sion, and His furnace in Jerusalem (Isa. 31:9), through the long passage of time, as charity grew cold and iniquity abounded, has evaporated from day to day, and still smokes faintly in monasteries of this kind, and shows some traces, as it were, of a fire almost extinguished, and displays certain small fragments of great coals. These today, dearest brethren, are the sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals (Ps. 119:4), which we have set before you against the deceitful tongue (Ps. 119:3): those who in everything, with unjust lips and a deceitful tongue, keep asking why we do this and that, and do not care why they themselves were made. So, not following the presumptions of novelties, upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets