Augustine, Sermones 244-252 (Classis II, de Tempore)

and the help of the Spirit is lacking to you, you do not fulfil what you read, you do not fulfil what you are commanded: but the man under the Law is held to be a transgressor besides. Let the Spirit come, let Him help; and what is commanded is done. If the Spirit is absent, the letter kills you. Why does the letter kill you? Because it will make you a transgressor. Nor can you excuse yourself on the ground of ignorance, because you have received the law. You have already learned what you should do, ignorance does not excuse you, the Spirit does not help you: therefore you have perished. But what does the apostle Paul say? The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). Whence does the Spirit give life? Because He causes the letter to be fulfilled, so that it does not kill. These are the saints, who do the law of God by the gift of God. The Law can command, it cannot help. The Spirit comes as helper; and the command of God is done with joy, with delight. For many do it out of fear. But those who do the law through fearing punishment would prefer that what they fear did not exist. But those who do the Law through loving righteousness rejoice even in it, because they do not have it as an enemy.

Chapter VIII. — 7. The word of God is our adversary. Therefore the Lord says, Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are with him on the way (Matt. 5:25). Who is your adversary? The word of the Law. What is the way? This life. How is he an adversary? It says, You shall not commit adultery: and you want to commit adultery. It says, You shall not covet your neighbour's property: and you want to seize the property of others. It says, Honour father and mother: and you are insulting towards your parents. The Law says, Do not speak false testimony (Exod. 20:1–17): you do not draw back from lying. When you see that that word commands one thing and you do another, it is your adversary. You have a bad adversary; let him not go in with you into the judge's chamber: settle with him while you are with him on the way. God is present to bring you into agreement. How does God bring you into agreement? By forgiving sins and inspiring righteousness, so that good works may be done. When therefore you have come to agreement with the adversary, that is, with the decalogue of the Law, through the Holy Spirit, you will belong to the ten and seven. When you have come to belong to the ten and seven, from then on the number will grow to one hundred and fifty-three. You will be on the right to be crowned: do not remain on the left to be condemned.

Sermon 252. On the days of Easter, 23. On the same reading and on the two catches of fish.

Chapter One. — 1. The catch made at the Lord's command was not without a mystery. The other catch before the passion. Christ speaks even by deeds. In many and various ways our Lord Jesus Christ shows in the holy Scriptures both the height of His divinity and the mercy of His humanity, as He is accustomed to do, in mysteries and sacraments; so that those who ask may receive, and those who seek may find, and to those who knock it may be opened. For this too which has been read today from the holy Gospel seeks someone to understand it, and produces spiritual joy when it has been understood. Let Your Holiness consider what it means that in that way the Lord showed Himself to the disciples,

so holy Scripture testifies, as the Evangelist narrates. For the disciples went out fishing, and all night long they caught nothing. But the Lord appeared to them in the morning on the shore, and asked whether they had anything to eat; they said they had nothing. He says to them: Cast the nets on the right side, and you will find. He who had come as if to buy gave so much freely; and He gave from the sea, as from His own creation. A great miracle indeed. They cast at once, and caught so much that for the multitude of fish they could not draw out the nets. But if you consider who did this great miracle, it is no wonder: for He had already done many greater things. For He who before the resurrection had raised the dead, it was nothing great after the resurrection that He caused fish to be caught. Therefore we ought to question the miracle itself, what it says to us inwardly. For not without cause did He not say just anyhow, Cast the nets; but, Cast on the right side. Then it pertained to the Evangelist to state the number of the fish as well. It pertained also to say, And though they were so many, that is, so great, the nets were not torn. In this place he has made us recall that once before nets were cast at the Lord's command, when He chose the disciples, before He Himself suffered. Peter was there, John and James. They cast the nets, they caught innumerable fish, and when one boat had been filled, they sought to be helped by the neighbouring boat: and two boats were filled with fish (this before the resurrection), indeed with so many that the nets were breaking (Luke 5:1–7). Why is no number stated there? Why were the nets breaking there, and here they were not broken? Why was it not said there that the nets should be cast to the right side, but here He said, Cast the nets on the right side? It is surely not without cause. For the Lord was not doing these things as if in vain and to no purpose. Christ is the Word of God, Who speaks to men not only by sounds but also by deeds.

