Augustine, Sermones 98-101 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

Sermon 98. On the words of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 7:11-15; and on the three dead whom the Lord raised.

Chapter I. — 1. The miracles of the Lord in bodies and in souls. The miracles of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus move all indeed who hear and believe: but some in one way and others in another. For some, amazed at His bodily miracles, do not know how to look upon greater ones: but others marvel more now in souls at the things which they hear were done in bodies. The Lord Himself says, For as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wills (John 5:21). Not, certainly, the Son some and the Father others; but the Father and the Son the same ones: for the Father [does] all things through the Son. Let no one, then, who is a Christian doubt that even now the dead are raised. But every man has eyes with which he can see the dead rise in the way that the son of this widow rose, of whom the Gospel has just been read: but the means by which men may see the dead rise in heart, not all have, except those who have already risen in heart. It is a greater thing to raise one who will live for ever than to raise one who will die again.

Chapter II. — 2. The two kinds of the dead. Over that young man raised again his widowed mother rejoiced: over men raised daily in spirit Mother Church rejoices. He indeed was dead in body; but they in mind.

That man's visible death was visibly mourned; their invisible death was neither sought out nor seen. He sought it out Who knew the dead: He alone knew the dead Who was able to make them alive. For had the Lord not come to raise the dead, the Apostle would not say: Arise, you who sleep, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you (Eph. 5:14). You hear of one sleeping when he says, Arise, you who sleep; but understand one dead when you hear, And rise up from the dead. Those visibly dead have often been called sleepers. And plainly all are asleep to Him Who is able to rouse them. For to you a dead man is dead who, however much you strike him, however much you pluck at him, however much you tear at him, does not wake. But to Christ that man was sleeping to whom it was said, Arise; and at once he rose. No one rouses a man in his bed as easily as Christ in the tomb.

Chapter III.—3. Three dead raised by the Lord. The miracles of Christ were done for the sake of their signification. A fitting comparison. Now we find three dead visibly raised by the Lord, thousands invisibly. But how many dead He visibly raised, who knows? For not all the things that He did are written: John says this, Many other things Jesus did, which, if they were written, I think the whole world could not contain the books (John 21:25). So there are without doubt many others raised; but not for nothing are three recorded. For our Lord Jesus Christ wished the things that He did bodily to be understood spiritually as well. For He did not perform miracles merely for the sake of miracles, but so that the things He did might be wonderful to those who saw them and true to those who understood them. Just as one who sees letters in a very finely written book and does not know how to read praises indeed the copyist's hand, admiring the beauty of the strokes, but what they mean, what those strokes indicate, he does not know; and he is a praiser with his eyes, not a knower with his mind; another, however, both praises the workmanship and grasps the sense, namely he who is able not only to see what is common to all, but also to read; which he who has not learned cannot do. So those who saw the miracles of Christ and did not understand what they meant and what in a certain manner they signalled to those who understand, merely marvelled that they were done; but others both marvelled at the deeds and attained to what was understood in them. Such ought we to be in the school of Christ. For whoever says that Christ performed miracles only so that they should be nothing but miracles can say that He did not even know that it was not the season for fruit when He looked for figs on the tree. For it was not the season for that fruit, as the Evangelist testifies; and yet, being hungry, He looked for fruit on the tree. Did Christ not know what a peasant knew? Did the creator of the tree not know what the tiller of the tree knew? When therefore, being hungry, He looked for fruit on the tree, He signified that He hungered for something and sought something else; and He found that tree without fruit, full of leaves, and cursed it; and it withered. What had the tree done by not bearing fruit (Matt. 21:18–19, and Mark 11:13)? What fault was the tree's barrenness? But there are those who cannot by their will yield fruit. Theirs is the fault of

barrenness, whose fruitfulness is the will. So the Jews were having the words of the Law and not having the deeds, full of leaves and not bearing fruit. I have said this to convince [you] that our Lord Jesus Christ performed miracles for this reason, that He might signify something by those miracles, so that, apart from the fact that they were wonderful and great and divine, we might also learn something from them.

