Augustine, Sermones 83-88 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

he sees it, and learns from the physician that his father is oppressed by a lethargic illness, the physician saying to him, Rouse your father, do not let him sleep, if you want him to live: the boy is at the old man's side, he knocks, he plucks, he pricks, troublesome out of filial devotion: he does not let one die soon who by his very old age is soon to die; and if he lives, the son, who is to succeed him, rejoices that he lives some days more with the one who is to depart. With how much greater charity ought we to be troublesome to our friends, with whom we are to live not a few days in this world, but with God for ever? Let them love us, then, and do what they hear through us, and worship Him Whom we too worship, that they may receive what we too hope for. Turning to the Lord, etc.

Sermon 88. On the words of the Gospel of Matthew, where [it tells] of the two blind men sitting by the way and crying out, Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David. Chapter 20, verses 30-34.

Chapter I. — 1. Our physician, Christ. By bodily miracles He was building up faith. Your Holiness knows well, together with us, that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the physician of our eternal salvation; and that He took on the weakness of our nature for this purpose, that our weakness might not be everlasting. For He took up a mortal body, in which He might slay death. And although He was crucified out of our weakness, as the Apostle says, yet He lives out of the power of God (2 Cor. 13:4). The words of the same Apostle are: And that He no longer dies, and death will no longer have dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). These things, then, are well known to your faith. At the same time this too follows, that we should know that all the miracles which He performed bodily serve for our admonition, so that we may receive from Him what is not going to pass away nor to have an end. He gave back eyes to the blind, which death was surely at some time going to close: He raised Lazarus, who was to die again. And whatever He did for the health of bodies, He did not do for this purpose, that they should be everlasting: although He is going to give to the body itself also, at the end, everlasting health. But because those things which were not seen were not believed, by these temporal things which were seen He was building up faith towards those things which were not seen.

Chapter II. — 2. The faith of the Church afterwards, without miracles, more praiseworthy. Why He kept the scars of His body. Let no one, then, brothers, say that our Lord Jesus Christ does not do these things now, and on this account prefer the former times to the present times of the Church. For in a certain place the same Lord sets above those who see, and therefore believe, those who do not see and yet believe. For at that time the weakness of His disciples wavered to such a degree that Him Whom they saw already risen they thought they must even handle, in order to believe.

It was not enough for their eyes to see, unless their hands also were brought to His limbs and the scars of the recent wounds were touched: so that the disciple who doubted, on suddenly touching and recognizing the scars, might cry out, My Lord and my God! The scars showed Him Who had healed all wounds in others. Could the Lord not have risen without scars? But He knew the wounds in the heart of the disciples, and for the healing of these He had kept the scars in His body. And what did the Lord say to him, now confessing and saying, My Lord and my God? Because you have seen me, He said, you have believed: blessed are those who do not see, and believe (John 20:25–29). Whom did He mean, brothers, if not us? Not us alone, but also those after us. For after a short time, when He had withdrawn from mortal eyes so that faith might be made firm in hearts, whoever believed, believed without seeing, and their faith had great merit: to acquire that faith they brought only a devout heart, and not also a groping hand.

Chapter III. — 3. Christ now works greater miracles. These things, then, the Lord did in order to invite to faith. This faith now burns in the Church, spread through the whole world. And now He works greater healings, for the sake of which He did not disdain at that time to display those lesser ones. For just as the soul is better than the body, so too the health of the soul is better than the health of the body. Now blind flesh does not open its eyes by a miracle of the Lord; and a blind heart opens its eyes at the word of the Lord. Now a mortal corpse does not rise; the soul rises, which lay dead in a living corpse. Now deaf ears of the body are not opened: but how many have the ears of the heart closed, which nevertheless lie open when the word of God penetrates, so that those believe who did not believe, and those live well who lived badly, and those obey who did not obey? and we say, That man has believed; and we marvel when we hear it of those whom we once knew to be hard. Why then do you now marvel at someone believing, innocent, serving God, unless because you behold seeing one whom you had known blind, behold living one whom you had known dead, behold hearing one whom you had known deaf? For see the dead in another sense, those dead of whom the Lord spoke to a certain man who was delaying for this reason to follow the Lord, because he wished to bury his father: Let, He said, the dead bury their dead (Matt. 8:22). Certainly the dead buriers are not dead in body: for if they were, they could not bury dead bodies. Yet He calls them dead: where, if not inwardly in the soul? For just as, visibly too, often in a house intact and sound the master of that same house lies dead, so in an intact body many have inwardly a dead soul: and these the Apostle rouses thus, Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you (Eph. 5:14). He Who rouses the dead enlightens the blinded. For by His voice through the Apostle the cry goes out to the dead man, Rise, you who sleep. The blind man will be enlightened with light when he has risen. And how many deaf people did the Lord behold before His eyes when He said:

He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Matt. 11:15). For who was standing before Him without the ears of the body? What other ears, then, was He seeking but those of the inner man?

