Augustine, Sermones 89-94 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

Sermon 90. On the words of the Gospel of Matthew, chap. 22:1-14, where [it speaks] of the wedding of the king's son. Against the Donatists, on charity. Preached at Carthage in the Restituta.

1. The Lord's banquet is twofold: one here, of the faithful; the other in heaven, of the blessed. All the faithful know the wedding of the king's son and his banquet, and the preparation of the Lord's table is set before the will of all. But it matters how one approaches, since one is not forbidden to approach. For the holy Scriptures teach us that there are two banquets of the Lord: one to which the good and the bad come, the other to which the bad do not come. Therefore the banquet of the Lord, of which we heard just now when the Gospel was being read, has both good and bad. All who excused themselves from this banquet are bad; but not all who entered are good. I address you therefore, you who recline as good guests at this banquet, whoever of you heed what has been said, He who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgement on himself (1 Cor. 11:29). All of you who are such, I address you, that you not seek the good outside, [but] bear with the bad inside.

2. All the righteous in this life are both bad and good. I do not doubt that your Charity wishes to hear who exactly these are whom I addressed in my discourse, that they should not seek the good outside, [but] bear with the bad inside. If all inside are bad, whom have I addressed? But if all inside are good, whom have I admonished to bear with the bad? First, then, with the Lord's help, let us get out of this question as best we can. If you weigh the good perfectly and clearly, no one is good but God alone. You have the Lord saying most plainly, Why do you ask Me about the good? No one is good but God alone (Matt. 19:17). How then does that wedding have good and bad, if no one is good but God alone? First you must know that in a certain way we are all bad. Indeed, in a certain way we are all bad; but in a certain way, not all of us are good. For can we compare ourselves with the Apostles? To whom the Lord Himself says, If you then, though you are bad, know how to give good gifts to your children. If we consider the Scriptures, there was one bad man there among the twelve Apostles, on whose account the Lord says in a certain place, And you are clean, but not all (John 13:10). Yet addressing all in common He says, If you, though you are bad. Peter heard this, John heard it, Andrew heard it, all the other eleven Apostles heard it. What did they hear? You, though you are bad, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father Who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him (Matt. 7:11)? On hearing that they were bad, they despaired; on hearing that God in heaven was their Father, they breathed again. Though you are, He says, bad: what then is owed to the bad, if not punishment? How much more, He says, your Father, Who is in heaven? What is owed to children, if not

reward? In the name of the wicked, the fear of punishments: in the name of sons, the hope of heirs.

3. The wicked shut out from the banquet: who are to be understood by them. In some respect, then, those very same people were wicked who in some respect were good. For to those to whom it was said, Since you are wicked, you know how to give good gifts to your sons, there was added at once, How much more your Father Who is in heaven? The Father, then, of the wicked, but not of those to be abandoned; because He is the Physician of those to be healed. In a certain manner, therefore, they were wicked. And yet those guests of the householder at the king's wedding were, I think, not of that number of whom it was said, They invited good and bad, so as to be reckoned in the number of the wicked whom we heard were shut out in that one who was found not to have a wedding garment. In some respect, I say, they were wicked who were good: in some respect they were good who were wicked. Hear John on the respect in which they were wicked: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. See the respect in which they were wicked: because they had sin. In what respect were they good? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, so as to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all iniquity (1 John 1:8–9). If therefore we should say, according to this exposition which you have heard me bring forth, as I think, from the holy Scriptures, that the same men are both good in a certain manner and wicked in a certain manner; if we should wish to take in this sense what was said, They invited good and bad, that is, the very same people both good and wicked; if we should wish to take it so, we are not permitted, because of that man who was found not having a wedding garment, and was not merely cast out in any fashion, so as only to be deprived of that banquet, but so as to be condemned to the eternal punishment of darkness.