Chapter II. — 2. The difference between the two catches. The nets, the word of God; the sea, the world. This, then, is what is set before us to discuss with your Charity: what this difference means. For those nets which were cast earlier both caught an innumerable number of fish and loaded two ships, and the nets were breaking, and the nets were not cast on the right side; but neither was it said, on the left. The mystery of that catch is now being fulfilled in this time. But that other mystery is the one which not without cause He performed after the resurrection, now no longer to die, but to be ever living; not only in the divinity, in which He never died, but also in the body, in which He deigned to die for us. Not in vain, then, was that one before the passion, this one after the resurrection. There, neither on the right nor on the left, but only, Cast the nets: here, however, Cast on the right. There, no number, but only an abundant multitude, so that it almost sank two ships; for this too was said there: here, however, there is both a number and a size of the fish. Then, there the nets were breaking; here it pertained to the Evangelist to say, And though they were so great, the nets were not torn.

Do we not see, brethren, that the word of God is the nets, and this world the sea, and that all who believe are enclosed within those nets? If perhaps anyone doubts that this is what it signifies, let him take note that the Lord Himself said in a parable what He showed in the miracle. For He says: "The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, which gathers together fish of every kind. When it was filled, they drew it out and dragged it to the shore; and sitting by the shore they chose the good into vessels, but the bad they cast out. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall go forth, and shall separate the wicked from the midst of the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 13:47–50). It is evident, then, that the nets cast into the sea bear the sign of faith. Is not this world a sea, where men devour one another like fish? Are they small storms and waves of temptation that trouble this sea? Are they small dangers that beset those who sail, that is, those who seek the heavenly homeland on the wood of the cross? The likeness, therefore, is most manifest.

Chapter III. — 3. Two boats, two peoples. The danger of sinking from the multitude. The ship of the Jews is imperilled. Let us only consider this, brethren (since the resurrection of the Lord signifies the new life which we shall have when this world has passed away), how the word of God was first cast into this sea, that is, into this world. Into this world, turbulent with waves, dangerous with storms and vexed with shipwrecks, the word of God was cast, and it caught many, so that two boats were filled. What are the two boats? Two peoples. For these two peoples, as for two walls, the Lord was made the corner-stone, so that He might join them in Himself as they came from different directions (Eph. 2:11–22). For the people of the Jews came from a far different way of life; but the people of the Gentiles came from idols. The people of the Jews came from circumcision; the people of the Gentiles came from uncircumcision. They came from different directions, but they are joined in the corner-stone. For walls never make a corner unless they come from different directions. In Christ, therefore, the two peoples were brought into concord, called from the Jews, who were near, and from the Gentiles, who were far off. For because the Jews were near (for they already worshipped the one God), when they believed in Christ, consider what they did. Whatever they had they sold, and laid the prices of their lands before the feet of the apostles; and it was distributed to each, as each had need (Acts 4:34–35). They were freed from the burdens of worldly business, and with light shoulders they followed Christ: they put their neck under the gentle yoke, and embracing the corner-stone from near at hand, they were at peace. But the people of the Gentiles also came from afar, and it too reached that stone, and came together in peace. These two peoples are signified by those two ships. But they were filled with so great a multitude of fish that they were almost sinking. For we read that even among those who had believed from among the Jews there were carnal men, who brought pressure on the Church, and forbade the apostles to speak the Gospel to the Gentiles, saying, Christ was sent only to the circumcised; so that if the Gentiles wished to receive the Gospel, they should be circumcised. Whence the apostle

Paul, sent to the Gentiles, had become hateful, by preaching the truth, to those who had believed from Judaea (Gal. 4:16). For the Apostle wished that the people of the Gentiles, though coming from a different quarter, should nevertheless touch the corner where there was firm peace. Those carnal men, then, demanding circumcision, did not belong to the number of the spiritual: nor did they yet see that, the carnal sacraments having passed away, He had come by Whose present light the shadows were put to flight. Yet because they were stirring up seditions, they were, as it were, sinking the boat by their multitude.

Chapter IV. — 4. The boat of the Gentiles. The torn nets, heresies and schisms. Let us consider also the boat of the Gentiles. Let us see whether so great a multitude has not been gathered into the Church that grains of wheat scarcely appear there amid so great a number of chaff. How many robbers, how many drunkards, how many slanderers, how many spectators of the theatres! Do not the very ones who fill the theatres also fill the churches? And for the most part they seek in the churches, by seditions, such things as they are accustomed to in the theatres. And for the most part, if anything is said or commanded spiritually, they resist, they struggle against it, following the flesh, opposing the Holy Spirit. For which reason Stephen too accused the Jews (Acts 7:51). In this city, my brethren, have we not experienced, as your Holiness remembers with us, at what peril to ourselves God drove the drunken revels out of this basilica? Was not the boat almost sinking with us through the sedition of the carnal? Whence this, if not from that innumerable number of fishes? Then there was also that which was said there, that the nets were breaking. When the nets were torn apart, heresies and schisms came about. The nets indeed enclose all: but impatient fishes, unwilling to come to the Lord's meal, dash themselves wherever they can, and break through, and go out. And those nets indeed are spread out over the whole: but those who break them break them in places. The Donatists broke through in Africa, the Arians broke through in Egypt, the Photinians broke through in Pannonia, the Cataphrygians broke through in Phrygia, the Manichaeans broke through in Persia. In how many places has that dragnet been torn apart? And yet those whom it encloses it brings to the shore. It brings them indeed, but surely not those who broke the nets? All the bad go out. They do not indeed go out unless they are bad: yet there remain both good and bad. For how else is the dragnet brought to the shore with fishes both good and bad, of which the Lord spoke in the parable?