Chapter IV. — 4. The eye of the mind, by which God may be seen, is cleansed through faith. Likewise, what sort of eyes was He seeking, when He was certainly speaking to people who saw, but who saw through the eyes of the flesh? For when Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us: he did indeed understand this rightly, that the Father, once shown, could be enough; but to one for whom He Who was equal to the Father was not enough, how would the Father be enough? And why was He not enough? Because He was not seen. Why was He not seen? Because the eye by which He could be seen was not yet healthy. For that which was seen in the flesh of the Lord with these eyes, not only the disciples who honoured Him saw, but also the Jews who crucified Him. He, then, Who wished to be seen otherwise, was seeking other eyes. And therefore He answered thus to the one who said, Show us the Father, and it is enough for us: Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known Me? Philip, he who has seen Me has seen the Father also. And so that He might meanwhile heal the eyes of faith, he is first admonished according to faith, so that he may be able to arrive at sight. And lest Philip should think that God was to be conceived of in the way in which he saw the Lord Jesus Christ in the body, He immediately added: Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me (John 14:8–10)? He had already said, He who has seen Me has seen the Father also. But Philip did not yet have a healthy eye with which to see the Father: and therefore not one with which to see the Son Himself, co-equal with the Father. And so He took up the keenness of his mind, still wounded and not strong enough to look upon so great a light, to be healed and strengthened with the medicines and poultices of faith, and He said, Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? Let him, then, who cannot yet see what the Lord is going to show, not seek first to see what he is to believe: but let him first believe, so that the eye with which he is to see may be healed. For only the form of a servant was displayed to servile eyes: because He Who thought it not robbery to be equal to God, if He could already be seen as equal to God by those whom He willed to be healed, would have had no need to empty Himself and take the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6–7). But because there was no means by which God might be seen, and there was a means by which man might be seen, He Who was God was made man, so that what was seen might heal that by which He was not seen. For He Himself says in another place: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8). Philip could certainly have answered and said, Lord, behold, I see You: is the Father such as this is which I see, since You have said, He who has seen Me has seen the Father also? Before Philip could answer this, or perhaps before he could even think it, when the Lord had said, He who has seen Me has seen the Father also, He straightway added, Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? For with that eye he could not yet see either the Father or the Son equal to the Father: but in order that the eye might be healed for seeing, it had to be anointed for believing. Therefore, before you see what you cannot see, believe what you do not yet see. Walk by faith, so that you may arrive at sight. Sight will not gladden in the homeland him whom faith does not console on the way. For thus says the Apostle:

As long as we are in the body, we are on pilgrimage away from the Lord. And he immediately adds why we are still on pilgrimage, although we have already believed: We walk, he says, by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:6–7).

Chapter V. — 5. Our whole work now is to heal the eye of the heart. Our whole work, therefore, brethren, in this life is to heal the eye of the heart, by which God may be seen. To this end the most holy mysteries are celebrated; to this end the word of God is preached; to this end are the moral exhortations of the Church, that is, those pertaining to the correcting of conduct, to the amending of carnal desires, to renouncing this world not by word only but by a changed life; to this end the divine and holy Scriptures do whatever they do, that that inner [eye] may be cleansed of the thing which hinders us from the sight of God. For just as the eye, made for seeing this temporal light (a light which, though heavenly, is yet bodily and visible, not only to men but even to the vilest animals, for to this end the eye was made, that it may see this light), yet if something has been thrown into it, or has rushed into it, by which it is troubled, is shut off from this light; and although the light surrounds it with its presence, the eye nevertheless turns itself away and is absent; and not only is it made absent from the present light by its own disturbance, but the light, for the seeing of which it was made, is even painful to it: so too the eye of the heart, disturbed and wounded, turns itself away from the light of justice, and neither dares to contemplate it nor is able to.

Chapter VI. — 6. On zeal for cleansing the eye of the heart. What troubles the eye of the heart? Cupidity, avarice, iniquity, worldly desire trouble, close and blind the eye of the heart. And yet, how a physician is sought when the eye of the flesh is troubled, how there is no delay in having it opened and cleansed, so that the organ by which this light is seen may be healed! People run, no one rests, no one delays, if even a straw falls into the eye. The sun, certainly, which we wish to see with healthy eyes, God made. Far brighter, surely, is He Who made it; nor is the light which pertains to the eye of the mind of this kind. That light is eternal wisdom. Now God made you, O man, after His own image. Would He give you the means of seeing the sun which He made, and not give you the means of seeing Him Who made you, when He made you after His own image? He gave this too: He gave you both. But you love these outer eyes much, and that inner one you much neglect: you carry it about worn down and wounded. It is a punishment to you if your Maker should wish to show Himself; it is a punishment to your eye, before it is cured and healed. For in paradise too Adam sinned, and hid himself from the face of God. So while he had the healthy heart of a pure conscience, he rejoiced at the presence of God; after that eye was wounded by sin, he began to dread the divine light, he fled into darkness and into the thick of the trees, fleeing the truth, seeking the shadows.

