Augustine, Sermo 34 (De cantico nouo)

SERMON XXXIV. On these words of Psalm 149:1, 2, Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise in the Church of the saints, etc. On the new song and the new life.

Delivered at Carthage, at the [basilica of the] Majores.

CHAPTER THE FIRST. — 1. To sing the new song —

whose [part] it is. We have been admonished to sing to the Lord a new song. The new man knows the new song. A song is a thing of gladness; and if we consider more carefully, it is a thing of love. He therefore who knows how to love the new life knows how to sing the new song. What the new life is, then, we must be reminded, for the sake of the new song. For all these belong to one kingdom: the new man, the new song, the New Testament. Therefore the new man will both sing the new song and belong to the New Testament.

2. Charity is from God. There is no one who does not love: but the question is what he loves. We are not, then, admonished not to love, but to choose what we love. But what do we choose, unless we are first chosen? For neither do we love, unless we are first loved. Hear the apostle John. He is the apostle who used to recline upon the Lord's breast, and at that banquet drank in heavenly secrets (John 13:23). From that draught, and from that happy drunkenness, he belched forth: In the beginning was the Word (ibid. 1:1). Lofty humility, and sober drunkenness! That great belcher, then, that is, preacher, among the other things which he drank from the Lord's breast, said this also: We love, because He first loved us (1 John 4:10). For he had granted much to man, seeing that he was speaking of God, in saying, We love. Who? whom? Men, God; mortals, the immortal; sinners, the just one; the frail, the unchangeable; the thing made, the maker. We have loved: and whence is this to us? Because He first loved us. Seek whence it is [given] to a man to love God: and you will find it nowhere at all, except that God first loved him. He gave Himself, Whom we have loved: He gave that whence we might love. For what He gave, whence we might love, hear more openly through the apostle Paul: The charity of God, he says, has been poured out in our hearts. Whence? from ourselves, perhaps? No. Whence, then? Through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us (Rom. 5:5).

CHAPTER II. — 3. We love God out of God. The idols of the heart. Having, then, such great confidence, let us love God out of God: nay, because the Holy Spirit is God, let us love God out of God. For why should I say more: let us love God out of God? Surely because I said, The charity of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us; therefore it follows that, since the Holy Spirit is God, and we cannot love God except through the Holy Spirit, we love God out of God. From this, then, it follows. Hear John himself more openly: God is charity; and he who abides in charity abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:8, 16). It is too little to say, Charity is from God. Which of us would dare to say what has been said, God is charity? He said it who knew what he had. Why then does human imagination and flighty thought feign a God for itself, and fashion an idol in its heart, putting him together such as it can think him, not such as it has been found worthy to find Him? Is God such? No, but such is He. Why do you lay out features? why do you put limbs together? why do you shape a pleasing stature? why do you imagine beauty of body? God is charity. What colour is there in charity? what features? what form? We see none of these; and yet we love.

4. The lowest love. I dare to say to your Charity: let us attend, in the lower things, to what we are to find in the higher. That very love which is lowest and earthly, that love which is sordid and shameful, which pursues bodily beauty, admonishes us of something, whereby we may rise to higher and purer things. Some wanton and shameless man loves a most beautiful woman: it is, indeed, bodily beauty that moves him, but what is sought within is a return of love. For if he should hear that she hates him, does not all that heat and impulse around her beautiful limbs grow cold, and does he not somehow recoil from what he had been striving for, turn away, take offence, and even begin himself to hate what he had loved? Has her form changed? Are not all the things that had allured him still there? They are there: and yet he was burning for what he saw, and was demanding from the heart¹ what he did not see. But if he should learn that he is loved in return, how much more fiercely does he burn? She sees him, he sees her, no one sees the love: and yet that itself is loved which is not seen.

CHAPTER III. — 5. God, as soon as He is loved, is had. Raise yourselves up from that muddy desire, that you may abide in the most enlightened charity. You do not see God; love, and you have Him. How many things are loved amid damnable desires, and are not had; are sought basely, and yet are not at once possessed? Is it the same thing to love gold as to have gold? Many love, and do not have. Is it the same thing to have the broadest and most splendid estates, which many love, and do not have? Is it the same thing to love honour as to have honour? Many who are without honour burn to have it: they seek to have it, and for the most part die before they find what they were seeking. God offers Himself to us by a short way: He cries to us, Love me, and you shall have me; for you cannot even love me, unless you have had me.

