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

the right hand of God the Father. Perhaps you still do not believe. Hear the Apostle: He Who descended, he says, is the same also Who ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things (Eph. 4:10). Take care that you do not feel as avenger Him Whom you are unwilling to believe as rising again. For whoever has not believed is already judged (John 3:18). For He Who now sits at the right hand of the Father as advocate for us will come from there to judge the living and the dead. Let us therefore believe, so that whether we live or whether we die, we may be the Lord's (Rom. 14:8).

8. Of the Holy Spirit, the remission of sins, etc. Let us believe also in the Holy Spirit. For He is God, since it is written, God is Spirit (John 4:24). Through Him we receive the remission of sins; through Him we believe in the resurrection of the flesh; through Him we hope for eternal life. But take care that you do not fall into error by counting, and think that I have spoken of three gods because I have named the one God a third time. In the Trinity there is one substance of deity, one power, one authority, one majesty, one name of divinity; as Christ Himself said to His disciples when He had risen from the dead: Go, baptize the nations, not in many names, but in the one name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Believing therefore in the divine Trinity and the threefold unity, beware, most beloved, lest anyone lead you astray from the faith and unity of the Catholic Church. 'For whoever preaches the gospel to you otherwise than what you have received, let him be anathema.' Hear the Apostle, not me, who says: 'But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach the gospel to you otherwise than what you have received, let him be anathema' (Gal. 1:9, 8).

9. That one must live in the Catholic Church. You certainly see, dearly beloved, even in the very words of the holy Creed, how at the conclusion of all the rules which pertain to the sacrament of the faith there has been added, as a kind of supplement, the phrase, Through the holy Church. Flee therefore, as far as you can, the diverse and various deceivers, whose sects and names it would now take long to recount because of their great number. For we have many things to say to you; but you cannot bear them now. One thing I commend to your prayers: that you turn your mind and your hearing away in every way from him who is not Catholic, so that you may be able to lay hold of the remission of sins and the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life through the one true and holy Catholic Church; in which it is learned [that] the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit [are] one God; to Whom be honour and glory unto the ages of ages.

Sermon CCXVI. To the competentes

Chapter I. — 1. Who the competentes are. The first beginnings of our ministry, and of your conception, by which

you conceive in the womb of faith to be generated by heavenly grace, must be aided by the mouth: so that our sermon may address you wholesomely, and your conceiving may profitably console us. We instruct with sermons; you, make progress in your conduct. We scatter the discourse of the word; render the fruit of faith. Let us all, according to the calling by which we have been called by the Lord, run in His way and path; let no one look back. For the Truth, which neither deceives nor can deceive, openly declares: No one putting his hand upon the plough, and looking back, will be fit for the kingdom of heaven (Luke 9:62). That this is indeed what you desire, that you strive towards this with all the efforts of your mind, your very name shows, in that you are called competentes. For what else are Competentes than those seeking together? For just as condocentes, concurrentes, considentes signify nothing other than teaching together, running together, sitting together; so also the word Competentes is composed from nothing other than seeking together and striving after some one thing. And what is that one thing which you seek or desire, except what a certain man, having cast away carnal desires and overcome the terrors of the world, fearlessly cries out? If camps stand together against me, my heart will not fear; if war rises up against me, in this I will hope. And expressing what that thing is, he added and said: I have asked one thing of the Lord, this I will seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. And explaining the blessedness of this region and dwelling, he joins on and expresses: That I may contemplate the delight of the Lord, and be protected by His temple (Ps. 26:3–4).

Chapter II. — 2. He exhorts them to renounce the world. Do you see, my fellow recruits, to what delight of the Lord you will come, when you cast away the delight of the world? If you despise the world, you will have a clean heart, and you will see Him who made the world: and as He conquered, so you too in His grace will conquer this world. This world you will surely overcome and trample underfoot before long, if you rely not on your own strength, but on the help of the most merciful God. Do not despise yourselves because it has not yet appeared what you will be. But know that when it has appeared, you will be like Him, when what you will be has appeared. But know that you will see Him, not as He came to us in the fullness of time, but as, ever abiding, He created us (1 John 3:2). Strip off the old man, that you may be clothed with the new (Col. 3:9–10). The Lord is beginning a covenant with you. You have lived for the world, you have given yourselves to flesh and blood, you have borne the image of the earthly man. As therefore you have borne the image of him who is of the earth, so henceforth bear also that of Him who is from heaven (1 Cor. 15:49). [It is] a human word, since for this reason the Word was made flesh, that as you presented your bodies as weapons of iniquity to sin, so now you may present your members as weapons of justice to God (Rom. 6:19). For your ruin your assailant armed himself against you with your own darts: for your salvation let your protector in turn arm himself against him with your members. No harm to you

will that one do, if he does not hold your members when you take them away from yourselves. He will rightly abandon you, if your desire and will dissent from him.