4. That by the one shut out many shut out are signified. But someone says: Why make so much of one man? What is surprising, what is great, if one man not having a wedding garment slipped past the householder's servants in the crowd? Could it on his account be said, They invited good and bad? Attend, then, and understand, my brothers. That one man was one kind; for they were many. Let a careful hearer answer me here and say: I do not want you to tell me your suppositions; I want it proved to me that that one man was many. The Lord will be present, I shall prove it plainly, nor shall I seek far afield so as to be able to prove it. In His own words God will help me, and will supply through me what may be plain to you. Behold, the householder came in to look over those reclining. See, my brothers, that it did not pertain to the servants except to invite and bring in good and bad: see that it was not said, The servants observed those reclining, and found there a man not having a wedding garment, and said to him. This is not written. The householder looked over them, the householder found him, the householder distinguished, the householder separated. This indeed was not to be passed over. But we have undertaken to prove something else, how that one man was many. The householder came in, then, to look over those reclining, and found a man not having a wedding garment: and he said to him, Friend,

how did you come in here not having a wedding garment? But he was struck dumb. For such a One was questioning him, before Whom he could feign nothing. For that garment was looked for in the heart, not in the flesh: had it been put on outwardly, it would not have been hidden even from the servants. Where the wedding garment is to be put on, hear, where it says, Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness (Ps. 131:9). Of that garment the Apostle says, If indeed we be found clothed, and not naked (2 Cor. 5:3). So he was found by the Lord who was hidden from the servants. Questioned, he is struck dumb: he is bound, he is cast out, one is condemned out of many. Lord, I had said, because Thou admonishest [me] to admonish all. Recall with me the words which you have heard, and you will now find, and now judge, that that one man was many. Certainly the Lord had questioned one, to one He had said, Friend, how did you come in here? One had been struck dumb, and of that one it had been said, Bind his hands and feet, and send him into the outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why this? For many are called, but few chosen. What could anyone say against this plain showing of the truth? Send him, He says, into the outer darkness. Him certainly, the one, of whom the Lord says, For many are called, but few chosen. So the few are not sent out. Certainly that man was one, who did not have a wedding garment. Cast him out. Why is he cast out? For many are called, but few chosen. Let the few go, cast out the many. Certainly he was one. This one was altogether one, yet not only were they many, but they outnumbered the multitude of the good. For the good also are many: but in comparison with the bad the good are few. Much wheat has sprung up: compare it with the chaff, and the grains are few. The very same are many in themselves, few in comparison with the bad. How do we prove that they are many in themselves? Many will come from the east and from the west. Where will they come? To that banquet, into which good and bad enter. Speaking of another banquet He added, And they will recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 8:11). That is the banquet to which the bad will not come. Let this which now is be worthily received, so that that may be reached. So the same are many who are few: many in themselves, few in comparison with the bad. So what does the Lord say? He finds one, and says, Let the many be cast out, let the few remain. For to say, Many are called, but few chosen, is nothing else than to show openly who are held to be such in this banquet that they may be led on to the other banquet, to which none of the bad will come.

5. What the wedding garment is. What then is it? All you who come to the Lord's table, which is here, I do not want you to be among the many who are to be separated, but among the few who are to be preserved. Whence will you be able to do this? Receive the wedding garment. Explain to us, you will say, the wedding garment. Without doubt that is the garment which none have but the good, those who are to be left in the banquet, kept for the banquet to which no bad man comes, to be led on to it by the grace of the Lord: they have the wedding garment. Let us seek then, my brothers, among the faithful, who are those who have something which the bad do not have, and that will be the wedding garment. If we say the Sacraments, you see how they are common to bad and good. Is it Baptism?

Without baptism, indeed, no one comes to God; but not everyone who has baptism comes to God. So I cannot understand baptism to be the wedding garment, that is, the sacrament itself; for this garment I see in the good, I see in the bad. Perhaps it is the altar, or what is received from the altar. We see that many eat, and eat and drink judgement to themselves. What then is it? Is it fasting? The bad also fast. Is it running together to church? The bad also run together. Lastly, is it the working of miracles? Not only do the good work them and the bad too, but sometimes the good do not work them. See, among the ancient people the magicians of Pharaoh worked miracles (Exod. 7 and 8); the Israelites did not work them: among the Israelites Moses and Aaron alone worked them; the rest did not work them, but saw, feared, believed. Were the magicians of Pharaoh, who worked miracles, better than the people of Israel, who were not able to work miracles, and yet that people belonged to God? In the Church itself, hear the Apostle: Are all prophets? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues (1 Cor. 12:29–30)?