Chapters VII and VIII. — 7. We sick are invited by the example of Christ to take the cup. Therefore, my brethren, since we too were born from him, and as the Apostle says, In Adam all die (1 Cor. 15:22) — for all of us were at one time two men — if

we were unwilling to obey the physician so as not to fall sick; let us obey, so as to be set free from sickness. The physician gave us precepts when we were healthy: the physician gave precepts so that we should not need a physician. "Those who are healthy," He says, "have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Matt. 9:12). When healthy we despised the precepts, and by experience we have felt to what ruin of ours we despised that precept. Already we have begun to be sick, we are in distress, we are on the bed of infirmity: but let us not despair. For since we could not come to the physician, He Himself deigned to come to us. Though despised by the healthy man, He did not despise the wounded one. He did not cease to give other precepts to the languishing man who would not keep the first ones so as not to languish: as though He were saying, "Surely by experience you have felt that I spoke the truth when I said, Do not touch this. Be healed, then, at last, and come back to life. Behold, I carry your infirmity: drink the bitter cup. For you yourself have made so laborious for yourself those precepts of Mine which, when given to you while healthy, were so sweet. They were despised, you began to be in distress: you cannot be healed unless you drink the bitter cup, the cup of temptations, in which this life abounds, the cup of tribulations, of straits, of sufferings. Drink," He says, "drink, that you may live." And lest the languishing man should answer Him, "I cannot, I do not bear it, I do not drink," the healthy physician drank first, so that the sick man should not hesitate to drink. For what bitterness is there in such a draught that He did not drink? If insult: He heard it first when He was casting out demons, "He has a demon" (Luke 7:33), and that "by Beelzebub He casts out demons" (Luke 11:15). Hence, in order Himself to console the sick, He says, "If they have called the father of the household Beelzebub, how much more those of his household?" (Matt. 10:25). If pains are bitter: He was bound and scourged and crucified. If death is bitter: He also died. If infirmity shudders at the kind of death: nothing at that time was more ignominious than death on a cross. For not in vain did the Apostle, commending His obedience, add, saying: "Made obedient even unto death, but the death of a cross" (Phil. 2:8).

Chapter IX. — 8. Why Christ honoured His cross here. But because He Himself was going to honour His faithful at the end of this age, He first honoured the cross in this age; so that the princes of the earth, believing in Him, should forbid any criminal to be crucified: and what the persecuting Jews procured for the Lord with great mockery, His servants, even kings, now bear on their foreheads with great confidence. Not only does it appear now what kind of death the Lord deigned to undergo for us: as the Apostle says, "Made a curse for us" (Gal. 3:13). And when the blindness of the Jews mocked Him as He hung there, He could certainly have come down from the cross, He Who, if He had not willed it, would not have been on the cross: but it was a greater thing to rise from the tomb than to come down from the cross. Doing, then, these divine things and suffering human things, the Lord admonishes us by bodily miracles and bodily patience to believe, and to be healed for beholding those invisible things which the eye of the flesh does not know. Doing this, therefore, He cured those blind men of whom now the Gospel

has been read. And in the healing, see what He has taught us about the inner sick man.

Chapter X. — 9. What the healing of the two blind men signifies. What Jesus' passing by means. Consider the outcome of the deed itself and the order of events. Those two blind men, sitting by the way, cried out as the Lord passed by, that He would have mercy on them. But they were restrained by the crowd that was with the Lord, so that they should not cry out. And do not think that this was left without a mystery. But they overcame the crowd restraining them by a most persevering crying, so that their voice might reach the ears of the Lord: as if He had not already anticipated their thoughts. So the two blind men cried out, that they might be heard by the Lord, and they could not be suppressed by the crowds. The Lord was passing by, and they were crying out. The Lord stood still, and they were healed. For the Lord Jesus stood still, and called them, and said: What do you wish that I should do for you? And they said: That our eyes may be opened. For their faith the Lord did it; He restored their eyes. If we have now understood the inner sick man, the inner deaf man, the inner dead man, let us look there for the inner blind man too. The eyes of the heart are closed: Jesus passes by, that we may cry out. What is 'Jesus passes by'? Jesus does temporal things. What is 'Jesus passes by'? Jesus does transitory things. Consider and see how many of His deeds have passed away. He was born of the Virgin Mary: is He always being born? As an infant He was suckled: is He always sucking? He ran through the ages of life up to young manhood: does He always grow bodily? Boyhood succeeded infancy, adolescence boyhood, young manhood adolescence, each as the one before passed by and gave way. The very miracles which He did have passed: they are read and believed. For since such things were written so that they could be read, they were passing even as they were done. Lastly, not to dwell on many things, He was crucified: does He always hang on the cross? He was buried, He rose again, He ascended into heaven: now He dies no more, and death shall have dominion over Him no more; and His divinity abides for ever, and the immortality of His body shall now never fail. But yet all those things which were done by Him in time have passed away; and they are written to be read, and preached to be believed. In all these, then, Jesus passed by.

