Augustine, Sermones 210-216 (Classis II, de Tempore)

Sermon 210. On Lent, 6.

Chapter I. — 1. In Lent the season of the year and the number of the days are to be considered. The solemn season has come which should admonish us, more than in the other spaces of the year, to humble the soul with prayers and fasts, and to chastise the body. But why this is celebrated as the solemnity of the Lord's passion draws near, and why with the mystery of the number forty, since it is wont to move some people, we rightly undertake to set before your Charity on this matter what the Lord has deigned to grant us to say. And those whom we know to ask these things not for the sake of disputing but for the sake of understanding, by their faith and piety we are greatly helped, that we may obtain what is to be said.

2. Question: Why there is fasting at that time, before the celebration of Baptism. Response. For this is apt to raise the question why the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who, having taken up a human body, appeared to men having been made man precisely for this, that He might furnish us an example of living and of dying and of rising again, fasted not before He was baptized, but after He had been baptized. For thus it is written in the Gospel: "And having been baptized, He at once went up out of the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending upon Him. And behold, a voice from the heavens saying: This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He was hungry" (Matt. 3:16–17; 4:2). We, however, fast together with those who are to be baptized before the day of their Baptism, which [day] draws near as the Paschal [day], and after that day we relax the fasts for fifty days. This would rightly have to trouble [us], if it were not lawful to baptize or to be baptized except on the most solemn Paschal day. But since throughout the whole year, as necessity or will may arise for each one, no one is barred from Baptism, this being granted by Him Who gave them power to become sons of God (John 1:12); whereas the anniversary of the Lord's passion may be celebrated only on a fixed day of the year, which is called Pascha: the sacrament of Baptism must without doubt be distinguished from Pascha. For the former may be received on any day; the latter it is lawful to keep on one fixed day of the year. The former is given for the renewing of life; the latter is enjoined for religious remembrance. But as for the fact that a far greater number of those to be baptized flock together to that day, it is not a richer grace of salvation that makes the difference here, but the greater joy of the festival that invites them.

Chapter II. — 3. The baptism of John is to be distinguished from the Baptism of Christ. Why Christ took up the sacraments of the old Law. When temptation is brought on, one must fast. What of the fact that the baptism of John too, which Christ then received, is to be distinguished from the baptism of Christ Himself, which His faithful receive; and that the one with which Christ was baptized is not better than this one with which a Christian is baptized on the ground that Christ is better than a Christian; but rather this baptism is preferred to that one because it is Christ's? For John baptized Christ while confessing himself less than Christ; but Christ baptizes the Christian, He Who showed Himself greater even than John. Just as, compared with circumcision of the flesh, although Christ too received it and no Christian receives it now, better is the sacrament of Christ's resurrection, by which the Christian is circumcised for the stripping off of the carnal and old life, so that he may hear the Apostle saying: As Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so let us also walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4). Just as that old Pascha itself, which was commanded to be celebrated by the slaying of a lamb, is not better than our Pascha, in which Christ was sacrificed, on the ground that Christ celebrated it with His disciples. For it served to furnish us an example of humility and devotion, that at His coming He deigned to take up even those sacraments by which He Himself was foretold as the One to come: so that from this He might show

with how great reverence we ought to receive these sacraments, by which it is announced that He has now come. Therefore, because Christ fasted immediately after receiving John's baptism, He is not to be believed to have given a rule of observance, as though after receiving the Baptism of Christ Himself it were necessary to fast immediately; but plainly by that example He taught that we must fast when perhaps we are contending with the tempter in a fiercer struggle. For on this account Christ, who as a man deigned to be born, did not refuse as a man to be tempted, so that the Christian, instructed by His teaching, might not be overcome by the tempter. Whether, then, immediately after Baptism, or after any interval of time has passed, when a like battle of temptation is brought upon a man, one must fast: so that both the body may fulfil its warfare through chastisement, and the soul may obtain victory through humiliation. In that example of the Lord, therefore, the cause of that fast was not the dipping in the Jordan, but the temptation of the devil.