Chapter V. — 5. On the Lord's threshing-floor there is always some chaff with the wheat. The winds blow the chaff back onto the floor. For the threshing-floor too bears this likeness, when it is being threshed. There is chaff, there are grains of wheat: but yet those who look at the floor can hardly see anything but chaff. Diligence is needed for the grains of wheat to be found in the chaff. And the winds blow over the floor from every side. And when it is being threshed, before it is heaped up so that it can be winnowed, does it not suffer the winds? The wind blows from this side, for example, and lifts the chaff: then it blows again from there, and lifts it to the other side. From whatever side it lifts the chaff, it also casts it into the hedge, and

into the thorns, and anywhere at all. It cannot carry the grain away from there: the wind carries off nothing but chaff. But nevertheless, when the winds blowing from every side have carried off the chaff, will only wheat remain on the threshing-floor? Nothing goes from there except chaff: yet both chaff and grain remain. When does all the chaff go? When the Lord comes bearing the winnowing-fan in His hand, and He will cleanse His threshing-floor, He will store the grain in the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12). Let your Holiness attend more closely to what I am saying. For sometimes the winds which carry the chaff off the threshing-floor blow again from the hedge where the chaff had stuck, and call it back into the threshing-floor. As, for example, some man or other established in the Catholic [Church] has suffered some trial of tribulation. He saw that he could be helped in a carnal way in his business among the Donatists: it was said to him, You will not be helped unless you communicate here. The wind blew; it threw him into the thorns. If it should happen that he again has some worldly business which cannot be settled except in the Catholic Church, paying no attention to where he is, but to where he may more conveniently settle his affairs, as though the wind were blowing from the other side of the hedge, he is called back to the threshing-floor of the Lord.

Chapter VI. — 6. Those who seek carnal things, whether they are within or outside, are chaff. Chaff can become grain. These then, brethren, who seek carnal things in the Church, and do not set before themselves what God promises: that here there are trials, dangers, difficulties, but after temporal labours He promises everlasting rest and the company of the holy Angels: these, then, not setting these things before themselves, but desiring carnal things in the Church, whether they are on the threshing-floor or outside, are chaff. Nor do we greatly rejoice at them, nor do we stroke them with empty flatteries. It is good for them that they should become grain. For this is the difference between that real chaff and these carnal men, that that chaff does not have free will, but to man God has given free will. And if a man wills it, yesterday he was chaff, today he becomes grain: if he turns away from the word of God, today he becomes chaff. And nothing is to be asked except how the last winnowing finds them.

Chapter VII. — 7. The Church after the resurrection is signified as going to have none but the good. Consider now, brethren, also that blessed, mystical, great Church which the hundred and fifty-three fish signify. For what this one is like, we have heard, and we know, and we see: but what that one will be like, we have in prophecy; but it has not yet come into experience. But nevertheless it is permitted to rejoice about the future one, although we do not yet see it present. The nets were cast at that time neither to the right nor to the left: for they were going to catch both good and bad. For if it were said, To the right, the bad would not be understood there: if it were said, To the left, the good would not be understood there. But since they were going to have both good and bad, the nets were cast at random, and they caught, as we have discussed, the unrighteous and the righteous. But now, in the Church that is to be in that holy Jerusalem, where the hearts of all mortals will lie open, there is no fear that anyone who is bad may enter into that Church. For he will not hide under the skin of mortality the cunning of a heart

most wicked. For now the Lord has come; and therefore after the resurrection, being now no longer to die, He commands that these nets be cast to the right. And there comes to pass what the Apostle says, Until the Lord come, and enlighten the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the thoughts of the heart; and then shall each one have praise from God: when the consciences which are now covered shall be made public. Then therefore the good alone will be there; the wicked will be driven out. For the nets have been cast to the right; they will not be able to hold the wicked.

