Isaac of Stella, Sermons

For as the almsgiving of a sinner redeems his sins, so the mercy of the just man cultivates him towards greater justice, that he who is just may be justified still (Rev. 22:11); but the avarice of the sinner always plunges him downward, that he who is in filth may be filthy still (ibid.). The third is zeal, where the friend of the bridegroom, burning with love for the bridegroom, does not allow the bride to grow lukewarm in love. The fourth is authority, which without any other power, by the sole grace of virtue and the fame of holiness, stands venerable to all. The fifth is charity, which above all things stands gracious and lovable to all; beautiful through progress in justice, and sweet through the highest point in its delights. So was this holy Mother of God in her life, and more fully today in her death, she who today ascended to her Son, where may she deign to pray for us to Him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through all ages of ages. Amen.

SERMON LIII. ON THE SAME FEAST III.

Thou hast held my right hand, and in Thy will Thou hast led me, and with glory Thou hast received me (Ps. 72:24). He has said three things: He held, He led, He received. He held, lest she should fall; He led, lest she should go astray; He received, lest she should fail. He held, then, for standing firm, He led for progress, He received for perfection. But who held, whom did He hold, and how did He lead or receive? He held, it says, the right hand; He led in His will; He received in glory. He held in faith, He led in hope, He received in the reality. Meanwhile it is the voice of the faithful soul snatched from the snare of the hunters, which, the snare being broken, has been set free, and, taken up, gives thanks to her deliverer, until the whole Church together at the end sings these things, considering where she lay and in what state, by what way she passed and how, where she has been placed and by whom, whither she had been plunged and why. For the contemplation of all these things will avail her, and will always renew her afresh to the giving of thanks. For by these articles all divine Scripture is distinguished, and above all the psalter; which, with two added, that is, whence she first came to fall, and in what manner, is found most fully a ten-stringed instrument. On the psaltery, it says, of ten strings sing to Him (Ps. 32:2). Let the Virgin Mother Mary, then, speak, and sing more loftily, she who has surpassed all women, giving thanks to the Son of her flesh, to the Brother of her grace, inasmuch as He is the firstborn among many brethren; to the Father of her nature, to the Lord of her life, to the Redeemer of her soul, to the Holder, lastly, of her standing, the Leader of her progress, the Receiver today of her spirit: let her say: Thou hast held my right hand. The left hand is the life of the flesh and its prosperity. This He in a manner let go, who exposed it to poverty, to grief, to infirmity, to death; but everywhere He held the right hand, who in all things preserved her soul, gave her patience, increased her merit. Of some the Lord holds the left hand and lets go the right; of some He holds the right and lets go the left; of some He lets go both; of few indeed does He hold both. He held, then, she says, my right hand. Where are those who complain about the left?

The Mother of Christ glories in the right hand alone, and for the sweetness and abundance of the glory in which she has been received, she counts even what she suffered among her gains. For by experience she has now learned that for those who love God all things work together for good. Such a one among the fathers was found, a judge, who in the battle of the Lord used either hand as a right hand: whence he was called ambidextrous (Judg. 3). Such too was the apostle Paul, who everywhere and in all things has been instructed, who knows how to abound and to suffer want, who glories gladly in tribulations and infirmities, who through ill repute and good repute, through glory and dishonour, walks in the middle (Phil. 4; Rom. 5; 2 Cor. 6). John the Baptist also, not like a pliant reed, is carried about by the wind of favour or of blame; and, as he himself testifies to the Jews, there stands in their midst One whom they do not know, that is, Jesus. For the virtues lie in the middle, as even a pagan says:

Virtue is the mean between vices, drawn back from either side; (Horace, Epistles I.18.9)

which they do not know who swell with prosperity and waste away in adversity.

And in Thy will Thou hast led me. Thy will, she says, not mine. Nor was Mary led in her own will; and in the Gospel the apostles are taught to pray to the Father, Thy will be done (Matt. 6:10). And some fools or other, and above all those who, having renounced their own will, have professed obedience to men, quarrel daily for their own will, and murmur in many things against God, and resist His ordinance, while they rebel against the power which is from Him, desiring to be their own disposers. Thus and thus, they say, we shall do; and then this, and then that; and what is madder still, they want to teach all others, and to have everything carried on according to their own will. Thus and thus, they say, they ought to act. And when anything is done otherwise, they murmur, disparage, judge and condemn. See where they have been plunged, who ought to do all things at another's command, and disdain to be led by others; leaders to themselves, their own hurlers headlong. In Thy will, she says, Thou hast led me. A wanton man, obstinate in his own will, is rightly blamed by all; and yet from this occasion alone every controversy is born, every quarrel and contention is begotten. For each contends because he defends what seems good to him, and pleases him, and what he wills, against another who wills something else. And among men this can sometimes have some justice or excuse, but against God all disobedience is nothing but impiety. For to Him, the Author, Ruler and Judge of all, all ought to be subject with a humble will; and even if they do not wish it, they do so by a servile necessity. In Thy will, therefore, Thou hast led me, she says devoutly, who obeyed devoutly, who devoutly gives thanks to Him who led her profitably. For the Lord holds His elect strongly, leads them profitably, receives them happily. And with glory, she says, Thou hast received me. He receives into rest the one who had served in labour. He receives in heaven the one by whom He is received on earth. I, He says, love those who love Me (Prov. 8:17), and those who receive Me I receive. But those who despise