Chapter XI. — 10. Two blind men, two peoples. Christ the cornerstone. What are the two blind men beside the way, but two peoples, for whose healing Jesus came? Let us show these two peoples in the holy Scriptures. It is written in the Gospel: I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; and those too I must bring, that there may be one flock and one shepherd (John 10:16). Who, then, are the two peoples? One of the Jews, and the other of the Gentiles. I was not sent, He says, except to the sheep that have perished of the house of Israel. To whom did He say this? To the disciples: when that Canaanite woman was crying out, who confessed herself to be a dog, that she might earn crumbs from her masters' table. And because she earned it, now the two were shown to whom He had come: namely the Jewish people, of whom He says, I was not sent except to the sheep that have perished of the house of Israel; and the people of the Gentiles, whose type was displayed by this

woman, whom He had at first rejected, saying, It is not good to throw the children's bread to the dogs: and to whom, when she said, Yes, Lord, for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table, He had answered: O woman, great is your faith, be it done to you as you wish (Matt. 15:22–28). For from there too came that Centurion, of whom the same Lord says: Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel. Because he had said: I am not worthy that Thou enter under my roof; but only speak it with a word, and my servant will be healed (ibid. 8:10, 8). Thus therefore the Lord, before His passion and glorification, was already marking out two peoples: one, to which He had come because of the promises to the Fathers; and the other, which on account of His mercy He did not repel: so that what had been promised to Abraham might be fulfilled, In your seed shall all nations be blessed (Gen. 22:18). For this reason also the Apostle, already after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord, when he was scorned by the Jews, went on to the Gentiles. Yet he was not silent towards the Churches which had believed from among the Jews: I was, he says, unknown by face to the Churches of Judaea which are in Christ. But they only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once laid waste: and in me, he says, they glorified God (Gal. 1:22–24). So too Christ is called the corner stone, Who made both one (Eph. 2:20, 14). For a corner joins two walls coming from different directions. What is so different as circumcision and uncircumcision, having one wall from Judaea, the other wall from the Gentiles? But they are joined by the corner stone, For the stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner (Ps. 117:22). There is no corner in a building unless two walls coming from different directions meet in one and are joined in a certain unity. These two walls, then, according to the figure, were the two blind men crying out to the Lord.

Chapter XII. — 11. Jesus, passing by, is called upon, and heals. Attend now, most beloved. The Lord was passing by, the blind were crying out. What is "He was passing by"? He was doing transitory works, as we have already said. On the basis of these transitory works our faith is built up. For we believe in the Son of God not only because He is the Word of God, through Whom all things were made: for if, abiding always in the form of God, equal to God, He had not emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, neither would the blind have perceived Him so as to be able to cry out. But when He was working transitory things, that is, humbling Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, the two blind men cried out, Have mercy on us, son of David. For this very fact too, that He Who is the Lord and creator of David willed also to be the son of David, He did in time; He did it passing by.

Chapter XIII. — 12. To cry out to Christ, what it is. But what is it to cry out to Christ, brethren, except to answer to the grace of Christ with good works? I say this, brethren, lest perhaps we be loud with our voices and mute in our conduct. Who is it that cries out to Christ, so that inner blindness may be driven out as Christ passes by, that is, as He dispenses to us the temporal sacraments, by which we are admonished

to lay hold of eternal things? Who is it that cries out to Christ? He who despises the world cries out to Christ. He who spurns the pleasures of the age cries out to Christ. He who says, not with the tongue but with his life, The world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. 6:14), cries out to Christ. He who scatters abroad and gives to the poor, so that his righteousness may remain for ever and ever (Ps. 111:9), cries out to Christ. For he who hears, and hears not as a deaf man, Sell your possessions and give to the poor; make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure that does not fail in heaven (Luke 12:33): as though hearing the sound of the footsteps of Christ passing by, let the blind man cry out at these things, that is, let him do them. Let his voice be in his deeds. Let him begin to despise the world, to distribute his goods to the needy, to count as nothing what men love; let him despise injuries, not seek to be avenged, make his cheek ready for the one who strikes, pray for his enemies; if anyone has taken away what is his, let him not demand it back; if he has taken anything from anyone, let him restore fourfold.