Chapter III. 3. Let them think about buying the kingdom of heaven. Let them not think meanly of themselves. Let them render the fruits of good works. See, with an auction and market of faith, the kingdom of heaven is set before you for sale: examine and gather together the resources of your conscience, collect with one mind the treasures of your heart. And yet you buy it for nothing, if you acknowledge the welcome grace that is offered to you. You pay out nothing, and yet what you acquire is great. Do not be cheap in your own eyes, you whom the Creator of all and your own Creator values so dearly that daily He pours out for you the most precious blood of His Only-begotten. You will not be cheap in this way if you distinguish the precious from the cheap; if you serve not the creature but the Creator; if your lower parts have not gained dominion over you, so that, unstained, you may be cleansed from capital and great sin (Ps. 18:14); if the seed of the word of God, which even now the heavenly farmer is scattering in the field of your heart, is not in you either trodden down, as on the way, by the passing of the unworthy, or, as among stony places, crushed by the dullness of your most hardened conscience when it is already sprouting, or choked among the thorns of your desires by their pernicious points. If you shrink from the barrenness of so ruinous and condemnable a soil, a fruitful and most rich soil will certainly receive you, and with great joy you will render to your sower and rain-giver a hundredfold multiplied abundance; or if perhaps you are unequal to this, you will pay interest of sixtyfold fruit; and if you do not attain even to this, your yield even of thirtyfold will not be unwelcome (Matt. 13:1–25); because all will be received into the heavenly granaries, all will be stored up in eternal rest. From the fruits of all, that heavenly bread will be made, and every labourer working without guile in the Lord's vineyard will be filled with it abundantly and wholesomely, while the glory of so great a sower, rain-giver and waterer, and of the giver of the increase itself, is spread abroad by the preaching of the gospel.

Chapter IV. 4. Turned to God, let them strive towards eternal life. Approach Him, then, in contrition of heart: for He is near to all who have crushed their heart, and He will save you who are humble in spirit (Ps. 33:19). Approach eagerly, that you may be enlightened. For you are still in darkness, and darkness is in you. But you will be light in the Lord, Who enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9). Be strengthened to the world, be re-formed to God. Let the Babylonian captivity at last weary you now. See, that heavenly mother Jerusalem comes to meet you in the ways, cheerfully inviting you, and implores you to will life and to love to see good days, which you have never had, nor will ever have in this world. For there your days were failing like smoke: for them, to be increased was to be diminished; to grow was to fail; to rise was to vanish. You who have lived to sin many and evil years, long to live to God: not many years that are to end at some time, and towards perishing

running in the shadow of death; but good, and in truth near to the life that truly lives; where you will be wearied by no hunger, by no thirst; because your food will be faith, your drink wisdom. For now in the Church you bless the Lord in faith; but then, in sight, you will be most abundantly watered from the fountains of Israel.

Chapter V. — 5. Here let them mourn with longing for eternal life, and mortify their members. But meanwhile, in this pilgrimage, let your tears be your bread day and night; while they say to you daily, Where is your God? (Ps. 41:4), you cannot show to carnal men what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it gone up into the heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9). Until you come and appear before the eyes of your God, do not fail. For He Himself will come to pay in full what He promised, He Who of His own accord professed Himself a debtor: Who borrowed nothing from anyone, and yet deigned to be a debtor by His own promise. We were in debt; and we owed as much as we had sinned. He came without debt, because without any sin; He found us weighed down by a ruinous and damning usury, and, paying what He had not seized, He mercifully freed us from an everlasting debt. We had committed the fault, we were awaiting the punishment; He, not made a sharer in our fault, but made a partaker of the punishment, willed to be at once the one who forgives both the fault and the punishment. For He it is Who will rescue the souls of believers from usuries and iniquity (Ps. 71:14), and out of the heart in each one who says: I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living (Ps. 26:13). This land is to be longed for, not with an earthly or dead heart, but with a heart in some way heavenly and living. For it is that land to which, in another psalm, someone burning with love for it and singing eagerly says: Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living (Ps. 141:6). Towards it those are tending who in a life-giving way mortify their members upon the earth: not the members by which the framework of the body of this world is held together, but those members by which the manhood of the soul is wretchedly weakened. Most plainly enumerating and designating them, the Vessel of election, the apostle Paul, says: « Mortify your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, disorder, evil desire, and avarice, which is the service of idols » (Col. 3:5). Behold what you ought to mortify in this land of the dying, you who long to live in that land of the living. So then become members of Christ, in such a way that you do not take them away and make them members of a harlot. For what harlot is more shameful, what more disgraceful, than that very fornication which is placed first, and avarice placed last? Which he truly called the service of idols; because you ought to recognize and avoid it not only in the indulgence of the body but also in the dissipation of the soul, lest you incur that destruction of the Bridegroom Who threatens and is chaste, and of the just Judge, to Whom it is said: Thou hast destroyed everyone who commits fornication away from Thee. How much more justly, how much more profitably, will each and every one of you cry out to Him in chastity of heart: For me to cleave to God is good (Ps. 72:27–28)? This cleaving is afforded by that love of which it is likewise said: Love without pretence; hating evil, cleaving to good (Rom. 12:9).