6. One must sing to the Lord both with mouths and with manners. O brethren, O sons, O catholic shoots, O holy and heavenly seed, O you who are reborn in Christ and born from above! hear me; nay rather, through me sing to the Lord a new song. See, you say, I am singing. You are singing, plainly you are singing. I hear it: but let not your life bear witness against your tongue. Sing with voices, sing with hearts, sing with mouths, sing with manners: Sing to the Lord a new song. Do you ask what you should sing of Him whom you love? Without doubt you wish to sing of Him whom you love: you seek His praises, to sing them. You have heard, Sing to the Lord a new song. Do you seek praises? His praise is in the Church of the saints. The praise of the singing is the singer himself. Do you wish to speak praises to God? Be yourselves what you speak. You are His praise, if you live well. For His praise is not in the synagogues of the Jews, it is not in the madness of the pagans, it is not in the errors of the heretics, it is not in the applause of the theatres. Do you ask where it is? Look to yourselves, be it yourselves. His praise is in the Church of the saints. Do you ask whence you may rejoice when you sing? Let Israel be glad in Him who made him: and whence to be glad, he finds nothing but God.

CHAPTER IV. — 7. At what price charity is to be bought. Question yourselves well, my brothers, examine your inner chambers,

look, and consider what you have of charity, and increase what you find there. Give heed to such a treasure, that you may be rich within. Other things, surely, which have a great price, are called dear; and not without reason. Observe the custom of your own speech: this is dearer than that. What is, It is dearer, except, It is more precious? If a thing is called dearer, it is whatever is more precious; what, then, my brothers, is dearer than charity itself? What do we suppose is its price? Where is its price found? The price of wheat is your coin; the price of an estate, your silver; the price of a pearl, your gold: the price of charity is you yourself. You seek, then, the means to possess an estate, a jewel, a beast of burden: for an estate you seek the means to buy it, and you seek them with yourself. But if you wish to have charity, seek yourself, and find yourself. For why do you fear to give yourself, lest you consume yourself? Rather, if you do not give yourself, you lose yourself. Charity herself speaks through Wisdom, and says something to you, that you need not be afraid of what is said: Give yourself. For if someone wished to sell you an estate, he would say to you, Give me your gold: and if something else, Give me your coin, give me your silver. Hear what Charity says to you from the mouth of Wisdom: Give me, my son, your heart (Prov. 23:26). Give me, she says: what? My son, your heart. It was ill off, when it was in your own keeping, when it was your own: for you were being dragged about by trifles and by wanton and destructive loves. Take it away from there. Where do you drag it? Where do you set it down? Give me, she says, your heart. Let it be mine, and it will not be lost to you. For see whether He wished to leave anything in you, from which you might love even yourself, He who says to you¹: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. What is left of your heart, from which you might love yourself? What of your soul? What of your mind? With the whole, He says. He who made you demands the whole of you.

CHAPTER V — But do not be sad, as though nothing remained in you to rejoice over. Let Israel be glad, not in himself, but in Him who made him.

8. How much one's neighbour is to be loved. You will answer, and say: If nothing has been left to me, whence shall I love myself; since with my whole heart, and with my whole soul, and with my whole mind I am commanded to love Him who made me — how, by the second commandment, am I bidden to love my neighbour as myself? This is rather the source from which you owe your neighbour love with your whole heart, and your whole soul, and your whole mind. How so? You shall love your neighbour as yourself (Matt. 22:37, 39). God with the whole of me: my neighbour as myself. Whence myself, whence you? Do you wish to hear whence you love yourself? From this you love yourself, that you love God with the whole of yourself. Do you suppose it profits God, that you love God? And that, because you love God, something accrues to God? Or if you do not love Him, will He have less? When you love, it is you who profit: you will be there, where you do not perish. But you will answer, and say, When did I not love myself? You did not love yourself at all, when you did not love God, who made you. But when you hated yourself, you thought you loved yourself. For he who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Ps. 10:6 [11:5]).

9. A prayer after the sermon. Turned to the Lord God the Father almighty with a pure heart, let us, so far as our littleness is able, give Him the greatest and most abundant thanks: praying with our whole soul to His singular gentleness, that He may deign to hear our prayers according to His good pleasure; that by His own power He may drive the enemy from our deeds and thoughts, multiply faith in us, govern our mind, grant us spiritual thoughts, and lead us to His own blessedness: through Jesus Christ His Son, our Lord, Who with Him lives and reigns, God, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, through all the ages of ages. Amen¹.