6. The wedding garment is charity. Other goods are of no profit without charity. Charity and cupidity in man. What, then, is that wedding garment? This is the wedding garment: Now the end of the commandment, says the Apostle, is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (1 Tim. 1:5). This is the wedding garment. Not any charity whatever: for very often even men who share in a bad conscience are seen to love one another. Those who commit robberies together, who commit evil deeds together, who love actors together, who shout together for charioteers and beast-fighters, very often love one another: but there is not in them charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. Such charity is the wedding garment. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have charity, I have become, he says, as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. Tongues alone have come, and it is said to them, Why have you come in here not having a wedding garment? If I have, he says, prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have faith, so that I remove mountains, but do not have charity, I am nothing. See, these are the miracles of men who very often do not have the wedding garment. If I have all these things, he says, and do not have Christ, I am nothing. Nothing, he says, am I. Is prophecy, then, nothing? Is the knowledge of mysteries, then, nothing? It is not they that are nothing: but I, if I have them and do not have charity, am nothing. How many goods are of no profit without one good? If I do not have charity, if I bestow alms on the poor, if for the confession of the name of Christ I go even to blood, even to the flames, these things can be done also from love of glory; they are empty. Because, then, they can be done, empty, even from love of glory, and not from the richest charity of godliness, he mentions these too; hear these too: If I distribute all my goods for the use of the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have charity, it profits me nothing (1 Cor. 13:1–3). This is the wedding garment. Question yourselves; if you have it, you are secure at the Lord's banquet. There are two things in one man, charity and cupidity. Let charity be born in you, if it is not yet born; and if it is born,

let it be fed, be nourished, grow. But that desire, even if in this life it cannot be entirely extinguished, because if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: yet in so far as desire is in us, to that extent we are not without sin: let charity grow, let desire diminish, so that one day the one may be perfected, that is charity, and desire be consumed. Put on the wedding garment: I am addressing you who do not yet have it. You are already inside, you are already coming to the banquet, and you do not yet have the garment in honour of the bridegroom: you still seek your own things, not those of Jesus Christ. For the wedding garment is taken in honour of the union, that is, of the bridegroom and the bride. You know the bridegroom: it is Christ. You know the bride: it is the Church. Pay deference to her who is being married, pay deference to Him who is taking her in marriage. If you pay due deference to these who are marrying, you will be sons. Therefore make progress in this. Love the Lord, and there learn to love yourselves: so that when, by loving the Lord, you have loved yourselves, you may securely love your neighbours as yourselves. For when I do not find someone loving himself, how can I entrust to him a neighbour, whom he is to love as himself? And who is there, someone says, who does not love himself? See who it is: He who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Ps. 10:6). Does he love himself who loves his flesh and hates his soul, to his own harm, to the harm of his soul and of his flesh? But who loves his soul? He who loves God with his whole heart and with his whole mind. To such a one I now entrust the neighbour. Love your neighbours as yourselves.

7. The neighbour is every human being. Who, someone says, is my neighbour? Every human being is your neighbour. Did we not all have the two parents? Animals of each kind are neighbours to one another, dove to dove, leopard to leopard, asp to asp, beast to beast, and is a human being not neighbour to a human being? Recall the establishing of creation. God spoke, the waters brought forth; swimming things, great whales, fish, birds and the like they brought forth. Did all birds come from one bird? Did all vultures come from one vulture? Did all doves come from one dove? Did all snakes come from one snake? Did all gilt-heads come from one gilt-head? Did all sheep come from one sheep? Certainly the earth brought forth all kinds together. When it came to man, the earth did not bring forth man. One father was made for us: not even two, father and mother: one father, I say, was made for us, not even two, father and mother: but from the one father one mother; he from no one, but made by God, and she from him (Gen. 1 and 2). Consider our race: we have flowed from one source; and because that one was turned into bitterness, we have all been made a wild olive from the olive. Grace came too. One begot unto sin and unto death, yet one race, yet all neighbours to one another; yet not only alike, but also kin. One came against one: against the one who scattered, One Who gathers. So against the one who killed, One Who gives life. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive

(1 Cor. 15:22). But just as from him everyone who is born dies, so in Christ everyone who believes is made alive. But [this holds] if he has the wedding garment, if he is invited to be kept, not to be separated.