Me shall be ignoble (1 Sam. 2:30); and those who do not receive Me shall be accursed. Today, then, He receives in heaven that mother who received Him as son on earth; and she who received Him in her womb is received by Him in the kingdom. And why say more? Each one, as he receives, so shall he be received; and as he casts away, so shall he be cast away. She, then, as she received in a singular way, so has she been received in a singular way. Martha received Him in her house, she in her womb. Martha served some outward food or other; she fed her own offspring with her own milk. Someone or other clothed Him with a garment; she clothed Him with flesh. To Mary Magdalene many things were forgiven, because she loved much; to her most things were given, because she loved most; and she loves most, because she received most.

To love, therefore, the debt is remitted, and what was not owed is given; and by both love grows, and by love both are obtained. Love, therefore, is the sacrifice for sinners; love the reward of the blessed. (Yet so that God may be loved by us, God first creates in us that love, namely, by which He goes before us, that we may love Him. Hence that blessed disciple whom Jesus loved: Not as though, he says, we had loved Him first, but because He first loved us (1 John 4:10). Prevenient love, therefore, grasps and holds our right hand: His mercy, it says, shall go before me (Ps. 58:11). Assisting love leads; And Thy mercy, it says, His [mercy] helped me (Ps. 93:18). Subsequent love receives; And His mercy, it says, shall follow me all the days of my life (Ps. 22:6). The first love reconciles an enemy, the second justifies a friend, the third glorifies a son.) For those whom He predestined, these He called; and those whom He called, these He justified; and those whom He justified, these He also magnified. Love, therefore, even before we were anything, predestined for us that in which we should be blessed for ever; and those whom He predestined, these He grasps in His will, holds, and leads through all things, working all things in us. For it is God who works in us both to will and to be able, according to His good will, until He receives us in glory; which may the Virgin Mother obtain for us from her Son, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through all ages of ages. Amen.

SERMON LIV. ON THE NATIVITY OF BLESSED MARY.

The merciful and compassionate Lord has made a remembrance of His wonderful works (Ps. 110:4). In the beginning, dearly beloved, God wonderfully made out of nothing this world in which we dwell; but at the end, more wonderfully, He makes a new one out of the same world grown old and decrepit. For as in the Old Testament the New Testament was contained, of which the former was the shadow and the latter the body itself, the former the figure and the latter the truth; so also in the old people a new people, and in the old man a new man, and in the old world itself a new world; and everywhere what was wonderfully said or done is more wonderfully recapitulated and commemorated in the sacrament. From the head, then, all things are unrolled again.

For all earlier things are figures of later ones, which now begin to be revealed in their own times; and these very things are certain wrappings and patterns of things to come. And as these are more true and manifest than the earlier, so too those things to come are more so than these, so that universal vanity, every living man, always passes by in an image and in a kind of vanity, until he comes to the bare, manifest and stable face of truth. Hence it is written of the one made complete and perfect: Therefore his goods are established in the Lord (Ecclus. 31:11). And elsewhere: Until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise on the earth (Isa. 62:7). The Saviour also promises His disciples to show Himself to them in the future. But Moses, asking for this before the time, did not obtain it. If I have found favour, he says, before Thee, show me Thyself (Exod. 33:13). In the beginning, then, of the first world God created heaven and earth; in the beginning of the second world He created earth and heaven, and heaven from earth. For Mary, whose nativity is commemorated today, according to the origin of her flesh is earthly, from earth, and is herself earth; but from her comes the fruit of her womb, heavenly from heaven, and Himself heaven. And as there the four elements of which the whole bodily universe is composed are, in the historical sense, created, ordered and adorned, so here, in the mystical sense, bridegroom and bride, as heaven and earth, subjects and prelates, or contemplatives and actives, are created, ordered and adorned. And as there star differs from star in brightness, so here one shines with the word of wisdom, to rule the day; another with knowledge, to rule the night.