Chapter III. — 4. Why the Lenten fast is before Easter. When the bridegroom has been taken away, the sons must mourn. Now why we fast before the solemnity of the Lord's passion, and why that relaxation of fasts is completed on the fiftieth day, the reason is this. Everyone who fasts rightly either humbles his soul in the groaning of prayer and in chastisement of the body out of unfeigned faith; or else his attention, held back from carnal allurement by some want, through the spiritual delight of truth and wisdom, descends to feeling hunger and thirst. Concerning each kind of fast the Lord replied to those who asked why His disciples did not fast. For concerning that first, which involves humiliation of soul, He says: The sons of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them. But the hour will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. And concerning that other, which involves the banquets of the mind, He went on to speak thus: No one sews a piece of new cloth onto an old garment, lest a greater tear be made; nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, lest both the wineskins burst and the wine be poured out; but they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved (Matt. 9:15–17). Accordingly, since the bridegroom has now been taken away, we, the sons of that beautiful bridegroom, certainly must mourn. For He who is beautiful in form above the sons of men, grace poured forth on whose lips (Ps. 44:3), had among the hands of His persecutors neither form nor comeliness, and His life was taken away from the earth (Isa. 53:2, 8). And rightly do we mourn, if we burn with longing for Him. Blessed were those to whom it was granted before the passion to have Him then present, to question Him as they wished, and to hear Him as they ought to hear. Those days the fathers before His coming longed to see, and did not see: because they had been appointed in another dispensation, as those by whom He would be announced as one to come, not as those by whom He would be heard when He came. For concerning these He speaks to the disciples, saying: Many just men and Prophets have wished to see what you see, and have not seen it; and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it (Matt. 13:17). In us

however, that has been fulfilled which He Himself likewise says: The days will come when you will desire to see one of these days, and you will not be able (Luke 17:22)

Chapter IV. — 5. Why we must groan and fast in this life. Who is not burned by the flame of holy desire? who does not mourn here? who does not labour in his groaning? who does not say, My tears have become bread to me day and night, while it is said to me daily, Where is your God? (Ps. 41:4). For we believe in Him as already sitting at the right hand of the Father: but nevertheless, as long as we are in the body, we are pilgrims away from Him (2 Cor. 5:6), and we are not able to show Him to those who doubt or deny and say, Where is your God? Rightly did His Apostle long to be dissolved and to be with Him: but to remain in the flesh he did not reckon best for himself, but necessary on our account (Phil. 1:23–24). Where the thoughts of mortals are fearful, and our foresight uncertain; since the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind that thinks many things (Wis. 9:14–15). Hence human life upon earth is a temptation (Job 7:1): and in this night of the world the lion goes about seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8). Not the Lion of the tribe of Judah, our King (Rev. 5:5); but the lion the devil, our adversary. Now He, expressing in Himself alone the figures of the four living creatures from the Apocalypse of John, was born as a man, worked as a lion, was sacrificed as a calf, flew as an eagle (ibid. 4:7). He flew upon the wings of the winds, and made darkness His hiding place (Ps. 17:11–12). He made darkness, and night came to be, in which all the beasts of the forest pass through. The whelps of lions roaring, namely the tempters through whom the devil seeks whom he may devour; not indeed having power, except over those whom they have received, because in the Psalm itself it follows thus, Seeking their food from God (Ps. 103:20–21). In so perilous a night of this world, and one so full of temptations, who would not fear, who would not tremble in all his marrow, lest he be judged worthy to be let go, to be devoured, into the jaws of so cruel an enemy? Therefore we must fast and pray.

Chapter V. — 6. Fasting is most fitting before the solemnity of Christ's passion. And when rather, when more earnestly, than as the very solemnity of the Lord's passion draws near, by which annual celebration the memory of that same night is in a certain way engraved anew in us, lest it be blotted out by forgetfulness, lest that roaring devourer find us sleeping, not in body, but in spirit. For what else did the Lord's passion itself most of all commend to us in our Head, Christ Jesus, than this very temptation of this life? Hence, when the time of His death was now approaching, He said to Peter: « Satan has asked to harass you like wheat: and I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail; go and strengthen your brothers (Luke 22:31–32). » And plainly he has strengthened us through his apostleship, through his martyrdom, through his epistles. There too, warning that the night of which I am speaking is to be feared, he taught us, by the consolation of prophecy as by a light in the night, to keep watch with caution. « We have, he says, a more certain prophetic word, to which you do well to attend as to a lamp shining

in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts (2 Pet. 1:19). »