8. Not just any faith is praised. Have charity, therefore, my brothers. I have explained to you the wedding garment; I have explained to you the garment. Faith is praised; it is agreed, it is praised: but which faith, the Apostle distinguishes. For certain people who boast of faith and do not have good morals the apostle James rebukes, and he says: You believe that God is one, and you do well. The demons also believe, and they tremble (Jas. 2:19). Recall with me why Peter was praised, why he was called blessed. Was it because he said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16–17)? He Who pronounced him blessed paid attention not to the sound of the words but to the disposition of the heart. For do you wish to know that Peter's blessedness did not lie in those words? The demons too said these things. We know who You are; You are the Son of God (Mark 1:24). Peter confessed the Son of God: the demons confessed the Son of God. Distinguish, sir, distinguish. I do distinguish plainly. Peter spoke out of love, the demons out of fear. In short, he says, I am with You even unto death (Luke 22:33). They say, What have we to do with You (Matt. 8:29)? So you who have come to the banquet, do not boast of faith alone. Distinguish faith itself too, and then the wedding garment is recognized in you. Let the Apostle distinguish, let him teach us: Neither circumcision, he says, avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith. Tell [us] which: do not the demons also believe and tremble? I tell you, he says, listen, I distinguish, now I distinguish: But faith which works through love (Gal. 5:6). Which faith, then? What kind of faith? That which works through love. If I should have all knowledge, he says, and all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing. Have faith with love: for you cannot have love without faith. This I urge, this I exhort, this in the name of the Lord I teach Your Charity, that you have faith with love: because you can have faith without love. For I do not exhort you to have faith, but charity. For you cannot have charity without faith; for I mean charity towards God and neighbour: how can it exist without faith? How does he love God who does not believe in God? How does the fool love God, who says in his heart, There is no God (Ps. 13:1)? It can happen that you believe that Christ has come and do not love Christ. But it cannot happen that you love Christ and do not say that Christ has come.

9. Charity must be extended to enemies. Which prayer against enemies is unlawful, which is lawful. Therefore have faith with love. This is the wedding garment. Love one another, you who love Christ: love your friends, love your enemies. Let it not be hard for you. What then do you lose, where you gain much? Why do you ask God, as if for some great thing, that your enemy may die? That is not the wedding garment. Look at the Bridegroom Himself hanging on the cross for you, and asking the Father for His enemies: Father, He says, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). You have seen the Bridegroom saying these things, see

