Augustine, Sermones 154-157 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

would he indeed take it with him? I think that, if he could, he would have left nothing here to his sons. The heirs of God are heirs in such a way that God Himself is our inheritance, He to Whom the Psalm says: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance (Ps. 15:5). Heirs indeed of God: if that is too little for you, hear something to make you rejoice still more: Heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ. Turning to the Lord, etc.

Sermon 157. On the words of the Apostle, By hope we have been saved: but hope that is seen is not hope. Rom. chapter 8, verses 24, 25.

Chapter I. — 1. The hope of Christians concerns eternal things. The deceitful world is believed, not God. As Your Holiness remembers the Apostle to have said, dearest brethren, By hope we have been saved: But hope, he says, that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience. From this the Lord our God Himself admonishes us to offer you a sermon of exhortation and consolation, He to Whom it is said in the Psalm: Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living (Ps. 141:6). He, I say, Who is our hope in the land of the living, commands us to speak to you in this land of the dying, so that you may not look at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). Since, then, we hope for what we do not see, and wait for it through patience, it is rightly said to us in the Psalm, Wait for the Lord, act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord (Ps. 26:14). For the promises of the world always deceive; but the promises of God never deceive. But because the world seems about to give what it promises here, that is, in this land of the dying in which we now are, whereas God is going to give us what He promises in the land of the living, many grow weary of waiting for the truthful One, and are not ashamed to love the deceitful one. Of such the Scripture says: Woe to those who have lost endurance, and have turned aside into crooked ways (Sir. 2:16). Even when men act manfully and with strengthened heart wait for God, the sons of everlasting death do not cease to insult them, boasting of their temporal delights, which for a time sweeten their throats, but afterwards they will find them more bitter than gall. For they say to us: Where is what is promised you after this life? Who has come back here from there and shown that what you believe is true? See, we rejoice in the fill of our pleasures, because we hope for what we see: but you are tormented in the labours of continence, believing what you do not see. Then they add what the Apostle recalled: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. But see what he warned must be guarded against: Evil conversations, he says, corrupt good morals. Be sober justly, and do not sin (1 Cor. 15:32–34).

Chapter II. — 2. Patience and meekness are necessary. Beware, therefore, brothers, lest by such conversations your morals be corrupted, your hope overthrown, your patience weakened, and you turn aside into crooked ways. Rather, being meek and gentle, keep to the right ways which the Lord teaches you, of which the Psalm says, He will direct the meek in judgement, He will teach the gentle His ways (Ps. 24:9). For patience in the labours of this life, without which the hope of the life to come cannot be guarded, no one can keep to the end unless he is meek and gentle; [that is, one] who does not resist the will of God, Whose yoke is gentle and burden light, but [only] to those who believe God, and hope in Him, and love Him. For thus, being meek and gentle, you will not only love His consolations but also endure His scourges as good sons, so that, since you hope for what you do not see, you may wait for it through patience. So act, so walk. For you walk in Christ, Who said: I am the way (John 14:6). How one must walk in Him, learn not only from His word but also from His example. For the Father did not spare this His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32): not, indeed, unwilling or refusing, but equally willing; for the will of the Father and of the Son is one according to the equality of the form of God, in which, since He was [in it], He did not think it robbery to be equal to God; and [delivered Him up] uniquely obedient, according as He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6–7). For He Himself loved us, and delivered Himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness (Eph. 5:2). Thus, then, the Father did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, so that the Son too might deliver Himself up for us.

Chapter III. — 3. We see in our Head what we hope for. That exalted One, therefore, through Whom all things were made, was delivered up; delivered up, on account of the form of a servant, to the reproach of men and the contempt of the people, to insult, to scourges, to the death of the cross, He taught us by the example of His passion with how great patience we should walk in Him; and He strengthened us by the example of His resurrection [as to] what we ought patiently to hope for from Him. For if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience. What we do not see, indeed, we hope for; but we are the body of that Head in Whom what we hope for has already been brought to completion. For of Him it has been said that He is the head of the body, the Church, the firstborn, He Himself holding the first place (Col. 1:18). And of us it is written: But you are the body of Christ and members (1 Cor. 12:27). If, then, we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience, secure; for He Who rose again is our Head, [and] He keeps our hope safe. And because our Head was scourged before He rose again, He strengthened our patience. For it is written: For whom the Lord loves He rebukes; and He scourges every son whom He receives (Heb. 12:6). Let us therefore not fail under the scourge, so that we may rejoice in the resurrection. For it is so true that He scourges every son whom He receives, that He did not spare even His Only One, but delivered Him up for us all. Looking, therefore, upon Him Who was scourged without any desert of sin, Who died for our offences

and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4:25), let us not fear that we shall be cast away when scourged; but rather let us trust that we shall be received when justified.