Chapter VIII. — 8. What the hundred and fifty-three fishes signify. Why then a hundred and fifty-three? Will the saints be just so many? For if they were counted, not only all the faithful who have departed from the body in a good life, but the martyrs alone, if a single day of the martyrs' passion were counted, thousands of crowned men would be found. Therefore what the hundred and fifty-three fishes mean must without doubt be inquired into. What does fifty mean? For in this number, that is, in fifty, there is a mystery: because fifty multiplied three times makes a hundred and fifty. For the number three seems to have been added for this reason, that we might be reminded by what multiplication the hundred and fifty-three were made: as if it were said, Divide a hundred and fifty into three. For if it were said, A hundred and fifty-two, being reminded by that number which was in excess, we would divide into seventy-five, since seventy-five taken twice makes a hundred and fifty. For the added number two would indicate a division into two. If it were said, A hundred and fifty-six, we would have had to divide it into twenty-fives, so that six parts of them might be made. But now, because it was said, A hundred and fifty-three, we ought to divide that whole number, that is, a hundred and fifty, into three parts. The third part of this number, then, is fifty. And so our whole consideration must be fixed upon the number fifty.

Chapter IX. — 9. The fifty days, and the Alleluia after Easter, of ancient tradition. Are these perhaps the very fifty days which we are now celebrating? For not without cause, my brothers, does the Church hold the custom of ancient tradition that through these fifty days Alleluia is said. For Alleluia is the praise of God. There is therefore signified to us who labour the activity of our rest. For when after this labour we shall come to that rest, the praise of God will be our only business; our activity there is Alleluia. What is Alleluia? Praise God. Who may praise God without failing, except the Angels? They do not hunger, they do not thirst, they do not fall sick, they do not die. For we too have said Alleluia, and it was sung here this morning, and when we had already gathered, a little while ago we said Alleluia. A certain fragrance of the divine praise and of that rest touches us, but for the greater part mortality weighs us down. For we grow weary with saying it, and we wish to refresh our limbs; and if Alleluia is said for long, the praise of God becomes burdensome to us, because of the mass of our body. For the fullness without cessation in Alleluia will be after this age and after labour. What then, brothers? Let us say it as much as we can, that we may deserve to say it always. There our food will be Alleluia, our drink Alleluia, the activity of rest

Alleluia, all joy will be Alleluia, that is, the praise of God. For who praises something without failing, except one who enjoys it without weariness? How great, then, will be the strength in the mind, how great the immortality and firmness in the body, so that neither the attention of the mind fails in the contemplation of God, nor do the limbs give way in the continuance of the praise of God?

Chapter X. — 10. The mystery of the number fifty and the number forty. The number forty signifies this time. Why, then, are fifty days celebrated in this mystery? The Lord spent forty days with the disciples after the resurrection, as the Acts of the Apostles testify: after forty days He ascended into heaven, and on the tenth day after He ascended, He sent the Holy Spirit. Filled with Him, the Apostles, and all who had come together in one place, spoke in tongues, and did those mighty works which we, reading and believing, embrace, speaking the word of God with great confidence (Acts 1 and 2). He spent forty days on earth with the disciples, but before the passion He fasted forty days (Matt. 4:2): you do not find anyone else to have fasted for forty days, except the Lord, and Moses (Exod. 34:28), and Elijah (1 Kgs. 19:8). The Lord as the Gospel, Moses as the Law, Elijah as Prophecy: because the Gospel has testimony from the Law and the Prophets (Rom. 3:21). Therefore also on the mountain, when our Lord Jesus wished to show His glory, He stood between Moses and Elijah (Matt. 17:2–3). He Himself shone in the middle in honour: the Law and the Prophets bore witness from the sides. The number forty, then, signifies this time in which we labour in the world: because wisdom is dispensed to us here in time. For the vision of immortal wisdom without time is one thing, and its being dispensed in time is another. For there were Patriarchs, and they passed away from here: their dispensation was temporal. I do not say that they live temporally; for they live for ever, and they live with God. But the temporal dispensation of the word was made through them. For they do not now speak here; but the things they spoke have been written, and they are read in time. The Prophets came at their own time, and departed. The Lord came at His own time: for the presence of His majesty never withdrew; He never withdraws, being established everywhere by His divinity; but as it is said in the Gospel, He was in this world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him: He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him (John 1:10–11). How was He here, and how did He come, except that He was here by majesty, and came by humanity? For in that He came in the flesh, He Himself ministered wisdom to us in time: in time through the Law, in time through the Prophets, in time through the Scriptures of the Gospel. For when the times have passed, we shall see wisdom itself as it is, which pays back the number ten. For the number seven indicates the creature: because God worked for six days, and on the seventh rested from His works. But the number three suggests the Maker, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Perfect wisdom is to subject the creature dutifully to the Creator; to distinguish the Maker