Chapter XIV. — 13. The crowd forbidding them to cry out. When he has begun to do these things, all his kinsmen, his relations by marriage and his friends are stirred up. Those who love the world speak against him: Why are you mad? You go too far: are the others not Christians? This is folly, this is madness. And the crowd shouts other such things, so that the blind may not cry out. The crowd rebuked those who cried out: but it did not overcome their cries. Let those who wish to be healed understand what they are to do. Now too Jesus passes by: let those who are beside the way cry out. For these are they who honour with their lips, but their heart is far from God (Isa. 29:13). They are beside the way, the contrite of heart, to whom the Lord gives commands. For when the things that the Lord did, which pass by, are read aloud, Jesus passing by is always set before us. For until the end of the age there is no lack of blind men sitting by the way. It is needful, therefore, that those sitting beside the way cry out. The crowd that was with the Lord was checking the cry of those who sought health. Brothers, do you see what I am saying? For I do not know how to say it: but still less do I know how to keep silent. This I say, and I say it openly. For I fear Jesus passing by and Jesus abiding: and therefore I cannot keep silent. Good Christians, truly earnest, wishing to do the precepts of God which are written in the Gospel, are hindered by bad and lukewarm Christians. The very crowd that is with the Lord hinders those who cry out; that is, it hinders those who do well, lest by persevering they be healed. Let them cry out, let them not grow faint, nor be led as if by the authority of crowds; nor let them imitate those who became Christians before them, who live badly and envy good works. Let them not say: As these, so many of them, live, so let us live. Why not rather as the Gospel says? Why do you wish to live according to the rebuke of the forbidding crowd, and not according to the footsteps of the Lord passing by? They will insult, they will revile, they will call you back: you, cry out until you reach the ears of Jesus. For those who persevere in doing such things as Christ has commanded, and do not heed the forbidding crowds, nor set great store by the fact that they seem to follow Christ, that is, that they are called Christians, but love the light which Christ is going to restore more than they fear the din of those who forbid: they will in no way be separated, and Jesus will stand still, and

will heal them.

Chapter XV. — 14. How the eyes are healed. What it means that Jesus stands. For how are our eyes healed? Just as through faith we perceive Christ passing by in the temporal dispensation, so let us understand Christ standing in unchangeable eternity. For there the eye is healed, when the divinity of Christ is understood. Let your Charity grasp this: attend to the great mystery that I am about to speak of. All the things done in time by our Lord Jesus Christ implant faith in us. We believe in the Son of God, not only in the Word through Whom all things were made, but in that very Word made flesh, that He might dwell among us, born of the Virgin Mary, and the other things that faith holds, which were shown to us so that Christ might pass by, and so that the blind, hearing the footsteps of Him passing by, might cry out by works, calling to mind by their life the profession of faith. Now, so that those who cry out may be healed, Jesus stands. For he already sees Jesus standing who says: Even if we had known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer (2 Cor. 5:16). For he was seeing the divinity of Christ, as far as is possible in this life. There is the divinity of Christ, there is the humanity of Christ. The divinity stands, the humanity passes by. What does it mean, 'The divinity stands'? It is not changed, it is not uprooted, it does not withdraw. For He did not come to us in such a way as to depart from the Father; nor did He ascend in such a way as to be moved from place. Flesh having been assumed, He changed place; but God, in assuming flesh, since He is not in a place, does not change place either. Let us be touched by Christ standing, let our eyes be healed. But whose eyes? Of those, namely, who cry out when He passes by: that is, of those who work well through that faith which was dispensed in time for the instruction of us little ones.

15. Once the eyes are healed, brethren, what more precious thing shall we be able to have? Those who see this light which was made, which shines from the sky, or which is shown forth from a lamp, rejoice. And how wretched do those seem who cannot see it? But why do I speak, why do I say these things, except to exhort all of you to cry out when Jesus passes by? I commend to your Holiness a light to be loved which perhaps you do not see. Believe, while you do not yet see; and cry out, that you may see. How great an unhappiness is it thought to be for men who do not see this bodily light? Someone is blinded: at once it is said, 'He has had God angry with him, he has committed some evil.' This is what the wife of Tobit was saying to her husband. He was crying out on account of the kid, lest it should be from theft; he did not want to hear the sound of theft in his house: she, defending what she had done, struck her husband with reproach: and when he said, 'Give it back, if it is from theft', she answered mockingly, 'Where are your righteous deeds?' (Tob. 2:21–22). How blind was she who was defending the theft: and what light was he seeing who was commanding the theft to be returned! She was outside in the light of the sun: he was within in the light of righteousness. Which of them was in the better light?

Chapter XVI. — 16. The inner light is compared with the visible. To love this light, brethren, we exhort your Love; that you may cry out by works when the Lord passes by: let the voice of faith sound forth; so that Jesus standing, that is, the Wisdom of God abiding unchangeable, and the majesty

of the Word of God, through Whom all things were made, open your eyes. The same Tobias, admonishing his son, was admonishing him to this, that he should cry out: that is, he was admonishing him to good works. He told him to give to the poor, he instructed him to do almsgiving to the needy, and he taught him, saying: Son, alms do not allow one to go into darkness (Tob. 4:11). A blind man was giving counsel for receiving and obtaining light. Alms, he says, do not allow one to go into darkness. If his son had replied in amazement, "Why then, father, did you not do almsgiving, that you now speak as a blind man? Are you not now in darkness yourself, you who tell me, Alms do not allow one to go into darkness?" He knew about what light he was teaching his son; he knew what he saw in the inner man. The son was holding out his hand to the father, so that he might walk upon the earth; and the father to the son, so that he might dwell in heaven.