Chapter VI. — 6. That a contest has been proclaimed for them. Exorcism by adjuration of the name of Christ. Curses against the devil. Expulsion of the devil. Behold where your stadium is, behold where the wrestling of the contenders is, behold where the course of the runners is, behold where the boxing of the strikers is. If you wish to dash down with the arms of faith that most pernicious wrestler, overthrow evil things, embrace good things. If you wish so to run that you may lay hold [of the prize], flee what is wicked, pursue what is just. If you wish so to box that you do not beat the air, but strike the enemy manfully, chastise your body and bring it into subjection, so that, abstaining from all things and contending lawfully, you may triumph as sharers in the heavenly prize and the incorruptible crown. What we do in you by adjuring the name of your Redeemer, complete by the searching and the contrition of your heart. We resist the wiles of the old enemy with prayers to God and with rebukes; you persevere in vows and in the contrition of your heart, so that you may be rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His brightness. This is now your work, and this your labour. We heap upon him the curses his wickednesses deserve; you rather, by your turning away and your pious renunciation, proclaim against him a most glorious contest. He must be worn down, bound, shut out, the enemy of God and of you, and rather of himself. For his fury is shown to be both insolent against God, and wicked towards you, and ruinous to himself. Let him pant everywhere for slaughter, let him lay snares, let him sharpen his many and deceitful tongues: all his poisons, the name of the Saviour having been invoked, pour out of your hearts.

Chapter VII. — 7. That they should cooperate with Christ and the Church towards spiritual rebirth. Whatever he was instilling by most criminal suggestions, whatever by most shameful enticements, will now be drained out, will now be made public. Now his captivity, by which he held you tyrannically, will be laid waste. The yoke by which he was cruelly pressing you down will be turned away from you and placed upon his own neck: only give your consent to your Redeemer for your liberation. Hope in Him, all you assembly of the new people; and you, people that are being born, whom the Lord has made, strive to be brought forth in health, lest you be miscarried unto death. Behold the womb of mother Church; behold, she labours in her groaning that she may bring you forth and lead you out into the light of faith. Do not by your impatience shake the maternal womb and narrow the doors of your birth. People that are being created, praise your God: praise, you that are being created, praise your Lord. Because you are being suckled, praise; because you are being nourished, praise; because you are being fed, advance in wisdom and age. He too admitted these delays of temporal birth, Who neither falls short through brevity of time nor gains through any length of time, but from the eternal days shut out all narrowness and time. Do not here, as the kindly nurse of little ones admonishes, become children in mind, but in malice be little ones, in mind be perfect (1 Cor. 14:20). As Competentes, grow up competently in Christ, that you may grow up with youthful vigour into the perfect man. Gladden, as it is written, your father by the progress of your wisdom, and do not sadden your mother by your failing

(Prov. 10:1; 15:20).

Chapter VIII. — 8. The grace of the new regeneration. Love what you will be. For you will be sons of God, and sons of adoption. This will be given to you freely, and freely conferred. In it you will abound the more largely and richly, the more grateful you have been to Him from Whom you have received these things. Strive eagerly towards Him Who knows who are His. And then He will not disdain to know you among those who are His, if, naming the name of the Lord, you depart from injustice (2 Tim. 2:19). You have, or have had in the world, parents of your flesh, who begot you into toil and to punishment and death: but since by a happier bereavement each one of you can say of such, My father and my mother have forsaken me (Ps. 26:10); acknowledge, Christian, that Father Who, when they forsook you, took you up from your mother's womb, to Whom a certain faithful man faithfully says, From my mother's womb Thou art my protector (Ps. 21:11). God is the Father, the Church the mother. Far otherwise will you be begotten by these than you had been begotten by those. These births no toil, no misery, no weeping, no death, but ease, happiness, joy and life will receive. Through those [parents] the generation is lamentable; through these it is a generation to be desired. Those, in begetting us, beget us into eternal punishment, because of the old guilt: these, in regenerating, cause neither punishment nor guilt to remain. This is that regeneration of those who seek Him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob (Ps. 23:6). Seek as humble men: and when you have found it, you will come to a secure height. Your infancy will be innocence, your boyhood reverence, your adolescence patience, your youth virtue, your riper age merit, your old age nothing other than a grey and wise understanding. Through these stages or steps of age you are not rolled onward, but, remaining, you are renewed. For the second will not succeed in order that the first may fall away, nor will the rise of the third be the passing of the second, nor is the fourth born in order that the third may die; the fifth will not begrudge the fourth its remaining, nor will the sixth bury the fifth. Although these ages do not come at the same time, yet in a devout and justified soul they persevere together and in concord. These will lead you to the seventh, to everlasting rest and peace. Yet, once you have been delivered six times, as we read, from the necessities of the death-bearing age, in the seventh evils will no longer touch you (Job 5:19). For things that will not exist will not contend, nor will things that will not even dare prevail. There, secure immortality; there, immortal security.