also the bridegroom's friend invited with the wedding garment. Consider the blessed Stephen, how he rebukes the Jews, as if fierce, as if angry: Stiff of neck, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you have resisted the Holy Spirit. Which of the Prophets did your fathers not kill? You have heard how his tongue rages. You are still ready to speak against anyone at all, and would that you spoke against him who has offended God, not him who has offended you. He offends God, and you do not rebuke; he offends you, and you shout: where is that wedding garment? You have heard, then, how Stephen raged: hear how he loved. He offended those whom he rebuked, and he was stoned by them. And when on every side he was pressed and pounded by the hands of raging men and the blows of stones, first he said: Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit. Then, after he had prayed standing for himself, for those who were stoning him he knelt down and said: Lord, do not set this offence against them: let me die in the flesh, not they in the heart. And having said this he fell asleep (Acts 7:51–59). After these words he added nothing: he spoke, and departed; his last prayer was for his enemies. Learn to have the wedding garment. So you too, bend your knees and strike your forehead on the ground, and as you are about to approach the table of the Lord, the banquet of the holy Scriptures, do not say, If only my enemy would die: Lord, if I have deserved anything of Thee, kill my enemy. But if perhaps you do say this, do you not fear lest He answer you: If I wished to kill your enemy, would I not have killed you first? Or do you boast because you have only now come when invited? Think what you were a little while ago. Did you not blaspheme Me? Did you not mock Me? Did you not wish to blot out My name from the earth? Yet you applaud yourself because you came when invited. If I had killed you as an enemy, whom would I have made a friend? Why, by praying badly, do you teach Me what I did not do in your case? Rather let Me, God says to you, teach you, so that you may imitate Me. Hanging on the cross I said, Forgive them, for they do not know what they do. I taught this to My soldier. Be My recruit against the devil. In no other way will you fight unconquered, unless you pray for your enemies. Say it plainly, say this too, say that you would pursue your enemy: but say it knowingly; distinguish what you are saying. Look, a man is your enemy: answer me, what in him is hostile to you; is it this, that he is a man, that is hostile to you? No. But what? That he is evil. That he is a man, that which I made, is not hostile to you. He says to you: I made man, not evil: he became evil through disobedience, he who obeyed the devil rather than God. What he himself made, this is hostile to you: from that by which he is evil, he is your enemy; not from that by which he is a man. For I hear "man" and "evil": the one is the name of nature, the other of fault: I heal the fault, and I preserve the nature. This your God says to you: And see, I avenge you, I kill your enemy; I take from him that which is evil, I preserve that which is man: if I make him a good man, have I not killed your enemy and made him your friend? So ask what you ask, that not men may perish, but the enmities themselves may perish. But if you pray this, that the man may die, you, an evil man, pray against an evil man: and when you say, Kill the evil man, He answers you, Which of you?

10. Love must be extended, so that it may snatch all to God. Extend, then, your love, not [only] as far as your wives and your children. This love is found even in cattle and sparrows. You know how these sparrows and swallows love their mates, together brood their eggs, together feed their chicks, with a certain pleasing and natural goodness, with no thought of reward. For the sparrow does not say: I will feed my young, so that when I have grown old they may feed me. It thinks of none of these things: it loves freely, it feeds freely; it shows a parent's affection, it does not seek repayment. And you too, I know, I am sure of it, love your children in this way. For the children ought not to lay up treasure for the parents, but the parents for the children (2 Cor. 12:14). Hence also many of you stir up your avarice, because you acquire for your children and keep for them. But extend your love, let this love grow: but to love children and wives is not yet that wedding garment. Have faith towards God. First love God. Extend [your love] to God; and whomever you can, snatch to God. Is he an enemy? Let him be snatched to God. Is he a son, is she a wife, is he a slave? Let him be snatched to God. Is he a stranger? Let him be snatched to God. Is he an enemy? Let him be snatched to God. Snatch, snatch the enemy: by being snatched he will not be an enemy. So let there be progress, so let charity be nourished, that being nourished it may be perfected: so let the wedding garment be put on: so let the image of God, to which we were created, be engraved anew by progressing. For by sinning it had been made shabby, it had been worn away. Whence worn away? whence made shabby? When it is rubbed against the earth. What is it, to be rubbed against the earth? It is worn down by earthly desires. For although man walks in the image, yet he is disquieted in vain (Ps. 38:7). Truth is sought in the image of God, not vanity. For by loving truth let that image, to which we were created, be engraved anew, and let his own coin be rendered to our Caesar. For so you have heard from the Lord's answer, when the Jews were tempting Him, the Lord saying, Why do you tempt Me, hypocrites? Show Me the coin of the tribute, that is, the impression of the image and the inscription. Show Me what you pay, what you prepare, what is demanded of you; show Me. They showed Him a denarius: and He asked whose image and inscription it had. They answered, Caesar's (Matt. 22:18–21). That Caesar too seeks his image. Caesar does not want what he ordered to perish for him, and God does not want what He made to perish. Caesar, my brothers, did not make the coin: the moneyers make it; the craftsmen are ordered, he commanded his ministers. The image was stamped on the coin: on the coin is the image of Caesar. And yet what others impressed is sought: he lays up treasure, he does not want it to be denied him. Christ's coin is man. There is the image of Christ, there the name of Christ, the gift of Christ, and the offices of Christ.