17. One must cry out amid crowds that forbid crying out. Briefly, brothers, to conclude this sermon, from what touches and troubles us most: see that there are crowds which rebuke the blind who cry out. All of you in this crowd who wish to be healed, let them not deter you: for many are Christians in name and ungodly in works; let them not deter you from good works. Cry out amid the crowds that restrain, that call back, that mock, that live evilly. For the wicked press down good Christians not only by their words but also by their wicked works. A good Christian does not wish to go and watch the shows. This very thing, that he curbs his own desire so as not to go on to the theatre, is his crying out after Christ, crying out to be healed. Others run together there, but perhaps pagans, perhaps Jews. Nay rather, there would be so few in the theatres that they would leave in shame, if Christians did not go to the theatres. So they too run, carrying the holy name to their own punishment. Cry out, then, by not going, pressing down in your heart temporal desire; and hold yourself in a strong and persevering cry to the ears of the Saviour, so that Jesus may stand still and cure you. Cry out amid the very crowds; do not despair of the Lord's ears. For those blind men too did not cry out from that side where there was no crowd, so as to be heard from the side where there was no hindrance from those who forbade them. They cried out amid the very crowds: and yet the Lord heard. So you also, even amid sinners and the dissolute, amid lovers of worldly vanities, cry out there, so that the Lord may heal you. Do not cry out to the Lord from some other side; do not go to the heretics and cry out to the Lord there. Take heed, brothers, that it was in that crowd which forbade crying out that those who were crying out were healed.

Chapter XVII. — 18. Opponents are overcome by perseverance. For let your Holiness also attend to this: what it is to persevere in crying out. I shall speak of what many have experienced with me in the name of Christ: for the Church does not cease to bring forth such people. When any Christian has begun to live well, to be fervent in good works, and to despise the world, in the very newness of his works he suffers cold Christians as censurers and opponents. But if he perseveres, and overcomes them by enduring, and does not fall away from good works, those very same people who formerly forbade him will now comply. For they rebuke and disturb and forbid for just so long as they presume that he can give way to them. But if they have been overcome by the perseverance

of those who are making progress, they turn round and begin to say: A great man, a holy man: happy is he to whom God has granted it. They honour, they congratulate, they bless, they praise: just like that crowd which was with the Lord. It was forbidding the blind men to cry out: but after they had cried out in such a way that they deserved to be heard and to obtain the mercy of the Lord, that same crowd says in its turn, Jesus is calling you. Now they even become encouragers, those who a little before were rebuking them to be silent. Yet only that man is not called by the Lord who does not labour in this world. But who in this life does not labour in his sins and in his iniquities? And if all labour, to all it has been said, Come to Me, all you who labour (Matt. 11:28). And if it has been said to all, why do you lay your fault on Him Who invites you? Come. His house is not made narrow for you: the kingdom of God is possessed equally by all, and wholly by each; as the number of its possessors grows it is not diminished, because it is not divided. To each one that is whole which is held in concord by many.

Chapter XVIII.—19. The good and the bad mixed together in the Church. In two ways a bad man does not stain a good one. Yet we have learned this in the mystery of this reading, brethren, which in other places of the holy Books sounds forth most openly: that there are within the Church both good and bad, which we often call the wheat and the chaff. Let no one desert the threshing-floor before the time; let him bear with the chaff in the threshing, let him bear with it on the floor. For what he bears with, he will not have in the barn. The winnower will come, Who will divide the bad from the good. There will also be a bodily separation, which a spiritual one now precedes. Be always disjoined from the bad in heart; for a time be joined with them cautiously in body. Yet do not be negligent in correcting your own, that is, those who in any way belong to your care, by admonishing, by teaching, by exhorting, by alarming. By whatever ways you can, act. Nor, when you find in the Scriptures and in the examples of the saints, whether of those who were in this life before or after the Lord's coming, that the bad do not stain the good in unity, should you become slothful in correcting the bad. In two ways the bad man does not stain you: if you do not consent, and if you reprove: that is, not to share, not to consent. For one shares when fellowship of will or of approval is joined to his deed. Admonishing us of this, therefore, the Apostle says: Do not share in the unfruitful works of darkness. And because it was too little not to consent, if neglect of discipline were to follow: But rather, he says, even reprove them (Eph. 5:11). See how he has embraced both, Do not share: but rather even reprove. What is, Do not share? Do not consent, do not praise, do not approve. What is, But rather even reprove? Rebuke, chastise, restrain.

20. Correction is not to be made with a proud spirit. Next, in the very correction or restraint of the sins of others, care must be taken lest he who chastises another exalt himself; and that apostolic saying must be pondered: Wherefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor. 10:12). Outwardly let the rebuke resound terribly;

let the love of gentleness be held within. If a man is overtaken in some fault, as the same apostle says, you who are spiritual, instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ (Gal. 6:1–2). Likewise in another place: The servant of the Lord, he says, must not quarrel, but be gentle towards all, teachable, patient, in modesty correcting those who think otherwise, lest perhaps God give them repentance to know the truth, and they come to their senses out of the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will (2 Tim. 2:24–26). So be neither consenting to the wicked, so as to approve them; nor negligent, so as not to rebuke them; nor proud, so as to rebuke them insultingly.