Chapter IX. — 9. The spiritual ages. And whence are these things, if not from the change of the right hand of the Most High, Who will bless your sons in you, Who will make your borders peace (Ps. 147:13–14)? Rouse yourselves therefore to these things, you who are joined together and set apart; joined to the good, set apart from the wicked: chosen, beloved, foreknown, called, to be justified, to be glorified: so that, growing up, growing young and growing old in faith and in maturity of strength, not in corruption of limbs, in a fruitful old age you may tranquilly proclaim the works of the Lord, Who has done great things for you, Who is mighty: for great is His name, and of His wisdom there is no number. You seek life? Run to Him Who is the fount of life: and, the darkness of your smoky desires having been put to flight,

you will see light in the light of that Only-begotten of yours, your most merciful Redeemer and most resplendent Enlightener. If you seek salvation, hope in Him Who saves those who hope in Him (Ps. 16:7). If you pursue drunkenness and delights, He will not deny even these. Only come and adore, fall down and weep before Him Who made you (Ps. 94:6): and He will make you drunk from the abundance of His house, and He will give you to drink from the torrent of His delights (Ps. 35:9).

Chapter X. — 10. Pride must be guarded against, and vigilance must be employed. But beware lest the foot of pride come upon you; and be watchful lest the hands of sinners move you (Ps. 35:12). That the first may not befall you, pray that He cleanse you from your hidden [faults]; and that the second may not rush upon you and cast you down, ask that He spare you from those of others (Ps. 18:13–14); you who lie, rise; you who rise, stand; you who stand, stand fast; you who stand fast, persevere. Do not bear the yoke any longer: rather burst their bonds and cast their yoke from you (Ps. 2:3), lest you be held once more by the yoke of slavery. The Lord is near; be anxious about nothing (Phil. 4:5–6). Eat now the bread of sorrow: the time will come when, after the bread of sadness, the bread of gladness will be served to you. But the endurance of this is the merit of that. Your turning away and your flight have earned the bread of mourning: turn back, be pierced with compunction, and return to your Lord. He is ready to bestow the bread of joy on one who is pierced with compunction and returning, if you, wretched one, do not dissemble nor delay to pray tearfully for your flight. Amid such great throngs of those who trouble [you], therefore, clothe yourselves in sackcloth, and humble your soul in fasting. To humility is given back what was denied to pride. And you indeed, when you were being examined, and the one who persuaded you to that very flight and desertion was duly rebuked in the omnipotence of the dread Trinity, were not clothed in sackcloth: but yet your feet stood mystically upon it.

Chapter XI. — 11. How great is the mercy of God: how one must take refuge in it. Vices and the fleeces of she-goats must be trodden underfoot: the rags of the kids on the left must be torn to pieces. With the first robe the merciful Father will come of His own accord to meet you, He who, to drive away your pestilent hunger, did not hesitate even to slaughter the fatted calf (Luke 15:11–32). With its flesh you will be fed, with its blood you will be given drink: by the shedding of which sins are forgiven, debts are remitted, stains are wiped away. Eat as the poor, and then you will be filled: so that you too may be among those of whom it is said, The poor shall eat and shall be filled (Ps. 21:27): and, being filled, belch forth wholesomely His bread and glory. Run to Him and be converted: for He it is who converts those turned away, pursues fugitives, finds the lost, humbles the proud, feeds the hungry, looses the fettered, enlightens the blind, cleanses the unclean, refreshes the weary, raises the dead, and rescues those possessed and held captive by spirits of wickedness. And since we have proved that you are now free of these, congratulating you we admonish you that the health which has appeared in your body be preserved in your hearts.