from what He has made, the craftsman from the works. Whoever mixes the works up with the craftsman understands neither the craft nor the craftsman; but whoever distinguishes them is filled with wisdom. This, then, is the number ten, the fullness of wisdom. But when it is distributed in time, since the sign of temporal things lies in the number four, ten taken four times makes the number forty. The year, too, varies in four ways: in spring, summer, autumn and winter; and a certain fourfold alternation is most evident in time. Scripture also mentions four winds. For the Gospel has gone out through the four quarters, the Gospel which is dispensed in time; and this is the Catholic Church, which has taken hold of the four parts of the world. Thus, then, the number ten makes the number forty.

Chapter XI. — 11. To the forty well spent a ten is added. The number fifty signifies the Church that is to be. That is why those men fasted for forty days, signifying that in this time abstinence from the love of temporal things is necessary. For this is what those continual fasts throughout so many days, forty days, signify. Hence also that people Israel was led for forty years through the desert before it entered the land of promise to reign there. So we too in this life, where there is the greatest anxiety, where there is fear, where there are the dangers of temptations, are led as it were through a desert in the temporal dispensation. But when we have spent the number forty well, that is, when we have lived well in this temporal dispensation, walking according to the commandments of God, we shall receive as our wage that denarius of the faithful. For the Lord too, when He hired labourers for the vineyard, gave them a denarius as their wage. To all a denarius: both to those whom He had hired in the morning, and to those at midday, and to those at the end of the day, to all He gave a denarius (Matt. 20:1–10). For if anyone has been faithful from his earliest age, he is to receive the denarius; no longer through the distribution of times, but in eternal contemplation, the wisdom that distinguishes the Creator from the creature, so that he may enjoy the Creator and from the creature praise the Creator. But some young man has believed, and in his earlier time was not faithful: he is to receive the denarius. But an old man has believed, hired for the vineyard already at the setting of the day, as it were at the eleventh hour: he too is to receive the denarius. So to that forty well spent add the wage of the denarius, and it will become the number fifty, which signifies the Church that is to be, where God will be praised for ever. But since all have been called in the name of the Trinity, to live well in the number forty and to receive the denarius, multiply that fifty itself by three, and it makes one hundred and fifty. Add the very mystery of the Trinity, and it makes one hundred and fifty-three, which is the number of fish found on the right side; and yet in this number there are innumerable thousands of saints. Therefore no bad ones will be thrown out, because they will not be there; nor will the nets be torn by any schism, the nets which are the bonds of unity and peace.

Chapter XII. — 12. Forty days before, and fifty after Easter. Carnal celebration of the feasts. Perfect blessedness. I think this great mystery has been sufficiently expounded. But you know that it concerns us

to work well in the time of the forty days, so that we may be able to praise the Lord in the fifty days. Therefore we celebrate those forty days, before we keep vigil, in labour and fasting and abstinence: for they signify the present condition of this time. But after the resurrection of the Lord, because these days signify everlasting joy (they are not this yet, but they signify this: the thing is in mystery, brethren, not yet in effect: for it is not the case that when Easter is celebrated the Lord is crucified; but just as we signify past things by an anniversary celebration, so also future things which are not yet): in this time, then, the fasts are relaxed; for the number of these days signifies the rest to come. But see, brethren, lest, wishing to celebrate these days carnally with much drunkenness, as though permitted a great outpouring, you fail to merit celebrating for ever with the Angels what they signify. For perhaps whatever drunkard I reprove will say: You preached to us that these days signify everlasting joy; you suggested to us that this time foretells angelic and heavenly gladness: ought I not then to treat myself well? Would that it were well, and not ill. For it signifies gladness for you, if you are the temple of God. But if you fill the temple of God with the uncleanness of drunkenness, the Apostle sounds out to you: Whoever corrupts the temple of God, God will destroy him (1 Cor. 3:17). Let this be written in the hearts of Your Holiness, that a man who understands less and lives better is better than one who understands much and does not live well. It is indeed fullness and perfect blessedness that each should both understand quickly and live well: but if perhaps he cannot do both, it is better to live well than to understand quickly. For he who lives well merits to understand more: he who lives ill will lose even what he understands. Thus it is said: He who has, to him it shall be given; but he who has not, even that which he seems to have shall be taken away from him (Matt. 25:29).