7. Now is the day of toil and sorrow. Let our loins therefore be girded and our lamps burning, and let us be like men waiting for their Lord, when He comes from the wedding (Luke 12:35–36). And let us not say to one another, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die (1 Cor. 15:32). But all the more, since the day of death is uncertain and the day of life is troublesome, let us fast and pray, for tomorrow we shall die. A little while, He says, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me. This is the hour of which He said, You will be sorrowful, but the world will rejoice: that is, this life full of temptations, in which we are on pilgrimage away from Him. But again, He says, I will see you, and your heart will rejoice; and your joy no one will take from you (John 16:19, 20, 22). In this hope of a most faithful Promiser we rejoice even now after a fashion, until that most abundant joy comes, when we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2), and our joy no one will take from us. For of this hope we have received also so welcome and so free a pledge, the Holy Spirit, Who works in our hearts unutterable groanings of holy desires. "For we have conceived," as Isaiah says, "and have been in labour with the spirit of salvation" (Isa. 26:18). And "a woman when she is in labour," says the Lord, "has sorrow, because her day has come; but when she has given birth, there is great joy, because a man has been born into the world" (John 16:21). This will be the joy which no one will take from us, by which we shall be transfused from this conception of faith into eternal light. Now therefore let us fast and pray, since it is the day of labour.

Chapter VI. — 8. Why the fast was instituted with the number forty. This the whole body of Christ, spread throughout the whole world, that is, the whole Church, is doing, and that unity which says in the Psalm: From the ends of the earth I have cried to Thee, while my heart was in anguish (Ps. 60:3). Hence it now becomes clear to us why this solemn observance of humiliation was instituted as a Quadragesima. For she who cries from the ends of the earth when her heart is in anguish cries from the four parts of the world, which Scripture also frequently mentions: East and West, North and South. Throughout this whole [world] that decalogue of the Law, now no longer merely to be feared through the letter but to be fulfilled through the grace of charity, has been proclaimed. Hence, ten being multiplied by four, we see forty completed. But [this is] still in the toil of temptation, with pardon of sins. For who perfectly fulfils, You shall not covet (Exod. 20:17)? Therefore we must fast and pray, yet not cease from good work. To this toil that wage is rendered at the end which is called by the name of the denarius (Matt. 20:2–13). Now just as the ternary takes its name from three and the quaternary from four, so the denary took its name from ten: which, joined to the forty, is rendered as a wage to toil. The figure of the number fifty signifies the time of that joy which no one will take from us, the exercise of which we do not yet have in this life; but nevertheless after the solemnity of the Lord's

passion, from the day of His resurrection through fifty days, during which we relax the fasts, we celebrate this with the Alleluia resounding in the Lord's praises.

9. The season of Lent ought to be more fervent in abstinence and pious works. Now therefore, in the person of Christ, so that you may not be circumvented by Satan, I exhort you, most beloved, to propitiate God with daily fasts, more generous almsgiving and more fervent prayers. Now is the time in which both married men should abstain from their wives and wives from their husbands, so that they may be free for prayer: although they ought to do this on certain days throughout the whole year as well; and the more often, the better indeed: for he too who seeks immoderately what has been permitted offends Him Who permitted it. For prayer is a spiritual thing, and therefore it is the more acceptable, the more it fulfils the effect of its own nature. And it is poured out with so much the more spiritual working, the more the mind that pours it out is held back from carnal pleasure.

Chapter VII. — For forty days Moses, the administrator of the Law, fasted; for forty Elijah, the most excellent of the Prophets; for forty the Lord Himself, having testimony from the Law and the Prophets. Hence He showed Himself on the mountain with these two. But we, who cannot sustain so long a fast as to take no nourishment through so many days and nights, as they did, let us at least do as much as we can; so that, excepting the days on which for certain reasons the custom of the Church forbids fasting, we may please the Lord our God by daily or by frequent fasting. But is it the case that, just as abstinence from food and drink cannot be continuous through so many days, so neither can abstinence from intercourse? when we see, in the name of Christ, many of both sexes keeping their members wholly untouched by this thing, dedicated to God. I think it no great matter that the chastity of spouses should be able to do throughout the whole Paschal solemnity what virginity can do throughout a whole life.