21. Unity is never to be deserted. The separation of the Donatists is condemned from the parable of the tares. But whoever has deserted unity violates charity; and whoever violates charity, whatever great thing he may have, he himself is nothing. If he speaks with the tongues of men and of Angels, if he knows all mysteries, if he has all faith so as to move mountains, if he distributes all his goods to the poor, if he hands over his body to be burned, but does not have charity, he is nothing, it profits him nothing (1 Cor. 13:13). He has all things to no use who does not have that one thing by which he may make use of all things.

Chapter XIX. — Let us therefore embrace charity, being eager to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3). Let them not lead us astray who understand carnally and, making a bodily separation, are separated by a spiritual sacrilege from the wheat of the Church spread through the whole world. For the good seed has been sown through the whole world. That good sower, the Son of Man, scattered good seed not in Africa alone but everywhere. But the enemy sowed tares over it. Yet what does the householder say? Let both grow until the harvest. Grow through what? Through the field, of course. What is the field? Is it Africa? No. What is it, then? Let us not interpret it ourselves; let the Lord say: let us allow no one to surmise anything at his own discretion. For the disciples said to the Master: Explain to us the parable of the tares. And the Lord explained: The good seed, He said, are the sons of the kingdom; but the tares, the sons of the wicked one. Who sowed them? The enemy, He says, who sowed them, is the devil. What is the field? The field, He says, is this world. What is the harvest? The harvest, He says, is the end of the age. Who are the reapers? The reapers, He says, are Angels (Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43). Is Africa the world? Is this time the harvest? Is Donatus the reaper? Through the whole world await the harvest, through the whole world grow towards the harvest, through the whole world tolerate the tares until the harvest. Let not perverse men lead you astray, chaff far too light, which flies out of the threshing-floor before the winnower comes: let them not lead you astray. Hold them to this likeness of the tares, even this alone, and do not allow them to speak any further. That man handed over the books. No. But that man handed over the books. Whoever handed them over, has the faithlessness of the traditors made void the faith of God? What is the faith of God? That which He promised to Abraham,

saying: In your seed all nations shall be blessed (Gen. 22:18). What is the faith of God? Let both grow until the harvest. Grow through what? Through the field. What is "through the field"? Through the world.

22. The Donatists' fabrication about the diminishing of the wheat. Here they say: Both had indeed grown throughout the world, but the wheat has now been diminished and brought back into this region of ours and into fewness. The Lord does not allow you to interpret as you please. He Himself who expounds this parable shuts your mouth, a sacrilegious mouth, an impious mouth, a profane mouth, a mouth contrary to yourself, you who contradict the testator, who calls even you to the inheritance. How does He shut your mouth? By saying: Let both grow until the harvest. If the harvest has already come, let us believe that the wheat has been diminished. Although not even then will it be diminished, but it will be stored away in the barn. For thus He says: Gather first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but store the wheat in my barn. If, then, they grow until the harvest, and after the harvest are stored away, you shameless, impious man, when are they diminished? I grant that in comparison with the tares and the chaff together the wheat is fewer; yet both grow until the harvest. For when iniquity abounds, the charity of many grows cold: the tares grow, the chaff grows. But because the whole field cannot lack wheat, which by persevering to the end shall be saved (Matt. 24:12–13), both grow until the harvest. And if on account of the abundance of the wicked it was said, Do you think that the Son of Man, when He comes, will find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8), and by this name are signified all who, by transgression of the law, imitate him to whom it was said, Earth you are, and into earth you shall go (Gen. 3:19), yet both on account of the abundance of the good, and on account of him to whom it was said, So shall your seed be as the stars of heaven, and as the sand of the sea (Gen. 15:5 and 22:17), this too has not been left unsaid: That many shall come from the east and the west, and shall recline with Abraham and Isaac in the kingdom of God (Matt. 8:11). Both, therefore, grow until the harvest; and the tares or the chaff have their own sayings in the Scriptures, and the wheat its own. Those who do not understand these confound them and are confounded; and so they clamour in blind desire that they refuse to fall silent even when the truth has been laid open.

Chapter XX. — 23. A passage wrongly understood by the schismatics of bodily separation. Behold, they say, the prophet says, Depart, go out from there, and touch not what is unclean (Isa. 52:11): how then shall we tolerate the wicked for the sake of peace, when we are commanded to go out and depart from them, lest we touch what is unclean? We understand this departure spiritually, they bodily. For I too cry out with the prophet, and whatever sort of vessels we may be, God uses us for your dispensation: we too cry out and say to you, Depart, go out from there, and touch not what is unclean; but by a touching of the heart, not of the body. For what is it to touch what is unclean, but to consent to sins? And what is it to go out from there, but to do what pertains to the correction of the wicked, so far as can be done according to each one's rank and person with peace preserved? What each one has sinned has displeased you; you have not touched what is unclean. You have reproved,