Chapter IV. — 4. Nor are we even now without joy. The fleeting delights of sinners. For although the fullness of our joy has not yet come, nevertheless we have not been left without joy even now; for by hope we have been made safe. Therefore the Apostle himself too, who says: If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience; says in another place, Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation (Rom. 12:12). Having therefore such a hope, let us use great confidence (2 Cor. 3:12): and let our speech be seasoned with salt in grace, that we may know how we ought to answer each one (Col. 4:6). For it must be said to those who, having lost endurance or never having taken it up, even dare to mock us who wait for the Lord (because, hoping for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience), when they ought to imitate us: Where are your delights, for whose sake you walk in crooked ways? We do not say, where will they be when this life has passed away; but where are they now? Since today has taken away yesterday, and tomorrow is to take away today, which of the things you love does not run past and fly away? What does not flee almost before it is grasped, when out of this very day not even an hour can be held back? For the second is shut out by the third, just as the first was shut out by the second. Of the single hour itself, which seems present, nothing is present: for all its parts, and all its moments, are fugitive.

Chapter V. — 5. The vanity of temporal things. Why does a man sin, if he is not blinded when he sins, or let him pay heed when he was about to sin. He could have seen that pleasure which is to pass away is desired without prudence; or, when it has passed, is thought upon with repentance. You mock us because we hope for eternal things, which we do not see; while you, subject to the temporal things that are seen, do not know what kind of tomorrow will dawn for you: which, often hoping it to be good, you find bad; nor, if it should be good, will you be able to hold it so that it does not flee. You mock us because we hope for eternal things: which, when they have come, will not pass away; for neither do they themselves come, but they always remain: we, however, shall come to them, when by the Lord's way we have passed through these things that pass. But by you temporal things never cease to be hoped for, and yet, once hoped for, they often deceive you: nor do they cease to inflame you when about to come, to corrupt you when coming, to torment you when passing away. Are they not the very things which, when desired, blaze up, when obtained, grow cheap, when lost, vanish away? We too use them according to the necessity of our pilgrimage: but we do not fix our joys in them, lest we be overthrown when they slip away. For we use this world as not using it (1 Cor. 7:31), that we may come to Him Who made this world, and remain in Him, fully enjoying His eternity.

Chapter VI. — 6. The certainty of our hope. But what is it that you say, Who has come here from there, and who has made known to men what is done in the underworld? And hence

He has stopped your mouth, Who raised a dead man on the fourth day (John 11:39–44), and, never to die again, rose again on the third day, and before He died, as One from Whom nothing was hidden, told what kind of life receives the dying, in the poor man at rest and in the rich man burning (Luke 16:19–31). But those people do not believe these things, who say, Who has come back here from there? They want to seem ready to believe, if one of their parents were to come back to life. But cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man (Jer. 17:5). This, then, is why God, made man, willed to die and rise again: so that what was to come to man might be shown in the flesh of a man, and yet God, not man, might be believed. And certainly the Church of the faithful, spread through the whole world, is already before their eyes. Let them read of it, promised so many ages ago to one man, who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations (Rom. 4:18). What, then, was promised to one man, Abraham, believing, we already see fulfilled; and what is promised to the whole world believing, do we despair of its coming? Let them go now and say: Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die. They say they are still to die tomorrow, but the truth, when they say these things, finds them already dead. But you, brethren, sons of the resurrection, fellow-citizens of the holy angels, heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ, beware of imitating those who die tomorrow by expiring and are buried today by drinking. But, as the same apostle says, let not evil conversations corrupt your good morals; be sober righteously, and do not sin (1 Cor. 15:32–34): walking the narrow but sure way that leads to the breadth of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is our eternal mother; hope most firmly for what you do not see, wait patiently for what you do not yet have; because you hold most faithfully to Christ, the truthful Promiser.