Others also have lesser graces, for the service of signs and seasons, and in their own place and gift they shine in the new firmament, which shall not be moved. But it divides strongly between the upper and the lower waters, lest, the floodgates being broken, they be mingled together and make a flood. For the world has its own flood, of which it is written: The Lord makes the flood to be inhabited, and the Lord shall sit as king for ever (Ps. 28:10). There on the sixth day (Gen. 2) man was made to the image and likeness of God; here in the sixth age God is made to the image and likeness of man. There man is made from earth; here God is made from Mary. There from earth still uncorrupted and virgin came man upright, and himself a virgin; here from Mary, ever uncorrupted and virgin, came God the just, and Himself the maker of virgins. There woman was created from the side of a man without a woman; here a man is begotten from the womb of a woman without a man. There from the rib of one sleeping a woman is built up as a helper; here from the side of Christ dying the bride is consecrated. There flesh is supplied in place of the rib; here, in place of the strength that is given, weakness is taken on. There two in one flesh; here no longer two, but one in one spirit. There for his wife a man shall leave father and mother and cleave to her; here this great sacrament appears in Christ and in the Church (Eph. 5:31–32); for He as it were left Father and mother, when He came down from the Father and forsook the Synagogue, that He might cleave to the Church of the Gentiles. There man created is placed in the paradise of pleasure; here man renewed is placed in the Church, rich in spiritual

delights, and adorned with the flower of graces of every kind, with the sweet fruit of the virtues, that there man may work out his salvation with fear and trembling, and may always keep watchfully what he has acquired from the One who creates him, as it is written: Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor. 10:12).

And why say more? All the things which are narrated as actually done there, in that actual and sensible world, today begin to be recapitulated in this mystical and spiritual world, and God begins to make remembrance of all the things He has made, renewing all things and raising them up, as it is written: Behold, I make all things new (Rev. 21:5). And: If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Myself (John 12:32). For this reason He willed to die aloft in the air, lifted up from the earth, that He might raise earthly man to a spiritual state, until at the last He should lift him up to heaven and perfect him in a heavenly quality. Born, indeed, on earth, He dies in the air and ascends into heaven, because He made the first man earthly in His earthly world, the second spiritual in His spiritual world, and will make the third heavenly in His heavenly world. The first world is the historical, whose founding and governance the Old Testament narrates. The second is the moral and allegorical, whose founding and governance the Gospel narrates. The third is the anagogical, that is, leading upward, whose state no one knows except him who receives it. For the Old Testament narrates the creation of the first world and foreshows the working of the second. The New Testament, however, announces the reconciliation of the first, which is the creation of the second, and promises the state of the third, which it foreshadows: In the evening, it says, and in the morning, and at noon I will tell and announce: and He will hear my voice (Ps. 54:18). In the evening the earthly and old man dies in the old world, while the sons of oldness look on; in the morning the new man rises and appears in the new world to the sons of newness; at noon the heavenly One ascends into heaven and appears in the sight of the Father's majesty, the holy angels wondering and saying: Who is this that comes from Edom, etc. (Isa. 63:1). There He is heard for His reverence, interceding for us: on account of which it is written: He will hear my voice. Placed, then, and reigning in the third world, He prays the Father for those whom He draws out of the first world and places meanwhile in the second, as it is written: I do not pray for the world, but for those whom Thou hast given Me out of the world (John 17:9, 6). For thus man was created outside paradise, and afterwards placed in paradise, and is thereafter to be placed in heaven. But when through the fault of disobedience he withdrew from God, through the justice of retribution the flesh withdrew from the mind; and it was itself cast out of paradise, and so the whole man lives in exile. For neither was the soul created or placed in such a body, nor the body in such a world.

The soul, then, sojourns as a stranger in such a body, and the body in such a world. For the ordered and natural state of man was when the spirit had been subject to God, the flesh to the spirit, the world to the flesh, and within the spirit itself the affection had lain subject to the flesh. And this was the first

natural world, the golden age of Saturn, and the golden chain of the poet. When disobedience had broken this between the spirit and God, concupiscence between the flesh and the spirit, and finally the curse between the working of the flesh and the world, there suddenly appeared a disordered face of things, which was rightly called chaos, darkness and the abyss: from which he records that he was drawn out who, by grace a new creature in Christ, placed in the new world, sings: How many tribulations, many and evil, hast Thou shown me, and turning Thou hast brought me to life, and from the depths of the earth Thou hast brought me back

(Ps. 70:20). For man, taken from the earth by nature, placed above by grace, fell below by guilt. For now someone, giving thanks, says: He brought me out of the pit of misery and out of the mire of dregs (Ps. 39:3). For first he was created from slime; secondly he is created from mire and drawn out of the pit, he who, created from the earth, fell into the depth and did not find the bottom. For the abyss is a depth without bottom: I am stuck fast, he says, in the slime of the deep, and there is no standing-ground (Ps. 68:3).