Chapter VIII. — 10. Self-indulgent observers of Lent. Now indeed, although I ought not to have needed to give this admonition, since I have commended the season of humbling the soul as strongly as I could; yet because of the errors of men, who through vain-talking seductions and depraved customs do not cease to bring upon us a troublesome anxiety on your behalf, I cannot keep silent. There are certain observers of Lent who are self-indulgent rather than religious, seeking out new delights rather than chastising old concupiscences; who with abundant and costly provisions of various fruits strive to surpass the varieties and flavours of any delicacies whatever: they dread the vessels in which meats have been cooked as unclean, and do not dread in their own flesh the luxury of belly and throat: they fast, not in order to diminish their customary voracity by tempering it, but in order to increase their immoderate greed by postponing it. For when the time for refreshment has come, they rush upon rich tables like cattle upon mangers; they overwhelm their hearts and distend their bellies with more numerous dishes; they stimulate the palate with artful and foreign varieties of seasonings, lest it be checked even by abundance. In short, they take in so much by eating that they are not able to digest it by fasting.

Chapter IX. — 11. Delicate abstinence from wine

There are also those who abstain from wine in such a way that they seek out for themselves other liquors from the pressing of other fruits, not for the sake of health but of pleasure: as if Lent were not the observance of devout humility but the occasion of new pleasure. For how much more honourable it is, if weakness of the stomach does not tolerate drinking water, that it be sustained by ordinary wine in moderation, than that wines be sought which know no vintage, which have never known the winepresses; not so that a purer drink may be chosen, but so that a more frugal one may be rejected? And what is more absurd than, at a time when the flesh is to be chastised more strictly, to procure such delights for the flesh that the very craving of the throat would not want Lent to pass? What is more unfitting than, in days of humility, when the fare of the poor is to be imitated by all, to live in such a way that, if one lived so all the time, the patrimonies of the rich could scarcely bear it? Beware of these things, dearly beloved: consider what is written, Do not go after your desires (Ecclus. 18:30). If this most wholesome precept is to be observed at every time, how much more in these days, when it is so shameful if our desire is let loose towards unaccustomed enticements that he is rightly blamed who has not restrained the accustomed ones?

Chapter X. — 12. Works of mercy towards the poor. Another kind of mercy, in forgiving. Above all, indeed, remember the poor, so that what you withdraw from yourselves by living more sparingly you may store up in the heavenly treasury. Let the hungry Christ receive what the fasting Christian receives less of. Let the chastisement of the willing become the sustenance of the one who has nothing. Let the voluntary want of the well-provided become the necessary plenty of the needy. Let there also be, in a placable and humble mind, a merciful readiness to forgive. Let him who has done injury ask pardon; let him who has received injury grant pardon: so that we may not be possessed by Satan, whose triumph is the dissension of Christians. For this too is an almsgiving of great profit, to remit a debt to a fellow servant, so that it may be remitted to you by the Lord. Both good works the heavenly Master commended to His disciples, saying: Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you (Luke 6:37–38). Remember that servant whose whole debt, which he had remitted, his lord demanded back, because he himself did not repay to a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii the mercy which he had received concerning the ten thousand talents that he owed (Matt. 18:26–35). In this kind of good work there is no excuse, where the will alone is the whole means. Anyone can say: Lest my stomach ache, I cannot fast. He can also say: I want to give to a poor man, but I have nothing to give from; or I have only so much that I fear being in want if I give. Although even in these works people mostly make false excuses for themselves, because they do not find true ones. Nevertheless, who is there who would say: I did not grant pardon to one asking for it because my health prevented me, or because I had no hand with which to hold it out? Forgive, that you may be forgiven. Here there is no work of the flesh; not even a member of one's flesh is taken up in aid of the soul so that what is asked may be fulfilled. It is done by the will, it is accomplished by the will. Do it without anxiety, give without anxiety: you will feel no pain in your body, you will have nothing less in your house. And now, brethren, see