Chapter IV.—4. The raising of three dead persons. Let us see, then, what He wished us to learn in the three dead whom He raised. He raised to life the dead daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, to whom, while she was sick, He was being asked [to come], that He might free her from her sickness. And as He goes on His way, she is reported dead; and as though He were now troubling Himself in vain, word was brought to her father: The girl is dead; why do you still trouble the Master? But He went on, and said to the girl's father: Do not fear, only believe. He came to the house, and found the rites due to a funeral already prepared; and He says to them: Do not weep, for the girl is not dead, but sleeps. He spoke the truth: she was sleeping, but to Him by Whom she could be awakened. Awakening her, He restored her alive to her parents (Mark 5:22–43). He awakened also this young man, the widow's son, of whom we have now been reminded, so that from this we might speak with your Charity of these things which He Himself deigns to bestow. You have just heard how he was awakened. The Lord was approaching the city; and behold, a dead man was being carried out, already outside the gate. Moved with mercy, because the mother, a widow and bereft of her only son, was weeping, He did what you have heard, saying: Young man, I say to you, arise. The dead man arose, began to speak; and He gave him back to his mother. He awakened Lazarus also from the tomb. And there, when the disciples with whom He was speaking knew that he was sick (and He loved him): Lazarus, He says, our friend sleeps. They, thinking of a sick man's healthful sleep, say: If he sleeps, Lord, he is safe. And He, speaking now more openly: I say to you, Lazarus our friend is dead (John 11:11–44). Saying what was true in both cases: he is dead to you, he sleeps to Me.

Chapter V.—5. Three kinds of sinners, figured by those three dead. Evil habit. These three kinds of dead are three kinds of sinners, whom Christ raises even today. For that dead daughter of the ruler of the synagogue was inside in the house; she had not yet been carried out from the secluded walls into public view. There, inside, she was raised, restored alive to her parents. But this one was indeed no longer in the house, yet not yet in the tomb; he had been carried out of the walls, he had not been committed to the earth. He Who raised the dead girl not yet carried out raised the dead man already carried out, not yet buried. A third thing remained, that He should raise one buried too: and this He did in Lazarus. There are, then, those who have sin inside in the heart, and do not yet have it in deed. Someone or other has been stirred by some lust. For the Lord Himself says: Whoever looks at a woman so as to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28). He has not yet approached her with the body, he has consented in the heart: he has a dead one inside, he has not yet carried it out. And, as happens, as we know, as men daily experience in themselves, sometimes, when the word of God has been heard, as though the Lord were saying, Arise, the consent to iniquity is condemned, and one breathes again unto salvation and righteousness.

The dead man rises in the house; the heart revives in the secret place of thought. This resurrection of the dead soul has taken place inwardly, within the hiding-places of the conscience, as within the walls of the home. Others after consent go on into the deed, as though carrying out the dead man, so that what lay hidden in secret may appear in public. Are these, who have gone forward into the deed, now beyond hope? Was it not said to that young man too, I say to you, arise? Was not he too restored to his mother? So then, he also who has already done [the deed], if perhaps, admonished and moved by the word of truth, he rises again at the voice of Christ, is restored alive. He could go forward [into the deed]; he could not perish for ever. But those who, by doing what is evil, entangle themselves also in evil habit, so that the very habit of evil does not allow them to see that it is evil, become defenders of their evil deeds: they grow angry when they are rebuked; to such a degree that the Sodomites once said to the righteous man who rebuked their most wicked will, You came to dwell here, not to give laws (Gen. 19:9). So great was the habit of abominable foulness there that wickedness was now justice, and the one who forbade it was rebuked rather than the one who did it. Such men, pressed down by malignant habit, are as it were buried. But what shall I say, brethren? Buried in such a way that, as was said of Lazarus, By now he stinks. That mass laid upon the tomb is the hard force of habit itself, by which the soul is pressed down and is permitted neither to rise nor to breathe.

Chapter VI. — 6. Four stages in sins. Now it was said, He is four days dead. Truly the soul arrives at this habit of which I speak by a kind of fourth stage. For the first is as it were a tickling of delight in the heart; the second, consent; the third, the deed; the fourth, habit. For there are those who so utterly cast away unlawful things that present themselves to their thoughts that they do not even take delight in them. There are those who take delight and do not consent: death is not yet complete, but in a certain manner begun. To delight consent is added: now that is condemnation. After consent one proceeds to the deed: the deed is turned into habit: and a kind of despair arises, so that it is said, He is four days dead, by now he stinks. So the Lord came, to Whom certainly all things were easy; and He showed you a certain difficulty. He groaned in spirit; He showed that there is need of a great outcry of rebuke towards those who have grown hard through habit. Yet at the voice of the Lord crying out, the bonds of necessity were broken. The dominion of the underworld trembled; Lazarus was restored alive. For the Lord frees from evil habit also those who are four days dead: for he too, four days dead, was but sleeping to Christ, Who willed to raise him. But what does He say? See the manner of the raising. He came forth from the tomb alive, and he could not walk. And the Lord to the disciples: Loose him, and let him go. He raised the dead man; they loosed the bound one. See that something belongs to the proper majesty of God, Who raises.