you have rebuked, you have admonished, you have also applied, if the matter required it, a fitting discipline, and one such as does not violate unity: you have gone out from there. Look at the deeds of the saints, lest perhaps the interpretation should seem to be ours. As the saints understood these words, so surely they are to be understood. "Go out from there," says the prophet. First I establish this sentence from the customary usage of the word itself, and afterwards I show that it is not mine. Often people are accused; and when they have been accused, they defend themselves: but when the man who is accused has defended himself reasonably and justly, those who hear say, "He has gone out from there." Where has he gone out to from there? Remaining in his place, he has gone out from there. How has he gone out from there? By giving an account of himself, and by a most just defence. This is what the saints did when they shook the dust from their feet against those who did not receive the peace announced to them (Luke 10:11). That watchman went out from there to whom it was said, I have set you as a watchman for the house of Israel. For to him it is said, If you speak to the wicked man, and he does not turn himself away from his iniquity and from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, and you will free your soul (Ezek. 3:17, 19). If he does this, he goes out from there, not by separation of the body, but by the defence of his own work. For he did what had to be done, even if the other, who ought to have obeyed, did not obey. This is, Go out from there.

Chapter XXI.— 24. The prophets reproved the vices of the people, and did not withdraw from it. Moses cried out these things, Isaiah cried them out, Jeremiah cried them out, Ezekiel cried them out. Let us see whether they themselves did this, whether they abandoned the people of God and took themselves over to other nations. How many things and how vehemently Jeremiah rebuked against the sinners and the wicked of his people! Yet he was among them, he entered one temple with them, he celebrated the same sacraments: he lived in that congregation of wicked men, but by crying out he went out from there. This is to go out from there; this is not to touch the unclean thing, and not to consent with the will, and not to spare with the mouth. What shall I say of Jeremiah, of Isaiah, of Daniel, of Ezekiel, of the other Prophets, who did not withdraw from a wicked people, lest they should desert the good mingled with that people, among whom they themselves too were able to be such? Moses himself, brethren: while he was receiving the law on the mountain, the people below made an idol. The people of God, the people led through as the waves of the Red Sea gave way, waves which had overwhelmed the enemies pursuing them, after so many signs and miracles, in the plagues of the Egyptians unto death and in their own protection unto salvation, nevertheless demanded an idol, extorted an idol, made an idol, adored an idol, sacrificed to an idol. God makes known to His servant the deed of the people, and says that He will destroy them from His face. Moses intercedes, being about to return to that very people: and he had an occasion of withdrawing and going out from them, as these men understand it, so as not to touch the unclean thing, so as not to live with such people; yet he did not do it. And lest perhaps he should seem to have done this from necessity rather than from charity, God offered him another people: I will make you, He said, into a great nation: so that He might blot those out. But he did not accept; he clings to the sinners, he prays for the sinners. And how does he pray? A great proof of love, brethren. How does he pray? See that motherly charity, so to speak, of which we have often spoken. When God was threatening

the sacrilegious people, the tender heart of Moses trembled; he set himself against the wrath of God on their behalf. Lord, he says, if Thou forgive them their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me out of Thy book which Thou hast written (Exod. 32:31–32). With what fatherly and motherly heart, with what assurance he said this, attending to the justice and the mercy of God! that because He is just, He would not destroy the just man, and because He is merciful, He would pardon sinners.

Chapter XXII.— 25. One must withdraw from the wicked in heart, not in body. Certainly it is now plain to your prudence how all such testimonies of the Scriptures are to be taken: that when Scripture declares that we ought to withdraw from the wicked, we are bidden to understand nothing else than that we should withdraw in heart; lest we commit a greater evil in separating from the good than the one we flee in being joined with the wicked, as the Donatists themselves did. If they had truly been good men rebuking the wicked, and not rather wicked men themselves defaming the good, they would have tolerated people of whatever sort for the sake of peace, they who received back the Maximianists as unblemished, whom they had earlier condemned as lost. Certainly the prophet said plainly, Withdraw and go out from there, and do not touch what is unclean. In order to understand what he said, I look at what he did. By his deed he explains his saying to me. He said, Withdraw. To whom did he say it? To the just, surely. From whom did he say they should withdraw? From sinners and the wicked, surely. I ask whether he himself withdrew from such people. I find that he did not withdraw. Therefore he understood it otherwise. For surely he would have been the first to do what he commanded. He withdrew in heart; he reproved and rebuked. By holding himself back from consent he did not touch what is unclean; by reproving, moreover, he went out free in the sight of God; to whom God imputes neither his own sins, because he did not commit them; nor those of others, because he did not approve them; nor negligence, because he did not keep silent; nor pride, because he remained in unity. So then, my brethren, however many you have among you who are still weighed down by love of the world, the avaricious, perjurers, adulterers, spectators of trifles, consulters of astrologers, of fanatics, of augurs, of auspices, drunkards, the dissolute, whatever wicked people you know to be among you: as far as you are able, disapprove of them, so that you withdraw in heart; rebuke them, so that you go out from there; and do not consent, so that you do not touch what is unclean.